Chapter 78

The little model was, in reality, the fourth of Sebastian’s experiments. Looking back over his life, he saw that it took shape, and that, out of the welter, four experiments emerged. (The crowd of other women counted for nothing; they had been merely incidents; inevitable, nauseating in retrospect, and, above all, tedious.) Only four women had made any mark on him; and, now that he could contemplate them detachedly, he observed with interest and surprise that each one had been drawn from a different caste—Sylvia; T…