"Yes, you must be. Of course you are. Yes."
"Yes, what? It sounds as if there's something more."
"There is. I'm in a state, too, about your father. He's been a great friend to me. I am sick, too, about him."
"We don't have to beat around the bush, Uncle."
"No. He's going to die."
"That's coming out with it all right," she said. She was for plain speaking, was this too plain?
"It's as terrible to say as to hear."
"I'm sure you love Daddy," she said.
"I do."
"Apart from the practical reasons, I mean."
"Of course Shula and I have been supported by him. I never concealed my gratitude. I hope that has been no secret," said Sammler. As he was dry and old, the beating of his heart, even violent beating, would not be evident. "If I were practical, if I were very practical, I would be careful not to antagonize you. I think there are reasons other than the practical ones."
"Well, I hope we're not going to quarrel."
"That's right," said Sammler. She was angry with Wallace, with Cosbie, Horricker. He did not want to add himself to the list. He needed no victory over Angela. He only wanted to persuade her of something, and didn't know whether even that was feasible. But he was certainly not about to make war on suffering females. He began to talk. "I'm feeling very jumpy, Angela. There are certain damaged nerves you don't hear from for years, and then they act up, they flare up. They're burning now, very painfully. Now I'd like to say something about your father, as long as we're waiting for him. On the surface, I don't have much In common with Elya. He's a sentimental person. He makes a point, too much of a point, of treasuring certain old feelings. He's on an old system. I've always been skeptical of that myself. One might ask, where is the new system? But we don't have to get into that. I never had much natural liking for people who make open..."never had much natural liking for people who make open declarations of affection. Being a 'Britisher' was one of my foibles. Cold? But I still appreciate a certain restraint. I didn't care for the way Elya courted everyone, tried to make contact with people, winning their hearts, engaging their interest, getting personal even with waitresses, lab technicians, manicurists. It was always too easy for him to say 'I love you.' He was forever saying it to your mother in public, embarrassing her. I don't intend to discuss her with you. She had her good points. But as I was a snob about the British, she was a German Jewess who cultivated the Wasp style (now outmoded, by the way), and I recognized it. She was going to refine your father, an Ostjude. He was supposed to be the expressive one, the one with the heart. Isn't that about right? So your father was assigned to be expressive. He certainly had his work cut out for him with your mother. I think it would have been easier to love a theorem in geometry than your poor mother. Excuse me, Angela, for going on like this."
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."