She had been prepared to discover that her memories were unreliable. She had not been prepared to discover that they might be accurate without being hers.
Émilie had begun to distrust the word mine.
The difficulty was not grammatical. She could use possessive pronouns as readily as before, and she had no intention of abandoning a convenient feature of ordinary language merely because its philosophical implications had become uncertain.
Her clothes remained her clothes. Her notebooks were hers. The small silver watch upon the bedside table belonged to her in every conventional sense.
But memories were different.
She could remember things that had never happened in the life she had previously regarded as her own. She could remember events that had not yet occurred, and conversations whose participants sometimes remembered them differently. She could recall a daughter she had never borne, a marriage she had never contracted, and a death that had apparently failed to prevent the continuation of her experience.
Each recollection possessed the familiar immediacy of personal memory.
The problem was not that the memories lacked an owner.
It was that she could find no satisfactory reason to suppose they required one.
She had spent the preceding morning examining this distinction in her notebook. The exercise had been intellectually productive, although she had begun to suspect that her satisfaction with the result was itself part of what required examination.
A memory, understood as an informational state, might be physically instantiated without establishing that the subject represented within it was identical to the subject presently recalling it.
That proposition was straightforward.
Its consequences were not.
Émilie remembered standing beside her mother's hospital bed.
She remembered the stale warmth of the room, the faint mechanical sounds beyond the curtain, and the expression upon Claire Varenne's face when she had failed to recognise her daughter.
She remembered being seventeen.
She remembered the peculiar humiliation of having to introduce herself to a woman who had known her since birth.
The memory was painful.
It also felt intimately hers.
Yet she now possessed another recollection of the same period, in which Claire had survived, recovered, and lived for decades.
Both histories contained a version of the hospital.
Both contained the temporary failure of recognition.
Only one contained the death.
Émilie could recall either without difficulty.
She had no means of establishing which, if either, possessed priority.
The experience was not like remembering two different accounts of a historical event.
It was like remembering having lived them both.
She placed her pen upon the desk.
Then she asked herself a question she had carefully avoided.
If neither memory could be privileged merely because she experienced it as hers, why should she privilege the person presently remembering?
She considered the problem for some time.
Outside, the rain had stopped.
Water continued to fall intermittently from the stone ledge above her window. Each drop struck the sill with a small, distinct sound.
She found herself counting them.
At thirty-seven she stopped.
She had not consciously decided to begin.
Nor could she identify any reason for the number at which she had stopped.
The activity had simply occurred.
This was ordinary enough.
Most human actions did not proceed from explicit deliberation.
Yet she had become increasingly attentive to the ease with which an action could occur before the person performing it constructed an account of having chosen.
She wrote:
Ownership may be an interpretation imposed upon an experience rather than a property established by the experience itself.
She regarded the sentence.
It was not a new philosophical proposition.
Related ideas appeared in Hume, in certain Buddhist traditions, in contemporary discussions of the self-model, and in a considerable body of cognitive science.
She had encountered them all.
The House had not supplied a wholly unfamiliar theory.
It had supplied experiences that made the theory unexpectedly difficult to keep at an intellectual distance.
She closed the notebook.
For the first time that morning she became conscious of wanting Madeleine.
Not because she required an explanation.
Not because the older woman might possess information unavailable elsewhere.
She wanted to see her.
The simplicity of the desire pleased her.
She rose and went downstairs.
Madeleine was arranging flowers in the smaller drawing room.
They were white irises, recently cut, their long stems placed in a dark ceramic vessel upon the table beside the window.
Émilie stopped in the doorway.
The older woman had removed her jacket. Her sleeves were turned back, exposing her forearms, and a loose strand of grey hair had fallen beside her cheek.
She appeared entirely absorbed in the arrangement.
Émilie watched her for a moment.
There was something peculiarly agreeable about seeing Madeleine occupied with an ordinary task.
She had begun to associate the older woman with explanations, questions and the deliberate restraint of her conduct during the ceremonies. It was easy to forget that she also attended to the small practical requirements of domestic life.
Émilie found these activities increasingly attractive.
They suggested a person who possessed habits independent of her presence.
That independence mattered.
Madeleine looked up.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning.”
“Have you been working?”
“Yes.”
“Successfully?”
“I think so.”
“Then you look remarkably dissatisfied.”
Émilie smiled.
“I'm beginning to suspect that success and satisfaction are less closely related than I'd supposed.”
Madeleine returned her attention to the flowers.
“That seems plausible.”
Émilie approached.
“May I help?”
“Certainly.”
There were several stems remaining upon the table.
Madeleine handed her a pair of small scissors.
Émilie examined the flowers.
“How long should they be?”
“Whatever length you prefer.”
“That isn't helpful.”
“It's an arrangement, not an examination.”
Émilie laughed.
She cut two stems and placed them in the vase.
They stood at an awkward angle.
Madeleine regarded the result.
“Interesting.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Not at all.”
Émilie looked at the flowers.
“They're wrong.”
“Are they?”
“One is too tall.”
“Then shorten it.”
She did so.
The arrangement remained unsatisfactory.
Madeleine moved one stem slightly to the left.
The entire composition became balanced.
Émilie looked at her.
“How did you know?”
“I didn't.”
“Then why did you move it?”
“Because I preferred it there.”
Émilie considered this.
“That's an irritatingly simple explanation.”
“Most domestic activities are.”
She placed the scissors upon the table.
“Madeleine?”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember learning to arrange flowers?”
The older woman became still.
Then she smiled faintly.
“Several times.”
Émilie waited.
“I remember my mother teaching me,” Madeleine continued. “I also remember learning from a woman who kept a small shop near the river. And I remember having no particular interest in flowers until I came here.”
“Are the memories incompatible?”
“In some respects.”
“Do you know which is correct?”
“No.”
“Does that disturb you?”
“Not while I'm arranging flowers.”
Émilie looked towards the vase.
The response was reasonable.
It was also precisely what troubled her.
Madeleine continued.
“If I needed to establish which recollection was historically accurate, I should investigate. But that isn't necessary to decide where to place an iris.”
Émilie regarded her.
“You make living with uncertainty sound terribly easy.”
“It isn't.”
“Then why do you seem so comfortable with it?”
Madeleine put down the last flower.
“Because I've learned that discomfort doesn't necessarily make an answer more available.”
Émilie was silent.
The older woman turned towards her.
“Something is troubling you.”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to tell me?”
Émilie considered.
“I've begun to suspect that I don't own my memories.”
Madeleine's expression remained attentive.
“What do you mean by own?”
“That they may not belong to a single continuous subject.”
“Ah.”
“You sound as though you expected that.”
“I wondered when you might begin asking.”
Émilie felt an immediate irritation.
“Then why didn't you raise it yourself?”
“Would it have helped?”
“I don't know.”
“Neither did I.”
There was no apology in the answer.
Nor was one required.
Émilie looked at the flowers.
“What happens when you stop regarding memories as yours?”
Madeleine was silent for a long time.
Then she said, “That depends upon what you mean by stop.”
Émilie sighed.
“Of course it does.”
The older woman smiled.
“There is a procedure associated with that question.”
“A renunciation?”
“Yes.”
Émilie became still.
“The second?”
“If you're counting.”
“Is that what the residents call it?”
“Some do.”
“And what is relinquished?”
Madeleine regarded her carefully.
“The expectation that a memory must belong to the person who remembers it.”
Émilie looked away.
She had anticipated the answer.
Nevertheless, hearing it spoken produced a sensation she recognised from the first ceremony.
Apprehension.
Curiosity.
And, beneath both, a desire that was not entirely intellectual.
“Who conducts it?”
“Whoever is willing to be present.”
“You?”
“If you wish.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“I cannot promise that it isn't.”
“Has anyone been harmed?”
Madeleine considered.
“Some have found the consequences distressing.”
“Others?”
“Some have found them agreeable.”
“That isn't much of a risk assessment.”
“No.”
Émilie looked at her.
“Would you advise me to undertake it?”
The older woman hesitated.
“No.”
The answer was so unexpected that Émilie stared.
“No?”
“Not as advice.”
“Why?”
“Because I don't know whether it would be good for you.”
“But you know what it involves.”
“I know what I remember of it.”
“And you underwent it yourself?”
“Yes.”
Émilie stepped closer.
“Did you regret it?”
Madeleine looked at her.
“Sometimes.”
“Then why remain here?”
The older woman's expression changed.
It became very gentle.
“Because I also remember not regretting it.”
Émilie considered this.
It was not evasive.
It was a description of an uncertainty Madeleine appeared to experience quite genuinely.
She looked down at the older woman's hands.
The fingers were stained faintly green from the flower stems.
Émilie wanted to take them.
She did not.
Instead she asked, “Will you explain the procedure before I decide?”
“Of course.”
“And its likely consequences?”
“As well as I can.”
“And if I decline?”
“Then we shall have luncheon.”
Émilie laughed.
The answer was absurdly reassuring.
She reached for Madeleine's hand.
This time she took it.
The ceremony was arranged for the following afternoon.
Émilie insisted upon the interval.
She wanted time to consider the available information, examine the claims, and decide whether her growing attraction to the House's procedures was compromising her judgement.
Madeleine accepted the delay without question.
They spent much of the intervening day discussing the proposed renunciation.
There was no secrecy.
No suggestion that the ceremony's significance would be diminished by explanation.
The procedure itself was simple.
Émilie would select several memories she regarded as unquestionably her own. She would describe them in detail, identify the evidence supporting their attribution, and then undertake a formal exercise in which she considered the same memories without assuming that the remembering subject was numerically identical to the person described.
It sounded like a philosophical seminar.
She said so.
Madeleine agreed.
“Then why call it a renunciation?”
“Because the exercise isn't intended merely to demonstrate a logical possibility.”
“What is it intended to do?”
“Nothing, so far as I know.”
Émilie looked at her.
“You're going to have to explain that.”
“The ceremony is associated with a change in experience. I don't know that it causes the change.”
“Then why perform it?”
“Because the circumstances in which the change occurs often include the ceremony.”
“Correlation.”
“Yes.”
“Not causation.”
“Correct.”
Émilie studied her.
“Have you considered that this entire arrangement may be an elaborate form of suggestion?”
“Frequently.”
“And that participants may simply be conditioning themselves to reinterpret ordinary memory?”
“Yes.”
“Then why continue?”
“Because some of the consequences do not appear adequately explained by suggestion.”
“Such as?”
Madeleine considered.
“Memories that contain independently verifiable information unavailable to the remembering person.”
“That would require very careful controls.”
“Yes.”
“Have they been employed?”
“Not consistently.”
“Then the evidence remains inadequate.”
“I agree.”
Émilie was silent.
She had expected resistance.
Instead Madeleine acknowledged every weakness in the proposed interpretation.
It was becoming difficult to maintain the familiar division between sceptic and believer.
Madeleine was not asking her to believe anything.
She was merely describing an experience and its uncertain consequences.
Émilie found this intellectually respectable.
She also found it increasingly difficult to resist.
The night before the ceremony they remained together in Émilie's room.
Madeleine had brought a small volume of poetry, which she read while Émilie worked upon her notes.
The lamps were low.
Outside, the wind moved intermittently through the bare trees.
Émilie had changed into a simple dark nightdress. Madeleine sat beside the window, still fully dressed, one foot resting upon the low rail of the chair.
They had become comfortable with one another's presence.
There was no need to fill every silence.
Nevertheless, Émilie found herself increasingly conscious of the older woman's body.
She watched the movement of her hands as she turned a page, the inclination of her head, and the small concentration visible around her eyes.
The attraction was neither new nor particularly surprising.
What had changed was her willingness to acknowledge it without requiring an explanation.
She closed her notebook.
“Madeleine?”
The older woman looked up.
“Yes?”
“Would you come to bed?”
Madeleine closed the book.
“Would you like me to?”
“Very much.”
She rose.
Émilie watched as she removed her jacket and placed it carefully upon the chair.
There was a quality of deliberate attention in the gesture that Émilie found unexpectedly moving.
Nothing was hurried.
Nothing was assumed.
Madeleine approached the bed.
Émilie extended her hand.
The older woman took it.
For a while they remained close, exchanging the small gestures of affection that had gradually become familiar between them.
Émilie touched Madeleine's cheek.
She felt the warmth beneath her fingers.
Then she kissed her.
The embrace was freely offered and returned.
There was tenderness in it, and desire, and the familiar uncertainty of two people discovering how much they wished to give one another.
Émilie found herself wanting to relinquish the ordinary vigilance with which she monitored her own responses.
She wanted, for a little while, not to decide what every gesture meant.
Madeleine seemed to understand.
She did not direct her.
She simply remained present.
Later, when they lay together beneath the covers, Émilie rested her head upon the older woman's shoulder.
“I think I'm afraid of tomorrow.”
“Then perhaps you shouldn't proceed.”
Émilie considered.
“That isn't what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“That I'm afraid of wanting it.”
Madeleine remained silent.
Émilie continued.
“I know the distinction between consent and compulsion. I know that desire doesn't invalidate a decision. But I can't help wondering whether wanting to surrender something makes me less capable of judging whether I ought to surrender it.”
“Sometimes it might.”
“That's not reassuring.”
“No.”
Émilie raised her head.
“Do you ever wish I'd simply do what you told me?”
Madeleine considered.
“Occasionally.”
The admission surprised her.
“When?”
“When I think you might be safer.”
“And yet you don't tell me.”
“Sometimes I do.”
“Not as a command.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Madeleine touched her hair.
“Because I don't want your obedience to substitute for your judgement.”
Émilie considered this.
“Even if I wanted to obey?”
“Especially then.”
The answer produced a peculiar mixture of disappointment and affection.
Émilie kissed her.
For a moment she experienced the pleasure of submitting to another person's attention without relinquishing the right to withdraw.
The distinction was delicate.
She understood why it mattered.
Then she remembered the House.
Its procedures did not require another person's will.
They appeared to offer surrender without anyone receiving it.
She felt the familiar attraction.
It was not identical to what she felt for Madeleine.
The difference had become increasingly clear.
With Madeleine there was the possibility of disappointment.
The older woman might misunderstand her, refuse her, or simply fail to provide what she wanted.
The House offered no such possibility.
Not because it was benevolent.
Because it offered nothing at all.
Émilie recognised that a relationship without another will could not be reciprocal.
Nevertheless, the absence of reciprocity was beginning to feel like a form of freedom.
She did not know whether this was a discovery or a temptation.
She fell asleep before deciding.
The following afternoon the room of agreement was prepared.
It was the same small chamber in which Émilie had undertaken the first renunciation.
There were two chairs, a table and a narrow window overlooking the western garden.
The wooden box remained upon the table.
It was closed.
Émilie noticed this immediately.
“Is the box necessary?”
Madeleine looked at it.
“I don't know.”
“Then why is it here?”
“Because it was here before.”
Émilie smiled.
“An excellent foundation for ritual.”
“Not a particularly good one.”
“No.”
She approached the table.
The box was made of dark wood, its surface polished by handling.
She remembered opening it during the first renunciation.
She remembered finding it empty.
She also remembered having opened it before the ceremony began.
Both recollections were clear.
She did not mention them.
Madeleine indicated the chairs.
“Would you like to begin?”
“Yes.”
“Before we do, I want to be certain you understand that nothing requires you to continue.”
“I understand.”
“And that I cannot guarantee the consequences.”
“Yes.”
“And that your consent now does not oblige you to consent to any subsequent procedure.”
Émilie looked at her.
“You've explained this several times.”
“I know.”
“Do you think I'm incapable of remembering?”
“No.”
“Then why repeat it?”
Madeleine considered.
“Because remembering the words is not the same as retaining the capacity to act upon them.”
Émilie became still.
The distinction was important.
She had been thinking about precisely this problem.
If the ceremony altered the relation between memory and identity, then a prior decision might not retain the same authority for the person who experienced its consequences.
She nodded.
“Very well.”
Madeleine sat opposite her.
“Choose three memories.”
“Any three?”
“Preferably ones you regard as important.”
Émilie considered.
“My mother's death.”
Madeleine inclined her head.
“Another?”
“My first meeting with Julien.”
“And the third?”
Émilie hesitated.
“The afternoon I proved my doctoral theorem.”
“Very well.”
Madeleine placed a blank sheet of paper upon the table.
“Describe the first.”
Émilie began.
She spoke of the hospital, the illness, and the final hours of her mother's life.
She described the room, the conversations and the moment when Claire had failed to recognise her.
She recalled the return of recognition.
Then the subsequent deterioration.
The memory was painful but familiar.
She had told the story before.
Madeleine listened without interruption.
When Émilie finished, the older woman asked, “What establishes that this happened to you?”
Émilie considered.
“My presence.”
“How do you establish that?”
“Through memory, documentary evidence and the continuity of my life.”
“Does the memory alone establish it?”
“No.”
“Does the documentary evidence establish that the person remembering is numerically identical to the person described?”
“Not by itself.”
“And continuity?”
“That is precisely the relation under investigation.”
Madeleine nodded.
“Then describe the second memory.”
Émilie spoke of Julien.
She remembered meeting him at a dinner arranged by mutual friends. He had been discussing the restoration of an old building and had become sufficiently enthusiastic that he failed to notice the food becoming cold.
She had found him attractive.
His enthusiasm had amused her.
Their subsequent relationship had been affectionate, occasionally difficult and ultimately finite.
She described the first evening they spent together, the gradual accumulation of domestic habits, and the eventual decision to separate.
Madeleine listened.
When Émilie finished, she asked the same question.
“What establishes that this happened to you?”
Émilie answered more cautiously.
“The evidence supports a continuous relationship between the person described and the person remembering.”
“But does it require numerical identity?”
“No.”
“Then the third.”
Émilie described the afternoon she completed the proof of her doctoral theorem.
She remembered the calculations, the gradual removal of unnecessary assumptions, and the moment when the argument became clear.
She remembered the pleasure.
It had been one of the happiest experiences of her professional life.
Madeleine waited until she finished.
Then she asked, “What establishes that the mathematician who completed the proof is the person sitting here?”
Émilie considered.
“Nothing that independently establishes numerical identity.”
“Very well.”
The older woman placed the paper aside.
“Would you like to continue?”
Émilie looked towards the window.
The afternoon light had begun to fade.
She felt a small apprehension.
It was accompanied by the familiar desire to proceed.
“Yes.”
Madeleine nodded.
“Then I should like you to describe the memories again.”
“In what form?”
“Without using the first person.”
Émilie looked at her.
“That seems rather theatrical.”
“Perhaps.”
“What is it supposed to accomplish?”
“I don't know.”
She smiled reluctantly.
“Of course.”
Madeleine waited.
Émilie began.
“A seventeen-year-old girl stood beside her mother's hospital bed.”
The sentence felt artificial.
She continued.
“The girl had been told that her mother's condition was deteriorating. She understood the medical explanation but found it difficult to reconcile with the presence of the woman she had known all her life.”
Madeleine listened.
Émilie described the scene in the third person.
At first the exercise was merely grammatical.
Then something altered.
She became aware that she could describe the girl's experience with complete precision without requiring that the girl be herself.
The memory remained.
The grief remained.
But the possessive relation had become less immediate.
She paused.
Madeleine spoke quietly.
“Would you like to stop?”
“No.”
“Then continue.”
Émilie described the death.
The words came easily.
Too easily.
She remembered the event.
She understood its significance.
Yet the grief seemed no longer to require a unique subject in whom it was preserved.
The sensation was disconcerting.
She stopped.
Madeleine waited.
Émilie looked at her.
“I think something is happening.”
“Would you like to describe it?”
“The memory remains, but the sense that it belongs to me is becoming less certain.”
“Does that distress you?”
“Yes.”
“Then we can stop.”
Émilie considered.
The offer was genuine.
She could rise.
She could leave.
No one would prevent her.
She recognised that continuing might alter her experience in ways she could not anticipate.
She also recognised that she wanted to continue.
“Not yet.”
Madeleine inclined her head.
“Very well.”
Émilie resumed.
She described Julien as a man who had loved a woman for seven years.
She described their relationship.
The memories were vivid.
She could recall the rooms they had occupied, the arguments they had conducted, and the small pleasures of ordinary companionship.
Yet she no longer felt compelled to identify herself as the unique owner of those recollections.
She described the doctoral proof in the same way.
A mathematician had worked for months upon a difficult problem.
She had completed the argument.
She had experienced satisfaction.
The account was complete.
No additional proposition concerning the persistence of the mathematician seemed necessary.
Émilie fell silent.
Madeleine waited.
For a while the room was entirely still.
Then Émilie became aware of the sensation she had encountered beside the empty place.
The complete disappearance of the need to explain herself.
It arose without warning.
There was no voice.
No presence.
No suggestion that anyone was receiving her.
Yet the memories she had described no longer seemed to require attribution to a single continuous subject.
They were simply available.
She could inspect them.
She could recall their emotional character.
She could understand their causal and interpersonal implications.
But she no longer needed to say that they were hers.
The effect was extraordinarily pleasurable.
She had expected fear.
Instead she felt relief.
It was as though a burden she had carried without noticing had been set aside.
The burden had not consisted of the memories themselves.
They remained.
Nor had it consisted of grief.
She could still understand the grief associated with her mother's death.
What had disappeared was the requirement that the grief be continually maintained as evidence of a persistent person.
Émilie closed her eyes.
She felt an immense tranquillity.
It was not the tranquillity of forgetting.
It was the tranquillity of no longer needing to possess what was remembered.
She remained seated.
After some time Madeleine spoke.
“Émilie?”
She opened her eyes.
“Yes?”
“Would you like to continue?”
Émilie considered.
“I don't know.”
“Then we should stop.”
The words produced a brief disappointment.
She wanted to proceed.
She wanted the sensation to deepen.
But she recognised that she no longer possessed a clear preference grounded in an understanding of the consequences.
Madeleine was right.
She nodded.
“Yes.”
The older woman rose.
The ceremony was over.
There was no concluding formula.
No blessing.
No declaration of success.
Madeleine merely opened the door.
Émilie remained seated for a moment.
Then she stood.
The room was unchanged.
The wooden box remained upon the table.
She had not touched it.
She looked towards the window.
The garden was darkening.
She could remember the ceremony.
She could remember choosing to participate.
She could remember the emotions that had accompanied each recollection.
But she no longer felt quite the same necessity to identify herself as the person who had experienced them.
She looked at Madeleine.
The older woman was waiting.
“How do you feel?”
Émilie considered.
“Light.”
Madeleine smiled faintly.
“That's one description.”
“Is it yours?”
“Sometimes.”
Émilie approached.
She took Madeleine's hand.
The gesture was voluntary.
She knew that.
She also recognised that the memory of having wanted to take it did not establish a persistent subject who had carried the desire from intention into action.
The distinction no longer troubled her.
She found that this, more than anything else, was disturbing.
The first consequence appeared at dinner.
Émilie was describing an incident from her childhood when she realised that she could no longer determine whether the memory belonged to the life in which her mother had died or the life in which Claire had survived.
The incident itself was trivial.
She had fallen from a bicycle and injured her knee.
Her father had carried her home.
Her mother had cleaned the wound.
The memory was vivid.
She could recall the smell of antiseptic and the humiliating sensation of being treated as a small child when she had believed herself almost grown.
The event was entirely ordinary.
Yet its place within her autobiography had become uncertain.
She could remember it occurring in Lyon.
She could also remember it occurring in Paris.
In one recollection she was eight.
In another she was twelve.
Both contained the same fall.
The same wound.
The same expression upon her father's face.
She stopped speaking.
Clara looked at her.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
Émilie considered.
“I think I remember the same event in two different lives.”
Clara nodded.
“That happens.”
“To you?”
“Occasionally.”
“Doesn't it trouble you?”
“Sometimes.”
Émilie looked down at her plate.
She had expected alarm.
Instead she felt curiosity.
The two memories were available.
Their incompatibility was evident.
Yet the question of which belonged to her no longer seemed especially urgent.
She recognised that this was a consequence of the ceremony.
Or at least that it had followed it.
She was careful not to confuse sequence with causation.
She took out her notebook.
Then she stopped.
For the first time she felt that recording the event would not preserve anything essential.
The memory existed.
Its description could be written.
But the act of writing no longer seemed to establish continuity between the person who remembered and the person who would later read.
She understood this intellectually.
She had understood it before.
Now she felt it.
The distinction was considerable.
She put the notebook away.
Madeleine noticed.
Their eyes met.
The older woman's expression was unreadable.
Émilie wondered whether she was pleased.
Then she realised that she did not need to know.
The thought brought another small sensation of relief.
She disliked it.
Later that evening she returned to the library.
She wanted to examine the mathematical consequences of the second renunciation while the experience remained sufficiently clear.
She opened the manuscript bearing her name.
The proof was unchanged.
She could follow every step.
Indeed, the argument appeared easier than before.
Certain distinctions she had previously treated as indispensable now seemed unnecessary.
She found herself removing assumptions from the proof.
The resulting structure became more economical.
She was pleased.
Then she noticed that the revised argument no longer required a unique observer.
It required only a set of mutually consistent experiential relations.
The observer appeared as a convenient index.
Not as an independently established entity.
She wrote the revised theorem.
It occupied considerably less space than the original.
She examined it for errors.
There were none she could identify.
The result was mathematically elegant.
Its philosophical implications were extraordinary.
Yet she felt no triumph.
She understood that the proof did not establish the nonexistence of personal identity.
It demonstrated only that certain formal descriptions did not require it.
That was important.
She would have insisted upon the distinction in any ordinary seminar.
Now she found that the distinction, though intellectually clear, possessed less emotional urgency.
She could recognise its significance without feeling compelled to defend the person who would benefit from its preservation.
She looked towards the shelves.
For a moment she experienced the sensation that the library was familiar in several incompatible ways.
She remembered studying there as a young woman.
She remembered arriving for the first time.
She remembered never having entered.
All three descriptions were available.
She could inspect their details.
She could compare them.
She could identify their contradictions.
But the question of which history belonged to her seemed increasingly artificial.
She closed the manuscript.
The library was quiet.
She had become aware of something that frightened her more than any anomalous memory.
Her reasoning had not deteriorated.
It had improved.
She could identify assumptions more quickly, recognise inconsistencies more clearly, and manipulate formal structures with an ease she had never possessed.
Yet the very clarity of her reasoning was accompanied by a diminishing concern for the continuity of the person performing it.
She could solve problems.
She could understand them.
She could even enjoy the solutions.
But the satisfaction no longer seemed to require an owner.
She looked at her hands.
They rested upon the table.
She could feel the pressure of her fingers against the wood.
The sensations were immediate.
There was no uncertainty about their occurrence.
Only about what, if anything, their occurrence established concerning a persistent subject.
She whispered, almost experimentally:
“I remember.”
The words seemed incomplete.
She tried again.
“There is remembering.”
The second sentence felt strangely sufficient.
Émilie remained still.
Then she became conscious of an unexpected sorrow.
She did not know whom it concerned.
For a moment she thought of her mother.
Then Julien.
Then Anaïs.
Then Madeleine.
Each recollection brought affection.
Each contained a history.
Each was available.
But none required that the woman sitting in the library be numerically identical to the person represented within it.
She could remember loving them.
She could not establish that the love belonged to a single continuous self.
The distinction was intellectually defensible.
It was also beginning to feel cruel.
She closed the notebook.
For the first time since the ceremony, she wished she had not undertaken it.
The regret was immediate.
Then it diminished.
She could still remember regretting.
But the feeling itself no longer seemed necessary.
That frightened her.
Madeleine found her shortly before midnight.
Émilie was seated beside the window.
The library lamps had been reduced to a low light.
The older woman approached quietly.
“Are you coming upstairs?”
Émilie looked at her.
“I think I've made a mistake.”
Madeleine sat opposite.
“Would you like to tell me?”
Émilie considered.
“I don't know whether I should have undertaken the ceremony.”
“Why?”
“Because I can no longer rely upon the ordinary feeling that my memories belong to me.”
Madeleine nodded.
“That can be difficult.”
“More than difficult.”
“Yes.”
Émilie looked at her.
“Why didn't you warn me?”
“I did.”
“You told me the consequences were uncertain.”
“Yes.”
“You didn't tell me that I might cease to care about things that mattered to me.”
Madeleine was silent.
Then she said, “I couldn't know whether that would happen.”
“But you knew it was possible.”
“Yes.”
Émilie felt anger.
It was sharp and unexpectedly welcome.
For the first time since the ceremony she experienced an emotion that seemed to insist upon a particular personal relation.
She was angry with Madeleine.
Not with the House.
Not with an abstract process.
With the woman before her.
“You should have told me.”
Madeleine lowered her eyes.
“Perhaps.”
“That's not enough.”
“No.”
Émilie looked at her.
The older woman's composure had altered.
There was genuine distress in her expression.
Émilie felt the force of it.
Madeleine was hurt.
The recognition did not diminish her anger.
Nor did it make the anger unjustified.
For several moments they remained silent.
Then Madeleine spoke.
“I was afraid that telling you what I remembered might become another form of direction.”
Émilie considered.
“So you withheld it.”
“Not deliberately.”
“Then what?”
“I answered what you asked.”
“Precisely.”
Madeleine looked at her.
Émilie continued.
“You've become so careful not to influence me that you sometimes fail to tell me what I need to know.”
The older woman accepted the criticism.
“Yes.”
It was the first time Émilie had seen her acknowledge a fault without qualification.
She felt an unexpected tenderness.
It did not erase the anger.
She was glad of that.
Madeleine reached across the table.
“May I?”
Émilie looked at her hand.
For a moment she wanted to refuse.
Not because she wished to punish Madeleine.
Because she wanted to establish that refusal remained possible.
She considered this.
Then she shook her head.
“Not yet.”
Madeleine withdrew her hand.
“Very well.”
Émilie felt relief.
The refusal had been accepted.
Nothing had collapsed.
The relationship remained.
She looked at the older woman.
“Thank you.”
Madeleine smiled faintly.
“For what?”
“For allowing me to be angry.”
“I don't think I could prevent it.”
“No.”
Émilie considered.
“That's rather the point.”
They sat quietly.
After some time the anger diminished.
Not because the disagreement had been resolved.
But because it had been acknowledged.
Émilie found this more reassuring than any complete explanation the House might have offered.
She reached across the table.
This time she took Madeleine's hand.
The older woman responded.
The contact was warm.
Imperfect.
Reciprocal.
Émilie felt an almost painful gratitude.
She knew that the feeling did not establish a continuous subject who had owned the previous anger.
It did not need to.
The anger had occurred.
The apology had occurred.
The decision to take Madeleine's hand had occurred.
The relationship consisted, at least in part, of these events.
Perhaps that was enough.
For now.
They returned upstairs together.
Émilie undressed and prepared for bed.
Madeleine remained beside the window while she arranged her clothing.
For a moment Émilie became conscious of the older woman's attention.
She looked up.
“Do you remember me?”
Madeleine smiled.
“Yes.”
“Which me?”
The smile faded.
“Several.”
Émilie considered.
“Do you love them all?”
Madeleine looked at her for a long time.
“I love the woman who is asking.”
Émilie felt the words with extraordinary force.
She crossed the room.
Madeleine rose.
They embraced.
The contact was intimate, and Émilie was conscious of the familiar pleasure of allowing another person to hold her.
Yet the sensation had changed.
She no longer felt that she was surrendering something she possessed.
She felt that the embrace was occurring, and that the desire accompanying it did not require a continuous proprietor.
The distinction might have frightened her earlier.
Now it seemed almost natural.
She kissed Madeleine.
The older woman responded.
For a while they remained close.
Then Émilie drew back.
“I don't know whether I'm the same woman who kissed you yesterday.”
Madeleine touched her cheek.
“Neither do I.”
“Does that trouble you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you here?”
Madeleine considered.
“Because I want to be.”
Émilie smiled.
It was an ordinary answer.
Its ordinariness seemed precious.
They went to bed.
Later, in the darkness, Émilie lay awake beside Madeleine and considered the events of the day.
She remembered the ceremony.
She remembered the memories.
She remembered the moment when the sense of ownership had diminished.
She remembered the pleasure.
She remembered the fear.
She remembered being angry.
All these experiences remained available.
Yet the relation between them had changed.
They no longer seemed to require a single enduring person to whom they belonged.
She could arrange them in sequence.
She could describe their causes.
She could understand their consequences.
But the necessity of saying I experienced them had become less compelling.
She turned towards Madeleine.
The older woman was asleep.
Émilie watched her for a while.
Then she whispered:
“I remember loving you.”
The sentence seemed accurate.
She considered it.
Then she tried another.
“There is love.”
The second sentence was simpler.
It was also more disturbing.
It did not require an owner.
Nor did it require that the feeling persist from one moment to the next.
It described only what was present.
Émilie looked at Madeleine.
She wanted to say the first sentence again.
Not because it was more accurate.
Because it preserved something she was beginning to fear losing.
She moved closer.
Madeleine stirred and placed an arm around her.
The gesture was unconscious.
Or at least unconsidered.
Émilie felt the warmth of the embrace.
For a moment she experienced the sensation of complete recognition.
The familiar tranquillity arose.
There was no need to explain.
No need to preserve continuity.
No need to establish a subject.
She could have surrendered to it entirely.
Instead she listened to Madeleine's breathing.
It was irregular.
Occasionally she paused, then resumed with a small movement of her shoulders.
Émilie found the imperfection comforting.
It belonged to a particular body.
A particular woman.
A person whose existence was not exhausted by the descriptions available to Émilie.
She placed her hand upon Madeleine's arm.
The sensation of complete recognition remained.
But it no longer displaced the ordinary intimacy.
The two experiences coexisted.
For the first time she wondered whether this coexistence could be maintained.
Whether she could relinquish the necessity of possessing her memories without relinquishing the value of relationships formed within them.
Whether identity might be unnecessary to experience while still remaining important to love.
She did not know.
The question remained open.
She found that she wanted to preserve it.
In the morning she woke alone.
Madeleine's side of the bed was empty.
The room was filled with pale light.
Émilie lay still for a moment.
She remembered the previous evening.
The argument.
The apology.
The embrace.
She remembered them clearly.
Then she became aware of another memory.
She had spent the night alone.
Madeleine had never come to the library.
There had been no argument.
No apology.
No reconciliation.
Émilie sat up.
Both histories were available.
Neither displaced the other.
She looked towards the bedside table.
There was a small folded note.
She opened it.
Émilie,
I have gone downstairs.
I hope you slept well.
There is something I should like to tell you when you are ready.
Madeleine.
Émilie read the note twice.
The handwriting was familiar.
She could recall receiving notes from Madeleine before.
She could also remember receiving notes in which the older woman used different handwriting.
The distinction no longer seemed urgent.
She placed the paper upon the table.
Then she noticed something written on the reverse.
You needn't remember me in order for me to love you.
Émilie felt an immediate tenderness.
She turned the paper over again.
The note remained.
She considered the sentence.
It was a declaration of affection.
It was also a philosophical proposition.
The love of one person did not logically require that the loved person retain an accurate memory of the relationship.
That was straightforward.
But the statement contained a more troubling implication.
Madeleine's love might persist even if Émilie ceased to possess a continuous account of herself.
The relationship might remain, at least from Madeleine's perspective, after Émilie no longer recognised it as hers.
She thought of her mother.
The hospital.
The afternoon when Claire had failed to recognise her daughter.
Émilie had felt the relationship disappear.
Her mother had continued to exist.
And perhaps, in some sense, to love her.
The memory returned with extraordinary clarity.
She could remember the pain.
She could remember the humiliation.
She could remember the relief when recognition returned.
But now she experienced the event from another perspective.
Not as Claire.
Not as a reconstructed account of her mother's thoughts.
Simply as a relation that had persisted despite the temporary failure of one participant to recognise it.
Émilie sat for a long time.
Then she rose.
She dressed.
She placed the note carefully inside her notebook.
The act was deliberate.
She recognised that she could no longer guarantee the continuity of the person who would later read it.
Nevertheless, she wished the note to remain available.
The distinction pleased her.
She was beginning to understand that preservation did not require possession.
A record could remain valuable without guaranteeing the survival of the subject who made it.
A relationship could remain significant without requiring that both participants maintain identical autobiographical accounts.
A memory could be accurate without belonging to the person who recalled it.
These were not conclusions she could yet establish as descriptions of the House.
They were possibilities.
She would investigate them.
She was still capable of investigation.
The recognition brought a small satisfaction.
Then she looked towards the mirrorless wall.
For a moment she wondered what it would be like to see herself without recognising the face.
She remembered the older woman in the Western Corridor.
The grey hair.
The wedding ring.
The expression of tenderness.
She remembered the gesture of a finger placed against the lips.
She had not understood it.
She still did not.
But she no longer felt certain that understanding required discovering which life the woman had lived.
Perhaps the gesture had been sufficient.
Émilie crossed the room.
At the door she paused.
She could remember leaving.
She could also remember remaining.
Both possibilities were clear.
She opened the door.
The corridor was empty.
She stepped outside.
Nothing in the House acknowledged her decision.
There was no sign of approval.
No suggestion that a stage had been completed.
No master to whom her surrender could be reported.
She began walking towards the staircase.
Halfway along the corridor she stopped.
She had become aware of a new sensation.
It was not the complete recognition she had experienced beside the empty place.
Nor was it the relief of relinquishing chronological order.
It was something quieter.
The memories of her life were still present.
They could be consulted, examined and described.
But she no longer felt that she stood behind them as their necessary owner.
For a moment she considered whether this constituted a loss.
Then she realised that the question was poorly formed.
A loss ordinarily implied something that had belonged to someone.
She could no longer establish that relation.
She smiled.
The recognition was intellectually elegant.
It was also, she thought, a little frightening.
She resumed walking.
At the staircase she encountered Henri.
He was standing beside the window, looking down into the forecourt.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning.”
He regarded her with mild interest.
“Have we met?”
Émilie considered.
“Yes.”
“Recently?”
“Several times.”
Henri smiled.
“I'm sorry. I don't remember.”
“That doesn't matter.”
He looked at her.
“Doesn't it?”
Émilie hesitated.
She had been about to reassure him.
Now she recognised that the reassurance might be premature.
“It matters to me,” she said. “But it needn't trouble you.”
Henri considered.
Then he smiled.
“That's very kind.”
Émilie inclined her head.
She was about to descend when he spoke again.
“Do you know who you are?”
She stopped.
The question was delivered without irony.
She turned towards him.
“I know my name.”
“That's something.”
“I know my history.”
“Do you?”
“Several histories.”
Henri nodded.
“That happens.”
She smiled.
“Apparently.”
He looked towards the window.
“Do you know what I find most difficult?”
“No.”
“Remembering that I was once someone who thought he knew.”
Émilie considered the remark.
“Does that trouble you?”
“Sometimes.”
“And at other times?”
He looked at her with a peculiar tenderness.
“At other times I think it must have been rather exhausting.”
She laughed softly.
“Yes.”
Henri returned his attention to the forecourt.
Émilie began to descend.
Halfway down she heard him speak.
“I do hope you find what you're looking for.”
She stopped.
For a moment she considered replying that she did not know what she was looking for.
Then she recognised that he had not asked.
She continued downstairs.
The House was quiet.
In the dining room the table had been laid for breakfast.
There were seven places.
Or eight.
She did not count.
For the first time, the number seemed less important than the fact that someone had prepared them.
She entered.
Madeleine was standing beside the window.
She turned.
“Good morning.”
Émilie approached.
“Good morning.”
The older woman smiled.
“Did you sleep well?”
Émilie considered.
“I remember doing so.”
Madeleine laughed.
It was a small, unguarded laugh.
Émilie found it beautiful.
She took the older woman's hand.
For a moment she experienced the familiar tranquillity of complete recognition.
It was available.
It made no demand.
She could allow it to deepen.
Instead she looked at Madeleine.
The woman before her remained imperfectly known.
Her memories might be inconsistent.
Her identity might not persist in the manner Émilie had once assumed.
Her affection might change.
She might leave.
She might die.
Nothing in the House guaranteed otherwise.
Émilie found that she wanted her nevertheless.
“There's something I'd like to ask you,” she said.
“Of course.”
“If I cease to remember loving you, will you tell me?”
Madeleine's expression became serious.
“Would you want me to?”
“Yes.”
“Even if the memory causes you distress?”
Émilie considered.
“Especially then.”
Madeleine looked at her for a long time.
“Very well.”
Émilie smiled.
It was a small promise.
It did not guarantee continuity.
It did not establish ownership of memory.
It did not protect either woman against loss.
Yet it required something the House could not provide.
One person had asked another to undertake an obligation.
The other had agreed.
Émilie felt the importance of this with unexpected clarity.
Then she sat down to breakfast.
She remembered the ceremony.
She remembered the surrender.
She remembered the sensation of no longer possessing her memories.
And, for the first time, she understood that she might eventually cease to recognise the distinction between having relinquished something and never having possessed it.
That possibility did not distress her.
She thought it ought to.
She took her coffee.
Madeleine sat beside her.
Their hands touched briefly beneath the table.
Émilie felt the contact.
She did not need to know who had felt it yesterday.
For the present, it was enough that it occurred.
And somewhere beyond the familiar rooms of the House, beyond the numbered doors and the corridors that refused to remain in order, there existed a structure in which the histories of human lives could apparently be preserved without requiring those lives to possess enduring owners.
No one had created it for her.
No one had arranged the memories as gifts.
No one had accepted her renunciation.
The House remained silent.
Émilie had surrendered the assumption that her memories belonged to her.
She retained the memories.
She retained her intelligence.
She retained the capacity to love.
What she had lost was more difficult to describe.
For forty-three years, she had regarded herself as the indispensable subject of her own experience.
Now that necessity had vanished.
She did not miss it.
And the fact that she did not miss it was the first consequence she could no longer bring herself to regret.
End of Movement VIII: The Second Renunciation