The Humbling by Philip Roth

transformed that all these unanswered questions ceased to trouble him; they did not even require serious thought. It took her a little longer than it took him to be convinced that the two of them had chosen correctly, but in only a few days the haircut and all it signified about her allowing him to shape her, to determine what she should look like and advance an idea of what her true life was, appeared to have become more than just acceptable. Perhaps because she looked so great in his eyes she did not bridle at continuing to submit to his ministrations, alien though that might have been to a lifelong sense of herself. If indeed hers was the will that was submitting—if indeed it wasn't she who had taken him over completely, taken him up and taken him over.
    ***
    L ATE ONE FRIDAY AFTERNOON Pegeen arrived at his house in distress—out in Lansing her family had received a midnight phone call from Louise to tell them how she had been opportunistically exploited and deceived by their daughter.
    "What else?" he said.
    His question brought Pegeen close to tears. "She told them about you. She said I was living with you."
    "And what did they say to that?"
    "My mother was the one who answered. He was asleep."
    "And how did she take it?"
    "She asked me if it was true. I told her I wasn't living with you. I told her we had become close friends."
    "What did your father say?"
    "He never came to the phone."
    "Why didn't he?"
    "I don't know. That miserable bitch! Why won't she stop!" she cried. "That obsessive, possessive, jealous, rancorous bitch!"
    "Does it really matter to you that she told your parents?"
    "Doesn't it matter to you?" Pegeen asked him.
    "Only inasmuch as it troubles you. Otherwise not at all. I think it's all to the good."
    "What do I say when I talk to my father?" she asked.
    "Pegeen Mike—say whatever you like."
    "Suppose he decides not to talk to me at all."
    "I doubt that will happen."
    "Suppose he wants to talk to you."
    "Then he and I will talk," Axler said.
    "How angry is he?"
    "Your father is a reasonable and sensible man. Why would he be angry?"
    "Oh, that bitch—she is completely whacked. She's out of control."
    "Yes," he said, "the thought of you tortures her. But you're not out of control, I'm not, and neither are your mother and father."
    "Then why didn't my father speak to me?"
    "If you're so worried, call and ask him. Perhaps you'd like me to speak to him."
    "No, I'll do it—I'll do it myself."
    She waited until after they'd eaten before phoning Lansing, and then doing it from her study, behind the closed door. After fifteen minutes she
came out carrying the phone and pointed with it toward him.
    Axler took the phone. "Asa? Hello."
    "Hi there. I hear you seduced my daughter."
    "I'm having an affair with her, that is true."
    "Well, I can't say I'm not a little astonished."
    "Well," Axler replied with a laugh, "I can't say that I'm not either."
    "When she told me she was going to visit you, I really never figured that this was in the cards," Asa said.
    "Well, I'm glad you're all right with it," Axler replied.
    There was a pause before Asa answered, "Pegeen's a free agent. She left her childhood long ago. Look, Carol wants to say hello," Asa said and then passed the phone to his wife.
    "Well, well," Carol said, "who ever could have imagined this when we were all kiddies in New York?"
    "No one," Axler replied. "I couldn't have imagined it the day she showed up here."
    "Is my daughter doing the right thing?" Carol asked him.
    "I think so."
    "What is your plan?" Carol asked.
    "I have no plan."
    "Pegeen has always surprised us."
    "She surprised me too," Axler said. "I think she's no less surprised."
    "Well, she surprised her friend Louise."
    He did not bother to reply that Louise was something of a surprise herself. Carol's intention, clearly, was to be mild and friendly, but he was sure from the brittleness of her tone that the call was an ordeal and that she and Asa were simply doing the