— But if that's true, said Grieve, then when a fellow sneaks out his bedroom window at night in order to go wandering in the country and meet his girl on a covered bridge beneath which some slow water passes and passes again, when he leaves and returns before daybreak back through the window, shutting it tight and climbing neatly into bed, before dressing and going back out the bedroom door into the actual world when the cock crows, then, then the countryside, the whole countryside, the covered bridge, the slow river, the girl, the running through the night, all of it, is within that room, as if it all climbed back in the window with him, to sit there as dawn returned in morning's clothes, with an old stick and a stone it keeps rubbing for a reason no one will ever know.
— Well, said James. I don't see what you're getting at. I would agree with that. That doesn't contradict anything.
Grieve moved her face close to his, then lunged down and bit him quite hard on the shoulder.
— Ay! he cried out, and fell from the bench onto the wooden slats of the gazebo.
Then she was upon him and bit him again.
But why had she begun to lie in the first place?
As James went about the house, he noticed that all the maids were crying. One maid crying. Another maid crying. All the maids, crying. He rang his bell. The maid at the end of the hall froze. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. He approached her.
— What are you crying about?
— It's Grieve, she said, turning. She's killed herself.
James felt a cold shock over him. Had she killed herself?
— Grieve, he said slowly. She's killed herself?
— Yes, said the maid. And the baby, too. She drowned herself in the bath. And her eight months pregnant. No one can say who the father is.
She began to cry.
Pregnant, thought James. Which Grieve was this?
— Do you mean, he said, a young girl, about. .
He described the maid, Grieve, to this maid.
— Oh, said the maid, drying her eyes. Not her. No. Why, she is named Grieve also. That's why you thought that she had. . Oh, no. I mean, I'm named Grieve too, but I haven't done myself in, now, have I?
— No, said James. You haven't.
He explained that he would have to be going.
— But you mark my words, said the maid. There'll be a penalty for this.
She shook her head violently from side to side like a bird in a leather trap.
— Mark my words.
Within a short while all the water had drained from the bath. The room was quiet. No room can be so quiet as a quiet bathroom in an empty house. Everyone has left for the country, James thought, though he knew it wasn't true. Everyone has left for the country and I am still here. And he remembered small things he had done wrong here and there throughout his life and felt that this was some accounting of blame — he was being paid back in kind. And then he thought of kind voices reading old stories. He thought of the ease of paper boats on a Victorian pond. He thought of marzipan and weasels, of Easter on easels and trees shed of last year's leaves. Many were present then in him, and one was his brother. I will say, said he, that the lily when it blossoms is the name of four-fold ovens. But that's meaningless. No, no. Four-fold ovens and the cleverness of hands. A man with the skill of setting traps. A bird with one eye because he has been painted only in profile. We shall not let him turn, not until he has sung his supper.
Is this the broom closet? wondered James. He took a piece of paper out of his coat pocket. The paper was very flat. It said:
Broom closet, Floor 3, Stair 7, Rear of Hospital.
He had made it through the hospital without incident. He had made it up the stairs without incident. Now he was before a closet. He presumed it was a closet. All the other rooms had numbers painted in neat black paint over dark wood. It must be, he thought.
And he opened the door.
Begin with me, said the bird. James reached out, took hold of the bird's neck and head, and gently but firmly twisted it off.
Within the little metal bird was a rolled-up piece of parchment.
It said:
I anticipate you as farmland anticipates the wilderness to come when all that's ordered is the sum of thought in a white wren's head as it flutters among red apples. Red red apples and the smell of blood.
— I saw in the distance a harbor approaching, a harbor walking arm in arm with the sea, and upon the sea great catastrophes of ships, constellations of storm and fright. Distances. How much then I knew that distance was always our greatest enemy; distance was always the obstacle that could not be overcome. Steam trains bring us closer. Airplanes. Elevators. Rockets. But how can we be beside the one we love on that particular day when it would suddenly, inexplicably, mean the most? For small distances, a street, a room, the length of an arm, these divide like a sword. They are the worst, the most devilish, the most puzzling. Ask me again when I go into the hall, will I hate to be parted from you, will I call out the moment I am finished with what I must do? Instead, my love, arrive. Arrive quietly as I finish. Surely that is within your power.
James put the book down. Carlyle was looking at him.
— That is beautiful, he said. What happens next?
— It's the book's end, said James. But I think it is a suicide. The woman is speaking to her lover who is far away.
— This taking leave of life, said Carlyle. For many it is not easy.
Carlyle was wearing a short brown jacket with dark wool pants and a white cotton shirt. He had a hat on indoors, slouched across his head, and had been writing in a book when James arrived.
— I finished reading the manual, said James. It's fascinating.
— Ah, the manual, said Carlyle. There are many opinions, like insects, about the manual. Some flutter but do not fly; some fly but do not flutter. Some stay close to the ground unmoving. It is an old book, you know. From the nineteenth century. The idea had been put into practice once, in England. But not since then, until Stark discovered it and realized it was the perfect way of treating today's illness of chronic lying. And, he thought, a sort of lovely way of living in general. At any rate, he likes it.
— Do you have all the rules memorized? asked James.