The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [292]
the phone booths were; and she was often out, having a busy life. I had a terrible fear that she had spent the weekend with me out of friendliness alone, or so that I would understand better what should have happened in the mountains that night. If this was so, I was sunk, for by now I was more in love than-I could stand, as if some mineral had got into my veins and arteries and I ached, flesh and bones, the way you will on the verge of the grippe. All week the freighters groaned in from the sea, while Coney Island was wrapped in gray or lilac fog and I sat with a suffering spirit of love in the phone booth after evening chow trying to do my lessons and waiting for her to answer. I was afraid I was too much of a latecomer and had nothing to expect. In which case I was ruined, because everything now depended on her. On Saturday, in a fever, I got off the base as soon as the usual parade shenanigans were over. What a state I was in! When I rode over the bridge from Brooklyn suspended on those heaven-hung struts over the brick valleys, then the fiery flux of harbor water, the speedy gulls, the battleships open like vast radio sets in the yards, beast-horns of Hengist and Horsa, and then the tunnel again, I felt that if I had to continue to ride and ride I would certainly not last but would give out. But there was no need to be scared, for Stella was waiting. She had been sick all week because I wasn't there, running a temperature, wondering did I love her. She cried when we were in bed, with her hands pressed on my back and her breasts against me. She said that when she saw me in front of the cathedral from the balcony of the bar where the Carta Blanca shield was hung she fell in love with me. She didn't even need the money she borrowed from me at Cuemavaca but took it as a means of keeping in touch. As for Oliver-- "What's it to me what happened with Oliver? It's none of my business," I said. "I want to get married." Clem had urged me to be engaged for six months, in view of my personality and make-up. But this advice was good for people who were merely shopping, not for someone who had lived all his life with one great object. "Of course," she said, "I want to get married if you love me." I deeply assured her. "If you still love me after lunch," she said, "ask me again." She brought the lunch to me in bed, which was a bed she had bought at an auction, ivory colored and painted with wreaths and Arcadia roses. It came from Bavaria. Well, she served me here, and wouldn't even let me butter my own bread. As if I was the Elector, I got waited on hand and foot, and in turn I gave the animal staff ham trimmings and leftovers. She felt obliged to tell me all she could about herself. "I buy a ticket in the Irish Sweepstakes every year," she said. I could see nothing objectionable in this. r- "Also I'm a mystic, a Gurdjieff follower." This was a new one on me. She showed me a picture of this old boy, a shayed head, deep eyes, and mustachios of the old school of Crimean fighter. I saw no special harm in him. What else? She spent lots of money on clothes. This I could see; her closets were stuffed with dresses. But I didn't bother my head about it. Since she went along with me in my scheme for the fosterhome and academy, and she enthusiastically did, what difference could her wardrobe make? In fact, I was proud that she was so elegant. Also she owed money, she said. "Why, darling, don't worry, we'll pay everybody. C'est la moindre des chases, as they say on the other side." When I was loved and sitting in a fine bed like this, I was just like royalty and disposed-of all matters with a word. We decided to get married as soon as I graduated from Sheepshead.
CHAPTER XXIV
I see before me next a fellow named Mintouchian, who is an Armenian, of course. We are sitting together in a Turkish bath having a conversation, except that Mintouchian is doing most of the talking, explaining various facts of existence to me, by allegory mostly. The time is a week before Stella and I were married and I shipped out. This Mintouchian was a monument of