| Isabella bought a postcard for thirty cents. It was an arial of the Golden Courtyard: paths and arches in the garden lined with clever track-lights. The Roman Candle Fountain, a hot ulcer centered in the frame--the corona of the age. It impersonates the sun in a nova stage. And the gilded inset was an etching of our President. Beard and mane, banner with his name and the usual pedantic Latin: "Mercy Is in Heaven and Rest Is in the Grave. Here, We Do Our Work at Any Cost," (Witten across a glaive, and all of it in gloss.) Isabella could not resist. She wrote, "Perhaps they think that Heaven keeps their stone walkways swept and their hedges trim," addressed it to her friend Jacques--whose house was now a smoldering pyre of black--and sent it out to him. But the postcard did not go through--the Censors scraped the gloss off, huffed it like glue. They saw stars. They scorned the message, used it for the ash of their cigars. In an ominous office, they stubbed a glowing tip right on her postmark, cursing and coughing in the darkness of some ominous office. |