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PARTISAN REVIEW
as she prepared to go downtown to meet Shenandoah. The argument
concerned the fact that Wilhelmina was going to meet Shenandoah
downtown, instead of his obeying the manners of the middle class
and coming to call for her. This kind of behavior had been the cause
of many disputes between the parents and the daughter. The parents
were not sure that Shenandoah was more than a mere friend of
Wilhelmina. He did not behave like a suitor or prospective son-in-law.
But then he did not behave like any one they had viewed in almost
fifty years of life. This made them suspect every possibility. Apart,
however, from any concern with marriage, they found Shenandoah's
behavior inexplicable. For example, his self-consciousness was so
extreme that he stumbled whenever he thought that anyone was
looking at him when he crossed the room.
"Some day he will fall flat on his face," said Mrs. Gold, enjoying
the idea and yet fearing this young man.
He was incapable of saying, How do you do? with the least
aplomb, although on the other hand once he began to speak it was
difficult to interrupt him. He never dressed well and although he
seemed to them to be smart and to know many things, when he spoke,
he spoke with such passion and contempt and with so many <;peech
defects that it was difficult to imagine that he would ever be success–
ful and well-to-do. Worst of all, from the point of view of the Golds,
he was not the kind of young man who, when married to Wilhelmina,
would come with her for dinner every Friday night after taking an
apartment not far from the Golds.
The argument in progress between parents and daughter went
back to the old and estranged past. The parents had objected griev–
ously from the beginning because Shenandoah did not always come
to call for Wilhelmina, but she met him on a street-corner or if it was
cold in a cafeteria. It was useless to explain as Wilhemina had tried
to explain to her parents, poor souls who had known youth at the
turn of the century, that a girl was not of necessity a loose woman
merely because she waited for a young man on a street-corner. Yet
such is the capacity of the human heart to accustom itself to infamy,
they had come to accept the fact that Shenandoah did not always
come to call for her because there were times when, in an effort to
ease her difficulties, he did call for her.
Mr. Gold blamed his daughter's acceptance of this peculiar
young man, if acceptance it was, upon the university she had attended
for four years, and where she had met Shenandoah. He forgot that
before going to the university Wilhelmina had rejected with violence
and contempt the
mores
and ethos of her parents. Mr. Gold felt that
