"She's on holiday. I don't know where she is just now, I really don't. Here's the letter you sent her. I haven't read it."

I took the letter. The return of a passionate letter unread desolates far regions of the imagination. If somewhere she had read my words the world was changed. Now all blew back upon me like dead leaves.

"Oh Rachel, where is she?"

"Honestly I don't know, I'm not in touch. Bradley, do stop it. Think of your dignity or something. You look terrible, you look a hundred. You might shave at least. This thing is all in your mind."

"You didn't think so when Julian said she loved me."

"Rachel," I said, "you are talking about someone else. You are not talking about Julian, about my Julian."

"Your Julian is a fiction. This is what I'm telling you, dear Bradley. I'm not saying she didn't care for you, but a young girl's emotions are chaos."

"And you are talking to another person. You obviously have no conception of what you're dealing with. I live in a different world, I am in love, and--"Do you think there is some magic in those words which you utter so solemnly?"

"Yes, I do. All this is happening on a different plane--"This is a form of insanity, Bradley. Only the insane think that there are planes which are quite separate from other planes. It's all a muddle, Bradley, it's all a muddle. God knows, I'm saying this to you in kindness."

"Love is a sort of certainty, perhaps the only sort."

"It's just a state of mind--"It's a true state of mind."

"Oh Bradley, do stop. You've had a terrible time lately, no wonder your head's in a whirl. I am so awfully sorry about Priscilla."

"Priscilla. Yes."

"You mustn't blame yourself too much."

"No--"

"Where did Francis find her? Where was she lying when he found her?"

"I don't know."

"You mean you didn't ask?"

"No. I suppose she was in bed."

"I would have wanted to know--all the details--I think--just to picture it--Did you see her dead?"

"No."

"Didn't you have to identify her?"

"No."

"Someone must have done."

"Roger did."

"Odd about identifying dead people, recognizing them. I hope I don't ever have to--"He's keeping her prisoner somewhere, I know he is."

"Really, Bradley, you seem to be living in some sort of literary dream. Everything is so much duller and more mixed-up than you imagine, even the awful things are."

"He locked her in her room before."

"Of course he didn't. The girl was romancing."

"Do you really not know where she is?"

"Really."

"Why hasn't she written to me?"

"She's no good at writing letters, never has been. Anyway give her time. She will write. Perhaps it's just a rather difficult letter to compose!"

"Rachel, you don't know what's inside me, you don't know what it's like to be me, to be where I am. You see it's a matter of absolute certainty, of knowing your own mind and somebody else's with absolute certainty. It's something completely steady and old, as if it's always been, ever since the world began. That's why what you say is simply nonsense, it doesn't make any sense to me, it's a sort of gabbling. She understands, she spoke this language with me at once. We love each other."

"Bradley dear, do try to come back to reality--"This is reality. Oh God, supposing she were dead--"Oh don't be silly. You make me sick."

"Rachel, she isn't dead, is she?"

In a way, the truth was that I did not. I could attach no precise events to the idea of Rachel. Here memory was simply a cold cloud to be shuddered at. She was a familiar person and a familiar presence, but the notion that I had ever done anything in relation to her was utterly shadowy, so much had the advent of Julian drained the rest of my life of significant content, separating history from prehistory. I wanted to explain this.

"Yes, I do--of course--remember--but it's as if--since Julian--everything has been--sort of amputated and--the past has quite gone--it didn't mean anything anyway--it was just--I'm sorry this sounds rather unkind, but being in love one simply has to tell the truth all the time--I know you must feel that there was a sort of--betrayal--you must resent it--"Resent it? Good heavens no. I just feel sorry for you. And it's all a pity and a sort of waste and rather pathetic really. Well, a sad thing, a disappointment perhaps, a disillusionment. It seems odd to me now that I ever felt that you were a sort of strong wise man or that you could help me. I was touched when you talked about eternal friendship. It seemed to mean something at the time. Do you remember talking about eternal friendship?"

"No."

"Can you really not remember? You are peculiar. I wonder if you're having some sort of breakdown? Can you really not recall our liaison at all?"

"There was no liaison."

"Oh come, come. I agree it was brief and stupid and I suppose rather improbable. No wonder Julian could hardly believe it."

"You told Julian?"

"Yes. Hadn't you thought that I might? Oh but of course you'd forgotten all about it!"

"You told--?"

"And I'm afraid I told Arnold almost straightaway. You're not the only one who has states of mind. With my husband at any rate, I'm not very discreet. It's a risk one runs with married people."

"When did you tell her--when--?"

"Oh, not till later. When Arnold came down to your love-nest he brought Julian a letter from me. And in that letter I told her."

"What did you tell her?"

"And when she did get back, I must say--"What did you tell her?"

"Simply what happened. That you appeared to be in love with me, that you started kissing me passionately, that we went to bed together and it wasn't a great success but you swore eternal devotion and so on, and then Arnold came and you ran out without your socks on and bought Julian that pair of boots--"Oh God--you told her--all that--"Well, why not? It did happen, didn't it? You don't deny it, do you? It was relevant, wasn't it? It was part of you. It would have been wrong to conceal it."

"Oh God--"

"No wonder you tried to forget it all. But, Bradley, one is responsible for one's actions, and one's past does belong to one. You can't blot it out by entering a dream world and decreeing that life began yesterday. You can't make yourself into a new person overnight, however much in love you feel you are. That sort of love is an illusion, all that 'certainty' you were talking about is an illusion. It's like being under the influence of drugs."

"No, no, no."

"Anyway it's over now and no harm done. You needn't worry too much or feel remorse or anything, she had already decided it was a mistake. She has some sense. Really, you mustn't take a young girl's feelings so literally. You haven't lost a pearl of great price, my dear Bradley, and you'll appreciate this sooner than you imagine. You'll soon be heaving a sigh of relief too. Julian is a very ordinary little girl. She's immature, not all there yet, like an embryo. Of course there was a lot of emotion swilling around, but it didn't really signify too much who was at the receiving end of it. It's a very volatile time of life. There's nothing steady or permanent or deep in any of these great crazes. She's been 'madly in love' any number of times in the last two or three years. My dear man, did you really imagine you would be the sticking point of a young girl's passion? How could that be? A girl like Julian will have to love a hundred men before she finds the right one. I was just the same. Oh do wake up, Bradley. Look at yourself in a mirror. Come back to earth."

"And she came straight to you?"

"I suppose so. She arrived pretty soon after Arnold--'

"And what did she say?"

"Do stop looking like King Lear "What did she say?"

"What could she say? What could anyone say? She was crying like a maniac anyway and--"

"Oh Christ, oh Christ."

"She got me to repeat it all and give all the details and swear it was true and then she believed me."

"But what did she say? Can't you remember anything, she actually said?"

"She said, 'If only it had been longer ago.' I suppose she had a point there."

"She didn't understand. It wasn't at all like what you said. When you said that, it wasn't true. When you used those words they conveyed something which simply wasn't true. You implied--"I'm sorry! I don't know what words you would expect me to have used! Those ones seemed to me to be pretty appropriate and accurate."

"She can't have understood "I think she did understand, Bradley. I'm sorry, but I think she did."

"You said she was crying."

"Oh madly, like a child who was going to be hanged. But she always did enjoy crying."

"How could you have told her, how could you--But she must have known it wasn't like that, it wasn't like that--"Well, I think it was like that!"

"How could you have told her?"

"It was Arnold's idea. But I didn't honestly feel at that point that I had to be discreet any more. I thought a little shock would bring Julian to her senses--"

"Why have you come here today? Did Arnold send you?"

"No, not particularly. I felt you ought to be told about Julian."

"But you haven't told me!"

"About it being--well, you must have assumed it anyway--all over."

'We.'"

"Don't shout. And I came, you won't care of course, but out of a sort of kindness. I wondered if I could help you."

I stared at her with amazement, she was handsome, pale and bland, elated and precise, eloquent, vibrating with dignity and purpose. "Rachel, I don't think we understand each other at all."

"Well, don't worry. You'll feel relieved later on. Just try not to feel resentment against me or against Julian. You'll only make yourself miserable if you do."

I got up and went to the bureau and got out Arnold's letter. I got it out simply with the intention of making sure I had not dreamt it. Perhaps my memory really was disturbed. There was a sort of blank over Arnold's letter and yet I seemed to recall--I said, holding the letter in my hand, "Julian will come back to me. I know this. I know it just as well as I know--"What's that you have there?"

"A letter from Arnold." I began to look at the letter.

There was a ring at the front doorbell.

I threw the letter onto the table and ran out to the door in heart-agony.

A postman stood outside with a very large cardboard box, which he"Wha? sathatrPn the flr'

"Parcel for Mr. Bradley Pearson."

"What is it?"

"I don't know, sir. Is that you, then? I'll just push it in, shall I? It weighs a ton." The postman nudged the big square box in through the doorway with his knee and made off. As I returned to the sitting-room I saw Francis sitting on the stairs. He had obviously been listening. He looked like an apparition, one of those ghosts that writers describe which look just like ordinary people and yet not. He smiled obsequiously. I ignored him.

Rachel was standing by the table reading the letter. I sat down. I felt very tired.

"You ought not to have shown me this letter."

"You don't know what you've done. I shall never never never forgive you."

"But, Rachel, you said you and Arnold told each other everything, so surely you--"God, you are vile, vindictive--"It's not my fault! It can't make any difference, can it?"

"Truly, I didn't mean you to read it, it was just a crazy accident, I didn't mean to upset you. Anyway Arnold has probably changed his mind by now--"

"Of course you meant me to read it. It's your vile revenge. I hate you for this forever. You can't understand anything here, you can't understand anything at all--And to think of your having that letter and gloating over it and imagining--"I didn't gloat--"Yes, you did. Why else did you keep it except as a weapon against me, except to show it to me and hurt me because you think I deserted you--"Honestly, Rachel, I haven't given you a single thought!"

"Aaaaah--"

Rachel's scream flamed out in the darkening room, more visible suddenly than the pale round of her face. I saw the disturbed violent agony of her eyes and her mouth. She ran at me, or perhaps she was simply running to the door. I stumbled aside and crashed my elbow against the wall. She passed me like a stampeding animal and I heard the after-sigh of her scream. The front door flew open and through the open street door I saw lamplight reflected in the wet paving stones of the court.

I went out slowly and closed both doors and began turning lights on. The apparition of Francis was still sitting on the stairs. He smiled an isolated irrelevant smile, as if he were a stray minor spirit belonging to some other epoch and some other story, a sort of lost and masterless Puck, smiling a meditative cringing unprompted affectionate smile.

"You were listening."

"Brad, I'm sorry--"It doesn't matter. What the hell's this?" I kicked the cardboard box.

"I'll open it for you, Brad."

I watched while Francis tore the cardboard and dragged the top off the box.