788
PARTISAN REVIEW
ride with it in an ugly bed, lacking a more glorious vehicle, if you've
got spirit;
aim
your body into life, make a sacrifice of the regular
things. The work of love, that used to be."
"And isn't any more?" Scampi had it in mind to say. But
it
was
not wise to interrupt.
"I give my sister credit for it," said Weyl. "I would have broken
every bone in him at the time, for what he was doing; that would
have been a natural brotherly impulse. But I would only have been
attacking an instrument. He put an end to himself when he wanted
to fix her in a flat, so he could have a nifty piece in all the comfort
of home, and be head of the house in his carpet slippers on the
living-room suite whenever it appealed to him. Crown his success
with home-life and be at the top of his ambition, which was exactly
what she could never stand. So I think she told him she would shoot
him. Someday I'll ask her. I can't now; it wouldn't be advisable at
a time like this when she's working out of the other side of the map,
rehabilitating herself.
"Well, she was trying to do too much at once and overreached
when she brought me along to Galena to rehabilitate me too. Maybe
she thought getting me in with respectable people would wake up
old decencies in me. Conduct. You see what happened, and, if I
say I tried to be polite, what it amounted to. My conduct was as I
was moved or not moved to behave, and conduct is not that. I was
too bored to have conduct; you have to have an appetite for it. And
she only
thought
she had it because there was something she power–
fully wanted and believed she could maneuver. But conduct, ordinary
conduct, isn't even in this. Nobody takes that seriously any more, the
dance of conduct. There're other steps that have been crowding our
legs. We're more and more in the open of our natures, nearer and
nearer to the original personal quality in people. That's bringing
the fight pretty close to the bull, it's full of risks; and
if
we're mur–
dered it will be because the original nature is murderous; if not,
because there's something redeeming in the original thing and a
reason for all the old talk about nobility. But before we can have
conduct, everything will have to be proved all over again. The old
props, manners . . . unless you want to die at the last post, a gentle–
man,
homme
raffine)
and a heroic sacrifice to a good opinion of people
and respect for your fellows against all evidence. Okay,
if
you do.
