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By Root 342 0

down my throat, and honeydews, as with very ripe melons of any kind, can become a pool of juices once in the heat of my mouth. It is precisely these fluidlike qualities, I conclude, that recommend these two foods to a nervous GertrudeStein. One thing I know about my Madame is that she is unable to do more than one thing at any one time. That is what Miss Toklas is here for. If GertrudeStein is anxious before she lectures, then she cannot be expected to worry and to chew her food at the same time. If Miss Toklas could, she would perform both of these acts for her Lovey. As she cannot, she has devised a menu composed of foods that are solid in form—thereby never acknowledging GertrudeStein's condition or injuring her pride—and yet both courses can be consumed without the pesky need to chew. Miss Toklas is a genius after all.

"Oysters, Lovey, there will always be oysters. And honey-dews, they assured us that there will be honeydews," Miss Toklas whispers to GertrudeStein as we step from the train onto the platform at Le Havre.

"Oysters" and "honeydews" are two words in the English language with which I am by now overly familiar. As for the rest of Miss Toklas's words, well, the rest I can imagine. But even if I was not equipped with such skills, my Mesdames' behavior alone is telling. I have, believe me, heard them say things over and over again to each other before. Lovers who have lived a lifetime together have the luxury of never having to say anything new. Also, my Mesdames are both reaching that age in life when repetition is the mind's way of retaining all the tiny details that it would otherwise lose. Miss Toklas's voice, though, is softer than I have ever heard it, and GertrudeStein's expression, made worse by the red spiders in the whites of her eyes, gives her the appearance of a child abandoned on a train.

At first I thought my Mesdames were distraught because they were missing Basket and Pépé. Dressed in their finest, those two were beyond consolation when their leashes were handed over to the concierge. Miss Toklas and GertrudeStein had given the concierge enough money to keep His Highness and the Pretender well stuffed with livers for at least a year. In addition to the wardrobe that they brought with them, there was also an emergency fund for extra leashes and new coats for the winter. As Basket and Pépé both have a tendency to gain excessive weight during the colder months of the year, there was no way for my Mesdames to anticipate their eventual sizes in the months to come. That detail was therefore reluctantly entrusted to the concierge. Basket pressed his body into GertrudeStein's tweed skirt, leaving behind curls from his molting fur. Pépé dug his front paws into the pile of Miss Toklas's new mink coat, his howl so desperate and high that it was beyond the range of the human ear. The other dogs in the neighborhood heard him, though, and a chorus full of pity and how-could-you's began. Pépé always had a flare for drama. Basket's approach was more straightforward. He used his body weight, the only thing that he had available to him besides his delirious barking, to keep his Madame by his side.

"Bye-bye, bye-bye, my babies, bye-bye," said Miss Toklas and GertrudeStein, their voices unified in grief, as our taxi drove away. Miss Toklas dabbed the corners of her eyes. GertrudeStein was able to blink hers away. Why the tears, my Mesdames? Are there no dogs in America? I thought.

First-class accommodations, an express train, and now this floating city passing itself off as an ocean liner all the way home, my Mesdames. And if the photographers here on the deck are any indication, there will be so many flashes going off in America that for you there will never be darkness on the shores of the country where you were born.

Standing on the glass-enclosed deck of the SS Champlain, Miss Toklas looks regal as always, lips pursed, moments away from saying "Shoo!" GertrudeStein looks remarkably relaxed. She looks as though she has a present to give, one that she knows will be a delight to receive. Both my Mesdames,