Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
"Eugene," she said presently, "how old are you?"
His vision thickened with his pulse. In a moment he answered with terrible difficulty.
"I'm--just sixteen."
"Oh, you child!" she cried. "I thought you were more than that!"
"I'm--old for my age," he muttered. "How old are you?"
"I'm twenty-one," she said. "Isn't it a pity?"
"There's not much difference," he said. "I can't see that it matters."
"Oh, my dear," she said. "It does! It matters so much!"
And he knew that it did--how much he did not know. But he had his moment. He was not afraid of pain, he was not afraid of loss. He cared nothing for the practical need of the world. He dared to say the strange and marvellous thing that had bloomed so darkly in him.
"Laura," he said, hearing his low voice sound over the great plain of the moon, "let's always love each other as we do now. Let's never get married. I want you to wait for me and to love me forever. I am going all over the world. I shall go away for years at a time; I shall become famous, but I shall always come back to you. You shall live in a house away in the mountains, you shall wait for me, and keep yourself for me. Will you?" he said, asking for her life as calmly as for an hour of her time.
"Yes, dear," said Laura in the moonlight, "I will wait for you forever."
She was buried in his flesh. She throbbed in the beat of his pulses. She was wine in his blood, a music in his heart.
"He has no consideration for you or any one else," Hugh Barton growled. He had returned late from work at his office, to take Helen home. "If he can't do better than this, we'll find a house of our own. I'm not going to have you get down sick on account of him."
"Forget about it," Helen said. "He's getting old."
They came out on the veranda.
"Come down to-morrow, honey," she said to Eugene. "I'll give you a real feed. Laura, you come too. It's not always like this, you know." She laughed, fondling the girl with a big hand.
They coasted away downhill.
"What a lovely girl your sister is," said Laura James. "Aren't you simply crazy about her?"
Eugene made no answer for a moment.
"Yes," he said.
"She is about you. Any one can see that," said Laura.
In the darkness he caught at his throat.
"Yes," he said.
The moon quartered gently across heaven. Eliza came out again, timidly, hesitantly.
"Who's there? Who's there?" she spoke into the darkness. "Where's 'Gene? Oh! I didn't know! Are you there, son?" She knew very well.
"Yes," he said.
"Why don't you sit down, Mrs. Gant?" asked Laura. "I don't see how you stand that hot kitchen all day long. You must be worn out."
"I tell you what!" said Eliza, peering dimly at the sky. "It's a fine night, isn't it? As the fellow says, a night for lovers." She laughed uncertainly, then stood for a moment in thought.
"Son," she said in a troubled voice, "why don't you go to bed and get some sleep? It's not good for you staying up till all hours like this."
"That's where I should be," said Laura James, rising.
"Yes, child," said Eliza. "Go get your beauty sleep. As the saying goes, early to bed and early to rise--"
"Let's all go, then. Let's all go!" said Eugene impatiently and angrily, wondering if she must always be the last one awake in that house.
"Why law, no!" said Eliza. "I can't, boy. I've all those things to iron."
Beside him, Laura gave his hand a quiet squeeze, and rose. Bitterly, he watched his loss.
"Good-night, all. Good-night, Mrs. Gant."
"Good-night, child."
When she had gone, Eliza sat down beside him, with a sigh of weariness.
"I tell you what," she said. "That feels good. I wish I had as much time as some folks, and could sit out here enjoying the air." In the darkness, he knew her puckering lips were trying to smile.
"Hm!" she said, and caught his hand in her rough palm. "Has my baby gone and got him a girl?"
"What of it? What if it were true?" he said angrily. "Haven't I a right as much as any one?"
"Pshaw!" said Eliza. "You're too young to think of them. I wouldn't pay any attention to them, if I were you. Most of them haven't an idea in the world except going out to parties and having a good time. I don't want my boy to waste his time on them."
He felt her earnestness beneath her awkward banter. He struggled in a chaos of confused fury, trying for silence. At last he spoke in a low voice, filled with his passion:
"We've got to have something, mama. We've got to have something, you know. We can't go on always alone--alone."
It was dark. No one could see. He let the gates swing open. He wept.
"I know!" Eliza agreed hastily. "I'm not saying--"
"My God, my God, where are we going? What's it all about? He's dying--can't you see it? Don't you know it? Look at his life. Look at yours. No light, no love, no comfort--nothing." His voice rose frantically: he beat on his ribs like a drum. "Mama, mama, in God's name, what is it? What do you want? Are you going to strangle and drown us all? Don't you own enough? Do you want more string? Do you want more bottles? By God, I'll go around collecting them if you say so." His voice had risen almost to a scream. "But tell me what you want. Don't you own enough? Do you want the town? What is it?"
"Why, I don't know what you're talking about, boy," said Eliza angrily. "If I hadn't tried to accumulate a little property none of you would have had a roof to call your own, for your papa, I can assure you, would have squandered everything."
"A roof to call our own!" he yelled, with a crazy laugh. "Good God, we haven't a bed to call our own. We haven't a room to call our own. We have not a quilt to call our own that might not be taken from us to warm the mob that rocks upon this porch and grumbles."
"Now, you may sneer at the boarders all you like--" Eliza began sternly.
"No," he said. "I can't. There's not breath or strength enough in me to sneer at them all I like."
Eliza began to weep.
"I've done the best I could!" she said. "I'd have given you a home if I could. I'd have put up with anything after Grover's death, but he never gave me a moment's peace. Nobody knows what I've been through. Nobody knows, child. Nobody knows."
He saw her face in the moonlight, contorted by an ugly grimace of sorrow. What she had said, he knew, was fair and honest. He was touched deeply.
"It's all right, mama," he said painfully. "Forget about it! I know."
She seized his hand almost gratefully and laid her white face, still twisted with her grief, against his shoulder. It was the gesture of a child; a gesture that asked for love, pity, and tenderness. It tore up great roots in him, bloodily.
"Don't!" he said. "Don't, mama! Please!"
"Nobody knows," said Eliza. "Nobody knows. I need some one too. I've had a hard life, son, full of pain and trouble." Slowly, like a child again, she wiped her wet weak eyes with the back of her hand.
Ah, he thought, as his heart twisted in him full of wild pain and regret, she will be dead some day and I shall always remember this. Always this. This.
They were silent a moment. He held her rough hand tightly, and kissed her.
"Well," Eliza began, full of cheerful prophecy, "I tell you what: I'm not going to spend my life slaving away here for a lot of boarders. They needn't think it. I'm going to set back and take things as easy as any of them." She winked knowingly at him. "When you come home next time, you may find me living in a big house in Doak Park. I've got the lot--the best lot out there for view and location, far better than the one W. J. Bryan has. I made the trade with old Dr. Doak himself, the other day. Look here! What about!" She laughed. "He said, 'Mrs. Gant, I can't trust any of my agents with you. If I'm to make anything on this deal, I've got to look out. You're the sharpest trader in this town.' 'Why, pshaw! Doctor,' I said (I never let on I believed him or anything), 'all I want is a fair return on my investment. I believe in ev
Presently, returning to an abrupt reflective pause, she said: "Well, I may do it. I want a place where my children can come to see me and bring their friends, when they come home."
"Yes," he said, "yes. That would be nice. You mustn't work all your life."
He was pleased at her happy fable: for a moment he almost believed in a miracle of redemption, although the story was an old one to him.
"I hope you do," he said. "It would be nice. . . . Go on to bed now, why don't you, mama? It's getting late." He rose. "I'm going now."
"Yes, son," she said, getting up. "You ought to. Well, good-night." They kissed with a love, for the time, washed clean of bitterness. Eliza went before him into the dark house.
But before he went to bed, he descended to the kitchen for matches. She was still there, beyond the long littered table, at her ironing board, flanked by two big piles of laundry. At his accusing glance she said hastily:
"I'm a-going. Right away. I just wanted to finish up these towels."
He rounded the table, before he left, to kiss her again. She fished into a button-box on the sewing-machine and dug out the stub of a pencil. Gripping it firmly above an old envelope, she scrawled out on the ironing board a rough mapping. Her mind was still lulled in its project.
"Here, you see," she began, "is Sunset Avenue, coming up the hill. This is Doak Place, running off here at right angles. Now this corner-lot here belongs to Dick Webster; and right here above it, at the very top is--"
Is, he thought, staring with dull interest, the place where the Buried Treasure lies. Ten paces N.N.E. from the Big Rock, at the roots of the Old Oak Tree. He went off into his delightful fantasy while she talked. What if there WAS a buried treasure on one of Eliza's lots? If she kept on buying, there might very well be. Or why not an oil-well? Or a coal-mine? These famous mountains were full (they said) of minerals. 150 Bbl. a day right in the backyard. How much would that be? At $3.00 a Bbl., there would be over $50.00 a day for every one in the family. The world is ours!
"You see, don't you?" she smiled triumphantly. "And right there is where I shall build. That lot will bring twice its present value in five years."
"Yes," he said, kissing her. "Good-night, mama. For God's sake, go to bed and get some sleep."
"Good-night, son," said Eliza.
He went out and began to mount the dark stairs. Benjamin Gant, entering at this moment, stumbled across a mission-chair in the hall. He cursed fiercely, and struck at the chair with his hand. Damn it! Oh damn it! Mrs. Pert whispered a warning behind him, with a fuzzy laugh. Eugene paused, then mounted softly the carpeted stair, so that he would not be heard, entering the sleeping-porch at the top of the landing on which he slept.
He did not turn on the light, because he disliked seeing the raw blistered varnish of the dresser and the bent white iron of the bed. It sagged, and the light was dim--he hated dim lights, and the large moths, flapping blindly around on their dusty wings. He undressed in the moon. The moonlight fell upon the earth like a magic unearthly dawn. It wiped away all rawness, it hid all sores. It gave all common and familiar things--the sagging drift of the barn, the raw shed of the creamery, the rich curve of the lawyer's crab-apple trees--a uniform bloom of wonder. He lighted a cigarette, watching its red glowing suspiration in the mirror, and leaned upon the rail of his porch, looking out. Presently, he grew aware that Laura James, eight feet away, was watching him. The moonlight fell upon them, bathing their flesh in a green pallor, and steeping them in its silence. Their faces were blocked in miraculous darkness, out of which, seeing but unseen, their bright eyes lived. They gazed at each other in that elfin light, without speaking. In the room below them, the light crawled to his father's bed, swam up the cover, and opened across his face, thrust sharply upward. The air of the night, the air of the hills, fell on the boy's bare flesh like a sluice of clear water. His toes curled in to grip wet grasses.
On the landing, he heard Mrs. Pert go softly up to bed, fumbling with blind care at the walls. Doors creaked and clicked. The house grew solidly into quiet, like a stone beneath the moon. They looked, waiting for a spell and the conquest of time. Then she spoke to him--her whisper of his name was only a guess at sound. He threw his leg across the rail, and thrust his long body over space to the sill of her window, stretching out like a cat. She drew her breath in sharply, and cried out softly, "No! No!" but she caught his arms upon the sills and held him as he twisted in.
Then they held each other tightly in their cool young arms, and kissed many times with young lips and faces. All her hair fell down about her like thick corn-silk, in a sweet loose wantonness. Her straight dainty legs were clad in snug little green bloomers, gathered in by an elastic above the knee.
They were locked limb to limb: he kissed the smooth sheen of her arms and shoulders--the passion that numbed his limbs was governed by a religious ecstasy. He wanted to hold her, and go away by himself to think about her.
He stooped, thrusting his arm under her knees, and lifted her up exultantly. She looked at him frightened, holding him more tightly.
"What are you doing?" she whispered. "Don't hurt me."
"I won't hurt you, my dear," he said. "I'm going to put you to bed. Yes. I'm going to put you to bed. Do you hear?" He felt he must cry out in his throat for joy.
He carried her over and laid her on the bed. Then he knelt beside her, putting his arm beneath her and gathering her to him.
"Good-night, my dear. Kiss me good-night. Do you love me?"
"Yes." She kissed him. "Good-night, my darling. Don't go back by the window. You may fall."
But he went, as he came, reaching through the moonlight exultantly like a cat. For a long time he lay awake, in a quiet delirium, his heart thudding fiercely against his ribs. Sleep crept across his senses with goose-soft warmth: the young leaves of the maples rustled, a cock sounded his distant elfin minstrelsy, the ghost of a dog howled. He slept.
He awoke with a high hot sun beating in on his face through the porch awnings. He hated to awake in sunlight. Some day he would sleep in a great room that was always cool and dark. There would be trees and vines at his windows, or the scooped-out lift of the hill. His clothing was wet with night-damp as he dressed. When he went downstairs he found Gant rocking miserably upon the porch, his hand gripped over a walkingstick.
"Good-morning," he said, "how do you feel?"
His father cast his uneasy flickering eyes on him, and groaned.
"Merciful God! I'm being punished for my sins."
"You'll feel better in a little," said Eugene. "Did you eat anything?"
"It stuck in my throat," said Gant, who had eaten heartily. "I couldn't swallow a bite. How's your hand, son?" he asked very humbly.
"Oh, it's all right," said Eugene quickly. "Who told you about my hand?"
"She said I had hurt your hand," said Gant sorrowfully.
"Ah-h!" said the boy angrily. "No. I wasn't hurt."
Gant leaned to the side and, without looking, clumsily, patted his son's uninjured hand.
"I'm sorry for what I've done," he said. "I'm a sick man. Do you need money?"
"No," said Eugene, embarrassed. "I have all I need."
"Come to the office to-day, and I'll give you something," said Gant. "Poor child, I suppose you're hard up."
But instead, he waited until Laura James returned from her morning visit to the city's bathing-pool. She came with her bathing-suit in one hand, and several small packages in the other. More arrived by negro carriers. She paid and signed,
"You must have a lot of money, Laura?" he said. "You do this every day, don
"Daddy gets after me about it," she admitted, "but I love to buy clothes. I spend all my money on clothes."
"What are you going to do now?"
"Nothing--whatever you like. It's a lovely day to do something, isn't it?"
"It's a lovely day to do nothing. Would you like to go off somewhere, Laura?"
"I'd love to go off somewhere with you," said Laura James.
"That is the idea, my girl. That is the idea," he said exultantly, in throaty and exuberant burlesque. "We will go off somewhere alone--we will take along something to eat," he said lusciously.
Laura went to her room and put on a pair of sturdy little slippers. Eugene went into the kitchen.
"Have you a shoe-box?" he asked Eliza.
"What do you want that for?" she said suspiciously.
"I'm going to the bank," he said ironically. "I wanted something to carry my money in." But immediately he added roughly:
"I'm going on a picnic."
"Huh? Hah? What's that you say?" said Eliza. "A picnic? Who are you going with? That girl?"
"No," he said heavily, "with President Wilson, the King of England, and Dr. Doak. We're going to have lemonade--I've promised to bring the lemons."