Stahr spoke into his thoughts.
     "You  can't handle her," he said.  "I told you  what I wanted. I wanted
her mean-and she  comes  out  bored.  I'm afraid we'll  have to call it off,
Red."
     "The picture?"
     "No. I'm putting Harley on it."
     "All right, Monroe."
     "I'm sorry, Red. We'll try something else another time."
     The car drew up in front of Stahr's office.
     "Shall I finish this take?" said Red.
     "It's being done now," said Stahr grimly. "Harley's in there."
     "What the hell-"
     "He went in when we came out. I had him read the script last night."
     "Now listen, Monroe-"
     "It's my busy  day, Red," said  Stahr tersely. "You lost interest about
three days ago."
     It was a sorry mess Ridingwood thought. It  meant  he would have to  do
the next  picture he  was offered whether  he  liked  it or not.  It meant a
slight, very  slight loss of position-it probably  meant that  he could  not
have  a third wife  just  now  as he  had  planned. There  wasn't  even  the
satisfaction in  raising a row about it-if you disagreed with Stahr  you did
not advertise it. Stahr was his world's great customer who was always-almost
always right.
     "How about my  coat?" he asked suddenly. "I left it over a chair on the
set."
     "I know you did," said Stahr. "Here it is."
     He was trying so hard to be charitable about Ridingwood's lapse that he
had forgotten that he had it in his hand.



     Episode 11

     "Mr. Stahr's Projection Room" was a miniature picture theatre with four
rows of overstuffed chairs. In front of the  front  row ran long tables with
dim  lamps, buzzers and  telephones. Against the wall  was an upright piano,
left there since the early days of  sound. The room had been redecorated and
reupholstered only a year before but already it  was ragged  again with work
and hours.
     Here  Stahr sat at  two-thirty  and again at  six-thirty  watching  the
lengths of film taken during the day. There was often a savage tensity about
the occasion-he was dealing with faits accomplis-the net result of months of
buying,  planning, writing and  rewriting, casting, constructing,  lighting,
rehearsing and shooting-the  fruit alike of brilliant hunches or counsels of
despair,  of lethargy, conspiracy and  sweat.  At this  point  the  tortuous
manoeuvre  was  staged   and  in  suspension-these  were  reports  from  the
battle-line.
     Besides Stahr there were  present the representatives of all  technical
departments together with the supervisors and unit managers of the  pictures
concerned. The directors did not appear at these showings-officially because
their work was considered done-actually because few punches were pulled here
as  money ran  out  in silver  spools. There had evolved  a delicate staying
away.
     The  staff  was already assembled. Stahr  came in  and  took his  place
quickly  and  the murmur of conversation  died away. As he sat back and drew
his thin knee  up beside  him in the chair the lights in  the room went out.
There was the flare of a match in the back row-then silence.
     On the screen  a troop of French  Canadians pushed  their  canoes up  a
rapids. The scene had been photographed  in a studio tank and  at the end of
each take after the director's voice could be heard saying "Cut," the actors
on  the  screen  relaxed   and  wiped  their  brows  and  sometimes  laughed
hilariously-and  the  water in  the  tank  stopped  flowing and the illusion
ceased. Except to name his choice from each set of  takes and to remark that
it was "a good process," Stahr made no comment.
     The  next scene,  still in the rapids, called for  dialogue between the
Canadian girl (Claudette Colbert)  and the  coureur du  bois (Ronald Colman)
with her  looking down at him  from a canoe.  After  a  few strips  had  run
through Stahr spoke up suddenly.
     "Has the tank been dismantled?"
     "Yes, sir."
     "Monroe-they needed it for-"
     Stahr cut in peremptorily.
     "Have it set up again right away. Let's have that second take again."
     The lights went on momentarily. One of the unit managers left his chair
and came and stood in front of Stahr.
     "A  beautifully  acted  scene  thrown away," raged  Stahr  quietly. "It
wasn't  centered. The camera  was  set up  so it caught the beautiful top of
Claudette's  head  all the  time she was talking. That's) just what we want,
isn't it? That's) just what  people go to see-the top of  a beautiful girl's
head. Tell Tim he could have saved wear and tear by using her stand-in."
     The lights went  out again. The unit manager  squatted by Stahr's chair
to be out of the way. The take was run again.
     "Do you see now?" asked Stahr. "And there's a hair in the picture-there
on the right, see it? Find out if it's in the projector or the film."
     At the very end of  the take  Claudette  Colbert slowly lifted her head
revealing her great liquid eyes.
     "That's what  we should have  had all the way," said Stahr. "She gave a
fine  performance  too.  See if  you  can fit  it in tomorrow  or late  this
afternoon."
     -Pete  Zavras would not have  made a slip like that. There were not six
camera men in the industry you could entirely trust.
     The lights  went on; the  supervisor and unit manager  for that picture
went out.
     "Monroe,  this stuff was  shot  yesterday-it  came  through  late  last
night."
     The room darkened. On the screen appeared the head of Siva, immense and
imperturbable, oblivious to the fact that in a few hours it was to be washed
away in a flood. Around it milled a crowd of the faithful.
     "When you take that scene again," said Stahr suddenly, "put a couple of
little kids up  on top. You better check about whether it's reverent or  not
but I think it's all right. Kids'll do anything."
     "Yes, Monroe."
     A silver belt  with stars cut out of it.... Smith, Jones  or  Brown....
Personal-will the woman with the silver belt who-?
     With another  picture the scene shifted  to New York, a gangster story,
and suddenly Stahr became restive.
     "That scene's trash," he called suddenly  in the darkness.  "It's badly
written,  it's miscast, it  accomplishes nothing. Those types  aren't tough.
They  look like a lot  of dressed up lollypops-what the  hell is the matter.
Mort?"
     "The scene was written on the set this morning," said Mort Flieshacker.
"Burton wanted to get all the stuff on Stage 6."
     "Well-it's trash.  And so is this one.  There's  no use  printing stuff
like that. She doesn't  believe what she's saying-neither does Cary. 'I love
you'  in  a close-up-they'll  cluck  you out  of  the  house! And the girl's
overdressed."
     In the darkness a  signal was given, the  projector stopped, the lights
went on. The room waited in utter silence. Stahr's face was expressionless.
     "Who wrote the scene?" he asked after a minute.
     "Wylie White."
     "Is he sober?"
     "Sure he is."
     Stahr considered.
     "Put about four writers on that scene tonight," he said. "See who we've
got. Is Sidney Howard here yet?"
     "He got in this morning."
     "Talk to him about it. Explain to him what I want there. The girl is in
deadly  terror-she's stalling. It's  as  simple as that.  People don't  have
three emotions at once. And Kapper-"
     The art director leaned his head forward out of the second row.
     "Yeah."
     "There's something the matter with that set."
     There were little glances exchanged all over the room.
     "What is it, Monroe?"
     "You tell me,"  said Stahr.  "It's  crowded. It  doesn't carry your eye
out. It looks cheap."
     "It wasn't."
     "I know it wasn't. There's  not much the matter  but there's something.
Go  over and take a look tonight. It may be too  much furniture-or the wrong
kind. Perhaps a  window  would help. Couldn't  you  force the perspective in
that hall a little more?"
     "I'll see what I can do." Kapper  edged his way out of the row  looking
at his watch.
     "I'll have to get  at  it  right away," he said. "I'll work tonight and
we'll put it up in the morning."
     "All right. Mort, you can shoot around those scenes, can't you?"
     "I think so, Monroe."
     "I take the blame for this. Have you got the fight stuff?"
     "Coming up now."
     Stahr nodded. Kapper hurried out and  the room went dark  again. On the
screen four men staged a terrific socking match in a cellar. Stahr laughed.
     "Look at  Tracy," he said.  "Look at him  go down after that guy. I bet
he's been in a few."
     The men fought  over and over. Always the same fight. Always at the end
they faced each other smiling, sometimes touching the opponent in a friendly
gesture on the shoulder. The only one in danger was the stunt man, a pug who
could have  murdered the other three.  He was  in danger  only if they swung
wild  and didn't follow the  blows he  had taught them. Even so the youngest
actor was afraid for his face and the director had covered his flinches with
ingenious angles and interpositions.
     And then two men  met  endlessly in  a door, recognized each other  and
went on. They met, they started, they went on. They did it wrong. Again they
met, they started, they went on.
     Then  a little girl read underneath a tree with a boy reading on a limb
of the tree above. The little girl was bored and wanted to talk to  the boy.
He would pay no attention. The core of  the apple he was  eating fell on the
little girl's head.
     A voice spoke up out of the darkness:
     "It's pretty long, isn't it, Monroe?"
     "Not a bit," said Stahr. "It's nice. It has nice feeling."
     "I just thought it was long."
     "Sometimes ten feet can  be too long-sometimes a scene two hundred feet
long can be too  short. I want to speak to the cutter before he touches this
scene-this is something that'll be remembered in the picture."
     The oracle  had spoken. There  was nothing to  question or argue. Stahr
must  be  right  always, not most of the time, but  always-or the  structure
would melt down like gradual butter.
     Another hour passed.  Dreams hung in fragments at the  far end  of  the
room, suffered analysis, passed-to be dreamed  in crowds, or else discarded.
The end  was signalled  by two tests,  a character man and a girl. After the
rushes, which had  a tense  rhythm of their  own, the tests were smooth  and
finished-the observers settled  in their chairs-Stahr's foot slipped to  the
floor.  Opinions were welcome. One of the technical men let it be known that
he would willingly cohabit with the girl-the rest were indifferent.
     "Somebody sent up  a  test  of  that girl  two  years  ago. She must be
getting  around-but she isn't getting any better. But the man's  good. Can't
we use him as the old Russian Prince in 'Steppes'?"
     "He is  an old  Russian Prince,"  said the casting  director. "But he's
ashamed of it. He's a Red. And that's one part he says he wouldn't play."
     "It's the only part he could play," said Stahr.
     The lights went on. Stahr rolled his gum into its wrapper and put it in
an ash-tray. He turned questionmgly to his secretary.
     "The processes on Stage 2," she said.
     He  looked in briefly at the processes, moving pictures taken against a
background  of  other moving  pictures  by an ingenious device. There  was a
meeting in Marcus' office on  the subject of "Manon" with a happy ending and
Stahr had his say on  that as he had before-it had been making money without
a happy ending for a century and a half. He was obdurate-at this time in the
afternoon he was at his  most fluent and the  opposition faded into  another
subject-they would lend a dozen stars to the benefit for those the quake had
made homeless at Long Beach. In a sudden burst of giving five of them all at
once made up a purse of twenty-five thousand dollars. They gave well but not
as poor men give. It was not charity.
     At his office  there was word from the oculist to whom he had sent Pete
Zavras that the camera  man's eyes were 20/19, approximately perfect. He had
written a letter that Zavras was having photostated. Stahr walked around his
office cockily while Miss Doolan admired him. Prince Agge  had dropped in to
thank him for his afternoon on the sets and while they talked a cryptic word
came from a  supervisor that some writers named Marquand had "found out" and
were about to quit.
     "These are good writers," Stahr explained to Prince Agge. "And we don't
have good writers out here."
     "Why you can hire anyone!" exclaimed his visitor in surprise.
     "Oh we hire them but when they get out here they're not good writers-so
we have to work with the material we have."
     "Like what?"
     "Anybody  that'll accept the system and stay decently sober-we have all
sorts  of people-disappointed  poets,  one-hit playwrights, college girls-we
put them on  an idea  in pairs and if it  slows down we put two more writers
working behind them. I've had  as many as three  pairs working independently
on the same idea."
     "Do they like that?"
     "Not  if they know  about it. They're not geniuses-none  of  them could
make as much any other  way. But these Marquands are a husband and wife team
from the East-pretty  good playwrights.  They've just  found out they're not
alone on the story and it shocks them-shocks their sense of unity-that's the
word they'll use."
     "But what does make the-the unity?"
     Stahr hesitated-his face was grim except that his eyes twinkled.
     "I'm the unity," he said. "Come and see us again."

     He saw the Marquands. He told them he liked their work, looking at Mrs.
Marquand as if he could read her handwriting through the typescript. He told
them  kindly that he was taking them  from  the  picture and putting them on
another where there was less pressure, more  time.  As he  had half expected
they begged to  stay on  the  first  picture, seeing  a  quicker credit even
though it  was shared  with  others. The system  was  a shame,  he admitted-
gross, commercial, to be deplored. He had originated it-a fact that  he  did
not mention.
     When they had gone Miss Doolan came in triumphant.
     "Mr. Stahr, the lady with the belt is on the phone."
     Stahr walked  in to his office alone  and sat down behind his desk  and
picked up the phone with a great  sinking  of  his stomach. He  did not know
what he wanted. He had not thought about the matter as he had thought of the
matter of  Pete Zavras.  At  first he had only  wanted to know if  they were
"professional" people, if the woman was an actress who had got herself up to
look like Minna as he had once had  a young actress made up  like  Claudette
Colbert and photographed her from the same angles.
     "Hello," he said.
     "Hello."
     As he searched the short, rather surprised word for a vibration of
     last night, the feeling of terror began to steal over him and he choked
it off with an effort of will.
     "Well-you were  hard to  find,"  he said.  "Smith-and  you  moved  here
recently. That was all we had. And a silver belt."
     "Oh yes," the  voice  said, still  uneasy, unpoised, "I had on a silver
belt last night."
     Now, where from here?
     "Who  are you?" the  voice said, with  a  touch of  flurried  bourgeois
dignity.
     "My name is Monroe Stahr," he said.
     A pause. It was a name that never appeared on the screen and she seemed
to have trouble placing it.
     "Oh yes-yes. You were the husband of Minna Davis."
     "Yes."
     Was it a trick? As the  whole vision of last night came back to him-the
very skin with  that peculiar  radiance as if  phosphorus had touched it, he
thought if it were a  trick to  reach  him from somewhere. Not Minna and yet
Minna. The curtains blew suddenly into the room, the papers whispered on his
desk and his heart cringed faintly at the intense reality of the day outside
his  window. If he could go out now this way what would happen if he saw her
again-the starry veiled expression, the mouth strongly formed for poor brave
human laughter.
     "I'd like to see you. Would you like to come to the studio?"
     Again the hesitancy-then a blank refusal.
     "Oh, I don't think I ought to. I'm awfully sorry."
     This  last  was purely  formal,  a brush  off,  a final  axe.  Ordinary
skin-deep vanity came to Stahr's aid, adding persuasion to his urgency.
     "I'd like to see you," he said. "There's a reason."
     "Well-I'm afraid that-"
     "Could I come and see you?"
     A pause again not from hesitation, he felt, but to assemble her answer.
     "There's something you don't know," she said finally.
     "Oh, you're  probably married." He was impatient. "It has nothing to do
with that. I asked you  to  come here openly, bring your husband if you have
one."
     "It's-it's quite impossible."
     "Why?"
     "I feel silly even talking to you but your secretary insisted-I thought
I'd dropped something in the flood last night and you'd found it."
     "I want very much to see you for five minutes."
     "To put me in the movies."
     "That wasn't my idea."
     There was such a long pause that he thought he had offended her.
     "Where could I meet you?" she asked unexpectedly.
     "Here? At your house?"
     "No-somewhere outside."
     Suddenly  Stahr could think  of no place. His  own  house-a restaurant.
Where did people meet-a house of assignation, a cocktail bar?
     "I'll meet you somewhere at nine o'clock," she said.
     "That's impossible, I'm afraid."
     "Then never mind."
     "All right then nine  o'clock, but can we make  it near here? There's a
drug store on Wilshire-"

     It  was quarter to six.  There were two men  outside who had come every
day at this time only to be postponed. This was an hour of fatigue-the men's
business was not so  important that it must be seen to, nor so insignificant
that it could be ignored. So he postponed it again and sat motionless at his
desk for  a moment thinking about  Russia. Not so much about Russia as about
the picture about Russia which would consume a hopeless half hour presently.
He knew  there were many stories about Russia, not to mention The Story, and
he had employed a  squad of writers and research men for over a year but all
the stories involved  had the  wrong feel. He felt it could be told in terms
of  the American thirteen states but it  kept coming  out different,  in new
terms that opened  unpleasant possibilities and  problems.  He considered he
was  very fair to Russia-he had no desire to make anything but a sympathetic
picture but it kept turning into a headache.
     "Mr.  Stahr-Mr. Drummon's  outside and  Mr.  Kirstoff and Mrs. Cornhill
about the Russian picture." "All right-send them in."

     Afterwards from six-thirty  to  seven-thirty  he watched the  afternoon
rushes.  Except  for his engagement with  the  girl he would ordinarily have
spent  the early  evening in the projection  room or the dubbing room but it
had been a late night  with the earthquake and  he decided to go  to dinner.
Coming in through  his front office he found Pete Zavras waiting, his arm in
a sling.
     "You are  the Aeschylus and the  Diogenes  of the moving picture," said
Zavras simply. "Also the Asclepius and the Menander."
     He bowed.
     "Who are they?" asked Stahr smiling.
     "They are my countrymen. "
     "I didn't know you made pictures in Greece."
     "You're joking with me, Monroe," said Zavras. "I want to say you are as
dandy a fellow as they come. You have saved me one hundred percent."
     "You feel all right now?"
     "My arm is nothing. It feels like someone kisses me there. It was worth
doing what I did if this is the outcome. "
     "How did you happen to do it here?" Stahr asked curiously.
     "Before the oracle," said Zavras. "The  solver of Eleusinian mysteries.
I wish I had my hands on the son-of-a-bitch who started the story."
     "You make me sorry I didn't get an education," said Stahr.
     "It  isn't  worth a  damn,"  said  Pete. "I took  my  baccalaureate  in
Salonika and look how I ended up."
     "Not quite," said Stahr.
     "If you want anybody's throat cut anytime day or night,"  said  Zavras,
"my number is in the book."
     Stahr  closed  his eyes  and opened them again. Zavras' silhouette  had
blurred a little  against  the sun. He hung on to the  table behind  him and
said in an ordinary voice:
     "Good luck, Pete."
     The room was almost black but he made his feet move following a pattern
into his office and waited till the door clicked shut before he felt for the
pills. The water decanter clattered against the table; the glass clacked. He
sat down in a big chair waiting for the  benzedrine to take effect before he
went to dinner.



     Episode 12

     As  Stahr  walked back from the commissary a hand waved at him from  an
open roadster. From the heads  showing  over the back he recognized a  young
actor and his girl, and watched them disappear through the gate already part
of the summer twilight. Little by little  he was  losing the  feel  of  such
things, until it seemed that  Minna had taken their poignancy with her;  his
apprehension of splendor was fading so that presently the luxury of  eternal
mourning would  depart. A childish association of  Minna  with the  material
heavens made him, when he reached his office, order out his roadster for the
first  time  this  year.  The  big  limousine  seemed heavy  with remembered
conferences or exhausted sleep.
     Leaving  the studio he  was still tense  but  the open  car pulled  the
summer  evening up  close and he looked at it.  There was a moon down at the
end of the boulevard and it was a good illusion that it was a different moon
every evening, every  year. Other  lights shone in  Hollywood since  Minna's
death: in  the open markets lemons and grapefruit and green apples slanted a
misty  glare into the street. Ahead of him the stop-signal  of  a car winked
violet  and  at  another  crossing  he  watched  it  wink  again. Everywhere
floodlights raked the  sky. On an empty  corner  two  mysterious men moved a
gleaming drum in pointless arcs over the heavens.
     In  the drug store a woman  stood by  the candy counter.  She was tall,
almost as tall as Stahr, and embarrassed. Obviously it was  a situation  for
her and  if Stahr  had not looked as he did-most considerate and  polite-she
would not have gone through with it. They  said hello and walked out without
another word, scarcely  a  glance-  yet before they reached the  curb  Stahr
knew:  this was just  exactly a pretty  American woman  and nothing  more-no
beauty like Minna.

     "Where are  we going?"  she asked. "I thought  there'd be  a chauffeur.
Never mind-I'm a good boxer."
     "Boxer?"
     "That  didn't  sound  very polite." She forced a smile. "But you people
are supposed to be such horrors."
     The  conception of himself  as sinister  amused Stahr-then  suddenly it
failed to amuse him.
     "Why did you want to see me?" she asked as she got in.
     He stood motionless, wanting to tell her get  out immediately. But  she
had relaxed  in the car and he knew the unfortunate situation was of his own
making-he shut his teeth and walked around to get in.  The street lamp  fell
full upon her face and it was difficult to believe that this was the girl of
last night. He saw no resemblance to Minna at all.
     "I'll run you home," he said. "Where do you live?"
     "Run  me  home?"  She was startled. "There's  no  hurry-I'm sorry if  I
offended you."
     "No. It was  nice of you to come. I've been stupid. Last night I had an
idea that you were an exact double for someone  I knew. It was  dark and the
light was in my eyes."
     She was  offended-he had  reproached her  for not looking  like someone
else.
     "It was just that!" she said. "That's funny."
     They rode in silence for a minute.
     "You were  married to Minna Davis, weren't you?" she said with a  flash
of intuition. "Excuse me for referring to it."
     He was driving as fast as he could without making it conspicuous.
     "I'm quite a different type from Minna Davis,"  she  said, "-if  that's
who you meant.  You might have  referred  to the girl  who was with  me. She
looks more like Minna Davis than I do."
     That was  of no interest now. The thing was  to get this over quick and
forget it.
     "Could it have been her?" she asked. "She lives next door."
     "Not possibly," he said. "I remember the silver belt you wore."
     "That was me all right."
     They were northwest  of Sunset, climbing one of the canyons through the
hills.  Lighted bungalows  rose  along  the  winding road and  the  electric
current that animated them sweated into the evening air as radio sound.
     "You see that last highest light-Kathleen lives there. I live just over
the top of the hill."
     A moment later she said, "Stop here."
     "I thought you said over the top."
     "I want to stop at Kathleen's."
     "I'm afraid I'm-"
     "I want to get out here myself," she said impatiently.
     Stahr slid out after her. She  started toward a new little house almost
roofed over by a single willow tree, and  automatically he  followed  her to
the steps. She rang a bell and turned to say good night.
     "I'm sorry you were disappointed," she said.
     He was sorry for her now-sorry for them both.
     "It was my fault. Good night."
     A  wedge of light  came out the opening  door  and  as  a  girl's voice
inquired "Who is it?" Stahr looked up.
     There she was-face and form and smile against the light from inside. It
was Minna's  face-the  skin with its peculiar radiance as if phosphorus  had
touched it, the mouth  with its warm line that  never counted costs-and over
all the haunting jollity that had fascinated a generation.
     With a leap his heart  went out of him as it had the night before, only
this time it stayed out there with a vast beneficence.
     "Oh Edna you can't come in," the girl said. "I've been cleaning and the
house is full of ammonia smell."
     Edna began to laugh, bold and loud. "I believe it  was you he wanted to
see, Kathleen," she said.
     Stahr's  eyes and  Kathleen's met and tangled. For an instant they made
love as  no one ever dares to  do  after. Their  glance  was  closer than an
embrace, more urgent than a call.
     "He   telephoned  me,"   said  Edna.  "It  seems  he   thought-"  Stahr
interrupted, stepping forward into the light.
     "I was afraid we were rude at the studio, yesterday evening."
     But there were no words for what he really said. She listened

     closely without shame. Life flared  high in them both-Edna seemed at  a
distance and in darkness.
     "You  weren't rude,"  said Kathleen. A cool  wind blew the brown  curls
around her forehead. "We had no business there."
     "I  hope you'll  both-," Stahr said,  "-come and  make  a tour  of  the
studio."
     "Who are you? Somebody important?"
     "He was Minna Davis' husband, he's a producer," said Edna as if it were
a rare joke, "-and this isn't at all what he just told  me. I think he has a
crush on you."
     "Shut up, Edna," said Kathleen sharply.
     As  if  suddenly realizing  her offensiveness Edna said "Phone me, will
you?" and  stalked away  toward the road. But she  earned  their secret with
her-she had seen a spark pass between them in the darkness.
     "I  remember  you,"  Kathleen  said to  Stahr. "You got us  out  of the
flood."
     -Now  what? The other  woman was more missed in her absence. They  were
alone  and on  too slim a basis for what  had passed already.  They  existed
nowhere. His world seemed far away-she had no world at all except the idol's
head, the half open door.
     "You're Irish," he said, trying to build one for her.
     She nodded.
     "I've lived in London a long time-I didn't think you could tell."
     The wild green eyes of a  bus sped up the road  in  the darkness.  They
were silent until it went by.
     "Your  friend Edna didn't like me," he  said. "I think it was the  word
Producer."
     "She's  just  come out  here too.  She's  a silly creature who means no
harm. I shouldn't be afraid of you."
     She searched his  face.  She  thought, like  everyone, that  he  seemed
tired-then she forgot it at the impression he gave of a brazier out of doors
on a cool night.
     "I suppose the girls are all after you to put them on the screen."
     "They've given up," he said.
     This was an understatement-they were all there,  he knew, just over his
threshold, but they had been there so long that their clamoring voices  were
no  more than  the sound of  the  traffic in  the street.  But  his position
remained more than royal-a king could make only one queen-Stahr, at least so
they supposed, could make many.
     "I'm thinking  that  it  would  turn  you into a cynic," she said. "You
didn't want to put me in the pictures."
     "No."
     "That's good. I'm no actress. Once in London a man came up to me in the
Carlton and asked  me to make a  test  but I thought  awhile and  finally  I
didn't go."
     They  had  been standing nearly motionless, as if in a moment he  would
leave and she would go in. Stahr laughed suddenly.
     "I feel as if I had my foot in the door-like a collector."
     She laughed too.
     "I'm sorry I can't ask you in. Shall I get my reefer and sit outside?"
     "No." He  scarcely knew why he felt it was time to go. He might see her
again-he might not. It was just as well this way.
     "You'll come to  the studio?" he said.  "I  can't promise to  go around
with you, but if you come you must be sure to send word to my office."
     A frown, the shadow of a hair in breadth, appeared between her eyes.
     "I'm not sure," she said. "But I'm very much obliged."
     He knew that, for some reason, she would not come-in an instant she had
slipped away from him. They both sensed that the moment was  played  out. He
must go,  even though  he  went nowhere and left with nothing.  Practically,
vulgarly, he  did not have  her  telephone number-or  even her name, but  it
seemed impossible to ask for them now.
     She  walked with him to the  car, her glowing beauty and her unexplored
novelty pressing up against him, but there  was a foot  of moonlight between
them when they came out of the shadow.
     "Is this all?" he said spontaneously.
     He saw  regret  in  her face-but  there  was a flick of the lip also, a
bending of  the  smile toward  some  indirection,  a  momentary dropping and
lifting of a curtain over a forbidden passage.
     "I do hope we'll meet again," she said almost formally.
     "I'd be sorry if we didn't."
     They were  distant for  a moment. But as he turned  his car in the next
drive and came back with her still waiting,  and waved and drove on he  felt
exalted and happy. He was glad that there was beauty in the world that would
not be weighed in the scales of the casting department.
     But at  home he felt a curious loneliness as his butler made him tea in
the samovar. It was the old  hurt come back,  heavy and delightful. When  he
took up the first of two scripts that were his evening stint, that presently
he would visualize line by line on the screen, he  waited a moment, thinking
of Minna. He explained  to her that it was really nothing, that no one could
ever be like she was, that he was sorry.

     That  was substantially  a  day  of  Stahr's.  I don't know  about  the
illness,  when it started, etc., because he  was secretive  but  I  know  he
fainted a couple of times that month because Father told me. Prince  Agge is
my authority for the  luncheon in the commissary  where  he told them he was
going  to  make  a  picture  that  would lose  money-  which  was  something
considering the  men  he had to deal with and  that  he held a  big block of
stock and had a profit sharing contract.
     And Wylie  White  told me a lot which  I believed because he felt Stahr
intensely with a  mixture of jealousy and admiration. As for  me  I was head
over heels in love  with him then  and you can take what I say for what it's
worth.



     Episode 13

     Fresh  as the morning  I  went up to see  him  a  week later.  Or so  I
thought; when Wylie  called for me I had gotten into  riding clothes to give
the impression I'd been out in the dew since early morning.
     "I'm going  to throw  myself  under  the  wheel  of  Stahr's car,  this
morning," I said.
     "How  about  this  car," he suggested.  "It's one of the best cars Mort
Flieshacker ever sold second hand."
     "Not on your flowing veil," I answered like a book. "You have a wife in
the East."
     "She's  the  past," he said.  "You've got  one  great card,  Celia-your
valuation of yourself. Do you think anybody would look at you if you weren't
Pat Brady's daughter?"
     We don't take abuse like our mothers would have. Nothing-no remark from
a contemporary  means much. They tell you to be  smart they're  marrying you
for your money or you  tell them. Everything's simpler. Or is it? as we used
to say.
     But as I turned on the radio and the car raced up Laurel Canyon to "The
Thundering  Beat  of My Heart," I didn't  believe he was right.  I  had good
features except my  face  was too round  and a skin they seemed  to  love to
touch and good legs and I didn't have to wear a brassiere. I haven't a sweet
nature but who was Wylie to reproach me for that.
     "Don't you think I'm smart to go in the morning?" I asked.
     "Yeah. To  the busiest  man in  California.  He'll  appreciate  it. Why
didn't you wake him up at four?"
     "That's  just it. At night  he's tired. He's been looking at people all
day and some of them not bad. I come in in the morning and  start  a tram of
thought."
     "I don't like it. It's brazen."
     "What have you got to offer? And don't be rough."
     "I love you," he said  without much conviction. "I love you more than I
love your money  and  that's  plenty. Maybe your  father  would  make  me  a
supervisor."
     "I could marry  the  last man tapped  for Bones this year  and live  in
Southampton."
     I turned the dial and got either "Gone" or "Lost"-there were good songs
that  year. The music was  getting better again. When I was young during the
Depression it wasn't so hot and the best numbers were from the twenties like
Benny  Goodman  playing "Blue  Heaven"  or Paul  Whiteman with "When Day  Is
Done."  There were only  the bands to  listen  to.  But now I  liked  almost
everything except Father singing "Little Girl, You've Had a Busy Day" to try
to create a sentimental father-and-daughter feeling.
     "Lost" and "Gone" were the wrong mood so I turned again and
     got "Lovely To  Look At" which  was my kind of poetry. I looked back as
we crossed the crest  of the  foothills-with the air so clear you could  see
the  leaves on  Sunset  Mountain  two  miles away.  It's  startling  to  you
sometimes-just air, unobstructed, uncomplicated air.
     "Lovely to look at-de-lightful to know-w-w," I sang.
     "Are you  going to sing  for  Stahr?" Wylie said. "If you do, get  in a
line about my being a good supervisor."
     "Oh,  this'll be only Stahr and me," I said. "He's going  to look at me
and think 'I've never really seen her before.' "
     "We don't use that line this year," he said.
     "-Then  he'll  say  'Little  Celia'  like  he  did  the  night  of  the
earthquake. He'll say he never noticed I have become a woman."
     "You won't have to do a thing."
     "I'll stand there and bloom. After he kisses me as you would a child-"
     "That's all in my  script," complained Wylie. "And I've  got to show it
to him tomorrow."
     "-he'll sit down and put his face in his hands and say he never thought
of me like that."
     "You mean you get in a little fast work during the kiss."
     "I bloom, I told you. How often do I have to tell you I bloom."
     "It's beginning to  sound pretty randy  to me," said Wylie.  "How about
laying off-I've got to work this morning."
     "Then he says it seems as if he was always meant to be this way."
     "Right in the industry. Producer's blood." He pretended to shiver. "I'd
hate to have a transfusion of that."
     "Then he says-"
     "I know all his  lines," said  Wylie. "What I want to know is what  you
say."
     "Somebody comes in," I went on.
     "And you jump up quickly off the casting couch smoothing your skirts."
     "Do you want me to walk out and get home?"
     We  were in Beverly Hills, getting very  beautiful  now  with  the tall
Hawaiian pines. Hollywood is a perfectly zoned city so you know exactly what
kind of  people  economically  live  in  each  section from  executives  and
directors, through technicians in their bungalows right down to extras. This
was  the executive  section  and a very  fancy lot  of pastry. It  wasn't as
romantic as the dingiest village of  Virginia or New Hampshire but it looked
nice this morning.
     "They asked me how I knew," sang the radio, "-my true love was true."
     My heart was fire and smoke was in my eyes and everything but I figured
my  chance at about fifty-fifty. I  would walk right up to him as if  I  was
either going to walk through him  or kiss him in the mouth-and  stop a  bare
foot away and say Hello with disarming understatement.
     And I did-though of course it wasn't like I expected. Stahr's beautiful
dark eyes  looking back into  mine, knowing I  am dead sure everything I was
thinking-and not a bit embarrassed. I stood  there an hour, I think, without
moving and all he did was twitch the side  of his mouth and put his hands in
his pockets.
     "Will you go with me to the ball tonight?" I asked.
     "What ball?"
     "The screen-writers' ball down at the Ambassador."
     "Oh  yes." He considered. "I  can't go with  you.  I might just come in
late. We've got a sneak preview in Glendale."
     How different it all was than what you've planned. When  he sat down  I
went over and put my head among his telephones like a sort of desk appendage
and looked at him  and  his dark eyes  looked back so kind and  nothing. Men
don't often know those times when  a  girl could be had for  nothing.  All I
succeeded in putting into his head was:
     "Why don't you get married, Celia?"
     Maybe he'd bring up Robby again, try to make a match there.
     "What could I do to interest an interesting man?" I asked him.
     "Tell him you're in love with him."
     "Should I chase him?"
     "Yes," he said smiling.
     "I don't know. If it isn't there it isn't there."
     "I'd marry you,"  he said unexpectedly. "I'm lonesome as hell.  But I'm
too old and tired to undertake anything."
     I went around the desk and stood beside him.

     "Undertake me."
     He looked up  in surprise, understanding  for the first time that I was
in deadly earnest.
     "Oh no," he  said.  He looked almost miserable  for a minute. "Pictures
are my girl. I haven't got much time-" He corrected himself quickly, "I mean
any time. It'd be like marrying a doctor."
     "You couldn't love me."
     "It's  not  that," he  said  and-right out  of  my  dream  but  with  a
difference, "I never thought of you that way, Celia. I've known you so long.
Somebody told me you were going to marry Wylie White."
     "And you had-no reaction."
     "Yes, I did. I was going to speak to you about it. Wait till he's  been
sober for two years."
     "I'm not even considering it, Monroe."
     We were way  off the track, and just as in  my day-dream somebody  came
in-only I was quite sure Stahr had pressed a concealed button.
     I'll always  think  of that  moment, when I  felt Miss Doolan behind me
with her pad, as the end of childhood, the end of the time when  you cut out
pictures. What I was looking at wasn't Stahr but a picture of  him I cut out
over and  over: the eyes that flashed a  sophisticated understanding at  you
and  then  darted up too soon into his wide brow with its ten thousand plots
and  plans; the  face that was  ageing  from  within, so that there were  no
casual furrows of  worry  and vexation but a drawn asceticism as  if  from a
silent self-set  struggle-or a long illness. It was handsomer to me than all
the rosy tan from Coronado to Del Monte. He was my picture, as sure as if he
was  pasted on the  inside  of my old  locker in school. That's  what I told
Wylie  White and when a girl tells  the man  she likes second best about the
other one-then she's in love.



     13 (continued)

     I noticed the girl long before Stahr arrived at the dance. Not a pretty
girl, for there are  none of those in Los Angeles-one girl can be pretty but
a dozen are only a  chorus. Nor yet a professional  beauty-they do  all  the
breathing for everyone and finally even the men have to go outside  for air.
Just  a girl, with the skin of  one of Raphael's corner angels and  a  style
that made you look back twice to see if it were something she had on.
     I noticed her and forgot her.  She was sitting back behind  the pillars
at  a table  whose ornament was  a faded semi-star who,  in  hopes  of being
noticed  and  getting a  bit, rose and danced regularly with  some scarecrow
males. It  reminded  me shamefully of  my  first party where Mother  made me
dance  over  and  over  with the  same  boy to keep  in  the  spotlight. The
semi-star spoke to several people  at  our table but we were busy being Cafe
Society and she got nowhere at all.
     From our angle it appeared that they all wanted something.
     "You're  expected  to  fling  it around," said Wylie, "-like in the old
days. When  they find  out  you're hanging on  to it  they get  discouraged.
That's  what all  this brave gloom is about-the only way to  keep their self
respect is  to be Hemingway characters.  But underneath  they hate you  in a
mournful way and you know it."
     He was right-I knew that  since 1933 the rich could only be happy alone
together.
     I saw Stahr come into the half-light at the top  of the wide steps  and
stand there with his hands in his pockets looking  around. It was  late  and
the  lights seemed to have burned a little lower, though they were the same.
The floor show was finished except for a man who  still wore a placard which
said that at midnight in the Hollywood Bowl Sonja  Henie was going to  skate
on  hot soup. You could see  the sign  as he  danced  becoming less and less
funny on his back. A few  years before there would have been  drunks around.
The faded actress seemed to be looking for them hopefully over her partner's
shoulder. I followed her  with my eyes when she went back to her  table -and
there, to  my surprise, was Stahr  talking  to  the  other girl.  They  were
smiling at each other as if this was the beginning of the world.

     Stahr had expected nothing  like  this when he stood at the head of the
steps a few  minutes  earlier. The sneak  preview  had  disappointe  him and
afterwards he had had a  scene with Jaques La Borwits right in  front of the
theatre  for which  he was now sorry. He had  started toward the Brady party
when he saw Kathleen sitting in the middle of a long white table alone.
     Immediately things changed.  As he walked toward her the people  shrank
back  against  the  walls  till  they were  only  murals;  the  white  table
lengthened  and  became an  altar  where  the priestess sat  alone. Vitality
welled up in  him and he  could have stood a long time across the table from
her, looking and smiling.
     The  incumbents  of the  table  were  crawling back-Stahr and  Kathleen
danced.
     When  she came  close  his  several  visions  of  her  blurred; she was
momentarily unreal.  Usually  a  girl's skull  made  her  real but  not this
time-Stahr continued to be dazzled as they danced out along the floor-to the
last edge, where they stepped through  a mirror  into another dance with new
dancers whose faces were familiar  but nothing  more. In this new region  he
talked, fast and urgently.
     "What's your name?"
     "Kathleen Moore."
     "Kathleen Moore," he repeated.
     "I have no telephone, if that's what you're thinking."
     "When will you come to the studio?"
     "It's not possible. Truly."
     "Why isn't it? Are you married?"
     "No."
     "You're not married?"
     "No, nor never have been. But then I may be."
     "Someone there at the table."
     "No." She laughed. "What curiosity!"
     But  she  was  deep in it with him,  no matter what the words were. Her
eyes invited him to a romantic  communion  of unbelievable intensity.  As if
she realized this she said, frightened:
     "I must go back now. I promised this dance."
     "I don't want to lose you. Couldn't we have lunch or dinner?"
     "It's impossible." But  her expression helplessly amended the  words to
"It's just possible. The door is  still open by a chink if you could squeeze
past. But quickly-so little time."
     "I  must  go back,"  she repeated  aloud.  Then she dropped  her  arms,
stopped dancing and looked at him, a laughing wanton.
     "When I'm with you I don't breathe quite right," she said.
     She turned,  picked up her long  dress,  and  stepped back through  the
mirror. Stahr followed until she stopped near her table.
     "Thank you for the dance," she said. "And now really, good night."
     Then she nearly ran.
     Stahr went to the  table  where he  was expected  and sat down with the
Cafe Society group-from Wall Street, Grand Street,  Loudoun County Virginia,
and  Odessa Russia. They were all talking with enthusiasm about a horse that
had  run very  fast and  Mr. Marcus was the most enthusiastic of  all. Stahr
guessed that Jews had taken over the worship of horses as a super-symbol-for
years it had  been the Cossacks  mounted and the Jews on foot. Now  the Jews
had  horses and it gave them a sense of extraordinary  well-being and power.
Stahr sat pretending to listen and even nodding when something  was referred
to  him,  but all  the  time watching  the  table  behind  the  pillars.  If
everything had not  happened as  it had, even  to  his connecting the silver
belt  with the  wrong  girl, he  might  have thought it was  some  elaborate
frame-up. But the elusiveness was beyond suspicion. For there in a moment he
saw  that  she was escaping again-the pantomime at the table indicated  good
bye. She was leaving, she was gone.
     "There-" said Wylie  White with malice, "-goes Cinderella. Simply bring
the slipper to the Regal Shoe Co., 812 South Broadway. "
     Stahr overtook her in the long upper  lobby where middle-aged women sat
behind a roped-off space, watching the ballroom entrance.
     "Am I responsible for this?" he asked.
     "I was going anyhow." But she added almost resentfully, "They talked as
if I'd been  dancing with the Prince of Wales. They all stared at me. One of
the men wanted to draw my picture and another one wanted to see me tomorrow.
"
     "That's just what  I want," said  Stahr gently. "But I want  to see you
much more than he does."
     "You insist  so," she said wearily. "One reason I left England was that
men always wanted  their own way. I thought it was different here. Isn't  it
enough that I don't want to see you?"
     "Ordinarily," agreed Stahr. "Please believe me, I'm way out of my depth
already. I feel like a fool. But I must see you again and talk to you."
     She hesitated.
     "There's no reason for feeling like a fool," she said. "You're too good
a man to feel like a fool. But you should see this for what it is."
     "What is it?"
     "You've fallen for me-completely. You've got me in your dreams."
     "I'd  forgotten you," he declared,  "-till the moment I walked in  that
door."
     "Forgotten  me with your head perhaps. But I knew the first time  I saw
you that you were the kind that likes me-"
     She stopped  herself.  Near them a  man and  woman from  the party were
saying good  bye:  "Tell her  hello-tell her  I  love her dearly,"  said the
woman, "you both-all of  you-the children."  Stahr could not talk like that,
the way  everyone talked  now.  He could think of nothing  further to say as
they walked toward the elevator except:
     "I suppose you're perfectly right."
     "Oh, you admit it?"
     "No, I don't," he retracted. "It's just the whole way you're made. What
you say-how you walk-the way you look right this  minute-"  He  saw she  had
melted a little and his hopes rose.  "Tomorrow is Sunday and usually I  work
on  Sunday but if there's  anything you're curious  about in  Hollywood, any
person you want to meet or see, please let me arrange it."
     They were standing by the elevator. It opened but she let it go.
     "You're  very modest," she said. "You always talk  about showing me the
studio and taking me around. Don't you ever stay alone?"
     "Tomorrow I'll feel very much alone."
     "Oh, the poor  man-I could  weep  for him. He could  have all the stars
jumping around him and he chooses me."
     He smiled-he had laid himself open to that one.
     The elevator came again. She signalled for it to wait.
     "I'm a weak woman," she said. "If I meet you tomorrow will you leave me
in peace? No, you  won't. You'll  make it worse. It wouldn't do any good but
harm so I'll say no and thank you."
     She  got into the elevator. Stahr got  in  too and  they smiled as they
dropped two floors to the hall cross-sectioned with small shops. Down at the
end, held  back by police was the crowd, their heads  and shoulders  leaning
forward to look down the alley. Kathleen shivered.
     "They looked so  strange  when I came  in," she said, "-as if they were
furious at me for not being someone famous."
     "I know another way out," said Stahr.
     They went  through a drug  store, down an  alley and came out into  the
clear cool California night beside the car park.  He felt detached  from the
dance now and she did too.
     "A lot of  picture  people used to  live  down  here,"  he said.  "John
Barrymore and  Pola Negri in those bungalows.  And Connie Talmadge lived  in
that tall thin apartment house over the way."
     "Doesn't anybody live here now?"
     "The studios moved out into the country," he said. "What used to be the
country. I had some good times around here though."
     He did not mention that ten years ago Minna and her mother had lived in
another apartment over the way.
     "How old are you?" she asked suddenly.
     "I've lost track-almost thirty-five I think."
     "They said at the table you were the boy wonder."
     "I'll be  that  when  I'm sixty,"  he said grimly.  "You will  meet  me
tomorrow, won't you?"
     "I'll meet you," she said. "Where?"
     Suddenly there was no place to meet. She  would  not  go to  a party at
anyone's house,  nor to the country, nor swimming  though she hesitated, nor
to a well-known restaurant. She seemed hard to please but he knew  there was
some reason. He would find out in time. It occurred to him that she might be
the sister or daughter of someone well-known, who was pledged to keep in the
background. He suggested that he come for her and they could decide.
     "That wouldn't do," she said. "What about right here-the same
     spot."
     He nodded-pointing  up at  the arch under which  they stood. He put her
into her car which would have brought eighty dollars
     from any kindly dealer, and watched it rasp away. Down by the
     entrance a cheer went up as a favorite emerged, and Stahr wondered
     whether to show himself and say good night.

     This  is Cecelia taking up  the  narrative in person.  Stahr came  back
finally-it was about half past three-and asked me to dance.
     "How are you?" he asked  me, just as if he hadn't seen me that morning.
"I got involved in a long conversation with a man."
     It was secret too-he cared that much about it.
     "I took him to ride," he went on innocently. "I didn't realize how much
this part of Hollywood had changed."
     "Has it changed?"
     "Oh yes," he said. "Changed completely. Unrecognizable. I couldn't tell
you exactly but it's all changed-everything. It's like a new city." After  a
moment he amplified, "I had no idea how much it had changed."
     "Who was the man?" I ventured.
     "An old friend," he said vaguely. "Someone I knew a long time ago."
     I had made Wylie try to find  out quietly who she was. He had gone over
and the ex-star had  asked him excitedly to sit down. No-she didn't know who
the girl was-a friend  of a friend of someone-even the  man who had  brought
her didn't know.
     So  Stahr  and I danced to the beautiful  music of Glenn Miller playing
"I'm on a See-saw." It was good dancing now with plenty  of room. But it was
lonely-lonelier than before the girl had gone. For me, as well as for Stahr,
she took the evening with her, took along the stabbing  pain I had felt-left
the great ball-room empty and  without emotion. Now it was nothing and I was
dancing  with an  absent minded man who  told me  how much Los  Angeles  had
changed.



     Section 14

     They met, next afternoon, as  strangers  in an unfamiliar country. Last
night was gone, the girl  he had danced with was gone. A misty rose-and-blue
hat with a trifling veil came along the terrace to him and paused, searching
his face. Stahr was strange  too in a brown suit and  black tie that blocked
him out  more tangibly than a  formal  dinner coat, or  when he was simply a
face and voice in the darkness when they first met.
     He was the first to be sure it was the  same person as before-the upper
half  of  the  face  that was  Minna's,  luminous, with  creamy temples  and
opalescent  brow-the  coco-colored curly  hair. He  could  have  put his arm
around her and pulled her close with an almost family familiarity-already he
knew the down on  her neck, the very set of her backbone, the corners of her
eyes and  how she breathed-the  very texture  of the  clothes that she would
wear.
     "Did you  wait here all  night?"  she said, in a voice that  was like a
whisper.
     "I didn't move-didn't stir."
     Still a problem remained, the same  one-there was no  special place  to
go.
     "I'd like tea," she suggested, "-if it's some place you're not known."
     "That sounds as if one of us had a bad reputation."
     "Doesn't it?" she laughed.
     "We'll go to the shore," Stahr suggested. "There's a  place there where
I got out once and was chased by a trained seal."
     "Do you think the seal could make tea?"
     "Well-he's  trained.  And  I don't think he'll  talk-I don't  think his
training got that far. What in hell are you trying to hide?"
     After a moment she  said  lightly, "Perhaps the future," in a way  that
might mean anything or nothing at all.
     As they drove away she pointed at her jalopy in the parking lot.
     "Do you think it's safe?"
     "I doubt it. I noticed some black-bearded foreigners snooping around."
     Kathleen looked at him alarmed.
     "Really?" She saw he was smiling.  "I  believe everything you say," she
said. "You've got such a gentle way about you that  I don't  see why they're
all  so afraid of  you." She examined  him  with  approval-fretting a little
about his pallor, which  was  accentuated by the bright  afternoon.  "Do you
work very hard? Do you really always work on Sundays?"
     He responded to her interest-impersonal yet not perfunctory.
     "Not always. Once we had-we had a house with a pool and  all-and people
came on Sunday. I played tennis and swam. I don't swim any more."
     "Why not? It's good for you. I thought all Americans swam."
     "My  legs got  very thin-a  few years  ago and it embarrassed me. There
were other things I used to  do-lots of things. I used to play handball when
I was a kid, and sometimes out  here-I had a court that was washed away in a
storm."
     "You have a good build," she said  in formal  compliment,  meaning only
that he was made with thin grace.
     He rejected this with a shake of his head.
     "I enjoy working most," he said. "My work is very congenial."
     "Did you always want to be in movies?"
     "No. When  I was young I wanted  to be a chief clerk-the one  who  knew
where everything was."
     She smiled.
     "That's odd. And now you're much more than that."
     "No, I'm still a  chief clerk,"  Stahr said. "That's my gift, if I have
one. Only when I got  to be it  I found out that no  one knew where anything
was.  And I found out  that you  had  to  know why it was where it was,  and
whether it should be left there. They began throwing it all at me and it was
a very  complex office. Pretty  soon I had  all the keys.  And they wouldn't
have remembered what locks they fitted if I gave them back."
     They stopped  for a red light and a  newsboy  bleated at them: " Mickey
Mouse Murdered! Randolph Hearst declares war on China!"
     "We'll have to buy his paper," she said.
     As  they drove on she straightened her hat  and preened herself. Seeing
him looking at her she smiled.
     She  was  alert  and  calm-qualities that were currently at  a premium.
There  was  lassitude   in  plenty-California  was  filling  up  with  weary
desperadoes. And there were tense young men and women who lived back East in
spirit while they carried on a losing battle against the climate. But it was
everyone's secret that  sustained  effort was difficult  here-a secret  that
Stahr  scarcely admitted  to himself. But  he  knew that  people from  other
places spurted a pure rill of new energy for a while.
     They were very friendly now. She had  not made a move or a gesture that
was out of keeping with her beauty, that pressed it  out of its contour  one
way  or another. It  was  all proper to itself.  He judged her as he would a
shot in  a picture. She was not trash, she was not confused but clear-in his
special meaning of the word which  implied balance, delicacy and proportion,
she was "nice."
     They reached  Santa  Monica where there  were  the stately houses of  a
dozen picture stars, penned in the middle of a  crawling Coney Island.  They
turned  down hill into the wide  blue sky and  sea and went on along the sea
till the beach slid  out again from  under the  bathers  in  a  widening and
narrowing yellow strand.
     "I'm building a house  out here," Stahr said. "Much further on. I don't
know why I'm building it. "
     "Perhaps it's for me," she said.
     "Maybe it is."
     "I think it's splendid for you to build a big house for me without even
knowing what I looked like."
     "It isn't so big. And it  hasn't any  roof. I didn't  know what kind of
roof you wanted."
     "We don't want a roof. They told me it never rained here. It-"
     She stopped so suddenly that he knew she was reminded of something.
     "Just something that's past," she said.
     "What was it?" he demanded. "Another house without a roof?"
     "Yes. Another house without a roof."
     "Were you happy there?"
     "I lived with a man," she said. "A long, long time-too long. It was one
of those awful mistakes people make. I lived  with him a long  time after  I
wanted to get  out but he couldn't let me  go. He'd  try but he couldn't. So
finally I ran away."
     He was listening, weighing  but not  judging. Nothing changed under the
rose-and-blue hat. She was twenty-five  or so. It would have been a waste if
she had not loved and been loved.
     "We were too close," she said. "We should probably have had children-to
stand between us. But  you can't have children when  there's no  roof to the
house."
     All right,  he  knew something of her.  It would not be like last night
when something kept saying, as in a story conference: "We know nothing about
the girl. We don't have to know much-but we have to know something." A vague
background spread behind her, something more  tangible than the head of Siva
in the moonlight.
     They  came to the restaurant, forbidding  with many Sunday automobiles.
When  they got out the trained seal growled reminiscently  at Stahr. The man
who owned it said that the seal would never ride in the back seat of his car
but always climbed over the  back and up in front. It was plain that the man
was in bondage to  the  seal,  though  he had  not  yet  acknowledged  it to
himself.
     "I'd  like to see the  house you're  building," said Kathleen. "I don't
want tea-tea is the past."
     Kathleen drank a Coke instead and they drove on ten miles into a sun so
bright that he took out two pairs of cheaters from a compartment. Five miles
further on they turned down  a small promontory and came to the  fuselage of
Stahr's house.
     A headwind blowing out of the sun threw spray up the rocks and over the
car. Concrete mixers, raw  yellow wood and builders' rubble  waited, an open
wound in the  sea-scape,  for Sunday  to be over.  They walked around  front
where great boulders rose to what would be the terrace.
     She  looked at the feeble hills behind and winced faintly at the barren
glitter, and Stahr  saw  "No  use  looking  for  what's not  here," he  said
cheerfully. "Think of it as if you were standing on one of those globes with
a map on it-I always wanted one when I was a boy."
     "I understand," she said after a minute. "When you do that you can feel
the earth turn, can't you."
     He nodded.
     "Yes.  Otherwise it's  all just  manana-waiting for the morning  or the
moon. "
     They went in under the scaffolding. One room, which was to be the chief
salon, was  completed even to the built-in book shelves and the curtain rods
and the trap in the floor for the motion picture projection machine. And, to
her surprise, this opened out to a porch with cushioned chairs  in place and
a ping-pong table. There was another ping-pong table on  the newly laid turf
beyond.
     "Last week I gave a premature luncheon," he admitted. "I had some props
brought out-some grass and things. I wanted to see how the place felt."
     She laughed suddenly.
     "Isn't that real grass?"
     "Oh yes-it's grass."
     Beyond the strip of anticipatory lawn was the excavation for a swimming
pool, patronized now by a crowd of seagulls who saw them and took flight.
     "Are you  going  to live  here  all alone?"  she asked him.  "Not  even
dancing girls?"
     "Probably. I used to make plans but not any more. I  thought this would
be a nice place to read scripts. The studio is really home."
     "That's what I've heard about American business men."
     He caught a lilt of criticism in her voice.
     "You  do what you're born to do," he  said  gently. "About once a month
somebody tries to reform me, tells me what a barren old age I'll have when I
can't work any more. But it's not so simple."
     The wind  was rising. It was time  to go and he had his car keys out of
his pocket, absent mindedly jingling them in his hand. There was the silvery
"Hey!" of a telephone, coming from somewhere across the sunshine.
     It was not from  the  house  and they hurried here and there around the
garden like  children playing warmer and colder-closing in finally on a tool
shack by  the tennis  court.  The phone, irked with delay,  barked  at  them
suspiciously from the wall. Stahr hesitated.
     "Shall I let the damn thing ring?"
     "I couldn't. Unless I was sure who it was."
     "Either it's for somebody else or they've made a wild guess."
     He picked up the receiver.
     "Hello.... Long distance from where? Yes, this is Mr. Stahr."
     His manner changed perceptibly.  She saw what few people had seen for a
decade-Stahr impressed. It was not discordant because  he often pretended to
be impressed but it made him momentarily a little younger.
     "It's the President," he said to her, almost stiffly.
     "Of your company?"
     "No, of the United States."
     He was trying to be casual for her benefit but his voice was eager.
     "All right, I'll  wait," he said into the phone, and  then to Kathleen,
"I've talked to him before."
     She watched.  He smiled at her and winked  as an evidence that while he
must give this his best attention he had not forgotten her.
     "Hello," he said presently. He listened. Then he said "Hello" again. He
frowned.
     "Can you  talk a little louder,"  he said  politely, and then  "Who?...
What's that?"
     She saw a disgusted look come into his face.
     "I don't want to talk to him," he said. "No!"
     He turned to Kathleen.
     "Believe it or not, it's an orang-outang."
     He  waited  while  something  was explained  to him at length; then  he
repeated:
     "I don't want to talk  to it, Lew.  I haven't got anything to  say that
would interest an orang-outang."
     He beckoned to Kathleen  and when  she came  close to the phone he held
the receiver so  that she heard  odd  breathing and a  gruff  growl. Then  a
voice:
     "This is  no phoney,  Monroe. It  can  talk and it's a dead  ringer for
McKinley. Mr. Horace Wickersham is with me here  with a  picture of McKinley
in his hand-"
     Stahr listened patiently.
     "We've  got a chimp," he said after a minute.  "He bit  a chunk  out of
John Gilbert last year.... All right, put him on again."
     He spoke formally as if to a child.
     "Hello Orang-outang."
     His face changed and he turned to Kathleen.
     "He said hello."
     "Ask him his name," suggested Kathleen.
     "Hello Orang-outang-God,  what a thing to be!-Do you know your name?...
He doesn't seem to  know his name.... Listen, Lew. We're not making anything
like 'King Kong' and there is no monkey in 'The Hairy Ape.'... Of course I'm
sure. I'm sorry, Lew, good bye. "
     He was annoyed with Lew because he had thought it was the President and
changed his manner  acting as  if it  were. He felt a little  ridiculous but
Kathleen   felt  sorry  and  liked  him  better  because  it  had  been   an
orang-outang.



     Section 14 (2nd part)

     They started back along  the shore with the sun  behind them. The house
seemed kindlier  when  they  left it, as  if  warmed by their visit-the hard
glitter of the place was more endurable  if they were  not bound  there like
people on  the shiny  surface of a  moon. Looking back from a  curve  of the
shore, they saw the sky growing pink behind the indecisive structure and the
point of land seemed a friendly island, not without promise of fine hours on
a further day.
     Past Malibu with its gaudy shacks and fishing barges they came into the
range of human kind  again, the cars  stacked and  piled along the road, the
beaches like ant hills  without a pattern, save for the  dark drowned  heads
that sprinkled the sea.
     Goods  from  the  city  were  increasing  in  sight-blankets,  matting,
umbrellas, cookstoves, reticules full of clothing-the prisoners had laid out
their shackles beside them on this sand. It was Stahr's sea if he wanted it,
or knew  what to do with it-only  by sufferance did these  others  wet their
feet and fingers in the wild cool reservoirs of man's world.
     Stahr turned off the  road by the sea and up a canyon and  along a hill
road and the people dropped away. The hill became the outskirts of the city.
Stopping for gasoline he stood beside the car.
     "We could have dinner," he said almost anxiously.
     "You have work you could do."
     "No-I haven't planned anything. Couldn't we have dinner?"
     He knew that she had nothing to do either-no planned evening or special
place to go.
     She compromised.
     "Do you want to get something in that drug store across the street?"
     He looked at it tentatively.
     "Is that really what you want?"
     "I like to eat in American drug stores. It seems so queer and strange."
     They sat on high stools and had tomato broth and hot sandwiches. It was
more  intimate than anything they  had done and  they both felt a  dangerous
sort of loneliness  and felt it in each other. They shared  in varied scents
of the  drug  store,  bitter  and  sweet and  sour, and  the  mystery of the
waitress with  only the  outer part of  her hair dyed and black beneath, and
when it was over, the still life of their empty plates-a sliver of potato, a
sliced pickle and an olive stone.
     It was dusk in  the street, it seemed nothing to smile  at him now when
they got into the car.
     "Thank you so much. It's been a nice afternoon."
     It was not far from  her house. They felt the beginning of the hill and
the louder sound of the car in  second was the beginning of  the end. Lights
were on in the climbing  bungalows-he turned  on  the headlights of the car.
Stahr felt heavy in the pit of his stomach.
     "We'll go out again."
     "No," she said  quickly as if she had been expecting this.  "I'll write
you a letter. I'm sorry I've been  so  mysterious-it was really a compliment
because I like you so much. You should try not to work so hard. You ought to
marry again."
     "Oh, that  isn't what you should say," he broke out protestingly. "This
has been you and me today. I may have meant nothing to you-it meant a lot to
me. I'd like time to tell you about it."
     But if he were to take time it must be in her house for they were there
and she was shaking her head as the car drew up to the door.
     "I must go now. I do have an engagement. I didn't tell you."
     "That's not true. But it's all right."
     He walked  to the door with her and stood in his own  footsteps of that
other night while she felt in her bag for the key.
     "Have you got it?"
     "I've got it," she said.
     That was  the moment  to go in but she  wanted to see him once more and
she  leaned her head to the left, then to the right trying to catch his face
against  the  last  twilight. She  leaned too far  and  too long  and it was
natural  when  his hand touched the back  of her  upper arm and shoulder and
pressed  her forward  into the darkness of  his throat.  She shut  her  eyes
feeling the bevel of the key in her tight clutched hand. She said "Oh" in an
expiring sigh  and  then "Oh" again as  he pulled her in  close and his chin
pushed her cheek around gently. They were both smiling just  faintly and she
was frowning too as the inch between them melted into darkness.
     When they were apart  she shook  her head still but more in wonder than
in denial. It came like this then, it was your own fault, how far back, when
was  the moment. It came like this and every instant  the burden  of tearing
herself away from them together, from it, was heavier and more unimaginable.
He was exultant; she  resented  and could not blame him but she would not be
part of his exultation for it was a defeat. So far it was a defeat. And then
she  thought  that  if she  stopped  it being a  defeat, broke  off and went
inside, it was still not a victory. Then it was just nothing.
     "This was not my idea," she said. "Not at all my idea."
     "Can I come in?"
     "Oh no-no."
     "Then let's jump in the car and drive somewhere."
     With relief  she caught at  the exact  phrasing-to get away  from  here
immediately,  that  was accomplishment or  sounded like one-as  if  she were
fleeing from the spot of a crime. Then they  were in the car going down hill
with the breeze  cool in their faces and she came slowly to herself. Now  it
was all clear in black and white.
     "We'll go back to your house on the beach," she said.
     "Back there?"
     "Yes-we'll go  back to your house.  Don't let's  talk. I just  want  to
ride."



     Section 14 (Part iii)

     When they got to the coast again the sky was grey and at Santa Monica a
sudden gust of rain bounced over them. Stahr halted  beside the road, put on
a raincoat and lifted the canvas top. "We've got a roof," he said.
     The windshield wiper ticked domestically as a grandfather clock. Sullen
cars were leaving the wet beaches and  starting back into the  city. Further
on they ran  into fog-the road lost its  boundaries on either  side  and the
lights  of  cars  coming toward them were stationary until  just before they
flared past.
     They had left a part of themselves behind, and they felt light and free
in the car. Fog fizzed in at a chink and Kathleen took off the rose-and-blue
hat in a  calm,  slow way  that made him watch tensely, and put  it  under a
strip of canvas in the back seat.  She shook out her hair  and, when she saw
that Stahr was looking at her, she smiled.
     The trained  seal's restaurant was only a sheen of light off toward the
ocean. Stahr cranked down a  window and looked for landmarks but after a few
more miles the fog fell away and just ahead of them the road turned off that
led to his house. Out here a  moon showed behind the clouds. There was still
a shifting light over the sea.
     The house had dissolved a little back into its elements. They found the
dripping beams of a doorway and groped over mysterious waist-high  obstacles
to the single finished room,  odorous of sawdust and  wet wood. When he took
her in his arms they could just see  each other's eyes in the half darkness.
Presently his raincoat dropped to the floor.
     "Wait," she said.
     She needed a minute. She did not see how any good could  come from this
and though this did not prevent her from being happy and desirous she needed
a minute  to  think  how  it was,  to go  back  an hour and  know how it had
happened. She waited in his arms, moving her head a little from side to side
as  she had before,  only more slowly, and  never  taking her eyes from his.
Then she discovered that he was trembling.
     He discovered it at the same time and his arms relaxed. Immediately she
spoke  to him coarsely and  provocatively and pulled his face down  to hers.
Then, with her knees she  struggled out of something, still standing  up and
holding  him with one arm, and  kicked  it off  beside the  coat. He was not
trembling now and he held her again as they knelt  down together and slid to
the raincoat on the floor.

     Afterwards  they lay without  speaking and then  he  was full  of  such
tender love for her that  he held her tight till a stitch tore in her dress.
The small sound brought them to reality.
     "I'll help you up," he said, taking her hands.
     "Not just yet. I was thinking of something."
     She lay in the darkness  thinking  irrationally that it would be such a
bright, indefatigable baby,  but presently she let him  help her up.... When
she came back  into the room,  the  room  was  lit  from  a single  electric
fixture.
     "A one-bulb lighting system," he said. "Shall I turn it off?"
     "No. It's very nice. I want to see you."
     They sat in the wooden frame of the window seat with the soles of shoes
touching.
     "You seem far away," she said.
     "So do you."
     "Are you surprised?"
     "At what?"
     "That  we're two people again. Don't you always  think-hope that you'll
be one person and then find you're still two?"
     "I feel very close to you."
     "So do I to you," she said.
     "Thank you."
     "Thank you."
     They laughed.
     "Is this what you wanted?" she asked. "I mean last night."
     "Not consciously."
     "I wonder when it was settled," she brooded. "There's a moment when you
needn't and then there's another moment when you know  nothing  in the world
could keep it from happening."
     This had an  experienced  ring  and  to his surprise he  liked her even
more. In his mood which was passionately to repeat yet not recapitulate  the
past it was right that it should be that way.
     "I am rather a trollop,"  she  said  following his thoughts. "I suppose
that's why I didn't get on to Edna."
     "Who is Edna?"
     "The girl you  thought was me. The  one you  phoned to-who lived across
the road. She's moved to Santa Barbara."
     "You mean she was a tart?"
     "So it seems. She went to what you call call-houses."
     "That's funny."
     "If she had been English I'd have known right away. But she seemed like
everyone else. She only told me just before she went away."
     He saw  her  shiver  and  got  up,  putting  the  raincoat  around  her
shoulders. He opened  a closet and a  pile  of pillows and  beach mattresses
fell out on the floor. There was a box of candles and he lit them around the
room, attaching the electric heater where the bulb had been.
     "Why was Edna afraid of me?" he asked suddenly.
     "Because you were a producer. She had some awful experience or a friend
of hers did. Also I think she was extremely stupid."
     "How did you happen to know her?"
     "She came over. Maybe  she thought  I  was a fallen sister.  She seemed
quite  pleasant.  She  said 'Call me  Edna' all  the  time. 'Please  call me
Edna'-so finally I called her Edna and we were friends."
     She got off the window seat so he could lay pillows along it and behind
her.
     "What can I do?" she said. "I'm a parasite."
     "No, you're not." He put his arms around her. "Be still. Get warm."
     They sat for a while quiet.
     "I know why you liked me at first," she said. "Edna told me."
     "What did she tell you?"
     "That I looked like-Minna Davis. Several people have told me that."
     He leaned away from her and nodded.
     "It's  here,"  she  said,  putting her  hands  on  her  cheekbones  and
distorting her cheeks slightly. "Here and here."
     "Yes,"  said  Stahr.  "It  was very  strange.  You  look more  like she
actually looked than how she was on the screen."
     She got up, changing the subject with her gesture as if she were afraid
of it.
     "I'm warm now," she said. She went to  the  closet and  peered in, came
back wearing a little apron with a crystalline pattern like a snowfall.  She
stared around critically.
     "Of course  we've  just moved in," she  said, "-and  there's  a sort of
echo."
     She opened  the door  of the  verandah and pulled in two wicker chairs,
drying them off. He watched her move, intently yet half afraid that her body
would fail somewhere and  break the  spell. He  had watched women in  screen
tests  and  seen their beauty vanish second  by second as if a lovely statue
had  begun  to walk with meagre  joints of  a  paper doll. But  Kathleen was
ruggedly set on the balls of her feet-the fragility was, as it should be, an
illusion.
     "It's  stopped  raining," she said. "It rained the day  I came. Such an
awful rain-so loud-like horses weeing."
     He laughed.
     "You'll like it. Especially if you've  got to stay here. Are  you going
to stay here? Can't you tell me now? What's the mystery?"
     She shook her head.
     "Not now-it's not worth telling."
     "Come here then."
     She  came over and stood near him and he pressed his cheek  against the
cool fabric of the apron.
     "You're a tired man," she said putting her hand in his hair.
     "Not that way."
     "I  didn't  mean  that way,"  she said  hastily.  "I meant  you'll work
yourself sick."
     "Don't be a mother," he said.
     "All right. What shall I be?"
     Be a trollop,  he thought. He wanted the pattern of his life broken. If
he was going to die soon, like the two doctors said, he wanted to stop being
Stahr for a while and hunt for love  like men who had no gifts to give, like
young nameless men who looked along the streets in the dark.
     "You've taken off my apron," she said gently.
     "Yes."
     "Would  anyone  be  passing  along the beach?  Shall  we  put  out  the
candles?"
     "No, don't put out the candles."

     Afterwards she lay half on a white cushion and smiled up at him.
     "I feel like Venus on the half shell," she said.
     "What made you think of that?"
     "Look at me. Isn't it Botticelli?"
     "I don't know," he said smiling. "It is if you say so."
     She yawned.
     "I've had such a good time. And I'm very fond of you."
     "You know a lot, don't you?"
     "What do you mean?"
     "Oh, from little things you've said. Or perhaps the way you say them."
     She deliberated.
     "Not much," she said. "I never went to  a university if that's what you
mean. But the man I told you about  knew everything and he had a passion for
educating me. He made out schedules and made me take courses at the Sorbonne
and go to museums. I picked up a little."
     "What was he?"
     "He was a painter of sorts and a hell-cat. And a lot besides. He wanted
me to read Spengler-everything was for that. All  the history  and philosphy
and harmony was all so I could read Spengler and then I left  him  before we
got to Spengler. At the end I think that was the chief reason he didn't want
me to go."
     "Who was Spengler?"
     "I tell you we didn't get to him," she laughed. "And now I'm forgetting
everything very patiently because it isn't likely I'll ever meet anyone like
him again."
     "Oh, but  you  shouldn't  forget it,"  said  Stahr shocked.  He had  an
intense  respect  for  learning, a racial  memory  of  the old  shuls.  "You
shouldn't forget."
     "It was just in place of babies."
     "You could teach your babies," he said.
     "Could I?"
     "Sure you could. You could give it to them while they were  young. When
I want  to know anything I've got to ask some drunken writer. Don't throw it
away."
     "All right," she said getting  up, "I'll tell  it  to  my children. But
it's so endless-the more you know the more there is just beyond and it keeps
on coming. This man could have been anything if he hadn't  been a coward and
a fool."
     "But you were in love with him."
     "Oh yes-with all my heart."  She looked through the window, shading her
eyes. "It's light out there. Let's go down to the beach."
     He jumped up exclaiming:
     "Why, I think it's the grunion!"
     "What?"
     "It's tonight. It's in all the papers." He hurried out the door and she
heard him open the door of the car. Presently he returned with a newspaper.
     "It's at ten-sixteen. That's five minutes."
     "An eclipse or something?"
     "Very punctual fish," he said. "Leave your shoes and stockings and come
with me."
     It was a  fine blue night.  The tide  was at the  turn and  the  little
silver fish rocked off shore waiting  for 10: 16. A  few seconds  after  the
time they came swarming in with the tide and Stahr and Kathleen stepped over
them barefoot as they flicked  slip-slop in the sand. A Negro man came along
the shore toward  them  collecting the grunion  quickly  like twigs into two
pails.  They came in twos and  threes and platoons and companies, relentless
and  exalted and scornful around the  great bare  feet of  the intruders, as
they had come before Sir Francis Drake had nailed his plaque to  the boulder
on the shore.
     "I wish for another pail," the Negro man said, resting a moment.
     "You've come a long way out," said Stahr.
     "I  used to go  to Malibu but  they don't  like it those moving picture
people. "
     A wave came in and forced  them back,  receded swiftly leaving the sand
alive again.
     "Is it worth the trip?" Stahr asked.
     "I don't  figure it that way. I really  come out to read some  Emerson.
Have you ever read him?"
     "I have," said Kathleen. "Some."
     "I've got him inside my shirt. I got some  Rosicrucian  literature with
me too but I'm fed up with them."
     The wind had changed a little-the  waves were stronger further down and
they walked along the foaming edge of the water.
     "What's your work?" the Negro asked Stahr.
     "I work for the pictures."
     "Oh." After a moment he added, "I never go to movies."
     "Why not?" asked Stahr sharply.
     "There's no profit. I never let my children go."
     Stahr watched him and Kathleen watched Stahr protectively.
     "Some of them are good," she said,  against a wave of spray, but he did
not hear her. She felt she could contradict  him and  said it again and this
time he looked at her indifferently.
     "Are the Rosicrucian brotherhood against pictures?" asked Stahr.
     "Seems  as  if they don't know what they are for. One week they for one
thing and next week for another."
     Only the little fish were certain. Half an hour had gone and still they
came. The Negro's two pails were full and finally he went off over the beach
toward the road, unaware that he had rocked an industry.
     Stahr and  Kathleen  walked  back to  the house and she  thought how to
drive his momentary blues away.
     "Poor old Sambo," she said.
     "What?"
     "Don't you call them poor old Sambo?"
     "We don't call them anything especially." After a moment he said, "They
have pictures of their own."
     In the house she drew on her shoes and stockings before the heater.
     "I like California better," she said deliberately. "I think I was a bit
sex-starved."
     "That wasn't quite all was it?"
     "You know it wasn't."
     "It's nice to be near you."
     She gave a little sigh as she stood  up so small that he did not notice
it.
     "I don't want to lose you now,"  he said. "I don't know  what you think
of me  or  whether you  think of me  at  all. As you've probably guessed  my
heart's in the grave-" He hesitated, wondering if this was quite true, "-but
you're the most attractive  woman I've met  since I don't know when. I can't
stop  looking at  you. I don't know  now  exactly the color of your eyes but
they make me sorry for everyone in the world-"
     "Stop it, stop it!" she  cried laughing. "You'll have me looking in the
mirror for weeks. My eyes aren't any color-they're just eyes to see with and
I'm just as ordinary as I can be. I have nice teeth for an English girl-"
     "You have beautiful teeth."
     "-but I couldn't hold  a candle  to these girls I see  here-" "You stop
it," he said. "What I said is true and I'm a cautious man."
     She stood  motionless a moment-thinking. She looked  at  him, then  she
looked back into herself, then at him again-then she gave up her thought.
     "We must go," she said.

     Now they  were different people as  they  started back. Four times they
had  driven  along  the  shore  road  today,  each  time  a different  pair.
Curiosity,  sadness  and desire  were  behind  them  now;  this  was a  true
returning-to themselves  and all their past and future and  the  encroaching
presence of tomorrow. He asked  her to sit  close in the car and she did but
they  did  not seem close because  for that you have  to  seem to be growing
closer. Nothing stands still. It was on his tongue to ask her to come to the
house he rented and sleep  there tonight-but he felt that it would make  him
sound  lonely. As the car climbed the hill to her  house Kathleen looked for
something behind the seat cushion. "What have you lost?"
     "It  might have fallen out," she said, feeling through her purse in the
darkness. "What was it?" "An envelope." "Was it important?" "No."
     But when they got to her house  and Stahr turned on the dashboard light
she helped take the cushions out and look again.
     "It doesn't matter,"  she said as they walked to the door. "What's your
address  where you really  live?" "Just Bel-Air. There's no number. " "Where
is Bel-Air?"
     "It's a sort of development near Santa Monica. But you'd better call me
at the studio."
     "All right...  good night, Mr.  Stahr." "  Mister  Stahr," he repeated,
astonished. She corrected herself gently.  "Well then, good night, Stahr. Is
that  better?" He felt as though he had been pushed  away a  little. "As you
like," he said. He refused  to let the aloofness communicate itself. He kept
looking at her and moved his  head  from side  to  side in her own  gesture,
saying without  words "you know what's happened to me." She sighed. Then she
came  into his  arms and for  a moment  was  his  again  completely.  Before
anything could change Stahr whispered good night and turned away and went to
his car.
     Winding down the hill he listened inside himself as if something  by an
unknown composer,  powerful  and strange and strong, was about  to be played
for  the  first  time. The theme would be  stated  presently but because the
composer was always new, he would not recognize it  as the theme right away.
It  would come  in some  such  guise as the auto-horns from the  technicolor
boulevards below  or  be barely audible, a tattoo on the muffled drum of the
moon. He  strained  to  hear it, knowing only that music was  beginning, new
music that he liked and did not understand. It was hard to react to what one
could entirely compass-this  was new and confusing, nothing one  could  shut
off in the middle and supply the rest from an old score.
     Also, and  persistently,  and bound  up  with the other, there was  the
Negro on the sand. He was waiting at home for Stahr with his pails of silver
fish, and he would be waiting at the studio in the morning. He had said that
he did not allow his children to listen to Stahr's story. He  was prejudiced
and wrong and he  must be shown somehow, some way. A picture, many pictures,
a  decade of pictures, must be made to show him he was wrong. Since  he  had
spoken, Stahr had thrown four pictures out  of his plans-one that was  going
into  production  this week.  They  were  borderline pictures  in  point  of
interest  but at least he submitted the borderline pictures to the Negro and
found them trash. And he put back  on his list a difficult  picture  that he
had tossed to the wolves, to Brady and Marcus and the rest,  to  get his way
on something else. He rescued it for the Negro man.
     When he drove  up to his door the porch lights went on and his Filipino
came down the steps to put  away the  car. In the library Stahr found a list
of phone calls.
     La Borwits
     Marcus
     Harlow
     Rienmund
     Fairbanks
     Brady
     Colman
     Skouras
     Flieshacker
     The Filipino  came into the room with a  letter. "This fell  out of the
car," he said.
     "Thanks," said Stahr, "I was looking for it."
     "Will you be running a picture tonight, Mr. Stahr?"
     "No thanks-you can go to bed."
     The letter,  to his  surprise,  was addressed to Monroe Stahr, Esq.  He
started to open it-then it occurred to him that she had wanted to  recapture
it, and possibly to withdraw it. If she had had a phone he would have called
her for permission  before  opening it. He held it for a moment. It had been
written before they met-it was  odd to  think that whatever it  said was now
invalidated; it possessed the interest  of a souvenir by representing a mood
that was gone.
     Still he did  not like to read it  without asking  her. He put  it down
beside a pile of scripts and sat down with the top script in his lap. He was
proud of resisting  his first impulse to open the letter. It seemed to prove
that  he was not "losing his head." He had never  lost his head about  Minna
even in  the  beginning-it  had been  the  most appropriate and regal  match
imaginable. She had loved him always and  just before she died all unwilling
and surprised his tenderness had burst and surged toward her and he had been
in love with her. In love with Minna and  death together-with the world into
which she looked so alone that he wanted to go with her there.
     But  "falling for dames" had  never been an  obsession-his brother  had
gone to pieces over a dame, or rather over dame  after dame after  dame. But
Stahr, in his younger days, had them once and never more than once-like  one
drink.   He  had  quite  another   sort  of   adventure  reserved   for  his
mind-something better than a series of emotional sprees. Like many brilliant
men he had grown up dead cold. Beginning at about twelve  probably  with the
total  rejection  common  to those of extraordinary mental powers,  the "see
here-this is all  wrong-a mess-all a lie-and  a sham-" he swept it all away,
everything, as men of his type do and then instead of being a son-of-a-bitch
as  most of them are he  looked around at the barrenness  that  was left and
said  to himself  "This will  never  do." And so  he had learned  tolerance,
kindness, forbearance, and even affection like lessons.
     The  Filipino boy brought  in a carafe of water  and bowls  of nuts and
fruit and said good night. Stahr opened the first script and began to read.
     He read for three  hours-stopping  from time to time, editing without a
pencil. Sometimes  he looked up, warm from some vague happy thought that was
not in the script, and it took him a minute  each time to  remember  what it
was. Then he knew  it  was  Kathleen and looked at the letter-it was nice to
have a letter.
     It was three o'clock when a vein  began to bump in the back of his hand
signalling that it was time  to quit. Kathleen was really  far away now with
the waning night-the different aspects of her telescoped into the  memory of
a single thrilling stranger  bound to him  only by a few  slender  hours. It
seemed perfectly all right to open the letter.
     Dear Mr. Stahr:
     In half an hour  I will be keeping  my date  with you. When we say good
bye I will  hand you this  letter. It is to tell you that I am to be married
soon and that I won't be able to see you after today.
     I should have  told you  last night but it didn't seem to concern  you.
And it would  seem silly to spend this beautiful afternoon telling you about
it and watching your interest fade. Let it fade all at once-now. I will have
told  you enough to convince you that  I  am Nobody's Prize Potato. (I have]
just  learned that expression-from my hostess  of last  night who called and
stayed  an  hour.  She  seems to believe that  everyone  is  Nobody's  Prize
Potato-except you. I  think  I am supposed to  tell you she thinks  this, so
give her a job if you can.)
     I am very flattered  that anyone who sees so many lovely women I  can't
finish this sentence but you know what I mean. And I will be late if I don't
go to meet you right now.
     With All Good Wishes Kathleen Moore.
     Stahr's  first feeling was like fear;  his  first thought  was that the
letter  was  invalidated-she had even tried to  retrieve  it.  But  then  he
remembered "Mister Stahr" just at  the end, and that  she had  asked him his
address-she  had  probably  already  written him another letter, which would
also say good bye. Illogically he  was shocked by the letter's  indifference
to  what had happened  later. He read  it  again  realizing that  it foresaw
nothing.  Yet  in  front  of  the house she had  decided  to let  it  stand,
belittling everything that had happened, curving her mind away from the fact
that there had been no other man in her consciousness that afternoon. But he
could not  even believe this  now and the whole adventure began to peel away
even as  he recapitulated it searchingly to himself.  The car, the hill, the
hat, the music, the letter itself blew off like the scraps of tar paper from
the rubble of  his house. And Kathleen  departed, packing up her  remembered
gestures,  her  softly  moving head, her sturdy eager body, her bare feet in
the wet swirling sand.  The  skies paled and  faded-the wind and rain turned
dreary, washing the silver  fish back to sea. It was only one  more day, and
nothing was left except the pile of scripts upon the table.
     He went upstairs. Minna died again on the first landing  and  he forgot
her  lingeringly and  miserably again, step by  step to  the top. The  empty
floor  stretched  around  him-the doors with  no one sleeping behind. In his
room Stahr took off  his tie,  untied his  shoes and sat on  the side of his
bed. It was  all closed out except for something that he could not remember;
then he remembered, her car was still down in the parking lot of  the hotel.
He set his clock to give him six hours' sleep.



     Section 15 (first part)

     This  is  Cecelia taking  up  the  story.  I  think  it would  be  most
interesting  to follow my own movements at this point, as this is a time  in
my life that  I am  ashamed of. What people  are ashamed of usually makes  a
good story.
     When  I sent Wylie White over to  Martha Dodd's table he had no success
in  finding  out  who the girl  was, but it had  suddenly  become  my  chief
interest in  life. Also I guessed-correctly-that it would be  Martha Dodd's:
to have  had at  your  table a  girl who is admired  by royalty, who  may be
tagged for a coronet in our little feudal system-and not even know her name.
     I  had only a speaking  acquaintance with  Martha and  it  would be too
obvious  to  approach her directly, but I went out to the studio  Monday and
dropped in on Rose Meloney.
     Rose Meloney was quite a friend of mine. I  thought of  her rather as a
child  thinks of  a family dependent.  I knew she was a writer but I grew up
thinking  that  writer  and secretary  were the same  except  that a  writer
usually  smelled of cocktails and came more often to meals. They were spoken
of the same  way  when  they  were  not around-except for  a species  called
playwrights who came from  the East. These were treated with respect if they
did not stay  long-if  they did they  sank with  the  others into the  white
collar class.
     Rose's office was  in  the "old writers'  building." There  was  one on
every lot,  a  row of iron  maidens left  over  from silent days  and  still
resounding the dull moans of  cloistered hacks and bums. There was the story
of the  new producer who had gone  down  the line one day and  then reported
excitedly to the head office.
     "Who are those men?"
     "They're supposed to be writers."
     "I thought so.  Well, I watched them for ten minutes and there were two
of them that didn't write a line."
     Rose was at  her typewriter about to break off  for lunch. I  told  her
frankly that I had a rival.
     "It's a dark horse," I said. "I can't even find out her name."
     "Oh," said  Rose. "Well,  maybe I know something  about  that.  I heard
something from somebody."
     The somebody,  of course,  was her nephew Ned Sollinger, Stahr's office
boy.  He  had  been her pride and hope. She  had sent him through  New  York
University where  he played on the football team.  Then in his first year at
medical  school after  a girl turned  him down he  dissected  out  the least
publicized section of a  lady corpse and  sent it to the  girl. Don't ask me
why. In disgrace with fortune and men's eyes he had begun life at the bottom
again, and was still there.
     "What do you know?" I asked.
     "It was the night of the earthquake. She fell into the lake on the back
lot and  he  dove in  and saved her  life. Someone else told  me it was  his
balcony she jumped off of and broke her arm."
     "Who was she?"
     "Well, that's funny too-"
     Her phone rang and I  waited restlessly during a long  conversation she
had with Joe Rienmund. He seemed to be trying to find out over the phone how
good she was or whether  she  had ever written any  pictures at all. And she
was  reputed to have been on the set the day Griffith invented the close-up!
While he talked she groaned silently, writhed, made faces into the receiver,
held it all  in her lap so that the  voice reached her faintly-and kept up a
side chatter to me.
     "What is  he doing-killing  time between appointments?... He's asked me
every one of these questions  ten times... that's all on a memorandum I sent
him...."
     And into the phone:  "If this goes up to Monroe it won't be my doing. I
want to go right through to the end."
     She shut her eyes in agony again.
     "Now he's casting it... he's casting the minor characters... he's going
to have Buddy Ebsen.... My God he just hasn't  anything to do... now he's on
Harry Davenport-he  means Donald Crisp... he's got  a big casting  directory
open in his lap and I can  hear him turn the pages...  he's a big  important
man this morning, a second Stahr, and for Christ sake I've got two scenes to
do before lunch."
     Rienmund  quit finally or was interrupted at his end. A  waiter came in
from the commissary  with  Rose's  luncheon and a Coca-Cola for  me-I wasn't
lunching that summer.  Rose wrote down one sentence on her typewriter before
she ate.  It interested  me the way she wrote. One day I was  there when she
and a  young  man had  just  lifted  a  story  out of "The  Saturday Evening
Post"-changing the  characters and all. Then they  began to write  it making
each line answer  the  line before it,  and of course  it  sounded just like
people do in life when they're straining to be  anything-funny  or gentle or
brave. I  always wanted  to  see  that one  on  the screen  but I  missed it
somehow.
     I  found her as lovable as a cheap old toy.  She made three thousand  a
week,  and her husbands all drank and beat her  nearly to death. But today I
had an axe to grind.
     "You don't know her name?" I persisted.
     "Oh-" said Rose "-that. Well, he kept calling her  up afterwards and he
told Katy Doolan it was the wrong name after all."
     "I think he found her," I said. "Do you know Martha Dodd?"
     "Hasn't that little girl had a tough break though!" she exclaimed
     with ready theatrical sympathy.
     "Could you possibly invite her to lunch tomorrow?"
     "Oh, I think she gets enough to eat all right. There's a Mexican-"
     I explained that my motives were not charitable. Rose agreed to
     cooperate. She called Martha Dodd.



     15 (second part)

     We  had lunch  next day at the  Bev  Brown  Derby, a languid restaurant
patronized  for its food by clients who always look as if they'd like to lie
down. There is some animation at lunch where the women put on a show for the
first five minutes  after they eat but  we were a tepid  threesome. I should
have come right out with my curiosity. Martha Dodd was an agricultural  girl
who had never quite understood what had happened to  her and  had nothing to
show for it except a washed out look about the eyes. She still believed that
the life she had tasted was reality and this was only a long waiting.
     "I had a beautiful place in 1928,"  she told us. "Thirty  acres, with a
miniature golf course and a pool and a gorgeous view. All spring I was up to
my ass in daisies."
     I  ended  by asking  her  to come over and  meet Father.  This was pure
penance for having had "a mixed motive" and being ashamed of it. One doesn't
mix  motives  in  Hollywood-it is confusing. Everybody  understands, and the
climate wears you down. A mixed motive is conspicuous waste.
     Rose left us at the studio gate, disgusted by my  cowardice. Mar