918
PARTISAN REVIEW
me when I saw her in Fairbanks' living room, talking with old Mrs.
Fairbanks in the comer as she turned the record! She was so primped
in her worn Sunday dress, waiting for the handful of soldiers to
trickle in who had responded to the written card on the USO Bul–
letin Board. It was the middle of the week, and the trainees had to
stay in camp. So I was the only one there that night; otherwise some–
body else would have warmed to her after struggling through the
awkwardness of mutual exploration. Mterwards her house was too
near the Fairbanks', and we walked around the streets hand in hand
till nearly one, though she had to work the next morning. Only after
three dates did she take me to the musty third-floor apartment of that
old house, where she lived with her father. His hours on the railroad
were odd, but he always seemed to be there when I was. She forced
herself to be cordial when she introduced us; he just grumbled in his
galluses and sat down again to his paper. He was always there, and
we had to sit on the porch or in the park, or when it got cold either
walk or go to the movies. The possibility of my shipping overseas didn't
hurry us. We both lounged in assur.ance that I'd stay at Fort Har–
rison. Still, my uniform made me seem more normal than I am and
the war shed a light of competence and danger on my doings.
That first night the rift started,
in
our quarrel over Wagner and
Tchaikowsky. She called me a snob; I mocked her as a sentimentalist.
That hostility grew and grew, estranging us more than we could help,
though we each reached out desperately for the other; or at least I
did for her. She had always a few suitors on the fringes. Never again
could we be as close, or as far, as last New Year's, when I let myself
go at the end of our interminable talk, cutting with cruel voice the
statue of the Sentimentalist, while she winced horribly on the sofa.
How could I have let myself, how could I have done that to her? She
said she would never forget it (nor will she, I'm sure ), stormed out of
the living room to bed, and told me to leave. Even the next night
she would not embrace me till I left her, finding no other roomers
still on the porch. The toll of my contumely stuns me; already it has
lost me the woman who tugged like a moon on the tides of my blood
(that pull did not fade .at distance, nor at my discharge from the lone–
liness of the Army); and it will not console my almost certain failure
in the years to come.
Why am I an Orientalist? In a sense by elimination. Law be-
