Letty Fox (70 page)

Q. I'm pregnant, and the man left me.

A. Find an old man; he'll be flattered.

Q. Don't you think there is only one true love in a woman's life?

A. Said the man with the pushcart, looking up at the department store.

Q. I don't think you should flatter a man; every woman flatters them.

A. The only thing he'll ever remember about you are your flatteries.

Q. I think there should be give and take; you should point out each other's faults in a spirit of comradeship.

A. What you're describing is the spirit of barroom brawl.

Q. How can you get to know a man you like?

A. Tell some gossip, “I like X”; he'll come round out of curiosity. If it goes on long enough, he'll be fond of you.

Q. It makes me nervous when he talks about love in general and never comes to the point.

A. He's making love to you already when he talks about love in general.

Q. He must like me, because he runs down other women.

A. Never let him run down other women. He's running down you.

Q. I want to get to Act III, and he's so slow, he's still prologuing.

A. You must practice self-control, my child. Never show passion till he thinks he's stirred you to it himself.

Q. I like to have him around, and do things for him. Do you think it's wise?

A. All the fatal women in history have been sluts at home.

Q. He promised to tell me all about himself and he said I should tell him about myself.

A. Let him tell.

Q. How ought I to receive a compliment?

A. With enthusiasm!

Q. I'm very worried about the morality of all this.

A. Beauty gives an absolute power which is above all morality; so does femininity, however.

Q. But you mean I should not be honorable with men?

A. Yes, you should be frank about what you intend to do with him; and about your liking him; but keep the rest in reserve for when you will need it.

Q. What, in general, should be my attitude toward men?

A. Yield to arouse interest, resist when he expects to win; in love itself,
suaviter in modo, fortiter in re
. Further, no man can resist a long siege and even if he laughs about you to cronies, he'll yield to you in private.

Q. Should I give him a gift?

A. Generally, yes; and don't make him wait too long if you've promised it. They're impatient.

Q. But what if he thinks I am forward?

A. The rule in negotiations of this sort is, do not be easily rebuffed, and remember, he may be timid and unsure himself; but do not lay yourself open to rebuff and never let a man insult you. Be persevering, never impatient.

Q. But how, in heaven's name, am I to live through all this? I'm not a Talleyrand.

A. That I can't tell you.

Q. But do you think I'll get a man if I stick to all this?

A. You'll get one anyhow.

Q. But aren't there some general rules to adhere to?

A. Certainly! 1.
Accessibility
. 2.
Exposure
—I mean you must go out and about. 3.
Hardihood
—don't faint with shame at the first setback. 4.
Humanity
—he wants love, too. 5.
The State of Love
—it's so obvious, that while you're pursuing one, you'll probably catch another; so to be in love is a pure advantage on all counts.

Q. Isn't this mere intrigue, trickery, unsuitable for a decent girl? A. Success is Crime.

Amy had many handsome young men and some middle-aged ones; she acquired all the vices they admired in women. She had constant escorts, fashionable men, titled men, some rich, some not yet rich and some scoundrels; all her men were good at table and at bed, yet as she had a strict code of her own (which she said was necessary for the girl who wanted to carry on this career, without going to pieces), she had a hard time of it. Her allowance was small. She was not a gold-digger and accepted only certain gifts. She let the men know this at the beginning and kept her word, thus her relations were clean, businesslike, friendly, and she had few bad moments. She hoped to do well for herself, by the use of her looks, manner, skill, and intelligence, but she lacked money; and of her eligible swains, those that were poor had to marry money and those that were rich, would not marry, but had a good time.

She was approaching twenty-four, however, and beginning to be anxious about marriage. She had her trousseau (prepared at seventeen for her marriage), and still corresponded with the man she had thrown over at seventeen for a false Rajah of Sarawak. Her intended husband, a dull, sulky, injured, blond Englishman, eventually took her back and she resigned herself to this, promising herself at least the pleasures of Anglo-Indian society. After a year of marriage, she sent me a picture of herself, the young madonna mother, with a charming child. She was at Singapore, and aped every accent, drink, and pose. A few months later and the poor woman wrote that she had met a certain British soldier of fortune, and it was “all barriers down.” Yet her theory and practice was good enough. It was simply that at twenty-four one must marry, I suppose. I understand this myself.

At that time, though, what drove me out of the flat was not doubts about Amy. I believed in her. She had a special adaptation. She was simply forced into marriage against her will, and with her philosophy, naturally accepted it in all its meanings, child, triangle, tea-meetings, and I presume, eventually, disaster. No, it was that I am not a conniving woman; I can skirmish, lay waste, and order hangings, I don't doubt; but it must be on the order of the day, it must be part of a campaign; I'm not a lone-stander, or a guerrilla fighter, or a Chapayev. I'll do anything for any social movement, even marriage, but it must be the healthy movement of others around and with me; otherwise, I am distressed, I do not know where to turn. I do not know on what they base it, those whose vision, courage, or madness leads them to stand out, seek forlorn hopes, or start movements. One is too close to lunacy. I am sure I suffer more than they do; anyone who suffers all the common fate of mankind, the way I do, must suffer more than these hop-heads and lone-rangers.

I learned very little from my Lady Chesterfield. Perhaps the thing that stuck most was the way to come in and out of doors, always, of course, an interesting moment in an evening. No, the trouble here was that we loved too much
en famille
. Sometimes we had to conceal ourselves in the kitchen, while Amy entertained an unusually eligible gentleman in the front; and at given signals we had to appear, like dashing, well-bred girls, to make a background for her; and at other times, Lorna entertained all night there, and I, if forced to stay in, felt my loneliness only too sharply. A middle-aged gentleman with a business in Bridgeport wished to marry her, but was drinking himself to a standstill, and one night about two this lover nearly died in her arms, so that I was obliged to run out in my nightdress to get a policeman; on another occasion, Bobby Thompson who was my regular escort when all else failed, and though he groused and scolded, was the kind of boy I could manage, began to admire Lorna's plump, heavy, motherly beauty. As Bobby and I for some reason were still merely friends, I realized that I was in danger. Lorna did not always take men; sometimes they oozed away toward her like something on a microscope slide: there was that about her that made her life seem purely and naïvely zoological. Men who liked the Easter Island type, wanted her at once; with this great pull, she got into nothing but scrapes, lost her admirers, and received insulting letters; she had no diplomacy, lost her temper, and when a man slighted her, in turn addressed him with the icy tones she otherwise kept only for waiters. In general, her boarding-school manners, except at the beginning of any affair, did her very poor service. Her boarding-school had been middle class and the ladies teaching in it had had nothing to teach but coldness, delicacy, ignorance, and inexperience; and all of these she had acquired. This education was the ruin of her, for she was naturally a sunny, hot-blooded, idle, pleasant simpleton. Nevertheless, without any benefit to herself, she could be a catastrophe, at least temporarily, for other girls; for she was so childishly and casually yielding to every man, that an unsatisfied lover of others often turned to her, awed at the sight of her, pleased at his ready luck. Poor creature, she was credulous and believed that every affair was a love affair, every wantoning man her fate. Seeing that she might take Bobby to herself in this way, I at once turned practical and began to take romantic walks with Bobby in the park and streets, when we talked of the misfortunes of our youth, our poverty, our problems, the mystery of our future. Bobby was of rather a melancholy turn, said that he needed help in his medical career, a long grueling one, since he was weak in the chest, had a “spot on his lung,” and had to be nursed through life at least until he achieved the age of thirty, when, it seemed, most boyhood weaknesses passed. He could not marry till then, he said, and casual affairs were so unsatisfactory. With this I agreed, adding rather bitterly that for a girl the worst weakness was her bachelorhood and that this did not even pass off at thirty, unless she was lucky enough to get the right man; although the word “thirty” passed my lips with something of a smile, for I did not suppose that I would be unmarried at thirty. Bobby and I agreed with each other and comforted each other in this way, evening after evening, and I began to take a fresh interest in him. It was almost the first time I had had a serious and yet platonic friendship with an old acquaintance and I asked myself why; the thought began dimly that perhaps this was it, the real affair which would end in settling down for life. Naturally, once this thought had germinated, I looked forward to Bobby with more interest and pleasure than ever before. He made some parade of his chest-ailment, that was one of his faults perhaps, and would often get his parents to take him away for a week or two to a resort, thus interrupting his studies; they pitied him, his mother especially making him the center of her life. I had not met the parents and got the impression that they felt any girl was a danger to him, a suspicious character, in fact; this irritated me and if anything, increased my need for him. I could see that they were spoiling him and that if some girl did not take him in hand soon, his parents would soon have unfitted him for ordinary life. Of course, if they wished to have a hypochondriac, bachelor son on their hands—but perhaps they did; this is the bad side of parenthood: they go into this business blindly, invest in a commodity in which there is usually no profit, and then feel they can't give up the investment, they can't cut a loss. At any rate, with a daredevil feeling (knowing Mrs. Thompson was the kind of mother that reads her son's letters), I wrote to my friend a spirited, intelligent, comradely letter, and it must have caught him in a weak, lonely mood, for he at once wrote back to me.

D
EAR
L
ETTY
,

I was reading the letter you wrote me today and thought you are really tops to write this way; we know each other pretty well and yet I like anyone who takes time and trouble for me and that person seems to me a particularly human person. Yes, I know all are all-too-human: all would do something for you if—but in the great quest who does things? I travel and suffer physical discomforts gladly because without food and shelter there are some people too. The benches in the parks are hard— there is independence, but such things cannot appeal to me; it is too impersonal; all things for me must have a personal quality, even the ballet, even the opera, that is why I like your letter, so truly comradely interested in me. Others pretend to admire objectively: the whistling, stamping, bravos nauseate. Because—a crowd projection of the ego? A prostitute stops and discusses her trade with a man while the pigeons wheel and the competing pavement pounder flips her hips: all for self, and least said when acknowledged; but this is triumphant independence. Lowest form of life? Or highest? The triumph of the lonely key turning, the lonely floorboard creaking, the rat squeaking. So much triumph, but human. Alone in a house here; my people out. Thinking of my relations in New York and alone— independence, dependent. The opera, the theater, the movie in the greasy palm of the town. Cultureville! But in the great still empty Victorian house (unparented) is the triumph of independence—dependent. Think—an interstate license and dope in the night to keep awake as I travel across the U.S. The rain, the fog, with me, challenging our triumph. Virility, ability, sterility—all independence! The room in the Village and the bedbugs of others, the stains, the canteen of the moment, and New York and life and triumph. So much that was, until came—(what?).

The lizard on the caked earth: bordels—with other names, in the alleyways, loose-lipped, powder-caked, rouged, greasyhaired—oh, god, a million people and places and still nothing to cling to—independence still. “But how, when, where—” a girl begging, entreating—“here, now, with me—” One goes, doesn't want, yields, the mind is still that—independent. Not to be able to give up and not to want to give up. Oh, and where else—everywhere—here with parents, there with you—You see, Letty? Yes, you see. You nearly understand, as near as one can—and do not ask for love, for sadness, for understanding—there are girls like that. The magnificent modern girl. Sometimes the doubt, sometimes the doubt, sometimes the old nostalgia, and the registered faces and the unregistered real names—yes, in the night and much you would do in the night (in dreams, in alleyways) not to be independent. But it remains. Yes, I'm scared. And where is the necessity? Tell me where my love lies. Always, everywhere, here, now, when?

Why am I answering your letter like this, Letty? Am I trying to sell myself to you or another? But then, where is independence? The commodity is sold, acquired. And this is a salesman's world. Things seen, seen things done, done; all acquired; independence lost. Yes, try to hold off. Necessity to write. Life is not an independence. Try to go back, by writing. Try to triumph. That is my mood. Do you like it, Letty? I don't care. I should be back around the end of the month and I'll see you; telephone you, we'll go somewhere together. Yes, I'll say, for god's sake, let us talk but not about independence.