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“ ‘What is it, Armand? Why do you ask this?’ I said

“But he lay back on the steep levee then, and for a long tiht back tofar too specific, the ship that had carried Claudia and hts at sea when it seemed the stars came down to touch the waves

“ ‘I thought perhaps he would tell you so about Paris…’ Armand said

“ ‘What should he say about Paris? That he didn’t want Claudia to die?’ I asked Claudia again; the naa of the sea, the lantern creaking on its hook, the black porthole full of the stars She had her head bent, her fingers p

oised above her ear as if about to loosen strands of her hair And I had thesensation: that in ame of solitaire, and the sockets of her eyes would be empty

“ ‘You could have toldbefore now It wouldn’t have mattered’

“ ‘Even that it was I who…?’

“I turned to hi at the sky And I saw the extraordinary pain in his face, in his eyes It seee, and the white face that fraaunt

’That it was you who killed her? Who forced her out into that yard and locked her there?’ I asked I s pain for it all these years, not you’

“And then he closed his eyes and turned his face away, his hand resting on his chest as if I’d struck him an awful, sudden blow

“ ‘You can’t convince me you care about this,’ I said to hiain that feeling came over me… that I wished to be alone In a little while I kneould get up and go off by myself That is, if he didn’t leave me first Because I would have liked to remain there actually It was a quiet, secluded place

“ ‘You care about nothing…’ he was saying And then he sat up slowly and turned to ht you would at least care about that I thought you would feel the old passion, the old anger if you were to see hi would quicken and come alive in you if you saw him… if you returned to this place’

“ ‘That I would come back to life?’ I said softly And I felt the cold metallic hardness of my words as I spoke, the modulation, the control It was as if I were cold all over, ile, as he had been, actually, for a long time

“ ‘Yes!’ he cried out ‘Yes, back to life!’ And then he see occurred He bowed his head at thatin the way that he felt that defeat, so in the way his smooth white face reflected it only for an instant, reminded me of someone else I’d seen defeated in just that way And it was a moment to see Claudia’s face in that attitude; Claudia, as she stood by the bed in the roo with me to transform Madeleine into one of us That same helpless look, that defeat which seeotten And then he, like Claudia, seeth But he said softly to the air, ‘I a!’

“And I, watching hi hi co