Seeenough and write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning whenthe world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only goingthrough the motions of doing what I am supposed to do, which is write —on that bankrupt morning I will simply open my notebook and there itwill all be, a forgotten account with accumulated interest, paid passageback to the world out there: dialogue overheard in hotels and elevatorsand at the hatcheck counter in Pavillon (one middle-aged man shows hishat check to another and says, “That’s my old football number”); impressions of Bettina Aptheker and Benjamin Sonnenberg and Teddy(“Mr. Acapulco”) Stauffer; careful aperçus1 about tennis bums andfailed fashion models and Greek shipping heiresses, one of whom taughtme a significant lesson (a lesson I could have learned from F. ScottFitzgerald, but perhaps we all must meet the very rich for ourselves) byasking, when I arrived to interview her in her orchid-filled sitting roomon the second day of a paralyzing New York blizzard, whether it wassnowing outside.

See enough and write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning when the world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only going through the motions of doing what I am supposed to do, which is write — on that bankrupt morning I will simply open my notebook and there it will all be, a forgotten account with accumulated interest, paid passage back to the world out there: dialogue overheard in hotels and elevators and at the hatcheck counter in Pavillon (one middle-aged man shows his hat check to another and says, “That’s my old football number”); im pressions of Bettina Aptheker and Benjamin Sonnenberg and Teddy (“Mr. Acapulco”) Stauffer; careful aperçus 1 about tennis bums and failed fashion models and Greek shipping heiresses, one of whom taught me a significant lesson (a lesson I could have learned from F. Scott Fitzgerald, but perhaps we all must meet the very rich for ourselves) by asking, when I arrived to interview her in her orchid-filled sitting room on the second day of a paralyzing New York blizzard, whether it was snowing outside .