636
PARTISAN REVIEW
gold ... but the whole
gescheft
bores him. Look at me, I'm not
even express and admirable in action. You could say a man like me
ought to be expected to lie down and quit the picture. Instead, I'm
running a big business today-." That was not the pure truth; it
was the Commissioner who was still the big wheel, but it wasn't
uninteresting all the same. "-While nobody would blame me for
rotting in the back room under a blanket or for crabbing and
blabbing my bitter heart out, with fresh and healthy people going
around me so as not to look. A kid like you, for instance, strong as
a bronco and rosy as an apple. An Alcibiades beloved-of-man, by
Jesus. I don't know what brain power you've got; you're too frisky
yet, and even
if
you turn out to be smart you'll never be in the class
of my son Arthur. You shouldn't be angry for hearing the truth,
if
you're lucky enough to find somebody to hear it from. Anyhow,
you're not bad off, being an Alcibiades. That's already way and
above your fellow creatures. And don't think they didn't hate the
original, either. All but Socrates himself, ugly as an old dog, they
tell us. Nor just because the young fellow knocked the dongs of the
holy figures off, supposedly, before he shipped for Sicily. But to
get back to the subject, it's one thing to be buried with all your
pleasures, like Sardanapalus; it's another to be buried right plunk
in front of them, where you can see them. Ain't it so? You need
a genius to raise you above it. . . ."
Quiet, quiet, quiet afternoon in the backroom study, with an
oilcloth on the library table, busts on the wall, invisible cars snoring
and trembling toward the park, the sun shining into the yard outside
the window barred against housebreakers, billiard balls kissing and
bounding on the felt and sponge rubber, and the undertaker's back
door still and stiller, cats sitting on the paths in the Lutheran gardens
over the alley that were swept and garnished and scarcely ever trod
by the chin-tied Danish deaconesses who'd come out on the cradle–
ribbed and always fresh-painted porches of their home.
Somewhat it stung me, the way he compared me with his son.
But I didn't mind being Alcibiades, and let him be in the same
bracket with Socrates in the bargain, since that was what he was
driving at. We had title just as good as the chain-mail English kings
had to Brutus.
If
you want to pick your own ideal creature in the
mirror coastal air and sharp leaves of ancient perfections and be at
