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" 'I told you no. I think you're rather magnificent. I thought you were before. My, but this wine is strong! Is it wine?' I realized that the bottles carried no labels. I felt the floor moving beneath me. 'Would you mind if I sat down?' I asked. I looked about me for a chair.

" 'No, you must,' she said. She drew up one of the swan-back chairs for me. It was a graceful thing, like the chairs on Grecian urns. I remembered having ordered it. And Allen had teased me over the phone about all the swans in my house of marble and gold.

" 'Yes, your workmen laugh at your taste,' she said, reading my thoughts, 'but your taste is excellent, have no doubt. ¡¯

" 'Oh, I don't have any doubts,' I said, more sure of myself now that I was seated. I laid the cup on the edge of the desk. My hand rested beside it. I think I had almost dropped it.

" 'Drink some more,' she said. 'It's a special brew. You might say I blended it myself. ¡¯

" 'Oh, I can't,' I said. I looked up into her eyes. What powerful eyes. People with big eyes have such a gift. And hers were so enormous. So white and black.

"She sat on the desk looking down at me. She smiled reassuringly. 'It seems I don't know quite what to do with you when you're so polite,' she said. 'You made an annoying enemy once, and now I want you to love me. Perhaps when all is said and done, you will. ¡¯

" 'That's entirely possible,' I said, 'but there're so many species of love, aren't there? I'm religious still, and something tells me you live freely. ¡¯

" 'Catholic,' she said. 'Of course. The grand Church. Nothing less would be worthy of you and Mrs. McQueen, would it? It seems one evening in Naples that I saw you and your party at Mass. No. It was in the catacombs of San Gennaro. Your family had booked a private tour. Why, I'm almost sure of it. ' She lifted the ciborium and filled it from the bottle. She gave me the cup.

" 'You saw us in Naples?' I asked. My head was spinning. I drank the wine, thinking that just a little bit more might eliminate this precarious feeling. That happened sometimes, didn't it? Of course it didn't. 'How utterly remarkable,' I said. 'Because I could have sworn I saw you in Naples as well. ¡¯

" 'And where was that?' she asked.

" 'Are you my enemy?' I asked.

" 'Not at all,' she said. 'If I could, I'd deliver you from old age and death, from aches and pains, from the blandishments of ghosts, from the torment of your familiar, Goblin. I'd deliver you from heat and cold and from the arid dullness of the noonday sun. I'd deliver you into the placid light of the moon and into the domain of the Milky Way forever. ¡¯

" 'Those are strange words,' I said. 'I can't make sense out of them. I could have sworn I saw you in Naples, that I saw you on my balcony at the Excelsior Hotel, that I had a nightmare sent from you. Isn't that madness? Surely you'll tell me it was. ¡¯

" 'Nightmare?' she asked softly, sweetly. 'You call a fragment of my soul a nightmare? Oh, but who would want a fragment of another person's soul? You think you want Mona Mayfair's soul. You don't know what it would mean to see her now. ¡¯

" 'Don't play with her name,' I said. I was startled. Suddenly it seemed to me that everything that was happening was wrong. Mona, my beloved Mona. Don't speak of Mona. The wine was not wine. The house was overwhelming. Petronia herself was too large and grand for a woman. I was too drunk to be where I was.

" 'When I am finished with you, you won't want Mona Mayfair,' she said quickly, almost angrily, though her voice remained soft. She purred like a cat. 'And of my soul you'll know no more. My soul will be locked as though a key, a golden key, were turned inside it. It will all be silence between us, the silence you know now. ¡¯

" 'I have to get away from here,' I said weakly. I knew I couldn't stand. I tried. My muscles wouldn't work. 'I have to get back to the boat. If you have a modicum of honor, you'll help me. ¡¯

" 'I have none, so rest where you are,' she said. 'We'll part soon enough in my time, though not in yours, and then you may have this house as your Hermitage, and I even bequeath the tomb to you. Yes, you may have that, and you may take your chances with it, and you may crave this dark, lively swamp as I so often craved it. I think I've been waiting for you these long three and a half years, knowing I would relinquish everything to you when I saw you. Yes, waiting. Why is it that this must be done I can't answer --. ¡¯

" 'What? What must be done? What are you saying?' I pleaded. 'I don't understand you. ¡¯

" 'It's as though the evil builds up,' she said, 'and then it must be siphoned off into a new one, and I give birth as I never could in life. ¡¯

" 'I can't follow you. ¡¯

"She turned and looked down at me, and there spread across her face the most transcendent smile.

" 'Why do I get the feeling that you're a giant cat?' I asked suddenly, 'even to your lovely eyes, and I'm some luckless prey that you've randomly selected?¡¯

" 'Never random,' she said, her face exquisitely serious. 'No, never random. But carefully, out of circumstance, and on merit, and out of loneliness. But never random, no, never that. You are much loved. You have been long awaited. ¡¯

"A wave of sheer drunkenness passed over me. I was about to slip into unconsciousness.

"The figure before me started flashing on and off, as if someone had ahold of the light switch and meant to drive me mad. I tried to stand up but I couldn't.

"I put the ciborium on the edge of the desk and pushed it back with my right fingers. I saw her fill it again with wine. No more, I thought, but then she lifted it and put it to my lips. I took it. I tried to decline. She tipped it and I drank it as it spilled down my neck and into my shirt. It was delicious, much more so now than in the beginning. I fell back. I saw the ciborium lying on the floor. I saw the red wine on the marble.

" 'No, not on the beautiful white marble,' I said. 'It's too like blood, look at it. ' Again, I tried to stand up. I couldn't.

"She knelt down in front of me.