Aurora Dawn by Herman Wouk Page A

left. The beaming Mrs. Brennan went to the right, and following her with her eye, the girl caught
     a glimpse of a committee room decorated in the modern style and furnished with a long table and many chairs, and beyond it
     a swinging door leading to a kitchen, into which the old lady vanished. English led Laura to the left, and together they walked
     into a sunlit, old-fashioned library which might have been transported detail by detail from a cinema setting for a story
     of rich Tories in the American Revolution. It was, in fact, a replica of one of the replicas in the Williamsburg restoration
     of colonial homes; the wraith of a wraith, its quality of other-worldliness heightened by its forlorn setting atop a building
     full of fearfully New things. A real fire burned in a real stone chimney, and a wisp of real smoke even brought a sting to
     the eyes, due to a really faulty draft.
    English and the girl seated themselves on the deep-cushioned sofa that faced the fire. Neither spoke. English contemplated
     the dancing flames, pale in the sunlight, and Laura contemplated the millionaire, waiting for him to begin his explanation
     of the work of Michael Wilde, and wondering not a little at his curious manner with her, particularly his custom of long,
     placid silences. Perhaps for five minutes they sat so, then English looked up at her, and smiled the baffling smile that made
     her feel an absurd, pitying kindness toward him.
    “Take your hat off, Laura,” he said.
    After a moment’s hesitation, Laura in a quick movement unpinned the nonsensical little bonnet from her yellow hair and laid
     it on the arm of the sofa, saying, “Well, but what does my hat have to do with Michael Wilde’s painting?”
    “Nothing at all,” said Stephen English, leaning back comfortably in the sofa. “It’s surely no secret to you that I enjoy looking
     at you. The hat is becoming, but I find the unadorned hair more so. Now, about Mike. You have seen him referred to as Bezalel,
     haven’t you?”
    “Yes, many times,” said Laura. “The columnists are very fond of the name. I’ve seen his illustrated Bible, and I know the
     reason for that.”
    “That incident,” said the millionaire, “is Wilde’s career in miniature. But be sure that you are quite comfortable, because,
     like Scheherazade, I intend to spin out my tale, to postpone the cutting off, not of my head but of this agreeable scene into
     which I tricked you and which I should like to last as long as possible. This then, is
THE STORY OF BEZALEL.
    It has always entertained me (said Stephen English) to listen to a furious discussion among aesthetes, with one side maintaining
     that Michael Wilde is a poser and a charlatan, against an equally heated assertion that he’s a brilliant artist. The reason
     for such disputes, of course, lies in the assumption that the two descriptions are contradictory. In Mike’s case it’s obvious
     that they’re both true.
    Mike was born in the Irish slums that used to exist around Ninety-sixth Street and Columbus Avenue in New York. He has, therefore,
     the poignant love of money that’s reserved only for people who’ve known poverty. Rich people respect money because it’s their
     safety, but to poor people money is freedom. Never forget that when you analyze the behavior of someone who used to be poor;
     there’s a friskiness about such persons which is only the lightness of limb that comes from taking off chains. Mike’s antics,
     of course, have further, more self-conscious motives.
    Really, Mike carries on the way he does because it helps to sell his paintings. It’s true, of course, that he’s enormously
     conceited and that he has a natural taste for being the life of the party, but such characteristics are commonplace. In most
     careers they must be severely repressed, because the aim of a man is to give an impression of reliability, steadiness, and
     a sense of propriety. Artists–in all the arts–are exempt. Successful