Thomas Wolfe, page 247
He, in a low, strangled tone: “Now, listen, you! You leave my father out of it! . . . You get out of here!”
She, still quietly, but with rising excitement again: “I’m going . . . I’m going now! . . . I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you want. . . . But before I go, I want to tell you something. . . . You’ll remember this some day! You’ll see what you have done to me! You’ll understand then that you’ve turned your back on the best friend you ever had . . . thrown the one who loved you out into the gutter . . . deliberately spat upon and trampled the greatest love that any man has ever had!”
He, breathing hoarsely, ominously: “Are you going now, or not?”
She, her voice now high and trembling again: “I’m going! I’m going! . . . But before I do, I want to tell you that I hope you live to see the day when you will understand what you have done to me.” Her voice was trembling with the hysteria of tears: “I hope you live to see that day . . . and suffer what I’m suffering now.”
He, breathing hoarsely, swinging her by the arms and shoulders, propelling her towards the door: “Get out of here! You’re getting out of here, I say!”
She, her voice breaking in a cry, half sob, half scream: “George! George! . . . No, no, for God’s sake, not like this! . . . Don’t lay this black crime on your soul! . . . Don’t say good-bye like this! . . . A little love, a little mercy, a little pity, tenderness, I beg of you, for God’s sake! . . . Don’t end it all like this!” She screams: “No, no! For God’s sake!” She seizes at the edges of the now-opened door and hangs on, sobbing hoarsely: “No, no! I beg of you—don’t let it end like this!” One hand is brutally ripped away from the door—she is pushed out, sobbing hoarsely, into the hall, he slams the door shut, and leans against it panting like an animal at bay.
In a moment he lifts his head, listening intently. There is no sound outside in the dark hall. He looks worried and ashamed, he winces like an animal and his lip sticks out, he puts his hand upon the door knob, is about to open it, his jaw hardens, he turns and sits down on his cot again, bent over, staring sullenly at the floor, more gloomily dejected than ever before.
And again light comes and passes, comes, passes, fades, and comes again. And there is silence, the little ticking and interminable minutes of slow silence, wearing the ash of slow, grey time away—and at last a sound! Outside a board creaks softly, the door knob slowly turns. He looks up quickly; then bends his head again, looks doggedly and sullenly at the floor. The door opens, Esther is standing there, very red in the face, her eyes very bright, her little figure very determined, but very ladylike, the picture of dignified restraint, refined control.
And Esther, very quietly: “I am sorry to have to disturb you again. . . . But there are a few things which I have left here . . . some designs I made, and my drawing materials. . . . If I’m not coming back here any more, I shall need them.”
And Monk, looking at the floor dejectedly and muttering: “All right! All right!”
She, going to her drawing table, opening the drawer, and taking out designs and instruments: “Since that’s what you seem to want, isn’t it? . . . You told me to go away and leave you, and not bother you any more. . . . If that’s what you want. . . .”
He, wearily as before: “All right! All right! You win!”
She, quietly, but with acid sarcasm: “I suppose that’s meant for wit, isn’t it? . . . The young author with his great command of language and his brilliant repartee!”
He, heavily, dejectedly, staring downward: “O.K. You’re right! You win, all right!”
She, flaring sharply: “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Say something different, won’t you? Don’t sit there mumbling ‘all right,’ like an idiot!” Then sharply, commandingly: “Look at me when you speak to me!” Impatiently: “Oh, for God’s sake, pull yourself together and try to talk and act like a grown-up human being! Stop acting like a child!”
He, as before: “All right! All right! You win!”
She, slowly, pityingly: “You—poor—blind—fool! . . . To think that you have no more sense than to turn on the one person who loves you . . . who adores you . . . who has so much to give you! . . . That you would throw that priceless treasure away! . . . When I know so much—” she smites herself on the bosom—“when I have this Great Thing all stored up in me—here! here! . . . ready to pour it out to you . . . this Great Treasure of all I see and feel and know . . . yours for the asking . . . yours, all yours . . . no one’s but yours . . . the greatest treasure any man could have . . . all that richness and beauty that might feed your genius . . . and all thrown away, all wasted . . . just because you’re too big a fool to take it! . . . Just because you are so blind and ignorant that you will not see it, use it, take what’s offered to you! . . . Oh, the wicked, wanton, sinful waste of it—when I am willing to pour it all out to you—empty my soul for you—give you the whole rich treasure of my being—and you throw it away just because you’re so stupid—blind—and ignorant!”
He, heavily, with a dejected sigh: “O.K.! O-KAY! You win! You’re right! Everything you say’s O.K.”
She, looking at him intently, keenly, challengingly for a moment, then very quiet and direct: “Listen! Have you been drinking? . . . Have you had a drink?”
He, wearily, dejectedly: “Nope. Nary a drink. Not a drop—” gloomily—“There’s nothing in the house.”
She, sharply, inquiringly: “Are you sure?”
He: “Sure I’m sure.”
She: “Because you act as if you had.”
He: “Well, I haven’t.” He broods sullenly for a moment, then suddenly smites a clutched fist on his knee, and, looking upward with grim determination written on his face, cries out: “But by God, I’m going to have one! . . . I’m going to have several!” Then slowly, with bitter, ever-growing resolution: “I’m going out and get as drunk as the whole God-damned British navy! So help me God, I will, if it’s the last thing I ever do!”
She: “Did you have any breakfast?”
He, morosely: “Naw!”
She: “Haven’t you had anything to eat all day?”
He, as before: “Naw.”
She: “You ought to eat, of course. You’re a fool to abuse your health this way. . . . Now that you’re putting me out, I shall worry about you. . . . At any rate, I did see that you got your food on time—you’ll have to admit that! . . . Who’s going to do that for you now? . . . You’ll never do it, I know that.” Then sarcastically: “Maybe one of the little wenches you bring up here will do it for you—” bitterly—“Like hell they will!—” muttering sarcastically—“I can just see them doing it!”
He makes no answer.
She, hesitantly: “Would you like it if I fixed you a little lunch?—” hastily—“I wouldn’t stay, I could go right afterwards. . . . I know you don’t want me here with you any longer . . . but if I could fix you up a bite before I go . . . at least, I’d know you had been fed. . . . I wouldn’t worry so much about it later.” Then with a quiet note of regret in her voice: “Of course, it seems such a shame for all that good food to go to waste . . . such a wicked waste when there are so many people going hungry in the world. . . . But—” with a slight shrug of the shoulders, the little twisted smile, the note of resigned acceptance—“since you feel the way you do about it—why, that’s all there is to it, isn’t it?”
He, looking up after a moment’s silence: “What good food do you mean?”
She, with an attempt at casual lightness: “Oh, the food I bought when I came downtown today. . . . I thought we were going to have lunch together. . . . I thought we had agreed on it . . . I was looking forward to it . . . but since you feel the way you do, since you want me to go—” she sighs—“all right, then—there it is!” With a movement of her head she indicates a big market bag on the table. “Do what you like with it—throw it in the garbage can—give it to the janitor. . . . Only I wish you had let me know in advance if that’s what you intended to do. . . . It would have saved me all that trouble.”
He, after another moment’s heavy silence, looking up and staring at the bag curiously: “What’s in that bag?”
She, lightly: “Oh, nothing much! Nothing elaborate! Nothing that it would have taken me long to prepare! . . . You know—you may have forgotten, but I told you I planned on having a very simple lunch. . . . So I stopped off on the way down at that nice butcher’s shop on Sixth Avenue—you know the one where all the butchers know us—and they always have such beautiful cuts—and I asked the butcher if he had anything extra-special in the way of a sirloin steak—and he showed me a really beautiful inch-thick cut—so I got that. . . . And—” with a little descriptive movement of thumb and finger to indicate exquisite perfection—“some little Spring potatoes . . . the kind that simply melt in your mouth. . . . You know how much you used to like them the way I fix them . . . with a dressing of melted butter and a few sprigs of young parsley. . . . Then I saw some lovely, crisp, green lettuce and I bought a head, and a few oranges, and apples, a couple of pears, and a grapefruit—you know how much you like a fruit salad the way I make it with my kind of French dressing—not too sweet or sour, the way you like it. . . . And I also saw some wonderful strawberries that had just come in—I thought you might like them later on, so I bought a basket of them, and a pint of cream.” She smiled a little rueful smile: “Well, it’s too bad to see it go to waste—but I suppose it can’t be helped! . . . That’s the way things are, isn’t it? . . . That’s life!”
He, after a moment’s pause, while he scratches himself reflectively through the stubble of his whiskers: “How long would it take to broil the steak?”
She: “Oh, only a few minutes after I get it on the broiler. . . . Of course the potatoes take a little longer. . . . But—well—after what’s happened you wouldn’t want them now, anyway, would you?” She turns as if to go, but lingers on.
He, rising, and putting a restraining hand upon her arm, licking his lips reflectively: “Did you remember to get some butter?”
She: “Oh, yes, the butter situation is all right—I remembered we were out and bought two sticks.”
He, dreamily, rubbing his hand a little up and down her arm: “Ah-hah! . . . And what about oil for the salad dressing?”
She, quickly: “Oh, yes, that’s right too! I remembered we were out of olive oil—so I stopped off at that nice Italian store and got some. . . . Oh, yes, and I forgot—just a tiny little sprig of garlic—you know, if you know how to use it—the way I do!—not too much—just a delicate little fragrance of it rubbed about the edges of the bowl—” again the descriptive gesture of the thumb and finger—“there’s nothing like it to give a salad just the proper touch! . . . And, oh! I wish you’d see the fruit I bought—you’ve never in your life beheld such things as they have in the markets this season—that lovely, crisp, green lettuce-head—and the apples! . . . and the pears! . . . and the vegetables!” she whispers rapturously, “the beans and peas and radishes! . . . the lovely little bunches of carrots! . . . Oh, how delicate they are! . . . Isn’t it a delicate food? . . . And the new asparagus! . . . I could just see them lying on a dish, dripping in the kind of butter sauce I know how to make for them. . . . And the cauliflower! . . . In all your days you never saw such cauliflower as they have this season in the markets. . . . And—oh!—the onions! . . . the delicate little onions . . . like big pearls they are!” earnestly, “Aren’t onions wonderful? . . . Isn’t it marvelous that onions should be so cheap and plentiful! . . . The things you can do with them! . . . The dozens of ways you can use them! . . . The way they simply melt in your mouth when they are cooked the right way—the way I know how to! . . . If onions were rare, don’t you know that people would pay almost any price to get them! . . . Isn’t it wonderful that they’re such a common vegetable?”
He, meditatively: “Hm! Yes.” He licks his lips slowly and thoughtfully.
She, with just the proper shade of regret: “Of course, what I had really been planning on doing all the time—” with a little rueful smile, touched faintly by a question—“but it’s no use going into all that now, is it? . . . That’s all done for, now that you’re sending me away.”
He, as before, reflectively: “Hm! Planning what? What was it you were planning?”
She, regretfully: “Well, I had planned on coming down early Thursday night . . . that is, if you wanted me to—if you weren’t doing anything else—about five o’clock, say, and cooking you a pot roast—you know, the way I fix one——”
He, broodingly, in a far-off tone: “Hm—yes! . . . A pot roast, you say?”
She: “Yes, you know the way I do it—about eight pounds of the finest larded beef—of course, I won’t use anything except the very best. . . . I was speaking to the butcher about it just this morning—he assured me he would give me nothing but the finest cut. . . . Of course, it takes time! . . . You ought to have at least three or four hours to do it right—you know, in my big iron pot. . . . If you get a girl to cook for you after I’m gone, you should always insist that she cook in an iron pot. Oh, it’s much better! Much better! The only way if you’re to do it properly—but, then, so few women understand that—not one in a thousand. . . . Then, you let it cook slowly—oh, very slowly, for several hours—it’s a very delicate operation—you’ve got to keep your eye on what you’re doing all the time—so few of these women you meet nowadays will take the trouble. . . . But it’s got to be done very slowly and carefully until the flavor of the beef has got into all the vegetables and the flavor of the vegetables has got into the beef.” She went on in a very earnest tone, a lowered voice: “It’s like a masterpiece—a symposium, you know—all the parts so delicately blended that each is all and all is each.”
He, tenderly, in a gently tranced tone: “The vegetables, you said?”
She: “Yes, of course—the vegetables I was telling you about! . . . Those tender, fresh, Spring vegetables!”
He, in an abstracted tone: “All kind of mixing and melting into the roast, you say?”
She, quickly: “Yes—and of course there’s butter, too—lots of it! You should always cook with butter! . . . Tell your girls that. . . . And a touch of paprika!—there’s nothing like it if you know how to use it—just a dash, you know—so few people know how it’s done. . . . Then pepper and salt! . . . Oh, well, it’s no use telling you—it’s no use now, anyway, is it?—now that we’re not going to see each other again.”
He, with dreamy and abstracted contemplation: “Ye-e-s! . . . Hm-m! . . . Butter, you say?” By this time, he has his arm around her. “A dash of paprika?”
She, suddenly beginning to protest vigorously, making as if to pull away but not doing so: “No! . . . No! . . . You can’t start that now! . . . It’s too late for that! . . . You told me to go away and leave you! . . . You put me out! . . . No! . . . No! . . . I won’t let you! . . . It’s all over now!” Firmly she shakes her head: “Too late! . . . All over now!”
He, attempting to laugh it off jovially, but with an uneasy note: “Why—ah-hah—hah!—pshaw! . . . I was just joking. . . . You knew that! . . . I was just having a little fun. . . . It was just a joke. . . . You know I didn’t mean it!”
She, very red in the face, panting: “Yes, you did! . . . You meant every word of it!—” indignantly—“A fine joker you are! . . . You use such dainty and elegant language when you joke, don’t you?—” bitterly, almost tearfully—“To the one who adores you, the one who would do anything for you! . . . Throwing her out into the gutter and calling her a hussy when she would lay down her life for you!—Oh, a fine joker you are!—I suppose you learned all those lovely words at that Baptist college!” Panting, struggling, she pushes at him with her hands: “No! No! . . . You can’t do that! . . . You can’t turn on me and revile me and call me dirty names one minute, and . . . and . . . and start doing this the next.—No! . . . No!”
He, slowly, with gloating jubilation, seizing her arms and shaking her back and forth with slow and swelling exultation: “Why—you—you—delicate—little—plum-skinned—wench—you! Why—you——”
She, panting: “Oh, a fine one! . . . Such fine words! . . . Such elegant expressions!”
He, exultantly: “Why—my delicate damned darling and my dear! Why-y—Why-y—” he glowers around uncertainly, searching about for language, breathing strenuously; suddenly he crushes her to him, and cries out with savage joy: “Why—you little plum-skinned angel—I will kiss you—that’s what I’ll do! . . . By God, I will!” He kisses her fiercely. Then he breathes hoarsely and uncertainly again, and glowers around for more language: “I . . . I . . . I’ll kiss you all over your damned jolly little face!” He does so, while she makes gestures of protest; he breathes stertorously a few moments longer, then suddenly cries out with savage conviction, as if he has found the solution to the problem that has been troubling him: “I will kiss you about ten thousand times, by God!” He does so. She shrieks faint protests and struggles feebly. “Steak, hey?—I’ll steak you!” He does so. “Pot roast, hey?—Why you—you’re my pot roast!”
She, shrieking faintly: “No! No! . . . You’ve no right! . . . It’s too late now! . . .”
But is it ever too late for love?
At length he goes to the window, and leans his arms upon the open sill, staring out. And the light comes and goes and comes again; all of the singing of the shining day returns.
And Esther, raptly, in a low, tranced voice: “Was there ever love like ours! . . . Was there ever anything like it in the world since time began?”
And Monk, in a low tone, to himself, as he stares out the window, slowly: “I believe—by God, I just believe——”
She, still raptly, to herself, and to the Universe: “Do you suppose any two people have ever felt the way we feel about each other? Could anyone on earth who didn’t know——”
