156
PARTISAN REVIEW
trary, she would say, "I hate
all
Jews." In a way, he preferred her
attitude to that, say, of
his
office girl, Miss Bellamy, who, with
aggres~
sive piety, often congratulated him on being one of the chosen people.
With Mrs. Horvath, he was dealing with an anned enemy and war,
with her, was war. Miss Bellamy, on the other hand, while less wound–
~ng,
was more treacherous. She could catch him offguard when he was
fatigued and, sympathizing with him for being uprooted from
his
country, could make
him
prey to a burning, unobjectified anger on
behalf of
his
whole race, and! to a weepy
grie£
for himself. Then he
would despise America, Connecticut,
his
cramped and cluttered office,
the strapping great charwoman who cleaned it, the smell of workmen
in the waiting room and of workmen's cigarettes, but most of all he
would despise Miss Bellamy.
Milenka was the immediate cause of war between Mrs. Horvath
and Dr. Pakheiser. About two weeks after her arrival, she came one
evening to collect the rent. Seeing the cat curled up on the pillow of
the bed, she wrinkled her low forehead, bunched up her flat Magyar
nose and said, "Cat! I
like
dog. I
like
cat. But outside. Not in the
house. In Europe, we have dog, we have cat, but
all
outside. Inside
they make their doing on the carpet and all where. Outside, Doctor,
I must ask you." Dr. Pakheiser, unnerved, a man who preferred on
all
occasions to agree, cried, "I see!" and pretended to himself that
this was only a humorous crotchet she was ·airing conversationally.
But she remained firm in the doorway even after he had given her
the money and then, so suddenly that he scarcely realized what was
happening, she bounded forward toward the bed, shrieking, "Out!
Out, you!" and Milenka,
his
eyes widening with terror, leaped from
the bed and ran out the door.
The next evening, though, admitted to the house by the man
who left for the graveyard shift at Chance Vought, the cat came back,
and the doctor, emboldened by
his
desire for company and
his
need
for continuing custom, again opened his door. Every night thereafter,
except on Wednesday when the: rent was due, he came and was not
turned away. Mrs. Horvarth, to be sure, was aware of what was
going on. In the morning when he went downstairs, he usually found
her indolently flicking a dust cloth over the newel post or frankly
reading the lodgers' postal cards or sitting, sprawled like a big tom–
boy, in one of the chairs of the foyer. She would give him a look half–
scornful, half angry and would say, "I don't know what happen to
you when Father come and see those places on the carpet with sausage
marks." Or she would tell him, jeeringly, that Father was going to
be outraged when he saw thel hole in the curtain the cat had clawed.
