The Stories of John Cheever

The next day was Saturday, and he made a schedule for himself. Cut the lawns, clip the hedges, split some firewood, and paint the storm windows. He worked contentedly until five, when he took a shower and made a drink. His plan was to scramble some eggs and, since the sky was clear, set up his telescope, but when he had finished his drink he went humbly to the telephone and called Mrs. Zagreb. He called her at intervals of fifteen minutes until after dark, and then he got into his car and drove over to Maple Avenue. A light was burning in her bedroom. The rest of the house was dark. A large car with a state seal beside the license plate was parked under the maples, and a chauffeur was asleep in the front seat.

He had been asked to take the collection at Holy Communion, and so he did, but, when he got to his knees to make his general confession, he could not admit that what he had done was an offense to divine majesty; the burden of his sins was not intolerable; the memory of them was anything but grievous. He improvised a heretical thanksgiving for the constancy and intelligence of his wife, the clear eyes of his children, and the suppleness of his mistress. He did not take Communion, and when the priest fired a questioning look in his direction, he was tempted to say clearly, “I am unashamedly involved in an adultery.” He read the papers until eleven, when he called Mrs. Zagreb and she said he could come whenever he wanted. He was there in ten minutes, and made her bones crack as soon as he entered the house. “I came by last night,” he said. “I thought you might,” she said. “I know a lot of men. Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” he said.

“Someday,” she said, “I’m going to take a piece of paper and write on it everything that I know about men. And then I’ll put it into the fireplace and burn it.”

“You don’t have a fireplace,” he said.

“That’s so,” she said, but they said nothing much else for the rest of the afternoon and half the night but “Hullo, hullo, hullo, hullo.”