I have been re-reading one of my favorite books, East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I love Steinbeck.
In this passage Samuel Hamilton is preparing to visit his friend and neighbor, Adam Trask, in order to help bring him out of a year-long funk. Adam’s wife, Cathy, had shot him and abandoned him and their newly born twin sons. Samuel is charged by his wife with making sure that those boys have names.
In this passage Samuel Hamilton is preparing to visit his friend and neighbor, Adam Trask, in order to help bring him out of a year-long funk. Adam’s wife, Cathy, had shot him and abandoned him and their newly born twin sons. Samuel is charged by his wife with making sure that those boys have names.
In the midst of painting
the blacking on his worn shoes he looked sideways up at her. “Could I take the
Bible along?” he asked. “There’s no
place for getting a good name like the Bible.”
“I don’t much like it out
of the house,” she said uneasily. “And
if you’re late coming home, what’ll I have for my reading? And the children’s names are in it.” She saw
his face fall. She went into the bedroom
and came back with a small Bible, worn and scuffed, its cover held on by brown
paper and glue. “Take this one,” she said.
“But that’s your mother’s.”
“She wouldn’t mind. And all the names but one in here have two
dates.”
“I’ll wrap it so it won’t
get hurt,” said Samuel.
Liza spoke sharply, “What
my mother would mind is what I mind, and I’ll tell you what I mind. You’re
never satisfied to let the Testament alone.
You’re forever picking at it and questioning it. You turn it over the
way a ‘coon turns over a wet rock, and it angers me.”
“I’m just trying to
understand it, Mother.”
“What’s there to
understand? Just read it. There it is in
black and white. Who wants you to
understand it? If the Lord God want you
to understand it He’d have given you to understand or He’d have set it down
different.”
“But, Mother-“
“Samuel,” she said, “you’re
the most contentious man this world has ever seen.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Don’t agree with me all
the time. It hints of insincerity. Speak up for yourself.”
“She looked after his
dark figure in the buggy as he drove away.
“He’s a sweet husband,” she said aloud, “but contentious.”
And Samuel was thinking
with wonder, Just when I think I know her she does a thing like that.
***
I recognize something of Samuel in myself-though I
never refer to my wife as “mother.” That’s
just weird.
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