“Very well, then, knock on my door when you’re ready.”
Thus the modern soul and I found ourselves together under the stars.
“What a night!” she said. “Do you know that poem of Sappho about her hands in the stars.... I am curiously sapphic. And this is so remarkable—not only am I sapphic, I find in all the works of all the greatest writers, especially in their unedited letters, some touch, some sign of myself—some resemblance, some part of myself, like a thousand reflections of my own hands in a dark mirror.”
“But what a bother,” said I.
“I do not know what you mean by ‘bother’; is it rather the curse of my genius....” She paused suddenly, staring at me. “Do you know my tragedy?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“My tragedy is my mother. Living with her I live with the coffin of my unborn aspirations. You heard that about the safety-pin to-night. It may seem to you a little thing, but it ruined my three first gestures. They were—”
“Impaled on a safety-pin,” I suggested.
“Yes, exactly that. And when we are in Vienna I am the victim of moods, you know. I long to do wild, passionate things. And mamma says, ‘Please pour out my mixture first.’ Once I remember I flew into a rage and threw a washstand jug out of the window. Do you know what she said? ‘Sonia, it is not so much throwing things out of windows, if only you would—’”
“Choose something smaller?” said I.