Laura Shapiro Read Online Free PDF Page B

a man who plainly relished all his physical appetites, and she responded as if the power had been switched on inside her. To be hungry for food was a state she knew well. To be hungry all over was a revelation. Nothing and nobody in her wondrous new environment resembled her stodgy past, Paul least of all. She had to have this.
    It took a good eighteen months. Paul found Julia “ extremely likeable and pleasant to have around,” but he had no intention of pursuing her romantically. She was a virgin, he reported to Charlie, and probably afraid of sex—a state that did not appeal to Paul at all. Here, he decided, was “the traditional old maid of song and story,” subconsciously obsessed with sex but unable to handle the reality. “I feel very sorry for her because while I see clearly what the cure is, I do not see clearly who will apply it,” he wrote. “I have considered the matter carefully, as obviously there would be compensations and pleasures, but I believe the lack of worldly knowledge, the sloppy thinking, the wild emotionalism, the conventional framework, would be too much for Dr. Paulski to risk attempting to cure.” What’s more, he was irritated by her most prominent speech mannerisms. “She has a slight atmosphere of hysteria which gets on my nerves, being given to overstress in conversation and to gasping when she talks excitedly,” he told Charlie—habits he would come to love as her public did. But at the time, they simply contributed to the many reasons why Julia fell short of his ideal.
    So they embarked on a friendship, nothing more. Julia was out of the running. “I have never liked the idea—which is so appealing to many men—of Man the Sculptor, moulding and shaping a woman to his desire,” Paul explained to his brother, never imagining that love itself might be a sculptor pretty handy with clay. He and Julia went to movies, traveled a bit in Ceylon, and when she was transferred to China shortly after he was, they did some sightseeing there as well. They shared many meals; they talked and talked. And often they talked about food. Paul had spent years in Paris and was a knowledgeable and enthusiastic food lover. Julia liked these conversations—she certainly liked them better than the ones about general semantics—but as far as she was concerned, the most delicious thing about the meals they shared was Paul. Nonetheless, her sharp intellect rooted around happily in the talk about flavors, recipes, and culinary cultures that flowed between herself and this entrancing man. Paul was quickly persuaded that he had met a fellow epicure. “She is a gourmet and likes to cook and talk about food,” he reported admiringly, a few months after meeting her. He also knew a great deal about music, which she found less of a stretch, since she had minored in the subject at Smith. (“She is devoted to music,” Paul told Charlie approvingly.) Her shortcomings were, of course, severe in his eyes. But he came to treasure the qualities she brought to a friendship—constancy, humor, resilience, character. About six months after they met: “Julia is a nice person, a warm and witty girl.” Several months later: “A darling warm lovely girl.” A year after they met: “Julie…is a great solace.” And at last, in August 1945, a sonnet for her birthday. This was only three months after he had written the poem beginning “These prison-wires strung round my bones,” with its despairing imagery of the wasteland and the lonely sea. Now he was in full Shakespearean mode, and it was Julia’s doing.
    How like the Autumn’s warmth is Julia’s face
    So filled with Nature’s bounty, Nature’s worth.
    And how like summer’s heat is her embrace
    Wherein at last she melts my frozen earth.
    Endowed, the awakened fields abound
    With newly green effulgence, smiling flowers.
    Then all the lovely