Cooper smiles, gently, with kindness. "These are blind steps -- " He moves. " -- and gropings of our exile, the painting of our hunger as, remembering speechlessly, we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, a door. Where? When?"

He says it to the curtains again, pacing along them, looking for the way out. Over his shoulder, apologetically, "I've been reading Thomas Wolfe. It's difficult to forget." Beat. "I'm assuming you'd like to leave."