The Master Read Free

crumbling mansion, and half-crazed peasants will have their noses up against the glass of my windows, if there is glass still in the windows. That is where I will
live.’
    ‘And Paris?’
    ‘I have to give up everything, the house, the servants, my friends, my whole life. I will freeze to death or I will die of boredom. It will be a race between the two.’
    ‘But why?’ he asked gently.
    ‘He says I have wasted all his money. I have sold the house and I have spent days burning letters and crying and throwing away clothes. And now I am saying goodbye to everyone. I am
leaving London tomorrow and I am going to spend one month in Venice. Then I will travel to Russia. He says that others are returning too, but they are going to St Petersburg. That is not what he
has chosen for me.’
    She spoke with feeling, but as he watched her he sensed that he was listening to one of his actors enjoying her own performance. Sometimes she spoke as though she were telling an amusing
anecdote about somebody else.
    ‘I’ve seen everyone I know who’s still alive and I’ve read over all the letters of those who are dead. With some people I’ve done both. I burned Paul
Joukowsky’s letters and then I saw him. I did not expect to see him. He is ageing badly. I did not expect that either.’
    She caught his eye for one second and it was as though a flash of clear summer light had come into the room. Paul Joukowsky was almost fifty now, he calculated; they had not met for many years.
No one had ever come like this and mentioned his name.
    Henry was careful to try to speak immediately, ask a question, change the subject. Perhaps there was something in the letters, a stray sentence, or the account of a conversation or a meeting.
But he did not think so. Perhaps his visitor was letting him know for nostalgia’s sake what his aura had suggested in those years, his own designed self. His attempt to be earnest, hesitant
and polite had not fooled women like her who watched his full mouth and the glance of his eyes and instantly understood it all. They said, of course, nothing, just as she was saying nothing now,
merely a name, an old name that rang in his ears. A name that, once, had meant everything to him.
    ‘But surely you will return?’
    ‘That is the promise he has extracted from me. That I will not return, that I will stay in Russia.’
    The tone was dramatic, and he suddenly saw her on the stage, moving casually, talking as though she put no thought into it, and then throwing an arrow, a single line intended to hit home. From
what she had said, he understood for the first time what had happened. She must have done something very wrong to place herself back in his power. In her circle, there would be knowledge and
speculation. Some would know, and those who did not know would be able to guess. Just as she let him guess now.
    These thoughts preoccupied him, and he found that he watched the princess, carefully weighing up what she had been saying, while thinking how he could use this. He must write it down as soon as
she left. He hoped to hear nothing more, none of the explicit details, but as she continued speaking, it was clear that she was frightened and his sympathy was once more aroused.
    ‘You know, others have gone back and the reports are excellent. There is new life in St Petersburg, but as I told you, that is not where I am going. And Daudet, whom I met at a party, said
the most foolish thing to me. Perhaps he thought that it might console me. He told me that I would have my memories. But my memories are of no use to me. I told him that I never had any interest in
memories. I love today and tomorrow, and if I am in form I also love the day after tomorrow. Last year is gone, who cares about last year?’
    ‘Daudet does, I imagine.’
    ‘Yes, too much.’
    She stood up to go and he accompanied her to the front door. When he saw that she had left a cab waiting, he wondered who was paying for it.
    ‘And Paul?