570
THALIA SELZ
environment, lost crown-jewel of Byzantium set in village mud,
lemon-blossom with your soul like the withered lemon rind–
let me not judge you.
My father was a lawyer and for
all
his mixed marriage,
free talk, and derision of the church, he was a great prince in
this tiny principality in the marches. I could afford to be scorn–
ful of Greek girls and go my way: I had an American mother,
American girlfriends, and an American college waiting for me.
My mother had graduated from the same college in 1918-my.
grandfather in 1892-my great-grandmother in 1860. I was a
free agent.
Vasiliki was not. She lived in a box; her soul wasn't big
enough to break out, so she felt she had to see that her box got
furnished right.
Joshua did not appear to nibble the first time. He sat far
back on the couch that was his night-time bed, with his thin legs
awkwardly crossed like a boy just beginning
to
wear long trousers
and his skinny, supple hands jammed in his pockets. Maybe he
was running. Interior flight. He said little except, challengingly,
that he read
PM,
voted for Roosevelt (this was no challenge,
everyone Vasiliki knew voted for Roosevelt), and believed that
art could best serve the social revolution by following its own
organic growth in joyous freedom (hear hear!).
Vasiliki was only seventeen but she was no fool; she was a
good Greek girl. She ignored him gently except for an occasional
sweet, plump glance full of sisterly laughter and spent her time
talking to Mother and me. She was demure with my father.
Though she allowed herself, at the end of the evening, to be
pinched on the behind, she quickly spatted his hand, sped to
my mother, kissed her on both cheeks, slipped her arm around
my waist and gave me a hug, and drew that imp Jason to her
bosom with real affection.
She had a beautiful bosom. I loved it. It was high and full
without being distorted like those on the calendar Petty Girls
Jason was already collecting. On her second visit, a few nights
