Everyone admits, however, that Joseph has a dose grasp on himself, that he knows what he wants and how to go about getting it. In the last seven or eight years he has worked everything out in accordance with a general plan. Into this plan have gone his friends, his family, and his wife. He has taken a great deal of trouble with his wife, urging her to read books of his choosing, teaching her to admire what he believes admirable. To what degree he has succeeded he does not know.
It should not be thought that Ioseph, when he speaks of the "less reflective" or of his "element of the comic," is being harsh. He is not severe toward the world. He calls himself a sworn upholder of tout comprendre cest tout pardonner. Theories of a wholly good or a wholly malevolent world strike him as foolish. Of those who believe in a wholly good world he says that they do not understand depravity. As for pessimists, the question he asks of them is, "Is that all they see, such people?" For him, the world is both, and therefore it is neither. Merely to make a judgment of that kind is, to representatives of either position, a satisfaction. Whereas, to him, judgment is second to wonder, to speculation on men, drugged and dear, jealous, ambitious, good, tempted, curious, each in his own time and with his customs and motives, and bearing the imprint of strangeness in the world. In a sense, everything is good because it exists. Or, good or not good, it exists, it is ineffable, and, for that reason, marvelous.
But for all that, Joseph suffers from a feeling of strangeness, of not quite belonging to the world, of lying under a cloud and looking up at it. Now, he says, all human beings share this to some extent. The child feels that his parents are pretenders; his real father is elsewhere and will some day come to claim him. And for others the real world is not here at all and what is at hand is spurious and copied. Joseph's feeling of strangeness sometimes takes the form almost of a conspiracy: not a conspiracy of evil, but one which contains the diversified splendors, the shifts, excitements, and also the common, neutral matter of an existence. Living from day to day under the shadow of such a conspiracy is trying. If it makes for wonder, it makes even more for uneasiness, and one dings to the nearest passers-by, to brothers, parents, friends, and wives.
December 20
PREPATIONS for the holiday. I went out yesterday to do some shopping for Iva. Downtown there were bell ringers on every corner, in beards of soiled cotton and red Santa Claus costumes. For love of the poor, for dear charity, dang-clanging away in the din. Immense wreaths were mounted on buildings in the green, menacing air; the thousands upon thousands of shoppers ground through the stores and the streets under the smoky red facades and in the amplified roar of carols. The holly berries flashed on the tarred poles in thick drops. The jukeboxes in the taverns were playing "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas." Everyone prays for snow, and the thought of rainor sleet brings panic. vanaker is restless these days. He keeps moving the i@cci. furniture around his room. Marie complains more thanever. By changing the position of the bed he makes ithard for her to clean the room. The door is blocked. Shedoesn't like to go in anyway. He doesn't keep himselfclean, she claims.
Instead of sending his linen to the laundry, he airs it at the window. He hangs up his underwearat night and forgets to take it down in the morning. Mrs. briggs tells me that he is engaged to marry a lady of sixtywho insists that he be converted to the Catholic faith andthat he goes every evening to the church of St.
Thomas theApostle for indoctrination. At the same time, I notice thathe receives large quantities of mail from the MasonicScottish Rite. It may be this conflict of principle thatdrives him to get up at two in the morning to change theposition of his bed. we have two invitations to Christmas dinner, one fromthe Almstadts and another from my brother Amos. I amfor refusing both.
December 22
Ar trationrStrL explosion of temper this afternoon, when I was with Myron Adler. I behaved unaccountably, greatly surprising myself and, of course, bewildering Myron alt. he had phoned me about a temporary job which would consist of asking people questions for a poll he is conducting. I hurried down to meet him at the Arrow for lunch. I arrived first, took a table toward the back, and immediately fell victim to depression. I had not visited the Arrow for a number of years. It was at one time a hangout for earnest eccentrics where, at almost any hour of the afternoon or evening, you could hear discussions of socialism, psychopathology, or the fate of European Man. It was I who had suggested that we eat there; for some reason it had been the first place that came to my mind. blow it depressed me. Then, as I looked around at the steam tables and the posters of foundering ships and faces of Japanese, I suddenly saw Jimmy Burns sitting at a table with a man I did not know. Since the days when we had been Comrade Joe and Comrade Jim, we had seen each other no more than two, perhaps three, times. He looked changed; his forehead had grown higher and his expression more severe. I nodded to him, but got no recognition for my pains; he looked through me in the way which is, I suppose, officially prescribed for "renegades."
When Myron came in a few minutes later and started at once to talk about the job, I said impatiently, "Wait a second, now. Just hold on."
"What's the matter?"
"Something very special," I said. "Wait till I tell you. You see that man in the brown suit over there? That's Jimmy Burns. Ten years ago I was privileged to call him Comrade Jimmy."
"Well?" said Myron.
"I said hello to him, and he acted as if I simply wasn't there.")
"What of it?" said Myron.
"Does that seem natural? I was once a close friend."
"Well?" said Myron.
"Stop saying that, will you!" I said in exasperation.
"I mean, do you want him to throw his arms around you?" asked Myron.
"You don't get the point. I despise him."
"Then I don't get the point. I confess I don't get it."
"1o. Listen. He has no business ignoring me. This is always happening to me.
You don't understand it because you're a person of no political experience. But I know what this means, and I'm going to go up to him and say hello whether he likes it or not."
"Don't be a fool. What do you want to make trouble for?" said Myron.
"Because I feel like making trouble. Does he know me or doesn't he? He knows me perfectly well." I was growingangrier by the minute. "I'm surprised that you shouldn't be able to see it."
"I came here to talk to you about a job, not to see you throw a fit," he said.
"Oh, a fit.1ggo you think I care about him? It's the prin. ciple of the thing. It seems to escape you. Simply because I am no longer a ember of their party they have instructed him and boobs like him not to talk to me.13on't you see what's involved?"
"No," Myron said carelessly.
"I'll tell you what's involved. I have a right to be spoken to. It's the most elementary thing in the world. Simply that. I insist on it."
"Oh, Joseph," said Myron.
"go, really, listen to me. Forbid one man to talk to anotherForbid him to communicate with someone else, and you've forbidden him to think, because, as a great many writers will tell you, thought is a kind of communication.
And his party doesn't want him to think, but to follow its discipline. So there you are. Because it's supposed to be a revolutionary party. That's what's offending me. When a man obeys an order like that he's helping to abolish freedom and begin tyranny."
"Come, come," said Myron. "You're making too much. fuss over it."
"I should be making twice as much fuss," I said. "It's very important."