Herzog by Saul Bellow Read Free Book Online

was a certain peevish power and intelligence in his dark face. He liked Spanish costumes, and when Herzog last saw him he was wearing white duck trousers of bull-fighter's cut and alpargatas. Powerful, isolated threads of coarse white grew from his tanned scalp. Madeleine had inherited his eyes.
        No husband. No daughter, Herzog wrote. But he began again, Dear Tennie, I went to see Simkin about a certain matter, and he said to me, "Your mother-in-law's feelings are hurt."
        Simkin, sitting in his office, occupied a grand Sykes chair, beneath enormous rows of law books.
        A man is born to be orphaned, and to leave orphans after him, but a chair like that chair, if he can afford it, is a great comfort. Simkin was not so much sitting as lying in this seat. With his large thick back and small thighs, his head shaggy and aggressive and his hands folded small and timid on his belly, he spoke to Herzog in a diffident, almost meek tone.
        He called him "Professor" but not mockingly.
        Though Simkin was a clever lawyer, very rich, he respected Herzog. He had a weakness for confused high-minded people, for people with moral impulses like Moses. Hopeless! Very likely he looked at Moses and saw a grieving childish man, trying to keep his dignity. He noted the book on Herzog's knee, for Herzog typically carried a book to read on the subway or in the bus. What was it that day, Simmel on religion? Teilhard de Chardin? Whitehead? It's been years since I was really able to concentrate. Anyway, there was Simkin, short but also burly, eyes wreathed with twisting hairs, looking at him. In conversation his voice was very small, meek, almost faint, but when he answered his secretary's signal and switched on the intercom, it suddenly expanded. He said loudly and sternly, "Yah?"
        "Mr. Dienstag on the phone."
        "Who? That schmuck? I'm waiting for that affidavit. Tell him plaintiff will kick his ass if he can't produce it. He better get it this afternoon, that ludicrous shmegeggy!" Amplified, his tones were oceanic. Then he switched off, and said with resumed meekness to Moses, "Vei, vei! I get so tired of these divorces. What a situation!
        It gets more corrupt. Ten years ago I thought I could still keep up with it all. I felt I was worldly enough for it- realistic, cynical. But I was wrong. It's too much. This shnook of a chiropodist-what a hellcat he married. First she said she didn't want children, then she did, didn't, did. Finally, she threw her diaphragm in his face. Went to the bank. Took thirty grand of joint money from the vault. Said he tried to push her in front of a car. Fought with his mother about a ring, furs, a chicken, God knows. And then the husband found letters to her from another fellow."
        Simkin rubbed his cunning, imposing head with small hands. Then he showed his small regular teeth, iron-hard, as though about to smile, but this was a reflective preliminary. He gave a compassionate sigh. "You know, Professor, Tennie's hurt by your silence."
        "I suppose so. But I can't bring myself to go there yet."
        "Sweet woman. And what a family of hellers!
        I'm just passing the message on, because she asked me."
        "Yes."
        "Very decent, Tennie..."
        "I know. She knitted me a scarf. It took a year. I got it in the mail about a month ago. I should acknowledge it."
        "Yes, why don't you? She's no enemy."
        Simkin liked him; Herzog didn't doubt that. But as a practical realist a man like Simkin had to perform exercises, and a certain amount of malice kept him in condition. A fellow like Moses Herzog, a little soft-headed or impractical but ambitious mentally, somewhat arrogant, too, a pampered, futile fellow whose wife had just been taken away from him under funny circumstances (far funnier than the case of the chiropodist, which made Simkin bring his little hands together with a small cry of mock horror)- this Moses was