BOOKS
507
ITh e Wick ed Pavilionl
it seems he's too drunk to even get into it,
what a pity.
To Wheelock:
Dear .Jack:
Since I do not have the money to payoff the remains of my debt to
Scribner's and since you remind me
so
tactfully that it was
advanced to bring me back from Paris,
J
wonder if we couldn 't set–
tle the whole thing by your sending me back to Paris.
To the British art hi sto ri a n, Brya n Robertson:
The morning after the directors' meeting here-indeed, the day you
left-I was rubbing a light Madeira over my temples when Dos Pas–
sos fJopped in and things began again. I told him your splendid words
about him-you did say he was the best-dressed man in Ville Franche,
didn't you?-and we stroked each other's brains pretending all the
time we weren't really killing a fifth of Mother's Cutty Sark, divid–
ing the cork quite even ly, then going over to Rickey'S on all fours
and having our dishes on the floor to show we live in a democracy.
To her closest friend, Margaret De Silver:
He confided to Tom that she was terrific in the hay. This always
sounds
so
athletic, as if she did go at it with a pitchfork
if
la Soviet
womanhood.
I can't tell whether this is love or merely showing their exes how
happy they are
NO
\XI,
you bastards.
.. .
To the La ke Erie alumnae magaz ine a bout her time there :
Three days later, all settled in my room, tennis racket and boudoir
cap jauntily decorating the old pine dresser, I took the trouble to leaf
throllgh my rosy little roommate's diary.
(J
wasn't snooping, I
merely wanted to check on her prose style.) It was a shock to see
this entry: "My roommate's name
is
Dawn. I think she is fast
becallse she has a boudoir cap and a bottle of wine. "
I cannot remember what Miss Brownfield {the new dean} cou ld
have said to
liS
{about World War I breaking out}, bllt I still
