Page 18
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Stavrogin recalls O'Neill's writing and music, Annie's distaste for Pittsburgh, and Judith's life with her son Sheen. He measures his affection against O'Neill's care for them and both men's cheapness.
The narrator calls Pittsburgh poverty romantic, then ends at meal time. That qualification puts hunger beside the men's taste for romance and their reluctance to spend on rooms and meat.
Headed 'San Francisco', the page describes Stavrogin's view of O'Neill, Annie's dislike of 'Pittsburgh and its poverty program', and O'Neill's partner Judith and her son Sheen.
The narration is sharp about money, class and romance, ending with the Hill District, where 'the poverty was God / Damn romantic even if you were Black and didn't believe it / at meal time.'