recognizing me when I arrived, but the station building and forecourt were more or less empty. As I stood there, however, my suitcases picking me out like quotation marks, I found that my attempt to conduct this simple train of thought in a logical manner was strangely confounded. I saw that the station was deserted, but failed to register the significance of this sight in relation to my anxieties concerning my arrival and recognition. Indeed, my acknowledgement of the emptiness of my surroundings, rather than reassuring me as to the ease with which I would be noticed standing there, lacked all memory of the importance the state of the station had assumed in my thoughts previously. This, it soon became clear, was the fault of an entirely new anxiety, which at the sight of the deserted station â a sight I did not, as I have said, find reassuring in any case â now came to torment me. What surprised me was how quickly this second anxiety had superseded the first. It suggested a certain powerlessness to my position, as if my only existence, my only mental function, wasto register with each passing second the uncertain outcome of the next.
My anxiety, naturally enough I suppose, was as to the whereabouts of Mr Madden, whose absence at the scene of my arrival I had not, trapped as I was in this new, contingent, and entirely linear mode of thought, even considered. I wondered whether he could have had an accident on his way; a thought I entertained only briefly and with a distinct lack of concern. I could, and did, as I stood there, admit that Mr Maddenâs existence was as yet a matter of complete indifference to me; and right up until the very second of his arrival would remain that way. It was interesting to think that, perhaps in five minutesâ time, I might care about something for which at the present moment I had no feelings whatever. The fact that I was giving such undue attention to my lack of feelings for Mr Madden began itself to seem rather portentous. I wondered whether some significance were being telegraphed to me from the future; a future in which, for example, I would fall in love with Mr Madden and look back on my former indifference with astonishment; or, if my love were unrequited, with longing. Perhaps, on the other hand, this message was reaching me not from the future but from a different room of the present. Were I to discover that Mr Madden had indeed met with an accident on his way to collect me, would I be glad of my impartiality or sorry for it? Could the very fact that I had thought of him having an accident have brought the accident about? And how would his accident affect my contract of employment with the Maddens? Was it selfish or merely practical to consider this aspect of things at a time like this, my indifference towards Mr Madden having already been established?
All of which took me forward by a few minutes, at which point I noticed that a blue car had drawn up and was crouched on the forecourt some ten yards away from me. I had a feeling of abrupt drainage, as if a plug had been pulled on the pool ofsome inner world. The car sat for some seconds, like an unexploded bomb, before the door on the right-hand side swung open. A feeling of intense fear rolled heedlessly over me. I realized not only that the man who got out of the car and began to approach me must be Mr Madden, but that I was also to have the first human encounter â discounting dealings with ticket collectors, newsagents and the like â I had had since that last day in Rome.
âSorry! Sorry!â said Mr Madden, coming towards me with his arms flapping up and down.
He was very tall, and quite large, with black, shiny hair which bounced over his face, which was red, as he walked. He was wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, on which the peculiar motion of his arms revealed glimpses of two hidden islands of sweat. From a distance his face had looked oddly crumpled, but now I saw that he was
My anxiety, naturally enough I suppose, was as to the whereabouts of Mr Madden, whose absence at the scene of my arrival I had not, trapped as I was in this new, contingent, and entirely linear mode of thought, even considered. I wondered whether he could have had an accident on his way; a thought I entertained only briefly and with a distinct lack of concern. I could, and did, as I stood there, admit that Mr Maddenâs existence was as yet a matter of complete indifference to me; and right up until the very second of his arrival would remain that way. It was interesting to think that, perhaps in five minutesâ time, I might care about something for which at the present moment I had no feelings whatever. The fact that I was giving such undue attention to my lack of feelings for Mr Madden began itself to seem rather portentous. I wondered whether some significance were being telegraphed to me from the future; a future in which, for example, I would fall in love with Mr Madden and look back on my former indifference with astonishment; or, if my love were unrequited, with longing. Perhaps, on the other hand, this message was reaching me not from the future but from a different room of the present. Were I to discover that Mr Madden had indeed met with an accident on his way to collect me, would I be glad of my impartiality or sorry for it? Could the very fact that I had thought of him having an accident have brought the accident about? And how would his accident affect my contract of employment with the Maddens? Was it selfish or merely practical to consider this aspect of things at a time like this, my indifference towards Mr Madden having already been established?
All of which took me forward by a few minutes, at which point I noticed that a blue car had drawn up and was crouched on the forecourt some ten yards away from me. I had a feeling of abrupt drainage, as if a plug had been pulled on the pool ofsome inner world. The car sat for some seconds, like an unexploded bomb, before the door on the right-hand side swung open. A feeling of intense fear rolled heedlessly over me. I realized not only that the man who got out of the car and began to approach me must be Mr Madden, but that I was also to have the first human encounter â discounting dealings with ticket collectors, newsagents and the like â I had had since that last day in Rome.
âSorry! Sorry!â said Mr Madden, coming towards me with his arms flapping up and down.
He was very tall, and quite large, with black, shiny hair which bounced over his face, which was red, as he walked. He was wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, on which the peculiar motion of his arms revealed glimpses of two hidden islands of sweat. From a distance his face had looked oddly crumpled, but now I saw that he was