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Authors: Edmund White
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glasses, her brilliant stockings, their intellectual brilliance. L\iine had the long neck and strong calves of a dancer, and the slighdy obscene turnout; Buder folded back like the couch into himself, calm, poised, even elegant. His manner was lordly but intended to be accessible, like that of an Oriental despot vacationing at Saint-Tropez with just one wife. But if he appeared as though he were about to extend his beautiful large hand to be kissed, his facial expressions alternated complacence with a nervous critique of everything going on around him.
He seemed to have acquired his expectations and standards from nineteenth-century novels; he was repeatedly shocked by the impertinence or unseemliness of the Village gay guys milling around us, who'd had a few drinks and were now talking loudly, at once members of rival gangs and potential lovers. They weren't writers or even readers—they were just guys hoping to get laid on a Saturday night. Two fellows were even groping each other in the doorway and a small freckled hand had lifted a T-shirt to stroke a well turned brown waist. Was Buder really shocked by this tipsy, amorous rough-housing, or was he anticipating Lynne's reaction in order to defuse it? Why had he brought his wife to a gay party?
Our dainty hostess kept casting bemused glances our way as an adorably sulky Rod stretched out on the floor and buried his unkempt head in her lap. He'd drunk too much wine and was apparently wounded that two of the days, or dates, in last month's very rich calendar were merging in the bedroom, which Rod pretended was a violation of house rules, although the only rule it broke was his heart—or vanity. The dog was pulling on his shoe laces. Penelope crooned and whispered reassuring things to him—and soon enough was free to slip out from under the burden of his sleeping, smiling head.
She made her way over to us. "You're certainly the most fascinating group here," she said with a smile that projected good will and conveyed curiosity. Her articulation was perfect, like that of a school librarian, but I had the impression she wouldn't have blurred her speech even if she'd known it was grating since everything about her—her cool, ironic regard, her high heels and hair, her somewhat Victorian fashion sense crossed with the reigning look of the bug-eyed, bedraggled moppet—everything seemed born out of a complex fantasy of her own devising rather than out of a desire to please or follow fads. Her self-presentation was as entranced and impregnable as someone else's erotic scenario.
We were all bookish, as it turned out, and we talked about Proust, Isherwood, Stendhal, with the zest of true readers, excited into appreciation not analysis, endlessly eager to evoke favorite scenes and to judge characters as though they were real people. "Oh, God, remember when they realize they're in love just because the word love is pronounced—"
"Is she his aunt or his mother? I forget."
Lynne kept mentioning James Baldwin, and I wondered if it was because they were both Black. If we'd been Europeans, snobbism might
The Farewell Symphony
have slipped into our talk, but since reading bore no cachet at all in America we were reduced to a pleasure as inconsequential as that of the stamp collector or armchair traveler.
What I liked most of all was that all three of my new acquaintances were not only bookish but also beautiful.
"Do you wTite?" I asked Penelope.
"Yes," she said, "though I shouldn't talk about it since I've never published anything."
"Join the crowd," I said. "What are you working on?"
She smiled a dodgy little smile, as though I might be mocking or stalking her, but she overcame her fear— and her vanity—to say with great firmness, "No one, not even Rod, has ever read anything I've written, though you'll all be encouraged to buy my first novel as soon as it comes out."
"Come on, tell," I said.
She straightened her skirt around her knees and said, "That would be against
He seemed to have acquired his expectations and standards from nineteenth-century novels; he was repeatedly shocked by the impertinence or unseemliness of the Village gay guys milling around us, who'd had a few drinks and were now talking loudly, at once members of rival gangs and potential lovers. They weren't writers or even readers—they were just guys hoping to get laid on a Saturday night. Two fellows were even groping each other in the doorway and a small freckled hand had lifted a T-shirt to stroke a well turned brown waist. Was Buder really shocked by this tipsy, amorous rough-housing, or was he anticipating Lynne's reaction in order to defuse it? Why had he brought his wife to a gay party?
Our dainty hostess kept casting bemused glances our way as an adorably sulky Rod stretched out on the floor and buried his unkempt head in her lap. He'd drunk too much wine and was apparently wounded that two of the days, or dates, in last month's very rich calendar were merging in the bedroom, which Rod pretended was a violation of house rules, although the only rule it broke was his heart—or vanity. The dog was pulling on his shoe laces. Penelope crooned and whispered reassuring things to him—and soon enough was free to slip out from under the burden of his sleeping, smiling head.
She made her way over to us. "You're certainly the most fascinating group here," she said with a smile that projected good will and conveyed curiosity. Her articulation was perfect, like that of a school librarian, but I had the impression she wouldn't have blurred her speech even if she'd known it was grating since everything about her—her cool, ironic regard, her high heels and hair, her somewhat Victorian fashion sense crossed with the reigning look of the bug-eyed, bedraggled moppet—everything seemed born out of a complex fantasy of her own devising rather than out of a desire to please or follow fads. Her self-presentation was as entranced and impregnable as someone else's erotic scenario.
We were all bookish, as it turned out, and we talked about Proust, Isherwood, Stendhal, with the zest of true readers, excited into appreciation not analysis, endlessly eager to evoke favorite scenes and to judge characters as though they were real people. "Oh, God, remember when they realize they're in love just because the word love is pronounced—"
"Is she his aunt or his mother? I forget."
Lynne kept mentioning James Baldwin, and I wondered if it was because they were both Black. If we'd been Europeans, snobbism might
The Farewell Symphony
have slipped into our talk, but since reading bore no cachet at all in America we were reduced to a pleasure as inconsequential as that of the stamp collector or armchair traveler.
What I liked most of all was that all three of my new acquaintances were not only bookish but also beautiful.
"Do you wTite?" I asked Penelope.
"Yes," she said, "though I shouldn't talk about it since I've never published anything."
"Join the crowd," I said. "What are you working on?"
She smiled a dodgy little smile, as though I might be mocking or stalking her, but she overcame her fear— and her vanity—to say with great firmness, "No one, not even Rod, has ever read anything I've written, though you'll all be encouraged to buy my first novel as soon as it comes out."
"Come on, tell," I said.
She straightened her skirt around her knees and said, "That would be against
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