But, then, I always wonder that.
I'm the silly jackass who does.
Look--waiters, busboys, and you over there in the cage with the pointed
auburn haircut and the long eyelashes and the tight dress--here we
have a handsome young woman who has set about, by means not nearly so
rare or unorthodox as you pretend among yourselves--to find one or two
universals, or fundamentals, which are not in the book.
What book?
Not in any?
Oh--yes--those banned novels. And those mournful characters who thought
only of their pale, poetical brows plunging into the Pit, the lonely
well. Or sordid sun-tan oil on Jackson's vulgar beach.
When will the poets get the censors off _their_ backs, too--and write
like men, for a change? God's no fairy, or Satan, either.
What foul compulsion is this--that every page of the Tragedy must
itself be mournful stuff, sinister, or sick?
Farce, instead!
Does the tragic deer, the beautiful, the doomed, imbue his every
poolside hour with dolorous contemplation? Must all the activities
of the woodchuck be regarded as dismal? To write the stark terms of
our essence on every breath and sentence of the moment is to be the
own advocate of death, the white bones himself, and to overlook the
splendor with such eyeless concentration that the poem becomes a joke
on the poet.
I flirted with Yvonne--told her stories of Paris and Hollywood and
Miami Beach--held her hand--all, in chivalrous camouflage.
Paul came at last.
I hardly needed to see the stoop--the broken reach to push open the
doors that enclosed our cold air cube--to know that, between us, we
had not lifted his oppression. For, when it is succubus that's lost,
incubus perforce remains.
He looked disapprovingly at Yvonne. "Mrs. Prentiss, this is my nephew,"
I said. "Paul Wilson."
"Hello, Mrs. Prentiss." He turned from her. "I'll barge along, Phil. I
thought you'd be alone."
"Oh, hell, sit."
"Really--it's not possible!" His ardent features were emphasized by
pallor--and shooting about on his face, besides.
"Sit," I said, "and eat--or otherwise you'll force me to leave the lady
and go with you. She has a date after dinner, anyhow."
He groaned and sat down--nipping the menu from the waiter's hands
roughly. "No news."
"Tough." I turned to Yvonne. "His--fiancée--is lost."
"How awful! What happened?"
Paul glared at me for a moment. "Your friend Dave," he finally said,
in a tone more polite than his facial expression, "did all he could.
Got an agency looking. Sent a fellow over to stay in my--our--place. We
hunted up some more friends of hers--that Dave got track of--and they
told us of others. We've been seeing them. It isn't much fun."
"Why not quit, then? Wait for her?"
"If all she did was walk out," Yvonne agreed, "that's absolutely the
only thing to do. Sit tight. Have a good time. Suppose she finds out
you're apparently raising heaven and earth to locate her? She'll just
hide in a safe spot and enjoy things that much more."