beautifully, older, not the child I had known at all, but some wonderful holy woman, a prophetess, a temple prostitute. She had combed her hair down smoothly and pressed it back and her face had the nakedness, the solitude, the ambiguous staring eloquence of a mask. She had the dazed empty look of a great statute.
«Oh you wonderful, wonderful thing.»
«I feel so odd,» she said, «quite impersonal, I've never felt like this before at all.»
«It is the power of love.»
«Does love do that? I thought yesterday, the day before yesterday, that I loved you. It wasn't like this.»
«It is the god, the black Eros. Don't be afraid.»
«Oh I'm not-afraid-I just feel shattered and empty. I'm in a place where I've never been before.»
«I'm there too.»
«Yes. Yes.»
«You even resemble me. I feel I'm looking into a mirror.»
I had the strange feeling that I was speaking these words. I was speaking through her, through the pure echoing emptiness of her being, hollowed by love.
«Then I looked into your eyes and thought: Bradley! Now you have no name.»
«We are possessed.»
«I feel we are joined forever. Sort of-dedicated.»
«Yes.»
«Listen to that train, how clear it sounds.»
We listened to it passing, far off.
«Is it like this in inspiration, I mean when you write?»
«Yes,» I said. I knew it was, though I had never yet experienced it, never yet. But now, empowered, I would be able to create. Though still in the dark, I had come through my ordeal.
«Is it the same thing really?»
«Yes,» I said. «The desire of the human heart for love and for knowledge is infinite. But most people only realize this when they are in love, when the conception of this desire being actually fulfilled is present to them.» And art too-«Is this desire-purified-in the presence of-its possibility-in the divine presence.»
«Art and love-«Must both envisage eternal arrangements.»
«You will write now, won't you?»
«I will write now.»
«I feel complete,» she said, «as if why we had to come together had been somehow explained. And yet the explanation doesn't matter. We are together. Oh Bradley, I'm yawning!»
«And my name's come back!» I said. «Come on. To bed and to sleep.»
«I don't think I've ever felt so beautifully tired and heavy in my life.»
I was deeply asleep. Some sound was crashing, crashing, crashing into the place where I was. I was a hidden Jew whom the Nazis had found at last. I heard them, like the soldiers in Uccello's picture, beating their halberds on the door and shouting. I stirred, found Julian still in my arms. It was dark.
«What is it?» Her frightened voice woke me into full consciousness and absolute dread.
Someone was banging and banging and banging on the front door.
«Oh who can it be?» She was sitting up. I felt her warm darkness beside me, seemed to see light reflected from her eyes.
«I don't know,» I said, sitting up too and putting my arms round her. We clung together.
«Better keep quiet and not put the light on. Oh Bradley, I'm so frightened.»
«I'll look after you.» I was so frightened myself I could hardly think or speak.
«Sssh. Perhaps they'll go away.»
The banging, which had stopped for a moment, was resumed louder than before. Some metal object was being pounded on the panels of the door. There was a sound of splintering wood.
I turned on a lamp and got up. As I did so I actually saw my bare legs trembling. I pulled on my dressing- gown. «Stay here. I'll see. Lock yourself in.»
«No, no, I'm coming too-«Stay here.»
«Don't open the door, Bradley, don't-I put the light on in the little hall. The banging stopped at once. I stood in silence before the door, now knowing who was on the other side of it.
I opened the door very quietly and Arnold came, or rather almost fell, in through it.
I turned on the lights in the sitting-room and he followed me in there and put down on the table the large spanner with which he had been beating on the door. He sat down, not looking at me, breathing hard.
I sat down too, covering my bare knees which were shuddering convulsively.
«Is-Julian-here?» said Arnold, speaking thickly, as if in drunkenness, only he was certainly not drunk.
«Yes.»
«I've come to-take her away-«She won't want to go,» I said. «How did you find us?»
«Francis told me. I asked him and asked him and asked him, and he told me. And about the telephone call.»
«What telephone call?»
«Don't pretend,» said Arnold, looking at me now. «He told me he telephoned you this morning about Priscilla.»
«I see.»
«So you couldn't-drag yourself away-from your love nest-even though your sister-had killed herself.»
«I am going to London tomorrow. Julian is coming with me. We are going to be married.»
«I want to see my daughter. The car is outside. I am going to take her back with me.»
«No.»
«Will you call her, please?»
I got up. As I passed by the table I picked up the spanner. I went to the bedroom. The door was closed, not locked, and I went in and locked the door after me.
Julian was dressed. She was wearing one of my jackets over her dress. It reached down to her thighs. She was very pale.
«Your pa.»
«Yes. What's that?»
I threw the spanner down on the bed. «A lethal weapon. Not for use. Better come and see him.»
«You will-«
«I'll protect you. There's nothing whatever to worry about. We'll just explain the situation to him and see him off. Come. No, wait a minute. I need some trousers.» I rapidly put on a shirt and trousers. I saw with surprise that it was only just after midnight.
I went back to the sitting-room and Julian followed. Arnold had got up. We faced him across the table, which was still strewn with the remnants of our supper which we had been too worn out to clear away. I put my arm round Julian's shoulder.
Arnold had got a grip on himself and had clearly resolved not to shout. He said, «My dear girl-«Hello.»
«I've come to take you home.»
«This is home,» said Julian. I squeezed her, and then moved to sit down, leaving them facing each other.
Arnold in a light macintosh, with his exhausted denuded emotional face, looked like some sort of fanatical gunman. His pale, pale eyes stared and his lips were moving as if he were soundlessly stammering. «Oh Julian- come away-You can't stay here with this man-You must have lost your mind-Look, here's a letter from your mother begging you to come home-I'll put it here, please read it-How can you be so pitiless and callous, staying here and-I suppose you've been-after poor Priscilla-«What about Priscilla?» said Julian.
«So he hasn't told you?» said Arnold. He did not look at me. His teeth clicked together and there was a spasm in his face, perhaps the attempt to conceal a glare of triumph or pleasure.
«What about Priscilla?»
«Priscilla is dead,» I said. «She killed herself yesterday with an overdose.»
«He knew this morning,» said Arnold. «Francis told him by telephone.»
