Love by Maxwell Bodenheim — Read

The night received the moonlight in the manner of a sophisticated braggart who slaps the face of an old, impassive man. Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor observed this illusion and painted it upon one of the lanterns lighting a little party within her heart. The guests at the party, fat sophists and slatterns in gay, patched clothes, gathered around the lantern and felt relieved at the impersonal novelty of its decoration. If Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor had been a philosopher or a scientist she would have changed the night to an unseen background, or a chemical diagram; she would have ignored the pleading of her heart for pictorial distraction. But since she was a society-woman, tired of sensual toys and a mental twilight, she welcomed the night as her first effectual lover. Sitting in the garden of her country home she could see the lighted windows of her crowded ballroom, and hear the saccharine pandemonium of a jazz orchestra. The noise reminded her of a middle-aged roué, snickering as he rolled his huge dice while gambling for a new mistress. She felt glad that her new lover, the night, did not seek to court her with such a blustering clatter.

The night was incredibly sophisticated but held the pungently awkward body of a youth, crashing against trees and bushes. This mixture pierced Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor and slid far beneath those sensual routines which are the delight of psycho-analysts -- slid to a depth where aesthetic passion slays the flesh and blends it into a sexless potency. She felt a sense of bodiless conflagration striding with wide steps beside the night. When the limitless glow died within her, she glanced down and found that she was naked. The complicated shrewdness of her clothes had disappeared.