PARTISAN REVIEW
"Plato!" he screamed. "Be frank, now. Love each other we
don't, but a little frankness we can afford. Plato, what is he really?
A fascist, I won't say. A bugger, no?" He pointed a violent finger
at Timothy. "Professor, about such things you should know. I ask
you-a bugger? Am I right?"
Timothy, obscurely offended, only sniffed at him, touched his
hair in an elegant gesture of indifference; his face was red, meant
nothing. I answered for him, I who ordinarily and on principle,
prefer reticence,
"It
doesn't matter. We begin sometimes in the flesh,
sometimes by-pass it, but the important thing is somehow and at
last to achieve what escapes the definition of the flesh-" I had the
sense of speaking for once incisively, to the point; it was as if I had
merely imagined the rejoinder in my room. Noel had moved his
hand, my aching arm downward in a baffled gesture of protest.
"Love!" Goodman could bear
it
no longer; he jumped up and
down in his place. "Theology! What do I see when you say this
word: the priests, the banners, and in the hands-guns! Love!
A
word that kills people. It's such a--so-so-" He almost said "Chris–
tian," but at the last moment checked it under my glance (we were
the only two Jews present, and beneath our dispute he trusted me
to guide him). "--so Evangelical! Lo-o-o-o ve, this fake sweetness and
the women slit up the-"
"Crap!" Noel had risen, reluctantly, but confessing as he heaved
us both upward that there was, after all, here too, no wisdom, no
hope. He seemed still quite sober.
Goodman was not through, but clutching at Noel across the
table, he cried, "Do
I
need love? In
my
life is there love? In this
jungle, this America, a word only-Who needs it?"
"Crap," Noel said again, dragging me toward the door. "Let's
go."
"Stay a little," Goodman shrieked, "Late it's not. We'll talk–
another beer-stay!"
Noel was plunging outward faster now, annoyed, kicking a chair
out of his way. Timothy, I saw looking backward over my shoulder
was asleep; Simone-I had not missed him-was not in sight. "Good
night!" I yelled.
"Come better to my house. Beautiful, I can't say it is-a few
miserable sticks furniture-" There was the pulse of an uncon-
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