244
PARTISAN REVIEW
knew the precise limits of her rather uneducated imagination, and
how her feelings generalized from particulars.
Poor Lucy sat there, bright and blond, very controlled and very
nervous. She was trying to regulate her surprise and not leave herself
at the mercy of sudden thoughts, some of which had already
threatened her composure. For instance, Craven did not look very
well, and Lucy wished she could have thought he looked wonderful.
He always looked better when she just
thought
of him, worse when
she actually saw him. Donald Craven was not an attractive man and
had never tried to be. In fact, it was part of his equipment not to
be. He was pale, and for some reason he dressed like a refugee, al–
though he was not one, so far as Lucy knew. This curious
tournure
of his made him look like
his
own father planning the General Strike
or the Easter Rebellion. Lucy knew that Donald Craven's true loyal–
ties reflected other
mores.
Still, he was unkempt, in a way that Louis
could never be-not dirty exactly, but somehow unappealing. There
was something about the way his clothes fit him that Lucy did not
like, something about the way his pants fit him.
He gave Lucy Doob some Cinzano, a cigarette, a book of
Pascal to look at: she had admitted a predictable vagueness about
the Jansenists. He also gave her a book on Bernini's churches. Then
Craven walked over to the window and looked out at the pinkish
buff twilight fading over the brq_wn houses. It reminded him in its
insidious way of an Italian sky, of rich golden afternoons, or early
grotesquely-lit evenings over the brown Tiber. He was sure that in
his case the Italian neighbors of Carmine Street had nothing to do
with his impressions.
The small street where he lived was nothing like Piazza Navona.
There were no fountains, and if he looked out the window no Bor–
romini fac;ade could delight his eye. Inside, in the room where he
smoked and drank-and often actually worked- there was no Pozzo
or Gaulli ceiling drawing him upward to ecstasy; and his desk ex–
hibited no lapis lazuli. The furniture was all in that loose general style
known as Early Village Modern. Craven did not go in for wrought
iron, foam rubber, sling chairs or storage walls, which characterize a
mannerist stage of the style. He had neither the money nor that par–
ticular kind of taste, which was fortunate, because the foam rubber
sofa could be no match for despair- Despair which comes down like
