THE EDUCATION OF A QUEEN
567
isted thousands of important fairies, only here I will distinguish
further between fairies and pederasts...."
At this point even I, really interested only in sex these days
-even I weary and cease to listen while I toy with Joshua's
empty coffee-cup at my elbow.
After a quick, seemingly casual inspection my father de–
cided that Joshua (certainly no fairy, and probably not even
a pederast) needed nothing so tonic-y as a woman, and accord–
ingly he began to bring them in. It gave him a good excuse to
gather pretty girls around him, and my mother, after a grim sigh,
pitched in to help with extra meals and occasional parties,
though she "would have nothing wild" she stated, darting a
menacing glance at my father.
"Puritana!"
muttered my father, but he stopped hanging
out his tongue all the same.
At first they came and went in swift succession, frail blos–
soms on the gusts of our prince's bored sighs. Grace, who helped
with dishes, and Viola who did not and smeared "I really love
Jason best" all over the bathroom mirror with Tangee lipstick.
Pretty Nanette with whom I fell briefly in love and to whom
we gaily sang all one evening,
((No, no Nanette! No, no."
Jean–
from a dull Iowa family-who had joined the social revolution
and tried earnestly to convert Joshua to socially significant art.
Sarah who was Jewish and was really having a hell of a time
trying to organize the lady garment workers in her district. He
liked her best for a while, but, I heard him tell my father, he
just didn't feel like sleeping with her.
"Why
not?"
roared my father.
"Why?" queried Joshua, and there Sarah rested.
Then my father started to round up the Greek girls. Had
I thought, had I been strong and brave and used to offering
advice to my father, I would simply have warned him,
((Don't!"
I understood this instinctively, for I had no truck with Greek
girls myself, but in those days I didn't know how to examine
an intuitive reaction for its validity as a genuine mode of con-
