Thomas Wolfe, page 260
And yet, within two hours, she would call him on the telephone again, or a messenger would appear bearing a telegram or a brief, swiftly-worded letter, which he would rip open instantly and read rigidly, with a livid and contorted face and trembling fingers, his features twisted with a sneer of cursing disbelief as he snarled mockery at his own folly, and his heart stabbed fiercely against his will with wild pity and regret by these swift, simple words that cried with truth, honesty, and passion and winged their way straight and sure between his armor.
And then, next day, she would be there at his side once more, her small, sad face serious and resolved, fixed in a solemn look of final renunciation. Sometimes she said she had come for one last word of parting and farewell, in friendship; and sometimes she said she had come to gather materials and belongings which she needed for her work. But she was always there, as certain as a destiny, and he now began to comprehend what he had never been able to understand before, what he could never have believed possible in his earlier youth—that, packed into this delicate figure, behind this flowerlike and rose-lipped face, were stored the energies of an indomitable will, that this exquisite and lovely little creature who could weep bitterly, renounce sorrowfully, and day by day depart tragically and forever, was beyond comparison the most determined, resolute, and formidable antagonist he had ever known.
“All right!” she would say fatally, with an air of somber and tragic consent at the end of one of these brutal scenes of the will. “All right! Leave me if you like. You’ve thrown me over. You’ve gone back on me. You’ve deserted the best friend you ever had.” And then, shrugging her shoulders in a little gesture of bitter acquiescence, and speaking in a sing-song voice: “You’ve done for me! I’m dead! You’ve killed me!”
“Haw, haw! Whee! Fine! Go on!” He laughed crazily, applauding with his hands. “Give us some more of it! Tomorrow night, East Lynn!”
“She’s dead! She’s done for!” she continued in the same brooding and fatal monotone. “Your darling’s dead! She loved you and you killed her! Your Jew’s dead! No more! No more!” She smiled a bitter, puckered, turned-down smile and made again the motion of tragic consent. “It’s all over. Finished. Done for. . . . You’ll be sorry!” she cried, with a sudden change in tone and manner.
He staggered about the room, smiting his forehead savagely with his clenched fist, and reeling with wild, infuriated laughter:
“Camille, by God!” he shouted. “That’s right! Cry! Weep! Yell out so everyone can hear it! Fine! Great! I love it! It’s music to my ears!”
“You’ll get no rest!” she cried out in a warning tone. “I’ll haunt you. You think you can forget me, but you can’t. I’ll come back from the grave to haunt you. You’ll see! You’ll see! I’ll bring Azrael and Beelzebub back to haunt you—yes! I’ll bring the spirits of great rabbis back who know the cabala! Oh, you’ll get no rest! I’ll bring the spirits of my people back to haunt you! I’ll bring the spirits of my Christian blood back to haunt you, too! . . . God!” she cried suddenly, with a scornful humor, “I’ll bet that they’re a trashy, lifeless lot of ghosts compared to all the Jews—like these little anæmic Christian wenches that you go with!” She paused, her small face was knotted suddenly with a surge of jealous fury, tears spurted from her eyes, she doubled her fists, drew them up to her sides, and held them tightly clenched for a moment, trembling rigidly with speechless rage.
“Don’t you bring any more of them up here!” she said in a small, choked, trembling voice.
“Oh, so that’s it, is it?” he said heavily, with an ugly, grating sneer. “That’s where the shoe pinches, is it? That’s what galls her, eh?” He made a sudden gesture of brutal contempt. “To hell with you!” he said coarsely. “I’ll do as I damn well please—and you can’t stop me!”
“You’ll not bring any more of those girls up here!” she cried, in a high, shaking voice. “This is our place. This place is mine as well as yours. You’ll not bring them to my place!” She turned away to hide her tears, biting her trembling lip, and in a moment she said in a tone of bitter reproach, “What would you think if I carried on that way with men? I never have, but if I really did it, how would you feel? God, you couldn’t stand it! You’d go crazy!”
Then he cursed and stormed and thought up new accusations to fling at her, bitter, groundless, and unreasoning, and she wept, denied, assailed him as before. And in the end he beat her down till there was no more resistence left in her, and she said with a bitter smile, making a slight gesture of acquiescence with her shoulders:
“All right! Go with your little pick-ups! Do as you please! I’m through!”
And then she left him, saying once more as she had said a dozen times, that he would never see her face again.
He was determined now, by some single and brutal violence, to wrench their lives asunder in a final act of parting, and thus, he hoped, to free himself from the sense of ruin, desolation, and loss unutterable which had possessed and conquered him, and of which he had grown desperately afraid. And the woman was determined that he should not leave her.
But after May slid into June there came a desperate day on which at last Monk forced the issue. He told her he was through with her forever, their life was finished, he wanted to forget her utterly, to tear and strip her very memory from his blood, his brain, his heart, and go away somewhere, away from this accursed city, where he could gather up the shattered fragments of his life and build it back anew to a single integrity of purpose and design. He’d go to Europe—that’s what he’d do!—put a wide ocean there between them, and let its raging waters wash away the last remaining vestiges of all their life together, and it would then be just as though the two of them had never met and loved and lived and cursed and fought!
In the white-hot fury of his resolve, he gathered up his books, his clothes, and everything he owned, flung them together, and stormed out of the house, knowing as he stepped upon the pavement that he never would again set foot across that threshold.
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43
ESTHER’S FAREWELL
It was the end of the academic year at the School for Utility Cultures, so there was nothing to keep Monk in New York. He wanted desperately to get away, and, hating the thought of cutting short his trip abroad at the end of the Summer, he obtained a leave of absence for the Fall term. Then, with a lighter heart than he had known in many months, he booked his passage for Southampton.
When he went aboard the boat at midnight, he found a letter from Esther waiting for him. As the purser handed it to him and he saw her handwriting on the envelope, he cursed beneath his breath, and was angry with himself because at sight of it his heart had pounded furiously with joy and hope in spite of all his high resolve.
“God-damn it!” he muttered. “Can’t she let me go in peace?”—and clutched the letter in his trembling hand as he went to find his room where he could be alone to read it.
He ripped it open nervously, and this is what he read:
My dear,
The boat will not sail until dawn, but I hope you will get this when you go aboard so you can read it before you go to bed.
I thought for a moment of going to the boat to see you off, but then I decided not to. It would have been too much. It’s a good thing you’re going away now—I don’t think I could have stood it another week. This Spring has been the worst time I’ve ever gone through. It has been worse than hell—I never knew there was any torture like it. My heart feels all sore and bloody as if it had a sword stuck through it. I cried all last night, and I have cried for the last hour and a half—I thought there were no more tears in me, but they keep coming. I never used to cry, and now it seems since I met you I cry all the time. You say I only talk like this to torture you, but I am only telling the truth—I have never wanted to torture you. I have only wanted to love you and do what’s good for you.
I am worn-out and heart-broken. Once I thought I was so strong I could do anything—but this thing has beaten me. Last night I did something I haven’t done since I was a little child—I got down and prayed to God, if there is a God, to do something to help me. But I know there is no God. You have taken the finest thing you ever had and thrown it away. I have always told you the truth about myself—I have been good and faithful and true to you ever since I first met you, and you haven’t got sense enough to see it. Some day you may know what I’m really like, but then it will be too late. There is no wrong or evil in me—it is all in your dark and terrible mind. You think a thing, and then immediately you make it so.
For God’s sake, don’t let yourself go on like this. Don’t throw away the great thing that is in you. Don’t let your great mind, your great talent, go to pieces because of these other things inside you that tear you apart. I love you, I believe in your genius, I always shall—no matter what anyone says. (“No matter what anyone says, eh? Oh, the evil-hearted and malignant swine! So that’s what they’re saying to her! That’s it! Their envy and ratlike jealousy squalling with triumph now because they think they have finally done me to death. Meanwhile, what have you been doing? Talking up for me, eh? Defending me, eh? Saying how good and fine I am, and that they don’t know me. For what? To satisfy your hunger and martyrdom, to appear grand and noble and forgiving, to show how great and good and noble you are, and how mean and low and unworthy I am! I know you!” With livid and contorted face he smoothed out the letter he had crumpled in his trembling fingers, and went on.)
No matter what has happened, no matter what has passed between us, I love you now, with all my heart and soul, and I always shall. No one will ever touch me again. I shall go to my grave with you in my heart. I know you will sneer when you read this, and have evil thoughts about me, but I have told you the truth and nothing else. You have caused me the greatest pain of anyone I have ever known, but you have also given me the greatest joy and happiness. No matter what dark and terrible thoughts are in your mind, you have the rarest and grandest quality of anyone I have ever known. You have made a great music in me. I can’t imagine now what life would have been like if I had never known you.
I get so worried thinking about you and wondering what you are doing. Promise me that you won’t drink too much. Alcohol seems to have a bad effect on you—instead of making you happy and cheerful it gets you so depressed, and sometimes you get into one of your crazy fits. You simply can’t afford to waste the precious thing that is in you.
And please, please, don’t go around having trouble with other people. I know I’ll get nervous wondering what new scrapes you’ve got into. For heaven’s sake, have a little sense about things. No one’s laughing at you—no one’s trying to insult you—no one hates you and wants to injure you. These things exist only in your imagination. You have absolutely no idea what effect you have on other people—you do not look like anyone else on earth, and when they stare at you in a restaurant that does not mean they are laughing at you. Please try to be gentle and kind to people—you can do anything you like with them when you are lovely—instead of hating you, they adore you, and will do anything you want them to.
Todd has promised me she’ll go around to Waverly Place and put the room in order. I have told her what to do with my paints and drawing materials—I could not bear to go back there if you were not there, and if you do not come back, I shall never go there again.
I wonder if you’ll ever miss me, and think about your little Esther. I’m sure of one thing—you’ll never again find a cook like her. She knew what her George liked best. Maybe when you’ve had to eat Christian food again you’ll want me back. I can see your sensitive nose now turning up in disgust at the smell of it. When they give you what they call a salad—a leaf of wilted lettuce on a plate with three drops of vinegar on it—just remember the salads I used to make for you. (“By God, and she’s right, too,” he thought with a tortured grin. “I’ll never taste food like that again.”)
I hope you are feeling better and are going to bed at night. Don’t drink so much coffee—you drank gallons at a time this year. I think that’s one reason you got so nervous. You need a rest, too. Getting the book done was a tremendous job and enough to wear anyone out.
Now please, dear, don’t get mad at me for what I’m going to say—I know how excited and angry you get when anyone talks to you about the book. But don’t lose heart because one publisher has turned it down—you get mad at me when I talk about it, but I am sure someone will take it yet. After all, it is a big piece of work, and some people might be afraid to publish it. Miss Scudder told me it was about five times as long as the average novel, and would have to be cut. Perhaps when you write the next one you can make it shorter. (“I might have expected this!” he muttered, grinding his teeth. “She has given up hope for this one already. I can see that. That’s what she means by this talk about the next one! Well, there’ll be no next one. No more, no more! Let the rats die now in their own venom!”)
Now please be patient with me, dear—I am sure you can do something with this one if you will only make a few concessions. I was talking again to Seamus Malone the other night. He said that parts of the book were “simply magnificent!” (“God, what a lie!” he thought. “What he probably said was ‘Not bad,’ or ‘Rather interesting,’ delivered in a tone of impatience or heavy indifference, as if to say, ‘Oh, what the hell!’”) But he said it was much too long and would have to be cut. (“They can go to hell before I will!”) It would have to be published in two big volumes as it stands, and you know, dear, that’s not possible. (“It’s not, eh? And why? They’ve been printing Proust for the last five years, book by book. And whether it’s two or four volumes, whose business is it but my own? They’ll read it, they will, damn them, as I wrote it, if I have to cram it down their lofty throats!”)
I keep telling myself it’s all over between us. You have thrown me over—left me flat. But when I think of you going with those common women you always pick up anywhere, I go crazy. (He smiled with bitter joy, then with heavy, scowling face read on.)
You would not tell me what you meant to do, and I don’t know where to reach you. I’ll try American Express in London, and will keep on writing you although I don’t know if you will ever answer me. Will you be coming home later this Summer? And if you do come, would you like to see me? If you aren’t coming back that soon, and you really cared to see me, I could come to you in August. I think of all the beautiful places we could see together, and my heart aches at the thought of your going to Munich and Vienna without me. (“So! You dare to suggest that! You would come to me, would you? By God, they can wind my guts around a drum before you will!”) But I don’t suppose you’d want me to, would you?
I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m half crazy with this thing. For God’s sake, do something to help me. I am sinking, drowning—please, please put out your hand. Save me. I love you. I am yours till death.
God bless you.
Esther
For several minutes he sat there, silent, tense, and still, the last page of her letter open in his hand. Then slowly, with set jaw, he put the pages all together, folded them with great deliberation, slowly tore them once across, and then again, and slowly rose, walked to the open porthole and thrust his hand through, and let the fragments of the letter slowly sift between his fingers into darkness and the river.
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BOOK VII
OKTOBERFEST
On the boat going over, Monk had time to think his way through the tangled web his heart and head had spun. He thought of Esther constantly. His fury now was spent, his turmoil had subsided, and in the calm of sun and sea, that vacuum ’twixt land and land, he lived again dispassionately the chronicle of their years together. He thought back to the day when he had spoken truly all he felt and knew, the day he had foretold to her the present moment.
“You are the best and truest friend I ever had. You are the noblest, greatest, and most beautiful woman that I ever saw or knew. You are the woman that I love.” Those were the words his heart had uttered. And then his head had coldly interposed, with its reasons of which the heart knew nothing: “And no matter where I go, or when I leave you, as I shall—” thus the head; and then the heart again—“down at the bottom of my soul I’ll keep on loving you forever.”
It was true—all true. The love and now the leaving—all true together. He was going abroad to get away from her, from New York, from the book, from everything that touched their interwoven life—and, with a desperate, childlike hope, he also knew his going was an effort to escape from all the tortures in himself.
But these were not the only reasons for his self-inflicted exile. He went to seek as well as flee. He’d spend a month or two in England and in France, then go to Germany and live there through the Autumn.
He had been to Germany before, but only briefly, and had found the country had an instant, haunting fascination for him. Was it his father’s German blood in his own veins that worked this magic? So it seemed to him.
And now he meant to get to know this land, its forests and its cities, which stood already in his heart, not as a foreign country, but as a kind of second homeland of his spirit.
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44
TIME IS A FABLE
He had come away to forget her: he did nothing but remember her. He got sick with the pain and the thought of her, he got physically sick, and there was no medicine for his sickness. His limbs grew numb and weak, his heart was feverish and beat with a smothering thud, his guts were nauseous and queasy, and his throat burned him, his chest was tight with a kind of loathsome dyspepsia. He could not digest the food he ate, and he vomited several times a day.
At night, after prowling about feverishly through the London streets until three or four o’clock in the morning, he would go to bed and fall into a diseased coma in which events and people of his past life were mixed with the present, but during which he was yet conscious that he dreamed and that he could break the pestilential trance at any moment. Finally, in the early morning when people were going to their work along the street, he would fall soundly asleep and lie as if drugged until noon.
