Yes, policemen
should be handsome and gallant. It is written.
A Marine View
Russian Hill had always seemed economically remote to me as an abiding
place until recently I was invited out where some people were living in
a modest apartment with a good view of the bay. And when they suggested
that I try to get an apartment over there I decided to do it.
It was a beautiful morning when I started out. There stood Russian Hill
and as Gibraltar bristles with armaments so it glittered with windows
facing the sea and one of them for me. Perhaps I could get a few rooms
from a nice Italian family and fix them up. Ah, the Latin quarter,
Greenwich village, the ghosts of artists haunting the place, Bohemians,
enthusiasm, the lust for adventure. I bristled with personality.
"Oh, you want a marine view," said the real estate man. "Not for that
price, lady."
A "marine view." I didn't want a marine view; I only wanted one window
facing the sea. Surely with all those windows - .
I left the real estate man and began wandering about. I asked a group of
Italian women and they exclaimed in a chorus "No marine views left." I
hadn't said a thing about a "marine view." I wandered further and it was
always the same. Some were smug and some were sorry but they all spoke
of a "marine view" in a certain tone of voice, as Boston people say
"Boston.
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