The Cloud of Unknowing Read Online Free Page B

from his first attempt, and after a few months he was jogging to work. His enthusiasms were always extreme. He checked nutrition books out of the library and began to make his own sprouts and yogurt, and a preparation he called “rejuvelac,” which sat out on the pantry shelf in a water carafe. It had an eye-watering stench. He said it was the elixir of life and was disappointed when his kids refused to try it.
    â€œIt smells like diarrhea,” Kitty said.
    â€œAh, but it merely tastes like vomit!”
    At the Hippocrates Health Institute, he met some people who called themselves breatharians. “They live off the fruits and berries of the air,” he told Jonathan. “Their bodies are so efficient that they subsist on sunlight and purified water. Can you imagine the lightness? There are documented cases of breatharians who have lived to be 130 years old.”
    Jonathan thought about his grandfather in Cleveland, who was 71. He had a hard time imagining Lou at Zadie’s age, never mind 130.
    â€œWhat would you do if you lived that long?” he asked.
    â€œThat’s a problem I’d like to have.”
    On the first warm day of spring Lou bought himself and Jonathan ten-speed bicycles. They rode to Walden Pond and back, and up the industrial banks of the Merrimack River as far as Haverhill. They started talking about a big ambitious trip to Akron, Ohio, where Jonathan’s aunt lived. Summer was out of the question—Lou would be gone, as usual. In any case, September was perfect biking weather, and he’d smooth it over with Jonathan’s teacher. What of any real importance could Jonathan possibly miss in a week away from seventh grade?
    All summer, in his lower bunk, Jonathan pored over a road atlas (feeling some gratification when Kitty complained about being left out). In his mind, the bike trip became a sort of audition for the Soviet Union: a chance to prove he was old enough and good enough company to take along next year. When Lou got home in late August they took a few shake-down rides, tuned their bikes, and went over their packing lists. In the interest of traveling light, Lou tore a bath towel in two and gave Jonathan half. They had to save room in their panniers for tools and maps, and a few discretionary items, like books and a deck of cards. A few days before setting off they convened in the living room, moving pushpins around a map on the wall.
    â€œWe can take the commuter line to Fitchburg,” Lou said, sinking another pushpin. “That way we make Fisk’s house the first night. He’ll drive us to New Paltz in the morning.”
    â€œWhy are we going to New Paltz?” Jonathan asked, suspicious.
    â€œFisk and I have to meet with Larson. But that should only take an hour or so.”
    Jonathan’s father called his friends—most of them Slavicists like himself—by their last names, and this was how Jonathan knew them as well. For as long as he could remember, he and Kitty had called them Fisk and Larson and Grubsky and Stetz.
    â€œIsn’t it cheating, though?” he asked. “I thought we were going to ride our bikes the whole way.”
    Lou waved the objection off. “Don’t be an ideologue,” he said. “So we take a train. So we get a lift. The important thing is to travel by the seat of our pants. Anyhow, after New Paltz the real adventure begins. The Delaware River, the Alleghenies, Scranton . If we biked the whole way, we wouldn’t have time to do Scranton properly.”
    Jonathan’s legs felt rubbery as they pushed their bikes up Fisk’s steep, rocky driveway. They’d ridden sixty miles—almost twice as far as they’d ever gone in one day. Fisk greeted them at the door of his cabin with a towel wrapped around his waist. “Schultz! Jonathan!” he said. “You made it! I’ve been heating up the sauna.” His tiny cabin was dominated by a long wooden table,