Hilda is talking to herself. Or rather, to the Professor. She says,
"I use the rhythm, the language with you, that I use only with cats or
with children." If I had been there, I would have laughed and said,
"Do you mind if I write that down, it's very funny." The Professor
does not laugh and he does not write this down.

A man walks into the office, unannounced. He says, "This is an
odd scene, to be sure." There is an awkward pause and then he
says,"You accept as master only one who is not your master."
Hilda says, "In other words, the Professor is not the Professor."
With this, Hilda is abruptly ushered into the room of statues.
The room of statues is the Professor's collection, he tends to
them like plants, it is impressive. When a patient is having a
troublesome session he leads her into this room to ponder, peruse.
I don't know if he does this for her sake, or his own. I don't know if
he wants to drag her there, by her hair, when she doesn't monologue
smoothly.

The Professor is a desire, and the Hilda is a fish; between the
two, there is no dialogue until the Professor dialogues, and he does
not know how. Their chairs are too different. He must sit upright with
a cigar, she must lie down. He decided this one day, long before he
ever met Hilda. But, how can you ask a fish to lie down. Every day,
every week, he does this with many women he names and renames
and unnames. Sometimes they die, and sometimes they are exiled,
but the Professor does this every day. He asks the women to come
in and lie down. He sits in the chair behind her, and the woman
monologues. She loves to do this while he is watching. He is the
great fiction. The Professor's desire is great, to tiny fishes. He
lights a cigar.

The Professor abruptly ushers her into his room of statues.
Hilda has written about this room before. Her favorite statue is the
Professor's favorite statue. For none of the same reasons, they
both have the same favorite statue. There they sit, neatly, row upon
row, as if each on represented each of the women who comes into
his office to monologue. There is Anna, there is Bertha, there is
Lou. Carefully picking up a statue, Hilda confides to the Professor:
This one here, of Nike, this is me. He laughs.

Writing stories about herself, about the Professor, Hilda names
and renames herself. I am Anna, I am Bertha, I am Lou; in fact, I'm
you. She turns herself into every woman the Professor has
doctored. The Professor is pleased. "Get rid of me," he cries. He
is tired of never being the woman who lies down with a new name.
Hilda doctors herself so that he won't have to.

Eventually, the boundary between them dulls. Hilda knows, he
invites her to threaten him. Be my unthought, he implies, be my blind
spot. It is almost a plea. Hilda takes the implication to its full
potential. Where does the Professor end and Hilda begin, where
does the fishbowl begin and the fish end. It is an odd scene, to be
sure.

"All children are little men," the Professor used to say. All little
girls are little men. So it goes. Everyone must follow through with
The Initiation. I never really liked the Professor, so to make his
stories more interesting I change them. For example, I give The
Initiation story its counterpoint: Oedipus meets the The Story of O;
O, who wears both the hand-me-down Oedipus sandals, in addition
to those red shoes. O has got two agendas and four pairs of feet.
She is too busy; naturally she dies.

There is Hilda, in the snow, marking it with her newly inherited
hand-me-down Oedipus/Story of O shoes.

Since she is a woman she can take them off, the Oedipus shoes,
and put them back on at her leisure. These aren't like the red shoes,
with the hot coals in them.

However, only after a solid education in the art of breaking the
mind down, can the woman choose between dancing to death or
taking a walk in sandals in the snow.

She has slept with her mother and killed her father, and she has
slept with her father and killed her mother, and now, in the blinding
snow, her eyes are of no help to her in finding the way out of here
(her own house). It is possible that she has slept with other people
and killed other people.

"Professor, as I lull myself to sleep speaking to you, I am
troubled. I am not writing enough. My illness is my writing. It is
causing me to not write. Tell me, what must I do."

The old owl lights a cigar, waves his arms around.

"You must write as I myself would never write, Hilda. That's all."
Hilda angers the Professor. Her feet are on the floor, which is
forbidden. He is like a child hammering a spoon on the table, the
way he pounds his fists on the arm of his chair. The cigar goes out.
His dog walks into the room, then out of the room, and interests him
more than Hilda's dreams. It is odd: she will have to rename him
this time. What does a fish who thinks she's talking to a cat name
the dog she's really talking to. It doesn't matter. The name will be
wrong, it will have false implications and, like many names, will last
too long despite all of this.

"Have you come to take my place," he asks. "Or will I have no
heir."

"I can err with impunity," says Hilda, lighting a cigar. She of
several names lights up his one name, and he is lost in implication.
Perhaps he is even blamed.