The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [157]
as I was allowed gave her a real embrace that she returned, licking my ear and praising and promising me; she already called me husband. The deep consideration women give, as seen privately in their thoughtful eye, to demands for the most part outlawed out of fear for everything that has been done to make a reasonable, continuous life, the burden that made Phedra cry she wanted to throw off her harmful clothes, you could find that in Lucy too. It took her as far as to choose me. It was evident I was less desirable than Simon from her family's standpoint. Their main investigation was conducted on my willingness to be as they were in everything. They never were too sure, and were forever asking to have another look at my credentials, and, so to speak, would come in without knocking, as if I were at West Point, to see whether all was dusted and the hospital corners satisfied regulations. Lucy stood up for me; it was her only disobedience so far as I, a wayward but close student of the situation, could see. When I suggested that we run away and get married at Crown Point she refused flat, and I could see the difference between her and Charlotte. I probably shouldn't forget the difference between Simon and me; he had been able to talk Charlotte into eloping. And if Lucy already called me "husband," Mimi Villars would have said, no compliment intended, that she was a wife, wanting the whole wifely racket. In other words, minor sensuality and no trouble. Unless she was flirting with trouble by having detected a source of it in me. But I was, as at the Renlings', under an influence and not the carrier of it. I had to get around; I had a figure to cut, the car to drive, the money to spend, the clothes to wear, and served before I had it clear ' .244 whether I wanted or liked the doing of it at all. Even if her father stole in on us at two in the morning as we were loving-up, he stole through a mansion, and it was hard to think him wrong when the lights went on and he prowled peevish toward us. I suppose I saw nothing very wrong anywhere, and it took me longer than it should have taken to discover that he didn't like me, because everything flashed so, all was rich, was heavy, velvet, lepidopterous. The circuit I was in, at the Glass Derby and Chez Paree and the dances at Medinah Club, kept me very busy. Here what had to be established was whether I was qualified in pocket to mix with the sons of established fathers. I had to mind my step, for Simon kept me on a minimum budget; he somehow thought that I could do what he had done on just a little less. It was true that I could make money go farther, but Lucy thought less about economics than Charlotte. And I had to notice cover charges, tips, the cost of a parking lot, and slip out to the store for Camels instead of buying them from the cigarette girl. I got through examination by Lucy's set, not hearing what I didn't want to hear, or forcing others to give ground, and even if it did strengthen the hypocrite's muscle in my face and harden my stomach I thought it did me credit to bluff it through. These weren't our only company. We went to visit Simon and Charlotte in their flat--they had, for a beginning, only three rooms--and to eat off the trousseau linen and the wedding china. The Magnuses went to exceptional lengths to procure anything for one of their own, and these plates and cups had been baked in an English kiln, as the rug was really from Bokhara and the silver by Tiffany. If we stayed after dinner we. played bridge or rummy, and at ten o'clock Charlotte phoned the drugstore to send peppermint ice-cream and hot fudge. So we licked spoons and I was in general sociable, helpful, debonair, and thought of the two colors of my silk suspenders and the fit of my shirt, Simon's gifts. Obedient to him. Charlotte treated Lucy and me like an engaged pair, but with wariness and reserve camouflaged from him. With the instinct of her family she knew that I didn't have Simon's qualities, that I really didn't intend to follow in his steps, his difficulties perhaps too much for me to undertake.