Farley replied with a semblance of affability that he had always admired Morton Flaxman’s work—it was strong, unsentimental, unmannered. As for Sheila Trask’s “work”—he’d seen a feature on her in one of the newsmagazines—Time, or Newsweek, he couldn’t remember—this must have been five years ago—and he didn’t know whether to be appalled or amused by the attention paid to such trash. All swirls and wildness and arbitrary color, no coherence to it, another joke played on the public—“the insatiably asinine public”—as comical as, what were their names, Jasper Johns?—Pollock?—and the Frenchman who assembled collages out of garbage dumps—what was his name—

The Starkies’ guests laughed though they were rather embarrassed for Monica. Jill shook a scolding forefinger at Farley and told him that he just didn’t understand, he hadn’t made any effort, had he?—to understand?

Farley continued in the same falsely amiable tone, speaking, it seemed, to Monica: he said he’d heard rather remarkable things about her friend. It was commonly known that she took drugs—amphetamines; she was a binge drinker; probably an alcoholic. She’d been known to show up at country taverns unescorted, as far away as Edgarsville and Bethany. She formed “passionate attachments” to women and men both, sometimes very young men, painters, and all sorts of odd things happened. . . . Then there was the famous Dorr case, Farley said, now smiling broadly, the man had been having an affair with Sheila Trask, or the woman—the wife—that actress with all the red hair?—she’d been having an affair with Flaxman—and one night they tried to kill each other—he didn’t have the details quite in order but he remembered that the Dorr woman had shot her husband’s ear off with his own revolver—and afterward they’d tried to blame it on a burglar?—wasn’t that the story?—

Farley appeared to be asking Monica so she said, stiffly, barely able to control her hatred of him: “I really wouldn’t know. I’ve only lived in the house since September.”

Farley clapped his hand to his forehead in what seemed to be a genuine expression of surprise; and even some regret. “I’d forgotten that you live in the Dorrs’ old house,” he said, in an apologetic voice. He really did seem quite embarrassed suddenly. “Well—it’s just a story,” he said, glancing up and down the table at his audience, “—just a local legend, I wouldn’t want to swear to the truth of any of it. Or even,” he said, with an abrupt puckish grin, “—that it was the gentleman’s ear that was shot off. That may well have been a euphemism for a more offensive member.”