-4'2
PARTISAN REVIEW
since we were six and played blind man's bluff and were too young to
know our blessings. This was one of the bad parties. I sensed it
from the beginning, and I came early. By the time George arrived
there was something positively evil going on. Superficially it was all
right, a lot of talk and noise and music in the room, couples dancing,
everybody drunk and laughing. But an undercurrent . . . George
sensed it immediately.
As
I say, the party was well along when he
came in and it hit
him
full blast. It's a disease ..." He blinked his
eyes self-consciously, as though to see whether I considered him
immune. "People get together, have a few drinks, and before you
know it they've caught the infection from one another.
"Everyone was having a
(good time'-that's
what made it so
repulsive. The married were playing musical chairs with their wives,
everybody take the wife on the left; the unmarried might as well
have been married, there was no telling them apart. A nasty flirta–
tiousness that's out of place in the Village. Sex, sex, sex, everything
sex, and as vile as it can possibly be. Village parties can be models
of decorum; I've been to a great number. This was one of the worst.
Decorum, because true Villagers, at their best, are fundamentally
serious people. Sensible, relaxed, and above all, responsible. A man
sees a woman that he likes-an old friend he's lost sight of, a new
girl who's come into the circle. He goes over and talks to her. But a
man's not alone in the world, neither is the
girl.
They both have
commitments. That can't be helped. They talk. While they talk,
there's a playfulness about the eyes. . . . Each, if he were to be
open with the other, would admit that this chance meeting has given
him a new purpose in life: contact, the promise of fresh pleasure,
human solidarity, call it what you will. It's understood. Also under–
stood is the fact that they each have their own worlds, even if they're
the same. That's what's involved when a man and woman come
together.
It
calls for feeling, tact.
If
the playfulness about the eyes
continues, they make a discreet arrangement. A telephone number,
an appointment. No one need know. In this act of discretion, even
if nothing else happens, they have already known the greatest in–
timacy. It's one of the highest moments of human experience. The
natural feeling of creatures for each other, who know the world for
what it
is.
It's even, if you please, a kind of chastity....
"That's the true Villager at his best. He doesn't drag the bed
