Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (learn to read books txt) 📕

“You look here, Sandy Arrowsmith! You’ve been pouting like a bad brat all week. What’s the matter with you?”

“Well, I⁠—Gosh, it makes me tired! Here everybody is so enthusiastic about my Star of Hope spiel⁠—that note in the Morning Frontiersman, and Pickerbaugh says Orchid said it was a corker⁠—and you never so much as peep!”

“Didn’t I applaud? But⁠—It’s just that I hope you aren’t going to keep up this drooling.”

“You do, do you! Well, let me tell you I am going to keep it up! Not that I’m going to talk a lot of hot air. I gave ’em straight science, last Sunday, and they ate it up. I hadn’t realized it isn’t necessary to be mushy, to hold an audience. And the amount of good you can do! Why, I got across more Health Instruction and ideas about the value of the lab in that three-quarters of an hour than⁠—I don’t care for being a big gun but it’s fine to have people where they have to listen to what you’ve got to say and can’t butt in, way they did in Wheatsylvania. You bet I’m going to keep up what you so politely call my damn fool drooling⁠—”

“Sandy, it may be all right for some people, but not for you. I can’t tell you⁠—that’s one reason I haven’t said more about your talk⁠—I can’t tell you how astonished I am to hear you, who’re always sneering at what you call sentimentality, simply weeping over the Dear Little Tots!”

“I never said that⁠—never used the phrase and you know it. And by God! You talk about sneering! Just let me tell you that the Public Health Movement, by correcting early faults in children, by looking after their eyes and tonsils and so on, can save millions of lives and make a future generation⁠—”

“I know it! I love children much more than you do! But I mean all this ridiculous simpering⁠—”

“Well, gosh, somebody has to do it. You can’t work with people till you educate ’em. There’s where old Pick, even if he is an imbecile, does such good work with his poems and all that stuff. Prob’ly be a good thing if I could write ’em⁠—golly, wonder if I couldn’t learn to?”

“They’re horrible!”

“Now there’s a fine consistency for you! The other evening you called ’em ‘cute.’ ”

“I don’t have to be consistent. I’m a mere woman. You, Martin Arrowsmith, you’d be the first to tell me so. And for Dr. Pickerbaugh they’re all right, but not for you. You belong in a laboratory, finding out things, not advertising them. Do you remember once in Wheatsylvania for five minutes you almost thought of joining a church and being a Respectable Citizen? Are you going on for the rest of your life, stumbling into respectability and having to be dug out again? Will you never learn you’re a barbarian?”

“By God, I am! And⁠—what was that other lovely thing you called me?⁠—I’m also, soul of my soul, a damn backwoods hick! And a fine lot you help! When I want to settle down to a decent and useful life and not go ’round antagonizing people, you, the one that ought to believe in me, you’re the first one to crab!”

“Maybe Orchid Pickerbaugh would help you better.”

“She probably would! Believe me, she’s a darling, and she did appreciate my spiel at the church, and if you think I’m going to sit up all night listening to you sneering at my work and my friends⁠—I’m going to have a hot bath. Good night!”

In the bath he gasped that it was impossible he should have been quarreling with Leora. Why! She was the only person in the world, besides Gottlieb and Sondelius and Clif Clawson⁠—by the way, where was Clif? still in New York? didn’t Clif owe him a letter? but anyway⁠—He was a fool to have lost his temper, even if she was so stubborn that she wouldn’t adjust her opinions, couldn’t see that he had a gift for influencing people. Nobody would ever stand by him as she had, and he loved her⁠—

He dried himself violently; he dashed in with repentances; they told each other that they were the most reasonable persons living; they kissed with eloquence; and then Leora reflected:

“Just the same, my lad, I’m not going to help you fool yourself. You’re not a booster. You’re a lie-hunter. Funny, you’d think to hear about these lie-hunters, like Professor Gottlieb and your old Voltaire, they couldn’t be fooled. But maybe they were like you: always trying to get away from the tiresome truth, always hoping to settle down and be rich, always selling their souls to the devil and then going and doublecrossing the poor devil. I think⁠—I think⁠—” She sat up in bed, holding her temples in the labor of articulation. “You’re different from Professor Gottlieb. He never makes mistakes or wastes time on⁠—”

“He wasted time at Hunziker’s nostrum factory all right, and his title is ‘Doctor,’ not ‘Professor,’ if you must give him a⁠—”

“If he went to Hunziker’s he had some good reason. He’s a genius; he couldn’t be wrong. Or could he, even he? But anyway: you, Sandy, you have to stumble every so often; have to learn by making mistakes. I will say one thing: you learn from your crazy mistakes. But I get a little tired, sometimes, watching you rush up and put your neck in every noose⁠—like being a blinking orator or yearning over your Orchid.”

“Well, by golly! After I come in here trying to make peace! It’s a good thing you never make any mistakes! But one perfect person in a household is enough!”

He banged into bed. Silence. Soft sounds of “Mart⁠—Sandy!” He ignored her, proud that he could be hard with her, and so fell asleep. At breakfast, when he was ashamed and eager, she was curt.

“I don’t care to discuss it,” she said.

In that wry mood they went on Saturday afternoon to the Pickerbaughs’ snow picnic.

Dr. Pickerbaugh owned a small log cabin