Rameau's Niece

"In the shower?" She was stalling, trying to catch up. What did this mean? That he had never slept with Lily? Was it possible? The shower was just a shower? She heard his voice indistinctly through her own panic. He was explaining what had happened. Did that mean she had to explain what had happened? Did she have to tell him what had happened with Dr. Lipi? Was she supposed to confess? To the Vltava, driver! And step on it!

"I couldn't run in the morning," Edward was saying. "I'd been up so late waiting for you before Martin finally called." Martin! A gentleman and a papa. How improbable he seemed now, now that her life was over. "So we ran in the afternoon," Edward was saying, "and I brought a change of clothes for my class..." Yes, think ahead, Edward. No crumpled silk skirts for you. "...and I was going to shower in the gym, and then Lily offered her shower." Lily's shower. Yes, that part she remembered. She noticed he was wearing her favorite suit, a terrible old brown suit, the one he'd worn to Europe on their first trip, much too hot for summer. He was deteriorating without her. "I'm guilty!" he said. "I took a shower!" He shook his head. "Margaret, did you actually think I was throwing a leg over your coy little friend?"

In that moment, Margaret realized he would never have thrown his leg over anyone but her. His sense of order, of his own power, would not permit it. His egotism made sure that his generosity was not squandered but celebrated. To his students he gave what was due them—his bountiful teaching. His largess was in quantity and quality, not in the diversity of his gifts. It would have been unseemly, in his own eyes, for him to pop his adoring students. He was their teacher. He gave them teachings. To Lily, he gave his companionship and running tips. Oh Christ, he was just an innocent jogger. While she! She!

"Did you actually think I was, was fucking Richard? Richard the homo?" she blurted out in a tone of as much ironic outrage as she could muster. "I was just taking a bath."

And, you know, I also fucked an Adonis. Same difference.

"A bath?" Edward said, laughing. "That's the truth?"

Is it the truth? Margaret wondered. What is truth? Is it true to say "I was innocently taking a bath" without also saying "after a roll in the hay? With the fabulous physique of Dr. Lipi? With my dentist?" Is it true that I slept with Dr. Lipi, is that truth, or is this truth, that I'm here with you, that you're everything? If I rely solely on my senses at this moment, Dr. Lipi does not exist. There is only Edward. If I rely on reason, still Dr. Lipi doesn't exist, never did exist, never could exist. There is only Edward.

It is true that I threw myself into another man's bed. I did it. I experienced it. I remember it. I know it. It is a true statement. But there are an infinity of true statements. They are not all equal in value. A statement is true if and only if it corresponds to facts. A statement that conveys more information has a greater informative or logical content than a statement that conveys less information. It is a better statement. The greater the content of a true statement, the better it is as an approach to the truth. "I love you, Edward" has greater content than "I fucked Dr. Lipi." So "I love you, Edward" is a better statement.

"The truth, Edward, the real truth is that I love you." She said it so quietly she almost couldn't hear the words herself. Edward stared at her, steadily and seriously, until, unnerved, she looked away.

"Margaret," he said, and he sounded angry. "Are you quite certain? This time?"

"Well, there can be no certainty—"

"For Christ's sake, Margaret..."

Which of the young men does she like best? asked Walt Whitman. Which of the young men does Margaret like best? asked Margaret, and she knew the answer. An unseen hand pass'd over their bodies, over Edward's body. It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs, from his temples and ribs as she looked at him, at his temples and ribs and his terrible, relentless eyes. Perhaps he thought of the poem, too, for he leaned over the desk toward her, just a little, and very slowly. Margaret saw his hand lying on the desk just inches from hers, and, as she watched, her hand reached across those inches to touch him, to pull him toward her as she stood and leaned across the desk until he stood, too, his face against hers, his hands descending tremblingly, her hands descending tremblingly, until they had both descended tremblingly and completely onto the scarred desktop. Pencils and pens, books and journals and Styrofoam cups, Eve's preposterous paper on the twenty-eight-year-old woman and her twenty-eight young men all gave way to their pedagogic struggle.

The growth of all knowledge consists in the modification of previous knowledge, she thought in a last wild gesture toward reason. Kant said our intellect imposes its laws on our sensations. But how rarely it succeeds!

"Edward..." Reality resists our laws, she wanted to say, her face pressed into his chest, her hands pulling his jacket away, his shirt. We make mistakes again and again. Karl Popper says so.

"Popper," she gasped, unaware she had spoken.

We modify our laws, Edward, we modify our knowledge.

He looked down at her and smiled.

I made mistakes again and again, she thought. I modified. And now I know.

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