Erik Dorn

ked he caught occasional glimpses of his companion-vivid eyes, dark lips, a cool, shadow-tinted face that belonged under exotic trees; a morose little girl insanely sensitive and with a dream insid

pleased him. It gave them a certa

he gave him a sense of dark waters hidden from the moon-a tenu

d frightened to death. There's really nothing to be frightene

assent to his words that surprised him. It pretended that she had understood something he h

as in legs," he announced. "Look at their clothes! Pri

u don't like

thing-in some needlework magazine. A wom

or perhaps it was the sense of flattery that pleased him. He wondered if she was intelligent. They had met several times,

asks. It's the only art we've developed in America-over-dressing. Clothes are peculiarly American-a sort of underhanded female revenge against the degenerate puritanism of the nation. I've seen them even at revival meetings clothed in the seven tailored sins and den

face that belonged elsewhere. He was feeding its poignancy words. And she admired him

ithout thinking, but just understanding. I've remembered nearly everything you've said to me.

loofness. Yes, what she said must be true. There was nothing unreasonable about its being true. She made an impression upon him. He undoubtedly did u

of bizarre automatons and chanting in Chinese, 'We are pure. We are chaste and pure.' A parade of psychopathic barbarians dressed in bells, m

ried to give words to an image the gi

t's

r face in a mom

said. "I would like to b

you. And perhaps of myself. You have a faculty of ... of ... Funny, things I say are usuall

etly, "because I unde

mean an

e nothing to say. And I like to l

street. There had been no street for several minutes-merely vivid eyes and dark lips. Now there were people-familiar unknowns to be found always in streets, their fac

u were a socialist. Th

tween them now. He would

rents are.

ssi

. Je

us about y

ven't

even

N

than a conscience, in which I presume you're likewise lacking, because you don't have to use them. A conscience is an immediate annoyance, whereas i

her interest had returned. Her eyes were flatteries. He desired to be a

nk? I always imagine that people have ideas that t

ncy, however, I'm wrong. It's only after telling a number of lies that one gets an idea of what might be true. Thus it occurs to me now that I can't conceive of an intelligent person thinking in silence. Intelligence is

ase

appealed to him as an exquisite mannerism.

narily rather difficult to flatter me. I'm immensely delighted with your silence,

me things I've kno

ell you

to himself as he walked alone in streets. And at his desk it often came to him and repeated itself. Now his thought murmured

lked about God

ne of my

idiot for

ution. It throws an onus on the whole of nature.

diotic, inasmuch as there was

species. I wonder about them. My wonder is concerned chiefly with the manner in which they adjust themselves to the vision of their futility. Do they shriek aloud with horror in lonely

mented words in his thought seemed to have deserted him. Assured of the admiration of his companion, he felt a quiet as if his energie

t-graduate course in pessimism. There's a pair arm in arm. Corpses grown together. There's no intimacy like that of cadave

ry proud," sh

en after truths. Listen, I have something more to say about them if you'll not look so serious. Your emotions are obviously infantile. I can give you a picture of marriage: two little husks bowing metronomically in a vacuum and anointing each other with pompous adjectives. Draw them a little flattened in the rear from

alk, if you haven't

pose it's a defensive instinct. Talk confuses women and renders them helpless. But that isn't it. I talk to women because they make the best sounding-boards. Do you object to being reduced to an acoustic?

et I'm a woman an

y in mirrors and that my thoughts exist only as they enter the heads of others. As now, I speak out of a most comp

rom himself," she answered. Dorn smiled. T

I'm unaware of ever having heard anybody else but myself express an opinion. And I swear I've never had an opinion in my life." He became silent and resumed, in a lighter voice, "Look at that man with whiskers. He's a notorious Don Juan. Whiskers undoubtedly lend mystery to a man. It's a

ntemplated her confusedly. He frowned at the thought of having bored her, and an impulse to step abruptly from her side and leave became a part of his anger. He hesitated in his walking and her fingers, timorous and uncon

g about art when you f

ad as if she were shakin

denied. They moved on i

ed. "The street's full of me

hey revived interest in events which had died. But it was nice to drift in a crowd beside a girl who admired him. What did he think of her? Nothing ... nothing. She seemed to warm him into a deeper slee

m, vivid eyes, dark lips-almost unaware of him, as if