FLIGHT
INTO
REALITY
Betsey Foote
Dear Betty:
I
HAVE NEVER BEE
so
INTIMATE
with a violin before. Every
morning we climb out of bed together, I and the violinist across
the court, and as I reach for my shorthand book, he curves slen–
der fingers around his pet, and another day has begun. How I
envy him! I am an artist, too; I have a victrola and I play
Brahms' first symphony on it, at least twice a day. But most of
the time I am compelled to make mental images of curly lines
and slap them down on paper meticulously so that some of these
days I can venture forth to an employment agency with a neat,
office-girl expression on my face. My violinist is struggling pa–
tiently after beauty. I never interrupt him in his struggles; in–
stead, I wait till he is eating lunch, and then we enjoy a move–
ment or two of Brahms, munching sandwiches and looking, occa–
sionally, across the court at each other.
Today two rollicking ice men came down the narrow alley
and yelled splendidly, "HICE
I
And HICE, apartment three C
I"
and I leaned out the window and yelled down at their two heads
warm with sun, "Three C has enough HICE for today!''
Then it seemed so strange that I had sat here in despair all
morning until they came; I sat thinking of the milk getting
sticky in the bottom of my empty glass; of the strangle hold of
the wires around the necks of the telephone posts outside my
window; of the dry clod choking the groping roots of the stunted,
half naked trees trying to put out their leaves to th e smothering
air; of the dismal, apologetic wail of the twelve o'clock whistle
and what it meant.to those who still listened for it; of my white
body, which is young now, and still soft and smooth, sheathed
in an invisible silken covering of tiny gold hairs; of the meaning–
less menace of the black cross cutting into the delicate blue sky
in the back of those apartment buildings; of the lost breeze
fingering hotly, idiotically, hopelessly, the dust coated leaves;
58
