It's
different with you. You've such good defences in your eyes--looking out--
before anyone can really pain you in your soul. People forget that with
us."
I was silent reviewing that inexhaustible matter--the more than inherited
(since it is also carefully taught) brutality of the Christian peoples,
beside which the mere heathendom of the West Coast nigger is clean and
restrained. It led me a long distance into myself.
"Don't do that!" she said of a sudden, putting her hands before her eyes.
"What?"
She made a gesture with her hand.
"That! It's--it's all purple and black. Don't! That colour hurts."
"But, how in the world do you know about colours?" I exclaimed, for here
was a revelation indeed.
"Colours as colours?" she asked.
"No. _Those_ Colours which you saw just now."
"You know as well as I do," she laughed, "else you wouldn't have asked
that question. They aren't in the world at all. They're in _you_--when you
went so angry."
"D'you mean a dull purplish patch, like port-wine mixed with ink?" I said.
"I've never seen ink or port-wine, but the colours aren't mixed. They are
separate--all separate."
"Do you mean black streaks and jags across the purple?"
She nodded. "Yes--if they are like this," and zigzagged her finger again,
"but it's more red than purple--that bad colour."
"And what are the colours at the top of the--whatever you see?"
Slowly she leaned forward and traced on the rug the figure of the Egg
itself.
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