The Honeyed Peace is the collective title of this selection of Martha Gellhorn's stories, which concern the search for an escape from insecurity and unrest by a wide variety of people and for a condition of contentment which seems unattainable, yet of which glimpses are occasionally seen. It is also the title of a story about post-Occupation France where the hysteria and distrust ruin the life of a woman who only wants to enjoy the peace at last. The variety of people and places, so perfectly realized by Miss Gellhorn, ranges from the scholarly German exile who finds it hard to settle in the United States to the sad love affair of a young Englishwoman who tries to find the fulfilment of her personality in Rome, by way of the comfortable suburban life made for themselves by Polish ex-soldiers in Grimsby, the man who has a psychiatrist 'of his own', and many others - all people with conflict in their lives.

'It is hard to see how stories of this Sort could be done better. They are witty, alert, believable in situation, and firm with human detail.' - Chicago Tribune

THE HONEYED PEACE

stories by

Martha Gellhorn

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Martha Gellhorn was born in St Louis and educated there at the John Burroughs School and then attended Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia. She left college after her third year with the desire to write. She had several newspaper jobs in New York, before going to Europe in 1930. She worked and spent time with some 'fierce French pacifists, of various political persuasions' and with some Brownshirts in Berlin in 1933, who made a 'profound bad impression'. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in the summer of 1936, Miss Gellhorn, convinced that it was 'badly misrepresented war', went there and remained in order to write an article. As a result of this article which was published in Collier's Magazine (U.S.A.), she became the first full-time woman war correspondent. During the next nine years, Miss Gellhorn reported on wars in Europe and Asia. She has written seven other books of fiction and numerous short stories in magazines.

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CONTENTS

THE HONEYED PEACE

EXILE

WEEK-END AT GRIMSBY

A PSYCHIATRIST OF ONE'S OWN

ABOUT SHORTY

MIAMI-NEW YORK

LE VOYAGE FORME LA JEUNESSE

CAFÉ IN JAFFA

THE GERMAN

VENUS ASCENDANT

THE HONEYED PEACE

'Stop, Evangeline,' said the young man, laughing, 'tell one story at a time.'

'Oh yes,' Evangeline said, and turned her famous blue eyes on the other two. Nothing that had happened showed in her eyes; they were innocent as before, improbably large, shaded always in the same way with the same blue paste, the long lashes brushed with mascara, and the feather eyebrows rising above them like pennants.

'So there it was,' Evangeline went on, recalled to order and businesslike. 'And Nini was desperate and rushed around Paris in tears and then she went to Cocteau and said, "You've got to get Gregory out, you're the only one who can. The Germans wouldn't dare to touch you and I ask you this in the name of our huge friendship, and besides any man would do it." So Jean said, well, it really was hard and where was Gregory. But Nini only went on weeping and saying, "The sales Boches, imagine locking up Gregory as a spy. What will they do next? " '

The Englishwoman knew this story. She had flown over from London three days ago and was staying with Evangeline, and since they had not seen each other for six years Evangeline told stories steadily, day and night, all the stories mixed together as was her custom; but this one grew clearer now, with Lucien Malier to prompt Evangeline and keep her straight. The other woman, who was wearing an American Red Cross uniform, had arrived in the middle of the story, and though she was used to Evangeline she could not yet decipher it.

'Gregory?' she said.

'Oh, you know Gregory!' Evangeline cried. 'Darling, you must remember! That awful monkey of Nini's.' There was the second while this information lodged in Anne Marsh's brain and then she shouted with laughter, saying, 'Was he brought to trial?'

'You don't believe me,' Evangeline said, hurt. 'It's exactly what happened. They had Gregory locked up at Fontainebleau with a lot of other suspects, it seems, and Nini went out with Jean, wearing a veil, and he climbed over an enormous wall and Gregory bit him when he was carrying him out and Nini had to escape Paris because anyhow there was some talk of her being a spy herself.'

'C'est trop beau,' Lucien said, 'ça me rend nostalgique à pleurer.'

The Englishwoman, Lady Elizabeth Beech, looked at him and thought, poor Lucien. She said, 'Now tell us about Madame Goering and her clothes.'

'Oh yes,' said Evangeline, speaking to Anne Marsh, the late comer, who had to be caught up on all the news. 'You wouldn't believe how wicked the vendeuses were. But, darling, she was incredible, like a huge blond cream puff or a huge blond sausage and with ten bosoms all packed together, and the vendeuses made her such flatteries as have never been heard, not even when the rich Americans used to come, and then they sold her splendid horrors. The great night was at the Opéra. I can't remember what they were doing but it must have been Wagner, and you know all the stairs at the Opéra and what curious views one gets of people, and there she was, poor Madame Goering, in a poison-blue dress, very tight, with patterns of snakes and cows and butterflies all over her in sequins but principally on her derrière and all her bosoms and everyone made a big point of complimenting her on her taste and how she had clothes like nobody else, si parisienne. Oh my goodness, it was amusing. And she swelled, if she could swell, poor Madame Goering, because she was so proud of being parisienne.'

Lucien by now had lain down on the bed, and was laughing softly and weakly to himself.

'How I have missed you,' he said. Then, without turning his head, he remarked, 'I must tell you, Liz, that Evangeline's version of the Occupation is the only sensible one.'

Now Evangeline was launched on a story of how the poor Germans gave a fête champêtre or what they trusted and believed would be a fête champêtre and everyone went pour rigoler, carrying scythes and wearing wooden shoes and Gabrielle de Berville put straw in her hair and covered herself, but literally covered herself, with fertilizer, giving off the most ghastly odour and everyone said to the Germans the Comtesse de Berville is the greatest French authority on fêtes champêtres and that rare delicious perfume she is wearing is a secret in her family, only to be used at fêtes champêtres—

Anne Marsh was watching Lucien and remembering his voice, when he told Elizabeth, or warned Elizabeth, to think well of Evangeline. Now why, she asked herself, why does he bother? Does he imagine we have grown so snobbish and righteous that we cannot understand Evangeline anymore? It was true that at this point, in the first autumn of peace, Evangeline was suitable only for a limited audience of initiates who would not expect a war to make changes.

Anne considered her neat blue uniform and the drab and almost shapeless black tailleur Elizabeth was wearing (it was not even pure black; it had passed into that indefinite green-black which heralds the end), and she realized how horribly efficient their clothes were. But Evangeline, returning from exile to another harsher exile, looked as if time had stood still. She wore her dark red hair high on her head, as she had these last ten years (did she start that style?), and her dress was what every woman wanted, the sleek, delicately and intricately cut, entirely simple black sheath. Evangeline had tied about her throat three tight strands of pearls and clear round emerald beads, and her nails were long and the same cherry pink as her mouth. Anne thought: I will never look like that again, I have lost it. But Evangeline had always looked like this. However the fashion was, Evangeline slightly preceded and improved on it. Anne thought, with brief resentment, I wish I hadn't lost it. It is something a woman needs.

The room was the same, too. For some reason, one always sat in this room, though it was where Evangeline and Renaud slept, and before the war people were not so accustomed to meeting in bedrooms. The bed, large and entirely square, was covered by a grey short-napped fur spread. There were low tables and large low lamps, bookshelves, great chairs, and nothing that would make you think it was a bedroom, except the bed which had become, with habit, a vast couch, where people sprawled, laughed, argued, and gossiped. Anne had never been able to imagine Evangeline and Renaud in bed together, neither sleeping, talking, reading, nor making love. This was a public room.

It was much colder than before, with the central heating unfed throughout Paris, and the one small electric heater burning dimly on the reduced current. The rest of the apartment, as satin and gloomy and grey as this, was dark and freezing. One felt that Evangeline would disappear into it, giving off a whimper of loneliness, now that Renaud was gone. It was Renaud who filled the other rooms, with his lunches and dinners when so many people came and all paid homage to Renaud's certainties, with the worshipful secretaries bustling in the office, the appalling politicians murmuring deals in the rigid salons. What does she do at night, Anne wondered; sit here and forget the other rooms which were Renaud's territory? What did she do without Renaud, since she had made him her whole life for almost twenty years? Though personally, Anne thought, I would be so relieved to be free of Renaud for a bit that his being in gaol would seem a gift.

'I'm late,' Anne said suddenly. She was having dinner with one of the never-ending captains; he happened to be a Pole. He would talk to her about women and love and Russia and his regiment, and be charming, and she would like him not for herself but because of what he had done in that other life, the war. She had heard more about women and love in the last three years, from the men of the Allied nations, than she could equably endure. And she was tired of talking about Russia and also about regiments.

'But you can't go,' Evangeline said, 'you haven't told us anything. You arrive, very mysterious and military, and far the chic-est woman in Paris, and then you depart. What are you doing? Where did you come from?'

'Berlin, darling. On leave. Going back to Berlin. And I do the same thing always: I dispense doughnuts and listen.'

'You see,' Evangeline said to the other two, 'how she is. Always the same. Beautiful and disabused. Dear Anne. You are the only authentic glamour girl.'

'Crotte,' said Anne.

Lucien told Evangeline to leave Anne alone, no woman wearing a Mainbocher dress had the right to tease another locked into a uniform, and furthermore he had to go too. 'Until tomorrow,' he said and they left despite Evangeline's protests. There was a flicker of panic in Evangeline's eyes, for now everyone was going and the night would start.

'We will make ourselves a delectable boiled egg,' she was saying to Elizabeth Beech, as Anne Marsh and Lucien Malier went down the ill-lit, never very clean marble stairs. 'And we will dress for it. You will wear my sumptuous Balenciaga with the bullfighter's jacket. That emerald lining will be too lovely, darling. And I shall wear draperies, many draperies, the purple ones, and float over the egg ...'

Lucien held on to the banister and walked carefully down the stairs. Anne had noticed his limp when first she saw him in Paris a year ago at the beginning of the last long cold winter of the war. She had not asked him what this new limp was, because one asked nothing in Paris in those days. There was a terrible discretion between friends, after the years of separation, and not knowing what the friends had thought or done, or where they had been. But Larrive, in whose studio she met Lucien, told her that Lucien's right leg was useless as a result of one of the various tortures practised by the Gestapo. Lucien had been very good during the war and very important, and now he walked badly and, as total reward, ate little and ran that dank art gallery in the rue Jacob.

Anne Marsh was long since accustomed to the fact that heroes rarely looked like heroes; and yet, perhaps Lucien did suit the role, with that thin and nervous face, the, to her, unattractive delicacy of his bones, his grey guarded eyes. She could imagine Lucien would keep secrets; she had not imagined he would be brave for he did not seem to have enough blood to feed bravery. They had spoken, that first time, of Evangeline. Lucien would rather speak of Evangeline than of anything else. Anne was glad to have Lucien safely ticketed in her mind. It had been very awkward, a year ago, to be received so warmly by acquaintances who had been equally cordial in their reception of the Germans.

Now, standing in the street, Lucien said, 'You have seen many courageous people these last years, Anne?'

It was too cold and too dark for that sort of talk, Anne thougnt; it was possible talk only when drunk and warm, if at all. It was not possible ever on this solemn tone.

'I suppose so. Can I give you a lift, Lucien?'

'Thank you, I have my bicyclette.' He stooped, and in the blue light of the street lamp she watched him buckling metal bracelets around his trouser legs. When he stood up, he said, 'You will not have seen anyone with more courage than Evangeline.'

Here he was again, with his warnings. It made Anne impatient. Lucien had been uselessly in love with Evangeline for as long as Evangeline had been obsessedly in love with Renaud; on the other hand, that did not give him a monopoly in the understanding and interpreting of Evangeline.

'I think she's behaving very well,' Anne said in an objectionable voice.

'You know it is better than that.'

'All right, Lucien! Et après? What do you want me to say?'

'I want you to help her.'

'That's what I came to do, idiot. Only I couldn't very well embarrass her in front of you and Liz by pulling out a cheque-book. I'll come back tomorrow.'

'It is not that. She can of course use money, but she does not need it now. She needs support.'

'What do you mean?'

'She needs persons like you,' he said, with courteous malice, 'persons of unimpeachable character, who have always been on the right side. To give her category, and to plead her case.'

'Her case is okay. Renaud's case.'

'Renaud's case is hers, as you know.'

'I'm sorry, Lucien. I'll do whatever Evangeline needs; but I'm damned if I'll go around saying Renaud is the biggest patriot since Clemenceau.'

'You dislike Renaud?'

'Of course I dislike Renaud, so do you. We've been disliking Renaud for eighteen years. You can't expect me to break my heart over Renaud.'

'It is Evangeline whose heart I am considering.'

'No one really does anything about collaborators. Unless you call indignité nationale something. And I feel Evangeline will survive that, in case she happens to understand what it means.'

'You are very hard, Anne.'

'It's the doughnuts.'

'Quoi?'

'The doughnuts. They have made me hard.'

'Bon soir,' he said coldly, and did not shake hands with her.

Oh hell, Anne thought, trying to start her Liberated Ford, and listening with anxiety to the dreary but unsuccessful turning-over of the motor. Now I've quarrelled with Lucien, when I love Evangeline too; but it is too much to ask me to go about abetting Renaud. She thought of Renaud: tall, dark, vulgarly handsome and knowing it, beloved of women, always healthy, permanently successful. Damn Renaud, damn his selfishness towards Evangeline, and his cushy war in Sweden, serving le Maréchal, and damn him for coming home at this point and being put into gaol. Why couldn't he have stayed in Sweden, instead of returning, with Evangeline, to get arrested and make Evangeline suffer and embarrass her friends? How dared a man like Renaud pose a question of conscience to anybody?

I'm so late, she said to herself furiously, oh, curse this bloody car. And then the motor started, and she thought how lucky she was, in a world of feet and bicycles, to have petrol-driven transport.

Lady Elizabeth Beech, looking from the rear like a woman who would turn and offer to sell you wilted violets from a basket, stood with her nose glued to the window of Van Cleef and Arpels, in the Place Vendôme. It was a clear sunny day, and Paris was too beautiful to see all at once, so she took it in careful doses. Now she was staring at a weird diamond-and-gold collar that would weigh heavily on some rich neck, and she was thinking that nothing made sense. For all the time Van Cleef and Arpels had been fabricating this unlikely necklace, she had been fabricating aeroplane carburettors, and though clearly she was the better citizen of the two, they had their necklace and she had nothing but grained hands and a sense of soul-destroying shabbiness. Also she was tired and felt herself to be muted, unappealing, and numb. Who would have enough money, what kind of person still had enough money, to buy those aquamarine earrings which looked like carved chunks of iceberg? Who would have the money, or the hope? Where did you go, wearing such things; what sort of people did you see; and who, in fact, were you?

An arm was linked through hers and Anne Marsh said, 'Envious?'

'Yes.'

'So am I. Last year I was angry. But now I'm used to it. If it cheers you, I've seen that necklace on and off for a year; so no one can afford to buy it anyhow. That's something.'

'Let's have a drink.'

'The Ritz? For auld lang syne?'

'No.'

'Georges is back in the dear old bar. It makes me feel a hundred years old.'

'Let's go anywhere,' Lady Elizabeth said and they started walking up the rue de la Paix towards the rue Daunou.

They turned at Dunhill's and headed for the rue Royale. Elizabeth Beech had it vaguely in mind that Weber's would be a good place to go, and sit in the sun, and stare at strangers.

'Everyone looks so loud,' Lady Elizabeth said. 'Not chic any more, just loud. Those revolting pompadours and those shoes for club feet and the short skirts and long coats. I hate the way they look. It's such a disappointment to me. I counted on being delighted.'

'They claim they started it to repel the Germans, I imagine they're keeping it up to repel the British and Americans.'

'It's very inconsiderate. If you haven't seen anything pretty for six years, it does seem mean of them to look as loathsome as possible.'

'There's one good one,' Anne said. Across the street a tall slender woman, dressed in black, walked unhurriedly among the little hurried people. She was as conspicuous as if she had been dressed in flames. She moved better than the other women, because she knew how to walk and also because she was wearing low-heeled shoes, an improved version of Russian boots done in black suède. All they could see, since she was turned away from them, was the loose, full, but tightly belted black coat, and a hood of dark cloth banded in mink, and a huge square black bag swinging from her shoulder. She looked as if she had stepped out of her sleigh (which would be made of teakwood with pale blue satin cushions) to stroll around Paris, in case Paris happened to be a ballet set of Czarist Moscow.

'Oh dear,' said Lady Elizabeth, 'what a pleasure. That's what I mean. Why can't they all look like that, so beautiful and pointless? It isn't much to ask.'

The tall woman turned into a doorway.

'Gone to buy herself a pair of underpants,' Anne said, 'made of pure crêpe-de-Chine and trimmed with Venetian lace, for five hundred dollars the pair.'

'It still makes you angry, doesn't it?'

'Yes.'

'That's because you're American, and Americans are moral.'

'Shall we just get across the street while the light is red and you spare me your observations on Americans?'

'Huffy. Well, it's the war,' Lady Elizabeth said cheerfully, 'it's done terrible things to people's dispositions.'

They were across the street and in the sun and Anne was saying, 'If anything bores me, it's Americans are moral, and Frenchmen lecherous, and Englishmen empire-builders. ...'

The tall woman came out of the shop. They could imagine the scent of the shop, which would come with her; they could imagine the grey-clad enamelled saleswomen standing there, in the scented grey room behind her, folding up the transparent underwear. The tall woman had opened the door and walked out with ease and assurance, and now she stopped in the sun, as if she were alone in the street or alone in a streetless world, and leaned against the wall, out of sight of the shop, and put one black-gloved hand over her eyes. She stood this way for a moment, and anyone passing might have thought the lady was suddenly ill, dizzy, feeling faint. Her shoulders, which were thin and stylishly square, lost their shape, and she no longer seemed tall. Then she took her hand from her eyes, straightened herself, and turned, walking towards the Place de la Concorde. The ease and assurance were there, but she had commanded her body and was walking as she intended to walk, by act of will.

They had seen it was Evangeline, at once, and started to join her when she covered her eyes. They stopped and pretended to be looking in a shop window and waited. They watched Evangeline pass through the crowds on the pavement and did not move.

'Should I hurry and cross over by the Louvre and get home first?' Lady Elizabeth said, 'or let her go and come in a little later?'

'She'll be going home?'

'Of course.'

'What do you suppose happened?'

'They refused to serve her, obviously. You can't think how patriotic these people are, if their clientele was entirely Black Marketeers or collaborators or Germans. And if your husband is in gaol, you are really fair game.'

'And then again,' Anne said, 'maybe some of them lost their husbands in the war or their boy friends to the Gestapo. You never can tell.'

'Why don't you go in and have a lovely time being patriotic with them?'

'Oh, Liz, for God's sake, don't let's quarrel about this. What is the use?'

'I'll give her time to get home. Come on, let's have a gaseous at Weber's. I'll give her a quarter of an hour.'

They found a small sticky table at Weber's and the waiter was hostile. There was no beer, they knew better than to order coffee, and the gazeux — which became their inevitable choice - was the colour of blood and tasted of chemical cherries. Around them shabby pallid people read the newspapers with some sort of desperation, and no one laughed about anything at all. There was not even one couple holding hands. Anne remembered Weber's with tenderness, but it was a ten-year-old memory. That was the time when one's friends were just one's friends, and there were no problems that could not be solved, and in the morning one came here, serene and smoothed, and ate breakfast with a man one loved, and read only the parts of the paper which were funny, and made plans for another untroubled day.

After a while, Lady Elizabeth said, 'Have you seen Clarice de Rémont?'

'No.'

'Or Agnès Farde or Bea de Branhaut or notre chère Germaine?'

'No.'

'They're doing awfully well,' Lady Elizabeth said dreamily, 'oh, frightfully well. You can barely push your way into their salons, for the American officers. Or else they're stuffing themselves at the Embassies. It seems they were all really magnificent during the war.'

'I'm not responsible for the poor half-witted American officers,' Anne said.

'And they've all cut Evangeline,' Lady Elizabeth went on. '"Cut" is perhaps the wrong word, because to cut someone you must of course see them. Which they have not done. They speak very ill of her and Renaud and are full of virtue.'

'What did you expect them to do?'

'I moved to Evangeline's as a protest. It is very uncomfortable, I must say. But I wasn't going to let those girls get away with that.'

'But Renaud still is a collaborator.'

'No more than a lot of other people, and certainly no more than those lovelies.'

'It's probably my American morality, as you say. I cannot seem to forget that stinking war.'

'And Renaud couldn't have done much harm, stuck off there in Sweden, not nearly as much as that little ordure Michel Varennes, who is walking around quite happy and free as air.'

'Yes, I know,' Anne said wearily. 'But it doesn't mean you have to be blood brothers with Michel.'

'And Evangeline of course never collaborated with anybody. All she seems to have done is make fun of the Germans, because she found them grotesque. I don't know why Evangeline should be insulted by those dear old pals of hers, who collaborated as hard as they could until they saw that the Germans were losing, and then maintained a discreet silence until liberated. Since when they talk as if they were all Joan of Arc, nipped from the stake at the last moment.'

'Have another gaseous.'

'I hated this war,' Lady Elizabeth said with passion. 'I hated every minute of it. I'm not going to let it destroy everything.'

'It's done pretty well, if you ask me.'

'I'm not going to let it destroy the thing of being friends along with every other bloody thing.'

Anne drank some more of the sickening cherry mixture, and gave Elizabeth Beech time to hide inside herself again. Then she said, 'I used to know Pierre Lanier.'

'Did you?'

'Yes. He was by way of being a beau of mine.'

'He was shot a few weeks ago, wasn't he?'

'Yes. Do you think I should have rallied round?'

'It's different, Anne. He worked for the Germans, he excused the concentration camps. Evangeline didn't understand anything about them.'

'And Renaud?'

'How do I know about Renaud? I'm talking about Evangeline. She never knows anything except loving Renaud. She doesn't concentrate on anything else. She may be a fool but she was never wicked. I must go now. She'll be home and all pulled together.'

'I'll come and see her late this afternoon.'

'She hasn't given a sign of how she feels about Renaud, but she doesn't sleep and sometimes she forgets to act and you can see in her eyes that she's going mad. You know, that's another thing about Evangeline, she has almost the best manners there are.'

Anne Marsh had paid for the blood-red drinks and they stood in the street, with the driven anxious people breaking around them like water breaking against a bridge, and Anne said, 'I wish I hadn't come.'

'So do I. But there it is.'

'Will I see you again?'

'You will find me any morning, window-shopping in these streets. I don't seem to have much money any more. Do you?'

'No. Not much.'

'Ah well,' said Lady Elizabeth, 'we've still got our youth and beauty.'

They looked at each other and laughed. Then Elizabeth Beech started walking fast towards the river and the grey cold apartment and Anne wandered up towards the Opéra. There was an hour to lose before lunch. She might do down to Notre Dame and look at the Seine and the two great square towers holding back the sky. She might do anything, if there was anything she wanted to do. And then she would have lunch with a British major, and cocktails with an American colonel, and dinner with another captain who happened to be French. Giddy life, she thought, gay mad Paree.

No one answered the doorbell though the concierge had said that Madame Vilray was home. Anne Marsh turned the unshined brass door-knob, for no reason, and found it opened and thought, Evangeline is too careless. She would have to remind Evangeline that, since one no longer had servants, one was supposed to lock one's own door. She walked into the bedroom and Evangeline was there, sitting on a straight chair, before the small ineffectual electric heater. Her face looked like the face of the blind, being empty of expression, and with a terrible lineless death on it. She sat erect and did not hear the door open and did not move. Her skin was white and stretched, and though her eyes were open, obviously she saw nothing.

'Evangeline,' Anne said softly. She was trying to remember any doctors she had known, or she could call the Embassy and they would send someone.

Evangeline turned and looked at Anne and did not speak.

'Evangeline! You are ill. Come on, I'll get you to bed. Darling, listen to me.'

'They have moved him,' Evangeline said, speaking very slowly. 'He is not in his prison any more. I went to take his dinner, as I always do, and they said, "Madame, he is gone. We will notify you." So they have taken him somewhere and killed him.'

Anne was so relieved that she felt herself gasping out a shrill laugh of nerves. She checked this and said, 'It means nothing of the sort. Do listen to me.'

'Then why would they not say where he has gone?'

'It's sure to be a rule. There's always a rule. Listen, Evangeline.'

Evangeline's face was again turned blindly towards the wall.

'You see, I've heard about this,' Anne went on. 'There's a period when they're questioned in Paris, and then they get moved to one of the prisons on the outskirts, and they wait there for trial. It's always the same. It's a very good thing, believe me, because it means he'll have his trial sooner and that way he'll be home sooner. It's nothing to be frantic about, Evangeline, really it isn't, you must believe me.'

Anne had been talking so fast that her breath was gone, and her mouth felt dry, and still Evangeline stayed inside her silence. The silence in the room now was like a lack of air, and Anne moved to the window and opened it and the cold dark September evening flowed into the cold dark room. Then Anne, shivering, saw what she had done, and closed the window. I'm going to cry, she thought; I can't shake her out of this, I must get a doctor.

Anne went to the telephone and when Evangeline heard the number being dialled, she said, 'What are you doing?'

'I'm going to call a doctor for you.'

'Stop it.'

Anne put down the telephone and Evangeline said, 'I need nothing, I need only to know where Renaud is.'

'Darling, he's all right. I swear to you. This is routine. I'll try to find out where he is, but it can't do any good your being in this state. Let's have a drink, let's do something. We'll go out to dinner.'

'I will wait here. Someone will notify me.'

'Notify!' Anne said and was shocked to hear her voice almost hysterical against Evangeline's slow and heavy words. 'For God's sake stop acting as if this was Germany and they sent you a box of ashes. This is France, Evangeline, and the war is over and there are trials and laws and a parliament and embassies and people are not notified.'

'Yes,' said Evangeline. There was a beginning of life in her voice.

'You've forgotten. You're all mixed up. You've been alone here, thinking, and you've made it all crazy. But it isn't like that. Renaud will have a trial. There's no question of people being shot on the road between prisons. That's stopped, don't you see?'

'Yes,' Evangeline said again, from a great distance.

'Oh, darling!' Anne knelt by the straight chair and took Evangeline's beautiful hands, with the long fingers and the long pink nails, and tried to warm them in her own. 'Please go to bed. I'll bring you dinner. Have you a boule?'

Evangeline moved as in a dream, obeying this insistent voice which was kind, if too near, too loud. Anne found a hot-water bag and no hot water and went into the kitchen to boil a kettle. She looked for food and found a loaf of bread and a can of sardines and bouillon cubes and thought: It will be enough because she can't eat, but I must try to make her swallow something hot. When she came back Evangeline was in bed, lying flat on the pillow, with the somnambulant look on her face.

'As you are American and of the Red Cross,' Evangeline said carefully, 'they would tell you.'

'Yes, darling.' Anne put the hot-water bag inside the bed. 'Are you warmer?'

'I am all right.'

'I'll bring you something to eat.'

'No, please. I must know where Renaud is.'

Where was Liz? where was Lucien? Why weren't they here to help? She could not handle this alone, for she had never seen this kind of fear.

There was another silence, while Anne stood awkwardly beside the bed. Her hands seemed very large to her and very far out of her sleeves. Then Evangeline, without moving her fixed sleep-walker's eyes, said, 'Please find Renaud, Anne.'

'Yes, darling.' I'm babbling, Anne thought.

Anne dialled the American Embassy number. Tommy Grainger, who was First Secretary now, would know something or at least be sane and practical. While she waited, she wondered if any man ever felt for any woman as Evangeline did for Renaud: did any man ever die of fear for a woman?

Tommy Grainger was not at the Embassy and not at the Claridge, where he lived, and as Anne made the telephone calls, she could feel Evangeline in the bed turning to stone. The silence again became airless and choking. At last, helplessly, Anne telephoned the Ritz Bar and asked for Georges, and heard that collected airy voice and was told, in the way of Georges' repeated miracles, that Monsieur Grainger was here, one little moment, Mademoiselle. Then Tommy came, with behind him the small screeching of the bar, and he said, 'Hello, beauty, I thought you were in Berlin.'

'I am usually; this is my leave. Tommy, I want to ask you something.'

'Ask.'

'You know Renaud Vilray, don't you?'

'No. I know who he is, of course.'

'His wife is a great friend of mine. Renaud has been moved from his prison, you know that one in the Ministère. And they won't tell Evangeline where he's gone. Can you find out?'

'No, Anne, I can't. When was he moved?'

'This evening.'

'They'll telephone his lawyer in the morning and say where he is, and then the lawyer can see him and probably take his wife to visit. He might be at Fresnes or Drancy or anywhere. They only keep people in town for questioning.'

'That's what I told Evangeline.'

'Well, that's how it is. Tell her to have a drink and forget it; she'll hear from the lawyer in the morning. How did you ever get mixed up in this rat race?'

Anne, fearing that his voice would carry to the bed, said quickly, 'I'm here with Evangeline. She's a very old friend of mine.'

'Terrible nuisance, isn't it?' Tommy Grainger said. 'One's old friends. I wouldn't go to Germany on a bet, I'm so afraid I'd run into all my old Nazi pals, in case they've avoided being shot. They won't shoot Vilray though, it's too late in the game, and he's only a second-class collaborator anyhow.'

'Thank you, Tommy,' Anne said nervously. 'Go back to your drink.'

'How about meeting me tomorrow?'

'Yes, I'll call you. Thank you, darling. Good night.'

She turned to Evangeline. 'Tommy says exactly what I do; it is routine; Renaud's lawyer will be informed in the morning, and you'll go and see him with the lawyer. There's absolutely nothing to get excited about. Tommy Grainger is our expert on all these things,' Anne said, lying earnestly. 'He is the very top authority.'

'What did he say?'

'I've told you, darling. Renaud may be at Drancy or Fresnes; in the morning his lawyer will be informed. Have you heard me?'

'Yes,' Evangeline said. Unaccountably, her voice sounded sleepy.

Her face was better now; it had stopped dying and looked only haggard and sick.

'I'm going to make you something to eat,' Anne said.

In the kitchen, she wondered again where Liz could be, or Lucien, or how she could warn her French Captain that she would be late or not coming at all. She burned her hands on the toast and realized she was sweating with nerves and a sort of oppressive hurry.

But Evangeline had, by some secret and mysterious process of healing, gone further in her cure: she was sitting up in bed and rouging her lips, and erasing, with lipstick, part of the sickness from her face.

'You are a sweet little cabbage,' she said to Anne graciously, 'and very competent, and I admire you. You are so clever with telephones and always know exactly what to do. I have behaved tiresomely and you must forgive me.'

'Eat your delicious handmade supper and shut up,' said Anne. Everything was going to be fine. For Evangeline had found her strange singing absurd voice again, which meant that she would return to her permanent role of being Evangeline, amusing and inconsequential and worldly, and safe as thistledown is safe.

'Such bouillon,' Evangeline said. 'Divine. What a lovely little wife you will make for a great strong American; you will wear a pinafore covered with rosebuds and cook him bouillon.'

'I will cook him doughnuts,' Anne said, 'to keep him in his place.'

'What have you been doing in Paris, Anne? Tell me all your excitements.'

'Nothing. That's what I came to do.'

'Oh,' said Evangeline, drawing out the word, 'I just remembered. The most superb little event which happened to me this morning. I went to Auclair's to buy a négligée, though really one should not waste millions of francs these days when things are so expensive and everything is of course very unsettled. But still, I thought one négligée is not ruin, and then I will be pretty for Renaud when he returns from his prison. So I went in, thinking of something else anyhow, and saw the vendeuses, drawn up behind the counter like a female firing squad and all scowling ferociously through their mascara. The head vendeuse came out to me, with such, a martial look, like someone who is about to say "Fire", and smoke pouring from her nostrils and quivering with patriotism and fury and many other pleasurable emotions. So I said amiably, "I think that rose toile de soie would be pretty," pointing to something which was suspended on the counter, and she said, "Madame, we do not serve the enemies of France." I looked around quickly to see what enemies were in the room but as there were none, it was clearly me she meant, so I said, still pleasant but with the most beautiful hauteur, "You will kindly put the rose toile de soie away, and when the judges have apologized to my husband, I shall come for it and you may apologize to me." Wasn't it brilliant, darling? I did wish there was someone to hear, and I never made a speech before, and to make such a good one on the first try, really wasn't it clever? And then I sailed out, as dignified as I do not know what, and when I got out of sight I stopped and did my laughing but of course not where the firing squad could see me.'

Anne had turned away, and was now apparently searching for an ashtray. She fumbled on the table, knocking against one of the low large lamps. She saw everything blurred, due to sudden tears, and she forgot that she must laugh. Then she realized that Evangeline was waiting, and she could not laugh, so she said, 'You will have to buy the négligée quite soon, won't you?'

'Yes,' Evangeline said, 'perhaps now I have made such a lovely speech, I could go back for it before the trial, to give them time to fit it.'

'That's a sound idea.'

'But you did not tell me what you are doing. I interrupted you.'

'Nothing, darling. Resting.'

'With dozens of handsome and spirited young men to help you?'

'Handsome and spirited young men are no rest. I see them by the hundreds every day. A rest would be dozens of nice old ladies, knitting a nice old quilt.'

'I never understand. What is it you do, wearing that delightful blue costume?'

'I hand out coffee and doughnuts and smiles to handsome spirited young men.'

'No! Have you been doing that all through the war?'

'Yes.'

'But what a lovely way to spend one's time!'

'Oh yes,' Anne said quietly, 'it's all been great fun.'

She saw that Evangeline had finished with her tray, though the sardines lay untouched in their oil and the bread had only been crumbled.

'Could you sleep now, darling?'

'Yes,' Evangeline said. 'You are sweet to me. Yes, I will. Because I must be up very early and make myself pretty to go visiting with the lawyer.'

'That's right. I'll leave the tray in the kitchen. Do you want anything else?'

'No, thank you. I must take many pullovers to Renaud tomorrow because it's getting quite cold, isn't it? Good night, darling.'

The French Captain was sitting on a banquette at the Relai Saint Germain, looking anxious and angry, but when Anne came in the door his face cleared and his pleasure in seeing her distressed Anne, for she felt it was dishonourable to eat up his money when she cared so little about him. She smiled readily when that seemed called for, or nodded serious agreement and heard nothing. She was thinking of Evangeline.

She was not angered now that Evangeline had no time or understanding for the life of the world; Evangeline was occupied to the point of madness. Surely there were few people with the strength and daring for such passion. It also did not matter that loving Renaud this way was against nature, because he so little deserved it; Renaud was an accident or a joke of God's. But Evangeline, whom Anne had seen for the first time, was no accident, because, accidentally, one did not, no one did, no one could, support such love for eighteen uneasy years. There was nothing to feed the love, except Evangeline's own heart and will. It was not surprising that she had nothing left, and that she hid behind her gay and stony mask of nonsense. For Evangeline could not waste herself on anything; she had this one tireless service to perform.

I must see that she gets money, Anne thought, so she can buy fifty négligées, and I must go there early in the morning to drive her and the lawyer to visit Renaud. I will also have to take on Renaud, and see what I can do. If Tommy is right, and he is only in the second class of collaborators, it ought to be possible to hurry up his trial. We will have to save him for Evangeline, since she has earned him.

'What do you think of collaborators?' Anne asked the French Captain, suddenly.

'They should be shot,' he said at once, 'and all of them. And make this country clean again, for the clean people.'

Anne excused herself early, saying with truth that she was tired. The French Captain looked sad but she could not help that. She could not handle everyone's troubles at the same time. Her bed was cold and she felt drearily wakeful. Something nagged in her brain, which she could not catch and give shape to. Finally, she knew what it was; it was a hurting, unanswerable question. If you did not love as Evangeline did, and never had, and surely never would, what had you lost?

The telephone woke Anne, and she answered in the hoarse morning voice of the cigarette smoker.

'Anne?' said Lady Elizabeth. 'Are you awake?'

'Not exactly.'

'Anne, Renaud killed himself last night.'

Then Anne thought, No, I am not awake, this has not happened, and she held the silver-plated telephone horn away from her, staring at it.

'Did you hear me?'

'Yes,' Anne said.

In the silence, the telephone operator suddenly announced, 'Vous avez terminé?'

'Non! non!' Anne shouted. 'Ne coupez pas, Mademoiselle - ne coupez pas ...'

Elizabeth Beech's voice returned, not so much faint as grey.

'Cut off,' she said.

'Yes. Is it true what you said?'

'Of course.'

'The pig,' Anne said. 'Oh, the filthy pig!'

'I couldn't agree more,' said the grey voice. 'The last wretched trick to play on Evangeline.'

'Mademoiselle,' said the telephone operator, 'il y a une communication pour vous.'

'Ne coupez pas!' Anne shouted wildly. 'Leave us alone! Are you still there, Liz?'

'Yes.'

'Why did he? Why? He was going to be all right.'

'No one knows. He didn't leave a message. Not even that,' Lady Elizabeth said and the grey voice brightened with hate.

'But why?'

'Lucien says perhaps he thought he was going to be shot. You know there is a place out there where they do shoot people. And Lucien says perhaps he was afraid of standing up and being shot. Or Lucien says perhaps he thought he was going to get a long term in gaol and couldn't face it. But I think he decided there wouldn't be much future for him in France, and obviously no place else, and it discouraged him ...' Her voice trailed away.

'We must talk,' Anne said stupidly, 'or that bitch will cut us off.'

All right. Say something.'

'I don't know,' Anne murmured. 'I don't know.' She would have to ask now and she did not want to hear. 'Evangeline?' she said.

'Lucien came for her early this morning and took her to his mother. That place they have near Tours. They're so strangely practical, the French; he kept talking about the country food and the air doing her good.'

'Did she want to go?'

'Evangeline? She didn't say anything, she hasn't said a word, nor cried, nor moved, nor done anything. She died really, at once; she just heard it and opened her eyes and died.'

'Don't talk like that.'

'It's true, why not talk like that? There isn't any point to her without Renaud. She hasn't anything to be or do.'

'It's so hateful,' Anne said, 'it's so idiotic.'

'Like everything else,' Lady Elizabeth remarked bleakly. 'Well, that's all I had to say. I'm flying to London this afternoon.'

'I thought you'd come over for weeks.'

'I had. But it's no use, is it? I don't fit in and there isn't anything to fit into.'

'I won't see you then. I have to get back to Berlin in a few days.'

'And dispense doughnuts?'

'Yes. It's a nice trade when you get used to it.'

'Well, have fun.'

'Same to you.'

'Lucien's address is La Faisanderie, Blaireaux. That's Seine-et-Loire, I think.'

'Thanks. Goodbye, Liz.'

The room was cold with all the unheated winters before and with the unheated winter to come. Beside her bed was a little box of push buttons, and if she pressed the button that was marked by the figure of a waiter, with a napkin on his arm, no one would come For there was no café au lait, and no croissants with pale unsalted butter. If she got up, there would be no hot water in the bathtub She could lie here until the end of the week, if she liked, and it would make no difference. But then she would have all that time to think, and she would not know where to begin or how to finish.

She decided to go to the ATC Booking Office in the Place Vendôme and catch the next plane for Berlin. Berlin was a fine city, bombed flat and full of soldiers. And there was her canteen at the Tempelhof aerodrome and hundreds of khaki men who came to it, every day. They were simple and rowdy or simple and sad, and she would be flirtatious or motherly according to need, but always friendly in her heart and they friendly to her. It was so easy because it was like the war, except for no one getting killed now, and a climate they all grew in naturally. It was really a pleasant place, her canteen at the Tempelhof aerodrome, and she could still endure the smell of doughnuts no matter what little luxuries of nerves she might allow herself.

She thought of the green and gentle Loire valley, and Evangeline, in it, waiting as if it were a desert.

EXILE

He came from Germany with three trunks. They were the old-fashioned kind, which have humped lids, and they were tied with cord. As he had no intention of returning to his home, he brought everything he could with him. He brought towels and old frying-pans, and there was his desk lamp and his books and his fur gloves and two pieces of statuary, a portrait bust of Beethoven and a portrait bust of Goethe. He planned to settle in America, as he had been settled in Tübingen, and go on with his life, ignoring the vulgarities of history.

As for money, he had a little, and money had never been a problem so no doubt it would never become a problem. He had inherited from his father, who had inherited a little in his time also. This money meant that you could live in Tübingen, in three rooms, which were tended by the youngest of the maiden aunts. You could read, sometimes even buy books, take walks in the afternoon, and year after year you could prepare a work on the Origins of the Postal System. This work was never finished, because there was always more to learn.

He was leaving Germany principally because the Nazis were disgusting about Heine. He himself was neither a Jew nor a Communist nor even a Pacifist. The Nazis would never have noticed him, because he said nothing, had few friends and no following, and spent all his time in the University library. But Heinrich noticed the Nazis. There were no new books in the library, and the newspapers grew unreadable. He did not care for brutality and he hated noise; there were parades all the time in front of the library, parades with songs and brass bands, and it confused him as he worked. But one day he read that Heine was a Jew and therefore not a poet at all. That was the end. These Nazis were distorting truth and history so that one no longer knew what was right and what was not. He was fifty-five and had lived in Tübingen all his life. He decided to leave. Aunt Lotte was dead, so nothing hindered him except packing. It took him eight months to pack and make arrangements, and all the time he thought about Heine and how they said he was not a poet at all because he was a Jew. The country was not fit to be lived in any more.

He remembered his cousin, the daughter of his father's brother, when he read about Heine and knew he would have to leave. He had never seen the cousin, a married woman now, somewhat younger than himself, perhaps forty-five. She was the wife of a shoe salesman, had no children, and lived in Kansas City. Her name was Mrs Luther Morton. He wrote and said vaguely that he would have to leave Germany, in order to continue his studies. His cousin, who had heard some lectures on Nazi Germany, had a terrifying vision of Heinrich persecuted; those awful things the Nazis did. She invited him to come to America.

Erna Morton walked along the station platform and stared anxiously at everyone. She had no clear idea even of Cousin Heinrich's age. She imagined a tall German, with sabre scars on his face preferably, and maybe a monocle and a polished manner. She had left Germany when she was five years old, and had gone frequently to the movies since.

But when she saw Heinrich she knew him, and tried not to feel cheated. He was puzzling over his luggage, wicker suitcases, bulging oddly. He was fumbling inside a vast black coat for a tip to the porter. His grey scarf, knitted by Aunt Lotte, hung in lank streamers from his neck. His glasses slipped forward on the bridge of his nose as he leaned over. And he was fat, but not jovial-fat: just fat from sitting in libraries all his life. Erna Morton said, shakily, 'Welcome to Kansas City, Heinrich.'

'Erna,' he said, with tears coming to his eyes. 'Erna.' It had been a long journey; it was good to get home.

They walked out of the station. The porter was frivolous with the wicker suitcases and winked at the other porters, and Erna was ashamed. In the taxi she said, 'You must come and stay with us, Heinrich.'

'But of course, Erna.' Where else would he stay?

Erna had expected him to say: 'I don't want to give you any trouble, that's very kind, are you sure ...' and then accept. He just took her sacrifice for granted. It meant that she would have to sleep on the sofa in the parlour, so that Heinrich could sleep in the other twin bed in the bedroom, with Luther. And Heinrich wasn't even thanking her. She answered him crisply when he asked questions about buildings they passed, or a park.

Luther was not home; he would not be back until evening.

'You'll sleep in here with Luther,' Erna said. 'And you can have this closet, and here are two drawers emptied for you. Shall I help you unpack?'

Heinrich muttered something. He had begun to feel like a visitor from a very far place. There were two of them and they had less room than he'd had all alone in Tübingen. A bedroom, with some silky stiff stuff on the beds, and a doll sitting on the pillow. Why a doll? There were no children in the house. And then a parlour, with lots of things in it, and a little room more like a closet, with a small painted wooden table and four chairs. They ate there. It was a dinette, Erna said. And a bathroom you couldn't turn around in. You couldn't get clean in it, surely; it was too little. It was like the train.

'I have my trunks, Erna,' he said dimly.

'Trunks? But you've already got three suitcases.'

'Yes, but you see, I brought everything. Since I'm not going back. I have my books ...'

'Oh well, we can leave them all down in the cellar. The janitor won't mind. You don't even need to open them.'

'But, Erna, you see, I need the books. I have to have the books for my work.'

'What work?'

He had never said this sentence before in his life, though he had often thought it. 'I am writing a book.'

'Oh.' It wasn't anything much, that 'Oh', unless it was suspicion.

Heinrich stood uneasily in the room. He saw no place where a man might sit, securely. He thought of his books, the busts of Goethe and Beethoven, his fur gloves, and all the other things he had had for some time, and needed and wanted with him. There was scarcely room for him here, and there was Erna, waiting for something. How nervous women made you: they were full of questions, just standing and looking.

'Well,' Erna said, and there was desperation in her voice. 'Well, what shall we do now?'

Heinrich stared back at her, nearsightedly. 'I don't know,' he said.

'Maybe we ought to unpack, and then you can tell me about those awful Nazis and all the things they did to you.'

She got a suitcase, pulling and dragging it into the bedroom.

'You take the things out, and I'll put them away,' she said. He unwound his scarf and drew himself out of his massive coat. He put his coat on one of the beds, and it mussed the taffeta spread, and Erna saw herself having to iron it tomorrow. So he was messy, too, was he: a dirty, messy old German. He undid his suitcases so slowly that Erna wanted to scream, push him aside, and do it herself. He fumbled because he had taken eight months to pack them, and now everything was happening so fast. He would rather have talked a while, and then had some coffee, and then presently done a little unpacking. No need to attend to all three suitcases right away.

'I must get my trunks,' he said.

'Have you got the baggage checks? We should have done that at the station, while we were there. If you'd only told me, Heinrich.'

He began heavily to paw into his pockets looking for a wallet, and Erna said to him: 'Oh, not now, Heinrich, there's no sense in doing that now. Since we didn't do it anyhow when we were there at the station.'

When the three suitcases were unpacked, Erna said she had to go out and do the marketing. This was a lie; she always did the marketing first thing in the morning, when you had a better choice. Heinrich watched her from a window - a narrow window, entirely submerged in ruffled net curtains. He saw a stout, middle-aged woman, walking away from him, down the street; she wobbled on high heels, and her dark red coat blew about her legs. She was thinking about Luther and how it would be when he came home. And suddenly she was trying not to cry.

'Heinrich,' Luther said, being very genial, 'what are your plans?'

Heinrich hadn't enjoyed supper much; it seemed so frail. A salad with a slice of pineapple was the main plate, as far as he could make out, and spaghetti, which was an Italian dish and not very healthy.

Besides it was hard to understand Luther; not that he spoke fast, but he swallowed his words, so Heinrich had to say: 'Excuse?' and lean forward and listen all over again. Now Heinrich was startled. He had just come. Why should he make plans?

'But I will do my work, Luther.'

'Oh,' Luther said. Erna had told him about the book. 'Well, what's your book about? Maybe it'll be a best-seller like Anthony Adverse or one of those things Erna's always reading, and then we'll all be rich and go to California.' He laughed and Erna laughed too, without conviction, and Heinrich looked at them, solemn and not understanding.

'I am going to write a history of the Postal System,' Heinrich said. 'It is very interesting. There is, naturally, Diocletian and his system of messengers, but it was not until the twelfth century that a true commercial postal system was established by the Hanseatic towns of northern Germany. I shall include the postal system of the University of Paris in the thirteenth century, but that was limited. I shall carry the history to modern times, to the organization of the Universal Postal System in 1878 at Berne. It is very interesting. Also there is nothing so beautiful as stamps.'

'Oh,' Luther said, and Erna sighed. 'Well,' Luther said, 'I don't hardly think that'll be a best-seller.'

They sat in silence, and Heinrich looked at his salad plate and felt hurried, hurried. What were they rushing ahead to? There were years for talk and thoughts and work and plans. Why were they so crowded in here together and so full of anxiety to be getting things done?

'Well,' Luther said again, 'we better figure out about how you're going to live and everything, Heinrich.'

'But I am going to live here,' Heinrich said, 'and do my work and we shall all be very well together, and there is nothing to worry about.'

Erna looked at Luther. She started to say something and stopped. Luther was smiling, had been smiling all along: the smiles of a salesman, who is trained not to offend the customers.

'Heinrich, you see, the thing is money. We'll have to figure out some way for you to earn money, I guess. And so you can have a place of your own and everything.'

Heinrich had not heard the last sentence. 'I do not need money,' he said with dignity. 'Four hundred dollars remains.'

'Four hundred dollars won't get you very far.' Luther's smile was giving out.

'It will last for more than a year,' Heinrich said. He was beginning to resent this meddling in his business. 'It lasts longer than that in Tübingen, and there also I had rent to pay.'

'You'll have to earn money,' Erna said, and hit the table so that the glasses jumped. Heinrich looked at her, disapprovingly.

'We'll talk about it tomorrow,' Luther said. 'Tell us about the Nazis. Did they beat you up much?'

'Beat me up?'

'Hit you, take a whip to you, or anything ...?'

'But no, surely not.'

Luther looked at Erna accusingly, remembering, after Heinrich's letter came, how Erna had said: 'He was afraid to write anything, I bet; I bet those awful Nazis have been beating him up or something.'

'I have gone away from my country,' Heinrich said, 'because there is no truth left in it. The Nazis are making everything, even history, into lies. And because of Heine.' He was silent. He found he could not speak of it now. Far away. Tübingen itself had grown into a dream, a town lying in the sun. A quiet town, left behind him in space and time, something to remember with love as the years went by and he could forget a little about Heine.

'Heine,' Luther said, thinking: Ah, that was a friend of his, and the Nazis beat him up or killed him, and old Heinrich got scared.

'Heine was a great man,' Heinrich said, talking to himself. 'He was a great man, and he understood how beautiful German is to write with, and he understood how beautiful the world is, all the world, and flowers and women. People will know about Germany always because there were men like Heine born there. But the Nazis say he is a Jew, so he is not a poet.' Heinrich's voice was trembling now, and Erna twisted her napkin, embarrassed, thinking to herself that a man who cried was the worst thing there was, and crying for no reason anyhow.

'Let's go to bed,' Erna said. 'Oh, for God's sake, let's go to bed.'

She folded her napkin and got up and began to take dishes from the dinette to the kitchenette.

In the daytime Heinrich sat about the house and mourned his books - which were in the cellar in the unopened trunks - and got in Erna's way. She kept the house badly now, because Heinrich was always there and she could not move, and besides what was the use? No matter how often she tidied up the living-room, it was a mess again in no time. Heinrich left papers lying on the floor, spilled cigar ash, rumpled the pillows, pulled the curtains open to look out the window, and left them crooked and parted. She had nothing to say to him, and it infuriated her whenever he talked. Always talking about stamps, as if anybody cared about stamps, as if people - in fact — didn't hate stamps.

Luther came home later and left usually right after supper, saying there was an Odd Fellows' meeting or he had to do extra work at the store or he was going over to Charlie's and talk with the boys. Their friends had stopped coming in, evenings, to play a little game of poker, or just drink a highball or two and gossip and listen to the radio, because Heinrich was there - and he made them sad and uneasy. An accusation had grown up in silence between Erna and Luther. Luther had thought of himself as giving shelter (briefly) to a hero, and all he had on his hands was an old fool, a lazy old fool who wouldn't work, and splashed so much water around the bathroom you had to wade in and mop up after him, and ate his food slowly, slowly (oh, God, why won't he swallow it?), making awful, slow, crunching sounds. And when he talked — stamps. ...

Heinrich went to the movies, in the afternoons, by himself, wanting darkness and wanting to be alone. But the air worried him, it was too hot and not real air, and his legs got cramped. The figures moving over the screen hurt his eyes, and the music was agony to him. He used to go and sit in the art museum, not looking at the pictures much, but just sitting in a large room where he could be quiet. He counted his money in his mind, and saw that it was melting away. And he could not work on his book, and the days were longer than all the winters he had spent in Tübingen.

Then one evening Luther came home drunk. It was not very serious; it was a cold, cloudy day, and he had been bored at the store and the thought of Heinrich, at home, bored him more, so he went out with two friends and drank gin quickly and got drunk. It was more than Erna could bear and she screamed at him, in fury and in terror, thinking: Is he going to come home every day now like 'this? Heinrich appeared from the bedroom and wondered what it was all about. When he saw that Luther was drunk, he said, in disgust, 'Shame.' Erna turned from her husband, stood with her hands on her hips, white in the face and beyond caring, and told Heinrich; that Luther had never been drunk before Heinrich left Germany on account of a fool poet, and Heinrich's stamps were enough to drive anybody to drink, and they couldn't live like decent people because Heinrich was there all the time, in the way, messy and tiresome and ... and ...

Heinrich said nothing. He got his hat, wrapped the skinny scarf about his neck, tugged on the great black coat, and went out into the street. He walked by himself for hours, and ate somewhere, not I noticing what food he had asked for. He came back, when the house: was quiet, and went quietly to bed. The next morning, with dignity, he said that he was leaving: he would find a room for himself. He thanked them.

Luther and Erna made polite if somewhat muted sounds but they let him go, only asking that he leave his address. He would not have done this, but it was necessary to get his trunks from Erna's basement to his new home, and he needed help. So Erna arranged for the trunks to be sent and she went to see him. It was an ugly room in a boarding-house which smelled of shoe polish and escaping gas; and cabbage. The wallpaper in Heinrich's room was blotched and swollen in places with damp, and the fixtures on his washbowl were rusty. The bed had heavy lumps in it, and the upholstery of the chairs was without colour or design, grey from use. It was altogether a grey room, looking out on to a dingy back yard and a narrow alley, and no sun came into it. Heinrich put the busts of Beethoven and Goethe on a shaky card table, where they did not belong, but it had become necessary for him to see them, and have them close to him for protection. Erna spoke to Luther about that room and said: 'We must find him work; he'll be going on relief next.'

Luther had a friend whose uncle owned a secondhand bookstore. Finally, after many visits and many lies, saying that Heinrich was a distinguished professor from Tübingen whom the Nazis had deported, Heinrich was given work. He was to earn ten dollars a week and catalogue books and give advice on what books Mr Schmidt should stock, and he was to dust them and sell them if he could, and do anything else Mr Schmidt thought of. Mr Schmidt wondered if he could ask Heinrich to wash the windows, which were very dirty (and that would have saved Mr Schmidt one dollar), but he decided against it because Heinrich was too clumsy.

For a month Heinrich worked. He dropped books always; and he was so awkward with a ladder that Mr Schmidt could not trust him to put things away on high shelves. His cataloguing was neat and exact but slow. If a customer came in, with fifteen minutes to spare at the lunch hour, Heinrich would painstakingly launch into the history of any book the customer looked at, the life of the author, the reasons for writing the book. There was rarely time left to buy anything, after that. Every once in a while, when the store was empty, Heinrich would try to talk to Mr Schmidt about his own book, about the postal system and how interesting it was and how amazingly it had developed: you could trace the whole growth of civilization through the postal system. And he would describe certain stamps. Mr Schmidt stayed in his office more and more, separated from Heinrich by a glass door. At nights, Heinrich's room was cold. He tried to work with a quilt about his shoulders, but that hampered his writing arm. The light was poor for reading, and his eyes burned in his head. He could hear the other boarders, quarrelling or snoring or brushing their teeth.

A customer came into the store, in a hurry. She had deep lines alongside her nose and her voice rose, sharp and scratchy, asking for a book. Her husband was sick at home in bed and she thought she'd bring him a novel to read. Heinrich found a somewhat torn-up copy of The Magic Mountain.

'It is by Thomas Mann,' he said. 'Thomas Mann is one of the greatest of the new German writers, and this is a very fine book, perhaps his best.'

'Oh, I don't want anything by a German,' the woman said.

Heinrich looked at her in amazement.

'But why, Madam?'

'Oh, I don't know,' the woman said crossly. 'I never have thought much of the Germans since the war. I wouldn't want to buy any of their old books.'

'Madam,' Heinrich said, his voice cold and loud with anger, 'Madam, you are a fool.'

The woman put her hand up to her face as if he had struck her, made a furious crying sound, and rushed from the shop. Mr Schmidt fired Heinrich; he was grateful for that woman. He paid Heinrich an extra five dollars, out of relief to see him go.

Heinrich walked straight to Erna's house. He wanted Erna and Luther to know that he had done as any intelligent, decent man would do, and that he had not lost his job for base reasons. It was the first job he had ever had, and his honour must be clear.

Luther and Erna listened in silence to Heinrich's story. When he had finished, Luther said to him, not angrily, but finally, 'Heinrich, I'm through with you. You just don't fit anywhere. I had a hell of a time getting you that job, and it's none of your damn business what a customer thinks. If we were all as choosy as you, we'd starve. You can just go out and run your own life. We can't do anything more for you. You just don't fit in America, Heinrich, that's all there is to it.'

The stairs up to his room seemed narrower than before, and darker. He turned on the dim light, and peered about him, looking for Beethoven and Goethe and trying to feel safe here, with these known faces. His mind was stupid with fear. You don't fit in America. But where could he go; what country was left; where was there peace and sunlight and a library to work in? Where could a man live, and be at home? He knew how much money he had - only two hundred dollars left now. He had lost his job. How would he find another; where should he go; to whom should he speak? What could he say to recommend himself? I am Heinrich Fleddermann from Tübingen and I am fifty-six now and tired. He had not even written a book, not one book, after all the years of learning truths to make a book with. He had not explained how beautiful stamps were, little coloured squares of paper to carry ideas and plans and inventions and greetings around the world. There was no air in the room, only the thick smell of the hallway and the cold. He stood under the light and shivered and thought to himself: I have come too far away. Suddenly he thought, for the first time, I am an exile, I am a man who belongs nowhere, and I have grown old without noticing it, but now it is too late.

He sat on the edge of his bed and waited, thinking: It will be tomorrow soon and perhaps I shall know what to do then. Heinrich Fleddermann, Heinrich Fleddermann, he kept saying, as if to prove that he was alive and at least belonged to himself. Finally he said it aloud. He heard his voice, a little later, coming from some other place, weak and uncertain, mouthing his name. So he tried saying it bravely. That was better. 'Now,' he said aloud, 'I shall run my own life.'

But it was not so easy, after you'd said that. It was good to have decided it, but then what? He rose and looked out into the darkness and faintly he saw an ashpit and a worn-out tree. I will go away, Heinrich thought. I will go to a little town where the streets are cobbled or just dirt, and I can breathe, and there is sun. I will live in a house where there are not other people moving all the time. Two hundred dollars will be more in a little town. And when that is gone, I will get work. I will work in the fields or give German lessons. Or I will die.

He knew he could never find Tübingen lying in the sun again; because it was another sun, another Tübingen, something he had lost when history changed and he became old. There was nothing to go back to, and who knew the future? Perhaps he would write his book and perhaps not. But he could live for a while, as he wanted, in a small town with cobbled streets or dirt on the roads, where the days were long but not heavy and confusing. He could read and dream and feel the sun on his face, walking in the afternoons.

He pulled a chair up to the card-table and moved Beethoven and Goethe so that he would have space to write. The letter was hard to read, each word embroidered in a fine German script.

Dear Erna:

I am very sorry that all has not gone well and I am thanking you and Luther for your goodness. I am perhaps too old to have come to America. I will go away and take care of myself and you will not need to be worried for me again.

With greetings, your cousin,

Heinrich

He took the letter out and mailed it and came home to sleep. He had two hundred dollars' worth of time, and he was going to a little town and he was not afraid any more.

Every once in a while, washing dishes, or mending, or when the radio was playing quietly, Erna would say, in a strange, tight voice, 'I wonder where Heinrich is, Luther. I wonder what's happened to Heinrich.'

Luther would rattle his paper and pretend he had not heard.

WEEK-END AT GRIMSBY

This was the shapeless weather all travellers dread. A smeared grey sky closed down over the smeared brown land. Cold leaked around the window-frames and the door of the railway carriage. England looked larger, flatter, and more desolate than was either possible or fair. No one should move in November, Lily Cameron thought. She was full of hate for this weather, this opposite of scenery, the still pain of the cold, and wondered why she moved at all, any month; even June was a nice time to stay in one place.

There was no law which forced her into English railway carriages in November. Nothing prevented her from buying or renting another house and living in it. But the question was: where? There had been a villa, an ancient stone barracks really, in Fiesole; a glassy flat in Paris; a grim little dump constructed of marshmallow sauce at Praia da Rocha, the bottom edge of Europe where Portugal caved into the sea; a house, dainty and dead, in London; and luckily no house on that jaunt to the glamorous Orient; and only a hotel suite during the brief visit home, if New York had ever been home. It was some sort of record in case you went out for records: four dwellings and a romp around the world in four and a half years, or since May 7, 1945, to be exact. I might as well keep moving, she thought with disgust; it's less trouble.

Then she revolted against this vision of herself as a female Flying Dutchman or Wandering Jew. Stop being pathetic, she thought, rattle your tin cup somewhere else. There was a reason for being on this train. If your friends were too broke to come to you, you went to them, even if they lived in Grimsby, Lincs. You looked forward to a jolly meeting of ectoplasms. Stop it, she told herself again. I am going to Grimsby because I want to. I know what I am doing. It is the one thing I am still useful for: to remember.

How did the English survive their ghastly climate? She stamped her feet furiously, and in so doing kicked an inoffensive stranger good and hard on the ankle. 'I beg your pardon,' Lily said.

A pink-cheeked lady, sitting on the opposite mottled plush bench, smiled politely and returned to her book. This is not the first time I have visited Grimsby, Lily Cameron informed the lady, who read with determined attention. Do not imagine Grimsby awaits me as a delectable surprise. However, I was not a ghost going to a reunion with fellow ghosts, when I came here before. That was during the war, Madam, and a type of English bomber, called, as I remember, the Lancaster, a graceless square job, took off from fields up this way, nightly, for the city of Berlin. I had friends then, as I have now, except at that time my friends were alive or dead, but not in the present intermediate state. I had friends who flew those Lancaster, and I travelled to Grimsby one year to spend Christmas with them. You would hardly believe how gay we became on Spam and blotting-paper bread and marge and the one rationed egg and very little liquor, since liquor was scarce for the working soldiery. We had a lovely time and that night, or rather the next black morning, all the planes came home, so it was a perfectly delightful Christmas and I returned to London in fine spirits.

Then, three days later, a letter arrived from Andrew, who was a Group Captain, written in that neat English handwriting which they all have, rather like pursed lips, and most unsuitable to their personalities. It said: 'You will be sorry to hear that John Wakeford was lost over Berlin the night of 27/28.' Sorry to hear. You could call it that. Though to tell the truth, Lily said to herself, one did not mourn the dead then. There was no time. I do not need to apologize; I have been mourning them for almost five years. Or probably mourning is not the right word: they live with me.

Sim would be waiting at the Grimsby station which resembled a mine-shaft, except that it was horizontal. When last seen, six years ago, Sim was brown and astonishingly elegant in khaki trousers and bush-jacket and black beret, carrying for practical reasons an Egyptian fly-whisk, a horse-hair plume tied to a bamboo stick. Lieutenant Prince Simon Mitrowski and his Regiment, the Polish 12th Lancers, had by then fought and bounced all the way from Africa in Staghounds, vehicles which were laughingly described by their users as armoured cars. That was in Italy, where the war was most intimate and perhaps most senseless.

And I was a pretty sight myself, Lily thought, in my neat little khaki suiting and my honorary black beret. Me and my canteen, and no one can say that I did not handle the war well; I was the very acme of shrewdness, they should have had me on a Planning Board. For witness the efficient way I advanced myself from Naples and Rome until I landed where I wished to be, in a line regiment of lovely goofy Poles, with sea bathing thrown in, at least in the summer. I knew what I wanted; in those days there was something to want.

Could this train actually be stopping again? Here we are at another of those glorious stations which dot the English countryside, and there is that broadcast female voice, so civil and so ladylike, telling the traveller what to do. Change here for ... on platform two... all passengers. A couple puffed their way into the glacial compartment. Grains of rice dropped from their clothing and both wore wilted gardenias, in buttonhole and bosom.

Would you believe it? Lily asked herself. Would you think that a man and a woman, in their fifties, both so ugly that a solitary life in a cellar would seem their destiny, could go forth and marry each other, and display on their faces this look of embarrassed delight? The woman could hardly breathe for her chins and the heavy box of her breasts. She wore an electric-blue satin dress under her black coat, and her ankles rolled over the sides of her sensible black oxfords. The man was thin, with a neck that would not stay in place and supported his head loosely. His teeth were all out in front and long and yellow, and his hair either grew or was cut so that it started well up his head and sat on top like a parrot's crest.

They did not talk but, whenever they looked at each other, a secret and silent giggle shook them both; and the woman's face was purple with pleasure. Presently, seeing that the lady in one corner was reading, and the lady in the other corner turned towards the window, they reached for each other's hands, and two large swollen-jointed shapeless paws met and held. And both, with fierce discretion, looked at the floor as if they did not know they were holding hands at all.

What do you have to do, what do you have to be? Lily wondered. Must you be poor and ugly and fifty and a native of Lincolnshire, in order to trust life? The present was all right by those two, it was fine, it was the best; they had just made the final statement of confidence, they had married. I must tell Sim. What would she tell Sim? Two people got married. Yet Sim would understand how mad it seemed; like putting all your money in a bottle and throwing it into the ocean, or spreading your arms to fly off a building.

The bridegroom stretched his rubber neck and placed his narrow tufted head on his wife's bosom, and slept. For a time she guarded this precious burden, then slept too. In her corner Lily Cameron took off her shoes, flighty slippers of black suède, and rubbed her feet which could be seen, red-painted toe-nails and all, through the fine stockings. Then she pulled from the rack a large dark mink coat and wrapped it around her as if it were a rented steamer rug. She became a small mound of brown fur.

The train advanced slowly, coldly, through Lincolnshire. Lily Cameron pushed aside her coat, sat up, and said to no one, 'Two hours late. I ask you.'

The bridegroom, very brave but not facing her, said, 'Grimsby's next, Miss.'

End of the line, and the night leaking rain, and the cold would hang like a roof of stone over the town. Poor Sim; there were gayer places to be ghosts in.

The bridegroom helped the two ladies with their luggage, while his wife beamed approval of his good manners. Lily Cameron followed last, and felt the rain on her face, and saw the murk of the station and the jumbled people in raincoats, everyone looking pinched and dim, and going home to nothing tolerable. She did not move; Sim would find her.

Then she saw him, and though he was changed, he was as she remembered. He came down the platform, under the feeble bare light-bulbs, and was very tall and moved with the grace he had. Sim waved and walked faster and then he was kissing her on both cheeks and saying 'Lily, dearest Lily.'

Lily returned, instantly and with joy, to where they had been before. There were the narrow roads deep in flour-white dust, and the regiment moving like a gipsy caravan, but screaming sirens and flying their red-and-blue-striped pennants, from one encampment to one farther ahead. They were always busy with the ways and means of life; setting out, after suitable lies to superiors, in a scout car to bargain with peasants for a goose and for wine, since every night, simply by being night and they still together, was cause for a celebration dinner; and afterwards they lay in a haystack and could not see the dust and the sweat dried, and they listened to the men singing Polish love-songs and the sad but loving songs about home; and cursed the English artillery which chose to settle behind them and make deafening noises that were an outrage in the soft Italian sky. When Sim's squadron was in reserve she would go to their field in the early morning, with plans for a swim on the forbidden Adriatic beaches, not yet de-mined; and find Sim asleep in a shallow pit beneath his Staghound, lying between the driver and the gunner, as cosy as the three little bears. And he would get up, wearing the frayed white silk pyjamas which he had kept all the way from home, via Tobruk, and be immensely charming and invite her to breakfast as if his Staghound were a castle with rose-gardens.

And there were Jan and George and Stefan and the Chaplain and the Bloody Colonel and Skinny, the gentle gloomy batman, who was the kindest man in the regiment, and Paul and the baby jeep-driver, Lubo, who wanted to become a medical student when the war was over. They were all young and greedily in love with every day they had. In memory, the hard and the ugly and the stale were forgotten. Death had no place, no one could have died. And there had never been any winter.

'Oh, Sim,' Lily said, and put her arms around his neck and felt she had come to that distant place where she lived.

'We should get out of this rain, darling, don't you think? I have a taxi. Everything is beautifully laid on, you will see the efficiency. We are going to my house. The Bloody Colonel is waiting for us.'

'A party! How sweet of you, Sim! I didn't even know he was here.'

But in the taxi she was shy and could not think pf anything to say. They had shared no taxis in their past. Sim chatted easily, asking about her life, and she told him of the different countries, the various houses, all the faces. She must have lived it in her sleep, since she could hardly remember where the years had gone. But she knew every farm-house, every village, every road and lane and field and beach, between Pescara and Rimini.

'My dear,' Sim said, 'I cannot imagine anything more wonderful. I so long to travel that I would be excited to go to Birmingham. But we are stuck here, with our fish.'

'What fish?'

'They are plaice. I am sure you have never eaten them, no one would except the English, who are the bravest people on earth but have strange eating habits. The Bloody Colonel and I are the business managers. We have two boats. Jan and Stefan and four men from the Third Squadron run them. I tell you, it is a disaster.'

'But why, Sim?'

'The plaice don't stay where they used to; it is very hard to find them. Then there is always a storm and something falls out of the engines. We will remain in Grimsby our entire lives, trying to catch enough plaice to pay for the boats; thank God I was too clumsy to fish, so they made me second business manager.'

'And the Bloody Colonel?'

'He is very happy because he has become a painter. He goes to Lincoln to night school, and paints beautiful pictures of apples and cups and sometimes portraits of Pilsudski. He does not mind, now that he has Art.'

'I can't believe it.'

'You will see. Tomorrow there is a special exhibition for you, at his house. Tomorrow also we will have a sight-seeing of Grimsby.'

'Are you sure Grimsby's still here?' There was certainly no sign of life around them; even the road was invisible.

'On the other side of the street, please,' Sim said to the driver.

Sim paid the taxi and opened a low wicket gate; she could see the dull shine of a cement walk. Suddenly, from somewhere farther ahead in the darkness, a firecracker exploded, followed by a Roman candle which climbed two feet and fell in a sputtering faint curve. A Polish word, obviously blasphemous, greeted this performance. There was now a string of firecrackers, sounding rather fretful and then, quite handsomely, two globs of coloured fire and a little plant of flames flowering from the ground.

'Fireworks!' she said, seized with giggles.

'It is the Bloody Colonel. He has planned this for days, but forgot the rain.'

They ran down the walk and a man emerged from a shadowy hut, a tool-shed or chicken-coop, and shouted with laughter and said, 'It is like Fourteenth July, no? Hello, General, hello, General,' and threw his arms around Lily and hugged her.

'Now we go inside,' the Bloody Colonel said, 'and drink and drink.'

She felt Sim's pride, as he walked before her, leading the way into his home. There was a narrow hall, with a carved varnished side table, and room for nothing more except hooks to hang the essential raincoats. A stairway mounted one side of the hall; you had to wedge yourself past it to the second door, which Sim opened.

'The library,' he said.

Since the whole house was built for midgets, the size of the room was proper. As furniture there was a day bed, serving as couch, a bulging brown leather-covered armchair, a desk, a bookcase, two straight chairs, and two small tables. A Polish flag was tacked to the wall, and photographs of men and women and children and laughing groups of skiers and huntsmen and Lancers stood or hung in every free space. Orange curtains, of a thin unlined material, covered the window and a striped woven arty blanket and odd-coloured pillows covered the couch. The rug was a purplish thing, intended to be Oriental. A miniature coal fire burned on the hearth, and there was the smallest bottle of gin Lily had ever seen, like a gift sample given away to new customers, and three unmatching glasses, on a tray beside the couch.

'It's absolutely charming, Sim.'

'It is rather cosy, isn't it? We fixed it up with bits and pieces we found in the secondhand shops.'

'This is a beautiful house,' the Colonel said solemnly. 'Not like mine.'

'How is yours, Marek?'

'Mine is full of dirt, ugly, everything broken, cold, disgusting. Sim makes this beautiful house. We come here always to be in a beautiful place.'

'Do you want to go to your room, Lily?'

'Later, darling.' Give me time, give me time until I can see it as beautiful too. 'It's so lovely and warm. What a heavenly room, Sim.' There could not be too much of this; he would not doubt her.

They now heard weak radio music, coming through the paper-thin wall that joined this house to the next.

'My neighbours,' Sim explained. 'They have a nice little girl called Dorothy.'

'The people in Grimsby are good to us,' the Colonel said. 'We are here much time, General, in camp, before we get these fine suits of civilians.'

'A cocktail, Lily?'

'Yes, please, Sim. Oh my, this is the first time I've been comfortable in England.'

Then Marek Starecki, who had named himself the Bloody Colonel long ago, gave the signal: do you remember? And they were showing her photograph albums of the others and the places they had all been, and there were pictures of her too, looking, she thought, forty years younger - how was it possible that she had been so young at twenty-nine and so immeasurably old at thirty-five? Each blurred snapshot of a shell-pocked Italian village, with the same square white-in-the-sun cement buildings, the same dilapidated streets, clogged with their same equipment of war, was a clear and separate and wonderful memory. They laughed with pleasure again at jokes which could never have been very funny; jokes about the chaplain and about Stridek the boxer who married a Polish WAC and was lightly but inconveniently wounded the day after, and jokes about how the Bloody Colonel believed his jeep to be invisible; and no word at all about Michael who had been blown up on a mine and flung, headless, into a tree because that day they were bored and went exploring down leafy deserted lanes, full of military ardour and nonsense; and nothing about the two brothers, the young ones whom Skinny so loved, who were booby-trapped into soggy red messes trying to open the door into a house where a woman was screaming. Only the laughter and the friendship remained, and the unreasonable mocked-at but triumphant feeling that anything was possible after the war.

'Here is my house in Poland,' Sim said. 'The one in the country where I grew up. It was a nice house.'

It was a house built perhaps three centuries ago, for the enormous families of the Mitrowskis. The photograph was poor; you saw a vast faded building, with many square windows and arched doors, and a terrace, on which stood two figures wearing high boots and wee Norfolk jackets, like ancient schoolboys.

Sim looked at this picture with tenderness, as if he could pass through it into the house and his father's voice would boom orders any minute, and his mother would preside placidly at an immense round table, where the ten children gathered for tea.

'First the Germans had it, then the Russians had it. If it is still left, I do not know who has it. I missed it, for a long time, but now I have this house of my own,' Sim said, and put the picture away.

'Who is this one?' the Bloody Colonel asked, showing her a photograph of a very thin, uniformed young man, with wild light eyes, astride a monumental horse. Sim quietly left the room; he did not want Lily to notice his going.

'I don't know him,' Lily said.

'It is the Bloody Colonel! It is the Bloody Colonel when Lieutenant of Cavalry.'

'Marek! You look as if you were going to eat the horse.'

The Colonel studied the picture, laughing happily, seeming not reminded that he had always been an officer of cavalry, until armoured cars replaced horses, and now was an officer of nothing.

'More vodka,' the Colonel said, filling her glass with gin. 'Like those bad Russians.'

And Sim, she thought, has one brother in Scotland on a farm, and one brother in China doing who knows what, and one sister with a Buchenwald tattoo on her arm, and that's the lot; but perhaps four out of ten was a good score for a family. And the Bloody Colonel had the fish and his painting, but nothing else; still it was the same proportion really, he had only two children and a wife to lose.

'I think,' the Bloody Colonel said into the silence, 'in two three four years maybe, when the fish are good and we pay for the boats, we go to fight the Russians.'

'Not me.'

'Not you, General? Who gives coffee and cigarettes and nice things to the Lancers?'

'I don't know. I'm going to an island, made entirely of salt, in the Dead Sea. I'm against war. Nothing good comes of it. Afterward.'

'After? What do you think, such an intelligent girl, they make wars for something? They make wars because that is what men like, they make a war so they get some excitement first before they die; or they only live and die, that is nothing much. General, General, what friends you have now? You are always a happy girl. Why are you talking of after?'

My friends, she thought, are you and those like you, the people who used to be. Am I supposed to welcome more wars, so more ghosts can be manufactured? I don't even like ruined towns, I find nothing attractive in ruins. I see no point, she thought angrily, no point, no point.

'Madame est servie,' Sim said, from the hall.

There were two red candles in cheap brass holders on the small table in the dining-room. More of the costly coal burned in the grate. There was a table-cloth, and paper napkins, and something, perhaps a packing box, also covered with a white cloth, pulled up near the table so that Sim could serve without moving. The feeling was that the servants had been sent away, since this dinner was to be an intimate feast. On Lily's plate, an iridescent apricot-coloured glass saucer from the local Woolworth's, lay a small booklet. It was made of dark blue cardboard with a raised gilt figure of a girl in pantaloons, shawl, and a poke bonnet.

Lily opened it and saw, in Sim's agreeably illiterate hand: Menu. Lobster à la Tobruk, cutlet Alamein, légumes Cassino, salade sauce Ancona, tarte Mitrowski, Claret, Champagne, Napoleon Brandy, Cigars. They watched her as she read, with their own indestructible gaiety, waiting for her applause.

'But what a chef you have!' Lily said. 'Darling, you spoil me.'

'Nothing is too good for our General,' the Colonel said. 'Only I wish Jan and Stefan did not go out on the bloody boats, so they are here for the party.'

'You'll stay until they come back, won't you, Lily?' Sim asked.

'It depends,' she said, not daring to say 'no', not with this feast and these candles before her. They had done this all for her, who was nothing, nobody, insignificant even as a ghost. They had schemed and saved to make this welcome; how lonely they must be if her coming was such an occasion.

'I want my Tobruk lobster,' Lily said, and Sim flourished before her a small glass plate with two pieces of bright canned lobster adorned with a pompon of mayonnaise. Not on the ration, she thought quickly, but so expensive; and the meat had used both their rations probably for a month, and Sim had shelled the peas, which did not turn out very well and looked grey, and Sim had washed the lettuce and sliced the stunted tomatoes and arranged them in petals, and Sim had fancied up the bakery-shop tart with maraschino cherries and powered it with a snow of valuable sugar. She was not hungry, she was the opposite of hungry with her throat shut to food, but she ate everything; such cooks, she said, such regal fare; such quantities; but they should leave Grimsby at once and open the finest restaurant in London, Paris, Rome. The claret was raw, yet watery, and when it was time to open the champagne she prayed that the cork would pop. I will do anything, she prayed, if only the cork will pop.

They were very gay; Sim loving to be host in his own home, at his first real ambitious party; the Colonel delighted to show off the English he had acquired in the last four years, and delighted to remember and remember. Her smile felt carved on a glass face; her laughter had a sharp false ring. Yet it had been so natural to laugh before; she remembered the three of them on leave in Rome in the dazzling summer of 1944 and she laughed harder, higher, so as not to cry.

Then Sim was saying, 'Shall we have coffee in the library?' and they moved to the room with the bookcase, for coffee and syrup-sweet brandy. Now they were quieter and she was only there as a listener, while they talked of Poland and the Regiment and the future of plaice in Grimsby and how maybe Australia was a fine country for emigrants. Lily felt she was failing them; she should have been able to dredge up, from these separated years, stories that would keep them laughing.

They had finished the remnants of every bottle in the house and the Bloody Colonel was happy and fairly drunk. At three in the morning, he said he must go home, and they made many loving farewells, wedged together in the hall. They would come to the Colonel's home, at noon, for the Art Exhibition.

'My poor Lily, you are exhausted. We have been dreaming of you for weeks; and then Marek and I do all the talking when we know everything we have to say by heart. It is too stupid, I could shoot myself. And you must be so bored.'

'Darling, how could I be bored with you and the Bloody Colonel? Only I am tired. I have been awake such a long time.'

'It is Jan's room when he is here,' said Sim, opening a door in the second-floor hall. 'And there is the bathroom, across there. Should I light the hot water?'

'I'm too sleepy even to brush my teeth,' and she looked at this room and knew the mattress would be stuffed with railroad tracks, and looked at the varnished chipped dresser and the bare table and the single rush-bottomed chair, and, on a tin trunk beside the bed, a water-glass with a rose in it.

She turned and put her arms around Sim and kissed his cheek and hid her face against his coat because now she was too tired to keep back the tears. But Sim took this differently, and held her very close and said, in the softest voice, a new one, 'Darling?'

She became crafty at once; it was necessary to escape from this, and escape with gentleness. She imagined that Sim needed a woman, since Grimsby would scarcely be a gathering place for available beauties, and she guessed he was sick with loneliness.

'My dear Sim, my dearest Sim, I'm sorry.' There were no suitable words.

'I've never forgotten you, Lily.'

And I have never forgotten anything, she thought. But she knew what Sim meant, and she was shocked. How could he, as persuasion, use the perfect and admirable past, now in this grey time? For he was reminding her that once, returning with Jan and George and Lily smuggled along, from a night patrol, a moonlit night when every shadow had been ominous and they came back, having accomplished nothing, relieved not to be tense and watching and frightened, gay as people can only be when there has been danger and they are out of it, that night he had walked across the field to her distant tent; and once, after they had tiptoed hand in hand, making jokes but very nervous, on a beach empty except for the Germans' abandoned barbed wire, and had blown up on no mines, and swum in a lukewarm sea under streaming sunset clouds, once there, on the still warm sand. They had been lovers; but they had never been in love. They were great friends, and both were handsome and gay and wild; and this had been part of their immense joy in being alive and in owning their bodies and those intact. Whereas, in a frigid box of a room, in Grimsby, making love with Sim would be an act of pity on both their parts, or an act of desperation. They had been, in that other time, too good for pity or desperation.

She moved away from Sim, and lit a cigarette and smiled uneasily and said, 'Lieutenant dear, don't let's get things mixed up.'

Prince Mitrowski had known a great many Anglo-Saxon women and they no longer surprised him. Lily would, of course, be in love with someone, as he might have foreseen. And Anglo-Saxon women apparently had a deep-seated objection to going to bed with a man during the time they were in love with another man. This was an unwritten rule they followed and there was little or nothing you could do about it. But so tiresome; here they were in a remote uninteresting town, they were old friends, and the normal thing, as anyone except an Anglo-Saxon woman could see, was for a pretty female and a healthy male to make love, especially if they had a whole house to themselves. He had rather counted on it; he retained a most pleasurable memory of Lily's body, aside from all the memories of her which were like his love and loyalty for the men in his Regiment; and he was disappointed.

Still, he was too fond of Lily to be angry, and too sure of himself to be offended. She was not an ignorant silly girl who could be talked around. But he was puzzled; he found Lily unlike herself. A black Paris dress and good sparse jewels were preferable to a khaki uniform; she looked wonderfully cared for, not older, only more arranged. The peace agreed with her; she had a fine life, travelling wherever she wanted to go, yet she was sad. Perhaps the man she loved did not love her. Was that enough, nowadays, to make people unhappy?

'Where's your husband, Lily?' Sim said, also lighting a cigarette. She sat on the steely bed and he sat on the rush-bottomed chair, and she felt the draught through the closed window and thought, Oh, my God, how late it is! but if talk will make this easier, let us talk.

'I really don't know, Sim. I haven't seen him for years. We were divorced right after the war, you know.'

'Are you still in love with him?'

'Dear Sim, I can't remember if I ever was. It's so long ago.' In another life and another world, and then there was the war, and she had met many men who were what Charles wanted to be or said he was, but were it without effort. The war had served as an anaesthetic to the operation of cutting off a marriage.

'What became of that American, that P-47 chap, the fair one?'

'His name was Robert Allen.' But that was in Germany, had she written Sim about Robert?

'Where is he now?'

'He's dead,' Lily answered in surprise. Anyone ought to know that much. It was normal to be dead.

Ah, Sim thought, that is it. She loved the American pilot, I remember her letters. I might have understood without asking her. The way she cannot live anywhere and is always alone; the way nothing interests her except the war. All the time I wondered how a woman who has everything, good looks and friends and money and a passport, dared to carry sadness around with her. Poor Lily, poor good Lily, it's too heavy a price for the war. Lily was explained; if you loved a dead man, naturally you were not alive. I must tell Marek. Lily was always so kind to us and when she needs help we have not comforted her.

He saw Lily's face differently now and was startled to find it hollowed and blanched with fatigue or grief. How could I not have noticed? he thought. I am too selfish.

'Go to bed,' Sim said, and pushed the rush-bottomed chair neatly back under the rickety table. 'Sleep well, darling,' and he kissed her forehead.

Lily took his hand and held it against her cheek and said, 'I love you very much, Sim. I always will.'

'My General,' he said gently, 'I know.'

Standing in the hall, with her door closed behind him, Sim thought, with anger and sorrow: War is too hard on women, no one realizes how hard it is on women.

Lily took off her clothes, shivering in the cold stale smoky air of the room, and hurried into bed. She turned out the light and the cotton blankets were weightless and she might as well have been lying naked on the floor. She rose in the dark, found her coat, put it on, and climbed back between the coarse sheets. She was trying to will warmth into her body, when she heard Sim go softly down the stairs. Later she heard a distant clanking from the kitchen; he would be washing the dishes at four in the morning, so she would not know that he always washed the dishes, and be sorry for him. It was contemptibly unjust that life should be easier for a rich ghost than for a poor one. That was the final limit; there ought to be economic equality for ghosts and all should have enough money since they had nothing else. Mink makes a nice nightgown, she thought in bitterness, and slept.

It seemed no more than half an hour later when Sim, looking polished and awake, touched her shoulder and offered her a big white china cup of tea. Something like daylight came through the window.

'It's a lovely day,' Sim announced. 'It's not raining.'

Evidently, in Grimsby, all a day had to do, to be admired, was not rain. Lily felt her face sticky with the make-up she had not cleaned off, and her mouth foul with drink and cigarettes, and she hated having Sim see her like this, until she decided it was good for him; let him realize she was no dew-laden blossom and he would not regret the night.

'There is hot water, and when you are ready, there is breakfast downstairs.'

'Thank you, darling; I'll hurry.'

You are old, Mother Cameron, she told herself. The back aches since it is unused to railroad-track mattresses; and it is terrible not to have enough sleep; and I am frightened of the day ahead, Grimsby and Marek's pictures and the long effort to be bright and merry at the spectacle of two men buried alive.

She took a difficult bath in a tub apparently designed to be lain in sideways, dressed, and went downstairs, hoping that even her heels on the uncarpeted treads sounded joyful. Sim again had the meal ready in the dining-room.

'There's an egg,' Sim said quickly. 'I never eat them; bad for my liver.'

'What a luxury, Sim; I didn't expect two feasts,' and she thought: I could get eggs from Janet's farm in Buckinghamshire and have them shipped here. It must be possible, and of course packages from New York. And blankets and plates, and other womanly little house-warming presents, which could hurt no one's pride.

'We should go to Marek's soon, Lily. He is so excited to show you his pictures. I hope you will like them. It is not far; we could walk.'

'I'm longing for a walk. I'll get my coat.'

Sim stopped, on the pavement before his house, so that she could see his domain well, in its entirety. Of course he would know which was his, Lily thought, because it's on the corner. There were fourteen houses, joined together in a row, on each side of the street. They were identical: red brick with a pointed roof, a small bay window on the first floor and a door, two windows on the second floor, green woodwork, and a low picket fence surrounding a patch of what would be grass later on. And not a tree in sight.

'I didn't know how wonderful it was to have a house,' Sim said, looking fondly at his brick box. 'I had a few things to sell, so I could make the first payment, and now I'm buying it by the month. It is a remarkable system they have here. Of course Grimsby is not a very amusing place but it makes all the difference if you have your own house. A house is so interesting; I can't think why I never noticed that before, in Poland.'

'Yes, I know,' Lily said, and knew that she knew nothing. Slowly, she began to feel herself alone, far away, hiding in a country never invaded, while others fought.

She liked walking with Sim, it reminded her of how they had walked in that brilliant Italian summer. Their steps matched and she ignored the straight streets, with never a curve, never a surprise. The difference between the streets was only that some of the houses were yellow brick instead of red. This scandal of ugliness was so complete that it ceased to have meaning, as scenery in a dream is unimportant. It was all a dream; they were two disembodied memories, walking anywhere, telling each other wisps of fairy stories, the gossip of a previous life.

'We are almost there,' Sim said suddenly. 'A friend of ours will be at Marek's house. Be nice to her, Lily.'

'Darling, what an amazing thing to say! Have you always found that I was beastly to people?'

'No, of course not. No, really, Lily. But you see, this friend is only a girl; she's twenty-two. She is a stenographer in the bank, and her father has a small shop here. Marek and I are fond of her. She's sweet, Lily, but she will be frightened of you. I mean, she has never been anywhere except Grimsby. Her legs are very ugly.'

'I can't see what possible difference that would make to me. I don't give a hoot about women's legs.'

So he thinks I'm a snob now, and he would never have thought that before. Really, men are a caution. How guilty and mean I felt last night, and all the while Sim is well fixed up with a local.

'You're cross.'

'I am not,' Lily said crossly.

Then they were standing before the Colonel's house, which was like Sim's, except older, and yellow brick trimmed with black woodwork.

'We go in,' Sim said. 'Marek rents the first floor to a nice young couple; the husband was on Anders' staff as something or other. Be careful not to fall over the pram.'

The stairs were dark and steep. There was a curious smell and Lily remembered Marek had said it was a dirty house.

Sim began calling, in Polish, as they neared the top of the stairs. He led her down a hall to a room which ran across the front of the second floor. The furniture appeared to have been thrown in rather than placed and the disorder was astounding. Sim left her here, to find the Colonel. Lily could hear Sim down the hall saying, 'Get up. Get up. There is nothing to drink except beer. Beer for breakfast is unhealthy. If we had gin it would be different. Oh, Grace, good morning' - a false careful voice, now - 'yes, you are right, that is what Marek needs.'

Lily had time to look at the Colonel's paintings, which were standing on chairs and against the wall at one end of the room behind his easel. There was a green and purple and black face, on the easel, an unfinished canvas. The other pictures ranged from correct sailboats and glorious apples to muddy Impressionist landscapes and angular street scenes.

Sim came back, followed by a girl carrying a tray. The girl was almost as tall as Sim, perhaps six feet tall, and enormous. Lily could not help looking at her legs, and they were more like tree-trunks than any legs Lily had ever seen. Her body was built on the heroic scale of the Winged Victory and though, Lily thought instantly, she would be colossal in Greek draperies at the top of the stairs in the Louvre, you did not expect to meet a Greek statue in Grimsby, wearing ugly patent-leather slippers and a slate-blue crepe dress, foolishly looped up on one side, foolishly pulled to a vulgar neckline, beneath the powerful perfect throat.

But what was even more incredible than this noble size was the girl's face. It was oval and her skin was without make-up or even powder, and the cheeks very pink, perhaps because it was hot work to make coffee in Marek's little kitchen, perhaps because of meeting Lily. Her brown hair was parted in the middle and hung in natural waves almost to her shoulders. A mistake, Lily thought, I ought to tell her; she should wear her hair up so you could see the line of her head and throat. And her eyes were dark blue, absolutely honest, absolutely trusting. Her mouth was as good and as gay as a child's. Seeing her face, you forgot at once that this girl was a giantess, and felt she was small and much too young and vulnerable.

Sim made introductions: Miss Needham, Mrs Cameron. The girl said 'How do you do?' and then, in shy explanation of the tray, 'Marek will want coffee, I think. He said he was drunk last night.' Her voice was unadorned and direct, as honest as her eyes.

'Could I have some too?' Lily asked. That Sim should have found this girl, this particular girl, was what she could not believe. Sim. Imagine. Sim who had only known women like Anne Marie and Lorna Charters and Sandra and all those, the sleek the chic the elegant the quick the clever the witty the greedy the lazy the artificial. Or herself, herself also, and perhaps she belonged with the others. But never anyone like Grace Needham; what had happened to Sim that he could find Grace Needham?

The Bloody Colonel hurried in, his thin grey hair brushed flat as always, his worn blue suit pressed as if he still had a batman to keep him smart, and he kissed Lily and made apologies.

'I was too excited, I cannot sleep, so I think: now I will again paint Pilsudski. I did not go to bed before it was daytime.'

He turned to look at the unfinished green, purple, and black canvas and Sim moved to stand beside him.

'It is better,' Sim said gravely. 'The moustache and the hair are very good. It is better than the last one.'

'Oh?' said the Colonel.

'It isn't like any of your others,' Grace said. 'It's altogether different, isn't it, Marek?'

'Mm,' said the Colonel. It was a pleased sound.

The three of them looked at the painting, as if they expected it to move or speak. They had forgotten Lily.

Marek does not surprise this girl, Lily thought, she expected him to happen, she expected to be on hand and serve him. And she is proud of Sim; that's how she loves him, not because he is hers, but because he is Sim and will always stand and fight. It does not matter how Marek paints: painting is another country to fight for. And I am like some miserable desk general who arrives for twenty-four hours, well fed and rested, and goes no farther forward than Division. I am not helping anyone to fight for anything at all. It is no wonder they have forgotten I am in the room.

You think always in terms of war, Lily told herself; the war is over. The war was so easy compared to this that they ought to reverse the words; this is much harder and longer than war ever was. I couldn't get a job in this kind of war; no outfit would have me. They have Grace, naturally they found her.

The Colonel turned the canvas upside down and said, 'It looks as good this way.' He has had a fit of rage, Lily thought, he knows how far it is from his mind to his hand. He is furious with rage as he used to be when the banks of a river held up the Staghounds and the engineers didn't arrive; or when they couldn't get the Germans off that hill with the tower on it. Only rage; nothing in him gives up. And she thought: How clever Sim is, how wise. Bravery is what he honours, and he recognizes it anywhere except in himself, so he is spared the poses and lies of the people who only want to love bravery and only want to be brave. How could I have gone along thinking Sim was sweet and charming and generous, but never guessing what he really is? You are not his kind, she answered herself; that's why.

'Now we have had breakfast,' the Colonel said, 'we will have beer.' Grace went to the kitchen because she always looked after them, and what they wanted she gave them; she was at home in this War. Sim worried that Lily would think Grace a joke, and be charming to her, and Grace would feel it (she was very conscious of her size and her legs), and he could not bear to have Grace hurt. But if Lily had come and gone, and they had hidden Grace, that would have hurt her more.

He meant to warn Lily, but he was not sure where the danger lay, so, to his surprise, he announced: 'I am Mister Mitrowski and Marek is Mister Starecki, now.'

We are what we are, he thought, with nothing to make us look better. It is enough for this girl. No one must condescend to her. She is the same as we are.

'Mr Mitrowski,' Lily said, her eyes hot with embarrassing tears, 'Mr Starecki. I never loved you more.'

The Colonel began to talk, very fast, his English confused and heavily accented, and he was showing Lily his pictures, explaining when he had painted them, why they were bad, and what he must learn.

'Next year, when the fish are better,' the Colonel said, 'we will have money and we will go the galleries in Paris and Italy. We can travel cheap, Lily?'

'Oh yes, certainly,' Lily said, ashamed that she did not know.

'We will go in the summer when Grace has her vacation; she will want to see the pictures too. She is so interested in painting as we are.'

'Yes,' Sim said, although he thought the business was more likely to fail than to give them money for a trip. And if it failed, he would probably lose his house. I cannot lose my house, he thought, I will not lose it.

But no one said, for talk's sake, for fun, to be cosy: And you come too, Lily. Of course not, Lily thought. I am an intruder. I do not deserve to be here, you have to earn it. Nothing was changed; it was only harder and secret. They were the same men, as solid as they had been at Tobruk or Alamein or Cassino. Since they had never turned and run, why should they now? Grace had joined them, for the endless duration. You had to stay and live it, you had to share it with your friends and love them more than yourself, then you belonged as Grace did. I must get out, Lily thought, I am scared, I don't know who I am.

They lunched at the Crown Hotel, which was the most expensive place in town, and Lily guessed at once that they never came here, but naturally they would offer her what they could not afford for themselves. The dining-room at the Crown was full of silent eaters, all looking as if the food disagreed with them and Sunday was a punishment. The waitresses were insolent and slow and disliked the foreign merry manners of these Poles. Lily hated the waitresses and wanted to tell them to honour their betters and bring beer at once when it was asked for; and the meal was disgusting, all white, everything white, and lukewarm and thick.

She saw how cheerfully Sim and the Colonel matched coins and added and got enough for the bill. And how Grace behaved, quietly and easily, knowing what money they had and did not have and how hard the week would be, but able to arrange it for them somehow. They will eat scraps at Sim's house, and wash the dishes together, and talk of Marek's painting and how they are going to Italy, and tomorrow morning Grace will go to the bank and Sim and Marek will go wherever they manage their fish, and none of them will despair.

Let them win, Lily thought, oh, God, let them win. Before, she had been part of the winning, but now, somehow, somewhere, she had lost her place; she had demobilized herself.

Sim walked ahead with Grace; there was just time to walk to Sim's, pack Lily's suitcase, and take a taxi to the station. They had urged her to stay but she said she could not, so many errands, she said, you know how it is. What am I trying to think? Lily wondered. Oh yes, Grace's legs look perfectly all right. They are hers, and how she is is all right.

The Colonel was not talking. Lily saw him staring at the street, the houses, the sky, and knew he was thinking of colours and what you could do with grey. With an effort, the Colonel abandoned the street, and took Lily's arm.

'General, you are sweet to come to us. It made us happy.'

'Thank you, Marek.'

'They walk well together.'

'Yes.'

'One day they will marry.'

'What?' It could not be her voice, squeaking like that.

'Why not? She is not Princess or Countess; she did not go anywhere; she has no dresses except three, all ugly. And she is a good woman, everything is good. She loves Sim: she is not afraid of what life he will have.'

'I didn't mean that.'

'It is different, Lily. You must be a Pole perhaps to understand. We come very far away, but that is not strange to us. We always go back but maybe not the same ones who go away. Sim knows. Grace knows this too; she is not a Pole, but she knows, for Sim. For you it is the same life as before. That is good. That is what we all like, but it does not happen so.'

Ah no, Lily thought, you are wrong. She might have cried out in pain, it was so clear in her face. The Colonel remembered then what Sim had told him, hurriedly, in Polish, when the girls went to fix their hair before lunch. Sim had been useless for Lily, too, or so he said. They were only concerned with their own lives, their own little problems. Their problems were nothing and would be solved. But how did a woman learn to stop loving a dead man?

'I am sorry, Lily. We hope it comes better for you. Everybody must forget something, Lily. It is not possible to live if you always remember.'

What is he saying? Lily thought. Her legs felt cold and weak; the streets went on and on. Where was Sim's house? Why is he telling me this?

Grace must have packed for her. There was more gin; she could taste it burning in her mouth. She did not listen to the men, or hear her answers. She believed she could hear the minutes ticking in her tiny silent watch. It was raining again, she noticed, as they drove through the cold identical streets, and the station held its own cloud of train-smoke and looked as it had when she arrived, dark, and full of jumbled pale people in raincoats. The ladylike broadcast voice told them where to find the train for London. Sim walked up and down the long train while she waited with the Colonel and Grace, out of the rain. Sim reported he had found an empty compartment and led them, carrying her suitcase.

Then she was inside the familiar varnished box, leaning out the door, while they stood with the rain making pearls in their hair. The three of them, all so tall, united, with laughing faces, called goodbye.

'It's been lovely,' Lily called back. 'Such a wonderful week-end!

We'll meet soon, won't we? Darlings, take care, darlings, thank you, goodbye, goodbye.'

The noise of the train cut off their words, the lowering smoke blurred them, and they were three distant figures under the feeble bare light-bulbs.

Lily closed the window and sat down, with her feet on the opposite bench. Her feet were wet, London was hours and hours away. A hot bath, she thought, trying to imagine comfort, and a hot toddy and a hot-water bag.

I have made a cruel mistake, she told herself. She was whispering in the silence of her mind. There is no one to remember for, or no one to remember with; everyone must forget. The dead are dead, there is nothing to be done. And the ghosts, the others she believed were like herself; had she pursued them, saying: Ghosts, ghosts; when they only wanted to live?

She was not rejected by the ghosts, who would be too kind for that, but she knew she must leave them. How did you pick up the habit of living, once you had lost it? How did you live with yourself after you had guessed for the first time, with disbelief and certainty, with horror, that you were a coward?

She shut the door into the corridor, pulled the shades to hide herself from passing people, and turned off the light. Shrivelled with cold, she lay under her coat, sick with cold, sick with weariness, sick of all the journeys. And watched the rain, like melting grease against the dark window, and the night too dark to see.

A PSYCHIATRIST OF ONE'S OWN

Every day now, when Matthew Hendricks woke, he heard the voice (whose voice?) asking: 'What are you doing here?'

'How do you mean "here"?' he would answer irritably in silence. Here happened to be Paris. Before that, for two years, it had been Charlotte Amalie, Saint Thomas, the Virgin Islands; before that, New York; before that, Majorca; before that, Rome; before that, Three Star Ranch, Kneehole, Montana; before that, London; before that, Villa Léonie, Le Lavandou, Var ... What difference did 'here' make? 'here' was more places than he could easily remember; he had to match years and addresses before he knew where he had lived. Why don't you just say, 'What are you doing?' and have done? Hendricks demanded of this unknown inquisitive voice. There was no answer, of course. All the voice did was ask once, ruin the beginning of the day, and shut up. It is not, Hendricks thought, as if I were a cheerful waker. Some people feel low at sunset, l'heure bleue given over to assignations, brooding cocktails, a wistful spell with the gramophone, doubt. For me, l'heure bleue is dandy. By then I have got past the day, I can rest on my oars, more time is finished. It is waking that I hate. I do not need any foreign voice, coming from a mouth which secretes too much saliva, asking me questions I cannot answer.

There were other irritations, besides the voice. His workroom changed; papers, pencils, the typewriter, books were minutely disarranged. Each morning he lost his temper and his time, putting back exactly where it belonged what he used for his work. He made tremendous scenes to June, his wife, shouting that he asked very little and expected at least that she could control her maids. In an equal rage, June said the room would not be cleaned, then he would be at peace in the untroubled dirt, and she in peace without his ridiculous carrying on. He locked the room and kept the key. Even so, in the mornings, some subtle disorder had occurred. He could not explain it, he did not dare speak of it; gradually, without mentioning the subject, the maid Ermilla resumed her daily dusting and sweeping. He had also begun to suffer from an intermittent trick of vision. He would be talking to one of the many friends who appeared for drinks, for dinner, and speaking to Johnny Fitch he would see Tom Boyd's face or vice versa. June observed a new habit of blinking, she thought Matthew had some deplorable grow-in nervous tic. He was trying to blink the right face on to the right person. It was all maddening, harassing; he wished he had never agreed to come to Paris. He had been content in the Caribbean, half asleep, floating in the warm air and the warm sea, not sure what month it was or what year, letting time flow over him.

June, who never thought about her husband but only drew conclusions, decided Paris was doing Matthew a great deal of good. He had been increasingly lazy in Saint Thomas, he was behind schedule on his book, but now in Paris he was again working as he should. She did see that Matthew, always a detached undemanding man, had become fussier; she put it down to age and admitted she probably had little manias herself which she did not notice. If she ignored Matthew's nonsenses, he would stop them. She believed in not taking things seriously.

Awake, Matthew Hendricks lay still, getting used to it. He studied the weather. There had been an immense amount of weather to study, in all the places he lived; he preferred weather which did not change. Today, the first autumn rain fell with unlikely grey persistence. He had forgotten this rain, during two years in the tropics, and regarded it with distaste. It did not matter to him, he simply did not like it. Get up, Hendricks told himself, go on get up. Let it rain.

While shaving he studied his face because it was there before him, as the weather was. He did not like or dislike this collection of features. Except for his eyes, his appearance had nothing to do with him, he wore the face and the tall body of a stranger, a well-mannered healthy tamed prosperous fellow who woke and lived and slept without any doubts except those that can be handled. His eyes, Hendricks thought, more or less suited him; he saw them as unpleasantly sharp, bright without warmth, greenish, snooping, remembering. But they sat so nicely in his head, wide apart beneath arched brows, that no one was apt to notice their real quality. His hair, his skin, his jaw-line, his neck were all younger than they should be; youth came naturally to him and stayed and stayed. He had a fine nose, he knew he was handsome, and took no interest in it because this handsomeness belonged to someone else. He went on shaving and felt as ugly as rotten fruit.

The maid knocked at the door, bringing breakfast. Hendricks was ready with his attractive smile and cordial voice.

'Bonjour, Ermilla.'

'Bonjour, Monsieur.'

June found these treasures wherever they went; the treasures worked like slaves, they were grateful, they never went out, being too hideous to have any other interests, loyalties, loves. Ermilla made a pale green blur in the room, setting his breakfast tray on the table by the window. June always put her maids into green uniforms for the morning. Long ago, Hendricks had explained to his wife that he could speak to no one until lunchtime; his mind would be shredded; his day's work destroyed. Mrs Hendricks obeyed this rule of absence and silence not from love nor in consideration of her husband's talent. She respected her husband's writing because it was far more interesting to be rich from books than from the manufacture of radiators or shower caps. She enjoyed being known as the wife of a famous novelist; Hendricks was convinced that the sort of people who read his books were the sort of people June had for friends. Fame meant nothing except money. He could not imagine what else he would do if he did not sit down every day at nine and write until one; he might as well make all this money which he and June seemed to need.

The work went badly; the rain was like a fool whispering in the room, not talking to him but snuffling on and on. He was upset, then angry, then frantic. He did not care about what he was writing, a love story set in a Caribbean island; but it gave him an athlete's pride to be able to do this, day after day. He was proud of his discipline and his skill. Why should today's rain matter? If he started breaking up for rain, the next thing would be that he couldn't work if there were sun, or wind, or snow; he had to work, there must be something to count on.

He went to lunch, bothered by a small sickish headache. Seven hundred words, he told himself; the daily quota was twelve hundred. Seven hundred to throw away; and he never threw away his work, he could rely on its quality, it was always up to the standard he set for it.

June said, 'Hello, Matty, how was the morning?'

'I couldn't work. It's the rain.'

'Not really?' She took it for granted that Matthew worked well unless he had the flu or a hangover; she told people that all this talk of writers and temperament was absurd, Matthew was never difficult about his books.

'We may have to leave,' he said; 'I don't want any soup.'

'But, darling, we've only been here six weeks.'

'I'm not going to have my work interfered with.'

'Of course not. Probably the rain will stop later on. It's a fall shower. Madge Jarvis telephoned. She's here for the dressmakers. I asked her to dinner. And the Boyds. And Johnny Fitch. Shall we have a party next week?'

'Why?'

'Your birthday.'

So soon, he thought, has it come so soon again? And then it seemed years since the last one, several years lived between forty-six and forty-seven, several years hurried together. He was bewildered.

'I don't want a party.' Nor do I want to see Madge Jarvis, he thought; did June know about that? Clothes and men, but mainly clothes; Madge's interest in men wore out, eventually the man was just someone to admire her clothes. He was ashamed of Madge Jarvis, and ashamed that for months in some other year, some other place, he had obediently thought about her infuriating dresses.

He found himself waiting for the rain to stop, which it didn't, and waiting to see Madge. The afternoon was as treacherous and unsettled as the morning. He had forgotten Madge's golden handsomeness and the false way she had of looking interesting. Still, as before, those mindless eyes held promise; her body too could confuse a man into thinking it was meant for use. She used it long enough to get what she wanted: an attached admirer who would tell her how beautiful she was. He saw that Johnny Fitch was responding nicely; Johnny Fitch wanted to bed that lightly bronzed clothes-horse. Hendricks was saddened and alarmed because he felt nothing except boredom.

'Telephone me. The Crillon,' Madge said softly as he helped her into her sable tippet. 'Darling,' she said in a warm voice. Hendricks nodded. He would not telephone. Johnny could attend to her. Johnny did no work of any kind.

The voice woke him as usual, asking, 'What are you doing here?' He turned to the window and saw the permanent rain. He had to force himself to sit at his long oak table, so neatly arranged with the tools of his trade; and the story stuck dead after two paragraphs. He looked at the paper as if he had found something alive and hideous on it, a spotted spider, an oozing worm. It was only ten o'clock; what became of a day that would be so long? Three hours until lunchtime with nothing to do, no one to be, no place to go. What did a man do with the morning, if he couldn't work; and how could he face the afternoon when he had already used up his energy living through the morning?

'I won't be able to stand this, you know,' he said at lunch. 'I couldn't work again.'

'Matty! How too terrible! Perhaps you're not feeling well?'

'I feel awful.'

'But then let's telephone Dr Dupré. The Boyds say he's wonderful.'

'It's the rain.'

'We can't do much about the rain,' June said.

'We'll have to leave.'

'Now, Matty, really it's too silly. Where would you want to go?'

Where? Yes, where? Suddenly he knew that there was nowhere on earth he wanted to go; no new name pleased him; it would be raining, one way or another, everywhere. And another house, another Ermilla, another cook? What for? Change, he thought, does one good. It does not. It is only change. It is only wearing shorts instead of flannel trousers; only smelling sea instead of gasoline; only mountains instead of house-fronts, sun instead of rain.

'Do you like Paris?' he asked June.

'I adore it.'

He thought that, at forty-three, she still looked like one of the dowdier, smaller, neutral types of flower: marguerite, bachelor's button, pansy. Paris, also, shrank to her size and became a pretty place for her to be pretty in.

'All right. But I don't want anyone here for a week or two and I don't want to go out. Make your plans on your own.'

'Whatever you say, darling.' I'll get Johnny Fitch to squire me round, June thought, unless Madge has him already. If not Johnny, there's Alain Clermont, better for my French anyhow; he dances well. Matthew was easy and reliable, but not exciting; how could he be, after twenty years? It was all right to be unexciting, but all wrong to be troublesome; one could not tolerate a man who made scenes because the weather affected him.

I'll go out and walk, Hendricks thought, or sit in a bar; but there was the rain and, having done nothing all morning, he had no strength to do nothing all afternoon. I ought to have a coin collection, he thought. It was odd how writers never seemed to have anything to do except write or live; you never found writers (or did you?) deep in remarkable disinterested pursuits like Etruscan pots or astronomy or the respiratory system of frogs. What do I usually do in the afternoons? he wondered, having this unmovable afternoon on his hands. I mooch around, he answered himself, I suspend judgement, I wait for night. And at night? At night I do what June has arranged. But I have friends; I might go and see a friend now, taking a taxi through this goddamned rain. Who were his friends? They were a lot of people he knew. Women were more diverting than friends; at present there were no women. He had not recovered from the fatigue and disappointment of the last affair, at Charlotte Amalie. Besides, now that he thought of it, it was appalling to use women only as a means to get through the afternoon. This is terrible, he told himself, just because I haven't worked for two days.

June telephoned Dr Dupré and made charm over the wire and got a prescription for luminal and sent Ermilla to collect it. She was displeased with her husband. Matthew could keep himself in sleeping pills and not ask these absurd little services like a helpless baby; besides, why should he need drugs to sleep?

'You ought to get more exercise. Have a nice evening. I'm going to the theatre with Alain Clermont.'

The luminal produced a thick bloated kind of sleep until three in the morning, when Hendricks woke, thinking: I can't work because I don't know what that story is about. The story was planned as if it were a conducted tour with all points of historical interest, museums, hotels, hours of arrival and departure listed in advance. He went to his workroom and studied, for a cold hour, the folder where he kept the main outline, the biographies of the characters, and the chapter outlines. There was nothing lacking and nothing different; this was as well packaged as the fourteen novels which had preceded it. I'm drugged, he thought, I don't know what I'm thinking; tomorrow morning I will get up and work, that's all there is to it.

At seven, the voice woke him with its guttural question. 'You bastard,' Hendricks said aloud, 'I wouldn't tell you if I knew.' It was still raining.

'Ermilla,' he said, when the maid brought his tray, 'il pleut toujours comme ça, en Octobre, à Paris?'

'Mais je ne sais pas, Monsieur. Vous savez, moi, je suis de Rouen.'

'Et à Rouen, il pleut comme ça?'

'Je ne sais pas, Monsieur.'

Why not? Hendricks thought; she can bloody well know if it rains at Rouen since she lives there, for God's sake; she doesn't have to be a complete imbecile. 'June,' he said, stamping into his wife's room, 'get another maid, get someone pretty, put her in a blue uniform for a change.'

'Matthew, what is the matter with you?' Puffy-eyed, June stared at him over her breakfast tray, her letters, the Paris Herald Tribune, the telephone book. She had been out late, dancing; she could not remember when she had seen Matthew in the morning; the maids were none of his business; this was going too far.

'I think I'll go to a hotel for a few days. The house is getting on my nerves.'

'Honestly, Matthew. Pull yourself together. See a doctor. Play golf. Do something sensible. What will everyone think if you move to a hotel?'

'Whatever they like. Whatever you tell them.'

'What hotel?'

'I'll let you know.'

For a day, the suite at the Georges V with its colourless modern furniture, its woven curtains patterned in a tasteful design of knotted intestines, seemed a useful change; it amused him; he ordered drinks in his room, delighted to see no green uniforms, delighted not to feel June anywhere around. The view was different too, but on second thoughts not different enough. He had never liked the Right Bank; it was June who considered it bohemian if not common to live on the Left Bank unless you had a huge inherited house, it was June who selected their stylish maisonette in the Square du Bois de Boulogne. He moved the next day to the Lutetia, and the golden-oak furniture and the orange and blue flowers of the wallpaper brightened him; he felt that he was back in a remembered world that had been free and fun some time ago. If he changed hotels every two days that would keep him so busy he would not need to work. If he took sleeping pills at night, say twice in the night, he would not have a very long day. Then he could walk around and buy books along the quais. He did not want any of the books one bought along the quais; he would, instead, just walk; as soon as the rain stopped. He moved to the Hotel Jacob, where the walls were the colour of old dried blood, a knob was missing from the brass bed, and the mirror in the wardrobe rippled like water. He tried the Hotel Littré and did not find it funny, just sad, worn to colourlessness by a thousand passing strangers who did not have enough money. He was sick of moving and hotels. He sat at the small wobbly writing-table provided by the Hotel Littré, with the weak lamp-bulb burning against the grey morning light, and thought: I cannot write anywhere or ever. I don't know how I started to write and I don't know how I managed to write so much, and nothing I write makes sense, and who are those people anyhow and where is that island and what do they think they are doing there and why?

He had been awake for four hours, he needed a bath and a shave, he could smell himself, grey and dank like the towels, the room was cold. Clearly, in front of him, he heard the known voice asking, 'What are you doing here?'

He raised his eyes and saw, without surprise, a man; head and shoulders and fat, square, white hands.

'Pleased to meet you, at last,' Hendricks said; 'you look just like your voice.'

The man said nothing; apparently he had finished talking. He studied Matthew Hendricks through clean gold-rimmed glasses. He saw Matthew Hendricks entirely and had no opinion.

'What's your name?' Hendricks asked and said, into the silence, 'Don't bother, I know it anyhow. Well, Doctor, what can I do for you?'

He knew it was the other way around but he did not intend to be an affable or easy patient. He would haggle about the price and he would lie as much as he felt like. He would lead Dr Wolfgang Raumwitz a pretty chase.

'I did not ask you to come,' Hendricks said, 'and I do not specially want or need your services. First of all, I am going to pack and go home. You may think me a person suffering from some neurosis with a fancy name, who has to flit from hotel to hotel. You are mistaken. I am upset, at the moment, by an inability to work and I am accustomed to work.'

Dr Raumwitz said nothing, stared without blinking and with impersonal contempt, and when Hendricks had lifted his suitcase from the top of the wardrobe, Dr Raumwitz was gone.

Quite right, Hendricks thought with satisfaction, he could be reported to the medical profession, very unethical to break in on people and solicit trade. Then Hendricks had one of those terrifying suspended moments, knowing this had all happened before, but where, to whom, in what life, and he thought: there was no one here, I've started talking to myself; this is very bad, I better get on home and cut this out; I'll begin to think I really did see that fellow if I'm not careful.

June Hendricks was relieved to find her husband home at lunch-time. For six days she had been telling her friends that Matty had at last turned into a writer, he found hotels were more inspirational, too comic of Matty, such an affectation, it must be something you caught from Paris. She had done this cheerfully and well and her friends believed Matthew had gone off on a toot with a lady which was nobody's business. The Hendricks were married for keeps, that was clear; they both had flirts from time to time; their marriage was considered very good; June's manners, in this instance, were faultless. June would have accepted a short trip with a woman but was annoyed by a break in custom. She wished always to know where she stood; a need of hotel rooms for working was new and disagreeable.

'I hope you worked well,' she said at lunch in an unfriendly voice.

'I didn't work at all.'

She refused to discuss it; she would not indulge Matthew in this folly. She told him her news: the theatre, Balenciaga's collection, the Boyds were going to Tangier since a fortune-teller had predicted a wet winter in Paris, Madge Jarvis and Johnny Fitch were a thing, they spent their evenings at Monseigneur's, which was so childish you could only do it if beginning a romance, Ermilla had a boil poor creature, she thought they might join the Boyds for Christmas or go to Tunis on their own. He did not listen; he wondered if he changed his schedule and worked in the afternoons it would go better.

His workroom looked abandoned and strange, he seemed to have been away from it for months. The last chapter had been written by someone else; he went back and read through the whole book, it was more than half finished. He could not imagine who had dreamed it up, nothing was familiar. It was a bore, which did not surprise him. The books were not written to please him, they were for other people whose tastes he had always understood. Suddenly I he felt he had come to the wrong house, this was not his address; the room seemed queer because he did not belong in it. He went into the bathroom and studied his face; to reassure himself. More than ever it appeared to be someone else's, and to have no connexion with him. I'll read, he decided, and made himself comfortable on the couch in his workroom. He tried a detective story and Madame Bovary and Paradise Lost and then started reading Black's Medical Dictionary, very slowly, saying the words in his mind. He got up, put on his raincoat and hat, and left the house.

He was sitting on a bench in the sodden Tuileries Gardens when Dr Raumwitz returned. Dr Raumwitz, oddly, looked just the same outdoors as indoors; he had on a starched white medical gown with a collar like a Russian blouse, he was inordinately clean. His skin was colourless but not sick, he had thin brownish hair combed over a large bald spot, his eyes were fish-round and pale blue. Dr Raumwitz appeared to be waiting, but not for anyone or anything.

'All right,' Hendricks said, 'I'll talk.'

This did not seem to interest the doctor; whether Hendricks talked or not was his own affair. He might not have heard. He went on observing Hendricks and the empty unnatural city garden, because they were there to be looked at. That's a really mean character, Hendricks thought; he despises without caring. If you despise, you've got to know what you think is respectable; you can't despise and let it lie and not demand or hope for something better.

'Do you just want to share this bench or do you want to talk?' Hendricks asked.

It seemed to him that the doctor shrugged, slightly; he took this as a sign that the doctor agreed to listen. I'll make him answer me, Hendricks thought, I'll force him to commit himself one way or another. He can't get away with following me around and sneering and not explaining himself.

'I am afraid of time,' Hendricks announced. 'You're pleased, aren't you? You knew I was afraid of something; all your patients have to be afraid of something. You wouldn't be in business unless people were scared silly and wanted to talk about it. Okay, put that in your goddamned notebook; I'm scared of time.'

The doctor did not move, wrote down nothing; it was necessary for Hendricks to turn so he could see the doctor's face.

'If you are not amused,' Hendricks said, 'just get up and go. I'm not trying to hold your attention, Doc old boy. I was sitting here first. I can talk to any number of people without paying them, you know. Besides, I'm busy.'

At this, the quickest faintest smile passed over the doctor's eyes.

'I have managed my life very well,' said Hendricks, with dignity, ignoring the doctor's mirth, 'and I am almost forty-seven, which is a lot of time to have gone through, believe me. Now, for no reason that I can see, it's out of my hands. If I knew why, I'd be perfectly all right. Don't think I'm worried about money. If I never write another line there'll be enough money. I've made plenty, it's been put away, invested, there'd be a decent income from now on. June might leave me; she likes having a lot of money and a lot of people and she likes to think I'm important so she can think she's important. I don't care a damn if June leaves; I'm used to her but I can live without her. Also don't go off on that routine stuff about sex, my sex is fine. I've been a writer a long time and it's the only work I know how to do, but it's just work. I haven't got any mission to express myself or tell people something they ought to know or make beautiful sentences. I'm a professional; I write because I know how to and that's the way I make money. It's only time, time is the thing.'

Time, he thought, the years of it behind, day after day, and the years ahead; time is anguish.

Dr Raumwitz was not concerned, sat still, comfortable in his starch, with his bright frozen eyes. Hendricks felt he had been tricked into talking, so he could be insulted by this indifference. Nobody could be as indifferent as Dr Raumwitz unless doing it on purpose, as an act, to prove power.

'Stuff you,' Hendricks said furiously. 'Get the hell off this bench. You smug bastard, you think time is easy, don't you? You think I don't want to admit I was in love with my mother or my father or whoever the hell you're supposed to be in love with, or I was happy in the womb or I've got a yen for little boys with curly eyelashes. You ignorant condescending son of a bitch. I deserve it for talking to you in the first place.'

Without haste, as if he were alone on the bench, Dr Raumwitz rose and vanished. Matthew Hendricks rubbed his rain-damp hand over his eyes; he had the hollow breathless feeling of having fallen miles, in an elevator, in an aeroplane, he was afraid he would be sick. He sat very still and breathed slowly until the emptiness and the cold and the nausea were under control. I've got to do something about this, he told himself, now, quick; find people, talk, drink; I'll tell June to invite friends, to get theatre tickets, I'll fill up the time. What difference does it make if I don't work for a month? Probably I've worked too long. I could get a thorough check-up from Dr Dupré, see an oculist, if there's sun in Tangier we might go there with the Boyds.

The afternoon dark had rolled in, smoke-soft and close; he walked along the rue de Rivoli making plans, listing all the things there were to do: tailors, art galleries, squash, golf, movies, bars, gambling, learn a new language maybe Russian or Arabic, something long and difficult, dinner-parties, riding, concerts.

'Chéri,' said a scratching voice and a hand touched his arm.

He looked down into a face all run into a point, a damp little rat's face. Light came from a cheap jewellery store under the arcades; her high-heeled slippers were soaked; her hair had never been set or the rain had returned it to its primitive frizz.

'Non merci, je regrette,' Hendricks said with absent-minded politeness, but she had given him an idea. He walked faster in the protection of the arcades to the Crillon.

Madame Jarvis was in, would Monsieur go up to number 307? In the elevator, Hendricks hoped that she would be alone, not surrounded by her usual languid gang all drawling from the front of their mouths. Madge had been resting, with astringent pads on her eyes. This year, for some reason, the fitters seemed incredibly clumsy, she was killing herself to get the few little things she needed; if it kept up like this one would have to shop in New York and the weather was disgusting beyond words and she could not make up her mind about Johnny Fitch. It seemed a vast amount of trouble to start something new for such a short time, she would be going back to New York in less than three weeks; it did mean you could not look after your skin properly at night, was it worth it? She was delighted that Matthew had dropped in, Matthew was less effort than a new beau and remarkably good-looking still.

'My dear, you're drenched,' Madge said. 'Come and dry out by the fire.'

Even given over to eye-pads, she was dressed in black velvet slacks and embroidered velvet slippers and a high-necked black sweater which was becoming to her spectacular breasts.

'You are a treat, Madge.'

'Darling, I was thinking of you, I know I made you happen in, by thinking. You know what depresses me?' Madge asked, ringing for the floor waiter. 'It's the way men don't last. I cannot think what has happened to men. There used to be so many of them, anywhere one went, and suddenly there are absolutely none, or they sag and bulge and look too ghastly. Like that awful Toulouse Lautrec, you know the one with the fat bald man at the restaurant table, sticking out his lips at the tart. I cannot understand it. You're the only man I know who doesn't make me feel we're all falling apart.'

'You,' Hendricks said, 'have no trouble with time. You look the same as you ever did.'

'But of course. That's what makes me so angry with men.'

The waiter brought four champagne cocktails at once, with an order to repeat; mild drunkenness, Hendricks thought, was excellent for making time pass.

'Time,' he said after the second cocktail, 'what do you think about time, Madge?'

'Oh, my dear, always late, that's what I think; or else ... what do you mean, time?'

'Maybe that's it. Always too late, whatever year it is, it's too late. Still there's so much of it ahead, more than one can stand to think about, too late to use it, you only have to wait through it. I can't bear this idea,' -Hendricks said in desperation, 'of life being nothing except using up time.'

'Oh, Matthew darling, have another drink, for God's sake. Since when does one talk about what life is? Heavens! I'm always so busy I can't find enough time in the day —'

'I know. Fittings.'

'You cannot believe what fools those women have become. I'm about ready to give up on Paris.'

'Madge.'

'Yes.'

'We're wasting time.'

'Darling. Idiot.'

'There's been no one like you. I've missed you.' These were the most banal of lies but served their purpose. Madge, anyhow, was glad to settle the question of Johnny Fitch.

Comfortable on the wide sofa before the fire, Hendricks thought only of the feel of the silken, glossily filled sweater, of the slender not hard not soft velvet-covered thigh. Madge enjoyed, as remembered, the authority of his hands. Her breath came a little faster, she felt cat-sleepy, ready to purr. They were in no hurry. She moved, in delicious ease, and happened to see the clock on the mantel. Not really so late. Oh, damn, she thought; it meant rushing to dress for dinner, afterwards, when one wanted to rest. Not today, she thought; better another day, earlier. Hendricks, bemused in this perfect and satisfying use of present time, had just told himself: I'll be fine here until at least seven-thirty, and thus returned, shocked, to his oppressive calculations. What shall I do tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day? He had to remind himself of what his hands knew. The perishable game was spoiled; tactfully, slowly, by mutual consent, they gave it up. He praised her beauty; she kissed him cosily; they felt amiable together and rather bored. He suggested lunch tomorrow.

Walking home along the Champs Élysées, he looked at the shining black road and the passing cars, heard the trees drip, and thought it might be a street anywhere. He was so little surprised by places that he had stopped seeing them; he felt nothing but the hour, he was pushing against walls of time. Past time was tragically light and empty behind him, not used up in any way but forever gone. The reason people can manage, Hendricks decided, is that they have no time to notice; perhaps I could find a job with office hours. But he knew he could not; who would hire him and to do what? He went home because it was less effort than to go anywhere else.

June had planned to dine quietly and play canasta with Matthew and then lead him into talk. It was her duty to keep Matthew to his productive routine. Instead Matthew read now with offensive concentration; during dinner he had been listless.

'Dr Raumwitz,' Hendricks suddenly observed, 'thinks it's something to do with you and me, or my writing. A frustrated writer, a frustrated husband, a conventional explanation like that. He's a stupid German who only knows what he's read.'

'You've been seeing a doctor, Matty? Is anything the matter with you?'

'Obviously.'

'Who is Dr Raumwitz?'

'A man,' Hendricks said slyly, and returned to his book.

He took his book to bed but could not read; he had little passing shaking giggles, as he saw what fools he had made of both Raumwitz and June, by bringing the doctor into the conversation. Raumwitz now became a useful private joke, to tease June with. He was no longer frightened but instead quite proud; it was not everybody who had hallucinations. He imagined the wide possibilities of an hallucination and waited hopefully for Dr Raumwitz to appear, so he could brag to him and also include the doctor in the merriment. The doctor did not appear. The harder Hendricks waited the emptier the room became. Perhaps, Hendricks decided, while his pleasure and confidence wilted, he had made a mistake; perhaps you exorcised yourself by talking and above all by being pleased. He felt lonely, to his surprise, and went to sleep; and woke in the night thinking very clearly, The man has no professional morals, he cannot abandon me this way. Then his mind teetered in a racing cloudy void. No, no, he told himself, urgently anchoring to fact, an hallucination can do whatever it likes. He determined not to talk to June any more, not to play with this mysterious business, and took luminal out of anxiety. Just before the sudden sleep, he wished he could remember the dreams he was sure to have, so as to discuss them with Dr Raumwitz.

In the morning, Hendricks did not hear Dr Raumwitz' voice: the lack of that insufferable daily question upset him. What had happened now; where was Raumwitz gone; what would come next? He locked his workroom door and hid the key under a pile of socks; he was done with that novel and that room, he was not going to torment himself. He began then a long walk through Paris which lasted for almost three weeks. He walked all day slowly and without effort; when he was tired he stopped for coffee or a drink; he ate his meals at whatever restaurant appeared in the moment of feeling hunger. Time was measured in giant periods, each day endured like a month, but he was not unhappy.

A fog seemed to shroud Paris so that he saw it in outline, never noticing exactly the streets or the buildings. Occasionally a face would drift towards him and catch his attention and remind Hendricks how little he liked the French. They were an inadmissibly ugly race; they all looked as if they had some peculiar individual repellent smell. Why did they always talk as if they were in a rage or coming out of or going into a rage? It was a tedious anti-human pose. Late at night, when most of the French had gone to bed, he observed their city and sometimes found it good; not much, he thought; this is an over-advertised town. He liked the Lion de Belfort, it was a self-respecting beast; he liked the Parc Monceau because it was so hopelessly dreary and surrounded by unromantic streets; he liked the perfect closed rectangle of the Palais Royal, inside there it was calm and apart as if one were in a ship; he grew fond of the Eiffel Tower, treating it as a monstrous architectural joke the French had played on Paris; he would clamber up the stairs until he was breathless and look at this city which meant nothing to him, for which he felt neither love nor curiosity.

He thought all day long in sleepy comfortable sequence, sliding from a vision of a pin-striped suit into memories of women he had slept with, focusing briefly on an idea, the beginning or the middle of a story, two men talking beside a taxi with the meter clicking, what were they talking of, something special, something final; where had they come from, where were they going; no, it was too much trouble, he wanted to follow no one through the planned deviousness of a story. He would look in a shop window and wonder who could ever buy that gilded bronze standing lamp encrusted with metal flowers and ivy leaves, who would eat from that garish china; he recalled sensations of pure physical pleasure, swimming naked in the warm green Caribbean, riding in Montana; sometimes he hummed tunes he could not finish; imagined jewels; wished he owned a Breughel; foresaw a journey he did not want to make to Petra la Rose, wherever it was, in the desert. He looked for Dr Raumwitz, expecting that any minute the doctor would appear and stare at him with mute disdain. For a time Hendricks searched carefully, by newspaper kiosks, at the tables of cafés, waiting now and again beside the iron-girdled trees of the city. He would find himself in unlikely parts of Paris, at the rubbishy Porte de St Cloud, among the soiled white tiles of the Poissoniers Métro, and think: Raumwitz will be here or why did I come? Raumwitz, he concluded, has left town or is haunting someone else. He laughed out loud and people turned in the street to see him and hurried on.

At night, in his room, feeling his legs heavy and his body pleasantly worn out from the day's travels, he tried talking to Raumwitz. There was a great deal to talk about until he put it into words, whereupon it sounded poor and ill considered. He had always thought he had a good brain, but talking to the absent Raumwitz in the empty room, he saw that his mind was a filing-case for babble.

'Are you interested in history, Doctor?' he had inquired, with some idea of beguiling the doctor back. 'I'm not. You know why?' He could imagine the doctor's eyes, saying in silence: Who cares why? Obstinately, Hendricks went on, 'Because people make the history they like and want and need. I used to think the human race was a large victim, fooled and terrorized by leaders; but I don't anymore. I've met a lot of the leaders; they are nothing but the human race too, masquerading. Perhaps leaders lie to themselves even more than we do, about motives and their own virtue. But you know, they are something we invent, so we deserve them. No one leads us out of the desert for the simple reason that we are crazy about the desert, that's where we want to stay. I beg your pardon?' For by then Hendricks felt he saw Raumwitz although the room was totally given over to furniture and rugs and curtains. Raumwitz, Hendricks was certain, had snorted in mockery. 'All right,' he said, 'you say something; put me straight if you're so sure I don't know what I'm talking about.' He was confused in his feelings about the doctor, outraged by this betrayal but also anxious to please. Why had Raumwitz appeared if only to make himself at once necessary and unavailable?

He tried many subjects, as if he were putting crumbs on the; window-sill to lure a bird. He explained to the doctor that love had obviously been invented by writers, it was far too unnatural not to be a work of art; conceivably women might love their children, when the children were small and helpless, beyond that the emotion was fake, it came from reading books. The doctor could not have been concerned with love, for he stayed resolutely away. Nor was he attracted by literature although Hendricks pleadingly assured the room that he knew a lot about writing and had valuable ideas. Hendricks' dreams, remembered with effort and recounted with clarity, did not appeal to the doctor; he was gone; his voice asked no morning question, his fish eyes behind the polished glasses were observing elsewhere. Bored with me, Hendricks thought, and found this rejection unbearable. Dr Raumwitz had proved to him that he was a man of no interest whatever. He came home later and waked earlier; he was eager for morning when he could again enter his slow walking dream.

June was so worried that she talked to her friends; this was against her code. Without ever having thought of it, she knew she had no friends but only accomplices, everyone would be embarrassed or revolted by a problem.

She talked to Angela Boyd, who was perhaps the kindest of the many people she knew. 'Matthew is seeing a doctor; I gather a psychiatrist. He won't tell me anything about him. I never heard the man's name before; you know, Angela, a person like Matthew could fall into the hands of some crook and be simply ruined. You know the hold psychiatrists get over people. This man of Matthew's is a German; I never trust Germans. Matthew is getting stranger every day; he only comes home to sleep; I have no idea where he spends his time or whom he sees.'

Angela Boyd, studying her Martini and frowning reliably, because she enjoyed other people's troubles, said, 'The thing to do, darling, is to get him to see someone reputable. I've heard of a wonderful man, Renée de Chastaigne was telling me about him. It seems that Jean Louis Gratz, you remember him, had a complete nervous breakdown and this man got him out of it. He has a sort of clinic; I'll get all the gen about it for you. I've always thought Matty was almost too calm; it's people like that who keep everything inside who break up. It's certainly nothing serious but you're quite right, he oughtn't to be consulting some quack.'

Johnny Fitch thought Matthew needed a change of scene; they could all trundle off somewhere, be gay; the only catch was weather; unless they turned right round and went to Mexico, they would find every place chilly or windy or damp. Nothing was such hell for instance as the Middle East or North Africa in November.

Alain Clermont thought Matthew was engaged in an enviable sinister love affair; had involved himself with a whore, preferably Chinese or Russian, and was having an orgy. Alain Clermont inquired, with tact, whether Matthew was spending a great deal of money and was amused that June hadn't thought of this before. They had a common cheque account; Matthew used almost no money at all.

Hendricks finally came home with a teeth-chattering, trembling chill; he looked sunken in, white-faced with a reddish tip to his nose and reddish eyes; he had been walking in the rain for several days, he had not eaten enough for weeks. June telephoned Dr Dupré, delighted to have a verifiable sickness on her hands, a known doctor, and Matthew safely stuck in bed. The cold got worse rapidly; Dr Dupré said Matthew's general condition was poor. Upon questioning June, Dr Dupré made clucking sounds about the excessive use of sedatives, Matthew was very thin, had no appetite now of course with fever, did not respond to the modern cure-all drugs. He seemed well on the way to pneumonia; Dr Dupré sent a nurse. It was the nurse who reported delirium.

'Mr Hendricks talks to a man, a doctor called Raumwitz,' she said. 'He jokes with him; then he tries to shock him.' She smiled at Dr Dupré with the tolerance born of her business and his: the sick, one way or another, were lamentable children. 'Women,' she said. 'And then Mr Hendricks becomes very excited and angry and shouts at this Dr Raumwitz and asks him why he hasn't been to see him.'

June, hearing this from Dr Dupré, said, 'I knew it. It's all the fault of that ghastly German, I think Matthew has been going to see him every day. A psychiatrist.'

Dr Dupré looked up Dr Raumwitz in the medical directory and could find no such name; June was enraged. 'A cheat, a fraud, not even a doctor. What can have gotten into Matthew?'

'We must presume your husband is in a temporarily unstable nervous condition, Mrs Hendricks. The first thing is to cure this respiratory infection; after that, he should have competent psychiatric advice.'

June telephoned Angela Boyd and asked her please, at once, to get all the information about the doctor who had helped Jean Louis Gratz. Dr Dupré vouched for this man, yes indeed, he knew his work, excellent man, a modified, adaptable, elastic Freudian; he'd had occasion to consult with him on a patient suffering from psychosomatic asthma, Mrs Hendricks could feel confidence in Dr Mersling. His clinic, in Neuilly, was charming, modern, and comfortable; a rest cure there would be highly desirable, as soon as Mr Hendricks threw off this present infection.

Hendricks woke one morning feeling cool and weak; he knew he had been ill, but did not know for how long nor care, since time no longer mattered, it was at once limitless, stationary, and insignificant. He was surprised to see the nurse and disliked her hygienic face and the sprouting mole on her chin. He would stay in bed, he assured June, as long as necessary but not if that homely woman was rustling around. The nurse was changed. Hendricks seemed passive and good-natured; when June suggested that he go to a nursing home for his convalescence, since the period after pneumonia, or whatever he'd had, was known to be tricky, he said, 'Fine,' as if she had suggested going to the theatre. She arranged to take him, in four days, to Dr Mersling's clinic. In advance, she called on Dr Mersling,whom she found so attractive that she wished she needed a little mental care herself.

Dr Mersling was tall, dark, always bending slightly to hear or perhaps to comfort, immensely quiet, with a gentle smile and caressing brown eyes. June explained about the unknown dishonourable Dr Raumwitz, who had caught her husband in a weak moment and done him serious harm; he wasn't himself at all anymore.

'But I do feel that he trusts this man, 'June said. 'It will be difficult for you, Doctor; my husband seems to depend on this horrible Dr Raumwitz. I haven't told him you were a psychiatrist.'

Dr Mersling understood. Dr Mersling was much more helpful than one's father had ever been. Wildly good-looking, June thought in the cab going home, an absolute charmer; I wonder if .one can invite him to dinner when this mess is over.

Hendricks, well bundled up in a polo coat and muffler, with a rug around his knees, stared without interest through the taxi window, seeing this city he had so blindly and carefully walked over. The clinic was a large cream-coloured square stucco house in a garden. Once he was inside, it became immediately a clinic by virtue of its imposing cleanliness; it did not smell but looked disinfected. Dr Mersling, in a white medical blouse with a stand-up collar, came to the door to greet them. Hendricks eyed him with understanding and amusement. He realized at once that this handsome sympathetic fellow was a psychiatrist; he wanted to laugh. If they imagined he would talk to the chap, they couldn't be more wrong. He had had the only psychiatrist he was ever going to consult. Hendricks listened with patient boredom while June and Dr Mersling made stage conversation about his health. Dr Mersling was full of feather-soft assurance; Mr Hendricks would be on his feet, good as new, in no time at all; ready to work again on those books they all admired; Mr Hendricks had nothing to worry about. They had reserved a corner room, Dr Mersling hoped the Hendricks would think it as pleasant as he did, perhaps they would like to come up now, it might be best for Mr Hendricks to get settled in bed. Hendricks was too tired to laugh alone; he would have liked someone to share this joke. He thought with longing and affection of Dr Raumwitz who had the grace to say nothing, being such a smart operator that he knew all talk was useless, people did not reach each other through words; maybe Dr Raumwitz was sure they did not reach each other in any way.

Hendricks shifted his feet, glanced idly around the restful entrance hall, and saw, on a chintz easy-chair in a nest of rubber plants, Dr Raumwitz, comfortable, motionless, and silent as usual. Hendricks was careful to make no sign of recognition or show his delight. Dr Raumwitz was not looking at Hendricks but at Dr Mersling. His eyes were glaucous and despising as always, but there was more in them; Dr Raumwitz was entranced; Dr Raumwitz was laughing at his colleague too.

ABOUT SHORTY

I do not remember her name. She had a pug-dog face and she was twenty-five years old. A pug-dog face is not necessarily unattractive. She was sunburned and had small square teeth; when she smiled her gums showed. She smiled, she laughed, she giggled. And her gums showed and her snub nose wrinkled and her round blue eyes, with the light eyelashes, looked confidingly upon the world. Her hair was very blonde and cut short; the job seemed to have been done with nail-scissors. The hair was not thick, ragged, but fluffy. She was of what they call medium height and she had a good body. Men would notice this but women, deceived by the unpainted face, would not consider it.

What can her name have been? Trudi perhaps, only it wasn't Trudi. It was a German nickname, ending in i, the kind of nickname that made you think of 'Shorty '. I have to call her something. She now becomes Shorty.

They brought her to my hotel room, in Madrid, one late afternoon in the winter of 1937. I was feeling sorry for myself as I had flu and had been abandoned while everyone went out to look at the war. The men were far too merry for my taste; they had found Shorty somewhere and were enjoying themselves. She giggled at their jokes; she listened in awe to their knowledgeable war prophecies; they had observed her shape with satisfaction. There was little amusement in Madrid that winter, less food, and all we ever had for entertainment was each other and anyone else we could dig up. Women were scarce too, foreign women who understood English especially. I thought I was prettier than Shorty but not as successful. I would not have been able to giggle so enthusiastically at such mediocre jokes. The men were showing off. I disliked Shorty, for a lot of instant virtuous reasons, because I was jealous.

After a while they went away, looking for a room that had liquor in it and a more welcoming host. Later that night Jim Russell came back and told me about Shorty. She was, it seemed, a good girl. She was a German, as Aryan as can be, married to another German who was a Jew. Her husband was a doctor in one of the International Brigades. We all knew him. We thought he was the finest man in Spain. We could not have said why, except that he was not dramatic; he was funny; he never talked about the Cause; he did not spare himself, slaving with less than the minimum of equipment to help the wounded, who were numerous enough. His name was Otto, I remember that. Shorty had been working near Valencia in a home for the newly created orphans of Madrid. They were an admirable couple, unlike the rest of us, who had passports and salaries and were attending this war in the rare modern capacity of Press tourists. In Spain, in those days, you felt like a profiteer and a monster if you had cigarettes, let alone a passport and any other place to go when you got sick of this.

Someone gave or bought Shorty a dress. She had been more alluring really, in a sort of Elizabeth Bergner way, when she arrived in blue dungarees and the ragged boy's haircut. Her hair grew and she curled it; she used lipstick and presently mascara. She turned very womanly. She should have stayed in Valencia, where she knew what she was about. Otto was nearly always at the front. And Shorty liked to have a good time, was obliging, grateful, humble, and not weighed down with intelligence.

When we first heard or saw or guessed that Shorty had become the mistress of a Russian journalist, my gentlemen war-correspondent friends were surprisingly angry. It appeared they had all been honourable and undemanding because of Otto, because they loved Otto, and now this lousy little tart was cheating on him and he would certainly find out and it would break his heart. The men did not blame the Russian, of course; he was only doing what anyone would do, if you didn't happen to know Otto.

I was exceedingly noble about this. I told Jim Russell and Owen James, one night in my room, that they were ludicrous; probably Otto had a girl too, and why not, war was long and life was not guaranteed here to stay; poor Shorty had had a tough time and if she wanted a little pleasure, she had a right to it. They howled me down. Now that Shorty had displeased them, I was again the apple of their eyes, by default, due to the lack of competition. I could afford to be noble. Besides, in a general way, I found this free use of the Scarlet Letter tiresome and dishonest. Gradually I became Shorty's champion, and her friend. That is to say, I was as much her friend as I could be. Our pasts and presents and futures were too different; my follies were not hers; I have always thought there is a secret basis of pity in the friendship of most women, and that is a crumbling rock to build on. Shorty pitied me, I think, because I was so pompously determined to do my job like a real newspaperman (an idiot job of watching other people do theirs). I pitied her because apparently she could not learn by experience and was unable to form and enunciate the word 'No'. So we were friends.

The Russian pulled out, with predictable speed. I imagine Shorty adored a man into the ground. Shorty looked bewildered for a while, like a puppy who has licked your hand and been slapped for its pains. She stayed in her room, waiting in the classical manner for the telephone which does not ring. Then her native jollity reappeared and she was back at Chicote's bar and in the hotel lobbies and the cluttered dirty bedrooms we called home; and a Frenchman, convalescing from a leg wound, replaced the Russian. The Frenchman returned to his Brigade and a Canadian, who was working for the Quakers, took over.

By now, Shorty was classed as one of what Jim Russell named the whores de combat. These few ladies were distinguished from the large professional body because they did not receive money for their services. As I grew to know Shorty, I realized that she loved all these passing men and continued to love Otto. This operation was possible due to a cloudy, romantic German turn of mind which was very boring to listen to, and very pathetic.

We were out of Madrid a good deal, driving to the various fronts in whatever transport we could buy or borrow or talk away from its rightful owner. The men had become casual about Shorty, saying simply, Hello, kid, whenever they saw her, and acting as if she weren't there. She was doing no work for the war, so she had nothing to say that would interest them; and the taboo, established for Otto's sake, prevailed. Shorty lived in another hotel but she visited us, occasionally, to beg. There were few enough gifts to give: extra cigarettes, an envelope full of sugar, a partially used cake of soap. The men gave Shorty what she asked for, if they had it, with affable contempt. And when any of us happened to stop at Otto's Brigade Headquarters, and he wanted news of Shorty, the men were vague. She's doing okay, they'd say, seems in okay health, looks okay. It was amazing, in such a small war, where everyone appeared to know everyone else, that Otto hadn't heard.

The spring that year was more beautiful than it had ever been anywhere before, probably because of the long ugly winter that preceded it. We loved Spain, we the voluntarily uprooted, and we took a personal pride in the spring and in the grace it laid upon this land which we felt to be ours. We had watched many brave people pull Spain through the winter, and though we had done nothing but accomplish an act of presence, still we owned the country too," in a small but devoted way. The spring healed us. Quarrels had grown up during the winter, based on propinquity, dirt, lack of food and heat, the harassing daily German artillery fire, and the fact that no one, notably our editors, was interested in what we wrote and apparently no one believed us. Now, in this new sun and this new greenness, we became friends again; and, due to the weather, we decided the Republic was going to win the war.

The spring did something for Shorty too. She had become haggard and pale under the orange rouge she used, and her blue eyes, no longer full of gaiety, looked stupid and hurt and alarmed and wary. Suddenly she put on her dungarees and left for the front, near Teruel as I remember, to be a nurse. In that war anyone could do anything, what with the widespread lack of specialized training and the labour shortage. The men were friendly to her just before she left. She seemed to be the original Shorty again, her face washed, her hair ragged and uncurled, going forth like a good girl to do her part. It was there, wherever she was, that Shorty met the Spanish Colonel whom we called Juanito.

We knew Juanito too and had decided he was very likely the second finest man in Spain. I had always found Otto handsome, but this was a question of taste. Otto had a lean brilliant face, with bony nose and lively eyes; he was not very tall, stooped, swarthy and he had beautiful hands. I liked his mouth particularly, and his voice. Perhaps he wasn't handsome. But there could be no argument about Juanito: he was a beauty. And he was much more, he was a man who had never heard of defeat, any kind of defeat. Otto was brave in a way which does not show and also never ends; Juanito was brave in the superb, heart-lifting way which ends you up dead.

Shorty fell in love with Juanito and since she did not understand Spanish very well she must have interpreted Juanito's conversation eagerly, to suit herself. I am certain Juanito would not make a woman believe that he loved her with a true undying passion and wished to have her as his wife, if he had no such idea. I do not think Juanito loved anything truly and undyingly except Spain, and I think he was far too busy with the war to want a woman except for whatever brief delight she could offer. Shorty wrote two letters, from the shelled farm-house where she was working. One was to me and the other was to Otto. I know about Otto's because she told me. She said that at last she had found the one love of her life, there was no turning back, she had explained to Otto and though she would always love him too in a different way, she could no longer be his wife and et cetera, and et cetera. I showed my letter to the men since we all saw Otto from time to time and we had to know how to treat him. Jim Russell opined that it would have been a good thing if the shell that landed down the hall from Shorty, last winter, had landed in her room. Shorty, they agreed, was on Franco's side, distracting Juanito from his work and destroying Otto.

Destroy Otto she did, as far as anyone can tell about anyone else simply by looking. His Brigade was making an attack in the North and Owen James and Jim Russell and I had to go up there to write about it, and we could not avoid Otto. Otto must have been thirty-three or four, that spring, but he was not a young man any more. The brilliance had left his face and his skin was stone-coloured and heavy; his eyes seemed to hurt him and the fine thing that had always been in them, wisdom and compassion and mockery, was gone. He did not speak of Shorty or of anything else. He ordered us out of the terrible two rooms where he was working, with the wounded spread on the floor like a stinking human quilt; he said he had too much to do to bother with journalists; why didn't we pick up guns and be useful? even writers ought to be able to see the attack was going badly.

Ten days later, when we were back in Madrid, Otto was killed. Someone reported he had been working in the trenches; it was a direct mortar hit. We checked; he was dead. Jim Russell and Owen James got drunk that night, in a sombre untalking way and suddenly Jim Russell said that if he ever ran into Shorty he would break her neck; even, if he had time, he would look her up for this purpose. Not that Shorty had anything to do with the mortar shell, no one was dumb enough to think that, people got killed or they didn't, that was how it was; but you didn't have to kill them twice, not if they were Otto.

I do not know how Juanito disembarrassed himself of Shorty. It isn't anything I want to imagine. But he did it, and the Canadian who worked for the Quakers came to Madrid in the early summer and said he'd seen Shorty in Barcelona. 'What is she doing?' I said. 'What does she always do?' he said. We did not see Shorty again. She was crossed off as a war casualty, and forgotten.

We got out of Spain all right, at the end. We had passports and money. But that defeat was ours; we carried it with us in our minds, in our hearts, where it mattered. I dare say we all became more competent Press tourists because of it, since we never again cared so much. You can only love one war; afterwards, I suppose you do your duty, use up your life in your own way, think as elevated thoughts as you can manage. Our little group split up, taking all those aeroplanes which go to all those places. We had, it seemed, picked a fine trade and could be busily employed from then on.

I was in Paris in the summer of 1939, returning from China. The idea was to hang around and be handy for the oncoming European war. Some French colleague, who was hard up for copy, interviewed me: I said a few inspiring things about the gallant Chinese who in fact seemed to me as unlucky, badly led, and doomed as anyone then extant, and the colleague, in that droll French way, wrote not only my dreary remarks but a description of my clothes and my allegedly flower-filled room at the Plaza Athénée. The next morning Shorty telephoned me. An hour later she arrived.

I had unthinkingly decided Shorty was dead. This is a bad habit you acquire from attending wars; so many people actually are dead that if anyone disappears for a while you jump to conclusions. Shorty was wonderfully, unrecognizably, adorably alive.

The pug-dog face shone, not with its usual or former mindless merriment, but with something so seldom seen that I could not at once place it. It turned out to be peace. They say women acquire a Madonna-like expression when they are pregnant, and I doubt the truth of this; there can be no universal biological rule. But Shorty had it. Shorty looked smoothed out, certain, serene, and happy in a way that made you think sentimentally of rivers, clouds, and wide fields quiet under the sun. She bulged in the accepted manner, and she announced in a voice of joy that she threw up all the time. Her baby was coming in two months. It would be a girl. Why? Because it must not be killed in a war. I did not argue this. She had forgotten the sexually impartial effectiveness of aerial and artillery bombardment. She was married. I did not point out this was still a stylish habit for women in her condition. Her husband was named Louis Lefèvre and he ran the luggage department at the Galeries Lafayette. She did not tell me where or how she had met him, or how she had left Spain. Her husband, she said proudly, had no political ideas at all and because of a weak heart was not even in the army. Good, said I. They lived in the suburbs in their own house, it was entirely paid for. She was going to get real papers, just like anyone else, real citizenship papers; she was going to have a passport. Splendid, I said.

Then I inquired if there was anything she needed, and Shorty was very grand about her husband's salary, their furniture, their house again, and her husband's father, who was retired and lived in another house which he also owned himself, near the Loire.

Did I think there was going to be a war? Shorty asked, suddenly anxious. She was easy to lie to; anyone happy has a way of staying happy as long as possible. She gave me her address. I must look her up the next time I was in Paris; she wanted me to meet her husband. She would have the baby ready to show me.

'It is all I ever wanted,' Shorty said, 'just one baby; if I could only get one that was all I wanted. But we never had time, you know, since 1933, and no place to live and no papers and war.'

'I'm glad you've got it,' I said.

'I would like to name her after you,' Shorty said, 'because you are my friend. I am sorry I cannot. But I have always known what I was going to call my baby and I have waited a long time so I have to do it.'

'What is it?' I said.

'Myrtle,' she said, pronouncing it as a French word, with a German accent.

Oh well, I thought, the child can probably invent some nickname for herself later.

I was busy writing a lot of nonsense about would-there-be-war-wouldn't-there-be-war and then it came, as it had to by then. I was sent to Poland and after that to Finland and though I meant to write Shorty, saying I hoped the baby was fine and that she and her husband were fine (as if anyone in Europe could be), I did not. But I got a rest at Christmas and came back to Paris with the notion that I had to see it once more before it was broken into rubble. Paris was as beautiful as you could hope, if you were looking at it for what you believed to be the last time. It was soft with snow, and quiet, and I walked around having a final heartsick love affair with the city. I decided that, these days, people would be well advised to love nothing; and this reminded me of Shorty and her baby and it was Christmas and a present was in order. I telephoned her. Her voice sounded the way she looked in the summer; it was fantastic for any voice, here and now, to sing and exult in this way. But I would not go to her house; I said I had too much work. I imagined her house must be a glorious place, from her voice, and I did not want to take my despair into it.

She came to see me, and the peace had not left her face. I could hardly believe how she looked. She seemed to have arranged in her mind that the war was not coming here, it would be fought neatly in the North along the Maginot Line where it belonged. No harm could strike this city; no evil could befall. She had Myrtle, and such happiness, given only by God, would obviously be protected by Him. She spoke of Myrtle as if she were already twice as beautiful as Helen of Troy; she spoke of the pink-and-white room she had fixed for Myrtle. I did not ask if she needed anything. The only thing she needed was a world forever at peace. Presently I went back to Finland, which was cold and certain to be defeated.

I could not get Shorty on the telephone the next time I was in Paris and I wasn't there long. I left, together with a good proportion of the citizenry. Shorty and Myrtle and the husband with the weak heart must have already gone to the retired father, to the house near the Loire that was still, and one passionately hoped would remain, safe. After that there was only the war, all the years of it, and Shorty in Occupied France where I could not have reached her had I thought about her, which I didn't.

The Peace Conference was well attended by many of the former Spanish War correspondents. I do not know about the others but I felt that I had lived longer than was decent, and judging by the appearance of my friends, who had also been wandering around the wars, we looked that way. One afternoon, limp with boredom and prickly with contempt, I was taking my ease in the Luxembourg Palace Press bar when Owen James came in. I had seen him once in Italy, during the Cassino winter, but our real bond was Spain. We fell upon each other with loud rejoicing. We settled the affairs of the world. We told each other how this Peace Conference ought to be and wasn't. And, for no reason, he mentioned Shorty.

'Do you remember Jean Roche?' he said. Jean Roche was a French correspondent in Madrid, who wore the largest horn-rimmed spectacles I have ever seen on anyone.

'Sure,' I said.

'Well, he kind of kept up with Shorty in Paris after the war.' The war, for us old boys, was always Spain. 'He met her husband. I had dinner with Jean last week. He told me about Shorty.'

'Yes,' I said.

'It seems she and her baby and her husband moved down somewhere in the country with her father-in-law,' Owen James said. 'Then the krauts took over, that part was occupied anyhow. It was okay for a while, you know nothing gets organized too fast. But the krauts started settling in and checking up on everybody and seeing everything was on the level. Shorty didn't have any papers; there wasn't enough time for the red tape between her being married and the war declared. And she was a German anti-Fascist, which as you know is what the krauts would not take, and had been in Spain, which was really bad, and her first husband was a Jew, and that's the kiss of death. So it seems Shorty sat around there thinking about all this. Jean Roche got it from her husband. And then one day she walked out the front door and disappeared.'

'But why,' I said, 'why?'

'Well,' Owen James said, 'she left a note, so her husband told Jean Roche. She said she didn't want to bring danger to her baby.

He was to look after the baby, that was all; she didn't want to make trouble for the kid.'

I said nothing and we had two more brandies.

'But now,' I said, 'but now that it's over, hasn't anything ...'

'No,' Owen James said, 'she's gone; I guess you have to assume she's dead.'

'How dreadful,' I said, and the word sounded insulting to me, tiny, feeble, a caricature.

I remembered Shorty in her happiness. Owen James wouldn't have known what she had; Owen James wouldn't know about the peace on her face. Then somebody bounced into the bar and said, 'The whole Yugoslav Delegation is boycotting the session,' and everyone rushed for the Press galleries. I did too. I have not thought about Shorty since.

This week I am in New York, that mammoth stone ant-heap, buying unseasonal summer clothes. The sky sparkles in these parts and those who can go about wrapped in furs. I am buying silks and cottons, as I am leaving for South America on a long insignificant assignment about something or other. It seems that the calendar is confused for South America, and they have summer while other folks have winter. I do not know why, in the middle of inspecting without interest a pale green flowered print, for wear during the cocktail hour, I should have remembered Shorty. I do not know why at all. It occurs to me that, if you live long enough, there are more people you would like to forget than people you would like to remember. I would like, for instance, to forget Shorty as I have forgotten her name.

MIAMI-NEW YORK

There were five Air Force sergeants and they got in the plane and found seats and began to call to each other across the aisle or over the chair-backs, saying, 'How about it, Joe? I guess this is the way to travel,' or saying, 'Where do they keep the parachutes?' or saying, 'Boy, I've got a pillow, what do you know!' They were loud and good-natured for a moment, very young in their new importance of being bomber crews, and they wanted the other people, the civilians, to know that they belonged in a different, fiercer world.

There were a half-dozen of the men who seemed always to be going to or coming from Washington, the men with grey suits, hats, hair, skin, and with brown calf brief-cases. These have no definite age and curiously similar faces, and are all equally tired and quiet. They always put their hats in the rack above the seat and sit down with their brief-cases on their laps. Later they open their brief-cases and look at the sheets of typed or mimeographed paper, or they go to sleep.

The stewardess was young, with blonde hair hanging to her shoulders. She had a neat body of the right height and weight, and a professionally friendly voice. Fasten your seat belts, please, she said. Would you like some chewing-gum? Fasten your seat belt, please, sir. Chewing-gum?

A woman sat in the double front seat behind the magazine rack. This was the best seat, as she knew, because there was enough room to stretch your legs. Also you could see well from here, if you wanted to see. Now, for a moment, she looked out the window and saw the few palm trees at the far edge of the field blowing out in heavy plumes against the sky. Therewas something so wrong about Miami that even a beautiful night, sharp with stars, only seemed a real-estate advertisement. The woman pulled off her earrings and put them carelessly in her coat pocket. She ran her hands through her very short dark upcurling hair, deliberately making herself untidy for the night ahead. She hunched her shoulders to ease the tired stiffness in her neck and slouched down in her chair. She had just leaned her head against the chair-back when the man's voice said, 'Is this place taken?'

'No,' she said without looking at him. She moved nearer to the window.

The plane taxied into position, turned, the propellers whirled until in the arc lights of the field they were great silver disks, the, motor roared, and the plane started that run down the field that always, no matter how many times you had sat it out, no matter in how many countries and no matter on how many fields, in whatever weather, always stopped your heart for one moment as you waited to see if this time it would work again; if this time, as all the other times, the enormous machine would rise smoothly into the air where no one really belonged except the birds.

'Made it,' the man said softly to himself.

She looked at him then. He had said it as she would have said it, . with wonder that the trick worked.

He turned to her and she could see he wanted to talk. She would only have to say Yes, and smile, or say Nice take-off, or say, What a lovely night; anything would do. But she was not going to say anything and he was not going to talk to her if she could help it. I have ten hours, she said in her mind to the man, and she said it threateningly, and they are mine and I don't have to talk to anyone and don't try. The man, finding her face closed against him, pulled a package of cigarettes from his pocket, and made a distance between them, smoking and looking straight ahead.

She could not ignore him though he did nothing to force her attention. She had seen him without really looking; he was a Navy lieutenant and the braid on his cap, which he still held, was faded grey; his stripes and the active-duty star were tarnished; his uniform looked unpressed, and he had a dark weather-dried sunburn. His hair was a colourless blond, so short that it seemed he must have shaved his head and now the hair was just growing in, a month's growth probably.

With resentment, because she did not want to notice him, she studied him, not caring if he turned his head and caught her. She stared with impersonal professional eyes, the beady eye of the painter, her husband called it. His face in repose looked brooding and angry; the whole face was square. His eyebrows lay flat and black across his eyes, his mouth did not curve at all, and his chin seemed to make another straight line. There were three horizontal lines marked one after the other across his face, and blocked in by the hard bones of his jaw. But when he had turned to her, wanting to talk, he had been smiling, and his face was oval then with all the lines flared gaily upwards. Perhaps the gaiety came from his eyes, which were china blue - or was it his mouth? she thought, trying to remember. It was an interesting face; it belonged to two different men. Where had he picked up this dark thinking angry man, who showed now? What do I care? she said to herself. Let him have six faces.

I wonder what she's sore about, the man thought mildly behind his complicated face. She doesn't look as if she was the type of woman who's sore all the time. Pretty women weren't usually sore all the time. He could place her, in a general way, as people of the same nationality can place each other. She had money and she had taste; her clothes were not only expensive but right, and she wore them without concern. He had not heard her voice but he imagined what it would be; Eastern, he thought, kind of fake English. She would be spoiled, as they all were, and at a loose end, as they all were too. But her face was better than most. It was small and pointed, and even though she was sore, she could not make her face look dead. Her hands were good too and he noticed, looking at them slantwise and secretly, that the nail-varnish was cracking and she had broken or chewed off the nail of her right pointer finger. It was childish and careless to have such nails, and he liked that best about her. Sore as a goat, he thought. Then he forgot her.

He relaxed, behind the angry square of this second face that he had never seen and did not know about. He relaxed and enjoyed himself, thinking of nothing, but simply enjoying being home or nearly home. He had been gone eighteen months and without ever saying it to himself, because he made no poses, not even practical realistic poses, he had often doubted that he would get back. Whenever he began almost to think about not ever getting back, he would say to himself, contemptuous and mocking: Life on a destroyer is a big educational experience, you ought to be grateful.

He had worked briefly in the office of his father's mills before he became an officer on a destroyer, but he did not want to be a business-man again. Or rather he could not remember what it was like, being a man in an office, so he had no interest in it. He did not want anything now except to be happy. He was happy. He told himself how fine and comfortable the seat was and what a fine time he'd had last night in Miami with Bob Jamison and those two beauties and what a fine time he would have tomorrow and all the other days. He stretched all through his body without moving, and felt the fine time bathing him like soft water and sunlight.

No doubt he has a splendid little wife waiting for him, the woman thought. He is evidently going home and, from the looks of him, his face and his clothes, he has been somewhere. He had ribbons sewn to his blue serge chest. Ribbons could mean something or nothing; every man in uniform that she knew had ribbons. They rode nobly and with growing boredom on the subway from their homes down to Church Street and presently they had ribbons. They lived in expensive overcrowdedness in Washington and wandered around the Pentagon and went to cocktail parties in Georgetown and had ribbons. There were for instance those two charmers, faintly ageing glamour boys of an earlier era, with silver eagles on their shoulders and enough ribbons to trim hats, who had just returned from London. She was certain that they had never ventured much farther afield than say Piccadilly Circus, in case they worked in Grosvenor Square. So what real ribbons were or what they meant, she did not know. However, looking at this man, she thought that his ribbons would mean something. His wife would know about the ribbons at once, if she did not know already, and she would be very proud. Why shouldn't she be? the woman asked herself irritably. What have you got against wives?

Am I not in fact a service wife myself? she thought. Could I not wear a pin, with one star on it, a little oblong pin made of enamel if you haven't much money, but you can also get it in sapphires, rubies, and diamonds if you feel that way? Have I not just returned from seeing my husband off in Miami? A man is leaving for service overseas; he has forty-eight hours' leave; his wife flies to him to say goodbye; they have forty-eight lovely last hours together and the lovely last hours were like being buried alive, though still quite alive so you knew all about it, with a stranger whom you ought to love, but there it is, he remains a stranger. Other women managed to run their hearts smoothly: patriotism, pride, tenderness, fare-well, homesickness. I'm not such a bitch as all that, she thought, defending herself; Thomas is only going to Brazil. I wouldn't mind going to Brazil myself. I should think he'd be enchanted to go to Brazil. As long as you aren't doing your own work, it's far better to be in Brazil than in Miami or Pensacola or the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Only, if I were a good wife, a service wife, I'd have made more of a thing of his going. Why does he want to be fooled, she thought angrily, why does he want to fool himself? Why does he go on about loving me when I am everything he dislikes and distrusts? She could hear Thomas now, and her heart moved with pity despite the anger. I love you more than anything, Kate, you know that; I only want you to be happy. He believed it while he said it; and she felt herself to be cold and hard and ungrateful and somehow hideous, because she did not believe it at all.

She groaned and moved her body as if it were in pain. The man beside her turned, and stared, but he could not see her face. All he saw was the stiff line of her right shoulder, hunched up away from him. The woman was saying to herself, desperately: Forget it, forget it. There is nothing to do. It's an enormous world, with millions of people in it; why can't you stop thinking about your own dreary little life? Thomas will be gone months, a year, two years. Stop thinking about it.

Suddenly, and without any sort of plan or direction from her brain, she pulled the square diamond engagement ring and the baguette diamond wedding ring from her left hand, pulling them off brutally as if they would not come unless she forced them, and she thrust the two rings into her coat pocket with her earrings. Then she rubbed her left hand, crushing the fingers together. The man beside her, who had seen all this, said to himself, Well for God's sake what goes on here? She's not sore, he thought, she's nuts. He amended that thought: Nuts, or in some trouble of her own. He wanted no part of trouble; he did not understand it. Living had become so simple for him that he understood nothing now except being or staying alive.

The stewardess turned out the overhead lights in the plane and one by one the small reading lights on the walls went off and presently the plane was dark. The bright greyish night gleamed in through the windows. Two of the men from Washington snored weakly and one of the Air Force sergeants snored very loudly as if he liked snoring and was going to do as much of it as he wanted. Then the snoring became a part of the plane sounds, and everything was quiet. The woman slept in a twisted sideways heap. The lieutenant straightened his legs and settled himself without haste to sleep until morning.

In sleep his face was even more square and brooding. He was not dreaming; it could not be a dream because it was always the same now when he slept. It was as if he went to a certain place to sleep. This place was an enormous darkness; it moved a little but it was not made of air or water, it was solid and he was under it; lying or floating, in no pain, pursued by nothing, but fixed in absolute aloneness in the weight of the dark. He lay there every night, and every night he was trapped in it forever, and every morning when he woke he felt an astonished relief, though he did not remember why.

The man shifted uneasily and found his face ten inches from the woman's face. She had turned towards him in her sleep. Her eyes were closed and she looked pale, tired, and a little ill. Her mouth was wonderfully soft. The man was not quite awake and he looked at this face he had not expected to see and thought, She's lonely. He was thinking better than he would have done had he been awake and protected by a long habit of not noticing and not thinking. She's sick lonely, he thought. He leaned towards those soft lips, waiting and needing to be kissed. Then he woke enough to remember where he was, and stopped himself, shocked, and thought, God, if I'd done it she'd probably have called out and there'd have been a hell of a goings-on. He turned away from her and let his body relax, and slept again.

The plane skidded a little in the wind; it seemed to be forcing itself powerfully through walls of cloud. The people in the plane slept or held themselves quietly. The plane began to smell close, smelling of bodies and night and old cigarette smoke.

The woman felt a hand on her hair. The hand was not gentle; it pressed down the rumpled curly dark hair and stroked once from her forehead back to the nape of her neck. She woke completely but did not move, being too startled and confused to understand what had happened. The hand now left her hair and with harsh assurance rested on her breast; she could feel it through the thin tweed of her coat. She wondered whether she was dreaming this; it was so unlikely that she must be dreaming it, and in the dark plane she could not see the hand. She looked over at the man and saw his face as a yellowish blur. He was asleep. The hand held and demanded her. They certainly come back odd, she thought, with a kind of shaky laugh in her mind.

The hand insisted and suddenly, to her amazement and to her shame, she knew that she wanted to lie against him, she wanted him to put his arms around her and hold her entirely, with this silent ownership. She wanted him to wake and hold her and kiss her. It did not matter who she was or who he was, and the other people in the plane did not matter. They were here together in the night and this incredible thing had happened and she did not want to stop it. She turned to him. When she moved the man sighed, still sleeping, and his hand fell from her, rested a moment in her lap, and then slowly dragged back, as if of its own will, and lay flat along his side. She waited, watching him, and her eyes woke him. He saw the woman's troubled, sad, somehow questioning face and the soft lips that asked to be kissed. He drew her as close to him as he could, but there was something between them, though he was too sleepy to notice what it was, and he kissed her. He kissed her as if they had already made love, taking all that went before for granted. Having waked in other places, and not known exactly what had happened, only knowing there was someone to kiss, he did not feel surprised now. Lovely lips, he thought happily. Then he saw that this thing digging into his side was the arm of a chair and then he knew where he was. The woman had pulled away from him and from his owning arm and his assured possessive mouth.

'I'm Kate Merlin,' she whispered. She sounded panic-stricken.

The man laughed softly. He did not see what anyone's name had to do with it. 'I'm John Hanley,' he said.

'How do you do?' she said and felt both ridiculous and mad and suddenly laughed too.

'Let's get rid of this obstruction,' he said.

The woman was frightened. He took everything so calmly; did he imagine that she always kissed the man sitting next to her on the night plane from Miami? The lieutenant worked at the arm of the chair until he discovered how to get it loose. He laid it on the floor in front of his feet. She was leaning forward and away from him, not knowing what to say in order to explain to him that she really wasn't a woman who could be kissed on planes, in case that happened to be a well-known category of woman.

He said nothing; that was evidently his speciality, she thought. He got everywhere without opening his mouth. He simply collected her, as if she belonged to him and could not have any other idea herself. He brought her close, raised her head so that it was comfortable for him, and kissed her. The harsh and certain hand held her as before.

This is fine, the man thought. It was part of the fine time in Miami and part of the fine time that would follow. He seemed to have a lot of luck; but why not? Sometimes you did have luck, and he had felt all along that this leave was going to be wonderful. Now he would kiss this unknown soft woman, and then they would go to sleep. There was nothing else they could do on a plane, which was a pity, but it was foolish to worry about something you couldn't have. You might have been sitting next to the Air Force, he thought with amusement, and what would you have then? She smelled of gardenias and her hair was like feathers against his cheek. He leaned forward to kiss her again, feeling warm and melted and unhurried and happy.

'How did you know?' the woman said. She seemed to have trouble speaking.

'Know what?'

'That you could kiss me?'

Oh, God, he thought, we're going to have to talk about it.

'I didn't know anything,' he said. 'I didn't plan anything.'

'Who are you?' She didn't mean that; she meant, How did it happen?

'Nobody,' he said with conviction. 'Absolutely nobody. Who are you?'

'I don't know,' she said.

'Don't let it worry you,' he said. He was beginning to feel impatient with this aimless talk. 'Aren't we having a fine time?'

She took in her breath, rigid with distaste. So that was what it was. Come on, baby, give us a kiss; isn't this fun? Oh, Lord, she thought, what have I gotten into now? She wanted to say to him, I have never done anything like this in my life. She wanted him to appreciate that this was rare and therefore important; it had to be alone of its kind, or she could not accept it.

The man again used silence, which he handled far better than words, and again he allowed his body to make what explanations seemed necessary. She felt herself helpless and glad to be helpless. But she could not let him think her only a willing woman; how would she face him in the morning if that was all he understood?

'You see ...' she began.

He kissed her so that she would not talk and he said, with his lips moving very lightly against hers, 'It's all right.'

She took that as she needed it, making it mean everything she wanted him to think. She was still amazed but she was full of delight. She felt there had been nothing in her life but talk and reasons and the talk had been wrong and the reasons proved pointless: here was something that had happened at once, by itself, without a beginning, and it was right because it was like magic.

The man pressed her head against his shoulder, pulled her gently sideways to make her comfortable, leaned his head against the chair-back, and prepared to sleep. He felt contented, but if he went on kissing her much longer, since there was nothing further he could do about her now, it might get to be thwarted and wearing. It had been good and now it was time to sleep. He kissed the top of her head, remembering her, and said, 'Sleep well.'

Long ragged grey clouds disordered the sky. The moon was like an illuminated target in a shooting-gallery, moving steadily always ahead of them. The plane was colder now and one of the Air Force sergeants coughed himself awake, swore, blew his nose, sighed or grunted, shifted his position, and went back to sleep. The stewardess wondered whether she ought to make an inspection tour of her passengers and decided they were all right. The stewardess was reading a novel about society people in a country house in England.

The woman lay easily against the stiff serge-uniformed shoulder and let her mind float in a warm dream of pleasure. She did not love this man but she loved how she felt, she loved this aliveness and this hope. Now she made plans that were like those faultless daydreams in which one is always beautiful and the heroine and every day is more replete with miracles than the next. He would stay in New York, at her house perhaps, since she was alone. Or would it be better if they went to a hotel so that there would be nothing to remind her of her ordinary life? They would find new odd little places to eat, and funny places along Broadway to dance, they would walk in the Park. Some day he would have to go back where he came from, and she would go back to her work, but they would have this now and it was more than she had ever hoped for or imagined.

The plane circled the field at Washington and seemed to plunge on to the runway. The thump of the wheels striking the cement runway woke the man. He sat up and stared about him.

'Put the chair arm back,' the woman whispered. 'Good morning.' She did not want the stewardess to look at her with a smile or a question. His hair must be very soft; she would like to touch it, but not now. She looked at him with loving intimate eyes and the man looked at her, quite stupidly, as if he had never seen her before.

'The chair arm,' she said again.

The man grinned and picked up the chair arm and fitted it back into its place. Then he turned to the woman and his face was merry, almost jovial.

'Sleep well?' he said.

'I didn't sleep.' She had not imagined his face so gay, as if he were laughing at them both; she had not imagined his voice so matter of fact.

'Too bad. Well,' he said, 'I think I'll go and stretch my legs. Coming?'

'No, thank you,' she said, terrified now.

The Air Force sergeants jostled each other getting out of the plane. One of them called to the stewardess, 'Don't leave without us, honey.' They laughed and crossed the cement runway, to the airport building, tugging at their clothes, tightening their belts, as if they had just come out of a wrestling match.

The men with brief-cases took their hats and coats from the stewardess and thanked her in grey voices for a pleasant journey, and walked away quickly like people afraid of being late to the office.

In the front seat, Kate Merlin sat alone and listened to the stewardess talking with some of the ground crew; their voices were very bright and awake for this hour of the morning. Kate Merlin felt cold and a little sick, but she would not let herself think about it. She did not know this man enough to do any thinking.

Then he was back beside her and the stewardess was moving down the aisle, like a nurse taking temperatures in a hospital ward, to see that they were all properly strapped in for the take-off.

They fastened their seat-belts again and the plane climbed into the mauve-grey early morning sky.

'Do I remember you said your name was Kate Merlin?'

'Yes.'

'Think of that.'

How did he say it? she wondered. How?

He was evidently not going to say anything more right now. She looked out the window and her hands were cold. The man was thinking. Well, that's funny. Funny how things happen. He had remembered the night, clearly, while he was walking in front of the airport building in Washington. It had seemed strange to him then, but now it seemed less strange. Being an artist, he told himself, they're all a little queer. He had never met an artist before but he was ready to believe that they were not like other people. And being so rich too, he thought; that would make her even odder. Her husband, but his name wasn't Merlin, was terrifically rich. He'd read about them: their names, like many other names, appeared to be a sort of capital asset - like bonds, jewels, or real estate - of the New York columnists. Her husband had inherited millions and owned a famous stable and plane factories or some kind of factories. Thomas Sterling Hamilton, that was his name. It seemed peculiar, her being a successful painter, when her husband was rich and she didn't need to.

'I've read about you,' he remarked.

I have read nothing about you, she thought. What am I supposed to say: You have the advantage of me, sir.

'I even remember one,' he said in a pleased voice. 'It said something about how your clients, or whatever you call them, were glad to pay thousands for your portraits because you always made them look dangerous. It said that was probably even more flattering than looking beautiful. The women, that is. I wonder where I read it.'

It was sickening. It must have been a paragraph in some cheap gossip column. She would surely have been called a society portrait painter and there would be a bit about Thomas and his money.

'What does a painter do during the war?' he asked.

'Paints,' she said. Then it sounded too selfish, and though she was ashamed to be justifying herself to this man, she said quickly, 'I don't know how to do anything but paint. I give the money to the Russian Relief or the Chinese Relief or the Red Cross, things; like that. It seems the most useful thing I can do, since I'm only trained as a painter.' She stopped, horrified at what she had done. What had made her go into a whining explanation, currying favour with this man so he would see what a splendid citizen she really was?

'That's fine.' The civilians were all busy as bird dogs for the war, as he knew, and it was fine of them and all that but it embarrassed ) him to hear about it. He felt they expected him to be personally grateful and he was not grateful, he did not care what anybody did; he wasn't running this war. Then he thought, this isn't at all like last night. He looked at the woman and saw that she looked even better in the morning. It was amazing how a woman could sit up all night in a plane and look so neat and attractive. He felt his beard rough on his face and his eyes were sticky. She looked delicious, and then he remembered how soft she had been in his arms and he wondered what to do about it now.

'I imagined Kate Merlin would be older,' he said, thinking aloud.

It was only then that she realized how young he was, twenty-four or perhaps even less. His silence and his assurance and his closed dark second face had made him seem older, or else she had not thought about it at all. She was appalled. What am I becoming? she wondered. Am I going to be one of those women without husbands who hunt young men?

'I'm old enough,' she said curtly.

He turned and smiled at her. His eyes said, I know about you, don't tell me; I know how you are. It was the man of last night again, the certain one, the one whose body spoke for him. This talent he had when he was silent worked on her like a spell.

He seemed to understand this and he reached his hand over and rested it on the back of her neck, where her hair grew up in short curls. She surrendered with joy to this owning hand.

'Yes, I am,' she said dreamily, as if he had contradicted her, 'I'm thirty-seven.'

'Are you?' he said. She could feel his hand change. It was a hand that had made a mistake and did not know where it was. It was a hand that would soon move away and become polite.

The man was thinking, thirty-seven - well, that is old enough. That makes it something else again. And being an artist, he said to himself uneasily. It seemed to him that there was a trick somewhere; he had gotten into something he did not understand. She probably knew more than he did. She had perhaps been playing him along. Perhaps she was thinking he was pretty simple and inexperienced and was amused at how he came up for the bait.

The woman felt that something very bad, very painful was happening but she could not name it and she held on to her plans of last night because they were happy and they were what she wanted. She said, in a tight voice, and mistrusting the words as she spoke them, 'Will you be staying in New York?'

'I don't think so.' Talking gave him a chance to take his hand away and light a cigarette. It might be fun in New York, he thought, meeting all those famous people she would know. He could go with her to El Morocco and the Colony and those places and see her kind of people. She would be something he hadn't had before, thirty-seven and a celebrity and all. It might be fun. But he felt uncertain about it; this was not his familiar country. This was not how he saw a fine time, exactly. It was complicated, not safe, you would not know what you were doing. And how about her husband?

'Don't you know?' she said. He did not like that. That sounded as if she meant to take him over. He was suspicious of her at once.

'No,' he said. His face wore the shut-in, indifferent look.

'What might you be doing?' she insisted. Oh, stop it, she told, herself, for God's sake stop it. What are you doing; do you want to prove it to yourself?

'I'll be going home first,' he said. He didn't like her bossy way of talking. 'Springfield,' he added. She would be thinking now that he was a small-town boy from Massachusetts, and that was all right with him. Then he thought with sudden pleasure of Springfield; he would have a fine time there for a while, a fine time that he understood. He would take it easy and enjoy himself. He might go on to Boston, where he knew his way around. Later, at the end, he would go to New York for a few days but by himself, on his own terms. He did not want to get mixed up. He did not want anything that he could not manage. He just wanted to have a good easy time with nothing to worry about. She wasn't in his league; he didn't know about married rich famous women of thirty-seven.

The woman felt so cold that she had to hold herself carefully so that she would not shiver. A middle-aged woman, she told herself with horror, hounding a young man. That was what he thought. She had offered herself to him and he had refused her. He did not want her. She was too old. If only the plane would move faster; if only they would get there so she could hide from him. If only she did not have to sit beside him, sick with the knowledge of what he thought, and sick with shame for herself.

The plane flew north along the East River and in the fresh greenish-blue light the city appeared below them. It looked like a great ancient ruin. The towers were vast pillars, planted in the mist, with sharp splintered tops. The squarish skyscrapers were old white temples or giant forts, and there was no life in the jagged quarry of buildings. It was beautiful enough to rock the heart, and the woman imagined it would look like this thousands of years from now, enormous and dead.

The man leaned forward to look out the window. 'Pretty, isn't it?' he said.

He had really said that and he meant it. That was all he saw. Whatever he thought of her did not matter; he was too stupid to care about. But she knew this was a lie; nothing had changed. There was the fact and there was no way to escape it; he could have had her and he simply did not want her.

They were the last people off the plane. The other passengers had seemed to block their way on purpose. The man carried the woman's dressing-case to the taxi rank; she could think of no way to prevent this silent endless walk through the crowded terminal building.

'Good luck,' he said, shutting the taxi door behind her, 'hope I'll see you again some place.' It was a thing to say, that was all.

'Good luck to you,' she said, and hoped her voice was light and amiable. She did not actually look at him.

It might have been fun, the man thought, as he watched the taxi turn and head towards the highway. Oh no, hell, he told himself, complications. It was better this way. He thought about Springfield, and his face was oval now, smiling. He would not let himself consider the good time ahead in numbered days: he was thinking, Now, now, now. He had erased the woman; she was finished and gone.

After the cab passed the gates of the airport, the woman leaned back and took a deep breath to steady herself and to ease the pain in her throat. She covered her eyes with her hand. It's just that I'm so tired, she told herself. This was what she would have to believe. It's nothing to feel desperate about. It's just that I'm so tired, she thought, forcing herself to believe it. It's only because I've been sitting up all night in a plane.

LE VOYAGE FORME LA JEUNESSE

Mike Marvin stood at the bar of the Grand Hotel, waiting for his girl friend. She was called Contessa Valdini, but he did not believe she was a countess. She was, he thought, a very well gotten-together, canny, passionate tart. He did not mind what she called herself if it made her feel any better. In Rome, since the arrival of the American Army, almost everybody was a contessa or a marchesa or a principessa.

Two Polish officers drank beside him. Mike Marvin listened with wonder to the unlikely sounds of their language. It seemed very clever of them to be able to talk that difficult stuff so fast. He was thinking that one of them was a handsome man and the other looked tough enough to be American.

The tough officer turned and said, in a beautiful voice, 'You are American. You know what happen in my country?'

'No,' said Mike.

'I will tell you.'

The handsome officer gave warning in Polish.

'My friend remark that I am drunk,' the tough one said. 'Possible. This changes nothing. May I present my friend, Lieutenant Count Tzchernski?'

Count, Mike Marvin said to himself, the Poles have caught it too.

'Glad to meet you. My name's Mike Marvin.'

The handsome Pole gave Mike his hand. He saw no badge of rank on the American's uniform. 'Fifth Army?' he asked.

'No.' Mike showed them, on his right arm, the identification patch which always embarrassed him; embroidered in yellow (and the resulting jokes were unlimited), on billiard-table green, stood the inscription: U.S. WAR CORRESPONDENT.

'I'm a photographer,' Mike said, 'I'm accredited to the Fifth Army.'

He thought: I ought to be used to saying that by now, I've been saying it to foreigners for two years. But he was not used to it; and he avoided looking at them to see what they might think of a young man, evidently healthy, who was a photographer and not a soldier.

It was all right with Americans. The G.I.s thought he was a lucky bastard and if they knew how to work it, they'd do the same. The officers either did not care what he was, as long as he didn't ask a lot of favours and bother them, or they realized that publicity is always useful.

'Aha,' said the tough one.

'May I introduce my friend, Lieutenant Radin of the 14th Lancers?' Count Tzchernski said.

Mike shook hands again.

'Have a drink?' he offered.

The mahogany bar was hidden behind a row of military backs. There were the porous cotton khaki bush-jackets of the British summer uniform, and the satiny khaki shirts of the Americans, or that pale musical-comedy gabardine which was the American dress uniform. By now, the Americans had broken down and also wore foulards around their necks, though they had not given in to the brown suède short boots of the British. Every man looked pressed, brushed, shaved, sunburned, and self-confident. In the raised corner of the hall, which formed the bar-room, other officers sat at small tables with girls; a few American nurses or Red Cross girls, but mostly Italians. The Italian girls, that summer, wore very short skirts and sandals with thick wedge soles. Their hair rose in front, like the false façade of a house, and fell down behind like a river of curled liquorice. They were fresh and free in their light clothes, and a pleasure to everyone. By simply not wearing khaki, a woman gave men hope for the future.

In the great hall, under the chandeliers, the civilians sat more sedately and drank less. There were rigid old ladies, trimmed in black lace, and elderly gentlemen with that corseted look ageing upper-class Europeans have in their clothes. The gentlemen moved about on small pointed polished shoes, bowing over acquaintances at the various tables. A few couples talked together as if each cared what the other was saying.

Mike Marvin and the Poles were drinking cognac. In Italy, cognac was the cheapest, most plentiful, and unpredictable of drinks, but at the Grand Hotel one could assume it would be safe.

'Well,' Mike said, 'to Poland.' All foreigners seemed to have a fierce love affair with their countries. To France, you said, and the guys' faces changed and got terrific sort of drawn and noble and tearful at the same time. To Czechoslovakia, to Holland, to Norway ... it was like a funeral and a love affair, and so personal that you almost did not want to look at them. Even the English, in a sly and dishonest way, had a love affair with England; they did not speak of it, though, as if you were not good enough to hear or understand. The English love affair made you feel sore, but the others made you feel sorry for the poor guys because they had so little to look forward to and their passion was so great.

The Poles drank the toast to Poland in deep seriousness. With equal solemnity, they proposed, 'To America.'

'To America,' Mike said cheerfully and swallowed his cognac in one gulp. The taste was nothing to linger over. Now America, he told himself, we don't have a love affair with America.

Our guys brag about their states as if they were bragging about different makes of automobiles; for Ohio read Buick, for Texas read Packard. Say, I got a state like nobody's state, eight-shift super-silent self-greasing, self-propelling solid platinum gears, ninety-nine hundred racehorse power motor built of non-warping non-heating million carat diamonds. The guys never spoke of America really, they spoke of their states; and they spoke without tenderness. None of them pitied anything, none of them had the pain or the wisdom which came from seeing your country in trouble. There was nothing to pity; they owned, they boasted, everything was fine where they came from. I guess you have to be invaded a few times, Mike Marvin thought, before you get this love-affair angle. It was something the Europeans had and it was their business and okay by him; but like practically everything else about Europe and Europeans, he could not quite believe it. He always expected a whistle to blow and everyone would relax and become normal again, taking their countries in their stride.

The Poles had been talking to each other, in their astounding language, for they seemed to realize that the American was busy with a reverie of his own. Then the handsome one said, 'Would you honour us by dining with us? Lieutenant Radin and I know a restaurant on the Via Borgognona.'

'I'm waiting for a girl,' Mike said, 'I'd like to.'

'So,' said Lieutenant Radin. His face looked briefly disappointed, as if he were sorry that an American would always have a girl, any girl, and this made the normal traffic between men impossible.

Mike thought, irritably, it isn't as if I wanted to talk to the Contessa, talk is not the important feature.

'Could we take her along?' he asked. 'She doesn't say much.'

'A pleasure,' Count Tzchernski answered. What else can I do? he thought, noting the glum reproach in Radin's eye. Americans were hopeless about women. The women they acquired, with such speed wherever they went, were hopeless. Americans could apparently tell nothing about women, beyond the fact that they were constructed differently from men. This was of course a true, even vital, observation; but then one must choose one's time, conserve and direct one's effort, and surely not dine with the lady. The Americans were capable of driving their girls around all day in carriages, taking them to the movies or the opera, paying for their shopping, eating with them, actually listening to them, while waiting with a patience which could only be considered heroic or insane for the moment of going to bed.

'A pleasure,' Count Tzchernski said again.

'Have another drink,' Mike suggested.

Lieutenant Radin leaned against the bar, listening to his friend Stas Tzchernski tell the American about their armoured cars, an English invention named Staghounds. He enjoyed this because Stas, who had been in the regiment since the beginning at Tobruk, refused or was unable to learn anything about armoured cars. Stas commanded one, and rode in it armed only with an aluminium water bottle, but he did not understand the mechanism of a Staghound and he had no confidence in them. Now Stas was saying to the American, 'You must come and visit us and study them yourself. They are grotesque. They will not go anywhere except on roads. The Germans put 88s in farmhouses, in the barns simply, and they shoot down the road and then the Staghound burns like a piece of bacon. We are very fond of them because they were useful long ago, in the desert.'

Radin was watching the door; he was hungry and annoyed about this tardy whore who would be the American's girl. A woman crossed the hall of the hotel, passing among the tiny anchored tables; she stood at the bottom of the steps leading to the raised section of the bar and looked up at them. She had an amazing, beautiful, and unfriendly face. Her nose was that nose the ladies have in Rome, made of many fine not necessarily matching bones. It was so delicate that it seemed transparent. Her hair was white, but not naturally white; it had been bleached to this shining silver. She wore a dress of heavy dull white silk. That, Radin thought, is a woman to avoid. She came straight to them at the bar, touched Mike Marvin's arm, and said, 'Dahleeng.'

Now Radin stared at Mike, in surprise. You never knew anything about Americans. Radin had expected a black-haired girl, with big breasts and wedge shoes, and a towering hair-do. She would be too plump and have dark down on her lip and eyes like an erotic cow; and she would snuggle and coo and pout and ask for things. Instead, Marvin - who looked too simple for such tastes — had found this chic cobra. No, Radin thought, she found him.

'Contessa Valdini,' Mike said, apologetically. He did not like having to join in her masquerade. 'Lieutenant Radin, Lieutenant Count Tzchernski.'

Lieutenant Radin kissed her hand in a businesslike way. As Count Tzchernski was bending over her hand, she said, 'My dear Stas, I did not know you were in Rome.'

'I have just come.'

'You should have called me at once.'

'Of course,' he said. His voice sounded strange to Mike Marvin, too colourless to be insulting, and yet insulting.

For a moment, the three men looked at her with differently appraising eyes. Radin was thinking: Evidently the American is handsome, why didn't I notice that before? He was big and with fine shoulders and a narrow hard waist; and his hair was brown and lively; and he had a good brown young face. Handsome if unfinished, thought Radin, and full of strength. So the lady chose him. Mike Marvin thought: My God, I wonder if she really is a countess; and it made him shy. Stanislaw Tzchernski was thinking that Bianca Valdini had not changed; the young American photographer must be her present amant de coeur. He knew that officially she was the guide, the patroness, the whatever-it-was, of an American general, having rendered the same service to a German general, not so many months before. The only difference between theprofessionals and the amateurs, Count Tzchernski thought, is that the amateurs are more successful and they wear those wonderful broken noses of the aristocracy.

'We're all eating together,' Mike said.

'Are we?' asked Contessa Valdini.

What a hell of a way to talk, Mike thought, who does she think she is? Are we?

'Yes,' he said, frowning. 'Want a drink?'

'How have you been, Bianca?' Count Tzchernski asked.

'It has been very difficult here,' she said, with a little sigh. 'The bombings ...'

Oh, my ass, Mike Marvin said to himself, bombings. A minor mess on the outskirts; nobody sensible would call that bombings. They were damn lucky in Rome, due to the Pope being around, and they never seemed to appreciate it.

'Contessa Valdini,' Count Tzchernski said to Lieutenant Radin, 'lived in Rome all during the German Occupation.'

'Sales Boches,' said Radin, pleasantly.

'It must have been terrible for you,' Count Tzchernski went on. 'It is so much worse for women. The Germans are beasts about women.'

Contessa Valdini became a pinched, tightened white; the fine bones of her face were sharp under her skin; her eyes were black. Count Tzchernski was smiling a gentle commiserating smile.

What is this? Mike Marvin asked himself.

'How is your brother?' Contessa Valdini said. Her face was calm again, the shine of anger had gone from her eyes. 'And how is dear Caroline? Or are you and Caroline married now? It has been so many years since I had news of everyone in Warsaw.'

'Both dead,' said Count Tzchernski. 'Garçon, quatre cognacs'

'Stas! I did not know. My dear, I'm dreadfully sorry. Forgive me ...' The Countess seemed really distressed; she laid her hand on Tzchernski's arm, and with the greatest casualness he turned to reach for the cognac glasses and dislodged it.

'Your charming brother, Caroline so lovely,' the Countess said.

Bad enough for the poor guy if they're dead, Mike Marvin thought, she doesn't have to talk about it. She ought to have learned the right manners for war, by now. He was considering whether he should tell her to shut up, when Tzchernski said, 'Yes. The Germans caught my charming brother and I understand Caroline starved. Of course, she was never strong. I believe pneumonia was the exact cause of her death.'

Radin, who was on the other side of Count Tzchernski, now said something in Polish and Tzchernski turned to answer him. They were absorbed in a conversation which provoked angry statements from Radin and laughter from Tzchernski.

Contessa Valdini said, 'Michel, let us leave them, they are both drunk, no? Let us go, the two of us alone, and quietly dine together.'

'I can't,' Mike said. 'They're friends of mine.'

'You do not consider what I wish?'

'What's the matter? Don't you like our allies, the Poles?'

'I wish to dine with you. It is why I came. You did not speak of anyone else.' The angry darkness had come back into her eyes.

'Well, I wish to dine with them, baby. So I guess you'll just have to put up with it.'

'No.'

'Okay.'

'I will not forgive this.'

'Oh, nuts.' I never liked her nose anyway, Mike was thinking, and I don't like women who make threats.

Contessa Valdini turned and walked down the steps from the bar, and across the wide hall. She moved elegantly and swiftly between the tables and did not look back.

The two Poles watched this and said nothing.

'I guess I lost my girl friend,' Mike said. 'Have another cognac.'

'I am very sorry,' Count Tzchernski said. 'It was my fault.'

'Who cares? Anyhow, I don't see it was your fault.'

'Yes. I was rude. It is stupid. It is Radin who has the political outlook. I have no outlook. But suddenly I became angry, thinking of Bianca and that German general she found no objection to. I said to myself, I do not like Bianca Valdini, nor any of those who found no objection to the Germans. It is why she left.'

'I find objection to the Germans, myself,' Mike said.

'Let us drink to the death of all Germans,' said Lieutenant Radin.

They drank again with pleasure.

'We should break the glasses,' Lieutenant Radin said, 'to make it serious. But here nobody understands to break glasses and we must pay the hotel. So now let us eat. There are many women. It is, like Stas always say, grotesque to worry for women.'

'Grotesque,' Mike agreed gravely.

'You are not angry?' Count Tzchernski asked.

'I never liked her nose,' Mike said.

The restaurant was a small room, panelled in brown wood; sort of like a men's club, Mike Marvin decided, though he had never been inside a men's club. The table-cloths were clean and the other people there ate quietly, with respect for the food. The electricity must be out of order, as it often was, or else they preferred the muted light of candles. It was a comfortable intimate place and Mike Marvin was glad to be with his friends, and no nuisance countess around. The Countess would not fit in here; she was a glaring woman, really. It was much pleasanter to be three men of the world, dining well, with a bottle of wine or two, and talking together in a manner women could not tolerate and therefore spoiled.

The conversation during dinner was confused and copious. Lieutenant Radin had made two long incomprehensible but apparently political speeches. Yes, yes, Count Tzchernski said soothingly, in every pause. Yes, yes, Mike said amiably. Count Tzchernski felt that he had to take care of the American because he had ruined his private life. He was trying to think of fine things to do for his new friend, so that his soul would not be darkened by regret for Bianca, who was worthless in some ways but probably had definite talent in others.

Mike Marvin struggled with the long thin spaghetti. 'It's like the hair of a drowned woman,' he said.

'Yes?' said Lieutenant Radin.

'The spaghetti,' Mike explained.

'I will find you another woman,' Count Tzchernski said. 'Rely on me. You are my brother. I know many women here, since my infancy.'

'Stas knows all women every place,' Radin said. 'Do not upset.'

'I do not upset,' Mike said.

'I cannot find you a woman tomorrow,' Count Tzchernski said, 'for tomorrow we return to the Regiment. You will return with us.

As my brother. If you are happy, the Colonel will give you a commission. The Colonel is a charming man.' He tapped his forehead, to show how the Colonel was. 'Round the bend,' Count Tzchernski added, in the interests of greater clarity. 'You will love the Colonel. Anyone can command a Staghound. You sit in it and look all around you. If you see anything you pick up the radio telephone and you scream for help. Nothing happens. Then the Germans shoot at you. Then you drive as fast as you can and hide behind a tree. It is very easy. You will love it.'

'I bet I will.'

'There is a man in my Staghound,' said Lieutenant Radin, 'he plays the accordion better as Paderewski. You will enjoy it.'

'Why not?' Mike said.

'More wine, no?' Lieutenant Radin asked.

'You know,' Mike said, 'there's one thing I like about war.'

'I like war very much,' Count Tzchernski said, 'when there is no fighting. Many friends, no work, travel all over every country. I am going to invent a new war without fighting. Fighting is stupid. In fighting, everyone becomes excited and disagreeable; also it causes much damage.'

'I like war because you never have to pay for anything,' Mike said. 'Now if they could just fix up the peace so you got everything on orders or requisitions or something like that, people would be crazy about it.'

'There should be many Popes,' Lieutenant Radin said.

'Why?' Mike asked.

'Where there is a Pope, they do not damage. Look at Rome. Very beautiful. Everybody takes care because they have the Pope. If we have a Pope in Warsaw, we still have Warsaw. The same London. First they put a Pope everywhere; then they make war without fighting; then nobody must pay for nothing. Afterwards, everybody is happy.'

'My friend,' Mike said, 'that's one of the best ideas I ever heard.'

'Radin is a man of the highest intelligence. We will now drink to his intelligent ideas,' Count Tzchernski said.

'Gentlemen,' said Mike, 'it's a privilege to eat with a pair of thinkers.'

'You are my brother,' Count Tzchernski said. 'Rely on me.'

'I think we need some brandy to settle us,' Mike suggested.

'I finish my meat,' Lieutenant Radin said. 'This is the best meat since Cairo. We do not eat so much at the Regiment.'

Presently, putting down his brandy glass, Count Tzchernski said, 'We should ask for the bill and see if we can pay it.'

Mike Marvin pulled out a wad of cigar-store coupons from his pocket, the Liberation money. He counted it uneasily. 'I'd like to invite you but I don't know if I've got enough.'

'No, no,' Count Tzchernski said, 'each one will pay what he has. If it is not sufficient, we will thank them very much and say we are sorry. We have done our best; they cannot expect us to do more.'

Mike Marvin looked at this man with admiration; apparently Poles had fewer problems than other people. He was sorry he had never met any Poles before; it seemed such a waste to have your life with no Poles in it. They were men who knew how to live, how to think, how to take events as they occurred, calm, courteous, knowledgeable men. There was a lot to be learned from Poles. And luckily, too, he had almost enough money for the bill, as the Poles had very little. He still felt that everything was free in war and that you were not hounded by the drab necessity of paying for what you wanted. No one could possibly consider these cheesy little coupons as money; these similar green notes were another of the splendid inventions, like travel orders and billeting slips, which had grown from the war and which proved to any reasonable person that all the peacetime anxiety about money was unnecessary.

Count Tzchernski decided they would walk in the Borghese Gardens. The streets were dark and empty except for occasional soldiers and occasional sentries, but even in the dark the city smelled of sun and sun-warmed stone, and once they were in the gardens there was also the smell of grass and pine trees. They jumped a few incompetent slit trenches, which the Romans had dug without enthusiasm and would have found useless in case of need. The slit trenches irritated Mike Marvin. Why did the silly Italians have to go around mucking up this marvellous park? They walked down an alley of tall black cypresses and found themselves in a cleared space where a fountain wasted water handsomely, in the moonlight. The fountain was made of marble with carved marble benches around it, and they stood still to hear the loveliness of falling water and silence. A circle of trees, that looked like willows, walled in the fountain and kept it secret. The place was so remote and so perfect that they felt they were the first people ever to have seen it.

Mike Marvin thought suddenly; I don't give a damn about this war. Everything he had done for two years became idiotic; why would anyone want to rush around in jeeps, tanks, planes, or alternately on his hands and knees, taking pictures? Who wanted to look at those pictures anyway? What everyone was doing, everywhere, was idiotic. All of it, the misery and the boredom and the pompousness and the babbling and the anguish and the death, was crazy; a sickness, a mistake. It would end simply because it had to, because it was no good. And he knew what was coming afterwards though he had not been able to imagine it until this moment. Now, tonight, he was seeing the very face of peace so he could recognize it and never forget it; the ancient beauty of this fountain, which had been here before they became so smart with their great big global wars, and would outlast them.

He wanted to thank his friends the Poles, his true friends, his friends for life. Maybe Poles were wiser than other people, maybe they were a special breed of men. Anyhow they knew about this place and they had led him here; and he understood it so perhaps he was getting wiser too. He felt as if he were in love; it came like being hit over the head with a hammer, and you were awed and triumphant and sad, at once. He was exalted by a sense of wonder, by the glory of hope; the future had been revealed to him.

'That's a fine fountain,' said Mike Marvin.

He woke, late, with a hangover like burning rock in his stomach, like ground glass behind his eyes. He telephoned the hotel where the Poles were billeted, a dingy building they had located with some difficulty before dawn. The Poles were gone back to their Regiment. Then a sergeant called from Fifth Army Public Relations and said his editor had favoured him with a cable: get to Pisa; had American artillery knocked down the Leaning Tower, or not? Take a picture. Quick. This mattered to the Italians who bought newspapers in California. Mike Marvin never saw the Poles again.

After the war, in Los Angeles, Mike Marvin's friends were exhaustively informed of certain conclusions drawn from his travels.

All Italian ladies were titled and had been collaborationist floozies; the Poles were great people, there were none like them, none finer in the world. But his friends could not account for the bitterness in Mike, the disgust, the disappointment. Mike was an easy-going man before he went to Europe; and he had a good job now, a nice little apartment, plenty of fun: the perfect set-up. Mike did not speak of the fountain in the Borghese Gardens. He was not able to find it again, what he understood once so well; not in Los Angeles or anywhere. The peace had failed itself. If he only knew where those Poles were, he could ask them. 'Stas,' he'd say, 'Radin, you guys know the answers. How about this?'

CAFÉ IN JAFFA

Everything in this street was ugly except the voices of the men singing. She had imagined Jaffa as an ancient port rising above a flat sea, a huddled town with streets curved darkly between blind houses, curious doorways, courtyards hidden by pale walls. This was a modern Arab slum street and Jaffa was a dreary damaged Arab city. Still there were men singing which was remarkable considering that this street was suitable to scratch lice in or barter rags but not a likely place for men to lift their voices.

'Can we go and see?' the woman asked.

'It will be a poor café with poor people,' the man said.

He had not wanted to come here; it did not please him to humour women; American men must be half-wits or eunuchs or else they would long ago have beaten amiability into their women. In the Palace Hotel in Tel Aviv there would be white table-cloths, an imitation of an American band, clean civilized well-dressed people whom one knew, and the sort of evening that was enjoyable. But no, this American woman wished to see life, to explore, to waste gasoline going to dirty streets where there was nothing, except a poor café. Theo Lucacsh, who had always hated poverty, feared it now as it flooded slowly upon them, pouring through the city, pushing them back into their angular expensive apartment houses, rising, rising, in the terrible needed dark tide of the immigrants.

'I want to go,' she said, knowing perfectly well what she sounded like and knowing with detachment that all evening she had sounded as awful to him as he sounded to her. My first night, she thought, if I landed on an oasis in the Sahara, if I landed on an icefield in Siberia, I would instantly be picked up by the local playboy and he would at once offer to take me to a night club. Why does this happen? she thought, and by now they were walking in unfriendly silence towards the voices. I am a serious woman, she told herself, I am often a solemn woman, I am full of gloomy thoughts and generalizations; I am not playboy material, and I am certain that, in all Israel, Theo Lucacsh is the one, the most famous, worthless. So here, naturally, am I.

'You will not like it,' the man said, 'it will smell.'

'I am a specialist in smells,' she said sweetly, 'and I am always glad to learn more.'

A bluish neon light, which made their skin look white and dead like fish bellies, dazzled them at the entrance of the café. She saw, veiled by the glare, the stone-topped tables, the yellow-varnished wooden chairs, the greasy floor, the glass counter displaying white beans and white cheese, and one table where five men and a woman sat. One of the men had a guitar. The woman looked tired, as well as bleached by the light; she rested her head on her hand and did not sing. The men were all ugly, unshaved, and wore shirts without collars. Their hands were busy, beating time, lifting murky glasses of arak, holding cigarettes, and the hands were grimy, grained, broken-nailed from work.

'I told you,' Theo Lucacsh said at the door. 'You have seen. Poor people. Bulgarians.'

'How do you know?'

'I understand what they are singing.'

A playboy-linguist was one up on a pure playboy; that made seven languages to date. Maybe if he would stop being so suave, so homme-couvert-de-femmes, if he would stop laughing melodiously, and making sly sexy compliments from a French farce, Theo would turn out to be human. After all, no one had come here for nothing, not even Theo.

She walked to the table nearest the singers and sat down, leaning back against the wall so that she could watch them, smiling at them, frankly meaning to join their party as a listener. They smiled back, showing various kinds of dilapidated teeth; the dark tired woman nodded. The men went on singing.

They sang because they loved their songs, they sang because they sang beautifully, and for rest and to escape, and now they also sang for her. They were generous with each other, allowing each one in turn to shine especially; so that all were silent for a moment while the man with the guitar played a swift complicated variation on the melody, or while the very fat man, with a clown's face, suddenly became a great tragic figure and sang as if he knew better than anyone of all the homeless. They sang love-songs and laments and tunes for gipsies to dance to, and she could not remember any voices that had sounded as fine to her, or any music she had ever felt as she felt theirs. Then without warning they began a song which she could not place, except that it seemed to mourn as none of the others had, and yet it was full of pride, and they sang it in a slow square way, building up its power.

There were tears in her eyes and she said to Theo, 'What were they singing?'

'It is the Bulgarian national anthem.' His face looked older, as if he shared a heavy wisdom with these men.

'Why?'

'It is where they were born. They loved it until they could not.'

It was apparently the hour to eat and the men made gestures of invitation to her and asked Theo Lucacsh, in stumbling Hebrew, whether he and the lady would join them. Theo said with relief that they had already eaten, but many thanks; and she watched a pale waiter bring plates of the sick white beans floating in oil, and other plates of drab paste that looked like some acne salve but was probably mashed brown beans for a change, and dry bread, and saw them making a cheerful meal of these horrors, washed down with more glasses of the clouded arak.

'Bulgaria must be a wonderful country,' she said to Theo.

'It is all right.'

'How did they learn to sing like that?'

'Why don't you ask them?'

'My Bulgarian is rusty.' She had four languages, which in Israel was rudimentary and hardly enough to get on with.

'They are Sephardic Jews; talk Spanish.'

She did not ask why, or know that through five hundred years these people had kept, deformed and loved, the language of their first home, but now, feeling very shy, she said to a thin bald man who sat nearest her, 'I want to thank you; I have never heard such songs.'

The man was evidently delighted that she spoke Spanish and answered in a language she understood but was not exactly the Spanish she had been taught.

'You have just come to Israel?'

'Yes.'

'You will not live here,' he said, taking in something more about her than her face or her clothes or her hands.

'No, I am only a visitor.'

'American? English?'

'American.'

'We are all from Sofia, here. We came three months ago. We are digging sewers. All except that friend,' pointing to the man with the guitar. 'He is of the upper classes, he drives a truck.'

The other men laughed.

'There is a big need for sewers in Jaffa,' the fat man said, and they laughed again.

Theo asked a question in some language she did not know, perhaps Bulgarian, and her neighbour said, 'We do what is needed. I was Professor of Economics at the University in Sofia. We do not have much economics in this country just now, but as my friend says, we must have sewers. My wife,' the man said suddenly and the dark woman bowed charmingly but seemed too tired to speak, or had nothing to say, or was not thinking of any of them but had only come here to listen to the music and think of other places.

'Will you be here in ten days?' the fat man asked.

'I think so.'

'Then you must come to the Odeon Ciné Theatre, on the principal street, a week from Friday. We are giving a Bulgarian comedy; there are some of our real actors here and new ones who are trying. We have the theatre only on Sabbath night when it is forbidden to show pictures.'

'He is directing the play,' the Professor of Economics said. 'He was régisseur at the Royal Theatre, but they would never have let him put on such a foolishness there.'

'The play is called Three Times Married,' the fat man said, smiling with all his stained teeth and all his stubbled chins. 'It is to make us laugh. I will leave two tickets for you at the box office.'

'I would love to come. Will you take my card so you won't forget my name?'

They passed her card thoughtfully among them, bowing in turn as if to acknowledge a formal introduction, and each said his own name, but she did not get the names and felt absurd and hoped this interlude of politeness would not prevent them from singing again.

The man with the guitar looked at the others and plucked a chord, in question; all the little oily plates were empty. Throwing his head back, and immediately resembling Caruso, the fat man started a song.

'Is everyone in Israel different from what he seems?' she whispered to Theo.

'No. None is. If you know how to see.'

He was no longer concerned to please her, no longer interested in possible rewards, and it was not his business to educate her. How could they ever understand anything, even if they wanted to? He was glad he had come; he wished he had come alone, which he never would have done. He was at home with these men; he had been a lawyer in Bucharest, and was luckier than they because he had left sooner, but otherwise they were the same and poverty did not frighten him so much and besides it was only the beginning. This was something the American also would never understand, something she took for granted and did not feel; she did not know what it was to be in your own country with your own people, and to know you were of the same family, reunited, after a long cruel journey.

The men were singing very fast now, the music whirling and spiralling higher and faster, the fat man bearing time with a fork, the guitarist bent close over the guitar, sweating and smiling, an old man with a brief-case, who had been accurate in his singing but remote, now waving his half-empty glass, and finally the song ended, crashing, roaring, and all of them, even the tired woman, laughed with pleasure at what they had made.

'I love them,' the American woman said.

'Why?' Theo asked. She was not entirely impossible; she had a sort of child's charm in that her feelings were quick and definite, and no doubt as quickly forgotten.

'Because they're happy.'

Theo Lucacsh stared at her, too surprised to answer, and then too angry, too repelled by her ignorance to want to answer.

'They insist on being happy,' she said, 'even if only for an hour, now at night, in this café. It's the bravest, hardest thing there is, to be happy somehow, anyhow, for a while, no matter what.'

'You are of course American,' Theo said coldly.

'Why is everyone so idiotic about Americans, where do you get your ideas? From Betty Grable Technicolor musicals? Americans probably know as little about happiness as any people on earth.'

'It is late. Tomorrow they have their sewers and I have my factory. We should be going.'

'I'm sorry, I forgot the time.'

She stood up and thanked them, searching in her mind for handsome phrases, and the tired woman smiled goodbye and the five men kissed her hand, correctly, one after the other and she said, 'I will see you at Three Times Married,' and walked out of the café, feeling that she was leaving a palace where she had been entertained with great elegance by hosts who might someday allow her to become a friend.

She took Theo's arm and said, 'I'm so grateful to you for bringing me here, I'll always be grateful. It isn't a bad street really and that's my favourite café anywhere.'

He lifted her hand and kissed it with mechanical intimacy. Children, he thought, fortunate stupid children. They could still hear the men singing as they drove down the unlighted street towards the new crowded city.

THE GERMAN

The German had lived in Havana for eleven years and no one liked him even before there were political or patriotic reasons not to. He was well known in the cafés around the water-front, in the night clubs and at the Jai-Alai; and everywhere he gave offence. He spoke with sneering condescension to waiters and shouted insults at the Jai-Alai players if he had bet money on them and they were losing. When he tried to be friendly he was even more deplorable, and there was something very wrong about his eyes. He was simply a man of no value and the fact that he was rich and owned a successful business, dealing in cameras and photographic equipment, did not improve his standing. There were other Germans, but he was always known as 'The German '.

When the German Army entered Paris there was stillness and sorrow in the cafés along the Havana water-front. No one had ever been to Paris, but you could imagine it to be a larger, grander Havana, and the people there seemed lost now and hurt beyond healing. One could not feel that the French, any more than the Cubans, would be people to start a war.

There was a little group, drinking in the Bar Nueva York: three Jai-Alai players and a fisherman and two waiters off duty from a café up the street. They were drinking sadly and from time to time one of them would say, 'It is not possible,' or 'What a barbarity!'

This was the day after the German Army paraded down the Champs Élysées.

The German, seeing these men from the street, came in noisily, as was his habit. The Basque Jai-Alai players turned their backs to him. He circled the table so he could see their faces. They were nothing but exiles from a war they had lost, and they gave themselves an air of pride as if they were the true conquerors. Also they spoke freely and on all occasions against the Nazis, which would not be forgotten when the time came.

'Hola, Jaime!' said the German.

The youngest, tallest, handsomest of the Basques, the best of them and the finest delantero now playing anywhere, looked at the German and did not speak.

'I'll buy you a drink, Jaime,' the German said. 'We will drink to our victory.'

'Tu madre,' Jaime said quietly. The German had lived long enough in Havana to feel the weight of the heaviest Spanish insult, but foreign insults are never entirely serious and he wished to enjoy himself.

'Oh, come, man, do not talk in this childish way,' the German said. 'When we have won the war, you will be very happy to play pelota in Berlin. There will be a lot of money in it. You will see how glad you are.'

Jaime walked around the table and hit the German across the mouth with the back of his open hand, in the way that one touches something too indecent to be honoured by a clean blow.

The German spoke quickly in his own language, and left the bar. Then the waiter brought fresh drinks and no one mentioned the German or what had happened.

Three nights later, Jaime, going home gay and a little drunk from the Palmas night club, was waylaid by four men who wore handkerchiefs over their faces. His right arm was broken in two places, which meant he would play no more that season and maybe never. Jaime could not identify the four men and the German had a sound alibi for the evening and night; there was nothing to do about it, in law. The Basques could not bring themselves to the idea of murdering a man, in an unlit alley, many against one, so that plan was discarded though only murder was suitable in return for Jaime's arm and his youth and his talent. They would, instead, find the German one night and smash him up too. For the moment he was being careful, but there was plenty of time. The hopeless thing was that no one could see where this would end.

Meanwhile the cruise ships came in, the Mayor got re-elected as arranged, someone started a shark-oil factory, in the pouring sunlight the streets were full of comfortable people, the price of sugar was going up.

VENUS ASCENDANT

Enid Langdon was relieved but shamed to see that her cousin Moira was getting on so well with that Italian lawyer. Hugh had insisted in his unobtrusive way that Signor Chiaretti be asked; it was a scrappy party anyhow, with bits and pieces of obligations gathered together, no one Enid minded about at all. The man on her left said something and Enid automatically produced her shrill upper-class giggle; the Italian wondered what he could have said, he had thought his English was reliable. Enid smiled down the table at her husband. Hugh very slightly nodded. By being his usual correct, neutral self he had made the Countess at his right and the poetess at his left feel that it was the dreg end of the night and they were hideous and old and catching a chill. Signor Chiaretti appeared to be really interested in Moira; incredible the way Italian men bowed all over one, edging nearer and nearer, flashing their eyes like stop and go signals. Moira should get married, Enid thought impatiently. How that girl wasted chances. The whole war. No one could marry an Italian, yet Rome was such a heavenly place to live.

'Yes, we've been here eight months,' Enid said to the deputy at her right; what had Hugh told her? A deputy favourable to England? 'We adore it. I wish we could stay forever.'

Rome, she thought, was at present the best post in the world, if not specially useful to Hugh's career; careers were not as important as she had once believed. So gay, such food, servants, clothes, parties, splendid for the children's education. The beauty of tidying up your debts at lunch was that no one could stay very long. There was only coffee to get through now, and fill-in chat until the proper moment to leave.

She came back from the last cordial farewell at the door, always an awkward moment with Italian men bowing to kiss her hand and Enid forgetfully pumping theirs.

'That's done,' she said. 'All right, Hugh?'

'Perfect.'

Moira, who had genuine English pink cheeks, now looked a bit on the beet-red side. Enid smiled understandingly and felt irritated.

'How was Signor Chiaretti?'

'I promised to go sight-seeing with him tomorrow.'

Moira knew that Signor Chiaretti was common even for an Italian, but he was the first person who had asked her to do anything on her own, not as an afterthought tacked to an invitation for Enid and Hugh. Moira had been here four months now. She could not quite justify this semi-permanent visit on the grounds that Enid, in her childhood, often stayed with Moira's family at Long Crendon whole summers at a time. Instead Moira felt she was being useful to Enid, with the children, the shopping, the servants, all those little ways another woman could help. Moira could not bear to return to England, but Enid, who had not lived in England since the beginning of the war, would have thought that shirking. Moira's wistful poverty was her real hold; you had to give shelter to the new-poor if they were cousins. Enid, annoyed by Moira's rosy face (she hated to think it, but Moira was becoming prideless in every way, fancy being so pleased by Signor Chiaretti's slimy, goggling attentions), said, 'Would you take the girls for a walk, darling? I've so much to do.'

'Oh, of course, I'd love to.' Moira, for the moment, had forgotten this household convention. She took the girls for a regular afternoon walk, as a governess would have done, but the trick was to make it seem each day a delightful innovation, a favour asked and joyfully granted.

Moira never thought much about the girls, Jill and Miranda, aged twelve and eight; it was not necessary to think. They were docile children who turned their polished brown shoes in whatever direction she indicated and answered, when spoken to, in acceptable clichés. Moira always said they were angels and she adored them and Enid was the most marvellous mother, and as far as she knew she believed this. She also said she was absolutely devoted to children and believed that too. Today as they walked along the Tiber under the sagging grey sky, Moira did not bother to talk to the children; she was thinking of Signor Chiaretti.

He was a man who could make you feel seductive just by asking if you'd seen the Colosseum; he was extraordinarily animal, Moira thought. She had anyhow a thing about foreigners; those years in London during the war, driving for the Americans, had been bliss. Her two affairs were with foreigners, an American major and a Polish captain. Englishmen were much more like brothers. Moira wondered what she would wear tomorrow. She had come out in the summer with one bag, containing all her light clothes, and now it was autumn. Enid had given her a brown jersey dress of no particular charm or style; but Signor Chiaretti had already seen it. She would have to wear her travelling coat and skirt. Twenty-five pounds did not go very far, were in fact all gone. Her mother twice sneaked five pounds into Enid's London account and Enid gave Moira the lire, which was not of course legal but that did not matter. The five pounds paid for cigarettes and bus fares and entrance tickets into museums. I must get a job, Moira thought in a harassed sighing way. She was always thinking that; meantime tomorrow there was Signor Chiaretti.

Moira had told Signor Chiaretti she would meet him at the Spanish Steps at four. The Langdons' flat was a whole high-ceilinged, dark, chilly-to-freezing floor in an ancient and romantic palazzo. The furnishings were odd, being a mixture of chipped gilt and pocked velvet left by the owners, and Enid's and Hugh's well-polished walnut and irreproachable chintzes. Enid spoke of it as 'charming, livable', despite the sharp breezes that pierced under doors and through closed windows. Moira thought it was a divine house. But it was definitely not hers and she wanted to be private and herself today, nobody's cousin; besides, the Spanish Steps were becoming to anyone. She stood near the centre flower-booth and for a moment, looking up at the sun-rimmed towers of Trinità dei Monti, she forgot her travelling suit; utility, eight pounds off the rack, fuzzy yet scratchy grey flannel evidently woven of wood pulp. Her legs were good, her hair was only slightly assisted to this declarative blondness; the suit could not spoil either of her best points. Anyhow, Signor Chiaretti was not apt to know about such things; his own clothes were of the striped sort.

Signor Chiaretti saw Moira at once and wondered why he had made this engagement. Signor Chiaretti attended brilliantly to his work, forwarded his ambitions, made money, met the right people, kept himself informed on a remarkable range of matters, and cared for nothing except the pursuit and domination of women. He also enjoyed their company if they were pleasing to look at and listened agreeably, but to enjoy their company was a luxury he did not demand. He studied the badly dressed woman who was waiting so hard, and remembered then why he had suggested this outing. Partly he liked to use his English; he was proud of it. He accepted invitations from the English for that reason, not that he cared for English people except in their books, which he read as if he were learning the fantastic customs of lost desert tribes. The English notoriously could master no language but their own; it delighted him to be told, as he always was, that he spoke English beautifully. Still, that would not have been sufficient cause to arrange this afternoon meeting. There were plenty of English in Rome; he could dine with them often enough. But he had not, and it was pure accident, made love to an Englishwoman; he was curious; he wanted to see if they were as different from other women as their cool hearty manner and improbable clothes implied. He decided he would find out today or not at all. This girl's lower jaw was slightly underslung; it was enough to discourage curiosity from the start.

He kissed Moira's hand, although her unmarried status did not warrant this, and was gratified that she blushed. But what had she been doing with her hands? They were as red as a washerwoman's. For an instant, Signor Chiaretti was troubled lest he had made a mistake; perhaps she was not the cousin of the English First Secretary as he had understood, but the children's governess? He was not interested in women who must be considered reasonable since they could earn their livings. He liked women to be spoiled, capricious, vain, unpredictable, in the same way that a hunter would not shoot tame birds. Moira's voice reassured him; no one except the well-born English spoke in this particular absurd way.

'It is a fine day,' Signor Chiaretti announced, 'let us go to Ostia Antica.' There would be a certain amount of steps, broken pillars, and other stone oddments to sit on, the ruins were apt to be quiet and deserted, the drive in the car was more suited to his purposes than trudging round churches.

'How lovely,' Moira said; 'I've never been there.'

In the car Moira kept an unnecessary distance, which amused him; he began to be quite pleased with her. She exclaimed nicely whenever they passed a large chunk of old brick, a piece of aqueduct, a crumbling tomb. Half-way to Ostia, Signor Chiaretti knew nothing about Moira except that she found Americans charming, so lively, so simple, so boyish. It began to rain, in the manner of this month, without warning and heavily. Signor Chiaretti said that the essential, when inspecting beauty, was to be comfortable; no one could be comfortable if damp. They must return to Rome.

'Right,' Moira said, like a good sport. So soon, before they'd really gone anywhere, the afternoon was over. Going back to Enid's now seemed to her a drab failure; nothing in her life ever got properly started.

'Let us go to my house for tea,' Signor Chiaretti suggested. 'Every public place in Rome is a disaster before the heat goes on. At my house, we can have a fire.'

'That sounds lovely,' Moira said and Signor Chiaretti recoiled from her unchanging enthusiasm.

He would have to satisfy his curiosity fast; she was neither as young as he had thought yesterday (unwilling to admit it, he knew he had been overpowered by the Langdons, he could not help feeling impressed by the bland certainty of the English, it made him awkward, assertive, and uncritical) nor was she pretty. He did not appreciate this straightforward pinkness.

Moira could not think what to say about Signor Chiaretti's apartment; she decided to say that it was interesting. Signor Chiaretti's wife, who was rich, changed the decoration every two years. The Parioli apartment building was a travertine nightmare, with equal large glass windows, equal flowered balconies, and trimmings of marble, chromium, and glassbrick. The Chiarettis' second floor was also modern. Last year it had been full of thick white fringe and dark blue satin upholstery and mirrors framed in meringue-like plaster. This year the furniture was pale and had physiological shapes, like kidneys, lungs, a table like a pancreas. The walls and the curtains were colours of earth, if the soil was poor and drought long advanced; mustards and withered greens, starved brownish reds. Left to herself Moira would not have known where to sit; no part of the salon seemed planned for two people at once. When Signora Chiaretti was at home, rigid flower arrangements graced the rooms. Since she was, as usual, spending this month at Montecatini for the cure (she took it carefully and preferred the spa out of season), the salon was bare of the cactus and tiger-lily combination she now favoured.

Although it did not seem to Moira an attractive flat, it looked very expensive. Signor Chiaretti rang for a servant; no one answered.

'Accidenti,’ he said, 'I forgot. It is their day to go to the cinema.' He had not forgotten. When his wife was away and he lived luxuriously as a free man, he sent the servants out every day at five. 'We will have to drink, instead; I cannot make tea.'

'Oh, I could.'

'I would not allow it. Do you mind very much? A whisky?' He needed one himself; he was beginning to feel depressed; he wondered briefly about his virility.

The kidney-shaped couch, in front of the fire, was comfortable despite the tufted mustard upholstery. The whisky was good, the fire was warm, the room was quiet; Signor Chiaretti pulled the curtains to shut out the rain. Moira tucked her feet up and prepared to be specially sympathetic, which was her manner with men. Signor Chiaretti had no need of sympathy and rarely talked of himself; he had no problems; he wanted no help; to a large extent he understood himself and did not wish anyone else to do so. It was an automatic part of his technique to urge women to recount their past history. He liked to catalogue and classify his material.

He could hardly believe Moira's words; everything was lovely or, if not, it was dismissed as bad luck or something one could not complain of. He learned that her family's house in London had been bombed in the blitz but really it did not matter, they wouldn't want a town house any more; her brother had been killed in the war, poor darling, but think of all the other men who had died; her parents lived in the country, rather a sweet place, it had always belonged to her mother's people, it was an old manor house, of course; the gardens were rather run-down now, but even without servants it was comfortable for Daddy and Mummy; she had tried various jobs since the war but did not seem madly competent and they were rather dull, which of course was natural, she couldn't expect without special training or ability to find anything very interesting; life was somewhat tedious in London owing to the war and rationing and everyone poor all of a sudden, but she could not complain, she was so lucky to be having this lovely long holiday with Enid. To Signor Chiaretti, who made his life with fierce purposefulness, who would not have allowed history to interfere with his needs and hopes, the aimlessness, the placid resignation of Moira's life were revolting. She seemed to have no idea of what she wanted; she waited around; nothing much happened; she thought, Oh well, bad luck. He did not feel sorry for her; he felt the same distaste he felt for the sick.

He steered her on to men. Moira said, 'I do think the Poles were wonderfully gallant during the war, don't you?' She said, 'I see a great deal of my old friends in London, men I've known all my life; it really is marvellous to have people you can count on.'

At last, ready to slap her, to shout, to take her home at once, Signor Chiaretti said, 'But you have been in love?' Dio Santo, he thought, what has this sexless creature been doing her whole life?

'I thought I was,' Moira said timidly. 'But the war, you know; it broke everything up. People are moved, stationed somewhere else, and then there was not much time, and things rather drifted off.'

If they are all like this, Signor Chiaretti thought coldly, it is no wonder that so many Englishmen are pederasts. Perhaps it was not too late to telephone Lulu Boisvain; she might by miracle be free for dinner, for caressing talk, for the subtle tentative game of advance and retreat they had been amusing themselves with for months.

'Did it make you sad?' he asked, with a tenderness he could offer as readily as cigarettes or drink.

Moira turned to him, her large flat blue eyes tear-filled, and said, 'Yes.'

So Signor Chiaretti murmured, 'Poor little one, it has all been very hard for you,' and kissed her. Moira did not know how this had happened, apparently without movement and surely without decision on her part. She was astonished, but like all sure and graceful action, the gesture seemed right. The kisses changed from soft consolation into something else. Moira, who had never roused such passion, felt herself suddenly beautiful. Signor Chiaretti knew she was off balance, struggling to keep a foothold on orderly ideas: This is too soon, I hardly know him, what does he mean, does he love me? With intense intellectual pleasure, Signor Chiaretti gauged this struggle; Moira was not responsive, but melting. He saw possibilities, and was charmed that she was distracted between fear, nerves, and the claims of her body. He knew that he must not proceed too fast; this was a scene to be played in two parts. He would call an intermission at the exact moment when her balance was gone and consequences of no importance. With great talent and silently, he moulded a new personality for this banal woman. She saw herself as at once powerful and helpless. Unhinged by these emotions and by this electric languor, Moira thought: I do not care what happens, only to go on ...

Signor Chiaretti said, 'I am selfish, I am thoughtless. It is late. You will be tired and hungry. Come, cara, I am going to take you to a small quiet place and feed you nice things and look after you,' and he watched the shock and the beaten disappointment spread over Moira's face until these faded into her usual well-bred look of nothingness. A face as bare as a plate, he thought.

Moira said she would have to telephone Enid. Signor Chiaretti listened with admiration. Even the stupidest women were brilliant liars; Moira managed to give the impression, without definite words, that they had had a companionable afternoon of sight-seeing, were now a bit weary, and meant to round off the day with an early dinner at a trattoria. It was, Signor Chiaretti thought, valuable to be English; they always said so little that no questions were likely to be asked when they said less. Is it possible, he asked himself, that their talk is a lie to hide something? No, that was too hopeful; Moira's conversation was dreadfully sincere. It was nothing and hid whole interior seas and mountain ranges and deserts of nothing.

Moira's horror of the personal now came in handy; Signor Chiaretti could not have borne to discuss, at dinner, the ins and outs, the meaning, the future of their sudden intimacy. He was hungry, although Moira said she ate little at night (high tea with the girls as a rule), and ordered the dreariest sort of veal. But there was red wine and she was again her enthusiastic self, saying that the trattoria was too sweet, so typical, there were so many adorable little places to eat in Rome. Signor Chiaretti had chosen this restaurant because he was sure to meet no one he knew; his vanity could not accept Moira's utility suit.

The rain had stopped but the night air was wet and chilly; the restaurant was unheated. Moira had observed that Italians ate at length and slowly but never lingered after the table was cleared. Where did they go? Will he take me home now? she thought, and felt cheated and again had the sense, more intolerable than before, that nothing in her life was decided, started, going straight towards something.

'This is disgusting weather,' Signor Chiaretti said as he helped Moira into the car; 'I can think of no pleasant place to take you. In Rome, we do not admit it is winter until November; there are two months of the year when one has to stay at home to be comfortable. What do you think of going back to the fire for a brandy?'

'That would be nice,' she said.

During dinner he had talked indifferently of his work, asked questions about England, listened to her effusions on Rome and Italy (they had gone to Sorrento for two weeks in the summer, just the girls and Enid and she, to a divine little hotel where one ate out of doors). He perhaps meant simply come home for a brandy? He had been overcome by passion and now regretted it? He realized he should not have behaved in that way on such slight acquaintance? She would never mention it of course; it was an accident and better that they should drink in a friendly way and meet again next week. Due to Signor Chiaretti's superb management, Moira felt siren-lovely and sorry in a complacent way to have wreaked such havoc with the poor man's emotions.

The room, lighted by one lamp, was mercifully vague. Signor Chiaretti had counted on the recent memories of this place, and was right. Lulled by the warmth and the flickering fire, the brandy, the soft cushions of the monstrous sofa, Moira said, 'Have you loved many women?'

'Never.' This was strict truth and a condition of being which Signor Chiaretti intended to maintain. He had no use for love, no time for it, and saw it as a disagreeable handicap, like being kept in bed by fever or doomed to follies from a need for drugs. Moira took him to mean 'never before', which he guessed she would do. He disliked using words at all. Anyone could lie any woman into doing anything; there was no style to that.

Like a man who continues to invest money in a feeble business venture, because he has put in money before, Signor Chiaretti was determined not to let this sluggish afternoon and evening go to waste. His curiosity had been numbed by boredom but he would get what he wanted even if he no longer wanted it. He recognized that some sort of tyranny was operating in him, vanity being stronger than taste or fact, but he did not care; he was however he was and he would not let a limp Englishwoman change his habits.

'I have never known a woman like you,' Signor Chiaretti said. This again was strict truth, only the voice lied.

Moira flushed with pride; the sense of power was returning. The pride was not entirely personal; her upbringing helped her to feel that an English person must be rather an experience, rather a privilege, for an Italian.

'But I am alarmed by you,' Signor Chiaretti went on, 'I do not know how to please you.'

Stricken, Moira believed she must have seemed unappreciative. 'But you've given me the most lovely time. You've been so kind.'

'You are very polite.'

No one had been kind, Moira thought, suddenly filled with resentment for all the people who had ignored her; only this man had seen her as a person, as a woman, as an attractive woman, Moira added defiantly in her mind. She laid her hand on Signor Chiaretti's. 'No, I'm not,' she said, 'no, I'm not.'

He kissed the palm of her hand, his head bent in humility. Moved by this supplicant gesture, as if he had asked her for gentleness and reassurance, Moira reached out to stroke his hair. Then she was again held in those certain arms and kisses were drawn from her and there was nothing she had to do, but all she did was perfect. She was the object of adoration: the adoration was ecstasy to receive and was her due. She had never felt more at home in the world and more aware of herself. She hardly noticed when Signor Chiaretti led her, bemused, dreaming, down the dimly lit hall to a dimly lit bedroom. She understood that a force stronger than either of them, belonging to her, long hidden in her, guided them both.

Moira awoke in her dingy, false Louise-Seize bedroom on the interior court, and thought; I don't even know his first name, I must have been absolutely tight. She did not dare think any more; if one started introspecting, who knew where it would end? there was too much to think about and all of it unhealthy; she would wait and see. She got up, brushed her hair, washed her face, scrubbed especially hard at her teeth, and went to Enid's room prepared with a candid lie to explain her late night out.

Signor Chiaretti woke and rang for breakfast. He drank three cups of good, heavily sugared coffee and thought about the night, as was his custom. He went over it accurately, for he had a decision to make: go on or give up. Moira could not be more ignorant and unimaginative, he must remember to find out her age, although age had nothing to do with it. He had never been to England but understood that all English gentlemen spent their evenings in male clubs and drank too much and he did not blame them. On the other hand, there was a kind of triumph in this which was new to him; that numb lifeless body could be brought to life, that vapid mind could be forced to suspend all its idiot rules; with time, with care, it would be possible to create hungers and needs and talents which now were non-existent. It was a challenge to his skill. And it would be a great help to the poor girl, he thought; afterwards she might have some chance of snaring a husband; she certainly had none now.

Then, in sequence, he remembered taking Moira home. She stood before the high iron-studded door of the palazzo and thanked him as coolly as if he were bringing her back from the movies. The impervious correctness of the English taunted him. What was it anyhow, where did they find, how did they invent such a mask? That sterile mask, made of colourless words, muted gestures, succeeded in humiliating all the rest of the world. They forced you to feel in the wrong; somehow their behaviour was right; somehow you were always eating with your knife. That this girl, this one specially, should have been able to snub him without effort at three in the morning after such a night, angered him unbearably.

She would be taught; he would teach her. It was a form of condescension the English practised with impunity on everyone else, and there was no excuse for it and he was going to change this grotesque state of affairs. You are a snob, he told himself; what difference does it make how the English behave? the English can make everyone else feel inferior because everyone else is a snob, that is all; why allow it to irritate you? I am irritated, he answered himself. He felt he had brought down his bird and the bird hadn't realized it. Signor Chiaretti began reading the morning papers. Stupidity on every hand, stupidity everywhere, stupidity here in this room, he jeered. It was Moira's good night that decided him. For the honour of all inferior races, he told himself in mockery, I am going to make one English person act the way the rest of us do.

Signor Chiaretti allowed three days to pass, devoting his spare time meanwhile to Madame Boisvain, who was gratifyingly tricky. Three days, he calculated, would be enough to fill Moira's mind with doubt; she would be thankful, after that period of self-questioning, not to be despised by the man who had so rapidly possessed her. Moira agreed to meet him and told Enid she was going to see a girl she'd worked with in London. During dinner at the same trattoria, Moira observed Signor Chiaretti nervously. Had she been all wrong, was he playing with her, was he thinking she was a common tourist and could be had by any man who tried? She would have liked to make a declaration of her fastidiousness; she wished that foreigners understood about people and knew, without being told, what sort of person they were dealing with. It was impossible, naturally, to inform him she was a lady and not a casual pick-up accustomed to going to bed with strangers. She realized that she was making rather snobbish conversation about the people who came to the Langdons', but he had to get her straight. Signor Chiaretti was delighted; he had already shaken that infuriating English confidence.

When he suggested going back to his house for a drink, Moira said, sternly, 'Yes, there is so much we must talk about.' She had no idea how to talk about it, still their last meeting needed clarification.

Straight-backed on the mustard sofa, Moira announced angrily that she didn't even know his Christian name. Signor Chiaretti laughed and said, 'Enrico. Did that worry you, funny one?' Moira's objections were overcome by a steady, humble, tragic 'Please.' His obvious passion, his obvious need reassured her. He had apologized for his three days' silence, he was a frightfully busy man, after all work had to come first, one was bound to understand these things.

Moira lay with her head on Signor Chiaretti's shoulder, and thought that she was two people, herself and her body. Her body was apart from her now, fragile, transparent, burned hollow by such intense, repeated pleasure as she had never imagined possible. Her body was more important than she, beautiful and capable of a life which she missed, living decorously day after day. It was a miracle; nothing could harm or sadden her any more, it was unnecessary to worry about jobs and clothes and going back to London; she had this joy to live for. She wished that she could have learned sooner, there were years wasted that might have been so used, years gone forever; but she would not regret, it was ungrateful, there were years ahead, here, with this man, who had shown her the very source of life.

'Enrico?'

'Cara?'

'I never knew, I never guessed,' Moira said, awed.

'You will know more and more,' he murmured, and ran his hand lightly from her shoulder to her knee and felt her body answering as if he had given an order. He was excited by his own handiwork; he created this woman and was ensnared by what he had made. Pygmalion of course, an old story but new to him in practice: what if he taught her so well that she became wise and could teach him? Women were worth any amount of trouble; one could never predict how they would turn out. He had two more free weeks; he decided he would train and explore this unformed creature.

'We must meet every evening,' Signor Chiaretti said, standing in the dark oily evil-smelling street before the door of the Langdons' palazzo. 'You will make no engagements after eight?' Then, remembering her last good night here, he took Moira in his arms and kissed her; there would be no more offhand treatment.

'Every night,' Moira said.

'I will send the servants away. Meet me at my house always, don't you think?'

'Yes, darling.'

'Good night, my little one.'

'Enrico. Bless you.'

He kissed her hand slowly. It was quite right that she should be grateful; he was not ungrateful himself.

To Enid, Moira used the imaginary girl friend for one more night, and then invented with unforeseen creativeness an eccentric rich American divorcée, introduced by the imaginary girl friend. This woman lived at the Hassler, Moira explained, suffered from insomnia, and was writing her memoirs. She wanted to dictate them at night and had searched in vain for someone willing to work those uncomfortable hours. Moira had consented to try, she told Enid, and would be out from sometime after seven until any hour; wasn't she lucky to have stumbled on such a job? Of course her shorthand was not very fast but Mrs Martin did not seem to mind. No, the salary had not been discussed as yet. Enid was not displeased; Moira had the daytime free, which meant she could go on doing errands for the house and looking after the girls; and Enid and Hugh would not feel that they had to make their friends ask Moira too for dinner. If the American paid enough, Moira might rent a place of her own. It was far better for a grown-up woman to be independent. Enid knew that Hugh, although he said nothing, was getting a tiny bit restless about Moira's long stay.

The Langdons' servants, who had been considering a mass withdrawal, were delighted by the change in the Signorina. They dreaded her visits to the kitchen when, with a determined smile and in an Italian which was at once impossible to understand and an offence to their ears, Moira came to check up. She gave little clucking sounds and accusing stares, for matters of twenty lire in the accounts; she looked in the icebox and at the shelves, to see if the servants were eating more than they should or food not meant for them. She would call a maid to her in that whinnying gabbling voice, and run a finger over a table, a window-ledge, and hold up the dusty finger in scorn. She counted linen as if it were jewels and was always sniffing at towels and sheets to see whether they had been properly aired. The servants hated her; the fact that they had better wages and less work with these Inglesi did not compensate for Moira. Now the Signorina had changed, who knew why? She hurried to the kitchen and hurried out, she forgot to police the dusting and sweeping, she did not count the linen at all. Life was bearable; they would hold on for a while longer.

The children welcomed something new in Moira. She hardly talked to them any more, which was a blessed relief. They could not bear her bright observations and, between themselves, they imitated her voice saying, 'Isn't it lovely?' Lovely day, lovely church, lovely dress, lovely meal, lovely car, lovely, lovely, lovely. The children had no chance of happiness except in their secret dream worlds; they were waiting with desperate concentration to grow up and be free. Moira had been a hideous intruder into their obedient lives; they were defeated and knew it; if they didn't have Moira, Mummy would find someone else to look after them; but now, though Moira still took them out in the afternoons, it was almost as good as being alone.

She did have a new boring habit of going much too often to the Galleria Borghese, where she would stand in a trance before the marble busts of those dreary old Romans on the ground floor. (He is exactly like them, Moira would be thinking, that strong arrogant nose, those commanding eyes, the sensual mouth; it was a way to see Enrico when she could not be with him. She would not dare to keep a photograph in her room, even if she'd owned one. Thrilling, too, to recognize Enrico as the inheritor of the past, the dominant male who had ruled here forever. One could not tell, from the marble heads, how tall the early Romans had been, but surely like Enrico, strong, muscular, not frightfully tall of course, but who wanted an anaemic reed like Hugh, for instance.) The children were free, while Moira studied the marble faces, to roam as they wished and to peer unobserved at any naked bodies they could find on the upstairs walls. Twice Moira had taken them to the movies and left them, alone, saying that it was a little treat and they wouldn't tell Mummy, would they? it was a bit of fun between the three of them. They knew Moira was turning into a crook and approved of this.

She also dumped them in the English tea-room and rushed out saying she had to do an errand and they could stuff on pastries until she returned much later. They realized Moira was rich now; this was odd because Mummy had often said to Daddy that Moira was dreadfully hard up. They only prayed that Moira would not become herself again; they preferred her indifferent, distracted, mysteriously smiling.

Enid said to her husband, 'That Mrs Martin of Moira's must be most peculiar, don't you think, Hugh?'

'Um,' he said, and escaped again into the peace of the Economist.

'She is either madly fond of Moira or else madly rich; Americans are too strange. She's given Moira three dresses and very good ones, they look absolutely new to me, though Moira says Mrs Martin found them unbecoming and simply chucked them off on her as if they were rags. And it is curious that Moira never says what she's earning, but clearly it's a packet. She's always got her hair beautifully done and her nails, and she bought the most fetching pearls the other day.'

Hugh said, 'Moira seems all right.' Did they have to talk about Moira as well as live with her? Enid might leave him a few minutes a day to himself.

'She ought to be happy,' Enid said, 'really. She stays out so late that she's gaga all day, she's not doing a thing in the house any more, and taking the children for a walk isn't an effort. Being covered with gifts and paid millions is not what I'd call a bad job.'

'Um,' Hugh said.

The days were rather dim to Moira; she was of course sleepy. But the days were lovely anyhow and no part of her ordinary life jarred or disturbed the rich blazing quality of her happiness. She saw Rome with new eyes; Rome belonged to Enrico; this gaiety, this warmth, this crowded dallying life had made him. The shops which had hurt her before, because she wanted what she could not have, were here for her pleasure and amusement; Enrico offered her every luxury as well as his love. He gave her money, to be exact, because he had no time, as he explained, to buy the small tributes, the little surprises, he wanted her to have. She must do that service for him. To accept his money seemed the final proof of her confidence and their intimacy; it was like being married. And Enrico had so sweetly, so humbly, guided her, to the Via Sistina, where he said he had heard there were some nice shops; he had suggested a hairdresser who would be good enough for her; he had told her that black and pearls were what she should always wear. She felt herself beguiling, sleek, cherished; she walked these streets as one who owned them; the beauty of Rome was the intended background for the wonder of her love.

And there were the nights. The nights never left her. She was sometimes afraid the nights must show; Enid would sense that her skin was soft and waiting; surely her mouth was different, anyone could see that, surely her mouth was like an announcement of her passion. At night there was no need to hide from Enid and nothing she ever wanted to hide from Enrico. She had no words to tell herself how she felt. She had always a sensation of climbing, breathlessly, higher and higher, into a wild freedom. She had been shocked, long ago, that nothing shocked her, and then had forgotten this. There was no room for hesitation or surprise, there was hunger, revelation, fulfilment; and then the drifting ease of the day with, before her, the promise of the night's fury and magic. She was too engrossed in this joy to think of time, to worry about the future, to ask questions or make plans.

On a Tuesday at the beginning of November, Signora Chiaretti returned from Montecatini. The Parioli apartment was brightened with the harsh-coloured sparse flowers she now preferred; her husband had ordered an excellent dinner which would be served to them before the fire. Every time she returned from a journey, Enrico wrapped her in ardour for about a week like a new lover. Every time she left for a journey, he pined over her, making her feel that his heart would be cold and filled with ashes while she was away. Being a practical woman, Signora Chiaretti knew that Enrico simply meant he would rather be married to her than not. For a year or so, in the beginning of their marriage, she had suffered from Enrico's infidelity, but had then adjusted to it. He was a livable man; she could not bear moody morose people and Enrico was always active, busy, bright, and his conversation was diverting. He was very fit and presentable for a man of forty-five. They had lived their own lives for sixteen years, preserving not only for others but for themselves every appearance; Enrico lied convincingly, she appreciated his good manners. She had had the same lover for eight years, who was quieter and more romantic than Enrico, and she was content with the arrangement, as Enrico was. Gianna Chiaretti knew that her husband liked her. For a week now they would have an amusing love affair and then they would settle down for the winter.

Enrico Chiaretti did like his wife; she was good-natured but neither silly nor adoring, she was shrewd and had excellent judgement and could be counted on always to help him as a hostess, an adviser, a contact, a public partner. They dined out together two or three times a week, they met in passing in their home, they never quarrelled. He always noticed her clothes and was inventive and encouraging, he listened to her problems and thought about them, he remembered any occasions of sentimental importance, his wife was his only trusted friend. It would have been disgustingly bad manners not to offer her the occasional compliment of desire; she might otherwise feel unattractive; he would not hurt her under any circumstances. After his Week's devotion, Gianna would rely for company on her obedient lover whom she could not have endured as a husband.

A brief rest at home would be welcome, in any case. Signor Chiaretti admired his triumph with Moira, but he needed a little time to stand off and look at it. He had, in two weeks, undone thirty-one years of Englishness. He had to remind himself of what Moira had been in order to appreciate his own talent. Moira's appetites were stronger than his own; she revealed a natural childish viciousness; he was enchanted by the dishonest, greedy way she took money. It was only curious that she had no problems; faced with this total change of her life and personality, Moira was happy. A little tormented soul-searching would have been preferable, but as he was enjoying himself too, he did not hold Moira's serenity against her.

Still, the English thing in Moira was as strong as ever; a respectable female lump had turned into an accomplished poule and remained sure of herself, pleased with herself, as before. The secret of this English confidence might be that the English did not think about themselves; from birth they knew who they were and never worried. The examen de conscience was unknown; Protestantism, probably. No Italian girl of good family could have made this moral and sensual revolution without streams of tears, sleepless nights, anguish of spirit, fear, doubt, and trouble with her confessor. Moira, to hear and see her, might have done nothing more drastic than cross a street. It also astonished him that the Langdons asked no questions. Moira had told him of the invented Mrs Martin but could the Langdons believe that mad story? Didn't that horsy Mrs Langdon ever look at Moira; didn't she see those expensive but tartish clothes, the showy false jewels, the mascara, the complicated hair arrangement; did she see nothing in Moira's eyes?

Now that his wife had returned he could not spend as much time on Moira but he would fit her into his regular winter schedule, as convenient. They could no longer meet at the Parioli flat but must meet in the rooms he kept on the Via Cesare Balbo. That run-down street was an ideal hideaway and he would tell Moira that he had sub-let his flat, for six months, to Americans who were paying an immense rent. In any case, Moira was not inquisitive; she had a firm habit of drifting and attaching; she took without question what was given to her; polite dependence was her climate.

They had arranged that Moira was never to telephone; she was to wait. Now she waited. Enrico had warned her that he might have to leave town for a few days; the days were endless, she could not sleep at night. In order not to make Enid suspicious, Moira still left the Langdons' flat at seven and wandered through the streets, ate in embarrassed solitude in obscure restaurants, went to the movies; she saved Mrs Martin in hope, for future use. After four days, panic set in. Enrico would never telephone; her life was ending as suddenly as it had begun. She felt her nerves leaping out of control; she wept easily, rushing to hide in her room, but the children and the servants noticed. She would be talking to the cook and hear her voice rise into a scream of rage, and see the shocked faces of the servants, and hide again. It was unbearable to take the children out in the afternoon, when her mind was filled with a thunderous anxiety and she could do nothing but examine in terror, again and again, Enrico's words, gestures, trying to see what had happened. The lonely evenings at the movies stunned her with weariness, yet she could not sleep, and her eyes were circled and her mouth drooped and she used rouge to cover the pallor of her cheeks. She could find no way to lie still in her cold small bed, and all night, as a torment, she remembered Enrico and the lost closeness of their bodies.

Enid did see that Moira was not looking as well as she had; she inquired about Moira's health and Moira said it was only that the long nights with Mrs Martin were a little wearing but of course nothing to complain about. Enid was nerving herself to have a talk with Moira; what were Moira's plans, she would ask, had Moira considered settling on her own in Rome or did she mean to return to London? it would probably be easier for Moira not to have so many tiring little household responsibilities as well as her work. Finally, Enid thought, if Moira ignored hints - and she had a horrid tendency to do so - Enid would say that they had decided the children must have a governess to improve their Italian and they needed Moira's room, they were frightfully sorry. Covered with money, Enid thought angrily, and Moira hasn't so much as brought one flower into this house; it is too awful to admit it but the girl has become a sponge, that's all, a perfectly shameless sponge.

Enid was giving another clean-up lunch party; today the principal guest was an American lady who had been very kind to the Langdons when they were in Washington. This lady had seemed far more presentable in Washington than in Rome. Enid collected eight people who should be asked from time to time; the American lady, cheerful and chatty, would not notice the quality of the other guests. Mrs Dawson babbled on, undismayed by Hugh's usual politeness.

'My dear, I had the most fun yesterday. Louella Wright heard about an astrologer from Countess Merici; you know who I mean? She said this man is brilliant, he can tell you about investments and friends and absolutely anything. So Louella Wright and I made an appointment and we went to see him yesterday. He is uncanny, really I mean it. His name is Demetrio Kollonic, I believe he's Hungarian; you ought to see him, Hugh, it's fabulous. He told me about some money I've invested and I simply cabled New York at once to do what he said. He told me that poor Senator Meakin is going to be very ill, of course he didn't say the name but the description was perfect and I wrote the Senator, who is a very dear friend, warning him. He advised me about my own health; well, I can't get over him. Louella was dazed, that's all. He knew all about that worthless son of hers at Yale who's always in trouble.'

Moira heard the unabashed American voice, she heard a name, an astrologer, a man who saw the past and foretold the future. Moira hardly listened to the Italian next to her, who decided that the food at the Langdons' was so appalling that they probably had an English cook and that the company was tiresome to an unheard-of degree and that there was after all no law which required him to accept their invitations. After lunch, Moira went to her room and sat on a chair, looking out at the wall on the other side of the courtyard. She would have telephoned Enrico, despite his orders, but she could think of nothing to say; and she was afraid to hear, in words, what she dreaded to believe. Someone must help her, someone must tell her what to do. There had to be relief from this suffering. She decided to find that American's astrologer; it would be useless, but it would be something to do. She could not wait any longer, in motionless despair.

Signor Kollonic lived on what Moira considered the wrong side of the river. Buses and trams clashed up and down the street; there were store windows crowded with hideous price-marked shoes, mostly felt bedroom slippers; cheeses hung outside food stores, also whole huge repellent pigs. Moira was sure the hallway in Signor Kollonic's building would smell. Now that she was almost here she could not imagine what she would say to the astrologer, or ask him. Well, she could treat this visit as a joke; there was nothing wrong with going to a fortune-teller if one went to laugh.

Signor Kollonic lived on the fourth floor. Moira rang the bell and nothing happened; she rang again and a young man opened the door, looked at her, and made a gesture to enter. She followed him, silently, down a stuffy hall to a small room. She had a quick impression of a day bed covered by a rumpled batik spread, frail fancy hanging bookshelves, a Buddha, a Chinese scroll, a big table piled with dusty papers and opened books, two scratched sagging leather chairs, and a streaked window. There was something unpleasantly intimate about this room and about being here, but the young man's face reassured her. He look like a plump European schoolboy; his hair was too long, fluffy brown, his cheeks were rosy, he had a pink bow mouth and a jolly smile. He was small.

She said, 'I made an appointment, Mr Kollonic, do you remember? I'm Miss Shepleigh.' Moira always spoke English as a first try.

'Oh yes, Chapleg,' Signor Kollonic said. 'So. Sit down, please.'

Moira arranged herself. His voice was rather high. Moira offered Signor Kollonic a cigarette.

'Zank you. Now please, ze hour, day, year of your birz.'

'January 25,1921,' Moira said. 'I'm afraid I don't know the exact hour. I remember Mother once said something about my being born at dawn and that it was the longest night she had ever known.'

'It is better ze exact hour,' Signor Kollonic said, without much interest. He rummaged on the desk and found a small leather-bound book which looked old. He held it up to get light from the window, he turned pages.

'So,' he said in a businesslike way, 'you are Aquarius, born wiz Venus in opposition to Mars. All your life you have great trouble wiz zis. It is difficult to make a decision. Someone else must make ze decision for you. First it is ze fazzer until you are big, zen you hate ze fazzer and you let ze mozzer decide but ze mozzer is not so strong, ze mozzer is also one who does not make her mind so you are in trouble, you look for one who can lead you.'

'Really,' Moira said with a disparaging giggle.

'Ze fazzer also hate you.' Signor Kollonic seemed enlivened by this development. 'Yes? It is ze brozzer he likes, ze brozzer is what he hopes for. Always he give to ze brozzer. He had plenty of money, ze fazzer, but only ze brozzer must get it but ze mozzer protects you when she can. Ze brozzer is dead quickly, some accident, in 1943, zen you zink ze fazzer will now love you and give you what you want. You do not like ze brozzer so much, you are jealous. But ze fazzer really hate you when ze brozzer is dead and he say he will give you no money any more, you are old enough, you can work for yourself.'

Moira stared at the amiable plump young man with horror. No one knew this, unless her father had told her mother. No one knew of the ghastly scene with her father; no one knew that she had wept and shouted at him and threatened going to law to make him continue her allowance. No one knew that he had smiled with icy contempt, saying he was in no way obliged to support her. She was of age, his own income was heavily curtailed by the war, she could always marry, surely she could find some other man to pay for her idleness. No one knew she had accused that glacial man of loving only her brother Anthony, now dead, and that her father had said, 'Of course,' as if there were no question of choice. Moira would have died to hide this truth; it was indecent, uncivilized, like the bits one read in newspapers, to have this sort of mercenary quarrel with one's father. She let her friends understand that Daddy had been ruined by the war, she wouldn't dream of asking him for money now that he was so hard up. Daddy was not as hard up as that, but her mother did not dare ask for money for Moira, and could only steal a little from her household allowance, to give to her daughter.

'You have always zis trouble,' Signor Kollonic went on chattily, 'ze people let you fall down. It is ze same wiz ze work but you do not like ze work, you are femme d'intérieure, you wish to live in ze house and spend ze money you are given. Ze work you lose always, no? Someone say to you I am so sorry but we do not need you longer. You do not do ze work very good,' Signor Kollonic said, frowning at his book. 'You must marry, not ze work. Do not try for ze work.'

Moira said nothing.

'You have very fine healz,' Signor Kollonic went on, 'only some little trouble wiz ze sinus, nozzing important. Zat man in 1943, he go away, is it not so? You zink you love him very much, you suffer very much, he go away and later he send you some little present, zat is all. You were too heavy on him, he begins to be frighten, he wish for a love affair; he is not wanting to marry. Ze ozzer man is ze same but you do not wish to marry him so you do not suffer so much.'

The shame was choking her; Jack Stedman had gone away, just like that. For a week or two before, she had felt him rather vague and distrait but she had no idea he meant to chuck her. A month later she got a printed silk scarf from Paris with a card, wishing her all the best. A fellow officer had evidently brought it over and mailed it in London. She had believed they would marry; she longed to live outside England; everything Jack had told her about America charmed her; she was so sure, all her plans were made. She took up with Kot to cure herself of that misery, to rebuild her lost confidence; it was a gay little affair and nothing more, but she was shocked when Kot drifted off, she would have wanted to end it herself. She decided Poles were delightful but feckless, they treated all women like this.

'You have very important love story starting last monz,' Signor Kollonic remarked and unaccountably he laughed. 'Stars very good for you last monz. Venus ascendant wiz ze moon in Aries. You live now wiz a woman, a family, she is a friend or a relative, you know her all your life. Stupid woman.' Signor Kollonic flicked pages irritably. 'Stupid family. She is very tired wiz you, she wishes you would go away now, she will tell you soon.'

Moira gasped and tears stung her eyes, as if her face had been slapped.

'I am sure you are wrong,' she said, 'Enid is my oldest friend.'

'She is tired,' Signor Kollonic said calmly, 'you stay too long. It is like ze fazzer. People wish you to make your mind, fix for yourself, but you do not. You cannot very good, it is not made so in ze stars. You must marry a man born wiz Mercury in Gemini, zis is ze man which will look after you.'

'There is a man ...' Moira began.

'Yes, yes, I see,' Signor Kollonic interrupted. 'I must know his birz time, zen I tell you of him.'

'I don't know it.'

'You must find out. I can tell you nozzing you want to know of him now. Now you are very worried, you do not see zis man. You are frighten, you zink he is not loving you still. I cannot say wizout his birz date. It is very big love affair for you, ze first one.'

'What shall I do?'

'You?' Signor Kollonic seemed to remember Moira was there, he looked at her from a cool distance. 'Nozzing. You must find some man to marry.'

He spoke as if marriage were not the desired, laudable goal, the meaning and purpose of life, but the last refuge for failures. I don't want to hear any more, Moira thought, and rose unsteadily.

'What do I owe you?' she asked, hoping her voice showed this miserable creature how she despised him.

'Five zousand lire,' Signor Kollonic said cheerfully.

Robbery, Moira thought, five thousand lire to tell one nothing.

She paid with an air of giving money to a beggar, marched out, marched down the steps and into the crowded noonday street. She held her head high and trusted no one would imagine she lived in this dingy neighbourhood. Charlatan, she thought, making guesses; she buried at once the ugly suspicion that Enid wanted to get rid of her, Enid adored her, they were cousins and lifelong friends, she was indispensable to Enid in the house, with the children. She would not even consider what the awful little man had said about her father; and what a lie to suggest she hadn't loved Anthony, she had worshipped Anthony, he was her only brother; one accepted his death because there it was, it would be too selfish and weak to make a fuss when so many other young men had been killed.

I am going to telephone Enrico, Moira decided; it has been absurd to fret like this. I shall telephone him after lunch; perhaps, in fact, he was born under Mercury. Enid would think it strange if she married an Italian, most of her friends would, but that was because they were provincial and did not know Italians. Enrico was a very well-known, successful lawyer, and far from being ashamed she was extremely proud of him, and he would be the most adorable husband and this whole thing about foreigners and Italians was the worst form of English narrow-mindedness.

Moira decided to telephone Enrico at his office; he would surely lunch at a restaurant with business acquaintances. Enrico said, 'Who?' in a puzzled voice, because he had not thought of Moira for days and never spoken to her on the phone.

'Oh, my dear child,' he said then, 'I have just come back. I meant to write you a note this afternoon. I have been awfully busy and still am, it seems impossible to find free time this week. You will forgive me, won't you? Shall we meet Tuesday at our trattoria?'

'Of course, Enrico,' Moira said, but she sounded distant and alarmed.

'I am renting my flat,' Signor Chiaretti added quickly. 'Some rich Americans want it; they will spend a great deal of money to improve the heating system, so I cannot ask you there. At eight-thirty, then, on Tuesday?'

'Yes, Enrico. When were you born?'

'Cara, what a strange question.'

'I know, but I've been to see the most amusing fortune-teller and I am longing to hear about you. It's great fun. Do tell me, he reads a little book with one's stars in it.'

This sounded harmlessly insane to Signor Chiaretti. 'I was born on August 6, 1907. You see, I am old enough to be your father.'

'Enrico, don't be silly. What hour?'

'The hour of my birth?'

'Yes.'

'What a serious fortune-teller he must be. Let me think. I believe it happened suddenly in the middle of a tea-party. Now, darling, I must go; people are waiting to see me. I am so happy you called but, darling, in Italy ladies do not usually telephone to men's offices; people get strange ideas.'

'I won't do it again,' Moira promised, 'only I was so worried not hearing from you.'

'I am sorry, but you do understand.'

'Yes, of course, Enrico. Enrico, I'm afraid I've been frightfully extravagant.'

In his elaborate office, surrounded by all the matching angular shiny dark furniture, Signor Chiaretti smiled with malice. The English lady was becoming less and less an English lady. He wished he had time to tease her a bit, to make her beg for the money, but people really were waiting.

'You need more?'

Moira took in her breath; this was horrible; he should not have made it necessary to mention money, she had never asked for anything before.

'Well...' she began. Signor Chiaretti prepared to enjoy himself, but his secretary put her head in the door and whispered that the Commendatore was impatient, so he said, 'I will send you a letter. Forgive me, I must hang up. Goodbye, my dear.'

Moira was calling from a sordid little café on the Via della Croce and suddenly Rome seemed to her unspeakably dirty and she herself covered with grime and it was cold and everyone had some place to go, something to do, and no time for her. She might as well take the girls for a walk. Against her will, she thought of Enid wanting her to leave and Enid's ingratitude was part of the dismal damp ugliness of the city.

Enid and Moira were arranging bargain flowers when the letter arrived. The address was typewritten; the butler said a messenger had brought the letter. Moira put the envelope into her jacket pocket and went on snipping the ends off rather stunted stock, a flower which, owing to bushiness, went a long way.

'Something interesting?' Enid asked.

'A note from Mrs Martin,' Moira said, 'I recognize the typing. It will be some errand she wants me to do before I go there tonight.'

Here I am scraping and saving, Enid thought and jabbed a carnation into a vase, and Moira doesn't dream of offering to help; there is no reason for me to keep her, I don't see why Hugh should have this unnecessary expense.

'Will Mrs Martin be staying all winter?' Enid said.

'One never knows. She's so odd. She might leave the day after tomorrow.'

'But it seems,' Enid insisted, 'like a permanent job. After all, you've been working several weeks and she must like you, she is always giving you presents.'

Tight-mouthed, cold-eyed, Moira said, 'She doesn't think her book is going well. She may chuck it any minute.'

I do understand Uncle Robert, Enid thought; I remember when we were children how he used to get wild with Moira; he used to say she was so heavy. She really takes too much for granted, I never saw such a slug. She might, on her own, without my saying anything, have noticed that she has been here nearly five months. It is outrageous to have to hint and creep around like this. I'd like to tell her straight out that she cannot live the rest of her life with us.

'Well, my dear,' Enid said, 'when you know your plans, you'll tell me, won't you? Would you mind finishing the flowers? I have some telephoning to do.'

Moira cut the flowers quickly, bunched them into bowls, put the bowls around the living-room, thought how dowdy they looked, and hurried to her room. What was Enid leading up to, what had she meant? One could not trust Enid, even as a child she had never spoken out, she always worked round one in an insincere way. Unbelievable, Moira thought; it simply is not possible for Enid to be inventing nasty underhand schemes when I've slaved as her governess and housekeeper all these months. Moira tore open the envelope; there were three ten-thousand-lire notes folded inside a sheet of blank paper. Not a word; money; cold money like a payment; not a word; no matter how busy he was nor how many people were waiting for him he could have scribbled something. She would never have treated him this way; if she were dying, she would still manage to send him a little sign of her feeling, her love. Moira fell on her bed and wept. She had slipped the lire notes under the pillow.

She realized that Enid wanted her to leave the house earlier and earlier; it was too shaming, you might think Enid grudged sharing the evening drinks. Enid was always saying, 'Oughtn't you to be going now, Moira?' and Hugh was always hiding behind a paper and vaguely waving it at her as she left the flat. Luckily, she had a great deal to do before Tuesday; a new permanent and several fittings on a dress which could be paid for later, as thirty thousand lire would not last very long. Moira, filling time until Tuesday, saved five thousand lire; she meant to return once to Signor Kollonic, not for herself since the little man disgusted her but to collect some quaint information from the stars, for Enrico's amusement.

Signor Kollonic, on Monday afternoon, opened his door as before, with delay; bowed but seemed not to recognize her, it was the same non-committal bow to a stranger; and again Moira found herself sitting in the soiled room on one of the scratched leather chairs.

'I have his birth date,' Moira said.

'Who?'

'Oh, you remember, Mr Kollonic, we were talking about a man who means a great deal to me, last week, and you told me to get his birth date.'

'Ah yes,' Signor Kollonic said wearily, and went to one of the hanging bookshelves for the battered leather-bound volume.

Can it be? Moira asked herself. How could I not have noticed before? There was a curious revealing plumpness about Signor Kollonic's hips and thighs, a slight roll to his walk, there were also his manicured dimpled hands and the delicate gestures he made. Oh, for heaven's sake, Moira thought, he won't be any use at all about me and Enrico, it isn't his cup of tea. Really, the world was getting too dreary, pansies everywhere, pansies when you least expected them. So furtive, Moira thought, you never know what they're thinking.

'What is it?' Signor Kollonic asked.

'August 6, 1907. And he remembers he was born in the middle of a tea-party.' Moira laughed, it was typical of Enrico to put it that way; Signor Kollonic looked at her with thoughtful disgust.

'It is not good,' Signor Kollonic said, 'if you do not say ze exact hour. Now,' and he ruffled the pages of his book. A small lamp with a shade of machine-made Chinese embroidery lighted his table; he leaned closer, holding the book under its weak glow.

'Well,' Signor Kollonic said, shaking off with effort heavy weights of fatigue and boredom, 'zis is a simple man. He knows everyzing he wants and zen he gets it; many Italians are like zis. Zere is no imagination. It is like children wiz ze candy. Now zis man is ambitious but not too much; he gets all he wants from his work. He has much money, he would be unhappy if he does not have but he is free wiz ze money, he like to spend, and also he like how good it looks to spend. He has good position. He is of course only interested for ze women. Many Italians are like zis.' Signor Kollonic shrank a little with contempt or distaste. He turned pages. 'Very strong, very good healz,' he murmured, 'but must be careful for ze rheumatism. Zat comes later. He has always big success wiz ze women, very vital, much energy, ze women like zis. Also much sexual talent, a big gift; born under Leo wiz Mars and Jupiter in conjunction in ze first house. Intelligent but has no mind, is often ze case.'

Moira sat very still, not allowing herself to form any opinion from these absurd words.

'Many women,' Signor Kollonic muttered and flipped the book back to a page near the front. He studied for a moment in silence, and then he giggled. 'Funny man,' he said appreciatively. He seemed cheered by what he had found on this page. 'What a fools he makes,' Signor Kollonic observed; then he remembered Moira and hurried on. 'Your situation is difficult. Zere is zis family you are living wiz, zen no money except from zis man, zen you cannot see so often zis man and you are very much attracted for him. But no, you must be patient. What zis man gives you is very nice, very good for you, do not make a big story and arguments wiz him. Zat way he will become tired and go away like ze ozzers. He is a very well-organize man, he arrange his life so it goes ze way he like it; you must be patient. Now he cannot see you so much because he have a little trouble or somezing wiz his wife. Trouble,' Signor Kollonic said and frowned in doubt, 'no, I zink he have no trouble; he must only stay wiz ze wife now for zis time.'

Signor Kollonic felt the table move between them and raised his eyes and saw, with astonishment, that this silly pink woman had collapsed, face-down, among his papers. He reached over to rescue an ink bottle.

'Somezing is wrong, Miss?' Signor Kollonic searched his mind and came up with 'Chap leg '. 'You are well, Miss Chapleg?' There was no answer. She would now, he thought, need to lie down and either want a cold rag on her head or a cup of tea. It was intolerable. Intolerable to waste his time reading the future and the past for those who had neither; intolerable, when he only wanted to study Chinese and be with Giuseppe, even to look at these rich stupid women who came to his flat waving five-thousand-lire notes; but beyond endurance if they now began to faint in his home. Why did she come today if she was feeling ill; had she no manners, no consideration? Signor Kollonic circled the table on his small feet, quiet in bedroom slippers, and touched Moira's shoulder.

She lifted her face then, it looked to him like a large smooth smear of white rubber, and said, 'I am ill, I must go home.'

With relief, Signor Kollonic escorted her to the door. At the door he asked, 'Will you fix your bill ze next time, Miss Chapleg?' and with a movement of revulsion she fished a big lire note from her bag, gave it to him, and started down the stairs, holding herself steady against the wall.

At the end of Signor Kollonic's bustling street was the river. Moira thought about walking; each step was planned and carefully executed, her body was stone cold and stone heavy and her feet were far away and strange and the important thing was to put them down safely, and not fall. At the river there would be a wall to lean on. Now she was resting her weight on her arms, hanging over the wall like a seasick passenger on a deck railing. She felt this was all right; even in this abominable moment of despair she must not make a spectacle of herself. Few Italians ever stopped to consider the Tiber, flowing greasy and grey between the prominent mud banks, but it was something people could do if they chose. Moira thought nothing for a while, she struggled against chill waves of nausea. She breathed slowly through her mouth, fought off dizziness, and waited. She knew thinking would be even worse, when it started.

Then she began to cry; a little rain of tears dripped from her eyes and down her cheeks. Enrico, Enrico, she said in her mind. How could he? How could he be so cruel, so false? She had loved him, she had never hurt him, she had given him her whole self, body and heart, with trust, how was it possible that any man could be so wicked? The dream was smashed, the dream of the safe cherished future with Enrico, a life of love and ease; there was nothing ahead now, but the past was more agonizing. She understood that all the time she had been loving him, Enrico was playing with her, laughing at her. She could bear to lose the future but could not endure the emptiness of the past.

Moira wiped her eyes, because a man in blue mechanic's clothes had passed behind her three times, staring with interest; in a moment he would speak to her, no doubt impertinently. She straightened her back, shivered, and headed for the bridge, for the right side of the city, where people had sufficient manners not to leer and pry.

She did not doubt Signor Kollonic; hateful, slippery, abnormal he surely was, but not a liar, he had no reason to lie. And besides this explained everything she had not realized needed explaining. Enrico was clear to her, Enrico's flat, Enrico's absent servants, Enrico's business trip, Enrico's extraordinary way of not making plans or promises or even offers. Walking helped; she felt less cold; her feet behaved; the wet sharp air soothed her eyes. The cad, she thought, the disgusting cad. She had always heard Italians were cads and refused to believe it. She was too tolerant, she wanted to think the best of people. What Englishman would ever have behaved in this way, what Englishman was capable of this awful cheap smooth treachery? It was horrible to be mixed up with such people, it was too hopeless and vulgar and beyond anything. What could one expect? How had she ever allowed herself? Being hurt was one thing, and too painful to think about, but to be so belittled, so humiliated, so tricked, was really a nightmare. I cannot bear it, she thought, and at once saw her meeting with Enrico tomorrow, her last meeting, and how she would tell him and make him know what a miserable little bounder he was. She would not permit him to think he could wound her; she would leave him with the memory of her total contempt.

Oh, these people, she thought, swerving away from passing strangers, these greasy loud second-rate people. She recognized the Post Office; now, in the early dark, crowds walked down the middle of the narrow cobbled streets, talking and talking (was anything more repellent than this constant Italian chatter?), stared in shop windows, gestured, held their arms around each other; each one of them frivolous, irresponsible, untrustworthy. And so many of them; Italians always operated in a mob, whole families gabbled and clustered together, friends gesticulated in little bunches and never moved for cars never gave way to anyone else. Undisciplined, dirty, smelling, unrespectable: and masses of food everywhere, and the shops full of real silks and face-creams and marvellous sweaters and beautiful bags, while hard-working decent people like the English lived wretched lives. I hate them, Moira thought; you cannot trust them as far as you can see; they are absolutely no good, they take nothing seriously, they are all pigs who only care for their own comfort.

Moira told Enid that she had telephoned Mrs Martin, while she was out doing an errand, to say that she could not come tonight; she thought she was getting a bit of a cold and felt rather low. 'No, dear,' Moira said, 'thank you so much, I won't have anything to eat. Two aspirins and my nice warm little bed and I'll be quite chipper tomorrow.' In the night, anger left her, and there was only the loneliness and the sorrow and the sense of infinite betrayal.

Signor Chiaretti knew what had happened as soon as he came in the door, breathed the rich fumy air, and saw Moira sitting at a table against the wall. The lights were blinding blue-white, the walls were white, the table-cloth was white; this combination helped to make Moira look like a very sick patient, waiting her turn on a bench in a clinic. Her face, besides showing all the obvious marks of sleeplessness and anguish, wore an expression of nobility; it was classical; the woman lied-to, the adoring woman treated contemptibly by the brute male. For a moment Signor Chiaretti was so bored by the prospect of all the talk ahead that he thought of walking quietly away; Moira had not seen him, since she was studying her vermilion fingernails. .Then he brightened or warmed to his task. In a way it had gone too well and too easily. The affair had had a certain pattern which threatened monotony. It would now be interesting to see whether she would accept this too, as she had accepted her initiation into complicated sexuality, as she had accepted lying and deceit and also money.

During the week away from Moira, he had met Lulu Boisvain twice for brief drinks. He noted signs of surrender in Lulu; perhaps with a little more effort, Lulu would at last admit herself ready. But Moira, outraged, became new and even more temptingly difficult.

'My dear,' Signor Chiaretti said and kissed Moira's hand. They were in public, she could not wrench her hand away. Signor Chiaretti sat down, shook out his napkin, picked up the menu, and said cosily, 'We must have a magnificent celebration dinner. It has been years since I have seen you, little one.'

The waiter was on them, there were floods of lamentable pointless Italian talk, asking whether the lamb was really good as if the waiter were apt to say it was old, stringy, rotten; there were detailed instructions on how the lamb should be cooked, what was to be done with the vegetables, inquiries about cheese; you would think that eating was a grave and final operation, and not something one did three times a day every day of one's life. The fuss, the pretence, Moira thought with contempt. It was all ghastly, ghastly like his shirt with the too-wide collar, like his tie, which was satin if one could believe it, like the expensive suit with overstuffed shoulders. How could I? Moira asked herself. It is no good thinking foreigners don't have to be gentlemen, they do: one must never deceive oneself about such things, only disaster results.

The waiter left; Signor Chiaretti smiled at Moira. 'Tell me what you have been doing, cara. You look too delicious, and that dress suits you perfectly.'

It was almost impossible to begin. Moira had not foreseen this. She had been so certain of her emotions, so certain that she would freeze Enrico and teach him to know himself forever as a cad, that she had not planned what to say nor when to say it.

Now, hating her voice because it shook, and hating her words which were weak and whining, she said, 'Why didn't you tell me, you were married?'

'Tell you?' Signor Chiaretti said, his brown eyes wide with wonder, but no guilt, no anxiety. 'Didn't you know? Everyone knows. I have always been married, dear. You mean to say you'did not know?'

'No,' she cried and beat her fist on the table, her eyes shining with tears of rage. 'No, no, no. You know I didn't. How could I? You are lying again. This is more of your horrible cheapness. Can't you ever speak the truth?'

'Cara,' Signor Chiaretti said reprovingly,'people may not understand English but they can always tell by a voice, so loud, my dear, please ...'

Moira's mouth closed in a tight line, immediately. The final humiliation was to make a scene in a restaurant. He was doing this to her, too. She could not fight him; he slipped through her hands; there was nothing firm to stand on; he was too dishonest; she must simply leave him now and leave unsaid all the truths she owed him. Leave him, in fact, unharmed and victorious.

'I am going,' Moira said. At least he would understand her voice, the look in her eyes, even if she did not have his criminal Italian talent for words.

'But no,' Signor Chiaretti said softly and took her hand under the table-cloth, 'but no, my lovely one. You must give me an explanation of this cruelty. We have, after all, been very close to each other. You cannot leave me like this, without telling me why; it would not be like you, who are so fair and so good.'

'You lied to me.'

Then she had to look away, seeing the white plastered wall as a shifting blur. She could not sob in a trattoria; any minute she would have to take out her handkerchief and wipe her eyes and her nose; the mascara would run; it was beyond endurance.

'I lied to you?' Signor Chiaretti repeated in a tone of injured astonishment. 'I? When? Never, I would not dream of lying to you. I do not understand.'

'You never told me you were married.'

'But, my darling, I am sure Mr Langdon knows, everyone knows. I am not a famous man but many people in Rome know me, have met me, it is no secret. How could I imagine that you would not know this from the very beginning? And it would not cross my mind that we should talk about it, you and I. My wife is a very dear friend, of course, but she has nothing to do with you and me. Surely you would not have wished to hear, when I held you in my arms, that my wife does not like canasta, that she prefers the music of Verdi, that she buys her shoes at Ferragamo?'

Moira blushed, feeling heat spread from her forehead hideously down her face to her throat; even her hands were sweating. She wanted only to escape, find a dark room, and hide in it and weep for this incomprehensible ruin. Somehow, and she could not understand how, she was no longer clearly and justifiably insulted, she stood condemned of vulgarity.

'I would never,' she whispered, 'never. If I had known.'

'My poor little darling, my poor sweet little darling. You know nothing of the world. You are hurt and shocked by something so ordinary, so unimportant. Cara, cara, be quiet now and listen to me. We are married very young here and we are married in our Church for always. Perhaps one is fortunate enough to find a friend in one's wife or husband, perhaps not. But only that remains; nothing has been shared, my dear; you are unique. You need never imagine that I deprive you of anything to give to anyone else.'

Moira put her hand over her eyes.

'Would you expect me, finding you,' Signor Chiaretti asked in a gentle humble voice, 'wanting you, knowing what you could be for me, to reject what I so need, to starve myself because of a legal technicality? You ask too much of men, Moira; we are human; we must have warmth and passion in our lives. We accept the facts we cannot change; marriage is a fact; but we do not accept to die. You would wish me to die. You think me evil because I cannot turn away from life when I find it.'

Signor Chiaretti was not pleased with himself. He knew he was handling this well but he was not pleased. There were too many lies and they lowered his standard; he began to feel uncomfortable with himself. He avoided the word 'love ', not that the word mattered to him but that he knew it was the key word for Moira, and would make her forgive him at once. He could not do that; some rules had to be respected; he had already cheated on his code as much as he could. If more were necessary, he must let the matter drop. It would hardly be worth while to keep her at the price of his pride.

'I don't know,' Moira said, 'I am all confused.'

The waiter appeared, adroit with plates. The waiter and Signor Chiaretti bent their attention to serving Moira. Signor Chiaretti hoped she would like this, hoped the cook had properly prepared that; he treated Moira as an invalid who must be teased into taking a little nourishment. Faced by roasted baby lamb, it was difficult to maintain the same tone; the food was so good, so earthy, so solidly present. One could not be emotional while chewing.

Signor Chiaretti reverted to Moira's appearance. 'What have you done to make yourself even more beautiful, darling?'

Moira was forced to talk about the coiffeur, which led her to describe the dress she had ordered and fitted; Signor Chiaretti was all interest, he suggested the sort of bag and shoes to go with it. Moira mentioned a film she had seen; he wanted to hear the story; he found it enthralling, he said it was more exciting to hear her tell of a film than to see it oneself. Moira ate the sweet, a St Honoré, with delight, remembering how tasteless the food was in England, nothing at home could compare, for lovely thick gooey lusciousness, with this pastry. Swallowing chocolate whipped cream, Moira spoke of the astrologer. Signor Chiaretti thought the man an unpardonable meddler. So that was where Moira had learned, from the stars, Dio mio, what anyone on any street corner could have told her if she'd asked; this pederast fortune-teller was a menace. Signor Chiaretti asked questions, laughed, admired Moira's originality in finding her way to an odd corner of Rome, to the rather shivery fiat of a strange man. She ate and talked, it was wonderful to be with Enrico again; she had missed him; there was no one as interesting. It was really terribly dull at Enid's, where no one ever said anything amusing. Enrico was the only person she knew who made talking so easy and such fun.

Over coffee, Moira remembered what this evening was about, and the pain of yesterday, and the dead grey nothingness of the morning. The memory came from a distance, aching like an old wound, and filled her with fear of the future. Enrico had hurt her abominably; he believed in perfect sincerity that he had done nothing wrong. Catholics were so terribly unfortunate, imprisoned forever in these awful marriages which were arranged for material reasons, usually, when they were too young to protect themselves. It was true that a man could not live his life in gaol. Enrico was after all helpless, he had been caught and trapped, and how starved he must have been for love and companionship and passion. Yes, Moira thought, sipping coffee, passion: it was his right and her right; people did not have to freeze to death, be alone and unused and dying of a cold hunger, simply because the Church refused to allow divorce.

Must she now, because Enrico and his wife were Catholics, which was not their fault, throw Enrico away, and throw away their great chance for happiness? She could not plan how they should live, inside this new, numbing limitation of his marriage, she could not imagine the future clearly as she had before when they would have been together always in their own home, dedicated to each other and to their powerful love. But Enrico, who was so sure in the world and so wonderfully competent, would find a way if she forgave him, if she understood not only him but the hypocritical arrangement of life in Italy. Why should she punish him for a system he had not invented? why should she suffer when she loved him and needed him, because of an inhuman religion which had nothing to do with her?

'We cannot stay here,' Signor Chiaretti remarked. The waiters were already eating at a round table far back in the restaurant.

'You said you had rented your flat to Americans,' Moira said and anger returned to her voice. 'You knew you were tricking me.'

'Moira, Moira, please, let us not be wicked to each other. My wife had the notion of renting the flat and moving to the Grand Hotel; she is cross with the cook; she thought it would be pleasant not to trouble with servants this winter. She has changed her mind. I had already made other arrangements for us. A friend, who cannot stand the cold, has gone to Tangier and given me his flat. It is quiet and private; it can be our own place if you wish.'

'Well,' Moira said.

'Come and look at it. At least let us go where we can talk without being overheard. I will take you home as soon as you like.'

Signor Chiaretti was building up resentment against this woman.

Who in God's name did she think she was? He had been kind, attentive, generous, and extremely useful to her; she had no excuse whatever for this show of righteousness. She was boring now in a different and offensive way; she would pay for it. If she gave more trouble, he would tell her to run along; he had had enough of this. A woman could be allowed a certain amount of caprice but not so much that she became a nuisance.

Moira was silent in the car. At night, the small shops on the street were dark; she did not realize the shabby commercial aspect of this neighbourhood. The building was an ugly nineteenth-century apartment house which had become a more or less disguised tenement. Signor Chiaretti said nothing about the brown peeling walls, the ill-lighted stone stairs, but climbed behind her up three flights to a varnished door, found a key, made a carefully uncertain gesture searching for the light, and stepped back to let her enter. Moira saw a hallway which reminded her of Signor Kollonic's apartment; she followed Enrico into a small living-room which was clean and without character, as neat, as unwelcoming as a modern hotel room. The furniture was an anonymous set of blond wood, the walls were beige, there were no books, no flowers. Three Dufy prints hung on the walls.

'We must make it more home-like,' Signor Chiaretti said. 'My friend is a bachelor.'

Moira sat down, crossing her ankles; she did not take off her gloves.

'Cara,' Signor Chiaretti said, 'this is no use. If you must go on this way, there is nothing I can do. I have explained. I cannot go on explaining. You have told me you love me. Evidently you have changed your mind. It is better that we should separate now.'

'Oh, Enrico,' she said, seeing how it would be. He would drive her home; she would get out of the car; he would take her hand and say good night and goodbye; he would drive away down the stony street and that would be the end and she would be alone, always alone, remembering everything she had lost. 'Enrico,' she said and blinked back a rush of tears.

He pulled her gently to her feet, put his arm around her shoulders, and led her to the bedroom, which was as clean, tan, and neatly furnished as the living-room except for the turned-down bed.

'We have been away from each other too long,' Signor Chiaretti murmured. He switched on a small shaded lamp by the bed and began to undress her with steady practised hands.

There was more she could learn to beg for, more than money. He was cold with disgust, thinking of the nonsense he had been obliged to declaim, so earnestly, so honourably, all evening. He had appeared a fool and a beginner in his own eyes. It was a mistake to have spoiled her. She imagined that being desired was her right; she would now discover it was no woman's right, but a privilege to be earned.

Moira, snuggled like a cat by Enrico's side, did not at first sense that something was wrong. She felt warm and released from pain; her nerves loosened; she was at home as before in this dark room with the man who loved her. Only gradually did she understand that the man was far away. That wild and lovely current which flowed between their skins was shut off; stopped; he lay quietly; he was so detached he might have been alone. I have lost him, she thought, he doesn't want me, he doesn't feel me, I mean nothing to him. What difference did a wife make or this suspicious flat or anything? she had talked away the whole meaning of life. It cannot be, Moira thought in desperation, I will not let it be, he belonged to me, he had only to touch me to know. Insatiable and satisfying, certain, strong, urgent, beautiful: Oh, God, she prayed, make him come alive again, make him remember. Grown wise through fear, knowing for once exactly what she wanted, Moira began to lure, wheedle, caress, guide the man back to his passion.

Mrs Martin grew more whimsical each day. Sometimes she needed Moira between seven and nine; sometimes between two and four in the afternoon; sometimes, as usual, until late in the night. Enid thought that Mrs Martin was fed up with Moira too, and taking this erratic way of showing it; or else, as Moira suggested, Mrs Martin was bored with her memoirs, whatever they could be, and would soon chuck the whole business.

'If Mrs Martin leaves Rome,' Enid said to her husband, 'I simply don't know what I'll do. I must insist on Moira finding a place of her own. Then if she's out of a job she'll have to get another or go back to Uncle Robert and Aunt Isabel, as she should have done long ago. This is really too appalling, Hugh; do think of something.'

'My dear,' Hugh said, brushing a speck of lint from his collar, 'I am late for the office. I really cannot discuss this every day. It seems to me best to tell Moira you need her room for an Italian governess.'

Moira knew it was dangerous but there was nothing else to do. She could not sit through any more solitary movies. Enrico was seldom free for the whole evening, and never seemed to know his plans. He would telephone (what chances they took!) and say he was the concierge at the Hassler; if Moira was not at home he left a message to the effect that Mrs Martin expected her at four, at seven, at nine, at eleven. Moira had a key to the flat on the Via Cesare Balbo; she would let herself in and wait; she brought a book. For a few weeks she had tried to make the place more intimate; Enrico did not object to this expense. She bought flowers and vases; she changed the curtains, having found quite a nice bright chintz at Croff's; she spread magazines and cigarette boxes around on the tables; she stored whisky in the cupboard. It did not look like anyone's home, no matter what she did, and these vague piecemeal efforts at wifeliness depressed her. An unseen charwoman came in the morning to clean. The last flowers withered and were not replaced. The pretty plants hung in dank green streamers; Moira threw them into the dustbin.

The children and the servants were aware of another change in Moira. She was short with the children; taking them for a walk she always thought Enrico might have telephoned, she would miss him, perhaps he would not call again for days. She hurried the children around as if they were catching an invisible train. She barked at them to be careful at street crossings and sailed ahead, not looking to see how they fared. She never deposited them, alone, excited, nervous, but grateful, in any of the lovely cinemas they were forbidden to visit. She never even bought them cakes at the English tea-shop. Their dutiful efforts at conversation were snubbed: 'Don't worry me now, Jill, I'm thinking.' Jill told Miranda that it was not possible for anyone to be more hateful than Moira; even if they got an Italian governess, it couldn't be worse.

The servants found Moira not thorough and nagging as before, but ice-cold, despising, and curt. She did not bother to cover her accusations in routine politeness; also she did not give the servants time to protest, but left the kitchen, the sewing-room, with behind her their frustrated outpourings. The cook definitely was going to leave, after next week's big dinner; she would not stand for this. The Signorina expected her to feed the servants on macaroni in water; she had never worked anywhere that the accounts were inspected like this. She was not used to being spoken to as a thief. The second maid, who was younger and less confident than the others, cried a great deal; Moira had blamed her for scorching the sheets which it was her duty to iron, 'out of pure stupidity' Moira said in a frozen voice. Even though it was winter and no one liked to look for a job in cold weather, they thought the moment had come. It was the Signorina or them, the padrona could decide.

Moira spent a great deal of time at the hairdresser's but it seemed to do no good. There was something spiteful about hairdressers' mirrors, or perhaps it was the harsh overhead light in the room where women in sacks sat about drying their hair under machines and stretching their fingers out to be painted. She saw lines on her face which were new; her mouth was not full and proud and gay as it had been, it had a worried look, it was pinched. She often had headaches. Enid was hounding her, there was no other way to describe it, with sly remarks and suggestions, frowns, sighs, mean little shrugging gestures; Enid was making her life hell. And Enrico was driving her mad. She dared not stay away from the house for fear of missing a call. Sometimes he let her wait four days at a time and once, when she could not stand the loneliness and telephoned his office, he said, 'I am sorry, Miss Shepleigh, I will have to call you later, I am engaged,' and hung up on her. Two days ago, without heat and without apology, he announced that she must economize a bit; perhaps it would be best to settle on a regular allowance.

She had beat at him with her fists and cried out that he was cruel and unjust; she had no life; she had no certainty and no order; he treated her like a kept woman; she could not bear it. He had said nothing, but only looked at her with raised eyebrows. And then she had seized him, with hands which felt to her like claws, terrified of her greed, terrified that nothing restrained her or disgusted her, she needed him too much.

There was only that, and though she knew she was unhappy, she could not imagine life without those hours, whenever they came, close to him, the two naked bodies close together, devouring each other. I will do anything, she thought, walking aimlessly down the Via Condotti, looking in shop windows, avoiding the house because she could not give Enid one extra chance to speak clearly. I will do anything, only I must not lose him.

Signor Chiaretti was frightened. No, he told himself, it is stupid to exaggerate: 'uneasy' was the word. He did not like desperate women; of them you could predict only one thing: they would cause trouble. He was also, though this he refused to concede, somewhat exhausted. His creature, his invention, had gotten out of hand completely. Pygmalion, he thought, was a novel experience, but Pygmalion was turning into Frankenstein. It was a bore, it was a burden, it was also alarming. He did not consider this delicious game of sex as a mutual burning alive; he did not wish to be consumed in such a relentless blaze. There was more to love-making than the satisfaction of the body; there was gaiety, there was coquetry, and subtle quarrels and reconciliations. After all, he was a civilized man, not a rutting animal. He thought with tenderness of Lulu Boisvain, who was so controlled, so wary, and so sensitive to values. Not a monomaniac tigress, he thought, seeing the comic side of it, despite his discomfort.

And he had very little time nowadays, when leisure had always been his speciality. He had never felt troubled by the juggler's trick of balancing a wife, a career, a social life, a mistress, and also many agreeable little meetings, for tea, for cocktails, for solitary evenings at a night-club table with other ladies who caught his fancy. Whereas now, dreading what insanity Moira might practise if too neglected, he felt obliged to give her all the free time he could spare. He meant to extricate himself slowly and with caution. His best hope was that she would find another lover but the chance for that was slight; you would think those idiotic Langdons could dredge up some men from their acquaintances. It seemed to him ruthless the way they slid out of their responsibilities; he did not believe for a minute that they accepted Moira's ridiculous story about Mrs Martin. They must know Moira was being kept. It was like the English to be serene and blind at their own convenience, to ignore Moira's money as if it were respectable in order to spare themselves expense. The miserliness of the English was well known, shocking, but he was not a reformer and it was not his business to improve national characteristics. However, to dump their relative on him as an emotional problem was too much. He felt aggrieved, he felt absurd. The English as usual had made a fool of a foreigner.

Enid's big dinner was an important occasion, planned well in advance; the new American Ambassador and his wife were coming. She had been extravagant with food and wine and flowers; she had a new dress; the guest list glittered with valuable names. She had been too busy to think much of Moira these last days. There was nothing Enid enjoyed more than a slightly dangerous diplomatic pretentiousness; one never knew how one's own Ambassadress felt about one's giving a really grand party. She was nervous although elated. The afternoon of the party, Moira announced casually that she would be home tonight after all.

Enrico had telephoned, cancelling their engagement. It was a new tactic he was trying out. He made an appointment to keep Moira quiet; he would then call up, very late, and apologize humbly. A difficult client demanded to see him; his wife had accepted an invitation without warning him; a Minister expected him for a conference. It happened often, but not too often; Moira had to believe him. She was numbed with disappointment, she was not thinking of Enid and had forgotten Enid's tedious party. She simply did not want to go out alone in the cold night and face the speculative stares of strangers in a restaurant.

'I am very sorry,' Enid said in a voice of ice, 'it's quite impossible, Moira. I must ask you to be a little more considerate. It would make thirteen at the table. Beyond that, I cannot be expected to arrange my life entirely to suit you. You are putting a great strain on me.'

Moira stared at her. The two women stood straight in the flowered, polished room.

'I do not understand your tone,' Moira said. 'I have done nothing except try to be useful to you; it would seem to me I deserved at least courtesy for that. I am sorry about tonight and of course I will go out at once so as not to embarrass you.'

Enid wanted to stamp her foot with rage; she wanted to slap Moira or pull her hair; buried childish desires for the outward and clear demonstration of hatred rose in her; she was so angry that she feared she would cry since she could not relieve herself by kicking this insensitive, insolent monster of a woman. And how dared Moira, how dared she? She behaved as if Enid were in the wrong. I will not stand for it one moment longer, Enid thought, and as she has no feelings, I need not worry about hurting them.

'Moira, I think we should discuss this matter now,' Enid said, 'since you have brought it up. Hugh and I did not want to speak of it, we expected of course that you would choose to live in a flat of your own, as you have a job and are staying in Rome permanently. The children are not learning Italian, and it was always our plan to have a governess for them; we meant to start them off in the autumn. It is now nearly Christmas; you have been here six months. You have had adequate time to make up your mind as to what you wish to do, and we cannot postpone finding someone who will be able to look after the children properly. I think you should begin to ask about a flat at once, so that we can make our own plans.'

Rigid, Moira said, 'I shall move in with friends immediately, Enid. Naturally I would not have stayed here a day if I'd thought you didn't want me. It only hurts that you do not feel I have helped you.'

Damn her, Enid thought, oh, damn her to hell; now I am going to have to apologize and explain, thank her for all her silly messing about the house and for trotting the children out in the afternoon. I won't, Enid thought; I am damned if I will. She has not said thank you once; she is so bloody-minded that she thinks all the thanks are on our side. What for? I'd like to know. I won't do it.

'Whatever you think best,' Enid murmured and turned to rearrange the expensive roses on the mantelpiece.

Moira's hands shook so that she could hardly pack her overnight bag. Enid's coarseness was as disgusting as her ingratitude. She was ashamed that Enid was her own cousin, and though it was not a thing she would ever have said to anyone, she had to admit that blood told; Enid's mother, Aunt Hazel, had been a perfectly horrible woman; the whole family thought she was common. Enid was getting just like her; poor Hugh, Enid was becoming a shrill vulgar bully. I can't wait to get out, Moira thought, I will never speak to Enid again. She can treat her servants as she likes but she needn't think she can behave in this appalling way to me. Her hands trembled with fury; she dropped a small jar of face-cream, to her increased rage she pulled a thread in the stockings she was packing.

It could not be nastier, but on the other hand there was something to be said for clearing the air. This settled everything. She would go now at once to the apartment on the Via Cesare Balbo and telephone Enrico and say she had to see him if only for a few moments before dinner. It was a matter of extreme importance. She would explain what had happened; Enrico would comfort her and understand; and then simply she would live in their little flat. Staying there all the time, it would be worth while to make it really pretty, his true home. On the whole, Enid's revolting outburst was for the best; she would be less exhausted and nervous if she didn't have those miserable errands to do for Enid every day; she would be able to lead a quiet normal life again. Knowing she was there, Enrico would come more often. It was not as if they had to make arrangements by telephone, possibly missing each other. Much better, she thought; I am well out of this depressing house.

Signor Chiaretti was furious. He had made it more than clear to Moira that she must not telephone his office; he had said he was dining unexpectedly with the Minister of the Interior. He had no desire to see Moira today and less and less desire to see her at any time; and he realized he had to go to the flat because otherwise he could not imagine what she would do: telephone his house probably. It was the basis of his life with Gianna that there were never scenes; Gianna was never forced to know anything. And he was dining with Lulu Boisvain and wanted time to go home first, have a luxurious bath, groom and shine himself for the occasion, and arrive tranquil, prepared for a sweet smooth duel. They were dining alone at Lulu's house; her husband was in Milan. Unless he could settle Moira quickly, he would have to go as he was, rumpled, soiled, from a tiring day at his office.

'Enrico,' Moira said and threw her arms around his neck. She was suffering a reaction; she had been crying in the bedroom ever since she arrived. 'Darling, I thought you would never come. I've been through the most beastly scene with Enid. I can't tell you how she treated me. She's put me out.'

Signor Chiaretti recoiled. Not true, he thought; oh, my God, a real first-rate scandal. He despised the Langdons but certainly did not want them as enemies, going around Rome in their congealed way saying he had seduced their cousin.

'What happened?' he asked. He was thinking quickly how to get out of this. He hated them all, those Langdons with their big teeth and blocked-up voices and this weeping, clinging woman.

'She as good as said I was simply in the way. She said I was inconsiderate, when I've worked like a black for her all these months. She said they needed my room for an Italian governess, which is a complete lie, and I should start at once looking for a place of my own.'

'Oh,' said Signor Chiaretti and let out his breath in a sigh. Still, he had to make sure. 'Nothing about us?'

'About us?' Moira asked in surprise. 'Why?'

'Oh,' Signor Chiaretti said again, and took off his coat and sat down, feeling shaky, in one of the bentwood, hard, stuffed armchairs. 'Let's have a drink and talk it over,' he said. I would like, he thought, to wring her neck.

Moira sat on the arm of the chair, stroking his hair, which made him so nervous he wanted to shout at her. 'Sit down over there, darling,' he said; 'I can't think with you close to me.'

Smiling, holding her drink, Moira established herself on the matching hard sofa. 'I've thought it all out,' she said. 'I shall move in here. It's much the best, don't you think? That way we won't—'

'No,' Signor Chiaretti interrupted violently. 'That will not do at all, Moira.'

'Enrico!'

'My dear, for heaven's sake use your head. How long do you think you could keep it a secret? What do you want, an open scandal, with everyone in Rome talking? It is quite impossible.'

'I don't care what anyone says. I love you. I want to be here where you can always find me. I will be happy, feeling that I can make this place into a home for you.'

My God, he thought; oh, my God, what horror!

'Moira, you are very sweet but totally impractical. I live in Rome, you know, I have my work here and a certain reputation. I cannot afford, for many reasons which are too obvious to explain, to be involved in what would end up as a serious disaster. We do not behave this way in Rome, I assure you. We are above all discreet. We do not call attention to ourselves. We do not force people to have an opinion and take sides. It would be unforgivable. Your position would be something you cannot imagine. I cannot allow you to put yourself outside society. You would never be invited anywhere again, no one would speak to you.'

I wonder if it's true, he thought, and ran rapidly through the list of his acquaintances, trying to remember old gossip. It might be true; but generally the knife fell if a married man or woman left home to live openly with another; how did the mistress in the separate flat work out? True enough, he thought, and truth isn't the point. He dared not tell her, as he longed to, that the very idea of knowing she was in his garçonnière, waiting like fate, made his blood run cold with loathing.

'You don't want me to stay?' Moira asked.

'My dear, it is not a question of wanting. I beg you to be sensible. It is a question of what can and cannot be done.'

'I do not understand,' Moira said and he saw to his disgust that she was going to cry again.

The only effective way to end this grisly interview would be to take her to bed. He could not and would not. If he hurried he still had time for that craved bath, for a moment of privacy, and a chance to slough off the unlikely, unwanted complications that now filled his life.

'I must go, my dear; I cannot keep the Minister waiting. I will see you here tomorrow at eight and we will plan something. Now be a good girl and take a taxi to a hotel; I think the Hôtel de la Ville would be a suitable place to spend the night. Here's some money,' he said, and pulled out his wallet and noticed with irritation that it always seemed to be thin, he was always running short of cash because he was always giving it unexpectedly to Moira.

She did not move; he laid the notes on the table in front of her.

'Be a good girl,' he said again briskly, 'I must hurry. Good night, darling.' He kissed the top of her head; still Moira did not move or speak or look at him. He hesitated a moment and then picked up his coat and ran down the steps. I will tell her my friend is returning from Tangier, he thought, clacking down the stone stairway. The motor of his car would not turn; he pulled viciously at the starter. I will tell her to stay there a week and then we must give the place up. I will cover her with money, he decided, and write her a letter saying Gianna has had a nervous breakdown and I have to take her to Majorca. Or anything. I will then pray, he told himself grimly, that the deplorable woman doesn't work up some public outrage and make a fool of me forever. In Rome, people laughed. That was the terrible thing; they laughed for years.

She had wept all she could; she was dried out. There was also nothing to think. Backward or forward, her mind came up against nothing. Moira reached for the whisky bottle and poured herself another drink. She drank it steadily, like medicine. She poured another. One idea formed in her mind: if she drank a great deal of whisky she would sleep. And she would sleep here; she smiled craftily; she would not go out alone in the dark, it was above all heartless and terrible the way Enid and Enrico never seemed to mind sending her around by herself at night when Italians were always disrespectful to women. She would not. She would go straight down the hall and curl up in what was her rightful bed.

Staggering a little, Moira made her way down the hall. She undressed, humming a song whose tune she did not seem to recognize. As she turned out the light by the bed, in the room which was very slightly tipped to the left, she thought how lovely it was to have a place of one's own.

Moira woke and was horrified to see where she was. Hammer-strokes beat behind her temples; her mouth tasted disgusting, hot and flannelly; her stomach rocked with an empty coldness. Enid would know she had stayed out all night; how would she ever explain this? She had burned her bridges. Then she remembered; there were no bridges. She sat up and a sharp pain shot from the back to the front of her head. She was shivering. Any moment the charwoman would arrive and see her. She thought of Enrico's words, which had stunned her with misery, last night; this morning they seemed both reasonable and wise. Of course she could not stay here, she must have been mad. Enrico was quite right. She was seized with panic at a picture of people turning away from her in the street, cutting her dead; the telephone would never ring; she would have no one in the world to talk to; the story would get back to London; the mistress of a married Italian, living in a sordid love-nest he kept for her on a back street. God, she said aloud. She threw back the covers and found that standing up made her feel even sicker. She would, chilled to the bone already, take a cold bath; that ought to bring her to. I must get out quickly, she told herself. I must not let Enrico know I disobeyed him, he would be furious; he is absolutely right; we will have to find some other way to manage this.

She took her overnight bag with her, after some hesitation; the charwoman must not find it. She would go to the Hôtel de la Ville, take a room, and then go to Enid's and pack up the rest of her things. Enid was apt to be out in the middle of the morning. Tonight she would talk to Enrico. A flat of her own and any sort of camouflage job was the proper arrangement. She must, in fact, be very careful to see people in Rome; there were always English friends passing through. She would even have to make an effort and meet some new people, perhaps at lectures of the British Council, so that nothing would seem odd or secretive. In England it would be altogether different, but in England everyone would know they were going to be married as soon as his divorce was final. You simply couldn't tell in Italy; these people were so peculiar and insincere and then this thing of their Church. They hated foreigners anyhow.

Moira stopped at a white-tiled milk bar and drank three cups of coffee which helped; she now only felt weak and her eyes ached. The concierge at the Hôtel de la Ville was civil at least and seemed to find nothing strange in her arriving like that with an overnight bag. She went up to the small barren room which faced away from the view, and stood against the radiator trying to get warm. Suddenly her mind went blank and she could not see ahead, as she had only an hour ago; the flat of her own, the respectable job, floated off into doubt. Nothing made sense; everything was temporary, like living on a raft. What shall I do? she asked herself, and her mind churned around, finding nothing but more questions, more uncertainty.

There was no one to help her, no one she could talk to. She longed for her mother, although she could not possibly have explained this to her mother and her mother never had any sure solutions, but at least Mummy was sweet and loved her and always said, 'Darling, I'm sure it will work out for thë best,' so one felt encouraged. No one, Moira thought, no one. I simply don't know what to do. Then she thought of Signor Kollonic, and though she hated him she had to admit he was extraordinary; he did know the past, he could foresee the future. He was the most unsympathetic and revolting person she had ever met, but he was always right really, when you stopped to think about it. I won't let him talk to me, Moira decided, I will say: Tell me what to do; and then I'll leave; I won't let him go on and on in that awful way he has; but I'll get a hint from him of what is to happen. She picked up the telephone quickly, while she still had a firm hold on this plan, and asked for Signor Kollonic's number.

Signor Kollonic disliked the telephone and in any case rarely heard names or remembered them. He made the appointment, wrote down on a torn envelope '11.30 - woman', put the paper on his crowded table, where it was immediately lost, and went on thinking of his problem. Signor Kollonic was defeated by the irrational and he knew it; he was now trying to understand the irrational, which was impossible. He had argued and explained to Giuseppe for two weeks. Giuseppe had sometimes listened and had, more often, retired behind his enormous gleaming brown eyes and his thick curling black eyelashes, and heard nothing. As a threat, Signor Kollonic called in the stars and foretold Giuseppe's hideous future; for a mindless man like Giuseppe the stars would be more convincing than logic and experience. He had in no way lied to Giuseppe; and Giuseppe, despite all this, left.

After two years, Signor Kollonic thought with bitterness, after I am used to him, accustomed, comfortable; after I have given him all the money I earn except for what is needed to keep the house. Signor Kollonic would have understood and accepted, with resigned cynicism, if Giuseppe had left to improve his position. Signor Kollonic had given Giuseppe a Vespa; another man might give him a Fiat; that would be sensible. But Giuseppe, repeating with mulish obstinacy that his parents wished it, that he had always known the girl, had gone off to marry a cow, a twenty-year-old already fat, and what would she be at thirty, with eyes even stupider than Giuseppe's, covered with black hairs on her arms and legs (one could not think of the rest of her without horror), with great heavy breasts and an imbecile's smile? This trap of flesh would now fasten on Giuseppe and present him every year with another Italian. Giuseppe, whose only qualities were beauty and good temper, would become dirty, bent, smelling, would drink too much and beat his wife and do nothing all his life except work and fertilize.

The waste enraged Signor Kollonic, the waste of his own time, of his money, of his affection, and the waste of Giuseppe. But there was more to it, and Signor Kollonic admitted himself to be both baffled and insulted. Giuseppe preferred that horrible girl; finally Giuseppe had shouted this piece of information. Giuseppe had said it was all right when you were young and poor to get a start with a man, but who would want to stay with a man forever? There was nothing like women. Women were the very best. Perhaps a strange malformation like Demetrio did not know this, never having tried, but he would rather spend one night with Flora than a year of Demetrio's little tricks, and he knew what he was talking about, having sampled both. Then Giuseppe had laughed and departed, taking with him his silk shirts, his bright tight-waisted suits, his pointed shoes, and his Vespa.

The ugly absorbent softness of women seemed to Signor Kollonic a threat to any man's life. They sucked blood like leeches, they twined their octopus arms, those quaking mushy bodies existed only to enfold and stifle men.

He answered the doorbell, his mouth still twisted with the disgust he was tasting in his mind, and saw Moira, and recognized her. Another of them, he thought, snivelling, stupid, without will or soul, with nothing to her except that mouthing greed which feeds on men.

Every time she comes to see me, Signor Kollonic thought, observing Moira's drawn face and strained eyes, instead of going to a doctor; what does she think I am? He considered sending her away immediately. But in the last two weeks he had not only pleaded with Giuseppe, he had tried to bribe him; money was scarce now. Briefly, Signor Kollonic resented Giuseppe most of all for this; he would have to accept every detestable woman who came to him, simpering or anxious or conspiratorial; he would have to see and talk to them all, because Giuseppe had cost so much. I will have more time to study Chinese, Signor Kollonic told himself, and I will not allow myself to be bankrupted by the next boy.

'Mr Kollonic,' Moira said, sitting forward on the edge of the leather chair, 'I called you because I want to ask you just one question.'

'What?'

'It is about that man we have discussed and myself.'

'Ze birz dates,' Signor Kollonic said woodenly.

Oh, can't he remember anything, Moira thought angrily, can't he be businesslike enough to write something down? She gave the dates rapidly; she gave again, upon demand, her relative knowledge of the hour of birth. Signor Kollonic shuffled papers on his desk, made a clucking sound of irritation, looked vaguely around him, and saw his small leather-bound book leaning against the Buddha. He opened it.

'I want to know what to do,' Moira said in a low voice. 'Now. Immediately. Something has happened.'

'Zere is no surprise in zis,' Signor Kollonic remarked, studying his book. 'Ze woman put you out. Ze man put you out. What do you want to know now?'

'Enrico didn't put me out,' Moira cried. 'How can you talk like that? It's only that I can't live in his flat. I want to know what to do, that's all.'

'I have told you. I tell you again. Find some man to marry.'

'Enrico is married; you told me yourself. I love him. What am I to do?'

'So?' Signor Kollonic said and smiled at her in mockery. 'You love him. Zis makes everyzing nice. Zis makes it easy. You wish me now to say somezing nice so you go away happy. I do not see why you complain. Did you not enjoy zis affair? Did zis man not give you somezing you never had before? Good. Now it is over. Ze man is tired.'

'You lie,' Moira said, standing tall and white before him, her fists clenched in anger. 'You lie because you hate women.'

'I do not lie,' Signor Kollonic said coldly. 'Zere is anozzer woman. Zis has been coming sometime, it is clear in ze movement of ze stars. It is coming sometime and now it has happen.' Signor Kollonic put his finger on a line in the book. 'Venus in transit over Leo. It happen last night, I zink. He has take anozzer woman to his bed; many women before and many women after. Zis is nozzing to him, only anozzer woman, you are only anozzer woman. But now you are ze woman he is finish wiz. If you do not believe me, ask him.'

Then her face frightened him, the fixed mad stare, the cruel down-line of the mouth. 'Go home now,' Signor Kollonic said; 'we will talk of zis some ozzer day when you feel better.'

Moira did not hear; she seemed to Signor Kollonic to swell and tower, to lean towards him menacingly; he pushed his chair back, ready to leap away from her. He felt he was watching her go insane, very slowly, feature by feature, in front of his eyes. If she moved closer, he would hit her; the stone paper-weight would do. Then she turned, silent, with the blind crazy eyes, and walked from his room. He leaned back in his chair and listened to her footsteps, going slowly, with an ominous heavy clearness, down the stairs. She had left the door open. Presently Signor Kollonic rose to shut and bolt the door; he remembered then that Moira had not paid him.

I will kill him, her mind said, I will kill him. A Topolino braked, skidded to the side, and the enraged driver blew the horn, against all Rome traffic rules, and leaned out the tiny window to scream at her. A woman with a market basket, standing on the kerb, shouted. Moira walked on, hearing and seeing nothing. I will kill him. I will find him and I will kill him. There was no hurry, she had only to walk slowly and steadily towards him; he would be there. She would raise the knife and drive it down. Her hand curved to hold the knife-handle, rough light wood; she held it tight; the blade was clean and wide, a butcher's knife, it shone because it was new. I will kill him. Then it will be all right, there will be no more trouble. First I will get the knife, then I will kill him. She walked on, with a heavy certain step. The streets were all the same since they led to him. He would be in his office, at his desk. She would walk across the room and raise the knife and drive it down. She lifted the knife now, and with a straight strong gesture brought it down in front of her. Like that, she thought, walking without haste. Like that. Again and again she raised the knife, seeing him, although he had no face and made no sound; she saw only his naked body and the knife going in with the clean new wide blade.

People stopped in the street to stare at this grim blonde woman, walking as if in her sleep, muttering to herself, and raising and lowering her right arm to strike something in the air. She might be drunk; she might be crazy; she was in any event not something you saw every day while strolling around to shop, to idle, or to enjoy whatever amusement the streets had to offer. Boys appeared from nowhere, as is usual in Rome, thin, quick, dark, and bright-eyed; they saw this fine odd spectacle and they romped behind her. Presently they were copying Moira's walk, and presently, in a line, like follow-the-leader, they were aping her raised and lowered right arm. With clowns' faces, closed in dark imitation of the woman, they muttered to themselves, strode stonily ahead, and struck the air. Now people laughed all along her way; it was irresistible; no one could forgo the pleasure of this harmless joke.

A boy, bored with the static quality of the game, skipped in front of Moira and tugged at her coat. She stopped, shook her head slightly, and looked at him. Proud of her attention and of the attention of the watching crowd, the boy, walking before her, showed Moira what she had been doing. She turned, dazed, and saw behind her the line of ragged grinning children who, at once, put on solemn expressions and mimicked her walk, muttering as they went. She heard around her, as in a nightmare, the loud open laughter of the grown-ups. The children strutted now, their right arms flailing. Suddenly Moira began to sob, in deep coughing gasps; the grownups looked shocked and hurried away; the boys, after a dismayed moment, ran off to the shelter of side streets. She stood alone, ashamed and terrified in the middle of Rome, and cried without hiding her face.

She knew that she had to escape this city and this people forever, and escape from herself or from this almost mad woman she had become. I would have killed him, she thought, if he had been there, I would have killed him. Nothing was safe; nothing was known; she moved in a dark tunnel of madness and treachery. But I am not like this, she thought in horror; I have never done anything like this in my life. There was her family, so calm, so always the same; and the house in Long Crendon and the house in Chester Square, bombed, but perfectly solid once and solid in memory. There was a whole reliable life, being and feeling like everyone she knew; and it had vanished. She might, this minute, be a murderess; she had wanted to be a murderess.

I must go, she told herself, now, at once. Go to Enid's; get my bags; there is money in my purse; the night train; I must go home. It is not safe here, I cannot tell what I will do. I must get back with decent people, where I know who I am.

The butler opened the door and said the Signora was out with the children. Moira did not answer but walked to her room on the courtyard, pulled her two suitcases from under the bed, and began to pack. She took only her old clothes, leaving behind the finery Enrico had given her. She could not bear to touch those dresses; she imagined them stained with blood. What has happened to the world? she asked herself, folding dresses badly and squashing them into the imitation-leather suitcases. She thought ahead to London, but it was a grey alien place, a tomb. It had been so gay and so much home during the war. One belonged then, one had a place, a real job, everyone was so kind and so charming, men were friendly fine people, fighting for their countries, she was happy and sure of herself and never like this, rushing she didn't know where to get away from something she could not even understand.

I must pull myself together, Moira told herself, and went to the bathroom to bathe her face. She combed her hair, put on fresh lipstick, and finding her face recognizable, she began to feel quieter. She would think of nothing now except packing shoes on the bottom, wedging empty spaces with underwear and stockings, refolding the dresses so that they lay flat on top.

The butler warned Enid gloomily that the Signorina had returned. Enid's party had been a success, which softened her, but afterwards, talking to Hugh and thinking it over, she felt nervous about Moira. She really had to patch it up with Moira, even if Moira was in the wrong; she couldn't have Uncle Robert and Aunt Isabel thinking all sorts of ghastly things and Moira talking to friends in London. With determined brightness, Enid went to Moira's room, saw her packing, hoped above all there wouldn't be a tearful scene, and said, 'My dear, I think we were both hasty yesterday. We mustn't have a quarrel; it would be such a pity.'

'Oh, Enid.' Moira turned, trying to understand what Enid was talking about.

'I don't want you to leave us in an unhappy frame of mind.'

'No,' Moira said dimly. 'No.'

Enid stood by the door, wondering what had come over Moira; she seemed even more muddle-headed and indecisive than usual.

'I got a letter from Daddy,' Moira murmured. 'It seems Mummy isn't very well. I think I'd better go home.'

'Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry. How dreadful for you!' Poor Aunt Isabel, Enid thought, but really what a blessing; it does solve everything.

'Is it serious?' she asked.

'I don't know.'

Mummy and Daddy, and Long Crendon; and London, looking for a job; and awful weather and some office with the girls putting on a kettle morning and afternoon, and she'd have to stay with Joan on that cramped little day bed in Joan's Kensington flat, until she found something for herself; and Daddy wouldn't help of course and everyone was the same, worrying about rations and clothes and no servants, the same old friends.

'I don't really know,' Moira said; 'I had rather a shock from the letter but perhaps I'm exaggerating. Perhaps I ought to wait until I hear more.'

'Oh, darling,' Enid said quickly, 'Aunt Isabel isn't very young or very strong, you know. Think how guilty you'd feel if anything happened. I'm sure you've made a wise decision.'

After all, I've been away six months, Moira thought; perhaps things have changed; there might be an interesting job, one can't tell. Six months is quite a long time. The papers seem to say it's all a bit better. And there are only three really bad months before spring. I suppose I should ...

'I dare say you're right,' Moira said. She might as well pack the new dresses; they were wool; it wasn't as if she were going home in the summer.

'I know you'll be much happier, seeing for yourself,' Enid said; 'but what bad luck, isn't it?' She really is the limit, Enid thought; she has no feelings about anything, not even her own mother. One cannot sympathize with her, she's an absolute stick, hardly human at all.

'Yes,' Moira said. 'Frightfully bad luck. But I mustn't complain, not after I've had this lovely long holiday.'

Table of Contents

Title page

THE HONEYED PEACE

EXILE

WEEK-END AT GRIMSBY

A PSYCHIATRIST OF ONE'S OWN

ABOUT SHORTY

MIAMI-NEW YORK

LE VOYAGE FORME LA JEUNESSE

CAFÉ IN JAFFA

THE GERMAN

VENUS ASCENDANT