The Sunday Gentleman by Irving Wallace Page A

treasure these books until the last day of my life.”
    I asked her if she was going to call on anyone or have visitors this Christmas Day.
    “No,” said Minna, “I won’t see anyone. I determined that until my own damnable book is finished and published I would live in a castle of silence Have you reread the Jesus Christmas story? You know, I believe that the two thieves that were hanging from crosses beside Jesus were really his followers who wanted to steal from the rich to help the poor…I do not mind mankind’s crimes, but I do mind its hypocrisy…Have you been following what is going on in Europe? Anarchy is one thing, revolution is another thing, but nihilism is too much. And when people are starving and frozen—”
    But suddenly, she was in an autobiographical mood. “Irving, did you know my father was a lawyer who spoke seven languages? It’s true. And as for myself, I was able to read before I was five years old. When I was very young, I got married, before I was seventeen. I married a wealthy devil of a man, but then we were divorced. Nevertheless, I have always felt that all men are my brothers, and you are one of my younger brothers…Aida and I come from Virginia, you know, way back, and I consider you a brother. I lost one real brother. Aida told you, didn’t she?…In 1679, after the Restoration in England, Charles II granted fifty-nine acres of land in Virginia to two brothers, and these two migrated to the New World. That was the beginning of our family. Those ancestors of mine, they all died of drink, insanity, and the Civil War. My grandmother was Welsh. She had a couple hundred slaves, but she loved Negroes. Yet, she would say to her Negro overseer, ‘I don’t believe in shipping niggers down the river, selling them off, but if I ever catch you mistreating your fellows, I’ll ship you off!’…The last one of our family was born while my mother was dying.”
    In another abrupt transition, Minna began to discuss books, motion pictures, and censorship.
    “I like Eldridge because, even though he is risque, he does not use dirty language like so many of the writers after World War I. I don’t believe in using coarse words, do you?…Still, I suppose the big fault of Hollywood is censorship. You can’t censor literature and you can’t censor ideas. But you can censor bawdy words, and I believe that the stage will come into its own yet and the creative artist can do more on the stage than in Hollywood…Now, Irving, I’m going to do something for you that I would never do for any other man. I’m going to send you a copy of a book called The World’s Oldest Profession . I’m going to place it at the bottom of the package. Read it—read it carefully. It’ll help make you an even more tolerant and understanding person.”
    The following day, I was still on holiday leave and working in my hotel room when Minna Everleigh telephoned again. She and Aida were busy, she said, because they had received over one hundred Christmas cards from relatives and friends, and these had to be answered. But she was delaying this task because she still had books and writing on her mind, and she wanted to discuss the subject at greater length.
    “Did you read Lillian Smith’s Strange Fruit ?” she asked me. “It’s all wrong, just as that play, Deep Are the Roots , is wrong. I know colored women, and they would kill white women who took their men. Have you read the Amsterdam News ? It’s a paper for colored folks. There’s fire there, Irving, and a new day’s a-coming. I can tell you something plainly, and I know it for a fact. In his heart, every colored man hates white men. That’s a reality. I don’t believe in illusions…I remember reading a recent novel published by Harper and Brothers. In it, the man enters the woman’s room, strips off his clothes, pats his stomach, and says to the woman what you’d expect him to say. The very words, and in a Harper book! When I showed it to my typist Clara,