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521
Alison
darling
,
please
believe
that
if
it
was
to
be
anyone
,
it
would
have
been
you
;
that
I
vr
really
been
far
sadder
than
I
could
show
,
if
we
were
not
both
to
go
mad
.
Please
wear
the
earrings
.
Please
take
this
money
and
buy
a
scooter
and
go
where
we
used
to
go
or
do
what
you
want
with
it
.
Please
look
after
yourself
.
Oh
God
,
if
only
I
was
worth
waiting
for
Nicholas
522
It
was
supposed
to
sound
spontaneous
,
but
I
had
been
composing
it
on
and
off
for
days
.
I
put
the
check
and
the
note
in
an
envelope
,
and
set
it
on
the
mantelpiece
with
the
little
box
containing
the
pair
of
jet
earrings
we
had
seen
in
a
closed
antique
-
shop
one
day
.
Then
I
shaved
,
and
went
out
to
get
a
taxi
523
The
thing
I
felt
most
clearly
,
when
the
first
corner
was
turned
,
was
that
I
had
escaped
.
Obscurer
,
but
no
less
strong
,
was
the
feeling
that
she
loved
me
more
than
I
loved
her
,
and
that
consequently
I
had
in
some
indefinable
way
won
.
So
on
top
of
the
excitement
of
the
voyage
into
the
unknown
,
the
taking
wing
again
,
I
had
an
agreeable
feeling
of
emotional
triumph
.
A
dry
feeling
;
but
I
liked
things
dry
.
I
went
towards
Victoria
as
a
hungry
man
goes
towards
a
good
dinner
after
a
couple
of
glasses
of
Manzanilla
.
I
began
to
sing
,
and
it
was
not
a
brave
attempt
to
hide
my
grief
but
a
revoltingly
unclouded
desire
to
sing
.
Отключить рекламу
524
Five
days
later
I
was
standing
on
Hymettus
,
looking
down
over
the
great
complex
of
Athens
-
Piraeus
,
cities
and
suburbs
,
houses
split
like
a
miffion
dice
over
the
Attic
plain
.
South
stretched
the
pure
blue
late
-
summer
sea
,
pale
pumice
-
colored
islands
,
and
beyond
them
the
serene
mountains
of
the
Peloponnesus
stood
away
over
the
horizon
in
a
magnificent
arrested
flow
of
land
and
water
.
Serene
,
superb
,
majestic
:
I
tried
for
adjectives
less
used
,
but
anything
else
seemed
slick
and
underweight
.
I
could
see
for
eighty
miles
,
and
all
pure
,
all
noble
,
luminous
,
immense
,
all
as
it
always
had
been
.
525
It
was
like
a
journey
into
space
.
I
was
standing
on
Mars
,
knee
-
deep
in
thyme
,
under
a
sky
that
seemed
never
to
have
known
dust
or
cloud
.
I
looked
down
at
my
pale
London
hands
.
Even
they
seemed
changed
,
nauseatingly
alien
,
things
I
should
long
ago
have
disowned
.
526
When
that
ultimate
Mediterranean
light
fell
on
the
world
around
me
,
I
could
see
it
was
supremely
beautiful
;
but
when
it
touched
me
,
I
felt
it
was
hostile
.
It
seemed
to
corrode
,
not
cleanse
.
It
was
like
being
at
the
beginning
of
an
interrogation
under
arc
lights
;
already
I
could
see
the
table
with
straps
through
the
open
doorway
,
already
my
old
self
began
to
know
that
it
wouldn
t
be
able
to
hold
out
.
It
was
partly
the
terror
,
the
stripping
-
to
-
essentials
,
of
love
;
because
I
fell
head
over
heels
,
totally
and
forever
in
love
with
the
Greek
landscape
from
the
moment
I
arrived
.
527
But
with
the
love
came
a
contradictory
,
almost
irritating
,
feeling
of
impotence
and
inferiority
,
as
if
Greece
were
a
woman
so
sensually
provocative
that
I
must
fall
physically
and
desperately
in
love
with
her
,
and
at
the
same
time
so
calmly
aristocratic
that
I
should
never
be
able
to
approach
her
.
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528
None
of
the
books
I
had
read
explained
this
sinister
-
fascinating
,
this
Circe
-
like
quality
of
Greece
;
the
quality
that
makes
it
unique
.
In
England
we
live
in
a
very
muted
,
calm
,
domesticated
relationship
with
what
remains
of
our
natural
landscape
and
its
soft
northern
light
;
in
Greece
landscape
and
light
are
so
beautiful
,
so
all
-
present
,
so
intense
,
so
wild
,
that
the
relationship
is
immediately
love
-
hatred
,
one
of
passion
.
It
took
me
many
months
to
understand
this
,
and
many
years
to
accept
it
.
529
Later
that
day
I
was
standing
at
the
window
of
a
room
in
the
luxury
hotel
to
which
the
bored
young
man
who
received
me
at
the
British
Council
had
directed
me
.
I
had
just
written
a
letter
to
Alison
,
but
already
she
seemed
far
away
,
not
in
distance
,
not
in
time
,
but
in
some
dimension
for
which
there
is
no
name
.
Reality
,
perhaps
.
I
looked
down
over
Constitution
Square
,
the
central
meeting
-
place
of
Athens
,
over
knots
of
strolling
people
,
white
shirts
,
dark
glasses
,
bare
brown
arms
.
A
sibilant
murmur
rose
from
the
crowds
sitting
at
the
café
tables
.
It
was
as
hot
as
a
hot
English
July
day
,
and
the
sky
was
still
perfectly
clear
.
By
craning
out
and
looking
east
I
could
see
Hymettus
,
where
I
had
stood
that
morning
,
its
whole
sunset
-
facing
slope
an
intense
soft
violet
-
pink
,
like
a
cyclamen
.
530
In
the
other
direction
,
over
the
clutter
of
roofs
,
lay
the
massive
black
silhouette
of
the
Acropolis
.
It
was
too
real
,
too
exactly
as
imagined
,
to
be
true
.
But
I
felt
as
gladly
and
expectantly
disorientated
,
as
happily
and
alertly
alone
,
as
Alice
in
Wonderland
.