We wonder what they put into Mr. Hergesheimer's Daiquiri. It seems to us
a rather optimistic and romantic account of the effect of a single
cocktail. One of the reasons why we were reconciled to prohibition was
the fact that we invariably felt cheated whenever we read any loving
essay about rum. In the theater, too, again and again we saw some
character raise a glass to his lips and immediately begin to sing about
young love in May if he happened to be the hero, or fall down a flight
of steps if he were cast as the low comedian. We tried earnestly enough,
but these experiences were never duplicated for us. No songs came to our
lips, nor comic tumbles to our feet. Nor did we ever participate in Mr.
Hergesheimer's "contemptuous indifference to fate." It was not for us in
one cocktail; no, not in many.
Occasionally, it was possible to reach a stage where we became acutely
conscious of the fact that Armenians were being massacred and that
Ireland was not yet free. And later we have known a very persuasive
drowsiness. But as for contempt and a feeling of superiority and a
freedom from the eternal fears, we never found the right bottle. There
was none which opened for us any door of adventure. Once, we remember,
while on our way from the office to Seventy-second Street, we rode in
the subway to Van Cortlandt Park and, upon being told about it, traveled
back to Atlantic Avenue. It was a long ride for a nickel, but it hardly
satisfied us as authentic adventure.
Even the romantic stories of our friends generally seem to us
inadequate. Only to-day A. W. said, "You should have come to the party.
We played a new game called 'adverbs.' You send somebody out of the room
and choose an adverb, and when she comes back you've got to answer all
the questions in the spirit of that adverb. You know rudely, quickly,
cryptically, or anything like that. And then Art did a burlesque of the
second act of _Samson and Delilah_ and Elaine passed out completely, and
every time anybody woke her up she'd say, 'Call me a black and white
ambulance.' You had ought to have come."
We couldn't have added anything to that party. When it came our turn to
answer the questions in the adverb game it would be just our luck to
have the chosen word "gracefully" or "seductively" or something like
that, and probably the burlesque was no good anyhow unless one could get
into the spirit of the thing. That is our traditional failure. Right at
the beginning of a party we realize that it is our duty to get gay and
put ice down people's backs and all that, and it terrifies us. Whenever
a host says "Here, drink some more Scotch and liven up" we have the same
sinking feeling that we used to get when one of our former city editors
wrote in the assignment book opposite our name: "Go up to the zoo and
write me a funny story."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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