The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [449]
He patted her head, gently kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her lips, the top of her gray head.
“Oh, Patrick!” she sobbed.
IV
Martin Lonigan paused at the first landing and warned himself to be quiet because his brother was pretty sick. He steadied himself against the banister, and staggered up the stairs. He withdrew his door key from a trouser pocket and thudded against the door. He rebounded. He tried to fit the key into the lock, jabbed it against the metal, and heard subdued voices from within. As he again strove to insert the key, the door opened and he fell into the house. His father gripped him. Mrs. Lonigan appeared behind her husband, and at the sight of Martin, she blessed herself.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. First the sweetheart tells me she’s having a baby. Then the father and son come in drunk.”
She fainted.
“Mother. Mother,” Lonigan exclaimed, staggering with her into the parlor, while Loretta rushed to the kitchen for water.
Martin hung his coat and hat on the rack, his mother’s fainting having had a partially sobering effect.
“Hello, Fran,” he said, floundering into the parlor.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Fran snapped, looking daggers at him.
“Now Fran, you know I like Studs. Always did. Studs was a great guy. It ain’t right for him to be sick like this, and he’s my brother, you know. I hate to see him kick the bucket... die. I want to see him alive. He’s my brother, and I respect him. Don’t want to see him sick. We all like Studs, don’t we?” Martin said, lighting a cigarette.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” Fran said, vigorously shaking his shoulders.
“None of us wants Studs sick, do we?”
She led him off to bed, and the father and Loretta revived the mother.
V
He seemed to be choking.
“Mother, it’s getting dark,” he called feebly.
He gasped. There was a rattle in his throat. He turned livid, his eyes dilated widely, became blank, and he went limp. And in the mind of Studs Lonigan, through an all-increasing blackness, streaks of white light filtered weakly and recessively like an electric light slowly going out. And there was nothing in the mind of Studs Lonigan but this feeble streaking of light in an all-encompassing blackness, and then, nothing.
And by his bedside was a kneeling mother, sobbing and praying, two sisters crying, a brother with his head lowered hiding a solemn and penitent face, a father sick and hurt, and an impatient nurse.
Lonigan went to the kitchen. He poured himself the remains of a bottle of whisky and gulped it. He sat by the table, his face blank, his mouth hanging open. He heard his wife scream.
The two daughters led the hysterical mother out of the room, and the nurse covered the face of Studs Lonigan with a white sheet.
1929-1934
Afterword
A classic story about a poolroom loafer, Studs Lonigan is a monumental work in the tradition of American literary naturalism. Most of the notable fiction since the First World War has increasingly reflected the extravagant folly, the despair, and the lonely desperation in American life. But unlike Studs, who is totally defeated by society, most of his fictional predecessors either wave briefly the banner of rebellion and eventually conform, or come to frivolous terms with life, or act so individualistically that their predicament loses universal appeal. George Willard leaves Winesburg, Ohio, with only a vague questioning of social forces by Anderson; Carol Kennicott and Babbitt acquiesce to narrow-minded existence after their moments of revolt; Clyde Griffiths almost “makes it” among the affluent snobs until he plays the wrong role and is tripped up by an accident.
Fitzgerald and Hemingway chronicled the era of Prohibition, and Fitzgerald’s story “All the Sad Young Men” involves characters who prefigured some of Studs’ friends. But all the sensationalistic psychology these earlier writers beautifully provide in their novels should hopefully arrive at an artistic resolution. Instead there is only some romantic refutation, which is not