He closed his notebook, walked over to her table, sat down beside her. She said: I knew it would happen, but not quite so soon. Sit down. I know exactly what you think of me. You are saying to yourself: here is the notorious imposter, the international spy in the house of love. (Or should I specify: in the house of many loves?) I must warn you, you must handle me delicately: I am covered with a mantle of iridescence as easily destroyed as a dust flower, and although I am quite willing to be arrested, if you handle me roughly you will lose much of the evidence. I don't want you to taint that fragile coat of astonishing colors created by my illusions, which no painter has ever been able to reproduce. Strange, isn't it, that no chemical will give a human being the iridescence that illusions give them? Give me your hat. You look so formal and uncomfortable! And so you finally tracked down my impersonations! But are you aware of the courage, the audacity which my profession requires? Very few people are gifted for it. I had the vocation. It showed very early in my capacity for deluding myself. I was one who could call a backyard a garden, a tenement apartment a house, and if I were late when I came home, to avoid a scolding I could imagine and recreate instantly such interesting obstacles, adventures, that it would take my parents several minutes before they could shake off the spell and return to reality. I could step out of my ordinary self or my ordinary life into multiple selves and lives without attracting attention. I mean that my first crime, as you may be surprised to hear, was committed against myself. I was then a corrupter of minors, and this minor was myself. What I corrupted was what is called the truth in favor of a more marvelous world. I could always improve on the facts. I was never arrested for this: it concerned only myself. My parents were not wise enough to see that such prestigitation of facts might produce a great artist, or at least a great actress. They beat me, to shake out the dust of delusions. But strangely enough, the more my father beat me, the more abundantly did this dust gather again, and it was not gray or brown dust as you find it in its daily form, but what is known to adventurers as fool's gold. Give me your coat. As an investigator you may be more interested to know that in self defense, I accuse the writers of fairy tales. Not hunger, not cruelty, not my parents, but these tales which promised that sleeping in the snow never caused pneumonia, that bread never turned stale, that trees blossomed out of season, that dragons could be killed with courage, that intense wishing would be followed immediately by fulfillment of the wish. Intrepid wishing, said the fairytales, was more effective than labor. The smoke issuing from Aladdin's lamp was my first smokescreen, and the lies learned from fairy tales were my first perjuries. Let us say I had perverted tendencies: I believed everything I read.