Deigh had left empty, and a sweet pungence rising in one corner where someone said to the Boston girl, — Don't smoke that stuff here, for Christ sake.
The music had, by now, become a fixture in the room; it was as though it had combined with the smoke and the incongruous scents into a tangible presence, the slag of refinement rising over the furnace, where the alchemist waited with a lifetime's patience, staring into his improbable complex of ingredients as dissimilar in nature as in proportion, commingling but refusing to fuse there under his hand, and as unaware of his hand as of their own purpose, so that some sank and others came in entirety to the surface, all that as though nothing had changed since the hand sifted the scoria of the Middle Ages for what all ages have sought, and found, as they find, that what they seek has been itself refined away, leaving only the cinders of necessity.
Esther started toward the dark doorway. Then across the room she saw Ellery coming from the bedroom passage. She turned toward him, but he appeared not to see her. When she got there the blonde was coming out. She smoothed her dress and smiled at Esther as she passed. Esther started to speak, but the blonde went on, smiling pleasantly, unhearing, fretting the quiescent cat that had swallowed whole the fled canary as she walked away.
In the bedroom Esther entered with her hand pressed against her belly, and turned on the hot light beside her mirror. She looked at the powder spilled on the dressing table. Then she turned, the heels of her hands buried in her eyes and sat down for a moment before she could look: the bedspread had been straightened with quick carelessness so that one corner hung to the floor, and the pillow lay half uncovered. She ran her hand through her hair, and looked up to say, — Rose? with dull loudness. From the next room all she heard was, — I've put a cigarette down somewhere. .
— Rose?
— Well 7'm proving that Einstein doesn't exist…
She got up and went back into the room.
— A million people a year in this country try to disappear, what does that mean?
— Pony boy, I feel light enough to skip all the way home.
— Aren't you going to even say good night to her?
— I stopped knowing her years ago.
— Oh Chrahst, Chrahst, you haven't seen a greasy-looking guy with shiny hair have you, because I mean Chrahst I can't have lost him.
— Is your name really Adeline? Herschel was asking the blonde as he left her. — Because baby I had a nurse once who looked just like you, I bit her. . you-know-where! But you're going to Holly- wood? Baby so am I, maybe I'll see you there and we'll have a nice teat-a-teat over old times. . He was backing toward the roseate misery of the Swede, who was holding his swollen nose. — Now it's all right, baby. .
— But those Boy Scouts! I'll never speak to a Boy Scout again.
— Don't cry, baby. Think about Rudy, I know something terrible has happened to that one, but I gave him this address when he called and said he was in an auto smash. .
— Where's Bildow?
— He went to the police station.
— Why doesn't somebody just tell the French they're through.
— You'll like this song, said Mr. Crotcher to no one.
— This shiny-looking little guy with greasy hair, I mean Chrahst I can't have lost him, Chrahst.
— We'll just go where they've got some gone numbers on the box. We can order coffee and get high on benny.
— Come on, Ellery said to him. — I hate to see you like this, Jesus Christ Benny, you're my best friend, you're the best friend I got.
— That's all it is, Benny went on. — What's tragedy to you is an anecdote to everybody else. We're comic. We're all comics. We live in a comic time. And the worse it gets the more comic we are.
— Benny you're going to take me with you aren't you? the figure with flannel sleeves to his elbows broke in. — You are really going aren't you? We're really going, aren't we?
— We're comic because there isn't anything else that. . that has to… anything else that has to be.
— Benny, relax, forget it, look, that church gimmick, you're in, you're made Benny. . Ellery was supporting him, but he wrenched away when he saw Mr. Feddle who had just finished inscribing the book he held, with best wishes from Benedict Arnold.
— What happened to him? Benny demanded. — To him, Fedya, the one you told me about. What happened to him? he pressed.
— Why, he killed himself, of course, said Mr. Feddle with relish. — He was Russian. Benny had a hand on his wrist. — Yes, right after he said, "No need to ask! I did it all myself. The design was mine, and the deed was mine. ." The hand fastened to his wrist loosed and fell away. — Right after he said, "When the claw is caught, the bird is lost. ." Mr. Feddle went on, muttering, withdrawing, looking at his own hand. — Or was that The Power of Darkness? Nikíta, in The Power of Darkness. . ?
— Benny, tomorrow morning Benny. .
— In Rome I'll be at the Dingle. — The Dingle? — The Dingleberry, baby. — What are you sailing on? — One of the Queens of course. .
Esther did look in need of aid, returning across that room; so everyone avoided looking at her. They renewed their assaults on one another instead.
— I can't imagine cutting my wrists in Pokheepsie.
— Hemingway? Well he said he's staying at the Ritz, but I say the Ritz was torn down simply years ago. .
— He joined the Church? I knew him when he joined the Yale Club.
— Then do we all get scared when we get old?
Esther reached the bathroom door as Arny Munk came out led by Sonny Byron, who was saying, — We'll find her, and she doesn't need to know a thing about it. Now tell the truth, wasn't it nice? while Mr. Crotcher sang, — Today is the day they give babies away. .
In the bathroom Esther leaned against the wall and wet a washcloth. She stared at her mirror face until she realized that it could do nothing but stare back, and then thrust the washcloth between her eyes and their image; as she drew the wet cloth across her skin the bloodlines on the whites of her eyes claimed the eyes for flesh, the firmness of the bones softened, the lines of life, and the insistence of the mouth, all of it fused into one soft inanimate flesh. She had already asked him to stay the night; now she turned to seek him.
In the room the critic turned, to the hand of the Duchess of Ohio. — I can't just listen to this prwetty music without dancing, will you dance with me?. . The critic left him sprawled on the floor where he'd pushed him.
— And the oddest joke about the Pope, I don't understand it at all.
— I mean Chrahst, I can't have lost him.
— Flo-flo?
— Florence, baby.
She was not really surprised, in the bedroom, to see him lying there in (the green wool shirt, that and nothing else. She turned quickly to close the door and bolt it: it seemed to take her an age to reach it.
— President McKinley had one
— I can play The Stars and Stripes Forever, or Violets lying under the piano
— The far lockaway rocker room story
— And the garbage cans
— The Pope
— The Swiss
— The Wright brothers and the ships of the Russian navy
— Loved him — This time it was a kitten
— Hated her
Most penetrating, just outside the door she closed, unmocking, — Some sleeping pills that my mummy sent me up for, I know which bottle it is if you'll just lift me up.
Esther held to a corner of the Bureau stepping out of her shoes, and she pulled off her skirt. Then she reached to turn out the light.