“Spheres of influence.” How easily the phrase came to his lips! All the jargon of the journalists of fifty years ago has, I gather, gone into the language, providing the inarticulate with a number of made-up phrases calculated to blur even their none too clear meanings. I assume of course that Butler is as inarticulate as he seems, that he is typical of the first post-Cavite generation.
“You must give me a clear picture of what has been happening in America since my retirement.” But I rose to prevent him from giving me, at that moment at least, any further observations on “spheres of influence.”
I stood for a moment, resting on my cane: I had stood up too quickly and as usual suffered a spell of dizziness; I was also ravenously hungry. Butler stamped out a cigarette on the tile.
“Be glad to tell you anything you want to know. That’s my business.” He laughed shortly. “Well, time for chow. I’ve got some anti-bacteria tablets they gave us before we came out, supposed to keep the food from poisoning us.”
“I’m sure you won’t need them here.”
He kept pace with my slow shuffle. “Well, it increases eating pleasure, too.” Inadvertently, I shuddered as I recognized yet another glib phrase from the past; it had seemed such a good idea to exploit the vulgar language of the advertisers. I suffered a brief spasm of guilt.
3
We dined together in the airy salon which was nearly empty at this season except for a handful of government officials and businessmen who eyed us without much interest even though Americans are not a common sight in Egypt. They were of course used to me although, as a rule, I keep out of sight, taking my meals in my own room and frequenting those walks along the river bank which avoid altogether the town of Luxor.
I found, after I had dined, that physically I was somewhat restored, better able to cope with Butler. In fact, inadvertently, I actually found myself, in the madness of my great age, enjoying his company, a sure proof of loneliness if not of senility. He too, after taking pills calculated to fill him “chock full of vim and vigor” (that is indeed the phrase he used), relaxed considerably and spoke of his life in the United States. He had no talent for evoking what he would doubtlessly call “the large picture” but in a casual, disordered way he was able to give me a number of details about his own life and work which did suggest the proportions of the world from which he had so recently come and which I had, in my folly, helped create.
On religious matters he was unimaginative and doctrinaire, concerned with the letter of the commands and revelations rather than with the spirit such as it was, or is. I could not resist the dangerous maneuver of asking him, at the correct moment of course (we were speaking of the time of the schisms), what had become of Eugene Luther.