Cabot Wright Begins: A Novel Read Online Free

it to be the truth.
    At last Carrie saw there was nobody else she could call except Zoe. They were old friends but not really close ones, yet out of everybody else in Chicago they were two women in a similar, almost identical, situation. In some ways Zoe’s situation was worse than hers, for Curt Bickle was one of those contemporary men more common than book and drama reviewers realize—a man not only willing to be supported by a woman, but incapable of turning a hand to support himself. Also Carrie and Zoe were married to husbands who wanted to be writers rather than men who were in fact the authors of anything.
    There were, of course, dissimilarities too: Zoe was positive for example, that her husband would never be a writer, at least in the public sense. In a way she now counted on his not being one, for she wanted to face as squarely as possible the truth of her situation: she had put everything on a losing horse. On the other hand, Carrie believed without proof or evidence that her fourth husband, Bernie, was a writer, that he would be known as one, just as she was equally sure that Zoe was right about Curt’s not ever going to succeed. Too, Carrie counted on Bernie’s being not just a writer but a successful one, and she clung to her almost irrational belief he could write the story of Cabot Wright.
    In the past, Zoe had expressed mild interest in Bernie’s literary ambitions but she had never before told Carrie to go ahead and let him try his wings in Brooklyn. Though they never discussed it, Carrie and Zoe had only one tacit agreement between them: Curt Bickle would now never make it. He might as well go on with what he was doing, studying and annotating the book of Isaiah , despite his Gentile origin and lack of Hebrew. True he had all the training needed for a writer, with his university background, controlled sensitivity, and flair for phrases (his thin-blooded prose appeared once every seven years in The New Yorker , cut a bit, with more commas than he had put in, but it was unmistakably his voice), while Bernie, untrained and without experience, as Carrie never tired of insisting, had the heart, the life experience, and the feeling.
    If you get lonesome enough, Carrie knew, you’ll even call the police. Zoe Bickle, in many ways, was for her a good deal more upsetting than a police lieutenant. She would ask Carrie more questions than a policeman, see through all her evasions and lies, and give her a hard time. Carrie finally realized she could delay her call no longer when she learned that Zoe was going on a trip.
    When Mrs. Bickle answered the phone, Carrie said: “Zoe, precious, you know who this is. I hear you’re going to New York in a day or so, but do you think you could do the impossible and come over? I know you’re afraid of the streets after dark.”Then Carrie briefly explained her situation and Bernie’s mission in Brooklyn.
    Hanging up, Mrs. Bickle was not quick enough to hide her astonishment, even shock, from her husband. He asked her what was wrong.
    “She’s sent Bernie to Brooklyn on the basis of something I said.”
    Curt Bickle’s grim look turned his mouth to a paper-thin line. (It was his thin mouth that had originally captivated her, she remembered, as she looked at him now without desire.) He forced a yawn, then looked quickly at his wristwatch, while Zoe explained why she thought she’d better run over to Carrie’s despite the hour.
    “She’s in a real fit, Curt.”
    “How could she send Bernie to Brooklyn on the strength of something you said?”He seemed hurt, and suspicious that what she had done might prove dangerous for both of them.
    “Maybe I’ll be able to answer your question when I come back.”
    She went out and walked quickly, looking about carefully. The danger of the streets (four or five women had been mugged in the neighborhood during the last month) worried her until she reached Carrie’s and rang the bell.
    She had hardly freed herself from Carrie’s