You say he is trying to make me deny Richard! You were never
more mistaken. I am interested in you both; interested in you as a noble
woman--stop! I mean it. And interested in Richard--well--because he is
my own creation...."
She watched him now with her heart in her eyes; he frightened her more
with these low, purring words, than if he declared open love.
"He is my own handiwork. I have created him. I have fashioned his
outlines, have wound up the mechanism that moves him to compose. Did you
ever read that terrifying thought of Yeats, the Irish poet? I've
forgotten the story, but remember the idea: 'The beautiful arts were
sent into the world to overthrow nations, and, finally, life itself,
sowing everywhere unlimited desires, like torches thrown into a burning
city.' There--'like torches thrown into a burning city!' Richard Van
Kuyp is one of my burning torches. In the spectacle of his impuissance I
find relief from my own suffering."
The booming of the Tzigane band was no longer heard--only the horses'
muffled footfalls and the intermittent chromatic drone of hidden distant
tram-cars.
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