OF TIME AND THE RIVER

by Thomas Wolfe

  She was a heavily built woman about thirty years old who seemed older than she was. She dressed very plainly and wore a rather old hat with a cockade, which gave her a look of eighteenth-century gallantry. And the impression of maturity was increased by her heavy and unyouthful figure, and the strong authority of her face which, in spite of her good-humoured, gay, and whimsical smile, her light Bostonian air of raillery, indicated the controlled tension and restraint of nerves of a person of stubborn and resolute will who is resolved always to act with aristocratic grace and courage.

  In spite of her heavy figure, her rough and rather unhealthy-looking skin, she was a distinguished-looking woman, and in her smile, her tone, her play of wit, and even in the swift spitefulness and violence which could flash out and strike and be gone before its victim had a chance to retort or defend himself, she was thoroughly feminine. And yet the woman made no appeal at all to sensual desire: although she had left her husband and child to follow Starwick to France, and was thought by her own family to have become his mistress, it was impossible to imagine her in such a rôle. And for this reason, perhaps, there was something ugly, dark, and sinister in their relation, which Eugene felt strongly but could not define. He felt that Elinor was lacking in the attraction or desire of the sensual woman as Starwick seemed to be lacking in the lust of the sensual man, and there was therefore something in their relation that came from the dark, the murky swamp-fires of emotion, something poisonous, perverse and evil, and full of death.

  Just the same, it was fine to be with Elinor when she was gay and deft and charming, and enormously assured, and taking charge of things. At these times everything in life seemed simple, smooth, and easy; there were no dreary complications, the whole world became an enormous oyster ready to be opened, Paris an enormous treasure-hoard of unceasing pleasure and delight. It was good to be with her in a restaurant and to let her do the ordering.

  "Now, children," she would say in her crisp, gay, and yet authoritative tone, staring at the menu with a little frowning smile of studious yet whimsical concentration--"The rest of you can order what you like, but Mother's going to start with fish and a bottle of Vouvray--I seem to remember that it's very good here--Le Vouvray est bon ici, n'est-ce pas?" she said turning to the waiter.

  "Mais oui, madame!" he said with just the right kind of earnest enthusiasm, "c'est une spécialité."

  "Bon," she said crisply. "Alors, une bouteille du Vouvray pour commencer--does that go for the rest of you, mes enfants?" she said, looking around her. They nodded their agreement.

  "Bon--bon, madame," the waiter said, nodding his vigorous approval, as he put the order down. "Vous serez bien content avec le Vouvray--et puis?"--He looked at her with suave respectful inquiry. "Pour manger?"

  "Pour moi," said Elinor, "le poisson--le filet de sole--n'est-ce pas--Marguery?"

  "Bon, bon," he said with enthusiastic approval, writing it down. "Un filet de sole--Marguery--pour madame--et pour monsieur?" he said turning suavely to Eugene.

  "La même chose," said that linguist recklessly and even as the waiter was nodding enthusiastically, and saying:

  "Bon. Bon--parfaitement! La même chose pour monsieur," and writing it down, the others had begun to laugh at him. Starwick with his bubbling laugh, Elinor with her gay little smile of raillery and even Ann, the dark and sullen beauty of her face suddenly luminous with a short and almost angry laugh as she said:

  "He hasn't said his other word yet--why don't you tell him that you want some 'mawndiawnts'"--ironically she imitated his pronunciation of the word.

  "What's wrong with 'mendiants'?" he said, scowling at her. "What's the joke?"

  "Nothing," said Starwick, bubbling with laughter. "They're very good. They really are, you know," he said earnestly. "Only we've been wondering if you wouldn't learn another word some day and order something else."

  "I know lots of other words," he said angrily. "Only, how am I ever going to get a chance to use them when the rest of you make fun of me every time I open my mouth?--I don't see what the great joke is," he said resentfully. "These French people understand what I want to say," he said. "Ecoute, garçon," he said appealingly to the attentive and smiling waiter.--"Vous pouvez comprendre--"

  "Cawmprawndre," said Ann mockingly.

  "Vous pouvez comprendre--ce-que-je-veux-dire," he blundered on painfully.

  "Mais oui, monsieur!" the waiter cried with a beautiful reassuring smile. "Parfaitement. Vous parlez très bien. Vous êtes ici à Paris depuis longtemps?"

  "Depuis six semaines," he said proudly.

  The waiter lifted arms and eyebrows eloquent with astounded disbelief.

  "Mais c'est merveilleux!" the waiter cried, and as the others jeered Eugene said with bitter sarcasm:

  "Everyone can't be a fine old French scholar the way you are; after all, I'm not travelled like the rest of you--I've never had your opportunities. And even after six weeks here there are still a few words in the French language that I don't know. . . . But I'm going to speak the ones I do know," he said defiantly, "and no one's going to stop me."

  "Of course you are, darling!" Elinor said quickly and smoothly, putting her hand out on his arm with a swift movement. "Don't let them tease you! . . . I think it's mean of you," she said reproachfully. "Let the poor dear speak his French if he wants to--I think it's sweet."

  He looked at her with a flushed and angry face while Starwick bubbled with laughter, tried to think of something to say in reply, but, as always, she was too quick for him, and before he could think of something apt and telling, she had flashed off as light and quick as a rapier blade:

  "--Now, children," she was studying the card again--"what shall it be after the fish--who wants meat--?"--

  "No fish for me," said Ann, looking sullenly at the menu. "I'll take--" suddenly her dark, sullen, and nobly beautiful face was transfigured by her short and almost angry laugh again--"I'll take an 'awmlet,'" she said sarcastically, looking at Eugene.

  "Well, take your 'awmlet,'" he muttered. "Only I don't say it that way."

  "Pas de poisson," she said quietly to the waiter. "I want an omelette."

  "Bon, bon," he nodded vigorously and wrote. "Une omelette pour madame. Et puis après--?" he said inquiringly.

  "Rien," she said.

  He looked slightly surprised and hurt, but in a moment, turning to Eugene, said:

  "Et pour monsieur?--Après le poisson?"

  "Donnez-moi un Chateaubriand garni," he said.

  And again Ann, whose head had been turned sullenly down towards the card, looked up suddenly and laughed, with that short and almost angry laugh that seemed to illuminate with accumulating but instant radiance all of the dark and noble beauty of her face.

  "God!" she said. "I knew it!--If it's not mendiants, it's Chateaubriand garni."

  "Don't forget the Nuits St. Georges," said Starwick with his bubbling laugh, "that's still to come."

  "When he gets through," she said, "there won't be a steak or raisin left in France."

  And she looked at Eugene for a moment, her face of noble and tender beauty transfigured by its radiant smile. But almost immediately, she dropped her head again in its customary expression that was heavy and almost sullen, and that suggested something dumb, furious, and silent locked up in her, for which she could find no release.

  He looked at her for a moment with scowling, half-resentful eyes, and all of a sudden, flesh, blood, and brain, and heart, and spirit, his life went numb with love for her.

  "And now, my children," Elinor was saying gaily, as she looked at the menu--"what kind of salad is it going--"she looked up swiftly and caught Starwick's eye, and instantly their gaze turned upon their two companions. The young woman was still staring down with her sullen, dark, and dumbly silent look, and the boy was devouring her with a look from which the world was lost, and which had no place in it for time or memory.

  Dark Helen in my heart for ever burning.

  "L'écrevisse," Eugene said, staring at the men
u. "What does that mean, Elinor?"

  "Well, darling, I'll tell you," she said with a grave light gaiety of tone. "An écrevisse is a kind of crayfish they have over here--a delicious little crab--but much, much better than anything we have."

  "Then the name of the place really means The Crab?" he asked.

  "Stop him!" she shrieked faintly. "You barbarian, you!" she went on with mild reproach. "It's not at all the same."

  "It's really not, you know," said Starwick, turning to him seriously. "The whole quality of the thing is different. It really is. . . . Isn't it astonishing," he went on with an air of quiet frankness, "the genius they have for names? I mean, even in the simplest words they manage to get the whole spirit of the race. I mean, this square here, even," he gestured briefly, "La Place des Martyrs. The whole thing's there. It's really quite incredible, when you think of it," he said somewhat mysteriously. "It really is."

  "Quite!" said Elinor. "And, oh, my children, if it were only spring and I could take you down the Seine to an adorable place called La Pêche Miraculeuse."

  "What does that mean, Elinor?" Eugene asked again.

  "Well, darling," she said with an air of patient resignation, "if you must have a translation I suppose you'd call it The Miraculous Catch--a fishing catch, you know. Only it doesn't mean that. It would be sacrilege to call it that. It means La Pêche Miraculeuse and nothing else--it's quite untranslatable--it really is."

  "Yes," cried Starwick enthusiastically, "and even their simplest names--their names of streets and towns and places: L'Etoile, for example--how grand and simple that is!" he said quietly, "and how perfect--the whole design and spatial grandeur of the thing is in it," he concluded earnestly. "It really is, you know."

  "Oh, absolutely!" Elinor agreed. "You couldn't call it The Star, you know. That means nothing. But L'Etoile is perfect--it simply couldn't be anything else."

  "Quite!" Starwick said concisely, and then, turning to Eugene with his air of sad instructive earnestness, he continued: "--And that woman at Le Jockey Club last night--the one who sang the songs--you know?" he said with grave malicious inquiry, his voice trembling a little and his face flushing as he spoke--"the one you kept wanting to find out about--what she was saying?--" Quiet ruddy laughter shook him.

  "Perfectly vile, of course!" cried Elinor with gay horror. "And all the time, poor dear, he kept wanting to know what it meant. . . . I was going to throw something at you if you kept on--if I'd had to translate that I think I should simply have passed out on the spot--"

  "I know," said Starwick, burbling with laughter--"I caught the look in your eye--it was really quite murderous! And terribly amusing!" he added. Turning to his friend, he went on seriously: "But really, Gene, it is rather stupid to keep asking for the meaning of everything. It is, you know. And it's so extraordinary," he said protestingly, "that a person of your quality--your kind of understanding--should be so dull about it! It really is."

  "Why?" the other said bluntly, and rather sullenly. "What's wrong with wanting to find out what's being said when you don't understand the language? If I don't ask, how am I going to find out?"

  "But not at all!" Starwick protested impatiently. "That's not the point at all: you can find out nothing that way. Really you can't," he said reproachfully. "The whole point about that song last night was not the words--the meaning of the thing. If you tried to translate it into English, you'd lose the spirit of the whole thing. Don't you see," he went on earnestly, "--it's not the meaning of the thing--you can't translate a thing like that, you really can't--if you tried to translate it, you'd have nothing but a filthy and disgusting jingle--"

  "But so long as it's French it's beautiful?" the other said sarcastically.

  "But quite!" said Starwick impatiently. "And it's very stupid of you not to understand that, Gene. It really is. The whole spirit and quality of the thing are so French--so utterly French!" he said in a high and rather womanish tone--"that the moment you translate it you lose everything. . . . There's nothing disgusting about the song in French--the words mean nothing, you pay no attention to the words; the extraordinary thing is that you forget the words. . . . It's the whole design of the thing, the tone, the quality. . . . In a way," he added deeply, "the thing has an enormous innocence--it really has, you know. . . . And it's so disappointing that you fail to see this. . . . Really, Gene, these questions you keep asking about names and meanings are becoming tiresome. They really are. . . . And all these books you keep buying and trying to translate with the help of a dictionary . . . as if you're ever going to understand anything--I mean, really understand," he said profoundly, "in that way."

  "You may get to understand the language that way," the other said.

  "But not at all!" cried Starwick. "That's just the point--you really find out nothing: you miss the whole spirit of the thing--just as you missed the spirit of that song, and just as you missed the point when you asked Elinor to translate La Pêche Miraculeuse for you. . . . It's extraordinary that you fail to see this. . . . The next thing you know," he concluded sarcastically, a burble of malicious laughter appearing as he spoke, "you will have enrolled for a course of lessons--" he choked suddenly, his ruddy face flushing deeply with his merriment--"for a course of lectures at the Berlitz language school."

  "Oh, but he's entirely capable of it!" cried Elinor, with gay conviction. "I wouldn't put it past him for a moment. . . . My dear," she said drolly, turning toward him, "I have never known such a glutton for knowledge. It's simply amazing. . . . Why, the child wants to know the meaning of everything!" she said with an astonished look about her--"the confidence he has in my knowledge is rather touching--it really is--and I'm so unworthy of it, darling," she said, a trifle maliciously. "I don't deserve it at all!"

  "I'm sorry if I've bored you with a lot of questions, Elinor," he said.

  "But you haven't!" she protested. "Darling, you haven't for a moment! I love to answer them! It's only that I feel so--so incompetent. . . . But listen, Gene," she went on coaxingly, "couldn't you try to forget it for a while--just sort of forget all about these words and meanings and enter into the spirit of the thing? . . . Couldn't you, dear?" she said gently, and even as he looked at her with a flushed face, unable to find a ready answer to her deft irony, she put her hand out swiftly, patted him on the arm, and nodding her head with an air of swift satisfied finality, said:

  "Good! I knew you would! . . . He's really a darling when he wants to be, isn't he?"

  Starwick burbled with malicious laughter at sight of Eugene's glowering and resentful face; then went on seriously:

  "--But their genius for names is quite astonishing!--I mean, even in the names of their towns you get the whole thing. . . . What could be more like Paris," he said quietly, "than the name of Paris? . . . The whole quality of the place is in the name. Or Dijon, for example. Or Rheims. Or Carcassonne. The whole spirit of Provence is in the word: what name could more perfectly express Aries than the name it has--it gives you the whole place, its life, its people, its peculiar fragrance. . . . And how different we are from them in that respect. . . . I mean," his voice rose on a note of passionate conviction, "you could almost say that the whole difference between us--the thing we lack, the thing they have--the whole thing that is wrong with us, is evident in our names. . . . It really is, you know," he said earnestly, turning toward his friend again. "The whole thing's most important. . . . How harsh and meaningless most names in America are, Eugene," he went on quietly. "Like addresses printed on a thousand envelopes at once by a stamping machine--labels by which a place may be identified but without meaning. . . . Tell me," he said quietly, after a brief pause, "what was the name of that little village your father came from? You told me one time--I remember, because the whole thing I'm talking about--the thing that's wrong with us--was in that name. What was it?"

  "Brant's Mill," the other young man answered.

  "Quite!" said Starwick with weary concision. "A man named Brant had a mill, and so they called the place Bra
nt's Mill."

  "What's wrong with that?"

  "Oh, nothing, I suppose," said Starwick quietly. "The whole thing's quite perfect. . . . Brant's Mill," there was a note of bitterness in his voice and he made the name almost deliberately rasping as he pronounced it. "It's a name--something to call a place by--if you write it on a letter it will get there. . . . I suppose that's what a name is for. . . . Gettysburg--I suppose a man named Gettys had a house or a farm, and so they named the town after him. . . . And your mother? What was the name of the place she came from?"

  "It was a place called Yancey County."

  "Quite," said Starwick as before--"and the name of the town?"

  "There wasn't any town, Frank. It was a kind of cross-roads settlement called The Forks of Ivy."

  "No!" Elinor's light Bostonian accent of astounded merriment rang gaily forth. "Not really! You know it wasn't!"

  "But not at all!" said Starwick in a tone of mild and serious disagreement. "The Forks of Ivy is not bad. It's really surprisingly good, when you consider most of the other names. It even has," he paused, and considered carefully, "a kind of quality. . . . But Yancey," he paused again, the burble of sudden laughter came welling up, and for a moment his pleasant ruddy face was flushed with laughter--"Ya-a-ancey County"--with deliberate malice he brought the word out in a rasping countrified tone--"God!" he said frankly, turning to the other boy, "isn't it awful! . . . How harsh! How stupid! How banal! . . . And what are some of the names, where you come from, Gene?" he went on quietly after a brief pause. "I'm sure you haven't yet done your worst," he said. "There must be others just as sweet as Ya-a-ancey."

  "Well, yes," the boy said grinning, "we've got some good ones: there's Sandy Mush, and Hooper's Bald, and Little Hominy. And we have names like Beaverdam and Balsam, and Chimney Rock and Craggy and Pisgah and The Rat. We have names like Old Fort, Hickory, and Bryson City; we have Clingman's Dome and Little Switzerland; we have Paint Rock and Saluda Mountain and the Frying Pan Gap--"

  "Stop!" shrieked Elinor, covering her ears with her shocked fingers--"The Frying Pan Gap! Oh, but that's horrible!"