Journey by Moonlight

“You are the first European I’ve met who really understood me intellectually,” she said. “The others were so dull, and took no interest in art.”

He had won her complete confidence. By evening he had gleaned everything there was to know about her, not that there was anything worth knowing.

That evening they met Ellesley at the café. The doctor was quite surprised that the girl was still in Foligno.

“You know, I decided I can’t always be thinking about problems of art,” she told him. “A doctor friend of mine said that prolonged intensive study is bad for the skin. Isn’t that so? Anyway I decided to switch myself off for a bit. I’m giving myself an intellectual holiday. Your friend has such a calming influence on me. Such a kindly, simple, harmonious soul, don’t you think?”

Ellesley noted with resignation that his patient was courting the American girl, and grew even quieter. For he was still very attracted to Millicent. She was so different from Italian women. Only the Anglo-Saxon type can be so clean, so innocent. Millicent — innocent: what a splendid rhyme that would have been, if he had been a poet. But no matter. The main thing was that this heaven-sent delight was doing visible good to his dear Hungarian patient.

The next day Mihály and the girl went for a long walk. They ate their fill of pasta in a modest village tavern, then lay down in a classical-looking wood and slept. When they awoke, Millicent observed:

“There’s an Italian painter who painted trees just like these. What was his name?”

“Botticelli,” replied Mihály, and kissed her.

“Ooooh,” she said, with horror on her face. Then she kissed him back.

Now that he held the girl between his arms, Mihály decided happily that she did not disappoint. Her body was as elastic as rubber. Oh the ‘foreign woman’ made flesh — how much she means to the man whose passion pursues fantasy and not physiological fact! The pleasure of the preliminary and quite innocent kiss suggested that every detail of Millicent’s body would prove foreign, other, wonderful. Her healthy mouth was entirely American (Oh, the prairies!), the little hairs on her neck were foreign, the caresses of her large strong hands, the transcendent cleanliness of her well-scrubbed body (Oh Missouri-Mississippi, North against South, and the blue Pacific Ocean!) …

“Geography is my most potent aphrodisiac,” he thought to himself.

But in the evening a letter was waiting for Millicent at the post-office, forwarded from Perugia. It was from a Miss Rebecca Dwarf, Professor of Medieval Art History at the University of Cambridge (Mass.), Millicent’s tutor and chief spiritual adviser. Over dinner Millicent tearfully explained that Miss Dwarf was very satisfied with her previous letter in which she had spoken about the progress of her studies, but deemed it absolutely essential that she should now travel forthwith to Siena, to see the famous Primitives.

“But it was so good to be with you, Mike,” she sniffled, and put her hand in his.

“So you must go without fail to Siena?”

“Of course. If Miss Dwarf says in her letter … ”

“To hell with the old cow,” Mihály broke in. “Look, Millicent, listen to me. Don’t go and see the Siena Primitives. The Siena Primitives are probably almost identical to the Umbrian Primitives you saw in Perugia. And anyway, does it really matter whether you see ten pictures more or less?”

Millicent looked at him in astonishment and withdrew her hand. “But Mike, how can you talk like that? I really thought you felt so strongly about painting, for a European.” And she turned away.

Mihály saw that he had struck the wrong note. He was obliged to go back to the stupid type of voice. But he could not think of stupid arguments with which to reason with her. He tried sentimentality.

“But I shall miss you terribly if you go now. Perhaps we’ll never meet again in this life.”

“Sure,” said Millicent. “I’ll miss you horribly too. And I’ve already written to Philadelphia, to Doris and Ann Mary, telling them how wonderfully well you understand me. And now we have to part.”

“But stay here.”

“That isn’t possible. But you come with me to Siena. You’re not really doing anything here.”

“That’s true. I could leave what I’m doing here.”

“Then why not come?”

After some hesitation, he confessed:

“Because I haven’t any money.”

Which was true. By now his money was almost entirely spent. It had gone on the few decent items of clothing he had bought the day before, out of respect for Millicent, and on buying her meals, which were very substantial and extremely well-chosen. True, it would be gone in a day or two even if he stayed in Foligno … but if you stay in one place you don’t feel the lack of money as much as when you are travelling.

“You’ve no money?” she asked. “How’s that?”

“It’s run out,” he said with a smile.

“And your parents don’t send you any?”

“Oh yes. They’ll send some. When I write to them.”

“Now look. Until then I’ll make you a loan.” And she took out her cheque book. “How much do you need? Will five hundred dollars be enough?”