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dead now; he could not force it alive. He put the cigarette out, turned out the light again, and was at once asleep.
    Rain was blowing against the tall gray window in the dim room as he woke. For a moment he felt he had only dozed; then he saw that it was morning. Eagerness washed along his nerves, as last night when he had left Kathy. For a moment he could not characterize this unfamiliar mood. He regarded the inner quality of this waking as if it were something in a showcase before him. Good Lord, he thought, imagine waking up feeling good.
    Ignoring slippers and bathrobe, he went to the bathroom for his shower. The full-bodied rush of city water was still new and pleasing; its battering left him brisk. He was glad to be alive.
    While he shaved, Tommy came in, perched on the edge of the bathtub, and began his usual chattering. From time to time Phil glanced down at him. This tall thin boy was such a good-looking kid. He had Betty’s cleft chin and small even teeth, but his height, his dark eyes and straight nose were Phil’s.
    “How old will I have to be, Dad, before I can start shaving?” But before Phil could answer, Tommy was considering how old he’d be before he could fly a plane, then how old before he’d be in the Air Corps. In mixed amusement and surprise Phil listened to the tumble of technical talk about firing power, flying range, rockets, radar. Were all boys like this today, he wondered. In 1917, when he himself was eight, had he had so lethal a vocabulary, been so conscious of the other war? He decided not. There were no radios then, no Lifes and Looks —no newsreels, no avalanche of comic books about martial daredevils. For him during that war there had been only his parents’ talk about it, and the newspaper which came each morning. He’d had none of this war’s incessant instruction in the very sounds and colors and sights of killing and dying.
    “Couldn’t we, Dad?” Tommy’s voice was insistent. Phil had missed something and tried to remember what it had been.
    “Couldn’t we what?”
    “Buy a secondhand jeep when they’re really demobilized? Jimmy Kelly says his dad’s going to.”
    Phil thought, And the words they use! When I was a kid that age, did I know half the big words he does? Aloud he said, “It’s an idea, anyway, Tommy.”
    “Tom.”
    “Tom. Sorry.”
    At breakfast he caught himself just as he was going to remind Tommy not to read the comic strips at the table. It was hopeless. Better to retire with dignity than go on at the boy. His mother’s face told him she had watched this change of heart.
    “Nice time last night?” she asked, and waited for his nod. “That’s good. You really need new people as much as new places. I mean everybody does, not just you.”
    “It was a good bunch to start on. We talked some about the articles; I moseyed around making some notes when I got in.”
    He told her about the list he had jotted down. They often talked about his work, and generally he valued their discussions as a good sounding board. He respected her opinions about something he’d written. She never said anything was a failure, but when she remained calm and judicious after finishing a manuscript, he knew that it would leave others cold, too. For when his stuff was really moving, her whole manner told him so before she spoke. He would steal quick looks at her while she was reading, and know. Sometimes she would chuckle and shake her head, sometimes her eyes would fill, sometimes she would wince and say, in a half voice, “It’s impossible,” or “Imagine!” Then her face would express so much pride in him as a son and so much response to him as a writer that there was no room for doubt about whether he had written well. Now he was not watching her reactions. They were simply talking at the level of preliminaries.
    “What’s antisemitism?” Tom asked, without looking up from the comics.
    “It’s—” Phil was taken aback by the size and casualness of the