FOUR

1

This morning I reread the last section, trying to see it objectively,

to match what I have put down with the memory I still bear of that

first encounter with John Cave. I have not, I fear, got it. But this is

as close as I can come to recalling long-vanished emotions and events.

I was impressed by the man and I was shaken by his purpose. My first

impression was, I think, correct: he was a born hypnotist and the text

of that extraordinary message was, in the early days at least, thin,

illogical and depressing if one had not heard it spoken. Later of

course I, among others, composed the words which bear his name and we

gave them, I fancy, a polish and an authority which, with his limited

education and disregard for the works of the past, he could not have

accomplished on his own, even had he wanted to.

I spent the intervening days between my first and second encounters

with this strange man in a state of extreme tension and irritability.

Clarissa called me several times but I refused to see her, excusing

myself from proposed entertainments and hinted tête-à-têtes, with an

abruptness which anyone but the iron-cast Clarissa would have found

appallingly rude. She said she understood, however, and she let me off

without explaining what it was she understood, or thought she did. I

avoided a number of parties and all acquaintances, keeping to my hotel

room where I contemplated a quick return to the Hudson and to the

darkening autumn.

Iris telephoned me twice and, when she fixed a day at last for me to

meet John Cave, I accepted her invitation, a little to my own surprise.

We met in the late afternoon at her house. Only the three of us were

present on that occasion. In the set of dialogues which I composed and

published in later years I took considerable liberties with our actual

conversations, especially this first one: in fact, as hostile critics

were quick to suggest, the dialogues were created by me with very

little of Cave in them and a good deal of Plato, rearranged to fit the

occasion. In time, though, my version was accepted implicitly, if only

because there were no longer any hostile critics.

Iris served us tea in the patio. She spoke seldom and, when she did,

her voice was low and curiously diffident as she asked Cave some

question or instructed me.

Cave himself was relaxed, quite different from my first view of him.

In fact, I might not even have recognized his face had I seen him in a

group.

He rose promptly when I came out onto the patio; he shook my hand

vigorously but briefly and sat down again, indicating that I sit next

to him while Iris went for tea. He was smaller and more compact than

I’d thought measuring him against myself as one does, unconsciously,

with an interesting stranger. He wore a plain brown suit and a white

shirt open at the collar, a modified Lord Byron collar which became

him. The eyes, which at first I did not dare look at, were, I soon

noticed, sheathed ... an odd word which was always to occur to me

when I saw him at his ease, his eyes half-shut, ordinary, not in the

least unusual. Except for a restless folding and unfolding of his

hands (suggesting a recently reformed cigarette smoker) he was without

physical idiosyncrasy.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you” were the first words, I fear, John

Cave ever spoke to me; so unlike the dialogue on the spirit which I

later composed to celebrate this initial encounter between master and

disciple-to-be. “Iris has told me a lot about you.” His voice was

light, without resonance now. He sat far back in his deck chair. Inside

the house I could hear Iris moving plates. The late afternoon sun had

just that moment gone behind trees and the remaining light was warmly

gold.

“And I have followed your ... career with interest too,” I said,

knowing that “career” was precisely the word he would not care to hear

used but, at that moment, neither of us had got the range of the other.

We fired at random.

“Iris told me you write history.”

I shook my head. “No, I only read it. I think it’s all been written

anyway.” I was allowed to develop this novel conceit for some moments,

attended by a respectful silence from my companion who finally

dispatched my faintly hysterical proposition with a vague “Maybe so”;

and then we got to him.

“I haven’t been East you know,” he frowned at the palm trees. “I

was born up in Washington state and I’ve spent all my life in the

Northwest, until last year.” He paused as though he expected me to ask

him about _that_ year. I did not. I waited for him to do it in his

own way. He suddenly turned about in his chair and faced me; those

disconcerting eyes suddenly trained upon my own. “You were there the

other night, weren’t you?”

“Why, yes.”

“Did you feel it too? Am I right?”

The quick passion with which he said this, exploding all at once the

afternoon’s serenity, took me off guard. I stammered, “I don’t think I

know what you mean. I ...”

“You know exactly what I mean, what I meant.” He leaned closer to me

and I wondered insanely if his deck chair might not collapse under him.

It teetered dangerously. My mind went blank, absorbed by the image

of deck chair and prophet together collapsing at my feet. Then, as

suddenly, satisfied perhaps with my confusion, he settled back, resumed

his earlier ease, exactly as if I had answered him, as though we had

come to a crisis and together fashioned an agreement: it was most

alarming.

“I want to see New York especially. I’ve always thought it must

look like a cemetery with all those tall gray buildings you see in

photographs.” He sighed conventionally: “So many interesting places in

the world. Do you like the West?”

Nervously, I said that I did. I still feared a possible repetition of

that brief outburst.

“I like the openness,” said Cave, as though he had thought long about

this problem. “I don’t think I’d like confinement I couldn’t live in

Seattle because of those fogs they used to have; San Francisco’s the

same. I don’t like too many walls, too much fog.” If he’d intended to

speak allegorically he could not have found a better audience for I

was, even at this early stage, completely receptive to the most obscure

histrionics but, in conversation, Cave was perfectly literal. Except

when he spoke before a large group, he was quite simple and prosaic

and, though conscious always of his dignity and singular destiny, not

in the least portentous.

I probably did not put him at his ease for I stammered a good deal and

made no sense, but he was gracious, supporting me with his own poise

and equanimity.

He talked mostly of places until Iris came back with tea. Then, as the

sky became florid with evening and the teacups gradually grew cold, he

talked of his work and I listened intently.

“I can talk to you straight,” he said. “This just happened to me. I

didn’t start out to do this. No sir, I never would have believed ten

years ago that I’d be traveling about, talking to people like one of

those crackpot fanatics you’ve got so many in California.” I took a

sip of the black, fast-cooling tea, hoping he was not sufficiently

intuitive to guess that I had originally put him down, provisionally of

course, as precisely that.

“I don’t know how much Iris may have told you or how much you might

have heard but it’s pretty easy to pass the whole thing off as another

joke: a guy coming out of the backwoods with a message.” He cracked

his knuckles hard and I winced at the sound. “Well, I didn’t quite

come out of the woods. I had a year back at State University and I had

a pretty good job in my field with the best firm of funeral directors

in Washington state. Then I started on this. I just _knew_ one day and

so I began to talk to people and they knew too and I quit my job and

started talking to bigger and bigger crowds all along the coast. There

wasn’t any of this revelation stuff. I just knew one day, that was

all; and when I told other people _what_ I knew they seemed to get it.

And that’s the strange part. Everybody gets ideas about things which

he thinks are wonderful but usually nothing happens to the people he

tries to tell them to. With me, it’s been different from the beginning.

People have all listened, and agreed: what I know _they_ know. Isn’t

that a funny thing? Though most of them probably would never have

thought it out until they heard me and it was all clear.” His eyes

dropped to his hands; he added softly: “So since it’s been like this,

I’ve gone on. I’ve made this my life. This is it. I shall come to the

people.”

There was silence. The sentence had been spoken which I was later to

construct the first dialogue upon: “I shall come to the people,” the

six words which were to change our lives were spoken softly over tea.

Iris looked at me challengingly over Cave’s bowed head.

I remember little else about that evening. We dined, I think, in the

house and Cave was most agreeable, most undemanding. There was no more

talk of the mission. He asked me many questions about New York, about

Harvard where I had gone to school, about Roman history. He appeared

to be interested in paganism and my own somewhat ambiguous approach

to Julian. I was to learn later that though he seldom read he had a

startling memory for any fact which seemed relevant. I am neither

immodest nor inaccurate when I say that he listened to me attentively

for some years and many of his later views were a result of our

conversations.

I should mention, though, one significant omission in his conversation

during those first crucial years: he never discussed ethical questions;

that was to come much later. At the beginning he had but one vision

and it was, in its terrible truth, quite inhuman and anarchic: man

dies, consciousness dies with him: it is good to die, good not to be.

On this the Cavite system was constructed and what came after in the

moral and ethical spheres was largely the work of others in his name.

Much of this I anticipated in that first conversation with him, so

unlike, actually, the dialogue which I composed ending, I still think

complacently despite the irony with which time has tarnished all those

bright toys for me, with the essential line: “Death is neither hard nor

bad; only the dying hurts.” With that firmly postulated the rest was

inevitable.

Cave talked that evening about California and Oregon and Washington

(geography, places were always to fascinate and engage him while

people, especially after the early years, ceased to be remarkable to

him; he tended to get confused those myriad faces which passed before

him like successive ripples in a huge sea). He talked of the cities

he had visited on the seaboard, new cities to him, all of them. He

compared their climates and various attractions like a truly devoted

tourist, eager to get the best of each place, to encounter the _genius

loci_ and possess it.

“But I don’t like staying in any place long.” He looked at me then and

again I felt that sense of a power being focused on me ... it was not

unlike what one experiences during an X-ray treatment when the humming

noise indicates that potent rays are penetrating one’s tissue and,

though there is actually no sensation, _something_ is experienced,

power is felt. And so it invariably was that, right until the end,

Cave, whenever he chose, could turn those wide bleak eyes upon me and I

would experience his force anew.

“I want to keep moving, new places, that’s what I like. You get a kind

or charge traveling. At least I do. I always thought I’d travel but

I never figured it would be like this; but then of course I never

thought of all this until just awhile ago.

“Can you remember when it was? how it was exactly you got ... started?”

I wanted a sign obviously: Constantine’s _labarum_ occurred to me: _in

hoc signo vinces_. Already ambition was stirring, and the little beast

fed ravenously on every scrap that came its way for I was, in that

patio, experiencing my own revelation, the compass needle no longer

spinning wildly but coming to settle at last, with many hesitancies and

demurs, upon a direction, drawn to a far pole’s attraction.

He smiled for the first time. I suppose, if I wanted, I could recall

each occasion over the years when, in my presence at least, John

Cave smiled. His usual expression was one of calm resolve, of that

authority which feels secure in itself, a fortunate expression which

lent dignity even to his casual conversation: the fact that this serene

mask hid a nearly total intellectual vacuity, I suspected as early in

my dealings with him as this first meeting; yet I did not mind for I

had experienced his unique magic and already I saw the possibilities

of channeling that power, of using that force, or turning it like a

flame here, there, creating and destroying, shaping and shattering

... so much for the spontaneous nature of my ambition at its least

responsible, and at its most exquisite! I could have set the one-half

world aflame for the sheer splendor and glory of the deed. For this

my expiation has been long and my once exuberant pride is now only an

ashen phoenix consumed by flames but not yet tumbled to dust, not yet

recreated in the millennial egg ... only a gray shadow in the heart

which the touch of a finger of windy fear will turn to air and dust.

Yet the creature was aborning that day: one seed had touched another

and a monster began to live.

“The first day? The first time?” The smile faded. “Sure, I remember it.

I’d just finished painting the face of a big dead fellow killed in an

automobile accident. I didn’t usually do make-up but I like to help out

and I used to do odd jobs when somebody had too much to do and asked me

to help; the painting isn’t hard either and I always like it, though

the faces are cold like ... like....” He thought of no simile; he went

on: “Anyway I looked at this guy’s face and I remembered I’d seen him

play basketball in high school. He was in a class or two behind me.

Big athlete. Ringer, we called them ... full of life ... and here he

was, with me powdering his face and combing his eyebrows. Usually you

don’t think much about the stiff (that’s our professional word) one way

or the other: it’s just a job. But I thought about this one suddenly.

I started to feel sorry for him, dead like that, so sudden, so young,

so good-looking with all sorts of prospects; then I felt it.” The

voice grew low and precise. Iris and I listened intently, even the sun

froze in the wild sky above the sea; the young night stumbled in the

darkening east.

His eyes on the sun, he described his sudden knowledge that it was the

dead man who was right, who was a part of the whole, that the living

were the sufferers from whom, temporarily, the beautiful darkness and

nonbeing had been withdrawn and, in his crude way, Cave struck chord

after chord of meaning and, though the notes were not in themselves

new, the effect was all its own ... and not entirely because of the

voice, the cogency of this magician. No, the effect was achieved only

in part through his ability to make one experience with him an occasion

of light, of absolute knowing.

“And I knew it was the dying which was the better part,” he finished.

The sun, released, drowned in the Pacific.

In the darkness I asked, “But you, you still live?”

“Not because I want to,” came the voice, soft as the night “I must tell

the others first. There’ll be time for myself.”

I shuddered in the warmth of the patio. My companions were only dim

presences in the failing light. “Who told you to tell this to everyone?”

The answer came back, strong and unexpected: “I told myself. The

responsibility is mine.”

That was the sign for me. He had broken with his predecessors. He was

on his own. He knew ... and so did we.

2

I have lingered over that first meeting for, in it, was finally all

that there was to come. Later details were the work of others, the

exotic periphery to a simple but powerful center. Not until late that

night did I leave the house near the beach. When I left, Cave stayed on

and I wondered again, idly, if perhaps he was living there with Iris,

if perhaps her interest in him might not be more complex than I had

suspected.

We parted casually and Iris walked me to the door while Cave remained

inside, gazing in his intent way at nothing at all: daydreaming,

doubtless, of what was to come.

“You’ll help?” Iris stood by the car’s open door, her features

indistinct in the moonless night.

“I think so. I’m not sure, though, about the scale.”

“What do you mean?”

“Must _everyone_ know? Can’t it just be kept to ourselves? for the few

who do know him?”

“No. We must let them all hear him. Everyone.” And her voice assumed

that zealous tone which I was to hear so often again and again upon her

lips and on those of others.

I made my first and last objection: “I don’t see that quantity has much

to do with it. If this thing spreads it will become organized. If it

becomes organized, secondary considerations will obscure the point. The

truth is no truer because only a few have experienced it.”

“You’re wrong. Even for purely selfish reasons, ruling out all

altruistic considerations, there’s an excellent reason for allowing

this to spread: a society which knows what we know, which believes in

Cave and what he says, will be a pleasanter place in which to live,

less anxious, more tolerant.” And she spoke of the new Jerusalem in our

sallow land and I was nearly convinced.

The next day I went to Hastings’ house for lunch. He was there alone;

his wife apparently had a life of her own which required his company

only occasionally. Clarissa, sensible in tweed and dark glasses,

was the only other guest. We lunched on an iron-wrought table beside

the gloomy pool in which, among the occasional leaves, I saw, quite

clearly, a cigarette butt delicately unfolding like an ocean flower.

“Good to, ah, have you, Eugene. Just a bit of potluck. Clarissa’s going

back to civilization today and wanted to see you ... I did too, of

course. The bride’s gone out. Told me to convey her....”

Clarissa turned her bright eyes on me and, without acknowledging the

presence of our host, said right off: “You’ve met him at last.”

I nodded. The plot was finally clear to me: the main design at least.

“We had dinner together last night.”

“I know. Iris told me. You’re going to help out of course.”

“I’d like to but I don’t know what there is I might do. I don’t think

I’d be much use with a tambourine on street corners, preaching the

word.”

“Don’t be silly!” Clarissa chuckled. “We’re going to handle this quite,

_quite_ differently.”

“We?”

“Oh, I’ve been involved for over a year now. It’s going to be the

greatest fun ... you wait and see.”

“But....”

“_I_ was the one who got Iris herself involved. I thought she looked

a little peaked, a little bored. I had no idea of course she’d get in

so deep, but it will probably turn out all right I think she’s in love

with him.”

“Don’t be such a gossip,” said Hastings sharply. “You always reduce

everything to ... to biology. Cave isn’t that sort of man.”

“You know him too?” How fast it was growing, I thought.

“Certainly. Biggest thing I’ve done since....”

“Since you married that brassy blonde,” said Clarissa with her

irrepressible rudeness. “Anyway, my dear, Iris took to the whole thing

like a born proselyte, if that’s the word I mean ... the other’s a

little boy, isn’t it? and it seems, from what she’s told me, that you

have too.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” I was a little put out at both Iris and Clarissa

taking me so much for granted.

“Say anything you like. It’s still the best thing that’s ever happened

to you. Oh God, _not_ avocado again!” The offending salad was waved

away while Hastings muttered apologies. “Nasty, pointless things, all

texture and no taste.” She made a face. “But I suppose that we must

live off the fruits of the country and this is the only thing which

will grow in California.” She moved without pause from Western flora

to the problem of John Cave. “As for your own contribution, Eugene,

it will depend largely upon what you choose to do. As I said, I never

suspected that Iris would get in so deep and you may prove to be

quite as surprising. This is the ground floor of course ... wonderful

expression, isn’t it? the spirit of America: the slogan which broke

the plains ... in any case, the way is clear. Cave liked you. You can

write things for them, rather solid articles based on your inimitable

misreadings of history. You can educate Cave, though this might be

unwise since so much of his force derives from his eloquent ignorance;

or you might become a part of the organization which is getting

under way. I suppose Iris will explain that to you: it’s rather her

department at the moment. All those years in the Junior League gave

her a touching faith in the power of committees, which is just as well

when handling Americans. As for the tambourines and cries of 'Come and

Be Saved’ you are some twenty years behind the times. We ... or to be

exact I ought to say 'they’ ... have more up-to-date plans.”

“Committees? What committees?”

Clarissa unfolded her mushroom omelet with a secret smile. “You’ll

meet our number-one committee member after lunch. He’s coming, isn’t

he?” She looked at Hastings as though suspecting him of a treacherous

ineptitude.

“Certainly, certainly, at least he _said_ he was.” Hastings motioned

for the serving-woman to clean away the luncheon dishes and we moved to

other chairs beside the pool for coffee.

Clarissa was in fine form, aggressive, positive, serenely indifferent

to the effect she was having on Hastings and me. “Of course I’m just

meddling,” she said in answer to an inquiry of mine. “I don’t really

give two cents for Mr Cave and his message.”

“Clarissa!” Hastings was genuinely shocked.

“I mean it. Not that I don’t find him fascinating and of course the

whole situation is delicious ... what we shall do! or _you_ shall do!”

she looked at me maliciously. “I can foresee no limits to this.”

“It no doubt reminds you of the period shortly after Mohammed married

Khadija.” My own malice, however, could not pierce Clarissa’s mad

equanimity.

“Vile man, sweet woman. But no, this is all going to be different

although the intellectual climate (I think _intellectual_ is perhaps

optimistic but you know what I mean) is quite similar. I can’t wait for

the first public response.”

“There’s already been some,” said Hastings, crossing his legs which

were encased in pale multicolor slacks with rawhide sandals on his

feet. “There was a piece yesterday in the _News_ about the meetings

they’ve been having up near Laguna or wherever it is he’s been speaking

this time.”

“What did they say?” Clarissa scattered tiny saccharine tablets into

her coffee like a grain goddess preparing harvest.

“Oh, just one of those short suburban notes about how a Mr Joseph Cave,

they got the name wrong, was giving a series of lectures at a funeral

parlor which have been surprisingly well attended.”

“They didn’t mention what the lectures were about?”

“No, just a comment: the first one so far in Los Angeles.”

“There’ll be others soon but I shouldn’t think it’s such a good idea to

have too many items like that before things are really under way.”

“And the gentleman who is coming here will be responsible for getting

them under way?” I asked.

“Pretty much, yes. It’s been decided that the practical details are to

be left to him. Cave will continue to speak in and around Los Angeles

until the way has been prepared. Then, when the publicity begins, he

will be booked all over the country, all over the world!” Clarissa

rocked silently for a moment in her chair, creating a disagreeable

effect of noiseless laughter which disconcerted both Hastings and me.

“I don’t like your attitude,” said Hastings, looking at her gloomily.

“You aren’t _serious_.”

“Oh I am, my darling, I am. You’ll never know how serious.” And on

that high note of Clarissa’s, Paul Himmell stepped out onto the patio,

blinking in the light of noon.

He was a slender man in his fortieth and most successful year, with

hair only just begun to gray and a lined but firmly modeled face,

bright with ambition. The initial impression was one of neatly

contained energy, of a passionate temperament beautifully, usefully

channeled. The twist to his bow tie was the work of a master craftsman.

The handshake was agreeable; the smile was quick and engaging; the

effect on me was alarming: I had detested this sort of man all my life

and here at last, wearing a repellently distinguished sports coat was

the archetype of all such creatures, loading with a steady hand that

cigarette holder without which he might at least have seemed to me

still human. He was identified by Hastings who, with a few excited

snorts and gasps, told me beneath the conversation that this was the

most successful young publicist in Hollywood, which meant the world.

“I’m happy to meet you, Gene,” he said as soon as Hastings had

introduced us. He was perfectly aware that he had been identified while

the first greetings with Clarissa had been exchanged: he had the common

gift of the busy worldling of being able to attend two conversations

simultaneously, profiting from both. I hate of course being called

by my first name by strangers but in his world there were of course

no strangers: the freemasonry of self-interest made all men equal in

their desperation. He treated me like a buddy. He knew (he was, after

all, clever) that I detested him on sight and on principle and that

presented him with a challenge to which he rose with confidence ...

and continued to rise through the years, despite the enduring nature

of my disaffection. But then to be liked was his business and I

suspect that his attentions had less to do with me, with a sense of

failure in himself for not having won me, than with a kind of automatic

charm, a response to a situation which was produced quite inhumanly,

mechanically: the smile, the warm voice, the delicate flattery ... or

not so delicate, depending on the case.

“Iris and Cave both told me about you and I’m particularly glad to

get a chance to meet you ... to see you too, Clarissa ... will you be

long in the East?” Conscious perhaps that I would need more work than

a perfunctory prelude, he shifted his attention to Clarissa, saving me

for later.

“I never have plans, Paul, but I’ve got one or two chores I’ve got

to do. Anyway I’ve decided that Eugene is just the one to give the

enterprise its tone ... a quality concerning which you, dear Paul, so

often have so much to say.”

“Why yes,” said the publicist genially, obviously not understanding.

“Always use more tone. You’re quite right.”

Clarissa’s eyes met mine for a brief amused instant. She was on to

everything ... doubtless on to me too in that way one can never be

about oneself; I always felt at a disadvantage with her.

“What we’re going to need for the big New York opening is a firm

historical and intellectual base. Cave hasn’t got it and of course

doesn’t need it. We are going to need commentary and explanation and

though you happen to be a genius in publicity you must admit that that

group which has been characterized as intellectual, the literate few

who, in their weakness, often exert enormous influence, are not apt to

be much moved by your publicity: in fact, they will be put off by it.”

“Well, now I’m not so sure my methods are _that_ crude. Of course I

never....”

“They are superbly, triumphantly, providentially crude and you know

it. Eugene must lend dignity to the enterprise. He has a solemn and

highly respectable misunderstanding of philosophy which will appeal

to his fellow intellectuals. He and they are quite alike: liberal,

ineffectual, scrupulous, unsuperstitious, irresolute and lonely.

When he addresses them they will get immediately his range, you might

say, pick up his frequency, realizing he is one of them, a man to be

trusted. Once they are reached the game is over, or begun.” Clarissa

paused and looked at me expectantly, the exuberant malice veiled by

excitement.

I didn’t answer immediately. Hastings, as a former writer, felt that he

too had been addressed and he worried the subject of “tone” while Paul

gravely added a comment or two. Clarissa watched me, however, conscious

perhaps of the wound she had dealt.

Was it all really so simple? was _I_ so simple? so typical? Vanity said

not, but self-doubt, the shadow which darkens even those triumphs held

at noon, prevailed for a sick moment or two: I was no different from

the others, from the little pedagogues and analysts, the self-obsessed

and spiritless company who endured shame and a sense of alienation

without even that conviction of virtue which can dispel guilt and

apathy for the simple, for all those who have accepted without question

one of the systems of absolutes which it has amused both mystics and

tyrants to construct for man’s guidance.

I had less baggage to rid myself of than the others: I was confident of

that. Neither Christianity nor Marxism nor the ugly certainties of the

mental therapists had ever engaged my loyalty or suspended my judgment.

I had looked at them all, deploring their admirers and servants,

interested though by their separate views of society and of the

potentialities of a heaven on earth (the medieval conception of a world

beyond life was always interesting to contemplate even if the evidence

in its favor was whimsical at best ... conceived either as a system of

rewards and punishments to control living man or else as lovely visions

of what might be were man indeed consubstantial with a creation which

so often resembled the personal aspirations of gifted divines rather

more closely than that universe the rest of us can only observe with

mortal eyes). No, I had had to dispose of relatively little baggage

and, I like to think, less than my more thoughtful contemporaries who

were forever analyzing themselves, offering their psyches to doctors

for analysis or, worse, giving their immortal souls into the hands of

priests who would then assume much of their _weltschmerz_, providing

them with a set of grown-up games every bit as appealing as the ones of

childhood which had involved make-believe or, finally, worst of all,

the soft acceptance of the idea of man the mass, of man the citizen, of

society the organic whole for whose greater good all individuality must

be surrendered.

My sense then of all that I had _not_ been, negative as it was, saved

my self-esteem: I was, in this, unlike my contemporaries. I had, in

youth, lost all respect for the authority of men and since there is

no other discernible (the “laws” of nature are only relative and one

cannot say for certain that there is a beautiful logic to everything in

the universe as long as first principles remain unrevealed ... except

of course to the religious who know everything, having faith), I was

unencumbered by belief, by reverence for any man or groups of men,

living or dead, though their wit and genius often made my days bearable

since my capacity for admiration, for aesthetic response was, I think,

highly developed even though with Terence I did not know, did not

_need_ to know through what wild centuries roves the rose.

Yet Clarissa’s including me among the little Hamlets was irritating,

and when I joined in the discussion again I was careful to give her no

satisfaction; it would have been a partial victory for her if I had

denied my generic similarity to my own contemporaries.

Paul spoke of practical matters, explaining to us the way he intended

to operate in the coming months; and I was given a glimpse of the

organization which had spontaneously come into being only a few weeks

before.

“Hope we can have lunch tomorrow, Gene. I’ll give you a better picture

then, the overall picture: and your part in it. Briefly, for now, the

organization has been set up as a company under California law with

Cave as president and myself, Iris and Clarissa as directors. I’m also

secretary-treasurer but only for now. We’re going to need a first-rate

financial man to head our campaign fund and I’m working on several

possibilities right now.”

“What’s the ... company called?” I asked.

“Cavites, Inc. We didn’t want to call it anything but that’s the law

here and since we intended to raise money we had to have a legal setup.”

“Got a nice sound, ah, Cavite,” said Hastings, nodding.

“What on earth should we have done if he’d had _your_ name, Paul?”

exclaimed Clarissa, to the indignation of both Hastings and Paul. They

shut her up quickly.

Paul went on in his smooth deep voice, “I’ve had a lot of experience,

of course, but this is something completely new for me, a real

challenge and one which I’m glad to meet head-on.”

“How did you get into it?” I asked.

Paul pointed dramatically to Hastings. “Him! He took me to a meeting in

Laguna last year. I was sold the first time. _I got the message._”

There was a hush as we were allowed to contemplate this awesome

information. Then, smiling in a fashion which he doubtless would have

called “wry,” the publicist continued: “I knew this was it. I contacted

Cave immediately and found we talked the same language. He was all for

the idea and so we incorporated. He said he wasn’t interested in the

organizational end and left that to us with Iris sort of representing

him, though of course we all do since we’re all Cavites. This thing

is big and we’re part of it.” He almost smacked his lips. I listened,

fascinated. “Anyway he’s going to do the preaching part and we’re

going to handle the sales end, if you get what I mean. We’re selling

something which nobody else ever sold before and you know what that

is?” He paused dramatically and we stared at him, a little stupidly.

“Truth!” His voice was triumphant. “We’re selling the truth about life

and that’s something that nobody, but nobody, has got.”

Clarissa broke the silence which had absorbed his last words. “You’re

simply out of this world, Paul! If I hadn’t heard you, I’d never have

believed it. But you don’t have to sell _us_, dear; we’re in on it too.

Besides, I have to catch a plane.” She looked at her watch. She stood

up and we did too. She thanked Hastings for lunch and then, before she

left the patio on his arm, she said: “Now you boys get on together and

remember what I’ve told you. Gene must be used, and right away. Get

him to write something dignified, for a magazine.” We murmured assent.

Clarissa said good-by and left the patio with Hastings. Her voice,

shrill and hard, could be heard even after she left. “The truth about

life! Oh, it’s going to be priceless!”

I looked quickly at Paul to see if he had heard but, if he had, he

didn’t betray the fact. He was looking at me intently, speculatively.

“I think we’re going to get along fine, Gene, just fine.” Leaving

me only a fumbled word or two of polite corroboration with which to

express my sincere antipathy; then we went our separate ways.

3

I met Paul the next day at his office for a drink and not for lunch

since, at the last minute, his secretary called me to say he was tied

up and could I possibly come at five. I said that I could. I did.

His offices occupied an entire floor of a small sky-scraper on the edge

of Beverly Hills. I was shown through a series of rooms done in natural

wood and beige with indirect lighting and the soft sound of Strauss

waltzes piped in from all directions: the employees responded best to

three-four time according to the current efficiency reports.

Beneath an expensive but standard mobile, Paul stood, waiting for me

in his office. His desk, a tiny affair of white marble on slender iron

legs had been rolled off to one side and the office gave, as had been

intended, the impression of being a small drawing room rather than a

place of intense business. I was greeted warmly. My hand was shaken

firmly. My eyes were met squarely for the regulation-length of time.

Then we sat down on a couch which was like the open furry mouth of

some great soft beast and his secretary rolled a portable bar toward us.

“Name your poison,” said the publicist genially. We agreed on a

cocktail which he mixed with the usual comments one expects from a

regular fellow.

Lulled by the alcohol, by the room, disarmed by the familiar patter

in which one made all the correct responses, our conversation as

ritualistic as that of a French dinner party, I was not prepared for

the abrupt: “You don’t like me, do you, Gene?”

Only once or twice before had anyone ever said this to me and each time

that it happened I had vowed grimly that the _next_ time, no matter

where or with whom, I should answer with perfect candor, with merciless

accuracy: “No, I don’t.” But since I am neither quick nor courageous, I

murmured a pale denial.

“It’s all right, Gene. I know how you probably feel.” And the monster

was magnanimous; he treated me with pity. “We’ve got two different

points of view. That’s all. I have to make my way in this rat-race

and you don’t. You don’t have to do anything, so you can afford to

patronize us poor hustlers.”

“Patronize isn’t quite the word.” I was beginning to recover from the

first shock. A crushing phrase or two occurred to me but the publicist

knew his business and he changed course before I could begin my work of

demolition.

“Well, I just wanted you to know that there are no hard feelings. In my

business you get used to this sort of thing: occupational hazard, you

might say. I’ve had to fight my way every inch and I know that a lot of

people are going to be jostled in the process, which is just too bad

for them.” He smiled suddenly, drawing the sting. “But I have a hunch

we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other so we ought to start on a

perfectly plain basis of understanding. You’re on to me and I’m on to

you.” The man was diabolic in the way he could enrage yet not allow his

adversary sufficient grounds for even a perfunctory defense. He moved

rapidly, with a show of spurious reason which quite dazzled me. His

was what, presently, he called “the common-sense view.”

I told him I had no objection to working with him; that everything I

had heard about him impressed me; that he was wrong to suspect me of

disdaining methods whose efficacy was so well-known. I perjured myself

for several impassioned minutes and, on a rising note of coziness, we

passed on to the problem in hand, congenial enemies for all time: the

first round clearly his.

“Clarissa got you into this?” He looked at me over his glass.

“More or less. Clarissa to Iris to Cave was the precise play.”

“She got me to Cave last summer, or rather to Hastings first. I was

sold right off. I think I told you that yesterday. This guy’s got

everything. Even aside from the message, he’s the most remarkable

salesman I’ve ever seen and believe me when I tell you there isn’t

_anything_ I don’t know about salesmen.”