The Journey Abandoned_The Unfinished Novel

by Lionel Trilling

  the priest should come home, the scrubbing with inadequate handker-

  chiefs, the sanding of the stone floor to clean off the prints of their feet.

  When the priest returned they had to sit there demure, with their legs

  still sticky under their stockings. The priest served them glasses of the

  wine they had bathed in and their manners were perfect as they heard

  him say that never before had he known the wine to be so good.

  As the story went on to its end, Vincent was sorry he had chosen it

  to read. The silence was becoming unusually intense. He had always ad-

  mired Garda Thorne and her work was now naturally in his mind. And

  he had especially wanted Miss Anderson to hear the story, for he thought

  it might suggest to her, with its simplicity and gaiety, that there were bet-

  ter subjects than the artificialities she so feelingly contrived. But, as he

  read, he felt that it had been a cruel mistake to read this story to these

  women. As it went on through its narration of the flash of skirts and un-

  derskirts, of white stained thighs, the grave silence of the girls and then

  their giggles and the beautiful prints of their naked feet on the stone

  floor, it seemed to him that his own youth had been thoughtless to have

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  chosen the story. He felt, too, like an intruder into feminine mysteries

  and the sweat came to his forehead. He dreaded the return of the priest

  and the end of the story when he would have to take his eyes from the

  book and look around. At last he finished. He did not look up but mood-

  ily sifted through the pages of the book. This had the histrionic effect of

  letting the story hang for a while in the air.

  For a moment the silence continued. Then it was broken by Miss An-

  derson crying, “Oh that was lovely, Mr. Hammell,” and “Lovely,” “Love-

  ly,” “Lovely,” echoed the women around the glass table, beneath whose

  surface there was a shifting of legs and a pulling down of skirts.

  Vincent now ventured to look at their faces, which were relaxed and

  benign. There were little half-smiles on their mouths, directed tangen-

  tially at him. It was as if he himself had been the author of the story and

  as if the story had celebrated the things that were their peculiar posses-

  sions, their youth, their beauty, their femininity.

  In the sunlit room, in the soft spring air, there was a moment of mus-

  ing silence as the quest for the fierce and precious secret was abandoned.

  Despite himself, Vincent experienced a sense of power, in all his months

  of teaching the class, the first he had felt. Yet in the entrancement of the

  women, in their moment of brooding relaxation, there was something

  archaic and mythological, something latently dangerous. It was thus that

  the women of Thrace must have sat around Orpheus before they had

  occasion to be enraged with him. He would have liked to remind them,

  but it was not possible, that he had merely read aloud the story which

  someone else, a woman, Garda Thorne, had written.

  It was old Mrs. Pomeroy who memorialized the moment. Mrs.

  Pomeroy was by far a gayer creation than either Mrs. Broughton or Mrs.

  Forrester. Perhaps she was aware of her role, perhaps she had even had

  the wit to invent it herself—she was the old lady of widest experience and

  profoundest wisdom, and it was impossible not to see her lengthy past

  of drawing rooms (at home and abroad) in which the brilliant and the

  famous were received. Silence and a twinkle were the evidences of Mrs.

  Pomeroy’s breadth of culture. At certain literary names she would smile,

  as at the memory of old, intimate and special delights. But only once had

  she made vocal her feeling for the great past. On that occasion the name

  of Proust had been mentioned by Vincent and what Mrs. Pomeroy had

  said was, “And also Paul Bourget.” She had added a knowledgeable whis-

  per of explanation, “Psychology!” And now, as her way was, she smiled

  sadly and wisely as she spoke. She closed her eyes and said, “Such a story

  makes one truly glad there is literature. We should be so grateful.”

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  She spoke so seldom and perhaps she was really wise—at her bene-

  diction upon literature and her admonition to gratitude everyone looked

  solemn, as if, in the moving picture, they were present as Anatole France

  delivered the panegyric at Zola’s funeral.

  “Very excellent,” said Mrs. Broughton. “Very.”

  And now Mrs. Stocker spoke. “What I like about the story,” she said,

  “is that it is neither one thing nor another. I mean that it isn’t highbrow

  or commercial.”

  It was not that she wanted to bring the discussion back again to the

  matter which so much interested her. No doubt she as much as anyone

  else had been caught in the moment of contemplation, but in uttering

  her feeling about it she used the only language she knew. And having

  used that language it was now natural for her to say, “Tell me, Mr. Ham-

  mell, does this writer sell well?”

  And at her question there was a little murmur of agreement to its

  relevance and eyes turned to Vincent for his answer. Victory, it seemed,

  was not permanent. But today he was so much at ease with himself that

  he set out to win it again. He was glad to be able to speak simply and

  with enthusiasm about Garda Thorne, telling how at infrequent intervals

  she produced her exquisite stories, which, having made their way slowly,

  were so eagerly sought after and waited for by the editors. He did not

  speak of the symbolic place which she held in the minds of many people,

  especially the young. At the moment he felt so in alliance with her that

  he could speak about her only modestly. Nor did he find in himself any

  malice as he spoke to these women of her skill and fortitude. But, for the

  first time, he felt he was indeed their instructor.

  And they seemed to take pleasure in what he said. Mrs. Stocker did

  not press her question. Old Mrs. Pomeroy again smiled sadly and said,

  “A heroine—a true heroine of literature.”

  “Very noble,” said Mrs. Broughton briskly. “Very.”

  When the class was over, Miss Anderson stayed behind the others.

  She was never quite at ease with Vincent, partly because he did not have

  the advantages of her own class and this made her feel guilty, partly be-

  cause he had other advantages and these she feared. The events of the

  afternoon had made Vincent a more lively figure in her imagination than

  he had ever been before. She admired, even while she disliked, the way

  he had handled the disagreeable incident with Mrs. Territt. And the read-

  ing of Garda Thorne’s story had put him in a new and slightly disturbing

  character which, if Miss Anderson had examined it, would have seemed

  to her not dissimilar from that of her physician. She was moved by ad-

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  miration and pity for him, she wished in some way to reward and placate

  him because he was not to be invited to teach the class next year.

  “I wonder,” she said, “if I might borrow the book.”

  Vincent understood
the friendliness of the request. Miss Anderson

  often read the books he mentioned, but naturally she bought them.

  “Oh, she’s so good-looking,” Miss Anderson said, for on the back of

  the book-jacket was a photograph of Garda Thorne. “That’s rare, isn’t it?

  A good woman writer who’s so good-looking? Aren’t they all supposed

  to be plain, like George Eliot?” Vincent knew that to the gentle Miss An-

  derson it was a matter for unhappiness that she was already seeing him

  as the dispensed-with teacher of the group. But he was armored in youth

  and armed with opportunity. He was in alliance with reality and drama.

  In all this great dull city of his childhood and youth there was now no

  opinion that could harm him.

  He smiled politely in response to Miss Anderson’s naughtiness

  about the appearance of women writers. “I expect I’ll be meeting her

  soon,” he said.

  “You will?” she said almost incredulously. “Oh lucky you,” she said.

  “How did you get the chance?”

  As well as a wish to announce his independence there was a friendly

  impulse toward Miss Anderson that made him tell her about his great

  fortune. She took it in slowly, it was all outside her experience. The name

  of Harold Outram made it clearer to her, for she sat on the board of

  Meadowfield and she knew something of Outram’s function. Her un-

  derstanding of Vincent’s fortune presented itself to her as a vision of

  a bright organized company of young males, moving forward, well ac-

  coutred, to positions that had been prepared for them. The young men

  moved in light, they shone with freedom, they glittered with the power of

  their poverty, they gleamed with the great strength of never having had

  mothers of high cultivation, nor three years of schooling at Lausanne,

  nor long visits in England and France, nor long talks on Botticelli with

  Professor Montani.

  “Oh, that’s wonderful,” she said. She said it fervently because her

  envy, sharp as if she had been struck with one of the weapons the young

  men carried, was so truly unwanted. In an instant this Mr. Hammell,

  a young man on the point of being dispensed with, had been trans-

  formed into a member of the bright advancing band from which she

  was forever excluded.

  “Oh I am so glad for you,” she said, and she took his hand and

  held it.

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  Her intensity surprised Vincent. It was not inappropriate to this

  great event, but it was strange coming from the gentle Miss Anderson

  whom he would perhaps never see again. And the advice she gave him as

  she stood there holding his hand, as if at some ceremonial of rank, was

  also surprising, again not because it did not fit the occasion but because

  it was Miss Anderson who gave it. “I hope,” she said, “oh I hope you can

  remember to be fierce.”

  chapter 11

  On the great day of his departure Vincent woke early. He woke without

  gaping or stretching. To wake in this way was a matter of pride with him.

  It seemed to him a measurable adventure in love or adventure [ sic]. Ris-

  ing, he went to the mirror to examine his face. He saw that its contours

  were fined down by what his mother called “the intellectual look.” She

  insisted that she could always tell when he had been working well. “It

  gives you the intellectual look,” she said, “and then you’re almost hand-

  some.” He thought she was right. Usually he did not approve of his face,

  but when he had been working with concentration he could see in it the

  attractive appearance of true disinterestedness. Today he had the look,

  but it came not from work but from his elation at the adventure before

  him and of the feeling of mastery it gave him.

  He sang as he went to the bathroom and from the kitchen his mother

  called up to him, “You’ll cry before dinner if you sing before breakfast.”

  He answered her by lifting his voice defiantly. He continued to hum the

  song—it was Leporello’s—as he stood before the mirror brushing his

  thick dark hair.

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  Mrs. Hammell’s eyes that day were keen and weary. It was a hard

  day for her, and Vincent felt a pang at the thought of his departure. Not

  for a long time had he felt so alert for his mother or so confirmed in his

  loyalty. He had long dreamed of being free of his home, but now that the

  fulfillment of the dream was at hand, he thought of the pleasures and the

  rightness of living close to his roots, warmly in touch with his family and

  his past. For a moment his adventure seemed cold and astringent.

  Mrs. Hammell poured her son’s coffee and said, “Have you packed?

  You haven’t shaved.”

  “I’ll pack before I go down to say good-bye to father and I’ll shave

  after I come back.”

  She reached her hand across the table and took his. In the manner of

  that gesture there was a great and frightening triumph for him, for she

  seemed to be claiming his hand with no more than the legitimate love

  of person for person which includes within itself the knowledge that the

  tie, however strong it may be, can possibly be broken. And there was this

  knowledge in her voice as she said, “Vincent, I don’t care what you say,

  I’m going to the train with you.”

  He had not wanted her at the train, for he wished to depart manly

  and alone as befitted the occasion. But her voice, as she made the de-

  mand, so rang with her awareness that he had the right and the power to

  refuse her, that he was glad to relent.

  The avenue down which Vincent walked was shabby. In a few years

  it would surely become sordid, but now it still held the memory of days

  when it was substantial, even fashionable. The new generation of the

  well-to-do lived in ample new suburbs and could scarcely imagine that

  these close-set heavy houses had ever represented comfort and standing.

  Manilla Boulevard had become a street of apartments and rented rooms,

  and, lately, of improvised stores, little hat and dress shops in which

  business was conducted with a confidential air. It was becoming too a

  street of specialists in certain technical services to the body, masseurs,

  podiatrists, electrolysis experts, beauty operators, and undertakers. A few

  lawyers combined home and office and declared their existence by signs

  which represented them as Counsellors at Law.1

  Yet the Boulevard still had its trees and its small lawns. Among its

  houses were some that kept a strict respectability of trim hedges and

  flower borders and a few of the very oldest families of the city stubborn-

  1 This description also appears in chapter 4.

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  ly held their seats. The freshness of the morning air, the trees, the few

  houses that still resisted degradation, but most of all his near sense of

  departure, allowed Vincent to find a kind of beauty in American things

  not usually loved and now he was being rewarded by being able to find a

  valuable pathos in what he was leaving.

  When he reached his father’s place, his father greeted him with an

  air of general benevole
nce which somehow seemed to ignore the fact of

  his son’s departure. Mr. Hammell said, “Good morning, my boy. I know

  you will appreciate this.”

  He held his old blue Everyman Spinoza at a conscientious distance

  from his eyes and read, “He who understands himself and his emotions

  loves God, and the more so the more he understands himself and his

  emotions!”

  He lowered the book and looked mildly at Vincent. “Do you think

  that is true, son?”

  It was not his father’s habit to discuss philosophy with him and this

  seemed an odd occasion on which to begin. But Vincent undertook to

  answer as well as he could. “It isn’t a question of true or not, father,” he

  said. “It is true in its place, I suppose.”

  “You always want to put things in their place, my boy,” Mr. Hammell

  said, his face suffused with sorrow for himself. “There are some things

  that can’t be put in their place so easily.”

  Vincent made his answer respectful. “I only meant that some of the

  statements that Spinoza makes are true in their context. For instance,

  what he means by God isn’t what most people mean by God.”

  “It is what I mean by God,” Mr. Hammell said.

  Vincent doubted this but did not reply. A year ago he would have

  argued, though not so fiercely as the year before that, and both of them

  would have become bitter. But he had learned how the pleasure of quar-

  relling with his father always subsided into flat sickness with himself.

  And certainly now there was no necessity for him to quarrel. But at his

  silence, Mr. Hammell’s face flushed and bloated with anger and he said,

  “That’s what I mean by God—and by God, I’m no fool either.”

  “All right, father,” Vincent said quietly and then was ashamed that he

  had been able to say it quietly.

  “You stand there and talk as if Spinoza wasn’t one of the greatest

  philosophers the world has ever known. You and your modern ideas, you

  and your crazy ideas, your crazy communist ideas.”

  Vincent said, “You know I’m not a communist, father.” But there

  was no escape. To stand there all reasonable against his father’s petu-

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  lance, to wait out the tantrum with paternal forbearance, would leave