Sophie's Choice - William Styron [41]
All at once I became aware of the way in which Sophie echoed so much of Nathan’s diction. Indeed, he was her dialogue coach, a fact which became more directly evident now as I heard him begin to correct her in detail, like an exceedingly meticulous, very patient instructor at a Berlitz school. “Not ‘to bloom,’” he explained, “just ‘bloom.’ You’re so good, it’s about time you were perfect. You must begin to learn just when and where to add the preposition ‘to’ to the infinitive verb, and when to leave it out. And it’s tough, you see, because in English there’s no hard, fast rule. You have to use your instinct.”
“Instinct?” she said.
“You have to use your ear, so that it finally becomes instinct. Let me give you an example. You could say ‘causing me to bloom like a rose’ but not ‘making me to bloom.’ There’s no rule about this, understand. It’s just one of those odd little tricks of the language which you’ll pick up in time.” He stroked her earlobe. “With that pretty ear of yours.”
“Such a language!” she groaned, and in mock pain clutched her brow. “Too many words. I mean just the words for vélocité. I mean ‘fast.’ ‘Rapid.’ ‘Quick.’ All the same thing! A scandal!”
“ ‘Swift,’ ” I added.
“How about ‘speedy’?” Nathan said.
“ ‘Hasty,’ ” I went on.
“And ‘fleet,’” Nathan said, “though that’s a bit fancy.”
“ ‘Snappy’!” I said.
“Stop it!” Sophie said, laughing. “Too much! Too many words, this English. In French it is so simple, you just say ‘vite.’ ”
“How about some more beer?” Nathan asked me. “We’ll finish off this other quart and then go down to Coney Island and hit the beach.”
I noticed that Nathan drank next to nothing himself, but was almost embarrassingly generous with the Budweiser, keeping my glass topped off with unceasing attention. As for myself, in that brief time I had begun to achieve a benign, tingling high so surprisingly intense that I became a little uneasy trying to manage my own euphoria. It was an exaltation really, lofty as the summer sun; I felt buoyed up by fraternal arms holding me in a snug, loving, compassionate embrace. Part of what worked on me was, to be sure, only the coarse clutch of alcohol. The rest stemmed from all of those mingled elements comprising what, in that era so heavily burdened by the idiom of psychoanalysis, I had come to recognize as the gestalt: the blissful temper of the sunny June day, the ecstatic pomp of Mr. Handel’s riverborne jam session, and this festive little room whose open windows admitted a fragrance of spring blossoms which pierced me with that sense of ineffable promise and certitude I don’t recall having felt more than once or twice after the age of twenty-two—or let us say twenty-five—when the ambitious career I had cut out for myself seemed so often to be the consequence of pitiable lunacy.
Above all, however, my joy flowed out from some source I had not known since I had come to New York months before, and thought I had abandoned forever—fellowship, familiarity, sweet times among friends. The brittle aloofness with which I had so willfully armored myself I felt crumbling away utterly. How wonderful it was, I thought, to happen upon Sophie and Nathan—these warm and bright and lively new companions—and the urge I had to reach out and hug both of them close to me was (for the moment at least, despite my desperate crush on Sophie) freighted with the mellowest brotherhood, cleanly, practically devoid of carnal accents. Old Stingo, I murmured, grinning foolishly at Sophie but toasting myself with the foaming Bud, you’ve come back to the land of the living. “Salut, Stingo!” said Sophie, tipping in return the glass of beer which Nathan had pressed on her, and the grave and delectable smile she bestowed on me, bright teeth shining amid a scrubbed happy face still bruised with the shadows of deprivation,