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

“What have you been doing to yourself, you little fool?” he began, looking at the boy’s starved ribs. “You look like a scarecrow.”

“I’m all right,” said Eugene. “I wasn’t eating for a while. But I didn’t write them,” he added proudly. “They thought I couldn’t hold out by myself. But I did. I didn’t ask for help. And I came home with my own money. See?” He thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out his soiled roll of banknotes, boastfully displaying it.

“Who wants to see your lousy little money?” Ben yelled furiously. “Fool. You come back, looking like a dead man, as if you’d done something to be proud of. What’ve you done? What’ve you done except make a monkey of yourself?”

“I’ve paid my own way,” Eugene cried resentfully, stung and wounded. “That’s what I’ve done.”

“Ah-h,” said Ben, with an ugly sneer, “you little fool! That’s what they’ve been after! Do you think you’ve put anything over on them? Do you? Do you think they give a damn whether you die or not, as long as you save them expense? What are you bragging about? Don’t brag until you’ve got something out of them.”

Propped on his arm, he smoked deeply, in bitter silence, for a moment. Then more quietly, he continued.

“No, ‘Gene. Get it out of them any way you can. Make them give it to you. Beg it, take it, steal it — only get it somehow. If you don’t, they’ll let it rot. Get it, and get away from them. Go away and don’t come back. To hell with them!” he yelled.

Eliza, who had come softly upstairs to put out the lights, and had been standing for a moment outside the door, rapped gently and entered. Clothed in a tattered old sweater and indefinable under-lappings, she stood for a moment with folded hands, peering in on them with a white troubled face.

“Children,” she said, pursing her lips reproachfully, and shaking her head, “it’s time every one was in bed. You’re keeping the whole house awake with your talk.”

“Ah-h,” said Ben with an ugly laugh, “to hell with them.”

“I’ll vow, child!” she said fretfully. “You’ll break us up. Have you got that porch light on, too?” Her eyes probed about suspiciously. “What on earth do you mean by burning up all that electricity!”

“Oh, listen to this, won’t you?” said Ben, jerking his head upward with a jeering laugh.

“I can’t afford to pay all these bills,” said Eliza angrily, with a smart shake of her head. “And you needn’t think I can. I’m not going to put up with it. It’s up to us all to economize.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Ben jeered. “Economize! What for? So you can give it all away to Old Man Doak for one of his lots?”

“Now, you needn’t get on your high-horse,” said Eliza. “You’re not the one who has to pay the bills. If you did, you’d laugh out of the other side of your mouth. I don’t like any such talk. You’ve squandered every penny you’ve earned because you’ve never known the value of a dollar.”

“Ah-h!” he said. “The value of a dollar! By God, I know the value of a dollar better than you do. I’ve had a little something out of mine, at any rate. What have you had out of yours? I’d like to know that. What the hell’s good has it ever been to any one? Will you tell me that?” he yelled.

“You may sneer all you like,” said Eliza sternly, “but if it hadn’t been for your papa and me accumulating a little property, you’d never have had a roof to call your own. And this is the thanks I get for all my drudgery in my old age,” she said, bursting into tears. “Ingratitude! Ingratitude!”

“Ingratitude!” he sneered. “What’s there to be grateful for? You don’t think I’m grateful to you or the old man for anything, do you? What have you ever given me? You let me go to hell from the time I was twelve years old. No one has ever given me a damned nickel since then. Look at your kid here. You’ve let him run around the country like a crazy man. Did you think enough of him this summer to send him a post-card? Did you know where he was? Did you give a damn, as long as there was fifty cents to be made out of your lousy boarders?”

“Ingratitude!” she whispered huskily, with a boding shake of the head. “A day of reckoning cometh.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” he said, with a contemptuous laugh. He smoked for a moment. Then he went on quietly:

“No, mama. You’ve done very little to make us grateful to you. The rest of us ran around wild and the kid grew up here among the dope-fiends and street-walkers. You’ve pinched every penny and put all you’ve had into real estate which has done no one any good. So don’t wonder if your kids aren’t grateful to you.”

“Any son who will talk that way to his mother,” said Eliza with rankling bitterness, “is bound to come to a bad end. Wait and see!”

“The hell you say!” he sneered. They stared at each other with hard bitter eyes. He turned away in a moment, scowling with savage annoyance, but stabbed already with fierce regret.

“All right! Go on, for heaven’s sake! Leave us alone! I don’t want you around!” He lit a cigarette to show his indifference. The lean white fingers trembled, and the flame went out.

“Let’s stop it!” said Eugene wearily. “Let’s stop it! None of us is going to change! Nothing’s going to get any better. We’re all going to be the same. We’ve said all this before. So, for God’s sake, let’s stop it! Mama, go to bed, please. Let’s all go to bed and forget about it.” He went to her, and with a strong sense of shame, kissed her.

“Well, good-night, son,” said Eliza slowly, with gravity. “If I were you I’d put the light out now and turn in. Get a good night’s sleep, boy. You mustn’t neglect your health.”

She kissed him, and went away without another glance at the older boy. He did not look at her. They were parted by hard and bitter strife.

After a moment, when she had gone, Ben said without anger:

“I’ve had nothing out of life. I’ve been a failure. I’ve stayed here with them until I’m done for. My lungs are going: they won’t even take a chance on me for the army. They won’t even give the Germans a chance to shoot at me. I’ve never made good at anything. By God!” he said, in a mounting blaze of passion. “What’s it all about? Can you figure it out, ‘Gene? Is it really so, or is somebody playing a joke on us? Maybe we’re dreaming all this. Do you think so?”

“Yes,” said Eugene, “I do. But I wish they’d wake us up.” He was silent, brooding over his thin bare body, bent forward on the bed for a moment. “Maybe,” he said slowly, “maybe — there’s nothing, nobody to wake.”

“To hell with it all!” said Ben. “I wish it were over.”

Eugene returned to Pulpit Hill in a fever of war excitement. The university had been turned into an armed camp. Young men who were eighteen years old were being admitted into the officers’ training corps. But he was not yet eighteen. His birthday was two weeks off. In vain he implored the tolerance of the examining board. What did two weeks matter? Could he get in as soon as his birthday arrived? They told him he could not. What, then, could he do? They told him that he must wait until there was another draft. How long would that be? Only two or three months, they assured him. His wilted hope revived. He chafed impatiently. All was not lost.

By Christmas, with fair luck, he might be eligible for service in khaki: by Spring, if God was good, all the proud privileges of trench-lice, mustard gas, spattered brains, punctured lungs, ripped guts, asphyxiation, mud and gangrene, might be his. Over the rim of the earth he heard the glorious stamp of the feet, the fierce sweet song of the horns. With a tender smile of love for his dear self, he saw himself wearing the eagles of a colonel on his gallant young shoulders. He saw himself as Ace Gant, the falcon of the skies, with 63 Huns to his credit by his nineteenth year. He saw himself walking up the Champs–Elysées, with a handsome powdering of gray hair above his temples, a left forearm of the finest cork, and the luscious young widow of a French marshal at his side. For the first time he saw the romantic charm of mutilation. The perfect and unblemished heroes of his childhood now seemed cheap to him — fit only to illustrate advertisements for collars and toothpaste. He longed for that subtle distinction, that air of having lived and suffered that could only be attained by a wooden leg, a rebuilt nose, or the seared scar of a bullet across his temple.