Despite myself I was mad about her. She was so good at what she did. Our passions on this subject were just about equal; we suspected and mistrusted and saw through and wouldn’t have and wouldn’t wear and wholeheartedly disliked virtually in tandem. But my antagonism always got me embroiled, caused me to sweat and bluster, threw me back on brute force and calumny – I wanted to break the bastard’s little back; whereas Camilla’s burned pure white, instantly destroying everything it passed over like the spirit of Yahweh. I’ve seen newsreels of Japanese cities devastated by an atomic bomb. A hideous silence pervades and a few wisps of smoke ascend from the burned out shells of buildings. That was more or less the look of a terrain when Camilla had finished with it.

But she hadn’t quite finished with this one yet. ‘Notice,’ she said, ‘how it is precisely the language of masters and servants, the language of class transferred to sexuality, that assures Stephen Smith of a perfect humiliation when he spies on Elfride and Knight together, they in the light of the summer-house, he in the darkness without, and sees that she looks up to and adores his former patron from as great a distance as she had once looked down and smiled on him. And not just a perfect humiliation but also a double shame. For how much the more removed from that old friend and teacher must it leave him, that he was once the thrall of a woman who is now enthralled herself. You might wonder whether Elfride’s role in all this, finally, is any more than functional. Could it be that her submission is a male luxury – call it Stephen’s, call it Hardy’s – not her own at all, and that she merely craves submission on behalf of someone else? Was it not Stephen that sought shelter under Knight’s protection in the first place? They have strange needs, these men – watch them! Watch them especially when they offer to be merely satisfying the strange needs of women. Elfride takes the caning because, apparently, Elfride wants to take the caning, but it is Stephen Smith who revels in the afterglow.’

Ah, Camilla, Camilla!

The things you knew!

[2]

‘Sharon, my wife – this is Rowland Fitzpiers. You must have heard me mention Rowland, Sharon, we were at school and university together.’