314
PARTISAN REVIEW
things. But it was bad. To pay the bill he would have to withdraw
money from his brokerage account, and the account was being
watched because of the drop in lard. According to the
Tribune's
figures lard was still twenty points below last year's level. There were
government price supports. Wilhelm didn't know how these worked
but he understood that the farmer was protected and that the SEC
kept an eye on the market and therefore he believed that lard would
be sent up again and he wasn't greatly worried as yet. But in the
meantime, his father might have offered to pick up his hotel tab.
Why didn't he? What a selfish old man he was! He saw his son's
hardships; he could so easily help him. How little it would mean to
him, and how much to Wilhelm! Where was the old man's heart?
Maybe, thought Wilhelm, I was sentimental in the past and exag–
gerated his kindliness-warm family life. It may never have been
there.
Not long ago his father had said to him in his usual affable,
pleasant way, "Well, Wilky, here we are under the same roof again,
after all these years."
Wilhelm was glad for an instant. At last they would talk over
old times. But he was also on guard against insinuations. Wasn't
his father saying, "Why are you here in a hotel with me and not
at home in Brooklyn with your wife and two boys? You're neither
a widower nor a bachelor. You have brought me all your confusions.
What do you expect me to do with them?"
So Wilhelm studied the remark for a bit, then said, "The roof
is twenty-six stories up. But how many years has it been?"
"That's what I was asking you."
"Gosh, Dad, I'm not sure. Wasn't it the year Mother died?
What year was that?"
He asked this question with an innocent frown on his Golden
Grimes, dark blond face.
What year was it!
As though he didn't
know the year, the month, the day, the very hour of his mother's
death.
"Wasn't it 1931?" said Dr. Adler.
"Oh, was it?" said Wilhelm. And to hide the sadness and the
overwhelming irony of the question he gave a nervous wag of the
head and felt the ends of his collar rapidly and gave his panting
laugh. But it came out of his mouth dryly.
