Page 59 - Sorrow of the Earth: Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull and the Tragedy of Show Business

by reactionary journalists. And as he stroked his huge whiskers he would

calculate and recalculate the profit loss, the size of the hole in the kitty. With
his plump hands he would leaf through the order books and the engagement
diary for the Wild West Show, and frown. But however much he castigated
Buffalo Bill, however much he warned him, or even lost his temper, the old
fox doubtless believed, like so many other celebrities, that in all matters he
had been granted a sort of grace or im punity. He was led by his pheromones,
which exuded a heady perfume in the direction of his excessively tender heart,

and when this happened Buffalo Bill was unable to restrain himself. He was
sentimental and obscene. And yet, one fine day, after years of this vagabond
existence and an assiduous patronage of brothels, the old clown, who was now
sixty-four, perhaps finally sated, and most certainly tired, wrote—at the
instigation of his daughter—to Louisa, his wife, to ask whether she would be

willing to forget the past.
There’s no such thing as forgetting. Forgiveness always comes with
reservations. However, Louisa and Buffalo Bill did meet up again. They took
a few trips together. There was a reconciliation. At the end of her life,
Louisa’s face was sour and mean. She had kept out of the frame, and she had
felt her face whipped from afar by the cold plumage of fame, like an evil
wind. They had undoubtedly loved each other once, but it was all so distant

now. She had known William Cody and then Buffalo Bill, and she had felt
this pathetic doubling gradually mutate into something else. This time, she
hoped that William Cody, or Buffalo Bill, or both of them—it didn’t matter
which—would soon return for good, finally sated, and possibly grateful. Of
course, there was more to it than feelings; she held her little reticule clutched
tight, she kept a watchful eye on the family heritage, on her daughter, and all

this figured in the calculations of her heart and the account book of her
existence. But there was, undeniably, something else. Something that was
never quite done with, something bitter and tender. After all, they had been
together for a long time, and they were about to celebrate their forty-fifth
wedding anniversary. He seemed weary of his vagabond existence, and she
still seemed attached to her husband. It would, undoubtedly, be wrong to see
this belated rapprochement as a capitulation on the part of an old roué. Long

lives are mysteries that defy understanding. They have their ruses and their
little ways. There’s nothing anyone can say about them. A shared life is
probably always a long succession of joys and misunderstandings. It’s
impossible for the sun to shine for ten, or even twenty years; winter exists too!