“Good God!” Involuntarily Marjorie screwed up her face.
“That’s not the half of it. Oh, they’re the salt of the earth, these people. Mildred Wills packed up and left in the middle of all this, and I was left to pick up the pieces. Bob and Elaine were without a cent, what’s more. Mildred was supposed to be paying for them. It cost me over two hundred dollars with fines and breakage and doctor bills and all before we were through. Lovely, what? The one thing I take pride in is the fact that I never let it interfere with my plans, just went right on having my fun and in fact got a lot of work done evenings, too.—Are you thoroughly disgusted? I hope so. I am myself. It does me good to feel your disgust.”
“Well, Noel, you know how I’ve always felt about such people—just a bourgeois—”
“Yes, well that can be overdone too, darling. I’m far from admitting even now that the only way to live is the way good citizens do on Central Park West. There’s a golden mean you have to look for. But as I say, I couldn’t be more through than I am with the too-too-mad set. You’re dead right about them and always have been, in your sublimely simplified way—” He glanced at his watch. “Hungry? It’s horribly early for dinner in Paris, but if you’ve been travelling—”
“I’ve been hungry ever since you first started browning that chicken under my nose.”
He laughed and jumped up. “That was an hour ago. Why didn’t you say something? I’d have hurried it. Can you be trusted to make a salad according to rigid specifications? I’ll do the rest.”
Marjorie had eaten dinner several times in Noel’s Greenwich Village apartment. He had been a competent slap-dash cook in those days, with a couple of specialties like spaghetti and southern fried chicken, dished up any old way. But all that was changed. With this dinner there were candles, wine cooling in a bucket of chopped-up ice, a chafing dish at the table; he even found some flowers in Gerda’s bedroom and made a centerpiece of roses and ferns in a shallow green bowl. He was quick and disconcertingly smooth at serving and removing the dishes. For a while the effect on Marjorie was probably the opposite of what he intended; she became stiff and self-conscious, for Noel made a distinctly odd figure, scrambling into the kitchen, serving the food, and then sitting at his place and relaxing into the suave bon vivant dining by candlelight. The first course was shrimps in an exquisite brown mustardish sauce which she had never tasted before. He claimed he had invented it. There were hot rolls, and a thick spicy soup. The chicken in wine was extraordinary—rich, almost creamy, the flesh and the tender skin coming off the bones at a touch of the fork, the taste of the fowl delicately dominant over the tart suggestion of burgundy—she had eaten nothing better in her travels. By that time Marjorie had drunk quite a lot of wine, and she was beginning to enjoy herself in a constrained way. She said, “Well, I don’t know what’s come over you, Noel. I can only say you’ll make some lucky girl a fine husband.”
He laughed, his eyes lighting with pleasure. “Not bad, really, is it, the chicken? Have a little more of the Montrachet.”
“Thanks—why, it’s all amazing, everything you’ve served. I can’t imagine why you’re bothering to impress me, but it’s a virtuoso performance. I’d never dare try to cook for you after this.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I’ll tell you something, cooking can be a real creative art. I’ve just taken to it seriously in the past few months. Since Casablanca. I can’t say why, exactly—Have you ever read Jennifer Lorn? There’s a touching part in it about a young prince who is simply a cook at heart, and has an awful time getting to express his artistic yearnings. I’m not that gone on it, it’ll never be more than a hobby, but I must say I get tremendous satisfaction out of it. What if the art you create gets demolished and consumed a few minutes after it’s done? Does that take away from its merit? I’d give any poet a hell of an argument who claimed he’d contributed more to human happiness than a truly artistic cook.”
“This isn’t the work you say you’ve been doing, is it, Noel?”
He leaned forward, lighting his cigarette from a candle, and then slouched back, grinning. “I should hope not. This, by the way, is an American barbarism I have no intention of unlearning, smoking before the meal’s over.—Despite all my peccadilloes, I’ve done pretty much what I told you I would in my letter, Margie. I’ve really dived into philosophy. What’s more, I think I’ve come up with a pearl. You remember I’ve been saying for years I was going to read economics some day so I could argue with communists on their own ground—well, I’ve done it. And, I’ve come up with some astounding results. I’ve been through Marx and Engels, but of course that gets you nowhere, you have to backtrack through all the Britishers Marx was trying to refute, right back to old Adam Smith, and then you have to work forward to Keynes, and eventually you’ve got to branch off into general philosophy because economics is nothing but a splinter of the whole problem of human conduct in a material world—You don’t want to hear all this guff, do you?”
“On the contrary, there’s nothing I’d rather hear.”
“Well, let me get the coffee and the brandy—you’ll have a bit of cheese, won’t you? Sharp? Bland?”
“Whatever you have.”
The cheese was a soft malodorous greenish stuff, almost liquid. Marjorie thought it was frightful. But Noel was so proud of it—evidently it was a rare and costly French treat—that she smeared a little on fragments of a hard biscuit and choked it down. The brandy, however, a strange clear yellow, slightly oily, had a wonderful taste. She drank several small glasses of it while he talked. Noel’s coffee was excellent, as it always had been. He boasted that there were few places in Paris where one could get a comparable cup of American-style coffee. “That’s another barbarism, the big cup, the light brew, but the Frogs can all go climb a tree with their thick thimbleful of syrup, I like American coffee and I always will—Well, where was I? So far as arguing with communists is concerned, that turns out to be no problem at all. Marx has some damn cogent criticisms of nineteenth-century capitalism, especially the way it worked in England. But ever since oh, say the World War, he’s been as dated as Ptolemy. Actually the whole labor theory of value turns out to be an abstraction, a tool, a sort of working fiction like the square root of minus one, and quite a limited tool, too. As for the modern party line, it’s just a tangle of dogmatic bosh, and it has about as much to do with Marx as with Mark Twain. That’s a trivial area of the whole problem, hardly worth bothering with. But the discovery I’ve made—and I really think it’s my own, although there are hints and stumbles at it all through the literature—is something else. You know Marx claimed he had stood Hegel on his head. I think I’ve found the way to stand Marx on his head. If I’m not boring you insensible—I know this isn’t in your line at all—”
“Well, so far I’m with you. This is unbelievable brandy, Noel.” Marjorie was thinking that he was looking more and more attractive, as she became used to the slight changes in him. She was also thinking, not without a little secret amusement, that he had displayed this same kind of boyish enthusiasm over his Hits theory. His eyes were sparkling in the old way as he talked; and the nervous swift gestures, the toss of the head, the slouch with one arm over the back of the chair, the occasional run of a knuckle over his smooth-shaven upper lip, were all good to see, exciting and rich with memories, some painful, some sweet, all terribly vivid.
“Well, actually,” Noel said, “like all massive ideas, this one must be demonstrated and documented in about eight fat volumes, but it can be stated in a line or two. Marx’s big contribution remains the criticism of religion, morality, and philosophy as mere products of—and excuses for—economic practices. It’s a truth, a brilliant comment, not a doubt of it. Its effect has been devastating. But what I’ve discovered is that if you dig deep enough the whole picture swivels around. It turns out in the end—this is my original insight, and I may have to devote the rest of my life to proving it, but I know I can—it turns out in the end that all economic pra
ctices are really produced by the religious beliefs of a society—and that all of economics, all the central questions—money, rent, labor, everything—are part of applied theology. That’s what I mean by standing Marx on his head.” He stopped and peered at her, both hands resting on the edge of the table. “I don’t expect this to sound to you like anything but academic rubbish—”
So strongly reminded of the Hits theory that she could barely refrain from smiling, she said, “No, I follow it, but really, Noel dear, you’ve taken a tremendous order on yourself—”
“Tremendous? It’s earth-shaking,” Noel said, and the flames of the candles made glittering little yellow points in his eyes. “How about this brandy? Isn’t it something? Have some more, you’ve hardly touched it.”
“What? I’m all but fried right now, Noel—No, not that much, please, just half a glass—”
“Oh, come on, you may never taste the like again. The Frogs, bless them, just about faint when an American buys a bottle of it—it’s like selling a painting out of the Louvre. It has no fancy label, you see, no cobwebs, nothing, there’s a national conspiracy to keep it from foreigners—the man who sold me this bottle was pale and trembling. He probably got ten years in the Bastille. Poor fellow, I see him now, scrabbling at the stones with his nails….” He imitated a demented prisoner.
Marjorie laughed extravagantly. “Lord, you and your nonsense. It’s good brandy, that’s all—Noel, have you really done all that reading? I should think it would have to take years.”
“Of course it will. I’ve just scratched the surface. I got this idea, actually, when I was only half through Das Kapital. It was so electrifying that I just skimmed the rest and fairly raced through the main things of Engels…. A much better writer, by the bye, and a clearer thinker. It’s a historic paradox, an injustice rather, that the whole thing got to be known as Marxism. I’m a great believer in the power of theatrical effect on historical events, you know. So was Napoleon, so is every other hard thinker—and I’m convinced that if Engels had had an equally long and bushy beard it would all be known today as Engelsism—but that’s a side issue—as for the—”
Marjorie was choking with laughter. Noel said, “What now? What’s the matter with you?”
“E-Engelsism… It just sounds so funny. Honestly, Noel! Engelsism… Ha ha ha—”
Noel grunted, his face solemn, his invariable way when one of his jokes was successful. “Gad. You’ve always been my best audience. But on that point I’m almost half serious. Anyway, this is leading to something important, so stop hee-hawing. The fact is, I’ve scanned the whole field in abridgments, encyclopedias, summaries, and so forth, enough to convince myself that in main outline this idea is absolute solid rock and absolutely original. But of course such an approach will never do, it’s criminally superficial. I’ve got to resign myself to about four years of solid reading, and another four years of solid writing. Actually, allowing for delays, blind alleys, accidents, misfortunes, and so forth, I figure this to be a ten-year undertaking. But it’ll be a labor of love. The years will speed by like days. The only question is how I live in the meantime. The songwriting’s too sporadic, and anyway, to be perfectly honest, I’m losing my zest for it. There must be something thin about my talent or I’d have made it by now—I’m thirty-three, after all—what I have to solve is how I live from age thirty-three to age forty-three. Well, I’ve solved that, too…. I’m going to have more brandy, if you’re not. Let’s go into the living room. These chairs are too hard for long sitting.”
“Don’t you want to clear the table and do the dishes first?”
“Oh, don’t be so damned domestic. I’m in the middle of something important here.”
“It won’t take but a minute—suppose she comes home? Come on, you can talk while we clean up.”
“I can’t do anything while I wash dishes except curse the day I was born, and as for Gertie—”
But Marjorie was already on her feet, clattering the dishes together, feeling the brandy from her head to her toes. “Shut up, Noel, and let’s clear the table. I won’t be able to sit still otherwise—”
Grumbling, he complied. But once the dishes were piled in the sink, he wouldn’t wash them. “I’ll be goddamned if I’ll be pushed around any longer by you in my own household. Wait till we’re married. Come along now, and quietly.” He dragged her by the hand out of the kitchen. “Here. You bring my brandy inside. I’ll take the candles. Sure you won’t have another little glass?”
“Not a single drop, if you want me to follow your brilliant discourse.”
The two candles burned low and blue as he carried the sticks into the living room. When he set them up on the piano they flared yellow again. A dim pleasant light diffused through the big room. Noel sat on the piano stool, absently rippling chords with his left hand, and Marjorie leaned on the piano beside him. Reflections of the two flames burned clearly in the black polished top of the piano. Noel glanced up at Marjorie, and his left hand picked out the notes of the South Wind Waltz. “Remembrance of things past, eh? You and me and a piano—”
“Yes indeed.”
“Well, let’s not get sentimental here. We have some serious talking to do. You didn’t cross the ocean for a wallow in nostalgia. I’m not interested either. To hell with the past, I’ve very little use for it.” He closed the lid over the keys with a dry hollow thud. “Pandora’s box is shut.”
“Good.”
“Now then, pay close attention, because a lot is going to hang on how you feel about this.” He lounged with an elbow on the piano top, looking up at her earnestly. In the candlelight he seemed very much the godlike man she had first seen at South Wind so long, long ago. “I told you I’ve been thinking of you a lot lately. That’s a gross understatement. So help me, I’ve thought of hardly anything else since I got back from Biarritz. Somehow that business with Bob and Elaine really spelled finis for me—finis to Paris, to Gerda, to Europe, to bumming around, yes, even to making fun of the bourgeoisie. Darling, if I’ve written you one letter I’ve written you nine, and then torn them up, because they were too mushy and ridiculous. I think there’s a half-finished one in my bedroom right now. But sweetheart, this is so much easier and better. I’m so everlastingly grateful to you for showing up. I’m ready to quit, Marjorie. That should be good news to you. All I want to be is a dull bourgeois. I’ve finally and irrevocably realized that nothing a man can do can make him stay twenty-two forever. But more important than that, and this is what’s decisive, I’ve decided that twenty-two gets to be a disgustingly boring age after a while. Staying up till all hours, sleeping around, guzzling champagne, being oh so crazy, oh so gay, is a damned damned damned damned BORE.” He struck the piano with the flat of his hand. “Being a shipping clerk in Macy’s can’t be half so boring in the long run because at least you’re doing something. These perpetual twenty-twos—and I frankly admit I’ve been one all too long—do absolutely nothing, they’re poisoned mice, that’s all, running frantically in circles till they drop dead. My plans are simple. I want to go home. I want to get some dull reliable job in some dull reliable advertising agency, and I want to drudge like a Boy Scout, nine to five, five days a week, fifty weeks a year with two weeks off in August, and slowly rise to be an under-under-under vice-president. I’m more than prepared to take all the guff and endure all the tastelessness and boredom. This time there’ll be no faltering, no nerve crises, because I’ve got real motives, see, motives that will endure, not a mere sophomoric urge to show I can play the game if I choose.”
“What motives, Noel?” Marjorie said, softly and affectionately. The brandy had mounted to her brain, a pleasant amber fog.
“Two, really. First, you. Second, my writing. I must write this book, and I know I never will till I’m settled and happy and in a routine, and that means with you. You’re the only one who fits in that picture, who ever has fitted. So—in short, that’s the story. That’s where I stand now. And I’ve been thinking of you so much because
—well, because I love you, and because you, of all the people I’ve ever known, are most likely to understand and approve. To tell it to Gerda, or Bob, or even Ferdie, would be hopeless, you know.”
“Of course it would,” Marjorie said.
“Well, do you approve?”
Not knowing quite what to say, and feeling she didn’t exactly have her wits about her, Marjorie said, “I’ve always said you could do anything you put your mind to, Noel. If you’re serious, why—”
“I’ve never been half so serious.” He took her hand, which was resting lightly on the piano top. “And you? What are your plans?”