All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [123]
“That time is dead,” he said.
“Yeah, but you aren’t.”
“The sinful man I was who reached for vanity and corruption is dead. If I sin now it is in weakness and not in will. I have put away foulness.”
“Listen,” I said, “it’s just a simple question. Just one question.”
“I have put it away, that time,” he said, and made a pushing gesture with his hands.
“Just one question,” I insisted.
He looked at me without speaking.
“Listen,” I said, “was Irwin ever broke, did he ever really need money? Bad?
He stared at me from a long way off, across the distance, beyond the bowl of soup on the floor, over the chocolate in his hand, through time. Then he demanded, “Why–why do you want to know?”
“To tell the truth,” I burst out without meaning to, “I don’t. But somebody does, and that somebody pays me the first of the month. It is Governor Stark.”
“Foulness,” he said, staring across whatever it was between us, “foulness.”
“Was Irwin ever broke?” I said.
“Foulness,” he affirmed.
“Listen,” I said, “I don’t reckon Governor Stark–if that is what all this foulness stuff is about–takes it to the Lord in prayer, but did you ever stop to think what a mess your fine, God-damned, plug-hatted, church-going, Horace-quoting friends like Stanton and Irwin left this state in? At least the Boss does something, but they–they sat on their asses–they–”
“All foulness!” the old man uttered, and swept his right arm wildly before him, the hand clutching the chocolate hard enough to squash it. A part of the chocolate fell to the floor. Baby got it.
“If you meant to imply,” I said, “that politics, including that of erstwhile pals, I not exactly like Easter Week in a nunnery, you are right. But I will beat you to the metaphysical draw this time. Politics is action and all action is but a flaw in the perfection on nonbeing. Which is God. For if God is perfection and the only perfection is in nonbeing, then God is nonbeing. Then God is nothing. Nothing can give no basis for the criticism of Thing in its thingness. Then where do you get anything to say? Then where do you get off?”
“Foolishness, foolishness,” he said, “foolishness and foulness!”
“I guess you are right,” I said. “It is foolishness. But it is no more foolish than all that kind of talk. Always words.”
“You speak foulness.”
“No, just words,” I said, “and all words are alike.”
“God is not mocked,” he said, and I saw that his head was quivering on his neck.
I stepped quickly toward him, stopping just in front of him. “Was Irwin ever broke?” I demanded.
He seemed about to say something, his lips opening. Then they closed.
“Was he?” I demanded.
“I will not touch the world of foulness again,” he said, his pale eyes looking steadily upward into my face, “that my hand shall come away with the stink on my fingers.”
I felt like grabbing him and shaking him until his teeth rattled. I felt like shaking it out of him. But you can’t grab an old man and do that. I had gone at the thing wrong. I ought to have led up to it and tried to trick him. I ought to have wheedled him. But I always got so keyed up and on edge when I got around him that I couldn’t think of anything but getting away from him. And then when I had left I always felt worse until I got him out of my mind. I had muffed it.
That was all I got. As I was going out, I looked back to see Baby, who had finished the piece of chocolate dropped by the old man, meditatively moving his hand about on the floor to locate any stray crumbs. Then the old man leaned slowly and heavily toward him, again.
Going down the stairs, I decided that even id I had tried to wheedle the old man I would probably have learned nothing. It wasn’t that I had gone at it wrong. It wasn’t that I burst out about Governor Stark. What did he know or care about Governor Stark? It was that I had asked him about the world of the past, which he had walked away from. That world and all the world was foulness, he had said, and he was not going to touch it. He was not going to talk about it, and I couldn’t have made him.
But I got one thing. I was sure that he had known something. Which meant that there was something to know. Well, I would know. Sooner or later. So I left the Scholarly Attorney and the world of the past and returned to the world of the present.