Miss Lonelyhearts (11 page)

By the time they arrived at her
house, they were discussing their life after marriage.
Where
they would live and in how many rooms.
Whether they
could afford to have the child.
How they would rehabilitate the farm in
Connecticut. What kind of furniture they both liked.

She agreed to have the child. He won
that point. In return, he agreed to see Bill
Wheelright
about a job. With a great deal of laughter, they decided to have three beds in
their bedroom. Twin beds for sleep, very prim and puritanical, and between them
a love bed, an ornate double bed with cupids, nymphs and Pans.

He did not feel guilty. He did not
feel. The rock was a solidification of his feeling, his conscience, his sense
of reality, his self-knowledge. He could have planned anything.
A castle in Spain and love on a balcony or a pirate trip and love
on a tropical island.

When her door closed behind him, he
smiled. The rock had been thoroughly tested and had been found perfect. He had
only to climb aboard the bed again.

After a long night and morning,
towards noon, Miss
Lonelyhearts
welcomed the arrival
of fever. It promised heat and mentally unmotivated violence. The promise was
soon fulfilled; the rock became a furnace.

He fastened his eyes on the Christ
that hung on the wall opposite his bed. As he stared at it, it became a bright
fly, spinning with quick grace on a background of blood velvet sprinkled with
tiny nerve stars.139

Everything else in the room was
dead--chairs, table, pencils, clothes, books. He thought of this black world of
things as a fish. And he was right, for it suddenly rose to the bright bait on
the wall. It rose with a splash of music and he saw its shining silver belly.

Christ is life and light.

"Christ! Christ!" This
shout echoed through the innermost cells of his body.

He moved his head to a cooler spot
on the pillow and the vein in his forehead became less swollen. He felt clean
and fresh. His heart was a rose and in his skull another rose bloomed.

The room was full of grace.
A sweet, clean grace, not washed clean, but clean
as the
inner sides of the inner petals of a newly forced rosebud.

Delight was also in the room. It was
like a gentle wind, and his nerves rippled under it like small blue flowers in
a pasture.

He was conscious of two rhythms that
were slowly becoming one. When they became one, his identification with God was
complete. His heart was the one heart, the heart of God. And his brain was
likewise God's.

God said, "Will you accept it,
now?"

And he replied, "I accept, I
accept."

He immediately began to plan a new
life and his future conduct as Miss
Lonelyhearts
. He
submitted drafts of his column to God and God approved them. God approved his
every thought.

Suddenly the door bell rang. He
climbed out of bed and went into the hall to see who was coming. It was Doyle,
the cripple, and he was slowly working his way up the stairs.

God had sent him so that Miss
Lonelyhearts
could perform a miracle and be certain of his
conversion. It was a sign. He would embrace the cripple and the cripple would
be made whole again, even as he, a spiritual cripple, had been made whole.

He rushed down the stairs to meet
Doyle with his arms spread for the miracle.

Doyle was carrying something wrapped
in a newspaper. When he saw Miss
Lonelyhearts
, he put
his hand inside the package and stopped. He shouted some kind of a warning, but
Miss
Lonelyhearts
continued his charge. He did not
understand the cripple's shout and heard it as a cry for help from Desperate,
Harold S., Catholic-mother, Brokenhearted, Broad-shoulders, Sick-of-it-all,
Disillusioned
-with-tubercular-husband. He was running to
succor them with love.

The cripple turned to escape, but he
was too slow and Miss
Lonelyhearts
caught him.

While they were struggling, Betty
came in through the street door. She called to them to stop and started up the
stairs. The cripple saw her cutting off his escape and tried to get rid of the
package. He pulled his hand out. The gun inside the package exploded and Miss
Lonelyhearts
fell, dragging the cripple with him. They both
rolled part of the way down the stairs.

THE
END