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than the court enjoys hearing them.
    A n d there is w o r s e to c o m e , as y o u k n o w . A n y w a y , there I was, m u m b l i n g these frightful g o b s of flesh, my s t o m a c h heaving even as I slept. T h a t is all there was, really, except for an underlying sensation of enforced yet horribly pleasurable transgression. W'ait a m o m e n t . I w a n t to get this right, it is i m p o r t a n t , I ' m n o t sure w h y . S o m e nameless authority w a s m a k i n g me do this terrible thing, w a s standing o v e r me i m p l a c a b l y with folded arms as I sucked and slobbered, yet despite this — or perhaps, even, because of it — despite the horror, too, and the nausea —
    deep inside m e s o m e t h i n g exulted.
    B y the w a y , leafing t h r o u g h m y dictionary I a m struck b y the p o v e r t y o f the l a n g u a g e w h e n i t c o m e s t o n a m i n g or describing badness. Evil, wickedness, mischief, these w o r d s i m p l y an a g e n c y , the conscious or at least active 54

    doing of w r o n g . T h e y do not signify the bad in its inert, neutral, self-sustaining state. T h e n there are the adjectives: dreadful, heinous, execrable* vile, and so on. T h e y are not so m u c h descriptive as j u d g m e n t a l . T h e y carry a weight of censure mingled with fear. Is this not a queer state of affairs? It makes me w o n d e r . I ask m y s e l f if perhaps the thing itself — badness — does not exist at all, if these strangely v a g u e and imprecise w o r d s are only a kind of ruse, a kind of elaborate cover for the fact that nothing is there. Or perhaps the w o r d s are an attempt to m a k e it be there? O r , again, perhaps there is something, but the w o r d s invented it. Such considerations m a k e me feel dizzy, as if a hole had opened briefly in the world. W h a t w a s I talking about? My dreams, yes. T h e r e w a s the recurring one, the one in which — but no, no, leave that to another time.
    I am standing by the w i n d o w , in my parents5 b e d r o o m .
    Yes, I had realised that it was, used to be, theirs. T h e grey of d a w n was g i v i n g w a y to a pale wash of sunlight. My lips w e r e tacky f r o m last night's port. T h e r o o m , the house, the garden and the fields, all was strange to m e , I did not recognise it today — strange, and yet k n o w n , too, like a place in — yes — in a d r e a m . 1 stood there in my wrinkled suit, with my aching head and soiled m o u t h , wide-eyed but not quite awake, staring fixedly into that patch of sunlit garden with an amnesiac's n u m b e d amazement. B u t then, am I not always like that, m o r e or less? W h e n I think about it, I seem to have lived most of my life that w a y , stalled between sleep and w a k i n g , unable to distinguish between d r e a m and the daylight world. In my m i n d there are places, m o m e n t s , events, which are so still, so isolated, that I am not sure they can be real, but which if I had recalled them that m o r n i n g w o u l d have struck me with m o r e vividness and force than the real things surrounding me. For instance, there is the hallway 55

    of a f a r m h o u s e w h e r e I went once as a child to b u y apples.
    I see the polished stone floor, cardinal red. I can smell the polish. T h e r e is a gnarled g e r a n i u m in a pot, and a big p e n d u l u m clock with the minute-hand missing. I can hear the farmer's w i f e speaking in the d i m depths of the house, asking s o m e t h i n g of s o m e o n e . I can sense the fields all around, the light a b o v e the fields, the vast, slow, lates u m m e r day. I am there. In such r e m e m b e r e d m o m e n t s I am there as 1 never was at C o o l g r a n g e , as I seem never to have been, or to be, anywhere, at any time, as I, or s o m e essential part of m e , was not there even on that day I am r e m e m b e r i n g , the day I went to b u y apples f r o m the farmer's wife, at that f a r m in the midst of