HE CAME BACK FROM HIS prayer to the cat on his lap. He fed the cat, he let her go out to the moonlight, and he hid in the pages of Abraham. Like one newly circumcized, he hid himself away, he waited in the trust of healing. Faces of women appeared, and they explained themselves to him, connecting feature to character, beauty to kindness. Various families came to him and showed him all the chairs he might sit in. ‘How can I say this gently?’ he said. ‘Though I love your company, your instructions are wasted here. I will always choose the woman who carries me off, I will always sit with the family of loneliness.’ Saying many words of encouragement his visitors departed, and he entered more deeply into his hiding. He asked for his heart to be focused toward the source of mercy, and he lifted up a corner, and he moved a millimetre forward under the shadow of the tabernacle of peace. His cat came back from the moonlight, flew softly to her place on his lap, and waited for him to come back from his prayer.