410
PARTISAN REVIEW
December rye climbed three points as they tensely watched; the
tumblers raced and the machine's lights buzzed.
"A point and a half more, and we can cover the lard losses," said
Tamkin. He showed him his calculations on the margin of the
Times.
"I think you should put in the selling order now. Let's get out
with a small loss."
"Get out now? Nothing doing."
"Why not? Why should we wait?"
"Because," said Tamkin with a smiling, almost openly scoffing
look, "you've got to keep your nerve when the market starts to go places.
Now's when you can make something."
"I'd get out while the getting's good."
"No, you shouldn't lose your head like this. It's obvious to me what
the mechanism is, back in the Chicago market. There's a short supply
of December rye. Look, it's just gone up another quarter. We should
ride it."
"I'm losing my taste for the gamble," said Wilhelm. "You can't
feel safe when it goes up so fast. It's liable to come down just as quick."
Dryly, as though he were dealing with a child, Tamkin told him
in a tone of tiring patience, "Now listen, Tommy. I have it diagnosed
right.
If
you wish I should sell I can give the sell order. But this is the
difference between healthiness and pathology. One is objective, doesn't
change his mind every minute, enjoys the risk element. But that's not
the neurotic character. The neurotic character ..."
"Damn it, Tamkin!" said Wilhelm roughly. "Cut that out. I don't
like it. Leave my character out of consideration. Don't pull any more
of that stuff on me. I tell you I don't like it."
T amkin therefore went no further; he backed down. "I meant,"
he said, softer, "that as a salesman you are basically an artist-type. The
seller is in the visionary sphere of the business function. And then
you're an actor, too."
"No matter what type I am-" An angry and yet weak sweetness
rose into Wilhelm's throat. He coughed as though he had the flu. It
was twenty years since he had appeared on the screen as an extra.
He blew the bagpipes in a film called
Annie Laurie.
Annie had come
to warn the young Laird; he would not believe her and called the bag–
pipers to drown her out. He made fun of her while she wrung her
hands. Wilhelm, in a kilt, barelegged, blew and blew and blew and not
a sound came out. Of course all the music was recorded. He came down
with the flu after that and still suffered sometimes from chest weakness.
"Something stuck in your throat?" said Tamkin. "I think maybe
you are too disturbed to think clearly. You should try some of my
'here and now' mental exercises.
It
stops you from thinking so much
about the future and the past and cuts down confusion."
"Yes, yes, yes, yes," said Wilhelm, his eyes fixed to December rye.
"Nature only knows one thing, and that's the present. Present,
present, eternal present, like a big, huge, giant wave-colossal, bright
and beautiful, full of life and death, climbing into the sky, standing in
