You dont think this is all a bit fanciful?

I do think.

How would a child know how the world should be?

A child would have to be born so. A sense of justice is common to the world. All mammals certainly. A dog knows perfectly well what is fair and what is not. He didnt learn it. He came with it. Would you like to get more fanciful?

In for a penny.

More fanciful would be the understanding that the idea of justice and the idea of the human soul are two forms of the same consideration.

You didnt just come up with that.

No.

What about the animals?

They’re not screaming. Of course fanciful may itself be code for deranged. Anyway, this led pretty directly to the next question.

Which is?

At what age in a child’s life does rage become sorrow?

I dont know. I dont think Piaget addresses the question. Or why.

I think I know why. The injustice over which they are so distraught is irremediable. And rage is only for what you believe can be fixed. All the rest is grief. At some point they get this.

I think that an innate sense of justice might be a difficult concept to sell. That children could have this sense at birth.

They have little else. A fear of falling. Loud noises. A love of the breast. Everything else is potential. The schema is there but nothing has arrived. Things which are innate and well formed are rare. And primitive. And necessary. When you hear a sobbing child say it’s not fair you are always hearing the truth.

And Miss—is it Vivian?

Vivian.

Miss Vivian. Was sent to tell you this.

I dont know. I always suspected that it was just a thing I had to understand before we could move on to the next issue.

What is the next issue?

That’s not so easy. I dont claim to have a very good handle on it. If you said that the world itself contains the antidote to all that is troubling about it I would say that wasnt entirely wrong. But funding this is the notion that there is an order to the world not predicated upon the endless problematic of addressing its most recent iteration.

I’m not sure I understand that. It sounds somewhat platonic.

I know. But the suggestion is not that there is a reality of which perception is just a shadow but that there is a reality that is durable enough to support its own endless experimentation.

You arrived here with a toothbrush. Why is that? Well. Plus the cash of course.

I dont know. My life has always been pretty austere. Bobby used to take me shopping and then the clothes would just hang in the closet. I suppose I had a hard time giving up the Amati.

Have you given it up?

I dont know. I would still like to play. It’s always there. The first time I heard Bach I had an out-of-body experience. I was maybe ten. I remember watching myself sitting on the sofa in the livingroom. Listening. I didnt even think it was odd.