OF TIME AND THE RIVER

by Thomas Wolfe

  In another moment the last vestige of restraint, gentlemanly decorum, urbane and tolerant sophistication with which they had clothed themselves had vanished, and they were yelping, snarling, shouting, accusing and denying, inextricably mixed-up in one general and inglorious dogfight; taunts, curses, insults, and indictments filled the air, all of them were shouting at the same time, and out of that roaring brawl all one could decipher were the ragged barbs and ends of their abuse--a tumult of bitter and strident voices characterized by such phrases as--"You never belonged here in the first place!" "It's fellows like you who give all the rest of us a bad name!" "Why the hell should the rest of us have to suffer for it because you talk and act like an East Side gangster?" "They think all Americans are a bunch of roughnecks because they meet a few like you." "Ah, g'wan! youse guys! You give me a pain. You all feel the same way as I do but none of you has guts enough to say so!" "You're just sore because these English boys never had anything to do with you--that's all you're sore about!" "Yeah? They had a hell of a lot to do wit' you, didn't they?--even if you did try to talk wit' an English accent." "You're a damned liar! I never tried to talk with an English accent!" "Sure you did! Everybody hoid you! You coulda cut yoeh accent wit' a hatchet! You were tryin' to suck aroun' that gang at Christ's the first year you were here!" "Who says I was?" "I say so--that's who! You an' Tommy Woodson both--" "Don't mix my name with Tommy Woodson, now! You're not going to include me with that horse's neck!" "Oh, yeah? Since when did you staht callin' him a horse's neck?" "I always called him one! He is one!" "Sure he is--but you didn't think so, did you, that first year that you was heah? You was pallin' around wit' him an' wouldn't have anything to do wit' the rest of us! You thought it was goin' to get you somewhere, didn't you? You saw how quick he dropped you after he got in wit' those guys at Christ's! He gave you the big go-by then, didn't he? That's when you stahted callin' him a horse's neck!" "It's a lie! I didn't!" "Sure you did!"

  The snarling medley of bitter tongues rose, mounted; they vented their weight of insult, misery, and reproach on one another and at length subsided, checked by exhaustion rather than by some more charitable cause. And as the tumult died away Sterling, two spots of colour burning on his pallid face, goaded completely from his former affectation of coldly elegant disdain, could be heard saying to Fried in a high, excited, almost hysterical tone:

  "The kind of attack you make is simply stupid! It doesn't get you anywhere! And it's so crude! So raucous! After all, there's no reason why you've always got to be so raucous!"--the way he said the word was "raw-kus," his thin hands were trembling, and the two spots of colour burned fiercely in his thin pale face; in this and the bitter way in which he said "raucous" there was finally something pitiable and futile.

  And at the end, when all their strident cries had died away, the dark embittered visage of the Jew surveyed them wearily, and held them in its sway again. For as if conceding now what was most evident--that his savage, disappointed spirit had a hard integrity, an unashamed conviction, an ugly, snarling but most open courage which they lacked, they sat there, and looked at him in silence, somehow conveying by that silence a sense of bitter and unwilling respect for him, a final admission of agreement and defeat.

  And he, too, when he spoke now, spoke wearily, with a bitter resignation, as if he realized the futility of his victory over them, the futility of hurling further insults, oaths, and accusations at people who knew the bitter truth of his complaint as well as he.

  "Nah!" he said quietly in a moment, with this same note of bitter, weary resignation in his voice. "To hell wit' it! Wat t' hell's the use of tryin' to pretend it isn't so? You guys all know the way things are! You come over here and you think you're sittin' pretty right on top of the world! You think these guys are goin' to throw their ahms around your neck and kiss you, because they love Americans so much! And what happens?" He laughed bitterly. "Are you telling me? Christ! You can stay here for three years and none of them will ever give a tumble to you! You can eat your heart out for all they care, and when you leave here you'll know no more about them than when you came. And what does it getcha? What's it all about? Wat t' hell do you get out of it that's so wonderful?"

  "I thought," one of the first-year men suggested mildly, and a trifle piously, as if he were quoting one of the articles of faith, "that you were supposed to get out of it a better understanding of the relations between the two great English-speaking nations."

  "The two great English-speaking nations!" Fried answered harshly with a jeering laugh. "Jesus! That's a good one! What two English-speaking nations do you mean?" he went on belligerently. "England and what other country?" he demanded. "You don't think we speak the same language as they do, do you? Christ! The first year I was here they might have been talkin' Siamese so far as I was concerned! It wasn't any language that I'd evah hoid before. . . . Yeah, I know," he went on wearily in a moment, "they fed me all that bunk, too, before I came over. . . . English-speakin' nations! . . . Goin' back to your old home! our old home! For Christ's sake!" he said bitterly. "Christ! It never was a home to me! I'd have felt more at home if they had sent me to Siberia! . . . Home! The rest of you guys can make believe it's home if you want to! . . . I know what you'll do," he muttered. "You'll stick it out and hate it like the rest of them. . . . Then you'll go back home an' high-hat everyone and tell them all how wonderful it was, and what a fine time you had when you were here, and how you hated to leave it! . . . Not for me! I'm goin' home where I can see someone that I know some time who's not too good to talk to me. . . and talk to someone who understands what I'm tryin' to say once in a while . . . and pay my little nickel for the big ride in the subway . . . and listen to the kids playin' in the street . . . an' go to sleep wit' the old elevated bangin' in my ears! . . . That's home!" he cried. "That's home enough for me."

  "A hell of a home," said someone quietly.

  "Don't I know it!" snarled the man. "But it's the only home I got! It's better than no home at all!"

  And for a moment he smoked darkly, bitterly, in silence.

  "Nah! To hell wit' it!" he muttered. "To hell wit' it! I'll be glad when it's all over! I'm sorry that I ever came!"

  And he was silent then, and the others looked at him, and had no more to say, and were silent.

  LXXII

  There were four in the Coulson family: the father, a man of fifty years, the mother, somewhere in the middle forties, a son, and a daughter, Edith, a girl of twenty-two who lived in the house with her parents. Eugene never met the son: he had completed his course at Oxford a year or two before, and had gone down to London where he was now employed. During the time Eugene lived there the son did not come home.

  They were a ruined family. How that ruin had fallen on them, what it was, Eugene never knew, for no one ever spoke to him about them. But the sense of their disgrace, of a shameful inexpiable dishonour, for which there was no pardon, from which there could never be redemption, was overwhelming. In the most astonishing way Eugene found out about it right away, and yet he did not know what they had done, and no one ever spoke a word against them.

  Rather, the mention of their name brought silence, and in that silence there was something merciless and final, something that belonged to the temper of the country, and that was far more terrible than any open word of scorn, contempt, or bitter judgment could have been, more savage than a million strident, whispering, or abusive tongues could be, because the silence was unarguable, irrevocable, complete, as if a great door had been shut against their lives for ever.

  Everywhere Eugene went in town the people knew about them, and said nothing--saying everything--when he spoke their names. He found this final, closed, relentless silence everywhere--in tobacco, wine, and tailor shops, in book stores, food stores, haberdashery stores--wherever he bought anything and gave the clerk the address to which it was to be delivered, they responded instantly with this shut finality of silence, writing the name down gravely, sometimes saying briefly, "Oh! Coulson's!" when he g
ave them the address, but more often saying nothing.

  But whether they spoke or simply wrote the name down without a word, there was always this quality of instant recognition, this obdurate, contemptuous finality of silence, as if a door had been shut--a door that could never again be opened. Somehow Eugene disliked them more for this silence than if they had spoken evilly: there was in it something ugly, knowing, and triumphant that was far more evil than any slyly whispering confidence of slander, or any open vituperation of abuse, could be. It seemed somehow to come from all the vile and uncountable small maggotry of the earth, the cautious little hatreds of a million nameless ciphers, each puny, pallid, trivial in himself, but formidable because he added his tiny beetle's ball of dung to the mountainous accumulation of ten million others of his breed.

  It was uncanny how these clerk-like faces, grave and quiet, that never spoke a word, or gave a sign, or altered their expression by a jot, when Eugene gave them the address, could suddenly be alive with something secret, foul, and sly, could be more closed and secret than a door, and yet instantly reveal the naked, shameful, and iniquitous filth that welled up from some depthless source. He could not phrase it, give a name to it, or even see a certain sign that it was there, any more than he could put his hand upon a wisp of fading smoke, but he always knew when it was there, and somehow when he saw it his heart went hard and cold against the people who revealed it, and turned with warmth and strong affection towards the Coulson family.

  There was, finally, among these grave clerk-like faces, one face that Eugene could never forget thereafter, a face that seemed to resume into its sly suave surfaces all of the nameless abomination of evil in the world, for which he had no name, for which there was no handle he could grasp, no familiar places or edges he could get his hands upon, which slid phantasmally, oilily, and smokily away whenever he tried to get his hands upon it. But it was to haunt his life for years in dreams of hatred, madness, and despair that found no frontal wall for their attack, no word for their vituperation, no door for the shoulder of his hate--an evil world of phantoms, shapes, and whispers that was yet as real as death, as ever-present as man's treachery, but that slid away from him like smoke whenever he tried to meet, or curse, or strangle it.

  This face was the face of a man in a tailor shop, a fitter there, and Eugene could have battered that foul face into a bloody pulp, distilled the filthy refuse of that ugly life out of the fat swelling neck and through the murderous grip of his fingers if he could only have found a cause, a logic, and a provocation for doing it. And yet he never saw the man but twice, and briefly, and there had been nothing in his suave, sly, careful speech to give offence.

  Edith Coulson had sent Eugene to the tailor's shop: he needed a suit and when he asked her where to go to have it made, she had sent him to this place because her brother had his suits made there and liked it. The fitter was a heavy shambling man in his late thirties: he had receding hair, which he brushed back flat in a thick pompadour; yellowish, somewhat bulging eyes; a coarse heavy face, loose-featured, red, and sensual; a sloping meaty jaw, and large discoloured buck-teeth which showed unpleasantly in a mouth that was always half open. It was, in fact, the mouth that gave his face its sensual, sly, and ugly look, for a loose and vulgar smile seemed constantly to hover about its thick coarse edges, to be deliberately, slyly restrained, but about to burst at any moment into an open, evil, foully sensual laugh. There was always about his mouth this ugly suggestion of a loose, corrupt, and evilly jubilant mirth, and yet he never laughed or smiled.

  The man's speech had this same quality. It was suave and courteous, but even in its most urbane assurances there was something non-committal, sly, and jeering, something that slid away from you, and was never to be grasped, a quality that was faithless, tricky and unwholesome. When Eugene came for the final fitting it was obvious that he had done as cheap and shoddy a job as he could do; the suit was vilely botched and skimped, sufficient cloth had not been put into it, and now it was too late to remedy the defect.

  Yet the fitter gravely pulled the vest down till it met the trousers, tugged at the coat, and pulled the thing together where it stayed until Eugene took a breath or moved a muscle, when it would all come apart again, the collar bulging outward from the shoulder, the skimpy coat and vest crawling backward from the trousers, leaving a hiatus of shirt and belly that could not now be remedied by any means.

  Then, gravely he would pull the thing together again, and in his suave, yet oily, sly, and non-committal phrases say:

  "Um! Seems to fit you very well."

  Eugene was choking with exasperation, and knew that he had been done, because he had foolishly paid them half the bill already, and now knew no way out of it except to lose what he had paid and get nothing for it or take the thing and pay the balance. He was caught in a trap, but even as he jerked at the coat and vest speechlessly, seized his shirt and thrust the gaping collar in the fitter's face, the man said smoothly:

  "Um! Yes! The collar. Should think all that will be all right. Still needs a little alteration." He made some chalk-marks on Eugene. "Should think you'll find it fits you very well when the tailor makes the alterations."

  "When will the suit be ready?"

  "Um. Should think you ought to have it by next Tuesday. Yes. I think you'll find it ready by Tuesday."

  The sly words slid away from the boy like oil: there was nothing to pin him to or grasp him by, the yellowed eyes looked casually away and would not look at Eugene, the sensual face was suavely grave, the discoloured buck-teeth shone obscenely through the coarse loose mouth, and the suggestion of the foul loose smile was so pronounced now that it seemed that at any moment the man would have to turn away with heavy trembling shoulders and stifle the evil jeering laugh that was welling up in him. But he remained suavely grave and non-committal to the end, and when Eugene asked him if he should come again to try it on, he said, in the same oily tone, never looking at him:

  "Um. Shouldn't think that would be necessary. Could have it delivered to you when it's ready. What is your address?"

  "The Far End Farm--it's on the Ventnor Road."

  "Oh! Coulson's!" He never altered his expression, but the suggestion of the obscene smile was so pronounced that now it seemed he would have to come out with it. Instead, he only said:

  "Um. Yes. Should think it could be delivered to you there on Tuesday. If you'll just wait a moment I'll ask the tailor."

  Gravely, suavely, he took the coat from Eugene and walked back towards the tailor's room with the coat across his arm. In a moment, the boy heard sly voices whispering, laughing slyly, then the tailor saying:

  "Where does he live?"

  "Coulson's!" said the fitter chokingly, and now the foul awaited laugh did come--high, wet, slimy, it came out of that loose mouth, and choked and whispered wordlessly, and choked again, and mingled then with the tailor's voice in sly, choking, whispering intimacy, and then gasped faintly and was silent. When the man came out again his coarse face was red and swollen with foul secret merriment, his heavy shoulders trembled slightly, he took out his handkerchief and wiped it once across his loose half-opened mouth, and with that gesture wiped the slime of laughter from his lips. Then he came toward Eugene, suave, grave, and courteous, evilly composed, as he said smoothly:

  "Should think we'll have that for you by next Tuesday, sir."

  "Can the tailor fix it so it's going to fit?"

  "Um. Should think you'll find that everything's all right. You ought to have it Tuesday afternoon."

  He was not looking at Eugene: the yellowish bulging eyes were staring casually, indefinitely, away, and his words again had slid away from the boy like oil. He could not be touched, approached, or handled: there was nothing to hold him by, he had the impregnability of smoke or a ball of mercury.

  As Eugene went out of the door the tailor began to speak to someone in the shop, Eugene heard low words and whispered voices, then, gasping, the word "Coulson's!" and the slimy, choking, smothered la
ughter as the street-door closed behind him. He never saw the man again. He never forget his face.

  That was a fine house: the people in it were exiled, lost, and ruined people, and Eugene liked them all. Later, he never knew why he felt so close to them or remembered them with such warmth and strong affection.

  He did not see the Coulsons often and rarely talked to them. Yet he felt as familiar and friendly with them all as if he had known them all his life. The house was wonderful as no other house he had ever known, because they all seemed to be living in it together with this strange speechless knowledge, warmth, and familiarity, and yet each was as private, secret, and secure in his own room as if he occupied the house alone.

  Coulson himself Eugene saw least of all: they sometimes passed each other going in or out the door, or in the hall; Coulson would grunt "Morning," or "Good Day," in a curt blunt manner, and go on, and yet he always left Eugene with a curious sense of warmth and friendliness. He was a stocky well-set man with iron-grey hair, bushy eyebrows, and a red weathered face which wore the open colour of the country on it, but also had the hard dull flush of the steady heavy drinker.

  Eugene never saw him drunk, and yet he was never sober: he was one of those men who have drunk themselves past any hope of drunkenness, who are soaked through to the bone with alcohol, saturated, tanned, weathered in it so completely that it could never be distilled out of their blood again. Yet, even in this terrible excess one felt a kind of grim control--the control of a man who is enslaved by the very thing that he controls, the control of the opium-eater who cannot leave his drug but measures out his dose with a cold calculation, and finds the limit of his capacity, and stops there, day by day.

  But somehow this very sense of control, this blunt ruddy style of the country gentleman which distinguished his speech, his manner, and his dress, made the ruin of his life, the desperate intemperance of drink that smouldered in him like a slow fire, steadily, nakedly apparent. It was as if, having lost everything, he still held grimly to the outer forms of a lost standard, a ruined state, when the inner substance was destroyed.