"More mature," Henrietta said. "Maturation is a process that is ongoing."
"I was mature," Henrietta said.
"Jesus Christ!" Henrietta said.
WHY THE SACRED HEART IS FREQUENTLY REPRESENTED SURMOUNTED BY A CROWN OF THORNS
"This," she said, pointing with her finger, "is inane."
Henrietta and Alexandra went walking. They were holding each others arms. Alexandra moved a hand sensuously with a circular motion around one of Henriettas breasts. Henrietta did the same thing to Alexandra. People were looking at them with strange expressions on their faces. They continued walking, under the shaped trees of the boulevard. They were swooning with pleasure, more or less. Someone called the police.
Henrietta got up and looked over Alexandras shoulder at the sentence.
Alexandra was reading Henriettas manuscript.
ROLE OF THE SACRED HEART SOCIETY IN THE VENERATION OF THE SACRED HEART
"Yes," she said. "I prefer the inane, sometimes. The ane is often inutile to the artist."
"They dont always tell the truth."
"No."
MEANING OF THE TINT TONGUE OF FLAME
"Now I will go into the other room and astonish Henrietta, who is also beautiful."
"You were. . . exquisite."
THE SACRED HEART IN CONTEMPORARY ICONOGRAPHY
"Not while love is here," Henrietta said.
Henrietta said: "Now I am mature. In maturity I found a rich world beyond the pale and found it possible to live in that world with a degree of enthusiasm. My mother says I am deluded but I have stopped talking to my mother. My father is dead and thus has no opinion. Alexandra continues to heap up indulgences by exclaiming Jesus, Mary and Joseph! which is worth an indulgence of fifty days each time it is exclaimed. Some of the choicer ejaculations are worth seven years and seven quarantines and these she pursues with the innocent cupidity of the small investor. She keeps her totals in a little book. I love her. She has to date worked off eighteen thousand years in the flames of Purgatory. I tell her that the whole thing is a shuck but she refuses to consider my views on this point. Alexandra is immature in that she thinks she will live forever, live after she is dead at the right hand of God in His glory with His power and His angels and His whatnot and I cannot persuade her otherwise. Joseph Conrad will live forever but Alexandra will not. I love her. Now we are going out."
THEORIES OF THE SACRED HEART
Alexandra looked at herself in the mirror. She admired her breasts, her belly, and her legs, which were, she felt, her best feature.
Henrietta decided that Alexandra did not love her enough. And how could nuances of despair be expressed if you couldnt throw your novel into the fire safely?
LOCATION OF THE TRUE SACRED HEART REVEALED
"I remember that time in Chicago," Alexandra said. "That was a good bottle. And afterwards. . ."
ORDERS AND CEREMONIES IN THE VENERATION OF THE SACRED HEART
"The presentation of petitions is generally made through an agent, whose name is inscribed in the right-hand corner on the back of the petition. This signature is necessary because the agent will call for the grant, and the Congregations deliver rescripts to no one but the agent whose name is thus recorded. The agents, furthermore, pay the fee and taxes for the requested rescripts of favor, give any necessary explanations and comments that may be required, and are at all times in touch with the authorities in order to correct any mistakes or defects in the petitions. Between the hours of nine and one oclock the agents gather in the offices of the Curial administration to hand in new petitions and to inquire about the fate of those not yet decided. Many of them also go to the anterooms of secretaries in order to discuss important matters personally with the leading officials.
"The hotel," Henrietta said. "Snapdragons on the night table."
"Two hundred sixty-six dollars."
"How much is that in our money?"
HOW THE ABBE ST. GERMAIN PRESERVED THE TRUE SACRED HEART FROM THE HANDS OF THE BARBARIANS
"When are you old?" Alexandra asked.
Henrietta rushed to the fire and pulled the manuscript out of it. Only the first and last pages were fully burned, and luckily, she remembered what was written there.
Alexandra and Henrietta were walking down the street in their long gowns. A man looked at them and laughed. Alexandra and Henrietta rushed at him and scratched his eyes out.
Henrietta said: "Once I was a young girl, very much like any other young girl, interested in the same things, I was exemplary. I was told what I was, that is to say a young girl, and I knew what I was because I had been told and because there were other young girls all around me who had been told the same things and knew the same things, and looking at them and hearing again in my head the things I had been told I knew what a young girl was. We had all been told the same things. I had not been told, for example, that some wine was piss and some not and I had not been told. . . other things. Still I had been told a great many things all very useful but I had not been told that I was going to die in any way that would allow me to realize that I really was going to die and that it would be all over, then, and that this was all there was and thatI had damned well better make the most of it. That I discovered for myself and covered with shame and shit as I was I made the most of it. I had not been told how to make the most of it but I figured it out. Then I moved through a period of depression, the depression engendered by the realization that I had placed myself beyond the pale, there I was, beyond the pale. Then I discovered that there were other people beyond the pale with me, that there were quite as many people on the wrong side of the pale as there were on the right side of the pale and that the people on the wrong side of the pale were as complex as the people on the right side of the pale, as unhappy, as subject to time, as subject to death. So what the fuck? I said to myself in the colorful language I had learned on the wrong side of the pale. By this time I was no longer a young girl. I was mature."
As a designer of artificial ruins, Alexandra was well-known. She designed ruins in the manners of Langley, Effner, Robert Adam and Carlo Marchionni, as well as her own manner. She was working on a ruin for a park in Tempe, Arizona, consisting of a ruined wall nicely disintegrated at the top and one end, two classical columns upright and one fallen, vines, and a number of broken urns. The urns were difficult because it was necessary to produce them from intact urns and the workmen at the site were often reluctant to do violence to the urns. Sometimes she pretended to lose her temper. "Hurl the bloody urn, Umberto!"
"Alexandra! Arent you going to rush to the fire and pull the manuscript of my novel out of it?"
There was a moment of contemplation.
"If you were mature then, what are you now?"
"Ill have another glass."
CONFLICTING CLAIMS OF THE GREAT CATHEDRALS
Alexandra stopped reading.
"All applications to be sent to Rome should be written on good paper, and a double sheet, 8? inches x 10? inches, should be employed. The writing of petitions should be done with ink of a good quality, that will remain legible for a long time. Petitions are generally composed in the Latin language, but the use of the French and Italian languages is also permissible.
"This wine is piss," Alexandra said.
"The fundamental rule to be observed is that all petitions must be addressed to the Pope, who, directly or indirectly, grants the requested favors. Hence the regulation form of address in all petitions reads Beatissime Pater. Following this the petition opens with the customary deferential phrase ad pedes Sanctitatis Vestrae humillime provolutus. The concluding formula is indicated by its opening words: Et Deus. . . expressing the prayer of blessing which the grateful petitioner addresses in advance to God for the expected favor.
APPEARANCE OF SPURIOUS SACRED HEARTS AND HOW THEY MAY BE DISTINGUISHED FROM THE TRUE ONE
"For lay persons it is as a rule useless to forward petitions through the mails to the Roman Congregations, because as a matter of principle they will not be considered. Equally useless, of course, would be the enclosing of postage stamps with such petitions. Applications by telegraph are not permitted because of their publicity. Nor are decisions ever given by telegraph."
Henrietta stood up and, with a heaving motion, threw the manuscript of her novel into the fire. The manuscript of the novel she had been working on ceaselessly, night and day, for the last ten years.
"Twelve dollars. Or ten dollars. Ten or twelve."
"You neednt drink it then."
"But theres no reason to buy absolute vinegar is there? I mean couldnt you have asked the man at the store?"
Alexandra was sending a petition to Rome. She wanted her old marriage, a dim marriage ten years old to a man named Black Dog, annulled. Alexandra read the rules about sending petitions to Rome to Henrietta.
"You wanted me to buy California wine," Henrietta said.
"How much did we pay for that bottle?" Henrietta asked, incuriously.
"After introduction, body and conclusion of the petition have been duly drawn, the sheet is evenly folded length-wise, and on its back, to the right of the fold line, are indited the date of the presentation and the petitioners name.
"I have been offered a thousand florins for it," Henrietta said. "The Dutch rights."
Alexandra had a special devotion to the Sacred Heart.
"Bless Babel," Alexandra said, and took her friend in her arms.
Alexandra was also a member of the Knights of St. Dympna, patroness of the insane.
LOSS AND RECOVERY OF THE SACRED HEART
