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

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СКАЧАТЬ He hated to awake in sunlight. Some day he would sleep in a great room that was always cool and dark. There would be trees and vines at his windows, or the scooped-out lift of the hill. His clothing was wet with night-damp as he dressed. When he went downstairs he found Gant rocking miserably upon the porch, his hand gripped over a walkingstick.

      “Good-morning,” he said, “how do you feel?”

      His father cast his uneasy flickering eyes on him, and groaned.

      “Merciful God! I’m being punished for my sins.”

      “You’ll feel better in a little,” said Eugene. “Did you eat anything?”

      “It stuck in my throat,” said Gant, who had eaten heartily. “I couldn’t swallow a bite. How’s your hand, son?” he asked very humbly.

      “Oh, it’s all right,” said Eugene quickly. “Who told you about my hand?”

      “She said I had hurt your hand,” said Gant sorrowfully.

      “Ah-h!” said the boy angrily. “No. I wasn’t hurt.”

      Gant leaned to the side and, without looking, clumsily, patted his son’s uninjured hand.

      “I’m sorry for what I’ve done,” he said. “I’m a sick man. Do you need money?”

      “No,” said Eugene, embarrassed. “I have all I need.”

      “Come to the office today, and I’ll give you something,” said Gant. “Poor child, I suppose you’re hard up.”

      But instead, he waited until Laura James returned from her morning visit to the city’s bathing-pool. She came with her bathing-suit in one hand, and several small packages in the other. More arrived by negro carriers. She paid and signed,

      “You must have a lot of money, Laura?” he said. “You do this every day, don’t you?”

      “Daddy gets after me about it,” she admitted, “but I love to buy clothes. I spend all my money on clothes.”

      “What are you going to do now?”

      “Nothing — whatever you like. It’s a lovely day to do something, isn’t it?”

      “It’s a lovely day to do nothing. Would you like to go off somewhere, Laura?”

      “I’d love to go off somewhere with you,” said Laura James.

      “That is the idea, my girl. That is the idea,” he said exultantly, in throaty and exuberant burlesque. “We will go off somewhere alone — we will take along something to eat,” he said lusciously.

      Laura went to her room and put on a pair of sturdy little slippers. Eugene went into the kitchen.

      “Have you a shoe-box?” he asked Eliza.

      “What do you want that for?” she said suspiciously.

      “I’m going to the bank,” he said ironically. “I wanted something to carry my money in.” But immediately he added roughly:

      “I’m going on a picnic.”

      “Huh? Hah? What’s that you say?” said Eliza. “A picnic? Who are you going with? That girl?”

      “No,” he said heavily, “with President Wilson, the King of England, and Dr. Doak. We’re going to have lemonade — I’ve promised to bring the lemons.”

      “I’ll vow, boy!” said Eliza fretfully. “I don’t like it — your running off this way when I need you. I wanted you to make a deposit for me, and the telephone people will disconnect me if I don’t send them the money today.”

      “O mama! For God’s sake!” he cried annoyed. “You always need me when I want to go somewhere. Let them wait! They can wait a day.”

      “It’s overdue,” she said. “Well, here you are. I wish I had time to go off on picnics.” She fished a shoe-box out of a pile of magazines and newspapers that littered the top of a low cupboard.

      “Have you got anything to eat?”

      “We’ll get it,” he said, and departed.

      They went down the hill, and paused at the musty little grocery around the corner on Woodson Street, where they bought crackers, peanut butter, currant jelly, bottled pickles, and a big slice of rich yellow cheese. The grocer was an old Jew who muttered jargon into a rabbi’s beard as if saying a spell against Dybbuks. The boy looked closely to see if his hands touched the food. They were not clean.

      On their way up the hill, they stopped for a few minutes at Gant’s. They found Helen and Ben in the dining-room. Ben was eating breakfast, bending, as usual, with scowling attention, over his coffee, turning from eggs and bacon almost with disgust. Helen insisted on contributing boiled eggs and sandwiches to their provision: the two women went back into the kitchen. Eugene sat at table with Ben, drinking coffee.

      “O-oh my God!” Ben said at length, yawning wearily. He lighted a cigarette. “How’s the Old Man this morning?”

      “He’s all right, I think. Said he couldn’t eat breakfast.”

      “Did he say anything to the boarders?”

      “‘You damned scoundrels! You dirty Mountain Grills! Whee —!’ That was all.”

      Ben snickered quietly.

      “Did he hurt your hand? Let’s see.”

      “No. You can’t see anything. It’s not hurt,” said Eugene, lifting his bandaged wrist.

      “He didn’t hit you, did he?” asked Ben sternly.

      “Oh, no. Of course not. He was just drunk. He was sorry about it this morning.”

      “Yes,” said Ben, “he’s always sorry about it — after he’s raised all the hell he can.” He drank deeply at his cigarette, inhaling the smoke as if in the grip of a powerful drug.

      “How’d you get along at college this year, ‘Gene?” he asked presently.

      “I passed my work. I made fair grades — if that’s what you mean? I did better — this Spring,” he added, with some difficulty. “It was hard getting started — at the beginning.”

      “You mean last Fall?”

      Eugene nodded.

      “What was the matter?” said Ben, scowling at him. “Did the other boys make fun of you?”

      “Yes,” said Eugene, in a low voice.

      “Why did they? You mean they didn’t think you were good enough for them? Did they look down on you? Was that it?” said Ben savagely.

      “No,” said Eugene, very red in the face. “No. That had nothing to do with it. I look funny, I suppose. I looked funny to them.”

      “What СКАЧАТЬ