Boys and Girls Come Out to Play (22 page)

“Going to take a bath?” Divver asked. “When you’re through, would you like to eat up here?”

Morgan would have preferred the excitement of the big dining-room, but he agreed politely. He knew now, without the least doubt, that there was something wrong with Divver, something that he himself was probably too young to understand.
He felt sorry for Divver, and awkward with him, because there was nothing he could do but be polite. He was also determined to enjoy himself, and saw no reason why he should share Divver’s discomfort if Divver wasn’t going to share his enthusiasm. He whistled in his bath, and argued that at his age he was entitled to a good deal of selfishness and happiness: everyone expected a very young man to be callous and impatient with middle-aged miseries. Divver must certainly have been like that too at the age of eighteen. It was a natural law. To a young man a middle-aged man is bound to be either a hero or a bore.

The rather strained atmosphere in the two rooms was not noticed by the waiter, who was brisk and full of smiles, and swept in with a tray of silver-plated tureens and hot-plates balancing jauntily on his fingertips. “You gentlemen have a beautiful day?” he said, certain of the answer, flipping at bits of nothing with a starched napkin. “Yes, thank you,” said Divver, baring his teeth. “
Thass
right!” cried the waiter: “for me—o-wee—worst busy day: for you, a nice relax. You enjoy the procession?” “Very much, thank you.” “
Thass
right!
Thass
why you come so far, to see. For me, no such luck—all day in kitchens—work, work, work till I drop: but O.K. if makes
you
feel relax, happy.” “I’ve known mothers like that,” Divver said as the beaming masochist tottered off to his next labour. Divver raised the top off a dish and peered in. But he had hardly spread his napkin before he went into his bedroom and came back with
Spartacus,
which he opened at random and wedged, with exclamations of impatience, in a vice of silver cruets. Munching hard, he began to read.

Divver read Mr. Grieg’s memoirs with intense concentration, which showed in his expression even when he began to give sardonic snorts and shake his head wearily. To Morgan, in the light of his discovery that perhaps his guardian was an invalid, it seemed that in this devouring of a book by a man
whom he despised, Divver was determined not to miss a drop of disgust and disillusionment, to make completely sure that he stood four-square up to his neck in human muck. “Read this, if you don’t mind, from here—to there,” said Divver, suddenly pushing over the book: “Just read it and tell me what you think.”

The pages indicated contained a graphic memory of one of Mr. Grieg’s adventures at the University of Warsaw, shortly after the Franco-Prussian war:

“In the lecture room that morning the rumour is heard that General Tolboys has been appointed Chief of Police! Our faces flush with indignation: we bend over our desks and appear to concentrate, but a rising mutter passes from one to another; we shake our heads, and each assures himself resolutely: ‘Never! Never!’ Suddenly, my friend, the poet Bernstein Hoffman, leaps to his feet; with scant regard for the professor, he cries: ‘No more! Away with this dead trash!’ and hurls his lexicon to the floor. Instantly we follow his example; like thunderbolts our despised texts shake the ground; in a moment we pour from the hall, leaving our mentor scandalized and solitary. Outside, the cry goes up: ‘Where to?’ and for a second we hesitate, having not paused to consider this question. But Hoffman, his face deathly pale, his eyes burning, hesitates not a moment. ‘To the Centre!’ he commands us, and all around his cry is echoed by scores of vigorous young voices: ‘To the Centre! To the Centre!’ Almost in the same breath, it seems, we are marching down the Parade, our heads held high, our visored caps audaciously askew. Someone has procured the banner of the Students’ League; its orange folds float above us as we march proudly on. From the pavements passers-by regard us with no little amazement; some shake their fists disapprovingly, but we are in no wise daunted. Soon we are approaching the dreaded Centre; its massive flight of marble steps (seemingly as spatially infinite as metaphysics itself)
Stretches ahead of us in the June sunshine. The attendant cavalry, in white buckskin, silver breastplate, and plumed with the gold of Phoebus Apollo, sit their mounts without a tremour; not for them to disperse us. For suddenly, as we commence to desecrate with our shabby footwear the first of the immaculate marble stages, the cry resounds: ‘The Police!’ and, turning, we perceive the agents of the detested Chief advancing on us from below. A few of us, panic-stricken, flee; but the remainder, a goodly number, led by the disdainful Hoffman, continue to mount the palace steps. To our surprise the police do not hasten to detain us; but, too late, we perceive that their tolerance is part of an ingenious trap. A scant twenty feet from the threshold of the palace, the great, gilded doors fly open and a cohort of hidden police storms down upon us—at which signal their sly confederates below cast off the deceptive mantle of Maximus Cunctator, and race upon us from the rear! We are as in a vice! But even at this overwhelming moment Hoffman, our poet and leader, is unabashed. Nimbly he dodges the stolid officers who are bearing down on him, races like a Diana to the golden porticoes, and hurls our banner of independence into the very heart of the autocratic sanctuary. Next moment, as the golden doors swing to, his struggling form disappears from our sight, while we, now in total disorder, our inspiration gone, are relentlessly hustled to the foot of the steps. Here, each of us is required to give his name, the address of his lodgings and of his parents (how I shudder to envisage my worthy mother’s disconsolate face; my father’s, so often kindly but soon to be given over wholly to shame and sternness at this intelligence of his son’s latest escapade!). Then we disperse morosely, to assemble later at our favoured
Cen
timetre
café. But no joy, no triumph sits with us; we respond not at all to the applauding looks of our less audacious fellows—for have we not lost our pride, our spinner of visions, our Ulysses, our Hoffman? We talk in low tones, chins in hands,
and assuredly our every word is a tribute to that generous spirit, now, alas! confined where it can never soar.

“All at once the oaken door swings, a familiar figure pauses for an instant upon the threshold, espies us and advances. We are struck rigid and dumb—no, it cannot be, but yes, it is Hoffman himself, and in his hand, pulled from the recesses of his breast’s undergarment, he displays a tattered corner of our rebellious banner! We press about him, raise him on our shoulders, call for wine and acclaim him till the very structure trembles (I cannot refrain from tears). He has been released, he tells us; this time with a final warning from the formidable Chief of Police in person (not General Tolboys, whose instatement appears, after all, to be nothing but a rumour): ‘A warning to which, you may be sure, I shall give not a fig of my attention,’ he says scornfully. All night we carouse and sing; dawn behind the Vistula finds us pale, exhausted, but delirious in our joy, wending each his way to his lodgings—a glorious way, paved with hope and miracles; for are we not on the verge of twenty years, and is this not to be reckoned the first of many days of liberal triumph?”

“Well?” said Divver.

“It sounds exciting—colourful.”

“Don’t you get any other impressions?”

“Not especially.”

“Well, if you don’t, you don’t,” said Divver.

“What
should
I get?”

“Never mind. I guess I forgot that you’re only eighteen. I suppose I would have found it exciting at that age. That’s what I thought Europe really was. That’s how I thought of progressive politics—nitwits throwing banners into golden police-stations.” He examined Morgan with chilly interest, and said: “If you don’t mind my asking, what do you intend to do with yourself after college? You know, you’re the next generation.”

Divver put the question earnestly and Morgan was sufficiently flattered to reply in his breeziest manner: “I guess if I find nothing better to do, I’ll have to work on momma’s old mag.”

This statement appeared to astonish Divver; but he made no reply and went off into his own room.

The first rockets of Independence Day flew up from the square, glowing against the window, climbing in a curve over the cathedral dome. Their course was followed by a few cries out of the dusk below, and Morgan’s heart beat faster; he longed for the exciting darkness of night to come, for the lights in the crowded lobby, the hundreds of shining evening dresses; he was sure, as he cocked his ears, that he could hear the band strike up its first fresh tune in the ballroom, and even catch the squeak of gilt chair-legs on the parquet. He thought of the bold young man’s remark: “It’s in the bag, children”—and the tantalizing faces of the three girls smiled down on him in a vision of hope.

He took out his new razor, new shaving-brush, new shaving-cream, and carefully nursed the down off his face with trembling fingers. He put on his black silk socks and splendid white shirt, his black tie and gleaming shoes, his new tuxedo. He hovered solemnly over his reflection in the mirror, raising his eyebrows, fixing his lips in various sophisticated shapes, looking toward Divver’s room to see if he was being observed as he patted and pulled at his tie and cuffs. From a velvet box, where he had kept it deliberately for this moment, he took out a flat gold watch, his mother’s farewell present, and strapped it to his wrist. With the same earnestness he brought out a silver cigarette-case, his grandfather’s present, and filled it with Sublime Sultana, a rare brand of Turkish ovals.

When he now studied himself again in the mirror he was well pleased—so much so that he allowed his reflection a faintly sarcastic smile. Moving with slow and casual dignity, he put
his head in at Divver’s door and said: “I think I’ll be going down, Max.” All the words came out sonorously and well except the last one, which for some reason jumped into a high squeak.

“Come in,” said Divver.

He looked Morgan up and down with surprise. Then he said: “I must say—if you don’t mind my admitting it—that I never expected you to turn out to be the kind of person you are. It seems to me that you know very well how to look after yourself.”

“Thank you, thank you; do you know, no one ever said that to me before?” Morgan found himself speaking tremulously, and flushing with emotion: he wanted to shake Divver’s hand, to emphasize how true and deep his thanks were.

“You also seem to me to be a good deal older, in some ways, than I expected,” continued Divver. “Perhaps that’s why I feel I owe you an explanation.”

“Do you?” asked Morgan—and was filled with sudden horror.

“Are you in a great hurry?” Divver asked.

Morgan shook his head; his heart sank.

Divver slowly let himself down into his easy chair, clasped his fingers and silently studied his knuckles. Morgan remained standing, nervously scratching his left ankle with his right shoe.

“I suppose you think I am not in love with my wife,” said Divver.

Morgan raised his black trousers at the knees and sat down politely on the edge of Divver’s bed. “I never even thought about it, Max,” he said gently. He thought: It’s eight o’clock now. Let’s say it takes him an hour at most. I must be in bed by twelve. I’ll have three hours. Oh, how slow other people’s sadness is! Oh, the details, the thousand aspects, the interjections (“First, I think I should explain …”), the unanswerable
dilemmas, the turnings and twistings that end up everywhere and nowhere….

“Well,” said Divver, looking firmly at his knuckles, “it so happens that I
am
in love with her, and I think it’s only fair to tell you that I’ve made up my mind not to stay in Europe as long as we planned. I’m going back to her, and I don’t give a damn what anyone says—what your mother says, what any so-called friends say—
I’m
going
back
and not a man alive can stop me. What’s more, I don’t care if it
does
mean the end of my career—that wasn’t worth anything anyway.”

“How soon do you plan to go, Max?” Morgan had spontaneously put the question that most concerned himself before he could be halted by any after-feelings of sympathy for Divver; and Divver, seeing promptly into his anxious, selfish heart, laughed coldly and replied: “Don’t worry. You’ll have time to enjoy your
liberty.
Not that it’ll make you feel any better in the long run—take my tip on that, by the way.” He looked at Morgan, and went on: “As for me, it’s probably too late already. I think she’s planning to divorce me. I don’t even know where she’s going to spend the summer. She never said a word before I left, as though I no longer had the right to know. Perhaps, when I get back, I’ll find nothing to get back to—no family life, no child, no wife, nothing.”

“I’m sorry; I really am. Is it really as bad as that?”

“If anything, it’s worse,” said Divver very confidently. “And if that was all, it would be bad enough; what makes it worse is that I feel I’m making her do it, that I
want
her to do it.”

Now the paradoxes are going to begin, Morgan thought, and paradoxes last longer than anything. At this moment, he’s talking about love, but in an hour or two it’ll be the Bering Straits; and then back to love via ninety-nine contradictory impulses.

“I love her,” said Divver. “Oh yes, and I love my son. But
if I’m with either of them longer than five minutes, they bore the pants off me. And they know it. That’s why they team up together.”

“Do they team up?”

“Sure. I’m much kinder with Artie than Lily is: she’s bad-tempered and hysterical with him; but he doesn’t give a damn for me just the same. They’re like husband and wife. Lily’s got no more interest in men; she’s only forty, but she can do without a man. She’ll work herself down to Artie’s age-level.”

“But then why do you talk of going back?”

“I’m responsible.”

“You!”

“Yes. Don’t you see; or are you too young? I’ve not loved her enough. I’ve been a coward. I’ve lived a fake life ever since I came to New York. When things became too complicated, I came here: it made me feel better; nothing matters outside your own country. Abroad, there’s no competition; no one can hurt you, because they don’t know who you are. I wonder if you know what that means—to be an honoured stranger? If a man did and said what he wanted at home, no one would come near him. He knows the value he has to put on everything in his own country; abroad he makes his own values, and if people object, so what? He knows they’ll never really know who he is, never really
find
him
out.
Abroad, the visitor is the one who feels at home. No person away from home need be afraid of anything; no one knows what a worm he is.