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of a conversation in which someone was able to deliver such a sentence and have it mean anything at all. 'That's what you thought you were thinking.' Delicious! 'You would not think these thoughts if you really thought what you think you thought' Or was it 'thought you think.'"

"Neither one," said Margaret. "You are already preparing to misquote me."

"I am not a journalist! I am a novelist, and I can improve any speech."

"Improve this," said Margaret. "You two play your foolish games - Calvin playing at being powerful, Monsieur de Balzac playing at being an artist - but around you here is real life. Real suffering. These Black people are as human as you and me, but they give up their heartfires and their names in order to endure the torment of belonging to other people who despise and fear them. If you can dwell in this city of evil and remain untouched by their suffering, then it is you who are the trivial, empty people. You are able to hold on to your names and heartfires because they aren't worth stealing."

With that she rose from the table and left the restaurant.

"Do you think we offended her?" asked Calvin.

"Perhaps," said Balzac. "But that concerns me a great deal less than the fact that she did not pay."

As be spoke, the waiter was already approaching them. "Do the gentlemen wish to pay in cash?"

"It was the lady who invited us," said Balzac. "Did she forget to pay?"

"But she did pay," said the waiter. "For her own meal. Before you sat down, she wrote us her check."

Balzac looked at Calvin and burst out laughing. "You should see your face, Monsieur Calvin!"

"They can arrest us for this," said Calvin.

"But they do not wish to arrest a French novelist," said Balzac. "For I would return to France and write about their restaurant and declare it to be a house of flies and pestilence."

The waiter looked at him coldly. "The French ambassador engages us to cater his parties," he said. "I do not fear your threat."

A few moments later, up to his arms in dishwater and slops, Calvin seethed in resentment. Of Margaret, of course. Of Alvin, whose fault it was for marrying her. Of Balzac, too, for the cheerful way he bantered with the Black slaves who would otherwise have done all the kitchen work they were doing. Not that the Blacks bantered back. They hardly looked at him. But Calvin could see that they liked hearing him from the way more and more of them lingered in the room a little longer than their jobs required. While he was completely ignored, carrying buckets of table scraps out to be composted for the vegetable garden, emptying pails of dishwater, hauling full ones from the well to be heated. Heavy, sweaty labor, filth on his hands, grime on his face. He thought last night's urine-soaked sleep was as low as he could get in his life, but now he was doing the work of slaves while slaves looked on; and even here, there was another man that they all liked better than him.

Calvin returned to the kitchen just as a Black man was carrying a stack of clean plates to put back on the shelves. The Black man had just a trace of a smile on his face from something Balzac had said, and it was just too much after all that had happened that night. Calvin got his bug inside the dishes and cracked them all, shattered them in his arms. Shards sprayed out everywhere.

The crashing sound immediately brought the White chef and the overseer, his short, thick rod already raised to beat the slave; but Balzac was already there, throwing himself between the slave and the rod. And it was, truly, a matter of throwing himself, for the slave and the overseer were both much taller than Balzac. He leapt up and fairly clung to the slave like a child playing pick-a-pack.

"No, monsieur, do not strike him, he was innocent. I carelessly bumped into him and dropped all the plates on the floor! I am the most miserable of men, to take a dinner I could not pay for and now I have break all these plates. It is my back that deserves the blows!"

"I ain't going to whip no White man like a buck," said the overseer. "What do you think I am?"

"You are the arm of justice," said Balzac, "and I am the heart of guilt."

"Get these imbeciles out