Thomas Wolfe, page 316
“Is that—all?”
“Why, no suh, Mistah Edwahds,” Portia replies. “You can have anything you likes if you jest lets us know. We nevah knows jest what you’s goin’ to awdah. All las’ month you awdahed fish fo’ brek-fus’—is dat what you wants?”
“Breast of guinea hen,” says Fox tonelessly.
“Why, Mistah Edwahds!” Portia squeals. “Breas’ of guinea hen fo’ brek-fus’?”
“Yes,” says Fox, patient and enduring.
“But, Mistah Edwahds!” Portia protests. “You know you doesn’t want breas’ of guinea hen fo’ brek-fus’!”
“Yes,” says Fox in his hopeless tone, “I do.” And he regards her steadily with sea-misted eyes, with proud and scornful features, eloquent with patient and enduring bitterness as if to say: “Man is born of woman and is made to mourn.”
“But Mistah Edwahds,” Portia pleads with him, “fokes don’t eat breas’ of guinea hen fo’ brek-fus’! Dey eats ham an’ aiggs, an’ toast an’ bacon—things like dat.”
Fox continues to regard her fixedly.
“Breast of guinea hen,” he says wearily, implacably as before.
“B-b-b-but, Mistah Edwahds,” Portia stammers, thoroughly demoralized by this time, “we ain’t got no breas’ of guinea hen.”
“We had some night before last,” says Fox.
“Yes, suh, yes, suh!” Portia almost tearfully agrees. “But dat’s all gone! We et up all dere was! . . . Besides, you been eatin’ breas’ of guinea hen ev’ry night fo’ dinnah de las’ two weeks, an’ Miz Edwahds—she say you had enough—she say de chillun gettin’ tired of it—she tol’ us to get somep’n else! . . . If you tol’ us dat you wanted guinea hen fo’ brek-fus’, we’d a-had it. But you nevah tol’ us, Mistah Edwahds.” Portia is on the verge of open tears by now. “You nevah tells us what you wants—an’ dat’s why we nevah knows. One time you wanted cream chicken fo’ yo’ brek-fus’ ev’ry mawnin’ fo’ a month. . . . Den you changed aroun’ to codfish balls, an’ had dat fo’ a long, long time. . . . An’ now it’s guinea hen,” she almost sobs—“an’ we ain’t got none, Mistah Edwahds. You nevah tol’ us what you wanted. We got ham an’ aiggs—we got bacon—we got——”
“Oh, well,” says Fox wearily, “bring what you have, then—anything you like.”
He turns away full of patient scorn, enduring and unhoping bitterness—and “aiggs” are brought him. Fox eats them with relish; toast, too, three brown slices, buttered; and drinks two cups of strong hot coffee.
Just at half-past eight something entered the dining room as swift and soundless as a ray of light. It was a child of fourteen years, a creature of surpassing loveliness, the fourth daughter of the Fox, named Ruth. It was the Fox in miniature: a little creature, graceful as a bird, framed finely as some small and perfect animal. The small, lean head was shaped and set exactly as the head of Fox, the dark blonde hair grew cleanly to it, the child’s face was of an ivory transparency, the features and the sensitivity of expression were identical with those of Fox, transformed to femininity, and the lines of the whole face were cut and molded with the exquisite delicacy of a cameo.
The shyness of this little girl was agonizing; it was akin to terror. She entered the room breathlessly, noiselessly, stricken, with her head lowered, her arms held to her side, her eyes fixed on the floor. The ordeal of passing by her father, and of speaking to him, was obviously a desperate one; she glided past as if she almost hoped to escape notice. Without raising her eyes, she said, “Good morning, daddy,” in a timid little voice, and was about to duck into her chair, when Fox looked up, startled, got up quickly, put his arms around her, and kissed her. In answer to his kiss, she pecked her cheek toward him like a bird, still keeping her eyes desperately on the floor.
The face of Fox was illuminated by a radiant tenderness as, in a low, deaf, slightly hoarse tone, he said:
“Good morning, darling.”
Still without looking at him, stricken, desperate, she tried to get away from him, yet, even in the act, her affection for the Fox was eloquent. Her heart was beating like a triphammer, her eyes went back and forth like a frightened fledgling’s, she wanted to vanish through the walls, dart out of doors, turn into a shadow—anything, anything, if only she could utterly escape notice, having no one look at her, pay any attention to her, above all, speak to her. So she fluttered there in his embrace like a dove caught in a snare, tried to get away from him, was in a state of agony so acute and sensitive that it was painful to watch her or to do anything that would in any way increase the embarrassment and desperate shyness of this stricken little girl.
Fox’s embrace tightened around her as she tried to escape, and he grew full of solicitude and anxiety as he looked at her.
“Darling!” he whispered, in a low and troubled tone. He shook her gently. “What, darling?” he demanded. “Now what?” he finally demanded, with a touch of the old scorn.
“But nothing, daddy!” she protested, her timid little voice rising in a note of desperate protest. “Nothing, daddy!” She squirmed a little to get free. Reluctantly Fox let her go. The child ducked right down into her chair, still with her eyes averted, and concluded with a little gasping laugh of protest: “You’re so funny, daddy!”
Fox resumed his seat and still continued to regard her sternly, gravely, with alarmed solicitude, and a little scorn. She shot a frightened look at him and ducked her head down toward her plate.
“Is anything wrong?” said Fox, in a low voice.
“But naturally—not!”—a protesting and exasperated little gasp of laughter. “Why should anything be wrong? Honestly, you’re so strange, daddy!”
“Well, then,” said Fox, with patient resignation.
“But nothing! I keep telling you, there’s nothing! That’s what I’ve told you from the feerst!”
All of the children of the Fox say “feerst” for “first,” “beerst” for “burst,” “theerst” for “thirst.” Why, no one knows. It seems to be a tribal accent, not only among all of Fox’s children, but among all of their young cousins on the Fox’s side. It is almost as if they were creatures of some isolated family, immured for generations on some lonely island, cut off from the world, and speaking some lost accent that their ancestors spoke three hundred years ago. Moreover, their tone is characterized by a kind of drawl—not the languorous drawl of the deep South, but a protesting drawl, a wearied-out, exasperated drawl, as if they have almost given up hope of making Fox—or someone—understand what ought to be obvious without any explanation whatsoever. Thus:
“But nothing, daddy! I’ve told you that from the f-e-e-r-s-t!”
“Well, then, what is it, darling?” Fox demanded. “Why do you look like that?”—with an emphatic downward movement of the head.
“But look like what?” the child protested. “Oh, daddy, honestly—” she gasped, with a little strained laugh, and looked away—“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Portia brought smoking oatmeal and put it down before her, and the girl, saying timidly, “Good morning, Portia,” ducked her head and began to eat hastily.
Fox continued to look at the child sternly, gravely, with a troubled expression in his eyes. Looking up suddenly, she put down her spoon, and cried:
“But, daddy—wha-a-t?”
“Are those scoundrels going to be here again today?” said Fox.
“Oh, daddy, what scoundrels? . . . Honestly!” She twisted in her chair, gasped a little, tried to laugh, picked up her spoon, started to go on eating, then put her spoon down again.
“Those scoundrels,” said the Fox, “that—you women—” he inclined his head with scornful emphasis—“have brought in to destroy my home.”
“But who are you talking about?” she protested, looking around like a hunted animal for a means of escape. “I don’t know who you mean.”
“I mean,” said Fox, “those interior decorating fellows—” here his voice was filled with the dismissal of an unutterable contempt—“that you and your mother have imported to wreck the house.”
“But I had nothing to do with it!” the girl protested. “Oh, daddy, you’re so—” she broke off, squirmed, and turned away with a little laugh.
“So—what?” said Fox, low, hoarse, and scornful.
“Oh, I don’t know—so—so stra-a-nge! You say such funny thi-i-ngs!”
“Have you women,” Fox went on, “decided when you’re going to let me have a little peace in my own house?”
“Let you have a little pe-a-ce? . . . What have I done? If you don’t want the decorators, why don’t you speak to mo-o-ther?”
“Because—” Fox inclined his head with a slow, ironic emphasis upon the word—“because—I—don’t—count! I’m only the—Old—Grey—Mule—among six women—and, of course, anything is good enough for me!”
“But what have we done? We haven’t done anything to you! Why do you act so p-e-e-r-secuted? . . . Oh, daddy, honestly!” She squirmed desperately, tried to laugh, turned away, and ducked her head down toward her plate again.
Sitting back in his chair, one hand clasped upon the arm, his whole being withdrawn, remote, in an attitude eloquent of deep, unhoping patience, Fox continued to regard the child gravely for a moment. Then he thrust his hand into his pocket, pulled his watch out and looked at it, glanced at the child again, and shook his head in a movement packed with stern reproach and silent accusation.
She looked up, quick and startled, laid her spoon down, and gasped:
“Now what? What are you shaking your he-a-ad for? What is it now?”
“Is your mother up?”
“But naturally, I don’t kno-o-w!”
“Are your sisters up?”
“But, da-a-dy, how can I tell?”
“Did you get to bed early?”
“Ye-e-e-s,” in a drawl of protest.
“What time did your sisters get to bed?”
“But, of course, I have no way of kno-o-wing! Why don’t you ask the-e-m?”
Fox looked at the watch again, then at the child, and shook his head once more.
“Women!” he said quietly, and put the watch back into his pocket.
The child by now has finished with her oatmeal—all she wants of it. Now she slides out of her chair and, with face averted, tries to glide past Fox, out of the room. Fox gets up quickly, puts his arms around her, says in a low, quick, worried tone:
“Oh, darling, where are you going?”
“But to sch-o-o-ol, of course!”
“Darling, stay and eat your breakfast!”
“But I’ve e-e-a-ten!”
“Oh, you haven’t!” whispers Fox impatiently.
“But I’ve eaten all I wa-a-a-nt!”
“You haven’t eaten anything!” he whispers scornfully.
“But I don’t want any more,” she protests, looks desperately about, and struggles to free herself. “Oh, let me go-o-o, daddy! I’ll be late!”
“Then be late!” whispers the great watch-watcher and head-shaker scornfully. “Stay and eat your breakfast!”—punctuating these decisive words with slow nods of emphasis.
“But I ca-a-n’t! I’ve got to read a pa-a-per.”
“A—what?”
“A t-e-e-r-m paper—for Miss Allen’s class—it comes at nine o’clock.”
“Oh,” says Fox slowly, “I see.” In a low, almost inaudible tone, “On—Whitman?”
“Ye-e-e-s.”
“Oh. . . . Did you read the book I gave you—the one with his war diary and notes?”
“Ye-e-e-s.”
“Astonishing!” whispers Fox. “Isn’t it astonishing? You can see just how he did it, can’t you? He—he got right up on everything,” Fox whispers, “just as if he were the thing itself—as if it were happening to him!”
“Ye-e-e-s.” She looks desperately around, then with averted eyes blurts out: “You were right about the other thing, too.”
“What other thing?”
“About night—how there’s so much night and darkness in him—his—his feeling for night.”
“Oh,” Fox whispers slowly, his sea-pale eyes misted with reflection. “Did you tell about that, too?”
“Ye-e-s. It’s tr-u-e. After you told me, I read him again, and it’s tr-u-e.”
Shy, desperate, timid, stricken as she is, she nevertheless knows it’s true when it’s true.
“That’s fine!” Fox whispers, and shakes his head sharply with immense satisfaction. “I’ll bet it’s good!”
The girl’s ivory features flush crimson. Like Fox, she loves praise, yet cannot stand to have it spoken. She squirms, is terrified, is hoping against hope——
“I don’t kno-o-w,” she gasps. “Miss Allen didn’t like the last paper I wrote—what I said about Mark Twain.”
“Then,” Fox whispers, low and scornfully, “let Miss Allen not like it. That was a fine paper,” he whispers. “What—what you said about the River was just right.”
“I kno-o-w! And that was the part she didn’t like. She didn’t seem to know what I was talking about—said it was immature and not sound, and gave me a ‘C’.”
“Oh,” says Fox absently, thinking all the time with an immense satisfaction of the spirit: “What a girl this is! She has a fine mind. She—she understands things!”
“You see, darling,” Fox whispers gently, coming back to Miss Allen, “it’s not their fault. These people do the best they can—but—but they just can’t seem to understand,” he whispers. “You see, Miss Allen is an—an academic kind of person—I guess, kind of an old maid, really,” he whispers, with an emphatic movement of the head—“and that kind of person, darling, just wouldn’t be able to understand what Whitman and Mark Twain and Keats are like. . . . It’s—it’s a shame,” Fox mutters, and shakes his head, his eyes troubled with regret—“it’s a shame we’ve got to hear about these people first in—in schools—from—from people like Miss Allen. You see, darling,” Fox says gently, his face cocked sideways, his good ear pointing toward the girl, his language simple as a shoe, his face keen, shrewd, thoughtful, and absorbed, and radiant as a blade of light, as it always is when interest and reflection hold the wise serpent of his brain—“you see, darling, schools are all right, really—but the Thing they do is different from the Thing that Keats and Whitman and Mark Twain do. . . . People like that really have no place in schools. A—a school,” Fox whispers, “is an academic kind of place, you see—and the people that you find in schools are academic people—and these other kind of people—the poets,” whispers Fox, “are not academic people—they’re—they’re really against what the academic people do—they are people who—who discover things for themselves,” Fox whispers, “who burst through and make another world—and the academic people cannot understand them—so that’s why what the academic people say about them is—is not much good,” Fox whispers. For a moment he is silent, then shakes his head and mutters in a low tone of profound regret: “It’s a pity! Too bad you’ve got to hear about it first in schools—but—but just do the best you can with it—get what you can from it—and—and when those people”—whisper mixed with understanding, pity, and contempt—“have gone as far as they can go, just forget about the rest they tell you.”
“I kno-o-w! But, really, daddy, when Miss Allen starts drawing charts and diagrams upon the blackboard, showing how they did it—it’s—it’s aw-w-ful! I can’t be-e-ar it—it just makes everything so—te-er-rible! . . . Oh, daddy, let me go!” She squirms to free herself again, her tender features tortured with self-consciousness. “Please, daddy! I’ve got to! I’ll be late!”
“How are you going?”
“But naturally, the way I always go.”
“By taxi?”
“But of course not, I take the str-e-e-t car.”
“Oh. . . . What street car?”
“The Lexington A-a-a-venue.”
“Alone?” says Fox in a low, grave, troubled tone.
“But, of course, daddy!”
He looks at her sternly with a sorrow-troubled face, and shakes his head.
“But what’s wrong with taking the str-e-e-t car? Oh, daddy, you’re so-o”—she squirms, looks off indefinitely, her face touched by a smile of agonized embarrassment. “Please, daddy! Let me go-o-o! I tell you I’ll be late!”
She pushes a little to release herself, he kisses her, and lets her go reluctantly.
“Good-bye, darling”—low, hoarse, tender, troubled with grave solicitude. “You will take care, won’t you?”
“But, of course!” A little agonized laugh. “There’s nothing to take care.” Then, suddenly, in a timid little voice, “Good-bye, daddy”—and she is gone, swiftly, silently, like fading light.
Fox, hands upon his hips, with a look half-trouble and half-tenderness, follows her with sea-pale eyes until she has gone. Then he turns back to the table, sits down again, and picks up the paper.
News.
[¬]
CHAPTER 29
“THE HOLLOW MEN”
Fox picks up the paper and settles back to read it with keen relish. The paper is the Times. (He read the Tribune late last night: waited up for it, would not miss it, has never missed it, could not sleep if he had not read it.) Morning now, Fox reads the Times.
How does he read the Times?
He reads it the way Americans have always read the paper. He also reads it as few Americans have ever read the paper—with nostrils sensitive, dilating with proud scorn, sniffing for the news behind the news.
He loves it—even loves the Times—loves Love unlovable—and don’t we all? Ink-fresh papers, millions of them—ink-fresh with morning, orange juice, waffles, eggs and bacon, and cups of strong hot coffee. How fine it is, here in America, at ink-fresh, coffee-fragrant morning, to read the paper!
How often have we read the paper in America! How often have we seen it blocked against our doors! Little route-boys fold and block it, so to throw it—and so we find it and unfold it, crackling and ink-laden, at our doors. Sometimes we find it tossed there lightly with flat plop; sometimes we find it thrown with solid, whizzing whack against the clapboards (clapboards here, most often, in America); sometimes, as now in Turtle Bay, servants find just freshly folded sheets laid neatly down in doorways, and take them to the table for their masters. No matter how it got there, we always find it.
