“In all the evenings I have been here,” said Lloyd because he had been interrupted, “I have yet to succeed in uttering a complete sentence.”
Ferdinand was delighted with this remark. “Do you know what Lloyd just said?” he asked loudly and then quoted Lloyd’s remark which seemed to all but Lloyd to be a remark of extraordinary brilliance.
“I have not uttered a complete sentence since 1928,” shouted Laura from the kitchen where she was drinking. This declaration caused an immediate uproar.
“Has Laura been drinking again?” Marcus inquired. And when she began to set the table, he regarded her carefully.
“Why don’t you get married?” he said to her. “It might do you a lot of good.”
Edmund told Marcus to shut up and stop being such a boob, and when the evening was over, Marcus, still astonished by being reproved, asked Edmund what he had done that was wrong and how he had offended Laura. When at last he understood, he said to Edmund pensively: “Do you know, I never thought of that. It never occurred to me.”
SIX: “LOVE THE DARK VICTOR WHOM NO ONE OUTWITS”
Edmund thought he had made a most important discovery.
Bringing it with him to the Bell household on a Saturday evening, he was hardly able to wait for everyone’s attention. And he would not speak until everyone was ready to listen to him.
“A revolution has occurred,” said Edmund, “but it is subject to silence, since love is subject to shame. Love has been purified, as never before. Love has been made to be just love and and nothing else but love.”
“How?” asked Rudyard.
“By the druggist,” said Edmund, “by the sale of contraceptives.”
Rudyard and Ferdinand exchanged looks which each understood very well. Was it possible, they said by looking at each other, that Edmund, the withdrawn scholar, had at long last suffered the loss of his innocence, an actual innocence, which existed with complete knowledge?
“The contraceptive,” Edmund continued, “has purified love by freeing it from the accident of children. Now everyone with any sense can find out whom he truly loves. Children can be chosen beings, and not the result of impetuous lust or impatient appetite. Now love is love and nothing else but love!”
“Yes,” said Rudyard, “a mere material device has utterly transformed the relationships between men and women: a mere material thing!”
“On the other hand,” said Francis French, “it also makes possible adultery, and promiscuity, not that I have anything against promiscuity.”
“I love my wife, but oh you id,” said Ferdinand, who had studied Freud and Tin Pan Alley.
“Yes,” said Jacob, “it makes everything too easy, which is always a good reason for suspicion and doubt. Love is more difficult than anything else. Love is the dark victor whom no one outwits.”
“Exactly,” said Edmund, “this device, so small and inexpensive, assures the victory of love. Love cannot be prevented, love cannot be set aside, no thoughts of utility or shame can intervene.”
“There is nothing in it,” said Laura, “you still have to find someone to love who loves you.”
Jacob, somewhat apart, saw that on this subject opinion was absolute and speculation infinite precisely because they were so far from the actuality of love.
“How far is it to love?” he said to himself. “Love the dark victor whom no one escapes.”
Edmund felt that this balloon of an idea, of which he had expected so much, had collapsed. Rudyard, who expected a visitor he had never seen before, was preoccupied, Jacob was withdrawn, Laura was sad, Ferdinand was attempting to produce a new witticism. Yet Edmund felt that he must try again.
“The Pope in Rome,” said Edmund, “ought to be told of this. Yes, I will write him an epistle. Does he not know that God looked at Adam, in Eden, and remarked: ‘It is not good for man to be alone.’ By banning the use of the pure and purifying contraceptive, the Pope misunderstands the word of God which says that the reason for marriage is that man should have children. For it is not necessary to have marriage in order to have children, but if we are not to be alone, marriage alone is sufficient.”
Rudyard and Ferdinand again exchanged glances of wonder concerned with Edmund’s private life, what was new in it.
Marcus, ever late, entered loudly and demanded to know what was being discussed.
“It is not easy to say,” said Jacob, “but on the surface, at least, it is an academic discussion of love.”
“Speaking of love,” said Marcus, who had need only of a slight pretext to brim over with his own thoughts, “I read a fine story today about Flaubert—”
“The promising French novelist, no doubt,” asked Ferdinand.
“Flaubert,” said Marcus, ignoring Ferdinand, “made a bet with two of his friends that he would be able to make love, smoke a cigar, and write a letter at the same time. They went to a house of prostitution and found the best girl, and Flaubert wrote the letter, smoked the cigar, and made love to the girl.”
“What he really enjoyed,” said Rudyard, “was the cigar.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Marcus, “what I want to know is, What did he say in the letter? And to whom was it written? And what was the tone? and what kind of cigar was it? and did he have time to finish it?”
“Speaking of letters,” said Rudyard, who felt that this topic was exhausted, “I am being visited tonight, by a stranger who wrote me a letter.”
The letter was from a true stranger, a being from a foreign country, Archer Price, a young man of thirty who directed a little theatre in San Francisco. He had seen two of Rudyard’s plays in manuscript, and now that he had come to New York, he wanted to meet Rudyard.
Rudyard was delighted by his letter, but nevertheless made fun of it.
“How can human beings of the Far West understand my play?” he asked. “Their idea of drama is the thrilling final match of a tennis tournament.”
Yet Rudyard looked forward very much to the visit of the stranger.
Archer Price arrived at the Bell household with Pauline Taylor, a pretty young woman who lived in New York City, but had come to know Archer during a visit to California. When the strangers entered the house, the discussion of love stopped. In the midst of the introductions, as all were standing up, Archer, who was seldom at ease, said to Rudyard what he had decided to say before he arrived.
“I am very glad to meet you,” said Archer, “because I admire your plays very much.”
“What a remark!” said Rudyard, who appeared to be astounded by it and who looked to Edmund, as if to see if he too did not suppose this sentence to be outlandish.
“Says he admires two of my plays very much,” said Rudyard to Edmund, and then pouted and placed one finger under his chin, as if he were about to curtsey.
“I really admire your plays very much,” said Archer, bewildered and offended.
“I know you do,” said Rudyard, as if this repetition were unnecessary, “otherwise you would not be here.”
Archer seated himself on the studio couch and glanced at Pauline to see what her impression was. She glanced back in sympathy, for she was concerned not with Rudyard, but with Archer, and she knew how distressed he was by Rudyard’s way of responding to his utterance of admiration. Neither of the newcomers knew that Rudyard’s behavior had been inspired by his extreme pleasure, for he had so long desired the admiration of strangers that his self-possession teetered and he tried to regain his balance by regarding this admiration as peculiar. Both newcomers understood such emotions and attitudes very well, but they did not recognize Rudyard’s version, because it was extreme, private, and directed not at the visitors, but at Edmund and Laura.