WEBVTT

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This one's called
"Good Company."

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The last one was a kind
of naturalistic novel

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in miniature.

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This is a novel of
manners in miniature.

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"Good Company" takes
place at a dinner party.

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There are six characters, each
of whom has a brief speech.

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It's no longer
than the last poem,

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so the speeches are quite brief.

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There's one wind
bag in every group.

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And I think it will be
not difficult at all

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to differentiate the
voices of speakers

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from the voice of the
narrator, but lest we embarrass

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each other, I'll make those
little sort of wiggly things

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in the air that people
use these days to indicate

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quotation marks.

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And I think that's all we
need to know about the poem,

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except for it.

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"Good Company."

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If it was really all we
needed to know about the poem

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I could just go on to the
next one at this stage.

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"Good Company."

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"At dinner we
discussed marriage,

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three men, three women, one
couple among us, all six of us

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wary.

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I use it to frighten myself.

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Our true subject is loneliness.

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We've been divorced
1.5 times per heart.

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The trick the last half of our
lives is to get our work done.

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The golfer we saw from
the car this afternoon,

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his angered face in
bloom with blood,

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lashed his strict ball for
going where he'd hit it.

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We watched him turn
from a worst shot

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yet, and give us a
look like our own,

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and on we dawdled through the
afternoon toward dinner, here.

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Here means the married
couples house, of course.

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The rest of us use so
much time being alone

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we don't entertain much.

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The wind loops and subsides.

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What a fine night to sleep.

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Upstairs, a book
falls off a shelf.

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We'll be sitting
here for ages hence,

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the scent of lawns,
good company, Sancerre,

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fitful breezes suddenly earnest.

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What sense does
marriage make now?

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Both people want jobs, the
sad pleasures of travel,

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and also want homes.

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They don't want dark houses,
or to live with cats.

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They have lives waiting
up for them at home.

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Take me, I must read
half an hour of Horace

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before I can sleep.

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The conversation lofts.

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The last bottle of wine
was probably too much,

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but God we're happy here.

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My husband stopped the papers,
and flea bathed the dog

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before he left.

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One of us has a
friend whose analyst

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died in mid-session, non
directive to the end.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Now we're drifting off to
our nine lives and more,

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melodramatic wind, bright
moon, dishes to do,

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a last little puddle
of brandy or not.

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And the cars amble home,
the door, the stairs,

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the sheets aglow with
reticence and moonlight.

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And the bed full to its blank
brim with the violent poise

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of dreams.

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