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Downward currents warmed the lower reaches of the gigantic room, where a lot was going on. People were moving around in various stages of undress. Long rows of tables stretched into the distance, covered with props and costumes. There was an undercurrent of laughter and good humor. Well, of course, thought Mary, suppressing a feeling of bitterness, the show must go on. Time in its heartless way had closed over the memory of Henry Shady, leaving no seam.
    â€œMy God,” said Homer, goggling at the deer antlers, “what are those for?”
    â€œThe horn dance,” said Mary. “It’s really ancient. You’ll see.”
    Homer looked up at the beams arching over the high rows of stained-glass windows, dark at this hour and colorless. Below the windows the drab walls were lined with portraits of Union generals and the busts of dead professors.
    â€œI’ve always liked this place,” he said, remembering a time of crisis, a chase up the balcony stairs. It had been one of those foolish occasions when Homer had been forced back into his long-defunct role as an ex-lieutenant detective in the office of the District Attorney of Middlesex County. “What are they using this place for now? Sort of a giant dressing room?”
    Mary introduced him to Tom Cobb, one of the stage directors, and Homer said, “How do you do,” but a gaggle of children rushed past them in an endless stream, and Tom said, “Hey, wait for me,” and took off after the children. Mary grasped Homer’s arm and led him to a harried-looking woman hunched over an ironing board. “Our wardrobe supervisor, Joan Hill.”
    â€œI was just saying—” said Homer, but then a human cherry tree said, “Excuse me,” and wobbled past them, heading for a mirror to inspect the twiggy growths growing out of its head. At once there was a clatter of small objects on the floor. “Shit,” said the tree, “all my cherries fell off.”
    â€œOh, God,” said the wardrobe supervisor. She waved her iron at Mary, and at once the ironing board collapsed. “Oh, could you, dear? Would you? I’ve got to do something about his cherries.”
    Mary picked up the ironing board. “Really, Homer, you don’t have to stay. Why don’t you go to a movie or something?”
    â€œDon’t be silly. I want to see what it’s like.”
    â€œWell, just as you wish.” Mary wet her finger and touched the iron. It hissed. Someone shouted for the Morris dancers.
    â€œOh, God,” said Homer, “Morris dancers. All this folksy stuff, Ph.D.s and computer scientists pretending to be peasants. How do you stand it?”
    â€œOh, Homer, I knew you wouldn’t like it.” Mary drove the iron along a length of wrinkled cloth. “It’s true, there’s a kind of Cambridge chic about the Revels. But the Morris dancers are really great. Why don’t you go into Sanders Theatre and watch?”
    Grumpily Homer did as he was told. Once more he crossed the cold high corridor. After pushing through the swinging doors of Sanders, he was again in the warm air.
    The place was already buzzing. Three people were hunched over the tech table at the back of the floor, their equipment on a board mounted over a couple of benches. Homer sat down nearby and folded his arms and looked grimly at the stage.
    But he couldn’t maintain his cynicism. As always, the hollow chamber captured him with its nineteenth-century air of varnished wooden comfort, with its shadowy stage and enclosing semicircle of seats in rising tiers. Somehow the place had a quasi-medieval feeling. It was a Gothico-Victorian hall in a forest of oak trees in which wild boar and leaping stags were hiding, with huntsmen dodging behind the railings of the mezzanine. Ulysses S. Grant would appear in a moment in the robes of King Arthur, and so would John Ruskin, masquerading as Sir Galahad.
    Homer winced. Oh, God, here