367. Within a Budding Grove - Madame Swann at Home - Part 2

 

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Within a Budding Grove

Madame Swann At Home

P404 “...Sometimes, before going to dress, Mme. Swann would sit down at the piano... It was on one of those days that she happened to play me the part of Vinteuil’s sonata that contained the little phrase of which Swann had been so fond. But often one listens and hears nothing, if it is a piece of music at all complicated to which one is listening for the first time... Probably what is wanting, the first time, is not comprehension but memory... When the least obvious beauties of Venteuil’s sonata were revealed to me, already, borne by the force of habit beyond the reach of my sensibility, those that I had from the first distinguished and preferred in it were beginning to escape, to avoid me. Since I was able only in successive moments to enjoy all the pleasures that this sonata gave me, I never possessed it in its entirely; it was like life itself. But, less disappointing than life is, great works of art do not begin by giving us all their best. In Vinteuil’s sonata the beauties that one discovers at once are those also of which one most soon grows tired, and for the same reason, no doubt, namely that they are less different from what one already knows. But when those first apparitions have withdrawn, there is left for our enjoyment some passage which its composition, too new and strange to offer anything but confusion to our minds, had made indistinguishable and so preserved intact; and this, which we have been meeting every day and have not guessed it, which has thus been kept in reserve for us, which by sheer force of its beauty has become invisible an remained unknown, this comes to us last of all. But this also must be the last that we shall relinquish. And we shall love it longer than the rest because we have taken longer to get to love it... The reason for which a work of genius is not easily admired from the first is that the man who has created it is extraordinary, that few other men resemble him...”

P406 “If I did not understand the sonata, it enchanted me to hear Mme Swann play. Her touch appeared to me (like her wrappers, like the scent of her staircase, her cloaks, her chrysanthemums) to form part of an individual and mysterious whole, in a world infinitely superior to that in which the mind is capable of analyzing talent.”

I include this to continue what he’s written about the “phrase” and also about the progression of art. But it seems to me that he is also talking about love. Romantic love but also the artful love of a courtesan. With that in mind it is probably a good thing that this passage, which starts with Odette “playing” for a smitten young Marcel, ends with M. Swann talking about the sonata and of those years of his life so that it is clear that Marcel is not alone with Odette.

Day 109 of pandemic. Also the 43rd anniversary of my arrival in San Francisco from Central Arizona. Still my only interstate move as an adult (my parents had moved three times by my age, not counting the war years.)

Restoration work has finally begun in my building so I was trapped on site waiting for contractors all day yesterday. Today all the scheduled work was completed so I was finally able to make my second, post lockdown, visit to Trader Joe’s supermarket. Once again everything has changed. I went once just before the official lockdown started and the shelves were virtually empty. Then a couple months ago, I stood in the over-a-block-long line to rush in and get a few essentials (microwave brown rice is as close as I’ve come to crack or meth. I don’t exactly approve of it but I can’t stop using). Today the line was half as long but now all the aisles are one way. That doesn’t sound too bad but it means there is one path you can, or are supposed to, take through the store. You can’t dart to the frozen section to check on the supply of organic brown rice before you start the rest of your shopping. Or see how much room is left in your basket after you get a six-pack of toilet paper. Yes, I did both of those things and then had to cut through the barriers to start again at the produce section.

Now I know that it is no longer enough, in this new normal, to have a detailed grocery list, you must also know where the items are so you don’t skip something and have to start all over again. And to tell you the truth, I don’t see the point of this but I’m not going to be more difficult than is necessary. I got everything I needed and I was able to pack it in my bags. But I will continue to shop at my local markets for everything they have. 

This is certainly not a way of life I foresaw 43 years ago when I arrived on a Greyhound bus. Though really I can’t complain. I’m in a better apartment. I have more money. I’m more physically fit. And there’s a decent chance that, a year from now, I will have access to the city again... or at least to what businesses still exist.

Day 115 of the zombie apocalypse... I’m tired of hearing about the pandemic. If someone would have predicted that I would go 115 days without eating anywhere but in my apartment I would have laughed. But here we are. Tonight I had my favorite veggie chow fun from the local Chinese place and a glass or two of cheap Chardonnay, but I enjoyed it at the little counter in my kitchen that is also my desk.

The Eagles

Last night, just as I was about to go to bed, YouTube suggested a recent live performance of an Eagles song. “One Of These Nights,” to be specific. And this is where the addictive quality of YouTube kicks in because how can you listen to just one Eagles song? And after you’ve listened to several performances in recent decades you can’t help wondering, “But what about back in the ‘70s?” So I watched a couple of those videos too.

Even though the Eagles followed some of my favorite musicians out of Laurel Canyon -- C,S,N & Y, Joni Mitchell, Frank Zappa -- they came a little later and were never “my” band. I can’t tell you why.

Listening to them last night I noticed how they were really the descendants of the musical tradition that came out of Buffalo Springfield in the shape of Poco. There has always been a Country & Western aspect to Buffalo Springfield -- signified by Steven Still’s hats, if nothing else. Poco ran with it but were only a moderate success. The Eagles did much better. 

It’s worth noting that Gram Parsons, and then Emmylou Harris, were also working this C&W crossover terrain. Emmylou Harris’s band, after Parsons’ death, was actually more Country and she stayed on that, and finally the Bluegrass, side of music.

The Eagles went mainstream but their songs, mostly story songs, are very Country. It’s hard to be less of a one-hit-wonder band than the Eagles, and yet I think some of my problem with them is because of “Hotel California.” It’s a great song, but not really a typical Eagles song, and yet it’s great success may have distorted the image of the band. Just speculation here. But it doesn’t give me a peaceful easy feeling.

Hitchhiking in Colorado in the ‘70s I got a long ride with a guy who played nothing but the Doors. I carpooled to Yosemite at the end of the ‘80s with a guy who played nothing but the Eagles. This may have been what Hesiod had in mind when he said, “moderation is best in all things.” Though I guess he could also have just said, take it easy.

One of my favorite people died yesterday. She was 85 and it wasn’t COVID-19, but it still deserves a mention. She could be annoying. She imposed our alley garden on the neighboring properties. I will end with my favorite Janet story, but she was the spirit and story teller of our little building. When she was forced to leave, three years ago, the building suffered.

She died early in the afternoon of Bastille Day, though, because of the zombie apocalypse I hadn’t realized that it was Bastille Day -- normally I would be greening the local Bastille Day event. I only talked to her twice, on the phone, after she received her fatal diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. We didn’t have the opportunity to talk things out over the building’s house (cheap) wine and local (not very good) pizza the way we would have if she had still been in residence. Their “real” home was way out in the country and with the zombie apocalypse and all, getting out there was next to impossible. 

I would have liked to have visited one last time, with our common friend who is currently holed up in Sweden. It wouldn’t have made any difference, but it would have been worth the trouble. She was fortunate enough to have home hospice care at the end and her hospice care providers were two of her granddaughters. Life doesn’t get much better than that. As is often the case, death most disadvantages the survivor. This couple has been together since high school and now he is alone. 

Now for that story: When she was in residence she would water the garden in our alley. I try to waste as little water as possible when I water but after Janet watered it always looked like a main had burst. One day she got a little carried away and, since she had a good hose in her hand, started washing down the windows of the building next door to us. She went from window to window until there was a scream from inside the unit... the window had been open and she blasted the inside of the apartment with a strong spray of water.

I’ve been busy with HOA work again, but am caught up again. It is now 140 days into the zombie apocalypse. Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, my favorite event of the year has been officially cancelled for 2020. We’re now past the time for the big Art & Soul Festival in Oakland -- one of my favorite East Bay events. Also for the Berkeley Kite Festival that usually happens the same weekend.

Last week I walked a record eight blocks from my apartment to buy a new laptop. My old one was so slow it was only semi-functional. I’m still fully in social distancing mode.

Recently there was a train derailment and fire followed by a partial collapse of the railroad bridge over Tempe Town Lake, the old Salt River bed. On YouTube tonight I saw a video of the explosion of part of the bridge as they continue clearing away the debris so that they can rebuild the bridge and restore service. This drove me to Google Map and a survey of my old neighborhood. Almost nothing remains of what I knew back in the mid-’70s. 

At that time I lived in the Casa Loma apartment building with a shared shower and only a half bath in my unit. The kitchen and dining room was in what had been the sleeping balcony, since enclosed. It was a delight in Spring when the citrus trees were in bloom and much less of a delight in summer when the little AC unit mounted on the wall struggled to control the temperature as I tried to sleep days while driving a taxi at night.

Most of downtown Tempe was very old. Mill Ave was lined by decent sized masonry buildings while, closer to the tracks, there were old detached houses. The old highway bridge still existed back then and you could walk out on it but not cross to the other side -- or at least not safely. The old highway landed on a raised strip of land that also formed the left side of the local baseball field. I seem to recall some small stands and lights at night. The tar divided, concrete squares of the old paving continued through the residential neighborhood. I’m not entirely sure of it’s complete path, but I found another abandoned bit of it over near the Orange Julius stand on Rural. It was a hobby of mine to trace the old highways through Phoenix and Tempe, almost nothing remains of them now though I did find the strip along the baseball field though I think the paving is gone.

Back then the Sunset Limited train still passed that way and I liked to watch it pass almost as much as I liked riding on it. There was a small rail yard closer to the Casa Loma that smelled perpetually of citrus -- not the blooms of spring but the smell of juice from cars loaded with citrus that must have set in the sun there waiting to move on down the line. It was a sweet, not entirely unpleasant scent.

The Casa Loma, too, remains, though it looks completely different. Aside from the remains of the old Mill on the other side of Mill Ave, I’m not sure there’s a single additional brick or patch of pavement from when I lived there. I think more people now live there, which is good, but their experience is generic suburban. It has lost the character it had.

Our dating system is confusing. We are, technically, still in the 2nd decade of the 21st century but we are also out of the teens and into the twenties. Did anyone consider having a year zero? Wouldn’t that have been better? And it’s not like anyone would have had to deal with a year zero, it would only have been called that after the fact.

Time has been steadily passing. It is now day 155 of the zombie apocalypse and I am returning to blogging. I've been watching some health related videos on YouTube talking about plant based diets and the shortcomings of even a veggie diet. This has forced me to reevaluate my shelter in place diet.

I'm eating less sugar, which is good. And drinking less iced tea which I don't know how to judge. I'm eating more frozen and restaurant cooked food and a lot more bread, so more sodium. I'm eating fewer salads and more cheese and eggs. My diet is still much better than the average American, but that's a really low bar. It may be time to finally return to Whole Foods and stock up on some of my usual healthy staples.

I've decided to put off my optional dentist appointment but to see my eye doctor and probably my chiropractor for my usual six month adjustment. That will be strange as it will be like returning to normal times but, as a friend put it, while dressed up like a bandit.

It is now day 190 of the plague and, as you might guess, I’m having a hard time returning to this. I really wanted to wrap up my HOA project but that seems to be beyond my control. Since I last wrote we have undergone a new plague of wildfires and the resulting smoke. This should have given me more time to write, since I couldn’t leave my apartment for almost a week, but that’s not the way it worked.

Now, however, we are at what should be the peak of my greening season and I have to at least say something about that.

I continue to exercise, though the poor air quality has frequently curtailed my outside hikes/climbs. The social/political situation here in the USA continues to get more and more interesting -- from the perspective of a student of history. I continue to eat pretty well. In fact my diet has gotten much better with an emphasis on legumes and flaxseed and also a reduction in dairy.  

So let’s get to what is on my mind these fraught days: Greening and The Magic Mountain. Sorry.

The weekend coming up would have been the Northern California Dragon Boat Races at Lake Merritt in Oakland. Not only is this one of my favorite events (though diminished from what it was out on Treasure Island) but it is also the warm up (for me) to my favorite event, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival which is on the first weekend of October. HSB is being held this year, but it is an online event. Not at all the same thing.

I congratulate myself on being in decent shape so I probably could work the events if they happened. But, in fact, that is stretching the truth. I am in decent shape given the circumstances but working hard for eight plus hours on warm to hot days is my yearly fitness test that I only can pass after building up to it slowly over the greening season. I wouldn’t bet on my being able to stay on my feet for my normal twenty-four hours of HSB madness.

On the otherhand, I’m in a good position to get in shape for 2021, should the plague come to an end. 

The other day I found myself wondering what the current political/social craziness reminded me of, and it finally came to me. To summarize, on the right there are white supremacists who seem determined to provoke the insurrection they’ve longed for. On the left the anarchists think that we need to burn everything down so we can... I don’t know, start over again in a state of nature? At any rate, they hate each other but both are equally determined to destroy the status quo.

What all this reminds me of is “The Great Petulance” toward the end of The Magic Mountain. I understand Mann to be arguing that everyone in his microcosm for Europe was fed up and longed for some violent solution to all the disagreements. I think America is in the same state. We haven’t done anything as cathartic as the Civil War in almost 150 years and we are bored. Also, we don’t remember history well enough to understand how nasty something like that can get. Or maybe we just don’t care. We want to sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.

These are the times that remind me why I became a Burkian conservative in the first place. What saddens me is that it will probably take twenty years to get the good books on this history and that’s getting close to my Sell By date. I don’t fancy holding on that long just for this. (And two centuries might be more realistic.)

366. Within A Budding Grove - Madame Swann At Home

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Within A Budding Grove by Marcel Proust

Madame Swann At Home

I almost left this next bit out, but then realized I couldn’t, for a reason that has nothing to do with Proust.

P380 As my choking had persisted long after any congestion remained that could account for them, my parents asked for a consultation with Professor Cottard. It is not enough that a physician who is called in to treat cases of this sort should be learned. Brought face to face with symptoms which may or may not be those of three or four different complaints, it is in the long run his instinct, his eye that must decide with which... he has to deal. This mysterious gift does not imply any superiority in the other departments of the intellect, and a creature of the utmost vulgarity... in whose mind there is nothing out of the common, may perfectly well possess it... [At first his family decides to ignore Cottard’s instructions.] Then, as my health became worse, they decided to make me follow Cottard’s prescriptions to the letter; in three days my ‘rattle’ and cough had ceased, I could breath freely. Whereupon we realized that Cottard, while finding, as he told us later on, that I was distinctly asthmatic, and still more inclined to ‘imagine things,’ had seen that what was really the matter with me at the moment was intoxication, and that by loosening my liver and washing out my kidneys he would get rid of the congestion of my bronchial tubes and thus give me back my breath, my sleep and my strength. And we realized that this imbecile was a clinical genius....

Why, obviously, I can’t let this go by without comment is that it is a concise restatement of what Clausewitz writes about the instinct for command in war. And we need to remember that Proust’s father, in fact, was a doctor, so Proust is doubly interested in this subject, first as a patient but also as the son of a doctor.

Even the “fog of war” works for medicine. Unless there’s a knife sticking into someone, we rarely know all we need to know to make an accurate diagnosis. And a too analytical doctor can get lost in test results when a decision needs to be made now. Clausewitz, too, concludes that what you want in a commander is an imbecile like Cottard with good instincts. The difference is that for war you also need a good, analytical chief of staff to implement the commander’s instincts. To trot out my hobby horse again (and rarely has that phrase from Tristram Shandy been used so aptly) it isn’t enough to have Napoleon... you need Berthier as well.

And it may be that I’m not riding my hobby-horse that far off Proust’s road after all. I just noticed this,

P332 ...With Cottard... honors, offices and titles come with the passing of years; moreover, a man may be illiterate, and make stupid puns, and yet have a special gift, which no amount of general culture can replace -- such as the gift of a great strategist or physician....

P348 My Aunt Leonie had bequeathed to me, together with all sorts of other things and much of her furniture, with which it was difficult to know what to do, almost all her unsettled estate...

So this dilemma of the middle class is not so new. We shall see that young Marcel comes up with a novel solution to the furniture problem, but in my family today there is an over abundance of old furniture which none of the younger generations have any interest in. Perhaps some clever woodworker will devise a scheme to turn old furniture into caskets so that we can at least be buried in some of it. Or maybe we could go just a little further and load a boat with furniture and belongings that no one else wants, with the corpse on top, and send it, blazing, downstream.

There is a sort of reverie about the marriage of Swann and Odette inserted into the section about entertaining M. de Norpois -- the great success of which is Francois’ cooking.

P 360 ...it might be said that if Swann married Odette it was in order to present her and Gilberte, without anyone’s else being present, without, if need be, anyone’s else ever coming to know about it, to the Duchesse de Guermantes. We shall see how this sole social ambition that he had entertained for his wife and daughter was precisely that one the realization of which proved to be forbidden him by a veto so absolute that Swann died in the belief that the Duchess would never possibly come to know them. We shall see also that, on the contrary, the Duchesse de Guermantes did associate with Odette and Gilberte after the death of Swann... The laborious process of causation which sooner or later will bring about every possible effect, including (consequently) those which one had believed to be most nearly impossible, naturally slow at times, is rendered slower still by out impatience (which in seeking to accelerate only obstructs it) and by our very existence, and comes to fruition only when we have ceased to desire it -- have ceased, possibly, to live...

This “laborious process of causation” sounds almost like he’s describing quantum waveforms, for example in the weak force.

And we get something more of use from M. de Norpois. Marcel asks if he saw Gilberte while dining with the Swanns,

P365 M. de Norpois appeared to be trying for a moment to remember; then: “Yes, you mean a young person of fourteen or fifteen?...”

This is very helpful as I have a hard time judging Marcel’s age. In so many ways he seems like a child... a younger child by maybe five years. This makes a bit more sense.

P384 ...And so it fell out that, whereas M. de Norpois, on learning that I did not know but would very much like to know Mme. Swann, had taken great care to avoid speaking to her about me, Cottard, who was her doctor also, having gathered from what he had heard Bloch say that she knew me quite well... concluded that to remark, when next he saw her, that I was a charming young fellow and a great friend of his could not be of the smallest use to me and would be of advantage to himself, two reasons which made him decide to speak of me to Odette whenever an opportunity arose,

And now we are at the point where Marcel finally gains access to the Swann home. Having finally made it into their home, he is now keen to have, if not an actual “fragment” of one of Gilberte’s plaits, perhaps a photograph of them.

P385 ...To acquire one of these, I stooped -- with friends of the Swanns, and even with photographers -- to servilities which did not procure for me what I wanted, but tied me for life to a number of extremely tiresome people.

P387 [Young Marcel enjoys a tea-party with Gilberte.] ...Gilberte did not consider only her own hunger: she inquired also after mine, while she extracted for me from the crumbling monument [an architectural chocolate cake] a whole glazed slab jeweled with scarlet fruits, in the oriental style. She asked me even at what o-clock my parents were dining, as if I still knew, as if the disturbance that governed me had allowed to persist the sensation of satiety or of hunger, the notion of dinner or the picture of my family in my empty memory and paralyzed stomach. Alas, its paralysis was but momentary. The cakes that I took without noticing them, a time would come when I should have to digest them. But that time was still remote. Meanwhile Gilberte was making ‘my’ tea. I went on drinking it indefinitely, whereas a single cup would keep me awake for twenty-four hours. Which explains why my mother used always to say: “What a nuisance it is; he can never go to the Swanns’ without coming home ill.” But was I aware even, when I was at the Swanns’, that it was tea that I was drinking? Had I known I would have taken it just the same... My imagination was incapable of reaching to the distant time in which I might have the idea of going to bed, and the need to sleep.

[Odette makes an appearance at the tea-party.] p388 ...I had not at first understood of whom Mme. Swann was speaking when I heard her sing the praises of our old ‘nurse.’ I did not know any English; I gathered, however, as she went on that the word was intended to denote Francoise. I who, in the Champs-Elysees, had been so terrified of the bad impression that she must make, I now learned from Mme. Swann that it was of the things that Gilberte had told them about my ‘nurse’ that had attracted her husband and her to me. “One feels that she is so devoted to you; she must be nice!” (At once my opinion of Francoise was diametrically changed. By the same token, to have a governess equipped with a waterproof and a feather in her hat no longer appeared quite so essential.)...

If I had now begun to explore... the fairy domain... this was still only in my capacity as a friend of Gilberte. The kingdom into which I was received was itself contained within another, more mysterious still, in which Swann and his wife led their supernatural existence... But soon I was to penetrate also to the heart of the Sanctuary. For instance, Gilberte might be out when I called, but M. or Mme. Swann was at home. They would ask who had rung, and on being told it was myself would send out to ask me to come in for a moment and talk to them, desiring me to use in one way or another, and with this or that object in view, my influence over their daughter... My new position as the friend of Gilberte, endowed with an excellent influence over her, entitling me now to enjoy the same favors... the right of informal entry into the palace... Swann, with an infinite benevolence... would make me go into his library and there let me for an hour on end respond in stammered monosyllables, timid silences broken by brief and incoherent bursts of courage, to utterances of which my emotion prevented me from understanding a single word; would shew me works of art and books which he thought likely to interest me... 

P391 [Swann and Gilberte are talking about Mme. Bontemps who is married to the Chief Secretary to the Minister of Posts.] “He’s the uncle of a little girl who used to come to my lessons, in a class a long way below mine, the famous ‘Albertine.’ She’s certain to be dreadfully ‘fast’ when she’s older, but just now she’s the quaintest spectacle.”
...
“I don’t know her. I only used to see her going about, and hear them calling ‘Albertine’ here, and ‘Albertine’ there. But I do know Mme. Bontemps, and I don’t like her much either.”

[I couldn’t leave this out, but it is a very strange thing to say.]

P394 Mme. Swann had... met with no [social] success outside what was called the ‘official world.’ Smart women did not go to her house... In the days of my early childhood, conservative society was to the last degree worldly, and no ‘good’ house would ever have opened its doors to a Republican. The people who lived in such an atmosphere imagine that the impossibility of ever inviting an ‘opportunist’ -- still more, a ‘horrid radical’ -- to their parties was something that would endure for ever, like oil-lamps and horse-drawn omnibuses. But, like a kaleidoscope which is every now and then given a turn, society arranges successively in different orders elements which one would have supposed to be immovable, and composes a fresh pattern...

P397 ...I conceived a suspicion that we had, at Combray, replaced one error, that of regarding Swann as a mere stockbroker, who did not go into society, by another, when we supposed him to be one of the smartest men in Paris. To be a friend of the Comte de Paris meant nothing at all... Princes know themselves to be princes, and are not snobs; besides, they believe themselves to be so far above everything that is not of their blood royal that great nobles and ‘business men’ appear, in the depths beneath them, to be practically on a level.


100 days of Pandemic

I’m surviving pretty well. If I could only spend a couple hours a week in a cafe working at a table that wasn’t in my little apartment, I would be completely content. But that seems as far away as ever. My local restaurants have thrown tables and chairs out on the sidewalk, so I could eat out if I wanted to, but that would involve an additional risk while having to endure cold winds or hot sun or the usual roving lunatics. I prefer to continue picking up four to six meals at a time and eating at home.

There’s a plan for opening things up even more, but so far people seem to be acting like idiots and the infection rate is going back up, so I think things are about to get worse rather than better. Internationally we continue to be Number One in cases and deaths -- over 120,000 deaths now -- but Brazil and Mexico are now hard on our heels. Brazil happens to have a leader who is even dumber than ours, so I think they have real potential to displace us as the world's basket case. I have always had a low opinion of people but even I am amazed at the general level of stupidity. This is becoming less a medical problem and more a case of the Darwin Awards Gone Wild.

Some examples of what I’m talking about: Some professional men’s tennis stars got together in the Balkans and promptly all got infected due to socializing off the court. And before you could blame it all on testosterone a women’s soccer team, getting ready to start competing in Florida, went out to a bar and the same thing happened  to them. That Trump organized an indoor election rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma doesn’t really count, because Trump. And Trump supporters.

But back to ME. I continue to do virtually all my marketing at two corner markets: The small one on my alley and a much larger one four blocks away. Though I’m about ready to hit the closest supermarket again for some staples and items I can’t find anywhere else. My pharmacy has reopened after the looting spell, so that’s nice. And my bank’s closest branch has also reopened, so I don’t have to walk as far when I do need to do banking.

Realistically, I’m probably a third of the way through this ordeal. And that’s if we are lucky. The next 100 days should be easier. I have my routine down now and everything is going relatively well. I will get increasingly bored and will need to come up with new goals, but time is tending to fly by. We are approaching a Magic Mountain sense of time. I’ve visited my closest taqueria once so far and will probably do that again if the taco truck doesn’t appear here soon. I could really use a bakery but that’s something the neighborhood lacks.

As for what’s not happening: The usual time for the Sikh Rally has come and gone. We didn’t work Juneteenth even though it was more celebrated this year than normal. Looking at my records, I see that the time for the Sumerthing concert has also past. This hasn’t been held by the sponsoring radio station for several years now, but it was one of my favorite little concerts in Golden Gate Park. The next big event, one I’ve worked every year for at least ten years, is the 4th of July Festival and Firework Display in Berkeley. 


While I like working that event, getting home at the end is not fun. First I have to walk several miles from the Marina to the street where I can catch a bus. Then there’s a long bus ride through a firework war zone to the train that will take me to another bus that will take me four blocks down the hill from where I live. It all takes forever, and at the end of eight hours of hard work. I would work it if I could, but I won’t really mind skipping this event once.

365. Some Do Not... - Part Two cont.

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Part Two

III. 

This may be my favorite section of the book, where we meet Mark and Mark, for all intents and purposes, meets Christopher.

I had forgotten one of the more brilliant instances of Christopher’s doomed luck. If his becoming the “mascot” of the Wannop family started rumors all over his world, you would have thought it would at least would have gained him credit with his father... wrong. Not only was his father put out at no longer being called on for help and advice, but we also learn, thanks to the omniscient narrator, that his father had thought of marrying Valentine himself.

P202 [Mark] “You had a cheque dishonored at the club this morning?”

Christopher said:
“Yes.”
Mark waited for explanations. Christopher was pleased at the speed with which the news had traveled: it confirmed what he had said to Port Scatho...

Mark was troubled. Used as he had been for thirty years to the vociferous south he had forgotten that there were taciturnities still... he had got into the habit of considering himself almost the only laconic being in the world. He suddenly remembered with discomfort -- but also with satisfaction -- that his brother was his brother.
...

P214 Christopher said [to Mark]:
“I doubt if liar is the right word. He [Ruggles] picked up things that were said against me. No doubt he reported them faithfully enough. Things are said against me, I don’t know why.”

“Because,” Mark said with emphasis, “you treat these south country swine with the contempt that they deserve. They’re incapable of understanding the motives of a gentleman. If you live among dogs they’ll think you have the motives of a dog. What other motives can they give you?” He added: “I thought you’d been buried so long under their muck that you were as mucky as they!”

P215 Tietjens looked at his brother with the respect one has to give to a man ignorant but shrewd. It was a discovery that his brother was shrewd. [Presumably this “Tietjens” is Christopher]

P216 ... Mark said. “You’ve got Groby to all intents and purposes...”

Christopher said:
“Thanks. I don’t want it.”
“Got your knife into me?” Mark asked.
“Yes. I’ve got my knife into you,” Christopher answered. “Into the whole bloody lot of you, and Ruggles’ and ffolliott’s and our father!”

Mark said: “Ah!”
“You don’t suppose I wouldn’t have?” Christopher asked.

“Oh, I don’t suppose you wouldn’t have,” Mark answered. “I thought you were a soft sort of bloke. I see you aren’t.”

“I’m as North Riding as yourself!” Christopher answered.
...

P220 “No. I’m coming in,” Mark said. “I want to speak with Hogarth... About the transport wagon parks in Regent park. I manage all those beastly things and a lot more.”

“They say you do it damn well,” Christopher said. “They say you’re indispensable.” He was aware that his brother desired to stay with him as long as possible. He desired it himself.
...

[They meet Valentine]
P221 ... He added: “This is my brother Mark.”

...she said to Mark:
“I didn’t know Mr Tietjens had a brother. Or hardly. I’ve never heard him speak of you.”

Mark grinned feebly, exhibiting to the lady the brilliant lining of his hat.

“I don’t suppose anyone has ever heard me speak of him,” he said, “but he’s my brother all right!”

[Valentine asks Christopher if he’s “Mrs Macmasters that is’s” lover because Sylvia told her this. Christopher sets her straight]

P223 Christopher said:
“Come along. I’ve been answering tomfool questions all day. I’ve got another tomfool to see here, then I’m through.”

She said:
“I can’t come with you, crying like this.”
He answered:
“Oh, yes you can. This is the place where women cry.” [Where casualties are posted.] He added: “Besides there’s Mark. He’s a comforting ass.”
He delivered her over to Mark.
“Here look after Miss Wannop,” he said. “You want to talk to her anyhow, don’t you?” and he hurried ahead of them....

IV

This is such a Ford Madox Ford section. There are about three pages of Mark talking with Valentine and telling her his father “wanted your mother to be comfortable... He wants you to be comfortable too. . . .” and so solving their pressing financial situation that has been causing Valentine so much stress. Then we are in Valentine’s head for thirty-two pages recalling everything from the start of the war to her recent break with Mrs Macmaster.

V

And we are still in Valentine’s head. We are now brought up to the present including the phone conversation between Sylvia and Valentine at the beginning of this Part that we didn’t quite hear. The one where Sylvia tells Valentine, “Young woman! You’d better keep off the grass.  Mrs Duchemin is already my husband’s mistress. You keep off.” It is interesting that everyone believes all the rumors about Christopher. When he is in their presence people seem to believe he’s pure as the driven snow but he’s instantly pure as the driven slush when there’s gossip.

From page 229 to page 277 it's all in Valentine's head before we finally return to where Valentine is still sitting with Mark waiting for Christopher. And now for the love scene. Ready?

P 279 ...He had led her past swans -- or possibly huts; she never remembered which -- to a seat that had over it, or near it, a weeping willow. He had said, gasping, too, like a fish:

“Will you be my mistress to-night? I am going out to-morrow at 8.30 from Waterloo.”

P280 She had answered:
“Yes! Be at such and such a studio just before twelve. . . . I have to see my brother home. . . . He will be drunk. . . .” She meant to say: “Oh my darling, I have wanted you so much. . . .”
She said instead:
“I have arranged the cushions. . . .”


90 days of pandemic social distancing

The bees have gotten about all they’re going to get out of the flowering bush outside my window. That pretty much signals the start of summer for me. The next change I see will be when the maple tree turns color in the fall. I don’t expect all that much will have changed by then. I will still be social distancing and sheltering in place for the most part. It’s going to be the strangest year of my life.

Excepting errands around the building, like doing my laundry, watering the plants, sweeping and the like, I usually only leave my apartment once a day for exercise or twice if I have to go to the market or a restaurant for takeaway. Next week I’ll be venturing all the way to the bank, which I seem to need to hit once a month.

What I miss most, (not including food) and what I fantasize about attempting if it does reopen this year, is the bank cafe. I have still not had a drop of iced tea (or alcohol) this whole time. I would so like to grab my usual iced tea -- even if it has to be in a disposable cup -- and find an isolated spot to work on some project for several hours. It is a big place with good HVAC, so this doesn’t seem impossible to me.

I can’t imagine returning to the gym. Some of my usual restaurants/cafes I probably could try again, but the calculus of risk might not be worth it. We are probably weeks away from this even being an option and if the cases and deaths continue to rise, as is likely, I may not even be able to consider this by then. 

I do keep thinking of The Magic Mountain -- which should surprise no one who has read any of my blogs. The quality of time under lockdown. The importance of food and exercise and routine and the variation of that routine. All these things from the book are now daily considerations for me. Hans had the advantage in every way. He was really only restricted to his little Alpine valley. I’m limited to my hill, but even on my hill and in my building my actions are limited. And Hans only had to wear a mask for Fasching. I have a variety of masks for different activities outside my apartment, and have been attempting -- still without any luck -- to obtain better masks for several months now.

What I most envy Hans Castorp: His five prepared meals a day. His terrace with a view of the valley. His social life, including dueling mentors. On-site health professionals. If this goes on for over a year I may need to change the order of some of these items.

VI

And another prime example of how Ford chooses to tell a story. For the tale of how Christopher spent his last evening in London before returning to France and the Great War, we start... with him returning home at half-past three in the morning and falling into a chair in the dark,

P280 ...He imagined that no man had ever been so tired and that no man had ever been so alone!...

Their night of passion has come to this,

P281 “...Our hands didn’t meet. . . . I don’t believe I’ve shaken hands. . . . I don’t believe I’ve touched the girl . . . in my life. . . . Never once!... English, you know . . . But yes, she put her arm over my shoulders. . . . On the bank! . . . On such short acquaintance! I said to myself then . . . Well, we’ve made up for it since then. Or no! Not made up! . . . Atoned. . . . As Sylvia so aptly put it; at that moment mother was dying. . . .”

When they finally get her drunk brother home he passes out on the sofa -- where she had arranged the cushions.

P283 ...He had exclaimed:
“It’s perhaps too . . . untidy . . .”
She had said:
“Yes! Yes . . . Ugly . . . Too . . . oh . . . private!”
...

...he had added: “We’re the sort that . . . do not!”
She had answered, quickly too:
“Yes -- that’s it. We’re that sort!”...

And then they are off to talk about the party at Macmaster’s that Valentine didn’t attend as she has broken with Mrs Macmaster. Where Christopher learns that Macmaster has gotten a knighthood for a bit of statistics work Christopher had done as a joke showing that the French had suffered hardly at all if you just counted the bricks destroyed and not the output of the farms, mines, and factories occupied since the war began. This marks the end of his relationship with Macmaster as they can not really stand having him around as they can’t pay back all the money Christopher loaned Macmaster to get him established. That and the fact that Mrs Duchemin that was has always hated him.

And with that whimper, we end the first volume of Parade’s End.

364. Some Do Not... - Part Two

Link to Table of Contents

Part Two

P166 [Sylvia] She looked at Tietjens now with a sort of gloating curiosity. How was it possible that the most honorable man she knew should be so overwhelmed by foul and baseless rumors? It made you suspect that honor had, in itself, a quality of the evil eye. . . . 

So this brings up another aspect of this story that I intend to keep an eye on, the Stoic perspective. Christopher is for all intents and purposes the Stoic Job. Entirely honorable and yet everyone suspects him of every kind of dishonor. And he responds in good Stoic fashion by simply keeping on keeping on.

P173 [Sylvia to Christopher] “...But, oh, Christopher Tietjens, have you ever considered how foully you’ve used me!”

Tietjens looked at her attentively, as if with magpie anguish. [??]

“If,” Sylvia went on with her denunciation, “you had once in our lives said to me: ‘You whore! You bitch! You killed my mother. May you rot in hell for it. . . .’ If you’d only once said something like it . . . about the child! About Perowne! . . . you might have done something to bring us together. . . .”

Tietjens said:
“That’s, of course, true!”

“I know,” Sylvia said, “you can’t help it. . . . But when, in your famous country family pride -- though a youngest son! -- you say to yourself: And I daresay if . . . Of, Christ! . . . you’re shot in the trenches you’ll say it . . . oh, between the saddle and the ground! That you never did a dishonourable action. . . . And, mind you, I believe that no other man save one [Christ, presumably] ever had more right to say it than you. . . .”

Tietjens said:
“You believe that!”

P173 “As I hope to stand before my Redeemer,” Sylvia said, “I believe it. . . . But, in the name of the Almighty, how could any woman live beside you . . . and be for ever forgiven? Or no: not forgiven; ignored! . . . Well, be proud when you die because of your honor. But, God, you be humble about . . . your errors in judgement. You know what it is to ride a horse miles with too tight a curb-chain and it’s tongue cut almost in half. . . . You remember the groom your father had who had the trick of turning the hunters out like that. . . . And you horse-whipped him, and you’ve told me you’ve almost cried ever so often afterwards for thinking of that mare’s mouth. . . Well! Think of this mare’s mouth sometimes! You’ve ridden me like that for seven years. . . .”
...

“Don’t you know, Christopher Tietjens, that there is only one man from whom a woman could take ‘Neither I condemn thee’ and not hate him more than she hates the fiend! . . .”

So this is where I got the horse idea. I should have known if was from Ford.

Next Sylvia is talking about how Christopher should “sleep with the Wannop girl to-night; you’re going out to be killed to-morrow.”

“...I’ve been a wicked woman. I have ruined you. I am not going to listen to you.”

He said:
P174 “I daresay you have ruined me. That’s nothing to me. I am completely indifferent.”
...

“I don’t care. I can’t help it. Those are -- those should be -- the conditions of life amongst decent people...”
...

Now we come to the bit about the Groby curse and the heir of Groby which I must include.

P175 Sylvia said:
“You mean that I may bring the child up as a Catholic.”

Tietjens said:
“A Roman Catholic. . . . You’ll teach him, please, to use that term before myself if I ever see him again. . . .”

Sylvia said:
“Oh, I thank God that he has softened your heart. This will take the curse off this house.”

Tietjens shook his head:
“I think not,” he said, “off  you, perhaps. Off Groby very likely. It was, perhaps, time that there should be a Papist owner of Groby again...”
...

P176 “...I fought your influence because it was Papist, while I was a whole man. But I’m not a whole man any more, and the evil eye that is on me might transfer itself to him.”

He stopped and said:
“For I must to the greenwood go. Alone a banished man. . . . But have him well protected against the evil eye. . . .”
...

178 [Sylvia] “...Your father died of a broken heart,” she said, “because your brother’s best friend, Ruggles, told him you were a squit who lived on women’s money and had got the daughter of his oldest friend with child. . . .”

Tietjens said:
“Oh! Ah! Yes! . . . I suspected that. I knew it, really. I suppose the poor dear knows better now. Or perhaps he doesn’t. . . . It doesn’t matter.”

II

This is one of the sections that are slowly built up to where everything finally happens. Strangely though, there’s nothing I feel I need to quote.

But I did have an irresistible thought while reading this again. Keep in mind that I now have both the book and the Tom Stoppard miniseries starring Benedict Cumberbatch in my head as I read. At the climax of this scene after Christopher has been ruined by Brownie, a banker in love with Sylvia, he goes from being overdrawn for a matter of hours the previous day to having Sylvia being thwarted at depositing a thousand pounds into his account, his brother Mark offering him a thousand pounds a year, and finally Lord Port Scatho, Brownie’s uncle and the head of the bank, saying Christopher can draw on his personal account. 

So it seems to me that they could have done one take of this scene in which Cumberbatch reacts to all this by yelling “I’m rich!” and running out of the room. Then one take of the subsequent scene with Mark and Valentine could be shot with Cumberbatch holding bags of candy and with chocolate smeared on his face. If nothing else it would be the hit of the blooper reel.

363. Some Do Not... Part One cont.

Link to Table of Contents

Some Do Not... 

V

We get Mrs Duchemin and Valentine in conversation before the “breakfast.”

P 81 Miss Wannop said:
“Wait a minute. I haven’t finished. I want to say this: I never talk about that stage of my career [when she was in service after her father died] because I’m ashamed of it. I’m ashamed of it because I think I did the wrong thing, not for any other reason. I did it on impulse and I stuck to it out of obstinacy. I mean it would probably have been more sensible to go round with the hat to benevolent people, for the keep of mother and to complete my education. But if I’ve inherited the Wannop ill-luck, we’ve inherited the Wannop pride. And I couldn’t do it...”

Couldn’t this be said of Christopher as well? About the pride?

P83 “...I could harangue the whole crowd when I got them together. But speak to one man in cold blood I couldn’t. . . . Of course I did speak to a fat golfing idiot with bulging eyes, to get him to save Gertie. But that was different.”

Great way to have the love interest describe her future mate.

...

“Oh, the right man!”Miss Wannop said. “Thanks for tactfully changing the subject. The right man for me, when he comes along, will be a married man. That’s the Wannop luck!”

Christopher, upon first properly seeing Valentine at breakfast, and after having learned the evening before that half the world thinks her his mistress.

P88 “By Jove . . .” he said to himself: “It’s true! What a jolly little mistress she’d make!”
...

...He looked back at Miss Wannop [after dismissing Mrs Duchemin], and considered that she would make a good wife for Macmaster; Macmaster liked bouncing girls and this girl was quite lady enough.

What’s funny about this is that Macmaster, when first meeting Mrs Duchemin, was pairing her with Christopher. 

I don’t quite understand Mrs Duchemin’s instant antipathy towards Christopher. It’s important for the plot of the story, but you’d think a person would tend to make allowances for the best friend of the person they’re falling in love with.

VI

This is the part I’ve been waiting for.

P109 [Mrs Wannop to Christopher] “My dear boy!” she said, “My dear boy; it’s such a satisfaction to have you under my roof!” [They are in fact on the road to her house.]

The black horse reared on end, the patriarch [I have no idea. A type of bit?] sawing at its mouth. Mrs. Wannop said unconcernedly: “Stephen Joel! I haven’t done talking.”

Tietjens was gazing enraged at the lower part of the horse’s sweat-smeared stomach.

“You soon will have,” he said, “with the girth in that state. Your neck will be broken soon.”
..

P110 Tietjens addressed the driver with some ferocity:

“Here; get down, you,” he said. He held himself the head of the horse whose nostrils were wide with emotion; it rubbed its forehead almost immediately against his chest. He said: “Yes! Yes! There! There!” It’s limbs lost their tauntness. The aged driver scrambled down from the high seat... Tietjens fired indignant orders at him:

“Lead the horse into the shade of the tree. Don’t touch his bit: his mouth’s sore... blast you, don’t you see you’ve got a thirteen hands pony’s harness for a sixteen and a half hands horse. Let the bit out three holes: it’s cutting the animal’s tongue in half...”

“Loosen that bit, confound you,” he said to the driver. “Ah! You’re afraid.”

He loosened the bit himself, covering his fingers with greasy harness polish which he hated...

... He stood back and looked at the horse: it had dropped its head and lifted its near hind foot, resting the toe on the ground: an attitude of relaxation.

“He’ll stand now!” he said. He undid the girth, bending down uncomfortably, perspiring and greasy; the girth strap parted in his hand.
...

P112 ...This fellow hasn’t been swindling you. He’s got you deuced good value for money, but he doesn’t know what’s suited for ladies; a white pony and a basket-work chaise is what you want.”
“Oh, I like a bit of spirit,” Mrs Wannop said.
“Of course you do,” Tietjens answered: “but this turn-out’s too much.”
...

[To the driver] ...”You did damn well. Only you’re not what you were, are you, at thirty? And the horse looked to be a devil and the cart so high you couldn’t get out once you were in. And you kept it in the sun for two hours waiting for your mistress.”

“There wer’ a bit o’ lewth ‘longside stable wall,” the driver muttered.

“Well! He didn’t like waiting,”...

P112 Tietjens addressed Miss Wannop:
“What hands your mother’s got.” he said, “it isn’t often one sees a woman with hands like that of a horse’s mouth...”

“I suppose you think that’s a mighty fine performance,” she said. 

“I didn’t make a very good job of the girth,” he said. “Let’s get off this road.”

“Setting poor, weak women in their places,” Miss Wannop continued. “Soothing the horse like a man with a charm. I suppose you soothe women like that too. I pity your wife. . . . The English country male! And making a devoted vassal at sight of the handy-man, The feudal system all complete. . .”
...

...”I’m sorry I was rude to you. But it is irritating to have to stand like a stuffed rabbit while a man is acting like a regular Admirable Crichton, and cool and collected, with the English country gentleman air and all.”

Tietjens winced, The young woman had come a little too near the knuckle of his wife’s frequent denunciations of himself. And she exclaimed:

“No! That’s not fair!I’m an ungrateful pig! You didn’t show a bit more side really than a capable workman must who’s doing his job in the midst of a crowd of duffers...”

So. There will be more, much more, but here we have Christopher and horses vs Christopher and women. He sees horses and knows how to care for them. And his line about this being too much horse for their needs applies to Sylvia and himself. What he needs is what he says Mrs Wannop needs, a “white pony.” In other words Valentine.

So we are at the point in this story where in Pride and Prejudice we first see that Darcy and Elizabeth are made for each other. Or maybe we are at the point where Darcy realizes this but is so struggling with his pride that he can only offend Elizabeth. Alas, I don’t think Valentine ever does see Groby.

VII

P124 Jumping down from the high step of the dog-cart the girl completely disappeared into the silver... she was gone more completely than if she had dropped into deep water, into snow... Here there had been nothing.

The constation interested him...  


P125 He would have asked: “Are you all right?” but to express more concern than the “look out.” which he had expended already, would have detracted from his stolidity. He was Yorkshire and stolid; she south country and soft, emotional, given to such ejaculations as “I hope you’re not hurt,” when the Yorkshireman only grunts...

He returned to his constations of the concealing effect of water vapour...

P142 [Christopher to Campion after Campion’s car has injured the horse in the fog] “Go away,” he said, “say what you like. Do what you like! But as you go through Rye send up the horse-ambulance from the vet.’s. Don’t forget that. I’m going to save this horse. . . .”

“You know Chris,” the General said, “you’re the most wonderful hand with a horse . . . There isn’t another man in England . . .”

“I know it,” Tietjens said. “Go away. And send up that ambulance...”


Day 83 of the pandemic 

I haven’t written for a while. Chaotic times. Now the pandemic has been pushed aside by another Black Lives Matter moment. It does surprise me that Minneapolis is so often behind these episodes. It could be anywhere, given the racism in America, so I guess Minnesota is as good a trigger point as any. I have friends in the neighborhood where Mr Floyd was murdered so I've been following events as well as I can at this remove.

At any rate, the protests are still going on here and around the country, though the looting seems to have stopped locally. The shopping district below me was hard hit and I lost my drugstore. But here on the hill the only change has been more windows boarded up, just as the plywood was starting to come down for the pandemic. We have been stuck at 43 deaths from COVID-19 for quite some time now -- which is good. But the expectation is that the numbers may start going up as a result of the crowding at protests. We shall see. 

I’ve now made two attempts to buy better face masks online and have nothing to show for it. One online vendor’s system died even before we got to the credit card information. The other seemed to work, but I canceled the purchase after a couple weeks passed with no goods and no response to my inquiries. This isn’t a problem now but it may become a problem when things start to open up again, possibly later this month.

In other pandemic news, the big three when it comes to daily deaths are now the USA, Brasil, and Mexico. The published numbers for several countries are rather suspicious. Mexico has a surprisingly low number of cases for the death rate, no doubt because they aren’t doing much testing. Russia has a huge number of cases but few deaths, I imagine a comparison of year to year deaths will tell a different tale. The USA is up to 111,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths and still going strong at around a thousand a day. 250,000 before the election still looks like a reasonable number.

362. Some Do Not. . . - Introduction, Part One

Link to Table of Contents

Parade’s End

by Ford Madox Ford, 1924-1928

Introduction by Robie Macauley

I had to go to Wiki to learn who Robie Macauley was. 


An interesting life. He was responsible for the great writing I enjoyed in Playboy back in the ‘60s and then went to Houghton Mifflin when I was in the retail book business. But as much as I would like to praise him here, I can’t really say much for his introduction. I’m sure it is fine and probably contains insights I’m overlooking, but he doesn’t help me understand the political or religious aspects of the work. Like what Ford means by “Tory” and to what extent Chrisopher is a Protestant Christ figure. And Macauley may be a generation too late to grasp the significance of horses in the work, especially with regard to Sylvia and Valentine. This reading, we will see if that insight really holds up.

Interesting to note that the last volume of In Search of Lost Time was published before the last volume of Parade's End. I wouldn't have guessed that.

Some Do Not. . .

by Ford Madox Ford


Part One

P10 The hansom ran through nearly empty streets, it being very early for the public official quarters. The hoofs of the horse clattered precipitately. Tietjens preferred a hansom, horses being made for gentlefolk...
...

P11 When he paid the cabman, in front of a grey cement portal with a gabled arch, reaching up, he said:

‘You’ve been giving the mare less licorice in her mash. I told you she’d go better.’

P12 “The cabman, sith a scarlet, varnished face, a shiny hat, a drab box-cloth coat and a gardenia in his buttonhole, said:
‘Ah! Trust you to remember , sir.’

P14 ...he [Macmaster] hadn’t got over that morning. He had looked up from his coffee cup -- over the rim -- and had taken in a blue-grey sheet of notepaper in Tietjen’s fingers [the letter from Sylvia asking to be taken back], shaking, inscribed in the large broad-nibbed writing of that detestable harridan. And Tietjens had been staring -- staring with the intentness of a maddened horse -- at his, Macmaster’s, face...

P15 He could still feel the blow, physical, in the pit of his stomach! He had thought Tietjens was going mad: that he was mad. It had passed. Tietjens had assumed the mask of his indolent, insolent self...

II

Here we are introduced to Sylvia’s mother, Mrs Satterthwaite, and Father Consett and we first meet Sylvia. Sylvia is presented as utterly hateful but not all that different from her mother when it comes to men. But there’s nothing here about horses so I’m not going to bother quoting... but this would be a good section to reread after finishing the work as there is a huge amount of foreshadowing.

III

Had forgotten that Christopher and I share a dislike for the game of golf.

IV


This is where we learn that everyone already believes Christopher is cheating on Sylvia with Valentine, even though they hadn’t yet met. Since I read that Ford was a fan of Jane Austen, I now see in this the seeming inevitability in many of Austen’s novels. The couples are usually obvious, the question is how will it come about. (I was only able to finish Mansfield Park because I couldn’t see how it was going to end, not realizing how different attitudes were back then towards first cousins marrying.) The difference here is the problem is entirely Christopher's. Or Christopher. It could all be resolved in a chapter or two if Christopher weren’t so much who he is. It’s really a wonder that Valentine doesn’t end up hating him as much as Sylvia does.