Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [168]
“You certainly got a load of those darling kids,” said Renata, perfectly good-humored again—we were in an endless corridor of golden carpet, endlessly repeating its black scrolls and flourishes, flourishes and scrolls. My manner of observing people entertained her. “You’re such an eager looker,” she said.
Yes, but for decades I had neglected my innate manner of doing it, my personal way of looking. I saw no reason why I shouldn’t resume it now. Who cared?
“But what’s this?” said Renata as the bellhop opened the door. “What kind of room did they give us?”
“These are the accommodations with mansard windows. The very top of the Plaza. The best view in the house,” I said.
“We had a marvelous suite last time. What the hell are we doing in the attic? Where’s our suite?”
“Oh, come, come, my darling. What’s the difference? You sound like my brother, Julius. He gets into such a state when hotels don’t give him the best—so haughty and furious.”
“Charles, are you having one of your stingy fits? Don’t forget what you told me once about the observation car.”
I was sorry now that I had ever made her familiar with Gene Fowler’s saying that money was something to throw off the back end of a train. That was journalistic Hollywood of the golden age, the boozy night-club magnificence of the Twenties, the Big-Spender Syndrome. “But they’re right, Renata. This is the best spot in the whole hotel for seeing Fifth Avenue.”
Indeed the view, if you cared for views, was remarkable. I was very good myself at putting other people on to views for the purpose of absenting myself. Below, Fifth Avenue glowed with Christmas decorations and the headlights of the jammed traffic, solid between the Seventies and the Thirties, and shop illuminations, multicolored, crystalline, and like the cells in a capillary observed through a microscope, elastically changing shape, bumping and pulsatory. All this I saw in a single instant. I was like a deft girl, scooping all the jacks before the ball bounced back. It was as it had been with Renata last spring when we took the train to Chartres, “Isn’t that beautiful out there!” she had said. I looked and yes, it was indeed beautiful. No more than a glance was necessary. You saved yourself a lot of time that way. The question was what you were going to do with the minutes gained by these economies. This, I may say, was all due to the operation of what Steiner describes as the Consciousness Soul.
Renata didn’t know that Urbanovich was about to rule on the impounding of my money. By the movement of her eyes, however, I saw that money thoughts were on her mind. Her brows often were tilted heavenward with love but now and then a strongly practical look swept over her which, however, I also liked very much. But then she gave her head a quick lift and said, “As long as you’re in New York, you may as well see a few editors and peddle your essays. Did Thaxter give them back?”
“Reluctantly. He still expects to bring out The Ark.”
“Sure. He himself is every kind of animal.”
“He called me yesterday and invited us to a Bon Voyage party on the France.”
“His aging mother is throwing him a party too? She must be quite an old dame.”
“She understands style. For generations she’s arranged the coming out of debutantes and she’s connected with the Rich. She always knows where there’s a chalet vacant for her boy or a shooting box or a yacht. If he feels run-down she sends him