East of Eden

“I’ll give him the back of my hand,” Samuel said.

“No, that you won’t do. You fall short in savagery, Samuel. I know you. You’ll give him sweet-sounding words and you’ll come dragging back and try to make me forget you ever went.”

“I’ll beat his brains out,” Samuel shouted.

He slammed into the bedroom, and Liza smiled at the panels.

He came out soon in his black suit and his hard shiny shirt and collar. He stooped down to her while she tied his black string tie. His white beard was brushed to shining.

“You’d best take a swab at your shoes with a blacking brush,” she said.

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 is there to understand? Just read it. There it is in black and white. Who wants you to understand it? If the Lord God wanted 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.

3

On the last half-mile, turning out of the Salinas Valley and driving up the unscraped road under the great oak trees, Samuel tried to plait a rage to take care of his embarrassment. He said heroic words to himself.

Adam was more gaunt than Samuel remembered. His eyes were dull, as though he did not use them much for seeing. It took a little time for Adam to become aware that Samuel was standing before him. A grimace of displeasure drew down his mouth.

Samuel said, “I feel small now—coming uninvited as I have.”

Adam said, “What do you want? Didn’t I pay you?”

“Pay?” Samuel asked. “Yes, you did. Yes, by God, you did. And I’ll tell you that pay has been more than I’ve merited by the nature of it.”

“What? What are you trying to say?”

Samuel’s anger grew and put out leaves. “A man, his whole life, matches himself against pay. And how, if it’s my whole life’s work to find my worth, can you, sad man, write me down instant in a ledger?”

Adam exclaimed, “I’ll pay. I tell you I’ll pay. How much? I’ll pay.”

“You have, but not to me.”

“Why did you come then? Go away!”

“You once invited me.”

“I don’t invite you now.”

Samuel put his hands on his hips and leaned forward. “I’ll tell you now, quiet. In a bitter night, a mustard night that was last night, a good thought came and the dark was sweetened when the day sat down. And this thought went from evening star to the late dipper on the edge of the first light—that our betters spoke of. So I invite myself.”

“You are not welcome.”

Samuel said, “I’m told that out of some singular glory your loins got twins.”

“What business is that of yours?”

A kind of joy lighted Samuel’s eyes at the rudeness. He saw Lee lurking inside the house and peeking out at him. “Don’t, for the love of God, put violence on me. I’m a man hopes there’ll be a picture of peace on my hatchments.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“How could you? Adam Trask, a dog wolf with a pair of cubs, a scrubby rooster with sweet paternity for a fertilized egg! A dirty clod!”

A darkness covered Adam’s cheeks and for the first time his eyes seemed to see. Samuel joyously felt hot rage in his stomach. He cried, “Oh, my friend, retreat from me! Please, I beg of you!” The saliva dampened the corners of his mouth. “Please!” he cried. “For the love of any holy thing you can remember, step back from me. I feel murder nudging my gizzard.”

Adam said, “Get off my place. Go on—get off. You’re acting crazy. Get off. This is my place. I bought it.”

“You bought your eyes and nose,” Samuel jeered. “You bought your uprightness. You bought your thumb on sideways. Listen to me, because I’m like to kill you after. You bought! You bought out of some sweet inheritance. Think now—do you deserve your children, man?”

“Deserve them? They’re here—I guess. I don’t understand you.”

Samuel wailed, “God save me, Liza! It’s not the way you think, Adam! Listen to me before my thumb finds the bad place at your throat. The precious twins—untried, unnoticed, undirected—and I say it quiet with my hands down—undiscovered.”

“Get off,” said Adam hoarsely. “Lee, bring a gun! This man is crazy. Lee!”

Then Samuel’s hands were on Adam’s throat, pressing the throbbing up to his temples, swelling his eyes with blood. And Samuel was snarling at him. “Tear away with your jelly fingers. You have not bought these boys, nor stolen them, nor passed any bit for them. You have them by some strange and lovely dispensation.” Suddenly he plucked his hard thumbs out of his neighbor’s throat.

Adam stood panting. He felt his throat where the blacksmith hands had been. “What is it you want of me?”

“You have no love.”