Read Online Sophie's Choice by William Styron - Free Book Online

and reading have become burdensome to the spirit. It is a mysterious need to restore a tactile relationship with mere things. One by one with my fingertips I examined them where I had placed them the night before, there on the shelves of the wall cabinet which like everything else had fallen prey to Sol Zimmerman's loony incarnadine paint brush: a jar of Barbasol shaving cream, a bottle of Alka-Seltzer, a Schick injector razor, two tubes of Pepsodent toothpaste, a Dr. West's toothbrush with medium bristles, a bottle of Royall Lyme after-shave lotion, a Kent comb, an "injecto-pack" of Schick injector blades, an unopened cellophane-wrapped box of three dozen rolled and lubricated Trojan condoms with "receptacle tips," a jar of Breck's anti-dandruff shampoo, a tube of Rexall nylon dental floss, a jar of Squibb multivitamins, a bottle of Astring-o-sol mouthwash. I touched them all gently, examined the labels, and even unscrewed the cap of the Royall Lyme shaving lotion and inhaled the fruity citrus aroma, receiving considerable satisfaction from the total medicine-chest experience, which took about a minute and a half. Then I closed the door of the cabinet and returned to my writing table. Sitting down, I lifted my gaze and looked out the window and was suddenly made aware of another element which must have worked on my subconscious and caused me to be drawn to this place. It was such a placid and agreeable view I had of the park, this corner known as the Parade Grounds. Old sycamore trees and maples shaded the sidewalks at the edge of the park, and the dappled sunlight aglow on the gently sloping meadow of the Parade Grounds gave the setting a serene, almost pastoral quality. It presented a striking contrast to remoter parts of the neighborhood. Only short blocks away traffic flowed turbulently on Flatbush Avenue, a place intensely urban, cacophonous, cluttered, swarming with jangled souls and nerves; but here the arboreal greenand the pollen-hazy light, the infrequent trucks and cars, the casual pace of the few strollers at the park's border all created the effect of an outlying area in a modest Southern city--Richmond perhaps, or Chattanooga or Columbia. I felt a sharp pang of homesickness, and abruptly wondered what in God's name was I doing here in the unimaginable reaches of Brooklyn, an ineffective and horny Calvinist among all these Jews? Apropos of which, I took a scrap of paper from my pocket. On it I had scribbled the names of the six other tenants in the house. Each name had been affixed on small cards by the orderly Yetta and attached to the respective doors, and with motive no more suspect than my usual rapacious curiosity I had late the night before, tiptoed about the floors and copied the names down. Five of the occupants were on the floor above, the other in the room opposite me, across the hallway. Nathan Landau, Lillian Grossman, Morris Fink, Sophie Zawistowska, Astrid Weinstein, Moishe Muskatblit. I loved these names for nothing other than their marvelous variety, after the Cunninghams and Bradshaws I had been brought up with. Muskatblit I fancied for a certain Byzantine flavor. I wondered when I would get to know Landau and Fink. The three female names had stirred my intense interest, especially Astrid Weinstein, who was in fascinating proximity across the hall. I was mulling all this over when I was made suddenly aware--in the room directly over my head--of a commotion so immediately and laceratingly identifiable, so instantly, to my tormented ears, apparent in its nature that I will avoid what in a more circumlocutory time might have required obliqueness of suggestion, and take the liberty of saying that it was the sound, the uproar, the frenzy of two people fucking like crazed wild animals. I looked up at the ceiling in alarm. The lamp fixture jerked and wobbled like a puppet on a string. Roseate dust sifted down from the plaster, and I half expected the four feet of the bed to come plunging through. It was