The victim by Saul Bellow Read Free Book Online Page B

his calm, it was like a seizure or possession, and he said things which his memory, limited by what was habitual, could not retain. So he did not know now exactly what followed. He recalled something like, "Well, you buy an article in the grocery and you know what you're getting when you buy a standard brand. You open up the can and the product is inside. You're not disappointed and you're not overjoyed. It's standard." He shrank from the recollection as from a moment of insanity and he flushed roughly; he surmised that lie might be making it worse than it had been, but even one tenth of the reality was calamitous. Then, glaring at him crazily, Rudiger said, "What did you want to be here for if it's so bad!" And he answered, "I need a job, it so happens." The air between them must have shaken, it was so charged with insult and rage. Under no circumstances could he imagine doing now what he had done then. But he had determined not to let his nose be pulled. That was what he told himself. "He thinks everybody who comes to him will let his nose be pulled." Too many people looking for work were ready to allow anything. The habit of agreement was strong, terribly strong. Say anything you like to them, call them fools and they smiled, turn their beliefs inside out and they smiled, despise them and they might grow red, but they went on smiling because they could not let themselves disagree. And that was what Rudiger was used to. "Get out!" Rudiger cried. His face was aflame. He rose with a thrust of his stocky arm while Leventhal, evincing neither anger nor satisfaction, though he felt both, rose, smoothed the groove of his green velours hat, and said, "I guess you can't take it when people stand up to you, Mr Rudiger." "Out, out, out!" Rudiger repeated, pushing over his desk with both arms. "Out, you case, you nut, you belong in the asylum! Out! You ought to be committed!" And Leventhal, sauntering toward the door, turned and retorted, made a remark about two-bit big shots and empty wagons. He didn't believe he had said more than that--notwithstanding Allbee's charge that he swore. He had said something about empty wagons being noisy. His present mortification would not be greater if he had sworn. He did remember, and very clearly, too, that he was elated. He congratulated himself. Rudiger had not pulled his nose. He went at once to see Harkavy and, over a cup of coffee in a corner cafeteria, told him the whole story. It delighted him. "You said that to Rudiger? Oh, golly, that must have been something. Really something, Asa my boy. He's a bull, that man. I've heard stories about him. A regular bull!" "Yes. Well, you've got to remember one thing, Dan." Leventhal's spirits dropped suddenly. "Someone like that can make trouble for me. He can have me black-listed. You've got to realize... Eh, can he?" "Never, Asa," Harkavy said. "You don't think so?" "Never. Who do you think he is?" Harkavy looked at him severely with his round, clear eyes. "He's a big shot." "There isn't a thing he can do to you. Whatever you do, don't get ideas like that into your head. He can't persecute you. Now be careful. You have that tendency, boy, do you know that? He got what was coming to him and he can't do anything. Maybe that Allabee, what-do-you-call-him, put him up to it, wanted to play you a dirty trick. You know how it goes: 'There's a fellow bothering me. Do me a favor and give him the works when he comes around.' So he does it. Well, he fouled his own nest. You follow me, boy? He fouled his own nest. So by now he realizes it was his own fault and he had it coming. How do you know it wasn't rimmed?" "You really think they did? I don't know. And I didn't bother that Allbee. I only asked him once." "Maybe he didn't put him up to it. But he might have. It's a possibility. Something like that happened to another friend of mine--Fabin. You know him. They gave him the works, and it was a put-up job. Only he didn't talk back the way you did. He just let