East of Eden

Will Hamilton recalled that he had not only argued against it but had foretold in detail what would happen. He did not feel pleasure, but what could you do when a man wouldn’t take advice from a sound businessman? And, God knows, Will had plenty of experience with fly-by-night ideas. In a roundabout way it was recalled that Sam Hamilton had been a fool too. And as for Tom Hamilton—he had been just crazy.

When Lee felt that enough time had passed he did not beat around the bush. He sat directly in front of Adam to get and to keep his attention.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“All right.”

“You aren’t going to crawl back in your hole, are you?”

“What makes you think that?” Adam asked.

“Well, you have the look on your face you used to wear. And you’ve got that sleepwalker light in your eyes. Does this hurt your feelings?”

“No,” said Adam. “The only thing I was wondering about was whether I’m wiped out.”

“Not quite,” said Lee. “You have about nine thousand dollars left and the ranch.”

“There’s a two-thousand-dollar bill for garbage disposal,” said Adam.

“That’s before the nine thousand.”

“I owe quite a bit for the new ice machinery.”

“That’s paid.”

“I have nine thousand?”

“And the ranch,” said Lee. “Maybe you can sell the ice plant.”

Adam’s face tightened up and lost the dazed smile. “I still believe it will work,” he said. “It was a whole lot of accidents. I’m going to keep the ice plant. Cold does preserve things. Besides, the plant makes some money. Maybe I can figure something out.”

“Try not to figure something that costs money,” said Lee. “I would hate to leave my gas stove.”

3

The twins felt Adam’s failure very deeply. They were fifteen years old and they had known so long that they were sons of a wealthy man that the feeling was hard to lose. If only the affair had not been a kind of carnival it would not have been so bad. They remembered the big placards on the freight cars with horror. If the businessmen made fun of Adam, the high-school group was much more cruel. Overnight it became the thing to refer to the boys as “Aron and Cal Lettuce,” or simply as “Lettuce-head.”

Aron discussed his problem with Abra. “It’s going to make a big difference,” he told her.

Abra had grown to be a beautiful girl. Her breasts were rising with the leaven of her years, and her face had the calm and warmth of beauty. She had gone beyond prettiness. She was strong and sure and feminine.

She looked at his worried face and asked, “Why is it going to make a difference?”

“Well, one thing, I think we’re poor.”

“You would have worked anyway.”

“You know I want to go to college.”

“You still can. I’ll help you. Did your father lose all his money?”

“I don’t know. That’s what they say.”

“Who is ‘they’?” Abra asked.

“Why, everybody. And maybe your father and mother won’t want you to marry me.”

“Then I won’t tell them about it,” said Abra,

“You’re pretty sure of yourself.”

“Yes,” she said, “I’m pretty sure of myself. Will you kiss me?”

“Right here? Right in the street?”

“Why not?”

“Everybody’d see.”

“I want them to,” said Abra.

Aron said, “No. I don’t like to make things public like that.”

She stepped around in front of him and stopped him. “You look here, mister. You kiss me now.”

“Why?”

She said slowly, “So everybody will know that I’m Mrs. Lettuce-head.”

He gave her a quick embarrassed peck and then forced her beside him again. “Maybe I ought to call it off myself,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m not good enough for you now. I’m just another poor kid. You think I haven’t seen the difference in your father?”

“You’re just crazy,” Abra said. And she frowned a little because she had seen the difference in her father too.

They went into Bell’s candy store and sat at a table. The rage was celery tonic that year. The year before it had been root-beer ice-cream sodas.

Abra stirred bubbles delicately with her straw and thought how her father had changed since the lettuce failure. He had said to her, “Don’t you think it would be wise to see someone else for a change?”

“But I’m engaged to Aron.”

“Engaged!” he snorted at her. “Since when do children get engaged? You’d better look around a little. There are other fish in the sea.”

And she remembered that recently there had been references to suitability of families and once a hint that some people couldn’t keep a scandal hidden forever. This had happened only when Adam was reputed to have lost all of his money.”

She leaned across the table. “You know what we could really do is so simple it will make you laugh.”

“What?”

“We could run your father’s ranch. My father says it’s beautiful land.”

“No,” Aron said quickly.

“Why not?”

“I’m not going to be a farmer and you’re not going to b? a farmer’s wife.”

“I’m going to be Aron’s wife, no matter what he is.”

“I’m not going to give up college,” he said.

“I’ll help you,” Abra said again.

“Where would you get the money?”

“Steal it,” she said.

“I want to get out of this town,” he said. “Everybody’s sneering at me. I can’t stand it here.”

“They’ll forget it pretty soon.”

“No, they won’t either. I don’t want to stay two years more to finish high school.”

“Do you want to go away from me, Aron?”

“No. Oh, damn it, why did he have to mess with things he doesn’t know about?”

Abra reproved him. “Don’t you blame your father. If it had worked everybody’d been bowing to him.”

“Well, it didn’t work. He sure fixed me. I can’t hold up my head. By God! I hate him.”

Abra said sternly, “Aron! You stop talking like that!”