In the meantime the strangely assorted trio fell into a more or less
comfortable relationship. Jarvis and the Professor almost came to blows,
but for the most part the diplomatic Bambi kept peace. Both men appealed
to her for everything and she took care of them like babies. She called
them the "Heavenly Twins" and found endless amusement in their
dependence on her. Sometimes she did not see Jarvis for days. His study
and bedroom were on the top floor, and when he was in a work fit he
forgot to come to meals. She let him alone, only seeing that he ate what
she sent up to him. Sometimes his light burned all night. She would go
to the foot of the stairs and listen to him reading scenes aloud in the
early dawn, but she never interfered with him in any way. He plunged
into the remaking of "Success" with characteristic abandon. He destroyed
the old version entirely, and began on a new one. When he had the
framework completed, he summoned Bambi for a private view. She condemned
certain parts, praised others, flashed new thoughts upon him, forced him
to new viewpoints. He raved at her, defended his ideas, refuted her
arguments, and invariably accepted every contribution. When he came to
an impasse, he howled through the house for her, like a lost child
wailing for its mother.
These daily councils of war, his incessant need of her, interfered with
her plan of a career as a danseuse. She found that her days were
resolving themselves into two portions--times when Jarvis needed her,
and times when he did not. The hours they devoted together to his work
constituted the core of her day, her happy time. She considered Jarvis
as impersonally as she did the typewriter. It was the sense of being
needed, of helping in his work, that filled her with such new zest. But
the hours hung heavy between the third-floor summons, and one day, as
she lay in the hammock, a book in her hand, it came to her that she
might try it herself. She might put down her thoughts, her dreams, her
ambitions, and make a story of them. Thought and action were one with
Bambi. In five minutes' time she had pencil and paper, and had set forth
on her new adventure.
For the next few days she was so absorbed in her experiment that she
almost neglected the "Heavenly Twins." The Professor commented on her
abstraction, and Ardelia complained that "everybody in dis heah house is
crazy, all of them studyin' and writin'; yo' cain't even sing a
hallelujah but somebody is a shoutin', 'Sh!'"
Only Jarvis failed to note any change. It was too much to expect that
the great Jocelyn could concentrate on any but his own mental attitudes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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