From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [223]
“I dont know. Maybe.”
Hal smiled. “I thought you said you werent intellectual?”
“I aint,” Prew said. “I told you I never finished the seventh grade. But I can see how that might be possible, about sin.”
“Listen,” Hal smiled. “I take it you have never studied the rise of the Industrial Revolution and its effect upon humanity, have you?”
“No,” Prew said.
“If you had, you would understand the fallacy of sin. In a mechanistic universe, how can there be sin? In this age of the machine human society is also a machine, and if you look at it objectively you will see that Sin, per se, is not a self-evident phenomenon but a thing deliberately constructed for the mechanical control of society. Also, if you can be objective, you will be forced to see that Sin differs with the temperaments and opinions of different individuals, so that Sin is obviously relative to the man, and not a universal attribute.”
“Whew!” Maggio said. He drained his fresh drink.
“But thats just what makes sin,” Prew said; “the individual man’s idea of it. If each man didnt have his idea of sin, there wouldnt be any sin at all. But as long as you think women are sinful, for you they are. Although that dont affect them any, or affect my idea of women. But if you believe women are evil, then you must believe in sin. Right?”
“I explained to you,” Hal smiled, “that I only used that as a simile.” He looked away, back at Bloom, and changed the subject. “Tommy was in love with that Bloom character, can you imagine that? They had quite an affair, for a while. I never could see it, myself.”
“I was not,” Tommy said, “ever in love with Bloom. I didnt even have an ‘affair’ with him, as you put it. I went out with him a few times. Thats all. He’s too crude, too ignorant, and too stupid for anyone of my sensibilities to ever fall in love with.”
Hal laughed, delighted. “I was only saying what I heard. And I do know you used to want to bring him up to my apartment.” He turned to Prew. “Tommy uses my apartment for his loves, whenever I will let him. With Bloom I wouldnt let him. Otherwise, he takes them out in Kapiolani Park, or else he borrows my car. I think he drives them out to Blowhole. For atmosphere, you understand.”
“You bitch,” Tommy said heatedly in his deep bass voice.
Prew looked at the big man, suddenly remembering something, some familiar quality in his long thin-nosed face, something he knew well, but he could not get it.
Then he remembered it. When he was at Ft Slocum waiting shipment he had gone on pass to New York and picked up an artistic broad down in Greenwich Village in one of those Third Street bars with queer waiters and queer floor shows, bistros she called them, and next morning this broad had taken him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where just inside the main door high up on one wall was a marble statue of a nude Greek boy from the knees up that she had pointed out to him especially and this statue had the same look, no dent in the nose bridge and high cheekbones with softness under them, inbred looking, with over all the face that air of softness, of proud pain, and of conscious aimless beauty. In a word, he thought, decadent. Is America going to go decadent in the next election?
“What a you say we have another drink?” Angelo said. “I would like a champagne cocktail.”
“Simply because you happen to have money,” Tommy said to Hal. “And I dont. I dont have to take your nasty digs.”
“Hey, waiter,” Maggio said.
“What I love about you,” Hal said to Maggio, ignoring Tommy, “is your wonderful simplicity. You are as clear as glass. Lets break this disgusting party up and go up to my apartment. I have a new case of French champagne that ought to tempt you. Have you ever drunk French champagne?”
“Aint this French champagne?” Maggio said.
“No, this is domestic. Made in America.