Gore Vidal
ALL OUR LIVES
The sun has set behind St. Peter's. The low-swarming
birds are gone. In the west cobalt blue has become neon rose. The
moon's dead face reflects the new hidden sun.
I am depressed, partly at time's passage (how did one get so
quickly from there to here?), partly at Eric's description of a script
conference - in just such a way I once earned my living - and at
the glum realization that I forgot to arrange to have sex today.
As
I write this phrase, I am reminded of a newspaper writer who
found distressing my habit of using the phrase "to have sex" instead
of "make love." But having sex is a fact and describable, while
making love
is
an illusion and indescribable. I have always thought
it wiser and more honest to deal with facts than evoke illusions no
matter how self-flattering. Needless to say, one usually does both,
but one ought always to try to
begin
with fact if only to discover
exactly where one
is.
Where am
I?
Well, I have gone inside, turned on the lights in
the living room, look for comfort to the Amalfitan stone lion which
dominates the room (said to be eleventh century, probably stolen
from a church), look at the marble head of Jove bought from a
dealer now disappeared and wish for the hundredth time that the
marble did not so much resemble the Ivory Soap in which I used
to carve Parthenon after Parthenon in the third grade.
The room's yellow walls usually cheer me but not now. The
unfinished business of Eric, the never-finished business of Marietta,
not to mention a long attack on me which a thoughtful friend sent
from London. I have glanced at it. Apparently, I am not as com–
mitted, as self-revealing, as powerful as
Mailer.
To which I can only
