Rameau's Niece

Yes, but it is not just any truth that one must woo, she thought. "A chair is a chair!" I am no longer interested in such trivialities. Dr. Lipi is attractive, therefore I am attracted to him. So what? Martin is a man and I like men, therefore I like Martin. If Lily is a woman and I like Lily, I like women. So what, so what, so what? I no longer simply seek truth, I no longer seek unimportant tautologies. Such truths exist, but they are of no value to me. I seek interesting and enlightening truth. I seek Edward.

She flew back to New York, to Richard's maid's room, and she felt better now that she knew what she had to do. And she felt better now that she realized what she had done, what had been going on through those months of empirical frenzy. What I have done, she thought, is to test the truth of my attachment to Edward. I have searched for the falsity content of my best theory, that is, Edward. I have done so by trying to refute my best theory, by trying to refute Edward, by trying to test my theory severely in the light of all my subjective knowledge and ingenuity. I have employed the critical scientific method with precision and care. I have tested my theory against a dentist, a Belgian, and a woman. I have discovered there is no certainty, but that I can nevertheless say that Edward, my attachment to Edward, my love of Edward, all are a greater approximation of truth than my attachment to anyone else. In other words, she thought, Edward is the guy for me.





Richard was barely speaking to her, so intimate had their relationship become.

"Leave me some milk," was all he said when he saw her.

She checked her datebook. It was July 12. Seemed like an auspicious date. A familiar date, too, but why? Margaret could not remember, but what difference did it make? She was going to seek Edward. Where would she find him so that she could seek him? School was out, but she was sure he would be at his office. It was that time of day.

In the rain, a light, cooling rain, Margaret waited for the bus. The clouds were gray and low. She would swoop down and pluck Edward from among the mortals. Just as Jove took Io, Jove wrapped in his cloud. But I will arrive in a bus.

She walked through the halls and realized how long it had been since she'd been to Edward's office, years since she'd gone down this corridor, so quiet and dim. She could hear her footsteps on the linoleum floor. They were as loud as her footsteps had been in the streets of Prague. Through the dingy passage she went, a pilgrim in search of her shrine.

Her determination and need were so stark and plain to her that she began to feel something like confidence, and that confidence grew the more she thought of Edward. How would Edward feel if Edward were seeking Edward? she asked herself. Why, he would feel strong and eager and sure. And so would she.

She imagined his face, all its angles and the deep-set blue eyes, the sudden explosion of a smile. She could hear his loud laugh, his voice resounding with love for his fellow man, who so resembled him.

She strengthened her resolve with these pictures of his face and sounds of his laugh until she realized she was at the office, and his laugh, his real laugh, echoed from within, and his face, his real face, appeared in the gap left by the half-open door. She could see him, and in front of him the back of a head with long silky brown hair, a student's head that faced him and moved only when he moved, to the left a little, to the right, the hair flicking loyally behind, then back to face the smiling, laughing, professorial shrine. My shrine, Margaret thought. Not your shrine.

It was summer. Didn't these girls have homes? Or summer camps? Or generous indiscriminate grants to study the sexual orientation of the figures depicted on Caribbean postage stamps?

Margaret stuck her head in. "Hi!" she said. She waved, wiggling her fingers, and smiled broadly.

"Margaret?" Edward looked startled. She'd caught him off guard, not an easy task. Her smile grew. She felt better just standing in his doorway. Beat it, broad, she thought, glancing quickly at the glossy brown hair, then back at Edward.

The silky head turned to face her. Oh—the pretty pale-skinned girl she had expected to see was not a girl at all but a boy. With a scraggly mustache. Well, all the better. Beat it, buddy. Can't you tell when you're de trop?

"Busy?" she said.

Edward stared at her in irritation.

"John," he said, after an awkward silence during which Margaret continued to smile blandly, thinking an insipid innocence to be her best opening ploy, "this is Margaret Nathan." He motioned toward her dismissively.

"Wow! Hi!" said the boy.

And Edward continued in a tone of voice that Margaret did not recognize and that did not become him, she thought. Edward bitter and pompous? Edward disappointed and therefore affecting superiority? Edward was superior! Didn't he know that anymore?

"Margaret, this is John Marsh. And the conference you have burst in upon with such uncharacteristic zeal, at least in regard to your proximity to me, has to do, or I should say had to do, with John's difficulty in deciding whether to return here next year or to take a year off to seek a higher understanding."

"Ah," Margaret said. "You mean riding across the country on a motorcycle."

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