The brilliant, articulate, white-eyelashed Mr Zed turns his eyes to his wife and sees nothing but Tx¼ p¾ = ½–prx¼ (inverted). Then he turns them on the willowy man with the cracked voice, and he realizes all in an instant that his last three years of constructive thought have been wasted. His premises have failed him. He had been assuming that Space was intrinsically modelled.
Realizing that this gentleman is way over the horizon, Crack-Bell tosses his hair from his forehead, laughs like a carillon, gesticulates freely to his partners across the table, in such a way as to say ‘O, isn’t it marvellous?’
But his partner, the sober Carter sees nothing marvellous about it, and leans back in his chair with his eyes half-closed. He is a massive, thoughtful man, not given to extravagance either in thought or deed. He keeps his partner under observation, for Crack-Bell is apt to become too much of a good thing.
Yes, Crack-Bell is happy. Life to him is a case of ‘now’ and nothing but ‘now’. He forgets the past as soon as it has happened and he ignores the whole concept of a future. But he is full of the sliding moment. He has a habit of shaking his head, not because he disagrees with anything, but through the sheer spice of living. He tosses it to and fro, and sends the locks cavorting.
‘He’s a card he is, that husband of yours,’ cries Crack-Bell leaning across the table and tapping Mrs Zed on her freckle-mottled wrist. ‘He’s an undeniable one, eh? Eh? Eh? But oh so
‘I hate men,’ says Mrs Zed. ‘You included.’
FIFTY-FOUR
‘Jonah dear, are you all right?’ said the old, old lady.
‘Of course I am. What is it squirrel?’ The old man smoothed his beard.
‘I must have dropped off to sleep.’
‘I wondered … I wondered …’
‘I dreamed a dream,’ said the old lady.
‘What was it about?’
‘I don’t remember … something about the sun.’
‘The sun?’
‘The great round sun that warmed us long ago.’
‘Yes, I remember it.’
‘And the rays of it? The long, sweet rays …’
‘Where were we then …?’
‘Somewhere in the south of the world.’
The old lady pursed her lips. Her eyes were very tired. Her hands went on and on with their disentangling of the wool, and the old man watched her as though she were of all things the most lovely.
FIFTY-FIVE
‘Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!’ cried Crack-Bell, throwing his head back and laughing like crockery.
‘Steady on,’ said Sober-Carter, the heavy man. ‘You would do well to keep quiet. Life may be hilarious to you, but They are on your trail.’
‘But I haven’t got a trail,’ said Crack-Bell. ‘It petered out long ago. Don’t let’s think about it. I am happy in half-light. I have always loved the damp. I can’t help it. It suits me. Ha, ha!’
‘That laugh of yours,’ said Carter, ‘will be the death of you, one day.’
‘Not it,’ said Crack-Bell. ‘I’m as safe down here as a fig in a fog. To hell with the fourth dimension. It’s
The shadow was a girl. She stood motionless. Her huge black eyes suggested illness. A man came through the door. Looking to neither right nor left he made for the dark girl where she stood.
She gazed expressionlessly over the shoulder of the man as he approached her with long, spindly strides. It seemed as though, knowing his features as she did, his high flinty cheekbones, his pale skin, his glinting eyes, his cleft chin, she saw no reason to focus her sight. When he reached her, he stood aggessively, like a mantis, his knee bent a little, his long-fingered hands clasped together in a bunch of bones.
‘How much longer?’ she said.
‘Soon. Soon.’
‘Soon? What sort of word is that? Soon! Ten hours? Ten days? Ten years? Did you find the tunnel?’
Veil turned his eyes from her, and rested them for a moment on each of the others in turn.
‘What did you find?’ repeated the girl, still looking over his shoulder.
‘Quiet, curse you!’ said the man Veil, raising his arm.
The Black Rose stood unflinchingly upright, but with all the coil and re-coil of the flesh gone out of her. She had been through too much, and all resilience had gone. She stood there, upright but broken. Three revolutions had rocked over her. She had heard the screaming. Sometimes she did not know whether it was herself or someone else who screamed. The cry of children who have lost their mother.
One night they took her naked from her bed. They shot her lover. They left him in a pool of blood. They took her to a prison camp, and then her beauty began to thicken and to leave her.
