Aqua used to say that only a very cruel or very stupid person,
	or innocent infants, could be happy on Demonia, our splendid
	planet. Van felt that for him to survive on this terrible Antiterra,
	in the multicolored and evil world into which he was born, he
301.05	had to destroy, or at least to maim for life, two men. He had
	to find them immediately; delay itself might impair his power of
	survival. The rapture of their destruction would not mend his
	heart, but would certainly rinse his brain. The two men were in
	two different spots and neither spot represented an exact loca-
301.10	tion, a definite street number, an identifiable billet. He hoped
	to punish them in an honorable way, if Fate helped. He was not
	prepared for the comically exaggerated zeal Fate was to display
	in leading him on and then muscling in to become an over-
	cooperative agent.
301.15	First, he decided to go to Kalugano to settle accounts with
	Herr Rack. Out of sheer misery he fell asleep in a corner of a
	compartment, full of alien legs and voices, in the crack express
	tearing north at a hundred miles per hour. He dozed till noon
	and got off at Ladoga, where after an incalculably long wait
301.20	he took another, even more jerky and crowded train. As he was

[ 301 ]

	pushing his unsteady way through one corridor after another,
	cursing under his breath the window-gazers who did not draw
	in their bottoms to let him pass, and hopelessly seeking a com-
	fortable nook in one of the first-class cars consisting of four-
302.05	seat compartments, he saw Cordula and her mother facing each
	other on the window side. The two other places were occupied
	by a stout, elderly gentleman in an old-fashioned brown wig
	with a middle parting, and a bespectacled boy in a sailor suit
	sitting next to Cordula, who was in the act of offering him one
302.10	half of her chocolate bar. Van entered, moved by a sudden very
	bright thought, but Cordula's mother did not recognize him at
	once, and the flurry of reintroductions combined with a lurch
	of the train caused Van to step on the prunella-shod foot of the
	elderly passenger, who uttered a sharp cry and said, indistinctly
302.15	but not impolitely: "Spare my gout (or "take care" or "look
	out"), young man!"
	"I do not like being addressed as 'young man,'" Van told
	the invalid in a completely uncalled-for, brutal burst of voice.
	"Has he hurt you, Grandpa?" inquired the little boy.
302.20	"He has," said Grandpa, "but I did not mean to offend any-
	by my cry of anguish."
	"Even anguish should be civil," continued Van (while the
	better Van in him tugged at his sleeve, aghast and ashamed).
	"Cordula," said the old actress (with the same apropos with
302.25	which she once picked up and fondled a fireman's cat that had
	strayed into Fast Colors in the middle of her best speech), "why
	don't you go with this angry young demon to the tea-car? I
	think I'll take my thirty-nine winks now."
	"What's wrong?" asked Cordula as they settled down in the
302.30	very roomy and rococo "crumpeter," as Kalugano College
	students used to call it in the 'Eighties and 'Nineties.
	"Everything," replied Van, "but what makes you ask?"
	"Well, we know Dr. Platonov slightly, and there was ab-

[ 302 ]

	solutely no reason for you to be so abominably rude to the dear
	old man."
	"I apologize," said Van. "Let us order the traditional tea."
	"Another queer thing," said Cordula, "is that you actually
303.05	noticed me today. Two months ago you snubbed me."
	"You had changed. You had grown lovely and languorous.
	You are even lovelier now. Cordula is no longer a virgin! Tell
	me—do you happen to have Percy de Prey's address? I mean we
	all know he's invading Tartary—but where could a letter reach
303.10	him? I don't care to ask your snoopy aunt to forward anything.'
	"I daresay the Frasers have it, I'll find out. But where is Van
	going? Where shall I find Van?"
	"At home—5 Park Lane, in a day or two. Just now I'm going
	to Kalugano."
303.15	"That's a gruesome place. Girl?"
	"Man. Do you know Kalugano? Dentist? Best hotel? Con-
	cert hall? My cousin's music teacher?"
	She shook her short curls. No—she went there very seldom.
	Twice to a concert, in a pine forest. She had not been aware
303.20	that Ada took music lessons. How was Ada?
	"Lucette," he said, "Lucette takes or took piano lessons. Okay.
	Let's dismiss Kalugano. These crumpets are very poor relatives
	of the Chose ones. You're right, j'ai des ennuis.But you can
	make me forget them. Tell me something to distract me, though
303.25	you distract me as it is, un petit topinambour as the Teuton
	said in the story. Tell me about your affairs of the heart."
	She was not a bright little girl. But she was a loquacious and
	really quite exciting little girl. He started to caress her under the
	table, but she gently removed his hand, whispering "womenses,"
303.30	as whimsically as another girl had done in some other dream.
	He cleared his throat loudly and ordered half-a-bottle of cognac,
	having the waiter open it in his presence as Demon advised. She
	talked on and on, and he lost the thread of her discourse, or

[ 303 ]

	rather it got enmeshed in the rapid landscape, which his gaze
	followed over her shoulder, with a sudden ravine recording
	what Jack said when his wife 'phoned, or a lone tree in a clover
	field impersonating abandoned John, or a romantic stream
304.05	running down a cliff and reflecting her brief bright affair with
	Marquis Quizz Quisana.
	A pine forest fizzled out and factory chimneys replaced it.
	The train clattered past a roundhouse, and slowed down, groan-
	ing. A hideous station darkened the day.
304.10	"Good Lord," cried Van, "that's my stop."
	He put money on the table, kissed Cordula's willing lips
	and made for the exit. Upon reaching the vestibule he glanced
	back at her with a wave of the glove he held—and crashed into
	somebody who had stooped to pick up a bag: "On n'est pas
304.15	goujat à ce point," observed the latter: a burly military man
	with a reddish mustache and a staff captain's insignia.
	Van brushed past him, and when both had come down on
	the platform, glove-slapped him smartly across the face.
	The captain picked up his cap and lunged at the white-faced,
304.20	black-haired young fop. Simultaneously Van felt somebody em-
	brace him from behind in well-meant but unfair restraint. Not
	bothering to turn his head he abolished the invisible busybody
	with a light "piston blow" delivered by the left elbow, while
	he sent the captain staggering back into his own luggage with
304.25	one crack of the right hand. By now several free-show amateurs
	had gathered around them; so, breaking their circle, Van took
	his man by the arm and marched him into the waiting room.
	A comically gloomy porter with a copiously bleeding nose came
	in after them carrying the captain's three bags, one of them
304.30	under his arm. Cubistic labels of remote and fabulous places
	color-blotted the newer of the valises. Visiting cards were ex-
	changed. "Demon's son?" grunted Captain Tapper, of Wild
	Violet Lodge, Kalugano. "Correct," said Van. "I'll put up, I
	guess, at the Majestic; if not, a note will be left for your second

[ 304 ]

	or seconds. You'll have to get me one, I can't very well ask the
	concierge to do it."
	While speaking thus, Van chose a twenty dollar piece from
	a palmful of gold, and gave it with a grin to the damaged old
305.05	porter. "Yellow cotton," Van added: "Up each nostril. Sorry,
	chum."
	With his hands in his trouser pockets, he crossed the square
	to the hotel, causing a motor car to swerve stridently on the
	damp asphalt. He left it standing transom-wise in regard to its
305.10	ordained course, and clawed his way through the revolving door
	of the hotel, feeling if not happier, at least more buoyant, than
	he had within the last twelve hours.
	The Majestic, a huge old pile, all grime outside, all leather
	inside, engulfed him. He asked for a room with a bath, was
305.15	told all were booked by a convention of contractors, tipped the
	desk clerk in the invincible Veen manner, and got a passable
	suite of three rooms with a mahogany paneled bathtub, an
	ancient rocking chair, a mechanical piano and a purple canopy
	over a double bed. After washing his hands, he immediately
305.20	went down to inquire about Rack's whereabouts. The Racks
	had no telephone; they probably rented a room in the suburbs;
	the concierge looked up at the clock and called some sort of
	address bureau or lost person department. It proved closed till
	next morning. He suggested Van ask at a music store on Main
305.25	Street.
	On the way there he acquired his second walking stick: the
	Ardis Hall silver-knobbed one he had left behind in the Maiden-
	hair station café. This was a rude, stout article with a convenient
	grip and an alpenstockish point capable of gouging out translu-
305.30	cent bulging eyes. In an adjacent store he got a suitcase, and
	in the next, shirts, shorts, socks, slacks, pajamas, handkerchiefs,
	a lounging robe, a pullover and a pair of saffian bedroom slippers
	fetally folded in a leathern envelope. His purchases were put
	into the suitcase and sent at once to the hotel. He was about to

[ 305 ]

	enter the music shop when he remembered with a start that
	he had not left any message for Tapper's seconds, so he re-
	traced his steps.
	He found them sitting in the lounge and requested them to
306.05	settle matters rapidly—had more important business than
	that. "Ne grubit' sekundantam" (never be rude to seconds),
	said Demon's voice in his mind. Arwin Birdfoot, a lieutenant
	in the Guards, was blond and flabby, with moist pink lips and
	a foot-long cigarette holder. Johnny Rafin, Esq., was small,
306.10	dark and dapper and wore blue suede shoes with a dreadful tan
	suit. Birdfoot soon disappeared, leaving Van to work out details
	with Johnny, who, though loyally eager to assist Van, could
	not conceal that his heart belonged to Van's adversary.
	The Captain was a first-rate shot, Johnny said, and member
306.15	of the Do-Re-La country club. Bloodthirsty brutishness did
	not come with his Britishness, but his military and academic
	standing demanded he defend his honor. He was an expert on
	maps, horses, horticulture. He was a wealthy landlord. The
	merest adumbration of an apology on Baron Veen's part would
306.20	clinch the matter with a token of gracious finality.
	"If," said Van, "the good Captain expects that, he can go and
	stick his pistol up his gracious anality."
	"That is not a nice way of speaking," said Johnny, wincing.
	"My friend would not approve of it. We must remember he is
306.25	a very refined person."
	Was Johnny Van's second, or the Captain's?
	"I'm yours," said Johnny with a languid look.
	Did he or the refined Captain know a German-born pianist,
	Philip Rack, married, with three babies (probably)?
306.30	"I'm afraid," said Johnny, with a note of disdain, "that I
	don't know many people with babies in Kalugano."
	Was there a good whorehouse in the vicinity?
	With increasing disdain Johnny answered he was a confirmed
	bachelor.

[ 306 ]

	"Well, all right," said Van."I have now to go out again be-
	fore the shops close. Shall I acquire a brace of dueling pistols
	or will the Captain lend me an army 'bruger'?"
	"We can supply the weapons," said Johnny.
307.05	When Van arrived in front of the music shop, he found it
	locked. He stared for a moment at the harps and the guitars
	and the flowers in silver vases on consoles receding in the dusk
	of looking-glasses, and recalled the schoolgirl whom he had
	longed for so keenly half a dozen years ago—Rose? Roza?
307.10	Was that her name? Would he have been happier with her
	than with his pale fatal sister?
	He walked for a while along Main Street—one of a million
	Main Streets—and then, with a surge of healthy hunger, entered
	a passably attractive restaurant. He ordered a beefsteak with
307.15	roast potatoes, apple pie and claret. At the far end of the room,
	on one of the red stools of the burning bar, a graceful harlot
	in black—tight bodice, wide skirt, long black gloves, black-
	velvet picture hat—was sucking a golden drink through a straw.
	In the mirror behind the bar, amid colored glints, he caught a
307.20	blurred glimpse of her russety blond beauty; he thought he
	might sample her later on, but when he glanced again she had
	gone.
	He ate, drank, schemed.
	He looked forward to the encounter with keen exhilaration.
307.25	Nothing more invigorating could have been imagined. Shoot-
	ing it out with that incidental clown furnished unhoped-for
	relief, particularly since Rack would no doubt accept a plain
	thrashing in lieu of combat. Designing and re-designing various
	contingencies pertaining to that little duel might be compared
307.30	to those helpful hobbies which polio patients, lunatics and con-
	victs are taught by generous institutions, by enlightened ad-
	ministrators, by ingenious psychiatrists—such as bookbinding,
	or putting blue beads into the orbits of dolls made by other
	criminals, cripples and madmen.

[ 307 ]

	At first he toyed with the idea of killing his adversary: quan-
	titively, it would afford him the greatest sense of release;
	qualitatively, it suggested all sorts of moral and legal com-
	plications. Inflicting a wound seemed an inept half-measure. He
308.05	decided to do something artistic and tricky, such as shooting the
	pistol out of the fellow's hand, or parting for him his thick
	brushy hair in the middle.
	On his way back to the gloomy Majestic he acquired various
	trifles: three round cakes of soap in an elongated box, shaving
308.10	cream in its cold resilient tube, ten safety-razor blades, a large
	sponge, a smaller soaping sponge of rubber, hair lotion, a comb,
	Skinner's Balsam, a toothbrush in a plastic container, tooth-
	paste, scissors, a fountain pen, a pocket diary—what else?—yes,
	a small alarm clock—whose comforting presence, however,
308.15	did not prevent him from telling the concierge to have him
	called at five a.m.
	It was only nine p.m. in late summer; he would not have
	been surprised if told it was midnight in October. He had had an
	unbelievably long day. The mind could hardly grasp the fact
308.20	that this very morning, at dawn, a fey character out of some
	Dormilona novel for servant maids had spoken to him, half-
	naked and shivering, in the toolroom of Ardis Hall. He won-
	dered if the other girl still stood, arrow straight, adored and
	abhorred, heartless and heartbroken, against the trunk of a mur-
308.25	muring tree. He wondered if in view of tomorrow's partie de
	de plaisir he should not prepare for her a when-you-receive-this
	note, flippant, cruel, as sharp as an icicle. No. Better write to
	Demon.
	Dear Dad,
308.30	in consequence of a trivial altercation with a Captain
	Tapper, of Wild Violet Lodge, whom I happened to step
	upon in the corridor of a train, I had a pistol duel this
	morning in the woods near Kalugano and am now no

[ 308 ]

	more. Though the manner of my end can be regarded
	as a kind of easy suicide, the encounter and the ineffable
	Captain are in no way connected with the Sorrows of
	Young Veen. In 1884, during my first summer at Ardis,
309.05	I seduced your daughter, who was then twelve. Our
	torrid affair lasted till my return to Riverlane; it was
	resumed last June, four years later. That happiness has
	been the greatest event in my life, and I have no regrets.
	Yesterday, though, I discovered she had been unfaithful
309.10	to me, so we parted. Tapper, I think, may be the chap
	who was thrown out of one of your gaming clubs for
	attempting oral intercourse with the washroom atten-
	dant, a toothless old cripple, veteran of the first Crimean
	War. Lots of flowers, please!
309.15	Your loving son, Van
	He carefully reread his letter—and carefully tore it up. The
	note he finally placed in his coat pocket was much briefer.
	Dad,
	I had a trivial quarrel with a stranger whose face I
309.20	slapped and who killed me in a duel near Kalugano.
	Sorry!
	Van
	Van was roused by the night porter who put a cup of
	coffee with a local "eggbun" on his bedside table, and ex-
309.25	pertly palmed the expected chervonetz.He resembled somewhat
	Bouteillan as the latter had been ten years ago and as he had
	appeared in a dream, which Van now retrostructed as far as it
	would go: in it Demon's former valet explained to Van that the
	"dor" in the name of an adored river equaled the corruption of
309.30	hydro in "dorophone." Van often had word dreams.
	He shaved, disposed of two blood-stained safety blades by
	leaving them in a massive bronze ashtray, had a structurally

[ 309 ]

	perfect stool, took a quick bath, briskly dressed, left his bag
	with the concierge, paid his bill and at six punctually squeezed
	himself next to blue-chinned and malodorous Johnny into the
	latter's Paradox, a cheap "semi-racer." For two or three miles
310.05	they skirted the dismal bank of the lake—coal piles, shacks, boat-
	houses, a long strip of black pebbly mud and, in the distance,
	over the curving bank of autumnally misted water, the tawny
	fumes of tremendous factories.
	"Where are we now, Johnny dear?" asked Van as they swung
310.10	out of the lake's orbit and sped along a suburban avenue with
	clapboard cottages among laundry-lined pines.
	"Dorofey Road," cried the driver above the din of the motor.
	"It abuts at the forest."
	It abutted. Van felt a faint twinge in his knee where he had
310.15	hit it against a stone when attacked from behind a week ago, in
	another wood. At the moment his foot touched the pine-
	needle strewn earth of the forest road, a transparent white
	butterfly floated past, and with utter certainty Van knew that
	he had only a few minutes to live.
310.20	He turned to his second and said:
	"This stamped letter, in this handsome Majestic Hotel en-
	velope, is addressed, as you see, to my father. I am transferring
	it to the back pocket of my pants. Please post it at once if the
	Captain, who I see has arrived in a rather funerary-looking
310.25	limousine, accidentally slaughters me."
	They found a convenient clearing, and the principals, pistol
	in hand, faced each other at a distance of some thirty paces, in
	the kind of single combat described by most Russian novelists
	and by practically all Russian novelists of gentle birth. As Arwin
310.30	clapped his hands, informally signaling the permission to fire at
	will, Van noticed a speckled movement on his right: two little
	spectators—a fat girl and a boy in a sailorsuit, wearing glasses,
	with a basket of mushrooms between them. It was not the
	chocolate-muncher in Cordula's compartment, but a boy very

[ 310 ]

	much like him, and as this flashed through Van's mind he felt
	the jolt of the bullet ripping off, or so it felt, the entire left side
	of his torso. He swayed, but regained his balance, and with
	nice dignity discharged his pistol in the sun-hazy air.
311.05	His heart beat steadily, his spit was clear, his lungs felt in-
	tact, but a fire of pain raged somewhere in his left armpit. Blood
	oozed through his clothes and trickled down his trouserleg. He
	sat down, slowly, cautiously, and leaned on his right arm. He
	dreaded losing consciousness, but, maybe, did faint briefly,
311.10	because next moment he became aware that Johnny had re-
	lieved him of the letter and was in the act of pocketing it.
	"Tear it up, you idiot," said Van with an involuntary groan.
	The Captain strolled up and muttered rather gloomily: "I
	bet you are in no condition to continue, are you?"
311.15	"I bet you can't wait—" began Van: he intended to say:
	'you can't wait to have me slap you again,' but happened to
	laugh on 'wait' and the muscles of mirth reacted so ex-
	cruciatingly that he stopped in mid-sentence and bowed his
	sweating brow.
311.20	Meanwhile, the limousine was being transformed into an
	ambulance by Arwin. Newspapers were dismembered to pro-
	tect the upholstery, and the fussy Captain added to them what
	looked like a potato bag or something rotting in a locker, and
	then after rummaging again in the car trunk and muttering
311.25	about the "bloody mess" (quite a literal statement) decided to
	sacrifice the ancient and filthy macintosh on which a decrepit
	dear dog had once died on the way to the veterinary.
	For half a minute Van was sure that he still lay in the car,
	whereas actually he was in the general ward of Lakeview (Lake-
311.30	view!) Hospital, between two series of variously bandaged,
	snoring, raving and moaning men. When he understood this,
	his first reaction was to demand indignantly that he be trans-
	ferred to the best private palata in the place and that his suit-
	case and alpenstock be fetched from the Majestic. His next

[ 311 ]

[ 312 ]

	having lightly grooved or, if he might say so, grazed the greater
	serratus. Doc Fitz commented on Van's wonderful recupera-
	tional power which was already in evidence, and promised to
	have him out of disinfectants and bandages in ten days or so
313.05	if for the first three he remained as motionless as a felled tree-
	trunk. Did Van like music? Sportsmen usually did, didn't they?
	Would he care to have a Sonorola by his bed? No, he disliked
	music, but did the doctor, being a concert-goer, know perhaps
	where a musician called Rack could be found? "Ward Five,"
313.10	answered the doctor promptly. Van misunderstood this as the
	title of some piece of music and repeated his question. Would
	he find Rack's address at Harper's music shop? Well, they used
	to rent a cottage way down Dorofey Road, near the forest, but
	now some other people had moved in. Ward Five was where
313.15	hopeless cases were kept. The poor guy had always had a bad
	liver and a very indifferent heart, but on top of that a poison
	had seeped into his system; the local "lab" could not identify
	it and they were now waiting for a report, on those curiously
	frog-green faeces, from the Luga people. If Rack had ad-
313.20	ministered it to himself by his own hand, he kept "mum"; it
	was more likely the work of his wife who dabbled in Hindu-
	Andean voodoo stuff and had just had a complicated miscarriage
	in the maternity ward. Yes, triplets—how did he guess? Any-
	way, if Van was so eager to visit his old pal it would have to
313.25	be as soon as he could be rolled to Ward Five in a wheelchair
	by Dorofey, so he'd better apply a bit of voodoo, ha-ha, on
	his own flesh and blood.
	That day came soon enough. After a long journey down
	corridors where pretty little things tripped by, shaking ther-
313.30	mometers, and first an ascent and then a descent in two different
	lifts, the second of which was very capacious with a metal-
	handled black lid propped against its wall and bits of holly or
	laurel here and there on the soap-smelling floor, Dorofey, like
	Onegin's coachman, said priehali ("we have arrived") and

[ 313 ]

	gently propelled Van, past two screened beds, toward a third
	one near the window. There he left Van, while he seated him-
	self at a small table in the door corner and leisurely unfolded
	the Russian-language newspaper Golos (Logos).
314.05	"I am Van Veen—in case you are no longer lucid enough to
	recognize somebody you have seen only twice. Hospital records
	put your age at thirty; I thought you were younger, but even
	so that is a very early age for a person to die—whatever he be
	tvoyu mat'—half-baked genius or full-fledged scoundrel, or
314.10	both. As you may guess by the plain but thoughtful trappings
	of this quiet room, you are an incurable case in one lingo, a
	rotting rat in another. No oxygen gadget can help you to
	eschew the "agony of agony"—Professor Lamort's felicitous
	pleonasm. The physical torments you will be, or indeed are,
314.15	experiencing must be prodigious, but are nothing in comparison
	to those of a probable hereafter. The mind of man, by nature a
	monist, cannot accept two nothings; he knows there has been
	one nothing, his biological inexistence in the infinite past, for
	his memory is utterly blank, and that nothingness, being, as it
314.20	were, past, is not too hard to endure. But a second nothingness—
	which perhaps might not be so hard to bear either—is logically
	unacceptable. When speaking of space we can imagine a live
	speck in the limitless oneness of space; but there is no analogy
	in such a concept with our brief life in time, because however
314.25	brief (a thirty-year span is really obscenely brief!), our aware-
	ness of being is not a dot in eternity, but a slit, a fissure, a chasm
	running along the entire breadth of metaphysical time, bisecting
	it and shining—no matter how narrowly—between the back
	panel and fore panel. Therefore, Mr Rack, we can speak of
314.30	past time, and in a vaguer, but familiar sense, of future time, but
	we simply cannot expect a second nothing, a second void, a
	second blank. Oblivion is a one-night performance; we have
	been to it once, there will be no repeat. We must face therefore
	the possibility of some prolonged form of disorganized con-

[ 314 ]

	sciousness and this brings me to my main point, Mr Rack.
	Eternal Rack, infinite 'Rackness' may not be much but one
	thing is certain: the only consciousness that persists in the here-
	after is the consciousness of pain. The little Rack of today is
315.05	the infinite rack of tomorrow—ich bin ein unverbesserlicher
	Witzbold. We can imagine—I think we should imagine—tiny
	clusters of particles still retaining Rack's personality, gathering
	here and there in the here-and-there-after, clinging to each
	other, somehow, somewhere, a web of Rack's toothaches here,
315.10	a bundle of Rack's nightmares there—rather like tiny groups
	of obscure refugees from some obliterated country huddling
	together for a little smelly warmth, for dingy charities or
	shared recollections of nameless tortures' in Tartar camps. For
	an old man one special little torture must be to wait in a long
315.15	long queue before a remote urinal. Well, Herr Rack, I submit
	that the surviving cells of aging Rackness will form such lines
	of torment, never, never reaching the coveted filth hole in the
	panic and pain of infinite night. You may answer, of course, if
	you are versed in contemporary novelistics, and if you fancy
315.20	the jargon of English writers, that a 'lower-middle-class' piano
	tuner who falls in love with a fast 'upper-class' girl, thereby
	destroying his own family, is not committing a crime deserving
	the castigation which a chance intruder—"
	With a not unfamiliar gesture, Van tore up his prepared
315.25	speech and said:
	"Mr Rack, open your eyes. I'm Van Veen. A visitor."
	The hollow-cheeked, long-jawed face, wax-pale, with a fat-
	tish nose and a small round chin, remained expressionless
	for a moment; but the beautiful, amber, liquid, eloquent eyes
315.30	with pathetically long lashes had opened. Then a faint smile
	glimmered about his mouth parts, and he stretched one hand,
	without raising his head from the oil-cloth-covered pillow
	(why oil-cloth?).
	Van, from his chair, extended the end of his cane, which the

[ 315 ]

	weak hand took, and palpated politely, thinking it was a well-
	meant offer of support. "No, I am not yet able to walk a few
	steps," Rack said quite distinctly, with the German accent
	which would probably constitute his most durable group of
316.05	ghost cells.
	Van drew in his useless weapon. Controlling himself, he
	thumped it against the footboard of his wheelchair. Dorofey
	glanced up from his paper, then went back to the article that
	engrossed him—"A Clever Piggy (from the memoirs of an
316.10	animal trainer)," or else "The Crimean War: Tartar Guerillas
	Help Chinese Troops." A diminutive nurse simultaneously
	stepped out from behind the farther screen and disappeared
	again.
	Will he ask me to transmit a message? Shall I refuse? Shall I
316.15	consent—and not transmit it?
	"Have they all gone to Hollywood already? Please, tell me,
	Baron von Wien."
	"I don't know," answered Van. "They probably have. I
	really—"
316.20	"Because I sent my last flute melody, and a letter for all the
	family, and no answer has come. I must vomit now. I ring my-
	self."
	The diminutive nurse on tremendously high white heels pulled
	forward the screen of Rack's bed, separating him from the
316.25	melancholy, lightly wounded, stitched-up, clean-shaven young
	dandy; who was rolled out and away by efficient Dorofey.
	Upon returning to his cool bright room, with the rain and the
	sun mingling in the half-open window, Van walked on rather
	ephemeral feet to the looking-glass, smiled to himself in wel-
316.30	come, and without Dorofey's assistance went back to bed.
	Lovely Tatiana glided in, and asked if he wanted some tea.
	"My darling," he said, "I want you. Look at this tower of
	strength!"

[ 316 ]

	"If you knew," she said, over her shoulder, "how many
	prurient patients have insulted me—exactly that way."
	He wrote Cordula a short letter, saying he had met with a
	little accident, was in the suite for fallen princes in Lakeview
317.05	Hospital, Kalugano, and would be at her feet on Tuesday. He
	also wrote an even shorter letter to Marina, in French, thanking
	her for a lovely summer. This, on second thought, he decided
	to send from Manhattan to the Pisang Palace Hotel in Los
	Angeles. A third letter he addressed to Bernard Rattner, his
317.10	closest friend at Chose, the great Rattner's nephew. 'Your
	uncle has most honest standards,' he wrote, in part, 'but I am
	going to demolish him soon.'
	On Monday around noon he was allowed to sit in a deck-
	chair, on the lawn, which he had avidly gazed at for some days
317.15	from his window. Dr Fitzbishop had said, rubbing his hands,
	that the Luga laboratory said it was the not always lethal
	"arethusoides" but it had no practical importance now, because
	the unfortunate music teacher, and composer, was not expected
	to spend another night on Demonia, and would be on Terra,
317.20	ha-ha, in time for evensong. Doc Fitz was what Russians call a
	poshlyak ("pretentious vulgarian") and in some obscure counter-
	fashion Van was relieved not to be able to gloat over the
	wretched Rack's martyrdom.
	A large pine tree cast its shadow upon him and his book. He
317.25	had borrowed it from a shelf holding a medley of medical man-
	uals, tattered mystery tales, the Rivière de Diamants collection
	of Monparnasse stories, and this odd volume of the Journal of
	Modern Science with a difficult essay by Ripley, "The Structure
	of Space." He had been wrestling with its phoney formulas and
317.30	diagrams for several days now and saw he would not be able to
	assimilate it completely before his release from Lakeview Hos-
	pital on the morrow.
	A hot sunfleck reached him, and tossing the red volume aside,

[ 317 ]

	he got up from his chair. With the return of health the image
	of Ada kept rising within him like a bitter and brilliant wave,
	ready to swallow him. His bandages had been removed; noth-
	ing but a special vest-like affair of flannel enveloped his torso,
318.05	and though it was tight and thick it did not protect him any
	longer from the poisoned point of Ardis. Arrowhead Manor.
	Le Château de la Flèche, Flesh Hall.
	He strolled on the shade-streaked lawn feeling much too
	warm in his black pajamas and dark-red dressing gown. A brick
318.10	wall separated his part of the garden from the street and a little
	way off an open gateway allowed an asphalt drive to curve
	toward the main entrance of the long hospital building. He
	was on the point of returning to his deckchair when a smart,
	pale-gray four-door sedan glided in and stopped before him.
318.15	The door flew open, before the chauffeur, an elderly man in
	tunic and breeches, had time to hand out Cordula, who now
	ran like a ballerina toward Van. He hugged her in a frenzy of
	welcome, kissing her rosy hot face and kneading her soft cat-
	like body through her black silk dress: what a delicious surprise!
318.20	She had come all the way from Manhattan, at a hundred
	kilometers an hour, fearing he might have already left, though
	he said it would be tomorrow.
	"Idea!" he cried. "Take me back with you, right away. Yes,
	just as I am!"
318.25	"Okay," she said, "come and stay at my flat, there's a beauty-
	ful guest room for you."
	She was a good sport—little Cordula de Prey. Next moment
	he was sitting beside her in the car, which was backing gateward.
	Two nurses came running and gesturing toward them, and the
318.30	chauffeur asked in French if the Countess wished him to stop.
	"Non, non, non!" cried Van in high glee and they sped away.
	Panting, Cordula said:
	"My mother rang me up from Malorukino" (their country
	estate at Malbrook, Mayne): "the local papers said you had

[ 318 ]

	fought a duel. You look a tower of health, I'm so glad. I knew
	something nasty must have happened because little Russel, Dr.
	Platonov's grandson—remember?—saw you from his side of the
	train beating up an officer on the station platform. But, first of
319.05	all, Van, net, pozhaluysta, on nas vidit (no, please, he sees us),
	I have some very bad news for you. Young Fraser, who has
	just been flown back from Yalta, saw Percy killed on the second
	day of the invasion, less than a week after they had left Good-
	son airport. He will tell you the whole story himself, it accumu-
319.10	lates more and more dreadful details with every telling, Fraser
	does not seem to have shined in the confusion, that's why, I
	suppose, he keeps straightening things out."
	(Bill Fraser, the son of Judge Fraser, of Wellington, wit-
	nessed Lieutenant de Prey's end from a blessed ditch overgrown
319.15	with cornel and medlar, but, of course, could do nothing to
	help the leader of his platoon and this for a number of reasons
	which he conscientiously listed in his report but which it would
	be much too tedious and embarrassing to itemize here. Percy
	had been shot in the thigh during a skirmish with Khazar
319.20	guerillas in a ravine near Chew-Foot-Calais, as the American
	troops pronounced 'Chufutkale,' the name of a fortified rock.
	He had, immediately assured himself, with the odd relief of the
	doomed, that he had got away with a flesh wound. Loss of blood
	caused him to faint, as we fainted, too, as soon as he started to
319.25	crawl or rather squirm toward the shelter of the oak scrub and
	spiny bushes, where another casualty was resting comfortably.
	When a couple of minutes later, Percy—still Count Percy de
	Prey—regained consciousness he was no longer alone on his
	rough bed of gravel and grass. A smiling old Tartar, incon-
319.30	gruously but somehow assuagingly wearing American blue-jeans
	with his beshmet, was squatting by his side. "Bednïy, bednïy"
	(you poor, poor fellow), muttered the good soul, shaking his
	shaven head and clucking: "Bol'no (it hurts)?" Percy answered
	in his equally primitive Russian that he did not feel too badly

[ 319 ]

	wounded: "Karasho, karasho ne bol'no (good, good)," said the
	kindly old man and, picking up the automatic pistol which
	Percy had dropped, he examined it with naive pleasure and then
	shot him in the temple. (One wonders, one always wonders,
320.05	what had been the executed individual's brief, rapid series of
	impressions, as preserved somewhere, somehow, in some vast
	library of microfilmed last thoughts, between two moments:
	between, in the present case, our friend's becoming aware of
	those nice, quasi-Red Indian little wrinkles beaming at him out
320.10	of a serene sky not much different from Ladore's, and then
	feeling the mouth of steel violently push through tender skin
	and exploding bone. One supposes it might have been a kind of
	suite for flute, a series of 'movements' such as, say: I'm alive
	—who's that?—civilian—sympathy—thirsty—daughter with
320.15	pitcher—that's my damned gun—don't...et cetera or rather no
	cetera...while Broken-Arm Bill prayed his Roman deity in a
	frenzy of fear for the Tartar to finish his job and go. But, of
	course, an invaluable detail in that strip of thought would have
	been—perhaps, next to the pitcher peri—a glint, a shadow, a
320.20	stab of Ardis.)
	"How strange, how strange," murmured Van when Cordula
	had finished her much less elaborate version of the report Van
	later got from Bill Fraser.
	What a strange coincidence! Either Ada's lethal shafts were
320.25	at work, or he, Van, had somehow managed to dispatch her
	two wretched lovers in a duel with a dummy.
	Strange, too, that he felt nothing special, except, perhaps, a
	kind of neutral wonder, as he listened to little Cordula. A one-
	track man in matters of soft passion, strange Van, strange
320.30	Demon's son, was at the moment much more anxious to enjoy
	Cordula as soon as humanly and humanely possible, as soon as
	satanically and viatically feasible, than to keep deploring the
	fate of a fellow he hardly knew; and although Cordula's blue
	eyes flashed with tears once or twice, he knew perfectly well

[ 320 ]

	that she had never seen much of her second cousin and, in point
	of fact, had rather disliked him.
	Cordula told Edmond: "Arrêtez près de what's-it-called, yes,
	Albion, le store pour messieurs, in Luga"; and as peeved Van
321.05	remonstrated: "You can't go back to civilization in pajamas,"
	she said firmly. "I shall buy you some clothes, while Edmond
	has a mug of coffee."
	She bought him a pair of trousers, and a raincoat. He had
	been waiting impatiently in the parked car and now under the
321.10	pretext of changing into his new clothes asked her to drive him
	to some secluded spot, while Edmond, wherever he was, had
	another mug.
	As soon as they reached a suitable area he transferred Cordula
	to his lap and had her very comfortably, with such howls of
321.15	enjoyment that she felt touched and flattered.
	"Reckless Cordula," observed reckless Cordula cheerfully;
	"this will probably mean another abortion—encore un petit
	enfantôme, as my poor aunt's maid used to wail every time it
	happened to her. Did I say anything wrong?"
321.20	"Nothing wrong," said Van, kissing her tenderly; and they
	drove back to the diner.

[ 321 ]