I saw my friend Rufus Weeks. He was a socialist, an active one. He was peeling an orange. Let’s walk, he said. He was a man who liked to see things as he talked. He ate oranges because, as a child, he had an older sister who was ill – the doctor prescribed fresh fruit. Oranges were imported and expensive and he was not allowed one. Now he ate them with a vengeance, with bitterness. Rufus said he believed in character. In upholding morals. But only in public.
Manners, he said, are most important in a politician.
He was peeling the orange in one long spiral. What you expose should always be consistent and proper. Respectful to the times. But privately, character could and should be damned. Have you ever read Mansfield Park?
A long time ago, I said. In school.
We have buried Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram. The modern world, he said, is Henry and Mary Crawford. I want to be a devil, he said. We all do. I want everything, but to be a public man means one must do everything in private.
I did not talk to Rufus about Kathleen. Marriage for Rufus was a domestic arrangement. He divorced the emotional life from his political one, and so in his presence I did the same. The private I disclosed to Gerald, it was the public I wished to discuss with Rufus Weeks. I wanted to organize men, to have free medicine. With Gerald I would say that Kathleen’s character was thoroughly consistent from the public through to the private. It was the thing that drew me to her. She has no different disposition once the door is closed. I never noticed her change except for an occasional surprise. I hardly ever caught her in a private moment that embarrassed her. I want to discuss labour issues, Rufus.
He lifted the peel of his orange, as if the pith contained an answer. He spoke of a man in Newfoundland, a William Coaker. I must befriend him. He was a man for the people. Rufus Weeks would write me a letter of introduction.