I took the opportunity to visit my tower. The nurses were gone; in the old book-room, my books, which nobody ever knew I read and so learnt about men and women even while I believed men had vanished from the face of the earth— mouldy, my favourite pages stuck together with green spots; my Passage had fallen into rubble without my loving use and seemed far smaller than I remembered. I went to the end of it where I had seen the first man I ever saw, and stared out at the mountains again. In all my life mountains have been big. And these, which I watched all my childhood, seemed to symbolize the states of my freedom. The first, conical, terrible, the opening of my cage for my task; the second, about to lurch forward, Southernland; the third, insubstantial shapes and shades shifting, Atlan, the unknown god.

When we settled home again here I was still telling myself I was terribly happy sometime before I became aware that Zerd was hardly ever with me any more, and that to let “I am ever so full of joy” become a habit is as dulling as to let misery become a habit.

His desire for me is more spasmodic, but still as intense. I try to forget that too may not last. His desire is of course very satisfying, I mean for me. It satisfies me to be wanted, but I want more from him than this want of his which is a selfishness, the branch of his power-lust which includes me. Well, he has me now. And, yes, he is now frequently unfaithful. There is a girl with pale gold hair—she has held out nearly a year. He is beginning to love her, she has provided him with the time.

Before I knew that the Southern way of making food chemical has been adopted in Atlan, it was too far gone to be stopped. I did try, but was looked upon as a crank. They said, “Yes, yes.” politely, but it was useless. It would have been just the same if I had kept quiet, except that my stock with my subjects went down a little. I pleaded with Zerd and he laughed.

The Atlanteans are wild about all the new tilings we are showing them. They are intermarrying with us enthusiastically. Eagerly they helped, for industry, to silt up the plain where the animals danced to the pipe. The Northerners, lords every one of them, each with a household of idolizing Atlanteans, have no need to work and so they spend their time hunting the unicorns which they discovered are fine to eat. They will soon be extinct.