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P.ARTISAN REVIEW
and he had been foolish for years, or that he was right and Shen–
andoah was ignorant and innocent. The latter view immediately
triumphed and his irritation took hold of him and he felt compelled
to wound Shenandoah.
"How old are you?" said Oliver with a beautiful hardness upon
his face.
"Twenty-four years of age," said Shenandoah. He knew very
well that the question was an affront, but he did not want to quarrel
with Oliver.
"You are just an infant," said Oliver, determined to hurt
Shenandoah's feelings, "you have just not lived long enough." Thus,
with this sentence, he declared that Shenandoah did not know what
he was saying and he won the argument.
"How old are you?" said Shenandoah with awkward constraint.
His determination not to be angry had quickly broken down.
"You know how old I am, thirty-four," said Oliver in fury,
"I've told you a dozen times."
"Well for that matter," said Shenandoah, "you know how old
I am, but I was too polite to mention the fact." He knew that this
remark was self-righteous an instant too late to halt himself.
"0
neve~
mind," said Oliver., for his mind had shifted tQ the
much more serious irritation he felt because he was thirty-four years
of age, a thought which became most urgent and most productive
of feelings of anxiety and despair on a birthday or on New Year's Eve.
Shenandoah moved away as Oliver looked at the carpet and
then at nothing at all. Oliver felt a pang of guilt as Shenandoah
departed and consequently he sought to remember all that was wrong
with Shenandoah.
Shenandoah expect<; everyone to be as interested' in him as he is
interested in himself, Oliver thought, as he sought self-extenuation;
he has decided that competition does not exist because it makes him
uncomfortable, which is one form of egotism, and because he: thinks
very well of himself, which is the worst form of egotism.
Shenandoah had departed ostensibly to freshen his drink,
but actually to hide his despair at his inability not to get into argu–
ments with other human beings, especially those he liked.
He: was overcome by a convenient self-pity as he reached for
cold ice to put in his highball glass. His self-pity was convenient
because it made it unnecessary for him to engage in further thought.
All I ever wanted, he said to himself brokenly, was to have
friends and to go to parties. Shenandoah had for long cherished the
