| s-1
| It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not. |
| s-2
| Much later, when he was able to think about the things that happened to him, he would conclude that nothing was real except chance. |
| s-3
| But that was much later. |
| s-4
| In the beginning, there was simply the event and its consequences. |
| s-5
| Whether it might have turned out differently, or whether it was all predetermined with the first word that came from the stranger's mouth, is not the question. |
| s-6
| The question is the story itself, and whether or not it means something is not for the story to tell. |
| s-7
| As for Quinn, there is little that need detain us. |
| s-8
| Who he was, where he came from, and what he did are of no great importance. |
| s-9
| We know, for example, that he was thirty-five years old. |
| s-10
| We know that he had once been married, had once been a father, and that both his wife and son were now dead. |
| s-11
| We also know that he wrote books. |
| s-12
| To be precise, we know that he wrote mystery novels. |
| s-13
| These works were written under the name of William Wilson, and he produced them at the rate of about one a year, which brought in enough money for him to live modestly in a small New York apartment. |
| s-14
| Because he spent no more than five or six months on a novel, for the rest of the year he was free to do as he wished. |
| s-15
| He read many books, he looked at paintings, he went to the movies. |
| s-16
| In the summer he watched baseball on television; in the winter he went to the opera. |
| s-17
| More than anything, however, what he liked to do was walk. |
| s-18
| Nearly every day, rain or shine, hot or cold, he would leave his apartment to walk through the city – never really going anywhere, but simply going wherever his legs happened to take him. |
| s-19
| New York was an inexhaustible space, a labyrinth of endless steps, and no matter how far he walked, no matter how well he came to know its neighborhoods and streets, it always left him with the feeling of being lost. |
| s-20
| Lost, not only in the city, but within himself as well. |
| s-21
| Each time he took a walk, he felt as though he were leaving himself behind, and by giving himself up to the movement of the streets, by reducing himself to a seeing eye, he was able to escape the obligation to think, and this, more than anything else, brought him a measure of peace, a salutatory emptiness within. |
| s-22
| The world was outside of him, around him, before him, and the speed with which it kept changing made it impossible for him to dwell on any one thing for very long. |
| s-23
| Motion was of the essence, the act of putting one foot in front of the other and allowing himself to follow the drift of his own body. |
| s-24
| By wandering aimlessly, all places became equal, and it no longer mattered where he was. |
| s-25
| On his best walks, he was able to feel that he was nowhere. |
| s-26
| New York was the nowhere he had built around himself, and he realized that he had no intention of ever leaving it again. |
| s-27
| In the past, Quinn had been more ambitious. |
| s-28
| As a young man, he had published several books of poetry, had written plays, critical essays, and had worked on a number of long translations. |
| s-29
| But quite abruptly, he had given up all that. |
| s-30
| A part of him had died, he told his friends, and he did not want it coming back to haunt him. |
| s-31
| It was then that he had taken on the name of William Wilson. |
| s-32
| Quinn was no longer that part of him that could write books, and although in many ways Quinn continued to exist, he no longer existed for anyone but himself. |
| s-33
| The next morning, Quinn woke up earlier than he had in several weeks. |
| s-34
| As he drank his coffee, buttered his toast, and read through the baseball scores in the paper (the Mets had lost again, two to one, on a ninth inning error), it did not occur to him that he was going to show up for his appointment. |
| s-35
| Even that locution, 'his appointment', seemed odd to him. |
| s-36
| It wasn't his appointment, it was Paul Auster's. |
| s-37
| And who that person was he had no idea. |
| s-38
| Nevertheless, as time wore on he found himself doing a good imitation of a man preparing to go out. |
| s-39
| He cleared the table of the breakfast dishes, tossed the newspaper on the couch, went into the bathroom, showered, shaved, went on to the bedroom wrapped in two towels, opened the closet and picked out his clothes for the day. |
| s-40
| He found himself tending toward a jacket and a tie. |
| s-41
| Quinn had not worn a tie since the funerals of his wife and son, and he could not even remember if he still owned one. |
| s-42
| But there it was, hanging amidst the debris of his wardrobe. |
| s-43
| He dismissed a white shirt as too formal, however, and instead chose a gray and red check affair to go with the gray tie. |
| s-44
| He put them on in a kind of trance. |
| s-45
| It was not until he had his hand on the doorknob that he began to suspect what he was doing. |
| s-46
| I seem to be going out, he said to himself. |
| s-47
| But if I am going out, where exactly am I going? |
| s-48
| An hour later, as he climbed from the number 4 bus at 70th Street and Fifth Avenue, he still had not answered the question. |
| s-49
| To one side of him was the park, green in the morning sun, with sharp, fleeting shadows; to the other side was the Frick, white and austere, as if abandoned to the dead. |
| s-50
| He thought for a moment of Vermeer's Soldier and Young Girl Smiling, trying to remember the expression on the girl's face, the exact position of her hands around the cup, the red back of the faceless man. |
| s-51
| In his mind, he caught a glimpse of the blue map on the wall and the sunlight pouring through the window, so like the sunlight that surrounded him now. |
| s-52
| He was walking. |
| s-53
| He was crossing the street and moving eastward. |
| s-54
| At Madison Avenue he turned right and went south for a block, then turned left and saw where he was. |
| s-55
| I seem to have arrived, he said to himself. |
| s-56
| He stood before the building and paused. |
| s-57
| It suddenly did not seem to matter anymore. |
| s-58
| He felt remarkably calm, as if everything had already happened to him. |
| s-59
| As he opened the door that would lead him into the lobby, he gave himself one last word of advice. |
| s-60
| If all this is really happening, he said, then I must keep my eyes open. |
| s-61
| It was a woman who opened the apartment door. |
| s-62
| For some reason, Quinn had not expected this, and it threw him off track. |
| s-63
| Already, things were happening too fast. |
| s-64
| Before he had a chance to absorb the woman's presence, to describe her to himself and form his impressions, she was talking to him, forcing him to respond. |
| s-65
| Therefore, even in those first moments, he had lost ground, was starting to fall behind himself. |
| s-66
| Later, when he had time to reflect on these events, he would manage to piece together his encounter with the woman. |
| s-67
| But that was the work of memory, and remembered things, he knew, had a tendency to subvert the things remembered. |
| s-68
| As a consequence, he could never be sure of any of it. |
| s-69
| The woman was thirty, perhaps thirty-five; average height at best; hips a touch wide, or else voluptuous, depending on your point of view; dark hair, dark eyes, and a look in those eyes that was at once self-contained and vaguely seductive. |
| s-70
| She wore a black dress and very red lipstick. |
| s-71
| Mr Auster? A tentative smile; a questioning tilt to the head. |
| s-72
| That's right, said Quinn. |
| s-73
| I'm Virginia Stillman, the woman began. |
| s-74
| Peter's wife. |
| s-75
| He's been waiting for you since eight o'clock. |
| s-76
| The appointment was for ten, said Quinn, glancing at his watch. |
| s-77
| It was exactly ten. |
| s-78
| He's been frantic, the woman explained. |
| s-79
| I've never seen him like this before. |
| s-80
| He just couldn't wait. |
| s-81
| She opened the door for Quinn. |
| s-82
| As he crossed the threshold and entered the apartment, he could feel himself going blank, as if his brain had suddenly shut off. |
| s-83
| He had wanted to take in the details of what he was seeing, but the task was somehow beyond him at that moment. |
| s-84
| The apartment loomed up around him as a kind of blur. |
| s-85
| He realized that it was large, perhaps five or six rooms, and that it was richly furnished, with numerous art objects, silver ashtrays, and elaborately framed paintings on the walls. |
| s-86
| But that was all. |
| s-87
| No more than a general impression – even though he was there, looking at those things with his own eyes. |
| s-88
| He found himself sitting on a sofa, alone in the living room. |
| s-89
| He remembered now that Mrs. Stillman had told him to wait there while she went to find her husband. |
| s-90
| He couldn't say how long it had been. |
| s-91
| Surely no more than a minute or two. |
| s-92
| But from the way the light was coming through the windows, it seemed to be almost noon. |
| s-93
| It did not occur to him, however, to consult his watch. |
| s-94
| The smell of Virginia Stillman's perfume hovered around him, and he began to imagine what she looked like without any clothes on. |
| s-95
| Then he thought about what Max Work might have been thinking, had he been there. |
| s-96
| He decided to light a cigarette. |
| s-97
| He blew the smoke into the room. |
| s-98
| It pleased him to watch it leave his mouth in gusts, disperse, and take on new definition as the light caught it. |
| s-99
| He heard the sound of someone entering the room behind him. |
| s-100
| Quinn stood up from the sofa and turned around, expecting to see Mrs. Stillman. |