I have seen stranger things.
At any rate, the war intervened, and Marvin, as a naval officer on the staff of the admiral in command of the Eastern Sea Frontierâa position that his father, unknown to him, had wangled for himâspent four years at a desk at 90 Church Street in New York. He put in again and again for sea duty, but his work was good and the admiral wouldn't let him go, and Marvin suffered all the pangs of the noncombatant as his classmates departed for combat zones, some never to return.
His sense of isolation was rendered much worse by the loss of both his parents during the war, his father first of heart failure and his mother a year later, at only sixty, from ovarian cancer. Stationed in New York, he was at least able to be at her bedside at the end, which she faced with all the charm that had characterized her life.
"Dear child," she said, holding his hand in both of hers and shaking her head sadly at the sound of his sobs, "you must try not to grieve so hard. I've had a lovely life and done all the things I wanted to do, and I don't think I'm really missing too much in missing old age. Some women age wonderfully, but others become old crones. You wouldn't want your ma to be that, would you? But I worry about you, dear boy. Your sisters are all married and taken care of. You must promise me to try to find yourself a nice girl. Wherever I am, if I'm anywhere, I'll help her to watch over you."
Peace found Marvin rich but homeless and alone. Meadowview, devised not only to him but to his sisters, had been sold, at their insistence, and was now a golf club. He had wanted to keep it, but he had had to acknowledge that it would have been absurdly large as the residence of a single man who had no interest in entertaining or giving house parties. Besides, it was too evocative of his mother, whom he was going to have to learn to live without.
He had little idea what to do with the dreary gap of life that remained to him. He had finished one year of law school before being called into the navy, but he had found it a dry field, where words were used so differently from the romantic literature in which he reveled, and he had no desire to return to it. There was Wall Street, with its banks and financial houses with plenty of openings for one with his capital, but their sole purpose, so far as he could see, was to make money, and money he already had. His classmates were engaged in reconstructing marriages formed before the war or entering into new ones, but he continued to feel that his disastrous experience with Barbara foreclosed that solution to his loneliness. Would he end up as one of those perennial bachelors, the friend and confidant of both husbands and wives, the recipient of conjugal complaints, the constant single guest at holiday dinners, the godfather to a multitude of godchildren? Heaven forbid!
In the meantime, anyway, there was the narcotic of travel. Spending a year seeing the world might widen the area of possible careers to choose. Early in 1947 he flew to Italy, which he toured from Milan to Naples, ending in Florence, where he decided to remain for an indefinite number of months. He suggested to me that the presence there of Michelangelo's nude
David
and Cellini's
Perseus
and the cult in art of the unclad male, with an infinity of arrow-pierced Saint Sebastians, may have had something to do with his choice, but he insisted that this was not a conscious motivation at the time. He rented a studio apartment overlooking the Arno and set himself up as an amateur painter. It was at least an occupation that could explain his choice of temporary residence to his critical but loving and constantly inquiring sisters.
For his next crisis I return to my tape.
I went every night for a cocktail at the rectangular bar at the Hotel Excelsior, which was a favorite meeting place for many young American expatriates, including writers, painters, sculptors, and more or less disreputable idlers. A regular
At any rate, the war intervened, and Marvin, as a naval officer on the staff of the admiral in command of the Eastern Sea Frontierâa position that his father, unknown to him, had wangled for himâspent four years at a desk at 90 Church Street in New York. He put in again and again for sea duty, but his work was good and the admiral wouldn't let him go, and Marvin suffered all the pangs of the noncombatant as his classmates departed for combat zones, some never to return.
His sense of isolation was rendered much worse by the loss of both his parents during the war, his father first of heart failure and his mother a year later, at only sixty, from ovarian cancer. Stationed in New York, he was at least able to be at her bedside at the end, which she faced with all the charm that had characterized her life.
"Dear child," she said, holding his hand in both of hers and shaking her head sadly at the sound of his sobs, "you must try not to grieve so hard. I've had a lovely life and done all the things I wanted to do, and I don't think I'm really missing too much in missing old age. Some women age wonderfully, but others become old crones. You wouldn't want your ma to be that, would you? But I worry about you, dear boy. Your sisters are all married and taken care of. You must promise me to try to find yourself a nice girl. Wherever I am, if I'm anywhere, I'll help her to watch over you."
Peace found Marvin rich but homeless and alone. Meadowview, devised not only to him but to his sisters, had been sold, at their insistence, and was now a golf club. He had wanted to keep it, but he had had to acknowledge that it would have been absurdly large as the residence of a single man who had no interest in entertaining or giving house parties. Besides, it was too evocative of his mother, whom he was going to have to learn to live without.
He had little idea what to do with the dreary gap of life that remained to him. He had finished one year of law school before being called into the navy, but he had found it a dry field, where words were used so differently from the romantic literature in which he reveled, and he had no desire to return to it. There was Wall Street, with its banks and financial houses with plenty of openings for one with his capital, but their sole purpose, so far as he could see, was to make money, and money he already had. His classmates were engaged in reconstructing marriages formed before the war or entering into new ones, but he continued to feel that his disastrous experience with Barbara foreclosed that solution to his loneliness. Would he end up as one of those perennial bachelors, the friend and confidant of both husbands and wives, the recipient of conjugal complaints, the constant single guest at holiday dinners, the godfather to a multitude of godchildren? Heaven forbid!
In the meantime, anyway, there was the narcotic of travel. Spending a year seeing the world might widen the area of possible careers to choose. Early in 1947 he flew to Italy, which he toured from Milan to Naples, ending in Florence, where he decided to remain for an indefinite number of months. He suggested to me that the presence there of Michelangelo's nude
David
and Cellini's
Perseus
and the cult in art of the unclad male, with an infinity of arrow-pierced Saint Sebastians, may have had something to do with his choice, but he insisted that this was not a conscious motivation at the time. He rented a studio apartment overlooking the Arno and set himself up as an amateur painter. It was at least an occupation that could explain his choice of temporary residence to his critical but loving and constantly inquiring sisters.
For his next crisis I return to my tape.
I went every night for a cocktail at the rectangular bar at the Hotel Excelsior, which was a favorite meeting place for many young American expatriates, including writers, painters, sculptors, and more or less disreputable idlers. A regular
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