A Voice From Old New York: A Memoir of My Youth by Louis Auchincloss Read Free Book Online Page A

carefully hidden away.

    Uncle Russell Auchincloss, Father's very dignified and awesome older brother, was spending a weekend with us in Lawrence, and he unwisely showed me a golden gadget on his watch chain from which you could pull a scissors, a nail file, and God knows what else. I was seized with a longing for it. It had to be mine. Going to his bedroom when he was playing tennis with Father, I found the gadget detached from its chain on the bureau, and I took it. Was I mad? How did I ever expect to get away with it? Nor did I. My uncle complained; everyone, maids and all, were questioned. The house was searched. Then came the denouement: Maggie discovered my cache and, of course, despite my pleas betrayed me to my mother.
    The silence that followed was beyond chastening. At first, not a word was spoken to me, so I knew that the matter was too grave for immediate retribution. That came on Monday morning, when we were back in town, and my sister, Priscilla, and I were waiting in the front hall for Maggie to take us to school. Father, on his way to work, suddenly appeared, striding down the stairway, and addressed me in a loud stentorian voice that I had not heard before. He announced that if I were ever caught stealing again, I should be whipped. Then he charged out the front door.
    I was appalled, but I sensed, even then, that this would never happen because I would never steal again. I didn't believe that Father even possessed a whip; he had never physically chastised me. I had no great sense of guilt or shame; theft was simply something that didn't work and had to be given up forever, and that was that. I don't think I could steal a loaf of bread today if I were starving. But there was a curious aftermath to the scene in the hallway.
    It did not come on the part of my father. He never again mentioned this aspect of my life to me, nor did it seem to have made the slightest difference in his attitude toward me. Yet I have always strongly suspected that it had appalled him and that he had deliberately attempted to blot out of his mind the idea that a son of his could be a thief. It was simply not part of the world to which he lovingly aspired, the man's world of sports, clubs, finance. This was the realm of the noisy, numerous, neighboring, highly masculine Auchincloss cousins with whom, from childhood, he had been closely associated.

    Later on in life, my father rather unexpectedly told me that, however little I shared what he considered the Auchincloss traits, which I had felt so sorely lacking, I had always been his favorite child. My siblings found him amiable but detached. They did not suspect the lonelier more sensitive side that he tended to hide, but which, perhaps because of my own temperament, I perceived and empathized with. My mother's understanding of this part of my father was what gave this all-loving wife her total power over him. To some extent I shared this with her; he was not ashamed to show me his fragility.
    He was born a twin but had lost his twin brother at age two. A psychiatrist who later treated him opined that his emotional problems may have been engendered by his mother's violent grief over the loss of his brother, which might have given the survivor a false sense of guilt, but who knows? Father, through the Howland family, was a third cousin of F.D.R., whom he very faintly resembled. Without his occasional depressions he might have had a more important career as a corporate lawyer, but he did well enough.

    The aftermath to the discovery of my theft, to which I have referred, should have come as no surprise to me. Mother asked me, reasonably and even gently, to bring her everything that I had stolen, and I proceeded to comply. But I didn't bring her them all. I feared that the whole list might disturb the air of pardon that was settling over the family. But I nonetheless felt it was my sacred duty to see that every item still withheld was returned, however secretly, to its rightful owner. Only