OF TIME AND THE RIVER

by Thomas Wolfe

  Why was it? What was this grievous lack or loss--if lack or loss it was--in his own life? Why was it that, with his fierce, bitter, and insatiate hunger for life, his quenchless thirst for warmth, joy, love, and fellowship, his constant image, which had blazed in his heart since childhood, of the enchanted city of the great comrades and the glorious women, that he grew weary of people almost as soon as he met them? Why was it that he seemed to squeeze their lives dry of any warmth and interest they might have for him as one might squeeze an orange, and then was immediately filled with boredom, disgust, dreary tedium, and an impatient weariness and desire to escape so agonizing that it turned his feeling almost into hatred?

  Why was it that his spirit was now filled with this furious unrest and exasperation against people because none of them seemed as good as they should be? Where did it come from--this improvable and yet unshakable conviction that grew stronger with every rebuff and disappointment--that the enchanted world was here around us ready to our hand the moment that we chose to take it for our own, and that the impossible magic in life of which he dreamed, for which he thirsted, had been denied us not because it was a phantom of desire, but because men had been too base and weak to take what was their own?

  Now, with Starwick, and for the first time, he felt this magic constantly--this realization of a life for ever good, for ever warm and beautiful, for ever flashing with the fires of passion, poetry and joy, for ever filled with the swelling and triumphant confidence of youth, its belief in new lands, morning, and a shining city, its hope of voyages, its conviction of a fortunate, good and happy life--an imperishable happiness and joy--that was impending, that would be here at any moment.

  For a moment he looked at the strange and delicate face of the young man beside him, reflecting, with a sense of wonder, at his communion with this other life, so different from his own in kind and temper. What was it? Was it the sharp mind, that original and penetrating instrument which picked up the old and weary problems of the spirit by new handles, displaying without labour planes and facets rarely seen? With what fierce joy he welcomed those long walks together in the night, along the quiet streets of Cambridge, or by the marvellous river that wound away small and magical in the blazing moonlight into the sweet, dark countryside! What other pleasure, what other appeasement of his mind and sense had been so complete and wonderful as that which came from this association as, oblivious of the world, they carried on their fierce debate about all things under heaven; his own voice, passionate, torrential, and wild, crying out against the earth, the moon, invoking all the gods of verse and magic while his mind played rivers of lightning across the vast fields of reading and experience!

  And how eagerly he waited for the answers of that other voice, quiet, weary, drawling--how angrily he stormed against its objections, how hungrily and gratefully he fed upon its agreement! What other tongue had had the power to touch his pride and his senses as this one had--how cruelly had its disdain wounded him, how magnificently had its praise filled his heart with glory! On these nights when he and Starwick had walked along the river in these vehement, passionate, and yet affectionate debates, he would relive the scene for hours after it had ended, going over their discussion again and again, remembering every gesture, every intonation of the voice, every flash of life and passion in the face. Late in the night he would pace up and down his room, or pause dreaming by his window, still carrying on in his mind the debate with his friend, inventing and regretting splendid things he might have said, exulting in those he had said and in every word of approval or burst of laughter he had provoked. And he would think: Ah, but I was good there! I could see how he admired me, how high a place I have in his affection. For when he says a thing he means it: he called me a poet, his voice was quiet and full of passion; he said my like had never been, that my destiny was great and sure.

  Was this, then, the answer?

  Until this period of his life he had drunk very little: in spite of the desperate fear his mother had that each of her children inherited the whisky disease--"the curse of liquor," as she called it--from their father, he felt no burning appetite for stimulant. Alone, he never sought it out, he never bought a bottle for himself: solitary as his life had become, the idea of solitary drinking, of stealthy alley potations from a flask, filled him with sodden horror.

  Now, in the company of Starwick, he was drinking more frequently than he had ever done before. Alcohol, indeed, until his twentieth year had been only a casual and infrequent spirit--once, in his seventeenth year, when he had come home from college at the Christmas vacation, he had got very drunk on various liquors which his brother Luke had brought home to his father, and which he had mixed together in a tumbler and drunk without discretion. And there had been one or two casual sprees during his years at college, but until this time he had never known the experience of frequent intoxication.

  But now, in the company of Frank Starwick, he went every week or so to a little restaurant which was situated in the Italian district of the eastern quarter of town, beyond Scollay Square and across Washington Street. The place was Starwick's own discovery, he hoarded his knowledge of it with stern secrecy, yielding it up only to a few friends--a few rare and understanding spirits who would not coarsely abuse the old-world spirit of this priceless place, because, he said:

  "It would be a pity if it ever got known about. It really would, you know. . . . I mean, the kind of people who would begin to go there would ruin it. . . . They really would. . . . I mean, it's quite astonishing to find a place of that sort here in Boston."

  It was the beginning of that dark time of blood, and crime, and terror which the years of prohibition brought and which was to leave its hideous mutilation not only upon the soul and conscience of the nation, but upon the lives of millions of people--particularly the young everywhere. At this time, however, the ugly, jeering, open arrogance of the later period--the foul smell of privilege and corruption, the smirk of protection, and the gangster's sneer, were not so evident as they became in the years that followed. At this time, it was by no means easy "to get a drink": the speak-easy had already started on its historic career, but was still more or less what its name suggested--a place to be got at quietly and by stealth, a place of low voices, furtive and suspicious eyes, and elaborate precautions.

  The place which Starwick had "discovered," and which he hoarded with such precious secrecy, was a small Italian restaurant known as Posillippo's, which occupied the second floor of an old brick building in an obscure street of the Italian quarter. Frank pronounced the name strongly and lovingly--"Pothillippo's"--in the mannered voice, and with the affected accent which all foreign and exotic names--particularly those that had a Latin flavouring--inspired in him.

  Arrived at "Pothillippo's," Frank, who even at this time did all things with the most lavish and lordly extravagance, and who tipped generously at every opportunity, would be welcomed obsequiously by the proprietor and the waiters, and then would order with an air of the most refined and sensual discrimination from his favourite waiter, a suave and fawning servitor named Nino. There were other waiters just as good as Nino, but Frank expressed an overwhelming preference for him above all others because, he said, Nino had the same face as one of the saints in a painting by Giotto, and because he professed to find all of the ancient, grave and exquisite rhythm of the ancient Tuscan nobility composed in the one figure of this waiter.

  "But have you noticed the way he uses his hands while talking?" Frank would say in a tone of high impassioned earnestness.--"Did you notice that last gesture? It is the same gesture that you find in the figure of the disciple Thomas in Leonardo's painting of 'The Last Supper.' It really is, you know. . . . Christ!" he would cry, in his high, strange, and rather womanish tone. "The centuries of art, of living, of culture--the terrific knowledge all these people have--the kind of thing you'll never find in people in this country, the kind of thing that no amount of college education or books can give you--all expressed in a single gesture of th
e hands of this Italian waiter. . . . The whole thing's quite astonishing, it really is, you know."

  The real reason, however, that Frank preferred Nino to all the other waiters in "Pothillippo's" establishment was that he liked the sound of the word "Nino" and pronounced it beautifully.

  "Nino!" Frank would cry, in a high, strange, and rather womanish voice--"Nino!"

  "Sì, signor," Nino would breathe unctuously, and would then stand in an attitude of heavy and prayerful adoration, awaiting the young lord's next commands.

  "Nino," Frank would then go on in the tone and manner of a sensuous and weary old-world sophisticate. "Quel vin avez-vous? . . . Quel vin--rouge--du--très--bon. Vous--comprenez?" said Frank, using up in one speech most of his French words, but giving a wonderful sense of linguistic mastery and complete eloquence in two languages.

  "Mais si, signer!" Nino would answer immediately, skilfully buttering Frank on both sides--the French and the Italian--with three masterly words.

  "Le Chianti est très, très bon! . . . C'est parfait, monsieur," he whispered, with a little ecstatic movement of his fingers. "Admirable!"

  "Bon," said Frank with an air of quiet decision. "Alors, Nino," he continued, raising his voice as he pronounced these two words, which were among his favourites. "Alors, une bouteille du Chianti--n'est-ce pas--"

  "Mais si, signor!" said Nino, nodding enthusiastically. "Si--et pour manger?" he went on coaxingly.

  "Pour manger?" Frank began--"Ecoute, Nino--vous pouvez recommander quelque chose--quelque chose d'extraordinaire!" Frank cried in a high impassioned tone. "Quelque chose de la maison!" he concluded triumphantly.

  "Mais si!" Nino cried enthusiastically. "Sì, signor. . . . Permettez-moi! . . . Le spaghetti," he whispered seductively, rolling his dark eyes rapturously aloft, and making a little mincing movement, indicative of speechless ecstasy, of his thumb and forefinger. "Le spaghetti . . . de la . . . maison . . . ah, signor," Nino breathed--"le spaghetti avec la sauce de la maison est merveilleux . . . merveilleux!" he whispered.

  "Bon," said Starwick nodding. "Alors, Nino--le spaghetti pour deux--vous comprenez?"

  "Mais si, signor! Si," Nino breathed. "Parfaitement"--and wrote the miraculous order on his order pad. "Et puis, monsieur," said Nino coaxingly, and with complete humility. "Permettez-moi de recommander--le poulet," he whispered rapturously--"le poulet rôti," he breathed, as if unveiling the rarest secrets of cookery that had been revealed since the days of Epicurus--"le poulet rôti . . . de la maison," again he made the little speechless movement of the finger and the thumb, and rolled his rapturous eyes around--"ah, signor," said Nino, "Vous n'aurez pas de regrets si vous commandez le poulet."

  "Bon. . . . Bon," said Starwick quietly and profoundly. "Alors, Nino--deux poulets rôtis, pour moi et pour monsieur," he commanded.

  "Bon, bon," said Nino, nodding vigorously and writing with enthusiasm--"et pour la salade, messieurs," he paused--looking inquiringly and yet hopefully at both his lordly young patrons.

  And so it went, until the menu had all been gone through in mangled French and monosyllabic Italian. When this great ceremony was over, Frank Starwick had done nothing more nor less than order the one-dollar table-d'hôte dinner which Signor "Pothillippo" provided for all the patrons of his establishment and whose order--soup, fish, spaghetti, roasted chicken, salad, ice-cream, cheese, nuts and bitter coffee--was unchangeable as destiny, and not to be altered by the whims of common men, whether they would or no.

  And yet Frank's manner of ordering his commonplace rather dreary meal was so touched by mystery, strangeness, an air of priceless rarity and sensual refinement, that one would smack his lips over the various dishes with a gourmandizing gusto, as if the art of some famous chef had really been exhausted in their preparation.

  And this element of Frank Starwick's character was one of the finest and most attractive things about him. It was, perhaps as much as anything else, the reason why people of all kinds were drawn to him, delighted to be with him, and why Frank could command the boundless affection, devotion, and support of people more than anyone the other boy had ever known.

  For, in spite of all Frank's affectations of tone, manner, gesture, and accent, in spite of the elaborately mannered style of his whole life--no! really because of them (for what were all these manners and affectations except the evidence of Frank's constant effort to give qualities of strangeness, mystery, rareness, joy and pleasure to common things that had none of these qualities in themselves?)--the deep and passionate desire in Frank's spirit to find a life that would always be good, beautiful, and exciting was apparent.

  And to an amazing degree, Frank Starwick succeeded in investing all the common and familiar acts and experiences of this world with this strange and romantic colour of his own personality.

  When one was with him, everything--"le Chianti de la maison," a cigarette, the performance of a play, a poem or a book, a walk across the Harvard Yard, or along the banks of the Charles River--became strange and rare and memorable, and for this reason Frank, in spite of the corrupt and rotten spot which would develop in his character and eventually destroy him, was one of the rarest and highest people that ever lived, and could never be forgotten by anyone who had ever known him and been his friend.

  For, by a baffling paradox, these very affectations of Frank's speech and dress and carriage, the whole wrought manner of his life, which caused many people who disbelieved him to dismiss him bitterly as an affected and artificial poseur, really came from something innocent and naïve and good in Frank's character--something as innocent and familiar as the affectations of Tom Sawyer when he told tall stories, invented wild, complicated, and romantic schemes, when none was necessary, or used big words to impress his friends, the nigger Jim, or Huckleberry Finn.

  Thus, the two young men would stay in "Pothillippo's" until late at night when the place closed, drinking that wonderful "Chianti de la maison," so preciously and lovingly described, which was really nothing but "dago red," raw, new, and instantaneous in its intoxication, filled with headaches and depression for to-morrow morning, but filled now with the mild, soaring, jubilant and triumphant drunkenness that only youth can know.

  And they would leave this place of Latin mystery and languor at one o'clock in the morning, Frank shouting in a high drunken voice before he left, "Nino! Nino!--Il faut quelque chose à boire avant de partir--Nino!--Nino!--Encora! Encora!"--pronouncing his last Italian word victoriously.

  "Mais si, signor," Nino would answer, smiling somewhat anxiously. "Du vin?"

  "Mais non, mais non, Nino" Frank would cry violently. "Pas de vin--du wis-kee, Nino! Du wis-kee!"

  Then they would gulp down drinks of the raw and powerful beverage to which the name of whisky had been given in that era, and leaving a dim blur of lights, a few dim blots of swarthy, anxiously smiling faces behind them, they would reel dangerously down the rickety stairs and out into the narrow, twisted streets, the old grimed web of sleeping quietness, the bewildering, ancient, and whited streets of Boston.

  Above them, in the cool sweet skies of night, the great moons of the springtime, and New England, blazed with a bare, a lovely and enchanted radiance. And around them the great city and its thousand narrow twisted streets lay anciently asleep beneath that blazing moon, and from the harbour came the sound of ships, the wasting, fresh, half-rotten harbour-smells, filled with the thought of ships, the sea, the proud exultancy of voyages. And out of the cobbled streets and from the old grimed buildings--yes! from the very breast and bareness of that springtime moon and those lovely lilac skies, there came somehow--God knows how--all of the sweet wildness of New England in the month of May, the smell of the earth, the sudden green, the glorious blossoms--all that was wild, sweet, strange, simple, instantly familiar--that impossible loveliness, that irresistible magic, that unutterable hope for the magic that could not be spoken, but that seemed almost in the instant to be seized, grasped, and made one's own for ever--for the hunger, possession and fulfilment--an
d for God knows what--for that magic land of green, its white and lovely houses, and the white flesh, the moon-dark hair, the depthless eyes and everlasting silence of its secret, dark, and lavish women.

  Dark Helen in our hearts for ever burning--oh, no more!

  Then the two young men would thread that maze of drunken moonlit streets, and feel the animate and living silence of the great city all around them, and look then at the moon with drunken eyes, and see the moon, all bare and drunken in the skies, the whole earth and the ancient city drunk with joy and sleep and springtime and the enchanted silences of the moon-drunk squares. And they would come at length to Cambridge, to find the moonlight dark upon the sleeping silence of the university and Harvard Square, and exultancy and joy welled up in them for ever; wild shouts and songs and laughter were torn from their throats and rang out through the sleeping streets of Cambridge, filling the moon-sweet air with jubilation, for they were drunken, young, and twenty--immortal confidence and victorious strength possessed them--and they knew that they could never die.

  Immortal drunkenness! What tribute can we ever pay, what song can we ever sing, what swelling praise can ever be sufficient to express the joy, the gratefulness, and the love which we, who have known youth and hunger in America, have owed to alcohol?

  We are so lost, so lonely, so forsaken in America: immense and savage skies bend over us, and we have no door.

  But you, immortal drunkenness, came to us in our youth when all our hearts were sick with hopelessness, our spirits maddened with unknown terrors, and our heads bowed down with nameless shame. You came to us victoriously, to possess us, and to fill our lives with your wild music, to make the goat-cry burst from our exultant throats, to make us know that here upon the wilderness, the savage land, that here beneath immense, inhuman skies of time, in all the desolation of the cities, the grey unceasing flood-tides of the man-swarm, our youth would soar to fortune, fame, and love, our spirits quicken with the power of mighty poetry, our work go on triumphantly to fulfilment until our lives prevailed.