384
PARTISAN REVIEW
light from the lamp he had lit in the room, reflected in the dark pane
and obliterating the world.
He put his arm around my shoulders and said in his tight, odd
voice which always reminded me of an oboe, "Who are you?"
"Oh cut that out."
"I mean are you Cooper Goggins, Vance Green, Jimmy
McJames..
'?"
"Vance Green."
"Ah. My favorite."
I whispered, "You should have waited. We had a chance for
something better.
If
you had only waited."
"There, there," he said. I was crying. Nuzzling me with his great
proboscis, he breathed in my ear, befuddling me, spinning everything
until it came unnoticed and slid off, and while his bright eyes stared
down his nose, I found myself alone on a street, narrow and endless, the
sounds of the city cupped by the sky and muffled
to
an ethery
wah wah
wah.
In
my hand was a card:
Miss Sondra Padilla,
and the address was
the place across the street. A face, small and vague, was stuck in a
window on the second floor. I took off my hat and waved it.
"Be good," Venolio murmured and with a shove sent me forth.
But I turned to them and said, "What do you think of your
outdoorsman now?"
Mrs. Sheehan and Ursula Dolmon stared right through me! But
Tina crooked her finger. I went
to
her and leaned down. She whis–
pered, "Hugh tells me you must be off for an appointment with a
certain Miss... Pudolla?"
"No," I said. Venolio coughed peremptorily behind me. "There's
plenty of time," I said, glancing at him. He stood with his hands
clasped behind him and leaning slightly forward like a banker ponder–
ing loans, foreclosures, evictions. "I am still their guest," I whispered.
Walking by me, and mumbling what was either "Rather" or
"Blather," he went to a sideboard and poured a drink.
"Dear Mr. Venolio," Mrs. Sheehan said in a lutey tremolo. "I do
hope you will favor us with one of your songs."
"He sings?" I exclaimed. "He has told you he
sings?"
Venolio bowed his head modestly. He downed his drink, dabbed
his lips with a blue silk handkerchief, and strode to the center of the
triangle formed by the ladies' chairs. He tooted a pitch pipe and, lifting
