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WHEN SPRING came around the next year, it brought with it another of Ariane’s letters, one that brought a smile to my face as soon as I began reading it, because I was reminded of the way she would pick up the interrupted thread of a conversation as if it had never been interrupted at all:
Dear Peter,
Then there’s the question of who’s going to eat the chowder, who’s going to appreciate the self you make, who’s going to ogle the statue you carve, or attend the performance you give, because, as my mother told me, trying her best to remember how her mother had told it to her, “A great cook will labor all day in the heat of a squalid kitchen to make a glorious chowder if she knows that in the dining room that night there will be one at least among the company who will eat the dish and know the worth of it, one who can taste the labor in the broth, and if there be none such, then she would as well sit herself down and eat her way through the whole pot of it alone, because the chowder cannot be counted well made unless it is well eaten.” In the future, I intend to cook for myself, to be sure that “in the dining room that evening there will be one at least among the company who will eat the dish and know the worth of it.” I intend to spend a good long time alone, or, to be more accurate, in the exclusive company of myself. You know how people say, “Take care of yourself,” or, “You keep an eye on yourself, now,” and I intend to follow that advice to the letter. I will keep an eye on myself, but since, as you know, the watcher and the watched are in the game together, myself and I will both be able to say, “Without you, I’m nothing,” and we will, I’m certain, be capable of elevating each other. (Or debasing each other, but I think I’m beyond that.) In the course of my time on display, I discovered that I was my own best audience. So, I won’t be alone. I’ll be by myself. (And I’m closer to it, since business reverses have forced another of my fans to abandon the chase.)
Love, Ariane
[to be continued]
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