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THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT
by John Steinbeck
CHAPTER ONE
When the fair gold morning of April stirred Mary Hawley awake, she turned over to her husband and saw him, little fingers pulling a frog mouth at her.
"You're silly," she said. "Ethan, you've got your comical genius."
"Oh say, Miss Mousie, will you marry me?"
"Did you wake up silly?"
"The year's at the day. The day's at the morn."
"I guess you did. Do you remember it's Good Friday?"
He said hollowly, "The dirty Romans are forming up for Calvary."
"Don't be sacrilegious. Will Marullo let you close the store at eleven?"
"Darling chicken-flower—Marullo is a Catholic and a wop. He probably won't show up at all. I'll close at noon till the execution's over."
"That's Pilgrim talk. It's not nice."
"Nonsense, ladybug. That's from my mother's side. That's pirate talk. It 'was' an execution, you know."
"They were not pirates. You said yourself, whalers, and you said they had letters of what-you-call-it from the Continental Congress."
"The ships they fired on thought they were pirates. And those Roman G.I.'s thought it was an execution."
"I've made you mad. I like you better silly."
"I am silly. Everybody knows that."
"You always mix me up. You've got every right to be proud—Pilgrim Fathers and whaling captains right in one family."
"Have they?"
"What do you mean?"
"Would my great ancestors be proud to know they produced a goddam grocery clerk in a goddam wop store in a town they used to own?"
"You are not. You're more like the manager, keep the books and bank the money and order the goods."
"Sure. And I sweep out and carry garbage and kowtow to Marullo, and if I was a goddam cat, I'd be catching Marullo's mice."
She put her arms around him. "Let's be silly," she said. "Please don't say swear words on Good Friday. I do love you."
"Okay," he said after a moment. "That's what they all say. Don't think that lets you lie jaybird naked with a married man."
"I was going to tell you about the children."
"They in jail?"
"Now you're silly again. Maybe it's better if they tell you."
"Now why don't you—"
"Margie Young-Hunt's going to read me again today."
"Like a book? Who's Margie Young-Hunt, what is she, that all our swains—"
"You know if I was jealous—I mean they say when a man pretends he don't notice a pretty girl—"
"Oh, that one. Girl? She's had two husbands."
"The second one died."
"I want my breakfast. Do you believe that stuff?"
"Well Margie saw about Brother in the cards. Someone near and dear, she said."
"Someone near and dear to me is going to get a kick in the pants if she doesn't haul freight—"
"I'm going—eggs?"
"I guess so. Why do they call it Good Friday? What's good about it?"
"Oh! You!" she said. "You always make jokes."
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Published by the Penguin Group, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Copyright (c) John Steinbeck, 1961; Copyright renewed Elaine Steinbeck, Thom Steinbeck, and John Steinbeck IV, 1989