It was a trial and a triumph for me, because since I came to Zürich I have spoken to nobody of these things except Dr Johanna, and then in the most subjective terms possible. But tonight I found myself able to be comparatively objective, even when Liesl snorted with rude laughter at Denyse’s antics with the death-mask. Ramsay was sympathetic, but he laughed when I said that Father had left some money for my non-existent children. His comment was:

—I don’t believe you ever knew what a sore touch it was with Boy that you were such a Joseph about women. He felt it put him in the wrong. He always felt that the best possible favour you could do a woman was to push her into bed. He simply could not understand that there are men for whom sex is not the greatest of indoor and outdoor sports, hobbies, arts, sciences, and food for reverie. I always felt that his preoccupation with women was an extension of his miraculous touch with sugar and sweetstuffs. Women were the most delightful confectioneries he knew, and he couldn’t understand anybody who hadn’t a sweet tooth.

—I wonder what your father would have made of a woman like Jo von Haller?

—Women of that kind never came into Boy’s ken, Liesl. Or women like you, for that matter. His notion of an intelligent woman was Denyse.

I found it still pained me to hear Father talked of in this objective strain, so I tried to turn the conversation.

—I suppose all but a tiny part of life lies outside anybody’s ken, and we all get shocks and starts, now and then. For instance, who would have supposed that after such a long diversion through Dr von Haller’s consulting-room I should meet you three by chance? There’s a coincidence, if you like.

But Ramsay wouldn’t allow that to pass.

—As an historian, I simply don’t believe in coincidence. Only very rigid minds do. Rationalists talk about a pattern they can see and approve as logical; any pattern they can’t see and wouldn’t approve they dismiss as coincidental. I suppose you had to meet us, for some reason. A good one, I hope.

Eisengrim was interested but supercilious; after dinner he and Liesl played the complex chess game. I watched for a while, but I could make nothing of what they were doing, so I sat by the fire and talked with Ramsay. Of course I was dying to know how he came to be part of this queer household, but Dr von Haller has made me more discreet than I used to be about cross-examining in private life. That suggestion that he and Liesl had once been lovers—could it be? I probed, very, very gently. But I had once been Buggerlugs’ pupil, and I still feel he can see right through me. Obviously he did, but he was in a mood to reveal, and like a man throwing crumbs to a bird he let me know: