Mr. Bridge_ A Novel - Evan S. Connell [95]
“Your friend Avrum Rheingold.”
“The man is scarcely a ‘friend,’ as you well know.”
“Ah, but he thinks he is.”
“As far as I am concerned he is a jackal.”
“He admires you.”
“I would sooner hear one courteous word from a man I respect than a barrel of fulsome garbage from such a man.”
“He’s taken to wearing a diamond as big as a cube of sugar on his pinky.”
“That is his privilege.”
“He dyes his hair.”
“Why do you tell me all this? You know perfectly well that what the man does, or is, is a matter of absolute indifference to me.”
“He may be moving into your neighborhood. He wants to buy the Edison house.”
“As far as I know, the Edison house is not for sale.”
“He says it is. He’s put in a bid for it.”
Mr. Bridge was silent. The thought of Avrum Rheingold living in the Edison house enraged him, but he was careful to hide his anger. He reached for his glass, took another sip of water, and cleared his throat. He did not like the feeling that swept through him, or the urge to say aloud that he approved of the pogrom in Germany.
“You really are, aren’t you,” she said as though she could read his mind. “I always suspected it.” And she began to cry.
100 New Writing, Ideas & Art
For his birthday Ruth sent a copy of Houyhnhnm together with a card announcing that he had been given a one-year subscription. It was published in Greenwich Village, which was to be expected. On the front cover was a drawing of a laborer and on the back were weakly printed photographs of contributors to the magazine, all of whom were young, three of them wearing turtleneck sweaters. He leafed through the magazine and did not much care for what he found. A portfolio of photographs of jazz musicians. A one-act play. Poems. Stories. Some pen-and-ink sketches. Several articles which looked as though they were trying to be controversial. He laid the magazine aside. However, because Ruth had given it to him he knew that sooner or later he must read a few pages. She might never know, or ask, whether he had read it or not, but because it was a gift from her he felt an obligation. In his next letter he thanked her for the subscription and said that while he had not yet gotten around to reading the first issue of Houyhnhnm he planned to do so.
Finally he could not avoid this chore any longer. He set an hour for it and when the hour came he walked into the study, shut the door, flattened Houyhnhnm on his desk, and began to study the table of contents with a dissatisfied expression. The first article was some sort of critical appraisal of a Brazilian poet. The second was a satire on Hollywood movies. Next was an interview with a former convict. Since poetry was out of the question and he already had seen the pictures there was nothing to do but look at the stories. They sounded unpromising. The first was titled “Zoo,” next was “Pipeful of Dreams,” which presumably was about narcotics, and the last, set entirely in lower-case without any punctuation, did not have a title. He considered throwing Houyhnhnm in the wastebasket. But he had promised Ruth he would read some of it, so there was no way out. He contemplated the authors on the back cover. The author of “Zoo” was a boy supposedly named Herman Hermann, who had wild eyes and a straggling beard which gave him a singular resemblance to a goat. He was so unusually repellent that Mr. Bridge decided to find out what he had written. He crossed his legs, leaned back in the swivel chair, and began.
The story consisted of a description of the houses and citizens of Sheridan Square. After finishing it he considered whether he had read enough or whether he was obligated to try something else. In another three months he was going to receive a second issue and ought to read at least one piece in that, and two further issues would follow before the year of purgatory ended. So he placed Houyhnhnm high on the bookcase where he would not come across it again by accident, and, very much relieved, went downstairs to the kitchen to fix himself a drink. Mrs. Bridge was in the kitchen preparing dinner