PARTISAN REVIEW
425
along the lines. In those few seconds
he takes over everything I have re–
searched, he knows everything, he
sits
down to face
his
guest of the morning.
Today a lively show? Controversy?
Vince
has
a pleased, sinister smile, he
will lead
his
guest into dangerous ter–
ritory if he can.... The other day he
got a Unitarian minister to state
his
disbelief in God ... at least the minister
seemed to be saying that ... a hundred
telephone calls followed, angry women,
ready to fight! Vince lights one cigarette
after another. I watch
him
on the moni–
tor, lighting a cigarette. It
is
thought
that television is unreal, that the people
whose faces appear on it are actors,
not real people, saying words that are
rehearsed and not real. In houses people
lean forward, trying to peer into the
world of Vince Ellman, curious about the
real Vince Ellman . . . but I am here a
a few yards from
him
and I prefer the
image on the television screen: more
vivid, more handsome, without distrac–
tions, winking intimately to the house–
wives and to me, only to me. . . . After
lunch Vince takes me to lunch. He
kisses my hand. He
has
a wife and four
children, he looks younger than
his
wife,
I love him and my heart pounds stupid–
ly in his presence, I want to shake my–
self free of the fear that weighs my
body down. But I can't. He says,
"Where are you going now?" "To see
my mother. It's Wednesday," I tell him.
"You want me to drop you off?" he
says. I tell him no, the hospital is too
far away. No.
