She said, "It's like we're sitting on the edge of a cliff anyway, waiting here."
"All right, Angela. One might as well talk, then. Not to add to your difficulties… I just saw something peculiarly nasty, on my way over. Partly my fault. I feel distressed. But I was saying that your father has had his assignments. Husband, medical man-he was a good doctor-family man, success, American, wealthy retirement with a Rolls Royce. We have our assignments. Feeling, outgoingness, expressiveness, kindness, heart-all these fine human things which by a peculiar turn of opinion strike people now as shady activities. Openness and candor about vices seem far easier. Anyway, there is Elya's assignment. That's what's in his good face. That's why he has such a human look. He's made something of himself. He hasn't done badly. He didn't like surgery. You know that. He dreaded those three- and four-hour operations. But he performed them. He did what he disliked. He had an unsure loyalty to certain pure states. He knew there had been good men before him, that there were good men to come, and he wanted to be one of them. I think he did all right. I don't come out nearly so well myself. Till forty or so I was simply an Anglophile intellectual Polish Jew and person of culture-relatively useless. But Elya, by sentimental repetition and by formulas if you like, partly by propaganda, has accomplished something good. Brought himself through. He loves you. I'm sure he loves Wallace. I believe he loves me. I've learned much from him. I have no illusions about your father, you understand. He's touchy, boastful, he repeats himself. He's vain, grouchy, proud. But he's done well, and I admire him."
"So he's human. All right, he's human." She was, perhaps, only half following him, though she looked straight at him, full-face, knees apart so that he saw the pink material of her undergarment. Seeing that pink band, he thought, "Why argue? What is the point?" But he replied.
"Well, everybody's human only in some degree. Same more than others."
"Some very little?"
"That's the way it seems. Very little. Faulty. Scanty. Dangerous."
"I thought everybody was born human."
"It's not a natural gift at all. Only the capacity is natural."
"Well, Uncle, why are you putting me through this? What have you got in mind? You're after something."
"Yes, I suppose I am."
"You're criticizing me."
"No, I'm praising your father."
Angela's gaze was dilated, brilliant, smeary, angry. No fights, for God's sake, with a despairing woman. Still, he was getting at something. He held his thin body rigid; the ginger-gray brows overhung the tinted dimness of the shades.
"I don't like the opinion I think you have of me," she said.
"Why should that matter on a day like this? Well, perhaps I do feel that today there ought to be a difference. Perhaps if we were in India or Finland we might not be in quite the same mood. New York makes one think about the collapse of civilization, about Sodom and Gomorrah, the end of the world. The end wouldn't come as a surprise here. Many people already bank on it. And I don't know whether humankind is really all that much worse. In one day, Caesar massacred the Tencteri, four hundred and thirty thousand souls. Even Rome was appalled. I am not sure that this is the worst of all times. But it is in the air that things are falling apart, and I am affected by it. I always hated people who declared it was the end. What did they know about the end? From personal experience, from the grave if I may say so, I knew something about it. But I was flat, dead wrong. Anybody may feel the truth. But suppose it to be true-true, and not a mood, not ignorance or destructive pleasure or the doom desired by people who have botched everything. Suppose it to be so. There is still such a thing as a man-or there was. There are still human qualities. Our weak species fought its fear, our crazy species fought its criminality. We are an animal of genius."
This was a thing he often thought. At the moment it was only a formula. He did not thoroughly feel it.
"O. K., Uncle."
"But we don't have to decide whether the world is ending. The point is that for your father it is the end."
"Why are you pushing that, as if I didn't know. What do you want from me?"
Indeed what? From her, sitting there, breasts shown, diffusing woman-odors, big eyes practically merged; tormented, and at this moment strangely badgered by Caesar and the Tencteri, by ideas. Let the poor creature be. For now she was claiming to be a poor creature. And she was. But he could not let her be-not yet.
"As a rule these aneurysms cause instant death," he said. "With Elya there has been a delay, which gives an opportunity."
"An opportunity? What do you mean?"
"A chance to resolve some things. And it has made your father realistic-facing up to facts that were obscure."
"Facts about me, for instance? He didn't really want to know about me."
"Yes."
"What are you getting at?"
"You've got to do something for him. He has a need."
"What something am I supposed to do?"
"That's up to you. If you love him, you can make some sign. He's grieving. He's in a rage. He's disappointed. And I don't really think it is the sex. At this moment that might well be a trivial consideration. Don't you see, Angela? You wouldn't need to do much. It would give the man a last opportunity to collect himself."
"As far as I can see, if there is anything at all in what you say, you want an old-time deathbed scene."
"What difference does it make what you call it?"
"I should ask him to forgive me? Are you serious?"
"I am perfectly serious."
"But how could I-It goes against everything. You're talking to the wrong person. Even for my father it would be too hokey. I can't see it."
"He's been a good man. And he's being swept out. Can't you think of something to say to him?"
"What is there to say? And can't you think of anything but death?"
"But that's what we have before us."
"And you won't stop. I know you're going to say something more. Well, say it."
"In so many words?"
"In so many words. The fewer the better."
"I don't know what happened in Mexico. The details don't matter. I only note the peculiarity that it is possible to be gay, amorous, intimate with holiday acquaintances. Diversions, group intercourse, fellatio with strangers-one can do that but not come to terms with one's father at the last opportunity. He's put an immense amount of feeling into you. Probably most of his feeling has gone toward you. If you can in some way see this and make some return…"
"Uncle Sammler!" She was furious.
"Ah. You're angry. Naturally."
"You've insulted me. You've been trying hard enough. Well, now you have-you've insulted me, Uncle Sammler."
"It was not the object. I only believe that there are things everyone knows, and must know."
"For God's sake, quit this."