Chapter 43: Out of sight

. The

burning of your eyes, of your gestures, a bonfire of faith and

dissolution. You have the power. Never again use the word

exhibitionism. Acting in you is a revelation. What the soul so often

cannot say through the body because the body is not subtle enough,

you can say. The body usually betrays the soul. You have the

power of contagion, of transmitting emotion through the infinite

shadings of your movements, the variations of your mouth’s designs,

the feathery palpitations of your eyelashes. And your voice, your

voice more than any other voice linked to your breath, the

breathlessness of feeling, so that you take one’s breath away with

you and carry one into the realm of breathlessness and silence. So

much power you have Serena! The pain you felt afterwards was not

the pain of failure or of exhibitionism, as you said, it must be the

pain of having revealed so much that was of the spirit, like some

great mystic revelation of compassion and love and secret illusion,

so that you expected this to have been communicated to others, and

that they should respond as to a magic ritual. It must have been a

shock when it did not happen to the audience, when they remained

untransformed. But to those who respond as I did, you appear as

something beyond the actor who can transmit to others the power

to feel, to believe. For me the miracle took place. You seemed the

only one alive among the actors. What hurt you was that it was not

acting, and that when it ended there was a break in the dream. You

acting, and that when it ended there was a break in the dream. You

should have been protected from the violent transition. You should

have been carried off the stage, so that you would not feel the

change of level, from the stage to the street, and from the street to

your home, and from there to another party, another love, another

snowstorm, another pair of gold slippers.

“It must take great courage to give to many what one often gives

but to the loved one. A voice altered by love, desire, the smile of

open naked tenderness. We are permitted to witness the exposure

of all feelings, tenderness, anger, weakness, abandon, childishness,

fear, all that we usually reveal only to the loved one. That is why we

love the actress. They give us the intimate being who is only

revealed in the act of love. We receive all the treasures, a caressing

glance, an intimate gesture, the secret ranges of the voice. This

openness, which is closed again as soon as we face a partial

relationship, the one who understands only one part of us, is the

miraculous openness which takes place in whole love. And so I

witnessed, on the stage, this mystery of total love which in my life is

hidden from me. And now, Serena, I cannot bear the little loves,

and yet I cannot claim all of yours, and every day I see you now,

immense, complete, and I but a fragment, wandering…”

Serena touched the letter which rested on her breast, the sharp

corners of the pages hurting her a little… “What can I give you?” he

asked. “What have I to give you?” he cried out in anguish, thinking

this was the reason why he had not seen her for three days, or

heard from her. Another time he had said playfully: “I can only

nibble at you.” And had pressed his small, perfect teeth into her

shoulder.

The ascensions of the ballet dancers into space and their return to

the ground, brought before her eyes a Japanese umbrella made of

colored paper which she once wore in her hair. It was lovely to see,

so delicately made. When it rained and others opened their

umbrellas then it was time for her to close hers.

But a hi wind had torn it, and when she went into Chinatown to buy

another the woman who ran the shop shouted violently: “It’s made

in Japan, throw it in the gutter!”

Serena had looked at the parasol, innocent and fragile, made in a

moment of peace by a workman dreaming of peace, made like a

flower, lighter than war and hatred. She left the shop and looked

down at the gutter and could not bring herself to throw it. She

folded it quietly, folded tender gardens, the fragile structure of

dream, a workman’s dream of peace, innocent music, innocent

workman whose hands had not made bullets. In time of war hatred

confused all the values, hatred fell upon cathedrals, paintings, music,

rare books, children, the innocent passersby.

She folded the letter, as she had folded the parasol.