East of Eden
On a winter evening Adam looked up from his account book. “It’s nice in California,” he said. “It’s nice in the winter. And you can raise anything there.”
“Sure you can raise it. But when you got it, what are you going to do with it?”
“How about wheat? They raise a lot of wheat in California.”
“The rust will get to it,” said Charles.
“What makes you so sure? Look, Charles, things grow so fast in California they say you have to plant and step back quick or you’ll get knocked down.”
Charles said, “Why the hell don’t you go there? I’ll buy you out any time you say.”
Adam was quiet then, but in the morning while he combed his hair and peered in the small mirror he began it again.
“They don’t have any winter in California,” he said. “It’s just like spring all the time.”
“I like the winter,” said Charles.
Adam came toward the stove. “Don’t be cross,” he said.
“Well, stop picking at me. How many eggs?”
“Four,” said Adam.
Charles placed seven eggs on top of the warming oven and built his fire carefully of small pieces of kindling until it burned fiercely. He put the skillet down next to the flame. His sullenness left him as he fried the bacon.
“Adam,” he said, “I don’t know whether you notice it, but it seems like every other word you say is California. Do you really want to go?”
Adam chuckled. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” he said. “I don’t know. It’s like getting up in the morning. I don’t want to get up but I don’t want to stay in bed either.”
“You sure make a fuss about it.” said Charles.
Adam went on, “Every morning in the army that damned bugle would sound. And I swore to God if I ever got out I would sleep till noon every day. And here I get up a half-hour before reveille. Will you tell me, Charles, what in hell we’re working for?”
“You can’t lay in bed and run a farm,” said Charles. He stirred the hissing bacon around with a fork.
“Take a look at it,” Adam said earnestly. “Neither one of us has got a chick or a child, let alone a wife. And the way we’re going it don’t look like we ever will. We don’t have time to look around for a wife. And here we’re figuring to add the Clark place to ours if the price is right. What for?”
“It’s a damn fine piece,” said Charles. “The two of them together would make one of the best farms in this section. Say! You thinking of getting married?”
“No. And that’s what I’m talking about. Come a few years and we’ll have the finest farm in this section. Two lonely old farts working our tails off. Then one of us will die off and the fine farm will belong to one lonely old fart, and then he’ll die off—”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Charles demanded. “Fellow can’t get comfortable. You make me itch. Get it out—what’s on your mind?”
“I’m not having any fun,” said Adam. “Or anyway I’m not having enough. I’m working too hard for what I’m getting, and I don’t have to work at all.”
“Well, why don’t you quit?” Charles shouted at him. “Why don’t you get the hell out? I don’t see any guards holding you. Go down to the South Seas and lay in a hammock if that’s what you want.”
“Don’t be cross,” said Adam quietly. “It’s like getting up. I don’t want to get up and I don’t want to stay down. I don’t want to stay here and I don’t want to go away.”
“You make me itch,” said Charles.
“Think about it, Charles. You like it here?”
“Yes.”
“And you want to live here all your life?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus, I wish I had it that easy. What do you suppose is the matter with me?”
“I think you’ve got knocker fever. Come in to the inn tonight and get it cured up.”
“Maybe that’s it,” said Adam. “But I never took much satisfaction in a whore.”
“It’s all the same,” Charles said. “You shut your eyes and you can’t tell the difference.”
“Some of the boys in the regiment used to keep a squaw around. I had one for a while.”
Charles turned to him with interest. “Father would turn in his grave if he knew you was squawing around. How was it?”
“Pretty nice. She’d wash my clothes and mend and do a little cooking.”
“I mean the other—how was that?”
“Good. Yes, good. And kind of sweet—kind of soft and sweet. Kind of gentle and soft.”
“You’re lucky she didn’t put a knife in you while you were asleep.”
“She wouldn’t. She was sweet.”
“You’ve got a funny look in your eye. I guess you were kind of gone on that squaw.”
“I guess I was,” said Adam.
“What happened to her?”
“Smallpox.”
“You didn’t get another one?”
Adam’s eyes were pained. “We piled them up like they were logs, over two hundred, arms and legs sticking out. And we piled brush on top and poured coal oil on.”
“I’ve heard they can’t stand smallpox.”
“It kills them,” said Adam. “You’re burning that bacon.”
Charles turned quickly back to the stove. “It’ll just be crisp,” he said, “I like it crisp.” He shoveled the bacon out on a plate and broke the eggs in the hot grease and they jumped and fluttered their edges to brown lace and made clucking sounds.
“There was a schoolteacher,” Charles said. “Prettiest thing you ever saw. Had little tiny feet. Bought all her clothes in New York. Yellow hair, and you never saw such little feet. Sang too, in the choir. Everybody took to going to church. Damn near stampeded getting into church. That was quite a while ago.”
“ ’Bout the time you wrote about thinking of getting married?”
Charles grinned. “I guess so. I guess there wasn’t a young buck in the county didn’t get the marrying fever.”
“What happened to her?”
“Well, you know how it is. The women got kind of restless with her here. They got together. First thing you knew they had her out. I heard she wore silk underwear. Too hoity toity. School board had her out halfway through the term. Feet no longer than that. Showed her ankles too, like it was an accident. Always showing her ankles.”