When I thought of how I’d set fire to those newspapers on the Butterfields’ porch, it seemed fair (that is, not cowardly, not evasive) to say that I wasn’t in my right mind. And the root of this temporary insanity? Clearly, it was my love for Jade—a love blocked and turned frantic by my banishment from the Butterfields’ house. Love, that is to say love thwarted, severed me from my senses. The fire was not mischief, not hatred, not some crazy act of revenge.

From the time I learned to love Jade and was drawn into the life of the Butterfield house, straight through to the wait for my case to come before the judge, there was nothing in my life that wasn’t alive with meaning, that wasn’t capable of suggesting weird and hidden significances, that didn’t carry with it the undertaste of what for lack of anything better to call it I’ll call The Infinite. If being in love is to be suddenly united with the most unruly, the most outrageously alive part of yourself, this state of piercing consciousness did not subside in me, as I’ve learned it does in others, after a time. If my mind could have made a sound, it would have burst a row of wineglasses. I saw coincidences everywhere; meanings darted and danced like overheated molecules. Everything was terrifyingly complex; everything was terrifyingly simple. Nothing went unnoticed and everything carried with it a kind of drama. This agony, this delight did not recede when Hugh told me it would be best if I kept away from Jade for a month, nor did it quiet down after the fire and the weeks I spent in limbo—not knowing what was going to be done with me and, above all, not being able to see her. But the actual decision by Judge Rogers slipped by the perpetual watchfulness of my overstimulated consciousness. I had no idea that a ruling was near, and the whole affair was suddenly (“I guess we were lucky,” said Rose) decided behind my back—a deal between Ted Bowen, the district attorney, and Rogers.