“Oh, it’s not that bad.” To my surprise, I found myself defending our monastic life. “Everyone comes here. Cave speaks to groups of the faithful every day. I sit like some disheveled hen over a large newspaper and I couldn’t be more instructed, more engaged in life, while you dash around the country almost as much as Paul does.” “But only seeing the Centers, only meeting the Cavites. I have no other life any more.” I looked at her curiously. There was no bitterness in her voice yet there was a certain wistfulness which I’d never noticed before. “Do you regret all this, Iris?” I asked. It had been some time, three years, since I had spoken to her of ourselves, of personal matters: we had become, in a sense, the offices which we held; our symbolic selves paralyzing all else within, true precedent achieved at a great cost. Now a fissure had suddenly appeared in that monument which Iris had become and, through the flaw, I heard again, briefly, the voice of the girl I had met on the bank of the Hudson in the spring of a lost year. “I never knew it would be like this,” she said, almost whispering, her eyes on Cave while she spoke to me. “I never thought my life would be as alone as this, all work.” “Yet you wanted it: you _do_ want it. Direction, meaning, you wanted all that and now you have it. The magic worked, Iris. Your magician was real.” “But I sometimes wonder if _I_ am real anymore.” The words, though softly spoken, fell upon my ear like rounded stones, smooth and hard. “It’s too late,” I said, mercilessly. “You are what you wanted to be. Live it out, Iris. There is nothing else.” “You’re dead too,” she said at last, her voice regaining its usual authority. “Speaking of dead,” said Cave suddenly turning toward us (I hoped he had not heard all our conversation), “Stokharin here has come up with a wonderful scheme.” Even Clarissa fell silent. We all did whenever Cave spoke which was seldom on social occasions. Cave looked cheerfully about the table for a moment. Stokharin beamed with pleasure at the accolade. “You’ve probably all heard about the suicides as a result of Cavesword.” Cave had very early got into the habit of speaking of himself in the third person whenever a point or doctrine was involved. “Paul’s been collecting the monthly figures and each month they double. Of course they’re not accurate since there are a good many deaths due to Cavesword which we don’t hear about. Anyway, Stokharin has perfected a painless death by poison, a new compound which kills within an hour and is delightful to take.” “I have combined certain narcotics which together insure a highly exhilarated state before the end, as well as most pleasant fantasies.” Stokharin smiled complacently.