THE EINHORNS
633
had to be done for him were such that anybody who worked for
him
was necessarily intimate with him. It sometimes got my goat, he
and Mrs. Einhorn made so sure I knew my place. But maybe they
were right; the old woman had implanted the thought, though I
never entertained it in earnest. However there
was
such a thought
and it bulged somewhat into my indignation. Einhorn and his wife
were selfish. They weren't mean, I admitted in fairness, and gen–
erally I could be fair about it; merely selfish, like two people enjoy–
ing their lunch on the grass and not asking you to join them.
If
you
weren't dying for a sandwich yourself it could even make a pleasant
picture, smacking on the mustard, cutting cake, peeling eggs and
cucumbers. Selfish Einhorn was, nevertheless; his nose in constant
action smelled, and smelled out everything, sometimes austerely, or
again without manners, covert, half an eye out for observers but
not to
be
deterred
if
there were any, either.
I don't think I would have considered myself even remotely as
a legatee of the Commissioner
if
they hadn't, for one thing, under–
lined my remoteness from inheritance and, for another, discussed
inheritances all the time.
Well, they were steeped and soaked necessarily in insurance and
property, lawsuits and legal miscarriages, sour partnerships and
welchings and contested wills. This was what you heard when the
connoisseur's club of weighty cronies met, who all showed by estab–
lished marks-rings, cigars, quality of socks, newness of panamas–
where they were situated; they were classified, too; in grades of luck
and wisdom, darkness by birth or vexations, power over or subjec–
tion to wives, women, sons and daughters, grades of disfigurement;
or by the roles they played in comedies, tragedies, sex farces; whether
they screwed or were screwed, whether they themselves did the
manipulating or were roughly handled, tugged and bobbled by their
fates; they were classified according to their frauds, their smart
bankruptcies, the fires they had set; by what were their prospects
of life, how far death stood from them. Also their merits: which
heavy of fifty was a good boy, a donor, a friend, a compassionate man,
a man of balls, a lucid percentage calculator, a fellow willing to
make a loan of charity though he couldn't sign
his
name, a giver
of scrolls to the synagogue, a protector of Polish relatives.
It
was
known; Einhorn had it all noted. And apparently everybody knew
