The Sunday Gentleman by Irving Wallace Page B

she said, ‘Good heavens, mercy, that word!’ But, when you think of it, what’s wrong with that word?…The newspapers I read and recommend are the New York Herald Tribune for the morning, and the Journal-American for the evening. That Cholly Knickerbocker is pretty bold. Every evening, for one hour, I read aloud to Aida. Reading reviews, I notice that Hollywood is shallow. What we want today is realism. Remember de Maupassant’s line, ‘Oh, how pale thou art compared to life.’…Do you know I’m related to Edgar Allan Poe? I am. You’ll laugh like hell, but it’s true. On my mother’s side, we’re the same breed as Poe’s mother.”
    Her mention of her mother brought Minna’s mind to memories of other members of her family.
    “I had a sister, Lula, who played the violin. Her arm became paralyzed at nineteen, and later, she died. I was fifteen then. I wanted to kill myself, but Aida wouldn’t let me. When I was fifteen and Aida was seventeen, Lula was nineteen, back in Virginia, and Lula started playing her violin at midnight, and she played until morning, and after that, she was paralyzed. In the hotel, a Negro had burned to death, and across the street in the church the white children and people laughed at his charred bones the next day. Since that time, I have never been in a church, and when I die, I won’t allow my body to be taken to a church. I tell this story in a part of my book called ‘Realm of Dreams,’ only I call Lula by the name of Lucy. Each chapter of my book ends with someone’s favorable criticism of Shelley. The best is Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s quotation…But I was speaking of not going to church. When people tell me I ought to go to church, I say to them, ‘I’ve read the Testaments, Old and New—but I’ve also read the Inquisition!’…Aida and I have wonderful relatives, and through them we sort of have grandchildren, too. Some we try to help financially, even though we have so little. I have one sister-in-law who is a French-Mexican girl in Los Angeles, and when she gets our allowance, she always writes me, ‘You have come to me on a magic carpet again.’ Someday, if I no longer have any money, if I’m broke, rather than let them put us in some Old Ladies’ Home, I’ll turn on the gas in this house.”
    Now Minna’s mind darted to many subjects. She remembered the beginning of the First World War. “On August 1, 1914, in Charlottesville, Virginia, Aida and I passed a newsstand, saw the headlines, and I exclaimed, ‘My God, Europe is at war.’ Aida said, ‘Oh, it’ll be over in a couple of months.’ I said, ‘No, Aida, it’ll be over in a couple hundred years.’” Minna spoke of her devotion to music. “I prefer orchestral music to the human voice. Look what time did to Caruso’s voice, and then look what time does to a violin, improving and mellowing it. And the guitar, voice of love and passion, I worship it above all others.” She spoke of her social life. “Aida and I belong to ten women’s societies in New York, but since the war we have attended none of them.” And finally, she spoke of men. “Irving, I love men. I esteem your sex highly.”
    After that, New Year’s Day came and went, and so did my holiday leave, and soon I was deeply involved in my army activities. Two and a half weeks passed without a call from Minna Everleigh, and then, one evening in mid-January of 1946, returning to my hotel, I found a manila envelope in my box addressed in an unfamiliar hand. I opened it and read the following:

    New York
    Saturday
    Jan. 12, 1946
    To Sgt Irving Wallace…
    Greetings from Aida and Minna Lester with cordial best wishes. Since our last phone talk, I have been very ill with Influenza—with severe lung congestion! Sister Aida is taking my dictation this afternoon, as I am still in bed very ill…
    Sister Aida went to the Post Office yesterday and mailed you the promised volumes by Paul Eldridge, and the story of “the world’s oldest