Rameau's Niece (10 page)

Margaret welcomed Lily's attentions. It was gratifying to be visited, to be telephoned so frequently, to be so openly enjoyed, so wanted, particularly since Till was no longer speaking to her. When Lily broke into her whispery jargon, Margaret would momentarily ask herself if she hadn't better forget the whole thing, but even that began to seem almost charming to her, the way a lover's crooked nose becomes first less noticeable, then somehow indispensable, then positively beautiful.

"You and Lily are fast friends," Edward said one day.

"Fast? Well, anyway, she has certainly grown on me. Do you like her, Edward?"

Edward of course liked her. He liked everyone, for one reason or another. Margaret knew that. What she meant was, What reason? What have you seen, what tawdry trinket of character, ignored by the rest of us, have you stooped to pick up, have you polished and discovered to be rich, luminous gold?

"Lily is very sincere," he said slowly. "Deeply sincere."

"Lily? Our Lily?"

"That's why she's attractive, too, I think. Do you? Sincerity makes her passionate."

After this conversation, Margaret watched Lily with even greater attention. Yes, she was sincere. And passionate. It was not what she said, certainly. It was the way she spoke, the way she carried herself, the way she moved as if the very air around her was around her of its own volition, of its own desire, and as if she, on her part, had yearned for the air, had sought its gentle, insistent touch.

Lily sent Margaret and Edward a postcard with a picture of a motel shaped like a cowboy boot. She was lecturing in Oklahoma. The menus were wonderful there. When she came home, she dropped by for dinner, her long-faced protégé Pepe Pican in tow. They were wearing identical silver bolos, and Margaret was jealous.

Lily came a few days later alone and Margaret asked her about Till. "She's not speaking to me," Margaret said.

"Well, she doesn't speak
about
you either. Does that make you feel better or worse? Look, I don't want to get in the middle, okay? Till is a difficult person. Touchy."

"Is she? I've always thought she was remarkably forbearing."

Lily shrugged and lit a cigarette.

Margaret coughed and waited. But Lily said nothing more about Till. In the weeks that followed, Margaret tried once or twice to talk about Till. Lily would invariably shrug her shoulders and smoke silently so that after a while, Margaret stopped mentioning their friend at all.

Seated on the bed, she opened a large volume on her lap, thus tugging at her silk dressing gown to reveal beneath the delicate fabric the contours of her graceful anatomy in a way that considerably aroused my scientific curiosity and compelled me to move the candle closer.

SHE:
I still must argue, sir, in accordance with Helvétius, that there is no separate faculty of judging and comparing, no faculty distinct from sensation. This gown that I am wearing. Touch it. Yes, like that. Yes, just there. Now, touch it here. I am experiencing a richly agreeable sensation, and so too, I think, judging by your facial expression, are you. Now, this business of comparing is nothing else than rendering ourselves attentive to these different impressions excited in us, excited in us by those objects we sense. Objects actually before our eyes, for example.

She paused in order to allow herself to become properly attentive to the object that I, standing up now, revealed before her own eyes.

SHE:
Exactly. Notice how we both study the different impressions suddenly excited in us by the exposure of this object and the attention rendered it.

MYSELF:
Yes. To this extent I agree with you. For the impression excited in me is clearly demonstrated.

SHE:
I am moved by your appraisal of my progress. But what I hope we may do now is simply to continue in our proof that all judgment is nothing more than pronouncing upon sensations experienced: the sensation I am experiencing now is one of shortness of breath, a rising warmth within, an inclination to faintness, and a flushed and overwhelming sense of unbearable longing.

She had, indeed, begun to take on a very agreeable high color and to breathe in that exaggerated manner I had learned to cherish, but this time to such a degree that she quickly began to loosen her own garment, not waiting for the gentle aid I was accustomed to offer.

She removed her garment entirely, revealing the noblest attributes of the most regular beauty. And I observed this sight with a strange and sudden emotion, a disorder in my heart that spread through all my senses.

I succumbed to this rush of impressions, of course. How could I do otherwise? The justness of the mind or judgment depends on the greater or lesser attention with which its observations are made, and I made my observations with the greatest attention I could.

The force of any union between human beings is always in proportion to the force of both habit and want. It is one of the peculiarities of the type of union I was accustomed to forming with my pupil that want often increased with habit, and so the force of habit and want were equally great, and the force of the union therefore overwhelming.

After a while, I closed my eyes, preparing to rest. But I found I could not, for still something was bothering me. Perhaps what I am about to reveal will be considered ungenerous of me. But I see it as not ungenerous. On the contrary, as a sign of the degree of esteem in which I hold human nature, and therefore my pupil. For this is what occurred to me then as I lay restlessly with closed eyes: that, I believed in the perfectibility of the human mind and human understanding. And that, therefore, the time had perhaps come to introduce my pupil to a different level of understanding.

MYSELF:
The exchanges we have had on this subject have been vigorous, certainly, my dear, and enchanting, made so by all the radiant freshness and charm of your fair youthful mind. And your reasoning thus far has been full of felicity. But you have also shown, as indeed is fitting for these early stages of learning, an enthusiasm that would profit from further reflection.

Startled, she pulled her garment closer to her until it covered her again, draping over her body in a most delightful way, revealing nothing that was but suggestive of all that had been and that might be again.

SHE:
I do not understand you.

MYSELF:
To perceive is to feel. From the course of our studies, we have inferred this fact to our satisfaction, time and again. You have mastered this proposition, haven't you?

SHE:
As you can easily surmise from my actions, even at this moment, I have indeed mastered this agreeable proposition.

MYSELF:
Yes, I find you are able to demonstrate the truth of your statement and the proof of your mastery in a stirring fashion. But let us pause here for a moment to reflect further.

I sat up and moved to the foot of the bed, where I found I could think with greater clarity, and I resumed speaking.

MYSELF:
To perceive is to feel. But to compare is to judge. To judge and to feel are not the same. The time has come in your education, I believe, for us to turn our attention to comparison. Now, according to Rousseau, I may have at the same moment an idea of a big stick and a little stick without comparing them.

SHE:
I will attempt to entertain such an idea [she closed her eyes].

MYSELF:
I may have at the same moment an idea of a big stick and a little stick without judging that one is less than the other.

SHE:
Does this really strike you as reasonable? I hold the ideas in my mind now. But I discover it is somewhat difficult to refrain from judgment, as I find myself quite partial to the big stick.

MYSELF:
Yes. Indeed. But here is the point. Big, little—though my mind only produces these comparative ideas when sensations occur, these comparative ideas are not themselves sensations.

My pupil, and so the lesson, momentarily took a slightly different direction as she again sought to complement her contemplation of the big and little stick by seeking a more direct and empirical approach, and sensations did indeed begin to occur with remarkable rapidity and diversity.

But I, determined to continue the new portion of our lesson, insisted we move ahead.

MYSELF:
If the judgment were merely a sensation, my judgment would never be mistaken, for it is never untrue that I feel what I feel.

SHE:
And I feel what I feel.

MYSELF:
But often my understanding, which judges of relations, mingles its own errors with the truth of sensations, which only reveal to me things.

SHE:
I confess I am experiencing the truth of sensations. But, too, I understand that sensation is not judgment. And so, if judgment is comparison, then—

MYSELF:
Then let us compare!

The rest of the lesson involved some refreshing experimentation with different objects, for the sake of comparison, and after a time my increasingly brilliant young student seemed to begin to comprehend my teachings in a way that allowed me to consider that this difficult lecture had been well worth my trouble.

Margaret had been sitting with the dust in the library examining this passage and comparing it to the sections of Rousseau's
Émile
and Helvétius's A
Treatise on Man
from which it had been concocted. As she read, she felt herself becoming increasingly uncomfortable. It's only eighteenth-century empiricism, she told herself. Discredited, limited, old empiricism. But somehow, these familiar ideas from the past loomed suddenly, strangely, large and threatening.

Margaret had carefully, and she thought rather deftly, made a life for herself which minimized the need for comparison and choice. Comparison meant confusion, chaos. One sought certainty in life. But now it seemed one was meant to seek certainty through comparison. Did that mean there was no certainty in her life? In her marriage to Edward? For if judgment was comparison, why did she think she was happy with Edward? How did she know? How could she judge?

She sat on the couch beside Lily. Edward sat on the chair. Pepe, who had come with Lily, as he often did, sat moodily atop the dining room table eating the last of the lettuce out of the large salad bowl, which he held on his lap.

"Dinner was so divinely ladies mag," said Lily.

"Edward made it," Margaret said. Ladies had nothing on him. Perhaps there should be Edward mags.
Body Electric
and
Ode
and
Edward's Home Journal.

"Pepe, get down," Lily said. "You're spoiling the bourgeois ambiance."

Pepe impassively raised his eyebrows and stayed where he was.

Observe, Margaret told herself, turning away from Pepe, whom she instinctively sensed was best left unobserved. Listen and observe. Then you can compare. Then you can judge. Observe.

Edward's ankles are showing between his socks and his pants. They are white. Fish-belly white. Lily is dressed in a sixties-inspired outfit that includes high lace-up moccasins, patterned tights, a mini miniskirt of crushed purple velvet, and a transparent paisley blouse. Beneath the paisley blouse, her skin is white. Why is the white of her skin different, less fishy, than the white of Edward's ankles? Is it because a shoulder is intrinsically more appealing, less fishy, than an ankle? Or is it that her shoulder in particular is aesthetically superior to Edward's fishy ankle in particular? Is her shoulder really more beautiful than Edward's ankle, or am I trapped in layers of received, culturally determined lies, and it's really Edward's ankle that stands as a thing of beauty?

With some effort, Margaret attempted to listen to what Edward and Lily were saying.

"Our fleet entering the gulf? The gulf? The vaginal gulf!"

"I mean the Persian Gulf."

"So do I."

Never mind, Margaret thought. She wished Till were there. She missed Till, but she was too ashamed to call her. What would she say, anyway? I apologize? Oh, that's okay, Till would answer. Think nothing of it. You've secretly hated my husband, who gave you fame and fortune, for all these years? Why, I'm flattered that you've stayed friends with me when seeing us must have been such a trial for you.

Margaret returned to her musing on the nature of ankles, shoulders, beauty, and truth. Edward's ankles were white, fish-belly white, and so were suggestive of fish bellies. While Lily's shoulders, skimmed by the transparent paisley blouse, were indistinctly white and so were suggestive of—shoulders! The white, hidden and yet apparent, was therefore a conscious color, a decision, a decision made with a purpose, and the purpose was to make the viewer think about how hidden the shoulder was, and by extension to think of what else was hidden. Edward's ankle, on the other hand, was bared thoughtlessly, and so expressed no purpose, in fact expressed the very antithesis of purpose, a lack of interest in the ankle and by extension in his body as a whole.

So, Margaret thought, that is why Lily's shoulder is sexy and Edward's ankle is fishlike. Margaret was struck, suddenly, by how very sexy Lily was. She was a bit blowsy, or so Margaret had always thought. But perhaps it was just that she was voluptuous? Margaret had never had occasion to wonder whether a woman was voluptuous or not, and she was not sure how one judged. She continued to observe Lily carefully, the way she whispered and tucked her feet beneath her on the couch.

Lily caught her watching and looked at Margaret, long and earnestly. Margaret turned back to Edward's familiar ankle, which suddenly looked quite nice after all. Margaret blushed. Did Lily know? Could she tell? That Margaret, tilting her head, had been wondering if Lily was or was not voluptuous?

Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
She hides, handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.