Properties
- end_line
- 3176
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:16:48.806Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3133
- text
- 3000 they're young and all, and the girl's parents don't want her to marry the boy, but she
3001 marries him anyway. Then they keep getting older and older. The husband goes to war,
3002 and the wife has this brother that's a drunkard. I couldn't get very interested. I mean I
3003 didn't care too much when anybody in the family died or anything. They were all just a
3004 bunch of actors. The husband and wife were a pretty nice old couple--very witty and all--
<!-- [Page 68](arke:01KFYTAC4W7SNHZE6XAYTTS1G0) -->
3005 but I couldn't get too interested in them. For one thing, they kept drinking tea or some
3006 goddam thing all through the play. Every time you saw them, some butler was shoving
3007 some tea in front of them, or the wife was pouring it for somebody. And everybody kept
3008 coming in and going out all the time--you got dizzy watching people sit down and stand
3009 up. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were the old couple, and they were very good, but I
3010 didn't like them much. They were different, though, I'll say that. They didn't act like
3011 people and they didn't act like actors. It's hard to explain. They acted more like they knew
3012 they were celebrities and all. I mean they were good, but they were too good. When one
3013 of them got finished making a speech, the other one said something very fast right after it.
3014 It was supposed to be like people really talking and interrupting each other and all. The
3015 trouble was, it was too much like people talking and interrupting each other. They acted a
3016 little bit the way old Ernie, down in the Village, plays the piano. If you do something too
3017 good, then, after a while, if you don't watch it, you start showing off. And then you're not
3018 as good any more. But anyway, they were the only ones in the show--the Lunts, I mean--
3019 that looked like they had any real brains. I have to admit it.
3020 At the end of the first act we went out with all the other jerks for a cigarette. What
3021 a deal that was. You never saw so many phonies in all your life, everybody smoking their
3022 ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they
3023 were. Some dopey movie actor was standing near us, having a cigarette. I don't know his
3024 name, but he always plays the part of a guy in a war movie that gets yellow before it's
3025 time to go over the top. He was with some gorgeous blonde, and the two of them were
3026 trying to be very blasé and all, like as if he didn't even know people were looking at him.
3027 Modest as hell. I got a big bang out of it. Old Sally didn't talk much, except to rave about
3028 the Lunts, because she was busy rubbering and being charming. Then all of a sudden, she
3029 saw some jerk she knew on the other side of the lobby. Some guy in one of those very
3030 dark gray flannel suits and one of those checkered vests. Strictly Ivy League. Big deal.
3031 He was standing next to the wall, smoking himself to death and looking bored as hell.
3032 Old Sally kept saying, "I know that boy from somewhere." She always knew somebody,
3033 any place you took her, or thought she did. She kept saying that till I got bored as hell,
3034 and I said to her, "Why don't you go on over and give him a big soul kiss, if you know
3035 him? He'll enjoy it." She got sore when I said that. Finally, though, the jerk noticed her
3036 and came over and said hello. You should've seen the way they said hello. You'd have
3037 thought they hadn't seen each other in twenty years. You'd have thought they'd taken
3038 baths in the same bathtub or something when they were little kids. Old buddyroos. It was
3039 nauseating. The funny part was, they probably met each other just once, at some phony
3040 party. Finally, when they were all done slobbering around, old Sally introduced us. His
3041 name was George something--I don't even remember--and he went to Andover. Big, big
- title
- Chunk 3