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

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СКАЧАТЬ “thousands have done. Oh, I know they may pretend not to. But they do! You’re a doctor — you know that. People high-up in society, too. I’m one of the unlucky ones. I got caught. Why am I any worse than they are? Why —” he continued rhetorically.

      “I think I catch your drift,” said McGuire dryly. “Let’s have a look, son.”

      Eugene obeyed feverishly, still declaiming.

      “Why should I bear the stigma for what others get away with? Hypocrites — a crowd of damned, dirty, whining hypocrites, that’s what they are. The Double–Standard! Hah! Where’s the justice, where’s the honor of that? Why should I be blamed for what people in High Society —”

      McGuire lifted his big head from its critical stare, and barked comically.

      “Who’s blaming you? You don’t think you’re the first one who ever had this sort of trouble, do you? There’s nothing wrong with you, anyway.”

      “Can — can you cure me?” Eugene asked.

      “No. You’re incurable, son!” said McGuire. He scrawled a few hieroglyphics on a prescription pad. “Give this to the druggist,” he said, “and be a little more careful hereafter of the company you keep. People in High Society, eh?” he grinned. “So that’s where you’ve been?”

      The great weight of blood and tears had lifted completely out of the boy’s heart, leaving him dizzily buoyant, wild, half-conscious only of his rushing words.

      He opened the door and went into the outer room. Ben got up quickly and nervously.

      “Well,” he said, “how much longer has he got to live?” Seriously, in a low voice, he added: “There’s nothing wrong with him, is there?”

      “No,” said McGuire, “I think he’s a little off his nut. But, then, you all are.”

      When they came out on the street again, Ben said:

      “Have you had anything to eat?”

      “No,” said Eugene.

      “When did you eat last?”

      “Some time yesterday,” said Eugene. “I don’t remember.”

      “You damned fool!” Ben muttered. “Come on — let’s eat.”

      The idea became very attractive. The world was washed pleasantly in the milky winter sunshine. The town, under the stimulus of the holidays and the returning students, had wakened momentarily from its winter torpor: warm brisk currents of life seethed over the pavements. He walked along at Ben’s side with a great bounding stride, unable to govern the expanding joy that rose yeastily in him. Finally, as he turned in on the busy avenue, he could restrain himself no longer: he leaped high in the air, with a yelp of ecstasy:

      “Squee-ee!”

      “You little idiot!” Ben cried sharply. “Are you crazy!”

      He scowled fiercely, then turned to the roaring passersby, with a thin smile.

      “Hang on to him, Ben!” yelled Jim Pollock. He was a deadly little man, waxen and smiling under a black mustache, the chief compositor, a Socialist.

      “If you cut off his damned big feet,” said Ben, “he’d go up like a balloon.”

      They went into the big new lunch-room and sat at one of the tables.

      “What’s yours?” said the waiter.

      “A cup of coffee and a piece of mince pie,” said Ben.

      “I’ll take the same,” said Eugene.

      “Eat!” said Ben fiercely. “Eat!”

      Eugene studied the card thoughtfully.

      “Bring me some veal cutlets breaded with tomato sauce,” he said, “with a side-order of hash-brown potatoes, a dish of creamed carrots and peas, and a plate of hot biscuits. Also a cup of coffee.”

      Eugene got back his heart again. He got it back fiercely and carelessly, with an eldritch wildness. During the remainder of his holiday, he plunged recklessly through the lively crowds, looking boldly but without insolence at the women and young girls. They grew unexpectedly out of the waste drear winter like splendid flowers. He was eager and alone. Fear is a dragon that lives among crowds — and in armies. It lives hardly with men who are alone. He felt released — beyond the last hedge of desperation.

      Freed and alone, he looked with a boding detachment at all the possessed and possessing world about him. Life hung for his picking fingers like a strange and bitter fruit. THEY— the great clan huddled there behind the stockade for warmth and safety — could hunt him down some day and put him to death: he thought they would.

      But he was not now afraid — he was content, if only the struggle might be fruitful. He looked among the crowds printed with the mark of his danger, seeking that which he might desire and take.

      He went back to the university sealed up against the taunts of the young men: in the hot green Pullman they pressed about him with thronging jibe, but they fell back sharply, as fiercely he met them, with constraint.

      There came and sat beside him Tom French, his handsome face vested in the hard insolence of money. He was followed by his court jester, Roy Duncan, the slave with the high hard cackle.

      “Hello, Gant,” said Tom French harshly. “Been to Exeter lately?” Scowling, he winked at grinning Roy.

      “Yes,” said Eugene, “I’ve been there lately, and I’m on my way there now. What’s it to you, French?”

      Discomfited by this hard defiance, the rich man’s son drew back.

      “We hear you’re stepping out among them, ‘Gene,” said Roy Duncan, cackling.

      “Who’s we?” said Eugene. “Who’s them?”

      “They say,” said Tom French, “that you’re as pure as the flowing sewer.”

      “If I need cleaning,” said Eugene, “I can always use the Gold Dust Twins, can’t I? French and Duncan, the Gold Dust Twins — who never do any work.”

      The cluster of grinning students, the young impartial brutes who had gathered about them on the seats back and front, laughed loudly.

      “That’s right! That’s right! Talk to them, ‘Gene!” said Zeno Cochran, softly. He was a tall lad of twenty, slender and powerful, with the grace of a running horse. He had punted against the wind for eighty yards in the Yale Bowl. He was a handsome fellow, soft-spoken and kindly, with the fearless gentleness of the athlete.

      Confused and angry, with sullen boastfulness, Tom French said:

      “Nobody has anything on me. I’ve been too slick for them. Nobody knows anything about me.”

      “You mean,” said Eugene, “that every one knows all about you, and nobody wants to know anything about you.”

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