“I think I’ve always had to break with things in order to accept them.”

“And now what do you have to break?”

“Nothing. I feel good. Now I can see things as they are.”

“They are no different from what they’ve always been.”

“But now I can see.”

That night he came to her bed and the separation was over.

“My one terror,” he said later, “was that you wouldn’t come back.”

“It was no mistake, Alberto. It was the only way I had; the only way I could act. I’m sorry for you it was that way. But it was as it was and now it is as it is. It’s all one. I can’t explain—do you understand?”

“You made me suffer, but you suffered too and the important thing is that we have enough patience and tolerance with each other not to have resentments. None of the rest matters.”

They dined out the next evening and ran into Cesare Servi. “But you’re always together,” he greeted them; “what kind of separation is it?”

“It’s a paradox,” said Marguerite.

“It’s over,” said Alberto.

And what was it Dr. Verdile had said once? “Before I knew Zen I thought the sea was the sea, the sky the sky, and a mountain a mountain; when I began to know I found that the sea was not the sea, the sky not the sky, a mountain not a mountain; now that I know I see that the sea is the sea, the sky the sky, and a mountain a mountain.”

27. Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

“We’ll abolish emotions and feelings first,” he’d say, his lips drawn tightly in a grim line, “and then the senses.”

“And then what’s left?” she’d laugh, caressing the soft, black, curled hair at the nape of his neck. “Without love and lovemaking what good is it?”

“Better for business,” he’d say tersely, appraising her with his ironic, roguish smile.

But that was later, when they had been lovers for over a year. Even then, he was as sentimental as she, and as passionate in their relationship.

His skepticism made him deny it, or at least make the attempt to keep their affair in manageable channels. Here she trusted his sense, not hers. For she was impulsive and he cautious.

“Women are a great nuisance,” he was always saying.

“But I’m not just a woman for you!”

Caressing her, smiling, he’d ask, “What are you for me?”

“Did you forget! Your companion, your friend, your colleague, your collaborator.”

“That’s right. I did forget.”