I Am Charlotte Simmons (85 page)
Read I Am Charlotte Simmons Online
Authors: Tom Wolfe
As soon as she stood up, her head had felt like a desiccated husk. Splashing water on her face in the bathroom had done nothing to revive her. The ordinary motions of getting dressed only made her yearn more for sleep. All the while she was terribly anxious lest Beverly wake up. How morbid it all was! How desolate! To be mortified by the very possibility that your roommate might become conscious of your presence! To have no old friends, no new friendsâto be afraid of the most elementary gestures toward making friendsâhow very hopeless was her life! Why wouldn't God come take her away in the night?
She had made sure she was there waiting the moment the dining hall opened. Very few students had breakfast that early. The moment she finished, she put on her old quilted jacket, pulled the hood up over her head until it covered most of her face, and hurried to her two classes, medieval history and French, saying nothing in either class. From French, her face still stashed away beneath the hood, she rushed to the library, seeking refuge and anonymity. She had skipped lunch. The idea of being abroad on the campus in the middle of the day made her too anxious. In the afternoon, when the Reading Room was its quietest, she sought to concentrate on a monograph entitled “Neuroscientific exigeses of âself,' âsoul,' âmind,' and âego,'” and she began trembling. Sheâwho had been studying the illusion of free will all semester with the calm and comfort of the conceptually enlightened observerâwas cornered! Here! There was nowhere to go, no new direction to consider ⦠nothing to aim for except the Big Inertia. She took advantage of the early nightfall to scurry to the dining hall the moment it opened for dinner, at five-thirty. She bolted down some pasta and departed before other students had even begun arriving in any numbers. Briefly buoyed by carbohydrates, she had returned to the Reading Room resolved to concentrate on neuroscience truly conceptually, to keep its insidious hands off her own central nervous system and that chemical analog computer known as her own brainâand had collapsed into the arms of Adam, who called her Honey but whose bony embrace was all she had.
Adam kept his arm around Honey as they reached the basement stacks. These were stacks of the venerable sort, cliffs of metal shelves supporting
rack after rack of books. The cliffs were so numerous and crunched so close together, floor to ceiling, the sensation that they were about to fall over on you would have been overwhelming if the ceiling hadn't been so low, no more than seven and a half feet. Floor to ceiling, with no more than thirty inches between cliffs, in a windowless space so vast and so miserably litâby trays of fever-blue fluorescent tubes hung from the ceilingâthat on the far side the cliffs seemed to recede into a terminal gloom choked with the dust of tens of thousands of dead books. In fact this soaring tower of academe had been retrofitted with the latest twenty-first-century HVC (heating, ventilation, and cooling) systems in an age of particulate matter phobia. Adam maintained his one-armed savior's embrace, which forced them to squeeze together as they made their way through the narrow spaces between the cliffs.
rack after rack of books. The cliffs were so numerous and crunched so close together, floor to ceiling, the sensation that they were about to fall over on you would have been overwhelming if the ceiling hadn't been so low, no more than seven and a half feet. Floor to ceiling, with no more than thirty inches between cliffs, in a windowless space so vast and so miserably litâby trays of fever-blue fluorescent tubes hung from the ceilingâthat on the far side the cliffs seemed to recede into a terminal gloom choked with the dust of tens of thousands of dead books. In fact this soaring tower of academe had been retrofitted with the latest twenty-first-century HVC (heating, ventilation, and cooling) systems in an age of particulate matter phobia. Adam maintained his one-armed savior's embrace, which forced them to squeeze together as they made their way through the narrow spaces between the cliffs.
They walked until they had traveled deep, deep into the vast space. Far from the world, they sat down in a corner where two cliffs of books met.
Charlotte had managed to contain her tears, and Adam said, “So what is it?”
“Nothing really, just a stupid thing I did. You don't want to know ⦠or do you already know?”
“Already know? Know what?”
“I guess not.”
“What happened, Charlotte?”
“Well, have you ever done anything that, I don't know, was totally out of character or totally against your morals and everything you believed in and then really regretted it afterward?”
“Well ⦠whoa ⦠okay, yeah, I'm sureâgo on ⦔
“Even more than that, like ⦠done something so awful that turned intoâit just shames you whenever you think about it, and you just keep thinking about it over and over?”
“Charlotteâstop beating around the bush. I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“Well, I had an interesting weekend just before Christmas break.” She did not say it with a smile.
“What did you do?”
She turned her head so that she was looking straight into his eyes. “Adam?” she said softly. “Don't hate me.”
“Why would I? What are you talking about?”
Whereupon, sitting there on the floor, she poured out the whole story. She told him everything.
Afterward, Adam said nothing. He put his arm around her. She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. He put his other arm around her, too, and held her for a long time without saying a word. She felt good in his arms, bony though they were. She trusted him totally. He wasn't going to try to turn this into an opening to slide a hand here ⦠and there ⦠and there ⦠He wasn't going to stroke her leg in the guise of comforting her. There was no guile to him. He was calming her and protecting her. He began rocking her, ever so gentlyâjust that, rocking her like a baby. Had she not been aware that she was, in fact, on the floor deep within the stacks of a nine-million-book library, she could have nodded off into a peaceful sleep.
Finally, still holding her, Adam said, “Oh, wow ⦔ Long pause. “That's pretty intense, Charlotte. But that guy's a dick! You're so much better than he is! Frat guys are losers, Charlotte. They're misogynists. They are the most sexistâthey're animals. They haven't evolved. They're afraid to climb out on this new branch of the tree of life marked hominid. A bunch of filthy shitheadsâwhat happened was not your fault. I hope you can see that. It's that sort ofâthat whole mentality the frat guys have. I've been around them. It's a group mentality, and it's dangerous because as long as you're in their midst, they try to create an atmosphere of ⦠of ⦠of, you know, our way is the only cool way, and you're a total loser if you won't laugh at the moronic rubbish we laugh at. I can't see you even hanging out with them. It makes no sense. They're such wastes of time, wastes of mental capacity, wastes of everything! âand that includes the space they occupy and the air they breathe.” He made a contemptuous sound deep in his throat. “You have to dumb yourself down just being in the same room with them. Their idea of witty repartee is like ⦠grunting out insults. They are so below you, Charlotte! You can do anything you want,
be
anyone you want. Look at you. You're gorgeous, you're smart, and most of all, you're curious about life! You need adventure! âand I'm talking about real adventure, not
fraternity formals.
”
be
anyone you want. Look at you. You're gorgeous, you're smart, and most of all, you're curious about life! You need adventure! âand I'm talking about real adventure, not
fraternity formals.
”
Adam's voice rose and rose, and he became more and more fervent in his exhortations, to the point where he began gesturing for emphasis, and his glasses fell off and he tried to put them back on properly, but that interrupted the flow, the beat, of his apostrophe, so he held them in his hand. “You're different from them. You're a different species. I take that backâyou're not a part of
any
species! You're unique! There's nobody like you! How could you
possibly lower yourself to the level of the herd? You'reâyou're Charlotte Simmons!”
any
species! You're unique! There's nobody like you! How could you
possibly lower yourself to the level of the herd? You'reâyou're Charlotte Simmons!”
I am Charlotte Simmons. Without knowing Miss Pennington, not even her name, Adam had arrived at the very same declaration, the very same argument. That didn't encourage her in the slightest. There was nothing in her worth encouraging and never had been. The two of them, Miss Pennington and Adam, had merely managed to hit upon the same sickly sweet gob of verbiage. Charlotte was far beyond the reach of genuine praise, never mind witless flattery. The worthlessness of the depressed girl is complete and across the board. I am Charlotte Simmonsâwhat a pathetic, what a feeble piece of self-delusion ⦠and so forth and so on ⦠Only the bony nest of his embrace brought any solace at all.
After
You are Charlotte Simmons,
she heard nothing but the light and abstract ramble of his voice, even though he talked on and on. She curled up until she was all but cradled on his lap. Her head and upper torso lay on his chest. She had found an interludeâno, not a mere interludeâbut a state of being, a steady state at a blessed remove from the world, below ground, in a tubercular blue light, neither day nor night, two creatures safely hidden deep within an endless, endless metal forest of dead books no one would ever touch again.
You are Charlotte Simmons,
she heard nothing but the light and abstract ramble of his voice, even though he talked on and on. She curled up until she was all but cradled on his lap. Her head and upper torso lay on his chest. She had found an interludeâno, not a mere interludeâbut a state of being, a steady state at a blessed remove from the world, below ground, in a tubercular blue light, neither day nor night, two creatures safely hidden deep within an endless, endless metal forest of dead books no one would ever touch again.
They remained that way for what seemed like a blessed, timeless eternity, she in his arms and he bathing her nerve endings in the warm flow of his words ⦠about ⦠what did it matter.
Adam said, “Look”âCharlotte braced herself for “Honey,” but it didn't comeâ“this
is
Dupont, and it's the same Dupont you dreamed of, but you haven't let yourself find it. There
is
a whole other life here. There
are
people hereâyou once used the phrase âlife of the mind,' and you've already been face to face with it. Let me tell you something. Edgar Tuttle is going to be a
great
figure in the not too distant future. His mind isâhe has such a conceptual powerâdo you remember the afternoon he suddenly gave us the social history of ⦠the
cheer
leader? Right in the middle of a casual conversation? I can't remember a moment when he wasn't worth listening to. And Rogerâhe makes such bad jokesâand he's so brilliant at the same time. And Camilleâdon't be fooled by her dirty mouth. She claims she's some sort of flame-throwing lesbian. But I think she's like Camille Paglia. She establishes some ultraradical position way out to the left of everything else, and from out there she can cut down anybody on the left or the right. Okay, she loves to go for the throat, but with her you can be sure that nobodyâ
nobody
âis going to be able to get away with the usual arrant bullshit. Charlotte, these are the sort of people who will do a country's thinking for it.”
is
Dupont, and it's the same Dupont you dreamed of, but you haven't let yourself find it. There
is
a whole other life here. There
are
people hereâyou once used the phrase âlife of the mind,' and you've already been face to face with it. Let me tell you something. Edgar Tuttle is going to be a
great
figure in the not too distant future. His mind isâhe has such a conceptual powerâdo you remember the afternoon he suddenly gave us the social history of ⦠the
cheer
leader? Right in the middle of a casual conversation? I can't remember a moment when he wasn't worth listening to. And Rogerâhe makes such bad jokesâand he's so brilliant at the same time. And Camilleâdon't be fooled by her dirty mouth. She claims she's some sort of flame-throwing lesbian. But I think she's like Camille Paglia. She establishes some ultraradical position way out to the left of everything else, and from out there she can cut down anybody on the left or the right. Okay, she loves to go for the throat, but with her you can be sure that nobodyâ
nobody
âis going to be able to get away with the usual arrant bullshit. Charlotte, these are the sort of people who will do a country's thinking for it.”
Edgar Tuttle ⦠conceptual power ⦠Camille ⦠ultraradical ⦠Adam's words became a nice warm bath. Charlotte relaxed and curled up into his embrace once more ⦠She wanted nothing more than to float and bob in perpetuity in this lukewarm current.
“I mean, just think what feminism did and how it happened. A lot of businessmen woke up one day in the twentieth century, not really that long ago, and a lot of congressmen and senators and public officialsâbut it's businessmen that amuse me the mostâthey woke up one day and said, âWell, golly, I guess we have to make way for some women in our executive ranks and pay them real moneyâand stop treating them like women. I just don't know how it all happened, but it's happened and I guess we have to get used to it.' Or right here! Dupont! Thirty-five, forty years ago there were no female undergraduates at Dupontâor Yale or Harvard or Princetonâand like overnight, the next day, they've all gone coedâand there was never any debate! The big business corporations never started a debate! None! NobodyâCongress, the Pennsylvania Legislature, the universities, the pressnobody debated women's rights. It all happened because of an
idea
that spread because of its own intrinsic power. A handful of people with no power of their own, no money, no organization, came up with an
idea
that just sailed right over politics, economics, and ⦠and ⦠and everything else, and it caused this huge change! And that idea was, women are not a gender, a sex, except mechanically. What they are is a class, a servant class slaving away to make life easier for the master class, namely, men. That was all it took! Here was an idea so obviousâan idea so big that nobody had ever backed away far enough to see it before. But a handful of women
did
âSimone de Beauvoir, Doris Lessing, Betty Friedan, and ⦠and ⦠I forgot ⦠a few othersâand the way everybody, women
as well as
men, looked at women changed fundamentally. You can call these women intellectuals, if you want, but they were above mere intellectuals. They were a ⦠a ⦠I guess the word is
matrix
, as in mother of it all. They created the
idea,
and your everyday intellectualsâthey were like automobile dealers selling this new model that the manufacturers, the matrix, shipped to them.
That's
what every Millennial Mutant intends to be, a matrix. We're already at a level frat boys and all that elementâ”
idea
that spread because of its own intrinsic power. A handful of people with no power of their own, no money, no organization, came up with an
idea
that just sailed right over politics, economics, and ⦠and ⦠and everything else, and it caused this huge change! And that idea was, women are not a gender, a sex, except mechanically. What they are is a class, a servant class slaving away to make life easier for the master class, namely, men. That was all it took! Here was an idea so obviousâan idea so big that nobody had ever backed away far enough to see it before. But a handful of women
did
âSimone de Beauvoir, Doris Lessing, Betty Friedan, and ⦠and ⦠I forgot ⦠a few othersâand the way everybody, women
as well as
men, looked at women changed fundamentally. You can call these women intellectuals, if you want, but they were above mere intellectuals. They were a ⦠a ⦠I guess the word is
matrix
, as in mother of it all. They created the
idea,
and your everyday intellectualsâthey were like automobile dealers selling this new model that the manufacturers, the matrix, shipped to them.
That's
what every Millennial Mutant intends to be, a matrix. We're already at a level frat boys and all that elementâ”
Something about the Pennsylvania Legislature ⦠and gender ⦠and sex ⦠and a servant class and the master class ⦠and automobile dealers â¦
debris from the waters, and every now and then a bit of it lodged in Charlotte's brain, but mainly she just kept floating and bobbing with her eyes closed in Adam's gentle, earnest swell of words in 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit ⦠same as her body ⦠perfect state of sensory deprivation. She could feel the tension draining out of her nerves, the toxins draining out of her brain ⦠time vanishing ⦠her body, at last perfectly relaxed, sinking into Adam's bones bathed by the flow, the flow, the warm bouillon flow of his words ⦠Tawny, his words were, tawny as oxtail bouillon, and warm â¦
debris from the waters, and every now and then a bit of it lodged in Charlotte's brain, but mainly she just kept floating and bobbing with her eyes closed in Adam's gentle, earnest swell of words in 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit ⦠same as her body ⦠perfect state of sensory deprivation. She could feel the tension draining out of her nerves, the toxins draining out of her brain ⦠time vanishing ⦠her body, at last perfectly relaxed, sinking into Adam's bones bathed by the flow, the flow, the warm bouillon flow of his words ⦠Tawny, his words were, tawny as oxtail bouillon, and warm â¦
Â
Â
So fluentânot to mention convincingâdid Adam feel, it was quite a spell before it occurred to him that the girl in his arms, the beautiful girl miraculously in his arms, was no longer listening. He craned his head down in order to look directly into her face. Had she fallen asleep? Her eyes were closed and her body was at last relaxed, but she wasn't breathing like someone asleep.
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