East of Eden by John Steinbeck

  "No. No--only a kind of sinking in the heart. Maybe later I'll sort it out to hatred. There was no interval from loveliness to horror, you see. I'm confused, confused."

  Samuel said, "One day we'll sit and you'll lay it out on the table, neat like a solitaire deck, but now--why, you can't find all the cards."

  From behind the shed there came the indignant shrieking of an outraged chicken and then a dull thump.

  "There's something at the hens," said Adam.

  A second shrieking started. "It's Lee at the hens," said Samuel. "You know, if chickens had government and church and history, they would take a distant and distasteful view of human joy. Let any gay and hopeful thing happen to a man, and some chicken goes howling to the block."

  Now the two men were silent, breaking it only with small false courtesies--meaningless inquiries about health and weather, with answers unlistened to. And this might have continued until they were angry at each other again if Lee had not interfered.

  Lee brought out a table and two chairs and set the chairs facing each other. He made another trip for a pint of whisky and two glasses and set a glass on the table in front of each chair. Then he carried out the twins, one under each arm, and put them on the ground beside the table and gave each boy a stick for his hand to shake and make shadows with.

  The boys sat solemnly and looked about, stared at Samuel's beard and searched for Lee. The strange thing about them was their clothing, for the boys were dressed in the straight trousers and the frogged and braided jackets of the Chinese. One was in turquoise blue and the other in a faded rose pink, and the frogs and braid were black. On their heads sat round black silken hats, each with a bright red button on its flat top.

  Samuel asked, "Where in the world did you get those clothes, Lee?"

  "I didn't get them," Lee said testily. "I had them. The only other clothes they have I made myself, out of sail cloth. A boy should be well dressed on his naming day."

  "You've dropped the pidgin, Lee."

  "I hope for good. Of course I use it in King City." He addressed a few short sung syllables to the boys on the ground, and they both smiled up at him and waved their sticks in the air. Lee said, "I'll pour you a drink. It's some that was here."

  "It's some you bought yesterday in King City," said Samuel.

  Now that Samuel and Adam were seated together and the barriers were down, a curtain of shyness fell on Samuel. What he had beaten in with his fists he could not supplement easily. He thought of the virtues of courage and forbearance, which become flabby when there is nothing to use them on. His mind grinned inward at itself.

  The two sat looking at the twin boys in their strange bright-colored clothes. Samuel thought, Sometimes your opponent can help you more than your friend. He lifted his eyes to Adam.

  "It's hard to start," he said. "And it's like a put-off letter that gathers difficulties to itself out of the minutes. Could you give me a hand?"

  Adam looked up for a moment and then back at the boys on the ground. "There's a crashing in my head," he said. "Like sounds you hear under water. I'm having to dig myself out of a year."

  "Maybe you'll tell me how it was and that will get us started."

  Adam tossed down his drink and poured another and rolled the glass at an angle in his hand. The amber whisky moved high on the side and the pungent fruit odor of its warming filled the air. "It's hard to remember," he said. "It was not agony but a dullness. But no--there were needles in it. You said I had not all the cards in the deck--and I was thinking of that. Maybe I'll never have all the cards."

  "Is it herself trying to come out? When a man says he does not want to speak of something he usually means he can think of nothing else."

  "Maybe it's that. She's all mixed up with the dullness, and I can't remember much except the last picture drawn in fire."

  "She did shoot you, didn't she, Adam?"

  His lips grew thin and his eyes black.

  Samuel said, "There's no need to answer."

  "There's no reason not to," Adam replied. "Yes, she did."

  "Did she mean to kill you?"

  "I've thought of that more than anything else. No, I don't think she meant to kill me. She didn't allow me that dignity. There was no hatred in her, no passion at all. I learned about that in the army. If you want to kill a man, you shoot at head or heart or stomach. No, she hit me where she intended. I can see the gun barrel moving over. I guess I wouldn't have minded so much if she had wanted my death. That would have been a kind of love. But I was an annoyance, not an enemy."

  "You've given it a lot of thought," said Samuel.

  "I've had lots of time for it. I want to ask you something. I can't remember behind the last ugly thing. Was she very beautiful, Samuel?"

  "To you she was because you built her. I don't think you ever saw her--only your own creation."

  Adam mused aloud, "I wonder who she was--what she was. I was content not to know."

  "And now you want to?"

  Adam dropped his eyes. "It's not curiosity. But I would like to know what kind of blood is in my boys. When they grow up--won't I be looking for something in them?"

  "Yes, you will. And I will warn you now that not their blood but your suspicion might build evil in them. They will be what you expect of them."

  "But their blood--"

  "I don't very much believe in blood," said Samuel. "I think when a man finds good or bad in his children he is seeing only what he planted in them after they cleared the womb."

  "You can't make a race horse of a pig."

  "No," said Samuel, "but you can make a very fast pig."

  "No one hereabouts would agree with you. I think even Mrs. Hamilton would not."

  "That's exactly right. She most of all would disagree, and so I would not say it to her and let loose the thunder of her disagreement. She wins all arguments by the use of vehemence and the conviction that a difference of opinion is a personal affront. She's a fine woman, but you have to learn to feel your way with her. Let's speak of the boys."

  "Will you have another drink?"

  "That I will, thank you. Names are a great mystery. I've never known whether the name is molded by the child or the child changed to fit the name. But you can be sure of this--whenever a human has a nickname it is a proof that the name given him was wrong. How do you favor the standard names--John or James or Charles?"

  Adam was looking at the twins and suddenly with the mention of the name he saw his brother peering out of the eyes of one of the boys. He leaned forward.

  "What is it?" Samuel asked.

  "Why," Adam cried, "these boys are not alike! They don't look alike."

  "Of course they don't. They're not identical twins."

  "That one--that one looks like my brother. I just saw it. I wonder if the other looks like me."

  "Both of them do. A face has everything in it right back to the beginning."

  "It's not so much now," said Adam. "But for a moment I thought I was seeing a ghost."

  "Maybe that's what ghosts are," Samuel observed.

  Lee brought dishes out and put them on the table.

  "Do you have Chinese ghosts?" Samuel asked.

  "Millions," said Lee. "We have more ghosts than anything else. I guess nothing in China ever dies. It's very crowded. Anyway, that's the feeling I got when I was there."

  Samuel said, "Sit down, Lee. We're trying to think of names."

  "I've got chicken frying. It will be ready pretty soon."

  Adam looked up from the twins and his eyes were warmed and softened. "Will you have a drink, Lee?"

  "I'm nipping at the og-ka-py in the kitchen," said Lee and went back to the house.

  Samuel leaned down and gathered up one of the boys and held him on his lap. "Take that one up," he said to Adam. "We ought to see whether there's something that draws names to them."

  Adam held the other child awkwardly on his knee. "They look some alike," he said, "but not when you look close. This one has rounder eyes than th
at one."

  "Yes, and a rounder head and bigger ears," Samuel added. "But this one is more like--like a bullet. This one might go farther but not so high. And this one is going to be darker in the hair and skin. This one will be shrewd, I think, and shrewdness is a limitation on the mind. Shrewdness tells you what you must not do because it would not be shrewd. See how this one supports himself! He's farther along than that one--better developed. Isn't it strange how different they are when you look close?"

  Adam's face was changing as though he had opened and come out on his surface. He held up his finger, and the child made a lunge for it and missed and nearly fell off his lap. "Whoa!" said Adam. "Take it easy. Do you want to fall?"

  "It would be a mistake to name them for qualities we think they have," Samuel said. "We might be wrong--so wrong. Maybe it would be good to give them a high mark to shoot at--a name to live up to. The man I'm named for had his name called clear by the Lord God, and I've been listening all my life. And once or twice I've thought I heard my name called--but not clear, not clear."

  Adam, holding the child by his upper arm, leaned over and poured whisky in both glasses. "I thank you for coming, Samuel," he said. "I even thank you for hitting me. That's a strange thing to say."

  "It was a strange thing for me to do. Liza will never believe it, and so I'll never tell her. An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion. I haven't the courage for that."

  Adam said, "I've wondered why a man of your knowledge would work a desert hill place."

  "It's because I haven't courage," said Samuel. "I could never quite take the responsibility. When the Lord God did not call my name, I might have called His name--but I did not. There you have the difference between greatness and mediocrity. It's not an uncommon disease. But it's nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world."

  "I'd think there are degrees of greatness," Adam said.

  "I don't think so," said Samuel. "That would be like saying there is a little bigness. No. I believe when you come to that responsibility the hugeness and you are alone to make your choice. On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other--cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I'm glad I chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other? None of my children will be great either, except perhaps Tom. He's suffering over the choosing right now. It's a painful thing to watch. And somewhere in me I want him to say yes. Isn't that strange? A father to want his son condemned to greatness! What selfishness that must be."

  Adam chuckled. "This naming is no simple business, I see."

  "Did you think it would be?"

  "I didn't know it could be so pleasant," said Adam.

  Lee came out with a platter of fried chicken, a bowl of smoking boiled potatoes, and a deep dish of pickled beets, all carried on a pastry board. "I don't know how good it will be," he said. "The hens are a little old. We don't have any pullets. The weasels got the baby chicks this year."

  "Pull up," said Samuel.

  "Wait until I get my ng-ka-py," said Lee.

  While he was gone Adam said, "It's strange to me--he used to speak differently."

  "He trusts you now," Samuel said. "He has a gift of resigned loyalty without -hope of reward. He's maybe a much better man than either of us could dream of being."

  Lee came back and took his seat at the end of the table. "Just put the boys on the ground," he said.

  The twins protested when they were set down. Lee spoke to them sharply in Cantonese and they were silent.

  The men ate quietly as nearly all country people do. Suddenly Lee got up and hurried into the house. He came back with a jug of red wine. "I forgot it," he said. "I found it in the house."

  Adam laughed. "I remember drinking wine here before I bought the place. Maybe I bought the place because of the wine. The chicken's good, Lee. I don't think I've been aware of the taste of food for a long time."

  "You're getting well," Samuel said. "Some people think it's an insult to the glory of their sickness to get well. But the time poultice is no respecter of glories. Everyone gets well if he waits around."

  4

  Lee cleared the table and gave each of the boys a clean drumstick. They sat solemnly holding their greasy batons and alternately inspecting and sucking them. The wine and the glasses stayed on the table.

  "We'd best get on with the naming," Samuel said. "I can feel a little tightening on my halter from Liza."

  "I can't think what to name them," Adam said.

  "You have no family name you want--no inviting trap for a rich relative, no proud name to re-create?"

  "No, I'd like them to start fresh, insofar as that is possible."

  Samuel knocked his forehead with his knuckles. "What a shame," he said. "What a shame it is that the proper names for them they cannot have."

  "What do you mean?" Adam asked.

  "Freshness, you said. I thought last night--" He paused. "Have you thought of your own name?"

  "Mine?"

  "Of course. Your first-born--Cain and Abel."

  Adam said, "Oh, no. No, we can't do that."

  "I know we can't. That would be tempting whatever fate there is. But isn't it odd that Cain is maybe the best-known name in the whole world and as far as I know only one man has ever borne it?"

  Lee said, "Maybe that's why the name has never changed its emphasis."

  Adam looked into the ink-red wine in his glass. "I got a shiver when you mentioned it," he said.

  "Two stories have haunted us and followed us from our beginning," Samuel said. "We carry them along with us like invisible tails--the story of original sin and the story of Cain and Abel. And I don't understand either of them. I don't understand them at all but I feel them. Liza gets angry with me. She says I should not try to understand them. She says why should we try to explain a verity. Maybe she's right--maybe she's right. Lee, Liza says you're a Presbyterian--do you understand the Garden of Eden and Cain and Abel?"

  "She thought I should be something, and I went to Sunday School long ago in San Francisco. People like you to be something, preferably what they are."

  Adam said, "He asked you if you understood."

  "I think I understand the Fall. I could perhaps feel that in myself. But the brother murder--no. Well, maybe I don't remember the details very well."

  Samuel said, "Most people don't read the details. It's the details that astonish me. And Abel had no children." He looked up at the sky. "Lord, how the day passes! It's like a life--so quickly when we don't watch it and so slowly when we do. No," he said, "I'm having enjoyment. And I made a promise to myself that I would not consider enjoyment a sin. I take a pleasure in inquiring into things. I've never been content to pass a stone without looking under it. And it is a black disappointment to me that I can never see the far side of the moon."

  "I don't have a Bible," Adam said. "I left the family one in Connecticut."

  "I have," said Lee. "I'll get it."

  "No need," said Samuel. "Liza let me take her mother's. It's here in my pocket." He took out the package and unwrapped the battered book. "This one has been scraped and gnawed at," he said. "I wonder what agonies have settled here. Give me a used Bible and I will, I think, be able to tell you about a man by the places that are edged with the dirt of seeking fingers. Liza wears a Bible down evenly. Here we are--this oldest story. If it troubles us it must be that we find the trouble in ourselves."

  "I haven't heard it since I was a child," said Adam.

  "You think it's long then, and it's very short," said Samuel. "I'll read it through and then we'll go back. Give me a little wine, my throat's dried out with wine. Here it is--such a little story to have made so deep a wound." He looked down at the ground. "See!" he said. "The boys have gone to their sleep, there in the dust."

  Lee got up. "I'll cover
them," he said.

  "The dust is warm," said Samuel. "Now it goes this way. 'And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, "I have gotten a man from the Lord." ' "

  Adam started to speak and Samuel looked up at him and he was silent and covered his eyes with his hand. Samuel read, " 'And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.' "

  Lee said, "Now there--no, go on, go on. We'll come back."

  Samuel read, " 'And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, "Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him."

  " 'And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, "Where is Abel thy brother?" And he said, "I know not. Am I my brother's keeper?" And he said, "What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tillest the ground it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth." And Cain said unto the Lord, "My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth, and from thy face shall I be hid. And I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me." And the Lord said unto him, "Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.' "

  Samuel closed the loose cover of the book almost with weariness. "There it is," he said. "Sixteen verses, no more. And oh, Lord! I had forgotten how dreadful it is--no single tone of encouragement. Maybe Liza's right. There's nothing to understand."