She stood perfectly immobile and silent, as if I were still speaking. “All right,” she said at last. “All right; yes ... yes. Don’t.” Her apparent calm deceived me completely; I smiled with relief. “That’s right, laugh. Why shouldnt you? You have no feelings, no more than you have an intelligence. You are an oaf, a clod, a real bumpkin. Standing there with a silly grin on your face. Oh I hate you! How I hate you!” She wept, she shrilled, she rushed at me and then turned away, crying she hadnt meant it, not a word of it. She cajoled, begging forgiveness for all she’d said, tearfully promising to control herself after this, moaning that she needed me, and finally, when I didnt repulse her, exclaiming it was her love for me which tormented her so and drove her to such scenes. It was a wretched, degrading moment, and not the least of its wretchedness and degradation was that I recognized the erotic value of her abjection. Detachedly I might pity, fear or be repelled; at the same time I had to admit her sudden humility was exciting. Perhaps this storm changed our relationship for the better, or at least eased the constraint between us. At any rate it was after this she began speaking to me of her work, putting us on a friendlier, less furious plane. I learned now how completely garbled was my notion of what she was doing. “Heavier-than-air flying-machines!” she cried. “How utterly absurd!” “All right. I didnt know.” “My work is theoretical. I’m not a vulgar mechanic.” “All right, all right.” “I’m going to show that time and space are aspects of the same entity.” “All right,” I said, thinking of something else. “What is time?” “Uh?... Dear Barbara, since I don’t know anything I can slide gracefully out of that one. I couldnt even begin to define time.” “Oh, you could probably define it all right—in terms of itself. I’m not dealing with definitions but concepts.” “All right, conceive.” “Hodge, like all stuffy people your levity is ponderous.” “Excuse me. Go ahead.” “Time is an aspect.” “So you mentioned. I once knew a man who said it was an illusion. And another who said it was a serpent with its tail in its mouth.” “Mysticism.” The contempt with which she spoke the word brought a sudden image of Roger Tyss saying “metaphysics” with much the same inflection. “Time, matter, space and energy are all aspects of the cosmic entity. Interchangeable aspects. Theoretically it should be possible to translate matter into terms of energy and space into terms of time; matter-energy into space-time.” “It sounds so simple I’m ashamed of myself.” “To put it so crudely the explanation is misleading: suppose matter is resolved into its component....” “Atoms?” I suggested, since she seemed at loss for a word. “No, atoms are already too individualized, too separate. Something more fundamental than atoms. We have no word because we can’t quite grasp the concept yet. Essence, perhaps, or the theological ‘spirit.’ If matter....” “A man?”