The smile. Who was it who said that the smile is the secret of life? Adrian had an antic grin. I too laughed all the time. When we were together we felt we could conquer anything merely by laughing.

“You have to get away from him,” Bennett said, “and back into analysis. He’s not good for you.”

“You’re right,” I said. What was that I had just said? You’re right, you’re right, you’re right. Bennett was right and Adrian was also right. Men have always liked me because I agree with them. Not just lip service either. At the moment I say it, I really do agree.

“Let’s go back to New York right after the Congress is over.”

“OK,” I said, meaning it.

I looked at Bennett and thought how well I knew him. He was serious and sober almost to the point of madness at times, but it was also that which I loved about him. His utter dependability. His belief that life was a puzzle which could ultimately be figured out through hard work and determination. I shared that with him as much as I shared laughter with Adrian. I loved Bennett and knew it. I knew my life was with him, not with Adrian. Then what was tugging so hard at me to leave him and go off with Adrian? Why did Adrian’s arguments speak to my very bones?

“You could have had an affair without my knowing,” he said. “I gave you plenty of freedom.”

“I know.” I hung my head.

“You really did it for my benefit, didn’t you? You must have been terribly angry with me.”

“He’s impotent most of the time anyway,” I said. Now I had betrayed them both. I had told Adrian Bennett’s secrets. And Bennett Adrian’s. Carrying tales from one to the other.

And myself the most betrayed of all. Shown up for the traitor I was. Had I no loyalty at all? I wanted to die. Death was the only suitable punishment for traitors.

“I’d have thought he’d be impotent, or else homosexual. At any rate, it’s clear he hates women.”

“How do you know?”

“From you.”

“Bennett, do you know I love you?”

“Yes, and that only makes it worse.”

We stood looking at each other.

“Sometimes I just get so tired of being serious all the time. I want to laugh. I want to have fun.”

“I guess my somberness drives everyone away in the end,” he said sadly. And then he enumerated all the girls it had driven away. I knew them all by name. I put my arms around him.

“I could have had affairs without your knowing. I know lots of women who do that…” (Actually, I knew only three who made a constant habit of it.) “But that would be even worse, in a way. To lead a secret life and go home to you as if nothing had happened. That would be even harder to take. At least, I couldn’t bear it.”

“Maybe I should have understood how lonely you were,” he said. “Maybe it was my fault.”

Then we made love. I didn’t pretend Bennett was anyone but Bennett. I didn’t have to. It was Bennett I wanted.

He was wrong, I thought later. The marriage was my failure. If I had loved him enough, I would have cured his sadness instead of being engulfed by it and longing to escape from it.

“There’s nothing harder than marriage,” I said.

“I really think I drove you to it,” he said.

We fell asleep.

“His being so goddamned understanding only makes me feel worse, in a way. Jesus, I feel guilty!”

“So what else is new?” Adrian said.

We had found a new swimming pool in Grinzing, a small charming one, with relatively few fat Germans. We were sitting at the edge of the pool drinking beer.

“Am I a bore? Do I repeat myself?” Rhetorical questions.

“Yes,” said Adrian, “but I like being bored by you. It’s more amusing than being amused by somebody else.”

“I like the flow of conversation when we’re together. I never worry about making an impression on you. I tell you what I think.”

“That’s a lie. Just yesterday you made a big deal about what a good lay I was when I wasn’t.”

“You’re right.” That was fast.

“But I know what you mean. We talk well. Without lumps and bumps. Esther goes into these long gloomy silences and I never know what she’s thinking. You’re open. You contradict yourself all the time, but I rather like that. It’s human.”

“Bennett goes into long silences too. I’d almost rather he contradicted himself, but he’s too perfect. He won’t commit himself to a statement unless he’s sure it’s definitive. You can’t live that way-trying to be definitive all the time-death’s definitive.”

“Let’s have another swim,” Adrian said.

“Why were you so angry at me?” Bennett asked later that evening.

“Because I felt you treated me like a piece of property. Because you said you had no empathy for me. Because you never said you loved me. Because you’d never go down on me. Because you blamed me for all your unhappiness. Because you lapsed into these long silences and would never let me comfort you. Because you insulted my friends. Because you closed yourself off from any kind of human contact. Because you made me feel as if I were strangling to death.”

“Your mother strangled you, not me. I gave you all the freedom you wanted.”

“That’s a contradiction in terms. A person’s not free if their freedom has to be ‘given.’ Who are you to ‘give’ me freedom?”

“Show me one person who’s completely free. Who? Is anyone? Your parents choked you-not me! You’re always blaming me for what your mother did to you.”

“Whenever I criticize you in any way, you throw another psychoanalytic interpretation at me. It’s always my mother or my father-not something between us. Can’t we just keep it between us?”

“I wish it worked that way. But it doesn’t. You’re always reliving your childhood whether you admit it or not-what the hell do you think you’re doing with Adrian Goodlove? He looks exactly like your father-or maybe you hadn’t noticed.”

“I hadn’t noticed. He doesn’t look anything like my father.”

Bennett snorted. “That’s a laugh.”

“Look-I’m not going to argue with you about whether or not he looks like my father, but this is the first goddamned time you’ve ever showed any interest in me or acted as if you loved me at all. I have to bloody well fuck someone before your very eyes or you don’t give a damn about me. That’s pretty funny, isn’t it? Doesn’t your psychoanalytic theory tell you anything about that? Maybe it’s your Oedipal problem now. Maybe I’m your mother and Adrian resembles your father. Why don’t we all sit down and have a group grope about it? Actually, I think Adrian’s in love with you. I’m just the go-between. It’s you he really wants.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me at all. I told you I think he’s queer.”

“Why don’t we all sleep together and find out?”

“No thanks. But don’t let me stop you if that’s what you want.”

“I won’t.”

“Go ahead,” Bennett screamed with more passion than I had ever heard him muster. “Go off with him! You’ll never do any serious work again. I’m the only person in your life who’s held you together this long-but go ahead and leave! You’ll screw yourself up so thoroughly that you’ll never do anything worthwhile again.”

“How can you expect to have anything interesting to write about if you’re so afraid of new experiences?” Adrian asked. I had just told him that I wouldn’t go with him but had decided to return home with Bennett instead. We were sitting in Adrian’s Triumph, parked on a back street near the university. (Bennett was at a meeting on “Aggression in Large Groups.”)

“I plunge into new experiences all the time. That’s just the trouble.”

“Bullshit. You’re a scared little princess. I offer you an experience that could really change you, one you really could write about, and you run away. Back to Bennett and New York. Back to your safe little marital cubbyhole. Christ-I’m glad I’m not married anymore if this is what it leads to. I thought you had more guts than this. After reading all your ‘sensual and erotic’ poems-in inverted commas-I thought better of you than this.” He gave me a disgusted look.