"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."

"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.

"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.