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had been handed down from one generation to another, my uncle was
deeply moved and shook my hand, turning pale with joy and admiration,
and being utterly incapable of saying a word. He left the house as a man
leaves something so touching he cannot bear to be near it, and I began to
try to determine if I might be able, with care, to get myself from one
point to another in the pants.
It was so, and I could walk in the pants. I felt more or less
encumbered, yet it was possible to move. I did not feel secure, but I
knew I was covered, and I knew I could move, and with practice I
believed I would be able to move swiftly. It was purely a matter of
adaptation. There would be months of unfamiliarity, but I believed in
time I would be able to move about in the world gingerly, and with sharp
effect.
I wore my uncle's pants for many months, and these were the
unhappiest months of my life. Why? Because corduroy pants were the
style. At first ordinary corduroy pants were the style, and then a year
later there was a Spanish renaissance in California, and Spanish
corduroy pants became the style. These were bell-bottomed, with a
touch of red down there, and in many cases five-inch waists, and in
several cases small decorations around the waist. Boys of fourteen in
corduroy pants of this variety were boys who not only felt secure and
snug, but knew they were in style, and consequently could do any
number of gay and lighthearted things, such as running after girls,
talking with them, and all the rest of it. I couldn't. It was only natural, I
suppose, for me to turn, somewhat mournfully, to Schopenhauer and to
begin despising women, and later on men, children, oxen, cattle, beasts
of the jungle, and fish. What is life? I used to ask. Who do they think
they are, just because they have Spanish bell-bottomed corduroy pants?
Have they read Schopenhauer? No. Do they know there is no God? No.
Do they so much as suspect that love is the most boring experience in the
world? No. They are ignorant. They are wearing the fine corduroy pants,
but they are blind with ignorance. They do not know that it is all a
hollow mockery and that they are the victims of a horrible jest.
I used to laugh at them bitterly.
Now and then, however, I forgot what I knew, what I had
learned about everything from Schopenhauer, and in all innocence,
without any profound philosophical thought one way or another, I ran
after girls, feeling altogether gay and lighthearted, only to discover that I
was being laughed at. It was my uncle's pants. They were not pants in
which to run after a girl. They were unhappy, tragic, melancholy pants,
and being in them, and running after a girl in them, was a very comic

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