In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The Judas Nocturne Twilight is espionage conducted openly, groups of unhappy men in topcoats peering into ground-floor windows. How lovely if the fate of nations flowered and collapsed in little rooms at street level, rooms like mine where I am just explaining to someone that she is a cloud chamber of furtive stars and that I have a map of them. Modern times arc an awkward spectacle. On the one hand, our public selves compete for scarce window space, for the opportunity to see in to where power is decided and used. On the other, private life recedes like a glacier, a translucent corner of heaven meant only to be photographed, never settled. And each detests the other even inside us. I try to tell a woman I love her and can't go to bed with her, afraid as I am of the least darkness: my shadow floating over her stomach, the deep pencil lines in her hair and in her eyes. Her small chin falling to her breast the way a spark falls in a cloud chamber tells me that I am a liar and a bad man, just as huddled topcoats at the window and fretful looks the mirror image of mine tell me I am the class enemy of decent feeling, of the family troikas clustered on islands of public recreation 25 in calm sunlight. I should go to bed with the woman. I should find a hillock in the dark and sleep until the morning when there is work and nothing to he afraid of. How can I explain that fear is the last, abused rite of freedom? I fear losing her, so I must lose her. I am afraid one morning I will have no window space and no access to power, so I tell lies and steal things. She has little breasts and wears a perfume named for groves in Syria. My rooms are almost heaven. When I was in school I made a cloud chamber for my science class. Inside it, the seeds of cosmos sprouted in bad air, burned, and disappeared. I never saw anything so pretty until I saw the words "adultery" and "treason" printed large in a manuscript about hell. It was a clumsy bit of medievalism but larger than the world, brighter than the end of the world. 26 ...

Share