“Sweet dreams, little brother. Don’t let the bedbugs bite. But if they do, squeeze them tight, and we’ll have them for supper tomorrow night,” I recited softly to him while his hands and his feet shook.

If he did not wake in a while—if Virgil did not wake up feeling rested—we could always try, later in the evening, a moderate dosage of one or another of Barry’s intravenous medications. The night was young. I took one final look back toward Bertram, kneeling, holding Max’s head in his lap. Maxwell gazed up at his brother’s face, as Bertram, with one hand, rubbed the top of Maxwell’s head.

I turned away and stepped across Virgil and off the worn-down Bokhara, onto floorboards running the length of this room clogged with siblings prowling for seats. What a muddle. The day’s last sunlight was gone, long departed; the eastern windows were dark, and in the library’s darkness it was hard to say for sure who was who until you came close or made out the voice. This was not easy because now someone had unlocked the stereo cabinet and music was loudly erupting from speakers hooked up in the bookshelves. I’m fond of lieder but only now and then and never during the cocktail hour. The splendor of the human voice lifted in song is undeniable; nevertheless, we have in our red library enough raised voices. The familiar clamor of many spirited conversations is, in its own way, I think, a kind of music. Not that I particularly wanted to talk to anyone. I just wanted my drink. It’s always a challenge to cross this room without falling prey to some lout with an opinion about life. The best strategy is to assume an attitude of urgency, walk fast, and refuse eye contact or any intimation of recognition when your name is called. On the other hand, it’s never good to seem unfriendly. As I was saying, I wanted my drink.

That said, allow me to skip over the night’s trivial encounters, the “Hey, how are you?” conversations and other conversations nearly avoided, all the little tête-à-têtes and informalities that ensue whenever you take a stroll through our balding fraternity of blue blazers and wool cardigans, haggard faces and potbellies and yellowing teeth. What can be said about a trip to the bar?

Gusts shook the windowpanes. Gunner barked. The rose-garden gate slammed, reopened, slammed again. Our twenty golden chandeliers’ innumerable tiny bulbs blinked off then on, off then on. Their wiring is ancient and questionable, and the fuse box is overloaded and a fire hazard besides. This room always feels haunted after dark. You never know when a wall-mounted tiger will catch your eye. Suddenly, in one startling heartbeat, in a trick of failing lamplight, the tiger will seem alive. Surprise! Then you notice its pallid, gray furlessness and its blackened hole for a mouth, and the opacity of the glass “cat’s-eye” eyes. You might think then of your own hair loss, failing vision, periodontal problems. Where was that drink?