-while beyond the barrier Maurice wandered, the wrong words on his lips and the wrong desires in his heart, and his arms full of air. - E. M. Forster

Madness is not for everyone, but Maurice's proved the thunderbolt that dispels the clouds. The storm had been working up not for three days as he supposed, but for six years. It had brewed in the insecurities of being where no eye pierces, his surroundings had thickened it. It had burst and he had not died. The brilliancy of day was around him, he stood upon the mountain range that overshadows youth, he saw.

Vashti was seized with the terrors of direct experience. She shrank back into the room, and the wall closed up again.

Italy and London are the only places where I don't feel to exist on sufferance.