Сол Беллоу - Dangling Man

"You're such a clever man, Uncle!"

"Clever man!" I said, mimicking. "Movie talk. You don't even know what you're saying. This is absurd, quarrelingwith a stupid child. It's a waste of time. But I know how you feel toward me.

I know how much and how genuinelyyou hate me. I thank God, child that you are, that you have no power over me."

"You're crazy, Uncle," she said.

"All right, that's said and over, there won't be any more of it," I said, and believed that I was succeeding in checkingmyself. "You can listen to the conga, or whatever it is, when I leave. Now, will you go or sit down and let me play this to the end?"

"Why should I? You can listen to this. Beggars can't be choosers!" She uttered this with such triumph that I could see she had prepared it long in advance.

"You're a little animal," I said. "As rotten and spoiled as they come. What you need is a whipping."

"Oh!" she gasped. "You dirty… dirty no-account. You crook!" I caught her wrist and wrenched her toward me.

"Damn you, Joseph, let go! Let me go!" The album went crashing. With the fingers of her free hand she tried to reach my face. Seizing her by the hair fiercely, I snapped her head back; her outcry never left her throat; her nailsmissed me narrowly. Her eyes shut tightly, in horror.8Here's something from a beggar you won't forget ina hurry," I muttered.

I dragged her to the piano benchStill gripping her hair.8Don't!" she screamed, recovering her voice. "Joseph@ffally bastardff8I pulled her over my knee, trapping both her legs inmine. I could hear the others running upstairs as the firstblows descended and I hurried my task, determined thatshe should be punished in spite of everything, in spite of the consequences; no, more severely because of the consequences. "Don't you struggle," I cried, pressing downher neck. "Or curse me. It won't help you.8Amos pounded up the last flight of stairs and burst in. bbh, breathless, came Doily and Iva.8Joseph," Amos panted, "let her go. Let the girl goff8I did not release her at once. She no longer foughtagainst me but, with her long hair reaching nearly to thefloor and her round, nubile thighs bare, lay in my lap. whether this was meant to be an admission of complicityand an attempt to lighten my guilt, or whether she wishedthem to see and savor it fully, I did not know at first.8Stand up, Etta," Dolly said curdy. "Straighten yourskirt.8Slowly, she got to her feet. I wonder if any of them werecapable of observing how exactly alike we looked at thatmoment. "And now, if you can, Joseph," said Dolly, turning her dilated eyes on me, "explain what you were doing.88Mother,"

Etta suddenly began to sob. "I didn't do anything to him. He attacked me."

"What! In the name of God, what are you talking71 i about?" I exclaimed. "I spanked you because you had a spanking coming."

What unspeakable inference or accusation was that in Dolly's widened eyes? I returned her look steadily.

"Nobody has ever laid a hand on Etta for any reason whatsoever, Joseph."

"Whatsoever! Is calling her uncle a beggar a sufficient "whatsoever"? There's something ambiguous in your mind. Why don't you speak out?"

She turned to Amos as though to say, "Your brother is going insane. Now he's springing at me."

"I put her over my knee and gave her a hiding, and it wasn't half of what she deserved.

She swore at me like a poolroom bum. A mighty fine job you've done with her."

"He pulled me by the hair, that's what he did," Etta cried. "He nearly twisted my head off."

Iva, after turning off the phonograph, had seated herselfnear it in the background and did her best to efface herself. Which signified to me that she was acknowledging my shame. But there was no "shame."

She, too, now came into the sphere of my anger.

"What else did he do?" Dolly demanded.

"Oh, so you think she's covering something up! I spanked her. What else are you fishing for? What are you hoping she'll say? What sort of vulgarity '@.

"Stop acting like a wild man I" Amos said peremptorily. "It's your fault, too," I retorted. "Look how you've brought her up. It's might fine, isn't it. You've taught her to hate the class and, yes, the very family you come from. There's a whatsoever for you. Are people to be null becausethey wear one pair of shoes a year not a dozen? Try your teeth on that whatsoever!"

"You had no right to raise your hand to the child," saiddolly.8Why doesn't he tell you what he was doing in yourroom?" said Etta. i could see Iva sit up in her chair rigidly.8What?" said Dolly. "He was in your room.88I went there with Amos. Ask him," I said.8Daddy wasn't there when I saw you. You-were lookingin Mama's dressing table.88ally little spy!" I shouted, glaring at her. "You hear88I said to the others. "She accuses me of being a thief."

"What were you doing?"

Etta said.8I was looking for something. You can go down andsee if anything's missing. There's nothing missing.

Or youcan search me. I'll let myself be searched.88Tell us, what was it? Nobody says you're a thief.88It's what you're thinking. It's clear enough to'me.88Well, tell us," Dolly insisted.

"It was only a pin. I needed one."

In the darkened corner near the phonograph Iva lowered her head into her hands. "Hey! what are you actingup for back there?" I called out to her. "A pin, is that all?" Dolly said. She allowed herfDespite the seriousness of the moment, to smile.8allyes. And it happens to be true." They did not answer. i said: "This, I suppose, makes my shame complete. I'mnot only rash and stiff-necked, a beggar (i bowed to EttaeaWho scornfully turned away her tear-smeared face)

"and" ggffAmos) "a jackass, but really an idiot." Iva left theroom without looking at me.

"You, Amos," I continued,8c begin living me down. You, too, Etta. Doily is not a blood relative so she's absolved, of course. Unless I bring disgrace on the whole family. Convicted of theft, or assault, or worse @? Neither Dolly nor Amos un. dertook to reply.

I followed Ira downstairs.

She did not speak to me on the streetcar and, when we got off, she hurried home ahead of me. I reached the door of our room in time to see her drop to the edge of the bed and burst into tears.

"Dearest," I shouted. "It's so nice to know that you at least have faith in me!"

AMOS CALLED US up this morning; I sent Iva down to talk to him. She returned. and wanted to know why I hadn't spoken out, why I had wanted to give my brother's family a wrong impression.

I replied that as long as they were satisfied with the impression they had of themselves I didn't care what impression they had of me. Iva rubbed mercuric oxide into her red lids before leaving for work. Her crying had continued for several hours.

I felt relieved on one score; I had been uneasy about the money, believing that Etta was not above taking it. But she went away without waiting to see what I was doing in Dolly's dressing table. She did not know about the money. She might have stolen it to spite me.

But I have been wondering, now, what it can mean to Etta that she so closely resembles me. And why should I, furthermore, have assumed that our physical resemblance was the basis for an affinity of another kind? The search for an answer takes me far into my earlier history, a field I do not always find agreeable but which yields a great deal of essential information. And there I discover that the face, all faces, had a significance for me duplicated in no other object. A similarity of faces must mean a similarity of nature and presumably of fate.

We were a handsome family. I was brought up to think myself handsome, though not by any direct process that I can recall. It was conveyed to me by the atmosphere of the household.

Now I recall an incident from my fourth year, a quarrel between my mother and my aunt over the way in which she (my mother) dressed my hair. My aunt, Aunt Dina, claimed it was high time my curls were cut; my mother refused to hear of it. Aunt Din was a self-willed woman; she had arbitrary ways.