The Black Prince

rising to little new beginnings. Our soon-tired consciousness is meted out in chapters, and that the world will look quite different tomorrow is, both for our comfort and our discomfort, usually true. How marvellously too night matches sleep, sweet image of it, so neatly apportioned to our need. Angels must wonder at these beings who fall so regularly out of awareness into a fantasm-infested dark. How our frail identities survive these chasms no philosopher has ever been able to explain.
The next morning-it was another sunny day-I woke early to an exact perception of my state; yet knowing too that something had changed. I was not quite as 1 had been the day before. I lay, testing myself, as someone after an accident might test himself for broken limbs. I certainly still felt very happy, with that curious sense of the face as waxen, dissolving into bliss, the eyes swimming with it. Desire, still cosmic, was perhaps more like physical pain, like something one could die of quite privately in a corner. But I was not dismayed. I got up and shaved and dressed with care and looked at my new face in the mirror. I looked so young it was almost uncanny. Then I drank a little tea and went to sit in the sitting-room, with my hands folded, looking through the window at the wall. I sat as still as a Buddhist and experienced myself.
I sat motionless for I am not sure how long. Perhaps I really went into some sort of trance. Then the telephone rang and my heart went off in a black explosion as I was instantly certain that it was Julian. I ran to the instrument and fumbled and dropped it twice before I got it to my ear. It was Grey-Pelham, ringing up to say that since his wife was indisposed he had an extra ticket for Glyndebourne and would I like it? I would not! Glyndebourne forsooth! When I had politely got rid of him I rang Netting Hill. Francis answered and told me that Priscilla was calmer this morning and had agreed to see a psychiatrist. After that I sat and wondered if I would ring Ealing. Not to talk to Julian of course. Perhaps I ought to ring Rachel? But supposing Julian were to answer?
As I was scorching and freezing my mind with this possibility the phone rang again and again my heart exploded, and this time it was Rachel. Our conversation was as follows.
«Hello, Bradley. It's dreary old me.»
«Rachel-dear-nice-happy-you-so glad-«You can't be drunk at this hour of the morning.»

«What time is it?»

«Eleven-thirty.»

«I thought it was about nine.»

«You'll be glad to hear that I'm not coming round to see you.»

«But I'd love you to.»

«No, I've got to get hold of myself. It's so-below me-to persecute my old friends.»

«We are friends, aren't we?»

«No.»

«He was, I know. Never mind. Oh God, I mustn't start-«Rachel-«

«Yes?»

«How's-how's-Julian-today?»

«Oh much as usual.»

«She's not-by any chance-going to come round here-to get her Hamlet-is she?»

«No. She seems to be off Hamlet today. She's down the road with a young couple who are digging a conversation pit in their garden playroom.»

«A what?»

«A conversation pit.»

«Oh. Ah well. I see. Tell her-No. Well-« you.

«Bradley, you do-never mind what it means-love me, don't?»

«Yes, of course.»