by Thomas Wolfe
He mailed the letter, with a sense of malevolent triumph. But the moment the iron lid of the box clanged over it, his face was contorted by shame and remorse: he lay awake, writhing as he recalled the schoolboy folly of it. She had beaten him again.
34
Eugene returned to Altamont two weeks before the term began at Pulpit Hill. The town and the nation seethed in the yeasty ferment of war. The country was turning into one huge camp. The colleges and universities were being converted into training-camps for officers. Every one was "doing his bit."
It had been a poor season for tourists. Eugene found Dixieland almost deserted, save for a glum handful of regular or semi-regular guests. Mrs. Pert was there, sweet, gentle, a trifle more fuzzy than usual. Miss Newton, a wrenny and neurotic old maid, with asthma, who had gradually become Eliza's unofficial assistant in the management of the house, was there. Miss Malone, the gaunt drug-eater with the loose gray lips, was there. Fowler, a civil engineer with blond hair and a red face, who came and departed quietly, leaving a sodden stench of corn-whiskey in his wake, was there. Gant, who had now moved definitely from the house on Woodson Street, which he had rented, to a big back room at Eliza's, was there--a little more waxen, a little more petulant, a little feebler than he had been before. And Ben was there.
He had been home for a week or two when Eugene arrived. He had been rejected again by both army and navy examining boards, he had been rejected as unfit in the draft; he had left his work suddenly in the tobacco town and come quietly and sullenly home. He was thinner and more like old ivory than ever. He prowled softly about the house, smoking innumerable cigarettes, cursing in brief snarling fury, touched with despair and futility. His old surly scowl was gone, his old angry mutter; his soft contemptuous laugh, touched with so much hidden tenderness, had given way to a contained but savage madness.
During the brief two weeks that Eugene remained at home before departing again for Pulpit Hill, he shared with Ben a little room and sleeping-porch upstairs. And the quiet one talked?talked himself from a low fierce mutter into a howling anathema of bitterness and hate that carried his voice, high and passionate, across all the sleeping world of night and rustling autumn.
"What have you been doing to yourself, you little fool?" he began, looking at the boy's starved ribs. "You look like a scarecrow."
"I'm all right," said Eugene. "I wasn't eating for a while. But I didn't write them," he added proudly. "They thought I couldn't hold out by myself. But I did. I didn't ask for help. And I came home with my own money. See?" He thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out his soiled roll of banknotes, boastfully displaying it.
"Who wants to see your lousy little money?" Ben yelled furiously. "Fool. You come back, looking like a dead man, as if you'd done something to be proud of. What've you done? What've you done except make a monkey of yourself?"
"I've paid my own way," Eugene cried resentfully, stung and wounded. "That's what I've done."
"Ah-h," said Ben, with an ugly sneer, "you little fool! That's what they've been after! Do you think you've put anything over on them? Do you? Do you think they give a damn whether you die or not, as long as you save them expense? What are you bragging about? Don't brag until you've got something out of them."
Propped on his arm, he smoked deeply, in bitter silence, for a moment. Then more quietly, he continued.
"No, 'Gene. Get it out of them any way you can. Make them give it to you. Beg it, take it, steal it--only get it somehow. If you don't, they'll let it rot. Get it, and get away from them. Go away and don't come back. To hell with them!" he yelled.
Eliza, who had come softly upstairs to put out the lights, and had been standing for a moment outside the door, rapped gently and entered. Clothed in a tattered old sweater and indefinable under-lappings, she stood for a moment with folded hands, peering in on them with a white troubled face.
"Children," she said, pursing her lips reproachfully, and shaking her head, "it's time every one was in bed. You're keeping the whole house awake with your talk."
"Ah-h," said Ben with an ugly laugh, "to hell with them."
"I'll vow, child!" she said fretfully. "You'll break us up. Have you got that porch light on, too?" Her eyes probed about suspiciously. "What on earth do you mean by burning up all that electricity!"
"Oh, listen to this, won't you?" said Ben, jerking his head upward with a jeering laugh.
"I can't afford to pay all these bills," said Eliza angrily, with a smart shake of her head. "And you needn't think I can. I'm not going to put up with it. It's up to us all to economize."
"Oh, for God's sake!" Ben jeered. "Economize! What for? So you can give it all away to Old Man Doak for one of his lots?"
"Now, you needn't get on your high-horse," said Eliza. "You're not the one who has to pay the bills. If you did, you'd laugh out of the other side of your mouth. I don't like any such talk. You've squandered every penny you've earned because you've never known the value of a dollar."
"Ah-h!" he said. "The value of a dollar! By God, I know the value of a dollar better than you do. I've had a little something out of mine, at any rate. What have you had out of yours? I'd like to know that. What the hell's good has it ever been to any one? Will you tell me that?" he yelled.
"You may sneer all you like," said Eliza sternly, "but if it hadn't been for your papa and me accumulating a little property, you'd never have had a roof to call your own. And this is the thanks I get for all my drudgery in my old age," she said, bursting into tears. "Ingratitude! Ingratitude!"
"Ingratitude!" he sneered. "What's there to be grateful for? You don't think I'm grateful to you or the old man for anything, do you? What have you ever given me? You let me go to hell from the time I was twelve years old. No one has ever given me a damned nickel since then. Look at your kid here. You've let him run around the country like a crazy man. Did you think enough of him this summer to send him a post-card? Did you know where he was? Did you give a damn, as long as there was fifty cents to be made out of your lousy boarders?"
"Ingratitude!" she whispered huskily, with a boding shake of the head. "A day of reckoning cometh."
"Oh, for God's sake!" he said, with a contemptuous laugh. He smoked for a moment. Then he went on quietly:
"No, mama. You've done very little to make us grateful to you. The rest of us ran around wild and the kid grew up here among the dope-fiends and street-walkers. You've pinched every penny and put all you've had into real estate which has done no one any good. So don't wonder if your kids aren't grateful to you."
"Any son who will talk that way to his mother," said Eliza with rankling bitterness, "is bound to come to a bad end. Wait and see!"
"The hell you say!" he sneered. They stared at each other with hard bitter eyes. He turned away in a moment, scowling with savage annoyance, but stabbed already with fierce regret.
"All right! Go on, for heaven's sake! Leave us alone! I don't want you around!" He lit a cigarette to show his indifference.
The lean white fingers trembled, and the flame went out.
"Let's stop it!" said Eugene wearily. "Let's stop it! None of us is going to change! Nothing's going to get any better. We're all going to be the same. We've said all this before. So, for God's sake, let's stop it! Mama, go to bed, please. Let's all go to bed and forget about it." He went to her, and with a strong sense of shame, kissed her.
"Well, good-night, son," said Eliza slowly, with gravity. "If I were you I'd put the light out now and turn in. Get a good night's sleep, boy. You mustn't neglect your health."
She kissed him, and went away without another glance at the older boy. He did not look at her. They were parted by hard and bitter strife.
After a moment, when she had gone, Ben said without anger:
"I've had nothing out of life. I've been a failure. I've stayed here with them until I'm done for. My lungs are going: they won't even take a chance on me for the army. They won't even give the Germans a chance to shoot at me. I've never made good at
anything. By God!" he said, in a mounting blaze of passion. "What's it all about? Can you figure it out, 'Gene? Is it really so, or is somebody playing a joke on us? Maybe we're dreaming all this. Do you think so?"
"Yes," said Eugene, "I do. But I wish they'd wake us up." He was silent, brooding over his thin bare body, bent forward on the bed for a moment. "Maybe," he said slowly, "maybe--there's nothing,
nobody to wake."
"To hell with it all!" said Ben. "I wish it were over."
Eugene returned to Pulpit Hill in a fever of war excitement. The university had been turned into an armed camp. Young men who were eighteen years old were being admitted into the officers' training corps. But he was not yet eighteen. His birthday was two weeks off. In vain he implored the tolerance of the examining board. What did two weeks matter? Could he get in as soon as his birthday arrived? They told him he could not. What, then, could he do? They told him that he must wait until there was another draft. How long would that be? Only two or three months, they assured him. His wilted hope revived. He chafed impatiently. All was not lost.
By Christmas, with fair luck, he might be eligible for service in khaki: by Spring, if God was good, all the proud privileges of trench-lice, mustard gas, spattered brains, punctured lungs, ripped guts, asphyxiation, mud and gangrene, might be his. Over the rim of the earth he heard the glorious stamp of the feet, the fierce sweet song of the horns. With a tender smile of love for his dear self, he saw himself wearing the eagles of a colonel on his gallant young shoulders. He saw himself as Ace Gant, the falcon of the skies, with 63 Huns to his credit by his nineteenth year. He saw himself walking up the Champs-Elysé with a handsome powdering of gray hair above his temples, a left forearm of the finest cork, and the luscious young widow of a French marshal at his side. For the first time he saw the romantic charm of mutilation. The perfect and unblemished heroes of his childhood now seemed cheap to him--fit only to illustrate advertisements for collars and toothpaste. He longed for that subtle distinction, that air of having lived and suffered that could only be attained by a wooden leg, a rebuilt nose, or the seared scar of a bullet across his temple.
Meanwhile, he fed voraciously, and drank gallons of water in an effort to increase his poundage. He weighed himself a half-dozen times a day. He even made some effort at systematic exercise: swinging his arms, bending from his hips, and so on.
And he talked about his problem with the professors. Gravely, earnestly, he wrestled with his soul, mouthing with gusto the inspiring jargon of the crusade. For the present, said the professors, was his Place not Here? Did his Conscience tell him that he Had to go? If it did, they said gravely, they would say nothing more. But had he considered the Larger Issues?
"Is not," said the Acting Dean persuasively, "is not this your Sector? Is your own Front Line not here on the campus? Is it not here that you must Go Over The Top? Oh, I know," he went on with a smile of quiet pain, "I know it would be easier to go. I have had to fight that battle myself. But we are all part of the Army now; we are all enlisted in the Service of Liberty. We are all Mobilized for Truth. And each must Do His Bit where it will count for most."
"Yes," said Eugene, with a pale tortured face, "I know. I know it's wrong. But oh, sir,--when I think of those murderous beasts, when I think of how they have menaced All that we Hold Dear, when I think of Little Belgium, and then of My Own Mother, My Own Sister--" He turned away, clenching his hands, madly in love with himself.
"Yes, yes," said the Acting Dean gently, "for boys with a spirit like yours it's not easy."
"Oh, sir, it's hard!" cried Eugene passionately. "I tell you it's hard."
"We must endure," said the Dean quietly. "We must be tempered in the fire. The Future of Mankind hangs in the balance."
Deeply stirred they stood together for a moment, drenched in the radiant beauty of their heroic souls.
Eugene was managing editor of the college paper. But, since the editor was enlisted in the corps, the entire work of publication fell to the boy. Every one was in the army. With the exception of a few dozen ratty Freshmen, a few cripples, and himself, every one, it seemed, was in the army. All of his fraternity brothers, all of his college mates, who had not previously enlisted, and many young men who had never before thought of college, were in the army. "Pap" Rheinhart, George Graves, Julius Arthur--who had experienced brief and somewhat unfortunate careers at other universities, and a host of young Altamonters who had never known a campus before, were all enlisted now in the Student's Army.
During the first days, in the confusion of the new order, Eugene saw a great deal of them. Then, as the cogs of the machine began to grind more smoothly, and the university was converted into a big army post, with its punctual monotony of drilling, eating, studying, inspection, sleeping, he found himself detached, alone, occupying a position of unique and isolated authority.
He Carried On. He Held High the Torch. He Did His Bit. He was editor, reporter, censor, factotum of the paper. He wrote the news. He wrote the editorials. He seared them with flaming words. He extolled the crusade. He was possessed of the inspiration for murder.
He came and he went as he chose. When the barracks went dark at night, he prowled the campus, contemptuous of the electric flash and the muttered apologies of the officious shave-tails. He roomed in the village with a tall cadaver, a gaunt medical student with hollow cheeks and a pigeon-breast, named Heston. Three or four times a week he was driven over the rutted highway to Exeter where, in a little print shop, he drank the good warm smell of ink and steel.
Later, he prowled up the dreary main street of the town as the lights went up, ate at the Greek's, flirted with a few stray furtive women until the place went dead at ten o'clock, and came back through the dark countryside in a public-service car beside a drunken old walrus who drove like a demon, and whose name was "Soak" Young.
October began, and a season of small cold rain. The earth was a sodden reek of mud and rotten leaves. The trees dripped wearily and incessantly. His eighteenth birthday came, and he turned again, with a quivering tension, toward the war.
He got a brief sick letter from his father; a few pages, practical, concrete with her blunt pungent expression, from Eliza:
"Daisy has been here with all her tribe. She went home two days ago, leaving Caroline and Richard. They have all been down sick with the flu. We've had a siege of it here. Every one has had it, and you never know who's going to be next. It seems to get the big strong ones first. Mr. Hanby, the Methodist minister, died last week. Pneumonia set in. He was a fine healthy man in the prime of life. The doctors said he was gone from the start. Helen has been laid up for several days. Says it's her old kidney trouble. They had McGuire in Thursday night. But they can't fool me, no matter what they say. Son, I hope you will never surrender to that awful craving. It has been the curse of my life. Your papa seems to go along about the same as usual. He eats well, and gets lots of sleep. I can't notice any change in him from a year ago. He may be here long after some of the rest of us are under the sod. Ben is still here. He mopes around the house all day and complains of having no appetite. I think he needs to get to work again doing something that will take his mind off himself. There are only a few people left in the house. Mrs. Pert and Miss Newton hang on as usual. The Crosbys have gone back to Miami. If it gets much colder here I'll just pack up and go too. I guess I must be getting old. I can't stand the cold the way I could when I was young. I want you to buy yourself a good warm overcoat before the winter sets in. You must also eat plenty of good substantial food. Don't squander your money but . . ."
He heard nothing more for several weeks. Then, one drizzling evening at six o'clock, when he returned to the room that he occupied with Heston, he found a telegram. It read: "Come home at once. Ben has pneumonia. Mother."
35
There was no train until the next day. Heston quieted him during the evening with a stiff drink of gin manufactured from alcohol taken from the medical laboratory. Eugene was silent and babbled inco
herently by starts: he asked the medical student a hundred questions about the progress and action of the disease.
"If it were double pneumonia she would have said so. Doesn't it seem that way to you? Hey?" he demanded feverishly.
"I should think so," said Heston. He was a kind and quiet boy.
Eugene went to Exeter the next morning to catch the train. All through a dreary gray afternoon it pounded across the sodden State. Then, there was a change and a terrible wait of several hours at a junction. Finally, as dark came, he was being borne again toward the hills.
Within his berth he lay with hot sleepless eyes, staring out at the black mass of the earth, the bulk of the hills. Finally, in the hours after midnight, he dropped into a nervous doze. He was wakened by the clatter of the trucks as they began to enter the Altamont yards. Dazed, half-dressed, he was roused by the grinding halt, and a moment later was looking out through the curtains into the grave faces of Luke and Hugh Barton.
"Ben's very sick," said Hugh Barton.
Eugene pulled on his shoes and dropped to the floor, stuffing his collar and tie into a coat pocket.
"Let's go," he said. "I'm ready."
They went softly down the aisle, amid the long dark snores of the sleepers. As they walked through the empty station toward Hugh Barton's car, Eugene said to the sailor:
"When did you get home, Luke?"
"I came in last night," he said. "I've been here only a few hours."
It was half-past three in the morning. The ugly station settlement lay fixed and horrible, like something in a dream. His strange and sudden return to it heightened his feeling of unreality. In one of the cars lined at the station curbing, the driver lay huddled below his blanket. In the Greek's lunchroom a man sat sprawled faced downward on the counter. The lights were dull and weary: a few burned with slow lust in the cheap station-hotels.