Blahblahblahblah

Blahblahblahblah is Ned’s deliberately empty refrain, first established as his response to talk of politics and war and then repeated through a turbulent election night, the morning after, and a final farewell with Richard Ellsworth Savage. It sounds like dismissal, but its changing contexts give it greater weight: the phrase can shut down public argument, expose the gap between the friends’ priorities, and finally become a wordless form of companionship as Richard leaves for France.

A refrain against serious talk

Ned’s use of Blahblahblahblah begins in the Cambridge room he shares with Richard. Their circle gathers in the late afternoon among candlelight, cigarette smoke, incense, tea, cake, and a bronze Buddha Ned bought in Chinatown while drunk. He is largely silent unless the conversation turns to drinking or sailing; when politics, war, or similar matters arise, he closes his eyes, throws back his head, and says the phrase. The physical gesture matters as much as the sound: rather than offer an argument, he withdraws from the discussion in a way his friends can recognize.

That practiced refusal sits beside Richard’s growing political engagement. While campaigning for Wilson, Richard works long days promoting the New Freedom and other campaign themes, and on election night he is consumed by the returns and the possibility that Wilson’s victory will keep the country out of war. Ned, meanwhile, is more invested in their sailing plan and in drinking. The refrain therefore marks a difference in attention: Richard treats political outcomes as consequential, while Ned resists the language and urgency surrounding them. Yet it does not make him simply an outsider to Richard’s life. The repeated sound becomes part of their shared vocabulary, even when it registers a real disagreement.

Election night: indifference as provocation

On election night, Ned’s refrain turns from a response within the Cambridge room into a public provocation. After supper and several bottles of wine, the friends reach the crowd watching returns on the Boston Herald building. Ned calls out about the contest and answers a man’s rebuke by braying Blahblahblahblah in his face. Richard drags him away to avoid a fight, anxious both about trouble with the crowd and about missing the returns. The phrase that once signaled Ned’s habitual refusal now helps bring them into direct conflict with strangers.

Their disagreement sharpens when Richard says the result matters because it means the United States will not go to war. Ned answers thickly that a war might be amusing, then proposes another drink. At Frank Locke’s, the barkeeper refuses to serve them, and the friends set off toward another bar. When a newspaper extra announces that Hughes has been elected, Ned cheers; Richard covers his mouth, and they wrestle in the street as hostile onlookers gather. The nearby crowd hears them as privileged college men, while Richard’s attention remains fixed on the political outcome and the danger of being recognized as an object of hostility. Ned’s later whisper, Blahblahblahblah, reduces the scene to the same dismissive refrain, but the surrounding events have made the stakes unmistakable: the words do not prevent consequences or dissolve political feeling.

The morning after and the repair of a quarrel

The phrase also belongs to the aftermath of Ned’s reckless behavior. After Richard abandons him near Scollay Square and walks home alone, cold, exhausted, and unable to sleep, Ned appears the next morning fresh and rosy. He jokes that Professor Wilson was elected and that the friends missed out on sabres and epaulettes. When Richard asks where Ned disappeared to, Ned describes spending the night with the man they had met and ending up in a Turkish bath. Richard is furious, but Ned’s airy manner makes clear how differently each experienced the night: for Richard it was fear, isolation, and worry; for Ned it became an adventure.

At dusk Ned comes to their room and asks Richard not to be sore at what people do when drunk. Richard brings water to boil for tea. When he points out the risk of picking up a sailor in Scollay Square, Ned laughs and reminds him that Richard had called him a Backbay snob. The exchange shifts the refrain’s function without requiring Ned to explain himself. Richard stops being angry, though he is close to tears; Ned lies on the couch while Richard sits by the lamp, watching its blue alcohol flame and listening to the kettle. The phrase has not resolved their difference, but their familiar teasing and shared room allow the quarrel to subside into renewed closeness.

A private language at parting

In the winter that follows, Ned is drunk every evening, while Richard writes and publishes poems, attends literary gatherings, and remains a pacifist. Their arguments continue: Richard opposes the war, while Ned says he would join the Navy and treats the subject as more Blahblahblahblah. The refrain thus recurs as a shorthand for their unresolved contrast, even as Richard’s convictions lead him toward a decision Ned cannot make for him.

When Richard tells Ned he is going to France with the volunteer ambulance service, they drink orvieto wine and talk about Youth, Beauty, Love, and Friendship being destroyed by early death while old men live on. At dawn they sit together on a tombstone in a graveyard near Harvard Square. For a long time they say nothing; after each drink they throw back their heads and softly bleat Blahblahblahblah in unison. The sound that once interrupted political talk has become a shared ritual at the point of separation. Its repetition does not supply a speech of farewell, but the synchronized gesture registers their friendship more plainly than an argument could. As Richard sails for France, the refrain remains one of the remembered particulars of the life he is leaving behind: comic, evasive, and, in its last appearance, unexpectedly tender.