Yesterday, feeling greedy, I remembered ravishing displays of fruit outside a large emporium I’d driven admiringly past a number of times. Mammoth oranges, grapes as big as ping-pong balls, apples piled in rosy pyramids. There is a sleight of hand about distances here, nothing is as near as you supposed, and it is not unusual to travel 10 miles for a package of cigarettes. It was a two-mile walk before I even caught sight of the fruit store. The long counters were tilted so that from quite far away, you could see the splendid wares, apples, pears. I reached for one of these extraordinary apples, but it seemed to be glued into its case. A salesgirl giggled. ‘Plaster,’ she said, and I laughed too, a little feverishly perhaps, and wearily followed her into the deeper regions of the store where I bought six small, rather mealy apples, and six small, rather mealy pears
(1947)
Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage
