arrived still sore from the bickering of the preceding evening and found a copy of verses waiting for her. She read them and once more her heart opened to her lover.
Aimée, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore…
Mr. Joyboy passed the cosmetic rooms on his way out, dressed for the street. His face was cast in pitiful gloom. Aimée smiled shyly, deprecating; he nodded heavily and passed by, and then on an impulse she wrote on the top of the lyric:
Try and understand, Aimée,
slipped into the embalming-room and reverently laid the sheet of paper on the heart of a corpse who was there waiting Mr. Joyboy’s attention.
After an hour Mr. Joyboy returned. She heard him enterhis room; she heard the taps turned on. It was not until lunch-time that they met.
“That poem,” he said, “was a very beautiful thought.”
“My fiancé wrote it.”
“The Britisher you were with Tuesday?”
“Yes, he’s a very prominent poet in England.”
“Is that so? I don’t ever recall meeting a British poet before. Is that all he does?”
“He’s studying to be a pastor.”
“Is that so? See here, Aimée, if you have any more of his poems I should greatly appreciate to see them.”
“Why, Mr. Joyboy, I didn’t know you were one for poems.”
“Sorrow and disappointment kinda makes a man poetic I guess.”
“I’ve lots of them. I keep them here.”
“I would certainly like to study them. I was at the Knife and Fork Club Dinner last night and I became acquainted with a literary gentleman from Pasadena. I’d like to show them to him. Maybe he’d be able to help your friend some way.”
“Why, Mr. Joyboy, that’s real chivalrous of you.” She paused. They had not spoken so many words to one another since the day of her engagement. The nobility of the man again overwhelmed her. “I hope,” she said shyly, “that Mrs. Joyboy is well?”
“Mom isn’t so good today. She’s had a tragedy. You remember Sambo, her parrot?”
“Of course.”
“He passed on. He was kinda old, of course, something over a hundred, but the end was sudden. Mrs. Joyboy certainly feels it.”
“Oh, I am sorry.”
“Yes, she certainly feels it. I’ve never known her so cast down. I’ve been arranging for the disposal this morning. That’s why I went out. I had to be at the Happier Hunting Ground. The funeral’s Wednesday. I was wondering, Miss Thanatogenos: Mom doesn’t know so many people in this State. She certainly would appreciate a friend at the funeral. He was a sociable bird when he was a bit younger. Enjoyed parties back East more than anyone. It seems kinda bitter there shouldn’t be anyone at the last rites.”
“Why, Mr. Joyboy, of course I’d be glad to come.”
“Would you, Miss Thanatogenos? Well, I call that real nice of you.”
Thus at long last Aimée came to the Happier Hunting Ground.
Nine
A imée Thanatogenos spoke the tongue of Los Angeles; the sparse furniture of her mind—the objects which barked the intruder’s shins—had been acquired at the local High School and University; she presented herself to the world dressed and scented in obedience to the advertisements; brain and body were scarcely distinguishable from the standard product, but the spirit—ah, the spirit was something apart; it had to be sought afar; not here in the musky orchards of the Hesperides, but in the mountain air of the dawn, in the eagle-haunted passes of Hellas. An umbilical cord of cafés and fruit shops, of ancestral shady businesses (fencing and pimping) united Aimée, all unconscious, to the high places of her race. As she grew up the only language she knew expressed fewer and fewer of her ripening needs; the facts which littered her memory grew lesssubstantial; the figure she saw in the looking-glass seemed less recognizably herself. Aimée withdrew herself into a lofty and hieratic habitation.
Thus it was that the exposure as a liar and a cheat of the man she loved and to whom she was bound by the
Aimée, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore…
Mr. Joyboy passed the cosmetic rooms on his way out, dressed for the street. His face was cast in pitiful gloom. Aimée smiled shyly, deprecating; he nodded heavily and passed by, and then on an impulse she wrote on the top of the lyric:
Try and understand, Aimée,
slipped into the embalming-room and reverently laid the sheet of paper on the heart of a corpse who was there waiting Mr. Joyboy’s attention.
After an hour Mr. Joyboy returned. She heard him enterhis room; she heard the taps turned on. It was not until lunch-time that they met.
“That poem,” he said, “was a very beautiful thought.”
“My fiancé wrote it.”
“The Britisher you were with Tuesday?”
“Yes, he’s a very prominent poet in England.”
“Is that so? I don’t ever recall meeting a British poet before. Is that all he does?”
“He’s studying to be a pastor.”
“Is that so? See here, Aimée, if you have any more of his poems I should greatly appreciate to see them.”
“Why, Mr. Joyboy, I didn’t know you were one for poems.”
“Sorrow and disappointment kinda makes a man poetic I guess.”
“I’ve lots of them. I keep them here.”
“I would certainly like to study them. I was at the Knife and Fork Club Dinner last night and I became acquainted with a literary gentleman from Pasadena. I’d like to show them to him. Maybe he’d be able to help your friend some way.”
“Why, Mr. Joyboy, that’s real chivalrous of you.” She paused. They had not spoken so many words to one another since the day of her engagement. The nobility of the man again overwhelmed her. “I hope,” she said shyly, “that Mrs. Joyboy is well?”
“Mom isn’t so good today. She’s had a tragedy. You remember Sambo, her parrot?”
“Of course.”
“He passed on. He was kinda old, of course, something over a hundred, but the end was sudden. Mrs. Joyboy certainly feels it.”
“Oh, I am sorry.”
“Yes, she certainly feels it. I’ve never known her so cast down. I’ve been arranging for the disposal this morning. That’s why I went out. I had to be at the Happier Hunting Ground. The funeral’s Wednesday. I was wondering, Miss Thanatogenos: Mom doesn’t know so many people in this State. She certainly would appreciate a friend at the funeral. He was a sociable bird when he was a bit younger. Enjoyed parties back East more than anyone. It seems kinda bitter there shouldn’t be anyone at the last rites.”
“Why, Mr. Joyboy, of course I’d be glad to come.”
“Would you, Miss Thanatogenos? Well, I call that real nice of you.”
Thus at long last Aimée came to the Happier Hunting Ground.
Nine
A imée Thanatogenos spoke the tongue of Los Angeles; the sparse furniture of her mind—the objects which barked the intruder’s shins—had been acquired at the local High School and University; she presented herself to the world dressed and scented in obedience to the advertisements; brain and body were scarcely distinguishable from the standard product, but the spirit—ah, the spirit was something apart; it had to be sought afar; not here in the musky orchards of the Hesperides, but in the mountain air of the dawn, in the eagle-haunted passes of Hellas. An umbilical cord of cafés and fruit shops, of ancestral shady businesses (fencing and pimping) united Aimée, all unconscious, to the high places of her race. As she grew up the only language she knew expressed fewer and fewer of her ripening needs; the facts which littered her memory grew lesssubstantial; the figure she saw in the looking-glass seemed less recognizably herself. Aimée withdrew herself into a lofty and hieratic habitation.
Thus it was that the exposure as a liar and a cheat of the man she loved and to whom she was bound by the
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