The Stories of John Cheever

“Grace is not mad,” I said. “There is nothing wrong with the fact that she likes to sing. You’ve got to understand that her desire for a career is not spiteful. It is shared by almost every woman in the neighborhood. Margaret is working with a dramatic coach in New York three days a week and I don’t consider her spiteful or insane.”

“American men have no character,” he said. “They are commercial and banal.”

I would have hit him then, but he turned and walked away. This was evidently the end of our friendship, and I was tremendously relieved, because his accounts of Grace’s madness had come to be a harrowing bore and there seemed to be no hope of changing or illuminating his point of view. He left me alone for two weeks or longer, and then he approached me again one morning. His face was dark, his nose was enlarged, his manner was definitely unfriendly. He spoke in English. “Now you will be agreeing with me,” he said, “when I am telling you what she is doing. Now you will be seeing that there is no end to her spitefulness.” He sighed; he whistled through his teeth. “She is for having a concert!” he exclaimed and turned away.