640
PARTISAN REVIEW
think you're the Old Man of the Sea locked around Sindbad's neck;
and why should anybody carry an envious piece of human junk?
If
society had any sense they'd give me euthanasia or leave me the way
the Eskimos do their old folks in an igloo with food for two days.
Don't you look so miserable. Go on away. See if Tillie wants you for
something."
But this was on the thirtieth day, or more seldom, because
in
general he enjoyed good health and looked on himself as a useful citi–
zen and even an extraordinary one, and he bragged that there was
hardly anything he couldn't bring off if he put his mind to it. And
he certainly did some bang-up things. He'd clear us all out of the
way to be alone with Lollie Fewter; he'd arrange for the whole lot
of us to drive out to Niles Center and show the Commissioner a
piece of property. Ostensibly getting ready to occupy himself wit;h
a piece of work while we were away- the files and information were
laid out for him-he was unhurried, engaging and smooth-tempered
in his tortoise-shells, answering every last question in full and even
detaining the excursion to have some last words with his father about
frontages, or improvements. "Wait till I show you on the map just
where the feeder-bus comes through. Bring the map, Augie." He'd
have me fetch it and kept the Commissioner till he became impatient,
with Dingbat grinding the klaxon and Mrs. Einhorn already settled
with bags of fruit in the back seat, calling, "Come, it's hot. I'm
fainting here." And Lollie in the passage between the flat and the
offices sauntered up and down with the dust mop in the polished
dimness, big and soft, comfortable for the heat in a thin blouse and
straw sandals, like an overgrown girl walking a doll and keeping a
smile to herself about
this
maternal, matrimonial game, lazy and
carel~
and, you could say, saving force for the game to follow. Clem
Tambow had tried to tell me what the score was but hadn't con–
vinced me, not just because of the oddness of the idea, and that I
had a boyish respect for Einhorn, but
also
because I had made a
start with Lollie myself. I found excuses to be with her in the kitchen
while she was ironing. She told me of her family in the Franklin
County coal-fields, and then about the men there, and what they
tried and did. She rolled me in feelings. From suggestion alone, I
didn't have the strength to keep my feet. We soon were kissing and
feeling; she now held off my hands and now led them inside her dress,
