The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [79]
asked, this frosty, dry, selfcommenting, neutral-eyed man, long-legged and stylish. He looked like a Scotsman. "From the Northwest Side," said the buyer. "His brother works upstairs. They're clever boys, both of them." "Jehudim?" said Mr. Renling, still looking neutrally at the buyer. "Jew?" the buyer said to me. He well knew the answer; he merely passed the question on. "Yes. I guess." "Ah," said Renling, this time to me. "Well, out there on the North Shore they don't like Jews. But," he said, brimming frostily with a smile, "who makes them happy? They like hardly anybody. Anyway, they'll probably never know." And to the buyer again he said, "Well, do you think this is a kid who can be glamorized?" "He's done all right here." "It's a little more high-pressure on the North Shore." Prospective house slaves from the shacks got the same kind of going- w^, I suppose, or girls brought to an old cocotte by their mothers for e* 129 training. He had me strip my jacket so he could see my shoulders and my fanny, so that I was just about to tell him what he could do with his job when he said I was built right for his purpose, and my vanity was more influential than my self-respect. He then said to me, "I want to put you in my saddle shop--riding habits, boots, dude-ranch stuff, fancy articles. I'll pay twenty bucks a week while you're learning, and when you're broken in I'll pay you twenty-five plus commission." Naturally I took the job. I'd be earning more money than Simon. I moved into a student loft in Evanston, where soon the most distinguished thing was my wardrobe. Maybe I ought to say my livery, since Mr. and Mrs. Renting saw to it that I was appropriately dressed, in fact made a clotheshorse of me, advancing the money and picking out the tweeds and flannels, plaids, foulards, sport shoes, woven shoes Mexican style, and shirts and handkerchiefs--in the right taste for waiting on a smooth trade of mostly British inclination. When I had sounded the place out good I didn't go for it, but I was too stirred up at first, and enthusiastic, to see it well. I was dressed with splendor and working back of the most thrilling plate glass I had ever seen, on a leafy street, in a fashionable store three steps under a western timber from the main part of Renling's shop, which sold fishing, hunting, camping, golf and tennis equipment, canoes and outboard motors. You see now what I meant by saying that I have to marvel at my social passes, that I was suddenly sure and efficacious in this business, could talk firmly and knowingly to rich young girls, to country-club sports and university students, presenting things with one hand and carrying a cigarette in a long holder in the other. So that Renling had to grant that I had beat all the foreseen handicaps. I had to take riding lessons-- not too many, they were expensive. Renting didn't want me to become an accomplished horseman. "What for?" he said. "I sell these fancy guns and never shot an animal in my life." But Mrs. Renting wanted me to become a rider and to refine and school me every way. She had me register for evening courses at Northwestern. Of the four men who worked in the store--I was the youngest --two were college graduates. "And you," she said, "with your appearance, and your personality, if you have a college degree..." Why, she showed me the result, as if it already lay in my hands. She played terribly on my vanity. "I'll make you perfect," she said, "completely perfect," Mrs. Renting was pushing fifty-five, light-haired, only a little gray, small, her throat whiter than her face. She had tiny, dry red freckles and eyes of light color, but not gentle. Her accent was foreign; she came from Luxembourg, and it was a great pride of hers that she was connected with names in the Almanach de Gotha for that part of the world. Once in a while she assured me, "It is all nonsense; I am a democrat; I am a citizen of this country. I voted for Cox, I voted for Al Smith, and I voted for Roosevelt. I do not care for aristocrats. They hunted on my father's estate. Queen Carlotta used to go to chapel