Moise and the World of Reason Read Online Free PDF Page A

she fell!”
    â€œMoise, dear, things will be repeated, it was that sort of occasion when things will be repeated via the grapevine. Time, it may take time, and Life and Fortune and People, but things will be reported about the party and eventually”
    â€œYes, I know, I know. And so the party is over.”
    I think that I was beginning to catch Charlie’s fever since I broke into song.
    â€œThe party’s over, the candle flickered and dimmed.”
    Not very funny, but then
    â€œGo, dear. I have to pray. I do it better alone.”
    And so she dismissed me, gently.
    All the way back to the rectangle with hooks I sang that song which now makes me cry. Do you remember?
Killing me softly with his song
. . .

    I am sure that by this point you have come to realize that present conditions are distinctly unfavorable to putting things in order.
    Without expansion of that remark, let me include a slight account of a close call to an encounter between Moise and Skates at an occasion a month or so previous to the announcement party.
    It was the exhibition of Don Bachardy’s portraits at the museum near what was once called Columbus Circle and maybe still is.
    I went with Moise.
    We had been there admiring the portraits for less than five minutes when a great commotion occurred near an elevator door which had just opened. I recognized the cause and I turned Moise away from it.
    Yes, it was Skates, attended.
    She was scarcely out of the elevator, possibly still in it, when that phenomenally shrill voice cried out, “My God, an exhibition of realistic portraits just when my non-portraits are catching on!”
    Variations upon this outcry were echoed by her attendants. The effect was rather chilling on the large room although it was crowded to capacity and the body heat was sufficient to have made it comfortable without radi
    Sorry. Do radiators exist in the world anymore?
    The next thing I knew was that in this chillness a great man of letters— was it Isherwood? Christopher, yes, of course— had gone straight up to Skates as if unaware of danger and had said in a loud, very clear English voice, “Did I hear you say non-portraits?”
    â€œSssssss!”
    (Echoed by attendants.)
    â€œWhat are non-portraits, if you’ll explain the term, are they portraits which are not portraits, and if that is so, what are they?”
    â€œSssss!”
    (Echoed by attendants.)
    And on that occasion, too, the attendants removed her from the scene as a massive female insect, dedicated to the reproduction of the species, venomous, is removed by its drones.

    I would say it took ten minutes to remove the vapor about the elevator by which Skates had arrived and departed with her attendants.
    Moise seemed to be unaware of what had occurred.
    It was only on the subway going downtown that she remarked after a long reflective silence between us,
    â€œI suppose.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œSkates.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œIs inclined to”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œRealistic self-portraits of a certain nature.”
    â€œI know, but being deluded”
    â€œOh, deluded, no. I think she is quite at home in the world of reason.”
    I am sure that you must see, now, why I thought it appropriate to squeeze this account of the previous encounter, such as it was or wasn’t, into my last Blue Jay notebook.
    It’s seldom my practice to observe sequence. When I try to, my thoughts blur and my fingers shake but these being the final three pages of my last Blue Jay, I have a sense of time running out on me faster than running in, and it is surely advisable, then, to include at once the reason for the rage of Skates at Moise. I shall tell it badly but I shall tell it as best I can.
    About two years ago, the artist-teacher Tony Smith referred favorably in a lecture at Hunter College to the work and character of Moise. The reference was to the effect that the purest painter now painting was