'What seat, my dear?' 'Nothing, Willy. Why, here comes Barbara to see you. I must go. Thanks for the tutorial!' Eric's ship is steaming northward through the Indian Ocean, and Eric is in the prow, Eric is the ship's figurehead, with his big varnished face and his stiff golden hair streaming backward. He leans across the brilliant sea, sending towards the north, toward the decisive meeting, the narrow burning beam of his will. That unappeased violence, in him travels to the encounter. With what can it be opposed? Is there any love still for healing, or only the need of courage in the face of force? What profit now even to run away, since discovery would be so certain and flight merely the fearful waiting in a stranger's room for those inevitable feet upon the stair? He must be awaited here with closed lips, no single word uttered, no confession made, no assistance asked. It is too late, and pride will not now surrender its captive. After so much of cleverness, so much of subtlety, so much of the insolence of reason, comes that at last which must be dumbly faced. Eric, not now to be controlled or managed, must, with whatever outcome, be totally endured. The necessary courage is that full endurance in secrecy, that being dismembered in secrecy, the willingness to surrender, in whatever strange way it might be asked for, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. And this had to be, not only because of the relentless journeying ship, but because of the unredeemed past buried alive in its demoniac silence. Now let a demon courage rise to face that resurrected bloodstained shade. But oh, the human weakness, the desire for the comforter, the frail crying wish that it had all never happened at all and things were as they once were. The bitter memory of the newly painted door and the beautiful woman entering. The bitterness of that bitterness. Oh Richard, Richard, Richard. 'Why, Henrietta, here all alone? Where's Edward?' 'He's hunting for Montrose.' 'Henrietta, you're crying. What is it, my little pussy? Sit down here and tell me.' 'everything's awful.' 'Why, what's awful? Tell me all the things that are awful.' 'We can't find Montrose anywhere.' 'Montrose will come back. Cats always do. Don't you fret then.' 'And we found a dead fish in our special pool.' 'They have to die sometime, Henrietta, just like us.' 'And we saw a bad magpie carrying off a poor frog.' 'The magpie has to eat, you know! And I don't suppose the frog really knew what was happening at all.' 'I do wish the animals wouldn't hurt each other.' 'We human beings hurt each other too!' 'And we found a poor seagull with a broken wing and Uncle Theo drowned it.' 'That was the only thing to do, Henrietta.' 'And I dreamed last night that we were back with Daddy and it was all all right again, and when I woke up I was so miserable. Why, Mummy, what is it? Why, Mummy, now you're crying too…' 'I've learnt the flute quartet in major.' 'I know.' 'Oh, you've been listening! It was supposed to be a surprise.' 'I heard you the other day when I was walking by the house.' , May I come up and play it to you?' 'No.' , Why not? You used to let me come here and play to you.' 'Not any more.' 'Why not, Willy?' 'The music is too painful, dearest Barbara.' , You think I wouldn't play it properly! I have improved.' 'No, no, I could hear you were playing it beautifully.' 'Willy, why won't you teach me German? You teach Pierce Latin so why not me German?' 'Just not.' – 'I don't understand you. I think you've become horrid. Everyone's horrid. Pierce is horrid.' 'Pierce is in love. 'pooh! What's being in love like, Willy?' 'I've forgotten.' 'Well, I suppose you are rather old. If I'm ever in love with someone I won't be horrid to them.' 'Thats a very good rule, Barbara. Remember that rule when the time comes.' 'You remember how you used to say that I was Titania and you were the ass?' 'Did I? Well, I'm still the ass. I'm going to London tomorrow, Barbie.' 'I know. You're going to stay two days with John. John told me.' 'I'm going to the libraries.' 'I'll come and see you as soon as you're back. I'll be lonely, with mama and papa away.' 'I'll be working then. Come at the week-end.' 'Why not directly you're back?' 'Nam excludit sors mea «saepe veni».' 'You keep saying things in Latin and you know I can't understand. I might understand if you wrote it down. But I can't talk Latin, and you pronounce it in such a funny way.' 'Never mind.' 'I wish you wouldn't be so horrid, Willy, just when I'm so miserable about Montrose.' 'Don't worry about Montrose, Barbie, hell turn up. He's just wandered off on an expedition.' 'But he's never done it before. He's not a real torn cat. He wouldn't want to go away.' 'I'm sure he'll come back, my dove. There now, don't cry. You upset me so much when you cry.' 'I don't think you care at all. I think you're beastly.' Barbara, sitting on the floor beside Willy's chair, had twinc, l her arms about his knees. Willy now rose abruptly, steppir, out of the wreath of her arms and marching over to the window. 'Stop crying, Barbara.' Out of sheer surprise she stopped, and sat there snuffling and mopping her eyes, her bare feet, just visible underneath her green and white spotted dress, nestling together like two little brown birds. Willy took hold of the window-sill, pushed aside the latest stones which the twins had brought and the glass which held the now limp and drooping nettles, and began to look intently through his Swiss binoculars at nothing in particular. I shall have to leave this place, thought Willy. The agony was each time greater of not being able to seize Barbara violently in his arms. 'What are you looking at, Willy?' 'Nothing, child.' 'You can't be looking at nothing. You're so dull today. I shall jolly well go away.' 'Don't go, Barbie. Yes, you'd better go. I've got to work.' 'All right, I shall go and ride my pony. And I'll never play you that Mozart.' 'Do something for me, will you, Barb?' 'Possibly. What is it?' 'Go and find Pierce and be specially nice to him.' 'Well, maybe. I'll see how I feel. Have a nice time in London.' After she had gone Willy Kost locked the door and went into his bedroom and lay face downwards on his bed. The sheer physical strain of the last half hour had left him limp and shuddering. He could not decide if it was worse when she touched him or when she did not. There was a raw agony of
