(For Bromwell had changed only superficially from the boy who walked so briskly away from New Hazleton Academy for Boys long ago. A "child" of no more than four feet nine inches, with a wise, lined face, and thick wire-rimmed glasses, and thinned-out hair that looks blond in some lights and silver-gray in others. There is a rumor among his associates at Mount Ellesmere, and among his disciples, and even among his many rivals and enemies (for of course he has enemies, though he knows none of them by name), that he has a twin: but who, or what, might this "twin" be-! Of course no one has ever seen Bromwell's twin, nor does anyone know whether the twin is a male or a female.) Over the long years, as he labored on the Hypothesis, Bromwell chose to live on the most meager of part-time salaries, supplemented at times by grants and fellowships, not so much confident in the ultimate worth of his research as indifferent to his circumstances and surroundings. If he never grew past the height of four feet nine, observers claimed, it was primarily because he didn't try. And of course he ate poorly, and slept little, and worked himself to the brink of collapse-and may even, on one or two occasions, have crossed over into that murky indefinable terrain known to the impoverished of imagination as madness. But he soon righted himself, and returned. For there was not his kingdom, there his splendid mind had no dominion.

He was condemned, as he saw from the start, to sanity. His rejection of the remorseless claims of blood was but one aspect of his sanity. Even when word came to him of the destruction by fire of Bellefleur Manor and the deaths of both his parents, and, indeed, of most of his family, he showed nothing more than the startled concern a sensitive person might feel for any catastrophe-he might mourn, but he could not truthfully weep.

He had proven, in his massive study, that the future as well as the past is contained in the sky-and so of course there is no death. But there is no pathway to that other dimension, whether it is called "future" or "past." Only by way of miraculous, unwilled slits in the fabric of time that link this dimension with a mirror-image universe of anti-matter can one pass freely into that other world. But of course they are unwilled.

The author of A Hypothesis Concerning Anti-Matter maintained a most unusual equilibrium of mood: neither blissful nor melancholy as his fame spread. For since he had proven that the future as well as the past exists, and exists at all times, he had of course proven that he himself existed, and that everything about him existed, and had from the beginning of "time," quite without justification.

Nevertheless he sometimes dreamt of the god of sleep who swallowed them up one by one by one. In that dark place where the sun has no dominion, and a still water abides . . . a still, lightless, bitter-cold water which runs upon the small stones and gives great appetite for sleep. And sometimes he even dreamt, oddly, that the water (but the water was only a metaphor!) had frozen, and those who clung to its surface, upside down, were trapped beneath the ice, their heads lost in the chill shadow, the soles of their feet pressed against the ice. After news came of the destruction of Bellefleur Manor he had this hideous dream, several times. And then, gradually, it faded.

The Destruction of Bellefleur Manor.

And so it came to pass, on the fourth birthday of the youngest Bellefleur child, that the renowned castle and all who dwelled within it both as masters and as servants (and all-a considerable number of persons-who were attending the family council that afternoon, summoned by Leah: attorneys and brokers and financial advisers and accountants and managers of a dozen businesses and factories and mills) were destroyed in a horrific explosion when Gideon Bellefleur crashed his plane into the very center of the castle: a quite deliberate, premeditated act, of unspeakable malice, and certainly not accidental, as Gideon's flying associates were to claim. For how could the destruction of Bellefleur Manor and the deaths of so many innocent people have been an accident, when the plane that dived into the house was evidently carrying explosives, and when it was directed so unerringly, so unfalteringly, into its target . . . ?

(And how ironic was the fact that Gideon's brother Raoul had just arrived at the castle, summoned by a telegram of Leah's-Raoul who had not visited Bellefleur for decades, and who had refused his parents' invitations and summonses and even their frequent pleas. Raoul, about whom so much was whispered, living a decidedly peculiar life down in Kincardine. . . . But so appalled was the family by his behavior, so stricken were they, that they never spoke of him; and Germaine was never to learn the smallest detail about him.) (Ironic too was the fact that Della was at Bellefleur Manor that week, partly to console her brother for the loss of Hiram-who assuredly was dead, and had been buried, though Noel complained of hearing him bumping and stumbling about the corridors late at night, afflicted still with his sleepwalking mania. Ironic also, that young Morna and her husband Armour Horehound were there, visiting aunt Aveline; and Dave Cinquefoil and his bride Stella Zundert; and a Bellefleur from Mason Falls, Ohio, whom no one had ever met before, but with whom Leah had evidently been corresponding, about the possibility of the Bellefleur corporation acquiring a steel mill there; and there were several others, relatives or acquaintances of relatives, visiting the castle on that unlucky day. Only great-grandmother Elvira and her husband, and great-aunt Matilde, and of course Germaine herself, of the Lake Noir Bellefleurs, survived. Most of the household cats and dogs, with the probable exception of Mahalaleel, who had been missing for some time, were, of course, also destroyed.) So powerful was the blast, so great the assault upon the earth, that the ground of nearby Bellefleur Village heaved and cracked, and the windows of most of the houses were shattered, and dogs set up a mad forlorn clamor; and Lake Noir rose darkly and pitched itself against its shores, as if it were the end of the world; and the tranquillity of mountain villages as far away as Gerardia Pass and Mount Chattaroy and Shaheen was shaken. The inhabitants of Bushkill's Ferry who rushed from their homes to watch the holocaust across the lake-seven miles wide at that point-were seized with a collective panic, and stared, rigid as paralytics, at the flaming castle, convinced that the end of the world had come. (There were those who claimed afterward to have heard, across that great distance, the unbearable screams of the dying, and even to have smelled the hideous blackly-sweet stench of burning flesh. . . . ) Though Bellefleur Manor had appeared to be centuries old, it was, in fact, only about 130 years old. And of course it was never rebuilt since there was no one to rebuild it, or at any rate no one who wished to rebuild it, or had the financial resources to do so: the ruins remain to this day, on the southeastern shore of remote Lake Noir, some thirty-five miles north of the Nautauga River. Weeds and saplings and scrub pine grow there freely, amid the rubble, and every year the earth reaches up a little higher to reclaim it. The place, children say, is not haunted.

SHORTLY AFTER HE became the Rache woman's lover Gideon arranged for instructions in the Hawker Tempest with his former teacher Tzara, despite Tzara's superstitious dislike for the plane (he had had, he told Gideon passionately, his fill of bombers in the war: it seemed to him that former warplanes stank of death though they were always miles away from the ghastly deaths they unleashed); and after only seven or eight hours in the air he felt confident, or very nearly confident, that he could manage it alone. It rode the air differently, of course, than any of the lighter planes: one could feel something crude and monstrous about it. While the other planes inspired affection and even love the Hawker Tempest inspired only grim respect.

And there was the matter, too, of the Rache woman's intangible presence, which acted keenly upon Gideon's somewhat overwrought senses.

(For he was very much aware of her, once in the cockpit, with the Plexiglas roof closed and secured. Gideon now owned the plane but he could not help thinking, each time he climbed into it, that he was trespassing; he was violating the woman's innermost being; and he was enjoying it immensely, with an exhilaration he had not felt since the early days of his love for Leah. Tzara never mentioned the Rache woman, though Gideon suspected that he knew she was now Gideon's mistress. He was confident, however, that only he could discern her scent amid the rough odors of metal and gasoline and leather-a scent that lifted from her hair as she shook it impatiently loose; a scent that arose, salty and gritty, from between her small hard breasts with their puckered nipples that looked always as if they were outraged; the scent of her belly and thighs. . . . How many women have you had before me! she said with mock bitterness. And Gideon said: But you will be the last.) How fierce the Hawker Tempest was, even when it floated, comparatively noiselessly, at the highest of altitudes! Fierce and urgent and combative and never playful, like the other planes. With its more powerful engine and its greater weight it did not simply ride, it thrust itself forward, like a swimmer, always forward, penetrating the harsh northerly winds as effortlessly as it penetrated the shimmering hot currents of a thermal day. It quivered with strength, it began to look, to Gideon's eye, absurdly crippled on the ground, with its canvas top pulled snug over it like a blindfold on a horse. The red and black of its fuselage seemed to him a muted shout. Such an airplane must be freed from the spell of gravity, it must be taken into the air as often as possible: so Gideon came to think, exactly, perhaps, as the Rache woman had come to think. When Tzara told him in an offhanded manner that he really should stay away from the Tempest for a few weeks, since the feel of such a plane could become addictive, and could spoil the other planes for him, it was already too late. There it is, Gideon thought, when he arrived at the airport each day, that's the one, it will be only a matter of time now.

AFTER LEAVING GERMAINE at aunt Matilde's Gideon drove directly to the airport, and arrived at midmorning. He was observed in a loose-fitting white suit, wearing a sporty Western-looking white hat no one had seen before, with what appeared to be a band of braided leather. (The hat was later discovered in Gideon's office, left behind, for of course he had worn a helmet and goggles in the plane.) He spoke to Tzara and one or two of the mechanics; he avoided talking with his friend Pete, who arrived at the airport at 10:30, and took up a Wittfield 500; he opened mail, dictated a few letters to the office's only secretary, spoke briefly on the telephone; strolled out along the edge of the runway, in the oil-flecked weeds, his hands in his pockets, his head flung back. (Like all pilots Gideon now studied the air. He knew that the vast ocean of air that stretched invisibly above him, from horizon to horizon, was far more significant than the land. He knew that his human life was conducted on the floor of that invisible sea and that he might redeem himself only by rising free of the land, from time to time, however briefly, however vainly. So nothing mattered quite so much as the texture of the day: were there clouds, and what kinds of cloud; was it warm; was it cold; was there humidity, and haze; was it clear; above all what was the wind-that feeble word intended to explain and to predict so much, in fact everything, that was not the earth! He could see and hear and taste the wind, he could feel it on every exposed part of his body; his fingertips twitched with a secret and ineffable knowledge of its mystery.

So his employees observed him, strolling along the runway. Old Skin and Bones, he was. With his limp, and his maimed right hand. With his hot glaring half-crazy eye for women, which was, as the women discovered to their chagrin, really a sign of his vast indifference, his contempt. Old Skin and Bones. Shrunken inside his clothes. His cheekbones prominent, his nose jutting. Elbows and knees jerky. Restless. He could not sit still, could not bear to remain behind his desk, was always pacing, so the secretary complained, imagining he was staring at her when he passed behind her desk, though in fact he had no awareness of her-no interest, of late, in any woman except Mrs. Rache. Gideon Bellefleur. The Gideon Bellefleur about whom so much was whispered. His automobiles, and before that, long ago, when he was a young man, his Thoroughbred horses: hadn't he once owned a magnificent albino stallion, hadn't he once ridden it to victory in a race that had brought his family hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal bets? Or was that, perhaps, another Bellefleur?-his father, or grandfather? There were so many Bellefleurs, people said, but perhaps most of them had never existed. They were just stories, tales, anecdotes set in the mountains, which no one quite believed and yet could not quite disregard. . . .

Though Gideon, of course, certainly existed. At least until the day he committed suicide by diving his airplane into Bellefleur Manor.

HE LEFT HIS rakish white hat in his office, and strapped on a pilot's helmet with amber goggles. His figure was quick and spare, and he walked, observers noted, with an unusually pronounced limp. He had told Tzara he might take the Tempest up for an hour or so but he didn't check with Tzara beforehand, and the perfunctory flight notes he had made-pencil scrawls, nearly unintelligible-were left behind on his desk. Quickly he checked the airplane: the oil, the sparkplugs, the fuel line connections, the propeller, the wings (which he caressed somewhat more hastily than usual, as if not caring what dents or cracks or other imperfections he might discover), the tires, the brakes, the generator belt, the gasoline. And all was well. Not in perfect condition, for the Hawker Tempest was an old plane, rather battered from the War; it was said to have survived more than one crash-landing, and more than one pilot. But it would do, Gideon thought. It was just the thing for him.

With a sudden burst of energy Gideon hauled himself up onto the wing, and into the second cockpit; and there, crouched down in the first cockpit, hugging the two-by-four box on her lap, was Mrs. Rache, awaiting him. She was twisted about, gazing at him over her shoulder. A slow smile, a wordless greeting, passed between them.

So she had come, as she'd promised! She had been waiting for him all along. But discreetly out of sight.

Gideon did not lean into the cockpit to kiss her; he smiled upon her with a lover's lordly yet somewhat dazed smile. She had come, she was his, and the box was on her lap: so it would take place, as they had planned. . . . He did not kiss her, knowing she would draw away in displeasure (for she detested any public show of affection or intimacy, or even friendship), but he could not resist reaching down to squeeze her gloved hand. Her fingers were hard and strong, returning the pressure. It excited him to see that she wore khaki trousers and a long-sleeved man's shirt and a badly scruffed leather vest, and the helmet with the amber goggles that resembled his own. Every tuft, every tendril of hair had been tucked severely into the helmet; her darkly tanned face looked, in the glare of the August sun on the fuselage and wings, almost featureless. My love, he whispered.

She had come, she was his! And the box she had promised was on her lap.

Trembling with excitement he climbed inside and settled into place and fastened his seat belt. No parachute-no time for a parachute!-and of course she had not troubled with one either. He smiled at the control panel. He primed the engine and started it and listened carefully to hear how it sounded, and he watched the controls as the oil pressure came up, and all was well, all was as it should be. He released the brake. He began to move-it began to move-taxiing somewhat jerkily out along the runway. The engine grew ever louder and more powerful. Daddy, screamed the heartbroken little girl, why did you lie-! But the sound of the engine drowned her out as the air-speed needle leapt off its peg and started around the dial. The control wheel vibrated in his hands.

Farewell to Tzara, who had, perhaps unwisely (for he had sensed from the first the melancholy drift of Gideon's mind), taught Gideon to fly so well; farewell to the mortgaged airport which would soon be bankrupt and abandoned, its runway overgrown with weeds. Farewell to the twelve or fifteen brave little planes spaced about in the grass, awaiting their turns in the air; farewell to the frayed weathercock, and to those who witnessed the fighter's takeoff into a glowering hazy-humid sky in which, at an altitude of less than 1,000 feet, the contours of the land would probably be lost. Farewell to the earth itself: Gideon's pride was such that he hoped never to set foot upon it again.

The runway flew beneath. The propeller's blades disappeared in a blur of speed. The wind, the wind, suddenly the wind came alive, and beat against the plane, but Gideon held it steady and all was well. Sixty miles an hour, sixty-five. The wind wanted now to seize the plane beneath its wings and lift it into the air, perhaps to overturn it, but Gideon held it steady, and near the end of the runway he eased the wheel back and the nosewheel left the ground and they were in the air-they had left the ground, and were in the air-three inches, eight inches, a foot, two feet in the air-in the air and rising-rising-to clear that line of poplar trees- Now they were safe in the air, and rising steadily: climbing eight feet a second, ten feet a second: and Gideon's hands instinctively maneuvered them through the bumps and pockets of air. The great ocean was invisible, but it was quite solid. One must be extremely skillful to manage it. Three hundred feet, three hundred seventy-five, and climbing, climbing steadily, at six hundred feet he banked to the right, at eight hundred he began a long sweeping climb out and away from the airport, turning toward the south.

All was well: within a half-hour the ordeal would be completed.

He climbed to 2,500 feet, then to 3,000 feet. The ground was invisible. The heat-haze lay everywhere, thinning out only as the plane rose. And then over Lake Noir, over the cooler air of Lake Noir. The noisy plane plunged through shreds of cloud and opened suddenly into patches of clear blazing sunshine and then reentered the clouds again, at 3,500 feet. Gideon felt in the engine's throb and in the fine vibration of the wheel that all was well.

Stray blasts of wind. Voices, faces. Some tore at the windshield as if wishing to open it and pull him out to his death. But of course their frantic fingers were powerless: he was in the cockpit, and in control. Others drifted alongside the plane, clutching playfully at the wings, their long hair streaming. Gideon! Gideon! Old Skin and Bones!

He did no more than glance at them, amused. He wondered what she thought of them.

An uneventful and fairly smooth passage across the lake, despite its legendary dangers. (Its waters were so cold near the center, pilots said, that planes were tugged downward-tugged downward as if someone were pulling at them. But not Gideon, not today.) Thirty-five minutes from the Invemere airport, on a southwesterly slant across the lake, flying at a moderate speed, for of course there was no hurry: and then they broke through the heat-haze and saw the immense stone castle, glowing a queer pink-gray, a contorted and unnatural sight rising out of the green land.

How oddly it had been constructed, Bellefleur Manor, with its innumerable walls and towers and turrets and minarets, like a castle composed in a feverish sleep, when the imagination leapt over itself, mad to outdo itself, growing ever more frantic and greedy. . . . Gideon had of course seen it from the air in the past; he had spied upon the place of his birth, the place of his ancestors, many times; but on this warmly glowering August day he seemed to see it for the first time, as the destiny to which he had been drawn all his life, as the roaring plane was drawn, descending now from 4,000 feet and beginning to bank, to circle, deftly, shrewdly, with infinite patience (for hadn't he, really, forever?-forever in which to calibrate his own doom, and his release?), now only minutes from the explosion and the conflagration.

In the whitely-hazy August sunshine the castle took on a variety of seductive colors: dove-gray, an ethereal feathery pink, a faint luminous green shading into mauve shading once again into gray. Yet it was stone: a place of massive stone: and he saw that it was his destiny, just as this moment, this last long dive, was his destiny, which he would not have wished to deny. He was Gideon Bellefleur, after all. He had been born for this.

Behind the amber goggles his gaze was unwavering.

Here. Now. At last.

And so-.

The Angel.

One spring day there came to Jedediah a young man with straight, lank white-blond hair and Indian features-a curious combination indeed-who introduced himself, stuttering slightly, as "Charles Xavier's brother." When Jedediah told him that he had no knowledge of "Charles Xavier" the young man looked confused, smiled, squatted on his heels in the dirt, and appeared to be thinking; for some minutes he said nothing, making marks with both forefingers in the soft, pliant earth; then he gazed up at Jedediah with his pale stone-colored eyes and said again, softly, that he was "Charles Xavier's brother" come to bring Jedediah back with him.

Back? Back where?

Home, said the young man, smiling faintly.

But my home is here, Jedediah said.

Home. Down below.

With my family, you mean-! Jedediah said contemptuously.

The young half-breed shook his head slowly, and gazed upon Jedediah with a look of pity. You have no family, he said.

No family?

No family. Your brothers are dead, your father is dead, your nephews and your niece are dead: you have no family.

Jedediah stared at him. He had been clearing underbrush all that morning, working shirtless in the May sun, and the exertion, though satisfying to his body, nevertheless made his head ring; he could not be certain he had heard correctly.

No family-? The Bellefleurs-?

Dead. Murdered. And your brother Harlan came to revenge them, and was shot down at their grave, where he'd gone to mourn them-he was shot down rushing at the sheriff, which is the way he must have wanted to die.

Harlan? Revenge? I don't understand, Jedediah said faintly.

The young man pulled something out of his vest-a soiled gentleman's glove, lemon-yellow. He held it reverently, and explained that it was Harlan's glove: after Harlan had been carried away he'd found it by one of the muddy graves. Did Jedediah want it? Everything else had been confiscated-you would have thought Harlan's possessions might have been given to Germaine, but they were confiscated: the handsome black hat, the Mexican boots, the silver-handled pistol, the magnificent Peruvian mare with the long, long mane and tail and the hooves (so everyone said, and Charles Xavier's brother had seen for himself) that glittered like quartz or rock crystal. Everything confiscated! Stolen! And the widow bereft! Of course she had the satisfaction of knowing that four of the murderers had been shot down by Harlan. . . .

I don't understand, Jedediah said. His knees buckled; he sat heavily on the ground. I . . . You are telling me . . . My family has been murdered . . . ? My father, my brother . . .

Your father and your brother Louis and your nephews and your fifteen-year-old niece, the young man said in a soft incantatory voice, and now your brother Harlan. Four of the murderers were shot down, as they deserved to be, by your brother Harlan; but the others remain living. Everyone in the community knows who they are. I will tell you their names when it is time for you to act.

Jedediah buried his face in his hands. My father, my brother, he whispered, my brothers, my nephews and my niece and . . .

No, said the young man gently, they didn't kill your brother's wife. She survives, a most unhappy woman. Of course you know her well. And she knows you: she awaits you.

Jedediah had begun to weep. My father, my brothers . . . Will I never see them again . . . !

You will never see them again, the young man said.

Dead? Murdered?

It was your choice, Jedediah, to escape them, and to live on Mount Blanc for twenty years; it was not God's will but your own.

Twenty years! Jedediah said. He lowered his hands to stare at the young man. But I haven't been gone twenty years.

Twenty years. It is now 1826. It is the year of Our Lord 1826.

The date meant nothing to Jedediah, who continued to stare at the young man's pale hard rather insolent eyes. What are you telling me! he whispered. What lies! You have come here to-to- He looked about wildly. Had he no weapon? Only the ax, dropped a short distance away; and a hand saw with a rusted blade. And perhaps the sinister young Indian was armed- Your sister-in-law Germaine awaits you, the young man said evenly, watching Jedediah with the same pitying expression. You must return and marry her: you must continue the Bellefleur line: and you must exact revenge on your enemies.

Germaine-? Marry-? I-I- She has not sent me here, no one has sent me here, the young man said, holding the soiled yellow glove out to Jedediah, who was too confused to take it. I act out of a deep love and respect for your family, because I am Charles Xavier's only surviving brother.

Germaine-? She is waiting-? For me? But there is Louis- Louis is dead. Murdered before the poor woman's eyes, along with his father and his children. And his father's mistress as well-but of that you needn't know, at this time.

I am to return and marry her, and continue the family line, and- And to exact revenge upon your enemies.

Revenge? But how do you mean- Revenge. Of the sort your brother Harlan exacted. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. As it is written.

But I don't believe in such things, Jedediah whispered. I don't believe in bloodshed.

In what, then, asked the young man, with a subtly ironic curve of his lips, do you believe?

I believe in-I believe-I believe in this mountain, Jedediah said, and in myself, my body-my blood and bones and flesh-I believe in the work I do, in this field I've been clearing- In the wild geese that are flying overhead at this very moment: do you hear them?

You believe in nothing, the young man said flatly. You live on your mountain in your selfish solitude and you believe in nothing, and the nothing in which you believe makes you perfectly happy.

Jedediah pulled at his beard, staring at the young man's harsh Indian features. But I did once believe-I did once believe in God, like everyone else, he said, uncertainly, I did believe, once, but it passed away from me-I was purged of my madness-and-and then- And then you believed in nothing, and you believe in nothing now, said the young man, except your mountain; and, of course, your perfect happiness.

Is it wrong, then, to be happy, Jedediah whispered.

For twenty years you have hidden on your mountain, the young man said, again holding the glove out to Jedediah, pretending that God had called you here. For twenty years you have wallowed in the most selfish sin.

But I don't believe in sin! Jedediah cried. I have been purged of that-of all of that- And now your sister-in-law awaits you. Down below. The same woman-almost the same woman-whom you fled twenty years ago.

She awaits me-? Germaine-? Jedediah said doubtfully.

Germaine. None other. Germaine whom you love, and must marry, as quickly as possible.

Marry-?

As quickly as possible.

But my brother- Louis is dead.

The children, the babies- They are dead.

But there is no God, Jedediah said wildly, and no one can deceive me: I know what I know.

You know only what you know.

But they're dead? And Harlan too?

Harlan too.

Harlan came back for revenge, and-?

He killed four of the murderers, and was shot down himself. He acted with great courage.

But the family is all dead, even my father-?

All dead. Murdered in their sleep. Murdered by people who want the Bellefleur line to become extinct.

Ah-extinct! Jedediah whispered.

Extinct. An ugly word, isn't it?

And only Germaine survived?

Only Germaine. And you.

Only Germaine, Jedediah whispered, seeing again the sixteen-year-old's rosy face, the dark bright eyes, the mole beside the-was it the left eye?-the left eye. Only Germaine, he said, and me.

The young half-breed straightened, rising above Jedediah, who was too weak to stand. He held out the glove to Jedediah a third time, and now, gropingly, as if he were only barely conscious of what he did, Jedediah accepted it from him.

Only Germaine, he repeated, blinking at the glove. And me.

How vividly he saw the girl's pretty little face, so darkly-bright, and her eyes so lovely! Twenty years were as nothing: he had not been gone twenty years. He looked up at the strange young man, with those harsh Indian features and that lank blond hair that fell to his shoulders, and that queer intimate stare that would, in another time, have maddened him to fury (for of course Jedediah would have believed the stranger was a devil, or at the very least one of the deceitful mountain spirits) and perhaps even to violence: but now, this morning, he did not know, he simply did not know, and wanted to weep with the sorrow of his own ignorance.

Well-she awaits you. Down below. And the others-the murderers-they await you too, the young man said.

He was preparing to walk away.