Free Warsaw by Richard Foreman Page A

was the student's obsession that his studies suffered.
What few friends Adam possessed he saw even less of. He would feign illness and
stay at home writing poetry; he composed a sonnet sequence and a brilliant
verse romance about a Knight Errant who experiences a vision and then sets off
upon a quasi-religious quest to rescue a princess from a citadel and ogre. As
much as the real world seemed to narrow however and fall into the background
the besotted youth was duly awarded by the work he put in ingratiating himself
into the affections of his employers. He was invited to one of the Goldman's
dinner parties. Believing that the Rubenstein’s would be present he gladly
accepted the invitation and said he would be happy to help serve drinks during
the evening.
    ‘The cream coloured silk dress she transformed into a unique
gown, such is her regal figure. Her earrings and brooch matched perfectly,
though it was an act of will for me to take my eyes off her lively features.
Her flesh was like burnished gold in the candle light, like Cleopatra's... Her
voice is as expressive and seductive as her features... Her preening, shallow
suitors were but satellites to her universe... On the surface she's a natural
coquette - her smile can fell a celibate and profligate alike and she can blink
and out pops an earth moving oelliard - but yet there were brief moments where
I witnessed again the sadness, loneliness, behind Jessica's mask.’
    The several glasses of wine the student had that night
instilled in him the courage to finally approach his intended. He served
Jessica a drink and attempted to open up a conversation. He asked her what she
was reading at the moment, stammering and blushing. She shrugged and replied
"different things", eyeing him with suspicion and a certain amusement
that a serving boy had deigned to try to speak with her with such familiarity.
He smiled at her with the gentle, charming expression that he had worked on in
front of the mirror but it just served to prolong the awkward pause between
them both. The young, albeit sophisticated, socialite rescued herself by
attracting the attention of one of her fawning suitors and that was the end of
their novel exchange.
    As disheartened as our love sick student was, his love
sickened not. Were not Julien Sorrel and Mathilde the same at the beginning? He
also qualified the evening as a success due to his performance after his encounter
with his subject. Mrs Goldman, as if showing off a new toy or pet to her
friends, put the tutor on the spot and asked him to perform a party trick.
Having shown off his talent to the family a week before Mrs Goldman made the
youth repeat the phenomenon to her guests. She told the room how someone could
open up any page of Shakespeare's Hamlet, quote a line, and her tutor could
finish off the remaining sentence or passage from memory. Nervous and angry at
the woman's request and affront for turning him into some kind of dancing pony
for the audience the young scholar nevertheless grew in confidence and
enthusiasm as he observed the impression he was making. Jessica too couldn't
fail to be impressed, he imagined. The episode pretty much sealed his conceit
and parallel with Stendhal's Julien Sorrel in "Scarlet And Black" -
for had not that personal tutor too played out a similar scene reciting from
the Scriptures to seduce his audience?
    A week later, after his display, the Goldman's tutor was
invited to help serve drinks and do his party piece (but with the Book of Job)
at one of the Rubenstein's soirees. Again Duritz made progress in relation to
charming the mother and father, but Jessica again snubbed the sensitive student
when he tried to engage her in conversation. She but arched her narrow eyebrow
and then almost broke into laughter at his daring, ridiculous play for her.
After that his advances - and the unresponsive responses from Jessica - were no
less awkward or calamitous. When not ignoring his warped attentions altogether
Jessica felt