PARTISAN REVIEW
shall presently be) comes to your rescue. You can't begin to conceive
how complicated it is, that maze. To-morrow I shall introduce you to
Daedalus, who will tell you about it.
It
was he who built it; but
even he has already forgotten how to get out of it. You'll hear from
him how his son Icarus, who once ventured inside, could only get
out on wings, and through the upper air. That I don't dare to rec–
ommend to you; it's too risky. You'd better get it into your head at
once that your only hope is to stick close to me. We shall be together,
you and I- we
must
be together, from now on, in life and death.
Only thanks to me
1
by me, and in me
will
you be able to recapture
yourself. You must take it or leave it.
If
you leave me, so much the
worse for you. So begin by taking me." Whereupon she abandoned
all restraint, gave herself freely to my embrace and kept me in her
arms till morning.
The hours passed slowly for me, I must admit. I have never
been good at staying in one place, be it even in the very bosom of
delight. I always aim to break free as soon as the novelty has worn
off. Afterwards Ariadne used to say: "You promised." I never gave a
promise of any kind. Liberty above all things: my duty is to myself.
Although my powers of observation were still to some extent
clouded by drink, Ariadne appeared to me to yield her last reserves
with such readiness that I could hardly suppose myself to have done
the work of a pioneer. This disposed of any scruples which I might
later have had about leaving her. Besides, her sentimentality soon
became unendurable. Unendurable her protestations of eternal devo–
tion, and the tender diminutives which she slavered upon me. I was
alternately her only trasure, her canary, her pupkin, her tercelet, her
guinea-fowl. ....
I loathe pet-names. And then she read too much. "Little heart,"
she would say, "the irises will wither fast and die." (In point of fact,
they'd hardly begun to flower). I know quite well that nothing lasts
for ever; but the present is all that matters to me. And then she
would say: "I couldn't exist without you." This made me think all
the time of how to get rid of her.
"What will the king, your father, say to that?" I asked her. And
her reply: "Minos, sweet chuck, puts up with everything. He thinks it's
wisest to allow what cannot be prevented. He didn't complain of my
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