The water rippled in narrowing
circles--then all was still....
The moon came out from behind filmy shadow. The world was intensely
light, and I saw that the ice of the canal had never been broken, and
that no pool of black water caught the moon's rays.
It was fiercely cold and I hurried home, pulling my Shuba more closely
about me.
PART II
LAWRENCE
LAWRENCE
I
Of some of the events that I am now about to relate it is obvious that I
could not have been an eye-witness--and yet, looking back from the
strange isolation that is now my world I find it incredibly difficult to
realise what I saw and what I did not. Was I with Nina and Vera on that
Tuesday night when they stood face to face with one another for the
first time? Was I with Markovitch during his walk through that
marvellous new world that he seemed himself to have created? I know that
I shared none of these things..., and yet it seems to me that I was at
the heart of them all. I may have been told many things by the actors in
those events--I may not. I cannot now in retrospect see any of it save
as my own personal experience, and as my own personal experience I must
relate it; but, as I have already said at the beginning of this book, no
one is compelled to believe either my tale or my interpretation.
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