Meanwhile, my gallery never fully recovered from my absence. Those artists who had not stolen their art from my walls deserted me in more subtle ways: a parade of apologetic or sniveling excuses is how I see them in my mind, usually delivered by proxy, the artist in question too cowardly or embarrassed to tell me in person. My little dance with death had been only one of several extreme actions that year: half a dozen writers and artists had died, either from their excesses, or from being murdered by rivals during the Festival. (Which, mercifully, you’d missed during your travels; I wish I had missed it as well. I had to work devilishly hard to protect the Academy from the gray caps that year.) The authorities, namely the family Hoegbotton, thought it wise to lay the blame for such maladies at the (comatose, oversexed, overdrugged) feet of the art community. Excess was “out,” a new austerity—inappropriate for our great, debauched city, but completely appropriate to my new condition—was “in.”

My suicide attempt had only placed an emphatic exclamation point on a year ruinous to all who enjoyed good, clean fun. (You forget the now-pervasive influence exerted by Frankwrithe & Lewden, which led to many of these mishaps. You should, historically, see this as an action by Hoegbotton & Sons against F&L, not against your friends.)

So my gallery stuttered on in an altered state, reduced to selling reproductions of reproductions of famous paintings, and unsubtle watercolors of city life created by people who would otherwise have made honorable livings as plumbers, accountants, or telephone salesmen.

Nearly broke, I had to find other sources of income. From time to time, Sirin still gave me article and book assignments—“My dear Janice,” he would say, “come work for me full-time,” a perilous agreement if ever there were one. I also received the leavings of Martin Lake, who sometimes gave me—as Sybel later put it—“the financial equivalent of a mercy fuck” in the form of preliminary sketches for paintings that Lake’s new gallery, which Sybel had fled to when my fortunes faded, was selling for many times what I’d ever made off him. All in all, my attempt had killed me.

But it hadn’t killed me physically—not as Duncan was being killed physically. That second year of his romance with Mary Sabon coincided with a definite worsening of his fungal disease. Sometimes it left him so weak and drained that he could not teach his classes—although this did not mean that if his disease went into remission by nightfall he would not take the Path of Hypocrisy right up to Mary’s window. These symptoms varied with the seasons, as shown by a brief examination of the “symptom lists” he kept:

SPRING

Vomiting

Diarrhea

Cramps

Dry mouth

Shortness of breath

Violent mood swings

SUMMER

Dizziness

Blurred vision

Shivering

Profuse sweating

Excessive salivating

Violent mood swings

FALL

Vomiting

Diarrhea

Cramps

Violent mood swings

WINTER

Delirium

Blurred vision

Nausea

Violent mood swings