Saul Bellow - The Victim

He put the question with an unfinished flourish and Leven-thal looked at his sweating face and only now realized how drunk he was.

“Who wants all these people to be here, especially forever? Where’re you going to put them all? Who has any use for them all? Look at all the lousy me’s the world was made for and I share it with. Love thy neighbor as thyself? Who the devil is my neighbor? I want to find out. Yes, sir, who and what? Even if I wanted to hate him as myself, who is he? Like myself? God help me if I’m like what I see around. And as for eternal life, I’m not letting you in on any secret when I say most people count on dying. .”

Leventhal had an impulse to laugh. “Don’t be so noisy,” he said. “I can’t help it if the world is too crowded for you, but pipe down.”

Allbee also laughed, strenuously, with a staring expression; his entire face was distended. He cried out thickly, “Hot stars and cold hearts, that’s your universe!”

“Stop yelling. That’s plenty, now. You’d better go to sleep. Go and sleep it off.”

“Oh, good old Leventhal! Kindhearted Leventhal, you deep Hebrew..”

“Enough, stop it!” Leventhal interrupted.

Allbee obeyed, though he went on grinning. From time to time he released a pent-up breath and he sank deeper into the armchair.

“Are you really going to do something for me?” he said.

“You’ve got to stop the tricks, first of all.”

“Oh, I don’t want to see old man Beard,” Allbee assured him. “I won’t bother you up there, if that’s what you mean.”

“You’ve got to try to do something about yourself.”

“But will you really try? You know, use your connections for me?”

“For the love of Mike, I can’t do much. And as long as you behave the way you do…”

“Yes, you’re right. I’ve got to get next to myself. I have to change. I intend to. I mean it.”

“You see that yourself, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. Don’t you think I’ve got any sense at all? I must take myself in hand before everything wriggles away from me… get back to what I was when Flora was alive. I feel worthless. I know what I am. Worthless.” Delirious tears came to his eyes. “There were good things in me.” He struggled and fumbled, half revolting in the fervor of his self-abasement, but half — ah, half you could not help feeling sorry. “Williston will tell you. Flora would if she was here to speak and forgive me. I think she would. She loved me. You can see how I’ve come down if I talk to you like this. If she were alive, it wouldn’t hurt me so much to be a failure.”

“Ah, quit —!”

“I’d still be ashamed, but at least I wouldn’t have so much to blame myself for.”

“You? You hypocrite, you’d never blame yourself in a thousand years. I know your type.”

“I am to blame. I know it. My darling!” He put the heel of his hand to his wet forehead, spread his mouth open crudely, and wept.

Leventhal regarded him with a kind of dismayed pity. He rose and stood wondering what to do.

“The thing to do is to make him coffee, I suppose,” he decided. He hurried to fill the pot and, striking a match, held it to the burner. The flames spurted up in the star-shaped rows. He tapped the jar with the spoon and measured out the coffee.

When he came back to the front room, Allbee was asleep. He shouted, “Wake up, I’m fixing coffee for you.” He clapped his hands and shook him. Finally he lifted one of his lids and looked at his eye. “Passed out,” he said. And he thought with grim distaste, “Can I let him stay here like this? He may slide out of the chair and lie on the floor all night.” The idea of spending the night like that, with Allbee on the floor and perhaps waking up, frightened him somewhat. Besides, he was beginning to be aware of the disgusting smell of alcohol that came from him. He hauled Allbee from the chair and began to drag him from the room. At the kitchen door he lifted him onto his back, holding him by the wrists, and he carried him to the dining-room and dropped him onto the day bed.

LABOR DAY was approaching; the coming week was shortened. Press time had been moved back and all copy had to be ready by Friday. Beard called a meeting of the editors to announce this. He was in a talkative mood and he swiveled back and forth, catching the red threads of the carpet in the casters of his chair. At every other sentence he lifted his hand and let it fall slackly. He made it an official occasion because of the holiday. He wouldn’t keep them long. They had their work and brevity was the soul of wit. But this had been a good year for the firm, and he wanted the personnel to know how much he appreciated their loyalty and hard work. When you said work you said decency. They went together. So he wasn’t thanking his people so much as complimenting them. It was better to wear out than to rust out, as was often quoted. He was a hard worker himself. He lived five miles as the crow flies from the office and he always allowed himself enough time so that if the subway broke down he could still walk the distance before nine o’clock. If a job was worth holding it was worth being loyal to. Life without loyalty was like — Shakespeare said it — a flat tamed piece. Leventhal in his white shirt, his face concealing his somber, weary annoyance, knew this was aimed at him. He kept his eyes on the image of the light striped window shade filling like a sail in the glass of the desk which was already cleared for the holiday.

“ Grosser philosoph .” Leventhal, walking through the office, repeated his father’s phrase with all his father’s satire. Of all days to waste time. He got back to work even before the lamp over his papers had come to its full blue radiance. He had promised himself to take a breather today in order to think things over. But he was not really sorry to be too busy.

Mr Millikan, his face pale and his nostrils widened, strode through the office carrying galley sheets in each hand. Mr Fay stopped by to remind Leventhal about his manufacturer who wanted a spread.

“First thing next week, I’ll take care of it,” Leventhal said. “On Tuesday.”

“Say, I’m sorry to hear you had such bad luck in your family — bereavement.” Mr Fay’s lips thinned, his tone was formal, and the skin began to gather on his forehead. “Who was it?”

“My brother’s kid.”

“Oh, a child.”

“A little boy.”

“That’s awfully tough. Beard mentioned it to me.” The severity of his lips gave him a look of coldness bordering on suffering. Leventhal understood what caused it.

“Any other children?”

“They have another son.”

“That makes it a little easier.”

“Yes,” Leventhal said.

He let his work drift briefly while he gazed after Mr Fay. He at least was decent. Beard might have taken a moment off to say something. And Millikan rushed by and didn’t even have time to nod. It showed the low quality of the people, their inferiority and meanness. Not that it made any difference to him. This Millikan, when he finally did get around to ask a personal question, never listened to the answer, only seemed to. He was like a shellfish down in the wet sand, and you were the noise of the water to him. Leventhal glanced over his desk — the papers, the glassful of colored pencils, the thick inkstand, the wire letter tray. There were several messages on his spindle and he tore them off. One, dated yesterday, was from Williston; he wanted him to call. Leventhal held the slip of paper in his palm, against his chest, and looked down at it. He thought, “I’ll call him when the pressure’s off me. It couldn’t be so urgent or he would have tried to reach me at the shop or at home, last night.”