Bright Signal

10 -- the outraged monarch -- story of Hemingway and the
Dry Tortugas but really the story of a woman's disillusion
with her husband -- her effort to keep that illusion which
is cru lly battered down by another man, who does not
really care for her either, done just in spite - in what -
pattern of his frustration -- who knows?

they did look alike -- same backgrounds too of the north
woods -- same lake, same trees - same kind of pattern --
one fr m doctor's family, insecure, the other from
substantial home, sound fortune, but father with german
ideals of behaviour, an unflinching determination to place
his boy in business -- both had parents who had despised their
efforts -- mother of one said, I would rather see him dead,
mother of the other said, forget the filth you have written
and think of making a living. But more a curious sympathy
held them - hero worship, intangible, their likeness,
their unlikeness -- the little wife could see clear through it
-- she too felt some of her husband's hero worship --
the big fellow had said, this is the best thing I have read in
ten years but he never said to the world -- the young fellow
quoted his friend's remark, with pride, with confidence --
later he reads in print the same remark but said about someone's
book -- someone who has already received much acclaim. He
suffered, his whole look showed it and his wife suffered for it
-- she could not show how she suffered for it for he had his
pride. The great man was really making of him a sort of Man
Friday. It tore at the little woman's heart -- her very
love hung in the balance -- the young man too felt it and
rebelled, but with a bitter sense of being slighted, an
inability to let go, a curious attachment that could not be
broken -- without giving his absolute connivance, he half-
conceded -- abotaging the friendship to save himself yet not
saving anything, him self, his pride or the friendship. The
little woman could not bear to see him -- began ironically
to call him the Great Man but in her dreams the Great Man
appeared as a lover. She writhed in shame, woke in tears,
with the shame of a woman who has actually betrayed her
beloved. Pressing close to him, she endeared him to herself,
thinking over all she loved in him, truly loved. The burden
of pride upon her alone -- his acquiescence, shyness, appear-
ance of indifference that she and she alone covered heaven
only knew what galling wound. What hurt. How could he do it?
Turn the knife in. Bursting into tears, in a rage, left the
room -- he was aft r her, tender, please forgive me, too
choked to reply, her eyes scalding with tears blazed at him.
She had never been so handsome. Who could have thought a
woman could weep and appear beautiful? The fierce ness of
her loyalty -- what can I do -- go away, go away -- but it
was too late, too late, he had already destroyed something,
and it was terrible to feel pity for one she had adored.

terrible to feel she had stood up to his enemy - for was he
not an enemey and would he not tonture her by appearing in
her dreams, as a loved one, he whom she should hate, bitterly,
unremittingly and forever for stealing her happiness?

what did he envy -- she had to ask herself that, attributing
to this so masculine appearing man something of her feminine
feelings -- forgetting their respective positions -- what did
he mean to do with them -- his friends, and why? What
pleasure did he find in humiliating the young man before his
wife, in attempting to make him appear weak and a coward.
His skill as boatmen -- the way he held the boat to its
course while the great man simply held the tiller any way,
letting it pound against the surge, until the old captain
reared his purple face, awesome as a death's head, suggesting
the young husband take over. Oh pride then, real pride.

He respected the seas-- did not get in a rage with them and
flaunt himself about -- saw things in their proportion as she
did -- raging at her -- you let that 60 pound king get
off your line -- mocking him -- what of it -- his theory

do it thoroughly whatever you are doingk - if you are
fishing, fish for your life -- her rebellion -- dont mean to
get into that orbit -- I like the water - the sky - the way

the air goes - wet her finger to test the wind -- the
kinds of sky -- in another world -- the beautiful fish,
panting, changing color, from swift kixxx running flash

to dying raribbow- changing colors before one's eyes, giving
out the bright signal of death -- (Title, The Bright Signal)

The young husband sat beside her, composed outwardly but
only she knew how discomposed inside, how broken into bits,
frightened and unsure -- the outer man was so beautiful,
so composed, so all of a piece, his long fine hands so
certain on the wheel, his smile so pleasing, his goodbye so
full of warm regard, pleasant farewell, with just a suggestion
of restraint in the gratitude he preferred for the fishing
trip - a shade of irony for his reward that had been that of

a man Friday -- as if he sensed that he had been robbed
of more than he knew -- that he must now, in a way he should
never have the strength to encompass, to reawaken in his
little wife, the sense of himself as a man of daring - of
courage, of gaiety beyond all others. His eyes too had
their great pride and before them the Great Man's own eyes
took a flash of a sudden indecision, a sudden pang of their
own. I am resigning from the service of a friendship, the
young husband's eyes were clearly saying, but his hand

stretched out heartily just the same, covering it all
with an old stature of confidence, belief, worship - oh
what a pity to have lost it. What a pity.

Was she jealous of the friendshi - between the two men -
no, she couldnt feel that she was, not so long as it appear-
ed an even friendship, mutually felt between the friends,
an admiration society going both ways -- the young husband's
spirits lifted by it-- in a community of his boyhood she
could never share and she did not ask to share, merely feel
its glow, bask in it -- his happiness - an old time, now gone,
-- but when it ceased to be that, a feeling mutually
shared, when the young husband began to play the role of the
man Friday - then she suffered, not in jealous but out of
jealousy for her husband's pride, for his role as a person.

The kowtowing world - had little of it in herself -- letters
to people, never gave them -- teas for personages, seemed
foolish -- meet so and so -- why? Not that she couldnt have
enjoyed a real meeting, real talk but this other.....