I had expected great expansions, tremendous outward changes to match the changes in me. Luminous, pearl-colored rooms, ships, voyages, India, China, and Spain, floating, swimming, and lying, a feast of speed and height and oceans and new sensations.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.

It is your show. It is your universe. There is no one else here, just you, and nothing is being withheld from you. You are completely on your own. Everything is available for direct knowing. No one else has anything you need. No one else can lead you, pull you, push you or carry you.

for I’m a strange new kind of inbetween thing aren’t I not at home with the dead nor with the living

At that moment I know I am half woman, half child. That a portion of me conceals a child who loves to be amazed, to be taught, to be directed. When I listen, I am a child, and Henry becomes paternal. The haunting image of an erudite, literary father reasserts itself, and the woman becomes small again. I remember other phrases, like “I would not hurt you—not you,” his unusual delicacy with me, his protectiveness. I feel myself betrayed. Overwhelmed with the wonder of Henry’s work, I have become a child. I can imagine another man saying to me, “I cannot make love to you. You are not a woman. You are a child.” I awake from dreams of utter sensuality. And then in anger I want to dominate, to work like a man, support Henry, get his book published. I want more than ever to fuck and to be fucked, to assert the sensual woman. Henry says one day, “Listen, I believe you could have ten lovers and handle them all. You’re insatiable.” And another day, “Your sensuality doesn’t convince me.” He has seen the child! Hateful, infuriating. I run away from Clichy and think I carry my secret away with me. I have the hope that Henry has not grasped it too well. I fear the uncanny analysis of his eyes. I slip out of his bed and run away while he sleeps. I rush home and fall asleep, deeply, for many hours. I must choke the child. Tomorrow I can meet Henry, face him, be woman.

Remember that you are the angel of your own life....