Partly, I say. And here I feel it necessary to revive Joseph, that creature of plans. He had asked himself a question I still would like answered, namely, "How should tt good man live; what ought he to do?"
Hence the plans. Unfortunately, most of them were foolish. Also, they led @. him to be untrue to himself. He made mistakes of the sort people make who see things as they wish to see them or, for the sake of their plans, must see them.
There might be some justice in the view that man was born the slayer of his father and of his brother, full of instinctive bloody rages, licentious and unruly from his earliest days, an animal who had to be tamed. But, he protested, he could find ha himself no such history of hate overcome. He could not.
He believed in his own mildness, believed in it @cc. i piously. He allowed this belief to interfere with his natural dtrewdness and did both himself and his friends a dis, service. They could not give him what he wanted.
What he wanted was a "colony of the spirit," or a group ihose covenants forbade spite, bloodiness, and cruelty. hack, to tear, to murder was for those in whom the sense of the temporariness of life had shrunk. The world was crude and it was dangerous and, if no measures were taken, existence could indeed becomein Hobbes' phrase, which had long ago lodged in loseph's mind-"nasty, brutish, short." It need not become so if a number of others would combine to defend themselves against danger and crudity.
He thought he had found those others, but even before the Servatius party he (or rather I) had begun to have misgivings about the progress that was being made. I was beginning to see that a dittcult plan or program like mine had to take into account all that was natural, including corruptness. I had to be faithful to the facts, and corruptness was one of them.
But the party shocked me.
I did not want to go. It was Ira who insisted, out of loyalty to Minna Servatius and because she knew what it was to be a disappointed hostess. It was a long time since a party, any party, had given me pleasure. I liked nothing better than to see my friends singly or in pairs, but when they came together in a large group they disheartened me. You knew what to expect beforehand. If there were jokes, you knew how they would be told; if there were exhibi. tions, you knew who would make them and who would be hurt or shamed or gratified by them. You knew what Still-man would do, you knew what George Hayza would do, you knew that Abt would make fun of everyone and that Minna would have difficulties with her husband. You knew there was bound to be mischief, distortion, and strain, and yet you went. And why? Because Minna had prepared a party; because your friends were going to be there. And they were coming because you were going to be there, and on no account must anyone be let down.
When the heat and stridency of the party burst upon us through the open door, I began to regret that I had not been more firm in refusing, this once. Minna met us in the entry hall. She was wearing a black dress with a high, silver-trimmed collar; her legs were bare, and she had on high-heeled, red sandals. It was not immediately apparent how drunk she was. She appeared, at first, self-possessed and grave; her face was white, her forehead full of creases. Then we noticed how she was perspiring and how unsteady her eyes were. She looked first at Iva and then at me, saying nothing. We did not know what to expect.
Then, with alarming suddenness, she cried, "Sound the gong; they're here."
"Who?" said JaCk Brill, putting his head out of the door.
"Joseph and Ira. Always last to show up. They come when everybody's high so they can stand around and watch us make fools of ourselves."
"It's my fault," Ira murmured. We were both taken aback by Minna's outcry. "I have such a cold, and…"
"Darling," said Minna. "I was only joking. Come in." She led us into the living room. There, both doors of the phonograph were open, but the guests talked; no one seemed to listen to the music. And here was the scene, predictable to the last detail, hours, days, weeks before the light furniture in the popular Swedish style, the brown carpet, the Chagall and Gris prints, the vines trailing from the mantelpiece, the bowl of Cohasset punch. Minna had invited a number of "stranger" acquaintances, that is, who did not belong to the inner circle. There was a young woman to whom I had once been introduced. I remembered her because of her downy, slightly protuberant lip.
She was quite pretty, however. Her name escaped me. Did she work in Minna's office? Was she married to the fat man in the steel-rimmed glasses?
Had I also met him? I would never know. And in this noise I could not help being indifferent about it. So it was with these strangers. Some, like Jack Brill, you came to know well, in time. The others remained grouped together indistinctly and were recalled, if the need arose, as "that fellow with the glasses" or "that pasty-looking couple."
One by one, the friends came forward-Abt, George Hayza, Myron, Robbie Stillman.
They were the center of the party; they performed. The others looked on, and who could tell whether they were amused or resentful at their exclusion, or even if they were aware of being excluded? The party went on around them.
If they were aware of what was happening, they made the best of it.
And so did you. Your first tour of the room done, you moved aside with a glass and a cigarette. You sat-if you could find a place-and watched the performers and the dancers. You heard Robbie Stillman tell a story he had told any number of times about the mishaps of a stuttering girl, or about a hobo with a new. portable radio he had met one day on the steps of the Aquarium. You did not like him less for telling it. You felt, somehow, that he, too, was forced to endure it, that he began unwillingly and was under a compulsion to finish what no one wanted to hear finished. You could not blame him.
Minna went around the living room from group to group, unsteadily, as if in danger of falling from her high heels.
Finally she stopped before George Hayza. We heard them arguing. It turned out that she wanted him to recordon the machine a poem he had made popular years agowhen he had played at being a surrealist. To his credit, herefused That is, he tried to refuse, reddening and sniilingddanxiously.
He wanted to live it down. Everybody was tired of it, he most of all. Others came to his support. Abt sdI@ccwith an edge of impatience in his voice, that George ought @ccffbe allowed to judge whether or not he should recite x. and since everyone had heard it-a dozen times @.@.8Everyone has not heard it," said Minna.
"Besides, I want to make a record of it. It's clever."
@' "It used to be considered clever."
"It still is. It's very clever.8Abt gave up the argument, for a sense of a special situation was arising. Abt had once been engaged to Minna, butfor reasons none of us knew, she had suddenly decided tomarry Harry Servatius. There was, therefore, a complex@cchistory of injured feelings between Abt and Minna, andeaIn a gathering atmosphere of embarrassment, Abt withdrew, and Minna had her way. The poem was recorded.8George's voice came out strangely high and unsteady. "I am aloneAnd eat my hair as a calendar of regrets" George, with a grimace of apology, backed away fromthe phonograph. Only Minna was satisfied; she played therecord again.8What's wrong tonight?" I asked Myron.8Oh-it's Harry, I guess. He's in the study with GildaHillman. They've been there all evening.
Talking.88Joseph," said Ira from her chair near by, "willyou getme some more?" She held out her glass.
"Iva," said Jack Brill, with a warning laugh. "Go slow."
"With what? The punch?"
"It tastes mild, but it isn't mild at a11."
"Maybe you shouldn't drink any more of it," I said, %incc you're not feeling well."