On the shuttle from Washington to New York, I started to take a seat in the first row. All passengers except the few who think that, in case of a crash, the tail section will be spared try to sit in forward rows, in order to save time in getting off. A stewardess said the first three rows on this flight were reserved. We all, resignedly, moved further back. One meek-looking man, however, balked, protested, said that this time they had gone too far. He knew, he said, they knew, everyone knew that federal law forbids reserving seats on shuttle flights. He would insist, he would notify, he would denounce. In fact, under the rule of first come first served, he would sit down. A stewardess, meanwhile, was gently herding him to the fourth row. A steward, looking young, and blond and fit, said the seats had been reserved for reasons of security. The ranting man demanded to know for whom. The steward said, for reasons of security, he could not tell their names. The rant had subsided to a grumble that passengers had at least a right, a perfect right to know the names of any celebrities they were being put through this absurd outrage for, when a group came aboard and sat down in those seats. Among them, laughing, with a black patch across his eye, was a passenger who would cause any other passenger in the world to recognize a problem of security.
An extremely old, infirm and doddering lady, carrying an enormous bag, part wicker and part canvas, had meanwhile quietly taken an aisle seat in the first row. She sat, staring straight ahead and trembling, apparently unaware that her presence was now the subject of discussion, in at least two languages, throughout the plane. A man in the new group, who was himself carrying a large canvas parcel, whispered a while with two men in the third row and then approached the lady, with the evident intention of asking her to move. He stopped, shaking his head. He couldn’t do it. He walked back, to a seat in the fourth row. Passengers of all sorts and races were still coming aboard. The whole aircraft scrutinized them, for evidences of fanaticism.
The steward, a stewardess and the co-pilot were now whispering. Just before takeoff, when the plane was full, the stewardess bent over the old lady, trying to get her to part, at least, with that enormous bag. The lady sat, at first, not hearing, trembling. Then she said, “My crackers, inside. I am going to want.” As the plane started down the runway, the lady rummaged and found her crackers. The bag was examined, discreetly, and put away. We took off. Halfway to New York, she ate her crackers. Then, surprisingly, she got up and began to wander toward the rear. After a few steps, she went back to her seat, beckoned to a stewardess, and began to mumble for a while. The stewardess elicited the information that the lady’s son was a famous journalist, that she had recognized the renowned man in the seat behind her, that her son would not believe that she had been on the same flight with such a person, that her best friend, who was in any case at times these days quite senile, would not believe it either, that in sum she would like that man’s autograph. There were consultations. Then she got it. Then she had no place to put it. She required her bag. There was another ripple of apprehension that she might be, after all, the world’s most improbable terrorist, with a weapon hidden, after all, in that enormous bag. She spent the rest of the flight, though, staring, doddering, holding on to the bag by its string.
The sign that Manley Dubois had entered a woman’s life might be her collection of Billie Holiday records. Women confided in Manley Dubois. They described him as the only man they could trust. There is a high edge of ill temper in vain women which no other women and, among men, only a self-parodying category of homosexuals permit themselves. The edge is common in women who have been beautiful since birth, or think they have; it also exists in women of power in the arts. Such women — and extremely gentle women — have confidences. Everyone has secrets. Most women have shames or sins or crimes. But confidences, apart from the lives of schoolgirls, belong to women of timidity or power. It was these that Manley encouraged to share their grief, their blues, their sense of life and earth, with him, through any singer one could love. At lunch, or of an evening à deux, in that tipsy intimacy which was his special note, Manley often comforted the woman who was confiding in him at the moment with the secrets of the woman who had confided in him the evening before. Dubois was a writer, who had played a great part in the creation of the particular society in which he moved. People in a confessional frame of mind rarely drew the obvious inference. Or perhaps they simply would not be deterred. When he finally came to write about it, it turned out, strangely, that he had never understood his material at all.
One night last week, a lady from public broadcasting called. I had been watching Medical Center. A girl who would require open heart surgery was in love with a young man who had just had his appendix removed. He was retarded. He was in love with her, too, over the objections of his sister, who was possessive about him and hurt his feelings a lot. The lady from public broadcasting asked whether I would like to take part in a symposium on Politics and the Media. I said I couldn’t. She asked where she could reach Jim. I said I thought at the office. She asked whether I thought Jim would like to participate in a symposium on Law and the Media. I said I didn’t know. Then, she said, “Hey. Are you watching Medical Center?” I said I was. It turned out she had been watching it too. We talked awhile longer. She asked if I ever listened to radio. I said I did. “Well,” she said, “after we finish our marathon reading of Trollope and Proust, we’re going to move right into the Federalist Papers.” She laughed. She asked whether I would like to participate in a symposium they were having on the female orgasm in fiction. I said, thanks but no. She asked if I could suggest somebody. They had five people; they needed one more. I said I couldn’t think of anybody. Could I suggest any novels, though, besides the ones they had already thought of. I said I couldn’t think of any besides the ones they must have thought of, Ulysses, D.H. Lawrence. She said, And Mrs. Dalloway. I said, Mrs. Dalloway?