Two Of Thousands

In a small town with a lake a composer kept a tidy sum of money and ruthlessly redrafted his compositions. He loved a woman he could not have and all the energy for her went into his work. He kept a routine throughout a week's time devoting himself to sprints of work followed by gregarious naps in the mansions of his friends. A noted woman of the town, one married to a novelist, kept him in her home for forty hours at a stretch, feeding the composer and playing tenis on an indoor clay court. This noted woman had married a novelist and kept distance from him so that their love would not burn out with such a bright initial flame. When the novelist arrived to be with her the house closed down, all the servants went to their relative's homes for vacation, and the composer napped and ate at the baker's residence atop a hill in town. The baker owned a telescope and the composer watched the novelist and his wife go about their lazy lovemaking. The critic knew the composer and the novelist, and in their ways the flaws of excellence flowered similarly through their work. The novelist restricted all of his characters to situational action and sparse conversation, and the composer kept at drafting down eloquence to acuteness. Both men lacked vibrancy in conversation; the novelist often making rude sexual jokes, the composer running on and on with reiterations failing to come to a close. The two were balding and intense, both with the look of nautical men in the throws of their last years, but often cut perfectly into their clothing by expert tailors. Certain gorgeous women were attracted the them because of their work, and nothing else. The critic found them absolutely inimitable and bland, but mocked them with precision through his essays.