«That is where you are wrong,» I interrupted with some heat. «It's me who gets sucked dry, not the woman.»
«That is your way of deceiving yourself. Because the woman can never give you what you want you make yourself out to be a martyr. A woman wants love and you're incapable of giving love. If you were a lower type of man you would be a monster; but you will convert your frustration into something useful. Yes, by all means go on writing. Art can transform the hideous into the beautiful. Better a monstrous book than a monstrous life. Art is painful, tedious, softening. If you don't die in the attempt, your work may transform you into a sociable, charitable human being. You are big enough not to be satisfied with mere fame, I can see that. Probably, when you have lived enough, you will discover that there is something beyond what you now call life. You may yet live to live for others. That depends on what use you make of your intelligence.» (We looked at one another keenly.) «For you are not as intelligent as you think you are. That is your weakness, your overweening intellectual pride. If you rely exclusively on that you defeat yourself. You have all the feminine virtues, but you are ashamed to acknowledge them to yourself. You think because you are strong sexually that you are a virile man, but you are more of a woman than a man. Your sexual virility is only the sign of a greater power which you haven't begun to use. Don't try to prove yourself a man by exploiting your powers of seduction. Women are not fooled by that sort of strength and charm. Women, even when they are subjugated mentally, are always master of the situation. A woman may be enslaved, sexually, and yet dominate the man. You will have a harder time than other men because to dominate another doesn't interest you. You will always be trying to dominate yourself; the woman you love will only be an instrument for you to practice on...»
Here she broke off. I saw that she expected me to go.
«Oh, by the way,» she said, as I was making my adieu, «the gentleman asked me to give you this»—and she handed me a sealed envelope. «He's probably explained why he couldn't make a better excuse for leaving so mysteriously.» I took the envelope and shook hands with her. If she had suddenly said: «Run! run for your life!» I would have done so without question. I was completely mystified, knowing neither why I had come nor why I was leaving. I had been whisked into it on the crest of a strange elation the origin of which now seemed remote and of little concern to me. From noon to midnight I had gone full circle.
I opened the envelope in the street. It contained a twenty dollar bill enclosed in a sheet of paper on which was written «Good Luck to you!» I was not altogether surprised. I had expected something of the sort when first I laid eyes on him...
A few days after this episode I wrote a story called «Free Fantasia» which I brought to Ulric and read aloud to him. It was written blindly, without thought of beginning or end. I had just one fixed image in mind throughout, and that was of swinging Japanese lanterns. The piece de resistance was a kick in the slats which I gave the heroine in the act of submission. This gesture, which was aimed at Mara, was more of a surprise to me than it could possibly be to the reader. Ulric thought the writing quite remarkable but confessed he couldn't make head nor tail of it. He wanted me to show it to Irene whom he was expecting later. She had a perverted streak in her, he said. She had returned to the studio with him late that night, after the others had gone, and she had almost bled him to death. Three times ought to be enough to satisfy any woman, he thought, but this one could keep it up all night. «The bitch can't stop coming,» he said. «No wonder her husband's a paralytic—she must have twisted the Cock off him.»
I told him what had occurred the other night when I left the party abruptly. He shook his head from side to side, saying—«By God, those things never happen to me. If anybody but you were to tell me a story like that I wouldn't believe it. Your whole life seems to be made up of just such incidents. Now why is that, can you tell me? Don't laugh at me, I know it sounds foolish to ask such a question. I know too that I'm a rather cagey bird. You seem to lay yourself wide open—I suppose that's the secret of it. And you're more curious about people than I will ever be. I get bored too easily—it's a fault, I admit. So often you tell me of the wonderful time you've had—after I've left. But I'm sure nothing like you relate would happen to me even if I were to sit up all night... Another thing about you that gets me is that you always find a character interesting whom most of us would ignore. You have a way of opening them up, of making them reveal themselves. I haven't got the patience for it... But tell me honestly now, aren't you just a bit sorry that you didn't get your end in with what's her name?»
«Sylvia, you mean?»
«Yes. You say she was a Loulou. Don't you think you could have stayed another five minutes and had what was coming to you?»
«Yes, I suppose so...»
«You're a funny fellow. I suppose you mean to say that you got something more by not staying, is that it?»
«I don't know. Perhaps I did, perhaps not. To tell you the truth, I forgot all about fucking her by the time I was ready to leave. You can't fuck every woman you run into, can you? If you ask me, I was fucked good and proper. What more could I hope to get out of her if I had gone through with it? Maybe she'd have given me a dose of clap. Maybe I would have disappointed her. Listen, I don't worry too much if I lose a piece of tail now and then. You seem to be keeping some kind of fuck-ledger. That's why you don't loosen up with me, you bugger, you. I have to work on you like a dentist to extract a measly buck from you; I go round the corner and a stranger whom I speak to just a few minutes leaves a twenty dollar bill for me on the mantelpiece. How do you explain that?»
«You don't explain it,» said Ulric, making a wry grin. «That's why things never happen to me, I guess... But I do want to say this,»» he continued, getting up from his seat and frowning over his own cussedness, «whenever you find yourself in a real pinch you can always rely on me. You see, I don't worry much about your privations usually because I know you well enough to realize that you'll always find a way out, even if I happen to let you down.» «You sure have a lot of confidence in my ability, I must say.»
«I don't mean to be callous when I say a thing like that. You see, if I were in your boots I'd be so depressed that I wouldn't be able to ask a friend for help—I'd be ashamed of myself. But you come running up here with a grin, saying—'I must have this... I must have that.' You don't act as if you needed help desperately.»
«What the hell,» I said, «do you want me to get down on my knees and beg for it?»
«No, not that, of course. I'm talking like a damned fool again. But you make people envious of you, even when you say you're desperate. You make people refuse you sometimes because you take it for granted that they should help you, don't you see?» «No, Ulric, I don't see. But it's all right. Tonight I'm taking you to dinner.»
«And to-morrow you'll be asking me for carfare.» «Well, is there any harm in that?» «No, it's just cock-eyed,» and he laughed. «Ever since I know you, and I know you a long while, you've been hitting me up—for nickels, dimes, quarters, dollar bills.... why once you tried to bludgeon me for fifty dollars, do you remember? And I always keep saying no to you, isn't that so? But it doesn't make any difference to you apparently. And we're still good friends. But sometimes I wonder what the hell you really think of me. It can't be very flattering.»