John Steinbeck
The Winter of Our Discontent
To Beth, my sister, whose light burns clear
Readers seeking to identify the fictional people and places here described would do better to inspect their own communities and search their own hearts, for this book is about a large part of America today.
Part one
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?”