by Saul Bellow
Neither her ladies’ trimming and gewgawing, the detail of her tailored person, nor the decorating of the flat when they furnished one, nor his way of carrying on was of real consequence. But in what related to the bank, the stock, the taxes, head approached to head discussing these, the great clear and critical calculations and confidences made in the key to which real dominion was set, that was what wedlock really rested on. Even though she was continually singing and whistling songs to herself like “My Blue Heaven” and “A Faded Summer’s Love,” doing her nails, revising her hair, she didn’t live in these vanities. Which indeed were hopeless. She gave them all their due, and more. High heels, sheer hose, beautiful suits, hats, earrings, feathers, and the colors of pancake maquillage, plus electrolysis, sweet-sweats, and the hidden pinnings where adoration could come to roost. She neglected nothing in this respect, she had a lot of dignity, she could be monumentally handsome. But her ultimate disbelief in this was unmistakable in the real mouth, unconforming to the painted one, impatient, discounting less important things. She wouldn’t have chosen a young man to marry from the pictures on the sheet music of her piano any more than she’d have chosen a schoolboy; she bore her ambition tight and was prepared to see, without being moved in her purpose, any limits of coarseness, rashness, harshness, scandal. She knew this in advance by consulting with herself, and she didn’t have to wait to see a great part in actuality; it first arose in her mind and there was where she dealt with it.
Simon, in the odd way of these things, was all for her. He said, “She’s got more brain and ability than six women. She’s a hundred per cent straight, no faking. She’s as goodhearted as they come”—there was a considerable element of truth in this—“and she likes you too, Augie.” He said this with a view to my beginning to court Lucy Magnus, as I presently agreed to do. “She keeps sending Mama stuff. She wants to board her with a private family. Her idea. Mama never has complained about the Home. The company there is good for her. What do you think?”
While driving around the city we sometimes stopped to see Mama. Most often we simply passed the building. But you never knew with Simon what your destination was. Saying, “Hop in,” he’d perhaps himself not know where he was off to, answering a need he didn’t understand yet. Perhaps it was food he was after, perhaps a fight, perhaps disaster, perhaps a woman beckoning from behind, or a business order, a game of billiards, a lawyer’s office, a steam bath at the athletic club. So then among these possible stops was the Home on Arthington Street.
It was of gray stone, the porch just a widening before the doorway on which there were two benches. There were benches inside too. It was furnished like a meeting hall or public forum, all the common space of it bare; only the bad state of the windows kept the outsider from looking in; the panes were full of glassy gnarls and dirty, probably from the hands of people who had touched them to discover that this was not wall but window. Everything that could have made a hazard in the old house had been taken away; thus there were a bar of plaster where the mantelpiece had been and a cork grade at the door-sills. But the blind did not go around very much. They sat, and didn’t seem to have any conversation, and soon you were aware of leisure gone bad. I had learned something of this during Einhorn’s days of dirty mental weather. Or of the soul, not the mind, the sick evil of not even knowing why anything should ail you since you’re resigned to accept all conditions.
The director and his wife boasted that they fed their people well; it was a fact that you knew the next menu in advance by the smell of the kitchen.
In general I considered it a blessing that Mama was simple. I thought that if there were any characters here that were intriguing or quarrelsome—and how would there fail to be?—there must be some awful events in the innermost privacy of the house. But Mama had put in many years of appeasing tempestuousness or staying out of its way, and she very likely had more trouble as a result of one of Simon’s visits than she ever did with her companions. For he came to check on how she was treated, and he had a harsh way of inquiring. He was tough with the director, who hoped to get mattresses wholesale from Arthur Magnus through him. Simon had promised him this favor. But he threw his weight around, full of menace, pleased with nothing. He objected to Mama’s having roommates, and when he obtained a private room for her it was next to the kitchen and all its noise and smell, and that was nothing to thank him for. And then, one summer afternoon, we found her sitting on her bed at the task of fitting pins into Roosevelt campaign buttons; she was getting ten cents a hundred and earning a few dollars a week by the goodheartedness of the precinct captain. Seeing her with her unskillful hands of rough housework at the brass pins, feeling the two objects together in her lap, Simon went into a rage that made her flinch, and knowing that I was with him she turned her face and tried to find me and get me to intercede; she was frightened, too, to discover that she had been doing wrong unawares.
“Stop roaring,” I said, “for God’s sake!”
But he couldn’t be stopped. “What do they mean! Look what they’ve got her doing! Where’s that sonofabitch?”
It was the director’s wife who came, in her house dress. She meant to remain respectful but not be servile; she was white, and she already had a fighting face and quivered, but spoke up, practical and proud.
“Are you responsible for this?” he shouted at her.
She said, “Mrs. March wasn’t made to do anything she didn’t want. She was asked and she wanted to. It’s good for her to have something to keep her occupied.”
“Asked? I know how people are asked so they’re afraid to say no. I’ll have you know that my mother isn’t going to do any piecework for ten, twenty, thirty cents, or a dollar an hour. She gets all the money she needs from me.”
“You don’t have to yell like this. These are all very sensitive people and easy disturbed.”
In the passage I saw many of the blind stop and a group gathered, while in the kitchen the big sloven-haired cook turned with her knife from the meatblock.
“Simon, I wanted, I asked,” said Mama. She was unable to put weight in her tones; she had never been able; she lacked experience.
“Calm down,” I said to him with some effect at last.
It appeared that he could no longer take out the first intention of his heart without touching the inflamed place of self-distinction. Wrongly blessing and cursing like Balaam, but without any outside power to reverse him, only his own arbitrariness doubling back on him. So he could not speak for Mama without commanding how he himself was to be looked upon.
Next he went to the closet to see whether the things were there that Charlotte had given her, the shoes, handbag, dresses, and he missed at once a light coat, handed down by a more robust person, that didn’t fit her anyway.
“Where is it—what have they done with that coat?”
“I sent it to the cleaners. She spilled coffee on it,” the director’s wife explained.
“I did,” said Mama in her clear, tuneless voice.
And the woman, “I’ll take it in for her when it comes back, it’s too big in the shoulders.”
Simon wore a look of anger and detestation, silent, still regarding the closet. “She can afford a good tailor if she needs alterations. I want her to look right.”
He left her money each time, single dollars so that she could not be cheated in the changing. Not that he really distrusted the director and his wife; he wanted them, however, to realize that he did not have to depend on their honesty.
“I want her to go for a walk every day.”
“It’s the rule, Mr. March.”
“I know rules. You keep them when you want to.” I spoke to him in a low tone, and he said, “That’s all right. Be quiet. I want her to go to the hairdresser at least once a week.”
“My husband takes all the ladies in the car together. He can’t be taking one at a time.”
“Then hire a girl. Isn’t there a high-school girl you can get to go with her once a week? I’ll pay for it.
I want her to be taken care of. I’m getting married soon.”
“We’ll try to accommodate you, sir,” she said, and he, not missing her derision though all she looked was steadfast and unintimidated, stared, spoke to himself, and took up his hat.
“Good-by, Ma.”
“Good-by, good-by, boys.”
“And take away this junk,” said Simon, scattering the pins with a tug of the bedcover.
He left, and the woman tartly said to me, “I hope at least FDR is good enough for him personally.”
Chapter 12
WHEN THE COLD WEATHER CAME Simon started to make money and everything went well. His spirits rose. The wedding was a great affair in the main ballroom of a big hotel, the bridal party getting organized in the governor’s suite where Simon and Charlotte also spent the first night. I was an usher, Lucy Magnus the bridesmaid opposite me. Simon went along with me to rent a tuxedo, and then liked the fit of it so well he bought it outright. On the wedding day Mimi helped me with the studs of the boiled shirt and the tie. My neighbor Kayo Obermark sat in to observe, on my bed, fat feet bare, and laughed over Mimi’s digs at marriage.
“Now you look like the groom himself,” said Mimi. “You probably aim to become one soon, don’t you?”
I snatched up my coat and ran, for I had to pick up Mama. I had the Pontiac for the purpose. She was my charge; I was supposed to see her through. Simon ordered me to have her wear dark glasses. The day was frosty, windy, clear, the waves piled up, from the slugging green water, white over the rocks of the Outer Drive. And then we came to the proud class of the hotel and its Jupiter’s heaviness and restless marble detail, seeking to be more and more, introducing another pot too huge for flowers, another carved figure, another white work of iron; and inside luxuriously warm—even the subterranean garage where I parked had this silky warmth. And coming out of the white elevator, you were in an Alhambra of roses and cellular ceilings, gilt and ivory, Florida feathering of plants and muffling of carpets, immense distances, and everywhere the pure purpose of supporting and encompassing the human creature in conveniences. Of doing unto the body; holding it precious; bathing, drying, powdering, preparing satin rest, conveying, feeding. I’ve been at Schönbrunn and in the Bourbon establishment in Madrid and seen all that embellishment as the setting of power. But luxury as the power itself is different—luxury without anything ulterior. Except insofar as all yearning, for no matter what, just so its scope is vast, is of one cluster of mysteries and always ulterior. And what will this power do to you? I know that I in, say, an ancient place like Venice or in Rome, passing along the side of majestic walls where great men once sat, experienced what it was to be simply a dot, a speck that scans across the cornea, a corpuscle, almost white, almost nothing but air: I to these ottimati in their thought. And this spectacular ancient aggrandizement with its remains of art and many noble signs I could appreciate even if I didn’t want to be just borne down by the grandeur of it. But in this modern power of luxury, with its battalions of service workers and engineers, it’s the things themselves, the products that are distinguished, and the individual man isn’t nearly equal to their great sum. Finally they are what becomes great—the multitude of baths with never-failing hot water, the enormous air-conditioning units and the elaborate machinery. No opposing greatness is allowed, and the disturbing person is the one who won’t serve by using or denies by not wishing to enjoy.
I didn’t yet know what view I had of all this. It still wasn’t clear to me whether I would be for or against it. But then how does anybody form a decision to be against and persist against? When does he choose and when is he chosen instead? This one hears voices; that one is a saint, a chieftain, an orator, a Horatius, a kamikazi; one says Ich kann nicht anders—so help me God! And why is it I who cannot do otherwise? Is there a secret assignment from mankind to some unfortunate person who can’t refuse? As if the great majority turned away from a thing it couldn’t permanently forsake and so named some person to remain faithful to it? With great difficulty somebody becomes exemplary, anyhow.
Conceivably Simon felt that I was this kind of influenceable person and looked liable to become an example. For God knows there are abandoned and hungry principles enough flowing free and looking for attachment. So he wanted to get to me first.
Simon’s idea was that I should marry Lucy Magnus, who had more money even than Charlotte. This was how he outlined the future to me. I could finish my pre-legal course and go to John Marshall law school at night while I worked for him. He’d pay my tuition and give me eighteen dollars a week. Eventually I could become his partner. Or if his business didn’t suit me, we could go into real estate with our joint capital. Or perhaps into manufacturing. Or, if I chose to be a lawyer, I wouldn’t need to be a mere ambulance chaser, shyster, or birdseed wiseguy and conniver in two-bit cases. Not with the money I’d have to play with as Lucy Magnus’s husband. She was a juicy piece besides, even if he didn’t care for the way her collarbones stood out when she wore a formal, and she was full of willingness. He would back me while I courted her. I didn’t need to worry about the expenses; he’d give me the use of the Pontiac for taking her out, build me up with the family, remove the obstacles. All I had to do was play along, make myself desired, interpret, as I could do, the role of the son-in-law her parents wanted. It was a leadpipe cinch.
We were alone in his room in the governor’s suite, a room of white walls and gold paneling, heavy mirrors hung on silk hawsers, a Louis XIV bed. Having come out of the glass stall of the shower, dried in a thick Turkish mantle, put on black socks and a stiff shirt, he was now lying on the bed, smoking a cigar, while he explained this to me, practical and severe. He sprawled out with his big body, the mid-part of it nude. This comfort and luxury were not what he preached at me, but the thing to do: not to dissolve in bewilderment of choices but to make myself hard, like himself, and learn how to stay with the necessary, undistracted by the trimmings. This was what he thought, and to some extent I thought it too. Why shouldn’t I marry a rich man’s daughter? If I didn’t want to do as Simon did in every respect, couldn’t I arrange my life somewhat differently? Wasn’t there any other way to ride this gorgeous train? Provided Lucy was different from her cousin, why shouldn’t there be? I wasn’t unwilling to look into this and profit by Simon’s offers. I was already taking so many of his orders, putting in so much time, that I might as well accept wages too, go the whole way and make it official. And I may as well say that I had a desire to go along with him out of the love I felt for him and enthusiasm for his outlook. In which I didn’t fundamentally believe. However, that I shouldn’t be too good to do as he was doing was of enormous importance to him, and the obstinacy that had always made me hold out against him for unspoken or anyway insufficient reasons seemed at last over. I didn’t oppose him, so he spoke to me with unusual affection.
He rolled from the bed to finish dressing, saying, “Now we begin going places, you and me. I wondered when you’d start to show some sense, if ever, and worried you wouldn’t be anything but a punk. Here, fix this stud for me in back. My mother-in-law got this set for me. Christ! how’m I going to find my dress shoes? All this tissue paper. You can’t find anything. Get rid of it. Leave it in the can for the governor,” he said, spirited and nervous in his laugh. “The world hasn’t set too tight yet. There’s room, if you find the openings to it. If you study it out you can find them. Horner is a Jew too, after all, and probably didn’t have a better start than we did, and is governor.”
“Are you thinking of giving politics a try?”
“Maybe. Why not? It depends on how things shape up. Uncle Artie knows a guy who was made ambassador by contributing often enough to campaign drives. Twenty, thirty, even forty thousand bucks, and what’s that to a man who has it?”
This being an ambassador couldn’t be envisioned as in the old days—a Guicciardini arriving from Florence with his clever face, or a Russian coming to Venice, or an Adams—such grandeurs have sunk down as the imag
ination has been transferred from the bearer of his country’s power walking on rugs to his blowing shellac through the waterpipes of Lima to stop the rust.
Simon, when he put on his tails and walked from mirror to mirror, doubling back his fingers to tug down the white cuffs and pulling up his chin to make his strong neck freer in the band of the butterfly collar, had the vigor to make the place live up to him; more—the thought lay in the open—than the governors for whom it was reserved. And having gotten in without ever having been a candidate he could perhaps get far beyond them without running or going through the tiresome part of politics. He had come into a view of mutability, and I too could see that one is only ostensibly born to remain in specified limits. That’s what you’ll be told in the ranks. I don’t say that I exactly shared his feelings, or spirits of the dauphin’s horse, almost tearing down hangings and shouldering into mirrors with that bucking pride, but with him now I certainly felt less boxed than I ever before had, nothing that others did so inconceivable for me.
