European culture was in its flower, not only on the Continent but around the world. And the world paid rich homage, filling England, France, and Germany with luxury. Ah, to be in Paris, say, in 1905, walking down the Champs Elys e with Rodin and Rilke. Now Cassandra sits in her own lovely little garden, beautiful day after beautiful day, watching America. Industry is humming.
Employment is up.
The little civil wars of the 1960s are an ugly memory. The larger war of that decade abroad is now reduced to a tasteful, if wrenching, monument in Washington. As in Weimar, Canton, and Paris, the volume of activity is so great and so loud that it is difficult to see and hear anything other than what is immediately in front of one. One catches glimpses of disaster, snatches of distant thunder, blurred omens which vanish when you try to focus on them. Cassandra sits in her garden, remembers, and looks for signs of hope.