Complete Stories (37 page)
Authors: Dorothy Parker,Colleen Bresse,Regina Barreca
FRIDAY. Absolutely
sunk; couldn’t
be worse. Last night
too
divine, movie
simply
deadly. Took Ollie to the Kingslands’ party,
too
unbelievable, everybody absolutely
rolling
. They had those Hungarians in the green coats, but Stewie Hunter wasn’t there. He’s got a
complete
nervous breakdown. Worried
sick
for fear he won’t be well by tonight; will absolutely
never
forgive him if he doesn’t come. Started home with Ollie, but dropped him at his house because he
couldn’t
stop crying. Joe left word with the butler he’s going to the country this afternoon for the week-end;
of course
he wouldn’t
stoop
to say
what
country. Called up
streams
of marvelous numbers to get someone to come dine and go with me to the opening of “White Man’s Folly,” and then go somewhere after to dance for a while; can’t
bear
to be the first one there at your own party. Everybody was tied up. Finally got Ollie Martin.
Couldn’t
feel more depressed; never should have gone
anywhere near
champagne and Scotch together. Started to read a book, but too restless. Called up Anne Lyman to ask about the new baby and
couldn’t
remember if it was a boy or girl
—must
get a secretary
next week
. Anne
couldn’t
have been more of a help; she said she didn’t know whether to name it Patricia or Gloria, so then of course I knew it was a girl
right away
. Suggested calling it Barbara; forgot she already had one. Absolutely
walking the floor
like a
panther
all day. Could
spit
about Stewie Hunter. Can’t
face
deciding whether to wear the blue with the white jacket or the purple with the beige roses. Every time I look at those
revolting
black nails, I want to absolutely
yip.
I really have
the
most horrible things happen to me of anybody in the
entire
world.
Damn
Miss Rose.
sunk; couldn’t
be worse. Last night
too
divine, movie
simply
deadly. Took Ollie to the Kingslands’ party,
too
unbelievable, everybody absolutely
rolling
. They had those Hungarians in the green coats, but Stewie Hunter wasn’t there. He’s got a
complete
nervous breakdown. Worried
sick
for fear he won’t be well by tonight; will absolutely
never
forgive him if he doesn’t come. Started home with Ollie, but dropped him at his house because he
couldn’t
stop crying. Joe left word with the butler he’s going to the country this afternoon for the week-end;
of course
he wouldn’t
stoop
to say
what
country. Called up
streams
of marvelous numbers to get someone to come dine and go with me to the opening of “White Man’s Folly,” and then go somewhere after to dance for a while; can’t
bear
to be the first one there at your own party. Everybody was tied up. Finally got Ollie Martin.
Couldn’t
feel more depressed; never should have gone
anywhere near
champagne and Scotch together. Started to read a book, but too restless. Called up Anne Lyman to ask about the new baby and
couldn’t
remember if it was a boy or girl
—must
get a secretary
next week
. Anne
couldn’t
have been more of a help; she said she didn’t know whether to name it Patricia or Gloria, so then of course I knew it was a girl
right away
. Suggested calling it Barbara; forgot she already had one. Absolutely
walking the floor
like a
panther
all day. Could
spit
about Stewie Hunter. Can’t
face
deciding whether to wear the blue with the white jacket or the purple with the beige roses. Every time I look at those
revolting
black nails, I want to absolutely
yip.
I really have
the
most horrible things happen to me of anybody in the
entire
world.
Damn
Miss Rose.
The New Yorker
, March 25, 1933
, March 25, 1933
Sentiment
Oh, anywhere
,
driver, anywhere—it doesn’t matter. Just keep driving.
,
driver, anywhere—it doesn’t matter. Just keep driving.
It’s better here in this taxi than it was walking. It’s no good my trying to walk. There is always a glimpse through the crowd of someone who looks like him—someone with his swing of the shoulders, his slant of the hat. And I think it’s he, I think he’s come back. And my heart goes to scalding water and the buildings sway and bend above me. No, it’s better to be here. But I wish the driver would go fast, so fast that people walking by would be a long gray blur, and I could see no swinging shoulders, no slanted hat. It’s bad stopping still in the traffic like this. People pass too slowly, too clearly, and always the next one might be—No, of course it couldn’t be. I know that. Of course I know it. But it might be, it might.
And people can look in and see me, here. They can see if I cry. Oh, let them—it doesn’t matter. Let them look and be damned to them.
Yes, you look at me. Look and look and look, you poor, queer tired woman. It’s a pretty hat, isn’t it? It’s meant to be looked at. That’s why it’s so big and red and new, that’s why it has these great soft poppies on it. Your poor hat is all weary and done with. It looks like a dead cat, a cat that was run over and pushed out of the way against the curbstone. Don’t you wish you were I and could have a new hat whenever you pleased? You could walk fast, couldn’t you, and hold your head high and raise your feet from the pavement if you were on your way to a new hat, a beautiful hat, a hat that cost more than ever you had? Only I hope you wouldn’t choose one like mine. For red is mourning, you know. Scarlet red for a love that’s dead. Didn’t you know that?
She’s gone now. The taxi is moving and she’s left behind forever. I wonder what she thought when our eyes and our lives met. I wonder did she envy me, so sleek and safe and young. Or did she realize how quick I’d be to fling away all I have if I could bear in my breast the still, dead heart that she carries in hers. She doesn’t feel. She doesn’t even wish. She is done with hoping and burning, if ever she burned and she hoped. Oh, that’s quite nice, it has a real lilt. She is done with hoping and burning, if ever she—Yes, it’s pretty. Well—I wonder if she’s gone her slow way a little happier, or, perhaps, a little sadder for knowing that there is one worse off than herself.
This is the sort of thing he hated so in me. I know what he would say. “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” he would say. “Can’t you stop that fool sentimentalizing? Why do you have to do it? Why do you
want
to do it? Just because you see an old charwoman on the street, there’s no need to get sobbing about her. She’s all right. She’s fine. ‘When your eyes and your lives met’—oh, come on now. Why, she never even saw you. And her ‘still, dead heart,’ nothing! She’s probably on her way to get a bottle of bad gin and have a roaring time. You don’t have to dramatize
everything.
You don’t have to insist that
everybody’s
sad. Why are you always so sentimental? Don’t
do
it, Rosalie.” That’s what he would say. I know.
want
to do it? Just because you see an old charwoman on the street, there’s no need to get sobbing about her. She’s all right. She’s fine. ‘When your eyes and your lives met’—oh, come on now. Why, she never even saw you. And her ‘still, dead heart,’ nothing! She’s probably on her way to get a bottle of bad gin and have a roaring time. You don’t have to dramatize
everything.
You don’t have to insist that
everybody’s
sad. Why are you always so sentimental? Don’t
do
it, Rosalie.” That’s what he would say. I know.
But he won’t say that or anything else to me, any more. Never anything else, sweet or bitter. He’s gone away and he isn’t coming back. “Oh, of course I’m coming back!” he said. “No, I don’t know just when—I told you that. Ah, Rosalie, don’t go making a national tragedy of it. It’ll be a few months, maybe—and if ever two people needed a holiday from each other! It’s nothing to cry about. I’ll be back. I’m not going to stay away from New York forever.”
But I knew. I knew. I knew because he had been far away from me long before he went. He’s gone away and he won’t come back. He’s gone away and he won’t come back, he’s gone away and he’ll never come back. Listen to the wheels saying it, on and on and on. That’s sentimental, I suppose. Wheels don’t say anything. Wheels can’t speak. But I
hear
them.
hear
them.
I wonder why it’s wrong to be sentimental. People are so contemptuous of feeling. “You wouldn’t catch
me
sitting alone and mooning,” they say. “Moon” is what they say when they mean remember, and they are so proud of not remembering. It’s strange, how they pride themselves upon their lacks. “I never take anything seriously,” they say. “I simply couldn’t imagine,” they say, “letting myself care so much that I could be hurt.” They say, “No one person could be that important to
me.
” And why, why do they think they’re right?
me
sitting alone and mooning,” they say. “Moon” is what they say when they mean remember, and they are so proud of not remembering. It’s strange, how they pride themselves upon their lacks. “I never take anything seriously,” they say. “I simply couldn’t imagine,” they say, “letting myself care so much that I could be hurt.” They say, “No one person could be that important to
me.
” And why, why do they think they’re right?
Oh, who’s right and who’s wrong and who decides? Perhaps it was I who was right about that charwoman. Perhaps she
was
weary and still-hearted, and perhaps, for just that moment, she knew all about me. She needn’t have been all right and fine and on her way for gin, just because he said so. Oh. Oh, I forgot. He didn’t say so. He wasn’t here; he isn’t here. It was I, imagining what he would say. And I thought I heard him. He’s always with me, he and all his beauty and his cruelty. But he mustn’t be any more. I mustn’t think of him. That’s it, don’t think of him. Yes. Don’t breathe, either. Don’t hear. Don’t see. Stop the blood in your veins.
was
weary and still-hearted, and perhaps, for just that moment, she knew all about me. She needn’t have been all right and fine and on her way for gin, just because he said so. Oh. Oh, I forgot. He didn’t say so. He wasn’t here; he isn’t here. It was I, imagining what he would say. And I thought I heard him. He’s always with me, he and all his beauty and his cruelty. But he mustn’t be any more. I mustn’t think of him. That’s it, don’t think of him. Yes. Don’t breathe, either. Don’t hear. Don’t see. Stop the blood in your veins.
I can’t go on like this. I can’t, I can’t. I cannot stand this frantic misery. If I knew it would be over in a day or a year or two months, I could endure it. Even if it grew duller sometimes and wilder sometimes, it could be borne. But it is always the same and there is no end.
“Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain—
Dawn will find them still again;
This has neither wax nor wane,
Neither stop nor start.”
Oh, let’s see—how does the next verse go? Something, something, something, something, something to rhyme with “wear.” Anyway, it ends:
“All my thoughts are slow and brown:
Standing up or sitting down
Little matters, or what gown
Or what shoes I wear.”
Yes, that’s the way it goes. And it’s right, it’s so right. What is it to me what I wear? Go and buy yourself a big red hat with poppies on it—that ought to cheer you up. Yes—go buy it and loathe it. How am I to go on, sitting and staring and buying big red hats and hating them, and then sitting and staring again—day upon day upon day upon day? Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. How am I to drag through them like this?
But what else is there for me? “Go out and see your friends and have a good time,” they say. “Don’t sit alone and dramatize yourself.” Dramatize yourself! If it be drama to feel a steady—no, a
ceaseless
rain beating upon my heart, then I do dramatize myself. The shallow people, the little people, how can they know what suffering is, how could their thick hearts be torn? Don’t they know, the empty fools, that I could not see again the friends we saw together, could not go back to the places where he and I have been? For he’s gone, and it’s ended. It’s ended, it’s ended. And when it ends, only those places where you have known sorrow are kindly to you. If you revisit the scenes of your happiness, your heart must burst of its agony.
ceaseless
rain beating upon my heart, then I do dramatize myself. The shallow people, the little people, how can they know what suffering is, how could their thick hearts be torn? Don’t they know, the empty fools, that I could not see again the friends we saw together, could not go back to the places where he and I have been? For he’s gone, and it’s ended. It’s ended, it’s ended. And when it ends, only those places where you have known sorrow are kindly to you. If you revisit the scenes of your happiness, your heart must burst of its agony.
And that’s sentimental, I suppose. It’s sentimental to know that you cannot bear to see the places where once all was well with you, that you cannot bear reminders of a dead loveliness. Sorrow is tranquillity remembered in emotion. It—oh, I think that’s quite good. “Remem bered in emotion”—that’s a really nice reversal. I wish I could say it to him. But I won’t say anything to him, ever again, ever, ever again. He’s gone, and it’s over, and I dare not think of the dead days. All my thoughts must be slow and brown, and I must—
Oh, no, no, no! Oh, the driver shouldn’t go through this street! This was our street, this is the place of our love and our laughter. I can’t do this, I can’t, I can’t. I will crouch down here, and hold my hands tight, tight over my eyes, so that I cannot look. I must keep my poor heart still, and I must be like the little, mean, dry-souled people who are proud not to remember.
But, oh, I see it, I see it, even though my eyes are blinded. Though I had no eyes, my heart would tell me this street, out of all streets. I know it as I know my hands, as I know his face. Oh, why can’t I be let to die as we pass through?
We must be at the florist’s shop on the corner now. That’s where he used to stop to buy me primroses, little yellow primroses massed tight together with a circle of their silver-backed leaves about them, clean and cool and gentle. He always said that orchids and camellias were none of my affair. So when there were no spring and no primroses, he would give me lilies-of-the-valley and little, gay rosebuds and mignonette and bright blue cornflowers. He said he couldn’t stand the thought of me without flowers—it would be all wrong; I cannot bear flowers near me, now. And the little gray florist was so interested and so glad—and there was the day he called me “madam”! Ah, I can’t, I can’t.
And now we must be at the big apartment house with the big gold doorman. And the evening the doorman was holding the darling puppy on a big, long leash, and we stopped to talk to it, and he took it up in his arms and cuddled it, and that was the only time we ever saw the doorman smile! And next is the house with the baby, and he always would take off his hat and bow very solemnly to her, and sometimes she would give him her little starfish of a hand. And then is the tree with the rusty iron bars around it, where he would stop to turn and wave to me, as I leaned out the window to watch him. And people would look at him, because people always had to look at him, but he never noticed. It was our tree, he said; it wouldn’t dream of belonging to anybody else. And very few city people had their own personal tree, he said. Did I realize that, he said.
And then there’s the doctor’s house, and the three thin gray houses and then—oh, God, we must be at our house now! Our house, though we had only the top floor. And I loved the long, dark stairs, because he climbed them every evening. And our little prim pink curtains at the windows, and the boxes of pink geraniums that always grew for me. And the little stiff entry and the funny mail-box, and his ring at the bell. And I waiting for him in the dusk, thinking he would never come; and yet the waiting was lovely, too. And then when I opened the door to him—Oh, no, no, no! Oh, no one could bear this. No one, no one.
Ah, why, why, why must I be driven through here? What torture could there be so terrible as this? It will be better if I uncover my eyes and look. I will see our tree and our house again, and then my heart will burst and I will be dead. I will look, I will look.
But where’s the tree? Can they have cut down our tree
—our
tree? And where’s the apartment house? And where’s the florist’s shop? And where—oh, where’s our house, where’s—
—our
tree? And where’s the apartment house? And where’s the florist’s shop? And where—oh, where’s our house, where’s—
Driver, what street is this? Sixty-Fifth? Oh. No, nothing, thank you. I—I thought it was Sixty-Third . . .
Harper’s Bazaar
, May 1933
, May 1933
Mrs. Carrington and Mrs. Crane
“My dear,” Mrs. Carrington said, and she flicked a bead or two of caviar from her little fringed napkin, “I’ve got so I simply can’t stand another minute of them. Not one single other minute.”
“I know,” Mrs. Crane said. She sighed and looked softly upon her friend. “Oh, don’t I know. That’s the way I feel all the time.”
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