The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [86]
he right away told me, probably guessing that I wasn't bringing out the flower of my charm for his old cartilage-heavy Rembrandt of a squash nose with its white hairs and gunpowder speckles. To be sure not. And he wanted me to know in what league I was playing. I didn't give an inch. I've never backed down from male relatives, either calf or bull, or let father and guardians discomfit me. Getting to Esther's aunt was harder, since she was sickly, timid, and silent, with the mood of rich people whose health lets them down. Her clothes and jewelry were fine, but the poor lady's face was full of private effort; she was a little deaf from it. I didn't have to put on friendly interest; I really (God knows from where) had it. And by instinct I knew that what would fetch her--as infirm, loaded with dough, and beaten a long way out of known channels by the banked spoon-oars of special silver as she was--was the charm of ordinary health. So I talked away to her and was pretty acceptable. "My dear Augie, was that Mrs. Fenchel you were sitting with?" said Mrs. Renling. "She hasn't done anything but watch the sprinkler all month, so I thought she was screwloose. Did you speak to her first?" "Well, I just happened to be sitting by her." I got a good mark for this; she was pleased. But the next thing to be thought of was my purpose, and this she immediately and roughly found out. "It's the'girls, isn't it! Well, they are very beautiful, aren't they? Especially the black-haired one. Gorgeous. And mischievous, full of the devil she looks. But remember, Augie, you're with me; I'm responsible for your behavior. And the girl is not a waitress, and you better not think you-know-what. My dear boy, you're very clever and good, and I want to see you get ahead. I'll see that you do. Naturally, with this girl, you haven't got a chance. Of course, rich girls can sometimes be little whores too, and have the same itch as common ones and sometimes even worse. But not these girls. You don't know what German upbringing is." So to speak, reserved for the brass, the Fenchel heiresses. But Mrs. Renling wasn't infallible, and had already made one mistake, that of thinking it was Thea rather than. Esther Fenchel I was in love with. Also, she had no notion how much in love I was, down to the poetic threat of death. I didn't want her to have any notion either, though I would have been happy to tell someone. I did not like what I foresaw Mrs. Renling would make of it, and so I was satisfied to let her think it was Thea, the kinky-haired but also glorious-looking sister I carried the torch for, and I used some deceit. It didn't take much, as it was pleasing to Mrs. Renling's pride to think she had guessed, quick and infallible, what was bothering me. As a matter of fact Thea Fenchel was better than merely pleasant to me, and I was fishing after her uncle, who was in a bad mood, surly and difficult, one morning, when she asked me whether I played tennis. I had to say, and though it was a bad moment for me, smiling, that riding was my sport; and I desperately thought that I must get a racket and go at once to the public courts in Benton Harbor to learn. Not that I had been born to the saddle either; but it covered my origins somewhat to say that I was a horseman and had a pretty creditable clang. "My partner hasn't come," said Thea, "and Esther's on the beach." Within ten minutes I too was on the sand, notwithstanding that I had promised to play cards with Mrs. Renling after her mineral bath, when, she said, she felt too weakened to read. I lay hot and wandering-witted on my belly, watching Esther, and my notions were many-branched, high-seasoned, erotic, a good half painful, hoping for and afraid of notice as she bent down and rubbed sun-oil like brightness on her legs, and her head turned toward me, who was loony and drunk with assessing the weight of her breasts and the soft little heaviness of her belly, so elegantly banded in by the sheath of her swim suit, or her hair which she combed, it seemed to me, with great animal strength, taking off the close white