HAROLD BRODKEY
369
ing such favors, from selling pictures-and being drunk: I mean
making a signal of how freely he intended to speak, how much less
socially than at dinner.
At dinner he had gradually gotten drunken and extravagant, so
Ora had left. Then he sobered some and with coffee more but, essen–
tially, he accepted only such social discipline in my presence as he
felt constrained to by my taste and his courtship posture of sorts and
a certain respect for my work . Our arrangement, our agreement was
that he liked my work somewhat more than I liked his.
"No kidding? Rembrandt-"
"He does light the way Rembrandt puts Jesus or Susannah
right in your own backyard -"
'just light? Or is it the backyard, too: he does Jesus locally?"
"It's very important work. His canvases should have been what
was handed down on Sinai: we don't need all those rules that no one
does-"
"Moses
Hothkot -"
"He doesn't tell people they shouldn't lie: what else are they go–
ing to do: confess
everything
to
everyone?"
At dinner I'd argued that lying killed one's consciousness of
things, that lying produced a willed consciousness, not a receptive
one, and that it made friendship wearing.
"The way
you
lie
is
appalling, Johnno-"
"I don't know if I think your commandments are fun."
"I don't know that that matters."
"A pretty policeman and his toy laws ..." Johnno was
disgruntled.
'johnno, a law of consciousness
might
be beyond
opinion
-"
"Not my opinion."
"Do you ever have a moment of- I don't know - a return to
Sunday School- you didn't have Sunday School- to catechism
class - to a feeling there are laws, not the laws signified here, I mean
these were images of actual laws of consciousness - or of success - or
of
something
like that?"
"No. Do you?"
He was almost at the end of the sober part of the evening, at the
end of listening to me and of responding . The messy part was about
to begin.
But maybe we had a few minutes to go- or I could extend them
a little. "No. But almost. I think God is silent. I think God is always
silent -"
"Well, then, it hardly matters about
him,
does it?"
