Look Homeward, Angel

by Thomas Wolfe

  "The trouble with you," said Luke, "is that you have no appreciation for what's been done for you. Everything's been done for you, and you haven't sense enough to appreciate it. Your college education has ruined you."

  The boy turned slowly on Ben.

  "All right, Ben," he muttered. "That's enough, now. I don't care what he says, but I've had enough of it from you."

  This was the admission the older one had wanted. They were all in very chafed and ugly temper.

  "Don't talk back to me, you little fool, or I'll bat your brains out."

  The boy sprang at his brother like a cat, with a snarling cry. He bore him backward to the floor as if he were a child, laying him down gently and kneeling above him, because he had been instantly shocked by the fragility of his opponent and the ease of his advantage. He struggled with such mixed rage and shame as those who try quietly to endure the tantrum of a trying brat. As he knelt above Ben, holding his arms pinned, Luke fell heavily on his back, uttering excited cries, strangling him with one arm and cuffing awkwardly with the other.

  "All right, B-B-Ben," he chattered, "you grab his legs."

  A free scrimmage upon the floor followed, with such a clatter of upset scuttles, fire-irons, and chairs, that Eliza was brought at a fast gallop from the kitchen.

  "Mercy!" she shrieked, as she reached the door. "They'll kill him!"

  But, although being subdued--in the proud language of an older South "defeated, sir, but never beaten"--Eugene was doing very well for his age, and continued to chill the spines of his enemies with strange noises in his larynx, even after they had all clambered panting to their feet.

  "I f-f-f-fink he's gone crazy," said Luke. "He j-j-jumped on us without a word of warning."

  The hero replied to this with a drunken roll of the head, a furious dilation of the nostrils, and another horrible noise in his throat.

  "What's to become of us!" wept Eliza. "When brother strikes brother, it seems that the smash-up has come." She lifted the padded arm-chair, and placed it on its legs again.

  When he could speak, Eugene said quietly, to control the trembling of his voice:

  "I'm sorry I jumped on you, Ben. You," he said to the excited sailor, "jumped on my back like a coward. But I'm sorry for what's happened. I'm sorry for what I did the other night and now. I said so, and you wouldn't leave me alone. You've tried to drive me crazy with your talk. And I didn't," he choked, "I didn't think you'd turn against me as you have. I know what the others are like--they hate me!"

  "Hate you!" cried Luke excitedly. "For G-g-god's sake! You talk like a fool. We're only trying to help you, for your own good. Why should we hate you!"

  "Yes, you hate me," Eugene said, "and you're ashamed to admit it. I don't know why you should, but you do. You wouldn't ever admit anything like that, but it's the truth. You're afraid of the right words. But it's been different with you," he said, turning to Ben. "We've been like brothers--and now, you've gone over against me."

  "Ah!" Ben muttered, turning away nervously. "You're crazy. I don't know what you're talking about!" He lighted a cigarette, holding the match in a hand that trembled.

  But although the boy had used a child's speech of woe and resentment, they knew there was a core of truth in what he had

  said.

  "Children, children!" said Eliza sadly. "We must try to love one another. Let's try to get along together this Christmas?what time's left. It may be the last one we'll ever have together." She began to weep: "I've had such a hard life," she said, "it's been strife and turmoil all the way. It does seem I deserve a little peace and happiness now."

  They were touched with the old bitter shame: they dared not look at one another. But they were awed and made quiet by the vast riddle of pain and confusion that scarred their lives.

  "No one, 'Gene," Luke began quietly, "has turned against you. We want to help you--to see you amount to something. You're the last chance--if booze gets you the way it has the rest of us, you're done for."

  The boy felt very tired; his voice was flat and low. He began to speak with the bluntness of despair: what he said had undebatable finality.

  "And how are you going to keep booze from getting me, Luke?" he said. "By jumping on my back and trying to strangle me? That's on a level with every other effort you've ever made to know me."

  "Oh," said Luke ironically, "you don't think we understand you?"

  "No," Eugene said quietly. "I don't think you do. You know nothing whatever about me. I know nothing about you--or any of you. I have lived here with you for seventeen years and I'm a stranger. In all that time have you ever talked to me like a brother? Have you ever told me anything of yourself? Have you ever tried to be a friend or a companion to me?"

  "I don't know what you want," Luke answered, "but I thought I was acting for the best. As to telling you about myself, what do you want to know?"

  "Well," said Eugene slowly, "you're six years older than I am: you've been away to school, you've worked in big cities, and you are now enlisted in the United States Navy. Why do you always act like God Almighty," he continued with rankling bitterness. "I know what sailors do! You're no better than I am! What about liquor? What about women?"

  "That's no way to talk before your mother," said Luke sternly.

  "No, son," said Eliza in a troubled voice. "I don't like that way of talking."

  "Then I won't talk like that," Eugene said. "But I had expected you to say that. We do not want to be told what we know. We do not want to call things by their names, although we're willing to call one another bad ones. We call meanness nobility and hatred honor. The way to make yourself a hero is to make me out a scoundrel. You won't admit that either, but it's true. Well, then, Luke, we won't talk of the ladies, black or white, you may or may not know, because it would make you uncomfortable. Instead, you can keep on being God and I'll listen to your advice, like a little boy in Sunday School. But I'd rather read the Ten Commandments where it's written down shorter and better."

  "Son," said Eliza again with her ancient look of trouble and frustration, "we must try to get on together."

  "No," he said. "Alone. I have done an apprenticeship here with you for seventeen years, but it is coming to an end. I know now that I shall escape; I know that I have been guilty of no great crime against you, and I am no longer afraid of you."

  "Why, boy!" said Eliza. "We've done all we could for you. What crime have we accused you of?"

  "Of breathing your air, of eating your food, of living under your roof, of having your life and your blood in my veins, of accepting your sacrifice and privation, and of being ungrateful for it all."

  "We should all be thankful for what we have," said Luke sententiously. "Many a fellow would give his right eye for the

  chance you've been given."

  "I've been given nothing!" said Eugene, his voice mounting with a husky flame of passion. "I'll go bent over no longer in this house. What chance I have I've made for myself in spite of you all, and over your opposition. You sent me away to the university when you could do nothing else, when it would have been a crying disgrace to you among the people in this town if you hadn't. You sent me off after the Leonards had cried me up for three years, and then you sent me a year too soon--before I was sixteen--with a box of sandwiches, two suits of clothes, and instructions to be a good boy."

  "They sent you some money, too," said Luke. "Don't forget that."

  "I'd be the only one who would, if I did," the boy answered. "For that is really what is behind everything, isn't it? My crime the other night was not in getting drunk, but in getting drunk without any money of my own. If I did badly at the university with money of my own, you'd dare say nothing, but if I do well on money you gave me, I must still be reminded of your goodness and my unworthiness."

  "Why, son!" said Eliza diplomatically, "no one has a word to say against the way you've done your work. We're very proud of you."

  "You needn't be," he said sullenly. "I've wasted a great deal of time and
some money. But I've had something out of it--more than most--I've done as much work for my wages as you deserve. I've given you a fair value for your money; I thank you for nothing."

  "What's that! What's that!" said Eliza sharply.

  "I said I thank you for nothing, but I take that back."

  "That's better!" said Luke.

  "Yes, I have a great deal to give thanks for," said Eugene. "I give thanks for every dirty lust and hunger that crawled through the polluted blood of my noble ancestors. I give thanks for every scrofulous token that may ever come upon me. I give thanks for the love and mercy that kneaded me over the washtub the day before my birth. I give thanks for the country slut who nursed me and let my dirty bandage fester across my navel. I give thanks for every blow and curse I had from any of you during my childhood, for every dirty cell you ever gave me to sleep in, for the ten million hours of cruelty or indifference, and the thirty minutes of cheap advice."

  "Unnatural!" Eliza whispered. "Unnatural son! You will be punished if there's a just God in heaven."

  "Oh, there is! I'm sure there is!" cried Eugene. "Because I have been punished. By God, I shall spend the rest of my life getting my heart back, healing and forgetting every scar you put upon me when I was a child. The first move I ever made, after the cradle, was to crawl for the door, and every move I have made since has been an effort to escape. And now at last I am free from you all, although you may hold me for a few years more. If I am not free, I am at least locked up in my own prison, but I shall get me some beauty, I shall get me some order out of this jungle of my life: I shall find my way out of it yet, though it take me twenty years more--alone."

  "Alone?" said Eliza, with the old suspicion. "Where are you going?"

  "Ah," he said, "you were not looking, were you? I've gone."

  33

  During the few remaining days of his holiday, he stayed almost entirely away from the house, coming for a brief and mumbled meal, and late at night, for bed. He waited for departure as a prisoner for release. The dolorous prelude to a journey--the wet platform eyes, the sudden radiation of hectic warmth, the declarations of love at sound of the whistle--left him this time unmoved. The tear-ducts, he was beginning to discover, had, like sweat-glands, dermic foundations, and were easily brought to a salty sparkle at mere sight of a locomotive. He had, therefore, the somewhat detached composure of a gentleman on his way to a comfortable week-end, who stands in a noisy crowd, waiting for the ferry.

  He gave benediction to the words in which he had so happily defined his position as wage-earner. They stated and confirmed an attitude, and in some measure protected him against the constant betrayals of sentiment. During the Spring he worked stupendously at joining activities, knowing that here was coin whose ring they could hear. He wrote conscientiously each item of his distinctions; his name found its way back more than once to the indulgent Altamont papers. Gant kept the clippings proudly, and gave public readings when he could.

  The boy had two short awkward letters from Ben, who was now stationed one hundred miles away, in the tobacco town. At Easter, Eugene visited him, staying at his lodgings, where again his unerring destiny had thrown him into the welcoming arms of a gray-haired widow. She was under fifty--a handsome silly woman, who prodded and teased him as she would an adored child. She addressed him--with a loose giggle--as "Old Curly-Head," at which he fetched out his usual disgusted plea to his Maker. "O my God! Listen to this!" She had reverted to an astonishing romping girlhood, and would exercise her playfulness by leaping suddenly upon Old Curly-Head, dealing him a stiff dig in the ribs, and skipping away with a triumphant "Hah! Got you that time!"

  There was forever in that town a smell of raw tobacco, biting the nostrils with its acrid pungency: it smote the stranger coming from the train, but all the people in the town denied it, saying: "No; there is no smell at all." And within a day the stranger too could smell it no more.

  On Easter morning he arose in the blue light and went with the other pilgrims to the Moravian cemetery.

  "You ought to see it," Ben said. "It's a famous custom: people come from everywhere." But the older brother did not go. Behind massed bands of horns, the trumpeting blare of trombones, the big crowds moved into the strange burial ground where all the stones lay flat upon the graves--symbol, it was said, of all-levelling Death. But as the horns blared, the old ghoul-fantasy of death returned, the grave slabs made him think of table-cloths: he felt as if he were taking part in some obscene feast.

  Spring was coming on again across the earth like a light sparkle of water-spray: all of the men who had died were making their strange and lovely return in blossom and flower. Ben walked along the streets of the tobacco town looking like asphodel. It was strange to find a ghost there in that place: his ancient soul prowled wearily by the cheap familiar brick and all the young facades.

  There was a Square on high ground; in the centre a courthouse. Cars were parked in close lines. Young men loitered in the drug-store.

  How real it is, Eugene thought. It is like something we have always known about and do not need to see. The town would not have seemed strange to Thomas Aquinas,--but he to the town.

  Ben prowled along, greeting the merchants with a grave scowl, leaning his skull against their round skulls of practicality, across their counters--a phantom soliciting advertisement in a quiet monotone.

  "This is my kid brother, Mr. Fulton."

  "Hello, son! Dogged if you don't grow tall 'uns up there, Ben. Well, if you're like Old Ben, young fellow, we won't kick. We think a lot of him here."

  That's like thinking well of Balder, in Connecticut, Eugene thought.

  "I have only been here three months," said Ben, resting in bed on his elbow and smoking a cigarette. "But I know all the leading business men already. I'm well thought of here." He glanced at his brother quickly and grinned, with a shy charm of rare confession. But his fierce eyes were desperate and lonely. Hill-haunted? For--home? He smoked.

  "You see, they think well of you, once you get away from your people. You'll never have a chance at home, 'Gene. They'll ruin everything for you. For heaven's sake, get away when you can.--What's the matter with you? Why are you looking at me like that?" he said sharply, alarmed at the set stare of the boy's face. In a moment he said: "They'll spoil your life. Can't you forget about her?"

  "No," said Eugene. In a moment he added: "She's kept coming back all Spring."

  He twisted his throat with a wild cry.

  The Spring advanced with a mounting hum of war. The older students fell out quietly and drifted away to enlistments. The younger strained tensely, waiting. The war brought them no sorrow: it was a pageant which might, they felt, pluck them instantly into glory. The country flowed with milk and honey. There were strange rumors of a land of Eldorado to the north, amid the war industry of the Virginia coast. Some of the students had been there, the year before: they brought back stories of princely wages. One could earn twelve dollars a day, with no experience. One could assume the duties of a carpenter, with only a hammer, a saw, and a square. No questions were asked.

  War is not death to young men; war is life. The earth had never worn raiment of such color as it did that year. The war seemed to unearth pockets of ore that had never been known in the nation: there was a vast unfolding and exposure of wealth and power. And somehow--this imperial wealth, this display of power in men and money, was blended into a lyrical music. In Eugene's mind, wealth and love and glory melted into a symphonic noise: the age of myth and miracle had come upon the world again. All things were possible.

  He went home stretched like a bowstring and announced his intention of going away into Virginia. There was protest, but not loud enough to impede him. Eliza's mind was fastened on real-estate and the summer trade. Gant stared into the darkness at his life. Helen laughed at him and scolded him; then fell to plucking at her chin, absently.

  "Can't do without her? You can't fool me! No, sir. I know why you want to go," she said jocularly. "She's a marrie
d woman now: she may have a baby, for all you know. You've no right to go after her."

  Then abruptly, she said:

  "Well, let him go if he wants to. It looks silly to me, but he's got to decide for himself."

  He got twenty-five dollars from his father--enough to pay his railway fare to Norfolk and leave him a few dollars.

  "Mark my words," said Gant. "You'll be back in a week's time. It's a wild-goose chase you're going on."

  He went.

  All through the night he drew toward her across Virginia, propped on his elbow in the berth and staring bewitched upon the great romantic country clumped with dreaming woodlands and white as a weird dawn beneath the blazing moonlight.

  Early in the morning he came to Richmond. He had to change trains; there was a wait. He went out from the station and walked up the hill toward the fine old State House drenched cleanly in the young morning light. He ate breakfast at a lunchroom on Broad Street, filled already with men going to their work. This casual and brief contact with their lives, achieved after his lonely and magnificent approach through the night, thrilled him by its very casualness. All the little ticking sounds of a city beginning its day, the strange familiarity of voices in an alien place, heard curiously after the thunder of the wheels, seemed magical and unreal. The city had no existence save that which he conferred on it: he wondered how it had lived before he came, how it would live after he left. He looked at all the men, feeding with eyes that held yet the vast moon-meadows of the night and the cool green width of the earth. They were like men in a zoo; he gazed at them, looking for all the little particular markings of the town, the fine mapping upon their limbs and faces of their own little cosmos. And the great hunger for voyages rose up in him--to come always, as now at dawn, into strange cities, striding in among them, and sitting with them unknown, like a god in exile, stored with the enormous vision of the earth.