“No, Ellen. Not tonight. Go to bed, darling. Go to bed.”
I ran away fast. I guess I ran away from her and from Mary. I could hear Mary coming down the stairs with measured steps.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The tide was on the rise. I waded into the warm bay water and clambered into the Place. A slow ground swell moved in and out of the entrance, flowed through my trousers. The fat billfold in my hip pocket swelled against my hip and then grew thinner under my weight as it water-soaked. The summer sea was crowded with little jellyfish the size of gooseberries, dangling their tendrils and their nettle cells. As they washed in against my legs and belly I felt them sting like small bitter fires, and the slow wave breathed in and out of the Place. The rain was only a thin mist now and it accumulated all the stars and town lamps and spread them evenly—a dark, pewter-colored sheen. I could see the third rock, but from the Place it did not line up with the point over the sunken keel of the
Belle-Adair
. A stronger wave lifted my legs and made them feel free and separate from me, and an eager wind sprang from nowhere and drove the mist like sheep. Then I could see a star—late rising, too late rising over the edge. Some kind of craft came chugging in, a craft with sail, by the slow, solemn sound of her engine. I saw her mast light over the toothy tumble of the breakwater but her red and green were below my range of sight.
My skin blazed under the lances of the jellyfish. I heard an anchor plunge, and the mast light went out.
Marullo’s light still burned, and old Cap’n’s light and Aunt Deborah’s light.
It isn’t true that there’s a community of light, a bonfire of the world. Everyone carries his own, his lonely own.
A rustling school of tiny feeding fish flicked along the shore.
My light is out. There’s nothing blacker than a wick.
Inward I said, I want to go home—no not home, to the other side of home where the lights are given.
It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone. The world is full of dark derelicts. The better way—the Marulli of that old Rome would have known it—there comes a time for decent, honorable retirement, not dramatic, not punishment of self or family—just good-by, a warm bath and an opened vein, a warm sea and a razor blade.
The ground swell on the rising tide whished into the Place and raised my legs and hips and swung them to the side and carried my wet folded raincoat out with it.
I rolled on one hip and reached in my side pocket for my razor blades and I felt the lump. Then in wonder I remembered the caressing, stroking hands of the light-bearer. For a moment it resisted coming out of my wet pocket. Then in my hand it gathered every bit of light there was and seemed red—dark red.
A surge of wave pushed me against the very back of the Place. And the tempo of the sea speeded up. I had to fight the water to get out, and I had to get out. I rolled and scrambled and splashed chest deep in the surf and the brisking waves pushed me against the old sea wall.
I had to get back—had to return the talisman to its new owner.
Else another light might go out.
Explanatory Notes
CHAPTER ONE
6 spermaceti:
Moby-Dick or The Whale
(1851), by Herman Melville, was one of Steinbeck’s two favorite novels, according to Elaine Steinbeck;
Don Quixote
was the other. Spermaceti is mentioned in chapter 77, “The Great Heidelburgh Tun.”
8 Admiral Halsey:
William F. “Bull” Halsey (1882-1959). Fleet commander in the South Pacific during World War II, he took the title of five-star fleet admiral after the war. In the
Winter
manuscript, Halsey was Ethan’s last name. When Morphy asks if he’s related to Admiral Halsey, Ethan responds this way: “ ‘Not that I know of,’ Ethan said pleased, ‘But I guess all Halseys are related if you go way back.’ ”
8 Ethan Allen:
(1738-89) Hero of the American Revolution and leader of the Green Mountain Boys, dedicated to keeping Vermont free from New York control. But in 1778 he was charged with treason for negotiating with Canada to recognize Vermont as a British province. He wrote
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
(1784), a tract outlining his deist ideas. Ethan Allen Hawley notes that his ancestors, the Hawleys, “got mixed up” with Vermont Allens (p. 39).
10 Aroint!:
Term of dismissal, “begone.” “Aroint thee, witch,” from Shakespeare’s
Macbeth.
“Aroint” is inscribed in a cement slab outside Steinbeck’s Sag Harbor retreat, an octagonal writing house he called “Joyous Garde.”
II Unimum et . . . :
Joseph Fontenrose, classical scholar, says Ethan chants “counterfeit Latin . . . in something like the Black Mass.” To translate Malory, Steinbeck wrote to a California friend that he had to “reactivate my limping Latin, Anglo-Saxon and old French.”
II As soon as it was day . . . :
Luke 22:66-23:31.
13 Well, this also serves . . . :
The final line of “On His Blindness,” a sonnet by John Milton, is “They also serve who only stand and wait.”
16 Artemis:
Goddess of the hunt in Greek mythology.
18 And after that . . . :
Matthew 27:31-33.
21 Valerius Maximus:
(ca. 20 B.C.E.-A.D. 50) Roman historian, moralist, and author of
Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX
(Nine Books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings), a popular collection of moralistic stories and anecdotes used by writers and rhetoricians.
27 lama sabach thani:
Matthew 27:46: “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
30 Hearst papers:
William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) took over the
San Francisco Examiner
from his father in 1887 and then went on to create a newspaper empire in the United States, with twenty-eight dailies by the late 1920s. His wealth was legendary in California.
CHAPTER THREE
37 Elizabeth . . . Cromwell . . . Charles Stuart:
Elizabeth I (1533- 1603), daughter of King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, ruled as queen of England and Ireland from 1558-1603. Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) helped defeat the Royalists in the English Civil War and ruled as Lord Protector from 1653 until his death. Charles Stuart, Charles II (1630-85), restored the monarchy after the English Interregnum.
39 Adam influence and Greek revival:
Robert Adam (1728-92) was a renowned neoclassical Scottish architect and interior designer. Greek Revival is a late neoclassical movement in architecture, inspired by Greek design.
46 The stars incline, they do not command:
In Latin,
Astra inclinant, non necessitant.
A common Elizabethan astrological notion.
50 I’m going to make our fortune:
What Steinbeck wrote in
Sea of Cortez
provides a gloss to Ethan’s decision and to the ethical issues of this novel: “There is a strange duality in the human which makes for an ethical paradox. We have definitions of good qualities and of bad; not changing things, but generally considered good and bad throughout the ages and throughout the species. Of the good, we think always of wisdom, tolerance, kindliness, generosity, humility; and the qualities of cruelty, greed, self-interest, graspingness, and rapacity are universally considered undesirable. And yet in our structure of society, the so-called and considered good qualities are invariable concomitants of failure, while the bad ones are the cornerstones of success. . . . Perhaps no other animal is so torn between alternatives. Man might be described fairly adequately, if simply, as a two-legged paradox.”
56 If the laws of thinking are the laws of things:
John Elof Boodin (1869-1950),
A Realistic Universe: An Introduction to Metaphysics
(1916): “Somehow the laws of thought must be the laws of things if we are going to attempt a science of reality.” In November 1939, Steinbeck asked Pascal Covici to send him five of Boodin’s philosophical works; he and Ricketts discussed Boodin’s ideas on the Sea of Cortez trip.
57 General Frémont:
(1813-90) Military officer and explorer who took part in numerous expeditions to the West.
64 They’re curiouser and curiouser:
Alice’s Adventures in Wonder-land
(1865) by Lewis Carroll, chapter 2: “‘Curiouser and curiouser! ’ cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).”
66 Old Dobbin:
Steinbeck also named his clothes: suits were “Burying Black,” “Old Blue,” “New Blue,” and “Dorian Gray.”
68 Knight Templar:
Western Christian military order during the Middle Ages, founded after First Crusade of 1096. Knights Templars were protectors of pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem. The modern organization is international and focuses on education, human rights, and humanitarian aid.
70
Chatterboxes
and the Rollo series . . . the Gustave Doré Hell . . . Hans Christian Andersen . . . the Grimm Brothers, the Morte d’Arthur:
Chatterbox
was a juvenile magazine published in Boston and in England from 1869 until the late 1920s. The Rollo books by Jacob Abbot (1803-1879), pastor and educator, were concerned with moral instruction, European travel, and philosophy. The Gustave Doré
Hell,
an illustration for an 1861 edition of Dante’s
Inferno,
became a standard vision of hell; Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm compiled fairy tales for children. The Aubrey Beardsley illustrations for Malory’s
Morte d’Arthur
appeared in an 1893-94 edition published by J. M. Dent in London.
71 Is life so dear . . . give me death:
From a speech by Patrick Henry (1736-99) delivered before the Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775.
72 payola scandals:
Although record companies had for decades paid radio stations to play their songs, payola became widespread in the 1950s with the burgeoning popularity of rock ’n’ roll and single 45-RPM records; in November 1959, Congress held hearings on payola, and in 1960 amended the Federal Communications Act to outlaw under-the-table payments.
72 Charles, my son, my son:
As John Ditsky notes, Steinbeck converts “the biblical into the secular woe by means of a reference to the unfortunate Van Doren.”
75 the most feminine story:
Steinbeck loved “corny little jokes,” recalled one of his agents, Shirley Fisher. “The joke about two women with a wig was one of those.”
82
l’empereur, l’ermite, le chariot, la justice, le mat, le diable . . . le pendu . . . la mort:
Tarot cards, used for divination: “It’s how they fall in relation . . .”: The emperor (wisdom and authority to achieve goals), the hermit (mysteries of inner life), the chariot (focus energy), justice (balance scales to serve the greater good), the fool (trust your instincts), the devil (empower your passionate nature), the hanged man (one of the most complex cards in the deck, suggesting life’s paradoxes), death (shed old identities to express new ones).
83 The king of batons:
Tarot card suggesting that one remain balanced and use power wisely to set a good example.
90 When we were kids together:
Inserted in this paragraph, later deleted, was this passage: “I don’t know what sadness made a drunk of him and I don’t want to know. It would be a kind of invasion of his privacy. I’ve always felt that a man has a right to kill himself if he wants to. And that’s what Danny was doing but it takes a long time.”
92 Decalogue:
The Ten Commandments.
94
Kyrie eleison:
“Lord, have mercy.”
98 Christopher Wren:
(1632-1723) Renowned English architect who designed St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, as well as many other churches and secular buildings.
99 I wore the lace and carried the cross . . . :
True story from Steinbeck’s childhood in Salinas.
104 Spaniards had sunk the
Maine:
On February 15, 1898, the battleship USS
Maine
was destroyed by an explosion in Havana Harbor that killed 262 on board, precipitating the Spanish-American War and popularizing the phrase “Remember the
Maine
!”
121
Speed, bonnie boat
. . . :
Chorus of “Skye Boat,” a ballad that commemorates the crossing of Bonnie Prince Charles (Jacobite pretender to the British throne) to the Isle of Skye after his defeat at the Battle of Culloden, April 16, 1764.
122 There’s the rub:
Hamlet,
III.i.65.
124 Bering . . . Alexander Baranov:
Vitus Bering (1681-1741) was a Danish navigator and explorer in the service of the Russian navy, charting much of the Siberian and Alaskan coasts. Baranov (1747-1819) established trading centers in Alaska and served as the first Russian governor of Alaska from 1799 to 1818.
131 first emergency immigration law:
In 1921 the Emergency Quota Act restricted U.S. immigration by setting the number to be admitted from any country at 3 percent of those from that country who lived in the United States in 1910; this act established a nationality quota system.
132 Masons:
Freemasonry is the oldest and largest worldwide fraternity “dedicated to the Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of a Supreme Being.” Steinbeck’s father was a lifelong Mason.