"I'll go," I said.
I drove back to New York then, condemned to exile and genuinely afraid of my inclination to self-destruction. As soon as I closed the door of my apartment I fell into the old routine of gin, Kilimanjaro, scrambled eggs, Orvieto and the Elysian Fields. I stayed in bed until late the next morning. I drank some gin while I shaved and went out onto the street to get some coffee. In front of my apartment house I ran into Dora Emmison. She wore black-I never saw her in anything else-and said that she had come in town for a few days to do some shopping and go to the theater. I asked if she'd have lunch with me but she said she was busy. As soon as we parted I got my car and drove back to Blenville.
The house was locked but I broke a pane of glass in the kitchen window and let myself in. To be alone in the yellow room was everything I had expected. I felt happy, peaceful and strong. I had brought the Montale with me and I spent the afternoon reading and making notes. The time passed lightly and the sense that the hands of my watch were procrustean had vanished. At six o'clock I went for a swim, had a drink and made some supper. She had a large store of provisions and I made a note of what I was stealing so that I would replace it before I left. After dinner I went on reading, taking a chance that the lighted windows would not arouse anyone's curiosity. At nine o'clock I undressed, wrapped myself in a blanket and lay down on the sofa to sleep. A few minutes later I saw the lights of a car come up the drive.
I got up and went into the kitchen and shut the door. I was, of course, undressed. If it was she I supposed I could escape out the back door. If it was not she, if it was some friend or neighbor, they would likely go away. Whoever it was began to knock on the door, which I had left unlocked. Then a man opened the door and asked softly, "Doree, Doree, you sleeping? Wake up baby, wake up, it's Tony, the old loverboy." Climbing the stairs he kept asking "Doree, Doree, Doree," and when he went into her bedroom and found the bed empty he said, "Aw shit." He then came down the stairs and left the house and I stayed, shivering in the kitchen, until I heard his car go down the road.
I got back onto the sofa and had been there for perhaps a half hour when another car came up the drive. I retired again to the kitchen and a man named Mitch went through more or less the same performance. He climbed the stairs, calling her name, made some exclamation of disappointment and went away. All of this left me uneasy and in the morning I cleaned up the place, emptied the ashtrays and drove back to New York.
Dora had said that she would be in the city for a few days. Four is what is usually meant by a few and two of these had already passed. On the day that I thought she would return to the country I bought a case of the most expensive bourbon and started back to Blenville, late in the afternoon. It was after dark when I turned up the red dirt road. Her lights were on. I first looked in at the window and saw that she was alone and reading as she had been when I first found the place. I knocked on the door and when she opened it and saw me she seemed puzzled and irritated. "Yes?" she asked. "Yes? What in the world do you want now?"
"I have a present for you," I said. "I wanted to give you a present to thank you for your kindness in letting me spend the night in your house."
"That hardly calls for a present," she said, "but I do happen to have a weakness for good bourbon. Won't you come in?"
I brought the case into the hall, tore it open and took out a bottle. "Shouldn't we taste it," I asked.
"Well, I'm going out," she said, "but I guess there's time for a drink. You're very generous. Come in, come in and I'll get some ice."
She was, I saw, one of those serious drinkers who prepare their utensils as a dentist prepares his utensils for an extraction. She arranged neatly on the table near her chair the glasses, ice bucket and water pitcher as well as a box of cigarettes, an ashtray and a lighter. With all of this within her reach she settled down and I poured the drinks.
"Chin, chin," she said.
"Cheers," I said.
"Did you just drive out from New York," she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"How is the driving," she asked.
'It's foggy on the turnpike," I said. "It's quite foggy."
"Damn," she said. "I have to drive up to a party in Havenswood and I hate the turnpike when it's foggy. I do wish I didn't have to go out but the Helmsleys are giving a party for a girl I knew in school and I've promised to show up."
"Where did you go to school?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"Yes."
"Well I went to Brearley for two years. Then I went to Finch for a year. Then I went to a country day school called Fountain Valley for two years. Then I went to a public school in Cleveland for a year. Then I went to the International School in Geneva for two years, the Parioli School in Rome for a year, and when we came back to the United States I went to Putney for a year and then to Masters for three years. I graduated from Masters."
"Your parents traveled a lot?" "Yes. Dad was in the State Department. What do you do?" "I'm translating Montale."
"Are you a professional translator?"
"No."
"You just do it to amuse yourself?"
"To occupy myself."
"You must have some money," she said.
"I do."
"So do I, thank God," she said. "I'd hate to be without it."
"Tell me about your marriage," I said. This might have seemed importunate but I have never known a divorced man or woman unwilling to discuss their marriage.
"Well it was a mess," she said, "an eight-year mess. He drank and accused me of having affairs with other men and wrote anonymous letters to most of my friends, claiming that I had the principles of a whore. I bought him off, I had to, I paid him a shirtful and went out to Reno. I came back last month. I think I'll have another little drink," she said, "but first I'm going to the john."
I filled her glass again. We were nearly through the first bottle. When she returned from the toilet she was not staggering, not at all, but she was walking much more lithely, with a much more self-confident grace. I got up and took her in my arms but she pushed me away-not angrily-and said: "Please don't, please don't. I don't feel like that tonight. I've been feeling terribly all day and the bourbon has picked me up but I still don't feel like that. Tell me all about yourself."
"I'm a bastard," I said.
"Oh, really. I've never known any bastards. What does it feel like?"
"Mostly lousy, I guess. I mean I would have enjoyed a set of parents."
"Well parents can be dreadful, of course, but I suppose dreadful parents are better than none at all. Mine were dreadful." She dropped a lighted cigarette into her lap but retrieved it before it burned the cloth of her skirt.
"Are your parents still living?"
"Yes, they're in Washington, they're very old." She sighed and stood. "Well if I'm going to Havenswood," she said, "I guess I'd better go." Now she was unsteady. She splashed a little whiskey into her glass and drank it without ice or water.
"Why do you go to Havenswood," I asked. "Why don't you telephone and say there's a fog on the turnpike or that you've got a cold or something."
"You don't understand," she said hoarsely. "It's one of those parties you have to go to like birthdays and weddings."
"I think it would be better if you didn't go."
"Why?" Now she was bellicose.
"I just think it would be, that's all."
"You think I'm drunk," she asked.
"No."
"You do, don't you. You think I'm drunk, you nosy sonofabitch. What are you doing here anyhow? I don't know you. I never asked you to come here and you don't know me. You don't know anything about me excepting where I went to school. You don't even know my maiden name, do you?"