The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [269]
life. He was of that same sharp skinny-chested build, with long face and a quick walk of inward-pointed toes". His shoes were tapered, as elegant as chivalry in' the stirrups or the end of a lizard entering a crevice. But Arthur's health was poorer than Dingbat's and he had a swarthier color; his breath was strong with coffee and tobacco. He owned up to inferior teeth with his smile. Nevertheless he had all the charm of the Einhorns when he wanted to turn it on. There was great style in his thinking. Sometimes I believed he was ready to say or consider anything. My personal preference was for useful thoughts. I mean thoughts that answered questions that moved you. Arthur said this was wrong; truth was truer when it had less to do with your needs. What personal need, for instance, is there in the investigation of the creep of light from the outermost stars which even at that unimaginable speed decays and breaks down because it grows so ancient in its travel? It fascinated me, this question. However, about the job: there was a millionaire engaged in writing a book and he was looking for a research assistant. ' "Do you think I'd fill the bill?" "Of course you would, Augie. Are you interested?" "Well, I need a job. Something that'll leave me the free time I want." "I like the way you arrange your life. What do you intend to do with this free time?" "I intend to use it." I didn't like the implication of this. Why should he need his lime free and I be questioned? "I'm just curious. Some people always appear to know what they're going to do, and others never. Of course I'm a poet, and relatively lucky. I've often thought. If I weren't a poet, what would I be? A politician? But just see how Lenin's life work turned out. A professor? That's much too tame. A painter? But nobody knows what painting's about any more. Whenever I write a dramatic poem I can't understand why the characters should ever want to be anything but poets themselves." Well, this is how it was in Chicago when I came back. I stayed on the South Side. I got my case of books back from Arthur and I read in my room. The heat of June grew until the shady yards gave up the smell of the damp soil, of underground, and the city-Pluto kingdom of sewers and drains, and the mortar and roaring tar pots of roofers, the geraniums, lilies-of-the-valley, climbing roses, and sometimes the fiery devastation of the stockyards stink when the wind was strong. I read my books and almost each day wrote to Thea in care of Wells Fargo, but no answer came. One letter was forwarded from Mexico, and that one was from Stella. She was in New York. I never expected her to write such a good letter; I decided that I had underrated her. She said she couldn't pay me yet; she had to square herself with her union. But as soon as she landed a job she'd settle her debt. Simon had given me some money so that I could take summer courses at the university. Now I thought I might like to be a schoolteacher and I was registered in several Education courses. I found it hard to sit in classes and read the textbooks. Simon was always ready to stand by me if I wanted to, though he himself didn't have much use for universities. I was still after the job Arthur refused to take with the millionaire who wanted to write a book. This millionaire's name was Robey. He had studied with Frazer when Frazer was an instructor, and that was why Mimi knew him. He was tall and bent, he had a bad stammer, he wore a beard, he had been married four or five times--Mimi told me these facts. Arthur said the book was to be a survey or history of human happiness from the standpoint of the rich. I wasn't so sure that I wanted to do this but I didn't want Simon to keep on suppor11"^ me. I tried to fish a loan from Einhom but he held it against me taat I was an old friend of Mimi. He said, "I can't lend you anything. ^ou realize that I have to support my grandchild. The extra burdert is tough. And what if Arthur decides to bless my last years with another" He was p. o. So reluctantly I went to Arthur to ask him to phone Robey for roe. "This