A man in a topiary maze cannot judge of the twistings and turnings, and which avenue might lead him to the heart; while one who stands above, on some pleasant prospect, looking down upon the labyrinth, is reduced to watching the bewildered circumnavigations of the tiny victim through obvious coils — as the gods, perhaps, looked down on besieged and blood-sprayed Troy from the safety of their couches, and thought mortals weak and foolish while they themselves reclined in comfort, and had only to snap to call Ganymede to their side with nectar decanted.

So I, now, with the vantage of years, am sensible of my foolishness, my blindness, as a child. I cannot think of my blunders without a shriveling of the inward parts — not merely the desiccation attendant on shame, but also the aggravation of remorse that I did not demand more explanation, that I did not sooner take my mother by the hand, and —

I do not know what I regret. I sit with my pen, and cannot find an end to that sentence.

I do not know what we may do, to know another better.

Some days after our jaunt in the country, when we had all crawled in the Blissful State of Mammalian Repose, I was alone with Bono (for so I thought of him now, and not by his number). I watched him cleaning his master’s woolen coat; he was wrapping wet scraps of brown paper about hot coals, and, with a tongs, dousing grease spots with the steaming paper.

I asked him, “Why do you wish to change your name from Bono?”

“It was give me as a jest,” he said.

I said, “I do not understand the jest.”

He lay down his tongs, and soaked another piece of paper.

“What jest?” I asked him.

“I understood you was a silent boy,” he said.

I knew it was of importance that I pursue my inquiry.

I waited while he soaked another spot. The paper was tearing. He swore as the coal streaked black on the lapel. He cast aside the tongs.

I asked, “May I assist you?”

He fixed me with a look.

I offered, “I could hold the tongs and coal.”

“I been plenty of things,” he said, “but I never been on fire.”

He stretched his arms out, and turned his head one way and the other to make his neck crack. He noted that I still watched him, and said, “You want to know?”

I nodded.

He seemed to be considering. He sucked in his cheeks. Then he released them.

At length, he said, “I was in my mother’s womb when she was bought. My master purchased me and her, one price. My name’s Pro Bono. For free. They got two, my mother and me, for the price of one.”

I did not know what to say.

He put his hands on my shoulders, and said, in tones facetious, “See, Prince O., we’re alike in more than just our skin.”

I watched him carefully.

He said, “You and your mama were a single lot. See? The girls, they’re cheaper when they’re pregnant. Masters lose some months with her coming to bed, and the baby suckling. . . .”

He smiled at me. “You didn’t know this,” he said. It was a question, but I had no answer, for perhaps I had known it.

I said, “My mother is a princess.”

He pulled forth another piece of brown paper and wrapped it round a coal. “Your mother was a princess,” he amended.

I started; I stared.

Cautiously, I asked, “Where is your mother?”

“Cook,” he answered. “At one of Mr. 03-01’s nephews’ houses. Can’t remember which number nephew. Maybe 03-17.”

“You were sold to us?” I asked.

He fixed me with a solemn and ironical gaze. “To you?” he repeated.

“My mother,” I said, “chose to come here because she had heard such things about the town of Boston while on the Isle of B— that she wished to visit it.”

I was surprised when this magisterial explanation met only with a look of pity and impatience.

He said, “Surely it don’t have anything to do with them selling the sickliest slaves up New England way after no one buys them down South.” He shook his head. “No,” he said, “she walked down the gangplank with page boys and trumpets.”

I struggled to understand his jest; and when I recognized what he imputed, my mother’s low condition, I knew not what to say. I wished it to be a lie.

I put my arms about myself and spake no more. I desired no more explanations from Pro Bono.

He looked at me. “You didn’t know,” he said again. “You did not know?”

I watched him. He did not move, but held the steaming coal in the tongs and stared at me.

He said, “You can — this once — start crying.”

I moved not a hair.

He said, “That will be the last time in your life when you’re free.”