“You don’t have to worry,” I said, “I’m indifferent to you.” At the moment I was indifferent to her. If I had spent my days not knowing whether I loved her or was capable of killing her, I had arrived for the moment at that passing calm which teases us that we are cured. I was to feel her loss again; months from now I would catch a quick knife seeing her name on a cinema marquee, reading a word she was supposed to have said in a gossip column, or I would see a girl who by a gesture or a trick of speech would bring back Lulu for me. All this is pointless; what carried the moment was that I was indifferent to Lulu, I thought she could no longer hurt me. So I could be generous, I could say, “I’m indifferent,” and feel the confidence of a man who has lived through a landslide.