…And, as the Pattern in Rebma had helped to restore my faded memories, so this one I was now striving to create stirred and elicited the smell of the chestnut trees, of the wagonloads of vegetables moving through the dawn toward the Hallos… I was not in love with anyone in particular at the time, though there were many girls — Yvettes and Mimis and Simones, their faces merge — and it was spring in Paris, with Gipsy bands and cocktails at Louis’… I remembered, and my heart leaped with a kind of Proustian joy while Time tolled about me like a bell… And perhaps this was the reason for the recollection, for this joy seemed transmitted to my movements, informed my perceptions, empowered my will…

I saw the next step and I took it… I had been around once now, creating the perimeter of my Pattern. At my back, I could feel the storm. It must have mounted to the plateau’s rim. The sky was darkening, the storm blotting the swinging, swimming, colored limits. Flashes of lightning splayed about, and I could not spare the energy and the attention to try to control things.

Having gone completely around, I could see that as much of the new Pattern as I had walked was now inscribed in the rock and glowing palely, bluely. Yet, there were no sparks, no tinges in my feet, no hair-raising currents — only the steady law of deliberation, upon me like a great weight… Left…

…Poppies, poppies and cornflowers and tall poplars along country roads, the taste of Normandy cider… And in town again, the smell of the chestnut blossoms… The Seine full of stars… The smell of the old brick houses in the Place des Vosges after a morning’s rain… The bar under the Olympia Music Hall… A fight there… Bloodied knuckles, bandaged by a girl who took me home…