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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/38489-8.txt b/38489-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f81668d --- /dev/null +++ b/38489-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10776 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gargoyles, by Ben Hecht + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Gargoyles + +Author: Ben Hecht + +Release Date: January 3, 2012 [EBook #38489] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GARGOYLES *** + + + + +Produced by Annie R. McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + + + + + + + + +GARGOYLES + + + + +_GARGOYLES_ + + +_By_ +BEN HECHT + +[Illustration] + +BONI AND LIVERIGHT +Publishers New York + + + + +Copyright, 1922, by +Boni and Liveright, Inc. +New York + + + + +To My Friend +the +Chicago Daily News + + + + +1 + + +The calendars said--1900. It was growing warm. George Cornelius Basine +emerged from Madam Minnie's house of ill fame at five o'clock on a +Sabbath May morning. He was twenty-five years old, neatly dressed, a bit +unshaven and whistling valiantly, "Won't you come home, Bill Bailey, +won't you come home?" + +Considering the high estate which was to be his, as the estimable +Senator Basine, the introduction savors of malice. But, it must be +remembered, this was twenty-two years ago, and moreover, in a day before +the forces of decency had triumphed. The soul of man was still +unregenerate. Prostitutes, saloons, hell-holes still flourished +unchallenged in the city's heart. And Basine even at twenty-five was not +one of those aggravating anomalies who pride themselves upon being ahead +of their time; or behind their time. Basine was of his time. + +And on this day which witnessed him whistling on the doorstep of Madam +Minnie's, the Devil was still a gentlemen, albeit a gentleman in bad +standing. But, being a gentleman, he was tolerated. Tradition, in a +manner, still clothed him in the guise of a Rabelaisian clown, high born +but fallen. He walked abroad in his true character, flaunting his red +tights, his cloven hoof, his spiked tail and his mysterious horns. A +Mid-Victorian Devil innocent of further disguise, his face still +undisfigured by the Kaiser's mustachio or the Bolshevist's whiskers. A +naive, unctuous lout of a Devil with straightforward Tempter's +proclivities. An antagonist not for Dr. Wilsons and M. Clemenceaus and +the Societies for the Spread of True Americanization, but an +unpolitical, highly orthodox, leering, pitchfork-brandishing _vis â vis_ +for simple men of God. In short, the Devil was still a Devil and not a +Complex. + +It was growing warm and the calendars said--a new century ... a new +century. And the great men of the day pointed with stern, pregnant +fingers at the calendars and proclaimed--a new century ... a new +century. + +Beautiful phrase. The soul of man, in its struggle toward God knows +what, paused elatedly to contemplate the new milestone. Elated as all +youth is elated for no other reason than that there is a tomorrow, a +tomorrow of unknown and multiple milestones. Elated with the knowledge +of progress--that sage and flattering word by which the soul of man +explains the baffling phenomenon of its survival. + +The great men of the day stood staring through half-closed eyes at the +calendars. To anticipate by a single day! But the future no less than +the past remains a current mystery. And the great men--the +prophets--confined themselves with stentorian caution to the prophecy--a +new century has dawned. + +Basine, whistling and waiting for his companion to emerge on Madam +Minnie's doorstep, regarded the scene about him with the hardened moral +indifference of youth. It was growing warm. The May sun was striding, an +incongruous, provincial virgin, through a litter of blowzy streets. +Under its mocking light the rows of bawdy-houses and saloons suffered +an architectural collapse. Walls, windows, roofs and chimneys leered +tiredly at each other. The district seemed indeed an illustration for a +parable of Vice and Virtue drawn by the venomously partial pen of some +unusually half-witted cleric--dirty-faced brothels, tousled café signs, +bleery sidewalks, toothless storefronts all cowering before the rebuke +of God's sun. + +A few mysterious solitaries lent a vague life to the scene. The figure +of a drunk, unchastened, zigzagging humorously down the pavement like +some nocturnal clown prowling after a vanished Bacchanal. A hastily +dressed prostitute carrying her night's earnings as an offering to early +devotion. A few unseasoned revellers overcome with a nostalgia for clean +bathrooms and Sunday morning waffles at the family board, sleepily +fleeing the scenes of their carouse. + +All this formed no part of the preoccupations of the whistling one. He +was waiting for his companion and for the fifteenth time the tune of +"Bill Bailey" came softly from his lips. The companion appeared, a +crestfallen young man of twenty-three, Hugh Keegan by name. An idiotic +wistfulness marked the blond vacuity of his face. They said nothing and +walked to the street car track. + +Here they must wait. There was no car in sight. Basine employed the +wait, jumping out from the curbing and peering with a great show of +interest down the deserted tracks. The night's dissipation had left him +perversely elate. His vanity demanded that he confound the scenes of his +recent moral collapse by exhibitions of undiminished vigor of body and +gayety of mind. So he capered back and forth between the curb and the +deserted tracks, ostentatiously unbuttoning his coat to the chill of the +dawn and addressing brisk, cheerful sallies to his penitent friend. + +It was this way with Basine. He had spent the night in sin. Now he must +act as if he had not spent the night in sin. It was a matter of +deceiving his conscience, and Basine's conscience did not live in +Basine. It was, to the contrary, a mysterious external force, something +quite outside him. + +He eyed the virtuous hallelujahs of the sunrise with a somewhat +over-emphasized aplomb. Dimly he felt that a God was articulating in +dawns and sunbeams. As long as he had continued his whistling, these +facts had remained concealed. But now he had grown tired of "Bill +Bailey" and at once God, peering out of his beautiful rosy heaven was +saying, "Shame on you." Everything seemed to be waiting to repeat this +banal reproof. + +This was the conscience of George Basine--a reproof that came from +without. He felt an inclination to defiance before this reproof.... He +was young and given to evil. This was only natural, considering the time +in which he lived and the biological impulses of youth. + +But to do evil was one thing. To defend it after it was done was +another. Thus Basine, having sinned lustily through the night, avoided +the more unspeakable sin of defending his action. The reproof arrived, +he faced it with candor and intelligence, prepared to admit that he had +done wrong. + +He did not want God mumbling around inside him as was the case with his +friend Keegan. God mumbled around inside of Keegan and made him feel +like the devil. But Basine--there was no occasion for God to argue His +point. He, Basine, surrendered gracefully and forthwith. That was the +way to handle situations of the soul. + +To Basine, situations of the soul were a species of external discomforts +he identified as God. They were the regulations and taboos of a +civilization to which he was prepared at all times to submit, providing +such submission did not compromise him. One got rid of taboos by looking +them squarely in the eye and simulating respect or remorse. Taboos were +good manners. One had to be polite to good manners. Basine laughed, not +defiantly. He had already made his apologies to the dawn. The dawn was +God's good manners. It entered the world as precisely and as perfectly +as the saintly wife of a great financier might enter her grandmother's +drawing room. + +Waiting beside the car track, Basine was already a reformed and forgiven +man. The sun was like a huge Salvation Army marching through the +highways of Evil, beating great drums and singing, "Are you washed, are +you washed in the Blood of the Lamb?" He was glad of it. He was glad to +be once more a part of a virtuous world, a citizen of an ideal republic +given to the great causes of progress. + +This adjustment completed, memories of the night came to him as they +waited for the car. These memories failed, naturally, to conflict with +his character as a citizen of virtue. For they were memories which he +was prepared at any moment to repudiate and denounce. Thus prepared he +could of course enjoy them. + +The memories brought an elation, the elation which usually fills the +healthy male of twenty-five upon discovering or rediscovering that the +Devil is as alluring as he is painted and that the wages of sin are +neither death nor disillusion. He had enjoyed himself. Sin was wrong. +But if one knew it was wrong one could go ahead and enjoy it. The great +thing was to know it was wrong, to admit it frankly and share in the +general indignation of it and not to go around like a vicious-minded +freak defending it, like some people he knew were in the habit of doing. + +Thus on this May morning Basine was able to grasp the enormity of his +offense and to apologize whole-heartedly for its commission and +simultaneously to enjoy the memory of it. He had come away from Madam +Minnie's with an egoistic impression of his prowess and with the +self-satisfaction which comes of the knowledge of having cheated the +devil out of his due by his careful method. He remembered with a warmth +in his throat as if he were recalling something beautiful how the +creature had looked at the first moment she stood before him. + +He had spent the earlier part of the night getting creditably drunk. +Lured into a brothel by a woman with a hard, childish face, he had +devoted himself for several hours to the despicable business of sin. The +sordid make-believe of passion had pleased him vastly. He had managed in +fact to achieve an observation on life. As the night waned he had grown +philosophical and thought, how with good women one began with personal +talk, with an exchange of confidences. One began with emotions, with +gentle lacerations, wistfulness, sadness. And one progressed from these +toward the intimacy of physical contact. But with bad women one began +with the intimacy of physical contact. Only the abrupt matter-of-fact +tone of the thing robbed the contact of all intimacy. And one progressed +from this contact toward a wistfulness, a gentle shyness and finally an +exchange of confidences and personal talk. This last contained in it the +thrill of intimacy. A good woman surrendered her body and inspired +thereby a sense of possession. A bad woman surrendered the secret of her +birthplace and of her real name and inspired a similar sense. There was +also obvious the fact that the same sense of dramatic coquetry, +idealism, modesty or whatever it was that induced the good woman to +withhold her body induced the bad woman to withhold her confidence. + +Under the influence of this knowledge, Basine had pursued the usual +tactics of the predatory male and, as a fillip to the unimaginative +excitements of the night, obtained from his accomplice in sin the story +of her life. + +"The mystery of a bad woman is that she was once virtuous," he thought +as he fell asleep. "Just as the mystery of a virtuous woman is that she +could be bad." + +An hour later he awoke and with a thrill of quixotic honesty placed five +dollars in the moist hand of the sleeping houri, gathered his friend +Keegan out of an adjoining room and emerged once more into the world +with a clear head, a body full of elated memories and a laudable +conviction that he had done wrong, but that what happened yesterday was +not a part of today and that a man can grant himself absolution from +sin as easily as he can lay aside virtue. + +As for Keegan, he stared with mild eyes at the dawn, at the beggarly +alleys and the negro porter dreamily sweeping cigar stubs out of a +lopsided doorway. He listened patiently to his friend's enthusiasms. To +Keegan there was something inexplicable about Basine's morning-after +pose. Keegan had not found a place for God. Platitudes were not a +background against which he might posture to his convenience. Instead +they were terrible intimates. They operated his thought for him. + +After committing a sin one should be repentent. The commission of sin +was, of course, an outrage. But somehow the platitudes did not quite +reach into the bedroom of evil. They remained hovering outside the door +marking time, as it were, and whispering through the keyhole, "just wait +... just wait...." + +And as soon as he had emerged from the room, in fact even before that, +they had taken possession of him again. They demanded now repentance, +thorough repentance which included thorough repudiation of all joyous +memories, all pleasurable moments. And Keegan, surrendering himself as a +matter of necessity to their demands presented the exterior of a +sorrowing victim to the dawn. He offered a nod or a surprised stare as +punctuation for his friend's discourse, chewing the while on an +unsuccessfully lighted cigar which tasted sour. + +"There was something different about her from the usual girl of that +kind," Basine was explaining. "Wouldn't talk for a while but finally got +confidential and began to cry a bit." + +This was a lie, reflecting credit, however, on the youth's dramatic +sense and vanity. The knowledge that the creature under discussion had +been actually no different from the six other ladies of her profession +with whom he had experienced moral collapses since leaving the +university in no way interfered with his opinion of the recent episode. + +It was his opinion that things he touched were somehow different from +things other young men dallied with; that events which befell him were +of a certain mysterious fiber lacking in the events which befell others. +Thus he was reduced to the necessity of continual lying in order to +vindicate this conviction, more powerful than reality. Lying to himself +as much as to anyone else. By his lies Basine accomplished the dual +purpose of adjusting inferior incidents to the superiority of his nature +and of impressing this superiority upon his friends. A way of rewriting +life so as to fit himself with the heroic part, as yet denied him in the +manuscript and which he sincerely felt was his due. + +"Yes, she cried a bit. They usually do, you know." + +Keegan was innocent of this phenomenon, but nodded. He felt mysteriously +saddened by the fact that they never wept for him. Life denied him many +things. The creature he had spent the night with had treated him +somewhat brutally. She had laughed several times. He sought, however, to +make up for the indifference with which he felt himself treated by +heightening his contempt for her as a sinner. This necessitated an +increase of his contempt for himself as having been a partner in evil. +But that was a spiritual gesture made bearable by the wave of remorse +it aroused and by the knowledge that remorse was a laudable emotion. +Nevertheless, despite the remorse and the rehabilitation it offered his +vanity, he continued to feel--life denied him many things. + +Basine continued, "You could take a girl like that and make something of +her. Give her a month." By which he meant give George Cornelius Basine a +month and see the miracle he would work. + +Keegan sighed. He admired George, and his admiration of others always +depressed him. He was intelligent enough to know that he admired things +he lacked. And yet, he assured himself, he would despise the things in +himself that he admired in others. Therefore, it was very probable that +he despised them in others, or would at some later day, unless he +managed to conceal the fact or lose track of it in the confusion of +platitudes which served him for a brain. He looked enviously at his +friend, before whom hardened trollops dissolved in tears. + +"She's only been in the game a little while, you know, Hugh. A convent +girl, too. She told me her story. How she got started, you know. A love +affair with a Spaniard. A highly connected fellow." + +Basine prattled on, improvising a melodrama of virtue led astray, +editing the vaguely worded generalities of the creature he had left +asleep. Eventually he tired of the game and announced abruptly. + +"Not a car in sight. What do you say we walk, Hugh?" + +The idea of walking four miles home after a wild night engaged his +vanity. Things by which he proved the dubious superiority of his body +pleased him. + +"I think I'll run along," said Keegan. + +"Nothing doing, Hughie. You come with me. We'll have breakfast at my +house." + +Keegan frowned. There were two sisters and a mother in Basine's home. + +"I can't." + +"Why not?" + +"Oh, because." + +Basine persisted, gently malicious. It amused him to inconvenience his +friend's scruples. It also gave him a feeling of moral supremacy. Keegan +was ashamed to go to his home with him. He pitied him for this and yet +enjoyed the fact. It was because Keegan didn't feel sure of himself, of +his being a man of virtue. And he, Basine, did. There was no question +about it in his mind. + +"Ashamed?" he asked with a smile. + +"No," Keegan grunted. + +"Well, you haven't done anything worse than me," by which he meant "We +do things differently and I am above things that knock you out." + +Keegan stared at his friend furtively. There were things inexplicable in +George Basine. He must admire them. There was nothing inexplicable in +himself. + +He hesitated about going, however. A combination of platitudes was +involved. He felt the necessity of repentance. And then he felt the +necessity of hiding his shame. And finally platitude cautioned him +indignantly against affronting three good women--a mother and two +daughters--with the presence of one lately come from the flesh pots of +Satan. This was a superior platitude because it came also under the +index of good manners. + +But Basine, taking him by the elbow, swept him along, platitudes and +all. An inexplicable Basine whom he admired, envied, despised, and who +was his best friend and his model. They walked together, Basine briskly +to hide the sudden heaviness of his legs; Keegan yielding to the less +pronounced physical drain he had undergone and falling into a weary, +protesting gait. + + + + +2 + + +The death of Howard Basine had precipitated a creditable outburst of +grief on the part of his widow and two daughters. The event had brought +his son George home from college. + +They had shared a bed for twenty-six years, Basine _père_ and Basine +_mère_, achieving an utter disregard of each other which both took pride +in identifying as domestic happiness. In their youth love had brought +them together while comparative strangers. And after twenty-six years +death had parted them still strangers. But now complete and total +strangers--Siamese twins who had never been introduced to each other. + +Each had grown old by the side of the other, subscribing to the same +thoughts, worries, ambitions. It was as if a thin shell had grown around +each of them. This shell was their home, their mutual interest in bank +balances, diversions and tomorrows. It was the product of their +practical energies--their standing in the eyes of their friends, their +success and their solidity as a social unit. It was their pride in new +rugs, in invitations to functions, in their children. + +There were two shells. One was Basine _père_. One was Basine _mère_. +For twenty-six years these two shells cohabited together. But inside +each of them there had been a world of things that had never connected +and that remained forever part of a mutually preserved secret. Little +daydreams, absurdities, the swaggering, pensive, impractical rigmarole +of thought-life to which the world of reality--the shell-world--had +remained almost to the last no more than a vaguely sensed exterior. + +Each of them had lived almost continually apart from this shell. They +had given but a fraction of their energies toward its creation. It had +required only a little part of themselves to become two placidly +successful conventionally happy people with a home and family. The rest +of themselves they had allowed to evaporate. + +A pleasing process--evaporation. Dreams, ambitions, longings--all these +had evaporated slowly and secretively during the twenty-six years, +vanished into thin air. And each had been preoccupied with this process +of evaporation. It had been their real life--the life which diverted +them and which they mutually concealed from each other as they sat +together reading of evenings, or rode in cars or waited in offices or +lay in bed. + +Here in this real life were success and beauty and marvelous activities. +Here Basine _père_ planned Herculean enterprise and triumphed with +magnificent gestures, became a leader of finance, of armies; became a +lover of queens and odalisques. Caressing from day to day phantasms +which had no existence, it was in them that he chiefly existed. He +confined himself not only to illusions of grandeur. There were also +little things, charming minor victories which delighted his ego almost +as much as the greater ones. He was able to trick out the minor +victories with the illusion of reality. They were things that might +happen, that one could dream about almost as actually happening. Things +that he fancied people might be saying about him; admissions that he +fancied people might make to him; dreams that he fancied he inspired in +women who passed him and whom he never saw again. + +This illusory existence preoccupying Basine had fitted him ideally for +the companionship of orderly, placid-minded folk preoccupied like +himself with similar processes of evaporation. These folk were his +friends with whom he went to the theater, played cards, transacted +business, discussed issues. They were known as normal, practical +persons. The vast, illusory worlds in which they lived during the +greater part of their hours in no way encroached upon the realities of +their day. + +They were proud of having a grip on themselves, by which they meant of +being able to allow their energies to evaporate secretively instead of +feeling inspired to harness them to realities and run the risk of being +hoisted body and soul out of their shells into a maelstrom of +uncertainties and hullabaloos. In order to rationalize the disparity +between their actual estates and the fantastic estates of their illusory +lives, they devoted a part of their energies to the practical business +of glorifying their shells. They subscribed with indignation, sometimes +with fanaticism, to all social, spiritual and political ideas which had +for their objective the glorification of their shells. They became +champions of systems of thought and conduct which excused on one hand +and deified on the other their devitalized modes of existence. + +In fact as they grew older they developed a curious egoism which took +the form of a pride in their suppressions. They thought of themselves as +men who had achieved a superior sanity. This sanity lay in being able to +recognize the real from the unreal. The real was their shell. The unreal +consisted of the fantasies produced by the process of evaporation. This +sanity, too, enabled them to regard their imaginings and dreamings with +an amused condescension and to mature into unruffled +effigies--practical, hard-headed business men. + +The evaporation, however, influenced them in one vital respect. It +effected what they called their taste in the arts. They desired things +they read or listened to in the theater to be authentic interpretations +not of the realities about them but of the illusions in which they +secretly exhausted themselves. They desired the heroes and heroines of +literature and drama to be like the creatures and excitements of the +soap-bubble worlds bursting conveniently about their hard heads. And so +in their reading and theater going they enjoyed only those things which +afforded a few hours of vicarious reality to the grotesqueries, to the +fairy tale expansions of their departing dreams. + +During the last years of his life Basine had experienced the fullest +rewards of a virtuous, practical life. At fifty he had become empty. The +rigmarole of day dreams grew vaguer and finally ceased. He had become +bored with his grandiose and illusory selves. Don Juan, Napoleon, +Croesus, no longer wore the features of Basine. There was no longer any +thrill in idly decorating his tomorrows with kaleidoscopic +make-believes. + +There was no great tragedy in this. He was bored with his imagination +because he had run through the repertoire of his fancies too often and +so, slowly, his days grew more and more void of unrealities. Slowly also +he turned to the tangible things around him. He contemplated proudly the +details of his shell. It was a comforting shell. It fitted him snugly. +It consisted of his friends, his home, his children, his borrowed ideas, +his wife. + +No outward change was to be noticed in Basine _père_ when this happened. +There was nothing to say that the process of evaporation had ended and +that there was left an animate husk called Howard Basine; a husk that +did not mourn at the knowledge of its emptiness but that accepted +instead with piety and gratitude the presence of other husks, pleased +and warmed to move among their empty companionships. + +It was at this time that Basine proudly felt himself a worthwhile member +of society and grew to smile with tolerant disdain upon all persons who +busied themselves with the illusions he had overcome by the simple +process of denying them life. He called them fools, scoundrels, lunatics +and dreamers and he agreed with his friends that they were creatures +engaged in filling the world with discomfort and error. His dislike for +them did not make him unhappy for he was content in the flattering +knowledge that most people, everybody he knew and whose opinion he +valued, were like himself. His thoughts were nearly everybody's thoughts +and his life was like everybody's life. There was a sense of strength, +even satisfaction in this. He relapsed gracefully into a quiet emptiness +out of which he was able to derive final embalming fluid for his vanity +by pitying the distractions and unrest of others. + +Then he died. The sight of her husband lying under the glass of the +coffin had reminded Mrs. Basine of the curious fact that in their youth +love had brought them together. A memory burrowed its way from under the +débris of twenty-six years and confronted her. A memory of wild nights, +flushed cheeks, shining eyes, hope and careless words. And the dim +yesterday, the long-forgotten yesterday that lay in the coffin with the +paunchy figure of the bald-headed silk-merchant became suddenly real +again. + +When she was alone that night Mrs. Basine wept miserably for a love that +had died twenty-five years ago and lain buried and unmourned under the +débris of these years. A tardy exhibition of grief, sincere but +enfeebled by its own age, it spent itself in a few hours. The tears for +the memory of vanished youth and vanished love of which the body waiting +in the coffin had become for a space of grotesque symbol, were followed +by the inarticulate sense of an anti-climax. + +Howard Basine's dying was somehow not a tragedy to the woman who had +lived with him for twenty-six years. When she had wept at first, the +idea of death came like a panic to her heart. Things had died. Days, +nights, hopes had died. But she had been unaware of their dying. The +figure of her husband leaving for his day's work, returning from his +day's work, sitting at the head of the table, retiring to bed with +her--this had been a mask behind which the dying of things remained +concealed. + +Now that he had closed his eyes and vanished it was as if a mask had +been removed. One could see all at once all the things that had died. +And she saw not only Howard lying dead, but most of herself. In her mind +she had no memory of the illusory selves she had lived, like her +husband, alone. These illusory selves whose successes and romances she +had caressed in secret had of late abandoned her. Like her husband she +had turned to the shells they had created about themselves as the +comforting reward of her life's negation. + +Now it struck her that these shells were full of dead things. While he +lived they had seemed alive. The fact that the man with whom she had +survived twenty-six years continued to talk and to move had given her +the vague feeling that these years were also still alive, still existent +somewhere. Now the man was dead and the years were dead with him. They +had been dead all the while but they had not lain in a coffin for one to +look at like this. + +Dead years. And she, a survivor. Her sense of contact with the past +deserted her. She was alone. Everything that had been was no more and it +seemed during her grief as if it had never existed. + +She lay and wept, feeling that something had been terribly wasted. Once +there had been youth. Now there was age. She had already lived but how, +where? Look, she was already old but how had it happened? She who could +remember so many things about youth--her pretty face, her careless +hopes, bright, happy excitements; and most of all, the feeling that +things lay ahead--that a store of mysterious things waited for her--she +who could remember it so plainly was an old woman. It had seemed natural +before he died but now it seemed unnatural. She would die soon, too. Her +youth--something she thought of as youth, arose and stretched out +far-away arms to her. It came to her in the night and stood smiling at +her like a ghost of herself. Yes, she was already dead and she could lie +in bed weeping for her husband and staring with tired eyes at memories. +Thoughts did not disturb her. Her emotions, grown too involved for the +shallows of her mind, gave her the consciousness merely of a panic. + +But the panic left. It receded slowly and the death of her husband +stirred in her during the first weeks of mourning a gentle affection for +the man. She closeted herself with the memories that had terrified +her--sensual memories of an impetuous lover, an idealization of a +long-forgotten Howard. And her sorrow became like a vague honeymoon +shared with slowly dissolving erotic shadows. + +This too went. As it went away the widow became curiously younger in her +features, her black clothes, her mannerisms. She grew to find the +loneliness of her bed desirable. She would snuggle kittenishly between +the empty sheets, an unintelligible sense of immorality--as if it were +immoral to sleep alone--lending a luxury to her weariness. + +Yes, it was somehow nicer to sleep alone, to have the bedroom all to +herself. In her mind things that were different from the routine of her +life and that belonged to the secret imaginings that had once filled her +days were immoral. And this was different--being alone. So her living +on without her husband became an odd sort of infidelity, pleasant, +diverting. + +The year and a half passed bringing a rejuvenation to her body. Her +youth and its decline were buried in a coffin. Now at fifty-two she was +living again and creating out of the remains of her figure, coiffure and +complexion a new youth--at least a new exterior. + +The dreams of her earlier days returned to her and she no longer found +it necessary to deny them all reality. It had been necessary before in +order to keep herself fitted into the shell. And as a result her dreams, +denied any possibility of realization, had become like his, more and +more fantastic, more and more warmly improbable. Now there was no need +for a shell. There was no need to preserve an easily recognizable and +never failing characterization. She had done that before so as to avoid +confusing her husband and herself and she had been rewarded by a similar +ruse employed by him. + +Now that he was gone she found herself changing. She found herself +approaching the romantic conception of herself. And since she was able +to carry into reality her rejuvenated fancies, to devote herself to +looking stunning, to making a somewhat exotic impression upon people, to +arousing interest--her imaginings did not expand as before into +distorted and improbable pictures. She began to busy herself, to +actively give them outlet, to have time or surplus energies for the +evolution of fancies beyond her. + +She had no plans for the future and she was not interested in any. An +amazing fact had come into her life--the present. She abandoned herself +to it. She had harnessed what was left of the energies allowed so long +to evaporate and the process of evaporation was at an end. She would +become, if there was time, a keenly alive, egoistic woman gorging +herself upon the desserts remaining at the banquet board before which +she had sat for twenty-six years with closed eyes and listless hands. + +She felt these things only dimly. There was a freedom to life, like a +new taste in her senses. Of this she was confusedly aware. And her +sorrow for her dead husband became a pleasant thing, a thing inseparable +from the gratitude she unknowingly felt for the new existence his death +had given her. + +She referred to him with a pensively magnanimous air, inventing +perfections in his character and endowing his departed intelligence with +a wisdom far beyond her own. This enabled her to utilize his memory in +an odd way. When she argued with her friends or children, when she was +doubtful concerning the extravagance or selfishness of her actions, or +the newly born radicalism of her views, she would quote mercilessly from +her dead husband. The fact that he was dead lent a sanctity to whatever +views he may have held. Not in her own eyes but, as she shrewdly sensed, +in the eyes of others. And she grew to play unscrupulously upon this +thing she perceived in her children and friends--that they respected the +words and opinions of a dead man infinitely more than those of one +alive. + +Thus she was able to indulge herself in ways which would have astounded +and perhaps horrified the departed Basine and to bring her immediate +circle to accept these ways as conventionally desirable by making her +dead husband their spiritual sponsor. Her friends chafed under this +ruse, but felt themselves powerless to combat it. They were men and +women who lived on the opinions of the dead, who subscribed fanatically +to all ideas sanctified by the length of their interment. Themselves, +they practised the ruse of editing the wisdoms of the past as well as +prophecies of the future into vindications of the present. They felt +indignant but powerless before the treachery of Mrs. Basine, who raided +the mausoleum for private articles of faith. + +Mrs. Basine was aware at first of lying but this feeling gave way to a +conviction that if her husband had not thought and said the things she +attributed to him while he was alive he would have done so had he +continued to live. + +"Because," she said to herself, "we were always alike and thought and +said the same things always." + +Her son George was proud of his mother but inclined to be dubious about +the change that had come over her. He was irritated particularly one +evening to hear his mother advocate equal suffrage rights for women to a +group of surprised friends gathered at their home. + +"I think such ideas foolish and dangerous," George explained politely. + +"Why?" his mother inquired. + +Basine shook his head. He had given the subject no thought. But a +militant defense of the status quo inspired him always with a +comfortable feeling of rectitude. + +"I see no reason," pursued Mrs. Basine, "why women shouldn't vote as +well as men. I remember your father was very much interested in the +issue of women's suffrage. He said the day would come when women voted +shoulder to shoulder with men and that the country would be improved by +it." + +Basine stared at his mother. He had grown to realize that she had +discovered the trick of lending weight and irrefutable wisdoms to her +own notions by surrounding them with the sanctity of death. For it was +almost impossible to fly in the face of a quotation from his father. The +fact that the man was dead seemed to make contradiction of any ideas or +prophecies attributed to him a sacrilege. There was also the fact +becoming daily more obvious that his mother was turning into an +unscrupulous administrator of the dead man's opinions. + +"I never heard father say anything of the kind," he exclaimed suddenly. +And then feeling that a loss of temper was the only way in which he +could cover the affront he had offered his mother, he added with +indignation, "You keep backing up your arguments by dragging dad's +corpse into them all the time." + +Mrs. Basine looked at him in amazement, and he reddened. He apologized +quickly. Mrs. Basine, shocked by her son's unexpected penetration, bit +her lip and became silent. She let the argument pass, not without +observing that her friends present appeared for a moment to rally around +her son's exposè--as if he had given words to their own attitude. She +decided when she was alone again to be more careful. She loved her son +and felt a dread of sacrificing his respect. There was a dread also of +sacrificing the respect of these others who had looked at her for a +moment with an accusing understanding. + +There had been present a Mrs. Gilchrist, an old creature of oracular +senilities whom she had grown secretly to detest. But the detestation +she felt was accompanied by a vivid desire to keep in with the woman. +Mrs. Gilchrist was a person of position, decided position. Her son +Aubrey was a novelist. This alone endowed the Gilchrist tribe with an +aura of culture. They lived in Evanston and were active, mother and son, +in the social life of the town. + +Mrs. Basine was unable as yet to determine the reasons that made her +dislike her. In her secret mind she called Mrs. Gilchrist a domineering +old fool. But she stopped with that. There was the Gilchrist social +position. + +Society had always interested Mrs. Basine. But since her widowhood this +interest had become active. She had read the society columns of the +newspapers regularly and through the twenty-six years of her married +life retained the singular idea that the people whose names appeared in +these columns belonged to a closely knit organization similar to the +Masons--only of course, infinitely superior. + +The appearance of a new name among the list of socially known always +stirred an indignation in her. She was not a bounder herself. The +closely knit organization whose members poured tea, gave bazaars, +occupied boxes at the theater had been, in her mind, a fixed and +invulnerable institution neither to be taken by storm nor won by +strategy. Thus she had excused her lack of social ambition and success +by investing Society with an almost magical aloofness, a sort of +superhuman cotorie of tea pourers and benefit givers that kept itself +intact and beyond intrusion by the exercise of incredible diligence. + +Among her day dreams during these years had been those of magnificent +social successes, of long newspaper articles describing with awe her +splendor and prestige. But in reality she would as soon have thought of +breaking into society as of attacking twelve policemen with a carving +knife. She resented therefore the appearance of new names in the society +columns. + +"Bounders," she would murmur to herself, half expecting that the +Organization into which they had bounded would issue some outraged and +withering excommunication upon the new tea pourer. But the name would +appear again and again and after such innumerable appearances Mrs. +Basine would automatically accept its presence within the Organization +and rally quixotically to its defense against the other bounders +struggling to invade the sanctity it had achieved. + +And although during this period of her life Mrs. Basine had felt none of +the low instincts which inspired the bounders to bound, she had +endeavored to the best of her abilities to mimic as much as a humble +outsider could the spiritual elegancies which distinguished the +Organization. She succeeded in creating a formal atmosphere about her +home, a dignity about her table of which she was modestly proud. She had +felt in secret that any member of the Organization entering her +house--an event of which she dreamed as a waveringly sophisticated child +might dream of a fairy's visit--would have experienced no dismay. + +Now this attitude which had characterized her married life was changing. +Society was no longer an impregnable Organization. Mrs. Basine was, in +fact, engaged determinedly upon its conquest and her attitude toward +the detestable Mrs. Gilchrist was colored by that fact. An +acquaintanceship with the Gilchrists had been achieved through +manoeuverings of her daughters as workers in charity bazaars managed +by the woman. + +Until the death of her husband Mrs. Basine had ignored her two +daughters. A proprietory feeling in them which exhausted itself in +dictating the surface details of their lives had been the extent of her +interest. She had presumed during their childhood and adolescence that +they were Basines--and nothing else. This had guided her parenthood. +Being Basines, they must conform to Basinism which meant that they must +be like their mother or their father and she struggled carelessly to see +that their youth did not assert itself in ways inimical to her own +characterization. Doris the younger was inclined to be beautiful. Fanny, +however, had always seemed to her a more substantial person. + +But her widowhood had brought a belated curiosity concerning these young +women. She wondered at times what their dreams were. She understood that +they were strangers and this began to interest her. She was proud of +them and although undemonstrative would sometimes put her arms around +both of them as they walked to a neighbor's after dinner. + +They did not inspire the pride in her, however, that her son did. George +had finished his law and she felt as she listened to him talk or watched +his face at the table that he was somebody. There was an assurance and +health about him. His keen-featured face, the straight black hair parted +in the center, the movements of his lithe body, always quick and +definite--and particularly his hands--these made her think of him +vaguely as an artist, somebody different. She knew in her heart that +although he seemed to differ in his ideas from none of their friends, he +was not like other young men. + + + + +3 + + +It was Sunday morning. Mrs Basine and her two daughters were sitting +down to breakfast. Hugh Keegan followed Basine embarrassedly into the +dining room. The two young men had been renovating themselves for an +hour in the bathroom. + +The meal started casually. Fanny Basine studied their guest with what +was meant to be a provoking carelessness. She was a facile virgin who +wooed men persistently and slapped their faces for misunderstanding her. + +"You've been quite a stranger, Mr. Keegan," she said. Her eyes smiled. +Keegan felt wretched. He was conscious of being unclean. The fresh, +virginal face of the girl smiling at him filled him with rage. He +accepted a waffle from Mrs. Basine with exaggerated formality. + +He was not enraged with himself. This was too difficult. It was easier, +simpler to be repentant. His repentance did not accuse him as a man who +had sinned but denounced the things which had caused him to sin and made +him unclean. To himself he was essentially perfect. There were forces, +however, which infringed upon his perfection, which soiled his fine +qualities. + +Eating his waffle, he thought of the creature with whom he had spent +the night, of the dismal bedroom, the frowsy smelling hallway, the +coarse talk and viciousness of the entire business. And he began to feel +a rage against them. He would like to wipe such things out of the world. +He managed to answer Miss Basine politely. + +"I've been out of town a great deal," he said. + +"George always said you were a gadfly," Fanny replied. + +Mrs. Basine spoke. + +"You look rather tired, George." She gazed pensively at her son. "I +don't like you to stay out all night like that." + +Basine frowned. What did his mother mean by that? Did she suppose he had +spent the night in debauchery? It sounded that way from the way she +looked and talked. Basine grew angry. He did not want his mother to +accuse him. + +"You don't expect a man to remain cooped up night and day, do you?" + +"Oh, I don't mind your going out. But not the way you did last night." + +She looked at him and then, as if realizing for the first time the +presence of her daughters, changed her manner. + +"Won't you have some syrup, Mr. Keegan." + +Keegan thanked her and lowered his eyes. He had understood her +accusation and accepted it as authentic. He had no mother of his own and +this inspired in him a curious sense of obedience toward all mothers he +encountered. Mrs. Basine's accusation embarrassed him. The embarrassment +increased his disgust for the memory of the night. He would like to +wipe out such obscene and vulgar things. He would like to burn them up, +forbid them. Someday he would. + +Basine, however regarded his mother with a sense of outrage. The fact +that her surmise of what he had done during the night was correct was a +matter of minor importance. She didn't know what he had done and +therefore she had no right to guess. He answered her angrily. + +"I did nothing at all last night that I wouldn't have my sisters do." + +His mother looked at him in surprise. Keegan blushed. + +"You're always hinting around, mother, about things and you're +absolutely wrong. Absolutely," he added for a clincher. His eyes +remained unflinchingly on his mother. + +There was a convincing air of virtue about him and a doubt entered her +mind. Perhaps she had suspected him unjustly. But he had been away all +night. She had heard him come in around six. Where could he have been if +not--in such places? Yet she felt like apologizing. + +Basine fiddled with his food. He was acting out the part of injured +innocence. He was an unprotesting martyr to the low suspicions of his +family. The fact that he was guilty in no way interfered with the +sincerity of his injured feelings. His mother's accusation had sincerely +hurt him, even more than it would had he been actually innocent of wrong +doing. He transferred whatever emotional guilt he had into indignation +toward his accuser. + +This was an old trick of his, developed early in childhood--a faculty +of committing crimes without becoming a criminal. More than Keegan, he +was above self-accusation. But unlike Keegan the doing of a thing he +knew to be wrong did not inspire him with the adroit remorse which took +the form of hating the thing he had done instead of himself. + +The crimes Basine committed--usually no greater than normal violations +of the ethical code to which he subscribed--were things that had nothing +to do with the real Basine. The real Basine was the Basine whom people +knew. The real Basine was a characterization he maintained for the +benefit of others. The crimes were his own secret. People didn't know +them. Therefor they did not exist. They remained locked away. He did not +say to himself, "Hypocrite! Liar!" + +When he denied his mother's accusation he did not of course forget the +things he had done during the night. In fact even while he spoke there +came to him a vivid memory of the prostitute. + +In disproving the existence of this memory he was not disproving it for +himself but for his mother. His energy as usual was bent toward +presenting a certain Basine for the admiration of another. The Basine he +sought to create for the admiration of his family was a moral and honest +man. When they seemed inclined to challenge this creation, their +suspicions angered him. + +His attitude was that of a creator toward a hostile critic. He +frequently lost his temper and denounced their suspicions as unjust, +unfair. And in his mind, conveniently clouded by indignation, they were. +Not to himself as he was, but to the self he insisted upon pretending at +the moment he was. + +This self was the Basine he was continually creating--a Basine that was +not based upon deeds or truths or facts but upon ideals. It was an ideal +Basine--a nobly edited version of his character. He believed in this +ideal Basine with a curious passion. This ideal Basine was a mixture of +lies, shams, perversions of fact. But that was only when you considered +him in relation to his creator--to its original. In his own mind it was +as absurd to consider this ideal Basine in relation to its creator as it +would have been for a critic of æsthetics to consider the merits of +Oscar Wilde's poetry in relation to the degeneracy of the man. + +Considered by himself, the ideal Basine was a person of inspiring +virtues. He was proud of the things he pretended to be, vicious in their +defense, unswerving in his efforts to inspire others with an +appreciation of these pretenses. + +His anger toward his mother ebbed as he noticed the doubt come into her +manner. She had hesitated for a moment in face of significant facts, in +accepting the ideal Basine. But her son's sincerity had convinced her as +it convinced most people who knew him. The sincerity with which he +defended the idealization of himself was easily to be mistaken for a +sincerity inspired by an innocence of actual wrong-doing. + +As soon as he felt certain he had re-established the ideal Basine in his +mother's eyes, all thoughts of the facts passed from him. The admiring +opinion of others was what his nature desired and what his energies +worked for. Once obtained this admiration was a mirror in which he saw +himself only as he had argued others into seeing him. + +He looked at his friend Keegan with a smile. Keegan was still blushing. +Keegan knew that he had lied and that the entire pose was a sham. But +this only added another thrill to the fleeting self-satisfaction of +having re-established himself in his family's eyes. He enjoyed the +knowledge that Keegan was able to see what a successful liar he was and +how adroitly he managed to deceive people. This enjoyment was not a part +of the emotion of the ideal Basine. It was a purely human sensation felt +by Basine, the creator. + +There was a single flaw in his little triumph. This was, as usual, the +attitude of his sister Doris. While the others were chattering Doris +kept silent. She had dark eyes and black hair. She was entirely unlike +anybody in the Basine family. Fanny was blonde and vivacious with a pout +and full red lips. Before the death of her husband Mrs. Basine had +summed up her daughter Doris as being aristocratic. + +At fifteen Doris had been painfully shy. People smiled encouragingly at +her because she seemed afraid of them. Four years later people ceased to +smile at her. They looked at her out of the corners of their eyes and +wondered what she was thinking about. Her silence was like a confusing +argument. Had it not been for her beauty her silence could easily have +been dismissed. But her dark eyes and dark hair, the slightly lowered +pose of her oval face and the unvarying line of her fresh lips with the +little sensual bulges at their corners, drew the attention of people. +And their attention drawn, they waited to be told something. So merely +because she told nothing they fancied she had a great deal to tell. They +attributed to her silence all the doubts they had concerning +themselves. Silence was to them always accusation. + +Her brother's attitude toward Doris was typical. He detested her and yet +was more pleased when she nodded at something he said than when others +were loud with acclaim. He detested her because she made him feel she +was his superior. In what way she was superior he didn't know and why he +felt it he couldn't understand. But he sensed she was someone who had no +respect for the ideal Basine and no particular love for his creator. + +She had also a way of deflating him. He felt sometimes as a toy balloon +might feel in the presence of a child with a pin. He never ignored her. +He watched her always and studied her carefully. He did not desire to +please her but he felt that until he had perfected the ideal Basine to a +point where he would be acceptable to Doris, admired by Doris, his +creation would be lacking in something vital. + +As the breakfast came to an end her brother focused upon Doris. This was +invariably the effect of her silence. She was as yet unconscious of it. +Had you asked her why she spoke so little and why she neither smiled nor +frowned at people she would have thought a while and then with a shrug +replied, "Why, I hadn't noticed." Later when she was alone she would +have continued thinking of the question and perhaps said to herself, "It +must be because they don't interest me. They seem so silly and unreal." + +"What are you doing today?" Basine asked her. + +She answered, "Nothing." He noticed she failed to add, "Why?" He +resented her lack of curiosity. Fanny would have said, "Nothing. Why do +you ask?" But Fanny was a good fellow, a lively, amusing child. + +"Mrs. Gilchrist and Aubrey are coming over later," Mrs. Basine +announced. + +"She makes me tired," Fanny smiled. "And somebody ought to pull dear +Aubrey's nose just to see if he's really alive. He's too dignified." + +Her brother nodded. + +"Do you know him?" Fanny asked Keegan. + +"Slightly," said Keegan. "I've read one or two of his books. They're +very interesting." He paused, hoping that everyone agreed with him. +Everyone did except Doris. + +"What's the matter, Dorie? Don't you like Aubrey's works?" her brother +asked. Doris smiled vaguely. + +"I've never read anything he's written," she said. "I don't know." + +Keegan looked at her uncomfortably. He felt he disliked her and he would +have been pleased to ignore her. But the fact that she seemed to have +anticipated him in this respect and to have ignored him first, piqued +him. + +"I think Judge Smith and Henrietta will be over later," Basine addressed +his mother. Judge Smith was the august and senior partner of the law +firm that had taken young Basine into its office. + +"Yes, Aubrey told me," Mrs. Basine said casually. "I think they're +engaged." + +"Who, Henrietta?" from Fanny. + +Her mother nodded. She stood up and the group sauntered into the living +room. Keegan approached Fanny. Her freshness made him feel sad. + +"Let's sit here," Fanny whispered as he drew near her. She employed the +whisper frequently. It usually brought a gleam into the eyes of her _vis +â vis_ as if she had promised something. + +To appear to promise something was Fanny's chief object in life. It was +the basis of her growing popularity. The two sat down in a corner of the +room secluded from the others. Keegan had interested her. At least his +far-away, unappraising look had interested her. She preferred men more +appraising and less far-away. Her object now was to reduce her brother's +friend to an admirer. Admirers bored her. But the process of converting +strangers, particularly far-away and unappraising strangers, into +admirers was diverting. + +Keegan had other plans. A desire to repent aloud had been growing in +Keegan. The girl's bright face and virginal air had been inspiring him. +He wanted to tell her how unclean he was and how ashamed of the things +he had done. He wanted to denounce sin. + +He felt tired. Fanny talked and he listened. He wanted to weep. He +thought her fingers were beautiful and white. He would have liked to +kneel beside her weeping, his head against her and her cool white +fingers running over his face. It would be a sort of absolution--a +maternal absolution. In the meantime his silence piqued her. + +"You don't seem very interested in what I'm saying," she interrupted +herself. She looked at him and instinct supplied her with a new attack. + +"Where were you and George last night?" she asked. "Mother was furious +about it." + +Keegan looked sad. His blond face collapsed. + +"Men are awful rotters," he answered, lowering his voice. + +"Oh I don't know. Not all men." + +"Yes. All men." Savagely. + +"Why do you say that?" + +"Because--" Keegan hesitated. Mysterious impulses were operating behind +his talk. The night's debauch had sickened him. He was experiencing that +depressing type of virtue which usually comes as a reaction from an +orgy. His indignation at the bestiality of the male and the moral +rotteness of life was a vindication of the temporary weakened state the +night had induced in him. By denouncing sex he excused the disturbing +absence of it in himself. + +He was however not content to vindicate the absence in himself of +sensual excitement. He would also make use of his lassitude by +translating the enervation it produced into self-ennobling emotions, +into purity, innate and triumphant. He experienced high-minded ideas and +an exaltation of spirit. + +"Because," he repeated, finding it difficult to choose words +sufficiently emasculated to reflect the phenomenal purity of his mind, +"well, if women knew, they would never talk to men. But women are so +good, that is, decent women, that they simply don't understand and can't +understand ... what it is." + +"About bad men?" Fanny whispered. Keegan nodded. + +"And are all men bad?" she asked. + +Again Keegan nodded, this time more sadly. It was a nod of confession +and purity. In it he felt his obscene past and his pious future embrace +each other, one whispering "forgive" and the other whispering "yes, +yes. All is forgiven." + +Tears warmed his throat. Fanny's eyes looked at him with an odd +excitement. Her mind was as always conveniently blank of thought. +Thoughts would have served only to embarrass and handicap her. She was +able to enjoy herself more easily without thinking. It was a ruse which +enabled her to regard herself as a clean-minded girl. + +Young men had frequently taken advantage of her kindness and grown bold. +They would during a tender embrace sometimes take liberties or draw her +close and press themselves against her. It was at this point that her +mind would awake like a burglar alarm suddenly set off. It rang and +clanged--an outraged and intimidating ding-dong of virtuous platitudes +which she had incongruously rigged up in the sensual warmth of her +nature. But lately the mechanism by which she routed her would-be +seducers did not quite satisfy her. + +At twenty she had grown fearful. When she was younger the men she led on +were no more than boys. The mechanism had sufficed for them. But the +last two years had witnessed a change in her would-be seducers. They had +grown up, these males. She remembered always uncomfortably a young man +who had burst into laughter during her outraged denunciation of him. He +had said to her. + +"Listen, girl. If I wanted you, all I would have to do is tell you to +shut up and slap your face. And you would. Your 'how dare you?' don't go +with me. I've known too many girls like you. But I don't want you. Not +after this. If it'll do you any good I'll tell you now that I won't +forget you for a long time. Whenever I want a good laugh I'll think of +you. There's a name for your kind...." + +And he had used a phrase that nauseated her. The incident had occurred +on a Sunday evening in the hallway. He had reached up, taken his hat +from the rack and without further comment walked out. + +Fanny had spent the night weeping with shame. The memory of the young +man's words made spooning impossible for a month. She was essentially an +honest person and unable to do a thing she knew was wrong. Her only hope +of pleasing herself and indulging her growing sensuality lay in +remaining sincerely oblivious to what she was doing. As long as the +man's words stuck in her memory it was impossible to remain oblivious. +They had awakened no line of reasoning or self-accusation in her mind. +Her mind was still conveniently blank. The youth's denunciation lay like +a foreign substance in it, a substance which fortunately time was able +to dissolve. + +After a month of embittered virtue Fanny returned warily to her former +tactics. She was cautious enough to begin with men as young as herself. + +One night in April she gave her lips again. They had been making candy +in the kitchen. She turned the light out as they were leaving. The young +man stood in front of her in the dark. His arms went shyly around her. +With a satisfied thrill, she shut her eyes and allowed the boy to kiss +her. A languor overcame her. She ran her fingers through his hair and +gently pressed closer to him. + +The warning sounded sooner than usual, and in a surprising way. It came +from within this time. The boy had not grown bold. He was enjoying her +lips shyly and his embrace was almost that of a dancing partner. +Nevertheless the burglar alarm clang-clanged. Her body had grown hot. +The impulse to crush herself against the boy, to open her mouth, to +embrace him fiercely, throbbed in her, and bewildering sensations were +bursting unsatisfactory warmths in her blood. + +She hesitated. She might secretly yield to these demands. He would +remain unaware of it and there would be no danger. But the alarm finally +penetrated the fog of her senses. She was unable this time to shut off +the current of her passion by the burst of sudden virtuous anger. The +mechanism of her retreat had always been simple--a trick of turning her +sensual excitement into indignation, of energizing the virtuous +platitudes rigged up in her mind by the passion the caresses had +stirred. The greater this passion, the more violently her pulse beat, +the more violently the platitudes would clang and the more outraged her +"how dare you?" would sound. + +But it was impossible to say anything this time. Her hands pushed +suddenly at the politely amorous youth. His embrace skipped from her as +if it had been waiting for such a remonstrance. She stood with her head +whirling. She felt limp and ill at ease. + +"Don't you love me?" the young man whispered. The lameness of his voice +would ordinarily have made her smile. But now the words seemed to draw +her. She wanted to answer them, to say, "yes." For the moment it seemed +as if she must confess she loved this impossible young man. She walked +quickly out of the dark hallway. In the lighted room she was ashamed of +herself. Her body tingled with unaccountable pains. She managed to +survive the evening without revealing herself. She was grateful for the +youth's stupidity. + +When she lay in bed she closed her eyes firmly and tried to sleep. But +her body disturbed her. Sensations that lured and frightened played +furtively throughout it. She lay stretching and sighing. Later, overcome +with a nervous weariness, she fell asleep. + +On awaking she remembered her triumph and felt proud. In retrospect the +sensations she had felt and the temptations that had urged her seemed +distasteful. + +Years before she had rationalized her behavior toward young men by +inventing a code. The code was based on the fact that hugging and +kissing and the pleasure these inspired were in no way connected with +"the other." When she thought of more intimate relations it was always +in some such phrase. She was completely ignorant of the physiological +mechanics of marriage. But her ignorance inspired no curiosity. She did +not think of it as a logical culmination of the feeling embraces gave +her. She had a definite attitude toward "the other." It was a thing +separated from her numerous experiences by a gulf. There was only one +bridge across--marriage. + +Keegan interested her. Since the incident of the embarrassed young man +with whom she had made candy in the kitchen, she had been secretly on +the lookout for someone like him. She wanted someone with whom she could +repeat the startling experience of that other evening without letting +herself into danger. Someone who would remain oblivious to the passion +his caresses aroused and so allow her to enjoy slyly the sensations +whose memory had never left her. + +She looked around the room. Doris had gone upstairs and George was not +to be seen. Her mother was reading behind a large table. + +"Tell me, why are men bad?" she asked in a whisper. Her blue eyes were +wide. An air of altruistic sorrow surrounded her. She grieved for men. +The question appealed to Keegan. His eyes grew moist. He was unable to +understand this impulse to weep. But somehow it was pleasant. + +"They're not bad," he answered softly. "It's only that they don't +realize till too late. If all women were like you, there would be no bad +men." + +"Oh, then it's the woman's fault?" + +Keegan nodded but said, "Not exactly. It's like figuring which came +first into the world, the egg or the chicken that laid it. It's hard +telling whether women are bad because men have made them so or whether +men are bad because women give them chances to be. That is, that kind of +women, you know." + +He felt elated at his tolerance. A few minutes ago he had been +denouncing bad women in his mind. But now it pleased him to be broader. +Fanny was looking at him with cheeks flushed. Her mother had risen. + +"I think I'll go to church," Mrs. Basine said. "Do you want to come +along." + +"Not today, mother dear," Fanny answered. Keegan was on his feet. + +"If you want to," he offered gallantly to the girl. + +"I usually love to," Fanny sighed. "But I don't feel quite like it +today. You go along, mother." + +Mrs. Basine smiled and left the room. Fanny heard her brother talking +in the hall.... "I think I'll go with you, mother." She listened to +Keegan in silence, waiting for the outer door to close. Now they were +alone except for Doris, upstairs. + +"I know how you must feel about it," she said. "But I don't understand +how a man like you or George can do such things. It must be awful." She +paused, blushing and added in a whisper, "Horrible!" + +Keegan nodded and felt overcome as he watched her shudder and draw her +shoulders nervously together. He covered his face with his hands. This +was, he felt, being almost too dramatic--to hide his face. But his +virtue demanded dramatics. He wanted to talk facts now, confess facts. +By denouncing what he had done during the night he would increase his +present emotion of chastity. + +"Don't," he said, "lets talk of it." + +His eyes grew wet again. He was tired. If only life were as clean as +this girl he was talking to.... If only life were beautiful and chaste. +And there were no sex. No sin. Men and women just sweet friends. But +life was different. It was full of unclean things. He couldn't help it, +what he did. He didn't want to do it. But life surrounded him that way +with things unclean. He wept. + +Fanny hesitated. Her face had grown colored and her nerves were alive. +She must do something. Her fingers desired to caress Keegan's hair and +she thought how nice it would be to be kissed by him. But she resolutely +barred further thoughts from her mind. It was wrong to think about such +things. Fanny's code would allow her to do nothing wrong--if she knew +it. She leaned forward impulsively. He was sitting on a window seat. +Her hands touched his covered face. + +"You mustn't," she said. + +He was sorry for life, for its uncleanliness. He would like to go +somewhere far away where clean clouds and a beautiful sea were just as +God had made them. And there he would like to sit with this girl, their +hearts beautifully sad. + +She stroked his hair shyly with maternal fingers. He felt the caress and +his heart melted. Its sin poured out leaving him exaltedly cleansed. +Yes, she understood him, the ache of repentance in his soul, the +nostalgia for cleanliness that hurt him so. She understood and she was +telling him so with her fingers. + +"Poor boy," she whispered because he was weeping. "I'm so sorry. You +won't, again? Ever? Will you?" + +"No," Keegan mumbled tremulously. + +It was easy and exalting to confess and promise in this way, without +mentioning anything by name. Just by sound. + +"I'm so glad," she whispered, as if they were in church, "if I have done +that for you...." + +"You have," he agreed. "I feel like a ... like a dog." + +"Don't...." + +Her fingers were playing over his cheek. She could be bold. A man in +tears was harmless. She stood up with determination and sat down close +beside him. She took his head in her hands and looking with clear +understanding eyes into his, shook her head sadly. + +"You need a rest," she whispered. "Here ... rest like this." + +She placed his head as if he were a child on her shoulder. Keegan's +heart contracted with remorse at the innocence of the gesture. Her +purity was something poignant. He closed his eyes and drifted into an +innocuous satisfaction. This was a realization of his hopes for purity. +He recalled with bitterness the filthy embraces of the night. How +superior this was, how much cleaner. + +"Wait a minute," Fanny murmured, a wholesome matter-of-fact maternalism +in her voice, "you lie down and rest ... like this." + +She assumed the proprietory gestures remembered from her childhood when +she had "played house" with little boys and girls, and guided Keegan to +stretch his legs on the window seat. He grinned apologetically. Fanny +sat down and placed his head in her lap, her hands gently caressing his +hair. + +"Now sleep," she murmured. "There's nobody in the house and you can get +a good long rest." + +Keegan shut his eyes. A blissful enervation stole over him. His heart +felt grateful. She was like a mother might be. Everyone had a mother +except him. + +"You're so kind," he sighed. + +He had known Fanny for several months only and had never talked to her +alone before. But now it seemed to him she was his oldest and most +intimate friend. Because she understood. He thought of her as a +companion of his better self. The warmth of her lap soothed him. +Unaware, he dropped into a half doze. + +The man's head lying heavily against her body began to stir her senses. +She made certain first that he was not pressing himself against her. No, +he was merely lying naturally. A tenderness grew in her heart. She +murmured to herself, "Poor boy, poor boy." + +This wasn't quite as it had been in the kitchen that evening. The murmur +continued as her face grew flushed and she breathed unevenly. She wanted +to stretch and sigh. + +Keegan stirred. A fear came that he realized her sensations. He was +playing possum. No. She watched his eyes open and noted their stare of +filmy tenderness. + +"You're so sweet," he whispered. + +She smiled pitifully at him and said, "Rest. Just rest. I feel so sorry +for you." + +In fact, imposed upon the excitement which the pressure of his head +against her aroused, was a feeling of Samaritan pity. However, she +wondered without displacing this emotion of altruistic concern for the +young man, how far she dared go. She wished that his hands would touch +her but they would have to stand up for that. + +"Oh!" + +She moved Keegan's head gently away. + +"I thought I heard someone." + +Slipping to her feet she stared eagerly toward the door. Keegan +straightened himself. He looked at her drowsily. + +"It's no one," she smiled. Her eyes covered him with tender interest. He +thought of some picture of a saint--Saint Cecelia or someone like that. + +"Why don't you go up in George's room?" she asked. + +She gave him her hand as if to assist him in a comradely way to rise. He +stood up slowly. + +"You don't know what you've done for me," he began, "you're so different +... so good." + +She smiled and made a pretense of assisting him further by passing her +arm gently around him. + +"I don't know what it is," he murmured. He stopped. His heart was +hurting him with longing. He was unclean. But this beautiful saint would +cleanse him, purify him. She was a part of life he desired--the clean +things. But he was afraid. How could he after last night, how could he +dare? She would certainly misunderstand if he touched her. She would +think he was a scoundrel. + +"Fanny," he whispered. + +She looked at him with intensely tender eyes as a mother might regard a +forgiven child. He embraced her, his hands resting only lightly on her +back. + +"Forgive me," he mumbled. "But everything's so rotten. I feel like such +a cad after what I've done. You ... you make me almost happy again." + +His mind was pleasantly fogged. He was thinking of himself as a +despicable sinner receiving mysterious absolution. + +She said nothing but let herself come closer. She was adroit and he +remained unaware that she had pressed herself tautly against him. He was +concerned entirely with the purity of his caress. He read in her eyes +and flushed face a forgiveness, an absolution. Her grip on him that had +grown firm was the grip of a woman raising him out of the Hell in which +he had wallowed. His senses, deadened by debauch, failed to detect the +pressure of her clinging. + +She could dare. An intensity came slowly into her nerves. She would like +to move, to crush herself against him. But she managed to restrain +herself. She began to weep. + +"Don't," he whispered. "You mustn't. I'm ... I'm not as bad as all +that." + +She managed to say, "Oh ... I feel so sorry for you. It just hurts me to +... to think of you like that. Promise me you'll never again.... +Please.... Promise me.... Promise me...." + +Her words, despite her, grew wild. She raised her eyes feverishly and, +tightening her arms, pressed herself to him. The man's harmlessness had +betrayed her. She continued to weep, "Promise me ... you'll never ... be +bad like that again...." + +Her emotion reaching its depth sent a delicious sense through her. She +embraced him for a moment. In the receding fog of her satisfied impulse +she heard him answering, tears in his voice. + +"You're so sweet.... So wonderful. Oh, forgive me.... I'll never be bad +again.... Forgive me...." + + + + +4 + + +Judge Percival Smith was a fastidious gentleman who boasted of his age +as a contrast to his virility. + +"Sixty-two," he pronounced impressively. And he would wait for people to +look at him in amazement, fortunately unaware of the fact that they had +thought him at least seventy. + +His wife had died when he was forty-six. She had never managed to +understand him, chiefly because he had remained polite to her through +eighteen years of marriage. She had grown to regard him with awe. + +Her friends always referred to him as a gentleman--a gentleman of the +old school. This was because he had a deep voice and enunciated clearly +and professed a consistent preference for the days when men were men and +women were women. + +His friends mistook the clarity of his enunciation for a clarity of +thought--an error which found social vindication in the fact that he had +been on the bench nine years. Aside from his consistent preference, his +views on current issues were also those of a gentleman. Why, it was +difficult to determine. But he supplied their identity himself by +clinching his arguments with the question, "I don't see, sir, how a +gentleman can think otherwise." + +He was often considered old fashioned. But he was admired for this. In +discussing religion he would say: + +"I am not one to quibble with my Maker or with any of His holy +decisions. I believe absolutely in the gospel of infant damnation. A +religion with loopholes is not a religion. Either there is a God or +there isn't. If there is and you accept Him then you accept Him. You do +not argue with Him. I don't see, sir, how a gentleman can think +otherwise." + +Concerning women he would say: + +"Women represent the finer things of life. Not for them the turmoil and +strife of economic battle. Their function in the scheme of things is +obvious, sir. They were placed in the world by a wise Maker in order to +bring sweetness, purity and light to bear upon the strivings of man. A +woman's hearthstone is her altar. No, they are not the equal of man. +They are his complement. Man is gross. Woman is fine and sweet. I do not +believe in any of these disgusting ideas which seek to lower her from +the altar she now occupies in the eyes of all gentlemen." + +When he delivered himself of these utterances he managed always to give +to them the certainty of a man who was pronouncing judgments. He was +admired for this certainty. People who felt doubts in their minds were +always pleased to hear the Judge make pronouncements. They felt that it +was impossible that a man who spoke so clearly, whose eye looked so +unflinchingly at one and whose manners were so perfect, could be wrong. + +He might not be quite as modern as some folks but he knew what he was +talking about. He was the stentorian and impressive interpreter to them +of a world they understood. The ideas which flourished in this world +were in the main dead or dying. But this fact only lent a further +impressiveness to them and to him. + +People who sought to argue with Judge Smith usually ended by stuttering +and growing red-faced. They felt as they talked and watched his blue +eyes narrowing and his lips tightening, that they were talking +themselves outside of the pale. His silence became an excommunication. +They read ostracism in his frown and began to fumble for words, trying +to propitiate him in one breath while presenting their side of the case +to him in another. But he was not to be deceived by this ruse. He would +sit poised and grimly attentive like a man judiciously enduring the +presence of blasphemy but under great emotional strain. When they +concluded, it was frequently unnecessary for him to offer counter +arguments. His opponents felt their defeat in the knowledge of his +superiority, not as a thinker, but his superiority as a man of +inviolable standards, his superiority as a gentleman. + +In eighteen years of close contact his wife had never penetrated the +shell of certitude and personal elegance within which the judge moved. +During their hours of intimacy he revealed himself as a man of normal +passions. But even during these he was solicitous, unbending and a +gentleman. + +In the morning, dressed, his white napkin tucked under his ruddy face he +would be again--Judge Smith. + +She had tried several times early in their marriage to carry the +intimacy of the bedroom to the breakfast table. He had listened to her +endearments and furtive reminiscences at such moments with eyes +seemingly incapable of comprehending and she had felt each time that her +talk was obscene, and grown frightened. + +Her death brought no perceptible change in Judge Smith's life. He +continued a gentleman. His name appeared at intervals in the newspapers +as having gone to Washington to argue a case before the Supreme Court. +His friends felt on reading this that the Supreme Court was an +institution perfectly fitted to him. It was hard to imagine anybody but +a man who looked and acted like Judge Smith arguing a case in the +Supreme Court. + +The Smith home, a brownstone house in Prairie Avenue, was occupied by +the Judge, his daughter Henrietta and a housekeeper. Henrietta had +finished boarding school at nineteen. She had since then busied herself +as an assistant housekeeper. At twenty-one she impressed people with +being as naive and fresh as a girl of seventeen. It was hard to think +of her as in her twenties. + +She was a round-eyed, round-faced child with fluffy blonde hair, a +small-boned body and a general air of juvenile fragility. She talked +very little but bubbled with exclamations of delight, excitement, +enthusiasm, astonishment. These she was continually employing, +regardless of their incongruity. She greeted people with delight, +saying. + +"Oh! I'm so glad to see you! Isn't it wonderful?" And managed to scatter +a dozen exclamation marks through the sentences. If one said to her, +"Did you see Sothern and Marlowe last week?" she replied excitedly, "Oh +no! I missed them! I'm so sorry! Aren't they wonderful?" + +Asked for an opinion of a new hat she would exude the same exclamation +marks in, "Oh! It's simply too adorable for words! I'm just mad about +it!" + +And to such a remark as, "I read in the paper the other day that +President Roosevelt went fishing," she would offer a wide-eyed stare and +exclaim, overcome with astonishment, "Why! Gracious! Is that so! Isn't +that awfully funny!" And incomprehensibly, she would laugh as if +overcome with mirth. + +People regarded her as a charmingly vivacious, well-mannered girl. Her +exclamations pleased them by lending an importance to their small +talk--a small talk which constituted nearly the whole of their +conversational lives. Her explosive banalities invigorated them. They +said of her: + +"Judge Smith's daughter is so alive. She's so fresh and young and so +enthusiastic." + +Henrietta thought her father the greatest and most important man in the +world. She called him "FATHer," stressing the first syllable in a manner +that distinguished him from all other fathers. Her admiration satisfied +the judge. He demanded of her only obedience, respect and chastity. +Since she gave him these he looked upon her as a shining example of true +womanhood. + +To have searched for an inner life in Henrietta would have been +difficult. She was unaware of any other Henrietta than the surface she +presented. There was no secret calculation behind her manner. Her body +at twenty-one was still as undisturbed by desires as her mind was by +thought. + +She was physically and mentally vacuous and the words that sometimes ran +in her mind were parrotings of things she had heard. Her days passed in +a pleasant maze of trifles in which she exhausted her energies. Her +manner of enthusiasm and astonishment was sincere. In her exaggerated +exclamations the energies of her youth merely found a necessary and +utterly respectable outlet. Her banalities were too vigorous to be aught +but authentic and original. They were the enviably correct flower of her +personality. + +The judge, however, had a side to his nature generally unsuspected among +his friends. He was a drinker. He owed the resonant slowness of his +speech, in fact, to the ravages of drink. His poise, his intimidating +deliberateness were likewise the result of drink. His mind had been +somewhat enervated and the spontaneity of his nerves somewhat impaired +by thirty years of intensive drinking. + +His words followed his thoughts slowly and his gestures were moments +behind the commands of his brain centers. This general slowing up, the +result of nerve exhaustion induced by his orgies, was readily accepted +by his friends as an impressiveness of manner. + +In arguments he found himself frequently unable to follow the nimble +phrases of an opponent. His resort to silence--a silence made seemingly +pregnant by certain mannerisms such as a tightening of his lips, a +drawing down of his nose, and a narrowing of his eyes, which were +actually an effort to ward off a sleepiness continually hovering over +him--this silence was a successful substitute. + +Mainly the judge kept his orgies to himself. During his married life he +had adroitly covered them up as business trips--cases in other cities. +His habit was to start off at his club, to sit among a half dozen men +whose type he found agreeable and drink slowly during the early part of +the evening. The talk would gradually veer from politics and legal +discussions to women and anecdotes. In these the judge excelled. His +fund of obscene stories was amazing. He related them with relish and was +proud of an ability to talk several dialects such as German, Irish, +Yiddish, Scotch and Swedish. + +Among his club cronies his drinking and alcoholic waggery in no way +reflected upon his status as a gentleman of absolute respectability and +discretion. In fact they enhanced it. Among the judge's friends were +lawyers of repute, financiers, and owners of large manufacturing plants. +They were men usually past fifty. Their comradeship was based chiefly on +their recognition of each other's prestige. + +The publicity that had attended their lives gave them all an identical +stamp, a self-consciousness. They felt themselves instinct with power, +and bent the greater part of their social energies to appearing +democratic. They desired, as much as they desired anything, the flattery +which lay in the comment, "Oh, he's very democratic. Just plain ordinary +folks." They felt an exciting inference in this criticism. The inference +was that, considering their power and superiority, one had to marvel at +the fact of their dissimulation--their democracy. Thus they relished +always lending themselves to projects, to situations which earned for +them the awed avowal of inferiors that they were "just folks." + +A certain shrewdness as well as flattery which inspired them. They were +aware that people often preferred confessing the superiority of their +betters by admitting in awe that "after all, he's just like us, in many +respects." + +On occasions when a group of them gathered at their club they stepped +partly out of the characterizations of great men which they affected +during most of their day. Drinking, taking their turns telling stories +or pointing up incidents by the "did you ever hear the one about the +Swede who went to a picnic with his best girl" method, they always +welcomed Judge Smith. They were inclined to overlook a few things in his +favor. If he did seem to have an unnecessary fund of smutty tales, there +was on the other hand the fact that he was a judge and therefore above +the anecdotes he told. Like the judge, they too were men with firmly +rooted convictions on the subject of morality and if they laughed at +stories over their highballs that flouted decency and made a mock of +virtue there was this exonerating factor to be considered. Men sure of +themselves and subscribing unflinchingly to the uncompromising standards +of conduct necessary to maintain the morale of the community, such men +could without danger unbend among themselves. For morality was in its +deepest sense, the protection of others and not of one's self. + +As the group thinned out on such occasions Judge Smith would rise and in +the manner of a man returning to the higher and more important duties of +life bid his fellows good-night. + +"A very pleasant evening, gentlemen," he would pronounce, "but duty +calls." + +He would bow stiffly. Long drinking had made him master to an +astonishing point of his physical being while under the influence of +drink. Bowing, he would walk with dignity from the room, emerge into the +street and enter one of the cabs. + +A half-hour later would find him disporting himself in one of his +favorite disorderly houses. Here with the aid of further drink the judge +became a curious spectacle. He was generally hailed in the places that +knew him as "the wild old boy". And his arrival although greeted with +enthusiasm was a matter of secret chagrin to the landladies of his +acquaintance. + +It was his habit to indulge in filthy insults, hurling astounding +obscenities at the half-drunken inmates. He would frequently become +violent and throw bottles around, break mirrors and electric bulbs and +smash chairs. It was difficult to grow angry with him at such times +because he covered his violences and insults with a continuous roar of +laughter as if they were actually the product of a vast Rabelaisian good +humor. + +His insults, the obscene invective he hurled at the partners in his +orgy, were a curious phase. They were the product of a process of +projection. His normal mind, still alive under the paralysis of alcohol, +pronounced these outraged denunciations of his behavior against himself. +His virtue and decency cried a savage disgust and he must rid himself of +these cries, find an outlet for his self-revulsions, if he desired to +continue the debauch which was also an outlet for things inside +him--things that slept too violently under the repressions of his shell. + +Thus he rationalized his two selves by giving voice to the terrific +protests of his virtue. Simultaneously he hid himself from their object +by fastening the insults that poured into his thought upon those around +him. The women explained among each other in their own words that he was +a filthy old man and ought to be ashamed of himself. + + + + +5 + + +It was afternoon. Mrs. Basine listened to Judge Smith explaining the new +moving pictures that were being shown at the vaudeville theaters. + +"It's all part of the craze for new things," he was saying, "and these +awful pictures are merely a fad. There is nothing of basic appeal for +Americans in them and they'll die out in a year or so." + +Mrs. Basine was always impressed by the judge. He had three days before +been on one of his debauches. His manner as a result was heavier and his +words slower. After one of his wild nights the judge sought to efface +the memory of the uncleanliness by heightening his personal appearance. +He would indulge himself in Turkish baths, facial massages, hair +shampoos, manicures and changes of linen during the day. + +The sight of himself immaculately dressed, spotless, his face, collar, +nails and shoes shining, gave him a feeling of reassurance. Clothes and +appearance had more and more become a fetish with him until he had +developed into a fop. There was a certain passion in his demand for +cleanliness. A disordered tie would mysteriously depress him. A spot on +his trousers or shoes would preoccupy him until its removal. Once while +on his way from the theater he had been splashed by a horse. Unaware of +the accident at the time he had gone to a restaurant. There he had +noticed the condition of his clothes. The mud had reached as high as his +shoulder. A nausea overcome him. He hurried to the lavatory and cleaned +his clothes. + +His daughter admired her father for his fastidiousness. She looked upon +all other men as somewhat sloppy in comparison. + +"It isn't just that father dresses well," she said, "but he's so +particular about everything. About his plates and forks, and his bedroom +must be bright as a new pin. Oh, it's just wonderful for a man to be +thoroughly clean like that." + +Although the judge had spoken to Mrs. Basine it was her son who +answered. + +"I saw the pictures at the vaudeville the other evening," he said, "and +I quite agree with you, Judge." + +The judge nodded pleasantly. He liked Basine and had already prophesied +a future for him. Henrietta was informing Doris of the trouble they were +having with the church choir. + +"Dr. Blossom," she was saying, "is just absolutely at his wits' end. We +can't get anybody ... anybody at all that's at all suitable." + +"Mrs. Gilchrist and Aubrey are coming over," Mrs. Basine remarked to the +judge. She was unable to keep a sound of pride out of her voice. + +"A very fine woman. An exceptionally fine woman," he answered. Mrs. +Basine nodded. + +Basine sat down beside his sister Doris. He was interested in Henrietta. +The news of her approaching engagement had exhilarated this interest. He +had been a half-hearted wooer himself when he first came out of college. +As she rattled on he was thinking, "She has nice eyes. She probably +doesn't love Aubrey." He thought of Aubrey. A putty-faced, swell-headed +fool. He could put it all over him, even as a writer, if he wanted to. + +"I hear," he said aloud, "that you and Aubrey are engaged or almost +engaged." + +"Why the idea! Gracious!" A disturbed giggle. "Where on earth did you +hear that! Father hasn't announced it yet." + +"A little bird," smiled Basine. Doris looked at him and frowned. + +"What do you say we pop some corn," he announced. + +One of Basine's most engaging facilities was an ability to reflect in +his own words and actions the character of those to whom he talked. +Judge Smith regarded him as a young man of stable ideas and profound +seriousness. Henrietta looked upon him as a charming, light-hearted +youth who was able "to play." There were others to whom he appealed +separately as a young man of culture, modern to his finger tips; as a +man of pious kindliness; as a man interested exclusively in politics, in +economics, in literature, in women. His pose was seemingly at the mercy +of his audience. He did not deliberately seek to make himself agreeable +by presenting exteriors acceptable to his friends. His proteanism was in +the main unconscious. It was the result of an underlying desire to +impress men and women he knew with his superiority. + +He had found instinctively that a short cut to such impression was not +contradictions but agreement. But he would not merely say "yes" and +please his listener by subscribing whole-heartedly to the ideas or +points of view under discussion. He would take these ideas and points of +view and develop them, show with a sincere creative enthusiasm why they +were correct and how astoundingly correct they were. + +He was usually cleverer than the people with whom he agreed. This made +it possible for him to develop their ideas, to add to them, supply them +with nuances and far-reaching overtones of which their originators had +had no inkling. When he had finished they would find themselves warmly +applauding what he had said, admiring his sanity and intelligence. + +It was no longer Basine who agreed with them. They agreed with Basine +and each of them went away saying, "A remarkable young man. Full of very +fine, worthwhile ideas and able to express himself." + +They were conscious while praising him that they were also praising +themselves. Although they were unaware of the adroit theft committed by +Basine and unable to follow the way in which he filched their little +prejudices and inflated them to noble proportions with his cleverness, +they felt a kinship with the young man. Their inferior egoism did not +demand recognition as collaborator. They were warmed with the emotion of +being _en rapport_ with someone whom they admired. So often clever +people were people with whom, somehow, one had little or nothing in +common. But Basine was a clever person with whom everyone seemingly had +everything in common. And they were delighted to have things in common +with a clever man. + +There were occasions on which Basine's cleverness was put to a difficult +test. These came when a number of people, each of whom knew him +differently, to each of whom he had identified himself as a champion of +divergent opinions, assembled in his presence. Basine, it usually +happened, was the friend in common and therefore the pivot of the vague +debates which sometimes started--the awkward exchange of half-remembered +arguments which constituted the intellectual life of his friends, as the +make-believe of "playing house" had constituted their adult life when +they were children. + +But at such times Basine revealed his interesting talents as a +compromiser, fence straddler, pacifier. Without espousing any of the +sides presented, without denial or affirmation, he managed to convince +the assembledge that he was a champion of all and detractor of none. He +pretended a worldly tolerance, saying such things as: + +"Well now, there are always two sides to a question. And a man who +closes his mind to either side is likely as not to find himself in the +dark. What Henning says is interesting. I can entirely understand it +and see the reasons for it. He sees the thing in a clear, definite +manner. Yet what Stoefel says is also interesting and, of course, +entertaining. I don't mean that I believe two sides to a question can +both be the right sides. But it's my experience that there's an element +of truth as well as of error in both sides. And I'm not so convinced +that Henning and Stoefel actually differ. Often people meaning the same +thing get into violent arguments because they misunderstand each other." + +In this way he would convince both his friends that they were both men +of intelligence, which is more flattering than being merely men of +intelligent views. And, what was more important, he would give the +listeners the impression of a calm, deliberative Basine, not to be taken +in by the tricks of prejudice and speech which caused men to knock their +heads together in endless argument. + +Henrietta accompanied him into the kitchen in quest of corn to pop. +Doris remained behind, staring disinterestedly at the judge who was +talking to her mother. She had noticed something about the man that +displeased her. She kept it, however, to herself. When he shook hands +with her he assumed a paternal manner. He said to her: + +"Well, my dear child, and how are you today? Serious as ever, I see. I +understand that you and my little girl had quite an interesting time at +the choir practice Saturday evening. Dear me, you will both soon be +grown up and young ladies before I'm aware of it." + +He talked with a kittenish banter in his voice as if he were patting a +child of five on the head. But he held her hand during his entire +speech and his soft finger tips pressed moistly into her palm. It was +hard at first to detect but after a long time Doris understood. Fanny +had told her in an unsolicited confession that young men did that when +they wanted to be familiar with a girl. It was a familiarity which only +bad girls understood. Fanny added that a number of nice men whom she +never would have suspected of such a low thing had done that to her hand +but that the way to get the better of them was merely to pretend you +didn't know anything about it. + +Doris, disgusted by her sister's chatter, had remembered Judge Smith. +The judge always did that, ... moving his finger tips as if he were +unaware of the fact. This afternoon he had done it again. She had never +been able to see the judge as her mother and brother saw him. To Doris +there was something intangibly repulsive about his flabby, smooth-shaven +face, about his shining linen and deliberate manner that impressed +everybody. She did not resent the things he said. To these she was, in +fact, indifferent. But the man's personality awakened a revulsion in +her. She did not explain it to herself. She was aware only that she felt +uncomfortable when he looked at her and that when he beamed his +kindliest or boomed most virtuously, she felt like sinking lower in her +chair and contorting her face with shame, not for herself but for him. + +Basine and Henrietta had returned to the room. A grate fire was burning +wanly. Basine, squatting down like an elated boy, arranged a cushion for +her. + +"Oh, we've forgotten the thingumabob," he exclaimed, "come help me find +that." + +Henrietta skipped excitedly after him. Moments like this were dear to +Henrietta. Looking for thingumabobs, planning popcorn feasts, having +lots of fun and in a way that was intelligent. In the kitchen Basine +searched for a minute and then turned to the girl with a laugh. + +"I wanted to ask you something," he said. "That's why I lured you out +again." + +"For heaven's sake! Gracious! Aren't you ashamed of yourself, George +Basine!" + +She laughed with him. The thought had secured to him that it would be +interesting to take Henrietta away from Aubrey. He didn't want her +himself for any particular purpose. She was not a girl one could seduce, +or even desired to seduce. And marriage was miles from his head. + +Yet he had once held her hand while sitting on her father's porch and +whispered idiotic things to her. He had made love to her, said to her, +"Henny dear, I'm wild about you." It annoyed him to think that Aubrey +Gilchrist would marry her, would appropriate her as if the things he, +Basine, had said and done were of no possible consequence. In addition +he had always disliked Aubrey. + +"Henny," he said quickly, he had called her Henny two years before, "are +you really in love with Aubrey?" + +Henrietta made a face and swung her shoulders like a child embarrassed. + +Like Keegan, he was physically tired from his night's debauch. But in +Basine there was no impulse to repent. As he stood looking at the girl +he grew curiously sensual in his thought. + +The consciousness of his deadened nerves was an irritant to his vanity. +He was always doing things he felt disinclined to do, as a result of his +constant work of idealization. Also, to follow one's impulse and act +logically was what everyone did in a way. If Hugh Keegan was tired he +sighed and said so. But Basine, if he was tired, would laugh and suggest +adventures. If Keegan or the others he knew were elated over something, +they announced it, naively, like children. But Basine edited his elation +and often pretended to be bored. And when he was actually bored he often +pretended enthusiasm. + +Such odd perversions had become a habit with Basine. Behind the +confusion of purpose that inspired them was a certainty that in acting +the way he did he distinguished himself from other people. Often no one +was aware, of course, that he was acting, that his enthusiasm was the +heroic mask of weariness. But Basine was enough of an egoist to enjoy +secretly the emotion of superiority. + +Because he was tired and because he would have preferred ignoring the +trim figure laughing beside him, he deliberately took her hand and +allowed his smile to grow serious. Now as he looked at her and saw her +eyes soften, his vanity clamored for satisfaction. It was one of the +moments in his life when his vanity most desired satisfaction, proof of +the high opinions he held of himself. He was tired, bored and without +impulses. + +To dominate others, to possess himself of their regard and homage was +the goal toward which he always built. Now the desire to possess himself +of the regard and homage of the girl whose hand he was holding came +acutely into his thought. + +"Henny," he whispered, "I'm sorry about you and Aubrey." + +"Why?" + +This was the sort of boy and girl scene at which she was almost adept. +People held hands and even kissed without altering the correct social +tone or content of their talk. + +"Because," said Basine, "Oh well, because I love you." + +The phrase stirred, as it always did, a faint emotion in his heart. He +had used it frequently, even with prostitutes, and it had always given +him a fugitive sense of exaltation. Walking alone in the street at night +he would sometimes whisper aloud, "I love you, George. Oh, I love you +so." He would have no one in mind whom he might be quoting at the +moment. The words would come and utter themselves and give him a sudden +lift of spirit. It was like his other self-conversation when walking +along swiftly in the street he would begin exclaiming under his breath, +"Wonderful ... wonderful ... wonderful...." The word like his +mysterious, "I love you, George" came without cause or relation to his +thoughts and repeated itself on his lips. + +Henrietta was staring at him. It was chiefly because she was surprised. +She remembered that they had been friends once and held hands and that +he had said things. But all that had been a part of a pretty game one +played with boys, because they liked it and because it was rather +likable in itself. She was surprised now because he looked sad. Sadness +in her mind was synonymous with seriousness. People were never serious +unless they were sad. When she wanted to be serious she would always +lower her eyes and arrange her expression as if she were going to weep. +Then people understood that what she said was really truly serious and +not just part of the game people were always playing among themselves. A +game in which nothing was serious or funny or anything--but just was. +Because that was the way it should be. + +Basine was pulling her slowly toward him. + +"Don't you love me?" he asked. "Don't you love me at all?" + +He was talking aloud to conceal the fact that he had drawn her to him +and was placing his arms around her. To do anything like that in silence +would have frightened Henrietta. But to talk while one was doing it, +that made it seem less definite. One could ignore what one was doing, +ignore the hands pressing one's shoulders and the touching of bodies by +pretending to interest one's self entirely in the conversation. + +Basine knew this because he had made love to girls and taken liberties. +As long as he kept talking and asking questions the girl would pretend +she was so occupied in answering the questions and keeping up socially +her end of the talk that she was oblivious to the liberties that were +being taken with her. + +Henrietta answered, "Why do you ask that? Do you really think you ought +to ask me questions like that, George Basine?" + +"Yes I do," he said, "why shouldn't I?" + +"Oh because. Because you're engaged to Marion." + +"Who told you that?" + +"I know. Anybody could know that. Aren't you?" + +"No more than you are to Aubrey." + +"Gracious! Aren't you the clever boy. I declare! Engaged to Aubrey! +Heavens, I'd like to know where you heard that." + +"A little bird told me." + +"It did not." + +"Yes it did." + +"You know better than that, George Basine. I wish you'd tell me really." + +"Why should I." + +"I'd like to know, that's why. I think I have a right to know." + +"Oh but I did tell you something. I told you I love you." + +"Why, George Basine!" + +During the talk Basine had moved her closer to him. His arms were +tightly around her and he had kissed her eyes and cheeks between his +questions and answers. The embrace had aroused no physical desire in +him. He was irritated by the coolness of his nerves. He was irritated at +his being unable to feel anything with his arms around a pretty girl. +Usually the incident would have reached its climax with the half kiss he +placed on her mouth. That was as far as good girls went. At this point +they ordinarily said something like, "Listen, I want to tell you +something. I almost forgot." And gently detaching themselves from one's +arms, continued to talk in the same tone they had used during the +embrace about some event that had occurred during the week. + +And then one returned to the sitting room and went on talking casually +as if nothing had happened. It was the height of bad taste to remind a +good girl today that one had kissed her yesterday or to presume upon it +in any way. It was the height of bad taste also to resist when they +gently pushed one away and said, "Listen, I want to tell you something. +I almost forgot." + +Basine knew the simple technique of these virginal intrigues. +Henrietta's hands were pressing him. This was the signal to release her +and pretend that nothing had happened. Ordinarily Basine would have +complied. He had no interest in the girl. His original impulse to take +her from Aubrey had slipped from his mind. + +But he had grown sad. The mild sensual moment he would usually have +experienced in the embrace had been missing. His tired nerves had not +responded. Unable to exhilarate his senses he sought to make up for the +failure by treating his vanity to an exhilaration. This exhilaration +would come if the girl he was holding grew suddenly sad, raised wide +eyes to him and in a shamed voice murmured, "I love you, George. Oh, I +love you so." + +He would make her do this. + +"Oh, Henny. Why don't you love me? I want you so much all the time." + +"Why George Basine!" + +She had suspected something different about the game when it started. +And this was different. Even with Aubrey it had not been as different as +this. Aubrey's mother and her father had decided upon the engagement +after Aubrey had been fussing her for a few weeks. + +But this was different. George Basine was in love with her! She had +always liked him because her father said he was a fine, promising young +man and because he knew how to play, and was really like herself in many +ways. She wondered what she should do. She felt worried because she was +afraid she would say something that wasn't right. + +She couldn't ask him to let her go because he was only holding her +lightly and she could move away if she wanted to. She thought his eyes +were sad and she felt suddenly sorry for him. He had stopped talking and +his eyes were sad. They were looking at her and they made her feel sad, +too. Things were so different when one felt sad. Everything seemed to go +away then and nothing remained. Everything went away and left one a +little frightened. As if the world were unreal and everybody was unreal +and nothing really was. + +She was frightened like that now. Or at least she thought it was fear. +Then she saw it was something else. Her heart had started to pound hard +and her throat fluttered inside. No one had ever looked at her like +this. So seriously. As if she were somebody very serious. It made her +feel strange. She grew dizzy and her arms felt weak. She whispered his +name and his hands crept over her cheeks. This thrilled her as if there +were electricity in his fingers. And frightened her again. But it was +nice. Like being a little girl, almost a baby, and falling into an older +man's arms--her father's arms. She could almost remember being a little +girl and lying in her father's arms. + +"Do you love me?" + +She would answer this time. + +"Yes," she said. "Oh George." + +She hid her face against his coat. Basine was careful not to embrace +her. Her "yes" had given him an inexplicable moment. He had felt himself +expand under it. In her unexpected submission--he had never dreamed of +such a thing ten minutes ago--she became suddenly someone who was very +rare and sweet. He was still utterly oblivious of her and had it turned +out to be Marion in his arms instead of Henrietta the difference would +have made no change in him. The thing that was rare and sweet was the +exhilaration in his senses--a purely spiritual exhilaration. He enjoyed +it as one might enjoy some unforeseen and startling gift. + +He grew tender. He wanted to kiss the eyes and hair of her who had given +this gift to him--the thing which felt so warm in his heart and tingled +so pleasantly in his thought. He must reward her somehow for having +stirred in him this delicious excitement, reward her for the sweet +surfeit her surrender had given his vanity. For a moment bewildered by +this inner desire to express the gratitude he felt, he stood trembling. + +"Oh, I love you so, my darling," he whispered. "You're so beautiful." + +It was her reward for having surrendered to his unspoken demand. It was +an expression of the overwhelming generosity that choked him. He found +in the saying of the words a sweetness almost as keen as her surrender +had afforded him. To hear himself say to someone, "I love you," was +mysteriously exhilarating. The thrill that accompanied his bestowal of +largesse excited him to further experiment. He was not carried away but +he relished the emotions between them, the sense of having triumphed +and the provoking sense of bestowing grandiose reward. + +"Darling, tell me ... please tell me--will you marry me?" + +"Oh George!" + +"Tell me ... tell me...." + +He was acting now, making his voice dramatic, pretending uncontrollable +longings. She must say "Yes." He wanted her to and she must. He did not +want to marry her. The thought had never occured to him. But it would be +unbearable now unless she said "Yes." He must pretend and act and make +the thing end by her saying "Yes." + +"Oh, I can't tell you, George dear." + +"You must, please...." + +He had decided now finally to make her. A contest of wills. If he wanted +a yes there must be a yes. Because he wanted it. His arms crushed her. +He fastened against her. He felt her resisting. There was still no +desire in him. His arms were still dead. But he could brook no +resistance. The fact of resistance was unimportant but the idea of being +resisted fired him with a passion entirely cerebral. He would warm her +into saying yes, stir her senses, make her yield and her head swim until +she said yes. + +"I love you. Please say it. Say yes." + +Yes to what? Henrietta for an instant awoke from the confusions of the +past few minutes. Her morality, training, code of life and all sat up +like a wary censor and surveyed the scene. The censor nodded an +affirmation. It was all right. Go ahead. With this affirmation her body +took fire. The weakness she had been struggling against became a +beautiful enervation--a lassitude that swept her unresistingly forward. + +She had never done this before. She struggled for a moment to recall the +censor--the thing that had always directed her. But she seemed to have +been deserted. She was alone with sensations. + +Her virginal mind was unable to identify the excitement rising in her. +She waited while his caresses grew bolder. Then in a panic, born of a +dim realization, she flung her arms passionately around Basine and +sobbed. + +"Yes.... Yes.... Oh George.... I will...." + +She felt at once that she had said it just in time--that it would have +been sinful to continue another moment without promising she would marry +him. + +Basine released her slowly. The incident abruptly was over. He had in +fact lost interest in it immediately before she had spoken. The thrill +had come, developed and gone--a spiritual exaltation which he had +enjoyed to the utmost. + +But now it was over. His vanity, surfeited, had withdrawn from the +situation. He was surprised to find himself looking at the girl with +utter dispassion, as if nothing had happened. + +Inwardly he was amused. Such things were amusing, in a way. Moments in +which one saw oneself as an outrageous actor, doing something +ridiculous. It was like that now. Absurd. But it had been pleasant. +Curious, how pleasant. However, that was over. Henrietta would of course +forget about it. And he, he was prepared to return to the library and go +on popping corn as if nothing had happened, absolutely nothing. + +But Henrietta leaned weakly against his arm. + +"Oh George, darling. Do you really love me?" + +He answered out of a social respect for consistency and nothing else. He +thought the question rather tactless. Of course he didn't love her and +she should have known better than to ask it. It had just been a game +they had played while looking for the thingumabob. + +"Yes, Henny, of course." + +Her eyes were wide and her lips quivered. She was looking at him as if +he were doing something remarkable and she overcome with astonishment. +For an instant Basine wondered why the deuce she looked that way. Then +he felt an unexpected chill that he dismissed promptly with an inwardly +reassuring smile as he heard her saying. + +"Oh, we'll be so happy together when we're married. Isn't it wonderful, +just too wonderful for words to be married--together. Oh George! I'm so +happy.... I love you so much. And father will be so...." + + + + +6 + + +They had not expected Mr. Gilchrist to come. Mr. Gilchrist was an +undersized, mild little man with greying sideburns. When he was alone he +read a great deal. + +He had made money in the selling of expensive furniture. He was part +owner of a store in Wabash Avenue. It was generally understood that +people with taste patronized the Gilchrist-Warren establishment. + +He arrived at the Basines' with his wife and his son Aubrey. Keegan and +Fanny had returned from a long walk. They and the judge, Henrietta, +Basine and his mother and sister Doris all expressed surprise at seeing +Mr. Gilchrist. There was always about Mr. Gilchrist the air of a museum +piece--a quaint museum piece such as a keen but sentimental collector +might delight in. + +The exclamations of surprise embarrassed the little man and he stood +fingering his sideburns and trying to smile in just the correct way. Mr. +Gilchrist's arrival anywhere always precipitated this air of surprise. +People said, "Why, Mr. Gilchrist! Awfully glad to see you! Haven't seen +you for an age. Well! How are you?" + +This was as if they were extremely surprised. But they weren't. They +were merely annoyed, upset, vaguely hostile and condescending. And these +emotions inspired by the innocent Mr. Gilchrist could be best concealed +by the feigning of a correct social astonishment. + +To the queries shot at him Mr. Gilchrist answered, "Very well, thank +you. Thank you. Very well, thank you." + +After greeting him with these exclamation points, people immediately +forgot he was present. Mr. Gilchrist would sit the rest of the evening +ignored by everybody and trying to the end to smile in just the correct +way. + +Inside Mr. Gilchrist were many little lonelinesses. His head was full of +things he had read, of plots, of great characters, even of epigrams and +biting iconoclasms. When people talked he did his best to be attentive. +And if they talked about things that interested him--the Kings of +France, the Italian wars of the fifteenth century, the topography of +early London and kindred subjects--his face would tremble with +enthusiasms. + +He would listen, his eyes questing eagerly for epigrams, for +illuminating sentences he might contribute. But his unegoistic love for +the subject would make him inarticulate. His eyes that had seemed about +to speak of themselves, that had seemed laden with excited informations +would close and a chuckle would come from his lips. The Caesars, the +Borgias, the Medicis, the Bourbons, the Valois, Savonarola, Richelieu, +the various Charles, Phillips, Williams, Henrys, the plumed headliners +of history around whom had centered the hurdy-gurdy intrigues, the +circus romances and wars of vanished centuries--these were the +hail-fellows of his imagination. + +But people seldom talked of these names. People were more interested in +contemporary topics. He did his best to be attentive. But his thought +played truant and before he knew it he would be going over secretly +certain things in his head. Villon, Marlowe, Balzac, Dumas, Gautier, +Suetonius--there was a rabble of them continually arguing and declaiming +in Mr. Gilchrist's head. + +He liked to half close his eyes and imagine what the great names used to +have for breakfast, what the great names would say if he were to enter +their presence or if they were to come into this room. He liked to bring +up in his mind pictures of old Paris, London, Florence, Avignon, Vienna +with their lopsided roofs, winding alleys, night watchmen and king's +guards. He could sit a whole evening this way thinking, "then he came to +an old Inn and there were lights inside. People drinking inside, telling +stories and laughing. The inn-keeper was a man named Simon. The curious +stranger looked about him with an imperious eye...." + +These words murmuring in his head would conjure up the picture and there +would be no further need for words. He was content to sit in the old +inn, noticing its quaint decorations, its quaint but romantic inmates. +Adventures would follow, strange episodes, denouements, climaxes--all +without words as if he were watching a cinemategraph. His attempted +smile would remain--a smile that concealed the fact he was neither +smiling at those around him nor aware of what they were saying. For he +would only half hear the chatter of the room and now and then nod his +head vaguely at some question that people were answering--as if he too +were answering it. + +He was almost sixty, and lonely because he knew of no one to whom he +could talk. His wife in particular was a person to whom he never dreamed +of talking. He had only a dim idea of what he wanted to say to someone. +But all his life he had been hoping to meet this one who would be like +himself. This someone would be a friend whom he could take with him into +places like the old inn and the crazily twisting streets of old London +or Paris. + +His days and years passed however without bringing him this companion. +And outwardly he remained a mild little figure with sideburns, kindly +tolerant toward everyone. + +When his dreams left him long enough to enable him to notice closely +those about him, a feeling of sadness would come. He would feel sorry +for the men and women he saw gesturing and heard talking and laughing. +He thought they must be like himself--looking for something. His faded +eyes would peer caressingly from behind his glasses and he would make +simple little remarks in an apologetic voice. He would ask what they had +been doing and when they answered in their careless, matter-of-fact ways +he would nod hopefully and appear pleased. + +To see Mr. Gilchrist in the midst of his family was to be convinced of +the plausibility of immaculate conception. It was difficult imagining +Mr. Gilchrist ever having done anything which might have resulted in +fatherhood. But more than that, it was impossible even suggesting to +oneself that his wife had ever received the embraces of a man, had ever +so far forgotten the proprieties as to permit herself to be trapped +alone with a man. + +Thus the presence of Aubrey, their son, became incongruous. And Aubrey +himself helped this illusion. He was a young man who looked incongruous. +He seemed like a hoax or at least a caricature. He had enormous feet and +ungainly legs, large hands and pipe-stem arms, hips like a woman and a +face capriciously modeled out of soft putty. His ugliness by itself +would have been whimsical--his protruding eyes, long pointed nose, +uneven cheeks and bulbous chin hinted at something waggish. + +But Aubrey had triumphed over his physical self. He had with the aid of +a pair of large glasses from which dangled a black silk cord, and by +holding his head thrown back as if there were a crick in his neck, +acquired an air of dignity. It was his habit to glower with dignity, to +stare with dignity and to preserve a dignified inanimation when he was +silent. He was pigeon breasted and this helped. In fact his many slight +deformities seemed all to contribute somehow toward making him a man of +inspiring dignity. + +People had little use for Mr. Gilchrist, his father. He was, of course, +wealthy but not wealthy enough to earn the regard of the poor. They +discussed him, saying, "He's not so simple as he pretends he is. Any man +who's made a pile like old Gilchrist in the furniture business has a +pretty smart head." + +And they added that they wouldn't be surprised if something eventually +were found out about old man Gilchrist. He had a past. Of this people +were convinced. It was his wife's position and the fear of her +personality that protected Mr. Gilchrist from the downright attacks of +rumor. Any man who pretended to be as kindly as Mr. Gilchrist and who +talked so tolerantly about everybody and everything was, you could bank +on it, a sly rogue afraid to say what he thought because he himself was +guilty of worse sins than those under discussion. + +Mr. Gilchrist, by seeming above the social agitations surrounding him +came to appear as one who looked down tolerantly upon inferiors--and +this annoyed people. Who was Mr. Gilchrist and what had he done that he +should be giving himself airs? Of course--there was Aubrey and.... + +Aubrey was aloof and dignified. But that was to be expected of a man who +worked with his brain all the time, inventing plots and characters--his +friends explained. In fact Aubrey's silences thrilled them even more +than his talk. They felt, when he sat silent, that they were witnessing +the birth in his head of some great idea which they would later read in +a book. Aubrey was a man of superior qualities and to bask in the +presence of a superior was to partake of his superiority. + +Aubrey's superiority consisted, so far as Aubrey was concerned, of +wearing the proper kind of eye-glasses, keeping his neck stiff, +refraining from giving utterance to all the asininities which crowded +his tongue and writing romances containing heroes with whom a +half-million women readers had imaginary affairs every night and +heroines whom another half-million men ravished in their dreams. For +Aubrey was a celebrated popular fiction writer. To conceal the horrible +reasons which made for the celebrity of Aubrey's fiction, the army of +literary morons who succumbed to its influence grew louder and louder in +their protestations that Aubrey was a great moral writer. They pointed +out that here was a man whose heroines were pure, whose heroes were +noble and virtuous--neglecting to add that these were the only kind of +phantoms which could penetrate the guard of their own puritanism and +stir the erotic impulses beneath. + +Aubrey's superiority was, for the most part, a state of mind that +existed among the people who knew him or had heard of him or read of +him. And this attitude toward him became part of Aubrey. He adopted it +as the major side of his character and lived chiefly in the opinions of +others. His introspection consisted of reading press notices about +himself and thinking of what other people thought of him. Thus to +understand Aubrey it was necessary to go outside him and to investigate +this external state of mind, the ready-made robes of purple in which his +little thoughts strutted through the day. + +The people in whose acclaim Aubrey robed himself were varied and many +but they inhabited an identical psychological stratum. They believed +firmly that all artists and writers were poor, starving, unhappy +creatures. + +This belief was borne out in their minds by history--such history as +they permitted themselves to know. History was continually telling of +geniuses who died in garrets, of great minds that could not make enough +money to feed or clothe their bodies. In fact one of the shrewdest ways +to tell whether a man was a genius--that is, had been a genius--was to +determine whether he had been neglected during his life and died of +malnutrition and disappointment. + +The people who acclaimed Aubrey found a compensation in this. They liked +to assure themselves that geniuses starved to death. This compensated +them for the fact that they themselves were not geniuses. It made them +feel that it was actually a vital misfortune to be gifted, since being +gifted meant to suffer the neglect of one's fellows and the pangs of +hunger. + +But the knowledge that genius was neglected and hungry in no way +inspired them to remedy the situation by recognizing its presence and +feeding it. To the contrary they were determined to see that it remained +neglected and hungry. The idea of struggling long-haired poets dressed +in rags pleased them. The idea of long-haired painters living on crumbs +in attics gave them peculiar satisfaction. + +Geniuses were people different from themselves. They believed in +different things and pretended to be excited by different emotions and +lived different lives. And the people who acclaimed Aubrey were pleased +to know that there was a penalty attached to being different from +themselves and they were interested in seeing that this penalty was not +removed. By penalizing the different ones whom they sensed as superiors, +they increased the value of their own inferiorities. + +Yet they acclaimed Aubrey and there was no malice in their acclaim. This +was a phenomenon that had once startled Aubrey. Long ago, when he had +first started to write, his family's friends had said, "Poor boy, he'll +starve to death. There's no money in being an author and you lead a +terrible life." + +But Aubrey had gone ahead and remained an author. He had written, at the +beginning, rather biting if sophomoric things, inspired by the malice he +sensed toward his profession. But the inspiration had not been +sufficiently strong to handicap him. When success had come and his name +was emerging, the people who knew him and who had talked maliciously +about his trying to be an author, were the first to acclaim him. This +thing had confused Aubrey. He had felt that the public was a curious +institution and he had for a few months wondered about it. + +People sneered at struggling writers and referred with withering humor +to art as "all bunk" and indignantly denounced its immorality. Then when +one put oneself over despite their sneers they turned around and +congratulated one as if one had done something of which they heartily +approved. It was as if they tried to make up for their previous +attitude, and for a few months Aubrey cherished a cynical image of the +public. It was a great bully that spat and snarled at genius, refusing +to recognize it and making it a laughing stock wherever it could. But as +soon as genius came through, this same bully of a public turned around +and prostrated itself and worshipped blindly at its feet. + +Then Aubrey had spent the few months wondering why this was so. But he +had become too busy to do much thinking. His publishers were demanding +more work--so he let other matters drop. His curiosity had carried him +to the brink of an idea and he had somewhat impatiently turned his back +on it. He had felt that to think as he was thinking about people who +were praising him and buying his books, was to play the part of an +ungrateful cad. + +The idea that had come dangerously close to Aubrey's consciousness was +the curious notion that people resented acclaiming anybody like +themselves. The lucky ones who secured their hurrah became in their eyes +no longer normal humans but super-persons about whom they were prepared +to believe all manner of mythical grandeurs. The more remarkable and +more superior people could make out their heroes to be, the less +humility they felt in worshipping them. And since their heroes were +creatures in whom they recognized a glorification of their own virtues, +the more self-flattering it was to increase this glorification. They +were able to worship themselves with abandon in the splendors they +attributed to their chosen superiors. + +Thus when they started they went the limit, heaping honors and honors +upon a man until he became a glittering God-like person. The country at +the time of Aubrey's ascent was full of such glittering God-like +creatures whose names were continually in people's mouths and in their +newspapers. The instinct of inferiority demanding, as always, an outlet +in the invention of gods, had found a tireless medium for this +hocus-pocus in the press. Great reputations were continually springing +up--the newspapers like the half-cynical, half-superstitious priests of +the totem era busying themselves with creating towering effigies in clay +and smearing them with vermillion paints. These gods whom people busily +erected and before whom they busily prostrated themselves were, as +always, the awesome deities created in their own image. + +There had been a crisis in Aubrey's life when he was caught between a +desire to be himself and the desire to be a great clay figure with +mysterious totems splashed over it. To be himself he had only to write +as he vaguely thought he wanted to write. And to be one of the great +figures he had merely to write what he definitely knew would win him the +respect of others. + +The decision, however, had been taken out of his hands. Aubrey's talent +had not been of the sort that has for its parents a hatred of society +and a derision of its surfaces. He had, indeed, fancied himself for a +short time as desiring to adventure among the doubts and iconoclasms +which distinguished the literature he had encountered during his college +days. But the fancy had proved no more than an egoistic perversion of +the true impulse in him. This, it soon developed, was a desire to +impress himself upon people as their superior, not their antithesis. + +As a result he fell to writing books which carefully avoided the revolt +which the dubious spectacle of manners and morality had stirred in him. +He concentrated upon crystalizing his day dreams. He turned out tales of +deftly virtuous Cinderellas who provokingly withheld their kisses for +three hundred pages; of débonnaire Galahads with hearts of gold who, +utilizing the current platitudes as an armor and a weapon, emerged in +grandiose triumphs with the stubborn virgins thawing deliriously around +their necks. Aubrey's tales were popular at once. They were the +technically arranged versions of the rigmarole of secret make-believes +that went on in his own as well as other people's heads. People read +them and quivered with delight. They were tales which like their own +daydreams served as an antidote for the puny, unimpressive realities of +their lives. Also they were moral, high-minded tales and thus they +served as a vindication of the codes, fears, taboos which contributed +the puniness to the realities of their lives. + +Aubrey's success increased rapidly as he abandoned altogether the +pretence of plumbing souls and gave himself whole-heartedly to the +creative pleasantries of plumbing the soap-bubble worlds in whose +irridescence people found their compensations. At twenty-nine Aubrey was +becoming one of the glittering God-like personages in whose worship the +public finds outlet for its inferiority mania and simultaneous +concealment therefrom. + +He had realized this in time and without conscious effort adjusted +himself toward the perfections demanded of a personage worthy of +receiving the masochistic and self-ennobling salute of the mob. These +perfections were simply and easily achieved. One had only to acquiesce, +to accept the acclaim of outsiders as a part of one's self and to live +one's inner life in a roseate contemplation of this acclaim. One had +only to "remember one's public" as he put it himself, and not to +disappoint them or antagonize them. + +In his own family he was regarded with awe. His father always felt +bewildered when he spoke to him. And even Mrs. Gilchrist revealed a +slightly human nervousness in her contacts with her son. + +Concerning Mrs. Gilchrist there was not much to be said, even by such +incipient iconoclasts as Mrs. Basine. She was too defined an exterior. +One was conscious in her presence not so much of a woman as of an +invincible battle-front of ideas. Nobody had ever heard Mrs. Gilchrist +give expression to anything which could remotely be identified as an +idea. Nevertheless she was a battle-front. + +She was a woman with an intimidating coldness of manner. This manner +spoke without words of an incorruptible intolerance toward all +deviations from her code. Backsliders, moral culprits, unmannerly +persons and, in fact, everyone not actively under her domination were, +to Mrs. Gilchrist, suspect. She managed to give the impression that +people whom she did not know were creatures whose virtues as well as +social prestige were matters of sinister doubt. They were outside the +pale. + +The secret of her domination was a psychological phenomenon that eluded +her antagonists and so left them powerless to combat it. The strength +Mrs. Gilchrist felt within her was the product of a complete repression. +She had managed since her youth to shut herself successfully within the +narrow limits of her consciousness, successfully divorcing all her +thoughts, desires and actions from any dictates of an inner self. She +had formed an ideal, basing it upon her social ambitions and her +childish prejudices of good and bad, desirable and undesirable. And she +had been able to perfect this ideal. Her mind was a tiny fortress +against which her own emotions and hence the emotions of others battled +in vain. It could neither think nor understand and this was its +strength. + +The doubts which thinking sometimes stirred in the minds of her +antagonists, the knowledge of secret impulses and obscene imaginings +which they were able only imperfectly to keep from themselves and which +made it possible for them to appreciate dimly the sinners and +iconoclasts in the world--such knowledge never intruded upon Mrs. +Gilchrist. + +Her indignation toward backsliders and moral culprits was not a +projected censure of similar weakness in herself. There were no windows +in the tiny fortress in which she lived. Protected from all human +disturbances of her spirit, she spent her days closeted within her +little fortress in grim contemplation of her rectitude. + +Friendship was impossible to her. She was, however, a duchy, a +corporation in which one could buy stock. By subscribing unquestionably +to her rectitude, admitting its existence publicly and succumbing to its +strength, one earned the dividends of her social approval. One became to +her a very nice person in whose submission she grudgingly saw, as in an +imperfect mirror, the image of her own virtues. + +Curiously enough, Mrs. Gilchrist was renowned for her activity as a +philanthropist and charity worker. Her social prestige, aside from her +strength of character, was based upon this. She was a perennial +patroness, a member of hospital boards, a chairman of bazaars, special +matinees, charity balls and money-raising campaigns. All these +activities were in the interest of the poor. The money raised by them +went toward bringing comfort to creatures whose moral obliquity and +human weaknesses Mrs. Gilchrist authentically despised. Yet she was +indefatigable in her work, darting in her unvarying black dress from +meeting to meeting, bristling with magnificent plans for further +philanthropies. + +Her husband occasionally wondered. He was unable to reconcile the +coldness he knew in his wife with the character of her labors. At times +he dimly felt that it was her way of saying something--perhaps a way of +showing a hidden warmth toward people. + +But in Mrs. Gilchrist's thought there was no such explanation. + +To have admitted to herself a concern for the creatures in whose behalf +she devoted her energies would have been to open a door in the tiny +fortress, or at least to create a loophole out of which she might look +with sympathy upon the confusions and torments of her fellows. + +Her inner humanism, divorced from the narrow limits of her +consciousness, was finding its outlet, as her husband suspected, in her +work. But during this work never for a moment did Mrs. Gilchrist think +of the creatures she was benefiting. She had rationalized her activities +and made them a part of the emotionless content of her mind. + +All relation between the things she did and the people she did them for +was divorced in her thought. In bazaars she superintended, in balls, +fêtes, campaigns, auctions she energized with her presence, she saw only +bazaars, balls, fêtes, campaigns and auctions. She worked for their +success with an invulnerable preoccupation in the details which went to +make them socially proper and financially triumphant. + +The altruism of her work inspired no altruism in her. She did not allow +herself to sympathise with the weakness and poverties she was aiding or +even to contemplate them for an instant. Yet her work accomplished, the +charity a success, she experienced the stern elation of "having done +good." This elation was inspired in no way by the thought of the solace +she had brought to others. It was entirely egoistic--a moment in which +her rectitude congratulated itself upon--its rectitude. + + + + +7 + + +Fanny Basine smiled timidly at Aubrey. He was paying little attention to +her. He was listening to Judge Smith airing his views on the annexation +of the Philippines. + +The judge was forcibly declaring that the thing was essential and that +no gentleman with his country's future at heart could possibly believe +otherwise. Aubrey, to the judge's secret discomfiture, somehow managed +to convey an assent to these views, but an assent based upon superior +motives. What these motives were Judge Smith was unable to fathom. +Aubrey, when it came his turn to expound, further irritated the judge by +revealing them. He, Aubrey, was for the annexation of the Philippines +but only because he was convinced such an annexation would be of +supreme benefit to the natives of the islands. + +Mrs. Gilchrist nodded sternly in agreement with her son. The rest of the +company listening with vacuous attentiveness waited for the debaters to +continue talking for them. Basine who had been silent came to the +judge's rescue. He explained that the judge and Aubrey meant practically +the same thing but that they had chosen different ways to express +themselves. + +"Judge Smith," Basine smiled, "sees in the annexation something which +will benefit his country. He knows as well as any of us that it will not +benefit it financially. It will be a source of expenditure and strife. +Then how will it benefit us? Because it will give us an opportunity to +aid a pack of uncivilized and benighted heathen and despite them to +bring peace and prosperity to their own country--not ours. Which is +exactly what you mean, Aubrey." + +The judge beamed approval and Aubrey contented himself with a stare of +dignity. He did not relish psychological interpretations of his words. +As an author, he felt annoyed. But Basine continued to talk undeterred +by his stare. He disliked Aubrey. Not so much as Doris. And in a +somewhat different way. Further, the presence of Henrietta was a curious +inspiration. The girl's wide-eyed tenderness had irritated and +frightened him after the incident in the kitchen when they had gone +searching for the thingumabob. Now he had no interest in the Philippine +controversy. But he had entered the discussion in order to rid himself +of the uncomfortable memory the episode with Henrietta had left him. As +he talked the memory played hide and seek in his words.... "She thinks +I'm going to marry her ... but she's engaged to him ... she's crazy ... +what the Hell did I do it for?... Damn it ... damn it...." + +Instinctively he took the judge's part, as if he must establish himself +firmly in the father's good graces in order to make premature amends for +the jilting of his daughter. The position he had taken pleased him +because it also involved an opposition to Aubrey. + +Fanny continued to smile at the novelist. Keegan bored her. They had +been walking together and she had lost interest in the sensual game she +had been playing with him. Alone, she might have tried to repeat the +experience of the morning with Keegan. But her physical curiosity +partially gratified for the moment by the surreptitious excitement she +had derived from him, her interest transferred itself to Aubrey. + +The man amused and impressed her. Her thought separated him into two +people. She resented his persistent dignity. Her perceptions, sharpened +by the practical sensuality of her nature, saw through the little ruses +by which Aubrey converted his slight deformities into a dignified whole. +As she listened to him she said to herself, "... he thinks it's smart to +wear a ribbon on his glasses ... he sticks his chest out ... he's got +skinny arms ... he looks funny...." + +After a half hour she lost her resentment and the thing that had +inspired it came to amuse her. She could see through his funny manner so +it didn't anger her. But although now she smiled with amusement at the +man's impressiveness, a feeling of awe penetrated her. Aubrey was a +great man. People spoke his name everywhere. He was known. + +A delicious tremble passed through her. She was careful not to translate +it into words. Had she inspected the tremble and its causes, it would +have outraged her. She was content always to accept her emotions blindly +for fear of having to forego them if she knew their causes. She kept +herself intact in her own mind as a good girl not by belligerently +repressing her impulses but by enjoying them secretly outside her mind. + +She had thought of Aubrey as a great man and with it had come the inner +impulse to be embraced passionately by him. Not because he was Aubrey, +but because he was the famous Aubrey Gilchrist, whose name was known. To +be embraced by a famous man would be like being embraced somehow by all +the people who knew his name. She would be able to think while +satisfying her desire, "Everybody knows him. They know all about him. +It's almost as if they knew he was doing this ... I was doing this." + +Then, too, there would be a feeling of intense secrecy about it, a sort +of blasphemous secrecy. When an ordinary man kissed her, that was of +course, a secret. But if a famous man should kiss her, a man like +Aubrey, that would be a super-secret. A violation of something +remarkable. It would be a thing concealed not merely from her family and +from the vague circle of friends who might be interested, but from +millions of people who knew Aubrey and who would be tremendously +interested in everything he did. She would be giving herself to a public +figure and yet the thing she was doing would be marvelously concealed +from the public. And so she would be able to enjoy the thrill of +demonstromania--of being taken by someone who was not an individual like +Keegan but a man who was part of other people's minds--and at the same +time she would be able to enjoy the thrill of defiant intimacy; the +knowledge that the people in whose minds the name Aubrey Gilchrist was +alive would be ignorant of what she was doing to the man they admired. +All this would be a sharpening of pleasure by the consciousness of +wholesale deceit, wholesale intimacy. + +These intuitions whose articulation would have been entirely +unintelligable to Fanny sent the delicious tremble through her body. +Immediately the two separate Aubreys of her mind focussed into one and +she lost both her amusement and her awe of him. She sat regarding him +with a timid smile designed to arouse his curiosity. As yet he had +ignored her, his eyes seeking out Henrietta when the annexation debate +waned. + +Basine had diverted the talk into literary channels by inquiring, +apropos of nothing, whether anyone had read a book by a man named +Meredith. He had found it in Doris' room one evening and glanced through +it. Seeking now for further material with which to discomfit Aubrey he +had remembered the volume. He took it for granted that since his sister +Doris had been reading it, the book was a very worthwhile book--the kind +he cared nothing about reading himself. This did not interfere with his +utilizing an exposition of its merits as a weapon against Aubrey. + +"I was quite surprised," he explained. Doris listened with a frown. She +was certain her brother had not read the book and the knowledge he was +lying aggravated her. She knew he lied continually but was indifferent. +But to have him lie about something she admired, even in its defense, +made her uncomfortable as if he were trying to establish false claims +upon her regard. + +"The book is altogether unlike most books," he went on, generalizing +carefully. His mind, totally ignorant of the subject he was discussing, +was shrewdly inventing a book diametrically opposite in style and +content to the books Aubrey wrote. By praising such a book he would +manage without reference to his antagonist to disparage his entire +literary output. + +He was not clear in his mind why Aubrey had become an antagonist. The +memory reiterating itself behind his words "... she thinks I'm going to +marry her ... damn it...." was mysteriously finding outlet in an +indignation neither against himself nor Henrietta, but against the +unsuspecting Aubrey. + +Fanny listened to the new conversation, but Meredith was soon dropped. +The sight of Mrs. Gilchrist grimly poised opposite her mother, became a +part of the lure Aubrey exercised over her. He was the son of this +hard-faced, domineering woman. To do something with him that was +intimate would be a deliciously concealed violation of the mother's +propriety. Fanny had always been intimidated by Mrs. Gilchrist's +propriety. Embracing her son would be a sort of revenge. + +Without wasting time looking for reasons, Fanny felt Aubrey as an +attraction. Her attitude toward him grew more intimate. She did not try +to enter the talk but adjusted herself in the chair, placing her body +so that the curve of her hip and leg were effectively visible to Aubrey. + +And while the others talked she assured herself of the plausibility of +her ambitions. Aubrey was a great man and very famous and distinguished. +But he was after all entirely human. He had written books and Fanny fell +to thinking about them, about the descriptions of love-making which +crowded the pages of his books. Aubrey was famous and therefore aloof. +But the things that had made him famous--the love passages in his books, +were not intimidating. She remembered them with gratitude. They were +love descriptions and Aubrey had written them. + +Love passages were in fact all that Fanny usually remembered of her +reading. Plots and characters escaped her. After she had closed a book +there remained in her mind merely the scenes in which men had placed +their arms around women and whispered after a succession of exciting +adjectives, "I love you." + +This was due to the manner in which Fanny read. As a girl she had +ploughed laboriously through a set of Shakespeare in quest of obscene +passages. Her girl's eyes would skip with irritation the speeches that +seemed to her extraneous until, caught by some "nasty" word, she would +become eagerly interested and carefully digest the sentences preceding +and following it. At fourteen she had discovered that the dictionary, +stuck away in a dusty corner of the book case, was filled with many such +words. Whenever occasion permitted she opened the big volume and poured +intently over its contents, digesting with excitement the definitions of +what she called to herself, the nasty words. + +The result of this curious reading technique had gradually shown itself +as she matured. Literature became to her a secretly immoral and indecent +thing. She would blush when people mentioned _Shakespeare_ or any of the +books in which she had eagerly browsed. Observing that her blushes gave +people an impression of her sensitive chastity, she developed a habit of +seeming offended at the mention of any volume she suspected of +containing such words and passages as she was continually searching for +in secret. + +She would say, "Oh, I don't like that kind of a book. I don't think +people should write like that--about such things. There are so many nice +things to write about I don't see why people must write about the +others." + +Delivering herself of these sentiments on all occasions, she continued +her furtive hunt for books about "such things." One red-letter evening +she stumbled upon a pamphlet in her brother's room describing the +horrors of venereal diseases and outlining with verbal and pictorial +illustrations the ravages wrought by the disease germs. She had devoured +the information greedily, her sensuality editing the well-intentioned +brochure into a mass of erotic revelations. + +Aubrey's books, although a bit too innocuous to exhilarate her as the +pamphlet had done or even the dictionary, properly read, was able to do, +contained innumerable passages she remembered. She treated his writing +as she did all writing, skimming hastily over irrelevant matters such as +dialogues between men, discussions of abstract problems, mother and +child scenes and coming to a pause only at the portions which began with +some such sentence as "He looked at her with burning eyes," or, "She +felt nervous because at last she was alone with him," or, "He tried to +draw her to him but she resisted, her virtue outraged by the light in +his eyes." + +She recalled these passages now as the literary discussion grew warmer. +The knowledge that Aubrey had written them served to humanize him and +remove his aloofness in her eyes. He was a famous man. On the other hand +he was famous because he wrote such things as, "She yielded with a happy +sigh to the manly embrace." + +Aubrey felt irritated with Basine. He stood up and seemingly without +intention walked to a vacant chair next to Fanny. The conversation had +been taken up by Mrs. Gilchrist who was explaining the real purpose of +her visit. + +"We are giving a fête on Mrs. Channing's lawn," she was saying, "and I +would very much like you to be one of the members of the committee on +printing." + +Mrs. Basine felt an elation at the words. She had read about the +Channing lawn fête. An affair of social magnificence designed to raise +funds for the Associated Charities. Great social names were involved. +Mrs. Basine's heart trembled gratefully. + +"Oh, thank you," she said, her voice taking on a formal, artificial +tone. Mrs. Gilchrist nodded. The tone pleased her. She could count on +the Basine woman among the select who showed their gratitude openly at +the largesse of her favor. She would, in fact, deign to stay for supper +as a reward. + +Mrs. Basine, urging her to remain for the light Sunday evening meal, +felt indignant with herself. She would have preferred to refuse the +committee on printing. Even as she accepted and experienced the elation +her thought bristled with revolt. + +"The old fool ... the old fool," repeated itself with annoying clarity +in her mind. She detested Mrs. Gilchrist. Since her husband's death Mrs. +Basine had outgrown the snobbery which had inspired her during her life +to pour over the society columns. But a habit had been established, the +habit of a desire to become a member of the closely knit organization +known as Society. And now she was apparently powerless to overcome this +desire which no longer animated her but yet intruded out of the past. +She looked down upon herself for the elation over becoming a member of a +printing committee for a social charity fête. + +"I hate it ... I just hate it," she would murmur for days at a time. But +the elation would persist, a thing beyond the control of her improved +outlook upon life. She was aware also of the simple process by which she +transferred her self-indictment into a detestation of Mrs. Gilchrist. +Mrs. Gilchrist was the one who appealed to what Mrs. Basine had grown to +regard as her "smaller nature." And her anger toward the imperturbable +dowager was the anger of a virtuous woman toward one whose temptations +she was unable to resist. + +"You've been rather silent." Aubrey smiled patronizingly at Fanny. She +nodded. + +"Oh, I've been so interested in what you've been saying," she answered. +She noticed with a feeling of sisterly gratitude that Basine had +occupied himself with Henrietta. Aubrey caught the direction of her +glance and frowned. He had developed a definite dislike of Basine during +the afternoon. + +Keegan, listening uncomfortably to the judge who was ignoring him in his +talk but whose audience Keegan felt it a social necessity to remain, +tried vainly to capture Fanny's eyes. She had apparently forgotten his +existence. But now as Aubrey seated himself at her side, she smiled +intimately in the direction of the confused Keegan. + +"Oh, Hugh," she said loud enough for him to hear. + +The sound of his name from the girl gave Keegan an inexplicable +sensation. He felt himself break into happy smiles and the anxiety that +had been growing in his heart seemed abruptly to have vanished under her +voice. He came to her side and stood looking timidly at her. The +conviction came over Fanny that Keegan was in love. She felt pleased and +her heart warmed toward him. But her interests remained exclusively +preoccupied with the novelist. + +"I was just going out to the kitchen and wondered if you wanted to help +cut sandwiches," she smiled at Keegan. + +"Sure," he answered. + +"I'm an excellent cook myself," Aubrey unbent gravely. + +Fanny stood up and started toward the hall. The two men hesitated and +then followed her. Basine, frowning slightly toward the door, listened +to her voice chattering to cover the embarrassed silence of the two men +she had bagged. + +"Don't you want to go out there and help," he turned to Henrietta. + +She shook her head. + +Keegan felt himself being slowly transported. His penitence had faded +into less satisfactory emotions toward the middle of the day. A gloom +had come over him and his heart had felt weighted. He had at first +identified this state of mind as a ghastly premonition of disease as a +result of last night's debauch and thought that the depression he felt +was his nervous system or something warning him of this fact. + +The depression lifted. He sat around the Basine home listening to the +chatter of the arriving guests and feeling out of place. He felt that he +was wishing for something but couldn't make out what it was. His heart +hurt, his head felt heavy. There were aches in him and a feeling of +listlessness. More, he couldn't sit still. The room seemed a suffocating +place. He was unhappy. + +Several hours later it dawned on him with a shock that he was in love +with Fanny. The sudden explanation frightened him. He attempted to deny +it to himself. The struggle endured a half hour. He surrendered. + +When he looked at Fanny again she had undergone a complete change. There +was a startling intimacy in her features. Her contours were stamped with +an appeal he had never observed before in a woman. The rest of the +company sat behind a thin film of politeness and formality. But Fanny +sat with him outside this film. The others in the room were blurred as +if half hidden. Fanny was distinct. A light seemed to beat upon her. He +looked in amazement. + +A few hours ago he had noticed nothing. Now he noticed everything ... +her dress, her hands, her hair, her eyes, her ankles. He was frightened +because it seemed as if someone had invaded the secret world in which +he alone lived. He remembered frightenedly that he had lain with his +head in her lap, that he had embraced her. There had been something +curious about the embrace but he was unable to identify it. + +"She felt sorry for me, that's all," he thought and at once all hope +ebbed out of him. Yet he continued to look at her and watch her grow +more familiar, so familiar that her image seemed to have come into his +heart where he could feel it choking him. + +A few minutes after entering the kitchen he grew hopeful. He found +himself in the position of an intimate--at least by comparison. She was +paying no attention to Aubrey. She laughed at his, Keegan's, clumsiness, +chided him good-naturedly. She held his hand and, his heart beating +wildly, directed him in slicing the bread. When he was drawing the water +from the sink faucet she leaned over resting her chin on his shoulder +and effected a humorous concern. He felt her body press warmly against +him and almost dropped the cut-glass pitcher he was holding. He was +being transported. + +Out of the corner of his eye he watched the novelist. A sorry fellow +with gawky feet and a clumsy-looking face. Keegan vaguely pitied him as +he stood around doing his best to horn in on the intimacy between Fanny +and himself. He knew how the novelist felt. It seemed to Keegan even +that it was he, Keegan, feeling that way, and that the carefully +concealed embarassment, the futile chagrin and lameness were his own +emotions and not Aubrey Gilchrist's. In an effort to put the defeated +rival at his ease, so Keegan regarded him, he tried magnanimously to +include him in the little byplay between himself and Fanny. + +"Here, you try your hand at this," he offered, handing Aubrey the knife. +Fanny pouted. + +"Hm! Just as I was teaching you the art of bread cutting you run away +from school," she complained. Keegan resumed his operations on the +bread, a satisfied warmth in his heart. For her hand had returned to its +position and she was again going through the idiotic pretense of +teaching him how to move a knife. He was being transported. His vacuous +face had taken on a vivacity. He was fearful of presuming, of doing +something wrong, and he made no effort to caress her. No effort was +necessary for, somehow, despite his carefully edited behavior, their +fingers were always touching, their bodies coming together. + +Still he was afraid to think that Fanny had fallen in love with him. He +was even afraid that Aubrey would go away and leave them alone in the +kitchen. If they were alone he would have to try to kiss her or +something and she would laugh and then say indignantly, "You idiot, I +was just playing. I see now that you think all women are like those you +told me about." + +He would rather that Aubrey remained and that everything continued as it +was. The sandwiches were piling up on the large platters. + +"Here," Fanny cried, holding one of them up for him to bite. + +He looked apologetically at Aubrey as if asking to be forgiven for this +proof of her superior regard and with a blush ate from her fingers. +Fanny suddenly let go the sandwich and as it dropped to the floor, +patted him tenderly on his cheek and laughed. + +"Um ... big man hungry," she whispered. + +He turned to place the fallen pieces of bread in the sink. His hand +brushed hers and he felt her fingers close firmly around his palm with a +squeeze. He half shut his eyes at the shock that filled his heart. +Fanny's eyes, however, ignored him. She was engaged in watching Aubrey +for whose benefit the entire scene was being staged. Her instinct had +supplied her with a mode of attack. She would arouse desire in the +novelist by showing herself desired--although by another man. A desired +woman was an irritant. It aroused illogical jealousy. + +The icebox was in the back hallway. + +"The cream and things are in here," Fanny exclaimed. + +Keegan followed her out of the kitchen into the rear vestibule. She had +squeezed his hand before starting and thrown him a glance as she passed +through the doorway. He felt embarrassed for Aubrey and was on the point +of inviting him to share the intimacy of the small vestibule. But Fanny +interrupted him. + +"Oh Hugh," she called softly, "will you chop some ice, please, for the +water." + +She handed him the ice pick and laughed nervously. The door was half +open and Keegan caught a glimpse of the novelist pretending a vast +interest in the arrangement of the sandwiches on the plates. + +"What's the matter, Hugh? You seem so ... so funny," Fanny whispered +close to him. + +His heart contracted. He was afraid. If he dared he would put his arms +around her. But after all the things he had confessed to her in their +walk.... A longing to weep almost brought tears out of his eyes. He +stood with his mouth open and stared as in a dream at a blurred vision. + +"Fanny," he muttered, "I'm sorry...." + +"About last night," she whispered. He nodded. + +"But Hughie, you said you wouldn't ever again...." + +He felt despair. + +"If I only hadn't ... I would...." He stopped. + +"Would what, Hughie?" Fear halted him definitely. He could go no +further. A misery clouded his thought. He felt her hand touching his +arm. + +"You mustn't feel sorry, Hugh. Please promise me you won't feel +sorry...." + +The sweetness of her voice overpowered him and his eyes grew wet. He +tried to talk but was ashamed of the quiver he felt in his throat. Fanny +pressed lightly against him. He stood with his head reeling and his +heart dancing crazily as her arms circled his neck. Her face was raised +to his. + +"Just one ... Hughie. Please ... don't forget. Please hurry...." + +He heard her words but they conveyed no meaning. He loved her ... he +loved her. He had never been happy like this. He couldn't tell her now +... the icebox, something, was in the way. But sometime he would tell +her. His arms and body felt alive. + +"Oh," he thought, "Fanny, Fanny...." + +Then he heard himself repeating the thought aloud. He was saying in a +voice he hardly recognized, "Oh, Fanny, Fanny." + +He kissed her lips. + +For a moment Fanny returned his kiss passionately. Her arms clutched +him tightly. She felt a curious lift in her heart, a thing she had never +experienced before. It made her almost close her eyes. But she kept them +open, watching furtively over Keegan's shoulder the figure of Aubrey. +Aubrey had remained bent over the plates of sandwiches. Despite the lift +in her heart this annoyed her. She wanted Aubrey's attention. + +"Oh," she sighed aloud. Aubrey heard. He straightened and for a moment +stared at the tableau of the lovers. Fanny watching him behind Keegan's +kiss saw his face grow red. Then she lowered her eyes and abandoned +herself to the sensation of Keegan's arms. But the sensations faded. An +interest seemed to have gone out of the situation. She pushed Keegan +gently away and looked into the kitchen. Aubrey was gone. + +"Oh," she whispered. Keegan looked at her dizzily. "He saw...." + +"Who?" + +"Aubrey Gilchrist saw you." Her face flushed. + +"Did he?" Keegan leaned against the icebox. He felt weak. + +"I'm sure he did," Fanny insisted, an elated note in her voice, "I'm +just positive." + +"He couldn't have seen much if he did, from where he was standing," +Keegan murmured. + +"I don't care anyway," Fanny smiled. Keegan felt a thrill at the words. +She loved him and didn't care who knew! + +"Neither do I," he agreed. He felt glad they had been seen. It made him +blush inside but he was glad. + +"Oh, what do we care?" Fanny cried, "if the old stick-in-the-mud did +see." Keegan reached his hands to her but she eluded him and darted into +the kitchen. + +"Hurry, chop the ice," she called. She was confused. For a moment she +had been surprised by an emotion--a curious, unsensual desire for the +awkward Keegan. She had felt her heart yield to his embrace as she +usually felt her body do. But the whole thing had been for Aubrey's +benefit. It had started with an intention of making Aubrey jealous by +flirting with Keegan. And when Aubrey had refused to show any signs of +jealousy she had carried the flirtation further until it had seemed +logical to kiss and embrace Keegan as a part of her original ambition to +stir Aubrey. But she had been stirred herself by the man's kiss. Yet now +that Aubrey was gone she had lost all interest in Hugh. She wanted to +hurry back where the novelist was. + +She glanced apprehensively toward the door. Doris was standing looking +at her. + +"What's the matter, Dorie?" + +"Mr. Ramsey has come. Mother said to set another place." + +"Good heavens! What a houseful." + +Doris nodded. Keegan was standing in the center of the room smiling +inanely at the sink. + +"I'll help you," said Doris. + + + + +8 + + +Mrs. Basine was embarassed by the arrival of her friend Tom Ramsey. He +had been a friend of her husband and a rumor had become current that he +was now courting her. She denied this with indignation. To herself she +admitted she liked to be alone with him. He was a sour-minded man with +a liver-red face, a patrician nose and the look of a man of importance. +But he was too thin and too short to live up to this look. + +In the presence of others he usually fell into a silence unless one of +the two or three subjects on which he felt himself an authority came up. +These subjects were things that had to do with advertising--effective +copy, effective display, prices, results. Mr. Ramsey was in the +advertising business. + +Mrs. Basine's embarassment at his arrival was caused by her sympathy for +the man and her resentment of his weakness. She knew exactly what would +happen. Tom Ramsey would sit through the evening, scrupulously polite to +everyone, saying, "Yes, yes. Quite right. Oh, of course. That's +absolutely right.... Indeed, I agree with you...." + +For the first few minutes he would impress everyone as a man of +character and intelligence. But gradually this impression would fade and +people would stop talking to him and eventually ignore him altogether in +the conversation. + +Why this happened Mrs. Basine could never determine. But it did and it +always hurt her. Mr. Ramsey, smiling exuberantly through the +introduction, his thin body alive in the slightly overheated room, would +in an hour become Mr. Ramsey sitting glassy-eyed and polite in a corner, +his liver-red face holding with difficulty a grimace of enthusiastic +attentiveness. He would make sporadic starts trying to recover +something. When the talk grew boisterous and everyone was making puns +and delivering himself of bouncing sarcasms, Ramsey would try to become +part of the scene in a way that always startled the company. He would +come to life with mysterious suddeness and hurl a jest into the common +pot. His manner, however, focused attention on himself rather than his +words. In back of the drollery he offered would be a desperation, in +fact, sometimes a sense of fury. People would stare at him for an +instant thinking, "What an odd, impossible man." And in their +contemplation, forget to laugh at his remark, forget even to answer it. +And he would be left stranded in a silence--a conversational castaway. A +moment later he would collapse, sit glowering in his chair, looking +angrily at the carpet. This was painful to Mrs. Basine since she had +grown to understand him. + +When they were alone Ramsey became a different man. He talked to her +usually about people he had met in her house. At such times he was +master of caricature. Their absurdities, pompousness, banalities, +hypocricies took grotesque outline in his words. His method was +unvarying. It was based upon a crude, vicious skepticism, inspired in +turn by a fanatic resentment of success in others. He seemed determined +always to prove to his own and her satisfaction that despite their +pretentions people were no more successful than he. His nature seemed +unable to tolerate the thought of superiors. At the same time people he +encountered, particularly in the Basine home, managed always to override +him, to reduce him to silence, to deflate him. + +He would retire into himself, protesting viciously at the injustice of +this phenomenon. And while he sat in silence he would seek to wipe out +the consciousness of his own inferiority by attacking with contempt the +people around him. He would sit belittling and ridiculing the company to +himself until he had hypnotized himself with a conviction of their +general worthlessness and inferiority. Bolstered up by this treacherous +conviction, he would come suddenly to life with a grotesque sense of +magnitude in his mind. He was a giant among pigmies, a Socrates among +clowns! Who were these numbskulls and fourflushers that they thought +they were better than he was! He would show them! He would step forth +and by a single gesture, a scintillant phrase, reduce them to their +proper place. + +And the company would find itself staring for an instant at a thin, +little man with a wild look in his eyes and a snarling quiver in his +voice, saying something not quite intelligible--usually an involved pun +or a tardy comment on some issue under discussion. The intensity of the +sullen-faced little man with the patrician nose embarrassed them for the +moment. Not as much as it did Mrs. Basine whose heart would almost break +at the spectacle, but enough to make them feel it were best to ignore +this curious Mr. Ramsey and not let on what a fool he somehow made of +himself. + +Ramsey's indignation toward people, his sour skepticism of their values, +was his futile way of reassuring himself of his own worth. Futile, +because he had no conviction of this worth. When he sat denouncing in +silence the talkers around him, ridiculing and belittling them, it was +merely a less painful outlet for the contempt he had of himself. + +He had been since his youth ridden by this inner feeling that he was a +fool, a weakling, not quite a man. It had started in his boyhood when +the nickname "Sissy" had been attached to him. His high-pitched voice, +his thin body and his unboyish modesty had earned him the name. As he +had grown older the fact that he did not care for girls as other youths +did, and that he sometimes played with them as if he were a girl +himself, had not escaped the keen, cruel eyes of his companions. The +name "Sis" Ramsey had stuck. + +In order to convince these companions of his masculinity he had thrown +himself with violence into their roughest games. In high school he had +sought to establish himself as a hardened sinner--a drinker and tough +citizen. Despite his slight body he had developed into a creditable +athlete. More than that he had become known as a fellow who would fight +at the drop of a hat. His fiery temper became a byword. + +But all these masculine, or seemingly masculine attributes were part of +his effort to prove that, despite his somewhat odd voice and his equally +odd indifference toward girls, he was a man. When he left high school +and started in the offices of the Mackay Advertising Company, the name +"Sissy" had dropped from him. He had no longer to contend with the keen, +cruel eyes of boy companions. Men were content to accept him at whatever +value he chose to place on himself, as far as his character was +concerned. + +The struggle instead of abating, however, only increased. It removed +itself from the external combat of his boyhood to an internal +complication, and became the basis of the feeling of inferiority which +shaped his life. + +This inner knowledge he cherished, that he was inferior to people, was +founded on the conviction that he was impotent; or at least nearly +impotent; that he could never marry and have children like other men. +His mind refused to acknowledge this fact and thus instead of finding +the comparatively harmless exit of regret, it permeated his entire +thought with the word--inferior ... inferior. + +Ramsey kept himself desperately blind to the cause of this permeation. +He concentrated on the detached word "inferior" and belabored it with +untiring fury. There was another secret, one that went deeper than the +hidden conviction of impotency. + +In the indignation which continually filled his mind, the hideous secret +that lived almost within grasp of his understanding was conveniently +clouded. It was the secret that his lack of vigor--a fact in itself that +he sometimes contemplated--was caused by a still deeper thing--a thing +that never reached any clearer articulation than a shudder. + +They had called him "Sissy" as a boy and he had not changed with age. He +had been able to repress the impulses that sought to turn him toward men +instead of women for companionship. He had repressed them by the ruse of +convincing himself he was an ascetic. + +It was, moreover, an attitude which could find outlet. He could devote +himself to the continual denunciation of others, developing into a sour, +cynical choleric man of fifty. A vindictive, unpleasing personality. + +Mrs. Basine herded her guests into the dining room. Ramsey's presence +preoccupied her. She found herself watching him as a mother might look +after a sickly child. + +The intimacy that had grown between her and her dead husband's friend +had been too gradual to trace. It had started when Mrs. Basine had sat +one evening in the midst of a company similar to this and thought, "Poor +man. He jumps around like that and acts queerly because he's ashamed of +himself. He's ashamed of not being what he wants to be." + +She did not quite understand what this meant but she felt herself +suddenly close to the man after having thought it. He began to seek her +company alone and more and more to use her as an audience for his ruse +of transferring his self-rage into a critical indignation of others. + +A realization of Ramsey's character had stirred a pity in her and out of +this pity she was careful not to let him see it. She went to the extreme +of pretending a blindness toward his shortcomings and of accepting him +for the thing he tried to make himself out to be--a giant among pygmies. + +She would agree with him in his attacks upon others, second his vicious +caricaturing and appear always impressed by his desperate skepticism. +Ramsey as a result had come to regard her as the one person with whom he +had ever felt at ease during his life. Mrs Basine was a woman who +understood him, that is, one who was completely deceived by him. In her +presence the creature he struggled unsuccessfully to become, the +masquerade of magnificence which his inferiority sought futilely to +assume--in her presence these became realities. He would swagger before +her, deride her, browbeat her and the rage which bubbled everlastingly +in him would have respite. His mind seemed to uncloud and his talk would +grow actually clever, some of his caricatures bringing an authentic +laugh from her. + +But the widow as a rule would sit listening to him, watching his +swagger, her heart lacerated by the poignant things it sensed. It was as +if he were a little boy dressed up in an Indian suit and emitting war +whoops and she must sit by and pretend real horror of his juvenile +make-believe; as if he were someone who would drop dead with anguish in +the midst of his laughter if she were to say aloud what was in her mind, +"Oh you poor man, I'm sorry for you. I'm so ashamed for you." + +She did not understand why, despite these things, she felt a thrill of +pleasure when she found herself alone with him. Her pity for the man +seemed a pleasant excitement. It gave her a sense of intimacy toward +him. She admitted this to herself but wondered about it. + +There had been one evening that remained confusedly in her mind. He had +seemed unusually buoyant, she recalled, after it was over. His +cleverness had actually diverted her--his caricatures of Judge Smith and +Mrs. Gilchrist and even her own son. She had felt a certain truth in the +distorted descriptions he gave of her friends. + +Then without warning he had grown violently excited. She had watched him +with a fear in her heart--a warning to her that he was going to say +something. She remembered him walking up and down the room saying, "The +trouble with you, like with most people, my dear lady, is that you don't +understand things. You look at things through a fog. You don't see +through the pretences of people. Your brain isn't active. It's merely +receptive. It doesn't question. And what's the result?" + +His voice had become high-pitched. + +"You live your lives among lies. That's what you do. Lies, lies--you +thrive on lies. Your friends are lies. Your thoughts, everything. Take +me.... Now take me ... my case.... I'll tell you something you don't +understand ... just by the way of proof.... I'll tell you something...." + +His voice had broken off, overcome by excitement. He was walking up and +down in front of her, his eyes staring wildly. He was going to say +something, something about himself. And for a moment she had sat +cringing inside. Why had she been afraid? Perhaps because he had looked +so wildly around him, like someone trying to escape. But he had grown +silent and dropped exhausted into a chair. + +She tried not to look at him because he was trembling and he had gone +away ten minutes later. He had kept away for two weeks and then returned +and their relations had resumed as if nothing had happened. Her mind +tingled with curiosity but a fear restrained her. She somehow had not +dared ask the question, "What were you going to tell me about yourself." + +But she remembered that it had seemed for a moment as if he were going +to escape, that he had looked like a man on the verge of ridding himself +of an incubus. + +Her guests were getting along famously. Everyone seemed pleased, happy. +They were chattering and laughing for hardly no reason at all. Mrs. +Basine had no liking for the people at her table. She despised Mrs. +Gilchrist, resented Aubrey. The judge gave her a faint feeling of +repulsion. Henrietta was a simpleton. Fanny irritated her with her +continual blushes and sensitive innocence. Doris was too silent and +always brooding. And even George--he somehow failed to convince her +although she desired to be convinced. + +But all of them together were nice, like a pleasing combination of +colors. People belonged together. Alone they had faults. But when they +came together and forgot themselves they were nice. She felt proud of +having them at her table, because there were so many of them. They were +nice people when they were like this--just talking, not arguing or +saying things that convinced her somehow that they were wrong things. + +Under the table the little comedies of the day were playing a furtive +sequel. Henrietta sitting next to Basine was shyly pressing her knee +against his. Fanny had reached out her foot until it rested against an +ankle she fancied belonged to Aubrey. For a few minutes she failed to +connect the attentiveness of Judge Smith, his paternal banter, with her +activity under the table. But the suspicion slowly arrived. Her eyes +calculated the position of the judge's legs and, blushing, she withdrew +her foot. She noticed that Aubrey sought her face when she wasn't +looking and that Keegan was talking with a blurred politeness to Mrs. +Gilchrist. + +Doris sitting next to Mr. Ramsey felt annoyed. He was continually asking +her what she wanted, passing her salt-shakers and bread-plates and +conducting himself as if she were a helpless child under his care. Mrs. +Gilchrist, as the first conversational flush inspired by the food +subsided, launched into a detailed description of the plans for the +coming fête, talking in a precise, emotionless voice. + +"I was saying," Basine's voice emerged in a silence that followed Mrs. +Gilchrist's talk, "I was saying that people are easy to get along with +if you understand them and they understand you. I had a case in court +the other day where a woman was suing a man for breach of promise. He +had proposed marriage to her and then without reason broke his pledge. +The woman was my client." + +Murmurs of "how awful"; "that must have been interesting" arose. Basine +nodded sagely. He had without knowing why started improvising the +narrative, inventing its details with a creditable dramatic and legal +talent. There had been no such case, client or denouement but he +continued unconscious of this fact in his desire to tell the story. "The +man of course was a rascal. An unscrupulous rascal. The girl--my +client--a charming, innocent young thing--had believed him. He had +courted her passionately,--er, I should say--assiduously. I couldn't +understand how any man after giving his word and asking a girl to marry +him could possibly be rogue enough to do what he had done. So during a +recess in the case I sought the fellow out. His name was Jones. We had +quite a talk." + +Basine paused. + +"What happened?" Fanny exclaimed. "I wish you'd tell us more about your +work than you do, George. It's so interesting." + +"Yes, go on," Mrs. Gilchrist commanded. + +Basine hesitated. His improvisation seemed to have come to an end. He +was, mysteriously, at a loss as to how to make the lie turn out. But +inspired by the attention of the table he resumed: + +"Well, of course a lawyer must be first of all faithful to his client." + +He paused again. He had almost decided to end the fiction by explaining +that on investigation he had found the man to be right and that the +defense the man had given him privately of his actions had caused him to +withdraw from the case. But this would sound quixotic, unreal. There +would have to be explanations. Why had he started the lie? To give it +that ending so that.... He smiled a sudden appreciation of what he was +doing--trying to excuse his jilting of Henrietta--an event not far off +if she persisted in holding him to the thingumabob foolishness. But he +went on: + +"This sometimes prejudices an attorney against his opponent. But I found +this time that all prejudice was warranted. The man was a thorough +rascal. It had been his practise to propose marriage to girls--innocent +girls of course, and he had several times managed to take advantage of +their faith in him and--ruin them." + +Fanny averted her eyes. Mrs. Gilchrist stared with an uncomprehending +frown at the talker. The judge permitted a grimace of distaste to pass +over his face as he murmured, "The cad. Yes sir, men are cads." + +"My client won," resumed Basine with modesty, "and was awarded five +thousand dollars by the jury. But the law could not give her back the +happiness this scoundrel had snatched from her...." + +"Had he ... had he accomplished his purpose with her?" Aubrey inquired, +aloofly interested in the plot details of the narrative. + +"No, fortunately," Basine answered. "But look at him now. Free, although +found guilty, free to continue his tactics." + +He paused confused. Henrietta was beaming at him, her eyes wide with +admiration. He felt he should have given it the other ending and cursed +himself silently for what he had done. He had only made it worse when he +had meant to tell a story that would help matters and make her +understand.... + +Mrs. Basine regarded her son unhappily. She was convinced he was lying +because he usually mentioned the big cases he had and he had never +before referred to any Jones suit. But she was unable to understand why +anyone should lie without cause and after a moment of doubt her son's +stern face and positive manner managed to convince her again. He wasn't +lying. + +Basine, as the others took up the discussion of the narrative, dropped +his hand to his side and furtively pressed it against Henrietta's knee. +At this sensation of physical contact a feeling of relief came to him. +In the sensual thrill this contact aroused he buried the discomfort of +the words running through his head--"she thinks I'm going to marry her. +Damn it ... damn it...." + +He was startled when, glancing at her in the midst of his daring +excursion under the table, he noticed her smiling coolly and primly at +Aubrey who was talking. + +"Will you have some of this?" Mr. Ramsey's voice protruded through the +silence. Several eyes turned toward him as if he were about to take up +the burden of the talk. Mrs. Basine interrupted quickly. + +"What was that book you told me about, Mr. Gilchrist, last month?" she +asked. Aubrey looked up inquiringly. "I mean your father." + +The elder Gilchrist blinked and seemed to peer into the depths of his +memory. + +"I don't remember," he said clearing his throat. They were the first +words he had spoken since he had said, "Thank you ... thank you...." and +sat down in a corner of the Basine library. His wife stared at him as if +he were a phenomenon unexpectedly revealed to her gaze. + +"It must have been," stammered Mr. Gilchrist, "Suetonius, I think. Or +... or the Chevalier de Boufflers...." + +"I'm sure that was it," Mrs. Basine agreed. "I must get that to read." + +The judge frowned disapprovingly upon the elder Gilchrist. He resented +readers. Culture was a state of soul acquired by being a gentleman, not +by reading books. He resented also the impression Aubrey had left during +the Annexation discussion. + +As a matter of fact he felt sleepy, the result of the food he had eaten. +And he was automatically seeking for some occasion which would warrant +an expression of dignity or resentment or anything in which he might +hide his heaviness of spirit. + +The sight of his daughter regarding Aubrey with a sweet, prim +attentiveness supplied him with what he desired. The idea of Henrietta +marrying that fool was annoying. Old Gilchrist was a sly dog and his +wife a difficult woman. He would forbid the thing. It might hurt +Henrietta for a time but he knew what was good for her. A mere story +writer had no real standing in the community, no future. +Whereas--Basine.... He lowered his eyes and glowered at his plate.... +Nice young man. Honorable. And full of promise ... promise.... + + + + +9 + + +"Love the stars. Love people's faces. Buildings and faces. What do I +know about 'em? God knows. Rotten streets.... Life's a great harlot that +men keep chasing. That gives herself to men--all men, everybody. I want +her. I want her." + +He walked angrily, a cap on his head, a pipe clenched between his teeth. +He was thinking as he walked. Emotions came out of his heart and burst +crests of words in his mind. Angry emotions. There was an anger in him. +He was overcoming a feeling of futility as he walked. + +The street was a carnival fringe. Cheap burlesque theatres, arcades, +museums, saloons. This was blurred. He saw no lithographs. One side of +the street followed along at his elbow--a slant of pinwheel lights. On +the other side across the street, pin points. But he saw nothing. Things +passed unresistingly through his eyes. + +He remembered now a mile of walking. The business section asleep on +Sunday evening. He had walked through that. Darkened windows, ghastly +inanimations. Why was he angry? + +"Aw huh!" he snarled. He was cursing something. He asked questions and +answered them. This got him nowhere. Stars, buildings, faces--he wanted +to knock them over. That was inside him, a wish to knock 'em over. More +than a wish. A necessity. But he could only walk. The world scratched at +his elbow. He could bite on his pipe. This thing hurt him. + +People, rotten people. Crazy jellyfish with jellyfish hearts, jellyfish +brains. He could swear at 'em like that. But why? He didn't know. Only +this thing in him made him blow up. + +It was easier when he worked. His father calmed him. His father stood +over the bench planning the fine-grained wood. A great man because he +loved the wood he cut and carved into pieces of furniture. But jellyfish +sat in the chairs they made in his father's shop. Damn 'em. + +"Love people. Say something. What? Say something. Get it out. Aw, the +dirty, filthy swine." + +That was the way he thought as he walked. A long furious mumble in him, +this man walked and saw nothing but light slants, spinning windows. He +was young and he wore a cap. + +He would get it out of him ... Show 'em! Ah, a nip to the air. Spring +blowing his heart up like a balloon. All they wanted was women. And all +women wanted was to be wanted. No. That was wrong. Damn! Always wrong! +His feet talked better than his head. Clap, clap on the pavement. Where +were the others going? + +He didn't hate them. Someday it would all come out like swans swimming. +Very majestic. He would talk easy and smooth. But now people kept him +from putting it over. They wrapped him up. Ideas wrapped up his words +and killed them. Streets, buildings, stars chewed at him. He must knock +'em over and get himself free. Put his hands on things and knock Hell +out of 'em. + +"Love 'em. Love 'em. How the Hell ... why the Hell? Lindstrum! +Lindstrum! That's my name.... I got a name. I'm the greatest man in the +world. The world's greatest all-around individual on two legs walking, +smoking. Damn...." + +But what could he do? Saw wood, smear varnish on wood, monkey around +with wood. That didn't get it out. When he wrote it came out. But +rotten. He wrote rotten, crazy rotten. If he was the greatest man why in +God's name! He'd show 'em. + +A long breath brought the night into him like a sponge. It drained +something out of him. He could grin. A very evil grin at a saloon +window. He could look around and notice. That's what eyes were for. +Look--people walking. Poor, sad, broken people. So sad.... Ah, tired +eyes in the street that looked for lights outside themselves. + +"I'm going nuts. That's what--nuts." + +But the mumble went on. Questions and answers in a circle, biting their +own tails. God forgive them, all these people. He must do something. +Arms around them whispering to their hearts something that would say, +"Yes, yes. I know it all about you. How you think one way and feel +another. And how everything ends. How everything ends in a little cry +that goes up." + +Love their faces. Damn it! Love 'em.... He'd show 'em. He'd talk to the +lights in the street. Why not? + +"Do you know what? Do you know? It's all a humpty dumpty. Egg-heads +falling off a wall and smashing. But I know what. I got your number. +Wait...." + +There was something to say. Why? Damn it ... not that way. Hit poor, sad +ones on the head. Better the dirty swine in the City Hall. Aw huh! Wring +their necks. What for? Wrong. Something else. They were like him. +Brothers, everybody. You could kill the whole of them and there would be +something left behind that was good--Life. But a better way than +that.... Don't hit. Arms around them, lips to their hearts and talk like +that. Make the hyenas sigh. Make the jellyfish weep softly. Make the +stars dance in their idiot thoughts. Sing them songs. If only the songs +came out. + +It was evening, spring evening in a dirty lighted street, and he walked +biting his pipe. He said to himself, "What's there to this thing? Let us +study it. Many people in many houses and many streets. And each of them +a known thing. But when you take all of them together, that's an unknown +thing. If you know me, if you know one--what then? Nothing. It remains +only one known. There is still everything else to know. One man +multiplied by a million isn't a million men but an infinitude of +millions." + +He would get the hang of them all though, all the millions. He would +think it out, get his fingers on something that didn't exist for fingers +to touch. That was art. It was easy when you figured it that way. + +He walked along often figuring it that way and understanding something +that had no words, living with something that was like a strange phantom +in a great dark deep. This phantom was a stranger inside him. A phantom +like an insane companion that had a way of putting its arms around him, +inside him, and a way of holding him like a horrible mother. Then when +it did, he stopped calling himself nuts ... nuts. He became silent then +and vanished. + +The phantom devoured him. All there was of him that everybody knew, that +even he knew, all that vanished. The phantom devoured him and it was +easy then. But the phantom let him go, took its arms off him, and he +came back, out of the deep. Then he felt himself leaping up with a choke +in his lungs, leaping through layers and layers with no surface to +reach. He must go up, up from the easy embrace of the phantom and keep +on raging, yelling out to himself that something had sent him shooting +up. + +Now he walked and it was easy. The night blotted out his eyes and he +lived with himself down deep where the easy embrace waited. Such moments +came when he walked and he must be careful. That was writing, being +careful and watching the little words that danced high up and that he +could watch when he raised his eyes from the embrace. Skyrockets far +away, he watched them breaking in crazy spatters of light against the +top of things where the sky came to an end. + +He was thinking like that now. Lucid thoughts that he later stared back +upon and wondered, "What the hell were they? I had something, what was +it?" Now he was thinking them with this deceptive lucidity as if they +were something. He was thinking how when he was younger, when he was a +boy, he used to run down country roads. Apples trees and rivers and +growing fields that sang at night were there. And yet, there was +nothing. What did that mean? That was easy to answer. There was nothing +because it was all outside him in a marvelous way. When he was a boy +long ago, so long ago, and he lay on his back and looked at the night +and the night was nothing in his head, the night was a song that chanted +itself to him. The stars were something he had spoken. Darkness was a +sentence echoing off his lips. And the world was marvelously outside and +it gave itself to him. The boy lying on his back handed the world to +himself as a gift. There was nothing to want, everything to have. Long +ago when he was a boy watching the day and night without thinking. + +But it all went away. Now what was it? That was easy to answer. The +night that had been a song chanting itself, the stars that had been his +words dancing, the darkness, clouds, trees, river and roads, the fields +and the people crawling with tiny steps under the cornfield sky--these +went away all together and he couldn't find them any more. These things +he had said without speaking, these all went away. Beautiful familiars, +they misunderstood something in him and vanished from him. + +That was long ago. Now he could remember them and his remembering them +was like hearing them again. That's what made him angry. He could hear +them as if they were calling, "Find us ... find us...." And he said +back, "All right, I'll find you. Wait. I'll come after you somehow. +You're my old friends. I'll get you back. Christ knows how--but, +wait...." + +But this made him think he was laughing at himself, kidding himself. He +knew better. The things that had gone away were in the faces of people, +in buildings, in lights, in streets under his feet. Christ! why +couldn't he lay hands on them again since they came so close they choked +him and made him howl inside with choking. + +He was letting go now again. The easy embrace was shooting him up and he +began to know again he was nuts. He hung on to himself a little by +saying words.... "Easy boy.... Easy...." + +He stopped walking for a second and a happy smile came to his set mouth. +The smile said it was over. He was Lief Lindstrum again and nobody else. +He could become calm like this. It was like blowing a fire out with a +grin. His head was clear and he was happy. The street was like a +merry-go-round. The night had a smell of life in it. That came from the +lake. Whatever living might be and whatever the choke inside him was, a +man was a fool to forget this other--the calm, grinning strength of +muscles and the way his nose buzzed when he drew his breath in. + +Now he was Lief Lindstrum walking to call on his girl. And he could +think of others, the poor little others, the superfluous others. Only he +didn't have to get angry at them. Or he didn't have to fall in love with +them. It was just thinking straight. Well, the way men talked to each +other was funny. The way they swapped lies was funny. Poor, rich, happy, +sad, broken, bawling ones--they all made the same lies to each other. +The government was a lie. God was a lie. And all the gabble about good +and bad and what-not-to-do and what-to-do, and all the laws and +everything beginning from the beginning and going ahead as far as you +wanted, it was all lies. So many of them that all the philosophers had +never been able to begin straightening things out. And if somebody +found out something true, what then? Well, they grabbed it and made it +into a lie, pronto! used it as a lie. The poor little crawling ones on +the earth made up lies to explain things but most of all they made up +lies to keep alive. If they didn't lie to each other they would all fall +apart and vanish because nature would have it that way. So they must go +contrary to nature and keep on surviving. Nature demanded the +elimination of the unfit. But it was the unfit that desired most to +live. So the unfit made laws and rules and institutions, and inside +them, protected by them, kept alive. So the will to live was the thing +that created lies. + +But the worst lie the little people told was when they called themselves +life. That was the chief lie, the Grand Sachem and High God of all lies. +Because they were not life. They were part of something inexplicable +that altogether might be called life. But each of them separately was a +dead one, a dead one buried deep in life. That was the difference about +him, Lindstrum. He wasn't buried in life. There were moments when he +shot up like a man shooting through layers of graves. The others let the +thing called life pile up on them and it became a mystery of graves that +reached to the farthest star. But with him there was no piling up. He +would keep on shooting out of it till he had lifted himself up where +there were no graves. + +"Shh, shh," he murmured to himself, "let's not be nuts tonight. Plenty +of nights for that. Let's talk about other things. About her." + +Her face was beautiful. Dark eyes, dark hair, silent, that was like she +was. The thought of her made him grimace inside with pain. He wanted +her as much as that. But what did he want her for? God knows. What does +one want for? In order to get rid of wanting. Nothing else. Kiss her? +Bah! She was a victory. He wanted her like that. + +When he was near her they didn't have to talk or hold hands. They came +together in a different way. She was so beautiful.... + +"I love her," he said quietly. He wanted to be quiet so he spoke +quietly. She was marvelous. He would like to cut himself up into bits +and give himself that way to her. He would like to die a thousand +different ways and say, "Here, I destroy everything I am in order to +become a gift for you." That was like placing oneself on a burning +altar--the ecstacy of the sacrificed one. That was it. + +Some nights like this the world became too small to live in. The city +swept away from his senses and everything in the city seemed like a room +full of cheap little broken toys he had outgrown. He would sit in a room +within this bigger room, a lamp on his table and write. Or he would +strike out like this time and walk to her--miles across streets. + +"I want her," he said. His thought paused. "But what do I want of her?" +he asked. "I don't know. But I want to give myself to something." + +And he began thinking over how many ways there were to die as a gift. + +This lighted window was her house. The curtains were down but light +spurted through the sides. The sight of the house with its light-fringed +windows depressed him. It was a disillusionment. She wasn't a woman then +like he was a man but she was a part of things. He saw her as he walked +up the stone steps, saw her talking to people. She had parents. In his +mind she lived as an entity. A beautiful one without background or +lighted windows or stone steps. Someone for him. Nobody else. + +He rang. The door opened. A man like himself stood blinking in the +lighted hall. + +"Good evening," said Lindstrum. His voice was deep for his age. He spoke +in a drawl that seemed edged with anger. "Is Doris in?" + +"Oh, hello," Basine exclaimed. "Yes, she's in. Come right in." + +People were talking in the next room. + +"Company?" said Lindstrum. He didn't want to go in. But Basine was +leading the way. The supper had ended ten minutes ago. The company +looked up at him. They were all dressed well. Their faces were dressed +well, too. They wore carefully tailored satisfactions in their eyes. +When they smiled their mouths postured like ballet dancers in a finale. +They were rich people. Their hands were soft. + +The room blurred before Lindstrum. There was no reason for it now +because he wasn't thinking or caring but a rage crept into his senses. +He breathed in deep with his mouth opened and the feel of the air on his +teeth and tongue made his jaw set. Because he would have to be careful +what he said. Because he was saying inside to himself, "Damn 'em. The +scum!" + +His eyes brought pictures into his anger. They stared with deliberation +into other eyes and brought back messages. He was being introduced. He +was saying to himself deep down, "They're all alike. Like peas in a pod. +They smirk and talk alike. And they're all stuck on themselves alike. +And they're all liars--damn liars, all alike." + +He would have to take care and not argue. He would sit down. Doris was +upstairs and she would appear in a minute. Then they would go for a walk +and shake this room out of their eyes. + +They chattered like monkeys. Satisfied with themselves. Yes, +know-it-alls, tickled to death with themselves. An old man with a heavy +pink face and sleepy eyes, a well dressed old man they called Judge--if +he could punch this guy in the face, let his fist smash into his +jellyface, God! what a thrill! A flushed girl, Doris' sister, wiggling +her body in a chair. What she needed was somebody to grab hold of her +and say, "Come on kid." A square, hard-faced old woman talking of +society. What she needed was someone to walk up behind her and kick her +hard. And when she raised her glasses to look, laugh like Hell and spit +in her eye. That would make her human! And this smart-aleck Basine.... +Hm! What he needed was somebody to tie him to a stake in a dark prairie +and let the wind and rain go over him till he got hungry and began to +whine. That's what they all needed--wind and rain to bring them back to +life. + +But he must be careful and say nothing. There was Doris' mother. She +wasn't so bad. But this other guy, this writing guy, talking about +books! God! Why didn't somebody choke the life out of him! What did he +know about books? And he talked about writing! What was good writing? He +asked that, this guy did! He would have to be careful what he said to +this guy and keep himself from jumping up and murdering him. Hell take +all of them and make 'em burn. That's what they needed. He hated all of +them. They were rich. Damn 'em! He must sit and grin at them, these +jellyfish who wiggled in their graves and called their wiggles by great +names, who were dead ... dead.... How dead they were! And happy about +it! Happy.... Didn't they know how dead they were? + +Doris was like them. He was a fool for coming to see her. As if she were +any different from them. She belonged with this filthy crew. She was a +filthy little tart like the rest of them. Let her go to Hell. He'd tell +her to go to Hell when he saw her. She was one he could talk to. + +Uh huh, they were giving him the up and down. His shoes were dirty. His +collar soiled. His clothes weren't pressed. That was the way with these +dead ones, they made standards of their clothes because clothes were all +they had. And their idea was to make people feel inferior who were +inferior to their clothes or to their manners or to their other +artificialities. But he didn't have to feel inferior if he didn't want +to. He was the kind who could stand up in a graveyard like this and say +"Go to Hell" to the pack of them and grin and walk away and forget all +about it. + +He noticed they looked at him not quite as they looked at each other. +That was right. They knew he had their number. Mrs. Basine, too, was +looking. She asked: + +"I understand you write, Mr. Lindstrum?" + +Books all bound and pretty standing in a row with your name in the +papers as a young writer of note and invitations to speak at women's +clubs--was what she meant. That was what writing was to people, to +jellyfish. + +"I try to write," he answered, making the correction softly so that his +words purred. + +"You should know Aubrey Gilchrist," said Basine. "Do you know his work?" + +"I do not," said Lindstrum still purring. "What does he write?" + +Basine chuckled inside. His unaccountable aversion for Aubrey was +growing. + +"Novels," said Basine. + +"Oh," said Lindstrum dragging the syllable out and placing a huge +granite period after it. + +"What writers do you like?" Fanny inquired with a successful attempt at +social artlessness. She was looking for something in this friend of +Doris'. She was in awe of him because he was dirty looking and because +he swayed as he sat in his chair. He kept swaying as if he were on +secret springs and would jump up any minute. He frightened Fanny. + +"I read good books," said Lindstrum, "books written by men." + +Mrs. Gilchrist sat up stiffly. Her husband peered out of his glasses. He +liked Lindstrum. He wanted to talk to him. But he got no further than +clearing his throat several times. The judge interrupted with a glower. +He was given the floor, eyes turning to him. A defender. But he merely +glowered. That was his decision, that settled it. If he glowered this +moujik was done for. He glowered Lindstrum off the face of the earth. +But Lindstrum turned full on him and thrust his face forward as if he +were going to come closer. + +"What kind of books do you read?" he asked the glowerer. The snap in his +voice startled Henrietta. She was afraid for a minute this strange +looking creature waiting for Doris would do something and she turned +appealingly to Basine. + +"All kinds, sir," the judge answered in his most effective baritone. +Lindstrum nodded his head slowly and a grin came into his eyes. He kept +looking at the judge and grinning and nodding his head and just as the +judge was going to say something Lindstrum abandoned him. He had turned +to Aubrey. Aubrey had grown eager. A confusion inspired by an impulse +toward garrulity was in his eyes. He wanted to talk to this Lindstrum +and discuss things beyond everybody in the room. Lindstrum thought he +was a soda-water clerk. One of those radicals with unbalanced ideas. But +he wanted to talk to him. Perhaps they had something in common? Aubrey +felt himself growing angry. But it was not an anger of silences. An +anger of words. He wanted to talk, to reason with Lindstrum and put +himself over with Lindstrum. Lindstrum was like a conscience. + +"Hello!" The arrival stood up and looked at Doris. He forgot about +calling her names. She was smiling at him like a fresh wind blowing +through his heart. The roomful dropped out of sight. + +"Do you want to go for a walk?" he asked slowly. "It's nice and cold +outside." + +She nodded and Lindstrum, with a long, deliberate stare at the company +spoke to them. + +"Good night," he said. When he had said it he continued to stare as if +he were weighing the matter over carefully and should say something +more. The pause grew embarassing but not to him. Without nodding his +head he repeated the result of his deliberations. + +"Good night," he said in the same voice. That was enough. + +He left them sitting in their chairs--a general calmly marching off the +field of victory. He left behind a silence. The company was +uncomfortable. + +Mrs. Gilchrist and the judge stared hard at the doorway through which +Lindstrum had passed. They wanted to insult the doorway. Lindstrum's +visit had had a curious effect upon Ramsey. He had sat silent and +avoided the young man's eyes. But he had felt himself becoming animated +as if something were exciting him. When the young man had glanced at him +for a moment he had blushed and an odd nervousness had made his thin +body tremble. Now that Lindstrum was gone he felt the room had become +empty and entirely lacking in interest. + +"How do you like him?" Mrs. Basine whispered at his side. She was +worried. + +"Him? Oh yes, the young man," Ramsey muttered. "He ... he has nice +eyes." + + + + +10 + + +In the park Lindstrum sat on a bench with Doris and talked. + +"All this," he said, "all this night and trees and things we feel more +than we see, are like what you're like. But why should we call that +love. Because love means to hold a woman in your arms. I don't care +about holding a woman. I want to hold something else. If you hold +something in your arms you haven't got it. It's what you can't get your +fingers on that you own most. Because you dream about it. It's what you +dream about that you own most." + +He spoke disconnectedly. There were pauses during which he allowed the +night to punctuate his thoughts. + +"Have you written any more things since last time?" Doris asked. + +"No. I didn't bring anything with me." + +He was silent. Doris wished he would sit closer to her. His silence +excited her. She could feel things moving in him. She became nervous. +Her dark eyes looked fully at his profile and a pride elated her. Other +men didn't stare like that into the night. They had fussy little eyes +and fussy little bodies. They fidgeted around. But Lief sat as if he +were turned to granite. + +There was something ominous about him. The glint of his straight eyes +and the leather color of his face were ominous. She felt that he was +powerful, more powerful than the spaces he stared into. He could stand +up and swing the park around their heads. She wanted to come close to +him. + +"Lief," she whispered, "why don't you come oftener. I get lonely for +you. I hardly talk to anybody else." + +He nodded as if agreeing with her and saying silently, "That's right. +Don't talk to anybody else." But he said nothing aloud. + +She wanted to be the thing he swung around his head. If he would take +her up and destroy her it would make her crazy with happiness. She +closed her fingers around his hand and trembled. Her body felt weak. +Her arms were as if she no longer directed them. They were being drawn. + +"I'm so proud of you. You're so different from all of them, Lief. I +can't stand them sometimes. They're terrible." + +He nodded his head with a ponderous air of sagacity. + +"They make me sick," she went on. "All of them. They're not like people +but like something else. Like parts of people." + +He nodded his head again. She was all right--this girl. She didn't +belong with the pack in the room he had left. She wasn't a little slut +... one of those lying, filthy ones. But he was afraid of her. He wanted +to keep things like they were. If you let down to a woman she started +climbing all over you and asking for this and for that. Anyway it was +time to walk back now. There was a lot of work in the shop. He got up at +six. + +They walked out of the park together. The spring night called for +endings. The darkness hinted. The day with its houses and noises +lingered like an unnatural memory in the shadows. What were people for? +The darkness hinted. Doris felt a mist in her blood. So curious, the +day. Unreal, empty. Noises that circled, faces that went on forever. +People had been moving forever. They kept walking and walking. There was +no ending to people. The years passed under their feet like a treadmill +and they kept moving on. + +Now it was quiet. Beside this man she felt there was no more moving on. +Her heart filled with impatience. It was hard to breathe. Her arms were +heavy, overcrowded. "Oh," she whispered to herself, "I'll die. I'll +die." + +But they continued to walk. The man's silences, his ominous reserves, +his sagacious noddings had excited her. She felt angry with him. He had +called for her a half dozen times in the last two months. They had met +by accident in a book store. A clerk had introduced them. He called and +they went for walks. But he said nothing. Once he had told her she was +beautiful. Another time he had mentioned, as if it were a casual thing, +that she was the sort of girl to whom he would like to make a gift. But +of what, he didn't know. Some gift worthy, he said. She had been +frightened of him at first. But gradually as she grew accustomed to his +strange manners, his bristling silences, she became impatient, angry. + +He stopped. + +"I'll go this way," he announced. "Good-night." + +He stood looking at her for a long minute and then turning, walked away. +She watched him but he didn't look back. She walked to the house alone. + +Her thoughts now were clear. He was a man who didn't want her but was +looking for something of which she was a part. He never tried to touch +her. He never said, "I love you," to her. But he did love. She knew +that. He called it by other names and misunderstood himself. And he +might go on that way till he died, misunderstanding himself. To be near +her thrilled him. She remembered how he became taut, immobile, sitting +on the bench. His arms quivered. Yet he never tried to embrace her. + +She thought about this as she walked to her home. Would he ever embrace +her? She knew about his silences. She could even feel how he suffered +inside because something was urging him that had no direction. It was +this life in him that lured her. It stirred her senses. + +Nothing before had interested her. Days had passed with no difference in +them. Now he made a difference. When she remembered him a pain that was +like anger filled her. + +She would go to bed and lie in the dark dreaming of him with her eyes +open. A languor made it difficult to walk. She smiled to herself. It was +pleasant, sweet to think of him. For a moment the image of his face +transfixed her. She whispered aloud, "Talk to me. Oh, please ... +please...." + +Then images that disgusted her crowded her thought. They came of their +own volition. Her sister Fanny kissing men. Her brother George kissing +women. Keegan, the judge, Ramsey, Aubrey and Henrietta--they disgusted +her with their continual love-making, kissing, dirtiness. People like +that didn't understand anything else. Their bodies searched each other +out and clung to each other. Bodies clenched together--she began to rage +in silence against them. He called them the pack. They were like that--a +pack of animals with nothing else but animal bodies to live with. She +paused in her hating, a chill coming between her silent words. The +company of images in her mind had dissolved. Their faces came together +and blurred into a single face and she saw Lief Lindstrum holding her +wildly against him, his lips open and hot against her mouth.... + +The company had gone. Her family was left in the library. She had +intended going upstairs without speaking. But she came into the room and +sat down. Fanny looked at her with a questioning innocence that said, +"Dear me, I wonder what people do who walk in the park at night?" Her +brother was talking. He looked at her with a smile and went on. + +"You mustn't think I'm a blockhead, mother, about these people here +tonight, for instance. Just because I get along with them. I'll give you +my theory of people. We were discussing our guests," he explained +turning to Doris. She nodded. "Never believe them," he grinned. "They're +all liars. The thing to do is to lie better than they. Honesty, purity, +nobility--bah! I know what I'm talking about. That's what people tell +each other they are. And they are, of course. Till they're found out. +You said a little while ago I was lying. Of course I was. But not the +way you mean. That breach of promise case really happened. I wasn't +lying about that. You wait, you'll understand what I mean after a few +years. I'm going to do things." + +He stood up and yawned. Mrs. Basine smiled happily at him. The day had +tired her. She felt pleasantly responsible for her three children. Three +human beings that belonged to her. At least she could pretend they did. +And sometimes it was almost as nice dreaming of what they had in their +minds as planning her own tomorrows. Basine went to his bedroom. + +He undressed and lay down. Sounds continued in the house. Doris coming +upstairs. Fanny chattering to his mother. Water running in the bathroom. +He turned the gas out and lay with his face toward the window. + +His body was weary. But he felt young. He thought of the many years +ahead of him. Everything was new. Even the century had just begun. A new +century. Life was a gay unknown. He thought about things. Things filled +the future. They could not be seen or understood but their presence +could be felt. Unlived years stretched ahead, like a track without end. + +He must be careful not to grow too serious. Lying was easy but he must +avoid getting tangled up. Say anything you want to, but look out how +hard you say it. People were easy. It would all come out beautifully. +Success, power, fame, money, happiness--they were all easy. They would +all come to him. People were fools and you could get ahead of them. He +yawned. He almost fell asleep. His mind mumbled with words. His day +dreams, his memories, his weariness jumbled dim pictures. Phantoms +drifted without outline over his head. + +He fell asleep and dreamed he was in a brightly lighted hall. Men were +cheering. Music played and people were yelling his name. In the dream he +was going to make a speech. The brightly lighted hall grew larger and +the crowd reached as far as he could see. But he didn't come out to make +the speech. Instead a woman in a gaudy dress came out. Her face was +white with powder and heavily painted. Her eyes were sunken. In the +dream he shuddered because the great crowd would rave indignantly at the +substitute who had come out to make the speech for him. But instead, a +tremendous cheer went up at the sight of this woman and everybody +yelled, "Basine ... Basine.... There he is. Hooray for Basine!" They +mistook the woman for him. The woman began to make his speech. The one +he had prepared. She spoke in a tired, hollow voice but the crowd +continued to cheer. Where was he in the dream? There was no Basine in +the dream. He kept wondering about this. There was no Basine but the +crowd thought this woman in the gaudy dress with the painted face was +Basine and they cheered her for him, calling her, "Basine...." while he, +hiding somewhere, the dream didn't say where, listened to the woman and +the cheers and the shouts of his name. He was saying to himself with a +feeling of horror, "I know that woman they think is me. It's that woman +Keegan and I met once. Keegan and I met her, by God!" He was going to +stop something but the dream went away. + + + + +11 + + +The city grows and keeps on growing. People vanish. Buildings spring up +to take their places. The streets become full of vast, intricate +activities. People have vanished but these activities keep on growing. + +The city shakes with noises. A cloud of noises rises from the street and +bursts slowly into names. Everywhere one turns, doors and windows +chatter with names. Names run up and down the faces of buildings. Gilt +names slant downward, porcelain names curve like lopsided grins. Names +fly from banners, hang from long wires, lean down from rooftops. + +The city is plastered with names. Tired men stop and blink. They mutter +to themselves in the street, "Lets see, where am I?" Their eyes stare at +an inanimate dance of names. Names fall out of the sky. An alphabet +face with eyebrows, nose, lips and hair made of names winks and sticks +out its tongue. + +These are not the names of people but of activities. As the city grows +the names pile up and reach higher. Names of things to eat, wear, see, +feel, smell, dream of and die for--they become too many to see and far +too many to read. They drift up and down the faces of the buildings and +scamper over the pavements like a lunatic writing. + +The vanished people no longer look at them. But the names continue to +pile up and spread out. They are a city apart. They no longer offer +clews to people. They are no longer advertisements yelping vividly out +of the air, but a decoration. Inscrutable hieroglyphs that salute each +other in the grave confusion of windows. They grimace with secret +meanings at each other and keep each other company in the night sky. +Like the people they too have become too many. As the city grows their +meanings and purposes also vanish, leaving behind a comet's tail and a +deaf and dumb good-bye. + +The city grows and devours itself and ceases to become articulate in +names. It shakes and howls senselessly. No one understands where the +noises come from or why. Windows become too many to count. Activities +double on themselves and tangle themselves up in other activities until +each activity becomes a mystery to itself. Business men buried in +business pause to blink at their desks and mutter, "Let's see, where am +I?" + +Underneath the activities and the comet's tail of names, the vanished +ones crawl about their business of destinations. They have remained +sedately unaware of their disappearance. They have barricaded themselves +behind activities and for the most part they are silent. Their +activities talk for them in a language easy to hear but difficult to +understand. Furnaces, engines, factories, traffic--these talk. Their +talk is very important. It is curious that for the simple business of +keeping alive there should be so many activities necessary. It is also +incomprehensible. + +Among themselves people offer each other informations and +interpretations. But these informations and interpretations are not of +their souls but of their activities which have nothing to do with them +except to hide them. They talk of business enterprise, of success, +progress, civic development, industrial achievement, political ideals; +of money made and money spent. This talk sounds very important. It +becomes an important part of the confusion of activities. + +Faces uncoiling in the streets, legs slanting against dark walls, suits +of clothes--these are the vanished people. Masses of rich and poor +moving on, everlastingly moving on through the whirl of years. Age like +a tenacious pestilence shovels them off a treadmill. Yet they remain and +increase and become hidden from each other by their too many selves, +hidden from themselves by their too many activities. They grow confused +and stop staring at each other. They walk listening to the shake of the +city, blinking at the alphabet face above them. + +The city is a great bubble they have blown. It floats over their heads +and grows greater and more dazzling. Slowly it sinks down and engulfs +them. + +This bubble talks for them. Activities talk for them. It is easier that +way. Activities say, "We, the people." This suffices. The vanished ones +point with relief to the glitter of activities and repeat, "There are +we." + +But activities grow too fast and too intricate to understand. The burst +of names becomes too violent to grasp. Then the people lost in their +bubble become an insupportable mystery to themselves. + +Buried beneath activities that grow by themselves, that seem to pulse +with mathematical passions and to multiply like a devouring fungus, the +vanished ones send up a clamor for whys and wherefores. An official +clamor. Life has become an enigma deeper than death. The cry is no +longer "Who is God? And where does He live?" But, "Who are We and what +are We?" + +Surveying themselves they see nothing and demand explanations of this +phenomenon. Baffled by their anonymity they demand identifications. They +want to be assured that things are all right, that their burial is O. K. + +And thus new explainers and identifiers leap daily into existence. These +are the bombinators, the dexterous geniuses able to translate the +insupportable mystery of life. Life is a mumble mumble, a pointless +delirium. People feel this and grow very serious. They feel life is a +little breath, a whimsical zephyr capering for a moment through space. + +But these are insupportable feelings. It is easy for the fish in the sea +to feel like that but in people there is a mania for direction. Out of +this mania is born the necessity of illusion--the illusion of direction. +There must be illusion. Life is not a mumble mumble but a clear voice +teeming with precisions. Not a pointless delirium but a vast, orderly +activity that has names--too many names to count. + +As children demand lights in the darkness, grown older they demand +illusions in life. Their reasoning is simple. "We are so puny," they +think. "There is hardly anything to us. We dare not dream or even think. +Look what would happen if we allowed ourselves to dream. We would begin +asking impossible questions of ourselves. Why are we? What lies under +our senses? So we must put away dreams and thought. They're dangerous. +But without them we become insufficient to ourselves. We become +incomplete. So make us a part of something outside ourselves that we may +remain unaware of our insufficiency. Make us a part of laws and ideas, +Gods, systems and activities. We are frightened by what we do not know. +And above the highest names on our buildings is a circle of unknowns. +Dispel this circle so that we may be rid of our fear. Give us paths to +traverse, goals to struggle toward and make these paths and goals +outside ourselves. We dare not adventure inside ourselves because that +way is inimical. Inspire us with great outward purposes so that the +inward purposelessness of our lives that would devour us in enigmas will +be obscured." + +The illusion-bringers arise--dexterous craftsmen able to fashion +purposes, Gods, ideals. Their work is to create heroic destinations, to +invent objectivity. These are the geniuses. They provide the sanities +which are the vital solace for terror. They invent masters because +masters are necessary since to have a master is to have an +objective--servitude. The instinct for servitude is an old, unfailing +friend. It represents the clamor for an outward purpose to conceal the +inner purposelessness of the vanished ones. And the geniuses are those +in whom the instinct for servitude inspires new visions of lovelier +masters. Thus is progress made--by increasing and making more definite +the demands of masters. + +Once the geniuses found their task simple. Now it grows difficult. +Famous masters, famous illusions, famous objectives lose their value. +Their capacity for solace dwindles. The illusion of God grows dim. The +illusions that bore the names Zeus, Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Mohamet are +fading. The knees of the race have stiffened with vanity and prayer +grows difficult. The great Heavens overladen with their angel choirs and +hierarchies tumble about the ears of people. Slowly the reservoirs of +faith in consoling myths dry up. Epigrams have almost sponged away one +of the immemorial deeps of the soul. + +The geniuses cast about inventing new masters, masters who will reward +and punish and establish paths to traverse and goals to achieve. As the +activities increase and as people vanish deeper under the self-growing +fungus of finance, industry, government, they develop a paradoxical +vanity. A vanity by which they seek to preserve themselves. A vanity +becomes necessary that will save them from the knowledge of their +inferiority to life.... Their age-old illusion of Gods on High drifts +away. The new illusion slowly unfolds. Again the reasoning is simple. + +The race speaks.... "There is no longer a God or a Heaven of futures. +The words eternity and infinity are bottomless and no longer hold us or +guide us. But we must have a master, one who will enable us to dream of +His recompense since we still dare not adventure in dreams of our own. +And this master must assure us as our old master did--that there are +great purposes in life, great rewards. We will make a minor change in +our theology. Once it was our desire to think of ourselves as having +been created in the image of God--a Superior. This was when we were +strong, when we walked the earth and wore our destinies like gay +feathers in our caps. Now we have grown diffused and weak. The world is +no longer simple enough for us to understand and ignore. We dare not +ignore our disappearance from life. Therefore in order to compensate for +this disappearance we will create a God in our image and worship Him. +The deeper we sink, the further we vanish, the higher, nobler and more +powerful will we make our new God. Come, illusion mongers, we desire a +new God. We desire a new Heaven. Make us a Heaven of quicksilver in +which we may see not Jehovah who is a myth but our own image glorified, +which is closer to reality, and which our dawning intelligence may more +easily swallow. In this heaven let us see our civic virtues magnified. +We want for a master an idealization of ourselves, whom we may serve in +hope of rewards." + +Thus the vanished ones stare aloft and slowly the heavenly mirror +spreads itself for them--a mirror of identifications and explanations. +It is all clear--or at least it grows clear--in this mirror; who we are +and what we are.... A beautiful image marches across its face. It is the +image of the vanished ones, ennobled and deified--become a new illusion, +become a God-like creature with flashing eyes. A marvelous, +unsurpassable creature whose every gesture is perfection, whose every +grimace is unsurpassable perfection. A reassuring God. Whatever their +moods, their despairs, their manias--they have only to look up and see +them ennobled and deified in the mirror-heaven. + +Gazing aloft the vanished ones raise their voices in a cheer of triumph. + +"We are confused. We have disappeared. Our activities have devoured us. +But we are not afraid. For behold, whatever we do, we remain God. See +our reflection. We are always and consistently perfect. Our stupidities, +hysterias, bewilderments shine back at us out of this new Heaven as +God-like attributes. Wisdom and victory smile at us eternally out of our +mirror. Let the city devour itself and become a jungle of names. Let +life lose itself in the labyrinth of activities. Let the buildings +devour life until it becomes less than a tiny warmth under huge ribs of +steel. These things are no longer insupportable. There is an answer +always to 'Who are we and what are we?' We are God. By worshipping +ourselves we may now dispel the dawning knowledge of our insufficiency. +The old God is dead. He was an illusion. The new God alone now has the +power to punish and reward. We will kneel with fanatical servitude +before the image of our virtues and punish ourselves with a terrible +justice in order to appear God-like in our own eyes." + +Slowly the new heaven above the city grows and the vanished ones with +the eyes of Narcissus stare enchanted into its quicksilver depths. + + + + +12 + + +In the days that followed her walk with Lindstrum in the park, Doris +Basine abandoned herself to her passion for the man. Her body desired +him. She dreamed of their coming together as of some transcendental +climax. + +But the months passed and Lindstrum held himself aloof. She felt certain +of herself though. It was only necessary to wait. She could go on +dreaming of him and waiting too. To think of him, to remember he was +alive, this for the time was happiness enough. + +After a number of months they saw each other oftener. He seemed to grow +more dependent on the fanatical admiration of her eyes and words. Her +flattery stirred an excitement in him that he was learning to utilize in +writing. The fact that he was loved made it easier to write. The memory +of the things she said, of the desire in her eyes was like music. It was +easier to write with music playing in his head. But the more he wrote +and dreamed of writing the less he desired her. So her passion became an +applause urging him from her. + +He would listen trembling to her gradually shameless avowals. + +"You're so wonderful. So remarkable. You're the only man in the world +that's alive. Your genius is something I can't even talk about. It must +be worshipped. I love you." + +In the midst of such monologues she would suddenly vanish from +Lindstrum's thought. Her beauty and desire were powerless to hold his +attention. Her enfevered praise would become a lash that drove him into +himself. And, trembling with a passion that her love had aroused, he +would leave her. But it would be a passion which demanded possession not +of her but of himself. + +He would walk excitedly to his room over his father's shop and sit down +to write. + +After many months Doris began to understand. He brought her poems he had +written; poems like night music and passion music. She felt his heart +throbbing among their words. Even his body was in them. What she wanted +of him he gave to the poems he wrote. + +She announced herself at home as tired of her surroundings and +dependence. Through the aid of a friend she secured a job as clerk in a +large bookstore. One evening she came home to tell her mother she was +going to move. + +Basine entered the argument that followed. To her surprise he took her +side, agreeing with her that a modern young woman had a better chance of +realizing herself if she lived alone and made her own way. + +Mrs. Basine refused to be convinced. Not about the theories, she +explained, but about Doris. When her two children argued with her she +felt herself the victim of a conspiracy. Why did Doris want to leave her +home? And why did George want her to? The answers didn't lie in the +arguments they gave. But because she was unable to determine what the +answers were, she assented. Later she thought, + +"If I hadn't given my consent she would have done it anyway. This way +I've saved her from being disobedient." + +Doris took up her life in a two-room apartment on the near north side of +the city. The district was alive with rooming-houses, little stores, +lovers who walked hand in hand at night, artists who tried to paint, +writers who worked as clerks and tried to write, workingmen, artisans, +derelicts. Everyone seemed alone in this district and on warm evenings +groups of strangers sat stiffly on the stone steps of the houses and +stared at the sky. + +Doris was able to live on her salary. She made friends and her evenings +were devoted to conversations. But they were a curious type of friends. +They were men and women one got to know only by their ideas. One became +acquainted with their ideas, then familiar with them, then on terms of +intimacy with them. + +It had been different at home. At home she knew men and women as they +were. They sat around and talked and if you listened to what they said +you came close to them. You understood them and when they said +good-night you knew where they were going. You knew all about them, +where they worked, their family, their homes. They grew into familiars +as uninteresting and unmysterious as your own relatives. + +But here where Doris had come to live were men and women about whom you +never learned anything. They talked and talked but all the while you +wondered where they worked, what things were in their hearts. You +wondered how they lived and what they did all the time. But you never +found out. Such informations were not a part of the talk that went on. +It was all talk about outside things, about politics and women and art. +Everybody in the circle Doris entered became familiar in a short time. +But after they had become familiar there remained this mystery about +them. What sort of people were they under their poses and behind their +words? + +The most curious change her freedom brought Doris was a garrulity that +surprised even herself. She became adept in arguments vindicating the +emancipation of her sex and proving that the ideals and standards by +which women lived were the rose-covered chains forged for their +enslavement by man. + +But her garrulity did not deceive Doris. She grew more clearly aware of +herself. She knew that her entire upheaval, her taking up new ideas, her +repudiating conventions had been inspired by a single factor. She wanted +to live alone in a room so there would be no difficulty in giving +herself to Lindstrum when the opportunity came. + +With this in mind she had deliberately converted herself into a "new +woman," since an expression of the new womanhood was independence of +family and since independence of family meant a room to herself. Of this +subterfuge Doris became tolerantly aware. Her hypocricies did not +concern her. In her desire for the man she loved the surfaces of her +life disappeared like straws in flame. + +Lindstrum had visited her in her new quarters with misgivings. When he +was alone he often sat thinking of her and repeating her ardent phrases. +This helped him to make love to himself, to seduce the strange companion +who lived in the depths of his soul into embracing him. Out of this +embrace came words. Out of the ecstacy these hypnotisms induced, he was +able to create gigantic phrases, mystic sequences of words whose reading +often inspired people with an excitement similar to the emotion that had +produced them. Women in particular grew emotional at the contact of his +written words. When he read his poetry to some of them who were his +friends they closed their eyes and thought he was making love to them. + +Lindstrum utilizing the adoration Doris gave him as a means of +self-seduction, remained aware of the danger this offered. The danger +was summed up in the word "marriage." At twenty-six his sexual impulses +found sublimated outlet in the orgies of self-seduction which he called +his creative work. Thus his physical nature clamored for no other mate +than his own genius, and the lure of marriage as a legalized debauch +failed to touch him. His egoism likewise found a more perfect surfeit in +his own self-admiration than in that of others. He saw in marriage +merely a forfeit of his privacy and an intruder upon his self-love. + +Doris studying him carefully from behind her abandonment discovered the +barrier. + +"I don't want ever to marry," she explained to him. This started talk in +which Lindstrum defended marriage as an institution. He grew eloquent on +the subject that society and civilization were dependent upon marriage +and that a man who sought to dispense with it was merely being +unfaithful to himself as a member of society. + +Doris saw through the angry phrases of her friend that he was trying to +tell her how little he desired her. He was defending marriage and +proclaiming his belief in it, in order to excuse his physical +indifference toward her, both in his own eyes and hers. Since she had +said she thought marriage was an abomination, he could safely defend it +without compromising himself. He need have no fear that she would agree +with him. In this way his pose as a moralist was a convenient method of +concealing the fact that he had no impulse toward immorality. He could +even insist with impunity that she marry him and so use her rhetorical +stand against marriage in general as a personal refusal. + +Doris allowed matters to drift through the year. One winter night +Lindstrum, invited innocently to occupy the sofa in the studio rather +than to tackle the storm-bound transportation outside, consented. He sat +reading things he had written until midnight came. + +He did not see how it had happened but when he looked up after one of +his readings Doris was sitting before the small grate fire. Her face was +turned from him and he stared at her. She had undressed and slipped a +green silk robe over her body. Her black silk stockings gleamed like +exclamation points in the firelight. Her throat and breasts were visible +and the shadows mirrored themselves in her white arms. + +As he looked at her the warmth of the room seemed to bring her closer. +He thought her beautiful and standing up went to her side. His hand +sought clumsily to caress the hair coiled on her head. He stood silent, +remembering how she loved him. Always the thought excited him. But now +he seemed to be thinking about it with a curious calm. There was +something about a woman who loved that was beyond words to figure out. + +She looked up at him with a smile. A faint odor stirred from her. He +found himself drawing deep breaths and staring at her with a heavy pain +in his arms. The pain she had always brought to him and out of which he +had made his words. Now this was easier, simpler--to reach his arms +around her.... + + * * * * * + +... "I belong to you now," she whispered as the dawn lighted the room. +The fire in the grate still burned feebly. They had kept it alive +during the night. + +"You see," she went on, "I was right about not marrying. We can love +each other like this without marrying ever. Oh I love you so. You make +me so happy." + +"Yes," he murmured sleepily, intent upon the whitening room. "Dawn--the +white shadow of night," whispered itself through his mind. But he said +nothing. After an interval he repeated as if delivering himself of +innumerable ideas--"Yes." + + * * * * * + +... Lindstrum slowly extricated himself from the lure of her passion. +For months her love, dissolving rapturously in his embrace, remained a +flattery too bewildering to resist. He allowed himself then to yield to +the slowly accumulating demands of his mistress. Nevertheless in a month +he had lost interest in his own sensations. The thought of impending +embraces in the studio failed to arouse him.... There was nothing Doris +had to give that was comparable to the delicious elation his own +self-seduction held for him. + +But although the physiology of sex lost its attraction for him, he +remained interested in Doris' submission. Her delight in his caresses +and her exclamations of arduous love fascinated him as a species of +applause. He grew able to resist the contagion of her sensualism and to +make her happy, without essentially occupying himself. + +In the second year of their association he gradually undermined her +passion. Aware of his complete coolness, Doris fought successfully to +suppress the ecstacies he was able to stir in her. Their relations by +degrees returned to a platonic basis. + +Lindstrum was becoming known. His poetry printed in fugitive labor +gazettes was attracting a slight attention. He was being identified as a +poet of the masses. The masses, however, unable to understand, let alone +appreciate the mystic imagery and elusive passion of his vers libre +phrasings remained oblivious to him. They continued to read and swear by +the newspaper jinglers celebrating in rhyme the platitudes which kept +them in subjugation. His fame was beginning through the enthusiasm of a +few scattered dilletantes who abhorred the masses and saw in his work an +intense technique and high asthetic quality. + +He remained loyal to Doris in one respect, still coming to her for the +adulation which somehow quickened his desire to write. But Doris, with +the repression of her own desires had grown silent. She appeared to +relapse into her former self--the enigmatic and disdainful virgin of the +Basine library. + +But this simulation included only her mannerisms. As a girl of twenty +she had been without thought. Now a strange intellectualism preoccupied +her. It developed when she was twenty-three and when Lindstrum was +beginning to ignore her again. It began with the knowledge that there +were definite preoccupations luring her lover from her. Against one of +these she knew herself powerless. This was his desire to write. She had +understood this thing in Lindstrum from the first. It had been, in fact, +the lure of the man. But now it had taken entire possession of him and +had become her rival. + +He had grown dumb. His grey eyes no longer smiled or roved. They gazed +without movement as if fixed on invisible objects. They seemed without +sight, yet there was life in them--an intensity like the anger of +blindness. He no longer looked at things. He avoided contact with the +visible and imposed a deliberate fog on his vision. He went through his +day unaware of details, yet absorbing them; unseeing, yet translating +the commonplaces around him into phenomena that tugged at the hearts of +his few readers. + +Doris knew the futility of combating in her lover the habit of +self-seduction now became a vital necessity. She tried to establish a +harmony between them by turning to writing herself. The clarity of her +mind made poetry impossible. Her thoughts refused to dissolve into +magnificent blurs. Her emotions were too definite to find solacing +outline in ambiguous pirouettes. + +She envied her lover his natural aptitude for poetry. It seemed to her a +comforting and satisfying evasion--to write poetry. There were no rules +of logic, coherence, technique. There was even no rule of +intelligibility. + +There was a man named Levine with whom she discussed matters of this +sort, exchanging definitions with him of such things as life, love and +art. He was a Jew and worked on a newspaper. Lean, vicious-tongued and +unkempt, the fantastic skepticism of this man attracted her. He was a +man without principles, ideas, prejudices. His attitude toward life she +sensed to be a pose. But he had been completely consumed by this pose +and the pose was one of superiority. His brain was like a magician. It +waved words over ideas or problems and they turned inside out. Or they +vanished and reappeared again as their opposites. He appeared to devote +himself with a mysterious enthusiasm to proving everyone but himself in +the wrong. When he read editorials in the newspapers he would comment, +"They say this. But they mean this." And he grew elated explaining the +low, sordid motives which inspired the noble-phrased pronouncements in +the press and elsewhere. + +When she talked to him about poetry one evening he knew her well enough +to understand she wanted to talk about Lindstrum. Doris had tried her +hand at poetry and the results had been in a measure satisfactory. Poems +had come out under her pencil. She compared them coldly with things Lief +had written. They were as good and better. She offered them to Levine to +read. He nodded after each one and smiled, "Very nice. Excellent. +Superb." Then he handed them back to her and added, "I've always known +this. Anybody can write poetry. This poetry is quite good. But it +remains, you're no poet." + +And he recited from memory a few lines of Lindstrum's work. + +"You see the difference," he said. "His rings truer. Although yours is +much more lucid and beautifully written. The difference isn't between +your work and his but between your work and yourself and his work and +himself. When Lindstrum wrote that he felt a thrill of satisfaction. He +had for a minute completed himself in the poem. Therefore the thing +represented a certain perfection. When you wrote you felt nothing after +writing it. In an hour the whole thing seemed rather senseless and +unworthy of you. You felt no thrill of completion. This shows that no +matter if you write a dozen times better than Lindstrum the fact +remains that you're not a poet and he is. + +"But why write poetry. I have a friend who says that poetry is an impish +attempt to paint the color of the wind. He hasn't written any himself +yet but he will. But I've warned him. He'll never succeed. Lindstrum +will because Lindstrum has the faculty of rising above logic. He can +recreate his emotions in words. Emotion is unintelligent, banal, +wordless. The trick of being a great poet is to make your mind +subservient to your emotion--the triumph of matter over mind, in other +words." + +He noticed an inattentiveness and stopped. He hoped some day to make +love to her but as long as she remained interested in his verbal +jugglings he was content with that. + +When she was alone Doris took a morbid interest in unravelling ideas and +attenuations of ideas. Morbid, because the process seemed to bring a +melancholy to her. But she persisted. There was an elation. Thinking was +like a game in which one surprised oneself with denouements. + +One day while walking she reasoned silently about her situation. Her +love for Lindstrum had grown. At times it fell on her like a despair. +She would lie in the dark of her room repeating to herself that she +would go mad unless he came back to her, unless he loved her. + +Walking swiftly she began to think of her plans. Her plans centered upon +bringing him back to her arms. + +"If I'm going to do this I must first of all be clear about myself," she +thought. "I've become interested in lots of things. I must find out why +and what's started me." + +The answer that came to her was one of the denouements of the game. It +repeated, but clearly, that she was chiefly concerned with bringing Lief +back to her and that one way to do this was to become keener than he, +become brilliant enough to deflate him, to confuse him. And this could +best be done by attacking his subject matter, by turning his conceptions +of life and people upside down and so throwing him out of gear. + +When she got home she was still thinking. + +"What I must do, is make him think. He doesn't think. The pictures he +sees pass like blurs through his eyes and come out like blurs under his +pencil. If I can make him think he'll have to open his eyes. He'll have +to defend what he accepts without defenses now--the nobility of the +masses, the beauty of life. And if he starts thinking and doubting he +won't be able to write because he's not built to write that way. He's +built to write out of passion." + +The idea became cruelly apparent in her mind. She must destroy Lindstrum +in order to possess him. She must beat down the passionate certitude of +the man, puncture his blind, roaring egomania, take away from him his +genius and then he would turn to her. + +Her thought at this point gave itself over to the passion in her. Anger +filled her and a strange viciousness as though she had something under +her hands to tear to pieces. Her clear-thinking mind was a weapon--a +thing she could use to destroy a rival with. And if it destroyed Lief +along with the rival, what matter? Slowly the morbidity of her position +grew. Levine was an ally. His talk gave her ideas--directions in which +to think. She disliked his attitude. The man was an insincerity. There +was also something unctuous and cowardly about him. He never stood up +for his notions in the face of conservatively indignant people. He +capitulated and even denied his beliefs or lack of beliefs. Yet in the +nihilism to which he pretended she found a background for her own +thinking. Nihilism to Levine was a conversational pastime. To Doris it +became a despairing hope for salvation. She poured over books, carefully +questioned the secrets of life, not like a philosopher seeking answers +but like a Messalina questing for poisons. + +Her debates with Lindstrum were at first casual and good-natured. A +humility before his genius made her unable to assert herself. He could +hurl his mystic word sequences at her and their beauty made her +incapable of appreciating their lack of psychologic content. + +But her determination grew. She must destroy--what? The somber ecstasy +which the spectacle of people awoke in him. People ... people ... the +word contained the shape and soul of her rival. People ... workers, +toilers, underdogs ... he sang of their bruised hearts and their little +gropings. Songs of unfulfilled dreams, of moods like ashen baskets that +broke under the weight of life. Coal miners, farmers, stevedores, +vagrants, desperadoes, drowsy clerks and fumbling factory hands--the +dull faces of the immemorial crowd sweating for its living, grunting +under its burdens--his phrases hymned their loneliness and their +defeats. Beautiful phrases that seemed almost the work of a fantastic +word weaver. But she knew better. The little images, the patterns of +street scenes, the aloof fragments of idea--these might be to some only +decorations. The curve of a pick going through the air, the shake of a +great trestle with an overland train thundering across, the glint of a +night torch under the eyes of a section gang--these might be only +abstractions outlining bits of rhythm and color. But then Lindstrum +would not have been a poet. + +There was beneath them, buoying them higher and higher like some +mysterious, invisible force, a passion. It escaped now and then from +between the lines of his work, shaking itself like a fist, holding its +arms out like a lost woman. Threats crept out of the placid little +images in which fragments of street scenes postured vividly for the eye. +A fury loomed suddenly behind the mumble of a hurdy-gurdy piece; a snarl +offered itself as invisible punctuation for a fol de rol of city life. + +It was a passion that identified itself with, and seemed to fatten upon, +the injustices of life. It sought to champion the war of the crowd +against man and nature. + +"The humble ones ... the humble ones...." it sang, "they are God. The +ones life walks upon. The working ones, the cheated ones--here is their +song. The oppressed ones, listen to their hearts beating." + +It was a passion out of which a great propagandist might have been born. +But Lindstrum's mind was too simple to utilize it, even to understand +it. He was aware only of a torment that seemed to twist at his heart and +bring words like soothing whispers into his thought. A craftsman +obsession moulded it slightly. But always the inarticulate excitements +that had started him writing remained fugitive among his written words +saying neither "I hate," nor "I love," but affirming with a monotonous +crescendo, "I am. I am!" + +Doris caught by the fanatic lyricism of his songs yielded her intellect +to them for a time. The shoemaker Wotans and hobo Christs startled her +into an acquiesence. But she was determined. She knew that her praise of +his poetry was like an admiration of his infidelity. Yes, he loved +people as he might have loved her, blindly with his heart, with his arms +around their bodies and his grey eyes looking hungrily through them. + +The debates grew less casual. There were abrupt climaxes during which he +stared at her with anger. Then it was no longer a debate of ideas but of +wills. Here she knew herself powerless and yielded at once, making use +of her apology to caress his face or seize his hand. + +Alone again she would study the things she had said as she studied from +day to day the social, political and spiritual history of her own and +other times. Her mind grew to master the phrases which outlined the +illusions of the crowd, which revealed the lusts and errors of the +crowd. Her thought inspired by the single desire to destroy for her +lover the beauty of her rival, rallied continually from its defeats +before his anger. Her cynicism became a mystic thing--her adoration of +her lover turning into a hatred of life, a contempt of people. + +At night she sat in the window of her room overlooking the thinly +crowded street. The obsession held her now, occupying her energies +entirely. In its excitement, in the mental twistings, she found rest +from the desires that burned. + +Alone ... she was alone. She would play langorously with this sense of +loneliness. She would repeat quietly, "He'll never come to me again. +Never hold me in his arms. How beautiful he is. His lips are not like +any man's lips could be. But he doesn't love me any more. He loves this +in the street below. Men and women in the street." + +And here her thinking would begin, a sequel to the preface of sorrow. +Below her moved the face of her rival--the crowd. She must study the +thing out carefully so as to be clear in her words when she talked to +him. So as to make her words a poison in him that would destroy the +passion for her rival. + +The night lifted itself far away. Little lights ran a line of yellow at +the foot of buildings. Men and women. What were men and women? The blur +of faces in the street, moving along every night, what was that? +Something to idealize and give one's soul to? No. + +Individuals racing toward their secret destinations and tumbling with a +sigh into an inexhaustible supply of graves--that was a phenomenon to be +studied separately. Out of that one could locate plots, dramas, humor, +tragedy. But here below the window was another story--was a great +character that had no name but that her lover worshipped. The crowd ... +this thing in the street he sang of as the crowd was a single creature. +Its face was one, its voice one. It had one soul--the soul of man. A +dark thing, alive with inscrutable desires. + +"They're not people," she whispered, her eyes staring down, "but +traditions walking the street. Accumulations of desires and impulses +taking the night air." + +She watched it move in silence, buried beneath names and buildings. + +The crowd.... It was blind to itself. Its many eyes peered bewilderedly +about. Its many legs moved in a thousand directions. And yet it was +identical. Faces, different shaped bodies, different colored +suits--these were part of a mask. Sentences that drifted in the night, +laughters, sighs--these were part of a mask. Under the clothes, faces, +names, talk of people, was a real one--the crowd. It had no brain. + +And yet this creature that moved in the street below, in all streets +everywhere, made laws, made wars, and mumbled eternally the dark secrets +of its soul. The crowd ... a monstrous idiot that devoured men, reason +and beauty. Now it moved with a purr through the street. It was going +somewhere, making love, making plans, diverting itself with little +hopes. Its passions and its secrets slept. It moved like a great +somnambulist below her window, with a fatuous complacency in its dead +eyes. Its many masks disported themselves in the night air. But let +hunger or fear, let one of the inscrutable impulses awake it, and see +what happened. Ah! Communes, terrors, rivers of blood, heads on spikes, +torture and savagery! + +She must tell this all clearly to him, explain lucidly to him how the +hero-crowd of his singing was a gruesome and stupid criminal blind to +itself and afraid of itself and inventing laws to protect it from +itself. How it was a formless thing with hungers and desires moulded in +the beginning of Time. How it demanded proofs of itself that the +darkness of its brain and the savagery of its heart were the twin Gods +from whom all wisdom and justice flowed. How the workers, the defeated +ones, the under dogs he sang of and loved were like the others--lesser +masks envying superior masks. And how the idealisms, Gods and hopes they +all worshipped were lies the beast whispered to itself, fairy tales by +which the beast consoled itself. Yes, a monster that devoured men who +threatened its consolations, a wild fanged beast purring eternally in +the path of progress. Reason was a little cap the masks wore that every +wind blew off. Her loneliness faded. Seated by her window Doris no +longer desired the lips of her lover. There was another elation ... a +knowledge of the thing in the street, a certainty that she could make +Lief Lindstrum understand. + +One evening when he had returned to her after an absence of a month she +decided to talk calmly to him of the things she had been thinking. He +came in with an air of caution, that frightened her for an instant. She +studied him as he took off his coat and hat and sat down. It was autumn +outside. Dark winds seemed to have followed him in. This was an old +trick of his that had once thrilled her. He seemed always to have come +from far-away places, to have risen out of depths with secrets in his +eyes. Her heart yielded as she watched him. There was the quality about +him she could never resist, the thing her senses clamored for. Not that +he wrote poetry--but that he was a poet. + +It was almost useless to argue with him, to destroy him. No matter what +he said or what he was doing she could see him always as he really +was--a silent figure walking blindly over men and buildings, over days +and nights; walking with its eyes snarling and its mouth tightened; +walking over days and nights after a phantom--a silent figure walking +after a phantom. The phantom whispered, "Come" ... and the silent figure +nodded its head and followed. That was how she saw him when her heart +yielded, when she desired again to throw herself before him, make +herself the phantom he was following. + +But the obsession in her changed the picture slowly. Not a phantom but a +face she knew--the face of the crowd. A wild fanged monster that had +cast a spell over her lover and he went walking blindly after it calling +words to it, singing lullabys to it, when all these things should have +been for her. + +Their talk began as she wished it. He was ill at ease. Why had he come? +He was afraid to stay away? Why? She wondered questions as he sat +uncertainly in the chair and offered vague gossip and information to +explain his presence. Then she said abruptly: + +"I'm writing a story. I've decided not to do any more poetry but write a +story--a book, maybe." + +He nodded. + +"What about?" he asked. + +"People. About people," she smiled. She noticed his body stiffen and his +eyes grow hard. + +"Yes, about people," he repeated slowly. + +He was cautious when he came to see her now. She had reason to make +demands of him. She had given herself to him and he didn't trust her. +And she was always trying to do something to him. He knew this. It was +hard to understand her lately but one thing was easy--she was not to be +trusted. + +"How they come together in crowds," she continued evenly, "and lose +themselves in a common identity. How they become a hideous, unreasoning +savage--a single savage. I'm going to write a book making this savage +the ... the hero." + +She paused to look at him. He was inattentive but she knew better. + +"You should be interested," she smiled. + +"Why should I be interested?" he asked slowly. + +"Because you write about people, too." + +"Yes." + +"Or think you do," she went on. "I'm going to write about people as a +crowd--as one savage without a brain. That's the crowd. And this savage +is the hero of my story. Without a brain to think he creates out of his +savagery the Gods, laws and illusions under which you and I live, Lief. +Do you understand that?" + +He looked at her without answer. Her heart grew alive with strength. She +knew he was incapable of any answer but anger. His anger could usually +defeat her but this time she felt she could laugh at him when he began +to scowl. She stood up. + +"You," she said softly, "are like they are. Like the crowd. You do not +think or reason. You only feel. Words are accidents to you ... crazy +hats that rain down on your head. You write out of a hatred for things +superior to the beast. You're mad at life because it isn't as beautiful +as you'd like it to be. So when you get maddest you begin to sing lies +about it." + +She laughed at the scowl on his face. + +"Yes, I've figured it out, Lief. You're a terrible liar. When you say +you love people, the crowd, you're a terrible liar then. You don't love +the crowd at all. What is your love of people but a blind infatuation +with yourself? You hate them. Whose humanity are you all the time +writing about and singing about? Your own. But you're ashamed to admit +that. Sometimes people are ashamed to boast of themselves so they boast +of something else they've created in their own image--of their Gods. +That's the way you boast of your crowd. You're ashamed to boast of +yourself so you fix it up for yourself by giving the virtues you think +you've got to people and then singing about them as if you were an +altruist and a sympathetic human observer. You're a great liar, Lief. +And the thing you love is a lie you make up. Because people are foul. +And you know it. They're not like you or me. They can't think even as +much as a rat thinks. They're as rattle-brained as chickens, as greedy +as vultures. And they lie all the time--good God, how they lie. You hate +them too. You know all this better than I do. But you keep feeling +things and you imagine they're things people feel. You...." + +She stopped and looked at him with a smile. She had started to insult +him and had ended by pleading with him. His jaws were working as if he +were chewing. This was his anger. But she felt no defeat, nothing but a +slight confusion. She was disappointed in herself because she could not +recapture the thoughts that had filled her during the month. They had +been clear at their inception but now they were mixed up with desires +for Lief, with a fear of him. They were mixed up so that out of what she +was saying there arose no clear image of Lief and his relation to life +or of the crowd and its foulness. + +"Why don't you answer what I say?" she asked. "Are you afraid to discuss +things you are absorbed in? If people are so wonderful let's talk about +them." + +She felt a triumph. She had destroyed something. She could tell by his +eyes. They were becoming wild and unfixed. If she could be certain of +destroying it forever, of killing in him the love for her rival ... +then.... + +"The little finger of one intelligent man is worth the whole of the +French revolution," she was saying excitedly. "You're no different from +the other cowards who devote themselves to flattering the monster. You +know what I mean. The monster rewards liars and flatterers. All you have +to do to be great in the eyes of the world is to celebrate the glories +of the monster. To make a lickspittle of your genius. It's an old and +easy formula. Why don't you think? You stand up with your eyes closed +and sing about things that never existed--about the beauty of people and +... and...." + +Lindstrum thrust his face close to her. She paused. A desire to laugh +came as she stared at the too familiar features of the man. This was the +face she had held in her hands and covered with kisses. Nights of +passion and adoration had been shared with this face. Now it held itself +savagely before her and grew blurred. Something had been destroyed in +it. It was no longer familiar. It was somebody else's face.... + +"People," it said as if it were going to spit at her. "Yes, like you +say. Think about them! God damn...." + +"Lief," she murmured. + +"Don't call me Lief...." He glowered closer. + +"Oh! Then you're angry. Well, I didn't expect you to agree." She made +her voice tender now. She did not want his face unfamiliar like this as +if she had never held it in her hands and covered it with kisses. + +But he continued to thrust himself unfamiliarly before her. + +"Yes, I agree about the crowd," he answered, his eyes swinging over her +head, his jaws still working. "I agree. You got 'em right. Down in the +mud of themselves. And me with them, do you hear that! Me singing with +'em. Get me, now. I'm going to tell you." + +She moved away from this unfamiliar face but it came closer again. + +"I don't want any of your brains. Not for mine. I want to be like I am. +This beast you talk about.... That's me. He can't talk or reason.... All +right. He won't then. But he'll do something else. He'll live. He'll go +on living. Yes," he raised his voice to a shout, "I agree with you. +Because I'm the crowd. Do you get that ... you dirty ... you dirty fool +... you...." + +The oath brought his passion into his head. His hand clenched and his +fist shot into her face. She staggered away from him, calling his name. +He watched her fall against a couch. A rage cried in him. He was a liar, +was he? And a coward? All right. He was. Look out for all liars and +cowards then. He walked toward the couch and stood above her. What did +she want of him? She wanted something. Tears filled him. People ... +people that sweated and grunted and crawled around like beasts and +raised their eyes at night to the stars.... This monster she gabbed +about, this thing without hands or eyes. That was it. + +She was crying on the couch. All right. Let her. But she was crying +because she wanted something.... His hands grabbed her head and +straightened her face until their eyes were looking into each other. + +"Listen," he said. He was shaking her. "I'm going away." + +Eyes watched each other. She looked until the face she had once kissed +became entirely strange. There was no Lief, no lover. But a face staring +murderously into hers. But there was something else. Tears behind the +stare. Why was he weeping? The question like a tiny visitor sat down in +her mind. + +He let her go and walked from the room, grabbing his hat and coat into +his hands as he went. + +Doris listened. Down the stairs. Outside. He was gone. She went to the +window. Her eye had swelled and her cheek pained. She sat down and +looked into the street. + +"He hit me," she was whispering to herself. She began to weep with +shame. But her tears seemed to soften her heart toward him. He had cried +too. She arose and went to the bed. Here she had lain with him. Warm, +familiar hours. Here her arms had held him. She threw herself down and +wept aloud. + + + + +II. + + + + +13. + + +George Basine was going to see his sister Doris. In the nine years since +she had left her mother's home she had become a strange woman to Basine. +She had always been strange to him. But now it was as if she were +entirely unhuman. + +He could talk to her without shame of things that were shameful. But +there was something more tangible in her presence than the joy of being +able to confess things to her. She was practical in her ideas. She gave +him hunches for his speeches sometimes and what she said about people +and how to make an impression on them was always of value. She +understood such things. How, he couldn't determine. It was probably an +instinct with her. + +Basine walked along in the spring afternoon. It was Sunday and he should +have stayed home. Henrietta had been angry when he left. Sunday was his +day for her and the two children. There were two children now--one a boy +of seven, and a girl of five. + +But he said, "I want to see Doris. She's been feeling rather off lately. +And if you don't believe I'm going there, why just call up in an hour. +And keep on calling every hour if you want to keep check on me." + +He was always angry with his wife when he left her. She made him feel +that he was doing wrong, although she seldom said anything. But to go +away and leave her on Sunday was wrong. But not for the reasons she +sometimes hinted at. + +He knew that she suspected his frequent absences from the house. He +accused her of hounding him with her jealousy, and the knowledge of his +innocence--he had never been unfaithful during the eight years of their +marriage--made him angry. The elation of righteous anger in which he +indulged himself on all occasions involving Henrietta, was a ruse which +obscured for both himself and his wife the actual reasons of his +absences. She bored him to a point of fury. His children and their +endless noises and questionings set his nerves on edge. He fled in order +to escape his home. But Henrietta hinted that he left her for someone +else. And he denied this hotly. And in the excitement which accusation +and denial aroused both of them managed to avoid facing the fact that he +stayed away for no other reason than to escape the boredom of her +presence and discomfort of his home. + +Basine was careful to avoid this fact. It was incompatable with his +ideas. He had become a man of belligerent righteousness. He was slowly +emerging as a public figure. As an assistant in the state's attorney's +office his political activities were attracting more attention than his +legal work. He was in demand as a campaign orator. And the candidates in +whose behalf he addressed the public were men, he pointed out with an +air of fearlessness, who believed first of all that the home was the +cornerstone of civilization. + +"He is a man worth while," he would declaim, "a capable administrator. +But first of all our candidate is like you and me. His heart is centered +in his home. The greatest rewards life holds for him are not the offices +we are able to bestow on him but the love of his wife and children." + +Since his marriage which from the first had irritated him and then set +his teeth on edge, he had devoted himself seemingly to a public +idealization of his own predicament. + +Nine years had brought changes in Basine. He had grown leaner. His face +had sharpened into hawk lines. There was about him at thirty-four, an +aristocratic pugnaciousness. Fearlessness was a word which was gradually +attaching itself to his name. He was fearless, people said. His lean +body and unphysical air contributed to their decision. + +When he appeared publicly people saw a wiry-bodied man past thirty with +an amazing determination about him. His words snapped out, his eyes +flashed as he talked. And his talk was usually alive with denunciations. +He denounced enemies of the people and ideas that were enemies. + +During the minor campaigns for aldermen, state's attorney and the +judiciary elections in which he had been employed by his party leaders, +he had created a slight newspaper stir. The public had quickly sensed in +him an interesting character. + +And then, although he was years working toward this end, he had suddenly +leaped forward as a champion of their rights. He had become one of the +select group of indomitable Davids striding fearlessly forth to do +battle with the Goliaths that threatened. And there were always Goliaths +threatening. Insidious Goliaths; shrewd, merciless Goliaths continually +on the verge of opening their terrible maws and devouring the rights of +the public. + +Basine was coming forward as a champion consecrated to the slaying of +Goliaths. Not only during campaigns, which, of course, was the open +season for Goliath-slaying, but between campaigns, behind closed doors +where nobody saw, in the bosom of his family. He never removed his armor +or rather, never laid aside his holy slingshot. He was always locked in +a death struggle with new and unsuspected Goliaths--this wiry, fearless +man who was beginning to cry out in the newspapers ... "The enemies of +the public must be overthrown. It matters not who they are or in what +camp they are. The city must be cleaned up." + +Following the failure of several private banks in the cosmopolitan +district of the city, Basine had leaped forward against this new +Goliath. This had been his first major offensive. + +Private banks were threatening the peace of the public. He had made +several speeches before business men's associations denouncing private +banks and private bankers. He had declared with utter disregard of +personal or political consequences that they were a menace--that they +were sharks swimming in the waters of finance--and that he would not +rest until the public had been made safe against their predatory, +merciless jaws. + +He was on this Sunday morning in the midst of the fight against private +banks. The excitement had started with the failure of a small banking +institution on the west side. The newspapers had carried the usual +stories of weeping depositors and heartbroken working people whose +life-time savings had been swept away in the crash. Basine had +overlooked the stories in the papers. Doris had called them to his +attention. He had been sitting in her studio.... Here was something +worth while. Why didn't he start a campaign against private banks. +There was always agitation, but as yet not a big campaign. + +When he left her the thing had already matured in his mind. He wondered +why she had laughed during the discussion of the possibilities of such a +campaign. He remembered her saying with a sneer, "That's the sort of +thing the crowd eats up. The trouble with you George, is that you +haven't learned the trick of frightening the mob. You can't be a leader +unless you frighten them first and then leap out to defend them. The +menace of private banks is something to frighten them with. Start a +crusade." + +That was it--a crusade. Movements and reforms were all very well. But +they were slow work. In order to advance one had to attach oneself to +tidal waves. Doris was right about frightening them. + +Within a week he had launched his attack. He had developed a technique +in his public utterances which was becoming more and more unconscious +and so more and more convincing. Once determined that a crusade against +private banks would be a step in his upward climb, his cynicism in the +matter vanished. He investigated the subject thoroughly, filling his +mind with statistics. Events played into his hands. A second private +bank collapsed at the end of the week and Basine knew that the ground +was ready for his crusade. + +He began not with an attack against the institution of private banks, +but shelving the statistics he had carefully mastered, he concentrated +upon creating a sense of terror in the public mind. In statements given +out to the press and in speeches before business men's associations +which were also reported in the newspapers, he pounded on the note of +menace. They were a menace. They were something to be afraid of. They +jeopardized stability. They were wildcat institutions. + +It was his first crusade and he waited nervously for the response. The +response came after a pause of a week like an answering shout. Down with +private banks! A conflagration of headlines flared up. The people were +against private banks. Editorials heralded the fact. The newspapers were +against private banks. A week ago private banks had been the furthest +topic from the public conversation. Now it became a matter of violent +discussion. Citizens committees were being formed for the purpose of +fighting private banks. + +Feeling began to run high. Very high. A neighborhood Polish financier +who for years had conducted a small banking institution was mobbed on +his way to work and rescued from the violence of the crowd, which +threatened his life by the arrival of police. This incident was reported +by the newspapers as revealing the determination of the men seeking to +wipe out the menace of the private bank and also as revealing the +unscrupulous power of the men engaged in the private banking business. + +The growing clamor against the institution resulted naturally in the +collapse of two more small banks whose depositors, terrified by reports +they themselves were circulating, rushed to withdraw their savings. + +Basine contemplating the extent of the public indignation felt a pride +and a misgiving. He glowed with the thought that he, Basine, had started +the thing. His name had from the beginning figured prominently in +connection with the growing crusade.... "Basine Denounces Private +Banks...." had started it. And then a flood of headlines, "Banking +Sharks Prey on poor, says Basine."... And then "Basine Flays Private +Bankers at Mass Meeting...." "Private Bank Menace Growing...." + +He had kept his head during the publicity and, unaccountably, his +thought had turned to his sister as the crusade gathered momentum, as +the "menace grew." Although alive with a powerful indignation against +the enemy, Basine remained mentally aloof in contemplating the +situation. His aloofness was not a cynicism but a guide. + +He studied the fact that the clamor was in the main artificial. The +menace of the private bank was a thing that touched less than one +per-cent of the population. There were no more than thirty such minor +institutions in the city and more than two-thirds of these were as sound +as the banks under government supervision. His statistics had revealed +this. + +Nevertheless in some mysterious way the phrase "private bank" had become +synonymous with ogre, villainy, menace, calamity. His original +denunciations published rather casually by the press had been a species +of newspaper feelers. The public had responded. Realizing then that the +subject was a live one, the papers had cut loose. The idea of a trusted +public institution being a danger and a menace to the community was +quick in awaking a sense of alarm. A sense of fear inspired by no facts +but by the reiterative rhetoric of the press swept the city. + +Basine for several days sought futilely to understand the phenomenon of +this fear. It seemed almost as if people were filled with constant +though innate fear of the things they trusted. A man named Levine whom +he had met at Doris' explained it that way. He had listened to the man +talk: ... "The reason people turn on their trusted institutions with +such fury is simple. When a platitude they have blindly upheld seems +about to betray them they fall on it and tear it to pieces. This is +because a platitude is kept alive blindly and it must be destroyed +blindly. When a platitude commits the offense of becoming obviously, too +obviously, a lie or an incipient danger, people are of course overcome +with the horrible doubt that all platitudes are lies and dangers. This +general suspicion which overcomes them, this wholesale fear or panic +which sweeps over them, they let out, of course, on the one platitude. +By viciously denouncing the one platitude they manage to assure +themselves that all the others are all right. They sort of lose their +general terror in an unnatural but specific hysteria. And they always +turn themselves into an overfed elephant jumping furiously up and down +and trumpeting terribly--at a mouse." + +Basine carried this explanation away. He allowed it to linger in his +mind without thinking of it. He knew that the fear was unwarranted and +yet the excitement had taken on the proportions of a public uprising. +The editorials of the press became couched more and more in +grandiloquent languages, reminiscent of Biblical passages. In fact a +religious fervor had entered the clamor. The overthrow of the private +bank was a mission of righteousness--an integral part of the higher +Christianity of the nation--to say nothing of the dreams of its +forefathers. + +With this growing and exalted anger, a new phenomenon struck Basine. It +was the strange myth that had sprung up seemingly overnight of the power +of the private banks. He knew from his study of the facts that the +private bankers of the city were a handful of haphazard, third rate +financiers without prestige in the courts or pull in the politics of the +state. Their total holdings represented a slight fraction of the money +tied up in the banking business of the city. They had no standing +comparable with the standing of the supervised banks. The big interests +including the men of power in the city were against them and they were, +as a matter of fact, a puny by-product of the city's intricate finance. + +Yet now they had become an insidiously entrenched monster. Public men of +affairs vied with each other in revealing the mysterious power of the +private bank. And Basine was left to marvel in silence over the fact +that the wilder the public frenzy against private bankers became, the +huger and more difficult to overthrow were the private bankers made out +to be. + +His pride as author of the crusade began however to be colored with +misgivings. Others had risen to challenge him for the leadership of the +movement. Stern, fearless men, as stern and fearless as himself, were +offering to sacrifice themselves on the altars of freedom. The altars of +freedom, the press explained, were the battleground of the fight against +private banks. + +The public's attention was being distracted from Basine. Men of greater +prestige than he had hurled themselves into the death struggle. These +great ones were more qualified than Basine for leadership. They were +older and of deeper experience in the slaying of Goliaths. Now it seemed +that perhaps one of them and not George Basine was the hero who would +be able to overthrow this latest menace to the public weal. + +Basine's misgivings took the form of an irritation. He sensed the +fickleness of the public and understood that it could turn from him who +had started the whole thing and give its adulation to some other leader +who had jumped on the band-wagon and crowded Basine off the driver's +seat. His cynicism returned as he read the denunciations his rivals were +hurling at private banks. + +"A pack of fools and fourflushers," he muttered to himself and their +words--paraphrases of his original denunciations for the most +part--nauseated him. The word "bunk" crept into his thought as he read +their speeches and interviews. He would like to stop the whole thing, to +stand up and say it was all a tempest in a teapot and that there was no +menace or ogre or Goliath; that the whole thing was made out of whole +cloth. Then the entire business would collapse and the men threatening +him for the leadership would be left high and dry. + +... Doris looked up as he entered. She was a silent-looking woman. Her +face wore its pallor like a mask. She greeted her brother without +expression. Her luxurious body seemed without life, her hands gesturing +as if they were weighted. The sensuous outlines of her which brought to +mind the odalisques of Titian found a startling contrast in the +immobility of her manners. She was thirty and in the half-lighted room +she seemed like a beautiful, burning-eyed paralytic. + +"Tired?" her brother asked as he sat down. + +This was of late his usual greeting. She looked tired always, and until +she began to talk, she looked as if she were dumb or blind. But when she +talked her eyes lighted. + +She shook her head to his question. He had come filled with troubles and +confessions but her black eyes, centered on him, disturbed him. He had +become used to the sardonic weariness of her face. But there were times +when he felt as if something were happening to her that he couldn't +understand. Her eyes would burn and seem to shut him out as if she could +look at him without seeing him. + +Her complete inanimation startled him. He knew he could sit talking all +night and she would never move nor ask a question. Long ago she had been +a little like that. Never asking questions but sitting among others as +if she were alone. But now it was more marked. There was something wrong +with Doris. What she needed was to go out more. She was getting too +self-centered, brooding too much. + +Basine, as he sat studying the window and the profile of his sister, +kept remembering how she used to be. That was years ago when they had +all lived at home. And this poet Lindstrum whom everybody was talking +about, used to call on her. She had been in love with him. But that was +long ago--eight, nine, ten years ago. It couldn't be that. And it +couldn't be that she was "in trouble," because she had been like this +for years now. He remembered her youth. Her silence then had been +different. It had been alive. And now she sat around like a corpse and +if it wasn't for her eyes moving occasionally you might think her +actually dead. Sometimes this thought did frighten him as he sat +watching her. She was dead! He would restrain himself from jumping up +to see and sit listening to hear her breathe. + +He felt sorry for her. When he had married Henrietta she had been the +only one who had understood. He could always remember what she had said +at the wedding. It was the only thing he could recall of the event--what +Doris had said to him.... + +"You'll never be a great man if you let yourself get trapped like this +too often." + +Surprising that she should know enough to say that. Because anyone who +could say that to him must know him thoroughly and understand him +thoroughly. It was what he had been saying to himself for months before +the wedding. + +He felt sorry for his sister. They were good friends in a way. A curious +way because he felt she detested him somehow. Yet she understood him and +could help him. And she liked him to come to see her. He wondered why. +She had no love for him but there was something about him that appealed +to her and interested her. He had noticed how she acted toward others. +Their talk left her dead. Even when Levine talked she often remained +unaware he was around. Her eyes never opened to people. Even her mother. +And Fanny had said, "Doris is getting more and more of a pill. I think +she's going crazy. She doesn't even look at a person anymore." + +He watched her and thought, "Poor girl. Something wrong. I wish I could +help her." + +He kept remembering how beautiful and alive she had been and his heart +felt an odd laceration as if something he loved were dying. Was he so +fond of Doris, then? He said, "no." Yet he could never remember having +felt such sympathy as this toward anyone. It was because she was an +intimate. He felt toward her as he felt toward himself--forgiving, +appreciative, and a sense of pity. Why had he thought that? Pity. Did he +pity himself, he, George Basine, who was just beginning to ascend? +Henrietta and the kids--that was it. A man had to accumulate troubles if +he was to amount to anything. + +The feeling of sympathy slipped from his thought. Doris had turned her +eyes to him. Basine was aware of her coming to life. The symmetrical +mask of her face became features and expressions. + +"Will you stay for tea?" she asked. + +He would. Doris stood up and regarded him with a malicious smile. + +"The crusade seems to be running away from you," she said. + +He nodded. The public-spirited leader in him did not relish the ironic +tilt of her words. But he was able to assume a dual attitude toward her +cynical intellectualism. He could frown on it with a sense of outrage. +And he could listen to it with an appreciative shrewdness. He could +despise her iconoclasm and still utilize its intelligence to aid him in +his climb. + +He had always understood that to his sister his aspirations were +contemptible. And yet despite her sneering she seemed anxious to help +him realize them. He understood, too, that in his sister's mind there +was something queer about people. When she talked about people her eyes +lighted. There was about her talk of people a clarity of idea that +contrasted strangely with the passion one could feel behind her words. + +Basine usually tried to dismiss the impression she made on him by +thinking, "Oh, she's a fanatic on the subject, that's all." But a +mystery worried him. Why should she be interested in his career? And why +should she try to help him if she despised him and his type of ambition? +And, moreover, despised people and politics in general? + +It was a paradox and it made him uncomfortable. But he sought her out +all the more for this. Because there was something practical about her +fanaticism. Yes, and because she understood about him. + +He had already told her secrets about himself, particularly about +himself in relation to Henrietta. That formed a bond between them. He +sometimes grew frightened at the thought of the things Doris knew about +him--things she might tell to anyone and ruin him; wreck his home and +his career. But always after worrying about such fears he would hurry to +his sister and unburden himself still further. As if by feeding her +further secrets he could make certain of her loyalty and reticence. + +He watched her less openly as she poured tea. A bitterness filled him. +If Henrietta were only a woman like this instead of a stick. If only he +could sit home and talk things over with her, marriage would have some +sense to it. He frowned. He did not like to think this way. + +Doris began to talk smoothly, her dark eyes growing more alive. He +listened nervously, wincing under the contempt of her phrases and +fascinated by the startling interpretations they offered him of his own +thoughts. + +"If I were you," she said as she arranged the teacups, "I would let +myself be squeezed out of the crusade. It's served its purpose for you. +You've frightened about a million feeble-minded creatures into a fury +against private banks. You've done quite well. That's the secret, you +know. And you must always remember it. Create bogeymen to frighten +people with. The more unreal the bogeymen, the more terrified the +public. If you don't believe this figure out for yourself--of what are +people the most afraid? God, of course. The greatest of the bogeymen. +And remember too, George that people like to be terrified. There's a +reason for that. People like to be preoccupied by false terrors in order +not to have to face real frightening facts--facts such as death and age +and their own souls." + +She sat down and looked at Basine with a pitying smile. + +"What a fool you are, George. You don't believe a word I say, do you?" + +"What you say and how you say it are two different things," he answered. +The thought was in his mind that Fanny was right. Doris was going crazy. +Her talk had an edge to it as if her voice were being carefully +repressed. He almost preferred her when she was silent, when her eyes +slept. Because now there was a hidden wildness to her. She was +suffering! The thought startled him. But that was it. The hate that +filled her voice came from a suffering inside. He wanted to reach over +and take her hand and whisper to her to be calm, but he continued to +listen without moving. There were things in what she said that always +held him. It was like learning secrets. She was still talking. + +"Well, today they're shrieking and vomiting invective and you'd like +nothing better than to be the heroic leader of this pack of filthy +cowards. Would you? Well, it's not worth while this time. The whole +thing'll blow over. In a few weeks people will have forgotten about +private banks. And by the time you get the bill into the state +legislature the papers will be ignoring the whole business. Do you see? +There's nothing so tragic as the spectacle of a mob leader stranded high +and dry with a yesterday's crusade. And his mob off in another +direction. Remember, George, you're not dealing with people, with +reasoning men and women. You always forget this and you'll never get +ahead if you keep forgetting it. You're dealing with a single +creature--the crowd. A huge bellowing savage." + +"I know, I know," Basine muttered. She was crazy. Something queer in her +head about people. "All people aren't like that, of course. But I +understand." + +"You don't," she interrupted angrily. "All people are like that. Alone +people are one thing. They're alive and they reason a little. But when +they come together to overthrow governments or defend governments or +make laws or worship Gods, they vanish. A single creature takes their +place. And this single creature is a mysterious savage who howls and +spits and vomits and tears its hair and has orgasms of terror and +befouls itself." + +Her eyes glared at Basine. With an effort she controlled her voice. She +continued in a passionate whisper. + +"Don't you understand that yet? After all I've shown you. If you want to +get ahead, I can make you anything. Do you hear that? Anything.... I +can make you a leader ... a king. All you must learn is the way of +turning people into swine...." + +"Please Doris, you get too excited. Please...." + +"Into swine and swine crusades. We'll find ways of bringing them +together and the more swinish you can make people become, yes, the more +you can make them spew and shriek, the holier will become the cause of +this spewing and shrieking. These are elementals and you must trust me. +Do you hear?" + +Her fingers were cold. They had closed on his hand. He shuddered. Crazy +... poor Doris. Gone queer with something. Yet he found himself +listening, her chill fingers startling his flesh. Out of her ravings +there might issue at any minute the thing he was always looking for ... +a way to get ahead. + +"Little crusades like this," she went on, "are all right. But private +banks are only a detail. And besides the idea is too concrete to terrify +people and bring out the full hysteria of their cowardice. What we need +is something vague--that has no facts to handicap it. Something you can +lie about wildly and frighten them with so that their bowels weaken. +Please, drop the thing now. You must...." + +"Doris, you get too excited. Let's talk sense instead of getting excited +like this." + +He patted her hand and returned her stare uncomfortably. He wanted to +ask her why she was interested in his getting ahead, in making him a +leader. She had paused. Basine felt himself nauseated by the intensity +of her words that continued to ring in his ears. Her anger and the +viciousness of her phrases brought her too close to him. He could +almost see something behind the glare of her dark eyes. + +"Oh, you're not interested in progress and civilization," she resumed +mockingly. Her words seemed more controlled. He noticed that she jerked +her hand away. "Because if you were you would see that progress and +civilization are the results of the terror of the mob. It's when they +get frightened of something and throw themselves at it with their eyes +shut and their hair on end, that institutions are born ... that new +platitudes are set up in heaven. And the secret is this--the worse swine +you can turn them into, the holier will be the things they do. Listen, +I'll tell you.... You must do as I say.... You must believe me...." + +She had risen. Her hand was on his shoulder and her eyes burned over +him. He felt a bit fearful and impatient. To a point, her talk was +interesting. But after that it became like raving. + +"You've told me that before," he murmured. "Please calm down." An +ecstatic light slowly left her. + +"Oh yes. Sense," she whispered. "Well, the sense of it is for you to +become a symbol of their holiness. Be a leader. Isn't that it. But the +private bank crusade has fizzled. I've read the papers closely and +outside of the two attacks on the private bankers last week, there've +been no great gestures of righteousness. If they'd hamstrung a few +hundred private bankers, cut off their heads and burned down their +houses, I'd advise you to stick. That's sense isn't it?" + +Basine, listening to the uncomfortable distortions of his sister, made +up his mind. He translated her vicious suggestions into the less +inconveniencing idea.... "The biggest part of the work in the fight +against the banks has been done already, Doris. And the rest anybody can +do." + +"Yes," she smiled, "if you're going to be of service to the public you +must be careful to devote yourself to worthwhile reforms. You always had +a clearer way of putting things, George." + +She despised him. He could feel it now. He looked at her and wondered +again. She was beautiful. A complete change had come over her since he'd +come in. She seemed warm with emotion, alive, human. But she smiled in +an offensive way. He preferred her viciousness. That was +impersonal--something queer in her head. This other was a condescension +that angered him. He sat thinking; she was playing with him. It would be +better if he never saw her. + +"How is Henrietta?" she asked. + +The question had long ago became an invitation to confession. He avoided +her eyes. + +"Fanny and Aubrey were over," he answered. + +She interrupted. "Please don't talk about them." + +"Oh, nothing in particular," he hastened. "Henrietta is the same as +ever." + +Doris laughed. + +"An ideal wife for a future public hero," she exclaimed. Basine frowned. + +"I'd rather you didn't make a joke about such things, Doris." + +"I'm not joking. But to be a great leader a man must have only one +love--the love of being a great leader." + +"That's wrong," Basine blurted out. "A woman can help a man forward if +he loves her and she's clever and loves him." + +"She can't," Doris said softly. "Because she doesn't want to. If she +loves him, she doesn't want him to be great. She may inspire him but +just as soon as she sees his inspiration takes him away from her, she +turns around and tries to ruin him. So she can have him to herself." + +Basine listened impatiently. This was a child prattling. Doris was +laughing. He looked at her questioningly. Her laughter continued and +grew harsh. + +"You fool," she sighed, controlling herself. "Oh you fool." + +Basine shook his head. He was serious. There were hidden facts in his +mind. He knew something about what a woman might do to help a man +forward. These facts seemed to him allies--secret allies, as he +contradicted his sister. + +"I insist you're wrong," he said. He was determined to prove her wrong. +But she went on, ignoring his intensity. + +"Your wife is ideal, George. Colorless, stupid. Dead. Without desires or +egoism. An ideal wife for a man of ambition. The kind that will let you +alone." + +"Nonsense. You're utterly wrong," he cried. He must prove to her how +utterly wrong she was. There was Ruth. + +"Men owe most of their success to the impulse the right woman can give +them. Henrietta's all right. But she's so damn dead. She's interested in +nothing. Just a child with a child's mind and outlook. And she gets more +so every year. Good God, if I had somebody with life in her. Keen and +... who loved me. So that I wanted to be great in her eyes. It would be +easier. Somebody ... like you, Doris." + +He paused, confused. "I mean," he added, "your type. The intellectual +and female combined." + +He had long ago told her of his courtship, of the curious way he had +tricked himself into matrimony and she had always laughed at his +unhappiness and said this--only a fool tricked himself as he had done. +Nevertheless his marriage was ideal. + +"Men instinctively pick out what they need," she would say. "And a man +like you needs a nonentity like Henrietta. You wait and see. Your +happiness isn't coming from emotion inside but from emotion outside--the +noise of praise the public will someday give you." + +But there were facts now hidden in his head to disprove this. He started +as Doris announced casually, + +"Ruth Davis may drop in this afternoon." + +They finished their tea. A knock on the door frightened him. The girl! +No. Doris called, "Come in," and Levine entered. Basine nodded to him. + +"I'll have to be going," he said as Levine sat down. He disliked the +man. Doris nodded. She appeared to have lost interest in him and, her +tea finished, she was sitting back in her chair with her eyes half shut +and her hands listless in her lap. Levine was talking quietly.... "You +look tired, Doris. Like to go hear Lindstrum lecture tonight? No? Very +well. I just dropped in to see if you would. Come on." + +"No," she frowned at him. + +"I'm sorry." + +"Why?" + +"I think it would be better for you to...." + +Her eyes shut him off. They were blazing. + +"Please," she cried. Then with a sigh she turned toward the window. + +Basine stood up. He pretended a leisureliness, opening a few books and +staring with apparent interest at passages in them. Levine and his +sister were a strange pair. Doris queer and moody and going into +impossible tantrums. And this man with brown negro eyes and a +loose-lipped mouth that reeked with sarcasms. There were secrets between +them. Nothing wrong, but secrets. He remembered the girl was coming and +grew frightened. + +"Well, good-bye," he said aloud. "And calm down, Doris." + +He waited uncomfortably for her to say something. But she was silent. He +looked at his watch and exclaimed in a surprised, matter-of-fact voice, +"Oh my! It's almost four. Good-bye. I must run." + +He hurried away as if some logical necessity were spurring him on. The +make-believe had been unnecessary for Doris had paid no attention to the +manner of his departure. + +Outside he paused and looked up and down the street. He felt relieved. +He had left in time. Crossing from an opposite corner was Ruth Davis. He +would pretend he hadn't seen her and walk on in an opposite direction. +He knew she was watching him as she approached. He was frightened. A +sense of suffocation. He desired to run away. + +She was young. Her eyes had a way of remaining in his thought. When he +talked to people, her eyes came before him and looked at him. They asked +questions. + +The last time he had sat with her in his sister's studio he had gone +away with a feeling of panic. He was used to women. Invariably he +disliked them. They seemed to him variants of his wife. They reminded +him of Henrietta and he was able to say to himself, "They look +attractive and mysterious. But underneath, they're all alike." + +He meant they were all like Henrietta. In this way his distaste for his +wife had kept him faithful to her because his imagination balked at the +idea of embracing another Henrietta. + +But Ruth Davis after he had met her a few times, always in his sister's +presence, had impressed him differently. Perhaps it was because he had +always seen her with his sister. In many ways she reminded him of Doris. +She was dark like Doris and had many of her mannerisms. + +He had not thought of her as a variant of Henrietta. Rather as a variant +of Doris. He had never tested his immunity to her by imagining an +embrace. When he talked to her he grew eager to impress her. He wanted +her to understand him, not quite as Doris understood him. She was +cynical but not in the way Doris was. Her mind was kindlier. + +Because he felt frightened now at her approach and a desire to run away +without speaking to her, he held himself to the spot. He would get the +better of this thing, he told himself quickly, by facing whatever it was +and fighting it down. He would overcome the curious effect she had on +him by confronting her. In this way, a very high-minded way, he +persuaded himself to wait for her and to talk to her. Which was what he +wanted to do above everything else. + +She was pleased. They shook hands. The confusion left him. He was quite +master of himself. Her dark eyes were not dangerous like his sister's. +She was a bright, pretty girl. + +"I'm sorry I can't visit with you and Doris," he said. "But I have an +engagement." + +"Oh." She seemed disappointed. Her eyes betrayed almost a hurt. This +made him even more master of himself. He had been foolishly worried +about the girl. Just a bright, pretty girl and a friend of his sister. + +"By the way," he said, "you were saying the other day that you'd like a +job in the state attorney's office. My secretary's quit. Would you like +that?" + +"Oh, Mr. Basine. That's awfully kind of you. But I ... I don't know +shorthand and I suppose that...." + +"That makes no difference," he smiled tolerantly. "I need somebody able +to look after things in general. If you want the job, why come down and +see me tomorrow morning about ten and we'll start work." + +"I'd be delighted," she answered. She was about to say more but he grew +curt. + +"You'll excuse me, won't you. I have to run," he said. "See you at ten +tomorrow, eh?" He wanted to make the thing certain because otherwise he +would have to hire someone else. "At ten then," he repeated. + +"If you really want me." + +"I think you'll get along all right. And I need somebody at once." + +He walked away with a feeling of mastery. He had overcome the confusion +the sight of her had started in him. He was sincerely glad of that. He +disliked the idea of entanglements. Politics was a glass house and +entanglements were dangerous. Then besides, there was Henrietta. + +His fidelity to his wife was a habit that had become almost an +obsession. His distaste and frequent revulsion toward her made him +concentrate excitedly upon the idea of fidelity. + +By assuring himself of the nobility of faithfulness and of its necessity +as a matter of high decency, he vindicated in a measure the fact that he +seemed too cowardly to philander. He had felt this cowardliness and was +continually trying to distort it into more self-ennobling emotions. This +was what made him so excited a champion of domestic felicity, marital +fidelity and kindred ideas. He was able to convert himself into a man +whose ideals prevented him from succumbing to his lower instincts. Thus +instead of feeling ashamed of the cowardliness which kept him from doing +what he desired, he felt on the contrary, proud of his capacity for +living up to his high ideals, which meant--of doing what he didn't want +to do. + +This cowardliness was an involved emotion. It was inspired by a fear of +detection, if he philandered, a fear of physical and social +consequences. But more than that and too curious for his thought to +unravel, it was inspired by a fear of hurting Henrietta. This fear was +the predominant factor in his life. + +He sought at times to understand it but its understanding eluded him. He +had been tempted at times to talk to Doris about it. But as yet it was a +confession withheld. + +The greater his distaste for his wife became and the more the thought of +her grew obnoxious, the deeper did this fear of hurting her take form in +him. Often when driven to anger by her increasing stupidity he would +lie awake at night by her side thinking of her in accidents which might +kill her. He would lie awake picturing her brought home dying--and going +over in his fancy the details of her death scene. + +And then as if the thing were too sweet to relinquish, he would go over +in his mind the details of the funeral, picturing himself beside the +grave weeping, picturing her father and the numerous mourners; giving +them words to say and assigning them little parts in the drama of the +burial. The thing would become a completely worked out scene--like a +careful description in a novel. + +Then he would picture himself returning home with his children. He would +close his eyes and play with the fancy impersonally, as if he were +dictating it for writing. Back from the grave with his children.... The +house empty of Henrietta. The chair in which she always sat and sewed, +empty. And she would never sit there again. The chair would always be +empty. + +At this point his fancy would grow sad. At first the sadness would be as +if it were part of the make-believe--as if this fiction figure of +himself were mourning the death of his wife. But gradually the sadness +would change and become real. It would become a sadness inspired by the +thought of her dying ... sometime. Someday she would be dead and he +would be alone. And this idea would grow unbearable. Just as it had been +deliciously desirable a few minutes before. + +The sadness that came to him then was no more than a remorse he felt for +having in his fancy planned and executed her death. A remorse inspired +by his feeling of guilt. But to Basine it seemed a sadness inspired by +some inner love for his wife. It would surprise him, that there was an +inner love, and he would lie and think, "Oh, I don't want her dead. I +love her. Poor, dear Henrietta." And he would reach over and caress her +tenderly, tears filling his eyes. + +It was at such moments while doing penance for the imaginative murder of +his wife, that a physical passion for her would come to him. His +caresses would grow warmer and in the possession of her which followed, +he would be able to blot out of his memory the unbearable +self-accusation aroused by his desire for her death. Thus his fear of +hurting her, even of contradicting her in any way which would make her +unhappy, was a device which guarded him against contemplating the +impulse concealed in him--to get rid of her even by murdering her. + +His fidelity to his wife, inspired more by this fear of hurting her than +by the social cowardice which involved the idea of detection, had become +a fetish with him. The less he desired her and the more repugnant she +grew for him, the more desperately he defended to himself and to others +the virtues of marital faithfulness. + +He had advanced in eight years into an intolerant champion of morality. +Even his political orations bristled with panegyrics on the sanctity of +the home and the high duty men owed their wives. The thing repeated +itself over and over in his day, haunted his night and filtered through +all his public and private actions. It had formed the basis of a new +Basine--the moral champion. It had colored his ambitions and determined +his direction of thought. It hammered--a hidden psychological refrain +through the fibers of his thought.... In order to reconcile himself to +the distasteful role he had foisted upon himself by accidentally +embracing Henrietta in his mother's kitchen nine years ago, he must +eulogize his predicament and convince himself and others that all +deviations were a vicious and dishonorable matter. Held by neither love +nor desire to the side of a woman he had tricked himself into marrying, +he managed to bind himself to her by the stern worship of a code which +proclaimed fidelity the highest manifestation of the soul. + +As he walked toward a street car he was proud of his self-conquest. He +was thinking about the girl, Ruth. He had taken himself in hand and +overcome the dangerous confusion that the sight of her started. His +sense of honor preened itself on the victory. That was the way to handle +oneself--always face the facts. It was better than hiding one's head in +the sand. Look, it had happened this way. By being matter-of-fact, by +converting the girl from a luring, enigmatic figure into an employee, he +had established an immunity in himself. Was he certain of this? Yes, she +would be merely another of the young women employed in his office. And +he was in love with none of them. Or even interested. So their relation +would be that of employee and employer. Which was harmless and +honorable. + +He walked along, piling up assurances. As he entered the car he was +going over in his mind with an imaginative eagerness the details of the +situation he had created. He would be very stern, aloof. He would +acquaint her with his secret files and gradually educate her into an +efficient assistant. She was a university girl. Of course her running +around with freaks, the way she did--artists and talky women, was a +handicap. But she would get over that and become entirely sensible. + +It was a pleasant day dream that wiled away the tedium of the ride home. +An unaccountable happiness played around the fancies in his mind. He +gave himself to its warmth with a certain defiance--as if he were +denying unbidden doubts underlying his dreams. + +He had hired Ruth Davis in order that he might be near her. And +underlying the enthusiastic assurances which he crowded into his mind as +a stop gap for the elation this fact inspired, was the knowledge that, +as his secretary, she would come to perceive what a great man he was. +His files, his secret memoranda, his intricate activities all of which +she would come to know as his private secretary--would be a boast. + +Yes, his very curtness, sternness, preoccupation would all be part of +this boast. She would see him as a man of importance, a man of rising +power. He would have to ignore her in order to confer with well-known +men-politicians, police officials, party leaders. And this ignoring of +her would be a boast--all a boast of his prestige and of the fact that +he was a man of fascinating activities and that these activities made it +impossible for him to devote himself as other lesser men might, to +paying her any attention. + +Yes, the thought of her being in his office where he might look at her, +but more especially where she might look at him--for he did not intend +to pay any attention to her--thrilled him. And gradually the cause of +his elation protruded and he was forced to face it. He alighted from +the car thinking as he walked toward his apartment. + +"I'll have to be careful though. I don't want her to fall in love. That +would be embarassing. Girls are susceptible. I'll not encourage her in +anything like that. Be businesslike and aloof. Treat her absolutely as a +stranger." + +This idea thrilled him further. It would be sweet to ignore her, even to +be strict with her and carping at times, to scold for some error. Yes, +that was the right way to handle the situation. + +And he walked on with a childish smile over his face. He had determined +upon a high-minded course which absolved him from all blame in anything +that might happen. Aloofness, sternness. Now that they were going to be +together every day, he already looked upon her position as his secretary +as an inevitable predicament not brought on by any action of his; now +that they were to be that close, he would rigorously observe all the +conventions. + +At the same time he was inwardly aware that such a course as he had +mapped for himself would unquestionably have a certain effect upon the +girl. It must. It would cause her to respect and admire him and finally +to fall in love with him. Tremendously in love since there would be no +outlet for her passion. Oh yes, that would certainly happen. But it +wouldn't be his fault and nothing would come of it. Because he would +remain sternly aloof. + +The thought of being worshipped from afar, of being looked upon all day +by eyes that adored him, brought an excitement into his step. And he ran +up the stairs to his apartment. He was eager to enter his home and greet +his wife. She had become suddenly a tolerable person, one whose +presence he might even enjoy. He felt happy and he wanted her to share +his happiness. + + + + +14 + + +Fanny listened carelessly to her husband. After eight years, listening +to what Aubrey had to say had become unnecessary. Because his talk never +changed. What he said yesterday he would say tomorrow. He prided himself +on this. He explained that it revealed him a man of unswerving +principles. Fanny, who had become a rather sarcastic person, kept her +answer to herself. A man of unswerving principles was a great asset to +the community. But a terrible bore to his home. + +She sat watching Henrietta sew. There was a placidity about Henrietta +that always irritated her. Henrietta was still pretty although beginning +to fade. Her eyes were colorless and her lips were getting thinner. But +she seemed happy and Fanny wondered about this. + +Mr. Mackay seemed very attentive to Henrietta. Of course, Mr. Mackay was +Aubrey's partner and a friend of her brother, George. But it was odd to +call on Henrietta unexpectedly and find her talking alone to a man in +her library. Even to Mr. Mackay. + +Fanny was suspicious about such things. She had been utterly faithful to +Aubrey during their married life and this fidelity, somehow, had +developed in her an attitude of chronic suspicion concerning the +fidelity of other women. It was her habit when visiting her friends to +sit and speculate upon their possible immoralities. She had frequently +got herself into trouble by setting scandalous rumors afloat. + +"Henry Thorpe and Gwendolyn see quite a great deal of each other," she +would say. "More than we know, I think. I wonder what Mrs. Thorpe thinks +about it. You know Gwendolyn, for all her pretenses, is an out and out +sensual type." + +No one was immune from Fanny's speculations. In fact the more +incongruous the idea of any one's sinfulness seemed, the more +enthusiastically Fanny embraced it. + +She was more than half aware that thinking about others in immoral +situations seemed to excite herself. She would endeavor to introduce a +note of indignation into her speculations. But the note was too forced +to deceive her, although it deceived others. And she finally abandoned +herself to the thrill which thinking evilly of others stirred in her. + +She would often allow her suspicions to become detailed. Merely to +suspect a woman of being immoral was not as satisfying as to figure the +manner of her sin, the play by play, word by word drama of her +seduction. She relished such fancied details. Suspecting others of +immorality enabled Fanny to enjoy vicariously situations which she had +as a matter of course denied herself. + +Her love for Aubrey had not changed. It had, in fact, grown or at least +become inflated by habit. At the beginning of their union she had +suspected him of being a hypocrite. She had immediately resented his +virtue. Then for a short time she had figured out that he must be +unfaithful to her, that this accounted for his virtue. + +But her resentment had remained mute. The years had proved to her, as +much as proof was possible, that Aubrey was no hypocrite and that his +attitude toward such things was due to his being a high-minded, decent +man. He loved her. But in his own way. He explained to her, "Most +marriages are ruined because people are lead astray by sex. Sex is a +duty. I don't think it's any more moral for married people to wallow in +sex than it is for unmarried people. Sex has an object beyond itself +which people ignore. It is a means to an end--children." And they had +gone on for eight years living up to these standards. But they had no +children. Fanny was willing to acquiesce in her husband's ideals, since +she had to, in everything except about children. She didn't want any. + +Fanny had accepted his version of the thing and lived by it. There were +some rewards. She managed to derive a dubious satisfaction during their +infrequent hours of passion from the knowledge that he was a famous man. +She also found a source of secret excitement in his austerity and +virtue. The fact that he was so high-minded and aloof from any thought +of sex offered a piquant contrast to occasions when he condescended to +be her lover. Such occasions were for Fanny far from austere and +high-minded. She allowed the keen sensuality of her nature free reign. +Aubrey's noble attitude served to inspire her with a sense of guilt, as +if their relations were really as indecent and immoral as he contended +sex to be. And the idea of their being indecent and immoral heightened +her enjoyment of them. + +She wondered at many things about Aubrey. Despite his aversion to sex, +(she did not think of it as an aversion but as a high-mindedness,) he +was yet very attentive to women. Not in the way that most men were +attentive. But chivalrously. He had become during their married life a +veritable Chesterfield and Sir Raleigh. It was not only his manner--his +observation of little rules of conduct such as rising when a woman +entered or helping her on with her wraps, or assisting her to pull up +her chair at the table or opening doors or any of the thousand +niceties--that marked his attitude toward women. It was also his ideas. +He frequently discussed women and his point of view was more chivalrous +than most men's. He said that he believed in the fineness of women. That +a woman was a pure, beautiful soul. And he was quick to resent insults +to women, even general insults which sought to reflect upon woman's +purity as a whole or to make her out a scheming sexual animal. + +Fanny was proud of his chivalrous tone. It distinguished him and she did +not resent the fact that it interested women. She had never been jealous +of Aubrey. And she had gradually accustomed herself to his +high-mindedness. She would have liked abandoned caresses and embraces. +But these had never been forthcoming, even on their honeymoon long ago. +And she had given up dreaming of them--for herself. She dreamed about +them now in connection with others and her mind, colored by unsatisfied +desires, indulged itself in the luxurious and lascivious details of her +suspicions of others. + +She sat watching Henrietta as Mr. Mackay talked to her and despite an +effort to control her thought, she began to wonder what they had been +doing alone in the apartment before she and Aubrey came. He had probably +taken her hand and pulled her to him, put his arms around her and +Henrietta, overcome with a sudden passion, had probably flung her arms +about his shoulders and given him her lips wildly. And just as they were +standing deliriously embraced like that, the bell had probably rung and +Henrietta had jumped away and grabbed her sewing. She had come to the +door with her sewing in her hand and.... + +Fanny smiled at the colorless and unsuspecting Henrietta. Her sense of +humor had done for her what her sense of justice had failed to do. It +controlled her fancies. To imagine Henrietta giving her lips wildly to +anybody, particularly the red-faced Mr. Mackay, was ludicrous. Poor +Henrietta with her two noisy children and her interminable sewing. She +didn't envy her the children. Thank Heaven, despite Aubrey's high-minded +attitude toward sex as a distasteful mechanism through which the race +continued itself, they had had no children. + +There was something pitiful about Henrietta. She was so dumb. And even +when she dressed up and powdered and frilled, she always seemed tired. A +stranger might think she was an invalid just recovered from some serious +illness.... Henrietta was probably like Aubrey about "those things". +Very high-minded and aloof. + +Mr. Mackay and Aubrey were talking about advertising now. They always +did this soon or late. And they usually quarreled because Aubrey was +inclined to insist that his end of the business--the preparation of copy +and ad. material--was as important as Mr. Mackay's end. Mr. Mackay was +in charge of the salesmen. + +She hadn't wanted to call on her brother. But Aubrey insisted. There was +a deal on. The city was going to do a lot of advertising and the firm of +Mackay-Gilchrist wanted the job. Basine could help them pull wires. + +The bell rang and interrupted their talk. + +"That must be George," Henrietta exclaimed. She grew nervous and began +to flutter. The maid was out for the afternoon and she went to the door +herself. A strange voice came from the hall as the door opened. + +"Oh, come right in. George isn't home but I expect him any minute," +Henrietta greeted the arrival. Paul Schroder, one of the attorneys who +worked in the mysterious place called the state attorney's office with +her husband, entered. + +He was younger than her husband and of a type she disliked. She +didn't like George to have him as a friend. He was too brutal looking. +And too noisy. Her submission to George had developed a keen set of +prejudices in her. She liked only people who reminded her of her +husband--normal-sized, thin men with aristocratic manners, and quick +nervous eyes. And what she liked in such people was only the parts of +them that seemed like George. All other kinds of men annoyed her. +Particularly the kind Schroder was--rough, coarse and laughing too +loudly always. She thought of him as a vulgar animal and once or twice +hinted to George that she didn't like to have him visit the house. + +Schroder entered, his blond, well shaped head tossing dramatically. The +exuberance of his manner gave him the air of being larger than he was. +Aubrey Gilchrist when he straightened up was taller than Schroder and +Mr. Mackay's shoulders were broader. But somehow the blond-headed man +dwarfed them both as he shook hands with them. He sat down next to +Fanny. + +"Well," he said to her, "how you been? Bright-eyed as ever." He laughed +and Fanny smiled. "What's the matter with friend husband," he turned to +Henrietta. "Can't you keep His Nobs home like a God-fearing man on +Sundays?" + +Henrietta winced. + +"He went to see his sister who is ill," she said. "He'll be back any +minute." + +"Oh, that's all right;" Schroder answered, as if Henrietta had +apologized and he was forgiving her. Then to Aubrey he added, "What are +you two pirates after from Basine?" + +Aubrey raised his eyebrows. He was subject to quick dislikes. Schroder +was one of them. Schroder was the kind of person who had no respect for +merit or his superiors. The world, unfortunately, was full of such +people--boors lacking the intelligence to perceive their betters. Aubrey +always felt ill at ease in their presence. + +Although he had written no novels for five years, in his own mind he was +still a literary figure of importance. He had gone into the advertising +business, but not permanently. He had intended at first remaining in it +only for a year and then returning to his writing. He wanted to do a +different sort of writing and a vacation was necessary. He wanted to do +something real. He had, as a matter of fact, lost interest in the +business of turning out narratives. Worried at the time by this loss of +interest in his work he had explained it as "an ambition for better +things." + +But five years had passed and he was still an advertising man. The firm +of Mackay and Gilchrist had grown. He flattered himself that its success +had been due to his personal prestige. People said, "Oh, that's Aubrey +Gilchrist, the writer. Well, that's quite an asset for an advertising +concern." And so they brought their business to Mackay-Gilchrist. + +He disliked Schroder because on the few occasions they had met, the man +had exuberantly ignored the fact he was Aubrey Gilchrist. Schroder was a +man who had no interest in anything outside himself--a noisy, +self-satisfied creature with no reason to be noisy or self-satisfied. He +had never done anything. + +"I don't understand what you mean, Mr. Schroder," Aubrey answered +stiffly. + +"Ho ho," Schroder exclaimed, "your husband is insulted, Mrs. Gilchrist. +Well, I apologize. There's George, I'll lay you dollars to doughnuts." + +The bell had rung. Basine entered. Aubrey looked significantly at his +partner. The significance was due to the fact that Schroder seemed +likely to ruin the visit. Aubrey announced aloud after the greetings: + +"Thought we'd drop in for a private discussion, George." + +Henrietta was smiling tenderly at her husband. + +"Where have you been?" she asked. + +"Well, I've got great news for you," Basine exclaimed. The company +looked hopefully at him. + +"What, dear?" + +"Oh, I'll tell you tonight, little girl." + +"If it's good news we'd all like to hear it," Fanny insisted. + +Schroder regarded his friend askance. He suspected something. He had +left Basine yesterday night and there had been no hint of anything +happening. And today being Sunday.... He smiled to himself. "Covering +up," he thought. "Husbands are comical." He decided not to press Basine. +He had evidently been up to something ... "playing a matinee." He +noticed that his friend was trying to change the subject. + +"Is it something personal?" Henrietta asked with a frown. "You frighten +me, George, when you don't tell me things." + +Basine, sitting down, beamed with enthusiasm on the group, on his home. + +"Where are the children?" he asked. + +"Over at the Harveys," Henrietta answered. + +"Well," said her husband with an explosive intonation, "I've made up my +mind to go after the circuit court. There's a chance next April." + +"Going to run for Judge, eh?" Schroder asked with interest. + +"Yes sir," Basine laughed. "I just had a session with some of the boys +this afternoon and we discussed it." + +"Oh, I thought you were at Doris'," Henrietta interrupted. + +"I did see her," Basine answered, "but only for a few seconds. I spent +most of the afternoon in conference." + +"Congratulations," Aubrey spoke. "Mac and I were going to...." + +Schroder stood up. + +"What do you say if we take a walk, Mrs. Gilchrist," he whispered +loudly. "Your husband insists that I get out. And I won't unless you +come along." + +He laughed good-naturedly until Aubrey smiled, and nodded to his wife. + +"If you wish, Fanny." + +"It's awfully nice outside," Fanny agreed after a pause during which she +looked carefully out of the window. Basine reached for his wife's hand +and drew her toward his chair. + +"You're looking very well," he smiled at her. A pleasant light came to +her eyes. For a moment the youthfulness that people had once admired +when they had called her "such an enthusiastic girl" returned to her +manner. + +"Oh now George!" she exclaimed. Basine felt a catch in his heart. A +remorse, as if he had done something, came over him. He patted her hand +tenderly. Henrietta repeated but in an almost colorless voice, "Oh, +George." + +Schroder followed Fanny down the steps. As the door of the Basine +apartment closed behind them, his fingers clutched her elbow and he +leaned against her in a straightforward, jovial manner. + +Her experience as a married woman had brought a directness into Fanny's +mind. She no longer found it necessary to conceal her thoughts from +herself. She was still inclined to be publicly innocent but her mental +life had taken on the proportions of an endless debauch. Marriage not +only legalized sex but removed the barriers to thinking about it. She +felt herself blushing childishly as Schroder, squeezing her arm, opened +the door with a flourish. + + + + +15 + + +The Gilchrist home on Lake Shore drive was crowded with friends and +relatives. They had come to the funeral of William Gilchrist. Mr. +Gilchrist lay in a coffin in the drawing room, a waxen-faced figure +under a glass cover. Flowers filled the large room with a damp, sweet +odor. + +It was a spring morning. The air was colored with rain. A sulphurous +glow lay on the pavements. It was chilly. Automobiles lined the curb +outside the Gilchrist stone house. Polite, sober-faced people arrived in +couples and groups and walked seriously up the stone steps of the +residence, a swarm of mummers striving awkwardly to register grief. + +Dignitaries from different strata were assembling. The Gilchrists were a +family whose prestige was ramified by varied contacts. Celebrities of +the society columns arrived--famous tea pourers, tiara wearers, charity +patronesses. Professional men ranging from retired fuddy-duddies, +applying their waning financial talents to the diversion of +philanthropy, to corporation heads, prominent legal advisors and medical +geniuses renowned for their taciturnity--these came for Mrs. Gilchrist. +Bankers, merchants, industrial captains, hospital bigwigs--these came as +husbands and also as contemporaries of Mr. Gilchrist. + +The leaders of the city's arts--a sprinkling of painters aping the +manners of dapper business men, of authors vastly superior to the +Bohemian nature of their calling, of advertising Napoleons, opera +followers, national advertisers--these came for Aubrey. Fanny, through +her brother who had a month before been elected a judge, drew a +formidable group of names--political factotums, powers behind thrones, +mystic local Cromwells. Also the Younger Set. Added to these were +relatives, business associates and finally the Press. + +There was a dead man under a glass cover in the house and the +distinguished company, crowding the large somber rooms of the Gilchrist +home, eyed each other gravely and addressed each other in whispers. The +dead man could not hear, yet they spoke in whispers. Even the most +renowned of the dignitaries whose lives were a round of formalities +almost as impressive as this, spoke in whispers and seemed ill at ease. + +They drifted about like nervous butlers and took up positions against +the walls, striking uncertain attitudes. They exchanged polite and sober +greetings and felt slightly strengthened in spirit at the sight of +people as distinguished as themselves. The camaraderie of prestige--the +social caress which celebrities alone are able to bestow upon each other +by basking in a mutual feeling of superiority--ran like an undercurrent +through the scene. + +Yet this camaraderie which usually heightened the poise of such +gatherings was unable to remove the embarrassment of the company. They +spoke in whispers and remained outsiders, as if the Gilchrists were a +family of intimidating superiors in whose presence one didn't quite know +what to do with one's arms or feet or what to say or just how to make +one's features look. + +The intimidating superiority was the body under the glass cover of the +coffin. It would have been easier in a church. Funerals were much less +of a strain in a church and there were several whispers to this effect. +Why had Mrs. Gilchrist insisted upon a home funeral? Wasn't it rather +old fashioned? + +Here in a house death seemed uncomfortably personal. The stage was too +small and the mourners were too near something. A curious sympathy that +had nothing to do with Mr. Gilchrist took possession of them. + +The damp, sweet odor of the flowers, the glimpse of the black coffin, +the sound of softly moving feet and whispering tongues were a +distressing ensemble. The mourners drifted around and nodded nervously +at each other as if they were doing all they could to make the best of a +faux pas. Death was a faux pas. A reality without adjectives. A stark, +mannerless lie. The family had done its best also. Flowers had been +heaped, furniture arranged, the body dressed, a luxurious coffin +purchased, great people invited. Nevertheless the waxen-faced one under +the glass cover refused to yield its reality. It lay stark and +mannerless in the large room--the immemorial skeleton at the +feast--repeating the dreadful word "death" with an almost humorous +persistency amid the heaped flowers, the carved furniture, the mourners +with raised eyebrows. They stood about nervously. + +Gilchrist had been a man alive, one of those whose names were known to +the world. The name Gilchrist had meant a large building stored with +rugs, period furniture, innumerable clerks, departments, delivery +trucks, advertisements in newspapers and on fences. The man Gilchrist +had been one with whom the dignitaries of the city had shared the +intimacy of prestige. + +They had said Gilchrist's was a fine store, Gilchrist's was marvelous +furniture, Gilchrist was a highly successful business man. Gilchrist was +this and that and the other. And here lay Gilchrist, waxen and +unscrupulously silent, under a glass cover--a little man with pale +sideburns that were now doubly useless, in a black suit and his hands +folded over his chest. Here lay Gilchrist dead, and yet the things that +had been called Gilchrist still lived. As if immortality was an +artifice, superior to life. The furniture store, the furniture, the +clerks, trucks, advertisements, the highly successful business--all +these still lived. And this was an uncomfortable fact. It embarrassed +the mourners. They drifted about with uncertainty. + +Like Gilchrist they were men and women whose names were synonymous with +great activities. Like Gilchrist, they were considered as the +inspiration of these activities. In fact the activities were an +artificial symbol of themselves--a sort of photograph of themselves. Yet +like Gilchrist, all of them would lie under a glass cover some day and +nothing would be changed. The activities that everybody called by their +names would still live. As if they had had nothing to do with them. As +if these symbols were the life of the city and not the men and women +whom they symbolized. Yes, as if these activities which represented +their prestige were independent individualities--masks which loaned +themselves for a few years to them to wear. And which they took off when +they lay stretched under a glass cover. Which they would take off and +become anonymous. + +For who was this waxen-faced man in the coffin? Nobody knew. They had +called him Gilchrist. But Gilchrist was clerks, advertisements, +furniture, and business. This man in the coffin was someone else, an +irritating impostor that reminded them they were all impostors. Death +was a confession everyone must make; an incongruous confession. An +ending to something that had no ending. Life and its activities, even +the activities that bore the name Gilchrist, went on. Yet Gilchrist had, +mysteriously, come to an end. He lay in a coffin while his name in large +letters talked to other names in the advertisements of the city. + +The camaraderie of prestige was insufficient to remove this +embarrassment. A dead man under a glass cover spoke to them slyly. +Dinners, even very formal dinners with butlers; cliques, even powerful +cliques wielding financial destinies; ambitions, board of directors' +meetings, investments and reinvestments, hopes and successes--ah, these +were deceptive little excitements that were not a part of life--but an +artifice superior to life. For life ended and the little excitements +went on. They were the surface immortality in which one conveniently +forgot the underlying fact of death. + +Alas, death. Alas, waxen-faced men lying silent and mannerless under +glass covers. A distasteful faux pas, death. Yet some of the company +must weep. Not friends who regretted the everlasting absence of William +Gilchrist, but men and women bewildered for a moment by the memory of +their own death. Death was a memory since it existed like a foregone +conclusion. It was sad to think of all the people who had died, laughing +ones, famous ones, adventurous ones whose laughter, fame and adventure +seemed somehow a lie now that they were dead. + +It was so easy to be dead. Death had come to all who had been, even to +more dignified and celebrated ones than they. Alas, death. The sober men +and women in the Gilchrist home drifted about nervously. They must weep +because for the moment they lay in the coffin with Mr. Gilchrist and +because for the moment they walked sadly about mourning visions of their +own deaths. And for the moment their tears earned for themselves the +regard of their fellow mourners as kind-hearted, sensitive, unselfish +souls. + +Yet there was something intimate among the company. Despite the +embarrassment, a curious spirit of friendliness underlay the scene. Men +and women who knew each other only as aloof symbols of prestige, stood +together and talked in whispers as if they were talking out of +character. Half strangers felt a familiarity toward each other. + +Under the stamp of a common emotion and a common embarrassment, the +company became for the time a collection of intimates, looking at one +another and whispering among themselves as if the event were a truce. +This was a funeral. Here was reality. And it was polite to lay aside for +an hour the masks, the complexities of artifice by which they baffled +and impressed each other. + +The Reverend Henry Peyton had arrived and the mourners moved into the +spacious library, grateful for a destination. The widow in black with +her son and daughter-in-law appeared. The company surveyed them with a +thrill of vicarious grief. Poor Mrs. Gilchrist, so strong and competent! +It seemed almost impossible that she should lose anything, even +something as mortal as a husband. She was so fixed and determined. Even +now there was something sternly competent about her grief. It was hidden +under a black veil. There was nothing to be seen of it but a black veil +and a black dress and a pair of wrinkled little hands fumbling with +themselves. Poor Mrs. Gilchrist. People had forgotten she was a woman. +They felt slightly ashamed as they glanced at her now, as if they were +intruding upon a secret. But she had invited them. + +A suppressed "Ah!" of sympathy murmured through the room. The minister's +words began and a determined hush followed. + +Basine sitting in a corner of the room with his mother had spent an +uncomfortable hour waiting for the services. He had looked at the body +and come away depressed. His quick eyes had observed the company and +noted with a concealed smile the manner in which lesser dignitaries were +making hay while the tears poured. They were utilizing the camaraderie +of prestige and the intimacy of a common emotion to impress themselves +upon the greater dignitaries. Women of dubious social standing +gravitated as if by general accident toward women of solid social +standing and exchanged whispered condolences with them. Men of lesser +financial ratings were edging toward leaders of finance and engaging +them in dolorous conversations. + +Under the depression and gentle bewilderment, the everlasting business +of inferior pursuing superior and superior increasing his superiority by +resisting pursuit, was going on. The death of poor Gilchrist seemed to +Basine, for a few minutes, chiefly important as an opportunity by which +lesser mourners were introducing themselves to the attention of greater +mourners. + +Basine's eyes noticed another undercurrent. He had himself influenced +Fanny to prevail upon Mrs. Gilchrist to invite a number of politicians +to the funeral. He had furnished the names carefully, telling Fanny that +these were men high in power who had been friends of Mr. Gilchrist. The +widow, through her secretary, had asked ten of the list to honor her +husband's funeral with their presence. She had chosen ten names most +familiar to her, among them men of wealth who were renowned as powers +behind the various political thrones of the day. The invitations had +served Basine to make a slight but important impression upon the +political party leaders. + +He had at first felt nervous over Mrs. Gilchrist's selections from his +list. She had picked ten men, most of whom were engaged in tenacious +political antagonisms. He watched now with surprise as the antagonists +gravitated together forming, with a number of financiers, an amiable, +dignified group. + +"In the presence of death they feel inclined to bury the hatchet," he +thought and the idea of large funerals as an asset for establishing +political harmony developed in his mind. + +He noticed a change in his own attitude toward Aubrey. He had felt for +years a distaste for the man and although their relations had always +been amicable, this distaste had increased to a point where Basine would +have felt a relief at the man's death. He could never tell himself why +he disliked Aubrey. But the aversion was of long standing. "I don't like +his looks," he would grin to himself. + +Now, watching him take his seat beside his mother, Aubrey became somehow +human and Basine felt he understood the man for the first time. Beneath +people whose looks you didn't like was always something human. People +were all alike, no matter how they strutted or posed. Underneath was a +loneliness--a little crippled likeness of themselves--that they carried +about with them all the time. Basine would have liked to talk to him and +say something like, "Sorry, old man. I didn't know. I'm sorry...." + +The minister had begun. He stood beside the coffin that had been brought +in. His opening words startled Basine. A prayer! There was something +fantastic in the spectacle of this living man standing beside the dead +man and talking aloud to someone who was not in the room. Talking +solemnly, intensely to God. As if he had buttonholed Him. + +Basine felt irritated by his own emotions. His face assumed a devout +air but the emotions and the thoughts which rose from them persisted +behind his determined piety. He wanted to immerse himself in the spirit +of the man praying. But his eyes played truant. They wandered furtively +and observed with uncomfortable precision the bowed head of Henrietta +and the spring hat on her head and the heavy-jowled face of her father, +belligerently reverent beside her. + +The minister's voice shouted. "God, in Heaven ... his heavenly soul ... +his heavenly reward...." + +Phrases like these detached themselves and lingered in Basine's ears. He +had heard them frequently in church. But for the moment they seemed +preposterously new. He found himself listening in surprise. Religion had +been always an accepted idea to him. Something you believed in as you +believed in the necessity of neckties. But though he accepted it and +felt a casual faith in an Episcopalian God, it remained an idea apart +from reality. He had never given either thought or emotion to religion. +Yet he had frequently expended a great deal of mental effort and emotion +denouncing people whom he sensed or observed were opposed to religion. + +It struck him now as a childish farce--an absurd hocus-pocus. Poor +Gilchrist going to heaven and a long-faced man in a black coat speeding +his soul heavenward from the Gilchrist library! If there was a God, for +whom was all this necessary--the flowers, speeches, prayers? Not for +God. But for the people in the room, of course. People crowded in a tiny +room taking this opportunity to assure each other that the immensities +over their heads, the clouds, stars and spaces were their property. + +His iconoclasm increased as if inspired by the length of the minister's +harangue. He grew angry with himself and thought of Doris and +immediately transferred his anger to her. It was she who was deriding +the solemnity of the scene. He had been paying too much attention to her +almost insane chatter and things were somewhat undermined in his own +soul. Her fault. + +The prayer ended and four men came forward and began to sing. Their +voices, raised in a hymn, annoyed him instantly. This was too much. What +were they singing for? As if their songs would help poor Gilchrist mount +from the library into heaven. The entire scene, the bowed heads, sad +faces, elaborate coffin; the flowers, the worthy reverend and the +singers came to his mind as something terribly unconvincing. Futile, +that was it. Children making an unconvincing pretense. + +He tried to blot out his thinking and fastened his will upon thoughts +that might make him sad, properly sad and believing. What if Henrietta +should die.... Henrietta dead. Henrietta gone forever. He seized the +thought eagerly. It was not what he wanted but there was a relish in +thinking it. Sad ... sad ... yes, if his mother should die or somebody +dear to him. Who? Ruth. Ah, what if it were Ruth in the coffin. Instead +of anybody else. He would feel differently then. Her beautiful face +white as Gilchrist's and her arms still. Her fingers rigid. Ruth +dead.... + +This made him sad but it took his mind entirely from the scene. He +forgot for moments that Gilchrist was dead and this was a funeral. The +reality returned, however, with an increased vividness to its absurdity. +The music of the hymn rose with embarrassing frankness.... Poor little +people gathered in a room going through a hocus-pocus to convince +themselves that there was a heaven where they would live forever after +the misfortune of death. Like children playing with dolls and +pretending.... But how did he happen to be thinking like that? Did he +believe there was no God, no heaven, no after life? + +No, he believed in all that firmly. Of course, one must believe. The +self-questioning had shocked him back into a state of grace. Yes, he +believed firmly and bowed his head to the hymn that was ending. + +During the rest of the services he was inwardly silent. The scene +appeared to have slipped into focus again. The minister seemed no longer +a symbol of some childish hocus-pocus but an ambassador of God--a stern +man, closely in touch with the Mysteries. And there was something +awesome in the room. There was something awesome about the coffin and +the flowers and the voices of the singers trailing into an Amen. It was +God. Yes, a great all powerful Being to whose hands mankind returned. + +The discomfort of doubt left Basine and he felt himself again an +integral part of something vaster than himself. His thought re-entered +the idea of religion and a sense of peace filled him. He said Amen twice +and looked with mute, believing eyes at the black coffin. + +The mourners were following the six silk-hatted pall bearers into the +street. A drizzle over the pavements. A long line of motors, chauffeurs +waiting, looking as aloof and aristocratic in their servitude as their +employers. + +Basine found himself beside Milton Ware, one of the big traction +officials of the city. A grey-haired man with a well-preserved face +stamped with certainties and stern affabilities. Basine thought +casually that Ware had seemed rather friendly. He had come over to +exchange remarks several times while waiting for the services to begin. +On the curb Basine looked around for Henrietta. Judge Smith had brought +his machine and they were to drive to the cemetery together. + +"Are you with anyone?" Ware asked quietly. + +"Yes, I'm looking for my party," Basine answered. He spied the judge and +Henrietta crowded into their car. Several others had entered with them. +Ware followed his eye. + +"That looks rather full," he suggested. "If you don't mind, would you +take a place in my machine." + +Basine nodded. "Thank you. I'll just talk to them a minute then." + +He returned from his father-in-law's automobile and entered with Ware. +The chauffeur started off and Basine leaned back in his seat. He +wondered at Ware's hospitality. The man was one of the outstanding +powers of the city, incredibly ramified through banks and corporations +and public utilities. He wondered what his connection with Gilchrist had +been. The traction baron--a title given him by the newspapers--sat in +silence beside him as the procession got under way. Basine's curiosity +began to answer itself. He found himself vaguely on his guard. + +"I hadn't intended going to the cemetery," Ware announced after they had +been riding a few minutes. "I don't believe much in such +demonstrations." + +"Neither do I," Basine answered. He was wondering if it were possible to +escape his duty to the family. There was such a crowd he might not be +missed at the grave. + +"Would you mind if we turned out at one of these streets and drove to +the club," Ware asked deferentially. + +Basine hesitated. He had noticed the invitation in the remark. Ware, +whom he had only met once before, was inviting him to the club. Why? A +desire to attach himself to Ware abruptly edited his doubts concerning +the propriety of his absence. + +"I'd just as soon," he answered. The chauffeur was given directions. The +remainder of the ride was passed in silence. + +"I thought we might have lunch here," Ware explained as they seated +themselves in front of a window overlooking the boulevard. It was +raining. The empty street gleamed and darkened with rain. + +"Most of the forenoon is gone anyway," Ware added. "Have you an +engagement?" + +"Thanks, I haven't," Basine answered. They sat sipping at highballs a +servant had brought. Basine watched the rain and a figure scurrying past +below the window. About this time they were lowering Gilchrist into the +ground. No one would ever see his face again. + +"Pretty sad about Gilchrist," Ware murmured as if aware of his thought. + +Basine's attention returned to the traction baron. The man wanted +something. Or why should he seek him out? An anger came into his mind. +Who was this man Ware that he could pick him up and cart him to a club +and buy him a highball--and expect to impress him, Basine? And for what +reason? The man wanted something. + +The idea had become a conviction. He sensed it now through the memories +of the morning. Ware had led up to it dexterously. A nod at first. Later +a few remarks about the weather. Finally an invitation to ride with him +to the cemetery. Ware had never intended going there. That had been a +ruse to--kidnap him. Basine frowned. Well, he was kidnapped. And he +would find out why. Find out directly. + +Ware was looking at him with a smile. Basine saw something in the smile +that increased his anger. A sudden wave of emotion, as if he were going +to strike the man, propelled his thoughts out of him. He heard himself +talking in a precise, indignant voice and regretted it at once. But the +words continued: + +"You're a rather busy man, Mr. Ware. And so am I. What did you want to +ask me?" + +Ware nodded slowly and thrust out his lower lip. + +"Exactly," he murmured. "I wanted to speak to you about something." + +"Well...." He paused on the word but Ware remained silent. He would have +liked to out-silence the traction official but after a pause, a +nervousness possessed him. "Well, let's begin now," he said. "What is it +you want?" + +He felt the crudity of his question and winced inwardly. But ... the +thing was said. He would fellow through in that tone, then. He tightened +his features and leaned back in his chair, his eyes deliberately on the +face of his host. He had embarrassed Ware. He could sense that through +the man's poise. His poise was only a stall. Well and good. There was +nothing for him, Basine, to be embarrassed about. He felt elated after +all with the way he had handled the thing. + +"I want to talk to you about a rather delicate matter," Ware began. +Basine nodded. He held the trumps. He had only to sit back and this +traction baron would begin to mumble, his celebrated poise would begin +to disintegrate. + +"I'll be as direct as you, Judge," he continued. "I see that you don't +like beating around the bush. Neither do I. But I didn't know. As I +said, the thing is a rather delicate matter and I want you to take my +word for it, that whatever you say in way of reply will in no way change +my opinion of you. It's a thing to be said and then forgotten, if +necessary, by both of us. Do you agree?" + +Basine nodded. + +"It's about the Hill case," Ware lowered his voice. + +"The Hill case?" Basine stared. + +"On your calendar, Judge. The violinist suing for $50,000. Hurt by +falling off a street car. I thought you knew the case." + +"I remember it now, Mr. Ware." + +"Well, the man hasn't a case at all. But it's a jury trial and, of +course, juries sometimes think out things in an odd way. Now what I'm +getting at is this. This particular suit doesn't disturb us much. But +the anti-traction press is going to give it a great deal of publicity. +And what we're interested in is the effect of the suit. You understand? +The town is full of cranks and schemers always trying to get rich by +suing some big utility corporation. And if this man Hill wins his case, +why it'll mean another hundred cases all as preposterous as his on our +hands. Do you follow me?" + +Basine nodded. + +"I told you it was a rather delicate subject," Ware smiled. "And I would +never have thought of broaching it if I wasn't sure you would look at it +in the light it's offered, you understand? I don't mean I'm asking a +judge to do anything outside the facts or to go out of his way to hand +us anything. That's dishonest and absurd. The thing is, as you'll see +for yourself when the case starts, that this man Hill is an impostor +trying to hold us up. We'll prove that to your entire satisfaction. What +I'm getting at is that there's the jury and you know the attitude of +juries these days toward corporations. They hold against us regardless +of evidence. Now what I'm after is to see we get a fair trial and it +lies in your province to help us." + +Basine leaned forward and spoke with difficulty. His anger had grown in +him. + +"What is it you want me to do?" he asked. + +Ware smiled disarmingly. + +"Nothing at all, Judge, that you wouldn't have done of your own +volition. I want you, if you are convinced such a course is a just one, +to take the case from the jury and throw it out of court. Now, wait a +minute. I see you're angry and, as I said, the matter in a way is rather +delicate to talk about. But come, I'll say frankly, I'm interested in +you. We need men like you. Quick, intelligent and able to see their way. +The progress of the city depends upon such men. You know Jennings?" + +"Your attorney." + +"Yes, in full charge of our legal department. There's another case for +you of an intelligent, quick-witted man, scrupulously honest but not an +ass. Six years ago Jennings was a judge on the municipal bench. Wasted +... utterly wasted ... today--" + +Basine interrupted, his voice harshened. + +"An analogy. I see. Thanks." + +He stood up. Ware reached out his hand. + +"I don't think you quite understand me," he murmured. + +"Perfectly," Basine answered. "And I've given my word that whatever I +understood would be forgotten." + +Words welled into Basine's mind. An almost uncontrollable impulse to +confound his host with a violent denunciation struggled in him. He would +tell this traction baron what manner of man he, Basine, was. And what +the dignity of his position as judge was. He would throw the bribe back +into the man's teeth. He would declaim. Virtue. Outrage. Creatures who +sought to use their power to influence justice. Who thought themselves +able to drag men of honor to their level by the promise of favors. + +Basine remained silent. His eyes, grown lustrous, stared at Ware. +Careful, he must be careful not to protest too violently. That would +sound as if he were uncertain. No protest at all. A contemptuous +silence. That was more effective. The sort of thing Ware would +understand, too. And remember. With a deep breath that sent a tremor +through his body, he nodded. + +"Good day," he said and turning his back abruptly, walked out of the +club. He frowned at the unctuous bell boys and doorman. + +Still raining. Basine walked swiftly, unaware of destination. His mind +was filled with emotions. Indignation grew in him. Ware had offered a +bribe. There was something in the thing that slowly infuriated him. It +was an affront, an attempt at domination. The man had said, "I'm better +than you. I can bribe you to do what I want." His spirit revolted. So +that was the way to power, eh? Listening to reason when the big wigs +spoke? Well, they could go on speaking till doomsday. But they couldn't +talk to him like that ... and get away with it. + +The anger slipped from him. He had refused. An elation halted him. He +was an honest man! The fact surprised him. He stared with pride at the +street. The street held an honest man, a man able to say "no" to +temptation. + +A tardy appreciation of his righteousness overpowered him. He had +something inside him now like a new strength. He could look at men +anywhere, anytime, and let his eyes tell them who he was and what sort +of man he was. Because he was sure of it himself. He was an honest man, +and sure of it. + +It was not only inside him, this certainty, but he felt it like a mantle +over his shoulders. He walked on with a vigorous step. An unshaven face +paused before him and a beggar mumbled for a coin. Basine stopped full. +He stopped with deliberation and stared at the unshaven face, at the +shifty eyes and dirty linen. The beggar repeated his furtive mumble. + +"No," Basine answered clearly. His voice was sharp. The man appeared to +wince. He slid away in the rain, his head down. + +Basine walked on with an increased elation. He had never been able to do +that before, say "no" decisively to a beggar. He had usually said "no", +but hurriedly, furtively. That was because he was uncertain of himself. +Now he could say "no" or "yes" to anyone with decision. He had refused +a bribe and was an honest man and did not have to concern himself with +what others might think of what he said, because of this conviction in +him and because of this mantle in which he was wrapped. + +He walked in the direction of the County Building. The rain felt fresh. +It was a moral rain, a virtuous comrade. + +The incident in the club had, in fact, given Basine a character. He had +been unaware of his motives from the moment a sense of impending events +had come to him in the traction official's automobile. He had, when the +bribe came, acted as if following a lifelong code of ethics. Yet he had +surprised himself. His anger, his violent emotion of righteousness had +been inexplicable to him. He had never felt anything like that before. + +Basine, in the car, had become aware vaguely of what awaited him. He had +recalled and repressed the recollection instantly, the Hill case pending +trial before him. And under the surface of his thought the entire drama +of the bribe had enacted itself in advance. Ware would offer him +something. Yes, and Ware was a man to know, one who could be of vital +use in his climb. If Ware asked him to do something it would be wise to +do it. He had been eager for the interview and a part of his eagerness +had been a desire to grant the traction baron the favor he was going to +ask. + +But the incident had come during a curious crisis in Basine's life, a +crisis that had piled up since his youth. A consciousness had been +growing in him of his duplicity. He had been aware of it, but in a +different way, during his youth and the early years of his marriage. It +had not made him uncomfortable then. He had been able to lie with a +clear conscience. Ruses by which he established himself in the eyes of +others, not as he was but as he desired them to think him, had seemed to +him then the product of a practical, superior nature. + +Slowly, however, his poise in the face of his own duplicities had begun +to crumble. He had begun to feel himself filled with the uncertainties +of a man forced to conceal too many things from himself. Fitting his +hypocricies and lies into worthy necessities had become too complex a +business, demanding too much of his energies. + +The inner situation in which Basine found himself as he matured had in +no way changed his nature. He had gone ahead as always, stumbling +finally into a climax of deceits in his relation with the young woman he +had hired as his secretary. + +In the five months she had worked for him he had been in love with her +but had managed to withhold the fact from both of them. He had invented +exhaustless explanations for his interest in her, for his desire to be +near her, for the increased aversion that had grown in him toward +Henrietta and his home. + +The crisis had accumulated and reached a head during the services in the +Gilchrist home. Here his pent-up self-repugnance, his growing impulse to +expurgate the duplicities of his life, had found a minor outlet in the +sudden religious faith that had possessed him after his half-hour of +doubts. Ware's bribe had come opportunely. Basine's inexplicable anger +on sensing the impending bribe, had been his self answer to the eager +desire to comply that had struggled to assert itself in him. + +And when the man had begun the actual words that meant bribe, he had +seized on the situation as a vindication. Opportunity to rehabilitate +himself, to wipe out with a single gesture the clutter of dishonesties +which were beginning to inconvenience him. He had embraced it and +emerged from the club a man, remade. No longer an inwardly shifty Basine +able to rise to righteousness only by avoiding his memories. But a +Basine with a platform inside him on which he might stand fearlessly. +The platform--I am honest. I refused a bribe--had erected itself over +the complex memories of himself. They were obliterated now. + +He entered his chambers with a serious happiness in his heart. A miracle +had happened and he had been given absolution--by himself. + + + + +16 + + +Ruth Davis was at her desk. She looked up eagerly as he entered. Basine, +hanging up his coat and hat, felt a businesslike desire to explain +matters to her. He was an honest man, done with subterfuges. + +He would explain to her that it was no longer possible for her to +continue in his employ. Use correct but kindly words. He was an honest +man. He wanted to impress himself and everybody else with this fact. +Even Ruth. He had no thought of impressing it on Henrietta. Henrietta +would only be surprised to hear he was an honest man. Because she had +always believed it anyway. + +But he would like to tell Ruth, because it would raise her opinion of +him; fill her with a great pride. A sad pride, of course, since it meant +their separation. But she would go away loving him even more because of +his honesty that had put an end to his love for her. + +The course, however, was impossible. It involved a ludicrous situation. +Because he had never said he loved her and she had been as silent as he. +And so telling her all these very fine things would make it necessary +for him to say first, "I have loved you." And then to add, "But I don't +love you any more. I can't." + +It was two o'clock. Time for the Judge to take his place on the bench. +Basine arose from behind his table with a sense of anti-climax. Nothing +had happened. He was going back to his place on the bench again. Poor +Gilchrist lay hidden forever and Ware had tried to bribe him and he had +proven himself a man of astounding integrity. And he had overcome a +growing infatuation for Ruth Davis. Yet nothing had happened. + +"Shall I retype the Friday speech, Judge?" Ruth inquired as he hesitated +before her desk. He looked at her as if it were difficult to focus his +attention on her. He was preoccupied. A man of many preoccupations who +found it hard to notice little things around him. + +"Oh yes, the speech," he agreed. "Type it. And if there are any mistakes +change them to suit yourself." + +He walked out of chambers. Ruth turned to her typewriter and prepared to +set to work. But as the door closed behind Basine she stopped. She +removed a small mirror from a drawer and studied her face in it. She +leaned back in her seat and sighed. She felt too restless to work. + +With her white brows frowning, she sat looking at the keys of her +machine. A miserable restlessness, this was, that never went away. At +night she lay awake in the room she had chosen since becoming +financially independent of her family. And a loneliness gnawed in her +heart. It was because she loved him. + +"Yes, I love him," she repeated to the keys of her machine. + +He was not like other men. There was something intimidating about him. +He had never spoken to her in a friendly tone. His eyes had never become +intimate. + +During the five months she had been his secretary he had kept aloof. A +strange, unbending man consumed with ambition. His ambition was an +awesome thing. There was a directness to it. He worked day and night, +always planning for something. His engagements crowded each other. She +hardly knew the man. She knew only an ambition that kept pushing +tirelessly forward. + +There had been no talk between them except business talk. And yet, +somehow he had given himself to her. Despite his aloofness and the +sternness of his manner, she had felt herself coming close to him, +closer than to anybody else she had ever known. And men were no exciting +novelty to her. They had held her hand and fumbled around with ambiguous +words. They talked art, politics, women, not because they were +interested in these things but because they wanted you to be interested +in what they thought of them. She had kept her virginity without +difficulty. The half-world of art and jobs enthused her. But it did not +stampede. A practical side of her remained dubious about the groping +ones she met in the studios. It was hard to pick out the real ones from +the fourflushers. She had discovered this. Because the real ones didn't +know they were real. Any more than the fourflushers knew they were +spurious. They all gabbled and wrote, painted and gabbled, and there was +no difference to them. + +About the men she had noticed one thing. Their egoism was the egoism of +ideas. They were better than others, they thought, because of the ideas +in their heads. They were excitedly snobbish about these ideas as people +are snobbish about clothes. But they weren't better than others because +they were they. They were always leaning on things to make them feel +superior. Radicalism was a series of ideas that they picked up because +they felt a superior intellectualism in them. + +Ruth had started thinking in this direction after listening to Levine, +Doris' friend. She had felt something of the sort before. But Levine, +with his almost oily pessimism, who talked always as if he were selling +something, had made it clear. + +"The women who go in for revolt," Levine had said, "Hm, that's another +story. They're not interested in egoism. Because as yet there isn't a +highly developed caste system among women. They still kind of herd +together as a sex and they try to impress each other only with their +superior artificialities--as to who has the most doting husband, the +nicest times, the most accomplished servants. + +"But men--there you have something else, don't you think? And the men we +know--the hangers-on around here, comical, eh? You can almost see them +bargain hunting for ideas. They don't stand up on their own feet and let +out yaps. They keep crawling inside of new ideas. They keep using ideas +as megaphones to proclaim their own superiorities. Little men playing +hide and seek inside of big ideas. Using ideas about art and life as +kids use pumpkin heads on Hallowe'en. To frighten and impress the +neighbors. Another simile--borrowed finery, eh? Ah, they're all fools. +It's hard to be much interested in people unless you're a poet. If +you're a poet then what you do is ignore people and go down like a +deep-sea diver to the bottoms of life. Down there it's interesting. Yes, +growths like on the ocean floor." + +As a contrast to these men, gabbling in her ear and fumbling with her +hands, Basine had interested her at once. At first she had accepted the +way he ignored her as a natural attitude. Later, he would become +friendly and she looked forward to his friendship. It would be +interesting to know what an egoist like Basine thought about things. His +ideas were obviously rather stupid, but then--there was something else. +Strength, determination. He wasn't like the intellectuals, continually +losing themselves in new ideas and parading around like kids in their +big brothers' pants. She disliked that kind of men. The longer you knew +them the more unreal they became. Until finally, when you knew them +through and through it was like knowing an inferior edition of an +encyclopedia through and through. Everything was inside but it made no +sense. It had no direction. A jumble of ideas and informations--but they +formed no plot, no man. They weren't really egoists--the intellectuals. +Men like Basine were. + +But his aloofness seemed to increase with time. There had been no +natural evolution of friendship. She thought then, "He acts artificially +toward me. It's because he doesn't want anything to sidetrack him. Not +even friendships. He isn't quite human. He's like a machine that's +wound up. And he must run till he breaks down." + +This image of Basine fascinated her. A man without heart, a cool will +feeling its way tirelessly toward power, a thirst for power that +increased rather than stated itself with success. When he'd been elected +judge, he had surprised her by asking, "Would you like to come along +with me to the County Building? The office doesn't include a secretary, +but I need one on my own account." + +During the months she had gained an almost embarrassing insight into the +activities engulfing Basine. The man himself remained hidden, +non-existent. But the world in which he had obliterated himself became +vividly outlined for her. The intrigues, counter intrigues, the +complexities of his climb, these were open secrets to her. He seemed +shameless about them. Often when she watched him furtively as he wrote +out political speeches should would think, "Is there a man there?" + +It seemed to her there was not. Only an ambition tirelessly at work. An +ambition with a keen, nervous face, sharp eyes, thin hands and an +eloquent voice. But something more. A man who didn't hide inside ideas +but who remained outside them, giving himself to nothing except his +consuming desire to utilize ideas for his own end. He remained outside +manipulating. He manipulated life. All for what? + +Fascinated, she fell in love. When he came in where she was, her heart +jumped. When he talked to her, something contracted in her throat, and +frightened her. She had her day dreams. As the spring opened sunny +mornings over the streets, she would sit gazing out of the tall windows +and think of Basine. Her thoughts took an odd turn. They built up +scenes in which Basine lay defeated. Accidents had maimed him. Political +reversals had taken the heart out of him. He was ruined, poor, without +employment. She pictured such situations with relish. In them she +appeared as an understanding one. She would fancy herself coming to him +and shaking her head sadly and saying, "Poor man. I'm so sorry. But you +see ... you see where it all led? to this." + +And she would fancy him smiling back with a romantic tiredness and +reaching for her hand and answering as if he were an actor with a +speech: + +"Yes, my dear? I've been wrong. Ambition is wrong. I'm ruined. And it is +only proof that I was wrong." + +And then, in her fancies, he would look at her tenderly and raising her +hand to his lips murmur, "Forgive me, Ruth." + +The door of the chambers opened and Ruth looked up, startled. Paul +Schroder strode in. He looked jaunty. She smiled. He was one of Basine's +friends, and she liked him for that. He had been of the hard-working +loyal ones during Basine's campaign. + +"Oh, nothing in particular," he said. "Thought I'd just drop in for a +smoke. How's his Honor, these days?" + +"He's very fine," Ruth answered. Schroder shook his head. + +"I'm afraid he's drying up," he grinned. "That's the trouble with men of +his type. Get their noses down to a grindstone and never have time to +look up." + +Ruth blushed. That didn't sound like a loyal speech. She saw Schroder +smiling broadly at her. + +"You're quite a champion of his," he was saying. "Well, well. Maybe his +Honor isn't as slow as I've been giving him credit for being." + +From anyone else this would have been offensive, she thought. But there +was something pleasing in the accusation. She hesitated and then +returned his smile. + +"You know as well as I, what kind of a man Judge Basine is," she +answered. "He's the kind every woman respects at first sight." + +"Loves, you mean," said Schroder. + +"Oh no, I don't think a woman could really love Mr. Basine," she smiled. +"He's too much wrapped up in himself." + +"Well, I don't know then," said Schroder, "his wife puts up a pretty +good bluff then." + +Ruth's smile left her. + +"Oh," she said, "of course." + +Schroder laughed. + +"Well, well," he went on, "so you'd forgotten he had a wife. That's a +sweet kettle of fish. Such memory lapses are dangerous. Watch your step, +young lady. Look out." + +He stood up and approached her and wagged a finger mockingly. In a way +Schroder annoyed her. He always made her feel juvenile. She could never +use any of her sophisticated phrases on him. Because he laughed too +loudly and if you retorted cleverly he always guffawed as if he had +trapped you into having to be clever. His manner always seemed to say, +"You can't put it over me. I know. I know...." + +Ruth turned with relief at the sound of a door opening. Basine. This was +one of his habits, to appear suddenly and for no reason at all and walk +up and down the large room as if immersed in grave thought. She had +often wondered why he did this. She thought it was because the work on +the bench made him too nervous or because there were so many things +weighing on his mind that he needed a few minutes now and then to +straighten himself out. + +But while thinking this she had always felt that his sudden appearances +had something to do with her. It was perhaps only a part of her vanity, +she mused, but she always had this impression--that despite his +indifference and sternness he was curiously attentive. No matter how +busy he was he never absented himself long. He was always returning and +walking up and down. It was odd, but she felt at times that he walked up +and down for her, to be near her. + +"Hello Paul," Basine's eyes slanted up at him, his head slightly +lowered. A pose which gave him a pugnaciously concentrated air such as a +schoolmaster looking over the top of his glasses at an erring pupil +might achieve. "What do you want?" A disconcerting directness he +reserved for the embarrassment of his friends. He asked straightforward +questions, point-blank questions. His questions always had the air of +troops unafraid, wheeling in manoeuver to face the enemy. + +"Nothing much, Judge. But your office is kind of restful." + +Schroder rolled a kittenish eye toward Ruth. + +"Oh!" Basine stiffened. "Hm." + +Schroder winked at the girl. He came forward, and added, "All the +comforts of home, eh?" And dropped into a chair beside her. + +He had the faculty of boyishness, a talent for intimacies. His trick +was a conscious thrust beneath the guard of women. He chose to ignore +the delicate fol de rols of pursuit, the pretense of formality. He +refused to recognize the barriers of dignity, strangeness, social +poise--but stepped through them with an easy laugh as if perfectly aware +of what lay beyond, and seated himself beside his quarry in the guise of +a mischievous boy asking to be congratulated for his boldness. + +Women succumbed to this gesture, disarmed by its frankness, its pretense +to innocent juvenility. In this manner Schroder achieved within an hour +intimacies which came to other men only after months of laborious toil. +He threw a noise of laughter over the bantering innuendoes of his talk, +disguising boldness in its own obviousness. His sallies seemed to say, +"You have nothing to fear from us since we are not secretive. We are +cards on the table." + +Women thought of him, "He's lots of fun. You don't have to pretend with +him. You can play and talk without feeling he's laying traps for you." + +But despite the straightforwardness of the man they soon located the +overtone in his conversation. It lay in his eyes. His eyes never gave +themselves to his laughter. They seemed to watch avidly from behind +something. It was as if they were independent of his characterization as +a frankly mischievous overgrown boy. They were able to ask amazingly +indecent questions in the midst of his frankest outbursts. Women +invariably grew embarrassed under their stare. There was no defense +against the inquisitive impudence with which they announced the male's +concentration. Their gleam was like an unmistakable whisper--an +invitation. + +Basine admired the man. But he remained oblivious to this side of him. +Schroder's female conquests had never interested the Judge. He had heard +of them and forgotten immediately. Now, however, memories returned. +Schroder was an unscrupulous animal. Basine looked at him with a +hopeless misgiving. + +He noticed as Schroder and Ruth talked that he seemed on far more +intimate terms with her than he. There was an _esprit_ between the two +as if they were comrades of long standing. His friend's familiarity was +a shock--as if he had caught him undressed, unexpectedly. Basine +listened to his talk with an aloof frown, as if he were unable to focus +his attention on the scene. He was thinking of something else--far-away +things, vast preoccupations. + +"Loafing is an art. Don't you think so, Ruth?" + +"I've never had time to find out." + +"Hm. I'm teacher. Want me to be teacher?" + +"Why yes, if you have time in your loafing." + +"Time for you always, my dear." A contemplative stare at the girl. "What +would you say, Judge, if I fall in love with your charming secretary." +He laughed. Basine cleared his throat. He felt miserably out of this +sort of thing. He was shocked to hear Ruth giggle. + +"Yes sir," Schroder continued. "And what are you doing this evening?" + +"Nothing, Mr. Schroder." + +"Well, why waste time? How about dinner and a show?" + +"Really?" She glanced at Basine as if to declare him in on this give and +take. He was preoccupied, hardly observing what was happening. She +pouted. + +"Cross my heart," said Schroder. + +"Thanks very much. A very generous, if general invitation." + +"Discovered!" Schroder laughed. "All right then. Six o'clock at the +Auditorium. Woman's entrance. I'll wear a red rose in my ear. Can't miss +me." + +Ruth nodded. + +"There you are, George," Schroder cried. "All done in a minute. And +tomorrow we'll be in love with each other. What'll you marry us for, +your Honor? Remember I helped elect you." A boisterous laugh that seemed +to mock the boastfulness and prophecies of the man and say of itself, +"I'm joshing all of you including me...." + +Basine left them. His heart was heavy, uncomfortable. He sat on the +bench frowning at the scene. Eager lawyers whispering; a woman in a +green hat holding a handkerchief to her eyes; a bald-headed man on the +other side of the long mahogany table; faces for a background. A divorce +case. The woman weeping was a wife. The bald-headed one with the air of +a board of directors' meeting about him ogled his accusers with dignity. +He was a husband. The jury sat dolorously inattentive in the box. A +witness was testifying. + +Other people's troubles. An interminable jawing back and forth--lawyers, +defendants, witnesses and more lawyers. Basine frowned. Other people's +troubles--and he had his own. This thing before him was an intrusion. At +best he had no sympathy for the interminable jawing that went on under +his eyes. He had grown passionately interested in what he called the +people. But when he thought of the people he thought of them as a +force, a group, an army standing with faces raised repeating certain +slogans--a vision that Doris had bequeathed him. The interminable +jawing, weeping, accusation and denial before him from day to day had +nothing to do with the people. About these individuals he was cynical. +And more, he was not interested. + +The witness was testifying. The intimidating air of the judge seemed to +confuse her. Her confusion irritated Basine. He turned indignantly and +faced her with a bullying frown. + +"What is it you're trying to say, madam? Did you see this man beat her?" + +"Yes, your honor.... I.... I ... that is...." + +Basine controlled his temper and grimaced humorously at the jurors whose +faces at once lighted with an appreciative smile. A fearless man, Judge +Basine, who couldn't tolerate the mumble mumble of legal technicalities +and who struck at the roots of things when he took charge of a witness. + +... They were in the room behind him. Alone. An intolerable thought. +But, impossible to keep his thought away. His imagination like a +merciless flagellate, belabored him with fancies. Paul would teach her. +Lean over and kiss her. And she would kiss in return and whisper, +"Paul...." He was unmarried and good looking. Perhaps she was +heartbroken, too. He, Basine, had never spoken despite the light he had +recognized of late in her eyes. She was in love with him and filled with +despair because her love was useless. So now she would turn to Schroder +in desperation. She would try to forget him, Basine. It was logical. +Women forgot hurts in that way--by giving themselves to someone else. + +The heaviness grew unbearable. Another man was touching Ruth. This was +unbearable. He couldn't stand it. But why? What difference? He +couldn't.... She was so beautiful. Another man's hands were desecration. + +A weakness came to him. His heart darkened. What if she did, with +Schroder? They were probably kissing now. It had been hard to imagine +himself kissing her. To him she somehow seemed aloof, beyond possession. +But it was easy to imagine Schroder. Men and women put their arms around +each other and that was an end to aloofness. + +He made an effort to pull himself together. Voices were droning around +him--other people's troubles. Faces thrust themselves tactlessly at his +eyes. He grew nauseated. He had never felt like this before. As if he +must do something despite his will. His will said, "Sit there. Don't +move. It's none of your business." But this other thing was pulling him +out of his seat and moving his body for him. + +He clenched his teeth and muttered to himself, "She's no good. Wasting +my time on her!" + +"That will be all for today," Basine muttered. He placed his hand +wearily over his forehead. This would make them think he was ill. His +clerk came forward. + +"Anything wrong, Judge?" he asked with concern. + +Basine shook his head with Spartan indifference to the mythical disease +consuming him. + +"No," he said, belying his answer in its tone, "court is adjourned until +ten o'clock tomorrow." + +He nodded briefly at the faces. The solicitous regard in the eyes of +attorneys and jurors reassured him. He was ill, very ill--that was it. +Of course, that was it. The eyes of the attorneys and jurors said, "You +are working too hard. You must be careful of a nervous breakdown. In +your prime too. Be careful." + +He walked off the bench, his step unsteady. He was acting. But the fact +that his step was not authenticly unsteady was an accident--and +illogical. He felt it logical to walk unsteadily since everyone thought +him ill and on the verge of a breakdown. + +"You'd better go home, Judge." + +Basine nodded gratefully to his clerk. He opened the door to his +chambers. The sight of Schroder bewildered him. Schroder was still +there. He had his hat in his hand, though. Basine stared at his friend. +His heart contracted and his breath fluttered in his throat. + +"What's wrong, George?" + +"Nothing. Headache. Knocked off for the day." + +Words were hard to speak. His eyes turned to Ruth. She was watching him. +Frightenedly, he thought. Had she done something? Kissed? They looked +guilty. He tried to find answers to the questions by staring at her. Was +she the same as she had been? Or had she given her lips? A vital +question. They were going out tonight together. Basine controlled +himself. He sat down at his desk and ran his hand wearily over his head. + +"Well, so long," Schroder spoke. "Hope you feel better, George." A +pause. "See you later, Ruth." + +See her later! They had no sympathy for his illness. They would go out +and laugh, hold hands, make love--despite his trouble. He sat brooding +over the cruelty of women. "Cruel. No finer feelings," he mumbled to +himself. + +They were alone. Was he ill? What was it that had lifted him off the +bench? Nothing definite. A dark disorder in his mind, a heaviness in his +heart that had seemed part of the room. He wanted to moan. Yes, he was +sick. + +"Can I do anything, Judge?" + +He hated her. Her voice with its hypocritical concern. As if she cared +for him. After what had happened between her and Schroder ... see you +later ... and he called her Ruth. + +"No, Miss Davis." + +This was unbearable. He would insult her. There was relief in insulting +her, making her suffer for something, too. But she might go away if he +did. He couldn't go on with his work any more. Work was impossible. A +disease was active in him sending out dark clouds that choked his +thought and swelled his heart with pain. She might leave for good. Then +what could he do? Nothing. But why all this make-believe? He would tell +her he loved her. Simple. That would drain him of his pain. He stood up +and paced. She was at her desk, he noticed, eyes large and excited. + +But he could do nothing, say nothing. He was impotent. Good God! he +must. How? No way he could think of. The thing was smothering him. +Before--days and weeks before--he had kept it down. But now it had slid +from underneath and was in his head. There was no outlet. He dared not +talk. + +No thoughts were in his mind. Henrietta, his children, home, morality, +marriage, none of these was in his mind. But there was a restriction, a +wall he could not pass. There were things holding him with merciless +hands. They gripped at his body and thrust themselves like gags into his +mouth. + +She had risen and was standing near the window. If he kept to his pacing +he must come near her. It was her fault. He was just pacing. She was in +his path. If he walked straight to the end of the room she would be in +his path. Why should he turn out for her? + +He paused beside her. He must say nothing. It was talk that was +impossible. He stood looking at her until his eyes grew bewildered. +There was a moment in which he seemed to vanish from himself, as if he +had stepped bodily out of himself. His thought paralyzed with a curious +terror, he saw nothing. The moment of unconsciousness passed and he was +still alive and still on his feet. His voice lay under control in his +throat and the memory of his name sat like a perpetual visitor in his +thought. + +But there was a change. A miraculous thing had happened. He was no +longer Basine. He was a stranger in a strange world. He was holding her +in his arms. An impossible sensation was in him. This was something he +couldn't believe. He wanted to look at himself. He had his arms around +her. But there was no woman in the circle of his arms. He was holding +something that let his delirium escape. Torments were emptying +themselves in the embrace. The miseries that had accumulated under the +surface of his months of resistance, were leaving him, flying from him. +His heart was growing unbearably light. + +"Oh!" he murmured. Her arms had tightened and he saw her eyes approach +him. They were rapturous. + +She was warm, intimate, close to him. Her lips, still piquantly +strange, were offering themselves. She was unlike everything he knew. A +startling vigor, as if he had been changed into a rampaging giant, swept +him as they kissed. He was great, strong. He could walk over the heads +of the world. He had no need for further embrace. He stepped away, his +face radiant. + +Ruth looked at him in confusion. This was a new Basine. He frightened. +The mask was gone, the frown of preoccupation. She grew dizzy in the +light of his eyes. He was a stranger. What should she call him? But he +was talking to her in a voice that he seemed to have kept secret.... "I +love you, Ruth. I love you." + +He laughed. She smiled uncertainly and felt that her face looked +awkward. She could see the lines of her cheeks bulging as she lowered +her eyes. This confused her and made her feel stiff. There had been +something of this sort a few minutes ago in Paul Schroder when he had +tried to take her hand. But now the thing she had noted calmly in +Schroder seemed a puny imitation. Here it was real. He was laughing, +softly, joyously. He was like a boy. Her heart filled with panic. She +put her arms quickly around his neck and pressed herself close to him. +The panic went out of her deliciously. + +"George, I love you. I'm so happy." + +They sat looking at each other, an excited smile in Basine's eyes. His +body was tingling. A new sense had come. It lived in his fingers. He was +holding her hand. His fingers were charged with an amazing energy. They +seemed to have become part of a different person. He was able to enjoy +the ecstasy that confused his fingers as if it were an external +emotion. The rest of him was clear, almost tranquil. + +"Well," he said. It was still hard to talk. He was aware of +incongruities. He was not Basine talking, not the new Basine, not the +one whose fingers danced and throbbed. His voice belonged to other +Basines--other characterizations whose awkward ghosts fluttered +nervously in his thought. He would discuss this phenomenon. It was easy, +after all. Be honest. She was one with whom he could be astonishingly +honest. They were isolated. The world was a futility. There was an end +to make-believe now. It was all honest, tranquil, joyous. He began +again: + +"Well, isn't it strange. I can hardly talk to you. I'm not used to us +yet. This way. I've loved you since I first saw you. But I've told so +many lies about that to both of us...." He paused to smile at her as if +asking her not to believe him a liar, or if she must--a liar in a high +cause--"that the things I want to say now seem like ... like the +contradictions of something. Of old lies ... in a way." + +She nodded. + +"Oh, I know," she whispered. A preposterous admiration of her +intelligence overcame him. Of course she understood! It was unnecessary +to talk to her. She had kissed and embraced him. She had felt the same +things he had. And now, their thoughts were alike. They were like one +person, having shared something that filled them. It was unnecessary to +talk. Because if he remained silent she knew he was thinking of her. A +charming sense of comradeship came to him. + +"I feel," he said, "as if we were too intimate for words." + +She nodded again and smiled. + +"We'll make a holiday," he added. "Come, we'll go for a drive." + +They embraced. This time he thought of Henrietta. Ruth was different +from his wife. Her shoulder blades felt different under his fingers. It +was impossible to think they were both women. His arms around Henrietta +meant nothing. His arms around Ruth now--he closed his eyes in order to +closet himself with indefinable sensations. + +They emerged from the traffic of the loop. Basine at the wheel of his +newly purchased roadster dropped a hand on hers. + +"I feel better like this," he said. + +"Isn't it wonderful," she whispered. + +He would have liked to tell her they were floating over buildings. But +he kept silent. Words were still self-conscious interlopers. The houses +moved away. A spring wind was in their faces. They were silent. The +pavements ended. Basine brought the car to a stop. + +"I don't know what to do," he said. "I'm so happy." + +He placed his arms around her. The touch of her body through his clothes +was a reminder of something. He gave it no words. They sat embraced, +their faces together and an unspoken laugh in their hearts. The sun was +high overhead. Basine tried to remember himself ... Henrietta, his home, +his position. Ah, banalities. He was proud. He was above remorse, +regret; above himself. There was nothing in the world as beautiful as +the moment he commanded. + +Ruth leaned avidly against him as if seeking refuge in his arms. He sat +thinking. "It is right. Everything right. I've done nothing. No +compromise. Nothing. I'm happy. There's nothing to frighten me." + +He felt released. + + + + +17 + + +Summer lay like a Mandarin coat over the city. It was June. Warm, +sun-awninged streets glistened with ornamental colors. Women in gaudy +fabrics, men in violent hat bands, straws, panamas, striped shirts, sun +parasols like huge discs of confetti, freshly painted red and green +street cars, pastel tinted automobiles--all these tumbled like a swarm +of sprightly incoherent adjectives along the foot of the buildings. + +The store windows like deaf and dumb hawkers grimaced at the crowds. Ice +creams, silks, swimming suits, and sport paraphernalia; jaunty frocks, +white trousers, candies, festive haberdashery, drugs, leather goods, +wicker furniture and assortments of lingerie like the symbols of +fastidious sins--all these grimaced behind plate glass. + +The city was in bloom. People, perspiring and lightly dressed, sauntered +by the plate glass orchards. Summer filled the city with reminiscent +smells. Sky, water, grass scampered like merry ghosts through the +carnival of the shopping center. Warm, sun-awninged streets; ornamental +men and women--summer spread itself through the crowds, warmed the +bargain hunters, loiterers, clerks, stenographers, business men and +housewives into a half sleep. + +They peered lazily at each other. Their mysterious preoccupations seemed +to have subsided. The sun made holiday in the streets and the high, +fluttering windows showered endless tiny suns on the air. The morning +held the unreal soul of some forgotten picnic. + +Ten o'clock. Fanny Gilchrist turned with an inward sigh and walked out +of the crowded business street. This was LaSalle street and, concealed +in the buildings around her, were people who knew her and might see her. +Accidentally bump into her. + +The crowds grew thinner and less familiar types of faces drifted by. +This was better. She wasn't exactly afraid. But what if someone did bump +into her accidentally? Then she would have to say where she was going +and, if she lied, perhaps they would insist upon coming along and +discover it. But that was foolishness. One never met people in streets +like that. + +Men looked at her with casual interest, with insignificant enthusiasm, +as she walked by them. A bright-haired, shining-eyed young woman with a +body undulating softly under a grey and green trimmed dress; she seemed +to light up the dingy pavements. Other women passed lighting them up +also. Each new female illuminant was welcomed with thankful, greedy +eyes. + +Her red sailor jauntily tilted and the silken gleam of her face were +like part of a luscious mask. She was a woman hurrying somewhere and +men, bored with other women, looked at her enthusiastically. She was one +of the many enigmatic ones, one of the many gaudy colored masks behind +which sex paraded its mystery through the sun-awninged streets. Eyes +ennuied with the memory of sex lighted eagerly in the presence of its +masks. The flash of ankles and the swell of thighs under pretty fabrics +were diversions even for moralists. + +Schroder waiting patiently on a street corner watched the warm crowd. +She wouldn't come. Yes, she would. Well, another five minutes would +tell. + +He saw her and his excitement changed. A leisurely smile came to his +face. His body relaxed. He was a connoisseur in rendezvous and his +enjoyment of the moment which witnessed her approach was deliberate. +Women in themselves did not interest him so much. Their +bodies--pleasant, yes. But after all--a finale. And one does not applaud +finales. + +But now, watching her lithe figure hurrying toward him was a diversion +to be sipped at, contemplated in all its emotional detail, and enjoyed. +Later it would be this moment he remembered, if he remembered +anything--which was uncertain. For his memories which had in his younger +days glistened in his thought like a mosaic of eroticism, had of late +blurred to a monotone. He could remember women, liaisons, passion +phrases and great enthusiasms but, curiously, they seemed all identical. +To recall how one woman had sighed in his arms was to recall the whole +pack of them. As if the souls of his paramours and the manner of their +surrenders were contained completely in the recollection of any one +detail. + +But despite his ennui, this moment of approach still delighted him. The +woman hurrying to his side was not yet a woman. She was still a mystery +whose inevitable and never varying sensualism was masked for a final +instant behind unfamiliar fabrics. There was a piquant unreality, a +diverting strangeness, as she smiled at him. She was somebody he did not +know. He was authentically bored with women. But for the moment it was +not a woman approaching--rather a new color of cloth, a new combination +of dress, a new species of social poise and gesture were presenting +themselves for ravishment. In these unfamiliar surfaces lay a tenuous +mystery as if it were these externals he was about to embrace. And in +the contemplation of this mystery, his interest revived itself. He +sighed. It was a mystery which would vanish shortly. + +"Hello, dearest." + +He greeted her softly, with regret. A quixotic impulse to turn and walk +away before she spoke had died in him. + +Fanny was staring expectantly. He was familiar with the expression. Not +in her, but in others. This took away its charms. Married women were +nearly all alike. Full of distressing short cuts, with an irritating and +incongruous professionalism behind their bewilderment. What dolts +husbands must be to blunt women like that. + +As he took her hand and felt her fingers clutch excitedly around his +palm he remembered in an instant the predecessors of her type. Full of +distressing short cuts. When they gave their hands they withheld +nothing. They denuded themselves with a look, with a handclasp. And the +subtlety of skirmishing seemed entirely foreign to them. When they +embraced it was with an appalling directness. Yes, in intrigue they were +all alike--all like precocious children; vague, bewildered children +mimicking the precisions of their elders and exclaiming with distressful +incongruity: + +"Tut, tut. Let's come to the point. Let's get down to brass tacks and +stop beating around the bush." + +Well, here she was and the scene was on. + +"Am I late?" + +"No, dearest. I was just a little early so as to enjoy the impatience of +waiting for you." + +The nuance was lost upon her. Amorous women were a cold audience for +technique. + +"I'm so upset. Do you mind?" + +"Not at all, Fanny. Of course you're upset. But it only adds to your +charm." + +He had long ago abandoned love-making tactics, sensing that women who +came to him were not particularly interested in tender pretenses. They +desired flattery, but direct and practical variants. This one was like +the others, flushed, eager, frightened and gay. He felt an exhilaration +as they walked toward the entrance of the unpretentious hotel around the +corner. A sense of conquest. It was nothing to be enjoyed in itself. But +if people knew, which they never could, alas, they would be awed by the +ease with which he accomplished such things. One, two, three meetings +and--here they were again. Paul Schroder entering a hotel with a woman +at his side. + +"This isn't a bad place," he whispered. "I've already registered. Mr. +and Mrs. Paul Johnson. It's better if you know your name, of course." + +Fanny stood tremblingly in front of the elevator cage as he walked to +the desk. She noticed his carelessness, the unselfconscious way in which +he smiled at the clerk and paused to buy some cigars. The fear that had +grown in her since she left her home appeared to be reaching a climax. +Her knees shivered under her dress and a catch in her throat made +breathing difficult. + +"There's nothing to be afraid of," she repeated silently to herself, and +tried to understand the cause of her trembling. Even if there were +consequences--there was Aubrey. She smiled nervously. It was his fault. +He was a fool. + +They entered the elevator. A sleepy boy shut the cage door after them. +Schroder gripped her arm and his fingers caressed the soft flesh. She +turned to him and smiled. She was no longer afraid. A shameless, +exultant light kindled in her eyes. She leaned against him with a shiver +as the elevator lifted slowly. + + * * * * * + +... They had decided to check out in time for her to return home for +dinner. + +"I don't have to go up to the desk with you, do I?" she asked. + +Schroder smiled tiredly. + +"Oh no," he said, "you wait at the entrance with the property suit case. +Then we'll both take a cab and drive a few blocks. I'll get out with the +bag and you drive on home. It's simple." + +Nevertheless the fear she had experienced in the morning returned as she +watched him go to the desk. In another minute it would be all over and +everything would be all right. But now--what if someone saw them? Bumped +into her accidentally. The lassitude which had filled her when she +locked the tumbled hotel room behind her, gave way to a curious panic. +Her tired nerves became unhappily alive. + +"Why--hello, Mrs. Gilchrist." + +She was unable to see the man for an instant. Her mind had darkened. "I +mustn't faint," she murmured to herself. She was looking at an unshaven, +dissipated face that smiled. As she looked her world seemed to be +falling down. Everything gone--ruined. Because a face was smiling. Tom +Ramsey. The man's name popped into her thought. + +"Hello," she muttered. + +Schroder approached and frowned. He took her arm and led her away. She +began to cry in the cab. + +"He saw us. He knows. He'll tell everybody. Oh my God! Why did you come +up when you saw him? If you'd only realized. Oh, why did I do it? Now +everything's ruined. I'm lost." + +She wept, knowing the futility of tears. An accident that seemed +provokingly unreal and soothingly unimportant--Tom Ramsey. Yet the name +was like a guillotine block on which her head lay stretched. + +Schroder, annoyed, tried to console her. + +"Who was it? Listen, pull yourself together. People always imagine +themselves guiltier looking than they are. He probably thought nothing +wrong." + +"Tom Ramsey. Didn't you see how he looked at me? Oh, God, I'm sick." + +"Who is he?" + +"He used to be my mother's friend. But he went to the dogs. He's just a +tramp now. He isn't a gentleman." + +Schroder sighed. + +"Oh well," he said, "there's no use worrying. Come, put it out of your +head." + +"I can't. Oh, I can't. Why did I do it. I'll kill myself if ... if +anything happens. Aubrey will.... Oh Paul, I feel sick." + +He stared glumly at the back of the chauffeur's head. A nuisance. A +damned nuisance. His mind played with contrasts. A few hours ago she had +been shameless. Now she sat weeping. He thought of her as ungrateful and +grew angry. + +"I'll step out now," he whispered. "Call me up tomorrow at the office, +will you? Nothing will happen. Please, be calm. It's all imagination." + +He halted the cab and stepped out with the suitcase. She would feel +better, he knew, as soon as he disappeared. She would be able to +convince herself then that nothing had happened--that she was coming +home from a shopping tour. + +"Good-bye. Call me up, dearest." + +Fanny sat weeping as the cab moved away. Ramsey had seen her. A misery +too heavy for thought brought another burst of tears. She hated +Schroder. And herself, too. But most of all the ragged looking, unshaven +Ramsey in the lobby. Why had he come at just that moment? If they had +left the room ten minutes earlier. It was Paul's fault. He insisted on +combing his hair, and reading a story in the newspaper. If he hadn't +sent down for the newspaper in the middle of the afternoon. He didn't +love her or he wouldn't have thought of sending for it. She had laughed +at the time but it was an insult. He was a brute. If he had loved her he +wouldn't have wanted to read a newspaper and they wouldn't have met +Ramsey. She sat conjuring up dozens of trifling incidents which, had +they occurred, would have prevented the fatal meeting with Ramsey. + +Then she smiled convulsively through her tears. It was about the story. +They had laughed at it in the room. "Judge Basine Launches Vice Quiz. +State to Investigate Problem of Immorality Among Women Wage Earners...." + +"Why girls go wrong ... why girls go wrong," rumbled through her head +now and she laughed hysterically. Oh, that tramp of a Ramsey had spoiled +it all. Otherwise it would have been wonderful. And next week, too. But +perhaps he hadn't noticed anything. Of course he hadn't. Paul was right. + +She dried her tears and looked into the twilighted streets. She had +planned her homecoming days ago. She would be ill, overcome by the heat +and excuse herself from the dinner table. A final chill shot through her +heart as the cab stopped. + +She found herself entering her home with complete poise. It was almost +as if nothing had happened. Here were the familiar things of life. Her +home, Aubrey, the rows of books, the walnut library table. Nothing had +happened. For a moment she was amazed at the complete unconsciousness of +the day. Then smiling delightedly at her husband in a chair, a familiar +husband in a familiar chair, she removed her hat and approached him. + +Leaning over the back of his chair she kissed him tenderly on the cheek. +He was her protector. Good old Aubrey, so familiar, so placid and +unchanged. If it only hadn't been for Ramsey everything would be so nice +now. But anyway, it wasn't so bad. She had been a bit hysterical. + +"Where've you been, Fanny?" + +She felt no twinge at the question. Instead an enthusiasm for the +situation filled her. + +"To the matinee," she laughed. "Oh, I saw the nicest show." + +She leaned forward and took his hand. Aubrey regarded her with a +petulant stare. Despite their years of marriage, she was still an +animal, gross and irritating. + +"And I'm just starved," she exclaimed. "I was never so hungry in my +life." + +She laughed, overjoyed at the truth of the statement and hurried +upstairs to prepare for dinner. + + + + +18 + + +The manuscript had been found in the drawer where William Gilchrist kept +his collars. It lay underneath a number of loose collars. + +With the death of his father a curious love for the man had come to +Aubrey. He remembered from day to day things his father had said, or +seemed to say. A sad, elderly man who lived secretly in his thoughts. +That was his father. + +Like him, Aubrey now had a secret life that he lived only in his +thoughts, and this was slowly making him kin to the man who had died. In +Aubrey's thoughts dwelt a dramatic, startling figure--a gleaming, +hawk-faced thunderer; a lean Isaiah of burning phrases with an +eagle-winged soul beating its way toward God. This was Aubrey Gilchrist. +Not the Aubrey whom life had mysteriously deformed into an advertising +man, but an Aubrey triumphant who had risen above the petty turns of +Fate and burst upon a world--a voice crying forth astounding phrases +against the evil of man's ways. + +The inner characterization in which Aubrey was gradually immersing +himself remained a vague though warm generality. He was able to +visualize the Thunderer and able to enjoy the results of his genius. In +his day dreams he pictured this inner one bringing the world to his +feet. Books were being written about him, magazines and newspapers were +filled with his praises and interpretations, and men and women +everywhere discussed his ascent in awe. He was a conqueror--a bloodless +Napoleon and a martyrless Jesus. A prophet whose genius was lifting men +out of the mire. + +What the message was which this inner Aubrey was spreading through the +world, what the phrases were that ignited the souls of men, were not +contained in his imaginings. He approached them from a critical and not +creative angle--his fancies presenting him with descriptive self +praises. He composed rambling articles in his mind celebrating his +triumphs. This inner Aubrey was eloquent, electrifying, unassailable; +men and women wept over his writings and repented; cities reared statues +to him, and all places sang his glories. The whole thing had begun as a +game, deliberately invented to occupy the leisure of his mind. But he +had elaborated on it and it had grown almost by itself. Now it +preoccupied him to an alarming degree. + +The manuscript in his father's collar drawer had given him a shock. He +had kept it from his mother, assuring himself that such a course was for +the best. It was an odd document for his father to leave behind. + +As he sat in his study a week after the funeral reading it for the first +time, Aubrey grew frightened. It seemed to him that he was looking at +his father--for the first time, that the man who had till now been a +half enigmatic figure to him, stood at last in the room, strong and +alive. The thing was a primitive type of novel--discoursive, gentle, +Rabelaisian. It recounted the mental and physical adventures of an +Elizabethan philosopher in a succession of unrelated episodes. There was +a caress in the sentences, a simplicity in the narrative that translated +itself into cunning realism. + +When he had finished the reading, Aubrey stared at his father's portrait +hanging over one of the book cases. The reality of the manuscript held +him. He felt bewildered. It had for some three hours lifted him out of +the present and immersed him in scenes and amid a company of naive +ancients, starkly alive. A dormant literary sense awakened in him. The +thing was a work of art, as moving, as authentic as Apuleius or +Cervantes. But he would put it away. He hid it in a private drawer. + +Its memory, however, grew in his mind. During his day at work the +thought of the thing his father had written came to haunt him, as if it +demanded something. He felt closer to it than he had ever felt to his +father. There was something distasteful, though, about the intimacy. + +"That was his soul," he would explain over to himself. "He lived that +way inside. It was like writing a biography of secret dreams for him. +It's strange. We're all like that. Even I. There was something odd in +father. Funny we never guessed. It must have been written a paragraph at +a time over years and years. It was a sort of diary." + +And he would recall excerpts from the book--gentle skepticisms, childish +animalisms. But the tone of the thing which he could never put into +words was what haunted him most. Over the naive acrobatics of plot and +lively preenings of idea, an unwritten smile spread itself, a pensive +tolerance that seemed to say, "Yes, yes, life has been. This tale is a +curious jest. An epitaph over an empty grave. Yesterday is unreal and +today is even less real. Yet here are fancies, the ghosts of sad and +happy folk who never lived. And among these ghosts I once found +life...." + +The idea of publishing the manuscript came to Aubrey one evening when +his wife returned from the theater in a curious mood. She was late for +dinner and this irritated him. But her manner was even more irritating. +She was strident, flushed, gross. Her laugh as they ate made his mother +frown, he observed. He said little. When they left the table an +indignation toward Fanny had come to him. + +He retired to his study. Fanny insisted on following him. She hovered +about his chair as he tried to read, caressing him in a curious way, as +if he were a child with whom she was amused. It occurred to him that she +thought him a failure, that there was something condescending in her +manner. + +"Oh, leave me alone, please, Fanny." + +"Hm! We're peevish. Dear me. Poor old Aubrey's working too hard." + +"Please." + +"But I want to talk to you. I want to tell you about the matinee." + +"I'm not interested, Fanny. You know how I hate vaudeville." + +"I love it." + +"That's your privilege." + +"Don't be sarcastic, Aubrey." + +"I'm not. I'm just tired." + +"Tired? What have you been doing?" + +Despite herself she accented the you. The memory of Schroder and their +day together had left her. It persisted, however, as a curious elation. +The ambiguity of words exhilarated her. She felt a sense of mastery. She +wanted also to be tender toward Aubrey, to please and charm him. It was +necessary to do this in order to disarm him. But he had no suspicions. +She was certain of that. Nevertheless it was necessary to make sure he +had none. There were many paradoxical things necessary and most curious +of them all was the necessity of showing Aubrey that she loved him. Her +heart warmed toward him as it hadn't for years. She felt unaccountably +grateful to Aubrey. She would have liked to sit at his side whispering +love names and caressing his hair. + +"Well, for one thing, I've been writing." + +He looked at her calmly. + +"Writing? You mean books? Why, I didn't know!" + +Aubrey smiled, recovering a superiority toward her. But his heart grew +heavy almost simultaneously. She had thrown her arms about him and was +exclaiming, "Oh, I'm so glad. I'm so glad you're writing again, Aubrey +darling. I've wanted you to so much." + +He pushed her away slowly. She stood pouting. + +"Now I can see where I take a back seat," she sighed. "Yes sir, you +won't have time for me at all. But I don't care. As long as you're +happy, darling, I'm delighted. I want you to be happy and I know it +makes you happy to write." + +When she left the room Aubrey remained frowning after her. He would +surprise her. He would surprise them all. He would publish the +manuscript under his own name. It would create a sensation. It would +bring him back in the public eye more glorified than he had been in his +literary heyday. + +In a few days the idea had grown to obliterating proportions. For a +time he abandoned the contemplation of the inner Aubrey--the +gleaming-eyed Thunderer. This other was nearer reality--an Aubrey hymned +as a rejuvenated literary figure. But he hesitated. His indecision +resulted in a predicament. He had been boasting cautiously of his new +work, letting out hints as to its character. There was Cressy, a +literary critic and a member of the club where he lunched. He had talked +to him about it. + +"I'm surprised myself," he explained. "I was rather uncertain whether I +could come back. But the rest was evidently just what I needed. The book +isn't at all in my old style. More direct, sincere and entirely simple. +You'll like it." + +Cressy became important in Aubrey's predicament. Cressy was a man whom +Aubrey identified as "the more discriminating public." He yearned for +the approval of this public. And as his decision to have his father's +manuscript printed under his own name grew, Aubrey sought the critic +out. It was pleasant to boast to Cressy, to feel oneself part of the +superior literary world Cressy inhabited. + +Cressy had left the university with the determination to write. He had, +however, developed into a scholar, using a knowledge of Greek and Latin +to acquire a baggage of classical erudition. For ten years he had been +contributing literary essays to magazines and newspapers. In these he +wagged his head sorrowfully over the decline of letters. He presented an +impregnable front to all new writers. The names of new novelists in the +book lists irritated him precisely as the names of new celebrities in +the society columns had once irritated Mrs. Basine. He resented them as +intruders and focused a pedantic wrath on them. + +In his own mind he pictured himself as being in a continual state of +revolt against the inferiority of modern literature. His attacks, +however, were entirely a defensive gesture. His literary point of view +was inspired by a heroic desire to annihilate contemporary literature. +Contemporary books were an insult and a barrier to his egoism. He +battled against them. His struggle was the quixotic effort to assert the +superiority of his erudition. New novels, new poetries, new philosophies +were a conspiracy to minimize him and he went after them with the zeal +of one engaged in tracking criminals to their lair. + +At forty-five he was a stern-faced man with a greying mustache, heavy +glasses behind which gleamed indignant eyes. He was impressive looking. +People who never read his fulminations still felt a high regard for his +scholarship. He was fearless in the pronunciation of French, Latin and +Greek names and invariably functioned as arbiter in all disputes +concerning classical quotations and allusions. + +His friendship with Aubrey was based chiefly on the certainty he felt +that Aubrey was an inferior writer. He was not part of the conspiracy +aimed at the minimization of Cressy, the scholar. + +"Well, I'm glad to hear that, Aubrey," he congratulated his friend. +"Very glad. Writing is a delight few people understand these days." + +"I know. And I think you'll be interested particularly, John, because +the story is of Elizabethan England. I've modeled the technique on +Apuleius and the other later Roman tale-tellers." + +"Indeed!" Cressy bristled. "That should be interesting." + +"I'd like to have your opinion of it, John. I've always valued what you +say, but this time more than ever. Because I feel I've entered your +field and you're guarding the fences and all that." + +Cressy's face relaxed. Quite right. His field. And if the book was any +good he could leap forward as its authentic champion and through it +denounce the base modernism of the day. But how did Aubrey who was a +superficial dabbler come by Elizabethan England? + +Aubrey promised to produce the manuscript within a few days and left the +club. A July sun hammered at the streets. The heat added to his inward +discomfort. It was too hot to think. Yet it was necessary to think. +Something was piling up and unless he thought it out clearly, it would +fall on him. + +He had made up his mind to publish his father's manuscript as his own. +But in the weeks that had passed he had become aware that he was not +going to carry out his intention. There were things that kept him from +it. A morbid sense that his father was watching him had grown in his +mind. He was afraid. At night in bed he conducted himself with a +scrupulous politeness toward his wife, certain that his every action was +being observed by his father. + +There was another restriction. The appearance of the manuscript with his +name to it would be a distasteful anti-climax. He had lost himself so +long and so ardently in the creation of an inner Aubrey--the hawk-faced +Isaiah redeeming men--that the prospect of a frankly sensual volume +signed by Aubrey Gilchrist made him uncomfortable. + +In the face of the realities that would ensue--the praise for instance, +of the healthy animalism of the book--he would have to abandon the +secret characterization that had grown almost an essential of his life. +He could not go ahead redeeming men and lifting them toward a life of +asceticism while people were talking and writing about the fact that +Aubrey Gilchrist was a sensual realist. And finally there was a feeling +of dishonesty, inseparable from his fear of his father, but adding its +weight to the restrictions. + +As the feeling that he would never dare to publish the manuscript +approached a certainty, Aubrey sought to force his own hand by telling +his friends of the book, boasting of it and promising its early +appearance. In this way he dimly hoped to make it socially necessary for +him to produce the volume and that finally the social necessity of +living up to his announcements would overpower the inner restraints. He +was desperately throwing up bridges in the hope of being driven across +them. + +The dilemma slipped out of his mind as he walked toward his home. It was +distasteful. The finding of the manuscript had, in fact, upset him more +than anything which had ever happened. As he neared his residence a +wilted sensation came into his thought. He had been trying eagerly to +recover the full image of the inner Aubrey and derive a few hours of +surcease in the easy contemplation of that great hero's triumphs. But +now it occurred to him that Judge Smith and John Mackay, his partner, +Fanny and her relatives and all his world were buzzing with gossip about +his return to literature. The dilemma crawled wearily back into his +mind. + +Yes, they talked about it whenever they came together. There was +Basine, the judge. He had seized Aubrey's hand and pumped it heartily +when he heard of the book. + +"That's the stuff. I like a man who can come back. Go to it, Aubrey." + +Basine was a bounder. The way Fanny and the rest of them idolized him +was disgusting. His mother-in-law--"Oh, the judge told me the most +fascinating things about the situation in Washington." And then for an +hour, an idiotic mumble about what the judge did, what he said, what he +thought, what he hoped. Nobody ever mentioned Henrietta or the children. +As if their existence was not only unimportant but dubious. Basine was +an entity. He needed no background. + +Aubrey wondered why his thought turned to his brother-in-law. Whenever +he felt uncomfortable, or found himself in a distressing situation, his +mind usually busied itself with comment on Basine. Anything distressful +that happened, no matter how remote from the judge, always seemed to +remind Aubrey of the man and recall to him the fact that he was a +bounder and an ass and entirely unlikeable. + +He entered his home in a dejected mood. Voices attracted him. Fanny was +talking to a man. He paused before the opened door. + +"Oh, hello Aubrey," Fanny greeted him. She stood up. Aubrey noticed she +looked pale. Her eyes seemed to follow his observation. + +"Isn't it hot though? I'm almost dead. I'm awfully glad you came home. +You remember Mr. Ramsey, don't you?" + +"How do you do," said Aubrey. "Yes, I think--" + +"At mother's. Long ago. I'm sure you met him. He's an old friend of the +family." + +"How do you do, sir," Ramsey echoed, rising. The men shook hands. Aubrey +stared at the dapper, high-strung figure with its flushed face and cool +attire and tried to remember the man. + +"If you'll pardon me," he smiled. + +"Certainly, Aubrey." + +"See you again, I hope," said Aubrey. Ramsey assented with a curious +enthusiasm, accenting the situation uncomfortably. Fanny frowned and +watched her husband walk to the stairs. As his steps died the two +returned to their chairs. + +"Oh it's hot," Fanny murmured. "Can't you go away till next month. I'm +almost beside myself." + +Her voice was low. Ramsey listened with disdain. + +"And besides," she continued in a whisper, "I've given you all I can +get. I haven't any more money." + +"Money!" Ramsey snorted. "I'm not talking about money. I'm not asking +for any." He stood up and frowned indignantly at her. + +"I know, but--" + +"I just dropped in for a talk." + +He said this with a meaning smile and lighted a cigarette. He was very +casual. She watched him helplessly. + +"Oh, why beat around the bush. I'm sick of it. I can't stand it. How +much do you want? I've given you three thousand. Surely that's...." + +"I don't want any, thank you," he answered with mysterious sarcasm. "Not +a nickle." + +"Then what do you want?" Her voice was rising despite her fear of being +heard. "This is the fourth time you've ... you've hounded me." + +"Oh, I hound you?" Again the mysterious sarcasm. + +"If you'd only tell me what you want." + +He smiled with the air of a man phenomenally at ease and returned to his +chair. + +"Nothing. Not a thing. I just dropped in for a chat, that's all." + +His eyes regarded her triumphantly. Fanny returned their gaze. He was +crazy. There was something crazy about him. He had called her on the +telephone the day after seeing her in the hotel with Schroder. She had +gone downtown to meet him. The whole business seemed like an impossible +dream in retrospect. He had whined and begged for money. He was down and +out, living from hand to mouth, his friends gone, his clothes in rags. +He had known her father. She could save him. And he had never once +referred to the incident in the hotel lobby. Neither had she. The +conversation had been purely a needy friend and a philanthropically +inclined woman. She had asked him how much he needed and he answered +$1,500 would start him. A week later he came to her completely +rehabilitated--an elderly looking fop swinging a cane and bristling with +enthusiasms. + +Another $1,500 had increased his enthusiasm. He came a third time to +report that he had found employment. She barely listened. Something had +happened to Ramsey. + +Now as he sat smiling sarcasms at her she realized what it was. Her +knowledge of the man was casual but the thing that had happened was +unmistakable. He no longer wanted money from her. He was blackmailing +her merely because it gave him a sense of power. They had never +mentioned Schroder or the lobby incident. + +She regarded him in silence and the understanding of the man slowly +nauseated her. His polite and affable smiling, his cockiness and his +suavity--all these were part of a pose. He called merely to see her +wince and because her wincing filled him with this sense of power. And +he would go on like that. But she dared not challenge him. He knew about +the day with Schroder. He had never mentioned it and now he tried to +pretend this his dominance over her had nothing to do with blackmail or +Schroder. He tried to pretend it was because of something +else--something involved and mysterious. + +"Are you going to stay forever," she murmured. + +"Perhaps for dinner," he answered. Fanny sighed. There was her +mother-in-law--a stone faced woman with gimlet eyes. Old, ferreting +eyes. She would sense something. And if they found out. She shuddered. +Her eyes implored. + +"Please, Tom," she whispered. "You ... you're torturing me." + +"Oh no, not at all," he answered with an idiotic cheerfulness, raising +his eyebrows and pursing his lips in surprise. He was like a farce +actor. She stood up and came to his side. Her hands rested on his +shoulder. + +"Won't you leave me alone?" she whispered again. "I feel ill." + +He looked at her with concern. + +"Indeed," he said. "I'm awfully sorry." + +He would go on like this forever. It would always grow worse. He wanted +to make a victim of her. He was like a crazy man with an obsession. His +suavity and politeness almost made her scream. She covered her face and +wept. + +"There, there," he consoled her. She had dropped into a chair and he was +patting her back. "It must be the heat. The heat, don't you think? Oh +well, I'll go way now. Are you going to be home Tuesday evening?" + +She made no answer. Ramsey stood watching her, a smile in his eyes. As +she continued to weep he appeared to grow more and more elated. A +sternness entered his voice. + +"Come now," he ordered her, "sit up." + +She obeyed. + +"It's ridiculous," he continued. She nodded helplessly. "I'll see you +Tuesday evening," he added. There was a pause. Then, "There's something +I'd like to discuss with you. Very important. Don't forget. Tuesday +evening." + +He walked out. Fanny watched him to the door. A rage came to her. He was +play-acting. He was making fun of her, of her fear of exposure. Because +he was crazy. He didn't want money. He wanted to bulldoze and torture +her. He wanted her to think he was somebody--that's why he did it. + +She stood up and watched him from the window as he walked down the +street. A dapper, good-natured figure smiling with mysterious +condescension upon the houses he passed. She rushed to her room and +locked the door. Something would have to happen. She had not talked to +Schroder about Ramsey since he left her in the cab that first day. She +would ask him what to do. No, that would make it worse. He might be like +Ramsey. She lay dry-eyed and pondering. The thought slowly grew in +her--she would tell her brother. George would be able to figure out +some way to rid her of this blackmailer. She would tell him everything +and explain to him how she couldn't stand it any longer. + +She lay quietly improvising her conversation with her brother. This +brought a relief and she closed her eyes with a sigh. + + + + +19 + + +The ballroom of the Hotel LaSalle had been carefully prepared for the +opening of the Vice Investigating Commission's sessions. A corps of +janitors had been active for two days introducing folding chairs, +cuspidors, tables and wastebaskets. Chairs of varying degrees of +importance had been assembled for the witnesses, attorneys, +distinguished visitors and members of the press. + +The Vice Investigating Commission had been appointed by the governor of +the state. It was comprised of ten members including its chairman, Judge +Basine. The press with its instinctive dramaturgy had centered its +comment around the single figure of Basine. The nine state senators who, +as a result of political wire pulling, had wormed their way into the +Commission found themselves lost in the shadow of Basine. + +It was the Basine Commission. As the time for its sessions approached, +the press, having by its own headline reiteration of the man's name +impressed itself with the prestige and popularity of Basine, abandoned +itself without further scruples to its convenient mania of +simplifications. Thus the preliminary deliberations of the Commission +were headlined, "Basine to Summon Department Store Heads." "Basine to +Plumb Vice Causes." "Basine Charges Dance Hall Evil." + +The statements elaborately prepared by the nine senators were invariably +attributed in the newspaper columns to Basine. The hopes, plans, fears, +threats of the Vice Commission were blazoned to the world as the mingled +emotions of Basine. Photographs of Basine, his wife, children, and home, +illumined the papers and within a week the name Basine had, in the +public mind, become innately synonymous with an immemorial crusade +against vice. + +The crusade itself remained as yet a vague but promising morsel in the +city's thought. The newspapers, enabled by the event to indulge +themselves more legitimately than usual in discussing the ever +fascinating problem of sex from the unimpeachable standpoint of reform, +leaped greedily to the bait. + +Photographs of young women boarding street cars and revealing stretches +of leg were printed under the caption, "Indecent Way to Board Car, Says +Basine." Alongside were photographs, less interesting, but vital to the +moral of the layout, showing women boarding street cars without +revealing their legs. The caption over them read, "Correct Way to Board +Car, Says Basine." The text explained that the carelessness and +immodesty of young girls, according to Basine, frequently were the +devil's ally and that the Basine Commission called upon all young women +who had the welfare of the race at heart to board street cars in the +correct way. + +Photographs of young women in Indecent Bathing Costumes appeared +accompanied by denunciations from prominent clergymen and contrasted, +with editorial indignation, to photographs of Decent Bathing Costumes +recommended by prominent clergymen. Photographs of abandoned young women +who effected garter purses, slit skirts; who crossed their legs when +they sat down were offered. These were accompanied by outraged +pronouncements against such immodesties from prominent statesmen and +clergymen. + +A private auxiliary crusade started by another enterprising newspaper +resulted in a series of photographs of nude paintings to be seen in the +shop windows of the loop and Michigan avenue, and called for immediate +legislation designed to remove this source of moral danger. + +Photographs of the deplorably scanty costumes worn by musical comedy, +choruses and dancers in general; photographs pointing out with mute +alarm the decline of modesty as instanced in the comparison of the +fashions of yesteryear with the fashions of today; photographs of +dance-hall scenes showing couples amorously embraced, cheeks together, +bodies riveted to each other--these and others too numerous to tabulate +cried for the reader's indignant attention out of the newspaper columns. + +Every conceivable variant of denunciation which might be legitimately +accompanied by a photograph of a woman or a group of women, received +publication in interviews with pious divines, alarmed statesmen and +serious-minded welfare workers. The newspapers, convinced by the twenty +and thirty per cent increases in their week's circulation figures that +the crusade was a vital part of the awakened moral sense of the city, +devoted themselves with heroic disregard of party politics to acclaiming +the Basine commission. + +Basine found himself troubled by his sky-rocketing prestige. He went to +bed the first night as a "judicial inquirer into the causes of vice." +He arose in the morning confronted with the fact that he was a "fearless +Galahad on Moral Quest." Before retiring again he found himself a "Vice +Solon Attacking Civic Corruption." And on the following morning he was +"Basine, Undaunted, Flays Vice Ring." + +On the day before the opening session he occupied his chambers and tried +to dictate his way through a mass of correspondence that had +accumulated. There were thousands of letters from determined +church-goers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, all teeming with +excited advice, prayers for success and redundant congratulations. Ruth +waited with her pencil on her note book, her knee pressed warmly against +his thigh and her eyes looking pensively out of the window at the summer +day. + +Basine had obtained a three weeks' vacation in order to devote himself +to the work of the commission. His words came unevenly as he dictated. +Newspaper headlines glared at him from the desk--"Modern Lincoln to Free +Vice Slaves." "Basine to Determine Why Girls Go Wrong." "Basine +Threatens Fearless Quiz Into Resorts." + +His mind was alive with other headlines. Basine ... Basine ... the city +was throbbing with his name. He had managed to maintain a skepticism for +several days. Doris had kept his mind distressingly clear with her +comments. And her friend, Levine. Her words had continued in his thought +... "marvelous, George. The public is wallowing in an orgy of morbidity. +I confess, it's beyond my pleasantest expectations...." + +He had protested. She was wrong. Indignation was being stirred. People +were realizing the menace of underpaid working girls and unlicensed +dance halls. His sister smiled wearily. "Don't be an ass, or you'll +spoil it all. Keep your head clear. Follow the newspapers and outwit +them in cynicism." + +And then Levine. He recalled the man's words and edited them into a +rebuking essay--"The public is revelling in the salaciousness of nude +photographs, raw statements and your anti-vice propaganda. They're +utilizing virtue as a cloak for the sensually tantalizing discussion of +immorality. Their indignation is an excuse by which they apologize for +their individual erotic thrills by denouncing evil in others. Yes, the +mysterious others identified as vice rings, white slavers and immorality +in general. The whole business is a cunning debauch offered newspaper +readers, a debauch which enables them to appear to themselves and to +each other not as debauchees but as high crusaders behind the banners of +Basine. And the good clergymen and the statesmen and the welfare workers +rushing into print with revelations of immorality are inspired, by +nothing more intricate than a desire for publicity and an ambition to +pose before the public in the guise of fellow crusaders and civic +benefactors. Their benefactions, you see, consist of offering the public +lurid sex statistics over which it may gloat in secret. And in the +meantime, over these benefactions, over these exciting sex statistics +and sexy photos and over the people who discuss them and roll them over +on their tongue is thrown a protective fog of indignation." + +Basine had derived from these talks in his sister's studio an +uncomfortable vision. But the vision had gradually dissolved in his +mind. On the day he had awakened to find himself a "Moral Champion +Promises Vice Clean-up" the dignity and high responsibility of his task +had overcome him. What appeared to him an authentic fervor mounted in +his veins. Hypnotized by the adulatory excitement surrounding his name, +he acquired forthwith the characterization foisted on him by the +headlines. Basine ... Basine ... the city throbbed with his name. The +hope of a great moral rejuvenation was centered upon him. Another St. +Patrick was to drive the snakes of evil out of the community. Another +Lincoln was to do something--something equally ennobling to himself and +his fellowmen. + +The change effected his relations with Ruth. For a month he had been +engaged in a species of sinless amour. Long walks, long talks, long +embraces behind the locked doors of his chambers had resulted in nothing +more tangible than a series of headaches and sleepless nights or unusual +tenderness towards his piquantly startled wife. + +He had excused his infidelity to Ruth while embracing Henrietta--he +regarded his exaggerated interest in his wife as a betrayal of the +girl--by assuring himself that it was for Ruth's own good. It lessened +his desire for her and thus decreased the moral danger into which their +love was leading her. In addition to this it was, of course, a +convenient substitute for the emotions Ruth's embraces aroused in him +and for the sense of guilt which invariably accompanied these embraces. + +When he became a crusader Basine felt a further confusion in his +attitude toward Ruth. He sat now attempting to dictate letters. Despite +the amiable blur which fame had introduced into his thought and which +for the past two weeks had obscured the details of his day, he found +himself studying the situation before him. The situation was Ruth. He +would have preferred ignoring it. The scent which came from her summery +shirt waist and the coils of her black hair, thrilled him. Her clear +youthful face, the contours of her figure, the familiarity of her +eyes--all this was pleasing and satisfying. + +But the new Basine--the crusader, felt ill at ease. He must explain +something to Ruth, explain to her that their love was no more than an +ennobling comradeship and must never be more than that, a comradeship +which would bring them together in this great cause of moral +rejuvenation. He didn't want it put that crudely. But the idea kept +repeating itself in his head. He kept thinking of what Doris and her +friend Levine would say if they ever found out that in the midst of the +Vice Investigation, its chairman had been carrying on with his +secretary. It was distasteful and needed immediate attention. + +He took her hand and Ruth laid down her pencil. She smiled expectantly +at him. Since she had first kissed Basine a month ago she had been +trying to understand the situation. The thought of him preoccupied her +and this made her certain she loved him. His caresses aroused her senses +and left her wondering what was going to happen. + +At times she reasoned coolly with herself. She was in love with a +married man and the most she could hope for was to become his mistress +and end up by making a fool of herself. Or perhaps of both of them. She +was, in a measure, grateful for the manner in which he respected her +virtue. But, with his arms around her and his keen face alive with +passion and his lips on hers, his reserve struck her as uncomplimentary +and illogical. + +She resented the semi-abandonment of his senses because of the +unfulfillment--a physical and spiritual unfulfillment which left her +distracted. It appeared to her later, when the distraction ebbed, as an +affront to her vanity. She was uncertain when thinking of it coolly +whether she would give herself to him. But somehow the affair seemed +unreal, at times even a little like some school-girl flirtation, because +he failed to ask her. She had always prided herself upon her honesty and +spent hours now debating with herself just how much she loved him and if +she loved him at all and why she loved him. The idea of leaving his +employ, however, never occurred to her. The cautious sensualisms of +which she had become an excited victim, held her. There was in these +incompleted manoeuverings behind the locked doors a curious +fascination. + +"What is it, George?" + +He smiled and shook his head. + +"Whew, I'm snowed under." His hands pushed the correspondence from him. + +"You mustn't tire yourself, dear." + +He nodded and his face assumed a serious air. + +"I would like to talk over the work." + +"The Commission?" + +"Yes." + +"Oh, I think it's going to be a wonderful success, George?" + +"And you can help me." + +He squeezed her hand. This was the note he had been searching for in his +mind. He hesitated a moment, nevertheless, feeling an irritating +incongruity in what he desired to say. But the headlines glaring at him +strengthened him. He was Basine the Moral Champion. The city was +throbbing with his name. A hope centered about his name. + +"The work is going to be hard," he began. "I intend to go to the bottom +of the thing. The Commission after its hearings will be able to +recommend legislation that will ... that will...." + +"Yes, I know George." + +"Wipe out, or at least go a long way toward wiping out...." + +His mind seemed to balk at the sentence. The word "immorality" withheld +itself from his lips. + +"I'll be glad to help where I can, as you know, dear," she whispered. + +"I've subpoenaed all the department store heads to bring their books +into court, I mean to the hearing, and reveal exactly what the wage +scale for shop girls is. I'm convinced it's impossible for a girl to +keep decent on $6 and $7 a week." + +He thought of the fact that Ruth was receiving $30 a week and grew +confused. + +"You can help me a lot, dear," he added hurriedly. + +Ruth stood up. This standing up had become a habit between them. When +they were sitting holding hands, if she stood up, he would draw her to +him and she would lower herself into his lap. They had developed a +series of similar ruses to which they both adapted themselves like well +rehearsed actors and which had for their object the bringing them into +positions convenient for kisses and embraces. + +As she sat down in his lap the unhappy thought crossed Basine's mind +that he was chairman of a commission sworn to wipe out just such +incidents as this from the city's life. He winced and her arm around +his neck felt uncomfortable. But he remembered that both doors were +locked and the image of himself as a crusader partially vanished. They +kissed and his hand slipped down to her side and toyed with the hem of +her skirt. + +"Do you love me, George? Tell me." + +"Yes. Why do you ask that?" + +"Oh because. Sometimes I think you're so busy that you haven't time to +love." + +He was pleased by this. Flattered, he answered: "I have time for nothing +else. Everything else is sort of part of it. My work, the +commission--it's all you, dearest." + +His hand was on her, caressingly. He endeavored to remove the +significance of the gesture by patting her knee as one might pat the +head of a little child, and whispering with an involved frankness: + +"You're so nice, darling." + +They had sat like this before, sometimes for an hour, whispering to each +other. Their whispering would go on for a time, even their kisses. This +time, however, she murmured unexpectedly: + +"Don't, George." + +He was surprised. + +"Why not?" + +"Because, we mustn't." + +"But why?" + +"Oh please ... don't!" + +Her objection seemed to inspire him in a way her previous silences had +failed to do. He grew indignant. + +"Please, don't!" + +"But why, dearest? I love you." + +She paused and he looked at her, aloof arguments in his eyes as if he +were pleading not in his own behalf but in behalf of--a somebody else, a +client. His knees were trembling under her weight. The crusade had +disappeared. A memory of it lingered but in an amusing way. He caught a +glimpse of the headlines on his desk and grinned. There was something +maliciously unreal about life that one could enjoy. + +Suddenly he felt her soften. Her lips brushed against his ear and her +arm tightened convulsively around him. + +"Please no," she murmured. + +Her alarm delighted him. It was a final barrier, this alarm. It enabled +him to enjoy the new conquest without having to be logical, without +having to go on. Her alarm now was a barrier to be played with for a +moment and then utilized. He would stop in a moment but now he could +play with her fear, as if he were intent upon overcoming it. + +"Please," she whispered, "don't ... it's no use." + +The final words irritated him. No use! He felt offended, as if he had +been trickily defeated in an argument. What was no use? What did she +mean? + +"George, please, listen to me. Oh please...." + +That was better. But it had come just in time. He could retreat now with +honor. For an instant a panic had filled him. Impossible to retreat on +the explanation "it's no use." Because--well, because the words were a +challenge, not an attack. But now it was easy. He stiffened in his +chair. Ruth slipped from his lap and stood up, flushed. She straightened +her hair and looked away. Basine felt annoyed with her. She had almost +taken him by surprise. She had almost surrendered when the tactics of +the game called for her to protest and thus cover his retreat by making +it the result of her protests. And not of his--well, of his +determination not to forget his position. + +But he would restore the tactic she had momentarily abandoned. + +"Excuse me," he muttered, a plea in his voice, "I didn't realize. I +didn't realize what I was doing. Forgive me, dearest." + +He recovered his sense of self respect that, oddly enough, had deserted +him, in making this apology. The apology meant that he had ceased only +because she had protested too violently. And not because he had been +afraid. + +Ruth listened with a faint smile on her moist lips. She wanted to laugh. + +"I didn't mean anything--really," he was saying. "You must forgive me. +Come here--please." An air of soothing innocence rose from his voice and +manner. He was reassuring her that he wasn't dangerous, that he wouldn't +repeat these intimacies. The desire to laugh continued in her. Excuse +him! For what? The laugh almost left her throat. She had given herself +to him ... and he had solemnly retreated for no reason at all. + +She continued to smile. For the first time the distraction his caresses +inspired in her was absent. Instead she felt quite normal. She was +becoming indignant but normal. And there was amusement in her anger. She +sat down and picked up her pencil. She was amused. She looked at a man +who had become almost a stranger and nodded--forgiveness. + +"Of course, George," she said. "I know you didn't mean anything, +but...." + +He frowned. Her tone angered him. She was mocking. + +"Hadn't you better answer some of these?" she asked. Basine pursed up +his lips importantly. + +"You will be a great help, dear," he answered. "Some day I want to talk +about something with you. But ... but matters are too rushed now. I'm +almost snowed under, I swear." This was putting it all on a different +basis. He was a busy man. That's why he had retreated. He was needed for +other things of vital interest to the community. He felt uncomfortable, +despite the dignity of his frown. She was regarding him with placid +eyes. He turned to one of the newspapers whose headlines were +proclaiming the plans, and threats of Basine. There was the real +Basine--in the headline. This other one, the one who had fumbled and +messed things up with a girl--he ended his thought with annoyance. He +despised himself. For a moment he glowered at her. He would stand up and +seize her. She would realize, then, what his forebearance for her sake +had been. His anger continued in his voice as he resumed the tedious +dictation: + + "Dear Governor: + + "Everything is prepared for the opening next Monday. I have + arranged special seats for any of your friends who may desire to + attend. We are ready to launch an efficient and systematic inquiry + into the causes of the vice conditions in our city as well as + state. Please...." + + + + +20 + + +The excitedly heralded Vice Investigation which, after several thousand +centuries of criminal neglect, was to take up the question of +immorality, discover its causes, determine its remedies and put an end +to this blot upon civilization, opened to a crowded house. The folding +chairs introduced into the ball room by the corps of janitors were +occupied. But they were insufficient. The corps of janitors had +underestimated the extent of the public enthusiasm. + +Men and women aflame with the ardor of crusade battled for place within +hearing distance of the witnesses who were to recount, under careful +examination, just why girls went wrong. The ball room was capable of +seating a thousand. Another thousand pried their ways through the doors +and stood six and seven deep against the ornamental walls. The somewhat +mythical portraits of French noblemen, Cupids, Watteau ladies of leisure +smiled urbanely out of the blue and white panels over their heads. The +corridor outside the large room was thronged with still a third thousand +pushing, prying, squeezing, and perspiring all in vain. The police had +been summoned. + +The press in its first pen picture of the stirring scene drew a +significant distinction. Those within the ball room who had successfully +stormed the doors and clawed their way into the weltering pulp of +figures were identified as "a distinguished audience of society women, +welfare workers, civic leaders and citizens come to lend their moral +support to the great crusade." + +Those who had failed in their efforts to gain entrance and who clung +with patient heroism to the corridor, the lobby downstairs and even the +boiling pavements outside, were dismissed scornfully as "a crowd of the +morbidly curious, hungry for the sensational details promised by the +investigators." + +At ten o'clock the Commission itself arrived. The perspiring police +opened a passage through the throng and the commission filed to its +place at the table waiting at the end of the room. Newspaper +photographers immediately leaped into concerted action. The boom and +smoke of flashlights arose. + +Delays and preliminaries followed. The room grew terrifically hot. +Collars began to wilt, faces to turn red, feet to burn. But the delays +continued. It was impossible to find out why there was delay. The crowd +grew impatient. A racket of voices stuffed the room. Something had gone +wrong ... why didn't they start ... they weren't doing anything ... what +were they waiting for ... the public was grumbling. + +As a matter of fact the commissioners were playing for time. A species +of stage fright had overcome them. Each of them had arrived filled with +a sense of high purpose and benign power. They were men upon whom the +burden of lifting an age-old blot from the face of civilization had +fallen. They had felt no hesitancy in the matter. They were going to +tackle the situation like Americans--red-blooded Americans in whose +heart burned the unfaltering light of idealism. There was going to be no +shilly-shallying, no highfalutin theorizings. They were going to the +bottom of this matter without fear or favor. They were going to find out +just why girls went wrong and, having found this out, they were going to +remove the cause, or causes if there were more than one, and thus put an +end to immorality--at least in the great commonwealth of Illinois. + +They were ten undaunted crusaders inspired with the unfaltering +consciousness of their country's power and rectitude. In fact, it was +not the Basine Commission which pushed through the throng but the +Tradition of the United States, the Revered Memory of Abraham Lincoln, +George Washington and Nathan Hale, the Army that had never been licked, +the Government of the People, by the People and for the People, that was +better than any other government on the face of the earth. These walked +behind the policemen through the throng. + +But there was a human undertone to this Tradition about to grapple with +the problem of Vice. Like Basine, each of the nine had at the beginning +felt a slight discomfort. Their own pasts and even presents had risen in +their thought to deride them. They were, alas, not without sin +themselves. The dramatic coincidence was even possible that one of the +witnesses called might point to a commissioner as the author of her +ruin. This, in an oblique way, disturbed them. It lay like an +indigestible fear upon the stomach of incarnated Tradition. But as the +patriotic fervor mounted in them, they were able somewhat to master this +selfish fear. Debating the matter vaguely in the silence of their own +bedrooms they had achieved an identical triumph. + +Yes, they were after all only men. They had sinned, were sinning +regularly in fact. But they would be fearless. They would strike out +with no reserve and if Vice turned an accusing forefinger upon them, +they would sacrifice themselves. The chances were, however, that this +would not happen. They experienced the inner elation which comes with +non-inconveniencing confession. Regardless of what they were in secret, +they would be able to reveal themselves publicly as men sitting in +judgment upon Vice, as executioners of Vice. In this manner their +material lives became unimportant accidents. They were able within two +weeks to enter the public concept of themselves. Their actual selves +became, in their own eyes, inferior and irrelevant. They had achieved an +idealization. + +There was also another change. Once established in their own eyes as +Virgins, like Basine they were soon under the hypnosis of headlines. As +they walked to the hotel this morning they had entirely rid themselves +of their normal individualities. They were no longer even ordinary +virgins, embarked upon a vaguely scientific or social enterprise. They +were, above that, the spokesmen of an aroused public, the dignified +containers of the power of the People. + +None of the ten with the exception of Basine had given the actual work +before him any thought. They had not prepared themselves for the task by +study. All of them were serenely, in fact belligerently, ignorant of the +scientific thought of the world on the subject. The involved disclosures +of psychologists, philosophers, economists and other specialists in race +ethics were part of a childish abracadabra beneath their consideration. +For they were the incarnated power of Tradition and of Public +Opinion--two grave forces which needed no guilding light from such +sources. + +This power buoyed them and brought a stern light into their eyes. They +believed in the People, and therefore in themselves as Spokesmen. Ten +shrewd, wire-pulling politicians whose careers were identically darkened +with chicanery and crude cynicism, they were able by the magic of faith +to rise above themselves. They were able to feel the nobility of the +phrases which they had so often utilized as cloaks for their private +greeds and private spites. These were the phrases of Democracy which +proclaimed to an awed populace that it, the populace, was Master and +that its will was a holy and unassailable force for progress and piety. + +As spokesmen of the people these commissioners were concerned with +furthering the great idealization of themselves which the people +worshipped as their god. Reason was at war with this idealization. +Reason was the species of morbid and inverted vanity which inspired man +to disembowel himself as proof of his stupidity. It grappled with his +illusions, crawled through his soul, hamstringing his complacency. It +raised insidious voices around him, wooing him. To denude himself of +hope, faith and charity--in short to become intolerable to himself. + +The commissioners, as spokesmen, turned their back upon it. There was a +happier outlet for the energies of man than the repudiation of himself +as the glory of God. There was the unreasoning struggle for +idealization--the miracle by which man, seizing hold of his boot straps, +hoisted himself into Heaven. This struggle, arousing the guffaws and +sneers of reason, was its own reward. It was the virtue that rewarded +itself. + +The perspiring little scene in the hotel ball room was a startling +visualization of this happier struggle. Regardless of their sins, their +greeds, hypocrisies, idiocies, the people desired to see themselves as +incarnations of an ideal. This ideal had been carefully elaborated. Of +late it had taken on a life of its own. It had grown like a fungus +feeding upon itself. Man staring at the heaven he had created was +becoming awed by its magnificence and extent. More than that this heaven +was threatening to escape him, to become incongruous by its very +vastness. There was danger that his idealization, fattening upon a logic +of its own, would become a bit too preposterous even for worship. +Already this idealization proclaimed him as an apostle of virtue, as a +moralist first and a biological product afterward; as believing in the +credo of right over might, in the equality of blacks, whites, poor and +rich; as a sort of animated sermon from the triple pen of a martyr +president, martyr husband and martyr Messiah. Lost in a difficult +admiration of this heaven, the people struggled in the double task of +keeping the idealization of themselves from becoming too preposterous +and of persuasively identifying themselves with their image. + +The result of this struggle was apparent in the puritanizatron of idea +becoming popular in the country. A spirit of martyrdom was prevalent. +Men and women were enthusiastically martyring themselves--passing laws +and formulating conventions in opposition to their appetites and +desires--in an excited effort to overtake this idealization of +themselves. Righteousness was becoming a panic. The Christ image of the +crowd was slowly obliterating its reality. His halo was running away +with man. Overcome with the necessity of keeping pace with the +artificial virtues he had created as his God, he was converting himself, +to the best of his talents, into an outwardly epicene, eye-rolling +symbol of purity. There was this mirror alive with his own God-like +image. And he must now be careful not to give the lie to the +idealization of himself created partly by him and partly by the activity +of logic. + +The members of the Vice Investigating Commission entered the crowded +room serene in the knowledge that reason was their enemy and that +God--that mysterious cross between public opinion and yesterday's +errors--would vouchsafe them the power and keenness to cope with the +problem before them. + +They were innocent of intelligence but they had faith in the principles +of their country and the principles of their country were founded upon +the great truth that what the people willed must come to pass. Today the +people of the commonwealth of Illinois willed that vice and immorality +be abolished from their midst. Therefore it must come to pass that the +ten citizens lowering themselves into the seats behind the table were +ten irresistible instruments animated by the strength of public opinion. + +For several minutes after they had seated themselves the commissioners +remained staring with dignity at the throng. A vague and pleasant +delirium occupied their minds. The Vice Investigating Commission had +assembled and the business of removing the blot from the face of +civilization would begin at once. The commissioners sat, pompously +inanimate, waiting for it to begin. + +The spectacle before them, the thousands of eyes focussed upon their +little group at the long table, slowly awakened an uncomfortable +disillusion in the commissioners. In fact, a little panic swept their +minds. They had, of course, discussed the issues, passed resolutions and +laid plans for grappling with the situation. But all these efforts had +been part of the curious hypnosis which had overcome them. The sense of +their power hypnotized them into fancying that their star chamber +babblings were in themselves thunderblots. The sweeping promises, the +all-embracing statements and resolutions passed and issued for +publication had filled them with an exalted sense of success. They had +entered the ballroom under the naive conviction that the whole business +had been already successfully consummated. They were taking their seats +at the table not to launch upon a task but to receive the plaudits of +the public for great work already accomplished; in fact to reap reward +for the noble utterances attributed to them by the press. + +But now with the pads of paper, the sharpened pencils, the businesslike +cuspidors at their feet, the ominous wastepaper baskets under their +hands, the commissioners faced the ghastly fact that the blot was still +on the face of civilization, untouched by their thunderbolts. And some +millions of people whose delegates were staring at them were waiting +excitedly for it to be removed. + +It occurred as if for the first time to the commissioners that something +would have to be done about it. Their expressions underwent a change. A +pensiveness crept into their heavy faces. A bewilderment dulled the +dignity of their stares. The room was unbearably hot. It was impossible +to do any work in such a crowd. One could hardly hear oneself think +above the noise. The commissioners frowned and whispered among +themselves. Gradually a nervous jocularity came into their manner. + +"Well, here we are. All set." + +"Hm, I think we'd better call some witnesses." + +"That's right. Call some witnesses. Where's Judge Basine?" + +"Talking over there." + +"Huh, why don't he do something?" + +Yes, why didn't Judge Basine take charge of his flock. It was his +commission. The papers all said it was the Basine Commission. Then why +didn't he start something. Instead of gabbing around with reporters. + +"Good God! What a heat! Hasn't the management provided any fans?" + +"Where's a bellboy? We'll send him after some fans. Think a dozen'll be +enough?" + +"Nothing doing. Three or four dozen at least. I'll wear out a dozen +myself before this day's over, believe me." + +"Say, ain't that right!" + +"Oh Judge ... Judge...." + +"Yes, what is it, Senator?" + +"What about the witnesses? Are we going to have any witnesses?" + +"Of course. I'm just getting things ready." + +"That's right. There's no rush. Open that window, won't you Jim?" + +"God, what a mob. Well, we'd better do something, don't you think?" + +"Leave it to Basine. Got a knife, Harry? This pencil's full of bum +lead." + +The whisperings and delays continued. Basine, however, began to recover +himself. The eager, focussed eyes of the room were slowly electrifying +him. His gestures were becoming more dignified. His manner acquired a +definiteness. + +The eyes regarding him saw a man with sharp features and an imperious +expression moving with what seemed significant deliberation, examining +papers, studying papers, opening papers, extracting papers, returning +papers. Instinctively they felt that here, centered in this cautiously +dynamic figure, was the celebrated Vice Investigation. + +Basine arose, a gavel in his hand, and pounded the table. The noises +subsided as if a presence were being expelled from the room. The hush +served to illumine the figure of Basine. The eyes waited. His voice +arose, definite, impelling. + +"Fellow Citizens, the Vice Investigating Commission appointed by the +State of Illinois to determine if possible the causes of immorality and +to remove, wherever possible, such causes, is now in session. The +purposes of this commission need no further explanation. We are +assembled here in the name of the people of this state to do all in our +power to grapple with the problem of vice and its many auxiliary +problems. + +"This problem is today the outstanding menace to the welfare of our +community. Its dangers touch us all. The immoral man and the immoral +woman, the factors which contribute to their immorality, are our +responsibility. This is no sentimental outburst, no vague uprising but +an organized, official investigation with full powers to uncover facts. +We are not here to dabble in theories, but to deal with facts. And for +that purpose, and that purpose only, we are assembled under the laws of +our state and the constitution of our country. The first witness called +will be Mr. Arthur Core." + +Applause thundered. Basine, flushed, sat down. The commissioners on each +side of him breathed with relief. Something had been started. To their +intense surprise Mr. Arthur Core actually arose from one of the witness +chairs and came forward. Mr. Core was head of the largest department +store in the city. Basine with an instinct in which he placed implicit +reliance had summoned him first, thus abandoning the plans the +commission had decided upon in star chamber. It had been decided upon to +save up the big guns for a climax. Basine's instinct warned him as he +stood on his feet talking, that a climax was necessary immediately--a +gesture which would at once reveal the power and fearlessness of the +commission. + +Mr. Core was the medium for such a gesture. Venerated as one of the +wealthiest men of the city, the head of its most widely advertized and +magnificent retail establishment, to hail him before the commission and +belabor him with queries would be to capture the confidence of the +public forthwith. + +As Mr. Core, accompanied by two lawyers and a secretary laden with +ledgers, advanced toward the table a sudden misgiving struck Basine. How +much would the newspapers dare print about Mr. Core, particularly if the +cross examination placed him and his establishment in an unfavorable +light? Mr. Core meant upwards of $3,000,000 a year in advertising +revenue. Perhaps he had made a mistake in calling him. The press would +turn and fly from the commission as from a plague. There would be no +headlines and the public would fall away. + +Basine stood up as Mr. Core approached. He was a smartly dressed man +with a cream-colored handkerchief protruding against a smoothly pressed +blue coat; an affable, reserved face that reminded Basine of Milton Ware +and the Michigan Avenue Club. Poise, suavity, courtesy exuded from Mr. +Core. + +"How do you do, Judge," he said with a bow, "and Gentlemen of the +Commission." + +Basine extended his hand and promptly regretted the action. He had +caught the emotion of the crowd. He realized that his instinct had not +betrayed him. + +Mr. Core was one of the most venerated citizens in the community, +venerated for his power, his success and his aloofness from his +venerators. The summoning of Mr. Core to take his place and be +cross-examined by the Commission had sent a thrill through the crowd. +They felt the elation of a pack of beagle dogs with a magnificent stag +brought to earth under their little jaws. + +Mr. Core was rich, powerful, brilliant. But they, the people, were +greater than he. There he stood obedient to their delegated spokesman, +the fearless Basine, and gratitude filled them as they noted Basine was +a head taller than the great Mr. Core, and that the great Basine was not +at all confused by the presence of this famed personage. + +Basine as he felt the emotion of the crowd knew simultaneously that the +newspapers, caught between their two vital functions--that of insuring +their revenue by respectful treatment of its source, the advertising +plutocracy,--and of insuring their popularity by the fearless advocacy +of any current crowd hysteria, must follow the less dangerous course. +And the less dangerous course now, as always, was with the beagle dogs +who had brought a stag to earth. + +After the handshake Basine looked severely about him. He was pleased to +observe that his colleagues were non-existent. They sat coughing, +sharpening pencils and gazing with vacuous aplomb at objects about them. +He smiled with inward contempt. Little puppets under his hands. And the +crowd before him--a smear of little puppets. Even the all-powerful +newspapers, even the mighty Mr. Arthur Core--he could manipulate them +because there was something in him that was not in other people. A sense +of drama, perhaps. But more than that, an understanding--a vision that +enabled him to see clearly over the heads of people into the future. He +could tell in advance which way people were going to turn and he could +hurry forward and be there waiting for them--a leader waiting for them +when they caught up. + +A curious question slipped into his mind. "Why am I like that?" And then +another question, "Why am I able to do things?" + +The questions pleased him and as he followed Mr. Core into his chair he +knew that the crowd had noticed that Judge Basine was a man unimpressed +by the greatness of Mr. Core, that the eyes focussed on him had thrilled +with the knowledge that he, Basine, was dressed as well as Mr. Core and +that his own dignity and sternness were more impressive than the poise +of Mr. Core. The great Mr. Core was second fiddle in the show. Basine +was first fiddle and the crowd was thrilled by that. Because Basine was +their man, their leader. And Mr. Core, venerated to this moment, was now +their enemy. Basine was a man in whom the dignity of the people shone +out more powerfully than the prestige of any enviable individual. These +things whirled through Basine's thought as he turned to the witness. + +"Mr. Stenographer," he announced, "you will please make accurate +transcription of all questions and answers that follow." + +A naive pride filled the attentive commissioners. The Investigation was +after all a success. Regardless of what happened the mere fact that +Arthur Core was to be interrogated on the subject of immorality among +working girls, constituted an overwhelming success. The conviction which +now delighted them was shared by the thousands in the room and by the +newspaper men scribbling at an adjoining table. All present felt certain +that so dramatic a situation as the cross-examination of Mr. Arthur Core +by the chairman of the Vice Investigating Commission was bound to result +somehow in the instant removal of the blot from the face of +civilization. Basine, clearing his throat, began the questioning. + +"Your name?" + +"Arthur Core." + +"Your position?" + +"President of Core-Plain and Company." + +"That is the retail merchandise establishment in this city?" + +"It is." + +A full five minutes was consumed in the exchange of profound +introductions. This concluded, Mr. Core was informed what the purposes +of the Vice Investigation Commission were. The information failed to +impress him. Whereupon he was informed that he, as an employer of +thousands of girls, had been called to throw light on a vital question. +First, what wages did his employes' receive. Mr. Core, raising his +eyebrows and looking aggrieved as if he had been asked a very crude and +tactless question, replied that the average wage was $10 a week for the +young women in his employ. + +Did he think a young woman could keep virtuous on $10 a week? Alas, he +had never given that phase of the economic system any thought. But if +his opinion as an individual was worth anything, he would offer the +philosophical observation that wages had nothing to do with immorality. + +A cynical observation. The crowd frowned. It didn't, eh? Lot he knew +about it. And on what did he base this cold-blooded point of view? Well, +on nothing in particular except his common sense. Indeed! His common +sense! Well, well. So he thought that a normal young woman could live on +$10 a week, feed, clothe and house herself on $10 a week and never feel +tempted to earn more money by sacrificing her virtue? Alas, he had not +thought of it in that way. He had merely thought that good young women +were good and bad young women were bad. And wages had nothing to do with +it. It was human nature. What! Human nature to be bad! Mr. Arthur Core +was inclined to a cynicism which, fortunately, the great minds of the +nation did not share. Had he ever sought to determine how many good +girls there were in his employ? No, but he presumed they were all good. +If they weren't he was sorry for them, but it was their own fault. + +Thus the see-saw continued while the room grew hotter, while people +packed against each other listened with distended eyes and opened +mouths. Thus the commissioners, recovering from their panic, began to +frown with importances. And Basine, still following the instinct in +him--the sense of contact he felt with the crowd and situation, played +another trump card. The afternoon newspapers were blazoning the news of +Mr. Arthur Core. The morning papers would need an equally dramatic +morsel. Basine adjourned the session to reconvene at 3 o'clock. The +crowd remained. The heat increased. The session reconvened. It was +businesslike now. It was running like a machine. No more delays and +indecisions. + +"Call Miss Winona Johnson." + +Basine sat amid heaps of documents, ledgers and commissioners, in +charge. It was he who asked the questions, whose face was the +battle-front of the People versus Vice. + +Your name? Winona Johnson. Your occupation? A pause. And then in a +lowered voice, a prostitute. What was that?--from Mr. Stenographer. A +prostitute, from Basine clearly and indignantly. Sensation. She was a +prostitute, this yellow-haired, gaudy creature in the witness chair. She +had her nerve. How long have you been a prostitute, Winona Johnson? +Well, two years, I guess. She guessed. As if she didn't know. And before +that what were you? She was a clerk. Where were you employed as a clerk, +Winona? Where? Oh, I worked for Core-Plain and Company. There it +was--the sort of thing that made climaxes. A new lead for the morning +papers--a new thrill for the tired breakfasters. "Tells Tragic Story of +Moral Downfall." And then in smaller headlines, "Former State Street +Clerk Uncovers Snares, Pitfalls of City." And then photographs; +comparisons between Mr. Core's statements and Miss Johnson's statements. +Mr. Core's picture and Miss Johnson's picture side by side so that one +might almost think, unless one read carefully (and who did that?) that +the venerated Mr. Arthur Core had been exposed by the all powerful +Basine Commission as the seducer of the pathetic Miss Winona Johnson. + +Through the weltering afternoon the great investigation progressed, +Basine, unaided, carrying the fight. A Champion, an Undaunted One, his +voice growing hoarse, his eyes flashing tirelessly, his questions never +failing; incisive, compelling questions that seemed for all the world as +if they were slowly, tenaciously coming to grips with the Devil. + +A great day for the commonwealth of Illinois. A day surfeited with +climaxes. Winona Johnson wept and the courteous voice of Basine pressed +for facts. Here was a mine of facts, here a witness who could reveal +something.... And she did.... + +That will be all, thank you, from Basine. Winona arose. Eyes devoured +her. A terrible curiosity played over her face and body. Civilization +had been stunned. Everyone knew, of course, that prostitutes sold +themselves to men. But to so many!!! Horrible! A revelation to make +thinking men think, thinking women, too. + +If there had been any doubt in the public mind concerning the sincerity +of the Commission, this day had removed it. Two welfare workers and a +second department store owner concluded the bill. The newspapers spread +the questions and answers through the city. A determined light came +into the eyes of the millions who read. The commonwealth was at +grips with evil. Facts had been exhumed in a single session that were +intolerable to a civilized community. A hue and cry would be raised. +Things would be done. The millions reading felt this. Something would +have to be done. Resolutions would be passed. Thunderbolts would be +hurled by civic bodies, lodges, clubs. The thing called for action, +action and more action. But wait and see what the morning papers would +have to say. There would be remedies in the morning papers. Things would +be done overnight by the morning papers to put an end to this +iniquity--prostitution!!!! And there could be no question but that +underpaid workers were driven to lives of shame. And the dance halls, +they hadn't gotten around to them yet. And factories and hotels--wait +till it came their turn. They would all be grilled, quizzed, flayed. + +Basine made his way slowly through the throng. Tomorrow's session would +begin at eleven o'clock. He was tired. The work had exhausted him. But +his head felt clear. Without raising his eyes he understood the +admiration of the crowds through which he was moving. They were +repeating his name among themselves saying, there he goes ... that's +him.... He had understood things in this manner all day, without giving +them words. + +He felt at peace. He had gone through a test. Now he knew he was a +leader. The thing of which he had been afraid had turned out to be easy. +He smiled, remembering his colleagues. Simple, blundering men who had +floundered around trying to horn in. But this wasn't the private banks +crusade, not by a long shot. Ah, that was playing a long shot--calling +Core like that. But it had worked. Newsies were yelling around him. +Extra--all about! About Basine, of course. About him. Yes, there was +leadership in him. He was a man who could sweep people along with him. + +The crowds were going home. All these people belonged to him. +Constituents. He smiled pleasantly at the hurrying figures. It was hot +and they were perspiring. Their eyes were filmed with preoccupations. +But what would happen if they were told suddenly that Judge Basine was +passing them, rubbing shoulders with them? Their eyes would brighten. +They would forget about the things that were worrying them. They would +look up and smile. Perhaps cheer. + +Day dreams lifted his thought out of the present. This thing was only a +beginning. He would go on. There was a kinship in him with people. The +memory of the day lay like a love in his heart. He was still young. +Years ahead of him and he would end--where? High up. + +He looked around and noticed he was walking toward Doris' studio. Odd, +he hadn't been aware where he was going. But he might as well. He +frowned. She would ridicule what had happened. Well, that was all right. +Her hatred of such things couldn't wipe out what was in his heart now. +He became practical. Think of tomorrow's session. But why? The details +were annoying. He had had enough details for one day. He would take care +of things when the proper time came. This was a sort of reward, to walk +and dream. As for the blot on the face of civilization, yes that would +all be taken care of at the proper time. But the important thing, the +most important thing was Basine--high up. + + + + +21 + + +Schroder looked at his watch. Late, perhaps she wouldn't come. +Intellectual women were always the most uncertain. It was twilight. +Summer bloomed incongruously in the small city park. + +"She probably didn't mean it, anyway," he thought. + +Ruth appeared walking calmly down the broad pavement. He watched her. +She had come, but the business was still uncertain. Amorous affairs +were one thing. Seduction was another. He liked her, of course. But what +if she had notions about things? Love, fidelity, virtue, marriage, +decency. Oh well, he could always step away and say good-bye, I'm sorry. + +"Hello," he said aloud. "You're late." + +"I wasn't coming." + +"I didn't think so, either." + +She was one of the kind who made a pretense of frankness. If you let her +she would talk about sex till the cows came home, as if it were a +problem in algebra. He knew the kind. Full of theories.... + +"Where shall we go, Paul?" + +"Let's sit here a while. How's his Honor." + +"I don't know. I resigned last week." + +"Is that so?" + +"Yes, after the Commission adjourned for the summer." + +The memory of the commission made him smile. + +"Goofy," he said. + +She nodded. "But Judge Basine is made, don't you think?" + +He took her hand. + +"So you left him," he smiled. They sat in silence. He would wait for her +to take the lead. She began talking as the park grew darker. + +"I didn't intend coming," she said, "because I ... I know what you +want." + +Her voice quivered and her fingers tightened over his hand. + +"But I came to tell you ... I can't. I'm not being foolish or anything. +But--it isn't worth it." + +He looked at her and wondered. The invitation was clear. He must begin +pleading now and making love. He hesitated because she had started +crying. Tears were on her cheeks. + +She was remembering Basine. + +"Don't," he whispered. "I wouldn't ask you to do anything like that. +We've talked, of course. But that was just talk. Ruth, I love you." + +"But love doesn't mean anything to you," she answered. + +And the answer to that was marriage. He hesitated. Tears always stirred +him. Now it was dark. He placed an arm around her. The stiffening of her +body decided him. + +"We'll get married," he said. + +The assurance did not delight her. Marriage was something foreign. But +she stood up when he asked her to and followed him. She walked along +thinking of herself as if there were two Ruths. One was walking with a +man--where? The other was thinking about things. But there was little to +think about. If it had been Basine instead of this other, it would have +been nicer. Basine was someone she knew. Paul was a stranger. But Basine +had played with her. He had said nothing when she went away. Merely +looked at her and nodded. His success had gone to his head. He didn't +want her, even to flirt with anymore. He was too busy.... + +She put her arms around the stranger and wept. + +It was minor tragedy. There was nothing to weep about. Nobody cared what +happened to her. If there had been somebody who cared she would never +have met him. + +Schroder watched her and sighed. + +"If you don't love me," he said. + +"It's not that," she answered. She was forgetting about her tears. Her +close presence to him was slowly preoccupying her. He loved her. And +they would be married. It didn't matter much. But the idea made it a +little easier. She kissed him, timidly at first. And then with passion. + +Schroder grimaced inwardly. It was dark and she couldn't see his eyes. +They were worried. He had been in love for a few minutes in the park. He +would have liked to remain in love. He sat before the window thinking, +Why did women insist on climaxes. Their arguments made it necessary for +men to plead. The culmination was a sort of logical gesture. + +He walked toward her. He would take her hand and make love. He felt sad +and making love out of sadness was always an interesting diversion. + +"Ruth," he whispered, "do you love me?" + +She answered by embracing him. + +"Always the same," he murmured to himself, "it's no use." + + + + +22 + + +The children were asleep and Henrietta was reading. Basine in his +slippers and smoking-jacket sat unoccupied. Their new house worried him. +He had not yet familiarized himself with its shadows. + +He smiled as he watched his wife. He was going to run for Senator but +that made no difference to her. He was a husband to her, and everything +else was incidental. He thought of Ruth. Her name no longer depressed +him. During the first three or four months that followed her absence he +had felt as if his career had ended. There was nobody to succeed for any +more. Then through Doris he had learned that she was to marry Schroder. + +The information had cured him. He had been despising himself for letting +her go. Now he was able to pretend that he had been forced by her virtue +to relinquish her. It would have been a dastardly thing to do--ruin her +and prevent her from marrying and living a decent life. Her marrying +vindicated his own virtue. He was able to think that he had done the +right thing. Not only that, but he had done the only thing possible. She +had fled from him because he was a married man. Then, too, she probably +didn't love Schroder. Not as she had loved him. She was marrying him +broken-heartedly. He sometimes played with this notion. It pleased him. +His sadness at the thought of her in another man's arms was mitigated by +the two-fold thought that her heart was broken and that she was in +reality embracing marriage and not a man. + +He no longer desired her. He was too busy for one thing. Still, things +were different. She had been an inspiration. Now he went on with his +plans and his climb without feeling the excitement that had filled him +during their year together. There was no one in front of whom to pose. +This made posing a rather thankless business. And he became practical in +his thoughts, less dramatic in his lies. + +Henrietta had put aside her paper and was looking at him. + +"Are you tired?" she asked. + +He shook his head. He began to think about her. What did she do all day? +Since Ruth had left, his desire to leave his wife had vanished. He +paused, confused. She was weeping. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. She lowered her head. + +"Nothing," she said. + +A vivid memory hurt him. He remembered kissing her for a first time in +his mother's kitchen years ago. It seemed now that she had been alive +and beautiful that evening. That was gone. + +"Has anything happened," he asked softly. + +Her head shook. He came to her side and looked at her. He felt helpless. +What was there to make her cry? + +"I don't know, George," she said as if answering his silent question. +"Please forgive me. I just started to cry for nothing." + +"Worried about something?" he pressed. He felt guilty. She was crying +because of the things he had done. But what had he done? Nothing wrong. +He had put the wrong things out of his life. And for her sake. Why +should she weep about that, then? He was the one to weep. And she had +her children. Her father was alive. He remained silent, recounting what +he tried to consider anti-weeping reasons. + +"Nothing, George," she answered. "I'm ... I'm just getting old." + +He frowned and turned away. + +Later when they lay in bed he took her in his arms. She had apparently +forgotten about her tears and their curious explanation. But he began to +talk to her. + +"Old," he whispered, "you're not getting old. Don't be silly. At least +no more than I am. I'm older than you." + +He held her close to him and his mind embraced a memory. This was not +his wife he held, but someone else. A vivacious, happy girl ten years +ago. No, more than that. Almost fourteen years ago. He lay remembering +another Henrietta--a charming, delightful child. He had never been in +love with her. This he knew. But the knowledge had slowly died. When he +embraced her at night a dream obscured his memory. The dream was that he +had once loved her, that she had once been beautiful, that his heart had +once sung with desire for her. + +He played with this dream. It was a make-believe that saddened him. Yet +it made the moment more tolerable. Sometimes it even brought a curious +happiness. His dream would pretend that the scrawny figure he was +holding had once filled him with ecstasies. His dream would whisper to +him that he had once idolized her and that once ... once. He would lie +editing his sterile memories of her into glowing once-upon-a-times. And +when his kisses sought her cold lips it would be to this dream-Henrietta +they gave themselves, a Henrietta who had never been. It was sad to +pretend in this way that his great love had died and that his beautiful +one had faded. But it was not as sad as to remember when he kissed her +that there had never been anything. + +He felt tired when he left the house the next morning. The business of +preening for the senatorial race annoyed him. The goal lured but the +details to be managed were aggravating. + +He started as he opened the door of his chambers. Ruth! He stood looking +at her without words. She was pale and there was something curious about +her. She didn't look the same. + +"You look surprised," she smiled. He noticed how spiritless she was. +"But ... you don't mind my coming here, do you. I've been trying to get +you." + +She turned her eyes away. He had finally discovered the change, a +physical one. + +"Well," he exclaimed, "I hadn't heard the good news. How's Paul." + +So she was married. And had kept it secret. He smiled. He remembered +other scenes in the room. The doors locked. Her arms around him. All +that was over now. Before her motherhood, even the memory of it seemed +less certain. + +"There is no good news," she was saying. "I've come to see if you can +help me." + +They sat down. Basine nodded. Money. Poor girl. Schroder was always an +ass about things. + +"He's gone away," she went on. "And ... and I'd like to locate him." + +"Who?" + +"Paul." + +She covered her face. So he had deserted her. And she had come back to +him. A momentary excitement entered his thought. But he frowned +immediately. It was distasteful to think of what might have been if ... +not for this. + +An amazement came into his eyes. He stared at her as she talked. She had +been ruined by Schroder and he had never married her. And when she had +refused medical interference he had calmly left the city. He listened +blankly and could think of nothing to say. + +"Oh George, you must help me." + +Help her! He must help her! After she had lived with this man for +months, giving herself to him! He stood up and walked down the room. It +was like he used to do, pace up and down in front of her. + +He wanted to talk but he found it hard. A rage was coming into his mind +that obscured his words. The rage continued. Pausing in the center of +the room Basine began to swear. His voice had grown high pitched. + +"Damn!" he shouted at her, "and you come to me. Me! You bring your +filthy sins to me! Damn his dirty soul! Yes, you're fine, you are! +Leaving me to go with that chippy-chaser. I thought ... I thought you +were somebody." + +He stopped, his fist in the air. She was walking away. + +"Ruth," he called after her, "listen, wait a minute." + +The door closed after her. Basine stood watching the door. She would +open it and come back. But the door remained shut. He seated himself at +his desk. Moments passed and he was surprised to wake up and hear +himself mumbling. "The dirty skunk! I'll wring his neck!" + +She had given herself to Schroder! Not married him.... The part he had +played in her ruin forced itself with a nauseating insistency into +Basine's mind. His memories seized him. He struggled, but the things he +knew leaped out of hiding-places and assaulted him. She had loved him. +And he had loved her. Life had seemed marvelous with her close to him. +His career, his day, its simplest detail, had been colored with +delicious excitement. But he had been afraid to reach out and take what +he wanted. It would have meant success, happiness and something +else--the word beauty withheld itself--it would have meant these things. +But he had feared possession. He had let her go away after kissing her +and telling her that he loved her. So she had gone walking in the +street and fallen into the arms of the first man she met. It was plain. + +Basine writhed under triumphant accusations. A torment filled him. He +must escape from the accusations He pried himself away from his thoughts +and took his place on the bench. Other people's troubles again. +Disputes, wrangles, testimonies--his ears listened mechanically. Lawyers +were pleading with him. Witnesses were stammering. He sat with a scowl +and hunched forward in his chair. His lean face thrust itself at the +courtroom. + +Thoughts too intolerable for his attention whirled sickeningly in a +background. Pictures of Ruth in the man's arms, of her surrender, of the +intimacies of their illicit affair forced themselves upon him. He loved +her. "Oh, damn him," sang itself darkly through his heart. + +There was one mocking intruder that raised a vociferous head. "You might +have had her. Not he. She might have been yours if you hadn't been +afraid." It was this that nauseated most. Not Schroder's villainy, but +his own cowardice. He had lost through cowardice. + +The day dragged itself along. He had recovered in part the rage which +protected him from the intolerable memories. When he left the courtroom +it was with a viciousness in his step. His feet stamped down as he +walked, as if they were attacking the pavements. He entered a saloon +several blocks from the City Hall. + +The place was almost deserted. A few businesslike looking men were +grouped before the long bar. They were laughing. Basine passed them and +a voice called his name. He turned and saw a familiar face in one of +the small booths against the wall. It was Levine, the newspaperman. + +"Hello, Judge. Come on over and sit down." + +Basine narrowed his eyes. The man was partially drunk. His drawn face, +usually pale, was flushed and his sneering black eyes were bloodshot. He +sat down opposite Levine with a greeting. A waiter brought drinks. + +"What's up, Judge, you seem rather low," Levine laughed quietly. "The +world been falling on your nose? Ha, have another. Here, waiter...." + +They sat drinking, the newspaperman lost in a mysterious excitement that +gathered in his voice. The excitement soothed Basine. The drinks brought +a haze into his mind. He became aware that the man was talking about his +sister. He was leaning forward, a black forelock over his bloodshot eye, +his arm thrown out on the table, and talking in a languorous voice about +Doris. + +"Drowning my troubles, judge," he was saying. "It's easier to drink +yourself into forgetfulness than to lie yourself into forgetfulness, eh? +And besides you grow sick of lying, eh. Nobody lies more than me, and I +know, I know. But it ain't my fault--she's gone mad about him. You know +him--Lindstrum, the poet. Been mad about him for years. And it gets +worse ... that's all that's the matter with her. He ran away years ago +and she's gotten a phobia about people. Because he's the people's poet. +Ha, she's told me about you, George. Got an idea of making this man +Lindstrum sick by showing him how rotten people are. And using you. See? +But where do I come in? Nowhere ... nowhere. Just gabbing for years and +I don't come in nowhere.... Get me? This damn newspaper drool has eaten +into me.... She's the only one I wanted. But I don't come in, see? She's +mad ... gone mad...." + +Basine's thought avoided the man's words. He sat with a blissful +vacuity. They drank till it grew night. Basine, as if recalling himself, +walked out. The newspaperman lay across the table, his head asleep on +his arm. + +The night was cool. A curious impulse to let go came to Basine. He would +go somewhere and find women and noise. He walked along thinking about +this. When he had walked for an hour the impulse was gone. The haze was +slipping from him. He recalled things Levine had said. Something about +Lindstrum, the poet. His mind played with Lindstrum. He had seen +him--where? Oh yes, long ago. That was before he'd become famous. Now he +was a great poet. Hell with everything.... Get the senatorship and let +things slide. + +He walked along toward his home. Henrietta would be asleep. He sighed. +The night was cool. Everything all right in the morning. Now, everything +all wrong. But in the morning-- + +His stride quickened. He felt half asleep and as he moved over the +deserted pavement he began mumbling, "I love you, George, I love +you...." + + + + +23 + + +Doris was ill. The doctor had telephoned her mother and Mrs. Basine was +sitting beside the bed holding Doris' hand. A man she remembered vaguely +was standing in a corner of the room smoking. It was the poet, +Lindstrum, who was once a friend of Doris. He had been there when she +arrived, standing by the window and smoking while the doctor was fixing +an ice pack on Doris' head. + +The doctor had been unable to make a diagnosis. She had a fever but they +would have to wait for more definite symptoms. + +As the twilight filled the studio, Mrs. Basine grew frightened. She +thought at moments Doris was dead, she lay so still. She watched the +half-closed eyes anxiously. Perhaps Doris would die. And George was in +Washington. She had telegraphed but he couldn't arrive till the next +day. She sat wondering about her daughter. She remembered her as a +child, then as a girl. + +"Changes, changes," she sighed. Changes that excited one, but all they +did was bring one nearer to this. She was thinking of death. + +"How do you feel now, Doris?" + +No answer. The burning eyes continued to stare, the hand she held +remained limp and dry in her fingers. Perhaps it was nothing serious. +Merely a fever. She sat nodding her head at her thoughts. She thought of +how her children had grown up and gone away. Fanny, George, Doris, +Aubrey, Henrietta, Mrs. Gilchrist, Judge Smith and the grandchildren. +These were the names of her family. They were part of her. Yet while the +rest of the world grew more and more familiar they grew more and more +strange. + +"Does it pain you anywhere, Doris?" + +No answer. Poor little Doris. She stroked her face. Life had used her +differently. She felt this. She knew nothing of what Doris had done or +dreamed, but the staring eyes frightened her and she understood. + +George frequently called her queer. Yet George was, in a way, proud of +her. He used to seek Doris out. And many people had talked of her as a +very unusual young woman. But life had used her curiously, not like +other girls. Perhaps it was a man. She turned toward the figure in the +corner. He was standing holding a pipe to his mouth. What if it was a +man? Scandal. Mrs. Basine sighed. What was scandal? It was only a way of +looking at facts. She would take her home with her. Poor little Doris +living alone in this place and sitting here night after night dreaming +of things. That was sad. + +"Listen dear, do you want something?" + +No answer. The doctor said he would be back after dinner and bring a +nurse. She would ask him if Doris could be moved and then take her home. +It was growing darker in the room. Someone was knocking. She opened the +door. It was another man. He came in and then paused. + +"Is Doris ill?" he asked. + +Mrs. Basine nodded. + +"I am her mother," she said. + +Levine looked at her and introduced himself. + +"You know Mr. Lindstrum," she added. Levine stared at the poet in the +shadows and said, "Yes, I know him." + +"How do you do," said Lindstrum slowly. + +Doris reached her hand up as Levine approached the bed. He took it and +she whispered, "Don't go away." She tried to rise. + +"You mustn't dear," her mother cautioned. + +"Oh yes," Doris voice appeared to be growing stronger. "I want to sit +up. Help me, Max." He arranged the pillows. The ice-pack fell from her +head. She smiled. + +"You haven't eaten anything, mother," she added. "Please, there's a +restaurant around the corner." + +Mrs. Basine stood up. It might be better to go away for a while. Despite +her daughter's momentary recovery her fears had increased. She felt +something curious about Doris. But perhaps it was just the fever. She +left the room with a final glance at the flushed face. Doris had always +been strange, but there was something disturbing about her now. Her +daughter's eyes watching her opening the door, chilled her heart +suddenly. She held herself from rushing to her side and taking her in +her arms. She didn't know why, but she was certain there was something +strange about Doris. She walked into the hall. Yes, she was certain +something terrible was going to happen. + +When the door closed Doris sat against the pillows, her white face +turned toward Lindstrum in the shadows. + +"Did you hear we were going to war, Lief?" she asked. Behind his pipe in +the shadows the grey faced figure of Lindstrum nodded. + +"George is a Senator," she added. "He's going to declare war, Lief. You +remember my brother George." + +"Doris, you mustn't," Levine whispered. "Lie back, please." + +She covered her face and her body shuddered. + +"The filthy ones are going to war. Come closer, Lief. I want to see +you." + +Lindstrum approached the bed. Doris turned to Levine. + +"The pack is going to war. Did you see their eyes shining in the street, +and their mouths gloating? A new terror, eh?" + +She threw her hands into her hair and her eyes centered suddenly on +Lindstrum. He was standing over her. Doris began to laugh and to climb +out of bed. She stood up barefooted in her night gown, her black hair +down and pointed out of the window. + +"Don't." Levine took her hand. "You'll catch cold." + +Her eyes were lustrous. Lindstrum caught her in his arms. She had leaned +toward him as if she were falling. Her body was vividly hot. He held her +and she began to laugh. + +"Better lie down," he whispered. + +The laugh grew louder. Her hand with its fingers extended and pointing, +wavered toward the window. She tried to talk but the laughter in her +throat prevented. She hung loosely in his arms, laughing and waving her +hands. + +"The window," she gasped, "look out and see!" + +"We had better get her into bed," Levine whispered. Lindstrum nodded. +But Doris pulled herself from his hold. She stumbled and fell to her +knees before the window. The room was dark and the street lights threw a +faint glare over her face. She knelt with her hands to her neck and her +eyes swinging. + +"Look out!" cried Levine. Doris screamed. + +"The beast ... the beast!" + +She had thrown herself forward with the shriek but Lindstrum's hands +had caught her. The window glass broke. + +The two men carried her into the bed. Her head fell back on the pillow. +She lay with her eyes open. Lindstrum sat leaning over her. + +"Doris," he whispered. Her eyes regarded him without recognition. + +"It's happened," muttered Levine. Lindstrum's hand passed over her +forehead and slipped down the loose hair. + +"The fever's gone," he said softly. "Yes," he repeated, "the fever's +gone now." + +Mrs. Basine returned. Doris, her eyes open, was lying as if dead. Her +mother rushed to the bed crying her name. She was breathing. The fever +was gone. Her body was almost cool. + +"She was out of her head for a while," Lindstrum whispered. + +"Talk to me please, dearest." + +Doris sighed and looked around. They made no move as she sat up. + +She left the bed and returned from a closet with a wrap over her +nightgown. They watched her until her eyes turned toward +them--expressionless, dead eyes. Mrs. Basine clasped her hands together +and trembled. + +"We must call the doctor at once," she whispered. She went to the +telephone. Doris sat down in a chair near the window. Her head sank and +she gazed out. The expressionless eyes grew clouded. Tears were coming +out. She sat weeping without sound while her mother telephoned. + +"Something has happened to Doris," Mrs. Basine whispered into the +telephone, "please hurry, something has happened to her...." + +"Good-bye, Doris," Lindstrum spoke. + +The white face of the girl remained without movement. She was staring +out the window, a lifeless figure, weeping. He approached her and +watched her tears. + +Outside, he walked with his head down, through the streets. + +"She knew it was going to happen," he murmured to himself, "and she +wanted to see me again before it did." His heart felt heavy. Doris with +her dead eyes weeping. Ah, a long sigh. Hard to remember things that had +been. + +"Knock 'em over," he whispered aloud. "Make something ... make +something." Deep inside him were hands that pantomimed despair. People +in the streets. War was coming to them. "Huh," he said slowly, "they +tore her heart out." Everybody knew him. Everybody knew the name +Lindstrum. It was the name of a great poet. When he was dead Lindstrum +would stay alive. "Huh," he whispered, "I don't know.... Sing to them. +Yes...." + +His teeth bit into the pipe stem. Tears came from his eyes. He walked +along in the night snarling with his lips parted, and weeping. + + + + +24 + + +The war was a noisy guest. People shook hands with it. It sat down in +their little rooms. It's voice was a brass band that drowned their +troubles. Basine found a curious friend in the war. + +Changes had come to him in the days that followed the scene with Ruth. +He grew cold. His heart was indifferent. His victory in the election +had sent him to bed without joy. + +There was no longer an inner Basine and an outer Basine. He had fought +his way into the current of events and he was content to let them move +him. They made him Senator. They moved him to Washington, provided new +scenes for him, new faces. He heard of his sister's collapse without +sorrow. She had become crazy. To be expected, of course, to be expected, +he said to himself one evening as he sat writing a letter of sympathy to +his mother. + +The thing that had happened to Basine had been the result of a +confusion. He found himself at forty robbed of life. Despair, hatred, +disgust--these things were left. He turned his back on them. They were a +company of emotions too difficult to play with. It was no longer +possible to lie. Ruth, Schroder, Henrietta, love, hope, intrigue grew +mixed up. He emerged from himself and walked away from himself like an +aggrieved and dignified guest. + +He sometimes remembered himself--a distant Basine. A keen-faced one with +the feel of leadership in his heart. A mind that was alive behind its +words. He had done and thought many things. But now he had gone away. He +was silent. The day was no longer a challenge. The change carried its +reward. It seemed to bring him closer to people. At least he found a +certain charm in talking and listening that had not existed before. + +He gave himself no thought. He was successful and that was enough. At +times he sat in his new quarters in Washington reading stray items in +the newspapers and reciting to himself his achievements. He found +pleasing identification in the honors he had achieved. + +His political friends talked among themselves. They recalled that Basine +had once been a man of promise, a man alive with energies. And now he +was like the others in the party--an amiable fuddy-duddy. They recalled +the sensational figure he had made a few years ago in the Vice +Investigation. This seemed to have been the climax of Basine. + +But the war arrived and the new Senator began to emerge. The country +became filled with mediocrities struggling to utilize the war as a +pedestal. The call had gone out for heroes and the elocutionists rushed +forward. + +The psychology of the day, however, was a bit too involved for these +aspirants. The body politic of the nation found itself betrayed by its +own platitudes. A moral frenzy began to animate the horizon. But it was +the frenzy of an idea that had escaped control; an idea grown too huge +and luminous to direct any longer. The idealization of itself before +which the crowd had worshipped became now a Frankenstein. The virtues of +America had gone to war. And the nation looked on, aghast and +uncomprehending. The flattering and grandiose image of itself that the +_bête populaire_ had been creating in its law books, text books, and +hymnals had suddenly stepped from its complicated mirror and was +marching like a Mad Hatter to the front. A swarm of guides and +interpreters had leaped to its side. They danced around it chanting its +nobilities, proclaiming its grandeur. The spirit of Democracy, the +Rights of Man, the One and Only God--the Golden Rule, the Thou Shalt +Nots, the Seven Virtues, the Mann Act, the Hatred for All Variants of +Evil,--the mythical incarnation of these and kindred illusions--the +Idealization--was off for the front. + +The confusion arose when the nation found itself attached as if by some +gruesome umbilical cord to this crazed Idealization, off with a Tin +Sword on its shoulder. And it must follow this Virtue-snorting monster. +It must lie down in trenches in behalf of a Fairy Tale with which it had +been shrewdly deceiving itself for a century. + +But while the elocutionists fumbling for pedestals were exhorting the +nation to hoist itself by its boot-straps, to become overnight a +belligerent hierarchy around its God, there were others whose spirit +raised an authentic battle shout. One of these was Basine. + +He appeared to return to himself. The Basine he had walked away from +raised itself amid the disgusts and hatreds in which it had lain +abandoned. A rage gathered in his voice. Eloquence and flashing eyes +were his. The amiable fuddy-duddy playing little politics in Washington +became a gentleman of war. + +The horizon bristled with gentlemen of war. But the terrified crowd +casting about for leaders, as the draft shovelled it toward the +trenches, eyed them with suspicion. There must be authentic gentlemen of +war--men above suspicion. Men maddened with a desire to fight and +destroy were wanted. Basine was one of these. His tirades against the +enemy left nothing in doubt. They were not concerned with idealisms. The +enemy must be destroyed, he began to cry, or else it would destroy +civilization. + +Huns, he cried, vandals and scoundrels. Gorillas, demons, soulless +monsters. His phrases drew frightful caricatures of the enemy. His +orations were among the few that stirred terror. The Germans were not +enemies of an ideal--not a rabble of Nietzsches at theological grips +with a rabble of Christs. They were Huns, said Basine, barbarians, +fiends, hacking children to pieces, pillaging, raping, destroying. + +This was a language the nation understood. It contained in it the +inspiration to heroism and sacrifice. Out of it arose the grisly cartoon +which awakened fear. Terrified by the possibilities of Hun domination +and massacres, the crowd patriotically bared its bosom to the lesser +horror--war. It marched forth behind its idiot Idealization not to +defend that absurdity but to save itself from the clutches of massacring +savages. + +The energies which came to life abruptly in Basine focused into a +strange passion against the Germans. He was vicious, intolerant, +unscrupulous in his denunciations. This established him instantly as a +leader. + +The crowd, casting about for leaders, seized upon men more terrified +than themselves. And upon these abject ones who raved and howled from +the pulpit, stage and press, they heaped rewards and canonizations. + +There was one phase of Basine's hatred that offered a curious +explanation. From the beginning he devoted himself to describing the +hideous immorality of the Huns. He loaned himself passionately to all +rumors celebrating the wholesale rape of women committed by the invaders +of Belgium. Deportations, well-poisonings, child-murders figured +extensively in his eloquence. But gradually he appeared to concentrate +upon what he called the ultimate horror--"fair Europe overrun by this +horde of seducers and immoral blackguards." Schroder was a German. + +The war rehabilitated Basine. It enabled him to destroy Schroder. The +complicated underworld of hate, disgust, disillusion which his ludicrous +renunciation of Ruth and her subsequent betrayal by Schroder had created +in him, was the arsenal from which he armed himself for war. + +He had lapsed into a sterile and amiable Basine in order to escape from +emotions become too intolerable and too dangerous to utilize. The murder +of Schroder would not have restored him. The return of the woman he +still loved would have been equally futile. Life had become too +intolerable for Basine to face and adjust. He had permitted himself +convenient burial. + +On the night he had gotten drunk with the newspaperman, Basine saw +himself as he was--a creature misshapen and humorous--and he had buried +the vision and fled from it. To sit contemplating an inner self become a +grotesque cripple was intolerable. He sought for a brief space to +transfer his self-loathing to Schroder but Schroder, the man, was too +small to contain it. Schroder, the war, however, was another matter. + +Basine unlocked himself, exhumed himself, and came forth with a yell in +his throat. The German army was five million Schroders. He hurled +himself at them. He was happy in his rage. A sincerity hypnotized him. + +The Germans were not only five million Schroders. They were also the +incarnated nauseas and despairs of Basine. Schroder, the man, had become +for him, illogically but soothingly, the cause of everything that had +become misshapen and humorous inside him. Schroder, the man, was the +sand in which Basine, the ostrich, buried his head. Now Schroder, the +Germans, Schroder, the World War, Schroder, the rape of Belgium, the +devastation of France, offered a more hospitable grave for the misshapen +and humorous image of himself. To destroy the Germans became for Basine +synonymous with destroying the things inside himself from which he had +fled helplessly. The destruction of these things consisted of giving +them outlet, of giving them voice. His hatreds, despairs and +disillusions arose and spat themselves upon the Germans. The process +cleansed and invigorated him and launched him before the public as a +leader to be trusted, a hero to venerate during its dark hour. + + + + +25 + + +The company assembled in his mother's home greeted Basine with +excitement. He had stopped over during a tour in behalf of the Liberty +Loan. Mrs. Basine had persuaded him to attend a function in his honor. +He was late. They were waiting dinner for him. + +When he entered, a sense of great affairs, of world disturbances came +into the room with him. At the table the talk centered around him. He +was the superior patriot. Questions were fired at him--when would the +war end, what was the real secret of this and that and did he know what +was behind the latest note from the President, and when was the German +offensive due? He answered ambiguously, offering no information and +exciting his audience by his reticence. + +Aubrey Gilchrist, who had held the floor before the Senator's arrival, +listened eagerly to his brother-in-law. Aubrey's patriotism was a bond +between them. But it was of a different quality. Aubrey's patriotism was +founded on the fact that America was the most virtuous nation in the +world. He devoted himself to a campaign among his friends and had even +spoken publicly a number of times. In his talk he grew eloquent over the +moral grandeur of his country and hailed the altruism and honesty of his +countrymen as a light that illumined the world. + +Aubrey had overcome his impulse to publish his father's manuscript under +his own name. His fears had finally triumphed. He had utilized his +decision in a curious way. For months after determining not to commit +the imposture he had discussed the decision among his friends. + +"I worked a number of years on it," he explained simply, "but on reading +it over I feel that it's not the thing to be given the public. It's a +bit too Rabelaisian and unrestrained. Among gentlemen, yes. But when one +thinks of young men and women reading such things one hesitates. I feel +too that I can do better. Perhaps in another year or so I'll finish +something more worthy." + +This explanation had given him a pleasurable emotion. It had coincided +with the inner Aubrey--the Isaiah who thundered in secret. He had gone +about elated with the knowledge of his honesty--not only the honesty of +refraining from the imposture but the honesty of sparing the public a +work likely to undermine its morals. With the advent of the war Aubrey's +elation had expanded miraculously. The nation became a collection of +Aubrey Gilchrists. He found an outlet for his self admiration in +boasting tirelessly of the virtues of his countrymen. His interest in +the Germans was faint. He was chiefly concerned with having the moral +grandeur of his nation recognized and triumphant. + +Seated opposite him was Fanny. She smiled when he looked at her. The war +had brought Fanny happiness. It had released her from the tormenting of +Ramsey. She turned occasionally toward Ramsey a few seats removed at the +table and spoke to him. He had changed. He sat flushed and elated and +took his turn at denouncing the enemy, at avowing vengeance and +prophesying terrible victories over the Hun. His anger rivalled +Basine's. The curious game he had played with Fanny had lost its +interest. He had emerged like Basine. Fanny was no longer necessary to +his desire for a sense of power--a power which convinced him of his +manliness and concealed from him the secret of his inferiority. He had +transferred his game from Fanny to the Germans. He was now tormenting +the Germans. The news of their defeats, the hope of their annihilation +inflated him. In addition, his belligerent air, his gory threats enabled +him to establish himself in his eyes and in the eyes of others as a +thorough man. + +There were others in the company--Judge Smith, red-faced and glowering; +Aubrey's mother engaged in excommunicating the Germans as socially unfit +and outside the pale of her sympathy or support; a number of prominent +social and political lights. They discussed the war with animation, +fired questions at the senator and ate heartily. + +Dishes clattered. Servants appeared and disappeared. Mrs. Basine, +sitting beside her son listened to him proudly and grew sad. Her son's +prestige pleased her. But the war saddened her. She noticed that Mrs. +Gilchrist was growing old--too old to share the enthusiasms of the day. +Yet there was a comradeship in the room that stirred Mrs. Basine. She +disliked most of the individuals around her. But when they came together +there was something charming in the way they talked and smiled and +exchanged confidences. + +Mrs. Basine had secretly allied herself with a pacifist group of women +who labelled their minor timidity as intellectualism and argued with +violence against the major timidity identified as patriotism. She had a +horror of war, her imagination seeing herself continually suffering with +the soldiers of both sides. A similar sensitiveness had converted her +into a vague socialist. The misery of what she called the masses was a +mirror in which she saw a possible image of herself. She subscribed with +enthusiasm to doctrines which promised to establish justice and +tranquility in the world. + +But now among the people in her home Mrs. Basine noticed an enviable +optimism. Some of them were old friends, others new friends. But all of +them were alike in one way. All of them seemed wonderfully excited over +the fact that this war was going to put an end to all wars. She would +have liked to share this optimism. But her intelligence deprived her of +the solace. Yet she was able to feel kindly toward the ideals she sensed +were false. They were somehow like her own ideals--inspired by similar +things. + +The camaraderie in the room heightened. This was a war that was going to +put an end to all wars and everyone felt happy. They talked and +laughed. Their manner seemed to hint that the war was not only going to +put an end to all wars but to all troubles. Yes, the Germans vanquished, +victory achieved, and the world would be beautifully straightened out. + +They identified themselves avidly with the world--these old and new +friends. The enemy who had dogged their monotonous little footsteps +through the years--the veiled Nemesis who had harassed them and filled +them with helpless, futile hatreds, tripped them up and robbed them at +every turn--this enemy was at last unmasked. He was identified now. He +was their troubles--their defeats. And they had him out in the open now +where they could shout battle cries and leap upon him. He was the +Germans. + +Mrs. Basine, groping for an understanding of the elation among her +guests and desiring to share it, thought of her grandchildren. She +remembered George when he was no older than his son. This memory seemed +to give the lie to the excitement in the room. She wondered why. She +remembered Fanny when she was a girl. And Henrietta long ago. Henrietta +was smiling quietly at her husband--a faded matron, scrawny, silent. And +Doris was upstairs, weeping perhaps. She had taken Doris out of the +sanitarium to care for her at home. The doctor said melancholia. She +might be cured if something could be found to interest her. But there +was nothing. She sat wide-eyed and morose through the day, her hands +listless and waited till night came and sleep. Her skin was yellow and +there were little glints in her eyes as if they were peering out of the +dark. + +Senator Basine laughed at the sally of a pretty woman. The table joined +his laughter. The senator was an inspiration. His manner was forceful, +his words direct. When he listened his head remained flung back. When he +talked he lowered his head and raised his eyes. There was an anger in +him that awed. It played behind his words. + +"You're right, George." Aubrey answered a remark Basine had made. "I +agree with you entirely. But after all, the purposes of this war are +more than victory over an enemy. The victory over ourselves--" + +Aubrey's words were lost in the racket of rising diners. The eating was +over. The guests filed into the library. Henrietta slipped her hand +through her husband's arm. She remembered vaguely the afternoon in the +Basine library when George Basine had asked her to marry him. No,--it +was in the kitchen. She would have liked to talk about it. But this was +no time to mention such things. She sat down and listened to the excited +remarks of the guests. There was an interruption. Aubrey, at the window, +raised his voice. + +"Look here," he exclaimed, "soldiers." + +The company crowded to the front of the room. Men in civilian clothes +carrying small bundles over their shoulders were marching four abreast +down the center of the street. + +"Entraining for war, by God!" said Ramsey. + +They watched in silence. Soldiers going to war! There was something +incongruous about that. A vague feeling of surprise and discomfort held +the watchers. Men who would in a short time be lying in trenches, +shooting with guns, killing other men. And they felt curiously out of +touch with the marchers, as if the enemy they had been denouncing at +the table and vilifying throughout their day were someone not so far +away as France. As if these marching men in the street were being sent +to the wrong address. + + + + +26 + + +Basine hurried in the dark street. His mother and Henrietta stood in the +doorway watching him. He carried a suitcase and had promised to write +frequently. The Liberty Loan tour had cut short his visit. He was +walking to catch his train at the neighborhood station a few blocks +away. + +As he turned the corner, Basine paused. Someone had called his name. He +looked around and saw a man standing under the street lamp. + +"Hello George. How are you?" + +The man held out his hand and Basine, taking it, studied him for a +moment. Keegan. Poor old Hugh Keegan. Basine smiled. + +"Well, well," he exclaimed. "What are you doing around here, Hugh?" + +They stood shaking hands. Basine noticed the furtive, shabby air of his +old friend. He hadn't seen or heard of Keegan or thought of him for +years. It was strange to meet him like this, walking in a street. + +"I live down the street a ways," Keegan answered. An almost womanish +shyness was in his manner. "Been hearing and reading a lot about you, +George." He lowered his voice. "You sure made good." + +Basine smiled deprecatingly. + +"Walking my way, Hugh?" he inquired. "Going to the train." He felt +nervous. Keegan was like meeting yesterdays. + +"Yes," said Keegan. + +They walked along. Basine felt his exhuberance leaving him. A curious +desire to apologize to Keegan took hold of him. But for what? Because +Keegan looked shabby. Keegan acted frightened and ashamed of something. + +"We used to have some good times together, George." + +The man was impossibly wistful. Like a beggar asking +something--demanding something. + +"Yes," said Basine. This Keegan ... this Keegan. He looked at him out of +the corners of his eyes. Shabby, furtive, blond-faced, tired. + +"What have you been doing, Hugh?" he asked. + +"Oh, didn't you hear," Keegan answered. His voice grew more deferential. +He began to talk in an apologetic murmur. + +"My wife died," he apologized. "I got married, you know, four years ago. +Four years this coming November. We went to a picnic last June and Helen +ate something." + +Keegan's voice sank to a confidential and still apologetic whisper. + +"About two nights after," he added, "she died." + +Basine looked at him and saw tears in his eyes. Keegan had married +somebody and she had died. This had happened to Keegan. Basine grew +nervous. + +"Awf'ly glad to have seen you again, Hugh," he said after a pause. "Am +sorry to hear about it. We must get together sometime. I think I'll have +to run." + +They shook hands and Basine hurried on. He was aware of Keegan looking +after him. A vacuous-faced Keegan with tears in his eyes. A Keegan who +had found something and lost it. What kind of a woman could have loved +Keegan? What kind ... what kind ... poor Hugh. He had been young once. +Now it was all over. Basine sighed. Keegan saddened. Keegan was like +yesterdays. He started to walk faster. He began to run, the suitcase +thumping against his leg. + +"I'll miss the train," he assured himself furtively and ran. + +But there was plenty of time for the train. Another fifteen minutes. He +was running for something else. Yes, he was running away from +Keegan--from the vacuous, shabby figure of Keegan that stood weeping +behind him. An oath throbbed in his mind. + +"Damn...." he muttered. The word stopped him. He walked the rest of the +way to the station. A sadness darkened him. He was sad, impossibly sad, +as if his heart were breaking. Because Keegan had found something and +lost it. Because his old friend Hugh had started to cry.... "Poor +Hughie," he murmured. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Gargoyles, by Ben Hecht + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GARGOYLES *** + +***** This file should be named 38489-8.txt or 38489-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/4/8/38489/ + +Produced by Annie R. McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Gargoyles + +Author: Ben Hecht + +Release Date: January 3, 2012 [EBook #38489] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GARGOYLES *** + + + + +Produced by Annie R. McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>GARGOYLES</h1> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><i>GARGOYLES</i></h2> + +<h3><i>By</i></h3> + +<h2>BEN HECHT</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 81px;"> +<img src="images/ill_001.jpg" width="81" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h4>BONI <span class="smcap">and</span> LIVERIGHT</h4> + +<h4>Publishers New York</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center">Copyright, 1922, by</p> + +<p class="center">Boni and Liveright, Inc.</p> + +<p class="center">New York</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center">To My Friend</p> + +<p class="center">the</p> + +<p class="center">Chicago Daily News</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C1"><b>Chapter 1</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C2"><b>Chapter 2</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C3"><b>Chapter 3</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C4"><b>Chapter 4</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C5"><b>Chapter 5</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C6"><b>Chapter 6</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C7"><b>Chapter 7</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C8"><b>Chapter 8</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C9"><b>Chapter 9</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C10"><b>Chapter 10</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C11"><b>Chapter 11</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C12"><b>Chapter 12</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C13"><b>Chapter 13</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C14"><b>Chapter 14</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C15"><b>Chapter 15</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C16"><b>Chapter 16</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C17"><b>Chapter 17</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C18"><b>Chapter 18</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C19"><b>Chapter 19</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C20"><b>Chapter 20</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C21"><b>Chapter 21</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C22"><b>Chapter 22</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C23"><b>Chapter 23</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C24"><b>Chapter 24</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C25"><b>Chapter 25</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#C26"><b>Chapter 26</b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C1" id="C1"></a>1</h2> + +<p>The calendars said—1900. It was growing warm. George Cornelius Basine +emerged from Madam Minnie's house of ill fame at five o'clock on a +Sabbath May morning. He was twenty-five years old, neatly dressed, a bit +unshaven and whistling valiantly, "Won't you come home, Bill Bailey, +won't you come home?"</p> + +<p>Considering the high estate which was to be his, as the estimable +Senator Basine, the introduction savors of malice. But, it must be +remembered, this was twenty-two years ago, and moreover, in a day before +the forces of decency had triumphed. The soul of man was still +unregenerate. Prostitutes, saloons, hell-holes still flourished +unchallenged in the city's heart. And Basine even at twenty-five was not +one of those aggravating anomalies who pride themselves upon being ahead +of their time; or behind their time. Basine was of his time.</p> + +<p>And on this day which witnessed him whistling on the doorstep of Madam +Minnie's, the Devil was still a gentlemen, albeit a gentleman in bad +standing. But, being a gentleman, he was tolerated. Tradition, in a +manner, still clothed him in the guise of a Rabelaisian clown, high born +but fallen. He walked abroad in his true character, flaunting his red +tights, his cloven hoof, his spiked tail and his mysterious horns. A +Mid-Victorian Devil innocent of further disguise, his face still +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>undisfigured by the Kaiser's mustachio or the Bolshevist's whiskers. A +naive, unctuous lout of a Devil with straightforward Tempter's +proclivities. An antagonist not for Dr. Wilsons and M. Clemenceaus and +the Societies for the Spread of True Americanization, but an +unpolitical, highly orthodox, leering, pitchfork-brandishing <i>vis â vis</i> +for simple men of God. In short, the Devil was still a Devil and not a +Complex.</p> + +<p>It was growing warm and the calendars said—a new century ... a new +century. And the great men of the day pointed with stern, pregnant +fingers at the calendars and proclaimed—a new century ... a new +century.</p> + +<p>Beautiful phrase. The soul of man, in its struggle toward God knows +what, paused elatedly to contemplate the new milestone. Elated as all +youth is elated for no other reason than that there is a tomorrow, a +tomorrow of unknown and multiple milestones. Elated with the knowledge +of progress—that sage and flattering word by which the soul of man +explains the baffling phenomenon of its survival.</p> + +<p>The great men of the day stood staring through half-closed eyes at the +calendars. To anticipate by a single day! But the future no less than +the past remains a current mystery. And the great men—the +prophets—confined themselves with stentorian caution to the prophecy—a +new century has dawned.</p> + +<p>Basine, whistling and waiting for his companion to emerge on Madam +Minnie's doorstep, regarded the scene about him with the hardened moral +indifference of youth. It was growing warm. The May sun was striding, an +incongruous, provincial virgin, through a litter of blowzy streets. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>Under its mocking light the rows of bawdy-houses and saloons suffered +an architectural collapse. Walls, windows, roofs and chimneys leered +tiredly at each other. The district seemed indeed an illustration for a +parable of Vice and Virtue drawn by the venomously partial pen of some +unusually half-witted cleric—dirty-faced brothels, tousled café signs, +bleery sidewalks, toothless storefronts all cowering before the rebuke +of God's sun.</p> + +<p>A few mysterious solitaries lent a vague life to the scene. The figure +of a drunk, unchastened, zigzagging humorously down the pavement like +some nocturnal clown prowling after a vanished Bacchanal. A hastily +dressed prostitute carrying her night's earnings as an offering to early +devotion. A few unseasoned revellers overcome with a nostalgia for clean +bathrooms and Sunday morning waffles at the family board, sleepily +fleeing the scenes of their carouse.</p> + +<p>All this formed no part of the preoccupations of the whistling one. He +was waiting for his companion and for the fifteenth time the tune of +"Bill Bailey" came softly from his lips. The companion appeared, a +crestfallen young man of twenty-three, Hugh Keegan by name. An idiotic +wistfulness marked the blond vacuity of his face. They said nothing and +walked to the street car track.</p> + +<p>Here they must wait. There was no car in sight. Basine employed the +wait, jumping out from the curbing and peering with a great show of +interest down the deserted tracks. The night's dissipation had left him +perversely elate. His vanity demanded that he confound the scenes of his +recent moral collapse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> by exhibitions of undiminished vigor of body and +gayety of mind. So he capered back and forth between the curb and the +deserted tracks, ostentatiously unbuttoning his coat to the chill of the +dawn and addressing brisk, cheerful sallies to his penitent friend.</p> + +<p>It was this way with Basine. He had spent the night in sin. Now he must +act as if he had not spent the night in sin. It was a matter of +deceiving his conscience, and Basine's conscience did not live in +Basine. It was, to the contrary, a mysterious external force, something +quite outside him.</p> + +<p>He eyed the virtuous hallelujahs of the sunrise with a somewhat +over-emphasized aplomb. Dimly he felt that a God was articulating in +dawns and sunbeams. As long as he had continued his whistling, these +facts had remained concealed. But now he had grown tired of "Bill +Bailey" and at once God, peering out of his beautiful rosy heaven was +saying, "Shame on you." Everything seemed to be waiting to repeat this +banal reproof.</p> + +<p>This was the conscience of George Basine—a reproof that came from +without. He felt an inclination to defiance before this reproof.... He +was young and given to evil. This was only natural, considering the time +in which he lived and the biological impulses of youth.</p> + +<p>But to do evil was one thing. To defend it after it was done was +another. Thus Basine, having sinned lustily through the night, avoided +the more unspeakable sin of defending his action. The reproof arrived, +he faced it with candor and intelligence, prepared to admit that he had +done wrong.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<p>He did not want God mumbling around inside him as was the case with his +friend Keegan. God mumbled around inside of Keegan and made him feel +like the devil. But Basine—there was no occasion for God to argue His +point. He, Basine, surrendered gracefully and forthwith. That was the +way to handle situations of the soul.</p> + +<p>To Basine, situations of the soul were a species of external discomforts +he identified as God. They were the regulations and taboos of a +civilization to which he was prepared at all times to submit, providing +such submission did not compromise him. One got rid of taboos by looking +them squarely in the eye and simulating respect or remorse. Taboos were +good manners. One had to be polite to good manners. Basine laughed, not +defiantly. He had already made his apologies to the dawn. The dawn was +God's good manners. It entered the world as precisely and as perfectly +as the saintly wife of a great financier might enter her grandmother's +drawing room.</p> + +<p>Waiting beside the car track, Basine was already a reformed and forgiven +man. The sun was like a huge Salvation Army marching through the +highways of Evil, beating great drums and singing, "Are you washed, are +you washed in the Blood of the Lamb?" He was glad of it. He was glad to +be once more a part of a virtuous world, a citizen of an ideal republic +given to the great causes of progress.</p> + +<p>This adjustment completed, memories of the night came to him as they +waited for the car. These memories failed, naturally, to conflict with +his character as a citizen of virtue. For they were memories which he +was prepared at any moment to repudiate and denounce.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> Thus prepared he +could of course enjoy them.</p> + +<p>The memories brought an elation, the elation which usually fills the +healthy male of twenty-five upon discovering or rediscovering that the +Devil is as alluring as he is painted and that the wages of sin are +neither death nor disillusion. He had enjoyed himself. Sin was wrong. +But if one knew it was wrong one could go ahead and enjoy it. The great +thing was to know it was wrong, to admit it frankly and share in the +general indignation of it and not to go around like a vicious-minded +freak defending it, like some people he knew were in the habit of doing.</p> + +<p>Thus on this May morning Basine was able to grasp the enormity of his +offense and to apologize whole-heartedly for its commission and +simultaneously to enjoy the memory of it. He had come away from Madam +Minnie's with an egoistic impression of his prowess and with the +self-satisfaction which comes of the knowledge of having cheated the +devil out of his due by his careful method. He remembered with a warmth +in his throat as if he were recalling something beautiful how the +creature had looked at the first moment she stood before him.</p> + +<p>He had spent the earlier part of the night getting creditably drunk. +Lured into a brothel by a woman with a hard, childish face, he had +devoted himself for several hours to the despicable business of sin. The +sordid make-believe of passion had pleased him vastly. He had managed in +fact to achieve an observation on life. As the night waned he had grown +philosophical and thought, how with good women one began with personal +talk, with an exchange of confidences.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> One began with emotions, with +gentle lacerations, wistfulness, sadness. And one progressed from these +toward the intimacy of physical contact. But with bad women one began +with the intimacy of physical contact. Only the abrupt matter-of-fact +tone of the thing robbed the contact of all intimacy. And one progressed +from this contact toward a wistfulness, a gentle shyness and finally an +exchange of confidences and personal talk. This last contained in it the +thrill of intimacy. A good woman surrendered her body and inspired +thereby a sense of possession. A bad woman surrendered the secret of her +birthplace and of her real name and inspired a similar sense. There was +also obvious the fact that the same sense of dramatic coquetry, +idealism, modesty or whatever it was that induced the good woman to +withhold her body induced the bad woman to withhold her confidence.</p> + +<p>Under the influence of this knowledge, Basine had pursued the usual +tactics of the predatory male and, as a fillip to the unimaginative +excitements of the night, obtained from his accomplice in sin the story +of her life.</p> + +<p>"The mystery of a bad woman is that she was once virtuous," he thought +as he fell asleep. "Just as the mystery of a virtuous woman is that she +could be bad."</p> + +<p>An hour later he awoke and with a thrill of quixotic honesty placed five +dollars in the moist hand of the sleeping houri, gathered his friend +Keegan out of an adjoining room and emerged once more into the world +with a clear head, a body full of elated memories and a laudable +conviction that he had done wrong, but that what happened yesterday was +not a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> part of today and that a man can grant himself absolution from +sin as easily as he can lay aside virtue.</p> + +<p>As for Keegan, he stared with mild eyes at the dawn, at the beggarly +alleys and the negro porter dreamily sweeping cigar stubs out of a +lopsided doorway. He listened patiently to his friend's enthusiasms. To +Keegan there was something inexplicable about Basine's morning-after +pose. Keegan had not found a place for God. Platitudes were not a +background against which he might posture to his convenience. Instead +they were terrible intimates. They operated his thought for him.</p> + +<p>After committing a sin one should be repentent. The commission of sin +was, of course, an outrage. But somehow the platitudes did not quite +reach into the bedroom of evil. They remained hovering outside the door +marking time, as it were, and whispering through the keyhole, "just wait +... just wait...."</p> + +<p>And as soon as he had emerged from the room, in fact even before that, +they had taken possession of him again. They demanded now repentance, +thorough repentance which included thorough repudiation of all joyous +memories, all pleasurable moments. And Keegan, surrendering himself as a +matter of necessity to their demands presented the exterior of a +sorrowing victim to the dawn. He offered a nod or a surprised stare as +punctuation for his friend's discourse, chewing the while on an +unsuccessfully lighted cigar which tasted sour.</p> + +<p>"There was something different about her from the usual girl of that +kind," Basine was explaining. "Wouldn't talk for a while but finally got +confidential and began to cry a bit."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<p>This was a lie, reflecting credit, however, on the youth's dramatic +sense and vanity. The knowledge that the creature under discussion had +been actually no different from the six other ladies of her profession +with whom he had experienced moral collapses since leaving the +university in no way interfered with his opinion of the recent episode.</p> + +<p>It was his opinion that things he touched were somehow different from +things other young men dallied with; that events which befell him were +of a certain mysterious fiber lacking in the events which befell others. +Thus he was reduced to the necessity of continual lying in order to +vindicate this conviction, more powerful than reality. Lying to himself +as much as to anyone else. By his lies Basine accomplished the dual +purpose of adjusting inferior incidents to the superiority of his nature +and of impressing this superiority upon his friends. A way of rewriting +life so as to fit himself with the heroic part, as yet denied him in the +manuscript and which he sincerely felt was his due.</p> + +<p>"Yes, she cried a bit. They usually do, you know."</p> + +<p>Keegan was innocent of this phenomenon, but nodded. He felt mysteriously +saddened by the fact that they never wept for him. Life denied him many +things. The creature he had spent the night with had treated him +somewhat brutally. She had laughed several times. He sought, however, to +make up for the indifference with which he felt himself treated by +heightening his contempt for her as a sinner. This necessitated an +increase of his contempt for himself as having been a partner in evil. +But that was a spiritual gesture made bearable by the wave of remorse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +it aroused and by the knowledge that remorse was a laudable emotion. +Nevertheless, despite the remorse and the rehabilitation it offered his +vanity, he continued to feel—life denied him many things.</p> + +<p>Basine continued, "You could take a girl like that and make something of +her. Give her a month." By which he meant give George Cornelius Basine a +month and see the miracle he would work.</p> + +<p>Keegan sighed. He admired George, and his admiration of others always +depressed him. He was intelligent enough to know that he admired things +he lacked. And yet, he assured himself, he would despise the things in +himself that he admired in others. Therefore, it was very probable that +he despised them in others, or would at some later day, unless he +managed to conceal the fact or lose track of it in the confusion of +platitudes which served him for a brain. He looked enviously at his +friend, before whom hardened trollops dissolved in tears.</p> + +<p>"She's only been in the game a little while, you know, Hugh. A convent +girl, too. She told me her story. How she got started, you know. A love +affair with a Spaniard. A highly connected fellow."</p> + +<p>Basine prattled on, improvising a melodrama of virtue led astray, +editing the vaguely worded generalities of the creature he had left +asleep. Eventually he tired of the game and announced abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Not a car in sight. What do you say we walk, Hugh?"</p> + +<p>The idea of walking four miles home after a wild night engaged his +vanity. Things by which he proved the dubious superiority of his body +pleased him.</p> + +<p>"I think I'll run along," said Keegan.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Nothing doing, Hughie. You come with me. We'll have breakfast at my +house."</p> + +<p>Keegan frowned. There were two sisters and a mother in Basine's home.</p> + +<p>"I can't."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, because."</p> + +<p>Basine persisted, gently malicious. It amused him to inconvenience his +friend's scruples. It also gave him a feeling of moral supremacy. Keegan +was ashamed to go to his home with him. He pitied him for this and yet +enjoyed the fact. It was because Keegan didn't feel sure of himself, of +his being a man of virtue. And he, Basine, did. There was no question +about it in his mind.</p> + +<p>"Ashamed?" he asked with a smile.</p> + +<p>"No," Keegan grunted.</p> + +<p>"Well, you haven't done anything worse than me," by which he meant "We +do things differently and I am above things that knock you out."</p> + +<p>Keegan stared at his friend furtively. There were things inexplicable in +George Basine. He must admire them. There was nothing inexplicable in +himself.</p> + +<p>He hesitated about going, however. A combination of platitudes was +involved. He felt the necessity of repentance. And then he felt the +necessity of hiding his shame. And finally platitude cautioned him +indignantly against affronting three good women—a mother and two +daughters—with the presence of one lately come from the flesh pots of +Satan. This was a superior platitude because it came also under the +index of good manners.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>But Basine, taking him by the elbow, swept him along, platitudes and +all. An inexplicable Basine whom he admired, envied, despised, and who +was his best friend and his model. They walked together, Basine briskly +to hide the sudden heaviness of his legs; Keegan yielding to the less +pronounced physical drain he had undergone and falling into a weary, +protesting gait.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C2" id="C2"></a>2</h2> + +<p>The death of Howard Basine had precipitated a creditable outburst of +grief on the part of his widow and two daughters. The event had brought +his son George home from college.</p> + +<p>They had shared a bed for twenty-six years, Basine <i>père</i> and Basine +<i>mère</i>, achieving an utter disregard of each other which both took pride +in identifying as domestic happiness. In their youth love had brought +them together while comparative strangers. And after twenty-six years +death had parted them still strangers. But now complete and total +strangers—Siamese twins who had never been introduced to each other.</p> + +<p>Each had grown old by the side of the other, subscribing to the same +thoughts, worries, ambitions. It was as if a thin shell had grown around +each of them. This shell was their home, their mutual interest in bank +balances, diversions and tomorrows. It was the product of their +practical energies—their standing in the eyes of their friends, their +success and their solidity as a social unit. It was their pride in new +rugs, in invitations to functions, in their children.</p> + +<p>There were two shells. One was Basine <i>père</i>. One<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> was Basine <i>mère</i>. +For twenty-six years these two shells cohabited together. But inside +each of them there had been a world of things that had never connected +and that remained forever part of a mutually preserved secret. Little +daydreams, absurdities, the swaggering, pensive, impractical rigmarole +of thought-life to which the world of reality—the shell-world—had +remained almost to the last no more than a vaguely sensed exterior.</p> + +<p>Each of them had lived almost continually apart from this shell. They +had given but a fraction of their energies toward its creation. It had +required only a little part of themselves to become two placidly +successful conventionally happy people with a home and family. The rest +of themselves they had allowed to evaporate.</p> + +<p>A pleasing process—evaporation. Dreams, ambitions, longings—all these +had evaporated slowly and secretively during the twenty-six years, +vanished into thin air. And each had been preoccupied with this process +of evaporation. It had been their real life—the life which diverted +them and which they mutually concealed from each other as they sat +together reading of evenings, or rode in cars or waited in offices or +lay in bed.</p> + +<p>Here in this real life were success and beauty and marvelous activities. +Here Basine <i>père</i> planned Herculean enterprise and triumphed with +magnificent gestures, became a leader of finance, of armies; became a +lover of queens and odalisques. Caressing from day to day phantasms +which had no existence, it was in them that he chiefly existed. He +confined himself not only to illusions of grandeur. There were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> also +little things, charming minor victories which delighted his ego almost +as much as the greater ones. He was able to trick out the minor +victories with the illusion of reality. They were things that might +happen, that one could dream about almost as actually happening. Things +that he fancied people might be saying about him; admissions that he +fancied people might make to him; dreams that he fancied he inspired in +women who passed him and whom he never saw again.</p> + +<p>This illusory existence preoccupying Basine had fitted him ideally for +the companionship of orderly, placid-minded folk preoccupied like +himself with similar processes of evaporation. These folk were his +friends with whom he went to the theater, played cards, transacted +business, discussed issues. They were known as normal, practical +persons. The vast, illusory worlds in which they lived during the +greater part of their hours in no way encroached upon the realities of +their day.</p> + +<p>They were proud of having a grip on themselves, by which they meant of +being able to allow their energies to evaporate secretively instead of +feeling inspired to harness them to realities and run the risk of being +hoisted body and soul out of their shells into a maelstrom of +uncertainties and hullabaloos. In order to rationalize the disparity +between their actual estates and the fantastic estates of their illusory +lives, they devoted a part of their energies to the practical business +of glorifying their shells. They subscribed with indignation, sometimes +with fanaticism, to all social, spiritual and political ideas which had +for their objective the glorification of their shells.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> They became +champions of systems of thought and conduct which excused on one hand +and deified on the other their devitalized modes of existence.</p> + +<p>In fact as they grew older they developed a curious egoism which took +the form of a pride in their suppressions. They thought of themselves as +men who had achieved a superior sanity. This sanity lay in being able to +recognize the real from the unreal. The real was their shell. The unreal +consisted of the fantasies produced by the process of evaporation. This +sanity, too, enabled them to regard their imaginings and dreamings with +an amused condescension and to mature into unruffled +effigies—practical, hard-headed business men.</p> + +<p>The evaporation, however, influenced them in one vital respect. It +effected what they called their taste in the arts. They desired things +they read or listened to in the theater to be authentic interpretations +not of the realities about them but of the illusions in which they +secretly exhausted themselves. They desired the heroes and heroines of +literature and drama to be like the creatures and excitements of the +soap-bubble worlds bursting conveniently about their hard heads. And so +in their reading and theater going they enjoyed only those things which +afforded a few hours of vicarious reality to the grotesqueries, to the +fairy tale expansions of their departing dreams.</p> + +<p>During the last years of his life Basine had experienced the fullest +rewards of a virtuous, practical life. At fifty he had become empty. The +rigmarole of day dreams grew vaguer and finally ceased. He had become +bored with his grandiose and illusory selves. Don Juan, Napoleon, +Croesus, no longer wore the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> features of Basine. There was no longer any +thrill in idly decorating his tomorrows with kaleidoscopic +make-believes.</p> + +<p>There was no great tragedy in this. He was bored with his imagination +because he had run through the repertoire of his fancies too often and +so, slowly, his days grew more and more void of unrealities. Slowly also +he turned to the tangible things around him. He contemplated proudly the +details of his shell. It was a comforting shell. It fitted him snugly. +It consisted of his friends, his home, his children, his borrowed ideas, +his wife.</p> + +<p>No outward change was to be noticed in Basine <i>père</i> when this happened. +There was nothing to say that the process of evaporation had ended and +that there was left an animate husk called Howard Basine; a husk that +did not mourn at the knowledge of its emptiness but that accepted +instead with piety and gratitude the presence of other husks, pleased +and warmed to move among their empty companionships.</p> + +<p>It was at this time that Basine proudly felt himself a worthwhile member +of society and grew to smile with tolerant disdain upon all persons who +busied themselves with the illusions he had overcome by the simple +process of denying them life. He called them fools, scoundrels, lunatics +and dreamers and he agreed with his friends that they were creatures +engaged in filling the world with discomfort and error. His dislike for +them did not make him unhappy for he was content in the flattering +knowledge that most people, everybody he knew and whose opinion he +valued, were like himself. His thoughts were nearly everybody's thoughts +and his life was like everybody's life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> There was a sense of strength, +even satisfaction in this. He relapsed gracefully into a quiet emptiness +out of which he was able to derive final embalming fluid for his vanity +by pitying the distractions and unrest of others.</p> + +<p>Then he died. The sight of her husband lying under the glass of the +coffin had reminded Mrs. Basine of the curious fact that in their youth +love had brought them together. A memory burrowed its way from under the +débris of twenty-six years and confronted her. A memory of wild nights, +flushed cheeks, shining eyes, hope and careless words. And the dim +yesterday, the long-forgotten yesterday that lay in the coffin with the +paunchy figure of the bald-headed silk-merchant became suddenly real +again.</p> + +<p>When she was alone that night Mrs. Basine wept miserably for a love that +had died twenty-five years ago and lain buried and unmourned under the +débris of these years. A tardy exhibition of grief, sincere but +enfeebled by its own age, it spent itself in a few hours. The tears for +the memory of vanished youth and vanished love of which the body waiting +in the coffin had become for a space of grotesque symbol, were followed +by the inarticulate sense of an anti-climax.</p> + +<p>Howard Basine's dying was somehow not a tragedy to the woman who had +lived with him for twenty-six years. When she had wept at first, the +idea of death came like a panic to her heart. Things had died. Days, +nights, hopes had died. But she had been unaware of their dying. The +figure of her husband leaving for his day's work, returning from his +day's work, sitting at the head of the table, retiring to bed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> with +her—this had been a mask behind which the dying of things remained +concealed.</p> + +<p>Now that he had closed his eyes and vanished it was as if a mask had +been removed. One could see all at once all the things that had died. +And she saw not only Howard lying dead, but most of herself. In her mind +she had no memory of the illusory selves she had lived, like her +husband, alone. These illusory selves whose successes and romances she +had caressed in secret had of late abandoned her. Like her husband she +had turned to the shells they had created about themselves as the +comforting reward of her life's negation.</p> + +<p>Now it struck her that these shells were full of dead things. While he +lived they had seemed alive. The fact that the man with whom she had +survived twenty-six years continued to talk and to move had given her +the vague feeling that these years were also still alive, still existent +somewhere. Now the man was dead and the years were dead with him. They +had been dead all the while but they had not lain in a coffin for one to +look at like this.</p> + +<p>Dead years. And she, a survivor. Her sense of contact with the past +deserted her. She was alone. Everything that had been was no more and it +seemed during her grief as if it had never existed.</p> + +<p>She lay and wept, feeling that something had been terribly wasted. Once +there had been youth. Now there was age. She had already lived but how, +where? Look, she was already old but how had it happened? She who could +remember so many things about youth—her pretty face, her careless +hopes, bright, happy excitements; and most of all, the feeling that +things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> lay ahead—that a store of mysterious things waited for her—she +who could remember it so plainly was an old woman. It had seemed natural +before he died but now it seemed unnatural. She would die soon, too. Her +youth—something she thought of as youth, arose and stretched out +far-away arms to her. It came to her in the night and stood smiling at +her like a ghost of herself. Yes, she was already dead and she could lie +in bed weeping for her husband and staring with tired eyes at memories. +Thoughts did not disturb her. Her emotions, grown too involved for the +shallows of her mind, gave her the consciousness merely of a panic.</p> + +<p>But the panic left. It receded slowly and the death of her husband +stirred in her during the first weeks of mourning a gentle affection for +the man. She closeted herself with the memories that had terrified +her—sensual memories of an impetuous lover, an idealization of a +long-forgotten Howard. And her sorrow became like a vague honeymoon +shared with slowly dissolving erotic shadows.</p> + +<p>This too went. As it went away the widow became curiously younger in her +features, her black clothes, her mannerisms. She grew to find the +loneliness of her bed desirable. She would snuggle kittenishly between +the empty sheets, an unintelligible sense of immorality—as if it were +immoral to sleep alone—lending a luxury to her weariness.</p> + +<p>Yes, it was somehow nicer to sleep alone, to have the bedroom all to +herself. In her mind things that were different from the routine of her +life and that belonged to the secret imaginings that had once filled her +days were immoral. And this was different—being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> alone. So her living +on without her husband became an odd sort of infidelity, pleasant, +diverting.</p> + +<p>The year and a half passed bringing a rejuvenation to her body. Her +youth and its decline were buried in a coffin. Now at fifty-two she was +living again and creating out of the remains of her figure, coiffure and +complexion a new youth—at least a new exterior.</p> + +<p>The dreams of her earlier days returned to her and she no longer found +it necessary to deny them all reality. It had been necessary before in +order to keep herself fitted into the shell. And as a result her dreams, +denied any possibility of realization, had become like his, more and +more fantastic, more and more warmly improbable. Now there was no need +for a shell. There was no need to preserve an easily recognizable and +never failing characterization. She had done that before so as to avoid +confusing her husband and herself and she had been rewarded by a similar +ruse employed by him.</p> + +<p>Now that he was gone she found herself changing. She found herself +approaching the romantic conception of herself. And since she was able +to carry into reality her rejuvenated fancies, to devote herself to +looking stunning, to making a somewhat exotic impression upon people, to +arousing interest—her imaginings did not expand as before into +distorted and improbable pictures. She began to busy herself, to +actively give them outlet, to have time or surplus energies for the +evolution of fancies beyond her.</p> + +<p>She had no plans for the future and she was not interested in any. An +amazing fact had come into her life—the present. She abandoned herself +to it. She had harnessed what was left of the energies allowed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> so long +to evaporate and the process of evaporation was at an end. She would +become, if there was time, a keenly alive, egoistic woman gorging +herself upon the desserts remaining at the banquet board before which +she had sat for twenty-six years with closed eyes and listless hands.</p> + +<p>She felt these things only dimly. There was a freedom to life, like a +new taste in her senses. Of this she was confusedly aware. And her +sorrow for her dead husband became a pleasant thing, a thing inseparable +from the gratitude she unknowingly felt for the new existence his death +had given her.</p> + +<p>She referred to him with a pensively magnanimous air, inventing +perfections in his character and endowing his departed intelligence with +a wisdom far beyond her own. This enabled her to utilize his memory in +an odd way. When she argued with her friends or children, when she was +doubtful concerning the extravagance or selfishness of her actions, or +the newly born radicalism of her views, she would quote mercilessly from +her dead husband. The fact that he was dead lent a sanctity to whatever +views he may have held. Not in her own eyes but, as she shrewdly sensed, +in the eyes of others. And she grew to play unscrupulously upon this +thing she perceived in her children and friends—that they respected the +words and opinions of a dead man infinitely more than those of one +alive.</p> + +<p>Thus she was able to indulge herself in ways which would have astounded +and perhaps horrified the departed Basine and to bring her immediate +circle to accept these ways as conventionally desirable by making her +dead husband their spiritual sponsor. Her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> friends chafed under this +ruse, but felt themselves powerless to combat it. They were men and +women who lived on the opinions of the dead, who subscribed fanatically +to all ideas sanctified by the length of their interment. Themselves, +they practised the ruse of editing the wisdoms of the past as well as +prophecies of the future into vindications of the present. They felt +indignant but powerless before the treachery of Mrs. Basine, who raided +the mausoleum for private articles of faith.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine was aware at first of lying but this feeling gave way to a +conviction that if her husband had not thought and said the things she +attributed to him while he was alive he would have done so had he +continued to live.</p> + +<p>"Because," she said to herself, "we were always alike and thought and +said the same things always."</p> + +<p>Her son George was proud of his mother but inclined to be dubious about +the change that had come over her. He was irritated particularly one +evening to hear his mother advocate equal suffrage rights for women to a +group of surprised friends gathered at their home.</p> + +<p>"I think such ideas foolish and dangerous," George explained politely.</p> + +<p>"Why?" his mother inquired.</p> + +<p>Basine shook his head. He had given the subject no thought. But a +militant defense of the status quo inspired him always with a +comfortable feeling of rectitude.</p> + +<p>"I see no reason," pursued Mrs. Basine, "why women shouldn't vote as +well as men. I remember your father was very much interested in the +issue of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> women's suffrage. He said the day would come when women voted +shoulder to shoulder with men and that the country would be improved by +it."</p> + +<p>Basine stared at his mother. He had grown to realize that she had +discovered the trick of lending weight and irrefutable wisdoms to her +own notions by surrounding them with the sanctity of death. For it was +almost impossible to fly in the face of a quotation from his father. The +fact that the man was dead seemed to make contradiction of any ideas or +prophecies attributed to him a sacrilege. There was also the fact +becoming daily more obvious that his mother was turning into an +unscrupulous administrator of the dead man's opinions.</p> + +<p>"I never heard father say anything of the kind," he exclaimed suddenly. +And then feeling that a loss of temper was the only way in which he +could cover the affront he had offered his mother, he added with +indignation, "You keep backing up your arguments by dragging dad's +corpse into them all the time."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine looked at him in amazement, and he reddened. He apologized +quickly. Mrs. Basine, shocked by her son's unexpected penetration, bit +her lip and became silent. She let the argument pass, not without +observing that her friends present appeared for a moment to rally around +her son's exposè—as if he had given words to their own attitude. She +decided when she was alone again to be more careful. She loved her son +and felt a dread of sacrificing his respect. There was a dread also of +sacrificing the respect of these others who had looked at her for a +moment with an accusing understanding.</p> + +<p>There had been present a Mrs. Gilchrist, an old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> creature of oracular +senilities whom she had grown secretly to detest. But the detestation +she felt was accompanied by a vivid desire to keep in with the woman. +Mrs. Gilchrist was a person of position, decided position. Her son +Aubrey was a novelist. This alone endowed the Gilchrist tribe with an +aura of culture. They lived in Evanston and were active, mother and son, +in the social life of the town.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine was unable as yet to determine the reasons that made her +dislike her. In her secret mind she called Mrs. Gilchrist a domineering +old fool. But she stopped with that. There was the Gilchrist social +position.</p> + +<p>Society had always interested Mrs. Basine. But since her widowhood this +interest had become active. She had read the society columns of the +newspapers regularly and through the twenty-six years of her married +life retained the singular idea that the people whose names appeared in +these columns belonged to a closely knit organization similar to the +Masons—only of course, infinitely superior.</p> + +<p>The appearance of a new name among the list of socially known always +stirred an indignation in her. She was not a bounder herself. The +closely knit organization whose members poured tea, gave bazaars, +occupied boxes at the theater had been, in her mind, a fixed and +invulnerable institution neither to be taken by storm nor won by +strategy. Thus she had excused her lack of social ambition and success +by investing Society with an almost magical aloofness, a sort of +superhuman cotorie of tea pourers and benefit givers that kept itself +intact and beyond intrusion by the exercise of incredible diligence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<p>Among her day dreams during these years had been those of magnificent +social successes, of long newspaper articles describing with awe her +splendor and prestige. But in reality she would as soon have thought of +breaking into society as of attacking twelve policemen with a carving +knife. She resented therefore the appearance of new names in the society +columns.</p> + +<p>"Bounders," she would murmur to herself, half expecting that the +Organization into which they had bounded would issue some outraged and +withering excommunication upon the new tea pourer. But the name would +appear again and again and after such innumerable appearances Mrs. +Basine would automatically accept its presence within the Organization +and rally quixotically to its defense against the other bounders +struggling to invade the sanctity it had achieved.</p> + +<p>And although during this period of her life Mrs. Basine had felt none of +the low instincts which inspired the bounders to bound, she had +endeavored to the best of her abilities to mimic as much as a humble +outsider could the spiritual elegancies which distinguished the +Organization. She succeeded in creating a formal atmosphere about her +home, a dignity about her table of which she was modestly proud. She had +felt in secret that any member of the Organization entering her +house—an event of which she dreamed as a waveringly sophisticated child +might dream of a fairy's visit—would have experienced no dismay.</p> + +<p>Now this attitude which had characterized her married life was changing. +Society was no longer an impregnable Organization. Mrs. Basine was, in +fact,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> engaged determinedly upon its conquest and her attitude toward +the detestable Mrs. Gilchrist was colored by that fact. An +acquaintanceship with the Gilchrists had been achieved through +manœuverings of her daughters as workers in charity bazaars managed +by the woman.</p> + +<p>Until the death of her husband Mrs. Basine had ignored her two +daughters. A proprietory feeling in them which exhausted itself in +dictating the surface details of their lives had been the extent of her +interest. She had presumed during their childhood and adolescence that +they were Basines—and nothing else. This had guided her parenthood. +Being Basines, they must conform to Basinism which meant that they must +be like their mother or their father and she struggled carelessly to see +that their youth did not assert itself in ways inimical to her own +characterization. Doris the younger was inclined to be beautiful. Fanny, +however, had always seemed to her a more substantial person.</p> + +<p>But her widowhood had brought a belated curiosity concerning these young +women. She wondered at times what their dreams were. She understood that +they were strangers and this began to interest her. She was proud of +them and although undemonstrative would sometimes put her arms around +both of them as they walked to a neighbor's after dinner.</p> + +<p>They did not inspire the pride in her, however, that her son did. George +had finished his law and she felt as she listened to him talk or watched +his face at the table that he was somebody. There was an assurance and +health about him. His keen-featured face, the straight black hair parted +in the center, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> movements of his lithe body, always quick and +definite—and particularly his hands—these made her think of him +vaguely as an artist, somebody different. She knew in her heart that +although he seemed to differ in his ideas from none of their friends, he +was not like other young men.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C3" id="C3"></a>3</h2> + +<p>It was Sunday morning. Mrs Basine and her two daughters were sitting +down to breakfast. Hugh Keegan followed Basine embarrassedly into the +dining room. The two young men had been renovating themselves for an +hour in the bathroom.</p> + +<p>The meal started casually. Fanny Basine studied their guest with what +was meant to be a provoking carelessness. She was a facile virgin who +wooed men persistently and slapped their faces for misunderstanding her.</p> + +<p>"You've been quite a stranger, Mr. Keegan," she said. Her eyes smiled. +Keegan felt wretched. He was conscious of being unclean. The fresh, +virginal face of the girl smiling at him filled him with rage. He +accepted a waffle from Mrs. Basine with exaggerated formality.</p> + +<p>He was not enraged with himself. This was too difficult. It was easier, +simpler to be repentant. His repentance did not accuse him as a man who +had sinned but denounced the things which had caused him to sin and made +him unclean. To himself he was essentially perfect. There were forces, +however, which infringed upon his perfection, which soiled his fine +qualities.</p> + +<p>Eating his waffle, he thought of the creature with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> whom he had spent +the night, of the dismal bedroom, the frowsy smelling hallway, the +coarse talk and viciousness of the entire business. And he began to feel +a rage against them. He would like to wipe such things out of the world. +He managed to answer Miss Basine politely.</p> + +<p>"I've been out of town a great deal," he said.</p> + +<p>"George always said you were a gadfly," Fanny replied.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine spoke.</p> + +<p>"You look rather tired, George." She gazed pensively at her son. "I +don't like you to stay out all night like that."</p> + +<p>Basine frowned. What did his mother mean by that? Did she suppose he had +spent the night in debauchery? It sounded that way from the way she +looked and talked. Basine grew angry. He did not want his mother to +accuse him.</p> + +<p>"You don't expect a man to remain cooped up night and day, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't mind your going out. But not the way you did last night."</p> + +<p>She looked at him and then, as if realizing for the first time the +presence of her daughters, changed her manner.</p> + +<p>"Won't you have some syrup, Mr. Keegan."</p> + +<p>Keegan thanked her and lowered his eyes. He had understood her +accusation and accepted it as authentic. He had no mother of his own and +this inspired in him a curious sense of obedience toward all mothers he +encountered. Mrs. Basine's accusation embarrassed him. The embarrassment +increased his disgust for the memory of the night. He would like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> to +wipe out such obscene and vulgar things. He would like to burn them up, +forbid them. Someday he would.</p> + +<p>Basine, however regarded his mother with a sense of outrage. The fact +that her surmise of what he had done during the night was correct was a +matter of minor importance. She didn't know what he had done and +therefore she had no right to guess. He answered her angrily.</p> + +<p>"I did nothing at all last night that I wouldn't have my sisters do."</p> + +<p>His mother looked at him in surprise. Keegan blushed.</p> + +<p>"You're always hinting around, mother, about things and you're +absolutely wrong. Absolutely," he added for a clincher. His eyes +remained unflinchingly on his mother.</p> + +<p>There was a convincing air of virtue about him and a doubt entered her +mind. Perhaps she had suspected him unjustly. But he had been away all +night. She had heard him come in around six. Where could he have been if +not—in such places? Yet she felt like apologizing.</p> + +<p>Basine fiddled with his food. He was acting out the part of injured +innocence. He was an unprotesting martyr to the low suspicions of his +family. The fact that he was guilty in no way interfered with the +sincerity of his injured feelings. His mother's accusation had sincerely +hurt him, even more than it would had he been actually innocent of wrong +doing. He transferred whatever emotional guilt he had into indignation +toward his accuser.</p> + +<p>This was an old trick of his, developed early in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> childhood—a faculty +of committing crimes without becoming a criminal. More than Keegan, he +was above self-accusation. But unlike Keegan the doing of a thing he +knew to be wrong did not inspire him with the adroit remorse which took +the form of hating the thing he had done instead of himself.</p> + +<p>The crimes Basine committed—usually no greater than normal violations +of the ethical code to which he subscribed—were things that had nothing +to do with the real Basine. The real Basine was the Basine whom people +knew. The real Basine was a characterization he maintained for the +benefit of others. The crimes were his own secret. People didn't know +them. Therefor they did not exist. They remained locked away. He did not +say to himself, "Hypocrite! Liar!"</p> + +<p>When he denied his mother's accusation he did not of course forget the +things he had done during the night. In fact even while he spoke there +came to him a vivid memory of the prostitute.</p> + +<p>In disproving the existence of this memory he was not disproving it for +himself but for his mother. His energy as usual was bent toward +presenting a certain Basine for the admiration of another. The Basine he +sought to create for the admiration of his family was a moral and honest +man. When they seemed inclined to challenge this creation, their +suspicions angered him.</p> + +<p>His attitude was that of a creator toward a hostile critic. He +frequently lost his temper and denounced their suspicions as unjust, +unfair. And in his mind, conveniently clouded by indignation, they were. +Not to himself as he was, but to the self he insisted upon pretending at +the moment he was.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<p>This self was the Basine he was continually creating—a Basine that was +not based upon deeds or truths or facts but upon ideals. It was an ideal +Basine—a nobly edited version of his character. He believed in this +ideal Basine with a curious passion. This ideal Basine was a mixture of +lies, shams, perversions of fact. But that was only when you considered +him in relation to his creator—to its original. In his own mind it was +as absurd to consider this ideal Basine in relation to its creator as it +would have been for a critic of æsthetics to consider the merits of +Oscar Wilde's poetry in relation to the degeneracy of the man.</p> + +<p>Considered by himself, the ideal Basine was a person of inspiring +virtues. He was proud of the things he pretended to be, vicious in their +defense, unswerving in his efforts to inspire others with an +appreciation of these pretenses.</p> + +<p>His anger toward his mother ebbed as he noticed the doubt come into her +manner. She had hesitated for a moment in face of significant facts, in +accepting the ideal Basine. But her son's sincerity had convinced her as +it convinced most people who knew him. The sincerity with which he +defended the idealization of himself was easily to be mistaken for a +sincerity inspired by an innocence of actual wrong-doing.</p> + +<p>As soon as he felt certain he had re-established the ideal Basine in his +mother's eyes, all thoughts of the facts passed from him. The admiring +opinion of others was what his nature desired and what his energies +worked for. Once obtained this admiration was a mirror in which he saw +himself only as he had argued others into seeing him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> + +<p>He looked at his friend Keegan with a smile. Keegan was still blushing. +Keegan knew that he had lied and that the entire pose was a sham. But +this only added another thrill to the fleeting self-satisfaction of +having re-established himself in his family's eyes. He enjoyed the +knowledge that Keegan was able to see what a successful liar he was and +how adroitly he managed to deceive people. This enjoyment was not a part +of the emotion of the ideal Basine. It was a purely human sensation felt +by Basine, the creator.</p> + +<p>There was a single flaw in his little triumph. This was, as usual, the +attitude of his sister Doris. While the others were chattering Doris +kept silent. She had dark eyes and black hair. She was entirely unlike +anybody in the Basine family. Fanny was blonde and vivacious with a pout +and full red lips. Before the death of her husband Mrs. Basine had +summed up her daughter Doris as being aristocratic.</p> + +<p>At fifteen Doris had been painfully shy. People smiled encouragingly at +her because she seemed afraid of them. Four years later people ceased to +smile at her. They looked at her out of the corners of their eyes and +wondered what she was thinking about. Her silence was like a confusing +argument. Had it not been for her beauty her silence could easily have +been dismissed. But her dark eyes and dark hair, the slightly lowered +pose of her oval face and the unvarying line of her fresh lips with the +little sensual bulges at their corners, drew the attention of people. +And their attention drawn, they waited to be told something. So merely +because she told nothing they fancied she had a great deal to tell. They +attributed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> her silence all the doubts they had concerning +themselves. Silence was to them always accusation.</p> + +<p>Her brother's attitude toward Doris was typical. He detested her and yet +was more pleased when she nodded at something he said than when others +were loud with acclaim. He detested her because she made him feel she +was his superior. In what way she was superior he didn't know and why he +felt it he couldn't understand. But he sensed she was someone who had no +respect for the ideal Basine and no particular love for his creator.</p> + +<p>She had also a way of deflating him. He felt sometimes as a toy balloon +might feel in the presence of a child with a pin. He never ignored her. +He watched her always and studied her carefully. He did not desire to +please her but he felt that until he had perfected the ideal Basine to a +point where he would be acceptable to Doris, admired by Doris, his +creation would be lacking in something vital.</p> + +<p>As the breakfast came to an end her brother focused upon Doris. This was +invariably the effect of her silence. She was as yet unconscious of it. +Had you asked her why she spoke so little and why she neither smiled nor +frowned at people she would have thought a while and then with a shrug +replied, "Why, I hadn't noticed." Later when she was alone she would +have continued thinking of the question and perhaps said to herself, "It +must be because they don't interest me. They seem so silly and unreal."</p> + +<p>"What are you doing today?" Basine asked her.</p> + +<p>She answered, "Nothing." He noticed she failed to add, "Why?" He +resented her lack of curiosity. Fanny would have said, "Nothing. Why do +you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> ask?" But Fanny was a good fellow, a lively, amusing child.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Gilchrist and Aubrey are coming over later," Mrs. Basine +announced.</p> + +<p>"She makes me tired," Fanny smiled. "And somebody ought to pull dear +Aubrey's nose just to see if he's really alive. He's too dignified."</p> + +<p>Her brother nodded.</p> + +<p>"Do you know him?" Fanny asked Keegan.</p> + +<p>"Slightly," said Keegan. "I've read one or two of his books. They're +very interesting." He paused, hoping that everyone agreed with him. +Everyone did except Doris.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Dorie? Don't you like Aubrey's works?" her brother +asked. Doris smiled vaguely.</p> + +<p>"I've never read anything he's written," she said. "I don't know."</p> + +<p>Keegan looked at her uncomfortably. He felt he disliked her and he would +have been pleased to ignore her. But the fact that she seemed to have +anticipated him in this respect and to have ignored him first, piqued +him.</p> + +<p>"I think Judge Smith and Henrietta will be over later," Basine addressed +his mother. Judge Smith was the august and senior partner of the law +firm that had taken young Basine into its office.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Aubrey told me," Mrs. Basine said casually. "I think they're +engaged."</p> + +<p>"Who, Henrietta?" from Fanny.</p> + +<p>Her mother nodded. She stood up and the group sauntered into the living +room. Keegan approached Fanny. Her freshness made him feel sad.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Let's sit here," Fanny whispered as he drew near her. She employed the +whisper frequently. It usually brought a gleam into the eyes of her <i>vis +â vis</i> as if she had promised something.</p> + +<p>To appear to promise something was Fanny's chief object in life. It was +the basis of her growing popularity. The two sat down in a corner of the +room secluded from the others. Keegan had interested her. At least his +far-away, unappraising look had interested her. She preferred men more +appraising and less far-away. Her object now was to reduce her brother's +friend to an admirer. Admirers bored her. But the process of converting +strangers, particularly far-away and unappraising strangers, into +admirers was diverting.</p> + +<p>Keegan had other plans. A desire to repent aloud had been growing in +Keegan. The girl's bright face and virginal air had been inspiring him. +He wanted to tell her how unclean he was and how ashamed of the things +he had done. He wanted to denounce sin.</p> + +<p>He felt tired. Fanny talked and he listened. He wanted to weep. He +thought her fingers were beautiful and white. He would have liked to +kneel beside her weeping, his head against her and her cool white +fingers running over his face. It would be a sort of absolution—a +maternal absolution. In the meantime his silence piqued her.</p> + +<p>"You don't seem very interested in what I'm saying," she interrupted +herself. She looked at him and instinct supplied her with a new attack.</p> + +<p>"Where were you and George last night?" she asked. "Mother was furious +about it."</p> + +<p>Keegan looked sad. His blond face collapsed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Men are awful rotters," he answered, lowering his voice.</p> + +<p>"Oh I don't know. Not all men."</p> + +<p>"Yes. All men." Savagely.</p> + +<p>"Why do you say that?"</p> + +<p>"Because—" Keegan hesitated. Mysterious impulses were operating behind +his talk. The night's debauch had sickened him. He was experiencing that +depressing type of virtue which usually comes as a reaction from an +orgy. His indignation at the bestiality of the male and the moral +rotteness of life was a vindication of the temporary weakened state the +night had induced in him. By denouncing sex he excused the disturbing +absence of it in himself.</p> + +<p>He was however not content to vindicate the absence in himself of +sensual excitement. He would also make use of his lassitude by +translating the enervation it produced into self-ennobling emotions, +into purity, innate and triumphant. He experienced high-minded ideas and +an exaltation of spirit.</p> + +<p>"Because," he repeated, finding it difficult to choose words +sufficiently emasculated to reflect the phenomenal purity of his mind, +"well, if women knew, they would never talk to men. But women are so +good, that is, decent women, that they simply don't understand and can't +understand ... what it is."</p> + +<p>"About bad men?" Fanny whispered. Keegan nodded.</p> + +<p>"And are all men bad?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Again Keegan nodded, this time more sadly. It was a nod of confession +and purity. In it he felt his obscene past and his pious future embrace +each other,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> one whispering "forgive" and the other whispering "yes, +yes. All is forgiven."</p> + +<p>Tears warmed his throat. Fanny's eyes looked at him with an odd +excitement. Her mind was as always conveniently blank of thought. +Thoughts would have served only to embarrass and handicap her. She was +able to enjoy herself more easily without thinking. It was a ruse which +enabled her to regard herself as a clean-minded girl.</p> + +<p>Young men had frequently taken advantage of her kindness and grown bold. +They would during a tender embrace sometimes take liberties or draw her +close and press themselves against her. It was at this point that her +mind would awake like a burglar alarm suddenly set off. It rang and +clanged—an outraged and intimidating ding-dong of virtuous platitudes +which she had incongruously rigged up in the sensual warmth of her +nature. But lately the mechanism by which she routed her would-be +seducers did not quite satisfy her.</p> + +<p>At twenty she had grown fearful. When she was younger the men she led on +were no more than boys. The mechanism had sufficed for them. But the +last two years had witnessed a change in her would-be seducers. They had +grown up, these males. She remembered always uncomfortably a young man +who had burst into laughter during her outraged denunciation of him. He +had said to her.</p> + +<p>"Listen, girl. If I wanted you, all I would have to do is tell you to +shut up and slap your face. And you would. Your 'how dare you?' don't go +with me. I've known too many girls like you. But I don't want you. Not +after this. If it'll do you any good I'll tell you now that I won't +forget you for a long time. Whenever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> I want a good laugh I'll think of +you. There's a name for your kind...."</p> + +<p>And he had used a phrase that nauseated her. The incident had occurred +on a Sunday evening in the hallway. He had reached up, taken his hat +from the rack and without further comment walked out.</p> + +<p>Fanny had spent the night weeping with shame. The memory of the young +man's words made spooning impossible for a month. She was essentially an +honest person and unable to do a thing she knew was wrong. Her only hope +of pleasing herself and indulging her growing sensuality lay in +remaining sincerely oblivious to what she was doing. As long as the +man's words stuck in her memory it was impossible to remain oblivious. +They had awakened no line of reasoning or self-accusation in her mind. +Her mind was still conveniently blank. The youth's denunciation lay like +a foreign substance in it, a substance which fortunately time was able +to dissolve.</p> + +<p>After a month of embittered virtue Fanny returned warily to her former +tactics. She was cautious enough to begin with men as young as herself.</p> + +<p>One night in April she gave her lips again. They had been making candy +in the kitchen. She turned the light out as they were leaving. The young +man stood in front of her in the dark. His arms went shyly around her. +With a satisfied thrill, she shut her eyes and allowed the boy to kiss +her. A languor overcame her. She ran her fingers through his hair and +gently pressed closer to him.</p> + +<p>The warning sounded sooner than usual, and in a surprising way. It came +from within this time. The boy had not grown bold. He was enjoying her +lips<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> shyly and his embrace was almost that of a dancing partner. +Nevertheless the burglar alarm clang-clanged. Her body had grown hot. +The impulse to crush herself against the boy, to open her mouth, to +embrace him fiercely, throbbed in her, and bewildering sensations were +bursting unsatisfactory warmths in her blood.</p> + +<p>She hesitated. She might secretly yield to these demands. He would +remain unaware of it and there would be no danger. But the alarm finally +penetrated the fog of her senses. She was unable this time to shut off +the current of her passion by the burst of sudden virtuous anger. The +mechanism of her retreat had always been simple—a trick of turning her +sensual excitement into indignation, of energizing the virtuous +platitudes rigged up in her mind by the passion the caresses had +stirred. The greater this passion, the more violently her pulse beat, +the more violently the platitudes would clang and the more outraged her +"how dare you?" would sound.</p> + +<p>But it was impossible to say anything this time. Her hands pushed +suddenly at the politely amorous youth. His embrace skipped from her as +if it had been waiting for such a remonstrance. She stood with her head +whirling. She felt limp and ill at ease.</p> + +<p>"Don't you love me?" the young man whispered. The lameness of his voice +would ordinarily have made her smile. But now the words seemed to draw +her. She wanted to answer them, to say, "yes." For the moment it seemed +as if she must confess she loved this impossible young man. She walked +quickly out of the dark hallway. In the lighted room she was ashamed of +herself. Her body tingled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> with unaccountable pains. She managed to +survive the evening without revealing herself. She was grateful for the +youth's stupidity.</p> + +<p>When she lay in bed she closed her eyes firmly and tried to sleep. But +her body disturbed her. Sensations that lured and frightened played +furtively throughout it. She lay stretching and sighing. Later, overcome +with a nervous weariness, she fell asleep.</p> + +<p>On awaking she remembered her triumph and felt proud. In retrospect the +sensations she had felt and the temptations that had urged her seemed +distasteful.</p> + +<p>Years before she had rationalized her behavior toward young men by +inventing a code. The code was based on the fact that hugging and +kissing and the pleasure these inspired were in no way connected with +"the other." When she thought of more intimate relations it was always +in some such phrase. She was completely ignorant of the physiological +mechanics of marriage. But her ignorance inspired no curiosity. She did +not think of it as a logical culmination of the feeling embraces gave +her. She had a definite attitude toward "the other." It was a thing +separated from her numerous experiences by a gulf. There was only one +bridge across—marriage.</p> + +<p>Keegan interested her. Since the incident of the embarrassed young man +with whom she had made candy in the kitchen, she had been secretly on +the lookout for someone like him. She wanted someone with whom she could +repeat the startling experience of that other evening without letting +herself into danger. Someone who would remain oblivious to the passion +his caresses aroused and so allow her to enjoy slyly the sensations +whose memory had never left her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<p>She looked around the room. Doris had gone upstairs and George was not +to be seen. Her mother was reading behind a large table.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, why are men bad?" she asked in a whisper. Her blue eyes were +wide. An air of altruistic sorrow surrounded her. She grieved for men. +The question appealed to Keegan. His eyes grew moist. He was unable to +understand this impulse to weep. But somehow it was pleasant.</p> + +<p>"They're not bad," he answered softly. "It's only that they don't +realize till too late. If all women were like you, there would be no bad +men."</p> + +<p>"Oh, then it's the woman's fault?"</p> + +<p>Keegan nodded but said, "Not exactly. It's like figuring which came +first into the world, the egg or the chicken that laid it. It's hard +telling whether women are bad because men have made them so or whether +men are bad because women give them chances to be. That is, that kind of +women, you know."</p> + +<p>He felt elated at his tolerance. A few minutes ago he had been +denouncing bad women in his mind. But now it pleased him to be broader. +Fanny was looking at him with cheeks flushed. Her mother had risen.</p> + +<p>"I think I'll go to church," Mrs. Basine said. "Do you want to come +along."</p> + +<p>"Not today, mother dear," Fanny answered. Keegan was on his feet.</p> + +<p>"If you want to," he offered gallantly to the girl.</p> + +<p>"I usually love to," Fanny sighed. "But I don't feel quite like it +today. You go along, mother."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine smiled and left the room. Fanny heard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> her brother talking +in the hall.... "I think I'll go with you, mother." She listened to +Keegan in silence, waiting for the outer door to close. Now they were +alone except for Doris, upstairs.</p> + +<p>"I know how you must feel about it," she said. "But I don't understand +how a man like you or George can do such things. It must be awful." She +paused, blushing and added in a whisper, "Horrible!"</p> + +<p>Keegan nodded and felt overcome as he watched her shudder and draw her +shoulders nervously together. He covered his face with his hands. This +was, he felt, being almost too dramatic—to hide his face. But his +virtue demanded dramatics. He wanted to talk facts now, confess facts. +By denouncing what he had done during the night he would increase his +present emotion of chastity.</p> + +<p>"Don't," he said, "lets talk of it."</p> + +<p>His eyes grew wet again. He was tired. If only life were as clean as +this girl he was talking to.... If only life were beautiful and chaste. +And there were no sex. No sin. Men and women just sweet friends. But +life was different. It was full of unclean things. He couldn't help it, +what he did. He didn't want to do it. But life surrounded him that way +with things unclean. He wept.</p> + +<p>Fanny hesitated. Her face had grown colored and her nerves were alive. +She must do something. Her fingers desired to caress Keegan's hair and +she thought how nice it would be to be kissed by him. But she resolutely +barred further thoughts from her mind. It was wrong to think about such +things. Fanny's code would allow her to do nothing wrong—if she knew +it. She leaned forward impulsively. He was sitting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> on a window seat. +Her hands touched his covered face.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't," she said.</p> + +<p>He was sorry for life, for its uncleanliness. He would like to go +somewhere far away where clean clouds and a beautiful sea were just as +God had made them. And there he would like to sit with this girl, their +hearts beautifully sad.</p> + +<p>She stroked his hair shyly with maternal fingers. He felt the caress and +his heart melted. Its sin poured out leaving him exaltedly cleansed. +Yes, she understood him, the ache of repentance in his soul, the +nostalgia for cleanliness that hurt him so. She understood and she was +telling him so with her fingers.</p> + +<p>"Poor boy," she whispered because he was weeping. "I'm so sorry. You +won't, again? Ever? Will you?"</p> + +<p>"No," Keegan mumbled tremulously.</p> + +<p>It was easy and exalting to confess and promise in this way, without +mentioning anything by name. Just by sound.</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad," she whispered, as if they were in church, "if I have done +that for you...."</p> + +<p>"You have," he agreed. "I feel like a ... like a dog."</p> + +<p>"Don't...."</p> + +<p>Her fingers were playing over his cheek. She could be bold. A man in +tears was harmless. She stood up with determination and sat down close +beside him. She took his head in her hands and looking with clear +understanding eyes into his, shook her head sadly.</p> + +<p>"You need a rest," she whispered. "Here ... rest like this."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<p>She placed his head as if he were a child on her shoulder. Keegan's +heart contracted with remorse at the innocence of the gesture. Her +purity was something poignant. He closed his eyes and drifted into an +innocuous satisfaction. This was a realization of his hopes for purity. +He recalled with bitterness the filthy embraces of the night. How +superior this was, how much cleaner.</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute," Fanny murmured, a wholesome matter-of-fact maternalism +in her voice, "you lie down and rest ... like this."</p> + +<p>She assumed the proprietory gestures remembered from her childhood when +she had "played house" with little boys and girls, and guided Keegan to +stretch his legs on the window seat. He grinned apologetically. Fanny +sat down and placed his head in her lap, her hands gently caressing his +hair.</p> + +<p>"Now sleep," she murmured. "There's nobody in the house and you can get +a good long rest."</p> + +<p>Keegan shut his eyes. A blissful enervation stole over him. His heart +felt grateful. She was like a mother might be. Everyone had a mother +except him.</p> + +<p>"You're so kind," he sighed.</p> + +<p>He had known Fanny for several months only and had never talked to her +alone before. But now it seemed to him she was his oldest and most +intimate friend. Because she understood. He thought of her as a +companion of his better self. The warmth of her lap soothed him. +Unaware, he dropped into a half doze.</p> + +<p>The man's head lying heavily against her body began to stir her senses. +She made certain first that he was not pressing himself against her. No, +he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> merely lying naturally. A tenderness grew in her heart. She +murmured to herself, "Poor boy, poor boy."</p> + +<p>This wasn't quite as it had been in the kitchen that evening. The murmur +continued as her face grew flushed and she breathed unevenly. She wanted +to stretch and sigh.</p> + +<p>Keegan stirred. A fear came that he realized her sensations. He was +playing possum. No. She watched his eyes open and noted their stare of +filmy tenderness.</p> + +<p>"You're so sweet," he whispered.</p> + +<p>She smiled pitifully at him and said, "Rest. Just rest. I feel so sorry +for you."</p> + +<p>In fact, imposed upon the excitement which the pressure of his head +against her aroused, was a feeling of Samaritan pity. However, she +wondered without displacing this emotion of altruistic concern for the +young man, how far she dared go. She wished that his hands would touch +her but they would have to stand up for that.</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>She moved Keegan's head gently away.</p> + +<p>"I thought I heard someone."</p> + +<p>Slipping to her feet she stared eagerly toward the door. Keegan +straightened himself. He looked at her drowsily.</p> + +<p>"It's no one," she smiled. Her eyes covered him with tender interest. He +thought of some picture of a saint—Saint Cecelia or someone like that.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go up in George's room?" she asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> + +<p>She gave him her hand as if to assist him in a comradely way to rise. He +stood up slowly.</p> + +<p>"You don't know what you've done for me," he began, "you're so different +... so good."</p> + +<p>She smiled and made a pretense of assisting him further by passing her +arm gently around him.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what it is," he murmured. He stopped. His heart was +hurting him with longing. He was unclean. But this beautiful saint would +cleanse him, purify him. She was a part of life he desired—the clean +things. But he was afraid. How could he after last night, how could he +dare? She would certainly misunderstand if he touched her. She would +think he was a scoundrel.</p> + +<p>"Fanny," he whispered.</p> + +<p>She looked at him with intensely tender eyes as a mother might regard a +forgiven child. He embraced her, his hands resting only lightly on her +back.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me," he mumbled. "But everything's so rotten. I feel like such +a cad after what I've done. You ... you make me almost happy again."</p> + +<p>His mind was pleasantly fogged. He was thinking of himself as a +despicable sinner receiving mysterious absolution.</p> + +<p>She said nothing but let herself come closer. She was adroit and he +remained unaware that she had pressed herself tautly against him. He was +concerned entirely with the purity of his caress. He read in her eyes +and flushed face a forgiveness, an absolution. Her grip on him that had +grown firm was the grip of a woman raising him out of the Hell in which +he had wallowed. His senses, deadened by debauch, failed to detect the +pressure of her clinging.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<p>She could dare. An intensity came slowly into her nerves. She would like +to move, to crush herself against him. But she managed to restrain +herself. She began to weep.</p> + +<p>"Don't," he whispered. "You mustn't. I'm ... I'm not as bad as all +that."</p> + +<p>She managed to say, "Oh ... I feel so sorry for you. It just hurts me to +... to think of you like that. Promise me you'll never again.... +Please.... Promise me.... Promise me...."</p> + +<p>Her words, despite her, grew wild. She raised her eyes feverishly and, +tightening her arms, pressed herself to him. The man's harmlessness had +betrayed her. She continued to weep, "Promise me ... you'll never ... be +bad like that again...."</p> + +<p>Her emotion reaching its depth sent a delicious sense through her. She +embraced him for a moment. In the receding fog of her satisfied impulse +she heard him answering, tears in his voice.</p> + +<p>"You're so sweet.... So wonderful. Oh, forgive me.... I'll never be bad +again.... Forgive me...."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C4" id="C4"></a>4</h2> + +<p>Judge Percival Smith was a fastidious gentleman who boasted of his age +as a contrast to his virility.</p> + +<p>"Sixty-two," he pronounced impressively. And he would wait for people to +look at him in amazement, fortunately unaware of the fact that they had +thought him at least seventy.</p> + +<p>His wife had died when he was forty-six. She had never managed to +understand him, chiefly because he had remained polite to her through +eighteen years of marriage. She had grown to regard him with awe.</p> + +<p>Her friends always referred to him as a gentleman—a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> gentleman of the +old school. This was because he had a deep voice and enunciated clearly +and professed a consistent preference for the days when men were men and +women were women.</p> + +<p>His friends mistook the clarity of his enunciation for a clarity of +thought—an error which found social vindication in the fact that he had +been on the bench nine years. Aside from his consistent preference, his +views on current issues were also those of a gentleman. Why, it was +difficult to determine. But he supplied their identity himself by +clinching his arguments with the question, "I don't see, sir, how a +gentleman can think otherwise."</p> + +<p>He was often considered old fashioned. But he was admired for this. In +discussing religion he would say:</p> + +<p>"I am not one to quibble with my Maker or with any of His holy +decisions. I believe absolutely in the gospel of infant damnation. A +religion with loopholes is not a religion. Either there is a God or +there isn't. If there is and you accept Him then you accept Him. You do +not argue with Him. I don't see, sir, how a gentleman can think +otherwise."</p> + +<p>Concerning women he would say:</p> + +<p>"Women represent the finer things of life. Not for them the turmoil and +strife of economic battle. Their function in the scheme of things is +obvious, sir. They were placed in the world by a wise Maker in order to +bring sweetness, purity and light to bear upon the strivings of man. A +woman's hearthstone is her altar. No, they are not the equal of man. +They are his complement. Man is gross. Woman is fine and sweet. I do not +believe in any of these disgusting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> ideas which seek to lower her from +the altar she now occupies in the eyes of all gentlemen."</p> + +<p>When he delivered himself of these utterances he managed always to give +to them the certainty of a man who was pronouncing judgments. He was +admired for this certainty. People who felt doubts in their minds were +always pleased to hear the Judge make pronouncements. They felt that it +was impossible that a man who spoke so clearly, whose eye looked so +unflinchingly at one and whose manners were so perfect, could be wrong.</p> + +<p>He might not be quite as modern as some folks but he knew what he was +talking about. He was the stentorian and impressive interpreter to them +of a world they understood. The ideas which flourished in this world +were in the main dead or dying. But this fact only lent a further +impressiveness to them and to him.</p> + +<p>People who sought to argue with Judge Smith usually ended by stuttering +and growing red-faced. They felt as they talked and watched his blue +eyes narrowing and his lips tightening, that they were talking +themselves outside of the pale. His silence became an excommunication. +They read ostracism in his frown and began to fumble for words, trying +to propitiate him in one breath while presenting their side of the case +to him in another. But he was not to be deceived by this ruse. He would +sit poised and grimly attentive like a man judiciously enduring the +presence of blasphemy but under great emotional strain. When they +concluded, it was frequently unnecessary for him to offer counter +arguments. His opponents felt their defeat in the knowledge of his +superiority,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> not as a thinker, but his superiority as a man of +inviolable standards, his superiority as a gentleman.</p> + +<p>In eighteen years of close contact his wife had never penetrated the +shell of certitude and personal elegance within which the judge moved. +During their hours of intimacy he revealed himself as a man of normal +passions. But even during these he was solicitous, unbending and a +gentleman.</p> + +<p>In the morning, dressed, his white napkin tucked under his ruddy face he +would be again—Judge Smith.</p> + +<p>She had tried several times early in their marriage to carry the +intimacy of the bedroom to the breakfast table. He had listened to her +endearments and furtive reminiscences at such moments with eyes +seemingly incapable of comprehending and she had felt each time that her +talk was obscene, and grown frightened.</p> + +<p>Her death brought no perceptible change in Judge Smith's life. He +continued a gentleman. His name appeared at intervals in the newspapers +as having gone to Washington to argue a case before the Supreme Court. +His friends felt on reading this that the Supreme Court was an +institution perfectly fitted to him. It was hard to imagine anybody but +a man who looked and acted like Judge Smith arguing a case in the +Supreme Court.</p> + +<p>The Smith home, a brownstone house in Prairie Avenue, was occupied by +the Judge, his daughter Henrietta and a housekeeper. Henrietta had +finished boarding school at nineteen. She had since then busied herself +as an assistant housekeeper. At twenty-one she impressed people with +being as naive and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> fresh as a girl of seventeen. It was hard to think +of her as in her twenties.</p> + +<p>She was a round-eyed, round-faced child with fluffy blonde hair, a +small-boned body and a general air of juvenile fragility. She talked +very little but bubbled with exclamations of delight, excitement, +enthusiasm, astonishment. These she was continually employing, +regardless of their incongruity. She greeted people with delight, +saying.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I'm so glad to see you! Isn't it wonderful?" And managed to scatter +a dozen exclamation marks through the sentences. If one said to her, +"Did you see Sothern and Marlowe last week?" she replied excitedly, "Oh +no! I missed them! I'm so sorry! Aren't they wonderful?"</p> + +<p>Asked for an opinion of a new hat she would exude the same exclamation +marks in, "Oh! It's simply too adorable for words! I'm just mad about +it!"</p> + +<p>And to such a remark as, "I read in the paper the other day that +President Roosevelt went fishing," she would offer a wide-eyed stare and +exclaim, overcome with astonishment, "Why! Gracious! Is that so! Isn't +that awfully funny!" And incomprehensibly, she would laugh as if +overcome with mirth.</p> + +<p>People regarded her as a charmingly vivacious, well-mannered girl. Her +exclamations pleased them by lending an importance to their small +talk—a small talk which constituted nearly the whole of their +conversational lives. Her explosive banalities invigorated them. They +said of her:</p> + +<p>"Judge Smith's daughter is so alive. She's so fresh and young and so +enthusiastic."</p> + +<p>Henrietta thought her father the greatest and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> most important man in the +world. She called him "FATHer," stressing the first syllable in a manner +that distinguished him from all other fathers. Her admiration satisfied +the judge. He demanded of her only obedience, respect and chastity. +Since she gave him these he looked upon her as a shining example of true +womanhood.</p> + +<p>To have searched for an inner life in Henrietta would have been +difficult. She was unaware of any other Henrietta than the surface she +presented. There was no secret calculation behind her manner. Her body +at twenty-one was still as undisturbed by desires as her mind was by +thought.</p> + +<p>She was physically and mentally vacuous and the words that sometimes ran +in her mind were parrotings of things she had heard. Her days passed in +a pleasant maze of trifles in which she exhausted her energies. Her +manner of enthusiasm and astonishment was sincere. In her exaggerated +exclamations the energies of her youth merely found a necessary and +utterly respectable outlet. Her banalities were too vigorous to be aught +but authentic and original. They were the enviably correct flower of her +personality.</p> + +<p>The judge, however, had a side to his nature generally unsuspected among +his friends. He was a drinker. He owed the resonant slowness of his +speech, in fact, to the ravages of drink. His poise, his intimidating +deliberateness were likewise the result of drink. His mind had been +somewhat enervated and the spontaneity of his nerves somewhat impaired +by thirty years of intensive drinking.</p> + +<p>His words followed his thoughts slowly and his gestures were moments +behind the commands of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> brain centers. This general slowing up, the +result of nerve exhaustion induced by his orgies, was readily accepted +by his friends as an impressiveness of manner.</p> + +<p>In arguments he found himself frequently unable to follow the nimble +phrases of an opponent. His resort to silence—a silence made seemingly +pregnant by certain mannerisms such as a tightening of his lips, a +drawing down of his nose, and a narrowing of his eyes, which were +actually an effort to ward off a sleepiness continually hovering over +him—this silence was a successful substitute.</p> + +<p>Mainly the judge kept his orgies to himself. During his married life he +had adroitly covered them up as business trips—cases in other cities. +His habit was to start off at his club, to sit among a half dozen men +whose type he found agreeable and drink slowly during the early part of +the evening. The talk would gradually veer from politics and legal +discussions to women and anecdotes. In these the judge excelled. His +fund of obscene stories was amazing. He related them with relish and was +proud of an ability to talk several dialects such as German, Irish, +Yiddish, Scotch and Swedish.</p> + +<p>Among his club cronies his drinking and alcoholic waggery in no way +reflected upon his status as a gentleman of absolute respectability and +discretion. In fact they enhanced it. Among the judge's friends were +lawyers of repute, financiers, and owners of large manufacturing plants. +They were men usually past fifty. Their comradeship was based chiefly on +their recognition of each other's prestige.</p> + +<p>The publicity that had attended their lives gave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> them all an identical +stamp, a self-consciousness. They felt themselves instinct with power, +and bent the greater part of their social energies to appearing +democratic. They desired, as much as they desired anything, the flattery +which lay in the comment, "Oh, he's very democratic. Just plain ordinary +folks." They felt an exciting inference in this criticism. The inference +was that, considering their power and superiority, one had to marvel at +the fact of their dissimulation—their democracy. Thus they relished +always lending themselves to projects, to situations which earned for +them the awed avowal of inferiors that they were "just folks."</p> + +<p>A certain shrewdness as well as flattery which inspired them. They were +aware that people often preferred confessing the superiority of their +betters by admitting in awe that "after all, he's just like us, in many +respects."</p> + +<p>On occasions when a group of them gathered at their club they stepped +partly out of the characterizations of great men which they affected +during most of their day. Drinking, taking their turns telling stories +or pointing up incidents by the "did you ever hear the one about the +Swede who went to a picnic with his best girl" method, they always +welcomed Judge Smith. They were inclined to overlook a few things in his +favor. If he did seem to have an unnecessary fund of smutty tales, there +was on the other hand the fact that he was a judge and therefore above +the anecdotes he told. Like the judge, they too were men with firmly +rooted convictions on the subject of morality and if they laughed at +stories over their highballs that flouted decency and made a mock of +virtue there was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> this exonerating factor to be considered. Men sure of +themselves and subscribing unflinchingly to the uncompromising standards +of conduct necessary to maintain the morale of the community, such men +could without danger unbend among themselves. For morality was in its +deepest sense, the protection of others and not of one's self.</p> + +<p>As the group thinned out on such occasions Judge Smith would rise and in +the manner of a man returning to the higher and more important duties of +life bid his fellows good-night.</p> + +<p>"A very pleasant evening, gentlemen," he would pronounce, "but duty +calls."</p> + +<p>He would bow stiffly. Long drinking had made him master to an +astonishing point of his physical being while under the influence of +drink. Bowing, he would walk with dignity from the room, emerge into the +street and enter one of the cabs.</p> + +<p>A half-hour later would find him disporting himself in one of his +favorite disorderly houses. Here with the aid of further drink the judge +became a curious spectacle. He was generally hailed in the places that +knew him as "the wild old boy". And his arrival although greeted with +enthusiasm was a matter of secret chagrin to the landladies of his +acquaintance.</p> + +<p>It was his habit to indulge in filthy insults, hurling astounding +obscenities at the half-drunken inmates. He would frequently become +violent and throw bottles around, break mirrors and electric bulbs and +smash chairs. It was difficult to grow angry with him at such times +because he covered his violences and insults with a continuous roar of +laughter as if they were actually the product of a vast Rabelaisian good +humor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> + +<p>His insults, the obscene invective he hurled at the partners in his +orgy, were a curious phase. They were the product of a process of +projection. His normal mind, still alive under the paralysis of alcohol, +pronounced these outraged denunciations of his behavior against himself. +His virtue and decency cried a savage disgust and he must rid himself of +these cries, find an outlet for his self-revulsions, if he desired to +continue the debauch which was also an outlet for things inside +him—things that slept too violently under the repressions of his shell.</p> + +<p>Thus he rationalized his two selves by giving voice to the terrific +protests of his virtue. Simultaneously he hid himself from their object +by fastening the insults that poured into his thought upon those around +him. The women explained among each other in their own words that he was +a filthy old man and ought to be ashamed of himself.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C5" id="C5"></a>5</h2> + +<p>It was afternoon. Mrs. Basine listened to Judge Smith explaining the new +moving pictures that were being shown at the vaudeville theaters.</p> + +<p>"It's all part of the craze for new things," he was saying, "and these +awful pictures are merely a fad. There is nothing of basic appeal for +Americans in them and they'll die out in a year or so."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine was always impressed by the judge. He had three days before +been on one of his debauches. His manner as a result was heavier and his +words slower. After one of his wild nights the judge sought to efface +the memory of the uncleanliness by heightening his personal appearance. +He would indulge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> himself in Turkish baths, facial massages, hair +shampoos, manicures and changes of linen during the day.</p> + +<p>The sight of himself immaculately dressed, spotless, his face, collar, +nails and shoes shining, gave him a feeling of reassurance. Clothes and +appearance had more and more become a fetish with him until he had +developed into a fop. There was a certain passion in his demand for +cleanliness. A disordered tie would mysteriously depress him. A spot on +his trousers or shoes would preoccupy him until its removal. Once while +on his way from the theater he had been splashed by a horse. Unaware of +the accident at the time he had gone to a restaurant. There he had +noticed the condition of his clothes. The mud had reached as high as his +shoulder. A nausea overcome him. He hurried to the lavatory and cleaned +his clothes.</p> + +<p>His daughter admired her father for his fastidiousness. She looked upon +all other men as somewhat sloppy in comparison.</p> + +<p>"It isn't just that father dresses well," she said, "but he's so +particular about everything. About his plates and forks, and his bedroom +must be bright as a new pin. Oh, it's just wonderful for a man to be +thoroughly clean like that."</p> + +<p>Although the judge had spoken to Mrs. Basine it was her son who +answered.</p> + +<p>"I saw the pictures at the vaudeville the other evening," he said, "and +I quite agree with you, Judge."</p> + +<p>The judge nodded pleasantly. He liked Basine and had already prophesied +a future for him. Henrietta was informing Doris of the trouble they were +having with the church choir.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Dr. Blossom," she was saying, "is just absolutely at his wits' end. We +can't get anybody ... anybody at all that's at all suitable."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Gilchrist and Aubrey are coming over," Mrs. Basine remarked to the +judge. She was unable to keep a sound of pride out of her voice.</p> + +<p>"A very fine woman. An exceptionally fine woman," he answered. Mrs. +Basine nodded.</p> + +<p>Basine sat down beside his sister Doris. He was interested in Henrietta. +The news of her approaching engagement had exhilarated this interest. He +had been a half-hearted wooer himself when he first came out of college. +As she rattled on he was thinking, "She has nice eyes. She probably +doesn't love Aubrey." He thought of Aubrey. A putty-faced, swell-headed +fool. He could put it all over him, even as a writer, if he wanted to.</p> + +<p>"I hear," he said aloud, "that you and Aubrey are engaged or almost +engaged."</p> + +<p>"Why the idea! Gracious!" A disturbed giggle. "Where on earth did you +hear that! Father hasn't announced it yet."</p> + +<p>"A little bird," smiled Basine. Doris looked at him and frowned.</p> + +<p>"What do you say we pop some corn," he announced.</p> + +<p>One of Basine's most engaging facilities was an ability to reflect in +his own words and actions the character of those to whom he talked. +Judge Smith regarded him as a young man of stable ideas and profound +seriousness. Henrietta looked upon him as a charming, light-hearted +youth who was able "to play." There were others to whom he appealed +separately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> as a young man of culture, modern to his finger tips; as a +man of pious kindliness; as a man interested exclusively in politics, in +economics, in literature, in women. His pose was seemingly at the mercy +of his audience. He did not deliberately seek to make himself agreeable +by presenting exteriors acceptable to his friends. His proteanism was in +the main unconscious. It was the result of an underlying desire to +impress men and women he knew with his superiority.</p> + +<p>He had found instinctively that a short cut to such impression was not +contradictions but agreement. But he would not merely say "yes" and +please his listener by subscribing whole-heartedly to the ideas or +points of view under discussion. He would take these ideas and points of +view and develop them, show with a sincere creative enthusiasm why they +were correct and how astoundingly correct they were.</p> + +<p>He was usually cleverer than the people with whom he agreed. This made +it possible for him to develop their ideas, to add to them, supply them +with nuances and far-reaching overtones of which their originators had +had no inkling. When he had finished they would find themselves warmly +applauding what he had said, admiring his sanity and intelligence.</p> + +<p>It was no longer Basine who agreed with them. They agreed with Basine +and each of them went away saying, "A remarkable young man. Full of very +fine, worthwhile ideas and able to express himself."</p> + +<p>They were conscious while praising him that they were also praising +themselves. Although they were unaware of the adroit theft committed by +Basine and unable to follow the way in which he filched their little +prejudices and inflated them to noble proportions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> with his cleverness, +they felt a kinship with the young man. Their inferior egoism did not +demand recognition as collaborator. They were warmed with the emotion of +being <i>en rapport</i> with someone whom they admired. So often clever +people were people with whom, somehow, one had little or nothing in +common. But Basine was a clever person with whom everyone seemingly had +everything in common. And they were delighted to have things in common +with a clever man.</p> + +<p>There were occasions on which Basine's cleverness was put to a difficult +test. These came when a number of people, each of whom knew him +differently, to each of whom he had identified himself as a champion of +divergent opinions, assembled in his presence. Basine, it usually +happened, was the friend in common and therefore the pivot of the vague +debates which sometimes started—the awkward exchange of half-remembered +arguments which constituted the intellectual life of his friends, as the +make-believe of "playing house" had constituted their adult life when +they were children.</p> + +<p>But at such times Basine revealed his interesting talents as a +compromiser, fence straddler, pacifier. Without espousing any of the +sides presented, without denial or affirmation, he managed to convince +the assembledge that he was a champion of all and detractor of none. He +pretended a worldly tolerance, saying such things as:</p> + +<p>"Well now, there are always two sides to a question. And a man who +closes his mind to either side is likely as not to find himself in the +dark. What Henning says is interesting. I can entirely understand it +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> see the reasons for it. He sees the thing in a clear, definite +manner. Yet what Stoefel says is also interesting and, of course, +entertaining. I don't mean that I believe two sides to a question can +both be the right sides. But it's my experience that there's an element +of truth as well as of error in both sides. And I'm not so convinced +that Henning and Stoefel actually differ. Often people meaning the same +thing get into violent arguments because they misunderstand each other."</p> + +<p>In this way he would convince both his friends that they were both men +of intelligence, which is more flattering than being merely men of +intelligent views. And, what was more important, he would give the +listeners the impression of a calm, deliberative Basine, not to be taken +in by the tricks of prejudice and speech which caused men to knock their +heads together in endless argument.</p> + +<p>Henrietta accompanied him into the kitchen in quest of corn to pop. +Doris remained behind, staring disinterestedly at the judge who was +talking to her mother. She had noticed something about the man that +displeased her. She kept it, however, to herself. When he shook hands +with her he assumed a paternal manner. He said to her:</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear child, and how are you today? Serious as ever, I see. I +understand that you and my little girl had quite an interesting time at +the choir practice Saturday evening. Dear me, you will both soon be +grown up and young ladies before I'm aware of it."</p> + +<p>He talked with a kittenish banter in his voice as if he were patting a +child of five on the head. But he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> held her hand during his entire +speech and his soft finger tips pressed moistly into her palm. It was +hard at first to detect but after a long time Doris understood. Fanny +had told her in an unsolicited confession that young men did that when +they wanted to be familiar with a girl. It was a familiarity which only +bad girls understood. Fanny added that a number of nice men whom she +never would have suspected of such a low thing had done that to her hand +but that the way to get the better of them was merely to pretend you +didn't know anything about it.</p> + +<p>Doris, disgusted by her sister's chatter, had remembered Judge Smith. +The judge always did that, ... moving his finger tips as if he were +unaware of the fact. This afternoon he had done it again. She had never +been able to see the judge as her mother and brother saw him. To Doris +there was something intangibly repulsive about his flabby, smooth-shaven +face, about his shining linen and deliberate manner that impressed +everybody. She did not resent the things he said. To these she was, in +fact, indifferent. But the man's personality awakened a revulsion in +her. She did not explain it to herself. She was aware only that she felt +uncomfortable when he looked at her and that when he beamed his +kindliest or boomed most virtuously, she felt like sinking lower in her +chair and contorting her face with shame, not for herself but for him.</p> + +<p>Basine and Henrietta had returned to the room. A grate fire was burning +wanly. Basine, squatting down like an elated boy, arranged a cushion for +her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we've forgotten the thingumabob," he exclaimed, "come help me find +that."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<p>Henrietta skipped excitedly after him. Moments like this were dear to +Henrietta. Looking for thingumabobs, planning popcorn feasts, having +lots of fun and in a way that was intelligent. In the kitchen Basine +searched for a minute and then turned to the girl with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to ask you something," he said. "That's why I lured you out +again."</p> + +<p>"For heaven's sake! Gracious! Aren't you ashamed of yourself, George +Basine!"</p> + +<p>She laughed with him. The thought had secured to him that it would be +interesting to take Henrietta away from Aubrey. He didn't want her +himself for any particular purpose. She was not a girl one could seduce, +or even desired to seduce. And marriage was miles from his head.</p> + +<p>Yet he had once held her hand while sitting on her father's porch and +whispered idiotic things to her. He had made love to her, said to her, +"Henny dear, I'm wild about you." It annoyed him to think that Aubrey +Gilchrist would marry her, would appropriate her as if the things he, +Basine, had said and done were of no possible consequence. In addition +he had always disliked Aubrey.</p> + +<p>"Henny," he said quickly, he had called her Henny two years before, "are +you really in love with Aubrey?"</p> + +<p>Henrietta made a face and swung her shoulders like a child embarrassed.</p> + +<p>Like Keegan, he was physically tired from his night's debauch. But in +Basine there was no impulse to repent. As he stood looking at the girl +he grew curiously sensual in his thought.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> + +<p>The consciousness of his deadened nerves was an irritant to his vanity. +He was always doing things he felt disinclined to do, as a result of his +constant work of idealization. Also, to follow one's impulse and act +logically was what everyone did in a way. If Hugh Keegan was tired he +sighed and said so. But Basine, if he was tired, would laugh and suggest +adventures. If Keegan or the others he knew were elated over something, +they announced it, naively, like children. But Basine edited his elation +and often pretended to be bored. And when he was actually bored he often +pretended enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>Such odd perversions had become a habit with Basine. Behind the +confusion of purpose that inspired them was a certainty that in acting +the way he did he distinguished himself from other people. Often no one +was aware, of course, that he was acting, that his enthusiasm was the +heroic mask of weariness. But Basine was enough of an egoist to enjoy +secretly the emotion of superiority.</p> + +<p>Because he was tired and because he would have preferred ignoring the +trim figure laughing beside him, he deliberately took her hand and +allowed his smile to grow serious. Now as he looked at her and saw her +eyes soften, his vanity clamored for satisfaction. It was one of the +moments in his life when his vanity most desired satisfaction, proof of +the high opinions he held of himself. He was tired, bored and without +impulses.</p> + +<p>To dominate others, to possess himself of their regard and homage was +the goal toward which he always built. Now the desire to possess himself +of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> regard and homage of the girl whose hand he was holding came +acutely into his thought.</p> + +<p>"Henny," he whispered, "I'm sorry about you and Aubrey."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>This was the sort of boy and girl scene at which she was almost adept. +People held hands and even kissed without altering the correct social +tone or content of their talk.</p> + +<p>"Because," said Basine, "Oh well, because I love you."</p> + +<p>The phrase stirred, as it always did, a faint emotion in his heart. He +had used it frequently, even with prostitutes, and it had always given +him a fugitive sense of exaltation. Walking alone in the street at night +he would sometimes whisper aloud, "I love you, George. Oh, I love you +so." He would have no one in mind whom he might be quoting at the +moment. The words would come and utter themselves and give him a sudden +lift of spirit. It was like his other self-conversation when walking +along swiftly in the street he would begin exclaiming under his breath, +"Wonderful ... wonderful ... wonderful...." The word like his +mysterious, "I love you, George" came without cause or relation to his +thoughts and repeated itself on his lips.</p> + +<p>Henrietta was staring at him. It was chiefly because she was surprised. +She remembered that they had been friends once and held hands and that +he had said things. But all that had been a part of a pretty game one +played with boys, because they liked it and because it was rather +likable in itself. She was surprised now because he looked sad. Sadness +in her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> mind was synonymous with seriousness. People were never serious +unless they were sad. When she wanted to be serious she would always +lower her eyes and arrange her expression as if she were going to weep. +Then people understood that what she said was really truly serious and +not just part of the game people were always playing among themselves. A +game in which nothing was serious or funny or anything—but just was. +Because that was the way it should be.</p> + +<p>Basine was pulling her slowly toward him.</p> + +<p>"Don't you love me?" he asked. "Don't you love me at all?"</p> + +<p>He was talking aloud to conceal the fact that he had drawn her to him +and was placing his arms around her. To do anything like that in silence +would have frightened Henrietta. But to talk while one was doing it, +that made it seem less definite. One could ignore what one was doing, +ignore the hands pressing one's shoulders and the touching of bodies by +pretending to interest one's self entirely in the conversation.</p> + +<p>Basine knew this because he had made love to girls and taken liberties. +As long as he kept talking and asking questions the girl would pretend +she was so occupied in answering the questions and keeping up socially +her end of the talk that she was oblivious to the liberties that were +being taken with her.</p> + +<p>Henrietta answered, "Why do you ask that? Do you really think you ought +to ask me questions like that, George Basine?"</p> + +<p>"Yes I do," he said, "why shouldn't I?"</p> + +<p>"Oh because. Because you're engaged to Marion."</p> + +<p>"Who told you that?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I know. Anybody could know that. Aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"No more than you are to Aubrey."</p> + +<p>"Gracious! Aren't you the clever boy. I declare! Engaged to Aubrey! +Heavens, I'd like to know where you heard that."</p> + +<p>"A little bird told me."</p> + +<p>"It did not."</p> + +<p>"Yes it did."</p> + +<p>"You know better than that, George Basine. I wish you'd tell me really."</p> + +<p>"Why should I."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to know, that's why. I think I have a right to know."</p> + +<p>"Oh but I did tell you something. I told you I love you."</p> + +<p>"Why, George Basine!"</p> + +<p>During the talk Basine had moved her closer to him. His arms were +tightly around her and he had kissed her eyes and cheeks between his +questions and answers. The embrace had aroused no physical desire in +him. He was irritated by the coolness of his nerves. He was irritated at +his being unable to feel anything with his arms around a pretty girl. +Usually the incident would have reached its climax with the half kiss he +placed on her mouth. That was as far as good girls went. At this point +they ordinarily said something like, "Listen, I want to tell you +something. I almost forgot." And gently detaching themselves from one's +arms, continued to talk in the same tone they had used during the +embrace about some event that had occurred during the week.</p> + +<p>And then one returned to the sitting room and went on talking casually +as if nothing had happened. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> was the height of bad taste to remind a +good girl today that one had kissed her yesterday or to presume upon it +in any way. It was the height of bad taste also to resist when they +gently pushed one away and said, "Listen, I want to tell you something. +I almost forgot."</p> + +<p>Basine knew the simple technique of these virginal intrigues. +Henrietta's hands were pressing him. This was the signal to release her +and pretend that nothing had happened. Ordinarily Basine would have +complied. He had no interest in the girl. His original impulse to take +her from Aubrey had slipped from his mind.</p> + +<p>But he had grown sad. The mild sensual moment he would usually have +experienced in the embrace had been missing. His tired nerves had not +responded. Unable to exhilarate his senses he sought to make up for the +failure by treating his vanity to an exhilaration. This exhilaration +would come if the girl he was holding grew suddenly sad, raised wide +eyes to him and in a shamed voice murmured, "I love you, George. Oh, I +love you so."</p> + +<p>He would make her do this.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Henny. Why don't you love me? I want you so much all the time."</p> + +<p>"Why George Basine!"</p> + +<p>She had suspected something different about the game when it started. +And this was different. Even with Aubrey it had not been as different as +this. Aubrey's mother and her father had decided upon the engagement +after Aubrey had been fussing her for a few weeks.</p> + +<p>But this was different. George Basine was in love<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> with her! She had +always liked him because her father said he was a fine, promising young +man and because he knew how to play, and was really like herself in many +ways. She wondered what she should do. She felt worried because she was +afraid she would say something that wasn't right.</p> + +<p>She couldn't ask him to let her go because he was only holding her +lightly and she could move away if she wanted to. She thought his eyes +were sad and she felt suddenly sorry for him. He had stopped talking and +his eyes were sad. They were looking at her and they made her feel sad, +too. Things were so different when one felt sad. Everything seemed to go +away then and nothing remained. Everything went away and left one a +little frightened. As if the world were unreal and everybody was unreal +and nothing really was.</p> + +<p>She was frightened like that now. Or at least she thought it was fear. +Then she saw it was something else. Her heart had started to pound hard +and her throat fluttered inside. No one had ever looked at her like +this. So seriously. As if she were somebody very serious. It made her +feel strange. She grew dizzy and her arms felt weak. She whispered his +name and his hands crept over her cheeks. This thrilled her as if there +were electricity in his fingers. And frightened her again. But it was +nice. Like being a little girl, almost a baby, and falling into an older +man's arms—her father's arms. She could almost remember being a little +girl and lying in her father's arms.</p> + +<p>"Do you love me?"</p> + +<p>She would answer this time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," she said. "Oh George."</p> + +<p>She hid her face against his coat. Basine was careful not to embrace +her. Her "yes" had given him an inexplicable moment. He had felt himself +expand under it. In her unexpected submission—he had never dreamed of +such a thing ten minutes ago—she became suddenly someone who was very +rare and sweet. He was still utterly oblivious of her and had it turned +out to be Marion in his arms instead of Henrietta the difference would +have made no change in him. The thing that was rare and sweet was the +exhilaration in his senses—a purely spiritual exhilaration. He enjoyed +it as one might enjoy some unforeseen and startling gift.</p> + +<p>He grew tender. He wanted to kiss the eyes and hair of her who had given +this gift to him—the thing which felt so warm in his heart and tingled +so pleasantly in his thought. He must reward her somehow for having +stirred in him this delicious excitement, reward her for the sweet +surfeit her surrender had given his vanity. For a moment bewildered by +this inner desire to express the gratitude he felt, he stood trembling.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I love you so, my darling," he whispered. "You're so beautiful."</p> + +<p>It was her reward for having surrendered to his unspoken demand. It was +an expression of the overwhelming generosity that choked him. He found +in the saying of the words a sweetness almost as keen as her surrender +had afforded him. To hear himself say to someone, "I love you," was +mysteriously exhilarating. The thrill that accompanied his bestowal of +largesse excited him to further experiment. He was not carried away but +he relished the emotions between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> them, the sense of having triumphed +and the provoking sense of bestowing grandiose reward.</p> + +<p>"Darling, tell me ... please tell me—will you marry me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh George!"</p> + +<p>"Tell me ... tell me...."</p> + +<p>He was acting now, making his voice dramatic, pretending uncontrollable +longings. She must say "Yes." He wanted her to and she must. He did not +want to marry her. The thought had never occured to him. But it would be +unbearable now unless she said "Yes." He must pretend and act and make +the thing end by her saying "Yes."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I can't tell you, George dear."</p> + +<p>"You must, please...."</p> + +<p>He had decided now finally to make her. A contest of wills. If he wanted +a yes there must be a yes. Because he wanted it. His arms crushed her. +He fastened against her. He felt her resisting. There was still no +desire in him. His arms were still dead. But he could brook no +resistance. The fact of resistance was unimportant but the idea of being +resisted fired him with a passion entirely cerebral. He would warm her +into saying yes, stir her senses, make her yield and her head swim until +she said yes.</p> + +<p>"I love you. Please say it. Say yes."</p> + +<p>Yes to what? Henrietta for an instant awoke from the confusions of the +past few minutes. Her morality, training, code of life and all sat up +like a wary censor and surveyed the scene. The censor nodded an +affirmation. It was all right. Go ahead. With this affirmation her body +took fire. The weakness she had been struggling against became a +beautiful enervation—a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> lassitude that swept her unresistingly forward.</p> + +<p>She had never done this before. She struggled for a moment to recall the +censor—the thing that had always directed her. But she seemed to have +been deserted. She was alone with sensations.</p> + +<p>Her virginal mind was unable to identify the excitement rising in her. +She waited while his caresses grew bolder. Then in a panic, born of a +dim realization, she flung her arms passionately around Basine and +sobbed.</p> + +<p>"Yes.... Yes.... Oh George.... I will...."</p> + +<p>She felt at once that she had said it just in time—that it would have +been sinful to continue another moment without promising she would marry +him.</p> + +<p>Basine released her slowly. The incident abruptly was over. He had in +fact lost interest in it immediately before she had spoken. The thrill +had come, developed and gone—a spiritual exaltation which he had +enjoyed to the utmost.</p> + +<p>But now it was over. His vanity, surfeited, had withdrawn from the +situation. He was surprised to find himself looking at the girl with +utter dispassion, as if nothing had happened.</p> + +<p>Inwardly he was amused. Such things were amusing, in a way. Moments in +which one saw oneself as an outrageous actor, doing something +ridiculous. It was like that now. Absurd. But it had been pleasant. +Curious, how pleasant. However, that was over. Henrietta would of course +forget about it. And he, he was prepared to return to the library and go +on popping corn as if nothing had happened, absolutely nothing.</p> + +<p>But Henrietta leaned weakly against his arm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh George, darling. Do you really love me?"</p> + +<p>He answered out of a social respect for consistency and nothing else. He +thought the question rather tactless. Of course he didn't love her and +she should have known better than to ask it. It had just been a game +they had played while looking for the thingumabob.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Henny, of course."</p> + +<p>Her eyes were wide and her lips quivered. She was looking at him as if +he were doing something remarkable and she overcome with astonishment. +For an instant Basine wondered why the deuce she looked that way. Then +he felt an unexpected chill that he dismissed promptly with an inwardly +reassuring smile as he heard her saying.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we'll be so happy together when we're married. Isn't it wonderful, +just too wonderful for words to be married—together. Oh George! I'm so +happy.... I love you so much. And father will be so...."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C6" id="C6"></a>6</h2> + +<p>They had not expected Mr. Gilchrist to come. Mr. Gilchrist was an +undersized, mild little man with greying sideburns. When he was alone he +read a great deal.</p> + +<p>He had made money in the selling of expensive furniture. He was part +owner of a store in Wabash Avenue. It was generally understood that +people with taste patronized the Gilchrist-Warren establishment.</p> + +<p>He arrived at the Basines' with his wife and his son Aubrey. Keegan and +Fanny had returned from a long walk. They and the judge, Henrietta, +Basine and his mother and sister Doris all expressed surprise at seeing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +Mr. Gilchrist. There was always about Mr. Gilchrist the air of a museum +piece—a quaint museum piece such as a keen but sentimental collector +might delight in.</p> + +<p>The exclamations of surprise embarrassed the little man and he stood +fingering his sideburns and trying to smile in just the correct way. Mr. +Gilchrist's arrival anywhere always precipitated this air of surprise. +People said, "Why, Mr. Gilchrist! Awfully glad to see you! Haven't seen +you for an age. Well! How are you?"</p> + +<p>This was as if they were extremely surprised. But they weren't. They +were merely annoyed, upset, vaguely hostile and condescending. And these +emotions inspired by the innocent Mr. Gilchrist could be best concealed +by the feigning of a correct social astonishment.</p> + +<p>To the queries shot at him Mr. Gilchrist answered, "Very well, thank +you. Thank you. Very well, thank you."</p> + +<p>After greeting him with these exclamation points, people immediately +forgot he was present. Mr. Gilchrist would sit the rest of the evening +ignored by everybody and trying to the end to smile in just the correct +way.</p> + +<p>Inside Mr. Gilchrist were many little lonelinesses. His head was full of +things he had read, of plots, of great characters, even of epigrams and +biting iconoclasms. When people talked he did his best to be attentive. +And if they talked about things that interested him—the Kings of +France, the Italian wars of the fifteenth century, the topography of +early London<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> and kindred subjects—his face would tremble with +enthusiasms.</p> + +<p>He would listen, his eyes questing eagerly for epigrams, for +illuminating sentences he might contribute. But his unegoistic love for +the subject would make him inarticulate. His eyes that had seemed about +to speak of themselves, that had seemed laden with excited informations +would close and a chuckle would come from his lips. The Caesars, the +Borgias, the Medicis, the Bourbons, the Valois, Savonarola, Richelieu, +the various Charles, Phillips, Williams, Henrys, the plumed headliners +of history around whom had centered the hurdy-gurdy intrigues, the +circus romances and wars of vanished centuries—these were the +hail-fellows of his imagination.</p> + +<p>But people seldom talked of these names. People were more interested in +contemporary topics. He did his best to be attentive. But his thought +played truant and before he knew it he would be going over secretly +certain things in his head. Villon, Marlowe, Balzac, Dumas, Gautier, +Suetonius—there was a rabble of them continually arguing and declaiming +in Mr. Gilchrist's head.</p> + +<p>He liked to half close his eyes and imagine what the great names used to +have for breakfast, what the great names would say if he were to enter +their presence or if they were to come into this room. He liked to bring +up in his mind pictures of old Paris, London, Florence, Avignon, Vienna +with their lopsided roofs, winding alleys, night watchmen and king's +guards. He could sit a whole evening this way thinking, "then he came to +an old Inn and there were lights inside. People drinking inside, telling +stories and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> laughing. The inn-keeper was a man named Simon. The curious +stranger looked about him with an imperious eye...."</p> + +<p>These words murmuring in his head would conjure up the picture and there +would be no further need for words. He was content to sit in the old +inn, noticing its quaint decorations, its quaint but romantic inmates. +Adventures would follow, strange episodes, denouements, climaxes—all +without words as if he were watching a cinemategraph. His attempted +smile would remain—a smile that concealed the fact he was neither +smiling at those around him nor aware of what they were saying. For he +would only half hear the chatter of the room and now and then nod his +head vaguely at some question that people were answering—as if he too +were answering it.</p> + +<p>He was almost sixty, and lonely because he knew of no one to whom he +could talk. His wife in particular was a person to whom he never dreamed +of talking. He had only a dim idea of what he wanted to say to someone. +But all his life he had been hoping to meet this one who would be like +himself. This someone would be a friend whom he could take with him into +places like the old inn and the crazily twisting streets of old London +or Paris.</p> + +<p>His days and years passed however without bringing him this companion. +And outwardly he remained a mild little figure with sideburns, kindly +tolerant toward everyone.</p> + +<p>When his dreams left him long enough to enable him to notice closely +those about him, a feeling of sadness would come. He would feel sorry +for the men and women he saw gesturing and heard talking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> and laughing. +He thought they must be like himself—looking for something. His faded +eyes would peer caressingly from behind his glasses and he would make +simple little remarks in an apologetic voice. He would ask what they had +been doing and when they answered in their careless, matter-of-fact ways +he would nod hopefully and appear pleased.</p> + +<p>To see Mr. Gilchrist in the midst of his family was to be convinced of +the plausibility of immaculate conception. It was difficult imagining +Mr. Gilchrist ever having done anything which might have resulted in +fatherhood. But more than that, it was impossible even suggesting to +oneself that his wife had ever received the embraces of a man, had ever +so far forgotten the proprieties as to permit herself to be trapped +alone with a man.</p> + +<p>Thus the presence of Aubrey, their son, became incongruous. And Aubrey +himself helped this illusion. He was a young man who looked incongruous. +He seemed like a hoax or at least a caricature. He had enormous feet and +ungainly legs, large hands and pipe-stem arms, hips like a woman and a +face capriciously modeled out of soft putty. His ugliness by itself +would have been whimsical—his protruding eyes, long pointed nose, +uneven cheeks and bulbous chin hinted at something waggish.</p> + +<p>But Aubrey had triumphed over his physical self. He had with the aid of +a pair of large glasses from which dangled a black silk cord, and by +holding his head thrown back as if there were a crick in his neck, +acquired an air of dignity. It was his habit to glower with dignity, to +stare with dignity and to preserve a dignified inanimation when he was +silent. He was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> pigeon breasted and this helped. In fact his many slight +deformities seemed all to contribute somehow toward making him a man of +inspiring dignity.</p> + +<p>People had little use for Mr. Gilchrist, his father. He was, of course, +wealthy but not wealthy enough to earn the regard of the poor. They +discussed him, saying, "He's not so simple as he pretends he is. Any man +who's made a pile like old Gilchrist in the furniture business has a +pretty smart head."</p> + +<p>And they added that they wouldn't be surprised if something eventually +were found out about old man Gilchrist. He had a past. Of this people +were convinced. It was his wife's position and the fear of her +personality that protected Mr. Gilchrist from the downright attacks of +rumor. Any man who pretended to be as kindly as Mr. Gilchrist and who +talked so tolerantly about everybody and everything was, you could bank +on it, a sly rogue afraid to say what he thought because he himself was +guilty of worse sins than those under discussion.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gilchrist, by seeming above the social agitations surrounding him +came to appear as one who looked down tolerantly upon inferiors—and +this annoyed people. Who was Mr. Gilchrist and what had he done that he +should be giving himself airs? Of course—there was Aubrey and....</p> + +<p>Aubrey was aloof and dignified. But that was to be expected of a man who +worked with his brain all the time, inventing plots and characters—his +friends explained. In fact Aubrey's silences thrilled them even more +than his talk. They felt, when he sat silent, that they were witnessing +the birth in his head of some great idea which they would later read in +a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> book. Aubrey was a man of superior qualities and to bask in the +presence of a superior was to partake of his superiority.</p> + +<p>Aubrey's superiority consisted, so far as Aubrey was concerned, of +wearing the proper kind of eye-glasses, keeping his neck stiff, +refraining from giving utterance to all the asininities which crowded +his tongue and writing romances containing heroes with whom a +half-million women readers had imaginary affairs every night and +heroines whom another half-million men ravished in their dreams. For +Aubrey was a celebrated popular fiction writer. To conceal the horrible +reasons which made for the celebrity of Aubrey's fiction, the army of +literary morons who succumbed to its influence grew louder and louder in +their protestations that Aubrey was a great moral writer. They pointed +out that here was a man whose heroines were pure, whose heroes were +noble and virtuous—neglecting to add that these were the only kind of +phantoms which could penetrate the guard of their own puritanism and +stir the erotic impulses beneath.</p> + +<p>Aubrey's superiority was, for the most part, a state of mind that +existed among the people who knew him or had heard of him or read of +him. And this attitude toward him became part of Aubrey. He adopted it +as the major side of his character and lived chiefly in the opinions of +others. His introspection consisted of reading press notices about +himself and thinking of what other people thought of him. Thus to +understand Aubrey it was necessary to go outside him and to investigate +this external state of mind, the ready-made robes of purple in which his +little thoughts strutted through the day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> + +<p>The people in whose acclaim Aubrey robed himself were varied and many +but they inhabited an identical psychological stratum. They believed +firmly that all artists and writers were poor, starving, unhappy +creatures.</p> + +<p>This belief was borne out in their minds by history—such history as +they permitted themselves to know. History was continually telling of +geniuses who died in garrets, of great minds that could not make enough +money to feed or clothe their bodies. In fact one of the shrewdest ways +to tell whether a man was a genius—that is, had been a genius—was to +determine whether he had been neglected during his life and died of +malnutrition and disappointment.</p> + +<p>The people who acclaimed Aubrey found a compensation in this. They liked +to assure themselves that geniuses starved to death. This compensated +them for the fact that they themselves were not geniuses. It made them +feel that it was actually a vital misfortune to be gifted, since being +gifted meant to suffer the neglect of one's fellows and the pangs of +hunger.</p> + +<p>But the knowledge that genius was neglected and hungry in no way +inspired them to remedy the situation by recognizing its presence and +feeding it. To the contrary they were determined to see that it remained +neglected and hungry. The idea of struggling long-haired poets dressed +in rags pleased them. The idea of long-haired painters living on crumbs +in attics gave them peculiar satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Geniuses were people different from themselves. They believed in +different things and pretended to be excited by different emotions and +lived different lives.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> And the people who acclaimed Aubrey were pleased +to know that there was a penalty attached to being different from +themselves and they were interested in seeing that this penalty was not +removed. By penalizing the different ones whom they sensed as superiors, +they increased the value of their own inferiorities.</p> + +<p>Yet they acclaimed Aubrey and there was no malice in their acclaim. This +was a phenomenon that had once startled Aubrey. Long ago, when he had +first started to write, his family's friends had said, "Poor boy, he'll +starve to death. There's no money in being an author and you lead a +terrible life."</p> + +<p>But Aubrey had gone ahead and remained an author. He had written, at the +beginning, rather biting if sophomoric things, inspired by the malice he +sensed toward his profession. But the inspiration had not been +sufficiently strong to handicap him. When success had come and his name +was emerging, the people who knew him and who had talked maliciously +about his trying to be an author, were the first to acclaim him. This +thing had confused Aubrey. He had felt that the public was a curious +institution and he had for a few months wondered about it.</p> + +<p>People sneered at struggling writers and referred with withering humor +to art as "all bunk" and indignantly denounced its immorality. Then when +one put oneself over despite their sneers they turned around and +congratulated one as if one had done something of which they heartily +approved. It was as if they tried to make up for their previous +attitude, and for a few months Aubrey cherished a cynical image of the +public. It was a great bully that spat and snarled at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> genius, refusing +to recognize it and making it a laughing stock wherever it could. But as +soon as genius came through, this same bully of a public turned around +and prostrated itself and worshipped blindly at its feet.</p> + +<p>Then Aubrey had spent the few months wondering why this was so. But he +had become too busy to do much thinking. His publishers were demanding +more work—so he let other matters drop. His curiosity had carried him +to the brink of an idea and he had somewhat impatiently turned his back +on it. He had felt that to think as he was thinking about people who +were praising him and buying his books, was to play the part of an +ungrateful cad.</p> + +<p>The idea that had come dangerously close to Aubrey's consciousness was +the curious notion that people resented acclaiming anybody like +themselves. The lucky ones who secured their hurrah became in their eyes +no longer normal humans but super-persons about whom they were prepared +to believe all manner of mythical grandeurs. The more remarkable and +more superior people could make out their heroes to be, the less +humility they felt in worshipping them. And since their heroes were +creatures in whom they recognized a glorification of their own virtues, +the more self-flattering it was to increase this glorification. They +were able to worship themselves with abandon in the splendors they +attributed to their chosen superiors.</p> + +<p>Thus when they started they went the limit, heaping honors and honors +upon a man until he became a glittering God-like person. The country at +the time of Aubrey's ascent was full of such glittering God-like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +creatures whose names were continually in people's mouths and in their +newspapers. The instinct of inferiority demanding, as always, an outlet +in the invention of gods, had found a tireless medium for this +hocus-pocus in the press. Great reputations were continually springing +up—the newspapers like the half-cynical, half-superstitious priests of +the totem era busying themselves with creating towering effigies in clay +and smearing them with vermillion paints. These gods whom people busily +erected and before whom they busily prostrated themselves were, as +always, the awesome deities created in their own image.</p> + +<p>There had been a crisis in Aubrey's life when he was caught between a +desire to be himself and the desire to be a great clay figure with +mysterious totems splashed over it. To be himself he had only to write +as he vaguely thought he wanted to write. And to be one of the great +figures he had merely to write what he definitely knew would win him the +respect of others.</p> + +<p>The decision, however, had been taken out of his hands. Aubrey's talent +had not been of the sort that has for its parents a hatred of society +and a derision of its surfaces. He had, indeed, fancied himself for a +short time as desiring to adventure among the doubts and iconoclasms +which distinguished the literature he had encountered during his college +days. But the fancy had proved no more than an egoistic perversion of +the true impulse in him. This, it soon developed, was a desire to +impress himself upon people as their superior, not their antithesis.</p> + +<p>As a result he fell to writing books which carefully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> avoided the revolt +which the dubious spectacle of manners and morality had stirred in him. +He concentrated upon crystalizing his day dreams. He turned out tales of +deftly virtuous Cinderellas who provokingly withheld their kisses for +three hundred pages; of débonnaire Galahads with hearts of gold who, +utilizing the current platitudes as an armor and a weapon, emerged in +grandiose triumphs with the stubborn virgins thawing deliriously around +their necks. Aubrey's tales were popular at once. They were the +technically arranged versions of the rigmarole of secret make-believes +that went on in his own as well as other people's heads. People read +them and quivered with delight. They were tales which like their own +daydreams served as an antidote for the puny, unimpressive realities of +their lives. Also they were moral, high-minded tales and thus they +served as a vindication of the codes, fears, taboos which contributed +the puniness to the realities of their lives.</p> + +<p>Aubrey's success increased rapidly as he abandoned altogether the +pretence of plumbing souls and gave himself whole-heartedly to the +creative pleasantries of plumbing the soap-bubble worlds in whose +irridescence people found their compensations. At twenty-nine Aubrey was +becoming one of the glittering God-like personages in whose worship the +public finds outlet for its inferiority mania and simultaneous +concealment therefrom.</p> + +<p>He had realized this in time and without conscious effort adjusted +himself toward the perfections demanded of a personage worthy of +receiving the masochistic and self-ennobling salute of the mob. These +perfections were simply and easily achieved. One had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> only to acquiesce, +to accept the acclaim of outsiders as a part of one's self and to live +one's inner life in a roseate contemplation of this acclaim. One had +only to "remember one's public" as he put it himself, and not to +disappoint them or antagonize them.</p> + +<p>In his own family he was regarded with awe. His father always felt +bewildered when he spoke to him. And even Mrs. Gilchrist revealed a +slightly human nervousness in her contacts with her son.</p> + +<p>Concerning Mrs. Gilchrist there was not much to be said, even by such +incipient iconoclasts as Mrs. Basine. She was too defined an exterior. +One was conscious in her presence not so much of a woman as of an +invincible battle-front of ideas. Nobody had ever heard Mrs. Gilchrist +give expression to anything which could remotely be identified as an +idea. Nevertheless she was a battle-front.</p> + +<p>She was a woman with an intimidating coldness of manner. This manner +spoke without words of an incorruptible intolerance toward all +deviations from her code. Backsliders, moral culprits, unmannerly +persons and, in fact, everyone not actively under her domination were, +to Mrs. Gilchrist, suspect. She managed to give the impression that +people whom she did not know were creatures whose virtues as well as +social prestige were matters of sinister doubt. They were outside the +pale.</p> + +<p>The secret of her domination was a psychological phenomenon that eluded +her antagonists and so left them powerless to combat it. The strength +Mrs. Gilchrist felt within her was the product of a complete repression. +She had managed since her youth to shut herself successfully within the +narrow limits of her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> consciousness, successfully divorcing all her +thoughts, desires and actions from any dictates of an inner self. She +had formed an ideal, basing it upon her social ambitions and her +childish prejudices of good and bad, desirable and undesirable. And she +had been able to perfect this ideal. Her mind was a tiny fortress +against which her own emotions and hence the emotions of others battled +in vain. It could neither think nor understand and this was its +strength.</p> + +<p>The doubts which thinking sometimes stirred in the minds of her +antagonists, the knowledge of secret impulses and obscene imaginings +which they were able only imperfectly to keep from themselves and which +made it possible for them to appreciate dimly the sinners and +iconoclasts in the world—such knowledge never intruded upon Mrs. +Gilchrist.</p> + +<p>Her indignation toward backsliders and moral culprits was not a +projected censure of similar weakness in herself. There were no windows +in the tiny fortress in which she lived. Protected from all human +disturbances of her spirit, she spent her days closeted within her +little fortress in grim contemplation of her rectitude.</p> + +<p>Friendship was impossible to her. She was, however, a duchy, a +corporation in which one could buy stock. By subscribing unquestionably +to her rectitude, admitting its existence publicly and succumbing to its +strength, one earned the dividends of her social approval. One became to +her a very nice person in whose submission she grudgingly saw, as in an +imperfect mirror, the image of her own virtues.</p> + +<p>Curiously enough, Mrs. Gilchrist was renowned for her activity as a +philanthropist and charity worker.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> Her social prestige, aside from her +strength of character, was based upon this. She was a perennial +patroness, a member of hospital boards, a chairman of bazaars, special +matinees, charity balls and money-raising campaigns. All these +activities were in the interest of the poor. The money raised by them +went toward bringing comfort to creatures whose moral obliquity and +human weaknesses Mrs. Gilchrist authentically despised. Yet she was +indefatigable in her work, darting in her unvarying black dress from +meeting to meeting, bristling with magnificent plans for further +philanthropies.</p> + +<p>Her husband occasionally wondered. He was unable to reconcile the +coldness he knew in his wife with the character of her labors. At times +he dimly felt that it was her way of saying something—perhaps a way of +showing a hidden warmth toward people.</p> + +<p>But in Mrs. Gilchrist's thought there was no such explanation.</p> + +<p>To have admitted to herself a concern for the creatures in whose behalf +she devoted her energies would have been to open a door in the tiny +fortress, or at least to create a loophole out of which she might look +with sympathy upon the confusions and torments of her fellows.</p> + +<p>Her inner humanism, divorced from the narrow limits of her +consciousness, was finding its outlet, as her husband suspected, in her +work. But during this work never for a moment did Mrs. Gilchrist think +of the creatures she was benefiting. She had rationalized her activities +and made them a part of the emotionless content of her mind.</p> + +<p>All relation between the things she did and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> people she did them for +was divorced in her thought. In bazaars she superintended, in balls, +fêtes, campaigns, auctions she energized with her presence, she saw only +bazaars, balls, fêtes, campaigns and auctions. She worked for their +success with an invulnerable preoccupation in the details which went to +make them socially proper and financially triumphant.</p> + +<p>The altruism of her work inspired no altruism in her. She did not allow +herself to sympathise with the weakness and poverties she was aiding or +even to contemplate them for an instant. Yet her work accomplished, the +charity a success, she experienced the stern elation of "having done +good." This elation was inspired in no way by the thought of the solace +she had brought to others. It was entirely egoistic—a moment in which +her rectitude congratulated itself upon—its rectitude.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C7" id="C7"></a>7</h2> + +<p>Fanny Basine smiled timidly at Aubrey. He was paying little attention to +her. He was listening to Judge Smith airing his views on the annexation +of the Philippines.</p> + +<p>The judge was forcibly declaring that the thing was essential and that +no gentleman with his country's future at heart could possibly believe +otherwise. Aubrey, to the judge's secret discomfiture, somehow managed +to convey an assent to these views, but an assent based upon superior +motives. What these motives were Judge Smith was unable to fathom. +Aubrey, when it came his turn to expound, further irritated the judge by +revealing them. He, Aubrey, was for the annexation of the Philippines +but only because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> he was convinced such an annexation would be of +supreme benefit to the natives of the islands.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gilchrist nodded sternly in agreement with her son. The rest of the +company listening with vacuous attentiveness waited for the debaters to +continue talking for them. Basine who had been silent came to the +judge's rescue. He explained that the judge and Aubrey meant practically +the same thing but that they had chosen different ways to express +themselves.</p> + +<p>"Judge Smith," Basine smiled, "sees in the annexation something which +will benefit his country. He knows as well as any of us that it will not +benefit it financially. It will be a source of expenditure and strife. +Then how will it benefit us? Because it will give us an opportunity to +aid a pack of uncivilized and benighted heathen and despite them to +bring peace and prosperity to their own country—not ours. Which is +exactly what you mean, Aubrey."</p> + +<p>The judge beamed approval and Aubrey contented himself with a stare of +dignity. He did not relish psychological interpretations of his words. +As an author, he felt annoyed. But Basine continued to talk undeterred +by his stare. He disliked Aubrey. Not so much as Doris. And in a +somewhat different way. Further, the presence of Henrietta was a curious +inspiration. The girl's wide-eyed tenderness had irritated and +frightened him after the incident in the kitchen when they had gone +searching for the thingumabob. Now he had no interest in the Philippine +controversy. But he had entered the discussion in order to rid himself +of the uncomfortable memory the episode with Henrietta had left him. As +he talked the memory played hide and seek in his words....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> "She thinks +I'm going to marry her ... but she's engaged to him ... she's crazy ... +what the Hell did I do it for?... Damn it ... damn it...."</p> + +<p>Instinctively he took the judge's part, as if he must establish himself +firmly in the father's good graces in order to make premature amends for +the jilting of his daughter. The position he had taken pleased him +because it also involved an opposition to Aubrey.</p> + +<p>Fanny continued to smile at the novelist. Keegan bored her. They had +been walking together and she had lost interest in the sensual game she +had been playing with him. Alone, she might have tried to repeat the +experience of the morning with Keegan. But her physical curiosity +partially gratified for the moment by the surreptitious excitement she +had derived from him, her interest transferred itself to Aubrey.</p> + +<p>The man amused and impressed her. Her thought separated him into two +people. She resented his persistent dignity. Her perceptions, sharpened +by the practical sensuality of her nature, saw through the little ruses +by which Aubrey converted his slight deformities into a dignified whole. +As she listened to him she said to herself, "... he thinks it's smart to +wear a ribbon on his glasses ... he sticks his chest out ... he's got +skinny arms ... he looks funny...."</p> + +<p>After a half hour she lost her resentment and the thing that had +inspired it came to amuse her. She could see through his funny manner so +it didn't anger her. But although now she smiled with amusement at the +man's impressiveness, a feeling of awe penetrated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> her. Aubrey was a +great man. People spoke his name everywhere. He was known.</p> + +<p>A delicious tremble passed through her. She was careful not to translate +it into words. Had she inspected the tremble and its causes, it would +have outraged her. She was content always to accept her emotions blindly +for fear of having to forego them if she knew their causes. She kept +herself intact in her own mind as a good girl not by belligerently +repressing her impulses but by enjoying them secretly outside her mind.</p> + +<p>She had thought of Aubrey as a great man and with it had come the inner +impulse to be embraced passionately by him. Not because he was Aubrey, +but because he was the famous Aubrey Gilchrist, whose name was known. To +be embraced by a famous man would be like being embraced somehow by all +the people who knew his name. She would be able to think while +satisfying her desire, "Everybody knows him. They know all about him. +It's almost as if they knew he was doing this ... I was doing this."</p> + +<p>Then, too, there would be a feeling of intense secrecy about it, a sort +of blasphemous secrecy. When an ordinary man kissed her, that was of +course, a secret. But if a famous man should kiss her, a man like +Aubrey, that would be a super-secret. A violation of something +remarkable. It would be a thing concealed not merely from her family and +from the vague circle of friends who might be interested, but from +millions of people who knew Aubrey and who would be tremendously +interested in everything he did. She would be giving herself to a public +figure and yet the thing she was doing would be marvelously concealed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +from the public. And so she would be able to enjoy the thrill of +demonstromania—of being taken by someone who was not an individual like +Keegan but a man who was part of other people's minds—and at the same +time she would be able to enjoy the thrill of defiant intimacy; the +knowledge that the people in whose minds the name Aubrey Gilchrist was +alive would be ignorant of what she was doing to the man they admired. +All this would be a sharpening of pleasure by the consciousness of +wholesale deceit, wholesale intimacy.</p> + +<p>These intuitions whose articulation would have been entirely +unintelligable to Fanny sent the delicious tremble through her body. +Immediately the two separate Aubreys of her mind focussed into one and +she lost both her amusement and her awe of him. She sat regarding him +with a timid smile designed to arouse his curiosity. As yet he had +ignored her, his eyes seeking out Henrietta when the annexation debate +waned.</p> + +<p>Basine had diverted the talk into literary channels by inquiring, +apropos of nothing, whether anyone had read a book by a man named +Meredith. He had found it in Doris' room one evening and glanced through +it. Seeking now for further material with which to discomfit Aubrey he +had remembered the volume. He took it for granted that since his sister +Doris had been reading it, the book was a very worthwhile book—the kind +he cared nothing about reading himself. This did not interfere with his +utilizing an exposition of its merits as a weapon against Aubrey.</p> + +<p>"I was quite surprised," he explained. Doris listened with a frown. She +was certain her brother had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> not read the book and the knowledge he was +lying aggravated her. She knew he lied continually but was indifferent. +But to have him lie about something she admired, even in its defense, +made her uncomfortable as if he were trying to establish false claims +upon her regard.</p> + +<p>"The book is altogether unlike most books," he went on, generalizing +carefully. His mind, totally ignorant of the subject he was discussing, +was shrewdly inventing a book diametrically opposite in style and +content to the books Aubrey wrote. By praising such a book he would +manage without reference to his antagonist to disparage his entire +literary output.</p> + +<p>He was not clear in his mind why Aubrey had become an antagonist. The +memory reiterating itself behind his words "... she thinks I'm going to +marry her ... damn it...." was mysteriously finding outlet in an +indignation neither against himself nor Henrietta, but against the +unsuspecting Aubrey.</p> + +<p>Fanny listened to the new conversation, but Meredith was soon dropped. +The sight of Mrs. Gilchrist grimly poised opposite her mother, became a +part of the lure Aubrey exercised over her. He was the son of this +hard-faced, domineering woman. To do something with him that was +intimate would be a deliciously concealed violation of the mother's +propriety. Fanny had always been intimidated by Mrs. Gilchrist's +propriety. Embracing her son would be a sort of revenge.</p> + +<p>Without wasting time looking for reasons, Fanny felt Aubrey as an +attraction. Her attitude toward him grew more intimate. She did not try +to enter the talk but adjusted herself in the chair, placing her body<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> +so that the curve of her hip and leg were effectively visible to Aubrey.</p> + +<p>And while the others talked she assured herself of the plausibility of +her ambitions. Aubrey was a great man and very famous and distinguished. +But he was after all entirely human. He had written books and Fanny fell +to thinking about them, about the descriptions of love-making which +crowded the pages of his books. Aubrey was famous and therefore aloof. +But the things that had made him famous—the love passages in his books, +were not intimidating. She remembered them with gratitude. They were +love descriptions and Aubrey had written them.</p> + +<p>Love passages were in fact all that Fanny usually remembered of her +reading. Plots and characters escaped her. After she had closed a book +there remained in her mind merely the scenes in which men had placed +their arms around women and whispered after a succession of exciting +adjectives, "I love you."</p> + +<p>This was due to the manner in which Fanny read. As a girl she had +ploughed laboriously through a set of Shakespeare in quest of obscene +passages. Her girl's eyes would skip with irritation the speeches that +seemed to her extraneous until, caught by some "nasty" word, she would +become eagerly interested and carefully digest the sentences preceding +and following it. At fourteen she had discovered that the dictionary, +stuck away in a dusty corner of the book case, was filled with many such +words. Whenever occasion permitted she opened the big volume and poured +intently over its contents, digesting with excitement the definitions of +what she called to herself, the nasty words.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> + +<p>The result of this curious reading technique had gradually shown itself +as she matured. Literature became to her a secretly immoral and indecent +thing. She would blush when people mentioned <i>Shakespeare</i> or any of the +books in which she had eagerly browsed. Observing that her blushes gave +people an impression of her sensitive chastity, she developed a habit of +seeming offended at the mention of any volume she suspected of +containing such words and passages as she was continually searching for +in secret.</p> + +<p>She would say, "Oh, I don't like that kind of a book. I don't think +people should write like that—about such things. There are so many nice +things to write about I don't see why people must write about the +others."</p> + +<p>Delivering herself of these sentiments on all occasions, she continued +her furtive hunt for books about "such things." One red-letter evening +she stumbled upon a pamphlet in her brother's room describing the +horrors of venereal diseases and outlining with verbal and pictorial +illustrations the ravages wrought by the disease germs. She had devoured +the information greedily, her sensuality editing the well-intentioned +brochure into a mass of erotic revelations.</p> + +<p>Aubrey's books, although a bit too innocuous to exhilarate her as the +pamphlet had done or even the dictionary, properly read, was able to do, +contained innumerable passages she remembered. She treated his writing +as she did all writing, skimming hastily over irrelevant matters such as +dialogues between men, discussions of abstract problems, mother and +child scenes and coming to a pause only at the portions which began with +some such sentence as "He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> looked at her with burning eyes," or, "She +felt nervous because at last she was alone with him," or, "He tried to +draw her to him but she resisted, her virtue outraged by the light in +his eyes."</p> + +<p>She recalled these passages now as the literary discussion grew warmer. +The knowledge that Aubrey had written them served to humanize him and +remove his aloofness in her eyes. He was a famous man. On the other hand +he was famous because he wrote such things as, "She yielded with a happy +sigh to the manly embrace."</p> + +<p>Aubrey felt irritated with Basine. He stood up and seemingly without +intention walked to a vacant chair next to Fanny. The conversation had +been taken up by Mrs. Gilchrist who was explaining the real purpose of +her visit.</p> + +<p>"We are giving a fête on Mrs. Channing's lawn," she was saying, "and I +would very much like you to be one of the members of the committee on +printing."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine felt an elation at the words. She had read about the +Channing lawn fête. An affair of social magnificence designed to raise +funds for the Associated Charities. Great social names were involved. +Mrs. Basine's heart trembled gratefully.</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you," she said, her voice taking on a formal, artificial +tone. Mrs. Gilchrist nodded. The tone pleased her. She could count on +the Basine woman among the select who showed their gratitude openly at +the largesse of her favor. She would, in fact, deign to stay for supper +as a reward.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine, urging her to remain for the light Sunday evening meal, +felt indignant with herself. She would have preferred to refuse the +committee on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> printing. Even as she accepted and experienced the elation +her thought bristled with revolt.</p> + +<p>"The old fool ... the old fool," repeated itself with annoying clarity +in her mind. She detested Mrs. Gilchrist. Since her husband's death Mrs. +Basine had outgrown the snobbery which had inspired her during her life +to pour over the society columns. But a habit had been established, the +habit of a desire to become a member of the closely knit organization +known as Society. And now she was apparently powerless to overcome this +desire which no longer animated her but yet intruded out of the past. +She looked down upon herself for the elation over becoming a member of a +printing committee for a social charity fête.</p> + +<p>"I hate it ... I just hate it," she would murmur for days at a time. But +the elation would persist, a thing beyond the control of her improved +outlook upon life. She was aware also of the simple process by which she +transferred her self-indictment into a detestation of Mrs. Gilchrist. +Mrs. Gilchrist was the one who appealed to what Mrs. Basine had grown to +regard as her "smaller nature." And her anger toward the imperturbable +dowager was the anger of a virtuous woman toward one whose temptations +she was unable to resist.</p> + +<p>"You've been rather silent." Aubrey smiled patronizingly at Fanny. She +nodded.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I've been so interested in what you've been saying," she answered. +She noticed with a feeling of sisterly gratitude that Basine had +occupied himself with Henrietta. Aubrey caught the direction of her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> +glance and frowned. He had developed a definite dislike of Basine during +the afternoon.</p> + +<p>Keegan, listening uncomfortably to the judge who was ignoring him in his +talk but whose audience Keegan felt it a social necessity to remain, +tried vainly to capture Fanny's eyes. She had apparently forgotten his +existence. But now as Aubrey seated himself at her side, she smiled +intimately in the direction of the confused Keegan.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Hugh," she said loud enough for him to hear.</p> + +<p>The sound of his name from the girl gave Keegan an inexplicable +sensation. He felt himself break into happy smiles and the anxiety that +had been growing in his heart seemed abruptly to have vanished under her +voice. He came to her side and stood looking timidly at her. The +conviction came over Fanny that Keegan was in love. She felt pleased and +her heart warmed toward him. But her interests remained exclusively +preoccupied with the novelist.</p> + +<p>"I was just going out to the kitchen and wondered if you wanted to help +cut sandwiches," she smiled at Keegan.</p> + +<p>"Sure," he answered.</p> + +<p>"I'm an excellent cook myself," Aubrey unbent gravely.</p> + +<p>Fanny stood up and started toward the hall. The two men hesitated and +then followed her. Basine, frowning slightly toward the door, listened +to her voice chattering to cover the embarrassed silence of the two men +she had bagged.</p> + +<p>"Don't you want to go out there and help," he turned to Henrietta.</p> + +<p>She shook her head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<p>Keegan felt himself being slowly transported. His penitence had faded +into less satisfactory emotions toward the middle of the day. A gloom +had come over him and his heart had felt weighted. He had at first +identified this state of mind as a ghastly premonition of disease as a +result of last night's debauch and thought that the depression he felt +was his nervous system or something warning him of this fact.</p> + +<p>The depression lifted. He sat around the Basine home listening to the +chatter of the arriving guests and feeling out of place. He felt that he +was wishing for something but couldn't make out what it was. His heart +hurt, his head felt heavy. There were aches in him and a feeling of +listlessness. More, he couldn't sit still. The room seemed a suffocating +place. He was unhappy.</p> + +<p>Several hours later it dawned on him with a shock that he was in love +with Fanny. The sudden explanation frightened him. He attempted to deny +it to himself. The struggle endured a half hour. He surrendered.</p> + +<p>When he looked at Fanny again she had undergone a complete change. There +was a startling intimacy in her features. Her contours were stamped with +an appeal he had never observed before in a woman. The rest of the +company sat behind a thin film of politeness and formality. But Fanny +sat with him outside this film. The others in the room were blurred as +if half hidden. Fanny was distinct. A light seemed to beat upon her. He +looked in amazement.</p> + +<p>A few hours ago he had noticed nothing. Now he noticed everything ... +her dress, her hands, her hair, her eyes, her ankles. He was frightened +because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> it seemed as if someone had invaded the secret world in which +he alone lived. He remembered frightenedly that he had lain with his +head in her lap, that he had embraced her. There had been something +curious about the embrace but he was unable to identify it.</p> + +<p>"She felt sorry for me, that's all," he thought and at once all hope +ebbed out of him. Yet he continued to look at her and watch her grow +more familiar, so familiar that her image seemed to have come into his +heart where he could feel it choking him.</p> + +<p>A few minutes after entering the kitchen he grew hopeful. He found +himself in the position of an intimate—at least by comparison. She was +paying no attention to Aubrey. She laughed at his, Keegan's, clumsiness, +chided him good-naturedly. She held his hand and, his heart beating +wildly, directed him in slicing the bread. When he was drawing the water +from the sink faucet she leaned over resting her chin on his shoulder +and effected a humorous concern. He felt her body press warmly against +him and almost dropped the cut-glass pitcher he was holding. He was +being transported.</p> + +<p>Out of the corner of his eye he watched the novelist. A sorry fellow +with gawky feet and a clumsy-looking face. Keegan vaguely pitied him as +he stood around doing his best to horn in on the intimacy between Fanny +and himself. He knew how the novelist felt. It seemed to Keegan even +that it was he, Keegan, feeling that way, and that the carefully +concealed embarassment, the futile chagrin and lameness were his own +emotions and not Aubrey Gilchrist's. In an effort to put the defeated +rival at his ease, so Keegan regarded him, he tried magnanimously to +include him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> in the little byplay between himself and Fanny.</p> + +<p>"Here, you try your hand at this," he offered, handing Aubrey the knife. +Fanny pouted.</p> + +<p>"Hm! Just as I was teaching you the art of bread cutting you run away +from school," she complained. Keegan resumed his operations on the +bread, a satisfied warmth in his heart. For her hand had returned to its +position and she was again going through the idiotic pretense of +teaching him how to move a knife. He was being transported. His vacuous +face had taken on a vivacity. He was fearful of presuming, of doing +something wrong, and he made no effort to caress her. No effort was +necessary for, somehow, despite his carefully edited behavior, their +fingers were always touching, their bodies coming together.</p> + +<p>Still he was afraid to think that Fanny had fallen in love with him. He +was even afraid that Aubrey would go away and leave them alone in the +kitchen. If they were alone he would have to try to kiss her or +something and she would laugh and then say indignantly, "You idiot, I +was just playing. I see now that you think all women are like those you +told me about."</p> + +<p>He would rather that Aubrey remained and that everything continued as it +was. The sandwiches were piling up on the large platters.</p> + +<p>"Here," Fanny cried, holding one of them up for him to bite.</p> + +<p>He looked apologetically at Aubrey as if asking to be forgiven for this +proof of her superior regard and with a blush ate from her fingers. +Fanny suddenly let go the sandwich and as it dropped to the floor, +patted him tenderly on his cheek and laughed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Um ... big man hungry," she whispered.</p> + +<p>He turned to place the fallen pieces of bread in the sink. His hand +brushed hers and he felt her fingers close firmly around his palm with a +squeeze. He half shut his eyes at the shock that filled his heart. +Fanny's eyes, however, ignored him. She was engaged in watching Aubrey +for whose benefit the entire scene was being staged. Her instinct had +supplied her with a mode of attack. She would arouse desire in the +novelist by showing herself desired—although by another man. A desired +woman was an irritant. It aroused illogical jealousy.</p> + +<p>The icebox was in the back hallway.</p> + +<p>"The cream and things are in here," Fanny exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Keegan followed her out of the kitchen into the rear vestibule. She had +squeezed his hand before starting and thrown him a glance as she passed +through the doorway. He felt embarrassed for Aubrey and was on the point +of inviting him to share the intimacy of the small vestibule. But Fanny +interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"Oh Hugh," she called softly, "will you chop some ice, please, for the +water."</p> + +<p>She handed him the ice pick and laughed nervously. The door was half +open and Keegan caught a glimpse of the novelist pretending a vast +interest in the arrangement of the sandwiches on the plates.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Hugh? You seem so ... so funny," Fanny whispered +close to him.</p> + +<p>His heart contracted. He was afraid. If he dared he would put his arms +around her. But after all the things he had confessed to her in their +walk....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> A longing to weep almost brought tears out of his eyes. He +stood with his mouth open and stared as in a dream at a blurred vision.</p> + +<p>"Fanny," he muttered, "I'm sorry...."</p> + +<p>"About last night," she whispered. He nodded.</p> + +<p>"But Hughie, you said you wouldn't ever again...."</p> + +<p>He felt despair.</p> + +<p>"If I only hadn't ... I would...." He stopped.</p> + +<p>"Would what, Hughie?" Fear halted him definitely. He could go no +further. A misery clouded his thought. He felt her hand touching his +arm.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't feel sorry, Hugh. Please promise me you won't feel +sorry...."</p> + +<p>The sweetness of her voice overpowered him and his eyes grew wet. He +tried to talk but was ashamed of the quiver he felt in his throat. Fanny +pressed lightly against him. He stood with his head reeling and his +heart dancing crazily as her arms circled his neck. Her face was raised +to his.</p> + +<p>"Just one ... Hughie. Please ... don't forget. Please hurry...."</p> + +<p>He heard her words but they conveyed no meaning. He loved her ... he +loved her. He had never been happy like this. He couldn't tell her now +... the icebox, something, was in the way. But sometime he would tell +her. His arms and body felt alive.</p> + +<p>"Oh," he thought, "Fanny, Fanny...."</p> + +<p>Then he heard himself repeating the thought aloud. He was saying in a +voice he hardly recognized, "Oh, Fanny, Fanny."</p> + +<p>He kissed her lips.</p> + +<p>For a moment Fanny returned his kiss passionately.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> Her arms clutched +him tightly. She felt a curious lift in her heart, a thing she had never +experienced before. It made her almost close her eyes. But she kept them +open, watching furtively over Keegan's shoulder the figure of Aubrey. +Aubrey had remained bent over the plates of sandwiches. Despite the lift +in her heart this annoyed her. She wanted Aubrey's attention.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she sighed aloud. Aubrey heard. He straightened and for a moment +stared at the tableau of the lovers. Fanny watching him behind Keegan's +kiss saw his face grow red. Then she lowered her eyes and abandoned +herself to the sensation of Keegan's arms. But the sensations faded. An +interest seemed to have gone out of the situation. She pushed Keegan +gently away and looked into the kitchen. Aubrey was gone.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she whispered. Keegan looked at her dizzily. "He saw...."</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Aubrey Gilchrist saw you." Her face flushed.</p> + +<p>"Did he?" Keegan leaned against the icebox. He felt weak.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure he did," Fanny insisted, an elated note in her voice, "I'm +just positive."</p> + +<p>"He couldn't have seen much if he did, from where he was standing," +Keegan murmured.</p> + +<p>"I don't care anyway," Fanny smiled. Keegan felt a thrill at the words. +She loved him and didn't care who knew!</p> + +<p>"Neither do I," he agreed. He felt glad they had been seen. It made him +blush inside but he was glad.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what do we care?" Fanny cried, "if the old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> stick-in-the-mud did +see." Keegan reached his hands to her but she eluded him and darted into +the kitchen.</p> + +<p>"Hurry, chop the ice," she called. She was confused. For a moment she +had been surprised by an emotion—a curious, unsensual desire for the +awkward Keegan. She had felt her heart yield to his embrace as she +usually felt her body do. But the whole thing had been for Aubrey's +benefit. It had started with an intention of making Aubrey jealous by +flirting with Keegan. And when Aubrey had refused to show any signs of +jealousy she had carried the flirtation further until it had seemed +logical to kiss and embrace Keegan as a part of her original ambition to +stir Aubrey. But she had been stirred herself by the man's kiss. Yet now +that Aubrey was gone she had lost all interest in Hugh. She wanted to +hurry back where the novelist was.</p> + +<p>She glanced apprehensively toward the door. Doris was standing looking +at her.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Dorie?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ramsey has come. Mother said to set another place."</p> + +<p>"Good heavens! What a houseful."</p> + +<p>Doris nodded. Keegan was standing in the center of the room smiling +inanely at the sink.</p> + +<p>"I'll help you," said Doris.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C8" id="C8"></a>8</h2> + +<p>Mrs. Basine was embarassed by the arrival of her friend Tom Ramsey. He +had been a friend of her husband and a rumor had become current that he +was now courting her. She denied this with indignation. To herself she +admitted she liked to be alone with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> him. He was a sour-minded man with +a liver-red face, a patrician nose and the look of a man of importance. +But he was too thin and too short to live up to this look.</p> + +<p>In the presence of others he usually fell into a silence unless one of +the two or three subjects on which he felt himself an authority came up. +These subjects were things that had to do with advertising—effective +copy, effective display, prices, results. Mr. Ramsey was in the +advertising business.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine's embarassment at his arrival was caused by her sympathy for +the man and her resentment of his weakness. She knew exactly what would +happen. Tom Ramsey would sit through the evening, scrupulously polite to +everyone, saying, "Yes, yes. Quite right. Oh, of course. That's +absolutely right.... Indeed, I agree with you...."</p> + +<p>For the first few minutes he would impress everyone as a man of +character and intelligence. But gradually this impression would fade and +people would stop talking to him and eventually ignore him altogether in +the conversation.</p> + +<p>Why this happened Mrs. Basine could never determine. But it did and it +always hurt her. Mr. Ramsey, smiling exuberantly through the +introduction, his thin body alive in the slightly overheated room, would +in an hour become Mr. Ramsey sitting glassy-eyed and polite in a corner, +his liver-red face holding with difficulty a grimace of enthusiastic +attentiveness. He would make sporadic starts trying to recover +something. When the talk grew boisterous and everyone was making puns +and delivering himself of bouncing sarcasms, Ramsey would try to become +part of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> scene in a way that always startled the company. He would +come to life with mysterious suddeness and hurl a jest into the common +pot. His manner, however, focused attention on himself rather than his +words. In back of the drollery he offered would be a desperation, in +fact, sometimes a sense of fury. People would stare at him for an +instant thinking, "What an odd, impossible man." And in their +contemplation, forget to laugh at his remark, forget even to answer it. +And he would be left stranded in a silence—a conversational castaway. A +moment later he would collapse, sit glowering in his chair, looking +angrily at the carpet. This was painful to Mrs. Basine since she had +grown to understand him.</p> + +<p>When they were alone Ramsey became a different man. He talked to her +usually about people he had met in her house. At such times he was +master of caricature. Their absurdities, pompousness, banalities, +hypocricies took grotesque outline in his words. His method was +unvarying. It was based upon a crude, vicious skepticism, inspired in +turn by a fanatic resentment of success in others. He seemed determined +always to prove to his own and her satisfaction that despite their +pretentions people were no more successful than he. His nature seemed +unable to tolerate the thought of superiors. At the same time people he +encountered, particularly in the Basine home, managed always to override +him, to reduce him to silence, to deflate him.</p> + +<p>He would retire into himself, protesting viciously at the injustice of +this phenomenon. And while he sat in silence he would seek to wipe out +the consciousness of his own inferiority by attacking with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> contempt the +people around him. He would sit belittling and ridiculing the company to +himself until he had hypnotized himself with a conviction of their +general worthlessness and inferiority. Bolstered up by this treacherous +conviction, he would come suddenly to life with a grotesque sense of +magnitude in his mind. He was a giant among pigmies, a Socrates among +clowns! Who were these numbskulls and fourflushers that they thought +they were better than he was! He would show them! He would step forth +and by a single gesture, a scintillant phrase, reduce them to their +proper place.</p> + +<p>And the company would find itself staring for an instant at a thin, +little man with a wild look in his eyes and a snarling quiver in his +voice, saying something not quite intelligible—usually an involved pun +or a tardy comment on some issue under discussion. The intensity of the +sullen-faced little man with the patrician nose embarrassed them for the +moment. Not as much as it did Mrs. Basine whose heart would almost break +at the spectacle, but enough to make them feel it were best to ignore +this curious Mr. Ramsey and not let on what a fool he somehow made of +himself.</p> + +<p>Ramsey's indignation toward people, his sour skepticism of their values, +was his futile way of reassuring himself of his own worth. Futile, +because he had no conviction of this worth. When he sat denouncing in +silence the talkers around him, ridiculing and belittling them, it was +merely a less painful outlet for the contempt he had of himself.</p> + +<p>He had been since his youth ridden by this inner feeling that he was a +fool, a weakling, not quite a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> man. It had started in his boyhood when +the nickname "Sissy" had been attached to him. His high-pitched voice, +his thin body and his unboyish modesty had earned him the name. As he +had grown older the fact that he did not care for girls as other youths +did, and that he sometimes played with them as if he were a girl +himself, had not escaped the keen, cruel eyes of his companions. The +name "Sis" Ramsey had stuck.</p> + +<p>In order to convince these companions of his masculinity he had thrown +himself with violence into their roughest games. In high school he had +sought to establish himself as a hardened sinner—a drinker and tough +citizen. Despite his slight body he had developed into a creditable +athlete. More than that he had become known as a fellow who would fight +at the drop of a hat. His fiery temper became a byword.</p> + +<p>But all these masculine, or seemingly masculine attributes were part of +his effort to prove that, despite his somewhat odd voice and his equally +odd indifference toward girls, he was a man. When he left high school +and started in the offices of the Mackay Advertising Company, the name +"Sissy" had dropped from him. He had no longer to contend with the keen, +cruel eyes of boy companions. Men were content to accept him at whatever +value he chose to place on himself, as far as his character was +concerned.</p> + +<p>The struggle instead of abating, however, only increased. It removed +itself from the external combat of his boyhood to an internal +complication, and became the basis of the feeling of inferiority which +shaped his life.</p> + +<p>This inner knowledge he cherished, that he was inferior<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> to people, was +founded on the conviction that he was impotent; or at least nearly +impotent; that he could never marry and have children like other men. +His mind refused to acknowledge this fact and thus instead of finding +the comparatively harmless exit of regret, it permeated his entire +thought with the word—inferior ... inferior.</p> + +<p>Ramsey kept himself desperately blind to the cause of this permeation. +He concentrated on the detached word "inferior" and belabored it with +untiring fury. There was another secret, one that went deeper than the +hidden conviction of impotency.</p> + +<p>In the indignation which continually filled his mind, the hideous secret +that lived almost within grasp of his understanding was conveniently +clouded. It was the secret that his lack of vigor—a fact in itself that +he sometimes contemplated—was caused by a still deeper thing—a thing +that never reached any clearer articulation than a shudder.</p> + +<p>They had called him "Sissy" as a boy and he had not changed with age. He +had been able to repress the impulses that sought to turn him toward men +instead of women for companionship. He had repressed them by the ruse of +convincing himself he was an ascetic.</p> + +<p>It was, moreover, an attitude which could find outlet. He could devote +himself to the continual denunciation of others, developing into a sour, +cynical choleric man of fifty. A vindictive, unpleasing personality.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine herded her guests into the dining room. Ramsey's presence +preoccupied her. She found herself watching him as a mother might look +after a sickly child.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> + +<p>The intimacy that had grown between her and her dead husband's friend +had been too gradual to trace. It had started when Mrs. Basine had sat +one evening in the midst of a company similar to this and thought, "Poor +man. He jumps around like that and acts queerly because he's ashamed of +himself. He's ashamed of not being what he wants to be."</p> + +<p>She did not quite understand what this meant but she felt herself +suddenly close to the man after having thought it. He began to seek her +company alone and more and more to use her as an audience for his ruse +of transferring his self-rage into a critical indignation of others.</p> + +<p>A realization of Ramsey's character had stirred a pity in her and out of +this pity she was careful not to let him see it. She went to the extreme +of pretending a blindness toward his shortcomings and of accepting him +for the thing he tried to make himself out to be—a giant among pygmies.</p> + +<p>She would agree with him in his attacks upon others, second his vicious +caricaturing and appear always impressed by his desperate skepticism. +Ramsey as a result had come to regard her as the one person with whom he +had ever felt at ease during his life. Mrs Basine was a woman who +understood him, that is, one who was completely deceived by him. In her +presence the creature he struggled unsuccessfully to become, the +masquerade of magnificence which his inferiority sought futilely to +assume—in her presence these became realities. He would swagger before +her, deride her, browbeat her and the rage which bubbled everlastingly +in him would have respite. His mind seemed to uncloud and his talk would +grow actually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> clever, some of his caricatures bringing an authentic +laugh from her.</p> + +<p>But the widow as a rule would sit listening to him, watching his +swagger, her heart lacerated by the poignant things it sensed. It was as +if he were a little boy dressed up in an Indian suit and emitting war +whoops and she must sit by and pretend real horror of his juvenile +make-believe; as if he were someone who would drop dead with anguish in +the midst of his laughter if she were to say aloud what was in her mind, +"Oh you poor man, I'm sorry for you. I'm so ashamed for you."</p> + +<p>She did not understand why, despite these things, she felt a thrill of +pleasure when she found herself alone with him. Her pity for the man +seemed a pleasant excitement. It gave her a sense of intimacy toward +him. She admitted this to herself but wondered about it.</p> + +<p>There had been one evening that remained confusedly in her mind. He had +seemed unusually buoyant, she recalled, after it was over. His +cleverness had actually diverted her—his caricatures of Judge Smith and +Mrs. Gilchrist and even her own son. She had felt a certain truth in the +distorted descriptions he gave of her friends.</p> + +<p>Then without warning he had grown violently excited. She had watched him +with a fear in her heart—a warning to her that he was going to say +something. She remembered him walking up and down the room saying, "The +trouble with you, like with most people, my dear lady, is that you don't +understand things. You look at things through a fog. You don't see +through the pretences of people. Your brain isn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> active. It's merely +receptive. It doesn't question. And what's the result?"</p> + +<p>His voice had become high-pitched.</p> + +<p>"You live your lives among lies. That's what you do. Lies, lies—you +thrive on lies. Your friends are lies. Your thoughts, everything. Take +me.... Now take me ... my case.... I'll tell you something you don't +understand ... just by the way of proof.... I'll tell you something...."</p> + +<p>His voice had broken off, overcome by excitement. He was walking up and +down in front of her, his eyes staring wildly. He was going to say +something, something about himself. And for a moment she had sat +cringing inside. Why had she been afraid? Perhaps because he had looked +so wildly around him, like someone trying to escape. But he had grown +silent and dropped exhausted into a chair.</p> + +<p>She tried not to look at him because he was trembling and he had gone +away ten minutes later. He had kept away for two weeks and then returned +and their relations had resumed as if nothing had happened. Her mind +tingled with curiosity but a fear restrained her. She somehow had not +dared ask the question, "What were you going to tell me about yourself."</p> + +<p>But she remembered that it had seemed for a moment as if he were going +to escape, that he had looked like a man on the verge of ridding himself +of an incubus.</p> + +<p>Her guests were getting along famously. Everyone seemed pleased, happy. +They were chattering and laughing for hardly no reason at all. Mrs. +Basine had no liking for the people at her table. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> despised Mrs. +Gilchrist, resented Aubrey. The judge gave her a faint feeling of +repulsion. Henrietta was a simpleton. Fanny irritated her with her +continual blushes and sensitive innocence. Doris was too silent and +always brooding. And even George—he somehow failed to convince her +although she desired to be convinced.</p> + +<p>But all of them together were nice, like a pleasing combination of +colors. People belonged together. Alone they had faults. But when they +came together and forgot themselves they were nice. She felt proud of +having them at her table, because there were so many of them. They were +nice people when they were like this—just talking, not arguing or +saying things that convinced her somehow that they were wrong things.</p> + +<p>Under the table the little comedies of the day were playing a furtive +sequel. Henrietta sitting next to Basine was shyly pressing her knee +against his. Fanny had reached out her foot until it rested against an +ankle she fancied belonged to Aubrey. For a few minutes she failed to +connect the attentiveness of Judge Smith, his paternal banter, with her +activity under the table. But the suspicion slowly arrived. Her eyes +calculated the position of the judge's legs and, blushing, she withdrew +her foot. She noticed that Aubrey sought her face when she wasn't +looking and that Keegan was talking with a blurred politeness to Mrs. +Gilchrist.</p> + +<p>Doris sitting next to Mr. Ramsey felt annoyed. He was continually asking +her what she wanted, passing her salt-shakers and bread-plates and +conducting himself as if she were a helpless child under his care.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> Mrs. +Gilchrist, as the first conversational flush inspired by the food +subsided, launched into a detailed description of the plans for the +coming fête, talking in a precise, emotionless voice.</p> + +<p>"I was saying," Basine's voice emerged in a silence that followed Mrs. +Gilchrist's talk, "I was saying that people are easy to get along with +if you understand them and they understand you. I had a case in court +the other day where a woman was suing a man for breach of promise. He +had proposed marriage to her and then without reason broke his pledge. +The woman was my client."</p> + +<p>Murmurs of "how awful"; "that must have been interesting" arose. Basine +nodded sagely. He had without knowing why started improvising the +narrative, inventing its details with a creditable dramatic and legal +talent. There had been no such case, client or denouement but he +continued unconscious of this fact in his desire to tell the story. "The +man of course was a rascal. An unscrupulous rascal. The girl—my +client—a charming, innocent young thing—had believed him. He had +courted her passionately,—er, I should say—assiduously. I couldn't +understand how any man after giving his word and asking a girl to marry +him could possibly be rogue enough to do what he had done. So during a +recess in the case I sought the fellow out. His name was Jones. We had +quite a talk."</p> + +<p>Basine paused.</p> + +<p>"What happened?" Fanny exclaimed. "I wish you'd tell us more about your +work than you do, George. It's so interesting."</p> + +<p>"Yes, go on," Mrs. Gilchrist commanded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> + +<p>Basine hesitated. His improvisation seemed to have come to an end. He +was, mysteriously, at a loss as to how to make the lie turn out. But +inspired by the attention of the table he resumed:</p> + +<p>"Well, of course a lawyer must be first of all faithful to his client."</p> + +<p>He paused again. He had almost decided to end the fiction by explaining +that on investigation he had found the man to be right and that the +defense the man had given him privately of his actions had caused him to +withdraw from the case. But this would sound quixotic, unreal. There +would have to be explanations. Why had he started the lie? To give it +that ending so that.... He smiled a sudden appreciation of what he was +doing—trying to excuse his jilting of Henrietta—an event not far off +if she persisted in holding him to the thingumabob foolishness. But he +went on:</p> + +<p>"This sometimes prejudices an attorney against his opponent. But I found +this time that all prejudice was warranted. The man was a thorough +rascal. It had been his practise to propose marriage to girls—innocent +girls of course, and he had several times managed to take advantage of +their faith in him and—ruin them."</p> + +<p>Fanny averted her eyes. Mrs. Gilchrist stared with an uncomprehending +frown at the talker. The judge permitted a grimace of distaste to pass +over his face as he murmured, "The cad. Yes sir, men are cads."</p> + +<p>"My client won," resumed Basine with modesty, "and was awarded five +thousand dollars by the jury. But the law could not give her back the +happiness this scoundrel had snatched from her...."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Had he ... had he accomplished his purpose with her?" Aubrey inquired, +aloofly interested in the plot details of the narrative.</p> + +<p>"No, fortunately," Basine answered. "But look at him now. Free, although +found guilty, free to continue his tactics."</p> + +<p>He paused confused. Henrietta was beaming at him, her eyes wide with +admiration. He felt he should have given it the other ending and cursed +himself silently for what he had done. He had only made it worse when he +had meant to tell a story that would help matters and make her +understand....</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine regarded her son unhappily. She was convinced he was lying +because he usually mentioned the big cases he had and he had never +before referred to any Jones suit. But she was unable to understand why +anyone should lie without cause and after a moment of doubt her son's +stern face and positive manner managed to convince her again. He wasn't +lying.</p> + +<p>Basine, as the others took up the discussion of the narrative, dropped +his hand to his side and furtively pressed it against Henrietta's knee. +At this sensation of physical contact a feeling of relief came to him. +In the sensual thrill this contact aroused he buried the discomfort of +the words running through his head—"she thinks I'm going to marry her. +Damn it ... damn it...."</p> + +<p>He was startled when, glancing at her in the midst of his daring +excursion under the table, he noticed her smiling coolly and primly at +Aubrey who was talking.</p> + +<p>"Will you have some of this?" Mr. Ramsey's voice protruded through the +silence. Several eyes turned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> toward him as if he were about to take up +the burden of the talk. Mrs. Basine interrupted quickly.</p> + +<p>"What was that book you told me about, Mr. Gilchrist, last month?" she +asked. Aubrey looked up inquiringly. "I mean your father."</p> + +<p>The elder Gilchrist blinked and seemed to peer into the depths of his +memory.</p> + +<p>"I don't remember," he said clearing his throat. They were the first +words he had spoken since he had said, "Thank you ... thank you...." and +sat down in a corner of the Basine library. His wife stared at him as if +he were a phenomenon unexpectedly revealed to her gaze.</p> + +<p>"It must have been," stammered Mr. Gilchrist, "Suetonius, I think. Or +... or the Chevalier de Boufflers...."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure that was it," Mrs. Basine agreed. "I must get that to read."</p> + +<p>The judge frowned disapprovingly upon the elder Gilchrist. He resented +readers. Culture was a state of soul acquired by being a gentleman, not +by reading books. He resented also the impression Aubrey had left during +the Annexation discussion.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact he felt sleepy, the result of the food he had eaten. +And he was automatically seeking for some occasion which would warrant +an expression of dignity or resentment or anything in which he might +hide his heaviness of spirit.</p> + +<p>The sight of his daughter regarding Aubrey with a sweet, prim +attentiveness supplied him with what he desired. The idea of Henrietta +marrying that fool was annoying. Old Gilchrist was a sly dog and his +wife a difficult woman. He would forbid the thing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> It might hurt +Henrietta for a time but he knew what was good for her. A mere story +writer had no real standing in the community, no future. +Whereas—Basine.... He lowered his eyes and glowered at his plate.... +Nice young man. Honorable. And full of promise ... promise....</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C9" id="C9"></a>9</h2> + +<p>"Love the stars. Love people's faces. Buildings and faces. What do I +know about 'em? God knows. Rotten streets.... Life's a great harlot that +men keep chasing. That gives herself to men—all men, everybody. I want +her. I want her."</p> + +<p>He walked angrily, a cap on his head, a pipe clenched between his teeth. +He was thinking as he walked. Emotions came out of his heart and burst +crests of words in his mind. Angry emotions. There was an anger in him. +He was overcoming a feeling of futility as he walked.</p> + +<p>The street was a carnival fringe. Cheap burlesque theatres, arcades, +museums, saloons. This was blurred. He saw no lithographs. One side of +the street followed along at his elbow—a slant of pinwheel lights. On +the other side across the street, pin points. But he saw nothing. Things +passed unresistingly through his eyes.</p> + +<p>He remembered now a mile of walking. The business section asleep on +Sunday evening. He had walked through that. Darkened windows, ghastly +inanimations. Why was he angry?</p> + +<p>"Aw huh!" he snarled. He was cursing something. He asked questions and +answered them. This got him nowhere. Stars, buildings, faces—he wanted +to knock<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> them over. That was inside him, a wish to knock 'em over. More +than a wish. A necessity. But he could only walk. The world scratched at +his elbow. He could bite on his pipe. This thing hurt him.</p> + +<p>People, rotten people. Crazy jellyfish with jellyfish hearts, jellyfish +brains. He could swear at 'em like that. But why? He didn't know. Only +this thing in him made him blow up.</p> + +<p>It was easier when he worked. His father calmed him. His father stood +over the bench planning the fine-grained wood. A great man because he +loved the wood he cut and carved into pieces of furniture. But jellyfish +sat in the chairs they made in his father's shop. Damn 'em.</p> + +<p>"Love people. Say something. What? Say something. Get it out. Aw, the +dirty, filthy swine."</p> + +<p>That was the way he thought as he walked. A long furious mumble in him, +this man walked and saw nothing but light slants, spinning windows. He +was young and he wore a cap.</p> + +<p>He would get it out of him ... Show 'em! Ah, a nip to the air. Spring +blowing his heart up like a balloon. All they wanted was women. And all +women wanted was to be wanted. No. That was wrong. Damn! Always wrong! +His feet talked better than his head. Clap, clap on the pavement. Where +were the others going?</p> + +<p>He didn't hate them. Someday it would all come out like swans swimming. +Very majestic. He would talk easy and smooth. But now people kept him +from putting it over. They wrapped him up. Ideas wrapped up his words +and killed them. Streets, buildings, stars chewed at him. He must knock +'em over and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> get himself free. Put his hands on things and knock Hell +out of 'em.</p> + +<p>"Love 'em. Love 'em. How the Hell ... why the Hell? Lindstrum! +Lindstrum! That's my name.... I got a name. I'm the greatest man in the +world. The world's greatest all-around individual on two legs walking, +smoking. Damn...."</p> + +<p>But what could he do? Saw wood, smear varnish on wood, monkey around +with wood. That didn't get it out. When he wrote it came out. But +rotten. He wrote rotten, crazy rotten. If he was the greatest man why in +God's name! He'd show 'em.</p> + +<p>A long breath brought the night into him like a sponge. It drained +something out of him. He could grin. A very evil grin at a saloon +window. He could look around and notice. That's what eyes were for. +Look—people walking. Poor, sad, broken people. So sad.... Ah, tired +eyes in the street that looked for lights outside themselves.</p> + +<p>"I'm going nuts. That's what—nuts."</p> + +<p>But the mumble went on. Questions and answers in a circle, biting their +own tails. God forgive them, all these people. He must do something. +Arms around them whispering to their hearts something that would say, +"Yes, yes. I know it all about you. How you think one way and feel +another. And how everything ends. How everything ends in a little cry +that goes up."</p> + +<p>Love their faces. Damn it! Love 'em.... He'd show 'em. He'd talk to the +lights in the street. Why not?</p> + +<p>"Do you know what? Do you know? It's all a humpty dumpty. Egg-heads +falling off a wall and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> smashing. But I know what. I got your number. +Wait...."</p> + +<p>There was something to say. Why? Damn it ... not that way. Hit poor, sad +ones on the head. Better the dirty swine in the City Hall. Aw huh! Wring +their necks. What for? Wrong. Something else. They were like him. +Brothers, everybody. You could kill the whole of them and there would be +something left behind that was good—Life. But a better way than +that.... Don't hit. Arms around them, lips to their hearts and talk like +that. Make the hyenas sigh. Make the jellyfish weep softly. Make the +stars dance in their idiot thoughts. Sing them songs. If only the songs +came out.</p> + +<p>It was evening, spring evening in a dirty lighted street, and he walked +biting his pipe. He said to himself, "What's there to this thing? Let us +study it. Many people in many houses and many streets. And each of them +a known thing. But when you take all of them together, that's an unknown +thing. If you know me, if you know one—what then? Nothing. It remains +only one known. There is still everything else to know. One man +multiplied by a million isn't a million men but an infinitude of +millions."</p> + +<p>He would get the hang of them all though, all the millions. He would +think it out, get his fingers on something that didn't exist for fingers +to touch. That was art. It was easy when you figured it that way.</p> + +<p>He walked along often figuring it that way and understanding something +that had no words, living with something that was like a strange phantom +in a great dark deep. This phantom was a stranger inside him. A phantom +like an insane companion that had a way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> of putting its arms around him, +inside him, and a way of holding him like a horrible mother. Then when +it did, he stopped calling himself nuts ... nuts. He became silent then +and vanished.</p> + +<p>The phantom devoured him. All there was of him that everybody knew, that +even he knew, all that vanished. The phantom devoured him and it was +easy then. But the phantom let him go, took its arms off him, and he +came back, out of the deep. Then he felt himself leaping up with a choke +in his lungs, leaping through layers and layers with no surface to +reach. He must go up, up from the easy embrace of the phantom and keep +on raging, yelling out to himself that something had sent him shooting +up.</p> + +<p>Now he walked and it was easy. The night blotted out his eyes and he +lived with himself down deep where the easy embrace waited. Such moments +came when he walked and he must be careful. That was writing, being +careful and watching the little words that danced high up and that he +could watch when he raised his eyes from the embrace. Skyrockets far +away, he watched them breaking in crazy spatters of light against the +top of things where the sky came to an end.</p> + +<p>He was thinking like that now. Lucid thoughts that he later stared back +upon and wondered, "What the hell were they? I had something, what was +it?" Now he was thinking them with this deceptive lucidity as if they +were something. He was thinking how when he was younger, when he was a +boy, he used to run down country roads. Apples trees and rivers and +growing fields that sang at night were there. And yet, there was +nothing. What did that mean? That was easy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> to answer. There was nothing +because it was all outside him in a marvelous way. When he was a boy +long ago, so long ago, and he lay on his back and looked at the night +and the night was nothing in his head, the night was a song that chanted +itself to him. The stars were something he had spoken. Darkness was a +sentence echoing off his lips. And the world was marvelously outside and +it gave itself to him. The boy lying on his back handed the world to +himself as a gift. There was nothing to want, everything to have. Long +ago when he was a boy watching the day and night without thinking.</p> + +<p>But it all went away. Now what was it? That was easy to answer. The +night that had been a song chanting itself, the stars that had been his +words dancing, the darkness, clouds, trees, river and roads, the fields +and the people crawling with tiny steps under the cornfield sky—these +went away all together and he couldn't find them any more. These things +he had said without speaking, these all went away. Beautiful familiars, +they misunderstood something in him and vanished from him.</p> + +<p>That was long ago. Now he could remember them and his remembering them +was like hearing them again. That's what made him angry. He could hear +them as if they were calling, "Find us ... find us...." And he said +back, "All right, I'll find you. Wait. I'll come after you somehow. +You're my old friends. I'll get you back. Christ knows how—but, +wait...."</p> + +<p>But this made him think he was laughing at himself, kidding himself. He +knew better. The things that had gone away were in the faces of people, +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> buildings, in lights, in streets under his feet. Christ! why +couldn't he lay hands on them again since they came so close they choked +him and made him howl inside with choking.</p> + +<p>He was letting go now again. The easy embrace was shooting him up and he +began to know again he was nuts. He hung on to himself a little by +saying words.... "Easy boy.... Easy...."</p> + +<p>He stopped walking for a second and a happy smile came to his set mouth. +The smile said it was over. He was Lief Lindstrum again and nobody else. +He could become calm like this. It was like blowing a fire out with a +grin. His head was clear and he was happy. The street was like a +merry-go-round. The night had a smell of life in it. That came from the +lake. Whatever living might be and whatever the choke inside him was, a +man was a fool to forget this other—the calm, grinning strength of +muscles and the way his nose buzzed when he drew his breath in.</p> + +<p>Now he was Lief Lindstrum walking to call on his girl. And he could +think of others, the poor little others, the superfluous others. Only he +didn't have to get angry at them. Or he didn't have to fall in love with +them. It was just thinking straight. Well, the way men talked to each +other was funny. The way they swapped lies was funny. Poor, rich, happy, +sad, broken, bawling ones—they all made the same lies to each other. +The government was a lie. God was a lie. And all the gabble about good +and bad and what-not-to-do and what-to-do, and all the laws and +everything beginning from the beginning and going ahead as far as you +wanted, it was all lies. So many of them that all the philosophers had +never been able to begin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> straightening things out. And if somebody +found out something true, what then? Well, they grabbed it and made it +into a lie, pronto! used it as a lie. The poor little crawling ones on +the earth made up lies to explain things but most of all they made up +lies to keep alive. If they didn't lie to each other they would all fall +apart and vanish because nature would have it that way. So they must go +contrary to nature and keep on surviving. Nature demanded the +elimination of the unfit. But it was the unfit that desired most to +live. So the unfit made laws and rules and institutions, and inside +them, protected by them, kept alive. So the will to live was the thing +that created lies.</p> + +<p>But the worst lie the little people told was when they called themselves +life. That was the chief lie, the Grand Sachem and High God of all lies. +Because they were not life. They were part of something inexplicable +that altogether might be called life. But each of them separately was a +dead one, a dead one buried deep in life. That was the difference about +him, Lindstrum. He wasn't buried in life. There were moments when he +shot up like a man shooting through layers of graves. The others let the +thing called life pile up on them and it became a mystery of graves that +reached to the farthest star. But with him there was no piling up. He +would keep on shooting out of it till he had lifted himself up where +there were no graves.</p> + +<p>"Shh, shh," he murmured to himself, "let's not be nuts tonight. Plenty +of nights for that. Let's talk about other things. About her."</p> + +<p>Her face was beautiful. Dark eyes, dark hair, silent, that was like she +was. The thought of her made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> him grimace inside with pain. He wanted +her as much as that. But what did he want her for? God knows. What does +one want for? In order to get rid of wanting. Nothing else. Kiss her? +Bah! She was a victory. He wanted her like that.</p> + +<p>When he was near her they didn't have to talk or hold hands. They came +together in a different way. She was so beautiful....</p> + +<p>"I love her," he said quietly. He wanted to be quiet so he spoke +quietly. She was marvelous. He would like to cut himself up into bits +and give himself that way to her. He would like to die a thousand +different ways and say, "Here, I destroy everything I am in order to +become a gift for you." That was like placing oneself on a burning +altar—the ecstacy of the sacrificed one. That was it.</p> + +<p>Some nights like this the world became too small to live in. The city +swept away from his senses and everything in the city seemed like a room +full of cheap little broken toys he had outgrown. He would sit in a room +within this bigger room, a lamp on his table and write. Or he would +strike out like this time and walk to her—miles across streets.</p> + +<p>"I want her," he said. His thought paused. "But what do I want of her?" +he asked. "I don't know. But I want to give myself to something."</p> + +<p>And he began thinking over how many ways there were to die as a gift.</p> + +<p>This lighted window was her house. The curtains were down but light +spurted through the sides. The sight of the house with its light-fringed +windows depressed him. It was a disillusionment. She wasn't a woman then +like he was a man but she was a part of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> things. He saw her as he walked +up the stone steps, saw her talking to people. She had parents. In his +mind she lived as an entity. A beautiful one without background or +lighted windows or stone steps. Someone for him. Nobody else.</p> + +<p>He rang. The door opened. A man like himself stood blinking in the +lighted hall.</p> + +<p>"Good evening," said Lindstrum. His voice was deep for his age. He spoke +in a drawl that seemed edged with anger. "Is Doris in?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, hello," Basine exclaimed. "Yes, she's in. Come right in."</p> + +<p>People were talking in the next room.</p> + +<p>"Company?" said Lindstrum. He didn't want to go in. But Basine was +leading the way. The supper had ended ten minutes ago. The company +looked up at him. They were all dressed well. Their faces were dressed +well, too. They wore carefully tailored satisfactions in their eyes. +When they smiled their mouths postured like ballet dancers in a finale. +They were rich people. Their hands were soft.</p> + +<p>The room blurred before Lindstrum. There was no reason for it now +because he wasn't thinking or caring but a rage crept into his senses. +He breathed in deep with his mouth opened and the feel of the air on his +teeth and tongue made his jaw set. Because he would have to be careful +what he said. Because he was saying inside to himself, "Damn 'em. The +scum!"</p> + +<p>His eyes brought pictures into his anger. They stared with deliberation +into other eyes and brought back messages. He was being introduced. He +was saying to himself deep down, "They're all alike. Like peas in a pod. +They smirk and talk alike. And they're<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> all stuck on themselves alike. +And they're all liars—damn liars, all alike."</p> + +<p>He would have to take care and not argue. He would sit down. Doris was +upstairs and she would appear in a minute. Then they would go for a walk +and shake this room out of their eyes.</p> + +<p>They chattered like monkeys. Satisfied with themselves. Yes, +know-it-alls, tickled to death with themselves. An old man with a heavy +pink face and sleepy eyes, a well dressed old man they called Judge—if +he could punch this guy in the face, let his fist smash into his +jellyface, God! what a thrill! A flushed girl, Doris' sister, wiggling +her body in a chair. What she needed was somebody to grab hold of her +and say, "Come on kid." A square, hard-faced old woman talking of +society. What she needed was someone to walk up behind her and kick her +hard. And when she raised her glasses to look, laugh like Hell and spit +in her eye. That would make her human! And this smart-aleck Basine.... +Hm! What he needed was somebody to tie him to a stake in a dark prairie +and let the wind and rain go over him till he got hungry and began to +whine. That's what they all needed—wind and rain to bring them back to +life.</p> + +<p>But he must be careful and say nothing. There was Doris' mother. She +wasn't so bad. But this other guy, this writing guy, talking about +books! God! Why didn't somebody choke the life out of him! What did he +know about books? And he talked about writing! What was good writing? He +asked that, this guy did! He would have to be careful what he said to +this guy and keep himself from jumping up and murdering him. Hell take +all of them and make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> 'em burn. That's what they needed. He hated all of +them. They were rich. Damn 'em! He must sit and grin at them, these +jellyfish who wiggled in their graves and called their wiggles by great +names, who were dead ... dead.... How dead they were! And happy about +it! Happy.... Didn't they know how dead they were?</p> + +<p>Doris was like them. He was a fool for coming to see her. As if she were +any different from them. She belonged with this filthy crew. She was a +filthy little tart like the rest of them. Let her go to Hell. He'd tell +her to go to Hell when he saw her. She was one he could talk to.</p> + +<p>Uh huh, they were giving him the up and down. His shoes were dirty. His +collar soiled. His clothes weren't pressed. That was the way with these +dead ones, they made standards of their clothes because clothes were all +they had. And their idea was to make people feel inferior who were +inferior to their clothes or to their manners or to their other +artificialities. But he didn't have to feel inferior if he didn't want +to. He was the kind who could stand up in a graveyard like this and say +"Go to Hell" to the pack of them and grin and walk away and forget all +about it.</p> + +<p>He noticed they looked at him not quite as they looked at each other. +That was right. They knew he had their number. Mrs. Basine, too, was +looking. She asked:</p> + +<p>"I understand you write, Mr. Lindstrum?"</p> + +<p>Books all bound and pretty standing in a row with your name in the +papers as a young writer of note and invitations to speak at women's +clubs—was what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> she meant. That was what writing was to people, to +jellyfish.</p> + +<p>"I try to write," he answered, making the correction softly so that his +words purred.</p> + +<p>"You should know Aubrey Gilchrist," said Basine. "Do you know his work?"</p> + +<p>"I do not," said Lindstrum still purring. "What does he write?"</p> + +<p>Basine chuckled inside. His unaccountable aversion for Aubrey was +growing.</p> + +<p>"Novels," said Basine.</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Lindstrum dragging the syllable out and placing a huge +granite period after it.</p> + +<p>"What writers do you like?" Fanny inquired with a successful attempt at +social artlessness. She was looking for something in this friend of +Doris'. She was in awe of him because he was dirty looking and because +he swayed as he sat in his chair. He kept swaying as if he were on +secret springs and would jump up any minute. He frightened Fanny.</p> + +<p>"I read good books," said Lindstrum, "books written by men."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gilchrist sat up stiffly. Her husband peered out of his glasses. He +liked Lindstrum. He wanted to talk to him. But he got no further than +clearing his throat several times. The judge interrupted with a glower. +He was given the floor, eyes turning to him. A defender. But he merely +glowered. That was his decision, that settled it. If he glowered this +moujik was done for. He glowered Lindstrum off the face of the earth. +But Lindstrum turned full on him and thrust his face forward as if he +were going to come closer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What kind of books do you read?" he asked the glowerer. The snap in his +voice startled Henrietta. She was afraid for a minute this strange +looking creature waiting for Doris would do something and she turned +appealingly to Basine.</p> + +<p>"All kinds, sir," the judge answered in his most effective baritone. +Lindstrum nodded his head slowly and a grin came into his eyes. He kept +looking at the judge and grinning and nodding his head and just as the +judge was going to say something Lindstrum abandoned him. He had turned +to Aubrey. Aubrey had grown eager. A confusion inspired by an impulse +toward garrulity was in his eyes. He wanted to talk to this Lindstrum +and discuss things beyond everybody in the room. Lindstrum thought he +was a soda-water clerk. One of those radicals with unbalanced ideas. But +he wanted to talk to him. Perhaps they had something in common? Aubrey +felt himself growing angry. But it was not an anger of silences. An +anger of words. He wanted to talk, to reason with Lindstrum and put +himself over with Lindstrum. Lindstrum was like a conscience.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" The arrival stood up and looked at Doris. He forgot about +calling her names. She was smiling at him like a fresh wind blowing +through his heart. The roomful dropped out of sight.</p> + +<p>"Do you want to go for a walk?" he asked slowly. "It's nice and cold +outside."</p> + +<p>She nodded and Lindstrum, with a long, deliberate stare at the company +spoke to them.</p> + +<p>"Good night," he said. When he had said it he continued to stare as if +he were weighing the matter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> over carefully and should say something +more. The pause grew embarassing but not to him. Without nodding his +head he repeated the result of his deliberations.</p> + +<p>"Good night," he said in the same voice. That was enough.</p> + +<p>He left them sitting in their chairs—a general calmly marching off the +field of victory. He left behind a silence. The company was +uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gilchrist and the judge stared hard at the doorway through which +Lindstrum had passed. They wanted to insult the doorway. Lindstrum's +visit had had a curious effect upon Ramsey. He had sat silent and +avoided the young man's eyes. But he had felt himself becoming animated +as if something were exciting him. When the young man had glanced at him +for a moment he had blushed and an odd nervousness had made his thin +body tremble. Now that Lindstrum was gone he felt the room had become +empty and entirely lacking in interest.</p> + +<p>"How do you like him?" Mrs. Basine whispered at his side. She was +worried.</p> + +<p>"Him? Oh yes, the young man," Ramsey muttered. "He ... he has nice +eyes."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C10" id="C10"></a>10</h2> + +<p>In the park Lindstrum sat on a bench with Doris and talked.</p> + +<p>"All this," he said, "all this night and trees and things we feel more +than we see, are like what you're like. But why should we call that +love. Because love means to hold a woman in your arms. I don't care +about holding a woman. I want to hold something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> else. If you hold +something in your arms you haven't got it. It's what you can't get your +fingers on that you own most. Because you dream about it. It's what you +dream about that you own most."</p> + +<p>He spoke disconnectedly. There were pauses during which he allowed the +night to punctuate his thoughts.</p> + +<p>"Have you written any more things since last time?" Doris asked.</p> + +<p>"No. I didn't bring anything with me."</p> + +<p>He was silent. Doris wished he would sit closer to her. His silence +excited her. She could feel things moving in him. She became nervous. +Her dark eyes looked fully at his profile and a pride elated her. Other +men didn't stare like that into the night. They had fussy little eyes +and fussy little bodies. They fidgeted around. But Lief sat as if he +were turned to granite.</p> + +<p>There was something ominous about him. The glint of his straight eyes +and the leather color of his face were ominous. She felt that he was +powerful, more powerful than the spaces he stared into. He could stand +up and swing the park around their heads. She wanted to come close to +him.</p> + +<p>"Lief," she whispered, "why don't you come oftener. I get lonely for +you. I hardly talk to anybody else."</p> + +<p>He nodded as if agreeing with her and saying silently, "That's right. +Don't talk to anybody else." But he said nothing aloud.</p> + +<p>She wanted to be the thing he swung around his head. If he would take +her up and destroy her it would make her crazy with happiness. She +closed her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> fingers around his hand and trembled. Her body felt weak. +Her arms were as if she no longer directed them. They were being drawn.</p> + +<p>"I'm so proud of you. You're so different from all of them, Lief. I +can't stand them sometimes. They're terrible."</p> + +<p>He nodded his head with a ponderous air of sagacity.</p> + +<p>"They make me sick," she went on. "All of them. They're not like people +but like something else. Like parts of people."</p> + +<p>He nodded his head again. She was all right—this girl. She didn't +belong with the pack in the room he had left. She wasn't a little slut +... one of those lying, filthy ones. But he was afraid of her. He wanted +to keep things like they were. If you let down to a woman she started +climbing all over you and asking for this and for that. Anyway it was +time to walk back now. There was a lot of work in the shop. He got up at +six.</p> + +<p>They walked out of the park together. The spring night called for +endings. The darkness hinted. The day with its houses and noises +lingered like an unnatural memory in the shadows. What were people for? +The darkness hinted. Doris felt a mist in her blood. So curious, the +day. Unreal, empty. Noises that circled, faces that went on forever. +People had been moving forever. They kept walking and walking. There was +no ending to people. The years passed under their feet like a treadmill +and they kept moving on.</p> + +<p>Now it was quiet. Beside this man she felt there was no more moving on. +Her heart filled with impatience.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> It was hard to breathe. Her arms were +heavy, overcrowded. "Oh," she whispered to herself, "I'll die. I'll +die."</p> + +<p>But they continued to walk. The man's silences, his ominous reserves, +his sagacious noddings had excited her. She felt angry with him. He had +called for her a half dozen times in the last two months. They had met +by accident in a book store. A clerk had introduced them. He called and +they went for walks. But he said nothing. Once he had told her she was +beautiful. Another time he had mentioned, as if it were a casual thing, +that she was the sort of girl to whom he would like to make a gift. But +of what, he didn't know. Some gift worthy, he said. She had been +frightened of him at first. But gradually as she grew accustomed to his +strange manners, his bristling silences, she became impatient, angry.</p> + +<p>He stopped.</p> + +<p>"I'll go this way," he announced. "Good-night."</p> + +<p>He stood looking at her for a long minute and then turning, walked away. +She watched him but he didn't look back. She walked to the house alone.</p> + +<p>Her thoughts now were clear. He was a man who didn't want her but was +looking for something of which she was a part. He never tried to touch +her. He never said, "I love you," to her. But he did love. She knew +that. He called it by other names and misunderstood himself. And he +might go on that way till he died, misunderstanding himself. To be near +her thrilled him. She remembered how he became taut, immobile, sitting +on the bench. His arms quivered. Yet he never tried to embrace her.</p> + +<p>She thought about this as she walked to her home.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> Would he ever embrace +her? She knew about his silences. She could even feel how he suffered +inside because something was urging him that had no direction. It was +this life in him that lured her. It stirred her senses.</p> + +<p>Nothing before had interested her. Days had passed with no difference in +them. Now he made a difference. When she remembered him a pain that was +like anger filled her.</p> + +<p>She would go to bed and lie in the dark dreaming of him with her eyes +open. A languor made it difficult to walk. She smiled to herself. It was +pleasant, sweet to think of him. For a moment the image of his face +transfixed her. She whispered aloud, "Talk to me. Oh, please ... +please...."</p> + +<p>Then images that disgusted her crowded her thought. They came of their +own volition. Her sister Fanny kissing men. Her brother George kissing +women. Keegan, the judge, Ramsey, Aubrey and Henrietta—they disgusted +her with their continual love-making, kissing, dirtiness. People like +that didn't understand anything else. Their bodies searched each other +out and clung to each other. Bodies clenched together—she began to rage +in silence against them. He called them the pack. They were like that—a +pack of animals with nothing else but animal bodies to live with. She +paused in her hating, a chill coming between her silent words. The +company of images in her mind had dissolved. Their faces came together +and blurred into a single face and she saw Lief Lindstrum holding her +wildly against him, his lips open and hot against her mouth....</p> + +<p>The company had gone. Her family was left in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> library. She had +intended going upstairs without speaking. But she came into the room and +sat down. Fanny looked at her with a questioning innocence that said, +"Dear me, I wonder what people do who walk in the park at night?" Her +brother was talking. He looked at her with a smile and went on.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't think I'm a blockhead, mother, about these people here +tonight, for instance. Just because I get along with them. I'll give you +my theory of people. We were discussing our guests," he explained +turning to Doris. She nodded. "Never believe them," he grinned. "They're +all liars. The thing to do is to lie better than they. Honesty, purity, +nobility—bah! I know what I'm talking about. That's what people tell +each other they are. And they are, of course. Till they're found out. +You said a little while ago I was lying. Of course I was. But not the +way you mean. That breach of promise case really happened. I wasn't +lying about that. You wait, you'll understand what I mean after a few +years. I'm going to do things."</p> + +<p>He stood up and yawned. Mrs. Basine smiled happily at him. The day had +tired her. She felt pleasantly responsible for her three children. Three +human beings that belonged to her. At least she could pretend they did. +And sometimes it was almost as nice dreaming of what they had in their +minds as planning her own tomorrows. Basine went to his bedroom.</p> + +<p>He undressed and lay down. Sounds continued in the house. Doris coming +upstairs. Fanny chattering to his mother. Water running in the bathroom. +He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> turned the gas out and lay with his face toward the window.</p> + +<p>His body was weary. But he felt young. He thought of the many years +ahead of him. Everything was new. Even the century had just begun. A new +century. Life was a gay unknown. He thought about things. Things filled +the future. They could not be seen or understood but their presence +could be felt. Unlived years stretched ahead, like a track without end.</p> + +<p>He must be careful not to grow too serious. Lying was easy but he must +avoid getting tangled up. Say anything you want to, but look out how +hard you say it. People were easy. It would all come out beautifully. +Success, power, fame, money, happiness—they were all easy. They would +all come to him. People were fools and you could get ahead of them. He +yawned. He almost fell asleep. His mind mumbled with words. His day +dreams, his memories, his weariness jumbled dim pictures. Phantoms +drifted without outline over his head.</p> + +<p>He fell asleep and dreamed he was in a brightly lighted hall. Men were +cheering. Music played and people were yelling his name. In the dream he +was going to make a speech. The brightly lighted hall grew larger and +the crowd reached as far as he could see. But he didn't come out to make +the speech. Instead a woman in a gaudy dress came out. Her face was +white with powder and heavily painted. Her eyes were sunken. In the +dream he shuddered because the great crowd would rave indignantly at the +substitute who had come out to make the speech for him. But instead, a +tremendous cheer went up at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> sight of this woman and everybody +yelled, "Basine ... Basine.... There he is. Hooray for Basine!" They +mistook the woman for him. The woman began to make his speech. The one +he had prepared. She spoke in a tired, hollow voice but the crowd +continued to cheer. Where was he in the dream? There was no Basine in +the dream. He kept wondering about this. There was no Basine but the +crowd thought this woman in the gaudy dress with the painted face was +Basine and they cheered her for him, calling her, "Basine...." while he, +hiding somewhere, the dream didn't say where, listened to the woman and +the cheers and the shouts of his name. He was saying to himself with a +feeling of horror, "I know that woman they think is me. It's that woman +Keegan and I met once. Keegan and I met her, by God!" He was going to +stop something but the dream went away.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C11" id="C11"></a>11</h2> + +<p>The city grows and keeps on growing. People vanish. Buildings spring up +to take their places. The streets become full of vast, intricate +activities. People have vanished but these activities keep on growing.</p> + +<p>The city shakes with noises. A cloud of noises rises from the street and +bursts slowly into names. Everywhere one turns, doors and windows +chatter with names. Names run up and down the faces of buildings. Gilt +names slant downward, porcelain names curve like lopsided grins. Names +fly from banners, hang from long wires, lean down from rooftops.</p> + +<p>The city is plastered with names. Tired men stop and blink. They mutter +to themselves in the street, "Lets see, where am I?" Their eyes stare at +an inanimate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> dance of names. Names fall out of the sky. An alphabet +face with eyebrows, nose, lips and hair made of names winks and sticks +out its tongue.</p> + +<p>These are not the names of people but of activities. As the city grows +the names pile up and reach higher. Names of things to eat, wear, see, +feel, smell, dream of and die for—they become too many to see and far +too many to read. They drift up and down the faces of the buildings and +scamper over the pavements like a lunatic writing.</p> + +<p>The vanished people no longer look at them. But the names continue to +pile up and spread out. They are a city apart. They no longer offer +clews to people. They are no longer advertisements yelping vividly out +of the air, but a decoration. Inscrutable hieroglyphs that salute each +other in the grave confusion of windows. They grimace with secret +meanings at each other and keep each other company in the night sky. +Like the people they too have become too many. As the city grows their +meanings and purposes also vanish, leaving behind a comet's tail and a +deaf and dumb good-bye.</p> + +<p>The city grows and devours itself and ceases to become articulate in +names. It shakes and howls senselessly. No one understands where the +noises come from or why. Windows become too many to count. Activities +double on themselves and tangle themselves up in other activities until +each activity becomes a mystery to itself. Business men buried in +business pause to blink at their desks and mutter, "Let's see, where am +I?"</p> + +<p>Underneath the activities and the comet's tail of names, the vanished +ones crawl about their business of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> destinations. They have remained +sedately unaware of their disappearance. They have barricaded themselves +behind activities and for the most part they are silent. Their +activities talk for them in a language easy to hear but difficult to +understand. Furnaces, engines, factories, traffic—these talk. Their +talk is very important. It is curious that for the simple business of +keeping alive there should be so many activities necessary. It is also +incomprehensible.</p> + +<p>Among themselves people offer each other informations and +interpretations. But these informations and interpretations are not of +their souls but of their activities which have nothing to do with them +except to hide them. They talk of business enterprise, of success, +progress, civic development, industrial achievement, political ideals; +of money made and money spent. This talk sounds very important. It +becomes an important part of the confusion of activities.</p> + +<p>Faces uncoiling in the streets, legs slanting against dark walls, suits +of clothes—these are the vanished people. Masses of rich and poor +moving on, everlastingly moving on through the whirl of years. Age like +a tenacious pestilence shovels them off a treadmill. Yet they remain and +increase and become hidden from each other by their too many selves, +hidden from themselves by their too many activities. They grow confused +and stop staring at each other. They walk listening to the shake of the +city, blinking at the alphabet face above them.</p> + +<p>The city is a great bubble they have blown. It floats over their heads +and grows greater and more dazzling. Slowly it sinks down and engulfs +them.</p> + +<p>This bubble talks for them. Activities talk for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> them. It is easier that +way. Activities say, "We, the people." This suffices. The vanished ones +point with relief to the glitter of activities and repeat, "There are +we."</p> + +<p>But activities grow too fast and too intricate to understand. The burst +of names becomes too violent to grasp. Then the people lost in their +bubble become an insupportable mystery to themselves.</p> + +<p>Buried beneath activities that grow by themselves, that seem to pulse +with mathematical passions and to multiply like a devouring fungus, the +vanished ones send up a clamor for whys and wherefores. An official +clamor. Life has become an enigma deeper than death. The cry is no +longer "Who is God? And where does He live?" But, "Who are We and what +are We?"</p> + +<p>Surveying themselves they see nothing and demand explanations of this +phenomenon. Baffled by their anonymity they demand identifications. They +want to be assured that things are all right, that their burial is O. K.</p> + +<p>And thus new explainers and identifiers leap daily into existence. These +are the bombinators, the dexterous geniuses able to translate the +insupportable mystery of life. Life is a mumble mumble, a pointless +delirium. People feel this and grow very serious. They feel life is a +little breath, a whimsical zephyr capering for a moment through space.</p> + +<p>But these are insupportable feelings. It is easy for the fish in the sea +to feel like that but in people there is a mania for direction. Out of +this mania is born the necessity of illusion—the illusion of direction. +There must be illusion. Life is not a mumble mumble but a clear voice +teeming with precisions. Not a pointless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> delirium but a vast, orderly +activity that has names—too many names to count.</p> + +<p>As children demand lights in the darkness, grown older they demand +illusions in life. Their reasoning is simple. "We are so puny," they +think. "There is hardly anything to us. We dare not dream or even think. +Look what would happen if we allowed ourselves to dream. We would begin +asking impossible questions of ourselves. Why are we? What lies under +our senses? So we must put away dreams and thought. They're dangerous. +But without them we become insufficient to ourselves. We become +incomplete. So make us a part of something outside ourselves that we may +remain unaware of our insufficiency. Make us a part of laws and ideas, +Gods, systems and activities. We are frightened by what we do not know. +And above the highest names on our buildings is a circle of unknowns. +Dispel this circle so that we may be rid of our fear. Give us paths to +traverse, goals to struggle toward and make these paths and goals +outside ourselves. We dare not adventure inside ourselves because that +way is inimical. Inspire us with great outward purposes so that the +inward purposelessness of our lives that would devour us in enigmas will +be obscured."</p> + +<p>The illusion-bringers arise—dexterous craftsmen able to fashion +purposes, Gods, ideals. Their work is to create heroic destinations, to +invent objectivity. These are the geniuses. They provide the sanities +which are the vital solace for terror. They invent masters because +masters are necessary since to have a master is to have an +objective—servitude. The instinct for servitude is an old, unfailing +friend. It represents<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> the clamor for an outward purpose to conceal the +inner purposelessness of the vanished ones. And the geniuses are those +in whom the instinct for servitude inspires new visions of lovelier +masters. Thus is progress made—by increasing and making more definite +the demands of masters.</p> + +<p>Once the geniuses found their task simple. Now it grows difficult. +Famous masters, famous illusions, famous objectives lose their value. +Their capacity for solace dwindles. The illusion of God grows dim. The +illusions that bore the names Zeus, Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Mohamet are +fading. The knees of the race have stiffened with vanity and prayer +grows difficult. The great Heavens overladen with their angel choirs and +hierarchies tumble about the ears of people. Slowly the reservoirs of +faith in consoling myths dry up. Epigrams have almost sponged away one +of the immemorial deeps of the soul.</p> + +<p>The geniuses cast about inventing new masters, masters who will reward +and punish and establish paths to traverse and goals to achieve. As the +activities increase and as people vanish deeper under the self-growing +fungus of finance, industry, government, they develop a paradoxical +vanity. A vanity by which they seek to preserve themselves. A vanity +becomes necessary that will save them from the knowledge of their +inferiority to life.... Their age-old illusion of Gods on High drifts +away. The new illusion slowly unfolds. Again the reasoning is simple.</p> + +<p>The race speaks.... "There is no longer a God or a Heaven of futures. +The words eternity and infinity are bottomless and no longer hold us or +guide us. But we must have a master, one who will enable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> us to dream of +His recompense since we still dare not adventure in dreams of our own. +And this master must assure us as our old master did—that there are +great purposes in life, great rewards. We will make a minor change in +our theology. Once it was our desire to think of ourselves as having +been created in the image of God—a Superior. This was when we were +strong, when we walked the earth and wore our destinies like gay +feathers in our caps. Now we have grown diffused and weak. The world is +no longer simple enough for us to understand and ignore. We dare not +ignore our disappearance from life. Therefore in order to compensate for +this disappearance we will create a God in our image and worship Him. +The deeper we sink, the further we vanish, the higher, nobler and more +powerful will we make our new God. Come, illusion mongers, we desire a +new God. We desire a new Heaven. Make us a Heaven of quicksilver in +which we may see not Jehovah who is a myth but our own image glorified, +which is closer to reality, and which our dawning intelligence may more +easily swallow. In this heaven let us see our civic virtues magnified. +We want for a master an idealization of ourselves, whom we may serve in +hope of rewards."</p> + +<p>Thus the vanished ones stare aloft and slowly the heavenly mirror +spreads itself for them—a mirror of identifications and explanations. +It is all clear—or at least it grows clear—in this mirror; who we are +and what we are.... A beautiful image marches across its face. It is the +image of the vanished ones, ennobled and deified—become a new illusion, +become a God-like creature with flashing eyes. A marvelous, +unsurpassable creature whose every gesture is perfection,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> whose every +grimace is unsurpassable perfection. A reassuring God. Whatever their +moods, their despairs, their manias—they have only to look up and see +them ennobled and deified in the mirror-heaven.</p> + +<p>Gazing aloft the vanished ones raise their voices in a cheer of triumph.</p> + +<p>"We are confused. We have disappeared. Our activities have devoured us. +But we are not afraid. For behold, whatever we do, we remain God. See +our reflection. We are always and consistently perfect. Our stupidities, +hysterias, bewilderments shine back at us out of this new Heaven as +God-like attributes. Wisdom and victory smile at us eternally out of our +mirror. Let the city devour itself and become a jungle of names. Let +life lose itself in the labyrinth of activities. Let the buildings +devour life until it becomes less than a tiny warmth under huge ribs of +steel. These things are no longer insupportable. There is an answer +always to 'Who are we and what are we?' We are God. By worshipping +ourselves we may now dispel the dawning knowledge of our insufficiency. +The old God is dead. He was an illusion. The new God alone now has the +power to punish and reward. We will kneel with fanatical servitude +before the image of our virtues and punish ourselves with a terrible +justice in order to appear God-like in our own eyes."</p> + +<p>Slowly the new heaven above the city grows and the vanished ones with +the eyes of Narcissus stare enchanted into its quicksilver depths.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C12" id="C12"></a>12</h2> + +<p>In the days that followed her walk with Lindstrum in the park, Doris +Basine abandoned herself to her passion for the man. Her body desired +him. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> dreamed of their coming together as of some transcendental +climax.</p> + +<p>But the months passed and Lindstrum held himself aloof. She felt certain +of herself though. It was only necessary to wait. She could go on +dreaming of him and waiting too. To think of him, to remember he was +alive, this for the time was happiness enough.</p> + +<p>After a number of months they saw each other oftener. He seemed to grow +more dependent on the fanatical admiration of her eyes and words. Her +flattery stirred an excitement in him that he was learning to utilize in +writing. The fact that he was loved made it easier to write. The memory +of the things she said, of the desire in her eyes was like music. It was +easier to write with music playing in his head. But the more he wrote +and dreamed of writing the less he desired her. So her passion became an +applause urging him from her.</p> + +<p>He would listen trembling to her gradually shameless avowals.</p> + +<p>"You're so wonderful. So remarkable. You're the only man in the world +that's alive. Your genius is something I can't even talk about. It must +be worshipped. I love you."</p> + +<p>In the midst of such monologues she would suddenly vanish from +Lindstrum's thought. Her beauty and desire were powerless to hold his +attention. Her enfevered praise would become a lash that drove him into +himself. And, trembling with a passion that her love had aroused, he +would leave her. But it would be a passion which demanded possession not +of her but of himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + +<p>He would walk excitedly to his room over his father's shop and sit down +to write.</p> + +<p>After many months Doris began to understand. He brought her poems he had +written; poems like night music and passion music. She felt his heart +throbbing among their words. Even his body was in them. What she wanted +of him he gave to the poems he wrote.</p> + +<p>She announced herself at home as tired of her surroundings and +dependence. Through the aid of a friend she secured a job as clerk in a +large bookstore. One evening she came home to tell her mother she was +going to move.</p> + +<p>Basine entered the argument that followed. To her surprise he took her +side, agreeing with her that a modern young woman had a better chance of +realizing herself if she lived alone and made her own way.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine refused to be convinced. Not about the theories, she +explained, but about Doris. When her two children argued with her she +felt herself the victim of a conspiracy. Why did Doris want to leave her +home? And why did George want her to? The answers didn't lie in the +arguments they gave. But because she was unable to determine what the +answers were, she assented. Later she thought,</p> + +<p>"If I hadn't given my consent she would have done it anyway. This way +I've saved her from being disobedient."</p> + +<p>Doris took up her life in a two-room apartment on the near north side of +the city. The district was alive with rooming-houses, little stores, +lovers who walked hand in hand at night, artists who tried to paint, +writers who worked as clerks and tried to write, workingmen, artisans, +derelicts. Everyone seemed alone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> in this district and on warm evenings +groups of strangers sat stiffly on the stone steps of the houses and +stared at the sky.</p> + +<p>Doris was able to live on her salary. She made friends and her evenings +were devoted to conversations. But they were a curious type of friends. +They were men and women one got to know only by their ideas. One became +acquainted with their ideas, then familiar with them, then on terms of +intimacy with them.</p> + +<p>It had been different at home. At home she knew men and women as they +were. They sat around and talked and if you listened to what they said +you came close to them. You understood them and when they said +good-night you knew where they were going. You knew all about them, +where they worked, their family, their homes. They grew into familiars +as uninteresting and unmysterious as your own relatives.</p> + +<p>But here where Doris had come to live were men and women about whom you +never learned anything. They talked and talked but all the while you +wondered where they worked, what things were in their hearts. You +wondered how they lived and what they did all the time. But you never +found out. Such informations were not a part of the talk that went on. +It was all talk about outside things, about politics and women and art. +Everybody in the circle Doris entered became familiar in a short time. +But after they had become familiar there remained this mystery about +them. What sort of people were they under their poses and behind their +words?</p> + +<p>The most curious change her freedom brought Doris was a garrulity that +surprised even herself. She became adept in arguments vindicating the +emancipation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> of her sex and proving that the ideals and standards by +which women lived were the rose-covered chains forged for their +enslavement by man.</p> + +<p>But her garrulity did not deceive Doris. She grew more clearly aware of +herself. She knew that her entire upheaval, her taking up new ideas, her +repudiating conventions had been inspired by a single factor. She wanted +to live alone in a room so there would be no difficulty in giving +herself to Lindstrum when the opportunity came.</p> + +<p>With this in mind she had deliberately converted herself into a "new +woman," since an expression of the new womanhood was independence of +family and since independence of family meant a room to herself. Of this +subterfuge Doris became tolerantly aware. Her hypocricies did not +concern her. In her desire for the man she loved the surfaces of her +life disappeared like straws in flame.</p> + +<p>Lindstrum had visited her in her new quarters with misgivings. When he +was alone he often sat thinking of her and repeating her ardent phrases. +This helped him to make love to himself, to seduce the strange companion +who lived in the depths of his soul into embracing him. Out of this +embrace came words. Out of the ecstacy these hypnotisms induced, he was +able to create gigantic phrases, mystic sequences of words whose reading +often inspired people with an excitement similar to the emotion that had +produced them. Women in particular grew emotional at the contact of his +written words. When he read his poetry to some of them who were his +friends they closed their eyes and thought he was making love to them.</p> + +<p>Lindstrum utilizing the adoration Doris gave him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> as a means of +self-seduction, remained aware of the danger this offered. The danger +was summed up in the word "marriage." At twenty-six his sexual impulses +found sublimated outlet in the orgies of self-seduction which he called +his creative work. Thus his physical nature clamored for no other mate +than his own genius, and the lure of marriage as a legalized debauch +failed to touch him. His egoism likewise found a more perfect surfeit in +his own self-admiration than in that of others. He saw in marriage +merely a forfeit of his privacy and an intruder upon his self-love.</p> + +<p>Doris studying him carefully from behind her abandonment discovered the +barrier.</p> + +<p>"I don't want ever to marry," she explained to him. This started talk in +which Lindstrum defended marriage as an institution. He grew eloquent on +the subject that society and civilization were dependent upon marriage +and that a man who sought to dispense with it was merely being +unfaithful to himself as a member of society.</p> + +<p>Doris saw through the angry phrases of her friend that he was trying to +tell her how little he desired her. He was defending marriage and +proclaiming his belief in it, in order to excuse his physical +indifference toward her, both in his own eyes and hers. Since she had +said she thought marriage was an abomination, he could safely defend it +without compromising himself. He need have no fear that she would agree +with him. In this way his pose as a moralist was a convenient method of +concealing the fact that he had no impulse toward immorality. He could +even insist with impunity that she marry him and so use<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> her rhetorical +stand against marriage in general as a personal refusal.</p> + +<p>Doris allowed matters to drift through the year. One winter night +Lindstrum, invited innocently to occupy the sofa in the studio rather +than to tackle the storm-bound transportation outside, consented. He sat +reading things he had written until midnight came.</p> + +<p>He did not see how it had happened but when he looked up after one of +his readings Doris was sitting before the small grate fire. Her face was +turned from him and he stared at her. She had undressed and slipped a +green silk robe over her body. Her black silk stockings gleamed like +exclamation points in the firelight. Her throat and breasts were visible +and the shadows mirrored themselves in her white arms.</p> + +<p>As he looked at her the warmth of the room seemed to bring her closer. +He thought her beautiful and standing up went to her side. His hand +sought clumsily to caress the hair coiled on her head. He stood silent, +remembering how she loved him. Always the thought excited him. But now +he seemed to be thinking about it with a curious calm. There was +something about a woman who loved that was beyond words to figure out.</p> + +<p>She looked up at him with a smile. A faint odor stirred from her. He +found himself drawing deep breaths and staring at her with a heavy pain +in his arms. The pain she had always brought to him and out of which he +had made his words. Now this was easier, simpler—to reach his arms +around her....</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>... "I belong to you now," she whispered as the dawn lighted the room. +The fire in the grate still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> burned feebly. They had kept it alive +during the night.</p> + +<p>"You see," she went on, "I was right about not marrying. We can love +each other like this without marrying ever. Oh I love you so. You make +me so happy."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he murmured sleepily, intent upon the whitening room. "Dawn—the +white shadow of night," whispered itself through his mind. But he said +nothing. After an interval he repeated as if delivering himself of +innumerable ideas—"Yes."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>... Lindstrum slowly extricated himself from the lure of her passion. +For months her love, dissolving rapturously in his embrace, remained a +flattery too bewildering to resist. He allowed himself then to yield to +the slowly accumulating demands of his mistress. Nevertheless in a month +he had lost interest in his own sensations. The thought of impending +embraces in the studio failed to arouse him.... There was nothing Doris +had to give that was comparable to the delicious elation his own +self-seduction held for him.</p> + +<p>But although the physiology of sex lost its attraction for him, he +remained interested in Doris' submission. Her delight in his caresses +and her exclamations of arduous love fascinated him as a species of +applause. He grew able to resist the contagion of her sensualism and to +make her happy, without essentially occupying himself.</p> + +<p>In the second year of their association he gradually undermined her +passion. Aware of his complete coolness, Doris fought successfully to +suppress the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> ecstacies he was able to stir in her. Their relations by +degrees returned to a platonic basis.</p> + +<p>Lindstrum was becoming known. His poetry printed in fugitive labor +gazettes was attracting a slight attention. He was being identified as a +poet of the masses. The masses, however, unable to understand, let alone +appreciate the mystic imagery and elusive passion of his vers libre +phrasings remained oblivious to him. They continued to read and swear by +the newspaper jinglers celebrating in rhyme the platitudes which kept +them in subjugation. His fame was beginning through the enthusiasm of a +few scattered dilletantes who abhorred the masses and saw in his work an +intense technique and high asthetic quality.</p> + +<p>He remained loyal to Doris in one respect, still coming to her for the +adulation which somehow quickened his desire to write. But Doris, with +the repression of her own desires had grown silent. She appeared to +relapse into her former self—the enigmatic and disdainful virgin of the +Basine library.</p> + +<p>But this simulation included only her mannerisms. As a girl of twenty +she had been without thought. Now a strange intellectualism preoccupied +her. It developed when she was twenty-three and when Lindstrum was +beginning to ignore her again. It began with the knowledge that there +were definite preoccupations luring her lover from her. Against one of +these she knew herself powerless. This was his desire to write. She had +understood this thing in Lindstrum from the first. It had been, in fact, +the lure of the man. But now it had taken entire possession of him and +had become her rival.</p> + +<p>He had grown dumb. His grey eyes no longer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> smiled or roved. They gazed +without movement as if fixed on invisible objects. They seemed without +sight, yet there was life in them—an intensity like the anger of +blindness. He no longer looked at things. He avoided contact with the +visible and imposed a deliberate fog on his vision. He went through his +day unaware of details, yet absorbing them; unseeing, yet translating +the commonplaces around him into phenomena that tugged at the hearts of +his few readers.</p> + +<p>Doris knew the futility of combating in her lover the habit of +self-seduction now became a vital necessity. She tried to establish a +harmony between them by turning to writing herself. The clarity of her +mind made poetry impossible. Her thoughts refused to dissolve into +magnificent blurs. Her emotions were too definite to find solacing +outline in ambiguous pirouettes.</p> + +<p>She envied her lover his natural aptitude for poetry. It seemed to her a +comforting and satisfying evasion—to write poetry. There were no rules +of logic, coherence, technique. There was even no rule of +intelligibility.</p> + +<p>There was a man named Levine with whom she discussed matters of this +sort, exchanging definitions with him of such things as life, love and +art. He was a Jew and worked on a newspaper. Lean, vicious-tongued and +unkempt, the fantastic skepticism of this man attracted her. He was a +man without principles, ideas, prejudices. His attitude toward life she +sensed to be a pose. But he had been completely consumed by this pose +and the pose was one of superiority. His brain was like a magician. It +waved words over ideas or problems and they turned inside out. Or they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> +vanished and reappeared again as their opposites. He appeared to devote +himself with a mysterious enthusiasm to proving everyone but himself in +the wrong. When he read editorials in the newspapers he would comment, +"They say this. But they mean this." And he grew elated explaining the +low, sordid motives which inspired the noble-phrased pronouncements in +the press and elsewhere.</p> + +<p>When she talked to him about poetry one evening he knew her well enough +to understand she wanted to talk about Lindstrum. Doris had tried her +hand at poetry and the results had been in a measure satisfactory. Poems +had come out under her pencil. She compared them coldly with things Lief +had written. They were as good and better. She offered them to Levine to +read. He nodded after each one and smiled, "Very nice. Excellent. +Superb." Then he handed them back to her and added, "I've always known +this. Anybody can write poetry. This poetry is quite good. But it +remains, you're no poet."</p> + +<p>And he recited from memory a few lines of Lindstrum's work.</p> + +<p>"You see the difference," he said. "His rings truer. Although yours is +much more lucid and beautifully written. The difference isn't between +your work and his but between your work and yourself and his work and +himself. When Lindstrum wrote that he felt a thrill of satisfaction. He +had for a minute completed himself in the poem. Therefore the thing +represented a certain perfection. When you wrote you felt nothing after +writing it. In an hour the whole thing seemed rather senseless and +unworthy of you. You felt no thrill of completion. This shows that no +matter if you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> write a dozen times better than Lindstrum the fact +remains that you're not a poet and he is.</p> + +<p>"But why write poetry. I have a friend who says that poetry is an impish +attempt to paint the color of the wind. He hasn't written any himself +yet but he will. But I've warned him. He'll never succeed. Lindstrum +will because Lindstrum has the faculty of rising above logic. He can +recreate his emotions in words. Emotion is unintelligent, banal, +wordless. The trick of being a great poet is to make your mind +subservient to your emotion—the triumph of matter over mind, in other +words."</p> + +<p>He noticed an inattentiveness and stopped. He hoped some day to make +love to her but as long as she remained interested in his verbal +jugglings he was content with that.</p> + +<p>When she was alone Doris took a morbid interest in unravelling ideas and +attenuations of ideas. Morbid, because the process seemed to bring a +melancholy to her. But she persisted. There was an elation. Thinking was +like a game in which one surprised oneself with denouements.</p> + +<p>One day while walking she reasoned silently about her situation. Her +love for Lindstrum had grown. At times it fell on her like a despair. +She would lie in the dark of her room repeating to herself that she +would go mad unless he came back to her, unless he loved her.</p> + +<p>Walking swiftly she began to think of her plans. Her plans centered upon +bringing him back to her arms.</p> + +<p>"If I'm going to do this I must first of all be clear about myself," she +thought. "I've become interested<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> in lots of things. I must find out why +and what's started me."</p> + +<p>The answer that came to her was one of the denouements of the game. It +repeated, but clearly, that she was chiefly concerned with bringing Lief +back to her and that one way to do this was to become keener than he, +become brilliant enough to deflate him, to confuse him. And this could +best be done by attacking his subject matter, by turning his conceptions +of life and people upside down and so throwing him out of gear.</p> + +<p>When she got home she was still thinking.</p> + +<p>"What I must do, is make him think. He doesn't think. The pictures he +sees pass like blurs through his eyes and come out like blurs under his +pencil. If I can make him think he'll have to open his eyes. He'll have +to defend what he accepts without defenses now—the nobility of the +masses, the beauty of life. And if he starts thinking and doubting he +won't be able to write because he's not built to write that way. He's +built to write out of passion."</p> + +<p>The idea became cruelly apparent in her mind. She must destroy Lindstrum +in order to possess him. She must beat down the passionate certitude of +the man, puncture his blind, roaring egomania, take away from him his +genius and then he would turn to her.</p> + +<p>Her thought at this point gave itself over to the passion in her. Anger +filled her and a strange viciousness as though she had something under +her hands to tear to pieces. Her clear-thinking mind was a weapon—a +thing she could use to destroy a rival with. And if it destroyed Lief +along with the rival, what matter? Slowly the morbidity of her position +grew. Levine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> was an ally. His talk gave her ideas—directions in which +to think. She disliked his attitude. The man was an insincerity. There +was also something unctuous and cowardly about him. He never stood up +for his notions in the face of conservatively indignant people. He +capitulated and even denied his beliefs or lack of beliefs. Yet in the +nihilism to which he pretended she found a background for her own +thinking. Nihilism to Levine was a conversational pastime. To Doris it +became a despairing hope for salvation. She poured over books, carefully +questioned the secrets of life, not like a philosopher seeking answers +but like a Messalina questing for poisons.</p> + +<p>Her debates with Lindstrum were at first casual and good-natured. A +humility before his genius made her unable to assert herself. He could +hurl his mystic word sequences at her and their beauty made her +incapable of appreciating their lack of psychologic content.</p> + +<p>But her determination grew. She must destroy—what? The somber ecstasy +which the spectacle of people awoke in him. People ... people ... the +word contained the shape and soul of her rival. People ... workers, +toilers, underdogs ... he sang of their bruised hearts and their little +gropings. Songs of unfulfilled dreams, of moods like ashen baskets that +broke under the weight of life. Coal miners, farmers, stevedores, +vagrants, desperadoes, drowsy clerks and fumbling factory hands—the +dull faces of the immemorial crowd sweating for its living, grunting +under its burdens—his phrases hymned their loneliness and their +defeats. Beautiful phrases that seemed almost the work of a fantastic +word weaver.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> But she knew better. The little images, the patterns of +street scenes, the aloof fragments of idea—these might be to some only +decorations. The curve of a pick going through the air, the shake of a +great trestle with an overland train thundering across, the glint of a +night torch under the eyes of a section gang—these might be only +abstractions outlining bits of rhythm and color. But then Lindstrum +would not have been a poet.</p> + +<p>There was beneath them, buoying them higher and higher like some +mysterious, invisible force, a passion. It escaped now and then from +between the lines of his work, shaking itself like a fist, holding its +arms out like a lost woman. Threats crept out of the placid little +images in which fragments of street scenes postured vividly for the eye. +A fury loomed suddenly behind the mumble of a hurdy-gurdy piece; a snarl +offered itself as invisible punctuation for a fol de rol of city life.</p> + +<p>It was a passion that identified itself with, and seemed to fatten upon, +the injustices of life. It sought to champion the war of the crowd +against man and nature.</p> + +<p>"The humble ones ... the humble ones...." it sang, "they are God. The +ones life walks upon. The working ones, the cheated ones—here is their +song. The oppressed ones, listen to their hearts beating."</p> + +<p>It was a passion out of which a great propagandist might have been born. +But Lindstrum's mind was too simple to utilize it, even to understand +it. He was aware only of a torment that seemed to twist at his heart and +bring words like soothing whispers into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> his thought. A craftsman +obsession moulded it slightly. But always the inarticulate excitements +that had started him writing remained fugitive among his written words +saying neither "I hate," nor "I love," but affirming with a monotonous +crescendo, "I am. I am!"</p> + +<p>Doris caught by the fanatic lyricism of his songs yielded her intellect +to them for a time. The shoemaker Wotans and hobo Christs startled her +into an acquiesence. But she was determined. She knew that her praise of +his poetry was like an admiration of his infidelity. Yes, he loved +people as he might have loved her, blindly with his heart, with his arms +around their bodies and his grey eyes looking hungrily through them.</p> + +<p>The debates grew less casual. There were abrupt climaxes during which he +stared at her with anger. Then it was no longer a debate of ideas but of +wills. Here she knew herself powerless and yielded at once, making use +of her apology to caress his face or seize his hand.</p> + +<p>Alone again she would study the things she had said as she studied from +day to day the social, political and spiritual history of her own and +other times. Her mind grew to master the phrases which outlined the +illusions of the crowd, which revealed the lusts and errors of the +crowd. Her thought inspired by the single desire to destroy for her +lover the beauty of her rival, rallied continually from its defeats +before his anger. Her cynicism became a mystic thing—her adoration of +her lover turning into a hatred of life, a contempt of people.</p> + +<p>At night she sat in the window of her room overlooking the thinly +crowded street. The obsession held<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> her now, occupying her energies +entirely. In its excitement, in the mental twistings, she found rest +from the desires that burned.</p> + +<p>Alone ... she was alone. She would play langorously with this sense of +loneliness. She would repeat quietly, "He'll never come to me again. +Never hold me in his arms. How beautiful he is. His lips are not like +any man's lips could be. But he doesn't love me any more. He loves this +in the street below. Men and women in the street."</p> + +<p>And here her thinking would begin, a sequel to the preface of sorrow. +Below her moved the face of her rival—the crowd. She must study the +thing out carefully so as to be clear in her words when she talked to +him. So as to make her words a poison in him that would destroy the +passion for her rival.</p> + +<p>The night lifted itself far away. Little lights ran a line of yellow at +the foot of buildings. Men and women. What were men and women? The blur +of faces in the street, moving along every night, what was that? +Something to idealize and give one's soul to? No.</p> + +<p>Individuals racing toward their secret destinations and tumbling with a +sigh into an inexhaustible supply of graves—that was a phenomenon to be +studied separately. Out of that one could locate plots, dramas, humor, +tragedy. But here below the window was another story—was a great +character that had no name but that her lover worshipped. The crowd ... +this thing in the street he sang of as the crowd was a single creature. +Its face was one, its voice one. It had one soul—the soul of man. A +dark thing, alive with inscrutable desires.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They're not people," she whispered, her eyes staring down, "but +traditions walking the street. Accumulations of desires and impulses +taking the night air."</p> + +<p>She watched it move in silence, buried beneath names and buildings.</p> + +<p>The crowd.... It was blind to itself. Its many eyes peered bewilderedly +about. Its many legs moved in a thousand directions. And yet it was +identical. Faces, different shaped bodies, different colored +suits—these were part of a mask. Sentences that drifted in the night, +laughters, sighs—these were part of a mask. Under the clothes, faces, +names, talk of people, was a real one—the crowd. It had no brain.</p> + +<p>And yet this creature that moved in the street below, in all streets +everywhere, made laws, made wars, and mumbled eternally the dark secrets +of its soul. The crowd ... a monstrous idiot that devoured men, reason +and beauty. Now it moved with a purr through the street. It was going +somewhere, making love, making plans, diverting itself with little +hopes. Its passions and its secrets slept. It moved like a great +somnambulist below her window, with a fatuous complacency in its dead +eyes. Its many masks disported themselves in the night air. But let +hunger or fear, let one of the inscrutable impulses awake it, and see +what happened. Ah! Communes, terrors, rivers of blood, heads on spikes, +torture and savagery!</p> + +<p>She must tell this all clearly to him, explain lucidly to him how the +hero-crowd of his singing was a gruesome and stupid criminal blind to +itself and afraid of itself and inventing laws to protect it from +itself. How it was a formless thing with hungers and desires<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> moulded in +the beginning of Time. How it demanded proofs of itself that the +darkness of its brain and the savagery of its heart were the twin Gods +from whom all wisdom and justice flowed. How the workers, the defeated +ones, the under dogs he sang of and loved were like the others—lesser +masks envying superior masks. And how the idealisms, Gods and hopes they +all worshipped were lies the beast whispered to itself, fairy tales by +which the beast consoled itself. Yes, a monster that devoured men who +threatened its consolations, a wild fanged beast purring eternally in +the path of progress. Reason was a little cap the masks wore that every +wind blew off. Her loneliness faded. Seated by her window Doris no +longer desired the lips of her lover. There was another elation ... a +knowledge of the thing in the street, a certainty that she could make +Lief Lindstrum understand.</p> + +<p>One evening when he had returned to her after an absence of a month she +decided to talk calmly to him of the things she had been thinking. He +came in with an air of caution, that frightened her for an instant. She +studied him as he took off his coat and hat and sat down. It was autumn +outside. Dark winds seemed to have followed him in. This was an old +trick of his that had once thrilled her. He seemed always to have come +from far-away places, to have risen out of depths with secrets in his +eyes. Her heart yielded as she watched him. There was the quality about +him she could never resist, the thing her senses clamored for. Not that +he wrote poetry—but that he was a poet.</p> + +<p>It was almost useless to argue with him, to destroy him. No matter what +he said or what he was doing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> she could see him always as he really +was—a silent figure walking blindly over men and buildings, over days +and nights; walking with its eyes snarling and its mouth tightened; +walking over days and nights after a phantom—a silent figure walking +after a phantom. The phantom whispered, "Come" ... and the silent figure +nodded its head and followed. That was how she saw him when her heart +yielded, when she desired again to throw herself before him, make +herself the phantom he was following.</p> + +<p>But the obsession in her changed the picture slowly. Not a phantom but a +face she knew—the face of the crowd. A wild fanged monster that had +cast a spell over her lover and he went walking blindly after it calling +words to it, singing lullabys to it, when all these things should have +been for her.</p> + +<p>Their talk began as she wished it. He was ill at ease. Why had he come? +He was afraid to stay away? Why? She wondered questions as he sat +uncertainly in the chair and offered vague gossip and information to +explain his presence. Then she said abruptly:</p> + +<p>"I'm writing a story. I've decided not to do any more poetry but write a +story—a book, maybe."</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>"What about?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"People. About people," she smiled. She noticed his body stiffen and his +eyes grow hard.</p> + +<p>"Yes, about people," he repeated slowly.</p> + +<p>He was cautious when he came to see her now. She had reason to make +demands of him. She had given herself to him and he didn't trust her. +And she was always trying to do something to him. He knew this.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> It was +hard to understand her lately but one thing was easy—she was not to be +trusted.</p> + +<p>"How they come together in crowds," she continued evenly, "and lose +themselves in a common identity. How they become a hideous, unreasoning +savage—a single savage. I'm going to write a book making this savage +the ... the hero."</p> + +<p>She paused to look at him. He was inattentive but she knew better.</p> + +<p>"You should be interested," she smiled.</p> + +<p>"Why should I be interested?" he asked slowly.</p> + +<p>"Because you write about people, too."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Or think you do," she went on. "I'm going to write about people as a +crowd—as one savage without a brain. That's the crowd. And this savage +is the hero of my story. Without a brain to think he creates out of his +savagery the Gods, laws and illusions under which you and I live, Lief. +Do you understand that?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her without answer. Her heart grew alive with strength. She +knew he was incapable of any answer but anger. His anger could usually +defeat her but this time she felt she could laugh at him when he began +to scowl. She stood up.</p> + +<p>"You," she said softly, "are like they are. Like the crowd. You do not +think or reason. You only feel. Words are accidents to you ... crazy +hats that rain down on your head. You write out of a hatred for things +superior to the beast. You're mad at life because it isn't as beautiful +as you'd like it to be. So when you get maddest you begin to sing lies +about it."</p> + +<p>She laughed at the scowl on his face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, I've figured it out, Lief. You're a terrible liar. When you say +you love people, the crowd, you're a terrible liar then. You don't love +the crowd at all. What is your love of people but a blind infatuation +with yourself? You hate them. Whose humanity are you all the time +writing about and singing about? Your own. But you're ashamed to admit +that. Sometimes people are ashamed to boast of themselves so they boast +of something else they've created in their own image—of their Gods. +That's the way you boast of your crowd. You're ashamed to boast of +yourself so you fix it up for yourself by giving the virtues you think +you've got to people and then singing about them as if you were an +altruist and a sympathetic human observer. You're a great liar, Lief. +And the thing you love is a lie you make up. Because people are foul. +And you know it. They're not like you or me. They can't think even as +much as a rat thinks. They're as rattle-brained as chickens, as greedy +as vultures. And they lie all the time—good God, how they lie. You hate +them too. You know all this better than I do. But you keep feeling +things and you imagine they're things people feel. You...."</p> + +<p>She stopped and looked at him with a smile. She had started to insult +him and had ended by pleading with him. His jaws were working as if he +were chewing. This was his anger. But she felt no defeat, nothing but a +slight confusion. She was disappointed in herself because she could not +recapture the thoughts that had filled her during the month. They had +been clear at their inception but now they were mixed up with desires +for Lief, with a fear of him. They were mixed up so that out of what she +was saying there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> arose no clear image of Lief and his relation to life +or of the crowd and its foulness.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you answer what I say?" she asked. "Are you afraid to discuss +things you are absorbed in? If people are so wonderful let's talk about +them."</p> + +<p>She felt a triumph. She had destroyed something. She could tell by his +eyes. They were becoming wild and unfixed. If she could be certain of +destroying it forever, of killing in him the love for her rival ... +then....</p> + +<p>"The little finger of one intelligent man is worth the whole of the +French revolution," she was saying excitedly. "You're no different from +the other cowards who devote themselves to flattering the monster. You +know what I mean. The monster rewards liars and flatterers. All you have +to do to be great in the eyes of the world is to celebrate the glories +of the monster. To make a lickspittle of your genius. It's an old and +easy formula. Why don't you think? You stand up with your eyes closed +and sing about things that never existed—about the beauty of people and +... and...."</p> + +<p>Lindstrum thrust his face close to her. She paused. A desire to laugh +came as she stared at the too familiar features of the man. This was the +face she had held in her hands and covered with kisses. Nights of +passion and adoration had been shared with this face. Now it held itself +savagely before her and grew blurred. Something had been destroyed in +it. It was no longer familiar. It was somebody else's face....</p> + +<p>"People," it said as if it were going to spit at her. "Yes, like you +say. Think about them! God damn...."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Lief," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"Don't call me Lief...." He glowered closer.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Then you're angry. Well, I didn't expect you to agree." She made +her voice tender now. She did not want his face unfamiliar like this as +if she had never held it in her hands and covered it with kisses.</p> + +<p>But he continued to thrust himself unfamiliarly before her.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I agree about the crowd," he answered, his eyes swinging over her +head, his jaws still working. "I agree. You got 'em right. Down in the +mud of themselves. And me with them, do you hear that! Me singing with +'em. Get me, now. I'm going to tell you."</p> + +<p>She moved away from this unfamiliar face but it came closer again.</p> + +<p>"I don't want any of your brains. Not for mine. I want to be like I am. +This beast you talk about.... That's me. He can't talk or reason.... All +right. He won't then. But he'll do something else. He'll live. He'll go +on living. Yes," he raised his voice to a shout, "I agree with you. +Because I'm the crowd. Do you get that ... you dirty ... you dirty fool +... you...."</p> + +<p>The oath brought his passion into his head. His hand clenched and his +fist shot into her face. She staggered away from him, calling his name. +He watched her fall against a couch. A rage cried in him. He was a liar, +was he? And a coward? All right. He was. Look out for all liars and +cowards then. He walked toward the couch and stood above her. What did +she want of him? She wanted something. Tears filled him. People ... +people that sweated and grunted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> and crawled around like beasts and +raised their eyes at night to the stars.... This monster she gabbed +about, this thing without hands or eyes. That was it.</p> + +<p>She was crying on the couch. All right. Let her. But she was crying +because she wanted something.... His hands grabbed her head and +straightened her face until their eyes were looking into each other.</p> + +<p>"Listen," he said. He was shaking her. "I'm going away."</p> + +<p>Eyes watched each other. She looked until the face she had once kissed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> +became entirely strange. There was no Lief, no lover. But a face staring +murderously into hers. But there was something else. Tears behind the +stare. Why was he weeping? The question like a tiny visitor sat down in +her mind.</p> + +<p>He let her go and walked from the room, grabbing his hat and coat into +his hands as he went.</p> + +<p>Doris listened. Down the stairs. Outside. He was gone. She went to the +window. Her eye had swelled and her cheek pained. She sat down and +looked into the street.</p> + +<p>"He hit me," she was whispering to herself. She began to weep with +shame. But her tears seemed to soften her heart toward him. He had cried +too. She arose and went to the bed. Here she had lain with him. Warm, +familiar hours. Here her arms had held him. She threw herself down and +wept aloud.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>II.</h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C13" id="C13"></a>13</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<p>George Basine was going to see his sister Doris. In the nine years since +she had left her mother's home she had become a strange woman to Basine. +She had always been strange to him. But now it was as if she were +entirely unhuman.</p> + +<p>He could talk to her without shame of things that were shameful. But +there was something more tangible in her presence than the joy of being +able to confess things to her. She was practical in her ideas. She gave +him hunches for his speeches sometimes and what she said about people +and how to make an impression on them was always of value. She +understood such things. How, he couldn't determine. It was probably an +instinct with her.</p> + +<p>Basine walked along in the spring afternoon. It was Sunday and he should +have stayed home. Henrietta had been angry when he left. Sunday was his +day for her and the two children. There were two children now—one a boy +of seven, and a girl of five.</p> + +<p>But he said, "I want to see Doris. She's been feeling rather off lately. +And if you don't believe I'm going there, why just call up in an hour. +And keep on calling every hour if you want to keep check on me."</p> + +<p>He was always angry with his wife when he left her. She made him feel +that he was doing wrong, although she seldom said anything. But to go +away and leave her on Sunday was wrong. But not for the reasons she +sometimes hinted at.</p> + +<p>He knew that she suspected his frequent absences<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> from the house. He +accused her of hounding him with her jealousy, and the knowledge of his +innocence—he had never been unfaithful during the eight years of their +marriage—made him angry. The elation of righteous anger in which he +indulged himself on all occasions involving Henrietta, was a ruse which +obscured for both himself and his wife the actual reasons of his +absences. She bored him to a point of fury. His children and their +endless noises and questionings set his nerves on edge. He fled in order +to escape his home. But Henrietta hinted that he left her for someone +else. And he denied this hotly. And in the excitement which accusation +and denial aroused both of them managed to avoid facing the fact that he +stayed away for no other reason than to escape the boredom of her +presence and discomfort of his home.</p> + +<p>Basine was careful to avoid this fact. It was incompatable with his +ideas. He had become a man of belligerent righteousness. He was slowly +emerging as a public figure. As an assistant in the state's attorney's +office his political activities were attracting more attention than his +legal work. He was in demand as a campaign orator. And the candidates in +whose behalf he addressed the public were men, he pointed out with an +air of fearlessness, who believed first of all that the home was the +cornerstone of civilization.</p> + +<p>"He is a man worth while," he would declaim, "a capable administrator. +But first of all our candidate is like you and me. His heart is centered +in his home. The greatest rewards life holds for him are not the offices +we are able to bestow on him but the love of his wife and children."</p> + +<p>Since his marriage which from the first had irritated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> him and then set +his teeth on edge, he had devoted himself seemingly to a public +idealization of his own predicament.</p> + +<p>Nine years had brought changes in Basine. He had grown leaner. His face +had sharpened into hawk lines. There was about him at thirty-four, an +aristocratic pugnaciousness. Fearlessness was a word which was gradually +attaching itself to his name. He was fearless, people said. His lean +body and unphysical air contributed to their decision.</p> + +<p>When he appeared publicly people saw a wiry-bodied man past thirty with +an amazing determination about him. His words snapped out, his eyes +flashed as he talked. And his talk was usually alive with denunciations. +He denounced enemies of the people and ideas that were enemies.</p> + +<p>During the minor campaigns for aldermen, state's attorney and the +judiciary elections in which he had been employed by his party leaders, +he had created a slight newspaper stir. The public had quickly sensed in +him an interesting character.</p> + +<p>And then, although he was years working toward this end, he had suddenly +leaped forward as a champion of their rights. He had become one of the +select group of indomitable Davids striding fearlessly forth to do +battle with the Goliaths that threatened. And there were always Goliaths +threatening. Insidious Goliaths; shrewd, merciless Goliaths continually +on the verge of opening their terrible maws and devouring the rights of +the public.</p> + +<p>Basine was coming forward as a champion consecrated to the slaying of +Goliaths. Not only during campaigns, which, of course, was the open +season for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> Goliath-slaying, but between campaigns, behind closed doors +where nobody saw, in the bosom of his family. He never removed his armor +or rather, never laid aside his holy slingshot. He was always locked in +a death struggle with new and unsuspected Goliaths—this wiry, fearless +man who was beginning to cry out in the newspapers ... "The enemies of +the public must be overthrown. It matters not who they are or in what +camp they are. The city must be cleaned up."</p> + +<p>Following the failure of several private banks in the cosmopolitan +district of the city, Basine had leaped forward against this new +Goliath. This had been his first major offensive.</p> + +<p>Private banks were threatening the peace of the public. He had made +several speeches before business men's associations denouncing private +banks and private bankers. He had declared with utter disregard of +personal or political consequences that they were a menace—that they +were sharks swimming in the waters of finance—and that he would not +rest until the public had been made safe against their predatory, +merciless jaws.</p> + +<p>He was on this Sunday morning in the midst of the fight against private +banks. The excitement had started with the failure of a small banking +institution on the west side. The newspapers had carried the usual +stories of weeping depositors and heartbroken working people whose +life-time savings had been swept away in the crash. Basine had +overlooked the stories in the papers. Doris had called them to his +attention. He had been sitting in her studio.... Here was something +worth while. Why didn't he start a campaign<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> against private banks. +There was always agitation, but as yet not a big campaign.</p> + +<p>When he left her the thing had already matured in his mind. He wondered +why she had laughed during the discussion of the possibilities of such a +campaign. He remembered her saying with a sneer, "That's the sort of +thing the crowd eats up. The trouble with you George, is that you +haven't learned the trick of frightening the mob. You can't be a leader +unless you frighten them first and then leap out to defend them. The +menace of private banks is something to frighten them with. Start a +crusade."</p> + +<p>That was it—a crusade. Movements and reforms were all very well. But +they were slow work. In order to advance one had to attach oneself to +tidal waves. Doris was right about frightening them.</p> + +<p>Within a week he had launched his attack. He had developed a technique +in his public utterances which was becoming more and more unconscious +and so more and more convincing. Once determined that a crusade against +private banks would be a step in his upward climb, his cynicism in the +matter vanished. He investigated the subject thoroughly, filling his +mind with statistics. Events played into his hands. A second private +bank collapsed at the end of the week and Basine knew that the ground +was ready for his crusade.</p> + +<p>He began not with an attack against the institution of private banks, +but shelving the statistics he had carefully mastered, he concentrated +upon creating a sense of terror in the public mind. In statements given +out to the press and in speeches before business men's associations +which were also reported in the newspapers, he pounded on the note of +menace. They were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> a menace. They were something to be afraid of. They +jeopardized stability. They were wildcat institutions.</p> + +<p>It was his first crusade and he waited nervously for the response. The +response came after a pause of a week like an answering shout. Down with +private banks! A conflagration of headlines flared up. The people were +against private banks. Editorials heralded the fact. The newspapers were +against private banks. A week ago private banks had been the furthest +topic from the public conversation. Now it became a matter of violent +discussion. Citizens committees were being formed for the purpose of +fighting private banks.</p> + +<p>Feeling began to run high. Very high. A neighborhood Polish financier +who for years had conducted a small banking institution was mobbed on +his way to work and rescued from the violence of the crowd, which +threatened his life by the arrival of police. This incident was reported +by the newspapers as revealing the determination of the men seeking to +wipe out the menace of the private bank and also as revealing the +unscrupulous power of the men engaged in the private banking business.</p> + +<p>The growing clamor against the institution resulted naturally in the +collapse of two more small banks whose depositors, terrified by reports +they themselves were circulating, rushed to withdraw their savings.</p> + +<p>Basine contemplating the extent of the public indignation felt a pride +and a misgiving. He glowed with the thought that he, Basine, had started +the thing. His name had from the beginning figured prominently in +connection with the growing crusade.... "Basine Denounces Private +Banks...." had started it. And then a flood of headlines, "Banking +Sharks Prey on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> poor, says Basine."... And then "Basine Flays Private +Bankers at Mass Meeting...." "Private Bank Menace Growing...."</p> + +<p>He had kept his head during the publicity and, unaccountably, his +thought had turned to his sister as the crusade gathered momentum, as +the "menace grew." Although alive with a powerful indignation against +the enemy, Basine remained mentally aloof in contemplating the +situation. His aloofness was not a cynicism but a guide.</p> + +<p>He studied the fact that the clamor was in the main artificial. The +menace of the private bank was a thing that touched less than one +per-cent of the population. There were no more than thirty such minor +institutions in the city and more than two-thirds of these were as sound +as the banks under government supervision. His statistics had revealed +this.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless in some mysterious way the phrase "private bank" had become +synonymous with ogre, villainy, menace, calamity. His original +denunciations published rather casually by the press had been a species +of newspaper feelers. The public had responded. Realizing then that the +subject was a live one, the papers had cut loose. The idea of a trusted +public institution being a danger and a menace to the community was +quick in awaking a sense of alarm. A sense of fear inspired by no facts +but by the reiterative rhetoric of the press swept the city.</p> + +<p>Basine for several days sought futilely to understand the phenomenon of +this fear. It seemed almost as if people were filled with constant +though innate fear of the things they trusted. A man named Levine whom +he had met at Doris' explained it that way. He had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> listened to the man +talk: ... "The reason people turn on their trusted institutions with +such fury is simple. When a platitude they have blindly upheld seems +about to betray them they fall on it and tear it to pieces. This is +because a platitude is kept alive blindly and it must be destroyed +blindly. When a platitude commits the offense of becoming obviously, too +obviously, a lie or an incipient danger, people are of course overcome +with the horrible doubt that all platitudes are lies and dangers. This +general suspicion which overcomes them, this wholesale fear or panic +which sweeps over them, they let out, of course, on the one platitude. +By viciously denouncing the one platitude they manage to assure +themselves that all the others are all right. They sort of lose their +general terror in an unnatural but specific hysteria. And they always +turn themselves into an overfed elephant jumping furiously up and down +and trumpeting terribly—at a mouse."</p> + +<p>Basine carried this explanation away. He allowed it to linger in his +mind without thinking of it. He knew that the fear was unwarranted and +yet the excitement had taken on the proportions of a public uprising. +The editorials of the press became couched more and more in +grandiloquent languages, reminiscent of Biblical passages. In fact a +religious fervor had entered the clamor. The overthrow of the private +bank was a mission of righteousness—an integral part of the higher +Christianity of the nation—to say nothing of the dreams of its +forefathers.</p> + +<p>With this growing and exalted anger, a new phenomenon struck Basine. It +was the strange myth that had sprung up seemingly overnight of the power +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> the private banks. He knew from his study of the facts that the +private bankers of the city were a handful of haphazard, third rate +financiers without prestige in the courts or pull in the politics of the +state. Their total holdings represented a slight fraction of the money +tied up in the banking business of the city. They had no standing +comparable with the standing of the supervised banks. The big interests +including the men of power in the city were against them and they were, +as a matter of fact, a puny by-product of the city's intricate finance.</p> + +<p>Yet now they had become an insidiously entrenched monster. Public men of +affairs vied with each other in revealing the mysterious power of the +private bank. And Basine was left to marvel in silence over the fact +that the wilder the public frenzy against private bankers became, the +huger and more difficult to overthrow were the private bankers made out +to be.</p> + +<p>His pride as author of the crusade began however to be colored with +misgivings. Others had risen to challenge him for the leadership of the +movement. Stern, fearless men, as stern and fearless as himself, were +offering to sacrifice themselves on the altars of freedom. The altars of +freedom, the press explained, were the battleground of the fight against +private banks.</p> + +<p>The public's attention was being distracted from Basine. Men of greater +prestige than he had hurled themselves into the death struggle. These +great ones were more qualified than Basine for leadership. They were +older and of deeper experience in the slaying of Goliaths. Now it seemed +that perhaps one of them and not George Basine was the hero who would +be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> able to overthrow this latest menace to the public weal.</p> + +<p>Basine's misgivings took the form of an irritation. He sensed the +fickleness of the public and understood that it could turn from him who +had started the whole thing and give its adulation to some other leader +who had jumped on the band-wagon and crowded Basine off the driver's +seat. His cynicism returned as he read the denunciations his rivals were +hurling at private banks.</p> + +<p>"A pack of fools and fourflushers," he muttered to himself and their +words—paraphrases of his original denunciations for the most +part—nauseated him. The word "bunk" crept into his thought as he read +their speeches and interviews. He would like to stop the whole thing, to +stand up and say it was all a tempest in a teapot and that there was no +menace or ogre or Goliath; that the whole thing was made out of whole +cloth. Then the entire business would collapse and the men threatening +him for the leadership would be left high and dry.</p> + +<p>... Doris looked up as he entered. She was a silent-looking woman. Her +face wore its pallor like a mask. She greeted her brother without +expression. Her luxurious body seemed without life, her hands gesturing +as if they were weighted. The sensuous outlines of her which brought to +mind the odalisques of Titian found a startling contrast in the +immobility of her manners. She was thirty and in the half-lighted room +she seemed like a beautiful, burning-eyed paralytic.</p> + +<p>"Tired?" her brother asked as he sat down.</p> + +<p>This was of late his usual greeting. She looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> tired always, and until +she began to talk, she looked as if she were dumb or blind. But when she +talked her eyes lighted.</p> + +<p>She shook her head to his question. He had come filled with troubles and +confessions but her black eyes, centered on him, disturbed him. He had +become used to the sardonic weariness of her face. But there were times +when he felt as if something were happening to her that he couldn't +understand. Her eyes would burn and seem to shut him out as if she could +look at him without seeing him.</p> + +<p>Her complete inanimation startled him. He knew he could sit talking all +night and she would never move nor ask a question. Long ago she had been +a little like that. Never asking questions but sitting among others as +if she were alone. But now it was more marked. There was something wrong +with Doris. What she needed was to go out more. She was getting too +self-centered, brooding too much.</p> + +<p>Basine, as he sat studying the window and the profile of his sister, +kept remembering how she used to be. That was years ago when they had +all lived at home. And this poet Lindstrum whom everybody was talking +about, used to call on her. She had been in love with him. But that was +long ago—eight, nine, ten years ago. It couldn't be that. And it +couldn't be that she was "in trouble," because she had been like this +for years now. He remembered her youth. Her silence then had been +different. It had been alive. And now she sat around like a corpse and +if it wasn't for her eyes moving occasionally you might think her +actually dead. Sometimes this thought did frighten him as he sat +watching her. She was dead! He would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> restrain himself from jumping up +to see and sit listening to hear her breathe.</p> + +<p>He felt sorry for her. When he had married Henrietta she had been the +only one who had understood. He could always remember what she had said +at the wedding. It was the only thing he could recall of the event—what +Doris had said to him....</p> + +<p>"You'll never be a great man if you let yourself get trapped like this +too often."</p> + +<p>Surprising that she should know enough to say that. Because anyone who +could say that to him must know him thoroughly and understand him +thoroughly. It was what he had been saying to himself for months before +the wedding.</p> + +<p>He felt sorry for his sister. They were good friends in a way. A curious +way because he felt she detested him somehow. Yet she understood him and +could help him. And she liked him to come to see her. He wondered why. +She had no love for him but there was something about him that appealed +to her and interested her. He had noticed how she acted toward others. +Their talk left her dead. Even when Levine talked she often remained +unaware he was around. Her eyes never opened to people. Even her mother. +And Fanny had said, "Doris is getting more and more of a pill. I think +she's going crazy. She doesn't even look at a person anymore."</p> + +<p>He watched her and thought, "Poor girl. Something wrong. I wish I could +help her."</p> + +<p>He kept remembering how beautiful and alive she had been and his heart +felt an odd laceration as if something he loved were dying. Was he so +fond of Doris, then? He said, "no." Yet he could never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> remember having +felt such sympathy as this toward anyone. It was because she was an +intimate. He felt toward her as he felt toward himself—forgiving, +appreciative, and a sense of pity. Why had he thought that? Pity. Did he +pity himself, he, George Basine, who was just beginning to ascend? +Henrietta and the kids—that was it. A man had to accumulate troubles if +he was to amount to anything.</p> + +<p>The feeling of sympathy slipped from his thought. Doris had turned her +eyes to him. Basine was aware of her coming to life. The symmetrical +mask of her face became features and expressions.</p> + +<p>"Will you stay for tea?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He would. Doris stood up and regarded him with a malicious smile.</p> + +<p>"The crusade seems to be running away from you," she said.</p> + +<p>He nodded. The public-spirited leader in him did not relish the ironic +tilt of her words. But he was able to assume a dual attitude toward her +cynical intellectualism. He could frown on it with a sense of outrage. +And he could listen to it with an appreciative shrewdness. He could +despise her iconoclasm and still utilize its intelligence to aid him in +his climb.</p> + +<p>He had always understood that to his sister his aspirations were +contemptible. And yet despite her sneering she seemed anxious to help +him realize them. He understood, too, that in his sister's mind there +was something queer about people. When she talked about people her eyes +lighted. There was about her talk of people a clarity of idea that +contrasted strangely with the passion one could feel behind her words.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p> + +<p>Basine usually tried to dismiss the impression she made on him by +thinking, "Oh, she's a fanatic on the subject, that's all." But a +mystery worried him. Why should she be interested in his career? And why +should she try to help him if she despised him and his type of ambition? +And, moreover, despised people and politics in general?</p> + +<p>It was a paradox and it made him uncomfortable. But he sought her out +all the more for this. Because there was something practical about her +fanaticism. Yes, and because she understood about him.</p> + +<p>He had already told her secrets about himself, particularly about +himself in relation to Henrietta. That formed a bond between them. He +sometimes grew frightened at the thought of the things Doris knew about +him—things she might tell to anyone and ruin him; wreck his home and +his career. But always after worrying about such fears he would hurry to +his sister and unburden himself still further. As if by feeding her +further secrets he could make certain of her loyalty and reticence.</p> + +<p>He watched her less openly as she poured tea. A bitterness filled him. +If Henrietta were only a woman like this instead of a stick. If only he +could sit home and talk things over with her, marriage would have some +sense to it. He frowned. He did not like to think this way.</p> + +<p>Doris began to talk smoothly, her dark eyes growing more alive. He +listened nervously, wincing under the contempt of her phrases and +fascinated by the startling interpretations they offered him of his own +thoughts.</p> + +<p>"If I were you," she said as she arranged the teacups,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> "I would let +myself be squeezed out of the crusade. It's served its purpose for you. +You've frightened about a million feeble-minded creatures into a fury +against private banks. You've done quite well. That's the secret, you +know. And you must always remember it. Create bogeymen to frighten +people with. The more unreal the bogeymen, the more terrified the +public. If you don't believe this figure out for yourself—of what are +people the most afraid? God, of course. The greatest of the bogeymen. +And remember too, George that people like to be terrified. There's a +reason for that. People like to be preoccupied by false terrors in order +not to have to face real frightening facts—facts such as death and age +and their own souls."</p> + +<p>She sat down and looked at Basine with a pitying smile.</p> + +<p>"What a fool you are, George. You don't believe a word I say, do you?"</p> + +<p>"What you say and how you say it are two different things," he answered. +The thought was in his mind that Fanny was right. Doris was going crazy. +Her talk had an edge to it as if her voice were being carefully +repressed. He almost preferred her when she was silent, when her eyes +slept. Because now there was a hidden wildness to her. She was +suffering! The thought startled him. But that was it. The hate that +filled her voice came from a suffering inside. He wanted to reach over +and take her hand and whisper to her to be calm, but he continued to +listen without moving. There were things in what she said that always +held him. It was like learning secrets. She was still talking.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, today they're shrieking and vomiting invective and you'd like +nothing better than to be the heroic leader of this pack of filthy +cowards. Would you? Well, it's not worth while this time. The whole +thing'll blow over. In a few weeks people will have forgotten about +private banks. And by the time you get the bill into the state +legislature the papers will be ignoring the whole business. Do you see? +There's nothing so tragic as the spectacle of a mob leader stranded high +and dry with a yesterday's crusade. And his mob off in another +direction. Remember, George, you're not dealing with people, with +reasoning men and women. You always forget this and you'll never get +ahead if you keep forgetting it. You're dealing with a single +creature—the crowd. A huge bellowing savage."</p> + +<p>"I know, I know," Basine muttered. She was crazy. Something queer in her +head about people. "All people aren't like that, of course. But I +understand."</p> + +<p>"You don't," she interrupted angrily. "All people are like that. Alone +people are one thing. They're alive and they reason a little. But when +they come together to overthrow governments or defend governments or +make laws or worship Gods, they vanish. A single creature takes their +place. And this single creature is a mysterious savage who howls and +spits and vomits and tears its hair and has orgasms of terror and +befouls itself."</p> + +<p>Her eyes glared at Basine. With an effort she controlled her voice. She +continued in a passionate whisper.</p> + +<p>"Don't you understand that yet? After all I've shown you. If you want to +get ahead, I can make you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> anything. Do you hear that? Anything.... I +can make you a leader ... a king. All you must learn is the way of +turning people into swine...."</p> + +<p>"Please Doris, you get too excited. Please...."</p> + +<p>"Into swine and swine crusades. We'll find ways of bringing them +together and the more swinish you can make people become, yes, the more +you can make them spew and shriek, the holier will become the cause of +this spewing and shrieking. These are elementals and you must trust me. +Do you hear?"</p> + +<p>Her fingers were cold. They had closed on his hand. He shuddered. Crazy +... poor Doris. Gone queer with something. Yet he found himself +listening, her chill fingers startling his flesh. Out of her ravings +there might issue at any minute the thing he was always looking for ... +a way to get ahead.</p> + +<p>"Little crusades like this," she went on, "are all right. But private +banks are only a detail. And besides the idea is too concrete to terrify +people and bring out the full hysteria of their cowardice. What we need +is something vague—that has no facts to handicap it. Something you can +lie about wildly and frighten them with so that their bowels weaken. +Please, drop the thing now. You must...."</p> + +<p>"Doris, you get too excited. Let's talk sense instead of getting excited +like this."</p> + +<p>He patted her hand and returned her stare uncomfortably. He wanted to +ask her why she was interested in his getting ahead, in making him a +leader. She had paused. Basine felt himself nauseated by the intensity +of her words that continued to ring in his ears. Her anger and the +viciousness of her phrases<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> brought her too close to him. He could +almost see something behind the glare of her dark eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're not interested in progress and civilization," she resumed +mockingly. Her words seemed more controlled. He noticed that she jerked +her hand away. "Because if you were you would see that progress and +civilization are the results of the terror of the mob. It's when they +get frightened of something and throw themselves at it with their eyes +shut and their hair on end, that institutions are born ... that new +platitudes are set up in heaven. And the secret is this—the worse swine +you can turn them into, the holier will be the things they do. Listen, +I'll tell you.... You must do as I say.... You must believe me...."</p> + +<p>She had risen. Her hand was on his shoulder and her eyes burned over +him. He felt a bit fearful and impatient. To a point, her talk was +interesting. But after that it became like raving.</p> + +<p>"You've told me that before," he murmured. "Please calm down." An +ecstatic light slowly left her.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes. Sense," she whispered. "Well, the sense of it is for you to +become a symbol of their holiness. Be a leader. Isn't that it. But the +private bank crusade has fizzled. I've read the papers closely and +outside of the two attacks on the private bankers last week, there've +been no great gestures of righteousness. If they'd hamstrung a few +hundred private bankers, cut off their heads and burned down their +houses, I'd advise you to stick. That's sense isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Basine, listening to the uncomfortable distortions of his sister, made +up his mind. He translated her vicious suggestions into the less +inconveniencing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> idea.... "The biggest part of the work in the fight +against the banks has been done already, Doris. And the rest anybody can +do."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she smiled, "if you're going to be of service to the public you +must be careful to devote yourself to worthwhile reforms. You always had +a clearer way of putting things, George."</p> + +<p>She despised him. He could feel it now. He looked at her and wondered +again. She was beautiful. A complete change had come over her since he'd +come in. She seemed warm with emotion, alive, human. But she smiled in +an offensive way. He preferred her viciousness. That was +impersonal—something queer in her head. This other was a condescension +that angered him. He sat thinking; she was playing with him. It would be +better if he never saw her.</p> + +<p>"How is Henrietta?" she asked.</p> + +<p>The question had long ago became an invitation to confession. He avoided +her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Fanny and Aubrey were over," he answered.</p> + +<p>She interrupted. "Please don't talk about them."</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing in particular," he hastened. "Henrietta is the same as +ever."</p> + +<p>Doris laughed.</p> + +<p>"An ideal wife for a future public hero," she exclaimed. Basine frowned.</p> + +<p>"I'd rather you didn't make a joke about such things, Doris."</p> + +<p>"I'm not joking. But to be a great leader a man must have only one +love—the love of being a great leader."</p> + +<p>"That's wrong," Basine blurted out. "A woman can help a man forward if +he loves her and she's clever and loves him."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> + +<p>"She can't," Doris said softly. "Because she doesn't want to. If she +loves him, she doesn't want him to be great. She may inspire him but +just as soon as she sees his inspiration takes him away from her, she +turns around and tries to ruin him. So she can have him to herself."</p> + +<p>Basine listened impatiently. This was a child prattling. Doris was +laughing. He looked at her questioningly. Her laughter continued and +grew harsh.</p> + +<p>"You fool," she sighed, controlling herself. "Oh you fool."</p> + +<p>Basine shook his head. He was serious. There were hidden facts in his +mind. He knew something about what a woman might do to help a man +forward. These facts seemed to him allies—secret allies, as he +contradicted his sister.</p> + +<p>"I insist you're wrong," he said. He was determined to prove her wrong. +But she went on, ignoring his intensity.</p> + +<p>"Your wife is ideal, George. Colorless, stupid. Dead. Without desires or +egoism. An ideal wife for a man of ambition. The kind that will let you +alone."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense. You're utterly wrong," he cried. He must prove to her how +utterly wrong she was. There was Ruth.</p> + +<p>"Men owe most of their success to the impulse the right woman can give +them. Henrietta's all right. But she's so damn dead. She's interested in +nothing. Just a child with a child's mind and outlook. And she gets more +so every year. Good God, if I had somebody with life in her. Keen and +... who loved me. So that I wanted to be great in her eyes. It would be +easier. Somebody ... like you, Doris."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> + +<p>He paused, confused. "I mean," he added, "your type. The intellectual +and female combined."</p> + +<p>He had long ago told her of his courtship, of the curious way he had +tricked himself into matrimony and she had always laughed at his +unhappiness and said this—only a fool tricked himself as he had done. +Nevertheless his marriage was ideal.</p> + +<p>"Men instinctively pick out what they need," she would say. "And a man +like you needs a nonentity like Henrietta. You wait and see. Your +happiness isn't coming from emotion inside but from emotion outside—the +noise of praise the public will someday give you."</p> + +<p>But there were facts now hidden in his head to disprove this. He started +as Doris announced casually,</p> + +<p>"Ruth Davis may drop in this afternoon."</p> + +<p>They finished their tea. A knock on the door frightened him. The girl! +No. Doris called, "Come in," and Levine entered. Basine nodded to him.</p> + +<p>"I'll have to be going," he said as Levine sat down. He disliked the +man. Doris nodded. She appeared to have lost interest in him and, her +tea finished, she was sitting back in her chair with her eyes half shut +and her hands listless in her lap. Levine was talking quietly.... "You +look tired, Doris. Like to go hear Lindstrum lecture tonight? No? Very +well. I just dropped in to see if you would. Come on."</p> + +<p>"No," she frowned at him.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"I think it would be better for you to...."</p> + +<p>Her eyes shut him off. They were blazing.</p> + +<p>"Please," she cried. Then with a sigh she turned toward the window.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<p>Basine stood up. He pretended a leisureliness, opening a few books and +staring with apparent interest at passages in them. Levine and his +sister were a strange pair. Doris queer and moody and going into +impossible tantrums. And this man with brown negro eyes and a +loose-lipped mouth that reeked with sarcasms. There were secrets between +them. Nothing wrong, but secrets. He remembered the girl was coming and +grew frightened.</p> + +<p>"Well, good-bye," he said aloud. "And calm down, Doris."</p> + +<p>He waited uncomfortably for her to say something. But she was silent. He +looked at his watch and exclaimed in a surprised, matter-of-fact voice, +"Oh my! It's almost four. Good-bye. I must run."</p> + +<p>He hurried away as if some logical necessity were spurring him on. The +make-believe had been unnecessary for Doris had paid no attention to the +manner of his departure.</p> + +<p>Outside he paused and looked up and down the street. He felt relieved. +He had left in time. Crossing from an opposite corner was Ruth Davis. He +would pretend he hadn't seen her and walk on in an opposite direction. +He knew she was watching him as she approached. He was frightened. A +sense of suffocation. He desired to run away.</p> + +<p>She was young. Her eyes had a way of remaining in his thought. When he +talked to people, her eyes came before him and looked at him. They asked +questions.</p> + +<p>The last time he had sat with her in his sister's studio he had gone +away with a feeling of panic. He was used to women. Invariably he +disliked them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> They seemed to him variants of his wife. They reminded +him of Henrietta and he was able to say to himself, "They look +attractive and mysterious. But underneath, they're all alike."</p> + +<p>He meant they were all like Henrietta. In this way his distaste for his +wife had kept him faithful to her because his imagination balked at the +idea of embracing another Henrietta.</p> + +<p>But Ruth Davis after he had met her a few times, always in his sister's +presence, had impressed him differently. Perhaps it was because he had +always seen her with his sister. In many ways she reminded him of Doris. +She was dark like Doris and had many of her mannerisms.</p> + +<p>He had not thought of her as a variant of Henrietta. Rather as a variant +of Doris. He had never tested his immunity to her by imagining an +embrace. When he talked to her he grew eager to impress her. He wanted +her to understand him, not quite as Doris understood him. She was +cynical but not in the way Doris was. Her mind was kindlier.</p> + +<p>Because he felt frightened now at her approach and a desire to run away +without speaking to her, he held himself to the spot. He would get the +better of this thing, he told himself quickly, by facing whatever it was +and fighting it down. He would overcome the curious effect she had on +him by confronting her. In this way, a very high-minded way, he +persuaded himself to wait for her and to talk to her. Which was what he +wanted to do above everything else.</p> + +<p>She was pleased. They shook hands. The confusion left him. He was quite +master of himself. Her dark<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> eyes were not dangerous like his sister's. +She was a bright, pretty girl.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry I can't visit with you and Doris," he said. "But I have an +engagement."</p> + +<p>"Oh." She seemed disappointed. Her eyes betrayed almost a hurt. This +made him even more master of himself. He had been foolishly worried +about the girl. Just a bright, pretty girl and a friend of his sister.</p> + +<p>"By the way," he said, "you were saying the other day that you'd like a +job in the state attorney's office. My secretary's quit. Would you like +that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Basine. That's awfully kind of you. But I ... I don't know +shorthand and I suppose that...."</p> + +<p>"That makes no difference," he smiled tolerantly. "I need somebody able +to look after things in general. If you want the job, why come down and +see me tomorrow morning about ten and we'll start work."</p> + +<p>"I'd be delighted," she answered. She was about to say more but he grew +curt.</p> + +<p>"You'll excuse me, won't you. I have to run," he said. "See you at ten +tomorrow, eh?" He wanted to make the thing certain because otherwise he +would have to hire someone else. "At ten then," he repeated.</p> + +<p>"If you really want me."</p> + +<p>"I think you'll get along all right. And I need somebody at once."</p> + +<p>He walked away with a feeling of mastery. He had overcome the confusion +the sight of her had started in him. He was sincerely glad of that. He +disliked the idea of entanglements. Politics was a glass house<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> and +entanglements were dangerous. Then besides, there was Henrietta.</p> + +<p>His fidelity to his wife was a habit that had become almost an +obsession. His distaste and frequent revulsion toward her made him +concentrate excitedly upon the idea of fidelity.</p> + +<p>By assuring himself of the nobility of faithfulness and of its necessity +as a matter of high decency, he vindicated in a measure the fact that he +seemed too cowardly to philander. He had felt this cowardliness and was +continually trying to distort it into more self-ennobling emotions. This +was what made him so excited a champion of domestic felicity, marital +fidelity and kindred ideas. He was able to convert himself into a man +whose ideals prevented him from succumbing to his lower instincts. Thus +instead of feeling ashamed of the cowardliness which kept him from doing +what he desired, he felt on the contrary, proud of his capacity for +living up to his high ideals, which meant—of doing what he didn't want +to do.</p> + +<p>This cowardliness was an involved emotion. It was inspired by a fear of +detection, if he philandered, a fear of physical and social +consequences. But more than that and too curious for his thought to +unravel, it was inspired by a fear of hurting Henrietta. This fear was +the predominant factor in his life.</p> + +<p>He sought at times to understand it but its understanding eluded him. He +had been tempted at times to talk to Doris about it. But as yet it was a +confession withheld.</p> + +<p>The greater his distaste for his wife became and the more the thought of +her grew obnoxious, the deeper did this fear of hurting her take form in +him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> Often when driven to anger by her increasing stupidity he would +lie awake at night by her side thinking of her in accidents which might +kill her. He would lie awake picturing her brought home dying—and going +over in his fancy the details of her death scene.</p> + +<p>And then as if the thing were too sweet to relinquish, he would go over +in his mind the details of the funeral, picturing himself beside the +grave weeping, picturing her father and the numerous mourners; giving +them words to say and assigning them little parts in the drama of the +burial. The thing would become a completely worked out scene—like a +careful description in a novel.</p> + +<p>Then he would picture himself returning home with his children. He would +close his eyes and play with the fancy impersonally, as if he were +dictating it for writing. Back from the grave with his children.... The +house empty of Henrietta. The chair in which she always sat and sewed, +empty. And she would never sit there again. The chair would always be +empty.</p> + +<p>At this point his fancy would grow sad. At first the sadness would be as +if it were part of the make-believe—as if this fiction figure of +himself were mourning the death of his wife. But gradually the sadness +would change and become real. It would become a sadness inspired by the +thought of her dying ... sometime. Someday she would be dead and he +would be alone. And this idea would grow unbearable. Just as it had been +deliciously desirable a few minutes before.</p> + +<p>The sadness that came to him then was no more than a remorse he felt for +having in his fancy planned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> and executed her death. A remorse inspired +by his feeling of guilt. But to Basine it seemed a sadness inspired by +some inner love for his wife. It would surprise him, that there was an +inner love, and he would lie and think, "Oh, I don't want her dead. I +love her. Poor, dear Henrietta." And he would reach over and caress her +tenderly, tears filling his eyes.</p> + +<p>It was at such moments while doing penance for the imaginative murder of +his wife, that a physical passion for her would come to him. His +caresses would grow warmer and in the possession of her which followed, +he would be able to blot out of his memory the unbearable +self-accusation aroused by his desire for her death. Thus his fear of +hurting her, even of contradicting her in any way which would make her +unhappy, was a device which guarded him against contemplating the +impulse concealed in him—to get rid of her even by murdering her.</p> + +<p>His fidelity to his wife, inspired more by this fear of hurting her than +by the social cowardice which involved the idea of detection, had become +a fetish with him. The less he desired her and the more repugnant she +grew for him, the more desperately he defended to himself and to others +the virtues of marital faithfulness.</p> + +<p>He had advanced in eight years into an intolerant champion of morality. +Even his political orations bristled with panegyrics on the sanctity of +the home and the high duty men owed their wives. The thing repeated +itself over and over in his day, haunted his night and filtered through +all his public and private actions. It had formed the basis of a new +Basine—the moral champion. It had colored his ambitions and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> determined +his direction of thought. It hammered—a hidden psychological refrain +through the fibers of his thought.... In order to reconcile himself to +the distasteful role he had foisted upon himself by accidentally +embracing Henrietta in his mother's kitchen nine years ago, he must +eulogize his predicament and convince himself and others that all +deviations were a vicious and dishonorable matter. Held by neither love +nor desire to the side of a woman he had tricked himself into marrying, +he managed to bind himself to her by the stern worship of a code which +proclaimed fidelity the highest manifestation of the soul.</p> + +<p>As he walked toward a street car he was proud of his self-conquest. He +was thinking about the girl, Ruth. He had taken himself in hand and +overcome the dangerous confusion that the sight of her started. His +sense of honor preened itself on the victory. That was the way to handle +oneself—always face the facts. It was better than hiding one's head in +the sand. Look, it had happened this way. By being matter-of-fact, by +converting the girl from a luring, enigmatic figure into an employee, he +had established an immunity in himself. Was he certain of this? Yes, she +would be merely another of the young women employed in his office. And +he was in love with none of them. Or even interested. So their relation +would be that of employee and employer. Which was harmless and +honorable.</p> + +<p>He walked along, piling up assurances. As he entered the car he was +going over in his mind with an imaginative eagerness the details of the +situation he had created. He would be very stern, aloof. He would +acquaint her with his secret files and gradually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> educate her into an +efficient assistant. She was a university girl. Of course her running +around with freaks, the way she did—artists and talky women, was a +handicap. But she would get over that and become entirely sensible.</p> + +<p>It was a pleasant day dream that wiled away the tedium of the ride home. +An unaccountable happiness played around the fancies in his mind. He +gave himself to its warmth with a certain defiance—as if he were +denying unbidden doubts underlying his dreams.</p> + +<p>He had hired Ruth Davis in order that he might be near her. And +underlying the enthusiastic assurances which he crowded into his mind as +a stop gap for the elation this fact inspired, was the knowledge that, +as his secretary, she would come to perceive what a great man he was. +His files, his secret memoranda, his intricate activities all of which +she would come to know as his private secretary—would be a boast.</p> + +<p>Yes, his very curtness, sternness, preoccupation would all be part of +this boast. She would see him as a man of importance, a man of rising +power. He would have to ignore her in order to confer with well-known +men-politicians, police officials, party leaders. And this ignoring of +her would be a boast—all a boast of his prestige and of the fact that +he was a man of fascinating activities and that these activities made it +impossible for him to devote himself as other lesser men might, to +paying her any attention.</p> + +<p>Yes, the thought of her being in his office where he might look at her, +but more especially where she might look at him—for he did not intend +to pay any attention to her—thrilled him. And gradually the cause of +his elation protruded and he was forced to face it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> He alighted from +the car thinking as he walked toward his apartment.</p> + +<p>"I'll have to be careful though. I don't want her to fall in love. That +would be embarassing. Girls are susceptible. I'll not encourage her in +anything like that. Be businesslike and aloof. Treat her absolutely as a +stranger."</p> + +<p>This idea thrilled him further. It would be sweet to ignore her, even to +be strict with her and carping at times, to scold for some error. Yes, +that was the right way to handle the situation.</p> + +<p>And he walked on with a childish smile over his face. He had determined +upon a high-minded course which absolved him from all blame in anything +that might happen. Aloofness, sternness. Now that they were going to be +together every day, he already looked upon her position as his secretary +as an inevitable predicament not brought on by any action of his; now +that they were to be that close, he would rigorously observe all the +conventions.</p> + +<p>At the same time he was inwardly aware that such a course as he had +mapped for himself would unquestionably have a certain effect upon the +girl. It must. It would cause her to respect and admire him and finally +to fall in love with him. Tremendously in love since there would be no +outlet for her passion. Oh yes, that would certainly happen. But it +wouldn't be his fault and nothing would come of it. Because he would +remain sternly aloof.</p> + +<p>The thought of being worshipped from afar, of being looked upon all day +by eyes that adored him, brought an excitement into his step. And he ran +up the stairs to his apartment. He was eager to enter his home and greet +his wife. She had become suddenly a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> tolerable person, one whose +presence he might even enjoy. He felt happy and he wanted her to share +his happiness.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C14" id="C14"></a>14</h2> + +<p>Fanny listened carelessly to her husband. After eight years, listening +to what Aubrey had to say had become unnecessary. Because his talk never +changed. What he said yesterday he would say tomorrow. He prided himself +on this. He explained that it revealed him a man of unswerving +principles. Fanny, who had become a rather sarcastic person, kept her +answer to herself. A man of unswerving principles was a great asset to +the community. But a terrible bore to his home.</p> + +<p>She sat watching Henrietta sew. There was a placidity about Henrietta +that always irritated her. Henrietta was still pretty although beginning +to fade. Her eyes were colorless and her lips were getting thinner. But +she seemed happy and Fanny wondered about this.</p> + +<p>Mr. Mackay seemed very attentive to Henrietta. Of course, Mr. Mackay was +Aubrey's partner and a friend of her brother, George. But it was odd to +call on Henrietta unexpectedly and find her talking alone to a man in +her library. Even to Mr. Mackay.</p> + +<p>Fanny was suspicious about such things. She had been utterly faithful to +Aubrey during their married life and this fidelity, somehow, had +developed in her an attitude of chronic suspicion concerning the +fidelity of other women. It was her habit when visiting her friends to +sit and speculate upon their possible immoralities. She had frequently +got herself into trouble by setting scandalous rumors afloat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Henry Thorpe and Gwendolyn see quite a great deal of each other," she +would say. "More than we know, I think. I wonder what Mrs. Thorpe thinks +about it. You know Gwendolyn, for all her pretenses, is an out and out +sensual type."</p> + +<p>No one was immune from Fanny's speculations. In fact the more +incongruous the idea of any one's sinfulness seemed, the more +enthusiastically Fanny embraced it.</p> + +<p>She was more than half aware that thinking about others in immoral +situations seemed to excite herself. She would endeavor to introduce a +note of indignation into her speculations. But the note was too forced +to deceive her, although it deceived others. And she finally abandoned +herself to the thrill which thinking evilly of others stirred in her.</p> + +<p>She would often allow her suspicions to become detailed. Merely to +suspect a woman of being immoral was not as satisfying as to figure the +manner of her sin, the play by play, word by word drama of her +seduction. She relished such fancied details. Suspecting others of +immorality enabled Fanny to enjoy vicariously situations which she had +as a matter of course denied herself.</p> + +<p>Her love for Aubrey had not changed. It had, in fact, grown or at least +become inflated by habit. At the beginning of their union she had +suspected him of being a hypocrite. She had immediately resented his +virtue. Then for a short time she had figured out that he must be +unfaithful to her, that this accounted for his virtue.</p> + +<p>But her resentment had remained mute. The years had proved to her, as +much as proof was possible, that Aubrey was no hypocrite and that his +attitude<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> toward such things was due to his being a high-minded, decent +man. He loved her. But in his own way. He explained to her, "Most +marriages are ruined because people are lead astray by sex. Sex is a +duty. I don't think it's any more moral for married people to wallow in +sex than it is for unmarried people. Sex has an object beyond itself +which people ignore. It is a means to an end—children." And they had +gone on for eight years living up to these standards. But they had no +children. Fanny was willing to acquiesce in her husband's ideals, since +she had to, in everything except about children. She didn't want any.</p> + +<p>Fanny had accepted his version of the thing and lived by it. There were +some rewards. She managed to derive a dubious satisfaction during their +infrequent hours of passion from the knowledge that he was a famous man. +She also found a source of secret excitement in his austerity and +virtue. The fact that he was so high-minded and aloof from any thought +of sex offered a piquant contrast to occasions when he condescended to +be her lover. Such occasions were for Fanny far from austere and +high-minded. She allowed the keen sensuality of her nature free reign. +Aubrey's noble attitude served to inspire her with a sense of guilt, as +if their relations were really as indecent and immoral as he contended +sex to be. And the idea of their being indecent and immoral heightened +her enjoyment of them.</p> + +<p>She wondered at many things about Aubrey. Despite his aversion to sex, +(she did not think of it as an aversion but as a high-mindedness,) he +was yet very attentive to women. Not in the way that most men were +attentive. But chivalrously. He had become during their married life a +veritable Chesterfield and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> Sir Raleigh. It was not only his manner—his +observation of little rules of conduct such as rising when a woman +entered or helping her on with her wraps, or assisting her to pull up +her chair at the table or opening doors or any of the thousand +niceties—that marked his attitude toward women. It was also his ideas. +He frequently discussed women and his point of view was more chivalrous +than most men's. He said that he believed in the fineness of women. That +a woman was a pure, beautiful soul. And he was quick to resent insults +to women, even general insults which sought to reflect upon woman's +purity as a whole or to make her out a scheming sexual animal.</p> + +<p>Fanny was proud of his chivalrous tone. It distinguished him and she did +not resent the fact that it interested women. She had never been jealous +of Aubrey. And she had gradually accustomed herself to his +high-mindedness. She would have liked abandoned caresses and embraces. +But these had never been forthcoming, even on their honeymoon long ago. +And she had given up dreaming of them—for herself. She dreamed about +them now in connection with others and her mind, colored by unsatisfied +desires, indulged itself in the luxurious and lascivious details of her +suspicions of others.</p> + +<p>She sat watching Henrietta as Mr. Mackay talked to her and despite an +effort to control her thought, she began to wonder what they had been +doing alone in the apartment before she and Aubrey came. He had probably +taken her hand and pulled her to him, put his arms around her and +Henrietta, overcome with a sudden passion, had probably flung her arms +about his shoulders and given him her lips wildly. And just as they were +standing deliriously embraced like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> that, the bell had probably rung and +Henrietta had jumped away and grabbed her sewing. She had come to the +door with her sewing in her hand and....</p> + +<p>Fanny smiled at the colorless and unsuspecting Henrietta. Her sense of +humor had done for her what her sense of justice had failed to do. It +controlled her fancies. To imagine Henrietta giving her lips wildly to +anybody, particularly the red-faced Mr. Mackay, was ludicrous. Poor +Henrietta with her two noisy children and her interminable sewing. She +didn't envy her the children. Thank Heaven, despite Aubrey's high-minded +attitude toward sex as a distasteful mechanism through which the race +continued itself, they had had no children.</p> + +<p>There was something pitiful about Henrietta. She was so dumb. And even +when she dressed up and powdered and frilled, she always seemed tired. A +stranger might think she was an invalid just recovered from some serious +illness.... Henrietta was probably like Aubrey about "those things". +Very high-minded and aloof.</p> + +<p>Mr. Mackay and Aubrey were talking about advertising now. They always +did this soon or late. And they usually quarreled because Aubrey was +inclined to insist that his end of the business—the preparation of copy +and ad. material—was as important as Mr. Mackay's end. Mr. Mackay was +in charge of the salesmen.</p> + +<p>She hadn't wanted to call on her brother. But Aubrey insisted. There was +a deal on. The city was going to do a lot of advertising and the firm of +Mackay-Gilchrist wanted the job. Basine could help them pull wires.</p> + +<p>The bell rang and interrupted their talk.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That must be George," Henrietta exclaimed. She grew nervous and began +to flutter. The maid was out for the afternoon and she went to the door +herself. A strange voice came from the hall as the door opened.</p> + +<p>"Oh, come right in. George isn't home but I expect him any minute," +Henrietta greeted the arrival. Paul Schroder, one of the attorneys who +worked in the mysterious place called the state attorney's office with +her husband, entered.</p> + +<p>He was younger than her husband and of a type she disliked. She +didn't like George to have him as a friend. He was too brutal looking. +And too noisy. Her submission to George had developed a keen set of +prejudices in her. She liked only people who reminded her of her +husband—normal-sized, thin men with aristocratic manners, and quick +nervous eyes. And what she liked in such people was only the parts of +them that seemed like George. All other kinds of men annoyed her. +Particularly the kind Schroder was—rough, coarse and laughing too +loudly always. She thought of him as a vulgar animal and once or twice +hinted to George that she didn't like to have him visit the house.</p> + +<p>Schroder entered, his blond, well shaped head tossing dramatically. The +exuberance of his manner gave him the air of being larger than he was. +Aubrey Gilchrist when he straightened up was taller than Schroder and +Mr. Mackay's shoulders were broader. But somehow the blond-headed man +dwarfed them both as he shook hands with them. He sat down next to +Fanny.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said to her, "how you been? Bright-eyed as ever." He laughed +and Fanny smiled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> "What's the matter with friend husband," he turned to +Henrietta. "Can't you keep His Nobs home like a God-fearing man on +Sundays?"</p> + +<p>Henrietta winced.</p> + +<p>"He went to see his sister who is ill," she said. "He'll be back any +minute."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right;" Schroder answered, as if Henrietta had +apologized and he was forgiving her. Then to Aubrey he added, "What are +you two pirates after from Basine?"</p> + +<p>Aubrey raised his eyebrows. He was subject to quick dislikes. Schroder +was one of them. Schroder was the kind of person who had no respect for +merit or his superiors. The world, unfortunately, was full of such +people—boors lacking the intelligence to perceive their betters. Aubrey +always felt ill at ease in their presence.</p> + +<p>Although he had written no novels for five years, in his own mind he was +still a literary figure of importance. He had gone into the advertising +business, but not permanently. He had intended at first remaining in it +only for a year and then returning to his writing. He wanted to do a +different sort of writing and a vacation was necessary. He wanted to do +something real. He had, as a matter of fact, lost interest in the +business of turning out narratives. Worried at the time by this loss of +interest in his work he had explained it as "an ambition for better +things."</p> + +<p>But five years had passed and he was still an advertising man. The firm +of Mackay and Gilchrist had grown. He flattered himself that its success +had been due to his personal prestige. People said, "Oh, that's Aubrey +Gilchrist, the writer. Well, that's quite an asset for an advertising +concern." And so they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> brought their business to Mackay-Gilchrist.</p> + +<p>He disliked Schroder because on the few occasions they had met, the man +had exuberantly ignored the fact he was Aubrey Gilchrist. Schroder was a +man who had no interest in anything outside himself—a noisy, +self-satisfied creature with no reason to be noisy or self-satisfied. He +had never done anything.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand what you mean, Mr. Schroder," Aubrey answered +stiffly.</p> + +<p>"Ho ho," Schroder exclaimed, "your husband is insulted, Mrs. Gilchrist. +Well, I apologize. There's George, I'll lay you dollars to doughnuts."</p> + +<p>The bell had rung. Basine entered. Aubrey looked significantly at his +partner. The significance was due to the fact that Schroder seemed +likely to ruin the visit. Aubrey announced aloud after the greetings:</p> + +<p>"Thought we'd drop in for a private discussion, George."</p> + +<p>Henrietta was smiling tenderly at her husband.</p> + +<p>"Where have you been?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Well, I've got great news for you," Basine exclaimed. The company +looked hopefully at him.</p> + +<p>"What, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll tell you tonight, little girl."</p> + +<p>"If it's good news we'd all like to hear it," Fanny insisted.</p> + +<p>Schroder regarded his friend askance. He suspected something. He had +left Basine yesterday night and there had been no hint of anything +happening. And today being Sunday.... He smiled to himself. "Covering +up," he thought. "Husbands are comical." He decided not to press Basine. +He had evidently been up to something ... "playing a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> matinee." He +noticed that his friend was trying to change the subject.</p> + +<p>"Is it something personal?" Henrietta asked with a frown. "You frighten +me, George, when you don't tell me things."</p> + +<p>Basine, sitting down, beamed with enthusiasm on the group, on his home.</p> + +<p>"Where are the children?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Over at the Harveys," Henrietta answered.</p> + +<p>"Well," said her husband with an explosive intonation, "I've made up my +mind to go after the circuit court. There's a chance next April."</p> + +<p>"Going to run for Judge, eh?" Schroder asked with interest.</p> + +<p>"Yes sir," Basine laughed. "I just had a session with some of the boys +this afternoon and we discussed it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I thought you were at Doris'," Henrietta interrupted.</p> + +<p>"I did see her," Basine answered, "but only for a few seconds. I spent +most of the afternoon in conference."</p> + +<p>"Congratulations," Aubrey spoke. "Mac and I were going to...."</p> + +<p>Schroder stood up.</p> + +<p>"What do you say if we take a walk, Mrs. Gilchrist," he whispered +loudly. "Your husband insists that I get out. And I won't unless you +come along."</p> + +<p>He laughed good-naturedly until Aubrey smiled, and nodded to his wife.</p> + +<p>"If you wish, Fanny."</p> + +<p>"It's awfully nice outside," Fanny agreed after a pause during which she +looked carefully out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> window. Basine reached for his wife's hand +and drew her toward his chair.</p> + +<p>"You're looking very well," he smiled at her. A pleasant light came to +her eyes. For a moment the youthfulness that people had once admired +when they had called her "such an enthusiastic girl" returned to her +manner.</p> + +<p>"Oh now George!" she exclaimed. Basine felt a catch in his heart. A +remorse, as if he had done something, came over him. He patted her hand +tenderly. Henrietta repeated but in an almost colorless voice, "Oh, +George."</p> + +<p>Schroder followed Fanny down the steps. As the door of the Basine +apartment closed behind them, his fingers clutched her elbow and he +leaned against her in a straightforward, jovial manner.</p> + +<p>Her experience as a married woman had brought a directness into Fanny's +mind. She no longer found it necessary to conceal her thoughts from +herself. She was still inclined to be publicly innocent but her mental +life had taken on the proportions of an endless debauch. Marriage not +only legalized sex but removed the barriers to thinking about it. She +felt herself blushing childishly as Schroder, squeezing her arm, opened +the door with a flourish.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C15" id="C15"></a>15</h2> + +<p>The Gilchrist home on Lake Shore drive was crowded with friends and +relatives. They had come to the funeral of William Gilchrist. Mr. +Gilchrist lay in a coffin in the drawing room, a waxen-faced figure +under a glass cover. Flowers filled the large room with a damp, sweet +odor.</p> + +<p>It was a spring morning. The air was colored with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> rain. A sulphurous +glow lay on the pavements. It was chilly. Automobiles lined the curb +outside the Gilchrist stone house. Polite, sober-faced people arrived in +couples and groups and walked seriously up the stone steps of the +residence, a swarm of mummers striving awkwardly to register grief.</p> + +<p>Dignitaries from different strata were assembling. The Gilchrists were a +family whose prestige was ramified by varied contacts. Celebrities of +the society columns arrived—famous tea pourers, tiara wearers, charity +patronesses. Professional men ranging from retired fuddy-duddies, +applying their waning financial talents to the diversion of +philanthropy, to corporation heads, prominent legal advisors and medical +geniuses renowned for their taciturnity—these came for Mrs. Gilchrist. +Bankers, merchants, industrial captains, hospital bigwigs—these came as +husbands and also as contemporaries of Mr. Gilchrist.</p> + +<p>The leaders of the city's arts—a sprinkling of painters aping the +manners of dapper business men, of authors vastly superior to the +Bohemian nature of their calling, of advertising Napoleons, opera +followers, national advertisers—these came for Aubrey. Fanny, through +her brother who had a month before been elected a judge, drew a +formidable group of names—political factotums, powers behind thrones, +mystic local Cromwells. Also the Younger Set. Added to these were +relatives, business associates and finally the Press.</p> + +<p>There was a dead man under a glass cover in the house and the +distinguished company, crowding the large somber rooms of the Gilchrist +home, eyed each other gravely and addressed each other in whispers. The +dead man could not hear, yet they spoke in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> whispers. Even the most +renowned of the dignitaries whose lives were a round of formalities +almost as impressive as this, spoke in whispers and seemed ill at ease.</p> + +<p>They drifted about like nervous butlers and took up positions against +the walls, striking uncertain attitudes. They exchanged polite and sober +greetings and felt slightly strengthened in spirit at the sight of +people as distinguished as themselves. The camaraderie of prestige—the +social caress which celebrities alone are able to bestow upon each other +by basking in a mutual feeling of superiority—ran like an undercurrent +through the scene.</p> + +<p>Yet this camaraderie which usually heightened the poise of such +gatherings was unable to remove the embarrassment of the company. They +spoke in whispers and remained outsiders, as if the Gilchrists were a +family of intimidating superiors in whose presence one didn't quite know +what to do with one's arms or feet or what to say or just how to make +one's features look.</p> + +<p>The intimidating superiority was the body under the glass cover of the +coffin. It would have been easier in a church. Funerals were much less +of a strain in a church and there were several whispers to this effect. +Why had Mrs. Gilchrist insisted upon a home funeral? Wasn't it rather +old fashioned?</p> + +<p>Here in a house death seemed uncomfortably personal. The stage was too +small and the mourners were too near something. A curious sympathy that +had nothing to do with Mr. Gilchrist took possession of them.</p> + +<p>The damp, sweet odor of the flowers, the glimpse of the black coffin, +the sound of softly moving feet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> and whispering tongues were a +distressing ensemble. The mourners drifted around and nodded nervously +at each other as if they were doing all they could to make the best of a +faux pas. Death was a faux pas. A reality without adjectives. A stark, +mannerless lie. The family had done its best also. Flowers had been +heaped, furniture arranged, the body dressed, a luxurious coffin +purchased, great people invited. Nevertheless the waxen-faced one under +the glass cover refused to yield its reality. It lay stark and +mannerless in the large room—the immemorial skeleton at the +feast—repeating the dreadful word "death" with an almost humorous +persistency amid the heaped flowers, the carved furniture, the mourners +with raised eyebrows. They stood about nervously.</p> + +<p>Gilchrist had been a man alive, one of those whose names were known to +the world. The name Gilchrist had meant a large building stored with +rugs, period furniture, innumerable clerks, departments, delivery +trucks, advertisements in newspapers and on fences. The man Gilchrist +had been one with whom the dignitaries of the city had shared the +intimacy of prestige.</p> + +<p>They had said Gilchrist's was a fine store, Gilchrist's was marvelous +furniture, Gilchrist was a highly successful business man. Gilchrist was +this and that and the other. And here lay Gilchrist, waxen and +unscrupulously silent, under a glass cover—a little man with pale +sideburns that were now doubly useless, in a black suit and his hands +folded over his chest. Here lay Gilchrist dead, and yet the things that +had been called Gilchrist still lived. As if immortality was an +artifice, superior to life. The furniture store, the furniture, the +clerks, trucks, advertisements, the highly successful business—all +these still lived. And this was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> an uncomfortable fact. It embarrassed +the mourners. They drifted about with uncertainty.</p> + +<p>Like Gilchrist they were men and women whose names were synonymous with +great activities. Like Gilchrist, they were considered as the +inspiration of these activities. In fact the activities were an +artificial symbol of themselves—a sort of photograph of themselves. Yet +like Gilchrist, all of them would lie under a glass cover some day and +nothing would be changed. The activities that everybody called by their +names would still live. As if they had had nothing to do with them. As +if these symbols were the life of the city and not the men and women +whom they symbolized. Yes, as if these activities which represented +their prestige were independent individualities—masks which loaned +themselves for a few years to them to wear. And which they took off when +they lay stretched under a glass cover. Which they would take off and +become anonymous.</p> + +<p>For who was this waxen-faced man in the coffin? Nobody knew. They had +called him Gilchrist. But Gilchrist was clerks, advertisements, +furniture, and business. This man in the coffin was someone else, an +irritating impostor that reminded them they were all impostors. Death +was a confession everyone must make; an incongruous confession. An +ending to something that had no ending. Life and its activities, even +the activities that bore the name Gilchrist, went on. Yet Gilchrist had, +mysteriously, come to an end. He lay in a coffin while his name in large +letters talked to other names in the advertisements of the city.</p> + +<p>The camaraderie of prestige was insufficient to remove this +embarrassment. A dead man under a glass cover spoke to them slyly. +Dinners, even very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> formal dinners with butlers; cliques, even powerful +cliques wielding financial destinies; ambitions, board of directors' +meetings, investments and reinvestments, hopes and successes—ah, these +were deceptive little excitements that were not a part of life—but an +artifice superior to life. For life ended and the little excitements +went on. They were the surface immortality in which one conveniently +forgot the underlying fact of death.</p> + +<p>Alas, death. Alas, waxen-faced men lying silent and mannerless under +glass covers. A distasteful faux pas, death. Yet some of the company +must weep. Not friends who regretted the everlasting absence of William +Gilchrist, but men and women bewildered for a moment by the memory of +their own death. Death was a memory since it existed like a foregone +conclusion. It was sad to think of all the people who had died, laughing +ones, famous ones, adventurous ones whose laughter, fame and adventure +seemed somehow a lie now that they were dead.</p> + +<p>It was so easy to be dead. Death had come to all who had been, even to +more dignified and celebrated ones than they. Alas, death. The sober men +and women in the Gilchrist home drifted about nervously. They must weep +because for the moment they lay in the coffin with Mr. Gilchrist and +because for the moment they walked sadly about mourning visions of their +own deaths. And for the moment their tears earned for themselves the +regard of their fellow mourners as kind-hearted, sensitive, unselfish +souls.</p> + +<p>Yet there was something intimate among the company. Despite the +embarrassment, a curious spirit of friendliness underlay the scene. Men +and women who knew each other only as aloof symbols of prestige,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> stood +together and talked in whispers as if they were talking out of +character. Half strangers felt a familiarity toward each other.</p> + +<p>Under the stamp of a common emotion and a common embarrassment, the +company became for the time a collection of intimates, looking at one +another and whispering among themselves as if the event were a truce. +This was a funeral. Here was reality. And it was polite to lay aside for +an hour the masks, the complexities of artifice by which they baffled +and impressed each other.</p> + +<p>The Reverend Henry Peyton had arrived and the mourners moved into the +spacious library, grateful for a destination. The widow in black with +her son and daughter-in-law appeared. The company surveyed them with a +thrill of vicarious grief. Poor Mrs. Gilchrist, so strong and competent! +It seemed almost impossible that she should lose anything, even +something as mortal as a husband. She was so fixed and determined. Even +now there was something sternly competent about her grief. It was hidden +under a black veil. There was nothing to be seen of it but a black veil +and a black dress and a pair of wrinkled little hands fumbling with +themselves. Poor Mrs. Gilchrist. People had forgotten she was a woman. +They felt slightly ashamed as they glanced at her now, as if they were +intruding upon a secret. But she had invited them.</p> + +<p>A suppressed "Ah!" of sympathy murmured through the room. The minister's +words began and a determined hush followed.</p> + +<p>Basine sitting in a corner of the room with his mother had spent an +uncomfortable hour waiting for the services. He had looked at the body +and come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> away depressed. His quick eyes had observed the company and +noted with a concealed smile the manner in which lesser dignitaries were +making hay while the tears poured. They were utilizing the camaraderie +of prestige and the intimacy of a common emotion to impress themselves +upon the greater dignitaries. Women of dubious social standing +gravitated as if by general accident toward women of solid social +standing and exchanged whispered condolences with them. Men of lesser +financial ratings were edging toward leaders of finance and engaging +them in dolorous conversations.</p> + +<p>Under the depression and gentle bewilderment, the everlasting business +of inferior pursuing superior and superior increasing his superiority by +resisting pursuit, was going on. The death of poor Gilchrist seemed to +Basine, for a few minutes, chiefly important as an opportunity by which +lesser mourners were introducing themselves to the attention of greater +mourners.</p> + +<p>Basine's eyes noticed another undercurrent. He had himself influenced +Fanny to prevail upon Mrs. Gilchrist to invite a number of politicians +to the funeral. He had furnished the names carefully, telling Fanny that +these were men high in power who had been friends of Mr. Gilchrist. The +widow, through her secretary, had asked ten of the list to honor her +husband's funeral with their presence. She had chosen ten names most +familiar to her, among them men of wealth who were renowned as powers +behind the various political thrones of the day. The invitations had +served Basine to make a slight but important impression upon the +political party leaders.</p> + +<p>He had at first felt nervous over Mrs. Gilchrist's selections from his +list. She had picked ten men, most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> of whom were engaged in tenacious +political antagonisms. He watched now with surprise as the antagonists +gravitated together forming, with a number of financiers, an amiable, +dignified group.</p> + +<p>"In the presence of death they feel inclined to bury the hatchet," he +thought and the idea of large funerals as an asset for establishing +political harmony developed in his mind.</p> + +<p>He noticed a change in his own attitude toward Aubrey. He had felt for +years a distaste for the man and although their relations had always +been amicable, this distaste had increased to a point where Basine would +have felt a relief at the man's death. He could never tell himself why +he disliked Aubrey. But the aversion was of long standing. "I don't like +his looks," he would grin to himself.</p> + +<p>Now, watching him take his seat beside his mother, Aubrey became somehow +human and Basine felt he understood the man for the first time. Beneath +people whose looks you didn't like was always something human. People +were all alike, no matter how they strutted or posed. Underneath was a +loneliness—a little crippled likeness of themselves—that they carried +about with them all the time. Basine would have liked to talk to him and +say something like, "Sorry, old man. I didn't know. I'm sorry...."</p> + +<p>The minister had begun. He stood beside the coffin that had been brought +in. His opening words startled Basine. A prayer! There was something +fantastic in the spectacle of this living man standing beside the dead +man and talking aloud to someone who was not in the room. Talking +solemnly, intensely to God. As if he had buttonholed Him.</p> + +<p>Basine felt irritated by his own emotions. His face<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> assumed a devout +air but the emotions and the thoughts which rose from them persisted +behind his determined piety. He wanted to immerse himself in the spirit +of the man praying. But his eyes played truant. They wandered furtively +and observed with uncomfortable precision the bowed head of Henrietta +and the spring hat on her head and the heavy-jowled face of her father, +belligerently reverent beside her.</p> + +<p>The minister's voice shouted. "God, in Heaven ... his heavenly soul ... +his heavenly reward...."</p> + +<p>Phrases like these detached themselves and lingered in Basine's ears. He +had heard them frequently in church. But for the moment they seemed +preposterously new. He found himself listening in surprise. Religion had +been always an accepted idea to him. Something you believed in as you +believed in the necessity of neckties. But though he accepted it and +felt a casual faith in an Episcopalian God, it remained an idea apart +from reality. He had never given either thought or emotion to religion. +Yet he had frequently expended a great deal of mental effort and emotion +denouncing people whom he sensed or observed were opposed to religion.</p> + +<p>It struck him now as a childish farce—an absurd hocus-pocus. Poor +Gilchrist going to heaven and a long-faced man in a black coat speeding +his soul heavenward from the Gilchrist library! If there was a God, for +whom was all this necessary—the flowers, speeches, prayers? Not for +God. But for the people in the room, of course. People crowded in a tiny +room taking this opportunity to assure each other that the immensities +over their heads, the clouds, stars and spaces were their property.</p> + +<p>His iconoclasm increased as if inspired by the length<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> of the minister's +harangue. He grew angry with himself and thought of Doris and +immediately transferred his anger to her. It was she who was deriding +the solemnity of the scene. He had been paying too much attention to her +almost insane chatter and things were somewhat undermined in his own +soul. Her fault.</p> + +<p>The prayer ended and four men came forward and began to sing. Their +voices, raised in a hymn, annoyed him instantly. This was too much. What +were they singing for? As if their songs would help poor Gilchrist mount +from the library into heaven. The entire scene, the bowed heads, sad +faces, elaborate coffin; the flowers, the worthy reverend and the +singers came to his mind as something terribly unconvincing. Futile, +that was it. Children making an unconvincing pretense.</p> + +<p>He tried to blot out his thinking and fastened his will upon thoughts +that might make him sad, properly sad and believing. What if Henrietta +should die.... Henrietta dead. Henrietta gone forever. He seized the +thought eagerly. It was not what he wanted but there was a relish in +thinking it. Sad ... sad ... yes, if his mother should die or somebody +dear to him. Who? Ruth. Ah, what if it were Ruth in the coffin. Instead +of anybody else. He would feel differently then. Her beautiful face +white as Gilchrist's and her arms still. Her fingers rigid. Ruth +dead....</p> + +<p>This made him sad but it took his mind entirely from the scene. He +forgot for moments that Gilchrist was dead and this was a funeral. The +reality returned, however, with an increased vividness to its absurdity. +The music of the hymn rose with embarrassing frankness.... Poor little +people gathered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> in a room going through a hocus-pocus to convince +themselves that there was a heaven where they would live forever after +the misfortune of death. Like children playing with dolls and +pretending.... But how did he happen to be thinking like that? Did he +believe there was no God, no heaven, no after life?</p> + +<p>No, he believed in all that firmly. Of course, one must believe. The +self-questioning had shocked him back into a state of grace. Yes, he +believed firmly and bowed his head to the hymn that was ending.</p> + +<p>During the rest of the services he was inwardly silent. The scene +appeared to have slipped into focus again. The minister seemed no longer +a symbol of some childish hocus-pocus but an ambassador of God—a stern +man, closely in touch with the Mysteries. And there was something +awesome in the room. There was something awesome about the coffin and +the flowers and the voices of the singers trailing into an Amen. It was +God. Yes, a great all powerful Being to whose hands mankind returned.</p> + +<p>The discomfort of doubt left Basine and he felt himself again an +integral part of something vaster than himself. His thought re-entered +the idea of religion and a sense of peace filled him. He said Amen twice +and looked with mute, believing eyes at the black coffin.</p> + +<p>The mourners were following the six silk-hatted pall bearers into the +street. A drizzle over the pavements. A long line of motors, chauffeurs +waiting, looking as aloof and aristocratic in their servitude as their +employers.</p> + +<p>Basine found himself beside Milton Ware, one of the big traction +officials of the city. A grey-haired man with a well-preserved face +stamped with certainties<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> and stern affabilities. Basine thought +casually that Ware had seemed rather friendly. He had come over to +exchange remarks several times while waiting for the services to begin. +On the curb Basine looked around for Henrietta. Judge Smith had brought +his machine and they were to drive to the cemetery together.</p> + +<p>"Are you with anyone?" Ware asked quietly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm looking for my party," Basine answered. He spied the judge and +Henrietta crowded into their car. Several others had entered with them. +Ware followed his eye.</p> + +<p>"That looks rather full," he suggested. "If you don't mind, would you +take a place in my machine."</p> + +<p>Basine nodded. "Thank you. I'll just talk to them a minute then."</p> + +<p>He returned from his father-in-law's automobile and entered with Ware. +The chauffeur started off and Basine leaned back in his seat. He +wondered at Ware's hospitality. The man was one of the outstanding +powers of the city, incredibly ramified through banks and corporations +and public utilities. He wondered what his connection with Gilchrist had +been. The traction baron—a title given him by the newspapers—sat in +silence beside him as the procession got under way. Basine's curiosity +began to answer itself. He found himself vaguely on his guard.</p> + +<p>"I hadn't intended going to the cemetery," Ware announced after they had +been riding a few minutes. "I don't believe much in such +demonstrations."</p> + +<p>"Neither do I," Basine answered. He was wondering if it were possible to +escape his duty to the family.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> There was such a crowd he might not be +missed at the grave.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind if we turned out at one of these streets and drove to +the club," Ware asked deferentially.</p> + +<p>Basine hesitated. He had noticed the invitation in the remark. Ware, +whom he had only met once before, was inviting him to the club. Why? A +desire to attach himself to Ware abruptly edited his doubts concerning +the propriety of his absence.</p> + +<p>"I'd just as soon," he answered. The chauffeur was given directions. The +remainder of the ride was passed in silence.</p> + +<p>"I thought we might have lunch here," Ware explained as they seated +themselves in front of a window overlooking the boulevard. It was +raining. The empty street gleamed and darkened with rain.</p> + +<p>"Most of the forenoon is gone anyway," Ware added. "Have you an +engagement?"</p> + +<p>"Thanks, I haven't," Basine answered. They sat sipping at highballs a +servant had brought. Basine watched the rain and a figure scurrying past +below the window. About this time they were lowering Gilchrist into the +ground. No one would ever see his face again.</p> + +<p>"Pretty sad about Gilchrist," Ware murmured as if aware of his thought.</p> + +<p>Basine's attention returned to the traction baron. The man wanted +something. Or why should he seek him out? An anger came into his mind. +Who was this man Ware that he could pick him up and cart him to a club +and buy him a highball—and expect to impress him, Basine? And for what +reason? The man wanted something.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> + +<p>The idea had become a conviction. He sensed it now through the memories +of the morning. Ware had led up to it dexterously. A nod at first. Later +a few remarks about the weather. Finally an invitation to ride with him +to the cemetery. Ware had never intended going there. That had been a +ruse to—kidnap him. Basine frowned. Well, he was kidnapped. And he +would find out why. Find out directly.</p> + +<p>Ware was looking at him with a smile. Basine saw something in the smile +that increased his anger. A sudden wave of emotion, as if he were going +to strike the man, propelled his thoughts out of him. He heard himself +talking in a precise, indignant voice and regretted it at once. But the +words continued:</p> + +<p>"You're a rather busy man, Mr. Ware. And so am I. What did you want to +ask me?"</p> + +<p>Ware nodded slowly and thrust out his lower lip.</p> + +<p>"Exactly," he murmured. "I wanted to speak to you about something."</p> + +<p>"Well...." He paused on the word but Ware remained silent. He would have +liked to out-silence the traction official but after a pause, a +nervousness possessed him. "Well, let's begin now," he said. "What is it +you want?"</p> + +<p>He felt the crudity of his question and winced inwardly. But ... the +thing was said. He would fellow through in that tone, then. He tightened +his features and leaned back in his chair, his eyes deliberately on the +face of his host. He had embarrassed Ware. He could sense that through +the man's poise. His poise was only a stall. Well and good. There was +nothing for him, Basine, to be embarrassed about.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> He felt elated after +all with the way he had handled the thing.</p> + +<p>"I want to talk to you about a rather delicate matter," Ware began. +Basine nodded. He held the trumps. He had only to sit back and this +traction baron would begin to mumble, his celebrated poise would begin +to disintegrate.</p> + +<p>"I'll be as direct as you, Judge," he continued. "I see that you don't +like beating around the bush. Neither do I. But I didn't know. As I +said, the thing is a rather delicate matter and I want you to take my +word for it, that whatever you say in way of reply will in no way change +my opinion of you. It's a thing to be said and then forgotten, if +necessary, by both of us. Do you agree?"</p> + +<p>Basine nodded.</p> + +<p>"It's about the Hill case," Ware lowered his voice.</p> + +<p>"The Hill case?" Basine stared.</p> + +<p>"On your calendar, Judge. The violinist suing for $50,000. Hurt by +falling off a street car. I thought you knew the case."</p> + +<p>"I remember it now, Mr. Ware."</p> + +<p>"Well, the man hasn't a case at all. But it's a jury trial and, of +course, juries sometimes think out things in an odd way. Now what I'm +getting at is this. This particular suit doesn't disturb us much. But +the anti-traction press is going to give it a great deal of publicity. +And what we're interested in is the effect of the suit. You understand? +The town is full of cranks and schemers always trying to get rich by +suing some big utility corporation. And if this man Hill wins his case, +why it'll mean another hundred cases all as preposterous as his on our +hands. Do you follow me?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>"</p> + +<p>Basine nodded.</p> + +<p>"I told you it was a rather delicate subject," Ware smiled. "And I would +never have thought of broaching it if I wasn't sure you would look at it +in the light it's offered, you understand? I don't mean I'm asking a +judge to do anything outside the facts or to go out of his way to hand +us anything. That's dishonest and absurd. The thing is, as you'll see +for yourself when the case starts, that this man Hill is an impostor +trying to hold us up. We'll prove that to your entire satisfaction. What +I'm getting at is that there's the jury and you know the attitude of +juries these days toward corporations. They hold against us regardless +of evidence. Now what I'm after is to see we get a fair trial and it +lies in your province to help us."</p> + +<p>Basine leaned forward and spoke with difficulty. His anger had grown in +him.</p> + +<p>"What is it you want me to do?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Ware smiled disarmingly.</p> + +<p>"Nothing at all, Judge, that you wouldn't have done of your own +volition. I want you, if you are convinced such a course is a just one, +to take the case from the jury and throw it out of court. Now, wait a +minute. I see you're angry and, as I said, the matter in a way is rather +delicate to talk about. But come, I'll say frankly, I'm interested in +you. We need men like you. Quick, intelligent and able to see their way. +The progress of the city depends upon such men. You know Jennings?"</p> + +<p>"Your attorney."</p> + +<p>"Yes, in full charge of our legal department. There's another case for +you of an intelligent, quick-witted man, scrupulously honest but not an +ass. Six<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> years ago Jennings was a judge on the municipal bench. Wasted +... utterly wasted ... today—"</p> + +<p>Basine interrupted, his voice harshened.</p> + +<p>"An analogy. I see. Thanks."</p> + +<p>He stood up. Ware reached out his hand.</p> + +<p>"I don't think you quite understand me," he murmured.</p> + +<p>"Perfectly," Basine answered. "And I've given my word that whatever I +understood would be forgotten."</p> + +<p>Words welled into Basine's mind. An almost uncontrollable impulse to +confound his host with a violent denunciation struggled in him. He would +tell this traction baron what manner of man he, Basine, was. And what +the dignity of his position as judge was. He would throw the bribe back +into the man's teeth. He would declaim. Virtue. Outrage. Creatures who +sought to use their power to influence justice. Who thought themselves +able to drag men of honor to their level by the promise of favors.</p> + +<p>Basine remained silent. His eyes, grown lustrous, stared at Ware. +Careful, he must be careful not to protest too violently. That would +sound as if he were uncertain. No protest at all. A contemptuous +silence. That was more effective. The sort of thing Ware would +understand, too. And remember. With a deep breath that sent a tremor +through his body, he nodded.</p> + +<p>"Good day," he said and turning his back abruptly, walked out of the +club. He frowned at the unctuous bell boys and doorman.</p> + +<p>Still raining. Basine walked swiftly, unaware of destination. His mind +was filled with emotions. Indignation grew in him. Ware had offered a +bribe.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> There was something in the thing that slowly infuriated him. It +was an affront, an attempt at domination. The man had said, "I'm better +than you. I can bribe you to do what I want." His spirit revolted. So +that was the way to power, eh? Listening to reason when the big wigs +spoke? Well, they could go on speaking till doomsday. But they couldn't +talk to him like that ... and get away with it.</p> + +<p>The anger slipped from him. He had refused. An elation halted him. He +was an honest man! The fact surprised him. He stared with pride at the +street. The street held an honest man, a man able to say "no" to +temptation.</p> + +<p>A tardy appreciation of his righteousness overpowered him. He had +something inside him now like a new strength. He could look at men +anywhere, anytime, and let his eyes tell them who he was and what sort +of man he was. Because he was sure of it himself. He was an honest man, +and sure of it.</p> + +<p>It was not only inside him, this certainty, but he felt it like a mantle +over his shoulders. He walked on with a vigorous step. An unshaven face +paused before him and a beggar mumbled for a coin. Basine stopped full. +He stopped with deliberation and stared at the unshaven face, at the +shifty eyes and dirty linen. The beggar repeated his furtive mumble.</p> + +<p>"No," Basine answered clearly. His voice was sharp. The man appeared to +wince. He slid away in the rain, his head down.</p> + +<p>Basine walked on with an increased elation. He had never been able to do +that before, say "no" decisively to a beggar. He had usually said "no", +but hurriedly, furtively. That was because he was uncertain of himself. +Now he could say "no" or "yes"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> to anyone with decision. He had refused +a bribe and was an honest man and did not have to concern himself with +what others might think of what he said, because of this conviction in +him and because of this mantle in which he was wrapped.</p> + +<p>He walked in the direction of the County Building. The rain felt fresh. +It was a moral rain, a virtuous comrade.</p> + +<p>The incident in the club had, in fact, given Basine a character. He had +been unaware of his motives from the moment a sense of impending events +had come to him in the traction official's automobile. He had, when the +bribe came, acted as if following a lifelong code of ethics. Yet he had +surprised himself. His anger, his violent emotion of righteousness had +been inexplicable to him. He had never felt anything like that before.</p> + +<p>Basine, in the car, had become aware vaguely of what awaited him. He had +recalled and repressed the recollection instantly, the Hill case pending +trial before him. And under the surface of his thought the entire drama +of the bribe had enacted itself in advance. Ware would offer him +something. Yes, and Ware was a man to know, one who could be of vital +use in his climb. If Ware asked him to do something it would be wise to +do it. He had been eager for the interview and a part of his eagerness +had been a desire to grant the traction baron the favor he was going to +ask.</p> + +<p>But the incident had come during a curious crisis in Basine's life, a +crisis that had piled up since his youth. A consciousness had been +growing in him of his duplicity. He had been aware of it, but in a +different way, during his youth and the early years of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> his marriage. It +had not made him uncomfortable then. He had been able to lie with a +clear conscience. Ruses by which he established himself in the eyes of +others, not as he was but as he desired them to think him, had seemed to +him then the product of a practical, superior nature.</p> + +<p>Slowly, however, his poise in the face of his own duplicities had begun +to crumble. He had begun to feel himself filled with the uncertainties +of a man forced to conceal too many things from himself. Fitting his +hypocricies and lies into worthy necessities had become too complex a +business, demanding too much of his energies.</p> + +<p>The inner situation in which Basine found himself as he matured had in +no way changed his nature. He had gone ahead as always, stumbling +finally into a climax of deceits in his relation with the young woman he +had hired as his secretary.</p> + +<p>In the five months she had worked for him he had been in love with her +but had managed to withhold the fact from both of them. He had invented +exhaustless explanations for his interest in her, for his desire to be +near her, for the increased aversion that had grown in him toward +Henrietta and his home.</p> + +<p>The crisis had accumulated and reached a head during the services in the +Gilchrist home. Here his pent-up self-repugnance, his growing impulse to +expurgate the duplicities of his life, had found a minor outlet in the +sudden religious faith that had possessed him after his half-hour of +doubts. Ware's bribe had come opportunely. Basine's inexplicable anger +on sensing the impending bribe, had been his self answer to the eager +desire to comply that had struggled to assert itself in him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> + +<p>And when the man had begun the actual words that meant bribe, he had +seized on the situation as a vindication. Opportunity to rehabilitate +himself, to wipe out with a single gesture the clutter of dishonesties +which were beginning to inconvenience him. He had embraced it and +emerged from the club a man, remade. No longer an inwardly shifty Basine +able to rise to righteousness only by avoiding his memories. But a +Basine with a platform inside him on which he might stand fearlessly. +The platform—I am honest. I refused a bribe—had erected itself over +the complex memories of himself. They were obliterated now.</p> + +<p>He entered his chambers with a serious happiness in his heart. A miracle +had happened and he had been given absolution—by himself.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C16" id="C16"></a>16</h2> + +<p>Ruth Davis was at her desk. She looked up eagerly as he entered. Basine, +hanging up his coat and hat, felt a businesslike desire to explain +matters to her. He was an honest man, done with subterfuges.</p> + +<p>He would explain to her that it was no longer possible for her to +continue in his employ. Use correct but kindly words. He was an honest +man. He wanted to impress himself and everybody else with this fact. +Even Ruth. He had no thought of impressing it on Henrietta. Henrietta +would only be surprised to hear he was an honest man. Because she had +always believed it anyway.</p> + +<p>But he would like to tell Ruth, because it would raise her opinion of +him; fill her with a great pride. A sad pride, of course, since it meant +their separation. But she would go away loving him even more because of +his honesty that had put an end to his love for her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + +<p>The course, however, was impossible. It involved a ludicrous situation. +Because he had never said he loved her and she had been as silent as he. +And so telling her all these very fine things would make it necessary +for him to say first, "I have loved you." And then to add, "But I don't +love you any more. I can't."</p> + +<p>It was two o'clock. Time for the Judge to take his place on the bench. +Basine arose from behind his table with a sense of anti-climax. Nothing +had happened. He was going back to his place on the bench again. Poor +Gilchrist lay hidden forever and Ware had tried to bribe him and he had +proven himself a man of astounding integrity. And he had overcome a +growing infatuation for Ruth Davis. Yet nothing had happened.</p> + +<p>"Shall I retype the Friday speech, Judge?" Ruth inquired as he hesitated +before her desk. He looked at her as if it were difficult to focus his +attention on her. He was preoccupied. A man of many preoccupations who +found it hard to notice little things around him.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, the speech," he agreed. "Type it. And if there are any mistakes +change them to suit yourself."</p> + +<p>He walked out of chambers. Ruth turned to her typewriter and prepared to +set to work. But as the door closed behind Basine she stopped. She +removed a small mirror from a drawer and studied her face in it. She +leaned back in her seat and sighed. She felt too restless to work.</p> + +<p>With her white brows frowning, she sat looking at the keys of her +machine. A miserable restlessness, this was, that never went away. At +night she lay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> awake in the room she had chosen since becoming +financially independent of her family. And a loneliness gnawed in her +heart. It was because she loved him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I love him," she repeated to the keys of her machine.</p> + +<p>He was not like other men. There was something intimidating about him. +He had never spoken to her in a friendly tone. His eyes had never become +intimate.</p> + +<p>During the five months she had been his secretary he had kept aloof. A +strange, unbending man consumed with ambition. His ambition was an +awesome thing. There was a directness to it. He worked day and night, +always planning for something. His engagements crowded each other. She +hardly knew the man. She knew only an ambition that kept pushing +tirelessly forward.</p> + +<p>There had been no talk between them except business talk. And yet, +somehow he had given himself to her. Despite his aloofness and the +sternness of his manner, she had felt herself coming close to him, +closer than to anybody else she had ever known. And men were no exciting +novelty to her. They had held her hand and fumbled around with ambiguous +words. They talked art, politics, women, not because they were +interested in these things but because they wanted you to be interested +in what they thought of them. She had kept her virginity without +difficulty. The half-world of art and jobs enthused her. But it did not +stampede. A practical side of her remained dubious about the groping +ones she met in the studios. It was hard to pick out the real ones from +the fourflushers. She had discovered this. Because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> the real ones didn't +know they were real. Any more than the fourflushers knew they were +spurious. They all gabbled and wrote, painted and gabbled, and there was +no difference to them.</p> + +<p>About the men she had noticed one thing. Their egoism was the egoism of +ideas. They were better than others, they thought, because of the ideas +in their heads. They were excitedly snobbish about these ideas as people +are snobbish about clothes. But they weren't better than others because +they were they. They were always leaning on things to make them feel +superior. Radicalism was a series of ideas that they picked up because +they felt a superior intellectualism in them.</p> + +<p>Ruth had started thinking in this direction after listening to Levine, +Doris' friend. She had felt something of the sort before. But Levine, +with his almost oily pessimism, who talked always as if he were selling +something, had made it clear.</p> + +<p>"The women who go in for revolt," Levine had said, "Hm, that's another +story. They're not interested in egoism. Because as yet there isn't a +highly developed caste system among women. They still kind of herd +together as a sex and they try to impress each other only with their +superior artificialities—as to who has the most doting husband, the +nicest times, the most accomplished servants.</p> + +<p>"But men—there you have something else, don't you think? And the men we +know—the hangers-on around here, comical, eh? You can almost see them +bargain hunting for ideas. They don't stand up on their own feet and let +out yaps. They keep crawling inside of new ideas. They keep using ideas +as megaphones to proclaim their own superiorities. Little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> men playing +hide and seek inside of big ideas. Using ideas about art and life as +kids use pumpkin heads on Hallowe'en. To frighten and impress the +neighbors. Another simile—borrowed finery, eh? Ah, they're all fools. +It's hard to be much interested in people unless you're a poet. If +you're a poet then what you do is ignore people and go down like a +deep-sea diver to the bottoms of life. Down there it's interesting. Yes, +growths like on the ocean floor."</p> + +<p>As a contrast to these men, gabbling in her ear and fumbling with her +hands, Basine had interested her at once. At first she had accepted the +way he ignored her as a natural attitude. Later, he would become +friendly and she looked forward to his friendship. It would be +interesting to know what an egoist like Basine thought about things. His +ideas were obviously rather stupid, but then—there was something else. +Strength, determination. He wasn't like the intellectuals, continually +losing themselves in new ideas and parading around like kids in their +big brothers' pants. She disliked that kind of men. The longer you knew +them the more unreal they became. Until finally, when you knew them +through and through it was like knowing an inferior edition of an +encyclopedia through and through. Everything was inside but it made no +sense. It had no direction. A jumble of ideas and informations—but they +formed no plot, no man. They weren't really egoists—the intellectuals. +Men like Basine were.</p> + +<p>But his aloofness seemed to increase with time. There had been no +natural evolution of friendship. She thought then, "He acts artificially +toward me. It's because he doesn't want anything to sidetrack him. Not +even friendships. He isn't quite human.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> He's like a machine that's +wound up. And he must run till he breaks down."</p> + +<p>This image of Basine fascinated her. A man without heart, a cool will +feeling its way tirelessly toward power, a thirst for power that +increased rather than stated itself with success. When he'd been elected +judge, he had surprised her by asking, "Would you like to come along +with me to the County Building? The office doesn't include a secretary, +but I need one on my own account."</p> + +<p>During the months she had gained an almost embarrassing insight into the +activities engulfing Basine. The man himself remained hidden, +non-existent. But the world in which he had obliterated himself became +vividly outlined for her. The intrigues, counter intrigues, the +complexities of his climb, these were open secrets to her. He seemed +shameless about them. Often when she watched him furtively as he wrote +out political speeches should would think, "Is there a man there?"</p> + +<p>It seemed to her there was not. Only an ambition tirelessly at work. An +ambition with a keen, nervous face, sharp eyes, thin hands and an +eloquent voice. But something more. A man who didn't hide inside ideas +but who remained outside them, giving himself to nothing except his +consuming desire to utilize ideas for his own end. He remained outside +manipulating. He manipulated life. All for what?</p> + +<p>Fascinated, she fell in love. When he came in where she was, her heart +jumped. When he talked to her, something contracted in her throat, and +frightened her. She had her day dreams. As the spring opened sunny +mornings over the streets, she would sit gazing out of the tall windows +and think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> of Basine. Her thoughts took an odd turn. They built up +scenes in which Basine lay defeated. Accidents had maimed him. Political +reversals had taken the heart out of him. He was ruined, poor, without +employment. She pictured such situations with relish. In them she +appeared as an understanding one. She would fancy herself coming to him +and shaking her head sadly and saying, "Poor man. I'm so sorry. But you +see ... you see where it all led? to this."</p> + +<p>And she would fancy him smiling back with a romantic tiredness and +reaching for her hand and answering as if he were an actor with a +speech:</p> + +<p>"Yes, my dear? I've been wrong. Ambition is wrong. I'm ruined. And it is +only proof that I was wrong."</p> + +<p>And then, in her fancies, he would look at her tenderly and raising her +hand to his lips murmur, "Forgive me, Ruth."</p> + +<p>The door of the chambers opened and Ruth looked up, startled. Paul +Schroder strode in. He looked jaunty. She smiled. He was one of Basine's +friends, and she liked him for that. He had been of the hard-working +loyal ones during Basine's campaign.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing in particular," he said. "Thought I'd just drop in for a +smoke. How's his Honor, these days?"</p> + +<p>"He's very fine," Ruth answered. Schroder shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid he's drying up," he grinned. "That's the trouble with men of +his type. Get their noses down to a grindstone and never have time to +look up."</p> + +<p>Ruth blushed. That didn't sound like a loyal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> speech. She saw Schroder +smiling broadly at her.</p> + +<p>"You're quite a champion of his," he was saying. "Well, well. Maybe his +Honor isn't as slow as I've been giving him credit for being."</p> + +<p>From anyone else this would have been offensive, she thought. But there +was something pleasing in the accusation. She hesitated and then +returned his smile.</p> + +<p>"You know as well as I, what kind of a man Judge Basine is," she +answered. "He's the kind every woman respects at first sight."</p> + +<p>"Loves, you mean," said Schroder.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, I don't think a woman could really love Mr. Basine," she smiled. +"He's too much wrapped up in himself."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know then," said Schroder, "his wife puts up a pretty +good bluff then."</p> + +<p>Ruth's smile left her.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said, "of course."</p> + +<p>Schroder laughed.</p> + +<p>"Well, well," he went on, "so you'd forgotten he had a wife. That's a +sweet kettle of fish. Such memory lapses are dangerous. Watch your step, +young lady. Look out."</p> + +<p>He stood up and approached her and wagged a finger mockingly. In a way +Schroder annoyed her. He always made her feel juvenile. She could never +use any of her sophisticated phrases on him. Because he laughed too +loudly and if you retorted cleverly he always guffawed as if he had +trapped you into having to be clever. His manner always seemed to say, +"You can't put it over me. I know. I know...."</p> + +<p>Ruth turned with relief at the sound of a door opening. Basine. This was +one of his habits, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> appear suddenly and for no reason at all and walk +up and down the large room as if immersed in grave thought. She had +often wondered why he did this. She thought it was because the work on +the bench made him too nervous or because there were so many things +weighing on his mind that he needed a few minutes now and then to +straighten himself out.</p> + +<p>But while thinking this she had always felt that his sudden appearances +had something to do with her. It was perhaps only a part of her vanity, +she mused, but she always had this impression—that despite his +indifference and sternness he was curiously attentive. No matter how +busy he was he never absented himself long. He was always returning and +walking up and down. It was odd, but she felt at times that he walked up +and down for her, to be near her.</p> + +<p>"Hello Paul," Basine's eyes slanted up at him, his head slightly +lowered. A pose which gave him a pugnaciously concentrated air such as a +schoolmaster looking over the top of his glasses at an erring pupil +might achieve. "What do you want?" A disconcerting directness he +reserved for the embarrassment of his friends. He asked straightforward +questions, point-blank questions. His questions always had the air of +troops unafraid, wheeling in manœuver to face the enemy.</p> + +<p>"Nothing much, Judge. But your office is kind of restful."</p> + +<p>Schroder rolled a kittenish eye toward Ruth.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Basine stiffened. "Hm."</p> + +<p>Schroder winked at the girl. He came forward, and added, "All the +comforts of home, eh?" And dropped into a chair beside her.</p> + +<p>He had the faculty of boyishness, a talent for intimacies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> His trick +was a conscious thrust beneath the guard of women. He chose to ignore +the delicate fol de rols of pursuit, the pretense of formality. He +refused to recognize the barriers of dignity, strangeness, social +poise—but stepped through them with an easy laugh as if perfectly aware +of what lay beyond, and seated himself beside his quarry in the guise of +a mischievous boy asking to be congratulated for his boldness.</p> + +<p>Women succumbed to this gesture, disarmed by its frankness, its pretense +to innocent juvenility. In this manner Schroder achieved within an hour +intimacies which came to other men only after months of laborious toil. +He threw a noise of laughter over the bantering innuendoes of his talk, +disguising boldness in its own obviousness. His sallies seemed to say, +"You have nothing to fear from us since we are not secretive. We are +cards on the table."</p> + +<p>Women thought of him, "He's lots of fun. You don't have to pretend with +him. You can play and talk without feeling he's laying traps for you."</p> + +<p>But despite the straightforwardness of the man they soon located the +overtone in his conversation. It lay in his eyes. His eyes never gave +themselves to his laughter. They seemed to watch avidly from behind +something. It was as if they were independent of his characterization as +a frankly mischievous overgrown boy. They were able to ask amazingly +indecent questions in the midst of his frankest outbursts. Women +invariably grew embarrassed under their stare. There was no defense +against the inquisitive impudence with which they announced the male's +concentration. Their gleam was like an unmistakable whisper—an +invitation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> + +<p>Basine admired the man. But he remained oblivious to this side of him. +Schroder's female conquests had never interested the Judge. He had heard +of them and forgotten immediately. Now, however, memories returned. +Schroder was an unscrupulous animal. Basine looked at him with a +hopeless misgiving.</p> + +<p>He noticed as Schroder and Ruth talked that he seemed on far more +intimate terms with her than he. There was an <i>esprit</i> between the two +as if they were comrades of long standing. His friend's familiarity was +a shock—as if he had caught him undressed, unexpectedly. Basine +listened to his talk with an aloof frown, as if he were unable to focus +his attention on the scene. He was thinking of something else—far-away +things, vast preoccupations.</p> + +<p>"Loafing is an art. Don't you think so, Ruth?"</p> + +<p>"I've never had time to find out."</p> + +<p>"Hm. I'm teacher. Want me to be teacher?"</p> + +<p>"Why yes, if you have time in your loafing."</p> + +<p>"Time for you always, my dear." A contemplative stare at the girl. "What +would you say, Judge, if I fall in love with your charming secretary." +He laughed. Basine cleared his throat. He felt miserably out of this +sort of thing. He was shocked to hear Ruth giggle.</p> + +<p>"Yes sir," Schroder continued. "And what are you doing this evening?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, Mr. Schroder."</p> + +<p>"Well, why waste time? How about dinner and a show?"</p> + +<p>"Really?" She glanced at Basine as if to declare him in on this give and +take. He was preoccupied,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> hardly observing what was happening. She +pouted.</p> + +<p>"Cross my heart," said Schroder.</p> + +<p>"Thanks very much. A very generous, if general invitation."</p> + +<p>"Discovered!" Schroder laughed. "All right then. Six o'clock at the +Auditorium. Woman's entrance. I'll wear a red rose in my ear. Can't miss +me."</p> + +<p>Ruth nodded.</p> + +<p>"There you are, George," Schroder cried. "All done in a minute. And +tomorrow we'll be in love with each other. What'll you marry us for, +your Honor? Remember I helped elect you." A boisterous laugh that seemed +to mock the boastfulness and prophecies of the man and say of itself, +"I'm joshing all of you including me...."</p> + +<p>Basine left them. His heart was heavy, uncomfortable. He sat on the +bench frowning at the scene. Eager lawyers whispering; a woman in a +green hat holding a handkerchief to her eyes; a bald-headed man on the +other side of the long mahogany table; faces for a background. A divorce +case. The woman weeping was a wife. The bald-headed one with the air of +a board of directors' meeting about him ogled his accusers with dignity. +He was a husband. The jury sat dolorously inattentive in the box. A +witness was testifying.</p> + +<p>Other people's troubles. An interminable jawing back and forth—lawyers, +defendants, witnesses and more lawyers. Basine frowned. Other people's +troubles—and he had his own. This thing before him was an intrusion. At +best he had no sympathy for the interminable jawing that went on under +his eyes. He had grown passionately interested in what he called the +people. But when he thought of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> people he thought of them as a +force, a group, an army standing with faces raised repeating certain +slogans—a vision that Doris had bequeathed him. The interminable +jawing, weeping, accusation and denial before him from day to day had +nothing to do with the people. About these individuals he was cynical. +And more, he was not interested.</p> + +<p>The witness was testifying. The intimidating air of the judge seemed to +confuse her. Her confusion irritated Basine. He turned indignantly and +faced her with a bullying frown.</p> + +<p>"What is it you're trying to say, madam? Did you see this man beat her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, your honor.... I.... I ... that is...."</p> + +<p>Basine controlled his temper and grimaced humorously at the jurors whose +faces at once lighted with an appreciative smile. A fearless man, Judge +Basine, who couldn't tolerate the mumble mumble of legal technicalities +and who struck at the roots of things when he took charge of a witness.</p> + +<p>... They were in the room behind him. Alone. An intolerable thought. +But, impossible to keep his thought away. His imagination like a +merciless flagellate, belabored him with fancies. Paul would teach her. +Lean over and kiss her. And she would kiss in return and whisper, +"Paul...." He was unmarried and good looking. Perhaps she was +heartbroken, too. He, Basine, had never spoken despite the light he had +recognized of late in her eyes. She was in love with him and filled with +despair because her love was useless. So now she would turn to Schroder +in desperation. She would try to forget him, Basine. It was logical. +Women forgot hurts in that way—by giving themselves to someone else.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> + +<p>The heaviness grew unbearable. Another man was touching Ruth. This was +unbearable. He couldn't stand it. But why? What difference? He +couldn't.... She was so beautiful. Another man's hands were desecration.</p> + +<p>A weakness came to him. His heart darkened. What if she did, with +Schroder? They were probably kissing now. It had been hard to imagine +himself kissing her. To him she somehow seemed aloof, beyond possession. +But it was easy to imagine Schroder. Men and women put their arms around +each other and that was an end to aloofness.</p> + +<p>He made an effort to pull himself together. Voices were droning around +him—other people's troubles. Faces thrust themselves tactlessly at his +eyes. He grew nauseated. He had never felt like this before. As if he +must do something despite his will. His will said, "Sit there. Don't +move. It's none of your business." But this other thing was pulling him +out of his seat and moving his body for him.</p> + +<p>He clenched his teeth and muttered to himself, "She's no good. Wasting +my time on her!"</p> + +<p>"That will be all for today," Basine muttered. He placed his hand +wearily over his forehead. This would make them think he was ill. His +clerk came forward.</p> + +<p>"Anything wrong, Judge?" he asked with concern.</p> + +<p>Basine shook his head with Spartan indifference to the mythical disease +consuming him.</p> + +<p>"No," he said, belying his answer in its tone, "court is adjourned until +ten o'clock tomorrow."</p> + +<p>He nodded briefly at the faces. The solicitous regard in the eyes of +attorneys and jurors reassured him. He was ill, very ill—that was it. +Of course,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> that was it. The eyes of the attorneys and jurors said, "You +are working too hard. You must be careful of a nervous breakdown. In +your prime too. Be careful."</p> + +<p>He walked off the bench, his step unsteady. He was acting. But the fact +that his step was not authenticly unsteady was an accident—and +illogical. He felt it logical to walk unsteadily since everyone thought +him ill and on the verge of a breakdown.</p> + +<p>"You'd better go home, Judge."</p> + +<p>Basine nodded gratefully to his clerk. He opened the door to his +chambers. The sight of Schroder bewildered him. Schroder was still +there. He had his hat in his hand, though. Basine stared at his friend. +His heart contracted and his breath fluttered in his throat.</p> + +<p>"What's wrong, George?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing. Headache. Knocked off for the day."</p> + +<p>Words were hard to speak. His eyes turned to Ruth. She was watching him. +Frightenedly, he thought. Had she done something? Kissed? They looked +guilty. He tried to find answers to the questions by staring at her. Was +she the same as she had been? Or had she given her lips? A vital +question. They were going out tonight together. Basine controlled +himself. He sat down at his desk and ran his hand wearily over his head.</p> + +<p>"Well, so long," Schroder spoke. "Hope you feel better, George." A +pause. "See you later, Ruth."</p> + +<p>See her later! They had no sympathy for his illness. They would go out +and laugh, hold hands, make love—despite his trouble. He sat brooding +over the cruelty of women. "Cruel. No finer feelings," he mumbled to +himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p> + +<p>They were alone. Was he ill? What was it that had lifted him off the +bench? Nothing definite. A dark disorder in his mind, a heaviness in his +heart that had seemed part of the room. He wanted to moan. Yes, he was +sick.</p> + +<p>"Can I do anything, Judge?"</p> + +<p>He hated her. Her voice with its hypocritical concern. As if she cared +for him. After what had happened between her and Schroder ... see you +later ... and he called her Ruth.</p> + +<p>"No, Miss Davis."</p> + +<p>This was unbearable. He would insult her. There was relief in insulting +her, making her suffer for something, too. But she might go away if he +did. He couldn't go on with his work any more. Work was impossible. A +disease was active in him sending out dark clouds that choked his +thought and swelled his heart with pain. She might leave for good. Then +what could he do? Nothing. But why all this make-believe? He would tell +her he loved her. Simple. That would drain him of his pain. He stood up +and paced. She was at her desk, he noticed, eyes large and excited.</p> + +<p>But he could do nothing, say nothing. He was impotent. Good God! he +must. How? No way he could think of. The thing was smothering him. +Before—days and weeks before—he had kept it down. But now it had slid +from underneath and was in his head. There was no outlet. He dared not +talk.</p> + +<p>No thoughts were in his mind. Henrietta, his children, home, morality, +marriage, none of these was in his mind. But there was a restriction, a +wall he could not pass. There were things holding him with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> merciless +hands. They gripped at his body and thrust themselves like gags into his +mouth.</p> + +<p>She had risen and was standing near the window. If he kept to his pacing +he must come near her. It was her fault. He was just pacing. She was in +his path. If he walked straight to the end of the room she would be in +his path. Why should he turn out for her?</p> + +<p>He paused beside her. He must say nothing. It was talk that was +impossible. He stood looking at her until his eyes grew bewildered. +There was a moment in which he seemed to vanish from himself, as if he +had stepped bodily out of himself. His thought paralyzed with a curious +terror, he saw nothing. The moment of unconsciousness passed and he was +still alive and still on his feet. His voice lay under control in his +throat and the memory of his name sat like a perpetual visitor in his +thought.</p> + +<p>But there was a change. A miraculous thing had happened. He was no +longer Basine. He was a stranger in a strange world. He was holding her +in his arms. An impossible sensation was in him. This was something he +couldn't believe. He wanted to look at himself. He had his arms around +her. But there was no woman in the circle of his arms. He was holding +something that let his delirium escape. Torments were emptying +themselves in the embrace. The miseries that had accumulated under the +surface of his months of resistance, were leaving him, flying from him. +His heart was growing unbearably light.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" he murmured. Her arms had tightened and he saw her eyes approach +him. They were rapturous.</p> + +<p>She was warm, intimate, close to him. Her lips,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> still piquantly +strange, were offering themselves. She was unlike everything he knew. A +startling vigor, as if he had been changed into a rampaging giant, swept +him as they kissed. He was great, strong. He could walk over the heads +of the world. He had no need for further embrace. He stepped away, his +face radiant.</p> + +<p>Ruth looked at him in confusion. This was a new Basine. He frightened. +The mask was gone, the frown of preoccupation. She grew dizzy in the +light of his eyes. He was a stranger. What should she call him? But he +was talking to her in a voice that he seemed to have kept secret.... "I +love you, Ruth. I love you."</p> + +<p>He laughed. She smiled uncertainly and felt that her face looked +awkward. She could see the lines of her cheeks bulging as she lowered +her eyes. This confused her and made her feel stiff. There had been +something of this sort a few minutes ago in Paul Schroder when he had +tried to take her hand. But now the thing she had noted calmly in +Schroder seemed a puny imitation. Here it was real. He was laughing, +softly, joyously. He was like a boy. Her heart filled with panic. She +put her arms quickly around his neck and pressed herself close to him. +The panic went out of her deliciously.</p> + +<p>"George, I love you. I'm so happy."</p> + +<p>They sat looking at each other, an excited smile in Basine's eyes. His +body was tingling. A new sense had come. It lived in his fingers. He was +holding her hand. His fingers were charged with an amazing energy. They +seemed to have become part of a different person. He was able to enjoy +the ecstasy that confused his fingers as if it were an external +emotion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> The rest of him was clear, almost tranquil.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said. It was still hard to talk. He was aware of +incongruities. He was not Basine talking, not the new Basine, not the +one whose fingers danced and throbbed. His voice belonged to other +Basines—other characterizations whose awkward ghosts fluttered +nervously in his thought. He would discuss this phenomenon. It was easy, +after all. Be honest. She was one with whom he could be astonishingly +honest. They were isolated. The world was a futility. There was an end +to make-believe now. It was all honest, tranquil, joyous. He began +again:</p> + +<p>"Well, isn't it strange. I can hardly talk to you. I'm not used to us +yet. This way. I've loved you since I first saw you. But I've told so +many lies about that to both of us...." He paused to smile at her as if +asking her not to believe him a liar, or if she must—a liar in a high +cause—"that the things I want to say now seem like ... like the +contradictions of something. Of old lies ... in a way."</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know," she whispered. A preposterous admiration of her +intelligence overcame him. Of course she understood! It was unnecessary +to talk to her. She had kissed and embraced him. She had felt the same +things he had. And now, their thoughts were alike. They were like one +person, having shared something that filled them. It was unnecessary to +talk. Because if he remained silent she knew he was thinking of her. A +charming sense of comradeship came to him.</p> + +<p>"I feel," he said, "as if we were too intimate for words."</p> + +<p>She nodded again and smiled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We'll make a holiday," he added. "Come, we'll go for a drive."</p> + +<p>They embraced. This time he thought of Henrietta. Ruth was different +from his wife. Her shoulder blades felt different under his fingers. It +was impossible to think they were both women. His arms around Henrietta +meant nothing. His arms around Ruth now—he closed his eyes in order to +closet himself with indefinable sensations.</p> + +<p>They emerged from the traffic of the loop. Basine at the wheel of his +newly purchased roadster dropped a hand on hers.</p> + +<p>"I feel better like this," he said.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it wonderful," she whispered.</p> + +<p>He would have liked to tell her they were floating over buildings. But +he kept silent. Words were still self-conscious interlopers. The houses +moved away. A spring wind was in their faces. They were silent. The +pavements ended. Basine brought the car to a stop.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to do," he said. "I'm so happy."</p> + +<p>He placed his arms around her. The touch of her body through his clothes +was a reminder of something. He gave it no words. They sat embraced, +their faces together and an unspoken laugh in their hearts. The sun was +high overhead. Basine tried to remember himself ... Henrietta, his home, +his position. Ah, banalities. He was proud. He was above remorse, +regret; above himself. There was nothing in the world as beautiful as +the moment he commanded.</p> + +<p>Ruth leaned avidly against him as if seeking refuge in his arms. He sat +thinking. "It is right. Everything right. I've done nothing. No +compromise.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> Nothing. I'm happy. There's nothing to frighten me."</p> + +<p>He felt released.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C17" id="C17"></a>17</h2> + +<p>Summer lay like a Mandarin coat over the city. It was June. Warm, +sun-awninged streets glistened with ornamental colors. Women in gaudy +fabrics, men in violent hat bands, straws, panamas, striped shirts, sun +parasols like huge discs of confetti, freshly painted red and green +street cars, pastel tinted automobiles—all these tumbled like a swarm +of sprightly incoherent adjectives along the foot of the buildings.</p> + +<p>The store windows like deaf and dumb hawkers grimaced at the crowds. Ice +creams, silks, swimming suits, and sport paraphernalia; jaunty frocks, +white trousers, candies, festive haberdashery, drugs, leather goods, +wicker furniture and assortments of lingerie like the symbols of +fastidious sins—all these grimaced behind plate glass.</p> + +<p>The city was in bloom. People, perspiring and lightly dressed, sauntered +by the plate glass orchards. Summer filled the city with reminiscent +smells. Sky, water, grass scampered like merry ghosts through the +carnival of the shopping center. Warm, sun-awninged streets; ornamental +men and women—summer spread itself through the crowds, warmed the +bargain hunters, loiterers, clerks, stenographers, business men and +housewives into a half sleep.</p> + +<p>They peered lazily at each other. Their mysterious preoccupations seemed +to have subsided. The sun made holiday in the streets and the high, +fluttering windows showered endless tiny suns on the air.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> The morning +held the unreal soul of some forgotten picnic.</p> + +<p>Ten o'clock. Fanny Gilchrist turned with an inward sigh and walked out +of the crowded business street. This was LaSalle street and, concealed +in the buildings around her, were people who knew her and might see her. +Accidentally bump into her.</p> + +<p>The crowds grew thinner and less familiar types of faces drifted by. +This was better. She wasn't exactly afraid. But what if someone did bump +into her accidentally? Then she would have to say where she was going +and, if she lied, perhaps they would insist upon coming along and +discover it. But that was foolishness. One never met people in streets +like that.</p> + +<p>Men looked at her with casual interest, with insignificant enthusiasm, +as she walked by them. A bright-haired, shining-eyed young woman with a +body undulating softly under a grey and green trimmed dress; she seemed +to light up the dingy pavements. Other women passed lighting them up +also. Each new female illuminant was welcomed with thankful, greedy +eyes.</p> + +<p>Her red sailor jauntily tilted and the silken gleam of her face were +like part of a luscious mask. She was a woman hurrying somewhere and +men, bored with other women, looked at her enthusiastically. She was one +of the many enigmatic ones, one of the many gaudy colored masks behind +which sex paraded its mystery through the sun-awninged streets. Eyes +ennuied with the memory of sex lighted eagerly in the presence of its +masks. The flash of ankles and the swell of thighs under pretty fabrics +were diversions even for moralists.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> + +<p>Schroder waiting patiently on a street corner watched the warm crowd. +She wouldn't come. Yes, she would. Well, another five minutes would +tell.</p> + +<p>He saw her and his excitement changed. A leisurely smile came to his +face. His body relaxed. He was a connoisseur in rendezvous and his +enjoyment of the moment which witnessed her approach was deliberate. +Women in themselves did not interest him so much. Their +bodies—pleasant, yes. But after all—a finale. And one does not applaud +finales.</p> + +<p>But now, watching her lithe figure hurrying toward him was a diversion +to be sipped at, contemplated in all its emotional detail, and enjoyed. +Later it would be this moment he remembered, if he remembered +anything—which was uncertain. For his memories which had in his younger +days glistened in his thought like a mosaic of eroticism, had of late +blurred to a monotone. He could remember women, liaisons, passion +phrases and great enthusiasms but, curiously, they seemed all identical. +To recall how one woman had sighed in his arms was to recall the whole +pack of them. As if the souls of his paramours and the manner of their +surrenders were contained completely in the recollection of any one +detail.</p> + +<p>But despite his ennui, this moment of approach still delighted him. The +woman hurrying to his side was not yet a woman. She was still a mystery +whose inevitable and never varying sensualism was masked for a final +instant behind unfamiliar fabrics. There was a piquant unreality, a +diverting strangeness, as she smiled at him. She was somebody he did not +know. He was authentically bored with women. But for the moment it was +not a woman approaching—rather a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> new color of cloth, a new combination +of dress, a new species of social poise and gesture were presenting +themselves for ravishment. In these unfamiliar surfaces lay a tenuous +mystery as if it were these externals he was about to embrace. And in +the contemplation of this mystery, his interest revived itself. He +sighed. It was a mystery which would vanish shortly.</p> + +<p>"Hello, dearest."</p> + +<p>He greeted her softly, with regret. A quixotic impulse to turn and walk +away before she spoke had died in him.</p> + +<p>Fanny was staring expectantly. He was familiar with the expression. Not +in her, but in others. This took away its charms. Married women were +nearly all alike. Full of distressing short cuts, with an irritating and +incongruous professionalism behind their bewilderment. What dolts +husbands must be to blunt women like that.</p> + +<p>As he took her hand and felt her fingers clutch excitedly around his +palm he remembered in an instant the predecessors of her type. Full of +distressing short cuts. When they gave their hands they withheld +nothing. They denuded themselves with a look, with a handclasp. And the +subtlety of skirmishing seemed entirely foreign to them. When they +embraced it was with an appalling directness. Yes, in intrigue they were +all alike—all like precocious children; vague, bewildered children +mimicking the precisions of their elders and exclaiming with distressful +incongruity:</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut. Let's come to the point. Let's get down to brass tacks and +stop beating around the bush."</p> + +<p>Well, here she was and the scene was on.</p> + +<p>"Am I late?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, dearest. I was just a little early so as to enjoy the impatience of +waiting for you."</p> + +<p>The nuance was lost upon her. Amorous women were a cold audience for +technique.</p> + +<p>"I'm so upset. Do you mind?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all, Fanny. Of course you're upset. But it only adds to your +charm."</p> + +<p>He had long ago abandoned love-making tactics, sensing that women who +came to him were not particularly interested in tender pretenses. They +desired flattery, but direct and practical variants. This one was like +the others, flushed, eager, frightened and gay. He felt an exhilaration +as they walked toward the entrance of the unpretentious hotel around the +corner. A sense of conquest. It was nothing to be enjoyed in itself. But +if people knew, which they never could, alas, they would be awed by the +ease with which he accomplished such things. One, two, three meetings +and—here they were again. Paul Schroder entering a hotel with a woman +at his side.</p> + +<p>"This isn't a bad place," he whispered. "I've already registered. Mr. +and Mrs. Paul Johnson. It's better if you know your name, of course."</p> + +<p>Fanny stood tremblingly in front of the elevator cage as he walked to +the desk. She noticed his carelessness, the unselfconscious way in which +he smiled at the clerk and paused to buy some cigars. The fear that had +grown in her since she left her home appeared to be reaching a climax. +Her knees shivered under her dress and a catch in her throat made +breathing difficult.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to be afraid of," she repeated silently to herself, and +tried to understand the cause of her trembling. Even if there were +consequences—there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> was Aubrey. She smiled nervously. It was his fault. +He was a fool.</p> + +<p>They entered the elevator. A sleepy boy shut the cage door after them. +Schroder gripped her arm and his fingers caressed the soft flesh. She +turned to him and smiled. She was no longer afraid. A shameless, +exultant light kindled in her eyes. She leaned against him with a shiver +as the elevator lifted slowly.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>... They had decided to check out in time for her to return home for +dinner.</p> + +<p>"I don't have to go up to the desk with you, do I?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Schroder smiled tiredly.</p> + +<p>"Oh no," he said, "you wait at the entrance with the property suit case. +Then we'll both take a cab and drive a few blocks. I'll get out with the +bag and you drive on home. It's simple."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless the fear she had experienced in the morning returned as she +watched him go to the desk. In another minute it would be all over and +everything would be all right. But now—what if someone saw them? Bumped +into her accidentally. The lassitude which had filled her when she +locked the tumbled hotel room behind her, gave way to a curious panic. +Her tired nerves became unhappily alive.</p> + +<p>"Why—hello, Mrs. Gilchrist."</p> + +<p>She was unable to see the man for an instant. Her mind had darkened. "I +mustn't faint," she murmured to herself. She was looking at an unshaven, +dissipated face that smiled. As she looked her world seemed to be +falling down. Everything gone—ruined. Because a face was smiling. Tom +Ramsey.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> The man's name popped into her thought.</p> + +<p>"Hello," she muttered.</p> + +<p>Schroder approached and frowned. He took her arm and led her away. She +began to cry in the cab.</p> + +<p>"He saw us. He knows. He'll tell everybody. Oh my God! Why did you come +up when you saw him? If you'd only realized. Oh, why did I do it? Now +everything's ruined. I'm lost."</p> + +<p>She wept, knowing the futility of tears. An accident that seemed +provokingly unreal and soothingly unimportant—Tom Ramsey. Yet the name +was like a guillotine block on which her head lay stretched.</p> + +<p>Schroder, annoyed, tried to console her.</p> + +<p>"Who was it? Listen, pull yourself together. People always imagine +themselves guiltier looking than they are. He probably thought nothing +wrong."</p> + +<p>"Tom Ramsey. Didn't you see how he looked at me? Oh, God, I'm sick."</p> + +<p>"Who is he?"</p> + +<p>"He used to be my mother's friend. But he went to the dogs. He's just a +tramp now. He isn't a gentleman."</p> + +<p>Schroder sighed.</p> + +<p>"Oh well," he said, "there's no use worrying. Come, put it out of your +head."</p> + +<p>"I can't. Oh, I can't. Why did I do it. I'll kill myself if ... if +anything happens. Aubrey will.... Oh Paul, I feel sick."</p> + +<p>He stared glumly at the back of the chauffeur's head. A nuisance. A +damned nuisance. His mind played with contrasts. A few hours ago she had +been shameless. Now she sat weeping. He thought of her as ungrateful and +grew angry.</p> + +<p>"I'll step out now," he whispered. "Call me up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> tomorrow at the office, +will you? Nothing will happen. Please, be calm. It's all imagination."</p> + +<p>He halted the cab and stepped out with the suitcase. She would feel +better, he knew, as soon as he disappeared. She would be able to +convince herself then that nothing had happened—that she was coming +home from a shopping tour.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye. Call me up, dearest."</p> + +<p>Fanny sat weeping as the cab moved away. Ramsey had seen her. A misery +too heavy for thought brought another burst of tears. She hated +Schroder. And herself, too. But most of all the ragged looking, unshaven +Ramsey in the lobby. Why had he come at just that moment? If they had +left the room ten minutes earlier. It was Paul's fault. He insisted on +combing his hair, and reading a story in the newspaper. If he hadn't +sent down for the newspaper in the middle of the afternoon. He didn't +love her or he wouldn't have thought of sending for it. She had laughed +at the time but it was an insult. He was a brute. If he had loved her he +wouldn't have wanted to read a newspaper and they wouldn't have met +Ramsey. She sat conjuring up dozens of trifling incidents which, had +they occurred, would have prevented the fatal meeting with Ramsey.</p> + +<p>Then she smiled convulsively through her tears. It was about the story. +They had laughed at it in the room. "Judge Basine Launches Vice Quiz. +State to Investigate Problem of Immorality Among Women Wage Earners...."</p> + +<p>"Why girls go wrong ... why girls go wrong," rumbled through her head +now and she laughed hysterically. Oh, that tramp of a Ramsey had spoiled +it all. Otherwise it would have been wonderful. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> next week, too. But +perhaps he hadn't noticed anything. Of course he hadn't. Paul was right.</p> + +<p>She dried her tears and looked into the twilighted streets. She had +planned her homecoming days ago. She would be ill, overcome by the heat +and excuse herself from the dinner table. A final chill shot through her +heart as the cab stopped.</p> + +<p>She found herself entering her home with complete poise. It was almost +as if nothing had happened. Here were the familiar things of life. Her +home, Aubrey, the rows of books, the walnut library table. Nothing had +happened. For a moment she was amazed at the complete unconsciousness of +the day. Then smiling delightedly at her husband in a chair, a familiar +husband in a familiar chair, she removed her hat and approached him.</p> + +<p>Leaning over the back of his chair she kissed him tenderly on the cheek. +He was her protector. Good old Aubrey, so familiar, so placid and +unchanged. If it only hadn't been for Ramsey everything would be so nice +now. But anyway, it wasn't so bad. She had been a bit hysterical.</p> + +<p>"Where've you been, Fanny?"</p> + +<p>She felt no twinge at the question. Instead an enthusiasm for the +situation filled her.</p> + +<p>"To the matinee," she laughed. "Oh, I saw the nicest show."</p> + +<p>She leaned forward and took his hand. Aubrey regarded her with a +petulant stare. Despite their years of marriage, she was still an +animal, gross and irritating.</p> + +<p>"And I'm just starved," she exclaimed. "I was never so hungry in my +life."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p> + +<p>She laughed, overjoyed at the truth of the statement and hurried +upstairs to prepare for dinner.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C18" id="C18"></a>18</h2> + +<p>The manuscript had been found in the drawer where William Gilchrist kept +his collars. It lay underneath a number of loose collars.</p> + +<p>With the death of his father a curious love for the man had come to +Aubrey. He remembered from day to day things his father had said, or +seemed to say. A sad, elderly man who lived secretly in his thoughts. +That was his father.</p> + +<p>Like him, Aubrey now had a secret life that he lived only in his +thoughts, and this was slowly making him kin to the man who had died. In +Aubrey's thoughts dwelt a dramatic, startling figure—a gleaming, +hawk-faced thunderer; a lean Isaiah of burning phrases with an +eagle-winged soul beating its way toward God. This was Aubrey Gilchrist. +Not the Aubrey whom life had mysteriously deformed into an advertising +man, but an Aubrey triumphant who had risen above the petty turns of +Fate and burst upon a world—a voice crying forth astounding phrases +against the evil of man's ways.</p> + +<p>The inner characterization in which Aubrey was gradually immersing +himself remained a vague though warm generality. He was able to +visualize the Thunderer and able to enjoy the results of his genius. In +his day dreams he pictured this inner one bringing the world to his +feet. Books were being written about him, magazines and newspapers were +filled with his praises and interpretations, and men and women +everywhere discussed his ascent in awe. He was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> conqueror—a bloodless +Napoleon and a martyrless Jesus. A prophet whose genius was lifting men +out of the mire.</p> + +<p>What the message was which this inner Aubrey was spreading through the +world, what the phrases were that ignited the souls of men, were not +contained in his imaginings. He approached them from a critical and not +creative angle—his fancies presenting him with descriptive self +praises. He composed rambling articles in his mind celebrating his +triumphs. This inner Aubrey was eloquent, electrifying, unassailable; +men and women wept over his writings and repented; cities reared statues +to him, and all places sang his glories. The whole thing had begun as a +game, deliberately invented to occupy the leisure of his mind. But he +had elaborated on it and it had grown almost by itself. Now it +preoccupied him to an alarming degree.</p> + +<p>The manuscript in his father's collar drawer had given him a shock. He +had kept it from his mother, assuring himself that such a course was for +the best. It was an odd document for his father to leave behind.</p> + +<p>As he sat in his study a week after the funeral reading it for the first +time, Aubrey grew frightened. It seemed to him that he was looking at +his father—for the first time, that the man who had till now been a +half enigmatic figure to him, stood at last in the room, strong and +alive. The thing was a primitive type of novel—discoursive, gentle, +Rabelaisian. It recounted the mental and physical adventures of an +Elizabethan philosopher in a succession of unrelated episodes. There was +a caress in the sentences, a simplicity in the narrative that translated +itself into cunning realism.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> + +<p>When he had finished the reading, Aubrey stared at his father's portrait +hanging over one of the book cases. The reality of the manuscript held +him. He felt bewildered. It had for some three hours lifted him out of +the present and immersed him in scenes and amid a company of naive +ancients, starkly alive. A dormant literary sense awakened in him. The +thing was a work of art, as moving, as authentic as Apuleius or +Cervantes. But he would put it away. He hid it in a private drawer.</p> + +<p>Its memory, however, grew in his mind. During his day at work the +thought of the thing his father had written came to haunt him, as if it +demanded something. He felt closer to it than he had ever felt to his +father. There was something distasteful, though, about the intimacy.</p> + +<p>"That was his soul," he would explain over to himself. "He lived that +way inside. It was like writing a biography of secret dreams for him. +It's strange. We're all like that. Even I. There was something odd in +father. Funny we never guessed. It must have been written a paragraph at +a time over years and years. It was a sort of diary."</p> + +<p>And he would recall excerpts from the book—gentle skepticisms, childish +animalisms. But the tone of the thing which he could never put into +words was what haunted him most. Over the naive acrobatics of plot and +lively preenings of idea, an unwritten smile spread itself, a pensive +tolerance that seemed to say, "Yes, yes, life has been. This tale is a +curious jest. An epitaph over an empty grave. Yesterday is unreal and +today is even less real. Yet here are fancies, the ghosts of sad and +happy folk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> who never lived. And among these ghosts I once found +life...."</p> + +<p>The idea of publishing the manuscript came to Aubrey one evening when +his wife returned from the theater in a curious mood. She was late for +dinner and this irritated him. But her manner was even more irritating. +She was strident, flushed, gross. Her laugh as they ate made his mother +frown, he observed. He said little. When they left the table an +indignation toward Fanny had come to him.</p> + +<p>He retired to his study. Fanny insisted on following him. She hovered +about his chair as he tried to read, caressing him in a curious way, as +if he were a child with whom she was amused. It occurred to him that she +thought him a failure, that there was something condescending in her +manner.</p> + +<p>"Oh, leave me alone, please, Fanny."</p> + +<p>"Hm! We're peevish. Dear me. Poor old Aubrey's working too hard."</p> + +<p>"Please."</p> + +<p>"But I want to talk to you. I want to tell you about the matinee."</p> + +<p>"I'm not interested, Fanny. You know how I hate vaudeville."</p> + +<p>"I love it."</p> + +<p>"That's your privilege."</p> + +<p>"Don't be sarcastic, Aubrey."</p> + +<p>"I'm not. I'm just tired."</p> + +<p>"Tired? What have you been doing?"</p> + +<p>Despite herself she accented the you. The memory of Schroder and their +day together had left her. It persisted, however, as a curious elation. +The ambiguity of words exhilarated her. She felt a sense of mastery. She +wanted also to be tender toward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> Aubrey, to please and charm him. It was +necessary to do this in order to disarm him. But he had no suspicions. +She was certain of that. Nevertheless it was necessary to make sure he +had none. There were many paradoxical things necessary and most curious +of them all was the necessity of showing Aubrey that she loved him. Her +heart warmed toward him as it hadn't for years. She felt unaccountably +grateful to Aubrey. She would have liked to sit at his side whispering +love names and caressing his hair.</p> + +<p>"Well, for one thing, I've been writing."</p> + +<p>He looked at her calmly.</p> + +<p>"Writing? You mean books? Why, I didn't know!"</p> + +<p>Aubrey smiled, recovering a superiority toward her. But his heart grew +heavy almost simultaneously. She had thrown her arms about him and was +exclaiming, "Oh, I'm so glad. I'm so glad you're writing again, Aubrey +darling. I've wanted you to so much."</p> + +<p>He pushed her away slowly. She stood pouting.</p> + +<p>"Now I can see where I take a back seat," she sighed. "Yes sir, you +won't have time for me at all. But I don't care. As long as you're +happy, darling, I'm delighted. I want you to be happy and I know it +makes you happy to write."</p> + +<p>When she left the room Aubrey remained frowning after her. He would +surprise her. He would surprise them all. He would publish the +manuscript under his own name. It would create a sensation. It would +bring him back in the public eye more glorified than he had been in his +literary heyday.</p> + +<p>In a few days the idea had grown to obliterating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> proportions. For a +time he abandoned the contemplation of the inner Aubrey—the +gleaming-eyed Thunderer. This other was nearer reality—an Aubrey hymned +as a rejuvenated literary figure. But he hesitated. His indecision +resulted in a predicament. He had been boasting cautiously of his new +work, letting out hints as to its character. There was Cressy, a +literary critic and a member of the club where he lunched. He had talked +to him about it.</p> + +<p>"I'm surprised myself," he explained. "I was rather uncertain whether I +could come back. But the rest was evidently just what I needed. The book +isn't at all in my old style. More direct, sincere and entirely simple. +You'll like it."</p> + +<p>Cressy became important in Aubrey's predicament. Cressy was a man whom +Aubrey identified as "the more discriminating public." He yearned for +the approval of this public. And as his decision to have his father's +manuscript printed under his own name grew, Aubrey sought the critic +out. It was pleasant to boast to Cressy, to feel oneself part of the +superior literary world Cressy inhabited.</p> + +<p>Cressy had left the university with the determination to write. He had, +however, developed into a scholar, using a knowledge of Greek and Latin +to acquire a baggage of classical erudition. For ten years he had been +contributing literary essays to magazines and newspapers. In these he +wagged his head sorrowfully over the decline of letters. He presented an +impregnable front to all new writers. The names of new novelists in the +book lists irritated him precisely as the names of new celebrities in +the society columns had once irritated Mrs. Basine. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> resented them as +intruders and focused a pedantic wrath on them.</p> + +<p>In his own mind he pictured himself as being in a continual state of +revolt against the inferiority of modern literature. His attacks, +however, were entirely a defensive gesture. His literary point of view +was inspired by a heroic desire to annihilate contemporary literature. +Contemporary books were an insult and a barrier to his egoism. He +battled against them. His struggle was the quixotic effort to assert the +superiority of his erudition. New novels, new poetries, new philosophies +were a conspiracy to minimize him and he went after them with the zeal +of one engaged in tracking criminals to their lair.</p> + +<p>At forty-five he was a stern-faced man with a greying mustache, heavy +glasses behind which gleamed indignant eyes. He was impressive looking. +People who never read his fulminations still felt a high regard for his +scholarship. He was fearless in the pronunciation of French, Latin and +Greek names and invariably functioned as arbiter in all disputes +concerning classical quotations and allusions.</p> + +<p>His friendship with Aubrey was based chiefly on the certainty he felt +that Aubrey was an inferior writer. He was not part of the conspiracy +aimed at the minimization of Cressy, the scholar.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm glad to hear that, Aubrey," he congratulated his friend. +"Very glad. Writing is a delight few people understand these days."</p> + +<p>"I know. And I think you'll be interested particularly, John, because +the story is of Elizabethan England. I've modeled the technique on +Apuleius and the other later Roman tale-tellers."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Indeed!" Cressy bristled. "That should be interesting."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to have your opinion of it, John. I've always valued what you +say, but this time more than ever. Because I feel I've entered your +field and you're guarding the fences and all that."</p> + +<p>Cressy's face relaxed. Quite right. His field. And if the book was any +good he could leap forward as its authentic champion and through it +denounce the base modernism of the day. But how did Aubrey who was a +superficial dabbler come by Elizabethan England?</p> + +<p>Aubrey promised to produce the manuscript within a few days and left the +club. A July sun hammered at the streets. The heat added to his inward +discomfort. It was too hot to think. Yet it was necessary to think. +Something was piling up and unless he thought it out clearly, it would +fall on him.</p> + +<p>He had made up his mind to publish his father's manuscript as his own. +But in the weeks that had passed he had become aware that he was not +going to carry out his intention. There were things that kept him from +it. A morbid sense that his father was watching him had grown in his +mind. He was afraid. At night in bed he conducted himself with a +scrupulous politeness toward his wife, certain that his every action was +being observed by his father.</p> + +<p>There was another restriction. The appearance of the manuscript with his +name to it would be a distasteful anti-climax. He had lost himself so +long and so ardently in the creation of an inner Aubrey—the hawk-faced +Isaiah redeeming men—that the prospect of a frankly sensual volume +signed by Aubrey Gilchrist made him uncomfortable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the face of the realities that would ensue—the praise for instance, +of the healthy animalism of the book—he would have to abandon the +secret characterization that had grown almost an essential of his life. +He could not go ahead redeeming men and lifting them toward a life of +asceticism while people were talking and writing about the fact that +Aubrey Gilchrist was a sensual realist. And finally there was a feeling +of dishonesty, inseparable from his fear of his father, but adding its +weight to the restrictions.</p> + +<p>As the feeling that he would never dare to publish the manuscript +approached a certainty, Aubrey sought to force his own hand by telling +his friends of the book, boasting of it and promising its early +appearance. In this way he dimly hoped to make it socially necessary for +him to produce the volume and that finally the social necessity of +living up to his announcements would overpower the inner restraints. He +was desperately throwing up bridges in the hope of being driven across +them.</p> + +<p>The dilemma slipped out of his mind as he walked toward his home. It was +distasteful. The finding of the manuscript had, in fact, upset him more +than anything which had ever happened. As he neared his residence a +wilted sensation came into his thought. He had been trying eagerly to +recover the full image of the inner Aubrey and derive a few hours of +surcease in the easy contemplation of that great hero's triumphs. But +now it occurred to him that Judge Smith and John Mackay, his partner, +Fanny and her relatives and all his world were buzzing with gossip about +his return to literature. The dilemma crawled wearily back into his +mind.</p> + +<p>Yes, they talked about it whenever they came together.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> There was +Basine, the judge. He had seized Aubrey's hand and pumped it heartily +when he heard of the book.</p> + +<p>"That's the stuff. I like a man who can come back. Go to it, Aubrey."</p> + +<p>Basine was a bounder. The way Fanny and the rest of them idolized him +was disgusting. His mother-in-law—"Oh, the judge told me the most +fascinating things about the situation in Washington." And then for an +hour, an idiotic mumble about what the judge did, what he said, what he +thought, what he hoped. Nobody ever mentioned Henrietta or the children. +As if their existence was not only unimportant but dubious. Basine was +an entity. He needed no background.</p> + +<p>Aubrey wondered why his thought turned to his brother-in-law. Whenever +he felt uncomfortable, or found himself in a distressing situation, his +mind usually busied itself with comment on Basine. Anything distressful +that happened, no matter how remote from the judge, always seemed to +remind Aubrey of the man and recall to him the fact that he was a +bounder and an ass and entirely unlikeable.</p> + +<p>He entered his home in a dejected mood. Voices attracted him. Fanny was +talking to a man. He paused before the opened door.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hello Aubrey," Fanny greeted him. She stood up. Aubrey noticed she +looked pale. Her eyes seemed to follow his observation.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it hot though? I'm almost dead. I'm awfully glad you came home. +You remember Mr. Ramsey, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"How do you do," said Aubrey. "Yes, I think—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p> + +<p>"At mother's. Long ago. I'm sure you met him. He's an old friend of the +family."</p> + +<p>"How do you do, sir," Ramsey echoed, rising. The men shook hands. Aubrey +stared at the dapper, high-strung figure with its flushed face and cool +attire and tried to remember the man.</p> + +<p>"If you'll pardon me," he smiled.</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Aubrey."</p> + +<p>"See you again, I hope," said Aubrey. Ramsey assented with a curious +enthusiasm, accenting the situation uncomfortably. Fanny frowned and +watched her husband walk to the stairs. As his steps died the two +returned to their chairs.</p> + +<p>"Oh it's hot," Fanny murmured. "Can't you go away till next month. I'm +almost beside myself."</p> + +<p>Her voice was low. Ramsey listened with disdain.</p> + +<p>"And besides," she continued in a whisper, "I've given you all I can +get. I haven't any more money."</p> + +<p>"Money!" Ramsey snorted. "I'm not talking about money. I'm not asking +for any." He stood up and frowned indignantly at her.</p> + +<p>"I know, but—"</p> + +<p>"I just dropped in for a talk."</p> + +<p>He said this with a meaning smile and lighted a cigarette. He was very +casual. She watched him helplessly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, why beat around the bush. I'm sick of it. I can't stand it. How +much do you want? I've given you three thousand. Surely that's...."</p> + +<p>"I don't want any, thank you," he answered with mysterious sarcasm. "Not +a nickle."</p> + +<p>"Then what do you want?" Her voice was rising despite her fear of being +heard. "This is the fourth time you've ... you've hounded me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, I hound you?" Again the mysterious sarcasm.</p> + +<p>"If you'd only tell me what you want."</p> + +<p>He smiled with the air of a man phenomenally at ease and returned to his +chair.</p> + +<p>"Nothing. Not a thing. I just dropped in for a chat, that's all."</p> + +<p>His eyes regarded her triumphantly. Fanny returned their gaze. He was +crazy. There was something crazy about him. He had called her on the +telephone the day after seeing her in the hotel with Schroder. She had +gone downtown to meet him. The whole business seemed like an impossible +dream in retrospect. He had whined and begged for money. He was down and +out, living from hand to mouth, his friends gone, his clothes in rags. +He had known her father. She could save him. And he had never once +referred to the incident in the hotel lobby. Neither had she. The +conversation had been purely a needy friend and a philanthropically +inclined woman. She had asked him how much he needed and he answered +$1,500 would start him. A week later he came to her completely +rehabilitated—an elderly looking fop swinging a cane and bristling with +enthusiasms.</p> + +<p>Another $1,500 had increased his enthusiasm. He came a third time to +report that he had found employment. She barely listened. Something had +happened to Ramsey.</p> + +<p>Now as he sat smiling sarcasms at her she realized what it was. Her +knowledge of the man was casual but the thing that had happened was +unmistakable. He no longer wanted money from her. He was blackmailing +her merely because it gave him a sense<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> of power. They had never +mentioned Schroder or the lobby incident.</p> + +<p>She regarded him in silence and the understanding of the man slowly +nauseated her. His polite and affable smiling, his cockiness and his +suavity—all these were part of a pose. He called merely to see her +wince and because her wincing filled him with this sense of power. And +he would go on like that. But she dared not challenge him. He knew about +the day with Schroder. He had never mentioned it and now he tried to +pretend this his dominance over her had nothing to do with blackmail or +Schroder. He tried to pretend it was because of something +else—something involved and mysterious.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to stay forever," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps for dinner," he answered. Fanny sighed. There was her +mother-in-law—a stone faced woman with gimlet eyes. Old, ferreting +eyes. She would sense something. And if they found out. She shuddered. +Her eyes implored.</p> + +<p>"Please, Tom," she whispered. "You ... you're torturing me."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, not at all," he answered with an idiotic cheerfulness, raising +his eyebrows and pursing his lips in surprise. He was like a farce +actor. She stood up and came to his side. Her hands rested on his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Won't you leave me alone?" she whispered again. "I feel ill."</p> + +<p>He looked at her with concern.</p> + +<p>"Indeed," he said. "I'm awfully sorry."</p> + +<p>He would go on like this forever. It would always grow worse. He wanted +to make a victim of her. He was like a crazy man with an obsession. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> +suavity and politeness almost made her scream. She covered her face and +wept.</p> + +<p>"There, there," he consoled her. She had dropped into a chair and he was +patting her back. "It must be the heat. The heat, don't you think? Oh +well, I'll go way now. Are you going to be home Tuesday evening?"</p> + +<p>She made no answer. Ramsey stood watching her, a smile in his eyes. As +she continued to weep he appeared to grow more and more elated. A +sternness entered his voice.</p> + +<p>"Come now," he ordered her, "sit up."</p> + +<p>She obeyed.</p> + +<p>"It's ridiculous," he continued. She nodded helplessly. "I'll see you +Tuesday evening," he added. There was a pause. Then, "There's something +I'd like to discuss with you. Very important. Don't forget. Tuesday +evening."</p> + +<p>He walked out. Fanny watched him to the door. A rage came to her. He was +play-acting. He was making fun of her, of her fear of exposure. Because +he was crazy. He didn't want money. He wanted to bulldoze and torture +her. He wanted her to think he was somebody—that's why he did it.</p> + +<p>She stood up and watched him from the window as he walked down the +street. A dapper, good-natured figure smiling with mysterious +condescension upon the houses he passed. She rushed to her room and +locked the door. Something would have to happen. She had not talked to +Schroder about Ramsey since he left her in the cab that first day. She +would ask him what to do. No, that would make it worse. He might be like +Ramsey. She lay dry-eyed and pondering. The thought slowly grew in +her—she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> would tell her brother. George would be able to figure out +some way to rid her of this blackmailer. She would tell him everything +and explain to him how she couldn't stand it any longer.</p> + +<p>She lay quietly improvising her conversation with her brother. This +brought a relief and she closed her eyes with a sigh.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C19" id="C19"></a>19</h2> + +<p>The ballroom of the Hotel LaSalle had been carefully prepared for the +opening of the Vice Investigating Commission's sessions. A corps of +janitors had been active for two days introducing folding chairs, +cuspidors, tables and wastebaskets. Chairs of varying degrees of +importance had been assembled for the witnesses, attorneys, +distinguished visitors and members of the press.</p> + +<p>The Vice Investigating Commission had been appointed by the governor of +the state. It was comprised of ten members including its chairman, Judge +Basine. The press with its instinctive dramaturgy had centered its +comment around the single figure of Basine. The nine state senators who, +as a result of political wire pulling, had wormed their way into the +Commission found themselves lost in the shadow of Basine.</p> + +<p>It was the Basine Commission. As the time for its sessions approached, +the press, having by its own headline reiteration of the man's name +impressed itself with the prestige and popularity of Basine, abandoned +itself without further scruples to its convenient mania of +simplifications. Thus the preliminary deliberations of the Commission +were headlined, "Basine to Summon Department Store Heads." "Basine to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> +Plumb Vice Causes." "Basine Charges Dance Hall Evil."</p> + +<p>The statements elaborately prepared by the nine senators were invariably +attributed in the newspaper columns to Basine. The hopes, plans, fears, +threats of the Vice Commission were blazoned to the world as the mingled +emotions of Basine. Photographs of Basine, his wife, children, and home, +illumined the papers and within a week the name Basine had, in the +public mind, become innately synonymous with an immemorial crusade +against vice.</p> + +<p>The crusade itself remained as yet a vague but promising morsel in the +city's thought. The newspapers, enabled by the event to indulge +themselves more legitimately than usual in discussing the ever +fascinating problem of sex from the unimpeachable standpoint of reform, +leaped greedily to the bait.</p> + +<p>Photographs of young women boarding street cars and revealing stretches +of leg were printed under the caption, "Indecent Way to Board Car, Says +Basine." Alongside were photographs, less interesting, but vital to the +moral of the layout, showing women boarding street cars without +revealing their legs. The caption over them read, "Correct Way to Board +Car, Says Basine." The text explained that the carelessness and +immodesty of young girls, according to Basine, frequently were the +devil's ally and that the Basine Commission called upon all young women +who had the welfare of the race at heart to board street cars in the +correct way.</p> + +<p>Photographs of young women in Indecent Bathing Costumes appeared +accompanied by denunciations from prominent clergymen and contrasted, +with editorial indignation, to photographs of Decent Bathing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> Costumes +recommended by prominent clergymen. Photographs of abandoned young women +who effected garter purses, slit skirts; who crossed their legs when +they sat down were offered. These were accompanied by outraged +pronouncements against such immodesties from prominent statesmen and +clergymen.</p> + +<p>A private auxiliary crusade started by another enterprising newspaper +resulted in a series of photographs of nude paintings to be seen in the +shop windows of the loop and Michigan avenue, and called for immediate +legislation designed to remove this source of moral danger.</p> + +<p>Photographs of the deplorably scanty costumes worn by musical comedy, +choruses and dancers in general; photographs pointing out with mute +alarm the decline of modesty as instanced in the comparison of the +fashions of yesteryear with the fashions of today; photographs of +dance-hall scenes showing couples amorously embraced, cheeks together, +bodies riveted to each other—these and others too numerous to tabulate +cried for the reader's indignant attention out of the newspaper columns.</p> + +<p>Every conceivable variant of denunciation which might be legitimately +accompanied by a photograph of a woman or a group of women, received +publication in interviews with pious divines, alarmed statesmen and +serious-minded welfare workers. The newspapers, convinced by the twenty +and thirty per cent increases in their week's circulation figures that +the crusade was a vital part of the awakened moral sense of the city, +devoted themselves with heroic disregard of party politics to acclaiming +the Basine commission.</p> + +<p>Basine found himself troubled by his sky-rocketing prestige. He went to +bed the first night as a "judicial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> inquirer into the causes of vice." +He arose in the morning confronted with the fact that he was a "fearless +Galahad on Moral Quest." Before retiring again he found himself a "Vice +Solon Attacking Civic Corruption." And on the following morning he was +"Basine, Undaunted, Flays Vice Ring."</p> + +<p>On the day before the opening session he occupied his chambers and tried +to dictate his way through a mass of correspondence that had +accumulated. There were thousands of letters from determined +church-goers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, all teeming with +excited advice, prayers for success and redundant congratulations. Ruth +waited with her pencil on her note book, her knee pressed warmly against +his thigh and her eyes looking pensively out of the window at the summer +day.</p> + +<p>Basine had obtained a three weeks' vacation in order to devote himself +to the work of the commission. His words came unevenly as he dictated. +Newspaper headlines glared at him from the desk—"Modern Lincoln to Free +Vice Slaves." "Basine to Determine Why Girls Go Wrong." "Basine +Threatens Fearless Quiz Into Resorts."</p> + +<p>His mind was alive with other headlines. Basine ... Basine ... the city +was throbbing with his name. He had managed to maintain a skepticism for +several days. Doris had kept his mind distressingly clear with her +comments. And her friend, Levine. Her words had continued in his thought +... "marvelous, George. The public is wallowing in an orgy of morbidity. +I confess, it's beyond my pleasantest expectations...."</p> + +<p>He had protested. She was wrong. Indignation was being stirred. People +were realizing the menace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> of underpaid working girls and unlicensed +dance halls. His sister smiled wearily. "Don't be an ass, or you'll +spoil it all. Keep your head clear. Follow the newspapers and outwit +them in cynicism."</p> + +<p>And then Levine. He recalled the man's words and edited them into a +rebuking essay—"The public is revelling in the salaciousness of nude +photographs, raw statements and your anti-vice propaganda. They're +utilizing virtue as a cloak for the sensually tantalizing discussion of +immorality. Their indignation is an excuse by which they apologize for +their individual erotic thrills by denouncing evil in others. Yes, the +mysterious others identified as vice rings, white slavers and immorality +in general. The whole business is a cunning debauch offered newspaper +readers, a debauch which enables them to appear to themselves and to +each other not as debauchees but as high crusaders behind the banners of +Basine. And the good clergymen and the statesmen and the welfare workers +rushing into print with revelations of immorality are inspired, by +nothing more intricate than a desire for publicity and an ambition to +pose before the public in the guise of fellow crusaders and civic +benefactors. Their benefactions, you see, consist of offering the public +lurid sex statistics over which it may gloat in secret. And in the +meantime, over these benefactions, over these exciting sex statistics +and sexy photos and over the people who discuss them and roll them over +on their tongue is thrown a protective fog of indignation."</p> + +<p>Basine had derived from these talks in his sister's studio an +uncomfortable vision. But the vision had gradually dissolved in his +mind. On the day he had awakened to find himself a "Moral Champion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> +Promises Vice Clean-up" the dignity and high responsibility of his task +had overcome him. What appeared to him an authentic fervor mounted in +his veins. Hypnotized by the adulatory excitement surrounding his name, +he acquired forthwith the characterization foisted on him by the +headlines. Basine ... Basine ... the city throbbed with his name. The +hope of a great moral rejuvenation was centered upon him. Another St. +Patrick was to drive the snakes of evil out of the community. Another +Lincoln was to do something—something equally ennobling to himself and +his fellowmen.</p> + +<p>The change effected his relations with Ruth. For a month he had been +engaged in a species of sinless amour. Long walks, long talks, long +embraces behind the locked doors of his chambers had resulted in nothing +more tangible than a series of headaches and sleepless nights or unusual +tenderness towards his piquantly startled wife.</p> + +<p>He had excused his infidelity to Ruth while embracing Henrietta—he +regarded his exaggerated interest in his wife as a betrayal of the +girl—by assuring himself that it was for Ruth's own good. It lessened +his desire for her and thus decreased the moral danger into which their +love was leading her. In addition to this it was, of course, a +convenient substitute for the emotions Ruth's embraces aroused in him +and for the sense of guilt which invariably accompanied these embraces.</p> + +<p>When he became a crusader Basine felt a further confusion in his +attitude toward Ruth. He sat now attempting to dictate letters. Despite +the amiable blur which fame had introduced into his thought and which +for the past two weeks had obscured the details<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> of his day, he found +himself studying the situation before him. The situation was Ruth. He +would have preferred ignoring it. The scent which came from her summery +shirt waist and the coils of her black hair, thrilled him. Her clear +youthful face, the contours of her figure, the familiarity of her +eyes—all this was pleasing and satisfying.</p> + +<p>But the new Basine—the crusader, felt ill at ease. He must explain +something to Ruth, explain to her that their love was no more than an +ennobling comradeship and must never be more than that, a comradeship +which would bring them together in this great cause of moral +rejuvenation. He didn't want it put that crudely. But the idea kept +repeating itself in his head. He kept thinking of what Doris and her +friend Levine would say if they ever found out that in the midst of the +Vice Investigation, its chairman had been carrying on with his +secretary. It was distasteful and needed immediate attention.</p> + +<p>He took her hand and Ruth laid down her pencil. She smiled expectantly +at him. Since she had first kissed Basine a month ago she had been +trying to understand the situation. The thought of him preoccupied her +and this made her certain she loved him. His caresses aroused her senses +and left her wondering what was going to happen.</p> + +<p>At times she reasoned coolly with herself. She was in love with a +married man and the most she could hope for was to become his mistress +and end up by making a fool of herself. Or perhaps of both of them. She +was, in a measure, grateful for the manner in which he respected her +virtue. But, with his arms around her and his keen face alive with +passion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> and his lips on hers, his reserve struck her as uncomplimentary +and illogical.</p> + +<p>She resented the semi-abandonment of his senses because of the +unfulfillment—a physical and spiritual unfulfillment which left her +distracted. It appeared to her later, when the distraction ebbed, as an +affront to her vanity. She was uncertain when thinking of it coolly +whether she would give herself to him. But somehow the affair seemed +unreal, at times even a little like some school-girl flirtation, because +he failed to ask her. She had always prided herself upon her honesty and +spent hours now debating with herself just how much she loved him and if +she loved him at all and why she loved him. The idea of leaving his +employ, however, never occurred to her. The cautious sensualisms of +which she had become an excited victim, held her. There was in these +incompleted manœuverings behind the locked doors a curious +fascination.</p> + +<p>"What is it, George?"</p> + +<p>He smiled and shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Whew, I'm snowed under." His hands pushed the correspondence from him.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't tire yourself, dear."</p> + +<p>He nodded and his face assumed a serious air.</p> + +<p>"I would like to talk over the work."</p> + +<p>"The Commission?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I think it's going to be a wonderful success, George?"</p> + +<p>"And you can help me."</p> + +<p>He squeezed her hand. This was the note he had been searching for in his +mind. He hesitated a moment, nevertheless, feeling an irritating +incongruity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> in what he desired to say. But the headlines glaring at him +strengthened him. He was Basine the Moral Champion. The city was +throbbing with his name. A hope centered about his name.</p> + +<p>"The work is going to be hard," he began. "I intend to go to the bottom +of the thing. The Commission after its hearings will be able to +recommend legislation that will ... that will...."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know George."</p> + +<p>"Wipe out, or at least go a long way toward wiping out...."</p> + +<p>His mind seemed to balk at the sentence. The word "immorality" withheld +itself from his lips.</p> + +<p>"I'll be glad to help where I can, as you know, dear," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"I've subpœnaed all the department store heads to bring their books +into court, I mean to the hearing, and reveal exactly what the wage +scale for shop girls is. I'm convinced it's impossible for a girl to +keep decent on $6 and $7 a week."</p> + +<p>He thought of the fact that Ruth was receiving $30 a week and grew +confused.</p> + +<p>"You can help me a lot, dear," he added hurriedly.</p> + +<p>Ruth stood up. This standing up had become a habit between them. When +they were sitting holding hands, if she stood up, he would draw her to +him and she would lower herself into his lap. They had developed a +series of similar ruses to which they both adapted themselves like well +rehearsed actors and which had for their object the bringing them into +positions convenient for kisses and embraces.</p> + +<p>As she sat down in his lap the unhappy thought crossed Basine's mind +that he was chairman of a commission sworn to wipe out just such +incidents as this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> from the city's life. He winced and her arm around +his neck felt uncomfortable. But he remembered that both doors were +locked and the image of himself as a crusader partially vanished. They +kissed and his hand slipped down to her side and toyed with the hem of +her skirt.</p> + +<p>"Do you love me, George? Tell me."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Why do you ask that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh because. Sometimes I think you're so busy that you haven't time to +love."</p> + +<p>He was pleased by this. Flattered, he answered: "I have time for nothing +else. Everything else is sort of part of it. My work, the +commission—it's all you, dearest."</p> + +<p>His hand was on her, caressingly. He endeavored to remove the +significance of the gesture by patting her knee as one might pat the +head of a little child, and whispering with an involved frankness:</p> + +<p>"You're so nice, darling."</p> + +<p>They had sat like this before, sometimes for an hour, whispering to each +other. Their whispering would go on for a time, even their kisses. This +time, however, she murmured unexpectedly:</p> + +<p>"Don't, George."</p> + +<p>He was surprised.</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because, we mustn't."</p> + +<p>"But why?"</p> + +<p>"Oh please ... don't!"</p> + +<p>Her objection seemed to inspire him in a way her previous silences had +failed to do. He grew indignant.</p> + +<p>"Please, don't!"</p> + +<p>"But why, dearest? I love you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p> + +<p>She paused and he looked at her, aloof arguments in his eyes as if he +were pleading not in his own behalf but in behalf of—a somebody else, a +client. His knees were trembling under her weight. The crusade had +disappeared. A memory of it lingered but in an amusing way. He caught a +glimpse of the headlines on his desk and grinned. There was something +maliciously unreal about life that one could enjoy.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he felt her soften. Her lips brushed against his ear and her +arm tightened convulsively around him.</p> + +<p>"Please no," she murmured.</p> + +<p>Her alarm delighted him. It was a final barrier, this alarm. It enabled +him to enjoy the new conquest without having to be logical, without +having to go on. Her alarm now was a barrier to be played with for a +moment and then utilized. He would stop in a moment but now he could +play with her fear, as if he were intent upon overcoming it.</p> + +<p>"Please," she whispered, "don't ... it's no use."</p> + +<p>The final words irritated him. No use! He felt offended, as if he had +been trickily defeated in an argument. What was no use? What did she +mean?</p> + +<p>"George, please, listen to me. Oh please...."</p> + +<p>That was better. But it had come just in time. He could retreat now with +honor. For an instant a panic had filled him. Impossible to retreat on +the explanation "it's no use." Because—well, because the words were a +challenge, not an attack. But now it was easy. He stiffened in his +chair. Ruth slipped from his lap and stood up, flushed. She straightened +her hair and looked away. Basine felt annoyed with her. She had almost +taken him by surprise. She had almost surrendered when the tactics of +the game called for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> her to protest and thus cover his retreat by making +it the result of her protests. And not of his—well, of his +determination not to forget his position.</p> + +<p>But he would restore the tactic she had momentarily abandoned.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," he muttered, a plea in his voice, "I didn't realize. I +didn't realize what I was doing. Forgive me, dearest."</p> + +<p>He recovered his sense of self respect that, oddly enough, had deserted +him, in making this apology. The apology meant that he had ceased only +because she had protested too violently. And not because he had been +afraid.</p> + +<p>Ruth listened with a faint smile on her moist lips. She wanted to laugh.</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean anything—really," he was saying. "You must forgive me. +Come here—please." An air of soothing innocence rose from his voice and +manner. He was reassuring her that he wasn't dangerous, that he wouldn't +repeat these intimacies. The desire to laugh continued in her. Excuse +him! For what? The laugh almost left her throat. She had given herself +to him ... and he had solemnly retreated for no reason at all.</p> + +<p>She continued to smile. For the first time the distraction his caresses +inspired in her was absent. Instead she felt quite normal. She was +becoming indignant but normal. And there was amusement in her anger. She +sat down and picked up her pencil. She was amused. She looked at a man +who had become almost a stranger and nodded—forgiveness.</p> + +<p>"Of course, George," she said. "I know you didn't mean anything, +but...."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p> + +<p>He frowned. Her tone angered him. She was mocking.</p> + +<p>"Hadn't you better answer some of these?" she asked. Basine pursed up +his lips importantly.</p> + +<p>"You will be a great help, dear," he answered. "Some day I want to talk +about something with you. But ... but matters are too rushed now. I'm +almost snowed under, I swear." This was putting it all on a different +basis. He was a busy man. That's why he had retreated. He was needed for +other things of vital interest to the community. He felt uncomfortable, +despite the dignity of his frown. She was regarding him with placid +eyes. He turned to one of the newspapers whose headlines were +proclaiming the plans, and threats of Basine. There was the real +Basine—in the headline. This other one, the one who had fumbled and +messed things up with a girl—he ended his thought with annoyance. He +despised himself. For a moment he glowered at her. He would stand up and +seize her. She would realize, then, what his forebearance for her sake +had been. His anger continued in his voice as he resumed the tedious +dictation:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Dear Governor:</p> + +<p>"Everything is prepared for the opening next Monday. I have +arranged special seats for any of your friends who may desire to +attend. We are ready to launch an efficient and systematic inquiry +into the causes of the vice conditions in our city as well as +state. Please...."</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C20" id="C20"></a>20</h2> + +<p>The excitedly heralded Vice Investigation which, after several thousand +centuries of criminal neglect,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> was to take up the question of +immorality, discover its causes, determine its remedies and put an end +to this blot upon civilization, opened to a crowded house. The folding +chairs introduced into the ball room by the corps of janitors were +occupied. But they were insufficient. The corps of janitors had +underestimated the extent of the public enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>Men and women aflame with the ardor of crusade battled for place within +hearing distance of the witnesses who were to recount, under careful +examination, just why girls went wrong. The ball room was capable of +seating a thousand. Another thousand pried their ways through the doors +and stood six and seven deep against the ornamental walls. The somewhat +mythical portraits of French noblemen, Cupids, Watteau ladies of leisure +smiled urbanely out of the blue and white panels over their heads. The +corridor outside the large room was thronged with still a third thousand +pushing, prying, squeezing, and perspiring all in vain. The police had +been summoned.</p> + +<p>The press in its first pen picture of the stirring scene drew a +significant distinction. Those within the ball room who had successfully +stormed the doors and clawed their way into the weltering pulp of +figures were identified as "a distinguished audience of society women, +welfare workers, civic leaders and citizens come to lend their moral +support to the great crusade."</p> + +<p>Those who had failed in their efforts to gain entrance and who clung +with patient heroism to the corridor, the lobby downstairs and even the +boiling pavements outside, were dismissed scornfully as "a crowd of the +morbidly curious, hungry for the sensational details promised by the +investigators."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p> + +<p>At ten o'clock the Commission itself arrived. The perspiring police +opened a passage through the throng and the commission filed to its +place at the table waiting at the end of the room. Newspaper +photographers immediately leaped into concerted action. The boom and +smoke of flashlights arose.</p> + +<p>Delays and preliminaries followed. The room grew terrifically hot. +Collars began to wilt, faces to turn red, feet to burn. But the delays +continued. It was impossible to find out why there was delay. The crowd +grew impatient. A racket of voices stuffed the room. Something had gone +wrong ... why didn't they start ... they weren't doing anything ... what +were they waiting for ... the public was grumbling.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact the commissioners were playing for time. A species +of stage fright had overcome them. Each of them had arrived filled with +a sense of high purpose and benign power. They were men upon whom the +burden of lifting an age-old blot from the face of civilization had +fallen. They had felt no hesitancy in the matter. They were going to +tackle the situation like Americans—red-blooded Americans in whose +heart burned the unfaltering light of idealism. There was going to be no +shilly-shallying, no highfalutin theorizings. They were going to the +bottom of this matter without fear or favor. They were going to find out +just why girls went wrong and, having found this out, they were going to +remove the cause, or causes if there were more than one, and thus put an +end to immorality—at least in the great commonwealth of Illinois.</p> + +<p>They were ten undaunted crusaders inspired with the unfaltering +consciousness of their country's power and rectitude. In fact, it was +not the Basine Commission<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> which pushed through the throng but the +Tradition of the United States, the Revered Memory of Abraham Lincoln, +George Washington and Nathan Hale, the Army that had never been licked, +the Government of the People, by the People and for the People, that was +better than any other government on the face of the earth. These walked +behind the policemen through the throng.</p> + +<p>But there was a human undertone to this Tradition about to grapple with +the problem of Vice. Like Basine, each of the nine had at the beginning +felt a slight discomfort. Their own pasts and even presents had risen in +their thought to deride them. They were, alas, not without sin +themselves. The dramatic coincidence was even possible that one of the +witnesses called might point to a commissioner as the author of her +ruin. This, in an oblique way, disturbed them. It lay like an +indigestible fear upon the stomach of incarnated Tradition. But as the +patriotic fervor mounted in them, they were able somewhat to master this +selfish fear. Debating the matter vaguely in the silence of their own +bedrooms they had achieved an identical triumph.</p> + +<p>Yes, they were after all only men. They had sinned, were sinning +regularly in fact. But they would be fearless. They would strike out +with no reserve and if Vice turned an accusing forefinger upon them, +they would sacrifice themselves. The chances were, however, that this +would not happen. They experienced the inner elation which comes with +non-inconveniencing confession. Regardless of what they were in secret, +they would be able to reveal themselves publicly as men sitting in +judgment upon Vice, as executioners of Vice. In this manner their +material lives<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> became unimportant accidents. They were able within two +weeks to enter the public concept of themselves. Their actual selves +became, in their own eyes, inferior and irrelevant. They had achieved an +idealization.</p> + +<p>There was also another change. Once established in their own eyes as +Virgins, like Basine they were soon under the hypnosis of headlines. As +they walked to the hotel this morning they had entirely rid themselves +of their normal individualities. They were no longer even ordinary +virgins, embarked upon a vaguely scientific or social enterprise. They +were, above that, the spokesmen of an aroused public, the dignified +containers of the power of the People.</p> + +<p>None of the ten with the exception of Basine had given the actual work +before him any thought. They had not prepared themselves for the task by +study. All of them were serenely, in fact belligerently, ignorant of the +scientific thought of the world on the subject. The involved disclosures +of psychologists, philosophers, economists and other specialists in race +ethics were part of a childish abracadabra beneath their consideration. +For they were the incarnated power of Tradition and of Public +Opinion—two grave forces which needed no guilding light from such +sources.</p> + +<p>This power buoyed them and brought a stern light into their eyes. They +believed in the People, and therefore in themselves as Spokesmen. Ten +shrewd, wire-pulling politicians whose careers were identically darkened +with chicanery and crude cynicism, they were able by the magic of faith +to rise above themselves. They were able to feel the nobility of the +phrases which they had so often utilized as cloaks for their private +greeds and private spites. These were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> the phrases of Democracy which +proclaimed to an awed populace that it, the populace, was Master and +that its will was a holy and unassailable force for progress and piety.</p> + +<p>As spokesmen of the people these commissioners were concerned with +furthering the great idealization of themselves which the people +worshipped as their god. Reason was at war with this idealization. +Reason was the species of morbid and inverted vanity which inspired man +to disembowel himself as proof of his stupidity. It grappled with his +illusions, crawled through his soul, hamstringing his complacency. It +raised insidious voices around him, wooing him. To denude himself of +hope, faith and charity—in short to become intolerable to himself.</p> + +<p>The commissioners, as spokesmen, turned their back upon it. There was a +happier outlet for the energies of man than the repudiation of himself +as the glory of God. There was the unreasoning struggle for +idealization—the miracle by which man, seizing hold of his boot straps, +hoisted himself into Heaven. This struggle, arousing the guffaws and +sneers of reason, was its own reward. It was the virtue that rewarded +itself.</p> + +<p>The perspiring little scene in the hotel ball room was a startling +visualization of this happier struggle. Regardless of their sins, their +greeds, hypocrisies, idiocies, the people desired to see themselves as +incarnations of an ideal. This ideal had been carefully elaborated. Of +late it had taken on a life of its own. It had grown like a fungus +feeding upon itself. Man staring at the heaven he had created was +becoming awed by its magnificence and extent. More than that this heaven +was threatening to escape him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> to become incongruous by its very +vastness. There was danger that his idealization, fattening upon a logic +of its own, would become a bit too preposterous even for worship. +Already this idealization proclaimed him as an apostle of virtue, as a +moralist first and a biological product afterward; as believing in the +credo of right over might, in the equality of blacks, whites, poor and +rich; as a sort of animated sermon from the triple pen of a martyr +president, martyr husband and martyr Messiah. Lost in a difficult +admiration of this heaven, the people struggled in the double task of +keeping the idealization of themselves from becoming too preposterous +and of persuasively identifying themselves with their image.</p> + +<p>The result of this struggle was apparent in the puritanizatron of idea +becoming popular in the country. A spirit of martyrdom was prevalent. +Men and women were enthusiastically martyring themselves—passing laws +and formulating conventions in opposition to their appetites and +desires—in an excited effort to overtake this idealization of +themselves. Righteousness was becoming a panic. The Christ image of the +crowd was slowly obliterating its reality. His halo was running away +with man. Overcome with the necessity of keeping pace with the +artificial virtues he had created as his God, he was converting himself, +to the best of his talents, into an outwardly epicene, eye-rolling +symbol of purity. There was this mirror alive with his own God-like +image. And he must now be careful not to give the lie to the +idealization of himself created partly by him and partly by the activity +of logic.</p> + +<p>The members of the Vice Investigating Commission entered the crowded +room serene in the knowledge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> that reason was their enemy and that +God—that mysterious cross between public opinion and yesterday's +errors—would vouchsafe them the power and keenness to cope with the +problem before them.</p> + +<p>They were innocent of intelligence but they had faith in the principles +of their country and the principles of their country were founded upon +the great truth that what the people willed must come to pass. Today the +people of the commonwealth of Illinois willed that vice and immorality +be abolished from their midst. Therefore it must come to pass that the +ten citizens lowering themselves into the seats behind the table were +ten irresistible instruments animated by the strength of public opinion.</p> + +<p>For several minutes after they had seated themselves the commissioners +remained staring with dignity at the throng. A vague and pleasant +delirium occupied their minds. The Vice Investigating Commission had +assembled and the business of removing the blot from the face of +civilization would begin at once. The commissioners sat, pompously +inanimate, waiting for it to begin.</p> + +<p>The spectacle before them, the thousands of eyes focussed upon their +little group at the long table, slowly awakened an uncomfortable +disillusion in the commissioners. In fact, a little panic swept their +minds. They had, of course, discussed the issues, passed resolutions and +laid plans for grappling with the situation. But all these efforts had +been part of the curious hypnosis which had overcome them. The sense of +their power hypnotized them into fancying that their star chamber +babblings were in themselves thunderblots. The sweeping promises, the +all-embracing statements and resolutions passed and issued<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> for +publication had filled them with an exalted sense of success. They had +entered the ballroom under the naive conviction that the whole business +had been already successfully consummated. They were taking their seats +at the table not to launch upon a task but to receive the plaudits of +the public for great work already accomplished; in fact to reap reward +for the noble utterances attributed to them by the press.</p> + +<p>But now with the pads of paper, the sharpened pencils, the businesslike +cuspidors at their feet, the ominous wastepaper baskets under their +hands, the commissioners faced the ghastly fact that the blot was still +on the face of civilization, untouched by their thunderbolts. And some +millions of people whose delegates were staring at them were waiting +excitedly for it to be removed.</p> + +<p>It occurred as if for the first time to the commissioners that something +would have to be done about it. Their expressions underwent a change. A +pensiveness crept into their heavy faces. A bewilderment dulled the +dignity of their stares. The room was unbearably hot. It was impossible +to do any work in such a crowd. One could hardly hear oneself think +above the noise. The commissioners frowned and whispered among +themselves. Gradually a nervous jocularity came into their manner.</p> + +<p>"Well, here we are. All set."</p> + +<p>"Hm, I think we'd better call some witnesses."</p> + +<p>"That's right. Call some witnesses. Where's Judge Basine?"</p> + +<p>"Talking over there."</p> + +<p>"Huh, why don't he do something?"</p> + +<p>Yes, why didn't Judge Basine take charge of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> flock. It was his +commission. The papers all said it was the Basine Commission. Then why +didn't he start something. Instead of gabbing around with reporters.</p> + +<p>"Good God! What a heat! Hasn't the management provided any fans?"</p> + +<p>"Where's a bellboy? We'll send him after some fans. Think a dozen'll be +enough?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing doing. Three or four dozen at least. I'll wear out a dozen +myself before this day's over, believe me."</p> + +<p>"Say, ain't that right!"</p> + +<p>"Oh Judge ... Judge...."</p> + +<p>"Yes, what is it, Senator?"</p> + +<p>"What about the witnesses? Are we going to have any witnesses?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. I'm just getting things ready."</p> + +<p>"That's right. There's no rush. Open that window, won't you Jim?"</p> + +<p>"God, what a mob. Well, we'd better do something, don't you think?"</p> + +<p>"Leave it to Basine. Got a knife, Harry? This pencil's full of bum +lead."</p> + +<p>The whisperings and delays continued. Basine, however, began to recover +himself. The eager, focussed eyes of the room were slowly electrifying +him. His gestures were becoming more dignified. His manner acquired a +definiteness.</p> + +<p>The eyes regarding him saw a man with sharp features and an imperious +expression moving with what seemed significant deliberation, examining +papers, studying papers, opening papers, extracting papers, returning +papers. Instinctively they felt that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> here, centered in this cautiously +dynamic figure, was the celebrated Vice Investigation.</p> + +<p>Basine arose, a gavel in his hand, and pounded the table. The noises +subsided as if a presence were being expelled from the room. The hush +served to illumine the figure of Basine. The eyes waited. His voice +arose, definite, impelling.</p> + +<p>"Fellow Citizens, the Vice Investigating Commission appointed by the +State of Illinois to determine if possible the causes of immorality and +to remove, wherever possible, such causes, is now in session. The +purposes of this commission need no further explanation. We are +assembled here in the name of the people of this state to do all in our +power to grapple with the problem of vice and its many auxiliary +problems.</p> + +<p>"This problem is today the outstanding menace to the welfare of our +community. Its dangers touch us all. The immoral man and the immoral +woman, the factors which contribute to their immorality, are our +responsibility. This is no sentimental outburst, no vague uprising but +an organized, official investigation with full powers to uncover facts. +We are not here to dabble in theories, but to deal with facts. And for +that purpose, and that purpose only, we are assembled under the laws of +our state and the constitution of our country. The first witness called +will be Mr. Arthur Core."</p> + +<p>Applause thundered. Basine, flushed, sat down. The commissioners on each +side of him breathed with relief. Something had been started. To their +intense surprise Mr. Arthur Core actually arose from one of the witness +chairs and came forward. Mr. Core was head of the largest department +store in the city.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> Basine with an instinct in which he placed implicit +reliance had summoned him first, thus abandoning the plans the +commission had decided upon in star chamber. It had been decided upon to +save up the big guns for a climax. Basine's instinct warned him as he +stood on his feet talking, that a climax was necessary immediately—a +gesture which would at once reveal the power and fearlessness of the +commission.</p> + +<p>Mr. Core was the medium for such a gesture. Venerated as one of the +wealthiest men of the city, the head of its most widely advertized and +magnificent retail establishment, to hail him before the commission and +belabor him with queries would be to capture the confidence of the +public forthwith.</p> + +<p>As Mr. Core, accompanied by two lawyers and a secretary laden with +ledgers, advanced toward the table a sudden misgiving struck Basine. How +much would the newspapers dare print about Mr. Core, particularly if the +cross examination placed him and his establishment in an unfavorable +light? Mr. Core meant upwards of $3,000,000 a year in advertising +revenue. Perhaps he had made a mistake in calling him. The press would +turn and fly from the commission as from a plague. There would be no +headlines and the public would fall away.</p> + +<p>Basine stood up as Mr. Core approached. He was a smartly dressed man +with a cream-colored handkerchief protruding against a smoothly pressed +blue coat; an affable, reserved face that reminded Basine of Milton Ware +and the Michigan Avenue Club. Poise, suavity, courtesy exuded from Mr. +Core.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Judge," he said with a bow, "and Gentlemen of the +Commission."</p> + +<p>Basine extended his hand and promptly regretted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> the action. He had +caught the emotion of the crowd. He realized that his instinct had not +betrayed him.</p> + +<p>Mr. Core was one of the most venerated citizens in the community, +venerated for his power, his success and his aloofness from his +venerators. The summoning of Mr. Core to take his place and be +cross-examined by the Commission had sent a thrill through the crowd. +They felt the elation of a pack of beagle dogs with a magnificent stag +brought to earth under their little jaws.</p> + +<p>Mr. Core was rich, powerful, brilliant. But they, the people, were +greater than he. There he stood obedient to their delegated spokesman, +the fearless Basine, and gratitude filled them as they noted Basine was +a head taller than the great Mr. Core, and that the great Basine was not +at all confused by the presence of this famed personage.</p> + +<p>Basine as he felt the emotion of the crowd knew simultaneously that the +newspapers, caught between their two vital functions—that of insuring +their revenue by respectful treatment of its source, the advertising +plutocracy,—and of insuring their popularity by the fearless advocacy +of any current crowd hysteria, must follow the less dangerous course. +And the less dangerous course now, as always, was with the beagle dogs +who had brought a stag to earth.</p> + +<p>After the handshake Basine looked severely about him. He was pleased to +observe that his colleagues were non-existent. They sat coughing, +sharpening pencils and gazing with vacuous aplomb at objects about them. +He smiled with inward contempt. Little puppets under his hands. And the +crowd before him—a smear of little puppets. Even the all-powerful +newspapers, even the mighty Mr. Arthur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> Core—he could manipulate them +because there was something in him that was not in other people. A sense +of drama, perhaps. But more than that, an understanding—a vision that +enabled him to see clearly over the heads of people into the future. He +could tell in advance which way people were going to turn and he could +hurry forward and be there waiting for them—a leader waiting for them +when they caught up.</p> + +<p>A curious question slipped into his mind. "Why am I like that?" And then +another question, "Why am I able to do things?"</p> + +<p>The questions pleased him and as he followed Mr. Core into his chair he +knew that the crowd had noticed that Judge Basine was a man unimpressed +by the greatness of Mr. Core, that the eyes focussed on him had thrilled +with the knowledge that he, Basine, was dressed as well as Mr. Core and +that his own dignity and sternness were more impressive than the poise +of Mr. Core. The great Mr. Core was second fiddle in the show. Basine +was first fiddle and the crowd was thrilled by that. Because Basine was +their man, their leader. And Mr. Core, venerated to this moment, was now +their enemy. Basine was a man in whom the dignity of the people shone +out more powerfully than the prestige of any enviable individual. These +things whirled through Basine's thought as he turned to the witness.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Stenographer," he announced, "you will please make accurate +transcription of all questions and answers that follow."</p> + +<p>A naive pride filled the attentive commissioners. The Investigation was +after all a success. Regardless of what happened the mere fact that +Arthur Core was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> to be interrogated on the subject of immorality among +working girls, constituted an overwhelming success. The conviction which +now delighted them was shared by the thousands in the room and by the +newspaper men scribbling at an adjoining table. All present felt certain +that so dramatic a situation as the cross-examination of Mr. Arthur Core +by the chairman of the Vice Investigating Commission was bound to result +somehow in the instant removal of the blot from the face of +civilization. Basine, clearing his throat, began the questioning.</p> + +<p>"Your name?"</p> + +<p>"Arthur Core."</p> + +<p>"Your position?"</p> + +<p>"President of Core-Plain and Company."</p> + +<p>"That is the retail merchandise establishment in this city?"</p> + +<p>"It is."</p> + +<p>A full five minutes was consumed in the exchange of profound +introductions. This concluded, Mr. Core was informed what the purposes +of the Vice Investigation Commission were. The information failed to +impress him. Whereupon he was informed that he, as an employer of +thousands of girls, had been called to throw light on a vital question. +First, what wages did his employes' receive. Mr. Core, raising his +eyebrows and looking aggrieved as if he had been asked a very crude and +tactless question, replied that the average wage was $10 a week for the +young women in his employ.</p> + +<p>Did he think a young woman could keep virtuous on $10 a week? Alas, he +had never given that phase of the economic system any thought. But if +his opinion as an individual was worth anything, he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> offer the +philosophical observation that wages had nothing to do with immorality.</p> + +<p>A cynical observation. The crowd frowned. It didn't, eh? Lot he knew +about it. And on what did he base this cold-blooded point of view? Well, +on nothing in particular except his common sense. Indeed! His common +sense! Well, well. So he thought that a normal young woman could live on +$10 a week, feed, clothe and house herself on $10 a week and never feel +tempted to earn more money by sacrificing her virtue? Alas, he had not +thought of it in that way. He had merely thought that good young women +were good and bad young women were bad. And wages had nothing to do with +it. It was human nature. What! Human nature to be bad! Mr. Arthur Core +was inclined to a cynicism which, fortunately, the great minds of the +nation did not share. Had he ever sought to determine how many good +girls there were in his employ? No, but he presumed they were all good. +If they weren't he was sorry for them, but it was their own fault.</p> + +<p>Thus the see-saw continued while the room grew hotter, while people +packed against each other listened with distended eyes and opened +mouths. Thus the commissioners, recovering from their panic, began to +frown with importances. And Basine, still following the instinct in +him—the sense of contact he felt with the crowd and situation, played +another trump card. The afternoon newspapers were blazoning the news of +Mr. Arthur Core. The morning papers would need an equally dramatic +morsel. Basine adjourned the session to reconvene at 3 o'clock. The +crowd remained. The heat increased. The session reconvened. It was +businesslike now. It was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> running like a machine. No more delays and +indecisions.</p> + +<p>"Call Miss Winona Johnson."</p> + +<p>Basine sat amid heaps of documents, ledgers and commissioners, in +charge. It was he who asked the questions, whose face was the +battle-front of the People versus Vice.</p> + +<p>Your name? Winona Johnson. Your occupation? A pause. And then in a +lowered voice, a prostitute. What was that?—from Mr. Stenographer. A +prostitute, from Basine clearly and indignantly. Sensation. She was a +prostitute, this yellow-haired, gaudy creature in the witness chair. She +had her nerve. How long have you been a prostitute, Winona Johnson? +Well, two years, I guess. She guessed. As if she didn't know. And before +that what were you? She was a clerk. Where were you employed as a clerk, +Winona? Where? Oh, I worked for Core-Plain and Company. There it +was—the sort of thing that made climaxes. A new lead for the morning +papers—a new thrill for the tired breakfasters. "Tells Tragic Story of +Moral Downfall." And then in smaller headlines, "Former State Street +Clerk Uncovers Snares, Pitfalls of City." And then photographs; +comparisons between Mr. Core's statements and Miss Johnson's statements. +Mr. Core's picture and Miss Johnson's picture side by side so that one +might almost think, unless one read carefully (and who did that?) that +the venerated Mr. Arthur Core had been exposed by the all powerful +Basine Commission as the seducer of the pathetic Miss Winona Johnson.</p> + +<p>Through the weltering afternoon the great investigation progressed, +Basine, unaided, carrying the fight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> A Champion, an Undaunted One, his +voice growing hoarse, his eyes flashing tirelessly, his questions never +failing; incisive, compelling questions that seemed for all the world as +if they were slowly, tenaciously coming to grips with the Devil.</p> + +<p>A great day for the commonwealth of Illinois. A day surfeited with +climaxes. Winona Johnson wept and the courteous voice of Basine pressed +for facts. Here was a mine of facts, here a witness who could reveal +something.... And she did....</p> + +<p>That will be all, thank you, from Basine. Winona arose. Eyes devoured +her. A terrible curiosity played over her face and body. Civilization +had been stunned. Everyone knew, of course, that prostitutes sold +themselves to men. But to so many!!! Horrible! A revelation to make +thinking men think, thinking women, too.</p> + +<p>If there had been any doubt in the public mind concerning the sincerity +of the Commission, this day had removed it. Two welfare workers and a +second department store owner concluded the bill. The newspapers spread +the questions and answers through the city. A determined light came +into the eyes of the millions who read. The commonwealth was at +grips with evil. Facts had been exhumed in a single session that were +intolerable to a civilized community. A hue and cry would be raised. +Things would be done. The millions reading felt this. Something would +have to be done. Resolutions would be passed. Thunderbolts would be +hurled by civic bodies, lodges, clubs. The thing called for action, +action and more action. But wait and see what the morning papers would +have to say. There would be remedies in the morning papers. Things would +be done overnight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> by the morning papers to put an end to this +iniquity—prostitution!!!! And there could be no question but that +underpaid workers were driven to lives of shame. And the dance halls, +they hadn't gotten around to them yet. And factories and hotels—wait +till it came their turn. They would all be grilled, quizzed, flayed.</p> + +<p>Basine made his way slowly through the throng. Tomorrow's session would +begin at eleven o'clock. He was tired. The work had exhausted him. But +his head felt clear. Without raising his eyes he understood the +admiration of the crowds through which he was moving. They were +repeating his name among themselves saying, there he goes ... that's +him.... He had understood things in this manner all day, without giving +them words.</p> + +<p>He felt at peace. He had gone through a test. Now he knew he was a +leader. The thing of which he had been afraid had turned out to be easy. +He smiled, remembering his colleagues. Simple, blundering men who had +floundered around trying to horn in. But this wasn't the private banks +crusade, not by a long shot. Ah, that was playing a long shot—calling +Core like that. But it had worked. Newsies were yelling around him. +Extra—all about! About Basine, of course. About him. Yes, there was +leadership in him. He was a man who could sweep people along with him.</p> + +<p>The crowds were going home. All these people belonged to him. +Constituents. He smiled pleasantly at the hurrying figures. It was hot +and they were perspiring. Their eyes were filmed with preoccupations. +But what would happen if they were told suddenly that Judge Basine was +passing them, rubbing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> shoulders with them? Their eyes would brighten. +They would forget about the things that were worrying them. They would +look up and smile. Perhaps cheer.</p> + +<p>Day dreams lifted his thought out of the present. This thing was only a +beginning. He would go on. There was a kinship in him with people. The +memory of the day lay like a love in his heart. He was still young. +Years ahead of him and he would end—where? High up.</p> + +<p>He looked around and noticed he was walking toward Doris' studio. Odd, +he hadn't been aware where he was going. But he might as well. He +frowned. She would ridicule what had happened. Well, that was all right. +Her hatred of such things couldn't wipe out what was in his heart now. +He became practical. Think of tomorrow's session. But why? The details +were annoying. He had had enough details for one day. He would take care +of things when the proper time came. This was a sort of reward, to walk +and dream. As for the blot on the face of civilization, yes that would +all be taken care of at the proper time. But the important thing, the +most important thing was Basine—high up.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C21" id="C21"></a>21</h2> + +<p>Schroder looked at his watch. Late, perhaps she wouldn't come. +Intellectual women were always the most uncertain. It was twilight. +Summer bloomed incongruously in the small city park.</p> + +<p>"She probably didn't mean it, anyway," he thought.</p> + +<p>Ruth appeared walking calmly down the broad pavement. He watched her. +She had come, but the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> business was still uncertain. Amorous affairs +were one thing. Seduction was another. He liked her, of course. But what +if she had notions about things? Love, fidelity, virtue, marriage, +decency. Oh well, he could always step away and say good-bye, I'm sorry.</p> + +<p>"Hello," he said aloud. "You're late."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't coming."</p> + +<p>"I didn't think so, either."</p> + +<p>She was one of the kind who made a pretense of frankness. If you let her +she would talk about sex till the cows came home, as if it were a +problem in algebra. He knew the kind. Full of theories....</p> + +<p>"Where shall we go, Paul?"</p> + +<p>"Let's sit here a while. How's his Honor."</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I resigned last week."</p> + +<p>"Is that so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, after the Commission adjourned for the summer."</p> + +<p>The memory of the commission made him smile.</p> + +<p>"Goofy," he said.</p> + +<p>She nodded. "But Judge Basine is made, don't you think?"</p> + +<p>He took her hand.</p> + +<p>"So you left him," he smiled. They sat in silence. He would wait for her +to take the lead. She began talking as the park grew darker.</p> + +<p>"I didn't intend coming," she said, "because I ... I know what you +want."</p> + +<p>Her voice quivered and her fingers tightened over his hand.</p> + +<p>"But I came to tell you ... I can't. I'm not being foolish or anything. +But—it isn't worth it."</p> + +<p>He looked at her and wondered. The invitation was clear. He must begin +pleading now and making<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> love. He hesitated because she had started +crying. Tears were on her cheeks.</p> + +<p>She was remembering Basine.</p> + +<p>"Don't," he whispered. "I wouldn't ask you to do anything like that. +We've talked, of course. But that was just talk. Ruth, I love you."</p> + +<p>"But love doesn't mean anything to you," she answered.</p> + +<p>And the answer to that was marriage. He hesitated. Tears always stirred +him. Now it was dark. He placed an arm around her. The stiffening of her +body decided him.</p> + +<p>"We'll get married," he said.</p> + +<p>The assurance did not delight her. Marriage was something foreign. But +she stood up when he asked her to and followed him. She walked along +thinking of herself as if there were two Ruths. One was walking with a +man—where? The other was thinking about things. But there was little to +think about. If it had been Basine instead of this other, it would have +been nicer. Basine was someone she knew. Paul was a stranger. But Basine +had played with her. He had said nothing when she went away. Merely +looked at her and nodded. His success had gone to his head. He didn't +want her, even to flirt with anymore. He was too busy....</p> + +<p>She put her arms around the stranger and wept.</p> + +<p>It was minor tragedy. There was nothing to weep about. Nobody cared what +happened to her. If there had been somebody who cared she would never +have met him.</p> + +<p>Schroder watched her and sighed.</p> + +<p>"If you don't love me," he said.</p> + +<p>"It's not that," she answered. She was forgetting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> about her tears. Her +close presence to him was slowly preoccupying her. He loved her. And +they would be married. It didn't matter much. But the idea made it a +little easier. She kissed him, timidly at first. And then with passion.</p> + +<p>Schroder grimaced inwardly. It was dark and she couldn't see his eyes. +They were worried. He had been in love for a few minutes in the park. He +would have liked to remain in love. He sat before the window thinking, +Why did women insist on climaxes. Their arguments made it necessary for +men to plead. The culmination was a sort of logical gesture.</p> + +<p>He walked toward her. He would take her hand and make love. He felt sad +and making love out of sadness was always an interesting diversion.</p> + +<p>"Ruth," he whispered, "do you love me?"</p> + +<p>She answered by embracing him.</p> + +<p>"Always the same," he murmured to himself, "it's no use."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C22" id="C22"></a>22</h2> + +<p>The children were asleep and Henrietta was reading. Basine in his +slippers and smoking-jacket sat unoccupied. Their new house worried him. +He had not yet familiarized himself with its shadows.</p> + +<p>He smiled as he watched his wife. He was going to run for Senator but +that made no difference to her. He was a husband to her, and everything +else was incidental. He thought of Ruth. Her name no longer depressed +him. During the first three or four months that followed her absence he +had felt as if his career had ended. There was nobody to succeed for any +more. Then through Doris he had learned that she was to marry Schroder.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p> + +<p>The information had cured him. He had been despising himself for letting +her go. Now he was able to pretend that he had been forced by her virtue +to relinquish her. It would have been a dastardly thing to do—ruin her +and prevent her from marrying and living a decent life. Her marrying +vindicated his own virtue. He was able to think that he had done the +right thing. Not only that, but he had done the only thing possible. She +had fled from him because he was a married man. Then, too, she probably +didn't love Schroder. Not as she had loved him. She was marrying him +broken-heartedly. He sometimes played with this notion. It pleased him. +His sadness at the thought of her in another man's arms was mitigated by +the two-fold thought that her heart was broken and that she was in +reality embracing marriage and not a man.</p> + +<p>He no longer desired her. He was too busy for one thing. Still, things +were different. She had been an inspiration. Now he went on with his +plans and his climb without feeling the excitement that had filled him +during their year together. There was no one in front of whom to pose. +This made posing a rather thankless business. And he became practical in +his thoughts, less dramatic in his lies.</p> + +<p>Henrietta had put aside her paper and was looking at him.</p> + +<p>"Are you tired?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. He began to think about her. What did she do all day? +Since Ruth had left, his desire to leave his wife had vanished. He +paused, confused. She was weeping.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" he asked. She lowered her head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Nothing," she said.</p> + +<p>A vivid memory hurt him. He remembered kissing her for a first time in +his mother's kitchen years ago. It seemed now that she had been alive +and beautiful that evening. That was gone.</p> + +<p>"Has anything happened," he asked softly.</p> + +<p>Her head shook. He came to her side and looked at her. He felt helpless. +What was there to make her cry?</p> + +<p>"I don't know, George," she said as if answering his silent question. +"Please forgive me. I just started to cry for nothing."</p> + +<p>"Worried about something?" he pressed. He felt guilty. She was crying +because of the things he had done. But what had he done? Nothing wrong. +He had put the wrong things out of his life. And for her sake. Why +should she weep about that, then? He was the one to weep. And she had +her children. Her father was alive. He remained silent, recounting what +he tried to consider anti-weeping reasons.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, George," she answered. "I'm ... I'm just getting old."</p> + +<p>He frowned and turned away.</p> + +<p>Later when they lay in bed he took her in his arms. She had apparently +forgotten about her tears and their curious explanation. But he began to +talk to her.</p> + +<p>"Old," he whispered, "you're not getting old. Don't be silly. At least +no more than I am. I'm older than you."</p> + +<p>He held her close to him and his mind embraced a memory. This was not +his wife he held, but someone else. A vivacious, happy girl ten years +ago. No, more than that. Almost fourteen years ago. He lay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> remembering +another Henrietta—a charming, delightful child. He had never been in +love with her. This he knew. But the knowledge had slowly died. When he +embraced her at night a dream obscured his memory. The dream was that he +had once loved her, that she had once been beautiful, that his heart had +once sung with desire for her.</p> + +<p>He played with this dream. It was a make-believe that saddened him. Yet +it made the moment more tolerable. Sometimes it even brought a curious +happiness. His dream would pretend that the scrawny figure he was +holding had once filled him with ecstasies. His dream would whisper to +him that he had once idolized her and that once ... once. He would lie +editing his sterile memories of her into glowing once-upon-a-times. And +when his kisses sought her cold lips it would be to this dream-Henrietta +they gave themselves, a Henrietta who had never been. It was sad to +pretend in this way that his great love had died and that his beautiful +one had faded. But it was not as sad as to remember when he kissed her +that there had never been anything.</p> + +<p>He felt tired when he left the house the next morning. The business of +preening for the senatorial race annoyed him. The goal lured but the +details to be managed were aggravating.</p> + +<p>He started as he opened the door of his chambers. Ruth! He stood looking +at her without words. She was pale and there was something curious about +her. She didn't look the same.</p> + +<p>"You look surprised," she smiled. He noticed how spiritless she was. +"But ... you don't mind my coming here, do you. I've been trying to get +you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p> + +<p>She turned her eyes away. He had finally discovered the change, a +physical one.</p> + +<p>"Well," he exclaimed, "I hadn't heard the good news. How's Paul."</p> + +<p>So she was married. And had kept it secret. He smiled. He remembered +other scenes in the room. The doors locked. Her arms around him. All +that was over now. Before her motherhood, even the memory of it seemed +less certain.</p> + +<p>"There is no good news," she was saying. "I've come to see if you can +help me."</p> + +<p>They sat down. Basine nodded. Money. Poor girl. Schroder was always an +ass about things.</p> + +<p>"He's gone away," she went on. "And ... and I'd like to locate him."</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Paul."</p> + +<p>She covered her face. So he had deserted her. And she had come back to +him. A momentary excitement entered his thought. But he frowned +immediately. It was distasteful to think of what might have been if ... +not for this.</p> + +<p>An amazement came into his eyes. He stared at her as she talked. She had +been ruined by Schroder and he had never married her. And when she had +refused medical interference he had calmly left the city. He listened +blankly and could think of nothing to say.</p> + +<p>"Oh George, you must help me."</p> + +<p>Help her! He must help her! After she had lived with this man for +months, giving herself to him! He stood up and walked down the room. It +was like he used to do, pace up and down in front of her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p> + +<p>He wanted to talk but he found it hard. A rage was coming into his mind +that obscured his words. The rage continued. Pausing in the center of +the room Basine began to swear. His voice had grown high pitched.</p> + +<p>"Damn!" he shouted at her, "and you come to me. Me! You bring your +filthy sins to me! Damn his dirty soul! Yes, you're fine, you are! +Leaving me to go with that chippy-chaser. I thought ... I thought you +were somebody."</p> + +<p>He stopped, his fist in the air. She was walking away.</p> + +<p>"Ruth," he called after her, "listen, wait a minute."</p> + +<p>The door closed after her. Basine stood watching the door. She would +open it and come back. But the door remained shut. He seated himself at +his desk. Moments passed and he was surprised to wake up and hear +himself mumbling. "The dirty skunk! I'll wring his neck!"</p> + +<p>She had given herself to Schroder! Not married him.... The part he had +played in her ruin forced itself with a nauseating insistency into +Basine's mind. His memories seized him. He struggled, but the things he +knew leaped out of hiding-places and assaulted him. She had loved him. +And he had loved her. Life had seemed marvelous with her close to him. +His career, his day, its simplest detail, had been colored with +delicious excitement. But he had been afraid to reach out and take what +he wanted. It would have meant success, happiness and something +else—the word beauty withheld itself—it would have meant these things. +But he had feared possession. He had let her go away after kissing her +and telling her that he loved her. So she had gone walking in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> the +street and fallen into the arms of the first man she met. It was plain.</p> + +<p>Basine writhed under triumphant accusations. A torment filled him. He +must escape from the accusations He pried himself away from his thoughts +and took his place on the bench. Other people's troubles again. +Disputes, wrangles, testimonies—his ears listened mechanically. Lawyers +were pleading with him. Witnesses were stammering. He sat with a scowl +and hunched forward in his chair. His lean face thrust itself at the +courtroom.</p> + +<p>Thoughts too intolerable for his attention whirled sickeningly in a +background. Pictures of Ruth in the man's arms, of her surrender, of the +intimacies of their illicit affair forced themselves upon him. He loved +her. "Oh, damn him," sang itself darkly through his heart.</p> + +<p>There was one mocking intruder that raised a vociferous head. "You might +have had her. Not he. She might have been yours if you hadn't been +afraid." It was this that nauseated most. Not Schroder's villainy, but +his own cowardice. He had lost through cowardice.</p> + +<p>The day dragged itself along. He had recovered in part the rage which +protected him from the intolerable memories. When he left the courtroom +it was with a viciousness in his step. His feet stamped down as he +walked, as if they were attacking the pavements. He entered a saloon +several blocks from the City Hall.</p> + +<p>The place was almost deserted. A few businesslike looking men were +grouped before the long bar. They were laughing. Basine passed them and +a voice called his name. He turned and saw a familiar face<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> in one of +the small booths against the wall. It was Levine, the newspaperman.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Judge. Come on over and sit down."</p> + +<p>Basine narrowed his eyes. The man was partially drunk. His drawn face, +usually pale, was flushed and his sneering black eyes were bloodshot. He +sat down opposite Levine with a greeting. A waiter brought drinks.</p> + +<p>"What's up, Judge, you seem rather low," Levine laughed quietly. "The +world been falling on your nose? Ha, have another. Here, waiter...."</p> + +<p>They sat drinking, the newspaperman lost in a mysterious excitement that +gathered in his voice. The excitement soothed Basine. The drinks brought +a haze into his mind. He became aware that the man was talking about his +sister. He was leaning forward, a black forelock over his bloodshot eye, +his arm thrown out on the table, and talking in a languorous voice about +Doris.</p> + +<p>"Drowning my troubles, judge," he was saying. "It's easier to drink +yourself into forgetfulness than to lie yourself into forgetfulness, eh? +And besides you grow sick of lying, eh. Nobody lies more than me, and I +know, I know. But it ain't my fault—she's gone mad about him. You know +him—Lindstrum, the poet. Been mad about him for years. And it gets +worse ... that's all that's the matter with her. He ran away years ago +and she's gotten a phobia about people. Because he's the people's poet. +Ha, she's told me about you, George. Got an idea of making this man +Lindstrum sick by showing him how rotten people are. And using you. See? +But where do I come in? Nowhere ... nowhere. Just gabbing for years and +I don't come in nowhere.... Get me?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> This damn newspaper drool has eaten +into me.... She's the only one I wanted. But I don't come in, see? She's +mad ... gone mad...."</p> + +<p>Basine's thought avoided the man's words. He sat with a blissful +vacuity. They drank till it grew night. Basine, as if recalling himself, +walked out. The newspaperman lay across the table, his head asleep on +his arm.</p> + +<p>The night was cool. A curious impulse to let go came to Basine. He would +go somewhere and find women and noise. He walked along thinking about +this. When he had walked for an hour the impulse was gone. The haze was +slipping from him. He recalled things Levine had said. Something about +Lindstrum, the poet. His mind played with Lindstrum. He had seen +him—where? Oh yes, long ago. That was before he'd become famous. Now he +was a great poet. Hell with everything.... Get the senatorship and let +things slide.</p> + +<p>He walked along toward his home. Henrietta would be asleep. He sighed. +The night was cool. Everything all right in the morning. Now, everything +all wrong. But in the morning—</p> + +<p>His stride quickened. He felt half asleep and as he moved over the +deserted pavement he began mumbling, "I love you, George, I love +you...."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C23" id="C23"></a>23</h2> + +<p>Doris was ill. The doctor had telephoned her mother and Mrs. Basine was +sitting beside the bed holding Doris' hand. A man she remembered vaguely +was standing in a corner of the room smoking. It was the poet, +Lindstrum, who was once a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> friend of Doris. He had been there when she +arrived, standing by the window and smoking while the doctor was fixing +an ice pack on Doris' head.</p> + +<p>The doctor had been unable to make a diagnosis. She had a fever but they +would have to wait for more definite symptoms.</p> + +<p>As the twilight filled the studio, Mrs. Basine grew frightened. She +thought at moments Doris was dead, she lay so still. She watched the +half-closed eyes anxiously. Perhaps Doris would die. And George was in +Washington. She had telegraphed but he couldn't arrive till the next +day. She sat wondering about her daughter. She remembered her as a +child, then as a girl.</p> + +<p>"Changes, changes," she sighed. Changes that excited one, but all they +did was bring one nearer to this. She was thinking of death.</p> + +<p>"How do you feel now, Doris?"</p> + +<p>No answer. The burning eyes continued to stare, the hand she held +remained limp and dry in her fingers. Perhaps it was nothing serious. +Merely a fever. She sat nodding her head at her thoughts. She thought of +how her children had grown up and gone away. Fanny, George, Doris, +Aubrey, Henrietta, Mrs. Gilchrist, Judge Smith and the grandchildren. +These were the names of her family. They were part of her. Yet while the +rest of the world grew more and more familiar they grew more and more +strange.</p> + +<p>"Does it pain you anywhere, Doris?"</p> + +<p>No answer. Poor little Doris. She stroked her face. Life had used her +differently. She felt this. She knew nothing of what Doris had done or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> +dreamed, but the staring eyes frightened her and she understood.</p> + +<p>George frequently called her queer. Yet George was, in a way, proud of +her. He used to seek Doris out. And many people had talked of her as a +very unusual young woman. But life had used her curiously, not like +other girls. Perhaps it was a man. She turned toward the figure in the +corner. He was standing holding a pipe to his mouth. What if it was a +man? Scandal. Mrs. Basine sighed. What was scandal? It was only a way of +looking at facts. She would take her home with her. Poor little Doris +living alone in this place and sitting here night after night dreaming +of things. That was sad.</p> + +<p>"Listen dear, do you want something?"</p> + +<p>No answer. The doctor said he would be back after dinner and bring a +nurse. She would ask him if Doris could be moved and then take her home. +It was growing darker in the room. Someone was knocking. She opened the +door. It was another man. He came in and then paused.</p> + +<p>"Is Doris ill?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine nodded.</p> + +<p>"I am her mother," she said.</p> + +<p>Levine looked at her and introduced himself.</p> + +<p>"You know Mr. Lindstrum," she added. Levine stared at the poet in the +shadows and said, "Yes, I know him."</p> + +<p>"How do you do," said Lindstrum slowly.</p> + +<p>Doris reached her hand up as Levine approached the bed. He took it and +she whispered, "Don't go away." She tried to rise.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't dear," her mother cautioned.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," Doris voice appeared to be growing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> stronger. "I want to sit +up. Help me, Max." He arranged the pillows. The ice-pack fell from her +head. She smiled.</p> + +<p>"You haven't eaten anything, mother," she added. "Please, there's a +restaurant around the corner."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine stood up. It might be better to go away for a while. Despite +her daughter's momentary recovery her fears had increased. She felt +something curious about Doris. But perhaps it was just the fever. She +left the room with a final glance at the flushed face. Doris had always +been strange, but there was something disturbing about her now. Her +daughter's eyes watching her opening the door, chilled her heart +suddenly. She held herself from rushing to her side and taking her in +her arms. She didn't know why, but she was certain there was something +strange about Doris. She walked into the hall. Yes, she was certain +something terrible was going to happen.</p> + +<p>When the door closed Doris sat against the pillows, her white face +turned toward Lindstrum in the shadows.</p> + +<p>"Did you hear we were going to war, Lief?" she asked. Behind his pipe in +the shadows the grey faced figure of Lindstrum nodded.</p> + +<p>"George is a Senator," she added. "He's going to declare war, Lief. You +remember my brother George."</p> + +<p>"Doris, you mustn't," Levine whispered. "Lie back, please."</p> + +<p>She covered her face and her body shuddered.</p> + +<p>"The filthy ones are going to war. Come closer, Lief. I want to see +you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p> + +<p>Lindstrum approached the bed. Doris turned to Levine.</p> + +<p>"The pack is going to war. Did you see their eyes shining in the street, +and their mouths gloating? A new terror, eh?"</p> + +<p>She threw her hands into her hair and her eyes centered suddenly on +Lindstrum. He was standing over her. Doris began to laugh and to climb +out of bed. She stood up barefooted in her night gown, her black hair +down and pointed out of the window.</p> + +<p>"Don't." Levine took her hand. "You'll catch cold."</p> + +<p>Her eyes were lustrous. Lindstrum caught her in his arms. She had leaned +toward him as if she were falling. Her body was vividly hot. He held her +and she began to laugh.</p> + +<p>"Better lie down," he whispered.</p> + +<p>The laugh grew louder. Her hand with its fingers extended and pointing, +wavered toward the window. She tried to talk but the laughter in her +throat prevented. She hung loosely in his arms, laughing and waving her +hands.</p> + +<p>"The window," she gasped, "look out and see!"</p> + +<p>"We had better get her into bed," Levine whispered. Lindstrum nodded. +But Doris pulled herself from his hold. She stumbled and fell to her +knees before the window. The room was dark and the street lights threw a +faint glare over her face. She knelt with her hands to her neck and her +eyes swinging.</p> + +<p>"Look out!" cried Levine. Doris screamed.</p> + +<p>"The beast ... the beast!"</p> + +<p>She had thrown herself forward with the shriek<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> but Lindstrum's hands +had caught her. The window glass broke.</p> + +<p>The two men carried her into the bed. Her head fell back on the pillow. +She lay with her eyes open. Lindstrum sat leaning over her.</p> + +<p>"Doris," he whispered. Her eyes regarded him without recognition.</p> + +<p>"It's happened," muttered Levine. Lindstrum's hand passed over her +forehead and slipped down the loose hair.</p> + +<p>"The fever's gone," he said softly. "Yes," he repeated, "the fever's +gone now."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine returned. Doris, her eyes open, was lying as if dead. Her +mother rushed to the bed crying her name. She was breathing. The fever +was gone. Her body was almost cool.</p> + +<p>"She was out of her head for a while," Lindstrum whispered.</p> + +<p>"Talk to me please, dearest."</p> + +<p>Doris sighed and looked around. They made no move as she sat up.</p> + +<p>She left the bed and returned from a closet with a wrap over her +nightgown. They watched her until her eyes turned toward +them—expressionless, dead eyes. Mrs. Basine clasped her hands together +and trembled.</p> + +<p>"We must call the doctor at once," she whispered. She went to the +telephone. Doris sat down in a chair near the window. Her head sank and +she gazed out. The expressionless eyes grew clouded. Tears were coming +out. She sat weeping without sound while her mother telephoned.</p> + +<p>"Something has happened to Doris," Mrs. Basine whispered into the +telephone, "please hurry, something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> has happened to her...."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Doris," Lindstrum spoke.</p> + +<p>The white face of the girl remained without movement. She was staring +out the window, a lifeless figure, weeping. He approached her and +watched her tears.</p> + +<p>Outside, he walked with his head down, through the streets.</p> + +<p>"She knew it was going to happen," he murmured to himself, "and she +wanted to see me again before it did." His heart felt heavy. Doris with +her dead eyes weeping. Ah, a long sigh. Hard to remember things that had +been.</p> + +<p>"Knock 'em over," he whispered aloud. "Make something ... make +something." Deep inside him were hands that pantomimed despair. People +in the streets. War was coming to them. "Huh," he said slowly, "they +tore her heart out." Everybody knew him. Everybody knew the name +Lindstrum. It was the name of a great poet. When he was dead Lindstrum +would stay alive. "Huh," he whispered, "I don't know.... Sing to them. +Yes...."</p> + +<p>His teeth bit into the pipe stem. Tears came from his eyes. He walked +along in the night snarling with his lips parted, and weeping.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C24" id="C24"></a>24</h2> + +<p>The war was a noisy guest. People shook hands with it. It sat down in +their little rooms. It's voice was a brass band that drowned their +troubles. Basine found a curious friend in the war.</p> + +<p>Changes had come to him in the days that followed the scene with Ruth. +He grew cold. His heart was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> indifferent. His victory in the election +had sent him to bed without joy.</p> + +<p>There was no longer an inner Basine and an outer Basine. He had fought +his way into the current of events and he was content to let them move +him. They made him Senator. They moved him to Washington, provided new +scenes for him, new faces. He heard of his sister's collapse without +sorrow. She had become crazy. To be expected, of course, to be expected, +he said to himself one evening as he sat writing a letter of sympathy to +his mother.</p> + +<p>The thing that had happened to Basine had been the result of a +confusion. He found himself at forty robbed of life. Despair, hatred, +disgust—these things were left. He turned his back on them. They were a +company of emotions too difficult to play with. It was no longer +possible to lie. Ruth, Schroder, Henrietta, love, hope, intrigue grew +mixed up. He emerged from himself and walked away from himself like an +aggrieved and dignified guest.</p> + +<p>He sometimes remembered himself—a distant Basine. A keen-faced one with +the feel of leadership in his heart. A mind that was alive behind its +words. He had done and thought many things. But now he had gone away. He +was silent. The day was no longer a challenge. The change carried its +reward. It seemed to bring him closer to people. At least he found a +certain charm in talking and listening that had not existed before.</p> + +<p>He gave himself no thought. He was successful and that was enough. At +times he sat in his new quarters in Washington reading stray items in +the newspapers and reciting to himself his achievements.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> He found +pleasing identification in the honors he had achieved.</p> + +<p>His political friends talked among themselves. They recalled that Basine +had once been a man of promise, a man alive with energies. And now he +was like the others in the party—an amiable fuddy-duddy. They recalled +the sensational figure he had made a few years ago in the Vice +Investigation. This seemed to have been the climax of Basine.</p> + +<p>But the war arrived and the new Senator began to emerge. The country +became filled with mediocrities struggling to utilize the war as a +pedestal. The call had gone out for heroes and the elocutionists rushed +forward.</p> + +<p>The psychology of the day, however, was a bit too involved for these +aspirants. The body politic of the nation found itself betrayed by its +own platitudes. A moral frenzy began to animate the horizon. But it was +the frenzy of an idea that had escaped control; an idea grown too huge +and luminous to direct any longer. The idealization of itself before +which the crowd had worshipped became now a Frankenstein. The virtues of +America had gone to war. And the nation looked on, aghast and +uncomprehending. The flattering and grandiose image of itself that the +<i>bête populaire</i> had been creating in its law books, text books, and +hymnals had suddenly stepped from its complicated mirror and was +marching like a Mad Hatter to the front. A swarm of guides and +interpreters had leaped to its side. They danced around it chanting its +nobilities, proclaiming its grandeur. The spirit of Democracy, the +Rights of Man, the One and Only God—the Golden Rule, the Thou Shalt +Nots, the Seven Virtues, the Mann Act, the Hatred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> for All Variants of +Evil,—the mythical incarnation of these and kindred illusions—the +Idealization—was off for the front.</p> + +<p>The confusion arose when the nation found itself attached as if by some +gruesome umbilical cord to this crazed Idealization, off with a Tin +Sword on its shoulder. And it must follow this Virtue-snorting monster. +It must lie down in trenches in behalf of a Fairy Tale with which it had +been shrewdly deceiving itself for a century.</p> + +<p>But while the elocutionists fumbling for pedestals were exhorting the +nation to hoist itself by its boot-straps, to become overnight a +belligerent hierarchy around its God, there were others whose spirit +raised an authentic battle shout. One of these was Basine.</p> + +<p>He appeared to return to himself. The Basine he had walked away from +raised itself amid the disgusts and hatreds in which it had lain +abandoned. A rage gathered in his voice. Eloquence and flashing eyes +were his. The amiable fuddy-duddy playing little politics in Washington +became a gentleman of war.</p> + +<p>The horizon bristled with gentlemen of war. But the terrified crowd +casting about for leaders, as the draft shovelled it toward the +trenches, eyed them with suspicion. There must be authentic gentlemen of +war—men above suspicion. Men maddened with a desire to fight and +destroy were wanted. Basine was one of these. His tirades against the +enemy left nothing in doubt. They were not concerned with idealisms. The +enemy must be destroyed, he began to cry, or else it would destroy +civilization.</p> + +<p>Huns, he cried, vandals and scoundrels. Gorillas, demons, soulless +monsters. His phrases drew frightful caricatures of the enemy. His +orations were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> among the few that stirred terror. The Germans were not +enemies of an ideal—not a rabble of Nietzsches at theological grips +with a rabble of Christs. They were Huns, said Basine, barbarians, +fiends, hacking children to pieces, pillaging, raping, destroying.</p> + +<p>This was a language the nation understood. It contained in it the +inspiration to heroism and sacrifice. Out of it arose the grisly cartoon +which awakened fear. Terrified by the possibilities of Hun domination +and massacres, the crowd patriotically bared its bosom to the lesser +horror—war. It marched forth behind its idiot Idealization not to +defend that absurdity but to save itself from the clutches of massacring +savages.</p> + +<p>The energies which came to life abruptly in Basine focused into a +strange passion against the Germans. He was vicious, intolerant, +unscrupulous in his denunciations. This established him instantly as a +leader.</p> + +<p>The crowd, casting about for leaders, seized upon men more terrified +than themselves. And upon these abject ones who raved and howled from +the pulpit, stage and press, they heaped rewards and canonizations.</p> + +<p>There was one phase of Basine's hatred that offered a curious +explanation. From the beginning he devoted himself to describing the +hideous immorality of the Huns. He loaned himself passionately to all +rumors celebrating the wholesale rape of women committed by the invaders +of Belgium. Deportations, well-poisonings, child-murders figured +extensively in his eloquence. But gradually he appeared to concentrate +upon what he called the ultimate horror—"fair Europe overrun by this +horde of seducers and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> immoral blackguards." Schroder was a German.</p> + +<p>The war rehabilitated Basine. It enabled him to destroy Schroder. The +complicated underworld of hate, disgust, disillusion which his ludicrous +renunciation of Ruth and her subsequent betrayal by Schroder had created +in him, was the arsenal from which he armed himself for war.</p> + +<p>He had lapsed into a sterile and amiable Basine in order to escape from +emotions become too intolerable and too dangerous to utilize. The murder +of Schroder would not have restored him. The return of the woman he +still loved would have been equally futile. Life had become too +intolerable for Basine to face and adjust. He had permitted himself +convenient burial.</p> + +<p>On the night he had gotten drunk with the newspaperman, Basine saw +himself as he was—a creature misshapen and humorous—and he had buried +the vision and fled from it. To sit contemplating an inner self become a +grotesque cripple was intolerable. He sought for a brief space to +transfer his self-loathing to Schroder but Schroder, the man, was too +small to contain it. Schroder, the war, however, was another matter.</p> + +<p>Basine unlocked himself, exhumed himself, and came forth with a yell in +his throat. The German army was five million Schroders. He hurled +himself at them. He was happy in his rage. A sincerity hypnotized him.</p> + +<p>The Germans were not only five million Schroders. They were also the +incarnated nauseas and despairs of Basine. Schroder, the man, had become +for him, illogically but soothingly, the cause of everything that had +become misshapen and humorous inside him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> Schroder, the man, was the +sand in which Basine, the ostrich, buried his head. Now Schroder, the +Germans, Schroder, the World War, Schroder, the rape of Belgium, the +devastation of France, offered a more hospitable grave for the misshapen +and humorous image of himself. To destroy the Germans became for Basine +synonymous with destroying the things inside himself from which he had +fled helplessly. The destruction of these things consisted of giving +them outlet, of giving them voice. His hatreds, despairs and +disillusions arose and spat themselves upon the Germans. The process +cleansed and invigorated him and launched him before the public as a +leader to be trusted, a hero to venerate during its dark hour.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C25" id="C25"></a>25</h2> + +<p>The company assembled in his mother's home greeted Basine with +excitement. He had stopped over during a tour in behalf of the Liberty +Loan. Mrs. Basine had persuaded him to attend a function in his honor. +He was late. They were waiting dinner for him.</p> + +<p>When he entered, a sense of great affairs, of world disturbances came +into the room with him. At the table the talk centered around him. He +was the superior patriot. Questions were fired at him—when would the +war end, what was the real secret of this and that and did he know what +was behind the latest note from the President, and when was the German +offensive due? He answered ambiguously, offering no information and +exciting his audience by his reticence.</p> + +<p>Aubrey Gilchrist, who had held the floor before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> the Senator's arrival, +listened eagerly to his brother-in-law. Aubrey's patriotism was a bond +between them. But it was of a different quality. Aubrey's patriotism was +founded on the fact that America was the most virtuous nation in the +world. He devoted himself to a campaign among his friends and had even +spoken publicly a number of times. In his talk he grew eloquent over the +moral grandeur of his country and hailed the altruism and honesty of his +countrymen as a light that illumined the world.</p> + +<p>Aubrey had overcome his impulse to publish his father's manuscript under +his own name. His fears had finally triumphed. He had utilized his +decision in a curious way. For months after determining not to commit +the imposture he had discussed the decision among his friends.</p> + +<p>"I worked a number of years on it," he explained simply, "but on reading +it over I feel that it's not the thing to be given the public. It's a +bit too Rabelaisian and unrestrained. Among gentlemen, yes. But when one +thinks of young men and women reading such things one hesitates. I feel +too that I can do better. Perhaps in another year or so I'll finish +something more worthy."</p> + +<p>This explanation had given him a pleasurable emotion. It had coincided +with the inner Aubrey—the Isaiah who thundered in secret. He had gone +about elated with the knowledge of his honesty—not only the honesty of +refraining from the imposture but the honesty of sparing the public a +work likely to undermine its morals. With the advent of the war Aubrey's +elation had expanded miraculously. The nation became a collection of +Aubrey Gilchrists. He found an outlet for his self admiration in +boasting tirelessly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> of the virtues of his countrymen. His interest in +the Germans was faint. He was chiefly concerned with having the moral +grandeur of his nation recognized and triumphant.</p> + +<p>Seated opposite him was Fanny. She smiled when he looked at her. The war +had brought Fanny happiness. It had released her from the tormenting of +Ramsey. She turned occasionally toward Ramsey a few seats removed at the +table and spoke to him. He had changed. He sat flushed and elated and +took his turn at denouncing the enemy, at avowing vengeance and +prophesying terrible victories over the Hun. His anger rivalled +Basine's. The curious game he had played with Fanny had lost its +interest. He had emerged like Basine. Fanny was no longer necessary to +his desire for a sense of power—a power which convinced him of his +manliness and concealed from him the secret of his inferiority. He had +transferred his game from Fanny to the Germans. He was now tormenting +the Germans. The news of their defeats, the hope of their annihilation +inflated him. In addition, his belligerent air, his gory threats enabled +him to establish himself in his eyes and in the eyes of others as a +thorough man.</p> + +<p>There were others in the company—Judge Smith, red-faced and glowering; +Aubrey's mother engaged in excommunicating the Germans as socially unfit +and outside the pale of her sympathy or support; a number of prominent +social and political lights. They discussed the war with animation, +fired questions at the senator and ate heartily.</p> + +<p>Dishes clattered. Servants appeared and disappeared. Mrs. Basine, +sitting beside her son listened to him proudly and grew sad. Her son's +prestige<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> pleased her. But the war saddened her. She noticed that Mrs. +Gilchrist was growing old—too old to share the enthusiasms of the day. +Yet there was a comradeship in the room that stirred Mrs. Basine. She +disliked most of the individuals around her. But when they came together +there was something charming in the way they talked and smiled and +exchanged confidences.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine had secretly allied herself with a pacifist group of women +who labelled their minor timidity as intellectualism and argued with +violence against the major timidity identified as patriotism. She had a +horror of war, her imagination seeing herself continually suffering with +the soldiers of both sides. A similar sensitiveness had converted her +into a vague socialist. The misery of what she called the masses was a +mirror in which she saw a possible image of herself. She subscribed with +enthusiasm to doctrines which promised to establish justice and +tranquility in the world.</p> + +<p>But now among the people in her home Mrs. Basine noticed an enviable +optimism. Some of them were old friends, others new friends. But all of +them were alike in one way. All of them seemed wonderfully excited over +the fact that this war was going to put an end to all wars. She would +have liked to share this optimism. But her intelligence deprived her of +the solace. Yet she was able to feel kindly toward the ideals she sensed +were false. They were somehow like her own ideals—inspired by similar +things.</p> + +<p>The camaraderie in the room heightened. This was a war that was going to +put an end to all wars and everyone felt happy. They talked and +laughed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> Their manner seemed to hint that the war was not only going to +put an end to all wars but to all troubles. Yes, the Germans vanquished, +victory achieved, and the world would be beautifully straightened out.</p> + +<p>They identified themselves avidly with the world—these old and new +friends. The enemy who had dogged their monotonous little footsteps +through the years—the veiled Nemesis who had harassed them and filled +them with helpless, futile hatreds, tripped them up and robbed them at +every turn—this enemy was at last unmasked. He was identified now. He +was their troubles—their defeats. And they had him out in the open now +where they could shout battle cries and leap upon him. He was the +Germans.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Basine, groping for an understanding of the elation among her +guests and desiring to share it, thought of her grandchildren. She +remembered George when he was no older than his son. This memory seemed +to give the lie to the excitement in the room. She wondered why. She +remembered Fanny when she was a girl. And Henrietta long ago. Henrietta +was smiling quietly at her husband—a faded matron, scrawny, silent. And +Doris was upstairs, weeping perhaps. She had taken Doris out of the +sanitarium to care for her at home. The doctor said melancholia. She +might be cured if something could be found to interest her. But there +was nothing. She sat wide-eyed and morose through the day, her hands +listless and waited till night came and sleep. Her skin was yellow and +there were little glints in her eyes as if they were peering out of the +dark.</p> + +<p>Senator Basine laughed at the sally of a pretty woman. The table joined +his laughter. The senator<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> was an inspiration. His manner was forceful, +his words direct. When he listened his head remained flung back. When he +talked he lowered his head and raised his eyes. There was an anger in +him that awed. It played behind his words.</p> + +<p>"You're right, George." Aubrey answered a remark Basine had made. "I +agree with you entirely. But after all, the purposes of this war are +more than victory over an enemy. The victory over ourselves—"</p> + +<p>Aubrey's words were lost in the racket of rising diners. The eating was +over. The guests filed into the library. Henrietta slipped her hand +through her husband's arm. She remembered vaguely the afternoon in the +Basine library when George Basine had asked her to marry him. No,—it +was in the kitchen. She would have liked to talk about it. But this was +no time to mention such things. She sat down and listened to the excited +remarks of the guests. There was an interruption. Aubrey, at the window, +raised his voice.</p> + +<p>"Look here," he exclaimed, "soldiers."</p> + +<p>The company crowded to the front of the room. Men in civilian clothes +carrying small bundles over their shoulders were marching four abreast +down the center of the street.</p> + +<p>"Entraining for war, by God!" said Ramsey.</p> + +<p>They watched in silence. Soldiers going to war! There was something +incongruous about that. A vague feeling of surprise and discomfort held +the watchers. Men who would in a short time be lying in trenches, +shooting with guns, killing other men. And they felt curiously out of +touch with the marchers, as if the enemy they had been denouncing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> at +the table and vilifying throughout their day were someone not so far +away as France. As if these marching men in the street were being sent +to the wrong address.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="C26" id="C26"></a>26</h2> + +<p>Basine hurried in the dark street. His mother and Henrietta stood in the +doorway watching him. He carried a suitcase and had promised to write +frequently. The Liberty Loan tour had cut short his visit. He was +walking to catch his train at the neighborhood station a few blocks +away.</p> + +<p>As he turned the corner, Basine paused. Someone had called his name. He +looked around and saw a man standing under the street lamp.</p> + +<p>"Hello George. How are you?"</p> + +<p>The man held out his hand and Basine, taking it, studied him for a +moment. Keegan. Poor old Hugh Keegan. Basine smiled.</p> + +<p>"Well, well," he exclaimed. "What are you doing around here, Hugh?"</p> + +<p>They stood shaking hands. Basine noticed the furtive, shabby air of his +old friend. He hadn't seen or heard of Keegan or thought of him for +years. It was strange to meet him like this, walking in a street.</p> + +<p>"I live down the street a ways," Keegan answered. An almost womanish +shyness was in his manner. "Been hearing and reading a lot about you, +George." He lowered his voice. "You sure made good."</p> + +<p>Basine smiled deprecatingly.</p> + +<p>"Walking my way, Hugh?" he inquired. "Going to the train." He felt +nervous. Keegan was like meeting yesterdays.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," said Keegan.</p> + +<p>They walked along. Basine felt his exhuberance leaving him. A curious +desire to apologize to Keegan took hold of him. But for what? Because +Keegan looked shabby. Keegan acted frightened and ashamed of something.</p> + +<p>"We used to have some good times together, George."</p> + +<p>The man was impossibly wistful. Like a beggar asking +something—demanding something.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Basine. This Keegan ... this Keegan. He looked at him out of +the corners of his eyes. Shabby, furtive, blond-faced, tired.</p> + +<p>"What have you been doing, Hugh?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, didn't you hear," Keegan answered. His voice grew more deferential. +He began to talk in an apologetic murmur.</p> + +<p>"My wife died," he apologized. "I got married, you know, four years ago. +Four years this coming November. We went to a picnic last June and Helen +ate something."</p> + +<p>Keegan's voice sank to a confidential and still apologetic whisper.</p> + +<p>"About two nights after," he added, "she died."</p> + +<p>Basine looked at him and saw tears in his eyes. Keegan had married +somebody and she had died. This had happened to Keegan. Basine grew +nervous.</p> + +<p>"Awf'ly glad to have seen you again, Hugh," he said after a pause. "Am +sorry to hear about it. We must get together sometime. I think I'll have +to run."</p> + +<p>They shook hands and Basine hurried on. He was aware of Keegan looking +after him. A vacuous-faced Keegan with tears in his eyes. A Keegan who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> +had found something and lost it. What kind of a woman could have loved +Keegan? What kind ... what kind ... poor Hugh. He had been young once. +Now it was all over. Basine sighed. Keegan saddened. Keegan was like +yesterdays. He started to walk faster. He began to run, the suitcase +thumping against his leg.</p> + +<p>"I'll miss the train," he assured himself furtively and ran.</p> + +<p>But there was plenty of time for the train. Another fifteen minutes. He +was running for something else. Yes, he was running away from +Keegan—from the vacuous, shabby figure of Keegan that stood weeping +behind him. An oath throbbed in his mind.</p> + +<p>"Damn...." he muttered. The word stopped him. He walked the rest of the +way to the station. A sadness darkened him. He was sad, impossibly sad, +as if his heart were breaking. Because Keegan had found something and +lost it. Because his old friend Hugh had started to cry.... "Poor +Hughie," he murmured.</p> + +<h4>THE END</h4> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Gargoyles, by Ben Hecht + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GARGOYLES *** + +***** This file should be named 38489-h.htm or 38489-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/4/8/38489/ + +Produced by Annie R. McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Gargoyles + +Author: Ben Hecht + +Release Date: January 3, 2012 [EBook #38489] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GARGOYLES *** + + + + +Produced by Annie R. McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + + + + + + + + +GARGOYLES + + + + +_GARGOYLES_ + + +_By_ +BEN HECHT + +[Illustration] + +BONI AND LIVERIGHT +Publishers New York + + + + +Copyright, 1922, by +Boni and Liveright, Inc. +New York + + + + +To My Friend +the +Chicago Daily News + + + + +1 + + +The calendars said--1900. It was growing warm. George Cornelius Basine +emerged from Madam Minnie's house of ill fame at five o'clock on a +Sabbath May morning. He was twenty-five years old, neatly dressed, a bit +unshaven and whistling valiantly, "Won't you come home, Bill Bailey, +won't you come home?" + +Considering the high estate which was to be his, as the estimable +Senator Basine, the introduction savors of malice. But, it must be +remembered, this was twenty-two years ago, and moreover, in a day before +the forces of decency had triumphed. The soul of man was still +unregenerate. Prostitutes, saloons, hell-holes still flourished +unchallenged in the city's heart. And Basine even at twenty-five was not +one of those aggravating anomalies who pride themselves upon being ahead +of their time; or behind their time. Basine was of his time. + +And on this day which witnessed him whistling on the doorstep of Madam +Minnie's, the Devil was still a gentlemen, albeit a gentleman in bad +standing. But, being a gentleman, he was tolerated. Tradition, in a +manner, still clothed him in the guise of a Rabelaisian clown, high born +but fallen. He walked abroad in his true character, flaunting his red +tights, his cloven hoof, his spiked tail and his mysterious horns. A +Mid-Victorian Devil innocent of further disguise, his face still +undisfigured by the Kaiser's mustachio or the Bolshevist's whiskers. A +naive, unctuous lout of a Devil with straightforward Tempter's +proclivities. An antagonist not for Dr. Wilsons and M. Clemenceaus and +the Societies for the Spread of True Americanization, but an +unpolitical, highly orthodox, leering, pitchfork-brandishing _vis a vis_ +for simple men of God. In short, the Devil was still a Devil and not a +Complex. + +It was growing warm and the calendars said--a new century ... a new +century. And the great men of the day pointed with stern, pregnant +fingers at the calendars and proclaimed--a new century ... a new +century. + +Beautiful phrase. The soul of man, in its struggle toward God knows +what, paused elatedly to contemplate the new milestone. Elated as all +youth is elated for no other reason than that there is a tomorrow, a +tomorrow of unknown and multiple milestones. Elated with the knowledge +of progress--that sage and flattering word by which the soul of man +explains the baffling phenomenon of its survival. + +The great men of the day stood staring through half-closed eyes at the +calendars. To anticipate by a single day! But the future no less than +the past remains a current mystery. And the great men--the +prophets--confined themselves with stentorian caution to the prophecy--a +new century has dawned. + +Basine, whistling and waiting for his companion to emerge on Madam +Minnie's doorstep, regarded the scene about him with the hardened moral +indifference of youth. It was growing warm. The May sun was striding, an +incongruous, provincial virgin, through a litter of blowzy streets. +Under its mocking light the rows of bawdy-houses and saloons suffered +an architectural collapse. Walls, windows, roofs and chimneys leered +tiredly at each other. The district seemed indeed an illustration for a +parable of Vice and Virtue drawn by the venomously partial pen of some +unusually half-witted cleric--dirty-faced brothels, tousled cafe signs, +bleery sidewalks, toothless storefronts all cowering before the rebuke +of God's sun. + +A few mysterious solitaries lent a vague life to the scene. The figure +of a drunk, unchastened, zigzagging humorously down the pavement like +some nocturnal clown prowling after a vanished Bacchanal. A hastily +dressed prostitute carrying her night's earnings as an offering to early +devotion. A few unseasoned revellers overcome with a nostalgia for clean +bathrooms and Sunday morning waffles at the family board, sleepily +fleeing the scenes of their carouse. + +All this formed no part of the preoccupations of the whistling one. He +was waiting for his companion and for the fifteenth time the tune of +"Bill Bailey" came softly from his lips. The companion appeared, a +crestfallen young man of twenty-three, Hugh Keegan by name. An idiotic +wistfulness marked the blond vacuity of his face. They said nothing and +walked to the street car track. + +Here they must wait. There was no car in sight. Basine employed the +wait, jumping out from the curbing and peering with a great show of +interest down the deserted tracks. The night's dissipation had left him +perversely elate. His vanity demanded that he confound the scenes of his +recent moral collapse by exhibitions of undiminished vigor of body and +gayety of mind. So he capered back and forth between the curb and the +deserted tracks, ostentatiously unbuttoning his coat to the chill of the +dawn and addressing brisk, cheerful sallies to his penitent friend. + +It was this way with Basine. He had spent the night in sin. Now he must +act as if he had not spent the night in sin. It was a matter of +deceiving his conscience, and Basine's conscience did not live in +Basine. It was, to the contrary, a mysterious external force, something +quite outside him. + +He eyed the virtuous hallelujahs of the sunrise with a somewhat +over-emphasized aplomb. Dimly he felt that a God was articulating in +dawns and sunbeams. As long as he had continued his whistling, these +facts had remained concealed. But now he had grown tired of "Bill +Bailey" and at once God, peering out of his beautiful rosy heaven was +saying, "Shame on you." Everything seemed to be waiting to repeat this +banal reproof. + +This was the conscience of George Basine--a reproof that came from +without. He felt an inclination to defiance before this reproof.... He +was young and given to evil. This was only natural, considering the time +in which he lived and the biological impulses of youth. + +But to do evil was one thing. To defend it after it was done was +another. Thus Basine, having sinned lustily through the night, avoided +the more unspeakable sin of defending his action. The reproof arrived, +he faced it with candor and intelligence, prepared to admit that he had +done wrong. + +He did not want God mumbling around inside him as was the case with his +friend Keegan. God mumbled around inside of Keegan and made him feel +like the devil. But Basine--there was no occasion for God to argue His +point. He, Basine, surrendered gracefully and forthwith. That was the +way to handle situations of the soul. + +To Basine, situations of the soul were a species of external discomforts +he identified as God. They were the regulations and taboos of a +civilization to which he was prepared at all times to submit, providing +such submission did not compromise him. One got rid of taboos by looking +them squarely in the eye and simulating respect or remorse. Taboos were +good manners. One had to be polite to good manners. Basine laughed, not +defiantly. He had already made his apologies to the dawn. The dawn was +God's good manners. It entered the world as precisely and as perfectly +as the saintly wife of a great financier might enter her grandmother's +drawing room. + +Waiting beside the car track, Basine was already a reformed and forgiven +man. The sun was like a huge Salvation Army marching through the +highways of Evil, beating great drums and singing, "Are you washed, are +you washed in the Blood of the Lamb?" He was glad of it. He was glad to +be once more a part of a virtuous world, a citizen of an ideal republic +given to the great causes of progress. + +This adjustment completed, memories of the night came to him as they +waited for the car. These memories failed, naturally, to conflict with +his character as a citizen of virtue. For they were memories which he +was prepared at any moment to repudiate and denounce. Thus prepared he +could of course enjoy them. + +The memories brought an elation, the elation which usually fills the +healthy male of twenty-five upon discovering or rediscovering that the +Devil is as alluring as he is painted and that the wages of sin are +neither death nor disillusion. He had enjoyed himself. Sin was wrong. +But if one knew it was wrong one could go ahead and enjoy it. The great +thing was to know it was wrong, to admit it frankly and share in the +general indignation of it and not to go around like a vicious-minded +freak defending it, like some people he knew were in the habit of doing. + +Thus on this May morning Basine was able to grasp the enormity of his +offense and to apologize whole-heartedly for its commission and +simultaneously to enjoy the memory of it. He had come away from Madam +Minnie's with an egoistic impression of his prowess and with the +self-satisfaction which comes of the knowledge of having cheated the +devil out of his due by his careful method. He remembered with a warmth +in his throat as if he were recalling something beautiful how the +creature had looked at the first moment she stood before him. + +He had spent the earlier part of the night getting creditably drunk. +Lured into a brothel by a woman with a hard, childish face, he had +devoted himself for several hours to the despicable business of sin. The +sordid make-believe of passion had pleased him vastly. He had managed in +fact to achieve an observation on life. As the night waned he had grown +philosophical and thought, how with good women one began with personal +talk, with an exchange of confidences. One began with emotions, with +gentle lacerations, wistfulness, sadness. And one progressed from these +toward the intimacy of physical contact. But with bad women one began +with the intimacy of physical contact. Only the abrupt matter-of-fact +tone of the thing robbed the contact of all intimacy. And one progressed +from this contact toward a wistfulness, a gentle shyness and finally an +exchange of confidences and personal talk. This last contained in it the +thrill of intimacy. A good woman surrendered her body and inspired +thereby a sense of possession. A bad woman surrendered the secret of her +birthplace and of her real name and inspired a similar sense. There was +also obvious the fact that the same sense of dramatic coquetry, +idealism, modesty or whatever it was that induced the good woman to +withhold her body induced the bad woman to withhold her confidence. + +Under the influence of this knowledge, Basine had pursued the usual +tactics of the predatory male and, as a fillip to the unimaginative +excitements of the night, obtained from his accomplice in sin the story +of her life. + +"The mystery of a bad woman is that she was once virtuous," he thought +as he fell asleep. "Just as the mystery of a virtuous woman is that she +could be bad." + +An hour later he awoke and with a thrill of quixotic honesty placed five +dollars in the moist hand of the sleeping houri, gathered his friend +Keegan out of an adjoining room and emerged once more into the world +with a clear head, a body full of elated memories and a laudable +conviction that he had done wrong, but that what happened yesterday was +not a part of today and that a man can grant himself absolution from +sin as easily as he can lay aside virtue. + +As for Keegan, he stared with mild eyes at the dawn, at the beggarly +alleys and the negro porter dreamily sweeping cigar stubs out of a +lopsided doorway. He listened patiently to his friend's enthusiasms. To +Keegan there was something inexplicable about Basine's morning-after +pose. Keegan had not found a place for God. Platitudes were not a +background against which he might posture to his convenience. Instead +they were terrible intimates. They operated his thought for him. + +After committing a sin one should be repentent. The commission of sin +was, of course, an outrage. But somehow the platitudes did not quite +reach into the bedroom of evil. They remained hovering outside the door +marking time, as it were, and whispering through the keyhole, "just wait +... just wait...." + +And as soon as he had emerged from the room, in fact even before that, +they had taken possession of him again. They demanded now repentance, +thorough repentance which included thorough repudiation of all joyous +memories, all pleasurable moments. And Keegan, surrendering himself as a +matter of necessity to their demands presented the exterior of a +sorrowing victim to the dawn. He offered a nod or a surprised stare as +punctuation for his friend's discourse, chewing the while on an +unsuccessfully lighted cigar which tasted sour. + +"There was something different about her from the usual girl of that +kind," Basine was explaining. "Wouldn't talk for a while but finally got +confidential and began to cry a bit." + +This was a lie, reflecting credit, however, on the youth's dramatic +sense and vanity. The knowledge that the creature under discussion had +been actually no different from the six other ladies of her profession +with whom he had experienced moral collapses since leaving the +university in no way interfered with his opinion of the recent episode. + +It was his opinion that things he touched were somehow different from +things other young men dallied with; that events which befell him were +of a certain mysterious fiber lacking in the events which befell others. +Thus he was reduced to the necessity of continual lying in order to +vindicate this conviction, more powerful than reality. Lying to himself +as much as to anyone else. By his lies Basine accomplished the dual +purpose of adjusting inferior incidents to the superiority of his nature +and of impressing this superiority upon his friends. A way of rewriting +life so as to fit himself with the heroic part, as yet denied him in the +manuscript and which he sincerely felt was his due. + +"Yes, she cried a bit. They usually do, you know." + +Keegan was innocent of this phenomenon, but nodded. He felt mysteriously +saddened by the fact that they never wept for him. Life denied him many +things. The creature he had spent the night with had treated him +somewhat brutally. She had laughed several times. He sought, however, to +make up for the indifference with which he felt himself treated by +heightening his contempt for her as a sinner. This necessitated an +increase of his contempt for himself as having been a partner in evil. +But that was a spiritual gesture made bearable by the wave of remorse +it aroused and by the knowledge that remorse was a laudable emotion. +Nevertheless, despite the remorse and the rehabilitation it offered his +vanity, he continued to feel--life denied him many things. + +Basine continued, "You could take a girl like that and make something of +her. Give her a month." By which he meant give George Cornelius Basine a +month and see the miracle he would work. + +Keegan sighed. He admired George, and his admiration of others always +depressed him. He was intelligent enough to know that he admired things +he lacked. And yet, he assured himself, he would despise the things in +himself that he admired in others. Therefore, it was very probable that +he despised them in others, or would at some later day, unless he +managed to conceal the fact or lose track of it in the confusion of +platitudes which served him for a brain. He looked enviously at his +friend, before whom hardened trollops dissolved in tears. + +"She's only been in the game a little while, you know, Hugh. A convent +girl, too. She told me her story. How she got started, you know. A love +affair with a Spaniard. A highly connected fellow." + +Basine prattled on, improvising a melodrama of virtue led astray, +editing the vaguely worded generalities of the creature he had left +asleep. Eventually he tired of the game and announced abruptly. + +"Not a car in sight. What do you say we walk, Hugh?" + +The idea of walking four miles home after a wild night engaged his +vanity. Things by which he proved the dubious superiority of his body +pleased him. + +"I think I'll run along," said Keegan. + +"Nothing doing, Hughie. You come with me. We'll have breakfast at my +house." + +Keegan frowned. There were two sisters and a mother in Basine's home. + +"I can't." + +"Why not?" + +"Oh, because." + +Basine persisted, gently malicious. It amused him to inconvenience his +friend's scruples. It also gave him a feeling of moral supremacy. Keegan +was ashamed to go to his home with him. He pitied him for this and yet +enjoyed the fact. It was because Keegan didn't feel sure of himself, of +his being a man of virtue. And he, Basine, did. There was no question +about it in his mind. + +"Ashamed?" he asked with a smile. + +"No," Keegan grunted. + +"Well, you haven't done anything worse than me," by which he meant "We +do things differently and I am above things that knock you out." + +Keegan stared at his friend furtively. There were things inexplicable in +George Basine. He must admire them. There was nothing inexplicable in +himself. + +He hesitated about going, however. A combination of platitudes was +involved. He felt the necessity of repentance. And then he felt the +necessity of hiding his shame. And finally platitude cautioned him +indignantly against affronting three good women--a mother and two +daughters--with the presence of one lately come from the flesh pots of +Satan. This was a superior platitude because it came also under the +index of good manners. + +But Basine, taking him by the elbow, swept him along, platitudes and +all. An inexplicable Basine whom he admired, envied, despised, and who +was his best friend and his model. They walked together, Basine briskly +to hide the sudden heaviness of his legs; Keegan yielding to the less +pronounced physical drain he had undergone and falling into a weary, +protesting gait. + + + + +2 + + +The death of Howard Basine had precipitated a creditable outburst of +grief on the part of his widow and two daughters. The event had brought +his son George home from college. + +They had shared a bed for twenty-six years, Basine _pere_ and Basine +_mere_, achieving an utter disregard of each other which both took pride +in identifying as domestic happiness. In their youth love had brought +them together while comparative strangers. And after twenty-six years +death had parted them still strangers. But now complete and total +strangers--Siamese twins who had never been introduced to each other. + +Each had grown old by the side of the other, subscribing to the same +thoughts, worries, ambitions. It was as if a thin shell had grown around +each of them. This shell was their home, their mutual interest in bank +balances, diversions and tomorrows. It was the product of their +practical energies--their standing in the eyes of their friends, their +success and their solidity as a social unit. It was their pride in new +rugs, in invitations to functions, in their children. + +There were two shells. One was Basine _pere_. One was Basine _mere_. +For twenty-six years these two shells cohabited together. But inside +each of them there had been a world of things that had never connected +and that remained forever part of a mutually preserved secret. Little +daydreams, absurdities, the swaggering, pensive, impractical rigmarole +of thought-life to which the world of reality--the shell-world--had +remained almost to the last no more than a vaguely sensed exterior. + +Each of them had lived almost continually apart from this shell. They +had given but a fraction of their energies toward its creation. It had +required only a little part of themselves to become two placidly +successful conventionally happy people with a home and family. The rest +of themselves they had allowed to evaporate. + +A pleasing process--evaporation. Dreams, ambitions, longings--all these +had evaporated slowly and secretively during the twenty-six years, +vanished into thin air. And each had been preoccupied with this process +of evaporation. It had been their real life--the life which diverted +them and which they mutually concealed from each other as they sat +together reading of evenings, or rode in cars or waited in offices or +lay in bed. + +Here in this real life were success and beauty and marvelous activities. +Here Basine _pere_ planned Herculean enterprise and triumphed with +magnificent gestures, became a leader of finance, of armies; became a +lover of queens and odalisques. Caressing from day to day phantasms +which had no existence, it was in them that he chiefly existed. He +confined himself not only to illusions of grandeur. There were also +little things, charming minor victories which delighted his ego almost +as much as the greater ones. He was able to trick out the minor +victories with the illusion of reality. They were things that might +happen, that one could dream about almost as actually happening. Things +that he fancied people might be saying about him; admissions that he +fancied people might make to him; dreams that he fancied he inspired in +women who passed him and whom he never saw again. + +This illusory existence preoccupying Basine had fitted him ideally for +the companionship of orderly, placid-minded folk preoccupied like +himself with similar processes of evaporation. These folk were his +friends with whom he went to the theater, played cards, transacted +business, discussed issues. They were known as normal, practical +persons. The vast, illusory worlds in which they lived during the +greater part of their hours in no way encroached upon the realities of +their day. + +They were proud of having a grip on themselves, by which they meant of +being able to allow their energies to evaporate secretively instead of +feeling inspired to harness them to realities and run the risk of being +hoisted body and soul out of their shells into a maelstrom of +uncertainties and hullabaloos. In order to rationalize the disparity +between their actual estates and the fantastic estates of their illusory +lives, they devoted a part of their energies to the practical business +of glorifying their shells. They subscribed with indignation, sometimes +with fanaticism, to all social, spiritual and political ideas which had +for their objective the glorification of their shells. They became +champions of systems of thought and conduct which excused on one hand +and deified on the other their devitalized modes of existence. + +In fact as they grew older they developed a curious egoism which took +the form of a pride in their suppressions. They thought of themselves as +men who had achieved a superior sanity. This sanity lay in being able to +recognize the real from the unreal. The real was their shell. The unreal +consisted of the fantasies produced by the process of evaporation. This +sanity, too, enabled them to regard their imaginings and dreamings with +an amused condescension and to mature into unruffled +effigies--practical, hard-headed business men. + +The evaporation, however, influenced them in one vital respect. It +effected what they called their taste in the arts. They desired things +they read or listened to in the theater to be authentic interpretations +not of the realities about them but of the illusions in which they +secretly exhausted themselves. They desired the heroes and heroines of +literature and drama to be like the creatures and excitements of the +soap-bubble worlds bursting conveniently about their hard heads. And so +in their reading and theater going they enjoyed only those things which +afforded a few hours of vicarious reality to the grotesqueries, to the +fairy tale expansions of their departing dreams. + +During the last years of his life Basine had experienced the fullest +rewards of a virtuous, practical life. At fifty he had become empty. The +rigmarole of day dreams grew vaguer and finally ceased. He had become +bored with his grandiose and illusory selves. Don Juan, Napoleon, +Croesus, no longer wore the features of Basine. There was no longer any +thrill in idly decorating his tomorrows with kaleidoscopic +make-believes. + +There was no great tragedy in this. He was bored with his imagination +because he had run through the repertoire of his fancies too often and +so, slowly, his days grew more and more void of unrealities. Slowly also +he turned to the tangible things around him. He contemplated proudly the +details of his shell. It was a comforting shell. It fitted him snugly. +It consisted of his friends, his home, his children, his borrowed ideas, +his wife. + +No outward change was to be noticed in Basine _pere_ when this happened. +There was nothing to say that the process of evaporation had ended and +that there was left an animate husk called Howard Basine; a husk that +did not mourn at the knowledge of its emptiness but that accepted +instead with piety and gratitude the presence of other husks, pleased +and warmed to move among their empty companionships. + +It was at this time that Basine proudly felt himself a worthwhile member +of society and grew to smile with tolerant disdain upon all persons who +busied themselves with the illusions he had overcome by the simple +process of denying them life. He called them fools, scoundrels, lunatics +and dreamers and he agreed with his friends that they were creatures +engaged in filling the world with discomfort and error. His dislike for +them did not make him unhappy for he was content in the flattering +knowledge that most people, everybody he knew and whose opinion he +valued, were like himself. His thoughts were nearly everybody's thoughts +and his life was like everybody's life. There was a sense of strength, +even satisfaction in this. He relapsed gracefully into a quiet emptiness +out of which he was able to derive final embalming fluid for his vanity +by pitying the distractions and unrest of others. + +Then he died. The sight of her husband lying under the glass of the +coffin had reminded Mrs. Basine of the curious fact that in their youth +love had brought them together. A memory burrowed its way from under the +debris of twenty-six years and confronted her. A memory of wild nights, +flushed cheeks, shining eyes, hope and careless words. And the dim +yesterday, the long-forgotten yesterday that lay in the coffin with the +paunchy figure of the bald-headed silk-merchant became suddenly real +again. + +When she was alone that night Mrs. Basine wept miserably for a love that +had died twenty-five years ago and lain buried and unmourned under the +debris of these years. A tardy exhibition of grief, sincere but +enfeebled by its own age, it spent itself in a few hours. The tears for +the memory of vanished youth and vanished love of which the body waiting +in the coffin had become for a space of grotesque symbol, were followed +by the inarticulate sense of an anti-climax. + +Howard Basine's dying was somehow not a tragedy to the woman who had +lived with him for twenty-six years. When she had wept at first, the +idea of death came like a panic to her heart. Things had died. Days, +nights, hopes had died. But she had been unaware of their dying. The +figure of her husband leaving for his day's work, returning from his +day's work, sitting at the head of the table, retiring to bed with +her--this had been a mask behind which the dying of things remained +concealed. + +Now that he had closed his eyes and vanished it was as if a mask had +been removed. One could see all at once all the things that had died. +And she saw not only Howard lying dead, but most of herself. In her mind +she had no memory of the illusory selves she had lived, like her +husband, alone. These illusory selves whose successes and romances she +had caressed in secret had of late abandoned her. Like her husband she +had turned to the shells they had created about themselves as the +comforting reward of her life's negation. + +Now it struck her that these shells were full of dead things. While he +lived they had seemed alive. The fact that the man with whom she had +survived twenty-six years continued to talk and to move had given her +the vague feeling that these years were also still alive, still existent +somewhere. Now the man was dead and the years were dead with him. They +had been dead all the while but they had not lain in a coffin for one to +look at like this. + +Dead years. And she, a survivor. Her sense of contact with the past +deserted her. She was alone. Everything that had been was no more and it +seemed during her grief as if it had never existed. + +She lay and wept, feeling that something had been terribly wasted. Once +there had been youth. Now there was age. She had already lived but how, +where? Look, she was already old but how had it happened? She who could +remember so many things about youth--her pretty face, her careless +hopes, bright, happy excitements; and most of all, the feeling that +things lay ahead--that a store of mysterious things waited for her--she +who could remember it so plainly was an old woman. It had seemed natural +before he died but now it seemed unnatural. She would die soon, too. Her +youth--something she thought of as youth, arose and stretched out +far-away arms to her. It came to her in the night and stood smiling at +her like a ghost of herself. Yes, she was already dead and she could lie +in bed weeping for her husband and staring with tired eyes at memories. +Thoughts did not disturb her. Her emotions, grown too involved for the +shallows of her mind, gave her the consciousness merely of a panic. + +But the panic left. It receded slowly and the death of her husband +stirred in her during the first weeks of mourning a gentle affection for +the man. She closeted herself with the memories that had terrified +her--sensual memories of an impetuous lover, an idealization of a +long-forgotten Howard. And her sorrow became like a vague honeymoon +shared with slowly dissolving erotic shadows. + +This too went. As it went away the widow became curiously younger in her +features, her black clothes, her mannerisms. She grew to find the +loneliness of her bed desirable. She would snuggle kittenishly between +the empty sheets, an unintelligible sense of immorality--as if it were +immoral to sleep alone--lending a luxury to her weariness. + +Yes, it was somehow nicer to sleep alone, to have the bedroom all to +herself. In her mind things that were different from the routine of her +life and that belonged to the secret imaginings that had once filled her +days were immoral. And this was different--being alone. So her living +on without her husband became an odd sort of infidelity, pleasant, +diverting. + +The year and a half passed bringing a rejuvenation to her body. Her +youth and its decline were buried in a coffin. Now at fifty-two she was +living again and creating out of the remains of her figure, coiffure and +complexion a new youth--at least a new exterior. + +The dreams of her earlier days returned to her and she no longer found +it necessary to deny them all reality. It had been necessary before in +order to keep herself fitted into the shell. And as a result her dreams, +denied any possibility of realization, had become like his, more and +more fantastic, more and more warmly improbable. Now there was no need +for a shell. There was no need to preserve an easily recognizable and +never failing characterization. She had done that before so as to avoid +confusing her husband and herself and she had been rewarded by a similar +ruse employed by him. + +Now that he was gone she found herself changing. She found herself +approaching the romantic conception of herself. And since she was able +to carry into reality her rejuvenated fancies, to devote herself to +looking stunning, to making a somewhat exotic impression upon people, to +arousing interest--her imaginings did not expand as before into +distorted and improbable pictures. She began to busy herself, to +actively give them outlet, to have time or surplus energies for the +evolution of fancies beyond her. + +She had no plans for the future and she was not interested in any. An +amazing fact had come into her life--the present. She abandoned herself +to it. She had harnessed what was left of the energies allowed so long +to evaporate and the process of evaporation was at an end. She would +become, if there was time, a keenly alive, egoistic woman gorging +herself upon the desserts remaining at the banquet board before which +she had sat for twenty-six years with closed eyes and listless hands. + +She felt these things only dimly. There was a freedom to life, like a +new taste in her senses. Of this she was confusedly aware. And her +sorrow for her dead husband became a pleasant thing, a thing inseparable +from the gratitude she unknowingly felt for the new existence his death +had given her. + +She referred to him with a pensively magnanimous air, inventing +perfections in his character and endowing his departed intelligence with +a wisdom far beyond her own. This enabled her to utilize his memory in +an odd way. When she argued with her friends or children, when she was +doubtful concerning the extravagance or selfishness of her actions, or +the newly born radicalism of her views, she would quote mercilessly from +her dead husband. The fact that he was dead lent a sanctity to whatever +views he may have held. Not in her own eyes but, as she shrewdly sensed, +in the eyes of others. And she grew to play unscrupulously upon this +thing she perceived in her children and friends--that they respected the +words and opinions of a dead man infinitely more than those of one +alive. + +Thus she was able to indulge herself in ways which would have astounded +and perhaps horrified the departed Basine and to bring her immediate +circle to accept these ways as conventionally desirable by making her +dead husband their spiritual sponsor. Her friends chafed under this +ruse, but felt themselves powerless to combat it. They were men and +women who lived on the opinions of the dead, who subscribed fanatically +to all ideas sanctified by the length of their interment. Themselves, +they practised the ruse of editing the wisdoms of the past as well as +prophecies of the future into vindications of the present. They felt +indignant but powerless before the treachery of Mrs. Basine, who raided +the mausoleum for private articles of faith. + +Mrs. Basine was aware at first of lying but this feeling gave way to a +conviction that if her husband had not thought and said the things she +attributed to him while he was alive he would have done so had he +continued to live. + +"Because," she said to herself, "we were always alike and thought and +said the same things always." + +Her son George was proud of his mother but inclined to be dubious about +the change that had come over her. He was irritated particularly one +evening to hear his mother advocate equal suffrage rights for women to a +group of surprised friends gathered at their home. + +"I think such ideas foolish and dangerous," George explained politely. + +"Why?" his mother inquired. + +Basine shook his head. He had given the subject no thought. But a +militant defense of the status quo inspired him always with a +comfortable feeling of rectitude. + +"I see no reason," pursued Mrs. Basine, "why women shouldn't vote as +well as men. I remember your father was very much interested in the +issue of women's suffrage. He said the day would come when women voted +shoulder to shoulder with men and that the country would be improved by +it." + +Basine stared at his mother. He had grown to realize that she had +discovered the trick of lending weight and irrefutable wisdoms to her +own notions by surrounding them with the sanctity of death. For it was +almost impossible to fly in the face of a quotation from his father. The +fact that the man was dead seemed to make contradiction of any ideas or +prophecies attributed to him a sacrilege. There was also the fact +becoming daily more obvious that his mother was turning into an +unscrupulous administrator of the dead man's opinions. + +"I never heard father say anything of the kind," he exclaimed suddenly. +And then feeling that a loss of temper was the only way in which he +could cover the affront he had offered his mother, he added with +indignation, "You keep backing up your arguments by dragging dad's +corpse into them all the time." + +Mrs. Basine looked at him in amazement, and he reddened. He apologized +quickly. Mrs. Basine, shocked by her son's unexpected penetration, bit +her lip and became silent. She let the argument pass, not without +observing that her friends present appeared for a moment to rally around +her son's expose--as if he had given words to their own attitude. She +decided when she was alone again to be more careful. She loved her son +and felt a dread of sacrificing his respect. There was a dread also of +sacrificing the respect of these others who had looked at her for a +moment with an accusing understanding. + +There had been present a Mrs. Gilchrist, an old creature of oracular +senilities whom she had grown secretly to detest. But the detestation +she felt was accompanied by a vivid desire to keep in with the woman. +Mrs. Gilchrist was a person of position, decided position. Her son +Aubrey was a novelist. This alone endowed the Gilchrist tribe with an +aura of culture. They lived in Evanston and were active, mother and son, +in the social life of the town. + +Mrs. Basine was unable as yet to determine the reasons that made her +dislike her. In her secret mind she called Mrs. Gilchrist a domineering +old fool. But she stopped with that. There was the Gilchrist social +position. + +Society had always interested Mrs. Basine. But since her widowhood this +interest had become active. She had read the society columns of the +newspapers regularly and through the twenty-six years of her married +life retained the singular idea that the people whose names appeared in +these columns belonged to a closely knit organization similar to the +Masons--only of course, infinitely superior. + +The appearance of a new name among the list of socially known always +stirred an indignation in her. She was not a bounder herself. The +closely knit organization whose members poured tea, gave bazaars, +occupied boxes at the theater had been, in her mind, a fixed and +invulnerable institution neither to be taken by storm nor won by +strategy. Thus she had excused her lack of social ambition and success +by investing Society with an almost magical aloofness, a sort of +superhuman cotorie of tea pourers and benefit givers that kept itself +intact and beyond intrusion by the exercise of incredible diligence. + +Among her day dreams during these years had been those of magnificent +social successes, of long newspaper articles describing with awe her +splendor and prestige. But in reality she would as soon have thought of +breaking into society as of attacking twelve policemen with a carving +knife. She resented therefore the appearance of new names in the society +columns. + +"Bounders," she would murmur to herself, half expecting that the +Organization into which they had bounded would issue some outraged and +withering excommunication upon the new tea pourer. But the name would +appear again and again and after such innumerable appearances Mrs. +Basine would automatically accept its presence within the Organization +and rally quixotically to its defense against the other bounders +struggling to invade the sanctity it had achieved. + +And although during this period of her life Mrs. Basine had felt none of +the low instincts which inspired the bounders to bound, she had +endeavored to the best of her abilities to mimic as much as a humble +outsider could the spiritual elegancies which distinguished the +Organization. She succeeded in creating a formal atmosphere about her +home, a dignity about her table of which she was modestly proud. She had +felt in secret that any member of the Organization entering her +house--an event of which she dreamed as a waveringly sophisticated child +might dream of a fairy's visit--would have experienced no dismay. + +Now this attitude which had characterized her married life was changing. +Society was no longer an impregnable Organization. Mrs. Basine was, in +fact, engaged determinedly upon its conquest and her attitude toward +the detestable Mrs. Gilchrist was colored by that fact. An +acquaintanceship with the Gilchrists had been achieved through +manoeuverings of her daughters as workers in charity bazaars managed +by the woman. + +Until the death of her husband Mrs. Basine had ignored her two +daughters. A proprietory feeling in them which exhausted itself in +dictating the surface details of their lives had been the extent of her +interest. She had presumed during their childhood and adolescence that +they were Basines--and nothing else. This had guided her parenthood. +Being Basines, they must conform to Basinism which meant that they must +be like their mother or their father and she struggled carelessly to see +that their youth did not assert itself in ways inimical to her own +characterization. Doris the younger was inclined to be beautiful. Fanny, +however, had always seemed to her a more substantial person. + +But her widowhood had brought a belated curiosity concerning these young +women. She wondered at times what their dreams were. She understood that +they were strangers and this began to interest her. She was proud of +them and although undemonstrative would sometimes put her arms around +both of them as they walked to a neighbor's after dinner. + +They did not inspire the pride in her, however, that her son did. George +had finished his law and she felt as she listened to him talk or watched +his face at the table that he was somebody. There was an assurance and +health about him. His keen-featured face, the straight black hair parted +in the center, the movements of his lithe body, always quick and +definite--and particularly his hands--these made her think of him +vaguely as an artist, somebody different. She knew in her heart that +although he seemed to differ in his ideas from none of their friends, he +was not like other young men. + + + + +3 + + +It was Sunday morning. Mrs Basine and her two daughters were sitting +down to breakfast. Hugh Keegan followed Basine embarrassedly into the +dining room. The two young men had been renovating themselves for an +hour in the bathroom. + +The meal started casually. Fanny Basine studied their guest with what +was meant to be a provoking carelessness. She was a facile virgin who +wooed men persistently and slapped their faces for misunderstanding her. + +"You've been quite a stranger, Mr. Keegan," she said. Her eyes smiled. +Keegan felt wretched. He was conscious of being unclean. The fresh, +virginal face of the girl smiling at him filled him with rage. He +accepted a waffle from Mrs. Basine with exaggerated formality. + +He was not enraged with himself. This was too difficult. It was easier, +simpler to be repentant. His repentance did not accuse him as a man who +had sinned but denounced the things which had caused him to sin and made +him unclean. To himself he was essentially perfect. There were forces, +however, which infringed upon his perfection, which soiled his fine +qualities. + +Eating his waffle, he thought of the creature with whom he had spent +the night, of the dismal bedroom, the frowsy smelling hallway, the +coarse talk and viciousness of the entire business. And he began to feel +a rage against them. He would like to wipe such things out of the world. +He managed to answer Miss Basine politely. + +"I've been out of town a great deal," he said. + +"George always said you were a gadfly," Fanny replied. + +Mrs. Basine spoke. + +"You look rather tired, George." She gazed pensively at her son. "I +don't like you to stay out all night like that." + +Basine frowned. What did his mother mean by that? Did she suppose he had +spent the night in debauchery? It sounded that way from the way she +looked and talked. Basine grew angry. He did not want his mother to +accuse him. + +"You don't expect a man to remain cooped up night and day, do you?" + +"Oh, I don't mind your going out. But not the way you did last night." + +She looked at him and then, as if realizing for the first time the +presence of her daughters, changed her manner. + +"Won't you have some syrup, Mr. Keegan." + +Keegan thanked her and lowered his eyes. He had understood her +accusation and accepted it as authentic. He had no mother of his own and +this inspired in him a curious sense of obedience toward all mothers he +encountered. Mrs. Basine's accusation embarrassed him. The embarrassment +increased his disgust for the memory of the night. He would like to +wipe out such obscene and vulgar things. He would like to burn them up, +forbid them. Someday he would. + +Basine, however regarded his mother with a sense of outrage. The fact +that her surmise of what he had done during the night was correct was a +matter of minor importance. She didn't know what he had done and +therefore she had no right to guess. He answered her angrily. + +"I did nothing at all last night that I wouldn't have my sisters do." + +His mother looked at him in surprise. Keegan blushed. + +"You're always hinting around, mother, about things and you're +absolutely wrong. Absolutely," he added for a clincher. His eyes +remained unflinchingly on his mother. + +There was a convincing air of virtue about him and a doubt entered her +mind. Perhaps she had suspected him unjustly. But he had been away all +night. She had heard him come in around six. Where could he have been if +not--in such places? Yet she felt like apologizing. + +Basine fiddled with his food. He was acting out the part of injured +innocence. He was an unprotesting martyr to the low suspicions of his +family. The fact that he was guilty in no way interfered with the +sincerity of his injured feelings. His mother's accusation had sincerely +hurt him, even more than it would had he been actually innocent of wrong +doing. He transferred whatever emotional guilt he had into indignation +toward his accuser. + +This was an old trick of his, developed early in childhood--a faculty +of committing crimes without becoming a criminal. More than Keegan, he +was above self-accusation. But unlike Keegan the doing of a thing he +knew to be wrong did not inspire him with the adroit remorse which took +the form of hating the thing he had done instead of himself. + +The crimes Basine committed--usually no greater than normal violations +of the ethical code to which he subscribed--were things that had nothing +to do with the real Basine. The real Basine was the Basine whom people +knew. The real Basine was a characterization he maintained for the +benefit of others. The crimes were his own secret. People didn't know +them. Therefor they did not exist. They remained locked away. He did not +say to himself, "Hypocrite! Liar!" + +When he denied his mother's accusation he did not of course forget the +things he had done during the night. In fact even while he spoke there +came to him a vivid memory of the prostitute. + +In disproving the existence of this memory he was not disproving it for +himself but for his mother. His energy as usual was bent toward +presenting a certain Basine for the admiration of another. The Basine he +sought to create for the admiration of his family was a moral and honest +man. When they seemed inclined to challenge this creation, their +suspicions angered him. + +His attitude was that of a creator toward a hostile critic. He +frequently lost his temper and denounced their suspicions as unjust, +unfair. And in his mind, conveniently clouded by indignation, they were. +Not to himself as he was, but to the self he insisted upon pretending at +the moment he was. + +This self was the Basine he was continually creating--a Basine that was +not based upon deeds or truths or facts but upon ideals. It was an ideal +Basine--a nobly edited version of his character. He believed in this +ideal Basine with a curious passion. This ideal Basine was a mixture of +lies, shams, perversions of fact. But that was only when you considered +him in relation to his creator--to its original. In his own mind it was +as absurd to consider this ideal Basine in relation to its creator as it +would have been for a critic of aesthetics to consider the merits of +Oscar Wilde's poetry in relation to the degeneracy of the man. + +Considered by himself, the ideal Basine was a person of inspiring +virtues. He was proud of the things he pretended to be, vicious in their +defense, unswerving in his efforts to inspire others with an +appreciation of these pretenses. + +His anger toward his mother ebbed as he noticed the doubt come into her +manner. She had hesitated for a moment in face of significant facts, in +accepting the ideal Basine. But her son's sincerity had convinced her as +it convinced most people who knew him. The sincerity with which he +defended the idealization of himself was easily to be mistaken for a +sincerity inspired by an innocence of actual wrong-doing. + +As soon as he felt certain he had re-established the ideal Basine in his +mother's eyes, all thoughts of the facts passed from him. The admiring +opinion of others was what his nature desired and what his energies +worked for. Once obtained this admiration was a mirror in which he saw +himself only as he had argued others into seeing him. + +He looked at his friend Keegan with a smile. Keegan was still blushing. +Keegan knew that he had lied and that the entire pose was a sham. But +this only added another thrill to the fleeting self-satisfaction of +having re-established himself in his family's eyes. He enjoyed the +knowledge that Keegan was able to see what a successful liar he was and +how adroitly he managed to deceive people. This enjoyment was not a part +of the emotion of the ideal Basine. It was a purely human sensation felt +by Basine, the creator. + +There was a single flaw in his little triumph. This was, as usual, the +attitude of his sister Doris. While the others were chattering Doris +kept silent. She had dark eyes and black hair. She was entirely unlike +anybody in the Basine family. Fanny was blonde and vivacious with a pout +and full red lips. Before the death of her husband Mrs. Basine had +summed up her daughter Doris as being aristocratic. + +At fifteen Doris had been painfully shy. People smiled encouragingly at +her because she seemed afraid of them. Four years later people ceased to +smile at her. They looked at her out of the corners of their eyes and +wondered what she was thinking about. Her silence was like a confusing +argument. Had it not been for her beauty her silence could easily have +been dismissed. But her dark eyes and dark hair, the slightly lowered +pose of her oval face and the unvarying line of her fresh lips with the +little sensual bulges at their corners, drew the attention of people. +And their attention drawn, they waited to be told something. So merely +because she told nothing they fancied she had a great deal to tell. They +attributed to her silence all the doubts they had concerning +themselves. Silence was to them always accusation. + +Her brother's attitude toward Doris was typical. He detested her and yet +was more pleased when she nodded at something he said than when others +were loud with acclaim. He detested her because she made him feel she +was his superior. In what way she was superior he didn't know and why he +felt it he couldn't understand. But he sensed she was someone who had no +respect for the ideal Basine and no particular love for his creator. + +She had also a way of deflating him. He felt sometimes as a toy balloon +might feel in the presence of a child with a pin. He never ignored her. +He watched her always and studied her carefully. He did not desire to +please her but he felt that until he had perfected the ideal Basine to a +point where he would be acceptable to Doris, admired by Doris, his +creation would be lacking in something vital. + +As the breakfast came to an end her brother focused upon Doris. This was +invariably the effect of her silence. She was as yet unconscious of it. +Had you asked her why she spoke so little and why she neither smiled nor +frowned at people she would have thought a while and then with a shrug +replied, "Why, I hadn't noticed." Later when she was alone she would +have continued thinking of the question and perhaps said to herself, "It +must be because they don't interest me. They seem so silly and unreal." + +"What are you doing today?" Basine asked her. + +She answered, "Nothing." He noticed she failed to add, "Why?" He +resented her lack of curiosity. Fanny would have said, "Nothing. Why do +you ask?" But Fanny was a good fellow, a lively, amusing child. + +"Mrs. Gilchrist and Aubrey are coming over later," Mrs. Basine +announced. + +"She makes me tired," Fanny smiled. "And somebody ought to pull dear +Aubrey's nose just to see if he's really alive. He's too dignified." + +Her brother nodded. + +"Do you know him?" Fanny asked Keegan. + +"Slightly," said Keegan. "I've read one or two of his books. They're +very interesting." He paused, hoping that everyone agreed with him. +Everyone did except Doris. + +"What's the matter, Dorie? Don't you like Aubrey's works?" her brother +asked. Doris smiled vaguely. + +"I've never read anything he's written," she said. "I don't know." + +Keegan looked at her uncomfortably. He felt he disliked her and he would +have been pleased to ignore her. But the fact that she seemed to have +anticipated him in this respect and to have ignored him first, piqued +him. + +"I think Judge Smith and Henrietta will be over later," Basine addressed +his mother. Judge Smith was the august and senior partner of the law +firm that had taken young Basine into its office. + +"Yes, Aubrey told me," Mrs. Basine said casually. "I think they're +engaged." + +"Who, Henrietta?" from Fanny. + +Her mother nodded. She stood up and the group sauntered into the living +room. Keegan approached Fanny. Her freshness made him feel sad. + +"Let's sit here," Fanny whispered as he drew near her. She employed the +whisper frequently. It usually brought a gleam into the eyes of her _vis +a vis_ as if she had promised something. + +To appear to promise something was Fanny's chief object in life. It was +the basis of her growing popularity. The two sat down in a corner of the +room secluded from the others. Keegan had interested her. At least his +far-away, unappraising look had interested her. She preferred men more +appraising and less far-away. Her object now was to reduce her brother's +friend to an admirer. Admirers bored her. But the process of converting +strangers, particularly far-away and unappraising strangers, into +admirers was diverting. + +Keegan had other plans. A desire to repent aloud had been growing in +Keegan. The girl's bright face and virginal air had been inspiring him. +He wanted to tell her how unclean he was and how ashamed of the things +he had done. He wanted to denounce sin. + +He felt tired. Fanny talked and he listened. He wanted to weep. He +thought her fingers were beautiful and white. He would have liked to +kneel beside her weeping, his head against her and her cool white +fingers running over his face. It would be a sort of absolution--a +maternal absolution. In the meantime his silence piqued her. + +"You don't seem very interested in what I'm saying," she interrupted +herself. She looked at him and instinct supplied her with a new attack. + +"Where were you and George last night?" she asked. "Mother was furious +about it." + +Keegan looked sad. His blond face collapsed. + +"Men are awful rotters," he answered, lowering his voice. + +"Oh I don't know. Not all men." + +"Yes. All men." Savagely. + +"Why do you say that?" + +"Because--" Keegan hesitated. Mysterious impulses were operating behind +his talk. The night's debauch had sickened him. He was experiencing that +depressing type of virtue which usually comes as a reaction from an +orgy. His indignation at the bestiality of the male and the moral +rotteness of life was a vindication of the temporary weakened state the +night had induced in him. By denouncing sex he excused the disturbing +absence of it in himself. + +He was however not content to vindicate the absence in himself of +sensual excitement. He would also make use of his lassitude by +translating the enervation it produced into self-ennobling emotions, +into purity, innate and triumphant. He experienced high-minded ideas and +an exaltation of spirit. + +"Because," he repeated, finding it difficult to choose words +sufficiently emasculated to reflect the phenomenal purity of his mind, +"well, if women knew, they would never talk to men. But women are so +good, that is, decent women, that they simply don't understand and can't +understand ... what it is." + +"About bad men?" Fanny whispered. Keegan nodded. + +"And are all men bad?" she asked. + +Again Keegan nodded, this time more sadly. It was a nod of confession +and purity. In it he felt his obscene past and his pious future embrace +each other, one whispering "forgive" and the other whispering "yes, +yes. All is forgiven." + +Tears warmed his throat. Fanny's eyes looked at him with an odd +excitement. Her mind was as always conveniently blank of thought. +Thoughts would have served only to embarrass and handicap her. She was +able to enjoy herself more easily without thinking. It was a ruse which +enabled her to regard herself as a clean-minded girl. + +Young men had frequently taken advantage of her kindness and grown bold. +They would during a tender embrace sometimes take liberties or draw her +close and press themselves against her. It was at this point that her +mind would awake like a burglar alarm suddenly set off. It rang and +clanged--an outraged and intimidating ding-dong of virtuous platitudes +which she had incongruously rigged up in the sensual warmth of her +nature. But lately the mechanism by which she routed her would-be +seducers did not quite satisfy her. + +At twenty she had grown fearful. When she was younger the men she led on +were no more than boys. The mechanism had sufficed for them. But the +last two years had witnessed a change in her would-be seducers. They had +grown up, these males. She remembered always uncomfortably a young man +who had burst into laughter during her outraged denunciation of him. He +had said to her. + +"Listen, girl. If I wanted you, all I would have to do is tell you to +shut up and slap your face. And you would. Your 'how dare you?' don't go +with me. I've known too many girls like you. But I don't want you. Not +after this. If it'll do you any good I'll tell you now that I won't +forget you for a long time. Whenever I want a good laugh I'll think of +you. There's a name for your kind...." + +And he had used a phrase that nauseated her. The incident had occurred +on a Sunday evening in the hallway. He had reached up, taken his hat +from the rack and without further comment walked out. + +Fanny had spent the night weeping with shame. The memory of the young +man's words made spooning impossible for a month. She was essentially an +honest person and unable to do a thing she knew was wrong. Her only hope +of pleasing herself and indulging her growing sensuality lay in +remaining sincerely oblivious to what she was doing. As long as the +man's words stuck in her memory it was impossible to remain oblivious. +They had awakened no line of reasoning or self-accusation in her mind. +Her mind was still conveniently blank. The youth's denunciation lay like +a foreign substance in it, a substance which fortunately time was able +to dissolve. + +After a month of embittered virtue Fanny returned warily to her former +tactics. She was cautious enough to begin with men as young as herself. + +One night in April she gave her lips again. They had been making candy +in the kitchen. She turned the light out as they were leaving. The young +man stood in front of her in the dark. His arms went shyly around her. +With a satisfied thrill, she shut her eyes and allowed the boy to kiss +her. A languor overcame her. She ran her fingers through his hair and +gently pressed closer to him. + +The warning sounded sooner than usual, and in a surprising way. It came +from within this time. The boy had not grown bold. He was enjoying her +lips shyly and his embrace was almost that of a dancing partner. +Nevertheless the burglar alarm clang-clanged. Her body had grown hot. +The impulse to crush herself against the boy, to open her mouth, to +embrace him fiercely, throbbed in her, and bewildering sensations were +bursting unsatisfactory warmths in her blood. + +She hesitated. She might secretly yield to these demands. He would +remain unaware of it and there would be no danger. But the alarm finally +penetrated the fog of her senses. She was unable this time to shut off +the current of her passion by the burst of sudden virtuous anger. The +mechanism of her retreat had always been simple--a trick of turning her +sensual excitement into indignation, of energizing the virtuous +platitudes rigged up in her mind by the passion the caresses had +stirred. The greater this passion, the more violently her pulse beat, +the more violently the platitudes would clang and the more outraged her +"how dare you?" would sound. + +But it was impossible to say anything this time. Her hands pushed +suddenly at the politely amorous youth. His embrace skipped from her as +if it had been waiting for such a remonstrance. She stood with her head +whirling. She felt limp and ill at ease. + +"Don't you love me?" the young man whispered. The lameness of his voice +would ordinarily have made her smile. But now the words seemed to draw +her. She wanted to answer them, to say, "yes." For the moment it seemed +as if she must confess she loved this impossible young man. She walked +quickly out of the dark hallway. In the lighted room she was ashamed of +herself. Her body tingled with unaccountable pains. She managed to +survive the evening without revealing herself. She was grateful for the +youth's stupidity. + +When she lay in bed she closed her eyes firmly and tried to sleep. But +her body disturbed her. Sensations that lured and frightened played +furtively throughout it. She lay stretching and sighing. Later, overcome +with a nervous weariness, she fell asleep. + +On awaking she remembered her triumph and felt proud. In retrospect the +sensations she had felt and the temptations that had urged her seemed +distasteful. + +Years before she had rationalized her behavior toward young men by +inventing a code. The code was based on the fact that hugging and +kissing and the pleasure these inspired were in no way connected with +"the other." When she thought of more intimate relations it was always +in some such phrase. She was completely ignorant of the physiological +mechanics of marriage. But her ignorance inspired no curiosity. She did +not think of it as a logical culmination of the feeling embraces gave +her. She had a definite attitude toward "the other." It was a thing +separated from her numerous experiences by a gulf. There was only one +bridge across--marriage. + +Keegan interested her. Since the incident of the embarrassed young man +with whom she had made candy in the kitchen, she had been secretly on +the lookout for someone like him. She wanted someone with whom she could +repeat the startling experience of that other evening without letting +herself into danger. Someone who would remain oblivious to the passion +his caresses aroused and so allow her to enjoy slyly the sensations +whose memory had never left her. + +She looked around the room. Doris had gone upstairs and George was not +to be seen. Her mother was reading behind a large table. + +"Tell me, why are men bad?" she asked in a whisper. Her blue eyes were +wide. An air of altruistic sorrow surrounded her. She grieved for men. +The question appealed to Keegan. His eyes grew moist. He was unable to +understand this impulse to weep. But somehow it was pleasant. + +"They're not bad," he answered softly. "It's only that they don't +realize till too late. If all women were like you, there would be no bad +men." + +"Oh, then it's the woman's fault?" + +Keegan nodded but said, "Not exactly. It's like figuring which came +first into the world, the egg or the chicken that laid it. It's hard +telling whether women are bad because men have made them so or whether +men are bad because women give them chances to be. That is, that kind of +women, you know." + +He felt elated at his tolerance. A few minutes ago he had been +denouncing bad women in his mind. But now it pleased him to be broader. +Fanny was looking at him with cheeks flushed. Her mother had risen. + +"I think I'll go to church," Mrs. Basine said. "Do you want to come +along." + +"Not today, mother dear," Fanny answered. Keegan was on his feet. + +"If you want to," he offered gallantly to the girl. + +"I usually love to," Fanny sighed. "But I don't feel quite like it +today. You go along, mother." + +Mrs. Basine smiled and left the room. Fanny heard her brother talking +in the hall.... "I think I'll go with you, mother." She listened to +Keegan in silence, waiting for the outer door to close. Now they were +alone except for Doris, upstairs. + +"I know how you must feel about it," she said. "But I don't understand +how a man like you or George can do such things. It must be awful." She +paused, blushing and added in a whisper, "Horrible!" + +Keegan nodded and felt overcome as he watched her shudder and draw her +shoulders nervously together. He covered his face with his hands. This +was, he felt, being almost too dramatic--to hide his face. But his +virtue demanded dramatics. He wanted to talk facts now, confess facts. +By denouncing what he had done during the night he would increase his +present emotion of chastity. + +"Don't," he said, "lets talk of it." + +His eyes grew wet again. He was tired. If only life were as clean as +this girl he was talking to.... If only life were beautiful and chaste. +And there were no sex. No sin. Men and women just sweet friends. But +life was different. It was full of unclean things. He couldn't help it, +what he did. He didn't want to do it. But life surrounded him that way +with things unclean. He wept. + +Fanny hesitated. Her face had grown colored and her nerves were alive. +She must do something. Her fingers desired to caress Keegan's hair and +she thought how nice it would be to be kissed by him. But she resolutely +barred further thoughts from her mind. It was wrong to think about such +things. Fanny's code would allow her to do nothing wrong--if she knew +it. She leaned forward impulsively. He was sitting on a window seat. +Her hands touched his covered face. + +"You mustn't," she said. + +He was sorry for life, for its uncleanliness. He would like to go +somewhere far away where clean clouds and a beautiful sea were just as +God had made them. And there he would like to sit with this girl, their +hearts beautifully sad. + +She stroked his hair shyly with maternal fingers. He felt the caress and +his heart melted. Its sin poured out leaving him exaltedly cleansed. +Yes, she understood him, the ache of repentance in his soul, the +nostalgia for cleanliness that hurt him so. She understood and she was +telling him so with her fingers. + +"Poor boy," she whispered because he was weeping. "I'm so sorry. You +won't, again? Ever? Will you?" + +"No," Keegan mumbled tremulously. + +It was easy and exalting to confess and promise in this way, without +mentioning anything by name. Just by sound. + +"I'm so glad," she whispered, as if they were in church, "if I have done +that for you...." + +"You have," he agreed. "I feel like a ... like a dog." + +"Don't...." + +Her fingers were playing over his cheek. She could be bold. A man in +tears was harmless. She stood up with determination and sat down close +beside him. She took his head in her hands and looking with clear +understanding eyes into his, shook her head sadly. + +"You need a rest," she whispered. "Here ... rest like this." + +She placed his head as if he were a child on her shoulder. Keegan's +heart contracted with remorse at the innocence of the gesture. Her +purity was something poignant. He closed his eyes and drifted into an +innocuous satisfaction. This was a realization of his hopes for purity. +He recalled with bitterness the filthy embraces of the night. How +superior this was, how much cleaner. + +"Wait a minute," Fanny murmured, a wholesome matter-of-fact maternalism +in her voice, "you lie down and rest ... like this." + +She assumed the proprietory gestures remembered from her childhood when +she had "played house" with little boys and girls, and guided Keegan to +stretch his legs on the window seat. He grinned apologetically. Fanny +sat down and placed his head in her lap, her hands gently caressing his +hair. + +"Now sleep," she murmured. "There's nobody in the house and you can get +a good long rest." + +Keegan shut his eyes. A blissful enervation stole over him. His heart +felt grateful. She was like a mother might be. Everyone had a mother +except him. + +"You're so kind," he sighed. + +He had known Fanny for several months only and had never talked to her +alone before. But now it seemed to him she was his oldest and most +intimate friend. Because she understood. He thought of her as a +companion of his better self. The warmth of her lap soothed him. +Unaware, he dropped into a half doze. + +The man's head lying heavily against her body began to stir her senses. +She made certain first that he was not pressing himself against her. No, +he was merely lying naturally. A tenderness grew in her heart. She +murmured to herself, "Poor boy, poor boy." + +This wasn't quite as it had been in the kitchen that evening. The murmur +continued as her face grew flushed and she breathed unevenly. She wanted +to stretch and sigh. + +Keegan stirred. A fear came that he realized her sensations. He was +playing possum. No. She watched his eyes open and noted their stare of +filmy tenderness. + +"You're so sweet," he whispered. + +She smiled pitifully at him and said, "Rest. Just rest. I feel so sorry +for you." + +In fact, imposed upon the excitement which the pressure of his head +against her aroused, was a feeling of Samaritan pity. However, she +wondered without displacing this emotion of altruistic concern for the +young man, how far she dared go. She wished that his hands would touch +her but they would have to stand up for that. + +"Oh!" + +She moved Keegan's head gently away. + +"I thought I heard someone." + +Slipping to her feet she stared eagerly toward the door. Keegan +straightened himself. He looked at her drowsily. + +"It's no one," she smiled. Her eyes covered him with tender interest. He +thought of some picture of a saint--Saint Cecelia or someone like that. + +"Why don't you go up in George's room?" she asked. + +She gave him her hand as if to assist him in a comradely way to rise. He +stood up slowly. + +"You don't know what you've done for me," he began, "you're so different +... so good." + +She smiled and made a pretense of assisting him further by passing her +arm gently around him. + +"I don't know what it is," he murmured. He stopped. His heart was +hurting him with longing. He was unclean. But this beautiful saint would +cleanse him, purify him. She was a part of life he desired--the clean +things. But he was afraid. How could he after last night, how could he +dare? She would certainly misunderstand if he touched her. She would +think he was a scoundrel. + +"Fanny," he whispered. + +She looked at him with intensely tender eyes as a mother might regard a +forgiven child. He embraced her, his hands resting only lightly on her +back. + +"Forgive me," he mumbled. "But everything's so rotten. I feel like such +a cad after what I've done. You ... you make me almost happy again." + +His mind was pleasantly fogged. He was thinking of himself as a +despicable sinner receiving mysterious absolution. + +She said nothing but let herself come closer. She was adroit and he +remained unaware that she had pressed herself tautly against him. He was +concerned entirely with the purity of his caress. He read in her eyes +and flushed face a forgiveness, an absolution. Her grip on him that had +grown firm was the grip of a woman raising him out of the Hell in which +he had wallowed. His senses, deadened by debauch, failed to detect the +pressure of her clinging. + +She could dare. An intensity came slowly into her nerves. She would like +to move, to crush herself against him. But she managed to restrain +herself. She began to weep. + +"Don't," he whispered. "You mustn't. I'm ... I'm not as bad as all +that." + +She managed to say, "Oh ... I feel so sorry for you. It just hurts me to +... to think of you like that. Promise me you'll never again.... +Please.... Promise me.... Promise me...." + +Her words, despite her, grew wild. She raised her eyes feverishly and, +tightening her arms, pressed herself to him. The man's harmlessness had +betrayed her. She continued to weep, "Promise me ... you'll never ... be +bad like that again...." + +Her emotion reaching its depth sent a delicious sense through her. She +embraced him for a moment. In the receding fog of her satisfied impulse +she heard him answering, tears in his voice. + +"You're so sweet.... So wonderful. Oh, forgive me.... I'll never be bad +again.... Forgive me...." + + + + +4 + + +Judge Percival Smith was a fastidious gentleman who boasted of his age +as a contrast to his virility. + +"Sixty-two," he pronounced impressively. And he would wait for people to +look at him in amazement, fortunately unaware of the fact that they had +thought him at least seventy. + +His wife had died when he was forty-six. She had never managed to +understand him, chiefly because he had remained polite to her through +eighteen years of marriage. She had grown to regard him with awe. + +Her friends always referred to him as a gentleman--a gentleman of the +old school. This was because he had a deep voice and enunciated clearly +and professed a consistent preference for the days when men were men and +women were women. + +His friends mistook the clarity of his enunciation for a clarity of +thought--an error which found social vindication in the fact that he had +been on the bench nine years. Aside from his consistent preference, his +views on current issues were also those of a gentleman. Why, it was +difficult to determine. But he supplied their identity himself by +clinching his arguments with the question, "I don't see, sir, how a +gentleman can think otherwise." + +He was often considered old fashioned. But he was admired for this. In +discussing religion he would say: + +"I am not one to quibble with my Maker or with any of His holy +decisions. I believe absolutely in the gospel of infant damnation. A +religion with loopholes is not a religion. Either there is a God or +there isn't. If there is and you accept Him then you accept Him. You do +not argue with Him. I don't see, sir, how a gentleman can think +otherwise." + +Concerning women he would say: + +"Women represent the finer things of life. Not for them the turmoil and +strife of economic battle. Their function in the scheme of things is +obvious, sir. They were placed in the world by a wise Maker in order to +bring sweetness, purity and light to bear upon the strivings of man. A +woman's hearthstone is her altar. No, they are not the equal of man. +They are his complement. Man is gross. Woman is fine and sweet. I do not +believe in any of these disgusting ideas which seek to lower her from +the altar she now occupies in the eyes of all gentlemen." + +When he delivered himself of these utterances he managed always to give +to them the certainty of a man who was pronouncing judgments. He was +admired for this certainty. People who felt doubts in their minds were +always pleased to hear the Judge make pronouncements. They felt that it +was impossible that a man who spoke so clearly, whose eye looked so +unflinchingly at one and whose manners were so perfect, could be wrong. + +He might not be quite as modern as some folks but he knew what he was +talking about. He was the stentorian and impressive interpreter to them +of a world they understood. The ideas which flourished in this world +were in the main dead or dying. But this fact only lent a further +impressiveness to them and to him. + +People who sought to argue with Judge Smith usually ended by stuttering +and growing red-faced. They felt as they talked and watched his blue +eyes narrowing and his lips tightening, that they were talking +themselves outside of the pale. His silence became an excommunication. +They read ostracism in his frown and began to fumble for words, trying +to propitiate him in one breath while presenting their side of the case +to him in another. But he was not to be deceived by this ruse. He would +sit poised and grimly attentive like a man judiciously enduring the +presence of blasphemy but under great emotional strain. When they +concluded, it was frequently unnecessary for him to offer counter +arguments. His opponents felt their defeat in the knowledge of his +superiority, not as a thinker, but his superiority as a man of +inviolable standards, his superiority as a gentleman. + +In eighteen years of close contact his wife had never penetrated the +shell of certitude and personal elegance within which the judge moved. +During their hours of intimacy he revealed himself as a man of normal +passions. But even during these he was solicitous, unbending and a +gentleman. + +In the morning, dressed, his white napkin tucked under his ruddy face he +would be again--Judge Smith. + +She had tried several times early in their marriage to carry the +intimacy of the bedroom to the breakfast table. He had listened to her +endearments and furtive reminiscences at such moments with eyes +seemingly incapable of comprehending and she had felt each time that her +talk was obscene, and grown frightened. + +Her death brought no perceptible change in Judge Smith's life. He +continued a gentleman. His name appeared at intervals in the newspapers +as having gone to Washington to argue a case before the Supreme Court. +His friends felt on reading this that the Supreme Court was an +institution perfectly fitted to him. It was hard to imagine anybody but +a man who looked and acted like Judge Smith arguing a case in the +Supreme Court. + +The Smith home, a brownstone house in Prairie Avenue, was occupied by +the Judge, his daughter Henrietta and a housekeeper. Henrietta had +finished boarding school at nineteen. She had since then busied herself +as an assistant housekeeper. At twenty-one she impressed people with +being as naive and fresh as a girl of seventeen. It was hard to think +of her as in her twenties. + +She was a round-eyed, round-faced child with fluffy blonde hair, a +small-boned body and a general air of juvenile fragility. She talked +very little but bubbled with exclamations of delight, excitement, +enthusiasm, astonishment. These she was continually employing, +regardless of their incongruity. She greeted people with delight, +saying. + +"Oh! I'm so glad to see you! Isn't it wonderful?" And managed to scatter +a dozen exclamation marks through the sentences. If one said to her, +"Did you see Sothern and Marlowe last week?" she replied excitedly, "Oh +no! I missed them! I'm so sorry! Aren't they wonderful?" + +Asked for an opinion of a new hat she would exude the same exclamation +marks in, "Oh! It's simply too adorable for words! I'm just mad about +it!" + +And to such a remark as, "I read in the paper the other day that +President Roosevelt went fishing," she would offer a wide-eyed stare and +exclaim, overcome with astonishment, "Why! Gracious! Is that so! Isn't +that awfully funny!" And incomprehensibly, she would laugh as if +overcome with mirth. + +People regarded her as a charmingly vivacious, well-mannered girl. Her +exclamations pleased them by lending an importance to their small +talk--a small talk which constituted nearly the whole of their +conversational lives. Her explosive banalities invigorated them. They +said of her: + +"Judge Smith's daughter is so alive. She's so fresh and young and so +enthusiastic." + +Henrietta thought her father the greatest and most important man in the +world. She called him "FATHer," stressing the first syllable in a manner +that distinguished him from all other fathers. Her admiration satisfied +the judge. He demanded of her only obedience, respect and chastity. +Since she gave him these he looked upon her as a shining example of true +womanhood. + +To have searched for an inner life in Henrietta would have been +difficult. She was unaware of any other Henrietta than the surface she +presented. There was no secret calculation behind her manner. Her body +at twenty-one was still as undisturbed by desires as her mind was by +thought. + +She was physically and mentally vacuous and the words that sometimes ran +in her mind were parrotings of things she had heard. Her days passed in +a pleasant maze of trifles in which she exhausted her energies. Her +manner of enthusiasm and astonishment was sincere. In her exaggerated +exclamations the energies of her youth merely found a necessary and +utterly respectable outlet. Her banalities were too vigorous to be aught +but authentic and original. They were the enviably correct flower of her +personality. + +The judge, however, had a side to his nature generally unsuspected among +his friends. He was a drinker. He owed the resonant slowness of his +speech, in fact, to the ravages of drink. His poise, his intimidating +deliberateness were likewise the result of drink. His mind had been +somewhat enervated and the spontaneity of his nerves somewhat impaired +by thirty years of intensive drinking. + +His words followed his thoughts slowly and his gestures were moments +behind the commands of his brain centers. This general slowing up, the +result of nerve exhaustion induced by his orgies, was readily accepted +by his friends as an impressiveness of manner. + +In arguments he found himself frequently unable to follow the nimble +phrases of an opponent. His resort to silence--a silence made seemingly +pregnant by certain mannerisms such as a tightening of his lips, a +drawing down of his nose, and a narrowing of his eyes, which were +actually an effort to ward off a sleepiness continually hovering over +him--this silence was a successful substitute. + +Mainly the judge kept his orgies to himself. During his married life he +had adroitly covered them up as business trips--cases in other cities. +His habit was to start off at his club, to sit among a half dozen men +whose type he found agreeable and drink slowly during the early part of +the evening. The talk would gradually veer from politics and legal +discussions to women and anecdotes. In these the judge excelled. His +fund of obscene stories was amazing. He related them with relish and was +proud of an ability to talk several dialects such as German, Irish, +Yiddish, Scotch and Swedish. + +Among his club cronies his drinking and alcoholic waggery in no way +reflected upon his status as a gentleman of absolute respectability and +discretion. In fact they enhanced it. Among the judge's friends were +lawyers of repute, financiers, and owners of large manufacturing plants. +They were men usually past fifty. Their comradeship was based chiefly on +their recognition of each other's prestige. + +The publicity that had attended their lives gave them all an identical +stamp, a self-consciousness. They felt themselves instinct with power, +and bent the greater part of their social energies to appearing +democratic. They desired, as much as they desired anything, the flattery +which lay in the comment, "Oh, he's very democratic. Just plain ordinary +folks." They felt an exciting inference in this criticism. The inference +was that, considering their power and superiority, one had to marvel at +the fact of their dissimulation--their democracy. Thus they relished +always lending themselves to projects, to situations which earned for +them the awed avowal of inferiors that they were "just folks." + +A certain shrewdness as well as flattery which inspired them. They were +aware that people often preferred confessing the superiority of their +betters by admitting in awe that "after all, he's just like us, in many +respects." + +On occasions when a group of them gathered at their club they stepped +partly out of the characterizations of great men which they affected +during most of their day. Drinking, taking their turns telling stories +or pointing up incidents by the "did you ever hear the one about the +Swede who went to a picnic with his best girl" method, they always +welcomed Judge Smith. They were inclined to overlook a few things in his +favor. If he did seem to have an unnecessary fund of smutty tales, there +was on the other hand the fact that he was a judge and therefore above +the anecdotes he told. Like the judge, they too were men with firmly +rooted convictions on the subject of morality and if they laughed at +stories over their highballs that flouted decency and made a mock of +virtue there was this exonerating factor to be considered. Men sure of +themselves and subscribing unflinchingly to the uncompromising standards +of conduct necessary to maintain the morale of the community, such men +could without danger unbend among themselves. For morality was in its +deepest sense, the protection of others and not of one's self. + +As the group thinned out on such occasions Judge Smith would rise and in +the manner of a man returning to the higher and more important duties of +life bid his fellows good-night. + +"A very pleasant evening, gentlemen," he would pronounce, "but duty +calls." + +He would bow stiffly. Long drinking had made him master to an +astonishing point of his physical being while under the influence of +drink. Bowing, he would walk with dignity from the room, emerge into the +street and enter one of the cabs. + +A half-hour later would find him disporting himself in one of his +favorite disorderly houses. Here with the aid of further drink the judge +became a curious spectacle. He was generally hailed in the places that +knew him as "the wild old boy". And his arrival although greeted with +enthusiasm was a matter of secret chagrin to the landladies of his +acquaintance. + +It was his habit to indulge in filthy insults, hurling astounding +obscenities at the half-drunken inmates. He would frequently become +violent and throw bottles around, break mirrors and electric bulbs and +smash chairs. It was difficult to grow angry with him at such times +because he covered his violences and insults with a continuous roar of +laughter as if they were actually the product of a vast Rabelaisian good +humor. + +His insults, the obscene invective he hurled at the partners in his +orgy, were a curious phase. They were the product of a process of +projection. His normal mind, still alive under the paralysis of alcohol, +pronounced these outraged denunciations of his behavior against himself. +His virtue and decency cried a savage disgust and he must rid himself of +these cries, find an outlet for his self-revulsions, if he desired to +continue the debauch which was also an outlet for things inside +him--things that slept too violently under the repressions of his shell. + +Thus he rationalized his two selves by giving voice to the terrific +protests of his virtue. Simultaneously he hid himself from their object +by fastening the insults that poured into his thought upon those around +him. The women explained among each other in their own words that he was +a filthy old man and ought to be ashamed of himself. + + + + +5 + + +It was afternoon. Mrs. Basine listened to Judge Smith explaining the new +moving pictures that were being shown at the vaudeville theaters. + +"It's all part of the craze for new things," he was saying, "and these +awful pictures are merely a fad. There is nothing of basic appeal for +Americans in them and they'll die out in a year or so." + +Mrs. Basine was always impressed by the judge. He had three days before +been on one of his debauches. His manner as a result was heavier and his +words slower. After one of his wild nights the judge sought to efface +the memory of the uncleanliness by heightening his personal appearance. +He would indulge himself in Turkish baths, facial massages, hair +shampoos, manicures and changes of linen during the day. + +The sight of himself immaculately dressed, spotless, his face, collar, +nails and shoes shining, gave him a feeling of reassurance. Clothes and +appearance had more and more become a fetish with him until he had +developed into a fop. There was a certain passion in his demand for +cleanliness. A disordered tie would mysteriously depress him. A spot on +his trousers or shoes would preoccupy him until its removal. Once while +on his way from the theater he had been splashed by a horse. Unaware of +the accident at the time he had gone to a restaurant. There he had +noticed the condition of his clothes. The mud had reached as high as his +shoulder. A nausea overcome him. He hurried to the lavatory and cleaned +his clothes. + +His daughter admired her father for his fastidiousness. She looked upon +all other men as somewhat sloppy in comparison. + +"It isn't just that father dresses well," she said, "but he's so +particular about everything. About his plates and forks, and his bedroom +must be bright as a new pin. Oh, it's just wonderful for a man to be +thoroughly clean like that." + +Although the judge had spoken to Mrs. Basine it was her son who +answered. + +"I saw the pictures at the vaudeville the other evening," he said, "and +I quite agree with you, Judge." + +The judge nodded pleasantly. He liked Basine and had already prophesied +a future for him. Henrietta was informing Doris of the trouble they were +having with the church choir. + +"Dr. Blossom," she was saying, "is just absolutely at his wits' end. We +can't get anybody ... anybody at all that's at all suitable." + +"Mrs. Gilchrist and Aubrey are coming over," Mrs. Basine remarked to the +judge. She was unable to keep a sound of pride out of her voice. + +"A very fine woman. An exceptionally fine woman," he answered. Mrs. +Basine nodded. + +Basine sat down beside his sister Doris. He was interested in Henrietta. +The news of her approaching engagement had exhilarated this interest. He +had been a half-hearted wooer himself when he first came out of college. +As she rattled on he was thinking, "She has nice eyes. She probably +doesn't love Aubrey." He thought of Aubrey. A putty-faced, swell-headed +fool. He could put it all over him, even as a writer, if he wanted to. + +"I hear," he said aloud, "that you and Aubrey are engaged or almost +engaged." + +"Why the idea! Gracious!" A disturbed giggle. "Where on earth did you +hear that! Father hasn't announced it yet." + +"A little bird," smiled Basine. Doris looked at him and frowned. + +"What do you say we pop some corn," he announced. + +One of Basine's most engaging facilities was an ability to reflect in +his own words and actions the character of those to whom he talked. +Judge Smith regarded him as a young man of stable ideas and profound +seriousness. Henrietta looked upon him as a charming, light-hearted +youth who was able "to play." There were others to whom he appealed +separately as a young man of culture, modern to his finger tips; as a +man of pious kindliness; as a man interested exclusively in politics, in +economics, in literature, in women. His pose was seemingly at the mercy +of his audience. He did not deliberately seek to make himself agreeable +by presenting exteriors acceptable to his friends. His proteanism was in +the main unconscious. It was the result of an underlying desire to +impress men and women he knew with his superiority. + +He had found instinctively that a short cut to such impression was not +contradictions but agreement. But he would not merely say "yes" and +please his listener by subscribing whole-heartedly to the ideas or +points of view under discussion. He would take these ideas and points of +view and develop them, show with a sincere creative enthusiasm why they +were correct and how astoundingly correct they were. + +He was usually cleverer than the people with whom he agreed. This made +it possible for him to develop their ideas, to add to them, supply them +with nuances and far-reaching overtones of which their originators had +had no inkling. When he had finished they would find themselves warmly +applauding what he had said, admiring his sanity and intelligence. + +It was no longer Basine who agreed with them. They agreed with Basine +and each of them went away saying, "A remarkable young man. Full of very +fine, worthwhile ideas and able to express himself." + +They were conscious while praising him that they were also praising +themselves. Although they were unaware of the adroit theft committed by +Basine and unable to follow the way in which he filched their little +prejudices and inflated them to noble proportions with his cleverness, +they felt a kinship with the young man. Their inferior egoism did not +demand recognition as collaborator. They were warmed with the emotion of +being _en rapport_ with someone whom they admired. So often clever +people were people with whom, somehow, one had little or nothing in +common. But Basine was a clever person with whom everyone seemingly had +everything in common. And they were delighted to have things in common +with a clever man. + +There were occasions on which Basine's cleverness was put to a difficult +test. These came when a number of people, each of whom knew him +differently, to each of whom he had identified himself as a champion of +divergent opinions, assembled in his presence. Basine, it usually +happened, was the friend in common and therefore the pivot of the vague +debates which sometimes started--the awkward exchange of half-remembered +arguments which constituted the intellectual life of his friends, as the +make-believe of "playing house" had constituted their adult life when +they were children. + +But at such times Basine revealed his interesting talents as a +compromiser, fence straddler, pacifier. Without espousing any of the +sides presented, without denial or affirmation, he managed to convince +the assembledge that he was a champion of all and detractor of none. He +pretended a worldly tolerance, saying such things as: + +"Well now, there are always two sides to a question. And a man who +closes his mind to either side is likely as not to find himself in the +dark. What Henning says is interesting. I can entirely understand it +and see the reasons for it. He sees the thing in a clear, definite +manner. Yet what Stoefel says is also interesting and, of course, +entertaining. I don't mean that I believe two sides to a question can +both be the right sides. But it's my experience that there's an element +of truth as well as of error in both sides. And I'm not so convinced +that Henning and Stoefel actually differ. Often people meaning the same +thing get into violent arguments because they misunderstand each other." + +In this way he would convince both his friends that they were both men +of intelligence, which is more flattering than being merely men of +intelligent views. And, what was more important, he would give the +listeners the impression of a calm, deliberative Basine, not to be taken +in by the tricks of prejudice and speech which caused men to knock their +heads together in endless argument. + +Henrietta accompanied him into the kitchen in quest of corn to pop. +Doris remained behind, staring disinterestedly at the judge who was +talking to her mother. She had noticed something about the man that +displeased her. She kept it, however, to herself. When he shook hands +with her he assumed a paternal manner. He said to her: + +"Well, my dear child, and how are you today? Serious as ever, I see. I +understand that you and my little girl had quite an interesting time at +the choir practice Saturday evening. Dear me, you will both soon be +grown up and young ladies before I'm aware of it." + +He talked with a kittenish banter in his voice as if he were patting a +child of five on the head. But he held her hand during his entire +speech and his soft finger tips pressed moistly into her palm. It was +hard at first to detect but after a long time Doris understood. Fanny +had told her in an unsolicited confession that young men did that when +they wanted to be familiar with a girl. It was a familiarity which only +bad girls understood. Fanny added that a number of nice men whom she +never would have suspected of such a low thing had done that to her hand +but that the way to get the better of them was merely to pretend you +didn't know anything about it. + +Doris, disgusted by her sister's chatter, had remembered Judge Smith. +The judge always did that, ... moving his finger tips as if he were +unaware of the fact. This afternoon he had done it again. She had never +been able to see the judge as her mother and brother saw him. To Doris +there was something intangibly repulsive about his flabby, smooth-shaven +face, about his shining linen and deliberate manner that impressed +everybody. She did not resent the things he said. To these she was, in +fact, indifferent. But the man's personality awakened a revulsion in +her. She did not explain it to herself. She was aware only that she felt +uncomfortable when he looked at her and that when he beamed his +kindliest or boomed most virtuously, she felt like sinking lower in her +chair and contorting her face with shame, not for herself but for him. + +Basine and Henrietta had returned to the room. A grate fire was burning +wanly. Basine, squatting down like an elated boy, arranged a cushion for +her. + +"Oh, we've forgotten the thingumabob," he exclaimed, "come help me find +that." + +Henrietta skipped excitedly after him. Moments like this were dear to +Henrietta. Looking for thingumabobs, planning popcorn feasts, having +lots of fun and in a way that was intelligent. In the kitchen Basine +searched for a minute and then turned to the girl with a laugh. + +"I wanted to ask you something," he said. "That's why I lured you out +again." + +"For heaven's sake! Gracious! Aren't you ashamed of yourself, George +Basine!" + +She laughed with him. The thought had secured to him that it would be +interesting to take Henrietta away from Aubrey. He didn't want her +himself for any particular purpose. She was not a girl one could seduce, +or even desired to seduce. And marriage was miles from his head. + +Yet he had once held her hand while sitting on her father's porch and +whispered idiotic things to her. He had made love to her, said to her, +"Henny dear, I'm wild about you." It annoyed him to think that Aubrey +Gilchrist would marry her, would appropriate her as if the things he, +Basine, had said and done were of no possible consequence. In addition +he had always disliked Aubrey. + +"Henny," he said quickly, he had called her Henny two years before, "are +you really in love with Aubrey?" + +Henrietta made a face and swung her shoulders like a child embarrassed. + +Like Keegan, he was physically tired from his night's debauch. But in +Basine there was no impulse to repent. As he stood looking at the girl +he grew curiously sensual in his thought. + +The consciousness of his deadened nerves was an irritant to his vanity. +He was always doing things he felt disinclined to do, as a result of his +constant work of idealization. Also, to follow one's impulse and act +logically was what everyone did in a way. If Hugh Keegan was tired he +sighed and said so. But Basine, if he was tired, would laugh and suggest +adventures. If Keegan or the others he knew were elated over something, +they announced it, naively, like children. But Basine edited his elation +and often pretended to be bored. And when he was actually bored he often +pretended enthusiasm. + +Such odd perversions had become a habit with Basine. Behind the +confusion of purpose that inspired them was a certainty that in acting +the way he did he distinguished himself from other people. Often no one +was aware, of course, that he was acting, that his enthusiasm was the +heroic mask of weariness. But Basine was enough of an egoist to enjoy +secretly the emotion of superiority. + +Because he was tired and because he would have preferred ignoring the +trim figure laughing beside him, he deliberately took her hand and +allowed his smile to grow serious. Now as he looked at her and saw her +eyes soften, his vanity clamored for satisfaction. It was one of the +moments in his life when his vanity most desired satisfaction, proof of +the high opinions he held of himself. He was tired, bored and without +impulses. + +To dominate others, to possess himself of their regard and homage was +the goal toward which he always built. Now the desire to possess himself +of the regard and homage of the girl whose hand he was holding came +acutely into his thought. + +"Henny," he whispered, "I'm sorry about you and Aubrey." + +"Why?" + +This was the sort of boy and girl scene at which she was almost adept. +People held hands and even kissed without altering the correct social +tone or content of their talk. + +"Because," said Basine, "Oh well, because I love you." + +The phrase stirred, as it always did, a faint emotion in his heart. He +had used it frequently, even with prostitutes, and it had always given +him a fugitive sense of exaltation. Walking alone in the street at night +he would sometimes whisper aloud, "I love you, George. Oh, I love you +so." He would have no one in mind whom he might be quoting at the +moment. The words would come and utter themselves and give him a sudden +lift of spirit. It was like his other self-conversation when walking +along swiftly in the street he would begin exclaiming under his breath, +"Wonderful ... wonderful ... wonderful...." The word like his +mysterious, "I love you, George" came without cause or relation to his +thoughts and repeated itself on his lips. + +Henrietta was staring at him. It was chiefly because she was surprised. +She remembered that they had been friends once and held hands and that +he had said things. But all that had been a part of a pretty game one +played with boys, because they liked it and because it was rather +likable in itself. She was surprised now because he looked sad. Sadness +in her mind was synonymous with seriousness. People were never serious +unless they were sad. When she wanted to be serious she would always +lower her eyes and arrange her expression as if she were going to weep. +Then people understood that what she said was really truly serious and +not just part of the game people were always playing among themselves. A +game in which nothing was serious or funny or anything--but just was. +Because that was the way it should be. + +Basine was pulling her slowly toward him. + +"Don't you love me?" he asked. "Don't you love me at all?" + +He was talking aloud to conceal the fact that he had drawn her to him +and was placing his arms around her. To do anything like that in silence +would have frightened Henrietta. But to talk while one was doing it, +that made it seem less definite. One could ignore what one was doing, +ignore the hands pressing one's shoulders and the touching of bodies by +pretending to interest one's self entirely in the conversation. + +Basine knew this because he had made love to girls and taken liberties. +As long as he kept talking and asking questions the girl would pretend +she was so occupied in answering the questions and keeping up socially +her end of the talk that she was oblivious to the liberties that were +being taken with her. + +Henrietta answered, "Why do you ask that? Do you really think you ought +to ask me questions like that, George Basine?" + +"Yes I do," he said, "why shouldn't I?" + +"Oh because. Because you're engaged to Marion." + +"Who told you that?" + +"I know. Anybody could know that. Aren't you?" + +"No more than you are to Aubrey." + +"Gracious! Aren't you the clever boy. I declare! Engaged to Aubrey! +Heavens, I'd like to know where you heard that." + +"A little bird told me." + +"It did not." + +"Yes it did." + +"You know better than that, George Basine. I wish you'd tell me really." + +"Why should I." + +"I'd like to know, that's why. I think I have a right to know." + +"Oh but I did tell you something. I told you I love you." + +"Why, George Basine!" + +During the talk Basine had moved her closer to him. His arms were +tightly around her and he had kissed her eyes and cheeks between his +questions and answers. The embrace had aroused no physical desire in +him. He was irritated by the coolness of his nerves. He was irritated at +his being unable to feel anything with his arms around a pretty girl. +Usually the incident would have reached its climax with the half kiss he +placed on her mouth. That was as far as good girls went. At this point +they ordinarily said something like, "Listen, I want to tell you +something. I almost forgot." And gently detaching themselves from one's +arms, continued to talk in the same tone they had used during the +embrace about some event that had occurred during the week. + +And then one returned to the sitting room and went on talking casually +as if nothing had happened. It was the height of bad taste to remind a +good girl today that one had kissed her yesterday or to presume upon it +in any way. It was the height of bad taste also to resist when they +gently pushed one away and said, "Listen, I want to tell you something. +I almost forgot." + +Basine knew the simple technique of these virginal intrigues. +Henrietta's hands were pressing him. This was the signal to release her +and pretend that nothing had happened. Ordinarily Basine would have +complied. He had no interest in the girl. His original impulse to take +her from Aubrey had slipped from his mind. + +But he had grown sad. The mild sensual moment he would usually have +experienced in the embrace had been missing. His tired nerves had not +responded. Unable to exhilarate his senses he sought to make up for the +failure by treating his vanity to an exhilaration. This exhilaration +would come if the girl he was holding grew suddenly sad, raised wide +eyes to him and in a shamed voice murmured, "I love you, George. Oh, I +love you so." + +He would make her do this. + +"Oh, Henny. Why don't you love me? I want you so much all the time." + +"Why George Basine!" + +She had suspected something different about the game when it started. +And this was different. Even with Aubrey it had not been as different as +this. Aubrey's mother and her father had decided upon the engagement +after Aubrey had been fussing her for a few weeks. + +But this was different. George Basine was in love with her! She had +always liked him because her father said he was a fine, promising young +man and because he knew how to play, and was really like herself in many +ways. She wondered what she should do. She felt worried because she was +afraid she would say something that wasn't right. + +She couldn't ask him to let her go because he was only holding her +lightly and she could move away if she wanted to. She thought his eyes +were sad and she felt suddenly sorry for him. He had stopped talking and +his eyes were sad. They were looking at her and they made her feel sad, +too. Things were so different when one felt sad. Everything seemed to go +away then and nothing remained. Everything went away and left one a +little frightened. As if the world were unreal and everybody was unreal +and nothing really was. + +She was frightened like that now. Or at least she thought it was fear. +Then she saw it was something else. Her heart had started to pound hard +and her throat fluttered inside. No one had ever looked at her like +this. So seriously. As if she were somebody very serious. It made her +feel strange. She grew dizzy and her arms felt weak. She whispered his +name and his hands crept over her cheeks. This thrilled her as if there +were electricity in his fingers. And frightened her again. But it was +nice. Like being a little girl, almost a baby, and falling into an older +man's arms--her father's arms. She could almost remember being a little +girl and lying in her father's arms. + +"Do you love me?" + +She would answer this time. + +"Yes," she said. "Oh George." + +She hid her face against his coat. Basine was careful not to embrace +her. Her "yes" had given him an inexplicable moment. He had felt himself +expand under it. In her unexpected submission--he had never dreamed of +such a thing ten minutes ago--she became suddenly someone who was very +rare and sweet. He was still utterly oblivious of her and had it turned +out to be Marion in his arms instead of Henrietta the difference would +have made no change in him. The thing that was rare and sweet was the +exhilaration in his senses--a purely spiritual exhilaration. He enjoyed +it as one might enjoy some unforeseen and startling gift. + +He grew tender. He wanted to kiss the eyes and hair of her who had given +this gift to him--the thing which felt so warm in his heart and tingled +so pleasantly in his thought. He must reward her somehow for having +stirred in him this delicious excitement, reward her for the sweet +surfeit her surrender had given his vanity. For a moment bewildered by +this inner desire to express the gratitude he felt, he stood trembling. + +"Oh, I love you so, my darling," he whispered. "You're so beautiful." + +It was her reward for having surrendered to his unspoken demand. It was +an expression of the overwhelming generosity that choked him. He found +in the saying of the words a sweetness almost as keen as her surrender +had afforded him. To hear himself say to someone, "I love you," was +mysteriously exhilarating. The thrill that accompanied his bestowal of +largesse excited him to further experiment. He was not carried away but +he relished the emotions between them, the sense of having triumphed +and the provoking sense of bestowing grandiose reward. + +"Darling, tell me ... please tell me--will you marry me?" + +"Oh George!" + +"Tell me ... tell me...." + +He was acting now, making his voice dramatic, pretending uncontrollable +longings. She must say "Yes." He wanted her to and she must. He did not +want to marry her. The thought had never occured to him. But it would be +unbearable now unless she said "Yes." He must pretend and act and make +the thing end by her saying "Yes." + +"Oh, I can't tell you, George dear." + +"You must, please...." + +He had decided now finally to make her. A contest of wills. If he wanted +a yes there must be a yes. Because he wanted it. His arms crushed her. +He fastened against her. He felt her resisting. There was still no +desire in him. His arms were still dead. But he could brook no +resistance. The fact of resistance was unimportant but the idea of being +resisted fired him with a passion entirely cerebral. He would warm her +into saying yes, stir her senses, make her yield and her head swim until +she said yes. + +"I love you. Please say it. Say yes." + +Yes to what? Henrietta for an instant awoke from the confusions of the +past few minutes. Her morality, training, code of life and all sat up +like a wary censor and surveyed the scene. The censor nodded an +affirmation. It was all right. Go ahead. With this affirmation her body +took fire. The weakness she had been struggling against became a +beautiful enervation--a lassitude that swept her unresistingly forward. + +She had never done this before. She struggled for a moment to recall the +censor--the thing that had always directed her. But she seemed to have +been deserted. She was alone with sensations. + +Her virginal mind was unable to identify the excitement rising in her. +She waited while his caresses grew bolder. Then in a panic, born of a +dim realization, she flung her arms passionately around Basine and +sobbed. + +"Yes.... Yes.... Oh George.... I will...." + +She felt at once that she had said it just in time--that it would have +been sinful to continue another moment without promising she would marry +him. + +Basine released her slowly. The incident abruptly was over. He had in +fact lost interest in it immediately before she had spoken. The thrill +had come, developed and gone--a spiritual exaltation which he had +enjoyed to the utmost. + +But now it was over. His vanity, surfeited, had withdrawn from the +situation. He was surprised to find himself looking at the girl with +utter dispassion, as if nothing had happened. + +Inwardly he was amused. Such things were amusing, in a way. Moments in +which one saw oneself as an outrageous actor, doing something +ridiculous. It was like that now. Absurd. But it had been pleasant. +Curious, how pleasant. However, that was over. Henrietta would of course +forget about it. And he, he was prepared to return to the library and go +on popping corn as if nothing had happened, absolutely nothing. + +But Henrietta leaned weakly against his arm. + +"Oh George, darling. Do you really love me?" + +He answered out of a social respect for consistency and nothing else. He +thought the question rather tactless. Of course he didn't love her and +she should have known better than to ask it. It had just been a game +they had played while looking for the thingumabob. + +"Yes, Henny, of course." + +Her eyes were wide and her lips quivered. She was looking at him as if +he were doing something remarkable and she overcome with astonishment. +For an instant Basine wondered why the deuce she looked that way. Then +he felt an unexpected chill that he dismissed promptly with an inwardly +reassuring smile as he heard her saying. + +"Oh, we'll be so happy together when we're married. Isn't it wonderful, +just too wonderful for words to be married--together. Oh George! I'm so +happy.... I love you so much. And father will be so...." + + + + +6 + + +They had not expected Mr. Gilchrist to come. Mr. Gilchrist was an +undersized, mild little man with greying sideburns. When he was alone he +read a great deal. + +He had made money in the selling of expensive furniture. He was part +owner of a store in Wabash Avenue. It was generally understood that +people with taste patronized the Gilchrist-Warren establishment. + +He arrived at the Basines' with his wife and his son Aubrey. Keegan and +Fanny had returned from a long walk. They and the judge, Henrietta, +Basine and his mother and sister Doris all expressed surprise at seeing +Mr. Gilchrist. There was always about Mr. Gilchrist the air of a museum +piece--a quaint museum piece such as a keen but sentimental collector +might delight in. + +The exclamations of surprise embarrassed the little man and he stood +fingering his sideburns and trying to smile in just the correct way. Mr. +Gilchrist's arrival anywhere always precipitated this air of surprise. +People said, "Why, Mr. Gilchrist! Awfully glad to see you! Haven't seen +you for an age. Well! How are you?" + +This was as if they were extremely surprised. But they weren't. They +were merely annoyed, upset, vaguely hostile and condescending. And these +emotions inspired by the innocent Mr. Gilchrist could be best concealed +by the feigning of a correct social astonishment. + +To the queries shot at him Mr. Gilchrist answered, "Very well, thank +you. Thank you. Very well, thank you." + +After greeting him with these exclamation points, people immediately +forgot he was present. Mr. Gilchrist would sit the rest of the evening +ignored by everybody and trying to the end to smile in just the correct +way. + +Inside Mr. Gilchrist were many little lonelinesses. His head was full of +things he had read, of plots, of great characters, even of epigrams and +biting iconoclasms. When people talked he did his best to be attentive. +And if they talked about things that interested him--the Kings of +France, the Italian wars of the fifteenth century, the topography of +early London and kindred subjects--his face would tremble with +enthusiasms. + +He would listen, his eyes questing eagerly for epigrams, for +illuminating sentences he might contribute. But his unegoistic love for +the subject would make him inarticulate. His eyes that had seemed about +to speak of themselves, that had seemed laden with excited informations +would close and a chuckle would come from his lips. The Caesars, the +Borgias, the Medicis, the Bourbons, the Valois, Savonarola, Richelieu, +the various Charles, Phillips, Williams, Henrys, the plumed headliners +of history around whom had centered the hurdy-gurdy intrigues, the +circus romances and wars of vanished centuries--these were the +hail-fellows of his imagination. + +But people seldom talked of these names. People were more interested in +contemporary topics. He did his best to be attentive. But his thought +played truant and before he knew it he would be going over secretly +certain things in his head. Villon, Marlowe, Balzac, Dumas, Gautier, +Suetonius--there was a rabble of them continually arguing and declaiming +in Mr. Gilchrist's head. + +He liked to half close his eyes and imagine what the great names used to +have for breakfast, what the great names would say if he were to enter +their presence or if they were to come into this room. He liked to bring +up in his mind pictures of old Paris, London, Florence, Avignon, Vienna +with their lopsided roofs, winding alleys, night watchmen and king's +guards. He could sit a whole evening this way thinking, "then he came to +an old Inn and there were lights inside. People drinking inside, telling +stories and laughing. The inn-keeper was a man named Simon. The curious +stranger looked about him with an imperious eye...." + +These words murmuring in his head would conjure up the picture and there +would be no further need for words. He was content to sit in the old +inn, noticing its quaint decorations, its quaint but romantic inmates. +Adventures would follow, strange episodes, denouements, climaxes--all +without words as if he were watching a cinemategraph. His attempted +smile would remain--a smile that concealed the fact he was neither +smiling at those around him nor aware of what they were saying. For he +would only half hear the chatter of the room and now and then nod his +head vaguely at some question that people were answering--as if he too +were answering it. + +He was almost sixty, and lonely because he knew of no one to whom he +could talk. His wife in particular was a person to whom he never dreamed +of talking. He had only a dim idea of what he wanted to say to someone. +But all his life he had been hoping to meet this one who would be like +himself. This someone would be a friend whom he could take with him into +places like the old inn and the crazily twisting streets of old London +or Paris. + +His days and years passed however without bringing him this companion. +And outwardly he remained a mild little figure with sideburns, kindly +tolerant toward everyone. + +When his dreams left him long enough to enable him to notice closely +those about him, a feeling of sadness would come. He would feel sorry +for the men and women he saw gesturing and heard talking and laughing. +He thought they must be like himself--looking for something. His faded +eyes would peer caressingly from behind his glasses and he would make +simple little remarks in an apologetic voice. He would ask what they had +been doing and when they answered in their careless, matter-of-fact ways +he would nod hopefully and appear pleased. + +To see Mr. Gilchrist in the midst of his family was to be convinced of +the plausibility of immaculate conception. It was difficult imagining +Mr. Gilchrist ever having done anything which might have resulted in +fatherhood. But more than that, it was impossible even suggesting to +oneself that his wife had ever received the embraces of a man, had ever +so far forgotten the proprieties as to permit herself to be trapped +alone with a man. + +Thus the presence of Aubrey, their son, became incongruous. And Aubrey +himself helped this illusion. He was a young man who looked incongruous. +He seemed like a hoax or at least a caricature. He had enormous feet and +ungainly legs, large hands and pipe-stem arms, hips like a woman and a +face capriciously modeled out of soft putty. His ugliness by itself +would have been whimsical--his protruding eyes, long pointed nose, +uneven cheeks and bulbous chin hinted at something waggish. + +But Aubrey had triumphed over his physical self. He had with the aid of +a pair of large glasses from which dangled a black silk cord, and by +holding his head thrown back as if there were a crick in his neck, +acquired an air of dignity. It was his habit to glower with dignity, to +stare with dignity and to preserve a dignified inanimation when he was +silent. He was pigeon breasted and this helped. In fact his many slight +deformities seemed all to contribute somehow toward making him a man of +inspiring dignity. + +People had little use for Mr. Gilchrist, his father. He was, of course, +wealthy but not wealthy enough to earn the regard of the poor. They +discussed him, saying, "He's not so simple as he pretends he is. Any man +who's made a pile like old Gilchrist in the furniture business has a +pretty smart head." + +And they added that they wouldn't be surprised if something eventually +were found out about old man Gilchrist. He had a past. Of this people +were convinced. It was his wife's position and the fear of her +personality that protected Mr. Gilchrist from the downright attacks of +rumor. Any man who pretended to be as kindly as Mr. Gilchrist and who +talked so tolerantly about everybody and everything was, you could bank +on it, a sly rogue afraid to say what he thought because he himself was +guilty of worse sins than those under discussion. + +Mr. Gilchrist, by seeming above the social agitations surrounding him +came to appear as one who looked down tolerantly upon inferiors--and +this annoyed people. Who was Mr. Gilchrist and what had he done that he +should be giving himself airs? Of course--there was Aubrey and.... + +Aubrey was aloof and dignified. But that was to be expected of a man who +worked with his brain all the time, inventing plots and characters--his +friends explained. In fact Aubrey's silences thrilled them even more +than his talk. They felt, when he sat silent, that they were witnessing +the birth in his head of some great idea which they would later read in +a book. Aubrey was a man of superior qualities and to bask in the +presence of a superior was to partake of his superiority. + +Aubrey's superiority consisted, so far as Aubrey was concerned, of +wearing the proper kind of eye-glasses, keeping his neck stiff, +refraining from giving utterance to all the asininities which crowded +his tongue and writing romances containing heroes with whom a +half-million women readers had imaginary affairs every night and +heroines whom another half-million men ravished in their dreams. For +Aubrey was a celebrated popular fiction writer. To conceal the horrible +reasons which made for the celebrity of Aubrey's fiction, the army of +literary morons who succumbed to its influence grew louder and louder in +their protestations that Aubrey was a great moral writer. They pointed +out that here was a man whose heroines were pure, whose heroes were +noble and virtuous--neglecting to add that these were the only kind of +phantoms which could penetrate the guard of their own puritanism and +stir the erotic impulses beneath. + +Aubrey's superiority was, for the most part, a state of mind that +existed among the people who knew him or had heard of him or read of +him. And this attitude toward him became part of Aubrey. He adopted it +as the major side of his character and lived chiefly in the opinions of +others. His introspection consisted of reading press notices about +himself and thinking of what other people thought of him. Thus to +understand Aubrey it was necessary to go outside him and to investigate +this external state of mind, the ready-made robes of purple in which his +little thoughts strutted through the day. + +The people in whose acclaim Aubrey robed himself were varied and many +but they inhabited an identical psychological stratum. They believed +firmly that all artists and writers were poor, starving, unhappy +creatures. + +This belief was borne out in their minds by history--such history as +they permitted themselves to know. History was continually telling of +geniuses who died in garrets, of great minds that could not make enough +money to feed or clothe their bodies. In fact one of the shrewdest ways +to tell whether a man was a genius--that is, had been a genius--was to +determine whether he had been neglected during his life and died of +malnutrition and disappointment. + +The people who acclaimed Aubrey found a compensation in this. They liked +to assure themselves that geniuses starved to death. This compensated +them for the fact that they themselves were not geniuses. It made them +feel that it was actually a vital misfortune to be gifted, since being +gifted meant to suffer the neglect of one's fellows and the pangs of +hunger. + +But the knowledge that genius was neglected and hungry in no way +inspired them to remedy the situation by recognizing its presence and +feeding it. To the contrary they were determined to see that it remained +neglected and hungry. The idea of struggling long-haired poets dressed +in rags pleased them. The idea of long-haired painters living on crumbs +in attics gave them peculiar satisfaction. + +Geniuses were people different from themselves. They believed in +different things and pretended to be excited by different emotions and +lived different lives. And the people who acclaimed Aubrey were pleased +to know that there was a penalty attached to being different from +themselves and they were interested in seeing that this penalty was not +removed. By penalizing the different ones whom they sensed as superiors, +they increased the value of their own inferiorities. + +Yet they acclaimed Aubrey and there was no malice in their acclaim. This +was a phenomenon that had once startled Aubrey. Long ago, when he had +first started to write, his family's friends had said, "Poor boy, he'll +starve to death. There's no money in being an author and you lead a +terrible life." + +But Aubrey had gone ahead and remained an author. He had written, at the +beginning, rather biting if sophomoric things, inspired by the malice he +sensed toward his profession. But the inspiration had not been +sufficiently strong to handicap him. When success had come and his name +was emerging, the people who knew him and who had talked maliciously +about his trying to be an author, were the first to acclaim him. This +thing had confused Aubrey. He had felt that the public was a curious +institution and he had for a few months wondered about it. + +People sneered at struggling writers and referred with withering humor +to art as "all bunk" and indignantly denounced its immorality. Then when +one put oneself over despite their sneers they turned around and +congratulated one as if one had done something of which they heartily +approved. It was as if they tried to make up for their previous +attitude, and for a few months Aubrey cherished a cynical image of the +public. It was a great bully that spat and snarled at genius, refusing +to recognize it and making it a laughing stock wherever it could. But as +soon as genius came through, this same bully of a public turned around +and prostrated itself and worshipped blindly at its feet. + +Then Aubrey had spent the few months wondering why this was so. But he +had become too busy to do much thinking. His publishers were demanding +more work--so he let other matters drop. His curiosity had carried him +to the brink of an idea and he had somewhat impatiently turned his back +on it. He had felt that to think as he was thinking about people who +were praising him and buying his books, was to play the part of an +ungrateful cad. + +The idea that had come dangerously close to Aubrey's consciousness was +the curious notion that people resented acclaiming anybody like +themselves. The lucky ones who secured their hurrah became in their eyes +no longer normal humans but super-persons about whom they were prepared +to believe all manner of mythical grandeurs. The more remarkable and +more superior people could make out their heroes to be, the less +humility they felt in worshipping them. And since their heroes were +creatures in whom they recognized a glorification of their own virtues, +the more self-flattering it was to increase this glorification. They +were able to worship themselves with abandon in the splendors they +attributed to their chosen superiors. + +Thus when they started they went the limit, heaping honors and honors +upon a man until he became a glittering God-like person. The country at +the time of Aubrey's ascent was full of such glittering God-like +creatures whose names were continually in people's mouths and in their +newspapers. The instinct of inferiority demanding, as always, an outlet +in the invention of gods, had found a tireless medium for this +hocus-pocus in the press. Great reputations were continually springing +up--the newspapers like the half-cynical, half-superstitious priests of +the totem era busying themselves with creating towering effigies in clay +and smearing them with vermillion paints. These gods whom people busily +erected and before whom they busily prostrated themselves were, as +always, the awesome deities created in their own image. + +There had been a crisis in Aubrey's life when he was caught between a +desire to be himself and the desire to be a great clay figure with +mysterious totems splashed over it. To be himself he had only to write +as he vaguely thought he wanted to write. And to be one of the great +figures he had merely to write what he definitely knew would win him the +respect of others. + +The decision, however, had been taken out of his hands. Aubrey's talent +had not been of the sort that has for its parents a hatred of society +and a derision of its surfaces. He had, indeed, fancied himself for a +short time as desiring to adventure among the doubts and iconoclasms +which distinguished the literature he had encountered during his college +days. But the fancy had proved no more than an egoistic perversion of +the true impulse in him. This, it soon developed, was a desire to +impress himself upon people as their superior, not their antithesis. + +As a result he fell to writing books which carefully avoided the revolt +which the dubious spectacle of manners and morality had stirred in him. +He concentrated upon crystalizing his day dreams. He turned out tales of +deftly virtuous Cinderellas who provokingly withheld their kisses for +three hundred pages; of debonnaire Galahads with hearts of gold who, +utilizing the current platitudes as an armor and a weapon, emerged in +grandiose triumphs with the stubborn virgins thawing deliriously around +their necks. Aubrey's tales were popular at once. They were the +technically arranged versions of the rigmarole of secret make-believes +that went on in his own as well as other people's heads. People read +them and quivered with delight. They were tales which like their own +daydreams served as an antidote for the puny, unimpressive realities of +their lives. Also they were moral, high-minded tales and thus they +served as a vindication of the codes, fears, taboos which contributed +the puniness to the realities of their lives. + +Aubrey's success increased rapidly as he abandoned altogether the +pretence of plumbing souls and gave himself whole-heartedly to the +creative pleasantries of plumbing the soap-bubble worlds in whose +irridescence people found their compensations. At twenty-nine Aubrey was +becoming one of the glittering God-like personages in whose worship the +public finds outlet for its inferiority mania and simultaneous +concealment therefrom. + +He had realized this in time and without conscious effort adjusted +himself toward the perfections demanded of a personage worthy of +receiving the masochistic and self-ennobling salute of the mob. These +perfections were simply and easily achieved. One had only to acquiesce, +to accept the acclaim of outsiders as a part of one's self and to live +one's inner life in a roseate contemplation of this acclaim. One had +only to "remember one's public" as he put it himself, and not to +disappoint them or antagonize them. + +In his own family he was regarded with awe. His father always felt +bewildered when he spoke to him. And even Mrs. Gilchrist revealed a +slightly human nervousness in her contacts with her son. + +Concerning Mrs. Gilchrist there was not much to be said, even by such +incipient iconoclasts as Mrs. Basine. She was too defined an exterior. +One was conscious in her presence not so much of a woman as of an +invincible battle-front of ideas. Nobody had ever heard Mrs. Gilchrist +give expression to anything which could remotely be identified as an +idea. Nevertheless she was a battle-front. + +She was a woman with an intimidating coldness of manner. This manner +spoke without words of an incorruptible intolerance toward all +deviations from her code. Backsliders, moral culprits, unmannerly +persons and, in fact, everyone not actively under her domination were, +to Mrs. Gilchrist, suspect. She managed to give the impression that +people whom she did not know were creatures whose virtues as well as +social prestige were matters of sinister doubt. They were outside the +pale. + +The secret of her domination was a psychological phenomenon that eluded +her antagonists and so left them powerless to combat it. The strength +Mrs. Gilchrist felt within her was the product of a complete repression. +She had managed since her youth to shut herself successfully within the +narrow limits of her consciousness, successfully divorcing all her +thoughts, desires and actions from any dictates of an inner self. She +had formed an ideal, basing it upon her social ambitions and her +childish prejudices of good and bad, desirable and undesirable. And she +had been able to perfect this ideal. Her mind was a tiny fortress +against which her own emotions and hence the emotions of others battled +in vain. It could neither think nor understand and this was its +strength. + +The doubts which thinking sometimes stirred in the minds of her +antagonists, the knowledge of secret impulses and obscene imaginings +which they were able only imperfectly to keep from themselves and which +made it possible for them to appreciate dimly the sinners and +iconoclasts in the world--such knowledge never intruded upon Mrs. +Gilchrist. + +Her indignation toward backsliders and moral culprits was not a +projected censure of similar weakness in herself. There were no windows +in the tiny fortress in which she lived. Protected from all human +disturbances of her spirit, she spent her days closeted within her +little fortress in grim contemplation of her rectitude. + +Friendship was impossible to her. She was, however, a duchy, a +corporation in which one could buy stock. By subscribing unquestionably +to her rectitude, admitting its existence publicly and succumbing to its +strength, one earned the dividends of her social approval. One became to +her a very nice person in whose submission she grudgingly saw, as in an +imperfect mirror, the image of her own virtues. + +Curiously enough, Mrs. Gilchrist was renowned for her activity as a +philanthropist and charity worker. Her social prestige, aside from her +strength of character, was based upon this. She was a perennial +patroness, a member of hospital boards, a chairman of bazaars, special +matinees, charity balls and money-raising campaigns. All these +activities were in the interest of the poor. The money raised by them +went toward bringing comfort to creatures whose moral obliquity and +human weaknesses Mrs. Gilchrist authentically despised. Yet she was +indefatigable in her work, darting in her unvarying black dress from +meeting to meeting, bristling with magnificent plans for further +philanthropies. + +Her husband occasionally wondered. He was unable to reconcile the +coldness he knew in his wife with the character of her labors. At times +he dimly felt that it was her way of saying something--perhaps a way of +showing a hidden warmth toward people. + +But in Mrs. Gilchrist's thought there was no such explanation. + +To have admitted to herself a concern for the creatures in whose behalf +she devoted her energies would have been to open a door in the tiny +fortress, or at least to create a loophole out of which she might look +with sympathy upon the confusions and torments of her fellows. + +Her inner humanism, divorced from the narrow limits of her +consciousness, was finding its outlet, as her husband suspected, in her +work. But during this work never for a moment did Mrs. Gilchrist think +of the creatures she was benefiting. She had rationalized her activities +and made them a part of the emotionless content of her mind. + +All relation between the things she did and the people she did them for +was divorced in her thought. In bazaars she superintended, in balls, +fetes, campaigns, auctions she energized with her presence, she saw only +bazaars, balls, fetes, campaigns and auctions. She worked for their +success with an invulnerable preoccupation in the details which went to +make them socially proper and financially triumphant. + +The altruism of her work inspired no altruism in her. She did not allow +herself to sympathise with the weakness and poverties she was aiding or +even to contemplate them for an instant. Yet her work accomplished, the +charity a success, she experienced the stern elation of "having done +good." This elation was inspired in no way by the thought of the solace +she had brought to others. It was entirely egoistic--a moment in which +her rectitude congratulated itself upon--its rectitude. + + + + +7 + + +Fanny Basine smiled timidly at Aubrey. He was paying little attention to +her. He was listening to Judge Smith airing his views on the annexation +of the Philippines. + +The judge was forcibly declaring that the thing was essential and that +no gentleman with his country's future at heart could possibly believe +otherwise. Aubrey, to the judge's secret discomfiture, somehow managed +to convey an assent to these views, but an assent based upon superior +motives. What these motives were Judge Smith was unable to fathom. +Aubrey, when it came his turn to expound, further irritated the judge by +revealing them. He, Aubrey, was for the annexation of the Philippines +but only because he was convinced such an annexation would be of +supreme benefit to the natives of the islands. + +Mrs. Gilchrist nodded sternly in agreement with her son. The rest of the +company listening with vacuous attentiveness waited for the debaters to +continue talking for them. Basine who had been silent came to the +judge's rescue. He explained that the judge and Aubrey meant practically +the same thing but that they had chosen different ways to express +themselves. + +"Judge Smith," Basine smiled, "sees in the annexation something which +will benefit his country. He knows as well as any of us that it will not +benefit it financially. It will be a source of expenditure and strife. +Then how will it benefit us? Because it will give us an opportunity to +aid a pack of uncivilized and benighted heathen and despite them to +bring peace and prosperity to their own country--not ours. Which is +exactly what you mean, Aubrey." + +The judge beamed approval and Aubrey contented himself with a stare of +dignity. He did not relish psychological interpretations of his words. +As an author, he felt annoyed. But Basine continued to talk undeterred +by his stare. He disliked Aubrey. Not so much as Doris. And in a +somewhat different way. Further, the presence of Henrietta was a curious +inspiration. The girl's wide-eyed tenderness had irritated and +frightened him after the incident in the kitchen when they had gone +searching for the thingumabob. Now he had no interest in the Philippine +controversy. But he had entered the discussion in order to rid himself +of the uncomfortable memory the episode with Henrietta had left him. As +he talked the memory played hide and seek in his words.... "She thinks +I'm going to marry her ... but she's engaged to him ... she's crazy ... +what the Hell did I do it for?... Damn it ... damn it...." + +Instinctively he took the judge's part, as if he must establish himself +firmly in the father's good graces in order to make premature amends for +the jilting of his daughter. The position he had taken pleased him +because it also involved an opposition to Aubrey. + +Fanny continued to smile at the novelist. Keegan bored her. They had +been walking together and she had lost interest in the sensual game she +had been playing with him. Alone, she might have tried to repeat the +experience of the morning with Keegan. But her physical curiosity +partially gratified for the moment by the surreptitious excitement she +had derived from him, her interest transferred itself to Aubrey. + +The man amused and impressed her. Her thought separated him into two +people. She resented his persistent dignity. Her perceptions, sharpened +by the practical sensuality of her nature, saw through the little ruses +by which Aubrey converted his slight deformities into a dignified whole. +As she listened to him she said to herself, "... he thinks it's smart to +wear a ribbon on his glasses ... he sticks his chest out ... he's got +skinny arms ... he looks funny...." + +After a half hour she lost her resentment and the thing that had +inspired it came to amuse her. She could see through his funny manner so +it didn't anger her. But although now she smiled with amusement at the +man's impressiveness, a feeling of awe penetrated her. Aubrey was a +great man. People spoke his name everywhere. He was known. + +A delicious tremble passed through her. She was careful not to translate +it into words. Had she inspected the tremble and its causes, it would +have outraged her. She was content always to accept her emotions blindly +for fear of having to forego them if she knew their causes. She kept +herself intact in her own mind as a good girl not by belligerently +repressing her impulses but by enjoying them secretly outside her mind. + +She had thought of Aubrey as a great man and with it had come the inner +impulse to be embraced passionately by him. Not because he was Aubrey, +but because he was the famous Aubrey Gilchrist, whose name was known. To +be embraced by a famous man would be like being embraced somehow by all +the people who knew his name. She would be able to think while +satisfying her desire, "Everybody knows him. They know all about him. +It's almost as if they knew he was doing this ... I was doing this." + +Then, too, there would be a feeling of intense secrecy about it, a sort +of blasphemous secrecy. When an ordinary man kissed her, that was of +course, a secret. But if a famous man should kiss her, a man like +Aubrey, that would be a super-secret. A violation of something +remarkable. It would be a thing concealed not merely from her family and +from the vague circle of friends who might be interested, but from +millions of people who knew Aubrey and who would be tremendously +interested in everything he did. She would be giving herself to a public +figure and yet the thing she was doing would be marvelously concealed +from the public. And so she would be able to enjoy the thrill of +demonstromania--of being taken by someone who was not an individual like +Keegan but a man who was part of other people's minds--and at the same +time she would be able to enjoy the thrill of defiant intimacy; the +knowledge that the people in whose minds the name Aubrey Gilchrist was +alive would be ignorant of what she was doing to the man they admired. +All this would be a sharpening of pleasure by the consciousness of +wholesale deceit, wholesale intimacy. + +These intuitions whose articulation would have been entirely +unintelligable to Fanny sent the delicious tremble through her body. +Immediately the two separate Aubreys of her mind focussed into one and +she lost both her amusement and her awe of him. She sat regarding him +with a timid smile designed to arouse his curiosity. As yet he had +ignored her, his eyes seeking out Henrietta when the annexation debate +waned. + +Basine had diverted the talk into literary channels by inquiring, +apropos of nothing, whether anyone had read a book by a man named +Meredith. He had found it in Doris' room one evening and glanced through +it. Seeking now for further material with which to discomfit Aubrey he +had remembered the volume. He took it for granted that since his sister +Doris had been reading it, the book was a very worthwhile book--the kind +he cared nothing about reading himself. This did not interfere with his +utilizing an exposition of its merits as a weapon against Aubrey. + +"I was quite surprised," he explained. Doris listened with a frown. She +was certain her brother had not read the book and the knowledge he was +lying aggravated her. She knew he lied continually but was indifferent. +But to have him lie about something she admired, even in its defense, +made her uncomfortable as if he were trying to establish false claims +upon her regard. + +"The book is altogether unlike most books," he went on, generalizing +carefully. His mind, totally ignorant of the subject he was discussing, +was shrewdly inventing a book diametrically opposite in style and +content to the books Aubrey wrote. By praising such a book he would +manage without reference to his antagonist to disparage his entire +literary output. + +He was not clear in his mind why Aubrey had become an antagonist. The +memory reiterating itself behind his words "... she thinks I'm going to +marry her ... damn it...." was mysteriously finding outlet in an +indignation neither against himself nor Henrietta, but against the +unsuspecting Aubrey. + +Fanny listened to the new conversation, but Meredith was soon dropped. +The sight of Mrs. Gilchrist grimly poised opposite her mother, became a +part of the lure Aubrey exercised over her. He was the son of this +hard-faced, domineering woman. To do something with him that was +intimate would be a deliciously concealed violation of the mother's +propriety. Fanny had always been intimidated by Mrs. Gilchrist's +propriety. Embracing her son would be a sort of revenge. + +Without wasting time looking for reasons, Fanny felt Aubrey as an +attraction. Her attitude toward him grew more intimate. She did not try +to enter the talk but adjusted herself in the chair, placing her body +so that the curve of her hip and leg were effectively visible to Aubrey. + +And while the others talked she assured herself of the plausibility of +her ambitions. Aubrey was a great man and very famous and distinguished. +But he was after all entirely human. He had written books and Fanny fell +to thinking about them, about the descriptions of love-making which +crowded the pages of his books. Aubrey was famous and therefore aloof. +But the things that had made him famous--the love passages in his books, +were not intimidating. She remembered them with gratitude. They were +love descriptions and Aubrey had written them. + +Love passages were in fact all that Fanny usually remembered of her +reading. Plots and characters escaped her. After she had closed a book +there remained in her mind merely the scenes in which men had placed +their arms around women and whispered after a succession of exciting +adjectives, "I love you." + +This was due to the manner in which Fanny read. As a girl she had +ploughed laboriously through a set of Shakespeare in quest of obscene +passages. Her girl's eyes would skip with irritation the speeches that +seemed to her extraneous until, caught by some "nasty" word, she would +become eagerly interested and carefully digest the sentences preceding +and following it. At fourteen she had discovered that the dictionary, +stuck away in a dusty corner of the book case, was filled with many such +words. Whenever occasion permitted she opened the big volume and poured +intently over its contents, digesting with excitement the definitions of +what she called to herself, the nasty words. + +The result of this curious reading technique had gradually shown itself +as she matured. Literature became to her a secretly immoral and indecent +thing. She would blush when people mentioned _Shakespeare_ or any of the +books in which she had eagerly browsed. Observing that her blushes gave +people an impression of her sensitive chastity, she developed a habit of +seeming offended at the mention of any volume she suspected of +containing such words and passages as she was continually searching for +in secret. + +She would say, "Oh, I don't like that kind of a book. I don't think +people should write like that--about such things. There are so many nice +things to write about I don't see why people must write about the +others." + +Delivering herself of these sentiments on all occasions, she continued +her furtive hunt for books about "such things." One red-letter evening +she stumbled upon a pamphlet in her brother's room describing the +horrors of venereal diseases and outlining with verbal and pictorial +illustrations the ravages wrought by the disease germs. She had devoured +the information greedily, her sensuality editing the well-intentioned +brochure into a mass of erotic revelations. + +Aubrey's books, although a bit too innocuous to exhilarate her as the +pamphlet had done or even the dictionary, properly read, was able to do, +contained innumerable passages she remembered. She treated his writing +as she did all writing, skimming hastily over irrelevant matters such as +dialogues between men, discussions of abstract problems, mother and +child scenes and coming to a pause only at the portions which began with +some such sentence as "He looked at her with burning eyes," or, "She +felt nervous because at last she was alone with him," or, "He tried to +draw her to him but she resisted, her virtue outraged by the light in +his eyes." + +She recalled these passages now as the literary discussion grew warmer. +The knowledge that Aubrey had written them served to humanize him and +remove his aloofness in her eyes. He was a famous man. On the other hand +he was famous because he wrote such things as, "She yielded with a happy +sigh to the manly embrace." + +Aubrey felt irritated with Basine. He stood up and seemingly without +intention walked to a vacant chair next to Fanny. The conversation had +been taken up by Mrs. Gilchrist who was explaining the real purpose of +her visit. + +"We are giving a fete on Mrs. Channing's lawn," she was saying, "and I +would very much like you to be one of the members of the committee on +printing." + +Mrs. Basine felt an elation at the words. She had read about the +Channing lawn fete. An affair of social magnificence designed to raise +funds for the Associated Charities. Great social names were involved. +Mrs. Basine's heart trembled gratefully. + +"Oh, thank you," she said, her voice taking on a formal, artificial +tone. Mrs. Gilchrist nodded. The tone pleased her. She could count on +the Basine woman among the select who showed their gratitude openly at +the largesse of her favor. She would, in fact, deign to stay for supper +as a reward. + +Mrs. Basine, urging her to remain for the light Sunday evening meal, +felt indignant with herself. She would have preferred to refuse the +committee on printing. Even as she accepted and experienced the elation +her thought bristled with revolt. + +"The old fool ... the old fool," repeated itself with annoying clarity +in her mind. She detested Mrs. Gilchrist. Since her husband's death Mrs. +Basine had outgrown the snobbery which had inspired her during her life +to pour over the society columns. But a habit had been established, the +habit of a desire to become a member of the closely knit organization +known as Society. And now she was apparently powerless to overcome this +desire which no longer animated her but yet intruded out of the past. +She looked down upon herself for the elation over becoming a member of a +printing committee for a social charity fete. + +"I hate it ... I just hate it," she would murmur for days at a time. But +the elation would persist, a thing beyond the control of her improved +outlook upon life. She was aware also of the simple process by which she +transferred her self-indictment into a detestation of Mrs. Gilchrist. +Mrs. Gilchrist was the one who appealed to what Mrs. Basine had grown to +regard as her "smaller nature." And her anger toward the imperturbable +dowager was the anger of a virtuous woman toward one whose temptations +she was unable to resist. + +"You've been rather silent." Aubrey smiled patronizingly at Fanny. She +nodded. + +"Oh, I've been so interested in what you've been saying," she answered. +She noticed with a feeling of sisterly gratitude that Basine had +occupied himself with Henrietta. Aubrey caught the direction of her +glance and frowned. He had developed a definite dislike of Basine during +the afternoon. + +Keegan, listening uncomfortably to the judge who was ignoring him in his +talk but whose audience Keegan felt it a social necessity to remain, +tried vainly to capture Fanny's eyes. She had apparently forgotten his +existence. But now as Aubrey seated himself at her side, she smiled +intimately in the direction of the confused Keegan. + +"Oh, Hugh," she said loud enough for him to hear. + +The sound of his name from the girl gave Keegan an inexplicable +sensation. He felt himself break into happy smiles and the anxiety that +had been growing in his heart seemed abruptly to have vanished under her +voice. He came to her side and stood looking timidly at her. The +conviction came over Fanny that Keegan was in love. She felt pleased and +her heart warmed toward him. But her interests remained exclusively +preoccupied with the novelist. + +"I was just going out to the kitchen and wondered if you wanted to help +cut sandwiches," she smiled at Keegan. + +"Sure," he answered. + +"I'm an excellent cook myself," Aubrey unbent gravely. + +Fanny stood up and started toward the hall. The two men hesitated and +then followed her. Basine, frowning slightly toward the door, listened +to her voice chattering to cover the embarrassed silence of the two men +she had bagged. + +"Don't you want to go out there and help," he turned to Henrietta. + +She shook her head. + +Keegan felt himself being slowly transported. His penitence had faded +into less satisfactory emotions toward the middle of the day. A gloom +had come over him and his heart had felt weighted. He had at first +identified this state of mind as a ghastly premonition of disease as a +result of last night's debauch and thought that the depression he felt +was his nervous system or something warning him of this fact. + +The depression lifted. He sat around the Basine home listening to the +chatter of the arriving guests and feeling out of place. He felt that he +was wishing for something but couldn't make out what it was. His heart +hurt, his head felt heavy. There were aches in him and a feeling of +listlessness. More, he couldn't sit still. The room seemed a suffocating +place. He was unhappy. + +Several hours later it dawned on him with a shock that he was in love +with Fanny. The sudden explanation frightened him. He attempted to deny +it to himself. The struggle endured a half hour. He surrendered. + +When he looked at Fanny again she had undergone a complete change. There +was a startling intimacy in her features. Her contours were stamped with +an appeal he had never observed before in a woman. The rest of the +company sat behind a thin film of politeness and formality. But Fanny +sat with him outside this film. The others in the room were blurred as +if half hidden. Fanny was distinct. A light seemed to beat upon her. He +looked in amazement. + +A few hours ago he had noticed nothing. Now he noticed everything ... +her dress, her hands, her hair, her eyes, her ankles. He was frightened +because it seemed as if someone had invaded the secret world in which +he alone lived. He remembered frightenedly that he had lain with his +head in her lap, that he had embraced her. There had been something +curious about the embrace but he was unable to identify it. + +"She felt sorry for me, that's all," he thought and at once all hope +ebbed out of him. Yet he continued to look at her and watch her grow +more familiar, so familiar that her image seemed to have come into his +heart where he could feel it choking him. + +A few minutes after entering the kitchen he grew hopeful. He found +himself in the position of an intimate--at least by comparison. She was +paying no attention to Aubrey. She laughed at his, Keegan's, clumsiness, +chided him good-naturedly. She held his hand and, his heart beating +wildly, directed him in slicing the bread. When he was drawing the water +from the sink faucet she leaned over resting her chin on his shoulder +and effected a humorous concern. He felt her body press warmly against +him and almost dropped the cut-glass pitcher he was holding. He was +being transported. + +Out of the corner of his eye he watched the novelist. A sorry fellow +with gawky feet and a clumsy-looking face. Keegan vaguely pitied him as +he stood around doing his best to horn in on the intimacy between Fanny +and himself. He knew how the novelist felt. It seemed to Keegan even +that it was he, Keegan, feeling that way, and that the carefully +concealed embarassment, the futile chagrin and lameness were his own +emotions and not Aubrey Gilchrist's. In an effort to put the defeated +rival at his ease, so Keegan regarded him, he tried magnanimously to +include him in the little byplay between himself and Fanny. + +"Here, you try your hand at this," he offered, handing Aubrey the knife. +Fanny pouted. + +"Hm! Just as I was teaching you the art of bread cutting you run away +from school," she complained. Keegan resumed his operations on the +bread, a satisfied warmth in his heart. For her hand had returned to its +position and she was again going through the idiotic pretense of +teaching him how to move a knife. He was being transported. His vacuous +face had taken on a vivacity. He was fearful of presuming, of doing +something wrong, and he made no effort to caress her. No effort was +necessary for, somehow, despite his carefully edited behavior, their +fingers were always touching, their bodies coming together. + +Still he was afraid to think that Fanny had fallen in love with him. He +was even afraid that Aubrey would go away and leave them alone in the +kitchen. If they were alone he would have to try to kiss her or +something and she would laugh and then say indignantly, "You idiot, I +was just playing. I see now that you think all women are like those you +told me about." + +He would rather that Aubrey remained and that everything continued as it +was. The sandwiches were piling up on the large platters. + +"Here," Fanny cried, holding one of them up for him to bite. + +He looked apologetically at Aubrey as if asking to be forgiven for this +proof of her superior regard and with a blush ate from her fingers. +Fanny suddenly let go the sandwich and as it dropped to the floor, +patted him tenderly on his cheek and laughed. + +"Um ... big man hungry," she whispered. + +He turned to place the fallen pieces of bread in the sink. His hand +brushed hers and he felt her fingers close firmly around his palm with a +squeeze. He half shut his eyes at the shock that filled his heart. +Fanny's eyes, however, ignored him. She was engaged in watching Aubrey +for whose benefit the entire scene was being staged. Her instinct had +supplied her with a mode of attack. She would arouse desire in the +novelist by showing herself desired--although by another man. A desired +woman was an irritant. It aroused illogical jealousy. + +The icebox was in the back hallway. + +"The cream and things are in here," Fanny exclaimed. + +Keegan followed her out of the kitchen into the rear vestibule. She had +squeezed his hand before starting and thrown him a glance as she passed +through the doorway. He felt embarrassed for Aubrey and was on the point +of inviting him to share the intimacy of the small vestibule. But Fanny +interrupted him. + +"Oh Hugh," she called softly, "will you chop some ice, please, for the +water." + +She handed him the ice pick and laughed nervously. The door was half +open and Keegan caught a glimpse of the novelist pretending a vast +interest in the arrangement of the sandwiches on the plates. + +"What's the matter, Hugh? You seem so ... so funny," Fanny whispered +close to him. + +His heart contracted. He was afraid. If he dared he would put his arms +around her. But after all the things he had confessed to her in their +walk.... A longing to weep almost brought tears out of his eyes. He +stood with his mouth open and stared as in a dream at a blurred vision. + +"Fanny," he muttered, "I'm sorry...." + +"About last night," she whispered. He nodded. + +"But Hughie, you said you wouldn't ever again...." + +He felt despair. + +"If I only hadn't ... I would...." He stopped. + +"Would what, Hughie?" Fear halted him definitely. He could go no +further. A misery clouded his thought. He felt her hand touching his +arm. + +"You mustn't feel sorry, Hugh. Please promise me you won't feel +sorry...." + +The sweetness of her voice overpowered him and his eyes grew wet. He +tried to talk but was ashamed of the quiver he felt in his throat. Fanny +pressed lightly against him. He stood with his head reeling and his +heart dancing crazily as her arms circled his neck. Her face was raised +to his. + +"Just one ... Hughie. Please ... don't forget. Please hurry...." + +He heard her words but they conveyed no meaning. He loved her ... he +loved her. He had never been happy like this. He couldn't tell her now +... the icebox, something, was in the way. But sometime he would tell +her. His arms and body felt alive. + +"Oh," he thought, "Fanny, Fanny...." + +Then he heard himself repeating the thought aloud. He was saying in a +voice he hardly recognized, "Oh, Fanny, Fanny." + +He kissed her lips. + +For a moment Fanny returned his kiss passionately. Her arms clutched +him tightly. She felt a curious lift in her heart, a thing she had never +experienced before. It made her almost close her eyes. But she kept them +open, watching furtively over Keegan's shoulder the figure of Aubrey. +Aubrey had remained bent over the plates of sandwiches. Despite the lift +in her heart this annoyed her. She wanted Aubrey's attention. + +"Oh," she sighed aloud. Aubrey heard. He straightened and for a moment +stared at the tableau of the lovers. Fanny watching him behind Keegan's +kiss saw his face grow red. Then she lowered her eyes and abandoned +herself to the sensation of Keegan's arms. But the sensations faded. An +interest seemed to have gone out of the situation. She pushed Keegan +gently away and looked into the kitchen. Aubrey was gone. + +"Oh," she whispered. Keegan looked at her dizzily. "He saw...." + +"Who?" + +"Aubrey Gilchrist saw you." Her face flushed. + +"Did he?" Keegan leaned against the icebox. He felt weak. + +"I'm sure he did," Fanny insisted, an elated note in her voice, "I'm +just positive." + +"He couldn't have seen much if he did, from where he was standing," +Keegan murmured. + +"I don't care anyway," Fanny smiled. Keegan felt a thrill at the words. +She loved him and didn't care who knew! + +"Neither do I," he agreed. He felt glad they had been seen. It made him +blush inside but he was glad. + +"Oh, what do we care?" Fanny cried, "if the old stick-in-the-mud did +see." Keegan reached his hands to her but she eluded him and darted into +the kitchen. + +"Hurry, chop the ice," she called. She was confused. For a moment she +had been surprised by an emotion--a curious, unsensual desire for the +awkward Keegan. She had felt her heart yield to his embrace as she +usually felt her body do. But the whole thing had been for Aubrey's +benefit. It had started with an intention of making Aubrey jealous by +flirting with Keegan. And when Aubrey had refused to show any signs of +jealousy she had carried the flirtation further until it had seemed +logical to kiss and embrace Keegan as a part of her original ambition to +stir Aubrey. But she had been stirred herself by the man's kiss. Yet now +that Aubrey was gone she had lost all interest in Hugh. She wanted to +hurry back where the novelist was. + +She glanced apprehensively toward the door. Doris was standing looking +at her. + +"What's the matter, Dorie?" + +"Mr. Ramsey has come. Mother said to set another place." + +"Good heavens! What a houseful." + +Doris nodded. Keegan was standing in the center of the room smiling +inanely at the sink. + +"I'll help you," said Doris. + + + + +8 + + +Mrs. Basine was embarassed by the arrival of her friend Tom Ramsey. He +had been a friend of her husband and a rumor had become current that he +was now courting her. She denied this with indignation. To herself she +admitted she liked to be alone with him. He was a sour-minded man with +a liver-red face, a patrician nose and the look of a man of importance. +But he was too thin and too short to live up to this look. + +In the presence of others he usually fell into a silence unless one of +the two or three subjects on which he felt himself an authority came up. +These subjects were things that had to do with advertising--effective +copy, effective display, prices, results. Mr. Ramsey was in the +advertising business. + +Mrs. Basine's embarassment at his arrival was caused by her sympathy for +the man and her resentment of his weakness. She knew exactly what would +happen. Tom Ramsey would sit through the evening, scrupulously polite to +everyone, saying, "Yes, yes. Quite right. Oh, of course. That's +absolutely right.... Indeed, I agree with you...." + +For the first few minutes he would impress everyone as a man of +character and intelligence. But gradually this impression would fade and +people would stop talking to him and eventually ignore him altogether in +the conversation. + +Why this happened Mrs. Basine could never determine. But it did and it +always hurt her. Mr. Ramsey, smiling exuberantly through the +introduction, his thin body alive in the slightly overheated room, would +in an hour become Mr. Ramsey sitting glassy-eyed and polite in a corner, +his liver-red face holding with difficulty a grimace of enthusiastic +attentiveness. He would make sporadic starts trying to recover +something. When the talk grew boisterous and everyone was making puns +and delivering himself of bouncing sarcasms, Ramsey would try to become +part of the scene in a way that always startled the company. He would +come to life with mysterious suddeness and hurl a jest into the common +pot. His manner, however, focused attention on himself rather than his +words. In back of the drollery he offered would be a desperation, in +fact, sometimes a sense of fury. People would stare at him for an +instant thinking, "What an odd, impossible man." And in their +contemplation, forget to laugh at his remark, forget even to answer it. +And he would be left stranded in a silence--a conversational castaway. A +moment later he would collapse, sit glowering in his chair, looking +angrily at the carpet. This was painful to Mrs. Basine since she had +grown to understand him. + +When they were alone Ramsey became a different man. He talked to her +usually about people he had met in her house. At such times he was +master of caricature. Their absurdities, pompousness, banalities, +hypocricies took grotesque outline in his words. His method was +unvarying. It was based upon a crude, vicious skepticism, inspired in +turn by a fanatic resentment of success in others. He seemed determined +always to prove to his own and her satisfaction that despite their +pretentions people were no more successful than he. His nature seemed +unable to tolerate the thought of superiors. At the same time people he +encountered, particularly in the Basine home, managed always to override +him, to reduce him to silence, to deflate him. + +He would retire into himself, protesting viciously at the injustice of +this phenomenon. And while he sat in silence he would seek to wipe out +the consciousness of his own inferiority by attacking with contempt the +people around him. He would sit belittling and ridiculing the company to +himself until he had hypnotized himself with a conviction of their +general worthlessness and inferiority. Bolstered up by this treacherous +conviction, he would come suddenly to life with a grotesque sense of +magnitude in his mind. He was a giant among pigmies, a Socrates among +clowns! Who were these numbskulls and fourflushers that they thought +they were better than he was! He would show them! He would step forth +and by a single gesture, a scintillant phrase, reduce them to their +proper place. + +And the company would find itself staring for an instant at a thin, +little man with a wild look in his eyes and a snarling quiver in his +voice, saying something not quite intelligible--usually an involved pun +or a tardy comment on some issue under discussion. The intensity of the +sullen-faced little man with the patrician nose embarrassed them for the +moment. Not as much as it did Mrs. Basine whose heart would almost break +at the spectacle, but enough to make them feel it were best to ignore +this curious Mr. Ramsey and not let on what a fool he somehow made of +himself. + +Ramsey's indignation toward people, his sour skepticism of their values, +was his futile way of reassuring himself of his own worth. Futile, +because he had no conviction of this worth. When he sat denouncing in +silence the talkers around him, ridiculing and belittling them, it was +merely a less painful outlet for the contempt he had of himself. + +He had been since his youth ridden by this inner feeling that he was a +fool, a weakling, not quite a man. It had started in his boyhood when +the nickname "Sissy" had been attached to him. His high-pitched voice, +his thin body and his unboyish modesty had earned him the name. As he +had grown older the fact that he did not care for girls as other youths +did, and that he sometimes played with them as if he were a girl +himself, had not escaped the keen, cruel eyes of his companions. The +name "Sis" Ramsey had stuck. + +In order to convince these companions of his masculinity he had thrown +himself with violence into their roughest games. In high school he had +sought to establish himself as a hardened sinner--a drinker and tough +citizen. Despite his slight body he had developed into a creditable +athlete. More than that he had become known as a fellow who would fight +at the drop of a hat. His fiery temper became a byword. + +But all these masculine, or seemingly masculine attributes were part of +his effort to prove that, despite his somewhat odd voice and his equally +odd indifference toward girls, he was a man. When he left high school +and started in the offices of the Mackay Advertising Company, the name +"Sissy" had dropped from him. He had no longer to contend with the keen, +cruel eyes of boy companions. Men were content to accept him at whatever +value he chose to place on himself, as far as his character was +concerned. + +The struggle instead of abating, however, only increased. It removed +itself from the external combat of his boyhood to an internal +complication, and became the basis of the feeling of inferiority which +shaped his life. + +This inner knowledge he cherished, that he was inferior to people, was +founded on the conviction that he was impotent; or at least nearly +impotent; that he could never marry and have children like other men. +His mind refused to acknowledge this fact and thus instead of finding +the comparatively harmless exit of regret, it permeated his entire +thought with the word--inferior ... inferior. + +Ramsey kept himself desperately blind to the cause of this permeation. +He concentrated on the detached word "inferior" and belabored it with +untiring fury. There was another secret, one that went deeper than the +hidden conviction of impotency. + +In the indignation which continually filled his mind, the hideous secret +that lived almost within grasp of his understanding was conveniently +clouded. It was the secret that his lack of vigor--a fact in itself that +he sometimes contemplated--was caused by a still deeper thing--a thing +that never reached any clearer articulation than a shudder. + +They had called him "Sissy" as a boy and he had not changed with age. He +had been able to repress the impulses that sought to turn him toward men +instead of women for companionship. He had repressed them by the ruse of +convincing himself he was an ascetic. + +It was, moreover, an attitude which could find outlet. He could devote +himself to the continual denunciation of others, developing into a sour, +cynical choleric man of fifty. A vindictive, unpleasing personality. + +Mrs. Basine herded her guests into the dining room. Ramsey's presence +preoccupied her. She found herself watching him as a mother might look +after a sickly child. + +The intimacy that had grown between her and her dead husband's friend +had been too gradual to trace. It had started when Mrs. Basine had sat +one evening in the midst of a company similar to this and thought, "Poor +man. He jumps around like that and acts queerly because he's ashamed of +himself. He's ashamed of not being what he wants to be." + +She did not quite understand what this meant but she felt herself +suddenly close to the man after having thought it. He began to seek her +company alone and more and more to use her as an audience for his ruse +of transferring his self-rage into a critical indignation of others. + +A realization of Ramsey's character had stirred a pity in her and out of +this pity she was careful not to let him see it. She went to the extreme +of pretending a blindness toward his shortcomings and of accepting him +for the thing he tried to make himself out to be--a giant among pygmies. + +She would agree with him in his attacks upon others, second his vicious +caricaturing and appear always impressed by his desperate skepticism. +Ramsey as a result had come to regard her as the one person with whom he +had ever felt at ease during his life. Mrs Basine was a woman who +understood him, that is, one who was completely deceived by him. In her +presence the creature he struggled unsuccessfully to become, the +masquerade of magnificence which his inferiority sought futilely to +assume--in her presence these became realities. He would swagger before +her, deride her, browbeat her and the rage which bubbled everlastingly +in him would have respite. His mind seemed to uncloud and his talk would +grow actually clever, some of his caricatures bringing an authentic +laugh from her. + +But the widow as a rule would sit listening to him, watching his +swagger, her heart lacerated by the poignant things it sensed. It was as +if he were a little boy dressed up in an Indian suit and emitting war +whoops and she must sit by and pretend real horror of his juvenile +make-believe; as if he were someone who would drop dead with anguish in +the midst of his laughter if she were to say aloud what was in her mind, +"Oh you poor man, I'm sorry for you. I'm so ashamed for you." + +She did not understand why, despite these things, she felt a thrill of +pleasure when she found herself alone with him. Her pity for the man +seemed a pleasant excitement. It gave her a sense of intimacy toward +him. She admitted this to herself but wondered about it. + +There had been one evening that remained confusedly in her mind. He had +seemed unusually buoyant, she recalled, after it was over. His +cleverness had actually diverted her--his caricatures of Judge Smith and +Mrs. Gilchrist and even her own son. She had felt a certain truth in the +distorted descriptions he gave of her friends. + +Then without warning he had grown violently excited. She had watched him +with a fear in her heart--a warning to her that he was going to say +something. She remembered him walking up and down the room saying, "The +trouble with you, like with most people, my dear lady, is that you don't +understand things. You look at things through a fog. You don't see +through the pretences of people. Your brain isn't active. It's merely +receptive. It doesn't question. And what's the result?" + +His voice had become high-pitched. + +"You live your lives among lies. That's what you do. Lies, lies--you +thrive on lies. Your friends are lies. Your thoughts, everything. Take +me.... Now take me ... my case.... I'll tell you something you don't +understand ... just by the way of proof.... I'll tell you something...." + +His voice had broken off, overcome by excitement. He was walking up and +down in front of her, his eyes staring wildly. He was going to say +something, something about himself. And for a moment she had sat +cringing inside. Why had she been afraid? Perhaps because he had looked +so wildly around him, like someone trying to escape. But he had grown +silent and dropped exhausted into a chair. + +She tried not to look at him because he was trembling and he had gone +away ten minutes later. He had kept away for two weeks and then returned +and their relations had resumed as if nothing had happened. Her mind +tingled with curiosity but a fear restrained her. She somehow had not +dared ask the question, "What were you going to tell me about yourself." + +But she remembered that it had seemed for a moment as if he were going +to escape, that he had looked like a man on the verge of ridding himself +of an incubus. + +Her guests were getting along famously. Everyone seemed pleased, happy. +They were chattering and laughing for hardly no reason at all. Mrs. +Basine had no liking for the people at her table. She despised Mrs. +Gilchrist, resented Aubrey. The judge gave her a faint feeling of +repulsion. Henrietta was a simpleton. Fanny irritated her with her +continual blushes and sensitive innocence. Doris was too silent and +always brooding. And even George--he somehow failed to convince her +although she desired to be convinced. + +But all of them together were nice, like a pleasing combination of +colors. People belonged together. Alone they had faults. But when they +came together and forgot themselves they were nice. She felt proud of +having them at her table, because there were so many of them. They were +nice people when they were like this--just talking, not arguing or +saying things that convinced her somehow that they were wrong things. + +Under the table the little comedies of the day were playing a furtive +sequel. Henrietta sitting next to Basine was shyly pressing her knee +against his. Fanny had reached out her foot until it rested against an +ankle she fancied belonged to Aubrey. For a few minutes she failed to +connect the attentiveness of Judge Smith, his paternal banter, with her +activity under the table. But the suspicion slowly arrived. Her eyes +calculated the position of the judge's legs and, blushing, she withdrew +her foot. She noticed that Aubrey sought her face when she wasn't +looking and that Keegan was talking with a blurred politeness to Mrs. +Gilchrist. + +Doris sitting next to Mr. Ramsey felt annoyed. He was continually asking +her what she wanted, passing her salt-shakers and bread-plates and +conducting himself as if she were a helpless child under his care. Mrs. +Gilchrist, as the first conversational flush inspired by the food +subsided, launched into a detailed description of the plans for the +coming fete, talking in a precise, emotionless voice. + +"I was saying," Basine's voice emerged in a silence that followed Mrs. +Gilchrist's talk, "I was saying that people are easy to get along with +if you understand them and they understand you. I had a case in court +the other day where a woman was suing a man for breach of promise. He +had proposed marriage to her and then without reason broke his pledge. +The woman was my client." + +Murmurs of "how awful"; "that must have been interesting" arose. Basine +nodded sagely. He had without knowing why started improvising the +narrative, inventing its details with a creditable dramatic and legal +talent. There had been no such case, client or denouement but he +continued unconscious of this fact in his desire to tell the story. "The +man of course was a rascal. An unscrupulous rascal. The girl--my +client--a charming, innocent young thing--had believed him. He had +courted her passionately,--er, I should say--assiduously. I couldn't +understand how any man after giving his word and asking a girl to marry +him could possibly be rogue enough to do what he had done. So during a +recess in the case I sought the fellow out. His name was Jones. We had +quite a talk." + +Basine paused. + +"What happened?" Fanny exclaimed. "I wish you'd tell us more about your +work than you do, George. It's so interesting." + +"Yes, go on," Mrs. Gilchrist commanded. + +Basine hesitated. His improvisation seemed to have come to an end. He +was, mysteriously, at a loss as to how to make the lie turn out. But +inspired by the attention of the table he resumed: + +"Well, of course a lawyer must be first of all faithful to his client." + +He paused again. He had almost decided to end the fiction by explaining +that on investigation he had found the man to be right and that the +defense the man had given him privately of his actions had caused him to +withdraw from the case. But this would sound quixotic, unreal. There +would have to be explanations. Why had he started the lie? To give it +that ending so that.... He smiled a sudden appreciation of what he was +doing--trying to excuse his jilting of Henrietta--an event not far off +if she persisted in holding him to the thingumabob foolishness. But he +went on: + +"This sometimes prejudices an attorney against his opponent. But I found +this time that all prejudice was warranted. The man was a thorough +rascal. It had been his practise to propose marriage to girls--innocent +girls of course, and he had several times managed to take advantage of +their faith in him and--ruin them." + +Fanny averted her eyes. Mrs. Gilchrist stared with an uncomprehending +frown at the talker. The judge permitted a grimace of distaste to pass +over his face as he murmured, "The cad. Yes sir, men are cads." + +"My client won," resumed Basine with modesty, "and was awarded five +thousand dollars by the jury. But the law could not give her back the +happiness this scoundrel had snatched from her...." + +"Had he ... had he accomplished his purpose with her?" Aubrey inquired, +aloofly interested in the plot details of the narrative. + +"No, fortunately," Basine answered. "But look at him now. Free, although +found guilty, free to continue his tactics." + +He paused confused. Henrietta was beaming at him, her eyes wide with +admiration. He felt he should have given it the other ending and cursed +himself silently for what he had done. He had only made it worse when he +had meant to tell a story that would help matters and make her +understand.... + +Mrs. Basine regarded her son unhappily. She was convinced he was lying +because he usually mentioned the big cases he had and he had never +before referred to any Jones suit. But she was unable to understand why +anyone should lie without cause and after a moment of doubt her son's +stern face and positive manner managed to convince her again. He wasn't +lying. + +Basine, as the others took up the discussion of the narrative, dropped +his hand to his side and furtively pressed it against Henrietta's knee. +At this sensation of physical contact a feeling of relief came to him. +In the sensual thrill this contact aroused he buried the discomfort of +the words running through his head--"she thinks I'm going to marry her. +Damn it ... damn it...." + +He was startled when, glancing at her in the midst of his daring +excursion under the table, he noticed her smiling coolly and primly at +Aubrey who was talking. + +"Will you have some of this?" Mr. Ramsey's voice protruded through the +silence. Several eyes turned toward him as if he were about to take up +the burden of the talk. Mrs. Basine interrupted quickly. + +"What was that book you told me about, Mr. Gilchrist, last month?" she +asked. Aubrey looked up inquiringly. "I mean your father." + +The elder Gilchrist blinked and seemed to peer into the depths of his +memory. + +"I don't remember," he said clearing his throat. They were the first +words he had spoken since he had said, "Thank you ... thank you...." and +sat down in a corner of the Basine library. His wife stared at him as if +he were a phenomenon unexpectedly revealed to her gaze. + +"It must have been," stammered Mr. Gilchrist, "Suetonius, I think. Or +... or the Chevalier de Boufflers...." + +"I'm sure that was it," Mrs. Basine agreed. "I must get that to read." + +The judge frowned disapprovingly upon the elder Gilchrist. He resented +readers. Culture was a state of soul acquired by being a gentleman, not +by reading books. He resented also the impression Aubrey had left during +the Annexation discussion. + +As a matter of fact he felt sleepy, the result of the food he had eaten. +And he was automatically seeking for some occasion which would warrant +an expression of dignity or resentment or anything in which he might +hide his heaviness of spirit. + +The sight of his daughter regarding Aubrey with a sweet, prim +attentiveness supplied him with what he desired. The idea of Henrietta +marrying that fool was annoying. Old Gilchrist was a sly dog and his +wife a difficult woman. He would forbid the thing. It might hurt +Henrietta for a time but he knew what was good for her. A mere story +writer had no real standing in the community, no future. +Whereas--Basine.... He lowered his eyes and glowered at his plate.... +Nice young man. Honorable. And full of promise ... promise.... + + + + +9 + + +"Love the stars. Love people's faces. Buildings and faces. What do I +know about 'em? God knows. Rotten streets.... Life's a great harlot that +men keep chasing. That gives herself to men--all men, everybody. I want +her. I want her." + +He walked angrily, a cap on his head, a pipe clenched between his teeth. +He was thinking as he walked. Emotions came out of his heart and burst +crests of words in his mind. Angry emotions. There was an anger in him. +He was overcoming a feeling of futility as he walked. + +The street was a carnival fringe. Cheap burlesque theatres, arcades, +museums, saloons. This was blurred. He saw no lithographs. One side of +the street followed along at his elbow--a slant of pinwheel lights. On +the other side across the street, pin points. But he saw nothing. Things +passed unresistingly through his eyes. + +He remembered now a mile of walking. The business section asleep on +Sunday evening. He had walked through that. Darkened windows, ghastly +inanimations. Why was he angry? + +"Aw huh!" he snarled. He was cursing something. He asked questions and +answered them. This got him nowhere. Stars, buildings, faces--he wanted +to knock them over. That was inside him, a wish to knock 'em over. More +than a wish. A necessity. But he could only walk. The world scratched at +his elbow. He could bite on his pipe. This thing hurt him. + +People, rotten people. Crazy jellyfish with jellyfish hearts, jellyfish +brains. He could swear at 'em like that. But why? He didn't know. Only +this thing in him made him blow up. + +It was easier when he worked. His father calmed him. His father stood +over the bench planning the fine-grained wood. A great man because he +loved the wood he cut and carved into pieces of furniture. But jellyfish +sat in the chairs they made in his father's shop. Damn 'em. + +"Love people. Say something. What? Say something. Get it out. Aw, the +dirty, filthy swine." + +That was the way he thought as he walked. A long furious mumble in him, +this man walked and saw nothing but light slants, spinning windows. He +was young and he wore a cap. + +He would get it out of him ... Show 'em! Ah, a nip to the air. Spring +blowing his heart up like a balloon. All they wanted was women. And all +women wanted was to be wanted. No. That was wrong. Damn! Always wrong! +His feet talked better than his head. Clap, clap on the pavement. Where +were the others going? + +He didn't hate them. Someday it would all come out like swans swimming. +Very majestic. He would talk easy and smooth. But now people kept him +from putting it over. They wrapped him up. Ideas wrapped up his words +and killed them. Streets, buildings, stars chewed at him. He must knock +'em over and get himself free. Put his hands on things and knock Hell +out of 'em. + +"Love 'em. Love 'em. How the Hell ... why the Hell? Lindstrum! +Lindstrum! That's my name.... I got a name. I'm the greatest man in the +world. The world's greatest all-around individual on two legs walking, +smoking. Damn...." + +But what could he do? Saw wood, smear varnish on wood, monkey around +with wood. That didn't get it out. When he wrote it came out. But +rotten. He wrote rotten, crazy rotten. If he was the greatest man why in +God's name! He'd show 'em. + +A long breath brought the night into him like a sponge. It drained +something out of him. He could grin. A very evil grin at a saloon +window. He could look around and notice. That's what eyes were for. +Look--people walking. Poor, sad, broken people. So sad.... Ah, tired +eyes in the street that looked for lights outside themselves. + +"I'm going nuts. That's what--nuts." + +But the mumble went on. Questions and answers in a circle, biting their +own tails. God forgive them, all these people. He must do something. +Arms around them whispering to their hearts something that would say, +"Yes, yes. I know it all about you. How you think one way and feel +another. And how everything ends. How everything ends in a little cry +that goes up." + +Love their faces. Damn it! Love 'em.... He'd show 'em. He'd talk to the +lights in the street. Why not? + +"Do you know what? Do you know? It's all a humpty dumpty. Egg-heads +falling off a wall and smashing. But I know what. I got your number. +Wait...." + +There was something to say. Why? Damn it ... not that way. Hit poor, sad +ones on the head. Better the dirty swine in the City Hall. Aw huh! Wring +their necks. What for? Wrong. Something else. They were like him. +Brothers, everybody. You could kill the whole of them and there would be +something left behind that was good--Life. But a better way than +that.... Don't hit. Arms around them, lips to their hearts and talk like +that. Make the hyenas sigh. Make the jellyfish weep softly. Make the +stars dance in their idiot thoughts. Sing them songs. If only the songs +came out. + +It was evening, spring evening in a dirty lighted street, and he walked +biting his pipe. He said to himself, "What's there to this thing? Let us +study it. Many people in many houses and many streets. And each of them +a known thing. But when you take all of them together, that's an unknown +thing. If you know me, if you know one--what then? Nothing. It remains +only one known. There is still everything else to know. One man +multiplied by a million isn't a million men but an infinitude of +millions." + +He would get the hang of them all though, all the millions. He would +think it out, get his fingers on something that didn't exist for fingers +to touch. That was art. It was easy when you figured it that way. + +He walked along often figuring it that way and understanding something +that had no words, living with something that was like a strange phantom +in a great dark deep. This phantom was a stranger inside him. A phantom +like an insane companion that had a way of putting its arms around him, +inside him, and a way of holding him like a horrible mother. Then when +it did, he stopped calling himself nuts ... nuts. He became silent then +and vanished. + +The phantom devoured him. All there was of him that everybody knew, that +even he knew, all that vanished. The phantom devoured him and it was +easy then. But the phantom let him go, took its arms off him, and he +came back, out of the deep. Then he felt himself leaping up with a choke +in his lungs, leaping through layers and layers with no surface to +reach. He must go up, up from the easy embrace of the phantom and keep +on raging, yelling out to himself that something had sent him shooting +up. + +Now he walked and it was easy. The night blotted out his eyes and he +lived with himself down deep where the easy embrace waited. Such moments +came when he walked and he must be careful. That was writing, being +careful and watching the little words that danced high up and that he +could watch when he raised his eyes from the embrace. Skyrockets far +away, he watched them breaking in crazy spatters of light against the +top of things where the sky came to an end. + +He was thinking like that now. Lucid thoughts that he later stared back +upon and wondered, "What the hell were they? I had something, what was +it?" Now he was thinking them with this deceptive lucidity as if they +were something. He was thinking how when he was younger, when he was a +boy, he used to run down country roads. Apples trees and rivers and +growing fields that sang at night were there. And yet, there was +nothing. What did that mean? That was easy to answer. There was nothing +because it was all outside him in a marvelous way. When he was a boy +long ago, so long ago, and he lay on his back and looked at the night +and the night was nothing in his head, the night was a song that chanted +itself to him. The stars were something he had spoken. Darkness was a +sentence echoing off his lips. And the world was marvelously outside and +it gave itself to him. The boy lying on his back handed the world to +himself as a gift. There was nothing to want, everything to have. Long +ago when he was a boy watching the day and night without thinking. + +But it all went away. Now what was it? That was easy to answer. The +night that had been a song chanting itself, the stars that had been his +words dancing, the darkness, clouds, trees, river and roads, the fields +and the people crawling with tiny steps under the cornfield sky--these +went away all together and he couldn't find them any more. These things +he had said without speaking, these all went away. Beautiful familiars, +they misunderstood something in him and vanished from him. + +That was long ago. Now he could remember them and his remembering them +was like hearing them again. That's what made him angry. He could hear +them as if they were calling, "Find us ... find us...." And he said +back, "All right, I'll find you. Wait. I'll come after you somehow. +You're my old friends. I'll get you back. Christ knows how--but, +wait...." + +But this made him think he was laughing at himself, kidding himself. He +knew better. The things that had gone away were in the faces of people, +in buildings, in lights, in streets under his feet. Christ! why +couldn't he lay hands on them again since they came so close they choked +him and made him howl inside with choking. + +He was letting go now again. The easy embrace was shooting him up and he +began to know again he was nuts. He hung on to himself a little by +saying words.... "Easy boy.... Easy...." + +He stopped walking for a second and a happy smile came to his set mouth. +The smile said it was over. He was Lief Lindstrum again and nobody else. +He could become calm like this. It was like blowing a fire out with a +grin. His head was clear and he was happy. The street was like a +merry-go-round. The night had a smell of life in it. That came from the +lake. Whatever living might be and whatever the choke inside him was, a +man was a fool to forget this other--the calm, grinning strength of +muscles and the way his nose buzzed when he drew his breath in. + +Now he was Lief Lindstrum walking to call on his girl. And he could +think of others, the poor little others, the superfluous others. Only he +didn't have to get angry at them. Or he didn't have to fall in love with +them. It was just thinking straight. Well, the way men talked to each +other was funny. The way they swapped lies was funny. Poor, rich, happy, +sad, broken, bawling ones--they all made the same lies to each other. +The government was a lie. God was a lie. And all the gabble about good +and bad and what-not-to-do and what-to-do, and all the laws and +everything beginning from the beginning and going ahead as far as you +wanted, it was all lies. So many of them that all the philosophers had +never been able to begin straightening things out. And if somebody +found out something true, what then? Well, they grabbed it and made it +into a lie, pronto! used it as a lie. The poor little crawling ones on +the earth made up lies to explain things but most of all they made up +lies to keep alive. If they didn't lie to each other they would all fall +apart and vanish because nature would have it that way. So they must go +contrary to nature and keep on surviving. Nature demanded the +elimination of the unfit. But it was the unfit that desired most to +live. So the unfit made laws and rules and institutions, and inside +them, protected by them, kept alive. So the will to live was the thing +that created lies. + +But the worst lie the little people told was when they called themselves +life. That was the chief lie, the Grand Sachem and High God of all lies. +Because they were not life. They were part of something inexplicable +that altogether might be called life. But each of them separately was a +dead one, a dead one buried deep in life. That was the difference about +him, Lindstrum. He wasn't buried in life. There were moments when he +shot up like a man shooting through layers of graves. The others let the +thing called life pile up on them and it became a mystery of graves that +reached to the farthest star. But with him there was no piling up. He +would keep on shooting out of it till he had lifted himself up where +there were no graves. + +"Shh, shh," he murmured to himself, "let's not be nuts tonight. Plenty +of nights for that. Let's talk about other things. About her." + +Her face was beautiful. Dark eyes, dark hair, silent, that was like she +was. The thought of her made him grimace inside with pain. He wanted +her as much as that. But what did he want her for? God knows. What does +one want for? In order to get rid of wanting. Nothing else. Kiss her? +Bah! She was a victory. He wanted her like that. + +When he was near her they didn't have to talk or hold hands. They came +together in a different way. She was so beautiful.... + +"I love her," he said quietly. He wanted to be quiet so he spoke +quietly. She was marvelous. He would like to cut himself up into bits +and give himself that way to her. He would like to die a thousand +different ways and say, "Here, I destroy everything I am in order to +become a gift for you." That was like placing oneself on a burning +altar--the ecstacy of the sacrificed one. That was it. + +Some nights like this the world became too small to live in. The city +swept away from his senses and everything in the city seemed like a room +full of cheap little broken toys he had outgrown. He would sit in a room +within this bigger room, a lamp on his table and write. Or he would +strike out like this time and walk to her--miles across streets. + +"I want her," he said. His thought paused. "But what do I want of her?" +he asked. "I don't know. But I want to give myself to something." + +And he began thinking over how many ways there were to die as a gift. + +This lighted window was her house. The curtains were down but light +spurted through the sides. The sight of the house with its light-fringed +windows depressed him. It was a disillusionment. She wasn't a woman then +like he was a man but she was a part of things. He saw her as he walked +up the stone steps, saw her talking to people. She had parents. In his +mind she lived as an entity. A beautiful one without background or +lighted windows or stone steps. Someone for him. Nobody else. + +He rang. The door opened. A man like himself stood blinking in the +lighted hall. + +"Good evening," said Lindstrum. His voice was deep for his age. He spoke +in a drawl that seemed edged with anger. "Is Doris in?" + +"Oh, hello," Basine exclaimed. "Yes, she's in. Come right in." + +People were talking in the next room. + +"Company?" said Lindstrum. He didn't want to go in. But Basine was +leading the way. The supper had ended ten minutes ago. The company +looked up at him. They were all dressed well. Their faces were dressed +well, too. They wore carefully tailored satisfactions in their eyes. +When they smiled their mouths postured like ballet dancers in a finale. +They were rich people. Their hands were soft. + +The room blurred before Lindstrum. There was no reason for it now +because he wasn't thinking or caring but a rage crept into his senses. +He breathed in deep with his mouth opened and the feel of the air on his +teeth and tongue made his jaw set. Because he would have to be careful +what he said. Because he was saying inside to himself, "Damn 'em. The +scum!" + +His eyes brought pictures into his anger. They stared with deliberation +into other eyes and brought back messages. He was being introduced. He +was saying to himself deep down, "They're all alike. Like peas in a pod. +They smirk and talk alike. And they're all stuck on themselves alike. +And they're all liars--damn liars, all alike." + +He would have to take care and not argue. He would sit down. Doris was +upstairs and she would appear in a minute. Then they would go for a walk +and shake this room out of their eyes. + +They chattered like monkeys. Satisfied with themselves. Yes, +know-it-alls, tickled to death with themselves. An old man with a heavy +pink face and sleepy eyes, a well dressed old man they called Judge--if +he could punch this guy in the face, let his fist smash into his +jellyface, God! what a thrill! A flushed girl, Doris' sister, wiggling +her body in a chair. What she needed was somebody to grab hold of her +and say, "Come on kid." A square, hard-faced old woman talking of +society. What she needed was someone to walk up behind her and kick her +hard. And when she raised her glasses to look, laugh like Hell and spit +in her eye. That would make her human! And this smart-aleck Basine.... +Hm! What he needed was somebody to tie him to a stake in a dark prairie +and let the wind and rain go over him till he got hungry and began to +whine. That's what they all needed--wind and rain to bring them back to +life. + +But he must be careful and say nothing. There was Doris' mother. She +wasn't so bad. But this other guy, this writing guy, talking about +books! God! Why didn't somebody choke the life out of him! What did he +know about books? And he talked about writing! What was good writing? He +asked that, this guy did! He would have to be careful what he said to +this guy and keep himself from jumping up and murdering him. Hell take +all of them and make 'em burn. That's what they needed. He hated all of +them. They were rich. Damn 'em! He must sit and grin at them, these +jellyfish who wiggled in their graves and called their wiggles by great +names, who were dead ... dead.... How dead they were! And happy about +it! Happy.... Didn't they know how dead they were? + +Doris was like them. He was a fool for coming to see her. As if she were +any different from them. She belonged with this filthy crew. She was a +filthy little tart like the rest of them. Let her go to Hell. He'd tell +her to go to Hell when he saw her. She was one he could talk to. + +Uh huh, they were giving him the up and down. His shoes were dirty. His +collar soiled. His clothes weren't pressed. That was the way with these +dead ones, they made standards of their clothes because clothes were all +they had. And their idea was to make people feel inferior who were +inferior to their clothes or to their manners or to their other +artificialities. But he didn't have to feel inferior if he didn't want +to. He was the kind who could stand up in a graveyard like this and say +"Go to Hell" to the pack of them and grin and walk away and forget all +about it. + +He noticed they looked at him not quite as they looked at each other. +That was right. They knew he had their number. Mrs. Basine, too, was +looking. She asked: + +"I understand you write, Mr. Lindstrum?" + +Books all bound and pretty standing in a row with your name in the +papers as a young writer of note and invitations to speak at women's +clubs--was what she meant. That was what writing was to people, to +jellyfish. + +"I try to write," he answered, making the correction softly so that his +words purred. + +"You should know Aubrey Gilchrist," said Basine. "Do you know his work?" + +"I do not," said Lindstrum still purring. "What does he write?" + +Basine chuckled inside. His unaccountable aversion for Aubrey was +growing. + +"Novels," said Basine. + +"Oh," said Lindstrum dragging the syllable out and placing a huge +granite period after it. + +"What writers do you like?" Fanny inquired with a successful attempt at +social artlessness. She was looking for something in this friend of +Doris'. She was in awe of him because he was dirty looking and because +he swayed as he sat in his chair. He kept swaying as if he were on +secret springs and would jump up any minute. He frightened Fanny. + +"I read good books," said Lindstrum, "books written by men." + +Mrs. Gilchrist sat up stiffly. Her husband peered out of his glasses. He +liked Lindstrum. He wanted to talk to him. But he got no further than +clearing his throat several times. The judge interrupted with a glower. +He was given the floor, eyes turning to him. A defender. But he merely +glowered. That was his decision, that settled it. If he glowered this +moujik was done for. He glowered Lindstrum off the face of the earth. +But Lindstrum turned full on him and thrust his face forward as if he +were going to come closer. + +"What kind of books do you read?" he asked the glowerer. The snap in his +voice startled Henrietta. She was afraid for a minute this strange +looking creature waiting for Doris would do something and she turned +appealingly to Basine. + +"All kinds, sir," the judge answered in his most effective baritone. +Lindstrum nodded his head slowly and a grin came into his eyes. He kept +looking at the judge and grinning and nodding his head and just as the +judge was going to say something Lindstrum abandoned him. He had turned +to Aubrey. Aubrey had grown eager. A confusion inspired by an impulse +toward garrulity was in his eyes. He wanted to talk to this Lindstrum +and discuss things beyond everybody in the room. Lindstrum thought he +was a soda-water clerk. One of those radicals with unbalanced ideas. But +he wanted to talk to him. Perhaps they had something in common? Aubrey +felt himself growing angry. But it was not an anger of silences. An +anger of words. He wanted to talk, to reason with Lindstrum and put +himself over with Lindstrum. Lindstrum was like a conscience. + +"Hello!" The arrival stood up and looked at Doris. He forgot about +calling her names. She was smiling at him like a fresh wind blowing +through his heart. The roomful dropped out of sight. + +"Do you want to go for a walk?" he asked slowly. "It's nice and cold +outside." + +She nodded and Lindstrum, with a long, deliberate stare at the company +spoke to them. + +"Good night," he said. When he had said it he continued to stare as if +he were weighing the matter over carefully and should say something +more. The pause grew embarassing but not to him. Without nodding his +head he repeated the result of his deliberations. + +"Good night," he said in the same voice. That was enough. + +He left them sitting in their chairs--a general calmly marching off the +field of victory. He left behind a silence. The company was +uncomfortable. + +Mrs. Gilchrist and the judge stared hard at the doorway through which +Lindstrum had passed. They wanted to insult the doorway. Lindstrum's +visit had had a curious effect upon Ramsey. He had sat silent and +avoided the young man's eyes. But he had felt himself becoming animated +as if something were exciting him. When the young man had glanced at him +for a moment he had blushed and an odd nervousness had made his thin +body tremble. Now that Lindstrum was gone he felt the room had become +empty and entirely lacking in interest. + +"How do you like him?" Mrs. Basine whispered at his side. She was +worried. + +"Him? Oh yes, the young man," Ramsey muttered. "He ... he has nice +eyes." + + + + +10 + + +In the park Lindstrum sat on a bench with Doris and talked. + +"All this," he said, "all this night and trees and things we feel more +than we see, are like what you're like. But why should we call that +love. Because love means to hold a woman in your arms. I don't care +about holding a woman. I want to hold something else. If you hold +something in your arms you haven't got it. It's what you can't get your +fingers on that you own most. Because you dream about it. It's what you +dream about that you own most." + +He spoke disconnectedly. There were pauses during which he allowed the +night to punctuate his thoughts. + +"Have you written any more things since last time?" Doris asked. + +"No. I didn't bring anything with me." + +He was silent. Doris wished he would sit closer to her. His silence +excited her. She could feel things moving in him. She became nervous. +Her dark eyes looked fully at his profile and a pride elated her. Other +men didn't stare like that into the night. They had fussy little eyes +and fussy little bodies. They fidgeted around. But Lief sat as if he +were turned to granite. + +There was something ominous about him. The glint of his straight eyes +and the leather color of his face were ominous. She felt that he was +powerful, more powerful than the spaces he stared into. He could stand +up and swing the park around their heads. She wanted to come close to +him. + +"Lief," she whispered, "why don't you come oftener. I get lonely for +you. I hardly talk to anybody else." + +He nodded as if agreeing with her and saying silently, "That's right. +Don't talk to anybody else." But he said nothing aloud. + +She wanted to be the thing he swung around his head. If he would take +her up and destroy her it would make her crazy with happiness. She +closed her fingers around his hand and trembled. Her body felt weak. +Her arms were as if she no longer directed them. They were being drawn. + +"I'm so proud of you. You're so different from all of them, Lief. I +can't stand them sometimes. They're terrible." + +He nodded his head with a ponderous air of sagacity. + +"They make me sick," she went on. "All of them. They're not like people +but like something else. Like parts of people." + +He nodded his head again. She was all right--this girl. She didn't +belong with the pack in the room he had left. She wasn't a little slut +... one of those lying, filthy ones. But he was afraid of her. He wanted +to keep things like they were. If you let down to a woman she started +climbing all over you and asking for this and for that. Anyway it was +time to walk back now. There was a lot of work in the shop. He got up at +six. + +They walked out of the park together. The spring night called for +endings. The darkness hinted. The day with its houses and noises +lingered like an unnatural memory in the shadows. What were people for? +The darkness hinted. Doris felt a mist in her blood. So curious, the +day. Unreal, empty. Noises that circled, faces that went on forever. +People had been moving forever. They kept walking and walking. There was +no ending to people. The years passed under their feet like a treadmill +and they kept moving on. + +Now it was quiet. Beside this man she felt there was no more moving on. +Her heart filled with impatience. It was hard to breathe. Her arms were +heavy, overcrowded. "Oh," she whispered to herself, "I'll die. I'll +die." + +But they continued to walk. The man's silences, his ominous reserves, +his sagacious noddings had excited her. She felt angry with him. He had +called for her a half dozen times in the last two months. They had met +by accident in a book store. A clerk had introduced them. He called and +they went for walks. But he said nothing. Once he had told her she was +beautiful. Another time he had mentioned, as if it were a casual thing, +that she was the sort of girl to whom he would like to make a gift. But +of what, he didn't know. Some gift worthy, he said. She had been +frightened of him at first. But gradually as she grew accustomed to his +strange manners, his bristling silences, she became impatient, angry. + +He stopped. + +"I'll go this way," he announced. "Good-night." + +He stood looking at her for a long minute and then turning, walked away. +She watched him but he didn't look back. She walked to the house alone. + +Her thoughts now were clear. He was a man who didn't want her but was +looking for something of which she was a part. He never tried to touch +her. He never said, "I love you," to her. But he did love. She knew +that. He called it by other names and misunderstood himself. And he +might go on that way till he died, misunderstanding himself. To be near +her thrilled him. She remembered how he became taut, immobile, sitting +on the bench. His arms quivered. Yet he never tried to embrace her. + +She thought about this as she walked to her home. Would he ever embrace +her? She knew about his silences. She could even feel how he suffered +inside because something was urging him that had no direction. It was +this life in him that lured her. It stirred her senses. + +Nothing before had interested her. Days had passed with no difference in +them. Now he made a difference. When she remembered him a pain that was +like anger filled her. + +She would go to bed and lie in the dark dreaming of him with her eyes +open. A languor made it difficult to walk. She smiled to herself. It was +pleasant, sweet to think of him. For a moment the image of his face +transfixed her. She whispered aloud, "Talk to me. Oh, please ... +please...." + +Then images that disgusted her crowded her thought. They came of their +own volition. Her sister Fanny kissing men. Her brother George kissing +women. Keegan, the judge, Ramsey, Aubrey and Henrietta--they disgusted +her with their continual love-making, kissing, dirtiness. People like +that didn't understand anything else. Their bodies searched each other +out and clung to each other. Bodies clenched together--she began to rage +in silence against them. He called them the pack. They were like that--a +pack of animals with nothing else but animal bodies to live with. She +paused in her hating, a chill coming between her silent words. The +company of images in her mind had dissolved. Their faces came together +and blurred into a single face and she saw Lief Lindstrum holding her +wildly against him, his lips open and hot against her mouth.... + +The company had gone. Her family was left in the library. She had +intended going upstairs without speaking. But she came into the room and +sat down. Fanny looked at her with a questioning innocence that said, +"Dear me, I wonder what people do who walk in the park at night?" Her +brother was talking. He looked at her with a smile and went on. + +"You mustn't think I'm a blockhead, mother, about these people here +tonight, for instance. Just because I get along with them. I'll give you +my theory of people. We were discussing our guests," he explained +turning to Doris. She nodded. "Never believe them," he grinned. "They're +all liars. The thing to do is to lie better than they. Honesty, purity, +nobility--bah! I know what I'm talking about. That's what people tell +each other they are. And they are, of course. Till they're found out. +You said a little while ago I was lying. Of course I was. But not the +way you mean. That breach of promise case really happened. I wasn't +lying about that. You wait, you'll understand what I mean after a few +years. I'm going to do things." + +He stood up and yawned. Mrs. Basine smiled happily at him. The day had +tired her. She felt pleasantly responsible for her three children. Three +human beings that belonged to her. At least she could pretend they did. +And sometimes it was almost as nice dreaming of what they had in their +minds as planning her own tomorrows. Basine went to his bedroom. + +He undressed and lay down. Sounds continued in the house. Doris coming +upstairs. Fanny chattering to his mother. Water running in the bathroom. +He turned the gas out and lay with his face toward the window. + +His body was weary. But he felt young. He thought of the many years +ahead of him. Everything was new. Even the century had just begun. A new +century. Life was a gay unknown. He thought about things. Things filled +the future. They could not be seen or understood but their presence +could be felt. Unlived years stretched ahead, like a track without end. + +He must be careful not to grow too serious. Lying was easy but he must +avoid getting tangled up. Say anything you want to, but look out how +hard you say it. People were easy. It would all come out beautifully. +Success, power, fame, money, happiness--they were all easy. They would +all come to him. People were fools and you could get ahead of them. He +yawned. He almost fell asleep. His mind mumbled with words. His day +dreams, his memories, his weariness jumbled dim pictures. Phantoms +drifted without outline over his head. + +He fell asleep and dreamed he was in a brightly lighted hall. Men were +cheering. Music played and people were yelling his name. In the dream he +was going to make a speech. The brightly lighted hall grew larger and +the crowd reached as far as he could see. But he didn't come out to make +the speech. Instead a woman in a gaudy dress came out. Her face was +white with powder and heavily painted. Her eyes were sunken. In the +dream he shuddered because the great crowd would rave indignantly at the +substitute who had come out to make the speech for him. But instead, a +tremendous cheer went up at the sight of this woman and everybody +yelled, "Basine ... Basine.... There he is. Hooray for Basine!" They +mistook the woman for him. The woman began to make his speech. The one +he had prepared. She spoke in a tired, hollow voice but the crowd +continued to cheer. Where was he in the dream? There was no Basine in +the dream. He kept wondering about this. There was no Basine but the +crowd thought this woman in the gaudy dress with the painted face was +Basine and they cheered her for him, calling her, "Basine...." while he, +hiding somewhere, the dream didn't say where, listened to the woman and +the cheers and the shouts of his name. He was saying to himself with a +feeling of horror, "I know that woman they think is me. It's that woman +Keegan and I met once. Keegan and I met her, by God!" He was going to +stop something but the dream went away. + + + + +11 + + +The city grows and keeps on growing. People vanish. Buildings spring up +to take their places. The streets become full of vast, intricate +activities. People have vanished but these activities keep on growing. + +The city shakes with noises. A cloud of noises rises from the street and +bursts slowly into names. Everywhere one turns, doors and windows +chatter with names. Names run up and down the faces of buildings. Gilt +names slant downward, porcelain names curve like lopsided grins. Names +fly from banners, hang from long wires, lean down from rooftops. + +The city is plastered with names. Tired men stop and blink. They mutter +to themselves in the street, "Lets see, where am I?" Their eyes stare at +an inanimate dance of names. Names fall out of the sky. An alphabet +face with eyebrows, nose, lips and hair made of names winks and sticks +out its tongue. + +These are not the names of people but of activities. As the city grows +the names pile up and reach higher. Names of things to eat, wear, see, +feel, smell, dream of and die for--they become too many to see and far +too many to read. They drift up and down the faces of the buildings and +scamper over the pavements like a lunatic writing. + +The vanished people no longer look at them. But the names continue to +pile up and spread out. They are a city apart. They no longer offer +clews to people. They are no longer advertisements yelping vividly out +of the air, but a decoration. Inscrutable hieroglyphs that salute each +other in the grave confusion of windows. They grimace with secret +meanings at each other and keep each other company in the night sky. +Like the people they too have become too many. As the city grows their +meanings and purposes also vanish, leaving behind a comet's tail and a +deaf and dumb good-bye. + +The city grows and devours itself and ceases to become articulate in +names. It shakes and howls senselessly. No one understands where the +noises come from or why. Windows become too many to count. Activities +double on themselves and tangle themselves up in other activities until +each activity becomes a mystery to itself. Business men buried in +business pause to blink at their desks and mutter, "Let's see, where am +I?" + +Underneath the activities and the comet's tail of names, the vanished +ones crawl about their business of destinations. They have remained +sedately unaware of their disappearance. They have barricaded themselves +behind activities and for the most part they are silent. Their +activities talk for them in a language easy to hear but difficult to +understand. Furnaces, engines, factories, traffic--these talk. Their +talk is very important. It is curious that for the simple business of +keeping alive there should be so many activities necessary. It is also +incomprehensible. + +Among themselves people offer each other informations and +interpretations. But these informations and interpretations are not of +their souls but of their activities which have nothing to do with them +except to hide them. They talk of business enterprise, of success, +progress, civic development, industrial achievement, political ideals; +of money made and money spent. This talk sounds very important. It +becomes an important part of the confusion of activities. + +Faces uncoiling in the streets, legs slanting against dark walls, suits +of clothes--these are the vanished people. Masses of rich and poor +moving on, everlastingly moving on through the whirl of years. Age like +a tenacious pestilence shovels them off a treadmill. Yet they remain and +increase and become hidden from each other by their too many selves, +hidden from themselves by their too many activities. They grow confused +and stop staring at each other. They walk listening to the shake of the +city, blinking at the alphabet face above them. + +The city is a great bubble they have blown. It floats over their heads +and grows greater and more dazzling. Slowly it sinks down and engulfs +them. + +This bubble talks for them. Activities talk for them. It is easier that +way. Activities say, "We, the people." This suffices. The vanished ones +point with relief to the glitter of activities and repeat, "There are +we." + +But activities grow too fast and too intricate to understand. The burst +of names becomes too violent to grasp. Then the people lost in their +bubble become an insupportable mystery to themselves. + +Buried beneath activities that grow by themselves, that seem to pulse +with mathematical passions and to multiply like a devouring fungus, the +vanished ones send up a clamor for whys and wherefores. An official +clamor. Life has become an enigma deeper than death. The cry is no +longer "Who is God? And where does He live?" But, "Who are We and what +are We?" + +Surveying themselves they see nothing and demand explanations of this +phenomenon. Baffled by their anonymity they demand identifications. They +want to be assured that things are all right, that their burial is O. K. + +And thus new explainers and identifiers leap daily into existence. These +are the bombinators, the dexterous geniuses able to translate the +insupportable mystery of life. Life is a mumble mumble, a pointless +delirium. People feel this and grow very serious. They feel life is a +little breath, a whimsical zephyr capering for a moment through space. + +But these are insupportable feelings. It is easy for the fish in the sea +to feel like that but in people there is a mania for direction. Out of +this mania is born the necessity of illusion--the illusion of direction. +There must be illusion. Life is not a mumble mumble but a clear voice +teeming with precisions. Not a pointless delirium but a vast, orderly +activity that has names--too many names to count. + +As children demand lights in the darkness, grown older they demand +illusions in life. Their reasoning is simple. "We are so puny," they +think. "There is hardly anything to us. We dare not dream or even think. +Look what would happen if we allowed ourselves to dream. We would begin +asking impossible questions of ourselves. Why are we? What lies under +our senses? So we must put away dreams and thought. They're dangerous. +But without them we become insufficient to ourselves. We become +incomplete. So make us a part of something outside ourselves that we may +remain unaware of our insufficiency. Make us a part of laws and ideas, +Gods, systems and activities. We are frightened by what we do not know. +And above the highest names on our buildings is a circle of unknowns. +Dispel this circle so that we may be rid of our fear. Give us paths to +traverse, goals to struggle toward and make these paths and goals +outside ourselves. We dare not adventure inside ourselves because that +way is inimical. Inspire us with great outward purposes so that the +inward purposelessness of our lives that would devour us in enigmas will +be obscured." + +The illusion-bringers arise--dexterous craftsmen able to fashion +purposes, Gods, ideals. Their work is to create heroic destinations, to +invent objectivity. These are the geniuses. They provide the sanities +which are the vital solace for terror. They invent masters because +masters are necessary since to have a master is to have an +objective--servitude. The instinct for servitude is an old, unfailing +friend. It represents the clamor for an outward purpose to conceal the +inner purposelessness of the vanished ones. And the geniuses are those +in whom the instinct for servitude inspires new visions of lovelier +masters. Thus is progress made--by increasing and making more definite +the demands of masters. + +Once the geniuses found their task simple. Now it grows difficult. +Famous masters, famous illusions, famous objectives lose their value. +Their capacity for solace dwindles. The illusion of God grows dim. The +illusions that bore the names Zeus, Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Mohamet are +fading. The knees of the race have stiffened with vanity and prayer +grows difficult. The great Heavens overladen with their angel choirs and +hierarchies tumble about the ears of people. Slowly the reservoirs of +faith in consoling myths dry up. Epigrams have almost sponged away one +of the immemorial deeps of the soul. + +The geniuses cast about inventing new masters, masters who will reward +and punish and establish paths to traverse and goals to achieve. As the +activities increase and as people vanish deeper under the self-growing +fungus of finance, industry, government, they develop a paradoxical +vanity. A vanity by which they seek to preserve themselves. A vanity +becomes necessary that will save them from the knowledge of their +inferiority to life.... Their age-old illusion of Gods on High drifts +away. The new illusion slowly unfolds. Again the reasoning is simple. + +The race speaks.... "There is no longer a God or a Heaven of futures. +The words eternity and infinity are bottomless and no longer hold us or +guide us. But we must have a master, one who will enable us to dream of +His recompense since we still dare not adventure in dreams of our own. +And this master must assure us as our old master did--that there are +great purposes in life, great rewards. We will make a minor change in +our theology. Once it was our desire to think of ourselves as having +been created in the image of God--a Superior. This was when we were +strong, when we walked the earth and wore our destinies like gay +feathers in our caps. Now we have grown diffused and weak. The world is +no longer simple enough for us to understand and ignore. We dare not +ignore our disappearance from life. Therefore in order to compensate for +this disappearance we will create a God in our image and worship Him. +The deeper we sink, the further we vanish, the higher, nobler and more +powerful will we make our new God. Come, illusion mongers, we desire a +new God. We desire a new Heaven. Make us a Heaven of quicksilver in +which we may see not Jehovah who is a myth but our own image glorified, +which is closer to reality, and which our dawning intelligence may more +easily swallow. In this heaven let us see our civic virtues magnified. +We want for a master an idealization of ourselves, whom we may serve in +hope of rewards." + +Thus the vanished ones stare aloft and slowly the heavenly mirror +spreads itself for them--a mirror of identifications and explanations. +It is all clear--or at least it grows clear--in this mirror; who we are +and what we are.... A beautiful image marches across its face. It is the +image of the vanished ones, ennobled and deified--become a new illusion, +become a God-like creature with flashing eyes. A marvelous, +unsurpassable creature whose every gesture is perfection, whose every +grimace is unsurpassable perfection. A reassuring God. Whatever their +moods, their despairs, their manias--they have only to look up and see +them ennobled and deified in the mirror-heaven. + +Gazing aloft the vanished ones raise their voices in a cheer of triumph. + +"We are confused. We have disappeared. Our activities have devoured us. +But we are not afraid. For behold, whatever we do, we remain God. See +our reflection. We are always and consistently perfect. Our stupidities, +hysterias, bewilderments shine back at us out of this new Heaven as +God-like attributes. Wisdom and victory smile at us eternally out of our +mirror. Let the city devour itself and become a jungle of names. Let +life lose itself in the labyrinth of activities. Let the buildings +devour life until it becomes less than a tiny warmth under huge ribs of +steel. These things are no longer insupportable. There is an answer +always to 'Who are we and what are we?' We are God. By worshipping +ourselves we may now dispel the dawning knowledge of our insufficiency. +The old God is dead. He was an illusion. The new God alone now has the +power to punish and reward. We will kneel with fanatical servitude +before the image of our virtues and punish ourselves with a terrible +justice in order to appear God-like in our own eyes." + +Slowly the new heaven above the city grows and the vanished ones with +the eyes of Narcissus stare enchanted into its quicksilver depths. + + + + +12 + + +In the days that followed her walk with Lindstrum in the park, Doris +Basine abandoned herself to her passion for the man. Her body desired +him. She dreamed of their coming together as of some transcendental +climax. + +But the months passed and Lindstrum held himself aloof. She felt certain +of herself though. It was only necessary to wait. She could go on +dreaming of him and waiting too. To think of him, to remember he was +alive, this for the time was happiness enough. + +After a number of months they saw each other oftener. He seemed to grow +more dependent on the fanatical admiration of her eyes and words. Her +flattery stirred an excitement in him that he was learning to utilize in +writing. The fact that he was loved made it easier to write. The memory +of the things she said, of the desire in her eyes was like music. It was +easier to write with music playing in his head. But the more he wrote +and dreamed of writing the less he desired her. So her passion became an +applause urging him from her. + +He would listen trembling to her gradually shameless avowals. + +"You're so wonderful. So remarkable. You're the only man in the world +that's alive. Your genius is something I can't even talk about. It must +be worshipped. I love you." + +In the midst of such monologues she would suddenly vanish from +Lindstrum's thought. Her beauty and desire were powerless to hold his +attention. Her enfevered praise would become a lash that drove him into +himself. And, trembling with a passion that her love had aroused, he +would leave her. But it would be a passion which demanded possession not +of her but of himself. + +He would walk excitedly to his room over his father's shop and sit down +to write. + +After many months Doris began to understand. He brought her poems he had +written; poems like night music and passion music. She felt his heart +throbbing among their words. Even his body was in them. What she wanted +of him he gave to the poems he wrote. + +She announced herself at home as tired of her surroundings and +dependence. Through the aid of a friend she secured a job as clerk in a +large bookstore. One evening she came home to tell her mother she was +going to move. + +Basine entered the argument that followed. To her surprise he took her +side, agreeing with her that a modern young woman had a better chance of +realizing herself if she lived alone and made her own way. + +Mrs. Basine refused to be convinced. Not about the theories, she +explained, but about Doris. When her two children argued with her she +felt herself the victim of a conspiracy. Why did Doris want to leave her +home? And why did George want her to? The answers didn't lie in the +arguments they gave. But because she was unable to determine what the +answers were, she assented. Later she thought, + +"If I hadn't given my consent she would have done it anyway. This way +I've saved her from being disobedient." + +Doris took up her life in a two-room apartment on the near north side of +the city. The district was alive with rooming-houses, little stores, +lovers who walked hand in hand at night, artists who tried to paint, +writers who worked as clerks and tried to write, workingmen, artisans, +derelicts. Everyone seemed alone in this district and on warm evenings +groups of strangers sat stiffly on the stone steps of the houses and +stared at the sky. + +Doris was able to live on her salary. She made friends and her evenings +were devoted to conversations. But they were a curious type of friends. +They were men and women one got to know only by their ideas. One became +acquainted with their ideas, then familiar with them, then on terms of +intimacy with them. + +It had been different at home. At home she knew men and women as they +were. They sat around and talked and if you listened to what they said +you came close to them. You understood them and when they said +good-night you knew where they were going. You knew all about them, +where they worked, their family, their homes. They grew into familiars +as uninteresting and unmysterious as your own relatives. + +But here where Doris had come to live were men and women about whom you +never learned anything. They talked and talked but all the while you +wondered where they worked, what things were in their hearts. You +wondered how they lived and what they did all the time. But you never +found out. Such informations were not a part of the talk that went on. +It was all talk about outside things, about politics and women and art. +Everybody in the circle Doris entered became familiar in a short time. +But after they had become familiar there remained this mystery about +them. What sort of people were they under their poses and behind their +words? + +The most curious change her freedom brought Doris was a garrulity that +surprised even herself. She became adept in arguments vindicating the +emancipation of her sex and proving that the ideals and standards by +which women lived were the rose-covered chains forged for their +enslavement by man. + +But her garrulity did not deceive Doris. She grew more clearly aware of +herself. She knew that her entire upheaval, her taking up new ideas, her +repudiating conventions had been inspired by a single factor. She wanted +to live alone in a room so there would be no difficulty in giving +herself to Lindstrum when the opportunity came. + +With this in mind she had deliberately converted herself into a "new +woman," since an expression of the new womanhood was independence of +family and since independence of family meant a room to herself. Of this +subterfuge Doris became tolerantly aware. Her hypocricies did not +concern her. In her desire for the man she loved the surfaces of her +life disappeared like straws in flame. + +Lindstrum had visited her in her new quarters with misgivings. When he +was alone he often sat thinking of her and repeating her ardent phrases. +This helped him to make love to himself, to seduce the strange companion +who lived in the depths of his soul into embracing him. Out of this +embrace came words. Out of the ecstacy these hypnotisms induced, he was +able to create gigantic phrases, mystic sequences of words whose reading +often inspired people with an excitement similar to the emotion that had +produced them. Women in particular grew emotional at the contact of his +written words. When he read his poetry to some of them who were his +friends they closed their eyes and thought he was making love to them. + +Lindstrum utilizing the adoration Doris gave him as a means of +self-seduction, remained aware of the danger this offered. The danger +was summed up in the word "marriage." At twenty-six his sexual impulses +found sublimated outlet in the orgies of self-seduction which he called +his creative work. Thus his physical nature clamored for no other mate +than his own genius, and the lure of marriage as a legalized debauch +failed to touch him. His egoism likewise found a more perfect surfeit in +his own self-admiration than in that of others. He saw in marriage +merely a forfeit of his privacy and an intruder upon his self-love. + +Doris studying him carefully from behind her abandonment discovered the +barrier. + +"I don't want ever to marry," she explained to him. This started talk in +which Lindstrum defended marriage as an institution. He grew eloquent on +the subject that society and civilization were dependent upon marriage +and that a man who sought to dispense with it was merely being +unfaithful to himself as a member of society. + +Doris saw through the angry phrases of her friend that he was trying to +tell her how little he desired her. He was defending marriage and +proclaiming his belief in it, in order to excuse his physical +indifference toward her, both in his own eyes and hers. Since she had +said she thought marriage was an abomination, he could safely defend it +without compromising himself. He need have no fear that she would agree +with him. In this way his pose as a moralist was a convenient method of +concealing the fact that he had no impulse toward immorality. He could +even insist with impunity that she marry him and so use her rhetorical +stand against marriage in general as a personal refusal. + +Doris allowed matters to drift through the year. One winter night +Lindstrum, invited innocently to occupy the sofa in the studio rather +than to tackle the storm-bound transportation outside, consented. He sat +reading things he had written until midnight came. + +He did not see how it had happened but when he looked up after one of +his readings Doris was sitting before the small grate fire. Her face was +turned from him and he stared at her. She had undressed and slipped a +green silk robe over her body. Her black silk stockings gleamed like +exclamation points in the firelight. Her throat and breasts were visible +and the shadows mirrored themselves in her white arms. + +As he looked at her the warmth of the room seemed to bring her closer. +He thought her beautiful and standing up went to her side. His hand +sought clumsily to caress the hair coiled on her head. He stood silent, +remembering how she loved him. Always the thought excited him. But now +he seemed to be thinking about it with a curious calm. There was +something about a woman who loved that was beyond words to figure out. + +She looked up at him with a smile. A faint odor stirred from her. He +found himself drawing deep breaths and staring at her with a heavy pain +in his arms. The pain she had always brought to him and out of which he +had made his words. Now this was easier, simpler--to reach his arms +around her.... + + * * * * * + +... "I belong to you now," she whispered as the dawn lighted the room. +The fire in the grate still burned feebly. They had kept it alive +during the night. + +"You see," she went on, "I was right about not marrying. We can love +each other like this without marrying ever. Oh I love you so. You make +me so happy." + +"Yes," he murmured sleepily, intent upon the whitening room. "Dawn--the +white shadow of night," whispered itself through his mind. But he said +nothing. After an interval he repeated as if delivering himself of +innumerable ideas--"Yes." + + * * * * * + +... Lindstrum slowly extricated himself from the lure of her passion. +For months her love, dissolving rapturously in his embrace, remained a +flattery too bewildering to resist. He allowed himself then to yield to +the slowly accumulating demands of his mistress. Nevertheless in a month +he had lost interest in his own sensations. The thought of impending +embraces in the studio failed to arouse him.... There was nothing Doris +had to give that was comparable to the delicious elation his own +self-seduction held for him. + +But although the physiology of sex lost its attraction for him, he +remained interested in Doris' submission. Her delight in his caresses +and her exclamations of arduous love fascinated him as a species of +applause. He grew able to resist the contagion of her sensualism and to +make her happy, without essentially occupying himself. + +In the second year of their association he gradually undermined her +passion. Aware of his complete coolness, Doris fought successfully to +suppress the ecstacies he was able to stir in her. Their relations by +degrees returned to a platonic basis. + +Lindstrum was becoming known. His poetry printed in fugitive labor +gazettes was attracting a slight attention. He was being identified as a +poet of the masses. The masses, however, unable to understand, let alone +appreciate the mystic imagery and elusive passion of his vers libre +phrasings remained oblivious to him. They continued to read and swear by +the newspaper jinglers celebrating in rhyme the platitudes which kept +them in subjugation. His fame was beginning through the enthusiasm of a +few scattered dilletantes who abhorred the masses and saw in his work an +intense technique and high asthetic quality. + +He remained loyal to Doris in one respect, still coming to her for the +adulation which somehow quickened his desire to write. But Doris, with +the repression of her own desires had grown silent. She appeared to +relapse into her former self--the enigmatic and disdainful virgin of the +Basine library. + +But this simulation included only her mannerisms. As a girl of twenty +she had been without thought. Now a strange intellectualism preoccupied +her. It developed when she was twenty-three and when Lindstrum was +beginning to ignore her again. It began with the knowledge that there +were definite preoccupations luring her lover from her. Against one of +these she knew herself powerless. This was his desire to write. She had +understood this thing in Lindstrum from the first. It had been, in fact, +the lure of the man. But now it had taken entire possession of him and +had become her rival. + +He had grown dumb. His grey eyes no longer smiled or roved. They gazed +without movement as if fixed on invisible objects. They seemed without +sight, yet there was life in them--an intensity like the anger of +blindness. He no longer looked at things. He avoided contact with the +visible and imposed a deliberate fog on his vision. He went through his +day unaware of details, yet absorbing them; unseeing, yet translating +the commonplaces around him into phenomena that tugged at the hearts of +his few readers. + +Doris knew the futility of combating in her lover the habit of +self-seduction now became a vital necessity. She tried to establish a +harmony between them by turning to writing herself. The clarity of her +mind made poetry impossible. Her thoughts refused to dissolve into +magnificent blurs. Her emotions were too definite to find solacing +outline in ambiguous pirouettes. + +She envied her lover his natural aptitude for poetry. It seemed to her a +comforting and satisfying evasion--to write poetry. There were no rules +of logic, coherence, technique. There was even no rule of +intelligibility. + +There was a man named Levine with whom she discussed matters of this +sort, exchanging definitions with him of such things as life, love and +art. He was a Jew and worked on a newspaper. Lean, vicious-tongued and +unkempt, the fantastic skepticism of this man attracted her. He was a +man without principles, ideas, prejudices. His attitude toward life she +sensed to be a pose. But he had been completely consumed by this pose +and the pose was one of superiority. His brain was like a magician. It +waved words over ideas or problems and they turned inside out. Or they +vanished and reappeared again as their opposites. He appeared to devote +himself with a mysterious enthusiasm to proving everyone but himself in +the wrong. When he read editorials in the newspapers he would comment, +"They say this. But they mean this." And he grew elated explaining the +low, sordid motives which inspired the noble-phrased pronouncements in +the press and elsewhere. + +When she talked to him about poetry one evening he knew her well enough +to understand she wanted to talk about Lindstrum. Doris had tried her +hand at poetry and the results had been in a measure satisfactory. Poems +had come out under her pencil. She compared them coldly with things Lief +had written. They were as good and better. She offered them to Levine to +read. He nodded after each one and smiled, "Very nice. Excellent. +Superb." Then he handed them back to her and added, "I've always known +this. Anybody can write poetry. This poetry is quite good. But it +remains, you're no poet." + +And he recited from memory a few lines of Lindstrum's work. + +"You see the difference," he said. "His rings truer. Although yours is +much more lucid and beautifully written. The difference isn't between +your work and his but between your work and yourself and his work and +himself. When Lindstrum wrote that he felt a thrill of satisfaction. He +had for a minute completed himself in the poem. Therefore the thing +represented a certain perfection. When you wrote you felt nothing after +writing it. In an hour the whole thing seemed rather senseless and +unworthy of you. You felt no thrill of completion. This shows that no +matter if you write a dozen times better than Lindstrum the fact +remains that you're not a poet and he is. + +"But why write poetry. I have a friend who says that poetry is an impish +attempt to paint the color of the wind. He hasn't written any himself +yet but he will. But I've warned him. He'll never succeed. Lindstrum +will because Lindstrum has the faculty of rising above logic. He can +recreate his emotions in words. Emotion is unintelligent, banal, +wordless. The trick of being a great poet is to make your mind +subservient to your emotion--the triumph of matter over mind, in other +words." + +He noticed an inattentiveness and stopped. He hoped some day to make +love to her but as long as she remained interested in his verbal +jugglings he was content with that. + +When she was alone Doris took a morbid interest in unravelling ideas and +attenuations of ideas. Morbid, because the process seemed to bring a +melancholy to her. But she persisted. There was an elation. Thinking was +like a game in which one surprised oneself with denouements. + +One day while walking she reasoned silently about her situation. Her +love for Lindstrum had grown. At times it fell on her like a despair. +She would lie in the dark of her room repeating to herself that she +would go mad unless he came back to her, unless he loved her. + +Walking swiftly she began to think of her plans. Her plans centered upon +bringing him back to her arms. + +"If I'm going to do this I must first of all be clear about myself," she +thought. "I've become interested in lots of things. I must find out why +and what's started me." + +The answer that came to her was one of the denouements of the game. It +repeated, but clearly, that she was chiefly concerned with bringing Lief +back to her and that one way to do this was to become keener than he, +become brilliant enough to deflate him, to confuse him. And this could +best be done by attacking his subject matter, by turning his conceptions +of life and people upside down and so throwing him out of gear. + +When she got home she was still thinking. + +"What I must do, is make him think. He doesn't think. The pictures he +sees pass like blurs through his eyes and come out like blurs under his +pencil. If I can make him think he'll have to open his eyes. He'll have +to defend what he accepts without defenses now--the nobility of the +masses, the beauty of life. And if he starts thinking and doubting he +won't be able to write because he's not built to write that way. He's +built to write out of passion." + +The idea became cruelly apparent in her mind. She must destroy Lindstrum +in order to possess him. She must beat down the passionate certitude of +the man, puncture his blind, roaring egomania, take away from him his +genius and then he would turn to her. + +Her thought at this point gave itself over to the passion in her. Anger +filled her and a strange viciousness as though she had something under +her hands to tear to pieces. Her clear-thinking mind was a weapon--a +thing she could use to destroy a rival with. And if it destroyed Lief +along with the rival, what matter? Slowly the morbidity of her position +grew. Levine was an ally. His talk gave her ideas--directions in which +to think. She disliked his attitude. The man was an insincerity. There +was also something unctuous and cowardly about him. He never stood up +for his notions in the face of conservatively indignant people. He +capitulated and even denied his beliefs or lack of beliefs. Yet in the +nihilism to which he pretended she found a background for her own +thinking. Nihilism to Levine was a conversational pastime. To Doris it +became a despairing hope for salvation. She poured over books, carefully +questioned the secrets of life, not like a philosopher seeking answers +but like a Messalina questing for poisons. + +Her debates with Lindstrum were at first casual and good-natured. A +humility before his genius made her unable to assert herself. He could +hurl his mystic word sequences at her and their beauty made her +incapable of appreciating their lack of psychologic content. + +But her determination grew. She must destroy--what? The somber ecstasy +which the spectacle of people awoke in him. People ... people ... the +word contained the shape and soul of her rival. People ... workers, +toilers, underdogs ... he sang of their bruised hearts and their little +gropings. Songs of unfulfilled dreams, of moods like ashen baskets that +broke under the weight of life. Coal miners, farmers, stevedores, +vagrants, desperadoes, drowsy clerks and fumbling factory hands--the +dull faces of the immemorial crowd sweating for its living, grunting +under its burdens--his phrases hymned their loneliness and their +defeats. Beautiful phrases that seemed almost the work of a fantastic +word weaver. But she knew better. The little images, the patterns of +street scenes, the aloof fragments of idea--these might be to some only +decorations. The curve of a pick going through the air, the shake of a +great trestle with an overland train thundering across, the glint of a +night torch under the eyes of a section gang--these might be only +abstractions outlining bits of rhythm and color. But then Lindstrum +would not have been a poet. + +There was beneath them, buoying them higher and higher like some +mysterious, invisible force, a passion. It escaped now and then from +between the lines of his work, shaking itself like a fist, holding its +arms out like a lost woman. Threats crept out of the placid little +images in which fragments of street scenes postured vividly for the eye. +A fury loomed suddenly behind the mumble of a hurdy-gurdy piece; a snarl +offered itself as invisible punctuation for a fol de rol of city life. + +It was a passion that identified itself with, and seemed to fatten upon, +the injustices of life. It sought to champion the war of the crowd +against man and nature. + +"The humble ones ... the humble ones...." it sang, "they are God. The +ones life walks upon. The working ones, the cheated ones--here is their +song. The oppressed ones, listen to their hearts beating." + +It was a passion out of which a great propagandist might have been born. +But Lindstrum's mind was too simple to utilize it, even to understand +it. He was aware only of a torment that seemed to twist at his heart and +bring words like soothing whispers into his thought. A craftsman +obsession moulded it slightly. But always the inarticulate excitements +that had started him writing remained fugitive among his written words +saying neither "I hate," nor "I love," but affirming with a monotonous +crescendo, "I am. I am!" + +Doris caught by the fanatic lyricism of his songs yielded her intellect +to them for a time. The shoemaker Wotans and hobo Christs startled her +into an acquiesence. But she was determined. She knew that her praise of +his poetry was like an admiration of his infidelity. Yes, he loved +people as he might have loved her, blindly with his heart, with his arms +around their bodies and his grey eyes looking hungrily through them. + +The debates grew less casual. There were abrupt climaxes during which he +stared at her with anger. Then it was no longer a debate of ideas but of +wills. Here she knew herself powerless and yielded at once, making use +of her apology to caress his face or seize his hand. + +Alone again she would study the things she had said as she studied from +day to day the social, political and spiritual history of her own and +other times. Her mind grew to master the phrases which outlined the +illusions of the crowd, which revealed the lusts and errors of the +crowd. Her thought inspired by the single desire to destroy for her +lover the beauty of her rival, rallied continually from its defeats +before his anger. Her cynicism became a mystic thing--her adoration of +her lover turning into a hatred of life, a contempt of people. + +At night she sat in the window of her room overlooking the thinly +crowded street. The obsession held her now, occupying her energies +entirely. In its excitement, in the mental twistings, she found rest +from the desires that burned. + +Alone ... she was alone. She would play langorously with this sense of +loneliness. She would repeat quietly, "He'll never come to me again. +Never hold me in his arms. How beautiful he is. His lips are not like +any man's lips could be. But he doesn't love me any more. He loves this +in the street below. Men and women in the street." + +And here her thinking would begin, a sequel to the preface of sorrow. +Below her moved the face of her rival--the crowd. She must study the +thing out carefully so as to be clear in her words when she talked to +him. So as to make her words a poison in him that would destroy the +passion for her rival. + +The night lifted itself far away. Little lights ran a line of yellow at +the foot of buildings. Men and women. What were men and women? The blur +of faces in the street, moving along every night, what was that? +Something to idealize and give one's soul to? No. + +Individuals racing toward their secret destinations and tumbling with a +sigh into an inexhaustible supply of graves--that was a phenomenon to be +studied separately. Out of that one could locate plots, dramas, humor, +tragedy. But here below the window was another story--was a great +character that had no name but that her lover worshipped. The crowd ... +this thing in the street he sang of as the crowd was a single creature. +Its face was one, its voice one. It had one soul--the soul of man. A +dark thing, alive with inscrutable desires. + +"They're not people," she whispered, her eyes staring down, "but +traditions walking the street. Accumulations of desires and impulses +taking the night air." + +She watched it move in silence, buried beneath names and buildings. + +The crowd.... It was blind to itself. Its many eyes peered bewilderedly +about. Its many legs moved in a thousand directions. And yet it was +identical. Faces, different shaped bodies, different colored +suits--these were part of a mask. Sentences that drifted in the night, +laughters, sighs--these were part of a mask. Under the clothes, faces, +names, talk of people, was a real one--the crowd. It had no brain. + +And yet this creature that moved in the street below, in all streets +everywhere, made laws, made wars, and mumbled eternally the dark secrets +of its soul. The crowd ... a monstrous idiot that devoured men, reason +and beauty. Now it moved with a purr through the street. It was going +somewhere, making love, making plans, diverting itself with little +hopes. Its passions and its secrets slept. It moved like a great +somnambulist below her window, with a fatuous complacency in its dead +eyes. Its many masks disported themselves in the night air. But let +hunger or fear, let one of the inscrutable impulses awake it, and see +what happened. Ah! Communes, terrors, rivers of blood, heads on spikes, +torture and savagery! + +She must tell this all clearly to him, explain lucidly to him how the +hero-crowd of his singing was a gruesome and stupid criminal blind to +itself and afraid of itself and inventing laws to protect it from +itself. How it was a formless thing with hungers and desires moulded in +the beginning of Time. How it demanded proofs of itself that the +darkness of its brain and the savagery of its heart were the twin Gods +from whom all wisdom and justice flowed. How the workers, the defeated +ones, the under dogs he sang of and loved were like the others--lesser +masks envying superior masks. And how the idealisms, Gods and hopes they +all worshipped were lies the beast whispered to itself, fairy tales by +which the beast consoled itself. Yes, a monster that devoured men who +threatened its consolations, a wild fanged beast purring eternally in +the path of progress. Reason was a little cap the masks wore that every +wind blew off. Her loneliness faded. Seated by her window Doris no +longer desired the lips of her lover. There was another elation ... a +knowledge of the thing in the street, a certainty that she could make +Lief Lindstrum understand. + +One evening when he had returned to her after an absence of a month she +decided to talk calmly to him of the things she had been thinking. He +came in with an air of caution, that frightened her for an instant. She +studied him as he took off his coat and hat and sat down. It was autumn +outside. Dark winds seemed to have followed him in. This was an old +trick of his that had once thrilled her. He seemed always to have come +from far-away places, to have risen out of depths with secrets in his +eyes. Her heart yielded as she watched him. There was the quality about +him she could never resist, the thing her senses clamored for. Not that +he wrote poetry--but that he was a poet. + +It was almost useless to argue with him, to destroy him. No matter what +he said or what he was doing she could see him always as he really +was--a silent figure walking blindly over men and buildings, over days +and nights; walking with its eyes snarling and its mouth tightened; +walking over days and nights after a phantom--a silent figure walking +after a phantom. The phantom whispered, "Come" ... and the silent figure +nodded its head and followed. That was how she saw him when her heart +yielded, when she desired again to throw herself before him, make +herself the phantom he was following. + +But the obsession in her changed the picture slowly. Not a phantom but a +face she knew--the face of the crowd. A wild fanged monster that had +cast a spell over her lover and he went walking blindly after it calling +words to it, singing lullabys to it, when all these things should have +been for her. + +Their talk began as she wished it. He was ill at ease. Why had he come? +He was afraid to stay away? Why? She wondered questions as he sat +uncertainly in the chair and offered vague gossip and information to +explain his presence. Then she said abruptly: + +"I'm writing a story. I've decided not to do any more poetry but write a +story--a book, maybe." + +He nodded. + +"What about?" he asked. + +"People. About people," she smiled. She noticed his body stiffen and his +eyes grow hard. + +"Yes, about people," he repeated slowly. + +He was cautious when he came to see her now. She had reason to make +demands of him. She had given herself to him and he didn't trust her. +And she was always trying to do something to him. He knew this. It was +hard to understand her lately but one thing was easy--she was not to be +trusted. + +"How they come together in crowds," she continued evenly, "and lose +themselves in a common identity. How they become a hideous, unreasoning +savage--a single savage. I'm going to write a book making this savage +the ... the hero." + +She paused to look at him. He was inattentive but she knew better. + +"You should be interested," she smiled. + +"Why should I be interested?" he asked slowly. + +"Because you write about people, too." + +"Yes." + +"Or think you do," she went on. "I'm going to write about people as a +crowd--as one savage without a brain. That's the crowd. And this savage +is the hero of my story. Without a brain to think he creates out of his +savagery the Gods, laws and illusions under which you and I live, Lief. +Do you understand that?" + +He looked at her without answer. Her heart grew alive with strength. She +knew he was incapable of any answer but anger. His anger could usually +defeat her but this time she felt she could laugh at him when he began +to scowl. She stood up. + +"You," she said softly, "are like they are. Like the crowd. You do not +think or reason. You only feel. Words are accidents to you ... crazy +hats that rain down on your head. You write out of a hatred for things +superior to the beast. You're mad at life because it isn't as beautiful +as you'd like it to be. So when you get maddest you begin to sing lies +about it." + +She laughed at the scowl on his face. + +"Yes, I've figured it out, Lief. You're a terrible liar. When you say +you love people, the crowd, you're a terrible liar then. You don't love +the crowd at all. What is your love of people but a blind infatuation +with yourself? You hate them. Whose humanity are you all the time +writing about and singing about? Your own. But you're ashamed to admit +that. Sometimes people are ashamed to boast of themselves so they boast +of something else they've created in their own image--of their Gods. +That's the way you boast of your crowd. You're ashamed to boast of +yourself so you fix it up for yourself by giving the virtues you think +you've got to people and then singing about them as if you were an +altruist and a sympathetic human observer. You're a great liar, Lief. +And the thing you love is a lie you make up. Because people are foul. +And you know it. They're not like you or me. They can't think even as +much as a rat thinks. They're as rattle-brained as chickens, as greedy +as vultures. And they lie all the time--good God, how they lie. You hate +them too. You know all this better than I do. But you keep feeling +things and you imagine they're things people feel. You...." + +She stopped and looked at him with a smile. She had started to insult +him and had ended by pleading with him. His jaws were working as if he +were chewing. This was his anger. But she felt no defeat, nothing but a +slight confusion. She was disappointed in herself because she could not +recapture the thoughts that had filled her during the month. They had +been clear at their inception but now they were mixed up with desires +for Lief, with a fear of him. They were mixed up so that out of what she +was saying there arose no clear image of Lief and his relation to life +or of the crowd and its foulness. + +"Why don't you answer what I say?" she asked. "Are you afraid to discuss +things you are absorbed in? If people are so wonderful let's talk about +them." + +She felt a triumph. She had destroyed something. She could tell by his +eyes. They were becoming wild and unfixed. If she could be certain of +destroying it forever, of killing in him the love for her rival ... +then.... + +"The little finger of one intelligent man is worth the whole of the +French revolution," she was saying excitedly. "You're no different from +the other cowards who devote themselves to flattering the monster. You +know what I mean. The monster rewards liars and flatterers. All you have +to do to be great in the eyes of the world is to celebrate the glories +of the monster. To make a lickspittle of your genius. It's an old and +easy formula. Why don't you think? You stand up with your eyes closed +and sing about things that never existed--about the beauty of people and +... and...." + +Lindstrum thrust his face close to her. She paused. A desire to laugh +came as she stared at the too familiar features of the man. This was the +face she had held in her hands and covered with kisses. Nights of +passion and adoration had been shared with this face. Now it held itself +savagely before her and grew blurred. Something had been destroyed in +it. It was no longer familiar. It was somebody else's face.... + +"People," it said as if it were going to spit at her. "Yes, like you +say. Think about them! God damn...." + +"Lief," she murmured. + +"Don't call me Lief...." He glowered closer. + +"Oh! Then you're angry. Well, I didn't expect you to agree." She made +her voice tender now. She did not want his face unfamiliar like this as +if she had never held it in her hands and covered it with kisses. + +But he continued to thrust himself unfamiliarly before her. + +"Yes, I agree about the crowd," he answered, his eyes swinging over her +head, his jaws still working. "I agree. You got 'em right. Down in the +mud of themselves. And me with them, do you hear that! Me singing with +'em. Get me, now. I'm going to tell you." + +She moved away from this unfamiliar face but it came closer again. + +"I don't want any of your brains. Not for mine. I want to be like I am. +This beast you talk about.... That's me. He can't talk or reason.... All +right. He won't then. But he'll do something else. He'll live. He'll go +on living. Yes," he raised his voice to a shout, "I agree with you. +Because I'm the crowd. Do you get that ... you dirty ... you dirty fool +... you...." + +The oath brought his passion into his head. His hand clenched and his +fist shot into her face. She staggered away from him, calling his name. +He watched her fall against a couch. A rage cried in him. He was a liar, +was he? And a coward? All right. He was. Look out for all liars and +cowards then. He walked toward the couch and stood above her. What did +she want of him? She wanted something. Tears filled him. People ... +people that sweated and grunted and crawled around like beasts and +raised their eyes at night to the stars.... This monster she gabbed +about, this thing without hands or eyes. That was it. + +She was crying on the couch. All right. Let her. But she was crying +because she wanted something.... His hands grabbed her head and +straightened her face until their eyes were looking into each other. + +"Listen," he said. He was shaking her. "I'm going away." + +Eyes watched each other. She looked until the face she had once kissed +became entirely strange. There was no Lief, no lover. But a face staring +murderously into hers. But there was something else. Tears behind the +stare. Why was he weeping? The question like a tiny visitor sat down in +her mind. + +He let her go and walked from the room, grabbing his hat and coat into +his hands as he went. + +Doris listened. Down the stairs. Outside. He was gone. She went to the +window. Her eye had swelled and her cheek pained. She sat down and +looked into the street. + +"He hit me," she was whispering to herself. She began to weep with +shame. But her tears seemed to soften her heart toward him. He had cried +too. She arose and went to the bed. Here she had lain with him. Warm, +familiar hours. Here her arms had held him. She threw herself down and +wept aloud. + + + + +II. + + + + +13. + + +George Basine was going to see his sister Doris. In the nine years since +she had left her mother's home she had become a strange woman to Basine. +She had always been strange to him. But now it was as if she were +entirely unhuman. + +He could talk to her without shame of things that were shameful. But +there was something more tangible in her presence than the joy of being +able to confess things to her. She was practical in her ideas. She gave +him hunches for his speeches sometimes and what she said about people +and how to make an impression on them was always of value. She +understood such things. How, he couldn't determine. It was probably an +instinct with her. + +Basine walked along in the spring afternoon. It was Sunday and he should +have stayed home. Henrietta had been angry when he left. Sunday was his +day for her and the two children. There were two children now--one a boy +of seven, and a girl of five. + +But he said, "I want to see Doris. She's been feeling rather off lately. +And if you don't believe I'm going there, why just call up in an hour. +And keep on calling every hour if you want to keep check on me." + +He was always angry with his wife when he left her. She made him feel +that he was doing wrong, although she seldom said anything. But to go +away and leave her on Sunday was wrong. But not for the reasons she +sometimes hinted at. + +He knew that she suspected his frequent absences from the house. He +accused her of hounding him with her jealousy, and the knowledge of his +innocence--he had never been unfaithful during the eight years of their +marriage--made him angry. The elation of righteous anger in which he +indulged himself on all occasions involving Henrietta, was a ruse which +obscured for both himself and his wife the actual reasons of his +absences. She bored him to a point of fury. His children and their +endless noises and questionings set his nerves on edge. He fled in order +to escape his home. But Henrietta hinted that he left her for someone +else. And he denied this hotly. And in the excitement which accusation +and denial aroused both of them managed to avoid facing the fact that he +stayed away for no other reason than to escape the boredom of her +presence and discomfort of his home. + +Basine was careful to avoid this fact. It was incompatable with his +ideas. He had become a man of belligerent righteousness. He was slowly +emerging as a public figure. As an assistant in the state's attorney's +office his political activities were attracting more attention than his +legal work. He was in demand as a campaign orator. And the candidates in +whose behalf he addressed the public were men, he pointed out with an +air of fearlessness, who believed first of all that the home was the +cornerstone of civilization. + +"He is a man worth while," he would declaim, "a capable administrator. +But first of all our candidate is like you and me. His heart is centered +in his home. The greatest rewards life holds for him are not the offices +we are able to bestow on him but the love of his wife and children." + +Since his marriage which from the first had irritated him and then set +his teeth on edge, he had devoted himself seemingly to a public +idealization of his own predicament. + +Nine years had brought changes in Basine. He had grown leaner. His face +had sharpened into hawk lines. There was about him at thirty-four, an +aristocratic pugnaciousness. Fearlessness was a word which was gradually +attaching itself to his name. He was fearless, people said. His lean +body and unphysical air contributed to their decision. + +When he appeared publicly people saw a wiry-bodied man past thirty with +an amazing determination about him. His words snapped out, his eyes +flashed as he talked. And his talk was usually alive with denunciations. +He denounced enemies of the people and ideas that were enemies. + +During the minor campaigns for aldermen, state's attorney and the +judiciary elections in which he had been employed by his party leaders, +he had created a slight newspaper stir. The public had quickly sensed in +him an interesting character. + +And then, although he was years working toward this end, he had suddenly +leaped forward as a champion of their rights. He had become one of the +select group of indomitable Davids striding fearlessly forth to do +battle with the Goliaths that threatened. And there were always Goliaths +threatening. Insidious Goliaths; shrewd, merciless Goliaths continually +on the verge of opening their terrible maws and devouring the rights of +the public. + +Basine was coming forward as a champion consecrated to the slaying of +Goliaths. Not only during campaigns, which, of course, was the open +season for Goliath-slaying, but between campaigns, behind closed doors +where nobody saw, in the bosom of his family. He never removed his armor +or rather, never laid aside his holy slingshot. He was always locked in +a death struggle with new and unsuspected Goliaths--this wiry, fearless +man who was beginning to cry out in the newspapers ... "The enemies of +the public must be overthrown. It matters not who they are or in what +camp they are. The city must be cleaned up." + +Following the failure of several private banks in the cosmopolitan +district of the city, Basine had leaped forward against this new +Goliath. This had been his first major offensive. + +Private banks were threatening the peace of the public. He had made +several speeches before business men's associations denouncing private +banks and private bankers. He had declared with utter disregard of +personal or political consequences that they were a menace--that they +were sharks swimming in the waters of finance--and that he would not +rest until the public had been made safe against their predatory, +merciless jaws. + +He was on this Sunday morning in the midst of the fight against private +banks. The excitement had started with the failure of a small banking +institution on the west side. The newspapers had carried the usual +stories of weeping depositors and heartbroken working people whose +life-time savings had been swept away in the crash. Basine had +overlooked the stories in the papers. Doris had called them to his +attention. He had been sitting in her studio.... Here was something +worth while. Why didn't he start a campaign against private banks. +There was always agitation, but as yet not a big campaign. + +When he left her the thing had already matured in his mind. He wondered +why she had laughed during the discussion of the possibilities of such a +campaign. He remembered her saying with a sneer, "That's the sort of +thing the crowd eats up. The trouble with you George, is that you +haven't learned the trick of frightening the mob. You can't be a leader +unless you frighten them first and then leap out to defend them. The +menace of private banks is something to frighten them with. Start a +crusade." + +That was it--a crusade. Movements and reforms were all very well. But +they were slow work. In order to advance one had to attach oneself to +tidal waves. Doris was right about frightening them. + +Within a week he had launched his attack. He had developed a technique +in his public utterances which was becoming more and more unconscious +and so more and more convincing. Once determined that a crusade against +private banks would be a step in his upward climb, his cynicism in the +matter vanished. He investigated the subject thoroughly, filling his +mind with statistics. Events played into his hands. A second private +bank collapsed at the end of the week and Basine knew that the ground +was ready for his crusade. + +He began not with an attack against the institution of private banks, +but shelving the statistics he had carefully mastered, he concentrated +upon creating a sense of terror in the public mind. In statements given +out to the press and in speeches before business men's associations +which were also reported in the newspapers, he pounded on the note of +menace. They were a menace. They were something to be afraid of. They +jeopardized stability. They were wildcat institutions. + +It was his first crusade and he waited nervously for the response. The +response came after a pause of a week like an answering shout. Down with +private banks! A conflagration of headlines flared up. The people were +against private banks. Editorials heralded the fact. The newspapers were +against private banks. A week ago private banks had been the furthest +topic from the public conversation. Now it became a matter of violent +discussion. Citizens committees were being formed for the purpose of +fighting private banks. + +Feeling began to run high. Very high. A neighborhood Polish financier +who for years had conducted a small banking institution was mobbed on +his way to work and rescued from the violence of the crowd, which +threatened his life by the arrival of police. This incident was reported +by the newspapers as revealing the determination of the men seeking to +wipe out the menace of the private bank and also as revealing the +unscrupulous power of the men engaged in the private banking business. + +The growing clamor against the institution resulted naturally in the +collapse of two more small banks whose depositors, terrified by reports +they themselves were circulating, rushed to withdraw their savings. + +Basine contemplating the extent of the public indignation felt a pride +and a misgiving. He glowed with the thought that he, Basine, had started +the thing. His name had from the beginning figured prominently in +connection with the growing crusade.... "Basine Denounces Private +Banks...." had started it. And then a flood of headlines, "Banking +Sharks Prey on poor, says Basine."... And then "Basine Flays Private +Bankers at Mass Meeting...." "Private Bank Menace Growing...." + +He had kept his head during the publicity and, unaccountably, his +thought had turned to his sister as the crusade gathered momentum, as +the "menace grew." Although alive with a powerful indignation against +the enemy, Basine remained mentally aloof in contemplating the +situation. His aloofness was not a cynicism but a guide. + +He studied the fact that the clamor was in the main artificial. The +menace of the private bank was a thing that touched less than one +per-cent of the population. There were no more than thirty such minor +institutions in the city and more than two-thirds of these were as sound +as the banks under government supervision. His statistics had revealed +this. + +Nevertheless in some mysterious way the phrase "private bank" had become +synonymous with ogre, villainy, menace, calamity. His original +denunciations published rather casually by the press had been a species +of newspaper feelers. The public had responded. Realizing then that the +subject was a live one, the papers had cut loose. The idea of a trusted +public institution being a danger and a menace to the community was +quick in awaking a sense of alarm. A sense of fear inspired by no facts +but by the reiterative rhetoric of the press swept the city. + +Basine for several days sought futilely to understand the phenomenon of +this fear. It seemed almost as if people were filled with constant +though innate fear of the things they trusted. A man named Levine whom +he had met at Doris' explained it that way. He had listened to the man +talk: ... "The reason people turn on their trusted institutions with +such fury is simple. When a platitude they have blindly upheld seems +about to betray them they fall on it and tear it to pieces. This is +because a platitude is kept alive blindly and it must be destroyed +blindly. When a platitude commits the offense of becoming obviously, too +obviously, a lie or an incipient danger, people are of course overcome +with the horrible doubt that all platitudes are lies and dangers. This +general suspicion which overcomes them, this wholesale fear or panic +which sweeps over them, they let out, of course, on the one platitude. +By viciously denouncing the one platitude they manage to assure +themselves that all the others are all right. They sort of lose their +general terror in an unnatural but specific hysteria. And they always +turn themselves into an overfed elephant jumping furiously up and down +and trumpeting terribly--at a mouse." + +Basine carried this explanation away. He allowed it to linger in his +mind without thinking of it. He knew that the fear was unwarranted and +yet the excitement had taken on the proportions of a public uprising. +The editorials of the press became couched more and more in +grandiloquent languages, reminiscent of Biblical passages. In fact a +religious fervor had entered the clamor. The overthrow of the private +bank was a mission of righteousness--an integral part of the higher +Christianity of the nation--to say nothing of the dreams of its +forefathers. + +With this growing and exalted anger, a new phenomenon struck Basine. It +was the strange myth that had sprung up seemingly overnight of the power +of the private banks. He knew from his study of the facts that the +private bankers of the city were a handful of haphazard, third rate +financiers without prestige in the courts or pull in the politics of the +state. Their total holdings represented a slight fraction of the money +tied up in the banking business of the city. They had no standing +comparable with the standing of the supervised banks. The big interests +including the men of power in the city were against them and they were, +as a matter of fact, a puny by-product of the city's intricate finance. + +Yet now they had become an insidiously entrenched monster. Public men of +affairs vied with each other in revealing the mysterious power of the +private bank. And Basine was left to marvel in silence over the fact +that the wilder the public frenzy against private bankers became, the +huger and more difficult to overthrow were the private bankers made out +to be. + +His pride as author of the crusade began however to be colored with +misgivings. Others had risen to challenge him for the leadership of the +movement. Stern, fearless men, as stern and fearless as himself, were +offering to sacrifice themselves on the altars of freedom. The altars of +freedom, the press explained, were the battleground of the fight against +private banks. + +The public's attention was being distracted from Basine. Men of greater +prestige than he had hurled themselves into the death struggle. These +great ones were more qualified than Basine for leadership. They were +older and of deeper experience in the slaying of Goliaths. Now it seemed +that perhaps one of them and not George Basine was the hero who would +be able to overthrow this latest menace to the public weal. + +Basine's misgivings took the form of an irritation. He sensed the +fickleness of the public and understood that it could turn from him who +had started the whole thing and give its adulation to some other leader +who had jumped on the band-wagon and crowded Basine off the driver's +seat. His cynicism returned as he read the denunciations his rivals were +hurling at private banks. + +"A pack of fools and fourflushers," he muttered to himself and their +words--paraphrases of his original denunciations for the most +part--nauseated him. The word "bunk" crept into his thought as he read +their speeches and interviews. He would like to stop the whole thing, to +stand up and say it was all a tempest in a teapot and that there was no +menace or ogre or Goliath; that the whole thing was made out of whole +cloth. Then the entire business would collapse and the men threatening +him for the leadership would be left high and dry. + +... Doris looked up as he entered. She was a silent-looking woman. Her +face wore its pallor like a mask. She greeted her brother without +expression. Her luxurious body seemed without life, her hands gesturing +as if they were weighted. The sensuous outlines of her which brought to +mind the odalisques of Titian found a startling contrast in the +immobility of her manners. She was thirty and in the half-lighted room +she seemed like a beautiful, burning-eyed paralytic. + +"Tired?" her brother asked as he sat down. + +This was of late his usual greeting. She looked tired always, and until +she began to talk, she looked as if she were dumb or blind. But when she +talked her eyes lighted. + +She shook her head to his question. He had come filled with troubles and +confessions but her black eyes, centered on him, disturbed him. He had +become used to the sardonic weariness of her face. But there were times +when he felt as if something were happening to her that he couldn't +understand. Her eyes would burn and seem to shut him out as if she could +look at him without seeing him. + +Her complete inanimation startled him. He knew he could sit talking all +night and she would never move nor ask a question. Long ago she had been +a little like that. Never asking questions but sitting among others as +if she were alone. But now it was more marked. There was something wrong +with Doris. What she needed was to go out more. She was getting too +self-centered, brooding too much. + +Basine, as he sat studying the window and the profile of his sister, +kept remembering how she used to be. That was years ago when they had +all lived at home. And this poet Lindstrum whom everybody was talking +about, used to call on her. She had been in love with him. But that was +long ago--eight, nine, ten years ago. It couldn't be that. And it +couldn't be that she was "in trouble," because she had been like this +for years now. He remembered her youth. Her silence then had been +different. It had been alive. And now she sat around like a corpse and +if it wasn't for her eyes moving occasionally you might think her +actually dead. Sometimes this thought did frighten him as he sat +watching her. She was dead! He would restrain himself from jumping up +to see and sit listening to hear her breathe. + +He felt sorry for her. When he had married Henrietta she had been the +only one who had understood. He could always remember what she had said +at the wedding. It was the only thing he could recall of the event--what +Doris had said to him.... + +"You'll never be a great man if you let yourself get trapped like this +too often." + +Surprising that she should know enough to say that. Because anyone who +could say that to him must know him thoroughly and understand him +thoroughly. It was what he had been saying to himself for months before +the wedding. + +He felt sorry for his sister. They were good friends in a way. A curious +way because he felt she detested him somehow. Yet she understood him and +could help him. And she liked him to come to see her. He wondered why. +She had no love for him but there was something about him that appealed +to her and interested her. He had noticed how she acted toward others. +Their talk left her dead. Even when Levine talked she often remained +unaware he was around. Her eyes never opened to people. Even her mother. +And Fanny had said, "Doris is getting more and more of a pill. I think +she's going crazy. She doesn't even look at a person anymore." + +He watched her and thought, "Poor girl. Something wrong. I wish I could +help her." + +He kept remembering how beautiful and alive she had been and his heart +felt an odd laceration as if something he loved were dying. Was he so +fond of Doris, then? He said, "no." Yet he could never remember having +felt such sympathy as this toward anyone. It was because she was an +intimate. He felt toward her as he felt toward himself--forgiving, +appreciative, and a sense of pity. Why had he thought that? Pity. Did he +pity himself, he, George Basine, who was just beginning to ascend? +Henrietta and the kids--that was it. A man had to accumulate troubles if +he was to amount to anything. + +The feeling of sympathy slipped from his thought. Doris had turned her +eyes to him. Basine was aware of her coming to life. The symmetrical +mask of her face became features and expressions. + +"Will you stay for tea?" she asked. + +He would. Doris stood up and regarded him with a malicious smile. + +"The crusade seems to be running away from you," she said. + +He nodded. The public-spirited leader in him did not relish the ironic +tilt of her words. But he was able to assume a dual attitude toward her +cynical intellectualism. He could frown on it with a sense of outrage. +And he could listen to it with an appreciative shrewdness. He could +despise her iconoclasm and still utilize its intelligence to aid him in +his climb. + +He had always understood that to his sister his aspirations were +contemptible. And yet despite her sneering she seemed anxious to help +him realize them. He understood, too, that in his sister's mind there +was something queer about people. When she talked about people her eyes +lighted. There was about her talk of people a clarity of idea that +contrasted strangely with the passion one could feel behind her words. + +Basine usually tried to dismiss the impression she made on him by +thinking, "Oh, she's a fanatic on the subject, that's all." But a +mystery worried him. Why should she be interested in his career? And why +should she try to help him if she despised him and his type of ambition? +And, moreover, despised people and politics in general? + +It was a paradox and it made him uncomfortable. But he sought her out +all the more for this. Because there was something practical about her +fanaticism. Yes, and because she understood about him. + +He had already told her secrets about himself, particularly about +himself in relation to Henrietta. That formed a bond between them. He +sometimes grew frightened at the thought of the things Doris knew about +him--things she might tell to anyone and ruin him; wreck his home and +his career. But always after worrying about such fears he would hurry to +his sister and unburden himself still further. As if by feeding her +further secrets he could make certain of her loyalty and reticence. + +He watched her less openly as she poured tea. A bitterness filled him. +If Henrietta were only a woman like this instead of a stick. If only he +could sit home and talk things over with her, marriage would have some +sense to it. He frowned. He did not like to think this way. + +Doris began to talk smoothly, her dark eyes growing more alive. He +listened nervously, wincing under the contempt of her phrases and +fascinated by the startling interpretations they offered him of his own +thoughts. + +"If I were you," she said as she arranged the teacups, "I would let +myself be squeezed out of the crusade. It's served its purpose for you. +You've frightened about a million feeble-minded creatures into a fury +against private banks. You've done quite well. That's the secret, you +know. And you must always remember it. Create bogeymen to frighten +people with. The more unreal the bogeymen, the more terrified the +public. If you don't believe this figure out for yourself--of what are +people the most afraid? God, of course. The greatest of the bogeymen. +And remember too, George that people like to be terrified. There's a +reason for that. People like to be preoccupied by false terrors in order +not to have to face real frightening facts--facts such as death and age +and their own souls." + +She sat down and looked at Basine with a pitying smile. + +"What a fool you are, George. You don't believe a word I say, do you?" + +"What you say and how you say it are two different things," he answered. +The thought was in his mind that Fanny was right. Doris was going crazy. +Her talk had an edge to it as if her voice were being carefully +repressed. He almost preferred her when she was silent, when her eyes +slept. Because now there was a hidden wildness to her. She was +suffering! The thought startled him. But that was it. The hate that +filled her voice came from a suffering inside. He wanted to reach over +and take her hand and whisper to her to be calm, but he continued to +listen without moving. There were things in what she said that always +held him. It was like learning secrets. She was still talking. + +"Well, today they're shrieking and vomiting invective and you'd like +nothing better than to be the heroic leader of this pack of filthy +cowards. Would you? Well, it's not worth while this time. The whole +thing'll blow over. In a few weeks people will have forgotten about +private banks. And by the time you get the bill into the state +legislature the papers will be ignoring the whole business. Do you see? +There's nothing so tragic as the spectacle of a mob leader stranded high +and dry with a yesterday's crusade. And his mob off in another +direction. Remember, George, you're not dealing with people, with +reasoning men and women. You always forget this and you'll never get +ahead if you keep forgetting it. You're dealing with a single +creature--the crowd. A huge bellowing savage." + +"I know, I know," Basine muttered. She was crazy. Something queer in her +head about people. "All people aren't like that, of course. But I +understand." + +"You don't," she interrupted angrily. "All people are like that. Alone +people are one thing. They're alive and they reason a little. But when +they come together to overthrow governments or defend governments or +make laws or worship Gods, they vanish. A single creature takes their +place. And this single creature is a mysterious savage who howls and +spits and vomits and tears its hair and has orgasms of terror and +befouls itself." + +Her eyes glared at Basine. With an effort she controlled her voice. She +continued in a passionate whisper. + +"Don't you understand that yet? After all I've shown you. If you want to +get ahead, I can make you anything. Do you hear that? Anything.... I +can make you a leader ... a king. All you must learn is the way of +turning people into swine...." + +"Please Doris, you get too excited. Please...." + +"Into swine and swine crusades. We'll find ways of bringing them +together and the more swinish you can make people become, yes, the more +you can make them spew and shriek, the holier will become the cause of +this spewing and shrieking. These are elementals and you must trust me. +Do you hear?" + +Her fingers were cold. They had closed on his hand. He shuddered. Crazy +... poor Doris. Gone queer with something. Yet he found himself +listening, her chill fingers startling his flesh. Out of her ravings +there might issue at any minute the thing he was always looking for ... +a way to get ahead. + +"Little crusades like this," she went on, "are all right. But private +banks are only a detail. And besides the idea is too concrete to terrify +people and bring out the full hysteria of their cowardice. What we need +is something vague--that has no facts to handicap it. Something you can +lie about wildly and frighten them with so that their bowels weaken. +Please, drop the thing now. You must...." + +"Doris, you get too excited. Let's talk sense instead of getting excited +like this." + +He patted her hand and returned her stare uncomfortably. He wanted to +ask her why she was interested in his getting ahead, in making him a +leader. She had paused. Basine felt himself nauseated by the intensity +of her words that continued to ring in his ears. Her anger and the +viciousness of her phrases brought her too close to him. He could +almost see something behind the glare of her dark eyes. + +"Oh, you're not interested in progress and civilization," she resumed +mockingly. Her words seemed more controlled. He noticed that she jerked +her hand away. "Because if you were you would see that progress and +civilization are the results of the terror of the mob. It's when they +get frightened of something and throw themselves at it with their eyes +shut and their hair on end, that institutions are born ... that new +platitudes are set up in heaven. And the secret is this--the worse swine +you can turn them into, the holier will be the things they do. Listen, +I'll tell you.... You must do as I say.... You must believe me...." + +She had risen. Her hand was on his shoulder and her eyes burned over +him. He felt a bit fearful and impatient. To a point, her talk was +interesting. But after that it became like raving. + +"You've told me that before," he murmured. "Please calm down." An +ecstatic light slowly left her. + +"Oh yes. Sense," she whispered. "Well, the sense of it is for you to +become a symbol of their holiness. Be a leader. Isn't that it. But the +private bank crusade has fizzled. I've read the papers closely and +outside of the two attacks on the private bankers last week, there've +been no great gestures of righteousness. If they'd hamstrung a few +hundred private bankers, cut off their heads and burned down their +houses, I'd advise you to stick. That's sense isn't it?" + +Basine, listening to the uncomfortable distortions of his sister, made +up his mind. He translated her vicious suggestions into the less +inconveniencing idea.... "The biggest part of the work in the fight +against the banks has been done already, Doris. And the rest anybody can +do." + +"Yes," she smiled, "if you're going to be of service to the public you +must be careful to devote yourself to worthwhile reforms. You always had +a clearer way of putting things, George." + +She despised him. He could feel it now. He looked at her and wondered +again. She was beautiful. A complete change had come over her since he'd +come in. She seemed warm with emotion, alive, human. But she smiled in +an offensive way. He preferred her viciousness. That was +impersonal--something queer in her head. This other was a condescension +that angered him. He sat thinking; she was playing with him. It would be +better if he never saw her. + +"How is Henrietta?" she asked. + +The question had long ago became an invitation to confession. He avoided +her eyes. + +"Fanny and Aubrey were over," he answered. + +She interrupted. "Please don't talk about them." + +"Oh, nothing in particular," he hastened. "Henrietta is the same as +ever." + +Doris laughed. + +"An ideal wife for a future public hero," she exclaimed. Basine frowned. + +"I'd rather you didn't make a joke about such things, Doris." + +"I'm not joking. But to be a great leader a man must have only one +love--the love of being a great leader." + +"That's wrong," Basine blurted out. "A woman can help a man forward if +he loves her and she's clever and loves him." + +"She can't," Doris said softly. "Because she doesn't want to. If she +loves him, she doesn't want him to be great. She may inspire him but +just as soon as she sees his inspiration takes him away from her, she +turns around and tries to ruin him. So she can have him to herself." + +Basine listened impatiently. This was a child prattling. Doris was +laughing. He looked at her questioningly. Her laughter continued and +grew harsh. + +"You fool," she sighed, controlling herself. "Oh you fool." + +Basine shook his head. He was serious. There were hidden facts in his +mind. He knew something about what a woman might do to help a man +forward. These facts seemed to him allies--secret allies, as he +contradicted his sister. + +"I insist you're wrong," he said. He was determined to prove her wrong. +But she went on, ignoring his intensity. + +"Your wife is ideal, George. Colorless, stupid. Dead. Without desires or +egoism. An ideal wife for a man of ambition. The kind that will let you +alone." + +"Nonsense. You're utterly wrong," he cried. He must prove to her how +utterly wrong she was. There was Ruth. + +"Men owe most of their success to the impulse the right woman can give +them. Henrietta's all right. But she's so damn dead. She's interested in +nothing. Just a child with a child's mind and outlook. And she gets more +so every year. Good God, if I had somebody with life in her. Keen and +... who loved me. So that I wanted to be great in her eyes. It would be +easier. Somebody ... like you, Doris." + +He paused, confused. "I mean," he added, "your type. The intellectual +and female combined." + +He had long ago told her of his courtship, of the curious way he had +tricked himself into matrimony and she had always laughed at his +unhappiness and said this--only a fool tricked himself as he had done. +Nevertheless his marriage was ideal. + +"Men instinctively pick out what they need," she would say. "And a man +like you needs a nonentity like Henrietta. You wait and see. Your +happiness isn't coming from emotion inside but from emotion outside--the +noise of praise the public will someday give you." + +But there were facts now hidden in his head to disprove this. He started +as Doris announced casually, + +"Ruth Davis may drop in this afternoon." + +They finished their tea. A knock on the door frightened him. The girl! +No. Doris called, "Come in," and Levine entered. Basine nodded to him. + +"I'll have to be going," he said as Levine sat down. He disliked the +man. Doris nodded. She appeared to have lost interest in him and, her +tea finished, she was sitting back in her chair with her eyes half shut +and her hands listless in her lap. Levine was talking quietly.... "You +look tired, Doris. Like to go hear Lindstrum lecture tonight? No? Very +well. I just dropped in to see if you would. Come on." + +"No," she frowned at him. + +"I'm sorry." + +"Why?" + +"I think it would be better for you to...." + +Her eyes shut him off. They were blazing. + +"Please," she cried. Then with a sigh she turned toward the window. + +Basine stood up. He pretended a leisureliness, opening a few books and +staring with apparent interest at passages in them. Levine and his +sister were a strange pair. Doris queer and moody and going into +impossible tantrums. And this man with brown negro eyes and a +loose-lipped mouth that reeked with sarcasms. There were secrets between +them. Nothing wrong, but secrets. He remembered the girl was coming and +grew frightened. + +"Well, good-bye," he said aloud. "And calm down, Doris." + +He waited uncomfortably for her to say something. But she was silent. He +looked at his watch and exclaimed in a surprised, matter-of-fact voice, +"Oh my! It's almost four. Good-bye. I must run." + +He hurried away as if some logical necessity were spurring him on. The +make-believe had been unnecessary for Doris had paid no attention to the +manner of his departure. + +Outside he paused and looked up and down the street. He felt relieved. +He had left in time. Crossing from an opposite corner was Ruth Davis. He +would pretend he hadn't seen her and walk on in an opposite direction. +He knew she was watching him as she approached. He was frightened. A +sense of suffocation. He desired to run away. + +She was young. Her eyes had a way of remaining in his thought. When he +talked to people, her eyes came before him and looked at him. They asked +questions. + +The last time he had sat with her in his sister's studio he had gone +away with a feeling of panic. He was used to women. Invariably he +disliked them. They seemed to him variants of his wife. They reminded +him of Henrietta and he was able to say to himself, "They look +attractive and mysterious. But underneath, they're all alike." + +He meant they were all like Henrietta. In this way his distaste for his +wife had kept him faithful to her because his imagination balked at the +idea of embracing another Henrietta. + +But Ruth Davis after he had met her a few times, always in his sister's +presence, had impressed him differently. Perhaps it was because he had +always seen her with his sister. In many ways she reminded him of Doris. +She was dark like Doris and had many of her mannerisms. + +He had not thought of her as a variant of Henrietta. Rather as a variant +of Doris. He had never tested his immunity to her by imagining an +embrace. When he talked to her he grew eager to impress her. He wanted +her to understand him, not quite as Doris understood him. She was +cynical but not in the way Doris was. Her mind was kindlier. + +Because he felt frightened now at her approach and a desire to run away +without speaking to her, he held himself to the spot. He would get the +better of this thing, he told himself quickly, by facing whatever it was +and fighting it down. He would overcome the curious effect she had on +him by confronting her. In this way, a very high-minded way, he +persuaded himself to wait for her and to talk to her. Which was what he +wanted to do above everything else. + +She was pleased. They shook hands. The confusion left him. He was quite +master of himself. Her dark eyes were not dangerous like his sister's. +She was a bright, pretty girl. + +"I'm sorry I can't visit with you and Doris," he said. "But I have an +engagement." + +"Oh." She seemed disappointed. Her eyes betrayed almost a hurt. This +made him even more master of himself. He had been foolishly worried +about the girl. Just a bright, pretty girl and a friend of his sister. + +"By the way," he said, "you were saying the other day that you'd like a +job in the state attorney's office. My secretary's quit. Would you like +that?" + +"Oh, Mr. Basine. That's awfully kind of you. But I ... I don't know +shorthand and I suppose that...." + +"That makes no difference," he smiled tolerantly. "I need somebody able +to look after things in general. If you want the job, why come down and +see me tomorrow morning about ten and we'll start work." + +"I'd be delighted," she answered. She was about to say more but he grew +curt. + +"You'll excuse me, won't you. I have to run," he said. "See you at ten +tomorrow, eh?" He wanted to make the thing certain because otherwise he +would have to hire someone else. "At ten then," he repeated. + +"If you really want me." + +"I think you'll get along all right. And I need somebody at once." + +He walked away with a feeling of mastery. He had overcome the confusion +the sight of her had started in him. He was sincerely glad of that. He +disliked the idea of entanglements. Politics was a glass house and +entanglements were dangerous. Then besides, there was Henrietta. + +His fidelity to his wife was a habit that had become almost an +obsession. His distaste and frequent revulsion toward her made him +concentrate excitedly upon the idea of fidelity. + +By assuring himself of the nobility of faithfulness and of its necessity +as a matter of high decency, he vindicated in a measure the fact that he +seemed too cowardly to philander. He had felt this cowardliness and was +continually trying to distort it into more self-ennobling emotions. This +was what made him so excited a champion of domestic felicity, marital +fidelity and kindred ideas. He was able to convert himself into a man +whose ideals prevented him from succumbing to his lower instincts. Thus +instead of feeling ashamed of the cowardliness which kept him from doing +what he desired, he felt on the contrary, proud of his capacity for +living up to his high ideals, which meant--of doing what he didn't want +to do. + +This cowardliness was an involved emotion. It was inspired by a fear of +detection, if he philandered, a fear of physical and social +consequences. But more than that and too curious for his thought to +unravel, it was inspired by a fear of hurting Henrietta. This fear was +the predominant factor in his life. + +He sought at times to understand it but its understanding eluded him. He +had been tempted at times to talk to Doris about it. But as yet it was a +confession withheld. + +The greater his distaste for his wife became and the more the thought of +her grew obnoxious, the deeper did this fear of hurting her take form in +him. Often when driven to anger by her increasing stupidity he would +lie awake at night by her side thinking of her in accidents which might +kill her. He would lie awake picturing her brought home dying--and going +over in his fancy the details of her death scene. + +And then as if the thing were too sweet to relinquish, he would go over +in his mind the details of the funeral, picturing himself beside the +grave weeping, picturing her father and the numerous mourners; giving +them words to say and assigning them little parts in the drama of the +burial. The thing would become a completely worked out scene--like a +careful description in a novel. + +Then he would picture himself returning home with his children. He would +close his eyes and play with the fancy impersonally, as if he were +dictating it for writing. Back from the grave with his children.... The +house empty of Henrietta. The chair in which she always sat and sewed, +empty. And she would never sit there again. The chair would always be +empty. + +At this point his fancy would grow sad. At first the sadness would be as +if it were part of the make-believe--as if this fiction figure of +himself were mourning the death of his wife. But gradually the sadness +would change and become real. It would become a sadness inspired by the +thought of her dying ... sometime. Someday she would be dead and he +would be alone. And this idea would grow unbearable. Just as it had been +deliciously desirable a few minutes before. + +The sadness that came to him then was no more than a remorse he felt for +having in his fancy planned and executed her death. A remorse inspired +by his feeling of guilt. But to Basine it seemed a sadness inspired by +some inner love for his wife. It would surprise him, that there was an +inner love, and he would lie and think, "Oh, I don't want her dead. I +love her. Poor, dear Henrietta." And he would reach over and caress her +tenderly, tears filling his eyes. + +It was at such moments while doing penance for the imaginative murder of +his wife, that a physical passion for her would come to him. His +caresses would grow warmer and in the possession of her which followed, +he would be able to blot out of his memory the unbearable +self-accusation aroused by his desire for her death. Thus his fear of +hurting her, even of contradicting her in any way which would make her +unhappy, was a device which guarded him against contemplating the +impulse concealed in him--to get rid of her even by murdering her. + +His fidelity to his wife, inspired more by this fear of hurting her than +by the social cowardice which involved the idea of detection, had become +a fetish with him. The less he desired her and the more repugnant she +grew for him, the more desperately he defended to himself and to others +the virtues of marital faithfulness. + +He had advanced in eight years into an intolerant champion of morality. +Even his political orations bristled with panegyrics on the sanctity of +the home and the high duty men owed their wives. The thing repeated +itself over and over in his day, haunted his night and filtered through +all his public and private actions. It had formed the basis of a new +Basine--the moral champion. It had colored his ambitions and determined +his direction of thought. It hammered--a hidden psychological refrain +through the fibers of his thought.... In order to reconcile himself to +the distasteful role he had foisted upon himself by accidentally +embracing Henrietta in his mother's kitchen nine years ago, he must +eulogize his predicament and convince himself and others that all +deviations were a vicious and dishonorable matter. Held by neither love +nor desire to the side of a woman he had tricked himself into marrying, +he managed to bind himself to her by the stern worship of a code which +proclaimed fidelity the highest manifestation of the soul. + +As he walked toward a street car he was proud of his self-conquest. He +was thinking about the girl, Ruth. He had taken himself in hand and +overcome the dangerous confusion that the sight of her started. His +sense of honor preened itself on the victory. That was the way to handle +oneself--always face the facts. It was better than hiding one's head in +the sand. Look, it had happened this way. By being matter-of-fact, by +converting the girl from a luring, enigmatic figure into an employee, he +had established an immunity in himself. Was he certain of this? Yes, she +would be merely another of the young women employed in his office. And +he was in love with none of them. Or even interested. So their relation +would be that of employee and employer. Which was harmless and +honorable. + +He walked along, piling up assurances. As he entered the car he was +going over in his mind with an imaginative eagerness the details of the +situation he had created. He would be very stern, aloof. He would +acquaint her with his secret files and gradually educate her into an +efficient assistant. She was a university girl. Of course her running +around with freaks, the way she did--artists and talky women, was a +handicap. But she would get over that and become entirely sensible. + +It was a pleasant day dream that wiled away the tedium of the ride home. +An unaccountable happiness played around the fancies in his mind. He +gave himself to its warmth with a certain defiance--as if he were +denying unbidden doubts underlying his dreams. + +He had hired Ruth Davis in order that he might be near her. And +underlying the enthusiastic assurances which he crowded into his mind as +a stop gap for the elation this fact inspired, was the knowledge that, +as his secretary, she would come to perceive what a great man he was. +His files, his secret memoranda, his intricate activities all of which +she would come to know as his private secretary--would be a boast. + +Yes, his very curtness, sternness, preoccupation would all be part of +this boast. She would see him as a man of importance, a man of rising +power. He would have to ignore her in order to confer with well-known +men-politicians, police officials, party leaders. And this ignoring of +her would be a boast--all a boast of his prestige and of the fact that +he was a man of fascinating activities and that these activities made it +impossible for him to devote himself as other lesser men might, to +paying her any attention. + +Yes, the thought of her being in his office where he might look at her, +but more especially where she might look at him--for he did not intend +to pay any attention to her--thrilled him. And gradually the cause of +his elation protruded and he was forced to face it. He alighted from +the car thinking as he walked toward his apartment. + +"I'll have to be careful though. I don't want her to fall in love. That +would be embarassing. Girls are susceptible. I'll not encourage her in +anything like that. Be businesslike and aloof. Treat her absolutely as a +stranger." + +This idea thrilled him further. It would be sweet to ignore her, even to +be strict with her and carping at times, to scold for some error. Yes, +that was the right way to handle the situation. + +And he walked on with a childish smile over his face. He had determined +upon a high-minded course which absolved him from all blame in anything +that might happen. Aloofness, sternness. Now that they were going to be +together every day, he already looked upon her position as his secretary +as an inevitable predicament not brought on by any action of his; now +that they were to be that close, he would rigorously observe all the +conventions. + +At the same time he was inwardly aware that such a course as he had +mapped for himself would unquestionably have a certain effect upon the +girl. It must. It would cause her to respect and admire him and finally +to fall in love with him. Tremendously in love since there would be no +outlet for her passion. Oh yes, that would certainly happen. But it +wouldn't be his fault and nothing would come of it. Because he would +remain sternly aloof. + +The thought of being worshipped from afar, of being looked upon all day +by eyes that adored him, brought an excitement into his step. And he ran +up the stairs to his apartment. He was eager to enter his home and greet +his wife. She had become suddenly a tolerable person, one whose +presence he might even enjoy. He felt happy and he wanted her to share +his happiness. + + + + +14 + + +Fanny listened carelessly to her husband. After eight years, listening +to what Aubrey had to say had become unnecessary. Because his talk never +changed. What he said yesterday he would say tomorrow. He prided himself +on this. He explained that it revealed him a man of unswerving +principles. Fanny, who had become a rather sarcastic person, kept her +answer to herself. A man of unswerving principles was a great asset to +the community. But a terrible bore to his home. + +She sat watching Henrietta sew. There was a placidity about Henrietta +that always irritated her. Henrietta was still pretty although beginning +to fade. Her eyes were colorless and her lips were getting thinner. But +she seemed happy and Fanny wondered about this. + +Mr. Mackay seemed very attentive to Henrietta. Of course, Mr. Mackay was +Aubrey's partner and a friend of her brother, George. But it was odd to +call on Henrietta unexpectedly and find her talking alone to a man in +her library. Even to Mr. Mackay. + +Fanny was suspicious about such things. She had been utterly faithful to +Aubrey during their married life and this fidelity, somehow, had +developed in her an attitude of chronic suspicion concerning the +fidelity of other women. It was her habit when visiting her friends to +sit and speculate upon their possible immoralities. She had frequently +got herself into trouble by setting scandalous rumors afloat. + +"Henry Thorpe and Gwendolyn see quite a great deal of each other," she +would say. "More than we know, I think. I wonder what Mrs. Thorpe thinks +about it. You know Gwendolyn, for all her pretenses, is an out and out +sensual type." + +No one was immune from Fanny's speculations. In fact the more +incongruous the idea of any one's sinfulness seemed, the more +enthusiastically Fanny embraced it. + +She was more than half aware that thinking about others in immoral +situations seemed to excite herself. She would endeavor to introduce a +note of indignation into her speculations. But the note was too forced +to deceive her, although it deceived others. And she finally abandoned +herself to the thrill which thinking evilly of others stirred in her. + +She would often allow her suspicions to become detailed. Merely to +suspect a woman of being immoral was not as satisfying as to figure the +manner of her sin, the play by play, word by word drama of her +seduction. She relished such fancied details. Suspecting others of +immorality enabled Fanny to enjoy vicariously situations which she had +as a matter of course denied herself. + +Her love for Aubrey had not changed. It had, in fact, grown or at least +become inflated by habit. At the beginning of their union she had +suspected him of being a hypocrite. She had immediately resented his +virtue. Then for a short time she had figured out that he must be +unfaithful to her, that this accounted for his virtue. + +But her resentment had remained mute. The years had proved to her, as +much as proof was possible, that Aubrey was no hypocrite and that his +attitude toward such things was due to his being a high-minded, decent +man. He loved her. But in his own way. He explained to her, "Most +marriages are ruined because people are lead astray by sex. Sex is a +duty. I don't think it's any more moral for married people to wallow in +sex than it is for unmarried people. Sex has an object beyond itself +which people ignore. It is a means to an end--children." And they had +gone on for eight years living up to these standards. But they had no +children. Fanny was willing to acquiesce in her husband's ideals, since +she had to, in everything except about children. She didn't want any. + +Fanny had accepted his version of the thing and lived by it. There were +some rewards. She managed to derive a dubious satisfaction during their +infrequent hours of passion from the knowledge that he was a famous man. +She also found a source of secret excitement in his austerity and +virtue. The fact that he was so high-minded and aloof from any thought +of sex offered a piquant contrast to occasions when he condescended to +be her lover. Such occasions were for Fanny far from austere and +high-minded. She allowed the keen sensuality of her nature free reign. +Aubrey's noble attitude served to inspire her with a sense of guilt, as +if their relations were really as indecent and immoral as he contended +sex to be. And the idea of their being indecent and immoral heightened +her enjoyment of them. + +She wondered at many things about Aubrey. Despite his aversion to sex, +(she did not think of it as an aversion but as a high-mindedness,) he +was yet very attentive to women. Not in the way that most men were +attentive. But chivalrously. He had become during their married life a +veritable Chesterfield and Sir Raleigh. It was not only his manner--his +observation of little rules of conduct such as rising when a woman +entered or helping her on with her wraps, or assisting her to pull up +her chair at the table or opening doors or any of the thousand +niceties--that marked his attitude toward women. It was also his ideas. +He frequently discussed women and his point of view was more chivalrous +than most men's. He said that he believed in the fineness of women. That +a woman was a pure, beautiful soul. And he was quick to resent insults +to women, even general insults which sought to reflect upon woman's +purity as a whole or to make her out a scheming sexual animal. + +Fanny was proud of his chivalrous tone. It distinguished him and she did +not resent the fact that it interested women. She had never been jealous +of Aubrey. And she had gradually accustomed herself to his +high-mindedness. She would have liked abandoned caresses and embraces. +But these had never been forthcoming, even on their honeymoon long ago. +And she had given up dreaming of them--for herself. She dreamed about +them now in connection with others and her mind, colored by unsatisfied +desires, indulged itself in the luxurious and lascivious details of her +suspicions of others. + +She sat watching Henrietta as Mr. Mackay talked to her and despite an +effort to control her thought, she began to wonder what they had been +doing alone in the apartment before she and Aubrey came. He had probably +taken her hand and pulled her to him, put his arms around her and +Henrietta, overcome with a sudden passion, had probably flung her arms +about his shoulders and given him her lips wildly. And just as they were +standing deliriously embraced like that, the bell had probably rung and +Henrietta had jumped away and grabbed her sewing. She had come to the +door with her sewing in her hand and.... + +Fanny smiled at the colorless and unsuspecting Henrietta. Her sense of +humor had done for her what her sense of justice had failed to do. It +controlled her fancies. To imagine Henrietta giving her lips wildly to +anybody, particularly the red-faced Mr. Mackay, was ludicrous. Poor +Henrietta with her two noisy children and her interminable sewing. She +didn't envy her the children. Thank Heaven, despite Aubrey's high-minded +attitude toward sex as a distasteful mechanism through which the race +continued itself, they had had no children. + +There was something pitiful about Henrietta. She was so dumb. And even +when she dressed up and powdered and frilled, she always seemed tired. A +stranger might think she was an invalid just recovered from some serious +illness.... Henrietta was probably like Aubrey about "those things". +Very high-minded and aloof. + +Mr. Mackay and Aubrey were talking about advertising now. They always +did this soon or late. And they usually quarreled because Aubrey was +inclined to insist that his end of the business--the preparation of copy +and ad. material--was as important as Mr. Mackay's end. Mr. Mackay was +in charge of the salesmen. + +She hadn't wanted to call on her brother. But Aubrey insisted. There was +a deal on. The city was going to do a lot of advertising and the firm of +Mackay-Gilchrist wanted the job. Basine could help them pull wires. + +The bell rang and interrupted their talk. + +"That must be George," Henrietta exclaimed. She grew nervous and began +to flutter. The maid was out for the afternoon and she went to the door +herself. A strange voice came from the hall as the door opened. + +"Oh, come right in. George isn't home but I expect him any minute," +Henrietta greeted the arrival. Paul Schroder, one of the attorneys who +worked in the mysterious place called the state attorney's office with +her husband, entered. + +He was younger than her husband and of a type she disliked. She +didn't like George to have him as a friend. He was too brutal looking. +And too noisy. Her submission to George had developed a keen set of +prejudices in her. She liked only people who reminded her of her +husband--normal-sized, thin men with aristocratic manners, and quick +nervous eyes. And what she liked in such people was only the parts of +them that seemed like George. All other kinds of men annoyed her. +Particularly the kind Schroder was--rough, coarse and laughing too +loudly always. She thought of him as a vulgar animal and once or twice +hinted to George that she didn't like to have him visit the house. + +Schroder entered, his blond, well shaped head tossing dramatically. The +exuberance of his manner gave him the air of being larger than he was. +Aubrey Gilchrist when he straightened up was taller than Schroder and +Mr. Mackay's shoulders were broader. But somehow the blond-headed man +dwarfed them both as he shook hands with them. He sat down next to +Fanny. + +"Well," he said to her, "how you been? Bright-eyed as ever." He laughed +and Fanny smiled. "What's the matter with friend husband," he turned to +Henrietta. "Can't you keep His Nobs home like a God-fearing man on +Sundays?" + +Henrietta winced. + +"He went to see his sister who is ill," she said. "He'll be back any +minute." + +"Oh, that's all right;" Schroder answered, as if Henrietta had +apologized and he was forgiving her. Then to Aubrey he added, "What are +you two pirates after from Basine?" + +Aubrey raised his eyebrows. He was subject to quick dislikes. Schroder +was one of them. Schroder was the kind of person who had no respect for +merit or his superiors. The world, unfortunately, was full of such +people--boors lacking the intelligence to perceive their betters. Aubrey +always felt ill at ease in their presence. + +Although he had written no novels for five years, in his own mind he was +still a literary figure of importance. He had gone into the advertising +business, but not permanently. He had intended at first remaining in it +only for a year and then returning to his writing. He wanted to do a +different sort of writing and a vacation was necessary. He wanted to do +something real. He had, as a matter of fact, lost interest in the +business of turning out narratives. Worried at the time by this loss of +interest in his work he had explained it as "an ambition for better +things." + +But five years had passed and he was still an advertising man. The firm +of Mackay and Gilchrist had grown. He flattered himself that its success +had been due to his personal prestige. People said, "Oh, that's Aubrey +Gilchrist, the writer. Well, that's quite an asset for an advertising +concern." And so they brought their business to Mackay-Gilchrist. + +He disliked Schroder because on the few occasions they had met, the man +had exuberantly ignored the fact he was Aubrey Gilchrist. Schroder was a +man who had no interest in anything outside himself--a noisy, +self-satisfied creature with no reason to be noisy or self-satisfied. He +had never done anything. + +"I don't understand what you mean, Mr. Schroder," Aubrey answered +stiffly. + +"Ho ho," Schroder exclaimed, "your husband is insulted, Mrs. Gilchrist. +Well, I apologize. There's George, I'll lay you dollars to doughnuts." + +The bell had rung. Basine entered. Aubrey looked significantly at his +partner. The significance was due to the fact that Schroder seemed +likely to ruin the visit. Aubrey announced aloud after the greetings: + +"Thought we'd drop in for a private discussion, George." + +Henrietta was smiling tenderly at her husband. + +"Where have you been?" she asked. + +"Well, I've got great news for you," Basine exclaimed. The company +looked hopefully at him. + +"What, dear?" + +"Oh, I'll tell you tonight, little girl." + +"If it's good news we'd all like to hear it," Fanny insisted. + +Schroder regarded his friend askance. He suspected something. He had +left Basine yesterday night and there had been no hint of anything +happening. And today being Sunday.... He smiled to himself. "Covering +up," he thought. "Husbands are comical." He decided not to press Basine. +He had evidently been up to something ... "playing a matinee." He +noticed that his friend was trying to change the subject. + +"Is it something personal?" Henrietta asked with a frown. "You frighten +me, George, when you don't tell me things." + +Basine, sitting down, beamed with enthusiasm on the group, on his home. + +"Where are the children?" he asked. + +"Over at the Harveys," Henrietta answered. + +"Well," said her husband with an explosive intonation, "I've made up my +mind to go after the circuit court. There's a chance next April." + +"Going to run for Judge, eh?" Schroder asked with interest. + +"Yes sir," Basine laughed. "I just had a session with some of the boys +this afternoon and we discussed it." + +"Oh, I thought you were at Doris'," Henrietta interrupted. + +"I did see her," Basine answered, "but only for a few seconds. I spent +most of the afternoon in conference." + +"Congratulations," Aubrey spoke. "Mac and I were going to...." + +Schroder stood up. + +"What do you say if we take a walk, Mrs. Gilchrist," he whispered +loudly. "Your husband insists that I get out. And I won't unless you +come along." + +He laughed good-naturedly until Aubrey smiled, and nodded to his wife. + +"If you wish, Fanny." + +"It's awfully nice outside," Fanny agreed after a pause during which she +looked carefully out of the window. Basine reached for his wife's hand +and drew her toward his chair. + +"You're looking very well," he smiled at her. A pleasant light came to +her eyes. For a moment the youthfulness that people had once admired +when they had called her "such an enthusiastic girl" returned to her +manner. + +"Oh now George!" she exclaimed. Basine felt a catch in his heart. A +remorse, as if he had done something, came over him. He patted her hand +tenderly. Henrietta repeated but in an almost colorless voice, "Oh, +George." + +Schroder followed Fanny down the steps. As the door of the Basine +apartment closed behind them, his fingers clutched her elbow and he +leaned against her in a straightforward, jovial manner. + +Her experience as a married woman had brought a directness into Fanny's +mind. She no longer found it necessary to conceal her thoughts from +herself. She was still inclined to be publicly innocent but her mental +life had taken on the proportions of an endless debauch. Marriage not +only legalized sex but removed the barriers to thinking about it. She +felt herself blushing childishly as Schroder, squeezing her arm, opened +the door with a flourish. + + + + +15 + + +The Gilchrist home on Lake Shore drive was crowded with friends and +relatives. They had come to the funeral of William Gilchrist. Mr. +Gilchrist lay in a coffin in the drawing room, a waxen-faced figure +under a glass cover. Flowers filled the large room with a damp, sweet +odor. + +It was a spring morning. The air was colored with rain. A sulphurous +glow lay on the pavements. It was chilly. Automobiles lined the curb +outside the Gilchrist stone house. Polite, sober-faced people arrived in +couples and groups and walked seriously up the stone steps of the +residence, a swarm of mummers striving awkwardly to register grief. + +Dignitaries from different strata were assembling. The Gilchrists were a +family whose prestige was ramified by varied contacts. Celebrities of +the society columns arrived--famous tea pourers, tiara wearers, charity +patronesses. Professional men ranging from retired fuddy-duddies, +applying their waning financial talents to the diversion of +philanthropy, to corporation heads, prominent legal advisors and medical +geniuses renowned for their taciturnity--these came for Mrs. Gilchrist. +Bankers, merchants, industrial captains, hospital bigwigs--these came as +husbands and also as contemporaries of Mr. Gilchrist. + +The leaders of the city's arts--a sprinkling of painters aping the +manners of dapper business men, of authors vastly superior to the +Bohemian nature of their calling, of advertising Napoleons, opera +followers, national advertisers--these came for Aubrey. Fanny, through +her brother who had a month before been elected a judge, drew a +formidable group of names--political factotums, powers behind thrones, +mystic local Cromwells. Also the Younger Set. Added to these were +relatives, business associates and finally the Press. + +There was a dead man under a glass cover in the house and the +distinguished company, crowding the large somber rooms of the Gilchrist +home, eyed each other gravely and addressed each other in whispers. The +dead man could not hear, yet they spoke in whispers. Even the most +renowned of the dignitaries whose lives were a round of formalities +almost as impressive as this, spoke in whispers and seemed ill at ease. + +They drifted about like nervous butlers and took up positions against +the walls, striking uncertain attitudes. They exchanged polite and sober +greetings and felt slightly strengthened in spirit at the sight of +people as distinguished as themselves. The camaraderie of prestige--the +social caress which celebrities alone are able to bestow upon each other +by basking in a mutual feeling of superiority--ran like an undercurrent +through the scene. + +Yet this camaraderie which usually heightened the poise of such +gatherings was unable to remove the embarrassment of the company. They +spoke in whispers and remained outsiders, as if the Gilchrists were a +family of intimidating superiors in whose presence one didn't quite know +what to do with one's arms or feet or what to say or just how to make +one's features look. + +The intimidating superiority was the body under the glass cover of the +coffin. It would have been easier in a church. Funerals were much less +of a strain in a church and there were several whispers to this effect. +Why had Mrs. Gilchrist insisted upon a home funeral? Wasn't it rather +old fashioned? + +Here in a house death seemed uncomfortably personal. The stage was too +small and the mourners were too near something. A curious sympathy that +had nothing to do with Mr. Gilchrist took possession of them. + +The damp, sweet odor of the flowers, the glimpse of the black coffin, +the sound of softly moving feet and whispering tongues were a +distressing ensemble. The mourners drifted around and nodded nervously +at each other as if they were doing all they could to make the best of a +faux pas. Death was a faux pas. A reality without adjectives. A stark, +mannerless lie. The family had done its best also. Flowers had been +heaped, furniture arranged, the body dressed, a luxurious coffin +purchased, great people invited. Nevertheless the waxen-faced one under +the glass cover refused to yield its reality. It lay stark and +mannerless in the large room--the immemorial skeleton at the +feast--repeating the dreadful word "death" with an almost humorous +persistency amid the heaped flowers, the carved furniture, the mourners +with raised eyebrows. They stood about nervously. + +Gilchrist had been a man alive, one of those whose names were known to +the world. The name Gilchrist had meant a large building stored with +rugs, period furniture, innumerable clerks, departments, delivery +trucks, advertisements in newspapers and on fences. The man Gilchrist +had been one with whom the dignitaries of the city had shared the +intimacy of prestige. + +They had said Gilchrist's was a fine store, Gilchrist's was marvelous +furniture, Gilchrist was a highly successful business man. Gilchrist was +this and that and the other. And here lay Gilchrist, waxen and +unscrupulously silent, under a glass cover--a little man with pale +sideburns that were now doubly useless, in a black suit and his hands +folded over his chest. Here lay Gilchrist dead, and yet the things that +had been called Gilchrist still lived. As if immortality was an +artifice, superior to life. The furniture store, the furniture, the +clerks, trucks, advertisements, the highly successful business--all +these still lived. And this was an uncomfortable fact. It embarrassed +the mourners. They drifted about with uncertainty. + +Like Gilchrist they were men and women whose names were synonymous with +great activities. Like Gilchrist, they were considered as the +inspiration of these activities. In fact the activities were an +artificial symbol of themselves--a sort of photograph of themselves. Yet +like Gilchrist, all of them would lie under a glass cover some day and +nothing would be changed. The activities that everybody called by their +names would still live. As if they had had nothing to do with them. As +if these symbols were the life of the city and not the men and women +whom they symbolized. Yes, as if these activities which represented +their prestige were independent individualities--masks which loaned +themselves for a few years to them to wear. And which they took off when +they lay stretched under a glass cover. Which they would take off and +become anonymous. + +For who was this waxen-faced man in the coffin? Nobody knew. They had +called him Gilchrist. But Gilchrist was clerks, advertisements, +furniture, and business. This man in the coffin was someone else, an +irritating impostor that reminded them they were all impostors. Death +was a confession everyone must make; an incongruous confession. An +ending to something that had no ending. Life and its activities, even +the activities that bore the name Gilchrist, went on. Yet Gilchrist had, +mysteriously, come to an end. He lay in a coffin while his name in large +letters talked to other names in the advertisements of the city. + +The camaraderie of prestige was insufficient to remove this +embarrassment. A dead man under a glass cover spoke to them slyly. +Dinners, even very formal dinners with butlers; cliques, even powerful +cliques wielding financial destinies; ambitions, board of directors' +meetings, investments and reinvestments, hopes and successes--ah, these +were deceptive little excitements that were not a part of life--but an +artifice superior to life. For life ended and the little excitements +went on. They were the surface immortality in which one conveniently +forgot the underlying fact of death. + +Alas, death. Alas, waxen-faced men lying silent and mannerless under +glass covers. A distasteful faux pas, death. Yet some of the company +must weep. Not friends who regretted the everlasting absence of William +Gilchrist, but men and women bewildered for a moment by the memory of +their own death. Death was a memory since it existed like a foregone +conclusion. It was sad to think of all the people who had died, laughing +ones, famous ones, adventurous ones whose laughter, fame and adventure +seemed somehow a lie now that they were dead. + +It was so easy to be dead. Death had come to all who had been, even to +more dignified and celebrated ones than they. Alas, death. The sober men +and women in the Gilchrist home drifted about nervously. They must weep +because for the moment they lay in the coffin with Mr. Gilchrist and +because for the moment they walked sadly about mourning visions of their +own deaths. And for the moment their tears earned for themselves the +regard of their fellow mourners as kind-hearted, sensitive, unselfish +souls. + +Yet there was something intimate among the company. Despite the +embarrassment, a curious spirit of friendliness underlay the scene. Men +and women who knew each other only as aloof symbols of prestige, stood +together and talked in whispers as if they were talking out of +character. Half strangers felt a familiarity toward each other. + +Under the stamp of a common emotion and a common embarrassment, the +company became for the time a collection of intimates, looking at one +another and whispering among themselves as if the event were a truce. +This was a funeral. Here was reality. And it was polite to lay aside for +an hour the masks, the complexities of artifice by which they baffled +and impressed each other. + +The Reverend Henry Peyton had arrived and the mourners moved into the +spacious library, grateful for a destination. The widow in black with +her son and daughter-in-law appeared. The company surveyed them with a +thrill of vicarious grief. Poor Mrs. Gilchrist, so strong and competent! +It seemed almost impossible that she should lose anything, even +something as mortal as a husband. She was so fixed and determined. Even +now there was something sternly competent about her grief. It was hidden +under a black veil. There was nothing to be seen of it but a black veil +and a black dress and a pair of wrinkled little hands fumbling with +themselves. Poor Mrs. Gilchrist. People had forgotten she was a woman. +They felt slightly ashamed as they glanced at her now, as if they were +intruding upon a secret. But she had invited them. + +A suppressed "Ah!" of sympathy murmured through the room. The minister's +words began and a determined hush followed. + +Basine sitting in a corner of the room with his mother had spent an +uncomfortable hour waiting for the services. He had looked at the body +and come away depressed. His quick eyes had observed the company and +noted with a concealed smile the manner in which lesser dignitaries were +making hay while the tears poured. They were utilizing the camaraderie +of prestige and the intimacy of a common emotion to impress themselves +upon the greater dignitaries. Women of dubious social standing +gravitated as if by general accident toward women of solid social +standing and exchanged whispered condolences with them. Men of lesser +financial ratings were edging toward leaders of finance and engaging +them in dolorous conversations. + +Under the depression and gentle bewilderment, the everlasting business +of inferior pursuing superior and superior increasing his superiority by +resisting pursuit, was going on. The death of poor Gilchrist seemed to +Basine, for a few minutes, chiefly important as an opportunity by which +lesser mourners were introducing themselves to the attention of greater +mourners. + +Basine's eyes noticed another undercurrent. He had himself influenced +Fanny to prevail upon Mrs. Gilchrist to invite a number of politicians +to the funeral. He had furnished the names carefully, telling Fanny that +these were men high in power who had been friends of Mr. Gilchrist. The +widow, through her secretary, had asked ten of the list to honor her +husband's funeral with their presence. She had chosen ten names most +familiar to her, among them men of wealth who were renowned as powers +behind the various political thrones of the day. The invitations had +served Basine to make a slight but important impression upon the +political party leaders. + +He had at first felt nervous over Mrs. Gilchrist's selections from his +list. She had picked ten men, most of whom were engaged in tenacious +political antagonisms. He watched now with surprise as the antagonists +gravitated together forming, with a number of financiers, an amiable, +dignified group. + +"In the presence of death they feel inclined to bury the hatchet," he +thought and the idea of large funerals as an asset for establishing +political harmony developed in his mind. + +He noticed a change in his own attitude toward Aubrey. He had felt for +years a distaste for the man and although their relations had always +been amicable, this distaste had increased to a point where Basine would +have felt a relief at the man's death. He could never tell himself why +he disliked Aubrey. But the aversion was of long standing. "I don't like +his looks," he would grin to himself. + +Now, watching him take his seat beside his mother, Aubrey became somehow +human and Basine felt he understood the man for the first time. Beneath +people whose looks you didn't like was always something human. People +were all alike, no matter how they strutted or posed. Underneath was a +loneliness--a little crippled likeness of themselves--that they carried +about with them all the time. Basine would have liked to talk to him and +say something like, "Sorry, old man. I didn't know. I'm sorry...." + +The minister had begun. He stood beside the coffin that had been brought +in. His opening words startled Basine. A prayer! There was something +fantastic in the spectacle of this living man standing beside the dead +man and talking aloud to someone who was not in the room. Talking +solemnly, intensely to God. As if he had buttonholed Him. + +Basine felt irritated by his own emotions. His face assumed a devout +air but the emotions and the thoughts which rose from them persisted +behind his determined piety. He wanted to immerse himself in the spirit +of the man praying. But his eyes played truant. They wandered furtively +and observed with uncomfortable precision the bowed head of Henrietta +and the spring hat on her head and the heavy-jowled face of her father, +belligerently reverent beside her. + +The minister's voice shouted. "God, in Heaven ... his heavenly soul ... +his heavenly reward...." + +Phrases like these detached themselves and lingered in Basine's ears. He +had heard them frequently in church. But for the moment they seemed +preposterously new. He found himself listening in surprise. Religion had +been always an accepted idea to him. Something you believed in as you +believed in the necessity of neckties. But though he accepted it and +felt a casual faith in an Episcopalian God, it remained an idea apart +from reality. He had never given either thought or emotion to religion. +Yet he had frequently expended a great deal of mental effort and emotion +denouncing people whom he sensed or observed were opposed to religion. + +It struck him now as a childish farce--an absurd hocus-pocus. Poor +Gilchrist going to heaven and a long-faced man in a black coat speeding +his soul heavenward from the Gilchrist library! If there was a God, for +whom was all this necessary--the flowers, speeches, prayers? Not for +God. But for the people in the room, of course. People crowded in a tiny +room taking this opportunity to assure each other that the immensities +over their heads, the clouds, stars and spaces were their property. + +His iconoclasm increased as if inspired by the length of the minister's +harangue. He grew angry with himself and thought of Doris and +immediately transferred his anger to her. It was she who was deriding +the solemnity of the scene. He had been paying too much attention to her +almost insane chatter and things were somewhat undermined in his own +soul. Her fault. + +The prayer ended and four men came forward and began to sing. Their +voices, raised in a hymn, annoyed him instantly. This was too much. What +were they singing for? As if their songs would help poor Gilchrist mount +from the library into heaven. The entire scene, the bowed heads, sad +faces, elaborate coffin; the flowers, the worthy reverend and the +singers came to his mind as something terribly unconvincing. Futile, +that was it. Children making an unconvincing pretense. + +He tried to blot out his thinking and fastened his will upon thoughts +that might make him sad, properly sad and believing. What if Henrietta +should die.... Henrietta dead. Henrietta gone forever. He seized the +thought eagerly. It was not what he wanted but there was a relish in +thinking it. Sad ... sad ... yes, if his mother should die or somebody +dear to him. Who? Ruth. Ah, what if it were Ruth in the coffin. Instead +of anybody else. He would feel differently then. Her beautiful face +white as Gilchrist's and her arms still. Her fingers rigid. Ruth +dead.... + +This made him sad but it took his mind entirely from the scene. He +forgot for moments that Gilchrist was dead and this was a funeral. The +reality returned, however, with an increased vividness to its absurdity. +The music of the hymn rose with embarrassing frankness.... Poor little +people gathered in a room going through a hocus-pocus to convince +themselves that there was a heaven where they would live forever after +the misfortune of death. Like children playing with dolls and +pretending.... But how did he happen to be thinking like that? Did he +believe there was no God, no heaven, no after life? + +No, he believed in all that firmly. Of course, one must believe. The +self-questioning had shocked him back into a state of grace. Yes, he +believed firmly and bowed his head to the hymn that was ending. + +During the rest of the services he was inwardly silent. The scene +appeared to have slipped into focus again. The minister seemed no longer +a symbol of some childish hocus-pocus but an ambassador of God--a stern +man, closely in touch with the Mysteries. And there was something +awesome in the room. There was something awesome about the coffin and +the flowers and the voices of the singers trailing into an Amen. It was +God. Yes, a great all powerful Being to whose hands mankind returned. + +The discomfort of doubt left Basine and he felt himself again an +integral part of something vaster than himself. His thought re-entered +the idea of religion and a sense of peace filled him. He said Amen twice +and looked with mute, believing eyes at the black coffin. + +The mourners were following the six silk-hatted pall bearers into the +street. A drizzle over the pavements. A long line of motors, chauffeurs +waiting, looking as aloof and aristocratic in their servitude as their +employers. + +Basine found himself beside Milton Ware, one of the big traction +officials of the city. A grey-haired man with a well-preserved face +stamped with certainties and stern affabilities. Basine thought +casually that Ware had seemed rather friendly. He had come over to +exchange remarks several times while waiting for the services to begin. +On the curb Basine looked around for Henrietta. Judge Smith had brought +his machine and they were to drive to the cemetery together. + +"Are you with anyone?" Ware asked quietly. + +"Yes, I'm looking for my party," Basine answered. He spied the judge and +Henrietta crowded into their car. Several others had entered with them. +Ware followed his eye. + +"That looks rather full," he suggested. "If you don't mind, would you +take a place in my machine." + +Basine nodded. "Thank you. I'll just talk to them a minute then." + +He returned from his father-in-law's automobile and entered with Ware. +The chauffeur started off and Basine leaned back in his seat. He +wondered at Ware's hospitality. The man was one of the outstanding +powers of the city, incredibly ramified through banks and corporations +and public utilities. He wondered what his connection with Gilchrist had +been. The traction baron--a title given him by the newspapers--sat in +silence beside him as the procession got under way. Basine's curiosity +began to answer itself. He found himself vaguely on his guard. + +"I hadn't intended going to the cemetery," Ware announced after they had +been riding a few minutes. "I don't believe much in such +demonstrations." + +"Neither do I," Basine answered. He was wondering if it were possible to +escape his duty to the family. There was such a crowd he might not be +missed at the grave. + +"Would you mind if we turned out at one of these streets and drove to +the club," Ware asked deferentially. + +Basine hesitated. He had noticed the invitation in the remark. Ware, +whom he had only met once before, was inviting him to the club. Why? A +desire to attach himself to Ware abruptly edited his doubts concerning +the propriety of his absence. + +"I'd just as soon," he answered. The chauffeur was given directions. The +remainder of the ride was passed in silence. + +"I thought we might have lunch here," Ware explained as they seated +themselves in front of a window overlooking the boulevard. It was +raining. The empty street gleamed and darkened with rain. + +"Most of the forenoon is gone anyway," Ware added. "Have you an +engagement?" + +"Thanks, I haven't," Basine answered. They sat sipping at highballs a +servant had brought. Basine watched the rain and a figure scurrying past +below the window. About this time they were lowering Gilchrist into the +ground. No one would ever see his face again. + +"Pretty sad about Gilchrist," Ware murmured as if aware of his thought. + +Basine's attention returned to the traction baron. The man wanted +something. Or why should he seek him out? An anger came into his mind. +Who was this man Ware that he could pick him up and cart him to a club +and buy him a highball--and expect to impress him, Basine? And for what +reason? The man wanted something. + +The idea had become a conviction. He sensed it now through the memories +of the morning. Ware had led up to it dexterously. A nod at first. Later +a few remarks about the weather. Finally an invitation to ride with him +to the cemetery. Ware had never intended going there. That had been a +ruse to--kidnap him. Basine frowned. Well, he was kidnapped. And he +would find out why. Find out directly. + +Ware was looking at him with a smile. Basine saw something in the smile +that increased his anger. A sudden wave of emotion, as if he were going +to strike the man, propelled his thoughts out of him. He heard himself +talking in a precise, indignant voice and regretted it at once. But the +words continued: + +"You're a rather busy man, Mr. Ware. And so am I. What did you want to +ask me?" + +Ware nodded slowly and thrust out his lower lip. + +"Exactly," he murmured. "I wanted to speak to you about something." + +"Well...." He paused on the word but Ware remained silent. He would have +liked to out-silence the traction official but after a pause, a +nervousness possessed him. "Well, let's begin now," he said. "What is it +you want?" + +He felt the crudity of his question and winced inwardly. But ... the +thing was said. He would fellow through in that tone, then. He tightened +his features and leaned back in his chair, his eyes deliberately on the +face of his host. He had embarrassed Ware. He could sense that through +the man's poise. His poise was only a stall. Well and good. There was +nothing for him, Basine, to be embarrassed about. He felt elated after +all with the way he had handled the thing. + +"I want to talk to you about a rather delicate matter," Ware began. +Basine nodded. He held the trumps. He had only to sit back and this +traction baron would begin to mumble, his celebrated poise would begin +to disintegrate. + +"I'll be as direct as you, Judge," he continued. "I see that you don't +like beating around the bush. Neither do I. But I didn't know. As I +said, the thing is a rather delicate matter and I want you to take my +word for it, that whatever you say in way of reply will in no way change +my opinion of you. It's a thing to be said and then forgotten, if +necessary, by both of us. Do you agree?" + +Basine nodded. + +"It's about the Hill case," Ware lowered his voice. + +"The Hill case?" Basine stared. + +"On your calendar, Judge. The violinist suing for $50,000. Hurt by +falling off a street car. I thought you knew the case." + +"I remember it now, Mr. Ware." + +"Well, the man hasn't a case at all. But it's a jury trial and, of +course, juries sometimes think out things in an odd way. Now what I'm +getting at is this. This particular suit doesn't disturb us much. But +the anti-traction press is going to give it a great deal of publicity. +And what we're interested in is the effect of the suit. You understand? +The town is full of cranks and schemers always trying to get rich by +suing some big utility corporation. And if this man Hill wins his case, +why it'll mean another hundred cases all as preposterous as his on our +hands. Do you follow me?" + +Basine nodded. + +"I told you it was a rather delicate subject," Ware smiled. "And I would +never have thought of broaching it if I wasn't sure you would look at it +in the light it's offered, you understand? I don't mean I'm asking a +judge to do anything outside the facts or to go out of his way to hand +us anything. That's dishonest and absurd. The thing is, as you'll see +for yourself when the case starts, that this man Hill is an impostor +trying to hold us up. We'll prove that to your entire satisfaction. What +I'm getting at is that there's the jury and you know the attitude of +juries these days toward corporations. They hold against us regardless +of evidence. Now what I'm after is to see we get a fair trial and it +lies in your province to help us." + +Basine leaned forward and spoke with difficulty. His anger had grown in +him. + +"What is it you want me to do?" he asked. + +Ware smiled disarmingly. + +"Nothing at all, Judge, that you wouldn't have done of your own +volition. I want you, if you are convinced such a course is a just one, +to take the case from the jury and throw it out of court. Now, wait a +minute. I see you're angry and, as I said, the matter in a way is rather +delicate to talk about. But come, I'll say frankly, I'm interested in +you. We need men like you. Quick, intelligent and able to see their way. +The progress of the city depends upon such men. You know Jennings?" + +"Your attorney." + +"Yes, in full charge of our legal department. There's another case for +you of an intelligent, quick-witted man, scrupulously honest but not an +ass. Six years ago Jennings was a judge on the municipal bench. Wasted +... utterly wasted ... today--" + +Basine interrupted, his voice harshened. + +"An analogy. I see. Thanks." + +He stood up. Ware reached out his hand. + +"I don't think you quite understand me," he murmured. + +"Perfectly," Basine answered. "And I've given my word that whatever I +understood would be forgotten." + +Words welled into Basine's mind. An almost uncontrollable impulse to +confound his host with a violent denunciation struggled in him. He would +tell this traction baron what manner of man he, Basine, was. And what +the dignity of his position as judge was. He would throw the bribe back +into the man's teeth. He would declaim. Virtue. Outrage. Creatures who +sought to use their power to influence justice. Who thought themselves +able to drag men of honor to their level by the promise of favors. + +Basine remained silent. His eyes, grown lustrous, stared at Ware. +Careful, he must be careful not to protest too violently. That would +sound as if he were uncertain. No protest at all. A contemptuous +silence. That was more effective. The sort of thing Ware would +understand, too. And remember. With a deep breath that sent a tremor +through his body, he nodded. + +"Good day," he said and turning his back abruptly, walked out of the +club. He frowned at the unctuous bell boys and doorman. + +Still raining. Basine walked swiftly, unaware of destination. His mind +was filled with emotions. Indignation grew in him. Ware had offered a +bribe. There was something in the thing that slowly infuriated him. It +was an affront, an attempt at domination. The man had said, "I'm better +than you. I can bribe you to do what I want." His spirit revolted. So +that was the way to power, eh? Listening to reason when the big wigs +spoke? Well, they could go on speaking till doomsday. But they couldn't +talk to him like that ... and get away with it. + +The anger slipped from him. He had refused. An elation halted him. He +was an honest man! The fact surprised him. He stared with pride at the +street. The street held an honest man, a man able to say "no" to +temptation. + +A tardy appreciation of his righteousness overpowered him. He had +something inside him now like a new strength. He could look at men +anywhere, anytime, and let his eyes tell them who he was and what sort +of man he was. Because he was sure of it himself. He was an honest man, +and sure of it. + +It was not only inside him, this certainty, but he felt it like a mantle +over his shoulders. He walked on with a vigorous step. An unshaven face +paused before him and a beggar mumbled for a coin. Basine stopped full. +He stopped with deliberation and stared at the unshaven face, at the +shifty eyes and dirty linen. The beggar repeated his furtive mumble. + +"No," Basine answered clearly. His voice was sharp. The man appeared to +wince. He slid away in the rain, his head down. + +Basine walked on with an increased elation. He had never been able to do +that before, say "no" decisively to a beggar. He had usually said "no", +but hurriedly, furtively. That was because he was uncertain of himself. +Now he could say "no" or "yes" to anyone with decision. He had refused +a bribe and was an honest man and did not have to concern himself with +what others might think of what he said, because of this conviction in +him and because of this mantle in which he was wrapped. + +He walked in the direction of the County Building. The rain felt fresh. +It was a moral rain, a virtuous comrade. + +The incident in the club had, in fact, given Basine a character. He had +been unaware of his motives from the moment a sense of impending events +had come to him in the traction official's automobile. He had, when the +bribe came, acted as if following a lifelong code of ethics. Yet he had +surprised himself. His anger, his violent emotion of righteousness had +been inexplicable to him. He had never felt anything like that before. + +Basine, in the car, had become aware vaguely of what awaited him. He had +recalled and repressed the recollection instantly, the Hill case pending +trial before him. And under the surface of his thought the entire drama +of the bribe had enacted itself in advance. Ware would offer him +something. Yes, and Ware was a man to know, one who could be of vital +use in his climb. If Ware asked him to do something it would be wise to +do it. He had been eager for the interview and a part of his eagerness +had been a desire to grant the traction baron the favor he was going to +ask. + +But the incident had come during a curious crisis in Basine's life, a +crisis that had piled up since his youth. A consciousness had been +growing in him of his duplicity. He had been aware of it, but in a +different way, during his youth and the early years of his marriage. It +had not made him uncomfortable then. He had been able to lie with a +clear conscience. Ruses by which he established himself in the eyes of +others, not as he was but as he desired them to think him, had seemed to +him then the product of a practical, superior nature. + +Slowly, however, his poise in the face of his own duplicities had begun +to crumble. He had begun to feel himself filled with the uncertainties +of a man forced to conceal too many things from himself. Fitting his +hypocricies and lies into worthy necessities had become too complex a +business, demanding too much of his energies. + +The inner situation in which Basine found himself as he matured had in +no way changed his nature. He had gone ahead as always, stumbling +finally into a climax of deceits in his relation with the young woman he +had hired as his secretary. + +In the five months she had worked for him he had been in love with her +but had managed to withhold the fact from both of them. He had invented +exhaustless explanations for his interest in her, for his desire to be +near her, for the increased aversion that had grown in him toward +Henrietta and his home. + +The crisis had accumulated and reached a head during the services in the +Gilchrist home. Here his pent-up self-repugnance, his growing impulse to +expurgate the duplicities of his life, had found a minor outlet in the +sudden religious faith that had possessed him after his half-hour of +doubts. Ware's bribe had come opportunely. Basine's inexplicable anger +on sensing the impending bribe, had been his self answer to the eager +desire to comply that had struggled to assert itself in him. + +And when the man had begun the actual words that meant bribe, he had +seized on the situation as a vindication. Opportunity to rehabilitate +himself, to wipe out with a single gesture the clutter of dishonesties +which were beginning to inconvenience him. He had embraced it and +emerged from the club a man, remade. No longer an inwardly shifty Basine +able to rise to righteousness only by avoiding his memories. But a +Basine with a platform inside him on which he might stand fearlessly. +The platform--I am honest. I refused a bribe--had erected itself over +the complex memories of himself. They were obliterated now. + +He entered his chambers with a serious happiness in his heart. A miracle +had happened and he had been given absolution--by himself. + + + + +16 + + +Ruth Davis was at her desk. She looked up eagerly as he entered. Basine, +hanging up his coat and hat, felt a businesslike desire to explain +matters to her. He was an honest man, done with subterfuges. + +He would explain to her that it was no longer possible for her to +continue in his employ. Use correct but kindly words. He was an honest +man. He wanted to impress himself and everybody else with this fact. +Even Ruth. He had no thought of impressing it on Henrietta. Henrietta +would only be surprised to hear he was an honest man. Because she had +always believed it anyway. + +But he would like to tell Ruth, because it would raise her opinion of +him; fill her with a great pride. A sad pride, of course, since it meant +their separation. But she would go away loving him even more because of +his honesty that had put an end to his love for her. + +The course, however, was impossible. It involved a ludicrous situation. +Because he had never said he loved her and she had been as silent as he. +And so telling her all these very fine things would make it necessary +for him to say first, "I have loved you." And then to add, "But I don't +love you any more. I can't." + +It was two o'clock. Time for the Judge to take his place on the bench. +Basine arose from behind his table with a sense of anti-climax. Nothing +had happened. He was going back to his place on the bench again. Poor +Gilchrist lay hidden forever and Ware had tried to bribe him and he had +proven himself a man of astounding integrity. And he had overcome a +growing infatuation for Ruth Davis. Yet nothing had happened. + +"Shall I retype the Friday speech, Judge?" Ruth inquired as he hesitated +before her desk. He looked at her as if it were difficult to focus his +attention on her. He was preoccupied. A man of many preoccupations who +found it hard to notice little things around him. + +"Oh yes, the speech," he agreed. "Type it. And if there are any mistakes +change them to suit yourself." + +He walked out of chambers. Ruth turned to her typewriter and prepared to +set to work. But as the door closed behind Basine she stopped. She +removed a small mirror from a drawer and studied her face in it. She +leaned back in her seat and sighed. She felt too restless to work. + +With her white brows frowning, she sat looking at the keys of her +machine. A miserable restlessness, this was, that never went away. At +night she lay awake in the room she had chosen since becoming +financially independent of her family. And a loneliness gnawed in her +heart. It was because she loved him. + +"Yes, I love him," she repeated to the keys of her machine. + +He was not like other men. There was something intimidating about him. +He had never spoken to her in a friendly tone. His eyes had never become +intimate. + +During the five months she had been his secretary he had kept aloof. A +strange, unbending man consumed with ambition. His ambition was an +awesome thing. There was a directness to it. He worked day and night, +always planning for something. His engagements crowded each other. She +hardly knew the man. She knew only an ambition that kept pushing +tirelessly forward. + +There had been no talk between them except business talk. And yet, +somehow he had given himself to her. Despite his aloofness and the +sternness of his manner, she had felt herself coming close to him, +closer than to anybody else she had ever known. And men were no exciting +novelty to her. They had held her hand and fumbled around with ambiguous +words. They talked art, politics, women, not because they were +interested in these things but because they wanted you to be interested +in what they thought of them. She had kept her virginity without +difficulty. The half-world of art and jobs enthused her. But it did not +stampede. A practical side of her remained dubious about the groping +ones she met in the studios. It was hard to pick out the real ones from +the fourflushers. She had discovered this. Because the real ones didn't +know they were real. Any more than the fourflushers knew they were +spurious. They all gabbled and wrote, painted and gabbled, and there was +no difference to them. + +About the men she had noticed one thing. Their egoism was the egoism of +ideas. They were better than others, they thought, because of the ideas +in their heads. They were excitedly snobbish about these ideas as people +are snobbish about clothes. But they weren't better than others because +they were they. They were always leaning on things to make them feel +superior. Radicalism was a series of ideas that they picked up because +they felt a superior intellectualism in them. + +Ruth had started thinking in this direction after listening to Levine, +Doris' friend. She had felt something of the sort before. But Levine, +with his almost oily pessimism, who talked always as if he were selling +something, had made it clear. + +"The women who go in for revolt," Levine had said, "Hm, that's another +story. They're not interested in egoism. Because as yet there isn't a +highly developed caste system among women. They still kind of herd +together as a sex and they try to impress each other only with their +superior artificialities--as to who has the most doting husband, the +nicest times, the most accomplished servants. + +"But men--there you have something else, don't you think? And the men we +know--the hangers-on around here, comical, eh? You can almost see them +bargain hunting for ideas. They don't stand up on their own feet and let +out yaps. They keep crawling inside of new ideas. They keep using ideas +as megaphones to proclaim their own superiorities. Little men playing +hide and seek inside of big ideas. Using ideas about art and life as +kids use pumpkin heads on Hallowe'en. To frighten and impress the +neighbors. Another simile--borrowed finery, eh? Ah, they're all fools. +It's hard to be much interested in people unless you're a poet. If +you're a poet then what you do is ignore people and go down like a +deep-sea diver to the bottoms of life. Down there it's interesting. Yes, +growths like on the ocean floor." + +As a contrast to these men, gabbling in her ear and fumbling with her +hands, Basine had interested her at once. At first she had accepted the +way he ignored her as a natural attitude. Later, he would become +friendly and she looked forward to his friendship. It would be +interesting to know what an egoist like Basine thought about things. His +ideas were obviously rather stupid, but then--there was something else. +Strength, determination. He wasn't like the intellectuals, continually +losing themselves in new ideas and parading around like kids in their +big brothers' pants. She disliked that kind of men. The longer you knew +them the more unreal they became. Until finally, when you knew them +through and through it was like knowing an inferior edition of an +encyclopedia through and through. Everything was inside but it made no +sense. It had no direction. A jumble of ideas and informations--but they +formed no plot, no man. They weren't really egoists--the intellectuals. +Men like Basine were. + +But his aloofness seemed to increase with time. There had been no +natural evolution of friendship. She thought then, "He acts artificially +toward me. It's because he doesn't want anything to sidetrack him. Not +even friendships. He isn't quite human. He's like a machine that's +wound up. And he must run till he breaks down." + +This image of Basine fascinated her. A man without heart, a cool will +feeling its way tirelessly toward power, a thirst for power that +increased rather than stated itself with success. When he'd been elected +judge, he had surprised her by asking, "Would you like to come along +with me to the County Building? The office doesn't include a secretary, +but I need one on my own account." + +During the months she had gained an almost embarrassing insight into the +activities engulfing Basine. The man himself remained hidden, +non-existent. But the world in which he had obliterated himself became +vividly outlined for her. The intrigues, counter intrigues, the +complexities of his climb, these were open secrets to her. He seemed +shameless about them. Often when she watched him furtively as he wrote +out political speeches should would think, "Is there a man there?" + +It seemed to her there was not. Only an ambition tirelessly at work. An +ambition with a keen, nervous face, sharp eyes, thin hands and an +eloquent voice. But something more. A man who didn't hide inside ideas +but who remained outside them, giving himself to nothing except his +consuming desire to utilize ideas for his own end. He remained outside +manipulating. He manipulated life. All for what? + +Fascinated, she fell in love. When he came in where she was, her heart +jumped. When he talked to her, something contracted in her throat, and +frightened her. She had her day dreams. As the spring opened sunny +mornings over the streets, she would sit gazing out of the tall windows +and think of Basine. Her thoughts took an odd turn. They built up +scenes in which Basine lay defeated. Accidents had maimed him. Political +reversals had taken the heart out of him. He was ruined, poor, without +employment. She pictured such situations with relish. In them she +appeared as an understanding one. She would fancy herself coming to him +and shaking her head sadly and saying, "Poor man. I'm so sorry. But you +see ... you see where it all led? to this." + +And she would fancy him smiling back with a romantic tiredness and +reaching for her hand and answering as if he were an actor with a +speech: + +"Yes, my dear? I've been wrong. Ambition is wrong. I'm ruined. And it is +only proof that I was wrong." + +And then, in her fancies, he would look at her tenderly and raising her +hand to his lips murmur, "Forgive me, Ruth." + +The door of the chambers opened and Ruth looked up, startled. Paul +Schroder strode in. He looked jaunty. She smiled. He was one of Basine's +friends, and she liked him for that. He had been of the hard-working +loyal ones during Basine's campaign. + +"Oh, nothing in particular," he said. "Thought I'd just drop in for a +smoke. How's his Honor, these days?" + +"He's very fine," Ruth answered. Schroder shook his head. + +"I'm afraid he's drying up," he grinned. "That's the trouble with men of +his type. Get their noses down to a grindstone and never have time to +look up." + +Ruth blushed. That didn't sound like a loyal speech. She saw Schroder +smiling broadly at her. + +"You're quite a champion of his," he was saying. "Well, well. Maybe his +Honor isn't as slow as I've been giving him credit for being." + +From anyone else this would have been offensive, she thought. But there +was something pleasing in the accusation. She hesitated and then +returned his smile. + +"You know as well as I, what kind of a man Judge Basine is," she +answered. "He's the kind every woman respects at first sight." + +"Loves, you mean," said Schroder. + +"Oh no, I don't think a woman could really love Mr. Basine," she smiled. +"He's too much wrapped up in himself." + +"Well, I don't know then," said Schroder, "his wife puts up a pretty +good bluff then." + +Ruth's smile left her. + +"Oh," she said, "of course." + +Schroder laughed. + +"Well, well," he went on, "so you'd forgotten he had a wife. That's a +sweet kettle of fish. Such memory lapses are dangerous. Watch your step, +young lady. Look out." + +He stood up and approached her and wagged a finger mockingly. In a way +Schroder annoyed her. He always made her feel juvenile. She could never +use any of her sophisticated phrases on him. Because he laughed too +loudly and if you retorted cleverly he always guffawed as if he had +trapped you into having to be clever. His manner always seemed to say, +"You can't put it over me. I know. I know...." + +Ruth turned with relief at the sound of a door opening. Basine. This was +one of his habits, to appear suddenly and for no reason at all and walk +up and down the large room as if immersed in grave thought. She had +often wondered why he did this. She thought it was because the work on +the bench made him too nervous or because there were so many things +weighing on his mind that he needed a few minutes now and then to +straighten himself out. + +But while thinking this she had always felt that his sudden appearances +had something to do with her. It was perhaps only a part of her vanity, +she mused, but she always had this impression--that despite his +indifference and sternness he was curiously attentive. No matter how +busy he was he never absented himself long. He was always returning and +walking up and down. It was odd, but she felt at times that he walked up +and down for her, to be near her. + +"Hello Paul," Basine's eyes slanted up at him, his head slightly +lowered. A pose which gave him a pugnaciously concentrated air such as a +schoolmaster looking over the top of his glasses at an erring pupil +might achieve. "What do you want?" A disconcerting directness he +reserved for the embarrassment of his friends. He asked straightforward +questions, point-blank questions. His questions always had the air of +troops unafraid, wheeling in manoeuver to face the enemy. + +"Nothing much, Judge. But your office is kind of restful." + +Schroder rolled a kittenish eye toward Ruth. + +"Oh!" Basine stiffened. "Hm." + +Schroder winked at the girl. He came forward, and added, "All the +comforts of home, eh?" And dropped into a chair beside her. + +He had the faculty of boyishness, a talent for intimacies. His trick +was a conscious thrust beneath the guard of women. He chose to ignore +the delicate fol de rols of pursuit, the pretense of formality. He +refused to recognize the barriers of dignity, strangeness, social +poise--but stepped through them with an easy laugh as if perfectly aware +of what lay beyond, and seated himself beside his quarry in the guise of +a mischievous boy asking to be congratulated for his boldness. + +Women succumbed to this gesture, disarmed by its frankness, its pretense +to innocent juvenility. In this manner Schroder achieved within an hour +intimacies which came to other men only after months of laborious toil. +He threw a noise of laughter over the bantering innuendoes of his talk, +disguising boldness in its own obviousness. His sallies seemed to say, +"You have nothing to fear from us since we are not secretive. We are +cards on the table." + +Women thought of him, "He's lots of fun. You don't have to pretend with +him. You can play and talk without feeling he's laying traps for you." + +But despite the straightforwardness of the man they soon located the +overtone in his conversation. It lay in his eyes. His eyes never gave +themselves to his laughter. They seemed to watch avidly from behind +something. It was as if they were independent of his characterization as +a frankly mischievous overgrown boy. They were able to ask amazingly +indecent questions in the midst of his frankest outbursts. Women +invariably grew embarrassed under their stare. There was no defense +against the inquisitive impudence with which they announced the male's +concentration. Their gleam was like an unmistakable whisper--an +invitation. + +Basine admired the man. But he remained oblivious to this side of him. +Schroder's female conquests had never interested the Judge. He had heard +of them and forgotten immediately. Now, however, memories returned. +Schroder was an unscrupulous animal. Basine looked at him with a +hopeless misgiving. + +He noticed as Schroder and Ruth talked that he seemed on far more +intimate terms with her than he. There was an _esprit_ between the two +as if they were comrades of long standing. His friend's familiarity was +a shock--as if he had caught him undressed, unexpectedly. Basine +listened to his talk with an aloof frown, as if he were unable to focus +his attention on the scene. He was thinking of something else--far-away +things, vast preoccupations. + +"Loafing is an art. Don't you think so, Ruth?" + +"I've never had time to find out." + +"Hm. I'm teacher. Want me to be teacher?" + +"Why yes, if you have time in your loafing." + +"Time for you always, my dear." A contemplative stare at the girl. "What +would you say, Judge, if I fall in love with your charming secretary." +He laughed. Basine cleared his throat. He felt miserably out of this +sort of thing. He was shocked to hear Ruth giggle. + +"Yes sir," Schroder continued. "And what are you doing this evening?" + +"Nothing, Mr. Schroder." + +"Well, why waste time? How about dinner and a show?" + +"Really?" She glanced at Basine as if to declare him in on this give and +take. He was preoccupied, hardly observing what was happening. She +pouted. + +"Cross my heart," said Schroder. + +"Thanks very much. A very generous, if general invitation." + +"Discovered!" Schroder laughed. "All right then. Six o'clock at the +Auditorium. Woman's entrance. I'll wear a red rose in my ear. Can't miss +me." + +Ruth nodded. + +"There you are, George," Schroder cried. "All done in a minute. And +tomorrow we'll be in love with each other. What'll you marry us for, +your Honor? Remember I helped elect you." A boisterous laugh that seemed +to mock the boastfulness and prophecies of the man and say of itself, +"I'm joshing all of you including me...." + +Basine left them. His heart was heavy, uncomfortable. He sat on the +bench frowning at the scene. Eager lawyers whispering; a woman in a +green hat holding a handkerchief to her eyes; a bald-headed man on the +other side of the long mahogany table; faces for a background. A divorce +case. The woman weeping was a wife. The bald-headed one with the air of +a board of directors' meeting about him ogled his accusers with dignity. +He was a husband. The jury sat dolorously inattentive in the box. A +witness was testifying. + +Other people's troubles. An interminable jawing back and forth--lawyers, +defendants, witnesses and more lawyers. Basine frowned. Other people's +troubles--and he had his own. This thing before him was an intrusion. At +best he had no sympathy for the interminable jawing that went on under +his eyes. He had grown passionately interested in what he called the +people. But when he thought of the people he thought of them as a +force, a group, an army standing with faces raised repeating certain +slogans--a vision that Doris had bequeathed him. The interminable +jawing, weeping, accusation and denial before him from day to day had +nothing to do with the people. About these individuals he was cynical. +And more, he was not interested. + +The witness was testifying. The intimidating air of the judge seemed to +confuse her. Her confusion irritated Basine. He turned indignantly and +faced her with a bullying frown. + +"What is it you're trying to say, madam? Did you see this man beat her?" + +"Yes, your honor.... I.... I ... that is...." + +Basine controlled his temper and grimaced humorously at the jurors whose +faces at once lighted with an appreciative smile. A fearless man, Judge +Basine, who couldn't tolerate the mumble mumble of legal technicalities +and who struck at the roots of things when he took charge of a witness. + +... They were in the room behind him. Alone. An intolerable thought. +But, impossible to keep his thought away. His imagination like a +merciless flagellate, belabored him with fancies. Paul would teach her. +Lean over and kiss her. And she would kiss in return and whisper, +"Paul...." He was unmarried and good looking. Perhaps she was +heartbroken, too. He, Basine, had never spoken despite the light he had +recognized of late in her eyes. She was in love with him and filled with +despair because her love was useless. So now she would turn to Schroder +in desperation. She would try to forget him, Basine. It was logical. +Women forgot hurts in that way--by giving themselves to someone else. + +The heaviness grew unbearable. Another man was touching Ruth. This was +unbearable. He couldn't stand it. But why? What difference? He +couldn't.... She was so beautiful. Another man's hands were desecration. + +A weakness came to him. His heart darkened. What if she did, with +Schroder? They were probably kissing now. It had been hard to imagine +himself kissing her. To him she somehow seemed aloof, beyond possession. +But it was easy to imagine Schroder. Men and women put their arms around +each other and that was an end to aloofness. + +He made an effort to pull himself together. Voices were droning around +him--other people's troubles. Faces thrust themselves tactlessly at his +eyes. He grew nauseated. He had never felt like this before. As if he +must do something despite his will. His will said, "Sit there. Don't +move. It's none of your business." But this other thing was pulling him +out of his seat and moving his body for him. + +He clenched his teeth and muttered to himself, "She's no good. Wasting +my time on her!" + +"That will be all for today," Basine muttered. He placed his hand +wearily over his forehead. This would make them think he was ill. His +clerk came forward. + +"Anything wrong, Judge?" he asked with concern. + +Basine shook his head with Spartan indifference to the mythical disease +consuming him. + +"No," he said, belying his answer in its tone, "court is adjourned until +ten o'clock tomorrow." + +He nodded briefly at the faces. The solicitous regard in the eyes of +attorneys and jurors reassured him. He was ill, very ill--that was it. +Of course, that was it. The eyes of the attorneys and jurors said, "You +are working too hard. You must be careful of a nervous breakdown. In +your prime too. Be careful." + +He walked off the bench, his step unsteady. He was acting. But the fact +that his step was not authenticly unsteady was an accident--and +illogical. He felt it logical to walk unsteadily since everyone thought +him ill and on the verge of a breakdown. + +"You'd better go home, Judge." + +Basine nodded gratefully to his clerk. He opened the door to his +chambers. The sight of Schroder bewildered him. Schroder was still +there. He had his hat in his hand, though. Basine stared at his friend. +His heart contracted and his breath fluttered in his throat. + +"What's wrong, George?" + +"Nothing. Headache. Knocked off for the day." + +Words were hard to speak. His eyes turned to Ruth. She was watching him. +Frightenedly, he thought. Had she done something? Kissed? They looked +guilty. He tried to find answers to the questions by staring at her. Was +she the same as she had been? Or had she given her lips? A vital +question. They were going out tonight together. Basine controlled +himself. He sat down at his desk and ran his hand wearily over his head. + +"Well, so long," Schroder spoke. "Hope you feel better, George." A +pause. "See you later, Ruth." + +See her later! They had no sympathy for his illness. They would go out +and laugh, hold hands, make love--despite his trouble. He sat brooding +over the cruelty of women. "Cruel. No finer feelings," he mumbled to +himself. + +They were alone. Was he ill? What was it that had lifted him off the +bench? Nothing definite. A dark disorder in his mind, a heaviness in his +heart that had seemed part of the room. He wanted to moan. Yes, he was +sick. + +"Can I do anything, Judge?" + +He hated her. Her voice with its hypocritical concern. As if she cared +for him. After what had happened between her and Schroder ... see you +later ... and he called her Ruth. + +"No, Miss Davis." + +This was unbearable. He would insult her. There was relief in insulting +her, making her suffer for something, too. But she might go away if he +did. He couldn't go on with his work any more. Work was impossible. A +disease was active in him sending out dark clouds that choked his +thought and swelled his heart with pain. She might leave for good. Then +what could he do? Nothing. But why all this make-believe? He would tell +her he loved her. Simple. That would drain him of his pain. He stood up +and paced. She was at her desk, he noticed, eyes large and excited. + +But he could do nothing, say nothing. He was impotent. Good God! he +must. How? No way he could think of. The thing was smothering him. +Before--days and weeks before--he had kept it down. But now it had slid +from underneath and was in his head. There was no outlet. He dared not +talk. + +No thoughts were in his mind. Henrietta, his children, home, morality, +marriage, none of these was in his mind. But there was a restriction, a +wall he could not pass. There were things holding him with merciless +hands. They gripped at his body and thrust themselves like gags into his +mouth. + +She had risen and was standing near the window. If he kept to his pacing +he must come near her. It was her fault. He was just pacing. She was in +his path. If he walked straight to the end of the room she would be in +his path. Why should he turn out for her? + +He paused beside her. He must say nothing. It was talk that was +impossible. He stood looking at her until his eyes grew bewildered. +There was a moment in which he seemed to vanish from himself, as if he +had stepped bodily out of himself. His thought paralyzed with a curious +terror, he saw nothing. The moment of unconsciousness passed and he was +still alive and still on his feet. His voice lay under control in his +throat and the memory of his name sat like a perpetual visitor in his +thought. + +But there was a change. A miraculous thing had happened. He was no +longer Basine. He was a stranger in a strange world. He was holding her +in his arms. An impossible sensation was in him. This was something he +couldn't believe. He wanted to look at himself. He had his arms around +her. But there was no woman in the circle of his arms. He was holding +something that let his delirium escape. Torments were emptying +themselves in the embrace. The miseries that had accumulated under the +surface of his months of resistance, were leaving him, flying from him. +His heart was growing unbearably light. + +"Oh!" he murmured. Her arms had tightened and he saw her eyes approach +him. They were rapturous. + +She was warm, intimate, close to him. Her lips, still piquantly +strange, were offering themselves. She was unlike everything he knew. A +startling vigor, as if he had been changed into a rampaging giant, swept +him as they kissed. He was great, strong. He could walk over the heads +of the world. He had no need for further embrace. He stepped away, his +face radiant. + +Ruth looked at him in confusion. This was a new Basine. He frightened. +The mask was gone, the frown of preoccupation. She grew dizzy in the +light of his eyes. He was a stranger. What should she call him? But he +was talking to her in a voice that he seemed to have kept secret.... "I +love you, Ruth. I love you." + +He laughed. She smiled uncertainly and felt that her face looked +awkward. She could see the lines of her cheeks bulging as she lowered +her eyes. This confused her and made her feel stiff. There had been +something of this sort a few minutes ago in Paul Schroder when he had +tried to take her hand. But now the thing she had noted calmly in +Schroder seemed a puny imitation. Here it was real. He was laughing, +softly, joyously. He was like a boy. Her heart filled with panic. She +put her arms quickly around his neck and pressed herself close to him. +The panic went out of her deliciously. + +"George, I love you. I'm so happy." + +They sat looking at each other, an excited smile in Basine's eyes. His +body was tingling. A new sense had come. It lived in his fingers. He was +holding her hand. His fingers were charged with an amazing energy. They +seemed to have become part of a different person. He was able to enjoy +the ecstasy that confused his fingers as if it were an external +emotion. The rest of him was clear, almost tranquil. + +"Well," he said. It was still hard to talk. He was aware of +incongruities. He was not Basine talking, not the new Basine, not the +one whose fingers danced and throbbed. His voice belonged to other +Basines--other characterizations whose awkward ghosts fluttered +nervously in his thought. He would discuss this phenomenon. It was easy, +after all. Be honest. She was one with whom he could be astonishingly +honest. They were isolated. The world was a futility. There was an end +to make-believe now. It was all honest, tranquil, joyous. He began +again: + +"Well, isn't it strange. I can hardly talk to you. I'm not used to us +yet. This way. I've loved you since I first saw you. But I've told so +many lies about that to both of us...." He paused to smile at her as if +asking her not to believe him a liar, or if she must--a liar in a high +cause--"that the things I want to say now seem like ... like the +contradictions of something. Of old lies ... in a way." + +She nodded. + +"Oh, I know," she whispered. A preposterous admiration of her +intelligence overcame him. Of course she understood! It was unnecessary +to talk to her. She had kissed and embraced him. She had felt the same +things he had. And now, their thoughts were alike. They were like one +person, having shared something that filled them. It was unnecessary to +talk. Because if he remained silent she knew he was thinking of her. A +charming sense of comradeship came to him. + +"I feel," he said, "as if we were too intimate for words." + +She nodded again and smiled. + +"We'll make a holiday," he added. "Come, we'll go for a drive." + +They embraced. This time he thought of Henrietta. Ruth was different +from his wife. Her shoulder blades felt different under his fingers. It +was impossible to think they were both women. His arms around Henrietta +meant nothing. His arms around Ruth now--he closed his eyes in order to +closet himself with indefinable sensations. + +They emerged from the traffic of the loop. Basine at the wheel of his +newly purchased roadster dropped a hand on hers. + +"I feel better like this," he said. + +"Isn't it wonderful," she whispered. + +He would have liked to tell her they were floating over buildings. But +he kept silent. Words were still self-conscious interlopers. The houses +moved away. A spring wind was in their faces. They were silent. The +pavements ended. Basine brought the car to a stop. + +"I don't know what to do," he said. "I'm so happy." + +He placed his arms around her. The touch of her body through his clothes +was a reminder of something. He gave it no words. They sat embraced, +their faces together and an unspoken laugh in their hearts. The sun was +high overhead. Basine tried to remember himself ... Henrietta, his home, +his position. Ah, banalities. He was proud. He was above remorse, +regret; above himself. There was nothing in the world as beautiful as +the moment he commanded. + +Ruth leaned avidly against him as if seeking refuge in his arms. He sat +thinking. "It is right. Everything right. I've done nothing. No +compromise. Nothing. I'm happy. There's nothing to frighten me." + +He felt released. + + + + +17 + + +Summer lay like a Mandarin coat over the city. It was June. Warm, +sun-awninged streets glistened with ornamental colors. Women in gaudy +fabrics, men in violent hat bands, straws, panamas, striped shirts, sun +parasols like huge discs of confetti, freshly painted red and green +street cars, pastel tinted automobiles--all these tumbled like a swarm +of sprightly incoherent adjectives along the foot of the buildings. + +The store windows like deaf and dumb hawkers grimaced at the crowds. Ice +creams, silks, swimming suits, and sport paraphernalia; jaunty frocks, +white trousers, candies, festive haberdashery, drugs, leather goods, +wicker furniture and assortments of lingerie like the symbols of +fastidious sins--all these grimaced behind plate glass. + +The city was in bloom. People, perspiring and lightly dressed, sauntered +by the plate glass orchards. Summer filled the city with reminiscent +smells. Sky, water, grass scampered like merry ghosts through the +carnival of the shopping center. Warm, sun-awninged streets; ornamental +men and women--summer spread itself through the crowds, warmed the +bargain hunters, loiterers, clerks, stenographers, business men and +housewives into a half sleep. + +They peered lazily at each other. Their mysterious preoccupations seemed +to have subsided. The sun made holiday in the streets and the high, +fluttering windows showered endless tiny suns on the air. The morning +held the unreal soul of some forgotten picnic. + +Ten o'clock. Fanny Gilchrist turned with an inward sigh and walked out +of the crowded business street. This was LaSalle street and, concealed +in the buildings around her, were people who knew her and might see her. +Accidentally bump into her. + +The crowds grew thinner and less familiar types of faces drifted by. +This was better. She wasn't exactly afraid. But what if someone did bump +into her accidentally? Then she would have to say where she was going +and, if she lied, perhaps they would insist upon coming along and +discover it. But that was foolishness. One never met people in streets +like that. + +Men looked at her with casual interest, with insignificant enthusiasm, +as she walked by them. A bright-haired, shining-eyed young woman with a +body undulating softly under a grey and green trimmed dress; she seemed +to light up the dingy pavements. Other women passed lighting them up +also. Each new female illuminant was welcomed with thankful, greedy +eyes. + +Her red sailor jauntily tilted and the silken gleam of her face were +like part of a luscious mask. She was a woman hurrying somewhere and +men, bored with other women, looked at her enthusiastically. She was one +of the many enigmatic ones, one of the many gaudy colored masks behind +which sex paraded its mystery through the sun-awninged streets. Eyes +ennuied with the memory of sex lighted eagerly in the presence of its +masks. The flash of ankles and the swell of thighs under pretty fabrics +were diversions even for moralists. + +Schroder waiting patiently on a street corner watched the warm crowd. +She wouldn't come. Yes, she would. Well, another five minutes would +tell. + +He saw her and his excitement changed. A leisurely smile came to his +face. His body relaxed. He was a connoisseur in rendezvous and his +enjoyment of the moment which witnessed her approach was deliberate. +Women in themselves did not interest him so much. Their +bodies--pleasant, yes. But after all--a finale. And one does not applaud +finales. + +But now, watching her lithe figure hurrying toward him was a diversion +to be sipped at, contemplated in all its emotional detail, and enjoyed. +Later it would be this moment he remembered, if he remembered +anything--which was uncertain. For his memories which had in his younger +days glistened in his thought like a mosaic of eroticism, had of late +blurred to a monotone. He could remember women, liaisons, passion +phrases and great enthusiasms but, curiously, they seemed all identical. +To recall how one woman had sighed in his arms was to recall the whole +pack of them. As if the souls of his paramours and the manner of their +surrenders were contained completely in the recollection of any one +detail. + +But despite his ennui, this moment of approach still delighted him. The +woman hurrying to his side was not yet a woman. She was still a mystery +whose inevitable and never varying sensualism was masked for a final +instant behind unfamiliar fabrics. There was a piquant unreality, a +diverting strangeness, as she smiled at him. She was somebody he did not +know. He was authentically bored with women. But for the moment it was +not a woman approaching--rather a new color of cloth, a new combination +of dress, a new species of social poise and gesture were presenting +themselves for ravishment. In these unfamiliar surfaces lay a tenuous +mystery as if it were these externals he was about to embrace. And in +the contemplation of this mystery, his interest revived itself. He +sighed. It was a mystery which would vanish shortly. + +"Hello, dearest." + +He greeted her softly, with regret. A quixotic impulse to turn and walk +away before she spoke had died in him. + +Fanny was staring expectantly. He was familiar with the expression. Not +in her, but in others. This took away its charms. Married women were +nearly all alike. Full of distressing short cuts, with an irritating and +incongruous professionalism behind their bewilderment. What dolts +husbands must be to blunt women like that. + +As he took her hand and felt her fingers clutch excitedly around his +palm he remembered in an instant the predecessors of her type. Full of +distressing short cuts. When they gave their hands they withheld +nothing. They denuded themselves with a look, with a handclasp. And the +subtlety of skirmishing seemed entirely foreign to them. When they +embraced it was with an appalling directness. Yes, in intrigue they were +all alike--all like precocious children; vague, bewildered children +mimicking the precisions of their elders and exclaiming with distressful +incongruity: + +"Tut, tut. Let's come to the point. Let's get down to brass tacks and +stop beating around the bush." + +Well, here she was and the scene was on. + +"Am I late?" + +"No, dearest. I was just a little early so as to enjoy the impatience of +waiting for you." + +The nuance was lost upon her. Amorous women were a cold audience for +technique. + +"I'm so upset. Do you mind?" + +"Not at all, Fanny. Of course you're upset. But it only adds to your +charm." + +He had long ago abandoned love-making tactics, sensing that women who +came to him were not particularly interested in tender pretenses. They +desired flattery, but direct and practical variants. This one was like +the others, flushed, eager, frightened and gay. He felt an exhilaration +as they walked toward the entrance of the unpretentious hotel around the +corner. A sense of conquest. It was nothing to be enjoyed in itself. But +if people knew, which they never could, alas, they would be awed by the +ease with which he accomplished such things. One, two, three meetings +and--here they were again. Paul Schroder entering a hotel with a woman +at his side. + +"This isn't a bad place," he whispered. "I've already registered. Mr. +and Mrs. Paul Johnson. It's better if you know your name, of course." + +Fanny stood tremblingly in front of the elevator cage as he walked to +the desk. She noticed his carelessness, the unselfconscious way in which +he smiled at the clerk and paused to buy some cigars. The fear that had +grown in her since she left her home appeared to be reaching a climax. +Her knees shivered under her dress and a catch in her throat made +breathing difficult. + +"There's nothing to be afraid of," she repeated silently to herself, and +tried to understand the cause of her trembling. Even if there were +consequences--there was Aubrey. She smiled nervously. It was his fault. +He was a fool. + +They entered the elevator. A sleepy boy shut the cage door after them. +Schroder gripped her arm and his fingers caressed the soft flesh. She +turned to him and smiled. She was no longer afraid. A shameless, +exultant light kindled in her eyes. She leaned against him with a shiver +as the elevator lifted slowly. + + * * * * * + +... They had decided to check out in time for her to return home for +dinner. + +"I don't have to go up to the desk with you, do I?" she asked. + +Schroder smiled tiredly. + +"Oh no," he said, "you wait at the entrance with the property suit case. +Then we'll both take a cab and drive a few blocks. I'll get out with the +bag and you drive on home. It's simple." + +Nevertheless the fear she had experienced in the morning returned as she +watched him go to the desk. In another minute it would be all over and +everything would be all right. But now--what if someone saw them? Bumped +into her accidentally. The lassitude which had filled her when she +locked the tumbled hotel room behind her, gave way to a curious panic. +Her tired nerves became unhappily alive. + +"Why--hello, Mrs. Gilchrist." + +She was unable to see the man for an instant. Her mind had darkened. "I +mustn't faint," she murmured to herself. She was looking at an unshaven, +dissipated face that smiled. As she looked her world seemed to be +falling down. Everything gone--ruined. Because a face was smiling. Tom +Ramsey. The man's name popped into her thought. + +"Hello," she muttered. + +Schroder approached and frowned. He took her arm and led her away. She +began to cry in the cab. + +"He saw us. He knows. He'll tell everybody. Oh my God! Why did you come +up when you saw him? If you'd only realized. Oh, why did I do it? Now +everything's ruined. I'm lost." + +She wept, knowing the futility of tears. An accident that seemed +provokingly unreal and soothingly unimportant--Tom Ramsey. Yet the name +was like a guillotine block on which her head lay stretched. + +Schroder, annoyed, tried to console her. + +"Who was it? Listen, pull yourself together. People always imagine +themselves guiltier looking than they are. He probably thought nothing +wrong." + +"Tom Ramsey. Didn't you see how he looked at me? Oh, God, I'm sick." + +"Who is he?" + +"He used to be my mother's friend. But he went to the dogs. He's just a +tramp now. He isn't a gentleman." + +Schroder sighed. + +"Oh well," he said, "there's no use worrying. Come, put it out of your +head." + +"I can't. Oh, I can't. Why did I do it. I'll kill myself if ... if +anything happens. Aubrey will.... Oh Paul, I feel sick." + +He stared glumly at the back of the chauffeur's head. A nuisance. A +damned nuisance. His mind played with contrasts. A few hours ago she had +been shameless. Now she sat weeping. He thought of her as ungrateful and +grew angry. + +"I'll step out now," he whispered. "Call me up tomorrow at the office, +will you? Nothing will happen. Please, be calm. It's all imagination." + +He halted the cab and stepped out with the suitcase. She would feel +better, he knew, as soon as he disappeared. She would be able to +convince herself then that nothing had happened--that she was coming +home from a shopping tour. + +"Good-bye. Call me up, dearest." + +Fanny sat weeping as the cab moved away. Ramsey had seen her. A misery +too heavy for thought brought another burst of tears. She hated +Schroder. And herself, too. But most of all the ragged looking, unshaven +Ramsey in the lobby. Why had he come at just that moment? If they had +left the room ten minutes earlier. It was Paul's fault. He insisted on +combing his hair, and reading a story in the newspaper. If he hadn't +sent down for the newspaper in the middle of the afternoon. He didn't +love her or he wouldn't have thought of sending for it. She had laughed +at the time but it was an insult. He was a brute. If he had loved her he +wouldn't have wanted to read a newspaper and they wouldn't have met +Ramsey. She sat conjuring up dozens of trifling incidents which, had +they occurred, would have prevented the fatal meeting with Ramsey. + +Then she smiled convulsively through her tears. It was about the story. +They had laughed at it in the room. "Judge Basine Launches Vice Quiz. +State to Investigate Problem of Immorality Among Women Wage Earners...." + +"Why girls go wrong ... why girls go wrong," rumbled through her head +now and she laughed hysterically. Oh, that tramp of a Ramsey had spoiled +it all. Otherwise it would have been wonderful. And next week, too. But +perhaps he hadn't noticed anything. Of course he hadn't. Paul was right. + +She dried her tears and looked into the twilighted streets. She had +planned her homecoming days ago. She would be ill, overcome by the heat +and excuse herself from the dinner table. A final chill shot through her +heart as the cab stopped. + +She found herself entering her home with complete poise. It was almost +as if nothing had happened. Here were the familiar things of life. Her +home, Aubrey, the rows of books, the walnut library table. Nothing had +happened. For a moment she was amazed at the complete unconsciousness of +the day. Then smiling delightedly at her husband in a chair, a familiar +husband in a familiar chair, she removed her hat and approached him. + +Leaning over the back of his chair she kissed him tenderly on the cheek. +He was her protector. Good old Aubrey, so familiar, so placid and +unchanged. If it only hadn't been for Ramsey everything would be so nice +now. But anyway, it wasn't so bad. She had been a bit hysterical. + +"Where've you been, Fanny?" + +She felt no twinge at the question. Instead an enthusiasm for the +situation filled her. + +"To the matinee," she laughed. "Oh, I saw the nicest show." + +She leaned forward and took his hand. Aubrey regarded her with a +petulant stare. Despite their years of marriage, she was still an +animal, gross and irritating. + +"And I'm just starved," she exclaimed. "I was never so hungry in my +life." + +She laughed, overjoyed at the truth of the statement and hurried +upstairs to prepare for dinner. + + + + +18 + + +The manuscript had been found in the drawer where William Gilchrist kept +his collars. It lay underneath a number of loose collars. + +With the death of his father a curious love for the man had come to +Aubrey. He remembered from day to day things his father had said, or +seemed to say. A sad, elderly man who lived secretly in his thoughts. +That was his father. + +Like him, Aubrey now had a secret life that he lived only in his +thoughts, and this was slowly making him kin to the man who had died. In +Aubrey's thoughts dwelt a dramatic, startling figure--a gleaming, +hawk-faced thunderer; a lean Isaiah of burning phrases with an +eagle-winged soul beating its way toward God. This was Aubrey Gilchrist. +Not the Aubrey whom life had mysteriously deformed into an advertising +man, but an Aubrey triumphant who had risen above the petty turns of +Fate and burst upon a world--a voice crying forth astounding phrases +against the evil of man's ways. + +The inner characterization in which Aubrey was gradually immersing +himself remained a vague though warm generality. He was able to +visualize the Thunderer and able to enjoy the results of his genius. In +his day dreams he pictured this inner one bringing the world to his +feet. Books were being written about him, magazines and newspapers were +filled with his praises and interpretations, and men and women +everywhere discussed his ascent in awe. He was a conqueror--a bloodless +Napoleon and a martyrless Jesus. A prophet whose genius was lifting men +out of the mire. + +What the message was which this inner Aubrey was spreading through the +world, what the phrases were that ignited the souls of men, were not +contained in his imaginings. He approached them from a critical and not +creative angle--his fancies presenting him with descriptive self +praises. He composed rambling articles in his mind celebrating his +triumphs. This inner Aubrey was eloquent, electrifying, unassailable; +men and women wept over his writings and repented; cities reared statues +to him, and all places sang his glories. The whole thing had begun as a +game, deliberately invented to occupy the leisure of his mind. But he +had elaborated on it and it had grown almost by itself. Now it +preoccupied him to an alarming degree. + +The manuscript in his father's collar drawer had given him a shock. He +had kept it from his mother, assuring himself that such a course was for +the best. It was an odd document for his father to leave behind. + +As he sat in his study a week after the funeral reading it for the first +time, Aubrey grew frightened. It seemed to him that he was looking at +his father--for the first time, that the man who had till now been a +half enigmatic figure to him, stood at last in the room, strong and +alive. The thing was a primitive type of novel--discoursive, gentle, +Rabelaisian. It recounted the mental and physical adventures of an +Elizabethan philosopher in a succession of unrelated episodes. There was +a caress in the sentences, a simplicity in the narrative that translated +itself into cunning realism. + +When he had finished the reading, Aubrey stared at his father's portrait +hanging over one of the book cases. The reality of the manuscript held +him. He felt bewildered. It had for some three hours lifted him out of +the present and immersed him in scenes and amid a company of naive +ancients, starkly alive. A dormant literary sense awakened in him. The +thing was a work of art, as moving, as authentic as Apuleius or +Cervantes. But he would put it away. He hid it in a private drawer. + +Its memory, however, grew in his mind. During his day at work the +thought of the thing his father had written came to haunt him, as if it +demanded something. He felt closer to it than he had ever felt to his +father. There was something distasteful, though, about the intimacy. + +"That was his soul," he would explain over to himself. "He lived that +way inside. It was like writing a biography of secret dreams for him. +It's strange. We're all like that. Even I. There was something odd in +father. Funny we never guessed. It must have been written a paragraph at +a time over years and years. It was a sort of diary." + +And he would recall excerpts from the book--gentle skepticisms, childish +animalisms. But the tone of the thing which he could never put into +words was what haunted him most. Over the naive acrobatics of plot and +lively preenings of idea, an unwritten smile spread itself, a pensive +tolerance that seemed to say, "Yes, yes, life has been. This tale is a +curious jest. An epitaph over an empty grave. Yesterday is unreal and +today is even less real. Yet here are fancies, the ghosts of sad and +happy folk who never lived. And among these ghosts I once found +life...." + +The idea of publishing the manuscript came to Aubrey one evening when +his wife returned from the theater in a curious mood. She was late for +dinner and this irritated him. But her manner was even more irritating. +She was strident, flushed, gross. Her laugh as they ate made his mother +frown, he observed. He said little. When they left the table an +indignation toward Fanny had come to him. + +He retired to his study. Fanny insisted on following him. She hovered +about his chair as he tried to read, caressing him in a curious way, as +if he were a child with whom she was amused. It occurred to him that she +thought him a failure, that there was something condescending in her +manner. + +"Oh, leave me alone, please, Fanny." + +"Hm! We're peevish. Dear me. Poor old Aubrey's working too hard." + +"Please." + +"But I want to talk to you. I want to tell you about the matinee." + +"I'm not interested, Fanny. You know how I hate vaudeville." + +"I love it." + +"That's your privilege." + +"Don't be sarcastic, Aubrey." + +"I'm not. I'm just tired." + +"Tired? What have you been doing?" + +Despite herself she accented the you. The memory of Schroder and their +day together had left her. It persisted, however, as a curious elation. +The ambiguity of words exhilarated her. She felt a sense of mastery. She +wanted also to be tender toward Aubrey, to please and charm him. It was +necessary to do this in order to disarm him. But he had no suspicions. +She was certain of that. Nevertheless it was necessary to make sure he +had none. There were many paradoxical things necessary and most curious +of them all was the necessity of showing Aubrey that she loved him. Her +heart warmed toward him as it hadn't for years. She felt unaccountably +grateful to Aubrey. She would have liked to sit at his side whispering +love names and caressing his hair. + +"Well, for one thing, I've been writing." + +He looked at her calmly. + +"Writing? You mean books? Why, I didn't know!" + +Aubrey smiled, recovering a superiority toward her. But his heart grew +heavy almost simultaneously. She had thrown her arms about him and was +exclaiming, "Oh, I'm so glad. I'm so glad you're writing again, Aubrey +darling. I've wanted you to so much." + +He pushed her away slowly. She stood pouting. + +"Now I can see where I take a back seat," she sighed. "Yes sir, you +won't have time for me at all. But I don't care. As long as you're +happy, darling, I'm delighted. I want you to be happy and I know it +makes you happy to write." + +When she left the room Aubrey remained frowning after her. He would +surprise her. He would surprise them all. He would publish the +manuscript under his own name. It would create a sensation. It would +bring him back in the public eye more glorified than he had been in his +literary heyday. + +In a few days the idea had grown to obliterating proportions. For a +time he abandoned the contemplation of the inner Aubrey--the +gleaming-eyed Thunderer. This other was nearer reality--an Aubrey hymned +as a rejuvenated literary figure. But he hesitated. His indecision +resulted in a predicament. He had been boasting cautiously of his new +work, letting out hints as to its character. There was Cressy, a +literary critic and a member of the club where he lunched. He had talked +to him about it. + +"I'm surprised myself," he explained. "I was rather uncertain whether I +could come back. But the rest was evidently just what I needed. The book +isn't at all in my old style. More direct, sincere and entirely simple. +You'll like it." + +Cressy became important in Aubrey's predicament. Cressy was a man whom +Aubrey identified as "the more discriminating public." He yearned for +the approval of this public. And as his decision to have his father's +manuscript printed under his own name grew, Aubrey sought the critic +out. It was pleasant to boast to Cressy, to feel oneself part of the +superior literary world Cressy inhabited. + +Cressy had left the university with the determination to write. He had, +however, developed into a scholar, using a knowledge of Greek and Latin +to acquire a baggage of classical erudition. For ten years he had been +contributing literary essays to magazines and newspapers. In these he +wagged his head sorrowfully over the decline of letters. He presented an +impregnable front to all new writers. The names of new novelists in the +book lists irritated him precisely as the names of new celebrities in +the society columns had once irritated Mrs. Basine. He resented them as +intruders and focused a pedantic wrath on them. + +In his own mind he pictured himself as being in a continual state of +revolt against the inferiority of modern literature. His attacks, +however, were entirely a defensive gesture. His literary point of view +was inspired by a heroic desire to annihilate contemporary literature. +Contemporary books were an insult and a barrier to his egoism. He +battled against them. His struggle was the quixotic effort to assert the +superiority of his erudition. New novels, new poetries, new philosophies +were a conspiracy to minimize him and he went after them with the zeal +of one engaged in tracking criminals to their lair. + +At forty-five he was a stern-faced man with a greying mustache, heavy +glasses behind which gleamed indignant eyes. He was impressive looking. +People who never read his fulminations still felt a high regard for his +scholarship. He was fearless in the pronunciation of French, Latin and +Greek names and invariably functioned as arbiter in all disputes +concerning classical quotations and allusions. + +His friendship with Aubrey was based chiefly on the certainty he felt +that Aubrey was an inferior writer. He was not part of the conspiracy +aimed at the minimization of Cressy, the scholar. + +"Well, I'm glad to hear that, Aubrey," he congratulated his friend. +"Very glad. Writing is a delight few people understand these days." + +"I know. And I think you'll be interested particularly, John, because +the story is of Elizabethan England. I've modeled the technique on +Apuleius and the other later Roman tale-tellers." + +"Indeed!" Cressy bristled. "That should be interesting." + +"I'd like to have your opinion of it, John. I've always valued what you +say, but this time more than ever. Because I feel I've entered your +field and you're guarding the fences and all that." + +Cressy's face relaxed. Quite right. His field. And if the book was any +good he could leap forward as its authentic champion and through it +denounce the base modernism of the day. But how did Aubrey who was a +superficial dabbler come by Elizabethan England? + +Aubrey promised to produce the manuscript within a few days and left the +club. A July sun hammered at the streets. The heat added to his inward +discomfort. It was too hot to think. Yet it was necessary to think. +Something was piling up and unless he thought it out clearly, it would +fall on him. + +He had made up his mind to publish his father's manuscript as his own. +But in the weeks that had passed he had become aware that he was not +going to carry out his intention. There were things that kept him from +it. A morbid sense that his father was watching him had grown in his +mind. He was afraid. At night in bed he conducted himself with a +scrupulous politeness toward his wife, certain that his every action was +being observed by his father. + +There was another restriction. The appearance of the manuscript with his +name to it would be a distasteful anti-climax. He had lost himself so +long and so ardently in the creation of an inner Aubrey--the hawk-faced +Isaiah redeeming men--that the prospect of a frankly sensual volume +signed by Aubrey Gilchrist made him uncomfortable. + +In the face of the realities that would ensue--the praise for instance, +of the healthy animalism of the book--he would have to abandon the +secret characterization that had grown almost an essential of his life. +He could not go ahead redeeming men and lifting them toward a life of +asceticism while people were talking and writing about the fact that +Aubrey Gilchrist was a sensual realist. And finally there was a feeling +of dishonesty, inseparable from his fear of his father, but adding its +weight to the restrictions. + +As the feeling that he would never dare to publish the manuscript +approached a certainty, Aubrey sought to force his own hand by telling +his friends of the book, boasting of it and promising its early +appearance. In this way he dimly hoped to make it socially necessary for +him to produce the volume and that finally the social necessity of +living up to his announcements would overpower the inner restraints. He +was desperately throwing up bridges in the hope of being driven across +them. + +The dilemma slipped out of his mind as he walked toward his home. It was +distasteful. The finding of the manuscript had, in fact, upset him more +than anything which had ever happened. As he neared his residence a +wilted sensation came into his thought. He had been trying eagerly to +recover the full image of the inner Aubrey and derive a few hours of +surcease in the easy contemplation of that great hero's triumphs. But +now it occurred to him that Judge Smith and John Mackay, his partner, +Fanny and her relatives and all his world were buzzing with gossip about +his return to literature. The dilemma crawled wearily back into his +mind. + +Yes, they talked about it whenever they came together. There was +Basine, the judge. He had seized Aubrey's hand and pumped it heartily +when he heard of the book. + +"That's the stuff. I like a man who can come back. Go to it, Aubrey." + +Basine was a bounder. The way Fanny and the rest of them idolized him +was disgusting. His mother-in-law--"Oh, the judge told me the most +fascinating things about the situation in Washington." And then for an +hour, an idiotic mumble about what the judge did, what he said, what he +thought, what he hoped. Nobody ever mentioned Henrietta or the children. +As if their existence was not only unimportant but dubious. Basine was +an entity. He needed no background. + +Aubrey wondered why his thought turned to his brother-in-law. Whenever +he felt uncomfortable, or found himself in a distressing situation, his +mind usually busied itself with comment on Basine. Anything distressful +that happened, no matter how remote from the judge, always seemed to +remind Aubrey of the man and recall to him the fact that he was a +bounder and an ass and entirely unlikeable. + +He entered his home in a dejected mood. Voices attracted him. Fanny was +talking to a man. He paused before the opened door. + +"Oh, hello Aubrey," Fanny greeted him. She stood up. Aubrey noticed she +looked pale. Her eyes seemed to follow his observation. + +"Isn't it hot though? I'm almost dead. I'm awfully glad you came home. +You remember Mr. Ramsey, don't you?" + +"How do you do," said Aubrey. "Yes, I think--" + +"At mother's. Long ago. I'm sure you met him. He's an old friend of the +family." + +"How do you do, sir," Ramsey echoed, rising. The men shook hands. Aubrey +stared at the dapper, high-strung figure with its flushed face and cool +attire and tried to remember the man. + +"If you'll pardon me," he smiled. + +"Certainly, Aubrey." + +"See you again, I hope," said Aubrey. Ramsey assented with a curious +enthusiasm, accenting the situation uncomfortably. Fanny frowned and +watched her husband walk to the stairs. As his steps died the two +returned to their chairs. + +"Oh it's hot," Fanny murmured. "Can't you go away till next month. I'm +almost beside myself." + +Her voice was low. Ramsey listened with disdain. + +"And besides," she continued in a whisper, "I've given you all I can +get. I haven't any more money." + +"Money!" Ramsey snorted. "I'm not talking about money. I'm not asking +for any." He stood up and frowned indignantly at her. + +"I know, but--" + +"I just dropped in for a talk." + +He said this with a meaning smile and lighted a cigarette. He was very +casual. She watched him helplessly. + +"Oh, why beat around the bush. I'm sick of it. I can't stand it. How +much do you want? I've given you three thousand. Surely that's...." + +"I don't want any, thank you," he answered with mysterious sarcasm. "Not +a nickle." + +"Then what do you want?" Her voice was rising despite her fear of being +heard. "This is the fourth time you've ... you've hounded me." + +"Oh, I hound you?" Again the mysterious sarcasm. + +"If you'd only tell me what you want." + +He smiled with the air of a man phenomenally at ease and returned to his +chair. + +"Nothing. Not a thing. I just dropped in for a chat, that's all." + +His eyes regarded her triumphantly. Fanny returned their gaze. He was +crazy. There was something crazy about him. He had called her on the +telephone the day after seeing her in the hotel with Schroder. She had +gone downtown to meet him. The whole business seemed like an impossible +dream in retrospect. He had whined and begged for money. He was down and +out, living from hand to mouth, his friends gone, his clothes in rags. +He had known her father. She could save him. And he had never once +referred to the incident in the hotel lobby. Neither had she. The +conversation had been purely a needy friend and a philanthropically +inclined woman. She had asked him how much he needed and he answered +$1,500 would start him. A week later he came to her completely +rehabilitated--an elderly looking fop swinging a cane and bristling with +enthusiasms. + +Another $1,500 had increased his enthusiasm. He came a third time to +report that he had found employment. She barely listened. Something had +happened to Ramsey. + +Now as he sat smiling sarcasms at her she realized what it was. Her +knowledge of the man was casual but the thing that had happened was +unmistakable. He no longer wanted money from her. He was blackmailing +her merely because it gave him a sense of power. They had never +mentioned Schroder or the lobby incident. + +She regarded him in silence and the understanding of the man slowly +nauseated her. His polite and affable smiling, his cockiness and his +suavity--all these were part of a pose. He called merely to see her +wince and because her wincing filled him with this sense of power. And +he would go on like that. But she dared not challenge him. He knew about +the day with Schroder. He had never mentioned it and now he tried to +pretend this his dominance over her had nothing to do with blackmail or +Schroder. He tried to pretend it was because of something +else--something involved and mysterious. + +"Are you going to stay forever," she murmured. + +"Perhaps for dinner," he answered. Fanny sighed. There was her +mother-in-law--a stone faced woman with gimlet eyes. Old, ferreting +eyes. She would sense something. And if they found out. She shuddered. +Her eyes implored. + +"Please, Tom," she whispered. "You ... you're torturing me." + +"Oh no, not at all," he answered with an idiotic cheerfulness, raising +his eyebrows and pursing his lips in surprise. He was like a farce +actor. She stood up and came to his side. Her hands rested on his +shoulder. + +"Won't you leave me alone?" she whispered again. "I feel ill." + +He looked at her with concern. + +"Indeed," he said. "I'm awfully sorry." + +He would go on like this forever. It would always grow worse. He wanted +to make a victim of her. He was like a crazy man with an obsession. His +suavity and politeness almost made her scream. She covered her face and +wept. + +"There, there," he consoled her. She had dropped into a chair and he was +patting her back. "It must be the heat. The heat, don't you think? Oh +well, I'll go way now. Are you going to be home Tuesday evening?" + +She made no answer. Ramsey stood watching her, a smile in his eyes. As +she continued to weep he appeared to grow more and more elated. A +sternness entered his voice. + +"Come now," he ordered her, "sit up." + +She obeyed. + +"It's ridiculous," he continued. She nodded helplessly. "I'll see you +Tuesday evening," he added. There was a pause. Then, "There's something +I'd like to discuss with you. Very important. Don't forget. Tuesday +evening." + +He walked out. Fanny watched him to the door. A rage came to her. He was +play-acting. He was making fun of her, of her fear of exposure. Because +he was crazy. He didn't want money. He wanted to bulldoze and torture +her. He wanted her to think he was somebody--that's why he did it. + +She stood up and watched him from the window as he walked down the +street. A dapper, good-natured figure smiling with mysterious +condescension upon the houses he passed. She rushed to her room and +locked the door. Something would have to happen. She had not talked to +Schroder about Ramsey since he left her in the cab that first day. She +would ask him what to do. No, that would make it worse. He might be like +Ramsey. She lay dry-eyed and pondering. The thought slowly grew in +her--she would tell her brother. George would be able to figure out +some way to rid her of this blackmailer. She would tell him everything +and explain to him how she couldn't stand it any longer. + +She lay quietly improvising her conversation with her brother. This +brought a relief and she closed her eyes with a sigh. + + + + +19 + + +The ballroom of the Hotel LaSalle had been carefully prepared for the +opening of the Vice Investigating Commission's sessions. A corps of +janitors had been active for two days introducing folding chairs, +cuspidors, tables and wastebaskets. Chairs of varying degrees of +importance had been assembled for the witnesses, attorneys, +distinguished visitors and members of the press. + +The Vice Investigating Commission had been appointed by the governor of +the state. It was comprised of ten members including its chairman, Judge +Basine. The press with its instinctive dramaturgy had centered its +comment around the single figure of Basine. The nine state senators who, +as a result of political wire pulling, had wormed their way into the +Commission found themselves lost in the shadow of Basine. + +It was the Basine Commission. As the time for its sessions approached, +the press, having by its own headline reiteration of the man's name +impressed itself with the prestige and popularity of Basine, abandoned +itself without further scruples to its convenient mania of +simplifications. Thus the preliminary deliberations of the Commission +were headlined, "Basine to Summon Department Store Heads." "Basine to +Plumb Vice Causes." "Basine Charges Dance Hall Evil." + +The statements elaborately prepared by the nine senators were invariably +attributed in the newspaper columns to Basine. The hopes, plans, fears, +threats of the Vice Commission were blazoned to the world as the mingled +emotions of Basine. Photographs of Basine, his wife, children, and home, +illumined the papers and within a week the name Basine had, in the +public mind, become innately synonymous with an immemorial crusade +against vice. + +The crusade itself remained as yet a vague but promising morsel in the +city's thought. The newspapers, enabled by the event to indulge +themselves more legitimately than usual in discussing the ever +fascinating problem of sex from the unimpeachable standpoint of reform, +leaped greedily to the bait. + +Photographs of young women boarding street cars and revealing stretches +of leg were printed under the caption, "Indecent Way to Board Car, Says +Basine." Alongside were photographs, less interesting, but vital to the +moral of the layout, showing women boarding street cars without +revealing their legs. The caption over them read, "Correct Way to Board +Car, Says Basine." The text explained that the carelessness and +immodesty of young girls, according to Basine, frequently were the +devil's ally and that the Basine Commission called upon all young women +who had the welfare of the race at heart to board street cars in the +correct way. + +Photographs of young women in Indecent Bathing Costumes appeared +accompanied by denunciations from prominent clergymen and contrasted, +with editorial indignation, to photographs of Decent Bathing Costumes +recommended by prominent clergymen. Photographs of abandoned young women +who effected garter purses, slit skirts; who crossed their legs when +they sat down were offered. These were accompanied by outraged +pronouncements against such immodesties from prominent statesmen and +clergymen. + +A private auxiliary crusade started by another enterprising newspaper +resulted in a series of photographs of nude paintings to be seen in the +shop windows of the loop and Michigan avenue, and called for immediate +legislation designed to remove this source of moral danger. + +Photographs of the deplorably scanty costumes worn by musical comedy, +choruses and dancers in general; photographs pointing out with mute +alarm the decline of modesty as instanced in the comparison of the +fashions of yesteryear with the fashions of today; photographs of +dance-hall scenes showing couples amorously embraced, cheeks together, +bodies riveted to each other--these and others too numerous to tabulate +cried for the reader's indignant attention out of the newspaper columns. + +Every conceivable variant of denunciation which might be legitimately +accompanied by a photograph of a woman or a group of women, received +publication in interviews with pious divines, alarmed statesmen and +serious-minded welfare workers. The newspapers, convinced by the twenty +and thirty per cent increases in their week's circulation figures that +the crusade was a vital part of the awakened moral sense of the city, +devoted themselves with heroic disregard of party politics to acclaiming +the Basine commission. + +Basine found himself troubled by his sky-rocketing prestige. He went to +bed the first night as a "judicial inquirer into the causes of vice." +He arose in the morning confronted with the fact that he was a "fearless +Galahad on Moral Quest." Before retiring again he found himself a "Vice +Solon Attacking Civic Corruption." And on the following morning he was +"Basine, Undaunted, Flays Vice Ring." + +On the day before the opening session he occupied his chambers and tried +to dictate his way through a mass of correspondence that had +accumulated. There were thousands of letters from determined +church-goers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, all teeming with +excited advice, prayers for success and redundant congratulations. Ruth +waited with her pencil on her note book, her knee pressed warmly against +his thigh and her eyes looking pensively out of the window at the summer +day. + +Basine had obtained a three weeks' vacation in order to devote himself +to the work of the commission. His words came unevenly as he dictated. +Newspaper headlines glared at him from the desk--"Modern Lincoln to Free +Vice Slaves." "Basine to Determine Why Girls Go Wrong." "Basine +Threatens Fearless Quiz Into Resorts." + +His mind was alive with other headlines. Basine ... Basine ... the city +was throbbing with his name. He had managed to maintain a skepticism for +several days. Doris had kept his mind distressingly clear with her +comments. And her friend, Levine. Her words had continued in his thought +... "marvelous, George. The public is wallowing in an orgy of morbidity. +I confess, it's beyond my pleasantest expectations...." + +He had protested. She was wrong. Indignation was being stirred. People +were realizing the menace of underpaid working girls and unlicensed +dance halls. His sister smiled wearily. "Don't be an ass, or you'll +spoil it all. Keep your head clear. Follow the newspapers and outwit +them in cynicism." + +And then Levine. He recalled the man's words and edited them into a +rebuking essay--"The public is revelling in the salaciousness of nude +photographs, raw statements and your anti-vice propaganda. They're +utilizing virtue as a cloak for the sensually tantalizing discussion of +immorality. Their indignation is an excuse by which they apologize for +their individual erotic thrills by denouncing evil in others. Yes, the +mysterious others identified as vice rings, white slavers and immorality +in general. The whole business is a cunning debauch offered newspaper +readers, a debauch which enables them to appear to themselves and to +each other not as debauchees but as high crusaders behind the banners of +Basine. And the good clergymen and the statesmen and the welfare workers +rushing into print with revelations of immorality are inspired, by +nothing more intricate than a desire for publicity and an ambition to +pose before the public in the guise of fellow crusaders and civic +benefactors. Their benefactions, you see, consist of offering the public +lurid sex statistics over which it may gloat in secret. And in the +meantime, over these benefactions, over these exciting sex statistics +and sexy photos and over the people who discuss them and roll them over +on their tongue is thrown a protective fog of indignation." + +Basine had derived from these talks in his sister's studio an +uncomfortable vision. But the vision had gradually dissolved in his +mind. On the day he had awakened to find himself a "Moral Champion +Promises Vice Clean-up" the dignity and high responsibility of his task +had overcome him. What appeared to him an authentic fervor mounted in +his veins. Hypnotized by the adulatory excitement surrounding his name, +he acquired forthwith the characterization foisted on him by the +headlines. Basine ... Basine ... the city throbbed with his name. The +hope of a great moral rejuvenation was centered upon him. Another St. +Patrick was to drive the snakes of evil out of the community. Another +Lincoln was to do something--something equally ennobling to himself and +his fellowmen. + +The change effected his relations with Ruth. For a month he had been +engaged in a species of sinless amour. Long walks, long talks, long +embraces behind the locked doors of his chambers had resulted in nothing +more tangible than a series of headaches and sleepless nights or unusual +tenderness towards his piquantly startled wife. + +He had excused his infidelity to Ruth while embracing Henrietta--he +regarded his exaggerated interest in his wife as a betrayal of the +girl--by assuring himself that it was for Ruth's own good. It lessened +his desire for her and thus decreased the moral danger into which their +love was leading her. In addition to this it was, of course, a +convenient substitute for the emotions Ruth's embraces aroused in him +and for the sense of guilt which invariably accompanied these embraces. + +When he became a crusader Basine felt a further confusion in his +attitude toward Ruth. He sat now attempting to dictate letters. Despite +the amiable blur which fame had introduced into his thought and which +for the past two weeks had obscured the details of his day, he found +himself studying the situation before him. The situation was Ruth. He +would have preferred ignoring it. The scent which came from her summery +shirt waist and the coils of her black hair, thrilled him. Her clear +youthful face, the contours of her figure, the familiarity of her +eyes--all this was pleasing and satisfying. + +But the new Basine--the crusader, felt ill at ease. He must explain +something to Ruth, explain to her that their love was no more than an +ennobling comradeship and must never be more than that, a comradeship +which would bring them together in this great cause of moral +rejuvenation. He didn't want it put that crudely. But the idea kept +repeating itself in his head. He kept thinking of what Doris and her +friend Levine would say if they ever found out that in the midst of the +Vice Investigation, its chairman had been carrying on with his +secretary. It was distasteful and needed immediate attention. + +He took her hand and Ruth laid down her pencil. She smiled expectantly +at him. Since she had first kissed Basine a month ago she had been +trying to understand the situation. The thought of him preoccupied her +and this made her certain she loved him. His caresses aroused her senses +and left her wondering what was going to happen. + +At times she reasoned coolly with herself. She was in love with a +married man and the most she could hope for was to become his mistress +and end up by making a fool of herself. Or perhaps of both of them. She +was, in a measure, grateful for the manner in which he respected her +virtue. But, with his arms around her and his keen face alive with +passion and his lips on hers, his reserve struck her as uncomplimentary +and illogical. + +She resented the semi-abandonment of his senses because of the +unfulfillment--a physical and spiritual unfulfillment which left her +distracted. It appeared to her later, when the distraction ebbed, as an +affront to her vanity. She was uncertain when thinking of it coolly +whether she would give herself to him. But somehow the affair seemed +unreal, at times even a little like some school-girl flirtation, because +he failed to ask her. She had always prided herself upon her honesty and +spent hours now debating with herself just how much she loved him and if +she loved him at all and why she loved him. The idea of leaving his +employ, however, never occurred to her. The cautious sensualisms of +which she had become an excited victim, held her. There was in these +incompleted manoeuverings behind the locked doors a curious +fascination. + +"What is it, George?" + +He smiled and shook his head. + +"Whew, I'm snowed under." His hands pushed the correspondence from him. + +"You mustn't tire yourself, dear." + +He nodded and his face assumed a serious air. + +"I would like to talk over the work." + +"The Commission?" + +"Yes." + +"Oh, I think it's going to be a wonderful success, George?" + +"And you can help me." + +He squeezed her hand. This was the note he had been searching for in his +mind. He hesitated a moment, nevertheless, feeling an irritating +incongruity in what he desired to say. But the headlines glaring at him +strengthened him. He was Basine the Moral Champion. The city was +throbbing with his name. A hope centered about his name. + +"The work is going to be hard," he began. "I intend to go to the bottom +of the thing. The Commission after its hearings will be able to +recommend legislation that will ... that will...." + +"Yes, I know George." + +"Wipe out, or at least go a long way toward wiping out...." + +His mind seemed to balk at the sentence. The word "immorality" withheld +itself from his lips. + +"I'll be glad to help where I can, as you know, dear," she whispered. + +"I've subpoenaed all the department store heads to bring their books +into court, I mean to the hearing, and reveal exactly what the wage +scale for shop girls is. I'm convinced it's impossible for a girl to +keep decent on $6 and $7 a week." + +He thought of the fact that Ruth was receiving $30 a week and grew +confused. + +"You can help me a lot, dear," he added hurriedly. + +Ruth stood up. This standing up had become a habit between them. When +they were sitting holding hands, if she stood up, he would draw her to +him and she would lower herself into his lap. They had developed a +series of similar ruses to which they both adapted themselves like well +rehearsed actors and which had for their object the bringing them into +positions convenient for kisses and embraces. + +As she sat down in his lap the unhappy thought crossed Basine's mind +that he was chairman of a commission sworn to wipe out just such +incidents as this from the city's life. He winced and her arm around +his neck felt uncomfortable. But he remembered that both doors were +locked and the image of himself as a crusader partially vanished. They +kissed and his hand slipped down to her side and toyed with the hem of +her skirt. + +"Do you love me, George? Tell me." + +"Yes. Why do you ask that?" + +"Oh because. Sometimes I think you're so busy that you haven't time to +love." + +He was pleased by this. Flattered, he answered: "I have time for nothing +else. Everything else is sort of part of it. My work, the +commission--it's all you, dearest." + +His hand was on her, caressingly. He endeavored to remove the +significance of the gesture by patting her knee as one might pat the +head of a little child, and whispering with an involved frankness: + +"You're so nice, darling." + +They had sat like this before, sometimes for an hour, whispering to each +other. Their whispering would go on for a time, even their kisses. This +time, however, she murmured unexpectedly: + +"Don't, George." + +He was surprised. + +"Why not?" + +"Because, we mustn't." + +"But why?" + +"Oh please ... don't!" + +Her objection seemed to inspire him in a way her previous silences had +failed to do. He grew indignant. + +"Please, don't!" + +"But why, dearest? I love you." + +She paused and he looked at her, aloof arguments in his eyes as if he +were pleading not in his own behalf but in behalf of--a somebody else, a +client. His knees were trembling under her weight. The crusade had +disappeared. A memory of it lingered but in an amusing way. He caught a +glimpse of the headlines on his desk and grinned. There was something +maliciously unreal about life that one could enjoy. + +Suddenly he felt her soften. Her lips brushed against his ear and her +arm tightened convulsively around him. + +"Please no," she murmured. + +Her alarm delighted him. It was a final barrier, this alarm. It enabled +him to enjoy the new conquest without having to be logical, without +having to go on. Her alarm now was a barrier to be played with for a +moment and then utilized. He would stop in a moment but now he could +play with her fear, as if he were intent upon overcoming it. + +"Please," she whispered, "don't ... it's no use." + +The final words irritated him. No use! He felt offended, as if he had +been trickily defeated in an argument. What was no use? What did she +mean? + +"George, please, listen to me. Oh please...." + +That was better. But it had come just in time. He could retreat now with +honor. For an instant a panic had filled him. Impossible to retreat on +the explanation "it's no use." Because--well, because the words were a +challenge, not an attack. But now it was easy. He stiffened in his +chair. Ruth slipped from his lap and stood up, flushed. She straightened +her hair and looked away. Basine felt annoyed with her. She had almost +taken him by surprise. She had almost surrendered when the tactics of +the game called for her to protest and thus cover his retreat by making +it the result of her protests. And not of his--well, of his +determination not to forget his position. + +But he would restore the tactic she had momentarily abandoned. + +"Excuse me," he muttered, a plea in his voice, "I didn't realize. I +didn't realize what I was doing. Forgive me, dearest." + +He recovered his sense of self respect that, oddly enough, had deserted +him, in making this apology. The apology meant that he had ceased only +because she had protested too violently. And not because he had been +afraid. + +Ruth listened with a faint smile on her moist lips. She wanted to laugh. + +"I didn't mean anything--really," he was saying. "You must forgive me. +Come here--please." An air of soothing innocence rose from his voice and +manner. He was reassuring her that he wasn't dangerous, that he wouldn't +repeat these intimacies. The desire to laugh continued in her. Excuse +him! For what? The laugh almost left her throat. She had given herself +to him ... and he had solemnly retreated for no reason at all. + +She continued to smile. For the first time the distraction his caresses +inspired in her was absent. Instead she felt quite normal. She was +becoming indignant but normal. And there was amusement in her anger. She +sat down and picked up her pencil. She was amused. She looked at a man +who had become almost a stranger and nodded--forgiveness. + +"Of course, George," she said. "I know you didn't mean anything, +but...." + +He frowned. Her tone angered him. She was mocking. + +"Hadn't you better answer some of these?" she asked. Basine pursed up +his lips importantly. + +"You will be a great help, dear," he answered. "Some day I want to talk +about something with you. But ... but matters are too rushed now. I'm +almost snowed under, I swear." This was putting it all on a different +basis. He was a busy man. That's why he had retreated. He was needed for +other things of vital interest to the community. He felt uncomfortable, +despite the dignity of his frown. She was regarding him with placid +eyes. He turned to one of the newspapers whose headlines were +proclaiming the plans, and threats of Basine. There was the real +Basine--in the headline. This other one, the one who had fumbled and +messed things up with a girl--he ended his thought with annoyance. He +despised himself. For a moment he glowered at her. He would stand up and +seize her. She would realize, then, what his forebearance for her sake +had been. His anger continued in his voice as he resumed the tedious +dictation: + + "Dear Governor: + + "Everything is prepared for the opening next Monday. I have + arranged special seats for any of your friends who may desire to + attend. We are ready to launch an efficient and systematic inquiry + into the causes of the vice conditions in our city as well as + state. Please...." + + + + +20 + + +The excitedly heralded Vice Investigation which, after several thousand +centuries of criminal neglect, was to take up the question of +immorality, discover its causes, determine its remedies and put an end +to this blot upon civilization, opened to a crowded house. The folding +chairs introduced into the ball room by the corps of janitors were +occupied. But they were insufficient. The corps of janitors had +underestimated the extent of the public enthusiasm. + +Men and women aflame with the ardor of crusade battled for place within +hearing distance of the witnesses who were to recount, under careful +examination, just why girls went wrong. The ball room was capable of +seating a thousand. Another thousand pried their ways through the doors +and stood six and seven deep against the ornamental walls. The somewhat +mythical portraits of French noblemen, Cupids, Watteau ladies of leisure +smiled urbanely out of the blue and white panels over their heads. The +corridor outside the large room was thronged with still a third thousand +pushing, prying, squeezing, and perspiring all in vain. The police had +been summoned. + +The press in its first pen picture of the stirring scene drew a +significant distinction. Those within the ball room who had successfully +stormed the doors and clawed their way into the weltering pulp of +figures were identified as "a distinguished audience of society women, +welfare workers, civic leaders and citizens come to lend their moral +support to the great crusade." + +Those who had failed in their efforts to gain entrance and who clung +with patient heroism to the corridor, the lobby downstairs and even the +boiling pavements outside, were dismissed scornfully as "a crowd of the +morbidly curious, hungry for the sensational details promised by the +investigators." + +At ten o'clock the Commission itself arrived. The perspiring police +opened a passage through the throng and the commission filed to its +place at the table waiting at the end of the room. Newspaper +photographers immediately leaped into concerted action. The boom and +smoke of flashlights arose. + +Delays and preliminaries followed. The room grew terrifically hot. +Collars began to wilt, faces to turn red, feet to burn. But the delays +continued. It was impossible to find out why there was delay. The crowd +grew impatient. A racket of voices stuffed the room. Something had gone +wrong ... why didn't they start ... they weren't doing anything ... what +were they waiting for ... the public was grumbling. + +As a matter of fact the commissioners were playing for time. A species +of stage fright had overcome them. Each of them had arrived filled with +a sense of high purpose and benign power. They were men upon whom the +burden of lifting an age-old blot from the face of civilization had +fallen. They had felt no hesitancy in the matter. They were going to +tackle the situation like Americans--red-blooded Americans in whose +heart burned the unfaltering light of idealism. There was going to be no +shilly-shallying, no highfalutin theorizings. They were going to the +bottom of this matter without fear or favor. They were going to find out +just why girls went wrong and, having found this out, they were going to +remove the cause, or causes if there were more than one, and thus put an +end to immorality--at least in the great commonwealth of Illinois. + +They were ten undaunted crusaders inspired with the unfaltering +consciousness of their country's power and rectitude. In fact, it was +not the Basine Commission which pushed through the throng but the +Tradition of the United States, the Revered Memory of Abraham Lincoln, +George Washington and Nathan Hale, the Army that had never been licked, +the Government of the People, by the People and for the People, that was +better than any other government on the face of the earth. These walked +behind the policemen through the throng. + +But there was a human undertone to this Tradition about to grapple with +the problem of Vice. Like Basine, each of the nine had at the beginning +felt a slight discomfort. Their own pasts and even presents had risen in +their thought to deride them. They were, alas, not without sin +themselves. The dramatic coincidence was even possible that one of the +witnesses called might point to a commissioner as the author of her +ruin. This, in an oblique way, disturbed them. It lay like an +indigestible fear upon the stomach of incarnated Tradition. But as the +patriotic fervor mounted in them, they were able somewhat to master this +selfish fear. Debating the matter vaguely in the silence of their own +bedrooms they had achieved an identical triumph. + +Yes, they were after all only men. They had sinned, were sinning +regularly in fact. But they would be fearless. They would strike out +with no reserve and if Vice turned an accusing forefinger upon them, +they would sacrifice themselves. The chances were, however, that this +would not happen. They experienced the inner elation which comes with +non-inconveniencing confession. Regardless of what they were in secret, +they would be able to reveal themselves publicly as men sitting in +judgment upon Vice, as executioners of Vice. In this manner their +material lives became unimportant accidents. They were able within two +weeks to enter the public concept of themselves. Their actual selves +became, in their own eyes, inferior and irrelevant. They had achieved an +idealization. + +There was also another change. Once established in their own eyes as +Virgins, like Basine they were soon under the hypnosis of headlines. As +they walked to the hotel this morning they had entirely rid themselves +of their normal individualities. They were no longer even ordinary +virgins, embarked upon a vaguely scientific or social enterprise. They +were, above that, the spokesmen of an aroused public, the dignified +containers of the power of the People. + +None of the ten with the exception of Basine had given the actual work +before him any thought. They had not prepared themselves for the task by +study. All of them were serenely, in fact belligerently, ignorant of the +scientific thought of the world on the subject. The involved disclosures +of psychologists, philosophers, economists and other specialists in race +ethics were part of a childish abracadabra beneath their consideration. +For they were the incarnated power of Tradition and of Public +Opinion--two grave forces which needed no guilding light from such +sources. + +This power buoyed them and brought a stern light into their eyes. They +believed in the People, and therefore in themselves as Spokesmen. Ten +shrewd, wire-pulling politicians whose careers were identically darkened +with chicanery and crude cynicism, they were able by the magic of faith +to rise above themselves. They were able to feel the nobility of the +phrases which they had so often utilized as cloaks for their private +greeds and private spites. These were the phrases of Democracy which +proclaimed to an awed populace that it, the populace, was Master and +that its will was a holy and unassailable force for progress and piety. + +As spokesmen of the people these commissioners were concerned with +furthering the great idealization of themselves which the people +worshipped as their god. Reason was at war with this idealization. +Reason was the species of morbid and inverted vanity which inspired man +to disembowel himself as proof of his stupidity. It grappled with his +illusions, crawled through his soul, hamstringing his complacency. It +raised insidious voices around him, wooing him. To denude himself of +hope, faith and charity--in short to become intolerable to himself. + +The commissioners, as spokesmen, turned their back upon it. There was a +happier outlet for the energies of man than the repudiation of himself +as the glory of God. There was the unreasoning struggle for +idealization--the miracle by which man, seizing hold of his boot straps, +hoisted himself into Heaven. This struggle, arousing the guffaws and +sneers of reason, was its own reward. It was the virtue that rewarded +itself. + +The perspiring little scene in the hotel ball room was a startling +visualization of this happier struggle. Regardless of their sins, their +greeds, hypocrisies, idiocies, the people desired to see themselves as +incarnations of an ideal. This ideal had been carefully elaborated. Of +late it had taken on a life of its own. It had grown like a fungus +feeding upon itself. Man staring at the heaven he had created was +becoming awed by its magnificence and extent. More than that this heaven +was threatening to escape him, to become incongruous by its very +vastness. There was danger that his idealization, fattening upon a logic +of its own, would become a bit too preposterous even for worship. +Already this idealization proclaimed him as an apostle of virtue, as a +moralist first and a biological product afterward; as believing in the +credo of right over might, in the equality of blacks, whites, poor and +rich; as a sort of animated sermon from the triple pen of a martyr +president, martyr husband and martyr Messiah. Lost in a difficult +admiration of this heaven, the people struggled in the double task of +keeping the idealization of themselves from becoming too preposterous +and of persuasively identifying themselves with their image. + +The result of this struggle was apparent in the puritanizatron of idea +becoming popular in the country. A spirit of martyrdom was prevalent. +Men and women were enthusiastically martyring themselves--passing laws +and formulating conventions in opposition to their appetites and +desires--in an excited effort to overtake this idealization of +themselves. Righteousness was becoming a panic. The Christ image of the +crowd was slowly obliterating its reality. His halo was running away +with man. Overcome with the necessity of keeping pace with the +artificial virtues he had created as his God, he was converting himself, +to the best of his talents, into an outwardly epicene, eye-rolling +symbol of purity. There was this mirror alive with his own God-like +image. And he must now be careful not to give the lie to the +idealization of himself created partly by him and partly by the activity +of logic. + +The members of the Vice Investigating Commission entered the crowded +room serene in the knowledge that reason was their enemy and that +God--that mysterious cross between public opinion and yesterday's +errors--would vouchsafe them the power and keenness to cope with the +problem before them. + +They were innocent of intelligence but they had faith in the principles +of their country and the principles of their country were founded upon +the great truth that what the people willed must come to pass. Today the +people of the commonwealth of Illinois willed that vice and immorality +be abolished from their midst. Therefore it must come to pass that the +ten citizens lowering themselves into the seats behind the table were +ten irresistible instruments animated by the strength of public opinion. + +For several minutes after they had seated themselves the commissioners +remained staring with dignity at the throng. A vague and pleasant +delirium occupied their minds. The Vice Investigating Commission had +assembled and the business of removing the blot from the face of +civilization would begin at once. The commissioners sat, pompously +inanimate, waiting for it to begin. + +The spectacle before them, the thousands of eyes focussed upon their +little group at the long table, slowly awakened an uncomfortable +disillusion in the commissioners. In fact, a little panic swept their +minds. They had, of course, discussed the issues, passed resolutions and +laid plans for grappling with the situation. But all these efforts had +been part of the curious hypnosis which had overcome them. The sense of +their power hypnotized them into fancying that their star chamber +babblings were in themselves thunderblots. The sweeping promises, the +all-embracing statements and resolutions passed and issued for +publication had filled them with an exalted sense of success. They had +entered the ballroom under the naive conviction that the whole business +had been already successfully consummated. They were taking their seats +at the table not to launch upon a task but to receive the plaudits of +the public for great work already accomplished; in fact to reap reward +for the noble utterances attributed to them by the press. + +But now with the pads of paper, the sharpened pencils, the businesslike +cuspidors at their feet, the ominous wastepaper baskets under their +hands, the commissioners faced the ghastly fact that the blot was still +on the face of civilization, untouched by their thunderbolts. And some +millions of people whose delegates were staring at them were waiting +excitedly for it to be removed. + +It occurred as if for the first time to the commissioners that something +would have to be done about it. Their expressions underwent a change. A +pensiveness crept into their heavy faces. A bewilderment dulled the +dignity of their stares. The room was unbearably hot. It was impossible +to do any work in such a crowd. One could hardly hear oneself think +above the noise. The commissioners frowned and whispered among +themselves. Gradually a nervous jocularity came into their manner. + +"Well, here we are. All set." + +"Hm, I think we'd better call some witnesses." + +"That's right. Call some witnesses. Where's Judge Basine?" + +"Talking over there." + +"Huh, why don't he do something?" + +Yes, why didn't Judge Basine take charge of his flock. It was his +commission. The papers all said it was the Basine Commission. Then why +didn't he start something. Instead of gabbing around with reporters. + +"Good God! What a heat! Hasn't the management provided any fans?" + +"Where's a bellboy? We'll send him after some fans. Think a dozen'll be +enough?" + +"Nothing doing. Three or four dozen at least. I'll wear out a dozen +myself before this day's over, believe me." + +"Say, ain't that right!" + +"Oh Judge ... Judge...." + +"Yes, what is it, Senator?" + +"What about the witnesses? Are we going to have any witnesses?" + +"Of course. I'm just getting things ready." + +"That's right. There's no rush. Open that window, won't you Jim?" + +"God, what a mob. Well, we'd better do something, don't you think?" + +"Leave it to Basine. Got a knife, Harry? This pencil's full of bum +lead." + +The whisperings and delays continued. Basine, however, began to recover +himself. The eager, focussed eyes of the room were slowly electrifying +him. His gestures were becoming more dignified. His manner acquired a +definiteness. + +The eyes regarding him saw a man with sharp features and an imperious +expression moving with what seemed significant deliberation, examining +papers, studying papers, opening papers, extracting papers, returning +papers. Instinctively they felt that here, centered in this cautiously +dynamic figure, was the celebrated Vice Investigation. + +Basine arose, a gavel in his hand, and pounded the table. The noises +subsided as if a presence were being expelled from the room. The hush +served to illumine the figure of Basine. The eyes waited. His voice +arose, definite, impelling. + +"Fellow Citizens, the Vice Investigating Commission appointed by the +State of Illinois to determine if possible the causes of immorality and +to remove, wherever possible, such causes, is now in session. The +purposes of this commission need no further explanation. We are +assembled here in the name of the people of this state to do all in our +power to grapple with the problem of vice and its many auxiliary +problems. + +"This problem is today the outstanding menace to the welfare of our +community. Its dangers touch us all. The immoral man and the immoral +woman, the factors which contribute to their immorality, are our +responsibility. This is no sentimental outburst, no vague uprising but +an organized, official investigation with full powers to uncover facts. +We are not here to dabble in theories, but to deal with facts. And for +that purpose, and that purpose only, we are assembled under the laws of +our state and the constitution of our country. The first witness called +will be Mr. Arthur Core." + +Applause thundered. Basine, flushed, sat down. The commissioners on each +side of him breathed with relief. Something had been started. To their +intense surprise Mr. Arthur Core actually arose from one of the witness +chairs and came forward. Mr. Core was head of the largest department +store in the city. Basine with an instinct in which he placed implicit +reliance had summoned him first, thus abandoning the plans the +commission had decided upon in star chamber. It had been decided upon to +save up the big guns for a climax. Basine's instinct warned him as he +stood on his feet talking, that a climax was necessary immediately--a +gesture which would at once reveal the power and fearlessness of the +commission. + +Mr. Core was the medium for such a gesture. Venerated as one of the +wealthiest men of the city, the head of its most widely advertized and +magnificent retail establishment, to hail him before the commission and +belabor him with queries would be to capture the confidence of the +public forthwith. + +As Mr. Core, accompanied by two lawyers and a secretary laden with +ledgers, advanced toward the table a sudden misgiving struck Basine. How +much would the newspapers dare print about Mr. Core, particularly if the +cross examination placed him and his establishment in an unfavorable +light? Mr. Core meant upwards of $3,000,000 a year in advertising +revenue. Perhaps he had made a mistake in calling him. The press would +turn and fly from the commission as from a plague. There would be no +headlines and the public would fall away. + +Basine stood up as Mr. Core approached. He was a smartly dressed man +with a cream-colored handkerchief protruding against a smoothly pressed +blue coat; an affable, reserved face that reminded Basine of Milton Ware +and the Michigan Avenue Club. Poise, suavity, courtesy exuded from Mr. +Core. + +"How do you do, Judge," he said with a bow, "and Gentlemen of the +Commission." + +Basine extended his hand and promptly regretted the action. He had +caught the emotion of the crowd. He realized that his instinct had not +betrayed him. + +Mr. Core was one of the most venerated citizens in the community, +venerated for his power, his success and his aloofness from his +venerators. The summoning of Mr. Core to take his place and be +cross-examined by the Commission had sent a thrill through the crowd. +They felt the elation of a pack of beagle dogs with a magnificent stag +brought to earth under their little jaws. + +Mr. Core was rich, powerful, brilliant. But they, the people, were +greater than he. There he stood obedient to their delegated spokesman, +the fearless Basine, and gratitude filled them as they noted Basine was +a head taller than the great Mr. Core, and that the great Basine was not +at all confused by the presence of this famed personage. + +Basine as he felt the emotion of the crowd knew simultaneously that the +newspapers, caught between their two vital functions--that of insuring +their revenue by respectful treatment of its source, the advertising +plutocracy,--and of insuring their popularity by the fearless advocacy +of any current crowd hysteria, must follow the less dangerous course. +And the less dangerous course now, as always, was with the beagle dogs +who had brought a stag to earth. + +After the handshake Basine looked severely about him. He was pleased to +observe that his colleagues were non-existent. They sat coughing, +sharpening pencils and gazing with vacuous aplomb at objects about them. +He smiled with inward contempt. Little puppets under his hands. And the +crowd before him--a smear of little puppets. Even the all-powerful +newspapers, even the mighty Mr. Arthur Core--he could manipulate them +because there was something in him that was not in other people. A sense +of drama, perhaps. But more than that, an understanding--a vision that +enabled him to see clearly over the heads of people into the future. He +could tell in advance which way people were going to turn and he could +hurry forward and be there waiting for them--a leader waiting for them +when they caught up. + +A curious question slipped into his mind. "Why am I like that?" And then +another question, "Why am I able to do things?" + +The questions pleased him and as he followed Mr. Core into his chair he +knew that the crowd had noticed that Judge Basine was a man unimpressed +by the greatness of Mr. Core, that the eyes focussed on him had thrilled +with the knowledge that he, Basine, was dressed as well as Mr. Core and +that his own dignity and sternness were more impressive than the poise +of Mr. Core. The great Mr. Core was second fiddle in the show. Basine +was first fiddle and the crowd was thrilled by that. Because Basine was +their man, their leader. And Mr. Core, venerated to this moment, was now +their enemy. Basine was a man in whom the dignity of the people shone +out more powerfully than the prestige of any enviable individual. These +things whirled through Basine's thought as he turned to the witness. + +"Mr. Stenographer," he announced, "you will please make accurate +transcription of all questions and answers that follow." + +A naive pride filled the attentive commissioners. The Investigation was +after all a success. Regardless of what happened the mere fact that +Arthur Core was to be interrogated on the subject of immorality among +working girls, constituted an overwhelming success. The conviction which +now delighted them was shared by the thousands in the room and by the +newspaper men scribbling at an adjoining table. All present felt certain +that so dramatic a situation as the cross-examination of Mr. Arthur Core +by the chairman of the Vice Investigating Commission was bound to result +somehow in the instant removal of the blot from the face of +civilization. Basine, clearing his throat, began the questioning. + +"Your name?" + +"Arthur Core." + +"Your position?" + +"President of Core-Plain and Company." + +"That is the retail merchandise establishment in this city?" + +"It is." + +A full five minutes was consumed in the exchange of profound +introductions. This concluded, Mr. Core was informed what the purposes +of the Vice Investigation Commission were. The information failed to +impress him. Whereupon he was informed that he, as an employer of +thousands of girls, had been called to throw light on a vital question. +First, what wages did his employes' receive. Mr. Core, raising his +eyebrows and looking aggrieved as if he had been asked a very crude and +tactless question, replied that the average wage was $10 a week for the +young women in his employ. + +Did he think a young woman could keep virtuous on $10 a week? Alas, he +had never given that phase of the economic system any thought. But if +his opinion as an individual was worth anything, he would offer the +philosophical observation that wages had nothing to do with immorality. + +A cynical observation. The crowd frowned. It didn't, eh? Lot he knew +about it. And on what did he base this cold-blooded point of view? Well, +on nothing in particular except his common sense. Indeed! His common +sense! Well, well. So he thought that a normal young woman could live on +$10 a week, feed, clothe and house herself on $10 a week and never feel +tempted to earn more money by sacrificing her virtue? Alas, he had not +thought of it in that way. He had merely thought that good young women +were good and bad young women were bad. And wages had nothing to do with +it. It was human nature. What! Human nature to be bad! Mr. Arthur Core +was inclined to a cynicism which, fortunately, the great minds of the +nation did not share. Had he ever sought to determine how many good +girls there were in his employ? No, but he presumed they were all good. +If they weren't he was sorry for them, but it was their own fault. + +Thus the see-saw continued while the room grew hotter, while people +packed against each other listened with distended eyes and opened +mouths. Thus the commissioners, recovering from their panic, began to +frown with importances. And Basine, still following the instinct in +him--the sense of contact he felt with the crowd and situation, played +another trump card. The afternoon newspapers were blazoning the news of +Mr. Arthur Core. The morning papers would need an equally dramatic +morsel. Basine adjourned the session to reconvene at 3 o'clock. The +crowd remained. The heat increased. The session reconvened. It was +businesslike now. It was running like a machine. No more delays and +indecisions. + +"Call Miss Winona Johnson." + +Basine sat amid heaps of documents, ledgers and commissioners, in +charge. It was he who asked the questions, whose face was the +battle-front of the People versus Vice. + +Your name? Winona Johnson. Your occupation? A pause. And then in a +lowered voice, a prostitute. What was that?--from Mr. Stenographer. A +prostitute, from Basine clearly and indignantly. Sensation. She was a +prostitute, this yellow-haired, gaudy creature in the witness chair. She +had her nerve. How long have you been a prostitute, Winona Johnson? +Well, two years, I guess. She guessed. As if she didn't know. And before +that what were you? She was a clerk. Where were you employed as a clerk, +Winona? Where? Oh, I worked for Core-Plain and Company. There it +was--the sort of thing that made climaxes. A new lead for the morning +papers--a new thrill for the tired breakfasters. "Tells Tragic Story of +Moral Downfall." And then in smaller headlines, "Former State Street +Clerk Uncovers Snares, Pitfalls of City." And then photographs; +comparisons between Mr. Core's statements and Miss Johnson's statements. +Mr. Core's picture and Miss Johnson's picture side by side so that one +might almost think, unless one read carefully (and who did that?) that +the venerated Mr. Arthur Core had been exposed by the all powerful +Basine Commission as the seducer of the pathetic Miss Winona Johnson. + +Through the weltering afternoon the great investigation progressed, +Basine, unaided, carrying the fight. A Champion, an Undaunted One, his +voice growing hoarse, his eyes flashing tirelessly, his questions never +failing; incisive, compelling questions that seemed for all the world as +if they were slowly, tenaciously coming to grips with the Devil. + +A great day for the commonwealth of Illinois. A day surfeited with +climaxes. Winona Johnson wept and the courteous voice of Basine pressed +for facts. Here was a mine of facts, here a witness who could reveal +something.... And she did.... + +That will be all, thank you, from Basine. Winona arose. Eyes devoured +her. A terrible curiosity played over her face and body. Civilization +had been stunned. Everyone knew, of course, that prostitutes sold +themselves to men. But to so many!!! Horrible! A revelation to make +thinking men think, thinking women, too. + +If there had been any doubt in the public mind concerning the sincerity +of the Commission, this day had removed it. Two welfare workers and a +second department store owner concluded the bill. The newspapers spread +the questions and answers through the city. A determined light came +into the eyes of the millions who read. The commonwealth was at +grips with evil. Facts had been exhumed in a single session that were +intolerable to a civilized community. A hue and cry would be raised. +Things would be done. The millions reading felt this. Something would +have to be done. Resolutions would be passed. Thunderbolts would be +hurled by civic bodies, lodges, clubs. The thing called for action, +action and more action. But wait and see what the morning papers would +have to say. There would be remedies in the morning papers. Things would +be done overnight by the morning papers to put an end to this +iniquity--prostitution!!!! And there could be no question but that +underpaid workers were driven to lives of shame. And the dance halls, +they hadn't gotten around to them yet. And factories and hotels--wait +till it came their turn. They would all be grilled, quizzed, flayed. + +Basine made his way slowly through the throng. Tomorrow's session would +begin at eleven o'clock. He was tired. The work had exhausted him. But +his head felt clear. Without raising his eyes he understood the +admiration of the crowds through which he was moving. They were +repeating his name among themselves saying, there he goes ... that's +him.... He had understood things in this manner all day, without giving +them words. + +He felt at peace. He had gone through a test. Now he knew he was a +leader. The thing of which he had been afraid had turned out to be easy. +He smiled, remembering his colleagues. Simple, blundering men who had +floundered around trying to horn in. But this wasn't the private banks +crusade, not by a long shot. Ah, that was playing a long shot--calling +Core like that. But it had worked. Newsies were yelling around him. +Extra--all about! About Basine, of course. About him. Yes, there was +leadership in him. He was a man who could sweep people along with him. + +The crowds were going home. All these people belonged to him. +Constituents. He smiled pleasantly at the hurrying figures. It was hot +and they were perspiring. Their eyes were filmed with preoccupations. +But what would happen if they were told suddenly that Judge Basine was +passing them, rubbing shoulders with them? Their eyes would brighten. +They would forget about the things that were worrying them. They would +look up and smile. Perhaps cheer. + +Day dreams lifted his thought out of the present. This thing was only a +beginning. He would go on. There was a kinship in him with people. The +memory of the day lay like a love in his heart. He was still young. +Years ahead of him and he would end--where? High up. + +He looked around and noticed he was walking toward Doris' studio. Odd, +he hadn't been aware where he was going. But he might as well. He +frowned. She would ridicule what had happened. Well, that was all right. +Her hatred of such things couldn't wipe out what was in his heart now. +He became practical. Think of tomorrow's session. But why? The details +were annoying. He had had enough details for one day. He would take care +of things when the proper time came. This was a sort of reward, to walk +and dream. As for the blot on the face of civilization, yes that would +all be taken care of at the proper time. But the important thing, the +most important thing was Basine--high up. + + + + +21 + + +Schroder looked at his watch. Late, perhaps she wouldn't come. +Intellectual women were always the most uncertain. It was twilight. +Summer bloomed incongruously in the small city park. + +"She probably didn't mean it, anyway," he thought. + +Ruth appeared walking calmly down the broad pavement. He watched her. +She had come, but the business was still uncertain. Amorous affairs +were one thing. Seduction was another. He liked her, of course. But what +if she had notions about things? Love, fidelity, virtue, marriage, +decency. Oh well, he could always step away and say good-bye, I'm sorry. + +"Hello," he said aloud. "You're late." + +"I wasn't coming." + +"I didn't think so, either." + +She was one of the kind who made a pretense of frankness. If you let her +she would talk about sex till the cows came home, as if it were a +problem in algebra. He knew the kind. Full of theories.... + +"Where shall we go, Paul?" + +"Let's sit here a while. How's his Honor." + +"I don't know. I resigned last week." + +"Is that so?" + +"Yes, after the Commission adjourned for the summer." + +The memory of the commission made him smile. + +"Goofy," he said. + +She nodded. "But Judge Basine is made, don't you think?" + +He took her hand. + +"So you left him," he smiled. They sat in silence. He would wait for her +to take the lead. She began talking as the park grew darker. + +"I didn't intend coming," she said, "because I ... I know what you +want." + +Her voice quivered and her fingers tightened over his hand. + +"But I came to tell you ... I can't. I'm not being foolish or anything. +But--it isn't worth it." + +He looked at her and wondered. The invitation was clear. He must begin +pleading now and making love. He hesitated because she had started +crying. Tears were on her cheeks. + +She was remembering Basine. + +"Don't," he whispered. "I wouldn't ask you to do anything like that. +We've talked, of course. But that was just talk. Ruth, I love you." + +"But love doesn't mean anything to you," she answered. + +And the answer to that was marriage. He hesitated. Tears always stirred +him. Now it was dark. He placed an arm around her. The stiffening of her +body decided him. + +"We'll get married," he said. + +The assurance did not delight her. Marriage was something foreign. But +she stood up when he asked her to and followed him. She walked along +thinking of herself as if there were two Ruths. One was walking with a +man--where? The other was thinking about things. But there was little to +think about. If it had been Basine instead of this other, it would have +been nicer. Basine was someone she knew. Paul was a stranger. But Basine +had played with her. He had said nothing when she went away. Merely +looked at her and nodded. His success had gone to his head. He didn't +want her, even to flirt with anymore. He was too busy.... + +She put her arms around the stranger and wept. + +It was minor tragedy. There was nothing to weep about. Nobody cared what +happened to her. If there had been somebody who cared she would never +have met him. + +Schroder watched her and sighed. + +"If you don't love me," he said. + +"It's not that," she answered. She was forgetting about her tears. Her +close presence to him was slowly preoccupying her. He loved her. And +they would be married. It didn't matter much. But the idea made it a +little easier. She kissed him, timidly at first. And then with passion. + +Schroder grimaced inwardly. It was dark and she couldn't see his eyes. +They were worried. He had been in love for a few minutes in the park. He +would have liked to remain in love. He sat before the window thinking, +Why did women insist on climaxes. Their arguments made it necessary for +men to plead. The culmination was a sort of logical gesture. + +He walked toward her. He would take her hand and make love. He felt sad +and making love out of sadness was always an interesting diversion. + +"Ruth," he whispered, "do you love me?" + +She answered by embracing him. + +"Always the same," he murmured to himself, "it's no use." + + + + +22 + + +The children were asleep and Henrietta was reading. Basine in his +slippers and smoking-jacket sat unoccupied. Their new house worried him. +He had not yet familiarized himself with its shadows. + +He smiled as he watched his wife. He was going to run for Senator but +that made no difference to her. He was a husband to her, and everything +else was incidental. He thought of Ruth. Her name no longer depressed +him. During the first three or four months that followed her absence he +had felt as if his career had ended. There was nobody to succeed for any +more. Then through Doris he had learned that she was to marry Schroder. + +The information had cured him. He had been despising himself for letting +her go. Now he was able to pretend that he had been forced by her virtue +to relinquish her. It would have been a dastardly thing to do--ruin her +and prevent her from marrying and living a decent life. Her marrying +vindicated his own virtue. He was able to think that he had done the +right thing. Not only that, but he had done the only thing possible. She +had fled from him because he was a married man. Then, too, she probably +didn't love Schroder. Not as she had loved him. She was marrying him +broken-heartedly. He sometimes played with this notion. It pleased him. +His sadness at the thought of her in another man's arms was mitigated by +the two-fold thought that her heart was broken and that she was in +reality embracing marriage and not a man. + +He no longer desired her. He was too busy for one thing. Still, things +were different. She had been an inspiration. Now he went on with his +plans and his climb without feeling the excitement that had filled him +during their year together. There was no one in front of whom to pose. +This made posing a rather thankless business. And he became practical in +his thoughts, less dramatic in his lies. + +Henrietta had put aside her paper and was looking at him. + +"Are you tired?" she asked. + +He shook his head. He began to think about her. What did she do all day? +Since Ruth had left, his desire to leave his wife had vanished. He +paused, confused. She was weeping. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. She lowered her head. + +"Nothing," she said. + +A vivid memory hurt him. He remembered kissing her for a first time in +his mother's kitchen years ago. It seemed now that she had been alive +and beautiful that evening. That was gone. + +"Has anything happened," he asked softly. + +Her head shook. He came to her side and looked at her. He felt helpless. +What was there to make her cry? + +"I don't know, George," she said as if answering his silent question. +"Please forgive me. I just started to cry for nothing." + +"Worried about something?" he pressed. He felt guilty. She was crying +because of the things he had done. But what had he done? Nothing wrong. +He had put the wrong things out of his life. And for her sake. Why +should she weep about that, then? He was the one to weep. And she had +her children. Her father was alive. He remained silent, recounting what +he tried to consider anti-weeping reasons. + +"Nothing, George," she answered. "I'm ... I'm just getting old." + +He frowned and turned away. + +Later when they lay in bed he took her in his arms. She had apparently +forgotten about her tears and their curious explanation. But he began to +talk to her. + +"Old," he whispered, "you're not getting old. Don't be silly. At least +no more than I am. I'm older than you." + +He held her close to him and his mind embraced a memory. This was not +his wife he held, but someone else. A vivacious, happy girl ten years +ago. No, more than that. Almost fourteen years ago. He lay remembering +another Henrietta--a charming, delightful child. He had never been in +love with her. This he knew. But the knowledge had slowly died. When he +embraced her at night a dream obscured his memory. The dream was that he +had once loved her, that she had once been beautiful, that his heart had +once sung with desire for her. + +He played with this dream. It was a make-believe that saddened him. Yet +it made the moment more tolerable. Sometimes it even brought a curious +happiness. His dream would pretend that the scrawny figure he was +holding had once filled him with ecstasies. His dream would whisper to +him that he had once idolized her and that once ... once. He would lie +editing his sterile memories of her into glowing once-upon-a-times. And +when his kisses sought her cold lips it would be to this dream-Henrietta +they gave themselves, a Henrietta who had never been. It was sad to +pretend in this way that his great love had died and that his beautiful +one had faded. But it was not as sad as to remember when he kissed her +that there had never been anything. + +He felt tired when he left the house the next morning. The business of +preening for the senatorial race annoyed him. The goal lured but the +details to be managed were aggravating. + +He started as he opened the door of his chambers. Ruth! He stood looking +at her without words. She was pale and there was something curious about +her. She didn't look the same. + +"You look surprised," she smiled. He noticed how spiritless she was. +"But ... you don't mind my coming here, do you. I've been trying to get +you." + +She turned her eyes away. He had finally discovered the change, a +physical one. + +"Well," he exclaimed, "I hadn't heard the good news. How's Paul." + +So she was married. And had kept it secret. He smiled. He remembered +other scenes in the room. The doors locked. Her arms around him. All +that was over now. Before her motherhood, even the memory of it seemed +less certain. + +"There is no good news," she was saying. "I've come to see if you can +help me." + +They sat down. Basine nodded. Money. Poor girl. Schroder was always an +ass about things. + +"He's gone away," she went on. "And ... and I'd like to locate him." + +"Who?" + +"Paul." + +She covered her face. So he had deserted her. And she had come back to +him. A momentary excitement entered his thought. But he frowned +immediately. It was distasteful to think of what might have been if ... +not for this. + +An amazement came into his eyes. He stared at her as she talked. She had +been ruined by Schroder and he had never married her. And when she had +refused medical interference he had calmly left the city. He listened +blankly and could think of nothing to say. + +"Oh George, you must help me." + +Help her! He must help her! After she had lived with this man for +months, giving herself to him! He stood up and walked down the room. It +was like he used to do, pace up and down in front of her. + +He wanted to talk but he found it hard. A rage was coming into his mind +that obscured his words. The rage continued. Pausing in the center of +the room Basine began to swear. His voice had grown high pitched. + +"Damn!" he shouted at her, "and you come to me. Me! You bring your +filthy sins to me! Damn his dirty soul! Yes, you're fine, you are! +Leaving me to go with that chippy-chaser. I thought ... I thought you +were somebody." + +He stopped, his fist in the air. She was walking away. + +"Ruth," he called after her, "listen, wait a minute." + +The door closed after her. Basine stood watching the door. She would +open it and come back. But the door remained shut. He seated himself at +his desk. Moments passed and he was surprised to wake up and hear +himself mumbling. "The dirty skunk! I'll wring his neck!" + +She had given herself to Schroder! Not married him.... The part he had +played in her ruin forced itself with a nauseating insistency into +Basine's mind. His memories seized him. He struggled, but the things he +knew leaped out of hiding-places and assaulted him. She had loved him. +And he had loved her. Life had seemed marvelous with her close to him. +His career, his day, its simplest detail, had been colored with +delicious excitement. But he had been afraid to reach out and take what +he wanted. It would have meant success, happiness and something +else--the word beauty withheld itself--it would have meant these things. +But he had feared possession. He had let her go away after kissing her +and telling her that he loved her. So she had gone walking in the +street and fallen into the arms of the first man she met. It was plain. + +Basine writhed under triumphant accusations. A torment filled him. He +must escape from the accusations He pried himself away from his thoughts +and took his place on the bench. Other people's troubles again. +Disputes, wrangles, testimonies--his ears listened mechanically. Lawyers +were pleading with him. Witnesses were stammering. He sat with a scowl +and hunched forward in his chair. His lean face thrust itself at the +courtroom. + +Thoughts too intolerable for his attention whirled sickeningly in a +background. Pictures of Ruth in the man's arms, of her surrender, of the +intimacies of their illicit affair forced themselves upon him. He loved +her. "Oh, damn him," sang itself darkly through his heart. + +There was one mocking intruder that raised a vociferous head. "You might +have had her. Not he. She might have been yours if you hadn't been +afraid." It was this that nauseated most. Not Schroder's villainy, but +his own cowardice. He had lost through cowardice. + +The day dragged itself along. He had recovered in part the rage which +protected him from the intolerable memories. When he left the courtroom +it was with a viciousness in his step. His feet stamped down as he +walked, as if they were attacking the pavements. He entered a saloon +several blocks from the City Hall. + +The place was almost deserted. A few businesslike looking men were +grouped before the long bar. They were laughing. Basine passed them and +a voice called his name. He turned and saw a familiar face in one of +the small booths against the wall. It was Levine, the newspaperman. + +"Hello, Judge. Come on over and sit down." + +Basine narrowed his eyes. The man was partially drunk. His drawn face, +usually pale, was flushed and his sneering black eyes were bloodshot. He +sat down opposite Levine with a greeting. A waiter brought drinks. + +"What's up, Judge, you seem rather low," Levine laughed quietly. "The +world been falling on your nose? Ha, have another. Here, waiter...." + +They sat drinking, the newspaperman lost in a mysterious excitement that +gathered in his voice. The excitement soothed Basine. The drinks brought +a haze into his mind. He became aware that the man was talking about his +sister. He was leaning forward, a black forelock over his bloodshot eye, +his arm thrown out on the table, and talking in a languorous voice about +Doris. + +"Drowning my troubles, judge," he was saying. "It's easier to drink +yourself into forgetfulness than to lie yourself into forgetfulness, eh? +And besides you grow sick of lying, eh. Nobody lies more than me, and I +know, I know. But it ain't my fault--she's gone mad about him. You know +him--Lindstrum, the poet. Been mad about him for years. And it gets +worse ... that's all that's the matter with her. He ran away years ago +and she's gotten a phobia about people. Because he's the people's poet. +Ha, she's told me about you, George. Got an idea of making this man +Lindstrum sick by showing him how rotten people are. And using you. See? +But where do I come in? Nowhere ... nowhere. Just gabbing for years and +I don't come in nowhere.... Get me? This damn newspaper drool has eaten +into me.... She's the only one I wanted. But I don't come in, see? She's +mad ... gone mad...." + +Basine's thought avoided the man's words. He sat with a blissful +vacuity. They drank till it grew night. Basine, as if recalling himself, +walked out. The newspaperman lay across the table, his head asleep on +his arm. + +The night was cool. A curious impulse to let go came to Basine. He would +go somewhere and find women and noise. He walked along thinking about +this. When he had walked for an hour the impulse was gone. The haze was +slipping from him. He recalled things Levine had said. Something about +Lindstrum, the poet. His mind played with Lindstrum. He had seen +him--where? Oh yes, long ago. That was before he'd become famous. Now he +was a great poet. Hell with everything.... Get the senatorship and let +things slide. + +He walked along toward his home. Henrietta would be asleep. He sighed. +The night was cool. Everything all right in the morning. Now, everything +all wrong. But in the morning-- + +His stride quickened. He felt half asleep and as he moved over the +deserted pavement he began mumbling, "I love you, George, I love +you...." + + + + +23 + + +Doris was ill. The doctor had telephoned her mother and Mrs. Basine was +sitting beside the bed holding Doris' hand. A man she remembered vaguely +was standing in a corner of the room smoking. It was the poet, +Lindstrum, who was once a friend of Doris. He had been there when she +arrived, standing by the window and smoking while the doctor was fixing +an ice pack on Doris' head. + +The doctor had been unable to make a diagnosis. She had a fever but they +would have to wait for more definite symptoms. + +As the twilight filled the studio, Mrs. Basine grew frightened. She +thought at moments Doris was dead, she lay so still. She watched the +half-closed eyes anxiously. Perhaps Doris would die. And George was in +Washington. She had telegraphed but he couldn't arrive till the next +day. She sat wondering about her daughter. She remembered her as a +child, then as a girl. + +"Changes, changes," she sighed. Changes that excited one, but all they +did was bring one nearer to this. She was thinking of death. + +"How do you feel now, Doris?" + +No answer. The burning eyes continued to stare, the hand she held +remained limp and dry in her fingers. Perhaps it was nothing serious. +Merely a fever. She sat nodding her head at her thoughts. She thought of +how her children had grown up and gone away. Fanny, George, Doris, +Aubrey, Henrietta, Mrs. Gilchrist, Judge Smith and the grandchildren. +These were the names of her family. They were part of her. Yet while the +rest of the world grew more and more familiar they grew more and more +strange. + +"Does it pain you anywhere, Doris?" + +No answer. Poor little Doris. She stroked her face. Life had used her +differently. She felt this. She knew nothing of what Doris had done or +dreamed, but the staring eyes frightened her and she understood. + +George frequently called her queer. Yet George was, in a way, proud of +her. He used to seek Doris out. And many people had talked of her as a +very unusual young woman. But life had used her curiously, not like +other girls. Perhaps it was a man. She turned toward the figure in the +corner. He was standing holding a pipe to his mouth. What if it was a +man? Scandal. Mrs. Basine sighed. What was scandal? It was only a way of +looking at facts. She would take her home with her. Poor little Doris +living alone in this place and sitting here night after night dreaming +of things. That was sad. + +"Listen dear, do you want something?" + +No answer. The doctor said he would be back after dinner and bring a +nurse. She would ask him if Doris could be moved and then take her home. +It was growing darker in the room. Someone was knocking. She opened the +door. It was another man. He came in and then paused. + +"Is Doris ill?" he asked. + +Mrs. Basine nodded. + +"I am her mother," she said. + +Levine looked at her and introduced himself. + +"You know Mr. Lindstrum," she added. Levine stared at the poet in the +shadows and said, "Yes, I know him." + +"How do you do," said Lindstrum slowly. + +Doris reached her hand up as Levine approached the bed. He took it and +she whispered, "Don't go away." She tried to rise. + +"You mustn't dear," her mother cautioned. + +"Oh yes," Doris voice appeared to be growing stronger. "I want to sit +up. Help me, Max." He arranged the pillows. The ice-pack fell from her +head. She smiled. + +"You haven't eaten anything, mother," she added. "Please, there's a +restaurant around the corner." + +Mrs. Basine stood up. It might be better to go away for a while. Despite +her daughter's momentary recovery her fears had increased. She felt +something curious about Doris. But perhaps it was just the fever. She +left the room with a final glance at the flushed face. Doris had always +been strange, but there was something disturbing about her now. Her +daughter's eyes watching her opening the door, chilled her heart +suddenly. She held herself from rushing to her side and taking her in +her arms. She didn't know why, but she was certain there was something +strange about Doris. She walked into the hall. Yes, she was certain +something terrible was going to happen. + +When the door closed Doris sat against the pillows, her white face +turned toward Lindstrum in the shadows. + +"Did you hear we were going to war, Lief?" she asked. Behind his pipe in +the shadows the grey faced figure of Lindstrum nodded. + +"George is a Senator," she added. "He's going to declare war, Lief. You +remember my brother George." + +"Doris, you mustn't," Levine whispered. "Lie back, please." + +She covered her face and her body shuddered. + +"The filthy ones are going to war. Come closer, Lief. I want to see +you." + +Lindstrum approached the bed. Doris turned to Levine. + +"The pack is going to war. Did you see their eyes shining in the street, +and their mouths gloating? A new terror, eh?" + +She threw her hands into her hair and her eyes centered suddenly on +Lindstrum. He was standing over her. Doris began to laugh and to climb +out of bed. She stood up barefooted in her night gown, her black hair +down and pointed out of the window. + +"Don't." Levine took her hand. "You'll catch cold." + +Her eyes were lustrous. Lindstrum caught her in his arms. She had leaned +toward him as if she were falling. Her body was vividly hot. He held her +and she began to laugh. + +"Better lie down," he whispered. + +The laugh grew louder. Her hand with its fingers extended and pointing, +wavered toward the window. She tried to talk but the laughter in her +throat prevented. She hung loosely in his arms, laughing and waving her +hands. + +"The window," she gasped, "look out and see!" + +"We had better get her into bed," Levine whispered. Lindstrum nodded. +But Doris pulled herself from his hold. She stumbled and fell to her +knees before the window. The room was dark and the street lights threw a +faint glare over her face. She knelt with her hands to her neck and her +eyes swinging. + +"Look out!" cried Levine. Doris screamed. + +"The beast ... the beast!" + +She had thrown herself forward with the shriek but Lindstrum's hands +had caught her. The window glass broke. + +The two men carried her into the bed. Her head fell back on the pillow. +She lay with her eyes open. Lindstrum sat leaning over her. + +"Doris," he whispered. Her eyes regarded him without recognition. + +"It's happened," muttered Levine. Lindstrum's hand passed over her +forehead and slipped down the loose hair. + +"The fever's gone," he said softly. "Yes," he repeated, "the fever's +gone now." + +Mrs. Basine returned. Doris, her eyes open, was lying as if dead. Her +mother rushed to the bed crying her name. She was breathing. The fever +was gone. Her body was almost cool. + +"She was out of her head for a while," Lindstrum whispered. + +"Talk to me please, dearest." + +Doris sighed and looked around. They made no move as she sat up. + +She left the bed and returned from a closet with a wrap over her +nightgown. They watched her until her eyes turned toward +them--expressionless, dead eyes. Mrs. Basine clasped her hands together +and trembled. + +"We must call the doctor at once," she whispered. She went to the +telephone. Doris sat down in a chair near the window. Her head sank and +she gazed out. The expressionless eyes grew clouded. Tears were coming +out. She sat weeping without sound while her mother telephoned. + +"Something has happened to Doris," Mrs. Basine whispered into the +telephone, "please hurry, something has happened to her...." + +"Good-bye, Doris," Lindstrum spoke. + +The white face of the girl remained without movement. She was staring +out the window, a lifeless figure, weeping. He approached her and +watched her tears. + +Outside, he walked with his head down, through the streets. + +"She knew it was going to happen," he murmured to himself, "and she +wanted to see me again before it did." His heart felt heavy. Doris with +her dead eyes weeping. Ah, a long sigh. Hard to remember things that had +been. + +"Knock 'em over," he whispered aloud. "Make something ... make +something." Deep inside him were hands that pantomimed despair. People +in the streets. War was coming to them. "Huh," he said slowly, "they +tore her heart out." Everybody knew him. Everybody knew the name +Lindstrum. It was the name of a great poet. When he was dead Lindstrum +would stay alive. "Huh," he whispered, "I don't know.... Sing to them. +Yes...." + +His teeth bit into the pipe stem. Tears came from his eyes. He walked +along in the night snarling with his lips parted, and weeping. + + + + +24 + + +The war was a noisy guest. People shook hands with it. It sat down in +their little rooms. It's voice was a brass band that drowned their +troubles. Basine found a curious friend in the war. + +Changes had come to him in the days that followed the scene with Ruth. +He grew cold. His heart was indifferent. His victory in the election +had sent him to bed without joy. + +There was no longer an inner Basine and an outer Basine. He had fought +his way into the current of events and he was content to let them move +him. They made him Senator. They moved him to Washington, provided new +scenes for him, new faces. He heard of his sister's collapse without +sorrow. She had become crazy. To be expected, of course, to be expected, +he said to himself one evening as he sat writing a letter of sympathy to +his mother. + +The thing that had happened to Basine had been the result of a +confusion. He found himself at forty robbed of life. Despair, hatred, +disgust--these things were left. He turned his back on them. They were a +company of emotions too difficult to play with. It was no longer +possible to lie. Ruth, Schroder, Henrietta, love, hope, intrigue grew +mixed up. He emerged from himself and walked away from himself like an +aggrieved and dignified guest. + +He sometimes remembered himself--a distant Basine. A keen-faced one with +the feel of leadership in his heart. A mind that was alive behind its +words. He had done and thought many things. But now he had gone away. He +was silent. The day was no longer a challenge. The change carried its +reward. It seemed to bring him closer to people. At least he found a +certain charm in talking and listening that had not existed before. + +He gave himself no thought. He was successful and that was enough. At +times he sat in his new quarters in Washington reading stray items in +the newspapers and reciting to himself his achievements. He found +pleasing identification in the honors he had achieved. + +His political friends talked among themselves. They recalled that Basine +had once been a man of promise, a man alive with energies. And now he +was like the others in the party--an amiable fuddy-duddy. They recalled +the sensational figure he had made a few years ago in the Vice +Investigation. This seemed to have been the climax of Basine. + +But the war arrived and the new Senator began to emerge. The country +became filled with mediocrities struggling to utilize the war as a +pedestal. The call had gone out for heroes and the elocutionists rushed +forward. + +The psychology of the day, however, was a bit too involved for these +aspirants. The body politic of the nation found itself betrayed by its +own platitudes. A moral frenzy began to animate the horizon. But it was +the frenzy of an idea that had escaped control; an idea grown too huge +and luminous to direct any longer. The idealization of itself before +which the crowd had worshipped became now a Frankenstein. The virtues of +America had gone to war. And the nation looked on, aghast and +uncomprehending. The flattering and grandiose image of itself that the +_bete populaire_ had been creating in its law books, text books, and +hymnals had suddenly stepped from its complicated mirror and was +marching like a Mad Hatter to the front. A swarm of guides and +interpreters had leaped to its side. They danced around it chanting its +nobilities, proclaiming its grandeur. The spirit of Democracy, the +Rights of Man, the One and Only God--the Golden Rule, the Thou Shalt +Nots, the Seven Virtues, the Mann Act, the Hatred for All Variants of +Evil,--the mythical incarnation of these and kindred illusions--the +Idealization--was off for the front. + +The confusion arose when the nation found itself attached as if by some +gruesome umbilical cord to this crazed Idealization, off with a Tin +Sword on its shoulder. And it must follow this Virtue-snorting monster. +It must lie down in trenches in behalf of a Fairy Tale with which it had +been shrewdly deceiving itself for a century. + +But while the elocutionists fumbling for pedestals were exhorting the +nation to hoist itself by its boot-straps, to become overnight a +belligerent hierarchy around its God, there were others whose spirit +raised an authentic battle shout. One of these was Basine. + +He appeared to return to himself. The Basine he had walked away from +raised itself amid the disgusts and hatreds in which it had lain +abandoned. A rage gathered in his voice. Eloquence and flashing eyes +were his. The amiable fuddy-duddy playing little politics in Washington +became a gentleman of war. + +The horizon bristled with gentlemen of war. But the terrified crowd +casting about for leaders, as the draft shovelled it toward the +trenches, eyed them with suspicion. There must be authentic gentlemen of +war--men above suspicion. Men maddened with a desire to fight and +destroy were wanted. Basine was one of these. His tirades against the +enemy left nothing in doubt. They were not concerned with idealisms. The +enemy must be destroyed, he began to cry, or else it would destroy +civilization. + +Huns, he cried, vandals and scoundrels. Gorillas, demons, soulless +monsters. His phrases drew frightful caricatures of the enemy. His +orations were among the few that stirred terror. The Germans were not +enemies of an ideal--not a rabble of Nietzsches at theological grips +with a rabble of Christs. They were Huns, said Basine, barbarians, +fiends, hacking children to pieces, pillaging, raping, destroying. + +This was a language the nation understood. It contained in it the +inspiration to heroism and sacrifice. Out of it arose the grisly cartoon +which awakened fear. Terrified by the possibilities of Hun domination +and massacres, the crowd patriotically bared its bosom to the lesser +horror--war. It marched forth behind its idiot Idealization not to +defend that absurdity but to save itself from the clutches of massacring +savages. + +The energies which came to life abruptly in Basine focused into a +strange passion against the Germans. He was vicious, intolerant, +unscrupulous in his denunciations. This established him instantly as a +leader. + +The crowd, casting about for leaders, seized upon men more terrified +than themselves. And upon these abject ones who raved and howled from +the pulpit, stage and press, they heaped rewards and canonizations. + +There was one phase of Basine's hatred that offered a curious +explanation. From the beginning he devoted himself to describing the +hideous immorality of the Huns. He loaned himself passionately to all +rumors celebrating the wholesale rape of women committed by the invaders +of Belgium. Deportations, well-poisonings, child-murders figured +extensively in his eloquence. But gradually he appeared to concentrate +upon what he called the ultimate horror--"fair Europe overrun by this +horde of seducers and immoral blackguards." Schroder was a German. + +The war rehabilitated Basine. It enabled him to destroy Schroder. The +complicated underworld of hate, disgust, disillusion which his ludicrous +renunciation of Ruth and her subsequent betrayal by Schroder had created +in him, was the arsenal from which he armed himself for war. + +He had lapsed into a sterile and amiable Basine in order to escape from +emotions become too intolerable and too dangerous to utilize. The murder +of Schroder would not have restored him. The return of the woman he +still loved would have been equally futile. Life had become too +intolerable for Basine to face and adjust. He had permitted himself +convenient burial. + +On the night he had gotten drunk with the newspaperman, Basine saw +himself as he was--a creature misshapen and humorous--and he had buried +the vision and fled from it. To sit contemplating an inner self become a +grotesque cripple was intolerable. He sought for a brief space to +transfer his self-loathing to Schroder but Schroder, the man, was too +small to contain it. Schroder, the war, however, was another matter. + +Basine unlocked himself, exhumed himself, and came forth with a yell in +his throat. The German army was five million Schroders. He hurled +himself at them. He was happy in his rage. A sincerity hypnotized him. + +The Germans were not only five million Schroders. They were also the +incarnated nauseas and despairs of Basine. Schroder, the man, had become +for him, illogically but soothingly, the cause of everything that had +become misshapen and humorous inside him. Schroder, the man, was the +sand in which Basine, the ostrich, buried his head. Now Schroder, the +Germans, Schroder, the World War, Schroder, the rape of Belgium, the +devastation of France, offered a more hospitable grave for the misshapen +and humorous image of himself. To destroy the Germans became for Basine +synonymous with destroying the things inside himself from which he had +fled helplessly. The destruction of these things consisted of giving +them outlet, of giving them voice. His hatreds, despairs and +disillusions arose and spat themselves upon the Germans. The process +cleansed and invigorated him and launched him before the public as a +leader to be trusted, a hero to venerate during its dark hour. + + + + +25 + + +The company assembled in his mother's home greeted Basine with +excitement. He had stopped over during a tour in behalf of the Liberty +Loan. Mrs. Basine had persuaded him to attend a function in his honor. +He was late. They were waiting dinner for him. + +When he entered, a sense of great affairs, of world disturbances came +into the room with him. At the table the talk centered around him. He +was the superior patriot. Questions were fired at him--when would the +war end, what was the real secret of this and that and did he know what +was behind the latest note from the President, and when was the German +offensive due? He answered ambiguously, offering no information and +exciting his audience by his reticence. + +Aubrey Gilchrist, who had held the floor before the Senator's arrival, +listened eagerly to his brother-in-law. Aubrey's patriotism was a bond +between them. But it was of a different quality. Aubrey's patriotism was +founded on the fact that America was the most virtuous nation in the +world. He devoted himself to a campaign among his friends and had even +spoken publicly a number of times. In his talk he grew eloquent over the +moral grandeur of his country and hailed the altruism and honesty of his +countrymen as a light that illumined the world. + +Aubrey had overcome his impulse to publish his father's manuscript under +his own name. His fears had finally triumphed. He had utilized his +decision in a curious way. For months after determining not to commit +the imposture he had discussed the decision among his friends. + +"I worked a number of years on it," he explained simply, "but on reading +it over I feel that it's not the thing to be given the public. It's a +bit too Rabelaisian and unrestrained. Among gentlemen, yes. But when one +thinks of young men and women reading such things one hesitates. I feel +too that I can do better. Perhaps in another year or so I'll finish +something more worthy." + +This explanation had given him a pleasurable emotion. It had coincided +with the inner Aubrey--the Isaiah who thundered in secret. He had gone +about elated with the knowledge of his honesty--not only the honesty of +refraining from the imposture but the honesty of sparing the public a +work likely to undermine its morals. With the advent of the war Aubrey's +elation had expanded miraculously. The nation became a collection of +Aubrey Gilchrists. He found an outlet for his self admiration in +boasting tirelessly of the virtues of his countrymen. His interest in +the Germans was faint. He was chiefly concerned with having the moral +grandeur of his nation recognized and triumphant. + +Seated opposite him was Fanny. She smiled when he looked at her. The war +had brought Fanny happiness. It had released her from the tormenting of +Ramsey. She turned occasionally toward Ramsey a few seats removed at the +table and spoke to him. He had changed. He sat flushed and elated and +took his turn at denouncing the enemy, at avowing vengeance and +prophesying terrible victories over the Hun. His anger rivalled +Basine's. The curious game he had played with Fanny had lost its +interest. He had emerged like Basine. Fanny was no longer necessary to +his desire for a sense of power--a power which convinced him of his +manliness and concealed from him the secret of his inferiority. He had +transferred his game from Fanny to the Germans. He was now tormenting +the Germans. The news of their defeats, the hope of their annihilation +inflated him. In addition, his belligerent air, his gory threats enabled +him to establish himself in his eyes and in the eyes of others as a +thorough man. + +There were others in the company--Judge Smith, red-faced and glowering; +Aubrey's mother engaged in excommunicating the Germans as socially unfit +and outside the pale of her sympathy or support; a number of prominent +social and political lights. They discussed the war with animation, +fired questions at the senator and ate heartily. + +Dishes clattered. Servants appeared and disappeared. Mrs. Basine, +sitting beside her son listened to him proudly and grew sad. Her son's +prestige pleased her. But the war saddened her. She noticed that Mrs. +Gilchrist was growing old--too old to share the enthusiasms of the day. +Yet there was a comradeship in the room that stirred Mrs. Basine. She +disliked most of the individuals around her. But when they came together +there was something charming in the way they talked and smiled and +exchanged confidences. + +Mrs. Basine had secretly allied herself with a pacifist group of women +who labelled their minor timidity as intellectualism and argued with +violence against the major timidity identified as patriotism. She had a +horror of war, her imagination seeing herself continually suffering with +the soldiers of both sides. A similar sensitiveness had converted her +into a vague socialist. The misery of what she called the masses was a +mirror in which she saw a possible image of herself. She subscribed with +enthusiasm to doctrines which promised to establish justice and +tranquility in the world. + +But now among the people in her home Mrs. Basine noticed an enviable +optimism. Some of them were old friends, others new friends. But all of +them were alike in one way. All of them seemed wonderfully excited over +the fact that this war was going to put an end to all wars. She would +have liked to share this optimism. But her intelligence deprived her of +the solace. Yet she was able to feel kindly toward the ideals she sensed +were false. They were somehow like her own ideals--inspired by similar +things. + +The camaraderie in the room heightened. This was a war that was going to +put an end to all wars and everyone felt happy. They talked and +laughed. Their manner seemed to hint that the war was not only going to +put an end to all wars but to all troubles. Yes, the Germans vanquished, +victory achieved, and the world would be beautifully straightened out. + +They identified themselves avidly with the world--these old and new +friends. The enemy who had dogged their monotonous little footsteps +through the years--the veiled Nemesis who had harassed them and filled +them with helpless, futile hatreds, tripped them up and robbed them at +every turn--this enemy was at last unmasked. He was identified now. He +was their troubles--their defeats. And they had him out in the open now +where they could shout battle cries and leap upon him. He was the +Germans. + +Mrs. Basine, groping for an understanding of the elation among her +guests and desiring to share it, thought of her grandchildren. She +remembered George when he was no older than his son. This memory seemed +to give the lie to the excitement in the room. She wondered why. She +remembered Fanny when she was a girl. And Henrietta long ago. Henrietta +was smiling quietly at her husband--a faded matron, scrawny, silent. And +Doris was upstairs, weeping perhaps. She had taken Doris out of the +sanitarium to care for her at home. The doctor said melancholia. She +might be cured if something could be found to interest her. But there +was nothing. She sat wide-eyed and morose through the day, her hands +listless and waited till night came and sleep. Her skin was yellow and +there were little glints in her eyes as if they were peering out of the +dark. + +Senator Basine laughed at the sally of a pretty woman. The table joined +his laughter. The senator was an inspiration. His manner was forceful, +his words direct. When he listened his head remained flung back. When he +talked he lowered his head and raised his eyes. There was an anger in +him that awed. It played behind his words. + +"You're right, George." Aubrey answered a remark Basine had made. "I +agree with you entirely. But after all, the purposes of this war are +more than victory over an enemy. The victory over ourselves--" + +Aubrey's words were lost in the racket of rising diners. The eating was +over. The guests filed into the library. Henrietta slipped her hand +through her husband's arm. She remembered vaguely the afternoon in the +Basine library when George Basine had asked her to marry him. No,--it +was in the kitchen. She would have liked to talk about it. But this was +no time to mention such things. She sat down and listened to the excited +remarks of the guests. There was an interruption. Aubrey, at the window, +raised his voice. + +"Look here," he exclaimed, "soldiers." + +The company crowded to the front of the room. Men in civilian clothes +carrying small bundles over their shoulders were marching four abreast +down the center of the street. + +"Entraining for war, by God!" said Ramsey. + +They watched in silence. Soldiers going to war! There was something +incongruous about that. A vague feeling of surprise and discomfort held +the watchers. Men who would in a short time be lying in trenches, +shooting with guns, killing other men. And they felt curiously out of +touch with the marchers, as if the enemy they had been denouncing at +the table and vilifying throughout their day were someone not so far +away as France. As if these marching men in the street were being sent +to the wrong address. + + + + +26 + + +Basine hurried in the dark street. His mother and Henrietta stood in the +doorway watching him. He carried a suitcase and had promised to write +frequently. The Liberty Loan tour had cut short his visit. He was +walking to catch his train at the neighborhood station a few blocks +away. + +As he turned the corner, Basine paused. Someone had called his name. He +looked around and saw a man standing under the street lamp. + +"Hello George. How are you?" + +The man held out his hand and Basine, taking it, studied him for a +moment. Keegan. Poor old Hugh Keegan. Basine smiled. + +"Well, well," he exclaimed. "What are you doing around here, Hugh?" + +They stood shaking hands. Basine noticed the furtive, shabby air of his +old friend. He hadn't seen or heard of Keegan or thought of him for +years. It was strange to meet him like this, walking in a street. + +"I live down the street a ways," Keegan answered. An almost womanish +shyness was in his manner. "Been hearing and reading a lot about you, +George." He lowered his voice. "You sure made good." + +Basine smiled deprecatingly. + +"Walking my way, Hugh?" he inquired. "Going to the train." He felt +nervous. Keegan was like meeting yesterdays. + +"Yes," said Keegan. + +They walked along. Basine felt his exhuberance leaving him. A curious +desire to apologize to Keegan took hold of him. But for what? Because +Keegan looked shabby. Keegan acted frightened and ashamed of something. + +"We used to have some good times together, George." + +The man was impossibly wistful. Like a beggar asking +something--demanding something. + +"Yes," said Basine. This Keegan ... this Keegan. He looked at him out of +the corners of his eyes. Shabby, furtive, blond-faced, tired. + +"What have you been doing, Hugh?" he asked. + +"Oh, didn't you hear," Keegan answered. His voice grew more deferential. +He began to talk in an apologetic murmur. + +"My wife died," he apologized. "I got married, you know, four years ago. +Four years this coming November. We went to a picnic last June and Helen +ate something." + +Keegan's voice sank to a confidential and still apologetic whisper. + +"About two nights after," he added, "she died." + +Basine looked at him and saw tears in his eyes. Keegan had married +somebody and she had died. This had happened to Keegan. Basine grew +nervous. + +"Awf'ly glad to have seen you again, Hugh," he said after a pause. "Am +sorry to hear about it. We must get together sometime. I think I'll have +to run." + +They shook hands and Basine hurried on. He was aware of Keegan looking +after him. A vacuous-faced Keegan with tears in his eyes. A Keegan who +had found something and lost it. What kind of a woman could have loved +Keegan? What kind ... what kind ... poor Hugh. He had been young once. +Now it was all over. Basine sighed. Keegan saddened. Keegan was like +yesterdays. He started to walk faster. He began to run, the suitcase +thumping against his leg. + +"I'll miss the train," he assured himself furtively and ran. + +But there was plenty of time for the train. Another fifteen minutes. He +was running for something else. Yes, he was running away from +Keegan--from the vacuous, shabby figure of Keegan that stood weeping +behind him. An oath throbbed in his mind. + +"Damn...." he muttered. The word stopped him. He walked the rest of the +way to the station. A sadness darkened him. He was sad, impossibly sad, +as if his heart were breaking. Because Keegan had found something and +lost it. Because his old friend Hugh had started to cry.... "Poor +Hughie," he murmured. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Gargoyles, by Ben Hecht + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GARGOYLES *** + +***** This file should be named 38489.txt or 38489.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/4/8/38489/ + +Produced by Annie R. McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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