Read Herzog for Free Online Page A

body, the flesh. She has the religion of civilized people, which is pleasure, creative and polymorphous pleasure.
        Her skin is subtle, white, silken, animate.
        Dear Wanda, wrote Herzog. But she knew no English and he changed to French.
        Chere Princesse, Je me souviens assez souvent... Je pense a la Marszalkowska, au brouillard.
        Every third-, fourth-, tenth-rate man of the world knew how to woo a woman in French, and so did Herzog. Though he was not the type. The feelings he wanted to express were genuine. She had been extremely kind to him when he was ill, troubled, and what made her kindness even more significant was the radiant, buxom Polish beauty of the woman. She had weighty golden-reddish hair and a slightly tilted nose but with very fine lines, the tip amazingly delicate and shapely for such a fleshy person. Her color was white, but a healthy, strong white. She was dressed, like most women in Warsaw, in black stockings and long slender Italian shoes, but her fur coat was worn to the hide.
        In my grief did I know what I was doing? noted Herzog on a separate page, as he waited for the elevator.
        Providence, he added, takes care of the faithful. I sensed that I would meet such a person. I have had terrific luck.
        "Luck" was many times underscored.
        Herzog had seen her husband. He was a poor, reproachful-looking man, with heart disease. The sole fault Herzog had found with Wanda was that she insisted he meet Zygmunt. Moses had not yet grasped what this meant. Wanda rejected the suggestion of a divorce. She was perfectly satisfied with her marriage. She said it was all any marriage could be.
        Ici tout est gache.
        Une dizaine de jours a Varsovie - pas longtemps.
        If you could call those foggy winter intervals days.
        The sun was shut up in a cold bottle. The soul shut up inside me. Enormous felt curtains kept the drafts out of the hotel lobby. The wooden tables were stained, warped, tea-scalded.
        Her skin was white and remained white through every change of emotion. Her greenish eyes seemed let into her Polish face (nature, the seamstress). A full, soft-bosomed woman, she was too heavy for the stylish tapering Italian shoes she wore. Standing without the heels, in her black hose, her figure was very solid indeed. He missed her. When he took her hand, she said, "Ah, ne toushay pas.
        C'est dangeray." But she didn't mean it at all. (how he doted on his memories! What a funny sensual bird he was! Queer for recollections, perhaps? But why use harsh words. He was what he was.)
        Still, he had been continually aware of drab Poland, in all directions freezing, drab, and ruddy gray, the stones still smelling of war-time murders.
        He thought he scented blood. He went many times to visit the ruins of the ghetto. Wanda was his guide.
        He shook his head. But what could he do? He pressed the elevator button again, this time with the corner of his Gladstone bag. He heard the sound of smooth motion in the shaft-greased tracks, power, efficient black machinery.
        Gueri de cette petite maladie.
        He ought not to have mentioned it to Wanda, for she was simply shocked and hurt.
        Pas grave du tout, he wrote. He had made her cry.
        The elevator stopped and he ended, J'embrasse ces petites mains, amie.
        How do you say blond little cushioned knuckles in French?
     
    IN the cab through hot streets where brick and brownstone buildings were crowded, Herzog held the strap and his large eyes were fixed on the sights of New York. The square shapes were vivid, not inert, they gave him a sense of fateful motion, almost of intimacy. Somehow he felt himself part of it all-in the rooms, in the stores, cellars-and at the same time he sensed the danger of these multiple excitements. But he'd be all right.
        He was over-stimulated. He had to calm down these overstrained galloping nerves,