He locks the door, he has forgotten that I am here.

Thus she interpreted it, because of her feeling that once he had taken her, he deserted her each time anew. No contact was ever continuous with him. So he locked the door, forgot she was there, deserted her.

When she confessed this to Djuna, Djuna who had continued to write for Lillian the Chinese dictionary of counter-interpretations, she laughed: "Lillian, have you ever thought that he might be locking you in to keep you for himself?"

Lillian was accurate in her feeling that when Jay left the studio he was disassociated from her, and not from her alone, but from himself.

He walked out in the street and became one with the street. His mood became the mood of the street. He dissolved and became eye, ear, smile.

There are days when the city exposes only its cripples, days when the bus must stop close to the curb to permit a one-legged man to board it, days when a man without legs rests his torso on a rolling stand and propels himself with his hands; days when a head is held up by a pink metal truss, days when blind men ask to be guided, and Jay knew as he looked, absorbing every detail, that he would paint them, even though had he been consulted all the cripples of the world would be destroyed excepting the smiling old men who sat on benches beatifically drunk, because they were his father. He had so many fathers, for he was one to see the many. I believe we have a hundred fathers and mothers and lovers all interchangeable, and that's the flaw in Lillian, for her there is only one mother, one father, one husband, one lover, one son, one daughter, irreplaceable, unique—her world is too small. The young girl who just passed me with lightning in her eyes is my daughter. I could take her home as my daughter in place of the one I lost. The world is full of fathers, whenever I need one I only need to stop and talk to one...this one sitting there with a white beard and a captain's cap...

"Do you want a cigarette, Captain?"

"I'm no captain, Monsieur, I was a Legionnaire, as you can see by my beard. Are you sure you haven't a butt or two? I'd rather have a butt. I like my independence, you know, I collect butts. A cigarette is charity. I'm a hobo, you know, not a beggar."

His legs were wrapped in newspapers. "Because of the varicose veins. They sort of bother me in the winter. I could stay with the nuns, they would take care of me. But imagine having to get up every morning at six at the sound of a bell, of having to eat exactly at noon, and then at seven and having to sleep at nine. I'm better here. I like my independence." He was filling his pipe with butts.