She may not even want to come anymore, not out of fickleness but out of exhaustion, which is understandable. If she does not come I would be wrong to say I will miss her, because she is always so present in my imagination. Yet she will be at a different address and I will be sitting at the kitchen table with my face in my hands.

If she comes I will smile incessantly, I have inherited this from an old aunt of mine who also used to smile incessantly, but both of us from embarrassment rather than from good humor or compassion. I won't be able to speak, I won't even be able to be happy because after the preparation of the meal I won't have the strength. And if with my sorry excuse for an appetizer in my hands I hesitate to leave the kitchen and enter the dining room, and if she, at the same time, feeling my embarrassment, hesitates to leave the living room and enter the dining room from the other side, then for that long interval the beautiful room will be empty.