The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck
The neighbor thought he was dealing with a madman, but he felt a kind of reverence for the madness. He desired to salute it in some manner. Had he not been an American, he would have touched his hat with two fingers. This man's two grown sons were cutting timber three hundred miles away, and his daughter had married and gone to Nevada. His family was broken up before it was really started.
Richard built his house of redwood, which does not decay. He modeled it after the style of the fine country houses of New England, but, as a tribute to the climate of the Pastures of Heaven, he surrounded the whole building with a wide veranda. The roof was only temporarily shingled, but, as soon as his order could be received in Boston and a ship could get back again, the shingles were ripped off and eastern slate substituted. This roof was an important and symbolic thing to Richard. To the people of the valley the slate roof was the show piece of the country. More than anything else it made Richard Whiteside the first citizen of the valley. This man was steady, and his home was here. He didn't intend to run off to a new gold field. Why--his roof was slate. Besides, he was an educated man. He had been to Harvard. He had money, and he had the faith to build a big, luxurious house in the valley. He would rule the land. He was the founder and patriarch of a family, and his roof was of slate. The people appreciated and valued the Pastures of Heaven more because of the slate roof. Had Richard been a politician with a desire for local preferment, he could have made no more astute move than thus roofing his house with slate. It glimmered darkly in the rain; the sun made a steel mirror of it.
Finally the house was finished, two hired men were set to planting the orchards and to preparing the land for seed. A little band of sheep nibbled the grass on the hillside behind the house. Richard knew that his preparation was complete. He was ready for a wife. When a letter came from a distant relative, saying he had arrived in San Francisco with his wife and daughter and would be glad to see Richard, Richard knew he need not search farther. Before he went to San Francisco, he knew he would marry that daughter. It was the fit thing. There would be no accidents of blood if he married this girl.
Although they went through the form of courtship, the matter was settled as soon as they met. Alicia was glad to leave the domination of her mother and to begin a domestic empire of her own. The house had been made for her. She had not been in it twenty-four hours before she had spread scalloped and perforated papers on the pantry shelves, of the exact kind Richard remembered in his mother's pantry. She ordered the house in the old, comfortable manner, the unchangeable, the cyclic manner--washing Monday, ironing Tuesday and so forth--carpets up and beaten twice a year; jams, tomatoes and pickles preserved and shelved in the basement every fall. The farm prospered, the sheep and cows increased, and in the garden, bachelor buttons, sweet william, carnations, hollyhocks settled down to a yearly blooming. And Alicia was going to have a baby.
Richard had known all this would happen. The dynasty was established. The chimneys wore black smudges around their crowns. The fireplace in the sitting room smoked just enough to fill the house with a delicious incense of wood smoke. The great meerschaum pipe his father-in-law had given him was turning from its new, chalky white to a rich, creamy yellow.
When the child was coming, Richard treated Alicia almost like an invalid. In the evening when they sat before the fire, he tucked a robe about her feet. His great fear was that something would go wrong with the bearing of the child. They talked of the picture she should look at to influence the appearance of the firstling, and, to surprise her, Richard sent to San Francisco for a little bronze copy of the Michelangelo David. Alicia blushed at its nakedness, but before very long she became passionately fond of the little figure. When she went to bed it stood on her bedside table. During the day she took it from room to room with her as she worked, and in the evening it stood on the mantel in the sitting room. Often when she gazed at its clean, hard limbs a tiny smile of knowledge and of seeking came and went on her face. She was thoroughly convinced that her child would look like the David.
Richard sat beside her and stroked her hand soothingly. She liked to have him stroke the palm of her hand, firmly enough so it did not tickle. He talked to her quietly. "The curse is removed," he said. "You know, Alicia, my people, and yours a little farther removed, lived in one house for a hundred and thirty years. From that central hearth our blood was mingled with the good true blood of New England. One time my father told me that seventy-three children were born in the house. Our family multiplied until my grandfather's time. My father was an only child, and I was an only child. It was the sadness of my father's life. He was only sixty when he died, Alicia, and I was his only child. When I was twenty-five and hadn't really begun to live, the old house burned down. I don't know what started the fire." He laid her hand down on the arm of his chair as gently as though it were a weak little animal. An ember had rolled out of the fireplace and off the brick hearth. He pushed it back among the other coals and then took up Alicia's hand again. She smiled faintly at the David on the mantel.
"There was a practice in ancient times," Richard continued. His voice became soft and far away as though he spoke from those ancient times. Later in life Alicia could tell by the set of his head, by the tone of his voice and by his expression when he was about to speak of ancient times. For the Ancient Times of Herodotus, of Xenophon, of Thucydides were personal things to him. In the illiterate West the stories of Herodotus were as new as though he had invented them. He read the Persian War, the Peloponnesian Wars and the Ten Thousand every year. Now he stroked Alicia's hand a little more firmly.
"In ancient times when, through continued misfortunes, the people of a city came to believe themselves under a curse or even under disfavor of some god, they put all of their movable possessions in ships and sailed away to found a new city. They left their old city vacant and open to anyone who wanted it."
"Will you hand me the statue, Richard?" Alicia asked. "Sometimes I like to hold it in my hand." He jumped up and set the David in her lap.
"Listen, Alicia! There were only two children in the two generations before the house burned down. I put my possessions in a ship and sailed westward to found a new home. You must surely see that the home I lost took a hundred and thirty years to build. I couldn't replace it. A new house on the old land would have been painful to me. When I saw this valley, I knew it was the place for the new family seat. And now the generations are forming. I am very happy, Alicia."
She reached over to squeeze his hand in gratitude that she could make him happy. "Why," he said suddenly, "there was even an omen, when I first came into the valley. I inquired of the gods whether this was the place, and they answered. Is that good, Alicia? Shall I tell you about the omens and my first night on the hill?"
"Tell me tomorrow night," she said. "It will be better if I retire now." He stood up and helped her to unfold the rug from around her knees. Alicia leaned rather heavily on his arm as he helped her up the stairs. "There's something mystic in the house, Alicia, something marvelous. It's the new soul, the first native of the new race."
"He will look like the little statue," said Alicia.
When Richard had tucked in the covers so she could not catch cold, he went back to the sitting room. He could hear children in the house. They ran with pattering feet up and down the stairs, they dabbled in the ashes of the fireplace. He heard their voices softly calling to one another on the veranda. Before he went to bed, he put the three great books on the top shelf of the bookcase.
The birth was a very severe one. When it was over, and Alicia lay pale and exhausted in her bed, Richard brought the little son and put him beside her. "Yes," she said, complacently, "he looks like the statue. I knew he would, of course. And David will be his name, of course."
The Monterey doctor came downstairs and sat with Richard beside the fire. He puckered his brow gloomily and rolled a Masonic ring around and around on his third finger. Richard opened a bottle of brandy and poured two little glasses.
"I
The doctor put his glass to his nose and sniffed like a horse. "Damn fine liquor. You better name it to your wife."
"Of course." They drank. "And this next one to my son."
"Name this one to your wife, too."
"Why?" Richard asked in surprise.
The doctor was almost dipping his nostrils in the glass. "Kind of a thank offering. You were damn near a widower."
Richard dumped his brandy down his throat. "I didn't know. I thought--I didn't know. I thought first ones were always hard to bear."
"Give me another drink," the doctor demanded. "You aren't going to have any more children."
Richard stopped in the act of pouring. "What do you mean by that? Of course I'm going to have more children."
"Not by this wife, you aren't. She's finished. Have another child and you won't have any wife."
Richard sat very still. The soft clattering of children he had heard in the house for the past month was suddenly stilled. He seemed to hear their secret feet stealing out the front door and down the steps.
The doctor laughed sourly. "Why don't you get drunk if that's the way you feel about it?"
"Oh! no, no. I don't think I could get drunk."
"Well, give me another drink before I go, anyway. It's going to be a cold drive home."
Richard did not tell his wife she could not have children until six months had passed. He wanted her to regain her strength before he exposed her to the shock of the revelation. When he finally did go to her, he felt the guilt of his secret. She was holding her child in her lap, and occasionally bending down to take one of his upstretched fingers in her mouth. The child stared up with vague eyes and smiled wetly while he waggled his straight fingers for her to suck. The sun flooded in the window. From a distance they could hear one of the hired men cursing a harrow team with sing-song monotony. Alicia lifted her head and frowned slightly. "It's time he was christened, don't you think, Richard?"
"Yes," he agreed. "I'll make arrangements in Monterey."
She struggled with a weighty consideration. "Do you think it too late to change his name?"
"No, it's not too late. Why do you want to change it? What do you want to call him?"
"I want to have him called John. That's a New Testament name--" She looked up for his approval--"and besides, it's my father's name. My father will be pleased. Besides, I haven't felt quite right about naming him for that statue, even if it is a statue of the boy David. It isn't as though the statue had clothes on--"
Richard did not try to follow this logic. Instead he plunged into his confession. In a second it was over. He had not realized it would take so little time. Alicia was smiling a peculiar enigmatic smile that puzzled him. No matter how well he became acquainted with her, this smile, a little quizzical, a trifle sad, and filled with secret wisdom shut him out of her thoughts. She retired behind the smile. It said, "How silly you are. I know things which would make your knowledge seem ridiculous if I chose to tell you." The child stretched up its yearning fingers toward her face, and she flexed its fingers back and forth. "Wait a little," she said. "Doctors don't know everything. Just wait a little, Richard. We will have other children." She shifted the boy and slipped her hand under his diaper.
Richard went out and sat on his front steps. The house behind him was teeming with life again, whereas a few minutes ago it had been quiet and dead. There were thousands of things to do. The box hedge which held the garden in its place had not been clipped for six months. Long ago he had laid out a square in the side yard for a grass plot, and it lay waiting for the seed. There was no place for drying linen yet. The banister of the front steps was beside him. Richard put out his hand and stroked it as though it were the arched neck of a horse.
The Whitesides became the first family of the Pastures of Heaven almost as soon as they were settled. They were educated, they had a fine farm, and, while not rich, they were not pressed for money. Most important of all, they lived in comfort, in a fine house. The house was the symbol of the family--roomy, luxurious for that day, warm, hospitable and white. Its size gave an impression of substance, but it was the white paint, often renewed and washed, that placed it over the other houses of the valley as surely as a Rhine castle is placed over its village. The families admired the white house, and also they felt more secure because it was there. It embodied authority and culture and judgment and manners. The neighbors could tell by looking at his house that Richard Whiteside was a gentleman who would do no mean nor cruel nor unwise thing. They were proud of the house in the same way tenants of land in a duchy are proud of the manor house. While some of the neighbors were richer than Whiteside, they seemed to know they could not build a house like that even though they imitated it exactly. It was primarily because of his house that Richard became the valley's arbiter of manners, and, after that, a kind of extra-legal judge over small disputes. The reliance of his neighbors in turn bred in Richard a paternal feeling toward the valley. As he grew older he came to regard all the affairs of the valley as his affairs, and the people were proud to have it so.
Five years passed before her intuition told Alicia that she was ready to have another child. "I'll get the doctor," Richard said, when she told him. "The doctor will know whether it's safe or not."
"No, Richard. Doctors do not know. I tell you women know more about themselves than doctors do."
Richard obeyed her, because he was afraid of what the doctor would tell him. "It's the grain of deity in women," he explained to himself. "Nature has planted this sure knowledge in women in order that the race may increase."
Everything went well for six months, and then a devastating illness set in. When he was finally summoned, the doctor was too furious to speak to Richard. The confinement was a time of horror. Richard sat in his sitting room, gripping the arms of his chair and listening to the weak screaming in the bedroom above. His face was grey. After many hours the screaming stopped. Richard was so fuddled with apprehension that he did not even look up when the doctor came into the room.
"Get out the bottle," the doctor said, tiredly. "Let's name a toast to you for a God damn fool."
Richard did not look up nor answer. For a moment the doctor continued to scowl at him, and then he spoke more gently. "Your wife isn't dead, Heaven only knows why. She's gone through enough to kill a squad of soldiers. These weak women! They have the vitality of monsters. The baby is dead!" Suddenly he wanted to punish Richard for disregarding his first orders. "There isn't enough left of the baby to bury." He turned and left the house abruptly because he hated to be as sorry for anyone as he was for Richard Whiteside.
Alicia was an invalid. Little John could not remember when his mother had not been an invalid. All of his life that he could remember he had seen his father carry her up and down stairs in his arms. Alicia did not speak very often, but more and more the quizzical and wise smile was in her eyes. And in spite of her weakness, she ordered the house remarkably well. The rugged country girls, who served in the house as a coveted preparation for their own marriages, came for orders before every meal. Alicia, from her bed or from her rocking chair, planned everything.
Every night Richard carried her up to bed. When she was lying against her white pillows, he drew up a chair and sat by her bed for a little while, stroking the palm of her hand until she grew sleepy. Every night she asked, "Are you content, Richard?"
"I am content," he said. And then he told her about the farm and about the people of the valley. It was a kind of daily report of happenings. As he talked, the smile came upon her face and stayed there until her eyes drooped, and he blew out the light. It was a ritual.
On John's tenth birthday he was given a party. Children from all over the valley came and wandered on tip-toe through the big house, staring at the grandeur they had heard about. Alicia was sitting on the veranda. "You mustn't be so quiet, children," she said. "Run about and have a good time." But they could not run and shout in the Whiteside hous
That night, when she was in bed, she asked, "Are you content, Richard?"
His face still glowed with the pleasure he had taken in the party. "I am content," he said.
"You must not worry about the children, Richard," she continued. "Wait a little. Everything will be all right." This was her great, all-covering knowledge. "Wait a little. No sorrow can survive the smothering of a little time." And Richard knew that it was a greater knowledge than his.
"It isn't long to wait," Alicia went on.
"What isn't?"
"Why think, John. He's ten now. In ten years he will be married, and then, don't you see?--Teach him what you know. The family is safe, Richard."
"Of course, I know. The house is safe. I'm going to begin reading Herodotus to him, Alicia. He's old enough."
"I think Myrtle should clean all the spare bedrooms tomorrow. They haven't been aired for three months."
John Whiteside always remembered how his father read to him the three great authors, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon. The meerschaum pipe was reddish brown by now, delicately and evenly colored. "All history is here," Richard said. "Everything mankind is capable of is recorded in these three books. The love and chicanery, the stupid dishonesty, the short-sightedness and bravery, nobility and sadness of the race. You may judge the future by these books, John, for nothing can happen which has not happened and been recorded in these books. Compared to these, the Bible is a very incomplete record of an obscure people."