I had feared that my companion would talk, but it was soon plain that there was no such danger. Two days passed during which we did not exchange a single word. He seemed, indeed, absolutely unaware of my presence. He neither read nor wrote, but spent most of his time sitting at the table and looking out of the window across the pleasant parkland that surrounded the house. He sometimes talked to himself, and said things half under his breath. He bit his nails and once he produced a penknife and dug holes in the furniture until one of the attendants took it from him. I thought at first that perhaps he was mentally ill. During the second day I even began to feel a little nervous of him. He was extremely large, both broad and tall, with very wide shoulders and enormous hands. His huge head was usually sunk low between his shoulders. He had dark, rather untidy hair and a big, shapeless mouth, which opened every now and then. Once or twice he began singing to himself, but broke off abruptly on each occasion – and this was the nearest he seemed to get to notice my presence.
By the evening of the second day I was completely unable to go on with my work. Out of a mixture of nervousness and curiosity, I sat too looking out of my window, and blowing my nose, and wondering how to set about establishing the human contact which was by now becoming an absolute necessity. It ended up with my asking him for his name. He had been introduced to me when he arrived, but I had paid no attention then. He turned towards me a very gentle pair of dark eyes and said his name. He added: “I thought you didn’t want to talk.” I said that I was not at all against talking, that I had just been rather busy with something when he arrived, and I begged his pardon if I had appeared rude. It seemed to me, even from the way he spoke, that he was not only not mentally ill, but was highly intelligent; and I began, almost automatically, to pack up my papers. I knew that from now on I should do no more work. I was sharing a room with a person of the greatest fascination.