The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [145]
He would drink a pot of turnip-green liquor and eat a pone of cornbread. A deep feeling of satisfaction would be in him because the day was good.
There were thousands of such times of satisfaction. But what had been their meaning? Out of all the years he could think of no work of lasting value.
After a while the door to the hall was opened and Portia came in. ‘I reckon I going to have to dress you like a baby,’ she said.
‘Here your shoes and socks. Let me take off your bedroom shoes and put them on. We got to get gone from here pretty soon.’
‘Why have you done this to me?’ he asked bitterly.
‘What I done to you now?’
‘You know full well that I do not want to leave. You pressed me into saying yes when I was in no fit condition to make a decision. I wish to remain where I have always been, and you know it.’
‘Listen to you carry on!’ Portia said angrily. ‘You done grumbled so much that I nearly worn out. You done fumed and fussed so that I right shamed for you.’
‘Pshaw! Say what you will. You only come before me like a gnat. I know what I wish and will not be pestered into doing that which is wrong.’ Portia took off his bedroom shoes and unrolled a pair of clean black cotton socks. ‘Father, less us quit this here argument. Us have all done the best we know how. It entirely the best plan for you to go out with Grandpapa and Hamilton and Buddy. They going to take good care of you and you going to get well.’
‘No, I will not,’ said Doctor Copeland. ‘But I would have recovered here. I know it.’
‘Who you think could pay the note on this here house? How you think us could feed you? Who you think could take care you here? ‘ ‘I have always managed, and I can manage yet.’
‘You just trying to be contrary.’
‘Pshaw! You come before me like a gnat. And I ignore you.’
‘That certainly is a nice way to talk to me while I trying to put on your shoes and socks.’
‘I am sorry. Forgive me, Daughter.’
‘Course you sorry,’ she said. ‘Course we both sorry. Us can’t afford to quarrel. And besides, once we get you settled on the farm you going to like it. They got the prettiest vegetable garden I ever seen. Make my mouth slobber to think about it. And chickens and two breed sows and eighteen peach trees. You just going to be crazy about it there. I sure do wish it was me could get a chance to go.’
‘I wish so, too.’
‘How come you so determined to grieve?’
‘I just feel that I have failed,’ he said.
‘How you mean you done failed?’
‘I do not know. Just leave me be, Daughter. Just let me sit here in peace a moment.’
‘O.K. But us got to get gone from here pretty soon.’ He would be silent. He would sit quietly and rock in the chair until the sense of order was in him once more. His head trembled and his backbone ached.
‘I certainly hope this,’ Portia said. ‘I certainly hope that when I dead and gone as many peoples grieves for me as grieves for Mr. Singer. I sure would like to know I were going to have as sad a funeral as he had and as many peoples--’
‘Hush!’ said Doctor Copeland roughly. ‘You talk too much.’
But truly with the death of that white man a dark sorrow had lain down in his heart. He had talked to him as to no other white man and had trusted him. And the mystery of his suicide had left him baffled and without support. There was neither beginning nor end to this sorrow. Nor understanding. Always he would return in his thoughts to this white man who was not insolent or scornful but who was just. And how can the dead be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are left behind? But of all this he must not think. He must thrust it from him now.
For it was discipline he needed. During the past month