Anton‘s Bark - Four

Anton’s abilities as a writer have by now foundered. He is so confounded by what he is imagining, that it becomes necessary to redraft what he has written, in order to accommodate the visions being visited upon him by his muse. The places he goes to in his mind come to be spoken of as the Unseen. In this episode, the real Otto tells of another of Anton’s immersions in the Unseen. On this occasion the writer attempts to get back into the cave, where he believes his future reader may still be able to help with an account of what happens in Otto in Flames. While redrafting Chapter Three, Anton finds himself at the entrance to the cave, but can’t help imagining that he will be ambushed there, as soon as he tries to go in. The episode concludes with the real Otto’s reading of the third chapter of Anton’s novel, in which his fictional self, having returned to Vienna, has every reason to suspect that the priest on the flight over from London has been following him.