might stand and go from commuter to commuter down the aisle, asking each one what he thought about the old unsolved problem that science and mathematics had never tackled and literature and the opera only fleetingly illuminated: Where, he’d ask, does love go? He felt as if his skin were porous, that love was gaseous, leaking out of him, a cloud of stink everywhere he went. It was an element with alchemic properties, sometimes, according to its mood, sweet, heavy, lustrous. The minute it hit the air Walter imagined it became deceptively light, something unseen, like a tubercle bacillus, passing from person to person, taking each one from health to either heaven or hell. Mitch’s head was thrown back, his mouth slightly open, Susan trying to sleep on his shoulder. She had her hand on his collarbone, on that graceful curving truss, as if she owned the thing. Walter kept his seat and looked atof The Golden Bowl , the page he’d been reading since he’d boarded the train.
He half believed, in that year, with only occasional relief from his own fresh pessimism, that love was capable of killing a person, and that even a worm, digesting the particularly bitter juices, could distinguish a corpse dead from love. But there were moments, riding the el, walking the school halls, eating lunch, when he felt as if he were singing, singing without realizing. It didn’t seem impossible that he might suddenly become an enormous woman belting out a heartbreaking Puccini aria— Folle amore! He was screaming at the top of his lungs, wasn’t he? Folle ebbrezza! How could it be that Mitch was not receiving any of those musical strains? And where did the noise of the shriek, the smell of leaking gas, the melody, the words Lauretta sings, “Have pity, have pity”—where did all of that matter go when it was not absorbed by the loved one?
They walked up Michigan Avenue, the three of them linking arms, Susan between, a phalanx against the wind that swept off the lake. Walter held his collar closed and adjusted his earmuffs. Mitch never wore a hat. He jerked his head, his single defense against the freezing temperatures. If they had time they went to the Artists’ Café and drank weak coffee, emptying all of the cream from the pitcher into their cups. They often discussed the problem of the ego and the artist, the artist with the ego, the importance of the ego to the artist, the difficulty of maintaining an ego of healthy proportion, and the possibility of peaceably quelling an erupting ego. They couldn’t drive or vote or buy beer but they were virtually adults, they felt, drinking coffee, and discussing the nature of the ego, the id, the artist. Walter usually managed to recite a scrap of verse. He had absorbed some lines of Christopher Morley from Sue Rawson and was able to say, “ ‘When ego, fantailed like a peacock, can find the needle in the haycock’—something, something, something, ‘is that millennium?’ ”
“Walter,” Susan said, after he had been spouting Morley, “if you break your leg in seven places, God forbid, and can’t dance, you’d be a great English teacher. You know so much more than Mr. Reynolds.”
He felt a burst of love for her years later, when he remembered the conversation. She had allowed him an easy out, a shattered leg inorder to get on to a viable profession. At the time he tried to muster a visible shudder. Mr. Reynolds? Mr. Reynolds! The flamer in his prissy bow tie, his yellow shirt, emerald-green blazer, pleated pants, silky off-white ribbed socks, polished loafers outfitted with brand-new pennies? Walter got his shoulders to twitch. He would never have gone so far as to say that he liked Mr. Reynolds or admired him, but he did have a secret sympathy for his teacher. It was true that he had more poetry committed to memory than Mr. Reynolds, and that he knew little-used words such as callipygian, long before it was the MTV word of the day, but deep down Walter was rooting for the
He half believed, in that year, with only occasional relief from his own fresh pessimism, that love was capable of killing a person, and that even a worm, digesting the particularly bitter juices, could distinguish a corpse dead from love. But there were moments, riding the el, walking the school halls, eating lunch, when he felt as if he were singing, singing without realizing. It didn’t seem impossible that he might suddenly become an enormous woman belting out a heartbreaking Puccini aria— Folle amore! He was screaming at the top of his lungs, wasn’t he? Folle ebbrezza! How could it be that Mitch was not receiving any of those musical strains? And where did the noise of the shriek, the smell of leaking gas, the melody, the words Lauretta sings, “Have pity, have pity”—where did all of that matter go when it was not absorbed by the loved one?
They walked up Michigan Avenue, the three of them linking arms, Susan between, a phalanx against the wind that swept off the lake. Walter held his collar closed and adjusted his earmuffs. Mitch never wore a hat. He jerked his head, his single defense against the freezing temperatures. If they had time they went to the Artists’ Café and drank weak coffee, emptying all of the cream from the pitcher into their cups. They often discussed the problem of the ego and the artist, the artist with the ego, the importance of the ego to the artist, the difficulty of maintaining an ego of healthy proportion, and the possibility of peaceably quelling an erupting ego. They couldn’t drive or vote or buy beer but they were virtually adults, they felt, drinking coffee, and discussing the nature of the ego, the id, the artist. Walter usually managed to recite a scrap of verse. He had absorbed some lines of Christopher Morley from Sue Rawson and was able to say, “ ‘When ego, fantailed like a peacock, can find the needle in the haycock’—something, something, something, ‘is that millennium?’ ”
“Walter,” Susan said, after he had been spouting Morley, “if you break your leg in seven places, God forbid, and can’t dance, you’d be a great English teacher. You know so much more than Mr. Reynolds.”
He felt a burst of love for her years later, when he remembered the conversation. She had allowed him an easy out, a shattered leg inorder to get on to a viable profession. At the time he tried to muster a visible shudder. Mr. Reynolds? Mr. Reynolds! The flamer in his prissy bow tie, his yellow shirt, emerald-green blazer, pleated pants, silky off-white ribbed socks, polished loafers outfitted with brand-new pennies? Walter got his shoulders to twitch. He would never have gone so far as to say that he liked Mr. Reynolds or admired him, but he did have a secret sympathy for his teacher. It was true that he had more poetry committed to memory than Mr. Reynolds, and that he knew little-used words such as callipygian, long before it was the MTV word of the day, but deep down Walter was rooting for the
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