All That Is Read Online Free PDF Page B

with a bar and a large, white kitchen and, during the winter, empty rooms. When she was twenty, she came down to New York City. She had distant relatives there, the Gradows, cousins of her mother, who were rich, and she was a number of times in their home.
    One of the lost images of Bowman’s boyhood was of the mansion—he’d been taken to see it when he was five or six—a great, ornate, gray granite building with, as he remembered it, a moat and latticed windows near the park somewhere but not to be found, like streets in that familiar city that repeatedly appears in dreams. He never bothered to ask his mother about it and if it had been torn down, but there were places along Fifth where it seemed it might have been.
    Beatrice, perhaps because of her father’s death, which she remembered clearly, had a certain lingering dread of the fall. There was a time, usually late in August, when summer struck the trees with dazzling power and they were rich with leaves but then became, suddenly one day, strangely still, as if in expectation and at that moment aware. They knew. Everything knew, the beetles, the frogs, the crows solemnly walking across the lawn. The sun was at its zenith and embraced the world, but it was ending, all that one loved was at risk.

    Neil Eddins, the other editor, was a southerner, smooth faced and mannerly, who wore striped shirts and made friends easily.
    “You were in the navy,” he said.
    “Yes, were you?”
    “They wouldn’t have me. I couldn’t get into the program. I was in the merchant marine.”
    “Where was that?”
    “In the East River, mostly. The crew was Italian. They could never get them to sail.”
    “Not much danger of being sunk.”
    “Not by the enemy,” Eddins said. “Were you ever sunk?”
    “Some people thought we were.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “It’s too long a story.”
    Gretchen, who was the secretary, walked by as they talked. She had a good figure and an attractive face marred by three or four large inflamed blemishes, some unnameable skin trouble, on her cheeks and forehead that made her miserable though she never betrayed it. Eddins gave a slight moan when she had passed.
    “Gretchen, you mean?”
    It was known she had a boyfriend.
    “Oh, my God,” Eddins said. “Forget the acne or whatever that is, we can clear that up. Actually I like women who look a little like boxers, high cheekbones, lips a bit thick. What a dream I had the other night! I had three cute girls, one after the other. It was in a little room, almost a stall, and I was starting in with the fourth and someone was trying to come in. No, no, damn it, not now! I was shouting. The fourth one’s ass was right up against me as she bent over to take off her shoes. Am I being too disgusting?”
    “No, not really.”
    “Do you have dreams like that?”
    “I usually only dream about one at a time,” Bowman said.
    “Anyone in particular?” Eddins said. “What I really like is a voice, a low voice. When I get married, that’s the first thing I’m going to tell her, speak in a low voice.”
    Gretchen passed on her way back. She gave a slight smile.
    “Jaysus,” Eddins said, “they know what they’re doing, don’t they? They love it.”
    After work they sometimes went up to Clarke’s for a drink. Third Avenue was a street of drinkers and many local bars, always in the shadow of the elevated and the sound of it passing overhead, rocking by tenements and daylight dropping through the tracks after it had gone by.
    They talked about books and writing. Eddins had had only a year of college but had read everything, he was a member of the Joyce Society and Joyce was his hero.
    “But I don’t normally like a writer to give me too much of a character’s thoughts and feelings,” he said. “I like to see them, hear what they say, and decide for myself. The appearance of things. I like dialogue. They talk and you understand everything. Do you like John O’Hara?”
    “Somewhat,” Bowman