When she rebelled at times he looked completely baffled by her rebellions, as if there were nothing in his acts which could harm her. She always ended by feeling guilty: he had given her his entire self to love, including the child, and now, out of noblesse oblige, she could not possibly act...like his harsh mother!

He looked at the sulphur-colored Pernod and drank it.

He was in the mood to paint his self-portrait for anyone who wanted to listen: this always happened after someone had attacked his painting, or claimed some overdue debt.

So Jay drank Pernod and explained: "I'm like Buddha who chose to live in poverty. I abandoned my first wife and child for a religious life. I now depend on the bowl of rice given to me by my followers."

"What do you teach?" asked a young man who was not susceptible to the contagion of Jay's gaiety.

"A life from which all suffering is absent."

But to the onlooker who saw them together, Lillian, ever alert to deflect the blows which might strike at him, it seemed much more as if Jay had merely unburdened all sadnesses upon her rather than as if he had found a secret for eliminating them altogether. His disciples inevitably discovered they, too, must find themselves a Lillian to achieve his way of life.

"I'm no teacher," said Jay. "I'm just a happy man. I can't explain how I arrived at such a state." He pounded his chest with delight. "Give me a bowl of rice and I will make you as joyous as I am."

This always brought an invitation to dinner.

"Nothing to worry about," he always said to Lillian. "Someone will always invite me to dinner."

In return for the dinner Jay took them on a guided tour of his way of life. Whoever did not catch his mood could go overboard. He was no initiator. Let others learn by osmosis!

But this was only one of his self-portraits. There were other days when he did not like to present himself as a laughing man who communicated irresponsibility and guiltlessness, but as the great barbarian. In this mood he exulted the warrior, the invaders, the pillagers, the rapers. He believed in violence. He saw himself as Attila avenging the impurities of the world by bloodshed. He saw his paintings then as a kind of bomb.

As he talked he became irritated with the young man who had asked him what he taught, for Jay noticed that he walked back and forth constantly but not the whole length of the studio. He would take five long steps, stop mechanically, and turn back like an automaton. The nervous compulsion disturbed Jay and he stopped him: "I wish you'd sit down."

"Excuse me, I'm really sorry," he said, stopping dead. A look of anxiety came to his face. "You see, I've just come out of jail. In jail I could only walk five steps, no more. Now when I'm in a large room, it disturbs me. I want to explore it, familiarize myself with it, at the same time I feel compelled to walk no further."