Henderson the Rain King Read Online Free PDF

tightened the bow screw and scrubbed on the strings. Harsh cries awoke. It was like a feeling creature that had been neglected too long. Then I began to recall my old man. Maybe he would deny it with anger, but we are much alike. He could not settle into a quiet life either. Sometimes he was very hard on Mama; once he made her lie prostrate in her nightgown at the door of his room for two weeks before he would forgive her some silly words, perhaps like Lily's on the telephone when she said I was unkillable. He was a very strong man, too, but as he declined in strength, especially after the death of my brother Dick (which made me the heir), he shut himself away and fiddled more and more. So I began to recall his bent back and the flatness or lameness of his hips, and his beard like a protest that gushed from his very soul--washed white by the trembling weak blood of old age. Powerful once, his whiskers lost their curl and were pushed back on his collarbone by the instrument while he sighted with the left eye along the fingerboard and his big hollow elbow came and went, and the fiddle trembled and cried. So right then I decided, "I'll try it too." I banged down the cover and shut the clasps and drove straight to New York to a repair shop on 57th Street to have the violin reconditioned. As soon as it was ready I started to take lessons from an old Hungarian fellow named Haponyi who lived near the Barbizon-Plaza. At this time I was alone in the country, divorced. An old lady, Miss Lenox from across the way, came in and fixed my breakfast and this was my only need at the time. Frances had stayed behind in Europe. And so one day as I was rushing to my lesson on 57th Street with the case under my arm, I met Lily. "Well!" I said. I hadn't seen her in more than a year, not since I put her on that train for Paris, but we were immediately on the old terms of familiarity just as before. Her large, pure face was the same as ever. It would never be steady but it was beautiful. Only she had dyed her hair. It was now orange, which was not necessary, and it was parted from the middle of her forehead like the two panels of a curtain. It's the curse of these big beauties sometimes that they are short on taste. Also she had done something with mascara to her eyes so that they were no longer of equal length. What are you supposed to do if such a person is "the same as ever"? And what are you supposed to think when this tall woman, nearly six feet, in a kind of green plush suit like the stuff they used to have in Pullman cars and high heels, sways; sturdy as her legs are, great as her knees are, she sways; and in one look she throws away all the principles of behavior observed on 57th Street--as if throwing off the plush suit and hat and blouse and stockings and girdle to the winds and crying, "Gene! My life is misery without you"? However, the first thing she actually said was, "I am engaged." "What, again?" I said. "Well, I could use your advice. We _are__ friends. You are my friend, you know. I think we're each other's only friends in the world, after all. Are you studying music?" "Well, if it isn't music then I'm in a gang war," I said. "Because this case holds either a fiddle or a tommy gun." I guess I must have felt embarrassed. Then she began to tell me about the new fianc�mumbling. "Don't talk like that," I said. "What's the matter with you? Blow your nose. Why do you give me this Ivy League jive? This soft-spoken stuff? It's just done to take advantage of common people and make them bend over so as to hear you. You know I'm a little deaf," I said. "Raise your voice. Don't be such a snob. So tell me, did your fianc�o to Choate or St. Paul's? Your last husband went to President Roosevelt's prep school--whatchumajigger." Lilly now spoke more clearly and said, "My mother is dead." "Dead?" I said. "Hey, that's terrible. But wait just one minute, didn't you tell me in France that she was dead?" "Yes," she said. "Then when did she die?" "Just