Collected Stories of Carson McCullers by Carson Mccullers Read Free Book Online Page A

though seeking a stronger confirmation, then curved her lips down petulandy. "That wolf, Hans, is driving me crazy. You know that Fauré thing—in E—well it takes in that note over and over and nearly drives me to drink. I get to dreading that E—it stands out something awful."
    "You could have it shifted?"
    "Well—but the next thing I take up would probably be in that key. No, that won't do any good. Besides, it costs something and I'd have to let them have my cello for a few days and what should I use? )ust what, I ask you?"
    When he made money she could get—"I don't notice it so much."
    "It's a darn shame, I think. People who play like Hell can have good cellos and I can't even have a decent one. It's not right for me to put up with a wolf like that. It damages my playing—anybody can tell you that. How should I get any tone from that cheese box?"
    A phrase from a sonata he was learning weaved itself in and out of his mind. "Poldi—" What was it now?
I love you love you.
    "And for what do I bother anyway—this lousy job we have?" With a dramatic gesture she got up and balanced her instrument in the corner of the room. When she switched on the lamp the bright circle of light made shadows follow the curves of her body.
    "Listen, Hans, I'm so restless till I could scream."
    The rain splashed on the window. He rubbed his forehead and watched her walk up and down the room. All at once she caught sight of the run in her stockings and, with a hiss of displeasure, spat on the end of her finger and bent over to transfer the wetness to the bottom of the run.
    "Nobody has such a time with stockings as cellists. And for what? A room in a hotel and five dollars for playing trash three hours every night in the week. A pair of stockings twice every month I have to buy. And if at night I just rinse out the feet the tops run just the same."
    She snatched down a pair of stockings that hung side by side with a brassiere in the window and, after peeling off the old ones, began to pull them on. Her legs were white and traced with dark hairs. There were blue veins near the knees. "Excuse me—you don't mind, do you? You seem to me like my little brother back home. And we'll get fired if I start wearing things like that down to play."
    He stood at the window and looked at the rain blurred wall of the next building. Just opposite him was a milk bottle and a jar of mayonnaise on a window ledge. Below, someone had hung some clothes out to dry and forgotten to take them in; they flapped dismally in the wind and rain. A little brother—Jesus!
    "And dresses," she went on impatiently. "All the time getting split at the scams because of having to stretch your knees out. But at that it's better than it used to be. Did you know me when everybody was wearing those short skirts—and I had such a time being modest when I played and still keeping with the style? Did you know me then?"
    "No," Hans answered. "Two years ago the dresses were about like they are now."
    "Yes, it was two years ago we first met, wasn't it?"
    "You were with Harry after the con—"
    "Listen, Hans." She leaned forward and looked at him urgently. She was so close that her perfume came sharp to his nostrils. "I've just been about crazy all day. It's about him, you know."
    "Wh-Who?"
    "You understand well enough—him—Kurt! How, Hans, he loves me, don't you think so?"
    "Well—but Poldi—how many times have you seen him? You hardly know each other." He turned away from her at the Levins' when she was praising his work and—
    "Oh, what does it matter if I've only been with him three times. I should worry. But the look in his eyes and the way he spoke about my playing. Such a soul he has. It comes out in his music. Have you ever heard the Beethoven funeral march sonata played so well as he did it that night?"
    "It was good—"
    "He told Mrs. Levin my playing had so much temperament."
    He could not look at her; his grey