Sexus (The Rosy Crucifixion, book 1)

While the divorce proceedings were pending events rolled up as at the end of an epoch. It only needed a war to top it off. First of all the Satanic Majesties of the Cosmodemoniacal Telegraph Company had seen fit to shift my headquarters once again, this time to the top of an old loft building in the twine and paper box district. My desk stood in the center of an enormous deserted floor which was used as a drill room by the messenger brigade after hours. In the adjoining room, equally large and empty, a sort of combination clinic, dispensary and gymnasium was established. All that was needed to complete the picture was the installation of a few pool tables. Some of the half-wits brought their roller skates along to while away the «rest periods». It was an infernal racket they made all day long, but I was so utterly disinterested now in all the company's plans and projects that, far from disturbing me, it afforded me great amusement. I was thoroughly isolated now from the other offices. The snooping and spying had abated; I was in quarantine, so to speak. The hiring and firing went on in dreamy fashion; my staff had been cut down to two—myself and the ex-pugilist who had formerly been the wardrobe attendant. I made no effort to keep the files in order, nor did I investigate references, nor did I conduct any correspondence. Half the time I didn't bother to answer the telephone; if there were anything very urgent there was always the telegraph.

The atmosphere of the new quarters was distinctly dementia praecox. They had relegated me to hell and I was enjoying it. As soon as I got rid of the day's applicants I would go into the adjoining room and watch the shenanigans. Now and then I would put on a pair of skates myself and do a twirl with the goofy ones. My assistant looked on askance, unable to comprehend what had happened to me. Sometimes, in spite of his austerity, his «code» and other detracting psychological elements, he would break out into a laugh which would prolong itself to the verge of hysteria. Once he asked me if I was having «trouble at home». He feared that the next step would be drink, I suppose.

As a matter of fact, I did begin to indulge rather freely about this time what with one thing and another. It was a harmless sort of drinking, which began only at the dinner table. By sheer accident I had discovered a French-Italian restaurant in the back of a grocery store. The atmosphere was most convivial. Every one was a «character», even the police sergeants and the detectives who gorged themselves disgracefully at the proprietor's expense.

I had to have some place to while away the evenings, now that Mona had sneaked into the theatre by the back door. Whether Monahan had found her the job or whether, as she said, she had just lied her way in. I was never able to discover. At any rate, she had given herself a new name, one that would suit her new career, and with it a complete new history of her life and antecedents. She had become English all of a sudden, and her people had been connected with the theatre as far back as she could remember, which was often amazingly far. It was in one of the little theatres which then flourished that she made her entrance into that world of make believe which so well suited her. Since they paid her scarcely anything they could afford to act gullible.

Arthur Raymond and his wife were at first inclined to disbelieve the news. Another one of Mona's inventions, they thought. Rebecca, always poor at dissembling, practically laughed in Mona's face. But when she came home with the script of a Schnitzler play one evening and seriously began to rehearse her role their incredulity gave way to consternation. They foresaw nothing but disaster ahead. And when Mona, by some inexplicable legerdemain, succeeded in attaching herself to the Theatre Guild, the atmosphere of the household became supersaturated with envy, spite and malevolence. The play was becoming too real—there was a very real danger now that Mona might become the actress she pretended to be.

The rehearsals were endless, it seemed. I never knew what hour Mona would return home. When I did spend an evening with her it was like listening to a drunk. The glamour of the new life had completely intoxicated her. Now and then I would stay in of an evening and try to write, but it was no go. Arthur Raymond was always there, lying in wait like an octopus. «What do you want to write for?» he would say. «God, aren't there enough writers in the world?» And then he would begin to talk about writers, the writers he admired, and I would sit before the machine, as if ready to resume my work the moment he left me. Often I would do nothing more than write a letter—to some famous author, telling him how greatly I admired his work, hinting that, if he had not already heard of me, he would soon. In this way it fell about one day that I received an astonishing letter from that Dostoievski of the North, as he was called: Knut Hamsun. It was written by his secretary, in broken English, and for a man who was shortly to receive the Nobel Prize, it was to say the least a puzzling piece of dictation. After explaining that he had been pleased, even touched, by my homage, he went on to say (through his wooden mouthpiece) that his American publisher was not altogether satisfied with the financial returns from the sale of his books. They feared that they might not be able to publish any more of his books—unless the public were to show a more lively interest. His tone was that of a giant in distress. He wondered vaguely what could be done to retrieve the situation, not so much for himself as for his dear publisher who was truly suffering because of him. And then, as the letter progressed, a happy idea seemed to take hold of him and forthwith he gave expression to it. It was this—once he had received a letter from a Mr. Boyle, who also lived in New York and whom I doubtless knew (!). He thought perhaps Mr. Boyle and myself might get together, rack our brains over the situation, and quite possibly come to some brilliant solution. Perhaps we could tell other people in America that there existed in the wilds and fens of Norway a writer named Knut Hamsun whose books had been conscientiously translated into English and were now languishing on the shelves of his publisher's stock room. He was sure that if he could only increase the sales of his books by a few hundred copies his publisher would take heart and have faith in him again. He had been to America, he said, and though his English was too poor to permit him to write me in his own hand, he was confident that his secretary could make clear his thoughts and intentions. I was to look up Mr. Boyle whose address he no longer remembered. Do what you can, he urged. Perhaps there were several other people in New York who had heard of his work and with whom we could operate. He closed on a dolorous but majestic note.... I examined the letter carefully to see if perhaps he hadn't shed a few tears over it. If the envelope hadn't born the Norwegian postmark, if the letter itself hadn't been signed in his own scrawl, which I later confirmed, I would have thought it a hoax. Tremendous discussions ensued amid boisterous laughter. It was considered that I had been royally paid out for my foolish hero worship. The idol had been smashed and my critical faculties reduced to zero. No one could possibly see how I could ever read Knut Hamsun again. To tell the honest truth, I felt like weeping. Some terrible miscarriage had occurred, just how I couldn't fathom, but despite the evidence to the contrary, I simply could not bring myself to believe that the author of Hunger, Pan, Victoria, Growth of the Soil, had dictated that letter. It was entirely conceivable that he had left the matter to his secretary, that he had signed his name in good faith without bothering to be told the contents. A man as famous as he undoubtedly received dozens of letters a day from admirers all over the world. There was nothing in my youthful panegyric to interest a man of his stature. Besides, he probably despised the whole American race, having had a bitter time of it here during the years of his pilgrimage. Most likely he had told his dolt of a secretary on more than one occasion that his American sales were negligible. Perhaps his publisher had been pestering him—publishers are known to have only one concern in dealing with their authors, namely sales. Perhaps he had remarked disgustedly, in the presence of his secretary, that Americans had money to spend on everything but the things worth while in life. And she, poor imbecile, probably worshipful of the master, had decided to avail herself of the opportunity and offer a few crack-brained suggestions in order to ameliorate the painful situation. She was more than likely no Dagmar, no Edwige. No, not even a simple soul like Martha Gude who tried so desperately not to be taken in by Herr Nagel's romantic nights and overtures. She was probably one of those educated Norwegian head cheeses who are emancipated in everything but the imagination. She was probably hygienic and scientific-minded, capable of keeping her house in order, doing harm to no one, mindful of her own business, and dreaming one day of becoming the head of a fertilizing establishment or a creche for bastard children.

No, I was thoroughly disillusioned in my god. I purposely re-read some of his books and, naive soul that I was, I wept again over certain passages. I was so deeply impressed that I began to wonder if I had dreamed the letter.

The repercussions from this «miscarriage» were quite extraordinary. I became savage, bitter, caustic. I became a wanderer who played on muted strings of iron. I impersonated one after another of my idol's characters. I talked sheer rot and nonsense; I poured hot piss over everything. I became two people—myself and my impersonations, which were legion.

The divorce trial was impending. That made me even more savage and bitter, for some inexplicable reason. I hated the farce which has to be gone through in the name of justice. I loathed and despised the lawyer whom Maude had retained to protect her interests. He looked like a corn-fed Romain Holland, a chauve-souris without a crumb of humor or imagination. He seemed to be charged with moral indignation; he was a prick through and through, a coward, a sneak, a hypocrite. He gave me the creeps.

We had it out about him the day of the outing. Lying in the grass somewhere near Mineola. The child running about gathering flowers. It was warm, very warm, and there was a hot dry wind blowing which made one nervous and rooty. I had taken my prick out and put it in her hand. She examined it shyly, not wishing to be too clinical about it and yet dying to convince herself that there was nothing wrong. After a while she dropped it and rolled over on her back, her knees up, and the warm wind licking her bottom. I jockeyed her into a favorable position, made her pull her panties off. She was in one of her protesting moods again. Didn't like being mauled like that in an open field. But there's not a soul around, I insisted. I made her spread her legs farther apart; I ran my hand up her cunt. It was gooey.

I pulled her to me and tried to get it in. She balked. She was worried about the child. I looked around. «She's all right,» I said, «she's having a good time. She's not thinking about us.»

«But supposing she conies back... and finds us...»

«She'll think we're sleeping. She won't know what we're doing....»

With this she pushed me away violently. It was outrageous. «You'd take me in front of your own child! It's horrible.»

«It's not horrible at all. You're the one who's horrible. I tell you, it's innocent. Even if she should remember it—when she's grown up—she'll be a woman then and she'll understand. There's nothing dirty about it. It's your dirty mind, that's all.»

By this time she was slipping her panties on. I hadn't bothered to shove my prick back in my trousers. It was getting limp now; it fell on the grass, dejected.

«Well, let's have something to eat then,» I said. «If we can't fuck we can always eat.»

«Yes, eat! You can eat any time. That's all you care about, eating and sleeping.»

«Fucking,» I said, «not sleeping.»

«I wish you'd stop talking to me that way.» She began to undo the lunch. «You have to spoil everything. I thought we might have a peaceful day, just once. You always said you wanted to take us out on a picnic. You never did. Not once. You thought of nothing but yourself, your friends, your women. I was a fool to think you might change. You don't care about your child—you've hardly noticed her. You can't even restrain yourself in her presence. You'd take me in front of her and pretend that it was innocent. You're vile.... I'm glad it's all over. By this time next week I'll be free... I'll be rid of your forever. You've poisoned me. You've made me bitter and hateful. You make me despise myself. Since I know you I don't recognize myself any more.

I've become what you wanted me to become. You never loved me... never. All you wanted was to satisfy your desires. You've treated me like an animal. You take what you want and you go. You go from me to the next woman—any woman—just so long as she'll open her legs for you. You haven't an ounce of loyalty or tenderness or consideration in you.... Here, take it!» she said, shoving a sandwich in my fist. «I hope you choke on it!»

As I brought the sandwich to my mouth I smelled the odor of her cunt on my fingers. I sniffed my fingers while looking up at her with a grin.

«You're disgusting!» she said.

«Not so very, my lady. It smells good to me, even if you are a hateful sour-puss. I like it. It's the only thing about you I like.»

She was furious now. She began to weep.

«Weeping because I said I liked your cunt! What a woman! Jesus, I'm the one who ought to do the despising. What sort of woman are you?»

Her tears became more copious. Just then the child came running up. What was the matter? Why was mother crying?

«It's nothing,» said Maude, drying her tears. «I turned my ankle.» A few dry sobs belched from her despite her efforts to restrain herself. She bent over the basket and selected a sandwich for the child.

«Why don't you do something, Henry?» said the child. She sat there looking from one to the other with a grave, puzzled look.

I got to my knees and rubbed Maude's ankle.

«Don't touch me!» she said harshly.

«But he wants to make it better,» said the child.

«Yes, daddy'll make it better,» I said, rubbing the ankle gently, and then patting the calf of her leg.

«Kiss her,» said the child. «Kiss her and make the tears go away.»

I bent forward and kissed Maude on the cheek. To my astonishment she flung her arms around me and kissed me violently on the mouth. The child also put her arms around us and kissed us.

Suddenly Maude had a fresh spasm of weeping. This time it was really pitiful to behold. I felt sorry for her. I put my arms around her tenderly and comforted her.

«.God,» she sobbed, «what a farce!»

«But it isn't,» I said. «I mean it sincerely. I'm sorry, sorry for everything.»

«Don't cry any more,» begged the child. «I want to eat. I want Henry to take me over there,» and she pointed with her little hand to a copse of wood at the edge of the field. «I want you to come too.»

«To think this is the only time... and it had to be like this.» She was sniffling now.

«Don't say that, Maude. The day isn't over yet. Let's forget about all that. Come on, let's eat.»

Reluctantly, wearily, it seemed, she picked up a sandwich and held it to her mouth. «I can't eat,» she murmured, dropping the sandwich.

«Come on, yes you can!» I urged, putting my arm around her again.

«You act this way now... and later you'll do something to spoil it.»

«No I won't... I promise you.»

«Kiss her again,» said the child.

I leaned over and kissed her softly and gently on the lips. She seemed really placated now. A soft light came into her eyes.

«Why can't you be like this always?» she said, after a brief pause.

«I am,» I said, «when I'm given a chance. I don't like to fight with you. Why should I? We're not man and wife any longer.»

«Then why do you treat me the way you do?

Why do you always make love to me? Why don't you leave me alone?»

«I'm not making love to you,» I answered. «It's not love, it's passion. That's not a crime, is it? For God's sake, let's not start that all over again. I'm going to treat you the way you want to be treated— to-day. I won't touch you again.»

«I don't ask that. I don't say you shouldn't touch me. But it's the way you do it... you don't show any respect for me... for my person. That's what I dislike. I know you don't love me any more, but you can behave decently towards me, even if you don't care any more. I'm not the prude you pretend I am. I have feelings too... maybe deeper, stronger than yours. I can find some one else to replace you, don't think that I can't. I just want a little time...»

She was munching her sandwich half-heartedly. Suddenly there was a gleam in her eye. She put on a coy, roguish expression.

«I could get married to-morrow, if I wanted to,» she continued. «You never thought that, did you? I've had three proposals already, as a matter of fact. The last one was from...» and here she mentioned the lawyer's name.

«Him?» I said, unable to repress a disdainful smile.

«Yes, him,» she said. «And he's not what you think he is. I like him very much.»

«Well, that explains things. Now I know why he's taken such a passionate interest in the case.»

I knew she didn't care for him, this Rocambolesque, any more than she cared for the doctor who explored her vagina with a rubber finger. She didn't care for anybody really; all she wanted was peace, surcease from pain. She wanted a lap to sit on in the dark, a prick to enter her mysteriously, a babble of words to drown her unmentionable desires. Lawyer what's-his-name would do of course. Why not? He would be as faithful as a fountain pen, as discreet as a rat trap, as provident as an insurance policy. He was a walking briefcase with pigeon holes in his belfry; he was a salamander with a heart of pastrami. He was shocked, was he, to learn that I had brought another woman to my own home? Shocked to learn that I had left the used condoms on the edge of the sink? Shocked that I had stayed for breakfast with my paramour? A snail is shocked when a drop of rain hits its shell. A general is shocked when he learns that his garrison has been massacred in his absence. God himself is shocked doubtless when He sees how revoltingly stupid and insensitive the human beast really is. But I doubt if angels are ever shocked—not even by the presence of the insane.

I was trying to give her the dialectics of the moral dynamism. I twisted my tongue in the endeavour to make her understand the marriage of the animal and the divine. She understood about as well as a layman understands when you explain the fourth dimension. She talked about delicacy and respect, as if they were pieces of angel cake. Sex was an animal locked up in a zoo which one visited now and then in order to study evolution.

Towards evening we rode back to the city, the last stretch in the elevated train, the child asleep in my arms. Mamma and Papa returning from the picnic grounds. Below, the city spread out with senseless geometrical rigidity, an evil dream rearing itself architecturally. A dream from which it is impossible to awaken. Mr. and Mrs. Megalopolitan with their offspring. Hobbled and fettered. Suspended in the sky like so much venison. A pair of every kind hanging by the hocks. At one end of the line starvation; at the other end bankruptcy. Between stations the pawnbroker, with three golden balls to signify the triune God of birth, buggery and blight. Happy days. A fog rolling in from Rockaway. Nature folding up like a dead leaf—at Mineola. Every now and then the doors open and shut: fresh batches of meat for the slaughter-house. Little scraps of conversation, like the twittering of titmice. Who would think that the chubby little youngster beside you will in ten of fifteen years be shitting his brains out with fright on a foreign field? All day long you make innocent little gadgets; at night you sit in a dark hall and watch phantoms move across a silver screen. Maybe the realest moments you know are when you sit alone in the toilet and make caca. That doesn't cost anything or commit you in any way. Not like eating or fucking, or making works of art. You leave the toilet and you step into the big shit-house. Whatever you touch is shitty. Even when it's wrapped in cellophane the smell is there. Caca! The philosopher's stone of the industrial age. Death and transfiguration—into shit! The department store life—with filmy silks on one counter and bombs on the other counter. No matter what interpretation you put on it, every thought, every deed, is cash registered. You're fucked from the moment you draw your first breath. One grand international business machine corporation. Logistics, as they say.

Mamma and Papa are now as peaceful as blut-wurst. Not an ounce of fight left in them. How glorious to spend a day in the open, with the worms and other creatures of God. What a delightful entr'acte! Life glides by like a dream. If you were to cut the bodies open while still warm you would find nothing resembling this idyll. If you were to scrape the bodies out and fill them with stones they would sink to the bottom of the sea, like dead ducks.

It begins to rain. It pours. Hail-stones big as bob-o'-links bounce from the pavement. The city looks like an ant pile smeared with salvarsan. The sewers rise and disgorge their vomit. The sky is as sullen and lurid as the bottom of a test tube.

I feel murderously gay all of a sudden. I hope to Christ it will rain like this for forty days and nights. I'd like to see the city swimming in its own shit; I'd like to see mannikins floating into the river and cash registers ground under the wheels of trucks; I'd like to see the insane pouring out of the asylums with cleavers and hacking right and left. The water cure! Like they gave it to the Filipinos in '98! But where is our Aguinaldo? Where is the rat who can breast the flood with a machete between his lips?

I bring them home in a cab, deposit them safely just as a bolt of lightning strikes the steeple of the bloody Catholic church on the corner. The broken bells make a hell of a din as they hit the pavement. Inside the church a plaster Virgin is smashed to smithereens. The priest is so taken by surprise that he hasn't time to button up his pants. His balls swell up like rocks.

Melanie flutters about like a demented albatross. «Dry your things!» she wails. A grand undressing, with gasps and shrieks and objurgations. I get into Maude's dressing sack, the one with the maribou feathers. Look like a fairy about to give an impersonation of Loulou Hurluburlu. All flub and foozle now. I'm getting a hard-on, «a personal hard-on», if you know what I mean.

Maude is upstairs putting the child to bed. I walk around in my bare feet, the dressing sack wide open. A lovely feeling. Melanie peeks in, just to see if I'm all right. She's walking around in her drawers with the parrot perched on her wrist. Afraid of the lightning she is. I'm talking to her with my hands folded over my prick. Could be a scene out of the «Wizard of Oz» by Memling. Time: dreiviertel takt. Now and then the lightning strikes afresh. It leaves the taste of burning rubber in the mouth.

I'm standing in front of the big mirror admiring my quivering cock when Maude trips in. She's as frisky as a hare and all decked out in tulle and mousseline. She seems not at all frightened by what she sees in the mirror. She comes over and stands beside me. «Open it up!» I urge. «Are you hungry?» she says, undoing herself leisurely. I turn her around and press her to me. She raises a leg to let me get it in. We look at each other in the mirror. She's fascinated. I pull the wrap up over her ass so that she can have a better look. I lift her up and she twines her legs around me. «Yes, do it,» she begs. «Fuck me! Fuck me!» Suddenly she untwines her legs, unhitches. She grabs the big arm chair and turns it around, resting her hands on the back of it. Her ass is stuck out invitingly. She doesn't wait for me to put it in—she grabs it and places it herself, watching all the time through the mirror. I push it back and forth slowly, holding my skirts up like a bedraggled hussy. She likes to see it coming out— how far will it come before it falls out. She reaches under with one hand and plays with my balls. She's completely unleashed now, as brazen as a pot. I withdraw as far as I can without letting it slip out and she rolls her ass around, sinking down on it now and then and clutching it with a feathery beak. Finally she's had enough of that. She wants to lie down on the floor and put her legs around my neck. «Get it in all the way,» she begs. «Don't be afraid of hurting me... I want it. I want you to do everything.» I got it in so deep it felt as though I were buried in a bed of mussels. She was quivering and slithering in every ream. I bent over and sucked her breasts; the nipples were taut as nails. Suddenly she pulled my head down and began to bite me wildly—lips, ears, cheeks, neck. «You want it, don't you?» she hissed. «You want it, you want it....» Her lips twisted obscenely. «You want it... you want it!» And she fairly lifted herself off the floor in her abandon. Then a groan, a spasm, a wild, tortured look as if her face were under a mirror pounded by a hammer. «Don't take it out yet,» she grunted. She lay there, her legs still slung around my neck, and the little flag inside her began twitching and fluttering. «God,» she said, «I can't stop it!» My prick was still firm. It hung obedient on her wet lips, as though receiving the sacrament from a lascivious angel. She came again, like an accordion collapsing in a bag of milk. I got hornier and hornier. I pulled her legs down and lay them flat alongside my own. «Now don't move, damn you,» I said. «I'm going to give it to you straight.» Slowly and furiously I moved in and out. «Ah, ah... Oh!» she hissed, sucking her breath in. I kept it up like a Juggernaut. Moloch fucking a piece of bombazine. Organza Friganza. The bolero in straight jabs. Her eyes were going wild; she looked like an elephant walking the ball. All she needed was a trunk to trumpet with. It was a fuck to a standstill. I fell on top of her and chewed her lips to a frazzle.

Then suddenly I thought of the douche. «Get up! Get up!» I said, nudging her roughly.

«I don't need to,» she said weakly, giving me a knowing smile.

«You mean...?» I looked at her in astonishment.

«Yes, there's no need to worry.... Are you all right? Don't you want to wash?»

In the bathroom she confessed that she had been to the doctor—another doctor. There would be nothing to fear any more.

«So that's it?» I whistled.

She powdered my cock for me, stretched it like a glove-fitter, and then bent over and kissed it. «Oh God,» she said, flinging her arms around me, «if only....»

«If only what?»

«You know what I mean...»

I unglued myself and turning my head away, I said: «Yes, I guess I do. Anyway, you don't hate me any more, do you?»

«I don't hate any one,» she answered. «I'm sorry it's turned out the way it has. Now I'll have to share you... with her.»

«You must be hungry,» she added quickly. «Let me fix you something before you go.» She powdered her face carefully first, rouged her lips, and did her hair up negligently but attractively. Her wraps was open from the waist up. She looked a thousand times better than I had ever seen her look. She was like a bright voracious animal.

I walked around in the kitchen with my prick hanging out and helped her fix a cold snack. To my surprise she unearthed a bottle of home made wine—elderberry wine that a neighbor had given her. We closed the doors and kept the gas burning to keep warm. Jesus, it was quite wonderful. It was like getting to know one another all over again. Now and then I got up and put my arms around her, kissed her passionately while my hand slid into her crack. She wasn't at all shy or balky. On the contrary. When I pulled away, she held my hand, and then with a quick dive she fastened her mouth over my prick and sucked it in.

«You don't have to go immediately, do you?» she asked, as I sat down and resumed eating.

«Not if you don't want me to,» I said, in the most amiable state of acquiescence.

«Was it my fault,» she said, «that this never happened before? Was I such a squeamish creature?» She looked at me with such frankness and sincerity I hardly recognized the woman I had lived with all these years.

«I guess we were both to blame,» I said, downing another glass of elderberry wine.

She went to the ice-box to ferret out some delicacy.

«You know what I feel like doing?» she said, coming back to the table with arms laden. «I'd like to bring the gramophone down and dance. I have some very soft needles... Would you like that?»

«Sure,» I said, «it sounds fine.»

«And let's get a bit drunk... would you mind? I feel so wonderful. I want to celebrate.»

«What about the wine?» I said. «Is that all you have?»

«I can get some more from the girl upstairs,» she said. «Or maybe some cognac—would you like that?»

«I'll drink anything... if it will make you happy.»

She started to go at once. I jumped up and caught her by the waist. I raised her wrap and kissed her ass.

«Let me go,» she murmured. «I'll be back in a minute.»

As she came back I heard her whispering to the girl from upstairs. She tapped lightly on the glass panel. «Put something on,» she cooed, «I've got Elsie with me.»

I went into the bathroom and wrapped a towel around my loins. Elsie went into a fit of laughter when she saw me. We hadn't met since the day she found me lying in bed with Mona. She seemed in excellent good humor and not at all embarrassed by the turn of events. They had brought down another bottle, of wine and some cognac. And the gramophone and the records.

Elsie was in just the mood to share our little celebration. I had expected Maude to offer her a drink and then get rid of her more or less politely. But no, nothing of the kind. She wasn't at all disturbed by Elsie's presence. She did excuse herself for being half-naked, but with a good-natured laugh, as though it were just one of those things. We put a record on and I danced with Maude. The towel slipped off but neither of us made any attempt to pick it up. When we ungrappled I stood there with my prick standing out like a flag-pole and calmly reached for my glass. Elsie gave one startled look and then turned her head away. Maude handed me the towel, or rather slung it over my prick. «You don't mind, do you, Elsie?» she said. Elsie was terribly quiet—you could hear her temples hammering. Presently she went over to the machine and turned the record over. Then she reached for her glass without looking at us and gulped it down.

«Why don't you dance with her?» said Maude. «I won't stop you. Go ahead, Elsie, dance with him.»

I went up to Elsie with the towel hanging from my prick. As she turned her back to Maude she pulled the towel off and grabbed it with a feverish hand. I felt her whole body quiver, as though a chill had come over her.

«I'm going to get some candles.» Said Maude. «It's too bright in here.» She disappeared into the next room. Immediately Elsie stopped dancing, put her lips to mine and thrust her tongue down my throat. I put my hand on her cunt and squeezed it. She was still holding my cock. The record stopped. Neither of us pulled away to shut the machine off. I heard Maude coming back. Still I remained locked in Elsie's arms.

This is where the trouble starts, I thought to myself. But Maude seemed to pay no attention.

She lit the candles and then turned the electric light off. I was pulling away from Elsie when I felt her standing beside us. «It's all right,» she said. «I don't mind. Let me join in.» And with that she put her arms around the two of us and we all three began kissing one another.

«Whew! it's hot!» said Elsie, breaking away at last.

«Take your dress off, if you like,«said Maude. «I'm taking this off,» and suiting action to word she slipped out of the wrap and stood naked before us.

The next moment we were all stark naked.

I sat down with Maude on my lap. Her cunt was wet again. Elsie stood beside us with her arm around Maude's neck. She was a little taller than Maude and well built. I rubbed my hand over her belly and twined my fingers in the bush that was almost on a level with my mouth. Maude looked on with a pleasant smile of satisfaction. I leaned forward and kissed Elsie's cunt.

«It's wonderful not to be jealous any more,» said Maude very simply.

Elsie's face was scarlet. She didn't quite know what her role was, how far she dared go. She studied Maude intently, as though not altogether convinced of her sincerity. Now I was kissing Maude passionately, my fingers in Elsie's cunt the while. I felt Elsie pressing closer, moving herself. The juice was pouring over my fingers. At the same time Maude raised herself and, shifting her bottom, adroitly managed to sink down again with my prick neatly fitted inside her. She was facing forward now, her face pressed against Elsie's breasts. She raised her head and took the nipple in her mouth. Elsie gave a shudder and her cunt began to quiver with silken spasms. Now Maude's hand, which had been resting on Elsie's waist, slid down and caressed the smooth cheeks. In another moment it had slipped farther down and encountered mine. I drew my hand away instinctively. Elsie shifted a little and then Maude leaned forward and placed her mouth on Elsie's cunt. At the same time Elsie bent forward, over Maude, and put her lips to mine. The three of us were now quivering as if we had the ague.

As I felt Maude coming I held myself in, determined to save it for Elsie. My prick still taut, I gently raised Maude from my lap and reached for Elsie. She straddled me face forward and with uncontrollable passion she flung her arms around me, glued her lips to mine, and fucked away for dear life. Maude had discreetly gone to the bathroom. When she returned Elsie was sitting in my lap, her arm around my neck, her face on fire. Then Elsie got up and went to the bathroom. I went to the sink and washed myself there.

«I've never been so happy,» said Maude, going to the machine and putting on another record. «Give me your glass,» she said, and as she filled it she murmured: «What will you say when you get home?» I said nothing. Then she added under her breath: «You could say one of us was taken ill.»

«It doesn't matter,» I said. «I'll think of something.»

«You won't be angry with me?»

«Angry? What for?»

«For keeping you so long.»

«Nonsense,» I said.

She put her arms around me and kissed me tenderly. And with arms around each other's waist we reached for the glasses and gulped drown a silent toast. At this moment Elsie returned. We stood there, naked as hat racks, our arms entwined, and drank to one another.

We began to dance again, with the candles guttering. I knew that in a few moments they would be extinguished and no one would make a move to get fresh ones. We changed off at rapid intervals, to avoid giving one another the embarrassment of standing apart and watching. Sometimes Maude and Elsie danced together, rubbing their cunts together obscenely, then pulling apart laughingly, and one or the other making a grab for me. There was such a feeling of freedom and intimacy that any gesture, any act, became permissible. We began to laugh and joke more and more. When finally the candles guttered out, first one, then the other, and only a pale shaft of moonlight streamed through the windows, all pretense at restraint or decency vanished.

It was Maude who had the idea of clearing the table. Elsie assisted uncomprehendingly, like some one who had been mesmerized. Quickly the things were whisked to the tubs. There was a quick dash to the next room for a soft blanket which was stretched over the table. Even a pillow. Elsie was beginning to get the drift. She looked on goggle-eyed.

Before getting down to actualities, however, Maude had another inspiration—to make eggnogs. We had to switch the light on for that. The two of them worked swiftly, almost frantically. They poured a liberal dose of cognac into the concoction. As I felt it slipping down my gullet I felt it going straight into my pecker, into my balls. As I was drinking, my head thrown back, Elsie cupped her hand around my balls. «One of them's bigger than the other,» she said laughingly. Then, after a slight hesitation: «Couldn't we all do something together?» She looked at Maude. Maude grinned, as if to say—why not? «Let's put the top light out,» said Elsie, «we don't need that any more, do we?» She sat down on the chair beside the table. «I want to watch you,» she said, patting the blanket with her hand. She got hold of Maude and lifted her up and on to the table. «This is a new one to me,» she said. «Wait a minute?» She took my hand and drew me to her. Then, looking at Maude.... «May I?» And without waiting for an answer she bent forward and reaching for my cock, placed it in her mouth. After a few moments she withdrew her mouth. «Now... let me watch!» She gave me a little push, as if to hurry me on. Maude stretched out like a cat, her ass hanging over the edge of the table, the pillow under her head. She twined her legs around my waist. Then, suddenly, she untwined them and slung them over my shoulders. Elsie was standing beside me, her head down, watching with breathless absorption. «Pull it out a little,» she said in a hoarse whisper, «I want to see it go in again.» Then swiftly she ran to the window and raised the shades. «Do it!» she said. «Go on, fuck her!» As I plunged it in I felt Elsie slipping down beside me. The next moment I felt her tongue on my balls, lapping them vigorously.

Suddenly, utterly astounded, I heard Maude say: «Don't come yet. Wait.... Give Elsie a chance.»

I pulled out, pushing my ass in Elsie's face in doing so, and tumbling her backwards on the floor. She gave a squeal of delight and quickly sprang to her feet. Maude climbed down from the table and Elsie nimbly placed herself in position. «Couldn't you do something too?» she said to Maude, sitting bolt upright. «I have an idea...» and she sprang off the table and threw the blanket on the floor and the pillow after it. It didn't take her long to figure out an interesting configuration.

Maude was stretched out on her back, Elsie squatting over her on bent knees, her head facing Maude's feet but the mouth glued to Maude's crack. I was on my knees, giving it to Elsie from behind. Maude was playing with my balls, “a light, delicate manipulation with the finger-tips. I could feel Maude squirming around as Elsie licked her furiously and avidly. There was a weird pale light playing over the room and the taste of cunt in my mouth. I had one of those final erections which threaten never to break. Now and then I took it out and, pushing Elsie forward, I sank down farther and offered it to Maude's nimble tongue. Then I would sink it in again and Elsie would squirm like mad and bury her nozzle in Maude's crotch, shaking her head like a terrier. Finally I pulled out and pushing Elsie aside I fell on Maude and buried it in her with a vengeance. «Do it, do it!» she begged, as if she were waiting for the axe. Again I felt Elsie's tongue on my balls. Then Maude came, like a star bursting, with a volley of half-finished words and phrases rippling off her tongue. I pulled away, still stiff as a poker, fearful now that I would never come again, and groped for Elsie. She was terribly gooey, and her mouth was just like a cunt now. «Do you want it?» I said, shoving it around inside her like a drunken fiend. «Go on, fuck, fuck!» she cried, slinging her legs up over my shoulders and dragging her bottom closer. «Give it to me, give it to me, you bugger!» She was almost yelling now. «Yes, I'll fuck you... I'll fuck you!» and she squirmed and writhed and twisted and bit and clawed me.

«Oh, oh! Don't. Please don't. It hurts!» she yelled.

«Shut up, you bitch you!» I said. «It hurts, does it? You wanted it, didn't you?» I held her tightly, raised myself a little higher to get it in to the hilt, and pushed until I thought her womb would give way. Then I came—right into that snail-like mouth which was wide open. She went into a convulsion, delirious with joy and pain. Then her legs slid off my shoulders and fell to the floor with a thud. She lay there like a dead one, completely fucked out.

«Jesus,» I said, standing astraddle over her, and the sperm still coming out, dropping on her breast, her face, her hair, «Jesus Christ, I'm exhausted. I'm fucked out, do you know that?» I addressed myself to the room.

Maude was lighting a candle. «It's getting late,» she said.

«I'm not going home,» I said. «I'm going to sleep here.»

«You are?» said Maude, an irrepressible thrill creeping into her voice.

«Yes, I can't go back in this condition, can I? Jesus, I'm groggy and boozy and woozy.» I flopped on to a chair. «Give me a drop of that cognac, will you, I need a bracer.»

She poured out a good stiff one and held it to my lips, as if she were giving me medicine. Elsie had risen to her feet, a bit wobbly and lurchy. «Give me one too,» she begged. «What a night! We ought to do this again some time.»

«Yeah, to-morrow,» I said.

«It was a wonderful performance,» she said, stroking my dome. «I never thought you were like that.... You almost killed me, do you know it?»

«You'd better take a douche,»-said Maude.

«I guess so,» Elsie sighed. «I don't seem to give a damn. If I'm caught I'm caught.»

«Go on in there, Elsie,» I said. «Don't be a damned fool.»

«I'm too tired,» said Elsie.

Wait a minute,» said I. «I want to have a look at you before you go in there.» I made her climb on the table and open her legs wide. With the glass in one hand I pried her cunt open with the thumb and forefinger of my other hand. The sperm was still oozing out.

«It's a beautiful cunt, Elsie.»

Maude took a good look at it too. «Kiss it,» I said, gently pushing her nose into Elsie's bush.

I sat there, watching Maude nibble away at Elsie's cunt. «It feels good,» Elsie was saying. «Awfully good.» She moved like a belly dancer tied to the floor. Maude's ass was sticking out temptingly. In spite of the fatigue my prick began to swell again. It stiffened like a blood-pudding. I got behind Maude and slipped it in. She spun her ass around and around, with just the tip of it in. Elsie was now contorting herself with pleasure; she had her finger in her mouth, and was biting the knuckle. We went on like this for several minutes, until Elsie had an orgasm. Then we disengaged ourselves and looked at one another as though we had never seen each other before. We were dazed.

«I'm going to bed,» I said, determined to make an end of it. I started for the next room, thinking to lie on the couch.

««You can stay with me,» said Maude, holding me by the arm. «Why not?» she said, seeing the surprised look in my eyes.

«Yes,» said Elsie, «why not? Maybe I'll go to bed with you too. Would you let me?» she asked Maude point blank. «I won't bother you, she added. «I just hate to leave you now.»

«But what will your folks say?» said Maude.

«They won't know that Henry stayed, will they?»

«No, of course not!» said Maude, a little frightened at the thought.

«And Melanie?» I said.

«Oh, she leaves early in the morning. She has a job now.»

Suddenly I wondered what the devil I would say to Mona. I was almost panic-stricken.

«I think I ought to phone home,» I said.

«Oh, not now,» said Elsie coaxingly. «It's so late.... Wait.»

We hid the bottles away, piled the dishes up in the sink, and took the phonograph upstairs with us. It was just as well that Melanie shouldn't suspect too much. We tip-toed through the hall and up the stairs, our arms loaded.

I lay between the two of them, a hand on either cunt. They lay quietly for a long while, sound asleep I thought. I was too tired to sleep. I lay with eyes wide open, staring up into the darkness. Finally I turned over on my side. Towards Maude. Instantly she turned towards me, putting her arms around me and glueing her lips to mine. Then she removed them and placed them to my ear. «I love you,» she whispered faintly. I made no answer. «Did you hear?» she whispered. «I love you!» I pressed her close and put my hand between her legs. Just then I felt Elsie turning round, cuddling up to me spoon fashion. I felt her hand crawling between my legs, squeezing my balls. She had her lips against my neck and was kissing me softly, warmly, with wet, cool lips.

After a time I turned back to a prone position. Elsie did the same. I closed my eyes, tried to summon sleep. It was impossible. The bed felt deliciously soft, the bodies beside me were soft and clinging, and the odor of hair and sex was in my nostrils. From the garden came the heavy fragrance of rain-soaked earth. It was strange, soothingly strange, to be back in this big bed, the marital bed, with a third person beside us, and the three of us enveloped in frank, sensual lust. It was too good to be true. I expected the door to be flung open any moment and an accusing voice scream: «Get out of there, you brazen creatures!» But there was only the silence of the night, the blackness, the heavy, sensual odors of earth and sex.

When I shifted again it was towards Elsie. She was waiting for me, eager to press her cunt against me, slip her thick, taut tongue down my throat.

«Is she asleep?» she whispered. «Do it once more,» she begged.

I lay motionless, my cock limp, my arm drooping over her waist.

«Not now,» I whispered. «In the morning maybe.»

«No, now!» she begged. My prick was curled up in her hand like a dead snail. «Please, please,» she whispered, «I want it. Just one more fuck, Henry.»

«Let him sleep,» said Maude, snuggling up. Her voice sounded as if she were drugged.

«All right» said Elsie, patting Maude's arm. Then, after a few moments of silence, her lips pressed against my ear, she whispered slowly, allowing a pause between each word: «When she falls asleep, yes?» I nodded. Suddenly I felt that I was dropping off. «Thank God,» I said to myself.

There was a blank, a long blank, it seemed to me, during which I was completely out. I awakened gradually, dimly conscious that my prick was in Elsie's mouth. I ran my hand over her head and stroked her back. She put her hand up and placed her fingers over my mouth, as if to warn me not to protest. A useless warning because, curiously enough, I had awakened with a full knowledge of what was coming. My prick was already responding to Elsie's labial caresses. It was a new prick; it seemed thinner, longer, pointed—a dog-like prick. And it had life in it, as though it had refreshed itself independently, as though it had taken a nap all by itself.

Gently, slowly, stealthily—why had we become furtive now? I wondered—I pulled Elsie up and over me. Her cunt was different than Maude's longer, narrower, like the finger of a glove slipping over my prick. I made comparisons as I cautiously jogged her up and down. I ran my fingers along the edge and grabbed her bush and tugged it gently. Not a whisper passed our lips. Her teeth were fastened in to the hump of my shoulder. She was arched so that only the tip of it was in her and around that she was slowly, skillfully, torturingly twirling her cunt. Now and then she sank down on it and dug away like an animal.

«God, I love it!» she finally whispered. «I'd like to fuck you every night.»

We rolled over on our sides and lay there glued together, making no movement, no sound. With extraordinary muscular contractions her cunt played with my prick as if it had a life and will of its own.

«Where do you live?» she whispered. «Where can I see you... alone? Write me to-morrow... tell me where to meet you. I want a fuck every day... do you hear? Don't come yet, please. I want it to last forever.»

Silence. Just the beating of her pulse between the legs. I never felt such a tight fit, such a long, smooth, silky, clean, fresh tight fit. She couldn't have been fucked more than a dozen times. And the roots of her hair, so strong and fragrant. And her breasts, firm and smooth, almost like apples. The fingers too, strong, supple, greedy, always wandering, clutching, caressing, tickling. How she loved to grab my balls, to cup them, weigh them, then ring the scrotum with two fingers, as if she were going to milk me. And her tongue always active, her teeth biting, pinching, nipping...

She's very quiet now, not a muscle stirring. Whispers again.

«Am I doing all right? You'll teach me, won't you? I'm rooty. I could fuck forever... You're not tired any more, are you? Just leave it like that... don't move. If I come don't take it out.... you won't, will you? God, this is heaven...»

Quiet again. I have the feeling I could lie this . way indefinitely. I want to hear more.

«I've got a friend,» she whispers. «We could meet there... she wouldn't say anything. Jesus, Henry, I never through! it could be like this. Can you fuck like this every night?»

I smiled in the dark.

«What's the matter?» she whispered.

«Not every night,» I whispered, almost breaking into a giggle.

«Henry, fuck! Quick, fuck me... I'm coming.»

We came off simultaneously, a prolonged orgasm which made me wonder where the damned juice came from.

«You did it!» she whispered. Then: «It's all right... it was marvelous.»

Maude turned over heavily in her sleep.

«Good-night,» I whispered. «I'm going to sleep—

I'm dead.»

«Write me to-morrow,» she whispered, kissing my cheek. «Or phone me... promises I grunted. She cuddled up to me, her arm around my waist. We fell into a trance.

17

It was Sunday that this outing took place. I didn't see Mona until near dawn Tuesday. Not that I remained with Maude—no, I went straight to the office on Monday morning. Towards noon I telephoned Mona and was told that she was asleep. It was Rebecca who answered the telephone. She said Mona hadn't been home all night, that she had been rehearsing. «And where were you all night?» she demanded, almost with proprietary solicitude. I explained that the child had been taken ill and that I had been obliged to stay with her all night.

«You'd better think up something better than that,» she laughed, «before you talk to Mona. She's been telephoning all night. She was frantic about you.»

«That's why she didn't come home, I suppose?»

«You don't expect any one to believe your stories, do you?» said Rebecca, giving another low, throaty laugh. «Are you coming home tonight?» she added. «We missed you... You know, Henry, you ought never to get married...»

I cut her short. «I'll be home to-night for dinner, yes. Tell her that when she wakes up, will you? And don't laugh when you tell her what I said—about the child, I mean.»

She began to laugh over the telephone.

«Rebecca, listen, I'm trusting you. Don't make it hard for me. You know I think the world of you. If I ever marry another woman it will be you, you know that...»

More laughter. Then: «For God's sake, Henry, stop it! But come home to-night... I want to hear all about it. Arthur won't be home, I'll stand by you... though you don't deserve it.»

So I went home, after taking a nap in the roller skating rink. I was rather exhilarated too, on arriving, owing to a last minute interview with an Egyptologist who wanted a job as a night messenger. A statement he had let drop about the probable age of the pyramids had thrown me out of the rut so violently that it was a matter of complete indifference to me how Mona would react to my story. There was reason to believe, he had said, and I am sure I heard him rightly, that the pyramids might be sixty thousand years old—at least. If that were true, the whole god-damned notion of Egyptian civilization could be thrown on the scrap-heap—and a lot of other historical notions too. In the subway I felt immeasurably older than I ever thought it was possible to feel. I was trying to reach back twenty or thirty thousand years, some half-way point between the erection of these enigmatic monoliths and the supposed dawn of that hoary civilization of the Nile. I was suspended in time and space. The word age began to take on a new significance. With it came a fantastic thought: what if I should live to be a hundred and fifty, or a hundred and ninety-five? How would this little incident that I was trying to cover up—the Organza Friganza business— stack up in the light of a hundred and fifty years of experience? What would it matter if Mona left me? What would it matter three generations hence how I had behaved on the night of the 14th of so and so and so? Supposing I was still virile at ninety-five and had survived the death of six wives, or eight or ten? Supposing that in the 21st century we had a return to Mormonism? Or that we began to see, and ,not only to see but to practice, the sexual logic of the Eskimos? Supposing the notion of property were abolished and the institution of matrimony wiped out? In seventy or eighty years tremendous revolutions could take place. Seventy or eighty years hence I would only be a hundred or so years old— comparatively young yet. I would probably have forgotten the names of most of my wives, to say nothing of the fly-by-nights... I was almost in a state of exaltation when I walked in.

Rebecca came at once to my room. The house was empty. Mona had telephoned, she said, to say that there was another rehearsal on. She didn't know when she would be home.

«That's fine,» I said. «Did you make dinner?»

«God, Henry, you're adorable.» She put her arms around me affectionately and gave me a comradely hug. «I wish Arthur were like that. It would be easier to forgive him sometimes.»

«Isn't there a soul around?» I asked. It was most unusual for the house to be so deserted.

«No, everybody's gone,» said Rebecca, examining the roast in the oven. «Now you can tell me about that great love you were talking about over the phone.» She laughed again, a low, earthy laugh which sent a thrill through me.

«You know I wasn't serious,» I said. «Sometimes I say anything at all... though in a way I mean it too. You understand, don't you?»

«Perfectly! That's why I like you. You're utterly faithless and truthful. It's an irresistible combination.»

«You know you're safe with me, that's it, eh?» I said, sidling up to her and putting an arm around her.

She wriggled away laughingly. «I don't think any such thing—and you know it!? she burst out.

«I'm only making up to you out of politeness,» I said, with a huge grin. «We're going to have a cosy little meal now... God, it smells good... what is it? chicken?»

«Pork!» she said. «Chicken... what do you think? That I made this especially for you? Go on, talk to me. Keep your mind off the food a little longer. Say something nice, if you can. But don't come near me, or I'll stick a fork in you... Tell me what happened last night. Tell me the truth, I dare you...»

«That isn't hard to do, my wonderful Rebecca.

Especially since we're alone. It's a long story—are you sure you'd like to hear it?»

She was laughing again.

«Jesus, you've got a dirty laugh,» I said. «Well anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the truth... Listen, the truth is that I slept with my wife...»

«I thought as much,» said Rebecca.

«But wait, that isn't all. There was another woman besides...»

«You mean after you slept with your wife—or before?»

«At the same time,» I said, grinning amiably.

«No, no! don't tell me that!» She dropped the carving knife and stood with arms akimbo looking at me searchingly. «I don't know... with you anything's possible. Wait a minute. Wait till I set the table. I want to hear the whole thing, from beginning to end.»

«You haven't got a little schnapps, have you?» I said.

«I've got some red wine... that'll have to do you.»

«Good, good! Of course it'll do. Where is it?»

As I was uncorking the bottle she came over to me and grasped me by the arm. «Look, tell me the truth,» she said. «I won't give you away.»

«But I'm telling you the truth!»

«All right, hold it, then. Wait till we sit down-Do you like cauliflower? I haven't any other vegetable.»

«I like any kind of food. I like everything. I like you, I like Mona, I like my wife, I like horses, cows, chickens, pinochle, tapioca, Bach, benzine, prickly heat...»

«You like...! That's you all over. It's wonderful to hear it. You make me hungry too. You like everything, yes... but you don't love.»

«I do too. I love food, wine, women. Of course I do. What makes you think I don't? If you like, you love. Love is only the superlative degree. I love like God loves—without distinction of time, place, race, color, sex and so forth. I love you too—that way. It's not enough, I suppose?»

«It's too much, you mean. You're out of focus. Listen, calm down a moment. Carve the meat, will you? I'll fix the gravy.»

«Gravy.... ooh, ooh. I love gravy.»

«Like you love your wife and me and Mona, is that it?»

«More even. Right now it's all gravy. I could lick it up by the ladleful. Rich, thick, heavy, black gravy... it's wonderful. By the way, I was just talking to an Egyptologist—he wanted a job as a messenger.»

«Here's the gravy. Don't get off the track. You were going to tell me about your wife.»

«Sure, sure I will. I'll tell you that too. I'll tell you everything. First of all, I want to tell you how beautiful you look—with the gravy in your hand.»

«If you don't stop this,» she said, «I'll put a knife in you. What's come over you, anyway? Does your wife have such an effect upon you every time you see her? You must have had a wonderful time.» She sat down, not opposite me, but to one side.

«Yes, I did have a wonderful time,» I said. «And then just now there was the Egyptologist...»

«Oh, drat the Egyptologist! I want to hear about your wife... and that other woman. God, if you're making this up I'll kill you!»

I busied myself for a while with the pork and the cauliflower. Took a few swigs of wine to wash it down. A succulent repast. I was feeling mellow as could” be. I needed replenishment.

«It's like this.» I began, after I had packed away a few forkfuls.

She began to titter.

«What's the matter? What did I say now?»

It isn't what you say, it's the way you say it. You seem so serene and detached, so innocent like. God, yes, that's it—innocent. If it had been murder instead of adultery, or fornication, I think you'd begin the same way. You enjoy yourself, don't you?»

«Of course... why not? Why shouldn't I? Is that so terribly strange?»

«No-o-h,» she drawled, «I suppose it isn't... or it shouldn't be, anyway. But you make everything sound a little crazy sometimes. You're always a little wide of the mark... too big a swoop. You ought to have been born in Russia!»

«Yeah, Russia! That's it. I love Russia!»

«And you love the pork and the cauliflower—and the gravy and me. Tell me, what don't you love? Think first! I'd really like to know.»

I gobbled down a juicy bit of fatty pork dipped in gravy and looked at her. «Well, for one thing, I don't like work.» I paused a minute to think what else I didn't like. «Oh yes,» I said, meaning it utterly seriously, «and I don't like flies.»

She burst out laughing. «Work and flies—so that's it. I must remember that. God, is that all you don't like?»

«For the moment that's all I can think of.»

«And what about crime, injustice, tyranny and those things?»

«Well, what about them?» I said. «What can you do about such things? You might just as well ask me—what about the weather?»

«Do you mean that?»

«Of course I do.»

«You're impossible! Or maybe you can't think when you eat.»

«That's a fact,» I said. «I don't think very well when I eat, do you? I don't want to, as a matter of fact. Anyway, I was never much of a thinker. Thinking doesn't get you anywhere anyhow. It's a delusion. Thinking makes you morbid... By the way, have you any dessert... any of that Liederkranz? That's a wonderful cheese, don't you think?»

«I suppose it does sound funny,» I continued, «to hear some one say 'I love it, it's wonderful, it's good, it's great,' meaning everything. Of course I don't feel that way every day—but I'd like to. And I do when I'm normal, when I'm myself. Everybody does, if given a chance. It's the natural state of the heart. The trouble is, we're terrorized most of the time. I say 'we're terrorized,' but I mean we terrorize ourselves. Last night, for instance. You can't imagine how extraordinary it was. Nothing external created it—unless it was the lightning. Suddenly everything was different—and yet it was the same house, the same atmosphere, the same wife, the same bed. It was as though the pressure had suddenly been removed—I mean that psychic pressure, that incomprehensible wet blanket which smothers us from the time we're born... You said something about tyranny, injustice, and so on. Of course I know what you mean. I used to occupy myself with those problems when I was younger—when I was fifteen or sixteen. I understood everything then, very clearly... that is, as far as the mind permits one to understand things. I was more pure, more disinterested, so to speak. I didn't have to defend or uphold anything, least of all a system which I never did believe in, not even as a child. I worked out an ideal universe, all on my own. It was very simple: no money, no property, no laws, no police, no government, no soldiers, no executioners, no prisons, no schools. I eliminated every disturbing and restraining element. Perfect freedom. It was a vacuum—and in it I exploded.

What I really wanted, you see, was that every one should behave as I behaved, or thought I would behave. I wanted a world made in my own image, a world that would breathe my spirit. I made myself God, since there was nothing to hinder me..,»

I paused for breath. I noticed that she was listening with the utmost seriousness.

«Should I go on? You've probably heard this sort of thing a thousand times.»

«Do go on,» she said softly, placing a hand on my arm. «I'm beginning to see another you. I like you better in this vein.»

«Didn't you forget the cheese? By the way, the wine isn't bad at all. A little sharp, maybe, but not bad.»

«Listen, Henry, eat, drink, smoke, do anything you want, as much as you want. I'll give you everything we have in the house. But don't stop talking now... please.»

She was just about to sit down. I sprang up suddenly, my eyes full of tears, and I put my arms around her. «Now I can tell you honestly and sincerely,» I said, «that I do love you.» I made no attempt to kiss her—I just embraced her. I released her of my own accord, sat down, picked up the glass of wine and finished it off.

«You're an actor,» she said. «In the real sense of the word, of course. I don't wonder that people are frightened of you sometimes.»

«I know, I get frightened of myself sometimes. Especially if the other person responds. I don't know where the proper limits are. There are no limits, I suppose. Nothing would be bad or ugly or evil—if we really let ourselves go. But it's hard to make people understand that. Anyway, that's the difference between the world of imagination and the world of common sense, which isn't common sense at all but sheer buggery and insanity. If you stop still and look at things... I say look, not think, not criticize... the world looks absolutely crazy to you. And it is crazy, by God! It's just as crazy when things are normal and peaceful as in times of war or revolution. The evils are insane evils, and the panaceas are insane panaceas. Because we're all driven like dogs. We're running away. From what? We don't know. From a million nameless things. It's a rout, a panic. There's no ultimate place to retreat to—unless, as I say, you stand stock still. If you can do that, and not lose your balance, not be swept away in the rush, you may be able to get a grip on yourself... be able to act, if you know what I mean. You know what I'm driving at... From the time you wake up until the moment you go to bed it's all a lie, all a sham and a swindle. Everybody knows it, and everybody collaborates in the perpetuation of the hoax. That's why we look so god-damned disgusting to one another. That's why it's so easy to trump up a war, or a pogrom, or a vice crusade, or any damned thing you like. It's always easier to give in, to bash somebody's puss in, because what we all pray for is to get done in, but done in proper and no come back. If we could still believe in a God, we'd make him a God of Vengeance. We'd surrender to him with a full heart the task of cleaning things up. It's too late for us to pretend to clean up the mess. We're in it up to the eyes. We don't want a new world... we want an end to the mess we've made. At sixteen you can believe in a new world... you can believe anything, in fact... but at twenty you're doomed, and you know it. At twenty you're well in harness, and the most you can hope for is to get off with arms and legs intact. It isn't a question of fading hope... Hope is a baneful sign; it means impotence. Courage is no use either: everybody can muster courage—for the wrong thing.

I don't know what to say—unless I use a word like vision. And by that I don't mean a projected picture of the future, of some imagined ideal made real. I mean something more flexible, more constant—a permanent super-sight, as it were... something like a third eye. We had it once. There was a sort of clairvoyance which was natural and common to all men. Then came the mind, and that eye which permitted us to see whole and round and beyond was absorbed by the brain, and we became conscious of the world, and of one another, in a new way. Our pretty little egos came into bloom: we became self-conscious, and with that came conceit, arrogance, blindness, a blindness such as was never known before, not even by the blind.»

«Where do you get these ideas?» said Rebecca suddenly. «Or are you making it up on the spur of the moment? Wait a minute... I want you to tell me something. Do you ever put your thoughts down on paper? What do you write about anyway? You've never showed me a thing. I haven't the least idea what you're doing.»

«Oh that,» I said, «it's just as well you haven't read anything. I haven't said anything yet. I can't seem to get started. I don't know what the hell to put down first, there's so much to say.»

«But do you write the way you talk? That's what I want to know.»

«I don't think so,» I said, blushing. «I don't know anything about writing yet. I'm too self-conscious, I guess.»

«You shouldn't be,» said Rebecca. «You're not self-conscious when you talk, and you don't act self-consciously either.»

«Rebecca,» I said, proceeding slowly and deliberately, «if I really knew what I was capable of I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. I feel sometimes as though I'm going to burst. I really don't give a damn about the misery of the world. I take it for granted. What I want is to open up. I want to know what's inside me. I want everybody to open up. I'm like an imbecile with a can-opener in his hand, wondering where to begin—to open up the earth. I know that underneath the mess everything is marvelous. I'm sure of it. I know it because I feel so marvelous myself most of the time. And when I feel that way everybody seems marvelous... everybody and everything... even pebbles and pieces of cardboard... a match stick lying in the gutter... anything... a goat's beard, if you like. That's what I want to write about—but I don't know how... I don't know where to begin. Maybe it's too personal. Maybe it would sound like sheer rubbish... You see, to me it seems as though the artists, the scientists, the philosophers were grinding lenses. It's all a grand preparation for something that never conies off. Some day the lens is going to be perfect and then we're all going to see clearly, see what a staggering, wonderful, beautiful world it is. But in the meantime we go without glasses, so to speak. We blunder about like myopic, blinking idiots. We don't see what is under our nose because we're so intent on seeing the stars, or what lies beyond the stars. We're trying to see with the mind, but the mind sees only what it's told to see. The mind can't open wide its eyes and look just for the pleasure of looking. Haven't you ever noticed that when you stop looking, when you don't try to see, vow suddenly see? What is it you see? Who is it that sees? Why is it all so different —so marvelously different—in such moments? And which is more real, that kind of vision or the other? You see what I mean.... When you have an inspiration your mind takes a vacation; you turn it over to some one else, some invisible, unknowable power which takes possession of you, as we so aptly say. What the hell does that mean—if it makes sense at all? What happens when the machinery of the mind slows down, , or comes to a standstill? Whatever or however you I choose to look upon it, this other modus operandi is I of another order. The machine runs perfectly, but its object and purpose seem purely gratuitous. It makes another kind of sense... grand sense, if you accept it unquestioningly, and nonsense—or not nonsense, but madness—it you try to examine into it with the other machinery... Jesus, I guess I'm getting off the track.»

Little by little she steered me back to the story she wanted to hear. She was avidly curious about the details. She laughed a great deal—that low, earthy laugh which was provocative and approving at the same time.

«You pick the strangest women,» she said. «You seem to choose with your eyes shut. Don't you ever think beforehand what it's going to mean to live with them?»

She went on like this for a space and then suddenly I was aware that she had veered the conversation to Mona. Mona—that puzzled her. What did we have in common, she wanted to know. How could I stand her lies, her pretences—or didn't I care about such things? Surely there had to be firm ground somewhere... one couldn't build on quicksands. She had thought about us a great deal, even before she met Mona. She had heard about her, from different sources, had been curious to know her, to understand what the great attraction was.... Mona was beautiful, yes—ravishingly beautiful—and perhaps intelligent too. But God, so theatrical! There was no getting to grips with her; she eluded one like a phantom. «What do you really know about her?» she asked challengingly. «Have you met her parents? Do you know anything about her life before she met you?»

I confessed that I knew almost nothing. Perhaps it was better that I didn't know, I averred. There was something attractive about the mystery which surrounded her.

«Oh, nonsense!» said Rebecca scathingly. «I don't think there's any great mystery there. Her father's probably a rabbi.»

«What! What makes you say that? How do you know she's Jewish? I don't even know it myself.»

«You don't want to know it, you mean. Of course I don't know either, except that she denies it so vehemently—that always makes one suspicious. Besides, does she look like the average American type? Come, come, don't tell me you haven't suspected as much—you're not as dumb as all that.»

What surprised me more than anything, as regards these remarks, was the fact that Rebecca had succeeded in discussing the subject with Mona. Not a hint of it had reached my ears. I would have given anything to have been behind a screen during that encounter.

«If you really want to know something,» I said, «I'd rather that she were a Jewess than anything else. I never pump her about that, of course. Evidently it's a painful subject. She'll come out with it one day, you'll see....»

«You're so damned romantic,» said Rebecca. «Really, you're incurable. Why should a Jewish girl be any different from a Gentile? I live in both worlds... I don't find anything strange or marvelous about either.»

«Naturally,» I said. «You're always the same person. You don't change from one milieu to another. You're honest and open. You could get along anywhere with any group or class or race. But most people aren't that way. Most people are conscious of race, color, religion, nationality, and so on. To me all peoples are mysterious when I look at them closely. I can detect their differences much easier than their kinship. In fact, I like the distinctions which separate them just as much as I like what unites them. I think it's foolish to pretend that we're all pretty much the same. Only the great, the truly distinctive individuals, resemble one another. Brotherhood doesn't start at the bottom, but at the top. The nearer we get to God the more we resemble one another. At the bottom it's like a rubbish pile... that's to say, from a distance it all seems like so much rubbish, but when you get nearer you perceive that this so-called «rubbish» is composed of a million-billion different particles. And yet, no matter how different one bit of rubbish is from another, the real difference only asserts itself when you look at something which is not «rubbish». Even if the elements which compose the universe can be broken down into one vital substance... well, I don't know what I was going to say exactly... maybe this... that as long as there is life there will be differentiation, values, hierarchies. Life is always making pyramidal structures, in every realm. If you're at the bottom you stress the sameness of things; if you're at the top, or near it, you become aware of the difference between things. And if something is obscure— especially a person—you're attracted beyond all power of will. You may find that it was an empty chase, that there was nothing there, nothing more than a question mark, but just the same....»

There was something more I felt like adding. «And there's the opposite to all this,» I continued. «As with my ex-wife, for instance. Of course I should have suspected that she had another side, hating her as I did for being so damned prudish and proper. It's all very well to say that an over-modest person is extremely immodest, as the analysts do, but to catch one changing over from the one to the other, that's something you don't often have a chance to witness. Or if you do, it's usually with some one else that the transformation occurs. But yesterday I saw it happen right before my eyes, and not with somebody else, but with me! No matter how much you think you know about a person's secret thoughts, about their unconscious impulses and all that, nevertheless, when the conversion takes place before your eyes you begin to wonder if you ever did know the person with whom you were living all your life. It's all right to say to yourself, a propos of a dear friend—'he has all the instincts of a murderer'—but when you see him coming at you with a knife, that's something else. Somehow you're never quite prepared for that, no matter how clever you are. At best you might credit him with doing it to some one else —but never to you... oh dear no! The way I feel now is that I should be prepared for anything from those whom you're apt to suspect least of all. I don't mean that one should be anxious, no, not that... one shouldn't be surprised, that's all. The only surprise should be that you can still be surprised. That's it. That's Jesuitical, what! Oh yes, I can spin it out when I get going.... Rabbi, you said a moment ago. Did you ever think that I might make a good rabbi? I mean it. Why not? Why couldn't I be a rabbi, if I wanted to? Or a pope, or a mandarin, or a Dalai Lama? If you can be a worm you can be a god too.» The conversation went on like this for several hours, broken only by Arthur Raymond's return. I stayed a while longer, to ally any suspicions he might have, and then retired. Towards dawn Mona returned, wide awake, lovelier than ever, her skin glowing like calcium. She hardly listened to my explanations about the night before; she was exalted, infatuated with herself. So many things had happened since then—she didn't know where to begin. First of all, they had promised her the role of understudy for the leading part in their next production. That is, the director had—no one else knew anything about it as yet. He was in love with her, the director. Had been slipping love notes in her pay envelopes for the last weeks. And the leading actor, he too was in love with her—madly in love. It was he who had been coaching her all along. He had been teaching her how to breathe, how to relax, how to stand, how to walk, how to use her voice. It was marvelous. She was a new person, with unknown powers. She had faith in herself, a boundless faith. Soon she would have the world at her feet. She'd take New York by storm, tour the country, go abroad maybe... Who could predict what lay ahead? Just the same, she was a little frightened of it all, too. She wanted me to help her; I was to listen to her read the script of her new part. There were so many things she didn't know—and she didn't want to reveal her ignorance before her infatuated lovers. Maybe she'd look up that old fossil at the Ritz-Carlton, make him buy her a new outfit. She needed hats, shoes, dresses, blouses, gloves, stockings.... so many, many things. It was important now to look the part. She was going to wear her hair differently too. I had to go with her into the hall and observe the new carriage, the new gait she had acquired. Hadn't I noticed the change in her voice? Well, I would very soon. She would be completely remade—and I would love her even more. She would be a hundred different women to me now. Suddenly she thought of an old beau whom she had forgotten about, a clerk at the Imperial Hotel. He would buy her everything she needed—without a word. Yes, she must telephone him in the morning. I could meet her at dinner, in her new togs. I wasn't going to be jealous, was I? He was a young man, the clerk, but a perfect fool, a ninny, a sap. The only reason he saved his money was that she might spend it. He had no use for it otherwise—he was too dumb to know what to do with it. If he could only hold her hand furtively he was grateful. Maybe she would give him a kiss sometime —when she needed some unusual favor.

On and on she ran... the kind of gloves she liked, the way to place the voice, how the Indians walked, the value of Yoga exercises, the way to train the memory, the perfume that suited her mood, the superstitiousness of theatrical people, their generosity, their intrigues, their amours, their pride, their conceit. How it felt to rehearse in an empty house, the jokes and pranks that occurred in the wings, the attitude of the stage hands, the peculiar aroma of the dressing rooms. And the jealousy! Every one jealous of every one else. Fever, commotion, distraction, grandeur. A world within a world. One became intoxicated, drugged, hallucinated.

And the discussions! A mere trifle could bring about a raging controversy, ending sometimes in a brawl, a hair-pulling match. Some of them seemed to have the very devil in them, especially the women. There was only one decent one, and she was quite young and inexperienced. The others were veritable maenads, furies, harpies. They swore like troopers. By comparison the girls at the dance hall were angelic.

A long pause.

Then, a propos of nothing, she asked when the divorce trial was taking place.

«This week,» I said, surprised at the sudden turn of her mind.

«We'll get married right away,» she said.

«Of course,» I responded.

She didn't like the way I said «of course». «You don't have to marry me, if you don't want,» she said.

«But I do want to,» I said. «And then we'll get out of this place... find a place of our own.»

«Do you mean that?» she exclaimed. «I'm so glad. I've been waiting to hear you say that. I want to start a new life with you. Let's get away from all these people! And I want you to quit that awful job. I'll find a place where you can write. You won't need to earn any money. I'll soon be making lots of money. You can have anything you want. I'll get you all the books you want to read.... Maybe you'll write a play—and I'll act in it! That would be wonderful, wouldn't it?»

I wondered what Rebecca would have said of this speech, had she been listening. Would she have heard only the actress, or would she have detected the germ of a new being expressing itself? Perhaps that mysterious quality of Mona's lay not in obscuration but in germination. True enough, the contours of her personality were not sharply defined, but that was no reason to accuse her of falsity. She was mimetic, chameleonesque, and not outwardly, but inwardly. Outwardly everything about her was pronounced and definite; she stamped her impress upon you immediately. Inwardly she was like a column of smoke; the slightest pressure of her will altered the configuration of her personality instantly. She was sensitive to pressures, not the pressure of others' wills but of their desires. The histrionic role with her was not something to be put on and off—it was her way of meeting reality. What she thought she believed; what she believed was real; what was real she acted upon. Nothing was unreal to her, except that which she was not thinking about. But the moment her attention was brought to bear, no matter how monstrous, fantastic or incredible, the thing became real. In her the frontiers were never closed. People who credited her with having a strong will were utterly mistaken. She had a will, yes, but it was not the will which swept her headlong into new and startling situations—it was her ever-present readiness, her alertness, to act out her ideas. She could change with devastating swiftness from role to role; she changed before your eyes, with that incredible and elusive prestidigitation of the vaudeville star who impersonates the most diverse types. What she had been doing all her life unconsciously the theatre was now teaching her to do deliberately. They were only making an actress of her in the sense that they were revealing to her the boundaries of art; they were indicating the limitations which surround creation. They could make a failure of her only by giving her free rein.

18

The day of the trial I presented myself at court in a bright and supercilious mood. Everything had been agreed upon beforehand. I had only to raise my hand, swear a silly oath, admit my guilt and take the punishment. The judge looked like a scarecrow fitted with a pair of lunar binoculars; his black wings flapped lugubriously in the hushed silence of the room. He seemed to be slightly annoyed by my serene complacency; it did not bolster the illusion of his importance, which was absolutely nil. I could make no distinction between him and the brass rail, between him and the cuspidor. The brass rail, the Bible, the cuspidor, the American flag, the blotter on his desk, the thugs in uniform who preserved order and decorum, the knowledge that was tucked away in his brain cells, the musty books in his study, the philosophy that underlay the whole structure of the law, the eye-glasses he wore, his B. V. D's, his person and his personality, the whole ensemble was a senseless collaboration in the name of a blind machine about which I didn't give a fuck in the dark. All I wanted was to know that I was definitely free to put my head in the noose again.

It was all going like tic-tac-to, one thing cancelling another, and at the end of course the law squashing you down as if you were a fat, juicy bedbug, when suddenly I realized that he was asking me if I were willing to pay such and such an amount of alimony regularly for the rest of my days.

«W hat's that?» I demanded. The prospect of at last encountering some opposition caused him to brighten appreciably. He reeled off some gibberish about solemnly agreeing to pay the sum of something or other.

«I agree to no such thing,» I said emphatically. «I intend to pay» — and here I mentioned a sum that was double the amount he had named.

It was his turn to say «What's that?»

I repeated myself. He looked at me as though I had lost my senses, then, swiftly, as though he were trapping me, he snapped out: «Very good! We'll make it as you wish. It's you funeral.»

It's my pleasure and privilege,» I retorted.

«Sir!»

I repeated myself. He gave me a withering look, beckoned to the lawyer to approach, leaned over and whispered something in his ear. I had the distinct impression that he was asking the lawyer if I were in my sound senses. Apparently assured that I was, he looked up and, fixing a stony gaze upon me, he said: «Young man, do you know what the penalty is for failure to meet your obligations?»

«No sir,» I said, «nor do I care to hear it. Are we through now? I've got to get back to my job.»

It was a beautiful day outdoors. I started walking aimlessly. Soon I was at the Brooklyn Bridge. I started walking over the Bridge, but after a few minutes I lost heart, turned round and dove into the subway. I had no intention of going back to the office; I had been given a day off and I intended to make the most of it.

At Times Square I got off and walked instinctively towards the French-Italian restaurant over near Third Avenue. It was cool and dark in the back of the grocery store where they served the food. At lunch time there never were many customers. Soon there was only myself and a big, sprawling Irish girl who had already made herself quite drunk. We fell into a strange conversation about the Catholic Church during the course of which she repeated like a refrain: «The Pope's all right, but I refuse to kiss his ass.»

Finally she pushed her chair back, struggled to her feet, and tried to walk towards the lavatory. (The lavatory was used by men and women alike and was in the hall. I saw that she would never make it alone. I got up and held her by the arm. She was thoroughly potted and lurching like a storm-tossed ship.

As we got to the door of the lavatory she begged me to help her on to the seat. I stood her by the seat so that all she had to do was to sit down. She hitched up her skirt and tried to pull her panties down, but the effort was too much. «Pull 'em down for me, will you,» she begged with a sleepy grin. I did as she asked, patted her cunt affectionately, and sat her down on the seat. Then I turned to go.

«Don't go!» she whined, clutching my hand, and with that she began emptying her tank. I held on while she finished the job, Nos. I and 2, with stink bombs and everything. Throughout the operation she repeated over and over: «No, I won't kiss the Pope's ass!» She looked so absolutely helpless that I thought perhaps I'd have to wipe her ass for her. However, from long years of training she managed to do this much for herself, though it took and incredibly long lime. I was about ready to throw up when finally she asked me to lift her up. As I was pulling her bloomers up I couldn't help rubbing my hand over her rose-bush. It was tempting, but the stench was too powerful to dally with that idea.

As I assisted her out of the toilet the patronne espied us and nodded her head sadly. I wondered if she realized what chivalry it took for me to perform this act. Anyway, we went back to the table, ordered some black coffee, and sat talking a little while longer. As she sobered up she became almost disgustingly grateful. She said if I would take her home I could have her—she wanted to make it up to me. «I'll take a bath and change my things,» she said. «I feel filthy. It was filthy too, God help me.»

I told her I would see her home in a taxi, but that I wouldn't be able to stay with her.

«Now you're getting delicate,» she said. «What's the matter, ain't I good enough for you? It ain't my fault, is it, if I had to go to the toilet? You go to the toilet too, don't you? Wait till I take a bath—you'll see what I look like. Listen, give me your hand!» I gave her my hand and she put it under her skirt, right on her bushy cunt. «Take a good feel of it,» she urged. «You like it? Well, it's all yours. I'll scrub it and perfume it for you. You can take all you like of it. I'm not a bad lay. And I'm not a tart either, see! I got cock-eyed, that's all. A guy walked out on me, and I was crazy enough to take it to heart. He'll come crawling back before long, don't you worry. But Jesus, I did have my heart set on him. I told him I wouldn't kiss the Pope's ass—and that got him sore. I'm a good Catholic, same as he, but I can't see the Pope as Christ Almighty, can you?»

She went on with her monologue, jumping from one thing to another like a goat. I gathered that she was a switch-board operator in a big hotel. She wasn't such a bad sort, either, down under her Irish skin. I could see that she might be very attractive, once the fumes of the alcohol cleared away. She had very blue eyes and jet black hair, and a smile that was sly and puckish. Maybe I would run up and help her with her bath. I could always run out on her if anything went amiss. The thing that bothered me was that I was to meet Mona for dinner. I was to wait for her in the Rose Room of the Me Alpin Hotel.

We got in a taxi and drove uptown. In the cab she rested her head on my shoulder. «You're awfully good to me,» she said in a sleepy voice. «I don't know who you are, but you're O.K. with me. Jesus, I wish I could take a nap first. Would you wait for me?»

«Sure,» I said. «Maybe I'll take a nap too.»

The apartment was cosy and attractive, better than I had expected it to be. She had no sooner opened the door than she kicked off her shoes. I helped her undress.

As she stood before the mirror, nude except for her panties, I had to admit that she possessed a beautiful figure. Her breasts were white and full, round and taut, with bright strawberry-colored nipples.

«Why don't you take those off too?» I said pointing to the panties. «No, not now,» she said, suddenly becoming coy, her cheeks coloring slightly.

«I took them off before,» I said. «What's the difference now?» I put my hand on her waist as if to pull them down. «Don't, please!» she begged. Wait till I have my bath.» She paused a moment, then added: «I'm just getting over my period.»

That settled it for me. I saw the ring-worms flowering again. I got panicky.

«All right,» I said, «take your bath! I'll stretch out in here while you're at it.»

«Won't you scrub my back for me?» she said, her lips curling in that puckish smile of hers.

«Why sure I will... certainly,» I said. I led her to the bathroom, half-pushing her along in my haste to get rid of her.

As she slipped out of the panties I noticed a dark bloodstain. Not on your life, I thought to myself. No sir, not in my sound senses I don't. Kiss the Pope's ass-never!

But as she lay there soaping herself I felt myself weakening. I took the soap from her hand and scrubbed her bush for her. She squirmed with pleasure as my soapy fingers entwined themselves in her hair.

«I think it's finished,» she said, arching her pelvis and spreading her cunt open with her two hands. «You look... do you see anything?»

I put the soapy middle finger of my right hand up her cunt and massaged it gently. She lay back with her hands clasped behind her head and slowly gyrated her pelvis.

«Jesus, that feels good,» she said. «Go on, do it some more. Maybe I won't need a nap.»

As she got worked up she began to move more violently. Suddenly she unclasped her hands and with wet fingers she unbuttoned my fly, took my prick out and made a dive for it with her mouth. She went at it like a professional, teasing it, worrying it, fluting her lips, then choking on it. I came off in her mouth; she swallowed it as if it were nectar and ambrosia.

Then she sank back into the tub, sighed heavily and closed her eyes.

Now is the time to beat it, I said to myself, and pretending that I was going to look for a cigarette I grabbed my hat and bolted. As I ran down the stairs I put my finger to my nostrils and smelled it. It wasn't a bad odor. It smelled of soap more than anything else.

A few nights later a private performance was being given at the theatre. Mona had begged me not to attend the performance, saying that it would make her nervous if she knew I were watching her. I had been somewhat put out about it, but finally agreed not to come. I was to meet her afterwards at the stage entrance. She specified the exact time.

I was there ahead of time, not at the stage door but at the entrance to the theatre. I looked at the announcements over and over, thrilled to see her name in bold, clear letters. As the crowd filed out I went to the opposite side of the street and watched. I didn't know why I was watching-I was just rooted to the spot. It was rather dark in front of the theatre and the taxis were all tied up.

Suddenly I saw some one rushing impulsively to the curb where a frail little man stood waiting for a taxi. It was Mona. I saw her kiss the man and then, as the taxi drove away, I saw her wave goodbye. Then her hand fell limply to her side and she stood there a few minutes as if deep in thought.

Finally she rushed back into the theatre through the main entrance.

When I met her at the stage door a few minutes later she seemed over-wrought. I told her what I had just witnessed.

«Then you saw him?» she said, clutching my hand. «Yes, but who was it?»

«Why, it was my father. He got up out of bed to come. He won't last much longer.»

As she spoke the tears came to her eyes. «He said he could die in peace now.» With this she halted abruptly and burying her head in her hands she began to sob. «I should have taken him home,» she said brokenly.

«But why didn't you let me meet him?» I said. «We could have taken him home together.»

She refused to talk about it. She wanted to go home—go home alone and weep. What could I do? I could only assent—it seemed the most delicate thing to do.

I put her in a taxi and watched her ride away. I felt deeply moved. Then I struck out, determined to bury myself in the crowd. At the corner of Broadway I heard a woman calling my name. She came up to me on the run.

«You passed me,» she said, «without recognizing me. What the matter with you? You look depressed.» She held out her two hands for me to grasp.

It was Arthur Raymond's ex-wife, Irma.

«It's funny,» she said, «I just saw Mona a few seconds ago. She got out of a cab and ran down the street. She looked distracted. I was going to speak to her, hut she ran off too quickly. I don't think she saw me either... Aren't you living together any more? I thought you were all staying at Arthur's place.»

«Just where did you see her?» I wondered if she could have been mistaken.

«Why, just around the corner.»

«Are you absolutely sure?»

She smiled strangely. «I couldn't mistake her, could I?»

«I don't know,» I mumbled, more to myself—«it hardly seems possible. How was she dressed?»

She described her accurately. When she said «a little velvet cape» I knew it couldn't have been any one else.

«Did you have a quarrel?»

«No—o—o, not a quarrel...»

«Well you ought to know Mona by this time,» said Irma, trying to dismiss the subject. She had taken my arm and was guiding me along, as if perhaps I were not quite in full possession of my faculties.

«I'm awfully glad to see you,» she said. «Dolores and I are always talking about you... Don't you want to drop up for a minute? Dolores will be delighted to see you. We have an apartment together. It's right near' here. Do come up... I'd love to talk to you a while. It must be over a year since I saw you last. You had just left your wife, you remember? And now you're living with Arthur— that's strange. How is he getting on? Is he doing well? I hear he has a beautiful wife.»

It didn't require much coaxing to persuade me to run up and have a quiet drink with then. Irma seemed to be bubbling over with joy. She had always been very friendly with me, but never this effusive. I wondered what had come over her.

When we got upstairs the place was dark. «That's funny,» said Irma, «she said she would be home early this evening. Oh well, she'll be along in a few minutes, no doubt. Take your things off... sit down.. I'll get you a drink in a minute.»

I sat down, feeling somewhat dazed. Years ago, when I first knew Arthur Raymond, I had been rather fond of Irma. When they separated she had fallen in love with my friend O'Mara, and he had made her just as miserable as Arthur had. He complained that she was cold—not frigid, but selfish-I hadn't given much attention to her then because I was interested in Dolores. Only once had there ever been anything approaching intimacy between us. That had been a pure accident and neither of us had made anything of it. We had met on the street in front of a cheap cinema one afternoon and after a few words, both of us being rather listless and weary, we had gone inside. The picture was unbearably dull, the theatre almost empty. We had thrown our overcoats over our laps and then, more out of boredom and the need of some human contact, our hands met and we sat thus for a while staring vacantly at the screen. After a time I slung my arm around her and drew her to me. In a few moments she let go my hand and placed her own on my prick. I did nothing, curious to see what she would make of the situation. I remembered O'Mara saying that she was cold and indifferent. So I sat still and waited. I had only a semi hard-on when she touched me. I let it grow under her hand which was resting immobile. Gradually I felt the pressure of her fingers, then a firm grasp, then a squeezing and stroking, all very quietly, delicately, almost as if she were asleep and doing it unconsciously. When it began to quiver and jump she slowly and deliberately unbuttoned my fly, reached in and grabbed my balls. Still I made no move to touch her. I had a perverse desire to make her do everything herself. I remembered the shape and the feel of her fingers; they were sensitive and expert. She had cuddled up like a cat and had ceased to look at the screen. My prick was out of course, but still hidden under the overcoat. I watched her throw the coat back and fasten her gaze on my prick. Boldly now she began to massage it, more and more firmly, more and more rapidly. Finally I came in her hand. «I'm sorry,» she murmured, reaching for her bag to extract a handkerchief. I permitted her to wipe me off with her silk kerchief. Not a word out of me. Not a move to embrace her. Nothing. Just as if I had watched her doing it to some one else. After she had powdered her face, put everything back into her bag, I pulled her to me and glued my mouth to hers. Then I pushed her coat off her lap, raised her legs and slung them over my lap. She had nothing on under her skirt, and she was wet. I paid her back in her own coin, doing it ruthlessly almost, until she came. When we left the theatre we had a coffee and some pastry together in a bakery and after an inconsequential conversation parted as though nothing had happened.

«Excuse me,» she said, «for being so long. I felt like getting into something comfortable.»

I came out of my reverie to look up at a lovely apparition handing me a tall glass. She had made herself into a Japanese doll. We had hardly sat down on the divan when she jumped up and went to the clothes closet. I heard her moving the valises around and then came a little exclamation, a sigh of frustration, as though she were calling to me in a muted voice.

I jumped up and ran to the closet where I found her standing on top of a swaying valise, reaching for something on the top shelf. I held her legs a moment to steady her and, just as she was turning round to descend, I slid my hand up under the silk kimono. She came down in my arms with my hand securely fastened between her legs. We stood there in a passionate embrace, enveloped in her feminine frills. Then the door opened and Dolores walked in. She was startled to find us buried in the closet.

«Well!» she exclaimed with a little gasp, «fancy finding you here!»

I let go of Irma and put my arms around Dolores who only feebly protested. She seemed more beautiful now than ever.

As she disengaged herself she broke out into her usual little laugh which was always slightly ironical. «We don't have to stay in the closet, do we?» she said, holding my hand. Irma meanwhile had slipped an arm around me.

«Why not stay here?» I said. «It's cosy and womb-like.» I was squeezing Irma's ass as I spoke.

«God, you haven't changed a bit,» said Dolores. «You never get enough of it, do you? I thought you were madly in love with... with... I forget her name.»

«Mona.»

«Yes, Mona... how is she? Is it still serious? I thought you were never going to look at another woman!»

«Exactly,» I said. «This is an accident, as you can see.»

«I know,» she said, revealing more and more her smothered jealousy, «I know these accidents of yours. Always on the alert, aren't you?»

We spilled into the living room where Dolores threw off her things—rather vehemently, I thought, as though preparing for a struggle.

«Will I pour you a drink?» asked Irma .

«Yes, and a good stiff one,» said Dolores. «I need one. ...Oh, it has nothing to do with you,» she said, observing that I was looking at her strangely. «It's that friend of yours, Ulric.»

«What's the matter, isn't he treating you well?»

She was silent. She gave me a desolate look, as though to say—you know very well what I'm talking about.

Irma thought the lights were too strong; she turned out all but the little reading lamp by the other divan.

«Looks as though you were preparing the scene,» said Dolores mockingly. At the same time one felt that there was a secret thrill in her voice. I knew it was Dolores whom I would have to deal with. Irma, on the other hand, was like a cat; she moved about softly, almost purring. She was not in the least disturbed; she was making herself ready for any eventuality.

«It's good to have you here alone,» said Irma, as though she had found a long lost brother. She had stretched herself out on the divan, close to the wall. Dolores and I were sitting almost at her feet. Behind Dolores' back I had my hand on Irma's thigh; a dry heat emanated from her body.

«She must guard you pretty close,» said Dolores, referring to Mona. «Is she afraid of losing you—or what?»

«Perhaps,» I said, giving her a provocative smile. «And perhaps I'm afraid of losing her.»

«Then it is serious?»

«Very,» I answered. «I found the woman I need, and I'm going to keep her.»

«Are you married to her?»

«No, not yet... but we will be soon.»

«And you'll have children and everything?»

«I don't know whether we'll have children... why, is that important?»

«You might as well do it thoroughly,» said Dolores.

«Oh, stop it!» said Irma. «You sound as though you were jealous. I'm not! I'm glad he's found the right woman. He deserves it.» She squeezed my hand, in relaxing the pressure, she adroitly slipped my hand over her pussy.

Dolores, conscious of what was going on, but pretending not to notice, got up and went to the bathroom.

«She's acting queer,» said Irma. «She seems positively green with jealousy.»

«You mean jealous of you?» I said, somewhat puzzled myself.

«No, not of me... of course not! Jealous of Mona.» «That's strange,» I said, «I thought she was in love with Ulric.»

«She is, but she hasn't forgotten you. She...» I stopped her words with a kiss. She flung her arms around my neck and cuddled up to me, writhing; and twisting like a big cat. «I'm glad I don't feel that way,» she murmured. «I wouldn't want to be in love with you. I like you better this way.»

I ran my hand under the kimono again. She responded warmly and willingly.

Dolores returned and excused herself lamely for interrupting the game. She was standing beside us, looking down with sparkling, mischievous eyes. «Hand me my glass, will you?» I said. «Perhaps you'd like me to fan you too,» said she, as she put the glass to my lips.

I pulled her down beside us, stroking the half-exposed limb which protruded from her dressing gown. She too had taken off her things.

«Haven't you got something for me to slip into too?» I asked, looking from one to the other.

«Why certainly,» said Irma, springing to her feet with alacrity.

«Oh, don't pamper him like that,» said Dolores, with a pouting smile. «That's just what he loves... he wants to be made a fuss over. And then he's going to tell us how faithful he is to his wife.»

«She's not my wife yet,» I said tauntingly, accepting the robe which Irma offered me.

«Oh, isn't she?» said Dolores. «Well, then it's worse.»

«Worse, what do you mean worse? I haven't done anything yet, have I?»

«No, but you're going to try.»

«You mean you'd like me to. Don't be impatient... you'll get your chance.»

«Not with me,» said Dolores, «I'm going to bed. You two can do what you like.»

For answer I closed the door and started undressing. When I returned I found Dolores stretched out on the couch and Irma sitting by her side with legs crossed, fully exposed.

«Don't mind anything she says,» said Irma. «She likes you just as much as I do... maybe more. She doesn't like Mona, that's all.»

«Is that true?» I looked from Irma to Dolores. The latter was silent, but it was a silence which meant affirmation. (

«I don't know why you should feel so strongly about her,» I hastened to continue. «She's never done anything to you. And you can't be jealous of her because... well, because you weren't in love with me... then.»

«Then? What do you mean? I was never in love with you, thank God!» said Dolores.

«It doesn't sound very convincing,» said Irma playfully. «Listen, if you never loved him don't be so passionate about it.» She turned to me and in her blithe way she said: «Why don't you kiss her and stop this nonsense?»

«All right, I will,» said I, and with that I bent over and embraced Dolores. At first she held her lips firmly shut, looking at me defiantly. Then, little by little, she surrendered, and when at last she pulled away she was biting my lips. As she pulled her lips ” away she gave me a little shove. «Get him out of here!» she said. I gave her a look of reproach in which there was an element of pity and disgust. She became at once repentant and yielding again. I bent over her again, tenderly this time, and as I slipped my tongue into her mouth I put my hand between her legs. She tried to push my hand away but the effort was too much.

«Whew! it's getting close,» I heard Irma say, and then she pulled me away. «I'm here too, don't forget.» She was offering her lips and breasts.

It was getting to be a tug of war. I jumped up to pour myself a drink. The bath robe stood out like a stretched tent.

«Do you have to show us that?» said Dolores, pretending to be embarrassed.

«I don't have to but I will, since you ask for it,» I said, drawing the robe back and exposing myself completely.

Dolores turned her head to the wall, mumbling something in a pseudo-hysterical voice about «disgusting and obscene». Irma on the other hand looked at it good-humoredly. Finally she reached for it and squeezed it gently. As she stood up to accept the drink I had poured for her I opened her robe and placed my cock between her legs. We drank together with my cock knocking at the stable door.

«I want a drink too,» said Dolores petulantly. We turned round simultaneously and faced her. Her face was scarlet, her eyes big and bright, as through she had put belladonna in them. «You look debauched,» she said, her eyes switching back and forth from Irma to me.

I handed her the glass and she took a deep draught of it. She was struggling to obtain that freedom which Irma flaunted like a flag.

Her voice came challengingly now. «Why don't you do it and get done with it?» she said, flinging her words at us. In wriggling about she had uncovered herself; she knew it too and made no effort to hide her nakedness.

«Lie down there,» I said, pushing Irma gently back on the divan.

Irma took my hand and pulled. «You lie down too,» she said.

I raised the glass to my lips and as it was slipping down my throat the light went out. I heard Dolores saying—«No, don't do that, please!» But the light remained out and as I stood there finishing the drink I felt Irma's hand on my prick, squeezing it convulsively. I put the glass down and jumped in between them. Almost at once they closed in on me. Dolores was kissing me passionately and Irma, like a cat, had crouched down and fastened her mouth on my prick. It was an agonizing bliss which lasted for a few seconds and then I exploded in Irma's mouth.

When I arrived at Riverside Drive it was almost dawn. Mona had not returned. I lay listening for her step. I began to fear that she had met with an accident—worse, that perhaps she had killed herself, or tried to, at least. It was possible too that she had gone home to her parents. But then why had she left the cab? Perhaps to run to the subway. But then the subway was not in that direction. I could of course telephone her home, but I knew she would interpret that badly. I wondered if she had telephoned during the night. Neither Rebecca or Arthur ever bothered to leave a message for me; they always waited until they saw me.

Towards eight o'clock I knocked at their door. They were still asleep. I had to knock loudly before they answered. And then I learned nothing—they had come home very late themselves.

In despair I went to Kronski's room. He too was muffled in sleep. He didn't seem to know what I was driving at.

Finally he said: «What's the matter—has she been out all night again? No, there wasn't any call for you. Get out of here... leave me alone!»

I hadn't slept a wink. I felt exhausted. But then the reassuring thought came to me that she might telephone me at the office. I almost expected a message to be lying on my desk waiting for me.

Most of the day went by in taking cat naps. I slept at my desk, my head buried in my folded arms. Several times I called Rebecca to see if she had received any message, but it was always the same answer. When it came time to close shop I lingered on. No matter what had happened, I could not believe that she would let the day pass without telephoning me. It was just incredible.

A strange, nervous vitality possessed me. Suddenly I was wide awake, more wide awake than I could have been had I rested three days in bed. I would wait another half hour and if she didn't phone I would go directly to her home.

As I was pacing back and forth with pantherish strides the stairway door opened and a little shaver with dark skin entered. He closed the door behind him quickly as if he were shutting out a pursuer. There was something jolly and mysterious about him which his Cuban voice exaggerated.

«You will give me a job, won't you, Mr. Miller?» he burst out. «I must have the messenger job to complete my studies. Everybody tells me that you are a kind man—and I can see it myself—you have a good face. I am proficient in many things, as you will discover when you know me better. Juan Rico is my name. I am eighteen years old. I am a poet too.»

«Well, well,» I said, chuckling and stroking him under the chin—he was the size of a midget and looked like one—«so you're a poet? Then I'm surely going to give you a job.»

«I'm an acrobat too,» he said. «My father had a circus once. You will find me very speedy on my legs. I love to go hither and about with zest and alacrity. I am also extremely courteous and when delivering a message I would say, 'Thank you sir', and doff my cap respectfully. I know all the streets by heart, including the Bronx. And if you would put me in the Spanish neighborhood you would find me very effective. Do I please you, sir?» He gave me a bewitching grin which implied that he knew very well how to sell himself.

«Go over there and sit down,» I said. «I'll give you a blank to fill out. To-morrow morning you can start in bright and early—with a smile.»

«Oh I can smile, sir—beautifully,» and he did.

«You're sure you're eighteen?»

«Oh yes, sir, that I can prove. I have all my papers with me.»

I gave him an application blank and went to the adjoining room—the rink—to leave him in peace. Suddenly the telephone rang. I bounded back to the desk and picked up the receiver. It was Mona speaking, in a subdued, restrained, unnatural voice, as though she had been drained hollow.

«He died a little while ago,» she said. «I've been at his side ever since I left you...»

I mumbled some inadequate words of consolation and then I asked her when she was coming back. She wasn't sure just when, she wanted me to do her a little favor... to go to the department store and buy her a mourning dress and some black gloves. Size sixteen. What sort of material? She didn't know anything I chose... A few more words and she hung up—Little Juan Rico was looking up into my eyes like a faithful dog. He had understood everything and was trying in his delicate Cuban way to let me know that he wished to share my sorrow.

«It's all right, Juan,» I said, «everybody has to die some time.»

«Was that your wife who telephoned?» he asked. His eyes were moist and glistening.

«Yes,» I said, «that was my wife.»

«I'm sure she must be beautiful.»

«What makes you say that?»

«The way you talked to her... I could almost see her. I wish I could marry a beautiful woman some day. I think about it very of ten.»

«You're a funny lad,» I said. «Thinking about marriage already. Why, you're just a boy.»

«Here's my application, sir. Will you kindly look it over now so that I may be sure I can come tomorrow?»

I gave it a quick glance and assured him it was satisfactory.

«Then I am at your service, sir. And now, sir, if you will pardon me, may I suggest that you let me stay with you a little while? I don't think it is good for you to be alone at this moment. When the heart is sad one needs a friend.»

I burst out laughing. «A good idea,» I said. «We'll go to dinner together, how's that? And a movie afterwards—does that suit you?»

He got up and began to frisk about like a trained dog. Suddenly he became curious about the empty room in the rear. I followed him in and watched him good-naturedly as he examined the paraphernalia. The roller skates intrigued him. He had picked up a pair and was examining them as if he had never seen such things before.

«Put them on,» I said, «and do a turn. This is the skating rink.»

«Can you skate also?» he asked.

«Sure I can. Do you want to see me skate?»

«Yes,» he said, «and let me skate with you. I haven't done it for years and years. It's a rather comical diversion, is it not?»

We slipped the skates on. I shot forward with hands behind my back. Little Juan Rico followed at my heels. In the center of the room there were slender pillars; I looped in and around the pillars as if I were giving an exhibition.

«I say, but it's very exhilarating, isn't it?» said Juan breathlessly. «You glide like a zephyr.»

«Like a what?»

«Like a zephyr... a mild, pleasant breeze.»

«Oh, zephyr /»

«I wrote a poem once about a zephyr—that was long ago.»

I took his hand and swung him around. Then I placed him in front of me and with my hands on his waist I pushed him along, guiding him lightly and dexterously about the floor. Finally I gave him a good push and sent him skedaddling to the other end of the room.

«Now I'll show you a few fancy turns that I learned in the Tyrol,» I said, folding my arms in front of me and raising one leg in the air. The thought that never in her life would Mona suspect what I was doing this minute gave me a demonic joy. As I passed and repassed little Juan, who was now sitting on the window-sill absorbed in the spectacle, I made faces at him—first sad and mournful, then gay, then insouciant, then hilarious, then meditative, then stern, then menacing, then idiotic. I tickled myself in the arm-pits, like a monkey; I waltzed like a trained bear; I squatted low like a cripple; I sang in a cracked key, then shouted like a maniac. Round and round, ceaselessly, merrily, free as a bird. Juan joined in. We stalked each other like animals, we turned into waltzing mice, we did the deaf and dumb act.

And all the time I was thinking of Mona wandering about in the house of mourning, waiting for her mourning dress, her black gloves, and what not.

Round and round, with never a care. A little kerosene, a match, and we would go up in flames, like, a burning merry-go-round. I looked at Juan's poll—it was like dry tinder. I had an insane desire to set him on fire, set him aflame and send him hurtling down the elevator shaft. Then two or three wild turns, a la Breughel, and out the window!

I calmed down a little. Not Breughel, but Hieronymous Bosch. A season in hell, amidst the traps and pulleys of the medieval mind. First time around they yank off an arm. Second time around a leg. Finally just a torso rolling around. And the music playing with vibrant twangs. The iron harp of Prague. A sunken street near the synagogue. A dolorous peal of the bells. A woman's guttural lament.

Not Bosch any longer, but Chagall. An angel in mufti descending slantwise just above the roof. Snow on the ground and in the gutters little pieces of meat for the rats. Cracow in the violet light of evisceration. Weddings, births, funerals. A man in an overcoat and only one string to his violin. The bride has lost her mind; she dances with broken legs.

Round and round, ringing door-bells, ringing sleigh-bells. The cosmococcic round of grief and slats. At the roots of my hair a touch of frost, in the tips of my toes a fire. The world is a merry-go-round in flames, the horses burn down to the hocks. A cold, stiff father lying on a feather-bed. A mother green as gangrene. And the bridegroom rolling along.

First we'll bury him in the cold ground. Then we'll bury his name, his legend, his kites and race horses. And for the widow a bon-fire, a suttee Viennoise. I will marry the widow's daughter—in her mourning gown and black gloves. I will do atonement and anoint my head with ashes.

Round and round... Now the figure eight. Now the dollar sign. Now the spread eagle. A little kerosene and a match, and I would go up like a Christmas tree.

«Mr. Miller! Mr. Miller!» calls Juan. «Mr. Miller, stop it! Please stop it!»

The boy looks frightened. What can it be that makes him stare at me so?

«Mr. Miller,» he says, clutching me by the coat tail, «please don't laugh so! Please, I'm afraid for you.»

I relaxed. A broad grin came over my face, then softened to an amiable smile.

«That's better, sir. You had me worried. Hadn't we better go now?»

«I think so, Juan. I think we've had enough exercise for to day. To-morrow you will get a bicycle. Are you hungry?»

«Yes sir, I am indeed. I always have a fabulous appetite. Once I ate a whole chicken all by myself. That was when my aunt died.»

«We'll have chicken to-night, Juan me lad. Two chickens—one for you and one for me.»

«You're very kind, sir... Are you sure you're all right now?»

«Fine as a fiddle, Juan. Now where do you suppose we could buy a mourning dress at this hour?»

«I'm sure I don't know,» said Juan. In the street I hailed a taxi. I had an idea that on the East Side there would be shops still open. The driver was certain he could find one.

«It's very lively down here, isn't it?» said Juan, as we alighted in front of a dress shop. «Is it always this way?»

«Always,» I said. «A perpetual fiesta. Only the poor enjoy life.»

«I should like to work down here some time,» said Juan. «What language do they speak here?»

«All languages,» I said. «You can also speak English.»

The proprietor was standing at the door. He gave Juan a friendly pat on the head.

«I would like a mourning dress, size 16,» I said. «Not too expensive. It must be delivered to-night, C. O. D.»

A dark young Jewess with a Russian accent stepped forward. «Is it for a young or an old woman?» she said.

«A young woman, about your size. For my wife.»

She began showing me various models. I told her to choose the one she thought most suitable. «Not an ugly one,» I begged, «and not too chic either. You know what I mean.»

«And the gloves,» said Juan. «Don't forget the gloves.»

«What size?» asked the young lady.

«Let me see your hands,» I said. I studied them a moment. «A little larger than yours.»

I gave the address and left a generous tip for the errand boy. The proprietor now came up, began talking to Juan. He seemed to take a great fancy to him.

«Where do you come from, sonny?» he asked. «From Puerto Rico?»

«From Cuba,» said Juan.

«Do you speak Spanish?»

«Yes sir, and French and Portuguese.»

«You're very young to know so many languages.»

«My father taught me them. My father was the editor of a newspaper in Havana.»

«Well, well,» said the proprietor. «You remind me of a little boy I knew in Odessa.»

«Odessa!» said Juan. «I was in Odessa once. I was a cabin boy on a trading ship.»

«What!» exclaimed the proprietor. «You were in Odessa? It's unbelievable. How old are you?»

«I'm eighteen, sir.»

The proprietor turned to me. He wanted to know if he couldn't invite us to have a drink with him in the ice cream parlor next door.

We accepted the invitation with pleasure. Our host, whose name was Eisenstein, began to talk about Russia. He had been a medical student originally. The boy who resembled Juan was his son who had died. «He was a strange boy,» said Mr. Eisenstein. «He didn't resemble any of the family. And he had his own way of thinking. He wanted to tramp around the world. No matter what you told him he had a different idea. He was a little philosopher. Once he ran away to Egypt—because he wanted to study the pyramids. When we told him we were going to America he said he would go to China. He said he didn't want to become rich, like the Americans. A strange boy! Such independence! Nothing frightened him—not even the Cossacks. I was almost afraid of him sometimes. Where did he come from? He didn't even look like a Jew...»

He went into a monologue about the strange blood that had been poured into the veins of the Jews in their wanderings. He spoke of strange tribes in Arabia, Africa, China. He thought even the Eskimos might have Jewish blood in them. As he talked he became intoxicated by this idea of the mixture of races and bloods. The world would be a stagnant pool had it not been for the Jews. «We are like seeds carried by the wind,» he said. «We blossom everywhere. Hardy plants. Until we are pulled up by the roots. Even then we don't perish. We can live upside down. We can grow between stones.»

All this time he had taken me for a Jew. Finally I explained that I was not a Jew, but that my wife was.

«And she became a Christian?»

«No, I'm becoming a Jew.»

Juan was looking at me with big, questioning eyes. Mr. Eisenstein didn't know whether I was joking or not.

«When I come down here,» I said, «I feel happy. I don't know what it is, but I feel more at home here. Maybe I have Jewish blood and don't know it.»

«I'm afraid not,» said Mr. Eisenstein. «You're attracted, because you're not a Jew. You like what is different, that's all. Maybe you hated the Jews once. That happens sometimes. Suddenly a man sees that he was mistaken and then he becomes violently in love with what he once hated. He goes to the other extreme. I know a Gentile who became converted to Judaism. We don't try to convert, you know that. If you're a good Christian it's better that you stay a Christian.»

«But I don't care about the religion,» I said.

«The religion is everything,» he said. «If you can't be a good Christian you can't be a good Jew.

We are not a people or a race—we're a religion.»

«That's what you say, but I don't believe it. It's more than that. It's as though you were a kind of bacteria. Nothing can explain your survival, certainly not your faith. That's why I'm so curious, why I get excited when I'm with your people. I would like to possess the secret.»

«Well, study your wife,» said he.

«I do but I don't make her out. She's a mystery.»

«But you love her?»

«Yes,» I said, «I love her passionately.»

«And why aren't you with her now? Why do you have the dress sent to her? Who is it that died?»

«Her father,» I answered. «But I never met him,» I added rapidly. «I've never been inside her home.»

«That's bad,» he said. «There's something wrong there. You should go to her. Never mind if she didn't ask you. Go to her! Don't let her be ashamed of her parents. You don't have to go to the funeral, but you should let her see that you care for her family. You are only an accident in her life. When you die the family will go on. They will absorb your blood. We have drunk the blood of every race. We go on like a river. You must not think you are marrying her alone—you are marrying the Jewish race, the Jewish people. We give you life and strength. We nourish you. In the end all peoples will come together. We will have peace. We will make a new world. And there will be room for everybody... No, don't leave her alone now. You will regret it, if you do. She is proud, that's what it is. You must be soft and gentle. You must woo her like a pigeon. Maybe she loves you now, but later she will love you more. She will hold you like a vise. There is no love like that of the Jewish woman for the man she gives her heart to. Especially if he is of Gentile blood. It is a great victory for her. It is better for you to surrender than to be the master.... You will excuse me for speaking this way, but I know what I am talking about. And I see you are not an ordinary Gentile. You are one of those lost Gentiles—you are searching for something... you don't know what exactly. We know your kind. We are not always eager to have your love. We have been betrayed so often. Sometimes it is better to have a good enemy—then we know where we stand. With your kind we are never sure where we stand. You are like water—and we are rocks. You eat us away little by little—not with malice, but with kindness. You lap against us like the waves of the sea. The big waves we can meet— but the gentle lapping, that takes our strength away.» I was so excited by this unexpected excursus that I had to interrupt his speech.

«Yes, I know,» he said. «I know how you feel. You see, we know all about you—but you have everything to learn about us. You can be married a thousand times, to a thousand Jewish women, and still you will not know what we know. We are right inside of you all the time. Bacteria, yes, maybe. If you are strong we support you; if you are weak, we destroy you. We live not in the world, as it seems to the Gentile, but in the spirit. The world passes away, but the spirit is eternal. My little boy understood that. He wanted to remain pure. The world was not good enough for him. He died of shame—shame for the world....»

19

Some minutes later, when we sauntered out into the violet light of early evening, I saw the ghetto with new eyes. There are Summer nights in New York when the sky is pure azure, when the buildings are immediate and palpable, not only in their substance but in their essence. That dirty streaked light which reveals only the ugliness of factories and sordid tenements disappears very often with sunset, the dust settles down, the contours of the buildings become more sharply denned, like the lineaments of an ogre in a calcium spotlight. Pigeons appear in the sky, wheeling above the roof-tops. A cupola bobs up, sometimes out of a Turkish Bath. There is always the stately simplicity of St. Marks-on-the-Bouwerie, the great foreign square abutting Avenue A., the low Dutch buildings above which the ruddy gas tanks loom, the intimate side streets with their incongruous American names, the triangles which bear the stamp of old landmarks, the waterfront with the Brooklyn shore so close that one can almost recognize the people walking on the other side. All the glamour of New York is squeezed into this pullulating area which is marked oil by formaldehyde and sweat and tears. Nothing is so familiar, so intimate, so nostalgic to the New Yorker as this district which he spurns and rejects. The whole of New York should have been one vast ghetto: the poison should have been drained off, the misery apportioned; the joy should have been communicated through every vein and artery. The rest of New York is an abstraction; it is cold, geometrical, rigid as rigor mortis and, I might as well add, insane— if one can only stand apart and look at it undauntedly. Only in the beehive can one find the human touch, find that city of sights, sounds, smells which one hunts for in vain beyond the margins of the ghetto. To live outside the pale is to wither and die. Beyond the pale there are only dressed-up cadavers. They are wound up each day, like alarm clocks. They perform like seal; they die like box office receipts. But in the seething honey-comb there is a growth as of plants, an animal warmth almost suffocating, a vitality which accrues from rubbing and glueing together, a hope which is physical as well as spiritual, a contamination which is dangerous but salutary. Small souls perhaps, burning like tapers, but burning steadily—and capable of throwing portentous shadows on the walls which hem them in.

Walk down any street in the soft violet light. Make the mind blank. A thousand sensations assault you at once from every direction. Here man is still furred and feathered; here cyst and quartz still speak. There are audible, voluble buildings with sheet metal vizors and windows that sweat; places of worship too, where the children drape themselves about the porticos like contortionists; rolling, ambulant streets where nothing stands still, nothing is fixed, nothing is comprehensible except through the eyes and mind of a dreamer. Hallucinating streets too, where suddenly all is silence, all is barren, as if after the passing of a plague. Streets that cough, streets that throb like a fevered temple, streets to die on and not a soul take notice. Strange, frangipanic streets, in which attar of roses mingles with the acrid bite of leek and scallion. Slippered streets, which echo with the pat and slap of lazy feet. Streets out of Euclid, which can be explained only by logic and theorem....

Pervading all, suspended between the layers of the skin like a distillate of ruddy smoke, is the secondary sexual sweat—pubic, Orphic, mammalian—a heavy incense smuggled in by night on velvet pads of musk. No one is immune, not even the Mongoloid idiot. It washes over you like the brush and passage of camisoled breasts. In a light rain it makes an invisible aetherial mud. It is of every hour, even when rabbits are boiled to a stew. It glistens in the tubes, the follicles, the papillaries. As the earth slowly wheels, the stoops and banisters turn and the children with them; in the murky haze of sultry nights all that is terrene, volupt and fatidical hums like a zither. A heavy wheel plated with fodder and feather-beds, with little sweet-oil lamps and drops of pure animal sweat. All goes round and round, creaking, wobbling, lumbering, whimpering some-tunes, but round and round and round. Then, if you become very still, standing on a stoop, for instance, and carefully think no thoughts, a myopic, bestial clarity besets your vision. There is a wheel, there are spokes, and there is a hub. And in the center of the hub there is—exactly nothing. It is where the grease goes, and the axle. And you are there, in the center of nothingness, sentient, fully-expanded, whirring with the whir of planetary-wheels. Everything becomes alive and meaningful, even yesterdays' snot which clings to the door-knob. Everything sags and droops, is mossed with wear and care; everything has been looked at thousands of times, rubbed and caressed by the occipital eye....

A man of an olden race standing in a stone trance. He smells the food which his ancestors cooked in the millenary past: the chicken, the liver paste, the stuffed fish, the herrings, the eiderdown ducks. He has lived with them and they have lived in him. Feathers float through the air, the feathers of winged creatures caged in crates—as it was in Ur, in Babylon, in Egypt and Palestine. The same shiny silks, blacks turning green with age: the silks of other times, of other cities, other ghettos, other pogroms. Now and then a coffee grinder or a samovar, a little wooden casket for spices, for the myrrh and aloes of the East. Little strips of carpet—from the souks and bazaars, from the emporiums of the Levant; bits of astrakhan, laces, shawls, nubies, and petticoats of flaming, flouncing flamingo. Some bring their birds, their little pets—warm, tender things pulsing with tremulous beat, learning no new language, no new melodies, but pining away, droopy, listless, languishing in their super-heated cages suspended above the fire-escapes. The iron balconies are festooned with meat and bedding, with plants and pets—a crawling still life in which even the rust is rapturously eaten away. With the cool of the evening the young are exposed like egg-plants; they lie back under the stars, lulled to dream by the obscene jabberwocky of the American street. Below, in wooden casks, are the pickles floating in brine. Without the pickle, the pretzel, the Turkish sweets, the ghetto would be without savour. Bread of every variety, with seeds and without. White, black, brown, even gray bread—of all weights, all consistencies....

The ghetto! A marble table top with a basket of bread. A bottle of seltzer water, preferably blue. A soup with egg drops. And two men talking. Talking, talking, talking, with burning cigarettes hanging from their blenched lips. Nearby a cellar with music: strange instruments, strange costumes, strange airs. The birds begin to warble, the air becomes over-heated, the bread piles up, the seltzer bottles smoke and sweat. Words are dragged like ermine through the spittled sawdust; growling, guttural dogs paw the air. Spangled women choked with tiaras doze heavily in their richly upholstered caskets of flesh. The magnetic fury of lust concentrates in dark, mahogany eyes.

In another cellar an old man sits in his overcoat on a pile of wood, counting his coal. He sits in the dark, as he did in Cracow, stroking his beard. His life is all coal and wood, little voyages from darkness to daylight. In his ears is still the ring of hoofs on cobbled streets, the sound of shrieks and screams, the clatter of sabres, the splash of bullets against a blank wall. In the cinema, in the synagogue, in the coffee house, wherever one sits, two kinds of music playing—one bitter, one sweet. One sits in the middle of a river called Nostalgia. A river filled with little souvenirs gathered from the wreckage of the world. Souvenirs of the homeless, of birds of refuge building again and again with sticks and twigs. Everywhere broken nests, egg shells, fledgelings with twisted necks and dead eyes staring into space. Nostalgic river dreams under tin copings, under rusty sheds, under capsized boats. A world of mutilated hopes, of strangled aspirations, of bulletproof starvation. A world where even the warm breath of life has to be smuggled in, where gems big as pigeons' hearts are traded for a yard of space, an ounce of freedom. All is compounded into a familiar liver paste which is swallowed on a tasteless wafer. In one gulp there is swallowed down five thousand years of bitterness, five thousand years of ashes, five thousand years of broken twigs, smashed egg-shells, strangled fledgelings....

In the deep sub-cellar of the human heart the dolorous twang of the iron harp rings out.

Build your cities proud and high. Lay your sewers. Span your rivers. Work feverishly. Sleep dreamlessly. Sing madly, like the bulbul. Underneath, below the deepest foundations, there lives another race of men. They are dark, sombre, passionate. They muscle into the bowels of the earth. They wait with a patience which is terrifying. They are the scavengers, the devourers, the avengers. They emerge when everything topples into dust.

20

For seven days and nights I was alone. I began to think that she had left me. Twice she telephoned, hut she sounded far away, lost, swallowed up by grief. I remembered Mr. Eisenstein's words. I wondered, wondered if she had been reclaimed.

Then one day, towards closing time, she stepped out of the elevator and stood before me. She was all in black except for a mauve turban which gave her an exotic cast. A transformation had taken place. The eyes had grown still softer, the skin more translucent. Her figure had become seductively suave, her carriage more majestic. She had the poise of a somnambulist.

For a moment I could scarcely believe my eyes. There was something hypnotic about her. She radiated power, magnetism, enchantment. She was like one of those Italian women of the Renaissance who gaze at you steadily with enigmatic smile from a canvas which recedes into infinity. In those few strides which she took before throwing herself into my arms I felt a gulf, such as I had never known could exist between two people, closing up. It was as though the earth had opened up between us, as if, by a supreme and magical effort of will, she had leaped the void and rejoined me. The ground on which she stood a moment ago fell away, slipped into a past altogether unknown to me, just as the shelf of a continent slips into the sea. Nothing so clear and tangible as this formulated itself in my mind then; it was only afterwards, because I rehearsed this moment time and again later, that I understood the nature of our reunion.

Her whole body felt strangely different, as I pressed her close. It was the body of a creature who had been reborn. It was an entirely new body that she surrendered, new because it contained some element which hitherto had been missing. It was, strange as it may seem to say so, as if she had returned with her soul—and not her private, individual soul, but the soul of her race. She seemed to be offering it to me, like a talisman.

Words came to our lips with difficulty. We simply gurgled and stared at one another. Then I saw her glance roving over the place, taking everything in with a remorseless eye, and finally resting on my desk and on me.

«What are you doing here?» she seemed to say. And then, as it softened, as she gathered me up in the folds of the tribe—«What have they done to you?» Yes, I felt the power and the pride of her people. I have not chosen you, it said, to sit among the lowly. I am taking you out of this world. I am going to enthrone you.

And this was Mona, the Mona who had come to me from the center of the dance floor and offered herself, as she had offered herself to hundreds and perhaps thousands of others before me. Such a strange, wondrous flower is the human being! You hold it in your hand and while you sleep it grows, it becomes transformed, it exhales a narcotic fragrance.

In a few seconds I had become worshipful. It was almost unbearable to look at her steadily. To think that she would follow me home, accept the life I had to offer her, seemed unbelievable. I had asked for a woman and I had been given a queen.

What happened at dinner is a complete blank. We must have eaten in a restaurant, we must have talked, we must have made plans. I remember nothing of all this. I remember her face, her new soulful look, the brilliance and magnetism of the eyes, the translucent tone of the flesh.

I remember that we walked for a time through deserted streets. And perhaps, listening only to the sound of her voice, perhaps then she told me everything, all that I had ever longed to know about her. I remember not a word of it. Nothing had any importance or meaning except the future. I held her hand, clasped it firmly, the fingers entwined, walking with her into the overabundant future. Nothing could possibly be what it had been before. The ground had opened up, the past had been swept away, drowned, drowned as deep as a lost continent. And miraculously—how miraculously I only realized as the moments prolonged themselves!—she had been saved, had been restored to me. It was my duty, my mission, my destiny in this life to cherish and protect her. As I thought of all that lay ahead I began to grow, from within, as if from a small seed. I grew inches in the space of a block. It was in my heart that I felt the seed bursting.

And then, as we stood at a corner, a bus came along. We jumped in and went upstairs on the deck. To the very front seat. As soon as the fare had been paid I took her in my arms and smothered her with kisses. We were alone and the bus was careening over the bumpy pavement.

Suddenly I saw her give a wild look around, raise her dress feverishly, and the next moment she was straddling me. We fucked like mad in the space of a few drunken blocks. She sat on my lap, even after it was over, and continued to caress me passionately.

When we entered Arthur Raymond's home the place was ablaze. It was as if they had been expecting her return. Kronski was there and Arthur's two sisters, Rebecca, and some of her friends. They greeted Mona with the utmost warmth and affection. They almost wept over her.

It was the moment to celebrate. Bottles were brought out, the table was spread, the phonograph wound up. «Yes, yes, let us rejoice!» every one seemed to say. We literally flung ourselves at one another. We danced, we sang, we talked, we ate, we drank. More and more joyous it became. Every one loved every one. Union and reunion. On and on into the night, even Kronski singing at the top of his lungs. It was like a bridal feast. The bride had come back from the grave. The bride was young again. The bride had blossomed.

Yes, it was a marriage. That night I knew that we were joined on the ashes of the past.

«My wife, my wife!» I murmured, as we fell asleep.

VOLUME FIVE

21

With the death of her father Mona became more and more obsessed with the idea of getting married. Perhaps on his death-bed she had made a promise which she was trying to keep. Each time the subject came up a little quarrel ensued. (It seemed that I took the subject too lightly.) One day, after one of these tiffs, she began packing her things. She wasn't going to stay with me another day. As we had no valise she had to wrap her things in brown paper. It made a very bulky, awkward bundle.

«You'll look like an immigrant going down the street with that,» I said. I had been sitting on the bed watching her manoeuvres for a half hour or more. Somehow I couldn't convince myself that she was leaving. I was waiting for the usual last minute break-down—a flare of anger, a burst of tears, and then a tender, heart-warming reconciliation.

This time, however, she seemed determined to go through with the performance. I was still sitting on the bed as she dragged the bundle through the hall and opened the front door. We didn't even say goodbye to one another.

As the front door slammed to Arthur Raymond came to the threshold and said: «You're not letting her go like that, are you? It's a bit inhuman, isn't it?»

«Is it?» I replied. I gave him a weak and rather forlorn smile.

«I don't understand you at all,» he said. He spoke as though he were controlling his anger.

«She'll probably be back to-morrow,» I said. «I wouldn't be so sure of that, if I were you. She's a sensitive girl... and you're a cold-blooded bastard.»

Arthur Raymond was working himself into a moral spasm. The truth was that he had become very fond of Mona. If he had been honest with himself he would have had to admit that he was in love with her. «Why don't you go after her?» he said suddenly, after an awkward pause. «I'll run down, if you like. Jesus, you can't let her walk off like that!»

I made no answer. Arthur Raymond bent over and placed a hand on my shoulder. «Come, come,» he said, «this is silly. You stay here... I'll run after her and bring her back.»

He rushed down the hall and opened the front door. I heard him exclaim: «Well, well! I was just going to fetch you. Good! Come on in. Here, let me take that. That's fine.» I heard him laugh, that cheery, rattling laugh, which grated on one's nerves sometimes. «Come on back here... he's waiting for you. Sure, we're all waiting for you. Why did you do such a thing? You mustn't run away like that. We're all friends, aren't we? You can't walk out on us like that....»

From the tone of his voice one would think that Arthur Raymond was the husband, not I. It was almost as if he were giving me the cue.

It was only a matter of a few seconds, all this, but in that interval, brief as it was, I saw Arthur Raymond again as I had the first time we met. Ed Gavarni had taken me to his home. For weeks he had been telling me of his friend Arthur Raymond and what a genius he was. He seemed to think that he had been granted a rare privilege in bringing the two of us together, because in Ed Gavarni's opinion I too was a genius. There he sat, Arthur Raymond, in the gloom of a basement in one of those solemn-looking brown-stone houses in the Prospect Park region. He was much shorter than I had expected him to be, but his voice was strong, hearty, cheery, like his hand-shake, like his whole personality. He emanated vitality.

I had the impression instantly that I was face to face with an unusual person. He was at his very worst, too, as I discovered later. He had been out on a bat all night, had slept in his clothes, and was rather nervous and irritable. He sat down again at the piano, after a few words, a burnt-out butt hanging from his lips; as he talked he nervously drummed a few keys in the upper register. He had been forcing himself to practice because time was getting short—in a few days he was giving a recital, the first recital in long pants, you might say. Ed Gavarni explained to me that Arthur Raymond had been a child prodigy, that his mother had dressed him like Lord Fauntleroy and dragged him all over the continent, from one concert hall to another. And then one day Arthur Raymond had put his foot down and had refused to be a performing chimpanzee any longer. He had developed a phobia about playing in public. He wanted to lead his own life. And he did. He had run amok. He had done everything to destroy the virtuoso which his mother had created.

Arthur Raymond listened to this impatiently. Finally he cut in, swinging round on his stool, and playing with two hands as he spoke. He had a fresh cigarette in his mouth and as he ran his fingers up and down the piano the smoke curled up into his eyes. He was trying to work off his embarrassment. At the same time I felt that he was waiting to hear me open up. When Ed Gavarni informed him that I was also a musician Arthur Raymond jumped up and begged me to play something. «Go on, go on...» he said, almost savagely. «I'd like to hear you. God, I get sick of hearing myself play.»

I sat down, much against my will, and played some little thing. I realized more than ever before how poor my playing was. I felt rather ashamed of myself and apologized profusely for the lame performance.

«Not at all, not at all!» he said, with a low, pleasant chuckle. «You ought to continue... you have talent.»

«The truth is I hardly ever touch the piano any more,» I confessed.

«How come? Why not? What do you do then?»

Ed Gavarni offered the customary explanations. «He's really a writer,» he concluded.

Arthur Raymond's eyes sparkled. «A writer! Well, well...» And with that he resumed his seat at the piano and began to play. A serious expression I not only liked but which I was to remember all my life. His playing enthralled me. It was clean, vigorous, passionate, intelligent. He attacked the instrument with his whole being. He ravished it. I was a Brahms sonata, if I remember rightly, and I had never been very fond of Brahms. After a few minutes he stopped suddenly, and then before we could open our mouths he was playing something from Debussy, and from that he went on to Ravel and to Chopin. During the Chopin prelude Ed Gavarni winked at me. When it was over he urged Arthur Raymond to play the Revolutionary Etude. «Oh, that thing! Drat that! God, how you like that stuff!» He played a few bars, dropped it, came back to the middle part, stopped, removed the cigarette from his lips, and launched into a Mozartian piece.

Meanwhile I had been going through internal revolutions. Listening to Arthur Raymond's playing I realized that if I were ever to be a pianist I should have to begin all over again. I felt that I had never really played the piano—I had played at it. Something similar had happened to me when I first read Dostoievski. It had wiped out all other literature. («Now I am really listening to human beings talk!» I had said to myself.) It was like that with Arthur Raymond's playing—for the first time I seemed to understand what the composers were saying. When he broke off to repeat a phrase over and over it was as though I heard them speaking, speaking this language of sound with which everybody is familiar hut which is really Greek to most of us. I remembered suddenly how the Latin teacher, after listening to our woeful translations, would suddenly snatch the book out of our hands and begin to read aloud to us—in Latin. He read it as though it meant something to him, whereas to us, no matter how good our translations, it was always Latin and Latin was a dead language and the men who wrote in Latin were even more dead to us than the language which they wrote in. Yes, listening to Arthur Raymond's interpretation, whether of Bach, Brahms or Chopin, there were no longer any empty spaces between passages. Everything assumed form, dimension, meaning. There were no dull parts, no lags, no preliminaries.

There was another thing about that visit which flashed through my mind—Irma. Irma was then his wife, and a very cute, pretty, doll-like creature she was. More like a Dresden china piece than a wife. Instantly we were introduced I knew that there was something wrong between them. His voice was too harsh, his gestures too rough: she shrank from him as if fearing to be dashed to pieces by an inadvertent move. I noticed, as we shook hands, that her palms were moist—moist and hot. She was conscious of the fact too, and blushingly made some remark about her glands being out of order. But one felt, as she said this, that the real reason for her imbalance was Arthur Raymond, that it was his «genius» which had unsettled her. O'Mara was right about her—she was thoroughly feline, she loved to be stroked and petted. And one knew that Arthur Raymond wasted no time in such dalliance. One knew immediately that he was the sort who went straight to the goal. He was raping her, that's what I felt. And I was right. Later she confessed it to me.

And then there was Ed Gavarni. One could tell by the way Arthur Raymond addressed him that he was used to this sort of adulation. All his friends were sycophants. He was disgusted with them, no doubt, and yet he needed it. His mother had given him a bad start—she had almost destroyed him. Each performance he had given had weakened his confidence in himself. They were post-hypnotic performances, successes because his mother had willed it to be so. He hated her. He needed a woman who would believe in him—as a man, as a human being—not as a trained seal.

Irma hated his mother too. That had a disastrous effect upon Arthur Raymond. He felt it necessary to defend his mother against his wife's attacks. Poor Irma! She was between the devil and the deep sea. And at bottom she wasn't deeply interested in music. At bottom she wasn't deeply interested in anything. She was soft, pliant, gracious, willowy: her only response was a purr. I don't think she cared about fucking very much either. It was all right now and then, when she was in heat, but on the whole it was too forthright, too brutal, too humiliating. If one could come together like tiger lilies, yes, then it might be different. Just brushing together, a soft, gentle, caressing sort of intertwining—that's what she liked. There was something slightly nauseating about a stiff prick, especially dripping sperm. And the positions one had to assume! Really, sometimes she felt positively degraded by the act. Arthur Raymond had a short, stubborn prick—he was the Ram. He went at it bang-bang, as if he were chopping away at a meat block. It was over before she had a chance to feel anything. Short, quick stabs, sometimes on the floor, anywhere, whenever, wherever it happened to seize him. He didn't even give her time to take off her clothes. He just lifted her skirt and shoved it in. No, it was really «horrid». That was one of her pet words—«horrid».

O'Mara on the other hand was like a practiced snake. He had a long curved penis which slid in like greased lightning and unlatched the door of the womb. He knew how to control it. But she didn't like his way of going about it either. He used his penis as if it were a detachable apparatus. To stand over her while she was lying abed with her legs open, panting for it, to force her to admire it, take it in her mouth or shove it in her arm-pit, was his delight. He made her feel that she was at his mercy—or rather at the mercy of that long, slimy thing he carried between his legs. He could get an erection any time—at will, so to speak. He wasn't carried away by passion—his passion was concentrated in his prick. He could be very tender too, for all his practiced approach, but somehow it wasn't a tenderness that touched her—it was studied, part of his technique. He wasn't «romantic»—that's how she put it. He was too damned proud of his sexual prowess. Just the same, because it was an unusual prick, because it was long and bent, because it could hold out indefinitely, because it could make her lose herself, she was unable to resist. He had only to take it out and put in her hand and she was done for. It was disgusting too that sometimes when he took it out it was only semi-erect. Even then it was bigger, silkier, snakier than Arthur Raymond's prick, even when he was at white heat. O'Mara had a sullen sort of prick. He was Scorpio. He was like some primeval creature that waited in ambush, some huge, patient, crawling reptile which hid in the swamps. He was cold and fecund; he lived only to fuck, but he could bide his time, could wait years between fucks if necessary. Then, when he had you, when he closed his jaws on you, he devoured you piece-meal. That was O'Mara...

I looked up to see Mona standing at the threshold with tear-stained face. Arthur Raymond was behind her, holding the big awkward bundle in his two hands. A broad grin had spread over his face. He was pleased with himself, terribly pleased.

It wasn't like me to get up and make a demonstration, especially in Arthur Raymond's presence.

«Well,» said Mona, «haven't you anything to say? Aren't you sorry?»

«Sure he is,» said Arthur Raymond, fearful that she would bolt again.

«I'm not asking you,» she snapped, «I'm asking him.»

I rose from the bed and went towards her. Arthur Raymond looked on sheepishly. He would have given anything to be in my position—I knew that. As we embraced, Mona turned her head and over her shoulder she murmured: «Why don't you leave?» His face grew red as a beet. He tried to stammer out some apology but the words stuck in his throat. As he turned away Mona slammed the door shut. «The fool!» she said. «I'm sick of this place!»

As she pressed her body to mine I felt a hunger and desperation in her of a new kind. The separation, brief as it was, had been real to her. And it had frightened her too. Nobody had ever permitted her to walk away like that. She had not only been humiliated, she had become curious.

It's interesting to observe how repetitive is woman's behavior in such situations. Almost invariably there comes the question—«Why did you do such a thing?» Or—«How could you treat me like that?» If it's the man speaking he says: «Let's not talk about it... let's forget it!» But the woman reacts as if she had been shocked in her vital centers, as if perhaps she might never recover from the mortal stab. With her everything is based on the purely personal. She talks egotistically, but it is not the ego which prompts her reproaches—it's WOMAN. That the man she loves, the man to whom she has attached herself, the man whom she is creating in her own image, should suddenly become depossessed is something unthinkable. If it were a question of another woman, if there were a rival, yes, then she might understand. But to unshackle oneself for no reason, to relinquish so easily—just because of a little feminine trick!— that mystifies her. Then everything must be built on sand... then there is no firm grip anywhere.

«You knew I wouldn't stay away, didn't you?» she was saying, half-smiling, half-weeping.

To answer yes or no was equally compromising. Either way I would only be entraining a long argument. So I said: «He thought you would come back. I didn't know. I thought maybe I had lost you.»

The last phrase impressed her favorably. «To lose her»—that meant she was precious. It also implied that by coming back of her own will she was making a gift of herself, the most precious gift she could offer me.

«How could I do that?» she said softly, giving me a melting look. «I only want to know that you care for me. I do silly things sometimes... I feel as though I need proofs of your love... it's so silly.» She gripped me tight, blotting herself against me. In a moment she was passionate, her hand fumbling with my fly. «You did want me to come back?» she murmured, extricating my cock and placing it against her warm cunt. «Say it! I want to hear you say it!»

I said it. I said it with all the conviction I could muster.

«Now fuck me!» she whispered, and her mouth twisted savagely. She lay crosswise on the bed, her skirt around her neck. «Pull it off!» she begged, too feverish to find the snaps. «I want you to fuck me as thought you never had me before.»

«Wait a minute,» I said, pulling out. «I'm going to take these damned things off first.»

«Quick, quick!» she pleaded. «Put it in all the way. Jesus, Val, I could never do without you... Yes, good, good... that's it.» She was squirming like an eel. «Oh Val, you must never let me go. Tight, hold me tight! Oh God, I'm coming... hold me, hold me.» I waited for the spasm to die down. «You didn't come, did you?» she said. «Don't come yet. Leave it in. Don't move.» I did as she wished; it was jammed in tight and I could feel the silk pennants inside her fluttering like hungry birds. «Wait a minute, dear... wait.» She was gathering her forces for another explosion. Her eyes had become large and moist, relaxed, one might say. As the orgasm approached they grew concentrated, darting wildly from one corner to the other, as though frantically seeking for something to fasten on. «Do it, do it now,» she begged hoarsely. «Go on, give it to me!» Again her mouth had that savage twist, that obscene leer, which more than the most violent movements of the body unleash the male orgasm.

As I shot the hot sperm into her she went into convulsions. She was like a trapeze artist coming off near the roof. And, as happened to her frequently, the orgasms succeeded one another in rapid sequence. I was almost on the verge of slapping her face, to snap her out of it.

The next thing was a cigarette, of course. She lay back under the sheet and inhaled deep puffs, as though she were using a pulmotor.

«Sometimes I think my heart will give out... I'll die in the midst of it.» She relaxed with the ease of a panther, her legs wide apart, as if to let the sperm run out. «God,» she said, placing a hand between her legs, «it's still running out... Give me a towel, will you?»

As I was bending over her with the towel, I put my fingers up her cunt. I liked to feel it just after a fuck. So thrilly-dilly.

«Don't do that,» she begged weakly, «or I'll start all over again.» As she spoke she moved her pelvis lasciviously. «Not too rough, Val... I'm tender. That's it.» She put her hand on my wrist and held it there, directing my movements with deft and delicate pressure of the fingers. Finally I managed to withdraw my hand and quickly glued my mouth to her crack. «That's wonderful,» she sighed. She had closed her eyes. She was falling back into the dark hollow of her being.

We were lying sidewise, her legs slung around my neck. Presently I felt her lips touching my prick. I was spreading her cheeks apart with my two hands, my one eye riveted on the little brown button above her cunt. «That's her asshole,» said I to myself. It was good to look at. So small, so shrunken, as though only little black sheep droppings could come from it.

After we had a bellyful and were lying between the sheets softly snoozing there came a peremptory knock on the door. It was Rebecca. She wanted to know if we had finished—she was going to make tea and she wanted us to join them.

I told her we were taking a nap, couldn't say when we'd get up.

«May I come in a minute?» With that she pushed the door slightly ajar.

«Sure, come in!» I said, squinting at her with one «ye.

«God, you two certainly are a couple of love birds,» she said, giving a low, pleasant, earthy sort of chuckle. «Don't you ever get tired of it? I could hear you way down the other end of the hall. You make me jealous.»

She was standing beside the bed looking down at us. Mona had her hand over my prick, an instinctive gesture of self-protection. Rebecca's eyes seemed to he concentrated on this spot.

«For God's sake, stop playing with it when I talk to you, won't you?» she said.

«Why don't you leave us alone?» said Mona. «We don't walk into your bed-room, do we? Can't one have any privacy here?»

Rebecca gave a hearty, guttural laugh. «Our room isn't as attractive as yours, that's why. You're like a couple of newlyweds: you make the whole house feverish.»

«We're clearing out of here soon,» said Mona. «I want a place of my own. This is too goddamned incestuous for me. Jesus, you can't even menstruate here without everyone knowing it.»

I felt impelled to say something mollifying. If Rebecca were aroused she could twist Mona into a knot.

«We're getting married next week,» I put in. We'll probably move to Brooklyn, to some quiet, peaceful spot. This is a bit out of the world.»

«I see,» said Rebecca. «Of course you've been getting married ever since you came here. I'm sure we didn't prevent you—or did we?» She spoke as. if she were hurt.

After a few more words she left. We fell asleep again and woke up late. We were hungry as wolves. When we got to the street we took a taxi and went to the French-Italian grocery store. It was about ten o'clock and the place was still crowded. On one side of us was a police lieutenant and on the other a detective. We were seated at the long table. Opposite me, hanging from a nail on the wall, was a holster with a pistol in it. To the left was the open kitchen where the big fat brother of the proprietor held sway. He was a marvelous, inarticulate bear dripping with grease and perspiration. Always half-cocked, it seemed. Later, after we had eaten well, he would invite us to have a liqueur with him. His brother, who served the food and collected the cash, was a totally different type. He was handsome, suave, courteous and spoke English fairly well. When the place thinned out he would often sit down and chat with us. He talked about Europe most of the time, how different it was there, how «civilized», how enjoyable the life was. Sometimes he would get to talking about the blonde women of North Italy where he came from. He would describe them minutely—the color of their hair and eyes, the texture of their skin, the luscious, sensual mouths they had, the slippery movement of the haunches when they walked, and so on. He had never seen any women like them in America, he said. He spoke of American women with a contemptuous, almost disgusting, curl of the lips. «I don't know why you stay here, Mr. Miller,» he would say. «Your wife is so beautiful... why you don't go to Italy? Just a few months. I tell you, you never come back.» And then he would order another drink for us and tell us to stay a little longer... maybe a friend of his would come... a singer from the Metropolitan Opera House.

Soon we became engaged in conversation with a man and woman directly opposite us. They were in a gay mood and had already passed on to the coffee and liqueurs. I gathered from their remarks that they were theatre people.

It was rather difficult to carry on a continued conversation owing to the presence of the hooligans on either side of us. They felt that they were being snubbed, simply because we were talking of things beyond their ken. Every now and then the lieutenant made some dumb remark about «the stage». The other one, the detective, was already in his cups and getting nasty. I loathed the both of them and showed it openly by ignoring their remarks completely. Finally, not knowing what else to do, they began to badger us.

«Let's move into the other room,» I said, signalling the proprietor. «Can you give us a table in there?» I asked.

«What's the matter?» he said. «Is there anything wrong?»

«No,» I said, «we don't like it here, that's all.»

«You mean you don't like ms,» said the detective, snarling the words out.

«That's it,» I said, snarling back at him.

«Not good enough for you, eh? Who the hell do you think you are any way?»

«I'm President McKinley—and you?»

«Wise guy, eh?» He turned to the proprietor. «Say, who is this guy anyway... what's his line? Is he trying to make a sap out of me?»

«Shut up!» said the proprietor. «You're drunk.»

«Drunk! Who says I'm drunk?» He started to totter to his feet, but slid back again into the chair.

«You better get out of here... you're making trouble. I don't want no trouble in my place, do you understand?»

«For crying out loud, what did I do?» He began to act like an abused child.

«I don't want you driving my customers away,» said the proprietor.

«Who's driving your customers away? This is a free country, ain't it? I can talk if I wanta, can't I? What did I say... tell me! I didn't say nothin' insultin'. I can be a gentleman too, if I wanta...»

«You'll never be a gentleman,» said the proprietor. «Go on, get your things and get out of here. Go home and sleep!» He turned to the lieutenant with a significant look, as if to say—this is your job, get him out of here!

Then he took us by the arm and led us into the other room. The man and woman sitting opposite us followed. «I'll get rid of those bums in a minute,» he said, ushering us to our seats. «I'm very sorry, Mr. Miller. That's what I have to put with because of this damned Prohibition law. In Italy we don't have that sort of thing. Everybody mind his own business... What will you have to drink? Wait, I bring you something good....»

The room he had brought us to was the private banquet room of a group of artists—theatre people mostly, though there was a sprinkling of musicians, sculptors and painters. One of the group came up to us and, after introducing himself, presented us to the other members. They seemed pleased to have us in their midst. We were soon induced to leave our table and join the group at the big table which was loaded with carafes, seltzer bottles, cheeses, pastries, coffee pots and what not.

The proprietor came back beaming. «It's better in here, no?» he said. He had two liqueur bottles in his arms. «Why you don't play some music?» he said, seating himself at the table. «Arturo, get your guitar... go on, play something! Maybe the lady will sing for you.»

Soon we were all singing—Italian, German, French, Russian songs. The idiot brother, the chef, came in with a platter of cold cuts and fruit and nuts. He moved about the room unsteadily, a tipsy bear, grunting, squealing, laughing to himself. He hadn't an ounce of gray matter in his bean, but he was a wonderful cook. I don't think he ever went for a walk. His whole life was spent in the kitchen. He handled foodstuffs only—never money. What did he need money for? You couldn't cook with money. That was his brother's job, juggling the money. He kept track of what people ate and drank—he didn't care what his brother charged for it. «Was it good?» that's all he cared to know. As to what they had had to eat he had only a rough, hazy idea. It was easy to cheat him, if you had a mind to do so. But no one ever did. It was easier to say, «I have no money... I'll pay you next time.» «Sure, next time!» he would answer, without the slightest trace of fear or worry in his greasy countenance. «Next time you bring your friend too, hah?» And then he'd give you a clap on the back with his hairy paw—such a resounding thwack that your bones shook like dice. Such a griffin he was, and his wife a tiny, frail little thing with big, trusting eyes, a creature who made no sound, who talked and listened with big dolorous eyes.

Louis was his name, and it fitted him perfectly. Fat Louis! And his brother's name was Joe—Joe Sabbatini. Joe treated his imbecilic brother much as a stable-boy would treat his favorite horse. He patted him affectionately when he wanted him to conjure up an especially good dish for a patron. And Louis would respond with a grunt or a neigh, just as pleased as would be a sensitive mare if you stroked its silky rump. He even acted a little coquettish, as though his brother's touch had unlocked some hidden girlish instinct in him. For all his bearish strength one never thought of Louis' sexual propensities. He was neuter and epicene. If he had a prick it was to make water with, nothing more. One had the feeling, about Louis, that if it came to a pinch he would sacrifice his prick to make a few extra slices of saucisson. He would rather lose his prick than hand you a meagre hors-d'oeuvre.

«In Italy you eat better than this,» Joe was explaining to Mona and myself. «Better meat, better vegetables, better fruit. In Italy you have sunshine all day. And music! Everybody sing. Here everybody look sad. I don't understand. Plenty money, plenty jobs, but everybody sad. This is no country to live in... only good to make money. Another two-three years and I go back to Italy. I take Louis with me and we open a little restaurant. Not for money... just have something to do. In Italy nobody make money. Everybody poor. But god-damn, Mr. Miller... excuse me... we have good time! Plenty beautiful women... plenty! You lucky to have such a beautiful wife. She like Italy, your wife. Italians very good people. Everybody treat you right. Everybody make friends rightaway...»

It was in bed that night that we began to talk about Europe. «We've got to go to Europe,» Mona was saying.

«Yeah, but how?»

«I don't know, Val, but we'll find a way.»

«Do you realize how much money it takes to go to Europe?»

«That doesn't matter. If we want to go we'll raise the money somehow...»

We were lying flat on our backs, hands clasped behind our heads, looking straight up into the darkness—and voyaging like mad. I had boarded the Orient Express for Baghdad. It was a familiar journey to me because I had read about this trip in one of Dos Passo's books. Vienna, Budapest, Sofia, Belgrade, Athens, Constantinople... Perhaps if we got that far we might also get to Timbuctoo. I knew a lot about Timbuctoo also—from books. Mustn't forget Taormina! And that cemetery in Stamboul which Pierre Loti had written about. And Jerusalem...

«What are you thinking about now?» I asked, nudging her gently.

«I was visiting my folks in Roumanian «In Roumania? Whereabouts in Roumania?» «I don't know exactly. Somewhere in the Carpathian mountains.»

«I had a messenger once, a crazy Dutchman, who used to write me long letters from the Carpathian mountains. He was staying at the palace of the Queen...»

«Wouldn't you like to go to Africa too—Morocco, Algeria, Egypt?»

«That's just what I was dreaming about a moment ago.»

«I've always wanted to go into the desert... and get lost there.»

«That's funny, so have I. I'm crazy about the desert.»

Silence. Lost in the desert-Somebody is talking to me. We've been having a long conversation. And I'm not in the desert any more but on Sixth Avenue under an elevated station.

My friend Ulric is placing his hand on my shoulder and smiling at me reassuringly. He is repeating what he said a moment ago—that I will be happy in Europe. He talks again about Mt. Aetna, about grapes, about leisure, idleness, good food, sunshine. He drops a seed in me.

Sixteen years later on a Sunday morning, accompanied by a native of the Argentine and a French whore from Montmartre, I am strolling leisurely through a cathedral in Naples. I feel as though I have at least seen a house of worship that I would enjoy praying in. It belongs not to God or the Pope, but to the Italian people. It's a huge, barn-like place, fitted out in the worst taste, with all the trappings dear to the Catholic heart. There is plenty of floor space, empty floor space, I mean. People sail in through the various portals and walk about with the utmost freedom. They give the impression of being on a holiday. Children gambol about like lambs, some with little nose-gays in their hand. People walk up to one another and exchange greetings, quite as if they were in the street. Along the walls are statues of the martyrs in various postures; they reek of suffering. I have a strong desire to run my hand over the cold marble, as if to urge them not to suffer too much, it's indecent. As I approach one of the statues I notice out of the corner of my eye a woman all in black kneeling before a sacred object. She is the image of piety. But I can't help noticing that she is also the possessor of an exquisite ass, a musical ass, I might say. (The ass tells you everything about a woman, her character, her temperament, whether she is sanguine, morbid, gay or fickle, whether she is responsive or unresponsive, whether she is maternal or pleasure-loving, whether she is truthful or lying by nature.)

I was interested in that ass, as well as the piety in which it was smothered. I looked at it so intently that finally the owner of it turned round, her hands still raised in prayer, her lips moving as if she were chewing oats in her sleep. She gave me a look of reproach, blushed deeply, then turned her gaze back to the object of adoration, which I now observed was one of the saints, a dejected crippled martyr who seemed to be climbing up a hill with a broken back.

I respectfully moved away in search of my companions. The activity of the throng reminded me of the lobby of the Hotel Astor—and of the canvases of Uccello (that fascinating world of perspective!). It reminded me also of the Caledonian market, London, with its vast clutter of gimcrackery. It was beginning to remind me of a lot of things, of everything, in fact, but the house of worship which it was. I half expected to see Malvolio or Mercutio enter in full tights. I saw one man, obviously a barber, who reminded me vividly of Werner Krause in Othello. I recognized an organ grinder from New York whom I had once tracked to his lair behind the City Hall.

Above all I was fascinated by they tremendous Gorgon-like heads of the old men of Naples. They seemed to emerge full-blown out of the Renaissance: great lethal cabbages with fiery coals in their foreheads. Like the Urizens of William Blake's imagination. They moved about condescendingly, these animated heads, as if patronizing the nefarious Mysteries of the mundane Church and her spew of scarlet-robed pimps.

I felt very very much at home. It was a bazaar which made sense. It was operatic, mercurial, tonsorial. The buzz-buzz at the altar was discreet and elegant, a sort of veiled boudoir atmosphere in which the priest, assisted by his gelded acolytes, washed his socks in holy water. Behind the glittering surplices were little trellised doors, such as the mountebanks used in the popular street shows of medieval times. Anything might spring out at you from those mysterious little doors. Here was the altar of confusion, bangled and diademed with baubles, smelling of grease paint, incense, sweat and dereliction. It was like the last act of a gaudy comedy, a banal play dealing with prostitution and ending in prophylactics. The performers inspired affection and sympathy; they were not sinners, they were vagrants. Two thousand years of fraud and humbug had culminated in this side-show. It was all flip and tutti-frutti, a gaudy, obscene carnival in which the Redeemer, made of plaster of Paris, took on the appearance of a eunuch in petticoats. The women prayed for children and the men prayed for food to stuff the hungry mouths. Outside, on the sidewalk, were heaps of vegetables, fruits, flowers and sweets. The barber shops were wide open and little boys, resembling the progeny of Fra Angelico, stood with big fans and drove the flies away. A beautiful city, alive in every member, and drenched with sunlight. In the background Vesuvius, a sleepy cone emitting a lazy curl of smoke. I was in Italy—I was certain of it. It was all that I had expected it to be. And then suddenly I realized that she was not with me, and for a moment I was saddened. Then I wondered... wondered about the seed and its fruition. For that night, when we went to bed hungering for Europe, something quickened in me. Years had rolled by... short, terrible years, in which every seed that had ever quickened seemed to be mashed to a pulp. Our rhythm had speeded up, hers in a physical way, mine in a more subtle way. She leaped forward feverishly, her very walk changing over into the lope of an antelope. I seemed to stand still, making no progress, but spinning like a top. She had her eyes set on the goal, but the faster she moved the farther removed became the goal. I knew I could never reach the goal this way. I moved my body about obediently, but always with an eye on the seed within. When I slipped and fell I fell softly, like a cat, or like a pregnant woman, always mindful of that which was growing inside me. Europe, Europe.... it was with me always, even when we were quarreling, shouting at each other like maniacs. Like a man obsessed, I brought every conversation back to the subject which alone interested me: Europe. Nights when we prowled about the city, searching like alley cats for scraps of food, the cities and peoples of Europe were in my mind. I was like a slave who dreams of freedom, whose whole being is saturated with one idea: escape. Nobody could have convinced me then that if I were offered the choice between her and my dream of Europe I would choose the latter. It would have seemed utterly fantastic, then, to suppose that it would be she herself who would offer me this choice. And perhaps even more fantastic still that the day I would sail for Europe I would have to ask my friend Ulric for ten dollars so as to have something in my pocket on touching my beloved European soil.

That half-voiced dream in the dark, that night alone in the desert, the voice of Ulric comforting me, the Carpathian mountains moving up from under the moon, Timbuctoo, the camel bells, the smell of leather and of dry, scorched dung, («What are you thinking of?» «I too!») the tense, richly-filled silence, the blank, dead walls of the tenement opposite, the fact that Arthur Raymond was asleep, that in the morning he would continue his exercises, forever and ever, but that I had changed, that there were exits, loopholes, even though only in the imaginations, all this acted like a ferment and dynamized the days, months, years that lay ahead. It dynamized my love for her.

It made me believe that what I could not accomplish alone I could accomplish with her, for her, through her, because of her. She became the water-sprinkler, the fertilizer, the hot-house, the mule pack, the pathfinder, the bread-winner, the gyroscope, the extra vitamin, the flame-thrower, the go-getter.

From that day on things moved on greased skids. Get married? Sure, why not? Right away. Have you got the money for the license? No, but I'll borrow it. Fine. Meet you on the corner....

We're in the Hudson Tubes on our way to Hoboken. Going to get married there. Why Hoboken? I don't remember. Perhaps to conceal the fact that I had been married before, perhaps we were a bit ahead of the legal schedule. Anyway, Hoboken.

In the train we have a little tiff. The same old story—she's not sure that I want to marry her. Thinks I'm doing it just to please her.

A station before Hoboken she jumps out of the train. I jump out too and run after her.

«What's the matter with you—are you mad?»

«You don't love me. I'm not going to marry you.»

«You are too, by God!»

I grab her and pull her back to the edge of the platform. As the next train pulls in I put my arms around her and embrace her.

«You're sure, Val? You're sure you want to marry me?»

I kiss her again. «Come on, cut it out! You know damned well we're going to get married.» We hop in.

Hoboken. A sad, dreary place. A city more foreign to me than Pekin or Lhassa. Find the City Hall. Find a couple of bums to act as witnesses.

The ceremony. What's your name? And your name? And his name? And so on. How long have you known this man? And this man is a friend of yours? Yes sir. Where did you pick him up—in the garbage can? O.K. Sign here. Bang, bang! Raise your right hand! I solemnly swear, etc, etc. Married. Five dollars, please. Kiss the bride. Next, please....

Everybody happy?

I want to spit.

In the train.... I take her hand in mine. We're both depressed, humiliated. «I'm sorry, Mona... we shouldn't have done it that way.»

«It's all right, Val.» She's very quiet now. As though we had just buried some one.

«But it isn't all right, God damn it! I'm sore. I'm disgusted. That's no way to get married. I'll never....»

I checked myself. She looked at me with a startled expression.

«What were you going to say?»

I lied. I said: «I'll never forgive myself for doing it that way.»

I became silent. Her lips were trembling.

«I don't want to go back to the house just yet,» said she.

«Neither do I.»

Silence.

«I'll call up Ulric,» said I. «We'll have dinner with him, yes?»

«Yes,» she said, almost meekly.

We got into a telephone booth together to call up Ulric. I had my arm around her. «Now you're Mrs. Miller,» I said. «How does it feel?»

She began to weep. «Hello, hello? That you, Ulric?»

«No, it's me, Ned.»

Ulric wasn't there—had gone somewhere for the day.

«Listen, Ned, we just got married.»

«Who got married?» he said.

«Mona and I, of course... who did you think?»

He was trying to joke about it, as though to say he couldn't be sure whom I would marry.

«Listen, Ned, it's serious. Maybe you've never been married before. We're depressed. Mona is weeping. I'm on the verge of tears myself. Can we come up there, drop in for a little while? We're lonely. Maybe you'll fix us a little drink, yes?»

Ned was laughing again. Of course we were to come—right away. He was expecting that cunt of his, Marcelle. But that wouldn't matter. He was getting sick of her. She was too good to him. She was fucking the life out of him. Yes, come up right away... we'd all drown our sorrows.

«Well, don't worry, Ned'll have some money. We'll make him take us to dinner. I suppose nobody will think to give us a wedding present. That's the hell of getting married in this informal fashion. You know, when Maude and I got married we pawned some of the wedding gifts the next day. Never got them back again either. We wouldn't want a lot of knives and forks sterling, would we?»

«Please don't talk that way, Val.»

«I'm sorry. I guess I'm a bit screwy to-day. That ceremony let me down. I could have murdered that guy.»

«Val, stop, I beg you!»

«All right, we won't talk about it any more. Let's be gay now, what? Let's laugh....»

Ned had a warm smile. I liked Ned. He was weak. Weak and lovable. Selfish underneath. Very selfish. That's why he could never get married. He had talent too, lots of talent, but no genius, no sustaining powers. He was an artist who had never found his medium. His best medium was drink. When he drank he became expansive. In physique he reminded one of John Barrymore in his better days. His role was Don Juan, especially in a Finchley suit with an ascot tie about his throat. Lovely speaking voice. Rich baritone, full of enchanting modulations. Everything he said sounded suave and important, though he never said a word that was worth remembering. But in speaking he seemed to caress you with his tongue; he licked you all over, like a happy dog.

«Well, well,» he said, grinning from ear to ear, and already half-cocked, I could see. «So you went and did it? Well, come on in. Hello Mona, how are you? Congratulations! Marcelle isn't here yet. I hope she doesn't come. I don't feel so terribly vital today.»

He was still grinning as he sat down in a big throne chair near the easel.

«Ulric will certainly be sorry he missed this,» he said. «Will you have a little Scotch — or do you want gin?

«Gin.»

«Well, tell me all about it. When did it happen-just now? Why didn't you let me know — I would have stood up for you....» He turned to Mona. «You're not pregnant, are you?»

«Jesus, let's talk about something else,» said Mona. «I swear I'll never get married again... it's horrible.»

«Listen, Ned, before you get drunk, tell me something... how much money have you got on you?»

He fished out six cents. «Oh, that's' all right,» he said, «Marcelle will have something.»

«If she comes.»

«Oh, she'll come, don't worry. That's the hell of it. I don't know which is worse — to be broke or to have Marcelle on one's hands.»

«I didn't think she was so bad,» I said.

«No, she isn't, really,» said Ned. «She's a darned nice gal. But she's too affectionate. She clings. You see, I'm not made for conjugual bliss. I get weary of the same face, even if it's a Madonna. I'm fickle. And she's constant. She's bolstering me up all the time. I don't want to be bolstered up—not all the time.»

«You don't know what you want,» said Mona. «You don't know when you're well off.»

«I guess you're right,» said Ned. «Ulric's the same way. We're masochists, I guess.» He grinned. He was a little ashamed of using a word like that so readily. It was an intellectual word and Ned had no use for things intellectual.

The door-bell rang. It was Marcelle. I could hear her giving him a smacking kiss.

«You know Henry and Mona, don't you?»

«Why sure I do,» said Marcelle brightly. «I caught you with your pants down... you remember? That seems a long time ago.»

VOLUME FIVE

251

«Listen,» said Ned, «what do you think they did? They got married... yeah, just a little while ago... in Hoboken.»

«That's wonderful!» said Marcelle. She went lip to Mona and kissed her. She kissed me too.

«Don't they look sad?» said Ned.

«No,» said Marcelle, «I don't think they look sad. Why should they?» Ned poured out a drink for her. As he handed it to her he said:

«Have you any money?»

«Of course I have. Why? Do you want some?»

«No, but they need a little money. They're broke.»

«I'm so sorry,» said Marcelle. «Of course I have money. What can I give you—ten, twenty? Why certainly. And don't pay it back—it's a wedding present.»

Mona went over to her and took her hand. «That's awfully good of you, Marcelle. Thank you.»

«Then we'll take you to dinner,» I said, trying to express my appreciation.

«No, you're not,» said Marcelle. «We're going to make dinner right here. Let's settle down and get comfy. I don't believe in going out to celebrate.... Really, I'm very happy. I like to see. people get married—and stay married. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I believe in love. I want to stay in love all my life.»

«Marcelle,» I said, «where the devil do you hail from?»

«From Utah. Why?»

«I don't know, but I like you. You're refreshing. I like the way you hand the money out too.»

«You're joshing me!»

«No, I'm not. I'm serious. You're a good woman. You're too good for that bum over there. Why don't you marry him? Go on! It would scare the life out of him, but it might do him a lot of good.»

«Do you hear that?» she gurgled, turning to Ned. «Haven't I been telling you that all along? You're lazy, that's what. You don't know what a prize I am.»

At this point Mona had a fit of laughing. She laughed as though her sides would burst. «I can't help it,» she said. «It's too funny.»

«You're not drunk already, are you?» said Ned.

«No, it's not that,» said I. «She's relaxing. It's just a reaction. We put it off too long, that's what's the matter. Isn't that it, Mona?»

Another peal of laughter.

«Besides,» said I, «she's always embarrassed when I borrow money. Isn't that so, Mona?»

There was no answer—just another explosion.

Marcelle went over to her, spoke to her in a low, soothing voice. «You leave her to me,» she said.

«You two get drunk. We'll go out and get some food, won't we, Mona?»

«What made her so hysterical?» said Ned, after the two had left.

«Search me,» I said. «She's not used to getting married, I guess.»

«Listen,» said Ned, «what ever made you do it? Wasn't it a little impetuous?»

«You sit down,» I said. «I'm going to talk to you. You're not too drunk to follow me, are you?»

«You're not going to give me a lecture, are you?» he said, looking a little sheepish.

«I'm going to talk turkey to you. Now listen to me.... We just got married, didn't we? You think it's a mistake, eh? Let me tell you this.... I never did a better thing in my life. I love her. I love her enough to do anything she asks of me. If she asked me to cut your throat... if I thought that would make her happy... I'd do it. Why was she laughing so hysterically? You poor bugger you, I don't know what's the matter with you. You don't feel any more. You're just trying to protect yourself. Well, I don't want to protect myself. I want to do foolish things, little things, ordinary things, anything and everything that would make a woman happy. Can you understand that? You, and Ulric too, thought it quite a joke, this love business. Henry would never get married again. Oh no! Just an infatuation. It would wear off after a time. That was how you looked at it. Well, you were wrong. What I feel for her is so damned big I don't know how to express it. She's out in the street now, Mona. She could be run over by a truck. Anything could happen. I tremble when I think what it would do to me, to hear that something had happened to her. I think I'd become a stark, raving lunatic. I'd kill you right off the bat, that's the first thing I'd do... You don't know what it means to love that way, do you? You think only of the same face for breakfast every day. I think how wonderful her face is, how it changes every minute. I never see her twice the same way. I see only an infinity of adoration. That's a good word for you—adoration. I bet you've never used it. Now we're getting somewhere.... I adore her. I'll say it again. I adore her! Jesus, it's wonderful to say that. I adore her and I prostrate myself at her feet. I worship her. I say my prayers to her. I venerate her.... How do you like that? You never thought, when I first brought her up here, that I was going to talk this way some day, did you? Yet I warned you both. I told you something had happened. You laughed. You thought you knew better. Well, you know nothing, neither of you. You don't know who I am or where I came from. You see only what I show you. You never look under my vest. If I laugh you think I'm gay. You don't know that when I laugh so heartily sometimes I'm on the verge of despair. At least it used to be so. Not any more. When I laugh now I'm laughing, not weeping inside and laughing outside. I'm whole again. All one piece. A man in love. A man who got married of his own free will. A man who was never really married before. A man who knew women, but not love.... Now I'll sing for you. Or recite, if you like. What do you want? Just name it and you'll have it.... Listen, when she comes back—and God, just to know that she will come back, that she didn't walk out of that door and disappear—when she comes back I want you to be gay... I want you to be naturally gay. Say nice things to her... good things... things you mean... things you find it hard to say usually. Promise her things. Tell her you'll buy her a wedding gift. Tell her you hope she'll have children. Lie to her, if you must. But make her happy. Don't let her laugh that way again, do you hear me? I don't want to hear her laugh like that...never! You laugh, you bastard! Play the clown, play the idiot. But let her believe that you think everything is fine... fine and dandy... and that it will last forever....»