"The Black Prince" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murdoch Iris)

Part Two

What it was that had happened the percipient reader will not need to be told. (Doubtless he saw it coming a mile off. I did not. This is art, but I was out there in life.) I had fallen in love with Julian. At what point during our conversation I realized this fact is hard to determine. The consciousness darts back and forth in time like a weaver and can occupy, when busy with its mysterious self-formings and self-gatherings, a very large specious present. Perhaps I realized it when she said, in that beautiful resonant tone of hers, «Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice.» Perhaps it was when she said, «Black tights and black velvet shoes with silvery buckles.» Or perhaps it was when she took her boots off. No, not as early as that. And when I had had that mystical experience, looking at her legs in the shoe shop, had that been a veiled realization of being in love? It had not seemed so. Yet that too was part of it. Everything was part of it. After all, I had known this child since her birth. I had seen her in her cradle, I had held her in my arms when she was twenty inches long. Oh Christ.

«I had fallen in love with Julian.» The words are easily written down. But how to describe the thing itself? It is odd that falling in love, though frequently mentioned in literature, is rarely adequately described. It is after all an astounding phenomenon and for most people it is the most astonishing event that ever happens to them: more astonishing, because more counter-natural, than life's horrors. (I do not of course refer to mere «sex.») It is sad that, like the experience of bereavement, the experience of love is usually, like a dream, forgotten. Furthermore, those who have never fallen desperately in love with someone whom they have known for a long time may doubt whether this can occur. Let me assure them that it can.

It happened to me. Was it always there cooking, incubating, in the warm inwards of time, as the girl grew and filled out into bloom? Of course I had always liked her, especially when she was a little child. But nothing really had prepared me for this blow. And it was a blow, I was felled by it physically. I felt as if my stomach had been shot away, leaving a gaping hole. My knees dissolved, I could not stand up, I shuddered and trembled all over, my teeth chattered. My face felt as if it had become waxen and some huge strange weirdly smiling mask had been imprinted upon it, I had become some sort of God. I lay there with my nose stuck into the black wool of the rug and the toes of my shoes making little ellipses on the carpet as I shook with possession. Of course I was sexually excited, but what I felt transcended mere lust to such a degree that although I could vividly sense my afflicted body I also felt totally alienated and changed and practically discarnate.

Of course the mind of the lover abhors accident. «I wonder by my troth what thou and I did till we loved» is a question intimate to his amazement. My love for Julian must have been figured before the world began. Surely it was lovers who discovered astrology. Nothing less than the great chamber of the stars could be large and steady enough to be context, origin and guarantee of something so eternal. I realized now that my whole life had been determinedly travelling towards this moment. Her whole life had been travelling towards it, as she played and read her school books and grew and looked in the mirror at her breasts. This was a predestined collision. But it had not only just happened, it had happened aeons ago, it was of the stuff of the original formation of earth and sky. When God said, «Let there be light,» this love was made. It had no history. Yet too my awakening consciousness of it had a history of bottomless fascination. When, how, did I begin to realize the charm of this girl? Love generates, or rather reveals, something which may be called absolute charm. In the beloved nothing is gauche. Every move of the head, every tone of the voice, every laugh or grunt or cough or twitch of the nose is as valuable and revealing as a glimpse of paradise. And in fact lying there absolutely limp and yet absolutely taut with my brow on the ground and my eyes closed I was actually not just glimpsing but in paradise. The act of falling in love, of really falling in love (I do not mean what sometimes passes by this name), floods the being with immediate ecstasy.

The rather flowery ideas which I have set out above were not of course as such at all clear in my mind while I was sitting on the floor hugging the chair which she had sat in. (I did this too for some considerable time: perhaps until the evening.-) I was, for that period, largely dazed with happiness: joy in my marvellous achievement of absolute love. In this blaze of light of course a few more mundane thoughts flitted to and fro like little birds, scarcely descried by one who was dazzled by emergence from the cave. I will mention here two of these thoughts since they are germane to events which happened later. They were, I should say, not posterior to my discovery of being in love: they were innate in it and born with it.

I spoke earlier in this rigmarole of my whole life as travelling towards what had now occurred. Perhaps my friend the percipient reader may be excused for having interpreted this conception in the following terms: that all this dream of being a great artist was simply a search for a great human love. Such things have been known, indeed such discoveries are common, especially among women. Love can soon dim the dream of art and make it seem secondary, even a delusion. I should say at once that this was not my case. Of course since everything was now connected with Julian, my ambitions as a writer were connected with Julian. But they were not cancelled thereby. Rather something more like the opposite seemed to be happening. She had filled me with a previously unimaginable power which I knew that I would and could use in my art. The deep causes of the universe, the stars, the distant galaxies, the ultimate particles of matter, had fashioned these two things, my love and my art, as aspects of what was ultimately one and the same. They were, I knew, from the same source. It was under the same orders and recognizing the same authority that I now stood, a man renewed. Of this conviction I will speak more and explain more later.

Nor did I envisage suffering. «I will run the gauntlet of a thousand blows but I will keep my mouth shut.» No. To the pure lover in his moments of purity the idea of suffering is vulgar, it portends the return of self. What I rather felt was a dazzled gratitude. Yet I understood at once in a clear intellectual way that I could not ever tell Julian that I loved her. The details of this certainty (what it involved) became clearer to me later, but it stood flaming in my way at the very start. I was fifty-eight, she was twenty. I could not puzzle, burden and bedevil her young life with the faintest hint or glimpse of this huge terrible love. How fearful that dark shadow is when we catch sight of it in the life of another. No wonder those at whom that black arrow is aimed so often turn and flee. How unendurable it can be, the love another bears us. I would never persecute my darling with that dread knowledge. From now onward until the world ended everything must remain, although utterly changed, exactly as it was before.

The reader, especially if he has not had the experience I have been describing, may feel impatient with the foregoing lyricism. «Pshaw!» he will say, «the fellow protests too much and intoxicates himself with words. He admits to being a thoroughly repressed man, no longer young. All he means is that he suddenly felt intense sexual desire for a girl of twenty. We all know about that.» I will not pause to answer this reader back, but will go on as faithfully as I can to recount what happened next.

I got up and shaved. What physical pleasure there is in shaving when a man is happy! I examined my face in the mirror. It looked fresh and young. The waxen imprint was still upon it. I really did look a different person. A radiant force from within had puffed out my cheeks and smoothed the wrinkles round my eyes. I dressed with care and took some time to select a tie. Eating was still, of course, out of the question. I felt as if I should never need to eat again, but could live indefinitely simply by breathing. I drank a little water. I squeezed an orange, more out of a theoretical idea that I should nourish myself than because of any return of appetite, but the juice was too rich and heavy, I could not even sip it. Then I went into the sitting-room and dusted it a little. At least I dusted a few visible surfaces. As a lifelong Londoner, I am easily tolerant of dust. The sun had not yet come round to the position whence it could illuminate the brick wall opposite, but there was so much sunny brightness in the sky that the room was glowing in a subdued way. I sat down and wondered what I was going to do with my new life.

I spent some time examining the book and culling these flowers. Then hugging it against my shirt, I began to meditate. It had not ceased to be clear that my new «occupation» was not in any sense an alternative to my life's work. The same agency had sent me both these things, not to compete but to complete. I would soon be writing and I. would write well. I do not mean that I thought of anything so vulgar as writing «about» Julian. Life and art must be kept strictly separate if one is aiming at excellence. But I felt those dark globules in the head, those tinglings in the fingers which token the advent of inspiration. The children of my fancy were already hosting. Meanwhile however there were simpler tasks to be performed. I must set my life in order and I now had the strength to do so. I must see Priscilla, I must see Roger, I must see Christian, I must see Rachel, I must see Arnold. (How easy it all suddenly looked!) I did not say to myself, «I must see Julian,» and over that divine lacuna I gazed out with wide peaceful eyes at a world devoid of evil. There seemed to be no question, at the moment, of leaving London. I would perform my tasks and I would not lift a finger to see my darling again. And I felt, as I meditated upon her, glad to think that I had so immediately given her one of my best treasures, the gilt snuffbox, A Friend's Gift. I could not have given it to her now. This innocent thing had gone away with her, a pledge, did she but know it, of a love dedicated in silence to her quite separate and private happiness. Out of this silence I would forge my power. Yes, this was a yet clearer revelation and I held onto it. I would be able to create because I would be able to keep silent.

After I had been brooding upon this truly awe-inspiring insight for some time my heart suddenly nearly fell out of me because the telephone rang and I thought it might be her.

«Yes?»

«Hartbourne here.»

«Oh hello, my dear fellow!» I felt a sort of cordial relief though I could hardly still breathe with excitement. «I'm so glad you rang. Look, let's meet soon, how about lunch-could you manage lunch today?»

«Today? Well, yes, I think I could actually. Shall we say one o'clock at the usual place?»

«Yes, that's fine! I'm afraid I'm on a diet by the way, and won't be able to eat much, but I'd love to see you, I do look forward to it.» I put the phone down smiling. Then the front doorbell rang.

My heart performed the same swoop into emptiness. I scrabbled at the door, almost moaning.

Rachel stood outside.

When I saw her I came straight out of the flat and closed the door behind me and said, «Oh Rachel, how marvellous to see you! I'm just going to do some urgent shopping, would you like to walk along with me?» I did not want to let her in. She might have gone into the sitting-room and sat down on Julian's tiger lily chair. Also I felt I must talk to her unintimately, out in the open air. I was glad to see her.

«Can't I come in and sit down for a minute?» she said.

«I must have a breath of air, do you mind? It's such a lovely day. Come along then.»

I set off along the court and then along Charlotte Street, walking rather fast.

Rachel was dressed more smartly than usual in a silky dress with red and white blotches on it and a low square neckline. Her collarbones, sun-browned and mottled, were prominent above the dress. Her neck was dry and wrinkled, faintly reptilian, her face was smoother, more made-up than usual, and wearing the expression the French call maussade. She seemed to have lately washed her hair which made a smooth frizzy ball around her head. She looked, in spite of parts of the above description, a handsome woman, tired, but not defeated, by her life.

«Bradley, don't walk so fast.»

«Sorry.»

«Before I forget, Julian said would I pick up her copy of Hamlet which she left with you.»

I had no intention of parting with this book. I said, «I'd like to keep it for a while. It's rather a good edition, and I wanted to note one or two things.»

«But it's a school book.»

«Excellent edition all the same. Not available any more.» Later I would feign to have lost it.

«It was so kind of you to see Julian yesterday.»

«I enjoyed it.»

«I hope she hasn't been pestering you.»

«Not at all. Here we are.»

I dashed among the shelves followed by Rachel. «I must buy some more of my special notebooks. I'm going to be doing a lot of writing soon. Rachel, let me buy you something, I must, I'm in a present-giving mood.»

«Bradley, whatever is the matter with you, you seem quite delirious.»

«Here, let me give you these nice things!» I had to load somebody with presents. I collected for Rachel a ball of red string, a blue felt tipped pen, a pad of special calligrapher's paper, a magnifying glass, a fancy carrier bag, a large wooden clothes peg with urgent written on it in gold, and six postcards of the Post Office Tower. I paid for the purchases and loaded the bag with all Rachel's spoil into her arms.

«You seem in a good mood!» She said, pleased, but still a bit maussade. «Now can we go back to your place?»

«I'm awfully sorry, I've got a rather early lunch engagement, I'm not going back.» I was still worrying about the chair and whether she wouldn't try again to remove the book. It was not that I was unwilling to talk to Rachel, I was greatly enjoying it.

«Well, let's sit somewhere.»

«There's a seat in Tottenham Court Road, just opposite Heals.»

«Bradley, I am not going to sit in Tottenham Court Road and contemplate Heals. Aren't the pubs open yet?»

They were. I must have spent longer than I realized in meditation. We went into one.

It was a featureless modern place, ruined by the brewers, all made of light plastic (pubs should be dark holes) but with the sun shining in and the street door open it had a sort of southern charm. We visited the bar and then sat at a plastic table which was already wet with beer. Rachel had a double whisky which she proposed to drink neat. I had a lemonade shandy for the sake of appearances. We looked at each other.

It occurred to me that this was the first time since I had been smitten that I had looked another human being in the eyes. It was a good experience. I beamed. I almost felt that my face had the power to bless.

«Bradley, you are looking odd.»

«Peculiar?»

«Very nice. You look awfully well today. You look younger.»

«Dear Rachel! I'm so glad to see you. Tell me all. Let's talk about Julian. Such an intelligent girl.»

«I'm glad you think so. I'm not sure that I do. I'm grateful to you for taking an interest in her at last.»

«At last?»

«She says she's been trying to attract your attention for years. I warned her you probably won't keep it up.»

«I'll do what I can for her. I like her, you know.» I laughed crazily.

«She's like all of them now, so vague and inconsiderate and doing everything on the spur of the moment, and so full of contempt for everything. She adores her father but she can't help needling him all the time. She told him this morning that you thought his work was 'sentimental.' «

«Rachel, I've been thinking,» I said. (I had not in fact, it had just come into my head.) «I may be being completely unjust to Arnold. It's years since I read the whole of his work, I must read it all through again, I may see it quite differently now. You like Arnold's novels, don't you?»

«I'm his wife. And I'm a totally uneducated woman, as my dear daughter never tires of telling me. But look, I don't want to talk about these things. I want to say-well, first of all forgive me for bothering you again. You'll begin to think I'm a neurotic woman with a fixation.»

«Never, my dear Rachel! I'm so glad to see you. And what a pretty dress! How charming you look!»

«Yes, my dearest creature.»

«You said some very kind and probably very wise things last time we met about friendship. I feel I was rather churlish-«Not at all.»

«I want to say now that I accept and need your friendship. I also want to say-it's hard to find the words-I'd be wretched if I felt you just saw me as a desperate middle-aged harpy trying to pull someone into bed to spite her husband-«I assure you-«It's not like that, Bradley. There's something I feel I didn't make absolutely clear. I wasn't just looking for a man to console me after a married row-«You did make it clear-«It could only have been you. We've known each other for centuries. But it's only lately come to me-how much I really care about you. You're a very special person in my life. I esteem you and admire you and rely on you and-well, I love you. That's what I wanted to say.»

«Rachel, what a delightful thing, it's made my day!»

«Be serious for a moment, Bradley.»

«I am serious, my dear. People should love each other more in simple ways, I've always felt this. Why can't we just comfort each other more? One tends to live at a sort of level of anxiety and resentment where one's protecting oneself all the time. Climb above it, climb above it, and feel free to love! That's the message. I know in my relations with Arnold-«Never mind your relations with Arnold. This is about me. I want-I must be a bit drunk-let me put it crudely-I want a special relationship with you.»

«You've got it!»

«Be quiet. I don't want an affair, not because I don't want an affair, maybe I do, it's not worth finding out, but because it would be a mess and belong with all that anxiety and resentment you were talking about, anyway you haven't got the guts or temperament or whatever for an affair, but Bradley, I want you.»

«You've got me!»

«Oh don't be so gay and flippant, you look so horribly pleased with yourself, what's the matter?»

«I wish I could hold you to some sort of seriousness, you're so terribly sort of slippery today. Bradley, this matters so much-you will love me, you will be faithful?»

«Yes!»

«A real true friend to me forever?»

«Yes, yes!»

«I don't know-thank you-all right-You're looking at your watch, you must go to your lunch date. I'll stay here and-think-and-drink. Thank you, thank you.»

The last I saw of her, through the window as I went off, she was staring at the table and very slowly making patterns in the beer drips with her finger. Her face had a heavy sullen dreamy remembering look which was very touching.

Hartbourne asked after Christian. He had known her slightly. The news of her return must have somehow got around. I talked about her frankly and at ease. Yes, I had seen her. She was much improved, not only in looks. We were on quite good terms, very civilized. And Priscilla? She had left her husband and was staying with Christian, I was just going to visit them. «Priscilla staying with Christian? How remarkable,» said Hartbourne. Yes I suppose it was, but it just showed what good friends we all were. In turn I asked Hartbourne about the office. Was that ridiculous committee still sitting? Had Matheson got his promotion yet? Had the new lavatories materialized? Was that comic tea lady still around? Hart– bourne remarked that I seemed «very fit and relaxed.»

«And the poems, sir?»

«Yes.» I had not even realized that Arnold had published any poems. What a skunk I was! I also purchased the London edition of Shakespeare complete in six volumes, to give to Julian in exchange for her Hamlet when the time came, and I went away still smiling.

As I was just turning into the court I saw Rigby, my upstairs neighbour. I stopped him and had begun some cordial conversation about the fine weather when he said, «There's someone waiting outside your door.» I gasped and excused myself and quickly ran. A man, however, was awaiting me. A well-dressed distinguished-looking figure with a soldierly air.

When he saw me Roger started to say, «Look here, before you tell me-«My dear Roger, come in and have some tea. Where's Marigold?»

«I left her in a sort of cafe down there.»

«Well, go and get her at once, go on, I'd love to see her again! I'll be putting the kettle on and putting the tea things out.»

Roger stared and shook his head as if he thought I must be mad, but he went off all the same to fetch Marigold.

Marigold was looking very dressed-up for town with a little blue linen cap and a white linen pinafore dress and a dark-blue silk blouse and a rather expensive-looking red-white-and-blue scarf. She looked a bit like a musical-comedy sailor girl. She was rounder however and had the self-conscious self-satisfied pouting stance of the pregnant woman. Her tanned cheeks were deeply ruddy with health and happiness. She smiled all the time with her eyes and one simply could not help smiling back. She must have left a trail of happiness behind her down the street.

«Marigold, how lovely you look!» I said.

«What's your game?» said Roger.

«Sit down, sit down, please forgive me, it's just that you both look so happy, I can't help myself. Marigold, will you be mother?»

«I suppose this is some sort of sick joke?»

«No, no-« I was serving tea on the mahogany night table. I had put Julian's chair well back out of the way.

«You'll be turning nasty in a minute.»

«Roger, please relax, please just talk to me quietly, let's be gentle and reasonable with each other. I'm very sorry I was so unpleasant to you both down in Bristol. I was upset for Priscilla, I still am, but I don't regard you as wicked, I know how these things happen.»

Roger grimaced at Marigold. She beamed back. «I wanted to put you in the picture,» he said. «And I want you to do something for us, if you will. First of all, here's this.» He put a large gaping carrier bag onto the floor beside my feet.

I peered down and then began to dig into it. Necklaces and things. The enamel picture. The little marble, or whatever it was, statuette. Two silver cups, other oddments. «That's good of you, Priscilla will be so pleased. What about the mink?»

«I was coming to that,» said Roger. «I'm afraid I sold the mink. I'd already sold it when I saw you last. I agreed with Priscilla it was a sort of investment. I'll let her have half the proceeds. In due course.»

«She mustn't worry,» said Marigold. She had advanced her smartly shod blue patent-leather foot up against Roger's shoe. She kept moving her arm so that her sleeve lightly and rhythmically brushed his.

«All the jewels are there,» said Roger, «and the little things from her dressing table, and Marigold has packed all the clothes and so on into three trunks. Where shall we send them?»

I wrote down the Notting Hill address.

«I didn't pack all the old cosmetics,» said Marigold, «and there were a lot of old suspender belts and things-«And could you tell Priscilla we want the divorce to get going at once? Naturally I will make her an allowance.»

«We won't be poorly off,» said Marigold, sweeping her sleeve across Roger's. «I shall go on working after the little one is born.»

«What do you do?» I asked.

«I'm a dentist.»

«Good for you!» I laughed out of sheer joie de vivre. Fancy, this charming girl a dentist!

«You've told Priscilla about us, of course?» said Roger, sedate.

«Yes, yes. All shall be well and all shall be well, as Julian remarked.»

«Julian?»

«Julian Baffin, the daughter of a friend of mine.»

«You must go, my children,» I said, rising. I could not bear any longer not being alone with my thoughts. «I will arrange everything for the best with Priscilla. It remains to wish you both every happiness.»

«I confess you've surprised me,» said Roger.

«Being beastly to you two won't help Priscilla.»

«You've been sweet,» said Marigold. I think she would have kissed me, only Roger piloted her off.

«Cheery-bye to my favourite dentist!» I shouted after them.

«He must be drunk,» I heard Roger say as I shut the door.

I went back to lying face downwards on the black woolly rug.

«Guess what I've got in this bag!» I said to Priscilla.

It was the same evening. Francis had let me in. There was no sign of Christian.

Priscilla was still occupying the upstairs «new» bedroom with the rather tattered-looking walls of synthetic bamboo. The oval bed, which had black sheets, was tousled, doubtless just vacated. Priscilla, in a rather clinical white bath-robe, was sitting on a stool in front of a low very glittering dressing table. She had been staring at herself in the mirror when I came in, and returned to doing so after greeting me without a smile. She had powdered her face rather whitely and reddened her lips. She looked grotesque, like an elderly geisha.

She did not reply. Then she suddenly reached out to a big jar of greasy cold cream and started plastering it upon her face. The red lipstick merged into the grease, tingeing it with red. Priscilla spread the pinkish mess all over her face, still gazing devouringly into her own eyes.

«Look,» I said, «look who's here!» I put the white statuette onto the glass top of the dressing table. I laid the enamel picture and the malachite box beside it. I drew out a mass of entangled necklaces.

Priscilla stared. Then without touching the stuff she reached out and took a paper tissue and began wiping the red mess off her face.

«Roger brought them for you. And look, I've brought you the buffalo lady again. I'm afraid she's a bit lame, but-«And the mink stole? Did you see him?»

«It's no good. I should never have left him. It isn't fair to him. And I think away from him I'm literally going mad. All chances of happiness are gone from me. Just being with myself is hell all the time anyway. And here in this meaningless place I'm with myself more. Even hating Roger was something, it meant something, being made unhappy by him did, after all he belongs to me. And I was used to things there, there was something to do, shopping and cooking and cleaning the house, even though he didn't come home for his supper, I'd cook it and put it ready for him and he wouldn't come home and I'd sit and cry watching the television programme. Still it was all part of something, and waiting for him at night in the dark when I went to bed, listening for his key in the door, at least there was something to wait for. I wasn't alone with my mind. I don't really care if he went with girls, secretaries in the office, I suppose they all do. I don't feel now that it matters much. I'm connected with him forever, it's for better and worse, worse in this case, but any tie is something when one's drifting away to hell. You can't look after me, obviously, why should you. Christian's been very kind, but she's just curious, she's just playing a game, she'll soon get tired of me. I know I'm awful, awful, I can't think how anyone can bear to look at me. I don't want to be looked after anyway. I can feel my mind decaying already. I feel I must smell of decay. I've been in bed all day. I didn't even make up my face until just before you came, and then it looked so terrible. I hate Roger and the last year or two I've been afraid of him. But if I don't go back to him I'll just dissolve, all my inwards will come pouring out, like people who are just going to be hanged. I can't tell you what the misery's like that I'm in.»

«Oh Priscilla, do stop. Here, look, pretty things. You're pleased to see them again, so there's something that gives you pleasure.» I plucked up a long necklace with blue and glassy alternate beads out of the pile and shook it free and opened it out into a big O to put round her neck, but she gestured it violently away.

«Did he send the mink?»

«Well-«

«He wants to get married-« Her mouth had become flabby and her speech blurred.

«Yes, Priscilla-«

«He's had this girl for a long time-«Yes.»

«She's pregnant-«Yes.»

«So he wants a divorce-«Yes. Dear Priscilla, you've understood it all and you must face it all-«

«Death,» she murmurred, «death, death, death-«Don't give way, my dear-«Death.»

«You'll soon feel better. You're well rid of that heel. Honestly. We'll make a new world for you, we'll spoil you, we'll all help, you'll see. You said yourself you'd go to the cinema more. Roger will give you an allowance, and Marigold is a dentist-«And perhaps I could pass my time knitting little things for the baby!»

«That's better, show a bit of spirit!»

«Bradley, if you knew how much I hated even you, you'd know how far beyond any human hope I am now. As for Roger-I'd like to stick-a red-hot knitting needle-into his liver-«Priscilla!»

«I read about it in a detective story. You die slowly and in terrible agony.»

She had turned on her side and was sobbing quietly, rather breathlessly, her mouth shuddering, her eyes awash with tears. I had never seen anyone so inaccessibly miserable. I felt an urge to put her to sleep, not for good of course, but if only one could have given her a shot of something just to stop this awful weeping, to give some intermission to the tormented consciousness.

The door opened and Christian came in. Gazing at Priscilla she greeted me inattentively with a sort of «holding» gesture which, it occurred to me, was the height of intimacy. «What is it now?» she said to Priscilla sternly.

«I've just told her about Roger and Marigold,» I said.

«Oh God, did you have to?»

Priscilla suddenly started to scream quietly. «Scream quietly» may sound like an oxymoron, but I mean to indicate the curiously controlled rhythmic screaming which goes with a certain kind of hysterics. Hysterics is terrifying because of its willed and yet not willed quality. It has the frightfulness of a deliberate assault on the spectators, yet it is also, with its apparently unstoppable rhythm, like the setting-going of a machine. It is no use asking someone in hysterics to «control themselves.» By «choosing» to become hysterical they have put themselves beyond ordinary communication. Priscilla, now sitting upright in bed, gave a gasping «Uuuh!» then a screamed «Aaah!» ending in a sort of bubbling sob, then the gasp again and the scream and so on. It was an appalling sound, both tortured and cruel. I have four times heard a woman in hysterics, once my mother when my father shouted at her, once Priscilla when she was pregnant, once another woman (would that I could forget that occasion) and now Priscilla again. I turned to Christian raising my hands distractedly.

Francis Marloe came in grinning.

Christian said, «Out you go, Brad, wait downstairs.»

I ran down the first flight, then went more slowly down the second flight. By the time I reached the door of the dark brown and indigo drawing-room the house had become entirely silent. I went in and stood with my feet well apart, breathing.

Christian entered.

«She's stopped,» I said. «What did you do?»

«I slapped her.»

I said, «I think I'm going to faint.» I sat down on the sofa and covered my face with my hand.

«Brad! Quick, here, some brandy-«Could I have some biscuits or something? I haven't eaten all day. Or yesterday.»

I really did feel, for that moment, faint: that odd absolutely unique sensation of a black baldacchino being lowered like an extinguisher over one's head. And now, as brandy, bread, biscuits, cheese, plumcake became available, I also knew that I was going to cry. It was many many years since I had wept. What a very strange phenomenon it is, little perhaps they realize who use it much. I recalled the dismay of the wolves when Mowgli sheds tears, in the Jungle Book. Or rather, it is Mowgli who is dismayed, and thinks he is dying. The wolves are better informed, dignified, faintly disgusted. I held the glass of brandy in both hands and stared at Christian and felt the warm water quietly rising into my eyes. The quiet inevitability of the sensation gave satisfaction. It was an achievement. Perhaps all tears are an achievement. Oh precious gift.

«Brad, dear, don't-«I hate violence,» I said.

«It's no good letting her go on and on, she tires herself so, she did it for half an hour yesterday-«All right, yes, all right-«Why, you poor pet! I'm doing my best, honest. It's no fun having a near-crazy in the house. I'm doing it for you, Brad.»

«Brad, what is it, you look extraordinary, something's happened to you, you're beautiful, you look like a saint or something, you look like some goddamn picture, you look all young again-«You won't abandon Priscilla, will you, Chris?» I said, and I mopped the tears away with my hand.

«Did you just notice something, Brad?»

«What?»

«You called me 'Chris.' «

«Did I? Like old days. Well, but you won't? I'll pay you-«Oh never mind the dough. I'll look after her. I got onto a new doc. There's a treatment with injections she can have.»

«Good. Julian.»

«What was that?»

I had just uttered Julian's name aloud. I got up. «Chris, do you mind, I must go. I've got something very important to do.» Think about Julian.

«Brad, please-Oh, all right, I won't keep you. But I want you to say something to me.»

«What?»

«Oh that you forgive me or something. That there's peace between us or something. You know I just loved you, Brad. You saw my love as a sort of crushing force or a will to power or something but I just wanted to hold you. And I did really truly come back here to you and for you. I thought about you out there and what a fool I'd been. Of course I'm not a romantic crazy. I know our thing couldn't work then, we were so young and God we were stupid with each other. But there was something I saw in you which didn't leave me alone. I used to dream we were reconciled, you know in dreams at night, real dreams.»

«Me too,» I said.

Christian entered.

«She's stopped,» I said. «What did you do?»

«I slapped her.»

I said, «I think I'm going to faint.» I sat down on the sofa and covered my face with my hand.

«Brad! Quick, here, some brandy-«Could I have some biscuits or something? I haven't eaten all day. Or yesterday.»

I really did feel, for that moment, faint: that odd absolutely unique sensation of a black baldacchino being lowered like an extinguisher over one's head. And now, as brandy, bread, biscuits, cheese, plumcake became available, I also knew that I was going to cry. It was many many years since I had wept. What a very strange phenomenon it is, little perhaps they realize who use it much. I recalled the dismay of the wolves when Mowgli sheds tears, in the Jungle Book. Or rather, it is Mowgli who is dismayed, and thinks he is dying. The wolves are better informed, dignified, faintly disgusted. I held the glass of brandy in both hands and stared at Christian and felt the warm water quietly rising into my eyes. The quiet inevitability of the sensation gave satisfaction. It was an achievement. Perhaps all tears are an achievement. Oh precious gift.

«Brad, dear, don't-«I hate violence,» I said.

«It's no good letting her go on and on, she tires herself so, she did it for half an hour yesterday-«All right, yes, all right-«Why, you poor pet! I'm doing my best, honest. It's no fun having a near-crazy in the house. I'm doing it for you, Brad.»

«Brad, what is it, you look extraordinary, something's happened to you, you're beautiful, you look like a saint or something, you look like some goddamn picture, you look all young again-«You won't abandon Priscilla, will you, Chris?» I said, and I mopped the tears away with my hand.

«Did you just notice something, Brad?»

«What?»

«You called me 'Chris.' «

«Did I? Like old days. Well, but you won't? I'll pay you-«Oh never mind the dough. I'll look after her. I got onto a new doc. There's a treatment with injections she can have.»

«Good. Julian.»

«What was that?»

I had just uttered Julian's name aloud. I got up. «Chris, do you mind, I must go. I've got something very important to do.» Think about Julian.

«Brad, please-Oh, all right, I won't keep you. But I want you to say something to me.»

«What?»

«Oh that you forgive me or something. That there's peace between us or something. You know I just loved you, Brad. You saw my love as a sort of crushing force or a will to power or something but I just wanted to hold you. And I did really truly come back here to you and for you. I thought about you out there and what a fool I'd been. Of course I'm not a romantic crazy. I know our thing couldn't work then, we were so young and God we were stupid with each other. But there was something I saw in you which didn't leave me alone. I used to dream we were reconciled, you know in dreams at night, real dreams.»

«Me too,» I said.

«What tosh, my dearest dearest Chris.»

«Oh sure, but all the same-you know something, suddenly I feel you're open to me, right open to me-I can walk straight in and there's welcome written on the mat-Brad, say those good words, will you, say you forgive me, say we're really reconciled and friends again at last.»

«Of course I forgive you, Chris, of course we're reconciled. You must forgive me too, I wasn't a patient man-«Sure I do. Now thank God we can talk at last, talk all about how things were and about the bloody fools we used to be, make it all good again, buy it back, that's what 'redeem' means, doesn't it, what happens in the pawn shop. When I saw you crying for Pris– cilla I knew it was possible. You're a good man, Bradley Pearson, we can make it together if only we open our hearts-«Chris, dear. Please!»

«Brad, you know in a way you are my husband, I've never really stopped thinking of you that way, after all we were married in church, with my body I thee worship and the whole sacred caboodle, we were pure in heart once, we meant well by each other, we really cared, didn't we, didn't we care?»

«Possibly, but-«

«When it went wrong I thought I'd become a cynic forever-I married Evans for his money. Well, that was a real action anyway, I never left him, he died holding my hand, the poor old bugger. But now I feel as if the past has all fallen away. I came back to you to say this, Brad, to find this, and now we're older and wiser and sorry for what we did, why don't we try again?»

«Chris darling, you're dotty,» I said. «But I'm very touched.»

«Gee, Brad, you look so young. You look all dewy and spiritual like a cat with kittens.»

«I'm going. Goodbye.»

«Switzerland.»

«Not Switzerland. I hate mountains.»

«Well, then-«Look, I must-«Kiss me, Bradley.»

A woman's face changes in tenderness. It may become scarcely recognizable. Christian en tendresse looked older, more animal-like and absurd, her features all squashed up and rubbery. She was wearing an open-necked cotton dress of rich Chinese red and a gold chain round her neck. The flesh of her neck was stained and dry behind the fresh gold of the chain. Her dyed hair was glossy and animal-sleek. She was looking at me in the cool north indigo duskiness of the room with such a humble pleading diffident rueful tender look upon her face, and her drooping hands were opened to me in a sort of Oriental gesture of abandonment and homage. I stepped forward and took her in my arms.

At the same time I laughed, and holding her, not kissing her, continued to laugh. I saw over her shoulder a quite other face of happiness. But I held her very consciously and laughed, and then she began to laugh too, her forehead moving to and fro against my shoulder.

Arnold came in.

I released Christian slowly and she looked at Arnold and went on laughing in a weary almost contented sort of way, «Oh dear, oh dear-«I'm just off,» I said to Arnold.

He had sat down quietly immediately on entering, like a man in a waiting room. He had his wet look (his drenched albino aspect) as if he had been in the rain, his colourless hair darkened with grease, his face shiny, his nose pointing like a greased pin. His very pale blue eyes, washed almost to whiteness, were cool as water. I had seen, before he had time to smooth it, the expression of chagrin with which he had greeted our little scene.

«You will think it over, Brad, won't you, dear?»

«Think what over?»

«Oh he's priceless, he's forgotten it already! I just proposed to Brad and he's forgotten it!»

«I'd like to make a reappraisal. I feel I may have been unjust to you, completely wrong in fact.»

«Decent of you.»

«Not at all. I want to be-at peace with everybody-at this time-«Is it Christmas?» said Arnold.

«No, just-I'll read your books, Arnold-I'll do it-humbly and without prejudice-please believe that-and please forgive me for-all my-shortcomings and-«Brad's become a saint.»

«Are you feeling all right, Bradley?»

«Just look at him. I guess it's the transfiguration!»

«I must go-good-bye, good-bye-and-be well-be well-« Waving rather awkwardly to them both and eluding the hand which Christian stretched out to me I got to the door and swung myself through the tiny hall and out into the street. It appeared to be evening. What had happened to the day?

As I neared the corner of the street I heard running steps behind me. It was Francis.

«Brad, I just wanted to say-Wait, please, wait-I wanted to say I'll stick by her whatever happens, I'll-«Who?»

«Priscilla.»

«Oh yes. How is she?»

«Asleep.»

«Thank you for helping poor Priscilla.»

«Brad, I wanted to make sure you weren't angry with me.»

«Why should I be?»

«Not sick with me after all the things I said and crying on you and all, some people it just sicks them if you throw up all your woes like that, and I'm afraid I-«Forget it.»

«And Brad. I wanted to say, just one more thing-I just wanted to say-whatever happens-I'm on your side.»

I stopped and looked at him and he smirked and bit his fat lower lip and the little eyes came questing slyly up. «In the coming-great-battle,» I said, «whatever it-may turn out-to be-thank you, Francis Marloe.»

He looked a little surprised. I gave a sort of military salute and walked on. He ran after me again.

«I'm very fond of you, Brad, you know that.»

«Bugger off.»

«Brad, please could I have some more cash-I'm sorry to bother you but Christian keeps me so short-I gave him five pounds.

T

J. he he division of one day from the next must be one of the most profound peculiarities of life on this planet. It is, on the whole, a merciful arrangement. We are not condemned to sustained flights of being, but are constantly refreshed by little holidays from ourselves. We are intermittent creatures, always falling to little ends and rising to little new beginnings. Our soon-tired consciousness is meted out in chapters, and that the world will look quite different tomorrow is, both for our comfort and our discomfort, usually true. How marvellously too night matches sleep, sweet image of it, so neatly apportioned to our need. Angels must wonder at these beings who fall so regularly out of awareness into a fantasm-infested dark. How our frail identities survive these chasms no philosopher has ever been able to explain.

The next morning-it was another sunny day-I woke early to an exact perception of my state; yet knowing too that something had changed. I was not quite as 1 had been the day before. I lay, testing myself, as someone after an accident might test himself for broken limbs. I certainly still felt very happy, with that curious sense of the face as waxen, dissolving into bliss, the eyes swimming with it. Desire, still cosmic, was perhaps more like physical pain, like something one could die of quite privately in a corner. But I was not dismayed. I got up and shaved and dressed with care and looked at my new face in the mirror. I looked so young it was almost uncanny. Then I drank a little tea and went to sit in the sitting-room, with my hands folded, looking through the window at the wall. I sat as still as a Buddhist and experienced myself.

I sat motionless for I am not sure how long. Perhaps I really went into some sort of trance. Then the telephone rang and my heart went off in a black explosion as I was instantly certain that it was Julian. I ran to the instrument and fumbled and dropped it twice before I got it to my ear. It was Grey-Pelham, ringing up to say that since his wife was indisposed he had an extra ticket for Glyndebourne and would I like it? I would not! Glyndebourne forsooth! When I had politely got rid of him I rang Netting Hill. Francis answered and told me that Priscilla was calmer this morning and had agreed to see a psychiatrist. After that I sat and wondered if I would ring Ealing. Not to talk to Julian of course. Perhaps I ought to ring Rachel? But supposing Julian were to answer?

As I was scorching and freezing my mind with this possibility the phone rang again and again my heart exploded, and this time it was Rachel. Our conversation was as follows.

«Hello, Bradley. It's dreary old me.»

«Rachel-dear-nice-happy-you-so glad-«You can't be drunk at this hour of the morning.»

«What time is it?»

«Eleven-thirty.»

«I thought it was about nine.»

«You'll be glad to hear that I'm not coming round to see you.»

«But I'd love you to.»

«No, I've got to get hold of myself. It's so-below me-to persecute my old friends.»

«We are friends, aren't we?»

«No.»

«He was, I know. Never mind. Oh God, I mustn't start-«Rachel-«

«Yes?»

«How's-how's-Julian-today?»

«Oh much as usual.»

«She's not-by any chance-going to come round here-to get her Hamlet-is she?»

«No. She seems to be off Hamlet today. She's down the road with a young couple who are digging a conversation pit in their garden playroom.»

«A what?»

«A conversation pit.»

«Oh. Ah well. I see. Tell her-No. Well-« you.

«Bradley, you do-never mind what it means-love me, don't?»

«Yes, of course.»

«Sorry to be so sort of-limp and wet-Thanks for listening I'll ring again-Bye-I forgot Rachel. I decided I would go out and buy Julian a present. I still felt ill and rather faint and given to fits of trembling. At the idea of buying the present a lot of trembling came on. Present-buying is a fairly universal symptom of love. It is certainly a sine qua non. (If you don't want to give her a present you don't love her.) It is I suppose a method of touching the beloved.

The telephone rang. I staggered to it and gasped into it.

«Oh Brad. It's Chris.»

«Oh-Chris-hello, dear.»

«I'm glad I'm still 'Chris' today.»

«Today-yes-«Have you thought over my proposition?»

«What proposition?»

«Gee, Brad, you are a tease. Look, can I come over and see you right now?»

«No.»

«Why not?»

«I've got a bridge party.»

«But you can't play bridge.»

«I learnt in the thirty or so years of your absence. I had to pass the time somehow.»

«Brad, when can I see you, it's kind of urgent?»

«I'll come round to see Priscilla-this evening-probably-«O. K., I'll wait. Mind you come.»

«And God bless you, Chris, God bless you, dear, God bless you.»

I sat in the hall beside the telephone and fingered Julian's scarf. Since I retained it with me, although it was hers, it was as if she had given me a present. I sat and looked through the open door of the sitting-room at Julian's things arranged upon the tables. I listened to the silence of the flat in the midst of the murmur of London. Time passed. I waited. Being your slave what should I do but tend upon the hours and times of your desire. I have no precious time at all to spend, nor services to do till you require.

It now seemed to me incredible that I could have had the nerve to leave the house that morning. Suppose she had telephoned, suppose she had come, when I was away? She could not spend the whole day digging a conversation pit, whatever that was. She would surely come round soon to get her Hamlet. How good it was that I had that hostage. After a while I moved back into the sitting-room and picked up the shabby little book and sat caressing it in Hart– bourne's armchair. My eyelids drooped and the material world grew dim and I waited.

The telephone rang and I ran to it, jolting the table and knocking the six volumes of Shakespeare off onto the floor.

«Bradley. Arnold here.»

«Oh God. It's you.»

«What's the matter?»

«Nothing.»

«Bradley, I hear-«

«What time is it?»

«Four o'clock. I hear you're coming round this evening to see Priscilla.»

«Yes.»

«Well, could I see you after that? There's something important I want to tell you.»

«Yes. Fine. What's a conversation pit?»

«What?»

«What's a conversation pit?»

«A sunken area in a room where you put cushions and people sit and converse.»

«What's the point of it?»

«It has no point.»

«Oh Arnold, Arnold-«What?»

«Nothing. I'll read your books. I'll start to like them. Everything will be different.»

«Have you got softening of the brain?»

«Good-bye, goodbye-I returned to the sitting-room and I picked up the Shakespeares from the floor and I sat down in the armchair and I said to her in my heart, I will suffer, you will not. We will do each other no harm. You will cause me pain, it cannot be otherwise. But I shall cause you none. And I will feed upon my pain like one who feeds on kisses. (Oh God.) I am simply happy that you exist, happy in the absolute that is you, proud to live with you in the same city, in the same century, to see you occasionally, seldom…

The telephone rang. I reached it. This time it was Julian.

«Oh Bradley, hello, it's me.»

I made some sort of sound.

«Bradley-sorry-it's me-you know, Julian Baffin.»

I said, «Hold on a minute, would you?» I covered the mouthpiece and closed my eyes tightly, groped for a chair, panting, trying to control my breath. In a few moments I said, coughing a little to disguise the tremor, «Sorry. The kettle was just boiling.»

«I'm so sorry to bother you, Bradley. I promise I won't become a pest, always ringing up and coming round.»

«Not at all.»

«I just wondered if I could pick up my Hamlet whenever you've finished with it.»

«Certainly.»

«But there's no hurry at all-any time in the next fortnight would do. I'm not working on that at the moment. And there's one or two more questions I've thought of. If you like I could send them by post, and you could post me the book. I don't want to interrupt your work.»

«In the next-fortnight-«Or month. I may be going to the country actually. My school has still got the measles.»

«Perhaps you could drop in some time next week,» I said.

«Fine. How about Thursday morning about ten?»

«Yes. That's-fine.»

«Thank you so much. I won't keep you. I know you're so busy. Good-bye, Bradley, and thanks.»

«Wait a minute,» I said.

There was silence.

«Julian,» I said, «are you free this evening?»

The restaurant at the top of the Post Office Tower revolves very slowly. Slow as a dial hand. Majestic trope of lion-blunting time.

How swiftly did it move that night while London crept behind the beloved head? Was it quite immobile, made still by thought, a mere fantasy of motion in a world beyond duration? Or was it spinning like a top, whirling away into invisibility, and pinning me against the outer wall, kitten-limbed and crucified by centrifugal force?

Concerning absence love has always been eloquent. The subject admits of an explicit melancholy, though doubtless there are certain pains which cannot be fully rendered. But has it ever sufficiently hymned presence? Can it do so? The presence of the loved one is perhaps always accompanied by anxiety. Mortals must tremble, where angels might enjoy. But this one grain of darkness cannot be accounted a blemish. It graces the present moment with a kind of violence which makes an ecstasy of time.

To speak more crudely, what I experienced that evening on the Post Office Tower was a kind of blinding joy. It was as if stars were exploding in front of my eyes so that I literally could not see. Breathing was fast and difficult, not unpleasant. I was conscious of a certain satisfaction in being able to go on pumping myself full of oxygen. A quiet and perhaps outwardly imperceptible shuddering possessed my whole frame. My hands vibrated, my legs ached and throbbed, my knees were in the condition described by the Greek poetess. This dereglement was completed by a sense of giddiness produced by the sheer conception of being so high above the ground and yet still connected to it. Giddiness of this kind in any case locates itself in the genitals.

All this, and further hues and saturations of bliss which I cannot describe at all, I felt on that evening as I sat with Julian in the Post Office Tower restaurant. We talked, and our communion was so perfect that it might have been telepathic for all I could make out afterwards about how it actually occurred. The evening had darkened to an intense blue, but it was not yet night. The forms of London, some already chequered with yellow light, glided onward through a dim shimmering corpuscular haze. The Albert Hall, the Science Museums, Centre Point, the Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Festival Hall, the Houses of Parliament, the Albert Memorial. The precious and beloved skyline of my own Jerusalem processed incessantly behind that dear mysterious head. Only the royal parks were already places of darkness, growing inkily purple with night-time and its silence.

Mysterious head. Oh the tormenting strangeness of our ignorance of other minds, the privileged comfort of the secrecy of our own! In fact on that night what I felt most in her was her lucidity, her transparency almost. That purity and unmuddied simplicity of the young, after the anxious self-guarding deviousness of later ages. Her clear eyes looked at me and she was with me and spoke to me with a directness which I had never received before. To say that there was no element of flirting is to speak with a totally inappropriate grossness. We conversed as angels might converse, not through a glass darkly but face to face. And yet: I was-again to say that I was playing a part is a barbarism. I was blazing with secrecy. As my eyes and my thoughts caressed and possessed her and as I smiled into her open attentive gaze with a passion and even with a tenderness which she could not see, I felt ready to fall to the ground fainting, perhaps dying, with the enormity of what I knew and she did not.

«Bradley, I think it's swaying.»

«It can't be. I believe it does sway a little in the wind. But there's no wind tonight.»

«There might be a wind up here.»

«Well, there might be. Yes, I think it is swaying.» How could I tell? Everything was swaying.

Of course I had merely pretended to eat. I had drunk very little wine. Alcohol still seemed a complete irrelevancy. I was drunk with love. Julian had both eaten and drunk a good deal, indiscriminately praising everything that passed her lips. We had talked about the view, about her college, about her school with the measles, about how soon one could tell whether one was a poet, about whether the novel, about why the theatre. I had never talked so easily to anyone. Oh blessed weightlessness, oh blessed space.

«Bradley, I wish I'd understood that stuff you spouted about Hamlet.»

«Forget it. No high theory about Shakespeare is any good, not because he's so divine but because he's so human. Even great art is jumble in the end.»

«So the critics are just stupid?»

«It needs no theory to tell us this! One should simply try to like as much as one can.»

«Like you now trying to like what my father writes?»

«That's more special. I feel I've been unjust. He has huge vitality and he tells a good story. Stories are art too, you know.»

«His stuff is awfully ingenious, but it's as dead as a door nail.»

«So young and so untender.»

«So young, my lord, but true.»

I was nearly on the floor at that moment. I also thought, in so far as thinking occurred, that she was probably right. Only I was not going to utter any harsh thing that evening. I was mainly now, since I had realized that I could not keep her with me for much longer, wondering about whether and if so how I could kiss her on parting. Kissing had never been customary between us, even when she was a child. Briefly, I had never kissed her. Never. And now tonight perhaps I would.

«Bradley, you aren't listening.»

She constantly used my name. I could not use hers. She had no name.

«Ought I to read Wittgenstein?»

What I wanted to do was to kiss her in the lift going down should we chance to have that momentary love nest to ourselves. But of course that was out of the question. There must be no, absolutely no, show of marked interest. She had, as young people with their charming egoism and their impromptu modes so felicitously do, taken it quite calmly for granted that I should suddenly have felt like dining on the Post Office Tower and should, since she had happened to ring up, have happened to ask her to come too.

«No. I shouldn't bother.»

«You think I wouldn't understand him?»

«Yes.»

«Yes, I wouldn't?»

«Yes. He never thought of you.»

«What?»

«I'm quoting again. Never mind.»

«We are full of quotations tonight, aren't we. When I'm with you I feel as if the whole of English literature were inside me like a warm stew and coming out of my ears. I say, what an inelegant metaphor! Oh Bradley, what fun that we're here. Bradley, I do feel so happy!»

«Good.» I asked for the bill. I did not want to ruin what was perfect by any hint of anxious hanging-on. An overstayed welcome would have been torture afterwards. I did not want to see her looking at her watch.

She looked at her watch. «Oh dear, I must go soon.»

«I'll see you to the tube.»

We had the lift to ourselves going down. I did not kiss her. I did not suggest that she should come back to my flat. Ao we walked along Goodge Street I did not touch her, even «accidentally.» I was beginning to wonder how in the world it would be possible to part from her.

«Well, then-Well, then-«

«Bradley, you've been sweet, thank you, I've so much enjoyed it.»

«Oh, I quite forgot to bring your Hamlet.» I had of course done no such thing.

«Never mind, I'll get it another time. Good night, Bradley, and thanks.»

«Yes, I-let me see-«I must run.»

«Won't you-Shall we fix a time for you to come-You said you had some-I'm so often out-Or shall I-Will you-«I'll ring you. Good night, and thank you so much.»

It was now or never. With a sense of moving very slowly, of executing some sort of precise figure in a minuet, I stepped a little in front of Julian, who was turning away, took her left wrist lightly in my right hand, thereby halting her, and then leaned down and pressed my judiciously parted lips against her cheek. The effect could not be casual. I straightened up and we stood for a moment looking at each other.

Julian said, «Bradley, if I asked you, would you cometoCovent Garden with me?»

«Yes, of course.» I would go to hell with her, and even to Covent Garden.

«It's Rosenkavalier. Next Wednesday. Meet in the foyer about half past six. I've got quite good tickets. Septimus Leech got us two, only now he can't come.»

«Who is Septimus Leech?»

«Oh he's my new boy friend. Good night, Bradley.»

She was gone. I stood there dazed in the lamplight among the hurrying ghosts. And I felt as a man might feel who, with a whole skin on him and a square meal inside him, sits in a cell having just been captured by the secret police.

A common though not invariable early phase of this madness, the one in fact through which I had just been passing, is a false loss of self, which can be so extreme that all fear of pain, all sense of time (time is anxiety, is fear) is utterly blotted out. The sensation itself of loving, the contemplation of the existence of the beloved, is an end in itself. A mystic's heaven on earth must be just such an endless contemplation of God. Only God has (or would have if He existed) characteristics at least not totally inimical to the continuance of the pleasures of adoration. As the so-called «ground of being» He may be considered to have come a good deal farther than half-way. Also He is changeless. To remain thus poised in the worship of a human being is, from both sides of the relationship, a much more precarious matter, even when the beloved is not nearly forty years younger and, to say the least of it, detached.

On the second day I began to need her, though even «anxiety» would be too gross a word for that delicate silken magnetic tug, as it manifested itself at any rate initially. Self was reviving. On the first day Julian had been everywhere. On the second day she was, yes, somewhere, located vaguely, not yet dreadfully required, but needed. She was, on the second day, absent. This inspired the small craving for strategy, a little questing desire to make plans. The future, formerly blotted out by an excess of light, reappeared. There were once more vistas, hypotheses, possibilities. But joy and gratitude still lightened the world and made possible a gentle concern with other people, other things. I wonder how long a man could remain in that first phase of love? Much longer than I did, no doubt, but surely not indefinitely. The second phase, I am sure, given favouring conditions, could continue much longer. (But again, not indefinitely. Love is history, is dialectic, it must move.) As it is, I lived in hours what another man might have lived in years.

The transformation of my beatitude could, as that second day wore on, be measured by a literally physical sense of strain, as if magnetic rays or even ropes or chains were delicately plucking, then tugging, then dragging. Physical desire had of course been with me from the first, but earlier it had been, though perceptually localized, metaphysically diffused into a general glory. Sex is our great connection with the world, and at its most felicitous and spiritual it is no servitude since it informs everything and enables us to inhabit and enjoy all that we touch and look upon. At other times it settles in the body like a toad. It becomes a drag, a weight: not necessarily for this reason unwelcome. We may love our chains and our stripes too. By the time Julian telephoned I was in deep anxiety and yearning but not in hell. I could not then willingly have put off seeing her, the craving was too acute. But I was able, when I was with her, to be perfectly happy. I did not expect the inferno.

I woke with a clear head, a slight headache, and the knowledge that I was completely done for. Reason which had been-where had it been, during the last days?-somehow absent or dazed or altered or in abeyance, was once more at its post. (At least it was audible.) But in a rather specialized role and certainly not in that of a consoling friend. Reason was not, needless to say, uttering any coarse observations, such as that Julian was after all a very ordinary young woman and not worth all this fuss. Nor was it even pointing out that I had put myself in a situation where the torments of jealousy were simply endemic. I had not yet got as far as jealousy. That too was still to come. What the cold light showed me was that my situation was simply unlivable. I wanted, with a desire greater than any desire which I had ever conceived could exist without instantly killing its owner by spontaneous combustion, something which I simply could not have.

There were no tears now. I lay in bed in an electric storm of physical desire. I tossed and panted and groaned as if I were wrestling with a palpable demon. The fact that I had actually touched her, kissed her, grew (I am sorry about these metaphors) into a sort of mountain which kept falling on top of me. I felt her flesh upon my lips. Phantoms were bred from this touch. I felt like a grotesque condemned excluded monster. How could it be that I had actually kissed her cheek without enveloping her, without becoming her? How could I at that moment have refrained from kneeling at her feet and howling?

I got up but was suffering such extreme local discomfort that I could hardly get dressed. I started making tea, but its smell sickened me. I drank a little whisky in a glass of water and began to feel very ill. I could not stand still but wandered distractedly and rapidly about the flat, rubbing against the furniture as a tiger in a cage endlessly brushes its bars. I had ceased groaning and was now hissing. I tried to compose a few thoughts about the future. Should I kill myself? Should I go at once to Patara and barricade myself in and blow my mind with alcohol? Run, run, run. But I could not compose thoughts. All that concerned me was finding some way of getting through these present minutes of pain.

Jealousy is the most dreadfully involuntary of all sins. It is at once one of the ugliest and one of the most pardonable. In fact, in relation to its badness it is probably the most pardonable. Zeus, who smiles a lovers' oaths, must also condone their pangs and the venom which these pangs engender. Some Frenchman said that jealousy was born with love, but did not always die with love. I am not sure whether this is true. I would think that where there is jealousy there is love, and its appearance when love has apparently ceased is always a proof that the cessation is apparent. (I believe this is not just a verbal point.) Jealousy is certainly a measure of love in some, though as my own case illustrates not in all, of its phases. It also (and this may have prompted the Frenchman's idea) seems like an alien growth-and growth is indeed the word. Jealousy is a cancer, it can kill that which it feeds on, though it is usually a horribly slow killer. (And thereby dies itself.) Also of course, to change the metaphor, jealousy is love, it is loving consciousness, loving vision, darkened by pain and in its most awful forms distorted by hate.

The idea that one recovers from being in love is, of course, by definition (by my definition anyway) excluded from the state of love. Besides, one does not always recover. And certainly no such banal would-be comfort could have existed for a second in the scorching atmosphere of my mind at that time. As I said earlier, I knew that I was completely done for. There was no ray of light, no comfort at all. Though I will now also mention something which dawned upon me later. There was of course no question now of writing, of «sublimating» it all (ridiculous expression). But the sense remained that this was my destiny, that this was… the work of… the same power. And to be pinned down by that power, even liver, was to be in some terrible sense in one's own place.

To speak of matters which are less obscure, I soon of course decided that I could not «run.» I could not go away to the country. I had to see Julian again, I had to wait through those awful days until the appointment at Covent Garden. Of course I wanted to ring her up at once and ask her to see me. But I somehow kept blindly thrusting this temptation away. I would not let my life degenerate into madness. Better to be alone with him and to suffer than to pull it all down into some sort of yelling chaos. Silence, though now with a different and utterly unconsoling sense, was my only task.

Somewhere in the middle of that morning, which I will not attempt to describe further (except to say that Hartbourne rang up: I replaced the receiver at once) Francis Marloe came.

I went back into the sitting-room and he followed me, already staring at me with surprise. I sat down and started rubbing my eyes and my brow, breathing heavily.

«What's the matter, Brad?»

«Nothing.»

«I say, there's some whisky. I didn't know you had any. You must have hidden it jolly well. May I have some?»

«Yes.»

«Would you like some?»

«Yes.»

Francis was putting a glass into my hand. «Are you ill?»

«Yes.»

«What's the matter?»

I drank some whisky and choked a bit. I felt extremely sick and also unable to distinguish physical from mental pain.

«Brad, we waited all evening for you.»

«Why? Where?»

«You said you'd come to see Priscilla.»

«Oh. Priscilla. Yes.» I had totally and absolutely forgotten Pris– cilla's existence.

«We rang up here.»

«I was out to dinner.»

«Had you just forgotten?»

«Yes.»

«Arnold was there till after eleven. He wanted to see you about something. He was in a bit of a state.»

«How fs Priscilla?»

«Much the same. Chris wants to know if you'd mind if she had de^1^"treatment-«

«You mean you don't mind? You know it destroys cells in the brain?»

«Then she'd better not have it.»

«On the other hand-'

«I ought to see Priscilla,» I said, I think, aloud. But I knew that I just couldn't. I had not got a grain of spirit to offer to any other person. I could not expose myself in my present condition to that poor rapacious craving consciousness.

«Priscilla said she'd do anything you wanted.»

Electric shocks. They batter the brain cage. Like hitting the wireless, they say, to make it go. I must pull myself together. Priscilla.

«We must go-into it-« I said.

«Brad, what's the matter?»

«Nothing. Destruction of cells in the brain.»

«Are you ill?»

«Yes.»

«What is it?»

«I'm in love.»

«Oh,» said Francis. «Who with?»

«Julian Baffin.»

I had not intended to tell him. It was something to do with Pris– cilla that I did. The pity of it. And then a sense of being battered beyond caring.

Francis took it coolly. I suppose that was the way to take it. «Oh. Is it very bad, I mean your sickness?»

«Yes.»

«Have you told her?»

«Don't be a fool,» I said. «I'm fifty-eight. She's twenty.»

«I don't see that that decides anything much,» said Francis. «Love is no respecter of ages, everyone knows that. Can I have some more whisky?»

«You don't understand,» I said. «I can't-before that-young girl-make a display of feelings such as I-feel. It would appal her. And as I can envisage-no possible relationship with her of that kind-«

«I don't see why not,» said Francis, «though whether it would be a good idea is another matter.»

«Don't talk such utter-It's a question of morals and of-everything. She cannot possibly feel-for me-almost an old man-it would just disgust her-she simply wouldn't want to see me again.»

«There's a lot of assumptions there. As for morals, well maybe, though I don't know. Everything is another matter, especially these days. But will you enjoy going on and on meeting her and keeping your mouth shut?»

«No, of course not.»

«Well, then. Sorry to be so simple-minded. Hadn't you better start pulling out?»

«You've obviously never been in love.»

«I have actually. And awfully. And-always-without hope-I've never had my love reciprocated ever. You can't tell me-«I can't pull out. I'm only just in. I don't know what to do. I feel I'm going mad, I'm trapped.»

«Cut and run. Go to Spain or something.»

«I can't. I'm seeing her on Wednesday. We're going to the opera. Oh Christ.»

«It would sicken her.»

«You could do it with a sort of light touch-«There's a dignity and a power in silence.»

«Silence?» said Francis. «You've broken that already.»

O my prophetic soul. It was true.

«Of course I won't tell anybody,» said Francis. «But why after all did you tell me? You didn't intend to and you'll regret it. You'll probably hate me for it. But please, please don't if you can. You told me because you were frantic, because you felt an irresistible nervous urge. You'll tell her, sooner or later, for the same reason.»

«Never.»

«There's no need to make such heavy weather of it. As for her being sickened, it's far more likely that she'll laugh.»

«Laugh?»

«Young people can't take too seriously the feelings of oldies like us. She'll be rather touched, but she'll regard it as an absurd infatuation. She'll be amused, fascinated. It'll make her day.»

«Oh get out,» I said, «get out.»

«Brad, you are cross with me, don't be, it wasn't my fault you told me.»

«Get out.»

«Brad, what about Priscilla?»

«Do anything you think fit. I leave it to you.»

«Aren't you coming over to see her?»

«Yes, yes. Later. Give her my love.»

Francis got as far as the door. I was still sitting and rubbing my eyes. Francis's funny bear face was all creased up with anxiety and concern and he suddenly resembled his sister, when she had become so absurd, looking at me tenderly in the indigo dark of our old drawing-room.

«Brad, why don't you make a thing of Priscilla?»

«What do you mean?»

«Make her your life-line. Go all out to help her. Really make a job of it. Take your mind off this.»

«You don't know what this is like.»

«Why shouldn't you have an affair with Julian Baffin? It wouldn't do her any harm.»

«You vile-thing-Oh why did I tell you, why did I tell you, I must have been insane-«Well, I'll keep mum. All right, all right, I'm going.»

When he was gone I simply ran berserk round the house. Why oh why oh why had I broken my silence. I had given away my only treasure and I had given it to a fool. Not that I was concerned about whether Francis would betray me. Some much more frightening thing had been added to my pain. In my chess game with the dark lord I had made perhaps a fatally wrong move.

Later on I sat down and began to think over what Francis had said to me. At least I thought over some of it. About Priscilla I did not think at all.

My dear Bradley,

I have lately got myself into the most terrible mess and I feel that I must lay the whole matter before you. Perhaps it won't surprise you all that much. I have fallen desperately in love with Christian. I can imagine your dry irony at this announcement. «Falling in love? At your age? Really!» I know how much you despise what is «romantic.» This has been, hasn't it, one of our old disagreements. Let me assure you that what I feel now has nothing to do with rosy dreaming or «the soppy.» I have never been in a grimmer mood in my life, nor I think in a more horribly realistic one. Bradley, this is the real thing, I'm afraid. I am completely floored by a force in which, I suspect, you simply do not believe! How can I convince you that I am in extremist I hoped to see you on several occasions lately to try to explain, to show you, but perhaps a letter is better. Anyway, that's point one. I am really in love and it's a terrible experience. I don't think I've ever felt quite like this before. I'm turned inside out, I'm living in a sort of myth, I've been depersonalized and made into somebody else. I feel sure, by the way, that I've been completely transformed as a writer. These things connect, they must do. I shall write much better harder stuff in future, as a result of this, whatever happens. God, I feel hard, hard, hard. I don't know if you can understand.

The third point is about you. How do you come in? Well, you just are absolutely in. I wish you weren't, but you can in fact be useful. Excuse this cold directness. Perhaps now you can see what I mean by «hard,»

About Christian, there is a problem too which concerns you. I have not yet said, though of course I have implied, how she feels. Well, she loVes me. A lot has happened in the last few days. They have been probably the most eventful days of my whole life. What Christian was saying to you the last time you saw her was of course a sort of joke, a mere result of high spirits, as I imagine you realized. She is such a gay affectionate person. However she is not indifferent to you and she wants something from you now which is rather hard to name: a sort of ratification of the arrangement I have been describing, a sort of final reconciliation and settling of old scores and also the assurance, which I'm sure you can give, that you will still be her friend when she is living with me. I might add that Christian, who is a very scrupulous person, is extremely concerned about Rachel's rights and whether Rachel will be able to «manage.» I hope that here too you can give some reassurance. Rachel is strong too. They are really two marvellous women. Bradley, do you follow all this? I feel such a mixture of joy and fear and sheer hard will, I'm not sure if I'm expressing myself clearly.

I shall deliver this by hand and will not try to see you at once. But soon, I mean later today or tomorrow, I would like to talk to you. You will be coming to see Priscilla of course, and we could meet then. There is no need to delay your talk with Rachel till you've seen me. The sooner that happens the better. But I'd like to see you before you see Chris alone. God, does this make sense? It is an appeal, and that should tickle your vanity. You are in a strong position for once. Please help me. I ask in the name of our friendship.

Arnold

PS. If you hate all this for God's sake be at least kind and don't give me any sort of hell about it. I may sound rational but I'm feeling terribly crazy and upset. I so much don't want to hurt Rachel. And please don't rush round to Chris and upset her, just when some things have become clear. And don't see Rachel either unless you can do it quietly and like I asked. Sorry, sorry.

I will not attempt to describe how I got through the next few days. There are desolations of the spirit which can only be hinted at. I sat there huge-eyed in the wreck of myself. At the same time there was an awful crescendo of excitement as Wednesday approached, and the idea of simply being with her began to shed a lurid joy, a demonic version of the joy which I had felt upon the Post Office Tower. Then I had been in innocence. Now I felt both guilty and doomed. And, in a way that concerned myself alone, savage, extreme, rude, cruel… Yet: to be with her again. Wednesday.

Of course I had to answer the telephone in case it was her. Every time it sounded was like a severe electric shock. Christian rang, Arnold rang. I put the receiver down at once. Let them make what they like of it. Arnold and Francis both came and rang the bell, but I could see them through the frosted glass of the door and did not let them in. I did not know if they could see me, I was indifferent to that. Francis dropped a note in to say that Priscilla was having shock treatment and seemed better. Rachel called, but I hid. Later she telephoned in some state of emotion. I spoke briefly and said I would ring her later. Thus I beguiled the time. I also started several letters to Julian. My dear Julian, I have lately got myself into the most terrible mess and I feel that I must lay the whole matter before you. Dear Julian, I am sorry that I must leave London and cannot join you on Wednesday. Dearest Julian, I love you, I am in anguish, oh my darling. Of course I tore up all these letters, they were just for private self-expression. At last, after centuries of sick emotion, Wednesday came.

How I feel about music is another thing. I am not actually tone deaf, though it might be better if I were. Music can touch me, it can get at me, it can torment. It just, as it were, reaches me, like a sinister gabbling in a language one can almost understand, a gabbling which is horribly, one suspects, about oneself. When I was younger I had even listened to music deliberately, stunning myself with disorderly emotion and imagining that I was having a great experience. True pleasure in art is a cold fire. I do not wish to deny that there are some people-though fewer than one might think from the talk of our self-styled experts-who derive a pure and mathematically clarified pleasure from these medleys of sound. All I can say is that «music» for me was simply an occasion for personal fantasy, the outrush of hot muddled emotions, the muck of my mind made audible.

The softly cacophonous red and gold scene swung in my vision, beginning to swirl gently like something out of Blake: it was a huge coloured ball, a sort of immense Christmas decoration, a glittering shining twittering globe of dim rosy light in the midst of which Julian and I were suspended, rotating, held together by a swooning intensity of precarious feather-touch. Somewhere above us a bright blue heaven blazed with stars and round about us half-naked women lifted ruddy torches up. My arm was on fire, my foot was on fire, my knee was trembling with the effort of keeping still. I was in a golden scarlet jungle full of the chattering of apes and the whistling of birds. A scimitar of sweet sounds sliced the air and entered into the red scar and became pain. I was that sword of agony, I was that pain. I was in an arena, surrounded by thousands of grimacing nodding faces, where I had been condemned to death by pure sound. I was to be killed by the whistling of birds and buried in a pit of velvet. I was to be gilded and then flayed.

«Bradley, what's the matter?»

«Nothing.»

«You weren't listening.»

«Were you talking?»

«I was asking you if you knew the story.»

«What story?»

«Of Rosenkavalier.»

«Of course I don't know the story of Rosenkavalier.»

«Well, quick, you'd better read your programme-«No, you tell me.»

«Oh well, it's quite simple really, it's about this young man, Octavian, and the Marschallin loves him, and they're lovers, only she's much older than he is and she's afraid she'll lose him because he's bound to fall in love with somebody his own age-«How old is he and how old is she?»

«Oh, I suppose he's about twenty and she's about thirty.»

«Thirty?»

«Enough.»

«Don't you want to know what happens next?»

«No.»

At that moment there was a pattering noise of clapping, rising to a rattling crescendo, the deadly sound of a dry sea, the light banging of many bones in a tempest.

The stars faded and the red torches began to dim and a terrifying packed silence slowly fell as the conductor lifted up his rod. Silence. Darkness. Then a rush of wind and a flurry of sweet pulsating anguish has been set free to stream through the dark. I closed my eyes and bowed my head before it. Could I transform all this extraneous sweetness into a river of pure love? Or would I be somehow undone by it, choked, dismembered, disgraced? I felt now almost at once a pang of relief as, after the first few moments, tears began to flow freely out of my eyes. The gift of tears which had been given and then withdrawn again had come back to bless me. I wept with a marvellous facility, quietly relaxing my arm and my leg. Perhaps if I wept copiously throughout I could bear it after all. I was not listening to the music, I was undergoing it, and the full yearning of my heart was flowing automatically out of my eyes and soaking my waistcoat, as I hung, so easily now, together with Julian, fluttering, hovering like a double hawk, like a double angel, in the dark void pierced by sorties of fire. I only wondered if it would soon prove impossible to cry quietly, and whether I should then begin to sob.

The curtain suddenly fled away to reveal an enormous double bed surrounded by a cavern of looped-up blood-red hangings. This consoled me for a moment because it reminded me of Carpaccio's «Dream of Saint Ursula.» I even murmured «Carpaccio» to myself as a protective charm. But these cooling comparisons were soon put to flight and even Carpaccio could not recue me from what happened next. Not on the bed but upon some cushions near the front of the stage two girls were lying in a close embrace. (At least 1 suppose one of them was enacting a young man.) Then they began to sing.

I became aware that I had uttered a sort of moan, because the man on my other side, whom I noticed now for the first time, turned and stared at me. At the same moment my stomach seemed to come sliding down from somewhere else and then quickly arched itself up again and I felt a quick bitter taste in my mouth. I murmured «Sorry!» quickly in Julian's direction and got up. There was a soft awkward scraping at the end of the row as six people rose hastily to let me out. I blundered by, slipped on some steps, the terrible relentless sweet sound still gripping my shoulders with its talons. Then I was pushing my way underneath the illuminated sign marked exit and out into the brightly lit and completely empty and suddenly silent foyer. I walked fast. I was definitely going to be sick.

Selection of a place to be sick in is always a matter of personal importance and can add an extra tormenting dimension to the graceless horror of vomiting. Not on the carpet, not on the table, not over your hostess's dress. I did not want to be sick within the precincts of the Royal Opera House, nor was I. I emerged into a deserted shabby street and a pungent spicy smell of early dusk. The pillars of the Opera House, blazing a pale gold behind me, seemed in that squalid place like the portico of a ruined or perhaps imagined or perhaps magically fabricated palace, the green and white arcades of the foreign fruit market, looking like something out of the Italian Renaissance, actually clinging to its side. I turned a corner and confronted an array of about a thousand peaches in tiers of boxes behind a lattice grille. I carefully took hold of the grille with one hand and leaned well forward and was sick.

I leaned there for a moment, looking down at what I had done, and aware too of the tear-wetness of my face upon which a faint breeze was coolly blowing. I remembered that casket of agony, steel coated in sugar. The inevitable loss of the beloved. And I experienced Julian. I cannot explain this. I simply felt in a sort of exhausted defeated cornered utmost way that she was. There was no particular joy or relief in this, but a sort of absolute categorical quality of grasp of her being.

I became aware that someone was standing beside me. Julian said, «How are you feeling now, Bradley?»

I began to walk away from her, fumbling for my handkerchief. I wiped my mouth carefully, trying to cleanse it within with saliva.

I was walking along a corridor composed entirely of cages. I was in a prison, I was in a concentration camp. There was a wall composed of transparent sacks full of fiery carrots. They looked at me like derisive faces, like monkeys' bottoms. I breathed carefully and regularly and interrogated my stomach, stroking it gently with my hands. I turned into a lighted arcade and tested my stomach against a smell of decaying lettuce. I walked onward occupied in breathing. Only now I felt so empty and so faint. I felt that I had reached the end of the world, I felt like a stag when it can run no farther and turns and bows its head to the hounds, I felt like Actaeon condemned and cornered and devoured.

Julian was following me. I could hear the soft tap-tap of her shoes on the sticky pavement and my whole body apprehended her presence behind me.

«Bradley, would you like some coffee? There's a stall there.»

«No.»

«Let's sit down somewhere.»

«Nowhere to sit.»

We passed between two lorries loaded with milky-white boxes of dark cherries and came out into the open. It was becoming dark, lights had come on revealing the sturdy elegant military outline of the vegetable market, resembling a magazine, a seedy eighteenth– century barracks, though quiet at this time and sombre as a cloister.

Opposite to us the big derelict eastern portico of Inigo Jones's church was now in view, cluttered up with barrows and housing at the far end the coffee stall referred to by Julian. Some mean and casual lamplight, itself seeming dirty, revealed the thick pillars, a few lounging market men, a large pile of vegetable refuse and disinte– rating cardboard boxes. It was like a scene in some small battered Italian city, rendered by Hogarth.

Julian seated herself on the plinth of one of the pillars at the lark end of the portico, and I sat down next to her, or as near next to her as the bulge of the column would allow. I could feel the thick filth and muck of London under my feet, under my bottom, behind my back. I saw, in a diagonal of dim light, Julian's silk dress hitched up, her tights, smoky blue, coloured by the flesh within, her shoes, also blue, against which I had so cautiously placed my own.

«Poor Bradley,» said Julian.

«I'm sorry.»

«Was it the music?»

«No, it was you. Sorry.»

We were silent then for what seemed ages. I sighed and leaned back against the pillar and felt a few more tears, late-comers to the scene, quiet and gentle, come slowly brimming up and overflowing. I contemplated Julian's blue shoes.

Then Julian said, «How me?»

«I'm terribly in love with you. But please don't worry about it.»

Julian whistled. No, this does not quite convey the sound she made. She let her breath out thoughtfully, judiciously.

After a while she said, «I thought perhaps you were.»

«How on earth did you know?» I said, and I rubbed my face and dabbed my lips with my wet hand.

«The way you kissed me last week.»

«Oh really. Well, I'm sorry. Now I think I'd better go home. I'll be leaving London tomorrow. I'm very sorry to have spoilt your evening. I hope you'll excuse my animal behaviour. I hope you haven't dirtied your pretty dress. Good night.» I actually got up. I felt quite empty and light, able to walk. First the flesh, then the spirit. I started to walk away in the direction of Henrietta Street.

Julian was in front of me. I saw her face, the bird-mask fox-mask very intense and clear. «Bradley, don't go. Come and sit down again, just for a moment.» She put her hand on my arm.

«Come back. Please.»

I came back. I sat down again and covered my face. Then I felt Julian's hand trying to come through the crook of my arm. I shook her off again. I felt determined and violent, as if at that moment I hated her and could kill her.

«Bradley, don't-be like that-Please talk to me.»

«Don't try to touch me,» I said.

«All right, I won't. But please talk.»

«There's nothing to talk about. I have done what I swore to myself I would never do, told you about my condition. I don't have to emphasize, I think you must already have gathered, that this is all rather extreme. I shall tomorrow do what I should have done earlier, go away. What I do not propose to do is to gratify your girlish vanity by a display of my feelings.»

«Bradley, listen, listen. I'm not good at explaining or arguing but – You see, you can't just unload all this onto me and then run off. It isn't fair. You must see that.»

«I'm beyond fairness,» I said. «I just want to survive. I'm sure you feel a curiosity which it is natural to try to gratify. Even perhaps politeness suggests that one should be a little less abrupt. But I honestly don't care a hang about considering your feelings and all that. It's possibly the worst thing I've ever done. But now it's done there's little point in lingering over a post-mortem, however much satisfaction you might derive from it.»

«Don't you want to talk to me about your love?»

The question had a striking simplicity. I was clear about the answer. «No. It's all spoilt. I endlessly imagined talking to you about it, but that just belonged to the fantasy world. I can't talk love to you in the real world. The real world rejects it. It's not that it would be a crime so much as-absurd. I feel quite cold and-dry. What do you want? To hear me praise your eyes?»

«Has telling your love-made your love-end?»

«No. But it's-it's not-it has no speech any more-it's just something I've got to carry away and live with. When I hadn't told you I could endlessly imagine myself telling you. Now-the tongue has been cut out.»

«I-Bradley, don't go-I must-oh help me-find the right words-This is important-And it concerns me-You talk as if there was nobody here but you.»

«There is nobody here but me,» I said. «You're just something in my dream.»

«That's not true. I'm real. I hear your words. I can suffer.»

«Suffer? You?» I got up with a sort of laugh and set off again. This time before I could take more than a step or two Julian, still sitting down, had managed to capture one of my hands in two of hers. I looked down into her face. I willed to pull my hand from her, but somewhere between the brain and the hand the message got lost. I stood looking down into her urgent face which seemed to have hardened and aged. She gazed at me, not tenderly but frowning with intent, the eyes narrowed into thin questioning rectangles, the lips parted, the nose wrinkled with some sort of delicate fastidious doubt. She said, «Sit down, please.» I sat down, and she released my hand.

We looked at each other. «Bradley, you can't go.»

«It looks like it. Do you know, you are a very cruel young lady.»

«This isn't cruelty. There's something I've got to understand. You say you're just concerned with yourself. All right. I'm just concerned with myself. And you did start it. You can't just stop it now when you decide to. I'm an equal partner in this game.»

«I hope you are enjoying the game. It must be pleasant to feel blood on your claws. It'll give you something nice to think about when you lie in bed tonight.»

«Don't be beastly to me, Bradley, it isn't my fault. I didn't invite you to fall in love with me. I never dreamt of it at all. When did it happen? When did you first begin to notice me in that way?»

«All right, I dare say I can trust your discretion. But I must now ask you to release me from this unkind and unseemly inquisition.»

Julian said, after another short pause, «So you're going away tomorrow? Where to?»

«Abroad.»

«And what am I supposed to do? Just lock this evening away and forget about it?»

«Yes.»

«You think that's possible?»

«You know perfectly well what I mean.»

«I see. And how long will it take you to get over this, as you put it, unfortunate infatuation?»

«I did not use the word 'infatuation.' «

«Suppose I say you just want to go to bed with me?»

«Suppose you say it.»

«You mean you don't care what I think?»

«Not now.»

«Because you've spoilt all the fantasy fun of your love by bringing it out into the real world?»

I got up and got well away from her this time, walking quickly. I saw her as in a vision, her red-and-blue silk tulip dress spread by her legs, striding like a Spartan maid, her shining blue feet twinkling, her arms held out. And now again she had cut me off and we had stopped beside a lorry loaded with white boxes. A unique but unidentified smell, carrying awful associations, entered my mind like a swarm of bees. I leaned against the tail board of the lorry and groaned.

«Bradley, may I touch you?»

«No. Please go away. If you pity me at all, go away.»

«Bradley, you've upset me and you must let me talk this out, I want to understand myself too, you don't conceive-«I know this must nauseate you.»

«You say you aren't thinking about me. Indeed you aren't!»

«What's that bloody smell? What's in those boxes?»

«Strawberries.»

«Strawberries!» The smell of youthful illusion and feverish transient joy.

«You say you love me, but you aren't interested in me in the least.»

«Nope. Now good-bye. Please.»

«You evidently don't think at all that I might return your affection.»

«Nope. What?»

«That I might return your affection.»

«Don't be silly,» I said. «You're being childish.» Pigeons, unsure whether it was day or night, were walking about near our feet. I looked at the pigeons.

«Your love must be very-what's the word-solipsistic if you don't even imagine or speculate about what I might feel.»

«Yes,» I said, «it is solipsistic. It's got to be. It's a game I play by myself.»

«Then you oughtn't to have told me about it.»

«We agree on that.»

«But don't you want to know what I feel?»

«I'm not going to get excited about what you feel,» I said. «You're a very silly young girl. You're flattered and thrilled because an older man is making a fool of himself about you. Possibly this is the first time this has happened to you, and doubtless it won't be the last. Of course you want to explore the situation a bit, probe your feelings, fake up a few emotions. That's no use to me. And of course I realize that you'd have to be a good deal older and tougher and cooler than you are to be able to drop this thing at once as you ought to do. So you can't do what you ought to do any more than I can. What a pity. Now let's get away from these blasted strawberries. I'm going home.»

«Bradley, how old are you?»

The question took me horribly by surprise, but I replied instantly, «Forty-six.»

Why I told this lie is hard to explain. Partly it was just a bitter joke. I was so absorbed in prophetic calculation of this evening's damage, of how much more awful the pains of loss and jealousy and despair would now be; to be asked my age was somehow the last straw, the last dash of salt upon the wound. One could only jest. Anyway surely the girl knew my age. Also however in another part of my mind was the idea: I am not «really» fifty-eight, how can I be. I feel young, I look young. There was an immediate instinct for concealment. I was in fact about to say forty-eight, and then hopped onto forty-six. That seemed a reasonable age, acceptable, right.

Julian was silent for a moment. She seemed surprised. We turned into Bedford Street. Then she said, «Oh, then you are a little older than my father. I thought you were younger.»

I began to laugh helplessly, wailing softly to myself, how funny it was, how exquisitely insane. Of course young people do not reckon ages, do not perceive temporal distance. Over thirty it all looks much the same to them. And I had this deceptively youthful mask. Oh funny funny funny.

«Bradley, don't laugh in that horrible way, what is it? Please let us stop and talk, I must talk to you properly tonight.»

«All right, let us stop and talk.»

«What's this place?»

«Inigo Jones giving us another chance.»

«No one has ever been sick for me before,» said Julian.

«Don't flatter yourself. It was partly Strauss.»

«Good old Strauss.»

I was sitting Egyptian style, square, with my hands on my knees, looking away into the darkness where the shadow-cat had made himself a play-fellow out of the stuff of the night. A warm hand came questing lightly over my tensed knuckles. «Don't, Julian. I really am going in a minute. Please try to make it easy.»

She withdrew her hand. «Bradley, don't be so cold to me.»

«I may behave like a fool, but that's no reason for you to behave like a bloody bitch.»

«To a nunnery go and quickly too. Farewell.»

«I know this amuses you immensely. But please stop, be silent, don't touch.»

«I won't be silent and I will touch.» She put her tormenting hand upon my arm again.

I said, «You are behaving-so badly-I wouldn't have-believed-you could be so-frivolously-unkind.»

I turned round to face her, taking the offending hand in a strong grip just above the wrist. There was a shock wave as I apprehended rather than saw her excited half-smiling face. Then I put my arms very evenly and strongly around her shoulders and kissed her with very great care upon the mouth.

There are moments of paradise which are worth millennia of hell, or so one may think, only one is not always fully conscious of this at the moment in question. I was fully conscious. I knew that even if the ruin of the world were to ensue I had made a good bargain. I had imagined kissing Julian, but I had not prefigured this concentrated intensity of pure joy, this sudden white-hot rapturous pressure of lips upon lips, being upon being.

I was so utterly transported by the quite unexpected experience of holding and kissing her that it was only, I think, in some secondary moment inside this moment that I became aware that she was also holding and kissing me. Both her arms were round my neck and her lips were ardent and her eyes were closed.

I turned my head and began to push her away and she withdrew her arms from my neck. I was aided in releasing her by the innate awkwardness of seated kissing. We drew apart.

«Don't talk lying rubbish.»

«What am I to do? You won't listen properly. You think I'm a child, you think I'm playing, it's not so. Of course I'm confused. I've known you such a long time, all my life. I've always loved you. Please don't interrupt. Oh if you only knew how much I always looked forward to your coming, wanted to talk to you, wanted to tell you things. You never noticed, but lots and lots of things weren't real to me at all until I'd told you about them. If you only knew how much I've always admired you. When I was a child I used to say I wanted to marry you. Do you remember? I'm sure you don't. You've been my ideal man for ever and ever. And this isn't just a silly child's thing, it isn't even a sort of crush, it's a deep real love. Of course it's a love I've not questioned or thought about or even named until quite lately-but I have questioned it and thought about it-as soon as I felt and knew that I was grown up. You see, my love has grown up too. I've so much wanted to be with you, I've so much wanted to get to know you properly, since I've been a woman. Why do you think I made all that fuss about discussing the play? I did want to discuss the play. But I much more wanted and needed your affection and your attention. God, I wanted just to look at you. You can't think how I've longed to touch you and kiss you sometimes in these last, oh years, only I didn't dare to and thought I never would. And lately, oh ever since that day you saw me tearing up the letters, I've been thinking about you almost all the time-and so especially since last week when I-when I had a sort of premonition about-what you told me tonight-I've thought about nothing else but you.»

«What about Septimus?» I said.

«Who?»

«Septimus. Septimus Leech. Your boy friend. Haven't you been able to spare a couple of minutes to think about him?»

«Oh that. I just said that. I think I may even have said it out of some sort of instinct to tease you. He isn't my boy friend, he's just a friend. I haven't got a boy friend.»

I said, «I see.» I got up lightly and quickly and made for the gateway. I turned along Bedford Street in the direction of Leicester Square station. As I crossed into Garrick Street, Julian, walking beside me, thrust her left hand into my right hand. With my left hand I carefully detached hers and dropped it again by her side. We walked on in silence as far as the corner of St. Martin's Lane.

Then Julian said, «I see that you're determined not to believe or attend to anything that I say. You seem to think that I'm still about twelve.»

«No, no,» I said. «I attended carefully to your statement and found it interesting, even touching. And remarkably well expressed considering you invented it on the spur of the moment. It was not however very detailed or very clear, nor do I yet see what implications it has if any.»

«God, Bradley, I do love you.»

«That's very kind of you.»

«I'm not inventing it, it's true.»

«I am not accusing you of insincerity. Just of not having the faintest idea what you are talking about. You admitted to being confused.»

«Did I?»

«The main source of your confusion is fairly obvious. You have liked me, or, as you are gracious enough to say, loved me, when you were a little ignorant innocent child and I was an impressive visitor, a writer, a friend of your father's and so on. Now you are an adult and I am a man, a good deal your senior, but suddenly seen as inhabiting the same adult world. Even leaving aside the little shocks which you have had this evening, you are naturally surprised, possibly a bit elated, to find that we are now somehow equals. What in this new situation do you do with your old feeling of affection for the man whom the child used to admire? Is this question important? In itself probably not. My inexcusable proceedings have made it so, just for the moment at any rate. Startled, amused and thrilled by my idiotic declaration, you have felt impelled to make a counter-statement which is totally muddled and unclear and which you will certainly regret tomorrow. That's all. Here we are at the station, thank God.»

«Was that kiss I gave you muddled and unclear?» said Julian.

«You're going home by train,» I said. «I'll say good night now.»

«Bradley, have you taken in what I said?»

«You don't know what you said. Tomorrow it will seem a bad dream.»

«We'll see about that! At least you've talked to me, you've argued.»

«There's nothing to talk about. I've just been irresponsibly prolonging the pleasure of being with you.»

«Look, I don't have to go now.»

«Yes, you do. It's finished.»

«It isn't. You won't leave London, will you, please?»

«I won't-leave London,» I said.

«You'll see me tomorrow?»

«Maybe.»

«I'll ring up about ten.»

«Good night.»

Without putting my hands on her I leaned down and brushed her lips very lightly with mine. Then I turned at once and went back up the steps into Charing Cross Road. I walked along blindly, grimacing with joy.

I slept, I suppose. I kept being nudged awake by a sort of bliss and then sinking again. My body ached with a painful delightful sensation of desire and gratified desire, somehow merged into a single mode of being. I groaned softly over myself. I was made of something else, something delicious, in which consciousness throbbed in a warm daze. I was made of honey and fudge and marzipan, and at the same time I was made of steel. I was a steel wire vibrating quietly in the midst of blue emptiness. These words do not of course convey my sensations, no words could. I did not think. I was. In so far as any stray thoughts attempted to intrude into this heaven I sent them packing.

I rose early and shaved with majestic slowness and dressed with indulgent care and spent a long time inspecting myself in the mirror. I looked about thirty-five. Well, forty. My recent regime had made me even thinner and this suited me. Faded silky grey-blond hair, straight and quite a lot of it, a large-nostrilled bony nose, not unsightly, granity blue-grey eyes, good cheekbones, a large brow, a thin mouth: an intellectual's face. The face, too, of a puritan. What of him?

I drank some water. Eating was, of course, once more out of the question. I felt sick and shuddery but the night had been heaven and the glory of it had not yet left me. I went into the sitting-room and once again perfunctorily dusted the more obvious surface which had once again become dusty. Then I sat down and let a few thoughts set themselves end to end.

I could mainly congratulate myself on having been fairly cool last night. It is true that I had been sick at her feet and had told her that I loved her in accents which, I noted, had conveyed the gravity of the situation to her at once. But after that I had behaved with dignity. (Which of course I had been enabled to do partly by the intense cozening delight of her presence.) I could not accuse myself of having then hustled her in any way. But what, oh what, was she feeling about it all by now? Suppose when she telephoned she said coldly that after all she agreed that the matter had best be dropped? I had exhorted her to be adult enough to let go. Perhaps maturer reflection had already made her see the point of this good advice. What had her speech about «love» meant? Did she know what she was talking about? Was it not just a rigmarole which she had invented because she was touched and flattered and excited by my exhibition? Would she draw back? Or if it were the case that she really loved me, what on earth would happen next? But I did not really wonder about what would happen next. If she really loved me it did not matter what happened next.

At about nine o'clock the front doorbell rang. I crept out and peered at the frosted-glass panel. It was Julian. With a quick small effort of self-control I opened the door. She flew in. I managed to kick the door to before sne pulled me into the sitting-room. She had her arms round my neck and I held her in a sort of vivid darkness and then my chattering teeth had become a laughing and crying act, and she was laughing and shuddering too and we had sat down on the floor.

«Bradley, thank Cgt;шdgt; I was so afraid you might have changed your mind since yesterday, I couldn't wait till ten.»

«Don't be a fool, girl– oh-Oh-You're here-you're here-«Bradley, I do loVe you, I do, it's the real thing. I realized it for absolute certain last night after I left you. I haven't slept, I've been in a sort of mad irHnce– This is it. I've never had it before. One can't be in doubt, cgt;n one?»

«No,» I said. «One can't. If there is any doubt it's not it.»

«So you see-«

«What about Mr. Belling?»

«Oh Bradley, don't torment me with Mr. Belling. That was just a nervous craving H? doesn't exist, nothing exists but this-surely you see Besides l*e had no real feelings, no strength, not like you-«I've impressed y

u– You're sure you're not just impressed?»

«I love you. I fe^l shattered but at the same time I feel quite calm Doesn't that show that something extraordinary has happened that calm? I fee^ like an archangel. I can talk to you, I can convince you, you'll see everything. There's plenty of time after all, isn't there, Bradley?

Her question, which was really an assertion, touched me in the midst of my joy with a coldish finger. Time, plans, the future. «Yes, my darling, there's plenty of time.»

We were sitting I with my legs tucked sideways, she kneeling a little above me, her hands caressing my hair and neck. Then she began taking off my tie– x started to laugh.

«You've got such a beautiful head.»

«I thrust it through the curtains of your cradle.»

«And I fell in love at first sight.»

«I'd lay it under the wheels of your car.»

«I wish I could remember when I first saw you!»

It occurred to me suddenly as odd that I could probably establish from an old engagement book, for I had kept them all, what I was doing on the day Julian was born. Resolving some tax problem, lunching with Grey-Pelham.

«When did you first start feeling like this about me? We can talk about that now can't we?»

«We can talk about that now. I think it came on when we were discussing Hamlet.»

«Only then! Bradley, you terrify me. Honestly, I think you should think twice about this. Aren't you just acting out of some momentary emotional impulse? Aren't you all mixed up? Won't you feel quite different next week? I thought at least-«You're not serious, Julian? No, no-you can see that this is something very absolute. The past has folded up. There's no history. It's the last trump.»

«I know-«One can't calculate, measure. But-oh my dear-we are in a fix, aren't we. Come here.» I drew her to me and got her liony head up against my chest.

«I don't see any fix about it,» she said into my clean blue pinstriped shirt, of which she was undoing the upper buttons. «Of course we must move very slowly and test ourselves against time and-not be in a hurry to do-anything-«I agree,» I said, «that we should not be in a hurry to do-anything.» She was not making it easy, however, thrusting her hand inside my shirt, and sighing, and grasping the curly grey hair of my front.

«You don't think that I'm behaving badly, shamelessly?»

«No, Julian, my dear heart.»

«I have to touch you. It's so marvellous, such a sort of privilege-«

«I feel a lot of things,» I said. «Some of them were expressed by Marvell. But what I mainly feel-no, let me talk-is this. I'm totally unworthy of this love which you are offering to me. I won't go on boringly about my unworthiness, but it's there. I am prepared to carry on slowly as you say and let you convince me and convince yourself that you really feel what you now seem to feel. But meanwhile you mustn't be in any way bound or tied-«But I am tied-«You must be completely free-«Bradley, don't be-«I think we even shouldn't use certain words.»

«What words?»

» 'Love,'

'in love.' «

«I think that's silly. But while we've got eyes I suppose we can give words a rest. Look. Can't you see what you won't name?»

«Please. I honestly think we shouldn't define this thing at all. We must just be quiet and patient and see what happens.»

«You sound so anxious.»

«I'm terrified.»

«I'm not. I've never felt braver in my life. What are you afraid of? And why did you say we were in a fix? What fix are we in?»

«I'm very much older than you are. Very much. That's the fix.»

«Oh that. That's simply a convention. It doesn't touch us at all.»

«It does touch us,» I said. I felt its touch.

«Is that all you meant?»

I hesitated. «Yes.» There was much that I would have some day to lay before her. But not today.

«It's not-«Oh Julian, you don't know me, you don't know me-«It's not Christian?»

«What? Christian? God no!»

«Thank heaven. You know, Bradley, when I heard my father talking about bringing you and Christian together I felt such a pang-and that was before-perhaps that began to make me realize how I really felt about you-«Like Emma and Mr. Knightly.»

«A pillar in the desert.»

«And I was worrying about Christian last night too-«

«No, no, Chris is a nice person and I don't even hate her any more, but she's nothing to me. You have let me out of so many cages. I'll tell you-later-in the time-that we've got.»

«Well, if it's not that, the age business doesn't matter a pin, lots of girls prefer older men. So everything's quite clear and plain. I didn't say anything to my parents last night or this morning, as I wanted to be sure you hadn't changed. But I'll tell them today-«Wait a minute! What'll you say to them?»

«That I love you and want to marry you.»

«Julian! It's impossible! Julian, I'm older than you think-«Older than the rocks among which you sit. Yes, yes, we know that!»

«It's impossible.»

«Bradley, you aren't making any sense. Why do you look like that? You do really love me, don't you? You don't just want a love affair and then goodbye?»

«No-I really love you-«Isn't that something forever?»

«Yes. Real love is about forever-and this is real love-but-«But what?»

«You said we'd move slowly and get to know each other slowly-all this has happened so fast-I'm sure you shouldn't-in any way commit yourself-«I don't mind committing myself. That won't stop us being slow and patient and all that. Anyway, we already know each other, I've known you all my life, you're my Mr. Knightly, and the age gap there-«

«Julian, I think we must keep this thing secret for a while «Why?»

» «Because you may change your mind.»

«Or because you may?»

«I won't. But you don't know me, you can't. And I'm more than old enough to be your father.»

«Do you think I care-?»

«No, but society does and you will one day. You'll see me getting older-«

«Bradley, that's soft.»

«I'd very much rather you didn't tell your parents at present.»

«All right,» she said, after a pause, drawing apart from me, kneeling there, her face suddenly childish with doubt.

The shadow between us was unbearable to me. If I was embarked upon this thing let me be embarked. I would have to trust myself completely to her sense of truth, even to her naivety, even to her inexperience, even to her foolishness. I said, «My perfect darling, you, must do whatever you feel is right to do. I leave it entirely to you. I love you absolutely and I trust you absolutely and what will be will be.»

«You think the parents won't like it?»

«They'll hate it.»

After that we talked a bit more about Christian and about my marriage and about Priscilla. We talked about Julian's childhood and the times when we had been together. We talked about when I might have started to love her, and about when she might have started to love me. We did not talk about the future. We continued to sit upon the floor like shy animals, like children, stroking each other's hands and each other's hair. We kissed, not often. I sent her away about midday. I felt we should not exhaust each other. We needed to brood and to recover. Of course there was no question of going to bed.

«You don't quite understand,» I said. «I am not proposing to go away.»

Rachel and Arnold were occupying the two armchairs in my sitting-room. I was sitting on Julian's chair beside the window. There was a murky cloudy light and I had just turned the lamps on. It was the same day, late afternoon.

«What do you propose to do then?» said Arnold.

He had telephoned. Then he and Rachel had arrived. They had, there is no other word for it, marched in. Their presence was like that of an occupying army. To confront familiar people who are suddenly unsmiling and tense with anger and shock is very frightening. I felt frightened. I knew they would «hate it.» But I had not expected this big united hostile will. Their sheer incredulity, feigned or otherwise, silenced me, put me to flight. I could explain nothing and felt that I was creating some entirely false impression.

Also I knew that I was not only seeming but also feeling appallingly guilty.

«To stay here,» I said, «see a bit of the girl, I suppose-«You mean lead her on?» said Rachel.

«To act naturally, get to know her better-After all we-love each other, it appears-and-«Bradley, get back to reality,» said Arnold. «Stop blithering. You're in some sort of dream world at the moment. You're nearly sixty. Julian is twenty. She said at the start that you'd told her your age and that she didn't mind, but you can't mean to take advantage of a sentimental schoolgirl who is flattered by your attentions-«She's not a schoolgirl,» I said.

«She's very immature,» said Rachel, «and very easily taken in, and-«

«I am not taking her in! I've told her that the age difference makes this thing practically impossible-«It makes it entirely impossible,» said Arnold.

«She said the most extraordinary things this afternoon,» said Rachel. «I can't think what you can have been saying to her.»

«I didn't want her to tell you.»

«So you suggested that she should deceive her parents?»

«No, no, not like that-«I can't make out what has happened,» said Rachel. «Did you suddenly feel this-urge or whatever it was-and then go and tell her that you found her attractive, and then make a pass at her, or what? What has happened exactly? This must be fairly new?»

«It is new,» I said. «But it's very serious. I didn't foresee it or will it, it happened. And then when it turned out that she felt the same-«Bradley,» said Arnold, «what you are saying describes nothing which could possibly have happened in the real world. All right, you suddenly felt that she was an attractive girl. London's full of attractive girls. And it's nearly midsummer and you are, perhaps, reaching the age when men make asses of themselves. I've known several people who started sowing some rather unsavoury wild oats at sixty, it's not unusual. But given that you felt randy about my daughter, why the hell didn't you keep quiet about it instead of annoying and upsetting her and confusing her-«She's not annoyed or upset-«She was this afternoon,» said Rachel.

«But you said she was upset-«We told her it was a bad joke.»

I thought, My darling, I trust you, I trust you, and I know. I will keep faith with your faith. But at the same time I felt pain and fright. Could I, after what had happened, now doubt it all? She was so very young. And it was indeed, as they said, something very new in the world. When I thought how new I was amazed at the degree of my certainty. But there, above the doubt, was the certainty.

«I can see that you are listening to us at last,» said Arnold. «Bradley, you are a decent rational man and a moral being. You can't seriously propose to settle down and explore this emotional mess with Julian? I call it an emotional mess, but thank God it hasn't yet had time to develop into one. Nor will it do so. I shall stop it.»

«I don't know what we shall do,» I said. «I agree that the whole thing is fantastic. It's almost too good to be true that Julian should love me. It may even not be true. It has surprised me very much indeed. But I am certainly not going now to let the matter drop. I am not going to go quietly away as you suggested earlier, I am not going to stop seeing Julian, I can't. I must find out whether she really loves me or not. Though what follows if she does I don't know at all, perhaps nothing. All this is extremely unusual and may turn out to be very painful, especially to me. I don't want to cause her pain. I don't think I can do her harm. But at this particular point we can't either of us stop. That's all.»

«She can stop and she will,» said Arnold. «Even if I have to lock her in her bedroom.»

«Of course you can stop,» said Rachel. «Try to be honest! And do stop saying 'we.' You can't answer for Julian. You haven't been to bed with her, have you?»

«Oh Christ, Christ,» said Arnold, «of course he hasn't, he's not a criminal.»

«No, I haven't.»

«And you won't.»

«Rachel, I don't know! Please realize that you are talking to a mad person.»

«So you actually admit to being irrational and irresponsible and dangerous!»

«Arnold, please don't get so angry. You are both frightening me and confusing me and that does no good. When I said 'mad' I didn't mean irresponsible-I feel as responsible as if-I'd been given something-I don't know-the bloody Grail-I swear I won't press her or bother her-I'll leave her quite free-she is quite free-«

There was a moment's silence after this speech. I stared at Arnold. He had been sitting very still, speaking quietly but with a spitting staccato emphasis and with that sort of «edge» to the voice which is intended to terrify. His face under his pale hair was flushed bright pink like a girl's. I tried to check my fear with anger, but could not. I said in a small voice, «Your eloquence suggests to me that Julian did after all convince you both that she was in love.»

«She doesn't know what she feels-«

«This isn't the eighteenth century-«Come!» Arnold got up, and motioned with his head to Rachel who rose too. «We've said what we came to say. We'll leave you to-digest it-see there's only one course for you to-adopt-I opened the sitting-room door. I said, «Arnold, please don't be so angry with me. I haven't done anything wrong.»

«Yes, you have,» said Rachel. «You spoke to her about your feelings.»

«All right. I shouldn't have. But to love somebody isn't a sin, there's good in this, we'll find a way to make it-all good-I won't bother her-if you like I won't see her for a week-let her think things over-«It won't do,» said Arnold, more gently. «Any sort of half-measures will only make things worse. You must see that, Bradley. Christ, you don't want a mess any more than we do. You must go away. If you see her you'll just make more drama. Best thing for all is stop, absolutely, now. Do see it. Sorry.»

Arnold went out of the sitting-room and opened the door of the flat.

Rachel passed me and as she did so she shrank from me and her mouth gave a little wince of disgust. She said tonelessly, «I want you to know, Bradley, that Arnold and I are entirely united in this matter.»

«Forgive me, Rachel.»

She went on out of the flat, turning her back on me.

Arnold came back. He said, «There's no need just now to act on the letter I sent you. Could I have it back?»

«I've destroyed it.»

«No.»

«Well. I will not allow any harm to my daughter. Be sure of that. Be-warned.»

He went out, closing the front door softly. I was panting with emotion. I ran to the telephone and dialled the Ealing number. There was a pause and then the high buzz of «number unobtainable.» I dialled several times, with the same result. I felt as if I had been cut off by an axe at the knees. I held my head in a violent grip, trying to compose myself and think. The urgency of the need to see Julian seethed all round me, blotting out my vision. I was being blinded and stung to death by bees. I was suffocating. I ran out into the court and began to walk at random along Charlotte Street, then along Windmill Street, then along Tottenham Court Road. After a while it began to seem probable that if I did not take some violent and decisive action soon I would collapse. I hailed a taxi and told the man to drive to Ealing.

I stood under the copper beech at the corner of the road. I put my hand on the close-grained trunk of the tree and it felt absurdly there, complacent with indifferent reality. It was evening now, twilight time, the evening of that same lengthy fantastic eventful day.

The evening was overcast, the dour thick light turning a little purple, the air warm and motionless. I could smell dust, as if the quiet tedious streets all around me had dissolved into endless dunes of dust. I thought about this morning and how we had seemed to have all the time in the world. And now there seemed to be no more time. I also thought that if only I had had the wit to take that taxi at once I might have arrived here before Arnold and Rachel. What was happening? I crossed the road and began to walk slowly down on the other side.

I stood now upon the opposite pavement and regarded the house and wondered what to do. I considered the idea of hanging around until three o'clock in the morning and then penetrating into the garden and using one of Arnold's ladders to climb up to Julian's window. But I did not want to become a nightmare figure to her, a night intruder, a secret man. The greatness of this morning had been its lucid openness. This morning I had felt like a cave-dweller emerging into the sun. She was the truth of my life. I would not become a sort of burglar or pickpocket in hers. Besides. There were so many unknown things. What was she thinking now?

As I stood there in that thick oppressive urban dusk breathing the breath of fear, smelling the dunes of dust, I became aware of being looked at by a figure standing in the long unlighted landing window of the house I was studying. I could see the figure framed in the window and the pallor of the face regarding me. It was Rachel. We looked at each other in an awful immobility of quietness for about a minute. Then I turned away, like an animal from a human stare, and began to pace the pavement, to and fro, to and fro, waiting. The street lamps came on.

After about five minutes Arnold came out. I recognized his figure though I could not see his face. I began to walk back up the road toward the copper beech and he followed, then walked beside me in silence. A close-by lamp-post was illuminating one side of the tree, making the leaves a transparent glowing winy purple, and separating them out with clear shadows, each from each. We stepped into the rich gathered darkness underneath the tree, trying to see each other's faces.

Arnold said, «I'm sorry I got so excited.»

«O. K.»

«Everything's got much clearer now.»

«Good.»

«I'm sorry I said all those ludicrous things-about lawyers and so on.»

«So 'm I.»

«I hadn't realized how little had happened.»

«Oh.»

«I mean, I hadn't got the time scheme. I somehow gathered from what Julian said this afternoon that this whatever it is had been going on for some time. But now I understand it's only been going on since yesterday evening.»

«A lot has happened since yesterday evening,» I said. «You should understand, you seem to have been fairly busy lately yourself.»

«You must have thought Rachel and I were being ridiculously solemn this afternoon about very little.»

«I see you're playing it differently now,» I said.

«What?»

«Go on.»

«Now Julian has explained everything to us and it's all perfectly clear.»

«And what does it look like?»

«Of course she was upset and touched. She felt pity for you, she said.»

«I don't believe you. But go on.»

«And of course she was flattered-«What's she doing now?»

«Now? Lying on her bed and crying her eyes out.»

«Christ.»

«But don't worry about her, Bradley.»

«Oh, I won't.»

«I wanted to explain-She has now told us everything, and we can see that this is really nothing at all, just a storm in a teacup, and she agrees.»

«Does she?»

«She asks you to forgive her for being so emotional and silly, and she says will you please not try to see her just now.»

«Arnold, did she really say this?»

' «Yes.

I gripped him by the shoulders and pulled him with me a few steps so that the lamplight fell onto his face. He reacted convulsively for a moment, then stood still in my hold. «Arnold, did she say that?»

«Yes.»

I let go of him, and we both moved instinctively back into the shadow. His face leered at me, twisted up with will and anxiety and deep intention. It was not the pink angry hostile face of earlier. It was a hard determined face which told me nothing.

«Embarrassed?»

«Yes, and it will be most considerate of you to sheer off. Be kind to the child. Let her recover her dignity. Dignity matters so much to a young girl. She feels she's lost face by taking it all so seriously and she feels she's made a bit of an exhibition of herself. If you saw her now she'd just giggle and blush and feel sorry for you and ashamed of herself. She sees now it was silly to take it all so seriously and make a drama of it. She admits that she was flattered, it turned her head a bit, and it was an exciting surprise. But when she saw we weren't amused she sobered up. She understands now that it's all an impossible nonsense, well, she understands, in practical matters she's an intelligent girl. Do use enough imagination to see how she must feel now! She's not such a fool as to imagine you're suffering from any great passion either. She says she's very sorry and will you please not try to see her for a while yet. It's better to have a bit of an interval. We're going on holiday soon anyway, the day after tomorrow, in fact. I've decided to take her to Venice. She's always wanted to go. We've been to Rome and Florence, but never there, and she's got a thing about it. So we're going to take a flat, probably spend the rest of the summer. Julian's absolutely thrilled. I think a change of scene would help my book too. So there we are. I'm awfully sorry I got so worked up this afternoon. You must have thought me a solemn idiot. I hope you aren't angry with me now?»

«Not at all,» I said.

«I'm just trying to act rightly. Well, we all are. Fathers have duties. Please, please try to understand. It's kindest to Julian to play this quite cool. You will sheer off and keep quiet, please? She won't want any heavy letters or anything. Leave the kid alone and let her begin to enjoy herself again. You don't want to haunt her like a ghost, do you? You will leave her alone now, won't you, Bradley?»

«All right,» I said. «Yes.»

«I can rely on you?»

«Bradley, you do relieve my mind. I knew you'd act decently, for the child's sake. Thank you, thank you. God, I'm relieved. I'll run back to Rachel. She sends her love, by the way.»

«Who does?»

«Rachel.»

«Give her mine. Good night. I hope you have a good time in Venice.»

He called me back. «By the way, you did really destroy that letter?»

«Yes.»

I made my way home thinking the thoughts which I will describe in the next section. When I got back I found a note from Francis asking me to call on Priscilla. w.

I had so much loved and trusted Julian's instinct for frankness that I had not even had the sense to advise her to tone it all down a bit. I had not even, fool that I was, really foreseen how awful the thing would look to her parents. I had been far too absorbed in the sacredness of my own feelings to make the cold effort to be objective here. And what an idiot I had been, to go farther back, not to tone it all down myself! I could have broken it to her slowly, moved in on her gradually, wooed her quietly, hinted, insinuated, whispered. There could have been chaste and then less chaste kisses. Why did I have to sick it up all at once like that and put her in a frenzy? But of course this slow-motion idea was only tolerable in retrospect in the light of the knowledge that I now had of her love for me. If I had started to tell her anything at all I could not have stopped myself from telling her everything straightaway. The anxiety would have been too terrible. I did not now meditate upon, or even entertain, the thought that I might have been and ought to have been silent. I did not reject this idea. Only it seemed to belong to some very remote period of the past. For better or worse, that was no longer in question, and guilt about it did not form part of my distress.

I woke to the sound of dustbin lids being clattered by Greeks at the end of the court. I rose quickly into a world which had become, even since last night, much more frightful. Last night there had been horrors, but there had been a sense of drama, a feeling of obstacles to be overcome, and beyond it all the uplifting certainty of her love. Today I felt crazy with doubt and fear. She was only a young girl after all. Could she, against such fierce parental opposition, hold to her faith and keep her vision clear? And if they had lied to me about her was it not likely that they had lied to her about me? They would tell her that I had said I would give her up. And I had said it. Would she understand? Would she be strong enough to go on believing in me? How strong was she? How little in fact I knew her. Was it really all in my mind? And supposing they took her away? Supposing I really could not find her? Surely she would write to me. But supposing she did not? Perhaps, although she did love me, she had decided that the whole thing was a mistake? That would, after all, be a thoroughly rational decision.

The telephone rang but it was only Francis asking me to come and see Priscilla. I said I would come later. I asked to talk to her but she would not come to the telephone. About ten Christian rang and I put the receiver back at once. I rang the Ealing number but got «number unobtainable» again. Arnold must have somehow put the telephone out of action during that period of panic in the afternoon. I prowled about the house wondering how long I could put off the moment when it would be impossible not to go to Ealing. My head was aching terribly. I did try quite hard during this time to put my thoughts in order. I speculated about my intentions and her feelings. I sketched plans for a dozen or so different turns of events. I even tried to feign imagining what it would be like really to despair: that is, to believe that she did not love me, had never loved me, and that all I could decently do was to vanish from her life. Then I realized that I did despair, I was in despair, nothing could be worse than this experience of her absence and her silence. And yesterday she had been in my arms and we had looked forward into a huge quiet abyss of time, and we had kissed each other without frenzy and without terror, with thoughtful temperate quiet joy. And I had even sent her away when she did not want to go. I had been insane. Perhaps that was the only time which we should ever, ever have together. Perhaps it was something which would never, never, never come again.

Waiting in fear is surely one of the most awful of human tribulations. The wife at the pit head. The prisoner awaiting interrogation. The shipwrecked man on the raft in the empty sea. The sheer extension of time is felt then as physical anguish. The minutes, each of which might bring relief, or at least certainty, pass fruitlessly and manufacture an increase of horror. As the minutes of that morning passed away I felt a cold deadly increase of my conviction that all was lost. This was how it would be from now on and forever. She would never communicate with me again. I endured this until half past eleven and then I decided I must go to Ealing and try to see her by force if necessary. I even thought of arming myself with some weapon. But suppose she was already gone?

It had begun to rain. I had put on my macintosh and was standing in the hall wondering if tears would help. I imagined pushing Arnold violently aside and leaping up the stairs. But what then?

The telephone rang and I lifted it. The voice of an operator said, «Miss Baffin is calling you from an Ealing call box, will you pay for the call?»

«What? Is that-?»

«Miss Baffin is calling you-«

«Yes, yes, I'll pay, yes-«Bradley. It's me.»

«Oh darling-Oh thank God-«Bradley, quickly, I must see you, I've run away.»

«Oh good, oh my darling, I've been in such a-«Me too. Look, I'm in a telephone box near Ealing Broadway station, I haven't any money.»

«I'll come and fetch you in a taxi.»

«I'll hide in a shop, I'm so terrified of-«Oh my darling girl-«Tell the taxi to drive slowly past the station, I'll see you.»

«Yes, yes.»

«But, Bradley, we can't be at your place, that's where they'll go.»

«Never mind them. I'm coming to fetch you.»

«What happened?»

«Oh, Bradley, it's been such a nightmare «But what happened?»

«I was an absolute idiot, I told them all about it in a sort of triumphant aggressive way, I felt so happy, I couldn't conceal it or muffle it, and they were livid, at least at first they simply couldn't believe it, and then they rushed off to see you, and I should have run away then, only I was feeling sort of combative and I wanted another session and then when they came back they were much worse, I've never seen my father so upset and angry, he was quite violent.»

«God, he didn't beat you?»

«No, no, but he shook me till I was quite giddy and he broke a lot of things in my room-«Oh my sweet-«Then I started to cry and couldn't stop.»

«Yes, when I came round-«

«You came round?»

«They didn't tell you?»

«Dad said later on that he'd seen you again. He said you'd agreed to give it all up. I didn't believe him of course.»

«Oh my brave dear! He told me you didn't want to see me. Of course I didn't believe him either.»

She said, «I love my parents. I suppose. Well, of course I do. Especially my father. Anyway I've never doubted it. But there are things one can't forgive. It's the end of something. And the beginning of something.» She turned to me with gravity, her face very tired, a little puffy and battered and creased with much crying, and grim too. One saw what she would look like when she was fifty. And for an instant her unforgiving face reminded me of Rachel in the terrible room.

«Oh Julian, I've brought irrevocable things to you.»

«Yes.»

«I haven't wrecked your life, have I, you aren't angry with me for having involved you in such trouble?»

«That's your silliest remark yet. Anyway, the row went on for hours, mainly between me and my father, and then when my mother started in he shouted that she was jealous of me, and she shouted that he was in love with me, and then she started to cry and I screamed, and, oh Bradley, I didn't know ordinary educated middle-class English people could behave the way we behaved last night.»

«That shows how young you are.»

«At last they went off downstairs and I could hear them going on rowing down there, and my mother crying terribly, and I decided I'd had enough and I'd clear out, and then I found they'd locked me in! I'd never been locked in anywhere, even when I was small, I can't tell you how-it was a sort of moment of-illumination-like when people suddenly know-they've got to have a revolution. I was just eternally not going to stand for being locked in.»

«You shouted and banged?»

«No, nothing like that. I knew I couldn't get out of the window, it's too high. I sat on my bed and I cried a lot of course. You know, it seems silly in the middle of all this real sort of-carnage-but I was so sad about the little things of mine my father broke. He broke two sort of cups and all my china animals-«Julian, I can't bear this-«And it was so frightening-and sort of humiliating-He didn't find this, though, it was under my pillow.» Julian took out of the pocket of her dress the gilt snuffbox, A Friend's Gift.

«Bradley, we passed this stage long ago. When I was sitting on my bed and looking at the broken china on the floor and feeling my life so broken, I felt so strong too and calm in the middle of it all and quite certain about you and quite certain about myself. Look at me. Certainty. Calm.» She did look calm too, sitting there beside me with her weary lucid face and her blue dress with white willow leaves on it and her brown shiny young knees and our hands piled together on her lap and the gilt snuffbox in the loop of her skirt.

«You must have more time to think, we can't-«Anyway, about eleven, and that was another last straw, I had to shout and beg them to let me out to go to the lavatory. Then my father came in again and started off on a new tack, being very kind and understanding. It was then he said that he'd seen you again and that you'd said you'd give me up, which of course I knew wasn't true. And then he said he'd take me to Athens-«He told me Venice. I've been in Venice all night.»

«He was afraid you'd follow. I was as cold as ice by this time and I'd already made a plan to pretend to agree with anything he said and then to escape as soon as I could. So I acted a climb-down and how a treat like going to Athens made all the difference and-thank God you weren't listening-and-«I know. I did the same. I actually did tell him I'd sheer off. I felt like Saint Peter.»

«Bradley, I was so tired by then, God yesterday was a long day, and I don't know if I convinced him, but he said he was very sorry he'd been so bad, and I think he was sorry too, only I couldn't bear his becoming emotional and soppy and wanting to kiss me and so on, and I said I must sleep so he went away at last and my God he locked the door again!»

«Did you sleep?»

«Julian, I feel so terrible, so responsible. I'm glad you felt sorry for your mother. You mustn't hate them, you must pity them. In a way they're right and we're wrong-«Ever since they locked that door I began to feel like a monster. But I was a happy monster. Sometimes one has got to become monstrous in order to survive. I'm old enough to know that, anyway.»

I touched her, and through my scorched palm felt and desired the whole of this young sweet guileless being so suddenly and so miraculously given to me. I withdrew my hand and moved slightly away from her. It was almost too much.

«Julian, my heroine, my queen-oh where can we go-we can't go back to my flat.»

«I know. They'll be there. Bradley, I must be properly alone with you somewhere.»

«Yes. Even if it's only to think.»

«What do you mean, even if it's only to think?»

«I feel so guilty about all this-what you called carnage. We haven't decided anything, we mustn't, we don't know-«Bradley, how brave are you really? Are you going to lead me back to my parents? Are you going to stray me like a cat? You are my home now. Bradley, do you love me?»

«Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.»

«Then you must be bold and free and show qualities of leadership. Think, Bradley, there must be some sort of secret place we can go, even if it's only a hotel.»

«Oh Julian, we can't go to a hotel. There isn't anywhere secret we can go to-Oh my God, yes there is! There is, there is, there is!»

The door of the flat was open. Had I left it open? Was Arnold inside waiting for me?

I went in quietly and stood in the hall listening. Then I heard a nearby rustling sound which seemed to come from my bedroom. Then a curious noise such as some bird might make, a sort of descending «woo-oo.» I stood stiffly, prickling with alarm. Then there was the unmistakable sound of someone yawning. I went forward and opened the bedroom door.

«I decided to come back to you. They tried to stop me but I came. They turned me over to the doctors. They wanted me to stay in the hospital but I wouldn't. There were mad people there, I'm not mad. I had some of the shock treatment. It makes you feel terrible. You scream and throw yourself across the room. They ought to hold you. I bruised my arm. Look.» She was speaking very slowly. She began laboriously to pull off the navy-blue jacket.

«Priscilla, you can't stay here. I've got somebody waiting for me. We're just going to leave London.» Julian was in Oxford Street buying clothes with my money.

«Look.» Priscilla was rolling up the sleeve of her blouse. There was a large mottled bruise on her upper arm. «Or do you think they were holding me? Perhaps they were holding me. They have a sort of strait jacket they use but they didn't put it on me. I think. I can't remember. It rattles one's head so. It can't be good. And now they've done something to my brain that won't come right again ever. I didn't understand before what it was. I wanted to ask you about it but you didn't come. And Arnold and Christian were always talking and laughing, I couldn't be quiet in myself for their racket and their cackling. I felt such a stranger there, like a poor lodger. One must be with one's own people. And I want you to help me with the divorce. I felt so ashamed with them because everything in their life was going so well and they were so sort of successful. I couldn't talk about what I wanted with them and they were always in a hurry-and then they got me to start out on these electric shocks. One shouldn't do things in a hurry, one always regrets it. Oh Bradley, I wish I hadn't had those shocks, I can feel my brain's half destroyed with them. It stands to reason, people aren't supposed to have electric shocks are they?»

«Where's Arnold?» I said.

«He's just gone away with Francis.»

«He was here?»

«Yes. He came after me. I just walked out after breakfast. Not that I had any breakfast, I can't eat these days at all, I can't bear the smell of food. Bradley, I want you to go with me to the lawyer, and I want you to go with me to the hairdresser, I must get my hair rinsed. I think I can just do that, it won't be too much for me. Then I think I'll rest. What did Roger say about my mink stole? I kept worrying about that. Why didn't you visit me? I kept asking for you. I want you to go with me to the lawyer this morning.»

«Priscilla, I can't go anywhere with you this morning. I've got to get out of London quickly. Oh why did you come here!»

«What did Roger say about my mink stole?»

«He sold it. He'll give you the money.»

«Oh no! It was such a lovely one, such a special one-«

«Please don't cry-«I'm not crying. I came all the way from Netting Hill by myself, and I shouldn't, I'm ill. I think I'll sit in the sitting-room for a while. Could you make me some tea?» She got up heavily and pushed past me. I smelt a rank animal smell off her mingled with some sort of hospital odour. Formaldehyde perhaps. Her face looked ponderous and sleepy and her lower lip drooped with an effect resembling a sneer. She sat down slowly and carefully in the small armchair and put her feet on a footstool.

«Priscilla, you can't stay here! I've got to leave London!»

She yawned hugely, her nose snubbing up, her eyes squeezed, one hand questing through her blouse to scratch her armpit. She rubbed her eyes and then began to undo the middle buttons of her blouse. «I keep yawning and yawning and I keep scratching and scratching and my legs ache and I can't keep still. I expect it's the electricity. Bradley, you won't leave me will you, you're all I've got now, you can't go away. What were you saying? Did Roger really sell my mink stole?»

«I'll make you some tea,» I said to get out of the room. I went to the kitchen and actually put the kettle on. I was horribly upset at the sight of Priscilla, but of course there was no question of changing my plans. I just could not think what to do immediately. I had a rendezvous with Julian in half an hour's time. If I failed to turn up she would come straight here. Meanwhile Arnold, unaccountably absent, might turn up at any moment.

Someone came in through the front door. I issued quickly from the kitchen, ready to make a dash for freedom. I charged into Francis with such force that I butted him back out of the doorway. We held onto each other.

«Where's Arnold?»

«I strayed him,» said Francis, «but you haven't much time.»

I pulled Francis outside into the court. I wanted to be able to see Arnold coming. Francis was such a relief, I held firmly onto both his sleeves in case he should run away, which however he seemed unlikely to do. He smirked at me, looking pleased with himself.

«Has he told you-?»

«He told Christian who told me. Chris is enjoying it all like mad.»

«Francis,, listen. I'm going away with Julian today. I want you to stay with Priscilla here, or at Notting Hill, wherever she wants to be. Here's a cheque, a big one, and I'll give you more.»

«I say, thanks! Where are you going?»

«Never mind. I'll telephone you at intervals to see how Priscilla is. Thanks for your help. Now I must pack one or two things and get out.»

«Brad, look. I brought this back. I'm afraid it's properly broken now. I broke off the foot trying to straighten it out.» He thrust something into my hand. It was the little bronze of the buffalo lady.

We went back into the house and I dropped the latch on the street door and shut the door of the flat. There was a sort of screeching noise inside the flat. It was the whistling electric kettle announcing that the water was boiling. «Make tea, would you, Francis.»

I ran into my bedroom and hurled clothes into a suitcase. Then I returned to the sitting-room.

Priscilla was sitting bolt upright now, looking frightened. «What was that noise?»

«The kettle.»

«Who is it there?»

«Just Francis. He'll stay with you. I've got to go.»

«When will you be back? You aren't going properly away are you, for days?»

«I'm not sure. I'll ring up.»

«Oh Bradley, please, please don't leave me. It's so frightening, everything frightens me now, I get so frightened at night. You are my brother, I know you'll look after me, you can't leave me with strangers. And I don't know what to do for the best and you're the only person I can talk to. I think I won't go and see the lawyer yet. I don't know what to do about Roger. Oh I wish I'd never left him, I want Roger, I want Roger-Roger would pity me if he saw me now.»

«It's broken now,» she said.

«Yes. Francis broke it trying to mend it.»

«I don't want it now any more.»

I picked it up. One of the buffalo's front legs was broken off jaggedly near the body. I laid the bronze on its side in the lacquer cabinet.

«It's quite broken now. Oh how sad, how sad– «Priscilla, stop it!»

«Oh dear, I do want Roger, Roger was mine, we belonged together, he was mine and I was his.»

«Don't be silly, Priscilla. Roger's a dead loss.»

«I want you to go to Roger and tell him I'm sorry– «Certainly not!»

«I want Roger, dear Roger, I want him– I tried to kiss her, at least I approached my face to the dark soiled line of the grey hair, but she jerked her head as I stooped and rapped me hard on the jaw. «Good-bye, Priscilla, I'll ring up.»

«Oh don't go away and leave me, please, please, please-I was at the door. She stared up at me now with huge slow tears coming out of her eyes, her gaping mouth all red and wet. I turned from her. Francis was just emerging from the kitchen with the tea tray. I saluted him and ran out of the house and along the court. At the end of the court I paused and peered cautiously out round the corner.

Arnold and Christian were just getting out of a taxi about ten yards away. Arnold was paying the taxi man. Christian saw me. She at once moved, turning her back to me and placing herself between me and Arnold.

I dodged back. There is a tiny slit of an alleyway just before the court debouches and I wedged myself into this, and saw almost instantly Arnold striding past, his face set hard with anxiety and purpose. Christian followed him more slowly, her eyes questing about. She saw me again and she made a gesture of a sort of Oriental voluptuousness, a kind of amused sensuous homage, lifting her hands palm upwards and then bringing them sinuously down to her sides like a ballet dancer. She did not pause. I waited some moments and then emerged.