The Railway Police and the Last Trolley Ride Read Online Free PDF
Author: Hortense Calisher
that—fact. “Uh-oh. Soon.”
“Soon!” I echoed greedily—what lechers hope makes! I pushed him toward the bathroom, left towels in his hands, turned on lights for him. “In ten minutes.” And I went into the bedroom and closed the door.
My vanity there was pillows. There must have been dozens piled in rows against the headboard, all of the tenderest fabrics for hot-weather nudity, in all of the softest aurora tints—dozens of small pillows all cut to the same replica oval, so that if a head had a fancy to lie there in its own altogether it would seem in any mirror opposite to be lying half in a camouflage of repetitions, or if it sat up, to be rising in the midst of innumerable crescent convexities of itself. Egotism—or beauty—always tends itself most saddeningly in the boudoir. And that was the way I meant to appear, to rise for him, no rubicund Titian rosy-packed in her own curves to the forehead only, but calm crescent of the earliest hour, a Western Aurora.
I embowered myself, taking up a mirror. On my lips I left only the faint vermeil one finds on the lips of bisque dolls, for whom, as they sat bare in the shop, I sometimes felt a sororal—ah now, leave that! But I added more eye shadow, knowing from experience that our so perfect orbs, when left unshaded below that other high oval one, tend to occupy more of its beauty than their fair share. Then I stripped.
He was a gentleman, and gentlemen do not knock. More than that, he was a courtier to the end—or almost. What had he expected of me, other than those innocent capers for which the maribou and the veils might be bought in any bridal salon? We were to marry, and with the respectable zest of the song-of-the-week, he wanted “all of me”—but perhaps not quite so much as he saw. He uttered my name. Again and again he uttered it. Then, in a whisper … “You didn’t … you—” Then he came forward. “But … my darling!” he said then, “… you shouldn’t have done it. Not even for me.”
Already I knew my mistake, made from the moment I heard him at Knoller’s, from my first wig, from age thirteen and before, flowing endlessly back. Any mystery or hope I had made of him—it had all been in my own head from the beginning. But women are slow to unfreeze from their own legends. So I sat there, the draft cold on me in the hour of my only avowal.
“Don’t you see how artificial it is?” he said. “Unless it comes from the culture? Otherwise—it’s … depravity.” He forced himself to look at me, even tenderly. “My dear,” he said, “there’s a difference between art and life, you know.” He sighed. “But women never see it. They always overdo.”
And though I held myself upright in silhouette, meanwhile repeating inner aves to Cimabue, Ghirlandaio, Piero della Francesca, he never said a word about the Western world.
Then he carefully turned down the light, and came to bed with me. He was a gentleman, even if one interested only in statutory nudity. And I think now that he may have had his own wistful legend of me that I violated: either that I was not all I should be—meadows!—or most romantical of all, to the rich—that I was poor. Perhaps, and this is hardest to say, I was his vagrant.
For in the end—I’ll come to that. But then and there, hell had its furies, and I my vengeance. Men know earlier and better than we what the razor can do and what it can’t. I waited until we were fully entwined, then I rested the crown of my head—which his hands had avoided—on his lips.
After a moment, he shuddered, but I held on firmly, moving it only to caress. And after another moment—though strong nostrils indicate what they will to the contrary—we were parted. Willy-nilly, a small sob escaped me.
“Oh my God,” he said, not in ecstasy, and even through the dark I could see how he was aghast.
Then I rose, locked myself in the wig closet, and stayed there throughout all his protestations—a weak opinion of which
“Soon!” I echoed greedily—what lechers hope makes! I pushed him toward the bathroom, left towels in his hands, turned on lights for him. “In ten minutes.” And I went into the bedroom and closed the door.
My vanity there was pillows. There must have been dozens piled in rows against the headboard, all of the tenderest fabrics for hot-weather nudity, in all of the softest aurora tints—dozens of small pillows all cut to the same replica oval, so that if a head had a fancy to lie there in its own altogether it would seem in any mirror opposite to be lying half in a camouflage of repetitions, or if it sat up, to be rising in the midst of innumerable crescent convexities of itself. Egotism—or beauty—always tends itself most saddeningly in the boudoir. And that was the way I meant to appear, to rise for him, no rubicund Titian rosy-packed in her own curves to the forehead only, but calm crescent of the earliest hour, a Western Aurora.
I embowered myself, taking up a mirror. On my lips I left only the faint vermeil one finds on the lips of bisque dolls, for whom, as they sat bare in the shop, I sometimes felt a sororal—ah now, leave that! But I added more eye shadow, knowing from experience that our so perfect orbs, when left unshaded below that other high oval one, tend to occupy more of its beauty than their fair share. Then I stripped.
He was a gentleman, and gentlemen do not knock. More than that, he was a courtier to the end—or almost. What had he expected of me, other than those innocent capers for which the maribou and the veils might be bought in any bridal salon? We were to marry, and with the respectable zest of the song-of-the-week, he wanted “all of me”—but perhaps not quite so much as he saw. He uttered my name. Again and again he uttered it. Then, in a whisper … “You didn’t … you—” Then he came forward. “But … my darling!” he said then, “… you shouldn’t have done it. Not even for me.”
Already I knew my mistake, made from the moment I heard him at Knoller’s, from my first wig, from age thirteen and before, flowing endlessly back. Any mystery or hope I had made of him—it had all been in my own head from the beginning. But women are slow to unfreeze from their own legends. So I sat there, the draft cold on me in the hour of my only avowal.
“Don’t you see how artificial it is?” he said. “Unless it comes from the culture? Otherwise—it’s … depravity.” He forced himself to look at me, even tenderly. “My dear,” he said, “there’s a difference between art and life, you know.” He sighed. “But women never see it. They always overdo.”
And though I held myself upright in silhouette, meanwhile repeating inner aves to Cimabue, Ghirlandaio, Piero della Francesca, he never said a word about the Western world.
Then he carefully turned down the light, and came to bed with me. He was a gentleman, even if one interested only in statutory nudity. And I think now that he may have had his own wistful legend of me that I violated: either that I was not all I should be—meadows!—or most romantical of all, to the rich—that I was poor. Perhaps, and this is hardest to say, I was his vagrant.
For in the end—I’ll come to that. But then and there, hell had its furies, and I my vengeance. Men know earlier and better than we what the razor can do and what it can’t. I waited until we were fully entwined, then I rested the crown of my head—which his hands had avoided—on his lips.
After a moment, he shuddered, but I held on firmly, moving it only to caress. And after another moment—though strong nostrils indicate what they will to the contrary—we were parted. Willy-nilly, a small sob escaped me.
“Oh my God,” he said, not in ecstasy, and even through the dark I could see how he was aghast.
Then I rose, locked myself in the wig closet, and stayed there throughout all his protestations—a weak opinion of which