“You have the brightness and flatness of a distracted virgin but your eyes are mildly opaque. The tinseled swiftness of a courtesan’s memoirs is yours but your heart is as shy as the clink of glass. You glow like an incoherent rhapsody over the peonies in this garden!” A woman whose painted face was a lurid snarl tapped Bolin on the shoulder. Her red hair was brushed upward into a pinnacle of burnished frenzy; her blue serge dress cast its plaintive monotone over the body of a sagging amazon; a pink straw hat dangled from her hand. Bolin allowed his admiration to bow. “A babyish lisp slipping from you would make your grewsomeness perfect, madame,” he said. “I don’t getcha, friend,” she responded. “I’m a sporting lady from the roadhouse down the way an’ I’m out for a morning walk. Who planted you here, old duck?” “I’m a cow browsing amidst the peonies,” said Bolin seriously. “Without a thought, I feed on light and colour.” “You don’t look like a cow,” said the woman, dubiously. “Maybe you’re spoofing me, you funny old turnip!” “No, I only jest with the morning,” Bolin answered, unperturbed. “It ignores me with soaring colours and I prefer this to the minute antagonisms of human beings. You don’t understand a word I say--you bend beneath tepid apprehension, so I find a pleasure in speaking to you--it’s like humming a love-song to a mud-turtle.” “Don’t get insultin’,” said the woman with disgruntled amazement. “I think you’re crazy.” Bolin turned, with a smile like a distant spark, and walked away between the peonies. The woman regarded him a moment, while a fascinated frown battled with her painted face. Then she strode after him and gripped his arm. “Hey, watcha leavin’ me for?” she said in a piteously strident voice. “For the peonies in this garden,” answered Bolin, mildly. “Listen, don’t get mad at me,” she said. “I don’t care whether you’re crazy or not. I like your face.” Bolin gazed at her while sorrow loosened his face and made it glisten spaciously. “Can you become as spontaneously tranquil as these peonies?” he asked. The woman tendered him her dazed frown, like an anxious servant. “Walk with me and be quiet unless I ask you to speak,” said Bolin with sudden harshness. Obediently she laid a hand on his arm and they strolled down the path between the peonies. She sidled along like an inspired puppet--she seemed a doll touched to life by some Christ. Upon her painted face a nun and a violinist grappled tentatively and her lips made a red scarf fallen from the struggle. Bolin left the peonies and wandered down the road. They came upon a boulder clad in an outline of smashed spears. Queen Anne’s Lace grew close to its base, like the remnants of some revel. “This is the head of a philosopher,” said Bolin. The woman jerkily turned her body, while pallid perplexity ate into her paint and made her face narrow. “You can speak,” said Bolin. “It looks like a rock,” she answered in the voice of a child clinking his fetters.