“Natalie,” he said, “I do not love my wife. She is so fat. I will take a thousand dollars and go away with you. Let who will make patent washing machines. Henceforth, I will only make love.”
Now this Natalie, you see, was a notable dumbbell and so she said nothing. All she thought was that a thousand dollars would take a lot of spending and she might as well go along.
IV
As you will remember, John Webster had begun to dislike his clothes. They were, you see, ready-made clothes. Hence one should not be surprised at the strange nightly ceremony begun in his room.
He set up a picture of the Virgin between two yellow candles. Then he undressed and walked naked up and down the room for hours at a time, thinking great thoughts.
“I used to be a dull clod. Now I am a shining nut. I am cracked and my shell is off. I am a lovely study in psychopathy.
“Why should I work, making uninteresting washing machines? I will become a writer. Among them I shall not be strange, for there are many nuts among the writers. They write books like this and get away with it. Many people will think this is a deep, philosophical book, that it throws a new and fierce light upon the problems of civilization. Whereas it is simply a medical document, a study of a certain common form of insanity.
“I will write books like this book, but they shall throw a fiercer light on the problems of civilization, for I will make my hero run naked in the streets. All nuts of this particular variety do that when they are fully ripe. My book will be a devastating book and it will have Sherwood Anderson and Krafft-Ebing faded.”
There he was, you see, John Webster, night after night, walking naked up and down his room, thinking great thoughts.