The Sound of Thunder

by Taylor Caldwell

  “I love all my children but I have loved Edward the best,” Maria said, in a voice without emotion. “And it is the tendency of love to oppress and demand. Though Edward is the only one who can help himself, I am partly guilty of his spiritual sickness and his suffering. Wait.” She lumbered to her feet, raising herself out of her chair with weighty effort, and went into her bedroom. She brought out a flat parcel tied with tissue paper covered with brown paper. She sat down and slowly unfastened it, while David watched. She then handed him a stiff sheet of drawing paper, brown at the edges, and brittle. David looked at it in wonderment. Even though many years had obviously passed since this water color had been painted, the colors were vehement and alive. It was a painting of a young hen, vigorously soft yet strong, lifted on her toes as if preparing to fly. “Why, this is the best thing Ralph has ever done!” said David admiringly. “Even if he must have done it when he was a child.” He suddenly frowned, trying to remember something. “Wasn’t it Ed’s chicken—Betsy? I seem to recall his having a chicken, a pet.”

  Maria smiled slightly. “Yes.” The smile vanished. “Little Ralph let her out of her cage to paint her, and she was caught by a cat. Edward was heartbroken. I don’t think he ever forgave any of us; he began to change then. A small thing, a little hen, but a small door can imprison, or free, as well as a large door.” She paused. “Ralph painted the hen. But Edward, when he saw the painting, which I wished to give him, took up the paints himself and brought life to wood. You are astonished. Perhaps you do not know that your brother is a great genius, a strong and very vital genius.”

  “I had a feeling about it,” said David, looking more closely at the picture.

  “Good. But you and I are the only ones who know. He has an instinct for art, for science, for writing. For many things. In any of them, he would have acquired an imposing reputation and fame. None of you can match him in anything.”

  David stared at her. Then suddenly his face kindled with a great black anger. “And you let him waste himself! You never helped him, as you helped us! We were the geniuses, we—”

  “Were weak,” said Maria, interrupting. Her eyes were cold and fixed. “And I was cruel. But realistic. We needed money for our children, which we did not have, and which we would never have had, had it not been for my son, Edward. What talents you possess, and they are feeble, but still they are talents, were nurtured by the money Edward made. I am a Von Brunner; I could not bear for my children to be mediocrities.”

  “But we are,” said David, bluntly. He was still blazing with quiet but enormous anger. “And you let—”

  “Wait,” said Maria. She picked up her knitting, and her needles clicked for some moments, the fire crackling in the background. “A mother knows her children. I know much about all of you.”

  David looked at her, stunned. She raised her eyes, and they were almost gentle.

  “Without Edward’s help and money, what would you be now, my child? Perhaps a worker in a small delicatessen.”

  David stood up and agitatedly began to pace the room, his tall and elegant body passing and repassing before the fire while his mother placidly knitted. Then he swung to her and exclaimed, “Yes! We didn’t deserve Ed. Why should he have been sacrificed for us? We’re weak. Why should the strong be sacrificed for us?”

  Maria said thoughtfully, not looking up from her knitting, “In the history of the world the strong have always been apparently victimized for the weak. It is the weak who protect themselves from the strong, with more and more punitive laws and, at the last, by shrill violence. But the strong would never be violent; they pursue their way like the gods in Wagner’s operas, knowing only themselves, unaware of anything but their intrinsic power. And so they inspire the envy and resentment and hatred of the weak, who revenge themselves on what they cannot understand, and which is too great and lofty for their understanding. The historians ignore this, or do not know it, or are weaklings taking their own revenge. The strong are often magnanimous. They often permit themselves, in the name of humanity, to be tied by Lilliputian bonds. But strength constrained and bereft does not increase the stature of the weak.”

  David said bitterly, “That’s all very nice. We’re Lilliputians and we’ve put ropes around Ed. I’ve known that since I was fifteen or sixteen. Do you think that’s fair?”

  Maria’s hands rested on her knitting. “Edward is not magnanimous. You think you have tied him. But you are the tied, my son. All of you. That is Edward’s own revenge. He will never be free until you all go free, until you have escaped him. Why do you not escape him?”

  David said, “I don’t know about the others. But I don’t exploit Ed now. And he’s so sure I’m a gifted concert pianist, and he’s satisfying himself vicariously in me, that I can’t tell him the truth—I won’t hurt him. I’ll never hurt him.” He spoke with quiet passion.

  Maria nodded. “Not because of Margaret; he knows she did not love you. But because he would realize that you escaped him a long time ago. He dislikes you because his intuitive nature realizes that he never held you, though he was exploited for you.” She added, “There are the magnanimous strong, and there are the strong who are unforgiving. Edward is the last.”

  David felt that they were speaking of cobwebs that could be felt chillingly but not seen. His mother said, “I early learned that Edward had a genius for business as well as other gifts. It was necessary that, for all your sakes, he develop the first. He is deluding himself. He could be happy if he could know himself.”

  “There’s more to this damnable situation,” said David, with wrath. “It isn’t as simple as you say.”

  “You are quite right, David. Nothing is ever as simple as any of us say.”

  David picked up the old water color again, and the tints blurred before his eyes. “What a waste!” he said. “What a terrible waste!”

  Maria looked at him. “Do you not know? Edward is doing what he wished to do, though he does not understand that. The strong are never really bound by the weak, even if they believe so. They always do what they want. Paternalism is always given, though the weak by their nature seem to demand it. They merely accept it after it is an accomplished fact.”

  “But Ed knows he’s been exploited, and that’s why he hates us.”

  “In part, yes. But he agreed to the exploitation, because it gave him power over you. His hatred is his private means of hiding the truth from himself. He is just; it would destroy him, perhaps, if he understood. He wanted what he has, and he also wanted more. Despite his ragings against all of you, he is satisfying the whole range of his genius. When you disappoint him, you are striking at his hunger for satisfaction.”

  “There’s more to this,” David repeated. “There’s something else.”

  “Certainly,” said Maria. “And it escapes me, though I have thought.”

  She wrapped up the picture again and put it away.

  On Christmas Eve the entire family, with the exception of Heinrich, gathered for a festive dinner before church. Edward sat at the head of the huge and gleaming table, the candlelight not softening his drawn and exhausted face and graying hair. He looked much older than his oldest brother, David, and his eyes were stained with the same purplish shadow that hovered over his broad lips. He seemed out of place in that ponderous but stately room, in his old clothing, creased shirt, and rumpled tie. Margaret, in blue velvet, sat at the foot of the table. She and Edward were the only silent ones, Edward abstracted and brutally remote, and Margaret thinking of no one but her husband and almost unaware of anyone else. The blue velvet made her flesh seem whiter and more translucent than usual, but David saw that she was also thinner and appeared sad. Her beautiful eyes fixed themselves frequently on Edward, almost imploringly.

  Ralph ate heartily and amused his family with anecdotes about Paris. His strong auburn hair was like filaments of living wire, rising in a crest above his flushed forehead, which was always slightly damp. He was definitely becoming quite fat; his full and lustful feature
s were a brighter pink than his forehead, and his full mouth was red. Violette sat beside him, trim and merry, in chic black velvet and diamonds. (David eyed the jewelry with suspicion.) Her black curls were modishly short, gaily poised on the top of her head. She was worldly and blithe and knowing in that company of “innocent” Americans. She was always highly amused by this innocence, which seemed to her stupid and childish and too redolent of soap, bath brushes, and rude health. Even little French children, she would think, are more sophisticated than American captains of industry. There is no subtlety in Americans, no true and polished ruthlessness. Ralph was very foolish; he said that it was just that Americans were not depraved.

  Violette let her saucy eyes travel along the table. There was Sylvia, the artiste, the gifted modiste, in slim black silk, haughty and sharp-tongued and embittered, and so very thin, and beside her that most impossible dolt, her husband, the purported violinist, Ellis Lang. Violette laughed in herself, silently. He was a man made of unpainted wood, and he was the color of wood, and so very humble among the Engers! So fearful of offending them, so stammering, so meek. He is afraid to the heart, Violette thought, highly diverted, and he is more afraid of Sylvia than of anyone else. Violette and Ralph, on the way home from Paris, had visited the Langs in New York, and even Violette had been impressed by the suave magnificence of the apartment in which they lived. Ellis was at the Juilliard School of Music, but only precariously, Violette thought merrily. She was also annoyed; such a waste of money!

  Gregory, with his assumption of the debonair, and his restless and merciless eyes, and his expensive clothing and jewelry, and his mocking voice, and his curious resemblance to Edward, and his painful attempt at David’s elegance: Violette had never heard of the editor of The City, but she would have agreed with his verdict on Edward and Gregory: “Portrait in iron, copied in wax.” Gregory was never kind or considerate or sympathetic; his eyes roved the table like predatory beetles, and as they touched any member of the family they seemed to jump in a jeering dance. He thinks himself very sophisticated, Violette thought, without rancor but only with amusement. On the contrary, he is a vicious little boy, with a limited if poisonous mind. A mind like a thin and cutting edge, which can carve small soft pieces of wood very cunningly but would break on marble. Why was he never still? His hands played with the silverware; his eyes roamed; his shoulders twitched.

  David. Violette had a secret passion for David, whom she considered the only civilized member of the family. What grace, what black charm, what pent vehemence! One would almost believe he was French. He had such beautiful, nervous hands, yet he never moved them aimlessly, as did Gregory. Control, noble assurance. Violette was intrigued by the way David insistently watched Edward, as if trying to make his thoughts reach that big and somber man. Violette did not share the family’s derision about Edward. She recognized the man of power, and respected him, and often wondered how it would be to have such a man make love to a woman. She knew he could not tolerate her, and that he was barely polite to her, and that he seemed to know all about her. This did not vex the young Frenchwoman; rather, it excited her. She wondered what David was trying to say to his brother, who ignored him. She also wondered why Edward could not speak to David in a civil fashion.

  Violette’s eyes moved to Margaret. So beautiful, she thought without envy. But beautiful as a statue is beautiful, not knowing its own perfection. If Margaret had been a Frenchwoman, she would have had a salon, and many lovers, and a charming and vivacious life. But she was content to stay here, in this dull city, in this very dull house, brooding like a hen over her chickens, with eyes for no one but her husband. How very lightless and uninspiring. But so typical of American women, who had no flair, no wit, no joy, no true intellect, no power to enjoy, and had such shrill and unpleasant voices, like the voices of immature children. However, Violette had to admit that Margaret’s voice was low and gentle and possessed of good diction. Violette’s English had improved remarkably, for she had taken lessons from an English lady in Paris. She could not understand why the vocabularies of American women, even those who were well educated, were so limited and colorless. They are worse than the English ladies, Violette commented. Have they taken the American idea of democracy too seriously?

  Ralph was, as usual, too obtuse to feel the air of constraint about the dining table. He loved himself and his voice. He talked largely; he told crude and sometimes improper jokes. He even punned, which David thought unpardonable. He was like a big, red-faced, boisterous child. It was strange that such a hearty young man should have such fine and clever hands, nimble hands with the spatulate tips of an artist or a scientist. But he is no artist, thought David, bitterly, looking again at Edward.

  The conversation, when not dominated by Ralph, was disjointed, as if everyone were speaking only to himself and not listening to anyone else. Violette was aware of the tensions in the room, which rose over the tinkle of silver on the best china, and the voices.

  Margaret said to her, “Are you taking little André to midnight Mass, Violette?”

  Violette stared at her, her eyes dancing. “No, no, my dear.” Her tongue flicked against her lips, as if with secret laughter. “I have never done so. It is strange you should ask me. Yes, I am Catholique. But I have a husband who is not dead. We are divorced. And then I married a Protestant, and that is against the Church, and most against because of the divorce and the living husband.” She laughed joyously. “I am not really married to this, my Ralph. It is only a civil marriage. I am living in naughtiness!”

  Margaret smiled painfully. “But André was baptized by Father Jahle.”

  Violette looked very demure. “Yes, yes. Shall I deprive him of baptism? No, no. But I shall not force him to church, to Mass, to the Sacraments, I am a heathen, yes?”

  “Will you let us take him, then, to church with us tonight?”

  Violette tossed her brisk curls in negation. “No, no. That would be a mortal sin. I must consider my son’s soul.” She smiled at Margaret’s puzzled face with pure enjoyment. How naïve were these Americans!

  “Stop teasing, Vi,” said Ralph, annoyed not because of what his wife was saying but because Margaret’s interruption had destroyed the point of a joke he had been telling. It had escaped him that no one had been listening; it was enough for him to talk.

  A blizzard had-begun half an hour ago. The gale pounded like a solid mass against the windows. Margaret worried about the children; Gertrude was recovering from a sore throat and Robert had been peevish tonight, unusual for the gentle and amiable boy. Margaret never permitted anyone to interfere with her about the children, except Maria, and that was only with regard to the attendance at church on Christmas Eve. It was a family occasion; only desperate illness could intervene. That was the law of the household, which only Edward dared disobey or question, or, occasionally, David, and, of course, Violette, who immediately became a “Catholique” whenever it served her purpose. During her absence the past two years little André had been taken to the Engers’ church regularly, something of which Margaret disapproved highly and over which she had quarreled with Maria. “The boy should be instructed in his baptized religion, Mother Enger,” she had said. “But he is never instructed,” Maria had replied, coldly. “Catholique” or not, Violette tactfully refrained on commenting on the situation.

  “I do not envy you, my dears,” said Violette tonight as a particularly heavy wave of wind and snow assaulted the long dining-room windows. “I shall be snug and warm in my room; I shall read the good and inspiring book. And you will be in the cold. What a climate this is in America.” She shivered elaborately.

  The family, with the exception of David, Edward, André, and Violette, left for church soon after the dinner. Violette sat with her son in her warm little sitting room, near a very agreeable fire. She spoke to him in French, grateful to Margaret that she had volunteered, with excellent results, to instruct the boy in his mother’s language.

  André told his mother, whom he thought
delightful and fascinating for all her neglect of him, about the affairs of the family over the past two years. He sat at her feet, like an elf perched on a footstool, his big eyes shining with malice and pleasure. Tante Margaret had taken him for catechism instruction a number of times, secretly, to that very old, and very foolish, Abbe Jahle. No, no! No one knew at all. André and Violette laughed together, clapping their small hands with glee. The poor Tante Margaret, who was so solemn about matters. André had given her his promise that he would tell no others of the family, and she had appeared most uncomfortable at having to extract the promise. “Their religion is so without charm,” said Violette, speaking to her son as to an equal in age. “No élan. No beauty. It is like the English suet pudding, heavy on the heart. I am pleased, my child, though one should never take religion seriously. It can interfere with a pleasant life.

  “And now about the grandfather. It is well? You are certain, André?”

  “Yes, Mama. Before he was stricken, I was the very good, the very loving grandson. There was the first year, before I went to school with Robert. The old man is lonely, because he is so stupid. But I noticed him and followed him, and sometimes went with him to that very unfragrant shop, and I sat on the counters and watched the money come in, and was much petted by the clerks. Grandfather sat in his office and did nothing, or he came into the shop, and the customers liked him, but he began to forget their names. Ah, yes, I was the good and loving grandson, and Grandfather patted my head. I was like Uncle Edward, he said. I had the heart and the feeling.”

  Violette rolled up her eyes in mock horror. “I trust not, my dear. There is a man without joy, though I confess he is very potent. Where would we be if there was no Uncle Edward? It is terrifying to contemplate.” She looked at André intently. “You are just eight years old. How can one so young know if the grandfather was generous?”

  André’s eyes took on a feral glow. “It is because the grandfather called me ‘Eddie’ very often, and said the shop would be mine, as he had promised. He was failing then.”