Gilead - Marilynne Robinson [83]
Last night I slept fairly well.
It bothers me to think I might be bothered to death, if you see what I mean. Jack Boughton is home, to the delight of his father, my dear friend. For all I know, he has done no harm, and for all I know, he intends no harm. And yet the mere fact of him troubles me.
You asked if he was not coming along on the birthday jaunt. You were disappointed. Glory made some sort of excuse, and your mother said nothing. The tact was audible. I have to wonder what they know, what they have talked about. How could they not pity him? I pity him. I regret absolutely that I cannot speak with him in a way becoming a pastor, knowing as I do what an uneasy spirit he is. That is disgraceful.
It is one of the best traits of good people that they love where they pity. And this is truer of women than of men. So they get themselves drawn into situations that are harmful to them. I have seen this happen many, many times. I have always had trouble finding a way to caution against it. Since it is, in a word, Christlike.
He has not replied to the note I sent him.
I wrote another note, telling him how deeply I felt any fault lay with me, and so on, and carried it over to Boughton's myself. I was just going to slip it in the mailbox, but Jack was out in the garden and he saw me and so I took it over to him. He actually seemed to shy from it a little. I told him it was another apology, more considered than the first one had been, and then he thanked me for it, and I am sure I saw genuine relief in his expression. I suspect he had not read the earlier note, perhaps thinking there might be some sort of rebuke in it. He did open the one I handed him and he read it over and then he thanked me again.
I said, "If you would like to talk, I would be happy to see you anytime."
And he said, "Yes, I do want to talk with you, if you're sure it's all right." So we'll see what comes of that.
I was pleased that it all fell out so agreeably. It took a weight from my heart. I'll admit it was one part of my motive in writing the second note that I didn't want your mother pitying him for any hurt I had done him. Still, I felt good about it.
I enjoyed seeing his face change the way it did then. He looked young for a moment.
Again no sleep. I have been thinking of the morning I baptized Jack Boughton. I had one of the deacons begin the service without me so that I could be there in Boughton's church.
We'd talked it over. The child's name was to be Theodore Dwight Weld. I thought that was an excellent name. My grandfather had heard Weld preach every night for three weeks until he had converted a whole doughface settlement to abolitionism, and the old man numbered it among the great experiences of his life. But then when I asked Boughton, "By what name do you wish this child to be called?" he said, "John Ames." I was so surprised that he said the name again, with the tears running down his face.
It simply was not at all like Boughton to put me in a position like that. It was so un-Presbyterian, in the first place. I could hear weeping out in the pews. It took me a while to forgive him for that. I'm just telling you the truth.
If I had had even an hour to reflect, I believe my feelings would have been quite different. As it was, my heart froze in me and I thought, This is not my child—which I truly had never thought of any child before. I don't know exactly what covetise is, but in my experience it is not so much desiring someone else's virtue or happiness as rejecting it, taking offense at the beauty of it.
That's interesting. There is certainly a sermon there.
"Blessed is he who takes no offense at me." That would be the primary text. I hope I have time to think it through.
I'll tell you a perfectly foolish thing. I have thought from time to time that the child felt how coldly I went about his