Of course wed never met. Though actually, oairs, ireet, we oftencame face-to-face; but she seemed not quite to see me. She was never without darkgsses, she was always well groomed, there was a sequential good taste in thepinness of her clothes, the blues and grays and ck of luster that made her,herself, shine so. One might have thought her a photographers model, perhaps ayoung actress, except that it was obvious, judging from her hours, she hadnt timeto be either.Now and then I ran across her outside our neighborhood. Once a visitiivetook me to "21," and there, at a superior table, surrounded by four men, hem Mr. Arbuck, yet all of them intergeable with him, was Miss Golightly, idly,publicly bing her hair; and her expression, an unrealized yawn, put, by example,a dampener, on the excitement I felt over dining at so swanky a pce. Anht, deep in the summer, the heat of my room se into the streets. Iwalked down Third Aveo Fifty-first Street, where there was an antique storewith an obje its window I admired: a pace of a bird cage, a mosque ofmis and bamboo rooms yearning to be filled with talkative parrots. But the pricewas three hundred and fifty dolrs. On the way home I noticed a cab-driver crowdgathered in front of P. J. Crks saloon, apparently attracted there by a happy groupof whiskey-eyed Australian army officers baritoning, "Waltzing Matilda." As they saook turns spin-dang a girl over the cobbles uhe El; and the girl, MissGolightly, to be sure, floated round in their, arms light as a scarf.But if Miss Golightly remained unscious of my existence, except as a doorbellvenience, I became, through the summer, rather an authority on hers. Idiscovered, from the trash-basket outside her door, that her regurreading sisted of tabloids and travel folders and astrological charts; that shesmoked aeric cigarette called Pies; survived on cottage cheese andmelba toast; that her vari-colored hair was somewhat self-ihe same sourcemade it evident that she received V-letters by the bale. They were always torn intostrips like bookmarks. I used occasionally to pluck myself a bookmark in passing.Remember and miss you and rain and please write and damn and goddamhewords that recurred most often on these slips; those, and lonesome and love.Also, she had a cat and she pyed the guitar. On days when the sun was strong,she would wash her hair, and together with the cat, a red tiger-striped tom, sit outon the fire escape thumbing a guitar while her hair dried. Whenever I heard themusic, I would go stand quietly by my window. She pyed very well, and sometimessang too. Sang in the hoarse, breaking tones of a boys adolest voice. She knewall the show hits, Cole Porter and Kurt Weill; especially she liked the songs fromOkhoma!, which were hat summer and everywhere. But there were momentswhen she pyed songs that made you wonder where she learhem, whereindeed she came from. Harsh-tender wandering tunes with words that smacked ofpineywoods or prairie. O: Dont wanna sleep, Dont wanna die, Just wannago a-travelin through the pastures of the sky; and this one seemed to gratify her themost, for often she ti long after her hair had dried, after the sun had goneand there were lighted windows in the dusk.But our acquaintance did not make headway until September, an evening with thefirst ripple-chills of autumn running through it. Id been to a movie, e home andgoo bed with a bourbon nightcap and the Simenon: so much my idea offort that I couldnt uand a sense of uhat multiplied until I couldhear my heart beating. It was a feeling Id read about, written about, but neverbefore experiehe feeling of being watched. Of someone in the room. Then: anabrupt rapping at the window, a glimpse of ghostly gray: I spilled the bourbon. Itwas some little while before I could bring myself to open the window, and ask MissGolightly what she wanted."Ive got the most terrifying man downstairs," she said, stepping off the fireescape into the room. "I mean hes sweet when he isnt drunk, but let him startpping up the vino, and oh God quel beast! If theres ohing I loathe, its menwho bite." She loosened a gray fnnel robe off her shoulder, to show me evidence ofwhat happens if a man bites. The robe was all she was wearing. "Im sorry if Ifrightened you. But when the beast got so tiresome I just went out the window. Ithihinks Im ihroom, not that I give a damn what he thinks, the hellwith him, hell get tired, hell go to sleep, my God he should, eight martinis beforedinner and enough wio wash an elephant. Listen, you throw me out if youwant to. Ive got a gall barging in on you like this. But that fire escape was damnedicy. And you looked so cozy. Like my brother Fred. We used to sleep four in a bed,and he was the only ohat ever let me hug him on a cold night. By the way, doyou mind if I call you Fred?" Shed e pletely into the room now, and shepaused there, staring at me. Id never seen her before not wearing dark gsses, andit was obvious now that they were prescription lenses, for without them her eyes hadan assessing squint, like a jewelers. They were rge eyes, a little blue, a littlegreen, dotted with bits of brown: vari-colored, like her hair; and, like her hair, theygave out a lively warm light. "I suppose you think Im very brazen. rave;s fou. Orsomething."