THE MAN ON THE T RA I N
493
Covertly and in fact, the wartime episode with Maria is offered
as the one authentic moment, the high tide of Rath's life.
It
is clear
enough that the Roman idyll with Maria sans pajamas and culminat–
ing in the scene in the ruined villa
(!)
is regarded as the highest mo–
ment to which mortal Rousseauvian man may attain. Postwar life
with the family and community projects, far from being an advance
into the good life as advertised, is unmistakably set forth as making
the best of a sorry situation.
Charles Gray's most authentic moment is the Return: repetition;
Tom Rath's
is
rotation, the coming upon the Real Thing among the
ruins-a moment which needn't have been disguised since, for one
thing, it has honorable literary forebears, as when Prince Andrey
transcended everydayness and came to himself for the first time only
when he lay wounded on the field of Borodino. This is a true exis–
tential reversal, the discovery of the pearl of great price at the very
heart of the objective-empirical disaster. Yet even if Tom Rath's ro–
tation with Maria had been offered at its face value, it would not
have rung true. For Tom's adventure is not, in fact, a rotation but
is
a desperate impersonation masquerading as rotation.
The second reverse: overtly the adventure with Maria is offered
as rotation, an untrammeled exploration of
la solitude
Ii
deux
amid
the smoking ruins of the
ens
SOiT.
Covertly and in fact, Tom Rath is taking refuge in the standard
rotation of the soap opera, the acceptable rhythm of the Wellsian–
Huxleyan-Nathanian romance of love among the ruins. His happiness
with Maria as they lie in the ruined villa warmed by the burning
piano, far from being a free exploration, is in reality a conforming
to the most ritualistic of gestures: that which is thought to be proper
and fitting for a sexual adventure. The motto of Tom's happiness is
"Now I am really living," which does not mean now I am truly my–
self but rather, now at last I am doing the acceptable-thing-which-an–
American-officer-in-Europe-is-supposed-to-do. He has at last achieved
a successful impersonation, the role-taking of the American-at-war.
It
would have been more interesting if Rath's adventure could have
been explored as a repetition, a re-experiencing of what his father
had done with the Mademoiselle from Armentieres. As it is, finding
himself in the situation of alienation, the familiar I estranged from the
It,
Tom Rath, instead of becoming a self, a free individual, solves
