THE SUNDERING
917
the stretches of the
M ahabharata,
in
a hermetic room, the philologist
thumbing through
Boethlingk and Roth,
the missionary sinking within
his contented mind, till the end of time. But what I say usually oc–
casions their arguments. And it did even today, when of all times I
should have kept silent. "Fool, fool!" I tell myself, "Keep your
mouth shut!" But I always open it, to knot my nerves in wretched
futility. Only Professor Warren, staunch and obese, member of four–
teen Oriental Societies, can placidly channel the talk (as he has for
forty years and will for several more, sitting over a handful of students
ten hours a week, the rest of the time reading his Hebrew, his Aeschy–
lus, his Dante, walking in the woods behind his farm, and moving
with dignified silence from acquaintance to acquaintance at the teas
and dinner parties). In a way my presence and Professor Warren's
caused the arguments always; if we had not been there, neither
would have bothered coming to grips with the other.
I cannot imagine how I could have argued with those two ad–
versaries an hour ago in the musty, overheated library, curtained and
locked in with the Indian books as the twilight shadows grew more
tender and profound at the sinking sun while the undertow hum of
the heating plant whirred our anxiety to smooth froth: the furnace,
crucible belly, and our top-floor room the dizzying brain of the firm
building.
I
had charged into the polite argument, but my definitions
melted in the wind. Well, it is done, and I am alone at last to stare
sadly at the elate sterility of red neon in the dark stores along Mass.
Avenue. And to brood on her letter of separation, so tenderly writ–
ten....
Please don't think, Chuck, that Dad broke us up. Oh, I know he
used to mope around the apartment whenever you came, but he does
that with everybody. Honestly. I just don't think it's for the best,
that's all. I don't understand you any more than I did that night at
Fairbanks' when we first met each other. And God knows we've
talked about it enough, and written about it. I'm terribly sorry you
couldn't come out to Indianapolis this Christmas, so we might have
seen each other beforehand. I could hug you close when I think
of our walks around town at night, or sitting on the porch swing. But
marriage is much, much more than that. ...
How different this floundering from the sureness that gripped
