Ida a Novel (31 page)

What had Fred Anday done all his life.

A novel is what you dream in your night sleep. A novel is not waking thoughts although it is written and thought with waking thoughts. But really a novel goes as dreams go in sleeping at night and some dreams are like anything and some dreams are like something and some dreams change and some dreams are quiet and some dreams are not. And some dreams are just what anyone would do only a little different always just a little different and that is what a novel is.

And this is what a novel is.

Fred Anneday all his life had loved not only one woman not only one thing not only managing everything, not only being troubled so that he could not sleep, not only his mother and religion, not only being the oldest and nevertheless always young enough, not only all this but all his life he had loved superstition and he was right.

He had a great deal to do with everything. This was not only because he was one and the eldest of a very large family which he was but it was because he did have a great deal to do with anything.

One of his friends was Brim Beauvais but he met him later later even than when he loved the only woman whom he ever loved and who was larger and older. And he did not meet Brim Beauvais through her although he might have. It made him think of nightingales. Everything made him think of nightingales and express these thoughts.

If any one is the youngest of seven children and likes it he does not care to hear about birth control because supposing he had not been. If one is the eldest of eight children and likes it he too does not care to hear about birth control but then any one knowing him would know what he would say if any one asked him.

If anyone is an only child and likes it well then he is an only child and likes it as men or women, or as children. And they may or may not like birth control. There you are that is the answer and even superstition is not always necessary. But really it is. Of course really it is.

Fred Anneday loved a woman and it made all the difference in his life not only that but that he continued to have a great deal to do with everything only it worried him less that is to say not at all and he slept well, that is after he had found that he loved this woman.

Oh Fred Anneday how many things have happened, more than you can say. And Brim Beauvais how many things have happened to Brim Beauvais. Not so many although he thought as many did. And this goes to show how many have told how many so. And this was because Brim Beauvais did not have to count for superstition. Which is a mistake.

Fred Annday was not tall he changed and his forehead was high. And he changed.

Brim Beauvais was fat that is to say he grew fatter which was not fair as he had been very good looking when he was thin.

Fred Anday loved one woman and she had had a strange thing happen. Not that he loved her for that but it was that which brought them together.

Listen it is very strange. But first how long has Anday lived. About thirty-eight years. And how was he feeling then. Very badly because he was very nervous and did not sleep and his mother was older and thinner and active and wore a wig but bowed as he did.

The woman that he loved was not at all like that although some men love to love a woman who might have looked like their mother if she had looked like that.

There had been a great many women in the life of Fred Anday before he loved the only woman whom he ever loved. First there was his mother.

If there where they lived there had been a mother’s day she would have celebrated it eight times and Fred Anday the eldest always would have been there. He would have taken care that he was there with her to celebrate it with and for her.

What does he say and what does she say or what does she say and what does he say.

Another man was Enoch Mariner and he had a beard and violet eyes and stood and looked at one place any time a long time.

He said to her to the mother of Fred you are sixty but if everything is alright and it is it is not too late to take a lover. Did she Mrs. Anneday think he meant her. He certainly did and said so. But nobody knew because she never told and besides her sister had just died. This did not interest Enoch Mariner. Enoch Mariner was about forty-one years old at that time.

So now there are three men and there are also more than as many women and there had been as many children.

Fred Annday had no child nor did most of his sisters and his brothers. One had a child just one and only had one child just one.

Brim Beauvais never had a child. His sister had.

Enoch Mariner never had a child and he had no brothers and no sisters to have one.

So there you have a great many things that happened and remember what a novel is it is just that.

And now everyone wishes to see any one see the family Annday although a great many were very cross about them. They thought they exaggerated being what they were and that everybody had to say or do something about Fred Annday. Which once he loved the only woman he ever loved slowly nobody did. And this in a way ceased to be exciting. But the way it came about was very exciting as exciting as Dillinger and almost as many knew about it that is if you remember the size of their town and country.
²

A Motto.

How could it be a little whatever he liked.

Chapter II

It is impossible perfectly impossible to mention everybody with whom Anday had something to do. And why. Because there are so many of them. This is true of everyone and therefore that is not what a novel is. A novel is like a dream at night where in spite of everything happening anyone comes to know relatively few persons. And superstition. Superstition does not come in in dreaming. But in waking oh yes in waking and being waking oh yes it is nothing but superstition. And that is right. That is the way it should be. And anybody likes what they like and anybody likes superstition and so did Fred Anday and the only woman he loved but not in the same way. She was not superstitious in his way and he was not superstitious in her way. But he was right right to be superstitious. Oh yes he was.

What is superstition.

Superstition is believing that something means anything and that anything means something and that each thing means a particular thing and will mean a particular thing is coming. Oh yes it does.

Fred Annday had been superstitious as a little boy. Which of course he had not better not.

Brim Beauvais was superstitious but it moved slowly and as well as not he was not.

Enoch Mariner was superstitious and if he was nobody came to ask him to like it. He liked whatever he did or did not like. He was not very alike. And he made no reference to a wound in his stomach which he had had.

And in this town was a hotel and this at any rate is so. In this town there was a hotel and there was a hotel keeper and his wife and his four children three boys and a girl and his mother and his father and his maiden sister and a governess for the daughter and a woman who helped manage everything and she was a sister of Fred Annday. She came very near being older than Fred only she was not although she felt herself to be in spite of the fact that she had an older sister who still was not older but younger than Fred for Fred after all was the older. Any superstition will help. And it did. He was the eldest and he was older. He knew to a day how he came to be there to stay.

It is not at all confusing to live every day and to meet everyone not at all confusing but to tell anyone yes it is confusing even if only telling it to anyone how you lived anyone day and met everybody all of that day. And now what more can one do than that.

And doing more than that is this.

A Motto.

Once. It is always excited to say twice.

He came twice and she coughed.

Chapter III

Now I need no reason to wonder if he went to say farewell. But he never did. Fred Anday never said farewell to anyone in a day no one ever does because everyone sees everyone every day which is a natural way for a day to be. Think of any village town or city or desert island or country house or anything. Of course no dream is like that because after all there has to be all day to be like that. And all day is like that. And there cannot be a novel like that because it is too confusing written down if it is like that so a novel is like a dream when it is not like that.

But what is this yes what is this. It is this.

Now having gotten a little tired of Fred Anday but not of Mariner let us begin with the hotel and the hotel keeper. Everybody can go on talking about Fred Anday at any time. When two or three or ten people are together and you ask them what are they talking about they say oh about Fred Anday and some people are like that. They just naturally are the subject of discussion although everybody has said everything about that one and yet once again everybody begins again. What is the mystery of Fred Anday. Any conversation about him is a conversation about him. That is the way it is. Does he know it. Well I do not know that he does. And if he does it does not add to his superstitions. And about that he is right it does not add to his superstitions.

How could Enoch Mariner have loved more than one woman, of course he did and could. He could even very well remember asking the first woman he asked to marry him. Not only he remembered but also everybody who saw the letter and quite a few did see it because the girl proposed to was so surprised that she had to show it to several of her friends to help her bear it.

She was going to be a school teacher and she and Enoch had met once. He sat down the next day so he said in his letter and took off his coat and he got all ready and he wrote her this letter. He said he knew she would not say yes but she would if he had said all he had to say. And he did say all he had to say and she said no. That is the way life began for Enoch and many years later anyone would have married him but he was a bachelor and he had a beard and he walked well and he always proposed to anyone to be their lover but was he, this nobody knows.

See how very well Fred Anday might have come to know him but as a matter of fact did he I am not at all sure that he did. And if one were to ask Fred Anday, he would not remember.

A Motto.

Pens by hens.

Chapter III

Slowly he felt as he did.

So many things happen that nobody knows that it is necessary to say that he was right to have his superstitions. Of course he is. What is the use of knowing what has happened if one is not to know what is to happen. But of course one is to know what is to happen because it does. Not like it might but might it not happen as it does of course it does. And Anday Fred Anday is never in tears. Not in consequence but never in tears.

And yet Fred Anday could be treated as if he should be in tears but he was not because he had other things. He always did have other things even when it was not true that he slept.

And best of all he knew how he did. He did it very well. And because of this they knew how to say so.

Every one said Anday was not like a hill or like a ball. They said he was not well to do but he had everything to do and he did everything. Nobody could look better than best at that.

For how many reasons was Anday loved or if not loved. Just for how many reasons. Anybody can and could tell just for how many reasons.

And just for how many reasons is a chinaman loved if he comes from Indo China. Just for how many reasons.

Just for how many reasons is everybody loved or please just for how many reasons. Best of all let this be an introduction to how they feel when they do not remember anybody’s first name.

One remembers only the names one has heard.

Motto.

Why should he go with him when he stays here for him.

Chapter IV

Do not bother. Do not bother about a story oh do not bother. Inevitably one has to know how a story ends even if it does not. Fred Annday’s story does not end but that is because there is no more interest in it. And in a way yes in a way that is yes that is always so. I can tell this story as I go. I like to tell a story so.

Anybody will have to learn that novels are like that.

Nassau Lit
94.2 (Dec. 1935): 6–8, 24–26;
HWW
24–30

Ida

(1938)

Chapter I

Ida is her name.

She was thinking about it she was thinking about life. She knew it was just like that through and through.

She never did want to leave it.

She did not stop thinking about it thinking about life, so that is what she was thinking about. She was thinking about how she was feeling and what the people all over everywhere on the earth were doing. How could she not think about it when every day she knew what she was feeling at least she thought she did and every day she knew what everybody everywhere was doing, anyway they told her she did and she did.

You might as well just as well call her Bessie as call her Ida and if nobody likes that you might call her Emily.
¹
Perhaps Henrietta might be better because you can say Henrietta wont let her. But now let’s be serious as ever is and her name is Ida, dear Ida. Somebody says that she is dead now and adored and loves everybody and somebody else likes to have it said again, dear Ida.