“All right, then, I’ll have to keep on talking—I like talking to you. When soldiers go home, their first desire, whether they know it or not, is to have children, children being the only antidote for war. In the painting by Giorgione, the woman and her baby are imperturbable, the center of the universe. The soldier may stray, the waters may rise, but the mother and child save the world, again and again.”
