378
PARTISAN REVIEW
drawn again to the elephant's face and on second glance the eyes seem
less dead. Could it be the elephant isn't dead but in a swoon? Venplio,
strolling a forest path, has come upon an elephant lying in the dust.
And he kneels to slip into its ear the lilting echo which will surprise
and please the beast, curiously encourage it, and send it on its way. But
not yet: in our moment the elephant gazes abjectly down the length of
its famous but melancholy proboscis sprawling before Venolio.
In another snap Venolio faces the camera! However, all but his
eyes are covered by a parka's mask, for here the outdoorsman floats on
the severe and dimensionless white of the Arctic, one arm around the
neck of a propped-up walrus who stares bluntly into the camera,
conveying an uncommon levelness about things, including death, and
a candor certainly exceeding our own as we pry the coarse canvas of
Venolio's parka, searching for some hint of the hidden face.
"Just these two?" I said.
As Mrs. Sheehan slid them back into the folder, Ursula Dolmon
answered: "She asked for more, but these are all Goggins would send."
"And he stopped answering my letters," Mrs. Sheehan said.
"But you persisted?" I said.
She sighed. " It's like writing to the moon."
"Then what led you to believe Hugh Venolio would come to
present himself today?"
Ursula Dolmon unrolled a scroll of thick yellow paper; hiding
within the filigrees and flourishes of a grandiose hand was an epistle
agreeing to terms set forth in Mrs. Sheehan's of Five October, and
guaranteeing that "Mr. V." would appear for tea at Bogsedge on One
April for further negotiations, contractualizations and finalizings with
Tina Buell.
"So you see why the child's heart is broken, " Mrs. Sheehan said.
"Her day has come and gone." Tina had been carried upstairs, quaking
and hacking, after the episode on the terrace. When Mrs. Sheehan last
peeked in at her, Tina was whining in her sleep, poor thing, and
thrashing her legs as if she were riding a bicycle across the ceiling.
" It is my judgment," I said, returning the letter to Mrs. Sheehan,
"that this matter requires the greatest caution."
"Oh my," she whispered. She looked at her friend and said,
"Caution, Ursula."
" I advise you to prepare your defenses," I said, "while at the same
time keeping open your ports."
Ursula frowned. "That seems to proceed on the assumption that
Venolio still might come."
