164
PARTISAN REVIEW
from many different perspectives, while his audience sat transfixed
in the stuffy living room, like children in the magician's tent at a
carnival.
As
she tried to follow him, Billie found herself riding the
cadence of Stanley's voice, with the steady pitch of a boat on the
high sea. But her eyes, all evening long, were on his twitching eyes
and mouth, which sometimes seemed to accent his ideas, at other
times suggested that another person, inside himself, was also talking.
She felt this was the most brilliant man she had ever met, a man
who, like a work of art, was a form of intellectual excitement. But
why, then, she wondered, did not the world know about him? Did
not genius belong to the world?
Stanley went home with Billie, moved in a week later, and
after three months was married again.
As
usual he offered n
resistance. On the contrary, he met the challenge of the situation by
entertaining their friends with the observation that in all great
literature, from Homer to Tolstoy, marriage was a coalition oJ
tragic forces, beginning the process of destruction leading to the
denouement. Billie was at first irritated at having her feelings dis–
solved in the ebb and flow of the speculative mind, but she re–
captured her excitement as she became aware that the verbal decor
Stanley gave to the occasion complemented her own speechlessness.
For two years Billie basked in the creative glow of Stanley'S
mind.
As
Billie constantly reminded her friends, Stanley was unlike
other men in that he was allergic to cliches and to banal situations.
Living with Stanley, Billie said, was a creative experience, not only
because of the radiance of Stanley's mind, but also because Billie's
own existence took on a creative dimension in her role as Stanley's
intellectual partner. Her marriage became a succession of nocturnal
triumphs, as she was carried along on Stanley's speculative journeys
into the night. From the moment he awoke, Stanley was keen and
stimulating, but he reached his peak at night when his ideas, which
were only given their trial runs during the day, were ready f-or actual
flight. One day, for example, he had gone to an exhibition of
seascapes, but since he was not very responsive to painting, he had
to content himself with a few witty remarks that had no relation
to the pictures. That evening, however, he was able to present a
new concept of coordinated symbolism which he applied to the
