“His early prose,” Breton interrupted. “That’s the point. Let’s see — Wilde died about 1900, right? And this is 1981 — so in eighty-one years on the other side, or beyond the veil, or whatever you spiritualists call it, not only has he failed to develop as a writer, but has even slipped back to his undergraduate phase.”

“Yes, but — “

“And it isn’t lack of practice, because according to what I’ve read in those books you lent Kate he’s been a favorite with automatic writers since his death. Wilde must be the only author in history whose output went up after he was buried.” Breton laughed, pleased at finding himself in that pleasant transient state of drunkenness in which he always felt able to think and talk twice as fast as when sober.

“You’re assuming a one-to-one correspondence between this and any other plane of existence,” Palfrey said. “But it need not be like that.”

“It mustn’t be. From the data you have about the next plane, it seems to be peopled by writers who have no paper or pencils, and who spend their time telepathically projecting drivel down into our plane. And, somehow, Oscar Wilde has become the stakhanovite — possibly as a punishment for writing De Profundis.

Palfrey smiled patiently. “But we’re not saying that these…”

“Don’t argue with him,” Kate said. “That’s what he wants. John’s a professional atheist, and he’s starting to talk too much anyway.” She shot him a look of scorn but overdid it, making herself look like a little girl for one fleeting second. What an unlikely emotion, Breton thought, to cause rejuvenation.

“She’s right,” he said. “The whole structure of my belief crumbled when I was a kid — the first crack was the discovery that F.W. Woolworth was not a local businessman.”