Too Much Happiness

about old men. I thought that they were not only incapable but too worn down, made too dignified-or depressed-by various trials and experiences and their own unsavory physical decline to have any interest left. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that my being undressed had nothing to do with the sexual uses of my body, but I took it more as a dare than as a preliminary to further trespass, and my going along with it had more to do with the folly of pride, as I have said, more to do with some shaky recklessness than with anything else.
    Here I am, I might have wished to say, in the skin of my body which does not shame me any more than the bareness of my teeth. Of course that was not true and in fact I had broken out in a sweat, although not for fear of any violation.
    Mr. Purvis shook hands with me, making no sign of awareness that I lacked clothing. He said it was a pleasure for him to meet Nina’s friend. Just as if I was somebody Nina had brought home from school.
    Which in a way was true.
    An inspiration to Nina, he said I was.
    “She admires you very much. Now, you must be hungry. Shall we see what they’ve provided for us?”
    He lifted the lids and set about serving me. Cornish hens, which I took to be pygmy chickens, saffron rice with raisins, various finely cut vegetables fanned out at an angle and preserving their color more faithfully than the vegetables that I regularly saw. A dish of muddy green pickles and a dish of dark red preserve.
    “Not too much of these,” Mr. Purvis said of the pickles and the preserve. “A bit hot to start with.”
    He ushered me back to the table, turned again to the sideboard and served himself sparingly, and sat down.
    There was a pitcher of water on the table, and a bottle of wine. I got the water. Serving me wine in his house, he said, would probably be classed as a capital offense. I was a little disappointed as I had never had a chance to drink wine. When we went to the Old Chelsea, Ernie always expressed his satisfaction that no wine or liquor was served on Sundays. Not only did he refuse to drink, on Sundays or any other day, but he disliked seeing others do it.
    “Now Nina tells me,” said Mr. Purvis, “Nina tells me that you are studying English philosophy, but I think it must be English
and philosophy
, am I right? Because surely there is not so great a supply of English philosophers?”
    In spite of his warning, I had taken a dollop of green pickle on my tongue and was too stunned to reply. He waited courteously while I gulped down water.
    “We start with Greeks. It’s a survey course,” I said, when I could speak.
    “Oh yes. Greece. Well as far as you’ve got with the Greeks, who is your favorite-oh, no, just a minute. It will fall apart more easily like this.”
    There followed a demonstration of separating and removing the meat from the bones of a Cornish hen-nicely done, and without condescension, rather as if it was a joke we might share.
    “Your favorite?”
    “We haven’t got to him yet, we’re doing the pre-Socratics,” I said. “But Plato.”
    “Plato is your favorite. So you read ahead, you don’t just stay where you’re supposed to? Plato. Yes, I could have guessed that. You like the cave?”
    “Yes.”
    “Yes of course. The cave. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
    When I was sitting down, the most flagrant part of me was out of sight. If my breasts had been tiny and ornamental, like Nina’s, instead of full and large nippled and bluntly serviceable, I could have been almost at ease. I tried to look at him when I spoke, but against my will I would suffer waves of flushing. When this happened I thought his voice changed slightly, becoming soothing and politely satisfied. Just as if he’d made a winning move in a game. But he went on talking nimbly and entertainingly, telling me about a trip he had made to Greece. Delphi, the Acropolis, the famous light that you believed couldn’t be true but was true, the bare bones of the Peloponnesus.
    “And then to Crete -do you know about the Minoan civilization?”
    “Yes.”
    “Of course you do. Of course. And you know the way the Minoan ladies dressed?”
    “Yes.”
    I looked into his face this time, his eyes. I was determined not to squirm away, not even when I felt the heat on my throat.
    “Very nice, that style,” he said almost sadly. “Very nice. It’s odd the different things that are hidden in different eras. And the things that are displayed.”
    Dessert was vanilla custard