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through the abyss of the bed, past a grinning rocking-horse with the spectre of Philippe cavorting on its back, past Baron von Aaron in a waiter’s uniform, past pages of my books, my childhood, past all the hours of my life, seen as when drowning.
    Unfinished, the manuscript lay on the table before the window. There was no need to write any more of it. Let me live it now, quickly through, to the last sentence. And there end. Amen.
    When I woke again, it was very late. I wakened with the knowledge of having made a grievous error – oh God, the midnight bell was sounding from Our Lady of Ashes over the river. What had I done?
    I must get up, find myself clean linen, run across the City to the house –
    I remember I reached the table where the manuscript lay. Nothing else.
    I woke again, as in a nightmare, somehow on the bed and dawn was returning. Someone must help me now. Some demon or angel. My head seemed full of the galloping of hoofs as I hurried about. But I was stronger. I could wash myself, I could look into the pitted mirror and even pick up the razor with a steady hand.
    How long before I could be ready, how long before I could essay the stairs, the streets? My plan was already made. I must go directly to the house on Clock-Tower Hill. She had said, he was her servant, nothing else. The only impediment had been Antonina herself, when she was afraid of me, before she surrendered herself to the truth.
    There was straw on the roadway. This meant that someone on that wealthy avenue was seriously ill. They had put it down to muffle the wheels and hoofs of passing traffic, but there was also a liveried man sitting in the gate, to make sure of proper silence, and perhaps to turn away visitors before they jangled the door bell. It was her gateway he was seated in, and he wore the banker’s livery.
    I went up to him. “What is the matter? Is the Baron unwell?”
    “No, monsieur. It is Madame who is very sick.”
    I gaped at him, and he, more circumspectly, at me. I was dishevelled enough. The day, growing hot, beat down on us both.
    “You say – she – Madame von Aaron – is sick.”
    “Yes, monsieur. Monsieur, please don’t go up to the door.”
    “But I – must – I will inquire of the Baron –”
    “Very well, monsieur. I will see to it. Who shall I say?”
    I swallowed, my throat seemed engorged and hurt me. I glared at the man haughtily. “Say Andre St Jean.”
    “Very well, monsieur. One moment.”
    And leaving his post, he went in and around out of my sight, presumably to a side door. I waited a few minutes, expecting to be turned away, to make some scene there on the pavement before the house, having a picture of running to a window and smashing through it.
    Was it a plague, the ancient one called the Death? Had we both caught it, she and I, in the house near to the Obelisk where they had burned the corpses centuries ago? Only a hundred years ago, it had returned, that plague. Cloaked death had stalked the City. The crematory chimneys had turned the day sky black, the sky of night into blood, with their ceaseless smokes – so many of the writers of the day had left accounts of it in their journals.
    “Please come with me, monsieur.”
    The doorman was back. He took me up to the front door, which had now opened. Inside, another man led me over the polished floor, into the side-parlour where I had been shown previously, and there left me.
    Would it happen again? She, coming in, telling me she was afraid I had had to wait. And then would I fall on her like a wolf, unable to control either lust or terror? Why did you shut up the house this way? Oh, to be free for you, only for you, she would answer me.
    The blinds were down. The room sank in a dull parchment shade. Even the little clock had left off ticking. My hands shook, I paced about. Then the door opened. I turned to it with a stifled shout. The Baron entered.
    He looked more frightened than I, that was the first, the only thing I really