the brother-in-law of one of the world's most admired women.
But I do not need Smithy's reminding, nor my mother's clippings, to know how breathtaking Margaret must be—for the child of her marriage to my brother I have five times seen in the flesh, and he is the very word of loveliness, in this as in all things.
The boy's name is Rupert—and he is the child of all our dreaming.
If I say more about Rupert in regard of his unearthliness, I will not be for long free from confusion. I will—what I want to tell you will—fall victim to the disorder of sentiment, and I have promised you clarity. I have also promised someone squalor. I now intend, in all scruple and with haste, to keep both promises—and to save my brother, and everyone else, in the bargain.
Rupert will be five on his next birthday. This is the last I will say about my brother's second golden son, comma purposely omitted. The next voice you hear will be Smithy's, and I can make no boundaries for him . His italics are entirely his own.
" STOKE UP A CIGARETTE ; this is going to take a long time."
"I quit smoking. Snuffed my last butt the tenth of October. If Mom would tell you any thing, she'd tell you that , and you promised me you were going to start listening to Mom, remember?"
There was a silence—not a good silence.
"Smithy? Hey, buddy, you there?"
"Please don't buddy me right now, Buddy. Please. And please don't kid around. I've finally thought the thing out, and what I've got to do—Buddy, dear God, I cannot believe I am saying this out loud—I am going to kill my son."
I did not shift the receiver to my other ear. I did not do anything that I can especially remember. I think if I had had a cigarette handy, I would have lit it. If there had been cigarettes in this house, I would have smoked them all. If I could have asked him to wait a half hour, I would have gone into town and bought a carton. Anyway, I did nothing—and I said nothing—because it was progressively occurring to me that I did not know which son Smithy meant, and that maybe he did not know either, and that if I said something that suggested one boy or the other, the suggestion might tilt my brother in one direction or the other.
Have I told you that my brother has twice been away ? I know I haven't—because that is a fact that would certainly mislead you, and the one thing this piece of writing must not do is mislead you. But when one has a brother who has twice been away and who married a psychiatrist, one can oneself be misled by such facts. You cannot read enough of the Viennese logician to escape certain facts, and these may be among them.
"Buddy? Buddy, did you hear what I said ? You want to go get a smoke now, big brother?"
And then he started crying, sobbing wretchedly. I had always imagined men could cry like this, but I had never heard it. It went on for a long time, and I was glad it did, because I believed that whatever had given it to occur would wear itself out this way and that would be that.
But it wasn't. Smithy stopped his weeping as abruptly as he'd started it, and when he began his first new sentence, it moved to its period with austere dispassion.
There's something else I have not told you. If he wanted, my brother could give the Viennese logician cards and spades. Smithy is very, very smart, endowed with an intelligence unsurpassed in our family and as statuesque as any I've come across. Moreover—and this is why I am not sure I am doing the right thing but only what I, like our Smithy, am convinced I must do—Smithy's unyielding custom is rationalism, all the way to the gallows if this were his destiny. There has never been anyone who could break him of the habit, and this goes for our older brother too—who could, just mentionably, break anyone of anything if he wanted to, and who would not flinch over breaking himself into nineteen pieces to do it. Except Smithy of his rationalism, of course.
But our big brother never had a very long run at
But I do not need Smithy's reminding, nor my mother's clippings, to know how breathtaking Margaret must be—for the child of her marriage to my brother I have five times seen in the flesh, and he is the very word of loveliness, in this as in all things.
The boy's name is Rupert—and he is the child of all our dreaming.
If I say more about Rupert in regard of his unearthliness, I will not be for long free from confusion. I will—what I want to tell you will—fall victim to the disorder of sentiment, and I have promised you clarity. I have also promised someone squalor. I now intend, in all scruple and with haste, to keep both promises—and to save my brother, and everyone else, in the bargain.
Rupert will be five on his next birthday. This is the last I will say about my brother's second golden son, comma purposely omitted. The next voice you hear will be Smithy's, and I can make no boundaries for him . His italics are entirely his own.
" STOKE UP A CIGARETTE ; this is going to take a long time."
"I quit smoking. Snuffed my last butt the tenth of October. If Mom would tell you any thing, she'd tell you that , and you promised me you were going to start listening to Mom, remember?"
There was a silence—not a good silence.
"Smithy? Hey, buddy, you there?"
"Please don't buddy me right now, Buddy. Please. And please don't kid around. I've finally thought the thing out, and what I've got to do—Buddy, dear God, I cannot believe I am saying this out loud—I am going to kill my son."
I did not shift the receiver to my other ear. I did not do anything that I can especially remember. I think if I had had a cigarette handy, I would have lit it. If there had been cigarettes in this house, I would have smoked them all. If I could have asked him to wait a half hour, I would have gone into town and bought a carton. Anyway, I did nothing—and I said nothing—because it was progressively occurring to me that I did not know which son Smithy meant, and that maybe he did not know either, and that if I said something that suggested one boy or the other, the suggestion might tilt my brother in one direction or the other.
Have I told you that my brother has twice been away ? I know I haven't—because that is a fact that would certainly mislead you, and the one thing this piece of writing must not do is mislead you. But when one has a brother who has twice been away and who married a psychiatrist, one can oneself be misled by such facts. You cannot read enough of the Viennese logician to escape certain facts, and these may be among them.
"Buddy? Buddy, did you hear what I said ? You want to go get a smoke now, big brother?"
And then he started crying, sobbing wretchedly. I had always imagined men could cry like this, but I had never heard it. It went on for a long time, and I was glad it did, because I believed that whatever had given it to occur would wear itself out this way and that would be that.
But it wasn't. Smithy stopped his weeping as abruptly as he'd started it, and when he began his first new sentence, it moved to its period with austere dispassion.
There's something else I have not told you. If he wanted, my brother could give the Viennese logician cards and spades. Smithy is very, very smart, endowed with an intelligence unsurpassed in our family and as statuesque as any I've come across. Moreover—and this is why I am not sure I am doing the right thing but only what I, like our Smithy, am convinced I must do—Smithy's unyielding custom is rationalism, all the way to the gallows if this were his destiny. There has never been anyone who could break him of the habit, and this goes for our older brother too—who could, just mentionably, break anyone of anything if he wanted to, and who would not flinch over breaking himself into nineteen pieces to do it. Except Smithy of his rationalism, of course.
But our big brother never had a very long run at
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