The Unpossessed

by Tess Slesinger

  Between Elizabeth and Merle there had been no other women in his life. He didn’t really hate Elizabeth, he thought (glancing briefly at her, avoiding contact with her slender shoulders); he played at hating her; it suited his dignity best to fly into a rage when she spilled her scented powder over their common bathroom; because he could find no unembarrassing relation with her it became necessary to assume hostility—and since that day of her arrival they had not spoken two words directly to each other, preferring to use the medium of Bruno. No, he didn’t actually hate her. He hated her only because she spoiled the only place that might have been a home to him. Again, as in his childhood, he was a third person, living in a place where two should be. . . .

  “are we, as intellectuals,” dictated Bruno, “to remain in the middle, on the fence, or are we . . .”

  He pictured his mother suddenly (wondering if she were missing him), coldly playing hostess at the party; asked himself what gown she might be wearing.

  But what man was a failure, thought Arturo strongly (the whiskey was good; the crowd was excellent) who had even one symphony to his credit? It might go unpublished; it might be played only at parties where no one listened to it; but it was music, it was eternal, it added to the sum total of beautiful music, to the unheard vibrating stream of perpetual music that surrounded the world, that would one day subdue the world to all its concerted rhythm. The memory of his Symphony of the Seasons flared up in his heart. He rose, lifted his baton to the Boys. “The Symphony,” he said imperiously—he always referred to the Symphony of the Seasons briefly as The. The Boys rose respectfully and took their places. Arturo’s nostrils expanded with love and pride. He gave a little nod to the Boys, tapped with his baton on the music stand, and started in on the Allegro, Spring, the first movement of his latest Rearrangement of The Symphony.

  “Beethoven, isn’t it?” said a Miss Hobson raising her brows at a Mr. Terrill whom she hoped to marry. “Ah I never can tell right off,” said Mr. Terrill (playing safe) but beginning to wave uneasily with the music.

  “Ah what difference does it make, Mr. Flinders,” said Merle stretching her arms in voluptuous generosity, “socialism, communism, true democracy—it’s surely the fraternal spirit that counts, these petty distinctions, what difference can they make?”

  “No difference at all,” said Margaret Flinders, laying a restraining hand on Miles’ arm, “especially at a party.” As papier-mâché as Miles had said perhaps, thought Margaret with amusement, but much more beautiful and much more touching; a glacier that tried to melt, a toy doll that wanted a heart that would beat instead of just eyes that closed—but she was seeing people so differently these days, Margaret was! either as they really were (she secretly believed) or, as Miles insisted, through rose-colored spectacles. The little Doctor bent to kiss her hand; and Margaret, standing proudly in her last year’s best, surveyed the gathering with pleasure. Their own friends of course would not have come; but Miles, bursting with plans and latent indignation, had insisted on regarding this party as a meeting (so he explained his presence to his conscience) and arriving scarcely half an hour late. She enjoyed his stiff reluctant gallantry, his utterly unconscious grace as he coldly greeted Mrs. Middleton. His tuxedo he had left righteously at home, bedded forever in moth-balls; but his bearing, his ascetically rigid jaw, left him, she thought, as well-dressed as any there. “So anxious,” Mrs. Middleton was fluttering them toward the ballroom, toward the music lightly starting, “to have you meet Mr. Graham Hatcher, I thought a Negro, I thought the perfect party ought to have one Negro,” she strained delicately for their understanding; “if you would seek him out, perhaps?” she smiled like a gracious sorority sister, initiating Margaret in the facts of life.

  “I’m sure,” said Margaret, blandly smiling, “that we’ll have no difficulty; since he’s the only Negro present.” The ice was broken; the little Doctor chuckled; and taking Miles’ arm Margaret led him toward the ballroom.

  “Dear,” she whispered irresistibly (for she felt very merry, very handsome, very much of a wife leaning upon her husband’s arm and making her entrance at a party), “could you manage to look less like a tortured saint, do you think?” “Could you manage to lend me your rose-colored spectacles, do you think,” he answered; and consented to be led.

  Tears stood in Arturo’s eyes as his body swayed to the first movement of The Symphony. It had always seemed to him, that first movement, with its gentle crescendos, its crooning melody, its mild and lovely allegro ripple, like the tune of his own youth when music was a promised land and the teachers at the Academy had praised a young man’s progress. Spring; snow-streams melting down the mountain-sides; buds were bursting. Arturo was humble before his own youth, his own music, beauty created by himself; he played in his heart to Mary.

  They advanced arm in arm and Margaret thought how beautiful it was that everything good in this world started from two people walking together from choice. For a lovely moment they were Miles and Margaret walking shyly toward her graduation dance (the music fine and sentimental), the campus alight with magic lanterns; they were Miles and Margaret walking yet more shyly to the wedding-march, her mother standing before them beautiful in large white tears; and then they came to where the major-domo guarded the ballroom entrance: lifting back a velvet portière so all the world could see Margaret Flinders standing proudly with her husband. He hung back faintly and she strengthened her clasp on his arm. “But it looks like the Tower of Babel,” he said, unhappy, as the noise and the brilliance burst upon them, washed up at their feet and bore them in with the backwash.

  “I am asking you, Mr. Tevander,” Mrs. Stanhope was leaning forward piercingly in the midst of her little group, “what you honestly thought of Minerva.”

  “Minerva,” said Mr. Merriwell, hurt. “I should have thought I had known every horse in the Stable, but Minerva! Minerva’s a new one to me.”

  “How did you know, Mrs. Stanhope,” Mr. Tevander faltered, “how did you know I rode Minerva?”

  “I am asking you, Mr. Tevander,” Mrs. Stanhope repeated, her nostrils aquiver, “how you liked her?”

  “Minerva,” said Mr. Merriwell dispiritedly, “is certainly a new one to me.”

  “Ah they’ve been holding out on you, G. F.,” screamed the merry lady in velvet trimmed with ermine-tails.

  “How did you like her, Mr. Tevander?” said Mrs. Stanhope sternly.

  “Why I liked her all right,” said Tevander guiltily. “I liked her, yes I liked her.”

  “You liked her!” cried Mrs. Stanhope bridling like a warhorse. “You liked that blind-in-one-eye, spavined, consumptive creature with a rotten gallop like a Ford, wh-hy!” She whinnied in her horror.

  “It’s a funny thing,” said Mr. Merriwell gloomily, “I should have thought I had known every horse in the Stable. . . .”

  “Of course you wouldn’t know Minerva, G. F.,” cried Mrs. Stanhope loyally. “She’s the Stable’s Sunday School nag, they only keep her because . . . It’s men like you, John Tevender,” she said bluntly, “who pull down the whole reputation of the Stables. Minerva! Wh-hy!” said Mrs. Stanhope blowing out her nostrils.

  “Whut did they say this party was a benefit for, G. F.?” The merry ermine lady tapped Mr. Merriwell on the arm.

  “Minerva! my stars and heavens!”

  “I’m not just sure,” said Mr. Merriwell conscientiously. “I believe it to be for someone’s relief or other, perhaps some organization, very likely something that the Negro gentleman represents.”

  “Nonsense.” Mrs. Stanhope used her spurs. “The Negro is some celebrity Merle picked up—a pity she couldn’t find one among the whites, less glory to us. Mr. Tevander, I wish I could impress you with the importance . . .”

  “Ooooh, I wonder could he be Paul Robeson,” said the merry lady squeezing her ermine-tails one after another with love and cruelty.

  “Why yes, I think so,” said Mr. Merriwell kindly; “I don’t see why not,” he added out of personal bount
y. “Very likely that’s just who it is,” said Mr. Merriwell magniloquently for he had known the ermine lady’s father and dandled little Miss Ermine-tails upon his knee.

  “Well anyway, I liked her,” said little Tevander miserably; and wilted under Mrs. Stanhope’s bitter eye.

  “Ah no,” said Miss Hobson wagging her finger like a metronome at Mr. Terrill; “no, I know my Beethoven too well for that.”

  “You know it’s possible it’s Brahms,” said Mr. Terrill suddenly, bending his head in a musical position; “I wonder if Emily Fancher will have the nerve to show up.”

  “If she does I am not going to speak to her,” said Miss Hobson firmly.

  “Really?” said Mr. Terrill; and moved back with alarm for he saw that Miss Hobson had the kind of morals one married for. “She, after all, had nothing to do with it.”

  “No, but it’s touching pitch,” said Miss Hobson. She began to weigh the music in her hands. “Not Brahms, certainly, not enough melody, ah this is a disgrace, Mr. Terrill, I’m ashamed of us both.”

  “Well, if we need a cheaper grade, stick different labels on the same stuff,” Al said testily to his efficiency expert; “and for God’s sake don’t talk business to me, this is a charity brawl and I’m looking for my God damned son.” And what’s more, he continued (rapidly walking away) you wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t that anybody could buy their way in tonight. “Really my dear,” said the efficiency expert’s wife who being under suspicion herself always checked carefully on her husband’s movements, “you might have been more tactful.”

  “That’s enough now, my dear,” said Mrs. Whitman playfully; “a joke’s a joke but—there are limits.” “Do you mean you’re jealous?” Lucius Whitman smiled. “I must say,” said Mr. Draper ruefully, “it’s not very flattering to me, my dear; and look at my Violet.” Look at his Violet; she had had too much to drink and was leaning heavily on Mr. Whitman’s shoulder. “Since it’s a party to celebrate the end of the world, my dear,” said Mr. Whitman gayly; and suddenly went sober: “My God, I wouldn’t want to be in Jim Fancher’s boots tonight.” Violet straightened; in a crisis she wanted Draper, her husband for so many years of ups and downs, of living on Park Avenue one year and not having enough to go to the country with the next. “No, I wouldn’t want to be in Fancher’s boots,” Henry Draper sighed. The wives joined glances. “Pretty hard to tell,” said Mr. Whitman gently, “what another man would have done in his place.” “You mean,” said Henry Draper, “what you would have done; or I.” Wives looked at their husbands like nervous wolf-hounds, scenting danger. “It’s hard to tell,” said Lucius Whitman after a conscientious self-investigation. “I know,” said Henry Draper. “Of all the things to talk about at a party,” said the wives reproachfully. “You just don’t know,” said Lucius Whitman heavily, “until you’ve been there.” “That’s a fact,” said Henry Draper and pulled on his cigar as if he hoped that it might tell him.

  “Bach, perhaps?” said Miss Hobson tenderly. “But you could tell us, Mr. Hatcher. I’m sure,” she said gracefully, “that you are an expert in ‘things musical.’ ”

  “No, I am not,” said Mr. Hatcher irritably. “I assure you I am not, everyone seems to be under some misapprehension about me. . . .”

  “Perhaps,” said Mr. Terrill nervously, “Mr. Hatcher’s field is the theater.”

  “I assure you I never go near a theater.” “Then perhaps” “or perhaps” “I think I’ve heard your name in connection with” “Oh I wish,” said Mr. Hatcher unhappily.

  “I am going back to thinking it is Beethoven after all,” said Miss Hobson wrinkling her eyes which were her one good point. “I flatter myself I know my composers.”

  “She knows her onions,” said Mr. Terrill coarsely, growing a little tired of music and high standards.

  “The upper-classmen,” Miles said, sweeping the party with his gloomy look, “are certainly in the majority. I’m not going to like this party, Meg: it looks to me like a freak-show.” “Now darling,” said Margaret placidly, “just remember to say how-do-you-do nicely to everyone and not to over-eat. . . . Darling! get ready to smile; isn’t that our host?” “Oh God,” said Miles. “Smile, darling.” “I’m smiling,” he said stoically, “but it’s for you and not the party.” And he smiled down into her party face; she could wear the same dress every day for all of him and still if she had that tingling thing inside of her she would be the most beautiful woman at any party he could take her to.

  “A brilliant girl, that,” Al sighed and shook his head; indicated Miss Bee Powell; “would you expect a girl with all those looks to have brains besides?” “No,” said Miles Flinders. “Ah, it’s Flinders—well, she hasn’t,” Al admitted. “Your wife? congratulations, the party’s looking up. How about a little drink in honor of our thirsty marchers?” “No thanks,” said Margaret happily, “no drinks for me tonight.” “No drinks?” “Doctor’s orders,” said Margaret cheerfully. (Damn it, thought Miles, uncomfortable, airing our most private life in public!) “I doubt,” he said, “if the Hunger Marchers can be making half this noise.” “Course not,” said Al indignantly; “it ain’t worth while, howling just for a bowl of soup; it takes caviar to make people really bloodthirsty. I told Bruno Leonard he’d have to hold out something if he wanted to put across this communism. . . .” “But Bruno,” said Miles, “is not exactly . . .” “You don’t say?” said Al in great astonishment; “and how about yourself?” “Well no,” said Miles reluctantly; “if you mean in the sense of belonging to the movement.” “A rose by any other name,” said Al, “but ah the difference to me. But where is Bruno Leonard? and where has he hidden my son? If you happen to see him,” he said; and moved on, saluting with his drumstick. It was two weeks surely since he’d seen the boy. If the professor turned out some phony kind of Oscar Wilde then professor or no professor . . .

  “I wish you’d stop refusing cocktails, Maggie; it sounds so damn affected.” “But I didn’t want one, darling”; and that was the nearest he had come, she thought, to making an allusion since the time he said to call it Daniel. “I don’t belong at this kind of shindig,” he said, contrite; “I don’t believe in parties.” “Isn’t that Jeffrey’s Comrade Fisher?” Margaret said. “Yes. . . . I wonder what she thinks of us, she must despise us!” “She does look,” said Margaret, peering, “as if she were despising something; but maybe,” she added, “it’s only herself.”

  Summer—the second movement, lush and fruitful—Arturo forgot that he was a small Italian gentleman with a neat and rounded belly; he grew tall and broad, the melody grew heavier, like a richly flowing stream. The second movement had been strongly influenced by the Germans, Arturo acknowledged that; and he thought of the happy Heidelberg days before the class broke up to go to war. Come to think of it, wasn’t the war responsible, perhaps if he had stayed on in Heidelberg . . .

  “Who—” began Lydia.

  “The kids—Doctor Leonard’s students,” said Ruthie Fisher half-contemptuously; being three years older she hated them for being at once fresher and more stupid than herself. She had heard from Jeffrey of their dogmatism, seen for herself their orthodox approach to politics; and though she must despise them, she envied them a little—how short a time ago had she lived too in such unquestioning belief. . . . She watched their entrance, all together in a bunch, like some invading youthful army, and felt a thousand years between herself and them. “Just kids,” she said; and saw that they had not brought Jeffrey with them.

  March lifted up the curtains. “Here—comes—the Bride,” Little Dixon whispered as the music opened in the air and six Black Sheep crossed the desert of the ballroom sticking together like a jaunty little caravan; “believe me I’m glad I won’t have to sleep on the floor any more.” “Who said you won’t,” said Firman laughing backward to his army. “I didn’t notice the judge handing out any extra beds,” Cornelia said, addressing her lone bridesmaid. “None of your fainting acts tonight, my good girl,” said Firman taking her
arm; “my God is this a skating-rink we’re walking on—because we’ll need you conscious.” “Damn right,” said one of the Maxwell boys, “this reforming of our elders is going to be no cinch.” “What a wedding-party,” said Cornelia; “I’ve surpassed my mother’s fondest hopes.” The music picked up joy. “She looks terribly different,” whispered Kate Corrigan to Little Dixon; “I didn’t think she’d make a decent bride but begorrah if she didn’t surprise me.” “My God, your Irish bridesmaid’s gone romantic,” said Little Dixon dryly. “You were crying this afternoon, Kate,” Cornelia slowed the procession to accuse her bridesmaid tenderly, “right smack in the Municipal Building.” “’Tis a dirty lie,” said Kate. “I’ll smack you both,” said Fir-man, “you sentimental bourgeois hussies, beginning with you, Mrs. Firman, I’ve got the legal right.” “She was too crying, Arnold,” Cornelia said; “as a matter of fact, I was myself,” she said complacently.

  “Now by my long gray beard and jittery eye,” said Al Middleton jovially, holding them up like a bandit with his turkeystick (how many of them were there? only six? they marched as proudly as a hundred), “what are you proletarians doing here? why aren’t you storming the portals of our Capitol. . . .”

  Their procession broke up and their hundred became a thousand as they surrounded him eagerly and answered, in their fashion, all at once. “God damn faculty” “we asked could we go investigate for our sociology class” “but they want us to stick to the mummies in the natural history museum” “said they’d kick us out if we went” “so Doctor Leonard persuaded us not to” “suppose we’ve got to be educated while we’ve got the chance” “Firman was in favor of some excitement anyway” “so he got married instead” “this afternoon” “shut up, you fool, that’s a secret” “no politics, no sex for undergraduates” “but we’re juniors, we’ve only got another year”

  “Children,” said Al, surprisingly touched, “aren’t you forgetting something? You’re treating me like a human being. . . .” “Oh we’re celebrating tonight,” they shouted boisterously, “we’re breaking all the rules.” “Don’t be idiots,” said Cornelia curtly, “Mr. Middleton’s a good guy, we’ll like him until we have to shoot him.” He humbly bowed his thanks. “Have you any idea where my son . . .” “Oh yes, we spoke to Doctor Leonard on the telephone” “they’ll be here soon” “they’re going over Doctor Leonard’s speech” “we told him” “Say, don’t you kids even telephone singly?” Al asked. “United front,” they shouted, roaring laughter; “but Firman’s the only one that married Corny.” This pleased them so that they broke into peals of laughter which made him sad because he knew his son had never laughed like that. “Well, move on, kids, and celebrate. Wait. May I kiss the bride?” They were no more surprised than he as he bent and kissed the blushing Cornelia chastely on the cheek.