CYNTHIA OZICK
405
the shootings and the gas and the camps, she is not ashamed to
admit this. They are as tiresome as prayer. Repetition dimin–
ishes conviction; she is thinking of her father leading the same
hymns week after week.
If
you said the same prayer over and over
again, wouldn't your brain turn out to be no better than a prayer
wheel?
In the dining room all the springs were running down. It
was stale in there, a failed party. They were ·drinking beer or
Coke or whiskey-and-water and playing with the cake crumbs
on the tablecloth. There was still some cheese left on a plate, and
half a bowl of salted peanuts. "The impact of Romantic Individ–
ualism," one of the humanists objected. "At the Frick?" " I never
saw that." "They certainlyare deliberate, you have to say that for
them." Lucy, leaning abandoned against the door, tried to tune
in. The relief of hearing atheists. A jacket designer who worked
in Feingold's art department came in carrying a coat. Feingold
had invited her because she was newly divorced; she was afraid to
live alone. She was afraid of being ambushed in her basement
while doing laundry. "Where's Jimmy?" the jacket designer
asked. "In the other room. " "Say goodbye for me, will you?"
"Goodbye, " Lucy said. The humanists-Lucy saw how they
were all compassionate knights-stood up. A puddle from an
overturned saucer was leaking onto the floor. "Oh, I'll get that,"
Lucy told the knights, "don't think another thought about it."
Overhead Feingold and the refugees are riding the living
room. Their words are specks. All the Jews are in the air.
