Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [162]
“There’s no real contradiction. Slothful people work the hardest.”
“Tell me about this. And remember, Charlie, you’re not going to tone this down. You’re going to say it to me as you would to yourself.”
“Some think that sloth, one of the capital sins, means ordinary laziness,” I began. “Sticking in the mud. Sleeping at the switch. But sloth has to cover a great deal of despair. Sloth is really a busy condition, hyperactive. This activity drives off the wonderful rest or balance without which there can be no poetry or art or thought—none of the highest human functions. These slothful sinners are not able to acquiesce in their own being, as some philosophers say. They labor because rest terrifies them. The old philosophy distinguished between knowledge achieved by effort (ratio) and knowledge received (intellectus) by the listening soul that can hear the essence of things and comes to understand the marvelous. But this calls for unusual strength of soul. The more so since society claims more and more and more of your inner self and infects you with its restlessness. It trains you in distraction, colonizes consciousness as fast as consciousness advances. The true poise, that of contemplation or imagination, sits right on the border of sleep and dreaming. Now, Naomi, as I was lying stretched out in America, determined to resist its material interests and hoping for redemption by art, I fell into a deep snooze that lasted for years and decades. Evidently I didn’t have what it took. What it took was more strength, more courage, more stature. America is an overwhelming phenomenon, of course. But that’s no excuse, really. Luckily, I’m still alive and perhaps there’s even some time still left.”
“Is this really a sample of your mental processes?” asked Naomi.
“Yes,” I said. I didn’t dare mention the Exousiai and the Archai and the Angels to her.
“Oh Christ, Charlie,” said Naomi, sorry for me. She pitied me, really, and reaching over and breathing kindly into my face she patted my hand. “Of course you’ve probably become even more peculiar with time. I see now it’s lucky for us both that we never got together. We would have had nothing but maladjustment and conflict. You would have had to speak all this high-flown stuff to yourself, and everyday gobbledygook to me. In addition, there may be something about me that provokes you to become incomprehensible. Anyway you already took one trip to Europe with your lady and you didn’t find Daddy. But when you go away, there are two more little girls with a missing father.”
“I’ve had that very thought.”
“George says that the little one is your favorite.”
“Yes, Lish is just like Denise. I do love Mary more. I fight my prejudice, however.”
“I’d be surprised if you didn’t love those children a lot in your dippy way. Like everybody else I have my own child worries.”
“Not with Maggie.”
“No, I didn’t like the job she had with Stronson, but now that he’s washed up she’ll get another, easy. It’s my son that upsets me. Did you ever get around to reading his articles in the neighborhood paper on kicking the drug habit? I sent them to you for your opinion.”
“I didn’t read them.”
“I’ll give you another set of clippings. I want you to tell me if he has talent. Will you do that for me?”
“I wouldn’t dream of refusing.”
“You ought to dream of it oftener. People lay too much on you. I know I shouldn’t be doing this. You’re leaving town and must have plenty to do. But I want to know.”
“Is the young man like his sister?”
“No, he isn’t. He’s more like his dad. You could do something for him. As a good man who’s led a cranky life, you might reach him. He’s already begun a cranky career.”
“So what’s missing is the goodness I’m alleged to have.”
“Well, you are a crackpot, but you do have a real soul. The kid grew up without a father,” said Naomi, tears coming to her eyes. “You don’t have to do much. Just let him get to know you. Take him to Africa with you.”
“Ah, did George sound off about the beryllium mine?”
This was all that I needed to add to my other enterprises and commitments,