Children of the Albatross Read Online Free PDF

as she had seen him. Very clear and
very near, and he felt the taste of it upon his lips.
    For the first time, as she danced away from
him, encircled by young men’s arms, he measured the great space they had been
swimming through, measured it exactly as others measure the distance between
planets.
    The mileage of space he had put between himself
and Djuna. The lighthouse of the eyes alone could traverse such immensity!
    And now, after such elaborations in space, so
many figures interposed between them, the white face of Iseult, the burning
face of Catherine, all of which he had interpreted as mere elaborations of his
enjoyment of her, now suddenly appeared not as ornaments but as obstructions to
his possession of her.
    She was lost to him now. She was carried away
by other young men, turning with them. They had taken her waist as he never
had, they bent her, plied her to the movements of the dance, and she answered
and responded: they were mated by the dance.
    As she passed him he called out her name
severely, reproachfully, and Djuna saw the green of his eyes turned to violet
with jealousy.
    “Djuna! I’m taking you home.”
    For the first time he was willful, and she
liked it.
    “Djuna!” He called again, angrily, his eyes
darkening with anger.
    She had to stop dancing. She came gently
towards him, thinking: “He wants me all to himself,” and she was happy to yield
to him.
    He was only a little taller than she was, but
he held himself very erect and commanding.
    On the way home he was silent.
    The design of her mouth had vanished again, his
journey towards her mouth had ceased the moment it came so near in reality to his
own. It was as if he dared to experience a possibility of communion only while
the obstacle to it was insurmountable, but as the obstacle was removed and she
walked clinging to his arm, then he could only commune with her eyes, and the
distance was again reinstated.
    He left her at her door without a sign of
tenderness, with only the last violet shadows of jealousy lurking reproachfully
in his eyes. That was all.
    Djuna sobbed all night before the mystery of
his jealousy, his anger, his remoteness.
    She would not question him. He confided
nothing. They barred all means of communication with each other. He would not
tell her that at this very dance he had discovered an intermediate world from
which all the figures of women were absent. A world of boys like himself in
flight away from woman, mother, sister, wife or mistress.
    Iher ignorance and innocence then, she could
not have pierced with the greatest divination where Michael, in his flight from
her, gave his desire.
    In their youthful blindness they wounded each
other. He excused his coldness towards her: “You’re too slender. I like plump
women.” Or again: “You’re too intelligent. I feel better with stupid women.” Or
another time he said: “You’re too impulsive, and that frightens me.”
    Being innocent, she readily accepted the blame.
    Strange scenes took place between them. She
subdued her intelligence and became passive to please him. But it was a game,
and they both knew it. Her ebullience broke through all her pretenses at
quietism.
    She swallowed countless fattening pills, but
could only gain a pound or two. When she proudly asked him to note the
improvements, his eyes turned away.
    One day he said: “I feel your clever head
watching me, and you would look down on me if I failed.”
    Failed?
    She could not understand.
    With time, her marriage to another, her dancing
which took her to many countries, the image of Michael was effaced.
    But she continued to relate to other Michaels
in the world. Some part of her being continued to recognize the same gentleness,
the same elusiveness, the same mystery.
    Michael reappeared under different bodies,
guises, and each time she responded to him, discovering each time a little more
until she pierced the entire mystery open.
    But the same little dance took place each time,
a little dance