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Up a hill he reat lass hotel Black and white this place, just as he ith its checkered dance floor, black tables, black leather banquettes

Unnoticed he sank down on a bench in the flickering dimness, and he let his tears flow Like a fool he cried, with his forehead pressed to his arm

Madness did not co the centuries, revisiting the places he had knoith tender thoughtless intimacy He cried for all those he had known and loved

But what hurt hiinning, the true beginning, even before that long ago day when he had lain down in his house by the Nile in the noon stillness, knowing he ht

The true beginning had been a year before when the King had said to him, "But for my beloved Queen, I would take my pleasure of these tomen I would show that they are not witches to be feared You will do this in my stead "

It was as real as this ; biack-eyed men and wos, so behind the carved pillars, others proudly close to the throne And the red-haired twins standing before him, his beautiful prisoners whom he had come to love in their captivity I cannot do this But he had done it As the court waited, as the King and the Queen waited, he had put on the King's necklace with its gold one down the steps from the dais, as the twins stared at him, and he had defiled them one after the other

Surely this pain couldn't last

Into the womb of the earth he would have crawled, if he had had the strength for it Blessed ignorance, hoanted it Go to Delphi, wander in the high sweet-srass Pick the tiny wild flowers Ah, would they open for hiht of the sun, if he held them beneath the lamp?

But then he did not want to forget at all So hadslumber! He had seen her in an Athens street with his own eyes! Past and present had become one

As his tears dried, he sat back, listening, thinking

Dancers writhed on the lighted checkerboard before him Women smiled at him Was he a beautiful porcelain Pierrot to them, with his white face and red-stained cheeks? He raised his eyes to the video screen pulsing and glittering above the roo like his physical powers

This was now, the month of October, in the late twentieth century after the birth of Christ And only a handful of nights ago, he had seen the twins in his dreaony was just beginning, but that did not matter He was more alive than he had ever been

He wiped his face sloith a slass of wine before hih video screen where the Va

Blue-eyed de wild about hied yet graceful his movements, lips seductive, voice full of carefully modulated pain

And all this ti her name!