Moloch: Or, This Gentile World by Henry Miller Read Free Book Online Page B

continued. “About two-thirds good and one-third bad, I guess. Her mother had Indian blood. Nobody could live with her, friend … nobody .”
    “What was her father?” demanded Prigozi, inquisitive and menacing again. He seemed dissatisfied with Luther’s obliquity. He was itching, as he expressed it later, to get a “reaction.”
    “I don’t know what her father was,” Luther offered blandly. “I heard her say once that he was an engineer on the Santa Fe line. But you couldn’t believe her much. She told so many lies”
    “I don’t care whether he was an engineer or an evangelist,” cried Prigozi, in an exasperated voice. ” What nationality —that’s what I mean.”
    “He was a Pawnee Indian, too … some of him. I guess that makes her two-thirds Indian, don’t it?”
    “No, about seven-eighths,” croaked Matt.
    Luther preserved a solemn exterior as the others exchanged witticisms about the proportion of Pawnee chromosomes in the Becklein family. The secretary begged them not to talk so rapidly … she couldn’t catch all that Luther had to say.
    Luther was chatting on again about the various jobs which he held before “they” took him to the hospital. He used the word “they” frequently now. It had the validity which Euripides imparted to the “Fates” in his dramaturgic machinery.
    “I tried to get a job,” he was saying, “but they wouldn’t let me. Every time I went to look for work, something happened. This last time they put me in the hospital for six months with a broken leg. I had hay fever, too. But, look here, friend, I need a job. I’m no drinkin’ man. I want to work, honest I do. Why, say—I did a day’s washin’ for a lady down the street.” (He forgot that he was not in Paterson anymore.) “That’s enough, ain’t it, friend? And I ran errands once. You see, I can’t hang shades anymore— my back ain’t what it used to be....”
    “How are your legs?” asked Moloch.
    “The left one is all right, but this here one”—he patted his right leg affectionately—”is kinda stiff. .. from layin’ in bed so long, you understand?”
    “That’s all very well, Luther, but do you understand what you would have to do, if I were to give you a job?”
    “Yes, sir. Couldn’t you put me in an office where they don’t have so many telegrams to deliver?”
    Matt Reardon broke in: “You wouldn’t like a carriage to take you around in, would you, Luther?”
    “Honest, friend, I want to work, only …”
    “Here,” said Moloch, slipping a half-dollar into the man’s hand. “Take that and get a haircut tonight. See me tomorrow morning. Take a bath, too, if you have time, and leave your overcoat home.” He was about to turn away. “And say, friend,” he added as an afterthought, “tell me—have you got a home?” It was the first indication he gave that he was talking to a human being.
    Luther answered ruefully: “I had one once, but the judge he …”
    Moloch interrupted him. “Mr. Lawson,” he called, “will you give this man a couple of dollars for me? I’ll return it to you Saturday.” He whispered the last.
    Luther seemed to lose interest in the job and walked over to get the money. When he had gone Moloch slipped over to Law-son. “Don’t let him in again, savvy?”
    “Sure,” said Lawson. His head moved eloquently. He had a way of being at once profound and lugubrious. “I knew the minute I laid eyes on him that you’d want to say a few words to him. I don’t let them all in, you know. Only the choice ones.”
    Moloch grinned. “That’s the idea, Lawson— only the choice ones .”
    Returning to his desk, he found Prigozi capering about like Silenus and bleating a babble of strange words—synapses, parathyroids, involutional melancholia, euphorias … whatnot. The man behaved like an automaton that had been wound up and would go on muttering outlandish jargon until the spring ran down. He was bending hysterically over Matt, his cheeks hot and