Gargoyles. Ben Hecht

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СКАЧАТЬ written," she said. "I don't know."

      Keegan looked at her uncomfortably. He felt he disliked her and he would have been pleased to ignore her. But the fact that she seemed to have anticipated him in this respect and to have ignored him first, piqued him.

      "I think Judge Smith and Henrietta will be over later," Basine addressed his mother. Judge Smith was the august and senior partner of the law firm that had taken young Basine into its office.

      "Yes, Aubrey told me," Mrs. Basine said casually. "I think they're engaged."

      "Who, Henrietta?" from Fanny.

      Her mother nodded. She stood up and the group sauntered into the living room. Keegan approached Fanny. Her freshness made him feel sad.

      "Let's sit here," Fanny whispered as he drew near her. She employed the whisper frequently. It usually brought a gleam into the eyes of her vis â vis as if she had promised something.

      To appear to promise something was Fanny's chief object in life. It was the basis of her growing popularity. The two sat down in a corner of the room secluded from the others. Keegan had interested her. At least his far-away, unappraising look had interested her. She preferred men more appraising and less far-away. Her object now was to reduce her brother's friend to an admirer. Admirers bored her. But the process of converting strangers, particularly far-away and unappraising strangers, into admirers was diverting.

      Keegan had other plans. A desire to repent aloud had been growing in Keegan. The girl's bright face and virginal air had been inspiring him. He wanted to tell her how unclean he was and how ashamed of the things he had done. He wanted to denounce sin.

      He felt tired. Fanny talked and he listened. He wanted to weep. He thought her fingers were beautiful and white. He would have liked to kneel beside her weeping, his head against her and her cool white fingers running over his face. It would be a sort of absolution—a maternal absolution. In the meantime his silence piqued her.

      "You don't seem very interested in what I'm saying," she interrupted herself. She looked at him and instinct supplied her with a new attack.

      "Where were you and George last night?" she asked. "Mother was furious about it."

      Keegan looked sad. His blond face collapsed.

      "Men are awful rotters," he answered, lowering his voice.

      "Oh I don't know. Not all men."

      "Yes. All men." Savagely.

      "Why do you say that?"

      "Because—" Keegan hesitated. Mysterious impulses were operating behind his talk. The night's debauch had sickened him. He was experiencing that depressing type of virtue which usually comes as a reaction from an orgy. His indignation at the bestiality of the male and the moral rotteness of life was a vindication of the temporary weakened state the night had induced in him. By denouncing sex he excused the disturbing absence of it in himself.

      He was however not content to vindicate the absence in himself of sensual excitement. He would also make use of his lassitude by translating the enervation it produced into self-ennobling emotions, into purity, innate and triumphant. He experienced high-minded ideas and an exaltation of spirit.

      "Because," he repeated, finding it difficult to choose words sufficiently emasculated to reflect the phenomenal purity of his mind, "well, if women knew, they would never talk to men. But women are so good, that is, decent women, that they simply don't understand and can't understand ... what it is."

      "About bad men?" Fanny whispered. Keegan nodded.

      "And are all men bad?" she asked.

      Again Keegan nodded, this time more sadly. It was a nod of confession and purity. In it he felt his obscene past and his pious future embrace each other, one whispering "forgive" and the other whispering "yes, yes. All is forgiven."

      Tears warmed his throat. Fanny's eyes looked at him with an odd excitement. Her mind was as always conveniently blank of thought. Thoughts would have served only to embarrass and handicap her. She was able to enjoy herself more easily without thinking. It was a ruse which enabled her to regard herself as a clean-minded girl.

      Young men had frequently taken advantage of her kindness and grown bold. They would during a tender embrace sometimes take liberties or draw her close and press themselves against her. It was at this point that her mind would awake like a burglar alarm suddenly set off. It rang and clanged—an outraged and intimidating ding-dong of virtuous platitudes which she had incongruously rigged up in the sensual warmth of her nature. But lately the mechanism by which she routed her would-be seducers did not quite satisfy her.

      At twenty she had grown fearful. When she was younger the men she led on were no more than boys. The mechanism had sufficed for them. But the last two years had witnessed a change in her would-be seducers. They had grown up, these males. She remembered always uncomfortably a young man who had burst into laughter during her outraged denunciation of him. He had said to her.

      "Listen, girl. If I wanted you, all I would have to do is tell you to shut up and slap your face. And you would. Your 'how dare you?' don't go with me. I've known too many girls like you. But I don't want you. Not after this. If it'll do you any good I'll tell you now that I won't forget you for a long time. Whenever I want a good laugh I'll think of you. There's a name for your kind...."

      And he had used a phrase that nauseated her. The incident had occurred on a Sunday evening in the hallway. He had reached up, taken his hat from the rack and without further comment walked out.

      Fanny had spent the night weeping with shame. The memory of the young man's words made spooning impossible for a month. She was essentially an honest person and unable to do a thing she knew was wrong. Her only hope of pleasing herself and indulging her growing sensuality lay in remaining sincerely oblivious to what she was doing. As long as the man's words stuck in her memory it was impossible to remain oblivious. They had awakened no line of reasoning or self-accusation in her mind. Her mind was still conveniently blank. The youth's denunciation lay like a foreign substance in it, a substance which fortunately time was able to dissolve.

      After a month of embittered virtue Fanny returned warily to her former tactics. She was cautious enough to begin with men as young as herself.

      One night in April she gave her lips again. They had been making candy in the kitchen. She turned the light out as they were leaving. The young man stood in front of her in the dark. His arms went shyly around her. With a satisfied thrill, she shut her eyes and allowed the boy to kiss her. A languor overcame her. She ran her fingers through his hair and gently pressed closer to him.

      The warning sounded sooner than usual, and in a surprising way. It came from within this time. The boy had not grown bold. He was enjoying her lips shyly and his embrace was almost that of a dancing partner. Nevertheless the burglar alarm clang-clanged. Her body had grown hot. The impulse to crush herself against the boy, to open her mouth, to embrace him fiercely, throbbed in her, and bewildering sensations were bursting unsatisfactory warmths in her blood.

      She hesitated. She might secretly yield to these demands. He would remain unaware of it and there would be no danger. But the alarm finally penetrated the fog of her senses. She was unable this time to shut off the current of her passion by the burst of sudden virtuous anger. The mechanism of her retreat had always been simple—a trick of turning her sensual excitement into indignation, of energizing the virtuous platitudes rigged up in her СКАЧАТЬ