A Death in the Family - James Agee [27]
And looking at himself now, he neither despised himself nor felt pity for himself, nor blamed others for whatever they might feel about him. He knew that they probably didn’t think the incredibly mean, contemptuous things of him that he was apt to imagine they did. He knew that he couldn’t ever really know what they thought, that his extreme quickness to think that he knew was just another of his dreams. He was sure, though, that whatever they might think, it couldn’t be very good, because there wasn’t any very good thing to think of. But he felt that whatever they thought, they were just, as he was almost never just. He knew he was wrong about his mother. He had no doubt whatever, just now, that she really did love him, had never stopped loving him, and never would. He knew even that she was especially gentle to him, that she loved him in a way she loved nobody else. And he knew why he so often felt that she did not really love him. It was because she was so sorry for him, and because she had never had and never possibly could have, any respect for him. And it was respect he needed, infinitely more than love. Just not to have to worry about whether people respect you. Not ever to have to feel that people are being nice to you because they are sorry for you, or afraid of you. He looked at Sally. Poor girl. Afraid of me. That’s Sally. And it is all my own fault. Every bit mine. And I hate her for wanting other men, when I know that unfaithfulness never once came into her head, and when I’m the worst tail-chaser in LaFollette and half of the town knows it, and Sally knows it too, and is too gentlehearted and too scared ever to reproach me with it. And sure I ought to be able to do something about that, at least about that. Any man could. Only I’m no man. So how can I expect that people can ever look up to me, or at least not look down on me? People are fair to me and more than fair. More than fair, if ever they knew me for what I really am.
And here tonight it comes like a test, like a trial, one of the times in a man’s life when he is needed, and can be some good, just by being a man. But I’m not a man. I’m a baby. Ralph is the baby. Ralph is the baby.
Chapter 7
HANNAH LYNCH DECIDED, that day, that she would go shopping and that if Rufus wanted to go, she would like to take him with her. She telephoned Rufus’ mother to ask whether she had other plans for Rufus that would interfere, and Mary said no; she asked whether so far as Mary knew, Rufus had planned to do anything else, and Mary, a little surprised, said no, not as far as she knew, and whether he had or not, she was sure he would be glad to go shopping with her. Hannah, in a flicker of anger, was tempted to tell her not to make up children’s minds for them, but held onto herself and said, instead, well, we’ll see, and that she would be up by the time he came back from school. Mary urgently replied that she mustn’t come up—much as she would like to see her, of course—but that Rufus would make the trip instead. Hannah, deciding not to make an issue of it, said very well, she would be waiting, but he wasn’t to come unless he really wanted to. Mary said warmly that of course he would want to and Hannah again replied, more coolly, “We’ll see; it’s no matter”; and, getting off the subject, asked, “Have you had any message from Jay?”
For Mary had telephoned her father, that morning, to explain why Jay could not be at the office. “No,” Mary said, with slight defensiveness, for she felt somehow that criticism might be involved; and hadn’t expected to unless, of course ...
“Of course,” Hannah replied quickly (for she had intended no criticism), “so no doubt we needn’t worry.”
“No, I’m sure he would have called if his father had—even if there was any grave danger, ”Mary said.
“Of course he would,” Hannah replied. Was there