‘This is a great magazine,’ I said. ‘The greatest of them all.’

The priest crossed his legs, shifted his cigar.

‘It’s rotten,’ he said. ‘Rotten to the core.’

‘I disagree,’ I said. ‘I happen to be one of its leading contributors.’

‘You?’ the priest asked. ‘And what did you contribute?’

I spread The Little Dog Laughed before him on the desk. He glanced at it, pushed it aside.

‘I read that story,’ he said. ‘It’s a piece of hogwash. And your reference to the Blessed Sacrament was a vile and contemptible lie. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’

Leaning back in his chair, he made it very plain that he didn’t like me, his angry eyes centred on my forehead, his cigar rolling from one side of his mouth to the other.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘What is it you wish to see me about?’

I didn’t sit down. He made it very clear in his own way that I wasn’t to use any of the furniture in the room.

‘It’s about a girl,’ I said.

‘What have you done to her?’ he said.

‘Nothing,’ I said. But I could speak no more. He had plucked out my heart. Hogwash! All those nuances, that superb dialogue, that brilliant lyricism — and he had called it hogwash. Better to close my ears and go away to some far off place where no words were spoken. Hogwash!

‘I changed my mind,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to talk about it now.’

He stood up and walked towards the door.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Good day.’

I walked out, the hot sun blinding me. The finest short story in American Literature, and this person, this priest, had called it hogwash. Maybe that business about the Blessed Sacrament wasn’t exactly true; maybe it didn’t really happen. But my God, what psychological values! What prose! What sheer beauty!

As soon as I got to my room I sat down before my typewriter and planned my revenge. An article, a scathing attack upon the stupidity of the Church. I pecked out the title: The Catholic Church Is Doomed. I hammered it out furiously, one page after another, until there were six. Then I paused to read it. The stuff was awful, ludicrous. I tore it up and threw myself on the bed. I still hadn’t written a poem to Camilla. As I lay there, inspiration came. I wrote it out from memory:

I have forgot much, Camilla! gone with the wind,

Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,

Dancing, to put the pale, lost lilies out of mind;

But I was desolate and sick with an old passion,

yes, all the time, because the dance was long;

I have been faithful to thee, Camilla, in my fashion.

Arturo Bandini

I sent it by telegraph, proud of it, watched the telegraph clerk read it, beautiful poem, my poem to Camilla, a bit of immortality from Arturo to Camilla, and I paid the telegraph man and walked down to my place in the dark doorway, and there I waited. The same boy floated by on his bicycle. I watched him deliver it, watched Camilla read it in the middle of the floor, watched her shrug and rip it to pieces, saw the pieces floating to the sawdust on the floor. I shook my head and walked away. Even the poetry of Ernest Dowson had no effect upon her, not even Dowson.