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PARTISAN REVIEW
common decency, laws of the spirit and the soul, what she knew best ,
Hess, didn't she? sure , her silences, for instance , are against the law,
silence is against the law, silences are blows, and you can plead self–
defense, you can plead extenuation, you can argue quite agreeabl y that
you were driven to extremes , out of reason as out of town , by all those
occasions when she struck you with inwardness- oh-witholding is
wicked, refusing to respond , that's malice , Hess, you have every
excuse, don't worry your warts , and when the jury hears how you have
borne yourself these long weary dreadful , ladensomely heavy years ,
they'll set you free to cheers and
to
the sound of bells, though it'll help
your case if you don't have young children, Mr. Hess, you haven ' t have
you? that's best. Ha ha , Mr. Hess thought. Ha ha. Please to observe ,
Mr. Hess , now, that she isn ' t dead . She's having one of her little
nervous spells, a little dab of the dizzies , so she 's resting , that's all ,
she's merely unmoving, stiff and staring, eyes wide as a picrure win–
dow, watching god knows what going on on the screen of the ceiling ,
some soap opera of the soul, a few new developments in the Grand
Design , I shouldn't wonder-ha, Mr. Hess, hey? ha-no, it 's just
another quietly ordinary sagamuffin Sunday in the Hess household ,
and you're no stranger to it, sweat it out the same as always, lean on
your knees till your thighs dent, you know how it goes, you know the
routine-oh my goodness , what's to be done , Hess , what 's to be done?
His urine fell out of him as out of a nozzleless hose, while she was
forever listening . .. listening . . . in constantly alert and continuous–
ly expectant receivership , so to speak, like a line of ears for early
warning .
Pamphtfa.
Faugh. What's done is done ; then done, it 's
done, and then it ' s done. So why wait any longer? when every act is
over and we're filing out . Anyway ... my wife, to picture paths and
patterns in resting rocks, deep tides of feeling , vast programs of
action ... well, she became positively seismographic , and registered
dirt in huge mud-bound hunks roundly wibble-slob-wobbling like a
dancer's rum. Wait? Thin ass on a fat chance . Run? She said she heard
his grass and claimed it was up
to
no good and had ungracious plans .
What could he do but close his hands? She ' d pick up stray trans–
missions even in the splash of his pee , the hum of motors , the
surreptitious click of switches. Everything which entered the house ,
whether from above or below ground , entered her ... entered with–
out knocking : the wind , of course , and the rustle of leaves, sunfall as
