Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West Page B

lace collar flecked with pink, like the
collar of her soda.
    "You ought to see Bill Wheelright about a job. He owns an agency--he's a swell
guy...He's in love with me." "I couldn't work for a rival."
    She screwed up her nose and they
both laughed.
    He was still laughing when he
noticed that something had gone wrong with her laugh. She was crying.
    He felt for the rock. It was still
there; neither laughter nor tears could affect the rock. It was oblivious to
wind or rain.
    "Oh..." she sobbed . " I'm a fool." She ran out of the store.
    He followed and caught her. But her
sobs grew worse and he hailed a taxi and forced her to get in.
    She began to talk under her sobs.
She was pregnant. She was going to have a baby.
    He put the rock forward and waited
with complete poise for her to stop crying. When she was quiet, he asked her to
marry him.
    "No," she said. "I'm
going to have an abortion."
    "Please marry me." He
pleaded just as he had pleaded with her to have a soda.
    He begged the party dress to marry
him, saying all the things it expected to hear, all the things that went with
strawberry sodas and farms in Connecticut. He was just what the party dress
wanted him to be: simple and sweet, whimsical and poetic, a trifle collegiate
yet very masculine.
    By the time they arrived at her
house, they were discussing their life after marriage. Where
they would live and in how many rooms. Whether they
could afford to have the child. How they would rehabilitate the farm in
Connecticut. What kind of furniture they both liked.
    She agreed to have the child. He won
that point. In return, he agreed to see Bill Wheelright about a job. With a great deal of laughter, they decided to have three beds in
their bedroom. Twin beds for sleep, very prim and puritanical, and between them
a love bed, an ornate double bed with cupids, nymphs and Pans.
    He did not feel guilty. He did not
feel. The rock was a solidification of his feeling, his conscience, his sense
of reality, his self-knowledge. He could have planned anything. A castle in Spain and love on a balcony or a pirate trip and love
on a tropical island.
    When her door closed behind him, he
smiled. The rock had been thoroughly tested and had been found perfect. He had
only to climb aboard the bed again.

 
MISS LONELYHEARTS HAS A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
     
    After a long night and morning,
towards noon, Miss Lonelyhearts welcomed the arrival
of fever. It promised heat and mentally unmotivated violence. The promise was
soon fulfilled; the rock became a furnace.
    He fastened his eyes on the Christ
that hung on the wall opposite his bed. As he stared at it, it became a bright
fly, spinning with quick grace on a background of blood velvet sprinkled with
tiny nerve stars.139
    Everything else in the room was
dead--chairs, table, pencils, clothes, books. He thought of this black world of
things as a fish. And he was right, for it suddenly rose to the bright bait on
the wall. It rose with a splash of music and he saw its shining silver belly.
    Christ is life and light.
    "Christ! Christ!" This
shout echoed through the innermost cells of his body.
    He moved his head to a cooler spot
on the pillow and the vein in his forehead became less swollen. He felt clean
and fresh. His heart was a rose and in his skull another rose bloomed.
    The room was full of grace. A sweet, clean grace, not washed clean, but clean as the
inner sides of the inner petals of a newly forced rosebud.
    Delight was also in the room. It was
like a gentle wind, and his nerves rippled under it like small blue flowers in
a pasture.
    He was conscious of two rhythms that
were slowly becoming one. When they became one, his identification with God was
complete. His heart was the one heart, the heart of God. And his brain was
likewise God's.
    God said, "Will you accept it,
now?"
    And he replied, "I accept, I
accept."
    He immediately began to plan a new
life and his future conduct as Miss Lonelyhearts . He
submitted drafts of his column to God and God