Immediately she became furious, tore her hand out of mine; the other hand tugged at the chain round her neck, broke it, beads shot all over the room. 'How can you be so utterly heartless—and so brazen about it! Anyone else would be ashamed . . . but you . . . you don't even pretend to have any feelings . . . it's too horrible, hateful . . . you simply aren't human at all!' I was sorry, I had not wanted to hurt her: I could understand her indignation, in a way. There seemed nothing that I could say. My silence enraged her still more. 'Oh, go on! Go away! Go!' She turned on me suddenly, pushed me with a force for which I was unprepared, so that I stumbled back, ran my elbow into the door. It was painful, and I asked in annoyance: 'Why are you so anxious to get me out of the room? Are you expecting somebody else? The owner of that open car you were in?' 'Oh, how I loathe and despise you! If only you knew how much!' She pushed me again. 'Get out, can't you? Go, go, go!' She took a deep breath, lunged at me, started pounding my chest with her fists. But the effort was too much, she abandoned it at once and leant against the wall, her head drooping. I saw that her shadowed face looked bruised by emotion, before the bright hair swung forward, concealing it. There was a brief pause, long enough for me to feel a chilly sensation creep over me; the adumbration of emptiness, loss ... of what life would be like without her.
Action was needed to drive away this unpleasant feeling. I put my hand on the door knob, and said, 'All right; I'll go now,' half hoping to be detained at the last moment. She did not move or speak, made no sign. Only, as I opened the door, a funny little sound escaped from her throat; a sob, a choke, a cough, I could not tell which. I went out into the passage, walked quickly past all the closed doors, back to my own room.
There was still a little time left. I rang for a bottle of Scotch and sat drinking. I felt uncertain, divided in myself. My bag was already packed and had been taken downstairs. In a few minutes I would have to follow .. . unless I changed my plans, stayed here after all. ... I remembered that I had not said goodbye, wondered whether to go back, could not make up my mind. I was still undecided when it was time to go.
I had to pass her door again on the way down. I hesitated outside it for a second, then hurried on to the lift. Of course I was leaving. Only a madman would waste this almost miraculous chance of getting away. I could not possibly hope for another.
TWELVE
The news I heard during the flight confirmed my worst fears. The world situation seemed to be entering its last fatal phase. The elimination of many countries, including my own, left no check on the militarism of the remaining big powers, who confronted each other, the smaller nations dividing allegiance between them. Both principals held stocks of nuclear weapons many times in excess of the overkill stage, so that the balance of terror appeared to be nicely adjusted. But some of the lesser countries also possessed thermo-nuclear devices, though which of them was not known: and this uncertainty, and the resulting tension, provoked escalating crises, each of which brought nearer the final catastrophe. An insane impatience for death was driving mankind to a second suicide, even before the full effect of the first had been felt. I was profoundly depressed, left with a sense of waiting for something frightful to happen, a sort of mass execution.
I looked at the natural world, and it seemed to share my feelings, to be trying in vain to escape its approaching doom. The waves of the sea sped in disorderly flight towards the horizon; the sea birds, the dolphins and flying fish, hurtled frenziedly through the air; the islands trembled and grew transparent, endeavouring to detach themselves, to rise as vapour and vanish in space. But no escape was possible. The defenceless earth could only lie waiting for its destruction, either by avalanches of ice, or by chain-explosions which would go on and on, eventually transforming it into a nebula, its very substance disintegrated.
I went through the jungle alone, searching for the Indris, believing their magic influence might lift the dead-weight of depression which had fallen on me. I did not care whether I saw or dreamed them. It was hot, steamy; the mad intensity of the sun pouring down all its force on the equator for the last time. My head was aching, I was exhausted: unable to stand the burning sun any longer, I lay down in black shade, shut my eyes.
