Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [15]
And Humboldt said of Demmie, “This girl really knows her pharmaceuticals. This is an exceptional girl.” But not to tamper was more than he could bear, so he added, “She’s got a few things to get out of her system.”
“Bunk. What things? She’s already been a juvenile delinquent.”
“That’s not enough,” said Humboldt. “If life is not intoxicating, it’s nothing. Here it’s burn or rot. The USA is a romantic country. If you want to be sober, Charlie, it’s only because you’re a maverick and you’ll try anything.” Then he lowered his voice and spoke looking at the floor. “What about Kathleen, does she look wild? But she let herself be stolen and sold by her father to Rockefeller. . . .”
“I still don’t know which Rockefeller bought her.”
“I wouldn’t make any plans about Demmie, Charlie. That girl has a lot of agony to get through yet.”
He was meddling, just meddling. Still, I took this to heart. For there was a lot of agony in Demmie. Some women wept as softly as a watering can in the garden. Demmie cried passionately, as only a woman who believes in sin can cry. When she cried you not only pitied her, you respected her strength of soul.
Humboldt and I were up talking half the night. Kathleen lent me a sweater; she saw that Humboldt would sleep very little and maybe she took advantage of my visit to get a little rest, foreseeing an entire week of manic nights when there would be no guest to spell her.
As a foreword to this Evening of Conversation with Von Humboldt Fleisher (for it was a sort of recital) I should like to offer a succinct historical statement: There came a time (Early Modern) when, apparently, life lost the ability to arrange itself. It had to be arranged. Intellectuals took this as their job. From, say, Machiavelli’s time to our own this arranging has been the one great gorgeous tantalizing misleading disastrous project. A man like Humboldt, inspired, shrewd, nutty, was brimming over with the discovery that the human enterprise, so grand and infinitely varied, had now to be managed by exceptional persons. He was an exceptional person, therefore he was an eligible candidate for power. Well, why not? Whispers of sane judgment plainly told him why not and made this comical. As long as we were laughing we were okay. At that time I was more or less a candidate myself. I, too, saw great opportunities, scenes of ideological victory, and personal triumph.
Now a word about Humboldt’s conversation. What was the poet’s conversation actually like?
He wore the look of a balanced thinker when he began, but he was not the picture of sanity. I myself loved to talk and kept up with him as long as I could. For a while it was a double concerto, but presently I was fiddled and trumpeted off the stage. Reasoning, formulating, debating, making discoveries Humboldt’s voice rose, choked, rose again, his mouth went wide, dark stains formed under his eyes. His eyes seemed blotted. Arms heavy, chest big, pants gathered with much belt to spare under his belly, the loose end of leather hanging down, he passed from statement to recitative, from recitative he soared into aria, and behind him played an orchestra of intimations, virtues, love of his art, veneration of its great men—but also of suspicion and skulduggery. Before your eyes the man recited and sang himself in and out of madness.
He started by talking about the place of art and culture in the first Stevenson administration—his role, our role, for we were going to make hay together. He began this with an appreciation of Eisenhower. Eisenhower had no courage in politics. See what he allowed Joe McCarthy and Senator Jenner to say about General Marshall. He had no guts. But he shone in logistics and public relations, and he was no fool. He was the best type of garrison officer, easygoing, a bridge-player, he liked girls and read Zane Grey Westerns. If the public wanted a relaxed government, if it had recovered sufficiently from the Depression and now wanted a holiday from war, and felt strong enough to get along without New Dealers