This is what I heard in the evening. At the party everyone was intelligent and agreeable, but not particularly good-looking. No person of talent had brought along a new, beautiful, young girl, who being new and not knowing all the names would seem rude and superior, thus sending arrows of pain into the flesh of the older people who were known for something. Eyeglasses glimmered. Academics, like old barons of the Empire, coughed out their titles and universities and yet quickly the badges dimmed and their faces returned to the resignation brought on from too many lectures, and the docile, not-quite-interested smiles of students.

The host and hostess were of high intelligence and thus were, in turns, anxious, bored, and pleased. Their apartment in the West 80’s was typical of the city—the home of a bright young couple, where the man is paying alimony. Young children visited on the weekends, sleeping in the workroom of either the wife or husband, whichever labored at home. Books and records and pictures, a few pieces of old furniture well cared for, a number of handsome rugs and pillows, large plants in the southern window. Copper pans, some old silver, glazed casseroles in the neat square of kitchen.