Helen called in to me while I was showering. “You know that it’s almost six o’clock,” she reminded me as I inhaled the steam. “You said you wanted to be uptown by six o’clock.” And so I suddenly realized that I was late, despite all my careful planning, or perhaps because of it. And then I began to panic. I finished my day’s second shave in a mad rush, and cut myself slightly under my chin. I leapt out of the shower and got dressed and put on the wrong shirt. Helen was all ready, sitting in divine calm on one of the black chairs. She had poured herself a glass of white wine, which she was not drinking, but she sat holding it and watching as I dressed myself. “I think you’ve missed a button,” she called out to me as I put on my shirt. “Calm down, Harry,” she said a minute later. “The knot in your tie looks like you’re trying to strangle yourself.”

By the time I was ready I was sweating slightly. Robert had come down to pick us up and take us uptown. In the car, I dropped one of my cuff links behind the seat, and when I put my hand back to get it, I broke the band on my gold watch. It was too late to do anything about it. The party was called for six-thirty; we arrived at six-twenty-five. Helen had given up on trying to keep me calm, and sat erect and dignified, but with one arm draped around my shoulder.

The party was in a small museum uptown that my father had rented through the bank. The rooms were lit with tiny candles, which had all the soft candescence electricity lost us. The musicians were at the top of the stairs, and as we walked in they started to play a trio by Schubert, the E-flat, which I had chosen with them one long afternoon a few months earlier. The many separate buffets had been put into the various galleries, and the food had been arranged with fantastic care, as though each shrimp were an apostle placed for the Last Supper. I had had all of the tablecloths made of heavy dark red watered silk, and there they were on the buffet and cocktail tables. I had at first wanted a brighter fabric, but my mother had said dark red would go better with the occasion and would distract less from the flowers, and the tablecloths were right. The waiters were all in place, in white jackets with gold buttons. Two of them stood near the door with silver trays and tall flutes of champagne.