Thomas Wolfe: Of Time and the River, You Can't Go Home Again & Look Homeward, Angel. Thomas Wolfe
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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