It was suggested that some pathological feeling had compelled B. L. to marry Priscilla, either sexual feeling for his own sex, or a desire to possess an utterly passive wife. Francis French suggested that Priscilla might resemble B. L.’s mother when he was an infant at the breast. Rudyard thought it far more likely that Priscilla was seeking to escape from an incestuous desire for her father, since B. L. was truly as far away from her father as she could get. Rudyard also dismissed as banal, trite, obvious and hence untrue the view that B. L. might have married Priscilla because he wished to ascend in the social scale. Edmund, on the other hand, declared that whatever motives might have inspired the newly-wedded couple, the marriage was in actual fact an attack on the ruling class. It was somewhat far-fetched to suppose that Priscilla belonged to the ruling class, but the match had an unequivocal symbolic meaning: it was the beginning of the disappearance of the Anglo-Saxon. Ferdinand regarded the union as a striking example of the degradation which overtook all who were interested in social problems and in politics. The underlying reason for all these speculations was that marriage for all of the circle was far-off, and when Laura said: “Maybe she just likes him and he just likes her,” she was regarded as superficial.
Edmund’s exciting news about the distant marriage was that B. L. and Priscilla had been seen at dinner for two weeks in the same Italian restaurant, and on each night the husband and the wife had been reading two copies of the same newspaper, saying nothing to each other from start to finish.
“It’s too good to be true,” said Edmund joyously, “after all, they have only been married for six months. But probably they no longer can imagine a period when they were not married.”
“Here we see,” said Rudyard, declamatory, “in this reading of the same newspaper, a noble effort on the part of a wife to share her husband’s intellectual interests!”
“This behavior,” said Ferdinand, “is of a matchless vulgarity!”
“If we had any sense,” said Jacob, “we would burst into tears for all the husbands and wives who have nothing to say to each other.”
“How many months,” said the delighted Edmund, “have passed since last they exchanged the time of the day?”
“How about you,” said Laura to Rudyard, “don’t you read the newspaper at the dinner table?”
“It’s not the same thing,” said Rudyard, “I did not marry you.”
The insensitivity of this remark would not have passed unnoticed, had not Francis French entered on one of his rare visits. He too had a story in which he was very much interested. He had encountered during the previous week-end a youthful teacher and critic, Mortimer London, who was reputed to be brilliant.
“I have long believed,” said Francis, “that everyone himself tells the worst stories about himself. London told me (keep in mind that fact that London himself tells this story about himself) that when he was in England last year, he had paid a visit to T. S. Eliot who had given him a letter of introduction to James Joyce, since he was going to Paris also. Now London says that he was confronted with a cruel choice, whether to use the letter and converse with the author of Ulysses or to keep the letter in which a great author commends him to a great author. He decided to keep the letter!”
“What a dumb-bell,” said Edmund, the veteran scholar, “he should have known that the choice might be forestalled. He might have made a photostat copy!”
“Never mind that,” said Rudyard, who did not like to be concerned with practical considerations, “what’s really interesting is the extent to which this Mortimer London is insane. For obviously he tells this story because of great pride in himself. He does not know that there is nothing worse that he can say about himself: he would rather possess the letter than converse with the great author.”
“Never mind,” said Laura to Rudyard, “I never saw you hiding your light in a dark closet.”
Rudyard did not reply, fascinated by this example of egotism as only an egotist can be.
“I wonder,” said Jacob, “what are the worst stories each of us tells against himself.”
“Once in a while,” said Laura, “just for a change, we ought to try saying something good about anyone. Anyone can run down anyone else, it is as easy as sliding off a chute. What’s hard is to love other human beings and to speak well of them.”
“You are being sententious,” said Rudyard, “it is obviously true that human beings are more evil than good, and thus it would be false to speak well of other human beings very much, although I am willing to try anything once,” concluding as often with an irony which, directed against himself, defended him against what anyone else might say.
“The fact is” said Jacob, as the visitor arose to depart, “I can’t think of what the worst story I tell against myself is, and that is nothing, if not alarming. We are all living in a world of our own.”
“Yes,” said Rudyard, chortling because the idea delighted him, “in a certain sense, we are all cracked!”
FIVE: “IT IS GOOD TO BE THE WAY THAT WE ARE”
During the day, after he had labored at his new play in the morning in the glow of after-breakfast, Rudyard participated in a life apart from the circle, a life in which a different part of his being showed itself. This life was concerned with the children and the adolescents of the neighborhood, and it was an intrusion, which annoyed Rudyard, if he encountered an adult. If the adult, the parent of one of his friends, met Rudyard, he said with the politeness and interest of the middle class:
“What are you doing now?” meaning, how are you trying to make a living? How are you trying to get ahead?
“I am helping my father,” Rudyard always answered, having nurtured this answer until it was automatic.
“What is your father doing?” the helpless adult often inquired, never having heard of Rudyard’s father because he had been dead for twenty years.
“My father is doing nothing!” was Rudyard’s stock answer, followed by harsh and triumphant laughter that the questioner had walked into the trap, although in all truth Rudyard was ashamed that he had nothing impressive to announce.
Among the children and the adolescents of the neighborhood Rudyard was at his best, however. In the schoolyard near the apartment house, between bouts of handball, Rudyard conversed in the fall and in the spring with those who were to him the pure in heart and the wise just as he seemed to himself to be to them one of the wise and the pure in heart.
As he sat upon the asphalt court, after a game of doubles, he discussed with his friends Chester and Jeremiah, the star of the school, a boy named Alexander, twelve years of age, who was best in handball, basketball, high jumping, and the hundred yard dash. It was felt by all that Alexander had a great future.
“Suppose,” said Rudyard to his friends, “Alexander was at least a hundred times better than he is. Then he would win all the time in all the games. But if he was as good as that, if he won all the time, if every contest was a victory, if he was sure of winning every game, then he would not enjoy the game very much.”
Chester suggested that Alexander might then join the New York Yankees and earn a fabulous salary, more than the President’s. Jeremiah added that his picture might appear in all the newspapers and he might marry a moving picture actress.
“Yes,” said Rudyard patiently, brushing aside these ideas of the glory of this world, “suppose he hit a homer every time he came to bat? Suppose he was sure of hitting a homer? Don’t you think he would get bored with playing baseball?”
“Yes,” answered Chester and Jeremiah, “but he can’t and he won’t.”