It was full of books. The Precious Labyrinth. The Gauntlets of Power. Tobias and the Fallen Angel. A Banner with a Strange Device. Essays of a Seeker. A Skull on Fire. A Clash of Symbols. Hollows in the Sky. The Glass Sword. Mysticism and Literature. The Maid and the Magus. The Pierced Chalice. Inside a Snow Crystal.

Arnold's books. Dozens of them.

I looked at the huge compact mountain of smugly printed words. I picked up one of the books and opened it at random. Rage possessed me. With a snarl of disgust I tried to tear the book down the middle, ripping the spine in two, but it was too tough, so I tore the pages out in handfuls. The next book was a paperback and I was able to tug it into two and then into four. I seized another one. Francis watched, his face brightening with sympathy and pleasure. Then he came down the stairs to help me, murmuring "Hi!" to himself, "Hi!" as he dragged the books to pieces and then pursued and tore again the white cascading sheaves of print. We worked resolutely through the contents of the box, standing sturdily with our feet apart like men working in a river, as the pile of dismembered debris rose about us. It took us just under ten minutes to destroy the complete works of Arnold Baffin.

"How are you feeling now, Brad?"

"All right."

I had fainted or something. I had eaten practically nothing since my return to London. Now I was sitting on the black woolly rug on the sitting-room floor with my back against one of the armchairs which was propped against the wall. The gas fire was flaring and popping. One lamp was alight. Francis had made some sandwiches and I had eaten some. I had drunk some whisky. In fact I felt very strange but not faint any more, no more little eruptions in my field of vision, no more heavy black canopies descending and bearing me to the ground. I was now on the ground and feeling very long and leaden. I could see Francis clearly in the flickering light, so clearly that I frowned over it, he was suddenly too close, too present. I looked down and noticed that he was holding one of my hands. I frowned over that too and removed it.

Francis who, as I recalled, had by now drunk a good deal of whisky, was kneeling beside me eagerly and attentively, not in an attitude of repose, as if I were something which he was making. His lips were pushed out coaxingly, the big red underlip curling over and the mucus of the mouth showing in a scarlet line. His little close eyes were sparkling with inward glee. His dispossessed hand joined his other hand, rubbing rhythmically up and down his plump thighs on the shiny shabby material of his blue suit. He made a little sympathetic chortling noise every now and then.

I felt, for the first time since my return to London, that I was in a real place and in the presence of a real person. At the same time I felt as people feel who after much ailing become suddenly far more ill and helpless, relaxed into the awfulness of the situation. I still had wit enough to see how pleased Francis was at my collapse. I did not resent his pleasure.

"Have some more whiskers, Brad, it'll do you good. Don't you worry, then. I'll find her for you."

"That's right," I said. "I'll stay here, I must. She'll come here, won't she. This is where she'll come to. She could come at any time. I'll leave the front door open again tonight, like I did last night. She can come in then like a little bird coming to its place. She can come in."

"Tomorrow I'll search for her. I'll go to her college. I'll go to Arnold's publisher. I'll pick up a clue somewhere. I'll go first thing tomorrow morning. Don't you grieve, Brad. She'll be back, you'll see. This time next week you'll be happy."

"I know she'll come back," I said. "It's odd when one knows. Her love for me was an absolute word spoken. It belongs to the eternal. I cannot doubt that word, it is the logos of all being, and if she loves me not chaos is come again. Love is knowledge, you see, like the philosophers always told us. I know her by intuition as if she were here inside my head."

"I know, Brad. When you really love somebody it's as if the whole world's saying it."

"Everything guarantees it. Like people used to think everything guaranteed God. Have you ever loved like that, Francis?"

"Yes, Brad. There was a boy once. But he committed suicide. It was years ago."

"Oh my God, Priscilla. I keep forgetting about her."

"Steve. Don't, Brad."

"Priscilla died because nobody loved her. She dried up and collapsed inside and died like a poisoned rat. God doesn't love the world, He can't do, look at it. But I hardly seem to care at all. I loved my mother."

"Me too, Brad."

"A very silly woman, but I loved her. I felt a sense of duty to Priscilla, but that's not enough, is it?"

"I guess not, Brad."

"Because I love Julian I ought to be able to love everybody. I will be able to one day. Oh Christ, if I could only have some happiness. When she comes back I'll love everybody, I'll love Priscilla."

"Priscilla's dead, Brad."

"Love ought to triumph over time, but can it? Not time's fool, he said, and he knew about love if anybody did, he was bloody crucified if anybody was. Of course one's got to suffer. Perhaps in the end the suffering is all, it's all contained in the suffering. The final atoms of it all are simply pain. How old are you, Francis?"

"Forty-eight, Brad."

"You're ten years luckier and wiser than I am."

"I've never had any luck, Brad. I don't even hope for any any more. But I still love people. Not like Steve of course, but I love them. I love you, Brad."

"She will come back. The world hasn't changed for nothing. It can't change back now. The old world has gone forever. Oh how my life has gone from me, it has ebbed away. I cannot believe I am fifty-eight."

"Have you loved a lot of women, Brad?"

"I never really loved anybody before Julian came."

"But there were women, after Chris I mean?"

"Don't say his name, Brad, please. I wish I hadn't told you it."

"Perhaps the reality is in the suffering. But it can't be. Love promises happiness. Art promises happiness. Yet it isn't exactly a promise because you don't need the future. I am happy now, I think. I'll write it all down, only not tonight."

"I envy you being a writer chap, Brad. You can say what you feel. I'm just eaten by feelings and I can't even shout."

"Yes, I can shout, I can fill the galaxy with bellowings of pain. But you know, Francis, I've never ever really explained anything. I feel now as if at last I could explain. It's as if all the matrix of my life which has been as hard and tight and small as a nut has become all luminous and spread out and huge. Everything's magnified. At last I can see it all and visit it all. Francis, I can be a great writer now, I know I can."

"Sure you can, Brad. I always knew you had it in you. You were always like you were a great man."

"I've never given myself away before, Francis, never gambled myself absolutely. I've been a timid frightened man all my life. Now I know what it's like to be beyond fear. I'm where greatness lives now. I've handed myself over. And yet it's like being under discipline too. I haven't any choice. I love, I worship and I shall be rewarded."

"Sure, Brad. She will come."

"Yes. He will come."

"Brad, I think you'd better go to bed."

"Yes, yes, to bed, to bed. Tomorrow we'll make a plan."

"You stay here and I search."

"Yes. Happiness must exist. It can't all be made of pain. But what is happiness made of? All right, all right, Francis, I'll go to bed. What's the worst image of suffering you can think of?"

"A concentration camp."

"Yes. I'll meditate on that. Good night. Perhaps she'll come back in the morning."

"Perhaps you'll be happy this time tomorrow."

The morning brought the crisis of my life. But it was not anything that I could have conceived of in my wildest imaginings.

"Wake up, wake up, Brad, here's a letter."

I sat up in bed. Francis was thrusting at me a letter in an unfamiliar hand. It had a French stamp. I knew that it could only be from her. "Go, go, and close the door." He went. I opened the letter, shuddering, almost weeping with hope and fear. It read as follows.

Please please don't feel badly about me, don't be too sad or cross with me either. Forgive my ignorance of myself, forgive my worthless empty selfish youth. I can't quite now believe that you absolutely loved me, how could you have done. A mature woman would attract you much more deeply. I think that men like "youthful bloom" and so on but perhaps they don't really distinguish young girls much from one another and quite rightly, one is so unformed. I hope you don't think I behaved like a "loose woman." I felt great feelings and at every moment I did what seemed unavoidable. I don't regret anything unless I hurt you and you won't forgive me. I must stop this letter, I keep saying the same things over and over again, you must be quite fed up. I am so very sorry that I went without saying good-bye. (I got a lift back to London quite easily, by the way. I'd never hitch-hiked before.) I felt I had to go, though I didn't think anything else just then, and since then it has seemed more sensible to keep on with that course rather than make more muddle and misery for everybody, though I terribly terribly want to see you. We will meet again, won't we, later on perhaps, after some time, and try to be friends, when I am a little more mature. That will be something new and valuable too. I feel now, especially as we go farther and farther south, that life is full of all kinds of possibilities. I do hope I shall manage with the Italian! Oh forgive me, Bradley, forgive me. I expect by now you just feel that you have had an odd dream. I hope it has been a good dream. Mine was. Oh I do feel so unhappy though, I feel all topsy-turvy. I don't know when I've cried so much. I have been so stupid and thoughtless. I love you with real love. It was a revelation. I don't unsay anything. But it wasn't part of any life we could have lived.

Julian

"Brad, may I come in?"

I was dressing.

"Is it good news, Brad?"

"She's in Italy," I said. "I'm going after her. She's in Venice."

The letter had, of course, been written for Arnold's eye. The bit about his "providing the stamp" made that plain. The girl was being supervised, virtually a prisoner. Of course she couldn't, as she said, "explain clearly." She had continued writing a vague repetitive effusion, in the hope of being able to put in a real message at the last moment, hence the references to "not being able to end." That had proved impossible. Doubtless Arnold arrived, read the letter and told her to complete it. Then he took it away and posted it. He would see to it that she had no money to buy stamps herself. However she had managed to tell me that she was writing under duress. She had also managed to convey her destination. "Snow and ice," to which she had drawn attention, patently meant Venice. The Italian for "snow" is "neve," and together with the reference to "Italian words," the anagram was obvious. And in "topsy-turvy" language a little place in the mountains clearly meant a large place by the sea. And Arnold had mentioned Venice, though then to mislead me. Names are not uttered at random.

"Are you going to Venice today?" said Francis, as I was getting into my trousers.

"Yes. At once."

"Do you know where she is?"

"No. The letter's in code. She's staying with a fan of Arnold's, I don't know who."

I thought for a moment. "All right. You might be useful."

"Oh good! Shall I go now and get the tickets? You should stay here, you know. She might telephone or you might get a message or something."

"All right." That made sense. I sat down on the bed. I was feeling rather faint again.

"And--I say, Brad, shall I do some detective work? I could go to Arnold's publisher and find out who his Venice admirer is."

"How?" I said. The flashing lights were coming back and I saw Francis's face, all plumped out with eagerness, surrounded by a cascade of stars, like a divine visitation in a picture.

"I'll pretend to be writing a book about how different nationalities see Arnold's work. I'll ask if they can put me in touch with his Italian admirers. They might have the address, it's worth trying."

"It's a brainwave," I said. "It's an idea of genius."

"And Brad, I'll need some money. I'll book us to Venice then."

"There may be no direct flight at once, if there isn't book us through Milan."

"And I'll get some maps and guide-books, we'll need a map of the city, won't we?"

"Yes, yes."

"Make me a cheque then, Brad. Here's your cheque book. Make it out to 'bearer' and I can take it to your bank. Make it a big one, Brad, so I can book us the best way. And Brad, would you mind, I haven't any clothes, it'll be hot there, won't it, do you mind if I buy some summer clothes, I haven't a thing?"

"Yes. Buy anything. Buy the guides and a map, that's a good idea. And go to the publisher. Yes, yes."

"Can I buy you some things, you know, a sun hat or a dictionary or anything?"

"No. Go quickly. Here." I gave him a large cheque.

"Oh thanks, Brad! You stay here and rest. I'll be back. Oh how exciting! Brad, do you know, I've never been to Italy, ever at all!"

When he had gone I went into the sitting-room. I had a blessed purpose now, an objective, a place in the world where she might be. I ought to be packing a suitcase. I felt incapable of doing so. Francis would pack my case. I felt faint with longing for Julian. I still held her letter in my hand.

In the bureau bookcase opposite to me were the love poems of Dante. I pulled them out. And as I touched the book I felt, so strange is the chemistry of love, that my embroiled heart was furthering its history. I felt love now in the form of a sort of divine anger. What I was suffering for that girl. Of course I would love my pain. But there is a rich anger which is bred so, and which is of the purest stuff that love is ever made of. Dante, who spoke his name so often and suffered so at his hands, knew that.

S'io avessi le belle trecce press, che fatte son per me scudiscio e ferza, pigliandole anzi terza, con esse passerei vespero e squille: e non sarei pietoso ne cortese, ami farei com' orso quando scherza; e se Amor me ne sferza, io mi vendicherei di piu di mille.

Ancor ne It occhi, and' escon le faville che m'infiammono il cor, ch'io porto anciso, guarderei presso e fiso, per vendicar lo fuggir che mi face: e poi le renderei con Amor pace.

I was lying face downwards on the floor, holding Julian's letter and the Rime together against my heart, when the telephone rang. I staggered up amid black constellations and got to the instrument. I heard Julian's voice.

No, it was not her voice, it was Rachel's. Only Rachel's voice, in emotion, horribly recalling that of her daughter.

"Oh--" I said, "Oh--", holding the telephone away from me. I saw Julian in that second in a jagged explosion of vision, in her black tights and her black jerkin and her white shirt, holding the sheep's skull up before my face.

"What is it, Rachel, I can't hear?"

"Bradley, could you come round at once."

"I'm just leaving London."

"Please could you come round at once, it's very, very urgent."

"Can't you come here!"

"No. Bradley, you must come, I beg you. Please come, it's something about Julian."

"Rachel, she is in Venice, isn't she? Do you know her address?

I've had a letter from her. She's staying with a fan of Arnold's. Do you know? Have you got an address book of Arnold's you could look it up in?"

"Bradley, come round here at once. It's very--important. I'll tell you everything--you want to know--only come--"What is it, Rachel? Rachel, is Julian all right? You haven't heard anything awful? Oh God, have they had a car accident?"

"I'll tell you everything. Just come here. Come, come, at once, in a taxi, every moment matters."

"Rachel, is Julian all right?"

"Yes, yes, yes, just come--I paid the taxi with trembling hands, dropping the money all over the place, and ran up the path and began banging on the knocker. Rachel opened the door at once.

I hardly recognized her. Or rather, I recognized her as a portentous revenant, the weeping distraught figure of the beginning of the story, her face grossly swollen with tears and, it seemed, again bruised, or perhaps just dirtied as a child's may be after much rubbing away of tears.