VIII 

What kind of forgery takes fifteen seconds? A plate of peaches seeming about to slip off the table, depth and eccentric uplift circling each other (boxing term?)? Then listening to a mathematician, twenty and bitter about Russell's fifty-y-o gibes at Tolstoi. One by one smashed the glass fronts of the bookcases lining the walls of the Society, no one even looking up from their newspapers. The purest embodiment . . . calm, structured, hard clear lighting . . . solemnity . . . and almost supernatural calm. The towel which is supposed to lie on the table floats against all reason, the fruit in its coils. To elicit introspection - the ability to understand another's feelings by analogy with what one can monitor of one's own feelings under the same circumstances. Or not. Folds. Ended up in New York, married by a method that involved fighting all her brothers, as if he would only be accepted once he had proved himself. One scorching glance leaving nothing but bare canvas. Yet years later unseen contours snaking towards my ankle.