She was in a station of the Subway. Clara was beside her. Crowds surged in four great streams. She lost Clara. She was afraid. Streams dark and turgid beneath the crust of the earth were men and women. She saw ten thousand hats and gloves and skirts in sharp detail. She saw beneath the pandemonium of colored cloths, straw, feathers, leather ... each one sheerly alone ... a single Skin. She felt the Skin grey-white. The straws and silks and collars pricked the Skin: and the Skin hurt. She wanted to be naked of these vari-colors. They hurt. The crowds flowed on. Upon the faces of the men and women were smiles: the faces were not naked, they were covered with smiles. Upon the feet of the men and women were shoes. Shoes and smiles pricked in hard waves on the grey-white Skin. She was aware of this steel cavern under the crust of the earth where four streams ploughed and mangled upon each other. On the steel were casings of cement. It was rough. It cut against the quick of her nails. It pricked the steel that held the edge of the earth. She was aware of this all one, in a great hurt, as she lay asleep with her skin against the rough stuff of her blanket. Upon the Subway cave was the stone street. Upon the stone street were the buildings. In the cave, in the street, in the buildings, flowed the people. They were a black blood flowing everywhere. Here they were thickest. They caught the rigid Subway cave: it rocked. The street was rocked with the rocking hole below. The towering houses swung and dipped in a steep measure, over the streets, over the plunging Subway throng, under the Sky. A mighty rhythm ran with the black blood through the stone world. It danced. The Subway rolled and bounced. Buildings bent down, jerked high, circled their points in a great Dance under a sky that was still. Fanny watched the dancing world as if it were close to her: as if it were upon her like her heaving breast. “I am the Dancer,” she cried. She danced. She was still, she was in bed. But she danced. In the veer of houses, in the see-saw of streets, Fanny danced. Over her head she was aware of a sky steadfast. Fanny danced faster. Towers of stone leaped up now, leaving the streets. Towers of stone soared like rockets against the still stars and came back. Gutters twirled: crowds wove into pythonic knots. The skies caught Dance, like fire. The stars moved very finely; they did not swing far from their orbits: rather they tremored, they shone in vibrance, they sang like high notes very fast ... and the sky swung long, swung so slow like a tide through the warp of trilling stars that it was hard to know that the sky moved. In the clothes of the dancing Subway throng there were bugs: they danced. In the roofs of the street, there were stars: they danced. Fanny saw the bugs dancing, and the dancing stars. “I am the Dancer,” she cried. She danced through the Night.... * * * * *