“My God! I hadn’t thought of her!” – and she grasped both my arms with such horrified violence that I was fixed motionless in the vice of her fear. I could not understand what she was talking about and what she was afraid of. I looked at her questioningly.
“Why this great fear, Johanna, my foolish, little darling?”
“We still have that to face!” she whispered to herself. “Oh, now I know what must happen.”
“You know nothing of the sort!” I chaffed her and felt my laugh echo in the silence. She said:
“My love, your road to the Queen is not clear yet. I ... will clear it for you.”
I felt a vague fear – of what, I could not say – pass through me like a long flare of lightning. I wanted to speak, but could not. Silent, I looked at Jane. She was smiling sadly down at me. All at once I had a dark sense of what she meant and felt paralysis creep over me.
I have left Jane alone, at her request.
Now I am back at my desk, trying to write down an account of what has passed:
Was it jealousy? A feminine pre-emptive strike against a sensed – or just imagined – danger? One possible explanation is that Jane’s express determination to relinquish her claim on me in favour of a phantom, a romantic illusion is a determination with a secret reservation. Where is the “Other” woman, this “Queen”, then? Who will bring the vision of the Baphomet to me, down from the world of dreams into this year of grace? It may all represent a mission, a spiritual goal, symbolise a deeper awareness of life which I am at present not yet able fully to comprehend but, however that may be and however I may look up to it, what has it to do with the immediate physical beauty of the woman I love? For I am in love with Jane, in love with her, that is certain, that is the positive gain from the strange twist of fate that deposited John Roger’s legacy on my desk, like flotsam from a shipwreck.
Either Jane will make me forget the road to the “Queen” or, with her goodness, her special spiritual abilities she will clear the way to the other side. Where does that leave Princess Shotokalungin? Whenever I indulge in irony, enjoy a sense of male superiority, Johanna’s earnest face always appears to prick the bubble of my arrogance: her intense gaze seems fixed on a goal that I cannot even sense. I feel that this woman has a definite plan, that she knows something that I do not know – as if she were the mother and I not much more than ... her child.
There is much I have to catch up on. I will have to compress it, for my life has started to move at such a pace that the hours spent at my desk seem wasted time.
The day before yesterday, my writing was interrupted by a kiss from Jane, the kiss of the dearest woman, who had crept up, unheard, behind me.
She chatted like any sensible wife, returning after a long absence to take charge of the household and asking the sensible questions. I teased her a little about it and she laughed, relaxed and secure. I kept having to restrain myself from reaching out to her and her maternal embrace. Suddenly, without apparent reason, her clear, open face took on again that same strange earnestness I had noticed before; she said calmly:
“My love, you must visit the Princess; it is necessary.”
“What, Jane?” I cried in astonishment. “You want to send me to that woman?”
“Of whom I am so jealous, aren’t I, dearest?” Her mouth smiled, but her eyes retained their pensive earnestness.
I did not understand. I refused to make such a visit. Whatever for? And for whose sake?
Jane – I only call her Jane now, and every time I say the name I take a deep breath and seem to draw strength from the cool well of the past – Jane refused to give in. She dreamed up all sorts of reasons, absurd reasons: I owed the Princess a visit; but she – Jane – was also keen for me to keep up relations with the Princess, indeed, keener than she could express in words. Finally she accused me of cowardice. That did it. A coward!? Never! If there is some old account of John Dee’s or of John Roger’s, to be settled then it shall be settled, right down to the last ha’penny. I jumped up and told Jane of my determination and she fell down at my feet, wringing her hands and – crying.
On my way to Princess Shotokalungin’s I thought about the strange way Jane kept changing. When, under the influence of things from the past, she feels herself to be Jane Fromont, John Dee’s wife, her whole being becomes subservient, deferential, a little tearful. When, however, it is Frau Johanna Fromm who speaks she exudes decisiveness, an inexplicable strength, a maternal firmness and kindness which masters me.
Occupied with such thoughts, I had reached the villa where Princess Shotokalungin lived on the edge of the hills outside town before I realised it. As I pressed the electric bell at the gate I felt a slight sense of apprehension, although a quick glance at the front garden and the house should have assured me that I would scarcely meet with anything out of the ordinary here. The villa was of a common type, built some thirty years ago, since when it would have been in the hands of several speculative landlords. The Princess, so I had heard, had only rented it because it was always available: an ordinary house set in an ordinary little suburban garden on the edge of the city.
The automatic
