The Last Gentleman

her two eyes fused into one. “I think I understand what you mean. You’ve been brought up to think it is an ugly thing whereas it should be the most beautiful thing in the world.”
    â€œAh.”
    â€œRita says that anything two people do together is beautiful if the people themselves are beautiful and reverent and unself-conscious in what they do. Like the ancient Greeks who lived in the childhood of the race.”
    â€œIs that right?”
    â€œRita believes in reverence for life.”
    â€œShe does?”
    â€œShe says—”
    â€œWhat does Sutter say?”
    â€œOh, Sutter. Nothing I can repeat. Sutter is an immature person. In a way it is not his fault, but nevertheless he did something dreadful to her. He managed to kill something in her, maybe even her capacity to love.”
    â€œDoesn’t she love you?”
    â€œShe is terrified if I get close to her. Last night I was cutting my fingernails and I gave her my right hand to cut because I can’t cut with my left. She gave me the most terrible look and went out. Can you understand that?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œVery well. I’ll be your whore.”
    â€œHore.”
    â€œHore.”
    â€œI know,” said the engineer gloomily.
    â€œThen you think I’m a whore?”
    â€œNo.” That was the trouble. She wasn’t. There was a lumpish playfulness, a sort of literary gap in her whorishness.
    â€œVery well. I’ll be a lady.”
    â€œAll right.”
    â€œNo, truthfully. Love me like a lady.”
    â€œVery well.”
    He lay with her, more or less miserably, kissed her lips and eyes and uttered sweet love-murmurings into her ear, telling her what a lovely girl she was. But what am I, he wondered: neither Christian nor pagan nor proper lusty gentleman, for I’ve never really got the straight of this lady-and-whore business. And that is all I want and it does not seem too much to ask: for once and all to get the straight of it.
    â€œI love you, Kitty,” he told her. “I dream of loving you in the morning. When we have our house and you are in the kitchen in the morning, in a bright brand-new kitchen with the morning sun streaming in the window, I will come and love you then. I dream of loving you in the morning.”
    â€œWhy, that’s the sweetest thing I ever heard in my life,” she said, dropping a full octave to her old unbuttoned Tallulah-Alabama voice. “Tell me some more.”
    He laughed dolefully and would have but at that moment, in the storm’s lull, a knock rattled the louvers of the rear door.
    It was Rita, looking portentous and solemn and self-coinciding. She had a serious piece of news. “I’m afraid something has come up,” she said.
    They sat at the dinette, caressing the Formica with their fingertips and gazing at the queer yellow light outside. The wind had died and the round leaves of the sea grapes hung still. Fiddler crabs ventured forth, fingered the yellow decompressed air, and scooted back to their burrows. The engineer made some coffee. Rita waited, her eyes dry and unblinking, until he came back and she had her first swallow. He watched as the muscles of her throat sent the liquid streaming along.
    â€œI’m afraid we’re in for it, kids,” she told them.
    â€œWhy is that?” the engineer asked since Kitty sat silent and sullen.
    â€œJamie has telephoned Sutter,” Rita told Kitty.
    Kitty shrugged.
    The engineer screwed up an eye. “He told me he was going to call his sister Val.”
    â€œHe couldn’t reach Val,” said Rita flatly.
    â€œExcuse me,” said the engineer, “but what is so alarming about Jamie calling his brother?”
    â€œYou don’t know his brother,” said Rita trying to exchange an ironic glance with Kitty. “Anyhow it was what was said and agreed upon that was alarming.”
    â€œHow do you know what was said?” asked Kitty, so disagreeably that the engineer frowned.
    â€œOh, Jamie makes no bones about it,” Rita cried. “He’s going to move in with Sutter.”
    â€œYou mean downtown?” Kitty asked quickly.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI don’t understand,” said the engineer.
    â€œLet me explain, Bill,” said Rita. “Sutter, my ex, and Kitty and Jamie’s brother, lives in a dark little hole next to the hospital. The plan of course had been for you and Jamie to take the garage