“The story,” said Rudyard, “is by Kafka, not Rilke, and you have distorted it.” He took a book from the shelf, turned to the proper page and read aloud, pausing after each sentence.
“‘Their very horses live on meat. Often a rider lies down beside his horse. Then both feed on the same piece of meat.’
“The story,” Rudyard continued in a critical voice, “is about nomads, not Siberians. It is nomads who come to the capital. They eat butchers’ meat, which they have stolen from butchers’ vans. The meat comes from the slaughter house and nothing is said about eating living cows who are bleeding to death. You have changed the story in a way familiar to me because I know how your memory distorts many things, making what has happened more brutal and more cruel than it was in actual fact.”
“Never mind,” said Laura. “Let’s say that I wrote the story then. I wrote the story from my knowledge of life. But I am the cow, and you,” she said pointing at Rudyard, “are the nomad, the Siberian, and you,” she said, pointing to the other boys, “are the horses, chewing on the other side.”
“I am not a horse,” said Marcus, who was amused and thought this a witticism.
“Shut up,” said Edmund to Marcus.
“If you expect too much from human beings,” said Jacob, “you are bound to be disappointed.”
“I never expected anything unusual,” said Laura, “all I ever wanted was what everyone else has.”
“This is getting hysterical,” said Marcus, who was always slow. “What a party!”
“Can’t you think of anything good to say about any of us?” asked Jacob in a kind voice.
“I can,” said Laura, “but if I lean backwards anymore, I will fall down and injure my spine, to coin a phrase.” Laura reached for a glass of champagne, which Rudyard tried to keep her from getting. But he was unsuccessful.
“I don’t have what I want,” said Jacob to Laura, “and I don’t think that many of us have what we want.”
“Yes,” said Rudyard, returning to his own kind of rhetoric, “I too may say that I am disappointed. My plays are not performed, although many of them are masterpieces, if I may say so. I think I may say without immodesty that I am superior to the age in which I live. I pay for my superiority to Broadway by leading this life of obscurity. Yet I do not seek out a scapegoat, as you do, Laura. Furthermore, we ought to remember that this life is a mystery in which each of us is given by God his own gifts and shortcomings. To live is better than anything else! Let us take pleasure in life!”
“Never mind,” said Laura, “if you like, go ahead and say that God gave me a plain face and made me full of self-pity. What am I going to do about it? Do you think I ought to take pleasure in it? I want a husband like all the other girls. I don’t want to be left alone.”
“In my late adolescence,” said Edmund, “life seemed to me to be Shakespearean. But now as I get older I see that life really resembles the stories of Dostoyevsky.”
“Enough of these literary allusions,” said Laura. “You’re no Karamazov.”
This new version of Laura’s famous sentence, “You’re no Adonis,” drew forth reminiscent laughter lacking in vigor because Laura stood before them, cold-faced.
“Marriage is not so important,” said Irene, who had been silent and who, as a newcomer, had not really understood what Laura was saying.
“What do you have that I don’t have?” said Laura to Irene, quoting herself again.
Jacob arose and it was natural that all should accept this moment as belonging to him.
“The fact is,” said Jacob, in a low and careful voice, “we all have each other and we all need each other. Laura’s story was a very good story, whether it was written by Rilke or Kafka. All of us consume each other, and life without such friends as we are to each other would be unbearable. The best pleasure of all is to give pleasure to another being. Strange as it seems, I see this truth every day when I give my cat his dinner, and I see how unbearable solitude is when I come home and he is pleased to see me, and I am pleased that he is pleased.”
“I am not a cat,” said Laura, unwilling to be consoled by mere analogy, “I am a girl.”
“Each of us,” said Jacob, “has been disappointed and most of us will continue to be disappointed. It would be foolish to try to say that the disappointment is not painful or that it is good for us or that it is necessary. Yet, on the other hand, which of us would really like to be dead? Not one of us would prefer that his life had ended in childhood or infancy, and that he had not lived through the years he has lived. Since this is true of the past, it is likely that it will be true of the future, and in the same way. By the same way, I mean that we will not get what we want; our desires will not be richly satisfied; but nonetheless we will be pleased to live through the years, to be conscious each day and to sleep every night.”
“Not me,” said Laura, “speak for yourself.” She took another glass of champagne.
“You do not know what you are saying, Laura,” said Edmund. Taking a book in his hand, he too read aloud:
“‘When one is upset by anger, then the heart is not in its right place; when one is disturbed by fear, then the heart is not in its right place; when one is blinded by love, then the heart is not in its right place; when one is involved in anxiety, then the heart is not in its right place. When the mind is not present, we look, but do not see, listen but do not hear, and eat but do not know the flavor of the food.’”
“I am wearing my heart on my sleeve,” said Laura, unmoved, “all the sentences in all the books will not do away with my disappointment.”
“How about your love?” asked Marcus.
“I don’t have any love,” said Laura.
“How much money do I make?” said Edmund.
“We can’t just run on like this,” said Jacob, “and yet nothing seems to do any good.”
Laura had begun to cry and those who saw her tears tried to make believe that they did not see them.
“I just don’t like it,” she said, sobbing, “I am going to get out of this house.” She started for the door. Edmund and Ferdinand took hold of her and dissuaded her.
“Have some more to drink,” said Marcus in an effort to be helpful.
“I am going to try again,” said Jacob, “since there is nothing else to do but try again.” He said this as to himself and then he spoke loudly and clearly:
“The world is a wedding. I read this sentence in an old book last week. I had to think for two days before I had any conception of what this sentence The world is a wedding was supposed to mean. Does it mean anything? Yes, and it means everything. For example, it means that the world is the wedding of God and Nature. This is the first of all the marriages.
“It was natural that I should think of Pieter Breughel’s picture, ‘The Peasant Wedding.’ Do you remember what that picture looks like? If you look at it long enough, you will see all the parts that anyone and everyone can have. But it is necessary to belong to a circle of friendship, such as ours, if one is to be present at the wedding which is this world.”
“The world is a marriage of convenience,” said Laura drunkenly, “the world is a shot-gun marriage. The world is a sordid match for money. The world is a misalliance. Every birthday is a funeral and every funeral is a great relief.”
“I only went to a wedding once,” said Francis. He spoke in a low voice but with an intensity which made everyone listen. “It was the wedding of my older sister at the age of thirty-six.
“The bridegroom’s mother, who was eighty-five, was brought in a taxi to the ceremony. She paid no attention to the ceremony, but kept telling my mother how, at the home for the aged where she lived, she was persecuted and other old men and women pampered; but my younger sister and I listened to what she said because it was more interesting than the ceremony itself. One thing we kept noticing was that the bride was at least a head taller than the bridegroom.