BOOKS
639
wife, refused to go with him to Germany (in September, 1957), took off,
leaving a note that said Hilton Kramer-once Schwartz's student; in
1957 an editor of
Arts-"had
invited her to review some art shows,"
and, more important, that she would not see Schwartz again "unless he
entered a hospital" for psychiatric treatment.
To Schwartz this was a confession that she had run off to Kramer.
Kramer's Chelsea Hotel room would have to be searched. He pounded
on Kramer's door; Kramer thought he had a gun, called the hotel clerk.
Schwartz had no gun but Kramer was in what Atlas describes as a "state
of terror." He slipped out of the hotel, and the city, then telephoned
Bellow, "pleading with him to intervene." Bellow simply suggested
"he obtain a restraining order." That brought in the police. Schwartz
was talked into accompanying the cops
to
the police station, but, once
there, "lost control of himself and began shouting ... at which point
he was handcuffed [Schwartz insisted he was tied in a straitjacket], put
in an ambulance, and committed to Bellevue."
Atlas 's difficulties begin right here. He uses "committed to" as if it
were a synonym for "admitted to." The step-by-step civil liberties
safeguards that attend committing someone to a Bellevue escape his
attention. He doesn't ever understand Schwartz's agitation. Police can
put someone violent, or someone threatening violence, in Bellevue for
observation; keeping him there is a separate and quite complex legal
matter. Atlas passes over the distinction because he's busy, busy
sprinkling absolution:
No greal significance can be auached lO Delmore's choice of Bellow
as a prominem figure in the conspiracies he perceived, for he had by
lhis lime become indiscriminale in his suspicions; the mere facl lhal
Bellow had been involved al all was enough lO indicl him. Juslifi–
ably aggrieved, Bellow was slill defending himself a decade laler.
Atlas 's account of the Bellevue episode starts on p. 330, but not till p.
353, in a throwaway line about Meyer Schapiro, does he mention a
specific "suspicion," that Bellow, and Schapiro and others, were
"involved in the failure
to
get [Schwartz] out of Bellevue." He fails to
record Schwartz's much more crucial "suspicion," that Bellow had
signed him
into
Bellevue.
Now, either Bellow did, or he didn't. He would not lose stature
either way. Schwartz's threats against Kramer and Elizabeth were
reasons enough to want him cooling somewhere. Yet this is not the
issue. Bellevue's admitting records exist. Atlas has looked at some of
the Bellevue psychiatric material. Why did he fail to do something so
