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PARTISAN REVIEW
specialized efficiency lacked utterly the flattering bossiness she so
counted on from her father, my Grandfather Winslow. It was not
Father's absence on sea-duty that mattered; it was the eroding neces–
sity of moving
with
him, of keeping in step. When he was far away on
the Pacific, she had her friends, her parents, a house to herself-Bos–
ton! Fully conscious of her uniqueness and normality she basked in the
refreshing stimulation of dreams in which she imagined Father as
suitably sublimed. She used to describe such a sublime man to me
over tea and English muffins. He was Siegfried carried lifeless through
the shining air by Brunnhilde to Valhalla, and accompanied by the
throb of my Great Aunt Sarah playing his leitmotif in the declamatory
manner taught her by the Abbe Liszt. Or Mother's hero dove
through the grottoes of the Rhine and slaughtered the homicidal and
vulgar dragon coiled about the golden hoard. Mother seemed almost
light-headed when she retold the romance of Sarah Bernhardt in
L'
Aiglon,
the Eaglet, the weakling! She would speak the word
weak–
ling
with such amused vehemence that I formed a grandiose and false
image of L'Aiglon's Father, the
big
Napoleon: he was a strong man
who scratched under his paunchy little white vest a torso all hair,
muscle, and manliness. Instead of the dreams, Mother now had the
insipid fatigue of keeping house. Instead of the
Eagle,
she had a twen–
tieth-century naval commander interested in steam, radio, and "the
fellows." To avoid naval yards, steam, and "the fellows," Mother had
impulsively bought the squalid, impractical Revere Street house. Still,
marriage daily forced her to squander her subconsciously hoarded
energies.
«Weelawaugh,
we-ee-eeelawaugh,
weelawaugh,"
shrilled
Mother's high voice.
«But-and, but-and, but-and!"
Father's low
mumble would drone in answer. Though I couldn't be sure that
I had caught the meaning of the words, I followed the sounds as
though they were a movie. I felt drenched in my parents' passions.
91 Revere Street was the setting for those arthritic spiritual pains
that troubled us for the two years my mother spent in trying to argue
my father into resigning from the Navy. When the majestic, hollow
boredom of the second year's autumn dwindled to the mean boredom
of a second winter, I grew less willing to open my mouth. I bored
my parents, they bored me.
