The Web and the Rock

by Thomas Wolfe

  "education for the good life,"

  "service,"

  "ideals," all the rest of it--did not mean a damn thing to him. He could not find out, although he strained desperately to hear, what "the good life" was, except when it was con nected in some very intimate and personal way with Hunter Griswold McCoy, sexual chastity, matrimony, "fine women," drinking water, and Chapel talks. And yet he felt wretchedly that if he wanted any life at all it was assuredly "the good life"--except "the good life" for him, vaguely phrased and indefinitely etched, but flaming in his vision with all the ardor, passion, aspiration of his youth, had so much in it that Hunter Griswold McCoy had never spoken of, and that he dumbly, miserably felt, Hunter Griswold McCoy would not approve.

  The shape, the frame, the pattern, the definition of this "good life" was still painfully obscure; but he did feel, inchoately but powerfully, that it had so much flesh and blood in it. It had in it the promise of thick sirloin steaks, and golden, mealy, fried potatoes. It had in it, alas, the flesh of lavish women, the quickening enigma of a smile, the thrilling promise of a touch, the secret confirmation of the pressure of a hand. It had in it great rooms sealed to rich quietness, and the universe of mighty books. But it had in it much tobacco smoke as well--alas, alas, such sinful dreams of fleshly comforts!--and the flavors of strong wine. It had in it the magic of the Jason quest: the thought of golden artisans; almost intolerably a vision of the proud breast, the racing slant, of the great liners as they swung out into the stream at noon on Saturday in their imperial cavalcade, to slide past the chasm slant, the splintered helms and ramparts of a swarming rock, world-appointed and delivered to the sea. It had in it, at last and always, the magic vision of the city, the painted weather of a boy's huge dreams of glory, wealth, and triumph, and a fortunate and happy life among the greatest ones on earth.

  And in the words and phrases of the perfect man, there was no word of this. Therefore, dumbly, the youth was miserable. To make the matter worse, two months before the Armistice, Hunter Griswold McCoy up and died. It was the final consummation: Alsop said imme diately that it was the story of the Savior and his final martyrdom upon the Cross all over again. True, no one knew exactly just how Hunter Griswold McCoy had been martyred, except by the deadly prevalence of the influenza germ, but the whole memory of his life, the sense of inner purity shining out through his pale and martyred face through all the tedium of a thousand Chapel talks, somehow lent conviction to the final impression of martyrdom. And when Alsop announced in a choking voice that "he had laid down his life for a great Cause--to make the world safe for democracy," and that no soldier who had died in France, stopped by a hail of bullets as he moved forth to the attack against the hordes of barbarism, had been more truly a sacrifice for the great Cause than had McCoy, no single word was raised in protest; there was no single voice to say him nay.

  And yet, the wicked truth is that our young sinner had a secret feeling of overwhelming relief when he knew that Hunter Griswold McCoy was gone, that there would be no more Chapel talks--at least, not by McCoy. And the knowledge of this wicked consciousness filled him with such an abysmal sense of his own degradation, of his own unworthiness, that like so many other guilty souls before him, he went it the whole hog. He began to hang around with a crowd of dissolute idlers that infested the college pharmacy; he began to gamble with them for black cows. One false step led to another. Before long he was smoking cigarettes with a dissipated leer. He began to stray away from the Alsopian circle; he began to stay up late at night--but not with Alsop, and not among the devoted neophytes who feasted nightly on the master's words. On the contrary, he fell in with a crowd of lewd tongued, lusty fellows, who stayed up to all hours and played the phonograph; and who crowned a week of shameful indolence with a week-end of disgusting debauchery in the town of Covington, a score of miles away. The upshot of the matter was that in no time at all these reprobates had taken the innocent, got him drunk, and then delivered him into the custody of a notorious strumpet named "Depot Lil." The story not only came back to the Pine Rock campus, it roared back--it was retailed about, guffawed and bandied back and forth by these same dissolute and conniving rascals who had deliberately contrived this tragedy of ruined innocence, and who now, of such de graded texture were they, apparently thought that the story of the fall of one of Alsop's angels was a matter fit for laughter by the gods.

  This was almost the end, but not quite. Alsop did not cast him out without reprieve, without "giving him another chance," for, above all things, Alsop was tolerant--like Brutus, Alsop was an honorable man.

  Quietly, gravely, the master instructed his disciples not to be too hard upon their fallen brother; they were even instructed not to speak about it, to treat their erring comrade as if nothing had happened, as if he were still one of them; to let him see, by little acts of kindness, that they did not think of him as a social outcast, that he was still a member of the human race. So instructed and so inspired with Christian charity, everyone began to reek with mercy.

  As for our fallen angel, it must be admitted that when the full consciousness of his guilt swept down on him, and almost drowned him-- he came crawling back to the fold. There was a three-hour conference with Alsop, all alone in Alsop's room, from which everyone kept religiously away. At the end of that time, Alsop opened the door, polishing his misty glasses, and everyone came trouping solemnly in; and Alsop was heard to say in a quiet but throaty voice, and with a tender little chuckle: "Lord God! Lord God! Life is all right!"

  It would be good to report here that the pardon was final and that the reformation was complete. Alas, this did not happen. Within a month, the reprieved--perhaps paroled is the better word--man had slid back into his former ways. He had begun to hang around the pharmacy again, to waste his time in the company of other wastrels, and to gamble for black cows. And, if he did not slide the whole way back, and there was no exact repetition of the first catastrophe, his ways were certainly now suspect. He began to show a decided preference for people who thought only of having a good time; he seemed to like their indolent ways and drawling voices, he was seen around idling in the sun on the front porch of two or three of the fraternities.

  And since Alsop and none of his group belonged to a fraternity, this was considered as another sign of dissolution.

  In addition to this, Monk began to neglect his studies and to do a great deal of desultory reading. This was another bad sign. Not that Alsop disapproved of reading--he read constantly himself; but when he questioned the disciple as to the reading he was doing, in an effort to find out if it was sound, in accordance with "the more wholesome and well-rounded view of things"--that is, if he was "getting anything out of it"--Alsop's worst fears were realized. The fellow had begun to prowl around in the college library all by himself, and had stumbled upon certain suspect volumes that had, in some strange or accidental way, insinuated themselves into those respectable shelves. Notable among them were the works of one Dostoevski, a Russian. The situation was not only bad, but, when Alsop finally rounded up his erst while neophyte--for curiosity, even where the fallen were concerned, was certainly one of Alsop's strongest qualities--he found him, as he pityingly described the situation to the faithful later, "gabbling like a loon."

  The truth of the matter was, the adventurer had first stumbled upon one of these books in pretty much the same way that a man groping his way through a woods at night stubs his toe against an invisible rock and falls sprawling over it. Our groping adventurer not only knew nothing about the aforesaid Dostoevski: if he had even heard of him it was in the vaguest sort of way, for certainly that strange and formidable name had never rung around the classroom walls of old Pine Rock--not while he was listening anyway. The plain truth is that he had stumbled over it because he was looking for something to read and liked big books--he was always favorably impressed with the size and weight of a volume; and this one, which bore the promising name of Crime and Punishment, was certainly large and heavy enough to suit his taste.


  Thereupon, he began a very strange and puzzling adventure with the book. He took it home and began to read it, but after fifty pages gave it up. It all seemed so strange and puzzling to him; even the characters themselves seemed to have several different names apiece, by which they addressed one another, the whole resulting in such con fusion that he did not always know who was speaking. In addition, he was not at all sure what was happening. The book, instead of fol lowing the conventional line and structure of story, plot, and pattern, to which his reading had accustomed him, seemed to boil outward from some secret, unfathomable, and subterranean source--in Coleridginal phrase, "as if this earth in fast, thick pants was breathing."

  The result was that the story seemed to weave out upon a dark and turbulent tide of feeling. He was not only not sure of what was happening; when he tried to go back and trace the thread of narrative, he could not always be sure that he had followed it back to its true source. As for the talk, the way the people talked, it was the most bewildering and disturbing talk he had ever heard: anyone was likely to pour out at any moment, with the most amazing frankness, every thing that was in his mind and heart, everything that he had ever felt, thought, dreamed, or imagined. And even this would be broken in its full flood tide by apparently meaningless and irrelevant statements.

  It was all too hard and confusing to follow, and after reading forty or fifty pages he threw the book aside and looked at it no more.

  And yet he could not forget it. Events, characters, speeches, incidents kept coming back to him like things remembered from some haunting dream. The upshot of it was that in a week or two he went back to the book, and in two days' time finished it. He was more amazed and bewildered than ever. Within another week he had read the book a second time. Then he went on and read The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov. It was at this stage that Alsop hunted him out and cornered him, and, as a result of their conversation, that Alsop confided to his associates that the lost one was "gabbling like a loon."

  Perhaps he was. At any rate, anything the discoverer might have said at that time did not make much coherent sense. He did not even affirm any enthusiastic conviction, or confess his passionate belief that he had discovered a great book or a great writer. None of these things occurred to him at the time. The only thing he did know and was sure of was that he had stumbled on something new and strange and overwhelming, whose existence he had never dreamed about before.

  He was incoherent, but he was also now passionately eager to talk to someone and tell him all about it. When Alsop came to him, there fore, he fastened on him gratefully. Alsop was older, he was wiser, he had read a great deal, he loved literature, he knew a great deal about books. Surely, if anyone at all could talk to him about this one, it was Alsop. The result of it was that Alsop suggested that he come around, remarking good-naturedly that he had been too much a stranger lately: they would have an evening of the old-time discussion, and everyone would join in. He agreed to this most eagerly, and the time was set. Alsop, meanwhile, passed the word around quietly among the other members of the group that perhaps a useful work of rehabilitation might here be done--the phrase he used was "get him back on the right track." When the appointed time arrived, everyone had been properly and virtuously informed with a sense of duty, the consciousness of lending a helping hand.

  It was an unhappy occasion. It all started out casually, as Alsop himself had planned it. Alsop sat in the center of the room, one fat arm resting on the table, and with an air of confessorial benevolence on his priestly visage, a quiet little smile that said: "Tell me about it.

  As you know, I am prepared to see all sides." The discipleship sat in the outer darkness, in a circle, dutifully intent. Into this arena the luck less innocent rushed headlong. He had brought the old battered copy of Crime and Punishment with him.

  Alsop, amid general conversation, led up to the subject skillfully, and finally said: "What's this--ah--new book you were telling me about the othah day? I mean," he said smoothly, "you were telling me--about a book you've been reading--by--some Russian writer, wasn't, it?" said Alsop blandly, hesitating--"Dusty--Dusty--Dusty--whosky?" said Alsop with a show of innocence, and then, before there was a chance for reply, his great belly shook, the fat scream of laughter sounded in his throat. The disciples joined hilariously in. "Lord God!" cried Alsop, chuckling again, "I didn't mean to do that--it just popped out, I couldn't help it.... But how do you pronounce his name, anyhow?" said Alsop gravely. His manner was now serious, but behind his winking spectacles his eyes were narrowed into slits of mockery--"How do you spell it?"

  "I--I don't know how you pronounce it--but it's spelled Dos-to-ev ski."

  "I guess that would be Dos--Dos--" Alsop began....

  "Oh hell, Jerry, why don't you just sneeze it and let it go at that?" said one of the disciples. And again the room sounded with their laughter, Alsop's great belly heaving and his half-phlegmy choke of laughter rising above the rest.

  "Don't mind us," he now said tolerantly, seeing the other's reddened face. "We weren't laughing at the book--we want to hear about it--it's only that it seems funny to talk about a book when you can't even pronounce the name of the author." Suddenly he heaved with laughter again--"Lord God," he said, "it may be a great book--but that's the damnedest name I ever heard of." And the laughter of agreement filled the room. "But go on now," he said encouragingly, with an air of serious interest, "I'd like to hear about it. What's it about?"

  "It's--it's--it's--" Monk began confusedly, suddenly realizing how difficult it would be to put into a scheme of words just what the book was about, particularly since he was by no means sure himself.

  "I mean," said Alsop smoothly, "could you tell us something about the plot? Give us some idea about the story?"

  "Well," the other began slowly, thinking hard, "the leading character is a man named Raskalnikoff-----"

  "Who?" said Alsop innocently. And again there was an appreciative titter around the room. "Raskal-ni-who?" The titter grew to open laughter.

  "Well, that's the way it's spelled anyhow," said the other doggedly.

  "Ras-kal-ni-koff--I guess you call it Raskalnikoff!"

  And again Alsop heaved with laughter, the phlegmy chuckle wheezed high in his throat. "Damned if you don't pick out funny names!" he said, and then encouragingly: "Well, all right, then, go on.

  What does Raskal What's-His-Name do?"

  "Well--he--he--kills an old woman," Monk said, now conscious of the currents of derision and amusement in the ring around him. "With an axe!" he blurted out, and instantly was crimson with anger and embarrassment at the roar of laughter that greeted his description, feeling he had told the story clumsily, and had begun his explanation in the worst possible way.

  "Damned if he don't live up to his name!" wheezed Alsop. "Old Dusty--old Dusty knew what he was about when he called him Raskal What's-His-Name, didn't he?"

  The other was angry now: he said hotly, "It's nothing to laugh about, Jerry. It's-----"

  "No," said Alsop gravely. "Killing old women with axes is not a laughing matter--no matter who does it--even if you do have to sneeze it when you say it!"

  At the burst of approving laughter that greeted this sally, the younger man lost his temper completely, and turned furiously upon the group: "You fellows make me tired! Here you're shooting off your mouths and making jokes about something you know nothing about. What's funny about it, I'd like to know?"

  "It suttinly doesn't strike me as funny," Alsop quietly observed. "It sounds pretty mawbid to me."

  This quiet observation was greeted by a murmur of agreement.

  For the first time, however, the use of the word, which was one of Alsop's favorite definitions, stung Monk into quick and hot resentment.

  "What's morbid about it?" he said furiously. "Good Lord, Jerry, you're always saying that something is morbid, just because you don't like it. A writer's got a right to tell about anything he pleases. He's not morbid just because he doesn't write about peaches an
d cream all the time."

  "Yes," said Alsop with his infuriating air of instructive tolerance.

  "But a great writer will see all sides of the situation----

  "All sides of the situation!" the younger man now cried excitedly.

  "Jerry, that's another thing you're always saying. You're always talking about seeing all sides of the situation. What the hell does it mean?

  Maybe a situation doesn't have all sides. I don't know what you're talking about when you say it!"

  At last, then, here was insurrection, open, naked insurrection, for the first time now clear and unmistaken! A kind of deadly silence had fallen on the group. Alsop continued to smile his little smile, he still maintained his air of judicial tolerance, but somehow his smile was pale, the warmth had gone out of his face, behind his spectacles his eyes had narrowed to cold slits.

  "I just mean--that a great writer, a really great writer--will write about all types of people. He may write about murder and crime like this Dusty What's-His-Name that you're talking about, but he'll write about othah things as well. In othah words," said Alsop pontifically, "he'll try to see the Whole Thing in its true perspective."

  "In what true perspective, Jerry?" the other burst out. "That's an other thing you're always saying too--talking about the true perspective. I wish you'd tell me what it means!"

  Here was heresy again, and more of it. The others held their breath while Alsop, still maintaining his judicial calm, answered quietly: "I mean, a great writer will try to see life clearly and to see it whole.

  He'll try to give you the whole pictuah."

  "Well, Dostoevski tries to, too," said Monk doggedly.

  "Yes, I know, but does he really now? I mean does he really show you the more wholesome and well-rounded view of things?"

  "Ah--ah--jerry, that's another thing you're always saying--the more wholesome and well-rounded view of things. What does that mean?