Before you begin your first day tomorrow, I would like to point out to you that Management would be very pleased should you come in an hour or two — or three — early, so that you might busy yourselves with the small departmental chores of air-conditioner repair, sidewalk shoveling, pen-and-pencil filling, and the like. The cafeteria is still open if you wish to have a bite. Good afternoon.
THE SEA, CAUGHT IN ROSES
It was not possible to find gathered together rarer specimens than these young flowers. Of course, as the phrase so often has it, there are flowers, and then there are flowers. Some commentators, as always, have vulgarly intruded remarks concerning “figural language,” if one can countenance such opinion without displaying some small degree, at the very least, of levity. At this moment, before my eyes, they were breaking the line of the sea with their slender hedge. “The line of the sea,” I admit, may be taking things just a little too seriously; but events, one hopes, will bear out its ultimate propriety. It should also be noted, and the earlier the better, that the sand was almost uncomfortably hot because of the meridional blaze of the sun, savagely brilliant in the usual white, cloudless sky. They were like a bower of Pennsylvania roses adorning a cliffside garden. In gardens such as these, small domestic animals tend to cavort, on any pretext. The question of why larger animals neglect to “follow suit,” if such an idiom may still be employed, is, at present, moot. Between their blooms is contained the whole tract of ocean, crossed by some streamer. This is an ocean “as you like it,” which is the message presented by this crumpled note. The note also contains the formula for making roast leg of lamb mavourneen, sometimes called — the formula, that is — a “recipe.” The steamer is slowly gliding along the blue, horizontal line. With the aid of a pair of good, not to say excellent binoculars, one can just make out the name of the ship — the SS Albertine. On the other hand, it may well be the humble forest cabin which we have seen before, albeit in dreams. The line stretches from one stem to the next. As we know, the rose is beautiful, and is often called the queen of the green world because of its cruel thorns. This sobriquet doesn’t seem precisely right or just, if I may, for a moment, interrupt the gardening with a gently puzzled remark, as I have, or so it would seem, just done! An idle butterfly is dawdling in the cup of a flower, one long since passed by the ship’s hull. Some of the more sensitive guests are leaving, including a few of the young flowers. There are barely concealed grimaces of disapproval, and some of the older gentlemen, placidly elegant in black tie, appear to be trying to sink the steamer before it reaches the buffet. The butterfly can wait before flying off in plenty of time to arrive before the ship. But according to a telegram carried by a sweating courier, “Nobody else can wait.” And there, once again, is the old, familiar sound of breaking glass! He can wait until the tiniest chink of blue still separates the prow from the first petals of the flower. Two of the women have nervously rushed into the gazebo, despite posted warnings. And, as one might easily have imagined, the “chink of blue”—actually aquamarine — has grown no smaller. The ship, of course, is steering toward the flower. There are cries and imprecations against Pennsylvania and what some call “salts,” whatever they may be. The blue, horizontal line is quite striking in contrast to the blank glare of the sky.
But only last week, the flowers that were flowers had vied with what certain celebrated authors term “the shining turn of the wave,” or “the turn of the shining wave,” or perhaps “the thundering wall of water.” Figural language often defeats one, especially at the seashore, where one’s head simply swirls! The line of the sea, however, seems, always, somehow to remedy just about any problem. There were vacationers, of course, who, daunted by the white, blazing sand and the cruelly hot sun, stayed in their well-ventilated gazebos, “happy,” the roustabouts said, “as cherrystones,” to some small degree. Clams are not usually thought of as domestic animals, particularly the large, blue-ribbon specimens often mistakenly associated with Pennsylvania, its farms, wells, knolls, buzzards, and plentiful copses. There is a wonderful photograph of one such prizewinner, “Old Moot,” who comes up to the ankles of his master, or, as it pleasurably turned out, mistress. I may as well state unequivocally that I prefer not to use the word “mistress” in such close relationship to the mention, such as it is, of an animal. More than one crumpled note has been delivered to me — post-haste! — from breezy oceanfront cabanas regarding such unfortunate contiguities. The threats therein are what a grizzled editor of my acquaintance wisely called “recipes for disaster.” But this time I escaped, and could gaze at the slowly steaming freighter on the horizon in much the same essentially idiotic manner as the other guests. Not, of course, that I was a guest; let us say that I was, simply, very like someone you may well have seen “before.” I was, indeed, once billed as “Queen of Flowers” and “Credenza of Cruel Thorns,” but that was long before certain curious proclivities led to disturbing psychological effects and an unswerving attention to minute details of dress. My gardening regimen, for instance, was almost completely subverted, if I may use a fashionable euphemism. A few of the young flowers, as I like, I suppose I’ve mentioned, to call the unmarried women, were leaving for a better view of Saint-Loup, the hotel’s pasta chef. He, rapt before his own sense of personal vanity, paid attention only to the buffet, and not even the steamer’s insane whistle could tear his gaze from the “plat complet” of vermicelli alla Sciaccatana. None of the lovely young flowers waited for him to notice them, and the message they blushingly but assertively conveyed to him occasioned one of the master’s rare, gap-toothed smiles. He and three of the young ladies swiftly made for the greenhouse, and subsequently were heard the sounds of flustered laughter, creaking wicker, and some more breaking glass. Influenced, perhaps, by the current bestseller, The Hothouse Bacchanal, certain of the older women charged the cliffside gazebo, despite posted warnings to be on the alert for myriad broken spirits. More than one “chink” of blue, as wags still snicker, was fondled that day, although the several dispatches from the administration’s puppets predictably said otherwise. As the sun began to lower itself into the glittering sea, one heard feminine voices everywhere pleading for “salts, my salts, please, my salts, if you love me!” The blue line of chauffeurs, servants, toadies, and hastily deputized police officers prevented angry crowds from approaching the scene of what had rather quickly become an exhausting debacle.
Later, one had not thought it possible to find gathered together rarer denizens than the young whores, who, at every moment, between their thighs were peeking for signs of glee. Their tender wedges, like bowers in “Pennsylvania poses,” were explored by silklike garters between which perfumes retained a slow, “packed” emotion. Bossed by one schemer, so slow in sliding along the blue, horizontal mime who had stretched from one hem to the next, an idle guttersnipe bawled in humping a whore whom a pimp’s trull had long since sassed. (He could wait before flying off; I’m to arrive before him!) Nothing but the tiniest pink-and-blue rill separated these souls from the fine-fettled whores toward which they were leering.