— Who's looney now? someone said, as Mr. Feddle worked his way along the wall, with the care of coastal shipping not to venture into the open sea; his cargo was Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and he sought dockage where he might inscribe it in peace. Benny was approaching the very attractive girl who spoke with Boston accents. The tall woman said, — Then it's your husband who writes. What sort of thing? — God knows, said the girl with the bandaged wrists, — God and the Congregation of the Holy Office. Everything he writes goes right on the Index, and I can't read it. — Then you're Catholic? — My God yes.
The very attractive girl, indicating Benny, turned to Ed Feasley and said, — Tell your friend I'm a lost horizon, will you? — Chr-ahst, Feasley said, — I don't know him. He looks like a brush salesman in that outfit. Maybe I can sell him a suit. She raised her eyebrows. — Well Chr-ahst I've got to do something. Ever since I smashed this last car up I've been living on the free lunch at the Harvard Club, and going through the cushions of the big chairs there looking for change that drops out of those old bastards' pockets. Chr-ahst.
Benny turned unsteadily toward Agnes Deigh; but she had got up and gone to put an arm around Stanley, who shrank away. — Stanley, something awful has happened. . she began, and looked over his shoulder to see the dark face of the critic. — Hullo, he said. — How is everything, Agnes?
— Well enough, I suppose, she answered, and took her arm from Stanley's shoulders. — I didn't know you knew Esther.
— I just met her, he said. His tone was dull.
— How's your own novel coming along? She sounded impatient. — Well, I haven't finished it yet, but. .
— And the autobiography of Dostoevski?
— Look Agnes, don't start that with me tonight, that autobiography crap.
— Relax, Agnes Deigh said. — Have another drink.
— All right. But just don't start…
— I'm not starting anything. Now relax.
— You must be having a good time here. I never saw so many queers in one room, queers and uptown fluff and cheap advertising…
Agnes Deigh turned her back. — Stanley, I have something I want to talk to you about, she said, and led him back to her chair. Benny walked toward the other side of the room, where Ellery stood with the blonde backed up against a cabinet, his hand in the shadows there, hardly moving. Benny's lip was trembling.
— Lady. . lady. . Esther felt her skirt being pulled, and looked down to see the little girl from downstairs. — Mummy sent me up to ask you for some more sleeping pills. . — Just a minute, she said as she looked, and put her hand on the child's head. — You've got lots of friends, haven't you, the little girl said, looking up at her. — Mummy used to too, but not any more. .
— You must meet Mister Crotcher, said someone to Esther, beside her. It was Buster Brown (whom she did not know either). The pair had approached like a depraved version of body and soul, the one on little cat-feet (as he himself remarked), the other in a brown suit of heavy material, nearer the floor with each step, as though wheeling a barrow full of cement. He shook Esther's hand with an air of great fatigue. — But you didn't tell us what you do, said Buster to him.
— I'm a writer, he answered.
— Oh. What sort of thing do you do? Esther asked, dropping the weight of his hand, and looking down as though she expected to see it drop to the floor.
— Write.
— Yes, but… ah… fiction?
— My book has been translated into nineteen languages.
— I must know it, Esther said. — I must know of it.
— Doubt it, said the modest author. — Never been published.
— But you said. .
— I've translated it myself. Nineteen languages. Only sixty-six more to go, not counting dialects. It's Celtic now. A lovely language, Celtic. It only took me eight months to learn Celtic. It ought to go in Celtic.
— You mean be published?
— Yes, published in Celtic. Sooner or later I'll hit a language where they'll publish it. Then I can retire to the country. That's all I want, to retire to the country. Erse is next.
— It must be an awfully dirty book, said Buster.
Mr. Crotcher gave him a look of firm academic hatred which no amount of love, in any expression, could hope to erase. — It is a novel about ant life, he said.
— Lady, could you take me into the bathroom. .
— You'll have to excuse me, Esther said, gripping the child's hand.
— Gee, lady, said the little girl as they crossed the room, — you ought to watch out for your baby.
— What?
— You ought to change his pants, she said pointing. Esther saw the baby on the floor, trying to climb the leg of a small dark-skinned man in light gray.
On the other side of the room the girl with bandaged wrists was saying to her husband, — What'd you do with it?
— Some girl borrowed it, he said. — You'll know her, she's got a green tongue.
— The baby's all right, if that's what you're talking about, said the tall woman. — A nice-looking man seems to be playing some sort of game with it. She turned to her husband and said, — Who do you suppose that flashy little dago is?
— But that's what's wonderful about France, someone said. — Simply ev-rything is for sale.
— We've found the loveliest French restaurant, a girl said. — Everything is flavored with garlic, that's how you can tell. . She was interrupted by the Duchess of Ohio who asked if her name were Maude.
— Why no. Why?
— They've told me that someone named Maude knows where you can get babies by post from Nor-way!
— Do you want one?
— Baby, I feel like I'm going to have one. The girl stared.
— There hasn't been anything like this since the Morro Castle, said the tall woman, looking round. — I expect everyone to burst into Nearer My God to Thee at any moment.
— Chr-ahst, what a party, said a young man to Esther, stopping her as she came from the bathroom, the little girl dodging obstacles, running for the door. — Could I get you a drink?
— It's my party, and you're very welcome, said Esther, feeling ill again.
— Oh Chrahst, I'm sorry. Ed Feasley was folding together four dirty five-dollar bills. He put them into his pocket. — Damned lucky bit of business, he said. — What? — You see that seedy-looking guy in the green shirt? — Oh yes, I know him, he's… — I just sold him a suit. — But… he doesn't look as though. . your suits would fit him, Esther went on, automatically, making conversation. — I wouldn't sell him one of my old things, Feasley said. — I told him to go up and get a suit at Brooks. He can charge it to my old man. What else am I supposed to do? Sell a battleship?
They stood looking over the room. — How do you know all these people?
— I really don't, to tell the truth, Esther said, looking for any she could identify. There was James Leak, who said he had published a book called With Gun and Camera in Flatbush and Green-point, though no one had ever seen a copy, and was now at work exposing the Swiss conspiracy to dominate the world. There was Arthur, with a beard, who was writing a new life of Christ, to be published under another name, the same name he had used when he reviewed his first book, published under his own name, a satire on the Bible so badly received that he joined the chorus of its detractors and got even with himself by quoting Charles Reade and George Borrow, calling it an excrescence of over-refinement. — Yes, he was saying to a girl named Izarra (she had got that off a liquor bottle; her real name was Minna Vesendorf). — Of course it's going to be autobiographical. All books are.
Someone else was saying, — When I finish this psychoanalytic critique of Mother Goose I'm going right on to the Revelation of Saint John the Divine…