602
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Excuse me. Was an accident this picture. She is not for you."
Salzman frantically shoved the manila packet into his portfolio.
He thrust the snapshot into his pocket and fled down the stairs.
Leo, after momentary paralysis, gave chase and cornered the
marriage broker in the vestibule. The landlady made hysterical out–
cries but neither of them listened.
"Give me back the picture, Salzman."
"No." The pain
in
his eyes was terrible.
"Tell me who she is then."
"This I can't tell you. Excuse me."
He made to depart, but Leo, forgetting himself, seized the
matchmaker by his tight coat and shook him frenziedly.
"Please," sighed Salzman.
"Please."
Leo ashamedly let him go. "Tell me who she is," he begged.
"It's very important for me to know."
"She is not for you. She is a wild one-wild, without shame.
This is not a bride for a rabbi."
"What do you mean wild?"
"Like an animal. Like a dog. For her to be poor was a sin.
This is why she
is
dead now."
"In God's name, what do you mean?"
"Her I can't introduce to you," Salzman cried.
"Why are you so excited?"
"Why he asks," Salzman said, bursting into tears. "This is my
baby, my Stella, she should burn in hell."
Leo hurried up to bed and hid under the covers. Under the
covers he thought his whole life through. Although he soon fell asleep
he could not sleep her out of his mind. He woke, beating his breast.
Though he prayed to be rid of her, his prayers went unanswered.
Through days of torment he struggled endlessly not to love her; fear–
ing success, he escaped
it.
He then concluded to convert her to good–
ness, himself to God. The idea alternately nauseated and exalted him.
He perhaps did not know that he had come to a final decision
until he encountered Salzman in a Broadway cafeteria. He was sitting
alone at a rear table, sucking the bony remains of a fish. The
marriage broker appeared haggard, and transparent to the point of
vanishing.
