I made a point of catching the commercial. Orson offered the nation his assurance of the product’s worth with a voice as resonant as ever—a beautiful instrument indeed—and his presence was, in some grotesque way, still imposing. I couldn’t help wondering—as I do with any sponsoring of a product where an artist is paid to say what he’s paid to say—did Orson, himself, believe what he professed? Of course, he must be broke, so he has to earn his living this way. What a tragedy, to put such a talent to this use.

I contrasted this puffy huckster with the dauntless, spirited fellow I’d worked with in the thirties. I remarked how he dressed now, entirely in black, a formless, unbound costume, the kind of garment old women choose to conceal the infirmities of an aging body. I thought of what he was wearing as a great tent inside which he was hiding. I also thought of him—remembering his glory years—as a great beached whale, driven onshore by a storm or, more likely, by some mysterious turbulence in its essence. Why this slow suicide among whales? No one has ever found out. Was there some compulsion of shame or spiritual defect here that made Orson “let himself go,” then degrade his huge gifts by making commercials? Did he have an impulse, like the one that beached the whales, to rush to the end?