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Can you mask a tree? That walk we took made me wonder, even as you invented yourself a bike with a sort of stick. Even then it occured to me that all this may be a mask. It imposed itself on the clouds and lunged at the winds. It bore itself no thankless labours of contempt. It spilled its fruits into the brook, and the brook carried your shirt into the public square. I hung cantarelles on the fences as a sort of garland, as a funeral oration ... that is, for kicks. And all the laughing you did from behind your wooden face. I made several brief sketches and discarded those that gave me pleasure. It was a cloud of penance for all they had done to my country. It was a cloud of grace for the efforts of my family to establish an acre of civility in the provinces. You and the many plants can visit my cavernous garrison full of drupes. I will put on this tree mask, this trunk of feathers, this quadrangle of sex appeal, and stalk myself til the musculature of my own sad hatred collapses to a slow quiver.