Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (learn to read books txt) 📕

he sat alone he groaned, “Thank Heaven, that operation’s over!”

He told himself that Clif was a crook, a fool, and a fat waster; he told himself that Clif was a cynic without wisdom, a drunkard without charm, and a philanthropist who was generous only because it larded his vanity. But these admirable truths did not keep the operation from hurting any more than it would have eased the removal of an appendix to be told that it was a bad appendix, an appendix without delicacy or value.

He had loved Clif⁠—did love him and always would. But he would never see him again. Never!

The impertinence of that flabby blackguard to sneer at Gottlieb! His boorishness! Life was too short for⁠—

“But hang it⁠—yes, Clif is a tough, but so am I. He’s a crook, but wasn’t I a crook to fake my plague figures in St. Hubert⁠—and the worse crook because I got praise for it?”

He bobbed up to Joyce’s room. She was lying in her immense four-poster, reading Peter Whiffle.

“Darling, it was all rather dreadful, wasn’t it!” she said. “He’s gone?”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… He’s gone⁠ ⁠… I’ve driven out the best friend I ever had⁠—practically. I let him go, let him go off feeling that he was a rotter and a failure. It would have been decenter to have killed him. Oh, why couldn’t you have been simple and jolly with him? You were so confoundedly polite! He was uneasy and unnatural, and showed up worse than he really is. He’s no tougher than⁠—he’s a lot better than the financiers who cover up their stuff by being suave⁠ ⁠… Poor devil! I’ll bet right now Clif’s tramping in the rain, saying, ‘The one man I ever loved and tried to do things for has turned against me, now he’s⁠—now he has a lovely wife. What’s the use of ever being decent?’ he’s saying⁠ ⁠… Why couldn’t you be simple and chuck your highfalutin’ manners for once?”

“See here! You disliked him quite as much as I did, and I will not have you blame it on me! You’ve grown beyond him. You that are always blaring about Facts⁠—can’t you face the fact? For once, at least, it’s not my fault. You may perhaps remember, my king of men, that I had the good sense to suggest that I shouldn’t appear tonight; not meet him at all.”

“Oh⁠—well⁠—yes⁠—gosh⁠—but⁠—Oh, I suppose so. Well, anyway⁠—It’s over, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Darling, I do understand how you feel. But isn’t it good it is over! Kiss me good night.”

“But”⁠—Martin said to himself, as he sat feeling naked and lost and homeless, in the dressing-gown of gold dragonflies on black silk which she had bought for him in Paris⁠—“but if it’d been Leora instead of Joyce⁠—Leora would’ve known Clif was a crook, and she’d’ve accepted it as a fact. (Talk about your facing facts!) She wouldn’t’ve insisted on sitting as a judge. She wouldn’t’ve said, ‘This is different from me, so it’s wrong.’ She’d’ve said, ‘This is different from me, so it’s interesting.’ Leora⁠—”

He had a sharp, terrifying vision of her, lying there coffinless, below the mold in a garden on the Penrith Hills.

He came out of it to growl, “What was it Clif said? ‘You’re not her husband⁠—you’re her butler⁠—you’re too smooth.’ He was right! The whole point is: I’m not allowed to see who I want to. I’ve been so clever that I’ve made myself the slave of Joyce and Holy Holabird.”

He was always going to, but he never did see Clif Clawson again.

II

It happened that both Joyce’s and Martin’s paternal grandfathers had been named John, and John Arrowsmith they called their son. They did not know it, but a certain John Arrowsmith, mariner of Bideford, had died in the matter of the Spanish Armada, taking with him five valorous Dons.

Joyce suffered horribly, and renewed all of Martin’s love for her (he did love pitifully this slim, brilliant girl).

“Death’s a better game than bridge⁠—you have no partner to help you!” she said, when she was grotesquely stretched on a chair of torture and indignity; when before they would give her the anesthetic, her face was green with agony.

John Arrowsmith was straight of back and straight of limb⁠—ten good pounds he weighed at birth⁠—and he was gay of eye when he had ceased to be a raw wrinkled grub and become a man-child. Joyce worshiped him, and Martin was afraid of him, because he saw that this minuscule aristocrat, this child born to the self-approval of riches, would some day condescend to him.

Three months after childbearing, Joyce was more brisk than ever about putting and backhand service and hats and Russian émigrés.

III

For science Joyce had great respect and no understanding. Often she asked Martin to explain his work, but when he was glowing, making diagrams with his thumbnail on the tablecloth, she would interrupt him with a gracious “Darling⁠—do you mind⁠—just a second⁠—Plinder, isn’t there any more of the sherry?”

When she turned back to him, though her eyes were kind his enthusiasm was gone.

She came to his laboratory, asked to see his flasks and tubes, and begged him to bully her into understanding, but she never sat back watching for silent hours.

Suddenly, in his bogged floundering in the laboratory, he touched solid earth. He blundered into the effect of phage on the mutation of bacterial species⁠—very beautiful, very delicate⁠—and after plodding months when he had been a sane citizen, an almost good husband, an excellent bridge-player, and a rotten workman, he knew again the happiness of high taut insanity.

He wanted to work nights, every night. During his uninspired fumbling, there had been nothing to hold him at the Institute after five, and Joyce had become used to having him flee to her. Now he showed an inconvenient ability to ignore engagements, to snap at delightful guests who asked him to explain all about science, to forget even her and the baby.

“I’ve got to work evenings!” he said. “I can’t be regular and