“My dear,” Mrs. Carrington said, and she flicked a bead or two of caviar from her little fringed napkin, “I’ve got so I simply can’t stand another minute of them. Not one single other minute.”
“I know,” Mrs. Crane said. She sighed and looked softly upon her friend. “Oh, don’t I know. That’s the way I feel all the time.”
“Honestly,” Mrs. Carrington said, “if I hadn’t just simply dashed away from Angela’s bridge and literally torn over here this afternoon, I—well, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Mrs. Crane said. “I know so well. You don’t need to tell me.”
“The emptiness,” Mrs. Carrington needed to tell her. “And the silliness. And the eternal gossip, gossip, gossip. And all the talk about the clothes they have and the clothes they’re going to get, and what they do to keep thin. Well, I’m fed up with it, that’s all. No, thanks, dear, I don’t dare take another sandwich; I’ll have to roll all day tomorrow as it is.”
“Rolling doesn’t do a thing for me,” Mrs. Crane said. “What I do is put my feet over my head thirty-five times every morning, and then, if I’m at home during the day, I don’t have any lunch.”
“That would simply kill me,” Mrs. Carrington said. “That would be literally death to me. If I go without lunch, I simply lose control at dinner. Potatoes and everything. Angela’s got a new diet; you know, one of those things where it doesn’t matter so much how much you eat, it’s what you eat with what. She’s lost eight pounds.”
“How does she look?” Mrs. Crane said.
“Oh, all right, I suppose,” Mrs. Carrington said. “Honestly, I’ve got to the state where they all look alike to me. And talk alike. All those silly, empty women. Never a thought about anything except clothes and parties, never a discussion of anything really worth while. It isn’t so bad in the winter. You can get away from them, a little bit, in New York. You can get off by yourself and do something really worth while—picture galleries, and the Philharmonic, and, oh, exhibitions of paintings, and concerts, and things like that. But in the summer, down here in the country—well, there’s literally no getting away from them. That’s all.”
“I know,” Mrs. Crane said. “You don’t have to say it.”
“Nothing but parties, parties, parties,” Mrs. Carrington had to say. “Yes, and drinking, drinking, drinking. No, dear, please don’t give me any more. After the way they all behaved at the Weldons’ party last night, I feel as if I never wanted to see anything to drink again.”
“Oh, please—it’s really nothing but fruit juice,” Mrs. Crane said. She refilled first her own glass, for she was a cozy hostess who shared rather than merely gave, and then her guest’s, with a suave blending of gin, vermouth, and zest of lemon. “Oh, you went to the Weldons’ last night? Was it any fun?”
“Fun!” Mrs. Carrington said. “The same old thing over again. Back-gammon and gossip and diets and clothes. Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you, Betty had on that Florelle model, you know the one with the coat with little tails, only she had it in blue. I sort of thought I’d order it in black. What do you think? Don’t you think it would be useful in black?”
“Oh, yes, lovely,” Mrs. Crane said. “Was Betty tight?”
“Oh, of course,” Mrs. Carrington said. “Blind.”
“She’s really getting tiresome,” Mrs. Crane said. “I don’t see how Jack stands her. Well, he’s always so drunk himself, I suppose he doesn’t notice. It’s sickening, isn’t it? Oh, my dear, just let me fill it up—it’s really nothing but melted ice, anyway.”
“No, don’t, please don’t,” Mrs. Carrington said. “Well. Well, just that much, then. Oh, not all that, really. Well. Well, I literally need it, after that bridge party. And last night. What did you do last night?”
“We went to the Lockwoods’,” Mrs. Crane said. “I don’t have to tell you what it was like. I was so bored, I thought I couldn’t last through the evening. But, my dear, it really was awfully amusing. Cynthia had on that white Cygnette model with the two little capes, and Maggie Chase had on the same model in green, and then Dorette came in later on with it in bright yellow.”
“Oh, Lord,” Mrs. Carrington said. “Now isn’t that typical? Isn’t that just the way their minds work? Never an original idea; even have to have clothes like one another’s. I really don’t see how I’m going to stand it until the end of the summer. I said as much to Freddy, coming home last night. ‘Freddy,’ I said, as we were coming home, ‘Freddy,’ I said, ‘I literally cannot stand that silly, empty, drunken crowd any longer.’ ”
“I’ve said the same thing to Jim,” Mrs. Crane said, “many a time. Many and many a time. What are you and Freddy doing tonight?”
“We’re going to the Grays’,” Mrs. Carrington said. “And it will be the same old thing. The same old silly talk. Never a new idea, never a moment’s thought of worth-while things.”
“Why, we’re going, too,” Mrs. Crane said. “Well, that will save my life, that you’re going. We might get a moment to talk.”
“If we don’t,” Mrs. Carrington said, “I’ll never be able to get through it. Honestly, dear, you don’t know how much you do for me. No, really no more—please. Well, if you’re going to have another one, too. Oh, that’s plenty, honestly. No, but what I was going to say is, a person of any intelligence at all simply has to have a certain amount of stimulation. You can’t exist entirely on emptiness and silliness and clothes, day in, day out. Well, those people can, I suppose, but people like us—well, we die, that’s all, we literally die.”
“I know,” Mrs. Crane said. “Oh, I know so well.”
“I wish it were time to go back to New York,” Mrs. Carrington said. “I want to make something of this winter; something worth while. I think I’ll take some sort of course or other at Columbia. Hester Coles did, last year. Well, of course, she’s a silly little fool, like all the rest of them. But I thought I might do it, too.”
“I want to do something this winter,” Mrs. Crane said. “If I can only find the time. What I’d really like to do is take up tap-dancing. Mary Morton did, last year, and she lost twelve pounds.”
“Is that how she did it?” Mrs. Carrington said. “Did she really? Didn’t she have to diet besides?”
“No,” Mrs. Crane said. “She just gave up sweets and starches and she couldn’t have any meat, except chicken once or twice a week. Twelve pounds, she lost.”
“That’s wonderful,” Mrs. Carrington said. “That’s just about what I’d like to lose.”
“And it stays lost, when you do it that way,” Mrs. Crane said.
“Well, I’m going to take tap-dancing the minute I go back,” Mrs. Carrington said. “My dear, let’s do it together. You will, really? You literally will? Oh, I think that will be wonderful. You see what you do for me—I never talk to you without being stimulated. Well, now I can really get through the rest of the summer, as long as I have something to look forward to, as long as I know I’m going to get something real out of the winter. Lord, the way the time drags, down here, doesn’t it? Good heavens, is it honestly as late as that? Oh, I’ve got to literally tear home and get dressed. I’m whole hours late. What are you going to wear?”
“Oh, I haven’t even given it a thought,” Mrs. Crane said. “I did sort of think of the black net, but I don’t know. Probably the dusty-pink Valérie model. You know. Betty has it in beige.”
“Oh, yes, it’s adorable,” Mrs. Carrington said. “I suppose Betty’ll be there tonight. She’s probably tight already.”
She rose and moved toward the door. For a moment, it seemed as if the fruit juice and melted ice that she had consumed were about to have their way with her. She stumbled slightly. “Oops!” she said, and had her balance again. Gently she smiled upon her hostess.
“Well, you don’t know what this has done for me,” she said. “I feel all lifted up. If I hadn’t talked to you this afternoon, I could not have faced all the silliness again tonight. I just si
mply couldn’t.”
Mrs. Crane swayed delicately toward her friend.
“I know,” she said. “It’s such a comfort to know that there’s somebody, even here in the country, who isn’t like all the others. You don’t have to tell me.”
Affectionately they kissed, and, for a little time, they parted.
The New Yorker, July 15, 1933
The Little Hours
Now what’s this? What’s the object of all this darkness all over me? They haven’t gone and buried me alive while my back was turned, have they? Ah, now would you think they’d do a thing like that! Oh, no, I know what it is. I’m awake. That’s it. I’ve waked up in the middle of the night. Well, isn’t that nice. Isn’t that simply ideal. Twenty minutes past four, sharp, and here’s Baby wide-eyed as a marigold. Look at this, will you? At the time when all decent people are just going to bed, I must wake up. There’s no way things can ever come out even, under this system. This is as rank as injustice is ever likely to get. This is what brings about hatred and bloodshed, that’s what this does.
Yes, and you want to know what got me into this mess? Going to bed at ten o’clock, that’s what. That spells ruin. T-e-n-space-o-apostrophe-c-l-o-c-k: ruin. Early to bed, and you’ll wish you were dead. Bed before eleven, nuts before seven. Bed before morning, sailors give warning. Ten o’clock, after a quiet evening of reading. Reading—there’s an institution for you. Why, I’d turn on the light and read, right this minute, if reading weren’t what contributed toward driving me here. I’ll show it. God, the bitter misery that reading works in this world! Everybody knows that—everybody who is everybody. All the best minds have been off reading for years. Look at the swing La Rochefoucauld took at it. He said that if nobody had ever learned to read, very few people would be in love. There was a man for you, and that’s what he thought of it. Good for you, La Rochefoucauld; nice going, boy. I wish I’d never learned to read. I wish I’d never learned to take off my clothes. Then I wouldn’t have been caught in this jam at half-past four in the morning. If nobody had ever learned to undress, very few people would be in love. No, his is better. Oh, well, it’s a man’s world.
La Rochefoucauld, indeed, lying quiet as a mouse, and me tossing and turning here! This is no time to be getting all steamed up about La Rochefoucauld. It’s only a question of minutes before I’m going to be pretty darned good and sick of La Rochefoucauld, once and for all. La Rochefoucauld this and La Rochefoucauld that. Yes, well, let me tell you that if nobody had ever learned to quote, very few people would be in love with La Rochefoucauld. I bet you I don’t know ten souls who read him without a middleman. People pick up those scholarly little essays that start off “Was it not that lovable old cynic, La Rochefoucauld, who said . . .” and then they go around claiming to know the master backwards. Pack of illiterates, that’s all they are. All right, let them keep their La Rochefoucauld, and see if I care. I’ll stick to La Fontaine. Only I’d be better company if I could quit thinking that La Fontaine married Alfred Lunt.
I don’t know what I’m doing mucking about with a lot of French authors at this hour, anyway. First thing you know, I’ll be reciting Fleurs du Mal to myself, and then I’ll be little more good to anybody. And I’ll stay off Verlaine too; he was always chasing Rimbauds. A person would be better off with La Rochefoucauld, even. Oh, damn La Rochefoucauld. The big Frog. I’ll thank him to keep out of my head. What’s he doing there, anyhow? What’s La Rochefoucauld to me, or he to Hecuba? Why, I don’t even know the man’s first name, that’s how close I ever was to him. What am I supposed to be, a hostess to La Rochefoucauld? That’s what he thinks. Sez he. Well, he’s only wasting his time, hanging around here. I can’t help him. The only other thing I can remember his saying is that there is always something a little pleasing to us in the misfortunes of even our dearest friends. That cleans me all up with Monsieur La Rochefoucauld. Maintenant c’est fini, ça.
Dearest friends. A sweet lot of dearest friends I’ve got. All of them lying in swinish stupors, while I’m practically up and about. All of them stretched sodden through these, the fairest hours of the day, when man should be at his most productive. Produce, produce, produce, for I tell you the night is coming. Carlyle said that. Yes, and a fine one he was, to go shooting off his face on production. Oh, Thomas Carli-yill, what I know about you-oo! No, that will be enough of that. I’m not going to start fretting about Carlyle, at this stage of the game. What did he ever do that was so great, besides founding a college for Indians? (That one ought to make him spin.) Let him keep his face out of this, if he knows what’s good for him. I’ve got enough trouble with that lovable old cynic, La Rochefoucauld—him and the misfortunes of his dearest friends!
The first thing I’ve got to do is get out and whip me up a complete new set of dearest friends; that’s the first thing. Everything else can wait. And will somebody please kindly be so good as to inform me how I am ever going to meet up with any new people when my entire scheme of living is out of joint—when I’m the only living being awake while the rest of the world lies sleeping? I’ve got to get this thing adjusted. I must try to get back to sleep right now. I’ve got to conform to the rotten little standards of this sluggard civilization. People needn’t feel that they have to change their ruinous habits and come my way. Oh, no, no; no, indeed. Not at all. I’ll go theirs. If that isn’t the woman of it for you! Always having to do what somebody else wants, like it or not. Never able to murmur a suggestion of her own.
And what suggestion has anyone to murmur as to how I am going to drift lightly back to slumber? Here I am, awake as high noon what with all this milling and pitching around with La Rochefoucauld. I really can’t be expected to drop everything and start counting sheep, at my age. I hate sheep. Untender it may be in me, but all my life I’ve hated sheep. It amounts to a phobia, the way I hate them. I can tell the minute there’s one in the room. They needn’t think that I am going to lie here in the dark and count their unpleasant little faces for them; I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t fall asleep again until the middle of next August. Suppose they never get counted—what’s the worst that can happen? If the number of imaginary sheep in this world remains a matter of guesswork, who is richer or poorer for it? No, sir; I’m not their scorekeeper. Let them count themselves, if they’re so crazy mad after mathematics. Let them do their own dirty work. Coming around here, at this time of day, and asking me to count them! And not even real sheep, at that. Why, it’s the most preposterous thing I ever heard in my life.
But there must be something I could count. Let’s see. No, I already know by heart how many fingers I have. I could count my bills, I suppose. I could count the things I didn’t do yesterday that I should have done. I could count the things I should do today that I’m not going to do. I’m never going to accomplish anything; that’s perfectly clear to me. I’m never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don’t do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don’t even do that any more. I don’t amount to the powder to blow me to hell. I’ve turned out to be nothing but a bit of flotsam. Flotsam and leave ’em—that’s me from now on. Oh, it’s all terrible.
Well. This way lies galloping melancholia. Maybe it’s because this is the zero hour. This is the time the swooning soul hangs pendant and vertiginous between the new day and the old, nor dares confront the one or summon back the other. This is the time when all things, known and hidden, are iron to weight the spirit; when all ways, traveled or virgin, fall away from the stumbling feet, when all before the straining eyes is black. Blackness now, everywhere is blackness. This is the time of abomination, the dreadful hour of the victorious dark. For it is always darkest—Was it not that lovable old cynic, La Rochefoucauld, who said that it is always darkest before the deluge?
There. Now you see, don’t you? Here we are again, practically back where we started. La Rochefoucauld, we are here. Ah, come on, son—how about your going your way and letting me go mine? I’ve
got my work cut out for me right here; I’ve got all this sleeping to do. Think how I am going to look by daylight if this keeps up. I’ll be a seamy sight for all those rested, clear-eyed, fresh-faced dearest friends of mine—the rats! My dear, whatever have you been doing; I thought you were so good lately. Oh, I was helling around with La Rochefoucauld till all hours; we couldn’t stop laughing about your misfortunes. No, this is getting too thick, really. It isn’t right to have this happen to a person, just because she went to bed at ten o’clock once in her life. Honest, I won’t ever do it again. I’ll go straight, after this. I’ll never go to bed again, if I can only sleep now. If I can tear my mind away from a certain French cynic, circa 1650, and slip into lovely oblivion. 1650. I bet I look as if I’d been awake since then.
How do people go to sleep? I’m afraid I’ve lost the knack. I might try busting myself smartly over the temple with the night-light. I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound; if I can remember any of the damn things. That might do it. And it ought effectually to bar that visiting foreigner that’s been hanging around ever since twenty minutes past four. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. Only wait till I turn the pillow; it feels as if La Rochefoucauld had crawled inside the slip.
Now let’s see—where shall we start? Why—er—let’s see. Oh, yes, I know one. This above all, to thine own self be true and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. Now they’re off. And once they get started, they ought to come like hot cakes. Let’s see. Ah, what avail the sceptered race and what the form divine, when every virtue, every grace, Rose Aylmer, all were thine. Let’s see. They also serve who only stand and wait. If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. Silent upon a peak in Darien. Mrs. Porter and her daughter wash their feet in soda-water. And Agatha’s Arth is a hug-the-hearth, but my true love is false. Why did you die when lambs were cropping, you should have died when apples were dropping. Shall be together, breathe and ride, so one day more am I deified, who knows but the world will end tonight. And he shall hear the stroke of eight and not the stroke of nine. They are not long, the weeping and the laughter; love and desire and hate I think will have no portion in us after we pass the gate. But none, I think, do there embrace. I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree. I think I will not hang myself today. Ay tank Ay go home now.
Complete Stories Page 28