Those events are still close to my heart, though considerable time has passed since their conclusion. My hand trembles at the task of describing them. But the reader and I have come this far, which is no small distance, and I mean to bring the project to completion, whatever the cost.

It occurs to me that one virtue of the Typewriter as a literary invention is that tears shed during the act of composition are less likely to fall upon the paper and blot the ink. A certain clarity is preserved, not otherwise obtainable.

2.

Manhattan was all got up for the celebration of the Nativity when we arrived at the docks, and such a frenzy of decoration I had never seen, as if the city were a Christmas tree decked with candles and colored tinsel, with the Sacred Day less than forty-eight hours distant-but all of that meant little or nothing to me, for I was anxious to discover the fate of Calyxa.

Julian and I, along with the other survivors of the Goose Bay Campaign, had recuperated for three weeks at the American hospital in St. John's. Fresh food, clean linen, and boiled water restored us to health as effectively as any medicine could; and Julian's facial wound, though my stitching of it was inexpert, had nearly healed. Evidence of my inadequacy as a physician would persist in the form of a scar that curved between Julian's jaw-hinge and his right nostril like a second mouth, primly and permanently shut. But that was little enough, as war wounds go, and Julian had never been vain about his appearance.

His mood had also improved, or at least he had wrestled down his pessimism. Whatever the reason, he had given up his initial resistance and submitted to all the plans the Army of the Laurentians had laid for him. He was willing, he had told me, to assume the Office of the Presidency, at least for a time, if only to undo a fraction of the wickedness his uncle had committed.

The appointment to the Executive was none of his doing, of course. It had come about in his absence, and his name had been put up as a compromise. My early dispatches to the Spark, carried out of Striver on board the Basilisk after the Battle of Goose Bay, may have played a role in these developments. No doubt Deklan Comstock would have preferred to have the news of Julian's survival suppressed; but the editors of the Spark didn't know that, and assumed they were doing the President a favor by publicizing his nephew's heroism and hard times.

Those news items were widely reprinted. The American public, at least in the eastern half of the country, had become enamored of Julian Comstock as a youthful National Hero; and his reputation was equally golden among the forces of the Army of the Laurentians. Meanwhile, in the higher echelons of the military, resentment of Deklan's war policies had heated up to the boiling point. Deklan had mismanaged so many audacious but ill-designed Campaigns, and jailed so many loyal and spotless Generals, that the Army had resolved to unseat him and replace him with someone more sympathetic to their goals. The publication of my reports helped stoke that smoldering fire to a white-hot intensity.*

All that stood in the way of a military overthrow of Julian's uncle was the choice of a plausible successor, always a ticklish business. An acceptable candidate can be difficult to procure. A tyrant's overthrow by military action doesn't admit of any formal democratic choice, and important contesting interests-the Eupatridians, the Senate, the Dominion of Jesus Christ on Earth, even in some sense the general public-have to be addressed and mollified.

The Army of the Laurentians could not meet all these conditions, nor could it readily obtain the consent of its distant partner, the Army of the Californias, which was much more a creature of the Dominion than the Eastern army. But the necessity of replacing Deklan Conqueror was admitted by all. The solution eventually reached was a temporary one. Succession by dynastic inheritance was allowed under the 52nd Amendment to the Constitution; and since Deklan was childless, that mantle could be construed as falling to his heroic nephew Julian-who at the time was caught up in the Siege of Striver, and wouldn't complicate matters either by accepting or by declining. Thus Julian had become a figurehead, almost an abstraction, and acceptable in that form, until the tyrant was hauled out of his throne room by soldiers and clapped into a basement prison.

Now that Julian had survived the siege, however, and since he had been rescued by the single-minded efforts of Admiral Fairfield, the abstract threatened to become uncomfortably real. Had Julian been killed, some other arrangement would have been made, perhaps to everyone's greater satisfaction. But Julian Conqueror lived-and the public sentiment on his behalf had grown so clamorous that it would have been impossible not to install him in the Presidency, for fear of triggering riots.

For that reason he had been surrounded, both during his recovery and on the voyage back to New York City, by a phalanx of military advisors, civilian consultants, clerical toadies, and a thousand other brands of manipulators and office-seekers. My opportunities to speak to him privately had been few, and when we arrived in Manhattan he was quickly enclosed in a mob of Senators and beribboned soldiers, and borne away toward the Presidential Palace; and I could not even say goodbye, or arrange a time to meet once more.

But that wasn't a pressing problem-it was Calyxa who was foremost on my mind. I had written her several letters from the hospital in St. John's, and even telegraphed her once, but she hadn't responded, and I feared the worst.

I made my way from the docks to the luxurious brown-stone house of Emily Baines Comstock, where I had left Calyxa in the care of Julian's mother. It was heartening to see that familiar building, apparently unchanged, bathed in the glow of a Manhattan dusk, as sturdy a habitation as it had ever been, with lantern light glinting sweetly at the curtained windows.

But as I approached the walk a soldier stepped out of the shadows and raised his hand. "No admittance, sir," he said.

That was astonishing; and I was outraged, as soon as I was sure I had understood the man correctly. "Get out of my way. That's an order," I added, since my Colonel's stripes were intact and plainly visible.

The soldier blanched but didn't stand down. He was a young man, probably a fresh draftee, a lease-boy hauled out of some southern Estate, judging by the accent in his voice. "Sorry, Colonel, but I have my orders-very strict-no one to be admitted without authorization."

"My wife is in this house, or was, or ought to be-what under heaven are you doing here?"

"Preventing exit or entry, sir."

"By what authority?"

"Writ of Ecclesiastical Quarantine."

"That's a mouthful! What's it signify?"

"Don't precisely know, sir," the soldier confessed. "I'm new at this."

"Well, where do these orders emanate from?"

"My superior officer down at the Fifth Avenue headquarters, most directly; but I think it has something to do with the Dominion. 'Ecclesiastical' means 'church,' don't it?"

"I expect it does .... Who is inside, that you're guarding so adamantly?"

"Only a couple of women."

My heart beat twice, but I pretended to keep aloof. "Your dangerous prisoners are women?"

"I deliver food parcels to them now and again ... women, sir, yes, sir, a young one and an old one. I don't know anything about their crimes. They don't seem hateful, or especially dangerous, though they're a little short-tempered now and then, especially the younger female-she hardly speaks but it bites."

"They're in there now?"

"Yes, sir; but as I said, no admittance."

I couldn't contain myself any longer. I shouted Calyxa's name, at the greatest volume I could muster.

The guard cringed, and I saw his hand stray to the pistol on his hip. "I don't think that's allowed, sir!"

"Do your orders say anything about preventing a uniformed officer from shouting in the street?"

"I guess they don't, specifically, but-"

"Then, specifically, follow your orders as they were written-guard the door, if you have to, but don't improvise, and don't pay any attention to what's going on the sidewalk; the sidewalks of New York are not your kingdom right at the moment."

"Sir," the young man said, blushing; but he didn't contradict me, and I called out Calyxa's name several more times, until the head of my beloved wife at last appeared at an upstairs window.

I could hardly contain my happiness at the sight of her. How often I had imagined seeing her again, during the long Goose Bay Campaign! Calyxa's form, recalled in the interlude between waking and sleep, had become a deity to which I inclined as predictably as any Mohammedan to Mecca. Framed in the upstairs window of Mrs. Comstock's stone house she looked at least as lovely as any of my visions of her, though a little more impatient, which was not surprising.

I called out her name once more, just to feel the throb of it in my throat.

"Yes, it's me," she called back.

"I'm home from the war!"

"I see that! Can't you come in?"

"There's a guard on the door!"

"Well, that's the problem!" Calyxa turned away for a moment, then reappeared. "Mrs. Comstock is here also, though she doesn't like to shout at the window-she sends her regards."

"Why are you locked up? Is it the trouble with the Dominion you wrote to me about?"

"It's too long a story to bellow into the street, but Deacon Hollingshead is in back of it."

"Julian won't let this go on!"

"I hope he hears about it quickly, then."

The soldier on guard, during this exchange, peered at me with a frank curiosity, his jaw agape. I didn't enjoy his close attention. I wanted to ask Calyxa about our child-I wanted to proclaim my love for her-but the draftee's blunt stare, and the public circumstances in general, made me feel awkward about it. "Calyxa!" I called out. "I have to tell you-my affectionate feelings are not diminished-"

"Can't hear you!"

"Undiminished! Affection! Mine, for you!"

"Please don't waste time, Adam!"

She left her place at the window.

I turned to the guard, my cheeks burning. "Are you enjoying the show, soldier?"

But he was immune to irony, or had been raised somewhere outside its orbit. "Yes, sir," he said, "thank you for asking. It's quite a distraction. This is tedious work, as a rule."

"I'm sure it is. You look cold. Wouldn't you rather go someplace warm, take a meal perhaps, this close to Christmas?"

"I surely would; but my relief isn't due for two hours."

"Why don't I relieve you? I know I can't go inside-that would violate regulations-but I believe a ranking officer can assume an enlisted man's duties for a short period of time, as a kindness on a cold December night."

"Thank you, Colonel, but that dodge won't work. I can't afford to eat at my own expense. I haven't been paid since last month, with the turbulence in the government and all."

"There's a place around the corner that serves beef tongue and lozenged pork, piping hot. Here," I said, pulling a pair of Comstock dollars out of my pocket and pressing them into his palm, "go on, enjoy yourself, and Merry Christmas to you."

The recruit looked at the money with wide eyes, then clapped the coins into the pocket of his duffel coat. "I suppose I could leave the ladies in your custody for an hour or so-no more than that, though."

"I appreciate it, and I'll make sure they're safe when you get back."

Delicacy prevents me from recounting every detail of my reunion with Calyxa, but it was a warm and at times tearful meeting, and I made many demonstrations of my affection, and perceived with amazement and a melting pride the way her feminine form had softened and enlarged. Mrs. Comstock watched these displays with uncomplaining indulgence, until our intimacies began to embarrass her; then she said, "There are important subjects we need to discuss, Adam Hazzard, unless you mean to carry Calyxa off to the bridal chamber instantaneously."

I might have liked very much to do just that; but I submitted to the implied suggestion, and left off kissing my wife for a time.

"I've bribed the guard away," I said. "We can escape now, if you like."

"If it were a matter of bribery," said Mrs. Comstock, "we would have been away long ago-but where do you imagine we would go? We're not criminals, and I at least don't propose to behave like one."

"This is confusing to me," I confessed. "I'm less than two hours off the boat from Newfoundland, and I've had no answer to the letters I sent."

"They didn't arrive, or were turned back. And Julian is here as well?"

"That's what the ringing of the city bells was all about. He was carried off to the Executive Palace to be inaugurated, or whatever they do with new Presidents."

Mrs. Comstock was relieved to hear the news, so much so that she had to sit down and compose herself. It was a long moment until she took notice of me again. "I'm sorry, Adam," she said. "Take a chair and keep still while I explain the situation. Then we can discuss the important question of what to do about it."

Her explanation was discursive, with much back-tracking, and heated interjections from Calyxa, but the gist of it was this: Since Deacon Hollingshead's arrival in town last July the Dominion had been hard at work, cleansing New York City of moral corruption.

"Corruption" is a popular word with the enthusiasts of the Dominion, usually uttered as a prelude to the knife, the docket, or the noose. In the present case it referred to the growing number of non-tithing churches in this city-churches, that is, which were not just unrecognized by the Dominion but disdained that recognition; for they regarded the Dominion as a worldly institution, feeding on forced donations while it suppressed genuine apostolic brotherhood and individual salvation in Christ.

I had heard of these renegade churches. They existed in all the large cities, but were especially common in Manhattan, where several varieties of them catered to the poor and malcontent, to the lowest echelons of mechanical workers, or to the Egyptians and other newly-arrived immigrants. But I could make no connection between these institutions and the confinement of Calyxa and Mrs. Comstock.

"We were found in," Calyxa said bluntly, interrupting Mrs. Comstock's more nuanced narrative.

"What do you mean, found in? Found in what?"

"It's a legal term," Mrs. Comstock said. "We were arrested with a dozen other people when one of these institutions was raided by Hollingshead and his clerical police-'found in attendance,' in other words."

"You were attending a renegade church?" That surprised me, since Mrs. Comstock's religious devotions in the past had been wholly conventional; and Calyxa, who was educated in a Catholic institution, often told me she had garnered from that experience just as much religion as she expected to need, and then some.

"Not for religious purposes," Calyxa said. "The church allowed its premises to be used for political meetings. I had been telling Mrs. Comstock about the idea of the Parmentierists, and she was interested, and we went there so she could take a sample."

"Isn't that an extenuating circumstance?"

"Not in Deacon Hollingshead's eyes," said Mrs. Comstock. "Parmentierism hardly constitutes an alibi, under the current regime. I almost suspect the Deacon pursued us for the explicit purpose of incriminating us. It may have been part of some scheme he worked up with the Executive before Deklan was deposed."

"But Deklan is deposed, and you're still confined to the house."

"Deacon Hollingshead is as powerful as ever, and a Writ of Ecclesiastical Quarantine isn't so easily suborned. Once issued, it tends to stick. We're only here, and not in jail along with all the other Found-Ins, because I am a Comstock, and Calyxa is pregnant."*

"Julian will fix it," I said.

"I expect he will," Mrs. Comstock said, "once he learns about it. He won't be easily reached, however, now that he's installed in the Executive Palace."

"I can find a way to him."

"I expect it won't be necessary. Julian has never failed to join me for Christmas, if he was in Manhattan, and I'm sure he'll send for me this year. In any case Calyxa isn't due until April, which means Hollingshead can't act until then. No, Adam, I have another commission for you, if you'll accept it."

I could hardly refuse, though this was all a surprise to me, and disorienting in its effects.

"My commission," Mrs. Comstock said, "involves Sam Godwin."

"Sam! I haven't seen Sam since Labrador. He was sent home with an injury. We asked after him at the military hospital in St. John's, but he had already passed through, bound for New York. He must have arrived long since-have you seen him? I would like to shake his hand again." His remaining hand, I thought, but did not say.

"I made similar inquiries," Mrs. Comstock told me, "and I know he arrived safely in the city, and spent some days at the Soldier's Rest, but he was released-and promptly vanished, or at least hasn't bothered to contact me. This isn't like him, Adam."

I agreed that it was not. "Perhaps I can find him, and solve the mystery."

"I hoped you would say so." She beamed. "Thank you, Adam Hazzard."

"You don't need to thank me. But what about the guard on the door? He'll be back before long, and I can't stay."

"Never mind the guard-he's harmless, and as prisons go this one is comfortable enough."

"Once I'm out of the house it might be difficult to get back in," I said. I didn't like the idea that I might be barred from my marital chamber for some indefinite time. It was cruel, if not unusual.

"Stay at the Soldier's Rest, if you have to, and say your goodbyes to Calyxa for the time being. We'll be together again on Christmas Day, I'm sure of it."

"Welcome home, Adam," Calyxa added, and she embraced me again; and we exchanged intimacies once more, until Mrs. Comstock indicated by the clearing of her throat and the rolling of her eyes that the time had come for me to leave-too soon!