anything you found curious or unaccustomed?'
'Yes,' said Hubert promptly. 'She was sad at what had had to be done to me, but there was more, more in her mind than me. And papa looked at her constantly, but she wouldn't look at him.'
'Yes. This isn't agreeable, but you must hear it. If you don't, you'll be doubtful and distressed, and you may cause hurt.'
'Oh, Anthony, say, for Jesus' sake.'
Anthony took his brother's hand and brought his face close. 'Mama and Father Lyall... mated together. Then Father Lyall was murdered—I found him dying when I came home after taking you to the Embassy.'
'Oh, Mother of God.'
'As you say. When papa tells you of it, as he'll have to at last, be sure to seem to hear something altogether new.'
'Yes, Anthony.'
'There's more,' said Anthony, tightening his grip. 'Father Lyall wasn't only murdered. He'd been altered besides. That was the more that mama thought of when she was here.'
'What a dreadful concurrence.' Hubert was mildly surprised at how flat the words sounded. 'Her... and then her son.'
'Not a concurrence-not merely coincident. He tried to obstruct your alteration; perhaps mama persuaded him. That ran him foul of Church and State. So the pigs murdered him by altering him and... and seeing to it that he bled to death, as a piece of instruction and purification. I had no doubt they were vile, but I thought that the law at least-'
'How do you know, Anthony?'
'I know. I know without having to be let know. But the rest I saw. When mama was told of what had been done, she screamed and wept—she confessed by her actions that... about herself and Father Lyall. Papa saw it too, and abused her. So, when she was here, she wouldn't look at him, and he looked at her because he was—'
'Yes, I see. How could mama do that with Father Lyall?'
'You'll understand when you—when you've considered it. You mustn't hate her, Hubert.'
'I don't; I grieve for her.'
Neither spoke for a time. Irritably, Anthony tossed a farthing into the friar's bowl and hushed his blessing. Then Hubert said, 'What will papa do? Will he turn her out of doors?'
'No. Our father isn't a bad man, simply one too much given to self-love. This may even improve him. Well, now you see why I had to let you know.'
'Yes, I do. Thank you.'
'Are you troubled? Greatly troubled?'
'No, not greatly.'
'You must consider everything, Hubert.'
Hubert promised he would and, after Anthony had gone, tried to do so, to consider everything. That began with his mother. She had suffered what anyone could have recognised as a cruel loss, and it was no more than the truth that he grieved for her; but, as he lay there, he found that the thought of that loss was being pushed aside— not for ever, not for long—by other thoughts, ones that would not go away.
He believed, he would have had to say he believed, that his mother had had done to her what Ned had done to his girl in the woods, or she could never have borne two children, and that to have had it done to her by Father Lyall had somehow been wonderful enough to make her betray herself to her husband on learning that that would never happen again. He believed those things, but not in the way he believed her words to him in the bower concerning the love of man and woman; from them, he could imagine how she felt, even though he now knew that she had been founding them on a love in every way forbidden; he could reconcile that with all the many things he knew about her, her smile, her step, her handling of a needle or a bowl of tea. To believe both in the same way, to be able to consider both at once, was as difficult as it would be to understand how the same part of a man's mind or body could make Ned talk and behave as he had in the brewery and make de Kooning paint his picture of Eve.
He, Hubert, was going to find that too much for him: he would never fit the pieces together, just as he would never decide what he really felt about having been altered. He saw for a moment that he would never have to do either: the sight of two lovers kissing, news of a friend's marriage, a successful performance in church or opera-house, the smile of a pretty woman, contemptuous stares and whispers as he passed, going among children, praise from an admired colleague, clumsy or malicious inquiries about what it was like to be as he was, suddenly- aroused memories of St Cecilia's, of the night of his escape, of any part of the time when he had been as others were—such small events would bring up one question or the other for a time, leave unaltered his state of confusion or apathy on the point, and then be forgotten as he went on with his life. Perhaps that was how everyone found themselves going about matters, nothing ever measured or settled or understood, not even when they came to die. After all, mankind was in a state of sin.
But what about God? It must be His will that things had turned out as they had, indeed more obviously so than seemed common. That meant that He must be praised for having put an end to all rebellion on the part of His child. The grave young monk who had twice at least visited Hubert's bedside had been positive that it was not required of the sick to pray on their knees, that prayers offered, when possible, in a pious attitude-face to the ceiling, legs extended and together, hands joined-were fully valid. Hubert turned on to his back and made the Sign of the Cross under the covers. In silence, barely moving his lips, he praised God for a time and thanked Him for His favour; then he turned to others. He petitioned that God should show his mother mercy and send her comfort, that He should soften his father's heart towards her, that He should not be angry with those who had helped him when he was a runaway: he ran through the list. What now? Perhaps, though he had ceased to rebel in action, there were still scraps of rebellion in his heart. He prayed for their removal and, after that, for resignation. Let him be patient whatever might befall; let him be not cast down nor puffed up; let him...
Hubert realised suddenly that he had stopped praying for some seconds or minutes. Instead, he had been putting his mind into the undirected state in which music, music that must be his because it was nobody else's, might be found there. There was none, which was unexpected after so long an interval: he had not thought of music
