PART ONE
THE WHITE PAGES
My soul burns to speak of strange bodies transformed!
O gods in heaven, you ardent lovers of mutation,
become the breath inside me
and draw up my song, untroubled, unbroken,
from the first beginnings of the world
to this very moment and this very day.
—Ovid, Metamorphoses
For an actress to be a success she must have the face of Venus, the brains of Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.
—Ethel Barrymore