Desolation

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The garden — all me.

The word is, you have a good gardener. People say to me, You have a good gardener! What gardener?! A laborer, a workman. He carries things out. You, you do the thinking. Him, he pushes the wheelbarrow and he carries things out. Everything — I’ve done everything in the garden. People congratulate Nancy on the flowers. I decide on the color scheme and the plants, I site them, I buy the seeds, I buy the bulbs, and her, what does she do? — it gives her an activity, you’ll tell me— she plants them. People congratulate her. That’s life. The celebration of the superfluous.

I’d like you to explain the word happy.

On Sundays I talk about you with your sister, because I talk about you. You, you think I don’t talk about you, but I do talk about you. She tells me, He’s happy.

Happy? The other day, at René Fortuny’s, some idiot said, “Surely the purpose of life is to be happy.” On the way home in the car I said to Nancy, “Did you ever hear anything so banal?” To which Nancy’s subtle response was, “So what should it be, according to you?” For her, happiness is legitimate, you know. She’s one of those people who think happiness is legitimate.

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