“Now—here’s that very powerful and influential Saturn. That’s destiny. You remember about Saturn? He had it tough, because he was castrated, but he did some castrating himself. What’s bred in the bone, you know. Patterns necessarily repeat themselves. All kinds of obstacles, burdens to be borne, anxieties, depressions and exhaustion—there’s your Beau Ténébreux personality for you—but also some compensations because you have the strong sense of responsibility that carries you through, and at last, after a struggle, a sense of reality—which is a fine thing to have, though not always very comfortable. Your Mars supports your Sun, you see, and that gives you enormous endurance. And—this is important—your Saturn has the same relationship to your Moon that Mars has to your Sun, but it’s a giver of spiritual power, and takes you deep into the underworld, the dream world, what Goethe called the realm of the Mothers. There’s a fad now for calling them the Archetypes, because it sounds so learned and scientific. But the Mothers is truer to what they really are. The Mothers are the creators, the matrixes of all human experience.”

“That’s the world of art, surely?”

“More than that. Art may be a symptom, a perceptible form, of what the Mothers are. It’s quite possible to be a pretty good artist, mind you, without having a clue about the Mothers.

“Saturn on the ascendant and the Sun in midheaven is very rare and suggests a most uncommon life. Perhaps even some special celestial guardianship. Have you ever been aware of anything like that?”

“No.”

“You really are a somebody, Francis.”

“You’re very flattering.”

“Like hell I am! I don’t fool around with this stuff. I don’t make a chancy living by casting horoscopes for paying customers. I’m trying to find out what it’s all about, and I’ve been very lucky in discovering that old astrologer’s secret I told you about. I’m not kidding you, Francis.”

“I must say my remarkableness has taken its time about showing itself.”

“It should start soon, if it hasn’t started already. Not worldly fame, but perhaps posthumous fame. There are things in your chart that I would tell you if I were in the fortune-telling and predicting business. Being at Düsterstein is very important; your chart shows that. And working with Saraceni is important, though he simply shows up as a Mercurial influence. And there are all kinds of things in your background that aren’t showing up at present. What’s happened to all that music?”

“Music? I haven’t been much involved with music. No talent.”

“Somebody else’s music. In your childhood.”

“I had an aunt who sang and played a lot. Awful stuff, I suppose it was.”

“Is she the false mother who turns up? There are two. Was one the nurse?”

“My grandfather’s cook, really.”

“A very tough influence. Like granite. But the other one seems to be a bit witchy. Was she queer to look at? Was she the one who sang? It doesn’t matter that what she sang wasn’t in the most fashionable taste. People are so stupid, you know, in the way they discount the influence of music that isn’t right out of the top drawer; if it isn’t Salzburg or Bayreuth quality it can’t be influential. But a sentimental song can sometimes open doors where Hugo Wolf knocks in vain. I suppose it’s the same with pictures. Good taste and strong effect aren’t always closely linked. If your singing aunt put all she had into what she sang, it could have marked you for life.”

“Perhaps. I often think of her. She’s failing, I hear.”

“And who’s this—this messy bit here? Somebody that doesn’t seem fully human. Could it have been a much-loved pet?”

“I had a brother who was badly afflicted.”

“Odd. Doesn’t look quite like a brother. But influential, whatever it was. It’s given you a great compassion for the miserable and dispossessed, Francis, and that’s very fine, so long as you don’t let it swamp your common sense. I don’t think it can; not with that powerful Mercury. But immoderate compassion will ruin you quicker than brandy. And the kingdom of the dead—what were you doing there?”

“I really believe I was learning about the fragility and pitiful quality of life. I had a remarkable teacher.”

“Yes, he shows up; a sort of Charon, ferrying the dead to their other world. What I would call, if I were writing an academic paper, which God be thanked I’m not, a Psychopomp.”

“Handsome word. He’d have loved to be called a Psychopomp.”

“Was he your father, by any chance?”

“Oh, no; a servant.”

“Funny, he looks like a father, or a relative of some kind. Anyhow—what about your father? There’s a Polyphemus figure in here, but I can’t make out if he’s your father.”

Francis laughed. “Oh yes, a Polyphemus figure sure enough. Always wears a monocle. Nice man.”

“Just shows how careful you have to be about interpreting. Polyphemus wasn’t at all a nice man. But he was certainly one-eyed. But was he your real father? What about the old man?”

“Old man? My grandfather?”

“Yes, probably. The man who truly loved your mother.”

“Ruth, what are you talking about?”

“Don’t get up on your ear. Incest. Not the squalid physical thing, but the spiritual, psychological thing. It has a sort of nobility. It would dignify the physical thing, if that had occurred. But I’m not suggesting that you are your grandfather’s child in the flesh, rather his child in the spirit, the child he loved because you were born of his adored daughter. What about your mother? She doesn’t show up very clearly. Do you love her very much?”

“Yes, I think so. I’ve always told myself so. But she has never been as real as the aunt and the cook. I’ve never really felt that I knew her.”

“It’s a wise child that knows his father, but it’s one child in a million who knows his mother. They’re a mysterious mob, mothers.”

“Yes. So I’ve been told. They go down, down, down into the very depths of hell, in order that we men may live.”

“That’s very Saturnine, Francis. You sound as if you hated her for it.”

“Who wouldn’t? Who needs such a crushing weight of gratitude toward another human being? I don’t suppose she thought about the depths of hell when I was begotten.”

“No. That seems to have been quite a jolly occasion, if your first chart isn’t lying. Have you told her about your wife? Running off with the adventurous one?”

“No I haven’t. Not yet.”

“Or about the child?”

“Oh yes, she knows about the child. ‘Darling, you horrible boy, you’ve made me a grandmother!’ was what she wrote.”

“Have you relieved her mind by telling her that she isn’t really a grandmother?”

“Damn it, Ruth, this is too bloody inquisitorial! Did you really see that in this rigmarole?”

“I see the cuckold’s horns, painfully clear. But don’t fuss. It’s happened to better men. Look at King Arthur.”

“Bugger King Arthur—and Tristan and Iseult and the Holy sodding Grail and all that Celtic pack. I made a proper jackass of myself about that stuff!”

“Well, you could make a jackass of yourself about much more unworthy things.”

“Ruth, I don’t want to be nasty, but really this stuff of yours is far too vague, too mythological. You don’t honestly take it seriously, do you?”

“I’ve told you already; it’s a way of channelling intuitions and things that can’t be reached by the broad, floodlit paths of science. You can’t nail it down, but I don’t think that’s a good enough reason for brushing it aside. You can’t talk to the Mothers by getting them on the phone, you know. They have an unlisted number. Yes, I take it seriously.”

“But this stuff you’ve been telling me is all favourable, all things I might like to hear. Would you tell me if you saw in this chart that I would die tonight?”

“Probably not.”

“Well, when will I die? Come on, let’s have some hard information, hot from the planets.”

“No astrologer in his right mind ever tells somebody when they are going to die. Though there was once a wise astrologer who told a rather short-tempered king that he would die the day after the astrologer died himself. It assured him of a fine old age. But I will tell you this: you’ll have a good innings. The war won’t get you.”