Rose VanDusenberg, parts 886 - 889

886. One thing was obvious, whatever the answer to the question was, it was painful for him to even think about it. The muscles of his face tightened like a person about to have a sliver pulled. Aunt Jemima, seeing his distress, changed the subject, she said, "I was going to tell you about what Coromo did about his paintings." Buboni, looking down and did a careful inspection of his fingernails in reply.

887. As I said earlier, Coromo knew he wanted to paint pictures, he just did not have any idea what his pictures were going to be about. There was one thing he was puzzled about. He knew that Tallulia liked his childish pictures done in an overly simplified way, but it seemed to him that this could only be a complete coincidence. The idea that there would be other tourists at the resort who would also be interested in such paintings did not even seem to be a remote possibility to him.

888. He was driven by two conflicting desires; first he very much wanted to simply repeat the experience of selling a group of pictures to some rich tourists, but on the other hand he also wanted to repeat the pleasant sensation of making an image using the mysterious materials of oil paint, canvas and brushes.

889. Another thing bothered him. 'What if' he wondered, 'people actually liked his simplified childish pictures because they were simple and childish'. This thought gave him mixed emotions because he could see that if he was correct about this, it would be very easy to make money, but on the other hand there was something inherently insulting about it. He was an adult, he didn't want to be appreciated for childishness.