PARTISAN REVIEW
99
the top secret file held. Yesterday evening, after everyone had gone,
and the secretary had marched down the
hall
to powder up,
he
made a hasty survey of her desk, and came upon a note infonning
the tenured department members to report at three the next day for
a meeting. Sly old Malcolm Duckworth.
Marvena Portney appeared at the door carrying a big, saggy,
leather shoulder bag. She was dressed in bohemian black. Rollie
swiveled to the girl and motioned her to the conference chair. He
clicked on the small desk lamp, lit another cigarette and slid into
his
favorite ankles-crossed, hands-clasped-on-stomach position. Voices
of students on the walk drifted in on the afternoon light.
"Now," Rollie said comfortingly, and waited.
Marvena held her bag in her lap and waited.
"Is it the dichotomy?"
"W.hat?"
"You ran out of the room. Did I say something?" Rollie watched
Marvena reach in her bag for a lavender tissue.
"It's nothing."
"Do you usually cry over nothing?"
"Sometimes. I don't know. I'm just blue."
"Does Holden have anything to do with it?"
"Well, like you said, there was
this
dichotomy."
"Yes." For some years now he had understood the meaning
of restraint.
"I was thinking of the I-Thou relationship. I have it here in
my notes." She reached into her bag and pulled out a notebook.
She read: "'Holden's spiritual intercourse with the adult world and
its system of values has been short-circuited. In a world without
meaning he finds himself pinned to a rock, with the vulture Society
pecking away at his heart. The mad world is a ravenous beast bent
on devouring its young.' That's just wonderful, Mr. Mergenthaler."
"But it makes you blue." Rollie sat back and mulled
his
words.
He remembered pausing in class before coming out with "spiritual
intercourse."
Marvena put her bag on the floor and shifted to a slouch
posi–
tion. In the fading day a small circle of light from the desk lamp
glowed brightly. The two faces, hidden in the darkness on either side
of the lamp, eased into anonymity. The voices floated over the
bridge of light.
