“They feel sunshine for you have spread me open.”
“I do not stir your roots—because I have respect for the word Love.”
“Good-bye, then, Leon. I shall find out what this great truth is ... this truth I know, the first truth I have ever known ... that you are holy.”
“Good-by,” he said. Then he went.
* * *
Mrs. Luve looked through the golden flame of an old table, of two candles, burning within the blackness of her room. There ... not of the mellow flame, not of the dark ... a young man speaking of small matters. Where the flame touched him he glowed; where the night touched him his body withdrew harsh into shadow. What is this encaverned boy, talking of small matters?
—He is plump: he is a boy: he has no strength of his own. He is very strong and he is very old. Blond hair curls from bland brow. They are Jews ... he was straight like steel, hard, sure. So gentle. Sureness alone is gentle in a fumbling world.... Are you hard also?”
—You do not know, but I have seen your parents. If I said so would you flush? would your heart rush back in panic, hide in your flesh I have touched by seeing your parents? She counted me change so soberly ... correct, correct ... ‘If I make a mistake against you I will lose by and by: if I make a mistake against me I lose now.’ The greed of justice in your mother counting me change. That time when the clerks were all busy and I in a hurry, your father came out smiling, sold me—what was it?—sausage and cheese? So simple, so condescending he was. You are the child of such parents. They have saved: they have saved in justice of greed, in justice of condescension: and of this saving of their greed and arrogance, you buy your College books, you buy your poetry books, you buy your hours here. Aren’t you ashamed? No he is not ashamed. He is right. Sausages and dollars saved are slime, are lies. You are true, Samson Brenner. You are older than your stinking parents.
She filled his glass with wine.
He sipped. His eyes were hot amber in an iron vat. He asked no question, he sipped.