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because the very subject of these communings was that of nonattachment. We both thought to be absolutely pure you had to be absolutely nonattached, not wanting anything for yourself—not possessions, not position, not even the love of another person. Yet here was I, unable to give away something as ordinary as a house. I felt ashamed; so that when Michael, in reply to my silence, said “What’s up?” I said “No it’s okay. If you really want to.” “Well don’t you?” he said, and I knew he was frowning in the dark, stretched out on one side of the boat while I was on the other.
    There was always something dictatorial about Michael in his relation to me. He was so used to my being in complete agreement with him that when I was not, he got irritated. In the past, on the rare occasions when it had happened that I wasn’t 100 percent with him, I would just say “If you want it, I do.” It was true, but he didn’t like to hear it: because he thought agreement had to spring out of inner conviction and not out of love for another person. So it was useless to argue.
    I said “I’m surprised about Lindsay though.” Michael laughed. It was strange—normally, when you wanted something from Lindsay, she would have very good reasons why she couldn’t possibly give it. I knew what was in his mind—if Lindsay of all people was ready for it, surely I wasn’t going to fall behind. Well, I didn’t say anything, but I agreed. At least, I brought forward no objections, though my heart was full of them—my God, on this beautiful summer night, alone in a boat with him, our house visible in the distance, shining by moonlight through the dark trees: but I didn’t stick up for it, because more than anything else, more than any house, I wanted what he wanted. That was how it was between us then.
    Next morning the Rawul was having breakfast alone in the dining room; when I came down, he lifted the napkin from his lap so he could courteously rise from his chair for me. His mouth was full of Mrs. Schwamm’s terrific pancakes, and he could only gesture hospitably toward the sideboard to invite me to help myself: as if it were his house already, I thought. But in a way it was; for when could we ever have had a stately breakfast like this in the dining room, with the silver-topped dishes all polished and laid out on the sideboard? Before his arrival, we used to make do with instant coffee and frozen doughnuts, eaten while perched on a corner of the kitchen table. But the Rawul lived in style, and having a whole entourage with him, he could afford to. They might be called his comrades, his helpers, his followers, but they also functioned very effectively as his servants; so that for the first time in our generation, and even in Lindsay’s, there was a staff large enough to run the house as it was meant to be.
    I expected him to start getting at me about donating Propinquity, but he was too subtle and too well mannered for that. Also perhaps too shy—for that was also there in his character; he was a shy person who found it difficult to make conversation with people, though out of courtesy he always tried. The one topic he really had a lot to say about was his Fourth World movement—whenever that subject came up, he spoke volubly and with passionate conviction; and even if you felt dubious about the whole thing, you could have nodoubt about his sincerity. There was something fanatical about him. The whole idea was fanatical; grandiose—but also grand, on a grand scale: just to think up such an idea and get it going with what was only a handful of people. But maybe that’s how big movements begin, with one person really believing and then others gathering around him till an organization is formed with more and more people joining it; because so many, and maybe everyone, wants to have something or someone to believe in.
    To begin with, as far