Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [90]
“It’s a bit late for the Olympics.”
“He has a sedentary trade and needs the exercise,” said Polly. She had a slightly bent nose as well as the fresh, shining red hair. I was growing fond of her—disinterestedly, for her human qualities.
“The main reason for all the fitness is that he has a young broad, and young broads, unless they have a terrific sense of humor, don’t like being squeezed by a potbelly.”
I explained to Polly, “I exercise because I suffer from an arthritic neck. Or did. As I grew older my head seemed to become heavier, my neck weaker.”
The strain was largely at the top. In the crow’s-nest from which the modern autonomous person keeps watch. But of course Cantabile was right. I was vain, and I hadn’t reached the age of renunciation. Whatever that is. It wasn’t entirely vanity, though. Lack of exercise made me feel ill. I used to hope that there would be less energy available to my neuroses as I grew older. Tolstoi thought that people got into trouble because they ate steak and drank vodka and coffee and smoked cigars. Overcharged with calories and stimulants and doing no useful labor they fell into carnality and other sins. At this point I always remembered that Hitler had been a vegetarian, so it wasn’t necessarily the meat that was to blame. Heart-energy, more likely, or a wicked soul, maybe even karma—paying for the evil of a past life in this one. According to Steiner, whom I was now reading heavily, the spirit learns from resistance—the material body resists and opposes it. In the process the body wears out. But I had not gotten good value for my deterioration. Seeing me with my young daughters, silly people sometimes asked if these were my grandchildren. Me! Was it possible! And I saw that I was getting that look of a badly stuffed trophy or mounted specimen that I always associated with age, and was horrified. Also I recognized from photographs that I wasn’t the man I had been. I should have been able to say, “Yes, maybe I do seem about to cave in but you should see my spiritual balance sheet.” But as yet I was in no position to say that, either. I look better than the dead, of course, but at times only just.
I said, “Well, thanks for dropping in, Mrs. Palomino. You’ll have to excuse me, though. I’m being called for and I haven’t shaved or eaten lunch.”
“How do you shave, electric or steel?”
“Remington.”
“The electric Abercrombie & Fitch is the only machine. I think I’ll shave, too. And what’s for lunch?”
“I’m having yoghurt. But I can’t offer you any.”
“We’ve just eaten. Plain yoghurt? Do you put anything in it? What about a hard-boiled egg? Polly will boil you an egg. Polly, go in the kitchen and boil Charlie an egg. How did you say you were getting downtown?”
“I’m being called for.”
“Don’t be upset about the Mercedes. I’ll get you three 280-SLs. You’re too big a man to hold a mere car against me. Things are going to be different. Look, why don’t we meet after court and have a drink? You’ll need it. Besides, you should talk more. You listen too much. It’s not good for you.”
He relaxed even more conspicuously, supporting both arms on the round back of the sofa as if to show that he was not a man I could shoo out. He wished also to transmit a sense of luxurious intimacy with pretty and fully gratified Polly. I had my doubts about that. “This kind of life is very bad for you,” he said. “I’ve seen guys come out of solitary confinement and I know the signs. Why do you live South, surrounded by the slums? Is it because you have egghead friends on the Midway? You spoke about this Professor Richard What’s-His-Face.”
“Durnwald.”
“That’s the man. But you also told how some pork-chop chased you down the middle of the street. You should rent near-North in a high-security building with an underground garage. Or are you here because of these professors’ wives? The Hyde Park ladies are easy to knock over.” Then he said, “Do you own a gun at least?”
“No I don’t.”
“Christ, here’s another example of what I mean. All you people are soft about the realities. This is