The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [291]
said, "Nobody should pretend to be always one hundred per cent honest. I wish I knew how to be seventy, sixty per cent." I swore she must be one hundred and ten, two hundred. Then I said something I didn't expect myself. I said, "Nobody should be a mystery intentionally. Unintentionally is mysterious enough." "I'll try not to be. With you, anyway." She was sincere. I knew it. I saw how her throat suddenly grew full. My body, which is maybe all I am, this effortful creature, felt subject to currents and helpless. I wanted to go and hug her by the legs, but I thought I'd better wait. For why should I assume it would be right? Because I felt like? I said, "I suppose you see how I'm getting to feel about you. If I'm making a mistake, you'd better tell me." "A mistake? Why do you say that?" "Well, in the first place," I said, "I haven't been here long. You'll think I'm in too much of a hurry." './ "And the second place? What makes you speak so slowly?" Was I speaking in an unusual way? I didn't even know it. "In the second, I feel I did wrong in Cuemavaca by going back." "Maybe you can do right this time," she said. Then I dropped to the ground and hugged her legs. She bent to kiss me. I would have hurried, but her idea was to be slower. She said, "We'd better shut the animals in the kitchen." She collared the dog, I lifted up the cat from underneath, and we put them there. The kitchen door was fastened with a bent nail, having no knob or hook. Then she took the cover from the bed and we helped each other to undress. "What are you saying to yourself?" she whispered when we lay down. I wasn't aware that I was saying anything. I was afraid she would bump her head against the wall and tried to cover it with my hands, which she then understood, and helped me. I was hungry and kissed her wherever my mouth could reach, till she kept my lip in her teeth and drew on me, drew on me. Nothing could be put over by effort any more, and there was nothing to try. Was she a vain person, or injurious or cynical, it couldn't make any difference now. Or was I a foolish, uncorrected, blundering, provisional, unreliable man, this was taken away as of no account and couldn't have any sense or meaning. The real truth about one or the other was simpler than any such description. I told her I loved her. It was true. I felt I had come to the end of my trouble and hankering, and it was conclusive. As we lay in bed kissing, whispering, and loving all weekend long, the air was strong and blue outside, the sun was splendid and sailed around handsome and haughty. We got up only to take the dog, Harry, to the roof. The cat walked on the covers over the bed and kneaded us with its paws. The only people we saw were two old guys playing pinochle on a cutting table of the dress factory over the way. However, Monday morning I had to be back at the base. She woke me in the middle of the night and got me dressed and went down with me to the subway. I kept asking, Would she marry me? She said, "You want all your troubles to be over all of a sudden and you're so anxious for it you may be making a mistake." This was just before dawn, by the descent-into-hell stairs of the .474" -.,, subway, just under the Eastern vault of wired glass, and the blackout light like a dumb posy on its thick iron. So by this blue illumination we were kissing with loving faces until it began to drizzle and her slippers got wet. "Darling, go home," I said. "Will you phone me?" "Every chance I get. Do you love me?" "Of course I love you." Every time she said this I was so moved that happy gratitude poured over me down to my very feet while my back-hair prickled. Like when you're swimming in the pleasure of the sea and feel some contact come up behind. All the deep breathes like silent concertinas and the shore is gay with stripes and bunting. Finally I had to go down into the tunnel and take a train. I couldn't see her for five days. And meantime I didn't dare fall behind in the Purser's School or tangle with a master-at-arms and lose my next liberty. Every evening I went down by the sea where