Delmore Schwartz - Once and for All - The Best of Delmore Schwartz

The outlandish answer and laughter continued so that as each newcomer was asked the question and broke into laughter, Ferdinand said:

“Look, everyone breaks out laughing,” and he was pleased.

And this had also been the inspiration of the most notorious instance of an incapacity to make conversation and engage in small talk, for one day Harry Johnson, an acquaintance of the circle and of Algernon, one renowned for shyness and insensitivity, had encountered Algernon soon after his father’s death. After several abortive efforts to make conversation with Algernon, who was no help whatever, Harry tried to break the silence between sentences.

“Say, what’s this I hear about your father hanging himself?” he inquired.

This question had been discussed for six months, especially by Rudyard who maintained that it was a direct expression of Harry’s hatred of Algernon.

Knowing how Ferdinand detested Algernon, Marcus felt that the one thing which would make him abandon Irene was the knowledge that she had been intimate with Algernon. This would certainly waken the finicky dandy in him.

Jacob was consulted by Marcus.

“Go ahead and tell him, if you like,” said Jacob, “but if you tell him, you may not take much pride in yourself hereafter.”

“After all, I am a friend of his,” said Marcus. “Perhaps it is my duty to tell him?”

“Who do you think you are making that remark to?” said Jacob. Marcus grinned in guilt and recognition. Then he suggested that perhaps Jacob, also a good friend of Ferdinand, ought to tell him about Irene and Algernon, since he had no personal stake.

“You ought to be dead,” said Jacob.

Meanwhile the news of the courtship grew. Ferdinand, who hardly ever lent a book to anyone, was lending certain selected works, long sacred to him, to Irene.

“This surely is serious,” said Jacob to Edmund.

Stiffly and shyly, Ferdinand was seen bringing Irene to see other treasures and curios of his private cult. It was like the loving son who for the first time brings his intended to see his mother and his father.

“This must mean marriage,” said Jacob.

Ferdinand undertook to supervise Irene’s habits of dress. He went with her to the dressmaker’s and he quickly persuaded her to shift from the garish to the elegant. She was surprised to find that he knew so much about dress and delighted that he cared about such matters.

He explained curtly that he had had several extra-marital relationships which had provided him with an opportunity to learn about such things. He made this explanation because he felt that he must make it clear that he had committed adultery, just as in other periods chastity was deemed a necessity and a virtue.

The two united extremes; it was the union of a brash, bright, full, open, vivacious and buxom girl to a constrained, meticulous, reserved and tormented young man.

The boys of the circle observed that strange changes also occurred in Ferdinand, now that he went with Irene. He had always abhorred politics, especially radical politics. Now he spoke with a venom he had once reserved for discourteous headwaiters of the infamy of the Stalinists.

“What does she have that I don’t have?” said Laura. No one answered her although conversation had concentrated upon Irene for an hour. The silence was sharp. Laura thrust her head forward.

“You’re no Adonis,” she said to Edmund.

“What did I do?” asked Edmund, moved at the same time to sympathy and laughter.

“She has thick ankles and her complexion is rotten,” said Laura.

“Who?” said Edmund.

“ This too shall pass away, ” quoted Laura, departing for the kitchen to get herself a fresh drink.

At that moment the door slammed like a gunshot and Marcus entered.

“Hello, hello, hello,” he shouted, the image of abounding good humor.

“What now?” said Jacob.

“What next?” said Edmund.

“I hear that Ferdinand has just married Irene,” said Marcus, enjoying the astonishment of this news. He drew forth the engraved card which announced that Ferdinand and Irene would be at home to their friends on Saturday night.

“You will get one tomorrow,” said Marcus, “I met Ferdinand in the street and he gave me one.”

“What are you so pleased about?” asked Laura. “You’re not the one who married Irene.”

“I have a very good reason to be pleased,” said Marcus, “I know something that Ferdinand does not know.”

“Shut up,” said Jacob, but vainly.

“What does he know?” asked Lloyd Tyler who had not heard about Irene’s intimacy with Algernon.

“This card is very fine,” said Jacob, shifting the subject, “it is just like Ferdinand to send a card as well-engraved as this.”

“It must have cost a pretty penny,” said Marcus, grinning.

Laura returned from the kitchen where she had listened as she drank. She replied to Lloyd’s question as if it had just been uttered.

“Marcus has been saying that Irene used to sleep with Algernon and he is going to tell Ferdinand.”

“Who says I am going to tell him?” said Marcus, trying to look indignant, but breaking into a fresh grin.

“You had better shut up,” said Jacob, all his authority in his tone. To himself he said: “Everyone does what he wants to do if he can, after paying his respects to scruple and compunction.”

“I won’t say anything,” said Marcus, whom Jacob alone was able to persuade to be silent. “But if I drink the champagne that Ferdinand is going to have, who knows what slips of the tongue, what lapsus linguae may not leak out? In vino veritas, they say!” he chortled, pleased that he had spoken Latin.

“Thank God that Rudyard is not here,” said Edmund, and all understood without a word what Edmund had in mind, how Rudyard more than Marcus would have made this marriage the subject of endless discussion until at last Ferdinand would think that his wife’s past was always talked about.

Clearly Marcus took pleasure in the fact that now that the marriage was accomplished, Ferdinand was helpless against the infamy unknown to him.

At that moment the absent hero, Ferdinand, appeared in the doorway and was greeted with congratulation which soon rose to acclamation.

“Who said that I am married?” asked Ferdinand, coldly.

“I said so. You said so. It says so on the card you gave me,” said Marcus, perplexed.

“I see no reason for making any unwarranted suppositions or assumptions on the basis of an engraved card,” said Ferdinand.

“This is stupendous,” said Edmund, for he saw that Ferdinand had a trump card up his sleeve.

“The fact is that I am not married,” Ferdinand declared. “It is possible that I may marry Irene in the near future, but at present we are merely very good friends who have decided to live together.”

Marcus capsized on the sofa. His dismay spread over his face as if he were at the dentist’s, his mouth open.

“What do you think of Algernon Nathan?” asked Marcus.

“You know well enough,” Ferdinand replied. “He is a knave and a fool. He is a coxcomb and a jackass, and he always will be, if he lives to a hundred.”

It was clear then that Marcus was seeking to suppress his own desire to tell Ferdinand about Irene’s intimacy with Algernon, for this knowledge was without meaning, if Ferdinand was not married to Irene.

The circle was stunned by Ferdinand’s declaration. It seemed to them an incomparable exhibition. The real right thing was not to get married until one wanted to get married and in the meantime to do as one liked, frankly and openly. Ferdinand had often formulated this attitude.

“What do you think of that?” Marcus asked Laura, for she alone often expressed conventional views about marriage.