Radiance

PART ONE

THE WHITE PAGES

My soul burns to speak of strange bodies transformed!

O gods in heaven, you ardent lovers of mutation,

become the breath inside me

and draw up my song, untroubled, unbroken,

from the first beginnings of the world

to this very moment and this very day.

—Ovid, Metamorphoses

For an actress to be a success she must have the face of Venus, the brains of Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.

—Ethel Barrymore