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James K. Baxter Complete Prose Volume 1

[In course of conversations]

[In course of conversations]

In course of conversations we have come to know each other well enough to put up with those little idiosyncrasies that irritate. After all, the company of the most crashing bore is preferable to being alone. And as we have discussed the decay of our mutual estate as fully as we can without giving away any fact that could possibly be used against us, it is time for us to turn to a topic more congenial for all of us.

This hollow and aching truth, this sole surviving pillow of a lost civilisation, this ruined chapel which we are accustomed to call a Self, has had its moment of illumination. For a quarter of an hour, or five minutes, or final seconds even, we believed we had a fraction; and the rigid . . . of tragedy which now covers a vertiginous void, split to reveal a natural smile. This we remember as Joy, though on that momentous occasion we felt no wish to dissect the living tissue. What we hold in our hands is a broken mosaic. These come as splinters with which Kay was accustomed to amuse himself in the hall of the Snow Queen. They spelt then that Word . . . [Unfinished].

1948 (21)