Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West Read Free Book Online Page A

animals, about country sounds and country smells and
of how fresh and clean everything in the country is. She said that he ought to
live there and that if he did, he would find that all his troubles were city
troubles.
    While she was talking, Shrike burst
into the room. He was drunk and immediately set up a great shout, as though he
believed that Miss Lonelyhearts was too near death to
hear distinctly. Betty left without saying good-by.
    Shrike had evidently caught some of
her farm talk, for he said: "My friend, I agree with Betty, you're an
escapist. But I do not agree that the soil is the proper method for you to
use."
    Miss Lonelyhearts turned his face to the wall and pulled up the covers. But Shrike was unescapable . He raised his voice and talked through the
blankets into the back of Miss Lonelyhearts ' head.
    "There are other methods, and
for your edification I shall describe them. But first let us do the escape to
the soil, as recommended by Betty:
    "You are fed up with the city
and its teeming millions. The ways and means of men, as getting and lending and
spending, you lay waste your inner world, are too much with you. The bus takes
too long, while the subway is always crowded. So what do you do? So you buy a
farm and walk behind your horse's moist behind, no collar or tie, plowing your
broad swift acres. As you turn up the rich black soil, the wind carries the
smell of pine and dung across the fields and the rhythm of an old, old work
enters your soul. To this rhythm, you sow and weep and chivy your kine , not kin or kind, between the pregnant rows of corn
and taters. Your step becomes the heavy sexual step of a dance-drunk Indian and
you tread the seed down into the female earth. You plant, not dragon's teeth,
but beans and greens...
    "Well, what do you say, my
friend, shall it be the soil?"
    Miss Lonelyhearts did not answer. He was thinking of how Shrike had accelerated his sickness by
teaching him to handle his one escape, Christ, with a thick glove of words.
    "I take your silence to mean
that you have decided against the soil. I agree with you. Such a life is too
dull and laborious. Let us now consider the South Seas:
    "You live in a thatch hut with
the daughter of the king, u slim young maiden in whose eyes is an ancient
wisdom. I Her breasts are golden speckled pears, her
belly a melon, and her odor is like nothing so much as a jungle fern. In the
evening, on the blue lagoon, under the silvery moon, to your love you croon in
the soft sylabelew and vocabelew of her langorour tongorour .
Your body is golden brown like hers, and tourists have need of the indignant
finger of the missionary to point you out. They envy you your breech clout and
carefree laugh and little brown bride and fingers instead of forks. But you
don't return their envy, and when a beautiful society girl comes to your hut in
the night, seeking to learn the secret of your happiness, you send her back to
her yacht that hangs on the horizon like a nervous racehorse. And so you dream
away the days, fishing, hunting, dancing, swimming, kissing, and picking
flowers to twine in your hair...
    "Well, my friend, what do you
think of the South Seas?" Miss Lonelyhearts tried to stop him by making believe that he was asleep. But Shrike was not
fooled.
    "Again silence," he said,
"and again you are right. The South Seas are played out and there's little
use in imitating Gauguin. But don't be discouraged, we have only scratched the
surface of our subject. Let us now examine Hedonism, or take the cash and let
the credit go...
    "You dedicate your life to the
pursuit of pleasure. No over-indulgence, mind you, but knowing that your body
is a pleasure machine, you treat it carefully in order
to get the most out of it. Golf as well as booze,
Philadelphia Jack O'Brien and his chest-weights as well as Spanish dancers. Nor do you neglect the pleasures of the mind. You fornicate under pictures by
Matisse and Picasso, you drink from Renaissance glassware, and often you