he beat her. Anyway, bodies are more or less the same, outward things, and didn't always have to do with how you felt about someone. A woman has to feel a man knows love is the life of a man and woman together. A man can't take a woman and then after his performance imply Ethel Barrymore's "That's all there is, there isn't any more." There must be more meaning to it all. New York was like a man, perhaps that's why its women were hectic, dissatisfied. From a glimpse, Paris was more like a woman, but women here in the restaurants, bars, the night clubs, eyed each other jealously too, as if each one were thinking maybe the man with the other woman was better.
Leaving a vaporous finger in its wake, the fetid ghost of many pasts recessed home into the Seine and a splinter of dawn silvered the center edge of the drawn curtains. She jumped up, relieved that night was over, pulled the cord, and stood watching the alchemy of the rising sun.
An eon of time passed until at six thirty the last transient rosy cupids melted into the bluing sky. She dressed quickly and ran down the velvety steps, and the night concierge yawned as it was yet a few minutes before relief from mad Américaines coming and going all hours.
An American playwright of "folk" fables, who celebrated America's pioneer health and simple religious faith in his inspirational plays, was at the entrance, arriving from a house of vicarious erotica.
"Lucy darling, I had no idea you were in Paris—Beman didn't tell me. He'll be along in a minute."
The sky was pearly blue. She stood irresolute at the curb. He probably lived a long distance, and this was her only free time. The taxi driver was a grumpy bundle with a walrus mustache, and grumbled when he heard the address, it must be out of the way. It was easier reading French than understanding Parisians. The only people out were men with blue smocks and wooden shoes, one carrying a basket of lettuce. And a few old women in black looking in garbage cans.
To her astonishment the address was only a half dozen blocks along an arcaded avenue and across was a park with a high iron grill fence. Opposite Vermillion's number was a dark building, blocks long, with prison-barred windows.
A fat black witch wouldn't let her go upstairs until "Monsieur" was notified.
What if he isn't in, or with Simone, or is just polite?
