«You mean you don't mind? You know it destroys cells in the brain?»
«Then she'd better not have it.»
«On the other hand-'
«I ought to see Priscilla,» I said, I think, aloud. But I knew that I just couldn't. I had not got a grain of spirit to offer to any other person. I could not expose myself in my present condition to that poor rapacious craving consciousness.
«Priscilla said she'd do anything you wanted.»
Electric shocks. They batter the brain cage. Like hitting the wireless, they say, to make it go. I must pull myself together. Priscilla.
«We must go-into it-« I said.
«Brad, what's the matter?»
«Nothing. Destruction of cells in the brain.»
«Are you ill?»
«Yes.»
«What is it?»
«I'm in love.»
«Oh,» said Francis. «Who with?»
«Julian Baffin.»
I had not intended to tell him. It was something to do with Pris– cilla that I did. The pity of it. And then a sense of being battered beyond caring.
Francis took it coolly. I suppose that was the way to take it. «Oh. Is it very bad, I mean your sickness?»
«Yes.»
«Have you told her?»
«Don't be a fool,» I said. «I'm fifty-eight. She's twenty.»
«I don't see that that decides anything much,» said Francis. «Love is no respecter of ages, everyone knows that. Can I have some more whisky?»
«You don't understand,» I said. «I can't-before that-young girl-make a display of feelings such as I-feel. It would appal her. And as I can envisage-no possible relationship with her of that kind-«
«I don't see why not,» said Francis, «though whether it would be a good idea is another matter.»
«Don't talk such utter-It's a question of morals and of-everything. She cannot possibly feel-for me-almost an old man-it would just disgust her-she simply wouldn't want to see me again.»
«There's a lot of assumptions there. As for morals, well maybe, though I don't know. Everything is another matter, especially these days. But will you enjoy going on and on meeting her and keeping your mouth shut?»
«No, of course not.»
«Well, then. Sorry to be so simple-minded. Hadn't you better start pulling out?»
«You've obviously never been in love.»
«I have actually. And awfully. And-always-without hope-I've never had my love reciprocated ever. You can't tell me-«I can't pull out. I'm only just in. I don't know what to do. I feel I'm going mad, I'm trapped.»
«Cut and run. Go to Spain or something.»
«I can't. I'm seeing her on Wednesday. We're going to the opera. Oh Christ.»
«It would sicken her.»
«You could do it with a sort of light touch-«There's a dignity and a power in silence.»
«Silence?» said Francis. «You've broken that already.»
O my prophetic soul. It was true.
«Of course I won't tell anybody,» said Francis. «But why after all did you tell me? You didn't intend to and you'll regret it. You'll probably hate me for it. But please, please don't if you can. You told me because you were frantic, because you felt an irresistible nervous urge. You'll tell her, sooner or later, for the same reason.»
«Never.»
«There's no need to make such heavy weather of it. As for her being sickened, it's far more likely that she'll laugh.»
«Laugh?»
«Young people can't take too seriously the feelings of oldies like us. She'll be rather touched, but she'll regard it as an absurd infatuation. She'll be amused, fascinated. It'll make her day.»
«Oh get out,» I said, «get out.»
«Brad, you are cross with me, don't be, it wasn't my fault you told me.»
«Get out.»
«Brad, what about Priscilla?»
«Do anything you think fit. I leave it to you.»
«Aren't you coming over to see her?»
«Yes, yes. Later. Give her my love.»
Francis got as far as the door. I was still sitting and rubbing my eyes. Francis's funny bear face was all creased up with anxiety and concern and he suddenly resembled his sister, when she had become so absurd, looking at me tenderly in the indigo dark of our old drawing-room.
«Brad, why don't you make a thing of Priscilla?»
«What do you mean?»
«Make her your life-line. Go all out to help her. Really make a job of it. Take your mind off this.»
«You don't know what this is like.»
«Why shouldn't you have an affair with Julian Baffin? It wouldn't do her any harm.»
«You vile-thing-Oh why did I tell you, why did I tell you, I must have been insane-«Well, I'll keep mum. All right, all right, I'm going.»
When he was gone I simply ran berserk round the house. Why oh why oh why had I broken my silence. I had given away my only treasure and I had given it to a fool. Not that I was concerned about whether Francis would betray me. Some much more frightening thing had been added to my pain. In my chess game with the dark lord I had made perhaps a fatally wrong move.
Later on I sat down and began to think over what Francis had said to me. At least I thought over some of it. About Priscilla I did not think at all.
My dear Bradley,
I have lately got myself into the most terrible mess and I feel that I must lay the whole matter before you. Perhaps it won't surprise you all that much. I have fallen desperately in love with Christian. I can imagine your dry irony at this announcement. «Falling in love? At your age? Really!» I know how much you despise what is «romantic.» This has been, hasn't it, one of our old disagreements. Let me assure you that what I feel now has nothing to do with rosy dreaming or «the soppy.» I have never been in a grimmer mood in my life, nor I think in a more horribly realistic one. Bradley, this is the real thing, I'm afraid. I am completely floored by a force in which, I suspect, you simply do not believe! How can I convince you that I am in extremist I hoped to see you on several occasions lately to try to explain, to show you, but perhaps a letter is better. Anyway, that's point one. I am really in love and it's a terrible experience. I don't think I've ever felt quite like this before. I'm turned inside out, I'm living in a sort of myth, I've been depersonalized and made into somebody else. I feel sure, by the way, that I've been completely transformed as a writer. These things connect, they must do. I shall write much better harder stuff in 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
