Angna Enters

“ I tell myself I ought to marry Nino and if it doesn't work out—well—there's divorce, though I always thought if I married it would be for always."
"If you marry Nino it is for always because Catholics don't believe in divorce," Vida felt obliged to point out. "But I do think he would be a wonderful husband for you, not even considering Mae. And I will come and visit you in Spain and Paris. I can see you as a Marquesa. You'd be the toast of Paris," she concluded gaily, the gnawing suspicion dispelled that Lucy's brooding since Vermillion's departure was because of him. ”

“ Lucy was angry. Just when she liked him better to discover he had no use for dancing—or dancers! "I don't know what you're talking about—everybody else says the Russian Ballet is the last word."
He heard the distress in her voice but felt impelled to take his stand against jargon. "There are no last words in the arts, or even first." The words seemed inconsiderate of her feelings and he tried to reassure her. "Perhaps dance is different because the human body is capable only of movement within its radius and so must repeat itself over and over." ”

“ Lucy looked curiously at the slender Clarissa, noting the casual wave of her side-parted short bob, expensively simple beige chiffon gown that matched her hair, and the long pearl necklace wound once around a long neck. She must be almost as tall as Lyle. Society girls had a careless elegance as though it didn't matter how they dressed, she thought admiringly. It was especially noticeable in contrast to Tessie Soler in the same party. Tessie's hair, reddened for the show, glared, as did her emerald-green dress. ”

“ For women and men the most important thing to know and have is love. And so, my child, I presume to advise you not to bother your beautiful head with such trivialities. To love, and be loved, is the only art that matters."
Lucy looked at Simone's sad face, and her lips parted to utter an objection but she couldn't think of one. Vermillion too had told her not to concern herself with art: it was as if they were keeping something from her. Naturally love was important, the most important thing, but what did that have to do with becoming an artist? ”

“ Vida thought, switching on the lamps. The street noises through the drawn curtains were an exciting overture to the night. As far back as she remembered twilight seemed the real beginning of day. The only time one truly had to oneself, a period of germination. Her heels sank luxuriously into the thick pile of the Moroccan rug as she went to comb her hair. If I work hard, she thought, I'll finish Figente's cataloging in a week. Then I'll splurge and have Lucy's hairdresser cut my hair before looking for a new job. A job among people, and stop being a girl hermit, she planned. ”

“ Mae's awe of the unfriendly teacher was multiplied by a kind of diffident dizziness at seeing Lucy and herself mirrored tinily across the vast expanse of the studio floor. Lucy's hem, she noted, distressed, dipped on the left. The reflected expanse unaccountably recalled frighteningly her wedding journey across the lonely flat unending plains and then up and up to the dizzying big city while the strange man found so much pleasure in giving her pain. When she grew big he began to leave her. Big things, big rooms, big spaces, always made her feel unprotected and defenseless. ”

“ How sparkly the air is. How grand the stage feels under the ground cloth. How exciting it looks when only the stage pilot light is on and you're all alone in the big dark empty theatre. Sort of how you want to feel about love. A man ought to be mysterious. Nothing mysterious about that comic, Kel Moyle, always trying to waylay me, any girl.
"I don't see," she said aloud, "why a comic should be called a great artist of theatre because he makes people laugh—mostly at jokes about going to the toilet or double meanings about sex."
"Well, darling," said Mae, "men like his sort of thing." ”

“ Vermillion said to Lucy.
Beman, irritated, said, "You fellows always think you are special. No one else expects to be supported without working."
"I don't think my painting is necessary to anyone but myself, and so no one owes me a living," Vermillion said mildly. "Since I'm selfishly indulging myself, I don't care what anyone thinks—as much as I do, that is, about my painting. If I'm not pleased, no one can convince me. And the most difficult task for any artist is to convince himself, so occasionally he has to talk out loud to himself. ”

“ Vida murmured dryly, jealous of being out of it and, at the same time, further revising her opinion of Lucy who, until the advent of Simone, had appeared the paragon of worldly wisdom. Seeing her respond too naively to the older woman, who suddenly and for some undetectable reason was playing up to Lucy, was provoking. Or was it that Lucy's naivete made her a kind of Candide, seemingly willing to submit to the thoughts and wishes of others to attain answers to the two questions which obsessed her: the meaning of love; and what made you an artist? ”

“ In the kitchen Vida imagined herself in Lucy's place making an heroic passionate speech of denial, spellbinding the hearers before sweeping grandly out.
"There must be someone who can help. Figente?" was the best she could think of to help Lucy from the slough of despondency.
"Oh, you know Figente, he likes her. He'd think it a big joke on me. It is. She knows now no one would believe me if I said she was a Madam in Denver or anything I might say, because I am now known as a 'call girl'—every girl there was. She's sure a smart one." ”

“ It was a myth that in love you know another human being. He undoubtedly was as incomprehensible to her as she to him. Yet their bodies knew how to talk to one another. Apart from that, did anyone truly love another, get beyond self-love, see the other human being save in the mirror of one's own image? Sometimes he did seem to reach her with an image he had painted, as she had reached into him with her song. Perhaps the only communicative speech was made by artists in whatever the form. Then why couldn't she comprehend that it would require years of painting for him to become a painter? ”

“ Vermillion is if an artist shouldn't create her own symbols of universal emotions? Isn't that what modern art really is? Shouldn't we modern artists get back to the primitive, like Klee and Kandinsky, but in terms of the abstract of course?"
Vermillion took his hand from Lucy's belly and held it up to stop Ilona. Like a traffic cop, Lucy thought.
"Artists don't create symbols—they recognize them and then give them personal form. Otherwise the symbol would have meaning only to the artist who contrived it." ”

“ Life certainly was easy for Lucy. All a girl had to do was bleach her hair, be a dancer, and go to New York, to make everyone think she was wonderful and want to paint her. She could not keep her eyes from the paintings on the walls, or from comparing them with their subject.
They are simply wonderful. They don't look like Lucy but they must mean something deep. All those strong lines and triangles and patches of color. Sometimes you can even see Lucy. I don't know which I like best. ”

“ The familiar lines of her receptive body erased the image of the scratching angularities of their strident Brussels nightmare, as they swayed to Jacques's paean of joy.
"I said to her Simone, you will see, Paul will be there, he is but waiting to surprise you. As an artist he waits apart so not to take your mind from your work. He will tell you how great is your success this night. With him beside you, you will love New York. You will see its beauty. You will wish to remain."
"Hah!" tossed Simone to him over her shoulder as she leaned comfortably against Vermillion. ”

“ Figente threw aside the scratching laurel wreath and tied his slipping toga about him bathrobe fashion. He observed the hootched-up conviviality with disgust. This was the last party of its kind he would give for such a horde of barbarians, and that new scourge, crashers. The women were the worst; grotesques, wriggling and ghastly under greasy makeup. Where was Hal? Where Damon? And poor Boswell, a naif, with Welford's no-good son. And Lucy, after all instruction, wasting her time on the Hindu. Why didn't everyone leave except Vermillion, Simone, Kevin, and the two innocents Lucy and Boswell? ”

“ Then, for the first time in her life, the outside world penetrated Twelfth Street. A bad woman and her sick child were'coming to live next door. A delicious prickle tingled her all over. She envisioned Mae Welland with that foreign married name now—Claudel—enveloped in a shabby black shawl, leading a threadbare child to shelter. The Orphans of the Storm—like a Lilian Gish movie. She was debating which dress she would donate to poor little Lucy Claudel when her mother's strident call shattered the daydream. ”

“ How weak these flowers were at the end of their thin long stems. Weak the way boys liked girls to be. Blow on them and they bend over.
A playful puff nodded the heads in delicate agreement.
"They're pretty and have such nice juicy stems—stronger, I'll bet, than they look."
"Yes." Why was it that up to now he had focused only on the blooms? Lucy's legs were not the bunchy solids of Degas's girls. How about painting her as a flower? People would think he was crazy. A phalanx of cubists, futurists, surrealists, lined up to jeer. What a horrible fate to be ostracized as a Romantic! ”

“ Lucy said desolately.
"And what I need is to get away from Figente," Vida said energetically. "I'm grateful for the library job but I know now what he really wants is someone at his beck and call he can talk to. What I want is to get a job where there are people more my age. His house depresses me, for all its collection of books and paintings. I don't care a thing about first editions and valuable bindings. I prefer dogeared public library books that seem alive no matter how many centuries ago they were written. ”

“ But when the flowers were gathered and she and Mae emerged from the secret woods into the lonely twilight that sense of separation returned. Was she actually plainer than Mae, or was it her pride and sense of right that hid from men the inner beauty she possessed? How unseeing men were, and how brazen seemingly delicate Mae who did not hesitate to show her love to Charles. It had been sickening to witness his physical eagerness. Filthy sniffing animals.
I'm glad I said they were for poor Aunt Mabel too. It must be awful to be an old maid. ”

“ New York was beautiful on Sunday afternoons, especially at Central Park and Fifth with the hansom cabs and Rolls Royces and people walking across to the Park. It was silly not to walk in the Park sometimes instead of lying around until time to go to a party. What an unbecoming muddy-brown suit and green hat with a red feather! Simone could wear an Iris March green hat, not this lumpy woman. Oh boy, daggers! She hates me! A black cutaway with striped pants knew who she was. Thirty-five? No, forty-five. Men like that know how to take care of themselves. ”

“ The pure dance does not have to mean anything," Ilona replied loftily. A Broadway dancer was a fine one to ask about meaning, she thought. "Art does not have to mean anything if it has 'significant form.'"
"If it doesn't mean anything, why call it Frenzy?" persisted Lucy, eager to understand.
"Because my dance is symbolic of Universal Emotion, rooted in the Pelvis."
At "pelvis" the pupils of Lucy's eyes widened to black out what might be reflected in her thought. Ilona Klemper stared defiantly at her erstwhile pupil, a disrupting influence without feeling for true inner beauty. ”

“ Her Paris was a footlight one, Pucciniesque, with shadows of images left over from past worlds posing as persons. The world which exists makes its own images. Gauthier's Mimi originally was not operatic and might have been a girl of today. Like Lucy Claudel, who was no swooning Mimi or Camille. She was nonetheless of the theatre, like Simone, and to be avoided.
Simone had not turned as the four entered the room but, buoying herself with a flurry of reparative cosmetic feints, addressed Figente through the mirror as though the others were not present. ”

“ The group of figures, lighted by two lamps and united by one great shadow, comprised a perfect composition of one large form revealing remarkable discoveries of weights and balances and nuances of facial expression. A round blind spot was Tessie's quivering mouth.
Vedder was still brooding over the financially disquieting thought that advanced painting might become old hat. "You seem to condemn avant-garde art."
"Not at all," Vermillion said, surprised to find the subject still open. "I only object to those who show you nothing and want you to find something in their nothingness. ”

“ A scratch of mouth parted, as if slashed in a crime of passion, and amber eyes widened to observe the insensitive creature in cloudy greys, a cocotte's effect to accentuate youth so prized by men. If youth was what Paul wished—Contract or no contract she would return to Paris. New York's kneeling at one's feet could not blind one to its arid Park, stabbing towers, and streets crawling with vulgar girls in cheap Chanel copies parading their spurious youth. Jacques, enamored with New York, could remain. ”

“ She was in her best form tonight, lie thought, watching her smile indulgently as to an audience of children before giving them as a reward "Sur Le Pont d'Avignon"—in which they joined her with resounding "comme ça's" carried along by her contagious simplicity. This, he knew, was a prelude to "Ma Douce Annette" for which she was celebrated. With an undefinable and complete change of mood she sang to a lover to release her hand so that she might continue alone down a road. A song of turbulent love exhausted, becalmed into friendship. ”

“ Vida said triumphantly.
"You've become awfully bossy," Lucy said, smiling faintly.
"It's easier to do things for other people than for yourself," Vida catechized, "and if I don't get to work I'll lose my job. Remember now, you're not at all enthusiastic about accepting his offer because you'd rather go to Paris. I'll call you every hour, and stay with you tonight, and tomorrow night. Tomorrow and tomorrow. You don't know how to take care of yourself." ”

“ She looked up and saw the most beautiful girl in the world. Thin and pale and with enormous slanting blue eyes and golden curls as neat and smooth as new wood shavings, she held wrapped around her a pale blue flannel dressing gown tied at the neck with a big blue satin bow. On her feet were white marabou slippers. A girl one dreamed a movie star would be like if one could see her close by. Vida, transfixed, watched Lucy snuggling into the chairs. ”

“ How was it, Vida asked herself, that for all Clem's speechifying of love for his native state the results became meticulously drawn, lifeless people, stark houses and varnish-yellow fields? Congress and its people were not so eroded by prairie winds. And the corn, apples, and pumpkins she had enjoyed so were not juiceless as on the white-clothed table in the foreground of his mother's kitchen. A design more than a painting. ”

“ He hoped it was a good omen that she had discarded her uniform of black velvet. Her thin ivory arms hung straight from her high narrow shoulders, and her reposed pale face, slightly tilted right, balanced the bronze coxcomb over her left eyebrow: she seemed, he thought, a burnished Phoenix risen from the muddy black-velvet-clad Simone last seen in Brussels. Standing there, she was the essence of the disillusioned poets of her era with their wryly triste allusions to the corruptions in the flesh which corrode the spirit. Around her spun a blue aura complementing her copper ”