The place was filled with noise coming from the opposite end, moaning which broke into a stifled scream, relapsed in a heaving sob, repeated, and repeated, interrupted by a hiss and spitting. The animals moved about their cages in the restless patterns of their lives, to turn their heads in that direction as they passed, across the front of the cage, round to the back, emerging again; and the tigers coming forth approached the bars as though they were coming straight through. Some of the animals did not move. A black panther, caged down across the way, stood watching, motionless but for the black tail whose weaving tip just cleared the floor. Other leopards sat waiting, and watched; an albino with pink eyes. The lion lay still, archetype of the calm of enduring vigilance, fore-paws extended. The racket went on, leaving only two apes, caged halfway down one side, generically unconcerned.
— And you don't hate Brown, do you? Basil Valentine asked abruptly. — For what he's done to you.
— Brown? hate him? for what he's done to me?
— There's a favor I have to ask of you, Valentine went on, as though he considered his question answered.
— That Patinir? I remember. You think I don't, but I remember.
— No. Something else, Valentine commenced, his tone both fresh and casual. — The Stabat Mater? What do you plan doing. .
— She?. . bury her and marry her, after all, she. .
— No, no. That painting, the last one you were working on.
— Why?
— Well, if you are as you say, through with all this, I… thought I'd rather like to have it. What's the matter?
— You? Yes, I told you, how fragile situations are! Every moment reshaping the past. You? you want it?
— If you'd give it to me, as a… to a friend, a favor to an old friend? Valentine put a hand out to his shoulder, but he turned away.
— Everything down there's destroyed. I burned everything, I put everything into the fireplace and set fire to it.
— But not that? not that picture too?
— Why not? he demanded, turning.
— If it was, as you said, becoming. . not van Eyck, but what you want?
— What I want? he whispered, and shuddered. Moans from the other end rose above the broken echoes of human voices.
— The face, Valentine said. — The. . reproach in that face, it was very beautiful, I thought. Then Valentine felt his wrist gripped tightly.
— Yes, the reproach! That's it, you understand?
They were halfway down the tiers of cages.
— Gee lookit how he does it, said a boy before the apes' cage.
— That's a her. . and lookit her eat it, she's stoopin over and eatin it.
The caterwauling rose. The two pumas, as they would prove to be, were in the last cage to the right. Next to them, and separated by a metal wall, a white African lioness brushed the bars of her cage, stalked to the back, and came forth round a tree trunk in the center, its length torn by her claws and teeth. Her tail wove to one side and the other, and she twisted to bare her teeth and snap at it, making no pause when the cries in the next cage broke. — Weh weh weh it's all right beautiful lady, yes, come on, you gonna eat it all up today? you gonna eat your tail all up? Yes. . weh weh weh. . said a woman before the cage, sharp-nosed, with too much make-up, she held out a skinny hand with a ring mounting a miserable stone, to the lioness.
— Listen. You see why it's important now?
Shocked as much by the smile fixed on him, as he was by the grip fastening his wrist, Valentine had started to withdraw. The instant his arm tightened the hazardous hand left it, but the smile persisted; and Valentine asked, — Why what's important?
— Yes, clearing up all this, these. . those fragments, if they won't believe me. If you saw it too, in that face? The eyes turned away, the eyes not looking at you, but the forgiveness, the. . grace? Yes, but even in that, the reproach. If you saw it too, that reproach? You understand, then, don't you. How I've felt since that dream? The Seven Sins, when they come to confess, and be shrived? The second dream, I don't remember the first one, but the second one, he wakes up but he goes to sleep again over his prayers, and there's Reason preaching, a "field full of folk"? And one by one, Superbia, Invidia…
— Damn it…!
— What?
— I've dropped a glove somewhere, Valentine said in a tone which penetrated the cry of the puma. Before him the lioness came forward with her head lowered and out to one side, waiting for him to appear in her view. Then their eyes met, and without turning from her as she did from him, passing the bars, he added, — Come now, what is all this:.
— I'll tell you about it, listen. When I was away, I was dreamt,
I mean I dreamt, I had two dreams I think, but the first one, I don't remember the first one. But the other one, sitting bolt upright in a chair, was it? And there she was, she touched me. Her lips were blue like indigo, and she… I didn't understand it then, but now, you can see, yes that reproach, if you saw it too. You can see that I can't just go to her, like this, after what I've done and, done to her. That I couldn't just go to her and offer her this. . what's left.
— What is it, all this, this dream. .? Valentine interrupted, not turning nor raising his voice, nor his attention which seemed to seethe and recede with the shape of the lioness looming toward the bars and retiring. — This she, this face in that study. .?
— Yes, and you see why it's crucial. Why, when we've settled all this and we can leave. .
— Leave! Valentine took a step back, without looking round his hand caught the wrist rising before him. — Tell me, what are you talking about?
— She. .
— She? This. . stabat Mater. . dolorosa, it's she standing-over you, is it? isn't it? Yes, you've told me, this blessed Queen of Heaven?. . Valentine looked up quickly as the lioness turned away. The hissing in the next cage rose to broken cries. — Yes, your mother, isn't it? Your. . "sainted mother"?
— My mother? He twisted in Valentine's hold, which was not tight but rigidly closed on his wrist. Beyond Valentine's shoulder, across the way, the rigid pattern of the bars was broken by dark blond hair and dark eyes, the abrupt, aware delicacy of a woman of undamaged beauty, who turned from the leopard cage to look for the child with her. She carried a fur coat over the arm of a tailored suit, and her expensive walking shoes lent purpose to the steps of her slender frame, deceptively fragile, full-bosomed and, again, so well tailored that that modesty was such only because she could afford simplicity, turning now to catch, for an instant, the eyes in the distraught face turned, for no reason, to her. He mumbled, or cleared a constricted throat, which was it? and she moved on quickly.
— Your. . blessed Queen of Heaven? Basil Valentine seemed to force attention to his words as he stared into the cage where the lioness came forth again with her head lowered, turning, to look up, paused at the bars with forelegs crossed left over right, and then with no effort leaped to one side and was gone. — This woman, the "women's voices," and did I see the moon last night? this. . good heavens, like Lucius in the Golden Ass, eh? Valentine faltered on, unwilling to pause and allow contradiction, postponing denial with whatever memory crowded upon him, casting up shattered shapes and fragments, shapes and smells. — And you, I suppose you went down and plunged your head seven times in the sea? You. . "Little by little I seemed to see the whole figure of her body, bright and mounting out of the sea and standing before me. ." One recalls her "odoriferous feet" but. . yes, so it's not, then? Not your mother at all, that reproach and all the rest of it…? Unwilling to stop until his hold was broken, unwilling to let go the wrist until it turned from his hand, unwilling to listen, until their embrace was sundered by laughter.