Tuesday afternoon, overcast1, he takes a bus to Mt. judge. Eccles' address is at the north end of town; he rides past his own neighborhood in safety, gets off at Spruce, and walks along singing in a high voice to himself the phrase, "Oh I'm just wild about Harry2" ? not the beginning of the song, but the place at the end where the girl, repeating, goes way up on "I'm."
He feels on even keel. For two days he and Ruth have lived on his money and he still has fourteen dollars left. Furthermore he has discovered, poking3 through her bureau this morning while she was out shopping, that she has an enormous s checking account, with over five hundred dollars in it at the end of February. They have gone bowling4 once and have seen four movies ? Gigi; Bell, Book and Candle; The Inn of the Sixth Happiness; and The Shaggy Dog. He saw so many snippets from The Shaggy Dog on the Mickey Mouse Club that he was curious to see the whole thing. It was like looking through a photograph album with about half familiar faces. The scene where the rocket goes through the roof and Fred MacMurray runs out with the coffee pot he knew as well as his own face.
Ruth was funny. Her bowling was awful; she just sort of paddled up to the line and dropped the ball. Plok. Every time, in Gígi, the stereophonic?sound loudspeaker behind them in the theater would blare out she turned around and said "Shh" as if it were somebody in the theater talking too loud. In The Inn of the Sixth Happiness every time Ingrid Bergman's face appeared on the screen she leaned over to Rabbit and asked him in a whisper, "Is she really a hooer?" He was upset by Robert Donat; he looked awful. He knew he was dying. Imagine knowing you're dying and going ahead pretending you're a mandarin6. Ruth's comment about Bell, Book and Candle last night was, "Why don't you ever see any bongo drums around here?" He vowed7 secretly to get her some. A half?hour ago, waiting for the bus on Weiser Street, he priced a set in the window of the Chords 'n' Records music store. $19.95. All the way out on the bus he was beating bongo patterns on his knees.
"For I'm just wild about Harrr?ree?"
Number 61 is a big brick place with white wood trim, a little porch imitating a Greek temple, and a slate9 roof that shines like the scales of a big fish. Out back a wire fence encloses a yellow swing frame and a sandbox. A puppy yaps in this pen as Harry goes up the walk. The grass wears that intense greasy11 green that promises rain, the color of grass in color snapshots. The place looks too cheerful to be right; Rabbit thinks of ministers as living in gloomy Lutheran houses. But a small plate above the fish?shaped door?knocker says in engraved12 script The Rectory. He bangs the fish twice and, after waiting, twice again.
A crisp little number with speckled green eyes opens the door. "What is it?" Her voice as good as says, "How dare you?" As she adjusts her face to his height her eyes enlarge, displaying more of the vividly14 clear whites to which her bright irises15 are buttoned.
At once, absurdly, he feels in control of her, feels she likes him. Freckles16 dot her little bumpy17 nose, kind of a pinched nose, narrow and pale under the dots of tan. Her skin is fair, and fine?grained as a child's. She is wearing orange shorts. With a pleasantness that amounts to arrogance18 he says, "Hi."
"Hello."
"Say, is Reverend Eccles in?"
"He's asleep."
"In the middle of the day?"
"He was up much of the night."
"Oh gosh. The poor guy."
"Do you want to come in?"
"Well gee20, I don't know. He told me to be here. He really did."
"He might well have. Please come in."
She leads him past a hall and staircase into a cool room with a high ceiling and silver wallpaper, a piano, watercolors of scenery, a lot of sets of books in a recessed21 bookcase, a fireplace whose mantel supports one of those clocks with a pendulum22 of four gold balls that are supposed to run practically for ever. Photographs in frames all around. Furniture heavy brown and red except for a long sofa with a scrolling23 back and arms whose cushions are cream white. The room smells coldly kept. From far off comes the warmer odor of cake baking. She stops in the center of the rug and says, "Listen."
He stops. The faint bump that he also heard is not repeated. She explains, "I thought that brat24 was asleep."
"Are you the babysitter?"
"I'm the wife," she says, and sits down in the center of the white sofa, to prove it.
He takes a padded wing chair opposite. The plum fabric25 feels softly gritty against his naked forearms. He is wearing a checked sports shirt, with the sleeves turned back to his elbows. "Oh, I'm sorry." Of course. Her bare legs, crossed, show the blue dabs27 of varicose veins28. Her face, when she sits, is not as young as at the door. Double chin when she relaxes, head tucked back. Smug little cookie. Firm little knockers. He asks, "How old is your child?"
"Two children. Two girls, one and three."
"I have a boy who's two."
"I'd like a boy," she says. "The girls and I have personality problems; we're too much alike. We know exactly what the other's thinking."
Dislikes her own children! Rabbit is shocked, this from a minister's wife. "Does your husband notice this?"
"Oh, it's wonderful for Jack29. He loves to have women fighting over him. It's his little harem. I think a boy would threaten him. Do you feel threatened?"
"Not by the kid, no. He's only two."
"It starts earlier than two, believe me. Sexual antagonism30 begins practically at birth."
"I hadn't noticed."
"Good for you. I expect you're a primitive32 father. I think Freud is like God; you make it true."
Rabbit smiles, supposing that Freud has some connection with the silver wallpaper and the watercolor of a palace and a canal above her head. Class. She brings her fingertips to her temples, pushes her head back, shuts her lids, and through plump open lips sighs. He is struck; she seems at this moment a fine?grained Ruth. There is a world of women beyond Janice.
Eccles' thin voice, oddly amplified33 in his home, cries down the stairs, "Lucy! Joyce is getting into bed with me!"
Lucy opens her eyes and says to Rabbit proudly, "See?"
"She says you told her it's all right," the voice whines34 on, piercing banisters, walls, and layers of wallpaper.
Mrs. Eccles gets up and goes to the archway. The seat of her orange shorts is wrinkled from sitting; the hitched35?up legs expose most of the oval backs of her thighs36. Whiter than the sofa. The blush of pink from the pressure of sitting fades from her skin. "I told her no such thing!" she calls upward while an aware hand tugs37 the shorts down and smooths the cloth around her mussed rump. A pocket is stitched with black thread to the right half. "Jack," she goes on, "you have a visitor! A very tall young man who says you invited him!"
At the mention of himself Rabbit has risen, and right behind her he says, "To play golf."
"To play golf!" she echoes in a yell.
"Oh, dear," the voice upstairs says to itself, then shouts, "Hello, Harry! I'll be right down."
A child up there is crying, "Mommy did too! Mommy did too!"
Rabbit shouts in answer, "Hello!"
Mrs. Eccles turns her head with an inviting38 twist. "Harry ??"
"Angstrom."
"What do you do, Mr. Angstrom?"
"Well. I'm kind of out of work."
"Angstrom. Of course. Aren't you the one who disappeared? The Springers' son?in?law?"
"Right," he replies smartly and, in a mindless follow?through, an overflow39 of coordination40, she having on the drop of his answer turned with prim31 dismissal away from him again, slaps! her sassy ass10. Not hard: a cupping hit, rebuke41 and fond pat both, well=placed on the pocket.
She swiftly pivots42, swinging her backside to safety behind her. Her freckles dart43 sharp as pinpricks from her shocked face. Her leaping blood bleaches45 her skin, and her rigidly46 cold stare is so incongruous with the lazy condescending47 warmth he feels toward her, that he pushes his upper lip over his lower in a burlesque48 expression of penitence49.
A chaotic50 tumble on the stairs shakes the wall. Eccles jolts51 to a stop in front of them, off?balance, tucking a dirty white shirt into rumpled52 suntans. His shadowed eyes weep between his furry53 lids. "I'm sorry," he says. "I hadn't really forgotten."
"It's kind of cloudy anyway," Rabbit says, and smiles involuntarily. Her backside had felt so good, just right, dense54 yet springy: kind of smacked55 back. He supposes she'll tell, which will finish him here. Just as well. He doesn't know why he's here anyway.
Maybe she would have told, but her husband starts annoying her immediately. "Oh, I'm sure we can get in nine before it rains," he tells Rabbit.
"Jack, you aren't really going to play golf again. You said you had all those calls to make this afternoon."
"I made calls this morning."
"Two. You made two. On Freddy Davis and Mrs. Landis. The same old safe ones. What about the Ferrys? You've been talking about the Ferrys for six months."
"What's so sacred about the Ferrys? They never do anything for the church. She came on Christmas Sunday and went out by the choir56 door so she wouldn't have to speak to me."
"Of course they don't do anything for the church and that's why you should call as you know perfectly57 well. I don't think anything's sacred about the Ferrys except that you've been brooding about her going out the side door and making everybody's life miserable58 for months. Now if she comes on Easter it'll be the same thing. To tell you my honest opinion you and Mrs. Ferry would hit it off splendidly, you're both equally childish."
"Lucy, just because Mr. Ferry owns a shoe factory doesn't make them more important Christians59 than somebody who works in a shoe factory."
"Oh Jack, you're too tiresome60. You're just afraid of being snubbed and don't quote Scripture61 to justify62 yourself. I don't care if the Ferrys come to church or stay away or become Jehovah's Witnesses."
"At least the Jehovah's Witnesses put into practice what they say they believe." When Eccles turns to Harry to guffaw63 conspiratorially64 after this dig, bitterness cripples his laugh, turns his lips in tightly, so his small jawed65 head shows its teeth like a skull66.
"I don't know what that's supposed to mean," Lucy says, "but when you asked me to marry you I told you what I felt and you said all right fine."
"I said as long as your heart remained open for Grace." Eccles pours these words on her in a high strained blast that burns his broad forehead, soils it with a blush.
"Mommy I had a rest." The little voice, shyly penetrating67, surprises them from above. At the head of the carpeted stairs a small tan girl in underpants hangs in suspense68. She seems to Rabbit too dark for her parents, braced70 on silhouetted71 legs of baby fat knotted on longer stalks. Her hands rub and pluck her naked chest in exasperation72. She hears her mother's answer before it comes.
"Joyce. You go right back into your own bed and have a nap."
"I can't. There's too many noises."
"We've been screaming right under her head," Eccles tells his wife.
"You've been screaming. About Grace."
"I had a scary dream," Joyce says, and thumpingly descends73 two steps.
"You did not. You were never asleep." Mrs. Eccles walks to the foot of the stairs, holding her throat as if to keep some emotion down.
"What was the dream about?" Eccles asks his child.
"A lion ate a boy."
"That's not a dream at all," the woman snaps, and turns on her husband: "It's those hateful Belloc poems you insist on reading her."
"She asks for them."
"They're hateful. They give her traumas74."
"Joyce and I think they're funny."
"Well you both have perverted75 senses of humor. Every night she asks me about that damn pony76 Tom and what does `die' mean?"
"Tell her what it means. If you had Belloc's and my faith in the afterlife these perfectly natural questions wouldn't upset you."
"Don't harp44, Jack. You're awful when you harp."
"I'm awful when I take myself seriously, you mean."
"Hey. I smell cake burning," Rabbit says.
She looks at him and recognition frosts her eyes. That there is some kind of cold call in her glance, a faint shout from the midst of her enemies, he feels but ignores, letting his gaze go limp on the top of her head, showing her the sensitive nostrils77 that sniffed78 the cake.
"If only you would take yourself seriously," she says to her husband, and on glimpsey bare legs flies down the sullen79 hall of the rectory.
Eccles calls, "Joyce, go back to your room and put on a shirt and you can come down."
The child instead thumps80 down three more steps.
"Joyce, did you hear me?"
"You get it, Dayud?dee."
"Why should I get it? Daddy's all the way downstairs."
"I don't know where it is."
"You do too. Right on your bureau."
`I don't know where my bruro is."
"In your room, sweet. Of course you know where it is. You get your shirt and I'll let you downstairs."
But she is already halfway81 down.
"I'm frightened of the li?un," she sighs with a little smile that betrays consciousness of her own impudence82. Her voice has a spaced, testing quality; Rabbit heard this note of care in her mother's voice too, when she was teasing the same man.
"There's no lion up there. There's nobody up there but Bonnie sleeping. Bonnie's not afraid."
"Please, Daddy. Please please please please please." She has reached the foot of the stairs and seizes and squeezes her father's knees.
Eccles laughs, bracing83 his unbalanced weight on the child's head, which is rather broad and flat?topped, like his own. "All right," he says. "You wait here and talk to this funny man." And bounds up the stairs with that unexpected athleticism84.
Called into action, Rabbit says, `Joyce, are you a good girl?"
She waggles her stomach and pulls her head into her shoulders. The motion forces a little guttural noise, "cukk," out of her throat. She shakes her head; he has the impression she is trying to hide behind a screen of dimples. But then she says with unexpectedly firm enunciation85, "Yes."
"And is your mommy good?"
"Yes."
"What makes her so good?" He hopes Mrs. Eccles hears this in the kitchen. The hurried oven sounds have stopped.
Joyce looks up at him and like a sheet being rippled86 fear tugs a corner of the surface of her face. Really tears seem close. She scampers87 from him down the hall, the way her mother went. Fled from, Rabbit wanders uneasily in the hall, trying to attach his excited heart to the pictures hanging there. Surfaces of foreign capitals, a woman in white beneath a tree whose every leaf is rimmed88 in gold, a laborious89 pen rendering90, brick by brick, of the St. John's Episcopal Church, dated 1927 and signed large by Mildred L. Kramer. Above a small table halfway down the hall hangs a studio photograph of some old rock with white hair above his ears and a clerical collar staring over your shoulder as if square into the heart of things; stuck into the frame is a yellowed photo clipped from a newspaper showing in coarse dots the same old gent gripping a cigar and laughing like a madman with three others in robes. He looks a little like Jack but fatter and stronger. He holds the cigar in a fist. Further on is a colored print of a painted scene in a workshop where the carpenter works in the light given off by his Helper's head: the glass this print is protected by gives back to Rabbit the shadow of his own head. There is a tangy scent91 in the hallway of, spot cleaner? new varnish92? mothballs? old wallpaper? He hovers93 among these possibilities, "the one who disappeared." Sexual antagonism begins practically at birth ? what a bitch, really. Yet with a nice low flame in her, lighting95 up her legs. Those bright white legs. She'd have an anxious little edge and want her own. A cookie. A sharp little vanilla96 cookie. In spite of herself he loves her.
There must be a back stairs, because he next hears Eccles' voice in the kitchen, arguing Joyce into her sweater, asking Lucy if the cake was ruined, explaining, not knowing Rabbit's ears were around the corner, "Don't think this is pleasure for me. It's work."
"There's no other way to talk to him?"
"He's frightened."
"Sweetie, everybody's frightened to you."
"But he's even frightened of me."
"Well he came through that door cocky enough."
This was the place for, And he slapped my sweet ass, that's yours to defend.
What! Your sweet ass! I'll murder the rogue97. I'll call the police.
In reality Lucy's voice stopped at "enough," and Eccles is talking about if so?and?so telephoned, where are those new golfballs?, Joyce you had a cookie ten minutes ago, and at last calling, in a voice that has healed too smooth over the scratches of their quarrel, "Goodbye, my dears." Rabbit pads up the hall and is leaning on the front radiator98 when Eccles, looking like a young owl5 ? awkward, cross ? pops out of the kitchen.
They go to his car. Under the threat of rain the skin of the Buick has a greasy waxiness99. Eccles lights a cigarette and they go down, across Route 422, into the valley toward the golf course. Eccles says, after getting several deep drags settled in his chest, "So your trouble isn't really lack of religion."
"Huh?"
"I was remembering our other conversation. About the waterfall and the tree."
"Yeah well: I stole that from Mickey Mouse."
Eccles laughs, puzzled; Rabbit notices how his mouth stays open after he laughs, the little inturned rows of teeth waiting a moment while his eyebrows101 go up and down expectantly. "It stopped me short," he admits, closing this flirtatious102 cave. "Then you said you know what's inside you. I've been wondering all weekend what that was. Can you tell me?"
Rabbit doesn't want to tell him anything. The more he tells, the more he loses. He's safe inside his own skin, he doesn't want to come out. This guy's whole game is to get him out into the open where he can be manipulated. But the fierce convention of courtesy pries103 open Rabbit's lips. "Hell, it's nothing much," he says. "It's just that, well, it's all there is. Don't you think?"
Eccles nods and blinks and drives without saying a word. In his way he's very sure of himself.
"How's Janice now?" Rabbit asks.
Eccles is startled to feel him veer104 off. "I dropped by Monday morning to tell them you were in the county. Your wife was in the back yard with your boy and what I took to be an old girl friend, a Mrs. ? Foster? Fogleman?"
"What did she look like?"
"I don't really know. I was distracted by her sunglasses. They were the mirror kind, with very wide sidepieces."
"Oh, Peggy Gring. She's walleyed. She was in Janice's highschool class and married that jerk Ollie Fosnacht."
"Fosnacht. That's right. Like the doughnut. I knew there was something local about the name."
"You'd never heard of Fosnacht Day before you came here?"
"Never. Not in Norwalk."
"The thing I remember about it, when I was, oh I must have been six or seven, because he died in 1940, my grandfather would wait upstairs until I came down so I wouldn't be the Fosnacht. He lived with us then." Rabbit hasn't thought or spoken of his grandfather in years, it seems; a mild dry taste comes into his mouth.
"What was the penalty for being a Fosnacht?"
"I forget. It was just something you didn't want to be. Wait. I remember, one year I was the last downstairs and my parents or somebody teased me and I didn't like it and I guess I cried, I don't know. Anyway that's why the old man stayed up."
"He was your father's father?"
"My mother's. He lived with us."
"I remember my father's father," Eccles says. "He used to come to Connecticut and have dreadful arguments with my father. My grandfather was the Bishop105 of Providence106, and had kept his church from going under to the Unitarians by becoming almost Unitarian himself. He used to call himself a Darwinian Deist. My father, in reaction I suppose, became very orthodox; almost Anglo?Catholic. He loved Belloc and Chesterton. In fact he used to read to us those poems you heard my wife objecting to."
"About the lion?"
"Yes. Belloc has this bitter mocking streak107 my wife can't appreciate. He mocks children, which she can't forgive. It's her psychology108. Children are very sacred in psychology. Where was I? Yes; along with his watered?down theology my grandfather had kept in his religious practice a certain color and a, a rigor109 that my father had lost. Grandpa felt Daddy was extremely remiss110 in not having a family worship service every night. My father would say he didn't want to bore his children the way he had been bored with God and anyway what was the good of worshipping a jungle god in the living room? `You don't think God is in the forest?' my grandfather would say. Just behind stained glass?' And so on. My brothers and I used to tremble, because it put Daddy into a terrible depression, ultimately, to argue with him. You know how it is with fathers, you never escape the idea that maybe after all they're right. A little dried?up old man with a Yankee accent who was really awfully111 dear. I remember he used to grab us by the knee at mealtimes with this brown bony hand and croak112, `Has he made you believe in Hell?' "
Harry laughs; Eccles' imitation is good; being an old man fits him. "Did he? Do you?"
"Yes, I think so. Hell as Jesus described it. As separation from God."
"Well then we're all more or less in it."
"I don't think so. I don't think so at all. I don't think even the blackest atheist113 has an idea of what real separation will be. Outer darkness. What we live in you might call" ? he looks at Harry and laughs ? "inner darkness."
Eccles' volunteering all this melts Rabbit's caution. He wants to bring something of himself into the space between them. The excitement of friendship, a competitive excitement that makes him lift his hands and jiggle them as if thoughts were basketballs, presses him to say, "Well I don't know all this about theology, but I'll tell you, I do feel, I guess, that somewhere behind all this" ? he gestures outward at the scenery; they are passing the housing development this side of the golf course, half?wood half?brick one?and?a?half?stories in little flat bulldozed yards containing tricycles and spindly three?year?old trees, the un?grandest landscape in the world ? "there's something that wants me to find it."
Eccles tamps114 out his cigarette carefully in the tiny crossnotched cup in the car ashtray115. "Of course, all vagrants116 think they're on a quest. At least at first."
Rabbit doesn't see, after trying to give the man something, that he deserved this slap. He supposes this is what ministers need, to cut everybody down to the same miserable size. He says, "Well I guess that makes your friend Jesus look pretty foolish."
Mention of the holy name incites117 pink spots high on Eccles' cheeks. "He did say," the minister says, "that saints shouldn't marry."
They turn off the road and go up the winding118 drive to the clubhouse, a big cinder119?block building fronted with a long sign that has CHESTNUT120 GROVE121 GOLF COURSE lettered between two Coca-Cola insignia. When Harry caddied here it was just a clapboard shack122 holding a wood?burning stove and charts of old tournaments and two armchairs and a counter for candy bars and golf balls you fished out of the swamp and that Mrs. Wenrich resold. He supposes Mrs. Wenrich is dead. She was a delicate old rouged123 widow like a doll with white hair and it always seemed funny to hear talk about greens and divots and tourneys and par69 come out of her mouth. Eccles parks the long Buick on the asphalt lot and says, "Before I forget."
Rabbit's hand is on the door handle. "What?"
"Do you want a job?"
"What kind?"
"A parishioner of mine, a Mrs. Horace Smith, has about eight acres of garden around her home, toward Appleboro. Her husband was an incredible rhododendron enthusiast124. I shouldn't say incredible; he was a terribly dear old man."
"I don't know beans about gardening."
"Nobody does, that's what Mrs. Smith says. There are no gardeners left. For forty dollars a week, I believe her."
"A buck125 an hour. That's pretty poor."
"It wouldn't be forty hours. Flexible time. That's what you want, isn't it? Flexibility126? So you can be free to preach to the multitudes."
Eccles really does have a mean streak. Him and Belloc. Without the collar around his throat, he kind of lets go. Rabbit gets out of the car. Eccles does the same, and his head across the top of the car looks like a head on a platter. The wide mouth moves: "Please consider it."
"I can't. I may not even stay in the county."
"Is the girl going to kick you out?"
"What girl?"
"What is her name? Leonard. Ruth Leonard."
"Well. Aren't you smart?" Who could have told him? Peggy Gring? By way of Tothero? More likely Tothero's girl Whatsername. She looked like Janice. It doesn't matter; the world's such a web anyway, things just tremble through. "I never heard of her," Rabbit says.
The head on the platter grins weirdly127 in the sunglare off the grease?gray metal.
They walk side by side to the cement?block clubhouse. On the way Eccles remarks, "It's the strange thing about you mystics, how often your little ecstasies128 wear a skirt."
"Say. I didn't have to show up today, you know."
"I know. Forgive me. I'm in a very depressed129 mood."
There's nothing exactly wrong with his saying this, but it rubs Harry's inner hair the wrong way. It kind of clings. It says, Pity me. Love me. The prickly sensation makes his lips sticky; he is unable to open them to respond. When Eccles pays his way, he carp scarcely negotiate thanking him. When they pick out a set of clubs for him to rent, he is so indifferent and silent the freckled130 kid in charge stares at him as if he's a moron131. The thought flits through his brain that Eccles is known as a fag and he has become the new pet. As he and Eccles walk together toward the first tee he feels dragged down, lame94.
And the ball feels it too, the ball he hits after a little advice from Eccles. It sputters132 away to one side, crippled by a perverse133 topspin that makes it fall from flight as dumpily as a blob of clay.
Eccles laughs. "That's the best first drive I ever saw."
"It's not a first drive. I used to hit the ball around when I was a caddy. I should do better than that."
"You expect too much of yourself. Watch me, that'll make you feel better."
Rabbit stands back and is surprised to see Eccles, who has a certain spring in his unconscious movements, swing with a quaint134 fifty?year?old stiffness. As if he has a pot to keep out of the way. He punches the ball with a cramped135 backswing. It goes straight, though high and weak, and he seems delighted with it. He fairly prances136 into the fairway. Harry trails after him heavily. The soggy turf, raw and wet from recently thawing137, sinks beneath his big suede138 shoes. They're on a seesaw139; Eccles goes up, he comes down.
Down in the pagan groves140 and green alleys141 of the course Eccles is transformed. A brainless gaiety animates143 him. He laughs and swings and clucks and calls. Harry stops hating him, he himself is so awful. Ineptitude144 seems to coat him like a scabrous145 disease; he is grateful to Eccles for not fleeing from him. Often Eccles, fifty yards further on ? he has an excited gleeful habit of running ahead ? comes all the way back to find a ball Harry has lost. Somehow Rabbit can't tear his attention from where the ball should have gone, the little ideal napkin of clipped green pinked with a pretty flag. His eyes can't keep with where it did go. "Here it is," Eccles says. "Behind a root. You're having terrible luck."
"This must be a nightmare for you."
"Not at all. You're extremely promising146. You never play and yet you haven't once missed the ball completely."
This does it; Harry sets himself and in the murderous strength of his desire to knock it out in spite of the root he misses the ball completely.
"Your only mistake is trying too hard," Eccles says. "You have a beautiful natural swing." Rabbit whacks147 again and the ball flops148 out and wobbles a few yards.
"Bend to the ball," Eccles says. "Imagine you're about to sit down."
"I'm about to lie down," Harry says. He feels sick, giddily sick, sucked deeper into a vortex whose upper rim8 is marked by the tranquil149 tips of the leafing trees. He seems to remember having been up there once. He skids150 into puddles151, is swallowed by trees, infallibly sinks into the mangy scruff at the sides of the fairways.
Nightmare is the word. In waking life only animate142 things slither and jerk for him this way. His unreal hacking152 dazes his brain; half?hypnotized, it plays tricks whose strangeness dawns on him slowly. In his head he is talking to the clubs as if they're women. The irons, light and thin yet somehow treacherous153 in his hands; are Janice. Come on, you dope, be calm; here wego, easy. When the slotted club face gouges154 the dirt behind the ball and the shock jolts up his arms to his shoulders, his thought is that Janice has struck him. So dumb, really dumb. Screw her. Just screw her. Anger turns his skin rotten, so the outside seeps155 through; his insides go jagged with the tiny dry forks of bitter scratching brambles, where words hang like caterpillar156 nests that can't be burned away. She stubs stubs fat she stubs the dirt torn open in a rough brown mouth dirt stubs fat: with the woods the "she" is Ruth. Holding a three wood, absorbed in its heavy reddish head and grass?stained face and white stripe prettily157 along the edge, he thinks O.K. if you're so smart and clenches158 and swirls159. Ahg: when she tumbled so easily, to balk160 at this! The mouth of torn grass and the ball runs, hops161 and hops, hides in a bush. And when he walks there, the bush is damn somebody, his mother; he lifts the huffy branches like skirts, in a fury of shame but with care not to break any, and these branches bother his legs while he tries to pour his will down into the hard irreducible pellet that is not really himself yet in a way is; just the way it sits there white and Number 1 in the center of everything. As the seven iron chops down please Janice just once awkwardness spiders at his elbows and the ball as he stares bending one way bends the other way into more sad scruff further on, the khaki color of Texas. Oh you moron go home. Home is the hole, and above, in the scheme of the unhappy vision that frets162 his conscious attention with an almost optical overlay of presences, the mild gray rain sky is his grandfather waiting upstairs so that young Harry will not be a Fosnacht.
And, now at the corners, now at the center of this striving golf dream, Eccles flits in his grubby shirt like a white flag of forgiveness, crying encouragement, fluttering from the green to guide him home.
The greens, still dead from the winter, are salted with a dry dirt: fertilizer? The ball slips along making bits of grit26 jump. "Don't stab your putts," Eccles says. "A little easy swing, arms stiff. Distance is more important than aim on the first putt. Try again." He kicks the ball back. It took Harry about twelve to get up here on the fourth green, but this arrogant163 assumption that his strokes are past counting irritates him. Come on, sweet, he pleads as if with his wife, there's the hole, big as a bucket. Everything will be all right.
But no, she has to stab in a feeble, panicked way; what was she afraid of? The ball is maybe six feet short. Walking toward Eccles, he says, "You never did tell me how Janice is."
"Janice?" Eccles with an effort drags his attention up from the game. He is absolutely in love with winning; he is eating me up, Harry thinks. "She seemed in good spirits on Monday. She was out in the back yard with this other woman, and they were both giggling164 when I came. You must realize that for a little while, now that she's adjusted somewhat, she'll probably enjoy being back with her parents. It's her own version of your irresponsibility."
"Actually," Harry says gratingly, squatting165 to line up the putt, the way they do it on television, "she can't stand her parents any more than I can. She probably wouldn't've married me if she hadn't been in such a hurry to get away from 'em." His putt slides past on the down side and goes two or three fucking feet too far. Four feet. Fuck.
Eccles sinks his. The ball wobbles up and with a glottal rattle166 bobbles in. The minister looks up with the light of triumph in his eyes. "Harry," he asks, sweetly yet boldly, "why have you left her? You're obviously deeply involved with her."
"I told ja. There was this thing that wasn't there."
"What thing? Have you ever seen it? Are you sure it exists?"
Harry's four?foot putt dribbles167 short and he picks up the ball with furious fingers. "Well ifyou're not sure it exists don't ask me. It's right up your alley100. If you don't know nobody does."
"No," Eccles cries in the same strained voice in which he told his wife to keep her heart open for Grace. "Christianity isn't looking for a rainbow. If it were what you think it is we'd pass out opium168 at services. We're trying to serve God, not be God."
They pick up their bags and walk the way a wooden arrow tells them.
Eccles goes on, explanatorily, "This was all settled centuries ago, in the heresies169 of the early Church."
"I tell you, I know what it is."
"What is it? What is it? Is it hard or soft? Harry. Is it blue? Is it red? Does it have polka dots?"
It hits Rabbit depressingly that he really wants to be told. Underneath170 all this I?know?more?about?it?than?you heresies?of?the?early?Church business he really wants to be told about it, wants to be told that it is there, that he's not lying to all those people every Sunday. As if it's not enough to be trying to get some sense out of this crazy game you have to carry around this madman trying to swallow your soul. The hot strap171 of the bag gnaws172 at his shoulder.
"The truth is," Eccles tells him with womanish excitement, in a voice embarrassed but determined173, "you're monstrously174 selfish. You're a coward. You don't care about right or wrong; you worship nothing except your own worst instincts."
They reach the tee, a platform of turf beside a hunchbacked fruit tree offering fists of taut175 ivory?colored buds. "Let me go first," Rabbit says. " 'Til you calm down." His heart is hushed, held in mid19?beat, by anger. He doesn't care about anything except getting out of this tangle176. He wants it to rain. In avoiding looking at Eccles he looks at the ball, which sits high on the tee and already seems free of the ground. Very simply he brings the clubhead around his shoulder into it. The sound has a hollowness, a singleness he hasn't heard before. His arms force his head up and his ball is hung way out, lunarly pale against the beautiful black blue of storm clouds, his grandfather's color stretched dense across the north. It recedes177 along a line straight as a ruler?edge. Stricken; sphere, star, speck13. It hesitates, and Rabbit thinks it will die, but he's fooled, for the ball makes its hesitation178 the ground of a final leap: with a kind of visible sob179 takes a last bite of space before vanishing in falling. "That's it!" he cries and, turning to Eccles with a grin of aggrandizement180, repeats, "That's it."
收听单词发音 |
1
overcast
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| adj.阴天的，阴暗的，愁闷的；v.遮盖，（使）变暗，包边缝；n.覆盖，阴天 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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3
poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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bowling
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| n.保龄球运动 | |
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owl
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| n.猫头鹰，枭 | |
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Mandarin
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| n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的 | |
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vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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irises
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| n.虹( iris的名词复数 )；虹膜；虹彩；鸢尾（花） | |
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freckles
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| n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
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bumpy
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| adj.颠簸不平的，崎岖的 | |
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arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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mid
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| adj.中央的，中间的 | |
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gee
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| n.马；int.向右！前进！，惊讶时所发声音；v.向右转 | |
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recessed
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| v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的过去式和过去分词 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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pendulum
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| n.摆，钟摆 | |
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scrolling
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| n.卷[滚]动法，上下换行v.（电脑屏幕上）从上到下移动（资料等），卷页( scroll的现在分词 )；（似卷轴般）卷起；（像展开卷轴般地）将文字显示于屏幕 | |
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brat
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| n.孩子；顽童 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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grit
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| n.沙粒，决心，勇气；v.下定决心，咬紧牙关 | |
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dabs
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| 少许( dab的名词复数 )； 是…能手； 做某事很在行； 在某方面技术熟练 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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29
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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32
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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amplified
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| 放大，扩大( amplify的过去式和过去分词 )； 增强； 详述 | |
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whines
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| n.悲嗥声( whine的名词复数 )；哀鸣者v.哀号( whine的第三人称单数 )；哀诉，诉怨 | |
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35
hitched
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| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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36
thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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tugs
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| n.猛拉( tug的名词复数 )；猛拖；拖船v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的第三人称单数 ) | |
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inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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overflow
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| v.(使)外溢，(使)溢出；溢出，流出，漫出 | |
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40
coordination
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| n.协调，协作 | |
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rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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42
pivots
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| n.枢( pivot的名词复数 )；最重要的人（或事物）；中心；核心v.（似）在枢轴上转动( pivot的第三人称单数 )；把…放在枢轴上；以…为核心，围绕（主旨）展开 | |
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43
dart
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| v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲 | |
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44
harp
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| n.竖琴；天琴座 | |
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45
bleaches
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| 使（颜色）变淡，变白，漂白( bleach的第三人称单数 ) | |
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46
rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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47
condescending
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| adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的 | |
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48
burlesque
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| v.嘲弄，戏仿；n.嘲弄，取笑，滑稽模仿 | |
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49
penitence
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| n.忏悔，赎罪；悔过 | |
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50
chaotic
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| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
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51
jolts
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| （使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的名词复数 ) | |
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52
rumpled
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| v.弄皱，使凌乱( rumple的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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53
furry
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| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
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54
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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55
smacked
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| 拍，打，掴( smack的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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56
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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57
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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58
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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59
Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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60
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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61
scripture
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| n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段 | |
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62
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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63
guffaw
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| n.哄笑；突然的大笑 | |
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64
conspiratorially
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65
jawed
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| adj.有颌的有颚的 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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67
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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68
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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69
par
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| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
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70
braced
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| adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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71
silhouetted
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| 显出轮廓的，显示影像的 | |
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72
exasperation
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| n.愤慨 | |
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73
descends
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| v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜 | |
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74
traumas
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| n.心灵创伤( trauma的名词复数 )；损伤；痛苦经历；挫折 | |
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75
perverted
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| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
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76
pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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77
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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78
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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79
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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80
thumps
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| n.猪肺病；砰的重击声( thump的名词复数 )v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的第三人称单数 ) | |
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81
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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82
impudence
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| n.厚颜无耻；冒失；无礼 | |
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83
bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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84
athleticism
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| n.运动竞赛，崇尚运动，竞技热 | |
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85
enunciation
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| n.清晰的发音；表明，宣言；口齿 | |
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86
rippled
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| 使泛起涟漪（ripple的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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87
scampers
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| v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑，惊惶奔跑( scamper的第三人称单数 ) | |
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88
rimmed
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| adj.有边缘的，有框的v.沿…边缘滚动；给…镶边 | |
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89
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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91
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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92
varnish
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| n.清漆；v.上清漆；粉饰 | |
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hovers
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| 鸟( hover的第三人称单数 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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94
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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95
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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96
vanilla
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| n.香子兰，香草 | |
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97
rogue
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| n.流氓；v.游手好闲 | |
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98
radiator
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| n.暖气片，散热器 | |
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99
waxiness
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| n.蜡质，柔软，可塑 | |
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100
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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101
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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102
flirtatious
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| adj.爱调情的，调情的，卖俏的 | |
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103
pries
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| v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的第三人称单数 )；撬开 | |
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104
veer
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| vt.转向，顺时针转，改变；n.转向 | |
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105
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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106
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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107
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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108
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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109
rigor
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| n.严酷，严格，严厉 | |
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110
remiss
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| adj.不小心的，马虎 | |
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111
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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112
croak
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| vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚 | |
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113
atheist
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| n.无神论者 | |
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114
tamps
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| v.捣固( tamp的第三人称单数 )；填充；（用炮泥）封炮眼口；夯实 | |
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115
ashtray
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| n.烟灰缸 | |
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116
vagrants
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| 流浪者( vagrant的名词复数 )； 无业游民； 乞丐； 无赖 | |
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117
incites
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| 刺激，激励，煽动( incite的第三人称单数 ) | |
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118
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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119
cinder
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| n.余烬，矿渣 | |
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120
chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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121
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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122
shack
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| adj.简陋的小屋，窝棚 | |
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123
rouged
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| 胭脂，口红( rouge的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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124
enthusiast
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| n.热心人，热衷者 | |
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125
buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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126
flexibility
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| n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性 | |
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127
weirdly
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| 古怪地 | |
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128
ecstasies
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| 狂喜( ecstasy的名词复数 )； 出神； 入迷； 迷幻药 | |
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129
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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130
freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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131
moron
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| n.极蠢之人，低能儿 | |
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132
sputters
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| n.喷溅声( sputter的名词复数 )；劈啪声；急语；咕哝v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的第三人称单数 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
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133
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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134
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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135
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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136
prances
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| v.（马）腾跃( prance的第三人称单数 ) | |
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137
thawing
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| n.熔化，融化v.（气候）解冻( thaw的现在分词 )；（态度、感情等）缓和；（冰、雪及冷冻食物）溶化；软化 | |
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138
suede
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| n.表面粗糙的软皮革 | |
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139
seesaw
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| n.跷跷板 | |
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140
groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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141
alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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142
animate
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| v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的 | |
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143
animates
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| v.使有生气( animate的第三人称单数 )；驱动；使栩栩如生地动作；赋予…以生命 | |
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144
ineptitude
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| n.不适当；愚笨，愚昧的言行 | |
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145
scabrous
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| adj.有疤的，粗糙的 | |
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146
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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147
whacks
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| n.重击声( whack的名词复数 )；不正常；有毛病v.重击，使劲打( whack的第三人称单数 ) | |
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148
flops
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| n.失败( flop的名词复数 )v.（指书、戏剧等）彻底失败( flop的第三人称单数 )；（因疲惫而）猛然坐下；（笨拙地、不由自主地或松弛地）移动或落下；砸锅 | |
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149
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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150
skids
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| n.滑向一侧( skid的名词复数 )；滑道；滚道；制轮器v.（通常指车辆） 侧滑( skid的第三人称单数 )；打滑；滑行；（住在）贫民区 | |
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151
puddles
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| n.水坑， （尤指道路上的）雨水坑( puddle的名词复数 ) | |
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152
hacking
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| n.非法访问计算机系统和数据库的活动 | |
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153
treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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154
gouges
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| n.凿( gouge的名词复数 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出…v.凿( gouge的第三人称单数 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出… | |
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155
seeps
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| n.（液体）渗( seep的名词复数 )；渗透；渗出；漏出v.（液体）渗( seep的第三人称单数 )；渗透；渗出；漏出 | |
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156
caterpillar
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| n.毛虫，蝴蝶的幼虫 | |
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157
prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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158
clenches
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的第三人称单数 ) | |
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159
swirls
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| n.旋转( swirl的名词复数 )；卷状物；漩涡；尘旋v.旋转，打旋( swirl的第三人称单数 ) | |
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160
balk
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| n.大方木料；v.妨碍；不愿前进或从事某事 | |
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161
hops
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| 跳上[下]( hop的第三人称单数 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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162
frets
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| 基质间片； 品丝（吉他等指板上定音的）( fret的名词复数 ) | |
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163
arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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164
giggling
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 ) | |
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165
squatting
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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166
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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167
dribbles
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| n.涓滴( dribble的名词复数 )；细滴；少量（液体）v.流口水( dribble的第三人称单数 )；（使液体）滴下或作细流；运球，带球 | |
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168
opium
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| n.鸦片；adj.鸦片的 | |
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169
heresies
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| n.异端邪说，异教( heresy的名词复数 ) | |
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170
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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171
strap
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| n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎 | |
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172
gnaws
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| 咬( gnaw的第三人称单数 )； （长时间） 折磨某人； （使）苦恼； （长时间）危害某事物 | |
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173
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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174
monstrously
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175
taut
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| adj.拉紧的，绷紧的，紧张的 | |
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176
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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177
recedes
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的第三人称单数 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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178
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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179
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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180
aggrandizement
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| n.增大，强化，扩大 | |
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