Free Cast a Cold Eye by Mary McCarthy

excuse himself to fetch somebody’s coat, or the hostess may go in to look at the baby—but Francis has put a bookmark in his story. “As I was saying,” he resumes, when the distraction has passed. Furthermore, his opinions, which he used to modulate to suit the conversation, never taking up a position without preparing a retreat from it, have now become rigid and obtrusive. This is particularly true of him in his female aspect. Frances Cleary, once the indistinct listener, now arrives at a party with a single idea that haunts the conversation like a ghost. This idea is almost always regressive in character, the shade of a once-live controversy (abstract vs. representational art, progressive vs. classical education), but the female Frances treats it as though she personally were its relict; any change of subject she regards as irreverence to the dead. “Others may forget but I remember,” her aggrieved expression declares. If the hostess is successful in deflecting her to some more personal topic, a single word overheard from across the room will be enough to send her train of ideas puffing out of the station once more. She has dedicated herself, say, to the defense of Raphael against the menace of Mondrian; momentarily silenced, she will instantly revive should one of the other guests be so careless as to remark, “She’s as pretty as a picture.” “You can talk about pictures all you want,” Frances will begin…
    In the male Francis Cleary this belligerency is more likely to take a physical form. More and more often nowadays, Francis breaks glasses, ash trays, lamps. His elbow catches the maid’s arm as she is serving the gravy, and the hostess’s dress must go to the cleaners. All during an evening, he may have been his old undemanding self, but suddenly, at midnight, a sullenness will fall on him. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he will ejaculate when the talk goes over his head. Or he may grab someone else’s hat and stumble savagely out, knocking over a table on his way.
    As a couple, he does not drink too much. On the contrary, he quietly but firmly refuses the third and even the second drink. He arrives early, the two of him, and ensconces himself on the sofa (the Clearys of all numbers and genders have an affinity for the sofa, which they occupy as a symbol of possession). From this point of vantage, he, or shall we say for convenience’ sake, they, overlook the proceedings with a kind of regal lumpishness. Though their position as friends of the family may be new and still insecure, they treat the very oldest and dearest members of the wife’s or the husband’s circle (the college roommate, the former lover) as candidates for their approval. They do not consider it necessary to talk in the ordinary way, but put sharp, inquisitorial questions to the people that are brought up to them (“Would you mind telling me the significance of that yellow necktie?” “Why do the characters in your novels have such a depressing sex life?”), or else they merely sit, demanding to be entertained.
    Like the drinking Francis Cleary, they stay until the last guest has gone, and present a report of their findings to the host and hostess. Nothing has escaped them; they have noticed your former roommate’s stammer and your lover’s squint; they have counted the highballs of the heavy drinker and recorded the tremor of his hand; the woman you thought beautiful is, it turns out, bowlegged, and the lively Russian should have washed his hair. And they present these findings with absolute objectivity; they do not judge but merely report. Though each human being is, so to speak, a work of art, the Clearys are scientists, and take pride in disobeying the artist’s commands. If the artist places a highlight at what he considers a central point of his personality, a highlight that says, “Look here,” the Clearys instantly look elsewhere: the expressiveness of a man’s eyes will never blind them to the weakness of his