“Vampire,” chuckled Lewis. “Our identities are the only real things we have in this shadowy world.” He was in good form now and he was becoming drugged with his own facility. “No, we must try to obtain a faith, or at least a medium, to carry out our search for immortality, or should I say perpetuation? Women, normal women, seem to have less fear of death because they have the function of child-bearing. They are able to experience their own perpetuation; and in their primitive way they feel a part of all mankind and there are no real mysteries for them, no need of logic. But man is different. The act of procreation is a pleasure and not painful and, therefore, he does not observe that in that function his own image is mirrored through eternity. He turns then to art (the sensitive talented man, I mean now) and in making pictures or books, playing at creation, he hopes to survive death but he is never really convinced: at best he is hypnotized, he is drugged by his art and in desperation he tries to make meaning out of his own creations: playthings, in reality. And so he finds himself in the end with chisel and mallet in his hands making a statue and no nearer perpetuation, closer only to death.”
“How beautiful!” exclaimed Hermes. “But that’s why we all have to go to Rome.”
“Perhaps that’s the answer.” He began to speak again, his flat voice rising and falling without emotion in it. Carla looked at Holton questioningly. He nodded.
“Bob and I have to go now,” she said.
“Oh, you must stay a little longer,” he pleaded.
“We really have to go,” said Holton, rising. They thanked him (Lewis insisted on paying the bill) and said good-bye. George Robert Lewis was still talking to Hermes as they left.
Chapter Eleven
“How cool it is!” said Carla, as they walked along the street. “I couldn’t breathe in there.”
“It was a crazy place,” said Holton, looking straight ahead as he walked, following the traffic lights. Carla occasionally drew him off the curb and into the street but he always managed to obey the green lights.
They decided to walk uptown, to walk to Times Square.