The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake [553]
But Titus, taking no notice, held her closer than ever while her cheekbones swam with tears. But her voice was steady.
‘Leave me, Titus. I would rather be alone,’ she said.
‘I will never forget you,’ said Titus, his hands trembling. ‘But I must go. Our love is too intense. I am a coward. I cannot take it. I am selfish but not ungrateful. Forgive me, Juno – and say good-bye.’
But Juno, directly he released her, turned from him and, walking to the window, took out a mirror from her handbag.
‘Good-bye,’ said Titus.
Again there was no reply.
The blood rushed into the boy’s head, and hardly knowing what he was doing he ran from the room and down the stairs and out into a winter afternoon.
FORTY-SIX
So Titus fled from Juno. Out of the garden and down the riverside road he kept on running. A sense of both shame and liberation filled him as he ran. Shame that he had deserted his mistress after all the kindness and love she had showered on him; and liberation in finding himself alone, with no one to weigh him down with affection.
But after a little while, his sense of aloneness was not altogether pleasurable. He was aware that something was missing. Something that he had half forgotten during his stay at Juno’s house. It was nothing to do with Juno. It was a feeling that in leaving her he had once again to face the problem of his own identity. He was a part of something bigger than himself. He was a chip of stone, but where was the mountain from which it had broken away? He was the leaf but where was the tree? Where was his home? Where was his home?
Hardly knowing where he was going, he found after a long while that he was drawing near to that network of streets that surrounded Muzzlehatch’s house and zoo; but before he reached that tortuous quarter he became aware of something else.
The road down which he stumbled was long and straight with high, windowless walls. The lines of perspective converged not many degrees from the skyline.
There was no one ahead of him in spite of the length of the road, but it seemed that he was no longer alone. Something had joined him. He turned as he ran, and at first saw nothing, for he had focused his eyes upon the distance. Then all at once he halted, for he became aware of something floating beside him, at the height of his shoulders.
It was a sphere no bigger than the clenched fist of a child, and was composed of some transparent substance, so pellucid that it was only visible in certain lights, so that it seemed to come and go.
Dumbfounded, Titus drew aside from the centre of the road until he could feel the northern wall at his back. For a few moments he leaned there seeing no sign of the glassy sphere, until suddenly, there it was again, hovering above him.
This time as Titus watched it he could see that it was filled with glittering wires, an incredible filigree like frost on a pane; and then as a cloud moved over the sun, and a dim, sullen light filled the windowless street, the little hovering globe began to throb with a strange light like a glow-worm.
At first, Titus had been more amazed than frightened by the mobile globe which had appeared out of nowhere, and followed or seemed to follow every movement he made; but then fear began to make his legs feel weak, for he realized that he was being watched not by the globe itself, for the globe was only an agent, but by some remote informer who was at this very moment receiving messages. It was this that turned Titus’ fear into anger, and he swung back his arms as though to strike the elusive thing which hovered like a bird of paradise.
At the moment that Titus raised his hand, the sun came out again, and the little glittering globe with its coloured entrails of exquisite wire slid out of range, and hovered again as though it were an eyeball watching every move.
Then, as though restless, it sped, revolving on its axis, to the far end of the street where it turned about immediately and sang its way back to where it hung again five feet from Titus, who, fishing his knuckle