Saul Bellow - Collected Stories

“If you’re this kind of poet,” said Wilhelm, whose fingers in his pocket were feeling in the little envelopes for the Phenaphen capsules, “what are you doing on the market?”

“That’s a good question. Maybe I am better at speculation because I don’t care. Basically, I don’t wish hard enough for money, and therefore I come with a cool head to it.”

Wilhelm thought, Oh, sure! That’s an answer, is it? I bet that if I took a strong attitude he’d back down on everything. He’d grovel in front of me. The way he looks at me on the sly, to see if I’m being taken in! He swallowed his Phenaphen pill with a long gulp of water. The rims of his eyes grew red as it went down. And then he felt calmer.

“Let me see if I can give you an answer that will satisfy you,” said Dr. Tamkin. His flapjacks were set before him. He spread the butter on them, poured on brown maple syrup, quartered them, and began to eat with hard, active, muscular jaws which sometimes gave a creak at the hinges. He pressed the handle of his knife against his chest and said, “In here, the human bosom — mine, yours, everybody’s — there isn’t just one soul. There’s a lot of souls. But there are two main ones, the real soul and a pretender soul. Now! Every man realizes that he has to love something or somebody. He feels that he must go outward. ‘If thou canst not love, what art thou?’ Are you with me?”

“Yes, Doc, I think so,” said Wilhelm listening — a little skeptically but nonetheless hard.

“‘What art thou?’ Nothing. That’s the answer. Nothing. In the heart of hearts — Nothing! So of course you can’t stand that and want to be Something, and you try. But instead of being this Something, the man puts it over on everybody instead. You can’t be that strict to yourself. You love a little. Like you have a dog” (Scissors!) “or give some money to a charity drive. Now that isn’t love, is it? What is it? Egotism, pure and simple. It’s a way to love the pretender soul. Vanity. Only vanity, is what it is. And social control. The interest of the pretender soul is the same as the interest of the social life, the society mechanism. This is the main tragedy of human life. Oh, it is terrible! Terrible! You are not free. Your own betrayer is inside of you and sells you out. You have to obey him like a state. He makes you work like a horse. And for what? For who?”

“Yes, for what?” The doctor’s words caught Wilhelm’s heart. “I couldn’t agree more,” he said. “When do we get free?”

“The purpose is to keep the whole thing going. The true soul is the one that pays the price. It suffers and gets sick, and it realizes that the pretender can’t be loved. Because the pretender is a lie. The true soul loves the truth. And when the true soul feels like this, it wants to kill the pretender. The love has turned into hate. Then you become dangerous. A killer. You have to kill the deceiver.”

“Does this happen to everybody?”

The doctor answered simply, “Yes, to everybody. Of course, for simplification purposes, I have spoken of the soul; it isn’t a scientific term, but it helps you to understand it. Whenever the slayer slays, he wants to slay the soul in him which has gypped and deceived him. Who is his enemy? Him. And his lover? Also. Therefore, all suicide is murder, and all murder is suicide. It’s the one and identical phenomenon. Biologically, the pretender soul takes away the, energy of the true soul and makes it feeble, like a parasite. It happens unconsciously, unawaringly, in the depths of the organism. Ever take up parasitology?”

“No, it’s my dad who’s the doctor.”

“You should read a book about it.”

Wilhelm said, “But this means that the world is full of murderers. So it’s not the world. It’s a kind of hell.”

“Sure,” the doctor said, “At least a kind of purgatory. You walk on the bodies. They are all around. I can hear them cry de profundis and wring their hands. I hear them, poor human beasts. I can’t help hearing. And my eyes are open to it. I have to cry, too. This is the human tragedy-comedy.”

Wilhelm tried to capture his vision. And again the doctor looked untrustworthy to him, and he doubted him. “Well,” he said, “there are also kind, ordinary, helpful people. They’re out in the country. All over. What kind of morbid stuff do you read, anyway?” The doctor’s room was full of books.

“I read the best of literature, science and philosophy,” Dr. Tamkin said. Wilhelm had observed that in his room even the TV aerial was set upon a pile of volumes. “Korzybski, Aristotle, Freud, W. H. Sheldon, and all the great poets. You answer me like a layman. You haven’t applied your mind strictly to this.”

“Very interesting,” said Wilhelm. He was aware that he hadn’t applied his mind strictly to anything. “You don’t have to think I’m a dummy, though. I have ideas, too.” A glance at the clock told him that the market would soon open. They could spare a few minutes yet. There were still more things he wanted to hear from Tamkin. He realized that Tamkin spoke faultily, but then scientific men were not always strictly literate. It was the description of the two souls that had awed him. In Tommy he saw the pretender. And even Wilky might not be himself. Might the name of his true soul be the one by which his old grandfather had called him—Velvel? The name of a soul, however, must be only that — soul. What did it look like? Does my soul look like me? Is there a soul that looks like Dad? Like Tamkin? Where does the true soul get its strength? Why does it have to love truth? Wilhelm was tormented, but tried to be oblivious to his torment. Secretly, he prayed the doctor would give him some useful advice and transform his life. “Yes, I understand you,” he said. “It isn’t lost on me.”

“I never said you weren’t intelligent, but only you just haven’t made a study of it all. As a matter of fact you’re a profound personality with very profound creative capacities but also disturbances. I’ve been concerned with you, and for some time I’ve been treating you.”

“Without my knowing it? I haven’t felt you doing anything. What do you mean? I don’t think I like being treated without my knowledge. I’m of two minds. What’s the matter, don’t you think I’m normal?” And he really was divided in mind. That the doctor cared about him pleased him. This was what he craved, that someone should care about him, wish him well. Kindness, mercy, he wanted. But — and here he retracted his heavy shoulders in his peculiar way, drawing his hands up into his sleeves; his feet moved uneasily under the table — but he was worried, too, and even somewhat indignant. For what right had Tamkin to meddle without being asked? What kind of privileged life did this man lead? He took other people’s money and speculated with it. Everybody came under his care. No one could have secrets from him.

The doctor looked at him with his deadly brown, heavy, impenetrable eyes, his naked shining head, his red hanging underlip, and said, “You have lots of guilt in you.”

Wilhelm helplessly admitted, as he felt the heat rise to his wide face, “Yes, I think so too. But personally,” he added, “I don’t feel like a murderer. I always try to lay off. It’s the others who get me. You know — make me feel oppressed. And if you don’t mind, and it’s all the same to you, I would rather know it when you start to treat me. And now, Tamkin, for Christ’s sake, they’re putting out the lunch menus already. Will you sign the check, and let’s go!”

Tamkin did as he was asked, and they rose. They were passing the bookkeeper’s desk when he took out a substantial bundle of onionskin papers and said, “These are receipts of the transactions. Duplicates. You’d better keep them as the account is in your name and you’ll need them for income taxes. And here is a copy of a poem I wrote yesterday.”