"Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell," Holly advised him. "That was Docs mistake. Hewas always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. Oime it was afull-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you t give your heart to a wild thing:the more you do, the strohey get. Until theyre strong enough to run into thewoods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. Thats how youll end up,Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. Youll end up looking at the sky.""Shes drunk," Joe Bell informed me."Moderately," Holly fessed. "But Doew what I meant. I expi to himvery carefully, and it was something he could uand. We shook hands and heldon to each other and he wished me luck." She g the clock. "He must be inthe Blue Mountains by now.""Whats she talkin about?" Joe Bell asked me.Holly lifted her martini. "Lets wish the Doc luck, too," she said, toug her gssagainst mine. "Good luck: and believe me, dearest Doc -- its better to look at thesky than live there. Su empty pce; so vague. Just a try where thethunder goes and things disappear."TRAWLER MARRIES FOURTH. I was on a subway somewhere in Brooklyn when Isaw that headlihe paper that ba beloo another passeheonly part of the text that I could see read: Rutherfurd "Rusty" Trawler, themillionaire pyboy often accused of pro-Nazi sympathies, eloped to Greenwichyesterday with a beautiful -- Not that I wao read any more. Holly had marriedhim: well, well. I wished I were uhe wheels of the train. But Id been wishingthat before I spotted the headline. For a headful of reasons. I hadnt seen Holly, notreally, since our drunken Sunday at Joe Bells bar. The intervening weeks had givenme my own case of the mean reds. First off, Id been fired from my job: deservedly,and for an amusing misdemeanor too plicated to ret here. Also, my draftboard was dispying an unfortable i; and, having so retly escaped theregimentation of a small town, the idea of entering another form of disciplined lifemade me desperate. Between the uainty of my draft status and a ck ofspecific experience, I couldo find another job. That was what I was doingon a subway in Brooklyurning from a discing interview with aor ofthe now defuneer, PM. All this, bined with the city heat of the summer,had reduced me to a state of nervous iia. So I more than half meant it when Iwished I were uhe wheels of the train. The headline made the desire quitepositive. If Holly could marry that "absurd foetus," then the army nessrampant in the world might as well march over me. Or, and the question is apparent,was my e a little the result of being in love with Holly myself? A little. For Iwas in love with her. Just as Id once been in love with my mothers elderly coloredcook and a postman who let me follow him on his rounds and a whole family namedMdrick. That category of love gees jealousy, too.When I reached my station I bought a paper; and, reading the tail-end of thatsentence, discovered that Rustys bride was: a beautiful cirl from the Arkansashills, Miss Margaret Thatcher Fitzhue Wildwood. Mag! My legs went so limp with reliefI took a taxi the rest of the way home.Madame Sapphia Spanel met me in the hall, wild-eyed and wringing her hands."Run," she said. &qu the police. She is killing somebody! Somebody is killing her!"It sounded like it. As though tigers were loose in Hollys apartment. A riot ofcrashing gss, of rippings and callings and overturned furniture. But there were noquarreling voices ihe uproar, which made it seem unnatural. "Run," shriekedMadame Spanel, pushing me. "Tell the police murder!"I ran; but only upstairs to Hollys door. Pounding on it had o: the racketsubsided. Stopped altogether. But leading to let me i unanswered, and myefforts to break down the door merely culminated in a bruised shoulder. Then belowI heard Madame Spanel anding some newer to go for the police. "Shutup," she was told, "a out of my way.&99lib.quot;It was José Ybarra-Jaegar. Looking not at all the smart Brazilian diplomat; butsweaty and frightened. He ordered me out of his way, too. And, using his own key,opehe door. "In here, Dr. Goldman," he said, being to a manapanying him.Sino one prevented me, I followed them into the apartment, which wastremendously wrecked. At st the Christmas tree had been dismantled, veryliterally: its brown dry branches sprawled in a welter of torn-up books, broken mpsand phonograph records. Even the icebox had beeied, its tents tossedaround the room: raw eggs were sliding down the walls and in the midst of thedebris Hollys no- was calmly lig a puddle of milk.In the bedroom, the smell of smashed perfume bottles made me gag. I steppedon Hollys dark gsses; they were lying on the floor, the lenses already shattered,the frames cracked in half. Perhaps that is why Holly, a rigid figure on the bed,stared at José so blindly, seemed not to see the doctor, who, testing her pulse,ed: "Youre a tired young dy. Very tired. You want to go to sleep, dont you?Sleep."Holly rubbed her forehead, leaving a smear of blood from a cut finger. "Sleep,"she said, and whimpered like an exhausted, fretful child. "Hes the only one wouldever let me. Let me hug him on cold nights. I sa Mexico. With horses. Bythe sea.""With horses by the sea," lulbied the doctor, seleg from his bck case ahypodermic.José averted his face, queasy at the sight of a needle. "Her siess is only grief?"he asked, his difficult English lending the question an unintended irony. "She isgrieving only?""Didnt hurt a bit, now did it?" inquired the doctor, smugly dabbing Hollys armwith a scrap of cotton.She came to suffitly to focus the doctor. "Everything hurts. Where are mygsses?" But she didhem. Her eyes were closing of their own accord."She is only grieving?" insisted José."Please, sir," the doctor was quite short with him, "if you will leave me alohthe patient."José withdrew to the front room, where he released his temper on the snooping,tiptoeing presenadame Spanel. "Dont touch me! Ill call the police," shethreatened as he whipped her to the door with Puese oaths.He sidered throwi, too; or so I surmised from his expression.Instead, he invited me to have a drink. The only unbroken bottle we could findtained dry vermouth. "I have a worry," he fided. "I have a worry that thisshould cause sdal. Her crashing everything. dug like a crazy. I must haveno public sdal. It is too delicate: my name, my work."He seemed cheered to learn that I saw no reason for a "sdal"; demolishingones own possessions resumably, a private affair."It is only a question of grieving," he firmly decred. "When the sadness came,first she throws the drink she is drinking. The bottle. Those books. A mp. Then Iam scared. I hurry t a doctor.""But why?" I wao know. "Why should she have a fit over, Rusty? If I wereher, Id celebrate.""Rusty?"I was still carrying my neer, and showed him the headline.