For reasons not worth recounting at the moment, this passage from Thomas Wolfe's last piece of writing came to mind recently -- from his never-finished "The Hills Beyond."
I find it wonderful.
Hope you enjoy it.
Chapter 9
THE BELL STRIKES THREE
[This passage begins the description of the narrator’s recollection of how the old Confederate veteran, Looky Thar, would greet the narrator’s father by propping himself up on his…]
…wooden leg in an effort to get his balance, catch hold of numerous shoulders to steady himself, and then, with a magnificent show of concentrated purpose, he would bring his arm up slowly to the salute. It was the most florid salute imaginable, the salute of a veteran of the Old Guard acknowledging the presence of the Emperor at Waterloo.
There were times when young Edward was afraid his father was going to strangle the brave veteran. The elder Joyner's face would redden to the hue of a large and very ripe tomato, the veins of his neck and forehead would swell up like whipcording, his big fingers would work convulsively for a moment into his palms while he glared at Looky Thar, then, without a word, he would turn and limp away into the courthouse.
To his son, however, he would unburden himself of his feelings, which, though briefly expressed, were violent and explosive.
"There's one of your famous veterans," he growled. "Four years in war, and he'll spend the next forty years on his hind end! There's a fine old veteran for you!"
"Yes, father," the boy protested, "but the man has got a wooden leg."
His father stopped abruptly and faced him, his square face reddened painfully as he fixed his son with the earnest, boyish look of his blue eyes.
"Listen to me, my boy," he said very quietly, and tapped him on the shoulder with a peculiar and extraordinarily intense gesture of conviction. "Listen to me. His wooden leg has nothing to do with it. He is simply a product of war, an example of what war does to eight men out of ten. Don't drag his wooden leg into it. If you do, it will blind you with false pity and you'll never be able to see the thing straight. Then you'll be as big a sentimental fool as he is."
Young Edward stared at him, too astonished to say anything, and not knowing what reply to make to what seemed to him at the moment one of the most meaningless remarks he had ever heard.
"Just remember what I tell you," his father went on, slowly and impressively. "A wooden leg is no excuse for anything."
Then, his face very red, he turned and limped heavily and rapidly away into his courtroom, leaving his son staring in gap-mouthed astonishment at his broad back, wondering what on earth such an extraordinary statement of opinion could mean.
He was soon to find out.
Chapter 10
THE LOST DAY
[The next, and final, chapter begins with reminiscences from the narrator’s boyhood in the Blue Ridge Mountains after the Civil War, then turns to memories of the changes that began to transform that community.]
…As a sign and symbol of their golden future, the railroad was coming up the mountain. People waited for its coming with eagerness and a buoyant impatience. And at last the great day came. The last rail was laid, the last spike driven, and Edward Joyner would never forget the carnival exhilaration of that day in April, 1884, when old Captain Billy Joslin brought his engine, "Puffing Billy," around the bend and down the rails into the station, its brass bell clanging, its whistle tooting, the whole thing festooned with bright bunting, to be welcomed by every man, woman, and child in town with loud cheers and yelling jubilation.
And young Edward, as he stood beside his father and his mother on the platform, did not know it at the time, but he realized later that with that puffing little engine the world came in.
Not long after this event, and only a few months after his father had spoken so mysteriously about Old Looky Thar, the boy was in the study late one afternoon and his nose was buried in a book. He was reading an account of the Battle of Spotsylvania by one of the Generals in Hancock's command who had been present at the fight. He had finished reading a description of the first two movements of that bloody battle - Hancock's charge upon the Confederate position, and the thrilling countercharge of the Confederate troops - and was now reading about the final movement - the hand-to-hand fighting over the earth embankment, a struggle so savage and prolonged that, in the words of this officer, "almost every foot of earth over which they fought was red with blood." Suddenly he came upon this passage:
There have been other battles of the war in which more troops were engaged, the losses greater, the operations carried on in a more extensive scale, but in my own estimation, there has been no fighting in modem times that was as savage and destructive as was the hand-to-hand fighting that was waged back and forth over the earth embankment there at Spotsylvania in the final hours of the battle. The men of both armies fought toe to toe; the troops of both sides stood on top of the embankment firing point-blank in the faces of the enemy, getting fresh muskets constantly from their comrades down below. When one man fell, another from below sprang up to take his place. No one was spared, from private soldier up to Captain, from Captain to Brigade Commander. I saw general officers fighting in the thick of it, shoulder to shoulder with the men of their own ranks; among others, I saw Joyner among his gallant mountaineers firing and loading until he was himself shot down and borne away by his own men, his right leg so shattered by a minie ball that amputation was imperative….
Something blurred and passed across the eyes of the boy, and suddenly all of the gold and singing had gone out of the day. He got up and walked out of the study, and down the hallway, holding the book open in his hand. When he got to the sitting room he saw his mother there. She glanced up placidly, then looked at him quickly, startled, and got up, putting her sewing things down upon the table as she rose.
"What is it? What's the matter with you?"
He walked over to her, very steadily, but on legs which felt as light and hollow as a cork.
"This book," he mumbled and held the page up to her, pointing at the place - "this book - read what it says here."
She took it quickly, and read. In a moment she handed it back to him, and her fingers shook a little, but she spoke calmly:
"Well?"
"What the books says - is that father?" "Yes," she said.
"Then," he said, staring slowly at her and swallowing hard, "does that mean that father--"
And suddenly, he saw that she was crying; she put her arms around his shoulders, as she answered:
And all at once the boy remembered what his father had once said to him; and knew what he had meant.
"My dear child, your father is so proud, and in some ways a child himself. He wouldn't tell you. He could not bear to have his son think that his father was a cripple."
A cripple!
Fifty years and more have passed since then, but every time the memory returned to Robert Joyner's son, the vision blurred, and something tightened in the throat, and the gold and singing passed out of the sun as it did on that lost day in spring, long, long ago.
A cripple - he, a cripple!
He could see the bald head and red face, the stocky figure limping heavily away to court ... and hear the fast, hard ringing of the bell … and remember Looky Thar, the courthouse loafers, and the people passing … the trials, the lawyers, and the men accused ... the soldiers coming to the house … the things they talked of and the magic that they brought … and his war-young heart boy-drunk with dreams of war and glory ... the splendid Generals, and his father so unwarlike, as he thought ... and the unworthiness of his romantic unbelief ... to see that burly and prosaic figure as it limped away toward court … and tried to vision him with Gordon in the Wilderness ... or charging through the shot-torn fields and woods at Gettysburg ... or wounded, sinking to his knees at Spotsylvania ... and failing miserably to see him so; and, boylike, failing to envision how much of madness or of magic even brick-red faces and bald heads may be familiar with … down the Valley of Virginia more than seventy years ago.
But a cripple? – No! no cripple. One of the strongest, straightest, plainest, most uncrippled men his son would ever know.
Half a century has gone since then, but when Robert Joyner's son would think of that lost day, it would all come back … the memory of each blade, each leaf, each flower … the rustling of each leaf and every light and shade that came and went against the sun … the dusty Square, the hitching posts, the mules, the ox-teams, and the horses, the hay-sweet bedding of the country wagons ... the courthouse loafers … and Old Looky Thar … and Webber's mule teams trotting across the Square … each door that opened ... and each gate that slammed … and everything that passed throughout the town that day ... the women sitting on the latticed porches of their brothels at the edge of "Niggertown" … the whores respiring in warm afternoon, and certain only of one thing - that night would come! … and all things known, as well as things unseen, a part of his whole consciousness ... a little mountain town down South one afternoon in May some fifty years ago ... and time passing like the humming of a bee … time passing like the thrumming in a wood ... time passing as cloud shadows pass above the hill-flanks of the mountain meadows, or like the hard, fast pounding of the courthouse bell ....
And now, his father dead, and long since buried, who limped his way to court and who had been to Gettysburg … another man since dead and buried with the gorilla arm-length of an ape .…
And time still passing … passing like a leaf ... time passing, fading like a flower …time passing like a river flowing ... time passing and remembered suddenly, like the forgotten hoof and wheel…
Time passing as men pass who never will come back again … and leaving us, Great God, with only this ... knowing that this earth, this time, this life, are stranger than a dream.
