The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children by Brendan Connell Page B

awake in humiliation,—that fear of the living being—her hair heavy as that final departure into night, and tears, the swelling of pus of nightmares.
    VI.
     
    Denny held the mushroom stuffed with duck sausage between two fingers.
    “ You’ve come into it,” he said. “Of course it is in bad taste to word it that way. But amongst friends. And, you know, money can be a real consolation at a time like this.”
    He bit into the mushroom cap and chewed, his eyes, those of a voluptuary, half closed. There was no denying that Pellington could cook. Allen was tolerable company, but Denny’s primary interest was in the food.
    “ I feel rather despondent,” said Allen as he sipped his mint julep. It was difficult to add appropriate gravity to the action. “I would cry if I knew it would help.”
    “ Yes,” said Denny, that young gentleman with short maize-coloured hair, an extremely delicate tan, a feathery voice and much appreciation for his own beauty, “I would shed tears with you if I knew it would help. But it won’t. It won’t help at all. So we must not spoil our lunch on some fruitless, rather straining endeavour. A quick cry would not add the smallest bit of enjoyment to this mushroom stuffed with duck sausage. . . . Life is for the living. We should always remember that.”
    After inhaling the last morsel of mushroom he sliced an asparagus spear into three parts, wondering if he should not take a bite of crab cake before proceeding.
    “ Yes,” clipping off a chunk of the crab cake with his fork after surmising that the asparagus would undoubtedly wait for him. “Yes, my heart goes out to you Allen, but we must find a way to distract our minds from morbid thoughts, depression. Good dining and sophisticated company are a starting point.”
    VII.
     
    Your mother, what she would think, I cannot guess. I did not love her, I will admit that, but do not press me for more. . . . Your father cared for her, and I saw that she was elegant, refined—Oh, she had much of what I lacked.
    But do not think that any of . . . of that emotional disarray. —Do not think that it has prejudiced me against you. No, I have always been your strongest advocate, and will defend you, even if it were to mean draining my veins dry of their sap. —Yes, you are a handsome, so handsome young man.
    — Allen, I will be there for you, when you have discarded fresher blooms.
    VIII.
     
    He had always liked theatre, movies, dancing, entertainment of all description as long it tended toward the benign, the sensual. Astaire was a well-tailored god; Swing time , Top Hat , ecstatic suavity. Allen Hutton’s face would burn with the flush of blood, then grow suddenly pale, the tapping, the orchestra crying into the secret places of his being—Fred Astaire dancing off chairs, tables, desks, steps, dogs, walls, ceilings; the perfectly cut suit never gathering up, the sunshine smile never betraying the whisper of death.
    In the subdued light of the movie room Allen lay on his side, one elbow embedded in a soft pillow, a hand supporting his weary head. The stem of a hookah extended from his sentient lips. . . . The screen before him, of generous proportion—women blooming into flowers, the petals of their lower limbs, and those stamen arms; Gold Diggers of 1935 ; one-thousand legs lashing as whips, the sex subdued into patterns of cosmic grandeur. . . . Sets of dreams, opulence of love beyond his grasp. . . . Busby Berkeley, took away his body, those instants, tender as the skin of boiled milk.
    And in his study he would sometimes read the first few lines of Helen’s letters in disgust. But more often than not he simply threw them away unopened. And then, to Allen’s relief, they stopped. . . . Subsequently only vague reports, of the woman’s frantic, sluttish romances with Portuguese gigolos and decaying aristocratic rakes.
    IX.
     
    “ Do you want me to be saucy, or submissive?”
    “ Surprise me,” Allen said, with a gesture worthy of a