"When I read the first line of 'The Doe and the Brook,'" said the editor, "I knew it to be the work of one whose life has been heart to heart with Nature. The finished art of the line did not blind me to that fact. To use a somewhat homely comparison, it was as if a wild, free child of the woods and fields were to don the garb of fashion and walk down Broadway. Beneath the apparel the man would show." "See, it wasn't even her singing. It was a ..." The cassette player hits the water. And still the singing continues, rippling out of girl's gaping mouth. People begin to back away. Jakub goes over to his daughter and shakes her by the shoulders. She begins to vomit, but even her retching cannot drown out the singing which continues unabated from her lips. The harmonica player's eyes bulge almost out of his skull. He grabs Jakub by the sleeve.
     "Thanks," said Conant. "I suppose the check will be round on Thursday, as usual."
     The morals of this story have somehow gotten mixed. You can take your choice of "Stay on the Farm" or "Don't Write Poetry." "She's a witch", he breathes. "A witch!"
     Abruptly the singing stops. Katerina turns and walks along the bridge, bumping into people and knocking over tourist stalls. Jakub follows, but is impeded by the street vendors who are trying to collect up their scattered wares. She climbs on the wall of the bridge between the statues of St Joseph and St Francis Xavier and steps out into air, the sunlight blazing a silvery corona round the black core of her descending body.
     When the river is dragged, they search for many hours before finding her among the foundations of an old building. She is entangled in the bones of a woman's decaying fish-nibbled corpse which floats upright, anchored by an ankle wedged in the masonry, scarlet dress flowing in tatters like weed in a mill race. The partially exposed bones of the mother's arms form a perfect, protective circle around her daughter's body.