who saw how very good and important it was. That’s the essence of Hammett, the man with all his quills out. Too bristly and dangerous to approach. Too tough and inconstant to allow himself to be admired.
Here’s what you really have to know about people like Dash—and there’s only Dash, not people “like” him—who grow up piss-poor and unloved. They’re ashamed. Ashamed of what they come from, of who they are, and if they happen to be successful, ashamed of their talent and accomplishments. I do not suffer from those particular deprivations—there are others we can talk about later—but if you spent any serious time with Dash you couldn’t miss the symptoms of profound shame. No one else was ever allowed to spend any serious time with Dash but me. So you just have to take my word for it. The Flitcraft story is brilliant and it’s all Hammett.
. 4 .
Hatred
I T WASN ’ T THE FIRST TIME he’d humiliated her, or the second, or the fifth. This time, though, it was of longer duration and at a greater distance—she in New York, he in Hollywood; behind her back, it seemed to her. And more people appeared to know about it than ever before, making the sheer quantity of humiliation greater than it ever had been.
It took her the better part of three days to cover the United States, first by train and then by plane. Lilly had much time to cosy up to the humiliation, so quite naturally its effects ran deeper. Which bothered her more, she wondered, that he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants for two weeks or that so many people she disliked intensely now knew that the man she loved couldn’t—or wouldn’t—keep his dick in his pants? Lilly didn’t even need an hour to figure that one out. She’d been made into a laughingstock. The taste on her tongue was gall.
If Hammett wanted to fuck around, fine. No, not fine, but given the bastard’s track record, certainly not unexpected. What was exasperating, truly maddening, about this one was that he’d done it so publicly it was obviously meant to be deliberate. It was one thing, she explained to herself, to care about her as sincerely as she knew he did and still not be able to quell his need to be with other women, as pitiful as that need was. It was quite another to undo her just as she was poised for a great personal success. She tried to convince herself on the journey westward that, at least until she confronted him, she might be able to accept that Hammett loved her still but was simply bad Hammett being bad Hammett, boys’ll be boys … or some such bullshit.
Hadn’t she, after all, once gone to bed with men, a fairly wide variety of them, simply because the experience promised to be interesting and possibly more than that? Perhaps she wasn’t so different from him after all. She told herself this while avoiding the most important difference: she had flirted to the very brink of bedding but actually slept with no one—and certainly not her husband—since the night she met Dashiell Hammett. Sentimental as it may have sounded for the Hollywood of the early thirties, Lillian Hellman had finally chosen to be faithful.
Throughout the trip west she grudged and ruminated and found herself swinging back and forth emotionally—and strategically too, because she didn’t want to lose him over this. Her fury always triggered the same question: Whyshould it be different for him? Why did she feel as though this time something had broken within her that could not be repaired? And why for Christ’s sake couldn’t she even breathe right? She wanted to pummel him, scream obscenities at him, beat him down, and then kick him until she herself, exhausted, collapsed.
He really did not love her.
No sooner had she allowed herself to think the thought than she conjured up moments of Hammett’s kindness, his encouraging notes about her writing, his surprise gifts—a first edition
Père Goriot
, a jeweled nightingale hatpin, imported New Orleans gumbo—his
Here’s what you really have to know about people like Dash—and there’s only Dash, not people “like” him—who grow up piss-poor and unloved. They’re ashamed. Ashamed of what they come from, of who they are, and if they happen to be successful, ashamed of their talent and accomplishments. I do not suffer from those particular deprivations—there are others we can talk about later—but if you spent any serious time with Dash you couldn’t miss the symptoms of profound shame. No one else was ever allowed to spend any serious time with Dash but me. So you just have to take my word for it. The Flitcraft story is brilliant and it’s all Hammett.
. 4 .
Hatred
I T WASN ’ T THE FIRST TIME he’d humiliated her, or the second, or the fifth. This time, though, it was of longer duration and at a greater distance—she in New York, he in Hollywood; behind her back, it seemed to her. And more people appeared to know about it than ever before, making the sheer quantity of humiliation greater than it ever had been.
It took her the better part of three days to cover the United States, first by train and then by plane. Lilly had much time to cosy up to the humiliation, so quite naturally its effects ran deeper. Which bothered her more, she wondered, that he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants for two weeks or that so many people she disliked intensely now knew that the man she loved couldn’t—or wouldn’t—keep his dick in his pants? Lilly didn’t even need an hour to figure that one out. She’d been made into a laughingstock. The taste on her tongue was gall.
If Hammett wanted to fuck around, fine. No, not fine, but given the bastard’s track record, certainly not unexpected. What was exasperating, truly maddening, about this one was that he’d done it so publicly it was obviously meant to be deliberate. It was one thing, she explained to herself, to care about her as sincerely as she knew he did and still not be able to quell his need to be with other women, as pitiful as that need was. It was quite another to undo her just as she was poised for a great personal success. She tried to convince herself on the journey westward that, at least until she confronted him, she might be able to accept that Hammett loved her still but was simply bad Hammett being bad Hammett, boys’ll be boys … or some such bullshit.
Hadn’t she, after all, once gone to bed with men, a fairly wide variety of them, simply because the experience promised to be interesting and possibly more than that? Perhaps she wasn’t so different from him after all. She told herself this while avoiding the most important difference: she had flirted to the very brink of bedding but actually slept with no one—and certainly not her husband—since the night she met Dashiell Hammett. Sentimental as it may have sounded for the Hollywood of the early thirties, Lillian Hellman had finally chosen to be faithful.
Throughout the trip west she grudged and ruminated and found herself swinging back and forth emotionally—and strategically too, because she didn’t want to lose him over this. Her fury always triggered the same question: Whyshould it be different for him? Why did she feel as though this time something had broken within her that could not be repaired? And why for Christ’s sake couldn’t she even breathe right? She wanted to pummel him, scream obscenities at him, beat him down, and then kick him until she herself, exhausted, collapsed.
He really did not love her.
No sooner had she allowed herself to think the thought than she conjured up moments of Hammett’s kindness, his encouraging notes about her writing, his surprise gifts—a first edition
Père Goriot
, a jeweled nightingale hatpin, imported New Orleans gumbo—his
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