Last evening he said: ‘I have to go and see …’ a long complicated story followed. I said: ‘Of course.’ But he went on with the story, and I got annoyed. I knew what it was all about, of course, but I didn’t want to know and that in spite of the fact that I had written the truth in the yellow diary. Then he said, sullen and hostile: ‘You are very permissive, aren’t you?’ He had said it yesterday, and I wrote in the yellow notebook. I said aloud, suddenly: ‘No.’ A blind look came over his face. And I remembered that I knew the blind look, I’d seen it before and not wanted to. The word permissive is so alien to me, it’s got nothing to do with me. He came into my bed late, and I knew he had just come from sleeping with another woman. I said: ‘You’ve slept with another woman, haven’t you?’ He stiffened and said, sullen: ‘No.’ But I didn’t say anything and he said: ‘But it doesn’t mean anything, does it?’ What was strange was, that the man who had said No, defending his freedom, and the man who said, pleading, It doesn’t mean anything, were two men, I couldn’t connect them. I was silent, in the grip of apprehension again, and then a third man said, brotherly and affectionate: ‘Go to sleep now.’

I went to sleep, in obedience to this third friendly man, conscious of two other Annas, separate from the obedient child — Anna, the snubbed woman in love, cold and miserable in some corner of myself, and a curious detached sardonic Anna, looking on and saying: ‘Well, well!’

I slept lightly, with terrible dreams. The dream that kept recurring was myself with the old dwarfed malicious man. In my dream I even nodded a sort of recognition — so there you are, I knew you’d turn up sometime! He had a great protruding penis sticking out through his clothes, it menaced me, was dangerous, because I knew the old man hated me and wanted to hurt me. I woke myself up, tried to calm myself. Saul lay against me, a weight of inert dense cold flesh. He was lying on his back, but even asleep his pose was defensive. In the dim early morning light I could see his face, defensive. I was aware of a sharp sour smell. I thought: it can’t be Saul, he is too fastidious; then I could smell the sourness coming off the flesh of his neck, and I knew it was the smell of fear. He was afraid. In his sleep he was locked in fear, and he began to whimper, like a child afraid. I knew he was ill (though during the week of being happy I had refused to know it) and I felt full of love and compassion and I began rubbing his shoulders and neck into warmth. Towards morning he gets very cold, the cold was coming out of him, with the smell of his being afraid. When he was warmed, I put myself back to sleep, and instantly I was the old man, the old man had become me, but I was also the old woman, so that I was sexless. I was also spiteful and destructive. When I woke, Saul was again cold in my arms, a weight of cold. I had to warm myself out of the terror of the dream before I could warm him. I was saying to myself: I’ve been the malicious old man, and the spiteful old woman, or both together, so now what next? Meanwhile the light had come into the room, a greyish light, and I could see Saul. His flesh which, had he been well, would have been the warm dun-coloured flesh of his type of man — the broad strong fair man, strongly fleshed, was yellowish, loose on the big bones of his face. Suddenly he woke, afraid, out of a dream, and sat up, defensive, looking for enemies. Then he saw me and smiled: I could see how his smile would be on the broad, brown face of Saul Green, healthy. But his smile was yellow and terrified. He made love to me, out of fear. Fear of being alone. It was not the counterfeit love the woman-in-love, that instinctive creature, repudiated, but it was love from fear, and the Anna who was afraid responded, we were two frightened creatures, loving through terror. And my brain was on guard, fearful.