Many Mansions. Isabel Bolton

to throw into that magnificent chapter). He’d feed that chapter all he had—this first day of February 1950—H Day, Hell Day, Hydrogen Bomb Day, call it what you like; but it was this sweet, the acute, bitter business of the individual life that mattered. Making scenes, drawing pictures, holding imaginary conversations, he saw a series of astounding chapters, his entire novel unfolding as he marched along.

      It would not be a shallow, just a surface novel. He’d throw one value up against another. He’d experienced plenty—plenty. And here for some reason or another, Mol got trammeled up in the big rush of his memories and reflections—My Old Lady—Mol—poor intense emotional Miss Sylvester. He could see her now with her big eyes and her highfalutin talk. He knew just how she’d agonize about it. It couldn’t be—it simply couldn’t be. The great mistake, the greatest mistake in history, Mol opined, the using of the bomb at Hiroshima. How she’d gone on about it—protesting so violently, unable to see how anyone could disagree with her. Well, if she’d marched through France or Flanders and seen those hundreds of bombers in their ordered flight moving morning after morning with spectacular promptitude into the sky—roaring like a thousand trains of cars into her field of vision and out again, on their way to Berlin, to Dresden, to Nuremberg, to murder the mothers and the babies and the children and the old people—to destroy the factories and the railroads, to soften up the job for the artillery—if she’d thrown her hat in air and cheered them day after day till the breath was drawn clean from her lungs, she might be ready to shrug her shoulders now, and say, what’s the difference—a thousand bombers, or one bomber with the one big beautiful bomb—what did it matter?

      Here he was, at any rate, on this first of February, in his lone and penniless condition, with the check on Philip Ropes the third, which he had intended to tear up but which as a matter of fact reposed in his pocket at the present moment fairly burning a hole in his pants.

      Philip Ropes the third, for Christ’s sake—he hauled up at Seventh Avenue and waited for the lights to change—there was actually no reason why he shouldn’t cash that check. Patsy owed him the money. And if she’d paid him with a check on Philip Ropes, why be so stiff about it? The whole blamed business was over between them. Let Patsy go and do Ropes’s typing. Miss Patricia Smith—Typing and Steno-graphy—Manuscripts—Public Accounting—that was how she advertised herself in the paper (a writer who couldn’t type his own manuscripts was in any case a pain in the neck) and here Adam suddenly closed his eyes a moment trying to black out the pictures that flashed into his mind, for he did not see Patsy stiff and attentive, with her pencil poised for dictation, nor did he see her at a typewriter with her nimble fingers playing swiftly over the keys—no indeed—God no, he saw her lying on Philip Ropes’s couch, beautiful and naked, and Philip Ropes beside her, beautiful and naked too—that camellia-white body, those delicately-molded thighs, that soft red pubic hair, and her mouth (the taste of Patsy’s lips), the flowerlike opening mouth. God, that was what he’d paid her for. He was dead certain of it, though she’d sworn it was not the case. And how the devil could she expect him to play pimp to Philip Ropes? Lord, he’d starve before he’d cash that check. He could beat his way until he got the money from the government—only another week until the gi check came in. A man could beg. The successful beggars were always the young men who looked as though they’d had an education, whose clothes and shoes and general appearance suggested a decent background. The poor fellows, reduced to this. All they had to do was to hold out the hand an hour or more. He could work a district where nobody had ever seen his face—upper Broadway around the Seventies. That’s what he would do. Everything would be scheduled, everything sacrificed for work.

      Damned dangerous intersection. Were the red lights holding him up or telling him to go? Getting a cartload full of books across Seventh Avenue right here with the trucks and taxis bearing down on him was something of a feat. He might as well be the old junk man. It somehow got him down. Well, here he was. Where did he go from here? Down Morton to Hudson, or through Bedford into Cherry Lane? Again he hauled the pushcart up.

      No more dalliance. He was resolved to show some guts. He’d work on schedule. The first few days would be damned hard. But just as soon as he had dumped this stuff in his new room he’d get right out and do his little stint—extend the hand. It wouldn’t be difficult to pick up a few dollars every day. Think of the material he’d be getting for his new novel, the real raw down-and-out stuff.

      Compare his experience with the knowledge Philip Ropes had got of life—here Adam spat. There was this urgency, this sense of being driven. All the novels, the other young men. All the photographs on the backs of the dust jackets. There were hundreds of first novels—all the handsome young men with the blurbs that blew them up as large as Tolstoy, as large as Dostoevsky. It was like a contagion, some sickness of strife and competition, this chucking about of names and reputations. Why, you could put your finger on the very pulse-beats of other people’s triumphs, everything so public and conspicuous. Life came at you in every direction. It was the hungers, the hungers in the heart were suspect.

      Here now was his chance to slip through Bedford with free access to Cherry Lane. There was something ganging up on him, weighing down his spirits—the anguish of the days ahead, getting into the rut. The whole terrific business of mastering his craft, breaking the backs of sentences, assailed him—just plain learning how to write. What relentless memories, sitting at his typewriter for hours sweating blood, his eyes gone bleary, tired in every bone and sinew, his nerves frazzled like so many snapping fiddle strings, not able to write a decent paragraph, running to the nearest bar to fortify himself with as much liquor as he could pay for, coming back and trying to wrench his style from other novelists. Why, he had at one time mastered all O’Hara’s tricks and mannerisms; he’d copied Hemingway, he’d tried his hand at Sartre, but Joyce was and always would be the master who would drive him to despair. He knew what he was after, he had everything to say; he’d experienced plenty.

      Philip Ropes, what did he know about anything, the little dilettante who couldn’t even type his manuscript, getting Patsy in to dictate, walking up and down and dropping the immortal sentences? Such a handsome fellow with his chestnut curls and his collar open at the neck, a swell face for the dust jackets. Couldn’t you just see that face embellishing the blurbs? Hallo, the Cherry Lane theater—presenting a play by Sartre. He drew up a moment to inspect the bill. Now there was a writer who knew just what he was about, went directly to the heart of the matter. He’d never have begun a novel with reveries and reminiscences, giving you back your streets and moods and memories—far too explicit for that. He would have started off with Patsy in that bed in Jones Street. He’d have described the bed, warm and consoling, and Patsy, beautiful and naked in the bed beside him on that memorable night when all their troubles had begun. He’d have guessed exactly how she felt about Philip Ropes, conjuring up that peerless young man, while she lay there letting him make love to her—vicarious pleasure, that’s what he’d accused her of experiencing. Patsy had denied it. She’d said that she was sick and tired of him and his everlasting analysis, trying to fix up situations out of every moment, complicating everything; there was no freedom, no frankness left, no simplicity. Well, she was right, there hadn’t been. Her every tremor now involved with Philip Ropes; you couldn’t fool him about women.

      Trundling through Cherry Lane into Barrow, down Barrow, crossing Hudson with the lights now in his favor his bitterness accumulated. That tone of voice in which she’d said “there’s your precious manuscript,” the amount of sarcasm which she’d managed to put into those few words persisted. It hadn’t been too long ago that Patsy had believed he was her little genius. What a fuss she’d made about him, persuading him to give up his perfectly good job and stick exclusively to writing. She’d forced him into it. It was a crime for anyone with such creative gifts to use up all his energies on work that he despised. Where was he now? Back with his gi checks and his little course in English. She loved her little geniuses. Well, he had done with women. They didn’t jibe with work. The sooner he was down to good hardpan, the better—loneliness, misery, solitude. That was his receipt. He would with the greatest willingness make Patsy over to Philip Ropes. He could have her.

      Down Barrow to Greenwich Street. He looked up at the houses. Patsy had told him they were so cute. Little red houses, dormer windows. Cute enough. Why shouldn’t he cash that check? After all, whose fault was