to time like a breath of life and cast the spell of an hermaphrodite. I listened with an eager anxiety and yet as though dazed and only half aware.
“You like me,” she went on, “for the reason I said before, because I have broken through your isolation. I have caught you from the very gates of hell and wakened you to new life. But I want more from you—much more. I want to make you in love with me. No, don’t interrupt me. Let me speak. You like me very much. I can see that. And you’re grateful to me. But you’re not in love with me. I mean to make you fall in love with me, and it is part of my calling. It is my living to be able to make men fall in love with me. But mind this, I don’t do it because I find you exactly captivating. I’m as little in love with you as you with me. But I need you as you do me. You need me now, for the moment, because you’re desperate. You’re dying just for the lack of a push to throw you into the water and bring you to life again. You need me to teach you to dance and to laugh and to live. But I need you, not today—later, for something very important and beautiful too. When you are in love with me I will give you my last command and you will obey it, and it will be the better for both of us.”