“Oh, Christ,” somebody said.
Silently I agreed.
“I can. I’ve done it. Take two cities of comparable size. Take Philadelphia and São Paolo, Brazil. Now, I tell you that Philadelphia is infinitely morla, morl moral, more moral—”
“Eugene Pallette,” I said.
“—more moral than São Paolo. No, I take that back. ‘Infinitely’ is not a scientific term. Philadelphia is precisely five times more moral than São Paolo.”
“That’s ridiculous,” someone said.
“Who’s the anthropologist here? Who has the Nobel Prize?” Mort said angrily.
It was true; I had forgotten about that. He had begun to bore me. He lived a dangerous life full of enormous, self-imposed risks. I thought of Harold Flesh, who for all the violence in his life was like a baby in a crib compared to Morty. Morty, I thought, suddenly fond of him, please be careful.
“In large cities,” Morty was saying, “the buses are designed to handle rush-hour crowds. The engineers create standing room in the buses by putting in a relatively small number of seats. Now, remember the thing we’re measuring is awareness of others. That’s what morality is, finally. Now, in São Paolo I’ve noticed that during a busy hour those people who are standing do not rush to take up the vacant seats when people who have been sitting down start to get off the bus. Often I’ve seen a bus full of empty seats and people standing in the aisles. It’s a question of scanty awareness of others. Those people who remain standing simply aren’t aware of the others. Now I say that Philadelphia is five times more moral than São Paolo because the ratio of occupied to empty seats averages out to about five to one.”
“Empty seats,” the boy at my shoe said.
“It’s a gauge. It’s a gauge,” Morty said. “I’ve checked it against police statistics. The crime rate in Philadelphia is a little less than five times what it is in São Paolo.”
“That’s really impressive,” I said to the girl.
“Make a fist,” she said.
I made a fist and my knuckles sprayed into the soft flesh of her thighs. She sighed.
“This is some way to make love,” I said.
“Who’s making love?” she said.
“Would you like to dance with me?” she asked after a while.
I got up and helped her to her feet. In a few moments I had to sit down. I had become excited and I was embarrassed. I put my hand back in her lap and made a fist.
Morty came over. “Are you having a good time?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Would you mind if I danced with Thelma?”
“No, of course not.” I hadn’t known her name until Morty said it.
I watched them dancing with a sullen jealousy. It no longer seemed, as it had before, that there was abundance and all time in which to contemplate it and choose and enjoy.
When they stopped dancing Morty pulled the girl down beside him on the couch. She made no move to return to me or even to look in my direction. From where I sat I could watch them and hear them.
“I saw her again yesterday,” Morty said, “and I’m sure.”
The girl nodded seriously. “Do you want to talk about it?” she said. “Here?”
“What do I care?” Morty said. “Secrets are for kids. I love her. I’m fifty-six years old and for the first time in my life I understand what real love is. Isn’t that a strange thing?”
“Not so strange, Morty,” the girl said.
“I’ve had six wives. What kind of man am I? Didn’t any of those girls mean anything to me? Sex — it was just sex. I’m a licentious man.”
His arm was around Thelma’s shoulder. Casually he let it drop until his right hand lay lightly against her behind. “I was married one time to a full-blooded African princess who was six feet two inches tall. That was just sex. After all, what could a girl like that have in common with a Jewish guy from the Bronx? I respond to a certain wildness, I think. That’s a very dangerous thing. But with Dorothy none of that enters in; Dorothy’s a gentle person. She has three kids, you know. She’s very mature, very ladylike.”
“That’s wonderful, Morty, that you should find it at last,” the girl said.
“I bought her a pair of beautiful earrings. I’d like to show them to you and get your opinion before I give them to her.”
“I’d like to, Morty,” she said. “Do I know Dorothy?” she asked.
“It’s Dorothy Spaniels,” Morty said. “Professor Spaniels’ wife. In History.”
“My roommate has him for a class.”
“Sure,” Morty said. “That’s the one. Listen, ask your roommate what he’s like in class. You’ve got to know your enemy,” he said with a nervous little laugh.
“I will, Morty.”
“It’s easy enough to imagine that he’s a brute, but a lover isn’t always fair.”
“Does Dorothy love you, Morty?”
“We’ve slept with each other just once,” Morty said, “and she was as shy as a little girl. I had to do everything.”
“Poor Morty,” the girl said.
“I fell in love with her the first time I saw her.”
“Poor Morty.”
“Listen, it’ll work out, kid. When two people love each other the way Dorothy Spaniels and I do, nothing can keep us apart. Nothing.”
“She has three kids, Morty,” said the boy at my shoe.
“I love them,” Morty said. “I swear it to you. If I love them there’s no problem. I told Dorothy, ‘I’ll support them, I’ll treasure them as if they were my own.’”
I stood up and started for the door. Morty saw me and ran after me. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“It’s late, Morty,” I said. “I’ve got to get back to my hotel.”
“Well, listen,” he said, “give me a ring in the morning. I’d like to talk to you.”
“Sure, Morty.”
He put his hand on my sleeve. “You think I’m a prick,” he said.
“I don’t know, Morty,” I said. “You’re not careful.”
He took out his little box and started to put some pills in his mouth, then checked his motion and opened his palm and stared at the pills in his hand. “These keep me alive,” he said weakly.
“Then take them,” I said, and left.
Then, today, the strangest thing. When I got up I had a hangover. I am a strong man and unaccustomed to illness or to feeling weak. Because of its rareness I look upon a feeling of weakness as rather an odd sensation— the way other people might react to a shot of novocain.
Despite my hangover I felt a queer relief, a sense of having done with something, of good riddance. This is my invariable reaction when people have disappointed me, as though my growth is in direct proportion to the people I can do without.
This afternoon I went to the park and sat on one of the stone benches across the street from the art museum. It was one of those intense, brightly crisp afternoons that are like certain fine mornings. Ripeness is all, I thought, and wondered what that meant. In the dazzling acetylene sun I was almost but not quite warm.
I had a pencil and some paper with me and I started to write down the names of all the great men I had ever seen. It was exhausting work and soon too much for me. It was easier to put down the names of the great men I had known, but after a while it was even more difficult to decide what I meant by “known” than what I meant by “great.” It was depressing to think that Morty, although we had met less than a week ago, was the only great man I had ever really known. I decided I was being too restrictive, unfair to myself, and began to count the great men to whom I had spoken. There were plenty of these, but how did it mean anything if all I said was “Fine, thank you” to their mechanical “How are you?” on a receiving line? I changed my procedure again and began to write down the names of those men about whom I could say something as a result of our contact. It was soon clear that this wasn’t any more satisfactory than my other attempts. My senses are extraordinarily alive when I am in the presence of a great man. Frequently what he wears or what cigarettes he smokes or whether he smokes at all has almost as much weight with me as anything that happens between us. As real evidence of our contact this is worthless; I could tell almost as much from seeing a photograph. I decided to reduce the list by including only those men I had actually touched, but I soon saw that this made for serious omissions. I had never touched Stevenson, for example; I had never touched Thomas Mann. In despair I was about to throw away all my lists when the solution occurred to me. I made out a list of all those who had said my name.