The Symbol [antikvár]

But there were men to whom Wanda Oliver was all too attainable men who tried to turn a dream of sexual paradise into reality , . . men like Tom, the sailor who took her when she was just starting out Buck, the famous athlete who found love wasn't enough . . . Calvin, the artist who found intelligence wasn't enough Luke, who found brute force wasn't enough Helmut, who found that sensual expertise wasn't enough and all the others It was no trick to have Wanda Oliver. But it was impossible to save her. MONOLOGUE [MARCH 1, 1957] I know it is a commonplace story but nobody can criticize me any more. That seems to be the story of my life, if you know what I mean: people were always telling me, Don't be like that . . . That's not nice . . . You'll never amount to anything . Who are you anyhow? Don't drink . . . Don't smoke . . . Go to church . . . You're lucky to have a person like me taking care of you, people always said. An awful lot of people have taken care of me in one way or another and I suppose you should be charitable; they probably meant well and I have enough experience in therapy how to know that even if people seem to be evil, most of them are not. There are really very few really evil people in the world; they're just mistaken or neurotic and they do the best they can. Dr. Rubenstein told me: You have got to learn to love your parents; you can't block them out of your memory the way you have; it may seem to you today that you hate them, but you could not hate them if you had not loved them, because love and hate are really two sides of the same coin. So, he said (he's an awfully nice man; he has the kindest, saddest big eyes, like a dog really, like a basset hound—you could go swimming in his eyes), before you will be able to handle yourself you have got to resurrect your father and mother and really love them; then you'll be able to love yourself, and then you'll be able to love other people. God knows I tried to love them even before he told me to. I've tried for almost thirty years but it's very hard for a person like me who's not really a Big Person, but a very little person. I mean, it was hard for me to forgive (let alone love) my father, who ran away from my mother when I was born, or maybe even before (I never got that straight). It was hard to forgive them both for not being 7