A Wave Read Online Free Page B

this, comical and ineffectual though you pretend to be. As for that creature” (here she gestured toward the sleeping Alice), “she knows only too well the implications of her presence here with that changeling, and how these constitute a reflection on my inward character as illustrated in my outward appearance, such as this spangled gown and these tangled tresses, meant to epitomize the confusion which is the one source of my living being, but which in these ambiguous surroundings, neither true fantasy nor clean-cut reality, keeps me at bay until I can no longer see the woman I once was. I shall not rest until I have erased all of this from my thoughts, or (which is more likely) incorporated it into the confusing scheme I have erected around me for my support and glorification.”
    At this there was some whispering and apprehensive regrouping among the hobos; meanwhile Alice and the pig slept on oblivious, the latter’s snores having become more relaxed and peaceful than before. Mania continued to stride back and forth, impetuously stabbing her wand into the ground. Suddenly a black horse with a rider swathed in a dark cloak and with a dark sombrero pulled down over his face approached quickly along a path leading through the trees from the right of the stage. Without dismounting or revealing his face the stranger accosted the lady:
    STRANGER : Why do you pace back and forth like this, ignoring the critical reality of this scene, or pretending that it is a monstrosity of reason sent by some envious commonsensical deity to confound and humiliate you? You might have been considered beautiful, and an ornament even to such a curious setting as this, had you not persisted in spoiling the clear and surprising outline of your character, and leading around this hideous misshapen beast as though to scare off any who might have approached you so as to admire you.
    MANIA : I am as I am, and in that I am happy, and care nothing for the opinion of others. The very idea of the idea others might entertain of me is as a poison to me, pushing me to flee farther into wastes even less hospitable and more treacherously combined of irregular elements than this one. As for my pet hyena, beauty is in the eye of the beholder; at least, I find him beautiful, and, unlike other beasts, he has the ability to laugh and sneer at the spectacle around us.
    STRANGER : Come with me, and I will take you into the presence of one at whose court beauty and irrationality reign alternately, and never tread on each other’s toes as do your unsightly followers [more whispering and gesturing among the hobos], where your own pronounced contours may flourish and be judged for what they are worth, while the anomalies of the room you happen to be in or the disturbing letters and phone calls that hamper your free unorthodox development will melt away like crystal rivulets leaving a glacier, and you may dwell in the accident of your character forever.
    MANIA : You speak well, and if all there is as you say, I am convinced and will accompany you gladly. But before doing so I must ask you two questions. First, what is the name of her to whose palace you purpose to lead me; and second, may I bring my hyena along?
    STRANGER : As to the first question, that I may not answer now, but you’ll find out soon enough. As to the second, the answer is yes, providing it behaves itself.
    The lady mounted the stranger’s steed with his help, and sat sideways, with the hyena on its chain trotting along behind them. As they rode back into the woods the forest faded away and the scene became an immense metallic sky in which a huge lead-colored sphere or disc—impossible to determine which—seemed to float midway between the proscenium and the floor of the stage. At right and left behind the footlights some of the hobos, reduced almost to midget size, rushed back and forth gesticulating at the strange orb that hung above them; with them mingled a few nursery-rhyme characters such as