OF TIME AND THE RIVER

by Thomas Wolfe

  "What!" the humorist exclaimed in mock astonishment. "You mean you left something behind! Why, you hardly ate enough to feed an elephant! You'll be getting all run down if you starve yourself this way!"--and the jester winked again, and the old women of his audience cackled aridly with appreciative laughter.

  "--Well, I know," the glutton said regretfully, "I just hated to see that good apple-pie go to waste--oh-h! I wish you could have tasted it, Mrs. Martin,--it was simply dee-licious--'What's the matter?' the girl says to me--the waitress, you know--'Don't you like your pie?--I'll go get you something else if you don't like it.'--Oh! yes--" with sudden recollection--"oh, yes! she says to me, 'How'd you like some ice cream?--You can have ice cream instead of pie,' she says, 'if you'd rather have it'--'Oh-h!' I said,"--spoken with a kind of gasp, the withered old hand upon the meagre stomach--"'Oh-h!' I says, 'I couldn't!'--She had to laugh, you know, I guess the way I said it. 'Well, you got enough?' she said. 'Oh-h!' I said,"--again the faint protesting gasp, "'if I ate another mouthful, I'd pop open! Oh-h!"--Well, it made her laugh, you know, the way I said it--'I'd pop open!' I said, 'I couldn't eat another mouthful!'--'Well, just so long as you got enough!' she says. 'We like to see everyone get enough. We want you to be satisfied,' she said. 'Oh-h!' I said," the faint protesting gasp again, "'not another mouthful, my dear! I couldn't!'--But, oh-h! Mrs. Martin, if you could have seen that apple-pie! It was dee-licious! I was sorry to see it go to waste!"

  "Well," said Mrs. Martin, rather tartly, obviously a little envious of the other's rich adventure--"we had a good meal here at the hotel, too. We had some celery and olives to start off with and then we had some good pea soup and after that we had roast beef and mashed potatoes--wasn't the roast beef we had tonight delicious, Doctor Withers?" she demanded of this arbiter of taste.

  "Well," he said, smacking his dry lips together drolly, "the only complaint I had to make was that they didn't bring me the whole cow. I had to ask George for a second helping. . . . Yes, sir, if I never fare any worse than that I'll have no kick--it was a very good piece of beef--well-cooked, tender, very tasty," he said with a dry, scientific precision, and again he smacked his leathery lips together with an air of relish.

  "--Well, I thought so, too," said Mrs. Martin, nodding her head with satisfaction at this sign of his agreement "--I thought it was delicious--and then," she went on reflectively, "we had a nice lettuce and tomato salad, some biscuit tortoni and, of course," she concluded elegantly, "the demy-tassy."

  "Well, I didn't have any of the demy-tassy," said Doctor Withers, the droll wit. "None of your demy-tassy for me! No, sir! I had coffee--two big cups of it, too," he went on with satisfaction. "If I'm going to poison myself I'm going to do a good job of it--none of your little demy-tassys for me!"

  And the old women cackled aridly their dry appreciation of his wit.

  "--Good evening, Mrs. Buckles," Doctor Withers continued, getting up and bowing gallantly to a heavily built, arthritic-looking old woman who now approached the group with a stiff and gouty movement. "We missed you tonight. Did you eat in the restaurant?"

  "No," she panted in a wheezing tone, as, with a painful grunt, she lowered her heavily corseted bulk into the chair he offered her. "I didn't go down--I didn't have much appetite and I didn't want to risk it. I had them bring me something in my room--some tea and toast and a little marmalade . . . I didn't intend to come down at all," she went on in a discontented tone, "but I got tired of staying up there all alone and I thought I'd just as well--I'd be just as well off down here as I'd be up in my room," she concluded morosely.

  "And how is your cold today, Mrs. Buckles?" one of the old women now asked with a kind of lifeless sympathy. "--Do you feel better?"

  "--Oh," the old woman said morosely, uncertainly, "I suppose so. . . . I think so. . . . Yes, I think it's a little better. . . . Last night I was afraid it was getting down into my chest, but today it feels better--seems to be more in my head and throat--But I don't know," she muttered in a sullen and embittered tone, "it's that room they've given me. I'll always have it as long as I've got to live there in that room. I'll never get any better till I get my old room back."

  "Did you do what I told you to do?" asked Doctor Withers. "Did you go and dose yourself the way I told you?"

  "--No--well," she said indefinitely, "I've been drinking lots of water and trying a remedy a friend of mine down at the Hotel Gridly told me about--it's a new thing called Inhalo; all you got to do is put it up your nose and breathe it in--she said it did her more good than anything she'd ever tried."

  "I never heard of it," said Doctor Withers sourly. "Whatever it is, it won't cure your cold. No, sir!" He shook his head grimly. "Now, I didn't practise medicine for forty years without finding out something about colds! Now, I don't care anything about your Inhalos or Breathos or Spray-Your-Throatos, or whatever they may call 'em--any of these newfangled remedies. The only way to get rid of a cold is to have a thorough cleaning-out, and the only way to get a thorough cleaning-out is to dose yourself with castor oil, the way I told you to.--Now you can do as you please," he said sourly, with a constricted pressure of his thin convex mouth, "it's no business of mine what you do--if you want to run the risk of coming down with pneumonia it's your own affair--but if you want to get over that cold you'll take my advice."

  "Well," the old woman muttered in her tone of sullen discontent. "--It's that room I'm in. That's the trouble. I've hated that room ever since they put me in there. I know if I could get my old room back I'd be all right again."

  "Then why don't you ask Mr. Betts to give it back to you?" said Mrs. Martin. "I'm sure if you went to him and told him that you wanted it, he'd let you have it."

  "No, he wouldn't!" said Mrs. Buckles bitterly. "I've been to him--I've asked him. He paid no attention to me--tried to tell me I was better off where I was, that it was a better room, a better bargain!--Here I've been living at this place for eight years now, but do you think they show me any consideration? No," she cried bitterly, "they're all alike nowadays--out for everything they can get--it's grab, grab, grab--and they don't care who you are or how long they've known you--if they can get five cents more from someone else, why, out you go! . . . When I came back here from Florida last spring I found my old room taken. . . . I went to Mr. Betts a dozen times and asked to have it back and he always put me off--told me there were some people in there who were leaving soon and I could have it just as soon as they moved out. . . . That was all a put-up job," she said resentfully. "He didn't mean a word of it. I see now that he never had any intention of giving me my old room. . . . No! They've just found that they can get a dollar or two more a week for it from these fly-by-nights than I could afford to pay--and so, of course, I'm the one that gets turned out!" she said. "That's the way it goes nowadays!"

  "Well," said Mrs. Martin a trifle acidly, "I'm sure if you went to Mr. Betts in the right way you could get your old room back. He's always done everything I ever asked him to do for me. But, of course," she said pointedly, "you've got to approach him in the right way."

  "Oh-h!" said old Mrs. Grey rapturously, "I think Mr. Betts is the nicest manager they've ever had here--so pleasant, so good-natured! so willing to oblige! Now that other man they had here before he came--what was his name?" she said impatiently. "--Mason, or Watson, or Clarkson--something like that--"

  "Wilson," said Doctor Withers.

  "--Oh, yes--Wilson!" said Mrs. Grey. "That's it--Wilson! I never liked him at all," she said with an accent of scornful depreciation. "You could never get anything out of Wilson. He never did anything you wanted him to do. But Mr. Betts!--oh-h! I think Mr. Betts is a lovely manager!"

  "Well, I haven't found him so," said Mrs. Buckles grimly. "I liked Wilson better."

  "Oh, I don't agree with you, Mrs. Buckles," Mrs. Grey said with a stony and somewhat hostile emphasis. "I don't ag-gree with you at all! I think there's no comparison! I like Mr. Betts so much better than I like Wilson!"

  "Well, I like Wilson
better," said Mrs. Buckles grimly, and for a moment the two old women glared at each other with bitter hostile eyes.

  "--Well," Doctor Withers broke the silence quickly in a diplomatic effort to avert an impending clash, "--what are your plans for the winter, Mrs. Buckles? What have you decided to do? Are you going to Florida again this winter?"

  "I don't know what I'll do," old Mrs. Buckles answered in a tone of sullen dejection. "I haven't decided yet. . . . I had planned to go down to Daytona Beach with Mrs. Wheelwright--that's my friend at the Hotel Gridly--she had a daughter living in Daytona and we had planned to spend the winter there in order to be near them. But now that's all fallen through," she said dejectedly. "Here, at the last moment, when all my plans were made, she decided not to go--says she likes it at the Gridly and it will be cheaper to stay on there than to make a trip to Florida and back. . . . That's the trouble with people nowadays," she said bitterly, "you can't depend on them. They never mean anything they say!" And she lapsed again into a sullen and dejected silence.

  "Why aren't you going to St. Petersburg?" said Mrs. Martin curiously after a brief pause. "I thought that's where you always spent the winter."

  "It was," said Mrs. Buckles, "until last winter. But I'll never go back there again. It's not the same place any more. I've been going to the same hotel down there for more than twenty years--it used to be a lovely place; when I went back there last winter I found the whole place changed. They had ruined it," she bitterly concluded.

  "How was that?" said Doctor Withers curiously. "What had they done to it?"

  Mrs. Buckles looked around cautiously and craftily to make sure that in this sinister melting-pot of a million listening ears, she would not be overheard, and then, bending forward painfully, with one old arthritic hand held up beside her mouth, she muttered confidingly to her listeners:

  "--I'll tell you what it is. It's the Jews! They get in everywhere," she whispered ominously. "They ruin everything! When I got down there last winter the whole place was overrun with Jews! They had ruined the place!" she hissed. "The place was ruined!"

  At this moment another old woman joined the group. She advanced slowly, leaning on a cane, smiling, and with a movement of spacious benevolence. Everything about this old woman--her big frame, slow movement, broad and tranquil brow, silvery hair parted in the middle, and her sonorous and measured speech, which came deliberately from her mouth in the periods of a cadenced rhetoric--had an imposing and majestic quality. As she approached, everyone greeted her eagerly and with obvious respect, Doctor Withers got up quickly and bent before her with almost obsequious courtesy, she was herself addressed by everyone as "Doctor," and her position among them seemed to be one of secure and tranquil authority.

  This old woman was known to everyone in the hotel as Doctor Thornton. She had been one of the first women physicians in the country and a few years before, after a long and, presumably, successful practice, she had retired to spend the remaining years of her life in the peaceful haven of the Leopold, and to bestow on man, God, nature and the whole universe around her the cadenced and benevolent reflections of her measured rhetoric. She became, by virtue of this tranquil and majestic authority that emanated from her, the centre of every group, young and old, that she approached. She was known to everyone in the hotel, everyone referred to her as "a wonderful old woman," spoke of her brilliant mind, her ripe philosophy, and her "beautiful English."

  The respect and veneration in which she was held were now instantly apparent as, with a benevolent smile, she slowly approached this company of old people. They greeted her with an eager and excited scraping of chairs, the welcoming tumult of several old voices, speaking eagerly at once: Doctor Withers himself scrambled to his feet, pushed a large chair into the circle and stood by gallantly as, with a slow and stately movement, she settled her large figure into it, and for a moment looked about her over the top of her cane with a tranquil, smiling and benevolent expression.

  "Well, Doctor!" said Mrs. Grey, almost breathlessly. "Where have you been keeping yourself all day long? We've missed you."

  The others murmured agreement to this utterance, and then leaned forward with eager attentiveness so as not to miss any of the gems of wisdom which would fall from this great woman's lips.

  For a moment Doctor Thornton regarded her interlocutor with an expression of tolerant and almost playful benevolence. Presently she spoke:

  "What have I been doing all day long?" she repeated in a tone of sonorous deliberation. "Why, my dear, I have been reading--reading," she pursued with rhythmical sonority, "in one of my favourite and most cherished volumes."

  And instantly there was for all her listeners a sense of some transforming radiance in the universe: an event of universal moment: the Doctor had been reading all day long. They looked at her with an awed stare.

  "What," Mrs. Martin nervously began, with a little giggle, "--what was it you were reading, Doctor? It must have been a good book to hold your interest all day long?"

  "It was, my dear," said Doctor Thornton sonorously and deliberately. "It was a good book. More than that, it was a great book--a magnificent work of genius to show us to what heights the mind of man may soar when he is inspired by lofty and ennobling sentiments."

  "What was this, Doctor Thornton?" Doctor Withers now inquired. "--Something of Tennyson's?"

  "No, Doctor Withers," Doctor Thornton answered sonorously, "it was not Tennyson--much as I admire the noble beauty of his poetry. I was not reading poetry, Doctor Withers," she continued, "I was reading--prose," she said. "I was reading--Ruskin!" As these momentous words fell from her lips her voice lowered with such an air of portentous significance that the last word was not so much spoken as breathed forth like an incense of devotion. "Ruskin!" she whispered solemnly again.

  And although it is doubtful if this name conveyed any definite meaning to her audience, its magical effect upon them was evident from the looks of solemn awe with which they now regarded her.

  "--Ruskin!" she said again, this time strongly, in an accent of rapturous sonority. "The noble elevation of his thought, the beautiful proportion and the ordered harmony of all the parts, the rich yet simple style, and, above all, the sane and wholesome beauty of his philosophy of art--what nobler monument to man's higher genius was ever built, my friends, than he proportioned in The Stones of Venice--itself a work of art entirely worthy of the majestic sculptures that it consecrates?"

  For a moment after the sonorous periods of that swelling rhetoric had ceased, the old people stared at her with a kind of paralysis of reverent wonder. Then old Mrs. Grey, gasping with a kind of awed astonishment, said:

  "Oh-h, Doctor Thornton, I think it's the most wonderful thing the way you keep your mind occupied all the time with all these deep and beautiful thoughts you have! I don't see how you do it! I should think you'd get yourself all tired out just by the thinking that you do."

  "Tired, my dear?" said Doctor Thornton sonorously, bestowing upon her worshipper a smile of tolerant benevolence. "How can anyone grow tired who lives and moves and breathes in this great world of ours? No, no, my dear, do not say tired. Rather say refreshed, rejuvenated, and inspired by the glorious pageant that life offers us in its unending beauty and profusion. Wherever I look," she continued, looking, "I see nothing but order and harmony in the universe. I lift my eyes unto the stars." she said majestically, at the same time lifting her face in a movement of rapturous contemplation toward the ceiling of the hotel lobby, "and feast my soul upon the infinite beauties of God's heaven, the glorious proportion of the sidereal universe. I turn my gaze around me, and everywhere I look I see the noble works that man has fashioned, the unceasing progress he has made in his march upward from the brute, the noble aspiration of his spirit, the eternal labour of his mighty intellect towards a higher purpose, the radiant beauty of his countenance in which all the highest ardours of his soul may be discerned!"

  And as she pronounced this sonorous eulogy her glance rested benevolently on old
Doctor Withers' soured and wizened features. He lowered his head coyly, as becomes a modest man, and in a moment the rhapsodist continued:

  "'What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a God!'"

  And having sonorously pronounced Hamlet's mighty judgment, the wonderful old woman, who had herself for thirty years been one of the most prosperous abortionists in the nation, looked benevolently about her at all the specimens of God's choice article who were assembled in the lobby.

  Over behind the cigar counter the vendor, a fat Czechish youth with a pale flabby face and dull taffy-coloured hair, was industriously engaged in picking his fat nose with a greasy thumb and forefinger. Elsewhere, in another corner of the lobby, three permanent denizens of the Leopold, familiarly and privately known to members of the hotel staff as Crab-face Willy, Maggie the Dope, and Greasy Gertie, were sitting where they always sat, in an unspeaking and unsmiling silence.

  And at this moment two more wonder-works of God came in from the street and walked rapidly across the lobby, speaking the golden and poetic language which their Maker had so marvellously bestowed on them.

  "Cheezus!" said one of them, a large man with a grey hat and a huge, dead, massive face of tallowy grey which receded in an indecipherable manner into the sagging flesh-folds of his flabby neck--"Cheezus!" he eloquently continued with a protesting laugh that emerged from his tallowy lips in a hoarse expletive mixed with spittle--"Yuh may be right about him, Eddie, but Cheezus!"--again the hoarse protesting laugh. "Duh guy may be all right, but Cheezus!--I don't know! If he'd come in dere like duh rest of dem an' let me know about it--but Cheezus!--duh guy may be all right like you say!--but Cheezus! Eddie, I don't know!"

  Doctor Thornton bestowed on them the benevolent approval of her glance as they went by and then, turning to her awed listeners again, declared sonorously with a majestic and expressive gesture of her hand: