Free Silas Timberman by Howard Fast Page B

faculty and only seventeen Negroes enrolled at the university as students, appeared to be a part of no one’s doing, but simply the result of normal conditions. Lawrence Kaplin would have denied that there was any apparent anti-Semitism at the university. That his social life was limited, his friends few, his intimates even fewer, was something he accepted philosophically. It had been going on for a long time and he was more or less accustomed to it, and he tended to place most of the blame on his own sedentary habits. His wife, Selma, felt it a little more keenly; but both of them being from the middle west, they were used to this kind of behavior on the part of their gentile friends, and they performed their own role of acceptance without tears.
    Selma Kaplin was a stout, rather handsome woman, who had moved into the latter years of middle age gracefully and easily. She had good features and a full head of white hair that was quite beautiful and an interesting contrast to her still youthful skin. Greeting her, Myra thought once again that she must have been extremely attractive in her youth, full-bodied and passionate, and wondered how her husband, so gentle and withdrawn, had coped with it. Myra wasn’t sure that she liked Lawrence Kaplin; she had a mistrust of the over-gentle, sensing a retreat from and fear of normality, but Silas was charmed by and fascinated with the encyclopedic knowledge of the man. But now Myra felt warm and good, a reaction from what had gone before, and the result of a single cocktail on an empty stomach, and she welcomed them with a pleasure so obviously sincere that they both felt at ease immediately.
    â€œWe’re all ahead of you,” Myra said, “but I’m so glad you’re here, and do have a drink and catch up with us.”
    Greetings were exchanged. They all knew each other. Bob Allen, a round-cheeked, open-faced man, who looked less than his thirty-two years, had an instructorship in modern literature and a workshop in composition—it was expected that at a party like this the guests would be limited to Lundfest’s department. Joan Lundfest was a slight, languid woman, whose original blondness had by now become fixed in a corn-colored and perfect chemical sheen. She was over-painted, petulant and usually demanding, but bright now in a mild flirtation with Bob Allen. Lundfest and Silas were in animated conversation with Susan Allen, and Kaplin took a drink in his hand and joined them. Myra, to put Selma Kaplin at ease, talked home and children with her, served sandwiches, and caught words and phrases.
    â€œTo think in terms of British education these days,” Lundfest was saying, “is worse than futile. We’ve reached a point of specialization these days, where we must draw a sharp line between knowledge for use and knowledge per se . There is no knowledge for itself. The British turn out educated nonentities; we produce engineers, statesmen, and leaders of industry.”
    â€œWho would be none the worse off if they could read.”
    â€œCome now, they read what is necessary to them, Silas.”
    â€œWhere have I heard that? Now you’ll be telling me that the mind is like a closet—that it holds just so much and can’t be cluttered up with non-essentials.”
    â€œI’m not sure that isn’t so.”
    â€œReally?” Susan Allen smiled. “Then you and your technical civilization are consigning the whole lot of us to doom. Where is our future, Ed?”
    â€œIn a smattering of ignorance,” Kaplin said tentatively, but Lundfest leaped at the phrase.
    â€œThere it is, the semantical opposition. I’ve heard that smattering of ignorance five hundred times! What does it mean? I’ll tell you—nothing, absolutely nothing. Everyone is armed with a smattering of ignorance, composed of a few facts.”
    â€œThey used to be flesh and blood,” Silas said.
    â€œEd is flesh and blood. Ask the