The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [294]
times. And what's more, she had a slight depression on either side of her turned-up nose which made her look not exactly of an open nature. Nevertheless she was Stella's friend, and Mintouchian loved her. This made me think of the deep wishes of elderly people, or desires unslayable short of total demolition by death. "Death!" Mintouchian said it himself. He was describing how he was subject to strokes. He said, "I don't want to make you gloomy, so close to your wedding." "Oh no, sir, you couldn't make me gloomy. I love Stella too much to consider it." "Well, I won't say that I was as happy as you, but I was also very feeling when I got married. Maybe it came from playing the mood music, which I was then doing. For sea adventures I'd play 'Fingal's Cave.' For Rudolph Valentine, 'Orientale,' Cesar Cui, Tchaikovsky's 'Sehnsucht.' Also 'Poet and Peasant.' You try to fight this stuff, when Milton Sills sees Conway Tearle didn't go down on the Titanic, or something. I was playing it all from my book on torts, boning up for the bar exam. But all the same, those were times of emotion. Or maybe you think this is guff?" "No, why?" "You think I'm a bandit, only you wouldn't say it on a bet. You fight your malice too much." "Everybody says so. It's as if you were supposed to have low opinions. I'd never say I was angelic, but I respect as much as I can." Mintouchian said, "In-one day of practice I see more than you could imagine if it was a project. The Balzac Comedie Humaine is child's play in comparison. I wake up in the morning and have to ask myself, 'Now in the case of Shimi versus Shimi, who is screwing who? Who is going to be in worse shape in the end? The man who takes the child away from the living-in-sin mother? The lover who makes her give up the kid to avoid the publicity so it won't harm his business? The mother who does anything for the lover?' Ribono shel Olam!" I was surprised by this phrase, which he explained as follows: "My father was janitor of a synagogue, and I hung around the cellar. I had an uncle who was a colonel in the Boer War. Who is what? So if history casts a strange or even ridiculous light on us, we are still all serious, aren't we? We die anyway." He went back to the subject of his strokes. "Here several years ago I was sitting on the toilet figuring a big deal mentally when suddenly the Angel of Death plucked me by the nose. My mind turned black. I fell on my face. I think if my belly hadn't been in the way to break the force I might have been killed. As it was, the blood from my nose sprayed the door like seltzer. Which, in my vanity, I had shut. Then by and by the spark of life came back to me. My mind filled again with the typical thought and light of Mintouchian. Now, I reflected, you're Mintouchian again. As if I had an option. Do I have to come back Mintouchian, including the distressing parts? Yes, because to live is to be Mintouchian, my dear man. I went over all my secrets and found they were still in place. I still didn't know who was screwing whom, and 1 crept into my bed and shivered from the touch of death. "But I was saying"--he gave me a genial smile with heart-felt squint and then he yawned and enjoyed the golden light--"how a guy struggles with malice. How life goes beyond the conscience of nice wellreared people. A good upbringing stops them from knowing what they think even. Because we all think the same, more or less. You love Stella --all right, don't you?" "Like I never loved anyone before." "That's swell. That's what I call answering like a man. When is your birthday?" "In January." "I'd have sworn to it. So is mine. I believe the highest types are born in January. It's barometric--you can look it up in Ellsworth Huntington. The parents make love in spring when the organism is healthiest and then the best specimens are conceived. If you want children you should plan to knock up your dear one in that season. Ancient wisdom is right. Now science comes lately and finds it out. But what I wanted to say about your bride, even she, is that she's no different from the rest of us except