Chapter III: Cake

_“Roussillon dismounted and opening the dead man’s breast with a
knife, with his own hands tore out his heart ... and calling the
cook, said to him, ‘Take this wild boar’s heart and look thou make
a dainty dish thereof, the best and most delectable to eat that
thou knowest, and when I am at table, send it to me in a silver
porringer.’ The lady, who was nowise squeamish, tasted thereof and
finding it good, ate it all; which when the knight saw, he said to
her, ‘Wife, how deem you of this dish?’ ‘In good sooth, my lord,’
answered she, ‘it liketh me exceedingly.’ Whereupon, ‘So God be mine
aid,’ quoth Roussillon; ‘I do believe it you, nor do I marvel if that
please you, dead, which, alive, pleased you more than aught else.’
The lady, hearing this, hesitated awhile, then said, ‘How? What have
you made me eat?’ ‘This that you have eaten,’ answered the knight,
‘was in very truth the heart of Sir Guillaume de Guardestaing whom
you so loved.’”_

_“The Decameron of Boccaccio”_ (_Trans. Anonymous_)

1

Algeria could not bear to fail. More quietly and conventionally dressed, her manner subdued, she called on Em the next day. She talked skillfully of serious things. She would not accept dislike. Em was on the verge of capitulating to Algeria’s undoubted personality. She could respect Algeria’s neat malice, and Algeria’s insidious device of taking an auditor into her confidence about her victims almost disarmed Em. Perhaps I’ve misjudged her--But Algeria could not resist the temptation to quote a popular French painter’s _mot_ anent Em’s work. It seemed safe. Em impressed Algeria as being rather helpless.

_“Une explosion érotique.”_ Algeria laughed deprecatingly as she repeated the phrase. “Of course _I_ thought he was horrid, my dear.”

Em unadmittedly made every criticism of her art a personal matter.

“He’s a spiritual toad,” she said relentlessly.

Algeria’s deftness was inadequate in regaining the lost key, so she departed uttering fervid eulogies of her own.

2

Howard hurried in. Em held an open letter in her hand.

“Has Algeria been here?” he asked, frowning.

“She just left.”

“I’ve run all over the Village looking for her. I’m giving a party here for her Thursday night and I’ve already invited most of the crowd, but I want to find out whom else she wants.” Em did not reply. “Will you help Celia with the refreshments?”

“I shan’t be here,” said Em.

Howard started.

“Why not?” he demanded with annoyance.

“I have a dinner.”

“What dinner?” Irritation was rapidly gathering in his voice.

“At Jen’s.” There was a conscious elation in her tone. I shall see Les--

“Put it off.” He spoke dictatorially. He must have Em and Algeria together if he was to subdue Em.

“I shall do no such thing.” Em raised her head fearlessly.

“It must be an important function,” he sneered. “Who are the celebrities you can’t incommode?”

Em glanced at her letter.

“Stuart and Jen and Les,” she said defiantly. Em’s eyes were bright, a slight color in her face. Her bearing was enticing. His eyes gleamed involuntarily.

“Why, this is simply insulting Algeria!” he exclaimed angrily. “What has _she_ done?” Loyalty to Algeria armed him against Em.

“Nothing,” replied Em. “She’s a pill and a windbag, but I’ve nothing against her. I’m simply not coming, that’s all.” Em did not notice her harshness. She was triumphant. The fact of Les being near made her unassailable. When Algeria was present Howard seemed to shrink up. Algeria subdued him. He grew dim to Em.

Howard would not acknowledge that he hated to have Em force on him a deeper disillusion of Algeria. Algeria in the flesh was already a burden. But she meant freedom from Em. He sought for escape from his real provocation.

“Then it’s I you wish to discipline!” he retorted menacingly. “Well, the easiest way to feed your vanity is to hurt someone.”

3

Genevieve’s dinner was a sad affair.

Em had spent an inordinate amount of time adorning herself. A plain gray silk dress, hair arranged and rearranged until it exactly pleased her, careful rouging--her cheeks _were_ growing hollow--a single long string of green glass beads--how thin my neck is!--nails perfect, eyes excited.

When she rang at the little tenement and was admitted by Genevieve herself, Les was sitting with Stuart on the broad couch. Les looked pale and haggard. Em had fancied herself rushing again into his arms, but as he rose she could only hesitate and hold out her hand. Even Genevieve and Stuart were outsiders.

“Hello, Les.”

“Hello, Em.”

“Stuff!” said Genevieve brusquely to Em. “Kiss him, you little goose!” Em and Les kissed timidly. Stuart stared with melancholy approval through the smoke from his pipe. “Now let’s have dinner before it gets cold,” Genevieve continued, almost bustling about in her tension. This was the cool, languid Genevieve! “You sit here, Les, and Em there. Come, Stuart--” She managed the moments like a presiding officer. I’ll be a wreck before the evening’s over, she thought desperately.

The conversation would not come. Genevieve tried frantically.

“It’s nice to have you here again.”

“Thank you,” said Les.

“Like old times.”

Silence.

Even Stuart attempted to talk.

Until she saw Cicely with Les, Em had not emotionally realized that she had lost him as a sex partner. Les’s presence without Cicely did not remove the pain. Cicely’s form in Em’s fancy was always at his side.

Les’s heart ached. What have I done? Never....

Em and Les beyond help. Finally each went home.

“My God!” Genevieve burst into tears on Stuart’s shoulder.

4

Howard’s spite at her repudiation of his party spurred his desire to make Em jealous of Algeria. He was devoted to Algeria, planned constantly for Algeria’s diversion, was seen with Algeria early and late. With Les apart from Cicely Em would not have succumbed. But it was borne in on her that both the men she had elected to prefer no longer preferred her.

Although Em’s absence from his party was the seal of Howard’s defeat, he still wished to do her post-bellum injury. He resented her defection as he had once resented having to acknowledge her to others. In the same way he had formerly hated her for being a greater artist than himself, and now he could not forgive her for accomplishing nothing. She was even going off physically--She had been no credit to him either personally or in public.

The morning after the party. Howard ostentatiously abstracted. Em came into the living-room and could see him through the open door of the kitchenette as, his tall figure wrapped in a gray dressing-gown, he prepared his coffee. She felt peculiarly depressed and hesitant.

“Good morning, Howard.” She had waited in vain for him to speak to her.

Howard answered over his shoulder.

“Good morning.” He began very softly to whistle a theme from “Pelleas and Melisande.”

Em came and stood uneasily in the doorway.

“Can I help? Have you made enough coffee for both of us?”

Without glancing at her, Howard lifted the lid of the percolator and peered in.

“I think so.”

Forcing herself to overcome the desire to immolate herself which she had brought from her meeting with Les, she placed some dishes on a table by one of the windows in the living-room. Howard brought out the coffee and toast and they began their meal. Em watched him furtively, ashamed of her anxiety as to his reactions toward her. Where is my pride?

Howard was perfectly conscious of Em’s uneasiness. Her presence in the house after seeing Les at Genevieve’s in some way convinced him that she would stay. Even if she went, she must come back. She would not leave him with Algeria. Howard had learned of Cicely. He had grown confident. His wounds were healing. Algeria would help him make Em pay. He lighted a cigarette and, as he smoked and sipped his coffee, stared through the window at the damp roofs opposite glistening in the pearly morning light. Sparrows quarreling in a tin gutter. Lilac spiral of smoke rising from a chimney. Howard admitted some apprehensiveness but he was determined to express to Em nothing but satisfaction and well-being.

“How was the party?” she asked with a nervous effort. The coffee nauseated her and the toast seemed tasteless.

“Oh, what a party always is.” His agreeable tone suggested that something other than the party--some more intimate memory--was responsible for his complacent abstraction. He added: “Of course Algeria was the party--she always is. It’s amusing the way these people down here in the Village fight for a chance to pour oblations before her.”

Em tried not to feel spiteful.

“She has a very compelling personality.” Em recognized Algeria’s force. I must be honest about it. She _has_ personality--and charm--the personality of a successful vaudeville artist. She should be a great actress. Algeria’s adamant will where her own interests were touched, her dominance over her superiors by tricks just crude enough to be unanswerable--some Jews have this genius--these Em instinctively divined.

Howard flecked ash from his cigarette. He felt Em’s suppressed attitude of condescension toward Algeria. It seemed to him an indirect condescension to himself. It made him resent Algeria more, and blame Em violently for his added resentment. His eyes, staring deliberately away from her, hardened in bitterness. He smiled to himself as if unconsciously.

“I wonder what are the components of Algeria’s personality. Of course an acute mind--she never fools herself. And then, too, she has that saving attribute, a sense of humor.”

Em gazed steadily at Howard. She felt ill physically, and there was a horrible mental illness in her consciousness that her body was sick.

“I don’t think she has much humor.”

“Why not?” For the first time, pugnaciously, Howard met Em’s eyes with his hard bright ones.

“She’d laugh at herself oftener than she does.”

“My dear Em.” Howard was conspicuously patient. “Algeria always laughs at herself. That’s why she is so delightful. She is too profoundly a pessimist to take anything seriously. You probably haven’t caught her spirit because your own deadly seriousness has excluded you from participation. Take care that she doesn’t laugh at you, too.”

Tears rose to Em’s eyes. She could not hide them from Howard’s mercilessly detached scrutiny. I look ugly. I can’t help it. She tried to harden herself against him. If he feels like this I oughtn’t to care.

Howard was inwardly jubilant. He was salving his old injuries. In their early days his acuteness had discovered that any praise of other women’s attraction was accepted by Em as an implied comparison. He knew exactly what to say. She doesn’t dream how much I’ve suffered--

“I suppose she does laugh at me!” Em’s pride came. “It would just be a part of her shallow philosophy to laugh at anything real. Like an ant laughing at--at an avalanche.”

Howard’s lip twitched. His eyes were angry, but he tried to seem amused.

“Pooh!” What bombast--sickening! “Algeria realizes as all intelligent people do that since the war the world’s a joke.”

“It always was, in that sense. It hasn’t changed any. Why doesn’t she think she’s part of the joke?”

“She does.”

“I don’t believe it.”

Howard began to feel at bay. He could not weather reversals.

“A beautiful woman can’t really be expected to be serious--not as a habit.” It was as if he were defending himself. He could not forgive Em for forcing him to this explanation of Algeria.

“Beautiful!!” Em’s cheeks flushed. The warmth of blood in them hurt her. She was angry at what seemed to her the preposterousness of Howard’s exaggeration. He only says that to bait me, she said to herself. At the same time the comparison he suggested was insidious.

Once in a moment of analysis and with no intent of malice he had, in his inhuman detachment as an artist, remarked that Em’s mind, a crystalline something, attracted and compelled men rather than her body. He had noted her emotional confusion and her effort to avoid admitting the hurt of his words. Now he watched her jealously. Algeria! she thought. Is that what men really admire? Even Les--One had just as well face it--the elemental basis of relationship between men and women. You have to please. Then they will let you love them, Howard spoke.

“Why, yes. I think Algeria is often quite beautiful. Don’t let jealousy prejudice you, Em.” He laughed boyishly, feeling somehow released from the humiliation of defending Algeria.

“I’m certainly not jealous! I couldn’t be--of her.”

Howard thought quickly of Les. Has their reconciliation really been a go? Why isn’t she more affected by this? His expression, in an attempt to conceal the changes of his emotion, became sarcastic.

“Of course you’re jealous. There are two types of women--those who have minds and those who have bodies. They always envy each other. The woman of brains wants to be considered a siren, and the woman with a beautiful body insists that you discover her soul.”

Em had accepted in advance all the inferences about herself. She despised Howard for his cruelty. How can he! Doesn’t he see any pathos in me? He wants to pity himself. I’d never torture him for what he can’t help.

“I thought you said Algeria had both beauty and wit.”

“She has; but of course for all her mental acuteness she is preëminently a body. Algeria would have lovers if she were stupid.”

Em thought of Algeria’s faded piquancy, her dyed hair, her disenchanting appearance in street dress--But she was affected just the same. Self-distrust had poisoned her too deeply.

Howard had begun to use his insight to torture Em for destroying his illusion of Algeria, and for ignoring Algeria’s jealousy of her. The pathos of Em’s naked desire to receive from him a sign of her physical power had rehabilitated his faith in himself.

5

Em was afraid. She now argued with Howard for kindness as Les had pleaded with her. But the time had come when she and Howard were no more able to speak each other’s language than she and Les had been. Em’s love for pain was that of a drug addict: more and more was required. She had sought to seize life through suffering. The god of pain was dead.

Left alone Howard and Em’s affair would by now have been naturally effete. They had gotten everything from each other. But Les’s return--and Cicely--with Howard’s appeal to Algeria, had injected something new and imponderable. Its momentum of waste and strife carried it on. Though tortured on both sides, Em could not give up both and have her individual self-respect.

After Howard’s inhumanness she went to see Les. Cicely was there, but departed at once, almost eagerly, and left them alone. Her garments hanging in the room were like flames to Em’s flesh. They could not talk, Les was too kind. She was beating against mist. His thoughts were his own. A frozen river--

When Em returned to the apartment she felt bewildered. Les and I couldn’t have gone on. Why should I mind! She felt she could never reveal herself. She could not paint. She was penniless. Dust!

Howard came. When he entered the room his first quick glance noted her listless attitude as she sat by a window staring into the street. He wanted something violent to happen, but he did not have the courage to precipitate the kind of crisis that would have relieved him.

“Howard, I must talk to you.”

His mouth was grim and frustrate. He had decided to be unyielding.

“I have nothing to say.”

“Howard, I can’t stand it.”

“Neither can I.”

Howard found his conception of his own detachment was becoming ridiculous. He turned and left her. She does not see that I am in pain. Em was showing him the impossibility of escaping sentimental delusions. Muck! Give me more of Algeria’s poison--

6

Em threw herself on the couch.

I’ll kill myself if my head goes wrong. She had never felt that she need heed consequences. If a situation became impossible she could escape it like this. She tried to tell herself that she did not love life too much. Once she had said this to Howard.

“Pooh!” he had replied. “You think if you’re reckless enough, someone will be aghast and interfere.”

He could be neither a human being nor an artist. He had hated her because she could not help being an artist but wanted only to be a human being.

I can’t live. She went to her bedroom and took a tiny bottle from a drawer. It was poison she had stolen from Toby’s room one night when he had cooked dinner there for them both. Toby was always experimenting with strange chemicals. She remembered the skull and cross-bones on the label of the green flask she had taken it from.

“Oh, Les, Les--” she sobbed, but no tears came.

She could have borne losing Howard to Algeria if Les had not been in New York. This is what it all comes to. Algeria. Pose. Sound. I hate it. Algeria the deification of Greenwich Village. Deformed with Christianity--exposing grotesque bodies in attitudes that mock their own pretense of paganism. She belongs there! The death of expression. Eaten my hope. Bohemia! Menagerie. Animals. No--animals are genuine. Marionettes. Ghosts. Greenwich Village is a monster. No one. My body is dry. Mitra. New York. Tread of elephants. Village. Wasps buzzing. Air!

Les--Cicely! The betrayal of emotion to a third person. It isn’t Algeria. Em felt as if Cicely had stolen her pride--her reserve. Oh, Les, why did you--Howard! I did too, Emotion. Unseeing emotion. Emotion without object. Sick vanity. Em beat her face with her fists.

Cicely’s soft breasts. Em threw the vial across the room. I can’t leave life with Les in it. She meant “with Cicely.” Her pride would not let her give her life to another woman. Cicely had saved her.

Really she was still vacillating. How she admired and adored Les! But could she exist without the strain and stress with Howard that she felt was real in its pain? She was ashamed that she had not the courage to die. She was ashamed that she was clinging to Howard after he had tired of her.