52
PARTISAN REVIEW
at an unconscious level the search to restore the even tenor of life be–
fore his loss.
He had begun
to
be attracted to the idea of his forthcoming return
to
La Jolla; hitherto an unendurable prospect because of Cissy's
lingering presence there. Thereafter his all egiance wavered between
London and La Jolla. For all that he had been attentively cared for and
even at first lionized in London, he often felt sociall y excluded, and
excessive drinking had not improved his popularity as a dinner guest.
London social life never ceased to amaze him. He met a girl at a
dinner party and had almost automaticall y described her as showing
herself "open to any proposition," but on his next meeting he found
she was "much less accessible than I thought-she made a very smart
and charming appearance and forced me by superior style to act more
or less a gentleman ... she simply outmanoeuvred me and all I got out
of it was an affectionate embrace in Bedford Square." Yet all this was
play-acting too, since she never had been open
to
any proposition, nor
had he intended making any and they had discussed only his various
symptoms of ill health, whereupon she had marched him off, much
against his wish,
to
one of the many "posh doctors." He saw London
social life as "hypocritical" and never came
to
realize that London
malice is often neither serious nor literal (we like a good joke but don't
believe it for a moment, and tacitly assume that nobody else does; the
only unforgivable malice is that of passing on unkind remarks).
Although he very much enjoyed what he saw as the quick wit of the
English, Raymond regarded this as having "knives for your back" and,
for instance, tried
to
persuade both Stephen and me never to speak
again to two of our best friends who had engaged in some harmless
joke at our expense.
But would his culture shock have been so great had he come from
New York and had friends of his own mental caliber-rather than from
his very cloistered La Jolla life? He wrote
to
me sadly in 1958:
"If
the
tax situation permitted, I'd rather come back
to
England, where at least
I have friends." "You like America because it is bright and vigorous, I
like that part of it too, but with Cissy ill so long I never really had a
chance to dig some kindred spirits out of the mob of Philistines and
now I'm too tired to want to." In California, his home with Cissy had
been a citadel, almost nobody had been allowed
to
cross the threshold,
so although he was talking of his return there with an air of "belon–
gingness" and he had two devoted intelligent friends who took great
care of him, his stay that autumn at a certain La Jolla hotel was yet
another shock. Of the dining room there he wrote: "I particularly
