I squat in the gateway, watch a tart serve clients in the mouth of the alley across. The men smoke. She does not. Only with the last one does she finally catch, converting his lust to her anger, pale silvery green. Alchemy. Like a goose eating grass and shitting gold. She pulls down her skirts and bolts. The moon rises then is lost in cloud. It rains. I stick my tongue out, each drop seeded with Soot. Sand corns in oysters. Pearls for a swine.

Time.

I am no good with time. Half the night gone in the blink of an eye. Then the door opens above and I hide. Mother crosses the yard. Behind her a man, an abomination, carrying a boy, a cripple, a blank. Two rents in the fabric of Smoke. My blood puckers. Puckers, I say: not the skin, the blood, a scrotum dunked in ice. They are in a hurry, Mother and man, walk quickly into the rain. I know where they are heading. Mother. I shot Mr. Price. If only I had kept the gun.

But first: inside. To him. Smoke wells up, consumes me. Rage. Yearning. Time. I am no good with time. A minute, an hour, just to take the first step. Put a leash on my Smoke. A game, let’s make a game of it. Savour it. Sommelier. Wine is bitter under the tongue.

At the top of the stairs: a seam of his Smoke. Old, caked in, stuck to the brick. I put my lips to it. Feeding or kissing? A bloom of mould growing up the wall underneath. Mould and Soot. London’s flowers. They should put them on its crest. Ahead, the door is locked. I stand there sniffing. Time? I am no good with time.

Order!

Who am I? Lord Spencer? Julius? Caesar. Et tu. Before (before Nótt, after London; before) I entered a church. He had been there: a trace of him on the steps by the gate. The man inside crossed himself. High Anglican: a confession box like a coffin, the priest slumping on its stool. The haste of drunk fingers. Forehead, belly, both sides of the chest. It made me chuckle. The devil, then? The devil is a schoolboy. I stare at my hands. My skin has turned grey, like ash.

A fist of ash.

It knocks gently on the door.

PART FIVE ABOVE AND BELOW

PART FIVE ABOVE AND BELOW

Imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy. ., of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature. . and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears — would you agree to be the architect on such conditions? Tell me the truth.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV (1880), TRANSLATED BY RICHARD PEVEAR AND LARISSA VOLOKHONSKY