Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow Read Free Book Online

sleeping on the chemises and stockings in Ricey's valise, for she had not finished unpacking. It was a colored child, and made a solemn impression on me. The little fists were drawn up on either side of its broad head. About the middle was a fat diaper made of a Turkish towel. And I stooped over it in the red robe and the Wellingtons, my face flaming so that my head itched under the wool cap. Should I close up the valise and take the child to the authorities? As I studied the little baby, this child of sorrow, I felt like the Pharaoh at the sight of little Moses. Then I turned aside and I went and took a walk in the woods. On the pond the cold runners clinked over the ice. It was an early sunset and I thought, "Well, anyway, God bless you, children." That night in bed I said to Lily, "Well now, I'm ready to talk this thing over." Lily said, "Oh, Gene, I'm very glad." She gave me a high mark for this, and told me, "It's good that you are more able to accept reality." "What?" I said. "I know more about reality than you'll ever know. I am on damned good terms with reality, and don't you forget it." After a while I began to shout, and Ricey, hearing me carrying on and perhaps seeing me through the door, threatening and shaking my fist, standing on the bed in my jockey shorts, probably became frightened for her baby. On the twenty-seventh of December she ran away with the child. I didn't want the police in on this and phoned Bonzini, a private dick who has done some jobs for me, but before he could get on the case the headmistress called from Ricey's boarding school and said she had arrived and was hiding the infant in the dormitory. "You go up there," I said to Lily. "Gene, but how can I?" "How do I know how you can?" "I can't leave the twins," she said. "I guess it will interfere with your portrait, eh? Well, I'm just about ready to burn down the house and every picture in it." "That's not what it is," said Lily, muttering and flushing white. "I have got used to your misunderstanding. I used to want to be understood, but I guess a person must try to live without being understood. Maybe it's a sin to want to be understood." So it was I who went and the headmistress said that Ricey would have to leave her institution as she had already been on probation for quite a while. She said, "We have the psychological welfare of the other girls to consider." "What's the matter with you? Those kids can learn noble feelings from my Ricey," I said, "and that's better than psychology." I was pretty drunk that day. "Ricey has an impulsive nature. She is one of those rapturous girls," I said. "Just because she doesn't talk much �" "Where does the child come from?" "She told my wife she found it in Danbury in a parked car." "That's not what she says. She claims to be the mother." "Why, I'm surprised at you," I said. "You ought to know something about that. She didn't even get her breasts till last year. The girl is a virgin. She is fifty million times more pure than you or I." I had to withdraw my daughter from the school. I said to her, "Ricey, we have to give the little boy back. It isn't time yet for you to have your own little boy. His mama wants him back. She has changed her mind, dear." Now I feel I committed an offense against my daughter by parting her from this infant. After it was taken by the authorities from Danbury, Ricey acted very listless. "You know you are not the baby's mama, don't you?" I said. The girl never opened her lips and she made no answer. As we were on our way to Providence, Rhode Island, where Ricey was going to stay with her aunt, Frances' sister, I said, "Sweetheart, your daddy did what any other daddy would do." Still no answer, and it was vain to try, because the silent happiness of the twenty-first of December was gone from her eyes. So bound home from Providence alone, I was groaning to myself on the train, and in the club car I took out a deck of cards and played a game of solitaire. A bunch of people waited