Mr. Bridge_ A Novel - Evan S. Connell [0]
Mr. Bridge
By Evan S. Connell
Title Page
Dedication
1 Love
2 Family Portrait
3 In the Counting House
4 Two Women
5 Dinner at Home
6 The Tip
7 No Oil
8 Lester
9 Trouble in the Road Ahead
10 Senator Horton Bailey
11 Forgive Us Our Debts
12 Prohibition
13 Life Begins at Forty-three
14 Thumper
15 The Dream
16 Struggling Upward & Other Works
17 Thayer’s Drugstore
18 The Pony
19 Bleak Day
20 Cadillac
21 Locusts
22 You Don’t Love Me
23 Call Me Avrum
24 EK
25 Kansas City Power & Light
26 Paper Hat
27 Purple Crayon
28 Stiff Lower Lip
29 Barbarians
30 Boxtops
31 The Gardener’s Child
32 Summer in Georgia
33 Underground
34 Discretion
35 New Clothes
36 Yuh, Yuh, Yuh
37 The Pistol
38 Halloween
39 Daiquiri for Harriet
40 Harriet and Carolyn
41 Onward, Christian Soldiers
42 Home from the Office
43 Handful of Change
44 Season’s Greetings
45 The Squirrel
46 Happy Days
47 Cousin Lulu’s Estate
48 Nevacal
49 Fleur-de-lis
50 The Family Tree
51 New Neighbors
52 LS
53 The Regatta on Ward Parkway
54 Semi-pro
55 Golden Gloves
56 Crosby
57 Beefcake
58 The Fight
59 In the Garden
60 Do You Remember . . . ?
61 Happy Birthday
62 How Much?
63 The Dawn Patrol
64 Ground Glass
65 Liberal Arts
66 High School Album
67 Moment Musicale
68 Coppélia
69 Hair Shirt
70 So Soon?
71 Juliet
72 Tijuana
73 Marijuana
74 The Primrose Path
75 Harriet’s System
76 Witch Doctor
77 Happy Easter
78 Bawdy Story
79 Wild Party
80 Wastebaskets
81 The Laborers
82 Bleh!
83 Stockings
84 4 A.M.
85 Sweet Shit
86 Silver
87 California Sunshine
88 Watering the Flowers
89 Mrs. Paul A. Cornish
90 In the Aztec Room
91 Houyhnhnm
92 7:42 A.M.
93 The Jeweler’s Son
94 Jussi Bjoerling
95 The Lecture on El Greco
96 Equality
97 Jews
98 Bernice
99 Jade Pig
100 New Writing, Ideas & Art
101 Billy Jack Andrews, Pro
102 Peggy
103 Venus of Mission Hills
104 Letter
105 Art of India
106 Publishers’ Graveyard
107 Good Luck
108 Foul Weather
109 On the Morning Train
110 Petra
111 Good Night, Good Night!
112 J’ai Faim
113 Moulin Rouge
114 Les Sabots de Millet
115 Cannes
116 Darkness at Noon
117 Another One
118 The Etruscans
119 Mi Piace la Banana
120 From Rome
121 Intimations
122 Wedding Present
123 Football
124 Square Peg
125 The Dancing Master
126 Hot Number
127 Socrates
128 Eagle Scout
129 Locking Up
130 A Pal of Morrie
131 Crime and Punishment
132 Autumn
133 Black Pledge
134 Gil Davis
135 Guess Who?
136 Legal Secretary
137 In the Vault
138 Winter
139 The Volunteer
140 Death Ray
141 Joy to the World
Copyright Page
Mr. Bridge
By Evan S. Connell
The Anatomy Lesson and Other Stories
Mrs. Bridge
The Patriot
Notes from a Bottle Found on the Beach at Carmel
At the Crossroads
The Diary of a Rapist
Mr. Bridge
Points for a Compass Rose
The Connoisseur
Double Honeymoon
A Long Desire
The White Lantern
Saint Augustine’s Pigeon
Son of the Morning Star
The Alchymist’s Journal
Mesa Verde
The Collected Stories of Evan S. Connell
Deus lo Volt!
The Aztec Treasure House
Francisco Goya
For Elizabeth McKee
I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw
Or heard or felt came not but from myself;
And there I found myself more truly and more strange.
... Wallace Stevens
1 Love
Often he thought: My life did not begin until I knew her.
She would like to hear this, he was sure, but he did not know how to tell her. In the extremity of passion he cried out in a frantic voice: “I love you!” yet even these words were unsatisfactory. He wished for something else to say. He needed to let her know how deeply he felt her presence while they were lying together during the night, as well as each morning when they awoke and in the evening when he came home. However, he could think of nothing appropriate.
So the years passed, they had three children and accustomed themselves to a life together, and eventually Mr. Bridge decided that his wife should expect nothing more of him. After all, he was an attorney rather than