any secrecy, when everything is known to all of us?

He was touching unconsciously the dead husks of flowers as he passed by, and talking disconnectedly to himself.

‘You can’t go away,’ he was saying. ‘There IS no away. You only withdraw upon yourself.’

He threw a dead flower-husk on to the water.

‘An antiphony — they lie, and you sing back to them. There wouldn’t have to be any truth, if there weren’t any lies. Then one needn’t assert anything — ’

He stood still, looking at the water, and throwing upon it the husks of the flowers.

‘Cybele — curse her! The accursed Syria Dea! Does one begrudge it her? What else is there —