The Dream Life of Balso Snell by Nathanael West Read Free Book Online Page A

myself.
     
    You see me come out of the café, laughing and waving my arms.
     
    I hope he comes upstairs.
     
    You see me turn, and come towards the hotel.
     
    Just as soon as he comes in I’ll tell him I’m pregnant. I’ll tell him in, a matter-of-fact voice—casually. As long as I keep my tone casual he won’t be able to laugh.
    “Hello darling, how are you this morning?”
    “All right. Beagle, je suis enceinte.”
    “You’re what?”
    [Oh, damn my pronunciation, I spoilt it.] “I’m pregnant.” Despite your desire to appear casual you let a note of heartbreak into your voice. You droop.
    “We’ll have a party tonight and celebrate.” I leave the room, shutting the door behind me, carefully.
    Perhaps he’ll never come back…You run to the window—sick. You sit down and prepare to indulge your misery. Your misery, your misery—you roll, you grovel in it. I’m pregnant! I’m pregnant! I’m pregnant! You force the rhythm of this cry into your blood. After the first moments of hysterical anguish are over, you wrap your predicament around you, snuggling into it, letting it cover you completely like a blanket. Your big trouble shelters you from a host of minor troubles. You are so miserable.
    You remember that “life is a prison without bars,” and think of suicide.
    No one ever listens to me when I talk of suicide. The night I woke up in bed with him, it was no different. He thought I was joking when I said that I had frightened myself by brooding on death. But I told the truth. Death and suicide are never far from my thoughts. I said that death is like putting on a wet bathing suit. Now death seems warm and friendly. No, death is still like putting on a wet suit—shivery.
    If I do it, I won’t leave a note behind for him to laugh at. Just end it, that’s all. No matter how I word a farewell note he will find something to laugh at—something to show his friends as a joke…
    Mother knows I’m living with a man in Paris. Sophie wrote that everybody is talking about me. If I were to go home—even if I were not pregnant—mother would make an awful stink. I don’t want to go back to the States: a long dull trip followed by a long dull life teaching elementary school.
    What can I expect from him? He’ll want me to have an abortion. They say that on account of the decreasing birth rate it is hard to get a competent doctor to do the operation. The French police are very strict. If the doctor killed me…
    If I kill myself, I kill my body. I don’t want to destroy my body; it is a good body—soft, white, and kind to me—a beautiful, happy body. If he were a true poet he would love me for my body’s beauty; but he is like all men; he wants only one thing. Soon my body will be swollen and clumsy. The milk spoils the shape of a woman’s breasts after an abortion. When my body becomes ugly, he will hate me. I once hoped that having a child would draw him closer to me—make him love me as a mother. But mother for him is always Mammy: a popular Broadway ballad, Mammy, Mammy, my old Kentucky Home, put it all together, it spells Mother. He doesn’t see that Mother can mean shelter, love, intimacy. Oh, how much I want, I need, love.
    If I wanted to make a squawk, mother would force him to marry me; but she would scold terribly and make a horrible scene. I’m too tired and sick to go through with a shotgun wedding.
    Maybe I passed my period because of the wine—no, I know. Where did I read, “In my belly there is a tangled forest of arms and legs.” It sounds like his stuff. When he left, he said he’d give a party tonight in honor of the occasion. I know what kind of a party it will be. He’ll get drunk and make a speech: “Big with child, great with young—let me toast your gut, my dear. Here’s to the pup! Waiters, stand erect while I toast my heir.” He and his friends will expect me to join in the sport—to be a good sport.
    He claims that the only place to commit suicide is on Chekov’s