Life at the lake, of course, was easier.
It was, in its own particular way, more formal than the life in town. There was more of what he had come to think of as “social intercourse,” which differed completely from the urban “visiting.”
Most nights of the week the wives would sit out on one another’s verandas, or gather at the hotel porch. And Saturday night—Sunday was “Family Night,” sacrosanct to the reunion with the Husband up from Town—Saturday night and Sunday afternoons were given to the round of formal “Stoppings By,” a round of dinners, breakfasts, parties, and teas offered and returned.
He loved the smell of breakfasts. The clean reek of coffee, as if it went direct to his bowels. That’s how it felt to him, an excitement. Sunday morning, rested, a day free of work, rising late.
The road was still—the dirt road up from the lake. The townspeople were all at church, while he slept late and woke to the feeling of entitlement.
What dearer sound than one’s own wife moving carefully, to protect one’s sleep, one’s late sleep—what greater endorsement?
“They may say what they like, Morris,” he said, “but the Mortrara boy, the matter of the boy is not a matter of state. Not,” he said, stilling correction, “not that I would not have it so. I would. But what state, what …” He spread the country honey on his toast and thrilled to the sound of his own voice, holding forth. So like a man. “So like a man,” Frank thought. “Assured—beyond assured. Didactic, yes, I’m proud to say it. And why not? At my own table, in front of my friends—who are guests. Yes. And I speak without apology. It may be truth itself, it may be trash, yes, though I do not think it is, but it may be … it cannot be both, but …” His thoughts were interrupted as he came to “my due and prerogative” and was about to proceed toward “the greater benefits of the Leader, in this case, the Father, and the Family Gathering, ruled or commanded or led by a Central Figure …”
“Where, then, might be the other possibility?” Morris said.
“More toast”? his wife said.
“Yes,” Frank thought. “I have my place, and she has hers. Our happiness comes from the limits we impose, both on each other and on ourselves. Our …”
Ruthie brought the platter in, and, as he did every week, he appreciated the old green platter and thought of it as “country crockery.”
“So refreshing,” he thought.
“… if you would do it at the factory,” Morris said.
“Do what?”
“What? Do what?” Morris said. “Do what?” And he looked across the table at his sister, to gather support.
“If I would … Yes, yes, yes,” Frank said. “Yes. ‘Act in’ … well, Morris. Morris. Each of us has … don’t we? Each … wait a moment …”
“How I love these discussions,” he thought. “And after breakfast I will have a nap.
“Was ever a man in such a happy position as this? The coffee? The friends? The breeze from the lake, the breakfast? No. A man could live all the years allocated to the earth and not see a more lovely morning.”
Soon they’d hear the boats, and the sound of their neighbors, returning from church, the rumble of the cars, and the quiet walk of the horses, and the voices of townspeople, talking low.
They were back, of course, on the rear veranda of the cabin. On the lake side—why should they not be? “That’s where the breeze is,” Frank thought. “That is where the breeze is. And a man who works all week can stand a day of simple pleasure, away from the mass, the trouble, and the maintenance of the administration. Away from the inadequate strength of the last three shipments of cedar … now you’ve thought of it,” he thought. And, through it all, heard himself speaking.
“… government of Spain, a sovereign body. But as they … wait: Morris. Wait a moment. Morris …”
He sat, brooding over the indulgence due him, and deprived him, in the termination of his speech. He waited. Morris subsided.
“Did, I say. Did ‘as they thought right.’” There was a momentary pause.
“Subsequent events …,” he continued, and raised his hand to still his friend, who bore the look of one practiced upon. “Well, if he wanted to speak, he should have spoken,” Frank thought, and continued.
All the while he was conscious of their position on the back porch, hidden from the road.
“No, we have the right to be here,” he thought. “We are not ‘screened’ from them, for this is where the porch was built; and how could they take umbrage that we’ve not gone to church? We are not sequestering ourselves, for, surely, they can smell our breakfast, and that’s the end to it.”
“Well,” Morris said, “I’m going to tell you something: They took that child, and the child’s gone. How do you deal with it? You deal with it. How you deal with it, that’s the meaning of philosophy. Fellow says, ‘Meaning of philosophy,’ you have to make your own. Now, generations: ‘How many angels dance on the head of a pin?’ One man comes along: ‘How big is an angel?’ Ah. This is a new philosophy. Ages go past. ‘Aha. Aha,’ so on. New man says, ‘How big is the pin?’ Mm?” He paused. “… hailed as a visionary.”