But Sammler stopped himself, disapproving of the light tone that was creeping into his words of comfort. But as to the past he meant what he said. The sexual perplexities of a man like Bruch originated in the repressions of another time, in images of woman and mother which were disappearing. He himself, born in the old century and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, could discern these changes. But it also struck him as unfair to lie in bed making such observations. However, the old, the original Cracow Sammler was never especially kind. He was an only son spoiled by a mother who had herself been a spoiled daughter. An amusing recollection: When Sammler was a little boy he had covered his mouth, when he coughed, with the servant's hand, to avoid getting germs on his own hand. A family joke. The servant, grinning, red-faced, kindly, straw-haired, gummy (odd lumps in her gums) Wadja, had allowed little Sammler to borrow the hand. Then, when he was older, his mother herself, not Wadja, used to bring lean, nervous young Sammler his chocolate and croissants as he sat in his room reading Trollope and Bagehot, making an "Englishman" of himself. He and his mother had had a reputation for eccentricity, irritability in those days. Not compassionate people. Not easily pleased. Haughty. Of course all this, for Sammler, had changed considerably in the last thirty years. But then Walter Bruch with his old urchin knuckles in his eyes sat in his room and sobbed, having told on himself. And when was there nothing to tell? There was always something. Bruch told how he bought himself toys. At F. A. O. Schwarz or in antique shops he bought wind-up monkeys who combed their hair in a mirror, who banged cymbals and danced jigs, in little green jackets or red caps. Nigger minstrels had fallen in price. He played in his room with the toys, alone. He also sent denunciatory, insulting letters to musicians. Then he came and confessed and wept. He didn't weep for display. He wept because he felt he had lost his life. Would it have been possible to tell him that he hadn't?
It was easier with a man like Bruch to transfer to broad reflections, to make comparisons, to think of history and themes of general interest. For instance, in the same line of sexual neurosis Bruch was exceeded by individuals like Freud's Rat Man, with his delirium of rats gnawing into the anus, persuaded that the genital also was ratlike, or that he himself was some sort of rat. By comparison an individual like Bruch had a light case of fetishism. If you had the comparative or historical outlook you would want only the most noteworthy, smashing instances. When you had those you could drop, junk and forget the rest, which were only a burden or excess baggage. If you considered what the historical memory of mankind would retain, it would not bother to retain the Bruchs; nor, come to that, the Sammlers. Sammler didn't much mind his oblivion, not with such as would do the remembering, anyway. He thought he had found out the misanthropy of the whole idea of the "most memorable." It was certainly possible that the historical outlook made it easier to dismiss the majority of instances. In other words, to jettison most of us. But here was Walter Bruch, who had come to his mom because he felt he could talk to him. And probably Walter, when his crying stopped, would be hurt by the Krafft-Ebing reference, by the assertion that his deviation was not too unusual. Nothing seemed to hurt quite so much as being ravaged by a vice that was not a top vice. And this brought to mind Kierkegaards comical account of people traveling around the world to see rivers and mountains, new stars, birds of rare plumage, queerly deformed fishes, ridiculous breeds of men-tourists abandoning themselves to the bestial stupor which gapes at existence and thinks it has seen something. This could not interest Kierkegaard. He was looking for the Knight of Faith, the real prodigy. That real prodigy, having set its relations with the infinite, was entirely at home in the finite. Able to carry the jewel of faith, making the motions of the infinite, and as a result needing nothing but the finite and the usual. Whereas others sought the extraordinary in the world. Or wished to be what was gaped at. They themselves wanted to be the birds of rare plumage, the queerly deformed fishes, the ridiculous breeds of men. Only Mr. Sammler, extended, a long old body with brickish cheekbones and the often electrified back hair riding the back of the head-only Mr. Sammler was worried. He was concerned about the test of crime which the Knight of Faith had to meet. Should the Knight of Faith have the strength to break humanly appointed laws in obedience to God? Oh, yes, of course! But maybe Sammler knew things about murder which might make the choices just a little more difficult. He thought often what a tremendous appeal crime had made to the children of bourgeois civilization. Whether as revolutionists, as supermen, as saints, Knights of Faith, even the best teased and tested themselves with thoughts of knife or gun. Lawless. Raskolnikovs. Ah yes…
"Walter, I'm sorry-sorry to see you suffer."
The odd things occurring in Sammler's room, with its papers, books, humidor, sink, electric coil, Pyrex flask, documents.
"I'll pray for you, Walter." Bruch stopped crying, clearly startled.
"What do you mean, Uncle Sammler? You pray?"
The baritone music left his voice, and it was gruff again, and he gruffly gobbled his words.
"Uncle Sammler, I have my arms. You have prayers?" He pave a belly laugh. He laughed and snorted, swinging his trunk comically back and forth, holding both his sides, blindly showing both his nostrils. He was not, however, mocking Sammler. Not really. One had to learn to distinguish. To distinguish and distinguish and distinguish. It was distinguishing, not explanation, that mattered. Explanation was for the mental masses. Adult education. The upswing of general consciousness. A mental level comparable with, say, that of the economic level of the proletariat in 1848. But distinguishing? A higher activity.
"I will pray for you," said Sammler.
After this the conversation sank for a while into mere sociability. Sammler had to look at letters Bruch had sent to the Post, Newsday, the Times, tangling with their music reviewers. This again was the contentious, ludicrous side of things, the thick-smeared, self-conscious, performing loutish Bruch. Just when Sammler wanted to rest. To recover a little. To put himself in order. And Bruch's rollicking, guttural Dada routine was contagious. Go, Walter, go away so that I can pray for you, Sammler felt like saying, falling into Bruch's style. But then Bruch asked, "And when are you expecting your son-in-law?"
"Who? Eisen?"
"Yes, he's coming. He's maybe here already."
"I didn't know that. He's threatened to come, many times, to set up as an artist in New York. He doesn't want Shula at all."
"I know that," said Bruch. "And she is so afraid of him."
"Certainly it would not work. He is too violent. Yes, she will be frightened. She will also feel flattered, imagining that he has come to win her back. But he's not thinking of wives and marriage. He wants to show his paintings on Madison Avenue."
"He thinks he is that good?"
"He learned printing and engraving in Haifa and I was told in his shop that he was a dependable worker. But then he discovered Art, and began to paint in his spare time and make etchings. Then he sent each member of the family a portrait of himself copied from photographs. Did you see any? They were appalling, Walter. An insane mind and a frightening soul made those paintings. I don't know how he did it, but by using color he robbed every subject of color. Everybody looked like a corpse, with black lips and red eyes, with faces a kind of leftover cooked-liver green. At the same time it was like a little schoolgirl learning to draw pretty people, with cupid mouths and long eyelashes. Frankly, I was stunned when I saw myself like a kewpie doll from the catacombs. In that shiny varnish he uses, I looked really done for. It was as if one death was not enough for me, but I had to have a double death. Well, let him come. His crazy intuition about New York may be right. He is a cheerful maniac. Now so many highbrows have discovered that madness is higher knowledge. If he painted Lyndon Johnson, General Westmoreland, Rusk, Nixon, or Mr. Laird in that style he might become a celebrity of the art world. Power and money of course do drive people crazy. So why shouldn't people also gain power and wealth through being crazy? They should go together."