The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [297]
Thick nose, long sideburns. You know the type. Well, the poor fellow is going crazy. And now he finds that in the whole suburb where he lives he's the only one who didn't know about it. They're seen in the car, parked all over the vicinity. The woods, the bushes. It comes down on him like a busted house. 'Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now?'" Oh, the poor guy. My heart broke for him. "People start to tell him, 'Throw her out, man! Don't be a damn chump. This other guy has been ramming her and been her fancy-man at your expense.' So not able to stand it any more, he accuses her. Why, she denies everything. Every single thing. He brings out names, dates, places, therefore, and there's nothing she can say. All is true. Then she says, 'I won't leave this house and the children, they're mine.' He comes to me and asks advice. All the law is on his side. He can throw her in the street if he wants. But does he want? No!" Like the wife of Hosea who fooled around, I thought: "Thou shalt abide for me many days." "And I'll tell you something else. She loved her husband too. That's how clouded the situation can be. She gave up the fancy pimp. And then the neighbors saw her and the husband in the movies holding hands and kissing like young lovers." I was glad it had turned out like that, and they forgave each other.' My heart gave a happy bound that they had made it. I said, "You have to pity the wife also." "You have to pity her more," said Mihtouchian, "because she had to do the lying and lead the two lives. This secrecy is what the real burden is. You come home still panting or dripping or dizzy from an encounter. And what's here? Another world, another life; you are another self. You also know exactly what you are doing. Exactly as a druggist when he goes from one prescription to another. Just the right amount of atropine or arsenic. There'd better be. There'd better!" Mintouchian said with kind of personal barbarism or force of heart. He couldn't stop it up. "You come home. 'Hello, husband or wife.' 'What was in the office today?' 'Just the usual.' 'I see you changed the sheets.' 'I also sent out the insurance premium.' 'That's good.' So you are another person. Where are the words you spoke an hour before? Gone! Where is Central? Oh my dear friend. Central is listening in from Mongolia. Do you say a double life? It's secret over secret, mystery and then infinity sign stuck on to that. So who knows the ultimate, and where is the hour of truth? "Of course," he said, "this has got nothing to do with you." He grinned and tried to get brighter, but there was some sort of darkness at this time in the superilluminated little sweat room. He went on after this effort, as follows: "But just for the interest of it I give you another case. There was a rich couple I had before the war. Husband handsome, wife gorgeous. Connecticut, Yale, and so forth background. The. husband goes to Italy on a business trip, meets an Italian lady and has aft affaire de cceur, and then he indiscreetly corresponds with the lady after he comes back. The wife catches a letter of love he kept in his back pocket. Not only did he keep it, March, but where the words of the dear hand were faded by his perspiration he restored them with his own pen. Then the wife comes to me with blood in her eye. Now I know for a fact that while he was gone she had herself a ball with someone, a man friend. But now she wants the husband punished. Because she caught him! She wants to go to Italy with the husband, confront the Italian lady, and have the husband deny before them both he ever loved her. Otherwise, divorce. Naturally I can't tell the husband what to do, and he goes. Seven-thousand-mile trip to perform | this necessary act. They then come home, and what do you think? You're an intelligent man, you know what then." a, "He finds out about her. Listen," I said, now smelling a rat, "how ' are these stories supposed to apply, just now, before my marriage? Are you saying that I should put the shoe on to see if it fits?" The thought