Sammler had taken off his shoes, and now the long frail feet in brown stockings felt cold and he laid over them the blanket with its frayed silk binding. Bruch took this to mean that he was going to sleep. Or was it that the conversation had taken a turn that didn't interest Sammler? The singer said good-by.
When Bruch bustled out--black coat, short legs, sack-wide bottom, cap tight, bicycle clips at the bottoms of his trousers (the suicidal challenge of cycling in Manhattan)--Sammler was again thinking of the pickpocket, the pressure of his body, the lobby and the hernial canvas walls, the two pairs of dark glasses, the lizard-thick curving tube in the hand, dusty stale pinkish chocolate color and strongly suggesting the infant it was there to beget. Ugly, odious; laughable, but nevertheless important. And Mr. Sammler himself (one of those mental invasions there was no longer any point in attempting to withstand) was accustomed to put his own very different emphasis on things. Of course he and the pickpocket were different. Everything was different. Their mental, characterological, spiritual profiles were miles apart. In the past, Mr. Sammler had thought that in this same biological respect he was comely enough, in his own Jewish way. It had never greatly mattered, and mattered less than ever now, in the seventies. But a sexual madness was overwhelming the Western world. Sammler now even vaguely recalled hearing that a President of the United States was supposed to have shown himself in a similar way to the representatives of the press (asking the ladies to leave), and demanding to know whether a man so well hung could not be trusted to lead his country. The story was apocryphal, naturally, but it was not a flat impossibility, given the President, and what counted was that it should spring up and circulate so widely that it reached even the Sammlers in their West Side bedrooms. Take as another instance the last exhibit of Picasso. Angela had brought him to the opening at the Museum of Modern Art. It was in the strictly sexual sense also an exhibition. Old Picasso was wildly obsessed by sexual fissures, by phalluses. In the frantic and funny pain of his farewell, creating organs by the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. Lingam and Yoni. Sammler thought it might be enlightening to recall the Sanskrit words. Bring in a little perspective. But it didn't really do much for such a troubled theme. And it was very troubled. He fetched back, for example, a statement by Angela Gruner, blurted out after several drinks when she was laughing, gay, and evidently feeling free (to the point of brutality) with old Uncle Sammler. "A Jew brain, a black cock, a Nordic beauty," she had said, "is what a woman wants." Putting together the ideal man. Well, after all, she had charge accounts at the finest shops in New York, and access to the best of everything in the world. If Pucci didn't have what she wanted, she ordered from Hermès. All that money could buy, luxury could offer, personal beauty could bear upon the person, or that sexual sophistication could reciprocate. If she could find the ideal male, her divine synthesis--well, she was sure she could make it worth his while. The best was not too good for her. There seemed to be no question about that. At moments like this Mr. Sammler was more than ever pleasantly haunted by moon-visions. Artemis--lunar chastity. On the moon people would have to work hard simply to stay alive, to breathe. They would have to keep a strict watch over the gauges of all the devices. Conditions altogether different. Austere technicians--almost a priesthood.
If it wasn't Bruch forcing his way in with confessions, if it wasn't Margotte (for she was now beginning to think about affairs of the heart after three years of decent widowhood--more discussion than prospects, surely: discussion, earnest examination ad infinitum), if it wasn't Feffer with his indiscriminate bedroom adventures, it was Angela who came to confide. If confidence was the word for it. Communicating chaos. Getting to be oppressive. Especially since her father had recently been unwell. At this moment actually in the hospital. Sammler had ideas about this chaos--he had his own view of everything, an intensely peculiar one, but what else was there to go by? Of course he made allowances for error. He was a European, and these were American phenomena. Europeans often misunderstood America comically. He could remember that many refugees had packed their bags to take off for Mexico or Japan after Stevenson's first defeat, certain that Ike would bring a military dictatorship. Certain European importations were remarkably successful in the United States-psychoanalysis, existentialism. Both related to the sexual revolution.
In any case, a mass of sadness had been waiting for free, lovely, rich, ever-so-slightly coarse Angela Gruner, and she was now flying under thick clouds. For one thing she was having trouble with Wharton Horricker. She was fond of, she liked, probably she loved, Wharton Horricker. In the last two years Sammler had heard of few other men. Fidelity, strict and literal, was not Angela's dish, but she had an old-fashioned need for Horricker. He was from Madison Avenue, some sort of market-research expert and statistical wizard. He was younger than Angela. A physical culturist (tennis, weight lifting). Tall, from California, marvelous teeth. There was gymnastic apparatus in his house. Angela described the slanted board with footstraps for sit-ups, the steel bar in the doorway for chinning. And the chrome-metal, cold marble furniture, the leather straps and British folding officers' chairs, the op and pop objets d'art, the indirect lighting, and the prevalence of mirrors. Horricker was handsome. Sammler agreed. Cheerful, somewhat unformed as yet, Horricker was perhaps intended by nature to be rascally (what was all that muscle for? Health? Not banditry?). "And what a dresser!" said Angela with husky, comedienne's delight. With long California legs, small hips, crisp long hair with a darling curl at the back, he was a mod dandy. Extremely critical of other people's clothes. Even Angela had to submit to West Point inspection. Once when he thought her improperly dressed, he abandoned her on the street. He crossed to the other side. Custom-made shirts, shoes, sweaters were continually arriving from London and Milan. You could play sacred music while he had his hair cut (no, "styledl"), said Angela. He went to a Greek on East Fifty-sixth Street. Yes, Sammler knew a good deal about Wharton Horricker. His health foods. Horricker had even brought him bottles of yeast powder. Sammler found the yeast beneficial. Then there was the matter of neckties. Horricker's collection of beautiful neckties! By now the comparison with his own black pickpocket was unavoidable. This cult of masculine elegance must be thought about. Something important, still nebulous, about Solomon in all his glory versus the lilies of the field. We would see. Still, despite his self-pampering fastidiousness, his intolerance of badly clothed people, despite his dressy third-generation-Jew name, Wharton received serious consideration from Sammler. He sympathized with him, understanding the misleading and corrupting power of Angela, insidious without intending to be. What she intended to be was gay, pleasure-giving, exuberant, free, beautiful, healthy. As young Americans (the Pepsi generation, wasn't it?) saw the thing. And she told old Uncle Sammler everything -the honor of her confidences belonged to him. Why? Oh, she thought he was the most understanding, the most European-worldly-wise-nonprovincialmentally-diversified-intelligent-young-in-heart of old refugees, and really interested in the new phenomena. To deserve this judgment had he perhaps extended himself a little? Hadn't he lent himself, played the game, acted the ripe old refugee? If so, he was offended with himself. And, yes, it was so. If he heard things he didn't want to hear, there was a parallel--on the bus he had seen things he didn't want to see. But hadn't he gone a dozen times to Columbus Circle to look for the black thief?