But to be deprived of her, my first love. No longer to be in her presence, no longer to watch her quiet smile, the lovely droop of her mouth's corner ... to feed on the kisses no more that had become as necessary as daily bread itself to me—
I began to lose weight ... to start up in the night, after a brief fit of false slumber, hearing myself, as if it were an alien voice, crying her name aloud....
I whispered and talked tender, whimsical, silly things to my pillow, holding it in my arms, as if it were she....
Each day I sent her four, five letters ... letters full of madness, absurdity, love, despair, wild expressions of intimacy that I would Have died to know anybody else ever saw.
Her first letter in return burned me alive with happiness....
"—you know why she went to the city," Penton teased, "it's because 'Gene Mallows, the California poet, is up there. He and she got on pretty well when we were on the coast."
"You lie!" I bellowed, beside myself, "Hildreth will be faithful to me ... she has promised."