PULL DOWN VANITYI
449
had no right to the self-righteous tone. "You're destroying him and you
give me lectures about confidence. What good will a few lies about his
poems do him, when you play footsie with me right under his eyes!"
" 'Children of a future age, Reading this indignant page, Remember
in a former time . . .''' she began to misquote back at me.
" (Learn
that in a former time... .'''
"Schoolteacher! 'Learn that in a former time- Love, sweet love
was thought a crime!'"
How could I have explained to her all the things she should have
known to begin with: that I had, or seemed to have, everything that
Hank wanted: a loving wife, seven children, two published books of
verse, success and admiration, even J ewishness! Everything except her!
Of all women in the world, she was the one I could not take.
"I don't want you to deceive him. There's no question of any lies.
You said yourself his poems are really good."
"But you're really not," I cried in exasperation. "You're what's
wrong with him, not his poems. You're sapping his manhood, taking
his balls away-and then you cry about it!"
"Oh, what do you know!" she whispered violently, moving in close
to me to let a sleepy-eyed student push past her down the aisle. "Last
night Hank made love to me for the first time in six months. What do
you think of that?" She smiled at me in mockery, and I could not
repress a queasy pang of jealousy.
"Congratulations! I hope you'll be very happy together."
"Oh, Milton! Don't be a fool! I've borne his baby. I've worked for
him-I've given up a year from my own studies to let him write. I'm
a good wife." Her hand moved blindly with the rag, around and around
the table, her eyes filling with tears. "I'm a person, too. Who's going
to do something for me? I have a right to have some-"
"Some fun?" I suggested bitterly. "Some good clean fun?" I could
not stand any more, and I rose, jarring the cup, so that the untouched
coffee slopped over the rim on to the table where she continued mechan–
ically to sop it up. "Excuse me," I said, pushing past her familiar soft–
ness, "excuse me."
I could see her as I turned to look back from the door, her eyes
incredibly black with panic and tears, and her mouth no longer cruel,
only frightened as she cried almost soundlessly, "What's wrong with me,
darling? Oh God, what's wrong with me!"
Looking down at my hand, I was pleased to see that this time
I had remembered the poems.
That morning Judith did not appear in my discussion group. But
