time, alerting her mother that she would like to invite him to their home. He remained a kind of reality check on Sylviaâs tendency to romanticize events. When she described Constantine, one of the Buckley party cavaliers who had invited her for a Princeton weekend, Eddie (sounding like Nelson Algren) observed: âHe reminds me, in a vague way, of someone I know. I dunno some romantic type critter I run into now & again who discusses love & literature & atomic power with equal glibness & appears and disappears with the suddenness of Mephistopheles.â Sylvia quoted Eddieâs verdict to Aurelia, concluding succinctly, âNot bad for a thumbnail sketch!â
Sylvia, for all her worries, survived the fall semester of 1951 and, as usual, did well in her studies. In January 1952, she spent a weekend at Yale with Dick, who took her on his rounds as a medical student. She witnessed a birth, which she seemed to take in stride. She was not prepared, though, for the shocking revelation that Dick, who had led her to think otherwise, was not a virgin. She was angry about his deception and sudden confession. She was generally mad at men, who could play around in ways that women could not. Her reference to him now as a âblond godâ was surely sarcastic. Sylvia was no prude, but Dick was different. She had built him up into a pristine idol. Now he seemed just like other men, some of whom she might have bedded if she had loved them or was not so worried about emotional involvements and pregnancy. She was still holding out for a taller, more romantic figure than Dick, so that she could wear heels and do the romantically impractical thing. Even at her most passionate, sooner or later Sylvia took the measure of her men. She yearned for the recklessness of romance, but she also read the newspapers and worried about world events, still pouring out her anxieties about nuclear war in letters she had resumed writing to Hans.
Only Eddie, though, saw what really troubled Sylvia about Dick. Did it ever occur to her, Eddie asked, that she was not so much a woman deceived as âan engineer whose latest airplane design didnât quite come up to specifications in performance?â Eddie had no interest in defending Dick, but he thought the larger issue was Sylviaâs fear of what sex would do to her in a committed relationship. Her quest for a âGolden Godâ seemed a symptom of her desire to force some kind of resolution of her anxieties. He noticed that in her latest letter she had used the word ârapeâ at least five times. â Keerful, gal, your dynamics might be slipping,â he cautioned her. Had she noticed that every sinus attack, as well as other illnesses, had come just after a breakup or some other contretemps with a male? Eddie was no expert on psychosomatic sickness, but he was beginning to wonder.
Dick, on the other hand, continued to sound in his letters very much like Samuel Richardsonâs unreal gentleman, Sir Charles Grandison. âI am aware of the joy, the honor of being near you and under your spell,â Dick wrote on 28 January 1952. That kind of banality could be briefly soothing, but his formulaic letters explain why Sylvia said she sought someone âmore intuitive.â Dick wrote in phrases that could have been copied out of a conduct primer. Sylvia wanted the praise, of course, but it had to be delivered with panache. If Eddie had been able to confect a style that brought Sylvia both to the drawing room and the barroom, he might have succeeded in winning her.
Eddie Cohen never lost sight of Sylvia the writer. But Dick did, as he mused about the life of a doctorâs wife, making Sylvia doubt he had any idea of the space and time required to write. Her work was not a sideline, and she believed she would lose respect for herself if she simply became absorbed in her husbandâs careerâespecially since Dick had become more assertive on their well-planned
Sylvia, for all her worries, survived the fall semester of 1951 and, as usual, did well in her studies. In January 1952, she spent a weekend at Yale with Dick, who took her on his rounds as a medical student. She witnessed a birth, which she seemed to take in stride. She was not prepared, though, for the shocking revelation that Dick, who had led her to think otherwise, was not a virgin. She was angry about his deception and sudden confession. She was generally mad at men, who could play around in ways that women could not. Her reference to him now as a âblond godâ was surely sarcastic. Sylvia was no prude, but Dick was different. She had built him up into a pristine idol. Now he seemed just like other men, some of whom she might have bedded if she had loved them or was not so worried about emotional involvements and pregnancy. She was still holding out for a taller, more romantic figure than Dick, so that she could wear heels and do the romantically impractical thing. Even at her most passionate, sooner or later Sylvia took the measure of her men. She yearned for the recklessness of romance, but she also read the newspapers and worried about world events, still pouring out her anxieties about nuclear war in letters she had resumed writing to Hans.
Only Eddie, though, saw what really troubled Sylvia about Dick. Did it ever occur to her, Eddie asked, that she was not so much a woman deceived as âan engineer whose latest airplane design didnât quite come up to specifications in performance?â Eddie had no interest in defending Dick, but he thought the larger issue was Sylviaâs fear of what sex would do to her in a committed relationship. Her quest for a âGolden Godâ seemed a symptom of her desire to force some kind of resolution of her anxieties. He noticed that in her latest letter she had used the word ârapeâ at least five times. â Keerful, gal, your dynamics might be slipping,â he cautioned her. Had she noticed that every sinus attack, as well as other illnesses, had come just after a breakup or some other contretemps with a male? Eddie was no expert on psychosomatic sickness, but he was beginning to wonder.
Dick, on the other hand, continued to sound in his letters very much like Samuel Richardsonâs unreal gentleman, Sir Charles Grandison. âI am aware of the joy, the honor of being near you and under your spell,â Dick wrote on 28 January 1952. That kind of banality could be briefly soothing, but his formulaic letters explain why Sylvia said she sought someone âmore intuitive.â Dick wrote in phrases that could have been copied out of a conduct primer. Sylvia wanted the praise, of course, but it had to be delivered with panache. If Eddie had been able to confect a style that brought Sylvia both to the drawing room and the barroom, he might have succeeded in winning her.
Eddie Cohen never lost sight of Sylvia the writer. But Dick did, as he mused about the life of a doctorâs wife, making Sylvia doubt he had any idea of the space and time required to write. Her work was not a sideline, and she believed she would lose respect for herself if she simply became absorbed in her husbandâs careerâespecially since Dick had become more assertive on their well-planned
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