and thoughtful than the man you wrongly suppose to have been your brother (don’t scowl, please), but she did not much care for either and she says it was a scream to see the way they were polite to each other when they met. She liked travelling, but whenever she found some really nice place, where she could forget her troubles and everything, there he would blot out the landscape again, and sit down on the terrace at her table, and say that she was vain and cheap, and that he .could not live without her. Or else, he would make a long speech in front of her friends – you know, des jeunes gens qui aiment а rigoler – some long and obscure speech about the form of an ashtray or the colour of time – and there he would be left on that chair all alone, smiling foolishly to himself, or counting his own pulse. I’m sorry if he really turns out to be your relative because I don’t think that she has retained a particularly pleasant souvenir of those days. He became quite a pest at last, she says, and she didn’t even let him touch her any more, because he would have a fit or something when he got excited. One day, at last, when she knew he was going to arrive by the night train, she asked a young man who would do anything to please her, to meet him and tell him that she did not want to see him ever again, and that if he attempted to see her, he would be regarded by her friends as a troublesome stranger and dealt with accordingly. It was not very nice of her, I think, but she supposed it would be better for him in the long’ run. And it worked. He did not even send her any more of his usual entreating letters, which she never read, anyway. No, no, really, I don’t think it can be the man in question – if I tell you all this it is merely because I want to give you a portrait of Helene – and not of her lovers. She was so full of life, so ready to be sweet to everybody, so brimming with that vitalitй joyeuse qui est, d’ailleurs, tout-а-fait conforme а une philosophie innйe, а un sens quasi-religieux des phйnomиnes de la vie. And what did it amount to? The men she liked proved dismal disappointments, all women with a very few exceptions were nothing but cats, and she spent the best part of her life in trying to be happy in a world which did its best to break her. Well, you’ll meet her and see for yourself whether the world has succeeded.’

We were silent for quite a long time. Alas, I had no more doubts, though the picture of Sebastian was atrocious – but then, too, I had got it second-hand.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I shall see her at all costs. And this for two reasons. Firstly, because I want to ask her a certain question – one question only. And secondly ‘

‘Yes?’ said Madame Lecerf sipping her cold tea. ‘Secondly?’

‘Secondly, I am at a loss to imagine how such a woman could attract my brother; so I want to see her with my own eyes.’

‘Do you mean to say,’ asked Madame Lecerf, ‘that you think she is a dreadful, dangerous woman? Une femme fatale? Because, you know, that’s not so. She’s good as good bread.’

‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘Not dreadful, not dangerous. Clever, if you like, and all that. But…. No, I must see for myself.’

‘He who will live will see,’ said Madame Lecerf. ‘Now, look here. I’ve got a suggestion. I am going away tomorrow. I am afraid that if you drop in here on Saturday, Helene may be in such a rush – she is always rushing, you know – that she’ll put you off till next day, forgetting that next day she is. coming for a week to my place in the country: so you’ll miss her again. In other words, I think that the best thing would be for you to come down to my place, too. Because then you are quite, quite sure to meet her. So, what I suggest is that you come Sunday morning – and stay as long as you choose. We’ve got four spare bedrooms, and I think you’ll be comfortable. And then, you know, if I talk to her first a little, she’ll be just in the right mood for a talk with you. Eh bien, кtes-vous d’accord?’

17

Very curious, I mused: there seemed to be a slight family likeness between Nina Rechnoy and Helene von Graun – or at least between the two pictures which the husband of one and the friend of the other had painted for me. Between the two there was not much to choose. Nina was shallow and glamorous, Helene cunning and hard; both were flighty; neither was much to my taste – nor should I have thought to Sebastian’s. I wondered if the two women had known each other at Blauberg: they would have gone rather well together – theoretically; in reality they would probably have hissed and spat at each other. On the other hand, I could now drop the Rechnoy clue altogether – and that was a great relief. What that French girl had told me about her friend’s lover could hardly have been a coincidence. Whatever the feelings I experienced at learning’ the way Sebastian had been treated, I could not help being satisfied that my inquiry was nearing its end and that I was spared the impossible task of unearthing Pahl Pahlich’s first wife, who for all I knew might be in jail or in Los Angeles.

I knew I was being given my last chance, and as I was anxious to make sure I would get at Helene von Graun, I made a tremendous effort and sent her a letter to her Paris address, so that she might find it on her arrival. It was quite short: I merely informed her that I was her friend’s guest at Lescaux and had accepted this invitation with the sole object of meeting her; I added that there was an important piece of literary business which I wished to discuss with her. This last sentence was not very honest, but I thought it sounded enticing. I had not quite understood whether her friend had told her anything about my desire to see her when she telephoned from Dijon. I was desperately afraid that on Sunday Madame Lecerf might blandly inform me that Helene had left for Nice instead. After posting that letter I felt that at any rate I had done all in my power to fix our rendezvous.

I started at nine in the morning, so as to reach Lescaux around noon as arranged. I was already boarding the train when I realized with a shock that on my way I would pass St Damier where Sebastian had died and was buried. Here I had travelled one unforgettable night. But now I failed to recognize anything: when the train stopped for a minute at the little St Damier platform, its inscription alone told me that I had been there. The place looked so simple and staid and definite compared to the distorted dream impression which lingered in my memory. Or was it distorted now?

I felt strangely relieved when the train moved on: no more was I treading the ghostly tracks I had followed two months before. The weather was fair and every time the train stopped I seemed to hear the light uneven breathing of spring, still barely visible but unquestionably present: ‘cold-limbed ballet-girls waiting in the wings’, as Sebastian put it once.

Madame Lecerf’s house was large and ramshackle. A score of unhealthy old trees represented the park. There were fields on one side and a hill with a factory on the other. Everything about the place had a queer look of weariness, and shabbiness, and dustiness; when later I learned that it had only been built some thirty-odd years ago I felt still more surprised by its decrepitude. As I approached the main entrance I met a man hastily scrunching down the gravel walk; he stopped and shook hands with me:

‘Enchantй de vous cannaоtre,’ he said, summing me up with a melancholy glance, ‘my wife is expecting you. Je suis navrй… but I am obliged to go to Paris this Sunday.’

He was a middle-aged rather common-looking Frenchman with tired eyes and an automatic smile. We shook hands once more.

‘Mon ami, you’ll miss that train,’ came Madame Lecerf’s crystal voice from the veranda, and he trotted off obediently.

Today she wore a beige dress, her lips were brightly made up but she had not dreamt of meddling with her diaphanous complexion. The sun gave a bluish sheen to her hair and I found myself thinking that she was after all quite a pretty young woman. We wandered through two or three rooms which looked as if the idea of a drawing-room had been vaguely divided between them. I had the impression that we were quite alone in that unpleasant rambling house. She picked up a shawl lying on a green silk settee and drew it about her.

‘Isn’t it cold,’ she said. ‘That’s one thing I hate in life, cold. Feel my hands. They are always like that except in summer. Lunch will be ready in a minute. Sit down.’

‘When exactly is she coming?’ I asked.

‘Йcoutez,’ said Madame Lecerf, ‘can’t you forget her for a minute and