The Group (28 page)

Book reviewing, moreover, was only a means to an end: it got your name known in publishing circles, where they read every review, no matter how short. And it was there that Libby was going to make her way, come hell or high water, and despite her bouts of discouragement, when it seemed to her that she could not face another “Blue Monday” watching Mr. LeRoy scratch his mustache as he looked through her reports. Monday was her established “day” with Mr. LeRoy, a day she had fixed herself and never varied from, unless it was a holiday; men were creatures of habit.

After that grim session when he had given her such a scare, Libby decided that she must have another string to her bow. “You write damned well. …” This put the bee in her bonnet of talking to him about doing translations; the idea was really Kay’s originally. Kay said Harald said that Libby’s problem was to become a specialist in something. Otherwise, she was just competing with all the English majors who graduated every June and who had all been class poet or editor of their literary magazine. Libby should use her foreign languages—particularly her Italian, having lived there—to carve a field for herself. She should offer to do a sample chapter free, then, if they liked it, translate the book, setting aside an hour a day for the purpose. The literary exercise would be good for her style, and meanwhile she would be becoming an expert—a kind of technician. Other publishers would send her Italian books to read and editors would come to her to review Italian authors; she would meet scholars and professors and become an authority. In a technological society, Harald said, it was all a question of having the right tool.

Libby did not exactly feature herself as a translator; editing was much more exciting because you worked with people. Besides, Harald’s project, like most of his ideas, was too long-term to stimulate her imagination. At the same time, she felt that she could not allow her relation with Mr. LeRoy to stand still. It dawned on her that this might be a way of moving into the foreign-book line. They paid more ($7.50) for reading foreign books, she had discovered. So the very next time she saw Mr. LeRoy, she did not even wait for him to riffle through the manuscript bin; she took the bull by the horns and said she wanted him to let her have a chance at reporting on a French or an Italian novel; she was going to try her hand at translating. “I’ll do the report and then if we want to publish the book, I’ll do you a sample chapter.”

Mr. LeRoy, she thought, rather squirmed at that “we,” which she had put in on purpose to sound professional. But by the strangest coincidence, that very day he had had an Italian novel back from his regular Italian specialist, a professor at Columbia, with a report that ended “Suggest you get another opinion.” It was fate, plainly, that Libby had happened in at that moment, and Mr. LeRoy clearly felt that too. “O.K.,” he said. “Take it home with you.” He reflected. “Your Italian is pretty fluent?” “
Fluentissimo
.” It would not pay her, he warned, to try to set up as a translator if she were not completely at home in the language; speed was of the essence. Libby left the office slightly daunted; something in Mr. LeRoy’s attitude made her feel he was giving her her last chance.

Back in her apartment, she saw the trap he had laid for her. The conversation in the book was mostly in Sicilian dialect. Libby, who was used to the pure Tuscan, nearly passed away. In fact, she was not even sure it was Sicilian; the characters seemed to be peasants and small landowners, and the village they inhabited could be anywhere. She thought of dashing up to Vassar to consult Mr. Roselli, but, woe was her, he was on sabbatical leave, and the other members of the department, who were not her particular friends, would probably broadcast the fact that she had fled back to college for help. A small voice told her to return the book to Mr. LeRoy and admit that it was too hard for her, but she could not face the thought; this would give him an excuse to tell her that she was through.

Libby took a stance in the middle of her living room, one hand clapped to her brow, the other holding the book outstretched in a declamatory manner. “Lost, lost, all lost,” she exclaimed. “Farewell, sweet maid.” She then staggered to the couch and reopened the book—521 pages! It fell from her pale, limp hand, the leaves sadly fluttering. One of the big features of living alone was that you could talk to yourself all you wanted and address imaginary audiences, running the gamut of emotion. She rose from the sofa now, shaking her head, and went to contemplate herself in the mirror, scrutinizing her features as if for the last time. Then, shifting mood, she gave herself a nudge in the ribs and went to feed her lovebirds some lettuce, reminding herself that she still had a week in which to cope. “Be brave!” she clarioned, popping on her hat, and stamped out to Alice MacCollister’s to dinner, where she saw a girl she knew, eating with a man. Stopping by their table on the way out, Libby instantly confided her problems with this Italian novel, which she showed them, having brought it along, with her pocket dictionary, to work on during dinner. “We
saw
you!” the girl said. “Gosh, it must make you feel important to have a job like that!” “I may not have it long,” Libby prophesied. “Five hundred and
twenty
-one pages of the thickest Sicilian. And me nurtured on Dante.”

She did not get her report done till late the following Sunday, though she stayed home nearly the whole weekend and did not even do the
Times
crossword puzzle. Her summary of the plot was short. Some features of the action had baffled her, despite some heavy work with the atlas and the dictionaries in the Public Library. She described the book as a “study of the agrarian problems of modern Italy, seen against the background of a feudal past. Don Alfonso, the protagonist, representative of the old order, is at odds with the mayor of the village, who stands for progress and innovation. The peasants, who are sharply characterized and who speak a rich, racy idiom redolent of the sty and the barnyard, are divided between the point of view of Don Alfonso and that of the mayor, Don Onofrio. Don Onofrio’s daughter, Eufemia, is drawn into the political struggle and is stabbed by accident during a tumultuous meeting in the piazza. The peasants treat her as a saint and attempt to venerate her remains. The parish priest intervenes. The
carabinieri
appear, and order is finally restored, after a ‘miracle’ worked at the tomb of Donna Eufemia. This occurs just as the obsequies of Don Alfonso, the last of his race, are being performed and suggests an intended symbolism. There is much curious folklore, well presented, particularly the tapestry or, better, mosaic of pagan belief, Christian superstition, and primitive animism seen darkly glittering in the minds of the peasants, as in some ancient, dim-lit, bat-flittery church with its uneven pavement marked by the worn, sunken tombs of Norman Crusaders and the clerestory upheld by defaced pillars ravaged from Greek temples. The political ‘slant’ of the author is not sufficiently defined. Where does he stand in the struggle? With Don Alfonso or with the mayor? He does not say, but it is important that we, as readers, should know. The place assigned the ‘miracle’ tends to make us believe that he stands with the mayor;
ergo
, with present-day Italy and Il Duce. The
carabinieri
enter as virtual deliverers. If we attempt to peer into the cauldron of boiling
minestra
which this tale constitutes, we are driven back by the steam of pungent, scalding language. But this reader, at any rate, could not escape the suspicion that the author has written an apologia for the corporate state. For this reason, I would register a negative opinion on the book’s chances here.”

Libby had often heard her aunt in Fiesole say that Mussolini was doing the Italians a great deal of good; and she had been thrilled herself as a little girl by the Blackshirt rallies in the Piazza della Signoria. But she had tried to look at the novel from Mr. LeRoy’s point of view, what with Ethiopia and Haile Selassie and the League, and she felt pleased, on the whole, with her “effort” when she brought it in to him on Monday, especially with the way she had managed to
suggest
that the book was laid in Sicily without actually naming it, in case she might be wrong.

She sat there lacing her fingers as he glanced through her report. “Sounds like a damned opera,” he remarked, raising his eyes from the first sentences. Libby just waited. He went on reading and suddenly shot her a quizzing look from under his bushy brows. He put her blue folder down, pulled the silk cord abstractedly, raised one pained eyebrow as if he had
tic doloureux
, and slowly lit his pipe. “Oh me oh my!” he commented. He was chuckling. “What book did you read?” he demanded and handed her the first reader’s report. “… a too-little-known classic of militant Italian liberalism tempered with Chekhovian pity and ironic detachment …The author, whose place in Italian letters was made by this one novel, died in 1912. …”

Libby was speechless. “Sound of hollow laughter,” she said finally, venturing a peal of same. “I can explain,” she went on. “It’s not important,” he said. “I can see how you were misled. Probably customs and manners haven’t changed much in Italy in the last fifty years.” “The words out of my mouth!” ejaculated Libby, almost bounding out of her chair with relief. “Time has stood still in the
Mezzogiorno
. That’s what I was going to say. I thought the author was trying to emphasize the backwardness.
You
know, that it was part of his thesis. Oh, did you ever hear anything so funny? But I’ll have to redo my report. ‘In the light of recent discoveries’—ha, ha. If you’ll just give it back to me …” She turned her bright face anxiously to him, realizing that she had become horribly nervous, which was the effect his musing silences had on her.

He sighed. “Miss MacAusland,” he said, “I’m going to have to give it to you straight. I think you’d better look for some other kind of work. Have you ever thought of trying for a job with a literary agent? Or on one of the women’s magazines? You’ve got a real writing talent, believe me, and plenty of drive. But you’re not cut out for straight publishing.” “But why?” said Libby quite calmly; now that the blow had fallen, she felt an actual relief; she was only curious as to what he would say—not concerned. He puffed on his pipe. “I don’t know that I can explain it to you. I’ve tried in my own mind to figure out exactly what’s wrong. You just don’t have the knack or maybe the common sense or the nose or whatever it is for picking out a publishable manuscript. Or let’s say you’re not hard-boiled enough. You’re essentially a sympathizer. That’s why I see you with a literary agent. You keep telling me you want to work with authors. Well, that’s what agents do, work hand in glove with them, especially on magazine stuff. Encourage them; ride them; tell them what to cut; hold their hand; take them out to lunch.” “But publishers do that too,” put in Libby sharply. She had often pictured herself, in a snappy hat and suit, taking authors out to lunch on the expense account and discussing their work over coffee. “Those rumors are greatly exaggerated,” said Mr. LeRoy. “You probably think I lunch every day with famous authors at the Ritz. As a matter of fact, I eat at least two lunches a week alone in the Automat. I’m dieting. Today, I lunched with an agent—a damned smart one, a woman. She makes three times what I do.” Libby’s well-arched brows manifested surprise and incredulity. “That’s another thing, Miss MacAusland.” He leaned forward. “Publishing’s a man’s business. Book publishing, that is. Name me a woman, outside of Blanche Knopf, who married Alfred, who’s come to the top in book publishing. You find them on the fringes, in publicity and advertising. Or you find them copy editing or reading proof. Old maids mostly, with a pencil behind their ear and dyspepsia. We’ve got a crackerjack here, Miss Chambers, who’s been with us twenty years. I think she was Vassar too. Or maybe Bryn Mawr. Vinegary type, with a long thin nose that looks as if it ought to have a drop on the end of it, a buttoned-up sweater, metal-rimmed glasses; a very smart, decent, underpaid, fine woman. Our galley slave; pardon the pun. No. Publishing’s a man’s business, unless you marry into it. Marry a publisher, Miss MacAusland, and be his hostess. Or make connections with an agent. Or work your way up in the slicks.”

“What a picture you conjure up,” said Libby thoughtfully, her chin cupped in her hand. “I wonder …Would you let me do an interview with you for the
Vassar Alumnae Magazine
?” Mr. LeRoy put up his hand. “I don’t think that would be in keeping with the firm’s policy,” he said stuffily. “Oh, but I wouldn’t have to name you, if you didn’t want. I could just take a few notes now. Or, better, if you were free some day for a cocktail …?” But he rudely brushed this aside. “We’re having sales conference this week, Miss MacAusland. And next week, let’s see—” he glanced at his desk calendar—“next week I have to be out of town.” He cleared his throat. “You can write what you want, of course, but I’d rather not be involved in it.” “I understand,” said Libby.

She started to get up then, till it dawned on her that she was just tamely accepting her dismissal without having heard one adequate reason. He was only talking in generalities, not telling her frankly where she had failed, so that she could have a chance to correct it. And if she did not think of something fast, she would have no excuse, like the interview, for seeing him again. What did you do in a case like that?

She lit a cigarette. “Couldn’t you try me at something else? Writing blurbs, for instance. I’m sure I could write blurbs.” He cut her short. “I fully agree that you could write very passable jacket copy. But that’s one of the mechanical trades in this business. No honor attaches to it. Everybody pitches in. I do it; all the editors do it; my secretary does it; the office boy does it. It comes down to this, Miss MacAusland; we really have no work that you’re uniquely qualified to do. You’re one of thousands of English majors who come pouring out of the colleges every June, stage-struck to go into publishing. Their families back them for a while; a year is about the limit. Till the girls finally find somebody to marry them and the boys go into something else.”