She could see clearly all the cells of her being, like the rooms of her house which had blossomed, enriched, developed and stretched far and beyond all experiences, but she could see also the cell of her being like the walled-in room of her house in which was lodged violence as having been shut and condemned within her out of fear of disaster.

There was a little cell of her being in which she still existed as a child, which only activated with a subtle anger in the presence of the father, for in relation to him she lost her acquired power, her assurance, she was rendered small again and returned to her former state of helplessness and dependence.

And knowing the tragic outcome of this dependence she felt hostility and her route towards the man of power bristled with this hostility—an immediate need to shut out violence.

Paul and Djuna sat listening to Cesar Franck's Symphony in D Minor, in this little room of gentleness and trust, barring violence from the world of love, seeking an opiate against destruction and treachery.

So she had allied herself with the son against the father. He had been there to forbid and thus to strengthen the desire. He had been there, large and severe, to threaten the delicate, precarious bond, and thus to render it desperate and make each encounter a reprieve from death and loss.

The movements of the symphony and her movements had been always like Paul's, a ballet of oscillations, peripheral entrances and exits, figures designed to become invisible in moments of danger, pirouetting with all the winged knowledge of birds to avoid collision with violence and severity.

Together they had taken leaps into the air to avoid obstacles.

The Café

THE CAFÉ

THE CAFÉS WERE THE WELLS of treasures, the caves of Ali Baba.

The cafés were richer even than the oriental cities where all living was plied openly under your eyes so that you were offered all the activities of the world to touch and smell. You saw your shoes being made from the skinning of the animal to the polishing of the leather. You saw the weaving of cloth and the dyeing in pails of multicolored liquids. You saw the scribes writing letters for the illiterate, the philosopher meditating, the religious man chanting as he squatted and the lepers disintegrating under your eyes, within the touch of your hand.