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fit for heroes, but I find I do not much care. I wish only to examine the nature of the real via actions of obscure delight.” Charles had done a great deal of debating in the course of his superb education—and was uncomfortably aware that he did not actually know how he felt. He was uncomfortable as well with his facility in the face of such an absence or ignorance.
    â€œYou’re simply naïve,” said Sir Edwin, apparently able to read minds.
    â€œMaybe I am,” Charles admitted.
    â€œYou are wrong.”
    â€œMaybe I am.”
    â€œYou could not be more wrong. That actors should feel delight at behavior so remote from actuality, from consequentiality, from truth, is almost unforgivably wrong. The urge to wound, to really and truly wound, is the only force that can actually animate lifeless words and weary gestures—the only force, at least, that an audience will sit still for.”
    â€œThey seem to be willing to sit through just about anything.” Charles surprised himself with this remark: Was it a truer self at last beginning to emerge?
    â€œDo not confuse desire with pleasure.” Edwin spoke with muted passion.
    â€œI must beg your pardon, maestro. Your meaning is obscure.”
    Both of them were acting, not altogether happily, but evidently unwilling or unable to leave off, to break into sincerity and earnestness.
    â€œDo not confuse desire, I tell you, with pleasure .” It was possible Sir Edwin was frustrated, annoyed. His vehemence was pitched uncertainly. He was either in the grip of something, or pretending to be. As he was a drunkard, it would never be certain.
    â€œHaving still no actionable clue as to what you are talking about, I will nevertheless promise you that if it is ever within the scope of my immature intellect to distinguish the two, I will do so. I will attempt to do so, at any rate—for no other reason than that you have said so with such clear strength of feeling.”
    â€œ Goddamn you .” Suddenly Sir Edwin was no longer acting. It was a gift.
    â€œGoddamn me.”
    â€œGoddamn you.”
    â€œAll right then,” Charles said, still game, but inwardly beginning to shy. “Goddamn me.”
    Sir Edwin turned away in disgust and Charles saw that though he had not exactly missed the man’s inscrutable and alcoholic signs and crucial but murky inflections, he had, once again, ignored them, and was now, consequently, imperiled. Sir Edwin was panting with stifled rage.
    â€œI tell you to go down there and act like a man, to grab those infants by the scruffs of their necks and shake them until it’s clear they are no longer in their playpens—and you simper like the rich parlor fucking smart ass that you incontrovertibly are and will always be. I tell you it’s nauseating and you become a pale imitation of Oscar Wilde. I CAN’T STAND IT ANYMORE!” The last was a shriek and he was now very nearly in tears. “Over and over and over again—do you not, do you really not, are you incapable, completely FUCKING INCAPABLE of understanding what we are struggling against? Conformation to the etiquette of the stage, to its infantile rules and bourgeois complacencies—it’s like fuckinga corpse. It’s loathsome. Or it would be if it were real. It is merely ridiculous, merely embarrassing.”
    Sir Edwin sat down and pulled his cloak around him so that not even his eyes could be seen. He hunched forward and appeared to be weeping, but made no sound. After a short while, he seemed to relax. He sat back and the cloak fell away from his face. He breathed deeply and evenly.
    â€œAnd so,” Charles said, “just to make sure I understand you, I am to not confuse desire with pleasure. Was that it?”
    Sir Edwin refused to look at him.
    â€œWas that fucking it ?” Charles demanded.
    Sir Edwin was weary now, and wise. “I meant only to suggest that there are layers and layers of