Not enough of that measure of pain had existed in her marriage to Larry.

In the laboratories the scientists were trying to isolate the virus which might be the cause of cancer. Djuna believed one could isolate the virus which destroys love. But then there were outcries: that this would be the end of illusion, when it was only the beginning! Lillian had learned from Djuna that each cell, once separated from the diseased one, was capable of new life.

Erasing the grooves. It was not that Lillian had remained attached to the father, and incapable of other attachments. It was that the form of the relationship, the mold, had become a groove, the groove itself was familiar, her footsteps followed it habitually, unquestioningly, the familiar groove of pain and pleasure, of closeness at the cost of pain.

Lillian remembered Djuna's words: Man is not falling apart. He is undergoing a kind of fission, but I believe in those who are trying quietly to isolate the destructive cells, so that after fission each part is illumined and alive, waiting for a new fusion.

Was this why Lillian had always wept at weddings? Had she known obscurely that each human being might lie wrapped in his self-created myth, in the first plaster cast made by his emotions. Static and unchangeable, each could move only in the grooves etched by the past.

Jay had appeared at first as the bearer of joy. She had loved his complete union with the earth, his acceptance of the hungry, the greedy animal within himself. He lived with blinders on, seeking only pleasure, avoiding responsibilities and duties, swimming skillfully on the surface, enjoying, suspicious of depths, out in the world, preferring the many to the few, intoxication with life only, wherever it carried him, not faithful to individuals, or to ideas. Seeking the flow, the living moment only. Never looking back or looking into the future.

His talk of violence suited her tumultuous nature. But then he had made love without violence, and then asked her: "Did you expect more brutality?" She did not know this man. The first room he had taken her to was shabby. He had said: "Look how worn the carpet is." But all she could see was the golden glow, the sun behind the curtain. All she could hear were his words: "Lillian, your eyes are full of wonder. You expect a miracle every day." His brown shirt hung behind the door, there was only one glass to drink from and a mountain of sketches and notebooks she was to sort out later, silk screen, and arrange into the famous Portfolio. He had no time to stop. There was too much to see in the streets. He had just discovered the Algerian street, with its smell of saffron, and the Algerian melopée issuing from dark medieval doorways.