“I don’t have to tell you, Sid,” Moloch was saying, “but that job of mine saps me dry. They should have a YMCA secretary, not me. Someone whose feelings are encased in an oyster shell. I’m too soft. How I come by this Jesus Christ foolishness licks me....
“The old man thinks the world of you, Dion.”
“I know it. He told me only the other day that I stood aces high. But on top of that he gives me a lecture for being too big-hearted. He knows I’m always in the hole.”
“Do you ever get any of it back—this dough you’re handing out so lavishly?”
“Damned little. I’d be a fool if I expected it to be otherwise.”
“This generosity is admirable, Dion, but you ought to do a little more for yourself. What do you expect to do—die in harness?”
“I know, I know. What do you want—a row of spare-time novels? I tell you, when it comes five o’clock, I’m licked. The company’s got me, body and guts. And when I get home, there’s Blanche. Do you know what it feels like to sit down at the table with a totem pole?”
“How about Edda?”
“How about Betelgeuse? That’s how much I see of Edda. Damn Blanche! She has a trick of maneuvering the kid out of reach that makes my blood boil. You’d think I was a contamination!”
“You think an awful lot of Edda, don’t you?”
A look of anguish sped over Moloch’s countenance. Prigozi’s words were like a iorch that set his thoughts aflame.
“By God!” he swore. “There are times when I feel like murdering her.”
He had forgotten all about Edda in his hatred for Blanche.
“It’s a rotten shame,” Prigozi remarked. “I’m not thinking of Blanche. Edda … that’s who’s getting a raw deal.”
“I know it.” Moloch’s voice softened. It became quavery. “No one in the world could make me behave this way except Blanche. This quarreling and battling, I detest it thoroughly. Why, we fly at one another for nothing at all! The other night, for instance, the two of us were lying in bed, she in one room and I in the other. Neither of us could sleep. Finally we sat up in bed and began to insult and abuse each other. As I tell it to you now it seems hardly believable that two intelligent people could let themselves go in such a fashion. We stormed and raged like two maniacs. What oaths! It was horrible…. Well, at last we got to such a pitch that we jumped out of bed simultaneously and went for each other’s throat....”
He paused here.
“I’ll tell you something. Do you know what I believe? Sometimes I believe that she wants me to strike her!”
“Do you—ever?”
“Y-e-e-s … I have. I won’t deny it. I defy anyone in my predicament not to.... She stands there, egging me on, daring me to touch her, accusing me of the vilest things … what am I to do? If I remain silent and glower at her, or if I try imploring her to stop, she commences to scream. And how she can scream! I imagine everybody in the neighborhood must be awakened. And what insults! She piles them up like cordwood. Eventually she adds one too many and then, bang!—my fist shoots out automatically. That very instant I regret it, but it’s too late. Even a saint couldn’t stand by idly and tolerate such abuse.... Anyway, last night when I hit her she just dropped like a sack … there wasn’t a groan out of her. You can imagine my state of mind. I was conscience-stricken.”
Moloch paused again. Prigozi didn’t have a word of comment.
“With the rumpus the kid wakes up. She cries for Blanche. All that tumult in the dark, and then the sudden quiet… it frightened her stiff. I was frightened myself, and filled with loathing. What a way to bring up a child, I thought. I wished to Christ that I was dead! Of course, I looked after Blanche immediately, picked her up, talked to her soothingly, bathed her face, tried to smooth her hair.... What hurt most of all was that she never said a word. No reproaches. Not a word. Nothing. She just looked up at me tenderly and put on a brave smile. Her eyes opened wide and stared into mine. And the strangest thing was there nothing in them but trust, and pity perhaps. ‘Jesus!’ I said to myself. ‘This will never happen again!’ “
He laughed hysterically. A thought occurred which filled him with shame, which seemed to mock the fervor of the words still fresh on his lips.
Why was it, he asked himself, that at such moments he also experienced a feeling of elation, a curious abortive longing to repeat the drama, as though that brief interval of tranquillity, when he held his wife in his arms and spoke to her tenderly, was compensation for all the misery and degradation that preceded it?
“Excuse me,” he said aloud, “I didn’t mean to laugh.”
Prigozi’s face was twitching like a frog’s leg under the scalpel.
“Don’t say any more,” he urged. “I didn’t know things were quite so bad. I feel sorry for Blanche … damned sorry. She’s to be pitied. You can’t subject a sensitive being to such treatment indefinitely. She’ll break…. And frankly, Dion, I don’t think she’s as bad as you paint her. She must have some good qualities or you wouldn’t have married her. Perhaps it’s not too late to patch things up.”
Moloch made no answer. He resented Prigozi’s remarks. What was the matter—was Prigozi stupid? Why did he, Prigozi, insist on holding him responsible? Hadn’t he just explained the inevitability of circumstances? Of course Blanche wasn’t so bad. He knew the extent of his exaggerations. But how could one preserve an attitude of impartiality in such situations? This was no struggle between nations. It was a civil war, an internecine struggle that would leave both vanquished at the end “Patch things up!” He detested the phrase.
“I know you have decent feelings occasionally,” Prigozi was saying. “But what a muddle-head you are! It’s strange,” he continued, as though speaking to himself, “how a man’s intelligence deserts him in matters like this, where his life and happiness are so vitally concerned.”
He paused to allow the full weight of his words to sink in.
“This wrangling between man and wife isn’t one of the riddles of the Sphinx, you know. You bundle it in mystery, as if it were the doctrine of immaculate conception. It’s a very complicated mess now, I grant you, but it originated in very trivial offenses… on both sides. What you want is a microscope—to examine what’s under your nose. Don’t go muddling around, searching for glandular disturbances. Your wife’s endocrine system is probably like a railroad wreck. For that matter, so is yours. Don’t think for a moment that you can go to a psychiatrist and have your domestic problems solved. If they had a panacea the courts would have been closed long ago. They’re no better than bald-headed druggists selling us hair restorers.. ..”
The sight of Blanche coming down the street put an end to Prigozi’s divagations. Edda slipped from her mother’s grasp and ran to greet her father. He caught her up in his arms and tossed her in the air.
While Moloch hugged his child warmly Prigozi was left to exchange the icicles of convention with Blanche.
Blanche, strange to say, adopted a more cordial attitude toward the latter than was her wont. She wore the receptive mood of one who had just left the Turkish baths and is atingle with pleasant aches to which she has not yet grown accustomed. Perhaps she was relieved to find her husband home early. She expressed her tepid satisfaction by sub-acid reactions to their remarks, which, in the first flush of politeness, conveyed a cordial awareness of her existence.
Generally she was bored by the Chinese character of their discussions: reference to books she had never read, a grand hul-labalooing of theories and principles which she could scarcely understand. These long-winded discussions usually caused her to question the sincerity of her husband. How thoroughly did he evaluate Prigozi’s vaporings? To her chaste ears their language sounded wild, heretical, subversive of all she held true and sacred. Particularly their investigations in the field of sex. Her husband’s bland confessions amazed her, and wounded her deeply. Carried away by a clinical ardor, they omitted nothing. Like two Peeping Toms they observed and made note of every detail, no ma
tter how trifling, no matter how disgustingly intimate. Her feelings, if she gave way to analysis at all in the midst of these frightful discussions, might be compared to those of a virgin being examined through the keyhole of sexology. Never, during these discussions, were any apologies offered for indelicacy of thought or speech. On the contrary, it was quiteobvious that her stubborn refusal to participate served them witha splendid pretext for prolongation of the stupid baiting thatusually marked these discussions. She could hear her husband’svoice saying: “Get in this, Blanche … there’s nothing personal about this.”
“Nothing personal”—that was the rub. She was so much wood, in his estimation. A log, if you like, to throw on the fire, to provide fuel for their fiery debates. It was despicable of them, of Dion particularly, since he who should have been her protector evinced the greatest satisfaction from her discomfiture. As for the other, he was just a nosy little Jew. All that drivel about Freud and Jung, the diseases of Krafft-Ebing, and so on— weren’t they simply devices of his to unload his own salacious thoughts? He made her tired going about analyzing people five minutes after he was introduced to them. Why didn’t he stay home and practice on his wife? What business had he snooping into their affairs, stirring up trouble, leaving absurd problems hanging in the air, like the odor of depilatories which linger in the bathroom for days. His grin (like a slightly soiled napkin) when he departed seemed to say: “There now, I’ve shown you what a mess you’ve made of your lives; try and patch it up, if you can!”
A visit from Prigozi was in the nature of a cyclonic force which threw them out of their natural orbits and left them sitting disconsolately in a litter of debris to face the ghastly uncertainties of the morrow. His vehemence warped the furniture of her mind, paralyzed her desires, deformed her spirit.
The most exasperating part of this mockery was her husband’s attitude: forever defending this miserable, filthy creature; constantly attempting to convince her that Prigozi was filled with the purest intentions, that he was the one true friend that they had in the world. Persuading her to drop her antagonism … calling it a piece of ill-disguised anti-Semitism. (As though he weren’t a Jew-hater himself!) Why, she had never heard the term until Prigozi introduced it! What did she care about the Jews, as a race? She simply didn’t want any dealings with them, collectively or individually. It was no concern of hers what became of them. If they wanted to establish a Zion in Palestine, let them! All she cared about was that they leave her alone, stay out of her home.
It was apparent that Blanche was doing her best to act civilly toward this intruder.
“I suppose you’ll be staying for dinner?” she asked. Her tone carried the reverse English that one puts on the ball when pressing a mother-in-law to stay for a weekend.
A note of cordiality crept into Prigozi’s voice.
Sure, he would stay if she wanted him to. He meant, by these words, that she should be sincere. “The woman has no right to hate me like she does,” he said to himself. “Certainly,” he repeated aloud, “I’ll stay.”
Blanche turned to her husband. “Have you any money?”
“Oh, don’t bother to get anything on my account.” Prigozi protested. “I’ll take potluck, if it’s all the same to you people.”
“That means I won’t eat,” said Blanche. Her words fell blunt and harsh.
“You people never mean what you say,” she added by way of explanation. “I don’t mean you especially,” she directed to Prigozi, noticing his pained expression. “But that selfish—” pointing to her husband—”he’d gorge himself and wonder later why we didn’t eat anything.” She requested her husband to get some meat.
“I’m sorry, but I’m broke,” said Moloch limply.
Prigozi immediately offered to run out and get something. “Don’t you want to come along?” he said.
“No, I’ll wait here,” Moloch answered. He had dropped into a moody vein.
The door had no sooner closed behind Prigozi than Blanche flared up.
“Why must you always embarrass me? You invite your friends to stay and then you chase them out to buy things for us.”
“I didn’t ask him to stay. You did.”
“I did! Just as I expected. If I hadn’t asked him you’d accuse me of being inhospitable. No matter what I do you find means of ridiculing me.”
“Blanche, for heaven’s sake, be reasonable. How often have I told you these people don’t want any fuss made over them? Why did you let him go, anyway? I wager there’s enough here to feed ten people. You probably did it to make him uncomfortable. I know your petty tricks!”
He was getting overheated, adding up his indictments. He went at her more vigorously.
“Do you suppose for one minute that I’m treated in this shabby way when I visit my friends? God damn it! Whenever anyone comes here I’ve got to make apologies for you.”
Blanche acknowledged that she was not the least ashamed of her behavior. “At least,” she retorted, “I do things openly. I guess your friends appreciate that!”
“Look here,” he said, “I know you don’t like them. I don’t ask you to pamper them. But is it necessary to act so cold-bloodedly? Can’t you be tolerant? Take your friends, for example. Do I treat them the way you do mine?”
Blanche said nothing to this for the reason that she was too busy adding up her recollections of his behavior in the presence of her friends. She was trying to assure herself that there might be one whom he hadn’t made overtures to, one whose affections he hadn’t stolen.
He mistook her silence for self-chastisement, and threw in a piece of suet for good measure.
“Now, do you wonder,” he remarked, “that I don’t come home more often?”
“So that’s it?” she exclaimed with a rush. “Then it isn’t your work that keeps you away… ?”
“Must you start that again? What are we to do—lock horns for the rest of the evening? How you love to air your grievances when I bring a friend to the house! Do you suppose they like to sit around and listen to your complaints? Why don’t you drop it? They don’t believe you, anyway.”
Blanche brought the frying pan down with a bang.
“And why don’t they?” Her voice rose shrilly. “Why don’t they believe me?”
He looked at her in amazement. What a trifle to fly into a rage about! In another minute they would be rehearsing the comedy of the insulted and injured. Or it might take a short turn, with the slippery ease that Chekhov manifests in his short stories. An incident out of the early days of their wedlock came to mind.... They were eating dinner. A remark was dropped that displeased her. In the twinkling of an eye they were rolling on the floor, wrestling in dead earnest. Fleming was there. He didn’t know what to make of it, but he had presence of mind to pull her skirt down. He seemed to be more concerned about her modesty than the danger she was exposed to of having her skull cracked.
The gleam of a carving knife which Blanche was brandishing lifted him out of the past. Blanche went at him full tilt.
“I’ll tell you why they don’t believe me,” she hissed. “It’s because you’re always making me out to be a liar.”
He took the knife from her hands. She looked at it blankly. She had the expression of one who has been victimized by an obsession, and suddenly finds himself released.
“For God’s sake, Blanche, don’t carry on so. If you must say these things, say them later, when …”
“When your friend leaves … I know.”
“No, I wasn’t thinking of that at all, Blanche. I was thinking of Edda. It isn’t right, you know, to talk this way in her hearing.”
“Oh, it isn’t? You’re funny! How careful you are not to let her hear anything bad about you. Do you ever think of her when you’re tramping around nights with your women friends?”
“Stop it!” He went up to her threateningly. “I won’t have it! You’re an insane fool, do you know that?”
“Am I, huh? Go and look at yourself. See what a maniac you can be.??
?
He slunk down in a chair beside her and buried his head in his fists.
“What’s the matter, Mamma?” Edda cried from the next room, where she had been playing with her toys.
“Go in and play with her for a while,” said Blanche quickly. She regretted her sharp words.
He went in to the child with a crestfallen air, like a penitent approaching the altar.
“Why do you fight so, Daddy?” Edda put her arms about his neck and kissed him.
He held her with one arm, his other hand brushing a tear away. “We weren’t fighting,” he said soothingly. “I was just playing with Mother. We were acting.”
“Were you? That’s funny, Daddy. Act with me, too.”