Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
So, with insane sing-song repetition, he began to mutter over and over again: "Whoever You Are, be good to Ben to-night. Show him the way . . . Whoever You Are, be good to Ben to-night. Show him the way . . ." He lost count of the minutes, the hours: he heard only the feeble rattle of dying breath, and his wild synchronic prayer.
Light faded from his brain, and consciousness. Fatigue and powerful nervous depletion conquered him. He sprawled out on the floor, with his arms pillowed on the bed, muttering drowsily. Eliza, unmoving, sat across the bed, holding Ben's hand. Eugene, mumbling, sank into an uneasy sleep.
He awoke suddenly, conscious that he had slept, with a sharp quickening of horror. He was afraid that the little fluttering breath had now ceased entirely, that the effect of his prayer was lost. The body on the bed was almost rigid: there was no sound. Then, unevenly, without rhythm, there was a faint mutter of breath. He knew it was the end. He rose quickly and ran to the door. Across the hall, in a cold bedroom, on two wide beds, Gant, Luke, and Helen lay exhausted.
"Come," cried Eugene. "He's going now."
They came quickly into the room. Eliza sat unmoving, oblivious of them. As they entered the room, they heard, like a faint expiring sigh, the final movement of breath.
The rattling in the wasted body, which seemed for hours to have given over to death all of life that is worth saving, had now ceased. The body appeared to grow rigid before them. Slowly, after a moment, Eliza withdrew her hands. But suddenly, marvellously, as if his resurrection and rebirth had come upon him, Ben drew upon the air in a long and powerful respiration; his gray eyes opened. Filled with a terrible vision of all death to the dark spirit who had brooded upon each footstep of his pillows without support--a flame, a light, a glory--joined at length in death to the dark spirit who had brooded upon each footstep of his lonely adventure on earth; and, casting the fierce sword of his glance with utter and final comprehension upon the room haunted with its gray pageantry of cheap loves and dull consciences and on all those uncertain mummers of waste and confusion fading now from the bright window of his eyes, he passed instantly, scornful and unafraid, as he had lived, into the shades of death.
We can believe in the nothingness of life, we can believe in the nothingness of death and of life after death--but who can believe in the nothingness of Ben? Like Apollo, who did his penance to the high god in the sad house of King Admetus, he came, a god with broken feet, into the gray hovel of this world. And he lived here a stranger, trying to recapture the music of the lost world, trying to recall the great forgotten language, the lost faces, the stone, the leaf, the door.
O Artemidorus, farewell!
36
In that enormous silence, where pain and darkness met, some birds were waking. It was October. It was almost four o'clock in the morning. Eliza straightened out Ben's limbs, and folded his hands across his body. She smoothed out the rumpled covers of the bed, and patted out the pillows, making a smooth hollow for his head to rest in. His flashing hair, cropped close to his well-shaped head, was crisp and crinkly as a boy's, and shone with bright points of light. With a pair of scissors, she snipped off a little lock where it would not show.
"Grover's was black as a raven's without a kink in it. You'd never have known they were twins," she said.
They went downstairs to the kitchen.
"Well, Eliza," said Gant, calling her by name for the first time in thirty years, "you've had a hard life. If I'd acted different, we might have got along together. Let's try to make the most of what time's left. Nobody is blaming you. Taking it all in all, you've done pretty well."
"There are a great many things I'd like to do over again," said Eliza gravely. She shook her head. "We never know."
"We'll talk about it some other time," said Helen. "I guess every one is worn out. I know I am. I'm going to get some sleep. Papa, go on to bed, in heaven's name! There's nothing you can do now. Mama, I think you'd better go, too--"
"No," said Eliza, shaking her head. "You children go on. I couldn't sleep now anyway. There are too many things to do. I'm going to call up John Hines now."
'Tell him," said Gant, "to spare no expense. I'll foot the bills."
"Well," said Helen, "whatever it costs, let's give Ben a good funeral. It's the last thing we can ever do for him. I want to have no regrets on that score."
"Yes," said Eliza, nodding slowly. "I want the best one that money will buy. I'll make arrangements with John Hines when I talk to him. You children go on to bed now."
"Poor old 'Gene," said Helen, laughing. "He looks like the last rose of summer. He's worn out. You pile in and get some sleep, honey."
"No," he said, "I'm hungry. I haven't had anything to eat since I left the university."
"Well, for G-G-G-God's sake!" Luke stuttered. "Why didn't you speak, idiot? I'd have got you something. Come on," he said, grinning. "I wouldn't mind a bite myself. Let's go uptown and eat."
"Yes," said Eugene. "I'd like to get out for a while from the bosom of the family circle."
They laughed crazily. He poked around the stove for a moment, peering into the oven.
"Huh? Hah? What are you after, boy?" said Eliza suspiciously.
"What you got good to eat, Miss Eliza?" he said, leering crazily at her. He looked at the sailor: they burst into loud idiot laughter, pronging each other in the ribs. Eugene picked up a coffee-pot half-filled with a cold weak wash, and sniffed at it.
"By God!" he said. "That's one thing Ben's out of. He won't have to drink mama's coffee any more."
"Whah-whah-whah!" said the sailor.
Gant grinned, wetting a thumb.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Helen, with a hoarse snigger. "Poor old Ben!"
"Why, what's wrong with that coffee?" said Eliza, vexed. "It's GOOD coffee."
They howled. Eliza pursed her lips for a moment.
"I don't like that way of talking, boy," she said. Her eyes blurred suddenly. Eugene seized her rough hand and kissed it.
"It's all right, mama!" he said. "It's all right. I didn't mean it!" He put his arms around her. She wept, suddenly and bitterly.
"Nobody ever knew him. He never told us about himself. He was the quiet one. I've lost them both now." Then, drying her eyes, she added:
"You boys go get something to eat. A little walk will do you good. And, say," she added, "why don't you go by The Citizen office? They ought to be told. They've been calling up every day to find out about him."
"They thought a lot of that boy," said Gant.
They were tired, but they all felt an enormous relief. For over a day, each had known that death was inevitable, and after the horror of the incessant strangling gasp, this peace, this end of pain touched them all with a profound, a weary joy.
"Well, Ben's gone," said Helen slowly. Her eyes were wet, but she wept quietly now, with gentle grief, with love. "I'm glad it's over. Poor old Ben! I never got to know him until these last few days. He was the best of the lot. Thank God, he's out of it now."
Eugene thought of death now, with love, with joy. Death was like a lovely and tender woman, Ben's friend and lover, who had come to free him, to heal him, to save him from the torture of life.
They stood there together, without speaking, in Eliza's littered kitchen, and their eyes were blind with tears, because they thought of lovely and delicate death, and because they loved one another.
Eugene and Luke went softly up the hall, and out into the dark. Gently, they closed the big front door behind them, and descended the veranda steps. In that enormous silence, birds were waking. It was a little after four o'clock in the morning. Wind pressed the boughs. It was still dark. But above them the thick clouds that had covered the earth for days with a dreary gray blanket had been torn open. Eugene looked up through the deep ragged vault of the sky and saw the proud and splendid stars, bright and unwinking. The withered leaves were shaking.
A cock crew his shrill morning cry of life beginning and awaking. The cock that crew at midnight (thou
But the cock that crows at morning (he thought), has a voice as shrill as any fife. It says, we are done with sleep. We are done with death. O waken, waken into life, says his voice as shrill as any fife. In that enormous silence, birds were waking.
He heard the cock's bright minstrelsy again, and by the river in the dark, the great thunder of flanged wheels, and the long retreating wail of the whistle. And slowly, up the chill deserted street, he heard the heavy ringing clangor of shod hoofs. In that enormous silence, life was waking.
Joy awoke in him, and exultation. They had escaped from the prison of death; they were joined to the bright engine of life again. Life, ruddered life, that would not fail, began its myriad embarkations.
A paper-boy came briskly, with the stiff hobbled limp that Eugene knew so well, down the centre of the street, hurling a blocked paper accurately upon the porch of the Brunswick. As he came opposite Dixieland, he moved in to the curb, tossing his fresh paper with a careful plop. He knew there was sickness in the house.
The withered leaves were shaking.
Eugene jumped to the sidewalk from the sodded yard. He stopped the carrier.
"What's your name, boy?" he said.
"Tyson Smathers," said the boy, turning upon him a steady Scotch-Irish face that was full of life and business.
"My name is 'Gene Gant. Did you ever hear of me?"
"Yes," said Tyson Smathers, "I've heard of you. You had number 7."
"That was a long time ago," said Eugene, pompously, grinning. "I was just a boy."
In that enormous silence, birds were waking.
He thrust his hand into a pocket and found a dollar-bill.
"Here," he said. "I carried the damn things once. Next to my brother Ben, I was the best boy they ever had. Merry Christmas, Tyson."
"It ain't Christmas yet," said Tyson Smathers.
"You're right, Tyson," said Eugene, "but it will be."
Tyson Smathers took the money, with a puzzled, freckled grin. Then he went on down the street, throwing papers.
The maples were thin and sere. Their rotting leaves covered the ground. But the trees were not leafless yet. The leaves were quaking. Some birds began to chatter in the trees. Wind pressed the boughs, the withered leaves were shaking. It was October.
As Luke and Eugene turned up the street toward town, a woman came out of the big brick house across the street, and over the yard toward them. When she got near, they saw she was Mrs. Pert. It was October, but some birds were waking.
"Luke," she said fuzzily. "Luke? Is it Old Luke?"
"Yes," said Luke.
"And 'Gene? Is it old 'Gene?" She laughed gently, patting his hand, peering comically at him with her bleared oaken eyes, and swaying back and forth gravely, with alcoholic dignity. The leaves, the withered leaves, were shaking, quaking. It was October, and the leaves were shaking.
"They ran old Fatty away, 'Gene," she said. "They won't let her come in the house any more. They ran her away because she liked Old Ben. Ben. Old Ben." She swayed gently, vaguely collecting her thought. "Old Ben. How's Old Ben, 'Gene?" she coaxed. "Fatty wants to know."
"I'm m-m-m-mighty sorry, Mrs. P-P-P-Pert . . ." Luke began.
Wind pressed the boughs, the withered leaves were quaking.
"Ben's dead," said Eugene.
She stared at him for a moment, swaying on her feet
"Fatty liked Ben," she said gently, in a moment. "Fatty and Old Ben were friends."
She turned and started unsteadily across the street, holding one hand out gravely, for balance.
In that enormous silence, birds were waking. It was October, but some birds were waking.
Then Luke and Eugene walked swiftly townward, filled with great joy because they heard the sounds of life and daybreak. And as they walked, they spoke often of Ben, with laughter, with old pleasant memory, speaking of him not as of one who had died, but as of a brother who had been gone for years, and was returning home. They spoke of him with triumph and tenderness, as of one who had defeated pain, and had joyously escaped. Eugene's mind groped awkwardly about. It fumbled like a child, with little things.
They were filled with a deep and tranquil affection for each other: they talked without constraint, without affectation, with quiet confidence and knowledge.
"Do you remember," Luke began, "the t-t-t-time he cut the hair of Aunt Pett's orphan boy--Marcus?"
"He--used--a chamber-pot--to trim the edges," Eugene screamed, waking the street with wild laughter.
They walked along hilariously, greeting a few early pedestrians with ironical obsequiousness, jeering pleasantly at the world in brotherly alliance. Then they entered the relaxed and weary offices of the paper which Ben had served so many years, and gave their stick of news to the tired man there.
There was regret, a sense of wonder, in that office where the swift record of so many days had died--a memory that would not die, of something strange and passing.
"Damn! I'm sorry! He was a great boy!" said the men.
As light broke grayly in the empty streets, and the first car rattled up to town, they entered the little beanery where he had spent, in smoke and coffee, so many hours of daybreak.
Eugene looked in and saw them there, assembled as they had been many years before, like the nightmare ratification of a prophecy: McGuire, Coker, the weary counter-man, and, at the lower end, the press-man, Harry Tugman.
Luke and Eugene entered, and sat down at the counter.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," said Luke sonorously.
"Hello, Luke," barked McGuire. "Do you think you'll ever have any sense? How are you, son? How's school?" he said to Eugene. He stared at them for a moment, his wet cigarette plastered comically on his full sag lip, his bleared eyes kindly and drunken.
"General, how's the boy? What're you drinking these days--turpentine or varnish?" said the sailor, tweaking him roughly in his larded ribs. McGuire grunted.
"Is it over, son?" said Coker quietly.
"Yes," said Eugene.
Coker took the long cigar from his mouth and grinned malarially at the boy.
"Feel better, don't you, son?" he said.
"Yes," said Eugene. "A hell of a lot."
"Well, Eugenics," said the sailor briskly, "what are you eating?"
"What's the man got?" said Eugene, staring at the greasy card. "Have you got any young roast whale left?"
"No," said the counter-man. "We did have some, but we run out."
"How about the fricasseed bull?" said Luke. "Have you got any of that?"
"You don't need any one to fricassee your bull, son," said McGuire. "You've got plenty as it is."
Their bull-laughter bellowed in the beanery.
With puckered forehead, Luke stuttered over the menu.
"F-f-f-fried chicken a la Maryland," he muttered. "A la Maryland?" he repeated as if puzzled. "Now, ain't that nice?" he said, looking around with mincing daintiness.
"Bring me one of your this week's steaks," said Eugene, "well done, with a meat-axe and the sausage-grinder."
"What do you want the sausage-grinder for, son?" said Coker.
"That's for the mince pie," said Eugene.
"Make it two," said Luke, "with a coupla cups of Mock-a, just like mother still makes."
He looked crazily around at Eugene, and burst into loud whah-whahs, prodding him in the ribs.
"Where they got you stationed now, Luke?" said Harry Tugman, peering up snoutily from a mug of coffee.
"At the p-p-p-present time in Norfolk at the Navy Base," Luke answered, "m-m-making the world safe for hypocrisy."
"Do you ever get out to sea, son?" said Coker.
"Sure!" said Luke. "A f-f-five cent ride on the street-car brings me right out to the beach."
"That boy has had the makings of a sailor in h
Horse Hines came in briskly, but checked himself when he saw the two young men.
"Look out!" whispered the sailor to Eugene, with a crazy grin. "You're next! He's got his fishy eye glued on you. He's already getting you measured up for one."
Eugene looked angrily around at Horse Hines, muttering. The sailor chortled madly.
"Good-morning, gentlemen," said Horse Hines, in an accent of refined sadness. "Boys," he said, coming up to them sorrowfully, "I was mighty sorry to hear of your trouble. I couldn't have thought more of that boy if he'd been my own brother."
"Don't go on, Horse," said McGuire, holding up four fat fingers of protest. "We can see you're heart-broken. If you go on, you may get hysterical with your grief, and break right out laughing. We couldn't bear that, Horse. We're big strong men, but we've had hard lives. I beg of you to spare us, Horse."
Horse Hines did not notice him.
"I've got him over at the place now," he said softly. "I want you boys to come in later in the day to see him. You won't know he's the same person when I'm through."
"God! An improvement over nature," said Coker. "His mother will appreciate it."
"Is this an undertaking shop you're running, Horse," said McGuire, "or a beauty parlor?"
"We know you'll d-d-do your best, Mr. Hines," said the sailor with ready earnest insincerity. "That's the reason the family got you."
"Ain't you goin' to eat the rest of your steak?" said the counter-man to Eugene.
"Steak! Steak! It's not steak!" muttered Eugene. "I know what it is now." He got off the stool and walked over to Coker. "Can you save me? Am I going to die? Do I look sick, Coker?" he said in a hoarse mutter.