R01 0010  1    It was among these that Hinkle identified a photograph
R01 0010 10    of Barco! For it seems that Barco, fancying himself
R01 0020  8    a ladies' man (and why not, after seven marriages?),
R01 0030  4    had listed himself for Mormon Beard roles at the instigation
R01 0040  4    of his fourth murder victim who had said: "With your
R01 0050  2    beard, dear, you ought to be in movies"!
R01 0050 10       Mills secured Barco's photograph from the gentleman
R01 0060  7    in charge, rushed to the Hollywood police station to
R01 0070  6    report the theft, and less than five minutes later,
R01 0080  3    detectives with his picture in hand were on the trail
R01 0090  1    of Cal Barco.
R01 0090  4       On their way, they stopped at every gas station
R01 0100  1    along the main boulevards to question the attendants.
R01 0100  9    Finally, at Ye Olde Gasse Filling Station on Avocado
R01 0110  7    Avenue, they learned that their man, having paused
R01 0120  5    to get oil for his car, had asked about the route to
R01 0130  3    San Diego. They headed in that direction and, at San
R01 0130 13    Juan Capistrano by-the-Sea came upon Barco sitting
R01 0140  9    in the quaint old Spanish Mission Drive-in, eating
R01 0150  6    a hot tamale. At the moment, Barco's back was to the
R01 0160  5    road so he didn't see the detectives close in on his
R01 0170  3    convertible which, in their quest for the stolen lap
R01 0170 12    rug, they proceeded to search. The robe, however, was
R01 0180  8    missing, for by that time Barco had disposed of it
R01 0190  6    at a pawnshop in Glendale.
R01 0190 11       The detectives placed Barco under arrest and, without
R01 0200  7    informing him of the nature of the charge, took him
R01 0210  7    back to Hollywood for questioning.
R01 0220  1       Thus it was that Barco, apprehended for mere larceny,
R01 0220 10    now began to suspect that one or another of his murders
R01 0230 10    had been uncovered. During the return trip, Barco kept
R01 0240  6    muttering to himself in meaningless phrases, such as:
R01 0250  4    "They're under sand dunes **h They're better off, I
R01 0260  3    tell you **h I saved their souls". The detective, commenting
R01 0270  1    on Barco's behavior, felt that he merely belonged among
R01 0270 10    the myriad citizens of our community who are mentally
R01 0280  8    unhinged- that he was a more or less harmless "nut"!
R01 0290  7       However while in his cell awaiting trial for theft,
R01 0300  5    Barco, in a fit of apprehension, made an attempt to
R01 0310  3    take his own life. The attempt had failed because,
R01 0310 12    when endeavoring to cut his wrists, this murderer of
R01 0320  9    seven women had fainted at the sight of blood. The
R01 0330  7    jail authorities- attaching no particular significance
R01 0340  2    to the episode- offered Barco whisky to revive him;
R01 0350  1    but the old fellow, a lifelong teetotaler, refused
R01 0350  9    it, and no more was thought of the matter.
R01 0360  6       Then it was that District Attorney Welch entered
R01 0370  3    the case. A man of vaulting ambition, with one eye
R01 0380  1    on the mayorship of Los Angeles, nothing ever escaped
R01 0380 10    him which might possibly lead to personal publicity.
R01 0390  6       It was reported to Welch's office that a thief in
R01 0400  6    the city jail had attempted suicide. Welch wanted to
R01 0410  3    know why. No one knew. Now Welch had a pet theory that
R01 0420  1    everyone is guilty of breaking more laws than he ever
R01 0420 11    gets caught at. The suicide attempt looked to him like
R01 0430  8    an opportunity to put his theory to the test. So he
R01 0440  6    paid a call on Barco in his cell and began their chat
R01 0450  2    by stating bluntly:
R01 0450  5       "Barco, we've got the goods on you! It'll be a lot
R01 0460  7    better if you come clean".
R01 0460 12       At first Barco was evasive and shifty. But with
R01 0470  9    Welch's relentless pursuit of the subject, Barco finally
R01 0480  6    "broke" and started confessing to one murder after
R01 0490  5    another. By the time Barco reached the count of three,
R01 0500  3    the situation seemed to Welch almost too good to be
R01 0500 13    true. But if true, it was the case of which he had
R01 0510 11    dreamed, the case which would throw him into headlines
R01 0520  5    all over America as the hero of a great murder trial.
R01 0530  3       Welch summoned jail officials to Barco's cell. But
R01 0540  2    to Welch's chagrin, the police captain pooh-poohed
R01 0540 10    Welch's credulity in Barco's confession. Barco was
R01 0550  7    clearly a "nut". It required strength, bravado, daring
R01 0560  6    to commit murder. "That worm a murderer? Ridiculous"!
R01 0570  4    Then, for the first time since his arrest, a glint
R01 0580  4    of spirit lit Barco's eyes. His manhood had been attacked.
R01 0590  1    He stiffened and rose to his feet. He'd show them!
R01 0600  1       "Is that so"? he queried. "Well, for ten years I've
R01 0600 11    been murdering women. I can lead you to every one of
R01 0610 11    the bodies, and there ain't four, nor five, nor six
R01 0620  7    of 'em- there's seven!"
R01 0630  1       The next day the police captain, in derision, organized
R01 0630 10    what he termed "Welch's Wild Goose Chase". For indeed
R01 0640  9    it seemed incredible that anyone could go on committing
R01 0650  8    murder for ten years and not get caught at it, even
R01 0660  7    in Hollywood. The searching party consisted of the
R01 0670  3    police captain, Welch, Barco, policemen with shovels,
R01 0670 10    newspaper reporters, and cameramen.
R01 0680  4       Barco, his state of apprehension gone, never to
R01 0690  4    return, had assumed a matter-of-factness which remained
R01 0700  1    his principal attitude from that time on. He directed
R01 0700 10    the cortege of autos to the sand dunes near Santa Monica.
R01 0710 10    Stopping the cars at a fork in the road, he got out,
R01 0720  9    paced off a certain distance to a spot between two
R01 0730  3    shrub-covered sand hills, and indicated a location.
R01 0740  1       Orders were given to dig. Nothing was found. Welch
R01 0740 10    was worried. The police captain chortled. The newspaper
R01 0750  7    boys cracked jokes and again Barco's pride was aroused.
R01 0760  5    With greater precision he again paced off a location,
R01 0770  4    this time a little more to the left.
R01 0770 12       With quibs and gibes, the policemen again started
R01 0780  8    digging. Welch was on edge. The captain was remarking
R01 0790  5    that it was a nice day for a picnic when finally one
R01 0800  3    of the shovels struck an object.
R01 0800  9       "There's something here"! said the digger. Joking
R01 0810  6    stopped and everyone gathered around. The digger, thrusting
R01 0820  5    about with his shovel, now raised into view a package
R01 0830  4    crudely wrapped in one of the murderer's Hollywood
R01 0840  1    sport shirts. Although it was a mere fragment of the
R01 0840 11    victim's remains, it was enough. Welch was wild with
R01 0850  8    delight. His elation grew as Barco's seven disclosures
R01 0860  5    brought to light one reward after another.
R01 0870  1       Now did Welch truly become the man of the hour,
R01 0870 11    and everything that followed in the procedure of Justice
R01 0880  8    was a new triumph for him. It went to his head, and
R01 0890  8    his ambition increased.
R01 0890 11       It was apparent that Welch was in cahoots with Marshall
R01 0900  9    and would use his power as D&A& to drag every possible
R01 0910  7    sensation into the case. Every new scandal which would
R01 0920  5    provide more "copy" for Marshall's pen would thus mean
R01 0930  5    more publicity for Welch.
R01 0930  9       I knew that both these cynics were waiting with
R01 0940  6    impatience for the dramatic moment when Viola was called
R01 0950  4    to the stand. Once there, the D&A& with devilish cleverness
R01 0960  2    would provide Marshall with headlines: "Viola's Multiple
R01 0970  2    Romances"**h "Viola Lake an Addict"**h "Downfall of
R01 0980  2    Another Film Idol"! It would be fine publicity for
R01 0980 11    the man who was willing to walk to the mayor's throne
R01 0990 11    over the broken reputation of a helpless girl!
R01 1000  6       I studied Welch closely as the trial progressed
R01 1010  4    for any hint which might give me a lead as to how he
R01 1020  2    might be thwarted. It wasn't long before I sensed that
R01 1020 12    there was something deeper than overvaulting ambition
R01 1030  6    back of his desire for Viola's destruction. He was
R01 1040  5    bitter and resentful toward her, personally resentful.
R01 1050  2    A dreadful fear entered my consciousness that perhaps
R01 1060  1    he had entertained aspirations toward Viola's favors-
R01 1060  8    or, even more serious perhaps, that he had attained
R01 1070  8    a share of them and had then been superseded by some
R01 1080  6    luckier chap. I did not rest until I had tracked the
R01 1090  3    mystery down. Well, here it is.
R01 1090  9       One day over a year before, there had been a cocktail
R01 1110  8    party in an apartment of a downtown hotel. Viola had
R01 1120  4    been urged to attend, by telephone, and not knowing
R01 1130  1    the host or the character of the party, she had gone.
R01 1130 12    She arrived late and as she entered the party, noted
R01 1140  9    that gentlemen seemed to be in the majority; the air
R01 1150  6    was thick with smoke, empty bottles were in evidence,
R01 1160  3    and several of the guests were somewhat the worse for
R01 1160 13    liquor.
R01 1170  1       Naturally, Viola had no wish to remain, but she
R01 1170 10    felt she couldn't leave so soon after her arrival,
R01 1180  8    in all politeness to her host. And it so happened that
R01 1190  7    adjacent to a couch on which she had taken refuge was
R01 1200  3    a small table on which she noted a vase of red rosebuds;
R01 1210  1    while projecting from beneath the couch were a pair
R01 1210 10    of feet which, as Fate would have it, belonged to District
R01 1220  9    Attorney Welch.
R01 1230  1       As Viola sat there, a playful impulse overcame her
R01 1230 10    to remove the shoes and socks from the unidentified
R01 1240  6    feet and, as a prank, insert rosebuds between the toes.
R01 1250  4       A little later the district attorney woke up, emerged
R01 1260  3    from under the couch, looked at his watch, and realized
R01 1270  1    he had an engagement that very hour to address a meeting
R01 1270 12    of the Culture Forum on "The Civic Spirit of the Southland",
R01 1280  9    in the Byzantine room of the hotel where his wife,
R01 1290  8    as president of the forum, was to preside. He made
R01 1300  5    his way to his host's bedroom where he carefully brushed
R01 1310  2    himself off, neatly arranged his hair, and painstakingly
R01 1310 10    selected his hat from the many on the bed. Then, noting
R01 1320 11    neither the absence of his footwear nor the presence
R01 1330  7    of the rosebuds, he made his way to the Byzantine room
R01 1340  5    and, with his usual dignity, mounted the rostrum. The
R01 1350  2    effect on the intellectuals among his audience may
R01 1350 10    well be imagined.
R01 1360  1       The incident, aside from reflecting on Welch's political
R01 1370  1    career, had all but wrecked his home life. He never
R01 1370 11    rested until he discovered who the culprit was, and
R01 1380  8    when he did, he vowed vengeance on Viola Lake if ever
R01 1390  6    the chance came his way. And here it was! By such innocent
R01 1400  4    actions are human tragedies sometimes set in motion.
R01 1410  2       During these first days of the trial I didn't have
R01 1420  1    as much time to commiserate with Viola as I should
R01 1420 11    have liked. In the first place, it was difficult for
R01 1430  7    us to meet. We couldn't be seen together, for the tongue
R01 1440  5    of Scandal was ever ready to link our names, and the
R01 1450  3    tongue of Scandal finds but one thing to say of the
R01 1450 14    association of a man with a girl, no matter how innocent.
R01 1460 11    I couldn't invite Viola to our house, for Mother snobbishly
R01 1470  8    refused to receive her.
R01 1480  1       Now the Czarship had not affected my own sense of
R01 1480 11    social values, but Mother had attained a reflected
R01 1490  7    glory through it, which had opened the doors of Los
R01 1500  6    Angeles-Pasadena Society to her. There, Mother was
R01 1510  2    received by the scions of aristocratic lines which
R01 1510 10    are dominated by the Budweisers (of beer derivation),
R01 1520  7    the Chalmers (of underwear origin), and the Heinzes
R01 1530  5    (whose forbears founded a nationally famous trade in
R01 1540  3    pickles). I hated being dragged into the salons of
R01 1540 12    these aristocrats. But Mother insisted, for it is seldom
R01 1550  9    indeed that anyone remotely connected with the cinema
R01 1560  6    is ever received in their exclusive midsts. In fact,
R01 1570  4    it was not until the King of Spain had visited at Pickfair
R01 1580  3    that Mary and Doug were beckoned to cross the sacred
R01 1590  1    barriers which separate Los Angeles and Pasadena from
R01 1590  9    the hoi-polloi.
R01 1600  1       Mother even went so far as to trump up for me matrimonial
R01 1610  1    opportunities with Pasadena debs who had been educated
R01 1610  9    abroad, and with those of the more lenient Los Angeles
R01 1620  9    area where a debutante was a girl who had been to high
R01 1630  8    school. But at long last came a time when I broke away
R01 1640  4    from Mother and her society "chi-chi" in order to spend
R01 1650  3    a cosy evening with Viola and her chaperon at her home.
R01 1660  1       However, such a hotbed of gossip had grown up during
R01 1660 11    the trial, that every precaution had to be taken to
R01 1670  8    keep my visit from being whispered to the world, Society,
R01 1680  5    and even, alas, to my own mother.
R01 1681  1       When I arrived at Viola's I was shown, to my surprise,
R01 1690  7    into the kitchen. Viola greeted me, in checked apron,
R01 1700  7    ladle in hand, and explained it was the cook's night
R01 1710  6    out and that she herself was preparing dinner.
R01 1720  2       I sat and watched proceedings. There was to be roast
R01 1730  1    chicken with dressing, giblet gravy, asparagus, new
R01 1730  8    peas with a sprig of mint, creamed onions, and mashed
R01 1740  7    potatoes- all chosen, prepared, and cooked by Viola
R01 1750  5    herself.
R02 0010  1    I realized that Hamlet was faced with an entirely different
R02 0010 11    problem, but his agony could have been no greater.
R02 0020  9    The most that was accomplished was adding Mrs& Beige's
R02 0030  5    tray to the dish pile, and by means of repeated threats,
R02 0040  4    on an ascending scale, seeing that the girls dressed
R02 0050  1    themselves, after a fashion.
R02 0050  5       I was saved from making the decision as the phone
R02 0060  5    rang, and the girls were upon me instantly. Here's
R02 0070  1    a household hint: if you can't find your children,
R02 0070 10    and get tired of calling them, pick up the phone. No
R02 0080  9    matter if your children are at the movies, in school,
R02 0090  6    visiting their grandmother, or on a field trip in some
R02 0100  4    distant city, they will be upon you magically within
R02 0100 13    seconds after you pick up the phone.
R02 0110  7       Jennie and Miranda twined themselves around me,
R02 0120  3    murmuring endearments. Louise climbed onto a stool
R02 0130  1    and clutched the hand with which I was trying to hold
R02 0130 12    the phone, claiming my immediate attention on grounds
R02 0140  6    of extreme emergency. Somehow managing to get out a
R02 0150  6    cool, poised, "Won't you hold on a second, please",
R02 0160  2    I covered up the mouthpiece, and with more warmth and
R02 0160 12    less poise, gave a quick lecture on crime and punishment,
R02 0170 10    mostly the latter, including Devil's Island and the
R02 0180  6    remoter reaches of Siberia. I promised to illustrate
R02 0190  5    the lecture, if they so much as breathed till after
R02 0200  3    the call was completed.
R02 0200  7       Speaking into the phone again and recognizing the
R02 0210  5    caller, I resumed my everyday voice. Soon we were deep
R02 0220  4    in a conversation that was interrupted many times by
R02 0220 13    little things like Jennie's holding her breath and
R02 0230  8    pretending to black out, Miranda's dumping the contents
R02 0240  6    of the sugar bowl on the table, and various screeches,
R02 0250  4    thuds, and giggles. Under the circumstances, I had
R02 0260  3    difficulty keeping up with the conversation on the
R02 0260 11    phone, but when I hung up I was reasonably certain
R02 0270  8    that Francesca had wanted to remind me of our town
R02 0280  6    meeting the next evening, and how important it was
R02 0290  2    that Hank and I be there.
R02 0290  8       I discovered that the girls had shrewdly vacated
R02 0300  3    the kitchen, and were playing quietly in the living
R02 0310  1    room. It seemed that I would be the gainer if I accepted
R02 0310 13    the peace and quiet, instead of carrying out my threats.
R02 0320  9       Resolving to get something done, I started in on
R02 0330  7    the dishes. No. I'm not saying it right. What I meant
R02 0340  6    to say was that I started to start in on the dishes
R02 0350  2    by gathering them all together in the kitchen sink.
R02 0350 11    They looked so formidable, however, so demanding, that
R02 0360  7    I found myself staring at them in dismay and starting
R02 0370  7    to woolgather again, this time about Francesca and
R02 0380  3    her husband. How about them, I thought.
R02 0380 10       Francesca and Herbert were among the few people
R02 0390  8    we knew in Catatonia. We didn't even know them till
R02 0400  7    about a month after we moved- at that time, they had
R02 0410  4    called on us, after I met Fran at a ~PTA meeting, and
R02 0420  2    had taken us in hand socially. They had been kind to
R02 0420 13    us and we were indebted to them for one or two pleasant
R02 0430 11    dinners, and for information as to where to shop, which
R02 0440  7    dentist, doctor, plumber, and sitter to call (not that
R02 0450  5    there was much of a choice, since Catatonia was just
R02 0460  2    a village; the yellow pages of the telephone book were
R02 0460 12    amazingly thin).
R02 0470  2       They were "personalities". Herb, an expert on narrow
R02 0480  1    ties, thin lapels, and swatches, was men's fashion
R02 0480  9    editor of Parvenu, the weekly magazine with the tremendous
R02 0490  7    circulation. Fran and he had met about two years after
R02 0500  9    she had arrived in Manhattan from Nebraska, or was
R02 0510  4    it Wyoming? She was the daughter and sole heiress of
R02 0520  2    either a cattle baron or an oil millionaire and, having
R02 0520 12    arrived in New York with a big bank roll, became a
R02 0530 11    dabbler in various fields. She patronized Greenwich
R02 0540  4    Village artists for awhile, then put some money into
R02 0550  3    a Broadway show which was successful (terrible, but
R02 0550 11    successful). It was during her "writing" period that
R02 0560  8    she and Herb met and decided that they were in love.
R02 0570  9    They were married at a lavish ceremony which was duly
R02 0580  5    recorded in Parvenu and all other magazines and newspapers,
R02 0590  3    and then they honeymooned in Bermuda. No, not Bermuda.
R02 0600  1    Bermuda was not in style that year. They had honeymooned
R02 0600 11    in Rome; everyone was very high on Rome that year.
R02 0610 10       They had bought their house in Catatonia after investigating
R02 0620  7    all the regions of suburbia surrounding New York; they
R02 0630  6    had chosen Catatonia because of its reputation for
R02 0640  5    excellent schools, beaches, and abundance of names.
R02 0650  1       "You are bound to get involved with people when
R02 0650 10    you have children", Fran had told me at our first meeting,
R02 0660 10    "so it is good to know that those with whom you get
R02 0670  9    involved are not just dreary little housewives and
R02 0680  3    dull husbands, but People Who Do Things".
R02 0690  1       I admired their easy way of doing things but I couldn't
R02 0690 12    escape an uneasiness at their way of always doing the
R02 0700 10    right things. Their house was a centuries-old Colonial
R02 0710  8    which they had had restored (guided by an eminent architect)
R02 0720  6    and updated, and added on to. It had a gourmet's corner
R02 0730  4    (instead of a kitchen), a breakfast room, a luncheon
R02 0740  1    room, a dining room, a sitting room, a room for standing
R02 0740 12    up, a party room, dressing rooms for everybody, even
R02 0750  8    a room for mud. It was all set up so there would be
R02 0760  8    no dust anywhere and so that their children would color
R02 0770  3    in the coloring room, paint in the painting room, play
R02 0780  1    with blocks in the block house, and do all the other
R02 0790 11    things in the proper rooms at exactly the right time.
R02 0800  7    Their two boys were "well adjusted" and, like their
R02 0810  4    parents, always did the right thing at the right time
R02 0820  2    and damn the consequences.
R02 0820  6       Francesca and Herbert considered themselves violently
R02 0830  3    nonconformist and showed the world they were by filling
R02 0840  3    their Colonial house with contemporary furniture and
R02 0840 10    paintings and other art objects (expensive, but not
R02 0850  8    necessarily valuable, contemporary things). Fran flaunted
R02 0860  4    her independence by rebelling against the Catatonia
R02 0870  3    uniform of Bermuda shorts and knee-length socks by
R02 0880  1    wearing Bermuda shorts and knee-length socks in color;
R02 0880 10    bright pinks and plaids and vivid stripes. Sometimes
R02 0890  8    she even wore the uniform in solid, unrelieved black,
R02 0900  5    and with her blonde hair cut so closely, wearing this
R02 0910  3    uniform, she strongly resembled a member of the SS&.
R02 0920  1       No one could dislike them, I thought. Sometimes,
R02 0920  9    though, they did not seem quite human. It seemed, indeed,
R02 0930  9    that their house was not so much a home, but rather
R02 0940  8    a perfect stage set, and that they were actors who
R02 0950  3    had been handed fat roles in a successful play, and
R02 0950 13    had talent enough to fill the roles competently, with
R02 0960  8    nice understatement. Practically the only enthusiasm
R02 0970  4    they showed was when they were discussing "names";
R02 0980  2    even brand names. You should hear the reverence in
R02 0990  1    Fran's voice when she said "Baccarat" or "Steuben"
R02 0990  9    or "Madame Alexander". She always let it be known that
R02 1000  9    there was wine in the pot roast or that the chicken
R02 1010  9    had been marinated in brandy, and that Koussevitzky's
R02 1020  3    second cousin was an intimate of theirs.
R02 1030  1       I wouldn't have wasted time puzzling over this couple
R02 1030 10    were it not for my fear that all the other inhabitants
R02 1040  9    of Catatonia were equally unreal. I couldn't feel at
R02 1050  6    home among them. Besides Francesca, there was Blanche.
R02 1060  4    Francesca was pleasant and charming, but Blanche was
R02 1070  2    sweet. Yes, Blanche was very, very sweet- being in
R02 1070 11    her company was like being drowned in warm, melted
R02 1080  8    marshmallows. I had once been a witness when Blanche
R02 1090  5    had smiled and said with only minimum ruefulness, "Oh,
R02 1100  2    my souffle has collapsed". Anyone knows how a real,
R02 1110  1    red-blooded woman would react to such a catastrophe!
R02 1110 10    If Blanche had been honest, she would have yelled,
R02 1120  8    slammed at least a couple of doors, and thrown a few
R02 1130  6    little, valueless things. But dear me, no; not Blanche.
R02 1140  3       After five minutes with Blanche, one might welcome
R02 1150  1    the astringency of Grazie, who was a sort of Gwen Cafritz
R02 1160 10    to Francesca's Perle Mesta. Francesca and Grazie were
R02 1170  7    habitual committee chairmen and they usually managed
R02 1180  6    to be elected co-chairmen, equal bosses, of whatever
R02 1190  4    ~PTA or civic project was being launched. They were
R02 1200  2    inseparable, not because they were fond of each other,
R02 1200 11    but because they wanted to keep an eye on each other,
R02 1210 10    as they were keen rivals for social leadership. Grazie
R02 1220  5    was mean: quietly mean, and bitterly, unfunnily sarcastic.
R02 1230  3    She it was who had looked to see if I was wearing shoes
R02 1240  3    upon learning that I couldn't drive. Grazie had a small,
R02 1250  1    slick head and her hair and skin were the color of
R02 1250 12    golden toast. She lived in an ultra-modern house whose
R02 1260  9    decoration, appointments, paint, and even pets were
R02 1270  5    chosen to complement her coloring; the pets were a
R02 1280  3    couple of Siamese cats. Her uniform was of rich, raw
R02 1280 13    silk, in a shade which matched her hair, skin, housepaint,
R02 1290  9    and cats, and since she was so thin as to be almost
R02 1300  9    shapeless, she rather resembled a frozen fish stick.
R02 1310  3       The husbands of these women and others I had met
R02 1320  2    in Catatonia were distinguished only in that they were,
R02 1320 11    to me at least, indistinguishable. I couldn't tell
R02 1330  6    one from the other. Like Herbert, they were all in
R02 1340  6    communications: radio, television, magazines, and advertising.
R02 1350  3    One or two were writers of books; all were fellows
R02 1360  1    of finite charm. Each had developed a hair-trigger
R02 1360 10    chuckle and the habit of saying "zounds"! in deference
R02 1370  8    to country-squirehood. I never thought I'd live to
R02 1380  7    hear people chuckle and say "zounds"! in real life.
R02 1390  4    I wouldn't have missed it for anything. They were "sincere"-
R02 1400  3    men of the too-hearty handclasp and the urgent smile.
R02 1410  2    These boys acknowledged an introduction to anybody
R02 1410  9    by gently pressing one of his hands in both of theirs,
R02 1420 10    while they gazed, misty-eyed with care, into the eyes
R02 1430  6    of the person they were meeting. Could such unadulterated
R02 1440  2    love, for a total stranger, be credited? They were
R02 1450  1    always leaping to light cigarettes, open car doors,
R02 1450  9    fill plates or glasses, and I mistrusted the whole
R02 1460  6    lot of them to the same degree that I mistrusted bake
R02 1470  4    shops that called themselves "Sanitary Bake Shops".
R02 1480  1       "O Pioneers!" I thought, and wondered what kind
R02 1490  2    of homesteads such odd pioneers would establish in
R02 1490 10    this suburban frontier; pioneers who looked like off-duty
R02 1500  8    gardeners even at parent-teacher conferences and who
R02 1510  4    never called the school principal "Mister". I sighed,
R02 1520  3    thinking that among other things, people here seemed
R02 1530  1    to be those who would have to cut down if they earned
R02 1530 13    less than $85,000 yearly; people who would give their
R02 1540  7    teeth for a chance to get on "Person to Person"; people
R02 1550  6    who thought it was nice to be important, but not important
R02 1560  4    to be nice; who were more ingratiating than gracious,
R02 1570  2    more personalities than persons. In my estimation,
R02 1570  9    they were people who read Daphne du Maurier, and discussed
R02 1580 10    Kafka; well, not discussed him exactly, but said, "Kafka"!
R02 1590  8    reverently and raised their eyes, as if they were at
R02 1600 10    a loss to describe how they felt about Kafka, which
R02 1610  5    they were, because they had no opinions about Kafka,
R02 1620  2    not having read Kafka. They were, I felt, people invariably
R02 1630  1    trying to prove not who, but what they were, and trying
R02 1630 12    to determine what, not who, others were.
R02 1640  6       Becoming aware that it was nearly lunchtime, I brought
R02 1650  4    myself back to the tasks at hand. I made plans for
R02 1660  2    the afternoon- doing the breakfast and luncheon dishes
R02 1660 10    all at once, making the beds, and then maybe painting
R02 1670  9    the kitchen. Then, I remembered that the girls had
R02 1680  6    had a banana for dessert every day for the last week.
R02 1690  3    "BANANAS"! Jennie had shouted each time. "They're not
R02 1700  2    dessert! They're not even food. They're just something
R02 1710  1    you're supposed to put on cereal for breakfast". I
R02 1710 10    dug around and found a mix, and was able to surprise
R02 1720 10    them with a devil's-food cake with chocolate icing.
R02 1730  5    (Sometimes I think you need only one rule for cooking:
R02 1740  4    if you can't put garlic in it, put chocolate in it.)
R02 1750  2       The cake was received in a stunned silence that
R02 1750 11    was evidence in itself of the dearth of taste thrills
R02 1760  9    Mama had been providing. Then Jennie closed her eyes,
R02 1770  6    stretched forth her arms, and said: "Take my hand,
R02 1780  4    Louise; I'm a stranger in paradise".
R03 0010  1       Needless to say, I was furious at this unparalleled
R03 0010 10    intrusion upon free enterprise. How dared they demand
R03 0020  8    to "snoop" in private financial records, disbursements,
R03 0030  4    confidential contracts and agreements? "It is as though",
R03 0040  5    I said on the historic three-hour, coast-to-coast radio
R03 0050  2    broadcast which I bought (following Father Coughlin
R03 0060  1    and pre-empting the Eddie Cantor, Manhattan Merry-go-round
R03 0060 11    and Major Bowes shows) "That Man in the White House,
R03 0070 10    like some despot of yore, insisted on reading my diary,
R03 0080  8    raiding my larder and ransacking my lingerie!" My impassioned
R03 0090  5    plea for civil rights created a landslide of correspondence
R03 0100  5    and one sponsor even asked me to consider replacing
R03 0110  2    the Eddie Cantor comedy hour on a permanent basis.
R03 0110 11    But what quarter could a poor defenseless woman expect
R03 0120  9    from a dictator who would even make so bold as to close
R03 0130 10    all of the banks in our great nation? The savage barbarian
R03 0140  5    hordes of red Russian Communism descended on the Athens
R03 0150  4    that was mighty Metronome, sacking and despoiling with
R03 0160  2    their Bolshevistic battle cry of "Soak the rich'! After
R03 0170  1    an unspeakable siege, lasting the better part of two
R03 0170 10    months, it was announced that the studio "owed" the
R03 0180  7    government a tax debt in excess of eight million dollars
R03 0190  5    while I, who had always remained aloof from such iniquitous
R03 0200  3    practices as paying taxes on the salary I had earned
R03 0210  1    and the little I legally inherited as Morris' helpless
R03 0210 10    relict, was "stung" with a personal bill of such astronomical
R03 0220 10    proportions as to "wipe out" all but a fraction of
R03 0230 10    my poor, hard-come-by savings. I was also publicly
R03 0240  5    reprimanded, dragged through the mud by the radical
R03 0250  2    press and made a figure of fun by such leftist publications
R03 0250 13    as The New Republic, The New Yorker, Time and the Christian
R03 0270  1    Science Monitor.
R03 0270  3       It was then that I availed myself of the rights
R03 0280  2    of a citizen and declared the income tax unconstitutional.
R03 0280 11    The litigation was costly and seemingly endless. I
R03 0290  8    fought like a tigress but by the time I appealed my
R03 0300  8    case to the Supreme Court (1937), Mr& Roosevelt and
R03 0310  4    his "henchmen" had done their "dirty work" all too
R03 0320  3    well, even going so far as to attempt to "pack" the
R03 0320 14    highest tribunal in the land in order to defeat little
R03 0330 10    me. Presidential coercion had succeeded not only in
R03 0340  7    poisoning the courtiers, "toadies" and sycophants of
R03 0350  4    the "bench" against me, but it had been so far-reaching
R03 0360  1    as to discourage any lawyer in the nation from representing
R03 0370  1    me! I was ready, like Portia, to present my own brief.
R03 0370 12    But the Supreme Court wouldn't even hear my case! My
R03 0380  9    plea was unanimously voted down and "thrown out". Again,
R03 0390  7    my name was on all the front pages. I was, it seemed,
R03 0400  7    persona non grata in every quarter, but not entirely
R03 0410  4    without a staunch following of noted political thinkers
R03 0420  1    and students of jurisprudence. As Charles Evans Hughes
R03 0420  9    said, "Miss Poitrine's limitations as an actress are
R03 0430  8    exceeded only by her logic as a litigant". Albert Einstein
R03 0440  8    was quoted as saying: "The workings of the woman's
R03 0450  6    mind amaze me". Henry Ford spoke of me as "utterly
R03 0460  5    astounding". Heywood Broun wrote: "Belle Poitrine is
R03 0470  3    the most original thinker since Caligula", and even
R03 0480  1    F&D&R& had to concede that "if the rest of this nation
R03 0480 12    showed the foresight and patriotism of Miss Poitrine,
R03 0490  8    America would rapidly resemble ancient Babylon and
R03 0500  5    Nineveh".
R03 0500  6       Not only were the court costs prohibitive, but I
R03 0510  7    was subjected to crippling fines, in addition to usurious
R03 0520  5    interest on the unpaid "debts" which the governmen
R03 0530  1    claimed that Metronome and I owed- a severe financial
R03 0530 10    blow. Nor, as Manny said, had the notoriety done my
R03 0540 10    career "any good". My enemies were only too anxious
R03 0550  7    to level against me such charges as "reactionary",
R03 0560  3    "robber baroness", and even "traitor"! Traitor indeed!
R03 0570  3    I point now with pride to the fact that, long ere the
R03 0580  2    Committee on Un-American Activities, the Minute Women,
R03 0580 10    the Economic Council and other such notable "watchdog"
R03 0590  8    organizations were so much as heard of, I was Hollywood's
R03 0600 10    leading bulwark against communism, fighting single-handedly
R03 0610  5    "creeping socialism" against such insuperable odds
R03 0620  4    as the Fascio-Communist troops of the ~NRA, ~PWA, ~WPA,
R03 0630  3    ~CCC and an army of more than twenty-two million mercenaries
R03 0640  3    whom F&D&R& employed secretly, through the transparent
R03 0650  3    ruse of regular "relief" checks.
R03 0650  8       Needless to say, my art suffered drastically during
R03 0660  8    this turbulent period. Could it do otherwise? Even
R03 0670  5    though I have always had a genius for "throwing myself"
R03 0680  3    into every role and "playing it for all it's worth",
R03 0690  2    no actress can be expected to do her best work when
R03 0690 13    her fortune, her reputation, her livelihood, her home
R03 0700  7    and her nation itself are all imperilled. Such sweeping
R03 0710  5    distractions are hardly conducive to "Oscar" winning
R03 0720  3    performances. I tried my hardest, with little help,
R03 0730  1    may I say, from my husband and leading man, but somehow
R03 0730 12    the outside pressures were too severe.
R03 0740  5       Having (through my unflagging effort and devotion)
R03 0750  4    achieved stardom, a fortune and a world-renowned wife
R03 0760  2    at an age when most young men are casting their first
R03 0760 13    vote, Letch proceeded to neglect them all. Never a
R03 0770  8    "quick study", he now made no attempt to learn his
R03 0780  7    "lines" and many a mile of film was wasted, many a
R03 0790  4    scene- sometimes involving as many as a thousand fellow
R03 0800  1    thespians- was taken thirty, forty, fifty times because
R03 0800  8    Miss Poitrine's co-star and "helpmate" had never learned
R03 0810  8    his part. Each time Letch "went up" in his "lines",
R03 0820  8    I was the one to be patient, helpful and apologetic
R03 0830  6    while he indulged in outbursts of temperament, profanity
R03 0840  4    and abuse, blaming others, going into "sulks" and,
R03 0850  2    on more occasions than I care to count, storming off
R03 0850 12    the "set" for the rest of the day. As for his finances,
R03 0860 11    I was never privileged to know exactly how much money
R03 0870  7    Letch had "salted away". It was I who paid for our
R03 0880  8    little home, the food, the liquor, the servants- even
R03 0890  4    Letch's bills at his tailor and the Los Angeles Athletic
R03 0900  1    Club. Never once did he buy me a single gift and for
R03 0900 13    our third anniversary he gave me a dislocated jaw.
R03 0910  8    (But that is another story.) As for his private monies,
R03 0920  6    they were rapidly dissipated in drinking, gaming and
R03 0930  3    carousing. More than once I was confronted by professional
R03 0940  1    gamblers, "bookies", loan "sharks", gangsters, "thugs"
R03 0950  1    and "finger men"- people of a class I did not even
R03 0950 12    know existed- to repay my husband's staggering losses,
R03 0960  9    "or else **h" I shuddered to think that someone so
R03 0970  7    dear to me could even associate with such a sinister
R03 0980  4    milieu. And at three different times during our turbulent
R03 0990  2    marriage strange girls, with the commonest of accents,
R03 0990 10    telephoned to announce to me that Letch had sired their
R03 1000 10    unborn children! Having the deepest of maternal instincts,
R03 1010  7    my heart fairly bled when I thought of the darling
R03 1020  6    pink and white "bundles from heaven" I would have proudly
R03 1030  4    given my husband. "Ah, you're too old", was invariably
R03 1040  2    his ungallant and untrue retort whenever I suggested
R03 1040 10    "starting a family". Letch had made it abundantly clear
R03 1050  9    that he did not care for the company of my own precious
R03 1060 10    daughter. I now felt it wiser to keep Baby-dear in
R03 1070  6    school and- during the summers- at a camp run by the
R03 1080  4    Society of Friends all year around. Her presence only
R03 1090  1    made Letch more distant and irritable and, in the hurry
R03 1090 11    of buying Chateau Belletch, I had neglected to consider
R03 1100  7    a room for Baby-dear, so there was no place to put
R03 1110  8    her, anyhow. (I sometimes feel that God, in His infinite
R03 1120  4    wisdom, wants us to have these inexplicable little
R03 1130  1    lapses of memory. It almost always works out for the
R03 1130 11    best.)
R03 1140  1       Yet I adored this man, Letch Feeley, why, I cannot
R03 1140 11    say. With faint heart and a brave smile, I endured
R03 1150  8    his long absences from Chateau Belletch, his coldness,
R03 1160  4    his indifference, his slights and his abuse. The times
R03 1170  3    I can recall when I was publicly humiliated by him-
R03 1170 13    lovely dinner parties in our Trianon Suite where the
R03 1180  9    collation was postponed and postponed and postponed,
R03 1190  5    only to be served dry and overcooked at a table where
R03 1200  5    the host's chair was vacant; a "splash party" at the
R03 1210  3    new pool, which I had built in the hope of keeping
R03 1210 14    Letch away from public beaches, when Letch and a certain
R03 1220 10    Aquacutie stayed underwater together for the better
R03 1230  6    part of an hour; a lovely Epiphany party at Errol Flynn's,
R03 1240  5    on which sacred occasion Letch stole away with an unknown
R03 1250  5    "starlet", leaving me "high and dry" to get home as
R03 1260  4    best I could. These are but a sampling of the insults
R03 1260 15    I endured. As Mrs& Letch Feeley, was it any wonder
R03 1270 10    that I, once the social arbiter of Filmdom, was excluded
R03 1280  8    from the smart entertainments given by the Astaires,
R03 1290  5    the Coopers, the Gables, the Colmans, the Rathbones,
R03 1300  3    the Taylors, the Thalbergs and such devout, closely
R03 1310  1    knit families as the Barrymores and the Crosbys? As
R03 1310 10    Letch's antisocial conduct increased, our invitations
R03 1320  6    decreased and my heart was in my mouth whenever I played
R03 1330  8    hostess at a fashionable "screenland" gathering.
R03 1340  2       Between 1935 and 1939 Letch and I made ten films
R03 1350  2    together, each less successful, both artistically and
R03 1350  9    commercially, than the one before it. Our last joint
R03 1360  9    venture, Sainted Lady, a deeply religious film based
R03 1370  6    on the life of Mother Cabrini, and timed so that its
R03 1380  5    release date would coincide with the beatification
R03 1390  1    of America's first saint in November, 1938, was a fiasco
R03 1390 11    from start to finish. As I was playing Mother Cabrini,
R03 1400  9    the picture was actually "all mine", with nearly every
R03 1410  6    scene built around me. But in order to keep Letch in
R03 1420  6    the public eye and out of trouble, I wrote in a part
R03 1430  4    especially for him- that of a dashing ruffian who "sees
R03 1440  1    the light" and is saved by the inspiring example of
R03 1440 11    Mother Cabrini. And did he appreciate my efforts on
R03 1450  8    his behalf? Did he trouble to memorize the very small
R03 1460  5    part which I had "tailor-made" to his specifications,
R03 1470  1    a role eventually cut down to three short speeches?
R03 1470 10    Did he show the rest of the cast- numbering four thousand-
R03 1480 11    the consideration of arriving at the studio punctually-
R03 1490  7    or even at all? He did not! The "shooting" went on
R03 1500  7    for eight months! Most of our working days were spent
R03 1510  7    on the telephone calling "bookies", illegal gambling
R03 1520  3    dens, a certain "residential club for young actresses",
R03 1530  1    more than a hundred different bars or the steam room
R03 1530 11    of the athletic club. Whenever he deigned to appear
R03 1540  8    at the studio he was "hung over", uncooperative, rude
R03 1550  4    and insulting. He made many tasteless, irreverent and
R03 1560  3    unfunny remarks, not only about me in the title role,
R03 1570  2    but about religion in general. By the time the film
R03 1570 12    was released we were three million dollars over-spent,
R03 1580  8    war was imminent and the public apparently had forgotten
R03 1590  5    all about Mother Cabrini. Thanks to Letch Feeley and
R03 1600  4    the terrible strain he imposed on me, the notices were
R03 1610  2    few and unfavorable. Only George Santayana seemed to
R03 1610 10    understand and appreciate the film when he wrote: "Miss
R03 1620  9    Poitrine has perpetrated the most eloquent argument
R03 1630  5    for the Protestant faith yet unleashed by Hollywood".
R03 1640  3    But it was small consolation.
R03 1640  8       In a rare fit of anger and spite, I "farmed out"
R03 1650  9    my own husband to a small and most undistinguished
R03 1660  4    studio to make one picture as a form of punishment.
R03 1670  1    (An actor must have discipline.) The film was called
R03 1670 10    The Diet of Worms, which I felt was just what Letch
R03 1680 11    deserved. It turned out to be a life of Martin Luther,
R03 1690 10    of all things! It was a disaster! In clothes, Letch
R03 1700  6    simply did not project. He was laughed off the screen.
R03 1710  4    At the same time, however, I availed myself of the
R03 1720  1    services of that great English actor and master of
R03 1720 10    make-up, Sir Gauntley Pratt, to do a "quickie" called
R03 1730  7    The Mystery of the Mad Marquess, in which I played
R03 1740  6    a young American girl who inherits a haunted castle
R03 1750  4    on the English moors which is filled with secret passages
R03 1760  1    and sliding panels and, unbeknownst to anyone, is still
R03 1760 10    occupied by an eccentric maniac. It was a "potboiler"
R03 1770  9    made on a "shoestring" and not the sort of film I like,
R03 1780  9    as all I had to do was look blank and scream a great
R03 1790  6    deal. My heart was not in it, but, oddly enough, it
R03 1800  3    remains the most financially successful picture of
R03 1800 10    my career. (I watched it on television late one night
R03 1810  9    last week and it "stands up" remarkably well, even
R03 1820  5    twenty years later.)
R03 1820  8       Letch had returned from his debacle unrepentant
R03 1830  6    and more badly behaved than before. I really loved
R03 1840  5    that boy, and, in a feverish attempt to preserve our
R03 1850  2    marriage and to try to revive the wonderful, wonderful
R03 1850 11    person Letch had once been, I took my troubles to Momma,
R03 1860 11    hoping that her earthy advice would help me.
R03 1870  5       "If I could only think of something at the studio,
R03 1880  4    near me, to absorb his boundless energy", I said. "What
R03 1890  2    is Letch interested in"?
R03 1890  6       "Bookies, booze and babes", Momma said bluntly.
R03 1900  5       Her reply stung me, but this was too important to
R03 1910  5    let my hurt make any difference. "I can't turn the
R03 1920  2    studio into a gambling hell or a saloon", I said.
R04 0010  1       Up to date, however, his garden was still more or
R04 0010 11    less of a mess, he hadn't even started his workshop
R04 0020  7    and if there was a meadow pond in the neighborhood
R04 0030  4    he hadn't found it.
R04 0030  8       It wasn't his fault that these things were so. The
R04 0040  7    difficulty was that each day seemed to produce its
R04 0050  4    quota of details which must be cleaned up immediately.
R04 0060  1       As a result, life had become a kind of continuous
R04 0060 11    make-ready. Once he disposed of these items which screamed
R04 0070  9    so harshly for attention, he could undertake the things
R04 0080  6    which really counted. Then, at last, his day would
R04 0090  4    fall into an ordered pattern and he would be free to
R04 0100  1    read, or garden or just wander through the woods in
R04 0100 11    the late afternoon, accompanied by his dogs.
R04 0110  5       His dogs? He had almost forgotten them, although
R04 0120  3    they had played such an important part in his early
R04 0130  1    dreams. Then they had always been romping around him
R04 0130 10    on these walks, yelping with delight, dashing off into
R04 0140  7    the bushes on fruitless hunting expeditions, returning
R04 0150  3    to jump up on him triumphantly with muddy paws. Dogs
R04 0160  2    did something to one's ego. They were constantly assuring
R04 0170  1    you that you were one of the world's great guys. Regardless
R04 0170 12    of how much of a slob you knew yourself to be, you
R04 0180 11    could be certain they would never find out- and even
R04 0190  6    if they did it would make no difference.
R04 0200  1       Now it became increasingly apparent that there were
R04 0200  9    to be no dogs in the picture. What in the world were
R04 0210  9    you going to do with a lot of dogs when you left for
R04 0220  7    town on Monday afternoons? You certainly couldn't take
R04 0230  3    them into the little apartment and if you tried to
R04 0230 13    farm them out for two or three days every week they
R04 0240 11    would become so confused that they would have nervous
R04 0250  6    breakdowns. Why in the world couldn't he live in one
R04 0260  5    place the way everyone else seemed to?
R04 0270  1       It worried him, this inability to get the simplest
R04 0280  9    things done in the course of a day. He would wake up
R04 0290  8    in the middle of the night and fret about it. How in
R04 0300  4    the world had he formerly found time to build up a
R04 0300 15    business, raise a family, be on half a dozen boards,
R04 0310 10    work actively on committees and either go out in the
R04 0320  7    evening or plow through the contents of a bulging brief
R04 0330  5    case?
R04 0330  6       Was it possible that as people grow older the nature
R04 0340  4    of time changed? Could it be that it speeded up for
R04 0350  1    the aged in some mysterious way, as if a bored universe
R04 0350 12    were skipping through the end of the chapter just to
R04 0360  9    get it over with? Or was the answer less metaphysical?
R04 0370  5    Did older people work more slowly? Did it take a man
R04 0380  6    of sixty-five longer to write a letter, shave, clean
R04 0390  1    out a barn, read a newspaper, than a man of thirty?
R04 0390 12    Did men become perfectionists as they grew older, polishing,
R04 0400  7    polishing, reluctant to let go?
R04 0410  3       It might be that certain people were born with a
R04 0410 13    compulsion to complicate their lives, while others
R04 0420  7    could live blissfully motionless almost indefinitely,
R04 0430  4    like lizards in the sun, too indolent to blink their
R04 0440  4    eyes. Perhaps it was his misfortune, or good fortune,
R04 0450  1    whichever way one looked at it, to belong to the former
R04 0450 12    group, and he was struggling unconsciously to build
R04 0460  6    up pressure in a world which demanded none, which was
R04 0470  4    positively antagonistic to it.
R04 0470  8       And then again perhaps the reason why he couldn't
R04 0480  8    find time to do any of the things he had planned to
R04 0490  6    do after retirement: reading, roaming, gardening, lying
R04 0500  2    on his back and watching the clouds go by, was because
R04 0510  1    he didn't want to do them. There was no compulsion
R04 0510 11    behind them. They could be done or left undone and
R04 0520  8    nobody really gave a damn. During all his busy life
R04 0530  5    he had only done things which had to be done. This
R04 0540  1    habit had become so fixed over the years that it seemed
R04 0540 12    futile to do anything for which no one was waiting.
R04 0550  8       He looked at the luminous dial of his wrist watch.
R04 0560  6    It was five minutes after four. On some distant farm
R04 0570  3    a rooster crowed and, far down the valley, an associate
R04 0570 13    answered. He turned over impatiently and pulled the
R04 0580  8    sheet over his head against the treacherous encroachment
R04 0590  5    of the dawn.
R04 0590  8    #24#
R04 0590  9    AT LEAST HE COULD BUY THE equipment for his workshop.
R04 0600  9    Thus committed, action might follow. He went down to
R04 0610  7    Mills and Bradley's Hardware Store and bought a full
R04 0620  5    set of carpenter's tools, including a rotary power
R04 0630  2    saw and several other pieces of power machinery that
R04 0630 11    Mr& Mills said were essential for babbiting and doweling,
R04 0640  8    whatever they were. He also bought a huge square of
R04 0650  9    pegboard for hanging up his tools, and lumber for his
R04 0660  5    workbench, sandpaper and glue and assorted nails, levels
R04 0670  2    and ~T squares and plumb lines and several gadgets
R04 0670 11    that he had no idea how to use or what they were for.
R04 0680 11       "There", said Mr& Mills. "That'll get you started.
R04 0690  7    Best not to get everything at once. Add things as you
R04 0700  7    find you need 'em".
R04 0700 11       He didn't even ask the cost of this collection.
R04 0710  8    After all, if you were going to set up a workshop you
R04 0720  7    had to have the proper equipment and that was that.
R04 0730  3    When he returned home, the station wagon loaded with
R04 0730 12    tools, Jinny had gone with a friend to some meeting
R04 0740 10    in the village, using the recently purchased second
R04 0750  5    car. He was glad. It gave him a chance to unload the
R04 0760  4    stuff and get it down to the cellar without a barrage
R04 0770  1    of acid comments. He had made such a fuss about buying
R04 0770 12    that second car that he knew he was vulnerable.
R04 0780  7       He piled everything neatly in a corner of the cellar
R04 0790  6    and turned to stare at the blank stone wall. That was
R04 0800  3    where the pegboard would go on which he would hang
R04 0800 13    his hand tools. In front of it would be his workbench.
R04 0810 10       The old nightmare which had caused him so many wakeful
R04 0820  8    hours came charging in on him once more, only this
R04 0830  5    time he couldn't pacify it with a sleeping pill and
R04 0850  1    send it away. How in the world did one attach a pegboard
R04 0850 13    to a stone wall? How did one attach anything to a stone
R04 0860  9    wall, for that matter? After the pegboard there would
R04 0870  6    be the paneling. He sat down on an old box and focused
R04 0880  5    on the problem. Perhaps one bored holes in the stone
R04 0890  1    with some kind of an electric gadget. But then, when
R04 0890 11    you stuck things into the holes, why didn't they come
R04 0900  8    right out again? It all seemed rather hopeless.
R04 0910  4       He turned his attention to the workbench. Perhaps
R04 0920  2    that was the first thing to do. A workbench had a heavy
R04 0930  1    top and sturdy legs, but how did you attach sturdy
R04 0930 11    legs to a heavy top so that the whole thing didn't
R04 0940  7    wobble like a newborn calf and ultimately collapse
R04 0950  2    when you leaned on it?
R04 0950  7       Mr& Mills had done some figuring on a scrap of paper
R04 0960  8    and given him the various kinds of boards and two-by-fours
R04 0970  6    which, properly handled, would, he had assured him,
R04 0980  2    turn into a workbench. They lay on the cellar floor
R04 0980 12    in a disorderly pile. Mr& Crombie poked at it gingerly
R04 0990  8    with his foot. How could anyone know what to do with
R04 1000  7    an assortment like that? Perhaps he had better have
R04 1010  4    someone help him put up the pegboard and build the
R04 1010 14    workbench- someone who knew what he was about. Then
R04 1020 11    at least he would have a place to hang his tools and
R04 1030  9    something to work on. After that everything should
R04 1040  3    be simpler.
R04 1040  5       He went upstairs to phone Crumb. To his amazement
R04 1050  4    he reached him. Mr& Crumb was laid up with a bad cold.
R04 1060  3    He didn't seem to think that attaching a pegboard to
R04 1060 13    a stone wall was much of a problem and he tossed off
R04 1070 11    the building of the worktable equally lightly. The
R04 1080  4    only trouble was that he himself was tied up on the
R04 1090  4    school job. That was why he hadn't been able to finish
R04 1100  1    the porch. No, he didn't know of any handyman-carpenter.
R04 1100 11    There wasn't any such thing any more. Carpenters all
R04 1110  9    wanted steady work and at the moment every mother's
R04 1120  6    son for twenty miles around that could hammer nails
R04 1130  3    for twenty-five dollars a day was working on the school
R04 1140  1    job.
R04 1140  2       There was a fellow named Blatz over Smithtown way.
R04 1140 11    Nobody liked to hire him because you never could tell
R04 1150 10    when he was going to be taken drunk. Mr& Crumb would
R04 1160  8    probably see him at Lodge Meeting the next night. If
R04 1170  5    he was sober, which was doubtful, he'd have him get
R04 1180  3    in touch with Mr& Crombie.
R04 1180  8       Mr& Blatz had been at least sober enough to remember
R04 1190  7    to telephone and he turned out to be the greatest boon
R04 1200  5    that had come into Mr& Crombie's life since he moved
R04 1210  3    to Highfield, in spite of the fact that he didn't work
R04 1210 14    very fast or very long at a time, and he didn't like
R04 1230 12    to work at all unless Mr& Crombie hung around and talked
R04 1240  7    to him. He said he was the lonely type and working
R04 1250  4    in a cellar you saw funny things coming out of the
R04 1260  2    cracks in the wall if they wasn't nobody with you.
R04 1260 12    So Mr& Crombie sat on a wooden box and talked in order
R04 1270 10    to keep Mr& Blatz's mind from funny things. At the
R04 1280  7    same time he watched carefully to see how one attached
R04 1290  4    pegboards to stone walls, but Mr& Blatz was usually
R04 1300  1    standing in his line of vision and it all seemed so
R04 1300 12    simple that he didn't like to disclose his ignorance.
R04 1310  7       While Mr& Blatz was putting up the pegboards and
R04 1320  7    starting the workbench, Mr& Crombie told him of this
R04 1330  5    idea about paneling the whole end of the cellar. Mr&
R04 1340  2    Blatz agreed that this would be pretty. Without further
R04 1340 11    discussion he appeared the next morning with a pile
R04 1350  9    of boards sticking over the end of his light truck
R04 1360  7    and proceeded with the paneling, which he then stained
R04 1370  3    and waxed according to his taste.
R04 1370  9       "Now", he said, "we got to put in some outlets for
R04 1380  9    them power tools; then a couple of fluorescent lamps
R04 1390  4    over the workbench an' I guess we're about through
R04 1400  2    down here".
R04 1400  4       It all did look very efficient and shipshape. There
R04 1410  3    was no question of that. "By the way", said Mr& Blatz,
R04 1420  2    packing his tools into a battered carrier, "them power
R04 1420 11    tools needs extra voltage. I guess you know about that.
R04 1430 10    Before you use 'em the light company's got to run in
R04 1440  9    a heavy line and you'll need a new fuse box for the
R04 1450  7    extra circuits. That ain't too bad 'ceptin' the light
R04 1460  3    company's so busy you can't ever get 'em to do nothin'".
R04 1470  2       Instead of being depressed by this news, Mr& Crombie
R04 1480  2    was actually relieved. At least the moment was postponed
R04 1480 11    when he had to face the mystery of the power tools.
R04 1490 11    He followed Mr& Blatz up the cellar stairs. As usual,
R04 1500  8    Mrs& Crombie was standing in the midst of a confusion
R04 1510  7    of cooking utensils. Mr& Blatz sat down in the only
R04 1520  4    unoccupied kitchen chair.
R04 1520  7       "Well", he said, "got your man fixed up nice down
R04 1530  7    there. He oughta be able to build a new house with
R04 1540  4    all them contraptions". Mr& Crombie watched his wife
R04 1550  2    with an anxious expression. "I was just sayin' to him
R04 1550 12    that I'm all ready now for anything else you want done".
R04 1560 10    Mr& Crombie couldn't remember his saying any such thing.
R04 1570  8       "Oh, that's wonderful", cried Mrs& Crombie. "I have
R04 1580  7    a thousand things for you to do. Doors that won't open,
R04 1590  9    and doors that won't close and shelves and broken **h"
R04 1600  6       "But those are the things I built the workshop for",
R04 1610  4    protested Mr& Crombie. "Those are the things I can
R04 1620  5    do, now that I'm set up".
R04 1620 11       "I've been waiting to get these things done for
R04 1630  9    months", she said. "We won't live long enough if I
R04 1640  7    wait for you, besides which you don't need to worry-
R04 1650  4    there'll be plenty more". But the discussion was academic.
R04 1660  2    Mr& Blatz was already taking measurements for a shelf
R04 1670  1    above the kitchen sink.
R05 0010  1    #AMBIGUITY#
R05 0010  2    Nothing in English has been ridiculed as much as the
R05 0020  1    ambiguous use of words, unless it be the ambiguous
R05 0020 10    use of sentences. Ben Franklin said, "Clearly spoken,
R05 0030  6    Mr& Fogg. You explain English by Greek". Richard Brinsley
R05 0040  5    Sheridan said, "I think the interpreter is the hardest
R05 0050  5    to be understood of the two". And a witty American
R05 0060  2    journalist remarked over a century ago what is even
R05 0060 11    more true today, "Many a writer seems to think he is
R05 0070 11    never profound except when he can't understand his
R05 0080  6    own meaning".
R05 0080  8       There are many types of ambiguity and many of them
R05 0090  8    have been described by rhetoricians under such names
R05 0100  4    as amphibology, parisology, and other ologies. In common
R05 0110  3    parlance they would be described as misses- misinterpreters,
R05 0120  1    misunderstanders, misdirectors and kindred misdeeds.
R05 0120  6       One species of ambiguity tries to baffle by interweaving
R05 0130  8    repetition. "Did you or did you not say what I said
R05 0140 10    you said, because Jane said you never said what I said"?
R05 0150  6       Another woman, addressing Christmas cards, said
R05 0160  3    to her husband: "We sent them one last year but they
R05 0170  2    didn't send us one, so they probably won't send us
R05 0170 12    one this year because they'll think we won't send them
R05 0180  9    one because they didn't last year, don't you think,
R05 0190  6    or shall we"?
R05 0190  9       Such ambiguous exercises compound confusion by making
R05 0200  6    it worse compounded, and they are sometimes expanded
R05 0210  5    until the cream of the jest sours. Ambiguity of a non-repetitious
R05 0220  5    kind describes the dilemma one girl found herself in.
R05 0230  2    "I'm terribly upset", she told a girl-friend. "I wrote
R05 0240  1    Bill in my last letter to forget that I had told him
R05 0240 13    that I didn't mean to reconsider my decision not to
R05 0250  8    change my mind- and he seems to have misunderstood
R05 0260  5    me". Evidently Bill was another of those men who simply
R05 0270  4    don't understand women.
R05 0270  7       Another case involves a newspaper reporter who tripped
R05 0280  6    up a politician. "Mr& Jones, you may recall that we
R05 0290  6    printed last week your denial of having retracted the
R05 0300  2    contradiction of your original statement. Now would
R05 0300  9    you care to have us say that you were misquoted in
R05 0310 10    regard to it"?
R05 0320  1       Questions like this, framed in verbal fog, are perhaps
R05 0320  9    the only kind that have ever stumped an experienced
R05 0330  6    politician. They recall Byron's classic comment: "I
R05 0340  4    wish he would explain his explanation". Similarly,
R05 0350  2    when a reporter once questioned Lincoln in cryptic
R05 0350 10    fashion, Lincoln refused to make any further statement.
R05 0360  8    "I fear explanations explanatory of things explained",
R05 0370  5    he said, leaving the biter bit- and bitter.
R05 0380  5       The obscurity of politicians may not always be as
R05 0390  2    innocent as it looks. "Senator", said an interviewer,
R05 0390 10    "your constituents can't understand from your speech
R05 0400  7    last night just how you stand on the question". "Good"!
R05 0410  7    replied the Senator. "It took me five hours to write
R05 0420  7    it that way".
R05 0420 10       The misplaced modifier is another species more honored
R05 0430  7    in the observance of obscurity than in the breach.
R05 0440  5    This creates an amusing effect because its position
R05 0450  2    in a sentence seems to make it apply to the wrong word.
R05 0450 14    A verse familiar to all grammarians is the quatrain:
R05 0460  8    "I saw a man once beat his wife When on a drunken spree.
R05 0480  8    Now can you tell me who was drunk- The man, his wife,
R05 0490  5    or me"?
R05 0490  7       The "wooden-leg" gag of vaudeville, another standby
R05 0500  6    of this sort, had endless variations.
R05 0510  1       ""There's a man outside with a wooden leg named
R05 0510 10    Smith". "What's the name of his other leg""?
R05 0520  8       Another stock vaudeville gag ran: "Mother is home
R05 0530  8    sick in bed with the doctor".
R05 0540  2       When radio came in, it continued the misplaced modifier
R05 0550  1    in its routines as a standard device.
R05 0550  8       ""Do you see that pretty girl standing next to the
R05 0560  7    car with slacks on"? "I see the girl but I don't see
R05 0570  7    the car with slacks on"".
R05 0570 12       In recent years gagwriters have discovered this
R05 0580  7    brand of blunder and thus the misplaced modifier has
R05 0590  5    acquired a new habitat in the gagline. In one cartoon
R05 0600  4    a family is shown outside a theater with the head of
R05 0600 15    the family addressing the doorman: "Excuse me, but
R05 0610  8    when we came out we found that we had left my daughter's
R05 0620  9    handbag and my wife's behind".
R05 0630  1       Journalism supplies us with an endless run of such
R05 0630 10    slips. Not long ago a newspaper advised those taking
R05 0640  9    part in a contest that "snapshots must be of a person
R05 0650  8    not larger than **f inches".
R05 0660  1       Classified ads are also chockfull of misrelated
R05 0660  8    constructions. Readers of the Reader's Digest are familiar
R05 0670  8    with such items which often appear in its lists of
R05 0680  9    verbal slips, like the ad in a California paper that
R05 0690  5    advertised "House for rent. View takes in five counties,
R05 0700  3    two bedrooms".
R05 0700  5       Since brevity is the soul of ambiguity as well as
R05 0710  5    wit, newspaper headlines continually provide us with
R05 0720  3    amusing samples. "Officials Meet on Rubbish. Many Shapes
R05 0730  1    in Bathtubs. Son and Daughter of Local Couple Married".
R05 0730 10       Apart from misplaced modifiers and headlinese, journalism
R05 0740  8    contributes a wide variety of comic ambiguities in
R05 0750  8    both editorial and advertising matter.
R05 0760  2       A weekly newspaper reported a local romance: "**h
R05 0770  2    and the couple were married last Saturday, thus ending
R05 0770 11    a friendship which began in their schooldays".
R05 0780  6       An item in the letters column of a newspaper renewed
R05 0790  6    a subscription, adding: "I personally enjoy your newspaper
R05 0800  4    as much as my husband".
R05 0800  9       Then there was the caterer's ad which read: "ARE
R05 0810  8    YOU GETTING MARRIED OR HAVING AN AFFAIR? We have complete
R05 0820  8    facilities to accommodate 200 people".
R05 0830  3       The newspaper too is the favorite habitat of the
R05 0840  1    anatomical. This slip is so-called because its semi-ambiguous
R05 0850  1    English always seems to refer to a person's anatomy
R05 0850 10    but never quite means what it seems to say. Samples:
R05 0860  8    He walked in upon her invitation. She kissed him passionately
R05 0870  5    upon his reappearance. He kissed her back.
R05 0880  2       Not without good reason has the anatomical been
R05 0880 10    called jocular journalese. In news items a man is less
R05 0890 10    often shot in the body or head than in the suburbs.
R05 0900  7    "While Henry Morgan was escorting Miss Vera Green from
R05 0910  5    the church social last Saturday night, a savage dog
R05 0920  2    attacked them and bit Mr& Morgan on the public square".
R05 0930  1       Such items recall the California journalist who
R05 0930  8    reported an accident involving a movie star: "The area
R05 0940  8    in which Miss N- was injured is spectacularly scenic".
R05 0950  5       The double meaning in the anatomical made it a familiar
R05 0960  6    vaudeville device, as in the gags of Weber and Fields.
R05 0970  4    When a witness at court was asked if he had been kicked
R05 0980  2    in the ensuing rumpus, he replied, "No, it was in the
R05 0980 13    stomach". Strangely enough, this always brought the
R05 0990  7    house down.
R05 0990  9       Apart from journalese and vaudeville gags, the anatomical
R05 1000  8    is also found in jocular literature. A conscientious
R05 1010  6    girl became the secretary of a doctor. Her first day
R05 1020  6    at work she was puzzled by an entry in the doctor's
R05 1030  1    notes on an emergency case. It read: "Shot in the lumbar
R05 1040  1    region". After a moment of thought, her mind cleared
R05 1040 10    and, in the interest of clarity, she typed into the
R05 1050  8    record: "Shot in the woods".
R05 1060  1       There are many grammatical misconstructions other
R05 1060  7    than dangling modifiers and anatomicals which permit
R05 1070  6    two different interpretations. At the home of a gourmet
R05 1080  7    the new maid was instructed in the fine points of serving.
R05 1090  4    "I want the fish served whole, with head and tail",
R05 1100  2    the epicure explained, "and serve it with lemon in
R05 1100 11    mouth". The maid demurred. "That's silly- lemon in
R05 1110  8    mouth", she said. But since the gourmet insisted that
R05 1120  7    it is done that way at the most fashionable dinners,
R05 1130  3    the girl reluctantly agreed. So she brought the fish
R05 1140  2    in whole, and she carried a lemon in her mouth.
R05 1140 12       Another specimen of such double-entendre is illustrated
R05 1150  8    by a woman in a department store. She said to the saleslady,
R05 1160  7    "I want a dress to put on around the house". The puzzled
R05 1170  6    saleslady inquired, "How large is your house, Madam"?
R05 1180  4       This saleslady was a failure in the dress department
R05 1190  3    and was transferred to the shoe department. When a
R05 1200  1    customer asked for alligator shoes, she said, "What
R05 1200  9    size is your alligator"?
R05 1210  1       The comic indefinite comprises an extensive class
R05 1220  2    of comedy. One species is restricted to statements
R05 1220 10    which are neither explicit nor precise regarding a
R05 1230  6    particular person, place, time or thing. A woman met
R05 1240  6    a famous author at a literary tea. "Oh, I'm so delighted
R05 1250  3    to meet you", she gushed. "It was only the other day
R05 1260  2    that I saw something of yours, about something or other,
R05 1260 12    in some magazine".
R05 1270  2       This baffling lack of distinct details recalls the
R05 1280  1    secretary whose employer was leaving the office and
R05 1280  9    told her what to answer if anyone called in his absence.
R05 1290  8    "I may be back", he explained, "and then again, I may
R05 1300  6    not". The girl nodded understandingly. "Yes, sir",
R05 1310  3    she said, "is that definite"?
R05 1310  8       An old-fashioned mother said to her modern daughter,
R05 1320  7    "You must have gotten in quite late last night, dear.
R05 1330  7    Where were you"? The daughter replied, "Oh, I had dinner
R05 1340  5    with- well, you don't know him but he's awfully nice-
R05 1350  3    and we went to a couple of places- I don't suppose
R05 1360  2    you've heard of them- and we finished up at a cute
R05 1360 13    little night club- I forget the name of it. Why, it's
R05 1370 11    all right, isn't it, Mother"? Her woolly-minded parent
R05 1380  7    agreed. "Of course, dear", she said. "It's only that
R05 1390  6    I like to know where you go".
R05 1400  1       No less ambiguous was the indefinity of a certain
R05 1400 10    clergyman's sermon. "Dearly beloved", he preached,
R05 1410  6    "unless you repent of your sins in a measure, and become
R05 1420  8    converted to a degree, you will, I regret to say, be
R05 1430  6    damned to a more or less extent". This clergyman should
R05 1440  2    have referred to Shakespeare's dictum: "So-so is a
R05 1440 11    good, very good, very excellent maxim. And yet it is
R05 1450 10    not. It is but so-so".
R05 1460  1       Indefinite reference also carries double-meaning
R05 1470  1    where an allusion to one person or thing seems to refer
R05 1470 12    to another. A news item described the launching of
R05 1480  7    a ship: "Completing the ceremony, the beautiful movie
R05 1490  4    star smashed a bottle of champagne over her stern as
R05 1500  3    she slid gracefully down the ways into the sea".
R05 1500 12       This is not unlike the order received by the sergeant
R05 1510 10    of an army motor pool: "Four trucks to Fort Mason gym,
R05 1520  8    7:30 tonight, for hauling girls to dance. The bodies
R05 1530  6    must be cleaned and seats wiped off".
R05 1540  1       A politician was approached by a man seeking the
R05 1540 10    office of a minor public official who had just died.
R05 1550  8    "What are my chances for taking Joe's place"? he asked.
R05 1560  5    "If you can fix it up with the undertaker", returned
R05 1570  3    the politician, "it's all right with me".
R05 1580  1       The manager of a movie theater received a telephone
R05 1580 10    call from a woman who was equally indefinite. "What
R05 1590  8    have you got on today"? she inquired. "A blue suit",
R05 1600  6    he answered. "Who's in it"? she continued. "I am",
R05 1610  5    he said. There was a short pause for reflection. "Oh",
R05 1620  3    said the woman, "I've seen that picture already".
R05 1630  1       Another brand of indefinite reference arises out
R05 1630  8    of the use of the double verb. When a question contains
R05 1640 11    two verbs, the response does not make clear which of
R05 1650  8    them is being answered.
R05 1660  1       The moonlit night was made for romance, and he had
R05 1660 11    been looking at her soulfully for some time. Finally
R05 1670  7    he asked, "Do you object to petting"? "That's one thing
R05 1680  4    I've never done", she said promptly. He thought a moment,
R05 1690  5    then inquired, "You mean petted"? "No", she smiled,
R05 1700  4    "objected".
R05 1700  5       Replies to requests for character reference are
R05 1710  4    notorious for their evasive double-entendre. It would
R05 1720  3    be hard to find anything more equivocal than: "I cannot
R05 1730  1    recommend him too highly".
R05 1730  5       Another less ambiguous case read as follows: "The
R05 1740  4    bearer of this letter has served me for two years to
R05 1750  2    his complete satisfaction. If you are thinking of giving
R05 1750 11    him a berth, be sure to make it a wide one".
R05 1760 10       In the comedy of indefinite reference, it-wit occupies
R05 1770  5    a prominent place because of its frequent occurrence.
R05 1780  3    Ambiguity arises when the pronoun it carries a twofold
R05 1790  3    reference.
R05 1790  4       Two friends were talking. One said, "When I get
R05 1800  3    a cold I buy a bottle of whiskey for it, and within
R05 1800 15    a few hours it's gone". The speaker referred to the
R05 1810 10    whiskey but his friend thought he meant the cold.
R05 1820  7       It-wit is a misnomer because it covers slips as
R05 1830  5    well as wit. An excited woman was making an emergency
R05 1840  1    call over the phone: "Doctor, please come over right
R05 1840 10    away. My husband is in great pain.
R06 0010  1       I CALLED the other afternoon on my old friend, Graves
R06 0010 11    Moreland, the Anglo-American literary critic- his mother
R06 0020  8    was born in Ohio- who lives alone in a fairy-tale cottage
R06 0030  9    on the Upson Downs, raising hell and peacocks, the
R06 0040  6    former only when the venerable gentleman becomes an
R06 0050  3    angry old man about the state of literature or something
R06 0060  1    else that is dwindling and diminishing, such as human
R06 0060 10    stature, hope, and humor.
R06 0070  3       My unscientific friend does not believe that human
R06 0080  1    stature is measurable in terms of speed, momentum,
R06 0080  9    weightlessness, or distance from earth, but is a matter
R06 0090  8    of the development of the human mind. After Gagarin
R06 0100  4    became the Greatest Man in the World, for a nation
R06 0110  2    that does not believe in the cult of personality or
R06 0110 12    in careerism, Moreland wrote me a letter in which he
R06 0120  9    said: "I am not interested in how long a bee can live
R06 0130  8    in a vacuum, or how far it can fly. A bee's place is
R06 0140  4    in the hive".
R06 0140  7       "I have come to talk with you about the future of
R06 0150  6    humor and comedy", I told him, at which he started
R06 0160  2    slightly, and then made us each a stiff drink, with
R06 0160 12    a trembling hand.
R06 0170  2       "I seem to remember", he said, "that in an interview
R06 0180  1    ten years ago you gave humor and comedy five years
R06 0180 11    to live. Did you go to their funeral"?
R06 0190  6       "I was wrong", I admitted. "Comedy didn't die, it
R06 0200  5    just went crazy. It has identified itself with the
R06 0210  3    very tension and terror it once did so much to alleviate.
R06 0210 14    We now have not only what has been called over here
R06 0220 11    the comedy of menace but we also have horror jokes,
R06 0230  7    magazines known as Horror Comics, and sick comedians.
R06 0240  4    There are even publications called Sick and Mad. The
R06 0250  3    Zeitgeist is not crazy as a loon or mad as a March
R06 0260  1    hare; it is manic as a man".
R06 0260  8       "I woke up this morning", Moreland said, "paraphrasing
R06 0270  4    Lewis Carroll. Do you want to hear the paraphrase"?
R06 0280  3       "Can I bear it"? I asked, taking a final gulp of
R06 0290  5    my drink, and handing him the empty glass.
R06 0300  1       "Just barely", he said, and repeated his paraphrase:
R06 0300  9    "The time has come", the walrus said, "To speak of
R06 0310 10    manic things, Of shots and shouts, and sealing dooms
R06 0320  8    Of commoners and kings".
R06 0330  1       Moreland fixed us each another drink, and said,
R06 0330  9    "For God's sake, tell me something truly amusing".
R06 0340  8       "I'll try", I said, and sat for a moment thinking.
R06 0350 10    "Oh yes, the other day I reread some of Emerson's English
R06 0360  8    Traits, and there was an anecdote about a group of
R06 0370  8    English and Americans visiting Germany, more than a
R06 0380  4    hundred years ago. In the railway station at Berlin,
R06 0390  1    a uniformed attendant was chanting, 'Foreigners this
R06 0390  8    way! Foreigners this way'! One woman- she could have
R06 0400  8    been either English or American- went up to him and
R06 0410  8    said, 'But you are the foreigners'". I took a deep
R06 0420  5    breath and an even deeper swallow of my drink, and
R06 0430  3    said, "I admit that going back to Ralph Waldo Emerson
R06 0440  1    for humor is like going to a modern musical comedy
R06 0440 11    for music and comedy".
R06 0450  1       "What's the matter with the music"? Moreland asked.
R06 0460  2       "It doesn't drown out the dialogue", I explained.
R06 0470  1       "Let's talk about books", Moreland said. "I am told
R06 0480  1    that in America you have non-books by non-writers,
R06 0480 11    brought out by non-publishers for non-readers. Is it
R06 0490  8    all non-fiction"?
R06 0500  1       "There is non-fiction and non non-fiction", I said.
R06 0500 10    "Speaking of nonism: the other day, in a story about
R06 0510 10    a sit-down demonstration, the Paris Herald Tribune
R06 0520  5    wrote, 'The non-violence became noisier'. And then
R06 0530  3    Eichmann was quoted as saying, in non-English, that
R06 0540  1    Hitler's plan to exterminate the Jews was nonsense".
R06 0550  1       "If we cannot tell evil, horror, and insanity from
R06 0550 10    nonsense, what is the future of humor and comedy"?
R06 0560  7    Moreland asked, grimly.
R06 0570  1       "Cryptic", I said. "They require, for existence,
R06 0570  7    a brave spirit and a high heart, and where do you find
R06 0580 10    these? In our present era of Science and Angst, the
R06 0590  6    heart has been downgraded, to use one of our popular
R06 0600  4    retrogressive verbs".
R06 0600  6       "I know what you mean", Moreland sighed. "Last year
R06 0610  5    your Tennessee Williams told our Dilys Powell, in a
R06 0620  6    television program, that it is the task of the playwright
R06 0630  2    to throw light into the dark corners of the human heart.
R06 0640  1    Like almost everybody else, he confused the heart,
R06 0640  9    both as organ and as symbol, with the disturbed psyche,
R06 0650  7    the deranged glands, and the jumpy central nervous
R06 0660  3    system. I'm not pleading for the heart that leaps up
R06 0670  2    when it beholds a rainbow in the sky, or for the heart
R06 0670 14    that with rapture fills and dances with the daffodils.
R06 0680  8    The sentimental pure heart of Galahad is gone with
R06 0690  6    the knightly years, but I still believe in the heart
R06 0700  4    of the George Meredith character that was not made
R06 0700 13    of the stuff that breaks".
R06 0710  4       "We no longer have Tom Moore's and Longfellow's
R06 0720  3    'heart for any fate', either", I said.
R06 0730  1       "Moore and Longfellow didn't have the fate that
R06 0730  9    faces us", Moreland said. "One day our species promises
R06 0740  7    co-existence, and the next day it threatens co-extinction".
R06 0750  6    We sat for a while drinking in silence.
R06 0760  2       "The heart", I said finally, "is now either in the
R06 0770  2    throat or the mouth or the stomach or the shoes. When
R06 0770 13    it was worn in the breast, or even on the sleeve, we
R06 0780 10    at least knew where it was". There was a long silence.
R06 0790  6       "You have visited England five times in the past
R06 0800  5    quarter-century, I believe", my host said. "What has
R06 0810  2    impressed you most on your present visit"?
R06 0810  9       "I would say depressed, not impressed", I told him.
R06 0820  9    "I should say it is the turning of courts of law into
R06 0830  9    veritable theatres for sex dramas, involving clergymen
R06 0840  3    and parishioners, psychiatrists and patients. It is
R06 0850  3    becoming harder and harder to tell law courts and political
R06 0850 13    arenas from the modern theatre".
R06 0860  5       "Do you think we need a new Henry James to re-explore
R06 0870  6    the Anglo-American scene"? he asked. "Or perhaps a
R06 0880  4    new Noe^l Coward"?
R06 0880  7       "But you must have heard it said that the drawing-room
R06 0890  8    disappeared forever with the somnolent years of James
R06 0900  4    and the antic heyday of Coward. I myself hear it said
R06 0910  3    constantly- in drawing-rooms. In them, there is usually
R06 0920  1    a group of Anglo-Americans with tragicomic problems,
R06 0920  9    worthy of being explored either in the novel or in
R06 0930  8    the play or in comedy and satire". I stood up and began
R06 0940  6    pacing.
R06 0940  7       "If you are trying to get us out of the brothel,
R06 0950  6    the dustbin, the kitchen sink, and the tawdry living-room,
R06 0960  1    you are probably wasting your time", Moreland told
R06 0960  9    me. "Too many of our writers seem to be interested
R06 0970 10    only in creatures that crawl out of the woodwork or
R06 0980  7    from under the rock".
R06 0980 11       "Furiouser and furiouser", I said. "I am worried
R06 0990  8    about the current meanings of the word 'funny'. It
R06 1000  7    now means ominous, as when one speaks of a funny sound
R06 1010  5    in the motor; disturbing, as when one says that a friend
R06 1020  3    is acting funny; and frightening, as when a wife tells
R06 1030  1    the police that it is funny, but her husband hasn't
R06 1030 11    been home for two days and nights".
R06 1040  4       Moreland sat brooding for a full minute, during
R06 1050  2    which I made each of us a new drink. He took his glass,
R06 1050 15    clinked it against mine, and said, "Toujours gai, what
R06 1060  9    the hell"! borrowing a line from Don Marquis' Mehitabel.
R06 1070  8       "Be careful of the word 'gay', for it, too, has
R06 1080  9    undergone a change. It now means, in my country, homosexual",
R06 1090  7    I said. "Oh, I forgot to say that if one is taken to
R06 1100  8    the funny house in the funny wagon, he is removed to
R06 1110  3    a mental institution in an ambulance. Recently, by
R06 1110 11    the way, I received a questionnaire in which I was
R06 1120  9    asked whether or not I was non-institutionalized".
R06 1130  4    ##
R06 1130  5    MY HOST went over and stared out the window at his
R06 1140  6    peacocks; then he turned to me. "Is it true that you
R06 1150  5    believe the other animals are saner than the human
R06 1150 14    species"?
R06 1160  1       "Oh, that is demonstrable", I told him. "Do you
R06 1170  2    remember the woman in the French Alps who was all alone
R06 1170 13    with her sheep one day when the sun darkened ominously?
R06 1180  9    She told the sheep, 'The world is coming to an end'!
R06 1190  8    And the sheep said- all in unison, I have no doubt-
R06 1200  7    'Ba-a-a'! The sound mockery of sheep is like the salubrious
R06 1210  6    horse laugh".
R06 1210  8       "That is only partly non-nonsense", he began.
R06 1220  5       "If you saw the drama called Rhinoceros", I said,
R06 1230  4    "think of the effect it would have on an audience of
R06 1240  4    rhinos when the actor on stage suddenly begins turning
R06 1250  1    into a rhinoceros. The rhinos would panic, screaming
R06 1250  9    'Help'!- if that can be screamed in their language".
R06 1260 11       "You think the Russians are getting ahead of us
R06 1270  8    in comedy"? Moreland demanded.
R06 1280  1       "Non-God, no", I said. "The political and intellectual
R06 1290  1    Left began fighting humor and comedy years ago, because
R06 1290 10    they fear things they do not understand and cannot
R06 1300  8    manage, such as satire and irony, such as humor and
R06 1310  3    comedy. Nevertheless, like any other human being upon
R06 1320  2    whom the spotlight of the world plays continually,
R06 1320 10    Khrushchev, the anti-personality cultist, has become
R06 1330  7    a comic actor, or thinks he has. In his famous meeting
R06 1340  7    with Nixon a couple of years ago he seemed to believe
R06 1350  3    that he was as funny as Ed Wynn. But, like Caesar,
R06 1360  1    he has only one joke, so far as I can find out. It
R06 1360 14    consists in saying, 'That would be sending the goat
R06 1370  7    to look after the cabbage'. Why in the name of his
R06 1380  6    non-God doesn't he vary it a bit"?
R06 1390  1       "Such as"? Moreland asked.
R06 1390  5       "Such as 'sending the cat to guard the mice', or
R06 1400  7    'the falcon to protect the dove', or most terribly
R06 1410  3    sharp of all, 'the human being to save humanity'".
R06 1420  1       "You and I have fallen out of literature into politics",
R06 1430  1    Moreland observed.
R06 1430  3       "What a nasty fall was there"! I said.
R06 1440  2       Moreland went over to stare at his peacocks again,
R06 1440 11    and then came back and sat down, restively. "The world
R06 1450  9    that was once foot-loose and fancy-free", he said,
R06 1460  6    "has now become screw-loose and frenzy-free. In our
R06 1470  5    age of Science and Angst it seems to me more brave
R06 1480  2    to stay on Earth and explore inner man than to fly
R06 1480 13    far from the sphere of our sorrow and explore outer
R06 1490  8    space".
R06 1490  9       "The human ego being what it is", I put in, "science
R06 1500 10    fiction has always assumed that the creatures on the
R06 1510  6    planets of a thousand larger solar systems than ours
R06 1520  3    must look like gigantic tube-nosed fruit bats. It seems
R06 1530  1    to me that the first human being to reach one of these
R06 1530 13    planets may well learn what it is to be a truly great
R06 1540 11    and noble species".
R06 1550  1       "Now we are leaving humor and comedy behind again",
R06 1550  9    Moreland protested.
R06 1560  1       "Not in the largest sense of the words", I said.
R06 1570  1    "The other day Arnold Toynbee spoke against the inveterate
R06 1570 10    tendency of our species to believe in the uniqueness
R06 1580  9    of its religions, its ideologies, and its virtually
R06 1590  5    everything else. Why do we not realize that no ideology
R06 1600  4    believes so much in itself as it disbelieves in something
R06 1610  1    else? Forty years ago an English writer, W& L& George,
R06 1620  1    dealt with this subject in Eddies of the Day, and said,
R06 1620 12    as an example, that 'Saint George for Merry England'
R06 1630  7    would not start a spirit half so quickly as 'Strike
R06 1640  8    frog-eating Frenchmen dead'"!
R06 1650  1       "There was also Gott strafe Angleterre", Moreland
R06 1660  1    reminded me, "and Carthago delenda est, or if you will,
R06 1660 11    Deus strafe Carthage. It isn't what the ideologist
R06 1670  8    believes in, but what he hates, that puts the world
R06 1680  9    in jeopardy. This is the force, in our time and in
R06 1690  6    every other time, that urges the paranoiac and the
R06 1700  1    manic-depressive to become head of a state. Complete
R06 1700 10    power not only corrupts but it also attracts the mad.
R06 1710  8    There is a bitter satire for a future writer in that".
R06 1720  6       "Great satire has always been clearly written and
R06 1730  3    readily understandable", I said. "But we now find writers
R06 1740  3    obsessed by the nooks and crannies of their ivory towers,
R06 1750  1    and curiously devoted to the growing obscurity and
R06 1750  9    complexity of poetry and non-poetry. I wrote a few
R06 1760  8    years ago that one of the cardinal rules of writing
R06 1770  3    is that the reader should be able to get some idea
R06 1770 14    of what the story is about.
R07 0010  1       One day, the children had wanted to get up onto
R07 0010 11    General Burnside's horse. They wanted to see what his
R07 0020  8    back felt like- the General's. He looked so comfortable
R07 0030  5    being straight. They wanted to touch the mystery. Arlene
R07 0040  4    was boosting them up when the policeman came by.
R07 0050  2       He was very rude.
R07 0050  6       Arlene had a hard voice, too, this time. The policeman's
R07 0060  4    eyes rather popped for a second; but then Arlene got
R07 0070  3    another tone in a hurry, and she said, "If it wasn't
R07 0080  1    for these dear children"-.
R07 0080  5       The policeman got a confused, funny look on his
R07 0090  5    face, and he had answered kind of politely, "Now, look
R07 0100  2    here, lady: I know you got to entertain these kids
R07 0100 12    and all. But this is a public park and it's a city
R07 0110 11    ordinance that the statues cannot be crawled on".
R07 0120  5       Arlene was so ashamed that she hung her head when
R07 0130  4    she said, "Yes, sir".
R07 0130  8       The policeman walked on, but he looked back once.
R07 0140  7       That had happened on the day when two other unusual
R07 0150  3    things had occurred. Arlene had taught them a new way
R07 0160  1    to have fun in their little private area; and they
R07 0160 11    had told their mother about the tumbles. In matters
R07 0170  7    of exact information, that kept her one step behind
R07 0180  5    developments; and so they were consistently true to
R07 0190  2    their principles.
R07 0190  4       "Never mind", Arlene had said, after the policeman
R07 0200  3    had left, having pursued the usual unco-operative course
R07 0210  1    of grownups. "Never mind. I know something that is
R07 0210 10    much more fun that we can do on our little lawn".
R07 0220  9       "What is it"? asked the children, whose reflexes
R07 0230  5    and replies were invariably so admirably normal and
R07 0240  3    predictable. Maybe that was why they were cordial and
R07 0250  1    loyal towards the unpredictability of Arlene.
R07 0250  7       "Just you wait", advised Arlene, echoing the dialogue
R07 0260  6    in a recent British movie.
R07 0270  1       And when they had got to their little lawn, they
R07 0270 11    had had a most twirlingly magnificent time. First,
R07 0280  5    Arlene had put them through some rapid somersaults.
R07 0290  4    They had protested that that wasn't any surprise.
R07 0300  2       "Just you wait", said Arlene again, as though she
R07 0310  2    were discovering the pleasantly tingling insinuations
R07 0310  8    of that handy little sturdy statement. "This is a warm-up".
R07 0320  9       "Is it anything like cooked-over oatmeal"? asked
R07 0330  7    one of the children.
R07 0340  1       "Not the least bit", Arlene snapped. One of the
R07 0340 10    many things that was so nice about her was that she
R07 0350 10    always took your questions seriously, particularly
R07 0360  2    your very, very serious questions. Those were especially
R07 0370  2    the ones that all other grownups laughed at loudest.
R07 0370 11    She would sometimes even get a little hard on you,
R07 0380  9    she took you so seriously. But not hard for very long.
R07 0390  7    Just long enough to make you feel important.
R07 0400  1       "Now", said Arlene, eventually, making them both
R07 0410  1    sit in formation on a big root of a live oak, the sort
R07 0410 14    of root that divided itself and made their bottoms
R07 0420  6    sag down and feel comfortable. "Now, we're going to
R07 0430  4    be like what General Burnside and his horse make us
R07 0440  2    think of".
R07 0440  4       The children looked at each other and sagged their
R07 0450  3    bottoms down even more comfortably than ever. Their
R07 0450 11    curiosity went happily out of bounds.
R07 0460  6       Then, Arlene threw herself backwards and wiggled
R07 0470  4    in a way that was just wonderful. She held herself
R07 0480  1    that way and turned her head towards them and laughed
R07 0480 11    and winked. "Imagine being able to laugh and wink when
R07 0490  9    you're like the top part of that picture frame at home",
R07 0500  7    one of them said. They both laughed and winked back.
R07 0510  4       "I'm General Burnside's horse, upside down", Arlene
R07 0520  3    said, sort of gaspingly, for her: even she had to breathe
R07 0530  3    kind of funny when she was in that position. She made
R07 0530 14    General Burnside's horse's belly do so funny when it
R07 0540  9    was upside down. Then, she was back on her feet, winking
R07 0550  9    and smiling that enormous smile (she had lots of wonderful
R07 0560  7    big teeth that you never would have suspected she had
R07 0570  3    when she was not smiling). And she would wink and throw
R07 0580  1    kisses. They both tried to keep smiling and winking
R07 0580 10    for a long time, but it made their lips and eyelids
R07 0590  8    tremble. But they kept on clapping for a long, long
R07 0600  6    time.
R07 0600  7       "This time", Arlene said, and she even kept on wiggling
R07 0610  7    a little bit while she was just talking, "you're going
R07 0620  3    to tell me what I am and what I'm doing. It all has
R07 0630  3    something to do with General Burnside and his horse".
R07 0630 12       This time, it was so grand; they could tell exactly
R07 0640 11    what it was. It was General Burnside's horse running
R07 0650  7    in a circle. His legs shook, and the shaking went right
R07 0660  7    on up his body through his hips to his shoulders. "That's
R07 0670  4    the General's horse", one of them cried out.
R07 0680  2       The other remarked, in a happy laughter, "That's
R07 0690  1    a funny old horse".
R07 0690  5       The first one said, "He sure does shake. He's old".
R07 0700  3       Then there was the General kissing his wife. They
R07 0710  3    had to be told that one. But it was even funnier after
R07 0720  1    they had been told. Their father, when he came back
R07 0720 11    from those many business trips, just bumped their mother
R07 0730  7    on the forehead with his lips and asked if anybody
R07 0740  5    had thought to mix the martinis and put them in the
R07 0750  2    electric icebox. But not General Burnside. He was the
R07 0750 11    funniest man. He never could keep still, even when
R07 0760  9    he didn't move his feet.
R07 0770  1       Then, they had to get up and be General Burnside.
R07 0770 11    Or his horse. All they could think of was to run around
R07 0780 11    in circles, kicking their legs out. It wasn't very
R07 0790  7    funny. Then, they said General Burnside was going to
R07 0800  5    jump over his horse's head; and they did some somersaults.
R07 0810  2    But that wasn't very funny, either.
R07 0810  8       "You ought to shake", Arlene advised them. And Arlene
R07 0820  9    showed them how to begin. She also taught them to sing
R07 0830  9    "I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate". That helped
R07 0840  6    a lot. They were clumsy, but they were beginning to
R07 0850  4    catch on. They also caught on a little bit on how to
R07 0860  1    smile a lot without your lips trembling. "Imagine you
R07 0860 10    won't get your allowance if you're caught not smiling-
R07 0870  8    or smiling with your lips trembling too much", Arlene
R07 0880  6    suggested.
R07 0880  7       That helped a great deal.
R07 0890  3    ##
R07 0890  4    They were a little late in getting home.
R07 0900  1       "I'm sorry, Mrs& Minks", Arlene said in a tone so
R07 0900 10    low you could hardly hear it.
R07 0910  4       My mother constituted herself the voice of all of
R07 0920  4    us. "It's perfectly understandable, Arlene", my mother
R07 0930  1    said in a friendly way. "I suppose you all were playing
R07 0930 12    and forgot"?
R07 0940  1       "Yes, ma'am", the children chorused heartily.
R07 0950  1       We couldn't help laughing.
R07 0950  5       The children rushed off to get rid of their sweaters;
R07 0960  6    and Arlene began tapping the kitchen door open. "Arlene's
R07 0970  3    a good girl", my uncle remarked to us; but he said
R07 0980  3    it too soon, for it came out just before the tap to
R07 0980 15    which the door responded. That tap had a slight bangish
R07 0990  9    quality.
R07 0990 10       "She really is a dear little thing", my mother agreed.
R07 1000 10    Her upper lip lifted slightly. She was biting into
R07 1010  6    a small red radish; and that action always caused her
R07 1020  4    to lift her lip from the sting of the thing. Also,
R07 1030  1    she lived in continual fear of finding a white worm
R07 1030 11    curled up in a neat, mean little heap at the white
R07 1040  9    center of the radish. She would try to see over the
R07 1050  6    bulge of her cheeks and somewhat under her teeth to
R07 1060  2    the place where she was biting. It never worked, naturally;
R07 1060 12    but it made her look unusual. Also, when she had bitten
R07 1070 11    off half of the small radish, she found the suspense
R07 1080  6    unbearable; and she would snatch the finger-held half
R07 1090  5    of the radish out to where she could inspect it. One
R07 1100  2    could hear a very faint, ladylike sigh of relief. Actually,
R07 1100 12    it was inaudible to anyone not expecting it. But the
R07 1110 10    warm joy of her brown eyes was open to the general
R07 1120  7    public.
R07 1120  8       Later on, the children told her further about somersaulting.
R07 1130  6    "It must be awfully good for them. And awfully kind
R07 1140  6    of Arlene", she told us later. "But do you know something
R07 1150  5    curious"? she added. "I reached into that funny little
R07 1160  4    pocket that is high up on my dress. I have no notion
R07 1170  1    why I reached. And I found a radish. Was it an omen?
R07 1170 13    I thought for a second. But I would not pamper myself
R07 1180 10    in that silly way. I opened the window and threw the
R07 1190  8    radish out".
R07 1190 10       Then, my mother blushed at this small lie; for she
R07 1200  8    knew and we knew that it was cowardice that had made
R07 1210  5    one more radish that night just too impossible a strain.
R07 1220  3    ##
R07 1220  4    Arlene became indispensable; nobody could have told
R07 1230  2    why. But she was. It was in the air.
R07 1230 11       A friend of my father's came to dinner. He was passing
R07 1240  7    through town and phoned to say hello. As a result,
R07 1250  5    he was persuaded out to dinner. As a matter of fact,
R07 1260  2    this happened every four or five months. Sometimes,
R07 1260 10    he coincided with my father's being at home. Sometimes,
R07 1270  8    as at this juncture, he did not. But he was always
R07 1280  7    persuaded out.
R07 1280  9       he liked children, in a loathsome kind of way; the
R07 1300  8    two youngest in our family always had to be brought
R07 1320  2    in and put through tricks for his entertainment. When
R07 1320 11    he had left, I could never remember whether he had
R07 1330 10    poked them in their middles, laughingly, with a thick
R07 1340  6    index finger or whether he was merely so much the sort
R07 1350  5    of person who did this that one assumed the action,
R07 1360  1    not bothering to look. The children loathed him, too.
R07 1360 10       This evening, they were pushed in from the breakfast
R07 1370  8    room, with odds and ends of dessert distributed over
R07 1380  5    them. There had been some coconut in it, for I remember
R07 1390  4    my mother's taking a quick glance at a stringy bit
R07 1400  1    of this nut on the cheek of one of them and then putting
R07 1400 14    down her radish with a shiver.
R07 1410  4       They were pushed gently into the room by Arlene-
R07 1420  3    whose only part appearing were hands that crept quickly
R07 1420 12    back around to the kitchen side of the door. We had
R07 1430 11    just sat down.
R07 1440  1       "Tell Mr& Gorboduc what you're doing these days",
R07 1440  9    my mother advised the children, ceremonially.
R07 1450  5       There was an air of revolt about the children- even
R07 1460  5    irreverence for their own principles. This could be
R07 1470  3    told chiefly from a sort of head-tossing and prancing,
R07 1470 13    a horselike balkiness of demeanor. Possibly, the
R07 1480  7    coconut-containing
R07 1480  9    dessert had brought up bitter problems of administration.
R07 1490  8    But, at the beginning, this stayed just in the air.
R07 1500  7       "We go to the park with this nice lady", one of
R07 1510  6    them said. "We have good times".
R07 1520  1       This happy bulletin convulsed Mr& Gorboduc. "You
R07 1520  8    do"? he asked, between wheezes of laughter. He was
R07 1530  9    forced to wipe his eyes. "You don't step on the flowers,
R07 1540  7    do you? Eh"?
R07 1550  1       One of the children maneuvered out of range of the
R07 1550 10    poking index finger.
R07 1560  1       "No", he said. "We don't".
R07 1560  6       Mr& Gorboduc took a swig of his sherry. He was so
R07 1570 10    long thinking that my mother had time to inspect her
R07 1580  5    sherry for dregs. Usually, this was done when attention
R07 1590  2    was diverted by someone else's long, boring story.
R07 1590 10    But this time she was nervous: she was open.
R07 1600  8       Mr& Gorboduc was finally in command of his mind
R07 1610  6    again. "Tell me- what do you do at the park"? he asked.
R07 1620  5    This was delivered in a forthright way, without coyness
R07 1630  2    and over-pretended interest- an admirable way with
R07 1630 10    children. Only, unfortunately, he could not remove
R07 1640  7    from his voice a nagging insinuation of the direct
R07 1650  5    command. This nettled the children into the revelation
R07 1660  2    of exact truth, a sacrifice of their secret superiority
R07 1670  1    over grown people, but a victory in the wide fields
R07 1670 11    of perpetration and illegitimate accomplishment.
R07 1680  3       "We bump", one said; and the other went on to development
R07 1690  7    of the idea. "We grind, too", he said.
R07 1700  2       My mother was beside herself with curiosity. "Say
R07 1700 10    that again", she pleaded. She laughed a little and
R07 1710  9    tossed the dregs rakishly around in her glass. "You
R07 1720  6    what"? She could see that Mr& Gorboduc was intrigued;
R07 1730  4    the hostess in her took over. She was rollickingly
R07 1740  2    happy. "You what"?
R07 1740  5       My uncle looked at Mr& Gorboduc. He read Henry James
R07 1750  6    and used to pretend profundity through eye-beamings
R07 1760  4    at people.
R07 1760  6       Mr& Gorboduc looked down. He would not look up.
R07 1770  5    He was very funny about the whole thing.
R08 0010  1    #@#
R08 0010  2    PUERI AQUAM DE SILVAS AD AGRICOLAS PORTANT, a delightful
R08 0020  1    vignette set in the unforgettable epoch of pre-Punic
R08 0020 10    War Rome. Marcellus, the hero, is beset from all sides
R08 0030  9    by the problems of approaching manhood. The story opens
R08 0040  6    on the eve of his fifty-third birthday, as he prepares
R08 0050  4    for the two weeks of festivities that are to follow.
R08 0060  1    Suddenly, a messenger arrives and, just before collapsing
R08 0060  9    dead at his feet, informs him that the Saracens have
R08 0070 10    invaded Silesia, the home province of his affianced.
R08 0080  6    He at once cancels the celebrations and, buckling on
R08 0090  4    his scimitar, stumbles blindly from the house, where
R08 0100  1    he is hit and killed by a passing oxcart.
R08 0100 10    #@#
R08 0100 11    THE ALBANY CIVIC OPERA's presentation of Spumoni's
R08 0110  5    immortal Il Sevigli del Spegititgninino, with guest
R08 0120  5    contralto Hattie Sforzt. An unusual, if not extraordinary,
R08 0130  5    rendering of the classic myth that involves the rescue
R08 0140  3    of Prometheus from the rock by the U&S& Cavalry was
R08 0150  2    given last week in the warehouse of the Albany Leather
R08 0150 12    Conduit Company amid cheers of "Hubba hubba" and "Yalagaloo
R08 0160  9    pip pip"!
R08 0170  1       After a "busy" overture, the curtain rises on a
R08 0170 10    farm scene- the Ranavan Valley in northern Maine. A
R08 0180  8    dead armadillo, the sole occupant of the stage, symbolizes
R08 0190  8    the crisis and destruction of the Old Order. Old Order,
R08 0200  7    acted and atonally sung by Grunnfeu Arapacis, the lovely
R08 0210  4    Serbantian import, then entered and delivered the well-known
R08 0220  4    invocation to the god Phineoppus, whereupon the stage
R08 0230  1    is quite unexpectedly visited by a company of wandering
R08 0230 10    Gorshek priests, symbolizing Love, Lust, Prudence and
R08 0240  6    General Motors, respectively. According to the myth,
R08 0250  5    Old Order then vanishes at stage left and reappears
R08 0260  3    at extreme stage right, but director Shuz skillfully
R08 0260 11    sidesteps the rather gooshey problem of stage effects
R08 0270  8    by simply having Miss Arapacis walk across the stage.
R08 0280  7    The night we saw it, a rather unpleasant situation
R08 0290  3    arose when the soloist refused to approach the armadillo,
R08 0300  2    complaining- in ad-lib- that "it smelled". We caught
R08 0310  1    the early train to New York.
R08 0310  7    #@#
R08 0310  8    THE DHARMA DICTIONARY, a list of highly unusual terms
R08 0320  7    used in connection with Eurasian proto-senility cults.
R08 0330  4    It's somewhat off the beaten track, to be sure, but
R08 0340  4    therein lies its variety and charm. For example, probably
R08 0350  1    very few people know that the word "visrhanik" that
R08 0350 10    is bantered about so much today stems from the verb
R08 0360  9    "bouanahsha": to salivate. Likewise, and equally fascinating,
R08 0370  5    is the news that such unlikely synonyms as "pratakku",
R08 0380  4    "sweathruna", and the tongue-twister
R08 0380  9    "nnuolapertar-it-vuh-karti-biri-pitknoumen"
R08 0390  1    all originated in the same village in Bathar-on-Walli
R08 0400  1    Province and are all used to express sentiments concerning
R08 0410  3    British "imperialism". The terms are fairly safe to
R08 0420  3    use on this side of the ocean, but before you start
R08 0420 14    spouting them to your date, it might be best to find
R08 0430 11    out if he was a member of Major Pockmanster's Delhi
R08 0440  4    Regiment, since resentment toward the natives was reportedly
R08 0450  4    very high in that outfit.
R08 0450  9    #@#
R08 0450 10    THE BREEZE AND CHANCELLOR NEITZBOHR, a movie melodrama
R08 0460  8    that concerns the attempts of a West German politician
R08 0470  8    to woo a plaster cast of the Apollo Belvedere. As you
R08 0480  6    have doubtless guessed already, the plot is plastered
R08 0490  3    with Freudian, Jungian, and Meinckian theory. For example,
R08 0500  2    when the film is only four minutes old, Neitzbohr refers
R08 0500 12    to a small, Victorian piano stool as "Wilhelmina",
R08 0510  8    and we are thereupon subjected to a flashback that
R08 0520  6    informs us that this very piano stool was once used
R08 0530  4    by an epileptic governess whose name, of course, was
R08 0540  1    Doris (the English equivalent, when passed through
R08 0540  8    middle-Gaelic derivations, of Wilhelmina). For the
R08 0550  5    remainder of the movie, Chancellor Neitzbohr proceeds
R08 0560  3    to lash the piano stool with a slat from a Venetian
R08 0570  1    blind that used to hang in the pre-war Reichstag. In
R08 0570 12    this manner, he seeks to expunge from his own soul
R08 0580  9    the guilt pangs caused by his personal assaults against
R08 0590  4    the English at Dunkirk. As we find out at the end,
R08 0600  4    it is not the stool (symbolizing Doris, therefore the
R08 0600 13    English) that he is punishing but the piece of Venetian
R08 0610 10    blind. And, when the slat finally shatters, we see
R08 0620  7    him count the fragments, all the while muttering, "He
R08 0630  4    loves me, he loves me not". After a few tortuous moments
R08 0640  2    of wondering who "he" is, the camera pans across the
R08 0650  1    room to the plaster statue, and we realize that Neitzbohr
R08 0650 11    is trying to redeem himself in the eyes of a mute piece
R08 0660 11    of sculpture. The effect, needless to say, is almost
R08 0670  6    terrifying, and though at times a bit obscure, the
R08 0680  2    film is certainly a much-needed catharsis for the "repressed"
R08 0690  1    movie-goer.
R08 0690  3    #@#
R08 0690  4    THE MUSIC OF BINI SALFININISTAS, CAPITAL ~LP @63711-R,
R08 0700  5    one of the rare recordings of this titanic, yet unsung,
R08 0710  3    composer. Those persons who were lucky enough to see
R08 0720  1    and hear the performance of his work at the Brest-Silevniov
R08 0720 12    Festival in August, 1916, will certainly welcome his
R08 0730  8    return to public notice; and it is not unlikely that,
R08 0740  7    even as the great Bach lay dormant for so many years,
R08 0750  5    so has the erudite, ingenious SalFininistas passed
R08 0760  1    through his "purgatory" of neglect. But now, under
R08 0760  9    the guidance of the contemporary composer Marc Schlek,
R08 0770  7    Jr&, a major revival is under way. As he leads the
R08 0780  8    Neurenschatz Skolkau Orchestra, Schlek gives a tremendously
R08 0790  4    inspired performance of both the Baslot and Rattzhenfuut
R08 0800  2    concertos, including the controversial Tschilwyk cadenza,
R08 0810  1    which was included at the conductor's insistence. A
R08 0810  9    major portion of the credit should also go to flautist
R08 0820  9    Haumd for his rendering of the almost impossible "Indianapolis"
R08 0830  5    movement in the Baslot. Not only was Haumd's intonation
R08 0840  5    and phrasing without flaw, but he seemed to take every
R08 0850  4    tonal eccentricity in stride. For example, to move
R08 0860  1    (as the score requires) from the lowest ~F-major register
R08 0860 11    up to a barely audible ~N minor in four seconds, not
R08 0870  9    skipping, at the same time, even one of the 407 fingerings,
R08 0880  8    seems a feat too absurd to consider, and it is to the
R08 0890  6    flautist's credit that he remained silent throughout
R08 0900  2    the passage. We would have preferred, however, to have
R08 0900 11    had the rest of the orchestra refrain from laughing
R08 0910  9    at this and other spots on the recording, since it
R08 0920  6    mars an otherwise sober, if not lofty, performance.
R08 0940  1    As Broadway itself becomes increasingly weighted down
R08 0940  8    by trite, heavy-handed, commercially successful musicals
R08 0950  4    and inspirational problem dramas, the American theatre
R08 0960  4    is going through an inexorable renaissance in that
R08 0970  3    nebulous area known as "off-Broadway". For the last
R08 0970 12    two years, this frontier of the arts has produced a
R08 0980 10    number of so-called "non-dramas" which have left indelible,
R08 0990  7    bittersweet impressions on the psyche of this veteran
R08 1000  6    theatregoer. The latest and, significantly, greatest
R08 1010  2    fruit of this theatrical vine is The, an adaptation
R08 1010 11    of Basho's classic frog-haiku by Roger Entwhistle,
R08 1020  8    a former University of Maryland chemistry instructor.
R08 1030  5    Although the play does show a certain structural amateurishness
R08 1040  5    (there are eleven acts varying in length from twenty-five
R08 1050  5    seconds to an hour and a half), the statement it makes
R08 1060  3    concerning the ceaseless yearning and searching of
R08 1060 10    youth is profound and worthy of our attention. The
R08 1070  7    action centers about a group of outspoken and offbeat
R08 1080  5    students sitting around a table in a cafeteria and
R08 1090  2    their collective and ultimately fruitless search for
R08 1090  9    a cup of hot coffee. They are relentlessly rebuffed
R08 1100  6    on all sides by a waitress, the police, and an intruding
R08 1110  6    government tutor. The innocence that they tried to
R08 1120  4    conceal at the beginning is clearly destroyed forever
R08 1120 12    when one of them, asking for a piece of lemon-meringue
R08 1130 11    pie, gets a plate of English muffins instead. Leaving
R08 1140  6    the theatre after the performance, I had a flash of
R08 1150  6    intuition that life, after all (as Rilke said), is
R08 1160  2    just a search for the nonexistent cup of hot coffee,
R08 1160 12    and that this unpretentious, moving, clever, bitter
R08 1170  5    slice of life was the greatest thing to happen to the
R08 1180  6    American theatre since Brooks Atkinson retired.
R08 1190  1       Aging but still precocious, French feline enfant
R08 1190  8    terrible Francoisette Lagoon has succeeded in shocking
R08 1200  7    jaded old Paris again, this time with a sexy ballet
R08 1210  8    scenario called The Lascivious Interlude, the story
R08 1220  4    of a nymphomaniac trip-hammer operator who falls hopelessly
R08 1230  2    in love with a middle-aged steam shovel. A biting,
R08 1230 12    pithy parable of the all-pervading hollowness of modern
R08 1240  9    life, the piece has been set by ~Mlle Lagoon to a sumptuous
R08 1255  5    score (a single motif played over and over by four
R08 1260  6    thousand French horns) by existentialist hot-shot Jean-Paul
R08 1270  3    Sartre. Petite, lovely Yvette Chadroe plays the nymphomaniac
R08 1280  2    engagingly.
R08 1280  3       Ever since Bambi, and, more recently, Born Free,
R08 1290  3    there have been a lot of books about animals, but few
R08 1300  3    compare with Max Fink's wry, understated, charming,
R08 1300 10    and immensely readable My Friend, the Quizzical Salamander.
R08 1310  7    Done in the modern style of a "confession", Fink tells
R08 1320  9    in exquisite detail how he came to know, and, more
R08 1330  8    important, love his mother's pet salamander, Alicia.
R08 1340  2    It is not an entirely happy book, as Mrs& Fink soon
R08 1350  2    becomes jealous of Alicia and, in retaliation, refuses
R08 1350 10    to continue to scrape the algae off her glass. Max,
R08 1360  9    in a fit of despair, takes Alicia and runs off for
R08 1370  6    two marvelous weeks in Burbank (Fink calls it "the
R08 1380  3    most wonderful and lovely fourteen days in my whole
R08 1380 12    life"), at the end of which Alicia tragically contracts
R08 1390  9    Parkinson's disease and dies. This brief resume hardly
R08 1400  7    does the book justice, but I heartily recommend it
R08 1410  5    to all those who are engages with the major problems
R08 1420  2    of our time.
R08 1420  5       Opera in the Grand Tradition, along with mah-jongg,
R08 1430  4    seems to be staging a well-deserved comeback. In this
R08 1440  1    country, the two guiding lights are, without doubt,
R08 1440  9    Felix Fing and Anna Pulova. Fing, a lean, chiseled,
R08 1450  7    impeccable gentleman of the old school who was once
R08 1460  5    mistaken on the street for Sir Cedric Hardwicke, is
R08 1470  2    responsible for the rediscovery of Verdi's earliest,
R08 1470  9    most raucous opera, Nabisco, a sumptuous bout-de-souffle
R08 1480  6    with a haunting leitmotiv that struck me as being highly
R08 1490  8    reminiscent of the Mudugno version of "Volare". Miss
R08 1500  5    Pulova has a voice that Maria Callas once described
R08 1510  3    as "like chipping teeth with a screw driver", and her
R08 1520  3    round, opalescent face becomes fascinatingly reflective
R08 1520  9    of the emotions demanded by the role of Rosalie.
R08 1530  8       The Champs Elysees is literally littered this summer
R08 1540  6    with the prostrate bodies of France's beat-up beatnik
R08 1550  4    jeunes filles. Cause of all this commotion: squat,
R08 1560  2    pug-nosed, balding, hopelessly ugly Jean-Pierre Bravado,
R08 1570  1    a Bogartian figure, who plays a sadistic, amoral, philosophic
R08 1570 10    Tasti-Freeze salesman in old New-Waver Fredrico de
R08 1580  8    Mille Rossilini's endlessly provocative film, A Sour
R08 1590  6    Sponge. Bravado has been alternately described as "a
R08 1600  5    symbol of the new grandeur of France and myself" (De
R08 1605  3    Gaulle) and "a decadent, disgusting slob"! (Norman
R08 1620  1    Mailer), but no one can deny that the screen crackles
R08 1620 11    with electricity whenever he is on it. Soaring to stardom
R08 1630  9    along with him, Margo Felicity Brighetti, a luscious
R08 1640  5    and curvaceously beguiling Italian starlet, turns in
R08 1650  4    a creditable performance as an airplane mechanic.
R08 1660  1       The battle of the drib-drool continues, but most
R08 1660 10    of New York's knowing sophisticates of Abstract Expressionism
R08 1670  6    are stamping their feet impatiently in expectation
R08 1680  5    of ~V (for Vindication) Day, September first, when
R08 1690  4    Augustus Quasimodo's first one-man show opens at the
R08 1700  3    Guggenheim. We have heard that after seeing Mr& Quasimodo's
R08 1710  1    work it will be virtually impossible to deny the artistic
R08 1710 11    validity and importance of the whole abstract movement.
R08 1720  8    And it is thought by many who think about such things
R08 1730  8    that Quasimodo is the logical culmination of a school
R08 1740  4    that started with Monet, progressed through Kandinsky
R08 1750  1    and the cubist Picasso, and blossomed just recently
R08 1750  9    in Pollock and De Kooning. Quasimodo defines his own
R08 1760  8    art as "the search for what is not there".
R08 1770  6       "I paint the nothing", he said once to Franz Kline
R08 1780  5    and myself, "the nothing that is behind the something,
R08 1790  1    the inexpressible, unpaintable 'tick' in the unconscious,
R08 1800  1    the 'spirit' of the moment resting forever, suspended
R08 1800  9    like a huge balloon, in non-time". It is his relentlessness
R08 1810  9    and unwaivering adherence to this revolutionary artistic
R08 1820  5    philosophy that has enabled him to paint such pictures
R08 1830  5    as "The Invasion of Cuba". In this work, his use of
R08 1840  4    non-color is startling and skillful. The sweep of space,
R08 1850  1    the delicate counterbalance of the white masses, the
R08 1850  9    over-all completeness and unity, the originality and
R08 1860  6    imagination, all entitle it to be called an authentic
R08 1870  4    masterpiece. I asked Quasimodo recently how he accomplished
R08 1880  2    this, and he replied that he had painted his model
R08 1880 12    "a beautiful shade of red and then had her breathe
R08 1890  9    on the canvas", which was his typical tongue-in-cheek
R08 1900  7    way of chiding me for my lack of sensitivity.
R09 0010  1       DEAR SIRS: LET ME BEGIN by clearing up any possible
R09 0010 11    misconception in your minds, wherever you are. The
R09 0020  8    collective by which I address you in the title above
R09 0030  7    is neither patronizing nor jocose but an exact industrial
R09 0040  4    term in use among professional thieves. It is, I am
R09 0050  2    reliably given to understand, the technical argot for
R09 0050 10    those who engage in your particular branch of the boost;
R09 0060  8    i&e&, burglars who rob while the tenants are absent,
R09 0070  7    in contrast to hot-slough prowlers, those who work
R09 0080  4    while the occupants are home. Since the latter obviously
R09 0090  1    require an audacity you do not possess, you may perhaps
R09 0090 11    suppose that I am taunting you as socially inferior.
R09 0100  8    Far from it; I merely draw an etymological distinction,
R09 0110  5    hoping that specialists and busy people like you will
R09 0120  4    welcome such precision in a layman. Above all, disabuse
R09 0130  1    yourselves of any thought that I propose to vent moral
R09 0130 11    indignation at your rifling my residence, to whimper
R09 0140  8    over the loss of a few objets d'art, or to shame you
R09 0150  6    into rectitude. My object, rather, is to alert you
R09 0160  3    to an aspect or two of the affair that could have the
R09 0160 15    gravest implications for you, far beyond the legal
R09 0170  8    sanctions society might inflict. You have unwittingly
R09 0180  5    set in motion forces so malign, so vindictive, that
R09 0190  2    it would be downright inhumane of me not to warn you
R09 0190 13    about them. Quite candidly, fellows, I wouldn't be
R09 0200  8    in your shoes for all the rice in China.
R09 0210  6       As you've doubtless forgotten the circumstances
R09 0220  1    in the press of more recent depredations, permit me
R09 0220 10    to recapitulate them briefly. Sometime on Saturday
R09 0230  6    evening, August 22nd, while my family and I were dining
R09 0240  8    at the Hostaria dell' Orso, in Rome, you jimmied a
R09 0250  5    window of our home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and
R09 0260  2    let yourselves into the premises. Hastening to the
R09 0260 10    attic, the temperature of which was easily hotter than
R09 0270  8    the Gold Coast, you proceeded to mask the windows with
R09 0280  6    a fancy wool coverlet, some khaki pants, and the like,
R09 0290  4    and to ransack the innumerable boxes and barrels stored
R09 0300  1    there. What you were looking for (unless you make a
R09 0300 11    hobby of collecting old tennis rackets and fly screens)
R09 0310  7    eludes me, but to judge from phonograph records scattered
R09 0320  4    about a fumed-oak Victrola, you danced two tangos and
R09 0330  4    a paso doble, which must have been fairly enervating
R09 0340  1    in that milieu. You then descended one story, glommed
R09 0340 10    a television set from the music room- the only constructive
R09 0350  9    feature of your visit, by the way- and, returning to
R09 0360  7    the ground floor, entered the master bedroom. From
R09 0370  3    the curio cabinet on its south wall and the bureaus
R09 0380  1    beneath, you abstracted seventeen ivory, metal, wood,
R09 0380  8    and stone sculptures of Oriental and African origin,
R09 0390  6    two snuffboxes, and a jade-handled magnifying glass.
R09 0400  3    Rummaging through a stack of drawers nearby, you unearthed
R09 0410  2    an antique French chess set in ivory and sandalwood,
R09 0410 11    which, along with two box Kodaks, you added to your
R09 0420 10    haul. Then, having wrapped the lot in an afghan my
R09 0430  8    dog customarily slept on, you lammed out the front
R09 0440  3    door, considerately leaving it open for neighbors to
R09 0440 11    discover.
R09 0450  1       So much for the tiresome facts, as familiar to you,
R09 0450 11    I'm sure, as to the constables and state troopers who
R09 0460 10    followed in your wake. The foregoing, aided by several
R09 0470  6    clues I'll withhold to keep you on your toes, will
R09 0480  5    pursue you with a tenacity worthy of Inspector Javert,
R09 0490  2    but before they close in, gird yourselves, I repeat,
R09 0490 11    for a vengeance infinitely more pitiless. Fourteen
R09 0500  5    of the sculptures you took posses properties of a most
R09 0510  6    curious and terrifying nature, as you will observe
R09 0520  2    when your limbs begin to wither and your hair falls
R09 0520 12    out in patches. In time, these minor manifestations
R09 0530  7    will multiply and effloresce, riddling you with frambesia,
R09 0540  4    the king's evil, sheep rot, and clonic spasm, until
R09 0550  3    your very existence becomes a burden and you cry out
R09 0550 13    for release. All this, though, is simply a prelude,
R09 0560  9    a curtain-raiser, for what ensues, and I doubt whether
R09 0570  8    any Occidental could accurately forecast it. If, however,
R09 0580  5    it would help to intensify your anguish, I can delimit
R09 0590  4    the powers of a few of the divinities you've affronted
R09 0600  1    and describe the punishment they meted out in one analogous
R09 0600 11    instance. Hold on tight.
R09 0610  4       First of all, the six figures of the Buddha you
R09 0620  2    heisted- four Siamese heads, a black obsidian statuette
R09 0620 10    in the earth-touching position, and a large brass figure
R09 0630  9    of the Dying Buddha on a teakwood base. Now, you probably
R09 0640  8    share the widespread Western belief that the Lord Buddha
R09 0650  6    is the most compassionate of the gods, much more so
R09 0660  4    than Jehovah and Allah and the rest. 'Fess up- don't
R09 0670  1    you? Well, ordinarily he is, except (as the Wheel of
R09 0670 11    the Law specifies) toward impious folk who steal, disturb,
R09 0680  9    or maltreat the Presence. Very peculiar retribution
R09 0690  5    indeed seems to overtake such jokers. Eight or ten
R09 0700  5    years ago, a couple of French hoods stole a priceless
R09 0710  1    Khmer head from the Musee Guimet, in Paris, and a week
R09 0710 12    later crawled into the Salpetriere with unmistakable
R09 0720  7    symptoms of leprosy. Hell's own amount of chaulmoogra
R09 0730  6    oil did nothing to alleviate their torment; they expired
R09 0750  4    amid indescribable fantods, imploring the Blessed One
R09 0760  2    to forgive their desecration. Any reputable French
R09 0760  9    interne can supply you with a dozen similar instances,
R09 0770  9    and I'll presently recount a case out of my own personal
R09 0780  9    experience, but, for the moment, let's resume our catalogue.
R09 0790  5       Whether the pair of Sudanese ivory carvings you
R09 0800  4    lifted really possess the juju to turn your livers
R09 0810  1    to lead, as a dealer in Khartoum assured me, I am not
R09 0810 13    competent to say. Likewise the ivory Chinese female
R09 0820  7    figure known as a "doctor lady" (provenance Honan);
R09 0830  4    a friend of mine removing her from the curio cabinet
R09 0840  3    for inspection was felled as if by a hammer, but he
R09 0840 14    had previously drunk a quantity of applejack. The three
R09 0850  9    Indian brass deities, though- Ganessa, Siva, and Krishna-
R09 0860  5    are an altogether different cup of tea. They hail from
R09 0870  7    Travancore, a state in the subcontinent where Kali,
R09 0880  3    the goddess of death, is worshiped. Have you ever heard
R09 0890  2    of thuggee? Nuf sed **h. But it is the wooden sculpture
R09 0890 13    from Bali, the one representing two men with their
R09 0900  9    heads bent backward and their bodies interlaced by
R09 0910  5    a fish, that I particularly call to your attention.
R09 0920  2    Oddly enough, this is an amulet against housebreakers,
R09 0920 10    presented to the mem and me by a local rajah in 1949.
R09 0930 12    Inscribed around its base is a charm in Balinese, a
R09 0940  9    dialect I take it you don't comprehend. Neither do
R09 0950  4    I, but the Tjokorda Agoeng was good enough to translate,
R09 0960  3    and I'll do as much for you. Whosoever violates our
R09 0970  1    rooftree, the legend states, can expect maximal sorrow.
R09 0970  9    The teeth will rain from his mouth like pebbles, his
R09 0980  9    wife will make him cocu with fishmongers, and a trolley
R09 0990  6    car will grow in his stomach. Furthermore- and this,
R09 1000  5    to me, strikes an especially warming note- it shall
R09 1010  1    avail the vandals naught to throw away or dispose of
R09 1010 11    their loot. The cycle of disaster starts the moment
R09 1020  7    they touch any belonging of ours, and dogs them unto
R09 1030  5    the forty-fifth generation. Sort of remorseless, isn't
R09 1040  2    it? Still, there it is.
R09 1040  7       Now, you no doubt regard the preceding as pap; you're
R09 1050  6    tooling around full of gage in your hot rods, gorging
R09 1060  3    yourselves on pizza and playing pinball in the taverns
R09 1070  1    and generally behaving like U^bermenschen. In that
R09 1070  8    case, listen to what befell another wisenheimer who
R09 1080  7    tangled with our joss. A couple of years back, I occupied
R09 1090  6    a Village apartment whose outer staircase contained
R09 1100  2    the type of niche called a "coffin turn". In it was
R09 1110  1    a stone Tibetan Buddha I had picked up in Bombay, and
R09 1110 12    occasionally, to make merit, my wife and I garlanded
R09 1120  9    it with flowers or laid a few pennies in its lap. After
R09 1130  7    a while, we became aware that the money was disappearing
R09 1140  3    as fast as we replenished it. Our suspicions eventually
R09 1150  1    centered, by the process of elimination, on a grocer's
R09 1150 10    boy, a thoroughly bad hat, who delivered cartons to
R09 1160  8    the people overhead. The more I probed into this young
R09 1170  7    man's activities and character, the less savory I found
R09 1180  5    him. I learned, for example, that he made a practice
R09 1190  1    of yapping at dogs he encountered and, in winter, of
R09 1190 11    sprinkling salt on the icy pavement to scarify their
R09 1200  9    feet. His energy was prodigious; sometimes he would
R09 1210  4    be up before dawn, clad as a garbage collector and
R09 1220  2    hurling pails into areaways to exasperate us, and thereafter
R09 1220 11    would hurry to the Bronx Zoo to grimace at the lions
R09 1230 11    and press cigar butts against their paws. Evenings,
R09 1240  6    he was frequently to be seen at restaurants like Enrico
R09 1250  3    + Paglieri's or Peter's Backyard drunkenly donning
R09 1260  2    ladies' hats and singing "O Sole Mio". In short, and
R09 1270  2    to borrow an arboreal phrase, slash timber. Well, the
R09 1270 11    odious little toad went along chivying animals and
R09 1280  7    humans who couldn't retaliate, and in due course, as
R09 1290  6    was inevitable, overreached himself. One morning, we
R09 1300  2    discovered not only that the pennies were missing from
R09 1300 11    the idol but that a cigarette had been stubbed out
R09 1310 10    in its lap. "Now he's bought it", said my wife contentedly.
R09 1320  7    "No divinity will hold still for that. He's really
R09 1330  6    asking for it". And how right she was. The next time
R09 1340  4    we saw him, he was a changed person; he had aged thirty
R09 1350  2    years, and his face, the color of tallow, was crisscrossed
R09 1350 12    with wrinkles, as though it had been wrapped in chicken
R09 1365  9    wire. Some sort of nemesis was haunting his footsteps,
R09 1370  6    he told us in a quavering voice- either an ape specter
R09 1380  7    or Abe Spector, a process-server, we couldn't determine
R09 1390  2    which. His eyes had the same dreadful rigid stare as
R09 1390 12    Dr& Grimesby Roylott's when he was found before his
R09 1400  9    open safe wearing the speckled band. The grocery the
R09 1410  7    youth worked for soon tired of his depressing effect
R09 1420  5    on customers, most of whom were sufficiently neurotic
R09 1430  2    without the threat of incubi, and let him go. The beautiful,
R09 1440  1    the satisfying part of his disintegration, however,
R09 1440  8    was the masterly way the Buddha polished him off. Reduced
R09 1450  8    to beggary, he at last got a job as office boy to a
R09 1460  8    television producer. His hubris, deficiency of taste,
R09 1470  3    and sadism carried him straightaway to the top. He
R09 1470 12    evolved programs that plumbed new depths of bathos
R09 1480  8    and besmirched whole networks, and quickly superseded
R09 1490  4    his boss. Not long ago, I rode down with him in an
R09 1500  5    elevator in Radio City; he was talking to himself thirteen
R09 1510  2    to the dozen and smoking two cigars at once, clearly
R09 1510 12    a man in extremis. "See that guy"? the operator asked
R09 1520  8    pityingly. "I wouldn't be in his shoes for all the
R09 1530  9    rice in China. There's some kind of a nemesis haunting
R09 1540  7    his footsteps".
R09 1540  9       However one looks at it, therefore, I'd say that
R09 1550  8    your horoscope for this autumn is the reverse of rosy.
R09 1560  6    The inventory you acquired from me isn't going to be
R09 1570  4    easy to move; you can't very well sidle up to people
R09 1580  1    on the street and ask if they want to buy a hot Bodhisattva.
R09 1580 14    Additionally, since you're going to be hors de combat
R09 1590  9    pretty soon with sprue, yaws, Delhi boil, the Granville
R09 1600  7    wilt, liver fluke, bilharziasis, and a host of other
R09 1610  6    complications of the hex you've aroused, you mustn't
R09 1620  2    expect to be lionized socially. My advice, if you live
R09 1620 12    long enough to continue your vocation, is that the
R09 1630  9    next time you're attracted by the exotic, pass it up-
R09 1640  7    it's nothing but a headache. As you can count on me
R09 1650  6    to do the same.
R09 1650 10       compassionately yours,
R09 1660  1       S& J& PERELMAN
R09 1660  4    #REVULSION IN THE DESERT#
R09 1660  8    THE DOORS of the ~D train slid shut, and as I dropped
R09 1670 11    into a seat and, exhaling, looked up across the aisle,
R09 1680  7    the whole aviary in my head burst into song. She was
R09 1690  5    a living doll and no mistake- the blue-black bang,
R09 1700  1    the wide cheekbones, olive-flushed, that betrayed the
R09 1700  9    Cherokee strain in her Midwestern lineage, and the
R09 1710  7    mouth whose only fault, in the novelist's carping phrase,
R09 1720  4    was that the lower lip was a trifle too voluptuous.
R09 1730  2    From what I was able to gauge in a swift, greedy glance,
R09 1740  1    the figure inside the coral-colored boucle dress was
R09 1740 10    stupefying.