Gods and Generals - Jeff Shaara [16]
He walked along the dark slope, felt his way over fallen branches, old stumps. The weight of the gun was tiring him, and he thought of laying it down, leaning it against a tree. But no, not a good idea, he might not find it until spring, and his father would go through the roof, so he raised it up, rested it on his shoulder, and moved farther along, into the trees. He came to an old flat stump, capped with thick snow that he pushed away with a sweep of his arm, and sat down.
He knew the house was just below, maybe a hundred yards, and he could see them, could imagine the scene: Fannie was there, with the baby, and his other brothers, Hod and John. His mother would be in sublime control, preparing the great dinner, and Fannie would offer to help, a polite and insincere gesture, and his mother would say, “No, it’s all done,” and the young men would sit impatiently in front of the fire, waiting for the feast, and make conversation about very little, and yet the whole house would be filled with a common feeling, a sense that they were all loved, all of them, by each other, and as one family. And by now Tom was there, shaking snow from his boots and excitedly telling them all about the deer and his older brother, the hunter who would not shoot, and Chamberlain knew that his father would say nothing, make some small gesture of unspoken hopelessness, another disappointment.
He should have gone to West Point. That was the first disappointment. He had heard that now for years, especially after his graduation from Bowdoin, when he enrolled instead at the Theological Seminary. It had been the happiest day of his mother’s life, her dream that her oldest son would become a man of God, and his father had just turned away, did not share his wife’s closeness with the Almighty. But Chamberlain did not find the great spark, the powerful commitment to his faith, and so after his courses at the seminary, he had gone back to Bowdoin, and not to West Point, to teach the subjects he had so mastered; and so, to his father, there was another disappointment.
He was named Lawrence Joshua Chamberlain, but had switched the two, thinking “Joshua Lawrence” had a more formal sound, a better rhythm, and yet in a stroke of illogic preferred to be called Lawrence. His father preferred it as well—he had named him to honor the famous military hero of 1812, Commodore Lawrence, the man forever known for the quote, “Don’t give up the ship.” His mother would not relent, preferred the more biblical Joshua, and though both his father and grandfather had been named Joshua, his father had settled on calling him Lawrence, and Chamberlain had always wondered if it was because his mother did not.
He stared down the hill, closed his eyes, felt a great weight of gloom.
By now they would begin to wonder. Fannie would say something, ask Tom to go out and see what was keeping him, and he felt guilty, did not want them to worry, but knew they had no idea, could not understand why he sat alone on a cold stump in the thick, darkening woods.
Everyone, he thought . . . all of them, even my father, they’re all happy for me, they see me now as a success. But he did not feel like a success. This should be the happiest time of my life, he thought, and he searched for it, tried to feel the self-satisfaction, the sense of standing at the entrance to a long and prestigious career, a doorway to great academic achievement, and he felt nothing, no sense of thrill, no anticipation. He thought of Tom’s comment, back on the hill, “You make good money,” and he smiled. Any salary would seem like good money to someone who had never had a job. But Chamberlain was not pleased with the meager living he was offered for his teaching, had even added to his own workload, was now teaching languages as well, anything he could do to supplement his income. He scolded himself: There is something foolish about all this, I am, after all, in the very position I had sought. This was what he was meant to do, clearly. He was a natural scholar, could master any discipline put before him,