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was sixteen.
    And suddenly she saw all their movements, hers
with Michael, and Michael’s with Donald, as a ballet of unreality and
unpossession.
    “Their greatest form of activity is flight!”
she said to Michael.
    To the tune of Debussy’s “ Ile Joyeuse ,”
they gracefully made all the steps which lead to no possession.
    (When will I stop loving these airy young men
who move in a realm like the realm of the birds, always a little quicker than
most human beings, always a little above, or beyond humanity, always in flight,
out of some great fear of human beings, always seeking the open space, wary of
enclosures, anxious for their freedom, vibrating with a multitude of alarms,
always sensing danger all around them…)
    “Birds,” said a research scientist, “live their
lives with an intensity as extreme as their brilliant colors and their vivid
songs. Their body temperatures are regularly as high as 105 to 110 degrees, and
anyone who has watched a bird at close range must have seen how its whole body
vibrates with the furious pounding of its pulse. Such engines must operate at
forced draft: and that is exactly what a bird does. The bird’s indrawn breath
not only fills its lungs, but also passes on through myriads of tiny tubules
into air sacs that fill every space in the bird’s body not occupied by vital
organs. Furthermore the air sacs connect with many of the bird’s bones, which
are not filled with marrow as animals’ bones are, but are hollow. These reserve
air tanks provide fuel for the bird’s intensive life, and at the same time add
to its buoyancy in flight.”

    Paul arrived as the dawn arrives, mist-laden,
uncertain of his gestures. The sun was hidden until he smiled. Then the blue of
his eyes, the shadows under his eyes, the sleepy eyelids, were all illuminated
by the wide, brilliant e. Mist, dew, the uncertain hoverings of his gestures
were dispelled by the full, firmmouth, the strong even teeth.
    Then the smile vanished again, as quickly as it
had come. When he entered her room he brought with him this climate of
adolescence which is neither sun nor full moon but the intermediate regions.
    Again she noticed the shadows under his eyes,
which made a soft violet-tinted halo around the intense blue of the pupils.
    He was mantled in shyness, and his eyelids were
heavy as if from too much dreaming. His dreaming lay like the edges of a deep
slumber on the rim of his eyelids. One expected them to close in a hypnosis of
interior fantasy as mysterious as a drugged state.
    This constant passing from cloudedness to brilliance
took place within a few instants. His body would sit absolutely still, and then
would suddenly leap into gaiety and lightness. Then once again his face would
close hermetically.
    He passed in the same quick way between phrases
uttered with profound maturity to sudden innocent inaccuracies.
    It was difficult to remember he was seventeen.
    He seemed more preoccupied with uncertainty as
to how to carry himself through this unfamiliar experience than with absorbing
or enjoying it.
    Uncertainty spoiled his pleasure in the
present, but Djuna felt he was one to carry away his treasures into secret
chambers of remembrance and there he would lay them all out like the contents
of an opium pipe being prepared, these treasures no longer endangered by
uneasiness in living, the treasures becoming the past, and there he would touch
and caress every word, every image, and make them his own.
    In solitude and remembrance his real life would
begin. Everything that was happening now was merely the preparation of the
opium pipe that would later send volutes into space to enchant his solitude,
when he would be lying down away from danger and unfamiliarity, lying down to
taste of an experience washed of the dross of anxiety.
    He would lie down and nothing more would be
demanded of the dreamer, no longer expected to participate, to speak, to act,
to decide. He would lie down and the images would rise in