Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [140]
“Not literally, the words,” Dr. Scheldt corrected.
“No, but the feeling-tones, the joy or pain, the purpose of the words. Through the vibrations and echoes of what we have thought and felt and said we commune as we sleep with the beings of the hierarchy. But now, our daily monkeyshines are such, our preoccupations are so low, language has become so debased, the words so blunted and damaged, we’ve said such stupid and dull things, that the higher beings hear only babbling and grunting and TV commercials—the dog-food level of things. This says nothing to them. What pleasure can these higher beings take in this kind of materialism, devoid of higher thought or poetry? As a result, all that we can hear in sleep is matter creaking and hissing and washing, the rustling of plants, and the air conditioning. So we are incomprehensible to the higher beings. They can’t influence us and they themselves suffer a corresponding privation. Have I got it right?”
“Yes, by and large.”
“It makes me wonder about a late friend of mine who used to complain of insomnia. He was a poet. And I can see now why he may have had such a problem about sleeping. Maybe he was ashamed. Out of a sense that he had no words fit to carry into sleep. He may actually have preferred insomnia to such a nightly shame and disaster.”
Now the Thunderbird pulled up beside the Rookery on La Salle Street. Cantabile jumped out. As he was holding the door open for Thaxter I said to Polly, “Now Polly—tell me something helpful, Polly.”
“This Stronson fellow is in big trouble,” she said, “big, big, big trouble. Look in tomorrow’s paper.”
We went through the tiled, balustraded Rookery lobby and up in a swift elevator, Cantabile repeating, as though he wanted to hypnotize me, “Ten grand today will get you fifteen by Thursday. That’s fifty percent in three days. Fifty percent.” We came out into a white corridor and then up against two grand cedar doors lettered Western Hemisphere Investment Corporation. On these doors Cantabile gave a coded set of knocks: three times; pause; once; then a final once. It was odd that this should be necessary, but after all a man who could give such a return on money must be fighting off investors. A beautiful receptionist let us in. The anteroom was carpeted heavily. “He’s here,” said Cantabile. “Just wait a few minutes, you guys.”
Thaxter sat down on a low orange loveseat sort of thing. A man was vacuuming loudly around us, wearing a gray porter’s jacket. Thaxter removed his wide dude hat and smoothed the Directoire points over his irregularly formed forehead. He took the stem of his curved pipe into his straight lips and said, “Sit down.” I gave him the sturgeon and marmalade to hold and overtook Cantabile at the door to Stronson’s private office. I pulled tomorrow’s paper from under his arm. He grabbed at it and we both tugged. His coat came open and I saw the pistol in his belt but this no longer deterred me. “What do you want?” he said.
“I just want to have a look at Schneiderman’s column.”
“Here, I’ll tear it out for you.”
“You do that and I’m leaving.”
He pushed the paper at me violently and went into Stronson’s office. Rapidly leafing, I found an article in the financial section describing the difficulties of Mr. Stronson and the Western Hemisphere Investment Corporation. A complaint had been filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission against him. He was charged with violation of the federal securities regulations. He had used the mails to defraud and had dealt in unregistered securities. An explanatory affidavit filed by the SEC alleged that Guido Stronson was a complete phony, not a Harvard graduate, but only a New Jersey high-school dropout and gas-station attendant, until recently a minor employee