5BB
PARTISAN REVIEW
to be content with no awareness at all of the eight million people
packed urgently together in a northern city. Their contentment was of
course blind, selfish, even depressing; contentment could be a fault,
but the Greeks, Mrs. Herrick thought it was the Greeks, had a saying,
Consider the road over which the fault has traveled. "Those natives,"
bellowed the first man, "they're not as dumb as they act. Sleep on
the streets and you get sixteen hours' work out of 'em for a dime but
they'd sneak up fast enough if you're not watching. Developing those
areas okay but don't let 'em get any fancy ideas. Paris can mix if
it wants but where I was raised we represent something, right? We
keep our place, see, they keep theirs. Had myself a time in Singapore,
a regular time. Pulled a fast one there too. Fort Worth feller I met
on a train had hit a gusher back home, filthy rich, he let me in on
a scheme, I sneaked up a little at a time- "
Mrs. Herrick deafened her ears.
It
almost worked for a while.
These men go out and represent us, she thought, our plains and
forests, our villages and cities, a fine lot of representatives we all
are, and her eyes passed angrily and despairingly over her neigh–
bors, over Mrs. Phipps too obviously enjoying the ice cream, with–
out finding a place to put their allegiance. Her spine stiffened to in–
vite self-sufficiency in the sudden onslaught of isolation between
forces. A chaste little sunset had sunk beyond the windows and
above flame vine and palm roofs the full moon ascended innocent of
the adventure that would presently befall it. Simplicity and eternity
were in that full moon. Mrs. Herrick felt in her bones that life is
immortal. The light of the moon proved that the hallowed does
triumph over the unhallowed, freedom over slavery, forever over
death. Now Mrs. Phipps, thought Mrs. Herrick, catching for an in–
stant an inquiring clean blue gaze across several tables, one might
have something in common with Mrs. Phipps, one really might and
be thankful for it, despite the retirement from life that age always
seems to give. Barriers, transparent as glass, divided them, one human
being from another. Mrs. Herrick felt apologetic, amused, even weary
of her own years: there was nothing like being middle-aged in an
old people's resort for arousing curiosity. For the fresh complexion,
the long walks she took around the lake, the springy step with which
she crossed the lobby, at least twenty years less drag on the heel
