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the country illegally, to live with him. One brother falls in love with the longshoreman’s orphaned niece, also living in the apartment. The longshoreman, filled with incestuous desire for the young woman, betrays both men to the immigration authorities. That makeshim a pariah in his community. When Miller had first heard the story several months previously, it hadn’t particularly seized his imagination. What did it have to do with him? But now, like the longshoreman, he had been stirred by illicit desire. He hadn’t acted on that desire, but he felt guilty all the same. He was part of a sexual triangle, one of two men drawn to the same woman. He knew what it was to think of another man with a woman he himself yearned for. He knew what it was to think of oneself as a betrayer. Yet still the material didn’t jell and Miller put “An Italian Tragedy” aside. He would return to it several years later.
    Marilyn, whom Miller had known for only a few days, hovered in his thoughts. She remained as much of a fantasy for him as he did for her. In a second work-in-progress, Miller wrote about a Marilyn-like woman of free and open sexuality. Lorraine, as he called her, bids men to abandon their wives and children, but those who are drawn to her come to an unhappy end. One character leaves his wife for Lorraine, who, faithless, later does the same to him. Another husband, protective of his social position, condemns himself to the safety of a cold and loveless marriage.
    After six weeks as Feldman’s houseguest, Kazan planned to fly home on February 23. Before he left, he made arrangements to shoot
Viva Zapata!.
He agreed to report no later than May 7, with shooting to begin twenty-one days after that. He persuaded Twentieth to pay for his wife, Molly, their four children, and a nanny to come to the location. Obviously, the presence of his family would limit Kazan’s ability to carry on with Marilyn.
    As the time approached for Kazan to go, Marilyn panicked. She had spent all this time with him, but he had not offered her a role in his new film. Frantic to maintain a connection, she made an uncharacteristic misstep. Marilyn told Kazan that she was pregnant. As though quickly realizing that that was the last thing in the world a married man would want to hear, she tried to reassure him. Marilyn insisted he mustn’t worry, whatever that might mean. Later, she wrote to say that she had miscarried. Nonetheless, faced with precisely the sort of trouble he wanted to avoid, Kazan returned to New York determined to mend his ways and be faithful to Molly. Alone again, Marilyn had little choice but to look ahead. Two months had passed since she tried to take her own life following Johnny’s death, and now she still had to figure out how to go on by herself.

TWO
    A t the Beverly-Carlton, flower deliveries accumulated outside Marilyn’s door. The blinds remained shut all day, as Marilyn rarely got out of bed before 5 p.m. The phone rang constantly. Hardly had Kazan gone back to New York when all the men started calling again for dates. There was one invitation Marilyn could not refuse, however. She agreed to let Joe Schenck take her dancing at the Trocadero. Uncle Joe had something he wanted to say. He sent a studio limousine for her that night.
    Large and bald with a poker face, Schenck was said to resemble Buddha. Lines and shadows were deeply etched around his eyes and bulbous nose. His face seemed always to be twisted in a frown. He and Marilyn were on the dancefloor when he made his pitch. He reminded Marilyn of her circumstances. He said she’d been a fool to turn down Johnny’s marriage proposals. He pointed out that in recent weeks she had been wasting her time on a married man.
    He urged her not to be just a scalp on a man’s belt. He warned her not to allow herself to be used as a spittoon or an ashtray. He stressed that his own situation had changed recently; he was old and in poor health. He alluded to his impotence and