Charles Newman - In Partial Disgrace

“As in America. No real uck there,” the Professor perambulated, lighting another cigar and ignoring Father’s offer.

“Yes, but no doubt it will be repeated there,” the lady allowed. “Perhaps the uck is there,” Father queried helplessly, “even if they don’t know it.”

“ Uck repeated there, or rather identical in its oppositeness?” the lady acknowledged, opening a small fan which she had kept up her lace sleeve.

“When they are differentiated,” the Professor said, slapping his knee, “they will ultimately express that only humanity is really dead.”

“But this too — will it not be secondary to overreaching itself?” the lady averred.

“Yes, ah, yes,” the Professor sighed.

“Are you speaking of a frenzied soul, or a vague and tender heart?” Mother broke in hopefully, always aware of the costs of allowing boredom to send a crease across Father’s face, and trying to avert the storm about to break over Semper Vero. But it was too late.

“The devil take it!”

Father’s pipe had already shattered against the base of the fireplace, and with his own patented concatenation of boredom and rage, he leapt from his chair and stalked from the room, announcing only that their horses required preparation. Mother suggested that they have a smoke in the drive, now that the room was blue with haze. The lady seemed nonplussed, sagging everywhere but in the bust, but the Professor arose obediently and followed Father out the open front door, almost meekly, it seemed to me, without his usual bluffness, and Drusoc followed them phlegmatically to relieve himself on the wide expanse of nonthreatening gravel. As the lady passed me, she gave me a hard look and said, “You have a smile like one I saw once on a sign outside a barber shop.” Then her bustle moved out through a portal of light like a barrage balloon.

“Please do not misunderstand me, my friend,” Father began on the steps. “But the pleasant prospect you propose is impossible, even as I presume it. You are aware that I have met your wife, and your wife has met my wife. I believe the symmetry is not lost upon you. This is my house and my laboratory, not a nightclub. Your lack of discretion is none of my business, but neither can I expense it off the books. As with all things, I admire your chutzpah , but must deplore your strategy.”

The Professor looked down at the loosening laces of his long shoes.

“I have been under great strain,” he murmured. “Can you imagine what resentments one feels after being kind and tolerant day after day to people who have gone off the rails?”

“No one here is crazy, Professor. No one here is even remotely ill. Except, perhaps, this abortion of a white dog, whose main problem is that he’s gone to fat. I only want to avoid embarrassment. This is not the bridge, sir, at which I wish to take my stand.”

The Professor looked up in the air and sniffed like a confused pointer. “It is an imposition, to be sure. I want of course to disguise the act, but also to share with her here, above the ordures of the barnyard. .”

My father clapped his hand to his forehead. “Perhaps I am missing something here,” he hissed beneath his breath, “but this is one subterfuge you must manage on your own, sir. Surely you can make the L’Auberge L’Espérance before dark, and their rear rooms, I believe, give onto a barnyard much like this one. If not, there is always the Desdemona ’s steerage, though they often overbook.”

The Professor, much to his credit, I thought, refused to be abashed. “I agree I am not faultless in this matter. Even the strongest character remains powerless in his pure being. Perhaps it is only that I have not availed myself of such opportunities in the past which now stiffens my resolve. But surely, if you will not find this forgivable, at least acknowledge my perplexity, cement our friendship, and accept my apology with that assent.”

“My dear friend, it is not for me to give permission. I can only urge the usual canards about civility and common sense. It is not your urges, your appetites, at all; it’s the way you have resorted to explaining them that sends shivers up and down my spine.”

“Naturally.” The Professor slammed on his homburg. “The business in any case has suddenly lost its taste. But there is one thing. You have complained about my visiting you with only psychotics, oddities, and a host of problems. But this dog, you must admit, is no particular bother, and the woman, though she is demonstrative, is remarkably discreet and modest in every way. Don’t you agree?”

“From this standpoint, I am with you,” Father smiled. “Do you not believe that I wish you every pleasure of the ancients? Do you not think I am myself curious about the sex traits of such a crazed beauty? But when you cross that border, you must respect my rules, and my basic rule is this: I could not live without my wife, and I will permit nothing on this property which might cause her the slightest discomfort. My friend, in this life I have been deeply desired, and whether I was deeply loved I cannot say, but the regard of that woman has meant more to me than anything in this world. She is the only woman who has loved me disinterestedly. I am afraid that a small courtesy to her must now take precedence over a larger one to yourself.”

The Professor attempted to look sadder and wiser. One could hear only the slop slop of the harnesses on the glistening horses’ backs. Drusoc sidled between Father’s legs, commiserated with his ankle, and gave assent to the void, keeping one wary gray eye upon the avenging lawn.

“ Never bring that dog here again,” Father said evenly. “There is no reform for anomie. As for the lady, she is always welcome. But beware disciples, Professor: they will cause you more grief than any critic.”

“My wife is quite. . bourgeois, you know,” the Professor spoke under his breath. It seemed a harmless remark, even a kindly one, but it threw my father into a mood for which none of us were quite prepared.

“The bourgeois mission, my friend, is to bring beauty and science, justice and bliss, into some kind of strange, temporary equilibrium. But the inevitable cost is to dilute the erotic. Nothing worse in the world than a dead marriage. Nothing more of a secret than a good one. You have your reasons, no doubt. But listen,” and then he sidled up to him, walking as a mare does toward an acting-out foal — protectively, but finally annoyed — to whisper: “Let’s admit it, Doktor, your uck aside for the moment — there’s nothing like the love of a sane woman, is there? Without it life would be a pisspot, no?”

The Professor lowered his gaze sheepishly.

“You really do love women above all things, don’t you, Councilor?”

“I do not share your theory that women are, or were ever, scarce. The problem is that women are everywhere, and even if they are after you all the time, it doesn’t mean you’ll get the good ones. That’s the really odd thing. As you well know, I have been fortunate in females. It changes your outlook on everything. I don’t wish to rub it in. Oh, I know the exasperation, the boredom, the rheumy children, the horrible expense of it all, the fact that you must often sit around pretending you have the strength of a stone when you feel nothing at all except the ebbing away of your own life, and then of course they fly into pointless rages and play the victim. Yes, it’s quite exasperating. But when they love you, doesn’t it make you feel, well, not a man exactly, but it makes you want to do something for them, no? Something for which you will gain nothing, perhaps. This is just chatter, of course, but wouldn’t you lay down your life for them without a word? So long as one does not exaggerate, shouldn’t one be kind to women?”