Harvard if his father proved willing, and his father was more than willing, even eager. He guessed that he’d take at least a year in Cambridge. Perhaps he could find himself in that year. Maybe he could learn to write. He hoped to God he could. . . .
Just before commencement his relations with
Cynthia came to a climax. They had been con¬
stantly becoming more complicated. She was de¬
manding nothing of him, but her letters were tinged
with despair. He felt at last that he must see her.
Then he would know whether he loved her or not.
A year before she had said that he did n’t. How
did she know? She had said that all he felt for
her was sex attraction. How did she know that?
Why, she had said that was all that she felt for
him. And he had heard plenty of fellows argue
that love was nothing but sexual attraction anyway,
and that all the stuff the poets wrote was pure bunk.
Freud said something like that, he thought, and
Freud knew a damn sight more about it than the
poets.
Yet, the doubt remained. Whether love was merely sexual attraction or not, he wanted some¬ thing more than that; his every instinct demanded something more. He had noticed another thing: the fellows that were n’t engaged said that love was only sexual attraction; those who were engaged
