the Bell jar by Sylvia Plath chapter 9. I'm so glad they're going to die Hilda arch for catelyn's and ajorn buried her head in her arms on the conference table and went back to sleep a wisp of bellius green straw perched in a brow like a tropical bird bile green they were promoting it for fall only Hilda as usual was half a year ahead of time bile green with black bile green with white bile green with Nile green its kissing cousin fashion blurbs silver and full of nothing sent up their fishy bubbles in my brain they surfaced off a hollow pop I'm so glad they're going to die I curse the luck that had timed my arrival in the hotel cafeteria to coincide with hilders after a late night I felt too dull to think of the excuse that would take me back to my room for the glove the handkerchief the umbrella The Notebook I forgot my penalty was a long dead walk from the frosted glass doors of the Amazon to the strawberry marble slab of her entry on Madison Avenue Hilda move like a mannequin the whole way that's a lovely hat did you make it I have expected Hilda to turn on me and say you sound sick but she only extended and then retracted her a swanny neck yes the night before I'd seen a play where the heroine was possessed by a divot and when the dibbok spoke from her mouth its voice sounded so cavernous and deep you couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman well Hilda's voice sounded just like the voice of that debok she stated her reflection in the gloss shop Windows as if to make sure Moment by moment that she contained to exist the silence between us was so profound I thought part of it must be my fault so I said isn't it awful about the rosenbergs the rosenbergs were to be electrocuted late that night yes Hilda said and At Last I felt I had touched a human string in the cat's cradle of her heart it was only as the two of us waited for the others in the tomb-like morning Gloom of the conference room that Hilda Amplified that yes of hers it's all for such people should be alive she yawned in and her pale orange mouth opened in a large Darkness fascinated I stared at the blind cave behind her face until the Tulips met and moved and the dibbek spoke out of its hiding place I'm so glad they're going to die come on give us a smile I sat on the pink velvet loveseat in JC's office holding a paper rose and facing the magazine photographer I was the last of 12 to have my picture taken I tried concealing myself in the powder room but it didn't work Betsy had spied My Feet Under The Doors I didn't want my picture taken because I was going to cry I didn't know why I was going to cry but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I cry for a week I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing at me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full this was the last round of photographs because the magazine went to press and we returned to Tulsa or Biloxi or Tina called Coos Bay or wherever we'd come from and we were supposed to be photographs of props to show what we wanted to be Betsy held an air of corn to show she wanted to be a farmer's wife and Hilda held the Bold faceless head of a hatmaker's dummy to show she wanted to design hats and Doreen had a gold embroidered sari to show how she wanted to be a social worker in India she didn't really she told me she only wanted to get her hands on asari when they asked me what I wanted to be I said I didn't know sure you know the photographer said she wants said JC whittley to be everything I said I wanted to be a poet then they scouted about for something for me to hold JC suggested a book of poems but the photographer said no that was too obvious it should be something that showed what inspired the poems finally JC undept the single long-stemmed paper rose from her latest hat the photographer fiddled with his white Hot Lights show us how happy it makes you to write a poem I stared through the freeze of rubber plant leaves in JC's window to the Blue Sky Beyond a few stagey Cloud paths are traveling from right to left I fixed my eyes in the largest cloud as if when I passed that aside I might have the good luck to pass with it I felt it was very important to keep the line of a mouth level give us a smile at last obediently like the mouth of a ventriloquist dummy my own mouth started to Quirk up hey the photographer protested was sudden foreboding look like you're going to cry I couldn't stop I buried my face in the pink velvet facade of jacey's love seat and with immense relief the salt tears and miserable noises that have been prowling around in me all morning burst out into the room when I lifted my head the photographer had vanished JC had vanished as well I felt limp and betrayed like the skin shed by a terrible animal it was a relief to be free of the animal but it seemed to have taken my spirit with it and everything else that could lay its paws on I fumbled in my pocketbook for the guilt compact of the mascara and the mascara brush and the eye shadow and the three lipsticks in the side mirror the face that peered back at me seemed to be appearing from the grating of a prison cell after a prolonged beating it looks bruised and puffy in all the wrong colors it was a face that needed soap and watering Christian tolerance I started to paint it with a small heart JC breezed back after a decent interval with an armful of manuscripts she said have a good read every morning a snowy Avalanche manuscripts swelled the dust gray piles in the office of the fiction editor secretly in studies and attics and school rooms All Over America people must be writing say someone or other finished a manuscript every minute in five minutes there would be five manuscripts stacked on the fiction editor's desk within the hour there would be 60 crowding each other onto the floor and then a year I smiled seeing a pristine imaginary manuscript floating in mid-air with Esther Greenwoods hyped in the upper right hand corner after my month on the magazine I'd applied for a summer school course with a famous writer where you sent in the manuscript of a story and he read it and said whether you were good enough to be admitted into his class of course it was a very small class and I'd soon send my story a long time ago and hadn't heard from the writer yet but I was sure I'd find the letter of acceptance waiting on the mail table at home I decided I'd surprise JC and send in a couple of the stories they wrote in this class under a pseudonym then one day the fiction editor would come into JC personally and plop the stories down at her desk and say here's something A Cut Above the usual and JC would agree and accept them and ask the author to launch and it would be me honestly Dorian said this one will be different tell me about him I said stonely he's from Peru this squat I said they're ugly as Aztecs no no sweetie I've already met him we were sitting in my bed in a mess of dirty cotton dresses and laddered linons and gray underwear and for 10 minutes Doreen had been trying to persuade me to go to a country club dance with a friend or somebody Lenny knew which she insisted was a very different thing from a friend of Lenny's but as I was at catching the eight o'clock train home the next morning I thought I should make some attempt to pack I also had a dim idea that if I walk the streets of New York by myself all night something of the city's mystery magnificence might rub off unto me at last but I gave it up it was becoming more and more difficult for me to decide to do anything in those last days and when I eventually did decide to do something such as packing a suitcase I only dragged on my grubby expensive clothes out of the bureau in the closet and spread them on the chairs in the bed and the floor and then sat down and stared at them utterly perplexed they seem to have a separate muellish identity of their own they refused to be washed and folded and stowed it's his clothes I told Doreen I just can't face these clothes when I come back that's easy and in her beautiful one-track way Dorian started to snatch up slips and stockings in the elaborate strapless bra full of Steel Springs a free gift from the Primrose corset company which I never had the courage to wear and finally One By One The sad array of clearly cut 40 dresses hey leave that one out I'm wearing it Doreen extricated a black scrap from a bundle and dropped it in my lap then snowballing the rest of the clothes into one soft conglomerate Mass she stuffed him out of sight under the bed Doreen knocked on the green door with a gold knob scuffing in a man's life cut short sounded from inside then a tall boy in shirt sleeves and a blonde crew cut inched a door open and peered out baby he roared Dorian disappeared in his arms I thought it must be the person Lenny knew I stood quietly in the doorway and my Black Sheath and my black stall with The Fringe yellower than ever but expecting less I am an observer I told myself as I watched Doreen being handed into the room by the blonde boy to another man who was also tall but dark with slightly longer hair this man was wearing an Immaculate white suit a pale blue shirt and a yellow satin tile for Bright Stick pin I couldn't take my eyes off that stick pin a great white light seemed to shoot out of it Illuminating the room then the light withdrew into itself leaving a dew drop on a field of gold I put one foot in front of the other that's a diamond somebody said and a lot of people burst out laughing my nail tapped a glassy facet first diamond give it to remarko Marco bowed and deposited the stick pin in my palm it dazzled and danced a flight like a Heavenly Ice Cube I slipped it quickly into my imitation jet bead evening bag and looked around the faces were empty as plates and nobody seemed to be breathing fortunately a dry hard hand and circle in my upper arm I'm escorting the lady for the rest of the evening perhaps the spark in Marco's eyes extinguished and they went black I shall perform some small service somebody laughed worthy of a diamond the hand run my arm tightened ouch marker removed his hand I looked down on my arm a thumbprint pipled into view Marco watched me then he pointed to the underside of my arm look there and looked and saw four faint matching prints you see I'm quite serious Marco's small flickering smile reminded me of a snake had teased in the Bronx Zoo when I tapped my finger on the Stout cage glass this naked open its Clockwork jaws and seemed to smile then it struck and struck and struck at the invisible pain till I had moved off I never met a woman hate her before I could tell Marco was a woman hater because in spite of all the models and TV starlets in the room that night he paid attention to nobody but me not out of kindness or even curiosity but because I'd happened to be dealt to him like a playing card and a pack of identical cards a man in the country club band stepped up to the mic and started shaking those seed pod rattles that means South American music Marco reached my hands but I hung onto my fourth Daiquiri and stayed put I never had a daiquiri before the reason I had a daiquiri was because Marco ordered it for me and I felt so grateful he had an ass what sort of drink I wanted that I didn't say a word I just drank one Daiquiri after another Marco looked at me no I said what do you mean no I don't dance that kind of music don't be stupid I want to sit here and finish my drink Marco bent toward me with a tight smile and in one suit my drink took wing and landed in a potted Palm then Marco grip my hand in such a way I had to choose between following him on the floor and having my arm torn off it's a Tango Marco maneuvered me out amongst the answers I love Tangos I Can't Dance you don't have to dance I'll do the dancing Marca hooked an arm around my waist and jugged me up against his dazzling white suit then he said pretend you were drowning I shut my eyes and the music broke over me like a rainstorm Marco's legs slid forward against mine and my legs slid back and I seemed to be riveted to him learn for limp moving as he moved without any will or knowledge of my own and after a while I thought it doesn't take two to dance it only takes one and I let myself blow in Bend like a tree in the Wind what did I tell you Marco's breath scorched my ear they were perfectly respectable dancer I began to see why women haters could make such fools of women haters were like Gods invulnerable and chock full of power they descended and then they disappeared you could never catch one after the South American Music there was an interval mocker led me through the French doors into the garden lights and voices spilled from the ballroom window but a few yards Beyond The Darkness Drew up its barricade and sealed him off and the infinitesimal glow of the Stars the trees and flowers are stewing their cool odors there was no moon the Box Hedges shut behind us a deserted Golf Course stretched away to what a few hilly clumps of trees and I felt the whole distillate familiarity of the scene the country club and the dance and the lawn with its single cricket I didn't know where I was but it was somewhere in the wealthy suburbs of New York mocker produced a slim cigar and a silver lighter in the shape of a bullet he set the cigar between his lips and bent over the small flare his face with its exaggerated shadows and planes of light looked alien and pained like refugees I watched them who are you in love with I said then for a minute Marco didn't say anything he simply opened his mouth and breathed out a blue vaporous ring perfect he laughed the ring widened and blurred ghosts pale in the dark air then he said I am in love with my cousin I felt no surprise why don't you marry her impossible why Marco Shrugged she's my first cousin she's going to be a nun she beautiful there's no one to touch her does she know you love her of course I paused the obstacle seemed unreal to me if you love her I said you love somebody else someday Marco dashes cigar in the foot the ground soared and struck me with a soft shock mud squirmed through my fingers Mark her weight into a half Rose then you put both hands on my shoulders and flung me back my dress your dress the mud ooze that adjusted itself to my shoulder blades her dress Marco's face lowered cloudyly over mine a few drops of spit struck my lips he'll dress as black in the dirt as black as well then he threw himself face down as if he would grind his body through men into the mud is happening I thought is happening if I just lie here and do nothing it will happen Marco said his teeth to the strap of my shoulder and tore my sheath to the waist I saw the glimmer of bare skin like a pale Veil separating two bloody-minded adversaries the words Hesperia the dust cleared and I had a full view of the battle I began to writhe and bite Marco weighed me to the Earth I gouge at his leg with a sharp heel of my toe he turned fumbling for the hurt then I fisted my fingers together and smashed him at his nose it was like hitting the steel plate of a battleship Marco set up I began to cry Marco pulled out a white handkerchief and dabbed his nose Blackness like ink spread over the pale cloth I sucked in my salty knuckles I want to rain Marco steered off across the golf links I went to Irene I want to go home Slants or Marco seemed to be talking to himself he also knows is all the same I poked Marco's shoulder where's Doreen Marco snorted go to the parking lot look in the backs of all the cars they just spun around my diamond I got up and retrieved my stole from the darkness I started to walk off Marco sprang to his face and blocked my path then deliberately he wiped his finger under his bloody nose it was two strokes stained to my cheeks I've earned my diamond of this Blood give it to me I don't know where it is no I knew perfectly well that the diamond was in my evening bag and that when Marco knocks me down my evening bag had soared like a night bird into the enveloping darkness I began to think I would lead him away and the return on my own and hunt for it I had no idea what a diamond that size would buy but whatever it was I knew it would be a lot Marco took my shoulders in both hands tell me he said giving each word equal emphasis tell me where I'll break your neck suddenly I didn't care said my imitation jet bead evening bag I said somewhere in the mark I left Marco in his hands and knees scrabbling in the darkness for another smaller darkness that hid the light of his diamond from his Furious eyes Doreen was not in the ballroom nor in the parking lot I kept to The Fringe Of The Shadow so nobody would notice the grass plastered to my dress and shoes and also black stall I covered my shoulders in bare breasts luckily for me the dance was nearly over and groups of people were leaving and coming out to the parked cars I asked that one car after another until finally I found a car that had room and would drop me in the middle of Manhattan at that vague hour between dark and Dawn the sunroof for the Amazon was deserted quiet as a burglar and my Cornflower spread bathrobe I crept to the edge of the parapet the parapet reached almost to my shoulders so I dragged a folding chair from the stack against the wall opened it and climbed into my precarious seat a stiff breeze lifted the hair from my head at my feet the city dials its light and sleep its buildings blackened as if for a funeral it was my last night I grasp the bundle I carried and pulled at a pale tail a strapless elasticized slip which in the course of wear had lost its elasticity slumped into my hand I waved it like a flag of truce once twice the breeze caught it and I let go a white flag floated out in the night and began its slow descent I wondered on what street or rooftop it would come to rest I tugged at the bundle again the Wind made in effort but failed and a bat-like shadow sank toward the Roof Garden of the penthouse opposite piece by piece I fed my wardrobe to the night wind and flutteringly like a loved one's ashes the gray scraps are ferried off this little here there exactly where I would never know and the dark heart of New York