Diana the Goddess Who Hunts Alone

XXXIV

Toward the end of the 1970s, I ran into Diana in a Paris restaurant. She smiled at me fixedly but didn’t recognize me. She was like a dead woman whose eyes hadn’t been closed. Her smile was meant for no one in particular. Her stare was out of phase with the objects before it. A zombie with swollen flesh. A miserable body. A malnourished beauty. I had a useless feeling that I couldn’t keep from overwhelming me. Might I have helped her? Was I in some way guilty for what I was seeing and what was looking at me without recognizing me? Would only a Midwestern boy have made her happy forever? Is there a part of life that won’t let itself be purified? I have no explanation for the inexplicable. But neither does the world.