The Cider House Rules

by John Irving

The rest of the board thought that young Larch was “the one hopelessly naïve Democrat and liberal” among them. The letter said: THERE SHOULD BE A GODDAMNED DOCTOR, AND A GODDAMNED

SCHOOL, AND EVEN A GODDAMNED POLICEMAN AND A GODDAMNED LAWYER IN ST. CLOUD’S, WHICH HAS BEEN DESERTED BY ITS GODDAMN MEN (WHO WERE NEVER MUCH) AND LEFT TO HELPLESS WOMEN AND ORPHANS!

And now Melony, the undisputed heavyweight of the girls’ division, had disturbed the boy with her anger—with what Dr. Larch suspected was only the tip of the iceberg of her power; her potential for educating Homer Wells seemed to be both terrible and vast.

The thought that he had allowed himself to become a father and a sufferer of a father’s indecision so depressed Dr. Larch that he sought the good peace of ether—to which he was becoming, steadily, more accustomed.

“Adolescence,” wrote Wilbur Larch. “Is it the first time in life we discover that we have something terrible to hide from those who love us?”

That was another thing that slightly bothered her about the two of them being together: they seemed so alike physically. Was their attraction to each other a form of narcissism? Olive worried. And since each of them was an only child, were they seeing in each other the brother or sister they always wanted?

“Aren’t we put on this earth to work? At least to learn, at least to watch? What do you think it means, to be of use?” he asked. “Do you think you should be left alone? Do you think I should let you be a Melony?”

Certainly he had heard in her voice admiration, sympathy—and even affection—but there was also in her voice the ice that encases a long-ago and immovable point of view.

life was just a job. He had grown up without noticing when? Was there nothing remarkable in the transition?

“These same people who tell us we must defend the lives of the unborn—they are the same people who seem not so interested in defending anyone but themselves after the accident of birth is complete! These same people who profess their love of the unborn’s soul—they don’t care to make much of a contribution to the poor, they don’t care to offer much assistance to the unwanted or the oppressed! How do they justify such a concern for the fetus and such a lack of concern for unwanted and abused children? They condemn others for the accident of conception; they condemn the poor—as if the poor can help being poor. One way the poor could help themselves would be to be in control of the size of their families. I thought that freedom of choice was obviously democratic—was obviously American!

Medium high in an apple tree in the orchard called Frying Pan—crouched warily in the crotch between the tree’s largest branches—a red fox, its ears and nose alert, its tail poised as lightly as a feather, surveyed the orchard with a predatory eye. To the fox, the ground below twitched with rodents, although the fox had not climbed the tree for the view—

He remembered what Mr. Rochester said to Jane Eyre: “Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre: remorse is the poison of life.”

Homer Wells had no doubts to soften his contempt for people who’d bungled their lives so badly that they didn’t want the children they’d conceived. Wilbur Larch would have told him that he was simply an arrogant, young doctor who’d never been sick—that he was guilty of a young doctor’s disease, manifesting a sick superiority toward all patients. But Homer was wielding an ideal of marriage and family like a club; he was more sure of the rightness of his goal than a couple celebrating their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary.

‘I awoke without having parted in my sleep with the perception of my wretchedness,’ ” Wilbur Larch had read aloud.

Kissing each other good night, and then finding excuses

Because abortions are illegal, women who need and want them have no choice in the matter, and you—because you know how to perform them—have no choice, either. What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman’s freedom of choice, too. If abortion was legal, a woman would have a choice—and so would you. You could feel free not to do it because someone else would. But the way it is, you’re trapped. Women are trapped. Women are victims, and so are you.

“Come on,” Wally said. “It only isn’t the South because they don’t live here. Let one of them actually try to live here and see what they call her.”

Wilbur Larch would have told him there was no such thing as playing a little God; when you were willing to play God—at all—you played a lot.

makes that kind of decision. I’ll just give them what they want, he thought. An orphan or an abortion.

You can’t interfere with people you love any more than you’re supposed to interfere with people you don’t even know. And that’s hard,” he added, “because you often feel like interfering—you want to be the one who makes the plans.”

Melony had instructed Lorna to send her body to Dr. Stone in St. Cloud’s. “I might be of some use to him, finally,” she had told her friend.

He had always expected much from Melony, but she had provided him with more than he’d ever expected—she had truly educated him, she had shown him the light. She was more Sunshine than he ever was, he thought. (“Let us be happy for Melony,” he said to himself. “Melony has found a family.”)