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Show 432 that a secondary dimension of artifice had not crept in between himself and the object he was attempting to connect to. He had used a tangled construct of coat hangers as his model, supplemented by crushed marshmallows and a skein of blue yarn. The creature in the garden-it hung over the desk with the visitors' book-had proved almost insuperable, and every time he looked at it he took pleasure in remembering the process of approaching, being deflected from, and ultimately solving a difficult problem. He had tried several studies of it, in soft pencil, in crowquill on green paper, in charcoal, in watercolor, but it always seemed to turn out either a tall insect or a Martian in a helmet. Finally he had noticed that in each successive study the flowers and leaves and boysenberries in the garden took over more and more, crowding even the pivotal hollyhock, and so he had let it go its own way. The finished canvas crawled with ripening vegetation- swollen roses, succulent geraniums, a splatter of sweet Williams and forget-me-nots, intricate difficult leaf systems-behind which the creature itself was invisible. He nevertheless had titled it "The Creature in the Garden," and enjoyed seeing that title in capital letters on the small card fixed to the wall next to it; and he enjoyed overhearing people ask each other where the hell it was and not telling them, even though he knew. The picture of the bishop's body, in white pajamas, lying in its casket, its eyes open and a dead smile on its face, was a study of whites against whites, closer folds shadowing more distant folds in the satin, the dead pallor of the face contrasting with the linen whiteness of the clasped hands with their blue-tinged nails. He had used his landlord's daughter's doll as a model, swathed in kleenexes held in place by band-aids, but the doll's eyes kept closing when he laid it on its back, so he had been forced to balance it upright in a shoebox and work with the |