The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [264]
hide!" he said, laughing. "You crazy fool," cried Charlotte. She ran away on her high heels to bring her mother a coat and came back laughing also. They were' downright proud, I guess. Simon wrote out a check and gave it to Mrs. Magnus. "Here," he said, "buy yourself something and don't come here looking like the scrubwoman." He went and kissed her on the braids, and she took his head and gave his kisses back two for one and with tremendous humor. I went to see Einhorn, who was kind of white- and peaky. Things were not too good with him. He had gone to the hospital and had a prostate operation while I was away. All the same he still had a fine presence, much as in the insurance literature and in the clippings and photos all over the place. In the midst of all these hung the portrait of the Commissioner--there was a man! What a fine, great head--with the famous obituary under it! Tillie was away on a holiday with the grandchild, and Mildred who was more than ever Einhorn's friend was in charge. In her stout orthopedic shoes she stood up at the office barrier, which was cut down from the old office across the way. She had a way about the eyes of making you go to war with her. Not me, thanks. Her hair was beginning to be gray. Einhorn's was snowy, which made his eyes blacker. He saw the double-breasted suit Simon had given me and said, "You certainly are doing fine, Augie." The house stunk. The books were falling off the shelves. The busts of great men were lost up near the ceiling. The black leather chairs on casters were aging well, but aging. Einhom made a powerful complaint against Mimi Villars, who was ruining his son. Mimi was even more unkind when she spoke of him and what he had done to Arthur. "I'll tell you about that old man," she said. "He's a damned impresario for himself. Every time he goes to the toilet he wants to publish an article about it. I know everybody is vain, and that that's what makes the world go round. Maybe it isn't even vanity. Maybe it's like, with a bullet in your brain, you go on thinking of your nice hat. You go on thinking about the party you were invited to on Saturday, and so forth. But there ought to be a limit somewhere. If you can't help it, at least you should know that it isn't a good thing. All that old man wants is that Arthur should be a credit to him and bring him glory, but as for helping him worth a damn, no, he won't come across with a nickel. And parents who have money and won't give any to their children ought to have it all taken away. They ought to go and beg. I'd take and put the old man on the corner of State and Lake with a tin cup, that's what I'd do. And you know the grandfather left it all to Arthur. He knew better than to trust his son. Arthur has been trying to finish a book, which is a great book. I believe in it. You know he can't be expected to work while doing that." Einhorn did have some money though she exaggerated his wealth. However, I didn't argue with her. I was down on Einhorn myself. Since the time when I came back from Buffalo and found the family wiped out, when he urged me to be hard on Simon, I didn't feel the old friendliness toward him. And, if you want to know, because he and Tillie had warned me in the old days not to expect anything, repeating how Arthur would come into all, I couldn't help feeling no one had been good enough for them and now they were not good enough for one another. Now maybe was my chance to pass them by. "Of course," Mimi said with some of her old-time bitterness, "I have a pretty good job now, but last winter I was down with the flu and couldn't work. Not only that but Owens kicked us out because I couldn't pay the rent and a friend of ours on Dorchester took us in. But all Arthur and I had to sleep on was the sofa. Both of us on the sofa, and I had the flu. By morning he was so tired that when my friend went to work he got into her bed. So," she said with her universal-comedy laugh, "finally I said he should try to get a job. He said he'd try, and he got up one morning at eight and was back at ten. He said he had a job in