CYNTHIA OZICK
397
He went into the living room: it was mainly empty, a few
lumps on the sofa. The lumps wore business suits. The dining
room was better. Something in formation: something around
the big table: coffee cups shimmering to the brim, cake cut onto
plates (the mock-Victorian rosebud plates from Boots' drug store
in London: the year before their first boy was born Lucy and
Feingold saw the Brontes' moors; Coleridge's house in High–
gate; Lamb House, Rye, where Edith Wharton had tea with
Henry James; Bloomsbury; the Cambridge stairs Forster had
lived at the top of)-it seemed about to become a regular visit,
with points of view, opinions; a discussion. The voices began to
stumble; Feingold liked that, it was nearly human. But then,
serving round the forks and paper napkins, he noticed the awful
vivacity of their falsetto phrases: actors, theater chatter, who was
directing whom, what was opening where; he hated actors.
Shrill puppets. Brainless. A double row of faces around the
table; gurgles of fools.
The center hall-swept clean. No one there but Lucy,
lingering.
"Theater in the dining room," he said. "Junk."
"Film. I heard film."
"Film too," he conceded. "Junk. It's mobbed in there."
"Because they've got the cake. They've got all the food. The
living room's got nothing."
"My God," he said, like a man choking, "do you realize
no
one came?"
The living room had-had once had-potato chips. The
chips were gone, the carrot sticks eaten, of the celery sticks
nothing left but threads. One olive in a dish; Feingold chopped
it in two with vicious teeth. The business suits had disappeared.
"It's awfully early," Lucy said; "a lot of people had to leave."
"It's a cocktail party, that's what happens," Feingold said. "It
isn't
exactly
a cocktail party," Lucy said. They sat down on the
carpet in front of the fireless grate. "Is that a real fireplace?"
someone inquired. "We never light it," Lucy said. "Do you light
those candlesticks ever?" "They belonged to Jimmy's grand–
mother," Lucy said, "we never light them."
