In Partial Disgrace (29 page)

But the more she talked the more it became clear we were headed for disaster, for just as the story became interesting and all her astonishing embroidery began to point to something, there suddenly occurred that hairball of a word, uttered at first with nods all around—an indecipherable phrase that was repeated quite often, but fobbed off in a way that would not only deflect the story but rob it of interest. Even a child could see that such a gratuitous gesture, harmless enough in the mouth of a gentle and sensitive woman or a surgical wordsmith like the Professor, could become a bludgeon of banality against we
misera plebs
. At first I thought this simply a vocabulary beyond my years, a
kinderbuch
of expressions abbreviated to spare me embarrassment, but as each loose anecdote was short-circuited by its interpretation in the wooden paraphrase, the dull glaze in Father’s eyes—a glance of disappointment which only appeared when the cook tried to foist old eggs upon us, or the game had not been hung long enough, causing the blood to congeal in some unspeakable cavity—legitimized my lacquered heart. The moonroom had become a den from which no tracks returned. It was like being in a strange town of countless religious denominations, and all the church bells begin to peal at noon, so while you know that it’s noon and it’s religious, you can’t tell one bell, one church, or one religion from the other.

“Well, it’s a question of the
uck
, of course,” the wondrous lady pronounced.

“Quite. The very sort of
uck
that Blederhorst denies,” the Professor confirmed.

“He’s on to something,” she allowed, “but his is simply not a quality mind. The
uck
in his case is . . .”

“Primordial, yet annulled,” the Professor interjected.

“Exactly,” she confirmed.

The blue cords in Father’s neck now appeared in his temples, and tiny diagonal bolts of lightning flickered across his forehead.

“Wouldn’t you like to see the tobacco leaves hung up in the barn to dry?” he said plaintively. “Or watch the livestock choke on sunflowers? Just tell me, what would amuse you most?” And at this point of desperation, Father performed his famous conjurer’s trick, throwing two half-shuffled packs of cards into a top hat, then withdrawing one in its original order and the other fully shuffled. Our guests barely acknowledged this, though Drusoc cocked a limp ear.

“As in America. No real
uck
there,” the Professor perambulated, lighting another cigar and ignoring Father’s offer.

“Yes, but no doubt it will be
repeated
there,” the lady allowed. “Perhaps the
uck
is there,” Father queried helplessly, “even if they don’t know it.”

“
Uck
repeated there, or rather identical in its oppositeness?” the lady acknowledged, opening a small fan which she had kept up her lace sleeve.

“When they
are
differentiated,” the Professor said, slapping his knee, “they will ultimately express that only humanity is really dead.”

“But this too—will it not be secondary to overreaching itself?” the lady averred.

“Yes, ah, yes,” the Professor sighed.

“Are you speaking of a frenzied soul, or a vague and tender heart?” Mother broke in hopefully, always aware of the costs of allowing boredom to send a crease across Father’s face, and trying to avert the storm about to break over Semper Vero. But it was too late.

“The devil take it!”

Father’s pipe had already shattered against the base of the fireplace, and with his own patented concatenation of boredom and rage, he leapt from his chair and stalked from the room, announcing only that their horses required preparation. Mother suggested that they have a smoke in the drive, now that the room was blue with haze. The lady seemed nonplussed, sagging everywhere but in the bust, but the Professor arose obediently and followed Father out the open front door, almost meekly, it seemed to me, without his usual bluffness, and Drusoc followed them phlegmatically to relieve himself on the wide expanse of nonthreatening gravel. As the lady passed me, she gave me a hard look and said, “You have a smile like one I saw once on a sign outside a barber shop.” Then her bustle moved out through a portal of light like a barrage balloon.

“Please do not misunderstand me, my friend,” Father began on the steps. “But the pleasant prospect you propose is impossible, even as I presume it. You are aware that I have met your wife, and your wife has met my wife. I believe the symmetry is not lost upon you. This is
my
house and
my
laboratory, not a nightclub. Your lack of discretion is none of my business, but neither can I expense it off the books. As with all things, I admire your
chutzpah
, but must deplore your strategy.”

The Professor looked down at the loosening laces of his long shoes.

“I have been under great strain,” he murmured. “Can you imagine what resentments one feels after being kind and tolerant day after day to people who have gone off the rails?”

“No one
here
is crazy, Professor. No one here is even remotely ill. Except, perhaps, this abortion of a white dog, whose main problem is that he’s gone to fat. I only want to avoid embarrassment. This is not the bridge, sir, at which I wish to take my stand.”

The Professor looked up in the air and sniffed like a confused pointer. “It is an imposition, to be sure. I want of course to disguise the act, but also to share with her here, above the ordures of the barnyard . . .”

My father clapped his hand to his forehead. “Perhaps I am missing something here,” he hissed beneath his breath, “but this is one subterfuge you must manage on your own, sir. Surely you can make the
L’
Auberge L’Espérance
before dark, and their rear rooms, I believe, give onto a barnyard much like this one. If not, there is always the
Desdemona
’s steerage, though they often overbook.”

The Professor, much to his credit, I thought, refused to be abashed. “I agree I am not faultless in this matter. Even the strongest character remains powerless in his pure being. Perhaps it is only that I have not availed myself of such opportunities in the past which now stiffens my resolve. But surely, if you will not find this forgivable, at least acknowledge my perplexity, cement our friendship, and accept my apology with that assent.”

“My dear friend, it is not for me to give permission. I can only urge the usual canards about civility and common sense. It is not your urges, your appetites, at all; it’s the way you have resorted to explaining them that sends shivers up and down my spine.”

“Naturally.” The Professor slammed on his homburg. “The business in any case has suddenly lost its taste. But there is one thing. You have complained about my visiting you with only psychotics, oddities, and a host of problems. But this dog, you must admit, is no particular bother, and the woman, though she is demonstrative, is remarkably discreet and modest in every way. Don’t you agree?”

“From this standpoint, I am with you,” Father smiled. “Do you not believe that I wish you every pleasure of the ancients? Do you not think I am myself curious about the sex traits of such a crazed beauty? But when you cross that border, you must respect my rules, and my basic rule is this: I could not live without my wife, and I will permit nothing on this property which might cause her the slightest discomfort. My friend, in this life I have been deeply desired, and whether I was deeply loved I cannot say, but the regard of that woman has meant more to me than anything in this world. She is the only woman who has loved me disinterestedly. I am afraid that a small courtesy to her must now take precedence over a larger one to yourself.”

The Professor attempted to look sadder and wiser. One could hear only the
slop slop
of the harnesses on the glistening horses’ backs. Drusoc sidled between Father’s legs, commiserated with his ankle, and gave assent to the void, keeping one wary gray eye upon the avenging lawn.

“
Never
bring that dog here again,” Father said evenly. “There is no reform for anomie. As for the lady, she is always welcome. But beware disciples, Professor: they will cause you more grief than any critic.”

“My wife is quite . . . bourgeois, you know,” the Professor spoke under his breath. It seemed a harmless remark, even a kindly one, but it threw my father into a mood for which none of us were quite prepared.

“The bourgeois mission, my friend, is to bring beauty and science, justice and bliss, into some kind of strange, temporary equilibrium. But the inevitable cost is to dilute the erotic. Nothing worse in the world than a dead marriage. Nothing more of a secret than a good one. You have your reasons, no doubt. But listen,” and then he sidled up to him, walking as a mare does toward an acting-out foal—protectively, but finally annoyed—to whisper: “Let’s admit it, Doktor, your
uck
aside for the moment—there’s nothing like the love of a sane woman, is there? Without it life would be a pisspot, no?”

The Professor lowered his gaze sheepishly.

“You really
do
love women above all things, don’t you, Councilor?”

“I do not share your theory that women are, or were ever, scarce. The problem is that women are everywhere, and even if they are after you all the time, it doesn’t mean you’ll get the good ones. That’s the really odd thing. As you well know, I have been fortunate in females. It changes your outlook on everything. I don’t wish to rub it in. Oh, I know the exasperation, the boredom, the rheumy children, the horrible expense of it all, the fact that you must often sit around pretending you have the strength of a stone when you feel nothing at all except the ebbing away of your own life, and then of course they fly into pointless rages and play the victim. Yes, it’s quite exasperating. But when they love you, doesn’t it make you feel, well, not a man exactly, but it makes you want to do something for them, no? Something for which you will gain nothing, perhaps. This is just chatter, of course, but wouldn’t you lay down your life for them without a word? So long as one does not exaggerate, shouldn’t one be kind to women?”

The Professor suddenly seemed to recover his balance and his dignity. “You know, my friend, how much I envy you in such matters. I would give anything to be in your circumstances. But while my experience is more limited and unlucky, I often deal with women who are not part of your ideal animal kingdom. Allow me to suggest that your good fortune may multiply itself toward
too
much of a good thing.”

Genuinely moved, Felix took a step backward.

“I feel the gaze of racial disapprobation,” he said haltingly, “almost as if you were putting a curse on me.”

The Professor tried not to smirk. “I say this only, Councilor: women can be woe, and falling in love can be the
ruin
of a man.”

“Oh, come now, Professor, I have loved every part of every woman since I was eleven. Even the Furies are rather cute, you must admit. One is nothing if not rooted in a woman’s heart.”

The Professor knew he was in no position to proffer more advice. “I’m no artist at this sort of thing, believe me,” he sighed. “I seem to be obsessed by how small a normal favor in such a normal place might change my life.”

My father turned back to the house, not in anger, but with a definite military movement. “You do not have to be normal to
infer
from the normal, my friend. As you have pointed out many times yourself, it’s uncanny, isn’t it, just how small, how tiny, the normal is.”

The Professor cried out after him despairingly, “And nondescript!”

Halfway up the stairs Father turned. “We are Cannonians, sir! We waste a good deal of time over little things, and argue them to death. You have brought me, in my wasteland, examples of both perfect acculturation and uncomplicated desire, a veritable spectrum of New Thoughters and Modern Miasmas, and it isn’t fair merely to berate you for it. But you won’t get a prize for today’s collection of proverbs, I can tell you that.”

Mother had come outside for the farewells. As the men separated, one going up and one down the stairs, she noted that Drusoc’s mistress was carrying one of the Professor’s manuscripts. I extended my fabulous earshot.

“I see you are reading a sad story,” Mother said sympathetically to the now less-than-august lady, though privately she wondered how you could sleep with a man with such bad handwriting.

“What would you do if you were me?” the lady said helplessly, stripped of her
schmerz und lust
. “It is wearing me out, but what can I do?”

“The next time you visit, you must read with me sitting by the river. And then, perhaps, we should all take a long, cold swim.”

“Oh, I should very much like that,” the lady said, and her face changed for the first time from voluptuousness to a kind of wizened wisdom, just as a harsh staccato bird call fell from the wall of mountains.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “Even the ravens are laughing at us.”

“No, my dear, they are just laughing in general,” Mother purred. “It’s that time of day. Incidentally, do you find it difficult, as I do, to remember what you read?”

“Oh, indeed. Even what I believe slips away.”

“Do you think one can carry culture without being an intellectual?” Mother wondered out loud, glancing modestly away.

“I believe I know what you mean, but I . . .”

“When I was a very young girl,” Mother went on, seemingly talking only to herself, “we used to gather musk roses in the forest, staggering home with huge armfuls. By the time we reached the house we had dropped almost every one. But to have all our lost possessions again, we had only to smell our hands.”

It was a melancholy dusk, but one without evident bitterness. The men embraced. The women shook hands. The carriage lurched haltingly away. Mother had packed a dinner for them in a basket, and Father fitted it out with ferns and mushrooms, as well as a few shafts of barnyard hay, in which the unpitiable Drusoc made a halfhearted nest. They had telegraphed ahead. The
Auberge L’Espérance
, an inn of passable noodles and occasional dancing, where the streetlights look like trees and the trees look like table lamps, produced a vacancy.