We waited downstairs to order supper, without even going upstairs to see our room or discussing terms. I was attracted by that young fellow with his auburn whiskers and his vague, lonely manner. On his forearm was a faded tattoo mark, and as he went away he picked up a patched blue jacket.

It was midnight when we had our supper. At our little table, Cilia laughed a great deal at the disdainful air of the landlady. ‘She thinks we’re only just married,’ she faltered. Then, her weary eyes full of tenderness, she asked me: ‘And are we really?’ as she stroked my hand.

We enquired about places in the neighbourhood. The harbour was only a hundred yards away, at the end of the avenue. ‘Let’s go and see it for a minute,’ said Cilia. She was fit to drop, but she wanted to take that little walk with me.

We came to the railings of a terrace and caught our breath. The night was calm but dark, and the streetlamps floundered in the cold black abyss that lay before us. I said nothing, and my heart leapt as I breathed the smell of it, wild and free. Cilia looked around her and pointed out to me a line of lights, their reflection quivering in the water. Was it a ship? A breakwater? We could hear waves splashing gently in the darkness. ‘Tomorrow,’ she breathed ecstatically, ‘tomorrow we’ll see it all.’

As we made our way back to our hotel, Cilia clung tightly to my side. ‘How tired I am! George, it’s lovely! Tomorrow! I’m so happy! Are you happy, too?’ and she rubbed her cheek against my shoulder.

I did not feel like that. I was walking with clenched jaws, taking deep breaths and letting the wind caress me. I felt restless, remote from Cilia, alone in the world. Halfway up the stairs I said to her: ‘I don’t want to go to bed yet. You go on up. I’ll go for another little stroll and come back.’

7.

That time, too, it was the same. How I hurt Cilia! Even now, when I think of her in bed as dawn is breaking, I am filled with a desolate remorse for the way I treated her.

Yet I couldn’t help it! I always did everything like a fool, a man in a dream, and I did not realize the sort of man I was until the end, when even remorse was useless. Now I can glimpse the truth. I become so engrossed in solitude that it deadens all my sense of human relationships and makes me incapable of tolerating or responding to any tenderness. Cilia, for me, was not an obstacle: she simply did not exist. If I had only understood this! If I had had any idea of how much harm I was doing to myself by cutting myself off from her in this way, I should have turned to her with intense gratitude and cherished her presence as my only salvation.