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PARTISAN REVIEW
to take that test. I guess I won't bother to try it again, but I guess I
don't much care about it now."
After a few moments he rose, wished me good luck again, and
left.
I had come closer to convincing
him,
and because I had I felt
a dull shame. I had still deceived him-and myself, almost-even
though he might believe only temporarily what I had propounded;
and as the minutes passed after his departure I became increasingly
struck with my duplicity. To be sure, I thought, the glories of the
world pass, but what else is there? For me, even for him? And be–
cause I had made him believe that there was something else-though
I hadn't been able to tell
him
what it was-even when I knew there
wasn't and never could be again, I was sorry. Plainly, I had not
brought him very much nearer to the truth.
At Goose Air Base in Labrador the library is situated directly
below the Service Club ballroom.
As
one reads, bits of plaster drop
out of the chinks in the wooden ceiling onto the book. The Latin
rhythms of the orchestra and the shuffling of feet on the floor above
ravage all the senses. One's eyes bump across the surface of the page
to the beat of the music, perceiving rhythms not words. Yet the illu–
sion of reading is there; pages are turned, the story moves forward,
just as in the Army one can acquire the illusion of learning and
working at learning. So much of what we do lies in the formal ges–
ture, in the insistence through imitation that one is really getting
on with intellectual matters. It is a kind of snare our culture has
baited for us, and in the Army, where we are more American than
anywhere else, we are all its catch.
Two flights of stairs lead from the Club to this library; between
them on the wall of the landing is a mural. It is a picture of Knowl–
edge. She is tall and slender, with flaming red hair, full breasts, and
long bare legs--she looks something like Rita Hayworth. She stands
unshod upon the globe, and at her feet sit two bedazzled airmen with
books open idly before them. She has seduced them into putting
down their pool-cues and taking up their text-books. She is beauty
and power and success, and she transcends the world in serene
possession of her virtues.
If
this were Knowledge we should all be lechers. Yet this
is
