380
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Did you know that the ice cream sundae was invented in a
Greek ice cream parlor in Chicago?" Hartford still couldn't look
much above that bosom, but he could talk. He grew so excited by
her name that he couldn't
stop
talking. "Nausicaa was the prin–
cess who found Odysseus on the shore when he was shipwrecked.
I've read the
Odyssey
in the original. Yes. And Paleologos. Is that
really
your last name?"
Mrs. Nausicaa laughed hoarsely, leaned back from her third
cup of coffee, and gazed at Hartford much as a true gourmande
gazes upon a dish of freshly picked mushrooms, sauteed in real
butter and lightly sprinkled with lemon juice. There
was
some–
thing mushroomlike about him, as though he had grown in
some shady, daI!1P spot. His skin was extremely pale, and she
liked the delicate gold of his hair, exactly as if it had been fried in
butter for a few minutes.
Paleologos was the name of her deceased husband, but she
let that go for the present. Hartford, however, was not about to
let it go. "The last Byzantine emperor was named Constantine
Paleologos." He was still at an age when he liked
to
show off his
knowledge; later he would become shy and refuse to divulge any
of his vast store unless someone he trusted asked him or unless
someone-anyone-said something contrary to fact. "He's sup–
posed to have died fighting in the streets on that day-Tuesday,
April 29, 1452 ." How proud he was that he remembered the pre–
cise date, though it would not have made him proud at seven–
thirty that morning when he left his rooming house for the li–
brary. His pride had something to do with that mounded bosom
swelling tawnily above the black bodice-for Mrs. Nausicaa was,
of course, in mourning-with the chortling laugh that issued
from it, with the black hair swept up into a glossy bun but curled
. entrancingly over her forehead and her ears, with the big black
eyes that watched him with sleepy care from under half-closed
lids . Once in a while when he dared
to
dart a glance upward,
something flared in those eyes. This was flattering. To his
knowledge, which though immense had certain significant gaps,
Hartford had never been flared at in that way before. He liked it,
and he found he wanted more.
So did Mrs. Nausicaa. After a band concert and a visit to the
theatre to watch his father perform, Mrs. Nausicaa decided that
she liked 'Artford enough
to
invite him to her neat littl e bun-
