Pride House: The Quest for Vainglory
Chapter 13 The Joke on Pride
Pride and the ladies were sitting at supper when Reason slipped nervously into the kitchen. As usual, Confusion was dominating the conversation, effusing over the redecorating she was accomplishing in the dining room. Reason hoped Confusion would babble all through the meal, for that would be an excuse not to interrupt. But Confusion fell silent.
Reason edged a bit closer to the table.
Pride noticed her and greeted her with a smile. “Reason, where have you been to these days? I’ve got to hear about your studies. Here, sit down and have some dessert with us.” He seemed relieved to see her, as if his habitual dinner company was wearing upon him.
Reason sank into the offered chair and looked from face to face: Tedium staring blankly at her wrist set, Confusion smiling idiotically with her mouth open, Doubt looking dark and disapproving.
“A servant at the table,” Doubt remarked in a flat voice. “What will you think of next, dear?”
Pride ignored her. “I want to hear about your classes, Reason. Just give me the gist of what they’re teaching you.”
“Nothing worthwhile,” intruded Confusion. “The real question is what have you learned from yourself, dear? ‘Know thyself,’ as the Bible says.”
“That was the Delphic Oracle,” Reason muttered. Then she said more loudly, “Actually, I have been learning about myself—from my eye doctor. And—and about you, too, Pride. He has a joke about you. Would you like to hear it?”
Doubt and Pride looked unpleasantly surprised. With her heart beating rapidly, Reason formed a phony smile and spoke into the icy silence.
“Well, anyway, Arrogance came to Pride one day and said, ‘I’ve got a way for you to meet Fame Vainglory, only it won’t be easy.’ And Pride says, ‘I’ll try anything.’ So Arrogance says, ‘Write me a check for a hundred dollars, for my trouble, and meet me at the livestock show tomorrow at the fairgrounds.’ So Pride writes him the check. Now the next day he meets Arrogance outside the livestock show, and Arrogance is holding a pig suit. He says to Pride, ‘Fame is judging the swine show today. Just put this pig suit on, and roll in the mud for realism, and then when you get paraded by the judges, you can ask her for a date. So Pride puts it on.”
“That’s enough!” snapped Doubt.
“You may leave the table,” Pride said.
“But I haven’t even got to the punch line yet! You see, Pride goes by the judges in his muddy pig suit, and he says to Fame, ‘Miss Vainglory, it’s me, Pride, and I want to ask you for a date.’ Then she and everybody else starts laughing, and Arrogance pops up, and Arrogance is dying laughing. And he says, ‘Pal, it was just a practical joke. You want your hundred dollars back?’ And Pride says, ‘Ha, ha, the joke’s on you. I never signed the check.’
No one laughed. Tedium had not heard, and Confusion never understood the point of any joke. Doubt and Pride sat like statues.
At last Doubt said, “She’s on drugs. I want her out of this house for good.”
Pride rose and, taking Reason firmly by the arm, led her to the pantry. As soon as he had closed the door, he turned to her with an iron face.
“Do you want me to throw you out? Have you lost your mind?”
Reason steadied her voice with difficulty. “You can’t throw me out. The place would fall apart. You’re surely too busy to notice, but Worry has been sneaking around to me for help with the bills. The dimwit doesn’t understand the computer, and she can’t add. I make sure the servants do their work, I make grocery lists, I lock up the house at night, I—”
“All right!” Pride said. “You’re a martyr. Great. But as long as you work for me you will not mock me with stupid, tasteless jokes.”
Reason hung her head and hugged herself with pale arms. “That’s the only one I know. If you had any sense of humor about yourself, you would have laughed at it.”
“It’s sick. Who is this doctor of yours that told it to you?”
“His name is Truth.”
“Well, he should be doctoring you and not telling vicious jokes about people. I don’t want you seeing him anymore.”
“But I have to! I’m getting bad headaches. I think I need my glasses changed.”
“You’ll be completely blind soon,” he said without a trace of sympathy. “And here I am relying on your income from the Mammon Mart.” He pondered for a moment. “Go to some other doctor; there are plenty in the phone book. And no more sick humor!”
She said nothing. After he went back to the kitchen, she stood for minutes in the gloom of the pantry, still hugging herself. Then she thought of her joke again, and somehow it seemed funnier than ever. She smothered her mouth with her hands. In the next room the diners went on eating their dessert, pretending with strained faces not to hear her.