Voss - pg. 169

About a hundred of these animals had gathered on the farther bank of a second waterhole, where they were climbing and slithering on the hulks of a fallen trees, stretching their necks to pull at the fronds of their live leaves, scratching at remote pockets of their bodies with the tips of their horns, skull-bashing, or ruminating dreamily. As the horsemen approached, the goat-mind was undecided whether to stay or run. Several did remain, and were staring up, their lips smiling, looking right into the faces of the men, even into their souls beyond, but with expressions of politeness.

Voss - pg. 165

At his host's side, on the rudimentary veranda, which was all splinters, just as it had been split, stood the German, also in disguise. Blackened and yellowed by the sun, dried in the wind, he now resembled some root, of dark and esoteric purpose. Whereas the first man was composed of sensual forms, intended to be touched, flesh to be rubbed against flesh, it would not be presumed to use the second except in a moment of absolute necessity, and then with extreme caution. He stood there moistening his lips, and would have repudiated kinship with other men if it had been offered. In the presence of almost every one of his companions, and particularly in the company of Brendon Boyle, he was drawn closer to the landscape, the seldom motionless sea of grass, the twisted trees in grey and black, the sky ever increasing in its rage of blue; and of that landscape, always, he would become the centre.

Voss - pg. 163

"To peel down to the last layer," he yawned. "There is always another, and yet another, of more exquisite subtlety. Of course, every man has his own obsession. Yours would be, it seems, to overcome distance, but in much the same way, of deeper layers, of irresistible disaster. I can guarantee,: he said, stabbing the table with two taut fingers, "that you will be given every opportunity of indulging yourself to the west of here. In stones and thorns. Why, anyone who is so disposed, can celebrate a high old Mass, I do promise, with the skull of a blackfeller and his own blood, in Central Australia."