THE EINHORNS
627
missioner, Einhorn, while still fresh and palmy, felt that he had his
father's overriding powers plus something else, statesmanship, fine–
ness of line, Parsee sense, deep-dug intrigue, the scorn of the sixth
of the popes named Alexander for custom. One morning while I
was reading from a column on the misconduct of an American heiress
with an Italian prince at Cannes, he stopped me to quote: "'Dear
Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country's
fashion. Weare the makers of manners, Kate, and the liberty that
follows our places stops the mouths of all find-faults... .' That's
Henry V for you. Meaning that there's one way for people at large
and another for those that have something special to do. Which those
at large have to have in front of them.
It
braces them up that
there's
.a
privilege they can't enjoy, as long as they know it's there.
Besides, there's law, and then there's Nature. There's opinion, and
then there's Nature. Somebody has to get outside of law and opinion
and speak for Nature. It's even a public duty, so customs won't have
us all by the windpipe." Einhorn had a teaching turn similar to
Grandma Lausch's, both believing they could show what could be
done with the world, pointing out where it gave or resisted, where
you could be confident and run or where you could only feel your
way and were forced to blunder. And with his son at the University,
I was the only student he had to hand.
He put on a judicious head, and things had to be collared and
brought to a standstill when he was ready to give out. He raised
his unusable arms to the desk by a neat trick that went through
several stages, tugging the sleeve of the right with the fingers of the
left, helping on the left with the right. There wasn't any appeal to
feelings, as he accomplished this; it was only an operation. But it
h.ad immense importance.
As
a robust, full-blooded man might
mount up to a pulpit and then confess his weakness before God, Ein–
horn, with his feebleness demonstrated for a preliminary, got himself
situated to speak of strength, with strength.
It
was plenty queer to
hear him on this note, especially in view of the daily drift of life
here.
But let's take it back to the toilet, where Einhorn got himself
ready in the morning. At one time he used to have the barber in to
shave him. But this reminded him too much of the hospital, he said,
where he had put in a total of two and a half years. Besides he
