Death In The Family, A - James Agee [74]
Then Mary said tenderly, “How awful, pitiful, beyond words it must be, to be so terribly anxious for others, for others’ good, and not be able to do anything, even to say so. Not even to help. Poor things.
“Oh, they do need reassuring. They do need rest. I’m so grateful I could assure him. It’s so good he can rest at last. I’m so glad.” And her heart was restored from its desolation, into warmth and love and almost into wholeness.
Again they were all thoughtfully silent, and into this silence Joel spoke quietly and slowly, “I don’t—know. I just—don’t—know. Every bit of gumption I’ve got tells me it’s impossible, but if this kind of thing is so, it isn’t with gumption that you see it is. I just—don’t—know.
“If you’re right, and I’m wrong, then chances are you’re right about the whole business, God, and the whole crew. And in that case I’m just a plain damned fool.
“But if I can’t trust my common sense—I know it’s nothing much, Poll, but it’s all I’ve got. If I can’t trust that, what in hell can I trust!
“God, you’n Hannah’d say. Far’s I’m concerned, it’s out of the question.”
“Why, Joel?”
“It doesn’t seem to embarrass your idea of common sense, or Poll’s, and for that matter I’m making no reflections. You’ve got plenty of gumption. But how you can reconcile the two, I can’t see.”
“It takes faith, Papa,” Mary said gently.
“That’s the word. That’s the one makes a mess of everything, far’s I’m concerned. Bounces up like a jack-in-the-box. Solves everything.
“Well it doesn’t solve anything for me, for I haven’t got any.
“Wouldn’t hurt it if I had. Don’t believe in it.
“Not for me.
“For you, for anyone that can manage it, all right. More power to you. Might be glad if I could myself. But I can’t.
“I’m not exactly an atheist, you know. Least I don’t suppose I am. Seems as unfounded to me to say there isn’t a God as to say there is. You can’t prove it either way. But that’s it: I’ve got to have proof. And on anything can’t be proved, be damned if I’ll jump either way. All I can say is, I hope you’re wrong but I just don’t know.”
“I don’t, either,” Andrew said. “But I hope it’s so.”
He saw Mary and Hannah look at him hopefully.
“I don’t mean the whole business,” he said. “I don’t know anything about that. I just mean tonight.”
Can’t eat your cake and have it, his father thought.
Like slapping a child in the face, Andrew thought; he had been rougher than he had intended.
“But, Andrew dear,” Mary was about to say, but she caught herself. What a thing to argue about, she thought; and what a time to be wrangling about it!
Each of them realized that the others felt something of this; for a little while none of them had anything to say. Finally Andrew said, “I’m sorry.”
“Never mind,” his sister said. “It’s all right, Andrew.”
“We just each believe what we’re able,” Hannah said, after a moment.
“Even you, Joel. You have faith in your mind. Your reason.”
“Not very much: all I’ve got, that’s all. All I can be sure of.”
“That’s all I mean.”
“Let’s not talk about it any more,” Mary said. “Tonight,” she added, trying to make her request seem less peremptory.
The word was a reproach upon them all, much more grave, they were sure, than Mary had intended, so that to spare her regret they all hastened to say, kindly and as if somewhat callously, “No, let’s not.”
In the embarrassment of having spoken all at once they sat helpless and sad, sure only that silence, however painful to them all and to Mary, was less mistaken than trying to speak. Mary wished that she might ease them; her continued silence, she was sure, intensified their self-reproach; but she felt, as they did, that an attempt to speak would be worse than quietness.
In this quietness their mother sat, and smiled nervously and politely, and tilted her trumpet in a generalized way towards all of them. She realized that nobody was speaking and it was at such times, ordinarily, that she felt sure that she could speak without interrupting anyone, but she feared that anything that she might say might brutally or even absurdly disrupt a