The Snob by Morley Callaghan

Essay, Pages 10 (2266 words)

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IT WAS at the book counter in the department store that John Harcourt, the student, caught a glimpse of his father. At first he could not be sure in the crowd that pushed along the aisle, but there was something about the color of the back of the elderly man’s neck, something about the faded felt hat, that he knew very well. Harcourt was standing with the girl he loved, buying a book for her. All afternoon he had been talking to her, eagerly, but with an anxious diffidence, as if there still remained in him an innocent wonder that she should be delighted to be with him.

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From underneath her wide-brimmed straw hat, her face, so fair and beautifully strong with its expression of cool independence, kept turning up to him and sometimes smiled at what he said. That was the way they always talked, never daring to show much full, strong feeling. Harcourt had just bought the book, and had reached into his pocket for the money with a free, ready gesture to make it appear that he was accustomed to buying books for young ladies, when the white-haired man in the faded felt hat, at the other end of the counter, turned half-toward him, and Harcourt knew he was standing only a few feet away from his father.

The young man’s easy words trailed away and his voice became little more than a whisper, as if he were afraid that everyone in the store might recognize it.

There was rising in him a dreadful uneasiness; something very precious that he wanted to hold seemed close to destruction. His father, standing at the end of the bargain counter, was planted squarely on his two feet, turning a book over thoughtfully in his hands. Then he took out his glasses from an old, worn leather case and adjusted them on the end of his nose, looking down over them at the book. His coat was thrown open, two buttons on his vest were undone, his hair was too long, and in his rather shabby clothes he looked very much like a workingman, a carpenter perhaps. Such a resentment rose in young Harcourt that he wanted to cry out bitterly, “Why does he dress as if he never owned a decent suit in his life? He doesn’t care what the whole world thinks of him. He never did. I’ve told him a hundred times he ought to wear his good clothes when he goes out. Mother’s told him the same thing. He just laughs. And now Grace may see him. Grace will meet him.”

So young Harcourt stood still, with his head down, feeling that something very painful was impending. Once he looked anxiously at Grace, who had turned to the bargain counter. Among those people drifting aimlessly by with hot red faces, getting in each other’s way, using their elbows but keeping their faces detached and wooden, she looked tall and splendidly alone. She was so sure of herself, her relation to the people in the aisles, the clerks behind the counters, the books on the shelves, and everything around her. Still keeping his head down and moving close, he whispered uneasily, “Let’s go and have tea somewhere, Grace.” “In a minute, dear,” she said. “Let’s go now.” “In just a minute, dear,” she repeated absently. “There’s not a breath of air in here. Let’s go now.” “What makes you so impatient?” “There’s nothing but old books on that counter.”

“There may be something here I’ve wanted all my life,” she said, smiling at him brightly and not noticing the uneasiness in his face. 11 So Harcourt had to move slowly behind her, getting closer to his father all the time. He could feel the space that separated them narrowing. Once he looked up with a vague, sidelong glance. But his father, red-faced and happy, was still reading the book, only now there was a meditative expression on his face, as if something in the book had stirred him and he intended to stay there reading for some time. Old Harcourt had lots of time to amuse himself, because he was on a pension after working hard all his life. He had sent John to the university and he was eager to have him distinguish himself. Every night when John came home, whether it was early or late, he used to go into his father and mother’s bedroom and turn on the light and talk to them about the interesting things that had happened to him during the day.

They listened and shared this new world with him. They both sat up in their night clothes and, while his mother asked all the questions, his father listened attentively with his head cocked on one side and a smile or a frown on his face. The memory of all this was in John now, and there was also a desperate longing and a pain within him growing harder to bear as he glanced fearfully at his father, but he thought stubbornly, “I can’t introduce him. It’ll be easier for everybody if he doesn’t see us. I’m not ashamed. But it will be easier. It’ll be more sensible. It’ll only embarrass him to see Grace.” By this time he knew he was ashamed, but he felt that his shamewas justified, for Grace’s father had the smooth, confident manner of a man who had lived all his life among people who were rich and sure of themselves.

Often when he had been in Grace’s home talking politely to her mother, John had kept on thinking of the plainness of his own home and of his parents’ laughing, good-natured untidiness, and he resolved desperately that he must make Grace’s people admire him. He looked up cautiously, for they were about eight feet away from his father, but at that moment his father, too, looked up and John’s glance shifted swiftly far over the aisle, over the counters, seeing nothing.

As his father’s blue, calm eyes stared steadily over the glasses, there was an instant when their glances might have met. Neither one could have been certain, yet John, as he turned away and began to talk hurriedly to Grace, knew surely that his father had seen him. He knew it by the steady calmness in his father’s blue eyes. John’s shame grew, and then humiliation sickened him as he waited and did nothing. 14 His father turned away, going down the aisle, walking erectly in his shabby clothes, his shoulders very straight, never once looking back. His father would walk slowly down the street, he knew, with that meditative expression deepening and becoming grave.

Young Harcourt stood beside Grace, brushing against her soft shoulder, and made faintly aware again of the delicate scent she used. There, so close beside him, she was holding within her everything he wanted to reach out for, only now he felt a sharp hostility that made him sullen and silent. 16 “You were right, John,” she was drawling in her soft voice. “It does get unbearable in here on a hot day. Do let’s go now. Have you ever noticed that department stores after a time can make you really hate people?” But she smiled when she spoke, so he might see that she really hated no one. 17 18 “You don’t like people, do you?” he said sharply. “People? What people? What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he went on irritably, “you don’t like the kind of people you bump into here, for example.” “Not especially. Who does? What are you talking about?”

“Anybody could see you don’t,” he said recklessly, full of a savage eagerness to hurt her. “I say you don’t like simple, honest people, the kind of people you meet all over the city.” He blurted the words out as if he wanted to shake her, but he was longing to say, “You wouldn’t like my family. Why couldn’t I take you home to have dinner with them? You’d turn up your nose at them, because they’ve no pretensions. As soon as my father saw you, he knew you wouldn’t want to meet him. I could tell by the way he turned.” His father was on his way home now, he knew, and that evening at dinner they would meet. His mother and sister would talk rapidly, but his father would say nothing to him, or to anyone. There would only be Harcourt’s memory of the level look in the blue eyes, and the knowledge of his father’s pain as he walked away.

Grace watched John’s gloomy face as they walked through the store, and she knew he was nursing some private rage, and so her own resentment and exasperation kept growing, and she said crisply, “You’re entitled to your moods on a hot afternoon, I suppose, but if I feel I don’t like it here, then I don’t like it. You wanted to go yourself. Who likes to spend very much time in a department store on a hot afternoon? I begin to hate every stupid person that bangs into me, everybody near me. What does that make me?” “It makes you a snob.” “So I’m a snob now?” she asked angrily.

“Certainly you’re a snob,” he said. They were at the door and going out to the street. As they walked in the sunlight, in the crowd moving slowly down the street, he was groping for words to describe the secret thoughts he had always had about her. “I’ve always known how you’d feel about people I like who didn’t fit into your private world,” he said. “You’re a very stupid person,” she said. Her face was flushed now, and it was hard for her to 27 express her indignation, so she stared straight ahead as she walked along. 28 They had never talked in this way, and now they were both quickly eager to hurt each other. With a flow of words, she started to argue with him, then she checked herself and said calmly, “Listen, John, I imagine you’re tired of my company. There’s no sense in having tea together. I think I’d better leave you right here.” “That’s fine,” he said. “Good afternoon.” “Good-by.” “Good-by.”

She started to go, she had gone two paces, but he reached out desperately and held her arm, and he was frightened, and pleading, “Please don’t go, Grace.”

All the anger and irritation had left him; there was just a desperate anxiety in his voice as he pleaded, “Please forgive me. I’ve no right to talk to you like that. I don’t know why I’m so rude or what’s the matter. I’m ridiculous. I’m very, very ridiculous. Please, you must forgive me. Don’t leave me.” 34 He had never talked to her so brokenly, and his sincerity, the depth of his feeling, began to stir her. While she listened, feeling all the yearning in him, they seemed to have been brought closer together, by opposing each other, than ever before, and she began to feel almost shy. “I don’t know what’s the matter. I suppose we’re both irritable. It must be the weather,” she said. “But I’m not angry, John.”

He nodded his head miserably. He longed to tell her that he was sure she would have been charming to his father, but he had never felt so wretched in his life. He held her arm tight, as if he must hold it or what he wanted most in the world would slip away from him, yet he kept thinking, as he would ever think, of his father walking away quietly with his head never turning. Reproduced with permission of the estate of © Morley Callaghan.

QUESTIONS

Which words from paragraph 15 help the reader understand the meaning of the word sullen? A faintly aware B delicate scent C sharp hostility D brushing against 2 Paragraph 12 is mainly about — F the interest that John’s parents have in his life at the university G John’s resentment of his father for wearing shabby clothes H the differences John perceives between his family and Grace’s family J John’s wish to have Grace’s parents accept and admire him John first recognizes his father by his — A neck B coat C eyeglasses D hair 4 Paragraph 34 is mainly about — F John’s fear that Grace won’t forgive him G Grace’s reaction to John’s plea for forgiveness H John’s apology to Grace for his behavior J Grace’s feelings of shyness toward John What do the father’s clothes symbolize in this story?

A The bond between John and his father B John’s shame about his family C The father’s wish to live in the past D Grace’s rejection of John’s parents 6 Which sentence provides a clue about John’s internal conflict? F “You don’t like people, do you?” he said sharply. G “You’re a very stupid person,” she said. H He had never talked to her so brokenly, and his sincerity, the depth of his feeling, began to stir her. J He longed to tell her that he was sure she would have been charming to his father, but he had never felt so wretched in his life.