And I was not especially surprised when, at the far end of the hall, a woman popped into view, shouting and bobbing like a puppet on a spring.

    "So!" she said. "You're back!"

    I had never before seen this woman, yet I knew instinctively that she was my wife. Not Elizabeth, but a plump middle-aged woman with plum-colored lips.

    "You've learned your lesson, I hope," said this woman, whose name I now knew was Doris.