Walker Percy - The Last Gentleman

“No,” said the engineer. Kitty did not answer.

“He’s really a good writer,” said Jamie, going back to his ashtray. “At least in this novel. It was about this young man who was a refugee or a prisoner, I forget which. He was traveling the whole length of Russia in a cattle car, along with hundreds of others. He was sick with brain fever, whatever that is, I have only come across brain fever in Russian novels. It was summer and they were crossing Siberia, day after day, weeks even. The car was crowded and he had one tiny corner and a bit of straw and that was all. And though he was quite ill and even delirious at times, the strange thing about it was that it wasn’t so bad. Through the slats of the car he could see the fields, which were covered by a little blue flower. And of course the sky. The train stopped often and peasant women would bring him bowls of blueberries and fresh warm milk — that was the peculiar thing about it, that even though he knew no one and the train only stopped for a few minutes at a time, somehow news of this young man traveled ahead of the train and they expected him. And though everybody else on the train became exhausted by the hardships of the trip, he actually got better! It was really good. I think it’s the best novel I ever read.”

“That’s fine, Jamie, that’s fine and I agree with you,” said Kitty peevishly. “But I still don’t see why—”

The engineer interrupted her. “Are you coming?”

“Me? No, indeed.”

They were silent when the Lincoln turned up the links road. When Jamie got out into the garage, which smelled of wet concrete from David’s hosing, the engineer held Kitty.

“What?” she said, still turned away and not quite managing a look back at him.

“I want to tell you something.”

“What?”

“Or rather ask you something.”

“What?”

“I want you to come with us.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No, I want you to marry me.”

“In the next thirty minutes?”

“Look. Jamie wants to go and I think we ought to go with him.”

“ Why does he want to go?” She was peevish still, but there was a settling under her peevishness. Though one foot was still out of the car and her books cradled in her arm, she had settled back half a millimeter.

“We can be married in Louisiana tomorrow.”

“Now I have heard it all. I don’t mind saying that I have heard it all. ”

“Put your book down.”

“What?”

“Give me your book.”

“What for?”

But she gave it to him and he threw it into the back seat and took hold of her while the warm Lincoln ticked away in the resounding garage. Oh, damnable straight upstanding Lincoln seat. He was almost beside himself with tenderness at the eight o’clock splendor of her. “I’m in love,” he said, kissing her and taking hold of the warm pad back of her knee, which he loved best of all when she was leading cheers. But the angles were bad and contrived against him.

“Good God,” cried Kitty, breaking free. “What in the world has happened to you and Jamie this morning! You’re crazy!”

“Come here and let me hold you tight.”

“Hold me tight, my foot.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“What question?”

“Will you marry me?”

“Jeezum,” she said in a new expression of hers, something she got from the Chi O’s. And retrieving her world anthology from the back seat, she left him alone in the garage.

Jamie became cheerful and red-cheeked as they fitted out the Trav-L-Aire. While the engineer set about laying in his usual grits and buttermilk and slab bacon and filling the tank with the sweet artesian water of the valley against the day of the evil alkali water of the desert, Jamie staked out the upper forward bunk as his private domain. It was a broad bed lying athwart the trim ship, with a fine view forward over the top of the cab. There was a shelf for his radio, a recessed reading light something like the old Pullman upper berth. Jamie hit on the idea of replacing the mattress with a cot pad which not only gave him the narrow hard corner he wanted but left a gutter just wide enough to hold his books.

“Let’s take plenty of fresh milk with us,” said Jamie.

“O.K.”

“I’ve drunk a lot of milk lately. I’ve gained three pounds.”

“Good.”

Jamie stretched out on the hard bed and watched the engineer store away the staples Lugurtha had given him from the kitchen. “You know I truly believe that if I could live a simple life, I could actually conserve my energy and therefore gain strength. I honestly think it’s a question of living simply and conserving your energy. I’ll live right here, get up, go to class, come back, get up, eat, come back, etcetera. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes.” To tell the truth, it didn’t seem unreasonable.

“Are you really going to marry Kitty?”

“I asked her. But if I do and she does come along, it will be just the same for you. These are your quarters if we are married, yours and mine if we’re not.”

“What if she won’t, ah — go? Will you still come?”

“If you want me to.”

“O.K.,” said Jamie and began to arrange his books in alphabetical order. “Where do you keep your telescope?”

“Here.”

“Oh yes. I remember. Look. I’m bringing my Freylinghausen star charts along. I understand the atmosphere is a great deal clearer in New Mexico.”

“That’s right. Now, Jamie, I think you’d better go find your parents. It is not enough for you to tell me that you have their permission. They must tell me too.”

“O.K.”

“We’ll drive till we get tired and start out again when we feel like it.”

It turned out to be a morning for dealing with practical matters. Two letters awaited him on the refectory table in the castle hall. He never received mail from anywhere. They had been written more than two weeks earlier and addressed to the Y.M.C.A. in New York, forwarded to General Delivery in Williamsburg and thence to the Vaughts’ home address. Both had to do with money. One was from his Uncle Fannin, who lived in Shut Off, Louisiana. His uncle wrote to remind him that although the “place” had been sold many years ago, certain mineral rights had been retained, and that he had recently received a lease offer from Superior Oil Company of California. The rights, as he must know, were jointly owned by the two surviving male Barretts. Would he, the younger, signify his intention in this matter? He, the elder, would as soon accept the offer. The share of each would come to $8,300. The latter was written in neat pencil script on ruled paper which had been torn from a pad.

The other letter had also to do with money. The First National Bank of Ithaca wished to advise him of the existence of a savings account in his name, opened for him by his father in the year 1939. What with the compounding of interest, his balance now stood at $1,715.60. The occasion of this notice was the present reorganization of the bank. He pondered—1939. That was the year of his birth.

Jamie was delayed. His clothes still lay on the bed in the garage apartment. After waiting for him a good forty minutes, the engineer returned to the house. Lugurtha was making beaten biscuits for the football picnic tomorrow. On the marble slab sifted with flour, she rolled out a soft mitt of dough. Kitty met him in the pantry, in a secret glee, and hustled him into the “little” pantry, a dark cold closet where potatoes and onions were stored in bins. He peered at her.

“My darling,” she whispered, giving him a passionate kiss and making herself free of him in an entirely new way, all joyous legs and arms. He felt a vague unease. “Guess what?”