She wrapped Sabina's cape around her, and put two heavy bracelets around her wrist (one for each wrist, not wanting any more to be in bondage to one, never to one; she would split the desire in two, to rescue one half of herself from destruction).

And for the first time since her marriage to Jay, she climbed the worn stairs of a very old hotel in Montparnasse, experiencing the exaltation familiar to runaways.

The more she could see of the worn carpet and its bare skeleton, the more acrid the smell of poverty, the more bare the room, this which might have lowered the diapason of another's mood only increased the elation of hers, becoming transfigured by her conviction that she was making a voyage which would forever take her away from the prison of anxiety, the pain of dependence on a human being she could not trust. Her mood of liberation spangled and dappled shabbiness with fight like an impressionist painting.

Her sense of familiarity with this scene did not touch her at first: a lover was waiting for her in one of the rooms of this hotel.

Could anyone help her to forget Jay for a moment? Could Edgar help her, Edgar with his astonished eyes saying to her: You are wonderful, you are wonderful! Drunkenly repeating you are wonderful! as they danced under Jay's very eyes not seeing, not seeing her dancing with Edgar in the luminous spotlight of a night club, but when her dress opened a little at the throat she could smell the mixed odor of herself and Jay.

She was taking revenge now for his effusive confessions as to the pleasures he had taken with other women.

She had been made woman by Jay, he alone held in his hands all the roots of her being, and when he had pulled them, in his own limitless motions outward and far, he had inflicted such torture that he had destroyed the roots all at once and sent her into space, sent her listening to Edgar's words gratefully, grateful for Edgar's hands on her pulling her away from Jay, grateful for his foolish gift of flowers in silver paper (because Jay gave her no gifts at all), and she would imagine Jay watching this scene, watching her go up the stairs to Edgar's room, wearing flowers in a silver paper, and she enjoyed imagining his pain, as he witnessed the shedding of her clothes, witnessed her lying down beside Edgar. (You are the man of the crowd, Jay, and so I lie here beside a stranger. What makes me lonely, Jay, are the cheap and gaudy people you are friendly with, and I lie here with a stranger who is only caressing you inside of me. He is complaining like a woman: you are not thinking of me, you are not filled with me.)