Save Me the Waltz

1
“Those girls,” people said, “think they can do anything and get away with it.”

“Alabama,” said David sententiously, “that’s impractical. You’ve become nothing but an aesthetic theory—a chemistry formula for the decorative.”

“There’s nothing we can do with two dollars anyway,” she protested in a logical tone.

“I s’pose not——”

New York was more full of reflections than of itself—the only concrete things in town were the abstractions

There they are, the Knights, dancing together,” they said, “isn’t it nice? There they go.”
“Listen, Alabama, you’re not keeping time,” David was saying.
“David, for God’s sake will you try to keep off of my feet?”
“I never could waltz anyway.”

People were tired of the proletariat—everybody was famous. All the other people who weren’t well known had been killed in the war; there wasn’t much interest in private lives.

Butterflies opened and shut along the roads like the flash of white in a camera lens.

His hands across her shoulders fit like the warm hollows

were of the slightest help

Being in love, none of her personal aphorisms

David had told her about how famous he was going to be many times before.

I like paying for things I do—it makes me feel square with the world

and if the fine was a heavy one—well, there was no good in saving up beforehand to pay it

Relentlessly she convinced herself that the only thing of any significance was to take what she wanted when she could.

Looking for love is like asking for a new point of departure, she thought, another chance in life

Being in love, she concluded, is simply a presentation of our pasts to another individual, mostly packages so unwieldy that we can no longer manage the loosened strings alone

It took her a long time to learn to think of life unromantically as a long, continuous exposition of isolated events, to think of one emotional experience as preparation to another.

“Well, Alabama, all people are, about one thing or another. We must not let it influence us.”

Being boss isn’t a question of places

The scum might be a valuable deposit

Alabama had learned from the past that something unpleasant was bound to happen whenever the Saviour made his appearance in the dialogue