All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [149]
“He’s a grown man and he–” I began.
But she cut in again, “You’ve got to make him–you’ve got to!”
“For God’s sake!” I said.
“You’ve got to,” she repeated, in that same voice, and I was sure that the fingers clenched on my arm were bringing blood.
“You were just now giving me hell because I merely offered him the proposition,” I said, “and now you say I’ve got to make him take it.”
“I want him to take it,” she said, and her fingers fell away from their grip.
“Well, I’m damned,” I observed in the direction of the great interstellar darkness, and then peered into her face. There wasn’t much light–I could see the face, an unnatural chalk-white, and the eyes were just dark gleams–but I could tell that she meant what she said. “So you want him to take it?” I said slowly. “And you’re Governor Stanton’s daughter and Adam Stanton’s sister, and you want him to take it?”
“He’s got to,” she said, and I saw her small gloved hands clench on the railing, and felt sorry for the railing. She stared out over the coiling carpet of the river mist, as from the mountain out over the clouds hiding the dark world.
“Why?” I asked.
“I went up there,” she said, still looking out over the river, “to talk to him about it. I wasn’t sure he ought to when I went up. I wasn’t sure then, but when I saw him I was.”
Something about what she was saying disturbed me, like an offstage noise or something caught out of the tail of your eye or an itch that comes when your hands are full and you can’t scratch. I was listening to what she was saying, and it wasn’t that. It was something else. But I couldn’t catch what. So I shoved it onto the back of the stove, and listened to what she was saying.
“When I saw how he was,” she was saying, “I knew. I just knew. Oh, Jack, he was all worked up–it wasn’t natural–just because he had been asked. He has cut himself off from everything–from everybody. Even from me. Not really, but it’s not like it used to be.”
“He’s awful busy,” I objected lamely.
“Busy,” she echoed, “busy–yes, he’s busy. Ever since he was in medical school, he has worked like a slave. There’s just something driving him–driving him. It’s not money and it’s not reputation and it’s not–I just don’t know what–” Her voice drifted off.
“It is very simple,” I said. “He wants to do good.”
“Good,” she echoed. Then, “I used to think so–oh, he does good–but–”
“But what?”
“Oh, I don’t know–and I shouldn’t say it–I shouldn’t–but I almost think that the work–even the doing good–everything is just a way to cut himself off. Even from me–even me–”
Then she said, “Oh, Jack, we had an awful row. It was awful. I went home and cried all night. You know how we’ve always been. And to have a terrible row. You know how we’ve been? You know?” She insisted, and clutched my arm, as though to make me agree, to make me tell her how they had been.
“Yes,” I said, “I know.” I looked at her and was afraid for a second she was going to cry again, but she didn’t, and I should have known it, for she was the kind that did her crying on the midnight pillow. If she did any.
“I told him,” she was saying, “I told him that if he wanted to do any good–really do any good–here was the time. And the way. To see that the Medical Center was run right. And even expanded. And all that. But he just froze up and said he wouldn’t touch the thing. And I accused him of being selfish–of being selfish and proud–of putting his pride before everything. Before doing good–before his duty. Then he just glared at me, and grabbed me by the wrist and said I couldn‘t understand anything, that a man owed himself something. I said it was his pride, just his pride, and he said he was proud not to touch filth, and if I wanted him to do that I could just–” She stopped, took a breath and, I guessed, a new grip on her nerve to say what she was about to say. “Well, what he was going to say was that I could get out. But he didn’t say it. I’m glad–” she paused again–“I’m glad he didn’t say it. At least, he didn’t say it.”
“He didn’t mean it,” I said.
“I don’t know–I don’t know. If you had seen his eyes blazing and his face all white and drawn. Oh, Jack