The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [152]
With great difficulty somebody becomes exem- I plary, anyhow. Conceivably Simon felt that I was this kind of influenceable person and looked liable to become an example. For God knows there are abandoned and hungry principles enough flowing free and looking for attachment. So he wanted to get to me first. Simon's idea was that I should marry Lucy Magnus, who had more money even than Charlotte. This was how he outlined the future to me. I could finish my pre-legal course and go to John Marshall law school at night while I worked for him. He'd pay my tuition and give me eighteen dollars a week. Eventually I could become his partner. Or if his business didn't suit me, we could go into real estate with our joint capital. Or perhaps into manufacturing. Or, if I chose to be a lawyer, I wouldn't need to be a mere ambulance chaser, shyster, or birdseed wiseguy and con- 'i Q niver in two-bit cases. Not with the money I'd have to play with as Lucy Magnus's husband. She was a juicy piece besides, even if he didn't care for the way her collarbones stood out when she wore a formal, and she was full of willingness. He would back me while I courted her. I didn't need to worry about the expenses; he'd give me the use of the Pontiac for taking her out, build me up with the family, remove the obstacles. All I had to do was play along, make myself desired, interpret, as I could do, the role of the son-in-law her parents wanted. It was a leadpipe cinch. We were alone in his room in the governor's suite, a room of white walls and gold paneling, heavy mirrors hung on silk hawsers, a Louis XIV bed. Having come out of the glass stall of the shower, dried in a thick Turkish mantle, put on black socks and a stiff shirt, he was now lying on the bed, smoking a cigar, while he explained this to me, practical and severe. He sprawled out with his big body, the mid-part of it nude. This comfort and luxury were not what he preached at me, but the thing to do: not to dissolve in bewilderment of choices but to make myself hard, like himself, and learn how to stay with the necessary, undistracted by the trimmings. This was what he thought, and to some extent I thought it too. Why shouldn't I marry a rich man's daughter? If I didn't want to do as Simon did in every respect, couldn't I arrange my life somewhat differently? Wasn't there any other way to ride this gorgeous train? Provided Lucy was different from her cousin, why shouldn't there be? I wasn't unwilling to look into this and profit by Simon's offers. I was already taking so many of his orders, putting in so much time, that I might as well accept wages too, go the whole way and make it official. And I may as well say that I had a desire to go along with him out of the love I felt for him and enthusiasm for his outlook. In which I didn't fundamentally believe. However, that I shouldn't be too good to do as he was doing was of enormous importance to him, and the obstinacy that had always made me hold out against him for unspoken or anyway insufficient reasons seemed at last over. I didn't oppose him, so he spoke to me with unusual affection. He rolled from the bed to finish dressing, saying, "Now we begin go- '"g places, you and me. I wondered when you'd start to show some sense, if ever, and worried you wouldn't be anything but a punk. Here, "xthis stud for me in back. My mother-in-law got this set for me. Christ! "ow'm I going to find my dress shoes? All this tissue paper. You can't "nd anything. Get rid of it. Leave it in the can for the governor," he sald> ^irited and nervous in his laugh. "The world hasn't set too tight 'e There's room, if you find the openings to it. If you study it out you can find them. Horner is a Jew too, after all, and probably didn't have a better start than we did, and is governor." "Are you thinking of giving politics a try?" "Maybe. Why not? It depends on how things shape up. Uncle Artie knows a guy who was made ambassador by contributing often enough to campaign drives. Twenty, thirty, even forty thousand bucks, and what's that to a man who has it?" This being an ambassador