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  ‘Frau Engels?’ I said. ‘We were talking about you as a matter of fact.’

  “What did she say?’ asked Sig.

  ‘She said she believed you were both orphans.’

  They laughed. Sig’s is the high, hard laugh, the other is a kind of low giggle, rather sexy: it struck me that neither sounded genuinely amused.

  ‘She’s just a stupid old bag,’ said Sig. ‘She fancies Poney, that’s all.’

  ‘She’d like to eat me,’ said Poney, in a bored sort of way. ‘Hardly the verb I’d have chosen,’ said Sig. They talk in a semi-facetious; slangy, private joke sort of way which is often awkward. I suppose that may be how schoolboys talk, I don’t know.

  ‘Aren’t you orphans then?’ I asked.

  ‘We come from respectable middle-class backgrounds,’ said Sig. ‘We live in Epping, my dear, that respectable middle-class suburb where you may be chopped into little pieces as you lie a-sleeping.’

  ‘We were so frightened we ran away from home,’ said Poney in a baby voice. ‘We were afraid of the nasty man with the chopper. We suck our thumbs you see.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Sig as I slowed down.

  ‘I am going to look at the pictures here,’ I said, turning towards the Accademia. ‘There’s nothing much else to do in the fog is there?’

  ‘Do you know one of these palaces is for sale?’ said Sig,

  ‘I had heard it was.’

  ‘We’re thinking of buying it,’ said Sig casually.

  ‘But you must be millionaires!’

  ‘Oh, we’re all right for money,’ said Sig. ‘Cheery-bye.’ They glided away into the fog.

  I can’t make up my mind whether they are ridiculous or offensive. They would be ridiculous but for something peculiar about their partnership. I don’t know whether it is a homosexual relationship or not: it might be that that makes them seem so close, so set apart from the common run of men.

  October 21st

  I cannot sleep. And the fog is still here.

  Last night two girls appeared for dinner at the pensione. The boys were out, but everyone else was there, that is to say, the elderly Italian couple, the two moderately attractive French sisters and the daughter of one of them, the solitary Italian who looks like some sort of minor businessman, and myself. That, with the boys, is the sum of the guests at the moment. An Italian brother and sister who live next door do the waiting, and Frau Engels herself cooks.

  The girls were nice-looking and well dressed. They spoke with American accents. One was dark and curly- haired, the other wore glasses but had quite good features. They both wore little hats. They immediately drew attention to themselves by being appallingly rude. They complained loudly of the dreary decor before they went in to dinner. At dinner they ordered the waiter about most disagreeably and soon sent for Frau Engels herself in order to complain of the food. It annoyed me intensely to see how she took it from them, padding backwards and forwards with a cringing anxiety to please, quite different from her usual frosty attitude towards her guests.

  I finished my meal as quickly as I could and went upstairs. I had not been there long before I heard someone going into the next room, and the sound of voices and laughter. I decided to go and read downstairs. As I passed the boys’ room the door opened. Frau Engels came out laughing and carrying some clothes. Behind her I caught a glimpse of Sig, still half-dressed, in women’s clothes.

  As soon as I saw it I wondered why I had not realised before that the American girls were in fact Sig and Poney. All the same the transformation had been alarmingly convincing. I didn’t really like it. I didn’t like the way they had abused her and she had cringed. I didn’t like their pleasure in having deceived us all. There was no question of throwing off the disguise and allowing us to share the joke: there they were in the bedroom laughing at us. I don’t like them. I don’t know why I ever thought they were nice boys. I think there is something unpleasant about them.

  October 24th

  Sinus trouble back at its very worst. A constant headache that nothing seems to cure. I don’t know why I don’t leave. My will seems to have been weakened by the lowering insinuations of the soggy fog: why doesn’t it go? I wander and wander, waiting for the fog to clear and the sun to come out. I have nothing in my head, no thought, no will, nothing. Except pain. I wander, and lean over bridges, and watch the slack water. Pain pain go away. Come again another day. Immeasurable pain. Last night my dreaming soul was king again.

  I hate those boys. They shouted again last night, something about the king. I think they have orgies up there night after night. There’s something suspicious about the way they are always so clean. Only guilty people wash as much as they do.

  Also they are morbid. They came in this morning as I was drinking coffee in the dreary little sitting-room, and sat down beside me. They were carrying newspapers.

  ‘Haven’t caught him yet, I see,’ said Sig.

  ‘Caught who?’ I asked.

  ‘This murderer.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Aren’t you interested then?’ asked Poney.

  ‘Not particularly,’ I said,

  ‘Don’t you think there’s something about it though?’ said Poney encouragingly. ‘I mean these people lying there safe in their snug little beds in their snug little house, and suddenly bash, bash, they’re all in pieces?’ He gave his rather charming boyish smile. ‘Not interesting?’

  I smiled feebly, too tired to talk to them.

  Sig laughed his nasty laugh and Poney’s smile widened.

  ‘That’ll teach them, won’t it?’ he said.

  ‘Teach them what?’ I said.

  ‘Teach them who’s master,’ said Poney quietly.

  ‘He who wields the axe,’ said Sig.

  ‘Ah,’ said Poney. ‘He must have been a great man all right, that killer, don’t you think so?’

  ‘No,’ I said flatly.

  “Don’t you like us?’ said Sig suddenly.

  ‘Good Heavens I – I hardly know you,’ I said, embarrassed.

  ‘At first you seemed to like us,’ Sig went on, watching me intently. ‘Now you don’t seem so friendly. Do we offend you?’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’

  ‘But there is something about us you find yourself resenting? Have you ever tried hypnosis? For your headaches I mean?’

  ‘How did you know I have headaches?’

  ‘I can see. Have you ever been hypnotised?’ He was staring at me much too hard.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘I should think you’d be a bad subject,’ he said, leaning back in his chair.

  ‘Sig could do it,’ said Poney confidently.

  ‘I could. But no one else. She’d withstand anyone else. What is it about us that annoys you?’

  ‘I think you’re talking nonsense. I’m not annoyed by you.’

  He was leaning forward again. ‘Is it that you feel the power coming from us?’

  ‘Power?’

  That you feel we’re in some way set apart.’

  ‘You seem to feel that yourselves. I had noticed that.’

  ‘Do you know what sets us apart?’ said Sig very quietly. His gaze had become unbearably intense by now. ‘Do you know what it is? Our virtue.’

  A moment’s peculiar silence. And then they both noticeably relaxed, and laughed briefly, and looked like two prankish schoolboys.

  I can’t make them out.

  October 27th

  A horrible day.

  It started well. The fog had cleared and the sun was shining. Everything seemed to have changed. My headache was no better, but I felt calmer, convalescent almost. I took the vaporetto to San Marco and sat in the Piazza to have some coffee. The place was quite crowded; everyone seemed to have gathered there to see Venice reborn.

  I saw the boys moving in my direction, and sat back behind my paper hoping they would pass: but they had seen me, and paused, though they did not sit down.

  ‘Got them yet?’ Poney as