The Bonfire of the Vanities

by Tom Wolfe

  “Of course,” said Sherman, feeling that in addition to his other sins he was also a philistine. “The poet.”

  “How do you think he looks?” She had eyes like a cobra’s. Her face remained right in his. He wanted to pull back but couldn’t. He felt paralyzed.

  “Looks?” he asked.

  “Lord Buffing,” she said. “The state of his health.”

  “I—can’t really say. I don’t know him.”

  “He’s being treated at Vanderbilt Hospital. He has AIDS.” She pulled back a few inches, the better to see how this zinger hit Sherman.

  “That’s terrible!” said Sherman. “How do you know that?”

  “I know his best boyfriend.” She closed her eyes and then opened them, as if to say: “I know such things, but don’t ask too many questions.” Then she said, “This is entre nous.” But I’ve never met you before! “Don’t tell Leon or Inez,” she continued. “He’s their house guest—has been for the past two and a half weeks. Never invite an Englishman for a weekend. You can’t get them out.” She said this without smiling, as if it was the most serious advice she had ever offered free of charge. She continued her myopic study of Sherman’s face.

  In order to break eye contact, Sherman took a quick glance at the gaunt Englishman, Lord Buffing the Short-List Poet.

  “Don’t worry,” said Mrs. Rawthrote. “You can’t get it at the table. If you could, we’d all have it by now. Half the waiters in New York are gay. You show me a happy homosexual, I’ll show you a gay corpse.” She repeated this mot farouche in the same rat-tat-tat voice as everything else, without a trace of a smile.

  Just then a good-looking young waiter, Latin in appearance, began serving the first course, which looked like an Easter egg under a heavy white sauce on a plateau of red caviar resting on a bed of Bibb lettuce.

  “Not these,” said Mrs. Rawthrote, right in front of the young man. “They work full-time for Inez and Leon. Mexicans, from New Orleans. They live in their place in the country and drive in to serve dinner parties.” Then, without any preamble, she said, “What do you do, Mr. McCoy?”

  Sherman was taken aback. He was speechless. He was as flabbergasted as he had been when Campbell asked the same question. A nonentity, a thirty-five-year-old X-ray, and yet…I want to impress her! The possible answers came thundering through his mind…I’m a senior member of the bond division at Pierce & Pierce…No…makes it sound as if he’s a replaceable part in a bureaucracy and proud to be one…I’m the number one producer…No…sounds like something a vacuum-cleaner salesman would say…There’s a group of us who make the major decisions…No…not accurate and an utterly gauche observation…I made $980,000 selling bonds last year…That was the true heart of the matter, but there was no way to impart such information without appearing foolish…I’m—a Master of the Universe!…Dream on!—and besides, there’s no way to utter it!…So he said, “Oh, I try to sell a few bonds for Pierce & Pierce.” He smiled ever so slightly, hoping the modesty of the statement would be taken as a sign of confidence to burn, thanks to tremendous and spectacular achievements on Wall Street.

  Mrs. Rawthrote lasered in on him again. From six inches away: “Gene Lopwitz is one of our clients.”

  “Your client?”

  “At Benning and Sturtevant.”

  Where? He stared at her.

  “You do know Gene,” she said.

  “Well, yes, I work with him.”

  Evidently the woman did not find that convincing. To Sherman’s astonishment, she turned ninety degrees, without another word, to her left, where a jolly, florid, red-faced man was talking to the Lemon Tart who had arrived with Baron Hochswald. Sherman now realized who he was…a television executive named Rale Brigham. Sherman stared at Mrs. Rawthrote’s bony vertebrae, where they popped up from out of her gown…Perhaps she had turned away for only a moment and would turn back to resume their conversation…But no…she had barged in on the conversation of Brigham and the Tart…He could hear her rat-tat-tat voice…She was leaning in on Brigham…lasering in…She had devoted all the time she cared to devote…to a mere bond salesman!

  He was stranded again. To his right, Maria was still deep in conversation with Lord Buffing. He was facing social death once more. He was a man sitting utterly solo at a dinner table. The hive buzzed all around him. Everyone else was in a state of social bliss. Only he was stranded. Only he was a wallflower with no conversational mate, a social light of no wattage whatsoever in the Bavardage Celebrity Zoo…My life is coming apart!—and yet through everything else in his overloaded central nervous system burned the shame—the shame!—of social incompetence.

  He stared at Huck Thigg’s hardened vines in the center of the table, as if a student of floral arrangements. Then he put a smirk on his face, as if confidently amused. He took a deep gulp of wine and looked across to the other table, as if he had caught the eye of someone there…He smiled…He murmured soundlessly toward vacant spots on the wall. He drank some more wine and studied the hardened vines some more. He counted the vertebrae in Mrs. Rawthrote’s backbone. He was happy when one of the waiters, one of the varones from the country, materialized and refilled his glass of wine.

  The main course consisted of slices of pink roast beef brought in on huge china platters, with ruffs of stewed onions, carrots, and potatoes. It was a simple, hearty American main course. Simple Hearty American main courses, insinuated between exotically contrived prologues and epilogues, were comme il faut, currently, in keeping with the informal mode. When the Mexican waiter began hoisting the huge platters over the shoulders of the diners, so that they could take what they wanted, that served as the signal to change conversational partners. Lord Buffing, the stricken English poet, entre nous, turned toward the powdered Madame Cornagglia. Maria turned toward Sherman. She smiled and looked deeply into his eyes. Too deeply! Suppose Judy should look at them right now! He put on a frozen social grin.

  “Whew!” said Maria. She rolled her eyes in the direction of Lord Buffing. Sherman didn’t want to talk about Lord Buffing. He wanted to talk about the visit from the two detectives. But best start off slowly, in case Judy is looking.

  “Ah, that’s right!” he said. A great social grin. “I forgot. You don’t care for Brits.”

  “Oh, it’s not that,” said Maria. “He seems like a nice man. I could hardly understand what he was saying. You never heard such an accent.”

  Social grin: “What did he talk about?”

  “The purpose of life. I’m not kidding.”

  Social grin: “Did he happen to mention what it is?”

  “As a matter of fact, he did. Reproduction.”

  Social grin: “Reproduction?”

  “Yes. He said id’d taken him seventy years to realize that’s the sole purpose of life: reproduction. Said, ‘Nature is concerned with but one thing: reproduction for the sake of reproduction.’ ”

  Social grin: “That’s very interesting, coming from him. You know he’s homosexual, don’t you?”

  “Aw, come on. Who told you that?”

  “This one.” He gestured toward the back of Mrs. Rawthrote. “Who is she, anyhow? Do you know her?”

  “Yeah. Sally Rawthrote. She’s a real-estate broker.”

  Social grin: “A real-estate broker!” Dear God. Who on earth would invite a real-estate broker to dinner!

  As if reading his mind, Maria said, “You’re behind the times, Sherman. Real-estate brokers are very chic now. She goes everywhere with that old red-faced tub over there, Lord Gutt.” She nodded toward the other table.

  “The fat man with the British accent?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Some banker or other.”

  Social grin: “I’ve got something to tell you, Maria, but—I don’t want you to get excited. My wife is at the next table and she’s facing us. So please be cool.”

  “Well, well, well. Why, Mr. McCoy, honey.”

  Keeping the social grin clamped on his mug
the whole time, Sherman gave her a quick account of his confrontation with the two policemen.

  Just as he feared, Maria’s composure broke. She shook her head and scowled. “Well, why didn’t you let ’em see the goddamned car, Sherman! You said it’s clean!”

  Social grin: “Hey! Calm down! My wife may be looking. I wasn’t worried about the car. I just didn’t want them to talk to the attendant. It may be the same one who was there that night, when I brought the car back.”

  “Jesus Christ, Sherman. You talk to me about being cool, and you’re so uncool. You sure you didn’t tell ’em anything?”

  Social grin: “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “For Christ’s sake, get that stupid smile off your face. You’re allowed to have a serious conversation with a girl at the dinner table, even if your wife is looking. I don’t know why you agreed to talk to the goddamned police in the first place.”

  “It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

  “I told you you weren’t cut out for this.”

  Clamping the social grin back on, Sherman glanced at Judy. She was busy grinning toward the Indian face of Baron Hochswald. He turned back to Maria, still grinning.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” said Maria.

  He turned off the grin. “When can I talk to you? When can I see you?”

  “Call me tomorrow night.”

  “Okay. Tomorrow night. Let me ask you something. Have you heard anybody talking about the story in The City Light? Anybody here, tonight?”

  Maria started laughing. Sherman was glad. If Judy was watching, it would appear they were having an amusing conversation. “Are you serious?” said Maria. “The only thing these people read in The City Light is her column.” She motioned toward a large woman across the table, a woman of a certain age with an outrageous mop of blond hair and false eyelashes so long and thick she could barely lift her upper lids.

  Social grin: “Who’s that?”

  “That’s ‘The Shadow.’ ”

  Sherman’s heart kicked up. “You’re joking! They invite a newspaper columnist to dinner?”

  “Sure. Don’t worry. She id’n interested in you. And she id’n interested in automobile accidents in the Bronx, either. If I shot Arthur, she’d be interested in that. And I’d be glad to oblige her.”

  Maria launched into a denunciation of her husband. He was consumed with jealousies and resentments. He was making her life hell. He kept calling her a whore. Her face was becoming more and more contorted. Sherman was alarmed—Judy might be looking! He wanted to put his social grin back on, but how could he, in the face of this lamentation? “I mean, he goes around the apartment calling me a whore. ‘You whore! You whore!’—right in front of the servants! How do you think that feels? If he calls me that one more time, I’m gonna hit him over the head with something, I swear to God!”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Sherman could see Judy’s face turned toward the two of them. Oh Christ!—and him without his grin on! Quickly he retrieved it and clamped it on his face and said to Maria, “That’s terrible! It sounds like he’s senile.”

  Maria stared at his pleasant social visage for a moment, then shook her head. “Go to hell, Sherman. You’re as bad as he is.”

  Startled, Sherman kept the grin on and let the sound of the hive engulf him. Such ecstasy on all sides! Such radiant eyes and fireproof grins! So many boiling teeth! Hack hack hack hack hack hack hack, Inez Bavardage’s laugh rose in social triumph. Haw haw haw haw haw haw haw haw haw, the Golden Hillbilly’s barnyard bray rose in response. Sherman gulped down another glass of wine.

  The dessert was apricot soufflé, prepared individually, for each diner, in a stout little crock of the Normandy sort, with borders au rustaud painted by hand near the rim. Rich desserts were back in fashion this season. The sort of dessert that showed you were conscious of calories and cholesterol, all the berries and melon balls with dollops of sherbet, had become just a bit Middle America. On top of that, to be able to serve twenty-four individual soufflés was a tour de force. It required quite a kitchen and a staff and a half.

  Once the tour de force had run its course, Leon Bavardage rose to his feet and tapped on his wineglass—a glass of sauterne of a deep rosy golden hue—heavy dessert wines were also comme il faut this season—and was answered by the happy drunken percussion of people at both tables tapping their wineglasses in a risory fashion. Haw haw haw haw, Bobby Shaflett’s laugh rang out. He was banging his glass for all he was worth. Leon Bavardage’s red lips spread across his face, and his eyes crinkled, as if the crystal percussion was a great tribute to the joy the assembled celebrities found in his home.

  “You are all such dear and special friends of Inez’s and mine that we don’t need a special occasion to want to have you all around us in our home,” he said in a bland, slightly feminine, Gulf Coast drawl. Then he turned toward the other table, where Bobby Shaflett sat. “I mean, sometimes we ask Bobby to come over just so we can listen to his laugh. Bobby’s laugh is music, far as I’m concerned—besides, we never can get him to sing for us, even when Inez plays the piano!”

  Hack hack hack hack hack hack hack hack went Inez Bavardage. Haw haw haw haw haw haw haw haw, the Golden Hillbilly drowned her out with a laugh of his own. It was an amazing laugh, this one. Haw haw haww hawww hawwww hawwwww hawwwwww, it rose and rose and rose, and then it began to fall in a curious, highly stylized way, and then it broke into a sob. The room froze—dead silence—for that instant it took the diners, or most of them, to realize they had just heard the famous laughing sob of the “Vesti la giubba” aria from Pagliacci.

  Tremendous applause from both tables, beaming grins, laughter, and cries of “More! More! More!”

  “Aw, naw!” said the great blond giant. “I only sing for my supper, an’ at’s enough for supper right’eh! My soufflé wud’n big enough, Leon!”

  Storms of laughter, more applause. Leon Bavardage motioned languidly toward one of the Mexican waiters. “More soufflé for Mr. Shaflett!” he said. “Make it in the bathtub!” The waiter stared back with a face of stone.

  Grinning, eyes glistening, swept up by this duet of the great wits, Rale Brigham yelled out, “Bootleg soufflé!” This was so lame, Sherman was pleased to note, that everyone ignored it, even the ray-eyed Mrs. Rawthrote.

  “But this is a special occasion, all the same,” said Leon Bavardage, “because we have a very special friend as our guest during his visit to the United States, Aubrey Buffing.” He beamed toward the great man, who turned his gaunt face toward Leon Bavardage with a small tight wary smile. “Now, last year our friend Jacques Prudhomme”—he beamed toward the French Minister of Culture, who was to his right—“told Inez and me he had it on good authority—I hope I’m not speaking out of turn, Jacques—”

  “I hope so, too,” said the Minister of Culture in his grave voice, shrugging in an exaggerated fashion for humorous effect. Appreciative laughter.

  “Well, you did tell Inez and me you had it on good authority that Aubrey had won the Nobel Prize. I’m sorry, Jacques, but your intelligence operations are not so hot in Stockholm!”

  Another grand shrug, more of the elegant sepulchral voice: “Fortunately, we do not contemplate hostilities with Sweden, Leon.” Great laughter.

  “But Aubrey was that close, anyway,” said Leon, putting his forefinger and thumb close together, “and next year may be his year.” The old Englishman’s small tight smile didn’t budge. “But of course, it really doesn’t matter, because what Aubrey means to our…our culture…goes way beyond prizes, and I know that what Aubrey means to Inez and me as a friend…well, it goes beyond prizes and culture…and—” He was stumped for a way to finish off his tricolon, and so he said: “—and everything else. Anyway, I want to propose a toast to Aubrey, with best wishes for his visit to America—”

  “He just bought himself another month of house guest,” Mrs. Rawthrote said to Rale Brigham in a stage whisper.

  Leon lifted his glass of sauterne: “Lord
Buffing!”

  Raised glasses, applause, British-style hear-hears.

  The Englishman rose slowly to his feet. He was terribly haggard. His nose seemed a mile long. He was not tall, and yet somehow his great hairless skull made him seem imposing.

  “You’re much too kind, Leon,” he said, looking at Leon and then casting his eyes down modestly. “As you may know…anyone who entertains the notion of the Nobel Prize is advised to act as if he is oblivious of its very existence, and in any case, I’m far too old to worry about it…And so I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Light puzzled laughter. “But one can scarcely help being aware of the marvelous friendship and hospitality of you and Inez, and thank goodness I don’t have to pretend for a moment to be otherwise.” The litotes had now trebled so rapidly, the company was baffled. But they murmured their encouragement. “So much so,” he went on, “that I, for one, should be happy to sing for my supper—”

  “I should think so,” whispered Mrs. Rawthrote.

  “—but I don’t see how anyone would dare do so after Mr. Shaflett’s remarkable allusion to Canio’s grief in Pagliacci.”

  As only the English can do it, he pronounced “Mr. Shaflett” very archly, to bring out the ludicrous aspect of giving the dignified title “Mister” to this rustic clown.

  Suddenly he stopped and lifted his head and gazed straight ahead, as if looking through the walls of the building and out upon the metropolis beyond. He laughed dryly.

  “Forgive me. All at once I was hearing the sound of my own voice, and it occurred to me that I now have the sort of British voice which, had I heard it half a century ago, when I was a young man—a delightfully hotheaded young man, as I recall—would have caused me to leave the room.”

  People cut glances at one another.

  “But I know you won’t leave,” Buffing continued. “It has always been wonderful to be an Englishman in the United States. Lord Gutt may disagree with me”—he pronounced Gutt with such a guttural bark, it was as if he were saying Lord Shithead—“but I doubt that he will. When I first came to the United States, as a young man, before the Second Great War, and people heard my voice, they would say, ‘Oh, you’re English!’ and I always got my way, because they were so impressed. Nowadays, when I come to the United States and people hear my voice, they say, ‘Oh, you’re English—you poor thing!’—and I still get my way, because your countrymen never fail to take pity on us.”