East of Eden

by John Steinbeck

  Neither boy had drawn a breath and the red rings were beginning to flare in back of their eyes from holding their breath.

  "These are my boys," their father said. "They're twins. That's Aron and this is Caleb. Boys, shake hands with our guests."

  The boys moved forward, heads down, hands up, in a gesture very like surrender and despair. Their limp fins were pumped by the gentleman and then by the lacy lady. Aron was first, and he turned away from the little girl, but the lady said, "Aren't you going to say how do to my daughter?"

  Aron shuddered and surrendered his hand in the direction of the girl with the hidden face. Nothing happened. His lifeless sausages were not gripped, or wrung, or squeezed, or racheted. His hand simply hung in the air in front of her. Aron peeked up through his eyelashes to see what was going on.

  Her head was down too, and she had the advantage of the sunbonnet. Her small right hand with the signet ring on the middle finger was stuck out too, but it made no move toward Aron's hand.

  He stole a glance at the lady. She was smiling, her lips parted. The room seemed crushed with silence. And then Aron heard a ripping snicker from Cal.

  Aron reached out and grabbed her hand and pumped it up and down three times. It was as soft as a handful of petals. He felt a pleasure that burned him. He dropped her hand and concealed his in his overall pocket. As he backed hastily away he saw Cal step up and shake hands formally and say, "How do." Aron had forgotten to say it, so he said it now, after his brother, and it sounded strange. Adam and his guests laughed.

  Adam said, "Mr. and Mrs. Bacon nearly got caught in the rain."

  "We were lucky to be lost here," Mr. Bacon said. "I was looking for the Long ranch."

  "That's farther. You should have taken the next left turn off the county road to the south." Adam continued to the boys, "Mr. Bacojti is a county supervisor."

  "I don't know why, but I take the job very seriously," said Mr. Bacon, and he too addressed the boys. "My daughter's name is Abra, boys. Isn't that a funny name?" He used the tone adults employ with children. He turned to Adam and said in poetic singsong, " 'Abra was ready ere I called her name; And though I called another, Abra came.' Matthew Prior. I won't say I hadn't wanted a son--but Abra's such a comfort. Look up, dear."

  Abra did not move. Her hands were again clasped in her lap. Her father repeated with relish, " 'And though I called another, Abra came.' "

  Aron saw his brother looking at the little sunbonnet without an ounce of fear. And Aron said hoarsely, "I don't think Abra's a funny name."

  "He didn't mean funny that way," Mrs. Bacon explained. "He only meant curious." And she explained to Adam, "My husband gets the strangest things out of books. Dear, shouldn't we be going?"

  Adam said eagerly, "Oh, don't go yet, ma'am. Lee is making some tea. It will warm you up."

  "Well, how pleasant!" Mrs. Bacon said, and she continued, "Children, it isn't raining any more. Go outside and play." Her voice had such authority that they filed out--Aron first and Cal second and Abra following.

  3

  In the living room Mr. Bacon crossed his legs. "You have a fine prospect here," he said. "Is it a sizable piece?"

  Adam said, "I have a good strip. I cross the river to the other side. It's a good piece."

  "That's all yours across the county road then?"

  "Yes, it is. I'm kind of ashamed to admit it. I've let it go badly. I haven't farmed it at all. Maybe I got too much farming as a child."

  Both Mr. and Mrs. Bacon were looking at Adam now, and he knew he had to make some explanation for letting his good land run free. He said, "I guess I'm a lazy man. And my father didn't help me when he left me enough to get along on without working." He dropped his eyes but he could feel the relief on the part of the Bacons. It was not laziness if he was a rich man. Only the poor were lazy. Just as only the poor were ignorant. A rich man who didn't know anything was spoiled or independent.

  "Who takes care of the boys?" Mrs. Bacon asked.

  Adam laughed. "What taking care of they get, and it isn't much, is Lee's work."

  "Lee?"

  Adam became a little irritated with the questioning. "I only have one man," he said shortly.

  "You mean the Chinese we saw?" Mrs. Bacon was shocked.

  Adam smiled at her. She had frightened him at first, but now he was moje comfortable. "Lee raised the boys, and he has taken care of me," he said.

  "But didn't they ever have a woman's care?"

  "No, they didn't."

  "The poor lambs," she said.

  "They're wild but I guess they're healthy," Adam said. "I guess we've all gone wild like the land. But now Lee is going away. I don't know what we'll do."

  Mr. Bacon carefully cleared the phlegm from his throat so it wouldn't be run over by his pronouncement. "Have you thought about the education of your sons?"

  "No--I guess I haven't thought about it much."

  Mrs. Bacon said, "My husband is a believer in education."

  "Education is the key to the future," Mr. Bacon said.

  "What kind of education?" asked Adam.

  Mr. Bacon went on, "All things come to men who know. Yes, I'm a believer in the torch of learning." He leaned close and his voice became confidential. "So long as you aren't going to farm your land, why don't you rent it and move to the county seat--near our good public schools?"

  For just a second Adam thought of saying, "Why don't you mind your own goddam business?" but instead he asked, "You think that would be a good idea?"

  "I think I could get you a good reliable tenant," Mr. Bacon said. "No reason why you shouldn't have something coming in from your land if you don't live on it."

  Lee made a great stir coming in with the tea. He had heard enough of the tones through the door to be sure Adam was finding them tiresome. Lee was pretty certain they didn't like tea, and if they did, they weren't likely to favor the kind he had brewed. And when they drank it with compliments he knew the Bacons had their teeth in something. Lee tried to catch Adam's eye but could not. Adam was studying the rug between his feet.

  Mrs. Bacon was saying, "My husband has served on his school board for many years--" but Adam didn't hear the discussion that followed.

  He was thinking of a big globe of the world, suspended and swaying from a limb of one of his oak trees. And for no reason at all that he could make out, his mind leaped to his father, stumping about on his wooden leg, rapping on his leg for attention with a walking stick. Adam could see the stern and military face of his father as he forced his sons through drill and made them carry heavy packs to develop their shoulders. Through his memory Mrs. Bacon's voice droned on. Adam felt the pack loaded with rocks. He saw Charles' face grinning sardonically--Charles--the mean, fierce eyes, the hot temper. Suddenly Adam wanted to see Charles. He would take a trip--take the boys. He slapped his leg with excitement.

  Mr. Bacon paused in his talk. "I beg your pardon?"

  "Oh, I'm sorry," Adam said. "I just remembered something I've neglected to do." Both Bacons were patiently, politely waiting for his explanation. Adam thought, Why not? I'm not running for supervisor. I'm not on the school board. Why not? He said to his guests, "I just remembered that I have forgotten to write to my brother for over ten years." They shuddered under his statement and exchanged glances.

  Lee had been refilling the teacups. Adam saw his cheeks puff out and heard his happy snort as he passed to the safety of the hallway. The Bacons didn't want to comment on the incident. They wanted to be alone to discuss it.

  Lee anticipated that it would be this way. He hurried out to harness up and bring the rubber-tired buggy to the front door.

  4

  When Abra and Cal and Aron went out, they stood side by side on the small covered porch, looking at the rain splashing and dripping down from the wide-spreading oak trees. The cloudburst had passed into a distant echoing thunder roll, but it had left a rain determined to go on for a long time.

  Aron said, "That lady told us the rain was stopped."<
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  Abra answered him wisely. "She didn't look. When she's talking she never looks."

  Cal demanded, "How old are you?"

  "Ten, going on eleven," said Abra.

  "Ho!" said Cal. "We're eleven, going on twelve."

  Abra pushed her sunbonnet back. It framed her head like a halo. She was pretty, with dark hair in two braids. Her little forehead was round and domed, and her brows were level. One day her nose would be sweet and turned up where now it still was button-form. But two features would be with her always. Her chin was firm and her mouth was as sweet as a flower and very wide and pink. Her hazel eyes were sharp and intelligent and completely fearless. She looked straight into the faces of the boys, straight into their eyes, one after the other, and there was no hint of the shyness she had pretended inside the house.

  "I don't believe you're twins," she said. "You don't look alike."

  "We are too," said Cal.

  "We are too," said Aron.

  "Some twins don't look alike," Cal insisted.

  "Lots of them don't," Aron said. "Lee told us how it is. If the lady has one egg, the twins look alike. If she has two eggs, they don't."

  "We're two eggs," said Cal.

  Abra smiled with amusement at the myths of these country boys. "Eggs," she said. "Ho! Eggs." She didn't say it loudly or harshly, but Lee's theory tottered and swayed and then she brought it crashing down. "Which one of you is fried?" she asked. "And which one is poached?"

  The boys exchanged uneasy glances. It was their first experience with the inexorable logic of women, which is overwhelming even, or perhaps especially, when it is wrong. This was new to them, exciting and frightening.

  Cal said, "Lee is a Chinaman."

  "Oh, well," said Abra kindly, "why don't you say so? Maybe you're china eggs then, like they put in a nest." She paused to let her shaft sink in. She saw opposition, struggle, disappear. Abra had taken control. She was the boss.

  Aron suggested, "Let's go to the old house and play there. It leaks a little but it's nice."

  They ran under the dripping oaks to the old Sanchez house and plunged in through its open door, which squeaked restlessly on rusty hinges.

  The 'dobe house had entered its second decay. The great sala all along the front was half plastered, the line of white halfway around and then stopping, just as the workmen had left it over ten years before. And the deep windows with their rebuilt sashes remained glassless. The new floor was streaked with water stain, and a clutter of old papers and darkened nail bags with their nails rusted to prickly balls filled the corner of the room.

  As the children stood in the entrance a bat flew from the rear of the house. The gray shape swooped from side to side and disappeared through the doorway.

  The boys conducted Abra through the house--opened closets to show wash basins and toilets and chandeliers, still crated and waiting to be installed. A smell of mildew and of wet paper was in the air. The three children walked on tiptoe, and they did not speak for fear of the echoes from the walls of the empty house.

  Back in the big sala the twins faced their guest. "Do you like it?" Aron asked softly because of the echo.

  "Yee-es," she admitted hesitantly.

  "Sometimes we play here," Cal said boldly. "You can come here and play with us if you like."

  "I live in Salinas," Abra said in such a tone that they knew they were dealing with a superior being who hadn't time for bumpkin pleasures.

  Abra saw that she had crushed their highest treasure, and while she knew the weaknesses of men she still liked them, and, besides, she was a lady. "Sometimes, when we are driving by, I'll come and play with you--a little," she said kindly, and both boys felt grateful to her.

  "I'll give you my rabbit," said Cal suddenly. "I was going to give it to my father, but you can have it."

  "What rabbit?"

  "The one we shot today--right through the heart with an arrow. He hardly even kicked."

  Aron looked at him in outrage. "It was my--"

  Cal interrupted, "We will let you have it to take home. It's a pretty big one."

  Abra said, "What would I want with a dirty old rabbit all covered with blood?"

  Aron said, "I'll wash him off and put him in a box and tie him with string, and if you don't want to eat him, you can have a funeral when you get time--in Salinas."

  "I go to real funerals," said Abra. "Went to one yesterday. There was flowers high as this roof."

  "Don't you want our rabbit?" Aron asked.

  Abra looked at his sunny hair, tight-curled now, and at his eyes that seemed near to tears, and she felt the longing and the itching burn in her chest that is the beginning of love. Also, she wanted to touch Aron, and she did. She put her hand on his arm and felt him shiver under her fingers. "If you put it in a box," she said.

  Now that she had got herself in charge, Abra looked around and inspected her conquests. She was well above vanity now that no male principle threatened her. She felt kindly toward these boys. She noticed their thin washed-out clothes patched here and there by Lee. She drew on her fairy tales. "You poor children," she said, "does your father beat you?"

  They shook their heads. They were interested but bewildered.

  "Are you very poor?"

  "How do you mean?" Cal asked. "Do you sit in the ashes and have to fetch water and faggots?"

  "What's faggots?" Aron asked. She avoided that by continuing. "Poor darlings," she began, and she seemed to herself to have a little wand in her hand tipped by a twinkling star. "Does your wicked stepmother hate you and want to kill you?"

  "We don't have a stepmother," said Cal. "We don't have any kind," said Aron. "Our mother's dead."

  His words destroyed the story she was writing but almost immediately supplied her with another. The wand was gone but she wore a big hat with an ostrich plume and she carried an enormous basket from which a turkey's feet protruded.

  "Little motherless orphans," she said sweetly. "I'll be your mother. I'll hold you and rock you and tell you stories."

  "We're too big," said Cal. "We'd overset you."

  Abra looked away from his brutality. Aron, she saw, was caught up in her story. His eyes were smiling and he seemed almost to be rocking in her arms, and she felt again the tug of love for him. She said pleasantly, "Tell me, did your mother have a nice funeral?"

  "We don't remember," said Aron. "We were too little."

  "Well, where is she buried? You could put flowers on her grave. We always do that for Grandma and Uncle Albert."

  "We don't know," said Aron.

  Cal's eyes had a new interest, a gleaming interest that was close to triumph. He said naively, "I'll ask our father where it is so we can take flowers."

  "I'll go with you," said Abra. "I can make a wreath. I'll show you how." She noticed that Aron had not spoken. "Don't you want to make a wreath?"

  "Yes," he said.

  She had to touch him again. She patted his shoulder and then touched his cheek. "Your mama will like that," she said. "Even in Heaven they look down and notice. My father says they do. He knows a poem about it."

  Aron said, "I'll go wrap up the rabbit. I've got the box my pants came in." He ran out of the old house. Cal watched him go. He was smiling.

  "What are you laughing at?" Abra asked.

  "Oh, nothing," he said. Cal's eyes stayed on her.

  She tried to stare him down. She was an expert at staring down, but Cal did not look away. At the very first he had felt a shyness, but that was gone now, and the sense of triumph at destroying Abra's control made him laugh. He knew she preferred his brother, but that was nothing new to him. Nearly everyone preferred Aron with his golden hair and the openness that allowed his affection to plunge like a puppy. Cal's emotions hid deep in him and peered out, ready to retreat or attack. He was starting to punish Abra for liking his brother, and this was nothing new either. He had done it since he first discovered he could. And secret punishment had grown to be almost a creative thing with him.

 
Maybe the difference between the two boys can best be described in this way. If Aron should come upon an anthill in a little clearing in the brush, he would lie on his stomach and watch the complications of ant life--he would see some of them bringing food in the ant roads and others carrying the white eggs. He would see how two members of the hill on meeting put their antennas together and talked. For hours he would lie absorbed in the economy of the ground.

  If, on the other hand, Cal came upon the same anthill, he would kick it to pieces and watch while the frantic ants took care of their disaster. Aron was content to be a part of his world, but Cal must change it.

  Cal did not question the fact that people liked his brother better, but he had developed a means for making it all right with himself. He planned and waited until one time that admiring person exposed himself, and then something happened and the victim never knew how or why. Out of revenge Cal extracted a fluid of power, and out of power, joy. It was the strongest, purest emotion he knew. Far from disliking Aron, he loved him because he was usually the cause for Cal's feelings of triumph. He had forgotten--if he had ever known--that he punished because he wished he could be loved as Aron was loved. It had gone so far that he preferred what he had to what Aron had.

  Abra had started a process in Cal by touching Aron and by the softness of her voice toward him. Cal's reaction was automatic. His brain probed for a weakness in Abra, and so clever was he that he found one almost at once in her words. Some children want to be babies and some want to be adults. Few are content with their age. Abra wanted to be an adult. She used adult words and simulated, insofar as she was able, adult attitudes and emotions. She had left babyhood far behind, and she was not capable yet of being one of the grownups she admired. Cal sensed this, and it gave him the instrument to knock down her anthill.