“Lawrence tried to tell about it,” I said. “But I could not follow him because there was so much cerebral mysticism. I never believed he had slept with an Indian girl. Nor even touched one. He was a sensitive journalist sightseeing in Indian country and he had hatreds and theories and prejudices. Also he could write beautifully. But it was necessary for him, after a time, to become angry to write. He had done some things perfectly and he was at the point of discovering something most people do not know when he began to have so many theories.”
“I follow it pretty well,” Miss Mary said, “but what does it have to do with the Shamba? I like your fiancée very much because she is a lot like me and I think she’d be a valuable extra wife if you need one. But you don’t have to justify her by some writer. Which Lawrence were you talking about, D.H. or T.E.?”
“OK,” I said. “I think you make very good sense and I’ll read Simenon.”
“Why don’t you go to the Shamba and try living there in the rain?”
“I like it here,” I said.
“She’s a nice girl,” Miss Mary said. “And she may think it’s not very genteel of you to not turn up when it rains.”
“Want to make peace?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Good. I won’t talk balls about Lawrence and dark mysteries and we’ll stay here in the rain and the hell with the Shamba. I don’t think Lawrence would like the Shamba too much anyway.”
“Did he like to hunt?”
“No. But that’s nothing against him, thank God.”
“Your girl wouldn’t like him then.”
“I don’t think she would. But thank God that’s nothing against him either.”
“Did you ever know him?”
“No. I saw him and his wife once in the rain outside of Sylvia Beach’s book shop in the Rue de l’Odéon. They were looking in the window and talking but they didn’t go in. His wife was a big woman in tweeds and he was small in a big overcoat with a beard and very bright eyes. He didn’t look well and I did not like to see him getting wet. It was warm and pleasant inside Sylvia’s.”
“I wonder why they didn’t go in?”
“I don’t know. That was before people spoke to people they did not know and long before people asked people for autographs.”
“How did you recognize him?”
“There was a picture of him in the shop behind the stove. I admired a book of stories he wrote called
“Anybody who can write ought to be able to write about Italy.”
“They should. But it’s difficult even for Italians. More difficult for them than for anyone. If an Italian writes at all well about Italy he is a phenomenon. Stendhal wrote the best about Milan.”
“The other day you said all writers were crazies and today you say they’re all liars.”
“Did I say they were all crazies?”
“Yes, you and G.C. both said it.”
“Was Pop here?”
“Yes. He said all Game Wardens were crazy and so were all White Hunters and the White Hunters had been driven crazy by the Game Wardens and the writers and by motor vehicles.”
“Pop is always right.”
“He told me never to mind about you and G.C. because you were both crazy.”
“We are,” I said. “But you mustn’t tell outsiders.”
“But you don’t really mean all writers are crazy?”
“Only the good ones.”
“But you got angry when that man wrote a book about how you were crazy.”
“Yes, because he did not know about it nor how it worked. Just as he knew nothing about writing.”
“It’s awfully complicated,” Miss Mary said.
“I won’t try to explain it. I’ll try to write something to show you how it works.”
So I sat for a while and reread