Cush came in again, with the sheet of paper still in his hand, and said—
“I don’t know what it is, but whenever you really want something in this office you can’t get it.”
“Ain’t that the truth. What is it now?”
“Nobody cares, my boy, nobody cares. They just don’t take any interest. By the way, you aren’t driving back I suppose, by any chance?”
“No, I’m walking.”
“Walking! for the love of God.”
III.
They both typed steadily for a while. Above the sound of the machines they could hear the shrill whine of the dynamo in the basement and a vague rumor from the press-room. Now and then a voice floated up from an open window in the alley. The fiancée had certainly been a hard-boiled jane, and no mistake—a genuine gum-chewing blonde, with a jewel in every hole. But she was game, she was loyal. The woman marching by the beaten man! Her voice rose to a scream. Come on, for God’s sake Patsy, that left can’t hurt you, go on in under that left, make him stop dancing and fight, mix it up with him. Lookit, his knees are getting weak, he’s getting groggy. O come on and stand up to him you big boloney.… ROUND ELEVEN.
There was something merciless, something fascinating, something profoundly cruel, like the snake hypnotizing the sparrow, in the way Romero’s long left kept flashing lightly to Zabriski’s right eye, right cheek, jabbing the side of his head, pushing him off, stabbing again and again. The champion, at first mystified, and then annoyed, at last became angry—he tried to rush that grinning superiority, to break down that dancing guard, he pushed the challenger repeatedly to the ropes, trying desperately to get to close quarters, but always to find himself blocked. Above him would always be that eye, that curious half-amorous, half-derisive look, gleaming down at him with a kind of infinite understanding, an understanding faintly and humorously tinged with pity. The fiancée was becoming more and more silent—only now and then, but with flagging conviction, saying—come on now Patsy, come on now bozo, don’t let him get away with it. But the murmur from the whole hall grew every moment louder, more excited, more electric—it was becoming obvious that there would be a new champion. If Romero could last, if he could continue to compel Zabriski to box, avoid a last-round knockout—ROUND THIRTEEN.
“I suppose you heard that Bill Coit was through!”
“Yeah. Yeah, I heard it. Too bad. But surprising it didn’t happen before.”
“And would have, believe me, if it hadn’t of been for Mary. That’s a game kid, and she deserved better. Right now she ought to be in Arizona or a sanitarium or something.”
“Yes, I know.”
“The demon rum.”
… As they shook hands for the final round, Zabriski sent a hard right to Romero’s head and sent lefts and rights to body. Romero swung himself off his feet when he aimed a right to Pat’s head and dropped to the canvas. Romero made a great rally. While plainly tired, he stood toe to toe with the champion and slugged freely. Romero landed a stinging left jab to Pat’s face, while Zabriski dropped a right and left on Romero’s body. The champion fought madly, crowding Romero but missing badly. Romero drove home several good rights and lefts to the head to finish the round with a light lead. Romero’s round.
The excitement of the decision, the unanimous decision, the whole audience standing on chairs, the ridiculous knock-kneed dance of Romero as he shook his two gloves together in the air high over his head, all this was much less impressive than Zabriski lying on the table to be rubbed down, just saying laconically I was overtrained, I knew two days ago I couldn’t make the weight. Fifteen pounds was too much, now I know better.
He fell asleep under the hands of the rubber, while his fiancée was having a drink with the manager outside the door. Sure, she was saying, I know, you don’t need to tell me, I wasn’t born yesterday. You just watch him next time.
And, of course, yes, there would be a next time. He pulled the yellow sheet out of the machine. Twelve o’clock. Cush had stood up and was putting his coat on.
“If you’re going down, will you take this, Cush? I want to write a letter.”
“Sure. Good night.”
“Good night.”
IV.
But it wasn’t a letter exactly—he got up and began looking at the photograph of the James family once more. What he wanted to say to her was something about that—something about those people sitting there in a garden. If it were somehow possible to say that. To make her realize what that could mean.
“My dear, instead of writing you a letter, in the ordinary sense of the word, or instead of arguing with you further about this issue which has reared its scaly head between us, or telling you again for the thousandth time that I simply cannot bring myself to believe in this easy and casual habit of promiscuous flirtation, which you and so many other men and women eagerly defend, I am going to do something else. Perhaps this means that I’ve given up all hope of convincing you, perhaps it doesn’t; it may even mean that I think any attempt to do so is now too late, since the gulf between us is already so immense that the wings of Father Imago himself seem too frail for such a voyage. Are you in fact not already lost to me? am I not lost to you? When we argue about it, no matter how amiably, we speak in turn, but neither of us listens, neither of us hears. It is no use my repeating again that I do not like to see you being kissed by every Tom, Dick, and Harry who claims that privilege on the ground of his friendship for us both; it is no use my saying that I experience a deep revulsion, a deep schism of the spirit, when I see you yield yourself, not unwillingly, to attentions even more sensuous than these, not only in my presence, but in the presence of other people as well. You will merely reply, wearily, that I am jealous, which I am; or that I am a prude, which I am not; you will say again, as you have so often said, that these things do not matter, that these little physical manifestations do not matter—as if one could ever for a minute separate the physical from the spiritual, as if the body were not just as much a part of the soul as the soul is a part of the body. If body and soul are indeed at all separable, which I doubt, then they are separable only in the sense that a pair of dancers is separable: as long as they dance, they are one; when they separate, the dance is over, something vital has come to an end. It is this disunion which seems to me evil, seems to me destructive. To love with the soul, but not with the body, is to love God, and that is perhaps a kind of death; to love with the body, but not the soul, is certainly a kind of death, for it starves the soul as swiftly as the other starves the body; only when we permit body and soul to love together do we really live. Before me as I write is a photograph of three people. What I really want to tell you about is these three people. I would like to tell you what they mean to me, what art-shape they made of their lives, what it might mean to you or to anybody to realize what they are as they sit there—”