Summary

The story begins with a remembrance of the night of November 17, 1915. The narrator expresses remorse for not going directly to bed after a misunderstanding sends the house into chaos. Considering what is about to happen – that his mother will throw her shoe out the window and his grandfather will shoot a police officer – the narrator apologizes for acknowledging to the footsteps he heard.

He begins to hear the footsteps around one o'clock in the morning. His mother and Herman, his brother, are asleep in their respective rooms. The grandfather is upstairs asleep in the attic. The narrator gets out of the bath and dries himself off when he hears footsteps. Since they sound like a man downstairs, this causes alarm. At first he starts to dismiss the possibility by thinking that it must be his father or his other brother Roy...