OF TIME AND THE RIVER. Thomas Wolfe

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СКАЧАТЬ good tobacco! Finest and healthiest plant on earth! No question about it!”

      “Well,” said Brill, “I’ve learned something. We live and learn, Reverend. You’ve taught me somethin’ worth knowing: when it’s free it’s clean; when you have to pay for it it stinks like hell!” He pondered heavily for a moment, and the burble began to play about in his great throat: “And by God!” he concluded, “tobacco’s not the only thing that applies to, either. Not by a damned sight!”

      Again, one morning when his nephew was there, Bascom cleared his throat portentously, coughed, and suddenly said to him: “Now, Eugene, my boy, you are going to have lunch with me today. There’s no question about it whatever!” This was astonishing news, for he had never before invited the youth to eat with him when he came to his office, although the boy had been to his house for dinner many times. “Yes, sir!” said Bascom, with an air of conviction and satisfaction. “I have thought it all over. There is a splendid establishment in the basement of this building — small, of course, but everything clean and of the highest order! It is conducted by an Irish gentleman whom I have known for many years. Finest people on earth: no question about it!”

      It was an astonishing and momentous occasion; the boy knew how infrequently he went to a restaurant. Having made his decision, Uncle Bascom immediately stepped into the outer offices and began to discuss and publish his intentions with the greatest satisfaction.

      “Yes, sir!” he said in a precise tone, smacking his lips in a ruminant fashion, and addressing himself to everyone rather than to a particular person. “We shall go in and take our seats in the regular way, and I shall then give appropriate instructions to one of the attendants —” again he smacked his lips as he pronounced this word with such an indescribable air of relish that immediately the boy’s mouth began to water, and the delicious pangs of appetite and hunger began to gnaw his vitals —“I shall say: ‘This is my nephew, a young man now enrolled at Harvard Un-i-ver-sit-tee!’"— here Bascom smacked his lips together again with that same maddening air of relish —”‘Yes, sir’ (I shall say!)—‘You are to fulfil his order without STINT, without DELAY, and without QUESTION, and to the UTMOST of your ability’"— he howled, wagging his great bony forefinger through the air —“As for myself,” he declared abruptly, “I shall take nothing. Good Lord, no!” he said with a scornful laugh. “I wouldn’t touch a thing they had to offer. You couldn’t pay me to: I shouldn’t sleep for a month if I did. But you, my boy!” he howled, turning suddenly upon his nephew, “— are to have everything your heart desires! Everything, everything, everything!” He made an inclusive gesture with his long arms; then closed his eyes, stamped at the floor, and began to snuffle with laughter.

      Mr. Brill had listened to all this with his great-jowled face slack-jawed and agape with astonishment. Now, he said heavily: “He’s goin’ to have everything, is he? Where are you goin’ to take him to git it?”

      “Why, sir!” Bascom said in an annoyed tone, “I have told you all along — we are going to the modest but excellent establishment in the basement of this very building.”

      “Why, Reverend,” Brill said in a protesting tone, “you ain’t goin’ to take your nephew THERE, are you? I thought you said you was goin’ to git somethin’ to EAT.”

      “I had supposed,” Bascom said with bitter sarcasm, “that one went there for that purpose. I had not supposed that one went there to get shaved.”

      “Well,” said Brill, “if you go there you’ll git shaved, all right. You’ll not only git SHAVED, you’ll git SKINNED alive. But you won’t git anything to eat.” And he hurled himself back again, roaring with laughter.

      “Pay no attention to him!” Bascom said to the boy in a tone of bitter repugnance. “I have long known that his low and vulgar mind attempts to make a joke of everything, even the most sacred matters. I assure you, my boy, the place is excellent in every way:— do you suppose,” he said now, addressing Brill and all the others, with a howl of fury —“do you suppose, if it were not, that I should for a single moment DREAM of taking him there? Do you suppose that I would for an instant CONTEMPLATE taking my own nephew, my sister’s son, to any place in which I did not repose the fullest confidence? Not on your life!” he howled. “Not on your life!”

      And they departed, followed by Brill’s great bellow, and a farewell invitation which he shouted after the young man. “Don’t worry, son! When you git through with that cockroach stew, come back an’ I’ll take you out to lunch with ME!”

      time_

      Although Brill delighted in teasing and baiting his partner in this fashion, there was, at the bottom of his heart, a feeling of deep humility, of genuine respect and admiration for him: he respected Uncle Bascom’s intelligence, he was secretly and profoundly impressed by the fact that the old man had been a minister of the gospel and had preached in many churches.

      Moreover, in the respect and awe with which Brill greeted these evidences of Bascom’s superior education, in the eagerness he showed when he boasted to visitors, as he often did, of his partner’s learning, there was a quality of pride that was profoundly touching and paternal: it was as if Bascom had been his son and as if he wanted at every opportunity to display his talents to the world. And this, in fact, was exactly what he did want to do. Much to Bascom’s annoyance, Brill was constantly speaking of his erudition to strangers who had come into the office for the first time, and constantly urging him to perform for them, to “say some of them big words, Reverend.” And even when the old man answered him, as he frequently did, in terms of scorn, anger, and contempt, Brill was completely satisfied if Uncle Bascom would only use a few of the “big words” in doing it. Thus, one day, when one of his boyhood friends, a New Hampshire man whom he had not seen in thirty-five years, had come in to renew their acquaintance Brill, in describing the accomplishments of his partner, said with an air of solemn affirmation: “Why, hell yes, Jim! It’d take a college perfesser to know what the Reverend is talkin’ about half the time! No ordinary son of a bitch is able to understand him! So help me God, it’s true!” he swore solemnly, as Jim looked incredulous. “The Reverend knows words the average man ain’t never heard. He knows words that ain’t even in the dictionary. Yes, sir! — an’ uses ’em, too — all the time!” he concluded triumphantly.

      “Why, my dear sir!” Bascom answered in a tone of exacerbated contempt, “What on earth are you talking about? Such a man as you describe would be a monstrosity, a heinous perversion of natural law! A man so wise that no one could understand him:— so literate that he could not communicate with his fellow-creatures:— so erudite that he led the inarticulate and incoherent life of a beast or a savage!”— here Uncle Bascom squinted his eyes tightly shut, and laughed sneeringly down his nose: “Phuh! phuh! phuh! phuh! phuh! — Why, you consum-mate fool!” he sneered, “I have long known that your ignorance was bottomless — but I had never hoped to see it equalled — Nay, surpassed!” he howled, “by your asininity.”

      “There you are!” said Brill exultantly to his visitor, “What did I tell you? There’s one of them words, Jim: ‘asserninity,’ why, damn it, the Reverend’s the only one who knows what that word means — you won’t even find it in the dictionary!”

      “Not find it in the dictionary!” Bascom yelled. “Almighty God, come down and give this ass a tongue as Thou didst once before in Balaam’s time!”

      Again, Brill was seated at his desk one day engaged with a client in those intimate, cautious, and confidential preliminaries that mark the consummation of a “deal” in real estate. On this occasion the prospective buyer was an Italian: the man sat awkwardly and nervously in a chair beside Brill’s desk while the great man bent his huge weight ponderously and persuasively toward him. From time to time the Italian’s СКАЧАТЬ