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PARTISAN REVIEW
head, in 1860.... And a Mohammedan to boot, harem and all!
Or are these your sisters? Ha, ha, can you fancy me in the role
of a eunuch?"
He would have said more, in his delirium, but he had not
the time. He felt his throat seized by an enormous hand, and for
a terrifying instant looked into the face of Wiley Bey. Then he
was spun around, grasped by the collar and the slack of his pants,
and half-carried, half pushed through the doorway. Stumbling,
he turned around drunkenly, and the door slammed shut in his
face.
II
Having been thrown out of the Negro's apartment, Simon
quite naturally went back. In fact, no sooner had he found him–
self in the hall, with the door inexorably shut in his face, and
his mouth bitter with the taste of insult and humiliation, than
he was moved by an impulse to put his eye to the keyhole! Not
that his distress and anger were not real, but his childish curiosity
was equally real and (as he had learned from long experience)
far more enduring. Mastering his impulse with difficulty, he went
downstairs and paced the floor of his living-room, savoring the
bitter feelings, the rage of the declasse, the sense of degradation
(how ignominiously the seat of his pants had been gathered
in
that enormous paw!) but nonetheless cocking his ear from time
to time lest a significant movement from above should escape
him.... Later, as he wrote a long account of the Negro's arrival
in his journal, he heard the low plucking of a large string instru·
ment, probably a guitar, and faintly the voice of a woman singing
some weird oriental song. For a moment, Wiley Bey's deep voice,
vibrantly, and then the music (to which Simon had listened open·
mouthed, with delight) faded away. He determined to lodge a
protest, in fact only physical terror saved him from thumping
on the ceiling with the handle of a broom. It was not enough
that these people were Negroes, and smelled queerly like all
Negroes. They were given to singing in the dead of the night!
At the same time, putting the finishing touches to his
pages
de
journal,
Simon found himself understanding the Negro's wrath,
lingering over his fierce aspect-and, with a little smile of satis–
faction, appreciating the dramatic quality of the evening's events.
