Complete Stories (13 page)

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Authors: Dorothy Parker,Colleen Bresse,Regina Barreca

BOOK: Complete Stories
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The New Yorker
, September 11, 1926
Oh! He’s Charming!
 
“Mr. Pawling,” said the hostess, “this is a great admirer of your books. Miss Waldron, Mr. Pawling. Miss Waldron, oh, she’s a great admirer of yours.”
She laughed heartily and highly, and melted away through the crowd, toward the depleted tea-table. Her lips were scrolled in sunshine, but in her eyes was the look of the caged thing, the look of the tortured soul who is wondering what in hell has become of that fresh supply of toast.
“Want to sit down?” said the author. “Here’s a couple of chairs. Might as well grab them.”
“Ooh, let’s!” said the great admirer. “Let’s do!”
So they did.
“God, I’m tired,” said the author. “Dead, I am. Terrible party, this is. Terrible people. Everybody here’s terrible. Lot of lice.”
“Oh, you must get so sick of parties!” said the great admirer. “You must be simply bored to death. I suppose people are after you every second with invitations.”
“I never answer them,” he said. “I won’t even go to the telephone any more. But they get you, anyhow. Look at me now. Stuck.”
“Oh, it must be simply terrible,” she said. “I was thinking, when I was watching you, before. Everybody crowding around you every minute.”
“What’s a person going to do?” he said.
“No, but really,” she said, “you can’t blame them, you know. Naturally everybody wants to meet you. My heavens, I’ve been just simply dying to, ever since I read
Some Ladies in Agony
. I just love every word of that book. I’ve read it over and over. But my heavens, I suppose so many people tell you how they love your books, it would simply bore you to death to hear me rave about them.”
“Not at all,” he said. “That’s quite all right.”
“Oh, I do,” she said. “I love them. I’ve often thought ‘I’d just love to sit down and write Freeman Pawling a little letter.’ But I couldn’t get up the nerve to. I was simply scared to death of you. Do you mind if I say something awfully personal? I had no idea you’d be so young!”
“That so?” he said.
“Why, I thought you’d have gray hair, at least,” she said. “I thought anybody would have to be old, to know as much as you do.”
“That so?” he said.
“My heavens,” she said, “the things you know! Why, I thought nobody but me knew them. Do you mind if I ask you an awfully personal question? How on earth did you ever find out so much about women?”
“Oh, my God,” he said, “I’ve known a million of them. All over the world.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “I bet you have. I bet you’ve left broken hearts wherever you’ve gone. Haven’t you?”
“Well,” he said.
“It must be just simply awful for any woman you know,” she said. “The way you see right through and through them. I’d better be terribly careful what I say. First thing I know, you’ll be putting me in a book. Look, I’m going to ask you something awfully personal. Do you mind? Look, was Cicely Celtic in
Various Knights and a Lady
drawn from real life?”
“She was,” he said, “and she wasn’t. Partly she was, and partly she wasn’t.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “She was rather an amusing little thing,” he said, “the real Cicely. Girl named Nancy James—very good family. A lady. Possessive as the devil, though. She’s dead, now. Shot herself.”
“Ooh,” she said. “Just like in the book!”
“Yes,” he said. “I thought I might as well use it. After all the trouble she was. God, what a jealous little ape.”
“Are you writing anything now?” she said.
“Oh, it’s coming slowly,” he said. “Coming slowly. It doesn’t do to hurry it.”
“I was in at the library yesterday,” she said. “Isn’t it funny, I was just asking them if you had anything new out, and they said no. They said no, you didn’t. I always ask them what’s good, and they sort of save out books for me. I got a lot. There’s one of them by Sherwood Anderson. The
Dark
something, or something.”
“Don’t read it,” he said. “It’s a louse. Poor Anderson’s all through.”
“Oh, I’m awfully glad you told me,” she said. “Now I won’t have to waste my time over it. Then I got this Dreiser thing, only it’s in two books, and it looks terribly long.”
“Dreiser trying to write,” he said. “That’s one of the funniest things in the world. He can’t write.”
“Well, I’m glad to know that,” she said. “I won’t have to bother with it. Let’s see—oh, I got this new Ring Lardner book. Short stories or something.”
“Who?” he said.
“You know,” she said. “He used to write funny things. You know, all those funny things. Everything spelled wrong, and everything.”
“What’s his name?” he said.
“Lardner,” she said. “Ring Lardner. It’s a funny name, isn’t it?”
“It’s a new one on me,” he said.
“Well, I really just got it mostly for Daddy,” she said. “He’s crazy about baseball and things. I thought he’d probably be crazy about it. I just can’t seem to find any books I like, any more. My heavens, I wish you’d hurry up and finish your new one. I wish I had the nerve to ask you something awfully personal. I wonder if you’d mind. What’s your new book like?”
“It’s different,” he said. “Entirely different. I have evolved a different form. The trouble with novelists is their form. It’s their form, if you see what I mean. In this book, I have taken an entirely different form: It’s evolved from the
Satyricon
of Petronius.”
“Ooh,” she said. “Ooh. Exciting!”
“A good deal of the scene,” he said, “is laid in Egypt. I think they’re about ready for it.”
“How gorgeous!” she said. “I simply love anything about Egypt. I’m just crazy to go there. Have you ever been?”
“No,” he said. “I’m sick of traveling. It’s the same thing everywhere. People giving parties. Terrible.”
“Oh, I know,” she said. “It must be awful. Look, I don’t want you to think I’m being awfully personal, but I was just thinking I’d simply love to have you come up to the house for tea some time. I wonder if you would.”
“God, I’m through for the year,” he said. “This is the last time they get me out.”
“But just quietly,” she said. “Just a few people that are crazy about your things, too. Or just nobody, if you like.”
“For God’s sake, when would I have any time?” he said.
“Well, just in case you ever do,” she said, “it’s in the telephone book. D. G. Waldron. Do you think you can remember that or shall I write it down?”
“Don’t write it,” he said. “I never carry women’s addresses around with me. It’s hot as hell in here. I’m going to duck. Well, good-bye.”
“Oh, are you going?” she said. “Well, good-bye, then. I can’t tell you how exciting it’s been, meeting you and all. I hope to goodness I haven’t bored you to death, raving about your books. But if you knew how I read them and read them! I simply can’t wait to tell everybody I’ve really met Freeman Pawling!”
“Not at all,” he said.
“And any time you’re not just terribly busy,” she said, “it’s in the telephone book. You know!”
“Well, good-bye,” he said.
He was out the door in eight seconds flat, with no time out for farewells to his hostess.
The great admirer crossed the room to the tea-table, and clutched the hostess by her weary and flaccid hand.
“Oh, my dear,” she said, “it was just simply too thrilling for anything. Oh, he’s charming!”
“Isn’t he?” said the hostess. “I knew you’d think so, too.”
 
The New Yorker
, October 9, 1926
Travelogue
 
The woman in the spangled black dress left the rest of the party, and made room on the sofa for the sunburned young man with the quiet eyes.
“You just sit yourself right down here this minute,” she said. “And give an account of yourself. The idea! Running away for nearly two years, and not even a post-card out of you! Aren’t you ashamed? Answer Muvver. Izzun you tebble shame you’self?”
“I’m rotten about writing letters,” he said. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m hopeless. I always mean to write, and I never seem to get around to it. It isn’t because I don’t think of people. It’s just I’m terrible about writing letters.”
“Where have you been, anyway?” she said. “Nearly two years! Where dat bad boy been teepin’ himself?”
“Well, I was in Arabia, mostly,” he said.
“You’re crazy,” she said. “Just simply crazy. What on earth did you want to go to a place like that for?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I just sort of thought I’d like to see it.”
“Oh, I know,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me. I’m just like you. I love traveling. Freddy always says, just give me a couple of trunks and a letter of credit, and I’m all right. Well, you ask Freddy. It’s the funniest thing, but I was saying to him only last night at dinner—we were all alone, the Allens were coming, but their baby was sick at the last minute, the poor little thing, it’s so delicate it would scare you to death to see it, oh, my God, I must call up Kate Allen and find out how it is, I told Freddy to remind me—I was telling him, ‘One of these fine days,’ I said, ‘you won’t see me sitting here,’ I said. ‘I’m going to just pack up a toothbrush and an extra pair of stockings,’ I said, ‘and the next you’ll hear of me, I’ll be in Egypt or India or somewhere,’ I said. Oh, I’m a born traveler!”
“Really?” he said.
“Arabia!” she said. “Well, just imagine that. Tell me all about it. How did you like it, anyway?”
“Why, I had a good time,” he said.
“Imagine,” she said. “Way off there. Well, I’ve often wondered about Arabia. Tell me some more about it. Isn’t there an awful lot of sand and everything?”
“Well, there is,” he said. “But, you see—”
“Sand!” she said. “Don’t sand me! After this summer down at Dune Harbor, I’ve had enough of sand, thank you. I could write a book about sand. Always in your shoes, no matter what you did, and the children tracking it into the house till I thought I’d go crazy. I did. I thought I’d simply go crazy. Ever been to Dune Harbor?”
“No,” he said. “No, I haven’t.”
“Well, don’t,” she said. “Nothing but sand, sand, sand. You can get all the sand you want right there, without going off to any Arabia.”
“Well, you see,” he said, “the way it is in Arabia—”
“And Freddy on that beach!” she said. “You’d have died. The first day he got down there he just lay out there, and lay out there, and the first thing you knew, his shoulders! I thought about you, right away. I said if you could have seen those shoulders of his, you just simply would have died.”
“It must have been awfully funny,” he said. “You see, what I was going to say, in Arabia—”
“That’s right,” she said. “That’s just exactly what I want you to do. Tell me all about your trip. I want to hear every single thing. What was it like? What are the people like? Are they all Arabs and everything?”
“Well, of course,” he said, “there’s a lot of—”
“Imagine!” she said. “Arabs! Isn’t it exactly like something in a book? Oh, it must be just the way I pictured it. Tell me about all these Arabs. What are they like, anyway?”
“Why, they’re pretty much like everybody else,” he said. “Some of them are great, and some of them aren’t so good. Most of them are pretty—”
“You know,” she said, “I’ve always been sure I could get along with people like that. Arabs and everything. I’m so interested in people, they just seem to know, and they let me see their inside selves. Oh, I’m always making friends with the darndest people! You just ask Freddy. ‘Well,’ he said to me, ‘nobody could ever call you a snob,’ he said. And you know, I took it for a compliment. Arabs! Oh, I’d love anything like that. Well, go on, tell me about it. Where did you stay?”
“Why, a lot of the time,” he said, “I lived right with the natives. You see, I wanted to—”
“Imagine! Right with them!” she said. “But wasn’t it terribly uncomfortable and everything?”
“They were darn decent to me,” he said. “And as soon as you got used to it, you—”
“Oh, I could do it,” she said. “I could do it in a minute. I don’t care what I have to put up with, just as long as I’m traveling and seeing new things. When we were in Milan, three years ago, we went to this little hotel—the place was so crowded, there was nothing but Americans, wherever you went. I used to say to Freddy, ‘You’d think some of them would have sense enough to stay home.’ So we stayed at this little hotel, and do you know what we got? Well, I’ll tell you, because you’re an old friend, but if you ever—! We got fleas. Absolutely. Fleas. Freddy was nearly crazy, you know how he is, but I just said to him, ‘Well, that’s the kind of thing you’ve got to expect when you’re traveling.’ Oh, that’s the way I am. Nothing fazes me. But look, these Arabs. Don’t they all have a lot of wives or something?”

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