Set in the sulphurous waters at a hot springs, this excerpt from The Omasters introduces readers to the musician Constance Chang (otherwise appearing as The Yellow Pearl) and Ignatz Fine, the Chasidic Mandarin mathematician and mystic. Allowing Kurt to expound on esoteric principles, the character of Fine is both cipher for Kurt and a vehicle for advancing the story.
“Like the ancient sages, Fine contemplated the changes in the dark and the light, from which he divined the movements in the firm and the yielding represented in the 64 ordered patterns of the oracle called by the name of the Book of Changes, or I Ching.”
As for Constance, “I don't understand anything you're saying,” she told Fine truthfully.”
