by Philip Roth
help herself. Marcia sank into Jessie’s empty chair, in front of the brimming
glass of milk, and with her face in her hands, she began to laugh at their
obtuseness to the flimsiness of the whole contraption, to laugh and laugh and
laugh at them all, pillars of a society that, much to her delight, was going
rapidly under—to laugh and to relish, as some people, historically, always seem
to do, how far the rampant disorder had spread, enjoying enormously the
assailability, the frailty, the enfeeblement of supposedly robust things.
Yes, the breach had been pounded in their fortification, even out here in secure
Old Rimrock, and now that it was opened it would not be closed again. They’ll
never recover. Everything is against them, everyone and everything that does not
* * *
like their life. All the voices from without, condemning and rejecting their
life!
And what is wrong with their life? What on earth is less reprehensible than the
life of the Levovs?
423
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