Even in my disconsolate state, I considered going to my pupil in an attempt to turn her away from her false ideas, to take her hand and lead her with me toward the bright lamps of knowledge and truth. But all my previous attempts, my tireless efforts to instruct her and encourage the autonomy of her mind, seemed to mock me cruelly.
Defeated and confused, with the excuse that I suffered from the fatigue of my journey from Geneva, I repaired to my room. Alas, little rest did I find there, so closely in my mind did I link it with Rameau's niece and the lessons we had shared in that place.
Unable to remain still, walking up and down, sitting, then rising again, I determined to leave the house of the Marquise de-, to return to Paris immediately.
My things had yet to be completely unpacked, and so very little preparation was necessary. I waited for the mail to arrive, then informed my hostess and the assembled company, which included my promising, ah, too promising, pupil, that I had received notice that I was wanted right away in Paris on further business, and I was not questioned.
Farewell, little pupil, I thought. And good-bye as well to philosophy. No longer would the thrill of enlightening a young mind be mine. No longer would I struggle with a problem of understanding, tired but persevering until, at last, truth broke through ignorance, bursting forth as the sun bursts from the clouds.
Margaret felt her forehead. Surely she had a fever. No, she didn't have a fever. No such luck. She was just hot and miserable and nothing. The phone rang, but she didn't answer it. She took a shower. Just like Edward, she thought. Then she took another. Neither shower worked. Edward was still gone. She was still a fool.
What had she been doing all these months, chasing after men and women, running away from Edward? Why? Well, if one hopes to find the answer, to find the meaning, one must understand the use. But what use was it?
The phone kept ringing, on and off, all day, six rings each time before the machine answered. Margaret couldn't stand it. It interrupted her woe. Ding-a-ling-a-ling. Ding-a-ling-a-ling. It rang as the clocks chimed. It rang after the clocks had signed off. She finally turned down all the bells on all the phones. Then, having taken two showers, she realized she had to do something different, so she took a bath.
She lay in Richard's tub in his bathroom with the black and white tiles and looked at her feet. She had looked at her feet in the bathtub in Prague. Now they were the feet of a fool.
There was nothing to eat. Margaret had not eaten anything but peaches and brownies and wine for two days. Imagine someone who actually cleaned out the refrigerator before going away, who edited the refrigerator. Nothing. Not a frozen pea. She'd have to go out. But she couldn't go out to a restaurant, crying and throwing herself dramatically on couches here and there. Restaurants didn't have couches.
I will have to order in. Just like the old days. From the Greek coffee shop. Surely there is a Greek coffee shop nearby. But what is it called? She looked in the phone book under American Restaurant, Athens Restaurant, Three Guys, Two Guys, Four Guys Restaurant. What do they call coffee shops on the East Side? One Guy?
She lay down on Richard's bed, exhausted. His room had air-conditioning. His bedroom was large and clean and charming, and she would stay here forever and watch the hands on the clocks make their endless journeys. Richard could stay in the maid's room. He wouldn't mind. He would understand. She smiled. Richard loved her and looked after her in a bustling, disapproving way, but even in her present mood, she had to smile at the absurdity of the thought of Richard sacrificing his beautiful bedroom to her and moving into the maid's room.
The phone must be ringing again. Margaret heard the click as the machine answered it. It was right by the bed, but she had turned the volume all the way down. She didn't want to hear any of Richard's conversations with anyone but herself. The fact that Richard was anything other than her editor continued to diminish him in her eyes.
She went back into the maid's room and sat at the card table. She looked through her notebooks. In a margin, she had written out a quotation about empiricism but had not written where it came from: "Naive realism leads to physics," it said, "and physics, if true, shows that naive realism is false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false." You can say that again, Margaret thought.
"Margaret?"
It was Richard, home from the Berkshires. She heard keys, paper bags crinkling, footsteps.
"Margaret, are you here?"
Margaret sat on the bed at the card table and hoped Richard would not notice she had been crying. Had she left wet towels on his bed? How puffy were her eyes? Of course he'd notice, and then she'd have to explain.
Richard appeared in the doorway of the hideous slave quarters. At the sound of his sweet, questioning voice, at the sight of him, Margaret felt the loneliness of her miserable state with an abrupt, sickening clarity. Here was Richard, her friend, the only friend she had left.
"Oh, Richard!" she cried out. She threw herself into his arms and wept. "Richard, what am I going to do?"