That's an ambitious attempt to compress the evolutionary processes into a page, she reflected. On the shelf devoted to her beloved Frenchmen she took down A Rebours and read what Huysmans wrote of the poem in prose of Mallarmé's in particular ... "the adjective placed in such an ingenious and definite way that it ... would open up such perspectives that the reader would dream whole weeks together on its meaning at once precise and multiple, affirm the present, reconstruct the past, divine the future of the characters revealed by the light of the unique epithet ... a spiritual collaboration by consent between ten superior persons scattered through the universe...." "I confess I'm not one of the ten," said Mona aloud, for she often wedded her interior dialogue to the exterior. "I should die of mental starvation on such a condensed literary diet; it may be poetic, but it is too peptonic, and my soul can't be fed with prose pemmican. Yet Frustrate is a strange panorama of sex and evolution. 'Every monad has its day.' True, I wonder if this orchestra of cells that I call 'Moi' will ever have its day? The time of my fruition is afar. Who is the Siegfried that will release this Brunnhilde from her bed of fire? That's a question which every girl puts to herself in a thousand different forms. I should like to be married. I love children. There is no other adequate method to lure them into this chilly life but the mating of men and women. Really, Mona, does the man matter much? Eugenics, a fine word for an impossible thing! I like Ulick. He wouldn't make me happy, I know. But what's the difference if I can hold his baby and mine to my breast? Nothing else counts. I'm in a nice depressed mood tonight. I musn't forget to take a pill. It's usually the liver, and calomel is the last resource of the virtuously bilious. Oh! dear, I wonder what he is doing now? With that horrid woman? Not that I care. Why should I? Ulick is nothing to me. Young men must observe the laws of hygiene or else be ill, so he says. I believe him. What about women? Are they so differently constructed? Saints? I don't believe it. If we were frank, we should tell the whole truth--women are much more amorous than men, although the emotion with us is more massive, yet more diffused. There! I've told my mirror the truth. Polichinelle's secret. Because of our excessive temperament we have been put behind bars for ages. Heavens! Every household is a harem with one lawful wife; the concubines live elsewhere. Some day women will go on a sex-strike. Then the men will crawl. If it's right for the men to go philandering, why isn't it right for the women? I wonder what Milt would say if he could peep into my brain at this moment? Horrified he would surely be. That Dora! Alfred Stone says she is very pretty. Pooh! I know what his 'pretty' means. A lascivious kitten. But she serves the purpose. I don't mind the physical facts; men have strong stomachs, but how can a superior young man like Ulick