to stop you giving him the check. Then I made you stop payment. I won’t let you give in. Anyhow, the whole thing— take it from me—is over.”
So I submitted. I couldn’t challenge George’s judgment. Now Cantabile had hit my car with everything he had. The blood left my heart when I saw what he had done. I dropped back against the building for support. I had gone out one evening to amuse myself in vulgar company and I had fallen into the moronic inferno.
Vulgar company was not my own expression. What I was in fact hearing was the voice of my ex-wife. It was Denise who used terms like “common clay” and “vulgar company.” The fate of my poor Mercedes would have given her very deep satisfaction. This was something like war, and she had an intensely martial personality. Denise hated Renata, my lady friend. She correctly identified Renata with this automobile. And she loathed George Swiebel. George, however, took a complex view of Denise. He said that she was a great beauty but not altogether human. Certainly Denise’s huge radial amethyst eyes in combination with a low-lined forehead and sharp sibylline teeth supported this interpretation. She is exquisite, and terribly fierce. Down-to-earth George is not without myths of his own, especially where women are concerned. He has Jungian views, which he expresses coarsely. He has fine feelings which frustrate him because they fiddle his heart, and he overreacts grossly. Anyway, Denise would have laughed with happiness at the sight of this ruined car. And I? You would have thought that being divorced I had escaped the marital “I-told-you-so.” But here I was, supplying it myself.
For Denise continually spoke to me about myself. She would say, “I just can’t believe the way you are. The man who’s had all those wonderful insights, the author of all these books, respected by scholars and intellectuals all over the world. I sometimes have to ask myself, ‘Is that my husband? The man I know?’ You’ve lectured at the great Eastern universities and had grants and fellowships and honors. De Gaulle made you a knight of the Legion of Honor and Kennedy invited us to the White House. You had a successful play on Broadway. Now what the hell do you think you’re doing? Chicago! You hang around with your old Chicago school chums, with freaks. It’s a kind of mental suicide, death wish. You’ll have nothing to do with really interesting people, with architects or psychiatrists or university professors. I tried to make a life for you when you insisted on moving back here. I put myself out. You wouldn’t have London or Paris or New York, you had to come back to this—this deadly, ugly, vulgar, dangerous place. Because at heart you’re a kid from the slums. Your heart belongs to the old West Side gutters. I wore myself out being a hostess. . . .”
There were large grains of truth in all of this. My old mother’s words for Denise would have been “ Edel, gebildet, gelassen ,” for Denise was an upper-class person. She grew up in Highland Park. She went to Vassar College. Her father, a federal judge, also came from the West Side Chicago gutters. His father had been a precinct captain under Morris Eller in the stormy days of Big Bill Thompson. Denise’s mother had taken the judge when he was a mere boy, only the son of a crooked politician, and straightened him out and cured him of his vulgarity. Denise had expected to do as much with me. But oddly enough her paternal inheritance was stronger than the maternal. On days when she was curt and tough, in her high tense voice you heard that old precinct captain and bagman, her grandfather. Because of this background, perhaps, she hated George fiercely. “Don’t bring him to the house,” she said. “I can’t bear to see his ass on my sofa, his feet on my rug.” Denise said, “You’re like one of those overbred race horses that must have a goat in his stall to calm his nerves. George Swiebel is your
So I submitted. I couldn’t challenge George’s judgment. Now Cantabile had hit my car with everything he had. The blood left my heart when I saw what he had done. I dropped back against the building for support. I had gone out one evening to amuse myself in vulgar company and I had fallen into the moronic inferno.
Vulgar company was not my own expression. What I was in fact hearing was the voice of my ex-wife. It was Denise who used terms like “common clay” and “vulgar company.” The fate of my poor Mercedes would have given her very deep satisfaction. This was something like war, and she had an intensely martial personality. Denise hated Renata, my lady friend. She correctly identified Renata with this automobile. And she loathed George Swiebel. George, however, took a complex view of Denise. He said that she was a great beauty but not altogether human. Certainly Denise’s huge radial amethyst eyes in combination with a low-lined forehead and sharp sibylline teeth supported this interpretation. She is exquisite, and terribly fierce. Down-to-earth George is not without myths of his own, especially where women are concerned. He has Jungian views, which he expresses coarsely. He has fine feelings which frustrate him because they fiddle his heart, and he overreacts grossly. Anyway, Denise would have laughed with happiness at the sight of this ruined car. And I? You would have thought that being divorced I had escaped the marital “I-told-you-so.” But here I was, supplying it myself.
For Denise continually spoke to me about myself. She would say, “I just can’t believe the way you are. The man who’s had all those wonderful insights, the author of all these books, respected by scholars and intellectuals all over the world. I sometimes have to ask myself, ‘Is that my husband? The man I know?’ You’ve lectured at the great Eastern universities and had grants and fellowships and honors. De Gaulle made you a knight of the Legion of Honor and Kennedy invited us to the White House. You had a successful play on Broadway. Now what the hell do you think you’re doing? Chicago! You hang around with your old Chicago school chums, with freaks. It’s a kind of mental suicide, death wish. You’ll have nothing to do with really interesting people, with architects or psychiatrists or university professors. I tried to make a life for you when you insisted on moving back here. I put myself out. You wouldn’t have London or Paris or New York, you had to come back to this—this deadly, ugly, vulgar, dangerous place. Because at heart you’re a kid from the slums. Your heart belongs to the old West Side gutters. I wore myself out being a hostess. . . .”
There were large grains of truth in all of this. My old mother’s words for Denise would have been “ Edel, gebildet, gelassen ,” for Denise was an upper-class person. She grew up in Highland Park. She went to Vassar College. Her father, a federal judge, also came from the West Side Chicago gutters. His father had been a precinct captain under Morris Eller in the stormy days of Big Bill Thompson. Denise’s mother had taken the judge when he was a mere boy, only the son of a crooked politician, and straightened him out and cured him of his vulgarity. Denise had expected to do as much with me. But oddly enough her paternal inheritance was stronger than the maternal. On days when she was curt and tough, in her high tense voice you heard that old precinct captain and bagman, her grandfather. Because of this background, perhaps, she hated George fiercely. “Don’t bring him to the house,” she said. “I can’t bear to see his ass on my sofa, his feet on my rug.” Denise said, “You’re like one of those overbred race horses that must have a goat in his stall to calm his nerves. George Swiebel is your
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