Chapter 2 Chapter One

Robert Cohen was for one time Princeton University's middleweight boxing champion.Don't think a title of boxing champion would impress me very much, but it was a big deal for Cohen at the time.He didn't like boxing at all, in fact he hated it, but he learned it painfully and meticulously to offset the inferiority and shame he felt when he was treated as a Jew at Princeton University.Although he was a very shy, kind young man who never got into a fight except in the gym, he was secretly proud of the thought that he could knock anyone who looked down on him to the ground.He is Spider Kelly's favorite student.It didn't matter whether these young men weighed one hundred and five pounds or two hundred and five pounds, Spider Kelly taught them as featherweight boxers.But the approach seemed to work well for Cohen.His movements are indeed very agile.He learned so well that Spider immediately set him up for a fight with a strong hand, leaving him with a flat nose for life.The incident increased Cohn's distaste for boxing, but it also gave him a certain strange satisfaction, and it did make his nose look better.During his final year at Princeton, he read too much and started wearing glasses.I haven't met anyone in his class who remembers him.They can't even remember that he was a middleweight boxing champion.

I've always had trouble trusting all frank, down-to-earth people, especially when they're telling the truth, so I always suspect that Robert Cohn probably never was a middleweight boxing champion, and maybe a horse stepped on His face, or maybe his mother was frightened or saw some monsters when she was pregnant, or maybe he bumped into something when he was a child, but someone finally got me this experience from Spider Kelly confirmed.Spider Kelly didn't just remember Cohen.He also often wondered what happened to Cohn. From the paternal line, Robert Cohen was born in a very wealthy Jewish family in New York, and from the matrilineal line, he is a descendant of an ancient family.In order to get into Princeton, he had attended military school, where he was a very good tight end on the football team, where no one made him aware of his race.Before Princeton, no one had ever made him feel that he was a Jew and that he was different from everyone else.He was a kind young man, a kind young man, very shy, and it pained him.He vented it in boxing, he left Princeton with a painful sense of himself and a flat nose, and married the first girl he met who treated him nicely.He was married for five years, had three children, nearly squandered the $50,000 his father left him (the rest of the estate went to his mother), and because of his unhappy home life with his rich wife, he became Aloof and repulsive; just when he had made up his mind to abandon his wife, she deserted him with a miniature painter.He had been contemplating for months to leave his wife, refraining from it because he thought it would be too cruel to make her lose him, so her departure was a very favorable shock to him.

After completing the divorce procedures, Robert Cohen left for the West Coast.In California, he threw himself into the literary world, and with some $50,000 still left in his pocket, he soon funded a literary review magazine.The magazine began in Carmel, California and ceased publication in Provincetown, Massachusetts.Cohen, who at first was seen as purely a backstage boss, whose name appeared on the title page as one of the consultants, later became the sole editor.The magazine was paid for by him, and he found himself liking the position of editor.He lamented when the magazine had to abandon the cause because it was too expensive.

But at that time, he had other things to worry about.He's already in the hands of a woman who's looking to make it big with the magazine.She was so strong and powerful that Cohn could never escape her grasp.Besides, he was sure that he loved her.When the lady found out that the magazine was failing, she disliked Cohn a little and thought it would be better to grab something while it was still available, so she urged them to go to Europe, where Cohen could write.They went to Europe, where she had studied, and stayed for three years.During this three-year period, the first of which was spent traveling and the last two years of living in Paris, Robert Cohen made two friends: Braddocks and myself.Braddocks was his literary friend.I'm his tennis partner.

The lady who held Cohn, Frances, found her beauty fading towards the end of the second year, and, in a reversal of her normal habit of casually holding and exploiting Cohen, decided he must marry her.During this period, Robert's mother gave him a living allowance, about three hundred dollars a month.I believe that in two and a half years, Robert Cohen paid no attention to another woman.He is quite happy, but like many Americans living in Europe, he thinks it is better to live in the United States.He found that he could write something.He wrote a novel, badly written, but not at all as bad as some critics later made it out to be, read widely, played bridge, played tennis, and boxed at a local gym.I first noticed the lady's attitude towards Cohn after the three of us had eaten together one evening.We ate at the La Grande Boulevard and then had coffee at the Café de Versailles.I drank a few glasses of brandy after my coffee and said I should go.Cohn was just talking about where the two of us were going for a weekend trip.He wanted to get out of the city and go for a good hike.I recommend flying to Strasbourg and from there walking to Saint Odère or somewhere else in the Alsace region. "I have a girl I know in Strasbourg who can show us around the city," I said.

Someone kicked me under the table.I thought it was by chance, so I went on: "She's lived there two years, and she knows everything you want to know about the town. She's a lovely girl." I was kicked again under the table, and when I looked, I saw Frances, Robert's lover, with her chin stuck out and a serious face. "Bastard," I said, "why go to Strasbourg? We could go north to Bruges or the Ardennes." Cohen seemed relieved.I never got kicked again.I said good night to them and went out.Cohn said he was going to accompany me to the corner of Main Street to buy a paper. "By God," he said, "what are you talking about that girl from Strasbourg? Didn't you see Frances' face?"

"No, how would I know? I know an American girl who lives in Strasbourg. What does it matter to Frances?" "It's the same anyway. It doesn't matter which girl it is. Anyway, I can't go." "Don't be silly." "You don't know Frances. Whoever it is, don't you see the look on her face?" "Okay," I said, "then let's go to Senley." "do not be angry." "I'm not mad. Sunley is a good place, we can stay at the Elk Hotel, go for a hike in the woods, and come home." "Okay, that's interesting."

"Okay, see you tomorrow on the tennis court," I said. "Good night, Jack," he said, and turned back for the cafe. "You forgot to buy the newspaper," I said. "Really." He walked me to the newsstand on the corner of the street. "You're really not mad, Jack?" he asked, turning with the newspaper in his hand. "No, why should I be angry?" "See you on the tennis court," he said.I watched him walk back to the cafe with the newspaper in his hand.I liked him quite a bit, but Frances was obviously making life hard for him.