AFTER LEAVING MR. MACKENZIE

This is another one of Jean Rhys' forlorn monochromatic sketches of a woman approaching forty but does it really matter. The lines are strongest around the eyes and the mouth. Julia is the same woman who has appeared in all her books (Good Morning Midnight, 1970, her best; Quartet, 1971, a little stronger than this one) in different but no better circumstances. Her marriage did not work out; she lost a baby because she didn't have the money to keep it alive; she has been living off one man or another in Paris for about ten years — most recently Mr. Mackenzie who leaves her with a "sore and cringing feeling" and a few francs. Triste, indecisive but somehow faintly expectant — she hopes for just what? She goes back to London briefly — no one really wants to see her and her mother is too far gone to recognize her. She returns to Paris and when last seen is walking some street in "the hour between dog and wolf, as they say." Miss Rhys, in her understated fashion, was a remarkable precisionist and in this fine rain you can almost count the drops.