McCandless’s first meeting with Bella

McCandless’s first meeting with Bella is a turning point in his lonely search for Godwin Baxter: it brings him face to face with Baxter’s amnesic patient and begins a connection framed by curiosity, physical awkwardness, and the pleasure of being seen anew. Bella’s alert, unconventional manner makes the meeting more than an introduction. Her reasoning about names, and the ease with which she turns McCandless into a figure of affectionate play, establish the difference between her adult body and her still-developing understanding of the world.

The Return of Godwin Baxter

Before the encounter, McCandless has spent what he calls the loneliest months he has known without Baxter’s company. Baxter no longer visits the University, and the bench in his former workspace has been removed, leaving the room a cupboard again. Although McCandless walks around Park Circus at least once a fortnight, he cannot bring himself to climb the steps and knock at Baxter’s front door. He sees that the unshuttered windows show the house is occupied, but does not realize that Baxter would usually enter by the servants’ entrance at the back.

The separation is not simply a matter of lost access to a scientific marvel. McCandless says his longing is not mercenary: his studies have convinced him that the rabbit episode he shared with Baxter cannot be repeated by ordinary biological means. He classifies that experience as a hallucination prompted by a natural coincidence and Baxter’s hypnotic voice. Even so, he follows woodland and moorland paths that recall their conversations and continues hoping to meet his former companion. His attachment persists after his belief in Baxter’s scientific powers has weakened.

That meeting comes on a cold, bright Saturday, as winter gives way to spring. Walking up Sauchiehall Street, McCandless first hears a sound like an iron-shod carriage wheel scraping a kerbstone, then recognizes Baxter’s voice. Baxter greets him with the teasing name “Bulldog McCandless!” McCandless answers in kind, joking that Baxter should acquire a new larynx and comparing his voice unfavourably with the sound of sheep’s vocal chords. Their banter restores an intimacy that the long silence had interrupted.

Baxter walks beside him with his familiar heavy trudge, a walking-stick clenched beneath his arm like an officer’s baton and a curly-brimmed topper perched at the back of his head. His chin is raised, and his smile suggests that he no longer cares about the glances of passers-by. McCandless feels a pang of envy and tells him, “You look happy, Baxter.” The change in Baxter’s appearance makes the reunion feel like the beginning of an explanation: he seems newly at ease, but McCandless does not yet know why.

The Patient and the House

On the way to Park Circus, Baxter says little about the person he calls his patient. McCandless asks whether the patient is amnesic. Baxter replies that this is what he tells people, but urges McCandless not to take his word for it and to judge for himself. He says the patient is called Bell, short for Bella, and lives amid a great clutter because he wants her to enjoy seeing, hearing, and handling as many things as possible. The explanation turns the house they are approaching into part of the introduction: its abundance is arranged around Bella’s experience of the world.

As Baxter unlocks the front door, McCandless hears a pianola playing “The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond” loudly and quickly. A woman sits at the instrument with her back to them, her curly black hair falling to her waist. Her legs work the treadles vigorously while her arms flap sideways like a seagull’s wings, seemingly without regard for the beat. She is so absorbed in the activity that she does not notice the visitors. The first sight of Bella is therefore not a posed greeting but an encounter with someone already wholly engaged in movement and sound.

The drawing-room around her is crowded with contrasting objects. Tall windows overlook Park Circus; a bright fire burns beneath a marble mantelpiece, and large dogs lie asleep together on the hearth-rug. Cats sit apart on the highest chairs, while, through open doors, McCandless sees an elderly housekeeper knitting beside the fire, her grandson playing with toy bricks, and two rabbits drinking from a saucer. The room’s many things include a telescope, a lantern-slide projector and screen, large globes, a partly assembled jigsaw of the British Islands, a furnished doll’s house, a toy farm, stuffed humming-birds, musical instruments, a skeleton, and jars containing preserved body parts. Daffodils, hyacinths, and a crystal bowl of darting and gliding fish set colour and movement against the specimens’ brown morbidity. The mixture makes the home at once a place of study and a deliberately abundant sensory environment, consistent with Baxter’s account of how he wants Bella to encounter things.

The Greeting and Its Reversal

When the music stops, Bella stands and steps forward unsteadily, pausing as if to maintain her balance. Her tall, full-bodied appearance suggests a woman between twenty and thirty, but McCandless reads her expression as far younger: her wide-open eyes and mouth convey not adult alarm but alert delight and expectation. Dressed in a black velvet gown with a narrow lace collar and cuffs, she speaks carefully in a northern English accent. Her first greeting to Baxter is “Hell low God win, hell low new man.” The careful syllables and unusual pronunciation make speech itself part of her visible effort to meet the people around her.

Bella then stretches both arms straight towards McCandless. Baxter gently tells her to offer only one hand to new men, and she lowers her left arm without losing her bright, expectant smile. The moment unsettles McCandless: her offered hand is too high for an ordinary handshake, so he steps forward, rises on tiptoe, takes her fingers, and kisses them. The gesture changes the formal introduction into a physical exchange neither of them appears to have anticipated. Bella gasps, slowly withdraws her hand, and rubs its fingers with her thumb as though testing what the kiss has left behind. She looks repeatedly at McCandless with astonishment and happiness, while Baxter beams at them like a clergyman introducing two children at a Sunday-school picnic.

Baxter identifies the visitor as Mr. McCandless. Bella addresses him as “Miss terr Candle” and describes his carrot-red hair, interested face, blue necktie, crumpled clothes, and brown corduroy waistcoat, trying to make sense of the new person by attending closely to what she can see. When Baxter supplies the word corduroy, she carefully repeats it and attempts to explain its fabric and construction. Her speech is halting, but her attention is precise: she observes details, asks what they mean, and tests language by using it.

Her final joke turns that process into an affectionate invitation. Hearing McCandless’s name as “Mac Cand less,” she reasons that Bella has no candle either and is therefore candle-less too, then asks him to be her “new Candle” and “new wee candle maker.” Baxter praises the reasoning while observing that most names are not reasonable. Bella’s playful interpretation does not merely misunderstand a name; it gives her a way to claim a connection to the stranger just introduced. The scene ends with Baxter sending Bella, Mrs. Dinwiddie, and her grandson to the kitchen for lemonade and a sugar-sprinkled doughnut, while he takes McCandless upstairs to the study. The domestic interruption closes the first encounter but leaves its central impression in place: Bella has met McCandless with direct curiosity, and he has answered her with a gesture that surprises them both.