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been?”
    “No, no. Nothing of the kind. People and places I’m waiting to invent. Names, I find, can be so provocative. Take the name Bleat, for instance. It occurred to me while riding on a train. What does one think of first?”
    “Sheep.”
    “Precisely. But it’s someone’s name. Can you see him?”
    “None too kindly, I’m afraid. Face like a sheep, Isuppose. Head too close to his shoulders. Small, worried eyes. Hands at his sides. Wearing gloves…”
    “Black gloves.” James nodded.
    “Black gloves, yes.”
    “Black shoes?”
    “Yes. With spats.”
    “Grey spats, of course. Bleat wears nothing but black and grey, I should think. Never white. Sheep are never truly white.”
    “That’s right. Never white.”
    I waited. James’s eyes shifted to one side. I wondered if we had done with Bleat, but—no.
    “What sort of shape do you see?” he asked me.
    “Round,” I said. “Not fat, but round.”
    “Not a tall man.”
    “No. Not tall at all.”
    “But not a dwarf.”
    “No. Not a dwarf.”
    “And you say he’s round?”
    “Yes. Round. Looks as if he has to lie on the floor in order to put on his overcoat. Rolls himself into it. Can’t do up the buttons.”
    “His man must do that for him.”
    “That and get him to his feet. Yes.”
    “Wears a homburg,” James added.
    “Carries it. Never quite sure what to do with it.”
    “Black wool collar.”
    “Absolutely. Lamb.”
    “I suspect he complains a lot.”
    “Endlessly, I should think.”
    “Wet-eyed…”
    “And worried. Yes.”
    “Ever met him?”
    “Well, no,” I said. “He doesn’t exist.”
    “He does now.” James slid his eyes in my direction and gave a childlike smile. Almost smug.
    I laughed.
    “You see, then, the value of my lists,” he said.
    “Indeed I do. I’ve often wondered where writers get their characters’ names.”
    “Most come with them,” he said. “Isabel Archer, for instance. I shall never forget the day she walked into my mind and said: I’m here, now. You may begin. It was very much as though I were a painter and she had come to sit for me in my studio.”
    “ The Portrait of a Lady .”
    “Yes. I knew her instantly by name. She might have left her calling card the day before—a week before. A month. I seemed to have been expecting her arrival. Not that I knew her entirely all at once, but knew that she was fascinating to me. Had drawn me towards her after various sightings—teasing glimpses—anecdotes and rumours of her existence. It seemed, in my head, as though others had spoken of her. As if, you know, she were real and I were the last to hear of her. Her name is Isabel Archer, inner voices informed me. Are you interested? Yes, I said. Yes. She comes with a great deal of money, the voices went on—money—tragedy—intrigue—desolation…I had to stop them while I rushed for paper. And there you have it. Do you understand? A face is seen—a figure—then you hear a name and the gossip in you wants to know it all. Thewhole sordid tale. Or sad. Or wonderful. Whatever. Isabel Archer—monied and beautiful—or penniless and plain. Which? An American, of course, caught up in the social coils of sophisticated European treachery and home-grown American greed. And what is to become of her? There she sits before you—smiling and seemingly poised—and that is all you know. And then—you begin to write.”
    “You make it sound almost too easy,” I said. I had not enjoyed the story of Isabel Archer, though of course I could not say so. The ending was too painful, however true to life, and I had closed the book with a deep sense of moral frustration. Not that I live a moral life, but I do expect it of others. Don’t we all?
    James said: “you need only look around this drawing-room at all the people gathered here to see how difficult it really is. Reading a face. Reading a gesture. What can you tell me of any one of them? Less than you may imagine, Pilgrim—even though you may think you