Saul Bellow
THE TRIP TO GALENA*
Strange things, stranger people, thought the broken-wristed
Mr. Scampi; however, the strangeness was not merely curious but
had its enchanted side here on the fire escape of the sixth floor of the
hospital where this young Weyl had brought him. Though where
they stood, between the walls, it was already dark, the sky itself was
still green, pure, warm, oval, a perfect gem-egg of green weighing
on the evening colors of water and the far-off black stems and the
whitish flame crabs of the Gary mills; and in the open of air and
water lights gradually concentrated of freights and pleasure boats,
water-cribs, moles, and then of stars riding the blue and the black
in the general warmth. Like those of a fleet arriving to put the
city
under the protection of its guns.
"I started to tell you how I fell sick," said Weyl. "Now you've
met my aunt and seen my sister, and of course you wonder what all
the trouble is about and why I put up this battle for my roommate."
"How is Mr. Charney tonight?" Scampi asked.
"Holding his own, I think. Still sleepy. He's asleep now." And
Weyl braced rather than rested on the rail of the porch, shaggy and
bulky in the rude straightness of the unconforming material of his
robe. Its skirts made him statuesque, larger than life. His cheeks were
pale and round, however, and his male odor occasionally came out
strongly.
"There was this trip I took to Galena with my sister Fanny and
her fiance," he said.
Scampi had been puzzling how to smooth his way, make
it
easier
*
This is a chapter from a novel in progress called
The Crab and the But–
terfly,
