The Short Novels of John Steinbeck

by John Steinbeck

They sat down formally in the room at the left. There was a long silence. "Well," said Doc, "now you're here, how about a little drink?"

  Mack said, "We brought a little snort," and he indicated the three jugs Eddie had been accumulating. "They ain't no beer in it," said Eddie.

  Doc covered his early evening reluctance. "No," he said. "You've got to have a drink with me. It just happens I laid in some whiskey."

  They were just seated formally, sipping delicately at the whiskey, when Dora and the girls came in. They presented the quilt. Doc laid it over his bed and it was beautiful. And they accepted a little drink. Mr. and Mrs. Malloy followed with their presents.

  "Lots of folks don't know what this stuff's going to be worth," said Sam Malloy as he brought out the Chalmers 1916 piston and connecting rod. "There probably isn't three of these here left in the world."

  And now people began to arrive in droves. Henri came in with a pincushion three by four feet. He wanted to give a lecture on his new art form but by this time the formality was broken. Mr. and Mrs. Gay came in. Lee Chong presented the great string of firecrackers and the China lily bulbs. Someone ate the lily bulbs by eleven o'clock but the firecrackers lasted longer. A group of comparative strangers came in from La Ida. The stiffness was going out of the party quickly. Dora sat in a kind of throne, her orange hair flaming. She held her whiskey glass daintily with her little finger extended. And she kept an eye on the girls to see that they conducted themselves properly. Doc put dance music on the phonograph and he went to the kitchen and began to fry the steaks.

  The first fight was not a bad one. One of the group from La Ida made an immoral proposal to one of Dora's girls. She protested and Mack and the boys, outraged at this breach of propriety, threw him out quickly and without breaking anything. They felt good then, for they knew they were contributing.

  Out in the kitchen Doc was frying steaks in three skillets, and he cut up tomatoes and piled up sliced bread. He felt very good. Mack was personally taking care of the phonograph. He had found an album of Benny Goodman's trios. Dancing had started, indeed the party was beginning to take on depth and vigor. Eddie went into the office and did a tap dance. Doc had taken a pint with him to the kitchen and he helped himself from the bottle. He was feeling better and better. Everybody was surprised when he served the meat. Nobody was really hungry and they cleaned it up instantly. Now the food set the party into a kind of rich digestive sadness. The whiskey was gone and Doc brought out the gallons of wine.

  Dora, sitting enthroned, said, "Doc, play some of that nice music. I get Christ awful sick of that juke box over home."

  Then Doc played Ardo and the Amor from an album of Monteverdi. And the guests sat quietly and their eyes were inward. Dora breathed beauty. Two newcomers crept up the stairs and entered quietly. Doc was feeling a golden pleasant sadness. The guests were silent when the music stopped. Doc brought out a book and he read in a clear, deep voice: Even now

  If I see in my soul the citron-breasted fair one

  Still gold-tinted, her face like our night stars,

  Drawing unto her; her body beaten about with

  flame,

  Wounded by the flaring spear of love,

  My first of all by reason of her fresh years,

  Then is my heart buried alive in snow.

  Even now

  If my girl with lotus eyes came to me again

  Weary with the dear weight of young love,

  Again I would give her to these starved twins of

  arms

  And from her mouth drink down the heavy wine,

  As a reeling pirate bee in fluttered ease

  Steals up the honey from the nenuphar.

  Even now

  If I saw her lying all wide eyes

  And with collyrium the indent of her cheek

  Lengthened to the bright ear and her pale side

  So suffering the fever of my distance,

  Then would my love for her be ropes of flowers, and

  night

  A black-haired lover on the breasts of day.

  Even now

  My eyes that hurry to see no more are painting,

  painting

  Faces of my lost girl. O golden rings

  That tap against cheeks of small magnolia leaves,

  O whitest so soft parchment where

  My poor divorced lips have written excellent

  Stanzas of kisses, and will write no more.

  Even now

  Death sends me the flickering of powdery lids

  Over wild eyes and the pity of her slim body

  All broken up with the weariness of joy;

  The little red flowers of her breasts to be my

  comfort

  Moving above scarves, and for my sorrow

  Wet crimson lips that once I marked as mine.

  Even now

  They chatter her weakness through the two bazaars

  Who was so strong to love me. And small men

  That buy and sell for silver being slaves

  Crinkle the fat about their eyes; and yet

  No Prince of the Cities of the Sea has taken her,

  Leading to his grim bed. Little lonely one,

  You clung to me as a garment clings; my girl.

  Even now

  I love long black eyes that caress like silk,

  Ever and ever sad and laughing eyes,

  Whose lids make such sweet shadow when they

  close

  It seems another beautiful look of hers.

  I love a fresh mouth, ah, a scented mouth,

  And curving hair, subtle as a smoke,

  And light fingers, and laughter of green gems.

  Even now

  I remember that you made answer very softly,

  We being one soul, your hand on my hair,

  The burning memory rounding your near lips:

  I have seen the priestesses of Rati make love at

  moon fall

  And then in a carpeted hall with a bright gold

  lamp

  Lie down carelessly anywhere to sleep.1

  Phyllis Mae was openly weeping when he stopped and Dora herself dabbed at her eyes. Hazel was so taken by the sound of the words that he had not listened to their meaning. But a little world-sadness had slipped over all of them. Everyone was remembering a lost love, everyone a call.

  Mack said, "Jesus, that's pretty. Reminds me of a dame--" and he let it pass. They filled the wine glasses and became quiet. The party was slipping away in sweet sadness, Eddie went out in the office and did a little tap dance and came back and sat down again. The party was about to recline and go to sleep when there was a tramp of feet on the stairs. A great voice shouted, "Where's the girls?"

  Mack got up almost happily and crossed quickly to the door. And a smile of joy illuminated the faces of Hughie and Jones. "What girls you got in mind?" Mack asked softly.

  "Ain't this a whore house? Cab driver said they was one down here."

  "You made a mistake, Mister." Mack's voice was gay.

  "Well, what's them dames in there?"

  They joined battle then. They were the crew of a San Pedro tuna boat, good hard happy fight-wise men. With the first rush they burst through to the party. Dora's girls had each one slipped off a shoe and held it by the toe. As the fight raged by they would clip a man on the head with the spike heel. Dora leaped for the kitchen and came roaring out with a meat grinder. Even Doc was happy. He flailed about with the Chalmers 1916 piston and connecting rod.

  It was a good fight. Hazel tripped and got kicked in the face twice before he could get to his feet again. The Franklin stove went over with a crash. Driven to a corner the newcomers defended themselves with heavy books from the bookcases. But gradually they were driven back. The two front windows were broken out. Suddenly Alfred, who had heard the trouble from across the street, attacked from the rear with his favorite weapon, an indoor ball bat. The fight raged down the steps and into the street and across the lot. The front doo
r was hanging limply from one hinge again. Doc's shirt was torn off and his slight strong shoulder dripped blood from a scratch. The enemy was driven half-way up the lot when sirens sounded. Doc's birthday party had barely time to get inside the laboratory and wedge the broken door closed and turn out the lights before the police car cruised up. The cops didn't find anything. But the party was sitting in the dark giggling happily and drinking wine. The shift changed at the Bear Flag. The fresh contingent raged in full of hell. And then the party really got going. The cops came back, looked in, clicked their tongues and joined it. Mack and the boys used the squad car to go to Jimmy Brucia's for more wine and Jimmy came back with them. You could hear the roar of the party from end to end of Cannery Row. The party had all the best qualities of a riot and a night on the barricades. The crew from the San Pedro tuna boat crept humbly back and joined the party. They were embraced and admired. A woman five blocks away called the police to complain about the noise and couldn't get anyone. The cops reported their own car stolen and found it later on the beach. Doc sitting cross-legged on the table smiled and tapped his fingers gently on his knee. Mack and Phyllis Mae were doing Indian wrestling on the floor. And the cool bay wind blew in through the broken windows. It was then that someone lighted the twenty-five-foot string of firecrackers.

  31

  A well-grown gopher took up residence in a thicket of mallow weeds in the vacant lot on Cannery Row. It was a perfect place. The deep green luscious mallows towered up crisp and rich and as they matured their little cheeses hung down provocatively. The earth was perfect for a gopher hole too, black and soft and yet with a little clay in it so that it didn't crumble and the tunnels didn't cave in. The gopher was fat and sleek and he had always plenty of food in his cheek pouches. His little ears were clean and well set and his eyes were as black as old-fashioned pin heads and just about the same size. His digging hands were strong and the fur on his back was glossy brown and the fawn-colored fur on his chest was incredibly soft and rich. He had long curving yellow teeth and a little short tail. Altogether he was a beautiful gopher and in the prime of his life.

  He came to the place over land and found it good and he began his burrow on a little eminence where he could look out among the mallow weeds and see the trucks go by on Cannery Row. He could watch the feet of Mack and the boys as they crossed the lot to the Palace Flophouse. As he dug down into the coal-black earth he found it even more perfect, for there were great rocks under the soil. When he made his great chamber for the storing of food it was under a rock so that it could never cave in no matter how hard it rained. It was a place where he could settle down and raise any number of families and the burrow could increase in all directions.

  It was beautiful in the early morning when he first poked his head out of the burrow. The mallows filtered green light down on him and the first rays of the rising sun shone into his hole and warmed it so that he lay there content and very comfortable.

  When he had dug his great chamber and his four emergency exits and his waterproof deluge room, the gopher began to store food. He cut down only the perfect mallow stems and trimmed them to the exact length he needed and he took them down the hole and stacked them neatly in his great chamber, and arranged them so they wouldn't ferment or get sour. He had found the perfect place to live. There were no gardens about so no one would think of setting a trap for him. Cats there were, many of them, but they were so bloated with fish heads and guts from the canneries that they had long ago given up hunting. The soil was sandy enough so that water never stood about or filled a hole for long. The gopher worked and worked until he had his great chamber crammed with food. Then he made little side chambers for the babies who would inhabit them. In a few years there might be thousands of his progeny spreading out from this original hearthstone.

  But as time went on the gopher began to be a little impatient, for no female appeared. He sat in the entrance of his hole in the morning and made penetrating squeaks that are inaudible to the human ear but can be heard deep in the earth by other gophers. And still no female appeared. Finally in a sweat of impatience he went up across the track until he found another gopher hole. He squeaked provocatively in the entrance. He heard a rustling and smelled female and then out of the hole came an old battle-torn bull gopher who mauled and bit him so badly that he crept home and lay in his great chamber for three days recovering and he lost two toes from one front paw from that fight.

  Again he waited and squeaked beside his beautiful burrow in the beautiful place but no female ever came and after a while he had to move away. He had to move two blocks up the hill to a dahlia garden where they put out traps every night.

  32

  Doc awakened very slowly and clumsily like a fat man getting out of a swimming pool. His mind broke the surface and fell back several times. There was red lipstick on his beard. He opened one eye, saw the brilliant colors of the quilt and closed his eye quickly. But after a while he looked again. His eye went past the quilt to the floor, to the broken plate in the corner, to the glasses standing on the table turned over on the floor, to the spilled wine and the books like heavy fallen butterflies. There were little bits of curled red paper all over the place and the sharp smell of firecrackers. He could see through the kitchen door to the steak plates stacked high and the skillets deep in grease. Hundreds of cigarette butts were stamped out on the floor. And under the firecracker smell was a fine combination of wine and whiskey and perfume. His eye stopped for a moment on a little pile of hairpins in the middle of the floor.

  He rolled over slowly and supporting himself on one elbow he looked out the broken window. Cannery Row was quiet and sunny. The boiler door was open. The door of the Palace Flophouse was closed. A man slept peacefully among the weeds in the vacant lot. The Bear Flag was shut up tight.

  Doc got up and went into the kitchen and lighted the gas water heater on his way to the toilet. Then he came back and sat on the edge of the bed and worked his toes together while he surveyed the wreckage. From up the hill he could hear the church bells ringing. When the gas heater began rumbling he went back to the bathroom and took a shower and he put on blue jeans and a flannel shirt. Lee Chong was closed but he saw who was at the door and opened it. He went to the refrigerator and brought out a quart of beer without being asked. Doc paid him.

  "Good time?" Lee asked. His brown eyes were a little inflamed in their pouches.

  "Good time!" said Doc and he went back to the laboratory with his cold beer. He made a peanut butter sandwich to eat with his beer. It was very quiet in the street. No one went by at all. Doc heard music in his head--violas and cellos, he thought. And they played cool, soft, soothing music with nothing much to distinguish it. He ate his sandwich and sipped his beer and listened to the music. When he had finished his beer, Doc went into the kitchen, and cleared the dirty dishes out of the sink. He ran hot water in it and poured soap chips under the running water so that the foam stood high and white. Then he moved about collecting all the glasses that weren't broken. He put them in the soapy hot water. The steak plates were piled high on the stove with their brown juice and their white grease sticking them together. Doc cleared a place on the table for the clean glasses as he washed them. Then he unlocked the door of the back room and brought out one of his albums of Gregorian music and he put a Pater Noster and Agnus Dei on the turntable and started it going. The angelic, disembodied voices filled the laboratory. They were incredibly pure and sweet. Doc worked carefully washing the glasses so that they would not clash together and spoil the music. The boys' voices carried the melody up and down, simply but with the richness that is in no other singing. When the record had finished, Doc wiped his hands and turned it off. He saw a book lying half under his bed and picked it up and he sat down on the bed. For a moment he read to himself but then his lips began to move and in a moment he read aloud--slowly, pausing at the end of each line.

  Even now

  I mind the coming and talking of wise men from

  towers />
  Where they had thought away their youth. And I,

  listening,

  Found not the salt of the whispers of my girl,

  Murmur of confused colors, as we lay near sleep;

  Little wise words and little witty words,

  Wanton as water, honied with eagerness.

  In the sink the high white foam cooled and ticked as the bubbles burst. Under the piers it was very high tide and the waves splashed on rocks they had not reached in a long time.

  Even now

  I mind that I loved cypress and roses, clear,

  The great blue mountains and the small gray hills,

  The sounding of the sea. Upon a day

  I saw strange eyes and hands like butterflies;

  For me at morning larks flew from the thyme

  And children came to bathe in little streams.

  Doc closed the book. He could hear the waves beat under the piles and he could hear the scampering of white rats against the wire. He went into the kitchen and felt the cooling water in the sink. He ran hot water into it. He spoke aloud to the sink and the white rats, and to himself: Even now,

  I know that I have savored the hot taste of life

  Lifting green cups and gold at the great feast.

  Just for a small and a forgotten time

  I have had full in my eyes from off my girl

  The whitest pouring of eternal light--

  He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. And the white rats scampered and scrambled in their cages. And behind the glass the rattlesnakes lay still and stared into space with their dusty frowning eyes.

  THE PEARL

  "In the town they tell the story of the great pearl--how it was found and how it was lost again. They tell of Kino, the fisherman, and of his wife, Juana, and of the baby, Coyotito. And because the story has been told so often, it has taken root in every man's mind. And, as with all retold tales that are in people's hearts, there are only good and bad things and black and white things and good and evil things and no in between anywhere.

  "If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it. In any case, they say in the town that . . ."