Сол Беллоу - Dangling Man

To many in the fascinated crowd the figure of the man on the ground must have been what it was to me-a prevision. without warning, down. A stone, a girder, a bullet flashes against the head, the bone gives like glass from a cheap kiln; or a subtler enemy escapes the bonds of years; the blackness comes down; we lie, a great weight on our faces, straining toward the last breath which comes like the gritting of gravel under a heavy tread.

I mounted the library stairs and from there saw the tall blue ambulance slip from the narrow passageway, the calm horse stepping away from the car.

I mentioned nothing of this to Iva; I wanted to spare her. But I could not spare myself, and several times during dinner the image of the fallen man came between me and my food, and I laid down my fork.

We did not enjoy our celebration. She thought I was ill.

January 21

Sus. Fmsor came by in great excitement and said that she and her husband were going to Detroit. He has been offered a radio training course by the War Department. She hopes to be admitted to the same school. They are leaving the baby with Farson's sister, who is a "twenty-six" girl in a downtown restaurant. "She'll look after her; laney adores the kid. I'll write and tell you how we're gettingalong. And, Iva, you'll stop by once in a while and see how she's getting along.

I'll give you Janey's address."

"Of course," said Iva, but coldly. And after Susie had rushed away, she said, "That fool! What if something should happen to the baby?"

"She doesn't want to lose her husband," I said.

"Lose him? I would have shot him by now. Besides, she's only making things worse. He'll blame her if anythinggoes wrong. And she believes she's doing it for love. Oh, be quiet, you!"

Mr. Vanaker was raking his throat, coughing, halting with a fleshy catch and coughing again. Any disturbance in our room sets him off. He did not stop until Ira, with a show of temper unusual for her, banged on the wall with her slipper.

January 22

I A'Every a large breakfast, intending to go without lunch. But at one o'clock, intensely hungry, I tossed aside Abt's pamphlet and went out for lunch. On the way back I bought several oranges and a large bar of chocolate. By four o'clock I had eaten them. Later, at Fallon's, I had a large dinner. And a few hours later, in the movies, I added to all this a whole package of caramels and most of a bag of mints.1now, at eleven, I am still hungry.

January 24

WE supper with the Almstadts yesterday. Cousin Sam has not reported me. I had prepared Iva by telling her of our conversation, but nothing was mentioned.

Old Almstadt dorrg. nated the conversation, telling of the profits he could make if there were no shortage of supplies. My mother-in-law also is kept busy these days. Last week she baked a cake for the Russian Relief Bazaar. This week all the ladies of her dub are contributing blood to the Red Cross. She knits a muffler a week. She tried gloves but had no success with them. She could not do the fingers. And the girls, Alma and Rose, complained that all the young men were disappearing into the Army and that only high-school boys were left. Mrs. Almstadt again mentioned that she would like to have Iva with her when I was drafted. I said there was time enough to decide. I love Ira too much to turn her over to them.

Next week we are going to my father's. We have been declining my stepmother's invitations for weeks; she is becoming offended. lanuary 26 Ir BE'T with a cold. Marie made tea for me in the morning. Ira came home after lunch to nurse me. She brought a box of Louisiana strawberries and, as a treat, rolled them in powdered sugar. The coverlet was starred with the green stems.

She was at her most ample and generous best. She read to me for an hour, and then we dozed off together.

I awoke in the middle of the afternoon; she still slept.

I gazed up at the comfortable room and heard the slight, mixed rhythm of her breathing and mine. This endeared her to me more than any favor could. The icicles and frost patterns on the window turned brilliant; the trees, like instruments, opened all their sounds into the wind, and the bold, icy colors of sky and snow and clouds burned strongly. A day for a world without deformity or threat of damage, and my pleasure in the weather was all the greater because it held its own beauty and was engaged with nothing but itself. The light gave an air of innocenceto some of the common objects in the room, liberatingthem from ugliness. I lost the aversion I had hitherto felt for the red oblong of rug at the foot of the bed, the scrap of tapestry on the radiator seat, the bubbles of paint on the white lintel, the six knobs on the dresser I had formerly compared to the ugly noses of as many dwarf brothers. In the middle of the floor, like an accidental device of serenity, lay a piece of red string.

Great pressure is brought to bear to make us undervalue ourselves. On the other hand, civilization teaches that each of us is an inestimable prize. There are, then, these two preparations: one for life and the other for death.

Therefore we value and are ashamed to value ourvsAre hard. boiled. We are schooled in quietness and, if one of us takes his measure occasionally, he does so coolly, as if he were examining his fingernails, not his soul, frowning at the imperfections he finds as one would at a chip or a bit of dirt. Because, of course, we are called upon to accept the imposition of all kinds of wrongs, to wait in ranks under a hot sun, to run up a clattering beach, to be sentries, scouts or workingmen, to be those in the train when it is blown up, or those at the gates when they are locked, to be of no significance, to die. The result is that we learn to be unfeeling toward ourselves and incurious. Who can be the earnest huntsman of himself when he knows he is in turn a quarry?

Or nothing so distinctive as quarry, but one of a shoal, driven toward the weirs.

But I must know what I myself am.

It was good to lie in bed, awake, not dreaming.

Hemmed in all day, inactive, I lie down at night in enervation and, as a result, I sleep badly. I have never known dreamless sleep. In the past, my dreams annoyed me by their prolixity. I went on foolish errands, and held even more foolish debates, and settled and arranged the most humdrum affairs. But now my dreams are more bare and ominous.

Some of them are fearful. A few nights ago I found myself in a low chamber with rows of large cribs or wicker bassinets in which the dead of a massacre were lying. I am sure they were victims of a massacre, because my mission was to reclaim one for a particular family. My guide picked up a tag and said, "This one was found near '.. Tanza. It must have been Constanza. It was either there or in Bucharest that those slain by the Iron Guard were slung from hooks in a slaughterhouse. I have seen the pictures. I looked at the reclining face and murmured that I was not personally acquainted with the deceased. I had merely been asked, as an outsider '@.8.Do you think he can be found?" I said. "Would he be here?"

I showed my distrust. We continued up the aisle; it was more like the path of a gray draught than anything so substantial as a floor. the bodies, as I have said, were lying in cribs, and looked remarkably infantile, their faces pinched and wounded. I do not remember much more.

I can picture only the low-pitched, long room much like some of the rooms in the Industrial Museum in Jackson Park; the childlike bodies with pierced heads and limbs; my guide, brisk as a rat among his charges; an atmosphere of terror such as my father many years ago could conjure for me, describing Gehenna and the damned until I shrieked and begged him to stop; and the syllables Ttzl.

Some of the other dreams have been only slightly less dreadful. In one I was a sapper with the Army in North Africa. We had arrived in a town, and my task was to render harmless the grenade traps in one of the houses. I crawled through the window, dropped from the clay sill and saw a grenade wired to the door, ridged and ugly. But I did not know where to begin, which wire to touch first. My time was limited; I had other work before me. I began to tremble and perspire and, going to the far end of the room, I aimed my pistol long and carefully at the ridges and fired. When the din subsided, I realized that if I had hit the mark I would have killed myself. But I had scarcely a moment to feel relieved. Pincers in hand, I went forward to cut the first wire.