A cold rain had fallen during the early morning, and was still falling. It was good weather for museums and indoor games and staying in bed all day, alone or with company. I walked through slush looking at the other side of the street. It was much nicer over there with the winter-bare trees as a backdrop for the museum and a busload of raincoated children storming up the wide stone steps with three grown women, probably their teachers. My side of Fifth Avenue was one continuous wall of concrete set back a little way from the street and expensive cars lined up contiguously at the curb as if they had been cemented there. A doorman with a visored cap poking out under the hood of his slicker came by with two disdainful-looking permanent-waved French poodles on a double leash. He appeared to be more miserable than I felt, so I smiled at him. He did not smile back. Primo Blas Lequerica had a terrace apartment in one of the buildings opposite the museum. I went in there and up in an elevator a little larger than an upright coffin.
