There was silence in the wood as they sat side by side, Mary slowly rubbing her face over with the handkerchief, Ducane, frowning with concentrated attention, leaning forward and pulverizing a dry beech leaf in his hand. A pair of brimstone butterflies, playing together, passed flittering in front of them. Mary stretched out her hand toward the butterflies. She said, 'I'm sorry I've inflicted this on you. One should bear one's own burdens. I'm perfectly all right really. After all, I'm not in my first youth! It'll blow over, it'll settle down.' Settle down! she thought. Yes, settle down into dreariness and quietness and forgetfulness and boredom. Yet she knew that it was not really the sharp tragic knife of passion that disturbed her now, it was some vaguer nervous storm out of her unsatisfied woman's nature. The dreariness was already with her, it had its part in her present jumpiness, her present tears. This ill thought was so heavy with despair that she almost began to cry again. Then she saw that Ducane had got up. He stood in front of her, staring at her with his round surprised- looking blue eyes. He said in an excited voice, 'Mary, do you know what I think? I think you should marry Willy.' 'Marry Willy?' she said dully. 'But I've told you what he's like with me.' 'Well, change him. I'm sure it's a matter of will. You let him infect you with his passivity, you accept his mood.' It was true that she accepted his mood. 'Do you think I really could – 'You must try, try with all the forces you can summon. You've been too humble with him. It's often an act of charity to treat someone as an equal and not as a superior! A woman in love is a great spiritual force if only she wills properly. You have no idea how much power you have over us! I've known it for a long time, that, for Willy, only you can do it. But I hadn't thought enough to see that you'd have to fight him, surprise him, wake him, hurt him even. Mary, you must try. I think you should marry Willy and take him right away from here.' Have I this power, she wondered. Ever since she had first met Willy she had been totally subservient to him. The 'parade of feelings' had not altered that. For all these gestures she had really extinguished herself in his presence, wanting simply to let him be. It now seemed to her that this had been all wrong, that this was the very policy which produced, for both of them, the frustrating melancholy which she had taken to be his defence against her. 'Tell yourself,' said Ducane, 'That anything is possible.' Mary thought, yes, I will marry Willy and I will take him away. With this idea so much happiness entered into her that she stood up lightly and involuntarily as if two angels had lifted her up, their fingertips underneath her elbows. 'I'll try,' she said, 'I'll try.' 'I hear you behaved intolerably at lunch-time today.' 'Who told you?' 'weu: 'Well nothing. Let's have a look at your Latin prose,' 'Oh Willy – I'm so wretched – sorry.' 'Barbara?' 'Yes.' 'And she?' 'I just annoy her.' 'I have no comfort for you, Pierce. You will suffer. Only try to trap the suffering inside yourself. Crush it down in your heart like Odysseus did.' 'Is it true that the first time of falling in love is the worst?' 'No.' 'Oh God. Willy, I think I'll have to go away from here. If only she wouldn't play that damned flute. It nearly kills me.' 'Yes, I can imagine the flute is – terrible.' 'Do you mind if I wajk about the room. You can't imagine what it's like when every moment you're conscious you're in the most frightful pain.' 'I can a little.' 'Who were you first in love with, Willy?' 'A girl, a girl, a girl ' 'What was she like?' 'It was a long time ago.' 'It must be good to be past the age of falling in love.' 'Like Cephalus in the first book of the Republic.' 'Yes. I never understood that bit before. I envy you. Do you think she'll change?' 'Hope nothing.' 'Is there a cure?' 'Only art. Or more love.' 'I should die of more love.' 'Dying into life, Pierce.' 'No, just dying. Oh hell, I've broken one of those eggs the twins brought you. I'll just go and wash it off.' Why did this little shattered egg which he was washing off his fingertip, with its fragments of speckled blue shell and its fierce yellow inside make him think so intensely of Barbara? 'My name is death in life and life in death.' A love without reservation ought to be a life force compelling the world into order and beauty. But that love can be so strong and yet so entirely powerless is what breaks the heart. Love did not move toward life, it moved toward death, toward the roaring seacaves of annihilation. Or it led to the futility of a little broken bird's egg whose remains were now being washed away by water from the tap. Even so one day God might crack the universe and wash away its fruitless powerless loves with a deluge of indifferent power. 'Sorry, Willy. Let's look at my prose now' 'I've changed my mind. I'll see your prose tomorrow. Today we will read love poetry. You shall read aloud to me and we will weep together. Here.' 'Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus, rumoresque senum severiorum omnes unius aestimemus assis. soles occidere et redire possunt: nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda.. The lazy sinister summer evening thickened with dust and petrol fumes and the weariness of homeward- turning human beings drifted over Notting Hill like poison gas. The perpetual din of the traffic diffused itself in the dense light, distorting the facades of houses and the faces of men. The whole district vibrated, jerked and shifted slightly, as if something else and very nasty were trying, through faults and knots and little crazy corners where lines just failed to meet, to make its way into the ordinary world.
Ducane was hurrying along, consulting a little map which he had made in his notebook to show him the way to where Peter McGrath lived. He felt a certain amount of anxiety about this surprise visit to McGrath. Ducane did not like playing the bully, and deliberate and calculated bullying was what it was now necessary to produce. He was also anxious in case he should bully to no purpose. If he had to use force he should at least use it quickly and efficiently and get exactly what he wanted. But he unfortunately knew so little about his victim that he was uncertain how best to threaten him, and once the advantage of surprise had been lost McGrath might refuse to talk, might stand upon his rights or even 'turn nasty'.
