Of Time and the River (74 page)
Under the furious goad of desperation, a fear of failure and disgrace, a sense of loneliness and desolation, and a grim determination to go down into the dust of ruin only when he could no longer lift a hand or draw a breath, he learned his job, and found his life again, he did the labour of a titan, the flesh wasted from his bones, he became a mad, driven zealot, but he was a good teacher, and the day came when he knew he need no longer draw his breath in fear or shame, that he had paid his way and earned his wage and could meet them eye to eye. He took those swarthy swarming classes and looted his life clean for them: he bent over them, prayed, sweated, and exhorted like a prophet, a poet, and a priest—he poured upon them the whole deposit of his living, feeling, reading, the whole store of poetry, passion and belief: he went into the brain of a dullard like a surgeon, and he blew some spark of fire into a glow in even the least and worst of them, but that grey-faced Yiddish inquisitor hung doggedly to his heels; the more he gave, the more Abe wanted; he fed on Eugene’s life, enriching his greyness with an insatiate and vampiric gluttony, and yet he never had a word of praise, a sentence of thanks, a syllable of commendation.
Instead he became daily more open in his surly discontent, his sour depreciation; his insolence, unchecked, grew by leaps and bounds, he exulted in a feeling of cruel crowing Jewish mastery over Eugene’s bent aching spirit, he walked away with him day by day and his conversation now was one long surly indictment of his class, his teaching, and his competence. Why didn’t Eugene give them better topics for their themes? Why didn’t they use another volume of essays instead of the one they had, which was no good? Why, in the list of poems, plays, biographies and novels which Eugene had assigned, and which were no good, had he omitted the names of Jewish writers such as Lewisohn and Sholem Asch? Why did he not give each student private “conferences” more frequently, although he had conferred with them until his brain and heart were sick and weary? Why did they not write more expository, fewer descriptive themes; more argument, less narration? Why, in short, did he not do everything in a different way?—the indictment, merciless, insistent, unrelenting, piled up day by day and meanwhile resentment, anger, resolution began to blaze and burn in Eugene, a conviction grew that this could no longer be endured, that no life, no age, no position was worth this thankless toil and trouble, and that he must make an end of a situation which had become intolerable.
One night, when Abe had accompanied Eugene from the class to the entrance of the hotel, and as he was in the full course and tide of his surly complaint, Eugene stopped him suddenly and curtly, saying: “You don’t like my class, do you, Jones? You don’t think much of the way I teach, do you?”
Abe was surprised at the question, because his complaint had always had a kind of sour impersonality: it had never wholly dared a final accusatory directness.
“Well,” he said in a moment, with a surly and unwilling tone, “I never said that. I don’t think we’re getting as much out of the class as we should. I think we could get a lot more out of it than we’re getting. That’s all I said.”
“And you have a few thousand suggestions to make that would improve it? Is that it?”
“Well, I had to tell you how I felt about it,” Abe said doggedly. “If you don’t like it, I’m sorry. You know we fellows down there have got to pay tuition. And they charge you plenty for it, too! . . . Don’t let them kid you!” he said with a derisive and scornful laugh. “That place is a goldmine for someone! The trustees are getting rich on it!”
“Well, I’m not getting rich on it,” Eugene said. “I get $150 a month out of it. Apparently you think it’s too much.”
“Well, we’ve got a right to expect the best we can get,” he said. “That’s what we’re there for. That’s what we’re paying out our dough for. You know, the fellows down there are not rich guys like the fellows at Yale and Harvard. A dollar means something to them. . . . We don’t get everything handed to us on a silver platter. Most of us have got to work for everything we get, and if some guy who’s teaching us is not giving us the best he’s got we got a right to kick about it. . . . That’s the way I feel about it.”
“All right,” Eugene said, “I know where you stand now. Now, I’ll tell you where I stand. I’ve been giving you the best I’ve got, but you don’t think it’s good enough. Well, it’s all I’ve got and it’s all you’re going to get from me. Now, I tell you what you’re going to do, Jones. You’re going out of my class. Do you understand?” he shouted. “You’re going now. I never want to see you in my class again. I’ll get you transferred, I’ll have you put in some other instructor’s class, but you’ll never come into my room again.”
“You can’t do that,” Abe said. “You’ve got no right to do that. You’ve got no right to change a fellow to another class in the middle of the term. I’ve done my work,” he said resentfully; “you’re not going to change me. . . . I’ll take it to the faculty committee if you do.”
Eugene could stand no more: in misery and despair he thought of all he had endured because of Abe, and the whole choking wave of resentment and fury which had been gathering in his heart for months burst out upon him.
“Why, damn you!” he said. “Go to the faculty committee or any other damned place you please, but you’ll never come back to any room where I’m teaching again. If they send you back, if they say I’ve got to have you in my class, I quit. Do you hear me, Jones?” he shouted. “I’ll not have you! If they try to force me, I’m through! To hell with such a life! I’ll get down and clean out sewers before I have you in my class again. . . . Now, you damned rascal,” his voice had grown so hoarse and thick he could hardly speak, and the blind motes were swimming drunkenly before him. “. . . I’ve had all I can stand from you. . . . Why, you damned dull fellow. . . . Sitting there and sneering at me day after day with your damned Jew’s face. . . . What are you but a damned dull fellow, anyway? . . . Why, damn you, Jones, you didn’t deserve anyone like me. . . . You should get down on your knees and thank God you had a teacher half as good as me. . . . You . . . damned . . . FELLOW. . . . You! . . . To think I sweat blood over you! . . . Now, get away from here!” . . . he yelled. “To hell with you! . . . I never want to see your face again!”
He turned and started toward the hotel entrance: he felt blind and weak and dizzy, but he did not care what happened now: after all these weeks of heavy misery a great wave of release and freedom was coursing through his veins. Before he had gone three steps Abe Jones was at his side, clutching at his sleeve, beseeching, begging, pleading: “Say! . . . You’ve got the wrong idea! Honest you have! . . . Say! I never knew you felt like that! Don’t send me out of there,” he begged earnestly, and suddenly Eugene saw that his shining glasses had grown misty and that his dull weak eyes blinked with tears. “I don’t want to leave your class,” he said. “Why, that’s the best class that I’ve got! . . . Honest it is! No kiddin’! . . . All the fellows feel the same way about it.”
He begged, beseeched, and almost wept: finally, when good will had again been restored between them, he wrung Eugene’s hand, laughed painfully and shyly, and then took off his misted glasses and began to shine and polish them with a handkerchief. His grey ugly face as he stood there polishing his glasses had that curiously naked, inept, faded and tired wistful look that is common to people with weak eyes when they remove their spectacles; it was a good and ugly face, and suddenly Eugene began to like Abe very much. He left him and went up to his room with a feeling of such relief, ease and happiness as he had not known for months; and that night, unhaunted, unashamed, unpursued by fears and furies and visions of his ruin and failure for the first time in many months, he sank dreamlessly, sweetly, deliriously, into the depths of a profound and soundless sleep.
And from that moment, through every change of fortune, all absence, all return, all wandering, and through the whole progress of his city life, through every event of triumph, ruin, or madness, this Jew, Abe Jones, the first man-swarm atom he had come to know in all the desolation of the million-footed city—had been his loyal friend.
It was not the golden city he had visioned as a child, and the grey reptilian face of that beak-nosed Jew did not belong among the company of the handsome, beautiful and fortunate people that he had dreamed about, but Abe was made of better stuff than most dreams are made of. His spirit was as steady as a rock, as enduring as the earth, and like the flash of a light, the sight of his good, grey ugly face could always evoke for Eugene the whole wrought fabric of his life in the city, the whole design of wandering and return, with a thousand memories of youth and hunger, of loneliness, fear, despair, of glory, love, exultancy and joy.
L
Robert Weaver appeared suddenly one night about seven o’clock as Eugene was sitting in the lobby at the Leopold: he had not seen Robert since their arrest. His visit to the hotel was the result of a sudden impulse on Robert’s part: immediately, without greeting or any preliminary whatever, he began to ask all sorts of questions about the Leopold—How long had Eugene been there? Did he have a good room and how big was it? How well did he like living at the hotel? Then insisted that Eugene show him his room. Eugene got his key at the desk and took him up: at the sight of the small room with its piles of books and stacks of student themes Robert burst out laughing. Then he began to ask all manner of questions in a serious and earnest tone—Where was the bathroom?—Eugene showed him—Did they give him plenty of towels?—Eugene told him—How much did he pay?—Eugene said the rent was twelve dollars a week.
He received these answers with an air of astounded surprise, his manner became even more earnest and excited, he began to say, “You don’t mean it!” “Well, I’ll be damned!” “Well, what do you know about that?”—as if the most astonishing revelations were being made to him. Eugene looked at him with misgiving, because he was obviously caught in the full surge of one of his impulses and, sure enough, all at once he said with an air of complete decision: “Damned if I don’t do it! It’s the very place I’ve been looking for all along! Why, look at all you get for the money! Damnedest bargain I ever heard of! I’ve just been throwing my money away up there!”—he had been living at the Yale Club—“Damned if I don’t get me a room and move in right away!”
This sudden prospect of having Robert as a neighbour did not attract the other youth: he was working very hard with his classes and trying to complete a play he had begun to write, and he had no intention of becoming the companion or nurse of Robert’s drunkenness or the confessor of his fevered despair and unrest: he told him he would not like the Leopold, that the people were old and stodgy, and the rules of propriety very strict. Further, he made the mistake of emphasizing the difficulty of getting a room there, although there really was no difficulty: he told him the place was a quiet family hotel, that the management wanted regular tenants of quiet habits who intended to live there permanently, that the preference was given to middle-aged married couples, and that there were no vacancies, anyway—that a long list of applicants were waiting to get in. All this merely whetted Robert’s eagerness: he now said that he fulfilled all the requirements save marriage, and that this deficiency would soon be remedied: he said he had completely reformed his old habits of life, and that a quieter, steadier, more sober and industrious man did not exist: he said he was determined to live there, and he demanded that Eugene take him to the manager and plead for him without delay.
When Eugene saw that he was really determined, he agreed: they went downstairs to see the manager. He came out of his office with the habitual defensive look of caution and suspicion on his sour meagre face, and listened with his usual unwilling and disparaging air, not facing them or directly looking at them, but with his small parsley face averted and his eyes turned downward, while Eugene praised Robert up to the skies, said he had known him all his life, that he was the scion of an ancient and distinguished family in the South, a brilliant young attorney in a New York firm, and one of the steadiest and most proper youths that ever lived. Robert also put in from time to time with his deep voice and impressive manners, and at length Mr. Gibbs began to shake his head dubiously, to say he didn’t know, to tell how difficult it was to get admitted to the Leopold—until Eugene almost laughed in his face—but that in a case like this, because it was Eugene and he knew if he recommended a man he must be all right, and so on—he would see what he could do: he began to thumb over the pages of a meaningless ledger, peering at it and squinting along his parched finger as it moved across the page and chattering and mumbling like a monkey: at length he straightened with an air of decision, took four or five keys from their boxes and gave them to the negro captain with instructions “to show this gentleman these rooms.” They all got into the elevator and went upstairs again with Robert and the negro: they looked at several rooms and at length, after great indecision, appeals for advice and guidance, and innumerable questions, Robert selected a room in the old annexe—a selection for which the other youth was grateful, since his own room was in the new one.
Robert moved in promptly the next day: they had dinner together; he was in a state of jubilant elation. Then no more was seen or heard of him for a week; when Eugene did get news of him it was neither welcome nor reassuring. The phone in his room rang one morning as he was dressing: a voice from the office asked him curtly to see Mr. Gibbs when he came down. He went downstairs with a sense of ominous misgiving: Mr. Gibbs came toward him with a puckered and protesting face as if he had just tasted something sour and unexpected; he began to speak at once in a tone of shocked and astounded indignation: “In heaven’s name!” he rasped; “who is this man Weaver that you brought here? What kind of man is here? YOU brought him here,” he said accusingly. “YOU recommended him. We thought he was all right. We took YOUR word for it? What’s wrong with the man? Is he crazy? Is he out of his head completely?”— his face was soured and wrinkled like a persimmon, his small pinched figure trembled with excitement and indignation, he looked at the boy with an expression of horrified reproof—he was a comical sight, but the boy was in no temper at the moment to appreciate the humour of his appearance.
