Of Time and the River (56 page)

Each morning he would get up with a pounding heart, trembling hands, and chattering lips, and then, like a man in prison who is waiting feverishly for some glorious message of release or pardon which he is sure will come that day, he would wait for the coming of the postman. And when he came, even before he reached the house, the moment that Eugene heard his whistle he would rush out into the street, tear the mail out of his astounded grasp, and begin to hunt through it like a madman for the letter which would announce to him that fortune, fame, and glittering success were his. He was twenty-two years old, a madman and a fool, but every young man in the world has been the same.

Then, when the wonderful letter did not come, his heart would sink down to his bowels like lead; all of the brightness, gold, and singing would go instantly out of the day and he would stamp back into the house, muttering to himself, sick with despair and misery and thinking that now his life was done for, sure enough. He could not eat, sleep, stand still, sit down, rest, talk coherently, or compose himself for five minutes at a time. He would go prowling and muttering around the house, rush out into the streets of the town, walk up and down the main street, pausing to talk with the loafers before the principal drug store, climb the hills and mountains all around the town and look down on the town with a kind of horror and disbelief, an awful dreamlike unreality because the town, since his long absence and return to it, and all the people in it, now seemed as familiar as his mother’s face and stranger than a dream, so that he could never regain his life or corporeal substance in it, any more than a man who revisits his youth in a dream, and so that, also, the town seemed to have shrunk together, got little, fragile, toy-like in his absence, until now when he walked in the street he thought he was going to ram his elbows through the walls, as if the walls were paper, or tear down the buildings, as if they had been made of straw.

Then he would come down off the hills into the town again, go home, and prowl and mutter around the house, which now had the same real- unreal familiar-strangeness that the town had, and his life seemed to have been passed there like a dream. Then, with a mounting hope and a pounding heart, he would begin to wait for the next mail again; and when it came, but without the letter, this furious prowling and lashing about would start all over again. His family saw the light of madness in his eyes and in his disconnected movements, and heard it in his incoherent speech. He could hear them whispering together, and sometimes when he looked up he could see them looking at him with troubled and bewildered faces. And yet he did not think that he was mad, nor know how he appeared to them.

Yet, during all this time of madness and despair his people were as kind and tolerant as anyone on earth could be.

His mother, during all this time, treated him with kindness and tolerance, and according to the law of her powerful, hopeful, brooding, octopal, and web-like character, with all its meditative procrastination, never coming to a decisive point, but weaving, re- weaving, pursing her lips, and meditating constantly and with a kind of hope, even though in her deepest heart she really had no serious belief that he could succeed in doing the thing he wanted to do.

Thus, as he talked to her sometimes, going on from hope to hope, his enthusiasm mounting with the intoxication of his own vision, he would paint a glittering picture of the fame and wealth he was sure to win in the world as soon as his play was produced. And his mother would listen thoughtfully, pursing her lips from time to time, in a meditative fashion, as she sat before the fire with her hands folded in a strong loose clasp above her stomach. Then, finally, she would turn to him and with a proud, tremulous, and yet bantering smile playing about her mouth, such as she had always used when he was a child, and had perhaps spoken of some project with an extravagant enthusiasm, she would say:

“Hm, boy! I tell you what!” his mother said, in this bantering tone, as if he were still a child. “That’s mighty big talk—as the sayin’ goes,”—here she put one finger under her broad red nose- wing and laughed shyly, but with pleasure—“as the sayin’ goes, mighty big talk for poor folks!” said his mother. “Well, now,” she said in a thoughtful and hopeful tone, after a moment’s pause, “you may do it, sure enough. Stranger things than that have happened. Other people have been able to make a success of their writings— and there’s one thing sure!” His mother cried out strongly with the loose, powerful and manlike gesture of her hand and index finger which was characteristic of all her family—“there’s one thing sure!—what one man has done another can do if he’s got grit and determination enough!” His mother said, putting the full strength of her formidable will into these words—“Why, yes, now!” she now said, with a recollective start, “Here, now! Say!” she cried—“wasn’t I reading?—didn’t I see? Why, pshaw
just the other day—that all these big writers—yes, sir! Irvin S. Cobb—there was the very feller!” cried his mother in a triumphant tone—“Why, you know,” she continued, pursing her lips in a meditative way, “—that he had the very same trials and tribulations—as the sayin’ goes—as everyone else! Why, yes!— here he told it on himself—admitted it, you know—that he kept writin’ these stories for years, sendin’ them out, I reckon, to all the editors and magazines—and having them all sent back to him. That’s the way it was,” she said, “and now—look at him! Why, I reckon they’d pay him hundreds of dollars for a single piece—yes! and be glad of the chance to get it,” said his mother.

Then for a space his mother sat looking at the fire, while she slowly and reflectively pursed her lips.

“Well,” she said slowly at length, “you may do it. I hope you do. Stranger things than that have happened.—Now, there’s one thing sure,” she said strongly, “you have certainly had a good education— there’s been more money spent upon your schoolin’ than on all the rest of us put together—and you certainly ought to know enough to write a story or a play!—Why, yes, boy! I tell you what,” his mother now cried in the old playful and bantering tone, as if she were speaking to a child, “if I had YOUR education I believe I’d try to be a writer, too! Why, yes! I wouldn’t mind getting out of all this drudgery and house-work for a while—and if I could earn my living doin’ some light easy work like that, why, you can bet your bottom dollar, I’d do it!” cried his mother. “But, say, now! See here!” his mother cried with a kind of jocose seriousness— “maybe that’d be a good idea, after all! Suppose you write the stories,” she said, winking at him,—“and I tell, you what I’ll do!—Why, I’ll TELL ‘em to you! Now, if I had your education and your command of language,” said his mother, whose command of language was all that anyone could wish—“I believe I could tell a pretty good story—so if you’ll write ‘em out,” she said, with another wink, “I’ll tell you what to write—and I’ll BET you—I’ll BET you,” said his mother, “that we could write a story that would beat most of these stories that I read, all to pieces! Yes, sir!” she said, pursing her lips firmly, and with an invincible conviction—“and I bet you people would buy that story and come to see that play!” she said. “Because I know what to tell ‘em and the kind of thing people are interested in hearing,” she said.

Then for a moment more she was silent and stared thoughtfully into the fire.

“Well,” she said slowly, “you may do it. You may do it, sure enough! Now, boy,” she said, levelling that powerful index finger toward him, “I want to tell you! Your grandfather, Tom Pentland, was a remarkable man—and if he’d had your education he’d a-gone far! And everyone who ever knew him said the same! . . . Oh! stories, poems, pieces in the paper—why, didn’t they print something of his every week or two!” she cried. “And that’s exactly where you get it,” said his mother. “—But, say, now,” she said in a persuasive tone, after a moment’s meditation, “I’ve been thinkin’—it just occurred to me—wouldn’t it be a good idea if you could find some work to do—I mean, get you a job somewheres of some light easy work that would give you plenty of time to do your writin’ as you went on! Now, Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know!” his mother said in the bantering tone, “—and you might have to send that play around to several places before you found the one who could do it right for you! So while you’re waitin’,” said his mother persuasively, “why, wouldn’t it be a good idea if you got a little light newspaper work, or a job teachin’ somewheres—pshaw! you could do it easy as falling off a log,” his mother said contemptuously. “I taught school myself before I got married to your papa, and I didn’t have a bit of trouble! And all the schoolin’ I ever had—all the schoolin’ that I ever had,” she cried impressively, “was six months one time in a little backwoods school! Now if I could do it, there’s one thing sure, with all your education you ought to be able to do it, too! Yes, sir, that’s the very thing!” she said. “I’d do it like a shot if I were you.”

He said nothing, and his mother sat there for a moment looking at the fire. Suddenly she turned, and her face had grown troubled and sorrowful and her worn and faded eyes were wet with tears. She stretched her strong rough hand out and put it over his, shaking her head a little before she spoke:

“Child, child!” she said. “It worries me to see you act like this! I hate to see you so unhappy! Why, son,” his mother said, “what if they shouldn’t take it now! You’ve got long years ahead of you and if you can’t do it now, why, maybe, some day you will! And if you don’t!” his mother cried out strongly and formidably, “why, Lord, boy, what about it! You’re a young man with your whole life still before you—and if you can’t do this thing, why, there are other things you can do! . . . Pshaw! boy, your life’s not ended just because you find out that you weren’t cut out to be a playwriter,” said his mother, “There are a thousand things a young man of your age could do! Why, it wouldn’t bother me for a moment!” cried his mother.

And he sat there in front of her invincible strength, hope, and fortitude and her will that was more strong than death, her character that was as solid as a rock; he was as hopeless and wretched as he had ever been in his life, wanting to say a thousand things to her and saying none of them, and reading in her eyes the sorrowful message that she did not believe he would ever be able to do the thing on which his heart so desperately was set.

At this moment the door opened and his brother entered the room. As they stared at him with startled faces, he stood there looking at them out of his restless, tormented grey eyes, breathing his large and unhappy breath of unrest and nervousness, a harassed look on his handsome and generous face, as with a distracted movement he thrust his strong, impatient fingers through the flashing mop of his light brown hair, that curled everywhere in incredible whorls and screws of angelic brightness.

“Hah?” his mother sharply cried, as she looked at him with her white face, the almost animal-like quickness and concentration of her startled attention. “What say?” she said in a sharp startled tone, although as yet his brother had said nothing.

“W-w-w-wy!” he began in a distracted voice, as he thrust his fingers through his incredible flashing hair and his eyes flickered about absently and with a tormented and driven look, “I was just f- f-f-finkin’—” he went on in a dissonant and confused tone; then, suddenly catching sight of her white startled face, he smote himself suddenly and hard upon his temple with the knuckle of one large hand, and cried out “Haw!” in a tone of such idiotic exuberance and exultancy that it is impossible to reproduce in words the limitless and earthly vulgarity of its humour. At the same time he prodded his mother stiffly in the ribs with his clumsy fingers, an act that made her shriek out resentfully, and then say in a vexed and fretful tone:

“I’ll vow, boy! You act like a regular idiot! If I didn’t have any more sense than to go and play a trick like that—I’d be ash-a- a-med—ash-a-a-a-med,” she whispered, with a puckered mouth, as she shook her head at him in a movement of strong deprecation, scorn, and reproof. “I’d be ASHAMED to let anyone know I was such a fool,” his mother said.

“Whah! WHAH!” Luke shouted with his wild, limitlessly exuberant laugh, that was so devastating in its idiotic exultancy that all words, reproaches, scorn, or attempts at reason were instantly reduced to nothing by it. “Whee!” he cried, prodding her in her resentful ribs again, his handsome face broken by his huge and exuberant smile. Then, as if cherishing something secret and uncommunicably funny in its idiotic humour, he smote himself upon the forehead again, cried out, “Whah—WHAH!” and then, shaking his grinning face to himself in this movement of secret and convulsive humour, he said: “Whee! Go-o-d-damn!” in a tone of mincing and ironic refinement.

“Why, what on earth has got into you, boy?” his mother cried out fretfully. “Why, you’re actin’ like a regular simpleton, I’ll vow you are!”

“Whah! WHAH!” Luke cried exultantly.

“Now, I don’t know where it comes from,” said his mother judicially, with a deliberate and meditative sarcasm, as if she were seriously considering the origin of his lunacy. “There’s one thing sure: you never got it from me. Now, all my people had their wits about them—now, say what you please,” she went on in a thoughtful tone, as she stared with puckered mouth into the fire, “I never heard of a weak-minded one in the whole crowd—”