The woman tendered him her dazed frown, like an anxious servant.
“Walk with me and be quiet unless I ask you to speak,” said Bolin with sudden harshness.
Obediently she laid a hand on his arm and they strolled down the path between the peonies. She sidled along like an inspired puppet—she seemed a doll touched to life by some Christ. Upon her painted face a nun and a violinist grappled tentatively and her lips made a red scarf fallen from the struggle. Bolin left the peonies and wandered down the road. They came upon a boulder clad in an outline of smashed spears. Queen Anne’s Lace grew close to its base, like the remnants of some revel.
“This is the head of a philosopher,” said Bolin.
The woman jerkily turned her body, while pallid perplexity ate into her paint and made her face narrow.
“You can speak,” said Bolin.
“It looks like a rock,” she answered in the voice of a child clinking his fetters.
“We have both spoken words,” said Bolin mildly.
The shy blindness on her face glided to and fro, like a prisoner. As she strolled with Bolin she still seemed a puppet dragged along the dust of a road by some Christ. Bolin’s middle-aged face whistled, with limpid chagrin, to his youth. His high cheek-bones were like hidden fists straining against his sallow skin.
They came upon a dead rabbit stiffening by the roadside.