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“She’s marvelous.”
    “Not for this show, she ain’t,” says Belmonte. He lights a cigar and leans back, waiting for the next victim. The atmosphere is unbearable. I have a pain in my stomach, and for some reason, both my nipples have become so sensitive that I sit there, rubbing them.
    The lunch break, thank God.
    I get out of the theatre fast, because I feel I want to have lunch by myself and calm down. No one has to tell me what a mistake it is to get emotionally involved in this damned thing. It’s a job, that’s all, like any other job, and as far as feeling sorry for the ones who don’t make it, I have to believe that the ones with real talent are going to get there one way or another. If not this show, then another show; if not this year, then next year. I know this is Pollyanna thinking, but maybe I’m Pollyanna, who knows?
    I walk around for ten minutes or so and find myself inside Joe Allen’s. An empty table, and I sit at it. They don’t like parties of one in there, but I can say I’m waiting for someone, and then—what of it?—the someone doesn’t turn up; that happens all the time in Allen’s. I order a club sandwich (a mistake) and a Coke (another mistake), and sit there wishing I had not given up smoking. I am beginning to think that only a part of this tension is being brought on by the events of the day after day. Another contributing factor may well be the lack of sexual expression in my life since Jean-Pierre returned to France. Of all my involvements, that was by far the most misguided. Still, looking back on it, I do not see how I could have escaped it. He was as determined as he was irresistible.
    He was one of those trainees sent over to the United States and Doubleday by Hachette, the French publishing house, to observe American methods.
    I met him when, in the second quarter of his planned year here, he was assigned to the Editorial. This meant that he came to the twice-weekly conferences on the forty-second floor.
    The first time he turned up, I did not know who he was, and I’m sure he did not know who I was, but he looked at me across the table and performed a small bow. I nodded my head, I suppose. The meeting turned into one of those rare noisy, argumentative ones, and since it was my job to write the report, I was soon too busy to do anything but tend to business. He was gone by the time I had finished.
    I inquired about him, was told who he was and what he was doing.
    The next day, I saw him walking up Park Avenue with an Avedon-model type, and wondered why this should trouble me. He reminded me vaguely of someone. Who?
    He was trim and alive. Physically, he looked not unlike my one-time overwhelming screen passion, Gérard Philipe. He gave the impression of enjoying every moment of life. Who was he like in spirit?
    Finally, it struck me. Vartan. He had the same graceful movements, the same sudden laughter.
    Another editorial meeting. I was sitting in one of the chairs at the foot of the table. He sat two chairs away. The chair between us was unoccupied.
    The conference droned on. Everyone seemed to be doodling, including the Frenchman. He folded his doodle and snapped it over to me. (Shades of Saint Helena High!) I opened it. A single word, in block letters: “DRINK?” I looked up at him. His attention was on the speaker at the head of the table.
    Impulsively, I wrote “Yes” under the question and snapped the note back. He read it, smiled and held up his spread fingers, indicating “Five.” I nodded.
    Another note: This one read: “DINNER?” I wrote under it, “Perhaps,” and shot it back. He looked at it and held up eight fingers. I shrugged.
    He worked a long time over his third note, consulting a pocket dictionary, with apparently no success.
    He passed it to me, and I read: “FOCK??”
    I wrote: “Your spelling is terrible.”
    He wrote back: “What matters? My focking is formidable .”
    How right he was. For all his gross approach, he proved, in time, to