The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [187]
I said. "Visit? She dumped him on us. She put him inside the door with a note and beat it, and then we had to wait for Arthur to come home and explain." "Oh, he's dear and sweet," Mildred said with great spirit, the child on her breast cruelly clasping her neck. "I'll take him any time." At this from his second wife, which in effect she was, Einhorn had all his cares come around to his first source: himself; his sensuality. And he looked angrily struck by this thought for all his Bourbon pride of profile and reflected it to the very depth of his black eyes. Like the roof-crouched goblin of an old church, he looked, his hands covered with pale spots placed at the sides of his often purposeless-appearing pants. His hair had the wave of unstranded rope, and from the set of his head there was the sense of ruins forming up behind him. With no motion in his arms, he might have been a man in a cape or a bound prisoner. Poor Einhorn! At any hour of his decline he could formerly have taken out the gilt bond representing Arthur, and now the spite had come upon him that the value had gone, like that of Grandma's picturewatered czarist money. The gleaming vault where he had kept this reserve wealth now let out the smell of squalor. Einhorn didn't even look at the kid, which was a jolly little kid that trod in Mildred's lap. Tillie stayed out of sight altogether. I hesitated to show sympathy; he'd have thrown it back, though I was one of the few remaining people, I imagine, who'd give him full credit on his old-time greatness. I served a purpose that way for him, that I was prepared to testify that it was true noble and regal greatness. But he himself now started out weakly, saying, "It's not a good situation. Augie--you have some idea what capacities Arthur has. And before he can begin to use them, he gets into this--" "I don't see what's so wrong," said Mildred. "You have a cute grandson." "Keep out of this, please, will you, Mildred? A child isn't a toy." "Oh," she said, "they grow up. Time does it more than fathers and mothers. The parents take too much credit." Einhorn said to me in a lower voice, wanting no conversation with her, "I think Arthur hangs around your part of the woods. And there^s a girl named Mimi he's interested in. You know her?" "She's a good friend of mine." Quick his brows rose, and I interpreted the hope that she was my mistress and therefore Arthur couldn't get into further trouble. "Not that kind of friend." "You don't lay her?" he said secretly. "No." I disappointed him; there was also a very fine salt of condescension or mockery, only a glitter on the surface of his look, but I saw it. "Don't forget I was practically engaged until New Year's Day," I told him. "Well, what kind of girl is this Mimi? He brought her around a couple of weeks ago, and Tillie and I thought she was pretty tough, and with somebody like Arthur whose thoughts always have an intellectual or poetic direction, she could give him a pretty rough time of it. But maybe she's goodhearted. I don't want to tear her down needlessly." "Why, is Arthur thinking of remarrying already? Well, I'm an admirer of Mimi." "Platonic?" I laughed but felt sullen too, for it seemed to me that Einhom didn't want his son to succeed me as Mimi's lover, cr any girl's. I said, "The best person to ask about Mimi is Mimi herself. But I was going to say that I don't think she would be interested in a marriage proposal." "That's good," I expressed no agreement. "Augie," he said with a rich preliminary of the face which I knew belonged to business, "it occurs to me that maybe my son could fit into your organization somewhere." "Is he looking for a job?" "No, I am for him." "I could try." It was a discouraging favor to be asked. I could see Arthur stooping his weight on a desk in the union hall, one finger between the covers of his Valery, or whatever he was interested in. "Mimi could help him if she wanted to," I said. "I got the job because she knew someone." "Who knew someone, your friend?" He hoped still, slyly, to trap me into confessing intimacy with Mimi, but he