394
PARTISAN REVIEW
Feingold's head shone. She never showed him her work. But
they understood they were lucky in each other. They pitied every
writer who was not married to a writer. Lucy said: "At least we
have the same premises. "
Volumes of Jewish history ran up and down their walls;
they belonged to Feingold. Lucy read only one book-it was
Emma-over
and over again. Feingold did not have a "philoso–
phical" mind. What he liked was event. Lucy liked to speculate
and ruminate. She was slightly more intelligent then Feingold.
To strangers he seemed very mild. Lucy, when silent, was a tall
copper statue.
They were both devoted to omniscience, but they were not
acute enough to see what they meant by it. They thought of
themselves as children with a puppet theater: they could make
anything at all happen, speak all the lines, with gloved hands
bring all the characters to shudders or leaps. They fancied
themselves in love with what they called " imagination."
It
was
not true. What they were addicted to was counterfeit pity, and
this was because they were absorbed by power, and were power–
less.
They lived on pity, and therefore on gossip: who had been
childless for ten years, who had lost three successive jobs, who
was in danger of being fired, which agent's prestige had fallen ,
who could not get his second novel published, who was
persona
non grata
at this or that magazine, who was drinking seriously,
who was a likely suicide, who was dreaming of divorce, who was
secretly or flamboyantly sleeping with whom, who was being
snubbed, who counted or did not count; and toward everyone in
the least way victimized they appeared to feel the most immoder–
ate tenderness. They were, besides, extremely "psychological":
kind listeners, helpful, lifting hot palms they would gladly put
to anyone's anguished temples. They were attracted to bitter
lives.
About their own lives they had ajoke: they were "secondary–
level" people. Feingold had a secondary-level job with a
secondary-level house. Lucy' s own publisher was secondary–
level; even the address was Second Avenue. The reviews of their
books had been written by secondary-level reviewers. All their
