him
to come over. It was her birthday and she was alone, and drinking
champagne when he arrived. Her mood was low. She was recovering
from an operation for “internal troubles, female troubles,” and the
studio, she confessed, was trying to tell her she was insane. He
thought, on the contrary, she had become “a fine, intelligent
woman.” They drank champagne for hours, and his mood entered into
the sweet and awesome depths of what they might yet be able to do
for one another again. After a long while, he tried to make love to
her.
“André,” he reported her to say, “do you wish
to kill me? I have this operation! You must not be selfish.” He
left soon after, but he had a sudden rage at the thought of being
betrayed, and tiptoed back, and waited on the porch of her bungalow
at the Beverly Hills Hotel in the dark. No telephone calls came to
her, just as there had been none that afternoon of her birthday,
and none came now. At nine o’clock, she turned out the lights and
went to sleep, and no lover came to replace him. After another
hour, Dienes tiptoed away and never saw her again, not alive. And
now he lives in a house which may be something like a cave, still a
bachelor and more of a hermit and not as attached to the idea of
sex every night as once he was, a vigorous man of middle height,
still full of a workingman’s energy and with eyes that blazed so
clearly they were remembered as blue when in fact they were brown.
A rugged hint of something like the features Harpo Marx might have
had if he had been craggier and had not died too young is in the
photographer’s face. “That is the truth as it happened to me,” said
Dienes in his accent, “and I tell it to you all.”
* * *
What he did not know is that in the last
years of her life she never rented an hotel suite that did not have
two exits. So she may not have gone to sleep early that birthday
night in 1961, but on the contrary, have slipped out on him. The
riddle of her personality is with us, in any case, as we hear this
story, for the question of her sincerity is almost insurmountable.
Of Dienes it is hard not to believe that he is telling the truth,
and indeed it is as if the experience is still there in all of his
senses and has never altered. But we can hardly know if she was
serious about marrying him, or drifted through the month, and was
more delighted than not when it was done. Again, as with Dougherty,
the truth may be an actor’s truth, where she felt every emotion
Dienes assumed she felt, but it was her role and not her identity
he was given.
That is confusion enough, but it is confusion
limited by supposing she told the truth to Dienes, and he was only
the second man in her life. What if she were lying? She will yet
become so superb an actress, and she is obviously so creative
already that it must have been small effort for her to encourage
him to fall in love with her. One must act toward a goal, and
intensifying his love keeps the play alive. So we cannot ignore the
possibility that when it comes to sex she is as consummate a liar
as she will be with publicity — for that matter, it is hard for
actors not to tell a lie: the premise of their improvisation
becomes thereby purer. For it is not always easy to know if we are
telling the truth. The lie, however, being definite, offers a
foundation for a part, offers a script . Thus the lie gives
substance to an actor’s personality. So the biographer who cocks
his ears like any bright dog at the remark to Dienes that she has
never had an orgasm before (since this offers some clarity into her
relations with Dougherty) is left later to contend with information
that she says the same thing to one or two other men and so opens
the question of whether something of the sort was offered to many.
Indeed, she may have had many a lover before Dienes, or one or two,
at any rate, we know nothing about.
Let us return then to the little of which we
can be certain. She is young, she is lovely,
to come over. It was her birthday and she was alone, and drinking
champagne when he arrived. Her mood was low. She was recovering
from an operation for “internal troubles, female troubles,” and the
studio, she confessed, was trying to tell her she was insane. He
thought, on the contrary, she had become “a fine, intelligent
woman.” They drank champagne for hours, and his mood entered into
the sweet and awesome depths of what they might yet be able to do
for one another again. After a long while, he tried to make love to
her.
“André,” he reported her to say, “do you wish
to kill me? I have this operation! You must not be selfish.” He
left soon after, but he had a sudden rage at the thought of being
betrayed, and tiptoed back, and waited on the porch of her bungalow
at the Beverly Hills Hotel in the dark. No telephone calls came to
her, just as there had been none that afternoon of her birthday,
and none came now. At nine o’clock, she turned out the lights and
went to sleep, and no lover came to replace him. After another
hour, Dienes tiptoed away and never saw her again, not alive. And
now he lives in a house which may be something like a cave, still a
bachelor and more of a hermit and not as attached to the idea of
sex every night as once he was, a vigorous man of middle height,
still full of a workingman’s energy and with eyes that blazed so
clearly they were remembered as blue when in fact they were brown.
A rugged hint of something like the features Harpo Marx might have
had if he had been craggier and had not died too young is in the
photographer’s face. “That is the truth as it happened to me,” said
Dienes in his accent, “and I tell it to you all.”
* * *
What he did not know is that in the last
years of her life she never rented an hotel suite that did not have
two exits. So she may not have gone to sleep early that birthday
night in 1961, but on the contrary, have slipped out on him. The
riddle of her personality is with us, in any case, as we hear this
story, for the question of her sincerity is almost insurmountable.
Of Dienes it is hard not to believe that he is telling the truth,
and indeed it is as if the experience is still there in all of his
senses and has never altered. But we can hardly know if she was
serious about marrying him, or drifted through the month, and was
more delighted than not when it was done. Again, as with Dougherty,
the truth may be an actor’s truth, where she felt every emotion
Dienes assumed she felt, but it was her role and not her identity
he was given.
That is confusion enough, but it is confusion
limited by supposing she told the truth to Dienes, and he was only
the second man in her life. What if she were lying? She will yet
become so superb an actress, and she is obviously so creative
already that it must have been small effort for her to encourage
him to fall in love with her. One must act toward a goal, and
intensifying his love keeps the play alive. So we cannot ignore the
possibility that when it comes to sex she is as consummate a liar
as she will be with publicity — for that matter, it is hard for
actors not to tell a lie: the premise of their improvisation
becomes thereby purer. For it is not always easy to know if we are
telling the truth. The lie, however, being definite, offers a
foundation for a part, offers a script . Thus the lie gives
substance to an actor’s personality. So the biographer who cocks
his ears like any bright dog at the remark to Dienes that she has
never had an orgasm before (since this offers some clarity into her
relations with Dougherty) is left later to contend with information
that she says the same thing to one or two other men and so opens
the question of whether something of the sort was offered to many.
Indeed, she may have had many a lover before Dienes, or one or two,
at any rate, we know nothing about.
Let us return then to the little of which we
can be certain. She is young, she is lovely,
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