Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [171]
“Yes, but first I want you to tell me why you’re so uncordial. We’ve known each other more than thirty years.”
“Well, apart from your political views—”
“Most political views are like old newspapers chewed up by wasps—faded clichés and buzzing.”
Huggins said, “Some people care where mankind is going. Besides, you can’t expect me to be cor-cor-cor when you make such cracks about me. You said I was the Tommy Manville of the left and that I espoused cau-causes the way he ma-married broads. A couple of years ago-go you insulted me on Madison Avenue because of the protest buttons I was wearing. You said I used to have i-i-ideas and now I had only buttons.” Aggrieved, inflamed, facing me with my own effrontery, he waited to hear what 1 could say for myself.
“I’m sorry to say that you quote me correctly. I admit this low vice. In the sticks, away from the Eastern scene, I think up wicked things to say. Humboldt brought me around in the Forties, but I never became part of your gang. When everybody was on Burnham or on Koestler I was somewhere else. The same for the Encyclopedia of Unified Science, or Trotsky’s Law of Combined Development, or Chiaramonte’s views on Plato or Lionel Abel on theater or Paul Goodman on Proudhon, or almost everybody on Kafka or Kierkegaard. It was like poor old Humboldt’s complaint about girls. He wanted to do them good but they wouldn’t hold still for it. I wouldn’t hold still either. Instead of being grateful for my opportunity to get into the cultural life of the Village at its best—”
“You were reserved,” said Huggins. “But what were you re-re-reserving yourself for? You had the star attitude, but where was the twi-twi-twink.. . .”
“Reserved is the right word,” I said. “If other people had a bad content, I had a superior emptiness. My sin was that I thought in secret that I was more intelligent than all you enthusiasts for 1789, 1848, 1870, 1917. But you all had a much nicer and gayer time with your parties and all-night discussions. All I had was the subjective, anxious pleasure of thinking myself so smart.”
“Don’t you still think so?” said Huggins.
“No, I don’t. I’ve given up on that.”
“Well, you’re out in Chicago where they think the earth is flat and the moon is made of green cheese. You’ve returned to your mental home,” he said.
“Have’ it your way. That’s not what I came to see you about. We still have one bond, anyway. We both adored Humboldt. Maybe we have something else in common, we’re both amorous old dogs. We don’t take each other seriously. But women seem to, still. Now what about the legacy?”
“Whatever it is, it’s in an envelope labeled ‘Citrine,’ and I haven’t read it because old Wald-Waldemar, Humboldt’s uncle, grabbed it off. I don’t know how I became exec-executor.”
“Humboldt gave you lumps too, didn’t he, after you joined the gang at Bellevue and he said I stole his money. You may have been at the Belasco when he picketed me.”
“No, but it had a certain ch-cha-charm.”
Laughing, Huggins puffed at his holder. Was it the old Russian actress, Ouspenskaya, who had made these holders popular in the Thirties, or FDR, or John Held, Jr.? Like Humboldt, like myself for that matter, Huggins was an old-movie buff. Humboldt’s picketing and his own behavior at the White House he might see as moments from René Clair.
“I never thought you stole his money,” said Huggins. “I understand he got into you for a few thousand. Did he forge a check?”
“No. We once exchanged blank checks sentimentally. He used his,” I said. “And it wasn’t a few, it was nearly seven.”
“I took care of finances for him. I got Kathleen to way-way-waive rights. But he said I took kickbacks. Sore as a boil. So I didn’t see him ever again, poor Humboldt. He accused some switch-switchboard old woman at a hotel of covering his bed with cen-centerfold girls from Playboy. Grabbed a hammer and tried to hit the old broad. Took him away. More shock-shock therapy!