When it came to concealing1 his troubles, Tommy Wilhelm was not less capable than the next fellow. So at least he thought, and there was a certain amount of evidence to back him up. He had once been an actor—no, not quite, an extra—and he knew what acting2 should be. Also, he was smoking a cigar, and when a man is smoking a cigar, wearing a hat, he has an advantage; it is harder to find out how he feels. He came from the twenty-third floor down to the lobby on the mezzanine to collect his mail before breakfast, and he believed—he hoped—that he looked passably well: doing all right. It was a matter of sheer hope, because there was not much that he could add to his present effort. On the fourteenth floor he looked for his father to enter the elevator; they often met at this hour, on the way to breakfast. If he worried about his appearance it was mainly for his old father’s sake. But there was no stop on the fourteenth, and the elevator sank and sank. Then the smooth door opened and the great dark-red uneven4 carpet that covered the lobby billowed toward Wilhelm’s feet. In the foreground the lobby was dark, sleepy. French drapes like sails kept out the sun, but three high, narrow windows were open, and in the blue air Wilhelm saw a pigeon about to light on the great chain that supported the marquee of the movie house directly underneath5 the lobby. For one moment he heard the wings beating strongly.
Most of the guests at the Hotel Gloriana were past the age of retirement6. Along Broadway in the Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties, a great part of New York’s vast population of old men and women lives. Unless the weather is too cold or wet they fill the benches about the tiny railed parks and along the subway gratings from Verdi Square to Columbia University, they crowd the shops and cafeterias, the dime7 stores, the tearooms, the bakeries, the beauty parlors8, the reading rooms and club rooms. Among these old people at the Gloriana, Wilhelm felt out of place. He was comparatively young, in his middle forties, large and blond, with big shoulders; his back was heavy and strong, if already a little stooped or thickened. After breakfast the old guests sat down on the green leather armchairs and sofas in the lobby and began to gossip and look into the papers; they had nothing to do but wait out the day. But Wilhelm was used to an active life and liked to go out energetically in the morning. And for several months, because he had no position, he had kept up his morale9 by rising early; he was shaved and in the lobby by eight o’clock. He bought the paper and some cigars and drank a Coca-Cola or two before he went in to breakfast with his father. After breakfast—out, out, out to attend to business. The getting out had in itself become the chief business. But he had realized that he could not keep this up much longer, and today he was afraid. He was aware that his routine was about to break up and he sensed that a huge trouble long presaged10 but till now formless was due. Before evening, he’d know.
Nevertheless he followed his daily course and crossed the lobby.
Rubin, the man at the newsstand, had poor eyes. They may not have been actually weak but they were poor in expression, with lacy lids that furled down at the corners. He dressed well. It didn’t seem necessary—he was behind the counter most of the time—but he dressed very well. He had on a rich brown suit; the cuffs11 embarrassed the hairs on his small hands. He wore a Countess Mara painted necktie. As Wilhelm approached, Rubin did not see him; he was looking out dreamily at the Hotel Ansonia, which was visible from his corner, several blocks away. The Ansonia, the neighborhood’s great landmark12, was built by Stanford White. It looks like a baroque palace from Prague or Munich enlarged a hundred times, with towers, domes14, huge swells15 and bubbles of metal gone green from exposure, iron fretwork and festoons. Black television antennae16 are densely17 planted on its round summits. Under the changes of weather it may look like marble or like sea water, black as slate18 in the fog, white as tufa in sunlight. This morning it looked like the image of itself reflected in deep water, white and cumulous above, with cavernous distortions underneath. Together, the two men gazed at it.
Then Rubin said, “Your dad is in to breakfast already, the old gentleman.”
“Oh, yes? Ahead of me today?”
“That’s a real knocked-out shirt you got on,” said Rubin. “Where’s it from, Saks?”
“No, it’s a Jack19 Fagman—Chicago.”
Even when his spirits were low, Wilhelm could still wrinkle his forehead in a pleasing way. Some of the slow, silent movements of his face were very attractive. He went back a step, as if to stand away from himself and get a better look at his shirt. His glance was comic, a comment upon his untidiness. He liked to wear good clothes, but once he had put it on each article appeared to go its own way. Wilhelm, laughing, panted a little; his teeth were small; his cheeks when he laughed and puffed20 grew round, and he looked much younger than his years. In the old days when he was a college freshman21 and wore a raccoon coat and a beanie on his large blonde head his father used to say that, big as he was, he could charm a bird out of a tree. Wilhelm had great charm still.
“I like this dove-gray color,” he said in his sociable22, good-natured way. “It isn’t washable. You have to send it to the cleaner. It never smells as good as washed. But it’s a nice shirt. It cost sixteen, eighteen bucks23.”
This shirt had not been bought by Wilhelm; it was a present from his boss—his former boss, with whom he had had a falling out. But there was no reason why he should tell Rubin the history of it. And although perhaps Rubin knew—Rubin was the king of man who knew, and knew and knew. Wilhelm also knew many things about Rubin, for that matter, about Rubin’s wife and Rubin’s business, Rubin’s health. None of these could be mentioned, and the great weight of the unspoken left them little to talk about.
“Well, y’lookin’ pretty sharp today,” Rubin said.
And Wilhelm said gladly, “Am I? Do you really think so?” He could not believe it. He saw his reflection in the glass cupboard full of cigar boxes, among the grand seals and paper damask and the gold-embossed portraits of famous men, García, Edward the Seventh, Cyrus the Great. You had to allow for the darkness and deformations24 of the glass, but he though he didn’t look too good. A wide wrinkle like a comprehensive bracket sign was written upon his forehead, the point between his brows, and the were patched of brown on his dark blond hair skin. He began to be half amused at the shadow of his own marveling, troubled, desirous eyes, and his nostrils25 and his lips. Fair-haired hippopotamus26!—that was how he looked to himself, He saw a big round face, a wide, flourishing red mouth, stump27 teeth. And the hat, too; and the cigar, too. I should have done hard labor28 all my life, he reflected. Hard labor that tires you out and makes you sleep. I’d have worked off my energy and felt better. Instead, I had to distinguish myself—yet.
He had put forth29 plenty of effort, but that was not the same as working hard, was it? And if as a young man had had got off to a bad start it was due to this very same face. Early in the nineteen-thirties, because of his striking looks, he had been very briefly31 considered star material, and he had gone to Hollywood. There for seven years, stubbornly, he had tried to become a screen artist. Long before that time his ambition or delusion32 had ended, but through pride and perhaps also through laziness he had remained in California. At last he turned to other things, but those seven years of persistence33 and defeat had unfitted him somehow for trades and businesses, and then it was too late to go into one of the professions. He had been slow to mature, and he had lost ground, and so he hadn’t been able to get rid of his energy and he was convinced that this energy itself had done him the greatest harm.
“I didn’t see you at the gin game last night,” said Rubin.
“I had to miss it. How did it go?”
For the last weeks Wilhelm had played gin almost nightly, but yesterday he had felt that he couldn’t afford to lose anymore. He had never won. Not once. And while the losses were small they weren’t gains, were they? They were losses. He was tired of losing, and tired also of the company, and so he had gone by himself to the movies.
“Oh,” said Rubin, “it went okay. Carl made a chump of himself yelling at the guys. This time Doctor Tamkin didn’t let him get away with it. He told him the psychological reason why.”
“What was the reason?”
Rubin said, “I can’t quote him. Who could? You know the way Tamkin talks. Don’t ask me. Do you want the Trib? Aren’t you going to look at the closing quotations34?”
“It won’t help much to look. I know what they were yesterday at three,” said Wilhelm. “But I suppose I better had get the paper.” It seemed necessary for him to lift one shoulder in order to put his hand into his jacket pocket. There, among little packets of pills and crushed cigarette butts35 and strings36 of cellophane, the red tapes of packages which he sometimes used as dental floss, he recalled that he had dropped some pennies.
“That doesn’t sound so good,” said Rubin. He meant to be conversationally37 playful, but his voice had no tone and his eyes, slack and lid-blinded, turned elsewhere. He didn’t want to hear. It was all the same to him. Maybe he already knew, being the sort of man who knew and knew.
No, it wasn’t good. Wilhelm held three orders of lard in the commodities market. He and Dr. Tamkin had bought this lard together four days ago at 12.96, and the price at once began to fall and was still falling. In the mail this morning there was sure to be a call for additional margin38 payment. One came every day.
The psychologist, Dr. Tamkin, had got him into this. Tamkin lived at the Gloriana and attended the card game. He had explained to Wilhelm that you could speculate in commodities at one of the uptown branches of a good Wall Street house without making the full deposit of margin legally required. It was up to the branch manager. If he knew you—and all the branch managers knew Tamkin—he would allow you to make short-term purchases. You needed only to open a small account.
“The whole secret of this type of speculation,” Tamkin had told him, “is in the alertness. You have to act fast—buy it and sell it; sell it and buy in again. But quick! Get to the window and have them wire Chicago at just the right second. Strike and strike again! Then get out the same day. In no time at all you turn over fifteen, twenty thousand dollars’ worth of soy beans, coffee, corn, hides, wheat, cotton.” Obviously the doctor understood the market well. Otherwise he could not make it sound so simple. “People lose because they are greedy and can’t get out when it starts to go up. They gamble, but I do it scientifically. This is not guesswork. You must take a few points and get out. Why, ye gods!” said Dr. Tamkin with his bulging39 eyes, his bald head, and his drooping40 lips. “Have you stopped to think how much dough41 people are making in this market?”
Wilhelm with a quick shift from gloomy attention to the panting laugh which entirely42 changed his face had said, “Ho, have I ever! What do you think? Who doesn’t know it’s way beyond nineteen-twenty-eight—twenty-nine and still on the rise? Who hasn’t read the Fulbright investigation43? There’s money everywhere. Everyone is shoveling it in. Money is—is—”
“And can you rest—can you sit still while this is going on?” said Dr. Tamkin. “I confess to you I can’t. I think about people, just because they have a few bucks to invest, making fortunes. They have no sense, they have no talent, they just have the extra dough and it makes them more dough. I get so worked up and tormented44 and restless, so restless! I haven’t even been able to practice my profession. With all this money around you don’t want to be a fool while everyone else is making. I know guys who make five, ten thousand a week just by fooling around. I know a guy at the Hotel Pierre. There’s nothing to him, but he has a whole case of Mumm’s champagne45 at lunch. I know another guy on Central Park South—But what’s the use of talking. They make millions. They have smart lawyers who get them out of taxes by a thousand schemes.”
“Whereas I get taken,” said Wilhelm. “My wife refused to sign a joint46 return. One fairly good year and I got into the thirty-two-per-cent bracket and was stripped bare. What of all my bad years?”
“It’s a businessman’s government,” said Dr. Tamkin. “You can be sure that these men making five thousand a week—”
“I don’t need that sort of money,” Wilhelm has said. “But oh! If I could only work out a little steady income from this. Not much. I don’t ask much. But how badly I need—! I’d be so grateful if you’d show me how to work it.”
“Sure I will. I do it regularly. I’ll bring you my receipts if you like. And do you want to know something? I approve of your attitude very much. You want to avoid catching47 the money fever. This type of activity is filled with hostile feeling and lust48. You should see what it does to some of these fellows. They go on the market with murder in their hearts.
“What’s that I once heard a guy say?” Wilhelm remarked. “A man is only as good as what he loves.”
“That’s it—just it,” Tamkin said. “You don’t have to go about it their way. There’s also a calm and rational, a psychological approach.”
Wilhelm's father, old Dr. Adler, lived in an entirely different world from his son, but he had warned him once against Dr. Tamkin. Rather casually—he was a very bland49 old man—he said, “Wilky, perhaps you listen too much to this Tamkin. He’s interesting to talk to. I don’t doubt it. I think he’s pretty common but he’s a persuasive50 man. However, I don’t know how reliable he may be.”
It made Wilhelm profoundly bitter that his father should speak to him with such detachment about his welfare. Dr. Adler liked to appear affable. Affable! His own son, his one and only son, could not speak his mind or ease his heart to him. I wouldn’t turn to Tamkin, he thought, if I could turn to him. At least Tamkin sympathizes with me and tries to give me a hand, whereas Dad doesn’t want to be disturbed.
Old Dr. Adler had retired51 from practice; he had a considerable fortune and could easily have helped his son. Recently Wilhelm had told him, “Father—it so happens that I’m in a bad way now. I hate to have to say it. You realize that I’d rather have good news to bring to you. But it’s true. And since it’s true, Dad—What else and I supposed to say? It’s true.”
Another father might have appreciated how difficult this confession52 was—so much bad luck, weariness, weakness, and failure. Wilhelm had tried to copy the old man’s tone and made himself sound gentlemanly, low-voiced, tasteful. He didn’t allow his voice to tremble; he made no stupid gesture. But the doctor had no answer. He only nodded. You might have told him that Seattle was near Puget Sound, or that the Giants and Dodgers53 were playing a night game, so little was he moved from his expression of healthy, handsome, good-humored old age. He behaved toward his son as he had formerly54 done toward his patients, and it was a great grief to Wilhelm; it was almost too much to bear. Couldn’t he see—couldn’t he feel? Had he lost his family sense?
Greatly hurt, Wilhelm struggled however to be fair. Old people are bound to change, he said. They have hard things to think about. They must prepare for where they are going. They can’t live by the old schedule any longer and all their perspectives chage, and other people become alike, kin3 and acquaintances. Dad is no longer the same person, Wilhelm reflected. He was thirty-two when I was born, and now he’s going on eighty. Furthermore, it’s time I stopped feeling like a kid toward him, a small son.
The handsome old doctor stood well above the other old people in the hotel. He was idolized by everyone. This was what people said: “That’s old Professor Adler, who used to teach internal medicine. He was a diagnostician, one of the best in New York, and had a tremendous practice. Isn't he a wonderful-looking old guy? It's a pleasure to see such a fine old scientist, clean and immaculate. He stands straight and understands every single thing you say. He still has all his buttons. You can discuss any subject with him.” The clerks, the elevator operators, the telephone girls and waitresses and chambermaids, the management flattered and pampered55 him. That was what he wanted. He had always been a vain man. To see how his father loved himself sometimes made Wilhelm madly indignant.
He folded over the Tribune with its heavy, black, crashing sensationalist print and read without recognizing any of the words, for his mind was still on his father’s vanity. The doctor had created his own praise. People were primed and did not know it. And what did he need praise for? In a hotel where everyone was busy and contacts were so brief and had such small weight, how could it satisfy him? He could be in people’s thoughts here and there for a moment; in and then out. He could never matter much to them. Wilhelm let out a long, hard breath and raised the brows of his round and somewhat circular eyes. He stared beyond the thick borders of the paper.
. . . love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Involuntary memory brought him this line. At first he thought it referred to his father, but then he understood that it was for himself, rather. He should love that well. “This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong.” Under Dr. Tamkin’s influence Wilhelm had recently begun to remember the poems he used to read. Dr. Tamkin knew, or said he knew, the great English poets and once in a while he mentioned a poem of his own. It was a long time since anyone had spoken to Wilhelm about this sort of thing. He didn’t like to think about his college days, but if there was one course that now made sense it was Literature I. The textbook was Lieder and Lovett’s British Poetry and Prose, a heavy black book with thin pages. Did I read that? he asked himself. Yes, he had read it and there was one accomplishment56 at least he could recall with pleasure. He had read “Yet once more, O ye laurels57.” How pure this was to say! It was beautiful.
Sunk though he be beneath the wat’ry floor . . .
Such things had always swayed him, and now the power of such words was far, far greater.
Wilhelm respected the truth, but he could lie and one of the things he lied often about was his education. He said he was an alumnus of Penn State; in fact he had left school before his sophomore58 year was finished. His sister Catherine had a B.S. degree. Wilhelm’s late mother was a graduate of Bryn Mawr. He was the only member of the family who had no education. This was another sore point. His father was ashamed of him.
But he had heard the old man bragging59 to another old man, saying, “My son is a sales executive. He didn’t have the patience to finish school. But he does all right for himself. His income is up in the five figures somewhere.”
“What—thirty, forty thousand?” said his stooped old friend.
“Well, he needs at least that much for his style of life. Yes, he needs that.”
Despite his troubles, Wilhelm almost laughed. Why, that boasting old hypocrite. He knew the sales executive was no more. For many weeks there had been no executive, no sales, no income. But how we love looking fine in the eyes of the world—how beautiful are the old when they are doing a snow job! It’s Dad, though Wilhelm, who is the salesman. He’s selling me. He should have gone on the road.
But what of the truth? Ah, the truth was that there were problems, and of these problems his father wanted no part. His father was ashamed of him. The truth, Wilhelm thought, was very awkward. He pressed his lips together and his tongue went soft; it pained him far at the back, in the cords and throat, and a knot of ill formed in his chest. Dad was never a pal13 to me when I was young, he reflected. He was at the office or the hospital, or lecturing. He expected me to look out for myself and never gave me much thought. Now he looks down on me. And maybe in some respects he’s right.
No wonder Wilhelm delayed the moment when he would have to go into the dining room. He had moved to the end of Rubin’s counter. He had opened the Tribune; the fresh pages drooped60 from his hands; the cigar was smoked out and the hat did not defend him. He was wrong to suppose that he was more capable than the next fellow when it came to concealing his troubles. They were clearly written out upon his face. He wasn’t even aware of it.
There was the matter of the different names, which, in the hotel, came up frequently. “Are you Dr. Adler’s son?” “Yes, but my name is Tommy Wilhelm.” And the doctor would say, “My son and I use different monickers. I uphold tradition. He’s for the new.” The Tommy was Wilhelm’s own invention. He adopted it when he went to Hollywood, and dropped the Adler. Hollywood was his own idea, too. He used to pretend that it had all been the doing of a certain talent scout61 named Maurice Venice. But the scout had never made him the definite offer of a studio connection. He had approached him, but the results of the screen test had not been good. After the test Wilhelm took the initiative and pressed Maurice Venice until he got him to say, “Well, I suppose you might make it out there.” On the strength of this Wilhelm had left college and had gone to California.
Someone had said, and Wilhelm agreed with the saying, that in Los Angeles all the loose objects in the country were collected, as if America had been tilted62 and everything that wasn't tightly screwed down had slid into Southern California. He himself had been one of those loose objects. Sometimes he told people, “I was too mature for college. I was a big boy, you see. Well, I thought, when do you start to become a man.” After he had driven a painted flivver and had worn a yellow slicker with slogans on it, and played illegal poker63, and gone out on Coke dates, he had had college. He wanted to try something new and quarreled with his parents about his career. And then a letter came from Maurice Venice.
The story of the scout was long and intricate and there were several versions of it. The truth about it was never told. Wilhelm had lied first boastfully and then out of charity to himself. But his memory was he, he could still separate what he had invented from the actual happenings, and this morning he found it necessary as he stood by Rubin’s showcase with his Tribune to recall the crazy course of the true events.
I didn’t seem even to realize that there was a depression. How could I have been such a jerk as to not prepare for anything and just go on luck and inspiration? With round gray eyes expanded and his large shapely lips closed in severity toward himself he forced open all that had been hidden. Dad I couldn’t affect one way or another. Mama was the one who tried to stop me, and we carried on and yelled and pleaded. The more I lied the louder I raised my voice, and charged-—like a hippopotamus. Poor mother! How I disappointed her. Rubin heard Wilhelm give a broken sigh as he stood with the forgotten Tribune crushed under his arm.
When Wilhlelm was aware when Rubin watched him, loitering and idle, apparently64 not knowing what to do with himself this morning, he turned to the Coca-Cola machine. He swallowed hard at the coke bottle and coughed over it, but he ignored his coughing, for he was still thinking, his eyes upcast and his lips closed behind his hand. By a peculiar65 twist of habit he wore his coat collar turned up always, as though there were a wind. It never lay flat. But on his broad back, stooped with its own weight, its strength warped66 almost into deformity, the collar of his sports coat appeared anyway to be no wider than a ribbon.
He was listening to the sound of his own voice as he explained, twenty-five years ago in the living room on West End Avenue, “But Mother, if I don’t pan out as an actor I can still go back to school.”
But she was afraid he was going to destroy himself. She said, “Wilky, Dad could make it easy for you if you wanted to go into medicine.” To remember this stifled67 him.
“I can’t bear hospitals. Besides, I might make a mistake and hurt someone or even kill a patient. I couldn’t stand that. Besides, I haven’t got that sort of brains.”
Then his mother had made the mistake of mentioning her nephew Artie, Wilhelm’s cousin, who was an honor student at Columbia in math and languages. That dark little gloomy Artie, with his disgusting narrow face, and his moles68 and self-sniffing ways and his unclean table manners, the boring habit he had of conjugating69 verbs when you went for a walk with him. “Roumanian is an easy language. You just add a tl to everything.” He was now a professor, this same Artie with whom Wilhelm had played near the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument on Riverside Drive. Not that to be a professor was in itself so great. How could anyone bear to know so many languages? And Artie also had to remain Artie, which was a bad deal. But perhaps success had changed him. Now that he had a place in the world perhaps he was better. Did Artie love his languages, and live for them, or was he also, in his heart, cynical70? So many people nowadays were. No one seemed satisfied, and Wilhelm was especially horrified71 by the cynicism of successful people. Cynicism was bread and meat to everyone. And irony72, too. Maybe it couldn’t be helped. It was probably even necessary. Wilhelm, however, feared it intensely. Whenever at the end of the day he was unusually fatigued73 he attributed it to cynicism. Too much of the world's business done. Too much falsity. He had various words to express the effect this had on him. Chicken! Unclean! Congestion74! He exclaimed in his heart. Rat race! Phony! Murder! Play the Game! Buggers!
At first the letter from the talent scout was nothing but a flattering sort of joke. Wilhelm’s picture in the college paper when he was running for class treasurer75 was seen by Maurice Venice, who wrote to him about a screen test. Wilhelm at once took the train to New York. He found the scout to be huge and oxlike, so stout76 that his arms seemed caught from beneath in a grip of flesh and fat; it looked as though it must be positively77 painful. He had little hair. Yet he enjoyed a healthy complexion78. His breath was noisy and his voice rather difficult and husky because of the fat in his throat. He had on a double-breasted suit of the type then known as the pillbox; it was chalk-striped, pink on blue; the trousers hugged his ankles.
They met and shook hands and sat down. Together these two big men dwarfed79 the tiny Broadway office and made the furnishings look like toys. Wilhelm had the color of a Golden Grimes apple when he was well, and then his thick blond hair had been vigorous and his wide shoulders unwarped; he was leaner in the jaws80, his eyes fresher and wider; his legs were then still awkward but he was impressively handsome. And he was about to make his first great mistake. Like, he sometimes thought, I was going to pick up a weapon and strike myself a blow with it.
Looming81 over the desk in the small office darkened by overbuilt midtown-sheer walls, grey spaces, dry lagoons82 of tar30 and pebbles—Maurice Venice proceeded to establish his credentials83. He said, “My letter was on the regular stationary84, but maybe you want to check on me?”
“Who, me?” said Wilhelm. “Why?”
“There’s guys who think I’m in a racket and make a charge for the test. I don’t ask a cent. I’m no agent. There ain’t no commission.”
“I never even thought of it,” said Wilhelm. Was there perhaps something fishy85 about this Maurice Venice? He protested too much.
In his husky, fat-weakened voice he finally challenged Wilhelm, “If you’re not sure, you can call the distributor and find out who I am, Maurice Venice.”
Wilhelm wondered at him. “Why shouldn’t I be sure? Of course I am.”
“Because I can see the way you size me up, and because this is a dinky office. Like you don’t believe me. Go ahead. Call. I won’t care if you’re cautious. I mean it There’s quite a few people who doubt me at first. They can’t really believe that fame and fortune are going to hit ’em.
“But I tell you I do believe you,” Wilhelm said, and bent86 inward to accommodate the pressure of his warm, panting laugh. It was purely87 nervous. His neck was ruddy and neatly88 shaved about the ears―he was fresh from the barbershop; his face anxiously glowed with his desire to make a pleasing impression. It was all wasted on Venice, who was just as concerned about the impression he was making.
“If you’re surprised, I’ll just show you what I mean,” Venice had said. “I was about fifteen months ago right in this identical same office when I saw a beautiful thing in the paper. It wasn’t even a photo but a drawing, a brassiere ad, but I knew right away that this was star material. I called up the paper to ask who the girl was, they gave me the name of the advertising89 agency; I phoned the agency and they gave me the name of the artist; I got hold of the artist and he gave me the number of the model agency. Finally, finally I got her number and phoned her and said, ‘This is Maurice Venice, scout for Kaskaskia Films.’ So right away she says, ‘Yah, so’s your old lady.’ Well, when I saw I wasn’t getting nowhere with her I said to her, ‘Well, miss, I don’t blame you. You’re a very beautiful thing and must have a dozen admirers after you all the time, boy friends who like to call and pull your leg and give a tease. But as I happen to be a very busy fellow and don’t have the time to horse around or argue, I tell you what to do. Here’s my number, and here’s the number of Kaskasia Distributors, Inc. Ask them who I am, Maurice Venice. The scout.’ She did it. A little while later she phoned me back, all apologies and excuses, but I didn’t want to embarrass her and get off on the wrong foot with an artist. I know better than to do that. So I told her it was a natural precaution, never mind. I wanted to run a screen test right away. Because I seldom am wrong about talent. If I see it, it’s there. Get that, please. And do you know who that little girl is today?”
“No,” said Wilhelm eagerly. “Who is she?”
“Venice said impressively, “ ’Nita Christenberry.”
Wilhelm sat utterly90 blank. This was failure. He didn’t know the name, and Venice was waiting for his response and would be angry.
And in fact Venice had been offended. He said, “What’s the matter with you! Don’t you read a magazine? She’s a starlet.”
“I’m sorry,” Wilhelm answered. “I’m at school and don’t have time to keep up. If I don’t know her, it doesn’t mean a thing. She made a big hit, I’ll bet.”
“You can say that again. Here’s a photo of her.” He handed Wilhelm some pictures. She was a bathing beauty—short, the usual breasts, hips91, and smooth thighs92. Yes, quite good, as Wilhelm recalled. She stood on high heels and wore a Spanish comb and mantilla. In her hand was a fan.
He had said, “She looks awful peppy.”
“Isn’t she a divine girl? And what personality! Not just another broad in the show business, believe me. He had a surprise for Wilhelm. “I have found happiness with her,” he said.
“You have?” said Wilhelm, slow to understand.
“Yes, boy, we’re engaged.”
Wilhelm saw another photograph, taken on the beach. Venice was dressed in a terry-cloth beach outfit93, and he and the girl, cheek to cheek, were looking into the camera. Below, in white ink, was written “Love at Malibu Colony.”
“I’m sure you’ll be very happy. I wish you—”
“I know,” said Venice firmly, “I’m going to be happy. When I saw that drawing, the breath of fate breathed on me. I felt it over my entire body.”
“Say, it strikes a bell suddenly,” Wilhelm had said. “Aren’t you related to Martial94 Venice the producer?”
Venice was either a nephew of the producer or the son of a first cousin. Decidedly he had not made good. It was easy enough for Wilhelm to see this now. The office was so poor, and Venice bragged96 so nervously97 and identified himself so scrupulously-—the poor guy. He was the obscure failure of an aggressive and powerful clan98. As such he had the greatest sympathy from Wilhelm.
Venice had said, “Now I suppose you want to know where you come in. I seen your school paper, by accident. You take quite a remarkable99 picture.”
“It can’t be so much,” said Wilhelm, more panting than laughing.
“You don’t want to tell me my business,” Venice said. “Leave it to me. I studied up on this.”
“I never imagined-—Well, what kind of roles do you think I’d fit?”
“All this time that we’ve been talking, I’ve been watching. Don’t think I haven’t. You remind me of someone. Let’s see who it can be—one of the great old-timers. Is it Milton Sills? No, that’s not the one. Conway Tearle, Jack Mulhall? George Bancroft? No, his face was ruggeder. One thing I can tell you, though, a George Raft type you’re not—those tough, smooth, black little characters.”
“No, I wouldn’t seem to be.”
“No, you’re not that flyweight type, with the fists, from a nightclub, and the glamorous100 sideburns, doing the tango or the bolero. Not Edward G. Robinson, either—I’m thinking aloud. Or the Cagney fly-in-your-face role, a cabbie, with that mouth and those punches.
“I realize that.”
“Not suave101 like William Powell, or a lyric102 juvenile103 like Buddy104 Rogers. I suppose you don’t play the sax? No. But—”
“But what?”
“I have you placed as the type that loses the girl to the George Raft type or the William Powell type. You are steady, faithful, you get stood up. The older women would know better. The mothers are on your side. With what they been through, if it was up to them, they’d take you in a minute. You’re very sympathetic, even the young girls feel that. You’d make a good provider. But they go more of rthe other types. It’s as clear as anything.”
This was not how Wilhelm saw himself. And as he surveyed the old ground he recognized now that he had been not only confused but hurt. Why, he thought, he cast me even then for a loser.
Wilhelm had said, with half a mind to be defiant105, “Is that your opinion?”
It never occurred to Venice that a man might object to stardom in such a role. “Here is your chance,” he said. “Now you’re just in college. What are you studying?” He snapped his fingers. “Stuff.” Wilhelm himself felt this way about it. “You may plug along fifty years before you get anywheres. This way, in one jump, the world knows who you are. You become a name like Roosevelt, Swanson. From east to west, out to China, into South America. This is no bunk106. You become a lover to the whole world. The world wants it, needs it. One fellow smiles, a billion people also smile. One fellow cries, the other billion sob107 with him. Listen, bud—” Venice had pulled himself together to make an effort. On his imagination there was some great weight which he could not discharge. He wanted Wilhelm, too, to feel it. He twisted his large, clean, well-meaning, rather foolish features as though he were their unwilling108 captive, and said in his choked, fat-obstructed voice, “Listen, everywhere there are people trying hard, miserable109, in trouble, downcast, tired, trying and trying. They need a break, right? A break through, a help, luck or sympathy.”
“That certainly is the truth,” said Wilhelm. He had seized t he feeling and he waited for Venice to go on. But Venice had no more to say; he had concluded. He gave Wilhelm several pages of blue hectographed script, stapled110 together, and told him to prepare for the screen test. “Study your lines in front of a mirror,” he said. “Let yourself go. The part should take ahold of you. Don't be afraid to make faces and be emotional. Shoot the works. Because when you start to act you're no more an ordinary person, and those things don't apply to you. You don’t behave the same way as the average.”
And so Wilhelm had never returned to Penn State. His roommate sent his things to New York for him, and the school authorities had to write to Dr. Adler to find to what had happened.
Still, for three months Wilhelm had delayed his trip to California. He wanted to start out with the blessings111 of his family, but they were never given. He quarreled with his parents and his sister. And then, when he was best aware of the risks and knew a hundred reasons against going and had made himself sick with fear, he left home. This was typical of Wilhelm. After much thought and hesitation112 and debate he invariably took the course he had rejected innumerable times. Ten such decisions made up the history of his life. He had decided95 that it would be a bad mistake to go to Hollywood, and then he went. He had made up his mind not to marry his wife, but ran off and got married. He had resolved not to invest money with Tamkin, and then had given him a check.
But Wilhelm had been eager for life to start. College was merely another delay. Venice had approached him and said that the world had named Wilhelm to shine before it. He was to be freed from the anxious and narrow life of the average. Moreover, Venice had claimed that he never made a mistake. His instinct for talent was infallible, he said.
But when Venice saw the results of the screen test he did a quick about-face. In those days Wilhelm had had a speech difficulty. It was not a true stammer113, it was a thickness of speech which the soundtrack exaggerated. The film showed that he had many peculiarities114, otherwise unnoticeable. When he shrugged115, his hand drew up within his sleeves. The vault116 of his chest was huge, but he really didn't look strong under the lights. Though he called himself a hippopotamus, he more nearly resembled a bear. His walk was bearlike, quick and rather soft, toes turned inward, as though his shoes were an impediment. About one thing Venice had been right. Wilhelm was photogenic, and his wavy117 blond hair (now graying) came out well, but after the test Venice refused to encourage him. He tried to get rid of him. He couldn’t afford to take chance on him, he had made too many mistakes already and lived in fear of his powerful relatives.
Wilhelm had told his parents, “Venice says I owe it to myself to go.” How ashamed he was now of this lie! He had begged Venice not to give him up. He had said, “Can’t you help me out? It would kill me to go back to school now.”
Then when he reached the Coast he learned that a recommendation from Maurice Venice was the kiss of death. Venice needed help and charity more than he, Wilhelm, ever had. A few years later when Wilhelm was down on his luck and working as an orderly in a Los Angeles hospital, he saw Venice’s picture in the papers. He was under indictment118 for pandering119. Closely following the trial, Wilhelm found out that Venice had indeed been employed by Kaskaskia Films but that he had evidently made use of the connection to organize a ring of call girls. Then what did he want with me? Wilhelm had cried to himself. He was unwilling to believe anything very bad about Venice. Perhaps he was foolish and unlucky, a fall guy, a dupe, a sucker. You didn’t give a man fifteen years in prison for that. Wilhelm often thought that he might write him a letter to say how sorry he was. He remembered the breath of fate and Venice’s certainty that he would be happy. ’Nita Christenberry was sentenced to three years. Wilhelm recognized her although she had changed her name.
By that time Wilhelm too had taken his new name. In California he became Tommy Wilhelm. Dr. Adler would not accept the change. Today he still called his son Wilky, as he had done for more than forty years. Well, now, Wilhelm was thinking, the paper crowded in disarray120 under his arm, there’s really very little that a man can change at will. He can’t change his lungs, or nerves, or constitution or temperament121. They’re not under his control. When he’s young and strong and impulsive122 and dissatisfied with the way things are he wants to rearrange them to assert his freedom. He can't overthrow123 the government or be differently born; he only has a little scope and maybe a foreboding, too, that essentially124 you can’t change. Nevertheless, he makes a gesture and becomes Tommy Wilhelm. Wilhelm had always had a great longing125 to be Tommy. He had never, however, succeeded in feeling like Tommy and in his soul had always remained Wilky. When he was drunk he reproached himself horribly as Wilky. “You fool, you clunk, you Wilky!” he called himself. He thought that it was a good thing perhaps that he had not become a success as Tommy since that would not have been a genuine success. Wilhelm would have feared that not he but Tommy had brought it off, cheating Wilky of his birthright. Yes, it had been a stupid thing to do, but it was his imperfect judgment126 at the age of twenty which should be blamed. He had cast off his father's name, and with it his father's opinion of him. It was, he knew it was, his bid for liberty, Adler being in his mind the title of the species, Tommy the freedom of the person. But Wilky was his inescapable self.
In middle age you no longer thought such thoughts about free choice. Then it came over you that from one grandfather you had inherited such and such a head of hair which looks like honey when it whitens or sugars in the jar; from another, broad thick shoulders; an oddity of speech from one uncle, and small teeth from another, and the wide gray eyes with darkness diffused127 even into the whites, and a wide-lipped mouth like a statue from Peru. Wandering races have such looks, the bones of one tribe, the skin of another. From his mother he had gotten sensitive feelings, a soft heart, a brooding nature, a tendency to be confused under pressure.
The changed name was a mistake, and he would admit it as freely as you liked. But this mistake couldn't be undone128 now, so why must his father continually remind him how he had sinned? It was too late. He would have to go back to the pathetic day when the sin was committed. And where was that day. Past and dead. Whose humiliating memories were these? His and not his father’s. What had he to think back on that he could call good? Very, very little. You had to forgive. First, to forgive yourself, and then general forgiveness. Didn’t he suffer from his mistakes far more than his father could.
“Oh God,” Wilhelm prayed. “Let me out of my trouble. Let me out of my thoughts, and let me do something better with myself. For all the time I have wasted I am very sorry. Let me out of this clutch and into a different life. For I am all balled up. Have mercy.”
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1
concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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dime
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| n.（指美国、加拿大的钱币）一角 | |
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parlors
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| 客厅( parlor的名词复数 )； 起居室； （旅馆中的）休息室； （通常用来构成合成词）店 | |
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morale
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| n.道德准则，士气，斗志 | |
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presaged
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| v.预示，预兆( presage的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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cuffs
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| n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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landmark
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| n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标 | |
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pal
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| n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友 | |
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domes
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| n.圆屋顶( dome的名词复数 )；像圆屋顶一样的东西；圆顶体育场 | |
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swells
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| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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antennae
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| n.天线；触角 | |
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densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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freshman
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| n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女) | |
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sociable
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| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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bucks
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| n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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deformations
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| 损形( deformation的名词复数 )； 变形； 畸形； 破相 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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hippopotamus
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| n.河马 | |
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stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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quotations
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| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
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butts
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| 笑柄( butt的名词复数 )； （武器或工具的）粗大的一端； 屁股； 烟蒂 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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conversationally
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| adv.会话地 | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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dough
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| n.生面团；钱，现款 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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48
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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49
bland
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| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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50
persuasive
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| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
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51
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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52
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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53
dodgers
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| n.躲闪者，欺瞒者( dodger的名词复数 ) | |
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54
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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55
pampered
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| adj.饮食过量的，饮食奢侈的v.纵容，宠，娇养( pamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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57
laurels
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| n.桂冠，荣誉 | |
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58
sophomore
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| n.大学二年级生；adj.第二年的 | |
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59
bragging
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| v.自夸，吹嘘( brag的现在分词 )；大话 | |
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drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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61
scout
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| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
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62
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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64
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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66
warped
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| adj.反常的；乖戾的；（变）弯曲的；变形的v.弄弯，变歪( warp的过去式和过去分词 )；使（行为等）不合情理，使乖戾， | |
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stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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68
moles
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| 防波堤( mole的名词复数 )； 鼹鼠； 痣； 间谍 | |
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conjugating
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| vt.使结合（conjugate的现在分词形式） | |
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70
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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72
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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fatigued
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| adj. 疲乏的 | |
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congestion
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| n.阻塞，消化不良 | |
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treasurer
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| n.司库，财务主管 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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dwarfed
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| vt.（使）显得矮小（dwarf的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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81
looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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82
lagoons
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| n.污水池( lagoon的名词复数 )；潟湖；（大湖或江河附近的）小而浅的淡水湖；温泉形成的池塘 | |
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83
credentials
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| n.证明，资格，证明书，证件 | |
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84
stationary
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| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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85
fishy
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| adj. 值得怀疑的 | |
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86
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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87
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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88
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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89
advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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93
outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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martial
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| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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bragged
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| v.自夸，吹嘘( brag的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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98
clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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99
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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100
glamorous
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| adj.富有魅力的；美丽动人的；令人向往的 | |
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101
suave
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| adj.温和的；柔和的；文雅的 | |
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102
lyric
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| n.抒情诗，歌词；adj.抒情的 | |
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103
juvenile
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| n.青少年，少年读物；adj.青少年的，幼稚的 | |
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104
buddy
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| n.（美口）密友，伙伴 | |
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105
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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106
bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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107
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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108
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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109
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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110
stapled
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| v.用钉书钉钉住( staple的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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111
blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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112
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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113
stammer
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| n.结巴，口吃；v.结结巴巴地说 | |
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114
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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115
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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116
vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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117
wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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118
indictment
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| n.起诉；诉状 | |
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119
pandering
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| v.迎合（他人的低级趣味或淫欲）( pander的现在分词 )；纵容某人；迁就某事物 | |
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120
disarray
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| n.混乱，紊乱，凌乱 | |
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121
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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122
impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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123
overthrow
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| v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆 | |
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124
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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125
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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126
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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127
diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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128
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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