They are eating the Roman wedding supper al fresco at a long table laid with a damask cloth. God retires, content in a void. His pomeranians wander freely among the dishes. It’s almost later but not quite. The autumn sun comes round and canaries exult in their cages. A citizen of actual paradise preens itself, wings surrounding its torso in place of shoulders and arms: gold and pale Venetian red. Red geraniums and oleanders grow in terra-cotta pots and a square cement fountain glugs periodically. Jesus picks up where his father left off, speaking to everyone but most directly to Margery. “There’s more merit in one year in your mind than a hundred praying with your mouth. You will not believe me.” He means, longing and weeping are the best love.

Margery considers her love; she could live on his scent, rosy, musty. Flames like human tongues start shifting in her breast—even in winter she will feel hot.

“I take you by the hand because my wife should be on homely terms with her husband. I lie in your bed. You desire to see me; you boldly take me as your wedded husband, your dear darling, for I want to be loved as a son is loved by his mother, and I want you to love me, daughter, as a wife loves her husband.”

Now she’s wedded to Jesus, but father and son decline to remember which is which. Bellows blow in Margery’s ears: it’s the sound of the Ghost. Jesus turns it into the tremolo of a dove and then, lighter and shriller, a redbreast’s call. It sings in her right ear. She sees she is standing on tiptoe.

Jesus rises and touches Margery’s face, darkly romantic. “Take me in your arms and kiss my lips, my head, my feet as sweetly as you wish.” Reeling with sweetness, she enters myth. At last her desire organizes the universe. Her conquest of priests and bishops brings fame and power, her marriage to Jesus brings safety and pleasure.

“Even when I stand here and say you can never come to heaven, never see my face, tell me you will never abandon me though you lie in a lake of fire. If you can’t exist without loving me, then I am all you have.” They kiss over the bride cakes but his eyes are red and swollen and his lips are giving way. His voice quavers as he says, “Margery, make yourself destitute.”

•

Margery followed his command without knowing how to interpret it. He seemed to withdraw in the midst of his marriage vow. She handed out her own money and then money borrowed from Richard. The broken-backed man jumped up and down, raising dust in the street. He was so angry his eyes turned back in his head and for a moment the world was distorted.

•