The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [33]
Doctor Copeland coughed harshly and cleared his throat.
‘Everbody haves feelings--no matter who they is--and nobody is going to walk in no house where they certain their feelings will be hurt. You the same way. I seen your feelings injured too many times by white peoples not to know that.’
‘No,’ said Doctor Copeland. ‘You have not seen my feelings injured.’
‘Course I realize that Willie or my Highboy or me--that none of us is scholars. But Highboy and Willie is both good as gold.
There just is a difference between them and you.’
‘Yes,’ said Doctor Copeland.
‘Hamilton or Buddy or Willie or me--none of us ever cares to talk like you. Us talk like our own Mama and her peoples and their peoples before them. You think out everthing in your brain. While us rather talk from something in our hearts that has been there for a long time. That’s one of them differences.’
‘Yes,’ said Doctor Copeland.
‘A person can’t pick up they children and just squeeze them to which-a-way they wants them to be. Whether it hurt them or not. Whether it right or wrong. You done tried that hard as any man could try. And now I the only one of us that would come in this here house and sit with you like this.’ The light was very bright in Doctor Copeland’s eyes and her voice was loud and hard. He coughed and his whole face trembled. He tried to pick up the cup of cold coffee, but his hand would not hold it steadily. The tears came up to his eyes and he reached for his glasses to try to hide them. Portia saw and went up to him quickly. She put her arms around his head and pressed her cheek to his forehead. ‘I done hurt my Father’s feelings,’ she said softly. His voice was hard. ‘No. It is foolish and primitive to keep repeating this about hurt feelings.’ The tears went slowly down his cheek and the fire made them take on the colors of blue and green and red. ‘I be really and truly sorry,’ said Portia. Doctor Copeland wiped his face with his cotton handkerchief. ‘It is all right.’
‘Less us not ever quarrel no more. I can’t stand this here fighting between us. It seem to me that something real bad come up in us ever time we be together. Less us never quarrel like this no more.’
‘No,’ said Doctor Copeland. ‘Let us not quarrel.’ Portia sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. For a few minutes she stood with her arms around her father’s head. Then after a while she wiped her face for a final time and went over to the pot of greens on the stove. ‘It mighty nigh time for these to be tender,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Now I think I’ll start making some of them good little hoecakes to go along with them.’ Portia moved slowly around the kitchen in her stockinged feet and her father followed her with his eyes. For a while again they were silent. With his eyes wet, so that the edges of things were blurred, Portia was truly like her mother. Years ago Daisy had walked like that around the kitchen, silent and occupied. Daisy was not black as he was--her skin had been like the beautiful color of dark honey. She was always very quiet and gentle. But beneath that soft gentleness there was something stubborn in her, and no matter how conscientiously he studied it all out, he could not understand the gentle stubbornness in his wife. He would exhort her and he would tell her all that was in his heart and still she was gentle. And still she would not listen to him but would go on her own way.
Then later there were Hamilton and Karl Marx and William and Portia. And this feeling of real true purpose for them was so strong that he knew exactly how each thing should be with them. Hamilton would be a great scientist and Karl Marx a teacher of the Negro race and William a lawyer to fight against injustice and Portia a doctor for women and children.
And when they were even babies he would tell them of the yoke they must thrust from their shoulders--the yoke of submission and slothfulness. And when they were a little older he would impress upon them that there was no God, but that their lives were holy and for each one of them there was this real true purpose. He would tell it to them over and over, and they would sit together far away from him and look with their big Negro-children eyes at their mother. And Daisy would sit without listening, gentle and stubborn.