The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [280]
walls. And all achievement would stay within those walls. And all glamour too. And even hate, monstrousness, enviousness, murder, would be inside them. This would be only a terrible, hideous dream about existing. It's better to dig ditches and hit other guys with your shovel than die in the walls." "Well, come on, what are you trying to prove?" "I don't want to prove a single thing, not a thing. Do you think I have this kind of ambition to stand out and prove something? Almost everybody I ever knew wanted to show in some way how he held the world together. This only comes from feeling the strain of holding yourself together, and it gets exaggerated into the whole world from the hard labor you put into it. But it doesn't take hard labor. Or at least shouldn't. You don't do that. The world is held for you. So I don't want to be representative or exemplary or head of my generation or any model of manhood. All I want is something of my own, and bethink myself. This is why I'm sounding off now and am so excited. I want a place of my own. If it was on Greenland's icy mountain, I'd take and go to Greenland, and I'd never loan myself again to any other guy's scheme." "So tell me before I die from impatience, what's this deal of yours?" "I aim'to get myself a piece of property and settle down on it. Right here in Illinois would suit me fine, though I wouldn't object to Indiana or Wisconsin. Don't worry, I'm not thinking about becoming a farmer, though I might do a little farming, but what I'd like most, is to get married and set up a kind of home and teach school. I'll marry--of course my wife would have to agree with me about this--and then I'd get my mother out of the blind-home and my brother George up from the South. I think Simon might give me some dough to get a start. Oh, I don't expect to set up the Happy Isles. I don't consider myself any Prospero. I haven't got the build. I have no daughter. I never was a king, for instance. No, no, I'm not looking for any Pindar Hyperborean dwelling with the gods in ease a tearless life, never aging--" "This is the most fantastic thing I ever heard come out of you yet. It's a scheme worthy of your mind. It makes me proud of you, kind of, though I'm also appalled when I think of the things you must think about when you look so calm and restful. But where are you going to get the kids for your school?" "I thought maybe I could get accredited with the state or county, or whoever does it, as a foster-parent, and get kids from institutions. This way the board and keep would be taken care of, and we'd have these kids." "Plus children of your own?" "Of course. I'd love to have my own little children. I long for little children. And these kids from institutions who have had it rough--" "And who might turn out to be little John Dillingers or Basil Bangharts or Tommy O'Connors. But I know what you're hoping. You think you'll love them so they'll turn into little'Michelangelos and Tolstois, and you'll give them their chance in life and rescue them, so you'll be their saint and holy father. But if you make them so good, how will they get along in the world? They'll have to pass their whole life all alone." "No, really, I could live with them. I'd be very happy. I'd fix up a shop for woodwork. Maybe I'd even learn how to repair my own car. My brother George could be the shoemaking instructor. Maybe I'd study languages so I could teach them. My mother could sit on the porch and the animals would come around her, by her shoes, the roosters and the cats. Maybe we could start a tree nursery." "You do too want to be a king," said Clem. "You sonofabitch, you want to be the kind goddam king over these women and children and your half-wit brother. Your father ditched the family, and you did your share of ditching too, so now you want to make up for it." "You can always find bad motives," I said. "There are always bad motives. So all I can say is I don't want to have them. I don't know , about my unfortunate father--he seems to have done as most others, get in and then take off. Seemingly for liberty. Most