Sloan Wilson - Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

The arguments he had planned could not be used now. “I just want to talk to you in general about your future,” he said. “Obviously, there’s no point in our trying to send you to college if you don’t want to go, but what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” she said, appearing a little confused. “I want to get married. Maybe before long.”

“Anybody particular in mind?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“After marriage, what?”

She shrugged. “I’d like to travel,” she said.

He sipped his drink slowly. “I’ve got a problem I’ve never discussed with you,” he said. “It’s a rather hard one to talk about, but perhaps we should.”

“What kind of a problem?”

“It’s difficult to describe. You are aware, I suppose, that the world has treated me pretty well. Over the years, I have gradually accumulated a good many responsibilities. I have been lucky, because they came to me gradually, and I had plenty of time to learn how to handle them. The curious thing is that all these accumulated responsibilities, or at least, a good many of them, could easily fall upon your shoulders quite suddenly, and you’ve had no opportunity to get ready for them. ”

“Are you talking about money?”

“In part.”

“I’m not interested in money. I think it’s a bore.”

“No sane person is interested in money as such,” he said.

“You’ve always seemed to be. I always thought it was all you were interested in. That’s what everybody says.”

“I’m sure they do,” he said. “Susan, what’s a million dollars?”

She shrugged.

“Go on — think about it and tell me.”

“A lot of money, I guess.”

“You’d be surprised how little. A million dollars is about half a small hospital. With a million dollars you could give all the children in a place like, say, South Korea, maybe one cupful of milk at each meal for two days. It isn’t much, really, when you come to think of it, yet it represents the entire life earnings of about six average men — the whole working energy of six men during their entire lives. A million dollars is a lot of things. It’s a college education for maybe a hundred boys. It’s a home of their own for maybe seventy-five people. It’s a pursuit plane for the Army, it’s a new television station, but one thing it’s not: it’s not something any intelligent person can consider a bore.”

“You’re saying it’s power,” she said. “I’m not interested in power, either.”

“Of course not. Neither am I. I wasn’t trying to say money is power. I’m saying that when you hold a million dollars in your hand, you are in a very real sense holding the entire working lives of six men, and you better be damn careful what you do with it!”

“Are you trying to tell me you’re going to leave your money to charity?”

“I don’t know. I’m saying that we’ve got a problem we ought to start working on together, a responsibility that is mine, which someday may be yours. I got a lot of training before I was given any responsibility, and I am appalled to think what you may have to do without any training at all. Susan, do you know I have a bad heart?”

“No! No one told me.”

“I never told your mother — there didn’t seem to be any point in worrying her. It’s not very bad, but it’s at least conceivable that I could die any time. And frankly, Susan, leaving a lot of money to you would be like giving a gun to a baby!”

“I’m not going to let that part of it worry me,” she said. “I hope nothing happens to you, but I’m not going to worry about money. I’m not going to let money ruin my life the way it’s ruined yours and Mother’s.”

“Let’s at least be accurate,” he said dryly. “Money has not ruined your mother’s life, and it has not ruined mine. I’m not willing to concede that either your mother or I have been more unhappy than most people, but if we have been, it’s not because of money. The money has come as a by-product.”

“It’s stupid, the way you work all the time!” she said. “You don’t know how to live. If I’d been Mother, I would have divorced you long ago. I don’t know why you have to work all the time — ever since I can remember! I think you must have a guilt complex. You’re a masochist!”

“Which of your friends is an amateur psychoanalyst? The playwright?”

“He understands people,” she said in confusion.

“Tell him to stop trying to give pat explanations of men and women,” Hopkins replied. “If he had learned that, his play might not have closed down so quickly.”

“It was a great play!” she said. “The public just doesn’t. ”

“. appreciate great art,” Hopkins finished wryly for her. “I know. But Shakespeare didn’t do badly in his time, and not many good plays today shut down as soon as they open. If you war to know what the public wants, I’ll tell you: great art on the extremely rare occasions when it’s available, but no phony art — they’d rather have good honest blood and thunder. The public doesn’t like fakers, and neither do I. If you want to meet some playwrights, tell me, and I’ll get some good ones up here for you.”

There was a brief silence during which he got up and poured himself another drink. While his back was turned she said passionately, “I want to get some happiness out of life! I don’t want to be like you and Mother. I want to have a good time. And no matter what you say, there’s nothing wrong with that!”

He turned toward her slowly. “Of course there isn’t,” he said. “I just want to see that you set about it properly.”

“I don’t need any help. Not from you, anyway. I don’t think you’re anyone to be giving lessons!”

“I’m not trying to give you a lesson,” he said. “I think we’re getting a little off the subject. I’m talking about learning to handle responsibilities.”

“I don’t want to handle responsibilities. I want to get some fun out of life. It’s time somebody in this family did!”

“How would you set about getting fun out of life?”

“I’d give parties. I’d give beautiful parties. I wouldn’t try to change the world. I don’t have any God complex. I just want to have a good time!”

“You’ll get tired of parties,” he said.

“Maybe. But by then I’ll have had a good time!”

She was breathing hard, and he saw that she was upset. “Believe me, I want you to have a good time,” he said gently, “but people who have that primarily in mind rarely accomplish it.”

“What do you want me to do? You must have asked me up here alone for some reason. You never did anything like this before!”

“Look, Susan,” he said. “I don’t want you to continue accusing me and your mother. I’m quite ready to admit that I’ve made a great many mistakes, and that a great many things are the matter with me. I’m not apologizing to you — there would be no point to that. And there’s no point in continuous accusations. The main thing is for us to see if we can start working together on what really are common problems. I can’t undo the past, but I’m going to try to be of more help to you in the future.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet. Let’s think it over. I have a number of ideas. If you’d like, it might be nice if you moved into this apartment for a while — we could see each other evenings. Perhaps it would be fun for your mother and you and me to take a trip together somewhere. Someday it might be possible for me to arrange for you to get some sort of job working closely with me, if you’d like that. We both should think this whole matter over.”

“I don’t want to work with you!”

“You don’t have to. I’m just trying to think of ways in which you might get some training if you don’t want to go to college, and ways in which we might grow closer together.”