Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [83]
“I’m going to the hospital to see him,” I told Demmie.
“You are not. That’s the worst thing you can do.”
“But look at the state he’s in. I’ve got to go there, Demmie.”
“I won’t allow it. He’ll attack you. I couldn’t bear for you to fight, Charlie. He’ll hit you, and he’s twice your size and crazy and strong. Besides, I won’t have you disturbed when you’re doing the play. Listen,” she deepened her voice, “I’ll take care of it. I’ll go there myself. And I forbid you.”
She never actually got to see him. Dozens of people were in the act by now. The drama at Bellevue drew crowds from Greenwich Village and Morningside Heights. I compared them to the residents of Washington who drove out in carriages to watch the Battle of Bull Run and then got in the way of the Union troops. Since I was no longer his blood-brother, bearded stammering Orlando Huggins became Humboldt’s chief friend. Huggins obtained Humboldt’s release. Then Humboldt went to Mount Sinai Hospital and signed himself in. Acting on my instructions, lawyer Simkin paid a week in advance for his private care. However, Humboldt checked out again on the very next day and collected from the hospital an unused balance of about eight hundred dollars. Out of this he paid Scaccia’s latest bill. Then he started legal actions against Kathleen, against Magnasco, against the Police Department, and against Bellevue. He continued to threaten me but didn’t actually file suit. He was waiting to see whether Von Trenck would make money.
I was still at the primer level in my understanding of money. I didn’t know that there were many people, persistent ingenious passionate people, to whom it was perfectly obvious that they should have all your money. Humboldt had the conviction that there was wealth in the world—not his—to which he had a sovereign claim and that he was bound to get it. He had told me once that he was fated to win a big lawsuit, a million-dollar suit. “With a million bucks,” he said, “I’ll be free to think of nothing but poetry.”
“How will this happen?”
“Somebody will wrong me.”
“Wrong you a million dollars’ worth?”
“If I’m obsessed by money, as a poet shouldn’t be, there’s a reason for it,” was what Humboldt had told me. “The reason is that we’re Americans after all. What kind of American would I be if I were innocent about money, I ask you? Things have to be combined as Wallace Stevens combined them. Who says ‘Money is the root of evils’? Isn’t it the Pardoner? Well the Pardoner is the most evil man in Chaucer. No, I go along with Horace Walpole. Walpole said it was natural for free men to think about money. Why? Because money is freedom, that’s why.”
In the enchanting days we had had such marvelous talks, only touched a little by manic depression and paranoia. But now the light became dark and the dark turned darker.
Still reclining, holding tight on my padded sofa, I saw those gaudy weeks in review.
Humboldt riotously picketed Von Trench but the play was a hit. To be closer to the Belasco and my celebrity, I took a suite at the St. Regis. The art nouveau elevators had gilded gates. Demmie taught Virgil. Kathleen played blackjack in Nevada. Humboldt had returned to his command post at the White Horse Tavern. There he held literary, artistic, erotic, and philosophic exercises till far into the night. He coined a new epigram which was reported to me uptown: “I never yet touched a fig leaf that didn’t turn into a price tag.” This gave me hope. He could still get off a good wisecrack. It sounded as if normalcy might be returning.
But no. Each day Humboldt gave himself a perfunctory shave, drank coffee, took pills, studied his notes, and went to midtown to see his lawyers. He had lots