I wondered what it was she wanted to tell me—the vital thing, I mean.
When we get back, I said, there'll undoubtedly be a scene. If I were you, I'd pretend to change my mind, then sneak away the first chance you get. Otherwise she'll insist on going with you, if only to see you home safely.
An excellent idea, she thought. It made her smile. Such a thought would never have occurred to me, she confessed. I have no strategic sense whatever.
All the better for you, said I.
Talking of strategy, I wonder if you could help me raise a little money? I'm flat broke. I can't hitch hike across the country with a trunk and a heavy valise, can I?
(No, I thought to myself, but we could send them to you later.)
I'll do what I can, I said. You know I'm not very good at raising money. That's Mona's department. But I'll try.
Good, she said. A few days more or less won't matter.
We had come to the end of the span. I spotted an empty bench and steered her to it.
Let's rest a bit, I said.
Couldn't we get a coffee?
I've only got seven cents. And just two more cigarettes.
How do you manage when you're by your self? she asked.
That's different. When I'm alone things happen.
God takes care of you, is that it?
I lit a cigarette for her.
I'm getting frightfully hungry, she said, her wings drooping.
If it's that bad, let's start back.
I can't, it's too far. Wait a while.
I fished out a nickel and handed it to her. You take the subway and I'll walk. It's no hardship for me.
No, she said, we'll go back together ... I'm afraid to face her alone.
Afraid?
Yes, Val, afraid. She'll weep all over the place and then I'll weaken.
But you should weaken, remember? Let her weep ... then say you've changed your mind. Like I told you.
I forgot, she said.
We rested our weary limbs a while. A pigeon swooped down and settled on her shoulder.
Can't you buy some peanuts? she said. We could feed the birds and have a bit for ourselves too.
Forget it! I replied. Pretend that you're not hungry. It'll pass. I've hardly ever walked the bridge on a full stomach. You're nervous, that's all.
You remind me of Rimbaud sometimes, she said. He was always famished ... and always walking his legs off.
There's nothing unique in that, I replied. He and how many million others?
I bent over to fix my shoe laces and there, right under the bench, were two whole peanuts. I grabbed them.
One for you and one for men I said. You see how Providence looks after one!
The peanut gave her the courage to stretch her legs. We rose stiffly and headed back over the bridge.
You're not such a bad sort, she said, as we climbed forward. There was a time when I positively loathed you. Not because of Mona, not because I was jealous, but because you didn't give a damn about any one but your own sweet self. You struck me as ruthless. But I see you really have a heart, don't you?
What put that into your head?
Oh, I don't know. Nothing in particular. Maybe it's that I'm beginning to see things in a new light now. Anyway, you no longer look at me the way you used to. You see me now. Before you used to look right through me. You might just as well have stepped on me ... or over me.
I've been wondering, she mused, how the two of you will get along, once I'm gone. In a way it's I who have held you together. If I were more cunning, if I really wanted her all to myself, I would go away, wait for the two of you to separate, then come back and claim her.
I thought you were through with her, said I. I had to admit to myself, however, that there was logic in her observation.
Yes, she said, all that's past. What I want to do now is to make a life for myself. I've got to do the things I like to do, even if I fail miserably ... But what will she do? that's what I wonder. Somehow I can't see her doing anything of consequence. I feel sorry for you. Believe me, I mean it sincerely. It's going to be hell for you when I leave. Maybe you don't realize it now, but you will.
Even so, I replied, it's better this way.
You're certain I'll go, eh? No matter what happens?
Yes, I said, I'm sure. And if you don't go of your own accord, I'll drive you away.
She gave a weak laugh. You'd kill me if you had to, wouldn't you?
I wouldn't say that. No, what I mean is that the time has come...
Said the walrus to—
Right! What happens when you leave is my affair. The thing is to leave. No back bending!
She swallowed this as one does a lump in the throat. We had come to the summit of the arch, where we paused to view the retreating skyline.
How I hate this place! she said. Hated it from the moment I arrived. Look at those bee-hives, she said, indicating the skyscrapers. Inhuman, what! With arm extended she made a gesture as if to sweep them away. If there's a single poet in that mass of stone and steel I'm a crazy Turk. Only monsters could inhabit those cages. She moved closer to the edge and spat over the rail into the river. Even the water is filthy. Polluted. We turned away and resumed our march. You know, she said, I was brought up on poetry. Whitman, Wordsworth, Amy Lowell, Pound, Eliot. Why, I could recite whole poems once upon a time. Especially Whitman's. Now all I can do is gnash my teeth. I've got to get out West again, and as soon as possible. Joaquin Miller ... did you ever read him? The poet of the Sierras. Yes, I want to go naked again and rub against trees. I don't care what any one thinks ... I can make love to a tree, but not to those filthy things in pants who crawl out of those horrid buildings. Men are all right—in the open spaces. But here—my God! I'd rather masturbate than let one of them crawl into bed with me. They're vermin, all of them. They stink!
She seemed on the point of working herself into a lather. Of a sudden, however, she grew quiet. Her whole expression changed. Indeed, she looked almost angelic.
I'll get myself a horse, she was saying now, and I'll hide away in the mountains. Maybe I'll learn to pray again. As a girl I used to go off by my lonesome, often for days at a stretch. Among the tall redwoods I would talk to God. Not that I had any specific image of Him; He was just a great Presence. I recognized God everywhere, in everything. How beautiful the world looked to me then! I was overflowing with love and affection. And I was so aware. Often I got down on my knees—to kiss a flower. ‘You're so perfect!’ I would say. ‘So self-sufficient. All you need are sun and rain. And you get what you need without asking. You never cry for the moon, do you, little violet? You never wish to be different than you are.’ That's how I talked to the flowers. Yes, I knew how to commune with Nature. And it was all perfectly natural. Real. Terribly real.
She stopped to give me a searching look. She looked even more angelic now than before. Even with a crazy hat on she would have looked seraphic. Then, as she began to unburden herself in earnest, her countenance changed again. But the aureole was still about her.
What derailed her, she was trying to tell me, was art Some one had put the bug in her head that she was an artist. Oh, that's not altogether true, she exclaimed. I always had talent, and it cropped out early. But there was nothing exceptional in what I did. Every sincere person has a grain of talent.
She was trying to make clear to me how the change came about, how she became conscious of art and of herself as an artist. Was it because she was so different from those about her? Because she saw with other eyes? She wasn't sure. But she knew that one day it happened. Overnight, as it were, she had lost her innocence. From then on, she said, everything assumed another aspect. The flowers no longer spoke to her, or she to them. When she looked at Nature she saw it as a poem or a landscape. She was no longer one with Nature. She had begun to analyze, to recompose, to assert her own will.