“Oh, I know you think it doesn’t, but it does. When you go into a restaurant you never look at the prices. Now, your husband, he can buy you all these things. He can buy you anything you want, he’s loaded, but I’m just a poor kid. I guess I’m sort of a lone wolf. I guess most poor people are. I’ll never live in a house like yours. I’ll never get to join a country club. I’ll never have a place at the beach. And I’m still hungry,” he said, looking at the empty sandwich plate. “I’m still growing, you know. I have to have lunch. I don’t want to seem ungrateful or anything but I’m hungry.”
“You go down to the dining room, darling,” she said, “and get some lunch. Here’s five dollars.” She kissed him and then as soon as he was gone she left the hotel herself.
She wandered around the streets—she had no place to go—wondering what had been the first in the chain of events that had brought her to where she was. The barking of a dog, the dream of a castle or her boredom at Mrs. Wishing’s dance. She went home, and regard this lovely woman then, getting off the train in Proxmire Manor. See what she does. See what happens to her.
She wears a mink coat and no hat. Her car is a convertible. She drives up the hill to her house whose whiteness seems to authenticate her purity. How could anyone who lives in such a decorous environment be sinful? How could anyone who has so much Hepplewhite—so much Hepplewhite in good condition—be shaken by unruly lusts? She embraces her only son with tears in her eyes. This love for the boy seems to be one more thing to be crowded into her soul. Alone in her bedroom she doubled over with need and groaned like a bitch in rut. He seemed—his phantom—to cross the room and while she knew the plainness of his mind his skin seemed to shine; he seemed to be some golden Adam. She wanted to forget him. She wanted absolution. She had taken a lover, but was this so revolutionary? She had perhaps been mistaken in her choice, but wasn’t this, in the history of things, as common as rain? She thought briefly of confessing to Moses but she knew his pride well enough to know that he would fire her out of the house. She felt herself gored. She had hoped to be a natural woman, sensual but unromantic, able to take a lover cheerfully and to leave him cheerfully when the time came. What had been revealed to her was the force of guilt and lust within her own disposition. She had transgressed the canons of a decorous society and she seemed impaled on the decorum she despised. The pain was unbearable and she went downstairs and poured herself a drink. She would have been ashamed, that early in the day, to ask the cook for ice and she watered the whisky in the bathroom and drank it there.
The drink made her feel better. She quickly had another. She was not able to exorcise the image of Emile but she was able, slowly, and with the help of whisky, to put the image in a different light. He came toward her with his arms out and drew her down but now he seemed evil, he seemed to intend to debase and destroy her. She had been innocent, she had been wronged! That was it. The comfort of attributing evil to him was enormous. He had preyed on her innocence! But how, remembering the trip to Nantucket when she had received from him only the most heartening and gentle lasciviousness, could she claim to be innocent, to have been wronged? The comfort of absolution vanished and she drank some more whisky. By the time Moses came home she was quite drunk.
Moses said nothing. He thought she must have received some bad news. She seemed drowsy, she dropped a lighted cigarette on the rug and going in to dinner she stumbled and nearly fell. When Moses went out to put the cars in the garage she went to the bar and drank some whisky from a bottle. As drunk as she was she could not sleep. Moses did not touch her but as he lay beside her she thought that a small scar in the hair on Emile’s belly was more precious to her than the enormousness of all of Moses’ love. When Moses went to sleep she went downstairs and poured herself more whisky. She drank until three o’clock but when she went to bed the image of Emile, her golden Adam, was still vivid. To distract herself she planned the renovation of her kitchen. She removed the old range, refrigerator, dishwasher and sink, chose a new linoleum, a new garbage disposal unit, a new color scheme, a new means of lighting. Was this some foolishness of hers or of her time that, caught in the throes of a hopeless love, the only peace of mind that she could find was in imagining new stoves and linoleum?
