The Collected Novels Volume One by Mary McCarthy

Author:Mary McCarthy [McCarthy, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-3823-1
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-07-09T23:44:00+00:00

FOUR

The Genial Host

WHEN HE TELEPHONED TO ask you to do something he never said baldly, “Can you come to dinner a week from Thursday?” First he let you know who else was going to be there: the Slaters, perhaps, and the Berolzheimers, and John Peterson, the critic. And he could not leave this guest-list to speak for itself, but would annotate it at once with some short character sketches. “Peterson’s a queer fellow,” he would say. “Of course, he’s moody and right now he’s too much interested in politics for his own good, but I hope he’ll get back soon to his book on Montaigne. That’s his real work, and I wish you’d tell him that. You may not like him, of course, but underneath it all John is a marvelous person.” He was deferential, ingratiating, concerned for your pleasure, like a waiter with a tray of French pastry in his hand. This one had custard in it and that one was mocha; the chocolate-covered one had whipped cream, and the little one on the side was just a macaroon. With Pflaumen you were always perfectly safe—you never had to order blind.

In a way, it was a kindness he did you, putting it like that. Other acquaintances made the opposite error, calling up to demand, “Are you free Thursday?” before disclosing whether they wanted you to picket a movie house, attend a lecture at the New School, buy tickets for a party for Spain, or go and dance at a new night club. Nevertheless, there was something too explicit about Pflaumen’s invitations that made you set down the telephone with a feeling of distaste, made you dress hurriedly, though carefully, for his parties, as if you were going to keep some shameful assignation, made you, stepping out of your door in the new clothes you had bought, look furtively up and down the street before starting for the subway. Pflaumen had taken the risks out of social life, that was the trouble; and you felt that it was wrong to enjoy an evening without having paid for it with some touch of uncertainty, some tiny fear of being bored or out of place. Moreover, behind those bland and humble telephone calls, there was an unpleasant assumption about your character. Plainly Pflaumen must believe that you went out at night not because you liked your friends and wanted to be with them, but because you were anxious to meet new people, celebrities, to enlarge your own rather tacky social circle. No doubt this was at least half true, since with your real friends you seemed to prefer those whose spheres of interest were larger rather than smaller than your own—or at any rate to see more of them, if you could—but in those cases you were able to be sure that you liked them for themselves. With Pflaumen, unfortunately, there was never any question of that. Yet every time you accepted one of his invitations you entered into a conspiracy with him to hide the fact that he was a foolish, dull man whom nobody had much use for.

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