East of Eden

Adam got up and opened the hall door and did not see the shadow that slipped behind it. He went to his room and returned and put a faded brown daguerreotype on the table in front of Lee. “That is my brother Charles,” he said, and he went back to the hall door and closed it.

Lee studied the shiny metal under the lamp, shifting the picture this way and that to overcome the highlights. “It’s a long time ago,” Adam said. “Before I went into the army.”

Lee leaned close to the picture. “It’s hard to make out. But from his expression I wouldn’t say your brother had much humor.”

“He hadn’t any,” said Adam. “He never laughed.”

“Well, that wasn’t exactly what I meant. When I read the terms of your brother’s will it struck me that he might have been a man with a particularly brutal sense of play. Did he like you?”

“I don’t know,” said Adam. “Sometimes I thought he loved me. He tried to kill me once.”

Lee said, “Yes, that’s in his face—both the love and the murder. And the two made a miser of him, and a miser is a frightened man hiding in a fortress of money. Did he know your wife?”

“Yes.”

“Did he love her?”

“He hated her.”

Lee sighed. “It doesn’t really matter. That’s not your problem, is it?”

“No. It isn’t.”

“Would you like to bring the problem out and look at it?”

“That’s what I want.”

“Go ahead then.”

“I can’t seem to get my mind to work clearly.”

“Would you like me to lay out the cards for you? The uninvolved can sometimes do that.”

“That’s what I want.”

“Very well then.” Suddenly Lee grunted and a look of astonishment came over his face. He held his round chin in his thin small hand. “Holy horns!” he said. “I didn’t think of that.”

Adam stirred uneasily. “I wish you’d get off the tack you’re sitting on,” he said irritably. “You make me feel like a column of figures on a blackboard.”

Lee took a pipe from his pocket, a long slender ebony stem with a little cuplike brass bowl. He filled the thimble bowl with tobacco so fine-cut it looked like hair, then lighted the pipe, took four long puffs, and let the pipe go out.

“Is that opium?” Adam demanded.

“No,” said Lee. “It’s a cheap brand of Chinese tobacco, and it has an unpleasant taste.”

“Why do you smoke it then?”

“I don’t know,” said Lee. “I guess it reminds me of something—something I associate with clarity. Not very complicated.” Lee’s eyelids half closed. “All right then—I’m going to try to pull out your thoughts like egg noodles and let them dry in the sun. The woman is still your wife and she is still alive. Under the letter of the will she inherits something over fifty thousand dollars. That is a great deal of money. A sizable chunk of good or of evil could be done with it. Would your brother, if he knew where she is and what she is doing, want her to have the money? Courts always try to follow the wishes of the testator.”

“My brother would not want that,” said Adam. And then he remembered the girls upstairs in the tavern and Charles’ periodic visits.

“Maybe you’ll have to think for your brother,” said Lee. “What your wife is doing is neither good nor bad. Saints can spring from any soil. Maybe with this money she would do some “fine thing. There’s no springboard to philanthropy like a bad conscience.”

Adam shivered. “She told me what she would do if she had money. It was closer to murder than to charity.”

“You don’t think she should have the money then?”

“She said she would destroy many reputable men in Salinas. She can do it too.”

“I see,” said Lee. “I’m glad I can take a detached view of this. The pants of their reputations must have some thin places. Morally, then, you would be against giving her the money?”

“Yes.”

“Well, consider this. She has no name, no background. A whore springs full blown from the earth. She couldn’t very well claim the money, if she knew about it, without your help.”

“I guess that’s so. Yes, I can see that she might not be able to claim it without my help.”

Lee took up the pipe and picked out the ash with a little brass pin and filled the bowl again. While he drew in the four slow puffs his heavy lids raised and he watched Adam.

“It’s a very delicate moral problem,” he said. “With your permission I shall offer it for the consideration of my honorable relatives—using no names of course. They will go over it as a boy goes over a dog for ticks. I’m sure they will get some interesting results.” He laid his pipe on the table. “But you don’t have any choice, do you?”

“What do you mean by that?” Adam demanded. “Well, do you? Do you know yourself so much less than I do?”

“I don’t know what to do,” said Adam. “I’ll have to give it a lot of thought.”

Lee said angrily, “I guess I’ve been wasting my time. Are you lying to yourself or only to me?”

“Don’t speak to me like that!” Adam said.

“Why not? I have always disliked deception. Your course is drawn. What you will do is written—written in every breath you’ve ever taken. I’ll speak any way I want to. I’m crotchety. I feel sand under my skin. I’m. looking forward to the ugly smell of old books and the sweet smell of good thinking. Faced with two sets of morals, you’ll follow your training. What you call thinking won’t change it. The fact that your wife is a whore in Salinas won’t change a thing.”

Adam got to his feet. His face was angry. “You are insolent now that you’ve decided to go away,” he cried. “I tell you I haven’t made up my mind what to do about the money.”

Lee sighed deeply. He pushed his small body erect with his hands against his knees. He walked wearily to the front door and opened it. He turned back and smiled at Adam. “Bull shit!” he said amiably, and he went out and closed the door behind him.

3

Cal crept quietly down the dark hall and edged into the room where he and his brother slept. He saw the outline of his brother’s head against the pillow in the double bed, but he could not see whether Aron slept. Very gently he eased himself in on his side and turned slowly and laced his fingers behind his head and stared at the myriads of tiny colored dots that make up darkness. The window shade bellied slowly in and then the night wind fell and the worn shade flapped quietly against the window.