Come. We Must Go Deeper With No

Her Father Had Taught Her About Hands. About A Dog's Paws. Whenever Her Father Was Alone With A Dog In A House He Would Lean Over And Smell The Skin At The Base Of Its Paw. This, He Would Say, As If Coming Away From A Brandy Snifter, Is The Greatest Smell In The World! A Bouquet! Great Rumours Of Travel! She Would Pretend Disgust, But The Dog's Paw Was A Wonder: The Smell Of It Never Suggested Dirt. It's A Cathedral! Her Father Had Said, So-and-so's Garden, That Field Of Grasses, A Walk Through Cyclamen--a Concentration Of Hints Of All The Paths The Animal Had Taken During The Day.

There Is A Story, Always Ahead Of You. Barely Existing. Only Gradually Do You Attach Yourself To It And Feed It. You Discover The Carapace That Will Contain And Test Your Character. You Will Find In This Way The Path Of Your Life.

For The First Forty Days A Child Is Given Dreams Of Previous Lives. Journeys, Winding Paths, A Hundred Small Lessons And Then The Past Is Erased.

This Was The Time In Her Life That She Fell Upon Books As The Only Door Out Of Her Cell. They Became Half Her World.

How We Are Almost Nothing. We Think, In Our Youth, We Are The Centre Of The Universe, But We Simply Respond, Go This Way Or That By Accident, Survive Or Improve By The Luck Of The Draw, With Little Choice Or Determination On Our Part.