Lancelot

handle, he made long straight marks in the tablecloth. Once in a while Margot would sway the other way and touch him as if to draw him into the conversation, but he only nodded.
    Earlier Merlin and Jacoby had been in an argument, Merlin talking about the indispensability of action and story in a film. Jacoby talking in a much fancier way about “cinematographic language,” “the semiotics of film,” “Griffith as master of denotative language.” “Metz as the only critic who understands the connotative film,” and so forth. What junk. I refused to pay attention.
    Merlin finally shrugged and fell silent. I couldn’t tell whether Jacoby was trying to (1) upstage Merlin, (2) impress Margot, (3) do both, or (4) was speaking honestly.
    Nor could I be sure whether Merlin was withdrawn because (1) Jacoby was paying too much attention to Margot, (2) he was bored by Jacoby’s fancy “cinematographic semiotics.”
    Raine and Dana listened glumly. My daughter Lucy had managed to get herself between them and was in a transport of happiness, happy to be next to Troy Dana, whom she said she was in love with, but maybe even happier to be next to Raine, whom she worshipped as the casual possessor of those qualities most prized by Lucy and therefore, it seemed to her, most unattainable: beauty, fame, and that special “niceness” which Lucy could scarcely believe, Raine’s way of remembering the film crews’ names, the film crews’ wives’ names, servants’ names, and even the servants’ children’s names, taking time with her, Lucy’s friends. Raine’s ability to “act like anybody else, a real person” seemed to Lucy to surpass the most miraculous deeds of the saints. “She is the most wonderful person I have ever known,” Lucy told me.
    I didn’t think Raine was wonderful. She was amazingly pretty, with a pure heart-shaped face and violet-cobalt eyes which seemed to look from her depths into yours, a trick I came to learn, that steady violet gaze, chin resting on the back of her bent hand. Her depths were vacant. But she flirted with me and that was pleasant. Her single enthusiasm, beside her niceness, was her absorption with a California cult called I.P.D., or something like that—Ideo-Personal-Dynamics maybe. She told me of it at length. I remember very little except that she said it was more scientific than astrology, being based not merely on the influence of the stars but on evidence of magnetic fields surrounding people. The existence of these fields or auras had been proved, she said, by special photography.
    Cobalt eyes gazing straight into mine one foot away: “Did you know your magnetic field is as unique as your fingerprints?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œIt is more exact than astrology because though we are both Capricorns, we are different.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œMany people are skeptical of astrology but there is scientific proof of this.”
    â€œI understand.”
    â€œDon’t you see the possibilities?”
    â€œPossibilities?”
    â€œFor the future, for mankind, for preventing wars.”
    â€œHow’s that?”
    â€œEveryone could have his ideogram, which is a scientific reading of his magnetic field. Some ideograms are clearly stronger than others or incompatible with others. If the President of the United States has a weak ideogram, it would be stupid to send him to a summit meeting. It’s the ultimate weapon against Communism.”
    â€œI can see how it would be.”
    The actors, I noticed, took a light passing interest in everything, current events, Scientology, politics. They were hardly here at all, in Louisiana that is, but were blown about this way and that, like puffballs, in and out of their roles, “into” Christian Science, back out again.
    â€œI find it a tremendous help in both my personal and professional life. Wouldn’t you like to have a reading? You know. I think you underrate yourself.” She said it all in a single breath.
    â€œWell, no, that is, yes, sure. Will you give me a reading?”
    â€œWill I ever give you a reading!”
    The trouble was that even when she was on this, her favorite subject, her voice went flat and trailed off. Her eyes were steady but unfocused. I had the feeling she wasn’t listening to herself. Could it be that her I.P.D. was a trick too, not a trick she played on me but on