Victoria the Victorian

I confess this may not be much, but Kathy ambled by when I was drawing it and said she liked the eyes. Since the eyes had Kathy's "aye," I thought I would post the piece.

In Memory of Bazille

The companions reached the gully and paused. Quasimodo calculated its width and said, "With a little effort we should be able to clear it. Ready?" Receiving no reply, he studied the hill on the other side of the divide. "It's steep, but I don't think it's too steep. And it's ivy-covered. We should be able to scale our way up. Onward and upward, you know. So, again, are you ready, Iago?"

He was met by silence. Turning, he found Iago standing motionless as though at attention, staring intently at nothing.

Quasimodo sighed. "He's lost in reverie again," he thought, "and once he snaps out of it he'll be compelled to lecture me about something obvious that he thinks is a revelation. Ah well! There's nothing for it but to wait for him to come to himself."

Several minutes later Iago did indeed rouse himself as if from a trance and turned to his companion. "You know," he said, "my father was a poet, and I hold a very fine one, albeit I might be a tad prejudiced. He penned many a fine poem, but his greatest poem wasn't in words; it was when he held my hand. The most beautiful poem a man can compose is when he reaches out and holds another's hand. My poet-father gave me life, old friend, and, poetically speaking, if you will, so have you ... many, many times."

"Pardon?" Quasimodo asked in unfeigned amazement.

"I'm in earnest," Iago said. "These woods ... lost in these uncanny woods ... if I had been alone, without you ... I don't believe I'd be alive now. In a way, you have given me life, over and over. I ... I have taken a great deal from you, if you will, and I owe you a great deal."

Quasimodo stared at his companion, an indecipherable look on his face, and quietly replied, "You're wrong, you old scoundrel; it is I who owe you. You see, with a friend, it doesn't matter how much you give, you'll always end up taking more."

They stared awkwardly at each other, but only for a few seconds. Then, not speaking, for there was no reason to speak, they jumped the gully and ascended the hill.

The Understudy

They had been married for such a long time and she still loved him, not with youthful ardor but with something better; with the deep warmth of her soul. She thought, "We're two and yet one. And after being together all these years I'd be terribly lost without him, as if I'd only be half of me. How does the Good Book describe it? Oh yes! 'The two shall become one.' That's us, and that's not a bad thing!" She smiled and nestled her head on his shoulder. "Everything is so wonderful," she thought, "except ... "

"Dear?" she cooed. He grunted. "Dear," she said, "I know before we met that you worked in the government for a while."  "Hmm," he replied. "And you asked me to never ask you why you left the civil service. Still, we've been married so long, surely you can tell me now."

"Well," he sighed, a long, deep sigh, "well, I didn't quit. I ... I was fired."

"What?! How could that happen? Why would anyone ever let you go?"

He sighed again. "I'm afraid if I tell you that you ... well ... you might want a divorce."

Her eyes grew wide and she stared up at him in absolute amazement. "Honey! Don't be silly! How can you even think that?  I love you! I will never, never, never, ever want a divorce! You hear me?"

He hesitated. "All right, I'll tell you. You know how information is often leaked to the press by an anonymous source?"

"Sure, honey."

"Well, part of my job description was to be one of those unnamed sources. See, if we wanted information released but it would be inappropriate or awkward to release it officially, my job was to leak it to the press. Naturally, all this had to be coordinated with my superiors. You can understand that it was vitally important to keep them in the loop."

"Of course, dear."

"Well, one time ... the last time ... the information was so big, I was so excited, that I leaked it without seeking complete prior approval from above. Huge mistake! I caused a lot of damage by not keeping my superiors in the loop. Heads rolled, and one of them, of course, was mine."

"Oh," she cried, "my poor angel! My poor, poor angel!"

"Well," he said, "that was so long ago. Still, I guess it just goes to show that the old adage is true."

She stared into his face with sympathy and love. "What adage is that, my dear?"

He smiled at her and said, "That I should loop before I leak."

She kept her word. She did not file for divorce. Instead, one day weeks later, as they strolled hand in hand beneath a gorgeous blue sky, serenaded by the chirring of cicadas, she reached up, gently kissed his cheek, and shoved him over a cliff.

At the Ascent

 It was close to twilight by the time the old man, now short of breath, reached the summit. From his vantage point he watched the leisurely advancing darkness gently blanket the surrounding countryside.

"When I was young," he thought, "oh so very young, I loved climbing hills. I was free as a bird then, without obligations. But, of course," he smiled, "my freedom was actually purchased by my elders, by their bearing obligations for me ... just as I would do in my turn with the next generation. And so the cycle goes.

"Freedom, though, it is such a word! To children it's unbridled play. To some adults it's a life free of responsibilities or repercussions; to scream but never to listen. To others it's a state of being, either guarded or crushed by society. But after all these years, after exploring all these crests and valleys, I believe I have found the true meaning of the word. Freedom isn't being unshackled from responsibilities, and it's not merely a state of existence. Freedom is a Person."

He lay down on the grass and peered up at the emerging stars. "Ah, freedom," he whispered, and closed his eyes.

Homeward

He stood there, gazing at the sky, his thoughts caught in a silent seance of dreams forever perished. It had been a long journey, a difficult journey, and he still had far to go to reach his home. "But why need I go on anyway?" he thought. "After all, you cannot lose yourself by walking away, and you cannot find yourself anywhere but where you are. And besides, maybe home is no particular place at all. Maybe home is anywhere where you have a sense of peace, where you're not forever and fully on guard. Or maybe everywhere is home; maybe it all depends on one's particular point of view at one particular point in time." He smiled, amused at his own pretentiousness. "Or maybe home is merely the place where dead dreams cease their haunting and one can hear new dreams, whispering and alive, just beyond the horizon. Still, the wind is rising and I guess I should seek some shelter." And with that, he smiled once more and continued on his journey.

A Winter Flower

She awoke from her rice paper thin sleep and fumbled for her spectacles, then carefully rose and made her way to the mirror. She stared, sighed, shook her head and spoke to her reflection. "I haven't seen so many wrinkles since the great shar-pei migration of nineteen-aught-eight." She smiled. Her husband would have liked that joke; he always appreciated her wit. But he'd been gone a long time and she just never felt like sharing her attempts at humor with anyone else. 

After her morning routine she settled in the rocking chair by the window, wrapped a blanket around her and watched the snowflakes lazily descend like white petals gently falling from a dying flower. Out there, buried beneath the snow, was her perennial garden. She stared at the few scraggly dead sticks piercing the snowdrifts. "They seem dead," she thought aloud. "Well, they are dead, they're just dead sticks now, now in winter. But, oh, how beautiful they were earlier this year! And even now the winter hasn't killed them, not really. The roots are still alive, they're just resting under the snow in the cold ground. Old blossoms are gone, but new ones are hiding in the sleeping roots, just waiting. No matter how many winters come and go the roots survive and they'll make new flowers once the winter is gone. Even in the dead of winter, when they all seem dead, the flowers live in the roots, just waiting, waiting for the spring. There are always flowers, even in the worst of winters; they're just waiting in secret, secure in the roots and waiting for the proper time to blossom." Satisfied with her rather rambling and repetitious oration, she wrapped herself more tightly in her blanket and began rocking, dreamily reminiscing about the seasons and flowers, her husband and herself. Then, smiling, she closed her eyes and slipped out of her winter and into the eternal spring.

Merry Christmas

May this Christmas and the coming year be the best ones for you yet. And, yes, I still can't get the colors to reproduce accurately. Ah well, that doesn't matter since 'tis the thought that counts ... and the thought, again, is I hope you have a most merry Christmas and a very happy New Year!

A High-Handed Horse

There's nothing to this. It's merely the result of spending some time in the company of a pencil when neither of us had much to say.

Daedalus

The old man sat down next to me on the dune. We watched in silence as the waves lapped the shore and I hoped he would not break the spell by talking. Alas, it was not to be.

"It was near here," he sighed, "that I watched my son soar too near to the sun, saw the beeswax dripping from his wings, saw him flailing as he fell ... just as I saw my nephew fall when I hurled him down the cliff in a fit of jealous rage. Perhaps helplessly seeing Icarus die this way was a sort of poetic retribution. I don't know. After all these years, does it even matter?

"But as I say, I watched Icarus spiraling down, down, down. I watched the sea waves rising. I will swear to this day they were rising -- monstrous waves surging up to grab him, to swallow him up in the sea's ravenous, pitiless maw. I cried his name. It was all I could do, even though I knew he couldn't hear me above his own shrieks. And even if I could have reached him, his added weight would have been too much for my wings: we both would have plunged into the wine-dark sea -- we both would die.

"At that time, in that horrible moment, my eyes encompassed everything even though my mind comprehended nothing. I saw in the distance a quaintly garbed plowman cutting a furrow. Closer to the shore was a shepherd who seemed to be studying the sky, but in the opposite direction from my son. Oh, and there was also a fisherman who was also oblivious, or uncaring, to the fatal drama. None of the three gave the least notice to the spectacle above them. Later, in the sleepless nights, I would recall those peasants and somehow, I can't explain how, but somehow their very presence, their common, dull activities, made my Icarus and his whole adventure seen trivial, even absurd." And the old man bowed his head and fell silent.

I waited a respectful interval before replying. "I've heard of a man, perhaps you've heard of him also. His name is something like Pieter Brueghel. A fine man, or so I've been led to believe. It's certainly not my place to speak for him, but what I've heard of him makes me think he might be one to draw a lesson from your tale. Maybe its moral, if it indeed has one, is that the pretentious inevitably gives way to the real, and the high and mighty always seem risibly transitory when confronted by the common and lowly. After all, it is the poor in spirit who possess the Kingdom and the meek who will inherit the earth."

The old man gave no reply, but after several minutes he smiled. Then, without a word, he rose and walked along the shore of the wine-dark sea until he was lost to sight.

The Wayfarer

He watched the moon rising full and orange over the trees. It had been a long time since he'd been here. He wasn't sure, since it was so faint, but he thought he could just make out the rumbling of distant thunder. Or maybe it was the singing of the monsters emerging on the night mists. Either way, it felt good to be back. 

He sat on a wet, rotting log and absently picked at the moss and fungi. Somewhere out there, he couldn't recall exactly where since it had been such a long time, but somewhere out there sprawled the gargantuan ruins. Or maybe not. These woods always obliterated any human intrusion with spectacular quickness.  He smiled and thought, "Civilizations rise and civilizations collapse, but these woods, these strange, strange woods, they abide."

The rumbling grew louder and distinct. He now knew that it wasn't thunder; it was the monsters. Smiling again, he made himself as comfortable as possible and waited. It took a while for them to reach him. They were hideous and misshapen yet altogether beautiful in his eyes. He arose and warmly embraced each one of them in turn, each one of them once shunned by now-dead societies but welcomed by these everlasting woods.

"You've been gone a long time," gurgled one of the monsters.

He shrugged. "My being gone was then, but my being back is now."

"And here it is always 'now,'" replied the thing.

"Maybe so," the man thought. "Maybe there really are things that transcend time, so that 'today' and 'tomorrow' lack meaning, are swallowed up by 'now.'  Maybe, like their builders, the gargantuan ruins are gone now, gone like yesterday. But these creatures, these poor, detested creatures ... and these woods ... maybe they transcend time in an eternal 'now' where these creatures are beautiful, forever beautiful. And these woods ... well!" Then, smiling again, he joined the monsters in their song and walked with them into the night.

Only for Your Eyes

Sighing a contented sigh, he held her hand in his and, gazing lovingly into her eyes, whispered, "I have sailed through the silent seas between the ghostly shining dying stars. I have even wandered in the gloom of the prophet's twilight mountains with holy men and bards. With a horde of humble ghosts I have huddled as time's raging river rushed wildly by. I have traveled far in nameless places just to find sweet rest and comfort in the welcome of your eyes."

She studied him for a moment then rolled her eyes and replied, "Well, you're certainly waxing poetic ... with the emphasis on the 'ICK!'"

Later, as she slept, he dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over her head and walked back into the night.

Autumn Winds

They walked together in the twilight, arm in arm, down the boulevard and onto the bridge. She had never felt so happy. She glanced up at him, at his profile, and sighed with contentment. Oh, sure, as the years rolled by she'd find out all his irritating faults and foibles and would look at him clearly with both her feet on the ground; but that would be some faraway tomorrow. Now, right now, she saw him through a mist of joy. He was wonderful and perfect and she felt herself dancing among the emerging stars, free from gravity, free from everything except her love for this man. And they would be blissfully together as long as life endured. She smiled, so warm in her love.

And then the stranger approached.

She clutched at her beloved's arm in shock. Was that -- was that stranger real? No, he couldn't be! Although he wore his hat low she could see his face was wan, unnaturally wan with the paleness not of flesh but of a skull. And his eyes were so hidden in shadow that they looked like empty sockets. And in spite of his overcoat she could see he was thin, incredibly, impossibly thin. It can't be real! It's some sort of terrifying vision! And the figure kept advancing toward her. She tried to stop but found herself too weak to resist her unaware companion's steady gait. She tried to whisper her alarm but couldn't make a sound. All she could do was clutch her lover's arm even more tightly and stare at the advancing unreal figure.

And then, mere inches away from her, the figure politely doffed his hat and silently continued on his way into the growing darkness. A short while after he -- or it -- had passed them, she found her voice.

"That thing ... that man! Oh! Didn't you notice him?"

"No, not really," her darling casually replied. "I wasn't paying any particular attention to him. What about him?"

"Didn't you see how bleached his face looked, and how thin he was?"

He patted her hand. "Well, no. What about it, my dear?"

"'What about it?'" she cried. "Why, even with his coat on you could see he was little more than a ... than a walking skeleton! He was a skeleton ... a walking fleshless skeleton!"

He gently kissed her forehead and chuckled, "Well, there's no need to be distressed by that, my dear. It's not all that uncommon. It only means the poor soul is just not comfortable in his own skin."

She shoved him over the bridge and kept on walking into the gathering dusk.

Only Passing Through

The wanderer had no memory of his past (if, indeed, he had any past at all). In fact, he couldn't recall any time when he had not been lost in these woods. But he knew that somewhere beyond this dark expanse he must have a home, a place of calm and warm familiarity, peopled with friendly kith and kin. He had often tried finding his way back home, wherever or whatever that home might be, by the sun and the guiding stars in their courses. It was no good. All his attempted navigation brought him was an uneasy sense that he was straying farther from his home; that instead of escaping this strange forest he was plunging ever deeper into it. If only his surroundings weren't so confusing and overwhelming; it was far too easy to lose oneself forever in them.

Then, at twilight on a drizzly, windswept day,  he stumbled upon a crumbling high bank near a river. At its base was a cave almost undetectable by obscuring shadows and vegetation, and in the cave's farthest recess he could just barely discern ... what? ... could it be a door? He stood staring at it in wonder for some minutes until the ever-growing shadows of approaching evening roused him. 

He cautiously studied the thing in the shadows. Yes, he could make it out now, even through the overhanging vegetation and deepening gloom. It really was a door. How could a door be here, and who could have made it? He felt ... what? ... awe, fear, wonderment? So many emotions ... or instincts ... that he could not name. The door was deep inside the hollow, but from what he could see of it through the overhanging vegetation, he estimated it was roughly six feet tall and three feet wide and seemed to be made of pine. He then became aware of the scent of freshly-turned earth. That caused him to pause once more, although he could not understand why. He roused himself again, took a deep, shuddering breath, and clawed and shoved his way through the entangling roots and vines blocking the cave's entrance.

He broke through. The smell of turned earth was even stronger now. He strained his eyes in the darkness but was no longer able to see the door. Instead, where he thought it had been, where he could have sworn it had been, he now saw a figure. The wanderer stood transfixed, too amazed to be frightened. Somehow the figure was lighter, more distinct than it should be in the surrounding dark, as if it were somehow bioluminescent. The wanderer shook his head. The very idea was absurd. The figure was obviously human ... yet, it was visible in the darkness.

The two stared at each other for a minute or so. Then the figure reached out his hand to the wanderer and smiled. That smile! Even in the darkness there was something about that smile, something wonderful. The wanderer was caught in that smile like a child caught in his parent's loving arms. And then, with a sudden, rushing revelation, he understood. Now smiling himself, he happily realized he was home now ... finally, absolutely home. The figure's smile was the wanderer's home. He now knew it had aways been his home, even when he didn't know it even existed, it was always his home. "Home," the wanderer whispered unconsciously, "home, finally home!" He reached out his hand toward the figure's just as the mouth of the cave collapsed, sealing him off from the woods.

For to Such Belongs the Kingdom of God

 "And He took them in His arms and blessed them, laying His hands upon them."

Merry Christmas!

 May you have a most joyous holiday season!

Tongue-Cut Sparrow

This is another old drawing. One of Kathy's favorite folktales is "The Tongue-Cut Sparrow," so I drew this for her, along with some other drawings illustrating the story. The reason I selected this particular piece is that I recall how much fun I had drawing the anthropomorphic birds.

The Sculptor

There's not a thing to this: no bad pun, no story, no moral -- nothing. It's merely a fun little drawing done only for the amusement one experiences while taking an aimless stroll with a pencil.

Books From the Past

 

Back in 2015, Sarah self-published Sylvan Dreaming, a book of her poetry. She asked me to illustrate it, and how could anyone say no to such a charming individual? I may be biased, but I think the poetry is excellent. Recently coming upon a copy of this book, and the other titles that follow, I toyed with the idea of posting them here. I was averse at first since I felt it would come across as rather repellant bragging. But then I admitted this little footling blog exists only for my rampant ego anyway, so why not? So, if anyone should stumble upon this post, I ask you to both excuse and indulge me in the following unbridled display of conceit. 

First, the illustrations for this title weren't as bad as I remembered. I wouldn't call them good, mind you, but I feel they're not as bad as they might have been. As always, the colors did not reproduce well at all. I don't know if I'm the problem or if it's the computer or a combination of the two. I can overlook that, though, since I'm used to it and, besides, the poetry is so good that the horribly colored accompanying illustrations can't detract from it.

Sarah's next book, also published in 2015, is Mystic Dreaming. Again, the poetry is great, the illustrations could have been better and the coloring could have been a lot better. But now a new problem has raised its ugly head. For some reason, Sarah changed the illustrations' dimensions. Maybe (I can't recall now) I used a different size paper than used for the previous book's pictures, so the image didn't fit as nicely. They're very elongated and distorted, as if seen in a funhouse mirror. A fantastic artist and friend of the family, Mr. Gene Lehman, who also is a computer whiz, worked his computer magic to resize all the images, so they would fit on the page and not be warped. Alas, Sarah never used Gene's corrected images; thus, the book's great poetry is sadly accompanied by ridiculous-looking drawings.

The next book, published in 2017, is Kathy's retelling of a folktale and is titled Marriage of a Mouse. Again, I might be a trifle prejudiced, but I think she did a great job! The cover only has the title with no art, so I used the title page for its image. As for my drawings, unlike Sarah's books where the drawings have their own pages, this one has the text and drawing sharing the same page. Frankly, this made the illustrations too small and, if I remember correctly, there were only a few book sizes offered by the printer, which left a lot of white space. Still, since the book is for little children and is about little mice, perhaps it's all right the images are tiny.

Now, I'm showing the last book out of sheer vanity and gross conceit. It's a series of attempted spooky stories and I wrote it myself. I used the pen name Quillin Potter since other Jeff Potters had books out. The book has no illustrations. I must have proofread that book a billion-billion times and it's still overrun with errors, such as misusing "traverse" and "transverse" and "vertical" for "horizontal." And don't get me started on wild punctuation, syntax and grammar! Maybe I was so obsessed with trying to sound like Edgar A. Poe or H.P. Lovecraft that I wasn't paying enough attention to anything else.

For fun, I checked Amazon's website to see if they still carry these titles. They do! But then, the books are print-on-demand. I was surprised with how expensive they are. But then I recalled each book had to have a minimum price for the printer to at least break even.

And that's it! There's no reason for this post. As I said, I posted this just out of gross vanity ... I guess just like I did with all its sisters. 

The Cave Dweller

"My friend here," said Iago, tilting his head toward Quasimodo, "my friend and I  have wandered these woods for a very long time." The faun slightly nodded, but said nothing. Iago cleared his throat and continued. "We've been caught in many downpours, some terribly brutal ... with hail and everything."

"And the storm clouds are gathering?" asked the faun.

"Quite dark," replied Quasimodo, "and quite, quite heavy. It's going to be a big storm."

"We didn't realize this cave was already tenanted," said Iago. "We mean no harm. We're merely seeking shelter from the approaching storm."

The two men could tell by his eyes that the faun's thoughts had turned inward, a million miles inward, as they listened to the approaching thunder and felt the wind slashing at their backs. The faun stayed lost in contemplation for several minutes, then sighed. "The laws of hospitality, gentlemen, are what they are, and who am I to break them?" He made a sweeping gesture with his arm. "Please, enter. At least for the duration of this storm, my cave is your cave."

The two companions entered timidly and nestled in a corner of the cave, facing the entrance, and silently watched the wind coursing through the vegetation as the sky grew dark.

"What is it like out there?" asked the faun.

"Pardon?" said Iago.

"I mean out there, in the woods. It's been a very long time since I stepped hoof out of this cave ... lifetimes. Are the woods as they were?"

"As they were since when?" asked Quasimodo. "How long have you dwelt in this cave?"

"Long ... long. It was inhabited by an ancient people when I first came here ... ancient and odd. Generation after generation they never faced the mouth of the cave. Indeed, they didn't know the cave had a mouth, and their only concept of reality was the shadows of clouds and animals thrown on the cave's walls. Then some Greek philosopher came along, I forget his name, and convinced them to turn around. They were amazed, as you might suppose, at the new reality, a reality that was the cause of their ancient reality; the light and the solid things were the source of their reality of shadows. They left here to explore the there. I, however, as you see, stayed here. They left me alone. They never returned. It's been a very long time."

Iago shrugged. "Once one sees a reality perhaps one is disinclined to return to the shadows."

"But what a reality," said the faun. "A reality I knew well! Teeming with savage beasts, cliffs, monsters ... and the storms, the terrible, terrible storms!"

"And that's why you never left here?" asked Quasimodo.

"The cave is safe, while the surrounding woods are ... well, the woods."

    

All three shuddered.

    

"True," said Quasimodo after a long pause, "the realities may well be more frightening than the shadows. I've seen monsters and storms. But I suspect there's another reality even beyond them, that they are but its shadows."

The faun knitted his brow. "A reality greater than storms and monsters? It is too tremendous to comprehend. And so I remain here. I am safe here."

    

It was now Quasimodo's turn to seem to be looking deep inside himself. "Yet, even when caught in a torrent, I swear I can hear some still, small voice, as it were, a voice even more real than the rain."

    

"Oh?" said Iago, arching an eyebrow, "and what, pray tell, does this voice say?"

    

"Well, it's hard for me to put into my own words, but it's ... oh ... like, 'Yes, there are monsters and there are storms; nevertheless, open you mind, open your heart and explore, explore it all with me.'"

    

The faun stared at the mouth of the cave and then at the two companions. "You know, I must confess that I have grown weary of this cave ... after all this time. I've not been caught in a storm, but I've also not felt the morning dew. Maybe ... shadows ... reality ... to explore again! Maybe, once this storm has passed, maybe I should leave this cave."

   

Iago smiled. "We passed a hillside covered with poison ivy on our way here."

    

The faun returned the smile. "I remember it always tasted best after a rain."

    

Quasimodo leaned back against the cave wall and stared dreamily at the now raging storm. "Then I suggest, while waiting out this storm, that we pass the time by chewing the fat."

    

"Or chewing the cud, as the case may be," said Iago.

    

But no one talked. They only sat, watching the storm, each lost in his own thoughts, and each with a smile on his lips.

Nadine

It had been a harsh and bitter year for her. All the ghosts she stored in glass flasks in the cellar had freed themselves. Then the monsters she kept manacled in the attic also managed to burst free. It wasn't long until both groups had clawed their way through every locked door, taking almost full possession of her house. They crowded, shoved and overwhelmed her from one room to the next until she only had one room left that she could call her own. And it was in this room, in the late hours of the night, to drown out the sound of scratching at the door, that she would debate with her favorite mask as to which of them was the real person and which the disguise. Her mask often chided her that their argument would be unimportant once the ghosts and monsters clawed their way in. "Your sole hope," the mask would whisper, "is to destroy them before they break in; and you know the sole way to do that is to rip down your window's curtains and let in the light. The light alone can overcome them." "Yes," she muttered, "I knew that from the first room they conquered and I know it now. But that light behind my curtain, that strong, unyielding light, it frightens me even more than those things outside the door. For what shall I do if that awful, absolute light, that awful, absolute truth, should devour all the confusing shadows and reveal the dead things and grotesqueries aren't outside the door but in my own mind, in my own heart?" "What of it?" asked the mask. "The light would still dispel them and render you, at last, truly real." And with that she reached a trembling hand toward the curtain.