Thomas Wolfe - Thomas Wolfe - Of Time and the River, You Can't Go Home Again & Look Homeward, Angel

But they had their Christmas, beginning thus with parental advice and continuing through all the acts of contrition, love, and decorum. They put on, over their savage lives, the raiment of society, going diligently through the forms and conventions, and thinking, “now, we are like all other families”; but they were timid and shy and stiff, like rustics dressed in evening-clothes.

But they could not keep silence. They were not ungenerous or mean: they were simply not bred to any restraint. Helen veered in the wind of hysteria, the strong uncertain tides of her temperament. At times when, before her own fire, her vitality sank, and she heard the long howl of the wind outside, she almost hated Eugene.

“It’s ridiculous!” she said to Luke. “His behaving like this. He’s only a kid — he’s had everything, we’ve had nothing! You see what it’s come to, don’t you?”

“His college education has ruined him,” said the sailor, not unhappy that his candle might burn more brightly in a naughty world.

“Why don’t you speak to her?” she said irritably. “She may listen to you — she won’t to me! Tell her so! You’ve seen how she’s rubbed it in to poor old papa, haven’t you? Do you think that old man — sick as he is — is to blame? ‘Gene’s not a Gant, anyway. He takes after her side of the house. He’s queer — like all of them! WE’RE Gants!” she said with a bitter emphasis.

“There was always some excuse for papa,” said the sailor. “He’s had a lot to put up with.” All his convictions in family affairs had been previously signed with her approval.

“I wish you’d tell her that. With all his moping into books, he’s no better than we are. If he thinks he’s going to lord it over me, he’s mistaken.”

“I’d like to see him try it when I’m around,” said Luke grimly.

The boy was doing a multiple penance — he had committed his first great wrong in being at once so remote from them and so near to them. His present trouble was aggravated by the cross-complication of Eliza’s thrusts at his father, and the latent but constantly awakening antagonism of mother and daughter. In addition, he bore directly Eliza’s nagging and carping attack. All this he was prepared for — it was the weather of his mother’s nature (she was as fond of him as of any of them, he thought), and the hostility of Helen and Luke was something implacable, unconscious, fundamental, that grew out of the structure of their lives. He was of them, he was recognizably marked, but he was not with them, nor like them. He had been baffled for years by the passionate enigma of their dislike — their tenders of warmth and affection, when they came, were strange to him: he accepted them gratefully and with a surprise he did not wholly conceal. Otherwise, he had grown into a shell of sullenness and quiet: he spoke little in the house.

He was wearing ragged from the affair and its consequences. He felt that he was being unfairly dealt with, but as the hammering went on he drew his head bullishly down and held his tongue, counting the hours until his holiday should end. He turned silently to Ben — he should have turned nowhere. But the trusted brother, frayed and bitter on his own accord, scowled bitterly, and gave him the harsh weight of his tongue. This finally was unendurable. He felt betrayed — utterly turned against and set upon.

The outbreak came three nights before his departure as he stood, tense and stolid, in the parlor. For almost an hour, in a savage monotone, Ben had tried deliberately, it seemed, to goad him to an attack. He had listened without a word, smothering in pain and fury, and enraging by his silence the older brother who was finding a vent for his own alien frustration.

“— and don’t stand there scowling at me, you little thug. I’m telling you for your own good. I’m only trying to keep you from being a jailbird, you know.”

“The trouble with you,” said Luke, “is that you have no appreciation for what’s been done for you. Everything’s been done for you, and you haven’t sense enough to appreciate it. Your college education has ruined you.”

The boy turned slowly on Ben.

“All right, Ben,” he muttered. “That’s enough, now. I don’t care what he says, but I’ve had enough of it from you.”

This was the admission the older one had wanted. They were all in very chafed and ugly temper.

“Don’t talk back to me, you little fool, or I’ll bat your brains out.”

The boy sprang at his brother like a cat, with a snarling cry. He bore him backward to the floor as if he were a child, laying him down gently and kneeling above him, because he had been instantly shocked by the fragility of his opponent and the ease of his advantage. He struggled with such mixed rage and shame as those who try quietly to endure the tantrum of a trying brat. As he knelt above Ben, holding his arms pinned, Luke fell heavily on his back, uttering excited cries, strangling him with one arm and cuffing awkwardly with the other.

“All right, B-B-Ben,” he chattered, “you grab his legs.”

A free scrimmage upon the floor followed, with such a clatter of upset scuttles, fire-irons, and chairs, that Eliza was brought at a fast gallop from the kitchen.

“Mercy!” she shrieked, as she reached the door. “They’ll kill him!”

But, although being subdued — in the proud language of an older South “defeated, sir, but never beaten”— Eugene was doing very well for his age, and continued to chill the spines of his enemies with strange noises in his larynx, even after they had all clambered panting to their feet.

“I f-f-f-fink he’s gone crazy,” said Luke. “He j-j-jumped on us without a word of warning.”

The hero replied to this with a drunken roll of the head, a furious dilation of the nostrils, and another horrible noise in his throat.

“What’s to become of us!” wept Eliza. “When brother strikes brother, it seems that the smash-up has come.” She lifted the padded arm-chair, and placed it on its legs again.

When he could speak, Eugene said quietly, to control the trembling of his voice:

“I’m sorry I jumped on you, Ben. You,” he said to the excited sailor, “jumped on my back like a coward. But I’m sorry for what’s happened. I’m sorry for what I did the other night and now. I said so, and you wouldn’t leave me alone. You’ve tried to drive me crazy with your talk. And I didn’t,” he choked, “I didn’t think you’d turn against me as you have. I know what the others are like — they hate me!”

“Hate you!” cried Luke excitedly. “For G-g-god’s sake! You talk like a fool. We’re only trying to help you, for your own good. Why should we hate you!”

“Yes, you hate me,” Eugene said, “and you’re ashamed to admit it. I don’t know why you should, but you do. You wouldn’t ever admit anything like that, but it’s the truth. You’re afraid of the right words. But it’s been different with you,” he said, turning to Ben. “We’ve been like brothers — and now, you’ve gone over against me.”

“Ah!” Ben muttered, turning away nervously. “You’re crazy. I don’t know what you’re talking about!” He lighted a cigarette, holding the match in a hand that trembled.

But although the boy had used a child’s speech of woe and resentment, they knew there was a core of truth in what he had said.

“Children, children!” said Eliza sadly. “We must try to love one another. Let’s try to get along together this Christmas — what time’s left. It may be the last one we’ll ever have together.” She began to weep: “I’ve had such a hard life,” she said, “it’s been strife and turmoil all the way. It does seem I deserve a little peace and happiness now.”