The Web and the Root

by Thomas Wolfe

  In addition to this, Monk began to neglect his studies and to do a great deal of desultory reading. This was another bad sign. Not that Alsop disapproved of reading—he read constantly himself; but when he questioned the disciple as to the reading he was doing, in an effort to find out if it was sound, in accordance with “the more wholesome and well-rounded view of things”—that is, if he was “getting anything out of it”—Alsop’s worst fears were realized. The fellow had begun to prowl around in the college library all by himself, and had stumbled upon certain suspect volumes that had, in some strange or accidental way, insinuated themselves into those respectable shelves. Notable among them were the works of one Dostoevski, a Russian. The situation was not only bad, but, when Alsop finally rounded up his erstwhile neophyte—for curiosity, even when the fallen were concerned, was certainly one of Alsop’s strongest qualities—he found him, as he pityingly described the situation to the faithful later, “gabbling like a loon.”

  The truth of the matter was, the adventurer had first stumbled upon one of these books in pretty much the same way that a man groping his way through a woods at night stubs his toe against an invisible rock and falls sprawling over it. Our groping adventurer not only knew nothing about the aforesaid Dostoevski: if he had even heard of him it was in the vaguest sort of way, for certainly that strange and formidable name had never rung around the classroom walls of old Pine Rock—not while he was listening anyway. The plain truth is that he had stumbled over it because he was looking for something to read and liked big books—he was always favorably impressed with the size and weight of a volume; and this one, which bore the promising name of Crime and Punishment, was certainly large and heavy enough to suit his taste.

  Thereupon, he began a very strange and puzzling adventure with the book. He took it home and began to read it, but after fifty pages gave it up. It all seemed so strange and puzzling to him, even the characters themselves seemed to have several different names apiece, by which they addressed one another, the whole resulting in such confusion that he did not always know who was speaking. In addition, he was not at all sure what was happening. The book, instead of following the conventional line and structure of story, plot, and pattern, to which his reading had accustomed him, seemed to boil outward from some secret, unfathomable, and subterranean source—in Coleridginal phrase, “as if this earth in fast, thick pants was breathing.” The result was that the story seemed to weave out upon a dark and turbulent tide of feeling. He was not only not sure of what was happening; when he tried to go back and trace the thread of narrative, he could not always be sure that he had followed it back to its true source. As for the talk, the way the people talked, it was the most bewildering and disturbing talk he had ever heard: anyone was likely to pour out at any moment, with the most amazing frankness, everything that was in his mind and heart, everything that he had ever felt, thought, dreamed, or imagined. And even this would be broken in its full flood tide by apparently meaningless and irrelevant statements. It was all too hard and confusing to follow, and after reading forty or fifty pages he threw the book aside and looked at it no more.

  And yet he could not forget it. Events, characters, speeches, incidents kept coming back to him like things remembered from some haunting dream. The upshot of it was that in a week or two he went back to the book, and in two days’ time finished it. He was more amazed and bewildered than ever. Within another week he had read the book a second time. Then he went on and read The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov. It was at this stage that Alsop hunted him out and cornered him, and, as a result of their conversation, that Alsop confided to his associates that the lost one was “gabbling like a loon.”

  Perhaps he was. At any rate, anything the discoverer might have said at that time did not make much coherent sense. He did not even affirm any enthusiastic conviction, or confess his passionate belief that he had discovered a great book or a great writer. None of these things occurred to him at the time. The only thing he did know and was sure of was that he had stumbled on something new and strange and overwhelming, whose existence he had never dreamed about before.

  He was incoherent, but he was also now passionately eager to talk to someone and tell him all about it. When Alsop came to him, therefore, he fastened on him gratefully. Alsop was older, he was wiser, he had read a great deal, he loved literature, he knew a great deal about books. Surely, if anyone at all could talk to him about this one, it was Alsop. The result of it was that Alsop suggested that he come around, remarking good-naturedly that he had been too much a stranger lately: they would have an evening of the old-time discussion, and everyone would join in. He agreed to this most eagerly, and the time was set. Alsop, meanwhile, passed the word around quietly among the other members of the group that perhaps a useful work of rehabilitation might here be done—the phrase he used was “get him back on the right track.” When the appointed time arrived, everyone had been properly and virtuously informed with a sense of duty, the consciousness of lending a helping hand.

  It was an unhappy occasion. It all started out casually, as Alsop himself had planned it. Alsop sat in the center of the room, one fat arm resting on the table, and with an air of confessorial benevolence on his priestly visage, a quiet little smile that said: “Tell me about it. As you know, I am prepared to see all sides.” The discipleship sat in the outer darkness, in a circle, dutifully intent. Into this arena the luckless innocent rushed headlong. He had brought the old battered copy of Crime and Punishment with him.

  Alsop, amid general conversation, led up to the subject skillfully, and finally said:

  “What’s this—ah—new book you were telling me about the othah day? I mean,” he said smoothly, “you were telling me—about a book you’ve been reading—by—some Russian writer, wasn’t it?” said Alsop blandly, hesitating—“Dusty—Dusty—Dusty—whosky?” said Alsop with a show of innocence, and then, before there was a chance for reply, his great belly shook, the fat scream of laughter sounded in his throat. The disciples joined hilariously in. “Lord God!” cried Alsop, chuckling again, “I didn’t mean to do that—it just popped out, I couldn’t help it…. But how do you pronounce his name, anyhow?” said Alsop gravely. His manner was now serious, but behind his winking spectacles his eyes were narrowed into slits of mockery—“How do you spell it?”

  “I—I don’t know how you pronounce it—but it’s spelled Dos-to-evski.”

  “I guess that would be Dos—Dos—” Alsop began….

  “Oh hell, Jerry, why don’t you just sneeze it and let it go at that?” said one of the disciples. And again the room sounded with their laughter, Alsop’s great belly heaving and his half-phlegmy choke of laughter rising above the rest.

  “Don’t mind us,” he now said tolerantly, seeing the other’s reddened face. “We weren’t laughing at the book—we want to hear about it—it’s only that it seems funny to talk about a book when you can’t even pronounce the name of the author.” Suddenly he heaved with laughter again—“Lord God,” he said, “it may be a great book—but that’s the damnedest name I ever heard of.” And the laughter of agreement filled the room. “But go on now,” he said encouragingly, with an air of serious interest, “I’d like to hear about it. What’s it about?”

  “It’s—it’s—it’s—” Monk began confusedly, suddenly realizing how difficult it would be to put into a scheme of words just what the book was about, particularly since he was by no means sure himself.

  “I mean,” said Alsop smoothly, “could you tell us something about the plot? Give us some idea about the story?”

  “Well,” the other began slowly, thinking hard, “the leading character is a man named Raskalnikoff—”

  “Who?” said Alsop innocently. And again there was an appreciative titter around the room. “Raskal-ni-who?” The titter grew to open laughter.

  “Well, that’s the way it’s spelled anyhow,” said the other doggedly.

  “Ras-kal-ni-koff—I guess you call it Raskalnikoff!”
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br />   And again Alsop heaved with laughter, the phlegmy chuckle wheezed high in his throat. “Damned if you don’t pick out funny names!” he said, and then encouragingly: “Well, all right, then, go on. What does Raskal What’s-His-Name do?”

  “Well—he—he—kills an old woman,” Monk said, now conscious of the currents of derision and amusement in the ring around him. “With an axe!” he blurted out, and instantly was crimson with anger and embarrassment at the roar of laughter that greeted his description, feeling he had told the story clumsily, and had begun his explanation in the worst possible way.

  “Damned if he don’t live up to his name!” wheezed Alsop. “Old Dusty—old Dusty knew what he was about when he called him Raskal What’s-His-Name, didn’t he?”

  The other was angry now: he said hotly, “It’s nothing to laugh about, Jerry, It’s—”

  “No,” said Alsop gravely. “Killing old women with axes is not a laughing matter—no matter who does it—even if you do have to sneeze it when you say it!”

  At the burst of approving laughter that greeted this sally, the younger man lost his temper completely, and turned furiously upon the group:

  “You fellows make me tired! Here you’re shooting off your mouths and making jokes about something you know nothing about. What’s funny about it, I’d like to know?”

  “It suttinly doesn’t strike me as funny,” Alsop quietly observed. “It sounds pretty mawbid to me.”

  This quiet observation was greeted by a murmur of agreement.

  For the first time, however, the use of the word, which was one of Alsop’s favorite definitions, stung Monk into quick and hot resentment.

  “What’s morbid about it?” he said furiously. “Good Lord, Jerry, you’re always saying that something is morbid, just because you don’t like it. A writer’s got a right to tell about anything he pleases. He’s not morbid just because he doesn’t write about peaches and cream all the time.”

  “Yes,” said Alsop with his infuriating air of instructive tolerance. “But a great writer will see all sides of the situation—”

  “All sides of the situation!” the younger man now cried excitedly. “Jerry, that’s another thing you’re always saying. You’re always talking about seeing all sides of the situation. What the hell does it mean? Maybe a situation doesn’t have all sides. I don’t know what you’re talking about when you say it!”

  At last, then, here was insurrection, open, naked insurrection, for the first time now clear and unmistaken! A kind of deadly silence had fallen on the group. Alsop continued to smile his little smile, he still maintained his air of judicial tolerance, but somehow his smile was pale, the warmth had gone out of his face, behind his spectacles his eyes had narrowed to cold slits.

  “I just mean—that a great writer, a really great writer—will write about all types of people. He may write about murder and crime like this Dusty What’s-His-Name that you’re talking about, but he’ll write about othah things as well. In othah words,” said Alsop pontifically, “he’ll try to see the Whole Thing in its true perspective.”

  “In what true perspective, Jerry?” the other burst out. “That’s another thing you’re always saying too—talking about the true perspective. I wish you’d tell me what it means!”

  Here was heresy again, and more of it. The others held their breath while Alsop, still maintaining his judicial calm, answered quietly:

  “I mean, a great writer will try to see life clearly and to see it whole. He’ll try to give you the whole pictuah.”

  “Well, Dostoevski tries to, too,” said Monk doggedly.

  “Yes, I know, but does he really now? I mean does he really show you the more wholesome and well-rounded view of things?”

  “Ah—ah—Jerry, that’s another thing you’re always sayin—the more wholesome and well-rounded view of things. What does that mean? Who ever did give you the more wholesome and well-rounded view of things?”

  “Well,” said Alsop judicially, “I think Dickens gave it to you.”

  There was a dutiful murmur of agreement from the disciples, broken by the rebel’s angry mutter:

  “Ah—Dickens! I’m tired hearing about Dickens all the time!”

  This was sacrilege, and for a moment there was appalled silence, as if someone had at last committed a sin against the Holy Ghost. When Alsop spoke again his face was very grave, and his eyes had narrowed to cold points:

  “You mean to say that you think this Russian fellow presents as wholesome and well-rounded a pictuah of life as Dickens does?”

  “I told you,” the other said in a voice that trembled with excitement, “that I don’t know what you’re talking about when you say that. I’m only saying that there can be other great writers in the world besides Dickens.”

  “And you think, then,” said Alsop quietly, “that this man is a greater writer than Dickens?”

  “I haven’t—” the other began.

  “Yes, but come on now,” said Alsop. “We’re all fair-minded people here—you really think he’s greater, don’t you?”

  Monk looked at him for a moment with a kind of baffled indignation; then, spurred to a boiling point of irrational resentment by the expression of the stern faces all about him, he suddenly shouted out:

  “Yes! He was! A hell of a sight greater! It’s like Pascal said—that one of the grandest surprises in life is to open a book expecting to meet an author, and to find instead a man. And that’s the way it is with Dostoevski. You don’t meet the author. You meet the man. You may not believe everything that is said, but you believe the man who is saying it. You are convinced by his utter sincerity, by the great, burning light of him, and in the end, no matter how confused or bewildered or unsure he may himself be, time and again you know that he is right. And you see also that it doesn’t matter how people say things, so long as the feeling behind the things they say is a true one. I can give you an example of that.” he went on hotly. “At the end of The Brothers Karamazov, where Alyosha is talking to the boys in the cemetery, the danger of falseness and sentimentality in such a scene as this is overwhelming. In the first place, the scene is in a graveyard, and Alyosha and the children are there to put flowers upon the grave of another child who has died. Then again, there is the danger of Alyosha, with his convictions of brotherly love, his doctrine of redemption through sacrifice, of salvation through humility. He makes a speech to the children, a confused and rambling speech, of which sentence after sentence could have been uttered by a Y.M.C.A. secretary or a Sunday School teacher. Why is it, then, that there is nothing sickly or disgusting about it, as there would be in the harangue of such men as these? It is because we know from the beginning that the words are honest and sincere, because we believe in the sincerity and truth and honesty of the character who is speaking the words, and of the man who wrote the words and created the character. Dostoevski was not afraid to use such words,” Monk went on in the full flood of his passion, “because he had no falseness and sentimentality in him. The words are the same as the Sunday School teacher might use, but the feeling behind them is different, and that makes the difference. Therefore they express what Dostoevski wanted them to. Alyosha tells the children that we must love one another, and we believe him. He tells them never to forget their comrade who has died, to try to remember all the countless good and generous acts of his life, his love for his father, his courage and devotion. Then Alyosha tells the children that the most important thing in life, the thing that will expiate our sins, pardon all our mistakes and errors, make our lives prevail, is to have a good memory of someone. And these simple words move us more than the most elaborate rhetoric could do, because suddenly we know that we have been told something true and everlasting about life, and that the man who told it to us is right.”

  During the last part of this long speech, Alsop had reached over quietly to his bookshelves, taken a well-worn volume from the shelf, and, even while Monk talked, begun to thumb quietly through its pages. Now he was ready for him aga
in. He had the book open in his hand, one fat forefinger marking the spot. He was waiting for Monk to conclude, with a patient and tolerant little smile.

  “Now,” he said quietly, when the other finished, “that situation which you described there interests me very much, because Charles Dickens deals with the same situation at the end of A Tale of Two Cities, and says the same thing that Dostoevski says.” Monk noticed he got the name right this time. “Now,” said Alsop, looking around at his congregation with a little misty smile that prefaced all these tributes to sentiment and, in especial, to that chief object of his idolatry, Charles Dickens—and which said to them plainer than any words could do: “Now I’m going to show you what a really great man can do with sweetness and light”—he said quietly: “I think you’ll all be interested to see how Dickens handles that same situation,” and immediately began to read the concluding passages of the book which are devoted to Sidney Carton’s celebrated utterance as he steps up to the guillotine to sacrifice his own life in order that the life of the man beloved by the woman he himself loves may be spared:

  “I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years’ time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward.

  “I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honored and held sacred in the other’s soul, than I was in the souls of both.