Arkansas, crossing on train - playing flute - play cards with boys, my dirty deck -won money, blew sweet-potato solo - for sailo canada goose vancouver rs. Long long awful trip fiv canada goose vancouver e days and five nights just to SEE you, Sal.. .What about Camille?. .Gave permission of course - waiting for me. Camille and I all straight forever-and-ever . . .. .And Inez?. .I - I - I want her to come back to Frisco with me live other side of town - dont you think? Dont know why I came.. Later he said in a sudden moment of gaping wonder, .Well and yes, of course, I wanted to see your sweet girl and you - glad of you - love you as ever.. He stayed in New York three days and hastily made preparations to get back on the train with his railroad passes and again recross the continent, five days and five nights in dusty coaches and hard-
top of his skull. I need your advice, Rabbit says, and corrects himself. What I really need right now is a place to sleep. Tothero is silent before replying. His great strength is in these silences; he has the disciplinarians trick of waiting a long moment while his words gather canada goose vancouver weight. At last he asks, Whats happened to your home? Well, it kind of went. How do you mean? It was no good. Ive run out. I really have. Another pause. Rabbit narrows his eyes against the sunlight that rebounds off the asphalt. His left ear aches. His teeth on that side feel as if they might start hurting. That doesnt sound like very mature behavior, Tothero says. It was a mess as it was. What sort of mess? I dont know. My wifes an alcoholic. And have you tried to help her? Sure. How? Did you drink wit canada goose vancouver h her? No
mymotherandfather,Mr.andMrs.Springer,andtheunborn baby.ForgiveTotheroandalltheothers.Amen. He opens his eyes to the day and says, Thats a pretty bigcongregation.Sunday morning, she says. I could throw up every Sundaymorning.Why?She just says, Fuh, as if he knows the answer. After thinking abit, and seeing him lie there looking out the window seriously, shesays, I once had a guy in here who woke canada goose vancouver me up at eight oclockbecause he had to teach Sunday school at nine-thirty.You dont believe anything?No. You mean you do?Well, yeah. I think s canada goose vancouver o. Her rasp, her sureness, makes him wince;he wonders if hes lying. If he is, he is hung in the middle ofnowhere, and the thought hollows him. Across the street a fewpeople in their best clothes walk on the pavement past the row ofworn brick homes; are they
gives you some of everything, just to tease him. But in truth I meant it. The thought seems to strike her. She stops dead on the path of grass and her eyes, the irises a kind of broken-glass white within rings of persisting blue, roll nervously, looking from one side of him to the other. In truth I meant every word of it. Im a farmers daughter, Mr. Angstrom, and I would have rather seen this land gone under to alfa canada goose vancouver lfa. Id say to him, ‘Why dont you plant buckwheat if you must fuss in the ground? Now theres a real crop. You raise the wheat, Ill bake the bread. I would have, too. ‘What do we want with all these corsages that after theyre gone we have to look at their canada goose vancouver homely leaves all the year round? Id say to him, ‘What pretty girl are you growing these for? He was younger than I, thats
gonna grow up? Its telling that lousy story that has rattled him. Outside on the red-painted steps of the place Rabbit starts laughing. Looking for my motorcycle, he says, and lets go, Hwah hwah hyaaa, under the castanet neon light. Ruth is in no humor to see it. Well you area nut, she says. It annoys him that she is too dumb to see that he is really sore. The way she shook her head No at him when he was gagging it up annoys him; his mind goes back over the minute agai canada goose vancouver n and again and every time sn canada goose vancouver ags on it. He is angry about so many things he doesnt know where to begin; the only thing clear is hes going to give her hell. So you and that bastard went to Atlantic City together. Why is he a bastard? Oh. Hes not and I am.I didnt say you were.You did too. Right back in there you did.It was just
right as long as Nelson is awake. But when the boy falls asleep, when his face sags as canada goose vancouver leep and his breath drags in and out of helpless lips that deposit spots of spit on the crib sheet and his hair fans in fine tufts and the perfect skin of his fat slack cheeks, drained of animation, lies sealed under a heavy flush, then a dead place opens in Harry, and he feels fear. The childs sleep is so heavy he fears it might break the membrane of life and fall through to oblivion. Sometimes he reaches into the crib and lifts the boys body out, just to reassure himself with its warmth and the responsive fumbling protest of the tumbled limp limbs. He rattles around in the apartment, turning on all the lights and television, drinking ginger ale and leafing through old Life canada goose vancouver s, grabbing anything to stuff
Nelson says, and slides off his chair and comes to his father. Both men are embarrassed. O.K., Rabbit says. You show me your room. Springer gets two Oreo cookies out of the pantry and unexpectedly Nelson runs forward to hug him. He stoops to accept the hug and his withered dandys face goes blank against the boys cheek; big black square cufflinks, thinly rimmed and initialed S in gol canada goose vancouver d, creep out of his coat sleeves as his arms tighten the hug. As Nelson leads his father to the stairs they pass the room where Mrs. Springer is sitting. Rabbit has a glimpse of a puffed face slippery with tears, like an interior organ surgically exposed, and averts his eyes. He whispers to Nelson to go in and kiss her good night. When the boy returns to him they go upstairs and down a smooth corridor papered canada goose vancouver
succeeds in giving an indescribable tang to his descriptions. If observation from nature imprints upon his tales the strong accent of reality, the prose in which they are shrined so conforms to the genius of the race as to smack of the soil. It is enough that the critics of to-day place Guy de Maupassant among our classic writers. He has his place in the ranks of pure French genius, with the Regniers, the La Fontaines, the Molieres. And those signs of secret ill divined everywhere under this wholesome prose surround it for those who knew and love canada goose vancouver d him with a pathos that is inexpressible. INTRODUCTION BORN IN canada goose vancouver THE MIDDLE YEAR of the nineteenth century, and fated unfortunately never to see its close, Guy de Maupassant was probably the most versatile and brilliant among the galaxy of novelists