The Black Prince

future, as a result of this, whatever happens. God, I feel hard, hard, hard. I don't know if you can understand.
The third point is about you. How do you come in? Well, you just are absolutely in. I wish you weren't, but you can in fact be useful. Excuse this cold directness. Perhaps now you can see what I mean by «hard,»
About Christian, there is a problem too which concerns you. I have not yet said, though of course I have implied, how she feels. Well, she loVes me. A lot has happened in the last few days. They have been probably the most eventful days of my whole life. What Christian was saying to you the last time you saw her was of course a sort of joke, a mere result of high spirits, as I imagine you realized. She is such a gay affectionate person. However she is not indifferent to you and she wants something from you now which is rather hard to name: a sort of ratification of the arrangement I have been describing, a sort of final reconciliation and settling of old scores and also the assurance, which I'm sure you can give, that you will still be her friend when she is living with me. I might add that Christian, who is a very scrupulous person, is extremely concerned about Rachel's rights and whether Rachel will be able to «manage.» I hope that here too you can give some reassurance. Rachel is strong too. They are really two marvellous women. Bradley, do you follow all this? I feel such a mixture of joy and fear and sheer hard will, I'm not sure if I'm expressing myself clearly.
I shall deliver this by hand and will not try to see you at once. But soon, I mean later today or tomorrow, I would like to talk to you. You will be coming to see Priscilla of course, and we could meet then. There is no need to delay your talk with Rachel till you've seen me. The sooner that happens the better. But I'd like to see you before you see Chris alone. God, does this make sense? It is an appeal, and that should tickle your vanity. You are in a strong position for once. Please help me. I ask in the name of our friendship.
Arnold
PS. If you hate all this for God's sake be at least kind and don't give me any sort of hell about it. I may sound rational but I'm feeling terribly crazy and upset. I so much don't want to hurt Rachel. And please don't rush round to Chris and upset her, just when some things have become clear. And don't see Rachel either unless you can do it quietly and like I asked. Sorry, sorry.
I will not attempt to describe how I got through the next few days. There are desolations of the spirit which can only be hinted at. I sat there huge-eyed in the wreck of myself. At the same time there was an awful crescendo of excitement as Wednesday approached, and the idea of simply being with her began to shed a lurid joy, a demonic version of the joy which I had felt upon the Post Office Tower. Then I had been in innocence. Now I felt both guilty and doomed. And, in a way that concerned myself alone, savage, extreme, rude, cruel… Yet: to be with her again. Wednesday.
Of course I had to answer the telephone in case it was her. Every time it sounded was like a severe electric shock. Christian rang, Arnold rang. I put the receiver down at once. Let them make what they like of it. Arnold and Francis both came and rang the bell, but I could see them through the frosted glass of the door and did not let them in. I did not know if they could see me, I was indifferent to that. Francis dropped a note in to say that Priscilla was having shock treatment and seemed better. Rachel called, but I hid. Later she telephoned in some state of emotion. I spoke briefly and said I would ring her later. Thus I beguiled the time. I also started several letters to Julian. My dear Julian, I have lately got myself into the most terrible mess and I feel that I must lay the whole matter before you. Dear Julian, I am sorry that I must leave London and cannot join you on Wednesday. Dearest Julian, I love you, I am in anguish, oh my darling. Of course I tore up all these letters, they were just for private self-expression. At last, after centuries of sick emotion, Wednesday came.
How I feel about music is another thing. I am not actually tone deaf, though it might be better if I were. Music can touch me, it can get at me, it can torment. It just, as it were, reaches me, like a sinister gabbling in a language one can almost understand, a gabbling which is horribly, one suspects, about oneself. When I was younger I had even listened to music deliberately, stunning myself with disorderly emotion and imagining that I was having a great experience. True pleasure in art is a cold fire. I do not wish to deny that there are some people- though fewer than one might think from the talk of our self-styled experts-who derive a pure and mathematically clarified pleasure from these medleys of sound. All I can say is that «music» for me was simply an occasion for personal fantasy, the outrush of hot muddled emotions, the muck of my mind made audible.
The softly cacophonous red and gold scene swung in my vision, beginning to swirl gently like something out of Blake: it was a huge coloured ball, a sort of immense Christmas decoration, a glittering shining twittering globe of dim rosy light in the midst of which Julian and I were suspended, rotating, held together by a swooning intensity of precarious feather-touch. Somewhere above us a bright blue heaven blazed with stars and round about us half- naked women lifted ruddy torches up. My arm was on fire, my foot was on fire, my knee was trembling with the effort of keeping still. I was in a golden scarlet jungle full of the chattering of apes and the whistling of birds. A scimitar of sweet sounds sliced the air and entered into the red scar and became pain. I was that sword of agony, I was that pain. I was in an arena, surrounded by thousands of grimacing nodding faces, where I had been condemned to death by pure sound. I was to be killed by the whistling of birds and buried in a pit of velvet. I was to be gilded and then flayed.

«Bradley, what's the matter?»

«Nothing.»

«You weren't listening.»

«Were you talking?»

«I was asking you if you knew the story.»

«What story?»

«Of Rosenkavalier.»

«Of course I don't know the story of Rosenkavalier.»

«Well, quick, you'd better read your programme-«No, you tell me.»

«Oh well, it's quite simple really, it's about this young man, Octavian, and the Marschallin loves him, and they're lovers, only she's much older than he is and she's afraid she'll lose him because he's bound to fall in love