'Is it? I'm so glad you like it, because I've always been fond of it.
The Chinese Ambassador gave it me.'
'I know,' he said.
'But why do you copy it?' she asked, casual and sing-song. 'Why not do
something original?'
'I want to know it,' he replied. 'One gets more of China, copying this
picture, than reading all the books.'
'And what do you get?'
She was at once roused, she laid as it were violent hands on him, to
extract his secrets from him. She MUST know. It was a dreadful tyranny,
an obsession in her, to know all he knew. For some time he was silent,
hating to answer her. Then, compelled, he began:
'I know what centres they live from--what they perceive and feel--the
hot, stinging centrality of a goose in the flux of cold water and
mud--the curious bitter stinging heat of a goose's blood, entering
their own blood like an inoculation of corruptive fire--fire of the
cold-burning mud--the lotus mystery.'
Hermione looked at him along her narrow, pallid cheeks. Her eyes were
strange and drugged, heavy under their heavy, drooping lids.
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