“We heard her speak of you, before she brought you here,” said Susan. Then she settled back in her chair. Something within her was released. She pulled off her gloves. Her shoulders slackened. “That don’t prove anything, of course.” Her smile was different ... sweeter in its hurt. “Clara’s like all of us. We are good pals. We have a lot of secrets ... trade secrets we chew over. That gives us an air of being close. But a real confidence ...? Not us!” “O I don’t know,” said Tessie. “That’s just it--you don’t.” There was a pause. Fanny was in the sun ... feeling herself within it strangely, unfairly warmed against these two. She wanted to warm them. “Won’t one of you take this chair? The sun’s so good.” “We’ve had more of it than you,” said Susan Sennister. “Stay where you are.” There was another pause filled now with three smiles that were unstrained. Fanny’s head was light.--My! I am weak. There was a dim strip weighing above her eyes, on her brow. Beyond, in back of her head, she was light. So that her head seemed tilted toward her eyes. She saw these women.--I can be comfortable with them! They are strong: they could comfort her. Tessie Liebovitz chatted. Her own lips moved. She said nothing. But they were moist.... Then she saw: Long black earth. A man was standing still. He had gnarled hands, all else of him was young. He had clear-grey eyes, he had bronzed hair and beard. His cheeks were hardened by hot winds, but his lips that were free of the beard were soft and red against the showing of white skin. She saw him clear upon the long black earth.--_He is Jesus!_ Many people passed him. She did not see them. But she saw the eyes and hands of Jesus go forth quietly to each.... They passed. The eyes and the hands of Jesus came back to themselves. The earth was harder and harder. The earth passed by him. Villages and cities passed. Altars were shut against his hands. Priests were shut against his eyes. The houses of the great passed him shut. And the earth grew blacker.... The earth was very black. A tree, blasted by lightning, thrust its ruin against a purple sky. The earth was very black. And Christ stood on it underneath the sky, and far from the solitary tree that twisted leafless over the horizon. Christ raised his arms, but his eyes looked down upon the barren earth. He was changed. He was twisted like the tree. He was shaped like the tree. Like it he was broken and bent from stanchioning purple sky above a barren earth. But he was white. And his beard was red. He had no hands, he had lost his hands even as the tree its leaves. His feet were buried underneath the ground. A woman was before him. In a scarlet robe, against her breast, she held a boy. “Lord,” she said, “this is my child. He drives me each day into the Marketplace with paint on my lips.” “Why do you call me ‘Lord’?” “Are you not Lord of us all?”