land?”
“Half an hour.”
Tm happy”
“So am I, and 1 love you.”
“Me too.”
She closed her eyes and seemed to go back to sleep.
END OF CHAPTER X
There is a gap at this point. The only thing certain is that George was awarded the Medal of Honor. This event is described in Chapter Y, and the end of the story is in Chapter Z, Our apologies to the reader
.
INTERMEZZO
BETWEEN CHAPTER X AND CHAPTER Y
Dear Abelard,
I am almost through with these letters, but I would like to try to explain what Heloise was really like. In addition to being essentially all aquiver, Heloise could probably be best described as a primordial woman, I don’t know if you have ever had the good fortune to meet one.
I doubt it, because your suspicious nature, your repressed fantasies, and your insistence on always getting your money’s worth would preclude the remotest possibility of ever meeting that kind of woman. But 1 have.
It was in America; I don’t remember exactly when, Fm not sure if it was night or day, and I don’t know if I was awake or dreaming. It was a period when I had nothing on my mind, and you know how sometimes an imperceptible detail can catch your attention—that’s how I met a primordial woman. The first thing I noticed was her eyes. She was a brand-new American; she was actually born in Ireland. Her eyes were incredibly round, with the look of surprise that early man must have felt on this earth, and they were as blue as African oceans. Her ears were small, like those of the monkeys of the Serengeti Plain. Her high, full breast was divinely perfect, her hips were as round as the world, and her skin was white as the summer moon. I can’t remember what excuse I made to introduce myself, but whatever remark I made, she said, “I know!” in a way I never heard before and will never hear again: drawling, warm, unhurried, and knowing, yet hopelessly and desolately final.
I swear, I never heard anyone say “I know” that way, and if you don’t think that is a good enough reason to want to understand the source of such an unusual rendition of such an ordinary remark as “I know,” it means that again you are very slow on the uptake. Sometimes I wonder why I take the time and trouble to write to you at all.
It would be a lie to say that I desired her at once. I just wanted to take a closer look and talk some more. I asked if she would have lunch or dinner with me, on the pretext that this would give us a chance to talk about her work. We made a date to meet at Smith & Wollensky’s, a steakhouse that had something genuinely American about it. Naturally it was evening. She was very late, which I subsequently realized was an innate but charming defect. She was also a bit high, very cheerful, and not at all primordial. The whole staff of the restaurant frowned as we entered; they did not much approve of an older man taking a rather euphoric young woman out to dinner. I ordered everything I could to get the bill up to the impeccably respectable amount of four hundred dollars. I had to act the good paterfamilias when she spilled her glass on the pants of the man at the next table. And I all but fled from the restaurant igno. miniously pursued by the hatcheck girl, who spurned the large, guilt-ridden tip and scornfully handed it back. I managed to hail a taxi all by myself, and Heloise—that was her name—sank back into the seat and gave me a full view of her round thighs.
I asked her up to my room when we got to the hotel, but her refusal, 1 later realized, was something inborn; it was one of the things that made her a primordial woman.
Let me explain—1 wouldn’t want you to think it was intense, lustful desire that had me in its grip that night. It was not like the time 1 went to Cortina with the set purpose of making love to a buxom lass from Bolzano while pretending 1 was actually looking for a temporary maid. I called her in Bolzano as soon as I got to Cortina to ask her why she wasn’t there. She said
“Half an hour.”
Tm happy”
“So am I, and 1 love you.”
“Me too.”
She closed her eyes and seemed to go back to sleep.
END OF CHAPTER X
There is a gap at this point. The only thing certain is that George was awarded the Medal of Honor. This event is described in Chapter Y, and the end of the story is in Chapter Z, Our apologies to the reader
.
INTERMEZZO
BETWEEN CHAPTER X AND CHAPTER Y
Dear Abelard,
I am almost through with these letters, but I would like to try to explain what Heloise was really like. In addition to being essentially all aquiver, Heloise could probably be best described as a primordial woman, I don’t know if you have ever had the good fortune to meet one.
I doubt it, because your suspicious nature, your repressed fantasies, and your insistence on always getting your money’s worth would preclude the remotest possibility of ever meeting that kind of woman. But 1 have.
It was in America; I don’t remember exactly when, Fm not sure if it was night or day, and I don’t know if I was awake or dreaming. It was a period when I had nothing on my mind, and you know how sometimes an imperceptible detail can catch your attention—that’s how I met a primordial woman. The first thing I noticed was her eyes. She was a brand-new American; she was actually born in Ireland. Her eyes were incredibly round, with the look of surprise that early man must have felt on this earth, and they were as blue as African oceans. Her ears were small, like those of the monkeys of the Serengeti Plain. Her high, full breast was divinely perfect, her hips were as round as the world, and her skin was white as the summer moon. I can’t remember what excuse I made to introduce myself, but whatever remark I made, she said, “I know!” in a way I never heard before and will never hear again: drawling, warm, unhurried, and knowing, yet hopelessly and desolately final.
I swear, I never heard anyone say “I know” that way, and if you don’t think that is a good enough reason to want to understand the source of such an unusual rendition of such an ordinary remark as “I know,” it means that again you are very slow on the uptake. Sometimes I wonder why I take the time and trouble to write to you at all.
It would be a lie to say that I desired her at once. I just wanted to take a closer look and talk some more. I asked if she would have lunch or dinner with me, on the pretext that this would give us a chance to talk about her work. We made a date to meet at Smith & Wollensky’s, a steakhouse that had something genuinely American about it. Naturally it was evening. She was very late, which I subsequently realized was an innate but charming defect. She was also a bit high, very cheerful, and not at all primordial. The whole staff of the restaurant frowned as we entered; they did not much approve of an older man taking a rather euphoric young woman out to dinner. I ordered everything I could to get the bill up to the impeccably respectable amount of four hundred dollars. I had to act the good paterfamilias when she spilled her glass on the pants of the man at the next table. And I all but fled from the restaurant igno. miniously pursued by the hatcheck girl, who spurned the large, guilt-ridden tip and scornfully handed it back. I managed to hail a taxi all by myself, and Heloise—that was her name—sank back into the seat and gave me a full view of her round thighs.
I asked her up to my room when we got to the hotel, but her refusal, 1 later realized, was something inborn; it was one of the things that made her a primordial woman.
Let me explain—1 wouldn’t want you to think it was intense, lustful desire that had me in its grip that night. It was not like the time 1 went to Cortina with the set purpose of making love to a buxom lass from Bolzano while pretending 1 was actually looking for a temporary maid. I called her in Bolzano as soon as I got to Cortina to ask her why she wasn’t there. She said
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