PENGUIN BOOKS

UK | Canada | Ireland | Australia
New Zealand | India | South Africa

Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

First published by Jonathan Cape Random House 1993
Published in Penguin Books 1994

Copyright © Anita Brookner, 1993
All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover image © Harold Chapman/Topfoto

ISBN: 978-0-241-97844-3

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Follow Penguin

PENGUIN BOOKS

A FAMILY ROMANCE

Anita Brookner was born in London in 1928 and, apart from several years in Paris, lived there until her death in 2016. She trained as an art historian and taught at the Courtauld Institute of Art until 1988. She is the author of twenty-four novels, many of which are available in Penguin.

NOVELS BY ANITA BROOKNER

A Start in Life

Providence

Look At Me

Hotel du Lac

Family and Friends

A Misalliance

A Friend from England

Latecomers

Lewis Percy

Brief Lives

A Closed Eye

Fraud

A Family Romance

A Private View

Incidents in the Rue Laugier

Altered States

Visitors

Falling Slowly

Undue Influence

The Bay of Angels

The Next Big Thing

The Rules of Engagement

Leaving Home

Strangers

THE BEGINNING