— My mother? why she. . good God, she in the painting?
— Yes, you told me, you know. .
A boy in the remnants, or perhaps the beginnings of a Boy Scout uniform had got between Valentine and the bars, and reached out over the rail. — Gimmeyatail, Zimba, he said. The sharp-nosed woman repeated, — Yes, weh weh weh. . The lioness approached, looking beyond them.
— It's some girl you've picked up, is it? And all this talk about clearing things up, it's all some notion she's. .
— No. Not that, all that is still itself, it's only part of itself.
— Really. .
— Do you hear me?
— Really, and tell me, who is this. . Solveig of yours? this Senta? The girl you've been using to model, I suppose, didn't Brown say he'd sent along something?
— Listen. .
— And how is it I didn't see her? the night I dropped in on you.
— But she doesn't. . we've never even. .
— Gimmeyatail Zimba, the boy said between them and the cage.
— Or is it all in this phantasy of yours, eh?
— Yes, I'm working it out, and everything fits, everything fits so far, everything. And, that dream? I told you about that. Why, you've dreamt? and afterward, you meet them, who you dreamt of? What an advantage!. . you know things they don't know, things about them they don't know that you know, things they've done, they never suspect you know. Why, they can go right on talking as though nothing had happened. Yes, like the saints, Rose of Lima? and what innocency of hers was woven into her past by her Jesuit confessor! What defense have they against our phantasies? And meeting her again, can she imagine what she's shared? where she's been enjoyed, in privacy? Can she imagine the postures and pleasures she's shared? And you know, all the time. What an advantage you have, over people you've dreamt of!
•-Gimmeyatail gimmeyatail gimmeyatail. .
— So you understand, how important this is? How crucial. .
Basil Valentine turned and laughed in his face. — Really, really my dear fellow. No, he said, clutching the single gray glove before him. — The "somber glow" at the end of the second act, is it? the duet with Senta, is that it?… "the somber glow, no, it is salvation that I crave," eh! "Might such an angel come, my soul to save," your Flying Dutchman sings, eh? Good heavens! And up they go to heaven in a wave, or whatever it was? Really! And all that foolishness you were carrying on with the last time I saw you, that "I min Tro. ." and the rest of it, that Where has he been all this time? and your Solveig answers In my faith? In my hope? In my, . good heavens! You are romantic, aren't you! If you do think you mean all this? And then what, They lived happily forever after?
— But listen, listen, she. .
— No, no, it's too easy. After all, you know. With no interruption, Valentine paused, looking into the cage of the lioness. The lioness had come to the middle of the cage, watching him. She went round the tree trunk where her tail followed close, circling it. She stopped and moaned at the tail. She turned and bit at it. Then she moaned and faced him again. He did not speak until threatened by the voice beside him, then went on derisively, — And Saint Rose of Lima! Why, this sudden attempt to set the whole world right, by recalling your own falsifications in it? And then? Happiness ever after? Then you will be redeemed, and redeem her, and. . good heavens knows what! And then, what next? First it's Shabbetai Zebi, now it's the Flying Dutchman? Listen to me, he went on, his voice dropping, — this lost innocence you're so frantic to recover, it goes a good deal farther back, you know. And this idea that you can set everything to rights at once is… is childish. I know what it's like with Brown, of course I know, I know you can't go on like that. But you and I, my dear fellow. .
The broken cries from the next cage had stopped, given over to heaving and groans.
— What! You and I, what!
— Listen to me, Basil Valentine said, suddenly closing his grip on the wrist he'd recovered, without taking his eyes from those of the lioness. — Do you remember, when I told you that the gods have only one secret to teach? Neither was looking at the other. Over Valentine's shoulder, the blond woman reached the child who had run to her. She was bent down now, listening, her skirt drawn tight, her jacket full with the weight of her breasts, her face alive with attention. — Were they really fighting? she asked, still inclined over the child, being led back to the next cage where the pumas were, in her voice that tone children accept as awe, delighting to shock the innocence of those who awe them. — That secret, do you remember? said Basil Valentine still holding him tight there and still looking, himself, into the cage of the lioness. — What Wotan taught his son? the only secret worth having?
— But how were they fighting?
— The power of doing without happiness, Basil Valentine said.
— See? said the child. She saw. She pulled the child to her, and looked quick into the other faces before the puma cage. They were all men. They all found her upturned face instantly, caught her dark eyes, one with a smile, one grinned an intimate recognition, until seeking escape she found herself looking into eyes familiar from a minute before, eyes not drawn to her by this instant of leveling, but still fixed on her, eyes which made no response at all. So she continued to stare at him, where he stood held in Valentine's grip there, for moments, finding sanctuary where she could recover all so abruptly assaulted, in eyes which shared nothing, recognúed nothing, accused her of nothing: but those moments passed and, recovering, she groped for escape. But that lack of response held her, that lack of recognition no more sanctuary than the opened eyes of a dead man, that negation no asylum for shame but the trap from which it cried out for the right to its living identity. She clutched the child by the shoulder, as one essays handhold climbing from a pit, and turned to stare into the cage of the pumas, reddening over her face and neck and, though none knew it but she, to the very breaking-away of her breasts.
The sun was visible, white, in a sky which showed no premonition but in its fleeting neighborhood. The fat woman had followed it, from her chill seat near the seals to another, facing the sun, though she did not look up so far, no further than passing waist-levels, mouthing behind her damp wad, or the faces of children. — Frerra jacka, frerra jacka, dormay-voo? one sang. — What's that? asked the smallest. — Soney malatina, soney malatina. . — What's that mean? asked the smallest, and the string of the balloon slipped from her finger. — It don't mean nothin stupid it's French, and lookit you lost the balloon already.
How old Valentine might have looked, to someone who'd shared with him the cruel familiarities of youth. Or are there moments of intimacy, of which only strangers are capable? of which those known, and suffered over years, could never conceive, so seeking for their own reflection in the attrition of familiarity. So the fat woman, mouthing — grot-zy, grot-sy. . behind her damp wad looked up as though she might in that instant know the history of every line around his eyes but only lacked the time to set it down, set it down anywhere, even in her own; or set it down in prescience, not magic, not art, but only history before it happened: not age as mere accom- plishment, but in performance, living out what would be lived out, age knowing itself, earning itself in that instant and gone. Until all she could have told, if she'd been interrupted a moment later, surprised? indignant? mouthing — grott-sy, probably all she could answer would be, — How old he looked, just then, throwing that gray glove into the ashcan when he came out of the cat house.
— What now? the sun? A priest of Mithras, was it? Come along, my dear fellow, I'll tell you why Mithraism failed, the greatest rival Christianity ever had. It failed because it lacked central authority. It spread all over the country with the Roman Legions, but Christianity was a city religion, and power lies in cities, remember that. And what was it you said? A man's damnation is his own damned business? It's not true, you know. It's not true. Why, good heavens, this suicide of yours? Why, like Chrysippus then? feeding figs and wine to an ass, and dying of laughter? Look! look there, in the sky where it's still blue, that line? That white line the airplane's drawn, do you see it? how the wind's billowed it out like rope in a current of water? Yes, your man in the celestial sea, eh? coming down to undo it, down to the bottom, and they find him dead as though drowned. Why, this. . pelagian atmosphere of yours, you know. Homicide, was it? What was it Pascal said, There's as much difference between us and ourselves as between ourselves and others?. . no, but that was Montaigne wasn't it.