
how his image, glimpsed from the deep-set eye of the university, had been intertwined in my cogi-tations
with the image of that perverted madonna whose greeds, so hesitatingly whispered behind her long back,
reached outeven to colour the imaginings of dry pedants like my friend in his learned cell!
And, as if random sequences of events were narrative in the mind of some super-being, as if we were no
more than parasites in the head of a power to which Thomas Hardy himself might have yielded credulity,
when I reached my hotel, the vendor's newspaper folded unopened under my arm, it was to find, in the
rack of the ill-lit foyer, luminous, forbidding, crying aloud, silent, a letter from Christiania awaiting me. I
knew it was from her! We had our connection!
Dropping my newspaper into a nearby waste bin, I walked upstairs carrying the letter. My feet sank into
the thick fur of the carpet, slowing my ascent, my heart beat unmuffled. Was not this - so I demanded of
myself afterwards! - one of those supreme moments of life, of pain and solace inseparable? For whatever
was in the letter, it was such that, when revealed, like a fast-acting poison inserted into the bloodstream,
would con-vulse me into a new mode of feeling and behaving.
I knew I would have to have Christiania, knew it even by the violence of my perturbation, greater than I
had expected; and knew also that I was prey as well as predator. Wasn't that the meaning of life, the
ultimate displacement? Isn't - as in the English sonnet - the great also the infinitely small, and the small
also the infinitely great.
Well, once in my room, I locked the door, laid the envelope on a table and set myself down before it. I
slit the envelope with a paper knife and withdrew her - her! - letter.
What she said was brief. She was much interested in my offer and the potential she read in it.
Unfortunately, she was leaving Europe at the end of the week, the day after the morrow, since her
husband was taking up an official post in Africa on behalf of his government. She regretted that our
acquaintance would not deepen.
I folded the letter and put it down. Only then did I appreci-ate the writhe in the serpent's tail. Snatching
up the letter again, I re-read it. She and her husband - yes! - were taking up residence in the capital city
of that same republic with whose Prime Minister I had been long in negotiation. Only that morn-ing had I
written to his cultural attache to announce finallythat the making of such a film as he proposed was
beyond my abilities and interests!
That night, I slept little. In the morning, when friends called upon me, I had my man tell them I was
indisposed; and indis-posed I was; indisposed to act; yet indisposed to let slip this opportunity. It was
perversity, of course, to think of following this woman, this perverted madonna, to another continent;
there were other women with whom the darker understandings would flow if I merely lifted the somewhat
antique phone by my bedside. And it was perhaps perversity that allowed me to keep myself in
indecision for so long.
But by afternoon I had decided. From a lunar distance, Europe and Africa were within the single glance
of an eye; my fate was equally a small thing; I would follow her by the means so easily awaiting me.
Accordingly, I composed a letter to the genial black attache, saying that I regretted my decision of
yesterday, explaining how it had been instrumental in moving my mind in entirely the opposite direction,
and announcing that I now wished to make the proposed film. I said I would be willing to leave for his
native country with camera team and secretaries as soon as pos-sible. I requested him to favour me with
an early appointment. And I had this letter delivered by hand there and then.