Death In The Family, A - James Agee [132]
“I tell you, Rufus, it’s enough to make a man puke up his soul.
“That—that butterfly has got more of God in him than Jackson will ever see for the rest of eternity.
“Priggish, mealy-mouthed son of a bitch.”
They were standing at the edge of Fort Sanders and looking out across the waste of briers and of embanked clay, and Rufus was trying to hold his feelings intact. Everything had seemed so nearly all right, up to a minute ago, and now it was changed and confused. It was still all right, everything which had been, still was, he did not see how it could stop being, yet it was hard to remember it clearly and to remember how he had felt and why it had seemed all right. for since then his uncle had said so much. He was glad he did not like Father Jackson and he wished his mother did not like him either, but that was not all. His uncle had talked about God, and Christians, and faith. with as much hatred as he had seemed, a minute before, to talk with reverence or even with love. But it was worse than that. It was when he was talking about everybody bowing and scraping and hocus-pocus and things like that, that Rufus began to realize that he was talking not just about Father Jackson but about all of them and that he hated all of them. He hates Mother, he said to himself. He really honestly does hate her. Aunt Hannah, too. He hates them. They don’t hate him at all, they love him, but he hates them. But he doesn’t hate them, really, he thought. He could remember how many ways he had shown how fond he was of both of them, all kinds of ways, and most of all by how easy he was with them when nothing was wrong and everybody was having a good time, and by how he had been with them in this time too. He doesn’t hate them, he thought, he loves them, just as much as they love him. But he hates them, too. He talked about them as if he’d like to spit in their faces. When he’s with them he’s nice to them, he even likes them, loves them. When he’s away from them and thinks about them saying their prayers and things, he hates them. When he’s with them he just acts as if he likes them but this is how he really feels, all the time. He told me about the butterfly and he wouldn’t tell them because he hates them, but I don’t hate them, I love them, and when he told me he told me a secret he wouldn’t tell them as if I hated them too.
But they saw it too. They sure saw it too. So he didn’t, he wouldn’t tell them, there wouldn’t be anything to tell. That’s it. He told me because I wasn’t there and he wanted to tell somebody and thought I would want to know and I do. But not if he hates them. And he does. He hates them just like opening a furnace door but he doesn’t want them to know it. He doesn’t want them to know it because he doesn’t want to hurt their feelings. He doesn’t want them to know it because he knows they love him and think he loves them. He doesn’t want them to know it because he loves them. But how can he love them if he hates them so? How can he hate them if he loves them? Is he mad at them because they can say their prayers and he doesn’t? He could if he wanted to, why doesn’t he? Because he hates prayers. And them too for saying them.
He wished he could ask his uncle, “Why do you hate Mama?” but he was afraid to. While he thought he looked now across the devastated Fort, and again into his uncle’s face, and wished that he could ask. But he did not ask, and his uncle did not speak except to say, after a few minutes, “It’s time to go home,” and all the way home they walked in silence.
THE END.
About the Author
James Agee was a writer with a precise and original talent, who was essentially a poet. This characteristic, in addition to his collection of poetry, Permit Me Voyage, appears clearly in his prose, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and The Morning Watch. It also gave a clear, artistic