Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [69]
Sewell an anti-Semite? Nonsense. It suited Humboldt to hoke that up. As for blood-brotherhood and covenants, they were somewhat more genuine. Blood-brotherhood dramatized a real desire. But not genuine enough. And now I tried to remember our endless consultations and briefings before I called on Rick-etts. I said, at last, to Humboldt, “Enough. I know how to do this. Not another word.” Demmie Vonghel coached me too. She thought Humboldt very funny. On the morning of the interview she made sure that I was correctly dressed and took me to Penn Station in a cab.
This morning in Chicago I found that I could recall Ricketts without the slightest difficulty. He was youthful but white-haired. His crew cut sat low on his forehead. He was thick, strong, and red-necked, a handsome furniture-mover sort of man. Years after the war, he still clung to GI slang, this burly winsome person. A bit heavy for frolic, in his charcoal-gray flannels, he tried to take a light manner with me. “I hear you guys are going great in Sewell’s program, that’s the scuttlebutt.”
“Ah, you should have heard Humboldt speak on Sailing to Byzantium.”
“People have said that. I couldn’t make it. Administration. Tough titty for me. Now what about you, Charlie?”
“Enjoying every minute here.”
“Terrific. Keeping up your own work, I hope? Humboldt tells me you’re going to have a Broadway production next year.”
“He’s a little ahead of himself.”
“Ah, he’s a great guy. Wonderful thing for us all. Wonderful for me, my first year as chairman.”
“Is it, now?”
“Why yes, it’s my shakedown cruise, too. Glad to have both of you. You look very cheerful, by the way.”
“I feel cheerful, generally. People find fault with it. A drunken lady last week asked me what the hell my problem was. She said I was a compulsive-heimischer type.”
“Really? I don’t think I ever heard that expression.”
“It was new to me too. Then she told me I was existentially out of step. And the last thing she said was, ‘You’re apparently having a hell of a good time, but life will crush you like an empty beer can.’ “
Under the crew-cut crown Rickett’s eyes were shame-troubled. Perhaps he too was oppressed by my good spirits. In reality I was only trying to make the interview easier. But I began to realize that Ricketts was suffering. He sensed that I had come to do mischief. For why was I here, what sort of call was this? That I was Humboldt’s emissary was obvious. I brought a message, and a message from Humboldt meant nothing but trouble.
Sorry for Ricketts, I made my pitch as quickly as possible. Humboldt and I were pals, great privilege for me to be able to spend so much time with him down here. Oh, Humboldt! Wise warm gifted Humboldt! Poet, critic, scholar, teacher, editor, original. . . .
Eager to help me through this, Ricketts said, “He’s just a man of genius.”
“Thanks. That’s what it amounts to. Well, this is what I want to say to you. Humboldt wouldn’t say it himself. It’s my idea entirely, I’m only passing through, but it would be a mistake not to keep Humboldt here. You shouldn’t let him get away.”
“That’s a thought.”
“There are things that only poets can tell you about poetry.”
“Yes, Dryden, Coleridge, Poe. But why should Humboldt tie himself down to an academic position?”
“That’s not the way Humboldt sees things. I think he needs an intellectual community. You can imagine how overpowering the great social structure of the country would be to inspired