Gilead - Marilynne Robinson [11]
Edward studied at Gottingen. He was a remarkable man.
He was older than me by almost ten years, so I didn't really know him very well while we were children. There were two sisters and a brother between us, all carried off by diphtheria in less than two months. He knew them and I, of course, did not, so that was another great difference. Though it was rarely spoken of, I was always aware that there had been a crowded, cheerful life the three of them remembered well and I could not really imagine. In any case, Edward left home at sixteen to go to college. He finished at nineteen with a degree in ancient languages and went straight off to Europe. None of us saw him again for years. There weren't even many letters.
Then he came home with a walking stick and a huge mustache. Herr Doktor. He must have been about twenty-seven or twenty-eight. He had published a slender book in German, a monograph of some kind on Feuerbach. He was smart as could be, and my father was a little in awe of him, too, as he had been since Edward was a small boy, I think. My parents told me stories about how he read everything he could put his hands on, memorized a whole book of Longfellow, copied maps of Europe and Asia and learned all the cities and rivers. Of course they thought they were bringing up a little Samuel—so did everyone—so they all kept him supplied with books and paints and a magnifying glass and whatever else came to mind or to hand. My mother sometimes regretted out loud that they hadn't really required him to do much in the way of chores, and she certainly didn't make the same mistake with me. But a child as wonderful as he was is not a thing you see often, and the belief was general that he would be a great preacher. So the congregation took up collections to put him in college and then to send him to Germany. And he came back an atheist. That's what he always claimed to be, at any rate. He took a position at the state college in Lawrence teaching German literature and philosophy, and stayed there till he died. He married a German girl from Indianapolis and they had six little towheaded children, all of them well into middle age by now. He was a few hundred miles away all those years and I hardly ever saw him. He did send back contributions to the church to repay them for helping him. A check dated January 1 came every year he lived. He was a good man.
He and my father had words when he came back, once at the dinner table that first evening when my father asked him to say grace. Edward cleared his throat and replied, "I am afraid I could not do that in good conscience, sir," and the color drained out of my father's face. I knew there had been letters I was not given to read, and there had been somber words between my parents. So this was the dreaded confirmation of their fears. My father said, "You have lived under this roof. You know the customs of your family. You might show some respect for them." And Edward replied, and this was very wrong of him, "When I was a child, I thought as a child. Now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things." My father left the table, my mother sat still in her chair with tears streaming down her face, and Edward passed me the potatoes. I had no idea what was expected of me, so I took some. Edward passed me the gravy. We ate our unhallowed meal solemnly for a little while, and then we left the house and I walked Edward to the hotel.
And on that walk he said to me, "John, you might as well know now what you're sure to learn sometime. This is a back water you must be aware of that already. Leaving here is like waking from a trance." I suppose the neighbors saw us leaving the house just at dinnertime that first day, Edward with one arm bent behind his back, stooped a little to suggest that he had some use for a walking stick, appearing somehow to be plunged in thought of an especially rigorous and distinguished kind, possibly conducted in a foreign language. (Only listen to me!) If they saw him, they'd have known instantly