Look Homeward, Angel

by Thomas Wolfe

  But, two or three days before his departure, Luke, who was taking Gant to Baltimore the next day, thrust a sheet of typed paper into his hand.

  "What is it?" he asked, looking at it with sullen suspicion.

  "Oh, just a little form Hugh wants you to sign, in case anything should happen. It's a release."

  "A release from what?" said Eugene, staring at it.

  Then, as his mind picked its way slowly through the glib jargon of the law, he saw that the paper was an acknowledgment that he had already received the sum of five thousand dollars in consideration of college fees and expenses. He lifted his scowling face to his brother. Luke looked at him for a moment, then burst into a crazy whah-whah, digging him in the ribs. Eugene grinned sullenly, and said:

  "Give me your pen."

  He signed the paper and gave it back to his brother with a feeling of sad triumph.

  "Whah-whah! Now you've done it!" said Luke, with witless guffaw.

  "Yes," said Eugene, "and you think me a fool for it. But I'd rather be done now than later. That's my release, not yours."

  He thought of Hugh Barton's grave foxy face. There was no victory for him there and he knew it. After all, he thought, I have my ticket and the money for my escape in my pocket. Now, I am done with it cleanly. It's a good ending, after all.

  When Eliza heard of this occurrence, she protested sharply:

  "Why here!" she said. "They've no right to do that. The child's still a minor. Your papa always said he intended to give him his education."

  Then, after a thoughtful pause, she said doubtfully: "Well, we'll see, then. I've promised to send him for a year."

  In the darkness by the house, Eugene clutched at his throat. He wept for all the lovely people who would not come again.

  Eliza stood upon the porch, her hands clasped loosely across her stomach. Eugene was leaving the house and going toward the town. It was the day before his departure; dusk was coming on, the hills were blooming in strange purple dusk. Eliza watched him go.

  "Spruce up there, boy!" she called. "Spruce up! Throw your shoulders back!"

  In the dark he knew that she was smiling tremulously at him, pursing her lips. She caught his low mutter of annoyance:

  "Why, yes," she said, nodding briskly. "I'd show them! I'd act as if I thought I was Somebody. Son," she said more gravely, with a sudden change from her tremulous banter, "it worries me to see you walk like that. You'll get lung-trouble as sure as you're born if you go all humped over. That's one thing about your papa; he always carried himself as straight as a rod. Of course, he's not as straight now as he used to be--as the fellow says" (she smiled tremulously)--"I reckon we all have a tendency to shrink up a little as we get older. But in his young days there wasn't a straighter man in town."

  And then the terrible silence came between them again. He had turned sullenly upon her while she talked. Indecisively she stopped, peered down at him with white pursed face, and in that silence, behind the trivial arras of her talk, he heard the bitter song of all her life.

  The marvellous hills were blooming in the dusk. Eliza pursed her lips reflectively a moment, then continued:

  "Well, when you get way up there--as the fellow says--in Yankeedom, you want to look up your Uncle Emerson and all your Boston kin. Your Aunt Lucy took a great liking to you when they were down here--they always said they'd be glad to see any of us if we ever came up--when you're a stranger in a strange land it's mighty good sometimes to have some one you know. And say--when you see your Uncle Emerson, you might just tell him not to be surprised to see me at any time now" (she nodded pertly at him)--"I reckon I can pick right up and light out the same as the next fellow when I get ready--I may just pack up and come--without saying a word to any one--I'm not going to spend all my days slaving away in the kitchen--it don't pay--if I can turn a couple of trades here this Fall, I may start out to see the world like I always intended to?I was talking to Cash Rankin about it the other day--'Why, Mrs. Gant,' he said, 'if I had your head I'd be a rich man in five years--you're the best trader in this town,' he said. 'Don't you talk to me about any more trades,' I said--'when I get rid of what I've got now I'm going to get out of it, and not even listen to any one who says real-estate to me--we can't take any of it with us, Cash,' I said--'there are no pockets in shrouds and we only need six feet of earth to bury us in the end--so I'm going to pull out and begin to enjoy life--or as the feller says--before it's too late'--'Well, I don't know that I blame you, Mrs. Gant,' he said--'I reckon you're right--we can't take any of it with us,' he said--'and besides, even if we could, what good would it do us where we're goin'?'--Now here" (she addressed Eugene with sudden change, with the old looser masculine gesture of her hand)--"here's the thing I'm going to do--you know that lot I told you I owned on Sunset Crescent--"

  And now the terrible silence came between them once again.

  The marvellous hills were blooming in the dusk. We shall not come again. We never shall come back again.

  Without speech now they faced each other, without speech they knew each other. In a moment Eliza turned quickly from him and with the queer unsteady steps with which she had gone out from the room where Ben lay dying, she moved toward the door.

  He rushed back across the walk and with a single bound took the steps that mounted to the porch. He caught the rough hands that she held clasped across her body, and drew them swiftly, fiercely, to his breast.

  "Good-bye," he muttered harshly. "Good-bye! Good-bye, mama!" A wild strange cry, like that of a beast in pain, was torn from his throat. His eyes were blind with tears; he tried to speak, to get into a word, a phrase, all the pain, the beauty, and the wonder of their lives--every step of that terrible voyage which his incredible memory and intuition took back to the dwelling of her womb. But no word came, no word could come; he kept crying hoarsely again and again, "Good-bye, good-bye."

  She understood, she knew all he felt and wanted to say, her small weak eyes were wet as his with tears, her face was twisted in the painful grimace of sorrow, and she kept saying:

  "Poor child! Poor child! Poor child!" Then she whispered huskily, faintly: "We must try to love one another."

  The terrible and beautiful sentence, the last, the final wisdom that the earth can give, is remembered at the end, is spoken too late, wearily. It stands there, awful and untraduced, above the dusty racket of our lives. No forgetting, no forgiving, no denying, no explaining, no hating.

  O mortal and perishing love, born with this flesh and dying with this brain, your memory will haunt the earth forever.

  And now the voyage out. Where?

  40

  The Square lay under blazing moonlight. The fountain pulsed with a steady breezeless jet: the water fell upon the pool with a punctual slap. No one came into the Square.

  The chimes of the bank's clock struck the quarter after three as Eugene entered from the northern edge, by Academy Street.

  He came slowly over past the fire department and the City Hall. On Gant's corner, the Square dipped sharply down toward Niggertown, as if it had been bent at the edge.

  Eugene saw his father's name, faded, on the old brick in moonlight. On the stone porch of the shop, the angels held their marble posture. They seemed to have frozen, in the moonlight.

  Leaning against the iron railing of the porch, above the sidewalk, a man stood smoking. Troubled and a little afraid, Eugene came over. Slowly, he mounted the long wooden steps, looking carefully at the man's face. It was half-obscured in shadow.

  "Is there anybody there?" said Eugene.

  No one answered.

  But, as Eugene reached the top, he saw that the man was Ben.

  Ben stared at him a moment without speaking. Although Eugene could not see his face very well under the obscuring shadow of his gray felt hat, he knew that he was scowling.

  "Ben?" said Eugene doubtfully, faltering a little on the top step. "Is it you, Ben?"

  "Yes," said Ben. In a moment, he added in a surly voice: "Who did you th
ink it was, you little idiot?"

  "I wasn't sure," said Eugene somewhat timidly. "I couldn't see your face."

  They were silent a moment. Then Eugene, clearing his throat in his embarrassment, said: "I thought you were dead, Ben."

  "Ah-h!" said Ben contemptuously, jerking his head sharply upward. "Listen to this, won't you?"

  He drew deeply on his cigarette: the spiral fumes coiled out and melted in the moon-bright silence.

  "No," he said in a moment, quietly. "No, I am not dead."

  Eugene came up on the porch and sat down on a limestone base, up-ended. Ben turned, in a moment, and climbed up on the rail, bending forward comfortably upon his knees.

  Eugene fumbled in his pockets for a cigarette, with fingers that were stiff and trembling. He was not frightened: he was speechless with wonder and strong eagerness, and afraid to betray his thoughts to ridicule. He lighted a cigarette. Presently he said, painfully, hesitantly, in apology:

  "Ben, are you a ghost?"

  Ben did not mock.

  "No," he said. "I am not a ghost."

  There was silence again, while Eugene sought timorously for words.

  "I hope," he began presently, with a small cracked laugh, "I hope, then, this doesn't mean that I'm crazy?"

  "Why not?" said Ben, with a swift flickering grin. "Of course you're crazy."

  "Then," said Eugene slowly, "I'm imagining all this?"

  "In heaven's name!" Ben cried irritably. "How should I know? Imagining all what?"

  "What I mean," said Eugene, "is, are we here talking together, or not?"

  "Don't ask me," said Ben. "How should I know?"

  With a strong rustle of marble and a cold sigh of weariness, the angel nearest Eugene moved her stone foot and lifted her arm to a higher balance. The slender lily stipe shook stiffly in her elegant cold fingers.

  "Did you see that?" Eugene cried excitedly.

  "Did I see what?" said Ben, annoyed.

  "Th-th-that angel there!" Eugene chattered, pointing with a trembling finger. "Did you see it move? It lifted its arm."

  "What of it?" Ben asked irritably. "It has a right to, hasn't it? You know," he added with biting sarcasm, "there's no law against an angel lifting its arm if it wants to."

  "No, I suppose not," Eugene admitted slowly, after a moment. "Only, I've always heard--"

  "Ah! Do you believe all you hear, fool?" Ben cried fiercely. "Because," he added more calmly, in a moment, drawing on his cigarette, "you're in a bad way if you do."

  There was again silence while they smoked. Then Ben said:

  "When are you leaving, 'Gene?"

  "To-morrow," Eugene answered.

  "Do you know why you are going, or are you just taking a ride on the train?"

  "I know! Of course--I know why I'm going!" Eugene said angrily, confused. He stopped abruptly, bewildered, chastened. Ben continued to scowl at him. Then, quietly, with humility, Eugene said:

  "No, Ben. I don't know why I'm going. Perhaps you're right. Perhaps I just want a ride on the train."

  "When are you coming back, 'Gene?" said Ben.

  "Why--at the end of the year, I think," Eugene answered.

  "No," said Ben, "you're not."

  "What do you mean, Ben?" Eugene said, troubled.

  "You're not coming back, 'Gene," said Ben softly. "Do you know that?"

  There was a pause.

  "Yes," said Eugene, "I know it."

  "Why aren't you coming back?" said Ben.

  Eugene caught fiercely at the neckband of his shirt with a clawed hand.

  "I want to go! Do you hear!" he cried.

  "Yes," said Ben. "So did I. Why do you want to go?"

  "There's nothing here for me," Eugene muttered.

  "How long have you felt like this?" said Ben.

  "Always," said Eugene. "As long as I can remember. But I didn't know about it until you--" He stopped.

  "Until I what?" said Ben.

  There was a pause.

  "You are dead, Ben," Eugene muttered. "You must be dead. I saw you die, Ben." His voice rose sharply. "I tell you, I saw you die. Don't you remember? The front room upstairs that the dentist's wife has now? Don't you remember, Ben? Coker, Helen, Bessie Gant who nursed you, Mrs. Pert? The oxygen tank? I tried to hold your hands together when they gave it to you." His voice rose to a scream. "Don't you remember? I tell you, you are dead, Ben."

  "Fool," said Ben fiercely. "I am not dead."

  There was a silence.

  "Then," said Eugene very slowly, "which of us is the ghost, I wonder?"

  Ben did not answer.

  "Is this the Square, Ben? Is it you I'm talking to? Am I really here or not? And is this moonlight in the Square? Has all this happened?"

  "How should I know?" said Ben again.

  Within Gant's shop there was the ponderous tread of marble feet. Eugene leaped up and peered through the broad sheet of Jannadeau's dirty window. Upon his desk the strewn vitals of a watch winked with a thousand tiny points of bluish light. And beyond the jeweller's fenced space, where moonlight streamed into the ware-room through the tall side-window, the angels were walking to and fro like huge wound dolls of stone. The long cold pleats of their raiment rang with brittle clangor; their full decent breasts wagged in stony rhythms, and through the moonlight, with clashing wings the marble cherubim flew round and round. With cold ewe-bleatings the carved lambs grazed stiffly across the moon-drenched aisle.

  "Do you see it?" cried Eugene. "Do you see it, Ben?"

  "Yes," said Ben. "What about it? They have a right to, haven't they?"

  "Not here! Not here!" said Eugene passionately. "It's not right, here! My God, this is the Square! There's the fountain! There's the City Hall! There's the Greek's lunch-room."

  The bank-chimes struck the half hour.

  "And there's the bank," he cried.

  "That makes no difference," said Ben.

  "Yes," said Eugene, "it does!"

  I am thy father's spirit, doomed for a certain term to walk the night--

  "But not here! Not here, Ben!" said Eugene.

  "Where?" said Ben wearily.

  "In Babylon! In Thebes! In all the other places. But not here!" Eugene answered with growing passion. "There is a place where all things happen! But not here, Ben!"

  My gods, with bird-cries in the sun, hang in the sky.

  "Not here, Ben! It is not right!" Eugene said again.

  The manifold gods of Babylon. Then, for a moment, Eugene stared at the dark figure on the rail, muttering in protest and disbelief: "Ghost! Ghost!"

  "Fool," said Ben again, "I tell you I am not a ghost."

  "Then, what are you?" said Eugene with strong excitement. "You are dead, Ben."

  In a moment, more quietly, he added: "Or do men die?"

  "How should I know," said Ben.

  "They say papa is dying. Did you know that, Ben?" Eugene asked.

  "Yes," said Ben.

  "They have bought his shop. They are going to tear it down and put up a skyscraper here."

  "Yes," said Ben, "I know it."

  We shall not come again. We never shall come back again.

  "Everything is going. Everything changes and passes away. To-morrow I shall be gone and this--" he stopped.

  "This--what?" said Ben.

  "This will be gone or--O God! Did all this happen?" cried Eugene.

  "How should I know, fool?" cried Ben angrily.

  "What happens, Ben? What really happens?" said Eugene. "Can you remember some of the same things that I do? I have forgotten the old faces. Where are they, Ben? What were their names? I forget the names of people I knew for years. I get their faces mixed. I get their heads stuck on other people's bodies. I think one man has said what another said. And I forget--forget. There is something I have lost and have forgotten. I can't remember, Ben."

  "What do you want to remember?" said Ben.

  A stone, a leaf, an unfound door. And the forgotten faces.

  "I have forgotten n
ames. I have forgotten faces. And I remember little things," said Eugene. "I remember the fly I swallowed on the peach, and the little boys on tricycles at Saint Louis, and the mole on Grover's neck, and the Lackawanna freight-car, number 16356, on a siding near Gulfport. Once, in Norfolk, an Australian soldier on his way to France asked me the way to a ship; I remember that man's face."

  He stared for an answer into the shadow of Ben's face, and then he turned his moon-bright eyes upon the Square.

  And for a moment all the silver space was printed with the thousand forms of himself and Ben. There, by the corner in from Academy Street, Eugene watched his own approach; there, by the City Hall, he strode with lifted knees; there, by the curb upon the step, he stood, peopling the night with the great lost legion of himself--the thousand forms that came, that passed, that wove and shifted in unending change, and that remained unchanging Him.

  And through the Square, unwoven from lost time, the fierce bright horde of Ben spun in and out its deathless loom. Ben, in a thousand moments, walked the Square: Ben of the lost years, the forgotten days, the unremembered hours; prowled by the moonlit faé vanished, returned, left and rejoined himself, was one and many--deathless Ben in search of the lost dead lusts, the finished enterprise, the unfound door--unchanging Ben multiplying himself in form, by all the brick faé entering and coming out.

  And as Eugene watched the army of himself and Ben, which were not ghosts, and which were lost, he saw himself--his son, his boy, his lost and virgin flesh--come over past the fountain, leaning against the loaded canvas bag, and walking down with rapid crippled stride past Gant's toward Niggertown in young pre-natal dawn. And as he passed the porch where he sat watching, he saw the lost child-face below the lumpy ragged cap, drugged in the magic of unheard music, listening for the far-forested horn-note, the speechless almost captured pass-word. The fast boy-hands folded the fresh sheets, but the fabulous lost face went by, steeped in its incantations.

  Eugene leaped to the railing.

  "You! You! My son! My child! Come back! Come back!"

  His voice strangled in his throat: the boy had gone, leaving the memory of his bewitched and listening face turned to the hidden world. O lost!