Angelica Lost and Found

Chapter 13. Extruded, Excluded and Bewildered

Many scents came to me: animals; grass; trees; flowers; fresh water; wooden buildings; bushes. I smelled my way to a great park and there I hid myself in the bushes and tried to think what to do next. I was distracted by a roaring, then I realised that I was doing it: my loss was too great for words. Only roaring and the outpourings of madness could express it. To find Angelica after long centuries only to lose her after a brief moment of happiness! Only those who have possessed and immediately lost the fulfilment of their hopes and desires can know my despair.

Then my lamentation turned to rage. How could Angelica, after what had passed between us, drop me and go off with Vassily Baby! Faithless slut! How could I ever trust a woman again! No, I mustn’t think that, there must be some explanation for her behaviour that will eventually reveal itself to me. Perhaps my power had faded and needed recharging — that would explain much. But not Angelica’s acceptance of Vassily Baby as her lover.

What to do now? No idea; I couldn’t be invisible and I couldn’t fly. And I was hungry. Following my nose I found large, shaggy, horned cattle which I could have killed, but they were too big to be eaten in a single meal and I didn’t want to keep a carcass that was starting to smell. I contented myself, therefore, with such smaller cattle as I could find: frogs; toads; lizards; mice; ducklings. I required a great deal of this sort of provender, so I hunted every night in areas of the park not frequented by visitors or homeless men.

This was certainly a low period in my life and I could see no end to it. I tortured myself calling to mind Angelica, naked, waiting on all fours for me to cover her as the griffin had covered my mother.

‘Yes, Volatore,’ she had said, ‘I am your love.’