BOOK THREE
Nineteen
IIt’s extraordinary how difficult it is for me to remember what happenedafter that. I mean, the sequence of it all. Up to then, you see, it’s all clear inmy mind. I was a little doubtful where to begin, that was all. But fromthen on it was as though a knife fell, cutting my life into two halves. WhatI went on to from the moment of Ellie’s death seems to me now like some-thing for which I was not prepared. A confusion of thrusting people andelements and happenings where I wasn’t myself in control of anythingany more. Things happened not to me, but all around me. That’s what itseemed like.
Everybody was very kind to me. That seems the thing I remember best. Istumbled about and looked dazed and didn’t know what to do. Greta, I re-member, came into her element. She had that amazing power that womenhave to take charge of a situation and deal with it. Deal, I mean, with allthe small unimportant details that someone has to see to. I would havebeen incapable¹ of seeing to them.
I think the first thing I remembered clearly after they’d taken Ellie awayand I’d got back to my house—our house—the house—was when Dr. Shawcame along and talked to me. I don’t know how long after that was. Hewas quiet, kind, reasonable. Just explaining things clearly and gently.
Arrangements. I remember his using the word arrangements. What ahateful word it is and all the things it stands for. The things in life thathave grand words—Love—sex—life—death—hate—those aren’t the thingsthat govern existence at all. It’s lots of other pettifogging, degrading things.
Things you have to endure, things you never think about until they hap-pen to you. Undertakers, arrangements for funerals, inquests. And ser-vants coming into rooms and pulling the blinds down. Why should blindsbe pulled down because Ellie was dead? Of all the stupid things!
That was why, I remember, I felt quite grateful to Dr. Shaw. He dealtwith such things so kindly² and sensibly, explaining gently why certainthings like an inquest had to be. Talking rather slowly, I remember, so thathe could be quite sure I was taking them in.
II
I didn’t know what an inquest would be like. I’d never been to one. Itseemed to me curiously³ unreal, amateurish⁴. The Coroner was a smallfussy little man with pincenez. I had to give evidence of identification, todescribe the last time I had seen Ellie at the breakfast table and her depar-ture for her usual morning ride and the arrangement we had made tomeet later for lunch. She had seemed, I said, exactly the same as usual, inperfectly good health.

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