From the Kenyon Review, Winter 1942, Vol. IV, No. 1
I.
1. In the year of our Western culture 1934, Noah Gottlieb went one Saturday morning to meet his friend, Harry Morton.
2. Harry Morton worked in The New York Public Library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. Noah Gottlieb was an artificial flower salesman.
3. Both young men were very much interested in the history of thought and in the arts. It was this that had brought them together.
4. They knew that they were intellectuals, but they disliked the title. It had for them associations with the previous decade.
5. It was for them a word associated with such an author as H. L. Mencken and the post-war period in America.
6. Yet there is no other title to describe the part they had chosen in Life. They were intellectuals, and the way in which they made their living they detested and merely endured.
7. “Yes, we are intellectuals,” Harry had said to Noah one day, “it is nothing if not an unpleasant name. Yet, come to think of it, are not all the heroes of Western culture intellectuals?
8. “Was not Ulysses an intellectual, as well as Hamlet?” “Samson and Hercules were not,” Noah replied, “don’t let your preference deceive you.” “David,” said Harry, “Solomon, Dante, Pierre Bezukhov, Prince Myshkin, Stephen Daedalus, and Sher lock Holmes!”
9. On this Saturday morning in December, Noah went to meet Harry at the great library, intending to spend the afternoon with him engaged in such dialogues, which gave both of them much pleasure.
10. He came into the building, touched once more, without deliberate attention, by the interior, all marble like a mausoleum, unending corridors of marble and vast as Grand Central.
11. He felt the quiet which was like a wide sound, marked by the low sound of hats and coats being checked, the turning of the page of a newspaper, the guard examining books at the door, and the idle seated on the marble benches on the mezzanine or at the turning of the stair.
12. Some were waiting an appointed hour, some were gazing at nothing at all, and some were merely glad to have retired from the chill air.
13. Noah waited among them until Harry came. The two young men greeted each other with habitual shyness, a shyness which did not disguise from either of them the enjoyment they took in their friendship.
14. Harry said to Noah in a tone of apology and disdain that one of the boys who worked with him had insisted on coming with him this afternoon.
15. He had looked very lonely and plaintive, Harry explained, he had practically demanded Harry’s company, and Harry had not had the heart to refuse.
16. Both young men felt a tinge of disappointment because they were unable to discuss with each other the matters which interested them most of all when other human beings were present.
17. Some had been hurt sometimes by the obvious change in Noah and Harry when a third being came among them. Both of them were sorry about this, yet enjoyed it. It sprang from interests and knowledge which were not common in the year 1934.
18. “Here he is,” said Harry as his friend Bradley Brown came up to them. “Suppose we have lunch in the Library cafeteria.”
19. At this point perhaps it should be explained that Noah and Harry ate in cafeterias much of the time. This was partly because it was inexpensive, partly because they did not come from homes to which either wanted to invite the other, and partly because a kind of cafeteria life had grown up in their lives.
20. It is the equivalent for America of the cafe life of Europe, Harry once said to Noah, and inferior to it just as the native wines are inferior: but what can we do? Where else is there to go?
21. The three young men descended to the cafeteria of the great Library.
22. It was unpleasant because it was in the basement and had to be lighted in the daytime and was weakly lighted.
23. It was weakly lighted in order to save money. For the same reason the hours during which the Library was open were perhaps going to be curtailed.
24. The world-wide cause, The Depression, was the pyramid in the shadow of which these young men were walking.
II.
1. Noah was the first one to come from the railed alley of the cafeteria and go to a table. He began to light his pipe.
2. Bradley Brown in a moment was upon him, holding a cup of coffee in his hand and looking panic-stricken.
3. “You can’t smoke here!” he hissed in a furious whisper, equally afraid of offending Noah and the cafeteria authorities.
4. Noah shook out his pipe immediately, astonished by his anxiety. He regarded Bradley Brown with curiosity.
5. Bradley Brown was returning to his place in the line, his tall and frail frame shaking nervously as he took his dishes from the counter men with gestures which seemed to enact apology.
6. When the three were seated at the cafeteria table, Noah noticed Bradley Brown’s pallor and the care with which he dressed himself.
7. The neat pin which held together the two wings of his collar seemed to Noah the essence of white-collar gentility.
8. As they began to eat, Harry felt about for a subject which would break down the strangeness between Noah and Bradley.
9. “Bradley knows a great deal about prints,” Harry said to Noah. Noah recognized the intention and said to Bradley,
10. “Have there been any good exhibitions lately?” “Yes,” said Bradley in the lowest voice possible, a kind of acute whisper.
11. “But there was one print in particular which I liked very much for a personal reason. May I tell you about it?”
12. “Why, yes,” said Noah, unable to understand this excess of courtesy. When Bradley had received Noah’s permission, he looked to Harry for his. Harry nodded his head, chewing his food.
13. “The subject of this print was a child sleeping in a cemetery,” Bradley continued. “What interested me so much was that when I was a child, I too used to take my nap in the cemetery near our house.
14. “It was a big cemetery and full of still unused stretches of well-cared for grass reserved by the living in anticipation.
15. “My parents would take me there on Sunday afternoons in the spring and the summer and the early fall. This was two or three years before The World War.”
16. Harry looked at Bradley as if to say, “Well, what of it?” and the panic-stricken look appeared again on Bradley’s face.
17. Noah was moved to sympathy, and to help Bradley with a story which was pointless, he said to him,
18. “When I was a child, I would have been afraid to sleep in a cemetery, even in the daytime. And when we passed a cemetery in a car at night, I was afraid, and thought that I smelt de cay in the air, and feared that I might see ghosts in the night air above the graves. I was horrified by any thought of death!”
19. “I was not!” said Bradley, with delight in his soft voice, as if delight in his distinction from Noah, “I liked to sleep in the cemetery on those Sunday afternoons.
20. “The stone angels and the crosses soothed me and pleased me, as if they were figures in a fairy tale. My parents left me there and looked at me from the gravel path between the graves.
21. “Now I remember their serious smiling beautiful faces, as if it were last week. Both of them died a few years later, in the influenza pandemic of 1919.
22. “I was at a military academy when they died, too far away to come back for the funeral. For that reason I remember them mostly as they looked on those warm Sunday afternoons. . . .”
23. “In their mature beauty,” he added quickly and in an even lower tone, as if ashamed to bare such sentiments by such words.
24. “If,” he continued, “I fell asleep and did not wake up too soon, as a special treat I was taken to the bridge which crosses the Harlem River.
25. “There I was permitted to watch the Montreal train race by below. It was a special treat like ice cream,” he added lamely.
26. “What about the print?” asked Harry, “O, yes, the print,” said Bradley, “I have quite forgotten about the print.
27. “The print astonished me so much because it brought back to me so completely these feelings of childhood, as if the artist himself had had just such experiences in his childhood.”
28. His voice lowered itself as he became aware that Harry regarded what he was saying as pointless.
29. Again Noah felt sympathy and wished to help the stranger. He knew that Harry was now beginning to feel Bradley’s intrusion on their afternoon more than ever.
30. Noah presented an instance of his own feelings about death from his own childhood. He told them how a lady book salesman had come to the door one day, in the winter, years ago.
31. She wanted Noah’s mother to buy two big medical books. In order to persuade Noah’s mother, she hinted at sexual revelations in the book. Noah was commanded to depart from the living room.
32. He tried to overhear what the lady book salesman was saying, but he could not. His curiosity was overwhelming and ravenous.
33. When she went away, the books were left in the house Tand an initial deposit was given to her. As soon as his mother was out of the house, Noah took the two fat books
34. And looked for the pages which would have sexual revelations and came upon pictures of the dead instead.
35. He was so appalled by them that he could not sleep at night because he saw those images.
36. Only when the books were at last sent back, and he knew that images of the dead were not in the fat books on the bookcase in the hallway, was he relieved.
37. “I had many such experiences,” said Noah, “I was afraid to pass the apartment door of the family in which someone had died.”
38. Bradley was profoundly interested in this story, but Harry was piqued by the whole conversation. He was about to make an ironic remark when Noah rose to forestall him.
39. They were finished, and as they walked from the cafeteria, Harry’s impatient feeling had to be expressed.
40. “During my childhood,” Harry said, “I did not know that anyone died. That is the natural normal state of mind of child hood. You two, both of you, like to cultivate your morbidity. It does not mean anything.”
41. “And when I was a boy and went to camp for the first time—our family was still rich—my counsellor put a fat gob of butter in his soft-boiled egg, and then I knew what sensuality was! That’s what impressed me in childhood!”
42. Noah and Bradley were silent, bemused by the feelings that the conversation had unexpectedly brought to the surface.
III.
1. The three young men started to descend the flights of steps of the Library, between the two stone lions, couchant, above Fifth Avenue.
2. On the steps, huddled in small groups, human beings, for the most part foreign-looking, were arguing with passionate interest. One man was speaking with the loudness which counterfeits authority.
3. Noah, Harry, and Bradley heard what he was saying. He was declaring with utter certainty that every act of Roosevelt and The New Deal was a crime against The Working Class.
4. His opponent had just maintained in a perplexed voice that some of the measures of The New Deal had helped the un employed. He had seen that this was so. They had money with which to buy food because of Roosevelt.
5. “You are ignorant and short-sighted,” declared the authoritative man, “The State is the instrument of The Ruling Class. Everything it does is an attack on The Working Class, in the long run.
6. “But they had money with which to buy milk and pay the rent,” said the other man weakly but stubbornly.
7. “That does not mean what you think it means,” said the authority, “Those concessions are merely tricks which pave the way to greater oppression by weakening the militancy of The Working Class!”
8. “But they had something to eat, at least,” said the perplexed man. “Don’t be foolish. Face the facts, don’t bury your head in the sand like an ostrich,” said the authoritative man. “The State is the instrument of The Ruling Class.”
9. “Abstractions blind you,” said a new-comer, “Why don’t you be concrete? Some human beings have more to eat than when Hoover was President!”
10. “You have to see the whole objective condition from the perspective of History. You cannot escape from History!” said the authority, recognizing in the newcomer a more difficult antagonist.
11. Noah, Harry, and Bradley had paused and listened with interest to this argument of 1934. They started to go away from the library as the cowed authority was declaring that Roosevelt’s subjective intentions might be very fine.
12. “But,” he said, “subjective intentions do not mean anything. Only objective conditions determine the movement of History.”
13. “What a sad view of Life and of the human will,” said Noah as they walked out of earshot of the argument.
14. “Yes,” said Bradley, demurely, as they began to walk up Fifth Avenue full of the busy gay expectant mood of the last few days before Christmas, “How sad they sound, how wrong they are about Life—
15. “They speak,” Bradley continued, “as if the world existed outside of the mind!”
16. “Where does the world exist,” said Harry, “What is it this time, Bradley—Christian Science? Bradley,” Harry said with irony to Noah, “has a kneeling acquaintance with all the more esoteric religious societies in the city of New York.”
17. “It is necessary to believe in something,” Bradley defended himself. “It is true, I have tried to become acquainted with more than one Weltanschauung. That is the reasonable method!”
18. “But seriously,” he continued, “most human beings make an enormous mistake when they believe that the world exists apart from the mind. It is the cause of much unhappiness.”
19. Just then they crossed 44th Street. A turning car passed, making Bradley draw back nervously, it came so close. Loudly Harry emphasized this to Bradley.
20. “You are as naive as Dr. Johnson,” said Bradley, serenely, sweetly, and as if with perfect conviction.
21. “Just what do you believe,” Noah inquired, “Do you believe that everything is what thinking makes it ?”
22. “Not exactly,” Bradley replied, whispering amid the blare of the traffic, “But is it not true that all experience comes to one through the medium of one’s consciousness?
23. “It is as if the senses were stained glass windows, and one only saw the light through the stained glass windows of one’s senses.
24. “What the light is beyond the stained glass windows, you do not know. What a thing is, apart from the way you see it, you do not know, do you? How can you?
25. “You do not even know that anything exists apart from your own being. For all practical purposes,” Bradley said with emphasis, “the whole world is your own private dream!”
26. ‘For all practical purposes,” said Noah, shocked by this view, “the world is just what is not you or your mind! It continues in its brutal way to unfold its nature, no matter what you want or think! It is December in New York in 1934. The weather is cold and it is going to snow. Try to make it Florida, Bradley.”
27. “Bravo,” said Harry, “Noah Gottlieb defends the external world on Fifth Avenue and 46th Street four days before Christmas 1934!”
28. “No, no,” said Bradley in passionate reply to Noah, “I can go to Florida.” “No, you can’t,” declared Harry, “You would lose your job and be penniless in no time.”
29. “That is not relevant,” said Bradley, “I can imagine that I am there or I can go there by means of certain motions, modi fications, and changes decided upon and performed by my mind. My mind !” he cried in triumph and anguish.
30. “It does not mean anything,” said Harry to himself, “Then you think,” said Noah, “that each of us is really utterly apart from every other human being ?”
31. “Yes, I do!” said Bradley, “Each of us is alone in his private dream. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on!”
32. “You have taken Shakespeare’s metaphor literally,” said Harry in anger. He had been annoyed with Bradley from the start because he had intruded on his afternoon with Noah. Now he was very angry for this reason and because he took such arguments very seriously.
33. We are walking beside each other in parallel lines which never meet, said Bradley serenely and complacently, “we never see each other. You would not be made angry by this argument, Harry, if you but recognized the truth that we do not communicate with each other. It is an illusion to think that we do.”
34. “Do you really think that I don’t exist?” said Harry, be side himself with anger, “Am I only a figment of your mind?”
35. “Yes!” said Bradley serenely.
36. “There is only one answer to that, Noah,” said Harry in his anger, “Let us go away from this dreamer!”
IV.
1. There is a moment in every conflict when an overwhelming urge is felt to resolve it by making a quick departure.
2. This might be called the Hawaiian moment of every conflict, for it springs from the desire to escape. But it is also a very strong way of showing one’s independence of being, which is so much awakened and sharpened by conflict.
3. The three young men had reached this moment because of Harry’s anger. His anger was so great he unable to speak. He tugged at Noah’s sleeve, to show he wanted to leave Bradley standing there.
4. The Fifth Avenue crowd flowed about the three young men as they stood there looking at one another. Bradley wore a deer-like look of fright.
5. “Don’t take this argument so seriously,” said Noah to Harry, feeling sorry for Bradley and instinctively against any anger which was not his own.
6. “Seriously!” said Harry, “Suppose he said the globe was flat?” This failed, even for Harry, to express what Harry felt about Bradley’s foolishness. He tried again,
7. “Why should we walk and talk to a human being who tells us that we do not exist? It is ridiculous!”
8. And just then, as he said that on the corner of 47th Street and Fifth Avenue, the green light changed to red and the crowd that had started to cross the street was pressed back.
9. A pretty young woman who was with a young man was pressed back against Bradley who was looking shyly at Harry. Backing up as the crowd was pressed back, she bumped into Bradley and shook him.
10. Bradley was startled. The heavy young man who was with the pretty young woman turned a vague and bilious eye on Brad ley and saw his startled look.
11. “O,” he said, “bumping into my girl !” It was obvious that he was drunk, “bumping into my girl’s dignity!”
12. “1 beg your pardon,” said Bradley politely and in the lowest possible voice, “She backed up and bumped into me.” Nervously he drew his hands back.
13. “I know your kind,” said the drunkard, inspired by Bradley’s nervousness and fear, “you can’t get a girl of your own, but you walk in crowds and make believe it is an accident. For two cents, I would break your head.”
14. Bradley recoiled, paralysed. The pretty young woman grasped her escort by the arm and said, “Stop it, Johnny, it was an accident.” “Now look here,” said Noah, to defend Bradley.
15. “Let go my arm,” said Johnny to his girl, “I will break your head too,” he said to Noah.
16. Harry moved forward, “You won’t break anyone’s head but your own!” Johnny was taken aback for a moment.
17. Harry said quickly to Noah, “This was bound to happen, it was inevitable, the dignity of the external world was bound to make itself felt!”
18. “You and who else?” said Johnny to Harry. Again his girl tried to draw him away, clearly nervous and ashamed. “Let go my arm,” said Johnny to her, “Let go my arm.”
19. “Johnny, if you don’t stop it this minute I am going right home,” said the girl. “O,” said Johnny, “you want to show everyone in public who wears the panties in our family!”
20. “Johnny!” said the girl in despair. Johnny replied, “Maybe you like strangers to bump into your dignity. But no one is going to bump into my girl’s dignity and get away with it.
21. With a clumsy lunge of his arm, he punched Bradley in the nose. Harry and Noah pinioned his arms, but Bradley was knocked down as they moved forward to stop Johnny.
22. “Let me go,” cried Johnny. Noah, holding him, smelt the whiskey on his breath. “Let me go, I tell you!” A crowd had gathered about them, neutral and absorbed.
23. Harry helped Bradley to his feet, saying, “You have just been punched by the external world.” But then he saw that Bradley’s nose was bleeding and that he was on the verge of tears, and he felt very sorry.
24. “Call a cop,” said Harry, seeing that Noah and Johnny’s girl were having a hard time holding back Johnny, “Arrest this truculent drunkard!” “I hate to call in the law of our unjust society, but my mother did not bring me up to be a pugilist,” Harry said to himself, looking about for the cop.
25. A policeman arrived, drawn by the crowd. “What’s the matter here?” he said, in a husky authoritative unpleasant voice. “Break it up now,” he said to the bystanders.
26. “Arrest this man,” said Harry, “He’s drunk and he has just knocked down someone.” Johnny called to the policeman,
27. “He bumped into my girl’s dignity, so I knocked him down. Anyone with red blood in his veins would knock a man down if he bumped into his girl’s dignity, any American.”
28. The policeman saw that Johnny was drunk and that Bradley’s nose was bleeding. He took Johnny sternly by the arm.
29. “Let me go,” said Johnny once more, “arrest him,” pointing to Bradley, “he’s a sex-fiend!”
30. “Shut up,” said the policeman, “You’ll be sorry, you’ll be sorry,” said Johnny, “my uncle’s a powerful politician. You’ll get what’s coming to you for this.”
31. The gazing interested crowd laughed, and the annoyed policeman felt that he must reply, “All right, tell your uncle. There’s no politics in our department.”
32. “There’s politics in Paradise!” cried Johnny at the top of his voice, and the crowd laughed again. “Worthy of Dante,” said Noah to himself.
33. The policeman drew Johnny firmly away, saying as he left to Harry, “Come to the 49th Street station if you want to prefer charges against him.” Johnny’s girl had disappeared.
34. Bradley was standing against a show window, trying to staunch the flow of blood from his nose and looking as if he were trying to stop himself from bursting into tears also.
35. “Do you still believe that the external world does not exist?” asked Harry, as the crowd broke up.
36. Bradley looked at him with a stony desperate look for a moment. His face began to contract as if he were now going to burst into tears. His parted lips visibly quivered. The moment of tears was near.
37. “O, go to hell,” he said, in a voice which strove in vain to sound hard and masculine. He burst into actual tears at last, and turned and left them there, making his complete departure.
38. Noah, maudlin with pity, wanted to go after him. Harry stopped Noah. “What’s the use? Let him go. He is a ghost. He is lost.”
39. The two young men walked on up Fifth Avenue, op pressed on all sides by the heights and powers of the great city, the immense buildings above them, the hurrying racketing traffic before them and beside them, the fashionable stores at one side, and the crowd which flowed ignorantly by them.
40. “He is damned,” said Harry, “He is fast asleep in the cemetery on Sunday afternoon in 1912, a child regarded by his parents, who are dead.
41. “When he wakes up, they will let him stand on the bridge above the Harlem and look when the Montreal train goes by, below, far away from him.
42. “But he will never wake up to this,” said Harry, pointing to the great city moving about them in 1934.
