Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize)

by Saul Bellow

  I couldn’t argue with the Señora. I had seen her one morning before she was made up, hurrying toward the bathroom, completely featureless, a limp and yellow banana skin, without brows or lashes and virtually without lips. The sorrow of this sight took me by the heart, I never again wanted to win a point from the Señora. When I played backgammon with her I cheated against myself.

  “The main thing about Miss Scheldt,” I told Renata at the Plaza, “is her father. I couldn’t have a love affair with the daughter of a man who was teaching me so much.”

  “He fills you with such bunk,” she said.

  “Renata, let me quote you a text: ‘Though you are said to be alive you are dead. Wake up and put some strength into what is left, which must otherwise die.’ That’s from the Revelation of Saint John, more or less.”

  Indulgently smiling, Renata rose and straightened her miniskirt, saying, “You’ll wind up with bare feet in the Loop carrying one of those where-will-you-spend-eternity signs. Get on the phone, for God’s sake, and talk to this man Huggins, Humboldt’s executor. And for dinner don’t try to take me to Rumpelmayer’s again.”

  Huggins was going to an opening at the Kootz Gallery and invited me to meet him there when I mentioned my business.

  “Is there anything to this. What is this legacy stuff?” I said.

  “There is something,” said Huggins.

  In the late Forties when Huggins was a celebrity in Greenwich Village I was a very minor member of the group that discussed politics, literature, and philosophy in his apartment. There were people like Chiaramonte and Rahv and Abel and Paul Goodman and Von Humboldt Fleisher. What Huggins and I had in common was our love for Humboldt. There wasn’t much else. In many respects we irritated each other. Some years ago at the Democratic convention in Atlantic City, that old pleasure-slum, we watched Hubert Humphrey pretending to relax with his delegation while Johnson dangled him, and something about the dinky desolation, the torn fibers of holiday gaiety provoked Hug-gins against me. We went out on the boardwalk and as we faced the horrid Atlantic, tamed here to saltwater taffy and the foam-like popcorn pushed by the sweeper’s brush, Huggins became disagreeable to me. Fearing no man and urging home his arguments with his white billy-goat beard, he made hostile comments on the book about Harry Hopkins I had published that spring. Huggins was covering the convention for the Women’s Wear Daily. A better journalist than I would ever be, he was also a famous bohemian dissenter and revolutionist. Why had I been so kind to the New Deal and seen so much merit in Hopkins? I was forever sneaking praises of the American system of government into my books. I was an apologist, a front man and stooge, practically an Andrei Vishinsky. At Atlantic City as elsewhere, he was informal in chino wash pants and tennis sneakers, tall, rosy, bearded, stammering, and argumentative.

  I could actually see myself as I studied him on the boardwalk. In my eyes were specks of green and amber in which he might have seen whole aeons of sleep and waking. If he thought I disliked him he was wrong. I liked him better and better all the time. He was quite old now, and the unkind forces of human hydrostatics were beginning to make a strained and wrinkled bag of his face, but his color remained fresh and he was still the Harvard radical of the John Reed type, one of those ever-youthful lightweight high-spirited American intellectuals, faithful to his Marx or his Bakunin, to Isadora, Randolph Bourne, Lenin and Trotsky, Max Eastman, Cocteau, André Gide, the Ballets Russes, Eisenstein—the beautiful avant-garde pantheon of the good old days. He could no more give up his delightful ideological capital than the bonds he had inherited from his father.

  In Kootz’s crowded gallery he was talking with several people. He knew how to carry on a conversation at a noisy cocktail party. Din and drink stimulated him. He was not perhaps too clear in the head, but the actual head I always appreciated. It was long and high, banked with well-brushed silver hair, the uneven ends of long strands giving a spiky effect at the back. Over his tall-man’s belly was a shirt of Merrymount stripes, broad crimson and diabolical purple, like the ribbons of the revelers’ Maypole. It came back to me that more than twenty years ago I had found myself at a beach party in Montauk, on Long Island, where Hug-gins, naked at one end of the log, discussed the Army McCarthy hearings with a lady sitting naked and astride opposite him. Hug-gins was speaking with a cigarette holder in his teeth, and his penis which lay before him on the water-smooth wood, expressed all the fluctuations of his interest. And while he was puffing and giving his views in a neighing stammer, his genital went back and forth like the slide of a trombone. You could never feel unfriendly toward a man of whom you kept such a memory.

  He was uncomfortable with me at the gallery. He sensed the peculiarities of my perspective. I was not proud of the same. Moreover, I was more warmly friendly than he wanted me to be. If he was not too clear in the head, neither was I. I was full of unmastered intimations and transitional thoughts and I judged no one. As a matter of fact I was fighting the judgments I had made in my days of rashness. I told him I was glad to see him and that he looked well. This was no lie. His color was fresh and despite the increased grossness of his nose, the distortions of age, and the bee-stung swelling of his lips, I still liked his looks. The rube-constable chin beard he could have done without.

  “Ah, Citrine, they let you out of Chicago? Going somewhere?”

  “Abroad,” I said.

  “Nice young lady you’re with. Terribly att-att-ractive.” Huggins’ fluency was increased, not impeded, by his stammer. The boulders in a mountain stream show you how fast the water is flying. “So you want to collect your leg-leg. . . ?”

  “Yes, but first I want you to tell me why you’re so uncordial. We’ve known each other more than thirty years.”

  “Well, apart from your political views—”

  “Most political views are like old newspapers chewed up by wasps—faded clichés and buzzing.”

  Huggins said, “Some people care where mankind is going. Besides, you can’t expect me to be cor-cor-cor when you make such cracks about me. You said I was the Tommy Manville of the left and that I espoused cau-causes the way he ma-married broads. A couple of years ago-go you insulted me on Madison Avenue because of the protest buttons I was wearing. You said I used to have i-i-ideas and now I had only buttons.” Aggrieved, inflamed, facing me with my own effrontery, he waited to hear what 1 could say for myself.

  “I’m sorry to say that you quote me correctly. I admit this low vice. In the sticks, away from the Eastern scene, I think up wicked things to say. Humboldt brought me around in the Forties, but I never became part of your gang. When everybody was on Burnham or on Koestler I was somewhere else. The same for the Encyclopedia of Unified Science, or Trotsky’s Law of Combined Development, or Chiaramonte’s views on Plato or Lionel Abel on theater or Paul Goodman on Proudhon, or almost everybody on Kafka or Kierkegaard. It was like poor old Humboldt’s complaint about girls. He wanted to do them good but they wouldn’t hold still for it. I wouldn’t hold still either. Instead of being grateful for my opportunity to get into the cultural life of the Village at its best—”

  “You were reserved,” said Huggins. “But what were you re-re-reserving yourself for? You had the star attitude, but where was the twi-twi-twink.. . .”

  “Reserved is the right word,” I said. “If other people had a bad content, I had a superior emptiness. My sin was that I thought in secret that I was more intelligent than all you enthusiasts for 1789, 1848, 1870, 1917. But you all had a much nicer and gayer time with your parties and all-night discussions. All I had was the subjective, anxious pleasure of thinking myself so smart.”

  “Don’t you still think so?” said Huggins.

  “No, I don’t. I’ve given up on that.”

  “Well, you’re out in Chicago where they think the earth is flat and the moon is made of green cheese. You’ve returned to your mental home,” he said.

  “Have’ it your way. That’s not what I came to see you about. We still have one bond, anyway. We both ad
ored Humboldt. Maybe we have something else in common, we’re both amorous old dogs. We don’t take each other seriously. But women seem to, still. Now what about the legacy?”

  “Whatever it is, it’s in an envelope labeled ‘Citrine,’ and I haven’t read it because old Wald-Waldemar, Humboldt’s uncle, grabbed it off. I don’t know how I became exec-executor.”

  “Humboldt gave you lumps too, didn’t he, after you joined the gang at Bellevue and he said I stole his money. You may have been at the Belasco when he picketed me.”

  “No, but it had a certain ch-cha-charm.”

  Laughing, Huggins puffed at his holder. Was it the old Russian actress, Ouspenskaya, who had made these holders popular in the Thirties, or FDR, or John Held, Jr.? Like Humboldt, like myself for that matter, Huggins was an old-movie buff. Humboldt’s picketing and his own behavior at the White House he might see as moments from René Clair.

  “I never thought you stole his money,” said Huggins. “I understand he got into you for a few thousand. Did he forge a check?”

  “No. We once exchanged blank checks sentimentally. He used his,” I said. “And it wasn’t a few, it was nearly seven.”

  “I took care of finances for him. I got Kathleen to way-way-waive rights. But he said I took kickbacks. Sore as a boil. So I didn’t see him ever again, poor Humboldt. He accused some switch-switchboard old woman at a hotel of covering his bed with cen-centerfold girls from Playboy. Grabbed a hammer and tried to hit the old broad. Took him away. More shock-shock therapy! Enough to make you cry when you think how viv-viv, how fresh, handsome, wonderful, and what masterpieces. Ah! This society has a lot to an-answer for.”

  “Yes, he was wonderful and generous. I loved him. He was good.” Strange words these at a clamorous cocktail party. “He wanted with all his heart to give us something exquisite and delicate. He put a heavy demand on himself. But you say that his horse-playing uncle took most of his papers?”

  “And clothes and valuables.”

  “He must have been hit very hard, losing his nephew, and frightened, probably.”

  “He came running in from Co-Coney Island. Humboldt kept him in a nursing home. The old bookie must have fi-figured that the pa-papers of a man who rated such a long obituary in the Times must be valuable.”

  “Did Humboldt leave him some money?”

  “There was an insurance policy, and if he didn’t drop it all on the horses he’s okay.”

  “Was Humboldt in his right mind toward the end or am I mistaken?”

  “He wrote me a beauti-beauti-beautiful letter. He copied out some poems for me on good paper. The one about his Hungarian Pa, riding with Pershing’s cavalry to capture Pancho.”

  “The toothy horses, the rattler’s castanet, the cactus thorn, and the banging guns . . .”

  “You’re not quoting quite right,” said Huggins.

  “And it was you that gave Kathleen Humboldt’s bequest?”

  “It was, and she’s in New York right now.”

  “Is she? Where is she? I’d love to see her.”

  “On her way to Europe, like you. I don’t know where she’s stay-staying.”

  “I must find out. But first I have to get on to Uncle Waldemar in Coney Island.”

  “He may not give you anything,” said Huggins. “He’s can-cantankerous. And I’ve written him and phoned him. No soap.”

  “Probably a phone call isn’t good enough. He’s holding out for a real visit. You can’t blame him for that, if nobody comes. Wasn’t Humboldt’s mother the last of his sisters? He wants somebody to go to Coney Island. He’s using Humboldt’s papers as a bait. Maybe he’ll give them to me.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be irre-ree. You’ll be irresistible,” said Huggins.

  twenty-seven

  Renata was greatly annoyed when I said that she must come to Coney Island with me.

  “What, go to a nursing home? On the subway? Don’t drag me into this. Go alone.”

  “You’ve got to do it. I need you, Renata.”

  “You’re wrecking my day. I have a professional thing I need to do. It’s business. Homes for the aged depress me. Last time I set foot in one I became hysterical. At least spare me the subway.”

  “There’s no other transportation. And give old Waldemar a break. He’s never seen a woman like you, and he was a sporting man.”

  “Save the sweet talk. I didn’t hear any when the girl at the switchboard called me Mrs. Citrine. You clammed up.”

  Later on the boardwalk she was still vexed, and strode ahead of me. The subway had been awful, the filth, the spray-can graffiti were not to be believed. She kicked out the skirts of her maxi-coat as she marched, and the hanging fleeces fluttered at the front. The high-crowned Netherlands hat was pushed back. Henri, the Señora’s old friend in Paris, the man who was clearly not Renata’s father, had been impressed by her forehead. “Un beau front!” he said, over and over again. “Ah, ce beau front!” A fine brow. But what was behind it? Now I couldn’t see it. She was striding away, offended, ruffled. She wished to punish me. But really I couldn’t lose on Renata. I was pleased with her even when she was cross. People looked after her as she passed. Walking behind her I admired the action of her hips. I might not have cared to know what went on behind that beau front; and her dreams might have shocked me but her odor alone was a great solace in the night. The pleasure of sleeping with her went far beyond the ordinary pleasure of sharing a bed. Even to lie unconscious beside her was a distinct event. As for insomnia, Humboldt’s complaint, she made that agreeable, too. Energizing influences passed into my hands from her breasts during the night. I allowed myself to imagine that these influences entered my finger bones like a sort of white electricity and surged upward to the very roots of my teeth.

  A white December sky overlay the Atlantic gloom. The message of Nature seemed to be that conditions were severe, that things were tough, very tough, and that people should console one another. In this Renata thought I was not doing my part, for when the operator at the Plaza had called her Mrs. Citrine, Renata had put down the phone and turned to me, her face lighted, saying, “She called me Mrs. Citrine!” I failed to answer. People are really far more naïve and simple-hearted than we commonly suppose. It doesn’t take much to make them glow. I’m that way myself. Why withhold your kindliness from them when you see the glow appearing? To increase Renata’s happiness, I might have said, “Why of course, kid. You’d make a wonderful Mrs. Citrine. And why not?” What would that have cost me ... ? Nothing but my freedom. And I wasn’t, after all, doing much with this precious freedom. I was assuming that I had world enough and time to do something with it later. And which was more important, this pool of unused freedom or the happiness of lying beside Renata at night which made even unconsciousness special, like a delectable way to be stricken? When that cursed operator called her “Mrs.” my silence seemed to accuse her of being just a whore, no Mrs. at all. This burned her up. The pursuit of her ideal made Renata intensely touchy. But I too pursued ideals—freedom, love. I wanted to be loved for myself alone. Noncapitalistically, as it were. This was one of those American demands or expectations which, as a native of Appleton and a kid from the Chicago streets, I had all too many of. What caused me a certain amount of anguish was that I suspected that the time had passed when I might still have been loved for myself alone. Oh with what speed conditions had worsened!

  I had told Renata that marriage would have to wait until my case with Denise was settled.

  “Ah, come on, she’ll quit suing when you’re out in Waldheim beside your Pa and your Ma. She’s good for the rest of the century,” said Renata. “Are you?”

  “Of course solitary old age would be horrible,” I said. Then I ventured to add, “But you can see yourself pushing my wheelchair?”

  “You don’t understand real women,” said Renata. “Denise wanted to knock you out of action. Because of me she hasn’t succeeded. It wasn’t that pale little fox Doris, in the Mary Pick-ford getup. It’s all me�
��I’ve kept your sex powers alive. I know how. Marry me and you’ll still be balling me at eighty. By ninety, when you can’t, I’ll love you still.”

  Thus we were walking on the Coney Island boardwalk. And as I, when a boy, had rattled my stick on fence palings, so Renata, when she passed the popcorn men, the caramel-corn and hot-dog men, got a rise out of each one. I followed her, elderly but fit, wrinkled with anxieties yet smiling. In fact I was feeling unusually high. I’m not altogether sure why I was in this glorious condition. It couldn’t have been only the result of physical well-being, of sleeping with Renata, of good chemistry. Or of the temporary remission of difficulties which, according to certain grim experts, is all that people need to make them happy and is, in fact, the only source of happiness. No, I was inclined to think as I vigorously walked behind Renata that I owed it to a change in my attitude toward death. I had begun to entertain other alternatives. This in itself was enough to make me soar. But even more joyful was the possibility that there might be something to soar into, a space unused, neglected. All this while the vastest part of the whole had been missing. No wonder human beings went mad. For suppose that we—as we are in this material world—are the highest of all beings. Suppose that the being-series ends with us and there is nothing more beyond us. On such assumptions who can blame us for going into convulsions! Assume a cosmos, however, and it’s metaphysically a more spacious situation.

  Then Renata turned and said, “Are you sure the old dodo knows you’re coming?”

  “Sure. We’re expected. I phoned him,” I said.

  We entered one of the alley-like streets, where garment workers used to pass their summer holidays, and found the address. An old brick building. On its wooden stoop were wheelchairs and walking frames for invalids who had had strokes.

  At another time I might have been astonished by what happened next. But now that the world was being reconstituted and the old structure, death and all, was no more solid than a Japanese lantern, human matters came over me with the greatest vividness, naturalness, even with gaiety—I mustn’t leave out the gaiety. The saddest of sights might have it. Anyway, we were indeed expected. Leaning on a stick someone was watching for us between the door and the storm door of the nursing home and came out shouting, “Charlie, Charlie,” as soon as we reached the stairs.