full pressure. It was like a blow. I realized vividly the awful gap between those days and these, between myself as I had been and as I was. A whiff of perfume, a smell, produces this kind of evocation in most cases; with me, just then, it was my old English coat.
I remember the strong emotion in me, and that, while still held and gripped by it, my eye caught sight of an envelope sticking out of the inside breast pocket. The coat hung by chance in a way that made it visible. It might easily fall out altogether. I moved over and stretched out a hand to put it safely back and then saw that the writing on the envelope was my own. It was a letter. I took it out. The address was the house in Kent, whose atmosphere still hung about my thoughts. The name was my mother's name. There were other letters, all my own; one to my father; two to my brother, the one being in the world I really loved, the only one of the family to whom I had given vague hints of the real state of affairs.
Some of the letters were two weeks, three weeks old. In each case the five-cent stamp had been torn off. Five cents meant a glass of lager and a meal at a free lunch counter.
There was no reflection. Holding the letters in my hand, I moved across to the mattress. There was an anger in me that made me afraid, afraid of myself. I wanted to kill, I thought I was going to kill, I understood easily how a man can kill. In my mind was a vivid picture of my brother's face--it was he, not my parents, who moved with me. But I was not excited; ice was in me, not fire. Something else, too, at that moment was in my veins, a drug ... a strong dose, too! Five minutes before my entire being had been in a state of utter bliss, of radiant kindness, of tolerance, of charity to everybody in the world. I would have given away my last cent, I would have forgiven anybody anything. All this was swept away in an instant. I felt a cold, white anger that wanted to kill.
Boyde had not heard my footstep; he lay sound
asleep. I tore the blanket off. He lay half naked before
