Norris’s picnic in McTeague is a moment of pleasure in a sad novel.
McTeague’s courtship of Trina Sieppe intensifies at the Sieppe family’s Sunday picnic at Schuetzen Park. When Mrs. Sieppe asks him, “Don’t you think picnics are fine fun, Doctor McTeague?” [he’s an untrained dentist], he answers, “I never went on a picnic.” Trying to be kind, Mrs. Sieppe explains a picnic: “We go to der park, Schuetzen Park, mit alle dem childern, a little eggs-kursion, eh not soh? We breathe der freshes air, a celubration, a pignic bei der seashore on. Ach, dot wull be soh gay, ah?” McTeague’s reply is flat, “I don’ know, Mrs. Sieppe,” Trina is enthusiastic, “Oh, you’ll see what fun we’ll have. In the morning, father and the children dig clams in the mud by the shore, an’ we bake them, and—oh, there are thousands of things to do.”
Later, McTeague makes conversation with Trina:
“Fine day for a picnic, ain’t it? There ain’t a cloud.”
“That’s so,” exclaimed Trina, looking up, “not a single cloud. Oh, yes; there is one, just over Telegraph Hill.”
“That’s smoke.”
“No, it’s a cloud. Smoke isn’t white that way.”
“‘Tis a cloud.”
“I knew I was right. I never say a thing unless I’m pretty sure.”
“It looks like a dog’s head.”
If the conversation is insipid, but the lunch is delicious. Packed in four baskets, the Sieppe’s have carried a feast of clam chowder, huge loaves of rye bread full of grains of chickweed, wienerwursts and frankfurters, unsalted butter, pretzels, cold underdone sliced chicken with mustard, dried apples, bottles of beer, and a Gotha truffle (a brown bread pudding dessert). After lunch, the men and children wander off while the women clean up.
When McTeague remembers what he liked best at the picnic, he thinks of the Gotha truffle.
Featured Image: Erich von Stroheim’s Greed (1924).
See Frank Norris. McTeague: A Story of San Francisco (1899); Barry O’Neil. Life’s a Whirlpool (1916); Erich von Stroheim. Greed, (1924). Screenplay by June Mathis and Erich von Stroheim is based on Frank Norris’ McTeague: A Story of San Francisco (1899); William Bolcom. McTeague, The Opera (1992). Libretto by Arnold Weinstein.