782
PARTISAN REVIEW
popular. Popularity is no crime; the trick's
(pause)
to sell them what
they don't know they want. Look at Howard
(pause)
Fast."
"I forgive you the interruption. I was going to say that stridency
is
not truth; it's not even a guarantee of earnestness, and I can't
admire
(you
brought it up) the sort of cunning that slips across
a currently unpopular brand of philistinism."
"You're talking about politics, I suppose."
"Yes, a sneaky kind of politics, literary politics, this business of
hijacking bourgeois notions, and proving that it's just as comfortable
-and dull, on your side of the barricades.
If
you only-"
"I
(pause)
suppose you don't like Steinbeck." He moved his
face over against mine until we were mutually quite distinct despite
the blackout.
"No."
"Ah-that's the
(pause)
test. That's the test."
We changed our course violently and before the quasi-automatic
bend of the knee had made an adjustment, our viscera rolled with the
baffled surge across which we were cutting, trying to escape the body's
changed momentum that moved now with the ship, making with all
engines its perpendicular to where the guts had thought they were
going.
"Why are you ashamed when you refuse a drink?" I asked him
again.
"Oh, Jesus," he said, "you can't make a case of it. I don't want
any
(pause)
one to go thinking that I have scruples against drinking
aboard ship. It's just that at
(pause)
sea, I get sick if 1-"
"What are you afraid of anyhow? What would you betray if
you seemed virtuous for a moment? You ought to have scruples
against it. I do. It's against Navy Regs, and even, though I grant
you it sounds like a contradiction, against good sense. It's undemo–
cratic besides, because the men can't do it, and its-"
"But
you
do it," he cried unawares, and then embarrassed,
"Not that I care one way or the other. What the hell-"
This time I beat him to the pause. "You're scared of your most
hopeful reactions. Give them a chance. I know you didn't choose
your naivete, but you're lucky, it sticks to you. Exploit it! exploit it!
because if you don't it will fester on you, make you a special super-
