Mr. Bridge_ A Novel - Evan S. Connell [38]
“It’s a fact, Pop, it’s a fact,” Douglas said.
He noticed that the girls, prompted by their mother’s question, were watching him politely; he suspected that all three of the children had been told to show some interest.
“Well,” he said, “since you ask, more of the same. There is a Latin phrase which pretty well sums up the situation: Unius dementia dementes efficit multos.” He smiled at Ruth, who was studying Latin at school, but she was suddenly busy with her food. And in a little while the conversation had turned to other things.
He sipped the drink, feeling too tired to eat, and wondered why he could not talk to the family about his work. At first when the children were small it was not possible, but now? What was there to say? They had asked, it was true. And whenever they asked, whether the questions were sincere or not, he had answered elliptically, turned the offer into an ironic joke. Why? He knew that he did want to confide in the family. Now they were asking. Why had he rejected the chance? He felt that he was close to understanding; then something intervened like a shade drawn down. After all, they could not possibly care about the testimony of a streetcar conductor involved in a traffic accident on the eighteenth of September of last year. The exchange with Judge Hibler made little sense out of context. Or Julia’s observation about the mechanic with the infected tattoo. None of this would make sense at the dinner table. They might listen, but it would be a strain.
No. No, he thought, as he peered into his glass, there is almost nothing I can say to them. My life is cut in half. The halves remain side by side in perfect equilibrium like halves of a melon. I suppose the same is true of most men. Or are they somehow unlike me? Are they able to share themselves?
The question was familiar. He had asked it many times.
I know very little about other men, he thought, although I go through life assuming that I do. I know only myself, but I do believe I know myself. What I am, as well as what I am not, I think I know, even if I may not know exactly what I would like to be. In any case, whatever I feel or think or see or believe is a consequence of my own sensibility, not that of some other man. I believe what I believe, and I have not yet believed a single thing only because it was believed by others, nor do I intend to. I can be grateful for this, at least: that I have kept myself. I have not once dressed up in a costume. There may be stronger consolations, but not many. Be that as it may, I cannot live differently than I do. Whatever the reasons for this, good or bad, they exist. Evidently that is enough. So, early tomorrow, I must get up again to do what I have done today. I will get up early to do this, and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and there is nothing to discuss.
43 Handful of Change
That night, before hanging his trousers in the closet he took the change out of his pocket and left it on the dresser as he always did, but the next morning he forgot it. When he came home in the evening the coins had disappeared. He supposed his wife had picked them up, but she said she had not touched the money. She had noticed it on the dresser after he left for work, but she had left it where it was. She suggested that Harriet might have put the money in a dresser drawer while she was cleaning the bedroom, but he had looked in the dresser drawers. The coins were gone. He walked into the kitchen and found Harriet filling a tray of chocolate eclairs with whipped cream. He asked if she had seen the coins. Harriet thought for a minute, then said she had not. There was no money on the dresser when she went upstairs to make the beds. She was sure of this, she said, because she had straightened the things on top of the dresser and surely would have seen any money lying there. He asked if anybody else had been in the house during the day. Harriet said that as far as she knew nobody except the children had been in the house. He did not want to ask the