on my bed and watching the window glow from dark to light and fade again from light to dark. Odd that a demonic suffering should lie supine, while a glorified suffering lies prone.
I shall now advance the narrative by quoting several letters.
I know that you will communicate with me as soon as you are able to. I will not leave the flat for a single moment. I am a corpse awaiting its Saviour. Accident and its own force induced the revelation of a passion which duty might have concealed. Once revealed, your miraculous self-giving increased it a thousandfold. I am yours forever. And I know that you love me and I absolutely trust your love. We cannot be defeated. You will come to me soon, my darling and my queen. Meanwhile, oh my dear, I am in so much pain.
B.
Dear Christian,
have you now any idea where Julian is? Has Arnold taken her away somewhere? He must be keeping her hidden by force. If you can discover anything at all, however vague, let me know for God's sake B.
Please reply at once by telephone or letter. I do not want to see you.
Dear Arnold,
I am not surprised that you are afraid to face me again. I do not know how you persuaded or forced Julian to go away with you, but do not believe that any arguments of yours can keep us apart.
Julian and I have talked with full knowledge and understand each other. After your first departure all was well between us. Your «revelations» made and can make no difference. You are dealing with a kind of mutual attachment which, since you make no mention of it in your books, I assume that you know nothing of. Julian and I recognize the same god. We have found each other, we love each other, and there is no impediment to our marriage. Do not imagine that you can constitute one. You have seen that Julian was unwilling even to listen to you. Please now recognize that your daughter is grown-up and has made her choice. Accept, as indeed you finally must, her free decision in my favour. Naturally she cares what you think. Naturally too she will not finally obey you. I expect her return hourly. By the time you get this she may even be with me.
Your objection to me as a suitor has of course deep motives. The matter of my age, though important, is certainly not crucial. You have even admitted to me that as a writer you are a disappointed man. And some part of you has always envied me because I have kept my gift pure and you have not. Continual mediocre creation can sour a whole life. The compromise with the second best, which is the lot of almost every man, is by the bad artist externalized into a persisting testimony. How much better the silence and guarded speech of a more strict endeavour. That I should also have gained your daughter's love must seem, I can well understand, like the last straw.
I am sorry that our friendship, or whatever name one may give to the obsessive relationship which has bound us together for so many years, should end in this way. This is not the place to utter its elegy. If I feel vindictive towards you now, it is simply because you are an obstacle in the way of something infinitely more important than any «friendship.» Doubtless it is wise of you to keep out of my way. And if you visit me again, do not bring a blunt instrument with you. I do not care for threats and hints of violence. I have, I assure you, quite enough violence inside myself ready to be provoked.
Julian and I will settle our future together privately and in our own way. We understand each other perfectly. Please accept this fact and cease your cruel and vain attempts to force your daughter to do what she does not want to do.
B.P.
Dearest Old Brad,
Brad (this is the most important part of this letter), I want to say this to you. I wish in a way I hadn't met Arnold so pat on coining back. I like him and I feel sort of curious about him and he amuses me. (And I like to be amused.) But he's a red herring, I guess. I came back for you. (Did you know that?) And I'm still here for you. I go for you in a deep way, I never really gave you up, you know. And in a deep way you're even far more amusing than Arnold. So why not let's get together? If you need consoling, I'll console you. As I told you before, I'm a damned attractive clever rich widow. A lot of people are after me. So what about it, Brad? That little old till-death-do-us-part bit did mean something, you know. I'll ring again tomorrow.
Caring for you, Brad old thing, with much love, The passage above about «waiting» may have suggested that weeks had now passed. In fact four days, which seemed like four years, had passed.
Men who live by words and writing can, as I have already observed, attach an almost magical efficacy to a communication in that medium. The letter to Julian I wrote out three times, sending one copy to Baling, one to her Training College and one to her school. I could scarcely believe that any would reach her, but it was a relief to pain to write the letters and to drop them in the box.
On the day after the funeral Hartbourne rang up to explain in detail why he had been unable to attend. I forgot to say that he had earlier dictated to Francis by telephone a carefully worded message of condolence about Priscilla's death! My doctor also rang to say that my usual brand of sleeping pill was now on the forbidden list.
On the third evening Rachel turned up. Of course whenever the doorbell rang I rushed out sick with hope and terror. Twice it was Christian (whom I did not let in), once Rigby asking for Francis. (Francis went out and they talked for some time in the court.) The fourth time it was Rachel. I saw her through the glass and opened the door.
Seeing Rachel there in the flat was like a bad trip in a time machine. There was a memory-odour like a smell of decay. I felt distressed, physically repelled, frightened. Her wide round pale face was terribly familiar, but with the ambiguous veiled familiarity of a dream. It was as if my mother had visited me in her cerements.
She came in tossing her head with a surge of excitement, a perhaps feigned air of confidence, almost of elation. She strode by me, not looking at me, her hands deep in the pockets of her tweed coat which had been cobwebbed-over by the light rain. She was purposeful and handsome and I flinched out of her way. She took off her woollen hat and her coat and shook them lightly and hung them up in the hall. We sat down in the sitting-room in the cold brown early-evening light.
Rachel smoothed her skirt down neatly about her knees. «Bradley, I wanted to tell you how sorry I was about Priscilla.»
«Where's Julian?»
«Don't you know?»
«I know she'll come back. I don't know where she is.»
«Poor old Bradley,» said Rachel. She gave a nervous ejaculatory laugh like a cough.
«Where is she?»
«She's on holiday. I don't know where she is just now, I really don't. Here's the letter you sent her. I haven't read it.»
I took the letter. The return of a passionate letter unread desolates far regions of the imagination. If somewhere she had read my words the world was changed. Now all blew back upon me like dead leaves.
«Oh Rachel, where is she?»
«Honestly I don't know, I'm not in touch. Bradley, do stop it. Think of your dignity or something. You look terrible, you look a hundred. You might shave at least. This thing is all in your mind.»
«You didn't think so when Julian said she loved me.»
«Rachel,» I said, «you are talking about someone else. You are not talking about Julian, about my Julian.»
«Your Julian is a fiction. This is what I'm telling you, dear Bradley. I'm not saying she didn't care for you, but a young girl's emotions are chaos.»
«And you are talking to another person. You obviously have no conception of what you're dealing with. I live in a different world, I am in love, and-«Do you think there is some magic in those words which you utter so solemnly?»
«Yes, I do. All this is happening on a different plane-«This is a form of insanity, Bradley. Only the insane think that there are planes which are quite separate from other planes. It's all a muddle, Bradley, it's all a muddle. God knows, I'm saying this to you in kindness.»
«Love is a sort of certainty, perhaps the only sort.»
«It's just a state of mind-«It's a true state of mind.»
«Oh Bradley, do stop. You've had a terrible time lately, no wonder your head's in a whirl. I am so awfully sorry about Priscilla.»
