Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [133]
He was waiting between the lions in front of the Institute, exactly as expected in the cloak and blue velvet suit and boots with canvas sides. The only change was in his hair which he was now wearing in the Directoire style, the points coming down over his forehead. Because of the cold his face was deep red. He had a long mulberry-colored mouth, and impressive stature, and warts, and the distorted nose and leopard eyes. Our meetings were always happy and we hugged each other. “Old boy, how are you? One of your good Chicago days. I’ve missed the cold air in California. Terrific! Isn’t it. Well, we may as well start right with a few of those marvelous Monets.” We left attaché case, umbrella, sturgeon, rolls, and marmalade in the checkroom. I paid two dollars for admission and we mounted to the Impressionist collection. There was one Norwegian winter landscape by Monet that we always went to see straightaway: a house, a bridge, and the snow falling. Through the covering snow came the pink of the house, and the frost was delicious. The whole weight of snow, of winter, was lifted effortlessly by the astonishing strength of the light. Looking at this pure rosy snowy dusky light, Thaxter clamped his pince-nez on the powerful twisted bridge of his nose with a gleam of glass and silver and his color deepened. He knew what he was doing. With this painting his visit began on the right tone. Only, familiar with the whole span of his thoughts, I was sure that he was also thinking how a masterpiece like this might be stolen from the museum, and that his mind quickly touched upon twenty daring art thefts from Dublin to Denver, complete with getaway cars and fences. Maybe he even dreamed up some multimillionaire Monet fanatic who had built a secret shrine in a concrete bunker and would be willing to pay a ton of money for this landscape. Scope was what Thaxter longed for (me, too, for that matter). Still he was a puzzle to me. He was either a kindly or a brutal man, and deciding which was a torment. But now he collapsed the trick pince-nez, and turned toward me with the ruddy swarthy face, his big-cat gaze heavier than before, gloomy, and even a touch cross-eyed.
“Before the shops close,” he said, “I have an errand in the Loop. Let’s go out. I can’t take in anything more after this picture.” So we retrieved our things and passed through the revolving door. In the Mailers Building there was a dealer named Bartelstein, who sold antique fish knives and forks. Thax-ter wanted to obtain a set. “There’s a controversy over the silver,” he said decisively. “Fish on silver is now supposed to give a bad flavor. But I believe in the silver.”
Why fish knives? And with what, and for whom? The bank was putting him out of his Palo Alto house, still he never ran out of resources. He occasionally spoke of other houses that he owned, one in the Italian Alps, one in Brittany.
“The Mailers Building?” I said.
“This Bartelstein has a world reputation. My mother knows him. She needs the knives for one of her Social Register clients.”
At this moment Cantabile and Polly approached us, both breathing December vapor, and I saw the white Thunderbird idling at the curb, its door hanging open, and the blood-red upholstery. Cantabile was smiling and his smile was somewhat unnatural, less an expression of pleasure than something else. Perhaps it was a reaction to Thaxter’s cloak and hat and zooty shoes and flaming face.