A BAROQUE AFFAIR
245
a fog, sending its sulphurous mists into every niche, every vault, every
cupola of the mind.
So Craven was shocked-after the dinner in an Italian place,
after coffee and more cigarettes, and Pascal, and then coming back
to his apartment-shocked, after all the regular, ordinary things,
to have Lucy draw back when he started making love to her. Lucy
sat in cold suspension, caught in the dissociation of sensibility, a tight
controlled figure, not at all like a Bernini.
"Has anyone ever made love to you before, Lucy?" he whispered
in her ear. He kissed her in his contorted, corrupted way, and tried
to shock her. He did other things. Thinking of the oysters, he was
sure she'd never had anything
~e
this before.
She said yes, but didn't elaborate. He didn't, really couldn't
believe her. He preferred to think she didn't understand-that was
a better view of it. He worked on the assumption that Lucy thought
"making love" was like kissing to a lot of music in a filmy outdoor
scene, a glowing haze.
He
would initiate her feelings, strum her into
a singing harp, make her swoon like Saint Theresa awaiting the
arrow of love.
He repeated his question, and again she nodded desperately.
He repeated everything else. Then he argued and she tried to answer
him.
But she was not bright, said silly things, and, in fact, their con–
versation was not distinguished in the least.
"I really don't
know
you," Lucy then protested coldly, with a
world of meaning forced into her words. She had begun to move away
from
him.
"But you'd know me better then," Craven insisted, meaning
something else.
"No, I wouldn't, it would be worse. And you don't know me.
You don't. You haven't any idea what I'm really like."
It was true, perhaps, in some ways. But then, that had never
stopped
him
before. And what could be more grotesque than to
think
Lucy Doob presented grave epistemological problems for Donald
Craven! He began to show
his
anger. "There's only one way to begin
knowing you," he repeated, but without much charm, even of his
own variety. He sensed some disruption in the perspective of their
situation.
"I mean, ynu don't love me," Lucy said, but only after she
be-
