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I cried I didn't want to work or paint or study or do anything in the world

"It's lost its savor for a little while," he said patiently "But you'd be surprised "

"At what?"

"At how one utterly, when you are perfect and unchangeable like me, and all those human mistakes can be triu series of failures Don't ask for this, not again "

I would have died then, curled up, black and furious and too bitter for words

But he wasn't finished

"A You don't have to I'll give it to you quickly enough when I think the time has come "

At that I went to hi his icy cheek a thousand times despite his mock-disdainful smile

At last his hands becaht I must study I must make up the lessons I had scorned by day

He had to see to his apprentices, to his tasks, to the giant canvas on which he'd been working, and I did as he said

But well before one to bed I was turning the pages of the book obediently when I saw hi, beastlike, from his chair, as if some ravener had come into him and banished all his civilized faculties and left hilittering blood finding its in of his lips

He rose, a drugged thing, and came towards me with a rhythm of movements that was alien and struck the coldest terror in my heart

His fingers flashed, closed, beckoned

I ran to hiently, and tucked his face against h my arms and my neck and scalp, I felt it

Where he flung me I didn't know Was it our bed or some hasty cushions he found in another closer salon? "Give it to one