The Trial of Callista Blake

On the other side of that border spread such a blackness as the mind imagines for the sea a mile down, yet here and there it was relieved by the gray of stone; everywhere, al

ed in there, in the blackness where no one could s

ars old. "A geeolawgical malformation," said the

he child knew it. She grew interested, not urgently, in learning the child's sex. What was the difficulty?-not a diaper. Apparently the little thing posses

the eye. She watched them in contemplative pain resembling fear, and they continued moving, slowly, a stirring and gliding that seemed aimless until Callista understood one of th

it)-therefore one could understand the primitive justice of it as the gray jaw of a pursuer hooked over her narrow rump. His hind legs massively firmed themselves. Callista could observe the sudden scarlet erection, sense the weight of the one lifted gray indifferent paw; but he did not swing about to rear up and clamp her loins, he

the pancreas-a remarkably pancreative bitch to be sure, aware of nature and consequences. Notice the inadequate uterus,

ng her father to show him a long overdue report card on progress in pancreation. The little girl-naturally, a little girl, with that lyre waist and tumbli

paw stuc

the little girl. "I

ayness, uncertain whether she could find her father. He sat (she th

itself in a tangle of black vines, and Callista ca

two doors, so very nearly alike, and someone-NOT Daddy, because Dadd

hurts-" nothing in her throat but a mumble, hardly even that, a sc

st, rather a frustrated anger, since in another moment her father might have been able to

exchange of selves: What I was in the dream, I a

same one through which yesterday, by straining on tiptoe to the limit of pain, she had succeeded in watching the wheeling of doves. Th

melling blanket. At this hour the cells were quiet. Another prisoner snored, probably the old woman

ng less about their insides." But to meet one person is to meet a thousand selves; and it seemed to Callista that she had remained critical, as Edith probably feared she wouldn't. "Cal, I wish you had more counterbalance, too, for those psychologists in print. I've read them. They don't look

led the crystal April afternoon, and Edith standing, her back turned, looking out the studio's north window, the light a clear per

on light

you ought to be farther from me." Edith shrugged and sighed. "For your sake, that

your sake, the

at her back, looking down in one of her sudden moods of softness a

Callista said: "I will-I'll think a

's my dish. I like men. The few that I've thought I'd like for keeps

des into the nearest and most tormenting section of the jungle. One could rule out those who had fallen into worship of the sofa-pillow god Adjustment, and in doing so lost s

was before Ann Do

he court of her own intelligence before that court could grant any acquittal. The face of Judge Mann intruded, however, again and once again, when her toiling revery reached the Blank, the lost moment, the miserable blur of amnesia where the crucial thing, the one answer Callista must have, was surely lying hi

e her bit of a drawing that might now be either a baby or a phallus?-blur that, and let the high walnut bench stand there. Give him the gown-black, please!-and the pencil, and the look, startled but not unkind, that he wore when the spiteful child said: "Which is the Clerk?" He wou

-I'm-thinking-about-something. Not that a talk with Nancy could ever decide anything except that she would continue certain of her own placid rightness. Your Honor, it had a bearing on my state of mind-and by the way, my cantankerous cattiness and

NG YOU HATED YO

lm face, his busy pencil: without the black robe, in ordinary clothes, what would you take him for? Doctor? Scientist? Teacher? Besides, your Honor, on that n

TO TESTIFY

to have the hazy moo

D THAT MOST HUMAN CREATURES ARE AF

ri

radually comprehending because she had to, gradually perching nearer the edge of her chair, hands not in their usual flutter but folded and tightening in her lap, her lovely face abnormally attentive; listening-she had to, that once!-watchful and still. Not o

"Oh, for Christ's sake!"

m with a handkerchief at her mouth. Ann had followed, of course. Callista had not quite slammed the door. Ann was out there, bleati

nd low, an excellent thing in woman"-Lear, Act Five, last scene, I forget the numbe

me al

all right. Let me

it, Ann,

e to move or cry out. The beginning of the blank, probably. A mental door slammed, but surely not locked. But mind is continuing action: it doesn't have doors, levels,

HER TO COME AT

w it was no good. I'd forgotten her God had a blueprint for all these little difficulties. I goofed.... This business about doors: admittedly Freudian slan

hands. They had called it "pouring the kitten." After Papa died, reason after reason why she mustn't go visit the Winwoods. Only three subway stops away, and Papa's own sister. "Tom Winwood drinks, dear, and is not reliable. I do not intend to have My Little Girl exposed to Anything Like That. Nor do I wish to be

nt the days since she had last drawn down her lover's face to her, seen gaunt cheekbones grown large beyond vision above her, accepted the

ed aside the hemlock branch and saw her, his face had been comically legible as his mind abruptly discovered a woman in place of Homely-Blake-Girl-Who-Used-to-Live-Next-Door. To the best of her memory, Callista had not smiled; only sat waiting where spring sunlight lay scattered, random gold; waiting and looking up, needing words no more than a grown-up Bonnie would have needed them at the first cruel-kind approach of a ye

ed him a little with my shorts. Pain of course, the wrench of the torn hymen a required crash of dissonance in the symphonic flow

ere et redi

emel occidi

petua una d

did you say? Wa

g-happened t

O

wo left feet: "Suns may set and rise, but when our brief light is gone, the night is an eternal sleep." Jim hadn't liked any of that, much. The Latin, or the bleeding. That must have been the first time that th

EAR) GET BACK TO T

it that the episode of adultery (termi

REN'T WE DISCUSSING THE DEATH B

go away, and I DO NOT KNOW whether or not I heard what she was up to in

ion: it would be interesting. But he lived in the brain only; her outer eyes would not create him. I did hear her knock on my bedroom door, call my name

tle out, if I wasn't too hysterical to

n he's dead who'll even remember what he was, the courage and the kindness? Cesspool known as the world-people are already forge

potential but incompetent suicide I was merely maintaining a public nuisance. As a good man well

them for laughing, being convinced that the noise just heard in my apartment was laughter and not rats. I have no wish to laugh and hurt your feelings, but it IS funny. Honest, isn't it f