Alan always believed he was giving Sabina pleasure when he took her to the theatre, and at first her face was always illuminated with suspense and curiosity. But inevitably she would grow restive and tumultuous, chaotic and disturbed; she would even weep quietly in the dark and disappear in between acts, so as not to expose a ravaged face.

"What is it, what is it?" repeated Alan patiently, suspecting her of envy or jealousy of the roles given to others. "You could be the most marvelous actress of our period if you wanted to give your whole life to it, but you know how you feel about discipline and monotony."

"It isn't that, no, it isn't that," and Sabina would say no more.

To whom could she explain that what she envied in them was the ease with which they would step out of their roles, wash themselves of it after the play and return to their true selves. She would have wanted these metamorphoses of her personality to take place on the stage so that at a given signal she would know for certain they were ended and she might return to a permanent immutable Sabina.

But when she wished to end a role, to become herself again, the other felt immensely betrayed, and not only fought the alteration but became angered at her. Once a role was established in a relationship, it was almost impossible to alter. And even if she succeeded, when the time came to return to the original Sabina, where was she? If she rebelled against her role towards Donald, if she turned on the "Firebird" record again, the drumming of the senses, the tongues of fire, and denied her mother within her, was she then returning to the true Sabina?

When she replaced the needle on the record and set off on her first assignation with desire was it not her father then walking within her, directing her steps? Her father who, having fed on her mother's artful cooking, having dressed in the shirt she had ironed, having kissed her unbeautiful forehead damp from ironing, having allowed her marred hands to tie his tie, proceeded to leave her mother and Sabina for his vainglorious walk down the streets of the neighborhood who knew him for his handsomeness and his wanderings?

How many times had a perfumed, a painted, a handsome woman stopped her on the street to kiss her, caress her long hair and say: "You're Sabina! You're his daughter! I know your father so well." It was not the words, it was the intimate glance, the boudoir tone of the voice which alarmed her. This knowledge of her father always brought to women's eyes a sparkle not there before, an intimation of secret pleasures. Even as a child Sabina could read their messages. Sabina was the daughter of delight born of his amorous genius and they caressed her as another manifestation of a ritual she sensed and from which her mother had been estranged forever.