Moloch: Or, This Gentile World by Henry Miller

setting up as another little Gandhi,” Moloch confided. “You’re too amiable to be another tin Jesus. Besides, this country is full of them.”
    Hari’s response was lost in the scuffle attending their exit from the subway. They had only a few blocks to walk from the station. Hari appeared to be fascinated by the variety of churches they passed in review. He craned his neck to gape at the gargoyles which leered at the empty streets. Just before they reached the house he stepped to the gutter and blew his nose with two fingers.
    Moloch was pondering meanwhile on the reception they would receive, praying that his spouse would make a pretense at civility. Devil take her! He meant to enjoy the evening despite her malingering.
    He pushed the button and assumed an air of sangfroid. An extraordinary greeting took place.
    “Good evening!” he brought out blandly. “ Mrs. Moloch?  This is Mister Moloch … friend husband. Dropping in for a little friendly bite. Sorry we’re late…. May I introduce my esteemed friend, the late Maharajah of Lahore? Swami— my wife! ”
    He made a low bow to smother his hysterical laughter.
    Hari saluted the woman with his usual grace. Blanche grasped the proferred hand stiffly, looked him over as if he were a rare guignol, and stepped back with a tight-lipped expression to admit them.
    “ The mansion ,” said Moloch, beaming expansively, as if to communicate a moiety of his geniality to that hatchet with the canary-bird mouth. Blanche looked on with undisguised disgust as he prattled away.
    “HOME!!! The sanctuary of repose. A cozy hearth, old friends, old wine….!” He spread his arms in the Shakespearean manner. “And above all, the good wife who awaits with eagerness the husband’s homecoming.” He turned his back on his wife. “Well, Hari, not such great shakes, the place, what? A little untidy … no servants, you see. Blanche hasn’t had a chance to do any housecleaning this week.” (He said this to intercept her apologies. His manner conveyed the impression that he was rendering her a favor.) “Believe me, Blanche here is a really excellent hausfrau when she chooses to be. To be or not to be—that’s our great domestic problem, isn’t it, old battle-horse?”
    Blanche, who was neither “an old battle-horse” nor “an excellent hausfrau,” had daggers in her eyes. Her fingers were ten convulsive talons. They were by no means the well-kept digitals of a paramour. The nails were short and tough. Splendid independent finger movement—for the Hungarian rhapsodies.
    “Excuse me,” she said, turning to Hari, “my husband is drunk, I see.” Her voice was bitter as tansy.
    Hari flung both arms up. “Not at all, not at all,” he protested. “I shouldn’t be here if I thought he were drunk.”
    Blanche perceived that she had two monsters to deal with.
    “Well,” she said, “drunk or sober, I suppose you two want something to eat.”
    Moloch was undaunted. He grabbed Hari’s coattail.
    “Now isn’t that thoughtful of Blanche? Didn’t I tell you she was a cherub?” He turned to Blanche. “Of course, my dear… of course we want something to eat. We came home expressly to have dinner with you this evening.” He gazed at her ecstatically. Then he lowered his voice, affecting a new tinge of irony, if irony it could be called. “And where is our darling child this evening … that jewel of your loins?
    Hari Das could no longer restrain himself. He had done his best, up to this point, to show discretion, to appear aloof and disinterested, as though this fantastic colioquy were taking place on the planet Neptune. He looked at Moloch helplessly. Moloch answered his appeal with a comical expression that beggars description, and turned the hydrant on Blanche once again.
    “The supper is not ready, you say?”
    She hadn’t said anything of the kind.
    “Too late?” He simpered. “My, my! What difficulties life places in our path! Well, Hari, the maharanee has