you like them too?
You mean John Sloan, George Luks ... those fellows?
No, said Stasia, I mean men like Picasso, Miro, Matisse, Modigliani...
I haven't kept up with them, said my father. But I do like the Impressionists, what I've seen of their work. And Renoir, of course. But then, he's not a modern, is he?
In a way, yes, said Stasia. He helped pave the way.
He certainly loved paint, you can see that, said my father. And he was a good draughtsman. All his portraits of women and children are strikingly beautiful; they stick with you. And then the flowers and the costumes ... everything so gay, so tender, so alive. He painted his time, you've got to admit that. And it was a beautiful period —Gay Paree, picnics along the Seine, the Moulin Rouge, lovely gardens...
You make me think of Toulouse-Lautrec, said Stasia.
Monet, Pissarro...
Poincare! I put in.
Strindberg! This from Mona.
Yeah, there was an adorable madman, said Stasia.
Here my mother stuck a head in. Still talking about madmen? I thought you had finished with that subject. She looked from one to the other of us, saw that we were enjoying ourselves, and turned tail. Too much for her. People had no right to be merry talking art. Besides, the very mention of these strange, foreign names offended her. Un-American.
Thus the afternoon wore on, far better than I had expected, thanks to Stasia. She had certainly made a hit with the old man. Even when he good-naturedly remarked that she should have been a man, nothing was made of it.
When the family album was suddenly produced she became almost ecstatic. What a galaxy of screw-balls! Uncle Theodore from Hamburg: a sort of dandified prick. George Schindler from Bremen: a sort of Hessian Beau Brummel who clung to the style of the 1880's right up to the end of the first World War. Heinrich Muller, my father's father, from Bavaria: a ringer for the Emperor Franz Joseph. George Insel, the family idiot, who stared like a crazy billy-goat from behind a huge pair of twirling moustaches, a la Kaiser Wilhelm. The women were more enigmatic. My mother's mother, who had spent half of her life in the insane asylum: might have been a heroine out of one of Walter Scott's novels. Aunt Lizzie, the monster who had slept with her own brother: a merry looking harridan with bloated rats in her hair and a smile that cut like a knife. Aunt Annie, in a bathing suit of pre-war vintage, looking like a Mack Sennett zany ready for the dog-house. Aunt Amelia, my father's sister: an angel with soft brown eyes ... all beatitude. Mrs. Kicking, the old housekeeper: definitely screwy, ugly as sin, her mug riddled with warts and carbuncles...
Which brought us to the subject of genealogy ... In vain I plied them with questions. Beyond their own parents all was vague and dubious.
But hadn't their parents ever talked of their kin?
Yes, but it was all dim now.
Were any of them painters? asked Stasia.
Neither my mother nor my father thought so.
But there were poets and musicians, said my mother.
And sea captains and peasants, said my father.
Are you sure of that? I asked.
Why are you so interested in all that stuff? said my mother. They've all been dead a long time.
I want to know, I replied. Some day I'll go to Europe and find out for my self.
A wild goose chase, she retorted.
I don't care. I'd like to know more about my ancestors. Maybe they weren't all German.
Yes, said Mona, maybe there's some Slavic blood in the family.
Sometimes he looks very Mongolian, said Stasia innocently.
This struck my mother as utterly ridiculous. To her a Mongolian was an idiot.
He's an American, she said. We're all Americans now.
Yes, Lorette piped up.
Yes, what? said my father.
He's an American too, said Lorette. Adding: But he reads too much.
We all burst out laughing.
And he doesn't go to church any more.
That's enough, said my father. We don't go to church either, but we're Christians just the same.
He has too many Jewish friends.
Again a laugh all around.
Let's have something to eat, said my father. I'm sure they'll want to be getting home soon. To-morrow's another day.
