“The week in the hospital was a long and exquisitely serialized course of suspense. Nothing in the X ray, nothing in the blood tests, nothing in the other examinations. There remained a report on a throat culture that had had to be sent to the state laboratory. That turned up some streptococcus infection.
“‘So that’s it,’ Dr. Cameron said, greeting me at the elevator. ‘Her temperature’s been normal now for two days, so it’s probably let up. She’s just walked in the hall without any pains. She feels a lot better. Give it another day and you can take her home. But anyhow, we’ve eliminated everything serious.’
“That was the happiest moment of my life. Or the next several days were the happiest days of my life. The fairy would not become a gnome. We could break bread in peace again, my child and I. The greatest experience open to man is the recovery of the commonplace. Coffee in the morning and whiskeys in the evening again without fear. Books to read without that shadow falling across the page. Carol curled up with one in her chair and I in mine. And the bliss of finishing off an evening with a game of rummy and a mug of cocoa together. And how good again to sail into Tony’s midtown bar, with its sparkling glasses, hitherto scarcely noticed, ready to tilt us into evening, the clean knives standing upended in their crocks of cheese at the immaculate stroke of five. My keyed-up senses got everything: the echo of wood smoke in Cheddar, of the seahorse in the human spine (the fairy would not be a gnome!), of the dogwood flower in the blades of an electric fan, or vice versa…But you can multiply for yourself the list of pleasures to be extorted from Simple Things when the world has once again been restored to you.”
Peter De Vries, The Blood of the Lamb
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
