Thomas Wolfe: Of Time and the River, You Can't Go Home Again & Look Homeward, Angel. Thomas Wolfe

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      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 every one making his profit and giving the other fellow a chance. Keep the ball a-rolling!’ I said, laughing as big as you please. ‘Why, Mrs. Gant!’ he said —” She was off on a lengthy divagation, recording with an absorbed gusto the interminable minutia of her transaction with the worthy Quinine King, with the attendant phenomena, during the time, of birds, bees, flowers, sun, clouds, dogs, cows, and people. She was pleased. She was happy.

      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 СКАЧАТЬ