PARTISAN REVIEW
violin case and
his
hat and coat for him, but De Foe looked in through
the half-open door and saw the ape crouched on .a chair,
his
legs
drawn up under
his
body. Surrounded by loneliness and hostility,
he was taking large bites from a whole pineapple which he held in
both hands, shooting angry dark glances into the void around him,
as though to make sure that nobody would take that pineapple
away from him.
The ape's performance with the orchestra was canceled; but
the Sunday following the rehearsal De Foe and Julie were married.
Nothing was ever said about the scar on his .arm. Both understood
they could not face such danger again.
They were on their honeymoon when the news of the ape's next
concert, in another city, reached them. He had done it again. He had
missed the entry of the second violins at "13" on the score. He did
it on purpose, the wicked creature, after the humiliation we inflicted
on him, De Foe surmised. But this time there had been no one to
prevent the consequences. The second violins hurled themselves upon
the violas; the whole orchestra joined the melee and most of the
instruments were smashed. The trainer's pistol shots echoed unheeded,
and enveloped in a cloud of tear gas the quiet harpist- cut off her
breasts, and many of the men castrated themselves. The ape was
sent back to the Yerkes Laboratory after that, and the
Bolero
pro–
scribed by the government. It can still be heard occasionally, on
records, in questionable houses in the red-light district of town.
People say it never fails to induce excesses of the wildest kind.
