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Brazilian, whose name was José Ybarra-Jaegar: his mother was German. As a quartet, they struck an
unmusical note, primarily the fault of Ybarra-Jaegar, who seemed as out of place in their company as a
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violin in a jazz band. He was intelligent, he was presentable, he appeared to have a serious link with his
work, which was obscurely governmental, vaguely important, and took him to Washington several
days a week. How, then, could he survive night after night in La Rue, El Morocco, listening to the
Wildwood ch-ch-chatter and staring into Rusty's raw baby-buttocks face? Perhaps, like most of us in a
foreign country, he was incapable of placing people, selecting a frame for their picture, as he would at
home; therefore all Americans had to be judged in a pretty equal light, and on this basis his
companions appeared to be tolerable examples of local color and national character. That would
explain much; Holly's determination explains the rest.
Late one afternoon, while waiting for a Fifth Avenue bus, I noticed a taxi stop across the street to let
out a girl who ran up the steps of the Forty-second Street public library. She was through the doors
before I recognized her, which was pardonable, for Holly and libraries were not an easy association to
make. I let curiosity guide me between the lions, debating on the way whether I should admit following
her or pretend coincidence. In the end I did neither, but concealed myself some tables away from her
in the general reading room, where she sat behind her dark glasses and a fortress of literature she'd
gathered at the desk. She sped from one book to the next, intermittently lingering on a page, always
with a frown, as if it, were printed upside down. She had a pencil poised above paper  nothing
seemed to catch her fancy, still now and then, as though for the hell of it, she made laborious
scribblings. Watching her, I remembered a girl I'd known in school, a grind, Mildred Grossman.
Mildred: with her moist hair and greasy spectacles, her stained fingers that dissected frogs and carried
20 coffee to picket lines, her flat eyes that only turned toward the stars to estimate their chemical tonnage.
Earth and air could not be more opposite than Mildred and Holly, yet in my head they acquired a
Siamese twin ship, and the thread of thought that had sewn them together ran like this: the average
personality reshapes frequently, every few years even our bodies undergo a complete overhaul 
desirable or not, it is a natural thing that we should change. All right, here were two people who never
would. That is what Mildred Grossman had in common with Holly Golightly. They would never
change because they'd been given their character too soon; which, like sudden riches, leads to a lack of
proportion: the one had splurged herself into a top-heavy realist, the other a lopsided romantic. I
imagined them in a restaurant of the future, Mildred still studying the menu for its nutritional values,
Holly still gluttonous for everything on it. It would never be different. They would walk through life
and out of it with the same determined step that took small notice of those cliffs at the left. Such
profound observations made me forget where I was; I came to, startled to find myself in the gloom of
the library, and surprised all over again to see Holly there. It was after seven, she was freshening her
lipstick and perking up her appearance from what she deemed correct for a library to what, by adding
a bit of scarf, some earrings, she considered suitable for the Colony. When she'd left, I wandered over
to the table where her books remained; they were what I had wanted to see. South by Thunderbird. Byways
of Brazil. The Political Mind of Latin America. And so forth.
www.franklang.ru
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BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY S
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY S
On Christmas Eve she and Mag gave a party. Holly asked me to come early and help trim the tree. I'm
still not sure how they maneuvered that tree into the apartment. The top branches were crushed
against the ceiling, the lower ones spread wall-to-wall; altogether it was not unlike the yulelide giant we
see in Rockefeller Plaza. Moreover, it would have taken a Rockefeller lo decorate it, for it soaked up
baubles and tinsel like melting snow. Holly suggested she run out to Woolworth's and steal some
balloons; she did: and they turned the tree into a fairly good show. We made a toast to our work, and
Holly said: "Look in the bedroom. There's a present for you."
I had one for her, too: a small package in my pocket that felt even smaller when I saw, square on the
bed and wrapped with a red ribbon, the beautiful bird cage.
"But, Holly! It's dreadful!"
"I couldn't agree more; but I thought you wanted it."
"The money! Three hundred and fifty dollars!"
She shrugged. "A few extra trips to the powder room. Promise me, though. Promise you'll never put a
living thing in it."
I started to kiss her, but she held out her hand. "Gimme," she said, tapping the bulge in my pocket.
"I'm afraid it isn't much," audit wasn't: a St. Christopher's medal. But at least it came from Tiffany's.
Holly was not a girl who could keep anything, and surely by now she has lost that medal, left it in a
suitcase or some hotel drawer. Rut the bird cage is still mine. I've lugged it to New Orleans, Nantucket,
20 all over Europe, Morocco, the West Indies. Yet I seldom remember that it was Holly who gave it to me,
because at one point I chose to forget: we had a big falling-out, and among the objects rotating in the
eye of our hurricane were the bird cage and O. J. Berman and my story, a copy of which I'd given Holly
when it appeared in the university review.
Sometime in February, Holly had gone on a winter trip with Rusty, Mag and José Ybarra-Jaegar. Our
altercation happened soon after she returned. She was brown as iodine, her hair was sun-bleached to a
ghost-color, she'd had a wonderful time: "Well, first of all we were in Key West, and Rusty got mad at
some sailors, or vice versa, anyway he'll have to wear a spine brace the rest of his life. Dearest Mag
ended up in the hospital, too. First-degree sunburn. Disgusting: all blisters and citronella. We couldn't
stand the smell of her. So José and I left them in the hospital and went to Havana. He says wait till I see
Rio; but as far as I'm concerned Havana can take my money right now. We had an irresistible guide,
most of him Negro and the rest of him Chinese, and while I don't go much for one or the other, the
combination was fairly riveting: so I let him play kneesie under the table, because frankly I didn't find
him at all banal; but then one night he took us to a blue movie, and what do you suppose? There he was
on the screen. Of course when we got back to Key West, Mag was positive I'd spent the whole time
sleeping with José. So was Rusty: but he doesn't care about that, he simply wants to hear the details.
Actually, things were pretty tense until I had a heart-to-heart with Mag."
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We were in the front room, where, (hough it was now nearly March, the enormous Christmas tree,
turned brown and scentless, its balloons shriveled as an old cow's dugs, still occupied most of the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]