"And did he bring the Physiognomy with him?" she asked.
"The Physiognomy had been in existence in one form or another dating back to when the first people looked into one another's eyes. But Below, needing some law to govern his creation, codified it and made it a mathematics of judgment concerning humanity."
"I always hoped to go there someday to study in the great libraries and perhaps even attend one of the universities."
"You are truly idiosyncratic, my dear. No woman there would ever dream of going to a university; no woman has access to the libraries."
"And why is that?" she asked.
"They know full well that they are inferior to men in general, just as certain men are inferior to others. Not only do they know it, it is a law," I told her in my softest voice.
"You can't really believe that," she said.
"Of course I do," I said. "Look, you've read the literature. Women's brains are smaller than men's; it is a scientific fact."
She turned away from me with a look of disgust.
"Aria," I pleaded, "I cannot change nature." I could feel her growing cold. She took a step away from me, and I tried to think of something that would bring back her tranquillity. "Women have certain attributes, certain, shall we say, biological possibilities. They have a place in the culture, but ..."
She seemed to brighten and turned to face me. "Oh, I think I know what you mean," she said, smiling.
"You do?" I asked. My mind reeled, and I felt gravity drop away. The beauty, the wine now thought for me as I put my arm around her and prepared to kiss her. In the back of my mind, I was wondering where I had left the leather glove I habitually employed in such crucial moments.
Then it came, as unexpected and devastating as the loss of the Physiognomy. She slapped my face and tore away from my grasp.
"Women have their place in the culture," she said, mocking me. "Just remember, it is I who am conducting this investigation. I may be a woman, but I am smart enough to know you have somehow lost your abilities."
"Aria," I said. I had wanted to speak her name sternly, but instead my word came like the cry of a child.
"Don't worry," she said. "I won't tell anyone. I will finish the investigation, because I want you to know, even if it remains a secret, that it was I who solved the case."
I could not believe what I was thinking, but I was actually going to apologize. By Harrow's hindquarters, my world was shredding in every direction. "I'm sorry," I said and the words were like a pound of cremat on my tongue.
"You are sorry," she said. "I will see you tomorrow at ten. This time, don't you be late. Hopefully you will exhibit a more professional demeanor in the morning." With this she grabbed her coat, crossed the room, and was gone.
I was completely immobilized by both her revelation that she had perceived my loss of the Physiognomy and of her opinion of me. This was true humiliation—and worse, true loneliness. Because I felt the greatest need to get away from myself, I went next door, quickly put on my coat, and went after her.
Outside, the darkness of the night frightened me more than usual as the brisk wind, following Aria's lead, also slapped me in the face. I saw her distant figure as she made her way up the empty street. My plan, if you could call it that, was not to confront her—I knew that would be a mistake—but merely to follow her. I could not bear her leaving. Sticking to the deep shadows in front of the buildings, I ran, a skill I hadn't utilized since childhood.
She stopped once and turned around, standing and watching for a moment. I too stopped, hoping she did not see me. Then she took to the alley between the bank and the theater. I moved up to the end of the alleyway and waited until she had traversed its entirety. When she was out of sight, I made my move. In this manner, I tracked her from a distance through a thicket of pines and then across a small meadow, running along on the toes of my boots so that she would not detect the sound of the hardened snow crunching beneath them.
On the other side of the meadow there stood a one-story ramshackle house made of that splintered gray wood everything in Anamasobia was constructed of. I could see a warm light glowing from its one front window. She entered and closed the door behind her. I tiptoed up to the front of it and then, if you can believe this, got down on my hands and knees like a dog and cautiously crawled up beneath the window.
I peered in on a living room furnished with crude chairs made of tree limbs. Sitting in two of them, staring at each other, were an old man and woman. In the light thrown off from the fireplace, I could see that he had the telltale blue tinge that suggested he was well on his way to becoming one of the ghastly hardened heroes. Here was a tableau of utter dullness. Obviously, she had not lied about the mental capacity of her parents. I scowled and crawled around to the side of the house.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw there was another window. Making my way up beneath it, I reached into my pocket and took out the derringer. I had resolved to shoot myself if she discovered me. It would have been a humiliation I could not have endured. From inside I could hear someone moving around, and then I heard the most unworldly noise, a strange crying sound. "Perhaps she is repentant for having treated me so shoddily," I thought. This gave me the courage to look.
To my utter astonishment, it was not she who was crying. It was, of all things, a baby. I watched, hypnotized, as she held the bawling runt in one arm and took down the top of her dress, revealing her naked breasts. I could not help it, but I sighed audibly. In spite of the hazardous situation I found myself in, I felt my manhood give a tiny nudge against my trousers.
At that moment, I heard a strange hissing noise behind me and turned quickly to look, adrenaline shooting through my system. I saw nothing at first. The noise came again, and I could make out that it was up high. In the lower branches of a huge tree approximately twenty yards behind me I detected a pair of yellow eyes glaring at me. I did not have time to wonder what it was, because as soon as I saw it, I noticed the huge batlike wings begin to move.
Now I thought nothing, cared for nothing, but stood straight up and began to run. I could hear the demon following above me, could feel the air it sent out from the beating of its wings. I dashed across the meadow, actually running like an athlete, with the monstrosity in close pursuit. Even with my terror to drive me on, I was quickly winded. I tripped and went sprawling in the snow. Hearing it hovering just above me, I turned on my back, raised the derringer, which was still in my hand, and fired. Through the residual smoke of the blast, I caught a vague glimpse of the creature as it quickly ascended. With that momentary, hazy glance, I could tell that old man Beaton had gotten the description right: a hairy, horned devil with cloven feet and a spiked tail—exactly as I remembered from the religious books I had collected as objects of ridicule during my student years.