The Winter of Our Discontent

by John Steinbeck

  "I don't understand."

  "Good girl. Neither do I. Let's say that when I was a little baby, and all my bones soft and malleable, I was put in a small Episcopal cruciform box and so took my shape. Then, when I broke out of the box, the way a baby chick escapes an egg, is it strange that I had the shape of a cross? Have you ever noticed that chickens are roughly egg-shaped?"

  "You say such dreadful things, even to the children."

  "And they to me. Ellen, only last night, asked, 'Daddy, when will we be rich?' But I did not say to her what I know: 'We will be rich soon, and you who handle poverty badly will handle riches equally badly.' And that is true. In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms."

  "You talk this way about your own children. What must you say of me?"

  "I say you are a blessing, a dearling, the brightness in a foggy life."

  "You sound drunk--anyway intoxicated."

  "I am."

  "You aren't. I could smell it."

  "You are smelling it, sweetheart."

  "What's come over you?"

  "Ah! you do know, don't you? A change--a bloody big storm of a change. You are only feeling the outmost waves."

  "You worry me, Ethan. You really do. You're wild."

  "Do you remember my decorations?"

  "Your medals--from the war?"

  "They were awarded for wildness--for wilderness. No man on earth ever had less murder in his heart than I. But they made another box and crammed me in it. The times, the moment, demanded that I slaughter human beings and I did."

  "That was wartime and for your country."

  "It's always some kind of time. So far I have avoided my own time. I was a goddam good soldier, potkin--clever and quick and merciless, an effective unit for wartime. Maybe I could be an equally efficient unit in this time."

  "You're trying to tell me something."

  "Sadly enough, I am. And it sounds in my ears like an apology. I hope it is not."

  "I'm going to set out lunch."

  "Not hungry after that nor'easter of a breakfast."

  "Well, you can nibble something. Did you see Mrs. Baker's hat? She must have got it in New York."

  "What has she done with her hair?"

  "You noticed that? It's almost strawberry."

  " 'To be a light to lighten the gentiles, and to be the glory of thy peo-ple Israel.' "

  "Why would Margie want to go to Montauk this time of year?"

  "She loves the early morning."

  "She's not an early riser. I joke with her about that. And don't you think it was queer, Marullo bringing candy eggs?"

  "Do you connect the two events? Margie gets up early and Marullo brings eggs."

  "Don't be silly."

  "I'm not. For once I'm not. If I tell you a secret, will you promise not to tell?"

  "It's a joke!"

  "No."

  "Well, I promise."

  "I think Marullo is going to make a trip to Italy."

  "How do you know? Did he tell you?"

  "Not exactly. I put things together. I put things together."

  "But that'll leave you alone in the store. You'll have to get someone to help you."

  "I can handle it."

  "You do practically everything now. You'll have to get someone in to help."

  "Remember--it isn't sure and it's a secret."

  "Oh, I never forget a promise."

  "But you'll hint."

  "Ethan, I will not."

  "Do you know what you are? A dear little baby rabbit with flowers on your head."

  "You help yourself in the kitchen. I'm going to freshen up."

  When she was gone, I sprawled out in my chair and I heard in my secret ears, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant de-part in pee-ace, according to Thy word." And darned if I didn't go to sleep. Dropped off a cliff into the dark, right there in the living room. I don't do that often. And because I had been thinking of Danny Taylor, I dreamed of Danny Taylor. We were not small or great but grown, and we were at the flat dry lake-bottom with the old house foundations and cellar hole. And it was early summer, for I remarked the fatness of the leaves and the grass so heavy that it bent of its weight, the kind of day that makes you feel fat and crazy too. Danny went behind a young juniper straight and slender as a column. I heard his voice, distorted and thick like words spoken under water. Then I was with him and he was melting and running down over his frame. With my palms I tried to smooth him upward, back in place, the way you try to smooth wet cement when it runs out of the form, but I couldn't. His essence ran between my fingers. They say a dream is a moment. This one went on and on and the more I tried, the more he melted.

  When Mary awakened me I was panting with effort.

  "Spring fever," she said. "That's the first sign. When I was a growing girl, I slept so much my mother sent for Doctor Grady. She thought I had sleeping sickness, but I was only growing in the spring."

  "I had a daymare. I wouldn't wish a dream like that on anyone."

  "It's all the confusion. Go up and comb your hair and wash your face. You look tired, dear. Are you all right? It's nearly time to go. You slept two hours. You must have needed it. I wish I knew what's on Mr. Baker's mind."

  "You will, darling. And promise me you will listen to every word."

  "But he might want a word alone with you. Businessmen don't like ladies listening."

  "Well, he can't have it that way. I want you there."

  "You know I have no experience in business."

  "I know--but it's your money he'll be talking about."

  You can't know people like the Bakers unless you are born knowing them. Acquaintance, even friendship, is a different matter. I know them because Hawleys and Bakers were alike in blood, place of origin, experience, and past fortune. This makes for a kind of nucleus walled and moated against outsiders. When my father lost our money, I was not edged completely out. I am still acceptable as a Hawley to Bakers for perhaps my lifetime because they feel related to me. But I am a poor relation. Gentry without money gradually cease to be gentry. Without money, Allen, my son, will not know Bakers and his son will be an outsider, no matter what his name and antecedents. We have become ranchers without land, commanders without troops, horsemen on foot. We can't survive. Perhaps that is one reason why the change was taking place in me. I do not want, never have wanted, money for itself. But money is necessary to keep my place in a category I am used to and comfortable in. All this must have worked itself out in the dark place below my thinking level. It emerged not as a thought but as a conviction.

  "Good afternoon," Mrs. Baker said. "So glad you could come. You've neglected us, Mary. Hasn't it been a glorious day? Did you enjoy the service? For a clergyman I think he's such an interesting man."

  "We don't see you nearly often enough," Mr. Baker said. "I remember your grandfather sitting in that very chair and reporting that the dirty Spaniards had sunk the Maine. He spilled his tea, only it wasn't tea. Old Cap'n Hawley used to lace his rum with a little tea. He was a truculent man, some thought a quarrelsome man."

  I could see that Mary was first shaken and then pleased at this warmth. Of course she didn't know I had promoted her to be an heiress. A reputation for money is almost as negotiable as money itself.

  Mrs. Baker, her head jerking with some nervous disorder, poured tea into cups as thin and fragile as magnolia petals, and her pouring hand was the only steady part of her.

  Mr. Baker stirred with a thoughtful spoon. "I don't know whether I love tea or the ceremony of it," he said. "I like all ceremonies--even the silly ones."

  "I think I understand," I said. "This morning I felt comfortable in the service because it had no surprises. I knew the words before they were said."

  "During the war, Ethan--listen to this, ladies, and see if you can remember anything like it--during the war I served as a consultant to the Secretary of War. I spent some time in Washington."

  "I hated it," s
aid Mrs. Baker.

  "Well, there was a big military tea, a real doozer, maybe five hundred guests. The ranking lady was the wife of a five-star general and next in importance was the lady of a lieutenant general. Mrs. Secretary, the hostess, asked the five-star lady to pour the tea and Mrs. Three-Stars to pour coffee. Well, the top lady refused because, and I quote her, 'Everyone knows coffee outranks tea.' Now, did you ever hear that?" He chuckled. "As it turned out, whisky outranked everybody."

  "It was such a restless place," Mrs. Baker said. "People moved before they had time to gather a set of habits, or manners."

  Mary told her story of an Irish tea in Boston with the water boiling in round tubs over an open fire and served with tin ladles. "And they don't steep. They boil," she said. "That tea will unsettle varnish on a table."

  There must be ritual preliminaries to a serious discussion or action, and the sharper the matter is, the longer and lighter must the singing be. Each person must add a bit of feather or a colored patch. If Mary and Mrs. Baker were not to be a part of the serious matter, they would long since have set up their own pattern of exchange. Mr. Baker had poured wine on the earth of conversation and so had my Mary, and she was pleased and excited by their attentiveness. It remained for Mrs. Baker and for me to contribute and I felt it only decent to be last.

  She took her turn and drew her source from the teapot as the others had. "I remember when there were dozens of kinds of tea," she offered brightly. "Why, everyone had recipes for nearly everything. I guess there wasn't a weed or a leaf or a flower that wasn't made into some kind of tea. Now there are only two, India and China, and not much China. Remember tansy and camomile and orange-leaf and flower--and--and cambric?"

  "What's cambric?" Mary asked.

  "Equal parts hot water and hot milk. Children love it. It doesn't taste like milk and water." That accounted for Mrs. Baker.

  It was my turn, and I intended to make a few carefully meaningless remarks about the Boston Tea Party, but you can't always do what you intended. Surprises slip out, not waiting for permission.

  "I went to sleep after service," I heard me say. "I dreamed of Danny Taylor, a dreadful dream. You remember Danny."

  "Poor chap," said Mr. Baker.

  "Once we were closer than brothers. I had no brother. I guess we were brothers in a way. I don't carry it out, of course, but I feel I should be my brother Danny's keeper."

  Mary was annoyed with me for breaking the pattern of the conversation. She took a small revenge. "Ethan gives him money. I don't think it's right. He just uses it to get drunk."

  "Wellll!" said Mr. Baker.

  "I wonder--anyway the dream was a noonmare. I give him so little--a dollar now and then. What else can he do with a dollar but get drunk? Maybe with a decent amount he could get well."

  "No one would dare do that," Mary cried. "That would be after killing him. Isn't that so, Mr. Baker?"

  "Poor chap," Mr. Baker said. "A fine family the Taylors were. It makes me sick to see him this way. But Mary's right. He'd probably drink himself to death."

  "He is anyway. But he's safe from me. I don't have a decent amount to give him."

  "It's the principle," Mr. Baker said.

  Mrs. Baker contributed a feminine savagery: "He should be in an institution where they could look after him."

  All three were annoyed with me. I should have stayed with the Boston Tea Party.

  Strange how the mind goes romping, playing blindman's buff or pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey when it should be using every observation to find a path through the minefield of secret plans and submerged obstacles. I understood the house of Baker and the house of Hawley, the dark walls and curtains, the funereal rubber plants unacquainted with sun; the portraits and prints and remembrances of other times in pottery and scrimshaw, in fabrics and wood which bolt it to reality and to permanence. Chairs change with style and comfort but chests and tables, bookcases and desks, relate to a solid past. Hawley was more than a family. It was a house. And that was why poor Danny held onto Taylor Meadow. Without it, no family--and soon not even a name. By tone and inflection and desire, the three sitting there had canceled him. It may be that some men require a house and a history to reassure themselves that they exist--it's a slim enough connection, at most. In the store I was a failure and a clerk, in my house I was Hawley, so I too must be unsure. Baker could offer a hand to Hawley. Without my house, I too would have been canceled. It was not man to man but house to house. I resented the removal from real of Danny Taylor, but I couldn't stop it. And this thought sharpened and tempered me. Baker was going to try to refurbish Hawley for Baker's participation in Mary's fancied inheritance. Now I was on the edge of the minefield. My heart hardened against my selfless benefactor. I felt it harden and grow wary and dangerous. And with its direction came the feeling of combat, and the laws of controlled savagery, and the first law is: Let even your defense have the appearance of attack.

  I said, "Mr. Baker, we don't need to go over the background. You know better than I do the slow, precise way in which my father lost the Hawley substance. I was away at war. How did it happen?"

  "It wasn't his intention, but his judgment--"

  "I know he was unworldly--but how did it happen?"

  "Well, it was a time of wild investment. He invested wildly."

  "Did he have any advice?"

  "He put money in munitions that were already obsolete. Then when the contracts were canceled, he lost."

  "You were in Washington. Did you know about the contracts?"

  "Only in a general way."

  "But enough so you didn't invest."

  "No, I didn't."

  "Did you advise my father about investments?"

  "I was in Washington."

  "But you knew he had borrowed the money on the Hawley property, the money to invest?"

  "Yes, I knew that."

  "Did you advise against it?"

  "I was in Washington."

  "But your bank foreclosed."

  "A bank doesn't have any choice, Ethan. You know that."

  "Yes, I know. Only it's a shame you couldn't have advised him."

  "You shouldn't blame him, Ethan."

  "Now that I understand it, I don't. I didn't mean to blame him, but I never quite knew what happened."

  I think Mr. Baker had prepared an opening. Having lost his chance, he had to grope about for his next move. He coughed, blew his nose and wiped it with a paper handkerchief from a flat pocket package, wiped his eyes with a second sheet, polished his glasses with a third. Everyone has his own method for gaining time. I've known a man to take five minutes to fill and light a pipe.

  When he was ready again, I said, "I know I have no right in myself to ask you for help. But you yourself brought up the long partnership of our families."

  "Good people," he said. "And usually men of excellent judgment, conservative--"

  "But not blindly so, sir. I believe that once they decided on a course they drove through."

  "That they did."

  "Even if it came to sinking an enemy--or burning a ship?"

  "They were commissioned, of course."

  "In 1801, I believe, sir, they were questioned about what constituted an enemy."

  "There's always some readjustment after a war."

  "Surely. But I'm not taking up old scores for talk. Frankly, Mr. Baker, I want to--to rehabilitate my fortunes."

  "That's the spirit, Ethan. For a time I thought you'd lost the old Hawley touch."

  "I had; or maybe I'd not developed it. You've offered help. Where do I start?"

  "The trouble is, you need capital to start."

  "I know that. But if I had some capital, where would I start?"

  "This must be tiresome for the ladies," he said. "Maybe we should go into the library. Business is dull to ladies."

  Mrs. Baker stood up. "I was just about to ask Mary to help me select some wallpaper for the big bedroom. The samples are upstairs, Mary."

  "I'd like Mary to hear
--"

  But she went along with them, as I knew she would. "I don't know a thing about business," she said. "But I do know about wallpaper."

  "But you're concerned, darling."

  "I just get mixed up, Ethan. You know I do."

  "Maybe I'll get more mixed up without you, darling."

  Mr. Baker had probably suggested the wallpaper bit. I think his wife does not choose the paper. Surely no woman picked the dark and geometric paper in the room where we sat.

  "Now," he said when they were gone, "your problem is capital, Ethan. Your house is clear. You can mortgage it."

  "I won't do that."

  "Well, I can respect that, but it's the only collateral you have. There is also Mary's money. It's not much, but with some money you can get more money."

  "I don't want to touch her money. That's her safety."

  "It's in a joint account and it's not earning anything."

  "Let's say I overcame my scruples. What have you in mind?"

  "Have you any idea what her mother's worth?"

  "No--but it seems substantial."

  He cleaned his glasses with great care. "What I say is bound to be in confidence."

  "Of course."

  "Fortunately I know you are not a talker. No Hawley ever was, except perhaps your father. Now, I know as a businessman that New Baytown is going to grow. It has everything to make it grow--a harbor, beaches, inland waters. Once it starts, nothing can stop it. A good businessman owes it to his town to help it develop."

  "And take a profit."

  "Naturally."

  "Why hasn't it developed?"

  "I think you know that--the mossbacks on the council. They're living in the past. They hold back progress."

  It always interested me to hear how philanthropic the taking of a profit can be. Stripped of its forward-looking, good-of-the-community clothing, Mr. Baker's place was just what it had to be. He and a few others, a very few, would support the town's present administrations until they had bought or controlled all the future facilities. Then they would turn the council and the Town Manager out and let progress reign, and only then would it be discovered that they owned every avenue through which it could come. From pure sentiment, he was willing to cut me in for a small share. I don't know whether or not he had intended to let me know the timetable, or whether his enthusiasm got the better of him, but it did come through the generalities. The town election is July seventh. By that time, the forward-looking group must have the wheels of progress under control.