East of Eden: The Miniseries, Part Two

For Part One, this is the link: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2018/10/east-of-eden-miniseries-part-one.html


Samuel Hamilton, using a divining rod, tells Adam there is plenty of water on the land Adam wants to buy and that he and his sons will dig the wells and build the windmills for Adam's new place. Adam then spins off into idealism, as he tells Samuel how Cathy has brought a light into his life. He says he wants to make a beautiful garden that is fitting for her light to shine on. Samuel sits silently on his horse listening to Adam, but his expression seems to tell us he's concerned that Adam is a man just asking to be hurt, emotionally. Finally Samuel tells Adam again that he'll get him water and that "you'll have your Eden."

Adam buys the land and the development all starts, as the house begins to rise, along with other structures for the new place, and Samuel and his sons begin to drill for water. The ever resourceful Will Hamilton is owed money by his brother Tom, so he makes a deal to forgive Tom's debt in exchange for Tom taking on Will's workload too. When the house is finished, Adam hires a Chinese servant named Lee, a man who dresses in Chinese clothing and who speaks in pidgin. Cathy is uneasy with Lee and she treats him rudely. She is also upset with her distended abdomen, since she long ago learned how to use her looks to get what she wanted from boys and men. When Cathy goes into labor, Lee rides to get Samuel Hamilton at the drilling site, as Samuel has delivered at least four of his own children, and likely all nine, as well as some children of neighbors. When Samuel arrives at the house, Cathy has had Adam put blankets over the bedroom windows and Samuel tells Adam to take the blankets down so he can have natural light in the room. Adam declines, saying that "the light hurts her eyes." When Samuel insists that the windows be uncovered and that Adam leave the room, Adam balks, but Samuel threatens to leave, and Adam agrees. Cathy tells Samuel, "Get that lousy Chink out of here too." Samuel tells her he will need Lee's help, then, when Samuel goes to her bedside and asks if the water has broken, Cathy hisses like a serpent and snarls at him. Samuel again threatens to walk out, and Cathy sees that she needs him, so she settles down. Samuel takes out a large rope, fixes the ends to the lower bedposts and hands the middle of the now extended rope to Cathy to pull on when she is delivering. Samuel again moves close to Cathy and when one of his hands gets close, Cathy grabs the side of his hand with her teeth and won't let go. Samuel has to begin to choke her to get her to loosen her bite. Lee tells Samuel, "The woman is a demon," and Samuel tells Lee to get some whiskey to pour over the wound, and Lee says, "I'll get it and a clean rag to wrap it up in." Even with the tense situation, Samuel notices that Lee has spoken in clear English, and when he asks Lee to repeat what he said, Lee does so, but in pidgin. Just then Cathy screams and within moments she delivers a baby, a boy. Samuel goes out of the room to tell Adam he has a son, and Adam starts to enter the bedroom, but retreats with a sickly look on his face, as Samuel tells him he hasn't had a chance to clean up everything yet. Cathy screams again and Samuel goes back into the bedroom only to see another baby, also a boy, is being born. As Samuel prepares to leave a while later, he tells Cathy she has two sons, but that they are not alike, as each was born separately in his own sack. He offers to show the babies to Cathy, but she refuses, even saying, "I don't want them." Samuel tells her, "I don't like you Mrs. Trask," and this brings the faintest smile to Cathy's face. She asks for Adam and she has him cover the windows again, telling him, "I want to be in the dark."

Outside, Lee tries talking to Samuel in pidgin, but Samuel tells him it's too late, that he knows Lee is likely an educated man and probably a Christian. Lee says he spent "a couple of years at the University of California; nothing to shoot off rockets about." He then tells Samuel that he was a Presbyterian for a time, but that, "I've gone back to dragons and demons. They don't make any less sense." Samuel asks Lee why he used pidgin, to which Lee replies, "It's what's expected." (NOTE: Chinese immigrants were greatly discriminated against in the era of the 1800s and the early 1900s.) Lee and Samuel begin a little discussion, which shows the beginnings of their friendship, and their common curiosity and interest in learning, as contrasted to Cathy's, "I want to be in the dark." Lee tells Samuel that he's a good servant, but Samuel then asks what kind of a wet nurse he'll be, since Mrs. Trask has no milk, and she wouldn't nurse the babies even if she had it. He tells Lee of how as a boy in Ulster (Ireland) his father had taken him into town, where a murderer was about to be hanged. The condemned man looked right down at little Samuel from the platform, and Samuel says the man had the strangest eyes, that his eyes weren't human, but rather like the eyes of a goat. Samuel tells Lee that he had never seen such eyes again until he saw Cathy. He finishes by saying that he fears for the boys.

About a week passes and Cathy arranges for Lee to go into town on a Friday and not return until Monday. The workers still putting up other buildings take their leave for the weekend and Adam goes to Cathy, who is dressed to go out. She bluntly tells Adam she is leaving him. She also tells him, "I'm not what you think I am. I tried to be, I really tried, but I just can't do it." She tells Adam that everybody will be better off without her and she even mentions that there are things about her that Adam and the others don't know about. Adam panics and shoves Cathy into the room and locks the door, but now Cathy turns on the charm and begs Adam to open the door, which he does. There stands Cathy with a gun pointed right at Adam, and she fires, causing Adam to fall to the floor as the two babies cry and Cathy goes out the door. Later, we learn that Lee came home early and found Adam, but Adam tells the sheriff (played by American actor Emmet Walsh) he wounded himself by accident. The sheriff knows he's lying, but Samuel, who is present, gets the sheriff to ease up, because Adam just doesn't care. By the way, the sheriff calls Lee, "Ching Chang," so Lee speaks in pidgin to him. Adam tells Samuel he'll pay him for his work, but he doesn't want the work on the wells completed. Samuel tells Adam to act out being alive and that eventually it will be true.

The scene shifts into the town of Monterey, to "Whorehouse Row" there. The sheriff finds Cathy working at one of the whorehouses. She now goes by "Kate Albey," and she has dyed her hair. The sheriff sets down the conditions for Kate to continue at the whorehouse: don't steal from the customers, don't shoot anybody else and don't go anywhere near her sons, because he doesn't want the boys to grow up and find out their mother was a whore. In walks Faye, the madam of the whorehouse, and a person who is already well on her way to being played by Kate. Faye relies on Kate to manage much of the business, and she tells Kate that she no longer wants her to have "clients," because she is like a daughter to her, so she'll still pay her the same amount of money. Faye also goes to her attorney and has a will drawn up making Kate her sole heir. Faye gives Kate a glass of wine to celebrate the occasion. Faye tells Kate that she has plenty of money and that she is thinking of selling the house and then the two of them will go to Europe. Kate rebels a bit at the thought, telling Kate that they can even make more money. As Kate drinks, Faye notes that she looks different, and Kate says, "I'm going to really show you how to run a whorehouse." Faye is now fearful of how Kate is acting. Kate then tells her she hasn't given up her regular "clients" as she promised Faye, but she in fact charges these clients far more than the going price at the house, because, "no one else is good enough for them." She tells Faye that the house will now be run like that, but Faye tells her to leave. Kate forces Faye to down a bottle of paregoric,*  as she holds a broken wine glass to Faye's throat. We next see Kate giving orders to the piano player at the house,** and the implication is, Faye is dead.***

More than a year passes and Samuel Hamilton rides over to the Trask place, where he sees everything more or less as it was left the day Cathy shot Adam. Even the buggy that Adam had bought upon their arrival in California still sits partially covered by grass and weeds grown high. He calls in a firm voice for Adam, who finally comes out onto the porch with one child waddling behind and Lee carrying the other boy another step or two behind him. This sets up one of the most memorable scenes of the miniseries. Samuel raises his voice as he tries to get through to Adam, who is still a broken man. He tells Adam he has heard that Adam has not even named his sons. Samuel yells at Adam, "What do you call them, 'This' and 'That,' 'Thing' and 'Thong,' or do you just whistle for them like a couple of puppies?" When Adam admits he hasn't named the boys, Samuel hits him, knocking him to the ground, although the exertion causes Samuel to gasp for breath, which is a hint that Samuel is not well. Adam says, "Their mother left them motherless," but Samuel yells back, "And you have left them fatherless! Get up so as I can knock you down again." This brings Adam to say, "I wouldn't try it old man... and you ARE an old man," but Samuel replies with one of the great lines I've always remembered, "Not so old as you, if it's measured by meanness and self pity." When Samuel tells Adam he'll hit him again, Adam has reawakened to life and he tells Samuel that there's no need to hit him again, and he admits he has been wrong. Lee smiles as he stands nearby. Samuel says that Adam should name the boys now, and he tells Adam he has brought along his family Bible to find the names.

As Adam and Samuel sit and sip some wine, before naming the boys, Adam asks him if Cathy was beautiful. Samuel answers, "To you she was, because she was your creation, but I don't believe you ever really saw her." Samuel asks why Adam now has the sudden curiosity about Cathy, and Adam says he wants to know what kind of blood is in his boys. This brings Samuel to tell him not to put things about blood onto them. Lee joins in and the three discuss some possible names for the boys, including some biblical names, like Adam's own name, Joshua and Cain or Abel, with the latter two names leading them into a discussion about the biblical story and its meaning. Lee's feeling is that God simply had a preference for lamb over vegetables, the products offered to God from the labors of Abel and of Cain, individually. It brings Adam to wonder in a muttering to himself if the Lord may have had a preference for a puppy over a pearl handled pocketknife. Samuel reads the story aloud from his Bible, then says how dreadful the story really is, as it is without any encouragement. This brings Lee to inject, "I'm not so sure." He goes on to explain that God protected Cain, even though he had murdered his brother. "God must have seen something worthwhile in Cain." Samuel then says how this is true, since Cain lived and had children, while Abel only lives in the story. Adam sits by thoughtfully listening, obviously thinking of his brother Charles and their father, but he finally asks Samuel if we share in Cain's guilt, which Samuel answers affirmatively, noting that we are all descendants of Cain. This gives Adam the opening to ask an uncomfortable Samuel how this then plays into his feeling that blood doesn't matter. Samuel can't answer and he diverts the conversation back to the naming of the boys. When the name "Caleb" is mentioned, one of the nearby sleeping boys awakens, and so he has chosen his own name. Samuel says Caleb made it to the promised land. He then suggests Aaron, a name he says he has always liked, but that Aaron didn't make it to the promised land, but Adam agrees anyhow. (Note: The Trasks use the spelling "Aron.") Samuel prepares to leave and he shakes Adam's hand, and he gives a hug to Lee, who now gives a concerned expression with Samuel's action. As Samuel puts his Bible into the saddlebag on his horse, he tells Adam he has heard about Cathy. He tells him about Monterey and the whorehouse, with Lee nodding in agreement, but now Adam reverts to the old Adam and to his mind's own Cathy creation. Adam blurts out, "That's a lie!" Samuel assures him that it is true, because he's heard it from numerous people. Adam stomps off.  Samuel leaves.

Later inside the house, Adam tells Lee that he didn't need to hear that kind of news of Cathy, but Lee tells him that Samuel needed to say it, because he's dying. At first, Adam is shocked, but then he recalls Samuel hitting him and notes that it wasn't a very strong punch, even though Samuel was furious at him. The scene shifts to Samuel's funeral, where Adam removes the flower from his lapel and places it into Samuel's hand. Lee then stoops down and utters a word, "timshel," toward Samuel's ear. He later explains to Adam that it all went back to their discussion of Cain and Abel and about various biblical translations of the Hebrew word "timshel." He says the translation is important, because it has been translated as "thou shalt rule over sin," a promise, and also as, "thou must rule over sin," a command. Lee says he discussed the translation of "timshel" with four old Chinese scholars and a learned rabbi over a period of two years (which now tells us how much time has passed since the naming of the boys), so that the six of them finally came to the conclusion that the best English translation is, "thou mayest;" that is, it offers people a choice between good and evil, but it is that, "a choice, free will." Lee says he wanted to tell Samuel all of this, but he was too late, and Samuel died, but Adam assures him that Samuel likely heard it.

As they drive off in a buggy, Lee is troubled to hear from Adam that he is going to go to Monterey. Lee tells him to leave Cathy alone and move on with his life, comparing such things to a moth flying into a candle's flame until it is destroyed, but Adam firmly tells Lee to stay out of it, and that if he doesn't like it, he can seek employment elsewhere. Lee tells Adam he would, except that Samuel's ghost would haunt him for leaving the still young boys at this time in their lives. Adam goes to Monterey and goes to the whorehouse, now called "Kate's." He asks Kate (he still calls her Cathy) if she wants to know about the two boys, but she says "no." He tells her he heard about her and the house, but that he didn't believe it and he needed to see for himself. He asks if she actually "works" in the house, or if she just runs it. Kate can see how Adam still wants to believe in her and says such, implying in her words how untrue Adam's image of her really is. He finally admits to her that Charles had been right about her, so he says he'll now go. Up to this point, Kate has been rather subdued, but now, sensing Adam's need of her, she turns to her manipulative self and tries to lure him into having sex with her, but the spell is broken, and Adam forcibly removes Kate's hands from him, prompting Kate to cry out, which brings her bodyguard/bouncer charging into the room. He and Adam fight and the man knocks Adam to the floor, where he lies motionless. Kate orders him to "Give him the boots," but the man tells her there is no fight left in Adam. She orders the man from the room and then she tells Adam that she always thought he was a fool, but that now, she hates him. Adam tells Kate he had really loved her, so much that, "it took quite a killing." Adam struggles to his feet and begins to leave, while Kate tells him how he'll come back, begging for her, but Adam is silent. Sensing that's she's lost her hold on Adam, she angrily tells Adam, "They're not your sons." Adam stops, and now sensing that she has regained the initiative, she gives off an evil smirk. When Adam mentions how hurt she had been back then, she quickly says, "I wasn't too hurt for Charles." She quickly recounts some of the events from back in Connecticut, leaving Adam with the thought, "Now that you know me a little better, maybe you'll wonder in whose bed I spent my wedding night." Adam leaves....

More in the final part, Part 3...

* Paregoric is a medicine with opium as one of its ingredients. I don't really hear about it in recent times, although that doesn't mean it isn't still in use, but when I was a kid and into adulthood, it was a common drug for treating diarrhea.                

** The piano player at the whorehouse is played by Stymie Beard, famous for having played in the popular "Our Gang" short film series in the 1930s (the series itself ran far longer than Stymie's stint in the shows, and there were numerous cast changes as the kids outgrew their roles). The series was released to television in the 1950s and became popular fare for decades. I wouldn't be surprised if the films are still shown on television somewhere.

*** The miniseries is very faithful to Steinbeck's book, with few exceptions, but I've always found Faye's gradual death in the book, due to poisoning by Kate, to be one of the weakest parts of the book. The scene in the miniseries is even less believable, in my opinion, although later on we hear a bartender tell Adam that Faye was ill for two months before she died and that her cause of death was given as food poisoning, which ties it more closely to the book, but my question is, after Kate's nasty performance with Faye in the miniseries, how did Kate let her live two months without Faye telling others about what Kate was really like? Anyone for a shot of paregoric? 

Photo is of the back of the case for the 2009 Acorn Media DVD for Volume 2 

 WORD HISTORY:
Eden-For such an important term in religious belief and symbolism, this word's ancient history is uncertain, although it seems to go back to transliterated Semitic "edhen," meaning, "a pleasure, something delightful," but whether the word originated in Semitic or in another language family is unknown. The idea of "a delightful place," thus also meant, "garden," or perhaps, "oasis," as many places where Semitic was (and is) spoken were often hot, desert or barren land. Some speculate that the original idea was a "plain with flowing water;" thus, the land had lots of vegetation, making it a garden, which then was used in Hebrew for the biblical "Garden of Eden," a paradise, because its water provided plants and animals with the means to easily thrive and survive. "Eden" is thought by some, perhaps many, to be the same word as "Aden," which is a city in modern Yemen. There is also the "Gulf of Aden," the water area around the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea and their connection into the larger Indian Ocean.

"East Of Eden:" The Miniseries, Part One

The 1970s and 1980s were a time when television networks aired several shows in miniseries format. A miniseries was a production that was longer than a made for TV movie, but shorter than an actual television series (a typical television series had like 25 to 30 episodes in a season). A miniseries aired in its initial showing for several evenings in prime time, and East of Eden was first broadcast on ABC for three evenings in early 1981.

"East of Eden" was a novel by American author John Steinbeck first published in the early 1950s. It happens to be my favorite book, and the 1981 miniseries was what got me interested in the book. The miniseries brought a renewed interest in Steinbeck's writing, and I bought a paperback edition of "East of Eden," complete with a cover picture taken from the miniseries. Steinbeck wrapped several stories together in his book, with the main story being based upon the story of Cain and Abel from Genesis. The biblical story is still relevant today, as Steinbeck shows how the basic story is repeated even within the same family, the Trasks. Steinbeck took his fictional story and entwined it with some history of his real life family, primarily his maternal family, although he makes mention of his paternal side, and even of himself, when he was a kid. The mid 1950s saw the release of a movie based upon the novel, a movie which made James Dean a star. This movie, however, only covers about the last third of Steinbeck's book, while the miniseries dealt with the entire book. While the movie is good, I found the miniseries far more compelling, even though the movie version also had one of my favorite actors, Canadian-born Raymond Massey.

Cast: American actor Timothy Bottoms as Adam Trask, American actor Lloyd Bridges as Samuel Hamilton, English actress Jane Seymour as Cathy/Kate, American actor Bruce Boxleitner as Charles Trask, American actor Warren Oates as Cyrus Trask, Korean-born American actor Soon-Tek Oh as Lee, American actor Sam Bottoms as Cal Trask, Canadian actor Hart Bochner as Aron Trask, American actor Howard Duff as Jules Edwards, American actress Anne Baxter as Faye, American actor Richard Masur as Will Hamilton, American actress Karen Allen as Abra, American actor Nicholas Pryor as Cathy's Latin teacher, Mr. Grew. Timothy Bottoms and Sam Bottoms are brothers, and Sam Bottoms died far too young in 2008. Jane Seymour won a Golden Globe Award for her performance in "East of Eden."

The miniseries opens in Connecticut in the spring of 1863, with Cyrus Trask, a liquor-drinking, story fabricating man, with a wooden peg for one leg, taking his extremely pious wife into town for her to see the doctor. They have their infant son, Adam, with them. A few of the town's people gather around as Cyrus spins his stories about the ongoing Civil War, only to have his wife correctly tell those gathered, that Cyrus was only in one battle, in spite of his boasting, and that even then, it was only minutes into that battle that he lost the bottom half of one leg to a Confederate bullet. When his wife goes inside to the doctor, Cyrus tells the little gathering how it was when the doctor had to hack off the bottom portion of his bullet-shattered leg. Inside, the doctor tells Mrs. Trask that she has gonorrhea (brought home by Cyrus from his time in the army), and she reacts in a terrified manner, calling it "a disease of sin," and telling the doctor that she contracted the disease from some erotic dreams she'd had while her husband was away in the army. The doctor tells her otherwise, but Mrs. Trask, filled with religious superstition and misunderstanding, and in need of purity, is deeply troubled, and later that night she goes out to a pond on their farm and drowns herself. Well... so much for the gonorrhea.

Cyrus is left to care for their baby son, which he is woefully unprepared to do. When Adam cries because he's hungry, Cyrus douses a rag with whiskey and sticks it into the boy's mouth. Cyrus knows he needs another wife and he marries a woman named Alice. Alice quickly bears a son, but she also gives Adam plenty of care, although she is sickly. Cyrus continues to spin stories about untrue exploits, but he sets them down in writing for publication, and as a consequence, he meets many army people and veterans over time. Of his two sons, Cyrus favors Adam, and he wants Adam to be the soldier Cyrus imagines he would have been, had he not been wounded; the soldier of the stories Cyrus tells. Adam doesn't want to be a soldier, and although he is a crack shot with a rifle, he deliberately misses a deer his father ordered him to kill. Adam is kind and sensitive, while the other son, Charles, is tough and ruthless. Yet for all of his outward toughness, Charles is insecure inside, and in fact, this insecurity causes the ruthlessness to flare, and he often bullies or terrorizes Adam. Charles adores his father, but he sees and senses that Adam is the favorite of Cyrus. This all comes to the fore on one of Cyrus's birthdays, when the boys are well into their teens. Charles gets money together to buy his father a special knife with three blades and made in Germany. Adam, on the other hand, doesn't really have affection for his father, but he is respectful of him, because that's the way he is. He makes no special arrangements for a gift for Cyrus, but he finds a pup wandering around and decides this is what he will give to his father. In a decisive moment, Charles hands his father the wrapped knife. When his father opens it, Charles tells him the details of the knife and how it was shipped clear from Germany. Cyrus looks over the knife and closes the blades, then he slips the knife into the drawer of his desk. He thanks Charles, but he then turns his attention to the squirming little mass wrapped in a blanket in Adam's arms. Adam hands his father the dog, and Cyrus is visibly happy. Charles is despondent, but this later turns to anger and to outright fury. He later gets Adam outside and ruthlessly beats and kicks him, leaving him curled on the ground while he goes to find an ax. When he returns, Adam has gotten away and made it back into the house where his father is furious over the beating and where Alice cares for Adan's beaten body. Cyrus wonders why Charles had so viciously beaten Adam, and he doesn't understand how desperate Charles is for his love and attention. Adam heals and finally a group of cavalry come to take Adam into the army, at the request of Cyrus, a man who has been becoming better known to many in Republican-dominated post-Civil War Washington DC. The military emphasis has now shifted to western areas, as the US Army seeks to protect settlers from the Indian tribes fighting to save their homelands. Adam tells his father that Charles would be far better at being a soldier, but Cyrus tells him that the army will help him to learn things about courage and to help him develop into a man, but that the army might let things loose in Charles' personality that should be kept chained in.

Meanwhile, another part of the story takes shape in Massachusetts. A mother hears some giggles of children coming from the barn. When she opens the doors, two boys have her daughter's dress pushed up. At first the mother sees and believes what her own eyes have shown her, but then her desire to believe that her daughter could not be in any way to blame takes hold and she decides to make the boys pay dearly for the matter. The boys' fathers decide to use a strap on their sons, but the indignant mother carries it one step further... it must be a bare-bottomed beating. She has her daughter watch as the boys cry in pain and humiliation, but she shows a little satisfactory smile as the punishment is given. This is Cathy... Catherine.

As Cathy goes into her later teenage years, she begins playing on the attentions of one of her teachers, her Latin teacher, Mr. Grew. The man becomes obsessed with her, but his religious beliefs and his desire to become a reverend conflict with all of his thoughts of Cathy, and he becomes terribly distraught to the point of taking his own life. He goes to Cathy's home late one night and feverishly pounds on the door so he can speak to Cathy's father, but the father turns him away, although he wonders why the man would come to the house in such a frenzied state and at such a late hour. The man goes off and shoots himself. When Cathy and her father quarrel about her schooling, her father mentions about the man coming to the house and about things he's heard about her from around town. Cathy knows her act has hit an end, and one night she sets fire to the house, killing her parents. She leaves behind a bloody dress and a pendant, with the knowledge that the town's people will leap to the conclusion that some hobos from a nearby encampment have kidnapped Cathy and killed her parents and set fire to the house. That's just what happens and the people take out after the hobo encampment.

Now we go back to the Trask family.... Adam serves in the US Cavalry and at one point, Cyrus uses his influence to get Adam brought to Washington DC so Cyrus can tell him that he has gotten things arranged for Adam to go to West Point. Adam declines the offer, having already angered his father by telling him that he had a relationship with an Indian woman, and that he never killed one Indian during his time in the fighting. Cyrus, who has been rising among Union veterans of the Civil War, is happy to learn from Adam that the woman died from small pox, and he tells Adam, "I don't need an Indian grandchild running around." Adam leaves his angry father and heads back to his cavalry unit. After several years, Adam comes home. Charles is still working on the farm and Cyrus has recently died. For a moment, Charles angrily asks Adam why he didn't home sooner, and he shoots a stern glance at Adam, as he had so many times in their past to intimidate Adam, but Cyrus had been right, and Adam has learned about courage and he no longer fears his brother. Charles realizes this is not the same Adam, and the tension eases. In a touching scene, instead of trying to beat Adam, Charles puts his arms around him and hugs him. The stunned, but happy Adam pats Charles as he hugs him. Charles has the will left by Cyrus, and he and Adam are stunned to learn that Cyrus has left the two boys a great deal of money, as well as the farm property. Charles is badly shaken by the thought that Cyrus stole the money in some way from the veteran's group with which he'd been involved, since the salary Cyrus earned would never have been enough to leave more than 100 thousand dollars to his sons (equivalent to about 2.5 million dollars today). Adam, although he has already thought of this, tries to calm Charles' fears about their father. * Further, Charles tells Adam that the army sent their father's military records to him. Charles then sees that Cyrus had been lying all along, because he never had been at any of the famous Civil War battles in which he had claimed to have taken part. Adam had never believed the stories, and he is unfazed by the news, but Charles is devastated. This all ties in with Steinbeck showing us how we sometimes believe things, not because they're true, but because that's what we want to believe.  

As this is all taking place, we meet Jules Edwards, a middle-aged respected man who uses a churchgoing facade to cover his real life....a whore master. Edwards brutalizes some of his "workers" who are convinced by an evangelist's hellfire and brimstone to turn away from their way of life. He punches the women and uses a small lash he carries hidden in a briefcase to whip them. One day Edwards is approached by Cathy, now using her proper name, Catherine, who tells him she wants to work for him. Edwards, a married man with children, is taken by the woman's beauty, and it becomes something of "love at first sight" for him; so, he makes a deal with Cathy, making her his mistress, but keeping her out of working his prostitution circuit. Edwards gets her a house, buys her clothing and gives her a monetary allowance. While Cathy loves the lavish life style, she also doesn't like the control Edwards has over her. She has the lock on her house changed, which badly annoys Edwards, but he can't bring himself to turn Cathy loose, the emotional tie is too strong from his side. He spends "time" with Cathy and, afterward, we see her scrubbing her hands with a brush. Edwards has champagne waiting, but Cathy doesn't want it, saying that it's not good for her. Finally Edwards coaxes Cathy into drinking some champagne, and she then wants more. Earlier he had mentioned that he wants some truth from her, and she tells him, "I don't think so." Now the effect of the wine has caused the veil of dishonesty to fall from her. She calls Edwards a "slug," and tells him that being around him makes her want to vomit. Now Jules Edwards sees the real Cathy and his inward ruthlessness is already planning on how to deal with it. Edwards gets Cathy to pack some belongings, telling her that she had come to him wanting "to work," so now he'll let her "work." She says she'll tell the police. Edwards then tells her he'll take her back to her hometown, where he heard about a fire... He takes her out into the countryside and pulls out the hidden lash. She tells him he will never hit her, but she's terribly misjudged Edwards' anger and ruthlessness, and he hits her and punches her. She draws a knife she has hidden and she cuts him, which only infuriates him even more. He beats her badly and the scene ends.

The two Trask brothers work the farm, and one morning they hear a noise outside. When they go to the door, a woman covered in blood and dirt is trying to crawl up the steps. They take the woman inside and Adam's natural kindness has him look after the woman. Charles wants the woman out, and it doesn't take long for him to see her manipulative ways and he tries to warn his brother, but Adam insists she needs help to recover (he also has fallen for her and he doesn't want to see or hear anything bad about her). Gradually the woman gets better, and she knows how to use Adam's emotions, but she cannot get to Charles by playing on any kindness, and so she tries to lure him to her own room, but when that doesn't really work, she goes to his room, having drugged Adam with her pain medication, while she makes her play for Charles. When all is...ah... done, Cathy tells Charles that she and Adam had gotten married that afternoon. The usually steady Charles is now appalled that he had just had sex with his brother's new wife. It seems even Charles isn't that bad, but Cathy laughs about it all.

Adam has long had a desire to go to California, and he and Cathy set out for that state. When they get to California, Cathy is not feeling well. The doctor knows that Cathy is pregnant and she has tried to abort the pregnancy with a knitting needle. The doctor tells her she must have the baby and that if he suspects any foul play on Cathy's part, he will report her and testify against her. The doctor only tells Adam that Cathy is pregnant, he does not tell him about the attempted abortion.

Adam looks at land to buy to start he and Cathy's new life. He finds a place he likes and he is told by others to see Sam Hamilton about digging wells and building windmills for the place. Samuel is an Irish immigrant who likes his whiskey, but he is greatly restricted in that drinking pleasure because of his devoutly religious wife, Liza, who is also from Ireland (we never see Liza). Samuel and Liza Hamilton were John Steinbeck's maternal grandparents. Samuel is a man always seeking to learn and he and Adam strike up a friendship, initially aided by Adam's gift of a bottle of Irish whiskey to Samuel. When we meet Samuel, we also meet two of his nine children who will play important roles later on. These are two of Samuel's sons, Will, who has a mind for business, and Tom, who is more to the curious side, like his father.

More later in Part Two...

* To me, this part of the story was always Steinbeck's way of showing that everyone is tainted by some kind of sin, no matter how pious or good a person they really are. Adam, a good man, lives a good life off of the ill gotten money of his father.   

For Part Two, here is the link: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2018/10/east-of-eden-miniseries-part-two_25.html            

For Part Three, here is the link: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2018/10/east-of-eden-miniseries-part-3final.html

Photo is from Part 1 of 2009 DVD by Acorn Media

WORD HISTORY:
Saga (Saw, not the implement)-This word, closely related to "say," ^ and meaning "a generally long story," goes back to Indo European "sekw," which meant, "to say, to utter sounds and words." This gave Old Germanic the noun, "sagon," which meant, "story." This gave Old English "sagu," which meant, "a story, a saying, a statement." This later became the now archaic, "saw," meaning, "a saying," but then later also, "an overused saying," especially when coupled with "old," as, "old saw," an expression that is still used at times. This word "saw" is not related to "saw," the jagged tool used for cutting. Old Germanic "sagon" also gave Old Norse "story, long tale." With the original English word having changed in meaning, away from the "story" meaning, to that of "saw," above, the Norse word had seemingly remained among historians as it related to Norse history. By the early 1700s, Norse writings had seen a revival among a number of historians and literary people, and so did the Norse word "saga," which was taken on by English to mean, "an Icelandic or Norwegian narrative," then more generally expanded to "a long type of story," and in the mid 1800s, it had added the more disparaging secondary meaning, "a long, boring story involving too much detail." German still has "Sage" (originally also spelled "saga"), meaning, more or less, "a story based upon historical accounts, but not necessarily proven;" thus also, "a legend," but German also borrowed "Saga," seemingly from English in the 1800s, with the same general meaning, "a narrative, a story." Low German has "Saag" (story of historical basis), Dutch has "sage" (story, chronicle), Norwegian "soge" (story, history), Icelandic has "saga" (history, story), Swedish "saga" (long story, legend), Danish once had "sage," but "apparently" Danish now uses "saga," perhaps from German or English? Also "sagn" (legend) and West Frisian has "sêge," (story, long story). So to condense this: the English noun "saw" (meaning, "a saying," and originally also meaning, "story"), is an original English word, while its close relative, "saga," was borrowed into English.  

^ The modern form "say" once also had a "g," as its German cousin still does (the infinitive form in German is "sagen," but the imperative is "sag," and "Sag mal," is, "Tell me;" with the "me" being understood, and "mal" softening the command to a request, as in, "Tell me, how have you been?" Several English words once had a "g" which disappeared over time: "day," "may" (the verb, not the month), being two examples. By the way, with "may," its old past tense was "might," which has still retained the "g," albeit in combination with the "h." To this day, "may" and "might" are often interchangeable: "I may go to the movies tonight," or, "I might go to the movies tonight."