"You damned fool!" he cried. "You'll get yours! You damned crazy fool!" His voice quivered with terror and anger. "Beth, Be-eth I You wait I" Twisting him away from the wall, I shoved him from me. "I'll get out a warrant.
Be-eth!"
"You'd better not," I said. But I felt the emptiness of my threat and, more ashamed than ever, I went upstairs where I bandaged my hand and sat down to wait for the police. Ira laughed at my fears and said I would have a long wait. She was right, though I was prepared all week to go to court and pay a fine for disorderly conduct. Iva guessed that Beth was unwilling to invest in a warrant. We moved a month later.
Iva and Beth made all the arrangements. we forfeited several weeks' rent to make our escape.
This was "not like" me; it was an early symptom. The old Joseph was inclined to be even-tempered. Of course, I have known for a long time that we have inherited a mad fear of being slighted or scorned, an exacerbated "honor." It is not quite the duelist's madness of a hundred years ago. But we are. a people of tantrums, nevertheless; a word exchangedin a movie or in some other crowd, and we are ready to fly at one another.. Only, in my opinion, our rages are deceptive; we are too ignorant and spiritually poor to know that we fall on the "enemy" from confused motives of love and loneliness. Perhaps, also, self-con-tempt. But for the most part, loneliness.
Iva, though she concealed it at the time, was surprised; she later told me so. This was a rebellion against my own principle. It alarmed me; and the treasons I saw at the Servatius party were partly mine, as I was forced at the time to acknowledge.
February" 8
Tar: thermometer still wavers around zero. The cold is part of the generalmalignancy. I think of its fitness, as the war news comes in. You are bound to respect such a winter for its umnitigated wintriness. "I tax not you, you elementsWith unkindness," Lear yells. He invites their "horrible pleasure." He is quite right, too.
February 9
3I FEEL I am a sort of human grenade whose pin has been withdrawn. I know I am going to explode and I am con147 timtally anticipating the time, with a prayerful despair crying "Boom!" but always prematurely. f The sensein which Goethe was right: Continued life means expectation, lggeath is the abolition of choice. The more choice is limited, the closer we are to death. The greatest cruelty is to curtail expectations without taking away life completely.
A life term in prison is like that. So is citizenship in some countries. The best solution would be to live as if the ordinary expectations had not been removed, not from day to day, blindly. But that requires immense self-mastery.
February I0
S'Eta., has been here twice in the past week. He seems to find me congenial. Which means, I venture to say, that he assumes we are in the. same boat. I would not mind the visits nor the assumption if it were not for the fact that I still feel, at the end of a few hours, that we are practicing some terrible vica together. We smoke and talk. He tells me about his adventures on the Coast, in the hospital, and about his present affairs. I have learned that he receives ten dollars a week from his mother and five more from his brother. Budgeting himself strictly, he manages to live on twelve, and the rest he spends on horses. Occasionally he wins, but he" estimates that he has lost four or five thousand dollars in the last ten years.
He does not care to speak of such things. He mentions them only in passing. He is not at all blind to their mean-heSS. He simply takes it for granted that they are bound to be mean. There is no dignity anywhere, nothing but absurd falsehood.
It is no use trying to bury this falsehood.
It would only rise again, to laugh at you. He says this in so many" words. When you ask him about the details of his life, he gives you a look of surprise. He is not offended; but that such admittedly shabby things should interest you surprises him genuinely. I–Ie would rather tell you the story of a bet lost or won; a fraud, a clever reply, an interestingreprisal, an insulting letter he sent a. creditor, a love affair.
Last time, hd told me a tortuous, long story about his attempts t conquer a Norwegian girl who lives in his hotel-Laird Towers.
I–Ie had met her on Thanksgiving Day, in the lobby. Hartly, the night clerk, had given him the. wink, and so he set about the siege. She didn't like him, of course. It always started that way. Around Christmas she started to look at him more. encouragingly. Unfortunately he was pinched, had no. money. It came to his notice, that other men in the hotel were making headway with her. Hartly kept him. only too well informed. "
"He didn't have to tell me. I could see from the'bbginning she was dynamite."
During the. holiday he made a killing on a little pony called Spotted Cow; it romped horn two lengths ahead of the field. H. asked the lorwegian out to the Fiorenza for a spaghetti dinner.
"I thought we. wece getting along pretty well, and when she excused herself for a few minutes at eleven o'clock I sucked tranquilly at my Perfecto Queen and said to myfea" It's in the bag." She had been drinking Pink Ladies, and she was running over. She went away unevenly. I waited. At eleven-fifteen there was no sign of her, so I thought, "Maybe she's sick in the powder room?"' And I went to get the matron to have a look. But I got as far as the orchestra, and there was the girl sitting in some guy's lap tinlally anticipating the time, with a prayerful despair crying "Boom!" but always prematurely. st' The sense in which Goethe was right: Continued life means expectation. Death is the abolition of choice. The more choice is limited, the closer we are to death. The greatest cruelty is to curtail expectations without taking away life completely.
A life term in prison is like that. So is citizenship in some countries. The best solution would be to live as if the ordinary expectations had not been removed, not from day to day, blindly. But that requires immense self-mastery.
February 10
Sa-nr. ert has been here twice in the past week. He seems to find me congenial. Which means, I venture to say, that he assumes we are in the. same boat. I would not mind the visits nor the assmnption if it were not for the fact that I still feel, at the end of a few hours, that we are practicing some terrible vice. together. We smoke and talk. He tells me about his adventures on the Coast, in the hospital, and about his present affairs. I have learned that he receives ten dollars a week from his mother and five more from his brother. Budgeting himself strictly, he manages to live on twelve, and the rest he spends on horses. Occasionally he wins, but he" estimates that he has lost four or five thousand dollars in the last ten years.
He does not care to speak of such things. He mentions them only in passing. He is not at all blind to their meanness. He simply takes it for granted that they are bound to be mean. There is no dignity anywhere, nothing but absurd falsehood.
It is no use trying to bury this falsehood.
It would only rise again, to laugh at you. He says this in so many" words. When you ask him about the details of his life, he gives you a look of surprise. He is not offended; but that such admittedly shabby things should interest you surprises him genuinely. He would rather tell you the story of a bet lost or won; a fraud, a clever reply, an interestingreprisal, an insulting letter he sent a. creditor, a love affair.
Last time, hd told me a tortuous, long story about his attempts t conquer a Norwegian girl who lives in his hotel-Laird Towers.
He had met her on Thanksgiving Day, in the lobby. Hartly, the night clerk, had given him the. wink, and so he set about the siege. She didn't like him, of course. It always started that way. Around Christmas she started to look at him more. encouragingly. Unfortunately he was pinched, had no. money. It came to his notice, that other men in the hotel were making headway with her. Hartly kept him. only too well informed. "