the cocktail party

Unidentified Guest:

Ah, but we die to each other daily. 

What we know of other people is only our memory 

of the moments during which we knew them. 

And they have changed since then. 

To pretend that they and we are the same is a 

useful and convenient social convention 

which must sometimes be broken. 

We must also remember that at every meeting 

we are meeting a stranger. 

Edward:

So you want me to greet my wife as a stranger?

That will not be easy.

Unidentified Guest:

It is very difficult.

But it is perhaps still more difficult

To keep up the pretense that you are not strangers.

The affectionate ghosts: the grandmother,

The lively bachelor uncle at the Christmas party,

The beloved nursemaid - those who enfold

Your childhood years in comfort, mirth, security-

If they returned, would it not be embarrassing?

What would you say to them, or they to you

After the first ten minutes? You would find it difficult

To treat them as strangers, but still more difficult

To pretend that you are not strange to each other.

Edward:

You can hardly expect me to obliterate the last five years.

Unidentified Guest:

I ask you to forget nothing.  To try to forget

is to try to conceal.

Edward:

There are certainly things I should like to forget.

Unidentified Guest:

And persons also, but you must not forget them. You must

face them all, but meet them as strangers.  

Edward:

Then I myself must also be a stranger.

Unidentified Guest:

And to you as well, but remember

When you see your wife, you must ask no questions 

and give no explanations. I have said the same to her.

Do not strangle each other with knotted memories.

Now I shall go.

~ T. S. Eliot

excerpt from The Cocktail Party,

The Complete Poem and Plays

1909-1950

art by Teresa Bingham