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

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СКАЧАТЬ the imperative need for dominance over almost all she touched.

      She was herself ungovernable; she disliked whatever did not yield to her governance. In his loneliness he would have yielded his spirit into bondage willingly if in exchange he might have had her love which so strangely he had forfeited, but he was unable to reveal to her the flowering ecstasies, the dark and incommunicable fantasies in which his life was bound. She hated secrecy; an air of mystery, a crafty but knowing reticence, or the unfathomable depths of other-wordliness goaded her to fury.

      Convulsed by a momentary rush of hatred, she would caricature the pout of his lips, the droop of his head, his bounding kangaroo walk.

      “You little freak. You nasty little freak. You don’t even know who you are — you little bastard. You’re not a Gant. Any one can see that. You haven’t a drop of papa’s blood in you. Queer one! Queer one! You’re Greeley Pentland all over again.”

      She always returned to this — she was fanatically partisan, her hysterical superstition had already lined the family in embattled groups of those who were Gant and those who were Pentland. On the Pentland side, she placed Steve, Daisy, and Eugene — they were, she thought, the “cold and selfish ones,” and the implication of the older sister and the younger brother with the criminal member of the family gave her an added pleasure. Her union with Luke was now inseparable. It had been inevitable. They were the Gants — those who were generous, fine, and honorable.

      The love of Luke and Helen was epic. They found in each other the constant effervescence, the boundless extraversion, the richness, the loudness, the desperate need to give and to serve that was life to them. They exacerbated the nerves of each other, but their love was beyond grievance, and their songs of praise were extravagant.

      “I’ll criticise him if I like,” she said pugnaciously. “I’ve got the right to. But I won’t hear any one else criticise him. He’s a fine generous boy — the finest one in this family. That’s one thing sure.”

      Ben alone seemed to be without the grouping. He moved among them like a shadow — he was remote from their passionate fullblooded partisanship. But she thought of him as “generous”— he was, she concluded, a “Gant.”

      In spite of this violent dislike for the Pentlands, both Helen and Luke had inherited all Gant’s social hypocrisy. They wanted above all else to put a good face on before the world, to be well liked and to have many friends. They were profuse in their thanks, extravagant in their praise, cloying in their flattery. They slathered it on. They kept their ill-temper, their nervousness, and their irritability for exhibition at home. And in the presence of any members of Jim or Will Pentland’s family their manner was not only friendly, it was even touched slightly with servility. Money impressed them.

      It was a period of incessant movement in the family. Steve had married a year or two before a woman from a small town in lower Indiana. She was thirty-seven years old, twelve years his senior, a squat heavy German with a big nose and a patient and ugly face. She had come to Dixieland one summer with another woman, a spinster of lifelong acquaintance, and allowed him to seduce her before she left. The winter following, her father, a small manufacturer of cigars, had died, leaving her $9,000 in insurance, his home, a small sum of money in the bank, and a quarter share in his business, which was left to the management of his two sons.

      Early in Spring the woman, whose name was Margaret Lutz, returned to Dixieland. One drowsy afternoon Eugene found them at Gant’s. The house was deserted save for them. They were sprawled out face downward, with their hands across each other’s hips, on Gant’s bed. They lay there silently, while he looked, in an ugly stupor. Steve’s yellow odor filled the room. Eugene began to tremble with insane fury. The Spring was warm and lovely, the air brooded slightly in a flowering breeze, there was a smell of soft tar. He had come down to the empty house exultantly, tasting its delicious silence, the cool mustiness of indoors, and a solitary afternoon with great calf volumes. In a moment the world turned hag.

      There was nothing that Steve touched that he did not taint.

      Eugene hated him because he stunk, because all that he touched stunk, because he brought fear, shame, and loathing wherever he went; because his kisses were fouler than his curses, his whines nastier than his threats. He saw the woman’s hair blown gently by the blubbered exhalations of his brother’s foul breath.

      “What are you doing there on papa’s bed?” he screamed.

      Steve rose stupidly and seized him by the arm. The woman sat up, dopily staring, her short legs widened.

      “I suppose you’re going to be a little Tattle-tale,” said Steve, bludgeoning him with heavy contempt. “You’re going to run right up and tell mama, aren’t you?” he said. He fastened his yellow fingers on Eugene’s arm.

      “Get off papa’s bed,” said Eugene desperately. He jerked his arm away.

      “You’re not going to tell on us, buddy, are you?” Steve wheedled, breathing pollution in his face.

      He grew sick.

      “Let me go,” he muttered. “No.”

      Steve and Margaret were married soon after. With the old sense of physical shame Eugene watched them descend the stairs at Dixieland each morning for breakfast. Steve swaggered absurdly, smiled complacently, and hinted at great fortune about the town. There was rumor of a quarter-million.

      “Put it there, Steve,” said Harry Tugman, slapping him powerfully upon the shoulder. “By God, I always said you’d get there.”

      Eliza smiled at swagger and boast, her proud, pleased, tremulous sad smile. The first-born.

      “Little Stevie doesn’t have to worry any longer,” said he. “He’s on Easy Street. Where are all the Wise Guys now who said ‘I told you so’? They’re all mighty glad to give Little Stevie a Big Smile and the Glad Hand when he breezes down the street. Every Knocker is a Booster now all right, all right.”

      “I tell you what,” said Eliza with proud smiles, “he’s no fool. He’s as bright as the next one when he wants to be.” Brighter, she thought.

      Steve bought new clothes, tan shoes, striped silk shirts, and a wide straw hat with a red, white and blue band. He swung his shoulders in a wide arc as he walked, snapped his fingers nonchalantly, and smiled with elaborate condescension on those who greeted him. Helen was vastly annoyed and amused; she had to laugh at his absurd strut, and she had a great rush of feeling for Margaret Lutz. She called her “honey,” felt her eyes mist warmly with unaccountable tears as she looked into the patient, bewildered, and slightly frightened face of the German woman. She took her in her arms and fondled her.

      “That’s all right, honey,” she said, “you let us know if he doesn’t treat you right. We’ll fix him.”

      “Steve’s a good boy,” said Margaret, “when he isn’t drinking. I’ve nothing to say against him when he’s sober.” She burst into tears.

      “That awful, that awful curse,” said Eliza, shaking her head sadly, “the curse of licker. It’s been responsible for the ruination of more homes than anything else.”

      “Well, she’ll never win any beauty prizes, that’s one thing sure,” said Helen privately to Eliza.

      “I’ll vow!” said Eliza.

      “What on earth did he mean by doing such a thing!” she continued. “She’s ten years older than СКАЧАТЬ