by Saul Bellow
“Get someone else to do tricks. Get Myron, here.”
“He’s too stiff for tricks. He doesn’t know any.”
“Thank God for that,” Myron said.
“Now, to get you a subject,” said Minna.
“I don’t want a subject.”
She rapped for attention on the piano. “Announcement,” she called out. Servatius and Gilda did not interrupt their dancing. “We need someone for Morris, here, to hypnotize. Judy, how about you?” Judy was the girl with the man in the steel-rimmed glasses. “No? Afraid you’ll give yourself away? This takes a little courage. Stillman? These people are against it. Does anybody want to volunteer?” There were no volunteers. “Oh, what a lot of wet blankets.”
“There,” I said, “nobody’s really interested. So you see. …”
“Then I’ll be your subject myself.” Minna said, turning to Abt.
“That’s the silliest proposal yet,” said George.
“Why shouldn’t I be his subject?”
We waited to hear what Abt would say. He had so far given no indication of what he thought of her proposal. He regarded her with raised brows like a doctor who is considering how fully to answer a layman’s question while, with quizzical, concealing eyes, he keeps him waiting. The indirect ceiling light gave the side of his face the look of a sheet of thick paper, artfully folded at the eye and pierced, high on the forehead, by straight, black hairs.
“I’ll be damned,” Jack Brill said softly to me. “He’ll take her up on it, too.”
“Oh, impossible,” I said.
Abt hesitated.
“Well?” Minna said.
“All right,” he said. “Why not?”
“Morris.”
He disregarded me.
And the others also protested. “She’s drunk,” said Stillman. And George said, “Are you sure you know what you’re up to?” But he disregarded them, too, and made no attempt to explain or justify himself. He and Minna started off toward the study.
“We’ll call you. I mean, Morris will call you,” Minna said. “Then you can all come in.”
When they left, the rest of us fell silent. The dancing had stopped. Jack Brill, leaning one shoulder against the wall, smoked his pipe and seemed to relish watching us. Harry Servatius and Gilda were together on a narrow seat in the corner. They were the only ones talking; no words, however, were audible, only his heavy burring voice and her occasional choppy laughter. What on earth could he be saying that she found so funny? He was making an idiot of himself, and if Abt were correct in saying that he was not too drunk, then he was doubly idiotic. Iva still kept her glass on the piano ledge and took a small sip every so often. I did not like the aimless absorption with which she smoothed out the paper napkin on her knee, nor the rapid yet vague way her eyes moved around the room.
She remained behind with Harry and Gilda when Abt called us. The rest of us crowded into the study and, in embarrassed silence, stood looking down at Minna on the couch. I could not believe at first that she was not pretending; the change seemed too great. I was soon convinced that this was real enough. She lay loosely outstretched, a strong light behind her turned against the wall. One of her sandals had come unfastened and swung away from her heel. Her hands lay open at her sides. One noticed how narrow and bony her wrists were and the mole between two branches of a vein on her forearm. But, for all the width of her hips, and the feminine prominences, her knees under the dress, her bosom, the meeting of her throat and collarbones, she looked less specifically like a woman than a more generalized human being—and a sad one, at that. This view of her affected me greatly. I was even more prejudiced against Abt’s performance.
He sat beside her and talked to her soothingly. Her breathing was regular, but touched with hoarseness; her upper lip was drawn away slightly from her teeth.
He began by making her feel cold. “Someone must have turned off the heat. I’m chilled. Don’t you feel cold, too? You look cold. It is cold here; it’s almost freezing.” And she gasped a little and drew up her legs. He went on to tell her that when he pinched her hand she would feel no pain, and so she felt none, though the skin, where he had twisted it, remained white long afterwards. He deprived her of the power to move her arm and then ordered her to raise it. She struggled until he released her. The rest of us, half-tranced ourselves, eager to see and yet afraid of what we were seeing, concentrated on her face with its lifted lip and creased eyes. He let her rest, but only for a moment. Then he asked her to recall how many glasses of punch she had drunk. He would give a series of numbers and she was to make a sign at the right one. At this, her eyes moved or flinched under her lids, as though in protest. He began counting.
I was standing at a corner of the couch in such a position that her bare heel, the one from which the sandal hung, grazed my trouser-leg. I had an impulse to touch the mole on her arm with my finger. All at once, looking at her face and her closed lids, my impatience with Abt turned into anger. Yes, I thought, he likes this. I tried to think what I could do to stop it. Meanwhile he was counting. “Six? Seven?” She tried, but was unable to answer. Perhaps she was aware of the insult. “So you can’t remember?” said Abt. “No?” She rolled her head. “Maybe you’ve forgotten how to count? Let’s see if you have. I’m going to tap your cheek a few times. You count and tell me how many. Ready?”
“Bring her out of it, Morris, we’ve all had enough,” I said.
He did not seem to hear me. “Now I’m beginning,” he said. He struck her lightly four times. Minna’s lips began to form the first “f” but dropped away, and the next instant she was sitting up, open-eyed, exclaiming, “Harry! Oh Harry!” Then she began to cry, her face fixed and bewildered.
“I told you you were going too far,” I said. Abt reached his hand out to her in surprise.
“Let her alone!” someone said.
“Oh Harry, Harry, Harry!”
“Do something, Morris!” Robbie Stillman shouted. “Slap her, she’s having a fit!”
“Don’t touch her. I’ll get Servatius,” said Jack Brill. He ran, but her husband was already at the door, staring in.
“Harry, Harry, Harry!”
“Get out of the way, she doesn’t see him,” George said.
“Let’s clear the room.” Jack Brill began herding us out. “Go on, don’t stand there.” Abt pushed Brill’s hand away and muttered something to me which I did not hear.
Iva was no longer in the living room. I went looking for her and found her on the porch off the kitchen.
“What are you doing here?” I said roughly.
“Why, it was warm. I wanted to cool off.”
I pulled her inside. “What’s the matter with you tonight?” I said. “What’s got into you?”
I left her in the kitchen and strode back to the study. I found Brill guarding the door.
“How is she now?” I asked.
“She’ll come out of it,” said Brill. “George and Harry are in there with her. What a wow of a finish.”
“My wife’s gone and made herself drunk, too.”
“Your wife. You mean Iva.”
“Yes, Iva.” He was right. I was still treating him like a semi-stranger and he resented it. He had irritated me before when I had thought that he was goading Minna on; but I saw now that, after all, he was no worse than any of the others.
“Well, the party turned into a terrible mess, didn’t it?”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Do you ever wonder what’s the matter with these people?”
“I’ve been wondering,” I said. “What do you think?”
“So you want my opinion,” Brill said, smiling. “You want to see this as an outsider sees it?”
“You’re not exactly an outsider, Jack.”
“I’ve only been around five or six years. Well, if you want to know how I feel about it. …”
“You’re being a little hard on me,” I murmured.
“That’s right. I am. This is a tight little bunch. I like some o
f the people in it. I like Minna a lot. Others lean to the snob side. They’re not very agreeable. They’re cold. Even you, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“I don’t. …”
“You’re all fenced around. It took me some time to find out you weren’t such a bad guy. At first I thought you wanted people to come up and sniff you, as if you were a tree. You’re a little better than that. Not Abt, though, he’s a bad case.”
“Maybe he needs more study.”
“I wish I could give him what he needs more of. No, there’s something wrong. And then you people all seem satisfied to settle down to a long life of taking in each other’s laundry. Everybody else is shut out. It’s offensive to people like me.”
“What makes you come around then?” I said.
“I don’t know,” said Brill. “I guess it interests me to watch you carry on.”
“Oh, I see.”
“You asked.”
“It’s perfectly all right. So long, Jack.” I offered him my hand; after a moment of surprise (perhaps it was an ironic surprise), he took it.
“So long, Joseph.”
Iva was in no condition to walk. I got a cab, helped her in, and held her head on my shoulder all the way home. When we stopped at an intersection I looked down at her shadowed face. The yellow traffic light fell on her temple, where I saw a single vein near the surface of the skin, crooking with the slight groove of the bone. I responded to this almost as I had to Minna on the couch. The cab continued down the black street, which was streaked with the remnants of that afternoon’s snowfall waning under the changed warm wind.
What could I say to all this? I asked myself fitfully and as though I, too, were a little drunk. I thought that with one leap “nasty, brutish, and short” had landed in our midst. All my feelings, what I had felt in looking at Minna, what I had felt at Jack Brill’s words and at Iva’s disobedience, now attacked me together. What could I say? I repeated, but in the midst of the question perceived my purpose in asking it. I was looking for a way to clear Abt or protect him, and, through him, what was left of the “colony of the spirit.” But then, how much was he to be blamed?
For let us admit the truth. One was constantly threatened, shouldered, and, sometimes invaded by “nasty, brutish, and short,” lost fights to it in unexpected corners. In the colony? Even in oneself. Was anyone immune altogether? In times like these? There were so many treasons; they were a medium, like air, like water; they passed in and out of you, they made themselves your accomplices; nothing was impenetrable to them.
The cab stopped. I helped Iva into the house, undressed her and put her to bed. She lay on the blankets, naked, shielding her eyes from the light with her wrist. I turned off the switch and in the dark took off my own clothes.
What sort of barrier could one put up against them, these treasons? If, in Abt, cruelty and the desire for revenge were reduced to pinching a woman’s hand, what would my own mind give up if one examined its tiniest gaps and runnels? And what about Iva?—and the others, what about the others?
But suddenly I felt that none of this excused Abt and that I had only cunningly maneuvered to achieve the very end I had begun by rejecting. No, I could not justify him. I had been revolted by the way he had pinched her. I could find no excuse for him, none whatsoever. I was beginning to understand what it was that I felt toward him. Yes, I had been revolted by the rage and spite which emerged in the “game”; it had been so savage because its object could not resist. It was some time before I could bring myself to fall asleep. I would think of this more sanely tomorrow, I promised myself, wiping my forehead on the edge of the sheet. But I already knew that I had hit upon the truth and that I could not easily dispel it tomorrow or any other day. I had an uneasy, dream-ridden night.
This was only the beginning. In the months that followed I began to discover one weakness after another in all I had built up around me. I saw what Jack Brill had seen, but, knowing it better, saw it more keenly and severely. It would be difficult for anyone else to know how this affected me, since no one could understand as well as I the nature of my plan, its rigidity, the extent to which I depended on it. Foolish or not, it had answered my need. The plan could be despised; my need could not be.
I have not visited Minna or Harry since the party. I do not know what sort of aftermath there was; I suppose their troubles were eventually ironed out. Abt has gone to Washington. He writes occasionally, usually to ask why he so seldom hears from me. He is doing well as an administrator, one of the “bright young men,” though I understand he is not satisfied. I don’t think he ever will be satisfied. I should perhaps write oftener; he is, after all, an old friend. It isn’t his fault that I am disappointed in him.
December 23
Slept until eleven o’clock; sat around all afternoon and thought of nothing in particular. We are going to have Christmas dinner with Amos. Iva accepted his invitation.
December 24
Myron Adler phoned to say that his agency had decided to hire women to make the survey; there is less possibility of their being taken away, leaving things in mid-air. But he did try to get me in, Myron says. He has kept a copy of the memorandum he sent recommending me and he is sending it on as proof that he kept his word. I told him it wasn’t necessary to send it; I believed him. He is sending it anyway. He wants to have a talk with me in the near future. We have agreed tentatively to meet during the holiday. He feels, I daresay, that I need to be taken in hand by someone and straightened out. It’s good of him, but I don’t think I could allow him to do much for me.
We got “Season’s Greetings” cards from John Pearl and from Abt. One of these days I’ll have to get around to the dime store to buy envelopes. Iva put in a supply of cards a week ago but she forgot to buy envelopes. Can’t convince myself that it’s worth the bother. But I suppose we ought to keep up our end of the amenities.
Vanaker is drinking heavily these days. He disposes of his empty pints by throwing them into the neighboring yards. This morning I counted eighteen in the snow.
Iva insists that we keep our door locked. Some of her things are missing. Ethel Pearl sent her five small bottles of perfume for her birthday; two of these are gone from the basket on the dresser, and Iva says in her positive way: “He’s a kleptomaniac.” She means Vanaker, of course. She is indignant about the loss of her perfume and means to talk to Mrs. Briggs about it. I shall have to start wearing my room key on a chain.
December 26
I seem to be unable to stay out of trouble. Disgraced myself at my brother’s house last night. I can take it lightly, but Iva feels it very keenly.
My brother Amos, who is my senior by twelve years, is a wealthy man. He began his career as a messenger on the Exchange and before he was twenty-five had become a member of that body, with a seat of his own. The family is very proud of him, and he, in turn, has been a reliable son, very much alive to his duties. Toward me he took a protective attitude at first, but he soon gave up, confessing that he did not know what I was after. He was hurt when I became a radical, relieved when he assured himself I was one no longer. He was disappointed when I married Iva. His own wife, Dolly, had a rich father. He had urged me to follow his example and marry a wealthy woman. He was even more disappointed when, instead of accepting the position he offered me in his business, I took what to him seemed a menial job at Inter American. He called me a fool, and for nearly a year we did not see each other. Then he and Iva arranged a reconciliation. We have been on fairly good terms since, however strange he thinks my choice of occupation and my ways. He tries not to disapprove of me too openly; but he has never learned that I resent his way of questioning me when we meet. He is often tactless and sometimes rude. For some reason he has not been able to accept the fact that it is possible for a member of his family to live on so little.
“Haven’t they given you a raise yet? How much are you making? Well, do you need money?” I have never accepted any.
Now that I have been out of work since
May, he has become more pressing. Several times he has sent me checks for large amounts, which I have returned immediately. The last time this happened he said, “I’d take it, by golly. I wouldn’t be so proud and stiff-necked. Oh, no, not Brother Amos. Some day you just try offering me money, and see if I pass it up.”
A month ago when we visited him (he invites us for meals frequently, thinking, presumably, that we do not get enough to eat), he made such a scene when I refused to take some clothes he was thrusting on me that Iva at last whispered pleadingly, “Take it, Joseph, take the stuff!” and I gave in.
Dolly, my sister-in-law, is a pretty woman, still slender, large-bosomed, but attractively so, dark, with fine hair combed upward in a way designed to make the most of her neck. She has a very graceful neck; I have always admired it. It is one of the traits my fifteen-year-old niece Etta has inherited. To me it has always been one of the exquisite characteristics of femininity; I can well understand why it provoked the prophet Isaiah to utter the words: “Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts.”
It astonishes me that the same association should be in both our minds, though with a different cast. Certainly it is the “stretched forth necks,” or delicacy in conjunction with the rugged ancient machinery of procreation, that has for a long time been identified in my imagination with feminine nature. Here the parallel ends, for I am the very opposite of vindictive in regard to this duality and have, indeed, found pleasure in recognizing it.
My niece and I are not on good terms; there is a longstanding antagonism between us. Ours was not a rich family. Amos tells frequently how he struggled, how badly he was dressed as a boy, how little my father could give him. And he and Dolly have brought up Etta to identify poverty not so much with evil as with unimportance, to feel that she, the daughter of a wealthy man, is worlds apart from those who live drably, in ill-furnished flats, without servants, who wear inferior clothing and have so little pride as to be debtors. She prefers her mother’s people. Her cousins have automobiles and summer homes. I am in no way a credit to her.