The cleansing and renewal of time did indeed have some beneficial results,but only on the lives of the lovers themselves . They were,it's true,greatly energized by their new love ; but all around them,the catastrophes continued.

He loved her like an addict;the more of her he had,the more he needed.She loved him like a student,needing his good opinion,playing upto him in the hope of drawing forth the magic of his smile.But she also,from the very beginning,needed to leave him and go elsewhere to play.He was her seriousness,he was the depths of her being,but he could not also be her frivolity.That relief,that serpent in the garden was him.

She knew & has always known that he will be her perfect lover,he will command multitudes,but he is fragile too.Without her love,terminally alienated,he might go horribly wrong.He might fail to add up to a person.He clings to her,without touching her.They meet and whisper and shout and make each other up.They are a single entity in two bodies. "You are my only family",he tells her. "You are my only world",he says.

She stood still,no more than semi-conscious,with the palms of her hands facing forward,questioning and expecting no answers,like the survivor of a massacre staring into the face of the death. He took her face between the palms of his hands.Very slowly she swayed back and away from his touch.At that moment his great love must have seemed to her like a great trap.To fall into it would be to make possible her utter annihilation at some point in the future,when he would turn on her with a sneer on his face and hatred in his face.    

Between the self and the other,between the visionary and the psychopath,between the overworld and the underworld and between the lover and his love, falls the shadow.