It is a pity, I always feel, that the producers make such little play with this device. It could be infinitely diverting. There would be no need for the broken things always to be made whole. It is amusing to see a house that has been blown to atoms rise proudly out of the _débris_ into stately indestructibility. But it would be as amusing to see a team of builders slowly, brick by brick, unbuild a mansion. The end would always precede the start. This trick might even be made the vehicle for subtle satire. A maid, for instance, would walk backwards into a tidy drawing-room, and would litter the floor with cigarette ash, cover the shelves with dust, and disturb the papers on your desk. Nor would it be necessary for the producer to confine himself to material accidents. He could describe thus the backward development of the emotions and the sensations. Imagine, let us say, a day lived backwards, as the film would show it you. You would rise from your bed at midnight, and wearily put on your evening clothes. You might discover that you were drunk, but though you would spend the next two hours at a table with walnuts and wine in front of you, the shells of the walnuts would become whole and the glass that you raised to your lips would be empty; while the glass that you replaced before you would be full. You would in fact rise from the table sober. You would pass through curious states of mind. You would sit down to read a book knowing the plot, the theme, the treatment; but, as you read, this knowledge would pass page by page from you. And you would rise from your armchair saying: “I’ve just got this new book by Michael Sadleir from the library. I think I shall enjoy it.” It might be the afternoon of an assignation. Languid and quiescent would you come to the arms of love; vibrant and eager-eyed would you leap from them. As the sun moved eastward, carrying you to three o’clock, you would find yourself sitting warm and comfortable in the Café Royal, the stump of a cigar between your fingers, an empty liqueur glass on the table. But in two hours’ time you would be refolding a napkin and telling your guest that you hoped he was as uncommonly hungry as you were. And then you would be washing your hands. As you dried them they would become less dry until they were quite wet, and you would place them, white and glistening, into a basin of dirty water, and all the dirt from the water would settle upon your hands, till the water was clean and your hands were grubby: and when the water was quite clean you would take your hands from it and they would become instantly dry and dirty and uncomfortable. You would put on your coat and you would walk backwards out of the restaurant towards your office.