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“I know,” said Nick. “You don’t know,” said his father. “Listen to me.
“You don’t mind you’re with me instead of going to Trudy?” “What do you talk about her for all the time?” “I haven’t been. Maybe you were thinking about her and you thought I was talking.” “You’re too smart,” Nick said.
“I’m not going back, Nickie, unless you tell me to,” she said. “I just don’t want fights. Promise me we won’t have fights?” “Promise.”
“Sure we will. But first I have to get out of this trouble and learn how to make some money.” “Do you think you’ll ever make money writing?” “If I get good enough.” “Couldn’t you maybe make it if you wrote cheerfuller things? That isn’t my opinion. Our mother said everything you write is morbid.”
“When is a man grown-up? When he’s married?” “No. Until you’re grown-up they send you to reform school. After you’re grown-up they send you to the penitentiary.” “I’m glad you’re not grown-up then.”
He really respected her love of culture because she said she loved it just like he loved good bonded whiskey and she said, “Packard, you don’t have to care about culture. I won’t bother you with it. But it makes me feel wonderful.”
He had not analyzed it yet but he saw the man had very flat eyes and a mouth that was tighter than a simple tobacco chewer’s mouth needed to be.
You want to get to know this other character. His name is Crut-Face Evans. We used to call him Turd-Face. I just changed it now out of kindness.”
and he thought, no matter how this thing comes out we might as well have a good happy time. He had already learned there was only one day at a time and that it was always the day you were in. it would be today until it was tonight and tomorrow would be today again. This was the main thing he had learned so far.
“You ought to get married. Why don’t you pick out some nice Italian girl with plenty of money. You could get any one you want. You’re young and you got good decorations and you look nice. You been wounded a couple of times.” “I can’t talk the language well enough.” “You talk it fine. To hell with talking the language. You don’t have to talk to them. Marry them.” “I’ll think about it.” “You know some girls, don’t you?” “Sure.” “Well, you marry the one with the most money. Over here, the way they’re brought up, they’ll all make you a good wife.” “I’ll think about it.”
Sometimes his girl was there and sometimes she was with someone else and he could not understand that,
That was why he noticed everything in such detail to keep it all straight so he would know just where he was,
Nick was happy as he crawled inside the tent. He had not been unhappy all day. This was different though. Now things were done. There had been this to do. Now it was done.
“No,” Marjorie said. She was intent on the rod all the time they trolled, even when she talked. She loved to fish. She loved to fish with Nick.
It wasn’t just love. Odgar thought just love would do it. Odgar loved her enough, God knows, it was liking, and liking the body, and introducing the body, and persuading, and taking chances, and never frightening, and assuming about the other person, and always taking never asking, and gentleness and liking, and making liking and happiness, and joking and making people not afraid. And making it all right afterwards, it wasn’t loving. Loving was frightening. He, Nicholas Adams, could have what he wanted because of something in him. Maybe it did not last. Maybe he would lose it. He wished he
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The movies ruined everything. Like talking about something good. That was what had made the war unreal. Too much talking.
The only writing that was any good was what you made up, what you imagined. That made everything come true.
He wished he could always write like that. He would sometime. He wanted to be a great writer. He was pretty sure he would be. He knew it in lots of ways. He would in spite of everything. It was hard, though.
He wanted to write like Cezanne painted. Cezanne started with all the tricks. Then he broke the whole thing down and built the real thing.
Nick could do that, too. People were easy. Nobody knew anything about them. If it sounded good they took your word for it.
Like all men with a faculty that surpasses human requirements, his father was very nervous. Then, too, he was sentimental, and, like most sentimental people, he was both cruel and abused. Also, he had much bad luck, and it was not all of it his own. He had died in a trap that he had helped only a little to set, and they had all betrayed him in their various ways before he died. All sentimental people are betrayed so many times.
remembering. If he wrote it he could get rid of it. He had gotten rid of many things by writing them.
It was a good story but there were still too many people alive for him to write it.
The end of the day had always belonged to Nick alone and he never felt right unless he was alone at it.
