Saul Bellow - Ravelstein

I was generally open with him, and willing to entertain criticism. He took a genuine interest in the lives of his friends, in their characters, their deeper intimacies-their sexual needs or kinks: Often he surprised me by the selflessness of his observations. He did not try to promote himself over you in noting your faults. In a way, I was grateful to be observed by him, and I found myself speaking to him openly about my peculiarities.

I can offer a sample conversation.

"I grant you that this is a beautiful and peaceful place," said Ravelstein. "But can you explain what Nature does for you-a Jewish city type? You're not a Transcendentalist update."

"No. That's not my line."

"And to your country neighbors you're one of the beasts that should have been drowned in the Flood."

"Oh, absolutely. But I don't worry about fitting in or belonging to the community. It's the stillness all around that attracted me."

"We've had this conversation before…."

"Because it's important."

"Life speeding away. Your days fly faster than the weaver's shuttle. Or a stone thrown into the air," he said like an indulgent parent, "and accelerating downward at the rate of thirty-two feet per second squared-a metaphor for the horrifying speed of approaching death. You'd like time to be as slow as it was when you were a child-each day a lifetime."

"Yes, and to do that you need some reserves of stillness in your soul."

"As some Russian puts it," said Ravelstein. "I don't know which one, but you always incline toward the Russians, Chick, when you try to explain what you're really up to. But in addition you have been working for years at the problem of arranging your life-your private life, that is. And that's why you turn out to be the owner of this house and those three-hundred-year-old maple trees, to say nothing of the green carpet meadows and the stone walls. The liberal politics of our country make it possible to be private and free, not molested in your personal life. But your hasting days fly on in full career-while your wife is determined to defeat your plan for peaceful fulfillment. There's got to be a special Russian expression for this thee-ah thee-ah constellation. I can see how she vamped you. She's a really classy looker, when she gets herself up, and she has a most sexy figure…

At first Ravelstein had been extremely careful not to offend Vela. He wanted us, for the sake of our friendship, to get on smoothly, and he was warm, markedly attentive when she spoke. He deferred to her. He did all this with a virtuoso air-like an Itzhak Perlman playing nursery tunes for a small girl. But his deeper judgment had to be set aside. When he rushed into the hotel bedroom in Paris he was still covered by the _entente cordiale__ he had with Vela. He never lied to himself about the observations he made. He kept accurate mental records.

But he and I had become friends-deeply attached-and friend ship would not have been possible if we hadn't spontaneously understood each other. On this occasion he leaned his bald head on the back of his chair. The size of his large, simpatico, creased pale face made me wonder at the power of the supporting muscles in his neck and shoulders because his legs had a minimum of muscle. Just enough to serve his purpose, or to do his will.

"It would have been so easy to make a sane connection. But you need an extreme challenge. So you find yourself trying to please a woman. But she refuses to be pleased-by you, anyway.

"Lucky for you," he went on, "you have a vocation. So this is just a side thing. It's not a genuine case of sex-slavery or psychopathology. Of Human Bondage, yes. But for you it's only marginal. You may simply be having fun, and diverting yourself in the pure green innocence of the White Mountains with these minor vices-sex tortures."

"Ever since you burst in on us in Paris she began to say that you and I were carrying on together."

He was stopped cold by this. In the silence I could see this unexpected "information" being processed by an apparatus-I mean this seriously-of great power. That Ravelstein was vastly intelligent is not a challengeable proposition. He was at the head of a school. To several hundred people here and in England, France, and Italy he was exactly that. He interpreted Rousseau to the French, Machiavelli to the Italians, et cetera.

After a pause, he said, "Ha! And by carrying on together does she mean what I think she means? After years of marriage?… How long have you been married?"

"Twelve whole years," I told him.

"Twelve! How pathetic," Ravelstein said. "Like a prison term you sentenced yourself to. You're even a faithful husband. You served day after day after day with no time off for good behavior or applying for parole."

"I was busy with absorbing work," I said. "In the morning she'd put on her clothes and her makeup and then check her hair, her face, and her figure in three different lighted mirrors-dressing room, bathroom, and guest toilet. Then she'd slam out of the front door. I had half a headache and half a heartache. This concentrated my mind."

"She doesn't know how to dress," said Ravelstein. "All those strange materials-what was it she was wearing last year? Ostrich hide?… Finally she accuses you of having a corrupt sex affair with me. What did you say?"

"I laughed like anything. I told her I didn't even know how the act was done, and that I wasn't ready to learn, at my age. It seemed like a joke. Still she didn't believe me…."

"She couldn't believe you," said Ravelstein. "It took too much out of her to invent even this pitiful accusation. Her mental range on that side is extremely limited-though I'm told she's very big in chaos physics."

It was from Abe's telephone network that this information must have come. The old expression "He has more connections than a switchboard" had now been buried under the masses of data heaped up by the wildly expanding communications technology.

Ravelstein had asked his friends everywhere for items about Vela, and he was prepared to tell me much more than I wanted to hear. So that I would clap my hands over my ears and squeeze my eyes shut. But you can't keep your innocence in this age. Nine-tenths of modern innocence is little more than indifference to vice, a resolve not to be affected by all that you might read, hear, or see. Love of scandal makes people ingenious. Vela was ingenious in her science and guiltless in her conduct.

You couldn't, as the intimate and friend of Ravelstein, avoid knowing a great deal more than you had an appetite for. But at a certain depth there were places in your psyche that still belonged to the Middle Ages. Or even to the age of the pyramids or Ur of the Chaldees. Ravelstein told me about Vela's relationships with people I had never heard of till now. He said he was ready to name my rivals but I wouldn't listen. Since she didn't love me I had, with innate biological resourcefulness, holed up behind my desk and finished a few long-postponed projects-quoting Robert Frost to myself: _For I have promises to keep __A_nd miles to go before I sleep.

__

At times changing this to: _For I have recipes to bake __A_nd far to go before I wake.

__

The joke was on me, not on Frost-a sententious old guy whose conversation was mainly about his own doings, about his accomplishments and triumphs. It can't be denied that he was a self-promoter. He had PR genius. But he was a writer of rare gifts, nevertheless.

To hear about Vela's alleged misconduct was destabilizing. I lose my footing, I stumble when I remember what Ravelstein told me about her various affairs. Why were there so many conferences to attend in summer? Why didn't she give me phone numbers where she could be reached? Of course, he wouldn't have been interested in these facts if they hadn't been singular facts. As I have said, Ravelstein was crazy about gossip and his friends were given points for the racy items they brought. And it was not a good idea to assume that he would keep the lid on your confidences. I was not particularly disturbed about this. People are infinitely more clever than they used to be about pursuing your secrets. If they know your secrets they have increased power over you. There's no stopping or checking them. Build as many labyrinths as you like, you're sure to be found out. And of course I was aware that Ravelstein didn't care a damn about "secrets."