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Fortunately, Rachel is not alone. Other scientists and researchers help her, none more important than Donati, a tongue-in-cheek socialist whose explications of his neighborhood culture are as important as his artistic analysis. This is his home, and despite all that would belie it in his philosophy, his native history echoes through his gestures and manner. "Being" in terms of "belonging" is a central issue of Wolfe's novel-things in context, in their proper place-and Rachel is not in hers. But her dilemma is deeper than alienation. Wolfe draws her as a natural at work that has not as yet become a part of her contentment.
Of course, mastery at life is seeing that work is never finished, and that it can only begin when we are in our proper context, where we were always meant to be. The triptych upon which Rachel and Donati labor is at the heart of an old community. And in turn, at the heart of the old triptych is loss: not Christ lifted high on the tree-wracked with pain, dying, yet still alive-but Christ limp, dead, the full weight of his bones in his mother's arms. The loss of the blameless-through both death and distance-recurs throughout the novel. But the theme need not signify only with women like Rachel. Her loss is of a life that could have been-and there are few, regardless of success, who do not suspect it has all gone terribly wrong somewhere. Part of the human soul is always missing; we are born with something valuable having just slipped though our fingers.
Wolfe expertly juxtaposes Rachel's two cleansings, done by her and through her, and weighs the consequence of both. But the greater achievement is in the portrayal of the soul in flux, as it rises out of, and falls back into, its old state. At one point, talking to Donati, Rachel blithely says that art must have soul and passion to be good. The reader nods, agreeing at an artistic truism. But the danger is that art will accept any soul or passion, joyous or tortured, and will allow anything if good art is made in the process. And the trouble is that as humans we can only stand so much torture, even if it is the routine, even if it is the center of our existence. Without joy and peace somewhere, the soul falls into disrepair, decay, and, in Rachel's case, distance.
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