Thomas Wolfe, page 77
All the lives of these fortunate people had become, therefore, as strange and wonderful to the people of the town as the lives of legendary heroes. And in a curious way that great estate had shaped the whole life of the town. To be a part of that life, to be admitted there, to know the people who belonged to it would have been the highest success, the greatest triumph that most of the people in the town could imagine. They could not admit it, but it was the truth. At the heart of the town’s desire was the life of that great house.
The Englishman had entered the smoking compartment with the driving movement of a man who has been drinking hard, but is used to it. The moment that he entered, however, and saw the other people there he stopped short, with a kind of stunned abruptness. In a moment, after an astounded silence, he spoke to them, greeting them with the rough, brief, blurted-out friendliness of a shy and reticent man:
“Hello! . . . Oh, hello! . . . How do!” He grinned formally and suddenly began to stare with an astounded expression at the gouty figure of old Flood who at just this moment had opened the door of the latrine and was shuffling painfully out into the compartment. Mr. Flood stopped and returned his look in kind, with his bulging and bejowled stare of comic stupefaction.
In a moment more the Englishman recovered himself, grimaced with his shy, quick, toothy grin, and blurted out at Flood, as to the other men:
“Oh, hello! Hello! How d’ye do!”
“I’m pretty good, thank you!” old Flood said hoarsely and slowly, after a heavy pause. “How are you?” and continued to stare heavily and stupidly at him.
But already the Englishman had turned abruptly from him, his face and lean neck reddening instantly and fiercely with the angry embarrassment of a shy man. And with the same air of astonished discovery he now addressed himself to the man with the long thin nose and palely freckled face, blurting his words out rapidly and by rushes as before, but somehow conveying to the others the sense of his intimacy and friendship with this man and of their own exclusion.
“Oh! . . . There you are, Jim!” he was saying in his astounded and explosive fashion. “Where the devil have you been all night? . . . I say!” he went on rapidly without waiting for an answer, “won’t you come in and have a spot with me before you turn in?”
Every suggestion of the disdain and cold aloofness which had characterized the other man’s manner towards his fellow passengers, had now vanished at the Englishman’s words. Indeed, in the way he now came forward, smiling, and put his hand in a friendly manner on the Englishman’s arm, there was something almost scrambling in its effusive eagerness. “Why yes, Hugh,” he said hastily. “I’d be delighted, of course! . . . Just a minute,” he said in an almost confused tone of voice, “till I get my brief-case. . . . Where did I leave it? Oh, here it is!” he cried, picking it up, and making for the door with his companion, “I’m all ready now! Let’s go!”
“Hugh! Hugh!” cried Robert who had accompanied the Englishman when he entered the compartment, and whom the Englishman now seemed to have forgotten entirely, “will I see you tomorrow before you get off? The words were spoken in a deep, rapid, eager tone of voice, and in the tone and manner of the youth who spoke them there was the same suggestion of almost fawning eagerness that had characterized the older man.
“Eh! What’s that?” the Englishman cried in a startled tone, turning abruptly and staring at the young man who had addressed him. “Oh! Yes, Robert! I’m stopping at Washington! Look in for a moment, won’t you, if you’re up!”
Something in his tone and manner plainly and definitely said that the young man’s company was no longer wanted for the evening, but the youth immediately nodded his head energetically and decisively, saying in a satisfied manner:
“Good! Good! I’ll do that! I’ll be in to say good-bye tomorrow morning.”
“Right!” the Englishman said curtly. “Good-night! . . . Good-night! . . . Good-night!” he blurted out, turning around and addressing every one, yet seeing no one, in a series of toothy grimaces. “Oh—good-night!” he said suddenly, before going out, grinning and shaking hands briefly, in a gesture of permanent dismissal, with the other young man, who was a blond insignificant-looking youth, obviously a “hanger-on,” with whom the Englishman evidently cared to have no further acquaintance. Then, pushing his companion before him through the green curtain, he went out suddenly with the same desperate shy abruptness, and in a moment the other men, saying good-night all around, had followed him, and the three young men were left alone in the compartment. It was now after one o’clock. Outside, the moon was up, flooding the dark earth of Virginia with a haunting light. That grand, moon-haunted earth stroked calmly past and, through the media of its changeless and unceasing change, the recession and recurrent movement of the enchanted scene, the train made on forever its tremendous monotone that was itself the rhythm of suspended time, the sound of silence and forever.
For a moment, after the men had gone, Robert stared down sternly and quizzically at the boy, with an expression of mock gravity, and then, in his rapid, eager, deep-toned and rather engaging voice, said:
“Well, Colonel? . . . What have you to say for yourself? . . . Was there grass on the back of her back, or was the foul deed perpetrated in your Hudson Super Six? . . . Come, sir! Explain yourself! Were you drunk or sober?” And suddenly lifting his thin, young, yet almost tortured-looking face and his restless eyes, which were inflamed with drink, and in whose haggard depths the incipient flashes of the madness which later would destroy him were already visible, he laughed suddenly, a strange, small, hoarsely falsetto kind of laugh, jerking his head towards the boy, and saying in an annoying and indefinite way:
“Crazy! Crazy! Crazy! . . . The craziest man I ever saw!” He stopped suddenly and, looking down at the boy for a moment with this same expression of haggard, over-driven restlessness, demanded impatiently:
“What have you been doing by yourself all night? Just sitting there all alone and doing nothing? . . . I’ll swear, I don’t see how you do it! . . . I’d go crazy sitting in one place like that without any one to talk to!” he said in an accusing and impatient tone of voice, as if the other youth had really done some extraordinary and unreasonable thing. He thrust one hand quickly and impatiently into the trousers’ pocket of his well-cut clothes in such a way that his Delta Kappa Epsilon pin was for a moment visible. Then he stood there, jingling some coins about in his pocket and looking at the boy with his inflamed, restless, furiously desperate eyes. Turning away suddenly, with a movement of impatience, he shook his head in a gesture of astounded disbelief, laughed his little hoarse falsetto laugh again, and said:
“It beats me! . . . Don’t see how he does it! . . . Damnedest man I ever saw! . . . It’d drive me crazy to be alone like that!”
He turned abruptly again, thrust both hands into his pockets, and for a moment stood looking at the boy with the old expression of mock gravity, and with a faintly malicious smile hovering about the edges of his thin, nervous, strongly modelled mouth.
“Do you know what they’re saying about you at home? . . . Do you know what those people think of you? . . . Do you know what all those old women up there are doing now?” he said hoarsely and accusingly, in his deep, sonorous, and rapid tone.
“Now, Robert!” the boy suddenly shouted, in a choking and furious tone, getting to his feet. “Don’t you start that stuff! I’m not going to listen to it! You can’t fool me! They’re not saying anything!”
Robert lifted his thin, finely drawn face and laughed again, his little annoying hoarse-falsetto laugh, in which a note of malice and triumph was audible.
“Why, they are!” he said solemnly. “It’s the truth! . . . I think you ought to know about it! . . . I heard it everywhere, all over town!”
“Oh, Robert, you’re a liar!” the boy cried furiously. “What did you hear all over town? You heard nothing!”
“Why, I did!” said Robert solemnly, as before. “I’ll swear it to you. . . . Do you know what I heard the other day?” he went on in a blunt, accusing tone. “I heard that one of those women up there—some old sister in the Baptist Church—said she grew up with your mother and has known her all her life—well, she’s praying for you!” said Robert solemnly. “I’ll swear she is!”
“Praying for me!” the boy cried in an exasperated tone, but at the same time, feeling the numb white nauseous sickness of the heart which the intolerable thought that people are talking in a disparaging manner about him, his talents, or the success or failure of his life, can always bring to a young man. “Praying for me!” he fiercely shouted. “Why the hell should any one pray for me?”
“I know! I know!” said Robert, nodding his head vigorously, and speaking with grave agreement. “That’s what I told them. That’s just the way I felt about it! . . . But some of those people down there think you’ve gone to hell for good. . . . Do you know what I heard a woman say the other day? She said that Eugene Gant had gone straight to the devil since he went away to the State University——”
“Robert, I don’t believe you!” the boy shouted. “You’re making all this up!”
“Why, she did! So help me God. I heard her say it, as sure as I’m standing here,” swore Robert solemnly. “She said you’d gone down there and taken Vergil Weldon’s courses in philosophy and that you were ruined for life! She said you had turned into a regular infidel—didn’t believe in God or anything any more. . . . Said she certainly did feel sorry for your mother,” said Robert maliciously.
“Feel sorry for my mother!” the boy fairly howled, dancing around now like a maniac. “Why the hell should the old bitch feel sorry for my mother! My mother can take care of herself; she doesn’t need any one to feel sorry for her! . . . All right, then!” he cried bitterly, with sudden acceptation of the other’s story. “Let ’em pray! If that’s the way they feel, let ’em pray till they wear corns on their God-damned knees! The dirty hypocrites!” he cried bitterly. “I’ll show them! Sneaking around behind your back to tell their rotten lies about you—and their talk of praying for your soul! I’m glad I’m out of that damned town! The two-faced bastards! I wouldn’t trust any of them as far as I could throw an elephant by his tail!”
“I know! I know!” said Robert, wagging his head in solemn agreement. “I agree with you absolutely. It’s awful—that’s what it is.”
It was extraordinary that this absurd story, whether true or not, should have had such a violent effect on the emotions of the boy. Yet now that he had been told of some unknown woman’s concern for the salvation of his soul, and that certain people of the praying sort already thought that he was “lost” the words were fastened in his flesh like rankling and envenomed barbs. And instantly, the moment that he heard this story and had cursed it, he thought that it was true. Now his mind could no longer remember the time just a moment before when Robert’s words had seemed only an idle and malicious fabrication, probably designed to goad him, or, even if true, of no great importance.
But now, as if the idle gossip of the other youth had really pronounced some fatal and inexorable judgment against his whole life, the boy’s spirit was set against “them” blindly, as against a nameless and hostile antagonist. Plunged suddenly into a dark weather of fatality and grim resolution, something in him was saying grimly and desperately:
“All right, then. If that’s the way they feel about me, I’ll show them.” And seeing the lonely earth outside that went stroking past the windows of the train, he suddenly felt the dark and brooding joy of desperation and escape, and thought again: “Thank God, I’ve got away at last. Now there’s a new land, a new life, new people like myself who will see and know me as I am and value me—and, by God, I’ll show them! I’ll show them, all right.”
And at just this moment of his gloomy thoughts, he muttered sombrely, aloud, with sullen face:
“All right! To hell with them! I’ll show them!”
—And was instantly aware that Robert was looking at him, laughing his little, malicious, hoarse, falsetto laugh, and that the other youth, who was a fair-haired, red-cheeked and pleasant-featured boy named Creasman, obviously somewhat inflamed by drink and by his social triumphs of the evening, was now, with an eager excessiveness of good-fellowship, slapping him on the back and saying boisterously:
“Don’t let him kid you, Gene! To hell with them! What do you care what they say, anyway?”
With these words, he produced from his pocket a flask of the raw, colorless, savagely instant corn whiskey, of which both of them apparently had been partaking pretty freely, and tendering it to the boy, said:
“Here, take a drink!”
The boy took the flask, pulled out the cork, and putting the bottle to his lips, instantly gulped down two or three powerful swallows of the fiery stuff. For a moment, he stood there blind and choking, instantly robbed of breath, his throat muscles swelling, working, swallowing convulsively in an aching struggle to keep down the revolting and nauseous tasting stuff, and on no account to show the effort it was costing him.
“Is that the kick of the mule, or not?” said the Creasman boy, grinning and taking back his flask. “How is it?”
“Good!” the boy said hoarsely, gasping. “Fine! Best I ever tasted!” And he blinked his eyes rapidly to keep the tears from coming.
“Well, there’s lots more where that came from, boy,” said Creasman. “I’ve got two pint jars of it in my berth. Let me know when you want some more.” And putting the bottle to his lips with a smile, he tilted his head, and drank in long easy swallows which showed he was no novice to the act.
“Damn!” cried Robert, staring at him, in his familiar tone of astounded disbelief. “Do you mean to tell me you can stand there drinking that stuff straight! Phew!” he said, shuddering, and making a face. “That old pukey stuff! Why, it’d rot the guts of a brass monkey! . . . I don’t see how you people do it!” he cried protestingly, as he took the bottle. In three gulps he had drained it to the last drop, and even as he was looking around for a place to throw the empty flask, he shuddered convulsively again, made a contracted grimace of disgust, and said to the others accusingly, with his small falsetto laugh of astounded protest:
“Why, you’ll kill yourself drinking that stuff raw! Don’t you know that? You must be crazy! . . . Wait a minute,” he muttered suddenly, comically, dropping the bottle deftly into his pocket, as the swarthy, pompous little man named Wade entered, attired in blue pajamas and a dressing gown, and holding a tooth-brush and a tube of tooth paste in his hand:
“Good-evening, sir! . . . Ah-hah! . . . How d’ye do!” said Robert, bowing slightly and stiffly, and speaking in his grave, staccato, curiously engaging tone.
“Still up, are you, boys?” the pompous little man remarked, with his usual telling aptness.
“Ah-hah-hah!” said Robert appreciatively. “Yes, sir! . . . Just fixin’ to go! . . . Come on,” he muttered to the others, jerking his head towards the little man warningly. “Not here! . . . Well, good-night, sir! . . . Goin’ now.”
“Good-night, boys,” said the little man, who now had his back turned to them, and was standing at the silvery basin with his toothbrush held in readiness. “See you in the morning.”
“Ah-hah-hah!” said Robert. “Yes, sir. That’s right. Good-night.”
And frowning in a meaningful way at his companions, he jerked his head toward the corridor, and, with an air of great severity, led them out.
“Didn’t want him to see us with that bottle,” he muttered when they were outside in the corridor. “Hell! He’s got the biggest bank in town! Where’d you be if Emmet Wade ever got the idea you’re a liquor-head! . . . Wait a minute!” he said, with the dissonant abruptness that characterized so much of his speech and action. “Come outside here—on the platform: nobody to see you there!”
“I’ll meet you out there. I’ll go and get another bottle,” whispered Creasman, and disappeared along the darkened corridor in the direction of his berth. In a moment he returned, and the three of them went out upon the platform at the car-end, closed the door behind them and there, among the rocking and galloping noises of the pounding wheels, they took another long drink of the savage liquor. By this time the fiery stuff was leaping, pulsing, pounding the mounting and exuberant illusions of its power and strength through every tissue of their blood and life.
And outside, floating past their vision the huge pageant of its enchanted and immortal stillness, the old earth of Virginia now lay dreaming in the moon’s white light.
So here they are now, three atoms on the huge breast of the indifferent earth, three youths out of a little town walled far away within the great rim of the silent mountains, already a distant, lonely dot upon the immense and sleeping visage of the continent. Here they are—three youths bound for the first time towards their image of the distant and enchanted city, sure that even though so many of their comrades had found there only dust and bitterness, the shining victory will be theirs. Here they are hurled onward in the great projectile of the train across the lonely visage of the everlasting earth. Here they are—three nameless grains of life among the manswarm ciphers of the earth, three faces of the million faces, three drops in the unceasing flood—and each of them a flame, a light, a glory, sure that his destiny is written in the blazing stars, his life shone over by the fortunate watches of the moon, his fame nourished and sustained by the huge earth, whose single darling charge he is, on whose immortal stillness he is flung onward in the night, his glorious fate set in the very brain and forehead of the fabulous, the unceasing city, of whose million-footed life he will tomorrow be a part.
Therefore they stand upon the rocking platform of the train, wild and dark and jubilant from the fierce liquor they have drunk, but more wild and dark and jubilant from the fury swelling in their hearts, the mad fury pounding in their veins, the savage, exultant and unutterable fury working like a madness in the adyts of their soul. And the great wheels smash and pound beneath their feet, the great wheels pound and smash and give a rhyme to madness, a tongue to hunger and desire, a certitude to all the savage, drunken, and exultant fury that keeps mounting, rising, swelling in them all the time!
