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‘person’ and his attraction to her as an ‘archetype’. She had been a perfect example of ‘thebeautiful young girl’. And he had seen her growing as a person. She was probably right that the archetype was now left behind. She was right to have forebodings about him dying in the Hotel de la Gloria. They had talked about suicide. When he had discussed the pilgrimage with her he had thought, but not said, that he really might die there in the Hotel de la Gloria, that that might be a good point to conclude it.
    Now she had diverted him from that appointment with the Hotel de la Gloria.
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    Compensation for angst. He had told her once on a beach during one of her depressions that he’d found a lot of good things in life which compensated for angst. She’d said, ‘Oh yeah, what are they?’
    He’d told her of the surprises and serendipity of the life of inquiry, the unimaginable twistings of sexuality, about the infinite imagination, endless storytelling and its works, about the weary exhilaration of negotiation, the lateral elegance of the deal, and about the revelations of hunting and of the camp.
    â€˜But you once said volupté was the only solace!’ she said, laughing at him.
    â€˜That too.’
    What would he be able to tell her now, now that he was forty?
    He’d have to say that, while all those things were still true, on some days it was only a tepid curiosity and a tired-hearted buccaneering which carried him on. But maybe they could explore the discipline ofindiscipline together. And he could show her how their relationship had become two footnotes to a poem.

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    â€˜And what is a gutter slut?’ he asked her.
    Belle considered her reply, a frown of concentration coming to her face, the face of a woman in her late twenties but carrying still the pore-less baby face of a ten-year-old and the shining eyes of a teenager. And then she said, ‘A promiscuous person can sometimes be driven by a neurotic need for approval, for an affirmation through sexual contact that they are a “person” or that they are “a lovable person”. They are taking a poll of all the people of the world. I don’t knock that. A slut, though, is a person who enjoys – well, “enjoy” may be too insipid a word – who seeks with a curiosity and vigour powered by lust – seeks to be lost, if only momentarily, in the full reaches of their generalised sexuality, if you follow me, sexuality in all its darkest, anonymous parts. This can be approached by promiscuity but that is not the only route. A slut may begin from a number of starting points, from being an unhappily promiscuous boy or girl or a person seeking defilement as a way of self-punishment. But a true slut has passed from these needs, while still being able to enjoy the theatre of these needs – say, of self-defilement – but has moved on to the larger journey to which there is no end.’
    â€˜But I asked about gutter sluts,’ he said.
    â€˜I’m coming to that,’ she said, with a tutorial tone. ‘A gutter slut – nostalgie de la boue – is the slut who prefers – or is at that point of the journey – which involves sexual life at its lowest, the dirtiest, the poorest, the most physically disgusting – either people or situations or even maybe just ambience …’
    â€˜But why?’ he broke in, ‘why is this part of the journey?’
    â€˜â€¦ You are too impatient,’ she said, ‘and if you don’t understand it is because you have not yet reached this point. It is part of the journey because it is there. There are sexual ambiences which belong with social class and even with occupations. With butchers, for example. The slut is curious. The slut must go there.’
    â€˜But didn’t Gertrude Stein say that when you get there there is no there there?’
    â€˜Believe me,