P.S. (to P.A. from P.W.)

P.A. gripped the frames of his spectacles, wavering between the urge to crush them and to slip them into his inside pocket. Portable windows, he called them and laughingly imagined replacing the lenses with stained shards stolen from the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. It would lend me, he would tell his friends, a more colorful imagination. He took out a pen to jot down the thought, but the weight of the gold-tipped fountain pen (a gift from a female admirer) was suddenly more than he could bear, and besides, he had no paper. Waiter, he called, bring me another slivovitz. It was his fifth of the afternoon. Another could not hurt and perhaps it would loosen the tightness he felt in his brain. In a dream the night before, he had witnessed the digging of the Erie Canal, watched nubile young girls obliged to ride naked and bareback on Indian elephants drawing barges behind. He awakened to the frightening spectacle of their revolt, girls and elephants charging at him out of his sweat-soaked pillow. Waiter, he called, bring me a sheet of paper. I want to note down how curious it is to feel the flesh of nonexistent women. The waiter shook his head and smiled, accustomed to the habits of the poet.

P.W.