Сол Беллоу - Dangling Man

"What a welcome," he said; but he seemed somewhat mollified.

"I see people, so seldom, I've forgotten how to act. I don't want to be bad-tempered. But, on the other hand, the people who accuse me of that haven't exactly been beating the woods in searching parties.

Things have changed, Mike. You're busy and prosperous-best of luck to you.

But we may as well be honest about this."

"Now what's coming?"

"We're temporarily in different classes, and it has an effect on us. Oh, yes, it does. For instance, the way you took in this room, the way you looked around…"

"I don't get what you're driving at," he said in per. plexity.

"You get it. You're not stupid. Don't act like Abt, saying, "I can't follow you." We are in different classes. The very difference in our clothes shows it."

"What a change," he said. "What a difference." He shook his head in regret and reminiscence. "You use'd to be an absolutely reasonable guy."

"I was sociable."

"Now you sound so wild."

The subject would bear no more discussion. "How was your trip?" I asked.

He stayed all afternoon and tried to make an old-time visit of it. But, after such a start, that was impossible. He was hale and businesslike, wanting no further trouble with me. So, haltingly, we covered a variety of subjects-public opinion, the war, our friends, and again the war. Minna Servatius was about to have a baby. I had heard something about that. George Hayza was expecting a naval commission. I had heard about that, also. There was a rumor that Abt was to be sent to Puerto Rico.

Adler said he would find out definitely next week. He was going East.

"You see, Joseph," he said at four o'clock, "there's nothing we'd rather do than come and chat with you as we used to. But that's all gone now. We're busy. You'll be busy yourself, one of these days, busier than you'd ever care to be."

"Yes, things change. C'est la guerre.

C" est la vie. Good old punch lines."

"What a Frenchman you've become."

"Say, do you remember Jeff Forman?"

"I read about him. He got a posthumous medal. Poor Jeff."

"C'ancest la vie."

"That's not funny," said Adler disapprovingly.

"I was just quoting from the last war. I didn't mean to be funny. We can't do anything for Jeff, anyway, by pulling a long face. Can we?"

"I guess not."

And, in this manner, the visit drew to a dose.

"When you're in the East," I said, "look up John Pearl.

He needs a breath of Chicago. You ought to stop in and see him, I think." I added, with a laugh, "You might run into another Chicagoan in New York. Steidler. He hasn't been here for a long time. My guess is he took his brother's money."

"All?"

"His brother wrote a song and wanted Alf to take it to New York for him. He's looking for a publisher."

"If I thought there was a chance of running into Steidler, I wouldn't see Pearl. Why isn't he in the Army?"

"He's leaving the war to us normal bastards, he says."

"You've been seeing him. I wouldn't. He's not your kind. Stay away from him."

"Oh, oh, now! He can't hurt me. Besides, beggars can't be choosers. I'm quoting my niece. Lines addressed to me."

"Really? Amos's girl?"

"Oh, yes," I said. "She's quite grownddup."

And so Myron left, plainly dissatisfied with the results of his call. I went down with him into the street.

We tramped to the corner over the discolored snow.

While we waited to cross to the car stop, Myron offered to lend me money.

"No," I said, and gently moved his hand away.

"We have enough. We get along very well." He put the money back in his purse. "Here comes the Fifty-five car. Better run for it." He gave me a final pat on the shoulder and sprinted across, whipping off his hat as he went, to hail the motorman.

March 3

Dor..- phoned to ask us to dinner next

Sunday. I said we had already accepted another invitation.

The Farsons have returned from Detroit, their training over. Susie dropped in to see Iva at the library. The baby had grippe; not a serious case. They have decided to send her to Farson's parents in Dakota, while they themselves go to California to work in an aircraft factory.

Susie is in good spirits and is delighted at going to California. Walter missed the child more than she did. They intend to send for her as soon as they settle down.

March 5

TnER'P. is a woman who goes through the neighborhood with a shopping bag full of Christian Science literature. She stops young men and talks to them. Since we cover the same streets, I encounter her often, but she keeps forgetting me, and it is not always possible to avoid her. For her part, she has no understanding of the art of stopping people. She rushes to block you with her body clumsily, almost despairingly. If she misses, she is incapable of following up, and if you succeed in eluding her-if you want to elude her, if you have the heart to continue doing so time after time she can only stand, defeated, staring after you. If you do stop, she takes out her tracts and begins to speak.

She must be nearly fifty, a tall and rather heavy woman. But she has a sickly face thin chapped lips, square yellow teeth, recessed brown eyes which yott vainly read and reread for a meaning.

The skin under her eyes reveals tiny, purple, intersecting vessels. Her hair is grizzled, her forehead is broad and blazed with a scar that resembles an old bullet wound. She speaks in a rapid whisper. I listen and wait for an opportunity to disengage myself.

Her speech is memorized. I watch her chapped lips through which the words come, so dry and rapid, often pronounced as though she did not understand them. The words, the words trip her fervor. She says she has talked to many young men who are about to go to war, who are going to face destruction. Her duty is to tell them that the means of saving themselves is at hand if they want it. Nothing but belief can save them. She has spoken to many others who have come back from the jungles and the fox holes, surviving the maiming fire only because of their faith. The doctrines of the science are not superstitions but true science, as has been proved.

She has a pamphlet of testimonials, written by soldiers who know how to believe.

Meanwhile her face and theddard brown shells of her eyes do not change. She writes on a pad while she is talking. when she is done, she hands you the paper. It containsthe names and addresses of the various churches and Reading Rooms in the neighborhood. And that is all. She is now at your mercy. She waits.

Her lips come together like the seams of a badly sewn baseball. Her face burns and wastes under your eyes; the very hairs at the corners of her mouth seem already to have shriveled. When, after a long pause, you do not offer to buy one of the tracts, she walks away, her run-down shoes knocking on the pavementHer load swinging as heavily as a bag of sand.

Yesterday she was sicker than ever. Her skin was the color of brick dust; her breath was sour. In her old tam that half-covered the scar, and her rough, blackened coat buttonedto the neck, she suggested the figure of a minor politicalleader in exile, unwelcome, shabby, burning with a double fever.

She addressed me in the usual whisper.

"You spoke to me two weeks ago," I said.

"Oh. Well… I have a pamphlet here about the beliefsof Science. And testimony by…"

She groped. Then I felt sure it had taken her these extra minutes to hear what I had said. I was about to ask, "Don't you feel well?" but, from fear of offending her, I held back. Her lips were more badly chapped than I had ever seen them. On the protruding point of the upper, a scab had formed.

"The men from Bataan," I said. "The one you told me about last time."

"Yes. Five cents."

"Which would you rather sell me, this or the other?" She held out the one with the veterans' testimony. "You're going to the Army, too? This is the one." She took the coin and slid it into her pocket, which was edged with a sort of charred fur. Then she said, "You're going to read it."