Summary

Sello explains that he has lived much longer than Elizabeth, and that her “age-group” (34) has perfected love. Elizabeth understands Sello’s words as part of a larger point: that “people in their souls, were forces, energies, stars, planets, universes” (35). She embarks on a “nightmare soul-journey” (35) and feels dependent on Sello. One day, Sello introduces Elizabeth to a “wild-eyed Medusa” (38), who Elizabeth suggests embodies African society’s “strong theme of power-worship” and with it, the need for “small, narrow, shut-in worlds” (38). Elizabeth does not understand the need for this introduction to Medusa, nor does she believe Sello’s claims of having once been a god. She believes that both she and Sello are composed of the same material, and disposed to the same “creative function,” which she defines as the power to “create and let the dream fly away with a soft hand and...