Marjorie Morningstar (60 page)

“Don’t you see that that’s all money means to the old mumbling billionaires? Why do
they keep working and scheming? Why do they lie awake nights figuring out new mergers?
They can’t measure their own security and power, it’s so colossal. They could roll
in golden excess for fifty years—champagne baths, diamond dog collars, harems of blondes,
they could paper their walls with Rembrandts—it wouldn’t begin to dent their pile.
Yet they go on making more, and more, and more. Why? Because every time the total
of their net worth jumps up, it’s a Hit. And
THAT
is the prime mover, the uncaused cause, the center of human nature and conduct, Margie.

“I tell you, with this piece once in your hand, the whole puzzle of life falls apart.
It’s like calculus, or the theory of evolution, this one idea—it absolutely opens
up the secrets of the universe. Not the physical, the social universe. Freud’s sex
drive is foolishness compared to it. This thing only grows stronger and stronger and
stronger with the years. It’s strongest in old age. Look at a politician, eighty years
old, making a speech to a crowd in the rain. What’s driving him? Not ambition. He’s
been a senator for forty years. He can never be anything more. But by winning this
election he can have one more Hit. He’d rather die of pneumonia than risk missing
the Hit. Take a minister with a white head, preaching humility and selflessness and
meekness—why is he rolling his voice so beautifully? Why is the sermon typed up in
extra-large type, so he won’t have to squint, while he preaches forgetfulness of self?
He wants his sermon to be a Hit. Don’t you suppose the selfless mother, scrimping
and starving to send her pretty daughter through college, regards this girl as the
great Hit of her life? Don’t you suppose a communist is making himself part of the
great Hit of history? Take a dried-up old skeptic like Santayana. If life’s really
meaningless and valueless, just a pretty dream, why bother to write about it? Why
say life is meaningless in twenty volumes full of exquisite meaning? Obviously because
every volume means another Hit for old Santayana—no other reason is possible. Turn
wherever you will on the human scene, this thing governs. It’s as universal as gravitation,
it’s as all-pervading as Spinoza’s God….” He fell silent, staring wildly at her, and
she felt terribly nervous. “Well? I could go on and on, but why should I? That’s it.
Rough, hurried, told all wrong. Does it mean anything to you? Does it convey one thousandth
of the light to you that it does to me?”

“Noel, it’s absolutely brilliant—”

His face shone. “It really does get over to you. It really does? It does sound like
something?”

“Oh yes, yes indeed.”

“Thank God.” He looked at the knife and fork clutched forgotten in his hands, grease
hardening on them in little bubbles. He cut into the steak, then threw down the knife
and fork and pushed the plate away. “What on earth is this great bloody hunk of a
dead cow doing under my nose? It’s the most repulsive thing I’ve ever seen.” He pounded
on the table with his fist and yelled, “Mrs. Kleinschmidt! Take this away! Bring me
a drink.”

Marjorie said, “Noel, eat something, please do, you need it.”

“Marge, if I eat another bite of that purple horror, I’ll go mad. I’d as soon eat
a boiled child. How can people eat meat, anyway? I swear, I’m going to turn vegetarian.”

The woman started to mutter when she saw the uneaten steak, but after one glance at
Noel’s face she subsided, carried it off, and brought him a double drink of rye. He
drank half of it. “Tell me more about how good my idea is, Marge. You can’t imagine
how I need to hear it. I feel like Galileo the first time he saw Jupiter’s moons.
The man must have run around like a scared rat, to find someone else to look through
his telescope and tell him he wasn’t crazy.”

“Noel, what you’re saying isn’t crazy in the least. It’s absolutely true. You’re proving
that what really drives people is nothing but egotism. Everybody knows that’s so,
actually. And the way you put it, it’s even—”

Some of the gladness went out of Noel’s expression. “Egotism? Who said anything about
egotism? I never mentioned the word egotism, not once.”

“Well no, but this hunger for hits, what is it but just plain egotism? You’re completely
right, Noel. The more I study people, the more I realize—” She broke off. He was covering
his face with his hands, groaning. “Now what’s wrong, for heaven’s sake, darling?”

He took his hands away and looked at her for a long time, his face dead gray. “Margie—Margie,
my dear good girl—to say that people are driven by egotism is probably the dullest
and most obvious banality that the human mind can ever achieve. Don’t tell me that
what I’ve been working on for four hysterical days and telling you for twenty solid
minutes amounts to no more than that. Don’t…”

“Noel, I don’t think it’s a banal idea at all. It’s a very shrewd observation.”

His staring sunken black-shadowed eyes were making her more and more uneasy.

He said, “I daresay I skimmed over it, left out all the fine points, ruined it in
the telling, but still—Margie, you should have gotten more out of it than that. This
idea has absolutely nothing to do with egotism, nothing at all, I swear. Why, the
difference between the passion for Hits and egotism—egotism is solipsist, don’t you
see, Hits are externalized, that’s the whole point—maybe I should have made that a
hell of a lot clearer—I’m sure I have in my writing—” His voice was fading. He seemed
to be talking to himself. “But you’re right, by God, the thing actually does skirt
the most ghastly and empty banality, doesn’t it? If I don’t make that one difference
crystal-clear the whole thing is nothing but the vapidest college-boy philosophizing
and—how fundamental
is
that difference? Isn’t it just a question of projection, isn’t the externalizing
just a secondary mechanism?—No, no.” He glared and hit the table with both fists.
“It’s my punishment for being so damn eager, that’s all, for talking technical philosophy
to a girl. Margie, it’s not your fault. I don’t mean to scare you. Maybe you’ve let
all the air out with your hatpin, but I don’t think so. I’ll still get this thing
down on paper and show it to somebody who
knows
—”

“Noel, I didn’t mean to discourage you. On the contrary, I really think you’ve hit
on something extraordinary, I really do, dear—”

He smiled at her and drank off the rye. He coughed a little and slumped back on the
bench. “Whew.”

“I think you should go home and get some sleep, a whole lot of sleep, Noel, before
you do any more work. It’ll come out better, you know it will, in the end. You’re
just burning up your last resources of nervous energy, and living on alcohol, and
that’s no way to write anything really good.”

“I have been in quite a state,” he said, and his voice was low, weary, and relaxed.
“That must be fairly obvious. I couldn’t have slept these past few days if I’d wanted
to—Marjorie, have you ever thought of a joke in your dreams that seemed the funniest
and smartest joke in the world? And then awakened and realized that it was absolutely
silly, made no sense at all?”

“Lots of times, but—”

“It’s barely possible that this whole idea, this rigmarole about Hits, is just another
manic fantasy, after all, a mishmash of Adler, Nietzsche, La Rochefoucauld, and who
knows what else—just another lulling hallucination to keep my nerves from going PAING!
like a thousand breaking piano wires—”

“It isn’t, Noel, don’t believe that—”

“I won’t, don’t worry, not yet. But if it turns out that way—well, hell, I wouldn’t
be surprised if the earth goes on turning. On the whole, I’m glad I got to tell it
to you, before I left. The feminine reaction always has its cold-water validity, tempering
if nothing else—”

“Before you left? Where are you going?”

He sat up and took her hand, looking at her with a sad smile. She said after a terrible
moment or two, “Noel, what is it? Where are you going?”

“Marjorie Morgenstern, love of my life, we’re through. Isn’t that obvious to you?
We’re not going to see each other after today. We wouldn’t have seen each other today
if you hadn’t come barging down to my apartment, and if Imogene hadn’t thought you
were a grocery boy. I’m going to Mexico, probably Sunday morning, driving down with
a sculptor friend of mine, Phil Yates. Just as soon as I finish a draft of what I’m
writing, and get an advance from my publisher to buy us a jalopy. Bye-bye Rothmore,
bye-bye Marjorie, bye-bye the whole bourgeois dream. It was great fun, as the fellow
says, but it was just one of those things.” His glance was kind, melancholy. “Are
you desolate?”

She felt very little pain and, strangely, not much surprise. “No. In fact, it’s quite
all right, Noel. It’s probably for the best.”

“You do think so?”

“I suppose so. I hope so. It’s a little sudden, but that’s all right, too.”

“Kill or cure, Marjorie. Clean break. It’s the only way.”

“I’m sure you know all about how to do these things.”

“You’re going to be bitter?”

“No. Really not.”

“Don’t. Some of it’s been harrowing, I know, but we’ve had a marvelous time, on the
whole, and we haven’t maimed each other for life—and we’re at an absolute impasse,
really, there’s nothing else to do—”

“Noel, it’s all right. I’ll live. It’s far from unexpected.” She was astonished to
find herself putting a handkerchief to her eyes, and she stopped it. “I’ve thought
of making this break myself often, believe me. I sort of wish I’d done it first, that’s
all. No girl likes to be kicked out. You can understand that.”

“Marjorie, you’re kicking me out. You know you are.”

“Am I? I guess I’ve got this conversation turned around in my mind.”

“I’ve never been through a battle like this in my life. You’ve beaten me.” He looked
haggard, almost forty, she thought, slumped with his hands jammed in the pockets of
his shabby overcoat, his long hair disorderly, thick blond bristles all along his
jaw. “You never gave an inch. It had to be on your terms or none at all. Well, no,
that isn’t quite so. At South Wind you started out like any other girl. But ever since
your uncle died, it’s been this way. No girl ever thrust terms on me before. You’ve
made me try to conform, you’ve actually done that. But it’s hopeless, Marjorie. It’s
been driving me slowly out of my head. I’m still a little panicky at the narrowness
of my escape. I’ve been in a panic ever since that seder at your house. Going through
black depressions and golden exaltations like a real nut. It’s got to end, it’s got
to.” His voice trembled.

“That seder. My mother’s bright idea—”

“Brighter than you think, maybe. Ask your mother what her real motive was, some day.
Some day when this is all long in the past, Margie, and she’s dandling her third grandson
on her knee, on your lawn in New Rochelle—little Ronald Shapiro—you ask her—”

“All right, shut up!” Marjorie said. “One blessing at least is that I’ll hear no more
now of that damned Dr. Shapiro.”

Noel said, “You’re right. I keep harping like a stupid boor on one old dull joke.
I beg your pardon.”

“Just remember this, Noel, I never told you to go to work for Sam Rothmore. You did
it all by yourself. All I said was that while you worked for him it was only fair
that you do a decent job. I think going to work at Paramount may have been a terrible
mistake. That’s what’s been depressing you. You should have stuck to your composing,
and not lost faith in yourself. I never lost faith in you. I still haven’t. I told
you that song was going to be a big hit. And I’ll tell you something else.
Princess Jones
is going to materialize, and it’s going to be glorious. You’re going to be tremendously
successful on Broadway, probably in a year or two, if only you work at it. You’re
on the verge.” His face was coming to life again. He sat up and his eyes brightened.
She began to put on her coat. “Only you’d better stick to your writing, and not go
off on any more wild-goose chases like being a rabbi, or inventing new philosophies
about Hits, or whatever. I wish you the best of luck, I swear to God I do. I’ll never
regret knowing you. It’s been an education. I’ve got to get home. Goodbye.”

“Wait.” He stopped her as she moved to get up.

“Really, I’ve got to go, Noel. Mom’s in bed with a cold—”

“You sit.”

She did not fight hard against the push. “What is it? I can only stay another minute.
It’s all over—”

“There’s a few more things we’d better get straight. So long as we’re being frank
with each other, and you’re regarding this as part of your education. Which is an
astonishingly sensible way to look at it. But you’re a sensible girl, unusually sensible.
Your advice to me is very acute. Thanks for it, and here’s some in return. If I were
you, I’d forget Marjorie Morningstar. I’ve been rough and mean with you about that,
purposely. The fact is, you do have some talent. You really do. You make a sweet exciting
figure on the stage. Your voice is weak and thin, but that can be corrected. For someone
without any training, you have a surprising flair for projecting a character. Only—”

Her eyes were moistening. “Dog, you might have said this long ago—”

“Marjorie, my sweet, you’re not an actress. You’re not built to take the strain and
smut and general rattiness of a stage life. You’re a good little Jewish beauty, with
a gift for amateur theatricals. Take my advice, direct all the temple plays in New
Rochelle, and be the star in them, and let it go at that—”

“You supercilious son of a bitch,
I’m not going to live in New Rochelle
.”

He could not have looked more comically astounded if she had flipped up her skirts
in his face. “Dear me, Marjorie! Such language.”

“Any other advice for me, Father Time?”

“You’re angry.”

“Oh, not in the least. I’m just swimming in pleasure at being jilted and patronized
and called a stupid bourgeois Jewess seven different ways all in a few breaths—”