PARTISAN REVIEW
83
everywhere. Behind him in the watchtower huts, lights had been
struck to candles and receded as he climbed on to the rock island.
Undertaking the ascent in the early dark before the moonrise,
he moved away from the candles, and the old women, and some–
times the climb up to the ruin was difficult, sometimes not. He
stopped to rest. In a little while when the moon was up he extracted
seme of the Shasta crystal from his pocket and dipped in his index
finger, snorted a bit, and then some more, until his head was clear.
He became aware of the skeletal structure of his body apparatus,
of its musculature, and tissue. He became aware of the part of his
mind he'd left behind, and it was like a door shut on a room full
of words.
He waited and then continued the climb and was on a peak
beside the sacristy wall of the church. Below him he could see where
the altar had been.
He was sitting on a rounded cavity on a lava peak and he heard
a sound and saw light.
A
flash of falcon, concentric blazes of red
and yellow all around the bird and behind it. In a vision his flesh
and hair burned white and a staircase appeared, a marble one in
ruins with brilliant white flowers massed in the rubble at its base. He
went over and laid down in the flowers and his pores were open to
and soaked in citrus and musk.
Arrow, dressed in white, his hair white, and bearing the
falcon, appeared, and then was gone. It grew lighter and there were
mountains with snow on the peaks and a beautiful barren landscape,
white houses and a white stone road. Then the light dimmed and it
was dark with just the stars and moon and the vision had passed.
Django stood up and the bells were not in the belltower and
had never been. There was something about hope that eluded him.
In this pentecost Django became a master of nothing, and knowing
choice, he felt the loneliness of some great bird pass through him
dragging its brilliant train of crystal feathers. "Too much," he said.
"I am alone and there is no wall."
On the morning of the seventh, after sunrise, Django came
down the little fire-born mountain whistling, hands in his pockets.
He managed the descent in skips and bounds, walked over to the
vigil
hut of the old women who already were preparing for the day's
