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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d0f063e --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #67652 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67652) diff --git a/old/67652-0.txt b/old/67652-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 01213b2..0000000 --- a/old/67652-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8058 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Bring the Jubilee, by Ward Moore - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Bring the Jubilee - -Author: Ward Moore - -Release Date: March 18, 2022 [eBook #67652] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, Les Galloway and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was - produced from images made available by the HathiTrust - Digital Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRING THE JUBILEE *** - - Transcriber’s Notes - -Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations -in hyphenation been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation -remains unchanged. Note in particular that the apostrophe is very -rarely used to indicate abbreviation. - -Italics are represented thus _italic_. - - - - - - Bring - the - Jubilee - - - - - By Ward Moore - - - _Breathe the Air Again_ - _Greener Than You Think_ - _Bring the Jubilee_ - - This is an original novel—not a reprint—published by FARRAR, STRAUS & -YOUNG, INC. The low price of $2.00 is made possible by large printings - of combined editions. - - - - - Bring - the - Jubilee - - WARD - MOORE - - - FARRAR, STRAUS and YOUNG, Inc. - NEW YORK - - - - - Copyright 1952 Fantasy House, Inc. - Copyright 1953 Ward Moore - All rights reserved. Manufactured in the U. S. A. - Library of Congress catalog card number: 53-10417 - - BACK COVER MAP: BETTMANN ARCHIVE - - - - - _For - TONY BOUCHER and MICK McCOMAS - who liked this story_ - - - - - What he will he does, and does so much - That proof is call’d impossibility - —_Troilus and Cressida_ - - It is always the puzzle of the nature of time that brings our thoughts - to a standstill. And if time is so fundamental that an understanding - of its true nature is for ever beyond our reach, then so also in - all probability is a decision in the age-long controversy between - determination and free will. - —_The Mysterious Universe_ by James Jeans - - - - - Contents - - - I _Life in the Twenty-Six States_ 1 - - II _Of Decisions, Minibiles, and Tinugraphs_ 12 - - III _A Member of the Grand Army_ 22 - - IV _Tyss_ 32 - - V _Of Whigs and Populists_ 42 - - VI _Enfandin_ 50 - - VII _Of Confederate Agents in 1942_ 61 - - VIII _In Violent Times_ 71 - - IX _Barbara_ 76 - - X _The Holdup_ 86 - - XI _Of Haggershaven_ 95 - - XII _More of Haggershaven_ 106 - - XIII _Time_ 116 - - XIV _Midbin’s Experiment_ 124 - - XV _Good Years_ 132 - - XVI _Of Varied Subjects_ 142 - - XVII _HX-1_ 156 - - XVIII _The Woman Tempted Me_ 166 - - XIX _Gettysburg_ 175 - - XX _Bring the Jubilee_ 181 - - XXI _For the Time Being_ 191 - - - - -_1. LIFE IN THE TWENTY-SIX STATES_ - - -Although I am writing this in the year 1877, I was not born until 1921. -Neither the dates nor the tenses are error—let me explain: - -I was born, as I say, in 1921, but it was not until the early 1930’s, -when I was about ten, that I began to understand what a peculiarly -frustrate and disinherited world was about me. Perhaps my approach to -realization was through the crayon portrait of Granpa Hodgins which -hung, very solemnly, over the mantel. - -Granpa Hodgins after whom I was named, perhaps a little -grandiloquently, Hodgins McCormick Backmaker, had been a veteran of -the War of Southron Independence. Like so many young men he had put on -a shapeless blue uniform in response to the call of the ill-advised -and headstrong—or martyred—Mr Lincoln. Depending on which of my lives’ -viewpoints you take. - -Granpa lost an arm on the Great Retreat to Philadelphia after the fall -of Washington to General Lee’s victorious Army of Northern Virginia, so -his war ended some six months before the capitulation at Reading and -the acknowledgment of the independence of the Confederate States on -July 4, 1864. One-armed and embittered, Granpa came home to Wappinger -Falls and, like his fellow veterans, tried to remake his life in a -different and increasingly hopeless world. - -On its face the Peace of Richmond was a just and even generous -disposition of a defeated foe by the victor. (Both sides—for different -reasons—remembered the mutiny of the Unreconstructed Federals in -the Armies of the Cumberland and the Tennessee who, despite defeat -at Chattanooga, could not forget Vicksburg or Port Hudson and fought -bloodily against the order to surrender.) The South could easily have -carved the country up to suit its most fiery patriots, even to the -point of detaching the West and making a protectorate of it. Instead -the chivalrous Southrons contented themselves with drawing the new -boundary along traditional lines. The Mason-Dixon gave them Delaware -and Maryland, but they generously returned the panhandle of western -Virginia jutting above it. Missouri was naturally included in the -Confederacy, but of the disputed territory Colorado and Deseret were -conceded to the old Union; only Kansas and California as well as—for -obvious defensive reasons—Nevada’s tip went to the South. - -But the Peace of Richmond had also laid the cost of the war on the -beaten North and this was what crippled Granpa Hodgins more than the -loss of his arm. The postwar inflation entered the galloping stage -during the Vallandigham Administration, became dizzying in the time -of President Seymour and precipitated the food riots of 1873 and ’74. -It was only after the election of President Butler by the Whigs in -1876 and the reorganization and drastic deflation following that money -and property became stable, but by this time all normal values were -destroyed. Meanwhile the indemnities had to be paid regularly in gold. -Granpa and hundreds of thousands like him just never seemed to get back -on their feet. - -How well I remember, as a small boy in the 1920’s and ’30s, my mother -and father talking bitterly of how the War had ruined everything. They -were not speaking of the then fairly recent Emperors’ War of 1914-16, -but of the War of Southron Independence which still, nearly seventy -years later, blighted what was left of the United States. - -Nor were they unique or peculiar in this. Men who slouched in the -smithy while Father shod their horses, or gathered every month around -the postoffice waiting for the notice of the winning lottery numbers -to be put up, as often cursed the Confederates or discussed what might -have been if Meade had been a better general or Lee a worse one, as -they did the new-type bicycles with clockwork auxiliaries to make -pedaling uphill easier, or the latest scandal about the French Emperor, -Napoleon VI. - -I tried to imagine what it must have been like in Granpa Hodgins’ day, -to visualize the lost past—that strange bright era when, if it could -be believed, folk like ourselves and our neighbors had owned their -farms outright and didnt pay rent to the bank or give half the crop to -a landlord. I searched the wiggling crayon lines that composed Granpa -Hodgins’ face for some sign that set him apart from his descendants. - -“But what did he _do_ to lose the farm?” I used to ask my mother. - -“Do? Didnt do anything. Couldnt help himself. Go along now and do your -chores; Ive a terrible batch of work to get out.” - -How could Granpa’s not doing anything result so disastrously? I could -not understand this any more than I could the bygone time when a man -could nearly always get a job for wages which would support himself -and a family, before the system of indenture became so common that -practically the only alternative to pauperism was to sell oneself to a -company. - -Indenting I understood all right, for there was a mill in Wappinger -Falls which wove a shoddy cloth very different from the goods my mother -produced on her handloom. Mother, even in her late forties, could have -indented there for a good price, and she admitted that the work would -be easier than weaving homespun to compete with their product. But, as -she used to say with an obstinate shake of her head, “Free I was born -and free I’ll die.” - -In Granpa Hodgins’ day, if one could believe the folktales or family -legends, men and women married young and had large families; there -might have been five generations between him and me instead of two. And -many uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers and sisters. Now late marriages -and only children were the rule. - -If it hadnt been for the War—This was the basic theme stated with -variations suited to the particular circumstance. If it hadnt been -for the War the most energetic young men and women would not turn -to emigration; visiting foreigners would not come as to a slum; and -the great powers would think twice before sending troops to restore -order every time one of their citizens was molested. If it hadnt been -for the War the detestable buyer from Boston—detestable to my mother, -but rather fascinating to me with his brightly colored vest and smell -of soap and hair tonic—would not have come regularly to offer her a -miserable price for her weaving. - -“Foreigner!” she would always exclaim after he left; “sending good -cloth out of the country.” - -Once my father ventured, “He’s only doing what he’s paid for.” - -“Trust a Backmaker to stand up for foreigners. Like father, like son; -suppose you’d let the whole thieving crew in if you had your way.” - -So was first hinted the scandal of Grandfather Backmaker. No enlarged -portrait of him hung anywhere, much less over the mantel. I got the -impression my father’s father had been not only a foreigner by birth, -but a shady character in his own right, a man who kept on believing -in the things for which Granpa Hodgins fought after they were proved -wrong. I don’t know how I learned that Grandfather Backmaker had made -speeches advocating equal rights for Negroes or protesting the mass -lynchings so popular in the North, in contrast to the humane treatment -accorded these non-citizens in the Confederacy. Nor do I remember where -I heard he had been run out of several places before finally settling -in Wappinger Falls or that all his life people had muttered darkly -at his back, “Dirty Abolitionist!”—a very deep imprecation indeed. -I only know that as a consequence of this taint my father, a meek, -hardworking, worried little man, was completely dominated by my mother -who never let him forget that a Hodgins or a McCormick was worth dozens -of Backmakers. - -I must have been a sore trial to her for I showed no sign of proper -Hodgins gumption, such as she displayed herself and which surely kept -us all—though precariously—free. For one thing I was remarkably unhandy -and awkward, of little use in the hundred necessary chores around our -dilapidated house. I could not pick up a hammer at her command to do -something about fixing the loose weatherboards on the east side without -mashing my thumb or splitting the aged, unpainted wood. I could not hoe -the kitchen garden without damaging precious vegetables and leaving -weeds intact. I could shovel snow in the winter at a tremendous rate -for I was strong and had endurance, but work requiring manual dexterity -baffled me. I fumbled in harnessing Bessie, our mare, or hitching her -to the cart for my father’s trips to Poughkeepsie, and as for helping -him on the farm or in his smithy I’m afraid my efforts drove that mild -man nearest to a temper he ever came. He would lay the reins on the -plowhorse’s back or his hammer down on the anvil and say mournfully: - -“Better see if you can help your mother, Hodge. Youre only in my way -here.” - -On only one score did I come near pleasing Mother: I learned to read -and write early, and exhibited some proficiency. But even here there -was a flaw; she looked upon literacy as something which distinguished -Hodginses and McCormicks from the ruck who had to make their mark, as -an accomplishment which might somehow and unspecifiedly lead away from -poverty. I found reading an end in itself, which probably reminded her -of my father’s laxity or Grandfather Backmaker’s subversion. - -“Make something of yourself, Hodge,” she admonished me often. -“You can’t change the world”—an obvious allusion to Grandfather -Backmaker—“but you can do something with it as it is if you try hard -enough. There’s always some way out.” - -Yet she did not approve of the postoffice lottery, on which so many -pinned their hopes of escape from poverty or indenture. In this she and -my father were agreed; both believed in hard work rather than chance. - -Still, chance could help even the steadiest toiler. I remember the -time a minibile—one of the small, trackless locomotives—broke down -not a quarter of a mile from Father’s smithy. This was a golden, -unparalleled, unbelievable opportunity. Minibiles, like any other -luxury, were rare in the United States though they were common enough -in prosperous countries like the German Union or the Confederacy. We -had to rely for our transportation on the never-failing horse or on the -railroads, wornout and broken down as they were. For decades the great -issue in Congress was the never completed Pacific transcontinental -line, though British America had one and the Confederate States seven. -(Sailing balloons, economical and fairly common, were still looked -upon with some suspicion.) Only a rare millionaire with connections in -Frankfurt, Washington-Baltimore or Leesburg could afford to indulge -in a costly and complicated minibile requiring a trained driver to -bounce it over the rutted and chuckholed roads. Only an extraordinarily -adventurous spirit would leave the tar-surfaced streets of New York or -its sister city of Brooklyn, where the minibiles’ solid rubber tires -could at worst find traction on the horse or cable-car rails, for the -morasses or washboard roads which were the only highways north of the -Harlem River. - -When one did, the jolting, jouncing and shaking inevitably broke or -disconnected one of the delicate parts in its complex mechanism. Then -the only recourse—apart from telegraphing back to the city if the -traveler broke down near an instrument—was to the closest blacksmith. -Smiths rarely knew much of the principles of the minibiles, but with -the broken part before them they could fabricate a passable duplicate -and, unless the machine had suffered severe damage, put it back in -place. It was customary for such a craftsman to compensate himself -for the time taken away from horseshoeing or spring-fitting—or just -absently chewing on an oatstraw—by demanding exorbitant remuneration, -amounting to perhaps twenty-five or thirty cents an hour, thus avenging -his rural poverty and self-sufficiency upon the effete wealth and -helplessness of the urban excursionist. - -Such a golden opportunity befell my father, as I said, during the fall -of 1933, when I was twelve. The driver had made his way to the smithy, -leaving the owner of the minibile marooned and fuming in the enclosed -passenger seat. A hasty visit convinced Father, who could repair a -clock or broken rake with equal dexterity, that his only course was -to bring the machine to the forge where he could heat and straighten -a part not easy to disassemble. (The driver, the owner, and Father -all repeated the name of the part often enough, but so inept have I -been with “practical” things all my life that I couldnt recall it ten -minutes, much less thirty years later.) - -“Hodge, run and get the mare and ride over to Jones’s. Don’t try to -saddle her—go bareback. Ask Mr Jones to kindly lend me his team.” - -“I’ll give the boy a quarter dollar for himself if he’s back with the -team in twenty minutes,” added the owner of the minibile, sticking his -head out of the window. - -I won’t say I was off like the wind, for my life’s work has given me a -distaste for exaggeration or hyperbole, but I moved faster than I ever -had before. A quarter, a whole shining silver quarter, a day’s full -wage for the boy who could find odd jobs, half the day’s pay of a grown -man who wasnt indented or worked extra hours—all for myself, to spend -as I wished! - -I ran all the way back to the barn, led Bessie out by her halter and -jumped on her broad back, my enthralling daydream growing and deepening -each moment. With my quarter safely got I could perhaps persuade my -father to take me along on his next trip to Poughkeepsie; in the shops -there I could find some yards of figured cotton for Mother, or a box of -cigars to which Father was partial but rarely bought for himself, or an -unimagined something for Mary McCutcheon, some three years older than -I, with whom it had so recently become disturbing as well as imperative -to wrestle—in secret of course so as not to show oneself unmanly in -sporting with a weak girl instead of another boy. - -It never even occurred to me, as it would have to most, to invest in an -eighth of a lottery ticket. Not only were my parents sternly against -this popular gamble, but I myself felt a strangely puritanical aversion -to meddling with my fortune. - -Or I could take the entire quarter into Newman’s Book and Clock Store. -Here I could not afford one of the latest English or Confederate -books—even the novels I disdained cost fifty cents in their original -and thirty in the pirated United States’ edition—but what treasures -there were in the twelve-and-a-half cent reprints and the dime classics! - -With Bessie’s legs moving steadily beneath me I pored over in my -imagination Mr Newman’s entire stock, which I knew by heart from -examinations lulled by the steady ticking of his other, and no doubt -more salable, merchandise. My quarter would buy two reprints, but I -would read them in as many evenings and be no better off than before -until their memory faded and I could read them again. Better to invest -in paperbacked adventure stories giving sharp, breathless pictures -of life in the West or rekindling the glories of the War. True, they -were written almost entirely by Confederate authors and I was, perhaps -thanks to Granpa Hodgins and my mother, a devout partisan of the lost -cause of Sheridan and Sherman and Thomas. But patriotism couldnt steel -me against the excitement of the Confederate paperbacks; literature -simply ignored the boundary stretching to the Pacific. - -I had finally determined to invest all my twenty-five cents, not -in five paperbound volumes but in ten of the same in secondhand or -shopworn condition, when I suddenly realized that I had been riding -Bessie for some considerable time. I looked around, rather dazed by -the abrupt translation from the dark and slightly musty interior of -Newman’s store to the bright countryside, to find with dismay that -Bessie hadnt taken me to the Jones farm after all but on some private -tour of her own in the opposite direction. - -I’m afraid this little anecdote is pointless—it was momentarily pointed -enough for me that evening, for in addition to the loss of the promised -quarter I received a thorough whacking with a willow switch from my -mother after my father had, as usual, dolefully refused his parental -duty—except perhaps that it shows how in pursuing the dream I could -lose the reality. - -My feeling that books were a part of life, and the most important part, -was no passing phase. Other boys in their early teens dreamed of going -to the wilds of Dakotah, Montana or Wyoming, indenting to a company -run by a young and beautiful woman—this was also a favorite paperback -theme—discovering the loot hidden by a gang, or emigrating to Australia -or the South African Republic. Or else they faced the reality of -indenture, carrying on the family farm, or petty trade. I only wanted -to be allowed to read. - -I knew this ambition, if that is the proper word, to be outrageous and -unheard of. It was also practically impossible. The school at Wappinger -Falls, a survival from the days of compulsory attendance and an object -of doubt in the eyes of the taxpayers, taught as little as possible -as quickly as possible. Parents needed the help of their children to -survive or to build up a small reserve in the illusory hope of buying -free of indenture. Both my mother and my teachers looked askance at -my longing to persist past an age when my contemporaries were making -themselves economically useful. - -Nor, even supposing I had the fees, could the shabby, fusty Academy -at Poughkeepsie—originally designed for the education of the -well-to-do—provide what I wanted. Not that I was clear at all as to -just what this was; I only knew that commercial arithmetic, surveying, -or any of the other subjects taught there, were not the answer to my -desires. - -There was certainly no money for any college. Our position had grown -slowly worse; my father talked of selling the smithy and indenting. -My dreams of Harvard or Yale were as idle as Father’s of making a -good crop and getting out of debt. Nor did I know then, as I was to -find out later, that the colleges were increasingly provincialized -and decayed, contrasting painfully with the flourishing universities -of the Confederacy and Europe. The average man asked what the United -States needed colleges for anyway; those who attended them only -learned discontent and to question time-honored institutions. Constant -scrutiny of the faculties, summary firing of all instructors suspected -of abnormal ideas, did not seem to improve the situation or raise the -standards of teaching. - -My mother, now that I was getting beyond the switching age, lectured -me firmly and at length on idleness and self-indulgence. “It’s a hard -world, Hodge, and no one’s going to give you anything you don’t earn. -Your father’s an easy-going man; too easy-going for his own good, but -he always knows where his duty lies.” - -“Yes, maam,” I responded politely, not quite seeing what she was -driving at. - -“Hard, honest work—that’s the only thing. Not hoping or wishing or -thinking miracles will happen to you. Work hard and keep yourself free. -Don’t depend on circumstances or other people, and don’t blame them for -your own shortcomings. Be your own man. That’s the only way you’ll ever -be where you want to.” - -She spoke of responsibility and duty as though they were measurable -quantities, but the gentler parts of such equations, the factors of -affection and pity, were never mentioned. I don’t want to give the -impression that ours was a particularly puritanical family; I know -our neighbors had of necessity much the same grim outlook. But I felt -guiltily vulnerable, not merely on the score of wanting more schooling, -but because of something else which would have shocked my mother beyond -forgiveness. - -My early tussles with Mary McCutcheon had the natural consequences, but -she had found me a too-youthful partner and had taken her interests -elsewhere. For my part I now turned to Agnes Jones, a suddenly alluring -young woman grown from the skinny kid I’d always brushed away. Agnes -sympathized with my aspirations and encouraged me most pleasantly. -However her specific plans for my future were limited to marrying her -and helping her father on his farm, which seemed no great advance over -what I could look forward to at home. - -And there I was certainly no asset; I ate three hearty meals a day and -occupied a bed. I was conscious of the looks and smiles which followed -me. A great lout of seventeen, too lazy to do a stroke of work, always -wandering around with his head in the clouds or lying with his nose -stuck in a book. Too bad; and the Backmakers such industrious folks -too. I could feel what the shock of my behavior with Agnes added to my -idleness would be to my mother. - -Yet I was neither depraved nor very different from the other youths of -Wappinger Falls, who not only took their pleasures where they found -them, but often more forcibly than persuasively. I did not analyze -it fully or clearly, but I was at least to some extent aware of the -essentially loveless atmosphere around me. The rigid convention -of late marriages bred an exaggerated respect for chastity which -had two sides: sisters’ and daughters’ honor was sternly avenged -with no protest from society, and undiscovered seduction produced -that much more gratification. But both retribution and venery -were somewhat mechanical; they were the expected rather than the -inescapable passions. Revivalists—and we country people had a vast -fondness for those itinerants who came periodically to castigate us -for our sins—denounced our laxity and pointed to the virtues of our -grandparents and greatgrandparents. We accepted their advice with such -modifications as suited us, which was not at all what they intended. - -And this was how I took my mother’s admonition to be my own man. What -debts I owed her and my father seemed best discharged by relieving them -of the burden of my keep, since I was clearly not fitting myself to -reverse the balance. The notion that there was an emotional obligation -on either side hardly occurred to me; I doubt if it did to them. Toward -Agnes Jones I felt no debt at all. - -A few months after my seventeenth birthday I packed my three most -cherished books in my good white cotton shirt, and having bade a most -romantic goodbye to Agnes, one which would certainly have consummated -her hopes had her father come upon us, I left Wappinger Falls and set -out for New York. - - - - -_2._ _OF DECISIONS, MINIBILES, AND TINUGRAPHS_ - - -I thought I could do the walk of some eighty miles in four days, -allowing time to swap work for food, supposing I found farmers or -housewives agreeable to the exchange. June made it no hardship to sleep -outdoors, and the old post road ran close enough to the Hudson for any -bathing I might want to do. - -The dangers of the trip were part erf the pattern of life in the United -States in 1938. I didnt particularly fear being robbed by a roving -gang for I was sure organized predators would disdain so obviously -unprofitable a prey, and individual thieves I felt I could take care -of, but I was not anxious to be picked up as a vagrant by any of the -three police forces, national, state, or local. As a freeman I was -more exposed to this chance than an indent would be, with a work-card -on his person and a company behind him. A freeman was fair game for -the constables, state troopers, or revenuers to recruit, after a -perfunctory trial, into one of the chain gangs upon whom the roads, -canals and other public works were dependent. - -Some wondered why the roads were so bad in spite of all this apparent -surplus of labor and were dubious of the explanation that surfacing -was expensive and it was impossible to maintain unsurfaced highways -in good condition. Only the hint that prisoners had been seen working -around the estates of the great Whig families or had been lent to some -enterprise operated by foreign capital brought knowing nods. - -At seventeen possible disasters are not brooded over. I resolved -to be wary, and then dismissed thoughts of police, gangs and all -unpleasantness. The future was mine to make as my mother had insisted, -and I was taking the first steps in shaping it. - -I started off briskly, passing at first through villages long familiar; -then, getting beyond the territory I had known all my life, I slowed -down often enough to gaze at something new and strange, or to wander -into wood or pasture for wild strawberries or early blueberries. -I covered less ground than I had intended by the time I found a -farmhouse, after inquiring at several others, where the woman was -willing to give me supper and even let me sleep in the barn in return -for splitting a sizable stack of logs into kindling and milking two -cows. - -Exercise and hot food must have counteracted the excitement of the -day, for I fell asleep immediately and didnt waken till quite a while -after sunup. It was another warm, fine morning; soon the post road led, -not between shabby villages and towns or struggling farms, but past -the stone or brick walls of opulent estates. Now and then I caught a -glimpse between old, well-tended trees of magnificent houses either -a century old or built to resemble those dating from that prosperous -time. I could not but share the general dislike for the wealthy Whigs -who owned these places, their riches contrasting with the common -poverty and deriving from exploitation of the United States as a -colony, but I could not help enjoying the beauty of their surroundings. - -The highway was better traveled here also; I passed other walkers, -quite a few wagons, a carriage or two, several peddlers and a number -of ladies and gentlemen on horseback. This was the first time I’d seen -women riding astride, a practice shocking to the sensitivities of -Wappinger Falls which also condemned the fashion, imported from the -Chinese Empire by way of England, of feminine trousers. Having learned -that women were bipedal, both customs seemed sensible to me. - -I had the post road to myself for some miles between turns when I heard -a commotion beyond the stone wall to my left. This was followed by an -angry shout and shrill words impossible to distinguish. My progress -halted, I instinctively shifted my bundle to my left hand as though to -leave my right free for defence, but against what I had no idea. - -The shouts came closer; a boy of about my own age scrambled frantically -over the wall, dislodging some of the smaller lichen-covered rocks on -top and sending them rolling into the ditch. He looked at me, startled, -then paused for a long instant at the road’s edge, undecided which way -to run. - -He was barefoot and wore a jute sack as a shirt, with holes cut for his -arms, and ragged cotton pants. His face was little browner than my own -had often been at the end of a summer’s work under a burning sun. - -He came to the end of indecision and started across the highway, legs -pumping high, head turned watchfully. A splendid tawny stallion cleared -the wall in a soaring jump, his rider bellowing, “There you are, you -damned black coon!” - -He rode straight for the fugitive, quirt upraised, lips thickened and -eyes rolling in rage. The victim dodged and turned; in no more doubt -than I that the horseman meant to ride him down. He darted by me, so -close I heard the labored rasp of breathing. - -The rider swerved, and he too twisted around me as though I were the -post at the far turn of a racecourse. Reflexively I put out my hand to -grab at the reins and stop the assault. Indeed, my fingers actually -touched the leather and grasped it for a fraction of a second before -they fell away. - -Then I was alone in the road again as both pursued and pursuer vaulted -back over the fence. The whole scene of anger and terror could not have -lasted two minutes; I strained my ears to hear the shouts coming from -farther and farther away. Quiet fell again; a squirrel flirted his tail -and sped down one tree trunk and up another. The episode might never -have happened. - -I shifted my bundle back and began walking again—less briskly now. My -legs felt heavy and there was an involuntary twitch in the muscles of -my arm. - -Why hadnt I held on to the rein and delayed the hunter, at least long -enough to give his quarry a fair start? What had made me draw back? -It had not been fear, at least in the usual sense, for I knew I wasnt -timorous of the horseman. I was sure I could have dragged him down if -he had taken his quirt to me. - -Yet I had been afraid. Afraid of interfering, of meddling in affairs -which were no concern of mine, of risking action on quick judgment. -I had been immobilized by the fear of asserting my sympathies, my -presumptions, against events. - -Walking slowly down the road I experienced deep shame. I might, I could -have saved someone from hurt; I had perhaps had the power for a brief -instant to change the course of a whole life. I had been guilty of a -cowardice far worse than mere fear for my skin. I could have wept with -mortification—done anything, in fact, but turn back and try to rectify -my failure. - -The rest of the day was gloomy as I alternately taunted and feebly -excused myself. The fugitive might have been a trespasser or a servant; -his fault might have been slowness, rudeness, theft or attempted -murder. Whatever it was, any retaliation the white man chose could be -inflicted with impunity. He would not be punished or even tried for it. -Popular opinion was unanimous for Negro emigration to Africa, voluntary -or forced; those who went westward to join the unconquered Sioux or -Nez Perce were looked upon as depraved. Any Negro who didnt embark for -Liberia or Sierra Leone, regardless of whether he had the fare or not, -deserved anything that happened to him in the United States. - -It was because I held, somewhat vaguely, a stubborn refusal to accept -this conventional view, a refusal never precisely reasoned and little -more, perhaps, than romantic rebellion against my mother in favor of -my disreputable Grandfather Backmaker, that I suffered. I couldnt -excuse my failure on the grounds that action would have been considered -outrageous. It would not have been considered outrageous by me. - -I pushed self-contempt at my passivity aside as best I could and strove -to recapture the mood of yesterday, succeeding to some extent as the -memory of the scene came back less insistently. I even tried pretending -the episode had perhaps not been quite as serious as it seemed, or that -the pursued had somehow in the end evaded the pursuer. I could not -make what had happened not happen; the best I could do was minimize my -culpability. - -That night I slept a little way from the road and in the morning -started off at dawn. Although I was now little more than twenty miles -from the metropolis the character of the country had hardly changed. -Perhaps the farms were smaller and closer together, their juxtaposition -to the estates more incongruous. But traffic was continual now, with no -empty stretches on the roads, and the small towns had horse-drawn cars -running on iron tracks embedded in the cobbles. - -It was late afternoon when I crossed Spuyten Duyvil Creek to Manhattan. -Between me and the city now lay a wilderness of squatters’ shacks -made of old boards, barrel-staves and other discarded rubbish. Lean -goats and mangy cats nosed through rubble heaps of broken glass and -earthenware demijohns. Mounds of garbage lay beside aimless creeks -struggling blindly for the rivers. As clearly as though it had been -proclaimed on signposts this was an area of outcasts and fugitives, of -men and women ignored and tolerated by the law so long as they kept -within the confines of their horrible slum. - -Strange and repugnant as the place was, I hesitated to keep on going -and arrive in the city at nightfall, but it seemed unlikely there was a -place to sleep among the shacks. Once away from the order and sobriety -of the post road one could be lost in the squalid maze; undefined -threats of vaguely dreadful fates seemed to rise from it like vapors. - -Then the fading light revealed the anomaly of a venerable mansion -set far back from the highway, with grounds as yet unusurped by the -encroaching stews. The house was in ruins; the surrounding gardens -lost in brush and weeds. Evidently a watchman or caretaker guarded its -forlorn dignity or had very recently abandoned it; I could not imagine -its remaining long without being entirely overrun otherwise. - -It was almost fully dark as I made my way cautiously toward the -remains of an old summerhouse. Its roof was fallen in and it was -densely enclosed by ancient rosebushes whose thorns, I thought, when -they pricked my fingers as I struggled through them, ought to give -warning of any intruder. For weatherworthiness this shelter had little -advantage over the hovels, yet somehow the fact that it had survived -seemed to make it a more secure retreat. - -I stretched out on the dank boards and slept fitfully, disturbed by -dreams that the old mansion was filled with people from a past time -who begged me to save them from the slumdwellers and their house from -being further ravaged. Brokenly I protested I was helpless—in true -dream manner I then became helpless, unable to move—that I could not -interfere with what had to happen; they moaned and wrung their hands -and faded away. Still, I slept, and in the morning the cramps in my -muscles and the aches in my bones disappeared in the excitement of the -remaining miles to the city. - -And how suddenly it grew up around me, not as though it was a fixed -collection of buildings which I approached, but as if I stood still -while the wood and stone, iron and brick, sprang into being all about. - -New York, in 1938, had a population of nearly a million, having grown -very slowly since the close of the War of Southron Independence. -Together with the half million in the city of Brooklyn this represented -by far the largest concentration of people in the United States, though -of course it could not compare with the great Confederate centers -of Washington, now including Baltimore and Alexandria, St Louis, or -Leesburg (once Mexico City). - -The change from the country and the dreadful slums through which I -had passed was startling. Cable-cars whizzed northward as far as -Fifty-ninth Street on the west side and all the way to Eighty-seventh -on the east, while horse-cars furnished convenient crosstown -transportation every few blocks. Express steam trains ran through -bridged cuts on Madison Avenue, an engineering achievement of which -New Yorkers were vastly proud. - -Bicycles, rare around Wappinger Falls, were thick as flies, darting -ahead and alongside drayhorses pulling wallowing vans, carts or -wagons. Prancing trotters drew private carriages, buggies, broughams, -victorias, hansoms, dogcarts or sulkies; neither the cyclists, coachmen -nor horses seemed overawed or discommoded by occasional minibiles -chuffing their way swiftly and implacably over cobblestones or asphalt. - -Incredibly intricate traceries of telegraph wires swarmed overhead, -crossing and recrossing at all angles, slanting upward into offices -and flats or downward to stores, a reminder that no urban family with -pretensions to gentility would be without the clacking instrument in -the parlor, that every child learned the Morse code before he could -read. Thousands of sparrows considered the wires properly their own; -they perched and swung, quarreled and scolded on them, leaving only to -satisfy their voracity upon the steaming mounds of horsedung below. - -The country boy who had never seen anything more metropolitan than -Poughkeepsie was tremendously impressed. Buildings of eight or ten -storeys were common, and there were many of fourteen or fifteen, -serviced by pneumatic English lifts, that same marvelous invention -which permitted the erection of veritable skyscrapers in Washington and -Leesburg. - -Above them balloons moved gracefully through the air, guided and -controlled as skillfully as old-time sailing vessels. These were not -entirely novel to me; I had seen more of them than I had minibiles, -but never so many as here. In a single hour, gawking upward, I counted -seven, admiring how nicely calculated their courses were, for they -seldom came so low as to endanger lives beneath by having to throw out -sandbags in order to rise. That they could so maneuver over buildings -of greatly uneven height showed this to be the air age indeed. - -Most exciting of all was the great number of people who walked, rode, -or merely stood around on the streets. It seemed hardly believable -so many humans could crowd themselves so closely. Beggars pleaded, -touts wheedled, peddlers hawked, newsboys shouted, bootblacks chanted. -Messengers pushed their way, loafers yawned, ladies shopped, drunks -staggered. For long moments I paused, standing stock still, not -thinking of going on, merely watching the spectacle. - -How far I walked, how many different parts of the city I explored that -day, I have no idea. I felt I had hardly begun to fondle the sharp edge -of wonder when it was twilight and the gas lamps, lit simultaneously by -telegraph sparks, gleamed and shone on nearly every corner. Whatever -had been drab and dingy in daylight—and even my eyes had not been -blind to the dirt and decay—became in an instant magically enchanting, -softened and shadowed into mysterious beauty. I breathed the dusty air -with a relish I had never known in the country and felt I was inhaling -some elixir for the spirit. - -But spiritual sustenance is not quite enough for a seventeen-year-old, -especially one who is beginning to be hungry and tired. I was -desperately anxious to hoard the three precious dollars in my pocket, -for I had little idea how to go about replacing them, once they were -spent. I could not do without eating, however, so I stopped in at the -first gaslit bakery, buying, after some consideration, a penny loaf, -and walked on through the entrancing streets, munching at it and -feeling like an historical character. - -Now the fronts of the tinugraph lyceums were lit up by porters with -long tapers, so that they glowed yellow and inviting, each heralded -with a boldly lettered broadside or dashingly drawn cartoon advertising -the amusement to be found within. I was tempted to see for myself this -magical entertainment of pictures taken so close together they gave -the illusion of motion, but the lowest admission price was five cents. -Some of the more garish theaters, which specialized in the incredible -phonotos—tinugraphs ingeniously combined with a sound-producing machine -operated by compressed air, so that the pictures seemed not only to -move but to talk—actually charged ten or even fifteen cents for an -hour’s spectacle. - -By this time I ached with tiredness; the insignificant bundle of shirt -and books had become a burden. I was pressed by the question of where -to sleep and began thinking more kindly than I would have believed -possible of last night’s slum. I didnt connect my need with the glass -transparencies behind which gaslight shone through the unpainted -letters of BEDS, ROOMS, or HOTEL, for my mind was hazily fixed on -some urban version of the inn at Wappinger Falls or the Poughkeepsie -Commercial House. - -I became more and more confused as fatigue blurred impressions of still -newer marvels, so that I am not entirely sure whether it was one or a -succession of girls who offered delights for a quarter. I know I was -solicited by crimps for the Confederate Legion who operated openly in -defiance of United States law, and an incredible number of beggars -accosted me. - -At last I thought of asking directions. But without realizing it I had -wandered from the thronged wooden or granite sidewalks of the brightly -lit avenues into an unpeopled, darkened area where the buildings were -low and frowning, where the flicker of a candle or the yellow of a -kerosene lamp in windows far apart were uncontested by any streetlights. - -All day my ears had been pressed by the clop of hooves, the rattling -of iron tires or the puffing of minibiles; now the empty street was -unnaturally still. The suddenly looming figure of another walker seemed -the luckiest of chances. - -“Excuse me, friend,” I said. “Can you tell me where’s the nearest inn, -or anywhere I can get a bed for the night cheap?” - -I felt him peering at me. “Rube, huh? Much money you got?” - -“Th—Not very much. That’s why I want to find cheap lodging.” - -“OK, Reuben. Come along.” - -“Oh, don’t trouble to show me. Just give me an idea how to get there.” - -He grunted. “No trouble, Reuben. No trouble at all.” - -Taking my arm just above the elbow in a firm grip be steered me along. -For the first time I began to feel alarm. However, before I could -attempt to shrug free he had shoved me into the mouth of an alley, -discernible only because its absolute blackness contrasted with the -relative darkness of the street. - -“Wait—” I began. - -“In here, Reuben. Soundest night’s sleep youve had in a long time. And -cheap—it’s free.” - -I started to break loose and was surprised to find he no longer held -me. Before I could even begin to think, a terrific blow fell on the -right side of my head and I traded the blackness of the alley for the -blackness of insensibility. - - - - -_3._ _A MEMBER OF THE GRAND ARMY_ - - -I was recalled to consciousness by a smell. More accurately a cacophony -of smells. I opened my eyes and shut them against the unbearable pain -of light; I groaned at the equally unbearable pain in my skullbones. -Feverishly and against my will I tried to identify the walloping odors -around me. - -The stink of death and rottenness was thick. I knew there was an -outhouse—many outhouses—nearby. The ground I lay on, where it was not -stony, was damp with the water of endless dishwashings and launderings. -The noisomeness of offal suggested that the garbage of many families -had never been buried, but left to rot in the alley or near it. In -addition there was the smell of death, not the sweetish effluvium of -blood, such as any country boy who has helped butcher a bull-calf or -hog knows, but the unmistakable stench of corrupt, maggotty flesh. -Besides all this there was the spoor of humanity. - -A new discomfort at last forced my eyes open for the second time. A -hard surface was pressing painful knobs into my exposed skin. I looked -and felt around me. - -The knobs were the scattered cobbles of a fetid alley; not a foot away -was the cadaver of a dog, thoroughly putrescent; beyond him a drunk -retched and groaned. A trickle of liquid swill wound its way delicately -over the moldy earth between the stones. My coat, shirt, and shoes were -gone, so was the bundle with my books. There was no use searching my -pocket for the three dollars. I knew I was lucky the robber had left me -my pants and my life. - -A middleaged man, at least he looked middleaged to my youthful -eye, regarded me speculatively over the head of the drunk. A pale, -elliptical scar interrupted the wrinkles on his forehead, its upper -point making a permanent part in his thin hair. Tiny red veins marked -his nose; his eyes were bloodshot. - -“Pretty well cleaned yuh out, huh boy?” - -I nodded—and then was sorry for the motion. - -“Reward of virtue. Assuming you was virtuous, which I assume. Come to -the same end as me, stinking drunk. Only I still got my shirt. Couldnt -hock it no matter how thirsty I got.” - -I groaned. - -“Where yuh from boy? What rural—see, sober now—precincts miss you?” -“Wappinger Falls, near Poughkeepsie. My name’s Hodge Backmaker.” - -“Well now, that’s friendly of you, Hodge. I’m George Pondible. -Periodic. Just tapering off.” - -I hadnt an idea what Pondible was talking about. Trying to understand -made my head worse. - -“Took everything, I suppose? Havent a nickel left to help a hangover?” - -“My head,” I mumbled, quite superfluously. - -He staggered to his feet. I slowly sat up, tenderly touching the lump -over my ear with my fingertips. - -“Best thing—souse it in the river. Take more to fix mine.” -“But ... can I go through the streets like this?” - -“Right,” he said. “Quite right.” - -He stooped down and put one hand beneath the drunk, who murmured -unintelligibly. With the other he removed the jacket, a maneuver -betraying practice, for it elicited no protest from the victim. He -then performed the still more delicate operation of depriving him of -his shirt and shoes, tossing them all to me. They were a loathsome -collection of rags not fit to clean a manurespreader. The jacket was -torn and greasy, the pockets hanging like the ears of a dog; the shirt -was a filthy tatter, the shoes shapeless fragments of leather with -great gapes in the soles. - -“It’s stealing,” I protested. - -“Right. Put them on and let’s get out of here.” - -The short walk to the river was through streets lacking the glamour of -those of the day before. The tenements were smokestreaked, with steps -between the parting bricks where mortar had fallen out; great hunks -of wall were kept in place only by the support of equally crazy ones -abutting. The wretched things I wore were better suited than Pondible’s -to this neighborhood, though his would have marked him tramp and -vagrant in Wappinger Falls. - -The Hudson too was soiled, with an oily scum and debris, so that I -hesitated to dip even the purloined shirt, much less my aching head. -But urged on by Pondible I climbed down the slimy stones between two -docks and pushing the flotsam aside, ducked myself in the unappetizing -water. - -“Fixes your head,” said Pondible with more assurance than accuracy. -“Now for mine.” - -The sun was hot and the shirt dried on my back as we walked away from -the river, the jacket over my arm. Now that my mind was clearing my -despair grew rapidly; for a moment I wished I had waded farther into -the Hudson and drowned. - -Admitting any plans I’d had were nebulous and impractical, they had -yet been plans of a kind, something in which I could put, or force, -my hopes. My appearance had been presentable, I had the means to keep -myself fed and sheltered for a few weeks at least. Now everything was -changed, any future was gone, literally knocked out of existence and I -had nothing to look forward to, nothing on which to exert my energies -and dreams. To go back to Wappinger Falls was out of the question, not -simply to dodge the bitterness of admitting defeat so quickly, but -because I knew how relieved my mother and father must have been to be -freed of my uselessness. Yet I had nothing to expect in the city except -starvation or a life of petty crime. - -Pondible guided me into a saloon, a dark, secretive place, gaslit even -this early, with a steam piano tinkling the popular, mournful tune, -_Mormon Girl_: - - There’s a girl in the state of Deseret - I love and I’m trying to for-get. - Forget her for my tired feet’s sake - Don’t wanna walk to the Great Salt Lake. - They ever build that railroad toooo the ocean - I’d return my Mormon girl’s devotion. - But the tracks stop short in Ioway.... - -I couldnt remember the next line. Something about Injuns say. - -“Shot,” Pondible ordered the bartender, “and buttermilk for my chum -here.” - -The bartender kept on polishing the wood in front of him with a wet, -dirty rag. “Got any jack?” - -“Pay you tomorrow, friend.” - -The bartender’s uninterrupted industry said clearly, then drink -tomorrow. - -“Listen,” argued Pondible; “I’m tapering off. You know me. Ive spent -plenty of money here.” - -The bartender shrugged. “I don’t own the place; anything goes over the -bar has to be rung up on the cash register.” - -“Youre lucky to have a job that pays wages.” - -“Times I’m not so sure. Why don’t you indent?” - -Pondible looked shocked. “At my age? What would a company pay for a -wornout old carcass? A hundred dollars at the top. Then a release in a -couple of years with a med holdback so I’d have to report every week -somewhere. No, friend, Ive come through this long a free man—in a -manner of speaking—and I’ll stick it out. Let’s have that shot; you can -see for yourself I’m tapering off. Youll get your jack tomorrow.” -I could see the bartender was weakening; each refusal was less surly -and at last, to my astonishment, he set out a glass and bottle -for Pondible and an earthenware mug of buttermilk for me. To my -astonishment, I say, for credit was rarely extended on any scale, large -or small. The inflation, though sixty years in the past, had left -indelible impressions; people paid cash or did without. Debt was not -only disgraceful, it was dangerous; the notion things could be paid -for while, or even after, they were being used was as unthinkable as -was the idea of circulating paper money instead of silver or gold. - -I drank my buttermilk slowly, gratefully aware Pondible had ordered -the most filling and sustaining liquid in the saloon. For all his -unprepossessing appearance and peculiar moral notions, my new -acquaintance seemed to have a rude wisdom as well as a rude kindliness. - -He swallowed his whiskey and called for a quart pot of light beer which -he sipped slowly. “That’s the trick of it, Hodge. Avoid the second -shot. If you can.” He sipped again. “Now what?” - -“What?” I repeated. - -“Now what are you going to do? What’s your aim in life anyway?” - -“None—now. I ... wanted to learn. To study.” -He frowned. “Out of books?” - -“How else?” - -“Books is mostly written and printed in foreign countries.” - -“There might be more written here if more people had time to learn.” - -Pondible wiped specks of froth from his beard with the back of his -hand. “Might and mightnt. Oh, some of my best friends are book-readers, -don’t get me wrong, boy.” - -“I’d thought,” I burst out, “I’d thought to try Columbia College. To -offer—to beg to be allowed to do any kind of work for tuition.” - -“Hmm. I doubt it would have worked.” - -“Anyway I can’t go now, looking like this.” - -“Might be as well. We need fighters, not readers.” - -“‘We?’ ” - -He did not explain. “Well, you could always take the advice our friend -here gave me and indent. A young healthy lad like you could get -yourself a thousand or twelve hundred dollars—” - -“Sure. And be a slave for the rest of my life.” - -“Oh, indenting aint slavery. It’s better. And worse. For one thing the -company buys you won’t hold you after you arent worth your keep. Not -that long, on account of bookkeeping; they lose when they break even. -So they cancel your indenture without a cent payment. Course theyll -take a med holdback so as to get a dollar or two for your corpse, but -that’s a long time away for you.” - -An inconceivably long time. The medical holdback was the least of my -distaste, though it had played a large part in the discussions at -home. My mother had heard that cadavers for dissection were shipped -to foreign medical schools like so much cargo. She was shocked not so -much at the thought of the scientific use of her dead body as at its -disposal outside the United States. - -“Yes,” I said. “A long time away. So I wouldnt be a slave for life; -just thirty or forty years. Till I wasnt any good to anyone, including -myself.” - -He seemed to be enjoying himself as he drank his beer. “Youre a gloomy -gus, Hodge. Taint’s bad’s that. Indenting’s pretty strictly regulated. -That’s the idea anyway. I aint saying the big companies don’t get -away with a lot. You can’t be made to work over sixty hours a week. -Ten hours a day. With twelve hundred dollars you could get all the -education you want in your spare time and then turn your learning to -account by making enough to buy yourself free.” - -I tried to think about it dispassionately, though goodness knows I’d -been over the ground often enough. It was true the amount, a not -improbable one, would see me through college. But Pondible’s notion of -turning my “learning to account” I knew to be a fantasy. Perhaps in -the Confederate States or the German Union knowledge was rewarded with -wealth, or at least a comfortable living, but any study I pursued—I -knew my own “impracticality” well enough by now—was bound to yield few -material benefits in the backward United States, which existed as a -nation at all only on the sufferance and unresolved rivalries of the -great powers. I’d be lucky to struggle through school and eke out some -kind of living as a freeman; I could hardly hope to earn enough to buy -back an indenture on what was left of my time after subtracting sixty -hours a week. - -“It wouldnt work,” I said despondently. - -Pondible nodded, as though this were the conclusion he had expected me -to come to. “Well then,” he said, “there’s the gangs.” - -I looked my horror. - -He laughed. “Forget your country rearing. What’s right? What the -strongest country or the strongest man says it is. The government says -gangs are wrong, but the government aint strong enough to stop them. -And maybe they don’t do as much killing as people think. Only when -somebody works against them—just like the government. Sure they have -to be paid off, but it’s just like taxes. If you leave the parsons’ -sermons out of it there’s no difference joining the gangs than the -army—if we had one—or the Confederate Legion—” - -“They tried to recruit me yesterday. Are they always so....” - -“Bold?” For the first time Pondible looked angry and I thought the scar -on his forehead turned whiter. “Yes, damn them. The Legion must be half -United States citizens. When they have to put down a disturbance or run -some little cockroach country they send off the Confederate Legion—made -up of men who ought to be the backbone of an army of our own.” - -“But the police—don’t they ever try to stop them?” - -“What’d I tell you about right being what the strongest country says -it is? Sure we got laws against recruiting into a foreign army. So we -squawk. And what have we got to back it up with? So the Confederate -Legion goes right on recruiting the men who have to beg for a square -meal in their own country. Well, the government is pretty near as bad -off when it comes to the gangs. Best it can do is pick off some of the -little ones and forget about the big ones. Most of the gangsters never -even get shot at. They all live high, high as anybody in the twenty-six -states, and every so often there’s a dividend—more than a workman makes -in a lifetime.” - -I began to be sure my benefactor was a gangster. And yet ... if this -were so why had he wheedled credit from the barkeep? Was it simply an -elaborate blind? It seemed hardly worth it. - -“A dividend,” I said, “or a rope.” - -“Most gangsters die of old age. Or competition. Aint one been hung I -can think of the last five-six years. But I see youve no stomach for -it. Tell me, Hodge—you Whig or Populist?” - -The sudden change of subject bewildered me. “Why ... Populist, I guess.” - -“Why?” - -“Oh ... I don’t know....” I thought of some of the discussions that -used to go on among the men around the smithy. “The Whigs’ ‘Property, -Protection, Permanent Population’ —what does it mean to me?” -“Tell you, boy, means this: Property for the Confederates who own -factories here and don’t want to pay taxes. Protection for foreign -capital to come in and buy or hire. Permanent Population—cheap native -labor. Build up a prosperous employing class.” - -“Yes, I know. I can’t see how it helps. Ive heard Whigs at home say the -money’s bound to seep down from above, but it seems awfully roundabout. -And not very efficient.” - -He reached over and clapped me lightly on the shoulder. “That’s my -boy,” he said. “They can’t fool you.” - -I wasnt entirely pleased by his commendation. “And protection means -paying more for things than theyre worth.” - -“Taint only that, Hodge, it’s a damn lie as well. Whigs never even -tried protection when they was in. Didnt dast. Knew the other countries -wouldnt let them.” - -“As for ‘permanent population’ ... well, those who can’t make a living -are going to go on emigrating to prosperous countries. Permanent -population means dwindling population if it means anything.” - -“Ah,” he said. “You got a head on your shoulders, Hodge. Youre all -right; books won’t hurt you. But what about emigrating? Yourself, I -mean?” - -I shook my head. - -He nodded, chewing on a soggy corner of his mustache. “Don’t want to -leave the old ship, huh?” - -I don’t suppose I would have put it exactly that way, or even fully -formulated the thought. I was willing to exchange the familiar for the -unknown—up to a certain point. The thought of giving up the country -in which I’d been born was repugnant. Call it loyalty, or a sense of -having ties with the past, or just stubbornness. “Something like that,” -I said. - -“Well now, let’s see what weve got.” He stuck up a dirty and slightly -tremulous hand, turning down a finger as he stated each point. “One, -patriot; two, Populist; three, don’t like indenting; four, prosperity’s -got to come from the poor upward, not the rich down.” He hesitated, -holding his thumb. “You heard of the Grand Army?” - -“Who hasnt? Not much difference between them and the regular gangs.” - -“Now what makes you say that?” - -“Why ... everybody knows it” - -“Do, huh? Maybe they know it all wrong. Look here now—and remember -about the Confederate Legion riding over the laws of the United -States—what would you think ought to be done about foreigners from the -strong countries who come here and walk all over us? Or the Whigs who -do their dirty work for them?” - -“I don’t know,” I said. “Not murder, certainly.” - -“Murder,” he repeated. “That’s a word, Hodge. Means what you want it -to mean. Wasnt murder back during the War when Union soldiers was -trying to keep the country from being split up. Taint murder today when -somebody’s hung for rape or counterfeiting. Anyhow the Grand Army don’t -go in for murder.” - -I said nothing. - -“Oh, accidents happen; wouldnt deny it. Maybe they get a little rougher -than they intend with Whig traitors or Confederate agents, but you -can’t make bacon out of a live hog. Point is the Grand Army’s the only -thing in the country that even tries to restore it to what it once was. -What was fought for in the War.” - -I don’t know whether it was the thought of Grandfather Backmaker or the -unassuaged guilt for the miserable figure I had cut only three days -back that made me ask, “And do they want to give the Negroes equality?” - -He drew back sharply, shock showing clearly on his face. “Touch of the -tarbrush in you, boy? By—” He bent forward, looking at me searchingly. -“No, I can see you aint. Just some notions youll outgrow. You just -don’t understand. We might have won that war if it hadnt been for the -Abolitionists.” - -Would we? I’d heard it said often enough; it would have been -presumptuous to doubt it. - -“The darkies are better off among their own,” he said; “they never -should have been here in the first place; black and white can’t mix. -Leave ideas like that alone, Hodge; there’s plenty and enough to be -done. Chase the foreigners out, teach their flunkies a lesson, build -the country up again.” - -“Are you trying to get me to join the Grand Army?” - -Pondible finished his beer. “Won’t answer that one, boy. Let’s say I -just want to get you somewheres to sleep, three meals a day, and some -of that education youre so fired up about. Come along.” - - - - -_4._ _TYSS_ - - -He took me to a bookseller’s and stationery store on Astor Place with -a printshop in the basement and the man to whom he introduced me was -the owner, Roger Tyss. I spent almost six years there, and when I left -neither the store nor its contents nor Tyss himself seemed to have -changed or aged. - -I know books were sold and others bought to take their places on the -shelves or to be piled towerwise on the floor. I helped cart in many -rolls of sulphide paper and bottles of printers’ ink, and delivered -many bundles of damp pamphlets, broadsides, letterheads and envelopes. -Inked ribbons for typewriting machines, penpoints, ledgers and -daybooks, rulers, paperclips, legal forms and cubes of indiarubber -came and went. Yet the identical, invincible disorder, the synonymous -dogeared volumes, the indistinguishable stock, the unaltered cases of -type seemed fixed for six years, all covered by the same film of dust -which responded to vigorous sweeping only by rising into the air and -immediately settling back on precisely the same spots. - -Roger Tyss grew six years older and I can only charge it to the -heedless eye of youth that I saw no signs of that aging. Like Pondible -and, as I learned, so many members of the Grand Army, he wore a beard. -His was closely trimmed, wiry and grizzled. Above the beard and across -his forehead were many fine lines which always held some of the grime -of the store or printing press. You did not dwell long on either beard -or wrinkles however; what held you were his eyes: large, dark, fierce -and compassionate. You might have dismissed him at first glance as -simply an undersized, stoopshouldered, slovenly printer, had it not -been for those eyes which seemed in perpetual conflict with his other -features. - -“Robbed and bludgeoned, ay?” he said with a curious disrespect for -sequence after Pondible had explained me to him. “Dog eats dog, and the -survivors survive. Backmaker, ay? Is that an American name?” - -So far as I knew, I said, it was. - -“Well, well; let’s not pry too deeply. So you want to learn. Why?” - -“Why?” The question was too big for an answer, yet an answer of some -kind was expected. “I guess because there’s nothing else so important.” - -“Wrong,” he said triumphantly, “wrong and illusory. Since nothing is -ultimately important there can be no degrees involved. Books are the -waste-product of the human mind.” - -“Yet you deal in them,” I ventured. - -“I’m alive and I shall die too; this doesnt mean I approve of either -life or death. Well, if you are going to learn you are going to learn; -there’s nothing I can do about it As well here as another place.” - -“Thank you, sir.” - -“Gratitude, Hodgins”—he never then nor later condescended to the -familiar “Hodge” nor did I ever address or even think of him except as -Mr Tyss—“Gratitude, Hodgins, is an emotion disagreeable both to the -giver and to the receiver. We do what we must; gratitude, pity, love, -hate, all that cant, is superfluous.” - -I considered this statement reflectively. - -“Look you,” he went on, “I’ll feed you and lodge you, teach you to set -type and give you the run of the books. I’ll pay you no money; you can -steal from me if you must You can learn as much here in four months as -in a college in four years—if you persist in thinking it’s learning you -want—or you can learn nothing. I’ll expect you to do the work I think -needs doing; any time you don’t like it youre free to go.” - -And so our agreement, if so simple and unilateral a statement can be -called an agreement, was made within ten minutes after he met me for -the first time. For six years the store was home and school, and Roger -Tyss was employer, teacher and father to me. He was never my friend. -Rather he was my adversary. I respected him and the longer I knew him -the deeper became my respect, but it was an ambivalent feeling and -attached only to those qualities which he himself would have scorned. -I detested his ideas, his philosophy and many of his actions, and this -detestation grew until I was no longer able to live near him. But I am -getting ahead of my story. - -Tyss knew books, not merely as a bookman knows them—binding, size, -edition, value—but as a scholar. He seemed to have read enormously and -on every conceivable subject, many of them quite useless in practical -application. (I remember a long discourse on heraldry, filled with -terms like “paley-bendy” or, “fusils conjoined in fess, gules” and -“sable demi-lions.” He regarded such erudition, indeed any erudition, -contemptuously. When I asked why he had bothered to pick it up, his -retort was, “Why have you bothered to pick up calluses, Hodgins?”) - -As a printer he followed the same pattern; he was not concerned solely -with setting up a neat page; he sometimes spent hours laying out some -trivia, which could have interested only its author, until he struck a -proof which satisfied him. He wrote much on his own account: poetry, -essays, manifestoes, composing directly from the font, running off a -single proof which he read—always expressionlessly—and immediately -destroyed before pieing the type. - -I slept on a mattress kept under one of the counters during the day; -Tyss had a couch hardly more luxurious, downstairs by the flatbed -press. Each morning before it was time to open he sent me across -town on the horse-cars to the Washington Market to buy six pounds of -beef—twelve on Saturdays, for the market, unlike the bookstore, was -closed Sundays. It was always the same cut, heart of ox or cow, dressed -by the butcher in thin strips. After I had been with him long enough to -tire of the fare, but not long enough to realize the obstinacy of his -nature, I begged him to let me substitute pork or mutton, or at least -some other part of the beef, like brains or tripe which were even -cheaper. He always answered, “The heart, Hodgins. Purchase the heart; -it is the vital food.” - -While I was on my errand he would buy three loaves of yesterday’s -bread, still tolerably fresh; when I returned he took a long -two-pronged fork, our only utensil, for the establishment was innocent -of either cutlery or dishes, and spearing a strip of heart held it -over the gas flame of a light standard until it was sooted and toasted -rather than broiled. We tore the loaves with our fingers and with a -hunk of bread in one hand and a strip of heart in the other we each ate -a pound of meat and half a loaf of bread for breakfast, dinner, and -supper. - -“Man is uniquely a savage eater of carrion,” he informed me, chewing -vigorously. “What lion or tiger would relish another’s ancient, -putrefying kill? What vulture or hyena displays human ferocity? Too, we -are cannibals at heart. We eat our gods; we have always eaten our gods.” - -“Isnt that figurative, or poetic, Mr Tyss? I mean, doesnt it refer to -the grain of wheat which is ‘killed’ by the harvester and buried by the -sower?” - -“You think the gods were modelled on John Barleycorn and not John -Barleycorn on them—to conceal their fate? I fear you have a higher -opinion of mankind than is warranted, Hodgins.” - -“I’m not sure I know what you mean by gods.” - -“Embodiments or personifications of human aspirations. The good, the -true, the beautiful—with winged feet or bull’s body.” - -“How about ... oh, Chronos? Or Satan?” - -He licked his fingers of the meat juices, obviously pleased. “Satan. An -excellent example. Epitome of man’s futile longing to upset and defy -the divine plan—I use the word ‘divine’ derisively, Hodgins—; who does -not admire and reverence Lucifer in his heart? Well, having made a god -out of the devil we eat him daily in a two-fold sense: by swallowing -the myth of his enmity (a truer friend there never was), and by -digesting his great precepts of pride and curiosity and strength. And -you see for yourself how he finds interesting thoughts for idle minds -to speculate on. Let’s get to work.” - -He expected me to work, but he was far from a hard or inconsiderate -master. In 1938-44, when the country was being ground deeper into -colonialism, there were few employers so lenient. I read much, -generally when I pleased, and despite his jeers at learning in the -abstract he encouraged me, even going to the length, if a particular -book was not to be found in his considerable stock, of letting me get -it from one of his competitors, to be written up against his account. - -Nor was he scrupulous about the time I took on his errands. I continued -to ramble and sight-see the city much as though I had nothing else to -do. And if, from time to time, I discovered there were girls in New -York who didnt look too unkindly on a tall youth even though he still -carried some of the rustic air of Wappinger Falls, he never questioned -why the walk of half a mile took me a couple of hours. - -True, he kept to his original promise never to pay me wages, but he -often handed me coins for pocketmoney, evidently satisfied I wasnt -stealing, and he replaced my makeshift wardrobe with worn but decent -clothing. - -He had not exaggerated the possibilities of the books surrounding -me. His brief warning, “—you can learn nothing,” was lost on me. I -suppose a different temperament might have become surfeited with -paper and print; I can only say I wasnt. I nibbled, tasted, gobbled -books. After the store was shut I hooked a student lamp to the nearest -gasjet by means of a long tube, and lying on my pallet with a dozen -volumes handy, I read till I was no longer able to keep my eyes open -or understand the words. Often I woke in the morning to find the light -still burning and my fingers holding the pages open. - -I think one of the first books to influence me strongly was the -monumental _Causes of American Decline and Decay_ by the always popular -expatriate historian, Henry Adams. I was particularly impressed by -the famous passage in which he reproves the “stay-at-home” Bostonian -essayists, William and Henry James, for their quixotic sacrifice -and espousal of a long-lost cause. History, said Sir Henry, who -had renounced his United States citizenship and been knighted by -William V, history is never directed or diverted by well-intentioned -individuals; it is the product of forces with geographical, not moral -roots. - -Possibly the learned expatriate was right, but my instinctive -sympathies lay with the Jameses, in spite of the fact that I had not -found their books enjoyable. This was due at least partly to the fact -that the small editions were badly printed and marred, at least so -foreign critics claimed, by an excessive use of Yankee colloquialisms, -consciously employed to demonstrate patriotism and disdain of imported -elegance. For some reason, obscure to me then, I did not mention -Adams to Tyss, though I usually turned to him with each of my fresh -discoveries. When he came upon me with an open book he would glance at -the running title over my shoulder and begin talking, either of the -particular work or of its topic. What he had to say gave me an insight -I might otherwise have missed, and turned me to other writers, other -aspects. He respected no authority simply because it was acclaimed or -established; he prodded me to examine every statement, every hypothesis -no matter how commonly accepted. - -Early in my employment I was attracted to a large framed parchment -he kept hanging, slightly askew and highly attractive to dust, over -his typecase. It was simply but beautifully printed in 16 point -Baskerville; I knew without being told that he had set it himself: - - _The Body of - Benjamin Franklin - Printer - Like the Cover of an Old Book - Stripped of Its Lettering and Gilding - Lies Here - Food for Worms. - But the Work Shall Not Be Lost - For it will, As he Believed, - Come Forth Again - In a new and Better Edition - Revised & Corrected - By - The Author._ - -When he caught me admiring it Tyss laughed. “Felicitous, isnt it, -Hodgins? But a lie, a perverse and probably hypocritical lie. There is -no Author; the book of life is simply a mess of pied type, a tale told -by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. There is no -plan, no synopsis to be filled in with pious hopes or sanctimonious -actions. There is nothing but a vast emptiness in the universe.” - -“The other day you told me we admired the devil for rebelling against a -plan.” - -He grinned. “So you expect consistency instead of truth from me, -Hodgins. There is no plan, authored by a Mind; it is this no-plan -against which Lucifer fought. But there is a plan too, a mindless plan, -which accounts for all our acts.” - -I had been reading an obscure Irish theologian, a Protestant curate of -some forsaken parish, so ill-esteemed he had been forced to publish his -sermons himself, named George B Shaw, and I had been impressed by his -forceful style. I quoted him to Tyss, perhaps as much to preen myself -as to counter his argument. - -“Nonsense. Ive seen the good parson’s book with its eighteenth-century -logic and its quaint rationalism, and know it for a waste of ink and -paper. Man does not think; he only thinks he thinks. An automaton, he -responds to external stimuli; he cannot order his thought.” - -“You mean that there’s no free will? Not even a marginal minimum of -choice?” - -“Exactly. The whole thing is an illusion. We do what we do because -someone else has done what he did; he did it because still another -someone did what he did. Every action is the rigid result of another -action.” - -“But there must have been a beginning,” I objected. “And if there was a -beginning, choice existed if only for that split second. And if choice -exists once it can exist again.” - -“You have the makings of a metaphysician, Hodgins,” he said -witheringly, for metaphysics was one of the most despised words in his -vocabulary. “The reasoning is infantile. Answering you and the Reverend -Shaw on your own level, I could say that time is a convention and that -all events occur simultaneously. Or if I grant its dimension I can ask, -What makes you think time is a simple straight line running flatly -through eternity? Why do you assume that time isnt curved? Can you -conceive of its end? Can you really imagine its beginning? Of course -not; then why arent both the same? The serpent with its tail in its -mouth?” - -“You mean we not only play a prepared script but repeat the identical -lines over and over and over for infinity? There’s no heaven in your -cosmos, only an unimaginable, never-ending hell.” - -He shrugged his shoulders. “That you should spout emotional apologetics -at me is part of what you call the script, Hodgins. You didnt select -the words nor speak them voluntarily. They were called into existence -by what I said, which in turn was mere response to what went before.” - -Weakly I was forced back to a more elementary attack. “You don’t act in -accordance with your own conviction.” - -He snorted. “A thoughtless remark, excusable only because automatic. -How could I act differently? Like you, I am a prisoner of stimuli.” - -“How pointless to risk ruin and imprisonment as a member of the Grand -Army when no one can change what’s predestined.” - -“Pointless or not, emotions and reflections are responses just as much -as actions. I can no more help engaging myself in the underground than -I can help breathing, or my heart beating, or dying when the time -comes. Nothing, they say, is certain but death and taxes; actually -everything is certain. Everything,” he repeated firmly. - -I went back to sorting some pamphlets which were to be sold for -wastepaper, shaking my head. His theory was unassailable; every -attack was discounted by the very nature of the thesis. That it was -false I didnt doubt; its impregnability made its falseness still more -terrifying. - -There were fully as many imaginary discussions with Tyss as real ones. -Yet even in these disembodied arguments I could gain no advantage. Why -do you look back on the War of Southron Independence with regret for -what might have been, if no might-have-been is possible? I asked him -mentally, knowing his answer, I cannot help myself, was no answer at -all. - -The logical illogic of it was only one of the multitude of -contradictions in him. The Grand Army to which he was devoted was -a violent organization of violent men. He himself was an advocate -and implement of violence—one illegal paper, the _True American_, -came from his press and I often saw crumpled proofs of large type -warnings to “Get Out of Town you Conf. TRAITOR or the GA will HANG -YOU!” Yet cruelty, other than intellectually, was repugnant to him; -his vindictiveness toward the Whigs and Confederates rose from -commiseration for the condition into which they had plunged the country. - -Pondible and the others who bore an indefinable resemblance to each -other, bearded or not, came to the store on Grand Army business, and I -was sure many of the errands I was sent on advanced or were supposed -to advance the Grand Army’s cause. Those who signed receipts with an -X—and in the beginning at least Tyss was strict about assurance of -delivery—seemed unlikely customers for the sort of merchandise we -handled. - -I was relieved, but puzzled and perhaps a little piqued, that aside -from the very first conversation with Pondible, no attempt was made to -persuade me into the organization. Tyss must have perceived this, for -he explained obliquely. - -“There’s the formative type, Hodgins, and the spectator type. One acts, -and the other is acted upon. One changes events, the other observes -them. Of course,” he went on hastily, “I’m not talking metaphysical -rubbish. When I say the formative type changes events I merely mean he -reacts to a given stimulus in a positive way while the spectator reacts -to the same circumstances negatively, both reactions being inevitable -and inescapable. Naturally, events are never changed.” - -“Why can’t one be one type sometimes and the other at other times? -Ive certainly heard of men of action who have sat down to write their -memoirs.” - -“You are confusing the after-effect of action with nonaction, the -dying ripples on a pond into which a stone has been tossed with the -still surface of one which has never been disturbed. No, Hodgins, the -two types are completely distinct and unchangeable. The Swiss police -chief, Carl Jung, has refined and improved the classifications of -Lombroso, showing how the formative type can always be detected.” - -I felt he was talking pure nonsense, even though I had never read -Lombroso or heard of Chief Jung. - -“To the formative type the spectator seems useless, to the spectator -the man of action is faintly absurd. A born observer would find the -earnest efforts of the Grand Army—the formation of skeleton companies, -the appointment of officers, the secret drills, the serious attempt to -become a real army—lacking in humor and repellent.” - -“You think I’m the spectator type, Mr Tyss?” - -“No doubt about it, Hodgins. Certain features might be deceptive at -first sight: the wide-spaced eyes, the restrained fleshiness of the -mouth, the elevation of the nostril; but they subordinate to more -subtle indicators. No question but that Chief Jung would put you down -as an observer.” - -If his fantastic reasoning and curious manner of classifying -personalities as though they were zoological specimens could relieve me -of having to refuse pointblank to join the Grand Army I was content. -While this hardly alleviated my disturbance at being, no matter how -remotely, accessory to mayhem, kidnaping and murder I compromised with -my conscience by trying to believe I might after all be mistaken in -thinking I was being used. There were times when I felt I ought boldly -to declare myself and leave the store but when I faced the prospect -of having to find a way to eat and sleep, even if I put aside the -imperative necessity of books, I lacked the courage. - -Spectator? Why not? Spectators had no difficult decisions to make. - - - - -_5._ _OF WHIGS AND POPULISTS_ - - -A country defeated in a bitter war and divested of half its territory -loses its drive and spirit and suffers a shock which is communicated -to all its people. For generations its citizens brood over what has -happened, preoccupied with the past and dreaming of a miraculous -change, until time brings apathy or a reversal of history. The Grand -Army, with its crude and brutal philosophy and methods, was pride’s -answer to defeat. - -It was not the only answer; the two major political parties had others. -The realistic Whigs wanted to fit the country and its economy into -actual world conditions, to subordinate it wholly and openly to the -great manufacturing nations and accept with gratitude foreign capital -and foreign protection. The immediate result would be more prosperity -for the propertied classes; they contended this would mean a gradual -raising of the standard of living since employers could hire more -hands, and indenture, faced by competition with wages, would dwindle -away. - -This the Populists denied. The government, they insisted when they were -out of office, should create industries, forbid indenting, buy up the -indentures of skilled workers and offer high enough pay to create new -markets, and defy the world by building a new army and navy. That they -never put their program into effect they laid to the wily tricks of the -Whigs. - -The presidential election of 1940 was as violent as if the office were -really a prize to be sought rather than a practically empty title, -with all real power now held by the Majority Leader of the House and -his cabinet of Committee Chairmen. As early as May one of the leading -contenders for the Populist nomination was shot and badly crippled; the -Cleveland hall where the Whig convention was being held was fired by an -arsonist. - -I would not be old enough to vote for two years, yet I too had campaign -fever. Jennings Lewis, the Populist, was perhaps the ugliest candidate -ever offered, with a hairless, skeletonlike face; Dewey, the Whig -nominee, had a certain handsomeness, which might have been an asset if -the persistent advocates of woman suffrage had ever gotten their way. - -Traditionally, candidates never ventured west of Chicago, concentrating -their appearances in New York and New England and leaving the campaign -in the sparsely settled trans-Mississippi to local politicians. This -year both office-seekers used every device to reach the greatest -number of voters. Dewey made a grand tour in his balloon-train; Lewis -was featured in a series of short phonotos which were shown free. -Dewey spoke several times daily to small groups; Lewis specialized in -enormous weekly rallies followed by torchlight parades. - -One of these Populist rallies was held in Union Square early in -September; outgoing President George Norris spoke, and ex-President -Norman Thomas, the only Populist to serve two terms since the beloved -Bryan. Tyss indulgently gave me permission to leave the store a couple -of hours before the meeting was to commence so I might get a place from -which to see and hear all that was going on. Though he characterized -all elections as meaningless exercises devised to befuddle, he had been -active in this one in some mysterious and secretive way. - -The square was already well filled when I arrived, with the more -acrobatic members of the audience perched on the statues of LaFayette -and Washington. Calliopes played patriotic airs, and a compressed -air machine shot up puffs of smoke which momentarily spelled out the -candidate’s name. Resigned to pantomime glimpses of what was going on, -I moved around the outside edge of the crowd, thinking I might just as -well leave altogether. - -“Please don’t step on my foot so firmly. Or is that part of the -Populist tradition?” - -“Excuse me, Miss; I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?” - -We were close enough to a light standard for me to see she was young -and well-dressed, hardly the sort of girl to be found at a political -meeting, few of which ever counted much of a feminine audience. - -She rubbed her instep briefly. “It’s all right,” she conceded -grudgingly. “Serves me right for being curious about the mob.” - -She was plump and pretty, with a small, discontented mouth and pale -hair worn long over her shoulders. “There’s not much to see from here,” -I said; “unless youre enthusiastic enough to be satisfied with a bare -look at the important people, perhaps you’d let me help you to the -streetcar. For my clumsiness.” - -She looked at me thoughtfully. “I can manage by myself. But if you feel -you owe me something for trampling me, maybe you’ll explain why anyone -comes to these ridiculous gatherings.” - -“Why ... to hear the speakers.” - -“Hardly any of them can. Only those close up.” - -“Well then, to show their support of the party, I guess.” - -“That’s what I thought. It’s a custom or rite or something like that. A -stupid amusement.” - -“But cheap,” I said. “And those who vote for Populists usually havent -much money.” - -“Maybe that’s why,” she answered. “If they found more useful things to -do they’d earn money; then they wouldnt vote for Populists.” - -“A virtuous circle. If everyone voted Whig we’d all be rich as Whigs.” - -She shrugged her shoulders, a gesture I found pleasing. “It’s easy -enough to be envious of those who are better off; it’s a lot harder to -become better off yourself.” - -“I can’t argue with you on that, Miss ... um ...?” - -“Why Mister Populist, do ladies always tell you their names when you -step on their feet?” - -“I’m not usually lucky enough to find feet to step on that have lovely -ladies attached,” I answered boldly. “I won’t deny Populist leanings, -but my name is really Hodge Backmaker.” - -Hers was Tirzah Vame, and she was indentured to a family of wealthy -Whigs who owned a handsome modern castiron and concrete house near the -Reservoir at Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue. She had used the -apt word “curious” in characterizing herself but it was, as I soon -found out, a cold and inflexible curiosity which explored only what -she thought might be useful or which impressed her as foolish. She -was interested in the nature of anything fashionable or popular or -much talked of, the idea of being concerned with anything even vaguely -abstract struck her as preposterous. - -She had indented, not out of stark economic necessity, but -calculatedly, believing she could achieve economic security through -indenture. This seemed paradoxical to me, even when I contrasted my -“free” condition with her bound one. Certainly she seemed to have -minimum restriction on her time; soon after our introduction at the -rally she was meeting me almost every evening in Reservoir Square where -we sat for hours talking on a bench or walking briskly when the autumn -weather chilled our blood. - -I did not long flatter myself that her interest—perhaps tolerance would -be a better word—was due to any strong attraction exerted by me. If -anything she was, I think, slightly repelled by my physical presence, -which carried to her some connotation of ordinary surroundings and -contrasted with the well-fed smooth surfaces of her employers and their -friends. The first time I kissed her she shuddered slightly; then, -closing her eyes, she allowed me to kiss her again. - -She did not resist me when I pressed my lovemaking; she led me quietly -to her room in the big house on my transparent plea that the outdoors -was now too cold even for conversation. I was no accomplished seducer, -but even in my awkward eagerness I could see she had made up her mind I -was to succeed. - -That her complaisance was not the result of passion was soon obvious; -there was not so much a failure on my part to arouse her as a refusal -on hers to be aroused beyond an inescapable degree. Even as she -permitted our intimacy she remained as virginal, aloof and critical as -before. - -“It seems hardly worth the trouble. Imagine people talking and writing -and thinking about nothing else.” - -“Tirzah dear—” - -“And the liberties that seem to go with it. I don’t think of you as any -more dear than I did an hour ago. If people must indulge in this sort -of thing, and I suppose they must since it’s been going on for a long -time, I think it could be conducted with more dignity.” - -As my infatuation increased her coolness did not lessen; curiosity -alone seemed to move her. She was amused at my pathetic search for -knowledge. “What good is your learning ever going to do you? It’ll -never get you a penny.” - -I smoothed the long, pale hair and kissed her ear. “Suppose it doesnt?” -I argued lazily; “There are other things besides money.” - -She drew away. “That’s what those who can’t get it always say.” - -“And what do people who can get it say?” - -“That it’s the most important thing of all,” she answered earnestly. -“That it will buy all the other things.” - -“It will buy you free of your indenture,” I admitted, “but you have to -get it first.” - -“Get it first? I never let it go. I still have the contract payment.” - -“Then what was the point of indenting at all?” - -She looked at me wonderingly. “Havent you ever thought about serious -things? Only books and politics and all that? How could I get -opportunities without indenting? I doubt if the Vames are much of a cut -above the Backmakers; well, youre a general drudge and I’m a governess -and tutor and even in a way a sort of distant friend to Mrs Smythe.” - -“That sounds suspiciously like snobbery to me.” - -“Does it? Well, I’m a snob; Ive never denied it. I want to live like a -lady, to have a good house with servants and carriages and minibiles, -to travel to civilized countries, with a place in Paris or Rome or -Vienna. You can love the poor and cheer for the Populists; I love the -rich and the Whigs.” - -“That’s all very well,” I objected, “but even though you have your -indenting money and can buy back your freedom any moment you want it, -how does this help you get rich?” - -“Do you think I keep my money in my pocket? It’s invested, every cent. -People who come to this house give me tips; not just money, though -there’s enough of that to add a bit to my original capital, but tips on -what to buy and sell. By the time I’m thirty I should be well off. Of -course I may marry a rich man sooner.” - -“That’s an awfully cold-blooded way of looking at marriage,” I -remonstrated. - -“Is it?” she asked indifferently. “Well, youve been telling me I’m -cold-blooded anyway. I may as well be cold-blooded profitably.” - -“If that’s the way you feel I don’t understand what we’re doing here -at this moment. I’d have thought you’d have picked a more profitable -lover.” - -She was unruffled. “You didnt think about it at all. If you had, you -would have seen I could hardly encourage any of the men from the class -into which I intend to marry. Great ladies can laugh at gossip, but the -faintest whisper about someone like me would be damaging. Scandal would -be unavoidable if I appeared to be anything in this house but a chilly -prude.” - -An appearance not too deceitful, I considered, sickly jealous at -the thought of men who might have been in my place if they had been -as anonymous, as inconsequential as I. But this writhing jealousy -was little more painful than my frustration at having been made a -convenience, a trial experiment. Almost anyone of equal unimportance, -anyone who was not a fellow-servant or a familiar in the house would -have done as well as I, anyone unlikely ever to come face to face with -Mrs Smythe, much less talk to her. - -Looking back, trying to recapture for a moment that vanished past, -I have a sad, quizzical welling of pity for the girl Tirzah and the -boy Hodge. How gravely we took our moral and political differences; -how lightly the flying moments of union. We said and did all the -wrong things, all the things which fostered the antagonism between -us and none of the things which might have softened our youthful -self-assurance. We wrangled and argued: Dewey and Lewis, Whig versus -Populist, materialist against idealist, reality opposing principle. It -all seems so futile now; it all appeared so vital then. - -Added to the almost unanimous distrust and hatred of all foreigners -in the United States, we regarded the Confederates in particular as -the cause of all our misfortunes. We not only blamed and feared them, -but looked upon them as sinister, so Populist orators had a ready-made -response every time they referred to the Whigs as Southron tools. - -Contrary to the accepted view in the United States, I was sure the -victors in the War of Southron Independence had been men of the highest -probity, and the noblest among them was their second president. Yet I -also knew that immediately after the Peace of Richmond less dedicated -individuals became increasingly powerful in the new nation. As Sir John -Dahlberg remarked, “Power tends to corrupt.” - -From his first election in 1865 until his death ten years later, -President Lee had been the prisoner of an increasingly strong and -imperialistic congress. He had opposed the invasion and conquest of -Mexico by the Confederacy, undertaken on the pretext of restoring order -during the conflict between the republicans and the emperor. However he -had too profound a respect for the constitutional processes to continue -this opposition in the face of joint resolutions by the Confederate -House and Senate. - -Lee remained a symbol, but as the generation which had fought for -independence died, the ideals he symbolized faded. Negro emancipation, -enacted largely because of pressure from men like Lee, soon revealed -itself as a device for obtaining the benefits of slavery without its -obligations. The freedmen on both sides of the new border were without -franchise, and for all practical purposes without civil rights. Yet -while the old Union first restricted and then abolished immigration, -the Confederacy encouraged it, making the newcomers subjects like -the Latin-Americans who made up so much of the Southron population -after the Confederacy expanded southward, limiting full citizenship to -posterity of enfranchised residents in the Confederate States on July -Fourth 1864. - -The Populists claimed the Whigs were Confederate agents; the Whigs -retorted that the Populists were visionaries and demagogues who -tolerated if they did not actually encourage the activities of the -Grand Army. The Populists replied by pointing to their platform which -denounced illegal organizations and lawless methods. I was not too -impressed by this, knowing how busy Tyss, Pondible and their associates -had been ever since the campaign started. - -On election night Tyss closed the store and we walked the few blocks -to Wanamaker & Stewarts drygoods store where a big screen showed the -returns between tinugraphs puffing the firm’s merchandise. From the -first it was apparent the unpredictable electorate preferred Dewey to -Lewis. State after state, hitherto staunchly Populist, turned to the -Whigs for the first time since William Hale Thompson defeated President -Thomas R Marshall back in 1920 and again Alfred E Smith in 1924, before -Smith gained the great popularity which gave him the presidency four -years later. Only Massachusetts, Connecticut, Dakotah and Oregon went -for Lewis; his own Minnesota along with twenty-one other states plumped -for Dewey. - -Disappointed as I was, I could not but note Tyss’s cheerful air. When I -asked him what satisfaction he could find in so overwhelming a defeat -he smiled and said, “What defeat, Hodgins? Did you think we wanted the -Populists to win? To elect Jennings Lewis with his program of world -peace conferences? Really Hodgins, I’m afraid you learn nothing day by -day.” - -“You mean the Grand Army wanted Dewey all along?” - -“Dewey or another; we prefer a Whig administration which presents a -fixed target to a Populist one wavering all over the place.” - -Of course it should have occurred to me that Tyss and Tirzah would wind -up on the same side. It was a measure of my innocence that it never -had. - - - - -_6._ _ENFANDIN_ - - -Tirzah’s question, “What good is your learning ever going to do you?” -bothered me from time to time. Not that I was burdened by any vast -amount of knowledge, but presumably I would get more—and then what? -It was true I expected no rewards from reading except the pleasure -it gave me, but the future, to use a topheavy word, could not be -entirely disregarded. I could not see myself spending a lifetime in the -bookstore. I was grateful to Tyss, despite his disdain of this emotion, -for the opportunities he had given me, but not grateful enough to -reconcile myself to becoming another Tyss, especially one without his -vitalizing involvement with the Grand Army. - -Other courses were neither numerous nor inviting. To follow Tirzah’s -own example might have seemed feasible if one ignored the vast -differences of situation and character, to say nothing of those between -a hulking youth and a pretty girl. I could hardly hope to find a -wealthy family who would buy my services, put me to congenial tasks, -and look with tolerance on my efforts to advance myself right out -of their employment. Even if such a chance existed I could not have -utilized it as she did; I should undoubtedly confuse one stock with -another or neglect to buy what I was told until too late, winding up -with lottery tickets and losing the stubs. - -My helpless uncertainty only added to my disadvantage with her. I -had no hope her coolness would change to either ardor or affection. -At any moment she might decide her curiosity was satisfied and find -the awkwardness, inconveniences, and what must have been to her the -sordidness of the affair too great. - -We were a strange pair of young lovers. When we talked we argued -opposing views or spoke sedately of things not near our hearts. -When we walked together in the streets or fled the gaslit pavements -for the moon over Reservoir Square we neither held hands nor kissed -impulsively. Because prudence forbade the slightest physical contact -save in utmost privacy there were no innocent touchings or accidental -brushing of hands against hips or arms against arms, and our secret -embraces were guilty simply because they were secret. - -Often I dreamed of a miraculous change, either in circumstances or -in her attitude, to dissolve the walls between us; beneath the hope -was only expectation of an abrupt and final break. Yet when it came -at last, after more than a year, it was not the result, as I had -agonizedly anticipated, of some successful speculation or an offer of -marriage, but of natural and normal actions of my own. - -Among the customers to whom I frequently delivered parcels of books was -a Monsieur René Enfandin who lived on Eighth Street, not far from Fifth -Avenue. M Enfandin was Consul for the Republic of Haiti; the house he -occupied was distinguished from otherwise equally drab neighbors by -a large red and blue escutcheon over the doorway. He did not use the -entire dwelling himself, reserving only the parlor floor for the office -of the consulate and living quarters; the rest was let to other tenants. - -Tyss’s anti-foreign bias caused him to jeer at Enfandin behind his back -and embark on discourses which proved by anthropometry and frequent -references to Lombroso and Chief Jung that Negroes were incapable -of self-government. I noticed however that he treated the consul no -differently, either in politeness or honesty, from his other patrons, -and by this time I knew Tyss well enough to attribute this courtesy not -to the self-interest of a tradesman but to that compassion which he -suppressed so sternly under the contradictions of his nature. - -For a long time I paid little attention to Enfandin, beyond noting the -wide range of interests revealed by the books he bought. I sensed -that, like myself, he was inclined to shyness. He had an arrangement -whereby he turned back most of his purchases for credit on others. I -saw that if he hadnt, his library would have soon dispossessed him; -as it was, books covered all the space not taken by the paraphernalia -of his office and bedroom with the exception of a bit of bare wall on -which hung a large crucifix. He seemed always to have a volume in his -large, dark brown hand, politely closed over his thumb or open for -eager sampling. - -Enfandin was tall and strong-featured, notable in any company. In -the United States where a black man was, more than anything else, -a reminder of the disastrous war and Mr Lincoln’s proclamation, he -was the permanent target of rowdy boys and adult hoodlums. Even the -diplomatic immunity of his post was poor protection, for it was -believed, not without justification, that Haiti, the only American -republic south of the Mason-Dixon line to preserve its independence, -was disrupting the official if sporadically executed policy of -deporting Negroes to Africa by encouraging their emigration to its own -shores or, what was even more annoying, assisting them to flee to the -unconquered Indians of Idaho or Montana. - -Beyond a “Good morning” or “Thank you” I doubt if we exchanged a -hundred words until the time I saw a copy of Randolph Bourne’s -_Fragment_ among his selections. “That’s not what you think it is,” I -exclaimed brashly; “it’s a novel.” - -He looked at me gravely. “You also admire Bourne?” - -“Oh yes.” I felt a trifle foolish, not only for having thrust my advice -upon him, but for the inadequacy of my comment on a writer who had so -many pertinent things to say and had been persecuted for saying them. -I was conscious too of Tyss’s opinion: How could a cripple like Bourne -speak to whole and healthy men? - -“But you do not approve of fiction, is that so?” Enfandin had no -discernible accent but often his English was uncolloquial and sometimes -it was overly careful and stiff. - -I thought of the adventure tales I had once swallowed so breathlessly. -“Well ... it does seem to be a sort of a waste of time.” - -He nodded. “Time, yes.... We waste it or save it or use it—one would -almost think we mastered it instead of the other way around. Yet are -all novels really a waste of the precious dimension? Perhaps you -underestimate the value of invention.” - -“No,” I said; “but what value has the invention of happenings that -never happened, or characters who never existed?” - -“Who is to say what never happened? It is a matter of definition.” - -“All right,” I said; “suppose the characters exist in the author’s -mind, like the events; where does the value of the invention come in?” - -“Where the value of any invention comes in,” he answered. “In its -purpose or use. A wheel spinning aimlessly is worth nothing; the same -wheel on a cart or a pulley changes destiny.” - -“You can’t learn anything from fairy tales,” I persisted stubbornly. - -He smiled. “Maybe you havent read the right fairy tales.” - -I soon discovered in him a quick and penetrating sympathy which was at -times almost telepathic. He listened to my callow opinions patiently, -offering observations of his own without diffidence and without -didacticism. The understanding and encouragement I did not expect or -want from Tyss he gave me generously. To him, as I never could to -Tirzah, I talked of my hopes and dreams; he listened patiently and did -not seem to think them foolish or impossible of accomplishment. I do -not minimize what Tyss did for me by saying that without Enfandin I -would have taken much less profit from the books my employer gave me -access to. - -I was drawn to him more and more; I’m not sure why he interested -himself in me, unless there was a reason in the remark he made once: -“Ay, we are alike, you and I. The books, always the books. And for -themselves, not to become rich or famous like sensible people. Are -we not foolish? But it is a pleasant folly and a sometimes blameless -vice.” - -I wanted anxiously to speak of Tirzah, not only because it is an urgent -necessity for lovers to mention the name at least of their beloved a -hundred times a day or more, but in the nebulous hope he could somehow -give me an answer to her as well as to her question. I approached the -topic in a number of different ways; each time our conversation moved -on without my having told him about her. - -Often, after I had delivered an armful of books to the consulate and -we had talked of a wide range of things—for, unlike me, he had no -self-consciousness about what interested him, whether others might -consider it trivial or not—he would walk back to the bookstore with -me, leaving a note on his door. The promise that he would be “Back in -10 minutes” was, I’m afraid, seldom fulfilled, for he became so deeply -engrossed that he was unaware of time. - -The occasion which was to be so important to me sprang from a -discussion of non-resistance to evil, a subject on which he had much -to say. We were just passing Wanamaker & Stewarts and he had just -triumphantly reviewed the amazing decision of the Japanese Shogun to -abolish all police forces, when I became conscious that someone was -staring fixedly at me. - -A minibile, highslung and obviously custom-built, moved slowly down the -street. Its brass brightwork, bumpers like two enormous tackheads, hub -rims like delicate eyelets in the center of the great spokes, rococo -lamps, rain gutters and door handles, was dazzling. In the jump-seat, -facing a lady of majestic demeanor, was Tirzah. Her head was turned -ostentatiously away from us. - -Enfandin halted as I did. “Ah,” he murmured; “you know the ladies?” - -“The girl. The lady is her employer.” - -“I caught only a glimpse of the face, but it is a pretty one.” - -“Yes. Oh yes....” I wanted desperately to say more, to thank him as -though Tirzah’s looks were somehow to my credit, to praise her and at -the same time call her cruel and hardhearted. “Oh yes....” - -“She is perhaps a particular friend?” - -I nodded. “Very particular.” We walked on in silence. - -“That is nice. But she is perhaps a little unhappy over your prospects?” - -“How did you know?” - -“It was not too hard to infer. You have been concealed from the -mistress; the young lady is impressed by wealth; you are the idealistic -one who is not.” - -At last I was able to talk. I explained her indenture, her ambitious -plans, and how I expected her to end everything between us at any -moment. “And there’s nothing I can do about it,” I finished bitterly. - -“That is right, Hodge. There is nothing you can do about it because—You -will forgive me if I speak plainly, brutally even?” - -“Go ahead. Tirzah—” what a joy it was just to say the name “—Tirzah has -told me often enough how unrealistic I am.” - -“That was not what I meant. I would say there is nothing you can do -about it because there is nothing you wish to do about it.” - -“What do you mean? I’d do anything I could....” - -“Would you? Give up books, for instance?” - -“Why should I? What good would that do?” - -“I do not say you should or that it would do good. I only try to show -that the young lady, charming and important as she is, is not the most -magnetic or important thing in your life. Romantic love is a curious -byproduct of west European feudalism that Africans and Asiatics can -only criticize gingerly. You shake your head with obstinacy; you do not -believe me. Good, then I have not hurt you.” - -“I can’t see that youve helped me much, either.” - -“Ay! What did you expect from the black man of Haiti? Miracles?” - -“Nothing less will do any good I’m afraid. Now I suppose youll tell -me I’ll get over it in time; that it’s just an adolescent languishing -anyway.” - -He looked at me reproachfully. “No, Hodge. I hope I should never be -the one to think suffering is tied to age or time. As for getting -over it, why, we all get over everything in the end, but no matter -how desirable absolute peace is, few of us are willing to give up -experience prematurely.” - -Later, I compared what Enfandin told me with what Tyss might have said. -Did the responsibility of holding Tirzah lie with me and not with both -of us, or with fate or chance? Or were events so circumscribed by -inevitabilities that even to think of struggling with them was foolish? - -I also asked myself if I had been too proud, too hypersensitive. I had -tried to make her see my viewpoint by arguing, by fighting hers; might -it not be possible, without giving up essentials, to approach her more -gently? To divert her, not from her ambitions, but from her contempt -for mine? - -Full of resolves, I left the store after eight; eager walking brought -me to our meeting place in Reservoir Square early, but the nearby -churchbells had hardly sounded the quarter hour when she said, “Hodge.” - -Her unusual promptness was a good omen; I was filled with warm -optimism. “Tirzah, I saw you this afternoon—” - -“Did you? I thought you were so busy with Sambo you would never look -up.” - -“Why do you call him that? Do you think—” -“Oh for Heavens sake, don’t start making speeches at me. I call him -Sambo because it sounds nicer than Rastus.” - -All my resolutions about trying to see her point of view! “I call him -M’sieu Enfandin because that’s his name.” - -“Have you no pride? No, I suppose you havent. Just some strange -manners. Well, I can put up with your eccentricities, but other people -wouldnt understand. What do you think Mrs Smythe would say?” - -“Never having met the lady, I havent the faintest idea.” - -“I have, and I agree with her. Would you like me to be chummy with a -naked cannibal with a ring in his nose?” - -“But Enfandin doesnt wear a ring in his nose, and you must have seen -he was fully dressed. Maybe he eats missionaries in secret, but that -couldnt offend Mrs Smythe since appearances would be saved.” - -“I’m serious, Hodge.” - -“So am I. Enfandin is my only friend.” - -“You may be above appearances and considerations of decency but I’m -not. If you ever appear in public with him again you can stop coming -here. Because I won’t have anything more to do with you.” - -“But Tirzah ...” I began helplessly, overwhelmed by the impossibility -of coping with the irrelevancies and inconsistencies of her stand. “But -Tirzah....” - -“No,” she said firmly; “you’ll simply have to grow up, Hodge, and stop -such childish exhibitions. Only friend indeed! Why I suppose if he -appeared here right this minute, you’d talk to him.” - -“Well naturally. You’d hardly expect me to—” -“But I do. That’s exactly what I’d expect. You to act like a civilized -man.” - -I wasnt angry. I couldnt be angry with her. “If that’s civilization -then I guess I don’t want to be civilized.” - -I detected astonishment in her voice. “You mean, actually mean, you -intend to keep on acting this way?” - -Grandfather Backmaker must have been a stubborn man; I had my -mother’s word I possessed no Hodgins traits. “Tirzah, what would you -think of me if I turned on my only friend, the only thoroughly kind -and understanding friend Ive ever had, just because Mrs Smythe has -different notions of propriety than I have?” - -“I’d think you were beginning to understand things at last.” - -“I’m sorry, Tirzah.” - -“I mean it, Hodge, you know. I’ll never see you again.” - -“If you’d only listen to my side—” -“You mean if I would only become a crank like you. But I don’t want to -be a crank or a martyr. I don’t want to change the world. I’m normal.” - -“Tirzah—” -“Goodbye, Hodge.” - -She walked away. I had the irrational feeling that if I called after -her she might come back. Or at least stand still and wait to hear what -I had to say. I kept my mouth obstinately closed; Enfandin had been -right, the responsibility was mine. There were things I would not give -up. - -My heroic mood must have lasted fully fifteen minutes. Then I hurried -through the little park and across the street to the Smythe house. -There were lights in the upper floors, but the basement, as always, -was dark. I dared not knock or ring the bell; her admonitions were -too firmly impressed on my mind. Instead, in a turmoil of emotions, I -paced the flagged sidewalk until the suspicious eye of a patrolman was -attracted; then I fled cravenly. - -I couldnt wait for the next day to write a long, chaotic letter -begging her to let me talk to her, just to talk to her, for an hour, -ten minutes, a minute. I offered to indent, to emigrate, to make a -fortune by some inspired means if only she would hear me. I recalled -moments together, I told her I loved her, said I would die without her. -Having covered several pages with these sentiments I began all over and -repeated them. It was dawn when I posted the letter in the pneumatic -mail. - -Sleepless and tormented, I was of little use to Tyss next day. Would -she telegraph? If she answered by pneumatic post her letter might be -delivered in the afternoon. Or would she come to the bookstore? - -The second day I sent off two more letters and went up to Reservoir -Square on the chance she might appear. I watched the house as though my -concentration would force her to emerge. On the third day my letters -came back, unopened. - -There is some catchphrase or other about the elasticity of youth. It is -true it was only weeks before my misery abated, and weeks more before I -was heart-whole again. But those weeks were long. - -The subject of Tirzah did not come up again between Enfandi and me. He -must have sensed I had lost her, perhaps he even guessed his connection -with the break, but he was too tactful to mention it and I was too sore. - -I don’t know if the episode precipitated some maturity in me, or if, as -a result of grief and anger I tried to turn my mind away from the easy -emotions and shield myself against further hurt. At any rate, whether -there was a logical connection or not, it is from this period that I -date my resolve to center my reading on history. Somewhat diffidently I -spoke of this to him. - -“History? But certainly, Hodge. It is a noble study. But what is -history? How is it written? How is it read? Is it a dispassionate -chronicle of events scientifically determined and set down in the -precise measure of their importance? Is this ever possible? Or is it -the transmutation of the ordinary into the celebrated? Or the cunning -distortion which gives a clearer picture than accurate blueprints?” - -“It seems to me facts are primary and interpretations come after,” I -answered. “If we can find out the facts we can form our individual -opinions on them.” - -“Perhaps. Perhaps. But take what is for me the central fact of all -history.” He pointed to the crucifix. “As a Catholic the facts are -plain to me; I believe what is written in the Gospels to be literally -true: that the Son of Man died for me on that cross. But what were -the facts for a contemporary Roman statesman? That an obscure local -agitator threatened the stability of an uneasy province and was -promptly executed in the approved Roman fashion as a warning to others. -And for a contemporary fellow-countryman? That no such person existed. -You think these facts are mutually exclusive? Yet you know no two -people see exactly the same thing; too many honest witnesses have -contradicted each other. Even the Gospels must be reconciled.” - -“You are saying that truth is relative.” - -“Am I? Then I shall have my tongue examined, or my head. Because I mean -to say no such thing. Truth is absolute and for all time. But one man -cannot envisage all of truth; the best he can do is see a single aspect -of it whole. That is why I say to you, be a skeptic, Hodge. Always be -the skeptic.” - -“Ay?” I was finding the admonition a little difficult to harmonize with -his previous confession of faith. - -“For the believer skepticism is essential. How else is he to know false -gods from true except by doubting both? One of the most pernicious of -folk-sayings is, ‘I could scarcely believe my eyes?’ Why should you -believe your eyes? You were given eyes to see with, not to believe -with. Believe your mind, your intuition, your reason, your feelings if -you like—but not your eyes unaided by any of these interpreters. Your -eyes can see the mirage, the hallucination, as easily as the actual -scenery. Your eyes will tell you nothing exists but matter—” -“Not my eyes only, but my boss.” - -“Ay? What are you saying?” For all his amiability Enfandin enjoyed -interruption in mid-discourse no more than any other teacher. But in -a moment his irritation vanished and he listened to my description of -Tyss’s mechanistic creed. - -“God have mercy on his soul,” he muttered at last. “Poor creature. He -has liberated himself from the superstitions of religion in order to -fall into superstition so abject no Christian can conceive it. Imagine -to yourself—” he began to pace the floor “—time is circular, man is -automaton, we are doomed to repeat the same gestures over and over, -forever. Oh I say to you, Hodge, this is monstrous. The poor man. The -poor man.” - -I nodded. “Yes. But what is the answer? Limitless space? Limitless -time? They are almost as horrifying, because they are inconceivable and -awful.” - -“And why should the inconceivable and awful be horrifying? Is our -small human understanding the ultimate measuring stick and guide? But -of course this is not the answer. The answer is that all—time, space, -matter—all is illusion. All but the good God Himself. Nothing is real -but Him. We are creatures of His fancy, figments of His imagination....” -“Then where does free will come in?” - -“As a gift, naturally. Or supernaturally. How else? The greatest gift -and the greatest responsibility.” - -I can’t say I was entirely satisfied with his exposition, though it was -certainly more to my taste than Tyss’s. I returned to the conversation -at intervals, both in my thoughts and when I saw him, but in the end I -suppose all I really accepted was his admonition to be skeptical, which -I doubt I always applied the way he meant me to. - - - - -_7._ _OF CONFEDERATE AGENTS IN 1942_ - - -To anyone but the mooncalf I still was in the year of my majority -it would have long since occurred with considerable force that -Enfandin ought to be told of Tyss’s connection with the Negro-hating, -anti-foreign Grand Army. And the thought once entertained, no matter -how belatedly, would have been immediately translated into warning. For -me it became a dilemma. - -If I exposed Tyss to Enfandin I would certainly be basely ungrateful to -the man who had saved me from destitution and given me the opportunity -I wanted so much. Membership in the Grand Army was a crime, even though -the laws were laxly enforced, and I could hardly expect an official -receiving the hospitality of the United States to conceal knowledge of -a felony against his host, especially when the Grand Army was what it -was. Yet if I kept silent I would be less than a friend. - -If I spoke I would be an informer; if I didnt, a hypocrite and worse. -The fact that neither man, for totally different reasons, would -condemn me whichever course I took increased rather than diminished my -perplexity. I procrastinated, which meant I was actually protecting -Tyss, and that this was against my sympathies increased my feeling of -guilt. - -At this juncture a series of events involved me still deeper with the -Grand Army and further complicated my relationship to both Tyss and -Enfandin. It began the day a customer called himself to my attention -with a selfconscious clearing of his throat. - -“Yes sir. Can I help you?” - -He was a fat little man with palpably false teeth, and hair hanging -down behind over his collar. However the sum of his appearance was in -no way ludicrous; rather he gave the impression of ease and authority, -and an assurance so strong there was no necessity to buttress it. - -“Why, I was looking for—” he began, and then scrutinized me sharply. -“Say, aint you the young fella I saw walking with a Nigra? Big black -buck?” - -Seemingly everyone had been fascinated by the spectacle of two people -of slightly different shades of color in company with each other. I -felt myself reddening. “There’s no law against it, is there?” - -He made a gargling noise which I judged was laughter. “Wouldnt know -about your damyankee laws, boy. For myself I’d say there’s no harm in -it, no harm in it at all. Always did like to be around Nigras myself. -But then I was rared among em. Most damyankees seem to think Nigras -aint fitten company. Only goes to show how narrerminded and bigoted you -folks can be. Present company excepted.” - -“M’sieu Enfandin is consul of the Republic of Haiti,” I said; “he’s a -scholar and a gentleman.” As soon as the words were out I was bitterly -sorry for their condescension and patronage. I felt ashamed, as if I -had betrayed him by offering credentials to justify my friendship and -implying it took special qualities to overcome the handicap of his -color. - -“A mussoo, huh? Furrin and educated Nigra? Well, guess theyre all -right.” His tone, still hearty, was slightly dubious. “Ben working here -long?” - -“Nearly four years.” - -“Kind of dull, aint it?” - -“Oh no—I like to read, and there are plenty of books around here.” -He frowned. “Should think a hefty young fella’d find more interesting -things. Youre indented, of course? No? Well then youre a mighty lucky -fella. In a way, in a way. Naturally youll be short on cash, ay? Unless -you draw a lucky number in the lottery.” - -I told him I’d never bought a lottery ticket. - -He slapped his leg as though I’d just repeated a very good joke. “Aint -that the pattrun,” he exclaimed; “aint that the pattrun! Necessity -makes em have a lottery; Puritanism keeps em from buying tickets. Aint -that the pattrun!” He gargled the humor of it for some time, while his -eyes moved restlessly around the dim interior of the store. “And what -do you read, ay? Sermons? Books on witches?” - -I admitted I’d dipped into both, and then, perhaps trying to impress -him, explained my ambitions. - -“Going to be a professional historian, hey? Little out of my line, but -I don’t suppose they’s many of em up North here.” - -“Not unless you count a handful of college instructors who dabble in it” - -He shook his head. “Young fella with your aims could do better down -South, I’d think.” - -“Oh yes; some of the most interesting research is going on right now in -Leesburg, Washington-Baltimore and the University of Lima. You are a -Confederate yourself, sir?” - -“Southron, yes sir, I am that and mighty proud of it. Now look a-here, -boy: I’ll lay all my cards on the table, face up. Youre a free man and -you aint getting any pay here. Now how’d you like to do a little job -for me? They’s good money in it; and I imagine I’d be able to fix up -one of those deals—what do they call em? scholarships—at the University -of Leesburg, after.” - -A scholarship at Leesburg. Where the Department of History was engaged -on a monumental project—nothing less than a compilation of all known -source material on the War of Southron Independence! It was only with -the strongest effort that I refrained from agreeing blindly. - -“It sounds fine, Mr—?” -“Colonel Tolliburr. Jest call me cunnel.” - -There wasnt anything remotely military in his bearing. “It sounds good -to me, Colonel. What is the job?” - -He clicked his too regular teeth thoughtfully. “Hardly anything at all, -m’boy, hardly anything at all. Just want you to keep a list for me.” - -He seemed to think this a complete explanation. “What kind of list, -Colonel?” - -“Why, list of the people that come in here steady. Especially the ones -don’t seem to buy anything, just talk to your boss. Names if you know -em, but that aint real important, and a sort of rough description. -Like five foot nine, blue eyes, dark hair, busted nose, scar on right -eyebrow. And so on. Nothing real detailed. And a list of deliveries.” - -Was I tempted? I don’t really know. “I’m sorry, Colonel. I’m afraid I -can’t help you.” - -“Not even for that scholarship and say, a hundred dollars in real -money?” - -I shook my head. - -“They’s no harm in it, boy. Likely nothing’ll come of it.” - -“I’m sorry.” - -“Two hundred? I’m not talking about yankee slugs, but good CSA bills, -each with a picture of President Jimmy right slapdash on the middle of -it.” - -“It’s not a matter of money, Colonel Tolliburr.” - -He looked at me shrewdly. “Think it over, boy. No use being hasty.” He -handed me a card. “Any time you change your mind come and see me or -send me a telegram.” - -I watched him out of the store. The Grand Army must be annoying the -mighty Confederacy. Tyss ought to know about the agent’s interest. And -I knew I would be unable to tell him. - -“Suppose,” I asked Enfandin the next day, “suppose one were placed in -the position of being an involuntary assistant in a—to a....” -I was at a loss for words to describe the situation without being -incriminatingly specific. I could not tell him about Tolliburr and -my clear duty to let Tyss know of the colonel’s espionage without -revealing Tyss’s connection with the Grand Army and thus uncovering my -deceit in not warning Enfandin earlier. Whatever I said or failed to -say, I was somehow culpable. - -He waited patiently while I groped, trying to formulate a question -which was no longer a question. “You can’t do evil that good may come -of it,” I burst out at last. - -“Quite so. And then?” - -“Well.... That might mean eventually giving up all action entirely, -since we can never be sure even the most innocent act may not have bad -consequences.” - -He nodded. “It might. The Manichaeans thought it did; they believed -good and evil balanced and man was created in the image of Satan. But -certainly there is a vast difference between this inhuman dogma and -refusing to do consciously wicked deeds.” - -“Maybe,” I said dubiously. - -He looked at me speculatively. “A man is drowning in the river. I have -a rope. If I throw him the rope he may not only climb to safety but -take it from me and use it to garrote some honest citizen. Shall I -therefore let him drown because I must not do good lest evil come of -it?” - -“But sometimes they are so mixed up it is impossible to disentangle -them.” - -“Impossible? Or very difficult?” - -“Um.... I don’t know.” - -“Are you not perhaps putting the problem too abstractly? Is not perhaps -your situation—your hypothetical situation—one of being accessory -to wrong rather than facing an alternative which means personal -unhappiness?” - -Again I struggled for noncommittal words. He had formulated my dilemma -about the Grand Army so far as it connected with giving up my place in -the bookstore or telling him of Tyss’s bias. Yet not entirely. And why -could I not let Tyss know of Colonel Tolliburr’s visit, which it was -certainly my duty to do? Was this overscrupulousness only a means of -avoiding any unpleasantness? - -“Yes,” I muttered at last. - -“It would be very nice if there were no drawbacks ever attached to the -virtuous choice. Then the only ones who would elect to do wrong would -be those of twisted minds, the perverse, the insane. Who would prefer -the devious course if the straight one were just as easy? No, no, my -dear Hodge; one cannot escape the responsibility for his choice simply -because the other way means inconvenience or hardships or tribulation.” - -“Must we always act, whether we are sure of the outcome of our action -or not?” - -“Not acting is also action; can we always be sure of the outcome of -refusing to act?” - -Was it pettiness that made me contrast his position as an official of -a small yet fairly secure power, well enough paid to live comfortably, -with mine where a break with Tyss meant beggary and no further chance -of fulfilling the ambition every day more important to me? _Did_ -circumstances alter cases, and was it easy for Enfandin to talk as he -did, unconfronted with harsh alternatives? - -“You know, Hodge,” he said as though changing the subject, “I am what -they call a career man, meaning I have no money except my salary. This -might seem much to you, but it is really little, particularly since -protocol says I must spend more than necessary. For the honor of my -country. At home I have an establishment to keep up where my wife and -children live—” - -I had wondered about his apparent bachelorhood. - -“—because to be rudely frank, I do not think they would be happy or -safe in the United States on account of their color. Besides these -expenses I make personal contributions for the assistance of black men -who are—how shall we say it?—unhappily circumstanced in your country, -for I have found the official allotment is never enough. Now I have -been indiscreet; you know state secrets. Why do I tell you this? -Because, my friend, I should like to help. Alas, I cannot offer money. -But this I can do, if it will not offend your pride: I suggest you live -here—it will be no more uncomfortable than the arrangements you have -described in the store—and attend one of the colleges of the city. A -medal or an order from the Haitian government judiciously conferred -on an eminent educator—decorations cut so nicely across color-lines, -perhaps because they don’t show their origin to the uninitiated—should -take care of tuition fees. What do you say?” - -What could I say? That I did not deserve his generosity? The statement -would be meaningless, a catchphrase, unless I explained that I’d not -been open with him, and now even less than before was I able to do -this. Or could I say that bare minutes earlier I had thought enviously -and spitefully of him? Wretched and happy, I mumbled incoherent -thanks, began a number of sentences and left them unfinished, lapsed -into dazed silence. - -But the newly opened prospect cut through my introspection and -scattered my self-reproaches. The future was too exciting to dwell in -any other time; in a moment we were both sketching rapid plans and -supplementing each other’s designs with revisions of our own. Words -tumbled out; ideas were caught in mid-expression. We decided, we -reconsidered, we returned to the first decisions. - -I was to give Tyss two weeks’ notice despite the original agreement -making such nicety superfluous; Enfandin was to discuss matriculation -with a professor he knew. My employer raised a quizzical eyebrow at my -information. - -“Ah, Hodgins, you see how neatly the script works out. Nothing left to -chance or choice. If you hadnt been relieved of your trifling capital -by a man of enterprise whose methods were more successful than subtle -you might have fumbled at the edge of the academic world for four years -and then, having substituted a wad of unrelated facts for common sense -and whatever ability to think you may have possessed, fumbled for the -rest of your life at the edge of the economic world. You wouldnt have -met George Pondible or gotten here where you could discover your own -mind without adjustment to a professorial iron maiden.” - -“I thought it was all arbitrary.” - -He gave me a reproachful look. “Arbitrary and predetermined are not -synonymous, Hodgins, nor does either rule out artistry. Mindless -artistry of course, like that of the snowflake or crystal. And how -artistic this development is! You will go on to become a professor -yourself and construct iron maidens for promising students who might -become your competitors. You will write learned histories, for you -are—havent I said this before?—the spectator type. The part written -for you does not call for you to be a participant, an instrument -for—apparently—influencing events. Hence it is proper that you report -them so future generations may get the illusion they arent puppets.” -He grinned at me. At another time I would have been delighted to pounce -on the assortment of inconsistencies he had just offered; at the moment -I could think of nothing but my failure to mention the Confederate -agent’s visit. It almost seemed his mechanist notions were valid and I -was destined always to be the ungrateful recipient of kindness. - -“All right,” he said, swallowing the last of his bread and half-raw -meat; “so long as your sentimentality impels you to respect obligations -I can find work for you. Those boxes over there go upstairs. Pondible’s -bringing a van around for them this afternoon.” - -Ive heard the assumption that working in a bookstore must be light and -pleasant. Many times during the years with Roger Tyss I had reason -to be thankful for my strength and farm training. The boxes were -deceptively small but so heavy they could only have been solidly packed -with paper. Even with Tyss carrying box for box with me I was vastly -relieved when I had to quit to run an errand. - -When I got back he went out to make an offer on someone’s library. -“There are only four left. The last two are paper-wrapped; didnt have -enough boxes.” - -It was characteristic of him to leave the lighter packages for me. I -ran up the stairs with one of the two remaining wooden containers. -Returning, I tripped on the lowest step and sprawled forward. -Reflexively I threw out my hands and landed on one of the paper -parcels. The tight-stretched covering cracked and split under the -impact; the contents—neatly tied rectangular bundles—spilled out. - -I had learned enough of the printing trade to recognize the brightly -colored oblongs as lithographs, and I wondered as I stooped over to -gather them up why such a job should have been given Tyss rather than a -shop specializing in this work. Even under the gaslight the colors were -hard and vigorous. - -Then I really looked at the bundle I was holding. ESPAÑA was enscrolled -across the top; below it was the picture of a man with long nose and -jutting underlip, flanked by two ornate figure fives, and beneath -them the legend, CINCO PESETAS. Spanish Empire banknotes. Bundles and -bundles of them. - -I needed neither expert knowledge nor minute scrutiny to tell me there -was a fortune here in counterfeit money. The purpose in forging Spanish -currency I could not see; that it was no private undertaking of Tyss’s -but an activity of the Grand Army I was certain. Puzzled and worried, -I rewrapped the bundles of notes into as neat an imitation of the -original package as I could contrive. - -The rest of the day I spent casting uneasy glances at the mound of -boxes and watching with apprehension the movement of anyone toward -them. Death was the penalty for counterfeiting United States coins; I -had no idea of the punishment for doing the same with foreign paper but -I was sure even so minor an accessory as myself would be in a sad way -if some officious customer should stumble against one of the packages. - -Tyss in no way acted like a guilty man, or even one with an important -secret. He seemed unaware of any peril; doubtless he was daily in -similar situations, only chance and my own lack of observation had -prevented my discovering this earlier. - -Nor did he show anxiety when Pondible failed to arrive. Darkness came -and the gaslamps went on in the streets. The heavy press of traffic -outside dwindled, but the incriminating boxes remained undisturbed near -the door. At last there was the sound of uncertain wheels slowing up -outside and Pondible’s voice admonishing, “Wh-whoa!” - -I rushed out just as he was dismounting with slow dignity. “Who goes?” -he asked; “Vance and give a countersign.” - -“It’s Hodge,” I said. “Let me help you.” - -“Hodge! Old friend; not seen long time!” (He had been in the store only -the day before.) “Terrible sfortune, Hodge. Dri-driving wagon. Fell -off. Fell off wagon I mean. See?” - -“Sure, I see. Let me hitch the horse for you. Mr Tyss is waiting.” - -“Avoidable,” he muttered, “nuvoidable, voidable. Fell off.” - -Tyss took him by the arm. “You come with me and rest awhile. Hodgins, -you better start loading up; youll have to do the delivering now.” - -Rebellious refusal formed in my mind. Why should I be still further -involved? He had no right to demand it of me; in self-protection I was -bound to refuse. “Mr Tyss....” - -“Yes?” - -Two weeks would see me free of him, but nothing could wipe out the debt -I owed him. “Nothing. Nothing,” I murmured and picked up one of the -boxes. - - - - -_8._ _IN VIOLENT TIMES_ - - -He gave me an address on Twenty-Sixth Street. “Sprovis is the name.” - -“All right,” I said as stolidly as I could. - -“Let them do the unloading. I see there’s a full feedbag in the van; -that’ll be a good time to give it to the horse.” - -“Yes.” - -“They’ll load up another consignment and drive with you to the -destination. Take the van back to the livery stable. Here’s money for -your supper and carfare back here.” - -He thinks of everything, I reflected bitterly. Except that I don’t want -to have anything to do with this. - -Driving slackly through the almost empty streets my resentment -continued to rise, drowning, at least partly, my fear of being for some -unfathomable reason stopped by a police officer and apprehended. Why -should I be stopped? Why should the Grand Army counterfeit pesetas? - -The address, which I had trouble finding on the poorly lit -thoroughfare, was one of those four-storey stuccos at least a century -old, showing few signs of recent repair. Mr Sprovis, who occupied the -basement, had one ear distinctly larger than the other, an anomaly I -could not help attributing to a trick of constantly pulling on the -lobe. He, like the others who came out with him to unload the van, wore -the Grand Army beard. - -“I had to come instead of Pon—” -“No names,” he growled. “Hear? No names.” - -“All right. I was told you’d unload and load up again.” - -“Yeah, yeah.” - -I slipped the strap of the feedbag over the horse’s ear and started -toward Eighth Avenue. - -“Hey! Where you going?” - -“To get something to eat. Anything wrong with that?” - -I felt him peering suspiciously at me. “Guess not. But don’t keep us -waiting, see? We’ll be ready to go in twenty minutes.” - -I did not like Mr Sprovis. In the automatic lunchroom where the dishes -were delivered by a clever clockwork device as coins were deposited -in the right slots, I gorged on fish and potatoes, but my pleasure at -getting away for once from the unvarying bread and heart was spoiled by -the thought of him. And I was at best no more than half through with -the night’s adventure. What freight Sprovis and his companions were now -loading in the van I had no idea. Except that it was nothing innocent. - -When I turned the corner into Twenty-Sixth Street again, the shadowy -mass of the horse and van was gone from its place by the curb. Alarmed, -I broke into a run and discovered it turning in the middle of the -block. I jumped and caught hold of the dash, pulling myself aboard. -“What’s the idea?” - -A fist caught me in the shoulder, almost knocking me back into the -street. Zigzags of shock ran down my arm, terminating in numbing pain. -Desperately I clung to the dash. - -“Hold it,” someone rumbled; “it’s the punk who came with. Let him in.” - -Another voice, evidently belonging to the man who’d hit me, admonished, -“Want to watch yourself, chum. Not go jumping like that without -warning. I might of stuck a shiv in your ribs instead of my hand.” - -I could only repeat, “What’s the idea of trying to run off with the -van? I’m responsible for it.” - -“He’s responsible, see,” mocked another voice from the body of the van. -“Aint polite not to wait on him.” - -I was wedged between the driver and my assailant; my shoulder ached and -I was beginning to be really frightened now my first anger had passed. -These were “action” members of the Grand Army; men who regularly -committed battery, mayhem, arson, robbery and murder. I had been both -foolhardy and lucky; realizing this it seemed diplomatic not to try for -possession of the reins. - -I could hear the breathing and mumbling of others in back, but it didnt -need this to tell me the van was over-loaded. We turned north on Sixth -Avenue; the street lights showed Sprovis driving. “Gidap, gidap,” he -urged, “get going!” - -“That’s a horse,” I protested; “not a locomotive.” - -“What do you know?” came from behind; “And we thought we was on the -Erie.” - -“He’s tired,” I persisted, “and he’s pulling too much weight.” - -“Shut up,” ordered Sprovis quietly. “Shut up.” The quietness was not -deceptive; it was ominous. I shut up. - -Speed was stupid on several counts. For one thing it called attention -to the van at a time when most commercial vehicles had been stabled for -the night and the traffic was almost entirely carriages, buggies, hacks -and minibiles. I visualized the suspicious crowd which would gather -immediately if our horse dropped from exhaustion. There was no hope -that consciousness of an innocuous cargo made Sprovis bold; whatever we -carried was bound to be as incriminating as the counterfeit bills. - -Disconnected scraps of conversation drifted from Sprovis’ companions. -“I says, ‘Look here, youre making a nice profit from selling abroad. -Either you....’” - -“And of course he put it all on a twenty-dollar ticket even though....” - -“‘ ... my taxes,’ he says. ‘You worry about your taxes,’ I says; ‘I’m -worried about your contributions.’” - -A monotonous chuffing close behind us forced itself into my -consciousness; when we turned eastward in the Forties I exclaimed, -“There’s a minibile following us!” - -Even as I spoke the trackless engine pulled alongside and then darted -ahead to pocket us by nosing diagonally toward the curb. The horse must -have been too weak to shy; he simply stopped short and I heard the -curses of the felled passengers behind me. - -“Not the cops anyway!” - -“Cons for a nickel!” - -“Only half a block from—” -“Quick, break out the guns—” -“Not those guns; one bang and we’re through. Air pistols, if anybody’s -got one. Hands or knives. Get them all!” - -They piled out swiftly past me; I remained alone on the seat, an -audience of one, properly ensconced. A few blocks away was the small -park where Tirzah used to meet me. It was not believable that this was -happening in one of New York’s quietest residential districts in the -year 1942. - -An uneven, distorting light emphasized the abnormal speed of the -incident that followed, making the action seem jumpy, as though the -participants were caught at static moments, changing their attitudes -between flashes of visibility. The tempo was so swift any possible -spectators in the bordering windows or on the sidewalks wouldnt have -had time to realize what was going on before it was all over. - -Four men from the minibile were met by five from the van. The odds were -not too unequal, for the attackers had a discipline which Sprovis’ -force lacked. Their leader attempted to parley during one of those -seconds of apparent inaction. “Hay you men—we got nothing against you. -They’s a thousand dollars apiece in it for you—” - -A fist smacked into his mouth. The light caught his face as he -was jolted back, but I hardly needed its revelation to confirm my -recognition of Colonel Tolliburr’s voice. - -The Confederate agents had brass knuckles and black-jacks, Colonel -Tolliburr had a sword-cane which he unsheathed with a glinting -flourish. The Grand Army men flashed knives; no one seemed to be using -air pistols or spring-powered guns. - -Both sides were intent on keeping the clash as quiet and inconspicuous -as possible; no one shouted with anger or screamed in pain. This -muffled intensity made the struggle more gruesome; the contenders -fought their natural impulses as well as each other. I heard the impact -of blows, the grunts of effort, the choked-back cries, the scraping of -shoes on pavement and the thud of falls. One of the defenders fell, and -two of the attackers, before the two remaining Southrons gave up the -battle and attempted escape. - -With united impulse they started for the minibile, evidently realized -they wouldnt have time to get up power, and began running down the -street. Their moment of indecision did for them. As the four Grand -Army men closed in I saw the Confederates raise their arms in the -traditional gesture of surrender. Then they were struck down. - -I crept noiselessly down on the off-side of the van and hastened -quietly away in the protection of the shadows. - - - - -_9._ _BARBARA_ - - -For the next few days reading was pure pretense. I used the opened -book to mask my privacy while I trembled not so much with fear as -with horror. I had been brought up in a harsh enough world and murder -was no novelty in New York; I had seen slain men before, but this was -the first time I had been confronted with naked, merciless savagery. -Though I believed Sprovis would have had no qualms about despatching an -inconvenient witness if I had stayed on the van, I had no particular -fear for my own safety, for my knowledge of what had happened became -less dangerous daily. The terror of the deed itself however remained -constant. - -I was not concerned solely with revulsion. Inquisitiveness looked out -under loathing to make me wonder what lay behind the night’s events. -What had really happened, and what did it all mean? - -From scraps of conversation accidentally heard or deliberately -eavesdropped, from the newspapers, from deduction and remembered -fragments, I reconstructed the picture which made the background. Its -borders reached a long way from Astor Place. - -For years the world had been waiting, half in dread, half in -resignation, for war to break out between the world’s two Great Powers, -the German Union and the Confederate States. Some expected the point -of explosion would be the Confederacy’s ally, the British Empire; most -anticipated at least part of the war would be fought in the United -States. - -The scheme of the Grand Army, or of that part of it which included -Tyss, was apparently a farfetched and fantastic attempt to circumvent -the probable course of history. The counterfeiting was an aspect of -this attempt which was nothing less than trying to force the war to -start, not through the Confederacy’s ally, but through the German -Union’s—the Spanish Empire. With enormous amounts of the spurious -currency circulated by emissaries posing as Confederate agents, the -Grand Army hoped to embroil the Confederacy with Spain and possibly -preserve the neutrality of the United States. It was an ingenuous idea -evolved, I see now, by men without knowledge of the actual mechanics of -world politics. - -If I ever had any sentimental notions about the Army they vanished now. -Tyss’s mechanism may not have been purposefully designed to palliate, -but it made it easy to justify actions like Sprovis’. I had no such -convenient way of numbing my conscience. But even as I brooded over the -weakness and cowardice which made me an accomplice, I looked forward to -my release. I had not seen Enfandin since his offer; in a week I would -leave the bookstore for his sanctuary, and I resolved my first act -should be to tell him everything. And then that dream was exploded just -as it was about to be realized. - -I do not know who it was broke into the consulate or for what reason, -and was surprised in the act, shooting and wounding Enfandin so -seriously he was unable to speak for the weeks before he was finally -returned to Haiti to recuperate or die. He could not have gotten in -touch with me and I was not permitted to see him; the police guard -was doubly zealous to keep him from all contact since he was both an -accredited diplomat and a black man. - -I did not know who shot him. It was most unlikely to be anyone -connected with the Grand Army, but I did not know. I could not know. -He _might_ have been shot by Sprovis or George Pondible. Since the -ultimate chain could have led back to me, it did lead back to me. If -this were the Manichaeism of which Enfandin had spoken, I could not -help it - -The loss of my chance to escape from the bookstore was the least of my -despair. It seemed to me I was caught by the inexorable, choiceless -circumstance in which Tyss so firmly believed and Enfandin denied. I -could escape neither my guilt nor the surroundings conducive to further -guilt. I could not change destiny. - -Was all this merely the self-torture of any introverted young man? -Possibly. I only know that for a long time, long as one in his early -twenties measures time, I lost all interest in life, even dallying with -thoughts of suicide. I put books aside distastefully or, which was -worse, indifferently. - -I must have done my work around the store; certainly I recall no -comments from Tyss about it. Neither can I remember anything to -distinguish the succession of days. Obviously I ate and slept; there -were undoubtedly long hours free from utter hopelessness. The details -of those months have simply vanished. - -Nor can I say precisely when it was my despair began to lift. I know -that one day—it was cold and the snow was deep on the ground, deep -enough to keep the minibiles off the streets and cause the horse-cars -trouble—I saw a girl walking briskly, red-cheeked, breathing in quick -visible puffs, and my glance was not apathetic. When I returned to the -bookstore I picked up Field Marshal Liddell-Hart’s _Life of General -Pickett_ and opened it to the place where I had abandoned it. In a -moment I was fully absorbed. - -Paradoxically, once I was myself again I was no longer the same Hodge -Backmaker. For the first time I was determined to do what I wanted -instead of waiting and hoping events would somehow turn out right for -me. Somehow I was going to free myself from the bookstore and all its -frustrations and evils. - -This resolution was reinforced by the discovery that I was exhausting -the volumes around me. The books I sought now were rare and ever more -difficult to find. Innocent of knowledge about academic life I imagined -them ready to hand in any college library. - -Nor was I any longer satisfied with the printed word alone. My -friendship with Enfandin had shown me how fruitful a personal, -face-to-face relationship between teacher and student could be, and -it seemed to me such ties could develop into ones between fellow -scholars, a mutual, uncompetitive pursuit of knowledge. - -Additionally I wanted to search the real, the original sources: -unpublished manuscripts of participants or onlookers, old diaries and -letters, wills or accountbooks, which might shade a meaning or subtly -change the interpretation of old, forgotten actions. - -My problems could be solved ideally by an instructorship at some -college, but how was this to be achieved without the patronage of -a Tolliburr or an Enfandin? I had no credentials worth a second’s -consideration. Though the immigration bars kept out graduates of -foreign universities, no college in the United States would accept a -self-taught young man who had not only little Latin and less Greek, -but no mathematics, languages, or sciences at all. For a long time I -considered possible ways and means, both drab and dramatic; at last, -more in a spirit of whimsical absurdity than sober hope, I wrote out -a letter of application, setting forth the qualifications I imagined -myself to possess, assaying the extent of my learning with a generosity -only ingenuousness could palliate, and outlining the work I projected -for my future. With much care and many revisions I set this composition -in type. It was undoubtedly a foolish gesture, but not having access to -so costly a machine as a typewriter, and not wanting to reveal this by -penning the letters by hand, I resorted to this transparent device. - -Tyss picked up one of the copies I struck off and glanced over it. His -expression was critical. “Is it too bad?” I asked despondently. - -“You should have used more leading. And lined it up and justified -the lines and eliminated hyphens. Setting type can never be done -mechanically or half-heartedly—that’s why no one yet has been able to -invent a practical typesetting machine. I’m afraid you’ll never make a -passable printer, Hodgins.” - -He was concerned only with typesetting, uninterested in the outcome. Or -satisfied, since it was predetermined, that comment was superfluous. - -Government mails, never efficient and always expensive, being one of -the favorite victims of holdup men, and pneumatic post limited to local -areas, I dispatched the letters by Wells, Fargo to a comprehensive list -of colleges. I can’t say I then waited for the replies to flow in, for -though I knew the company’s system of heavily armed guards would insure -delivery of my applications, I had little anticipation of any answers. -As a matter of fact I put it pretty well out of my mind, dredging it up -at rarer intervals, always a trifle more embarrassed by my presumption. - -It was several months later, toward the end of September, that the -telegram came signed Thomas K Haggerwells. It read, ACCEPT NO OFFER -TILL OUR REPRESENTATIVE EXPLAINS HAGGERSHAVEN. - -I hadnt sent a copy of my letter to York, Pennsylvania, where the -telegram had originated, or anywhere near it. I knew of no colleges in -that vicinity. And I had never heard of Mr (or Doctor or Professor) -Haggerwells. I might have thought the message a mean joke, except that -Tyss’s nature didnt run to such humor and no one else knew of the -letters except those to whom they were addressed. - -I found no reference to Haggershaven in any of the directories I -consulted, which wasnt too surprising considering the slovenly way -these were put together. I decided that if such a place existed I could -only wait patiently until the “representative,” if there really was -one, arrived. - -Tyss having left for the day, I swept a little, dusted some, -straightened a few of the books—any serious attempt to arrange the -stock would have been futile—and took up a recent emendation of -Creasy’s _Fifteen Decisive Battles_ by one Captain Eisenhower. - -I was so deep in the good captain’s analysis (he might have made a -respectable strategist himself, given an opportunity) that I heard no -customer enter, sensed no impatient presence. I was only recalled from -my book by a rather sharp, “Is the proprietor in?” - -“No maam,” I answered, reluctantly abandoning the page. “He’s out for -the moment. Can I help you?” - -My eyes, accustomed to the store’s poor light, had the advantage over -hers, still adjusting from the sunlit street. Secure in my audacity, I -measured her vital femininity, a quality which seemed, if such a thing -is possible, impersonal. There was nothing overtly bold or provocative -about her, though I’m sure my mother would have thinned her lips at the -black silk trousers and the jacket which emphasized the contour of her -breasts. At a time when women used every device to call attention to -their helplessness and consequently their desirability and the implied -need for men to protect them, she carried an air which seemed to say, -Why yes, I am a woman: not furtively or brazenly or incidentally but -primarily; what are you going to do about it? - -I recognized a sturdy sensuality as I recognized the fact that she was -bareheaded, almost as tall as I, and rather large-boned; certainly -there was nothing related to me about it. Nor was it connected with -surface attributes; she was not beautiful and still further from being -pretty, though she might have been called handsome in a way. Her hair, -ginger-colored and clubbed low on her neck, waved crisply; her eyes -appeared slate gray. (Later I learned they could vary from pale gray to -blue-green.) The fleshly greediness was betrayed, if at all, only by -the width and set of her lips, and that insolent expression. - -She smiled, and I decided I had been quite wrong in thinking her -tone peremptory. “I’m Barbara Haggerwells. I’m looking for a Mr -Backmaker”—she glanced at a slip of paper—“a Hodgins M Backmaker who -evidently uses this as an accommodation address.” - -“I’m Hodge Backmaker,” I muttered in despair. “I—I work here.” I was -conscious of not having shaved that morning, that my pants and jacket -did not match, that my shirt was not clean. - -I suppose I expected her to say nastily, So I see! or the usual, It -must be fascinating! Instead she said, “I wonder if youve run across -_The Properties of X_ by Whitehead? Ive been trying to get a copy for a -long time.” - -“Uh—I.... Is it a mystery story?” -“I’m afraid not. It’s a book on mathematics by a mathematician very -much out of favor. It’s hard to find, I suppose because the author is -bolder than he is tactful.” - -So naturally and easily she led me away from my embarrassment and into -talking of books, relieving me of self-consciousness and some of the -mortification in being exposed at my humble job by the “representative” -of the telegram. I admitted deficient knowledge of mathematics and -ignorance of Mr Whitehead though I maintained, accurately, that the -book was not in stock, while she assured me that only a specialist -would have heard of so obscure a theoretician. This made me ask, with -the awe one feels for an expert in an alien field, if she were a -mathematician, to which she replied, “Heavens, no. I’m a physicist. But -mathematics is my tool.” - -I looked at her with respect. Anyone, I thought, can read a few books -and set himself up as an historian; to be a physicist means genuine -learning. And I doubted she was much older than I. - -She said abruptly, “My father is interested in knowing something about -you.” - -I acknowledged this with something between a nod and a bow. She had -been examining and gauging me for the past half hour. “Your father is -Thomas Haggerwells?” - -“Haggerwells of Haggershaven,” she confirmed, as though explaining -everything. There was pride in her voice and a hint of superciliousness. - -“I’m dreadfully sorry, Miss Haggerwells, but I’m afraid I’m as ignorant -of Haggershaven as of mathematics.” - -“I thought you said you’d been reading history. Odd youve come upon no -reference to the Haven in the records of the past seventy-five years.” - -I shook my head helplessly. “I suppose my reading has been scattered.” -Her look indicated agreement but not absolution. “Haggershaven is a -college?” - -“No. Haggershaven is ... Haggershaven.” She resumed her equanimity, -her air of smiling tolerance. “It’s hardly a college since it has no -student body nor faculty. Rather, both are one at the haven. Anyone -admitted is a scholar or potential scholar anxious to devote himself to -learning. I mean for its own sake. Not many are acceptable.” - -She need hardly have added this; it seemed obvious I could not be -one of the elect, even if I hadnt offended her by never having heard -of Haggershaven. I knew I couldnt pass the most lenient of entrance -examinations to ordinary colleges, much less to the dedicated place she -represented. - -“There arent any formal requirements for fellowship,” she went on, -“beyond the undertaking to work to full capacity, to pool all knowledge -and hold back none from scholars anywhere, to contribute economically -to the Haven in accordance with decisions of the majority of fellows, -and to vote on questions without consideration of personal gain. There! -That certainly sounds like the stuffiest manifesto delivered this year.” - -“It sounds too good to be true.” - -“Oh, it’s true enough.” She moved close and I caught the scent of her -hair and skin. “But there’s another side. The haven is neither wealthy -nor endowed. We have to earn our living. The fellows draw no stipend; -they have food, clothes, shelter, whatever books and materials they -need—no unessentials. We often have to leave our own individual work to -do manual labor to bring in food or money for all.” - -“Ive read of such communities,” I said enthusiastically. “I thought -they’d all disappeared fifty or sixty years ago.” - -“Have you and did you?” she asked contemptuously. “Youll be surprised -to learn that Haggershaven is neither Owenite nor Fourierist. We are -not fanatics nor saviors. We don’t live in phalansteries, practice -group marriage or vegetarianism. Our organization is expedient, subject -to revision, not doctrinaire. Contribution to the common stock is -voluntary and we are not concerned with each other’s private lives.” - -“I beg your pardon, Miss Haggerwells. I didnt mean to annoy you.” - -“It’s all right. Perhaps I’m touchy; all my life Ive seen the squinty -suspiciousness of the farmers all around, sure we were up to something -immoral, or at least illegal. Youve no idea what a prickly armor you -build around yourself when you know that every yokel is cackling, -‘There goes one of them; I bet they ...’ whatever unconventional -practice their imaginations can conceive at the moment. And the -parallel distrust of the respectable schools. Detachedly, the haven may -indeed be a refuge for misfits, but is it necessarily wrong not to fit -into the civilization around us?” - -“I’m prejudiced. I certainly havent fitted in myself.” - -She didnt answer and I felt I had gone too far in daring an impulsive -identification. Awkwardness made me blurt out further, “Do you ... do -you think there’s any chance Haggershaven would accept me?” Whatever -reserve I’d tried to maintain deserted me; my voice expressed only -childish longing. - -“I couldnt say,” she answered primly. “Acceptance or rejection depends -entirely on the vote of the whole fellowship. All I’m here to offer is -train fare. Neither you nor the haven is bound.” - -“I’m perfectly willing to be bound,” I said fervently. - -“You may not be so rash after a few weeks.” - -I was about to reply when Little Aggie—so called to distinguish her -from Fat Aggie who was in much the same trade, but more successful—came -in. Little Aggie supplemented her nocturnal earnings around Astor Place -by begging in the same neighborhood during the day. - -“Sorry, Aggie,” I said; “Mr Tyss didnt leave anything for you.” - -“Maybe the lady would help a poor working girl down on her luck,” she -suggested, coming close. “My, that’s a pretty outfit you have. Looks -like real silk, too.” - -Barbara Haggerwells drew away with anger and loathing on her face. -“No,” she refused sharply. “No, nothing!” She turned to me. “I must be -going. I’ll leave you to entertain your friend.” - -“Oh, I’ll go,” said Little Aggie cheerfully, “no need to get in an -uproar. Bye-bye.” - -I was frankly puzzled; the puritanical reaction didnt seem consistent. -I would have expected condescending amusement, disdainful tolerance -or even haughty annoyance, but not this furious aversion. “I’m sorry -Little Aggie bothered you. She’s really not a wicked character and she -does have a hard time getting along.” - -“I’m sure you must enjoy her company immensely. I’m sorry we can’t -offer similar attractions at the haven.” - -Apparently she thought my relations with Aggie were professional. -Even so her attitude was odd. I could hardly flatter myself she -was interested in me as a man, yet her flare-up seemed to indicate -jealousy, a strange kind of jealousy, perhaps like the sensuality I -attributed to her, as though the mere presence of another woman was an -affront. - -“Please don’t go yet. For one thing—” I cast around for something -to hold her till I could restore a more favorable impression. “—for -one thing you havent told me how Haggershaven happened to get my -application.” - -She gave me a cold, angry look. “Even though we’re supposed to be -cranks, orthodox educators often turn such letters over to us. After -all, they may want to apply themselves someday.” - -The picture this suddenly presented, of a serene academic life which -was not so serene and secure after all, but prepared for a way to -escape if necessary, was startling to me. I had taken it for granted -that our colleges, even though they were far inferior to those of other -countries, were stable and sheltered. - -When I expressed something of this, she laughed. “Hardly. The -colleges have not only decayed, they have decayed faster than other -institutions. They are mere hollow shells, ruined ornaments of the -past. Instructors spy on each other to curry favor with the trustees -and assure themselves of reappointment when the faculty is out -periodically. Loyalty is the touchstone, but no one knows any more what -the object of loyalty is supposed to be. Certainly it is no longer -toward learning, for that is the least of their concerns.” - -She slowly allowed herself to be coaxed back into her previous mood, -and again we talked of books. And now I thought there was a new warmth -in her voice and glance, as though she had won some kind of victory, -but how or over whom there was no indication. - -When she left I hoped she was not too prejudiced against me. For myself -I readily admitted it would be easy enough to want her—if one were not -afraid of the humiliations it was in her nature to inflict. - - - - -_10._ _THE HOLDUP_ - - -This time I didnt offer Tyss two weeks’ notice. “Well Hodgins, I made -all the appropriate valedictory remarks on a previous occasion, so -I’ll not repeat them, except to say the precision of the script is -extraordinary.” - -It seemed to me he was saying in a roundabout way that everything was -for the best. For the first time I saw Tyss as slightly pathetic rather -than sinister; extreme pessimism and vulgar optimism evidently met, -like his circular time. I smiled indulgently and thanked him sincerely -for all his kindness. - -In 1944 almost a hundred years had passed since New York and eastern -Pennsylvania were first linked in a railroad network, yet I don’t -suppose my journey differed much in speed or comfort from one which -might have been taken by Granpa Hodgins’ father. The steam ferry -carried me across the Hudson to Jersey. I had heard there were only -financial, not technical obstacles to a bridge or tunnel. If the -English and French could burrow under the Channel, as they had early -in the century, and the Japanese complete their great tube beneath the -Korea Strait, it was hard to see why a lesser work here was dismissed -as the impractical suggestion of dreamers who believed the cost would -be saved in a few years by running trains directly to Manhattan. - -Nor was the ferry the only antique survival on the trip. The cars were -all ancient, obvious discards from Confederate or British American -lines. Flat wheels were common; the wornout locomotives dragged them -protestingly over the wobbly rails and uneven roadbed. First class -passengers sat on napless plush or grease-glazed straw seats; second -class passengers stood in the aisles or on the platforms; third class -rode the roofs—safe enough at the low speed except for sudden jerks or -jolts. - -There were so many different lines, each jealous of exclusive rights -of way, that the traveler hardly got used to his particular car before -he had to snatch up his baggage and hustle for the connecting train, -which might be on the same track or at the same sooty depot, but was -more likely to be a mile away. Even the adjective “connecting” was -often ironical for it was not unusual to find time-tables arranged so a -departure preceded an arrival by minutes, necessitating a stopover of -anywhere from one hour to twelve. - -If anything could have quieted my excitement on the trip it was the -view through the dirt-sprayed windows. “Fruitless” and “unfulfilled” -were the words coming oftenest to my mind. I had forgotten during the -past six years just how desolate villages and towns could look when -their jerrybuilt structures were sunk in apathetic age without even -the false rejuvenation of newer jerrybuilding. I had forgotten the -mildewed appearance of tenant farmhouses, the unconvincing attempt to -appear businesslike of false-fronted stores with clutters of hopeless -merchandise in their dim windows, or the inadequate bluff of factories -too small for any satisfactory production. - -Once away from New York it was clear how atypical the city was in its -air of activity and usefulness. The countryside through which the -tracks ran, between fields and pastures or down the center of main -streets, should have been the industrial heart of a country bustling -and vigorous. Instead one saw potentialities denied, projects withered, -poverty and dilapidation. - -We crossed the Susquehanna on an old, old stone bridge that made -one think of Meade’s valiant men, bloodily bandaged many of them, -somnambulistically marching northward, helpless and hopeless after the -Confederate triumph at Gettysburg, their only thought to escape Jeb -Stuart’s pursuing cavalry. Indeed, every square mile now carried on -its surface an almost visible weight of historical memories. - -York seemed old, gray and crabbed in the afternoon, but when I got off -the train there I was too agitated with the prospect of being soon at -Haggershaven to take any strong impression of the town. I inquired the -way, and the surly response confirmed Barbara Haggerwells’ statement -of local animosity. The distance, if my informant was accurate, was a -matter of some ten miles. - -I started off down the highway, building and demolishing daydreams, -thinking of Tyss and Tirzah, Enfandin and Miss Haggerwells, trying to -picture her father and the fellows of the haven and for the thousandth -time marshaling arguments for my acceptance in the face of scornful -scrutiny. The early October sun was setting on the rich red and yellow -leaves of the maples and oaks; I knew the air would become chilly -before long, but exertion kept me warm. I counted on arriving at the -haven in plenty of time to introduce myself before bedtime. - -Less than a mile out of town the highway assumed the familiar aspect of -the roads around Wappinger Falls and Poughkeepsie: rutted, wavering, -with deep, unexpected holes. The stone or rail fences on either side -enclosed harvested cornfields, the broken stalks a dull brass with -copper-colored pumpkins scattered through them. But the fences were in -poor repair and the oft-mended wooden covered bridges over the creeks -all had signs, DANGEROUS, Travel At Your Own Risk. - -There were few to share the highway with me: a farmer with an empty -wagon, urging his team on and giving me a churlish glance instead of -an invitation to ride; a horseman on an elegant chestnut picking his -course carefully among the chuckholes, and a few tramps, each bent on -his solitary way, at once defensive and aggressive. The condition of -the bridges accounted for the absence of minibiles. However, just about -twilight a closed carriage, complete with coachman and footman on the -box, rolled haughtily by, stood for a moment outlined atop the slope up -which I was trudging and then disappeared down the other side. - -I paid little attention except—remembering my boyhood and my father’s -smithy—to visualize automatically the coachman pulling back on the -reins and the footman thrusting forward with the brake as they eased -the horses downward. So when I heard first a shout and then feminine -screams my instant conclusion was that the carriage had overturned -on the treacherous downgrade, broken an axle, or otherwise suffered -calamity. - -My responsive burst of speed had almost carried me to the top when -I heard the shots. First one, like the barking of an uncertain dog, -followed by a volley, as though the pack were unleashed. - -I ran to the side of the road, close to the field, where I could see -with less chance of being seen. Already the dusk was playing tricks, -distorting the shape of some objects and momentarily hiding others. It -could not however falsify the scene in the gully below. Four men on -horseback covered the carriage with drawn revolvers; a fifth, pistol -also in hand, had dismounted. His horse, reins hanging down, was -peacefully investigating the roadside weeds. - -None of them attempted to stop the terrified rearing of the carriage -team. Only their position, strung across the road, prevented a runaway. -I could not see the footman, but the coachman, one hand still clutching -the reins, was sprawled backward with his foot caught against the -dashboard and his head hanging down over the wheel. - -The door on the far side was swung open. I thought for a moment the -passengers had managed to escape. However as the unmounted highwayman -advanced, waving his pistol, the other door opened and a man and two -women descended into the roadway. Slowly edging forward I could now -plainly hear the gang’s obscene whistles at sight of the women. - -“Well boys, here’s something to warm up a cold night. Hang on to them -while I see what the mister has in his pockets.” - -The gentleman stepped in front, and with a slight accent said, “Take -the girl by all means. She is but a peasant, a servant, and may afford -you amusement. But the lady is my wife; I will pay you a good ransom -for her and myself. I am Don Jaime Escobar y Gallegos, attached to the -Spanish legation.” - -One of the men on horseback said, “Well now, that’s real kind of you, -Don High-me. We might have taken you up on that, was you an American. -But we can’t afford no company of Spanish Marines coming looking for -us, so I guess we’ll have to pass up the ransom and settle for whatever -youve got handy. And Missus Don and the hired girl. Don’t worry about -her being a peasant; we’ll treat her and the madam exactly the same.” - -“Madre de Dios,” screamed the lady. “Mercy!” - -“It will be a good ransom,” said the Spaniard, “and I give you my word -my government will not bother you.” - -“Sorry, chum,” returned the gangster. “You foreigners have a nasty -habit of interfering with our domestic institutions and hanging men who -make a living this way. Just can’t trust you.” - -The man on foot took a step forward. The nearest rider swung the maid -up before him and another horseman reached for her mistress. Again she -screamed; her husband brushed the hand aside and put his wife behind -him. At that the gangster raised his pistol and shot twice. The man and -woman dropped to the ground. The maid shrieked till her captor covered -her mouth. - -“Now what did you want to do that for? Cutting our woman supply in half -that way?” - -“Sorry. Mighty damn sorry. These things always happen to me.” - -Meanwhile another of the gang slid off his horse and the two went -through the dead, stripping them of jewelry and whatever articles of -clothing caught their fancy before searching the luggage and the coach -itself for valuables. By the time they had finished it was fully dark -and I had crept to within a few feet of them, crouching reasonably -secure and practically invisible while they debated what to do with the -horses. One faction was in favor of taking them along for spare mounts; -the other, arguing that they were too easily identifiable, for cutting -them out and turning them loose. The second group prevailing, they at -last galloped away. - -A sudden thrashing in the cornstalks just beyond the fence startled -me into rigidity. Something which might be human stumbled and crawled -toward the carriage, snuffling and moaning, to throw itself down by the -prostrate bodies, its anguished noises growing more high-pitched and -chilling. - -I was certain this must be a passenger who had jumped from the off-side -of the carriage at the start of the holdup, but whether man or woman it -was impossible to tell. I moved forward gingerly, but somehow I must -have betrayed my presence, for the creature, with a terrified groan, -slumped inertly. - -My hands told me it was a woman I raised from the ground and the smell -of her was the smell of a young girl. “Don’t be afraid, Miss,” I tried -to reassure her; “I’m a friend.” - -I could hardly leave the girl lying in the road, nor did I feel equal -to carrying her to Haggershaven which I reckoned must be about six -miles further. I tried shaking her, rubbing her hands, murmuring -encouragement, all the while wishing the moon would come up, feeling -somehow it would be easier to revive her in the moonlight. - -“Miss,” I urged, “get up. You can’t stay here—they may come back.” -Had I reached her? She stirred, whimpering with strange, muffled -sounds. I dragged her to her knees and managed to get her arm over my -shoulder. “Get up,” I repeated. “Get on your feet.” - -She moaned. I pulled her upright and adjusted my hold. Supporting her -around the waist and impeded by my valise, I began an ungraceful, -shuffling march. I could only guess at how much time had been taken -up by the holdup and how slow our progress would be. It didnt seem -likely we could get to Haggershaven before midnight, an awkward hour to -explain the company of a strange girl. The possibility of leaving her -at a hospitable farmhouse was remote; no isolated rural family in times -like these would open their door with anything but deep suspicion or a -shotgun blast. - -We had made perhaps a mile, a slow and arduous one, when the moon -rose at last. It was full and bright, and showed my companion to be -even younger than I had thought. The light fell on masses of curling -hair, wildly disarrayed about a face unnaturally pale and lifeless yet -extraordinarily beautiful. Her eyes were closed in a sort of troubled -sleep, and she continued to moan, though at less frequent intervals. - -I had just decided to stop for a moment’s rest when we came upon one of -the horses. The clumsily cut traces trailing behind him had caught on -the stump of a broken sapling. Though still trembling he was over the -worst of his fright; after patting and soothing him I got us onto his -back and we proceeded in more comfortable if still not too dignified -fashion. - -It wasnt hard to find Haggershaven; the sideroad to it was well kept -and far smoother than the highway. We passed between what looked to be -freshly plowed fields and came to a fair sized group of buildings, in -some of which I was pleased to see lighted windows. The girl had still -not spoken; her eyes remained closed and she moaned occasionally. - -Dogs warned of our approach. From a dark doorway a figure came forward -with a rifle under his arm. “Who is it?” - -“Hodge Backmaker. Ive got a girl here who was in a holdup. She’s had a -bad shock.” - -“All right,” he said, “let me hitch the horse. Then I’ll help you with -the girl. My name’s Dorn. Asa Dorn.” - -I slid off and lifted the girl down. “I couldnt leave her in the road,” -I offered in inane apology. - -“I’ll water and feed the horse after. Let’s go into the main kitchen; -it’s warm there. Here,” he addressed the girl, “take my arm.” - -She made no response and I half carried her, with Dorn trying -helpfully to share her weight. The building through which we led her -was obviously an old farmhouse, enlarged and remodelled a number of -times. Gaslights of a strange pattern, brighter than any I’d ever seen, -revealed Asa Dorn as perhaps thirty with very broad shoulders and very -long arms, and a dark, rather melancholy face. “There’s a gang been -operating around here,” he informed me; “tried to shake the haven down -for a contribution. That’s why I was on guard with the gun. Must be the -same bunch.” - -We bustled our charge into a chair before a big fieldstone fireplace -which gave the large room its look of welcome, though the even heat -came from sets of steampipes under the windows. “Should we give her -some soup? Or tea? Or shall I get Barbara or one of the other women?” - -His fluttering brushed the outside of my mind. Here in the light I -instinctively expected to see some faint color in the girl’s cheeks -or hands, but there was none. She looked no more than sixteen, -perhaps because she was severely dressed in some school uniform. Her -hair, which had merely been a disordered frame for her face in the -moonlight, now showed itself as deeply black, hanging in thick, soft -curls around her shoulders. Her features, which seemed made to reflect -emotions—full, mobile lips, faintly slanted eyes, high nostrils—were -instead impassive, devoid of vitality, and this unnatural quiescence -was heightened by the dark eyes, now wide open and expressionless. Her -mouth moved slowly, as though to form words, but nothing came forth -except the faintest of guttural sounds. - -“She’s trying to say something.” I leaned forward as though by -sympathetic magic to help the muscles which seemed to respond with such -difficulty. - -“Why,” exclaimed Dorn, “she’s ... dumb!” - -She looked agonizedly toward him. I patted her arm helplessly. - -“I’ll go get—” he began. - -A door opened and Barbara Haggerwells blinked at us. “I thought I heard -someone ride up, Ace. Do you suppose....” Then she caught sight of the -girl. Her face set in those lines of strange anger I had seen in the -bookstore. - -“Miss Haggerwells—” -“Barbara—” -Dorn and I spoke together. Either she did not hear us or we made no -impression. She faced me in offended outrage. “Really, Mr Backmaker, I -thought I’d explained there were no facilities here for this sort of -thing.” - -“You misunderstand,” I said, “I happened—” -Dorn broke in. “Barbara, she’s been in a holdup. She’s dumb....” - -Fury made her ugly. “Is that an additional attraction?” - -“Miss Haggerwells,” I tried again, “you don’t understand—” -“I think I understand very well. Dumb or not, get the slut out of here! -Get her out right now, I say!” - -“Barbara, youre not listening—” -She continued to face me, her back to him. “I should have remembered -you were a ladies’ man, Mr Self-taught Backmaker. No doubt you imagined -Haggershaven to be some obscene liberty hall. Well, it isnt! You’d be -wasting any further time you spent here. Get out!” - - - - -_11._ _OF HAGGERSHAVEN_ - - -I suppose—recalling the inexplicable scene with Little Aggie—I was -less astonished by her frenzy than I might have been. Besides, her -rage and misunderstanding were anticlimactic after the succession of -excitements I had been through that day. Instead of amazement I felt -only uneasiness and tired annoyance. - -Dorn steered Barbara out of the room with a combination of persuasion -and gentle force disguised as solicitous soothing, leaving the girl and -me alone. “Well,” I said, “well....” - -The large eyes regarded me helplessly. - -“Well, youve certainly caused me a lot of trouble....” - -Dorn returned with two women, one middleaged, the other slightly -younger, who flowed around the girl like soapy water, effectually -sealing her away from all further masculine blunders, uttering little -bubbly clucks and sudsy comfortings. - -“Overwork, Backmaker,” Dorn mumbled. “Barbara’s been overworking -terribly. You mustnt think—” - -“I don’t,” I said. “I’m just sorry she couldnt be made to realize what -actually happened.” - -“Hypersensitive; things that wouldnt ordinarily ... it’s overwork. -Youve no idea. She wears herself out. Practically no nerves left.” - -His face, pleading for understanding, looked even more melancholy than -before. I felt sorry for him and slightly superior; at the moment at -least I didnt have to apologize for any female unpredictability. “OK, -OK; there doesnt seem to be any great harm done. And the girl appears -to be in good hands now.” - -“Oh she is,” he answered with evident relief at dropping the subject of -Barbara’s behavior. “I don’t think there’s anything more we can do for -her now; in fact I’d say we’re only in the way. How about meeting Mr -Haggerwells now?” - -“Why not?” The last episode had doubtless finished me for good so far -as Barbara was concerned; whatever neutral report she might have given -her father originally could now be counted on for a damning revision. I -might as well put a nonchalant face on matters before returning to the -world outside Haggershaven. - -Thomas Haggerwells, large-boned like his daughter, with the ginger hair -faded, and a florid, handsome complexion, made me welcome. “Historian -ay, Backmaker? Delighted. Combination of art and science; Clio, most -enigmatic of the muses. The ever-changing past, ay?” - -“I’m afraid I’m no historian yet, Mr Haggerwells. I’d like to be one. -If Haggershaven will let me be part of it.” - -He patted me on the shoulder. “The fellows will do what they can, -Backmaker; you can trust them.” - -“That’s right,” said Dorn cheerfully; “you look strong as an ox and -historians can be kept happy with books and a few old papers.” - -“Ace is our cynic,” explained Mr Haggerwells; “very useful antidote to -some of our soaring spirits.” He looked absently around and then said -abruptly, “Ace, Barbara is quite upset.” - -I thought this extreme understatement, but Dorn merely nodded. -“Misunderstanding, Mr H.” - -“So I gathered.” He gave a short, selfconscious laugh. “In fact that’s -all I did gather. She said something about a woman....” - -“Girl, Mr H, just a girl.” He gave a quick outline of what had -happened, glossing over Barbara’s hysterical welcome. - -“I see. Quite an adventure in the best tradition, ay Backmaker? And -the victims killed in cold blood; makes you wonder about civilization. -Savagery all around us.” He began pacing the flowered carpet. -“Naturally we must help the poor creature. Shocking, quite shocking. -But how can I explain to Barbara? She ... she came to me,” he said -half proudly, half apprehensively. “I wouldnt want to fail her; I -hardly know....” He pulled himself together. “Excuse me, Backmaker. My -daughter is high-strung. I fear I’m allowing concern to interfere with -our conversation.” - -“Not at all, sir,” I said. “I’m very tired; if you’ll excuse me....” - -“Of course, of course,” he answered gratefully. “Ace will show you -your room. Sleep well—we’ll talk more tomorrow. And Ace—come back here -afterward, will you?” - -Barbara Haggerwells had both Dorn and her father well cowed, I thought -as I lay awake. Clearly she could brook not even the suspicion of -rivalry, even when it was entirely imaginary. It would be rather -frightening to be her father, or—as I suspected Ace might be—her lover, -and subject to her tyrannical dominance. - -But it was neither Barbara nor overstimulation from the full day which -caused my insomnia. A torment, successfully suppressed for hours, -invaded me. Connecting the trip of the Escobars—“attached to the -Spanish legation”—with the counterfeit pesetas was pure fantasy. But -what is logic? I could not argue myself into reasonableness. I could -not quench my feeling of responsibility with ridicule nor convincingly -charge myself with perverse conceit in magnifying my trivial errands -into accountability for all that flowed from the Grand Army—for much -which might have flowed from the Grand Army. Guilty men cannot sleep -because they feel guilty. It is the feeling, not the abstract guilt -which keeps them awake. - -Nor could I pride myself on my chivalry in rescuing distressed -maidens. I had only done what was unavoidable, grudgingly, without -warmth or charity. There was no point in being aggrieved by Barbara’s -misinterpretation with its disastrous consequences to my ambitions. I -had not freely chosen to help; I had no right to resent a catastrophe -which should properly have followed a righteous choice. - -At last I slept, only to dream Barbara Haggerwells was a great fish -pursuing me over endless roads on which my feet bogged in clinging, -tenacious mud. Opening my mouth to shout for help was useless; nothing -came forth but a croak which sounded faintly like my mother’s favorite -“Gumption!” - -In the clear autumn morning my notions of the night dwindled, even -if they failed to disappear entirely. By the time I was dressed Ace -Dorn showed up; we went to the kitchen where Ace introduced me to a -middleaged man, Hiro Agati, whose close-cut stiff black hair stood -perfectly and symmetrically erect all over his head. - -“Dr Agati’s a chemist,” remarked Ace, “condemned to be head chef for a -while on account of being too good a cook.” - -“Believe that,” said Agati, “and you’ll believe anything. Truth is -they always pick on chemists for hard work. Physicists like Ace never -soil their hands. Well, so long as you can’t eat with the common folk, -what’ll you have, eggs or eggs?” - -Agati was the first Oriental I’d ever seen. The great anti-Chinese -massacres of the 1890’s, which generously included Japanese and indeed -all with any sign of the epicanthic eyefold, had left few Asians to -have descendants in the United States. I’m afraid I stared at him more -than was polite, but he was evidently used to such rudeness for he paid -no attention. - -“They finally got the girl to sleep,” Ace informed me. “Had to give her -opium. No report yet this morning.” - -“Oh,” I said lamely, conscious I should have asked after her without -waiting for him to volunteer the news. “Oh. Do you suppose we’ll find -out who she is?” - -“Mr H telegraphed the sheriff first thing. It’ll all depend how -interested he is, and that’s not likely to be very. What’s to drink, -Hiro?” - -“Imitation tea, made from dried weeds; imitation coffee made from burnt -barley. Which’ll you have?” - -I didnt see why he stressed the imitation; genuine tea and coffee were -drunk only by the very rich. Most people preferred “tea” because it was -less obnoxious than the counterfeit coffee. Perversely, I said, “Coffee -please.” - -He set a large cup of brown liquid before me which had a tantalizing -fragrance quite different from that given off by the beverage I was -used to. I added milk and tasted, aware he was watching my reaction. - -“Why,” I exclaimed, “this is different. I never had anything like it in -my life. It’s wonderful.” - -“C eight H ten O two,” said Agati with an elaborate air of -indifference. “Synthetic. Specialty of the house.” - -“So chemists are good for something after all,” remarked Ace. - -“Give us a chance,” said Agati; “we could make beef out of wood and -silk out of sand.” - -“Youre a physicist like B—like Miss Haggerwells?” I asked Ace. - -“I’m a physicist, but not like Barbara. No one is. She’s a genius. A -great creative genius.” - -“Chemists create,” said Agati sourly; “physicists sit and think about -the universe.” - -“Like Archimedes,” said Ace. - - * * * * * - -How shall I write of Haggershaven as my eyes first saw it twenty-two -years ago? Of the rolling acres of rich plowed land, interrupted here -and there by stone outcroppings worn smooth and round by time, and -trees in woodlots or standing alone strong and unperturbed? Of the main -building, grown by fits and starts from the original farmhouse into a -great, rambling eccentricity stopping short of monstrosity only by its -complete innocence of pretense? Shall I describe the two dormitories, -severely functional, escaping harshness because they had not been built -by carpenters and though sturdy enough, betrayed the amateur touch in -every line? Or the cottages and apartments, two, four, at most six -rooms, for the married fellows and their families? These were scattered -all over, some so avid for privacy that one could pass unknowing within -feet of the concealing trees or shrubbery, others bold in the sunshine -on knolls or in hollows. - -I could tell of the small shops, the miniature laboratories, the -inadequate observatory, the heterogeneous assortment of books which -was both less and more than a library, the dozens of outbuildings. But -these things were not the haven. They were merely the least of its -possessions. For Haggershaven was not a material place at all, but a -spiritual freedom. Its limits were only the limits of what its fellows -could do or think or inquire. It was circumscribed only by the outside -world, not by internal rules and taboos, competition or curriculum. - -Most of this I could see for myself, much of it was explained by Ace. -“But how can you afford the time to take me all around this way?” I -asked; “I must be interfering with your own work.” - -He grinned. “This is my period to be guide, counselor and friend to -those whove strayed in here, wittingly or un. Don’t worry, after youre -a fellow youll get told off for all the jobs, from shoveling manure to -gilding weathercocks.” - -I sighed. “The chances of my getting to be a fellow are minus nothing. -Especially after last night.” - -He didnt pretend to misunderstand. “Barbara’ll come out of it. She’s -not always that way. As her father says, she’s high-strung, and she’s -been working madly. And to tell the truth,” he went on in a burst of -frankness, “she really doesnt get on too well with other women. She has -a masculine mind.” - -I have often noticed that men not strikingly brilliant themselves -attribute masculine minds to intelligent women on the consoling -assumption that feminine minds are normally inferior. Ace however was -manifestly innocent of any attempt to patronize. - -“Anyway,” he concluded, “she has only one vote.” - -I didnt know whether to take this as a pledge of support or mere -politeness. “Isnt it wasteful, assigning a chemist like Dr Agati to -kitchen work? Or isnt he a good chemist?” - -“Just about the best there is. His artificial tea and coffee would -bring a fortune to the haven if there were a profitable market; even as -it is it’ll bring a good piece of change. Wasteful? What would you have -us do, hire cooks and servants?” - -“Theyre cheap enough.” - -“Or frightfully expensive. Specialization, the division of labor, is -certainly not cheap in anything but dollars and cents, and not always -then. And it’s unquestionably wasteful in terms of equality. And I -don’t think there’s anyone at the haven who isn’t an egalitarian.” - -“But you do specialize and divide labor. Don’t tell me you swap your -physics for Agati’s chemistry.” - -“In a way we do. Of course I don’t set up as an experimenter, any more -than he does as a speculator. But there have been plenty of times Ive -worked under his direction when he needed an assistant who didnt know -anything but had a strong back.” - -“All right,” I said; “but I still don’t see why you can’t hire a cook -and some dishwashers.” - -“Where would our equality be then? What would happen to our fellowship?” - -Haggershaven’s history, which I got little by little, was more than -a link with the past; it was a possible hint of what might have been -if the War of Southron Independence had not interrupted the American -pattern. Barbara’s great-great-grandfather, Herbert Haggerwells, -had been a Confederate major from North Carolina who, as conquerors -sometimes do, had fallen in love with the then fat Pennsylvania -countryside. After the war he had put everything—not much by Southron -standards, but a fortune in depreciated, soon to be repudiated, United -States greenbacks—into the farm which later formed the nucleus of -Haggershaven. Then he married a local girl and transformed himself into -a Northerner. - -Until I became too accustomed to notice it anymore I used to stare at -his portrait in the library, picturing in idle fancy a possible meeting -on the battlefield between this aristocratic gentleman with his curling -mustache and daggerlike imperial and my own plebian Granpa Hodgins. But -the chance of their ever having come face to face was much more than -doubtful; I, who had studied both their likenesses, was the only link -between them. - -“Hard looking character, ay?” commented Ace. “This was painted when -he was mellow; imagine him twenty years earlier. Pistols cocked and -Juvenal or Horace or Seneca in the saddlebags.” - -“He was a cavalry officer, then?” - -“I don’t know. Don’t think so as a matter of fact. Saddlebags was just -my artistic touch. They say he was a holy terror; discipline and all -that—it sort of goes with a man on horseback. And the old Roman boys -are pure deduction; he was that type. Patronized several writers and -artists; you know: ‘Drop down to my estate and stay a while’ and they -stayed five or ten years.” - -But it was Major Haggerwells’ son who, seeing the deterioration of -Northern colleges, had invited a few restive scholars to make their -home with him. They were free to pursue their studies under an elastic -arrangement which permitted them to be selfsupporting through work on -the farm. - -Thomas Haggerwells’ father had organized the scheme further, attracting -a larger number of schoolmen who contributed greatly to the material -progress of the haven. They patented inventions, marketless at home, -which brought regular royalties from more industrialized countries. -Agronomists improved the haven’s crops and took in a steady income from -seed. Chemists found ways of utilizing otherwise wasted byproducts; -proceeds from scholarly works—and one more popular than scholarly—added -to the funds. In his will, Volney Haggerwells left the properties to -the fellowship. - -I suppose I expected there would be some uniformity, some basic type -characterizing the fellows. Not that Barbara, or Ace, or Hiro Agati -resembled a stereotype at any point, any more than I did myself, but -then I was not one of the elect nor likely to be. Even after I had met -more than half of them the notion persisted that there must be some -stamp on them proclaiming what they were. - -Yet as I wandered about the haven, alone or with Ace, the people I met -were quite diverse, more so by far than in the everyday world. There -were the ebullient and the glum, the talkative and the laconic, the -bustling and the slow-moving. Some were part of a family, others lived -ascetically, withdrawn from the pleasures of the flesh. - -In the end I realized there was, if not a similarity, a strong bond. -The fellows, conventional or eccentric, passionate or reserved, were -all earnest, purposeful and, despite individual variations, tenacious. -They were, though I hesitate to use so emotional a word, dedicated. -The cruel struggle and suspicion, the frantic endeavor to improve -one’s own financial, social, or political standing by maiming or -destroying someone else intent on the same endeavor was either unknown -or so subdued as to be imperceptible at the haven. Disagreements and -jealousies existed, but they were different in kind rather than in -degree from those to which I had been accustomed all my life. The -pervasive fears which fostered the latter, the same fears which made -lotteries and indenture frantic gambles to escape the wretchedness of -life, could not circulate in the security of the haven. - -After the scene at my arrival, I didnt see Barbara again for some ten -days. Even then it was but a glimpse, caught as she hurried in one -direction and I sauntered in another. She threw me a single frigid -glance and went on. Later, I was talking with Mr Haggerwells, who had -proved to be not quite an amateur of history but more than a dabbler, -when, without knocking, she burst into the room. - -“Father, I—” Then she caught sight of me. “Sorry. I didnt know you were -entertaining.” - -His tone was that of one found in a guilty act. “Come in, come in, -Barbara. Backmaker is after all something of a protégé of yours. -Urania, you know—if one may stretch the ascription a bit—encouraging -Clio.” - -“Really, Father!” She was regal. Wounded, scornful, but majestic. “I’m -sure I don’t know enough about self-taught pundits to sponsor them. It -seems too bad they have to waste your time—” - -He flushed. “Please, Barbara. You must, you really must control....” - -Her disapproval became open anger. “Must I? Must I? And stand by while -every pretentious swindler usurps your attention? Oh, I don’t ask -for any special favors as your daughter; I know too well I have none -coming. But I should think at least the consideration due a fellow -of the haven would prompt ordinary courtesy even where no natural -affection exists!” - -“Barbara, please.... Oh, my dear girl, how can you ...?” - -But she was gone, leaving him distressed and me puzzled. Not at her -lack of restraint but at her accusation that he lacked a father’s -love for her. Nothing was clearer than his pride in her or his -protective, baffled tenderness. It did not seem possible so willful a -misunderstanding could be maintained. - -“You can’t judge Barbara by ordinary standards,” insisted Ace -uncomfortably, when I told him what had happened. - -“I’m not judging her by any standards or at all,” I said; “I just don’t -see how anyone could get things so wrong.” - -“She.... Her nature needs sympathy. Lots of it. She’s never had the -understanding and encouragement she ought to have.” - -“It looks the other way around to me.” - -“That’s because you don’t know the background. She’s always been -lonely. From childhood. Her mother was impatient of children and never -found time for her.” - -“How do you know?” I asked. - -“Why ... she told me, of course.” - -“And you believed her. Without corroborative evidence. Is that what’s -called the scientific attitude?” - -He stopped stock-still. “Look here, Backmaker—” a moment before I had -been Hodge to him—“Look here, Backmaker, I’m damned tired of all the -things people say about Barbara; the jeers and sneers and gossip by -people who just aren’t good enough to breathe the same air with her, -much less have the faintest notion of her mind and spirit—” -“Come off it, Ace,” I interrupted. “I havent got anything against -Barbara. The shoe is on the other foot. Tell her I’m all right, will -you? Don’t waste time trying to convince me; I’m just trying to get -along.” - -It was clear, not only from the slips which evaded Ace’s guard, but -from less restrained remarks by other fellows, that Barbara’s tortured -jealousy was a fixture of her character. She had created feuds, -slandered and reviled fellows who had been guilty of nothing except -trying to interest her father in some project in which she herself -was not concerned. I learned much more also, much Ace had no desire -to convey. But he was a poor hand at concealing anything, and it was -clear he was helplessly subject to her, but without the usual kindly -anesthetic of illusion. I guessed he had enjoyed her favors, but she -evidently didnt bother to hide the fact that the privilege was not -exclusive; perhaps indeed she insisted on his knowing. I gathered she -was a fiercely moral polyandrist, demanding absolute fidelity without -offering the slightest hope of reciprocal singlemindedness. - - - - -_12._ _MORE OF HAGGERSHAVEN_ - - -Among the fellows was an Oliver Midbin, a student of what he chose to -call the new and revolutionary science of Emotional Pathology. Tall -and thin, with an incongruous little potbelly like an enlarged and -far-slipped adamsapple, he pounced on me as a ready-made and captive -audience for his theories. - -“Now this case of pseudo-aphonia—” -“He means the dumb girl,” explained Ace, aside. - -“Nonsense. Dumbness is not even the statement of a symptom, but a very -imperfect description. Pseudo-aphonia. Purely of an emotional nature. -Of course if you take her to some medical quack he’ll convince himself -and you and certainly her that there’s an impairment, or degeneration, -or atrophy of the vocal cords—” - -“I’m not the girl’s guardian, Mr Midbin—” -“Doctor. Philosophiae, Göttingen. Trivial matter.” - -“Excuse me, Dr Midbin. Anyway, I’m not her guardian so I’m not taking -her anywhere. But, just as a theoretical question, suppose examination -did reveal physical damage?” - -He appeared delighted, and rubbed his hands together. “Oh, it would. I -assure you it would. These fellows always find what theyre looking for. -If your disposition is sour theyll find warts on your duodenum. In a -postmortem. In a postmortem. Whereas Emotional Pathology deals with the -sour disposition and lets the warts, if any, take care of themselves. -Matter is a function of the mind. People are dumb or blind or deaf for -a purpose. Now what purpose can the girl have for muteness?” - -“No conversation?” I suggested. I didnt doubt Midbin was an authority, -but his manner made flippancy almost irresistible. - -“I shall find out,” he said firmly. “This is bound to be a simpler -maladjustment than Barbara’s—” - -“Aw, come on,” protested Ace. - -“Nonsense, Dorn; obscurantic nonsense. Reticence is a necessary -ingredient of those medical ethics by which the quacks conceal -incompetence. Mumbo jumbo to keep the layman from asking annoying -questions. Priestly, not scientific approach. Art and mystery of -phlebotomy. Don’t hold back knowledge; publish it to the world.” - -“I think Barbara wouldnt want her private thoughts published to the -world. You have to draw the line somewhere.” - -Midbin put his head on one side and looked at Ace as though he were -difficult to see. “Now that’s interesting, Dorn,” he said; “I wonder -what turns a seeker after knowledge into a censor.” - -“Are you going to start exploring my emotional pathology now?” - -“Not interesting enough; not nearly interesting enough. Diagnosis while -you wait; treatment in a few easy instalments. Barbara now—there’s a -really beautiful case. Beautiful case; years of treatment and little -sign of improvement. Of course she wouldnt want her thoughts known. -Why? Because she’s happy with her hatred for her dead mother. Shocking -to Mrs Grundy; doubly ditto to Mister. Exaggerated possessiveness -toward her father makes her miserable. Thoughts known, misery -ventilated: shame, condemnation, fie, fie. Her fantasy—” -“Midbin!” - -“Her fantasy of going back to childhood (fascinating; adult employs -infantile time-sequence, infantile magic, infantile hatreds) in order -to injure her mother is a sick notion she cherishes the way a dog licks -a wound. But without analogous therapy. Ventilate it. Ventilate it. Now -this girl’s case is bound to be simpler. Younger if nothing else. And -nice, overt symptoms. Bring her around tomorrow and we’ll begin.” - -“Me?” I asked. - -“Who else? Youre the only one she doesnt seem to distrust.” - -It was annoying to have the girl’s puppylike devotion observed and -commented on. I realized she saw me as the only connection, however -tenuous, with a normal past; I had assumed she would turn naturally -after a few days to the women who took such open pleasure in fussing -over her affliction. However she merely suffered their attentions; no -matter how I tried to avoid her she sought me out, running to me with -muted cries which should have been touching but were only painful. - -Mr Haggerwells’ telegram to the sheriff’s office at York had brought -the reply that a deputy sheriff would visit the haven “when time -permitted.” He had also telegraphed the Spanish legation who answered -they knew no other Escobars than Don Jaime and his wife. The girl might -be a servant or a stranger; it was no concern of His Most Catholic -Majesty. - -The school uniform made it unlikely she was a servant but beyond this, -little was deducible. She did not respond to questions in either -Spanish or English, and it was impossible to tell if she understood -their meaning, for her blank expression remained unchanged. When -offered pencil and paper she handled them curiously, then let them -slide to the floor. - -I wondered briefly if perhaps her intelligence was slightly subnormal, -but this was met by a firm, even belligerent denial from Midbin, whose -conclusion was confirmed, at least in my opinion, by her apparently -excellent coordination, her personal neatness and fastidiousness which -were far more delicate than any I’d been accustomed to. - -Midbin’s method of treatment smacked of the mystical. His subjects -were supposed to relax on a couch and say whatever came into their -minds. At least this was the clearest part of the explanation he gave -when I rebelliously escorted the girl to his “office,” a large, bare -room decorated only by some old European calendars by the popular -academician, Picasso. The couch was a cot which Midbin himself used -more conventionally at night. - -“All right,” I said; “just how are you going to manage?” - -“Convince her everything’s all right and I’m not going to hurt her.” - -“Sure,” I agreed. “Sure. Only: how?” - -He gave me one of his head-on-shoulder looks and turned to the girl who -waited apathetically, with downcast eyes. “You lie down,” he suggested. - -“Me? I’m not dumb.” - -“Pretend you are. Lie down, close your eyes, say the first thing on -your tongue. Without stopping to think about it.” - -“How can I say anything if I’m pretending to be dumb?” Grudgingly -I complied, fancying a faint look of curiosity passing over the -too-placid face. “‘No man bathes twice in the same stream,’” I muttered. - -He made me repeat the performance several times, then by pantomime -urged her to imitate me. It was doubtful if she understood; in the end -we nudged her gently into the required position. There was no question -of relaxation; she lay there warily, tense and stiff even with her eyes -closed. - -The whole business was so manifestly useless and absurd, to say nothing -of being undignified, that I was tempted to walk out on it. Only -ignoble calculation on Midbin’s voting for my acceptance in the haven -kept me there. - -Looking at the form stretched out so rigidly, I could not but admit -again that the girl was beautiful. But the admission was dispassionate; -the beauty was abstract and neutral, the lovely young lines evoked no -lust. I felt only vexation because her plight kept me from the wonders -of Haggershaven. - -“What good can this possibly do?” I burst out after ten fruitless -minutes. “Youre trying to find out why she can’t talk and she can’t -talk to tell you why she can’t talk.” - -“Science explores all methods of approach,” Midbin answered loftily; -“I’m searching for a technique which will reach her. Bring her back -tomorrow.” - -I swallowed my annoyance and started out. The girl jumped up and -pressed close to my side. Outdoors the air was crisp; I felt her -suppress a slight shiver. “Now I suppose I’ll have to take you where -it’s warm or find a wrap for you,” I scolded irritably. “I don’t know -why I have to be your nursemaid.” - -She whimpered very softly and I was remorseful. None erf this was her -fault; my callousness was inexcusable. But if she could only attach -herself to some other protector and leave me alone.... - -As one about to be banished I tried to cram everything into short days. -I realized that these autumn weeks, spent in casual conversation or -joining the familiar preparations for rural winter, were a period of -thorough and critical probation. There was little I could do to sway -the decision beyond the exhibition of an honest willingness to turn to -whatever work needed doing, and to repeat, whenever the opportunity -offered, that Haggershaven was literally a revelation to me, an island -of civilization in the midst of a chaotic and savage sea. My dream was -to make a landfall there. - -Certainly my meager background and scraps of reading would not persuade -the men and women of the haven; I could only hope they might divine -some promise in me. Against this hope I put Barbara’s enmity, a -hostility now exacerbated by rage at Oliver Midbin for daring to devote -to another, particularly another woman, the attention which had been -her due, and the very technique used for her. I knew her persistence -and I could not doubt she would move enough of the fellows to insure my -rejection. - -The gang which had been operating in the vicinity, presumably the -same one I had encountered, moved on. At least no further crimes were -attributed to it. Once they were gone, Deputy Sheriff Beasley finally -found time to visit Haggershaven in response to the telegram. He had -evidently been there before without attaining much respect on either -side. I got the distinct impression he would have preferred a more -formal examination than the one which took place in Mr Haggerwells’ -study, with fellows drifting in and out, interrupting the proceedings -with comments of their own. - -I think he doubted the girl’s dumbness. He barked his questions so -loudly and brusquely they would have terrified a far more securely -poised individual. She promptly went into dry hysterics, whereupon he -turned his attention to me. - -I was apprehensive lest his questions explore my life with Tyss and -my connection with the Grand Army, but apparently mere presence at -Haggershaven indicated an innocence not unrelated to idiocy, at least -so far as the more popular crimes were concerned. My passage of -the York road and all the events leading up to it were outside his -interest; he wanted only a succinct story of the holdup, reminding me -of the late Colonel Tolliburr in his assumption that the lay eye ought -normally to be photographic of the minutest detail. - -He was clearly dissatisfied with my account and left grumbling that -it would be more to the point if bookworms learned to identify a man -properly, instead of logarithms or trigonometry. I didn’t see exactly -how this applied to me, since I was laudably ignorant of both subjects. - -If Officer Beasley was disappointed, Midbin was enchanted. Of course he -had heard my narrative before, but this was the first time he’d savored -its possible impact on the girl. - -“You see, her pseudo-aphonia is neither congenital nor of long -standing. All logic leads to the conclusion that it’s the result of her -terror during the experience. She must have wanted to scream, it must -have been almost impossible for her not to scream, but for her very -life she dared not. The instinctive, automatic reaction was the one she -could not allow herself. She had to remain mute while she watched the -murders.” - -For the first time it seemed possible there was more to Midbin than his -garrulity. - -“She crushed back that natural, overwhelming impulse,” he went on. “She -had to; her life depended on it. It was an enormous effort and the -effect on her was in proportion; she achieved her object too well; when -it was safe for her to speak again she couldnt.” - -It all sounded so plausible it was some time before I thought to ask -him why she didnt appear to understand what we said, or why she didnt -write anything when she was handed pencil and paper. - -“Communication,” he answered. “She had to cut off communication, and -once cut off it’s not easy to restore. At least that’s one aspect. -Another is more tricky. The holdup happened more than a month ago, but -do you suppose the affected mind reckons so precisely? Is a precise -reckoning possible? Duration may, for all we know, be an entirely -subjective thing. Yesterday for you may be today for me. We recognize -this to some extent when we speak of hours passing slowly or quickly. -The girl may still be undergoing the agony of repressing her screams; -the holdup, the murders, are not in the past for her, but the present. -They are taking place in a long drawn out instant of time which may -never end during her life. And if this is so, is it any wonder she is -unable to relax, to let down her guard long enough to realize that the -present is present and the crisis is past?” - -He pressed his middle thoughtfully. “Now, if it is possible to recreate -in her mind by stimulus from without rather than by evocation from -within the conditions leading up to and through the climacteric, she -would have a chance to vent the emotions she was forced to swallow. She -might, I don’t say she would, she might speak again.” - -I understood such a process would necessarily be lengthy, but as time -passed I saw no indication he was reaching her at all, much less that -he was getting any results. One of the Spanish-speaking fellows, -a botanist who came and went from the haven at erratic intervals, -translated my account of our meeting and read parts of it to the -recumbent girl, following Midbin’s excited stage directions and -interpolations. Nothing happened. - -Outside the futile duty of coaxing the girl to participate in Midbin’s -sessions I had no obligations except those I took upon myself or could -persuade others to delegate to me. Hiro Agati declared me hopelessly -incompetent to help him in the kiln he had set up to make “hard -glass,” a thick substance he hoped might take the place of cast iron -in such things as woodstoves, or clay tile in flues. He conceded I was -not entirely useless in the small garden surrounding their cottage -where he, Mrs Agati—an architect, much younger than her husband and -extremely diminutive—and their three children spent their spare time -transplanting, rearranging, or preparing for the following season. - -Dr Agati was not only the first American Japanese I had ever met; his -was the first family I had known who broke the unwritten rule of having -only one child. Both he and Kimi Agati seemed unaware of the stern -injunctions by Whigs and Populists alike that disaster would follow if -the population of the country increased too fast. Fumio and Eiko didnt -care, while Yoshio, at two, was just not interested. - -The Agatis represented for me one more pang at the thought of -banishment from the haven. Since I knew neither chemistry nor -architecture, our conversation had limits, but this was no drawback to -the pleasure I took in their company. Often, after I was assured I was -welcome there, I sat reading or simply silent while Hiro worked, the -children ran in and out, and Kimi, who was conservative and didnt care -for chairs, sat comfortably on the floor and sketched or calculated -stresses. - -Gradually I progressed from the stage where I wanted decision on my -application postponed as long as possible to one where I was impatient -to have it over and done with. “Why?” asked Hiro. “Suspense is the -condition we live in all our lives.” - -“Well, but there are degrees. You know about what you will be doing -next year.” - -“Do I? What guarantees have I? The future is happily veiled. When I -was your age I despaired because no one would accept the indentures of -a Japanese. (We are still called Japanese even though our ancestors -migrated at the time of the abortive attempt to overthrow the Shogunate -and restore the Mikado in 1868.) Suspense instead of certainty would -have been a pleasure.” - -“Anyway,” said Kimi practically, “it may be months before the next -meeting.” - -“What do you mean? Isnt there a set time for such business?” Sure there -must be, I had never dared ask the exact date. - -Hiro shook his head. “Why should there be? The next time the fellows -pass on an appropriation or a project, we’ll decide whether there’s -room for an historian.” - -“But ... as Kimi says, it might not be for months.” - -“Or it might be tomorrow,” replied Hiro. - -“Don’t worry, Hodge,” said Fumio, “Papa will vote for you, and Mother -too.” - -Hiro grunted. - -When it did come it was anticlimactic. Hiro, Midbin, and several others -with whom I’d scarcely exchanged a word recommended me, and Barbara -simply ignored my existence. I was a full fellow of Haggershaven, with -all the duties and privileges appertaining. I was also securely at home -for the first time since I left Wappinger Falls more than six years -before. I knew that in all its history few had ever cut themselves off -from the haven, still fewer had ever been asked to resign. - -At a modest celebration in the big kitchen that night, the haven -revealed more of the talents it harbored. Hiro produced a gallon -of liquor he had distilled from sawdust and called cellusaki. Mr -Haggerwells pronounced it fit for a cultivated palate, following with -an impromptu discourse on drinking through the ages. Midbin sampled -enough of it to imitate Mr. Haggerwells’ lecture and then, as an -inspired afterthought, to demonstrate how Mr Haggerwells might mimic -Midbin’s parody. Ace and three others sang ballads; even the dumb girl, -persuaded to sip a little of the cellusaki under the disapproving eyes -of her self-appointed guardians, seemed to become faintly animated. If -anyone noted the absence of Barbara Haggerwells, no one commented on it. - -Fall became winter. Surplus timber was hauled in from the woodlots and -the lignin extracted by compressed air, a method perfected by one of -the fellows. Lignin was the fuel used in our hot water furnaces and -provided the gas for the reflecting jets which magnified a tiny flame -into strong illumination. All of us took part in this work, but just as -I had not been able to help Hiro to his satisfaction in the laboratory, -so here too my ineptness with things mechanical soon caused me to be -set to more congenial tasks in the stables. - -I did not repine at this, for though I was delighted with the society -of the others, I found it pleasurable to be alone, to sort out my -thoughts, to slow down to the rhythm of the heavy percherons or enjoy -the antics of the two young foals. The world and time were somewhere -shut outside; I felt contentment so strong as to be beyond satisfaction -or any active emotion. - -I was currying a dappled mare one afternoon and reflecting how the -steam-plow used on the great wheat ranches of British America deprived -the farmers not merely of fertilizer but also of companionship, when -Barbara, her breath still cloudy from the cold outside, came in and -stood behind me. I made an artificial cowlick on the mare’s flank, then -brushed it glossy smooth again. - -“Hello,” she said. - -“Uh ... hello, Miss Haggerwells.” - -“Must you, Hodge?” - -I roughed up the mare’s flank once more. “Must I what? I’m afraid I -don’t understand.” - -She came close, as close as she had in the bookstore, and I felt my -breath quicken. “I think you do. Why do you avoid me? And call me -‘Miss Haggerwells’ in that prim tone? Do I look so old and ugly and -forbidding?” - -This, I thought, is going to hurt Ace. Poor Ace, befuddled by a -Jezebel; why can’t he attach himself to a nice quiet girl who won’t -tear him in pieces every time she follows her inclinations? - -I smoothed the mare’s side for the last time and put down the currycomb. - -“I think you are the most exciting woman Ive ever met, Barbara,” I -said. - - - - -_13._ _TIME_ - - -“Hodge.” - -“Barbara?” - -“Is it really true youve never written your mother since you left home?” - -“Why should I write her? What could I say? Perhaps if my first plans -had come to something, I might have. But to tell her I worked for -six years for nothing would only confirm her opinion of my lack of -gumption.” - -“I wonder if your ambitions in the end don’t amount to a wish to prove -her wrong.” - -“Now you sound like Midbin,” I said, but I wasnt annoyed. I much -preferred her present questions to those I’d heard from her in the past -weeks: Do you love me? Are you sure? Really love, I mean; more than any -other woman? Why? - -“Oliver has had accidental flashes of insight.” - -“Arent you substituting your own for what you think might be my -motives?” - -“My mother hated me,” she stated flatly. - -“Well, it isnt a world where love is abundant; substitutes are cheap -and available. But hate—that’s a strong word. How do you know?” -“I know. What does it matter how? I’m not unfeeling, like you.” - -“Me? Now what have I done?” - -“You don’t care about anyone. Not me or anyone else. You don’t want me; -just any woman would do.” - -I considered this. “I don’t think so, Barbara—” -“See! You don’t think so. Youre not sure, and anyway you wouldnt hurt -my feelings needlessly. Why don’t you be honest and tell the truth. -You’d just as soon it was that streetwalker in New York. Maybe you’d -rather. You miss her, don’t you?” - -“Barbara, Ive told you a dozen times I never—” -“And Ive told you a dozen times youre a liar! I don’t care. I really -don’t care.” - -“All right.” - -“How can you be so phlegmatic? So unfeeling? Nothing means anything to -you. Youre a real, stolid peasant. And you smell like one too, always -reeking of the stable.” - -“I’m sorry,” I said mildly; “I’ll try to bathe more often.” - -Her taunts and jealous fits, her insistent demands did not ruffle me. -I was too pleased with the wonders of life to be disturbed. All I’d -dreamed Haggershaven could mean when I was sure I would never be part -of it was fulfilled and more than fulfilled. Haggershaven and Barbara; -Eden and Lilith. - -At first it seemed the bookstore years were wasted, but I soon realized -the value of that catholic and serendipitous reading as a preparation -for this time. I was momentarily disappointed that there was no one -at the haven to whom I could turn for that personal, face-to-face, -student-teacher relationship on which I’d set so great a store, but -if there was no historical scholar among the fellows to tutor me, I -was surrounded by those who had learned the discipline of study. There -was none to discuss the details of the industrial revolution or the -failure of the Ultramontane Movement in Catholicism and the policies of -Popes Adrian VII, VIII and IX, but all could show me scheme and method. -I began to understand what thorough exploration of a subject meant -as opposed to sciolism, and I threw myself into my chosen work with -furious zest. - -I also began to understand the central mystery of historical theory. -When and what and how and where, but the when is the least. Not -chronology but relationship is ultimately what the historian deals in. -The element of time, so vital at first glance, assumes a constantly -more subordinate character. That the past is past becomes ever less -important. Except for perspective it might as well be the present or -the future or, if one can conceive it, a parallel time. I was not -investigating a petrification but a fluid. Were it possible to know -fully the what and how and where one might learn the why, and assuredly -if one grasped the why he could place the when at will. - -During that winter I read philosophy, psychology, archaeology, -anthropology. My energy and appetite were prodigious, as they needed to -be. I saw the field of knowledge, not knowledge in the abstract, but -things I wanted to know, things I had to know, expanding in front of me -with dizzying speed while I crawled and crept and stumbled over ground -I should have covered years before. - -Yet if I had studied more conventionally I would never have had the -Haven or Barbara. Novelists speak lightly of gusts of passion, but it -was nothing less than irresistible force which drove me to her, day -after day. Looking back on what I had felt for Tirzah Vame with the -condescension twenty-four has toward twenty, I saw my younger self -only as callow, boyish and slightly obtuse. I was embarrassed by the -torments I had suffered. - -With Barbara I lived only in the present, shutting out past and future. -This was only partly due to the intensity, the fierceness of our -desire; much came from Barbara’s own troubled spirit. She herself was -so avid, so demanding, that yesterday and tomorrow were irrelevant to -the insistent moment. The only thing saving me from enslavement like -poor Ace was the belief, correct or incorrect I am to this day not -certain, that to yield the last vestige of detachment and objectivity -would make me helpless, not just before her, but to accomplish my ever -more urgent ambitions. - -Still I know much of my reserve was unnecessary, a product of fear, not -prudence. I denied much I could have given freely and without harm; -my guard protected what was essentially empty. My fancied advantage -over Ace, based on my having always had an easy, perhaps too easy -way with women, was no advantage at all. I foolishly thought myself -master of the situation because her infidelities, if such a word can -be used where faithfulness is explicitly ruled out, did not bother -me. I believed I had grown immensely wise since the time when the -prospect of Tirzah’s rejection had made me miserable. I was wrong; my -sophistication was a lack, not an achievement - -Do I need to say that Barbara was no wanton, moved by light and fickle -voluptuousness? The puritanism of our time, expressing itself in -condemnations and denials, molded her as it molded our civilization. -She was driven by urges deeper and darker than sensuality; her -mad jealousies were provoked by an unappeasable need for constant -reassurance. She had to be dominant, she had to be courted by more -than one man; she had to be told constantly what she could never truly -believe: that she was uniquely desired. - -I wondered that she did not burn herself out, not only with conflicting -passions, but with her fury of work. Sleep was a weakness she despised, -yet she craved far more of it than she allowed herself; she rationed -her hours of unconsciousness and drove herself relentlessly. Ace’s -panegyrics on her importance as a physicist I discounted, but older -and more objective colleagues spoke of her mathematical concepts, not -merely with respect, but with awe. - -She did not discuss her work with me; our intimacy stopped short of -such exchanges. I got the impression she was seeking the principles of -heavier-than-air flight, a chimera which had long intrigued inventors. -It seemed a pointless pursuit, for it was manifest such levitation -could no more replace our safe, comfortable guided balloons than -minibiles could replace the horse. - -Spring made all of us single-minded farmers until the fields were -plowed and sown. No one grudged these days, for the Haven’s economic -life was based first of all on its land, and we were happy in the work -itself. Not until the most feverish competition with time began to -slacken could we return to our regular activities. - -I say “all of us,” but I must except the dumb girl. She greeted the -spring with the nearest approach to cheerfulness she had displayed; -there was a distinct lifting of her apathy. Unexpectedly she revealed -a talent which had survived the shock to her personality or had been -resurrected like the pussywillows and crocuses by the warm sun. She -was a craftsman with needle and thread. Timidly at first, but gradually -growing bolder, she contrived dresses of gayer and gayer colors in -place of the drab school uniform; always, on the completion of a new -creation, running to me as though to solicit my approval. - -This innocent if embarrassing custom could hardly escape Barbara’s -notice, but her anger was directed at me, not the girl. My “devotion” -was not only absurd, she told me, it was also conspicuous and -degrading. My taste was inexplicable, running as it did to immature, -deranged cripples. - -Naturally when the girl took up the habit of coming to the edge of the -field where I was plowing, waiting gravely motionless for me to drive -the furrow toward her, I anticipated still further punishment from -Barbara’s tongue. The girl was not to be swayed from her practice; at -least I did not have the heart to speak roughly to her, and so she -daily continued to stand through the long hours watching me plow, -bringing me a lunch at noon and docilely sharing a small portion of it. - -The planting done, Midbin began the use of a new technique, showing -her drawings of successive stages of the holdup, again nagging and -pumping me for details to sharpen their accuracy. Her reactions pleased -him immensely, for she responded to the first ones with nods and the -throaty sounds we recognized as understanding or agreement. The scenes -of the assault itself, of the shooting of the coachman, the flight of -the footman, and her own concealment in the cornfield evoked whimpers, -while the brutal depiction of the Escobars’ murder made her cower and -cover her eyes. - -I suppose I am not particularly tactful; still I had been careful -not to mention any of this to Barbara. Midbin, however, after a very -gratifying reaction to one of the drawings, said casually, “Barbara -hasnt been here for a long time. I wish she would come back.” - -When I repeated this she stormed at me. “How dare you discuss me with -that ridiculous fool?” - -“Youve got it all wrong. There wasnt any discussion. Midbin only said—” -“I know what Oliver said. I know his whole silly vocabulary.” - -“He only wants to help you.” - -“Help me? Help _me_? What’s wrong with me?” - -“Nothing, Barbara. Nothing.” - -“Am I dumb or blind or stupid?” - -“Please, Barbara.” - -“Just unattractive. I know. Ive seen you with that creature. How you -must hate me to flaunt her before everyone!” - -“You know I only go with her to Midbin’s because he insists.” - -“What about your little lovers’ meetings in the woodlot when you were -supposed to be plowing? Do you think I didnt know about them?” - -“Barbara, I assure you they were perfectly harmless. She—” -“Youre a liar. More than that, youre a sneak and a hypocrite. Yes, and -a mean, crawling sycophant as well. I know you must detest me, but it -suits you to suffer me because of the haven. I’m not blind; youve used -me, deliberately and calculatedly for your own selfish ends.” - -Midbin could explain and excuse her outbursts by his “emotional -pathology.” Ace accepted and suffered them as inescapable, so did her -father, but I saw no necessity of being always subject to her tantrums. -I told her so, adding, not too heatedly I think, “Maybe we shouldn’t -see each other alone after this.” - -She stood perfectly immobile and silent, as if I were still speaking. -“All right,” she said at last. “All right; yes ... yes. Don’t.” - -Her apparent calm deceived me completely; I smiled with relief. - -“That’s right, laugh. Why shouldnt you? You have no feelings, no more -than you have an intelligence. You are an oaf, a clod, a real bumpkin. -Standing there with a silly grin on your face. Oh I hate you! How I -hate you!” - -She wept, she shrilled, she rushed at me and then turned away, crying -she hadnt meant it, not a word of it. She cajoled, begging forgiveness -for all she’d said, tearfully promising to control herself after this, -moaning that she needed me, and finally, when I didnt repulse her, -exclaiming it was her love for me which tormented her so and drove her -to such scenes. It was a wretched, degrading moment, and not the least -of its wretchedness and degradation was that I recognized the erotic -value of her abjection. Detachedly I might pity, fear or be repelled; -at the same time I had to admit her sudden humility was exciting. - -Perhaps this storm changed our relationship for the better, or at -least eased the constraint between us. At any rate it was after this -she began speaking to me of her work, putting us on a friendlier, less -furious plane. I learned now how completely garbled was my notion of -what she was doing. - -“Heavier-than-air flying-machines!” she cried. “How utterly absurd!” - -“All right. I didnt know.” - -“My work is theoretical. I’m not a vulgar mechanic.” - -“All right, all right.” - -“I’m going to show that time and space are aspects of the same entity.” - -“All right,” I said, thinking of something else. - -“What is time?” - -“Uh?... Dear Barbara, since I don’t know anything I can slide -gracefully out of that one. I couldnt even begin to define time.” - -“Oh, you could probably define it all right—in terms of itself. I’m not -dealing with definitions but concepts.” - -“All right, conceive.” - -“Hodge, like all stuffy people your levity is ponderous.” - -“Excuse me. Go ahead.” - -“Time is an aspect.” - -“So you mentioned. I once knew a man who said it was an illusion. And -another who said it was a serpent with its tail in its mouth.” - -“Mysticism.” The contempt with which she spoke the word brought a -sudden image of Roger Tyss saying “metaphysics” with much the same -inflection. “Time, matter, space and energy are all aspects of the -cosmic entity. Interchangeable aspects. Theoretically it should be -possible to translate matter into terms of energy and space into terms -of time; matter-energy into space-time.” - -“It sounds so simple I’m ashamed of myself.” - -“To put it so crudely the explanation is misleading: suppose matter is -resolved into its component....” - -“Atoms?” I suggested, since she seemed at loss for a word. - -“No, atoms are already too individualized, too separate. Something more -fundamental than atoms. We have no word because we can’t quite grasp -the concept yet. Essence, perhaps, or the theological ‘spirit.’ If -matter....” - -“A man?” - -“Man, turnip or chemical compound,” she answered impatiently; “if -resolved into its essence it can presumably be reassembled, another -wrong word, at another point of the time-space fabric.” - -“You mean ... like yesterday?” - -“No—and yes. What is ‘yesterday’? A thing? An aspect? An idea? Or a -relationship? Oh, words are useless things; even with mathematical -symbols you can hardly.... But someday I’ll establish it. Or lay the -groundwork for my successors. Or the successors of my successors.” -I nodded. Midbin was at least half right; Barbara was emotionally -sick. For what was this “theory” of hers but the rationalization of -a daydream, the daydream of discovering a process for reaching back -through time to injure her dead mother and so steal all of her father’s -affections? - - - - -_14._ _MIDBIN’S EXPERIMENT_ - - -At the next meeting of the fellows Midbin asked an appropriation for -experimental work and the help of haven members in the project. Since -the extent of both requests was modest, their granting would ordinarily -have been a formality. But Barbara asked politely if Dr Midbin wouldnt -like to elaborate a little on the purposes of his experiment. - -I knew her manner was a danger signal. Nevertheless Midbin merely -answered goodhumoredly that he proposed to test a theory of whether -an emotionally induced physical handicap could be cured by recreating -in the subject’s mind the shock which had caused—to use a loose, -inaccurate term—the impediment. - -“I thought so. He wants to waste the haven’s money and time on a little -tart he’s having an affair with while important work is held up for -lack of funds.” - -One of the women called out, “Oh, Barbara, no,” and there were -exclamations of disapproval. I saw Kimi Agati look steadfastly down -in embarrassment. Mr Haggerwells, after trying unsuccessfully to hold -Barbara’s eye, said, “I must apologize for my daughter—” -“It’s all right,” interrupted Midbin. “I understand Barbara’s notions. -I’m sure no one here really thinks there is anything improper between -the girl and me. Outside of this, Barbara’s original question seems -quite in order. Quite in order. Briefly, as most of you know, I’ve -been trying to restore speech to a subject who lost it—again I use -an inaccurate term for convenience—during an afflicting experience. -Preliminary explorations indicate good probability of satisfactory -response to my proposed method, which is simply to employ a kinematic -camera like those making entertainment photinugraphs—” - -“He wants to turn the haven into a tinugraph mill with the fellows as -mummers!” - -“Only this once, Barbara, only this once. Not regularly; not as -routine.” - -At this point her father insisted the request be voted on without -any more discussion. I was tempted to vote with Barbara, the only -dissident, for I foresaw Midbin’s tinugraph would undoubtedly rely -heavily on cooperation from me, but I didnt have the courage. Instead I -merely abstained, like Midbin himself and Ace. - -The first effect of Midbin’s program was to free me from obligation, -for he decided there was no point continuing the sessions with the dumb -girl as before. All his time was taken up anyway with photography—no -one at the haven had specialized in it—kinematic theory, the art of -pantomime, and the relative merit of different makes of cameras, all -manufactured abroad. - -The girl, who had never lost her tenseness and apprehension during -the interviews, nevertheless clung to the habit of being escorted to -Midbin’s workroom. Since it was impossible to convey to her that the -sessions were temporarily suspended, she appeared regularly, always in -a dress with which she had taken manifest pains, and there was little I -could do but walk her to Midbin’s and back. I was acutely conscious of -the ridiculousness of these parades and expectant of retribution from -Barbara afterward, so I was to some extent relieved when Midbin finally -made his decision and procured camera and film. - -Now I had to set the exact scene where the holdup had taken place, not -an easy thing to do, for one rise looks much like another at twilight -and all look differently in daylight. Then I had to approximate the -original conditions as nearly as possible. Here Midbin was partially -foiled by the limitations of his medium, being forced to use the camera -in full sunlight instead of at dusk. - -I dressed and instructed the actors in their parts, rehearsing and -directing them throughout. The only immunity I got was Midbin’s -concession that I neednt play the role of myself, since in my early -part of spectator I would be hidden anyway, and the succor was omitted -as irrelevant to the therapeutic purpose. Midbin himself did nothing -but tend the camera. - -Any tinugraph mill would have snorted at our final product and -certainly no tinugraph lyceum would have condescended to show it. After -some hesitation Midbin had decided not to make a phonoto, feeling the -use of sound would add no value and considerable expense, so the film -didnt even have this feature to recommend it. Fortunately for whatever -involuntary professional pride was involved, no one was present at the -first showing but the girl and me, Ace to work the magic-lantern, and -Midbin. - -In the darkened room the pictures on the screen gave—after the first -minutes—such an astonishing illusion that when one of the horsemen -rode toward the camera we all reflexively shrank back. Despite its -amateurishness the tinugraph seemed an artistic success to us, but -it was no triumph in justifying its existence. The girl reacted no -differently than she had toward the drawings; if anything her response -was less satisfactory. The inarticulate noises ran the same scale from -dismay to terror; nothing new was added. Nevertheless Midbin, his -adamsapple working joyously up and down, slapped Ace and me on the -back, predicting he’d have her talking like a politician before the -year was out. - -I suppose the process was imperceptible; certainly there was no -discernible difference between one showing and the next. The boring -routine continued day after day and so absolute was Midbin’s confidence -that we were not too astonished after some weeks when, at the moment -“Don Jaime” folded in simulated death, she fainted and remained -unconscious for some time. - -After this we expected—at least Ace and I did, Midbin only rubbed his -palms together—that the constraint on her tongue would be suddenly -and entirely lifted. It wasnt, but a few showings later, at the same -crucial point, she screamed. It was a genuine scream, clear and -piercing, bearing small resemblance to the strangling noises we were -accustomed to. Midbin had been vindicated; no mute could have voiced -that full, shrill cry. - -Pursuing another of his theories, he soon gave up the idea of helping -her express the words in her mind in Spanish. Instead he concentrated -on teaching her English. His method was primitive, consisting of -pointing solemnly to objects and repeating their names in an artificial -monotone. - -“She’ll have an odd way of speaking,” remarked Ace; “all nouns, -singular nouns at that, said with a mouthful of pebbles. I can just -imagine the happy day: ‘Man chair wall girl floor;’ and you bubbling -back, ‘Carpet ceiling earth grass.’” - -“I’ll supply the verbs as needed,” said Midbin; “first things first.” - -She must have been paying at least as much attention to our -conversation as to his instruction for, unexpectedly, one day she -pointed to me and said quite clearly, “Hodge ... Hodge ...” - -I was discomposed, but not with the same vexation I had felt at her -habit of seeking me out and following me around. There was a faint, -bashful pleasure, and a feeling of gratitude for such steadfastness. - -She must have had some grounding in English, for while she utilized -the nouns Midbin had supplied, she soon added, tentatively and -questioningly, a verb or adjective here and there. “I ... walk ...?” -Ace’s fear of her acquiring Midbin’s dead inflection was groundless; -her voice was low and charmingly modulated; we were enchanted listening -to her elementary groping among words. - -Conversation or questioning was as yet impossible. Midbin’s, “What -is your name?” brought forth no response save a puzzled look and a -momentary sinking back into dullness. But several weeks later she -touched her breast and said shyly, “Catalina.” - -Her memory then, was not impaired, at least not totally. There was no -way of telling yet what she remembered and what self-protection had -forced her to forget, for direct questions seldom brought satisfactory -answers at this stage. Facts concerning herself she gave out -sporadically and without relation to our curiosity. - -Her name was Catalina García; she was the much younger sister of Doña -Maria Escobar, with whom she lived. So far as she knew she had no other -relatives. She did not want to go back to school; they had taught her -to sew, they had been kind, but she had not been happy there. Please—we -would not send her away from Haggershaven, would we? - -Midbin acted now like a fond parent who was both proud of his child’s -accomplishments and fearful lest she be not quite ready to leave his -solicitous care. He was far from satisfied at restoring her speech; -he probed and searched, seeking to know what she had thought and felt -during the long months of muteness. - -“I do not know, truly I do not know,” she protested toward the end of -one of these examinations. “I would say, yes; sometimes I knew you -were talking to me, or Hodge.” Here she looked at me steadily for an -instant, to make me feel both remorseful and proud. “But it was like -someone talking a long way off, so I never quite understood, nor was -even sure it was I who was being spoken to. Often—at least it seemed -often, perhaps it was not—often, I tried to speak, to beg you to tell -me if you were real people talking to me, or just part of a dream. That -was very bad, because when no words came I was more afraid than ever, -and when I was afraid the dream became darker and darker.” -Afterward, looking cool and fresh and strangely assured, she came upon -me while I was cultivating young corn. A few weeks earlier I would have -known she had sought me out; now it might be an accident. - -“But I knew more surely when it was you who spoke, Hodge,” she said -abruptly. “In my dream you were the most real.” Then she walked -tranquilly away. - -Barbara, who had studiedly said nothing further about what Midbin was -doing, commented one day, apparently without rancor, “So Oliver appears -to have proved a theory. How nice for you.” - -“What do you mean?” I inquired guardedly; “How is it nice for me?” - -“Why, you won’t have to chaperone the silly girl all over any more. She -can ask her way around now.” - -“Oh yes; that’s right,” I mumbled. - -“And we won’t have to quarrel over her any more,” she concluded. - -“Sure,” I said. “That’s right.” - -Mr Haggerwells again communicated with the Spanish diplomats, recalling -his original telegram and mentioning the aloof reply. He was answered -in person by an official who acted as though he himself had composed -the disclaiming response. Perhaps he had, for he made it quite clear -that only devotion to duty made it possible to deal at all with such -savages as inhabited the United States. - -He confirmed the existence of one Catalina García and consulted a -photograph, carefully shielded in his hand, comparing it with the -features of our Catalina, at last satisfying himself they were the -same. This formality finished, he spoke rapidly to Catalina in Spanish. -She shook her head and looked confused. “Tell him I can hardly -understand, Hodge; ask him to speak in English, please.” - -The diplomat looked furious. Midbin explained hastily that the shock -which had caused her muteness had not entirely worn off. Unquestionably -she would recover her full memory in time, but for the present there -were still areas of forgetfulness. Her native language was part of the -past, he went on, happy with a new audience, and the past was something -to be pushed away since it contained the terrible moment. English on -the other hand—” - -“I understand,” said the diplomat stiffly, resolutely addressing -none of us. “It is clear. Very well then. The Señorita García is -heir—heiress to an estate. Not a very big one, I regret to say. A -moderate estate.” - -“You mean land and houses?” I asked curiously. - -“A moderate estate,” he repeated, looking attentively at his gloved -hand. “Some shares of stock, some bonds, some cash. The details will be -available to the señorita.” - -“It doesnt matter,” said Catalina timidly. - -Having put us all, and particularly me, in our place as rude and nosey -barbarians, he went on more pleasantly, “According to the records of -the embassy, the señorita is not yet eighteen. As an orphan living in -foreign lands she is a ward of the Spanish Crown. The señorita will -return with me to Philadelphia where she will be suitably accommodated -until repatriation can be arranged. I feel certain that in the proper -surroundings, hearing her natural tongue, she will soon regain its use. -The—ah—institution may submit a bill for board and lodging during her -stay.” - -“Does he mean—take me away from here? For always?” Catalina, who had -seemed so mature a moment before, suddenly acted like a frightened -child. - -“He only wants to make you comfortable and take you among your own -people,” said Mr Haggerwells. “Perhaps it is a bit sudden....” - -“I can’t. Do not let him take me away. Hodge, Hodge—do not let him take -me away.” - -“Señorita, you do not understand—” -“No, no. I won’t. Hodge, Mr Haggerwells, do not let him!” - -“But my dear—” -It was Midbin who cut Mr Haggerwells off. “I cannot guarantee against -a relapse, even a reversion to the pseudo-aphonia if this emotional -tension is maintained. I must insist that Catalina is not to continue -the conversation now.” - -“No one’s going to take you away by force,” I assured her, finally -finding my courage once Midbin had asserted himself. - -The official shrugged, managing to intimate in the gesture his opinion -that the haven was of a very shady character indeed and had quite -possibly engineered the holdup itself. - -“If the señorita genuinely wishes to remain for the present—” a lifted -eyebrow loaded the “genuinely” with meaning “—I have no authority at -the moment to inquire into influences that have persuaded her. No, none -at all. Nor can I remove her by—ah—I will not insist. No. Not at all.” -“That is very understanding of you, sir,” said Mr Haggerwells. “I’m -sure everything will be all right eventually.” - -The diplomat bowed stiffly. “Of course the—ah—institution understands -it can hope for no further compensation—” - -“None has been given or asked for. None will be,” said Mr Haggerwells -in what was, for him, a sharp tone. - -The gentleman from the legation bowed. “The señorita will naturally be -visited from time to time by an official. Without note—notification. -She may be removed whenever His Most Catholic Majesty sees fit. And -of course none of her estate will be released before the eighteenth -birthday. The whole affair is entirely irregular.” - -After he left I reproached myself for not asking what Don Jaime’s -mission had been that fateful evening, or at least for not trying to -find out what his function with the Spanish legation was. Probably he -could in no way be connected with the counterfeiting of the pesetas. By -making no attempt to learn any facts which might have lessened the old -feeling of guilty responsibility I kept it uneasily alive. - -These reproaches were pushed aside when Catalina put her head against -my collarbone, sobbing with relief. “There, there,” I said, “there, -there.” - -“Uncouth,” reflected Mr Haggerwells. “Compensation indeed!” - -“Dealing with natives,” said Midbin. “Probably courteous enough to -Frenchmen or Afrikanders.” - -I patted Catalina’s quivering shoulders. Child or not, now she was able -to talk I had to admit I no longer found her devotion so tiresome. -Though I was definitely uneasy lest Barbara discover us in this -attitude. - - - - -_15._ _GOOD YEARS_ - - -And now I come to the period of my life which stands in such sharp -contrast to what had gone before. Was it really eight years I spent -at Haggershaven? The arithmetic is indisputable: I arrived in 1944 -at the age of twenty-three; I left in 1952 at the age of thirty-one. -Indisputable, but not quite believable; as with the happy countries -which are supposed to have no history I find it hard to go over those -eight years and divide them by remarkable events. They blended too -smoothly, too contentedly into one another. - -Crops were harvested, stored or marketed; the fields were plowed in the -fall and again in the spring and sown anew. Three of the older fellows -died, another became bedridden. Five new fellows were accepted; two -biologists, a chemist, a poet, a philologist. It was to the last I -played the same part Ace had to me, introducing him to the sanctuary of -the haven, seeing its security and refuge afresh and deeply thankful -for the fortune that had brought me to it. - -There was no question about success in my chosen profession, not even -the expected alternation of achievement and disappointment. Once -started on the road I kept on going at an even, steady pace. For what -would have been my doctoral thesis I wrote a paper on _The Timing -of General Stuart’s Maneuvers During August 1863 in Pennsylvania_. -This received flattering comment from scholars as far away as the -Universities of Lima and Cambridge; because of it I was offered -instructorships at highly respectable schools. - -I could not think of leaving the haven. The world into which I had -been born had never been fully revealed for what it was until I had -escaped from it. Secrecy and ugliness; greed, fear and callousness; -meanness, avarice, cunning, deceit and self-worship were as close -around as the nearest farmhouses. The idea of returning to that world -and of entering into daily competition with other underpaid, overdriven -drudges striving fruitlessly to apply a dilute coating of culture to -the unresponsive surface of unwilling students had little attraction. - -In those eight years, as I broadened my knowledge I narrowed my -field. Undoubtedly it was presumptuous to take the War of Southron -Independence as my specialty when there were already so many -comprehensive works on the subject and so many celebrated historians -engaged with this special event. However, my choice was made not out of -self-importance but fascination, and undoubtedly it was the proximity -of the scene which influenced the selection of my goal, the last -thirteen months of the war, from General Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania -to the capitulation at Reading. I saw the whole vast design: -Gettysburg, Lancaster, the siege of Philadelphia, the disastrous Union -counter-thrust in Tennessee, the evacuation of Washington, and finally -the desperate effort to break out of Lee’s trap which ended at Reading. -I could spend profitable years filling in the details. - -My monographs were published in learned Confederate and British -journals—there were none in the United States—and I rejoiced when -they brought attention, not so much to me as to Haggershaven. I could -contribute only this notice and my physical labor; on the other hand -I asked little beyond food, clothing and shelter—just books. My -field trips I took on foot, often earning my keep by casual labor -for farmers, paying for access to private collections of letters or -documents by indexing and arranging them. - -The time devoted to scholarship did not alone distinguish those eight -years, nor even the security of the haven. I have spoken of the simple, -easy manner in which the Agatis admitted me to their friendship, but -they were not the only ones with whom there grew ties of affection and -understanding. With very few exceptions the fellows of Haggershaven -quickly learned to shed the suspicion and aloofness, so necessary a -protection elsewhere, and substitute acceptance. The result was a -tranquillity I had never experienced before, so that I think of those -years as set apart, a golden period, a time of perpetual warm sunshine. - -Between Barbara and me the turbulent, ambivalent passion swept back and -forth, the periods of estrangement seemingly only a generating force -to bring us together again. Hate and love, admiration and distaste, -impatience and pity were present on both sides. Only on hers there was -jealousy as well; perhaps if I had not been indifferent whenever she -chose to respond to some other man she might not have felt the errant -desire so strongly. Perhaps not; there was a moral urge behind her -behavior. She sneered at women who yielded to such temptations. To her -they were not temptations but just rewards; she did not yield, she took -them as her due. - -Sometimes I wondered if her neurosis did not verge on insanity; I’m -sure for her part she must often have stood off and appraised me as a -mistake. I know there were many times when I wished there would be no -more reconciliation between us. - -Yet no amount of thinking could cancel the swift hunger I felt in her -presence or the deep mutual satisfaction of physical union. Frequently -we were lovers for as long as a month before the inevitable quarrel, -followed by varying periods of coolness. During the weeks of distance I -remembered how she could be tender and gracious as well as ardent, just -as during our intimacy I remembered her ruthlessness and dominance. - -It was not only her temperamental outbursts nor even her unappeasable -craving for love and affection which thrust us apart. Impediments -which, in the beginning, had appeared inconsequential assumed more -importance all the time. It was increasingly hard for her to leave her -work behind even for moments. She was never allowed to forget, either -by her own insatiable drive or by outside acknowledgment that she -was already one of the foremost physicists in the world. She had been -granted so many honorary degrees she no longer traveled to receive -them; offers from foreign governments of well-paid jobs connected with -their munitions industries were common. Articles were written about -her equation of matter, energy, space and time, acclaiming her as a -revolutionary thinker; though she dismissed them as evaluation of -elementary work, they nevertheless added to her isolation and curtailed -her freedom. - -Midbin was, in his way, as much under her spell as Ace or myself. -His triumph over Catalina’s dumbness he took lightly now it was -accomplished; stabilizing Barbara’s emotions was the victory he wanted. -She, on her side, had lost whatever respect she must have had for him -in the days when she had submitted to his treatment. On the very rare -occasions when the whim moved her to listen to his entreaties—usually -relayed through Ace or me—and grant him time, it seemed to be only for -the opportunity of making fun of his efforts. Patiently he tried new -techniques of exploration and expression. - -“But it’s not much use,” he said once, dolefully; “she doesnt _want_ to -be helped.” - -“Wanting seemed to have little to do with making Catty talk,” I pointed -out. “Couldnt you....” - -“Make a tinugraph of Barbara’s traumatic shock? If I had the materials -there would be no necessity.” - -Perhaps there was less malice in her mockery now Catty was no longer -the focus of his theories about emotional pathology; perhaps she -forgave him for her temporary displacement, but she did not withhold -her contempt. “Oliver, you should have been a woman,” she told him; -“you would have been impossible as a mother, but what a grandmother you -would have made!” - -That Catty herself had in her own way as strong a will as Barbara was -demonstrated in her determination to become part of Haggershaven. Her -reaction to the visit of the Spanish official was translated into an -unyielding program. She had gone resolutely to Thomas Haggerwells, -telling him she knew quite well she had neither the aptitudes nor -qualifications for admission to fellowship, nor did she ask it. All -she wanted was to live in what she regarded as her only home. She would -gladly do any work from washing dishes to making clothes—anything she -was asked. When she came of age she would turn over whatever money she -inherited to the haven without conditions. - -He had patiently pointed out that a Spanish subject was a citizen of -a far wealthier and more powerful nation than the United States; as -an heiress she could enjoy the luxuries and distractions of Madrid or -Havana and eventually make a suitable marriage. How silly it would -be to give up all these advantages to become an unnoticed, penniless -drudge for a group of cranks near York, Pennsylvania. - -“He was quite right you know, Catty,” I said when she told me about the -interview. - -She shook her head vigorously, so the loose black curls swirled back -and forth. “You think so, Hodge, because you are a hard, prudent -Yankee.” - -I opened my eyes rather wide; this was certainly not the description I -would have applied to myself. - -“And also because you have Anglo-Saxon chivalry, always rescuing -maidens in distress and thinking they must sit on a cushion after -that and sew a fine seam. Well, I can sew a fine seam, but sitting on -cushions would bore me. Women are not as delicate as you think, Hodge. -Nor as terrifying.” - -Was this last directed toward Barbara? Perhaps Catty had claws. -“There’s a difference,” I said, “between cushion-sitting and living -where books and pictures and music are not regarded with suspicion.” - -“That’s right,” she agreed; “Haggershaven.” - -“No, Haggershaven is an anomaly in the United States and in spite of -everything it cannot help but be infected by the rest of the country. I -meant the great, successful nations who can afford the breathing-spaces -for culture.” - -“But you do not go to them.” - -“No. This is my country.” - -“And it will be mine too. After all it was made in the first place -by people willing to give up luxuries. Besides you are contradicting -yourself: if Haggershaven cannot avoid being infected by what is -outside it, neither can any other spot. Part of the world cannot be -civilized if another part is backward.” - -There was no doubt her demure expression hid stern resolution. Whatever -else it hid was not so certain. Evidently Mr Haggerwells realized the -quality of her determination for eventually he proposed to the fellows -that she be allowed to stay and the offer of her money be rejected. -The motion was carried, with only Barbara, who spoke long and bitterly -against it, voting “no.” - -In accepting Catty out of charity, the fellows unexpectedly made an -advantageous bargain. Not merely because she was always eager to help, -but for her specific contribution to the haven’s economy. Before this, -clothing the haven had been a haphazard affair; suits or dresses were -bought with money which would otherwise have been contributed to the -general fund, or if the fellow had no outside income, by a grant from -the same fund. Catty’s artistry with the needle made a revolution. Not -only did she patch and mend and alter; she designed and made clothes, -conveying some of her enthusiasm to the other women. The haven was -better and more handsomely clad and a great deal of money was saved. -Only Barbara refused to have her silk trousers and jackets made at home. - -It was not entirely easy to adjust to the new Catty, the busy, -efficient, selfreliant creature. Her expressive voice could be -enchanting even when she was speaking nonsense—and Catty rarely -spoke nonsense. I don’t mean she was priggish or solemn, quite the -contrary; her spontaneous laughter was quick and frequent. But she was -essentially not frivolous; she felt deeply, her loyalties were strong -and enduring. - -I missed her former all too open devotion to me. It had caused -embarrassment, impatience, annoyance; now it was withdrawn I felt -deprived and even pettish at its lack. Not that I had anything to offer -in return or considered that any emotion was called for from me. Though -I didnt express it to myself so openly at the time, what I regretted -was the sensually valuable docility of a beautiful woman. Of course -there was a confusion here: I was regretting what had never been, for -Catty and the nameless dumb girl were different individuals. Even her -always undeniable beauty was changed and heightened; what I really -wanted was for the Catty of now to act like the Catty of then. And -without any reciprocal gesture from me. - -The new Catty no more than the old was disingenuous or coquettish. She -was simply mature, dignified, selfcontained and just a trifle amusedly -aloof. Also she was very busy. She did not pretend to any interest -in other men; at the same time she had clearly outgrown her childish -dependence on me. She refused any competition with Barbara. When I -sought her out she was there, but she made no attempt to call me to her. - -I was not so unversed that I didnt occasionally suspect this might be -a calculated tactic. But when I recalled the utter innocence of her -look I reflected I would have to have a very nice conceit of myself -indeed to believe the two most attractive women at Haggershaven were -contending for me. - -I don’t know precisely when I began to see Catty with a predatory male -eye. Doubtless it was during one of those times when Barbara and I had -quarrelled, and when she had called attention to Catty by accusing me -of dallying with her. I was essentially as polygamous as Barbara was -polyandrous or Catty monogamous; once the idea had formed I made no -attempt to reject it. - -Nor, for a very long time, did I accept it in any way except -academically. There are sensual values also in tantalizing, and if -these values are perverse I can only say I was still immature in -many ways. Additionally there must have been an element of fear of -Catty, the same fear which maintained a reserve against Barbara. For -the time being at least it seemed much pleasanter to talk lightly -and inconsequentially with her; to laugh and boast of my progress, -to discuss Haggershaven and the world, than to face our elementary -relationship. - -My fourth winter at the haven had been an unusually mild one; spring -was early and wet. Kimi Agati who, with her children, annually gathered -quantities of mushrooms from the woodlots and pastures, claimed this -year’s supply was so large that she needed help, and conscripted -Catty and me. Catty protested she didnt know a mushroom from a -toadstool; Kimi immediately gave her a brief but thorough course in -thallophytology. “And Hodge will help you; he’s a country boy.” - -“All right,” I said. “I make no guarantees though; I havent been a -country boy for a long time.” - -“I’m not so sure,” said Kimi thoughtfully. “You two take the small -southeast woodlot; Fumio can have the big pasture, Eiko the small one; -Yosh and I will pick in the west woodlot.” - -We carried a picnic lunch and nests of large baskets which were to be -put by the edge of the woodlots when full; late in the afternoon a cart -would pick them up and bring them in for drying. The air was warm even -under the leafless branches; the damp ground steamed cosily. - -“Kimi was certainly right,” I commented. “Theyre thick as can be.” - -“I don’t see....” She stooped gracefully; “Oh, is this one?” - -“Yes,” I said, “And there, and there. Not that white thing over there -though.” - -We filled our first baskets without moving more than a few yards. “At -this rate we’ll have them all full by noon.” - -“And go back for more?” - -“I suppose. Or just wander around.” - -“Oh.... Look, Hodge—what’s this?” -“What?” - -“This.” She showed me the puffball in her hands, looking inquiringly up. - -I looked down casually; suddenly there was nothing casual between us -any more, nor ever would be again. I looked down at a woman I wanted -desperately, feverishly, immediately. The shock of desire was a weight -on my chest, expelling the air from my lungs. - -“Goodness—is it some rare specimen or something?” -“Puffball,” I managed to say. “No good.” - -I hardly spoke, I could hardly speak, as we filled our second baskets. -I was sure the pounding of my heart must show through my shirt, and -several times I thought I saw her looking curiously at me. “Let’s eat -now,” I suggested hoarsely. - -I found a pine with low-hanging boughs and tore down enough to make -a dry, soft place to sit while Catty unpacked our picnic. “Here’s an -egg,” she said; “I’m starved.” - -We ate; that is, she ate and I pretended to. I was half dazed, half -terrified. I watched her swift motions, the turn of her head, the -clean, sharp way she bit into the food, and averted my eyes every time -her glance crossed mine. - -“Well,” she murmured at last; “I suppose we mustnt sit idle any longer. -Come on, lazy; back to work.” - -“Catty,” I whispered. “Catty.” - -“What is it, Hodge?” - -“Wait.” - -Obediently she paused. I reached over and took her in my arms. She -looked at me, not startled, but questioning. Just as my mouth reached -hers she moved slightly so that I kissed her cheek instead of her lips. -She did not struggle but lay passively, with the same questioning -expression. - -I held her, pressing her against the pine boughs, and found her mouth. -I kissed her eyes and throat and mouth again. Her eyes stayed open and -she did not respond. I undid the top of her dress and pressed my face -between her breasts. - -“Hodge.” - -I paid no attention. - -“Hodge, wait. Listen to me. If this is what you want you know I will -not try to stop you. But Hodge, be sure. Be very sure.” - -“I want you, Catty.” - -“Do you? Really want _me_, I mean.” - -“I don’t know what you mean. I want you.” - -But it was already too late; I had made the fatal error of pausing to -listen. Angrily I moved away, picked up my basket and sullenly began -to search for mushrooms again. My hands still trembled and there was a -quiver in my legs. To complement my mood a cloud drifted across the sun -and the warm woods became chilly. - -“Hodge.” - -“Yes?” - -“Please don’t be angry. Or ashamed. If you are I shall be sorry.” - -“I don’t understand.” - -She laughed. “Oh my dear Hodge. Isnt that what men always say to women? -And isnt it always true?” - -Suddenly the day was no longer spoiled. The tension melted and we went -on picking mushrooms with a new and fresh innocence. - -After this I could no longer keep all thoughts of Catty out of the -intimacy with Barbara; now for the first time her jealousy had grounds. -I felt guilty toward both, not because I desired both, but because I -didnt totally desire either. - -Now, years later, I condemn myself for the lost rapturous moments; at -the time I procrastinated and hesitated as though I had eternity in -which to make decisions. I was, as Tyss had said, the spectator type, -waiting to be acted upon, waiting for events to push me where they -would. - - - - -_16._ _OF VARIED SUBJECTS_ - - -“I can’t think of anything more futile,” said Kimi, “than to be an -architect at this time in the United States.” - -Her husband grinned. “You forgot to add, ‘of Oriental extraction.’” - -Catty said, “Ive never understood. Of course I don’t remember too -well, but it seems to me Spanish people don’t have the same racial -fanaticism. Certainly the Portuguese, French and Dutch don’t. Even the -English are not quite so certain of Anglo-Saxon superiority. Only the -Americans, in the United States and the Confederate States too, judge -everything by color.” - -“The case of the Confederacy is reasonably simple,” I said. “There are -about fifty million Confederate citizens and two hundred and fifty -million subjects. If white supremacy wasnt the cornerstone of Southron -policy a visitor couldnt tell the ruling class at a glance. Even as -it is he sometimes has a hard time, what with sunburn. It’s more -complicated here. Remember, we lost a war, the most important war in -our history, which was not unconnected with skin color.” - -“In Japan,” said Hiro, “the lighter colored people, the Ainu, used to -be looked down on. Just as the Christians were once driven underground -at exactly the same time they themselves drove the Jews underground in -Spain and Portugal.” - -“The Jews,” murmured Catty vaguely; “are there still Jews?” - -“Oh yes,” I said. “Several millions in Uganda-Eretz which the British -made a self-governing dominion back in 1933 under the first Labour -cabinet. And numbers most everywhere else, except in the German Union -since the massacres of 1905-1913.” - -“Which were much more thorough than the anti-Oriental massacres in the -United States,” supplied Hiro. - -“Much more thorough,” I agreed. “After all, scattered handfuls of -Asians were left alive here.” - -“My parents and Kimi’s grandparents among them. How lucky they were to -be American Japanese instead of European Jews.” - -“There are Jews in the United States,” announced Kimi. “I met one once. -She was a theosophist and told me I ought to learn the wisdom of the -East.” - -“Very few of them. There were about two hundred thousand at the close -of the War of Southron Independence on both sides of the border. After -the election of 1872, General Grant’s Order Number Ten, expelling all -Jews from the Department of the Missouri, which had been rescinded -immediately by President Lincoln, was retroactively re-enacted by -President Butler, in spite of the fact that the United States no longer -controlled that territory. Henceforth Jews were treated like all other -colored peoples, Negroes, Orientals, Indians and South Sea Islanders: -as undesirables to be bribed to leave or to be driven out of the -country.” - -“This is very dull stuff,” said Hiro. “Let me tell you about a hydrogen -reaction—” - -“No, please,” begged Catty. “Let me listen to Hodge.” - -“Good heavens,” exclaimed Kimi, “when do you ever do anything else? I’d -think you’d be tired by now.” - -“She will marry him one of these days,” predicted Hiro; “then the poor -fellow will never be allowed to disguise a lecture as a conversation -again.” - -Catty blushed, a deep red blush. I laughed to cover some constraint. -Kimi said, “Go-betweens are out of fashion; youre a century behind -times, Hiro. I suppose you think a woman ought to walk two paces -respectfully behind her husband. Actually, it’s only in the United -States women can’t vote or serve on juries.” - -“Except in the state of Deseret,” I reminded her. - -“That’s just bait; the Mormons gave us equality because they were -running short of women.” - -“Not the way I heard it. The Latter Day Saints have been the nearest -thing to a prosperous group in the country. Women have been moving -there for years, it’s so easy to get married. All the grumbling about -polygamy has come from men who can’t stand the competition.” - -Catty glanced at me, then looked away. - -Had she, I wondered afterward, been thinking how Barbara would have -rejected my observation furiously? Or about that day in the spring? Or -about Hiro’s earlier comment? I thought about it, briefly, myself. - -I also thought of how easily Catty fitted in with the Agatis and -contrasted it with the tension everyone would have felt if Barbara had -been there. One could love Barbara, or hate her or dislike her or even, -I supposed, be indifferent to her; the one thing impossible was to be -comfortable with her. - -The final choice (was it final? I don’t know. I shall never know now) -hardened when I had been nearly six years at Haggershaven. It had been -“on” between Barbara and me for the longest stretch I could recall and -I had even begun to wonder if some paradoxical equilibrium had not been -established which would allow me to be her lover without vexation and -at the same time innocently enjoy a bond with Catty. - -As always when the hostility between us slackened, Barbara spoke of -her work. In spite of such occasional confidences it was still not her -habit to talk of it with me. That intimacy was obviously reserved for -Ace, and I didnt begrudge him it, for after all he understood what it -was all about and I didnt. This time she was so full of the subject she -could not hold back, even from one who could hardly distinguish between -thermodynamics and kinesthetics. - -“Hodge,” she said, gray eyes greenish with excitement, “I’m not going -to write a book.” - -“That’s nice,” I answered idly. “New, too. Saves time, paper, -ink. Sets a different standard; from now on scholars will be known -as ‘Jones, who didnt write _The Theory of Tidal Waves’_,‘Smith, -unauthor of _Gas and Its Properties_,’ or ‘Backmaker, non-recorder of -_Gettysburg And After_.’” - -“Silly. I only meant it’s become customary to spend a lifetime -formulating principles; then someone else comes along and puts your -principles into practice. It seems more sensible for me to demonstrate -my own conclusions instead of writing about them.” - -“Yes, sure. Youre going to demonstrate ... uh ...?” - -“Cosmic entity, of course. What do you think Ive been talking about?” - -I tried to remember what she had said about cosmic entity. “You mean -youre going to try to turn matter into space or something like that?” - -“Something like that. I intend to translate matter-energy into terms of -space-time.” - -“Oh,” I said, “equations and symbols and all that.” - -“I just said I wasnt going to write a book.” - -“But how—” I started up as the impact struck me. “Youre going to ...” I -groped for words. “Youre going to build a ... an engine which will move -through time?” - -“Putting it crudely. But close enough for a layman.” - -“You once told me your work was theoretical. That you were no vulgar -mechanic.” - -“I’ll become one.” - -“Barbara, youre crazy! As a philosophical abstraction this theory of -yours is interesting—” - -“Thank you. It’s always nice to know one has amused the yokelry.” - -“Barbara, listen to me. Midbin—” -“I havent the faintest interest in Oliver’s stodgy fantasies.” - -“He has in yours though, and so have I. Don’t you see, this -determination of yours is based on the fantasy of going back through -time to—uh—injure your mother—” - -“Oliver Midbin is a coarse, stupid, insensate lout. He has taught the -dumb to speak, but he’s too much of a fool to understand anyone of -normal intelligence. He has a set of idiotic theories about diseased -emotions and he fits all facts into them even if it means chopping them -up to do it or inventing new ones to piece them out. Injure my mother -indeed! I have no more interest in her than she ever had in me.” - -“Ah, Barbara—” -“‘Ah Barbara,’” she mimicked. “Run along to your pompous windbag of a -Midbin or your oh-so-willing cow-eyed Spanish doxy—” - -“Barbara, I’m talking as a friend. Leave Midbin and Catty and -personalities out of it and just look at it this way. Don’t you see -the difference between promulgating a theory and trying a practical -demonstration which will certainly appear to the world as going over -the borderline into charlatanism? Like a spiritualist medium or—” -“That’s enough! ‘Charlatan’! You unspeakable guttersnipe. What do you -know of anything beyond the seduction of cretins? Go back to your -trade, you errand boy!” - -I seemed to remember that once before an incident had ended precisely -this way. “Barbara—” - -Her hand caught me across my mouth. Then she strode away. - -The fellows of Haggershaven were not enthusiastic for her project. -Even as she outlined it to them in more sober language than she had -to me it still sounded outlandish, like the recurrent idea of a -telegraph without wires or a rocket to the moon. Besides, 1950 was a -bad year. The war was coming closer; at the least, what was left of -the independence of the United States was likely to be extinguished. -Our energies had to be directed toward survival rather than new and -expensive ventures. Still, Barbara Haggerwells was a famous figure -commanding great respect, and she had cost them little so far, beyond -paper and pencils. Reluctantly the fellows voted an appropriation. - -An old barn, not utilized for years, but still sound, was turned over -to Barbara, and Kimi was delighted to plan, design and supervise the -necessary changes. Ace and a group of the fellows attacked the job -vigorously, sawing and hammering, bolting iron beams together, piping -in gas for reflecting lights to enable them to work at night as well. - -I believe I took no more interest than was inescapable as a fellow -of Haggershaven. I had no doubt that the money and labor were being -wasted, and I foresaw a terrible disappointment for Barbara when she -realized the impossibility of her project. For myself I did not think -she would play any further part of importance in my life. - -We had not spoken since the quarrel, nor was there inclination on -either side toward coming together again. I could not guess at -Barbara’s feelings; mine were those of relief, unmixed with regret. -I would not have erased all there had been between us, but I was -satisfied to have it in the past. The raging desire vanished, gradually -replaced by an affection of sorts; I wanted no more of that tempestuous -passion, instead I felt aloofly protective and understanding. - -For at last I was absorbed with Catty. The raw hunger of the moment -when I first realized I wanted her came back with renewed force, but -now other, more diffused feelings were equally part of my emotion. I -knew she could make me jealous as Barbara could not; at the same time I -could see tranquillity beyond turbulent wanting, a tranquillity never -possible with Barbara. - -But my belated realization of what Catty meant to me was no reaction to -Barbara or connected with the breaking of that tie. The need for Catty -was engendered by Catty alone, and for Catty apart from anything I had -ever felt for another. It was in some ways an entirely new hunger, -as the man’s need transcends the youth’s. I understood now what her -question in the woodlot meant and at last I could truthfully answer. - -She kissed me back, freely and strongly. “I love you, Hodge,” she said; -“I have loved you even through the bad dream of not being able to -speak.” - -“When I was so unfeeling.” - -“I loved you even when you were impatient; I tried to make myself -prettier for you. You know you have never said I was pretty.” - -“You arent, Catty. Youre extraordinarily beautiful.” - -“I think I would rather be pretty. Beauty sounds forbidding. Oh, Hodge, -if I did not love you so much I would not have stopped you that day.” - -“I’m not sure I understand that.” - -“No? Well, it is not necessary now. Sometimes I wondered if I had been -right after all, or if you would think it was because of Barbara.” - -“Wasnt it?” - -“No. I was never jealous of her. We Garcías are supposed to have -Morisco blood; perhaps I have the harem outlook of my dark Muslim -ancestors. Would you like me to be your black concubine?” - -“No,” I said. “I’d like you to be my wife. In any colors you have.” - -“Spoken with real gallantry; you will be a courtier yet, Hodge. But -that was a proposal, wasnt it?” - -“Yes,” I answered grimly; “if you will consider one from me. I can’t -think of any good reason why you should.” - -She put her hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “I don’t -know what reason has to do with it. It is what I always intended; that -was why I blushed so when Hiro Agati blurted out what everyone could -see.” - -Later I said, “Catty, can you ever forgive me for the wasted years? You -say you werent jealous of Barbara, but surely if she and I—that is ... -anyway, forgive me.” - -“Dear Hodge, there’s nothing to forgive. Love is not a business -transaction, nor a case at law in which justice is sought, nor a reward -for having good qualities. I understand you, Hodge, better I think than -you understand yourself. You are not satisfied with what is readily -obtained, otherwise you would have been content back in—what is the -name?—Wappinger Falls. I have known this for a long time and I could, -I think—you must excuse my vanity—have interested you at any moment by -pretending fickleness. Just as I could have held you if I had given in -that day. Besides, I think you will make a better husband for realizing -you could not deal with Barbara.” - -I can’t say I entirely enjoyed this speech. I felt, in fact, rather -humiliated, or at least healthily humbled. Which was no doubt what she -intended, and as it should be. I never had the idea she was frail or -insipid. - -Nor did Catty’s explanation of a harem outlook satisfactorily account -for the sudden friendliness of the two women after the engagement was -announced. That Barbara should soften so toward a successful rival was -incomprehensible and also disturbing. - -Because both were fully occupied they actually spent little time -together, but Catty visited the workshop, as they called the converted -barn, whenever she had the chance and her real admiration for Barbara -grew so that I heard too often of her genius, courage and imagination. -I could hardly ask Catty to forego society I had so recently found -enchanting nor establish a taboo against mention of a name I had lately -whispered with ardor; still I felt a little foolish, and not quite as -important as I might otherwise have thought myself. - -Not that Catty didnt have proper respect and enthusiasm for my -fortunes. I had completed my notes for _Chancellorsville to the -End_—that is, I had a mass of clues, guideposts, keys, ideas, and -emphases which would serve as skeleton for a work which might take -years to write—and Catty was the audience to whom I explained and -expounded and used as a prototype of the reader I might reach. Volume -one was roughly drafted, and we were to be married as soon as it -was finished, shortly after my thirtieth and Catty’s twenty-fourth -birthday. There was little doubt the book would bring an offer from one -of the great Confederate universities, but Catty was firm for a cottage -like the Agatis’, and I could not conceive of being foolish enough to -leave Haggershaven. - -From Catty’s talk I knew Barbara was running into increasing -difficulties now the workshop was complete and actual construction -begun of what was referred to, with unnecessary crypticism I thought, -as HX-1. The impending war created scarcities, particularly of -such materials as steel and copper, of which latter metal HX-1 -seemed inordinately greedy. I was not surprised when the fellows -apologetically refused Barbara a new appropriation. - -Next day Catty said, “Hodge, you know the haven wouldnt take my money.” - -“And quite right too. Let the rest of us put in what we get; we owe it -to the haven anyway. But the debt is the other way round in your case -and you should keep your independence.” - -“Hodge, I’m going to give it all to Barbara for her HX-1.” - -“What? Oh, nonsense!” - -“Is it any more nonsensical for me to put in money I didnt do anything -to get than for her and Ace to put in time and knowledge and labor?” - -“Yes, because she’s got a crazy idea and Ace has never been quite sane -where she’s concerned. If you go ahead and do this you’ll be as crazy -as they are.” - -When Catty laughed I remembered with a pang the long months when that -lovely sound had been strangled by terror inside her. I also thought -with shame of my own failure; had I appreciated her when her need was -greatest I might have eased the long, painful ordeal of restoring her -voice. - -“Perhaps I am crazy. Do you think the haven would make me a fellow on -that basis? Anyway, I believe in Barbara even if the rest of you don’t. -Not that I’m criticizing; you were right to be cautious. You have more -to consider than demonstration of the truth of a theory which can’t -conceivably have a material value; I don’t have to take any such long -view. Anyway I believe in her. Or perhaps I feel I owe her something. -With my money she can finish her project. I only tell you this because -you may not want to marry me under the circumstances.” - -“You think I’m marrying you for your money?” - -She smiled. “Dear Hodge. You are in some ways so young; I hear the -wounded dignity in your voice. No, I know very well you arent marrying -me for money, that it never occurred to you it might be a good idea. -That would be too practical, too grown up, too un-Hodgelike. I think -you might not want to marry a woman who’d give all her money away. -Especially to Barbara Haggerwells.” - -“Catty, are you doing this absurd thing to get rid of me? Or to test -me?” - -This time she again laughed loud. “Now I’m sure you will marry me after -all and turn out to be a puzzled but amenable husband. You are my true -Hodge, who studies a war because he can’t understand anything simpler -or subtler.” - -She wasnt to be dissuaded from the quixotic gesture. I might not -understand subtleties but I was sure I understood Barbara well enough. -Foreseeing her request for more funds would be turned down, she must -have cultivated Catty deliberately in order to use her. Now she’d -gotten what she wanted I confidently expected her to drop Catty or -revert to her accustomed virulence. - -She did neither. If anything the amity grew. Catty’s vocabulary added -words like “magnet,” “coil,” “induction,” “particle,” “light-year,” -“continuum” and many others either incomprehensible or uninteresting to -me. Breathlessly she described the strange, asymmetric structure taking -shape in the workshop, while my mind was busy with Ewell’s Corps and -parrott guns and the weather chart of southern Pennsylvania for July, -1863. - -The great publishing firm of Ticknor, Harcourt & Knopf contracted for -my book—there was no publisher in the United States equipped to handle -it—and sent me a sizable advance in Confederate dollars which became -even more sizable converted into our money. I read the proofs of volume -one in a state of semiconsciousness, sent the inevitable telegram -changing a footnote on page 99, and waited for the infuriating mails to -bring me my complimentary copies. The day after they arrived (with a -horrifying typographical error right in the middle of page 12), Catty -and I were married. - -Dear Catty. Dear, dear Catty. - -With the approval of the fellows we used part of the publisher’s -advance for a honeymoon. We spent it—that part of it in which we -had time for anything except being alone together—going over nearby -battlefields of the last year of the War of Southron Independence. - -It was Catty’s first excursion away from Haggershaven since the -night I brought her there. Looking at the world outside through -her perceptions, at once insulated and made hypersensitive by her -new status, I was shocked afresh at the harsh indifference, the -dull poverty, the fear, brutality, frenzy and cynicism highlighting -the strange resignation to impending fate which characterized our -civilization. It was not a case of eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow -we die; rather it was, let us live meanly and trust to luck—tomorrow’s -luck is bound to be worse. - -We settled down in the autumn of 1951 in a cottage designed by -Kimi and built by the fellows during our absence. It gave on the -Agatis’ cherished garden and we were both moved by this evidence of -love, particularly after what we had seen and heard on our trip. Mr -Haggerwells made a speech, filled with classical allusions, welcoming -us back as though we had been gone for years; Midbin looked anxiously -into Catty’s face as though to assure himself I had not, in my new role -as husband, treated her so ill as to bring on a new emotional upset; -and the other fellows made appropriate gestures. Even Barbara stopped -by long enough to comment that the house was ridiculously small, but -she supposed Kimi’s movable partitions helped. - -I immediately began working on volume two and Catty took up her sewing -again. She also resumed her visits to Barbara’s workshop; again I heard -detailed accounts of my former sweetheart’s progress. HX-1 was to be -completed in the late spring, or early summer. I was not surprised at -Barbara’s faith surviving actual construction of the thing, but that -such otherwise level-headed people as Ace and Catty could envisage -breathlessly the miracles about to happen was beyond me. Ace, even -after all these years, was still bemused—but Catty ...? - -Just before the turn of the year I got the following letter: - - LEE & WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY - Department of History - - Leesburg, District of Calhounia, CSA. - December 19, 1951 - - Mr. Hodgins M. Backmaker - “Haggershaven” - York, - Pennsylvania, USA. - - _Sir_: - - _On page 407 of_ Chancellorsville to the End, _volume I_, Turning - Tides, _you write, “Chronology and topography—timing and the use of - space—were to be the decisive factors, rather than population and - industry. Stuart’s detachment, which might have proved disastrous, - turned out extraordinarily fortunate for Lee, as we shall see in the - next volume. Of course the absence of cavalry might have been decisive - if the Round Tops had not been occupied by the Southrons on July - 1....”_ - - _Now, sir, evidently in your forthcoming analysis of Gettysburg you - hold (as I presume most Yankees do) to the theory of fortuitousness. - We Southrons naturally ascribe the victory to the supreme genius of - General Lee, regarding the factors of time and space not as forces in - themselves but as opportunities for the display of his talents._ - - _Needless to say, I hardly expect you to change your opinions, rooted - as they must be in national pride. I only ask that before you commit - them, and the conclusions shaped by them, to print, you satisfy - yourself as an historian, of their validity in this particular case. - In other words, sir, as one of your readers (and may I add, one who - has enjoyed your work), I should like to be assured that you have - studied this classic battle as carefully as you have the engagements - described in volume I._ - - _With earnest wishes for your success, - I remain, sir - Cordially yours, - Jefferson Davis Polk_ - -This letter from Dr Polk, the foremost historian of our day, author -of the monumental biography, _The Great Lee_, produced a crisis in -my life. Had the Confederate professor pointed out flaws in my work, -or even reproached me for undertaking it at all without adequate -equipment I would, I trust, have acknowledged the reproof and continued -to the best of my ability. But this letter was an accolade. Without -condescension Dr Polk admitted me to the ranks of serious historians, -only asking me to consider the depth of my evaluation. - -Truth is, I was not without increasing doubts of my own. Doubts I had -not allowed to rise to the surface of my mind and disturb my plans. -Polk’s letter brought them into the open. - -I had read everything available. I had been over the ground between the -Maryland line, South Mountain, Carlisle and the haven until I could -draw a detail map from memory. I had turned up diaries, letters and -accounts which had not only never been published, but which were not -known to exist until I hunted them down. I had so steeped myself in -the period I was writing about that sometimes the two worlds seemed -interchangeable and I could live partly in one, partly in the other. - -Yet with all this, I was not sure I had the whole story, even in the -sense of wholeness that historians, knowing they can never collect -every detail, accept. I was not sure I had the grand scene in -perfectly proper perspective. I admitted to myself the possibility -that I had perhaps been too rash, too precipitate, in undertaking -_Chancellorsville to the End_ so soon. I knew the shadowy sign, the -one which says in effect, _You are ready_, had not been given. My -confidence was shaken. - -Was the fault in me, in my temperament and character, rather than in my -preparation and use of materials? Was I drawing back from committing -myself, from acting, from doing? That I had written the first volume -was no positive answer, for it was but the fraction of a whole deed; if -I withdrew now I could still preserve my standing as an onlooker. - -But not to act was itself an action and answered neither Dr Polk nor -myself. Besides, what could I do? The entire work was contracted for. -The second volume was promised for delivery some eighteen months hence. -My notes for it were complete; this was no question of revising, but -of wholly re-examining, revaluing and probably discarding them for an -entirely new start. It was a job so much bigger than the original, -one so discouraging, I felt I couldnt face it. It would be corrupt to -produce a work lacking absolute conviction and cowardly to produce none. - -Catty responded to my awkward recapitulation in a way at once -heartening and strange. “Hodge,” she said, “youre changing and -developing, and for the better, even though I love you as you were. -Don’t be afraid to put the book aside for a year—ten years if you have -to. You must do it so it will satisfy yourself; never mind what the -publishers or the public say. But Hodge, you mustnt, in your anxiety, -or your foolish fear of passiveness, you mustnt try any shortcuts. -Promise me that.” - -“I don’t know what youre talking about, Catty dear. There are no -shortcuts in writing history.” - -She looked at me thoughtfully. “Remember that, Hodge. Oh, remember it.” - - - - -_17._ _HX-1_ - - -I could not bring myself to follow the promptings of my conscience and -Catty’s advice, nor could I use my notes as though Dr Polk’s letter -had never come to shatter my complacency. As a consequence—without -deliberately committing myself to abandon the book—I worked not at -all, thus adding to my feelings of guilt and unworthiness. The tasks -assigned by the fellows for the general welfare of the haven were -not designed to take a major part of my time, and though I produced -all sorts of revolutions in the stables and barns, I still managed -to wander about, fretful and irritable, keeping Catty from her work, -interrupting the Agatis and Midbin—I could not bring myself to discuss -my problems with him—and generally making myself a nuisance. Inevitably -I found my way into Barbara’s workshop. - -She and Ace had done a thorough job on the old barn. I thought I -recognized Kimi’s touch in the structural changes of the walls, the -strong beams and rows of slanted-in windows which admitted light and -shut out glare, but the rest must have been shaped by Barbara’s needs. - -Iron beams held up a catwalk running in a circle about ten feet -overhead. On the catwalk there were at intervals what appeared to be -batteries of telescopes, all pointed inward and downward at the center -of the floor. Just inside the columns was a continuous ring of clear -glass, perhaps four inches in diameter, fastened to the beams with -glass hooks. Closer inspection proved the ring not to be in one piece -but in sections, ingeniously held together with glass couplings. Back -from this circle, around the walls, were various engines, all enclosed -except for dial faces and regulators and all dwarfed by a mammoth one -towering in one corner. From the roof was suspended a large, polished -reflector. - -There was no one in the barn and I wandered about, cautiously avoiding -the mysterious apparatus. For a moment I meditated, basely perhaps, -that all this had been paid for with my wife’s money. Then I berated -myself, for Catty owed all to the haven, as I did. The money might have -been put to better use, but there was no guarantee it would have been -more productive allotted to astronomy or zoology. During eight years -I’d seen many promising schemes come to nothing. - -“Like it, Hodge?” - -Barbara had come up, unheard, behind me. This was the first time we had -been alone together since our break, two years before. - -“It looks like a tremendous amount of work,” I evaded. - -“It was a tremendous amount of work.” For the first time I noticed -that her cheeks were flushed. She had lost weight and there were deep -hollows beneath her eyes. “This construction has been the least of it. -Now it’s done. Or has begun. Depending how you look at it.” - -“All done?” - -She nodded, triumph accenting the strained look on her face. “First -test today.” - -“Oh well ... in that case—” -“Don’t go, Hodge. Please. I meant to ask you and Catty to the more -formal trial, but now youre here for the preliminary I’m glad. Ace and -Father and Oliver will be along in a minute.” - -“Midbin?” - -The familiar arrogance showed briefly. “I insisted. It’ll be nice -to show him the mind can produce something besides fantasies and -hysterical hallucinations.” - -I started to speak, then swallowed my words. The dig at Catty was -insignificant compared with the supreme confidence, the abnormal -assurance prompting invitations to witness a test which could only -reveal the impossibility of applying her cherished theories. I felt -an overwhelming pity. “Surely,” I said at last, seeking to make some -preparation for the disillusionment certain to come, “surely you don’t -expect it to work the first time?” - -“Why not? There are sure to be adjustments to be made, allowances -for erratic chronology caused by phenomena like the pull of comets -and so forth. There might even have to be major alterations, though -I doubt it. It may be some time before Ace can set me down at the -exact year, month, day, hour and minute agreed upon. But the fact of -space-time-energy-matter correspondence can just as well be established -this afternoon as next year.” - -She was unbelievably at ease for someone whose lifework was about to be -weighed. I have shown more nervousness discussing a disputed date with -the honorary secretary of a local historical society. - -“Sit down,” she invited; “there’s nothing to do or see till Ace comes. -Ive missed you, Hodge.” - -I felt this was a dangerous remark, and wished I’d stayed far away from -the workshop. I hooked my leg over a stool—there were no chairs—and -coughed to hide the fact I was afraid to answer, Ive missed you too; -and afraid not to. - -“Tell me about your own work, Hodge. Catty says youre having -difficulties.” - -I was faintly annoyed with Catty, but whether for confiding in Barbara -at all or specifically for revealing something unheroic, I didnt -stop to consider. At any rate this annoyance diluted my feeling of -disloyalty for conversing with Barbara at all. Or it may be the old, -long-established bond—I almost wrote, of sympathy, but it was so much -more complex than the word indicates—was reawakened by proximity -and put me in the mood to tell my troubles. It is even possible I -had the altruistic purpose of fortifying Barbara against inevitable -disappointment on a misery-loves-company basis. Be that as it may, I -found myself pouring out the whole story. - -She jumped up and took my hands in hers. Her eyes were gray and warm. -“Hodge! It’s wonderful—don’t you see?” - -“Oh....” I was completely confused. “I ... uh....” - -“The solution. The answer. The means. Look: now you can go back, back -to the past in your own person. You can see everything with your own -eyes instead of relying on accounts of what other people said happened.” - -“But ... but—” -“You can verify every fact, study every move, every actor. You can -write history as no one ever did before, for youll be writing as a -witness, yet with the perspective of a different period. Youll be -taking the mind of the present, with its judgment and its knowledge of -the patterns, back to receive the impressions of the past. It almost -seems HX-1 was devised especially for this.” - -There was no doubt she believed, that she was really and unselfishly -glad her work could aid mine. I was overcome by pity, helpless -to soften the disillusionment so soon to come and filled with an -irrational hatred of the thing she had built and which was about to -destroy her. - -I was saved from having to mask my emotions by the arrival of her -father, Ace, and Midbin. Thomas Haggerwells began tensely, “Barbara, -Ace tells me you intend to try out this—this machine on yourself. I -can’t believe you would be so foolhardy.” - -Midbin didnt wait for her to reply. I thought with something of -a shock, Midbin has gotten old; I never noticed it. “Listen to -me. There’s no point now in saying part of your mind realizes the -impossibility of this demonstration and that it’s willing for you to -annihilate yourself in the attempt and so escape from conflicts which -have no resolution. Although it’s something you must be at least partly -aware of. But consider objectively the danger involved in meddling with -unknown natural laws—” - -Ace Dorn, who looked as strained as they in contrast to Barbara’s ease, -growled, “Let’s go.” - -She smiled reassuringly at us. “Please, Father, don’t worry; there’s no -danger. And Oliver....” - -Her smile was almost mischievous and very unlike the Barbara I had -known. “Oliver, HX-1 owes more to you than you will ever know.” - -She ducked under the transparent ring and walked to the center of the -floor, glancing up at the reflector, moving an inch or two to stand -directly beneath it. “The controls are already adjusted to minus -fifty-two years and a hundred and fifty-three days,” she informed us -conversationally. “Purely arbitrary. One date is good as another, but -January 1, 1900 is an almost automatic choice. I’ll be gone sixty -seconds. Ready, Ace?” - -“Ready.” He had been slowly circling the engines, checking the dials. -He took his place before the largest, the monster in the corner, -holding a watch in his hand. “Three forty-three and ten,” he announced. - -Barbara was consulting her own watch. “Three forty-three and ten,” she -confirmed. “Make it at three forty-three and twenty.” - -“OK. Good luck.” - -“You might at least try it on an animal first,” burst out Midbin, as -Ace twirled the valve under his hand. The transparent ring glowed, the -metal reflector threw back a dazzling light. I blinked. When I opened -my eyes the light was gone and the center of the workshop was empty. - -No one moved. Ace frowned over his watch. I stared at the spot where -Barbara had stood. I don’t think my mind was working; I had the feeling -my lungs and heart certainly were not. I was a true spectator, with all -faculties save sight and hearing suspended. - -“ ... on an animal first.” Midbin’s voice was querulous. - -“Oh, God ...” muttered Thomas Haggerwells. - -Ace said casually—too casually, “The return is automatic. Set -beforehand for duration. Thirty more seconds.” - -Midbin said, “She is ... this is....” He sat down on a stool and bent -his head almost to his knees. - -Mr Haggerwells groaned, “Ace, Ace—you should have stopped her.” -“Ten seconds,” said Ace firmly. - -Still I couldnt think with any clarity. She had stood there; then she -was gone. What ...? Midbin was right: we had let her go to destruction. -Certainly more than a minute had passed by now. - -The ring glowed and the brilliant light was reflected. “It did, oh, it -did!” Barbara cried. “It did!” - -She stood perfectly still, overwhelmed. Then she came out of the -circle and kissed Ace, who patted her gently on the back. I suddenly -noticed the pain of holding my breath and released a tremendous -sigh. Barbara kissed her father and Midbin—who was still shaking his -head—and, after the faintest hesitation, me. Her lips were ice-cold. - -The shock of triumph made her voluble. Striding up and down, she spoke -with extraordinary rapidity, without pause, almost a little drunkenly. -In her excitement her words cluttered her tongue; from time to time she -had to go back and repeat a phrase or sentence to make it intelligible. - -When the light flashed, she too involuntarily closed her eyes. She had -felt a strange, terrifying weightlessness, an awful disembodiment, -for which she had been unprepared. She thought she had not actually -been unconscious, even for an instant, though she had an impression -of ceasing to exist as a unique collection of memories, and of being -somehow dissolved. Then she had opened her eyes. - -At first she was shocked to find the barn as it had been all her life, -abandoned and dusty. Then she realized she had indeed moved through -time; the disappearance of the engines and reflector showed she had -gone back to the unremodelled workshop. - -Now she saw the barn was not quite as she had known it, even in her -childhood, for while it was unquestionably abandoned, it had evidently -not long been so. The thick dust was not so thick as she remembered, -the sagging cobwebs not so dense. Straw was still scattered on the -floor; it had not yet been entirely carried away by mice or inquisitive -birds. Alongside the door hung bits of harness beyond repair, some -broken bridles, and a faded calendar on which the ink of the numerals -1897 was still bright. - -The minute she had allotted this first voyage seemed fantastically -short and incredibly long. All the paradoxes she had brushed aside as -of no immediate concern now confronted her. Since she had gone back to -a time before she was born, she must have existed as a visitor prior -to her own conception; she could presumably be present during her own -childhood and growth, and by making a second and third visit, multiply -herself as though in facing mirrors, so that an infinite number of -Barbara Haggerwells could occupy a single segment of time. - -A hundred other parallel speculations raced through her mind without -interfering with her rapid and insatiable survey of the commonplace -features of the barn, features which could never really be commonplace -to her since they proved all her speculations so victoriously right. - -Suddenly she shivered with the bitter cold and burst into -teeth-chattering laughter. She had made such careful plans to visit on -the First of January—and had never thought to take along a warm coat. - -She looked at her watch; only twenty seconds had passed. The temptation -to defy her agreement with Ace not to step outside the tiny circle -of HX-1’s operating field on the initial experiment was almost -irresistible. She longed to touch the fabric of the past, to feel -the worn boards of the barn, to handle as well as look. Again her -thoughts whirled with speculation; again the petty moment stretched and -contracted. She spent eternity and instantaneity at once. - -Suppose.... But she had a thousand suppositions and questions. Was she -really herself in the flesh, or in some mental projection? A pinch -would do no good; that might be projection also. Would she be visible -to the people of the time, or was she a ghost from the future? Oh, -there was so much to learn, so much to encounter! - -When the moment of return came, she again experienced the feeling of -dissolution, followed immediately by the light. When she opened her -eyes she was back. - -Midbin rubbed his belly and then his thinning hair. “Hallucination,” he -propounded at last; “a logical, consistent hallucination. Answer to an -overriding wish.” - -“You mean Barbara was never gone?” asked Ace. “Was she visible to -you—or Mr H or Hodge—during that minute?” - -“Illusion,” said Midbin; “group illusion brought on by suggestion and -anxiety.” - -“Nonsense,” exclaimed Barbara. “Unless youre accusing Ace and me of -faking youll have to account for what you just called the logical -consistency of it. Your group illusion and my individual hallucination -fitting so neatly together.” - -Midbin recovered some of his poise. “The two phenomena are separate, -connected only by some sort of emotional hypnosis. Certainly your -daydream of having been back in 1900 is an emotionally induced -aberration.” - -“And your daydream that I wasn’t here for a minute?” - -“The eyes are quickly affected by the feelings. Note tears, ‘seeing -red’ and so forth.” - -“Very well, Oliver. The only thing to do is to let you try HX-1 -yourself.” - -“Hay, my turn’s supposed to be next,” protested Ace. - -“Of course. But no one is going to use it again today. Tomorrow -morning. Bring Catty, Hodge, if she wants to come, but please don’t -say anything to anyone else till weve made further demonstrations, -otherwise we’ll be besieged by fellows wanting to take short jaunts -into popular years.” - -I had little inclination to discuss what had happened with anyone, even -Catty. Not that I shared Midbin’s theory of nothing material having -taken place; I knew I’d not seen Barbara for sixty seconds and I was -convinced her account of them was accurate. What confused me was the -shock to my preconceptions involved in her proof. If time and space, -matter and energy were the same, as fog and ice and water are the same, -then I—the physical I at least—and Catty, the world and the universe -must be, as Enfandin had insisted, mere illusion. In that sense Midbin -had been right. - -I went furtively to the workshop next day without telling Catty, as -though we were all engaged in some dark necromancy, some sacrilegious -rite. Apparently I was the only one who had spent an anxious night; Mr -Haggerwells looked proud, Barbara looked satisfied, Ace cocky, and even -Midbin, for no understandable reason, benign. - -“All here?” inquired Ace. “I’m eager as a fox in a hen-house. Three -minutes in 1885. Why 1885? I don’t know; a year when nothing much -happened, I suppose. Ready, Barbara?” - -He returned to report he had found the barn well occupied by both -cattle and fowl, and been scared stiff of discovery when the dogs set -up a furious barking. - -“That pretty well settles the question of corporeal presence,” I -remarked. - -“Not at all,” said Mr Haggerwells unexpectedly. “Dogs are notoriously -psychic.” - -“Ah,” cried Ace, bringing his hands from behind his back; “look at -this. I could hardly have picked it up with psychic feelers.” - -“This” was a newlaid egg, sixty-seven years old. Or was it? Trips in -time are confusing that way. - -Barbara was upset, more than I thought warranted. “Oh, Ace, how could -you be so foolish? We darent be anything but spectators, as unseen as -possible.” - -“Why? Ive a notion to court my grandmother and wind up as my own -grandfather.” - -“Don’t be stupid. The faintest indication of our presence, the -slightest impingement on the past, may change the whole course of -events. We have no way of knowing what actions have no consequences—if -there can be any. Goodness knows what your idiocy with the egg has -done. It’s absolutely essential not to betray ourselves in any way. -Please remember this in future.” - -“You mean, ‘Remember this in past,’ don’t you?” - -“Ace, this isnt a joke.” - -“It isn’t a wake either. I can’t see the harm in bringing back tangible -proof. Loss of one egg isnt going to send the prices up for 1885 -and cause retroactive inflation. Youre making a mountain out of a -molehill—or an omelette out of a single egg.” - -She shrugged helplessly. “Oliver, I hope you won’t be so foolish.” - -“Since I don’t expect to arrive in, say, 1820, I can safely promise -neither to steal eggs nor court Ace’s female ancestors.” - -He was gone for five minutes. The barn had apparently not yet been -built in 1820 and he found himself on a slight rise in a field of wild -hay. The faint snick of scythes, and voices not too far off, indicated -mowers. He dropped to the ground. His view of the past was restricted -to tall grass and some persistent ants who explored his face and hands -until the time was up and he returned with broken spears of ripe hay -clinging to his clothes. - -“At least that’s what I imagined I saw,” he concluded. - -“Did you imagine these?” asked Ace, pointing to the straws. - -“Probably. It’s at least as likely as time-travel.” - -“But what about corroboration? Your experience, and Barbara’s and Ace’s -confirm each other. Doesnt that mean anything?” - -“Certainly. Only I’m not prepared to say what. The mind can do -anything; anything at all. Create boils and cancers. Why not ants and -grass? I don’t know. I don’t know....” - -After more fruitless argument, he and I left the workshop. I was again -reminded of Enfandin—Why should I believe my eyes? I felt though that -Midbin was carrying skepticism beyond rational limits; Barbara’s case -was proved. - -“Yes, yes,” he answered when I said this. “Why not?” - -I puzzled over his reply. Then he added abruptly, “No one can help her -now.” - - - - -_18._ _THE WOMAN TEMPTED ME_ - - -Gently, Catty said, “Ive never understood why you cut yourself off from -the past the way you have, Hodge.” - -“Ay? What do you mean?” - -“Well, youve not communicated with your father or mother since you left -home, fourteen years ago. You say you had a dear friend in the man from -Haiti, yet youve never tried to find out whether he lived or died.” - -“Oh, that way. I thought you meant ... something different.” By not -taking advantage of Barbara’s offer I certainly was cutting myself off -from the past. - -“Yes?” - -“Well, I guess more or less everyone at the haven has done the same -thing. Let outside ties grow weak, I mean. You for one—” -“But I have no parents, no friends anywhere else. All my life is here.” - -“Well, so is mine.” - -“Ah, dear Hodge; it is unlike you to be so indifferent.” - -“Catty darling, you were brought up comfortably in an atmosphere -knowing nothing of indenting or sharecropping, of realizing the only -escape from wretchedness was in a miracle—usually translated as a -winning number in the lottery. I can’t convey to you the meaning of -utterly loveless surroundings, I can only say that affection was a -luxury my mother and father couldnt afford.” - -“Perhaps not; but you can afford it. Now. And nothing of what you have -said applies to Enfandin.” - -I squirmed shamefacedly. My ingratitude and callousness must be -apparent to everyone; even Barbara, I remembered, had once asked me -much the same questions Catty asked now. How could I explain, even to -my own satisfaction, how procrastination and guilt made it impossible -for me to take the simple steps to discover what had happened to my -friend? By a tremendous effort I might have broken through the inertia -years ago, just after Enfandin had been wounded, but each day and month -between confirmed the impossibility more strongly. “Let the past take -care of itself,” I muttered. - -“Oh Hodge! What a thing for an historian to say.” - -“Catty, I can’t.” - -The conversation made me nervous and fidgetty. It also made me remember -much I preferred to let fade: the Grand Army, Sprovis, the counterfeit -pesetas.... All the evil I had unwillingly abetted. If a man did -nothing, literally nothing, all his life, then he might be free of -culpability. Manichaeism, said Enfandin. No absolution. - -My idleness, I knew very well, heightened all these feelings of -degradation. Were I able to continue in the happy, cocksure way I -had gone about my note-gathering and the writing of volume one, I -would have neither the time nor susceptibility to be plagued by this -disquiet. As it was I seemed to be able to do nothing but act as -audience for what was going on in the workshop. - -With childish eagerness Barbara and Ace explored HX-1’s possibilities -for the next two months. They quickly learned that its range was -limited to little more than a century, though this limit was subject -to slight variations. When they tried to operate beyond this range -the translation simply didnt take place, though the same feeling of -dissolution occurred. When the light faded they were still in the -present. Midbin’s venture into the hayfield had been a freak, possibly -due to peculiar weather conditions at both ends of the journey. They -set 1850 as a safe limit, with an undefined marginal zone further back -which was not to be hazarded lest conditions change during the journey -and the traveler be lost. - -Why this limit existed at all was a matter of dispute between them, -a dispute of which I must admit I understood little. Barbara spoke -of subjective factors which seemed to mean that HX-1 worked slightly -differently in the case of each person it transported; Ace of magnetic -fields and power relays, which didnt mean anything to me at all. The -only thing they agreed on was that the barrier was not immutable; HX-2 -or 3 or 20, if they were ever built, would undoubtedly overcome it. - -Nor would HX-1 work in reverse; the future remained closed, probably -for similar reasons, whatever they were. Here again they disputed, Ace -holding an HX could be built for this purpose, Barbara insisting that -new equations would have to be worked out. - -They confirmed their tentative theory that time spent in the past -consumed an equal amount of time in the present; they could not return -to a point a minute after departure when they had been gone for an -hour. As near as I could understand, this was because duration was -set in the present. In order to come back to a time-point not in -correspondence with the period actually spent, another HX, or at least -another set of controls, would have to be taken into the past. And then -they would not work since HX-1 could not penetrate the future. - -The most inconvenient circumscription was the inability of one person -to visit the same past moment twice. When the attempt was made the -feeling of dissolution did not occur, the light went on and off with no -effect upon the would-be traveler standing beneath it. Here Barbara’s -“subjective factor” was triumphant, but why, or how it worked, they -did not know. Nor did they know what would happen to a traveler who -attempted to overlap by being already on the spot prior to a previous -visit; it was too dangerous to try. - -Within these limits they roamed almost at will. Ace spent a full -week in October 1896, walking as far as Philadelphia, enjoying the -enthusiasm and fury of the presidential campaign. Knowing President -Bryan was not only going to be elected, but would serve three terms, -he found it hard indeed to obey Barbara’s stricture and not cover -confident Whig bets on Major McKinley. - -Though both sampled the war years they brought back nothing useful to -me, no information or viewpoint I couldnt have got from any of a score -of books. Lacking historians’ interests or training, their tidbits were -those of curious onlookers, not probing chroniclers. It was tantalizing -to know that Barbara had seen Secretary Stanton at the York depot or -that Ace had overheard a farmer say casually that Southron scouts -had stopped at his place the day before and they had thought neither -incident worth investigating further. - -I grew increasingly fretful. I held long colloquies with myself which -always ended inconclusively. _Why not?_ I asked. _Surely this is the -unique opportunity. Never before has it been possible for an historian -to check back at will, to select a particular moment for personal -scrutiny, to write of the past with the detachment of the present and -the accuracy of an eyewitness knowing specifically what to look for. -Why don’t you take advantage of HX-1 and see for yourself?_ - -Against this I objected—what? Fear? Uneasiness? The “subjective factor” -in HX-1? The superstitious notion that I might be tampering with a -taboo, with matters forbidden to human shortcomings? _You mustnt try -any shortcuts. Promise me that, Hodge._ Well, Catty was a darling. She -was my beloved wife, but she was neither scholar nor oracle. On what -grounds did she protest? Woman’s intuition? A respectable phrase, but -what did it mean? And didnt Barbara, who first suggested my using HX-1, -have womanly intuition also? - -A half-dozen times I tried to steer our talk in the direction of my -thoughts; each time I allowed the words to drift to another topic. What -was the use of upsetting her? _Promise me that, Hodge._ But I had not -promised. This was something I had to settle for myself. - -What was I afraid of? Because I’d never grasped anything to do with -the physical sciences did I attribute some anthropomorphism to their -manifestations and like a savage fear the spirit imprisoned in what I -didnt understand? (But HX-1 _did_ have subjective factors.) I had never -thought of myself as hidebound, but I was acting like a ninety-yearold -professor asked to use a typewriter instead of a goose quill. - -I recalled Tyss’s, “You are the spectator type, Hodgins.” And once -I had called him out of my memory I couldnt escape his familiar, -sardonic, interminable argument. _Why are you fussing yourself, -Hodgins? What is the point of all this introspective debate? Don’t -you know your choice has already been made? And that you have acted -according to it an infinite number of times and will do so an infinite -number of times again? Relax, Hodgins; you have nothing to worry about. -Free will is an illusion; you cannot alter what you are about to decide -under the impression that you have decided._ - -My reaction to this imagined interjection was frenzied, unreasonable. I -cursed Tyss and his damnable philosophy. I cursed the insidiousness of -his reasoning which had planted seed in my brain to sprout at a moment -like this. - -Yet in spite of the violence of my rejection of the words I attributed -to Tyss, I accepted one of them. I relaxed. The decision had been made. -Not by mechanistic forces, nor by blind response to stimulus, but by my -own desire. - -And now to my aid came the image of Tyss’s antithesis, René Enfandin. -_Be a skeptic, Hodge; be always the skeptic. Prove all things; hold -fast to that which is true. Joking Pilate, asking,_ What is truth? _was -blind. But you can see more aspects of the absolute truth than any man -has had a chance to see before. Can you use the chance well, Hodge? -That is the only question._ - -Once I could answer it with a vigorous affirmative, and so buttress the -determination to go, I was faced with the problem of telling Catty. I -could not shut her out of so important a move. I told myself I could -not bear the thought of her anxiety; that she would worry despite -the fact others had frequently used HX-1, for my object could not be -accomplished in a matter of minutes or hours. I was sure she would be -sick with apprehension during the days I would be gone. No doubt this -was all true, but I also remembered, _Promise me, Hodge_.... - -I finally took the weak, the ineffective course. I said I’d decided -the only way to face my problem was to go to Gettysburg and spend -three or four days going over the actual field. Here, I explained -unconvincingly, I thought I might at last come to the conclusion -whether to scrap all my work and start afresh, or not. - -Her faintly oblique eyes were inscrutable. She pretended to believe me -and begged me to take her along. After all, we had spent our honeymoon -on battlefields. - -Would it be possible? Two people had never stood under the reflector -together, but surely it would work? I was tempted, but I could not -subject Catty to the risk, however slight. Besides, how could I explain? - -“But Catty, with you there I’d be thinking of you instead of the -problem.” - -“Ah, Hodge, have we already been married so long you must get away from -me to think?” - -“No matter how long, that time will never come. Perhaps I’m wrong, -Catty. It’s just a feeling I have.” - -Her look was tragic with understanding. “You must do as you think -right. Don’t ... don’t be gone too long, my dear.” - -I dressed in clothes I often used for walking trips, clothes which bore -no mark of any fashion and might pass as current wear among the poorer -classes in any era of the past hundred years. I put a packet of dried -beef in my pocket and started for the workshop. - -As soon as I left the cottage I laughed at my hypersensitivity, at -all the to-do I’d made over lying to Catty. This was but the first -excursion; I planned others for the months after Gettysburg. There was -no reason why she shouldnt accompany me on them. I grew lighthearted as -my conscience eased and I even congratulated myself on my skill in not -having told a single technical falsehood to Catty. I began to whistle, -never a habit of mine, as I made my way along the path to the workshop. - -Barbara was alone. Her ginger hair gleamed in the light of a gas globe; -her eyes were green as they always were when she was exultant. “Well, -Hodge?” - -“Well, Barbara, I....” - -“Have you told Catty?” - -“Not exactly. How did you know?” - -“I knew before you did, Hodge. After all, we’re not strangers. All -right. How long do you want to stay?” - -“Four days.” - -“That’s long for a first trip. Don’t you think you’d better try a few -sample minutes?” - -“Why? Ive seen you and Ace go often enough and heard your accounts. -I’ll take care of myself. Have you got it down fine enough yet so you -can invariably pick the hour of arrival?” - -“Hour and minute,” she answered confidently. “What’ll it be?” - -“About midnight of June 30, 1863,” I answered. “I want to come back on -the night of July Fourth.” - -“Youll have to be more exact than that. For the return, I mean. The -dials are set on seconds.” - -“All right, make it midnight going and coming then.” - -“Have you a watch that keeps perfect time?” - -“I don’t know about perfect—” -“Take this one. It’s synchronized with the master control clock.” She -handed me a large, rather awkward timepiece which had two independent -faces side by side. “We had a couple made like this; the duplicate -dials were useful before we were able to control HX-1 so exactly. One -shows 1952 Haggershaven time.” - -“Ten thirty-three and fourteen seconds,” I said. - -“Yes. The other will show 1863 time. You won’t be able to reset the -first dial—but for goodness sake remember to keep it wound—and set the -second for ... 11:54, zero. That means in six minutes youll leave, to -arrive at midnight. Remember to keep that one wound too, for youll -go by that regardless of variations in local clocks. Whatever else -happens, be in the center of the barn at midnight—allow yourself some -leeway—by midnight, July Fourth. I don’t want to have to go wandering -around 1863 looking for you.” - -“You won’t. I’ll be here.” - -“Five minutes. Now then, food.” - -“I have some,” I answered, slapping my pocket. - -“Not enough. Take this concentrated chocolate along. I suppose it -won’t hurt to drink the water if youre not observed, but avoid their -food. One never knows what chain might be started by the casual -theft—or purchase, if you had enough old coins—of a loaf of bread. The -possibilities are limitless and frightening. Listen: how can I impress -on you the importance of doing nothing that could possibly change the -future—our present? I’m sure to this day Ace doesnt understand, and I -tremble every moment he spends in the past. The most trivial action -may begin a series of disastrous consequences. Don’t be seen, don’t be -heard. Make your trip as a ghost.” - -“Barbara, I promise I’ll neither assassinate General Lee nor give the -North the idea of a modern six-barreled cannon.” - -“Four minutes. It’s not a joke, Hodge.” - -“Believe me,” I said, “I understand.” - -She looked at me searchingly. Then she shook her head and began making -her round of the engines, adjusting the dials. I slid under the -glass ring as I’d so often seen her do and stood casually under the -reflector. I was not in the least nervous. I don’t think I was even -particularly excited. - -“Three minutes,” said Barbara. - -I patted my breast pocket. Notebook, pencils. I nodded. - -She ducked under the ring and came toward me. “Hodge....” - -“Yes?” - -She put her arms on my shoulders, leaning forward. I kissed her, a -little absently. “Clod!” - -I looked at her closely, but there were none of the familiar signs of -anger. “A minute to go, it says here,” I told her. - -She drew away and went back. “All set. Ready?” - -“Ready,” I answered cheerfully. “See you midnight, July Fourth, 1863.” - -“Right. Goodbye, Hodge. Glad you didnt tell Catty.” - -The expression on her face was the strangest I’d ever seen her wear. I -could not, then or now, quite interpret it. Doubt, malice, suffering, -vindictiveness, entreaty, love, were all there as her hand moved the -switch. I began to answer something—perhaps to bid her wait—then the -light made me blink and I too experienced the shattering feeling of -transition. My bones seemed to fly from each other; every cell in my -body exploded to the ends of space. - -The instant of translation was so brief it is hard to believe all the -multitude of impressions occurred simultaneously. I was sure my veins -were drained of blood, my brain and eyeballs dropped into a bottomless -void, my thoughts pressed to the finest powder and blown a universe -away. Most of all, I knew the awful sensation of being, for that tiny -fragment of time, not Hodgins McCormick Backmaker, but part of an _I_ -in which the I that was me merged all identity. - -Then I opened my eyes. I was emotionally shaken; my knees and wrists -were watery points of helplessness, but I was alive and functioning, -with my individuality unimpaired. The light had vanished. I was in -darkness save for faint moonlight coming through the cracks in the -barn. The sweetish smell of cattle was in my nostrils, and the slow, -ponderous stamp of hooves in my ears. I had gone back through time. - - - - -_19._ _GETTYSBURG_ - - -The barking of the dogs was frenzied, filled with the hoarse note -indicating they had been raising the alarm for a long time without -being heeded. I knew they must have been baying at the alien smells -of soldiers for the past day, so I was not apprehensive that their -scent of me would bring investigation. How Barbara and Ace had escaped -detection on journeys which didnt coincide with abnormal events was -beyond me; with such an unnerving racket in prospect I would either -have given up the trips or moved the apparatus. - -Strange, I reflected, that the cows and horses were undisturbed. That -no hysterical chicken leaped from the roost in panic. Only the dogs -scented my unnatural presence. Dogs who, as Mr Haggerwells remarked, -are supposed to sense things beyond the perceptions of man. - -Warily I picked my way past the livestock and out of the barn, -fervently hoping the dogs were tied, for I had no mind to start my -adventure by being bitten. Barbara’s warnings seemed inadequate -indeed; one would think she or Ace might have devised some method of -neutralizing the infernal barking. But of course they could hardly do -so without violating her rule of non-interference. - -Once out on the familiar Hanover road every petty feeling of doubt or -disquiet fell away and all the latent excitement took hold of me. I was -gloriously in 1863, half a day and some thirty miles from the battle -of Gettysburg. If there is a paradise for historians I had achieved it -without the annoyance of dying first. I swung along at a good pace, -thankful I had trained myself for long tramps, so that thirty miles in -less than ten hours was no monstrous feat. The noise of the dogs died -away behind me and I breathed the night air joyfully. - -I had already decided I dared not attempt to steal a ride on the -railroad, even supposing the cars were going through. As I turned off -the Hanover road and took the direct one to Gettysburg, I knew I would -not be able to keep on it for any length of time. Part of Early’s -Confederate division was moving along it from recently occupied York; -Stuart’s cavalry was all around; trifling skirmishes were being fought -on or near it; Union troops, regulars as well as the militia called -out by Governor Curtin for the emergency, were behind and ahead of me, -marching for the Monocacy and Cemetery Ridge. - -Leaving the highway would hardly slow me down, for I knew every -sideroad, lane, path or shortcut, not only as they existed in my day, -but as they had been in the time where I was now. I was going to need -this knowledge even more on my return, for on the Fourth of July this -road, like every other, would be glutted with beaten Northern troops, -supplies and wounded left behind, frantically trying to reorganize as -they were harassed by Stuart’s cavalry and pressed by the victorious -men of Hill, Longstreet, and Ewell. It was with this in mind I had -allowed disproportionately longer for coming back. - -I saw my first soldier a few miles further on, a jagged shadow sitting -by the roadside with his boots off, massaging his feet. I guessed him -Northern from his kepi, but this was not conclusive, for many Southron -regiments wore kepis also. I struck off quietly into the field and -skirted around him. He never looked up. - -At dawn I estimated I was halfway, and except for the sight of that -single soldier I might have been taking a nocturnal stroll through a -countryside at peace. I was tired but certainly not worn out, and I -knew I could count on nervous energy and happy excitement to keep me -going long after my muscles began to protest. Progress would be slower -from now on—Confederate infantry must be just ahead—even so, I should -be at Gettysburg by six or seven. - -The sudden drumming of hooves brushed me off the dusty pike and -petrified me into rigidity as a troop dressed in gray and dirty tan -galloped by screaming, “Eeeeee-yeeee” exultantly. The gritty cloud they -stirred up settled slowly; I felt the particles sting my face and eyes. -It would be the sideroads from now on, I determined. - -Others had the same impulse; the sideroads were well populated. -Although I knew the movement of every division and of many regiments, -and even had some considerable idea of the civilian dislocation, the -picture around me was jumbled and turbulent. Farmers, merchants, -workers in overalls rode or tramped eastward; others, identical in -dress and obvious intensity of effort, pushed westward. I passed -carriages and carts with women and children traveling at various -speeds both ways. Squads and companies of blue-clad troops marched -along the roads or through the fields, trampling the crops, a confused -sound of singing, swearing, or aimless talk hanging above them like a -fog. Spaced by pacific intervals, men in gray or butternut, otherwise -indistinguishable, marched in the same direction. I decided I could -pass unnoticed in the milling crowds. - -It is not easy for the historian, ten, fifty or five hundred years away -from an event, to put aside for a moment the large concepts of currents -and forces, or the mechanical aids of statistics, charts, maps, neat -plans and diagrams in which the migration of men, women and children is -indicated by an arrow, or a brigade of half-terrified, half-heroic men -becomes a neat little rectangle. It is not easy to see behind source -material, to visualize state papers, reports, letters, diaries as -written by men who spent most of their lives sleeping, eating, yawning, -eliminating, squeezing blackheads, lusting, looking out of windows, -or talking about nothing in general with no one in particular. We are -too impressed with the pattern revealed to us—or which we think has -been revealed to us—to remember that for the participants history is a -haphazard affair, apparently aimless, produced by human beings whose -concern is essentially with the trivial and irrelevant. The historian -is always conscious of destiny. The participants rarely—or mistakenly. - -So to be set down in the midst of crisis, to be at once involved and -apart, is to experience a constant series of shocks against which there -is no anesthetic. The soldiers, the stragglers, the refugees, the farm -boys shouting at horses, the tophatted gentlemen cursing the teamsters, -the teamsters cursing back; the looters, pimps, gamblers, whores, -nurses and newspapermen were indisputably what they appeared: vitally -important to themselves, of little interest to anyone else. Yet at the -same time they were a paragraph, a page, a chapter, a whole series of -volumes. - -I’m sure I was faithful to the spirit if not the letter of Barbara’s -warnings, and that none of the hundreds whom I passed or who passed -me noted my presence, except cursorily. I, on the other hand, had to -repress the constant temptation to peer into every face for signs which -could not tell me what fortune or misfortune the decision of the next -three days would bring to it. - -A few miles from town the crowded disorder became even worse, for the -scouts from Ewell’s Corps, guarding the Confederate left flank on the -York Road, acted like a cork in a bottle. Because I, unlike the other -travelers, knew this, I cut sharply south to get back on the circuitous -Hanover road I had left shortly after midnight, and crossing the bridge -over Rock Creek, stumbled into Gettysburg. - -The two and a half storey brick houses with their purplish slate roofs -were placid and charming in the hot July sun. A valiant rooster pecked -at horsedung in the middle of the street heedless of the swarming -soldiers, any of whom might take a notion for roast chicken. Privates -in the black hats of the Army of the Potomac, cavalrymen with wide -yellow stripes and cannoneers with red ones on the seams of their -pants, swaggered importantly. Lieutenants with hands resting gracefully -on sword hilts, captains with arms thrust in unbuttoned tunics, -colonels smoking cigars, all moved back and forth across the street, -out of and into houses and stores, each clearly intent on some business -which would affect the course of the war. Now and then a general -rode his horse through the crowd, slowly and thoughtfully, oppressed -by the cares of rank. Soldiers spat, leered at an occasional woman, -sat dolefully on handy stoops, or marched smartly toward an unknown -destination. On the courthouse staff the flag hung doubtfully in the -limp summer air. Every so often there was a noise like poorly organized -thunder. - -Imitating the adaptable infantrymen, I found an unoccupied stoop and -sat down after a curious glance at the house, wondering whether it -contained someone whose letters or diaries I had read. Drawing out -my packet of dried beef, I munched away without taking any of my -attention from the sights and sounds and smells around me. Only I knew -how desperately these soldiers would fight this afternoon and all day -tomorrow. I alone knew how they would be caught in the inescapable trap -on July Third and finally routed, to begin the last act of the war. -That major, I thought, so proud of his new-won golden oak leaves, may -have an arm or leg shot off vainly defending Culp’s Hill; that sergeant -over there may lie faceless under an apple tree before nightfall. - -Soon these men would be swept away from the illusory shelter of the -houses and out onto the ridges where they would be pounded into defeat -and disaster. There was nothing for me now in Gettysburg itself, though -I could have spent days absorbing the color and feeling. Already I -had tempted fate by my casual appearance in the heart of town. At any -moment someone might speak to me, to ask for a light or a direction; an -ill-considered word or action of mine might change, with ever-widening -consequences, the course of the future. I had been foolish enough long -enough; it was time for me to go to the vantage point I had decided -upon and observe without peril of being observed. - -I rose and stretched, my bones protesting. But a couple of miles -more would see me clear of all danger of chance encounter with a too -friendly or inquisitive soldier or civilian. I gave a last look, -trying to impress every detail on my memory, and turned south on the -Emmitsburg Road. - -This was no haphazard choice. I knew where and when the crucial, the -decisive move upon which all the other moves depended would take place. -While thousands of men were struggling and dying on other parts of the -battleground, a Confederate advance force, unnoticed, disregarded, -would occupy the position which would eventually dominate the scene -and win the battle—and the war—for the South. Heavy with knowledge no -one else possessed I made my way toward a farm on which there was a -wheatfield and a peach orchard. - - - - -_20._ _BRING THE JUBILEE_ - - -A great battle in its first stages is as tentative, uncertain, and -indefinite as a courtship just begun. At the beginning the ground was -there for either side to take without protest; the other felt no surge -of possessive jealousy. I walked unscathed along the Emmitsburg Road; -on my left I knew there were Union forces concealed, on my right the -Southrons maneuvered. In a few hours, to walk between the lines would -mean instant death, but now the declaration had not been made, the -vows had not been finally exchanged. It was still possible for either -party to withdraw; no furious heat bound the two indissolubly together. -I heard the periodic shell and the whine of a minie bullet; mere -flirtatious gestures so far. - -Despite the hot sun the grass was cool and lush. The shade in the -orchard was velvety. From a low branch I picked a near ripe peach and -sucked the wry juice. I sprawled on the earth and waited. For miles -around, men from Maine and Wisconsin, from Georgia and North Carolina, -assumed the same attitude. But I knew for what I was waiting; they -could only guess. - -Some acoustical freak dimmed the noises in the air to little more -than amplification of the normal summer sounds. Did the ground really -tremble faintly, or was I translating my mental picture of the marching -armies, the great wagon trains, the heavy cannon, the iron-shod horses -into an imagined physical effect? I don’t think I dozed, but certainly -my attention withdrew from the rows of trees with their scarred and -runneled bark, curving branches and graceful leaves, so that I was -taken unaware by the unmistakable clump and creak of mounted men. - -The blue-uniformed cavalry rode slowly through the peach orchard. -They seemed like a group of aimless hunters returning from the futile -pursuit of a fox; they chatted, shouted at each other, walked their -horses abstractedly. One or two had their sabres out; they rose in -their saddles and cut at the branches overhead in pure, pointless -mischief. - -Behind them came the infantrymen, sweating and swearing, more serious. -Some few had wounds, others were without their muskets. Their dark blue -tunics were carelessly unbuttoned, their lighter pants were stained -with mud and dust and grass. They trampled and thrashed around like men -long weary. Quarrels rose among them swiftly and swiftly petered out. -No one could mistake them for anything but troops in retreat - -After they had passed, the orchard was still again, but the stillness -had a different quality from what had gone before. The leaves did not -rustle, no birds chirped, there were no faint betrayals of the presence -of chipmunks or squirrels. Only if one listened very closely was the -dry noise of insects perceptible. But I heard the guns now. Clearly and -louder. And more continuously—much more continuously. It was not yet -the full roar of battle, but death was authentic in its low rumble. - -Then the Confederates came. Cautiously, but not so cautiously that one -could fail to recognize they represented a victorious, invading army. -Shabby they certainly were, as they pushed into the orchard, but alert -and confident. Only a minority had uniforms which resembled those -prescribed by regulation and these were torn, grimy and scuffed. Many -of the others wore the semiofficial butternut—crudely dyed homespun, -streaked and muddy brown. Some had ordinary clothes with military hats -and buttons; a few were dressed in federal blue trousers with gray or -butternut jackets. - -Nor were their weapons uniform. There were long rifles, short carbines, -muskets of varying age, and I noticed one bearded soldier with a -ponderous shotgun. But whatever their dress or arms, their bearing was -the bearing of conquerors. If I alone on the field that day knew for -sure the outcome of the battle, these Confederate soldiers were close -behind in sensing the future. - -The straggling Northerners had passed me by with the clouded perception -of the retreating. These Southrons, however, were steadfastly attentive -to every sight and sound. Too late I realized the difficulty of -remaining unnoticed by such sharp, experienced eyes. Even as I berated -myself for my stupidity, a great, whiskery fellow in what must once -have been a stylish bottle-green coat pointed his gun at me. - -“Yank here boys!” Then to me, “What you doing here, fella?” - -Three or four came up and surrounded me curiously. “Funniest lookin -damyank I ever did see. Looks like he just fell out of a bathtub.” - -Since I had walked all night on dusty roads I could only think their -standards of cleanliness were not high. And indeed this was confirmed -by the smell coming from them: the stink of sweat, of clothes long -slept in, of unwashed feet and stale tobacco. - -“I’m a noncombatant,” I said foolishly. - -“Whazzat?” asked the beard. “Some kind of Baptist?” - -“Naw,” corrected one of the others. “It’s a law-word. Means not all -right in the head.” - -“Looks all right in the foot though. Let’s see your boots, Yank. Mine’s -sure wore out.” - -What terrified me now was not the thought of my boots being stolen, -or of being treated as a prisoner, or even the remote chance of being -shot as a spy. A greater, more indefinite catastrophe was threatened by -my exposure. These men were the advance company of a regiment due to -sweep through the orchard and the wheatfield, explore that bit of wild -ground known as the Devil’s Den and climb up Little Round Top closely -followed by an entire Confederate brigade. This was the brigade which -held the Round Top for several hours until artillery was brought up, -artillery which dominated the entire field and gave the South victory -at Gettysburg. - -There was no allowance for a pause, no matter how trifling, in the -peach orchard, in any of the accounts I’d read or heard of. The hazard -Barbara had warned so insistently against had happened. I had been -discovered, and the mere discovery had altered the course of history. - -I tried to shrug it off. Delay of a few minutes could hardly make a -significant difference. All historians agreed that the capture of the -Round Tops was an inevitability; the Confederates would have been -foolish to overlook them—in fact it was hardly possible they could, -prominent as they were both on maps and in physical reality—and they -had occupied them hours before the Federals made a belated attempt to -take them. I had been unbelievably stupid to expose myself, but I had -created no repercussions likely to spread beyond the next few minutes. - -“Said let’s see them boots. Aint got all day to wait.” - -A tall officer with a pointed imperial and a sandy, faintly reddish -mustache whose curling ends shone waxily came up, revolver in hand. -“What’s going on here?” - -“Just a Yank, Capn. Making a little change of footgear.” The tone was -surly, almost insolent. - -The galloons on the officer’s sleeve told me the title was not -honorary. “I’m a civilian, Captain,” I protested. “I realize I have no -business here.” - -The captain looked at me coldly, with an expression of disdainful -contempt. “Local man?” he asked. - -“Not exactly. I’m from York.” - -“Too bad. Thought you could tell me about the Yanks up ahead. Jenks, -leave the civilian gentleman in full possession of his boots.” - -There was rage behind that sneer, a hateful anger apparently directed -at me for being a civilian, at his men for their obvious lack of -respect, at the battle, the world. I suddenly realized his face was -intimately familiar. Irritatingly, because I could connect it with no -name, place or circumstance. - -“How long have you been in this orchard, Mister Civilian-From-York?” - -The effort to identify him nagged me, working in the depths of my -mind, obtruding even into that top layer which was concerned with what -was going on. - -What was going on? _Too bad. Thought you could tell me about the Yanks -up ahead. How long have you been in this orchard?_ - -Yanks up ahead? There werent any. There wouldnt be, for hours. - -“I said, ‘How long you been in this orchard?’” - -Probably an officer later promoted to rank prominent enough to have his -picture in one of the minor narratives. Yet I was certain his face was -no likeness I’d seen once in a steel engraving and dismissed. These -were features often encountered.... - -“Sure like to have them boots. If we aint fightin for Yankee boots, -what the hell we fightin for?” - -What could I say? That I’d been in the orchard for half an hour? The -next question was bound to be, Had I seen Federal troops? Whichever way -I answered I would be betraying my role of spectator. - -“Hey Capn—this fella knows something. Lookit the silly grin!” -Was I smiling? In what? Terror? Perplexity? In the mere effort of -keeping silent, so as to be involved no further? - -“Tell yah—he’s laughin cuz he knows somethin!” -Let them hang me, let them strip me of my boots; from here on I was -dumb as dear Catty had been once. - -“Out with it man—youre in a tight spot. Are there Yanks up ahead?” -The confusion in my mind approached chaos. If I knew the captain’s -eventual rank I could place him. Colonel Soandso. Brigadier-General -Blank. What had happened? Why had I let myself be discovered? Why had I -spoken at all and made silence so hard now? - -“Yanks up ahead—they’s Yanks up ahead!” -“Quiet you! I asked him—he didnt say there were Yanks ahead.” -“Hay! Damyanks up above. Goin to mow us down!” - -“Fella says the bluebellies are layin fur us!” - -Had the lie been in my mind, to be telepathically plucked by the -excited soldiers? Was even silence no refuge from participation? - -“Man here spotted the whole Fed artillery up above, trained on us!” - -“Pull back, boys! Pull back!” - -I’d read often enough of the epidemic quality of a perfectly -unreasonable notion. A misunderstood word, a baseless rumor, an -impossible report, was often enough to set a group of armed men—squad -or army—into senseless mob action. Sometimes the infection made for -feats of heroism, sometimes for panic. This was certainly less than -panic, but my nervous, meaningless smile conveyed a message I had never -sent. - -“It’s a trap. Pull back boys—let’s get away from these trees and out -where we can see the Yanks!” - -The captain whirled on his men. “Here, damn you,” he shouted furiously, -“you all gone crazy? The man said nothing. There’s no trap!” - -The men moved slowly, sullenly away. “I heard him,” one of them -muttered, looking accusingly toward me. - -The captain’s shout became a yell. “Come back here! Back here, I say!” - -His raging stride overtook the still irresolute men. He grabbed the one -called Jenks by the shoulder and whirled him about. Jenks tried to jerk -free. There was fear on his face, and hate. “Leave me go, damn you,” he -screamed, “Leave me go!” - -The captain yelled at his men again. Jenks snatched at the pistol with -his left hand; the officer pulled the gun away. Jenks brought his -musket upright against the captain’s body, the muzzle just under his -chin, and pushed—as though the firearm somehow gave him leverage. They -wrestled briefly, then the musket went off. - -The captain’s hat flew upward, and for an instant he stood, bareheaded, -in the private’s embrace. Then he fell. Jenks wrenched his musket free -and disappeared. - -When I came out of my shock I walked over to the body. The face had -been blown off. Shreds of human meat dribbled bloodily on the gray -collar and soiled the fashionably long hair. I had killed a man. -Through my interference with the past I had killed a man who had been -destined to longer life and even some measure of fame. I was the guilty -sorcerer’s apprentice. - -I stooped down to put my hands inside his coat for papers which would -tell me who he was and satisfy the curiosity which still basely -persisted. It was not shame which stopped me. Just nausea, and remorse. - - * * * * * - -I saw the Battle of Gettysburg. I saw it with all the unique advantages -of a professional historian thoroughly conversant with the patterns, -the movements, the details, who knows where to look for the coming -dramatic moment, the recorded decisive stroke. I fulfilled the -chroniclers’ dream. - -It was a nightmare. - - * * * * * - -To begin with, I slept. I slept not far from the captain’s body in the -peach orchard. This was not callousness, but physical and emotional -exhaustion. When I went to sleep the guns were thundering; when I -woke they were thundering louder. It was late afternoon. I thought -immediately, this is the time for the futile Union charge against the -Round Tops. - -But the guns were not sounding from there. All the roar was northward, -from the town. I knew how the battle went; I had studied it for years. -Only now it wasn’t happening the way it was written down in the books. - -True, the first day was a Confederate victory. But it was not the -victory we knew. It was just a little different, just a little short -of the triumph recorded. And on the second day, instead of the -Confederates getting astride the Taneytown Road and into the position -from which they tore Meade’s army to bits from three sides, I witnessed -a terrible encounter in the peach orchard and the wheatfield—places -known to be safely behind the Southron lines. - -All my life I’d heard of Pickett’s charge on the third day. Of how -the disorganized Federals were given the final killing blow in their -vitals. Well, I saw Pickett’s charge on the third day and it was not -the same charge in the historic place. It was a futile attempt to storm -superior positions (positions, by established fact, in Lee’s hands -since July First) ending in slaughter and defeat. - -Defeat for the South, not the North. Meade’s army was not broken; the -Confederates could not scatter and pursue them now. The Capitulation, -if it ever took place, would come under different circumstances. The -independence of the Confederate States might not be acknowledged for -years. If at all. - -All because the North held the Round Tops. - -Years more of killing, and possibly further years of guerrilla warfare. -Thousands and thousands of dead, their blood on my hands. A poisoned -continent, an inheritance of hate. Because of me. - -I cannot tell you how I got back to York. If I walked, it was -somnambulistically. Possibly I rode the railroad or in a farmer’s cart. -Part of my mind, a tiny part that kept coming back to pierce me no -matter how often I crushed it out, remembered those who died, those -who would have lived, but for me. Another part was concerned only with -the longing to get back to my own time, to the haven, to Catty. A -much larger part was simply blank, except for the awesome, incredible -knowledge that the past could be changed—that the past _had_ been -changed. - -I must have wound my watch—Barbara’s watch—for it was ten oclock on -the night of July Fourth when I got to the barn. Ten oclock by 1863 -time; the other dial showed it to be 8:40, that would be twenty of -nine in the morning, 1952 time. In two hours I would be home, safe -from the nightmare of happenings that never happened, of guilt for -the deaths of men not supposed to die, of the awful responsibility of -playing destiny. If I could not persuade Barbara to smash her damnable -contrivance I would do so myself. - -The dogs barked madly, but I was sure no one heeded. It was the Fourth -of July, and a day of victory and rejoicing for all Pennsylvanians. I -stole into the barn and settled myself in the exact center, even daring -the use of a match, my last one, to be sure I’d be directly under the -reflector when it materialized. - -I could not sleep, though I longed to blot out the horror and wake -in my own time. Detail by detail I went over what I had seen, -superimposing it like a palimpsest upon the history I’d always known. -Sleep would have kept me from this wretched compulsion and from -questioning my sanity, but I could not sleep. - -I have heard that in moments of overwhelming shock some irrelevancy, -some inconsequential matter persistently forces itself on the -attention. The criminal facing execution thinks, not of his imminent -fate or of his crime, but of the cigarette stub he left burning in -his cell. The bereaved widow dwells, not on her lost husband, but on -tomorrow’s laundry. So it was with me. Behind that part of my mind -re-living the past three days, a more elementary part gnawed at the -identification of the slain captain. - -I knew that face. Particularly did I know that face set in a sneer, -distorted with anger. But I could not remember it in Confederate -uniform. I could not remember it with sandy mustaches. And yet the -sandy, reddish hair, revealed in that terrible moment when his hat -flew off, was as familiar as part of the face. Oh, I thought, if I -could only place it once and for all and free my mind at least of this -trivial thing. - -I wished there were some way I could have seen the watch, to -concentrate on the creeping progress of the hands and distract -myself from the wave after wave of wretched meditations which flowed -over me. But the moonlight was not strong enough to make the face -distinguishable, much less the figures on the dials. There was no -narcotic. - -As one always is at such times I was convinced the appointed moment -had passed unnoticed. Something had gone wrong. Over and over I had to -tell myself that minutes seem hours in the waiting dark; it might feel -like two or three in the morning to me; it was probably barely eleven. -No use. A minute—or an hour or a second—later I was again positive -midnight had passed. - -Finally I began to suffer a monstrous illusion. I began to think it -was getting lighter. That dawn was coming. Of course I knew it could -not be; what I fancied lifting darkness was only a sick condition -of swollen, overtired eyes. Dawn does not come to Pennsylvania at -midnight, and it was not yet midnight. At midnight I would be back at -Haggershaven, in 1952. - -Even when the barn was fully lighted by the rising sun and I could see -the cattle peaceful in their stalls I refused to believe what I saw. I -took out my watch only to find something had disturbed the works; the -hands registered five oclock. Even when the farmer, milk pails over -arm, started in surprise, exclaiming, “Hay, what you doing here?”—even -then, I did not believe. - -Only when, as I opened my mouth to explain to my involuntary host, -did something happen. The puzzle which had pursued me for three days -suddenly solved itself. I knew why the face of the Southron captain -had been so familiar. Familiar beyond any of the better known warriors -on either side. I had indeed known that face intimately; seen those -features enraged or sneering. The nose, the mouth, the eyes, the -expression were Barbara Haggerwells’. The man dead in the peach orchard -was the man whose portrait hung in the library of Haggershaven, its -founder, Herbert Haggerwells. Captain Haggerwells—never to become a -major now, or buy this farm. Never to marry a local girl or beget -Barbara’s great grandfather. Haggershaven had ceased to exist in the -future. - - - - -_21._ _FOR THE TIME BEING_ - - -I am writing this, as I said, in 1877. I am a healthy man of -forty-five, no doubt with many years ahead of me. I might live to be a -hundred, except for an illogical feeling that I must die before 1921. -However, eighty-nine should be enough for anyone. So I have ample time -to put my story down. Still, better to have it down and done with; -should anything happen to me tomorrow it will be on paper. - -For what? As confession and apology? As an inverted substitute for the -merciful amnesia which ought to have erased my memory as well as my -biography? (I have written to Wappinger Falls; there are no records of -any Hodgins family, or of Backmakers. Does this mean the forces I set -in motion destroyed Private Hodgins as well as Captain Haggerwells? Or -only that the Hodginses and Backmakers settled elsewhere? In either -case I am like Adam—in this world—a special, parentless creation.) -There is no one close enough to care, or intimate enough to accept my -word in the face of all reason. I have not married in this time, nor -shall I. I write only as old men talk to themselves. - -The rest of my personal story is simple. The name of the farmer who -found me in his barn was Thammis; they had need of a hired hand and I -stayed on. I had no desire to go elsewhere; in fact I could not bear to -leave what was—and will never be—Haggershaven. - -In the beginning I used to go to the location of the Agati’s garden and -look across at the spot where I left our cottage and Catty. It was an -empty pilgrimage. Now I content myself with the work which needs doing. -I shall stay here till I die. - -Catty. Haggershaven. Are they really gone, irrevocably lost, in a -future which never existed, which couldnt exist, once the chain of -causation was broken? Or do they exist after all, in a universe in -which the South won the battle of Gettysburg and Major Haggerwells -founded Haggershaven? Could another Barbara devise a means to reach -that universe? I would give so much to believe this, but I cannot. I -simply cannot. - -Children know about such things. They close their eyes and pray, -“Please God, make it didnt happen.” Often they open their eyes to find -it happened anyway, but this does not shake their faith that many times -the prayer is granted. Adults smile, but can any of them be sure the -memories they cherish were the same yesterday? Do they _know_ that a -past cannot be expunged? Children know it can. - -And once lost, that particular past can never be regained. Another -and another perhaps, but never the same one. There are no parallel -universes—though this one may be sinuous and inconstant. - -That this world is a better place than the one into which I was born, -and promises to grow still better, seems true. What idealism lay behind -the Southron cause triumphed in the reconciliation of men like Lee; -what was brutal never got the upper hand as it did in my world. The -Negro is free; black legislatures pass advanced laws in South Carolina; -black congressmen comport themselves with dignity in Washington. The -Pacific railroad is built, immigrants pour in to a welcoming country to -make it strong and wealthy; no one suggests they should be shut out or -hindered. - -There are rumors of a deal between northern Republicans and southern -Democrats, betraying the victory of the Civil War—how strange it is -still, after fourteen years, to use this term instead of the familiar -War of Southron Independence—in return for the presidency. If this is -true, my brave new world is not so brave. - -It may not be so new either. Prussia has beaten France and proclaimed -a German Empire; is this the start in a different way of the German -Union? Will 1914 see an Emperors’ War—there is none in France -now—leaving Germany facing ... whom? - -Any one of the inventions of my own time would make me a rich man -if I could reproduce them, or cared for money. With mounting steel -production and the tremendous jump in population, what a success the -minible would be. Or the tinugraph. Or controllable balloons. - -The typewriter I have seen. It has developed along different and -clumsier lines; inevitably, I suppose, given initial divergence. It may -mean greater advances; more likely not. The universal use of gaslight -must be far in the future if it is to come at all; certainly its advent -is delayed by all this talk of inventing electric illumination. If we -couldnt put electricity to work it’s unlikely my new contemporaries -will be able to. Why, they havent even made the telegraph cheap and -convenient. - -And something like HX-1? It is inconceivable. Could it be that in -destroying the future in which Haggershaven existed I have also -destroyed the only dimension in which time travel was possible? - -So strangely easily I can write the words, “I destroyed.” - -Catty. - -But what of Tyss’s philosophy? Is it possible I shall be condemned -to repeat the destruction throughout eternity? Have I written these -lines an infinite number of times before? Or is the mercy envisaged by -Enfandin a reality? And what of Barbara’s expression as she bade me -goodbye? Could she possibly - - * * * * * - -Editorial note by Frederick Winter Thammis: Quite recently, in the -summer of 1953 to be exact, I commissioned the remodelling of my family -home near York, Pennsylvania. Among the bundles of old books and -papers stored in the attic was a box of personal effects, labelled “H -M Backmaker.” In it was the manuscript concluding with an unfinished -sentence, reproduced above. - -My father used to tell me that when he was a boy there was an old -man living on the farm, nominally as a hired hand, but actually as a -pensioner, since he was beyond the age of useful labor. My father -said the children considered him not quite right in his mind, but -very entertaining, for he often repeated long, disjointed narratives -of an impossible world and an impossible society which they found as -fascinating as the Oz books. On looking back, he said, Old Hodge talked -like an educated man, but this might simply be the impression of young, -uncultivated minds. - -Clearly it was in some attempt to give form and unity to his tales -that the old man wrote his fable down, and then was too shy to submit -it for publication. This is the only reasonable way to account for its -existence. Of course he says he wrote it in 1877, when he was far from -old, and disconcertingly, analysis of the paper shows it might have -been written then. - -Two other items should be noted. In the box of Backmaker’s belongings -there was a watch of unknown manufacture and unique design. Housed in a -cheap nickel case, the jeweled movement is of extraordinary precision -and delicacy. The face has two dials, independently set and wound. - -The second is a quotation. It can be matched by similar quotations -in any of half a hundred volumes on the Civil War. I pick this only -because it is handy. From W. E. Woodward’s _Years of Madness_, p. 202: - -“ ... Union troops that night and next morning took a position on -Cemetery Hill and Round Top.... The Confederates could have occupied -this position but they failed to do so. It was an error with momentous -consequences.” - - - - - About Ward Moore - - -On the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, there is a small hill -called Little Round Top. One morning in July, 1863, the Confederate -Army made the tactical error of not occupying this hill. It was a -mistake that cost them victory in a battle which—in the view of many -historians—was the turning point of the Civil War. In the ninety years -since Gettysburg one question has never been far from the minds of -most Southerners—and a good many Yankees, too: What if the battle had -gone the other way, what if the South had won the war? Ward Moore—a -Northerner himself—has settled the matter at last in a book that might -be called imaginative historical fiction, an excursion into the world -of might-have-been so filled with exact and convincing detail that, for -a few hours, it seems true. - - * * * * * - -The author of _Bring the Jubilee_ was born in Madison, New Jersey, in -1903. “From the age of five,” he writes, “books have been for me the -essential narcotic; as a natural consequence I detested school. When -this detestation did not bring on psychosomatic illnesses to save me -from the hated classrooms, I was not above malingering or playing -hooky—now a lost art, but one practiced in my generation. Three weeks -short of graduation I quit high school and have not been inside a -school house since, except to vote. - - * * * * * - -“My first short story was written at the age of eleven and was followed -by a flood of juvenilia, some little of which was unfortunately -published. Happily, markets and industry died simultaneously; I wrote -only desultorily until my first novel _Breathe the Air Again_ was -published in 1942. This was acclaimed by Max Eastman in the American -Mercury, who predicted that I would fall heir to ‘the cloak of Upton -Sinclair.’ Something went wrong with the tailoring arrangements; my -next novel was _Greener Than You Think_ (Sloane, 1947), a satirical -fantasy.” - - * * * * * - -In addition to these two novels, Mr. Moore has published a number of -short stories in such disparate media as Amazing Stories and Harper’s -Bazaar, Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Reporter, Science Fiction -Quarterly and Tomorrow. - - * * * * * - -He concludes: “I have been intensely interested in the history of the -Civil War ever since—at the age of six—I came across a book with nice -black woodcuts showing the firing on Fort Sumter and the burning of -Richmond. As an amateur I’ve read hundreds of dull volumes and a score -of fascinating ones on the Irrepressible Conflict. A novel based on the -concept ‘what would have happened if the South had won at Gettysburg,’ -was practically inevitable. _Bring the Jubilee_ is it.” - - - - - _The Idea Behind_ - - DUAL EDITIONS - - -An agreement unusual in American publishing has been made between -FARRAR, STRAUS and YOUNG, INC., and BALLANTINE BOOKS, INC. We believe -that through simultaneous publication of new titles in paperbound and -trade editions it is possible to secure broader distribution of good -books at a considerable saving to the reader and with substantially -greater royalty income for the author. 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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Bring the Jubilee</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Ward Moore</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 18, 2022 [eBook #67652]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Tim Lindell, Les Galloway and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRING THE JUBILEE ***</div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="transnote"> -<h3> Transcriber’s Notes</h3> - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations -in hyphenation been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation -remains unchanged. Note in particular that the apostrophe is very -rarely used to indicate abbreviation.</p> - -<p>The cover was prepared by the transcriber and is placed in the public -domain.</p> - -</div> - - -<p class="half-title">Bring<br /> -the<br /> -Jubilee</p> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="half-title">By Ward Moore</p> -</div> - - -<p class="center">_<i>Breathe the Air Again</i><br /> -<i>Greener Than You Think</i><br /> -<i>Bring the Jubilee</i></p> - -<p class="spaced"><small>This is an original novel—not a reprint—published by FARRAR, STRAUS & -YOUNG, INC. The low price of $2.00 is made possible by large printings -of combined editions</small>.</p> - - -<div class="chap"></div> - -<table class="standard" summary=""> -<tr> -<td class= "tdl_br"> </td> -<td class="tdl"><h1>Bring<br />the<br />Jubilee</h1> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class= "tdl_br"><span class="large">WARD<br />MOORE</span></td> -<td> </td> -</tr> -</table> - - - -<p class="spaced nind"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">FARRAR, STRAUS and YOUNG, Inc.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">NEW YORK</span></p> - - - - -<p class="center small">Copyright 1952 Fantasy House, Inc.<br /> -Copyright 1953 Ward Moore<br /> -All rights reserved. Manufactured in the U. S. A.<br /> -Library of Congress catalog card number: 53-10417</p> - -<p class="center small">BACK COVER MAP: BETTMANN ARCHIVE</p> - - - - -<p class="center spaced"><i>For<br /> -TONY BOUCHER and MICK McCOMAS<br /> -who liked this story</i></p> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse indent2"><small>What he will he does, and does so much</small></div> -<div class="verse indent2"><small>That proof is call’d impossibility</small></div> -<div class="verse indent10">—<small><i>Troilus and Cressida</i></small></div> -</div></div></div> - - <hr class="small" /> - -<p><small>It is always the puzzle of the nature of time that brings our thoughts -to a standstill. And if time is so fundamental that an understanding -of its true nature is for ever beyond our reach, then so also in -all probability is a decision in the age-long controversy between -determination and free will.</small></p> -<p class="right">—<small><i>The Mysterious Universe</i> by James Jeans</small></p> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="Contents">Contents</h2> -</div> - - -<table class="standard" summary=""> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C1">I</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>Life in the Twenty-Six States</i></td> -<td class="tdl">1</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C2">II</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>Of Decisions, Minibiles, and Tinugraphs</i></td> -<td class="tdl">12</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C3">III</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>A Member of the Grand Army</i></td> -<td class="tdl">22</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C4">IV</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>Tyss</i></td> -<td class="tdl">32</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C5">V</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>Of Whigs and Populists</i></td> -<td class="tdl">42</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C6">VI</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>Enfandin</i></td> -<td class="tdl">50</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C7">VII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>Of Confederate Agents in 1942</i></td> -<td class="tdl">61</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C8">VIII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>In Violent Times</i></td> -<td class="tdl">71</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C9">IX</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>Barbara</i></td> -<td class="tdl">76</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C10">X</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>The Holdup</i></td> -<td class="tdl">86</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C11">XI</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>Of Haggershaven</i></td> -<td class="tdl">95</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C12">XII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>More of Haggershaven</i></td> -<td class="tdl">106</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C13">XIII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>Time</i></td> -<td class="tdl">116</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C14">XIV</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>Midbin’s Experiment</i></td> -<td class="tdl">124</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C15">XV</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>Good Years</i></td> -<td class="tdl">132</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C16">XVI</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>Of Varied Subjects</i></td> -<td class="tdl">142</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C17">XVII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>HX-1</i></td> -<td class="tdl">156</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C18">XVIII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>The Woman Tempted Me</i></td> -<td class="tdl">166</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C19">XIX</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>Gettysburg</i></td> -<td class="tdl">175</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C20">XX</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>Bring the Jubilee</i></td> -<td class="tdl">181</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#C21">XXI</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><i>For the Time Being</i></td> -<td class="tdl">191</td> -</tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C1"><i>1. LIFE IN THE TWENTY-SIX STATES</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>Although I am writing this in the year 1877, -I was not born until 1921. Neither the dates nor the tenses -are error—let me explain:</p> - -<p>I was born, as I say, in 1921, but it was not until the -early 1930’s, when I was about ten, that I began to understand -what a peculiarly frustrate and disinherited world -was about me. Perhaps my approach to realization was -through the crayon portrait of Granpa Hodgins which -hung, very solemnly, over the mantel.</p> - -<p>Granpa Hodgins after whom I was named, perhaps a -little grandiloquently, Hodgins McCormick Backmaker, -had been a veteran of the War of Southron Independence. -Like so many young men he had put on a shapeless blue -uniform in response to the call of the ill-advised and headstrong—or -martyred—Mr Lincoln. Depending on which -of my lives’ viewpoints you take.</p> - -<p>Granpa lost an arm on the Great Retreat to Philadelphia -after the fall of Washington to General Lee’s victorious -Army of Northern Virginia, so his war ended some six -months before the capitulation at Reading and the acknowledgment -of the independence of the Confederate -States on July 4, 1864. One-armed and embittered, Granpa -came home to Wappinger Falls and, like his fellow -veterans, tried to remake his life in a different and increasingly -hopeless world.</p> - -<p>On its face the Peace of Richmond was a just and even -generous disposition of a defeated foe by the victor. (Both -sides—for different reasons—remembered the mutiny of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span> -the Unreconstructed Federals in the Armies of the Cumberland -and the Tennessee who, despite defeat at Chattanooga, -could not forget Vicksburg or Port Hudson and -fought bloodily against the order to surrender.) The South -could easily have carved the country up to suit its most -fiery patriots, even to the point of detaching the West and -making a protectorate of it. Instead the chivalrous Southrons -contented themselves with drawing the new boundary -along traditional lines. The Mason-Dixon gave them Delaware -and Maryland, but they generously returned the panhandle -of western Virginia jutting above it. Missouri was -naturally included in the Confederacy, but of the disputed -territory Colorado and Deseret were conceded to the old -Union; only Kansas and California as well as—for obvious -defensive reasons—Nevada’s tip went to the South.</p> - -<p>But the Peace of Richmond had also laid the cost of -the war on the beaten North and this was what crippled -Granpa Hodgins more than the loss of his arm. The postwar -inflation entered the galloping stage during the Vallandigham -Administration, became dizzying in the time -of President Seymour and precipitated the food riots of -1873 and ’74. It was only after the election of President -Butler by the Whigs in 1876 and the reorganization and -drastic deflation following that money and property became -stable, but by this time all normal values were destroyed. -Meanwhile the indemnities had to be paid regularly -in gold. Granpa and hundreds of thousands like him -just never seemed to get back on their feet.</p> - -<p>How well I remember, as a small boy in the 1920’s and -’30s, my mother and father talking bitterly of how the War -had ruined everything. They were not speaking of the then -fairly recent Emperors’ War of 1914-16, but of the War -of Southron Independence which still, nearly seventy years -later, blighted what was left of the United States.</p> - -<p>Nor were they unique or peculiar in this. Men who -slouched in the smithy while Father shod their horses, or -gathered every month around the postoffice waiting for the -notice of the winning lottery numbers to be put up, as often -cursed the Confederates or discussed what might have -been if Meade had been a better general or Lee a worse<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span> -one, as they did the new-type bicycles with clockwork -auxiliaries to make pedaling uphill easier, or the latest -scandal about the French Emperor, Napoleon VI.</p> - -<p>I tried to imagine what it must have been like in Granpa -Hodgins’ day, to visualize the lost past—that strange bright -era when, if it could be believed, folk like ourselves and -our neighbors had owned their farms outright and didnt -pay rent to the bank or give half the crop to a landlord. I -searched the wiggling crayon lines that composed Granpa -Hodgins’ face for some sign that set him apart from his -descendants.</p> - -<p>“But what did he <i>do</i> to lose the farm?” I used to ask my -mother.</p> - -<p>“Do? Didnt do anything. Couldnt help himself. Go -along now and do your chores; Ive a terrible batch of work -to get out.”</p> - -<p>How could Granpa’s not doing anything result so disastrously? -I could not understand this any more than I could -the bygone time when a man could nearly always get a job -for wages which would support himself and a family, before -the system of indenture became so common that practically -the only alternative to pauperism was to sell oneself -to a company.</p> - -<p>Indenting I understood all right, for there was a mill in -Wappinger Falls which wove a shoddy cloth very different -from the goods my mother produced on her handloom. -Mother, even in her late forties, could have indented there -for a good price, and she admitted that the work would -be easier than weaving homespun to compete with their -product. But, as she used to say with an obstinate shake -of her head, “Free I was born and free I’ll die.”</p> - -<p>In Granpa Hodgins’ day, if one could believe the folktales -or family legends, men and women married young -and had large families; there might have been five generations -between him and me instead of two. And many -uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers and sisters. Now late marriages -and only children were the rule.</p> - -<p>If it hadnt been for the War—This was the basic theme -stated with variations suited to the particular circumstance. -If it hadnt been for the War the most energetic young men<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span> -and women would not turn to emigration; visiting foreigners -would not come as to a slum; and the great powers -would think twice before sending troops to restore order -every time one of their citizens was molested. If it hadnt -been for the War the detestable buyer from Boston—detestable -to my mother, but rather fascinating to me with -his brightly colored vest and smell of soap and hair tonic—would -not have come regularly to offer her a miserable price -for her weaving.</p> - -<p>“Foreigner!” she would always exclaim after he left; -“sending good cloth out of the country.”</p> - -<p>Once my father ventured, “He’s only doing what he’s -paid for.”</p> - -<p>“Trust a Backmaker to stand up for foreigners. Like -father, like son; suppose you’d let the whole thieving crew -in if you had your way.”</p> - -<p>So was first hinted the scandal of Grandfather Backmaker. -No enlarged portrait of him hung anywhere, much -less over the mantel. I got the impression my father’s father -had been not only a foreigner by birth, but a shady character -in his own right, a man who kept on believing in the -things for which Granpa Hodgins fought after they were -proved wrong. I don’t know how I learned that Grandfather -Backmaker had made speeches advocating equal -rights for Negroes or protesting the mass lynchings so popular -in the North, in contrast to the humane treatment accorded -these non-citizens in the Confederacy. Nor do I -remember where I heard he had been run out of several -places before finally settling in Wappinger Falls or that -all his life people had muttered darkly at his back, “Dirty -Abolitionist!”—a very deep imprecation indeed. I only -know that as a consequence of this taint my father, a meek, -hardworking, worried little man, was completely dominated -by my mother who never let him forget that a -Hodgins or a McCormick was worth dozens of Backmakers.</p> - -<p>I must have been a sore trial to her for I showed no -sign of proper Hodgins gumption, such as she displayed -herself and which surely kept us all—though precariously—free. -For one thing I was remarkably unhandy and awk<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span>ward, -of little use in the hundred necessary chores around -our dilapidated house. I could not pick up a hammer at -her command to do something about fixing the loose -weatherboards on the east side without mashing my thumb -or splitting the aged, unpainted wood. I could not hoe the -kitchen garden without damaging precious vegetables and -leaving weeds intact. I could shovel snow in the winter at -a tremendous rate for I was strong and had endurance, but -work requiring manual dexterity baffled me. I fumbled in -harnessing Bessie, our mare, or hitching her to the cart -for my father’s trips to Poughkeepsie, and as for helping -him on the farm or in his smithy I’m afraid my efforts -drove that mild man nearest to a temper he ever came. He -would lay the reins on the plowhorse’s back or his hammer -down on the anvil and say mournfully:</p> - -<p>“Better see if you can help your mother, Hodge. Youre -only in my way here.”</p> - -<p>On only one score did I come near pleasing Mother: I -learned to read and write early, and exhibited some proficiency. -But even here there was a flaw; she looked upon -literacy as something which distinguished Hodginses and -McCormicks from the ruck who had to make their mark, -as an accomplishment which might somehow and unspecifiedly -lead away from poverty. I found reading an end in -itself, which probably reminded her of my father’s laxity -or Grandfather Backmaker’s subversion.</p> - -<p>“Make something of yourself, Hodge,” she admonished -me often. “You can’t change the world”—an obvious allusion -to Grandfather Backmaker—“but you can do something -with it as it is if you try hard enough. There’s always -some way out.”</p> - -<p>Yet she did not approve of the postoffice lottery, on -which so many pinned their hopes of escape from poverty -or indenture. In this she and my father were agreed; both -believed in hard work rather than chance.</p> - -<p>Still, chance could help even the steadiest toiler. I remember -the time a minibile—one of the small, trackless -locomotives—broke down not a quarter of a mile from -Father’s smithy. This was a golden, unparalleled, unbelievable -opportunity. Minibiles, like any other luxury, were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> -rare in the United States though they were common -enough in prosperous countries like the German Union -or the Confederacy. We had to rely for our transportation -on the never-failing horse or on the railroads, wornout and -broken down as they were. For decades the great issue in -Congress was the never completed Pacific transcontinental -line, though British America had one and the Confederate -States seven. (Sailing balloons, economical and fairly common, -were still looked upon with some suspicion.) Only -a rare millionaire with connections in Frankfurt, Washington-Baltimore -or Leesburg could afford to indulge in a -costly and complicated minibile requiring a trained driver -to bounce it over the rutted and chuckholed roads. Only an -extraordinarily adventurous spirit would leave the tar-surfaced -streets of New York or its sister city of Brooklyn, -where the minibiles’ solid rubber tires could at worst find -traction on the horse or cable-car rails, for the morasses -or washboard roads which were the only highways north -of the Harlem River.</p> - -<p>When one did, the jolting, jouncing and shaking inevitably -broke or disconnected one of the delicate parts in its -complex mechanism. Then the only recourse—apart from -telegraphing back to the city if the traveler broke down -near an instrument—was to the closest blacksmith. Smiths -rarely knew much of the principles of the minibiles, but -with the broken part before them they could fabricate a -passable duplicate and, unless the machine had suffered -severe damage, put it back in place. It was customary for -such a craftsman to compensate himself for the time taken -away from horseshoeing or spring-fitting—or just absently -chewing on an oatstraw—by demanding exorbitant remuneration, -amounting to perhaps twenty-five or thirty -cents an hour, thus avenging his rural poverty and self-sufficiency -upon the effete wealth and helplessness of the -urban excursionist.</p> - -<p>Such a golden opportunity befell my father, as I said, -during the fall of 1933, when I was twelve. The driver had -made his way to the smithy, leaving the owner of the minibile -marooned and fuming in the enclosed passenger seat. -A hasty visit convinced Father, who could repair a clock<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> -or broken rake with equal dexterity, that his only course -was to bring the machine to the forge where he could heat -and straighten a part not easy to disassemble. (The driver, -the owner, and Father all repeated the name of the part -often enough, but so inept have I been with “practical” -things all my life that I couldnt recall it ten minutes, much -less thirty years later.)</p> - -<p>“Hodge, run and get the mare and ride over to -Jones’s. Don’t try to saddle her—go bareback. Ask Mr -Jones to kindly lend me his team.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll give the boy a quarter dollar for himself if he’s back -with the team in twenty minutes,” added the owner of the -minibile, sticking his head out of the window.</p> - -<p>I won’t say I was off like the wind, for my life’s work has -given me a distaste for exaggeration or hyperbole, but I -moved faster than I ever had before. A quarter, a whole -shining silver quarter, a day’s full wage for the boy who -could find odd jobs, half the day’s pay of a grown man -who wasnt indented or worked extra hours—all for myself, -to spend as I wished!</p> - -<p>I ran all the way back to the barn, led Bessie out by her -halter and jumped on her broad back, my enthralling daydream -growing and deepening each moment. With my -quarter safely got I could perhaps persuade my father to -take me along on his next trip to Poughkeepsie; in the -shops there I could find some yards of figured cotton for -Mother, or a box of cigars to which Father was partial but -rarely bought for himself, or an unimagined something for -Mary McCutcheon, some three years older than I, with -whom it had so recently become disturbing as well as imperative -to wrestle—in secret of course so as not to show -oneself unmanly in sporting with a weak girl instead of -another boy.</p> - -<p>It never even occurred to me, as it would have to most, -to invest in an eighth of a lottery ticket. Not only were my -parents sternly against this popular gamble, but I myself -felt a strangely puritanical aversion to meddling with my -fortune.</p> - -<p>Or I could take the entire quarter into Newman’s Book -and Clock Store. Here I could not afford one of the latest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span> -English or Confederate books—even the novels I disdained -cost fifty cents in their original and thirty in the pirated -United States’ edition—but what treasures there were in -the twelve-and-a-half cent reprints and the dime classics!</p> - -<p>With Bessie’s legs moving steadily beneath me I pored -over in my imagination Mr Newman’s entire stock, which -I knew by heart from examinations lulled by the steady -ticking of his other, and no doubt more salable, merchandise. -My quarter would buy two reprints, but I would read -them in as many evenings and be no better off than before -until their memory faded and I could read them again. -Better to invest in paperbacked adventure stories giving -sharp, breathless pictures of life in the West or rekindling -the glories of the War. True, they were written almost entirely -by Confederate authors and I was, perhaps thanks -to Granpa Hodgins and my mother, a devout partisan of -the lost cause of Sheridan and Sherman and Thomas. But -patriotism couldnt steel me against the excitement of the -Confederate paperbacks; literature simply ignored the -boundary stretching to the Pacific.</p> - -<p>I had finally determined to invest all my twenty-five -cents, not in five paperbound volumes but in ten of the -same in secondhand or shopworn condition, when I suddenly -realized that I had been riding Bessie for some considerable -time. I looked around, rather dazed by the abrupt -translation from the dark and slightly musty interior of -Newman’s store to the bright countryside, to find with dismay -that Bessie hadnt taken me to the Jones farm after -all but on some private tour of her own in the opposite -direction.</p> - -<p>I’m afraid this little anecdote is pointless—it was momentarily -pointed enough for me that evening, for in addition -to the loss of the promised quarter I received a thorough -whacking with a willow switch from my mother after -my father had, as usual, dolefully refused his parental -duty—except perhaps that it shows how in pursuing the -dream I could lose the reality.</p> - -<p>My feeling that books were a part of life, and the most -important part, was no passing phase. Other boys in their -early teens dreamed of going to the wilds of Dakotah,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> -Montana or Wyoming, indenting to a company run by a -young and beautiful woman—this was also a favorite paperback -theme—discovering the loot hidden by a gang, or -emigrating to Australia or the South African Republic. Or -else they faced the reality of indenture, carrying on the -family farm, or petty trade. I only wanted to be allowed -to read.</p> - -<p>I knew this ambition, if that is the proper word, to be -outrageous and unheard of. It was also practically impossible. -The school at Wappinger Falls, a survival from the -days of compulsory attendance and an object of doubt in -the eyes of the taxpayers, taught as little as possible as -quickly as possible. Parents needed the help of their children -to survive or to build up a small reserve in the illusory -hope of buying free of indenture. Both my mother and my -teachers looked askance at my longing to persist past an -age when my contemporaries were making themselves -economically useful.</p> - -<p>Nor, even supposing I had the fees, could the shabby, -fusty Academy at Poughkeepsie—originally designed for -the education of the well-to-do—provide what I wanted. -Not that I was clear at all as to just what this was; I -only knew that commercial arithmetic, surveying, or any -of the other subjects taught there, were not the answer -to my desires.</p> - -<p>There was certainly no money for any college. Our position -had grown slowly worse; my father talked of selling -the smithy and indenting. My dreams of Harvard or Yale -were as idle as Father’s of making a good crop and getting -out of debt. Nor did I know then, as I was to find out -later, that the colleges were increasingly provincialized and -decayed, contrasting painfully with the flourishing universities -of the Confederacy and Europe. The average man -asked what the United States needed colleges for anyway; -those who attended them only learned discontent and to -question time-honored institutions. Constant scrutiny of -the faculties, summary firing of all instructors suspected -of abnormal ideas, did not seem to improve the situation -or raise the standards of teaching.</p> - -<p>My mother, now that I was getting beyond the switching<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> -age, lectured me firmly and at length on idleness and self-indulgence. -“It’s a hard world, Hodge, and no one’s going -to give you anything you don’t earn. Your father’s an easy-going -man; too easy-going for his own good, but he always -knows where his duty lies.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, maam,” I responded politely, not quite seeing -what she was driving at.</p> - -<p>“Hard, honest work—that’s the only thing. Not hoping -or wishing or thinking miracles will happen to you. Work -hard and keep yourself free. Don’t depend on circumstances -or other people, and don’t blame them for your -own shortcomings. Be your own man. That’s the only way -you’ll ever be where you want to.” -She spoke of responsibility and duty as though they -were measurable quantities, but the gentler parts of such -equations, the factors of affection and pity, were never -mentioned. I don’t want to give the impression that ours -was a particularly puritanical family; I know our neighbors -had of necessity much the same grim outlook. But I felt -guiltily vulnerable, not merely on the score of wanting -more schooling, but because of something else which -would have shocked my mother beyond forgiveness.</p> - -<p>My early tussles with Mary McCutcheon had the natural -consequences, but she had found me a too-youthful partner -and had taken her interests elsewhere. For my part I -now turned to Agnes Jones, a suddenly alluring young -woman grown from the skinny kid I’d always brushed -away. Agnes sympathized with my aspirations and encouraged -me most pleasantly. However her specific plans for -my future were limited to marrying her and helping her -father on his farm, which seemed no great advance over -what I could look forward to at home.</p> - -<p>And there I was certainly no asset; I ate three hearty -meals a day and occupied a bed. I was conscious of the -looks and smiles which followed me. A great lout of seventeen, -too lazy to do a stroke of work, always wandering -around with his head in the clouds or lying with his nose -stuck in a book. Too bad; and the Backmakers such industrious -folks too. I could feel what the shock of my be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>havior -with Agnes added to my idleness would be to my -mother.</p> - -<p>Yet I was neither depraved nor very different from the -other youths of Wappinger Falls, who not only took their -pleasures where they found them, but often more forcibly -than persuasively. I did not analyze it fully or clearly, but -I was at least to some extent aware of the essentially loveless -atmosphere around me. The rigid convention of late -marriages bred an exaggerated respect for chastity which -had two sides: sisters’ and daughters’ honor was sternly -avenged with no protest from society, and undiscovered -seduction produced that much more gratification. But both -retribution and venery were somewhat mechanical; they -were the expected rather than the inescapable passions. -Revivalists—and we country people had a vast fondness -for those itinerants who came periodically to castigate us -for our sins—denounced our laxity and pointed to the -virtues of our grandparents and greatgrandparents. We -accepted their advice with such modifications as suited us, -which was not at all what they intended.</p> - -<p>And this was how I took my mother’s admonition to be -my own man. What debts I owed her and my father -seemed best discharged by relieving them of the burden of -my keep, since I was clearly not fitting myself to reverse -the balance. The notion that there was an emotional obligation -on either side hardly occurred to me; I doubt if it -did to them. Toward Agnes Jones I felt no debt at all.</p> - -<p>A few months after my seventeenth birthday I packed -my three most cherished books in my good white cotton -shirt, and having bade a most romantic goodbye to Agnes, -one which would certainly have consummated her hopes -had her father come upon us, I left Wappinger Falls and -set out for New York.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C2"><i>2.</i> <i>OF DECISIONS, MINIBILES, -AND TINUGRAPHS</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>I thought I could do the walk of some eighty miles -in four days, allowing time to swap work for food, supposing -I found farmers or housewives agreeable to the -exchange. June made it no hardship to sleep outdoors, and -the old post road ran close enough to the Hudson for any -bathing I might want to do.</p> - -<p>The dangers of the trip were part of the pattern of life -in the United States in 1938. I didnt particularly fear being -robbed by a roving gang for I was sure organized predators -would disdain so obviously unprofitable a prey, and individual -thieves I felt I could take care of, but I was not -anxious to be picked up as a vagrant by any of the three -police forces, national, state, or local. As a freeman I was -more exposed to this chance than an indent would be, with -a work-card on his person and a company behind him. A -freeman was fair game for the constables, state troopers, -or revenuers to recruit, after a perfunctory trial, into one -of the chain gangs upon whom the roads, canals and other -public works were dependent.</p> - -<p>Some wondered why the roads were so bad in spite of -all this apparent surplus of labor and were dubious of the -explanation that surfacing was expensive and it was impossible -to maintain unsurfaced highways in good condition. -Only the hint that prisoners had been seen working -around the estates of the great Whig families or had been -lent to some enterprise operated by foreign capital brought -knowing nods.</p> - -<p>At seventeen possible disasters are not brooded over.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> -I resolved to be wary, and then dismissed thoughts of police, -gangs and all unpleasantness. The future was mine to -make as my mother had insisted, and I was taking the first -steps in shaping it.</p> - -<p>I started off briskly, passing at first through villages long -familiar; then, getting beyond the territory I had known -all my life, I slowed down often enough to gaze at something -new and strange, or to wander into wood or pasture -for wild strawberries or early blueberries. I covered less -ground than I had intended by the time I found a farmhouse, -after inquiring at several others, where the woman -was willing to give me supper and even let me sleep in the -barn in return for splitting a sizable stack of logs into -kindling and milking two cows.</p> - -<p>Exercise and hot food must have counteracted the excitement -of the day, for I fell asleep immediately and didnt -waken till quite a while after sunup. It was another warm, -fine morning; soon the post road led, not between shabby -villages and towns or struggling farms, but past the stone -or brick walls of opulent estates. Now and then I caught -a glimpse between old, well-tended trees of magnificent -houses either a century old or built to resemble those dating -from that prosperous time. I could not but share the -general dislike for the wealthy Whigs who owned these -places, their riches contrasting with the common poverty -and deriving from exploitation of the United States as a -colony, but I could not help enjoying the beauty of their -surroundings.</p> - -<p>The highway was better traveled here also; I passed -other walkers, quite a few wagons, a carriage or two, several -peddlers and a number of ladies and gentlemen on -horseback. This was the first time I’d seen women riding -astride, a practice shocking to the sensitivities of Wappinger -Falls which also condemned the fashion, imported -from the Chinese Empire by way of England, of feminine -trousers. Having learned that women were bipedal, both -customs seemed sensible to me.</p> - -<p>I had the post road to myself for some miles between -turns when I heard a commotion beyond the stone wall to -my left. This was followed by an angry shout and shrill<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> -words impossible to distinguish. My progress halted, I instinctively -shifted my bundle to my left hand as though to -leave my right free for defence, but against what I had no -idea.</p> - -<p>The shouts came closer; a boy of about my own age -scrambled frantically over the wall, dislodging some of -the smaller lichen-covered rocks on top and sending them -rolling into the ditch. He looked at me, startled, then -paused for a long instant at the road’s edge, undecided -which way to run.</p> - -<p>He was barefoot and wore a jute sack as a shirt, with -holes cut for his arms, and ragged cotton pants. His face -was little browner than my own had often been at the end -of a summer’s work under a burning sun.</p> - -<p>He came to the end of indecision and started across the -highway, legs pumping high, head turned watchfully. A -splendid tawny stallion cleared the wall in a soaring jump, -his rider bellowing, “There you are, you damned black -coon!”</p> - -<p>He rode straight for the fugitive, quirt upraised, lips -thickened and eyes rolling in rage. The victim dodged and -turned; in no more doubt than I that the horseman meant -to ride him down. He darted by me, so close I heard the -labored rasp of breathing.</p> - -<p>The rider swerved, and he too twisted around me as -though I were the post at the far turn of a racecourse. Reflexively -I put out my hand to grab at the reins and stop -the assault. Indeed, my fingers actually touched the leather -and grasped it for a fraction of a second before they fell -away.</p> - -<p>Then I was alone in the road again as both pursued and -pursuer vaulted back over the fence. The whole scene of -anger and terror could not have lasted two minutes; I -strained my ears to hear the shouts coming from farther -and farther away. Quiet fell again; a squirrel flirted his -tail and sped down one tree trunk and up another. The -episode might never have happened.</p> - -<p>I shifted my bundle back and began walking again—less -briskly now. My legs felt heavy and there was an involuntary -twitch in the muscles of my arm.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span></p> - -<p>Why hadnt I held on to the rein and delayed the hunter, -at least long enough to give his quarry a fair start? What -had made me draw back? It had not been fear, at least in -the usual sense, for I knew I wasnt timorous of the horseman. -I was sure I could have dragged him down if he had -taken his quirt to me.</p> - -<p>Yet I had been afraid. Afraid of interfering, of meddling -in affairs which were no concern of mine, of risking action -on quick judgment. I had been immobilized by the fear of -asserting my sympathies, my presumptions, against events.</p> - -<p>Walking slowly down the road I experienced deep -shame. I might, I could have saved someone from hurt; I -had perhaps had the power for a brief instant to change -the course of a whole life. I had been guilty of a cowardice -far worse than mere fear for my skin. I could have wept -with mortification—done anything, in fact, but turn back -and try to rectify my failure.</p> - -<p>The rest of the day was gloomy as I alternately taunted -and feebly excused myself. The fugitive might have been -a trespasser or a servant; his fault might have been slowness, -rudeness, theft or attempted murder. Whatever it -was, any retaliation the white man chose could be inflicted -with impunity. He would not be punished or even tried -for it. Popular opinion was unanimous for Negro emigration -to Africa, voluntary or forced; those who went westward -to join the unconquered Sioux or Nez Perce were -looked upon as depraved. Any Negro who didnt embark -for Liberia or Sierra Leone, regardless of whether he had -the fare or not, deserved anything that happened to him in -the United States.</p> - -<p>It was because I held, somewhat vaguely, a stubborn refusal -to accept this conventional view, a refusal never precisely -reasoned and little more, perhaps, than romantic -rebellion against my mother in favor of my disreputable -Grandfather Backmaker, that I suffered. I couldnt excuse -my failure on the grounds that action would have been -considered outrageous. It would not have been considered -outrageous by me.</p> - -<p>I pushed self-contempt at my passivity aside as best I -could and strove to recapture the mood of yesterday, suc<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>ceeding -to some extent as the memory of the scene came -back less insistently. I even tried pretending the episode -had perhaps not been quite as serious as it seemed, or that -the pursued had somehow in the end evaded the pursuer. -I could not make what had happened not happen; the best -I could do was minimize my culpability.</p> - -<p>That night I slept a little way from the road and in -the morning started off at dawn. Although I was now little -more than twenty miles from the metropolis the character -of the country had hardly changed. Perhaps the farms were -smaller and closer together, their juxtaposition to the estates -more incongruous. But traffic was continual now, -with no empty stretches on the roads, and the small towns -had horse-drawn cars running on iron tracks embedded in -the cobbles.</p> - -<p>It was late afternoon when I crossed Spuyten Duyvil -Creek to Manhattan. Between me and the city now lay a -wilderness of squatters’ shacks made of old boards, barrel-staves -and other discarded rubbish. Lean goats and mangy -cats nosed through rubble heaps of broken glass and earthenware -demijohns. Mounds of garbage lay beside aimless -creeks struggling blindly for the rivers. As clearly as though -it had been proclaimed on signposts this was an area of -outcasts and fugitives, of men and women ignored and -tolerated by the law so long as they kept within the confines -of their horrible slum.</p> - -<p>Strange and repugnant as the place was, I hesitated to -keep on going and arrive in the city at nightfall, but it -seemed unlikely there was a place to sleep among the -shacks. Once away from the order and sobriety of the post -road one could be lost in the squalid maze; undefined -threats of vaguely dreadful fates seemed to rise from it -like vapors.</p> - -<p>Then the fading light revealed the anomaly of a venerable -mansion set far back from the highway, with grounds as -yet unusurped by the encroaching stews. The house was -in ruins; the surrounding gardens lost in brush and weeds. -Evidently a watchman or caretaker guarded its forlorn -dignity or had very recently abandoned it; I could not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> -imagine its remaining long without being entirely overrun -otherwise.</p> - -<p>It was almost fully dark as I made my way cautiously -toward the remains of an old summerhouse. Its roof was -fallen in and it was densely enclosed by ancient rosebushes -whose thorns, I thought, when they pricked my -fingers as I struggled through them, ought to give warning -of any intruder. For weatherworthiness this shelter had -little advantage over the hovels, yet somehow the fact that -it had survived seemed to make it a more secure retreat.</p> - -<p>I stretched out on the dank boards and slept fitfully, disturbed -by dreams that the old mansion was filled with -people from a past time who begged me to save them -from the slumdwellers and their house from being further -ravaged. Brokenly I protested I was helpless—in true -dream manner I then became helpless, unable to move—that -I could not interfere with what had to happen; they -moaned and wrung their hands and faded away. Still, I -slept, and in the morning the cramps in my muscles and -the aches in my bones disappeared in the excitement of the -remaining miles to the city.</p> - -<p>And how suddenly it grew up around me, not as though -it was a fixed collection of buildings which I approached, -but as if I stood still while the wood and stone, iron and -brick, sprang into being all about.</p> - -<p>New York, in 1938, had a population of nearly a million, -having grown very slowly since the close of the War -of Southron Independence. Together with the half million -in the city of Brooklyn this represented by far the largest -concentration of people in the United States, though of -course it could not compare with the great Confederate -centers of Washington, now including Baltimore and Alexandria, -St Louis, or Leesburg (once Mexico City).</p> - -<p>The change from the country and the dreadful slums -through which I had passed was startling. Cable-cars -whizzed northward as far as Fifty-ninth Street on the west -side and all the way to Eighty-seventh on the east, while -horse-cars furnished convenient crosstown transportation -every few blocks. Express steam trains ran through bridged<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> -cuts on Madison Avenue, an engineering achievement of -which New Yorkers were vastly proud.</p> - -<p>Bicycles, rare around Wappinger Falls, were thick as -flies, darting ahead and alongside drayhorses pulling wallowing -vans, carts or wagons. Prancing trotters drew -private carriages, buggies, broughams, victorias, hansoms, -dogcarts or sulkies; neither the cyclists, coachmen nor -horses seemed overawed or discommoded by occasional -minibiles chuffing their way swiftly and implacably over -cobblestones or asphalt.</p> - -<p>Incredibly intricate traceries of telegraph wires swarmed -overhead, crossing and recrossing at all angles, slanting -upward into offices and flats or downward to stores, a reminder -that no urban family with pretensions to gentility -would be without the clacking instrument in the parlor, -that every child learned the Morse code before he could -read. Thousands of sparrows considered the wires properly -their own; they perched and swung, quarreled and scolded -on them, leaving only to satisfy their voracity upon the -steaming mounds of horsedung below.</p> - -<p>The country boy who had never seen anything more -metropolitan than Poughkeepsie was tremendously impressed. -Buildings of eight or ten storeys were common, -and there were many of fourteen or fifteen, serviced by -pneumatic English lifts, that same marvelous invention -which permitted the erection of veritable skyscrapers in -Washington and Leesburg.</p> - -<p>Above them balloons moved gracefully through the air, -guided and controlled as skillfully as old-time sailing vessels. -These were not entirely novel to me; I had seen -more of them than I had minibiles, but never so many as -here. In a single hour, gawking upward, I counted seven, -admiring how nicely calculated their courses were, for they -seldom came so low as to endanger lives beneath by having -to throw out sandbags in order to rise. That they could -so maneuver over buildings of greatly uneven height -showed this to be the air age indeed.</p> - -<p>Most exciting of all was the great number of people who -walked, rode, or merely stood around on the streets. It -seemed hardly believable so many humans could crowd<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> -themselves so closely. Beggars pleaded, touts wheedled, -peddlers hawked, newsboys shouted, bootblacks chanted. -Messengers pushed their way, loafers yawned, ladies -shopped, drunks staggered. For long moments I paused, -standing stock still, not thinking of going on, merely watching -the spectacle.</p> - -<p>How far I walked, how many different parts of the city -I explored that day, I have no idea. I felt I had hardly -begun to fondle the sharp edge of wonder when it was -twilight and the gas lamps, lit simultaneously by telegraph -sparks, gleamed and shone on nearly every corner. Whatever -had been drab and dingy in daylight—and even my -eyes had not been blind to the dirt and decay—became in -an instant magically enchanting, softened and shadowed -into mysterious beauty. I breathed the dusty air with a -relish I had never known in the country and felt I was inhaling -some elixir for the spirit.</p> - -<p>But spiritual sustenance is not quite enough for a seventeen-year-old, -especially one who is beginning to be hungry -and tired. I was desperately anxious to hoard the three -precious dollars in my pocket, for I had little idea how to -go about replacing them, once they were spent. I could not -do without eating, however, so I stopped in at the first -gaslit bakery, buying, after some consideration, a penny -loaf, and walked on through the entrancing streets, munching -at it and feeling like an historical character.</p> - -<p>Now the fronts of the tinugraph lyceums were lit up by -porters with long tapers, so that they glowed yellow and inviting, -each heralded with a boldly lettered broadside or -dashingly drawn cartoon advertising the amusement to be -found within. I was tempted to see for myself this magical -entertainment of pictures taken so close together they gave -the illusion of motion, but the lowest admission price was -five cents. Some of the more garish theaters, which specialized -in the incredible phonotos—tinugraphs ingeniously -combined with a sound-producing machine operated by -compressed air, so that the pictures seemed not only to -move but to talk—actually charged ten or even fifteen -cents for an hour’s spectacle.</p> - -<p>By this time I ached with tiredness; the insignificant<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> -bundle of shirt and books had become a burden. I was -pressed by the question of where to sleep and began thinking -more kindly than I would have believed possible of -last night’s slum. I didnt connect my need with the glass -transparencies behind which gaslight shone through the -unpainted letters of BEDS, ROOMS, or HOTEL, for my -mind was hazily fixed on some urban version of the inn -at Wappinger Falls or the Poughkeepsie Commercial -House.</p> - -<p>I became more and more confused as fatigue blurred -impressions of still newer marvels, so that I am not entirely -sure whether it was one or a succession of girls who -offered delights for a quarter. I know I was solicited by -crimps for the Confederate Legion who operated openly -in defiance of United States law, and an incredible number -of beggars accosted me.</p> - -<p>At last I thought of asking directions. But without realizing -it I had wandered from the thronged wooden or -granite sidewalks of the brightly lit avenues into an unpeopled, -darkened area where the buildings were low and -frowning, where the flicker of a candle or the yellow of a -kerosene lamp in windows far apart were uncontested by -any streetlights.</p> - -<p>All day my ears had been pressed by the clop of hooves, -the rattling of iron tires or the puffing of minibiles; now the -empty street was unnaturally still. The suddenly looming -figure of another walker seemed the luckiest of chances.</p> - -<p>“Excuse me, friend,” I said. “Can you tell me where’s -the nearest inn, or anywhere I can get a bed for the night -cheap?”</p> - -<p>I felt him peering at me. “Rube, huh? Much money -you got?”</p> - -<p>“Th—Not very much. That’s why I want to find cheap -lodging.” -“OK, Reuben. Come along.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t trouble to show me. Just give me an idea -how to get there.”</p> - -<p>He grunted. “No trouble, Reuben. No trouble at all.”</p> - -<p>Taking my arm just above the elbow in a firm grip be -steered me along. For the first time I began to feel alarm.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> -However, before I could attempt to shrug free he had -shoved me into the mouth of an alley, discernible only -because its absolute blackness contrasted with the relative -darkness of the street.</p> - -<p>“Wait—” I began.</p> - -<p>“In here, Reuben. Soundest night’s sleep youve had in -a long time. And cheap—it’s free.” -I started to break loose and was surprised to find he no -longer held me. Before I could even begin to think, a -terrific blow fell on the right side of my head and I traded -the blackness of the alley for the blackness of insensibility.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C3"><i>3.</i> <i>A MEMBER OF THE GRAND ARMY</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>I was recalled to consciousness by a smell. -More accurately a cacophony of smells. I opened my eyes -and shut them against the unbearable pain of light; I -groaned at the equally unbearable pain in my skullbones. -Feverishly and against my will I tried to identify the walloping -odors around me.</p> - -<p>The stink of death and rottenness was thick. I knew -there was an outhouse—many outhouses—nearby. The -ground I lay on, where it was not stony, was damp with -the water of endless dishwashings and launderings. The -noisomeness of offal suggested that the garbage of many -families had never been buried, but left to rot in the alley -or near it. In addition there was the smell of death, not -the sweetish effluvium of blood, such as any country boy -who has helped butcher a bull-calf or hog knows, but the -unmistakable stench of corrupt, maggotty flesh. Besides -all this there was the spoor of humanity.</p> - -<p>A new discomfort at last forced my eyes open for the -second time. A hard surface was pressing painful knobs -into my exposed skin. I looked and felt around me.</p> - -<p>The knobs were the scattered cobbles of a fetid alley; -not a foot away was the cadaver of a dog, thoroughly putrescent; -beyond him a drunk retched and groaned. A -trickle of liquid swill wound its way delicately over the -moldy earth between the stones. My coat, shirt, and shoes -were gone, so was the bundle with my books. There was -no use searching my pocket for the three dollars. I knew I -was lucky the robber had left me my pants and my life.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span></p> - -<p>A middleaged man, at least he looked middleaged to -my youthful eye, regarded me speculatively over the head -of the drunk. A pale, elliptical scar interrupted the wrinkles -on his forehead, its upper point making a permanent part -in his thin hair. Tiny red veins marked his nose; his eyes -were bloodshot.</p> - -<p>“Pretty well cleaned yuh out, huh boy?”</p> - -<p>I nodded—and then was sorry for the motion.</p> - -<p>“Reward of virtue. Assuming you was virtuous, which -I assume. Come to the same end as me, stinking drunk. -Only I still got my shirt. Couldnt hock it no matter how -thirsty I got.”</p> - -<p>I groaned.</p> - -<p>“Where yuh from boy? What rural—see, sober now—precincts -miss you?” -“Wappinger Falls, near Poughkeepsie. My name’s -Hodge Backmaker.”</p> - -<p>“Well now, that’s friendly of you, Hodge. I’m George -Pondible. Periodic. Just tapering off.”</p> - -<p>I hadnt an idea what Pondible was talking about. Trying -to understand made my head worse.</p> - -<p>“Took everything, I suppose? Havent a nickel left to -help a hangover?”</p> - -<p>“My head,” I mumbled, quite superfluously.</p> - -<p>He staggered to his feet. I slowly sat up, tenderly touching -the lump over my ear with my fingertips.</p> - -<p>“Best thing—souse it in the river. Take more to fix -mine.” -“But ... can I go through the streets like this?”</p> - -<p>“Right,” he said. “Quite right.”</p> - -<p>He stooped down and put one hand beneath the drunk, -who murmured unintelligibly. With the other he removed -the jacket, a maneuver betraying practice, for it elicited -no protest from the victim. He then performed the still -more delicate operation of depriving him of his shirt and -shoes, tossing them all to me. They were a loathsome collection -of rags not fit to clean a manurespreader. The -jacket was torn and greasy, the pockets hanging like the -ears of a dog; the shirt was a filthy tatter, the shoes shapeless -fragments of leather with great gapes in the soles.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span></p> - -<p>“It’s stealing,” I protested.</p> - -<p>“Right. Put them on and let’s get out of here.”</p> - -<p>The short walk to the river was through streets lacking -the glamour of those of the day before. The tenements -were smokestreaked, with steps between the parting bricks -where mortar had fallen out; great hunks of wall were kept -in place only by the support of equally crazy ones abutting. -The wretched things I wore were better suited than Pondible’s -to this neighborhood, though his would have marked -him tramp and vagrant in Wappinger Falls.</p> - -<p>The Hudson too was soiled, with an oily scum and -debris, so that I hesitated to dip even the purloined shirt, -much less my aching head. But urged on by Pondible I -climbed down the slimy stones between two docks and -pushing the flotsam aside, ducked myself in the unappetizing -water.</p> - -<p>“Fixes your head,” said Pondible with more assurance -than accuracy. “Now for mine.”</p> - -<p>The sun was hot and the shirt dried on my back as we -walked away from the river, the jacket over my arm. Now -that my mind was clearing my despair grew rapidly; for a -moment I wished I had waded farther into the Hudson -and drowned.</p> - -<p>Admitting any plans I’d had were nebulous and impractical, -they had yet been plans of a kind, something -in which I could put, or force, my hopes. My appearance -had been presentable, I had the means to keep myself fed -and sheltered for a few weeks at least. Now everything -was changed, any future was gone, literally knocked out -of existence and I had nothing to look forward to, nothing -on which to exert my energies and dreams. To go back to -Wappinger Falls was out of the question, not simply to -dodge the bitterness of admitting defeat so quickly, but -because I knew how relieved my mother and father must -have been to be freed of my uselessness. Yet I had nothing -to expect in the city except starvation or a life of petty -crime.</p> - -<p>Pondible guided me into a saloon, a dark, secretive -place, gaslit even this early, with a steam piano tinkling -the popular, mournful tune, <i>Mormon Girl</i>:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">There’s a girl in the state of Deseret</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I love and I’m trying to for-get.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Forget her for my tired feet’s sake</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Don’t wanna walk to the Great Salt Lake.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They ever build that railroad toooo the ocean</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I’d return my Mormon girl’s devotion.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But the tracks stop short in Ioway....</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>I couldnt remember the next line. Something about Injuns -say.</p> - -<p>“Shot,” Pondible ordered the bartender, “and buttermilk -for my chum here.”</p> - -<p>The bartender kept on polishing the wood in front of -him with a wet, dirty rag. “Got any jack?”</p> - -<p>“Pay you tomorrow, friend.”</p> - -<p>The bartender’s uninterrupted industry said clearly, -then drink tomorrow.</p> - -<p>“Listen,” argued Pondible; “I’m tapering off. You know -me. Ive spent plenty of money here.”</p> - -<p>The bartender shrugged. “I don’t own the place; anything -goes over the bar has to be rung up on the cash -register.”</p> - -<p>“Youre lucky to have a job that pays wages.”</p> - -<p>“Times I’m not so sure. Why don’t you indent?”</p> - -<p>Pondible looked shocked. “At my age? What would a -company pay for a wornout old carcass? A hundred dollars -at the top. Then a release in a couple of years with a -med holdback so I’d have to report every week somewhere. -No, friend, Ive come through this long a free man—in a -manner of speaking—and I’ll stick it out. Let’s have that -shot; you can see for yourself I’m tapering off. Youll get -your jack tomorrow.” -I could see the bartender was weakening; each refusal -was less surly and at last, to my astonishment, he set out a -glass and bottle for Pondible and an earthenware mug of -buttermilk for me. To my astonishment, I say, for credit -was rarely extended on any scale, large or small. The inflation, -though sixty years in the past, had left indelible -impressions; people paid cash or did without. Debt was -not only disgraceful, it was dangerous; the notion things<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> -could be paid for while, or even after, they were being -used was as unthinkable as was the idea of circulating -paper money instead of silver or gold.</p> - -<p>I drank my buttermilk slowly, gratefully aware Pondible -had ordered the most filling and sustaining liquid in the -saloon. For all his unprepossessing appearance and peculiar -moral notions, my new acquaintance seemed to -have a rude wisdom as well as a rude kindliness.</p> - -<p>He swallowed his whiskey and called for a quart pot of -light beer which he sipped slowly. “That’s the trick of it, -Hodge. Avoid the second shot. If you can.” He sipped -again. “Now what?”</p> - -<p>“What?” I repeated.</p> - -<p>“Now what are you going to do? What’s your aim in -life anyway?”</p> - -<p>“None—now. I ... wanted to learn. To study.” -He frowned. “Out of books?”</p> - -<p>“How else?”</p> - -<p>“Books is mostly written and printed in foreign countries.”</p> - -<p>“There might be more written here if more people had -time to learn.”</p> - -<p>Pondible wiped specks of froth from his beard with the -back of his hand. “Might and mightnt. Oh, some of my -best friends are book-readers, don’t get me wrong, boy.”</p> - -<p>“I’d thought,” I burst out, “I’d thought to try Columbia -College. To offer—to beg to be allowed to do any kind of -work for tuition.” -“Hmm. I doubt it would have worked.”</p> - -<p>“Anyway I can’t go now, looking like this.”</p> - -<p>“Might be as well. We need fighters, not readers.”</p> - -<p>“‘We?’”</p> - -<p>He did not explain. “Well, you could always take the -advice our friend here gave me and indent. A young -healthy lad like you could get yourself a thousand or -twelve hundred dollars—” -“Sure. And be a slave for the rest of my life.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, indenting aint slavery. It’s better. And worse. For -one thing the company buys you won’t hold you after you -arent worth your keep. Not that long, on account of book<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span>keeping; -they lose when they break even. So they cancel -your indenture without a cent payment. Course theyll -take a med holdback so as to get a dollar or two for your -corpse, but that’s a long time away for you.”</p> - -<p>An inconceivably long time. The medical holdback was -the least of my distaste, though it had played a large part -in the discussions at home. My mother had heard that -cadavers for dissection were shipped to foreign medical -schools like so much cargo. She was shocked not so much -at the thought of the scientific use of her dead body as at -its disposal outside the United States.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” I said. “A long time away. So I wouldnt be a -slave for life; just thirty or forty years. Till I wasnt any -good to anyone, including myself.”</p> - -<p>He seemed to be enjoying himself as he drank his beer. -“Youre a gloomy gus, Hodge. Taint’s bad’s that. Indenting’s -pretty strictly regulated. That’s the idea anyway. I -aint saying the big companies don’t get away with a lot. -You can’t be made to work over sixty hours a week. Ten -hours a day. With twelve hundred dollars you could get -all the education you want in your spare time and then -turn your learning to account by making enough to buy -yourself free.”</p> - -<p>I tried to think about it dispassionately, though goodness -knows I’d been over the ground often enough. It was -true the amount, a not improbable one, would see me -through college. But Pondible’s notion of turning my -“learning to account” I knew to be a fantasy. Perhaps in -the Confederate States or the German Union knowledge -was rewarded with wealth, or at least a comfortable living, -but any study I pursued—I knew my own “impracticality” -well enough by now—was bound to yield few material -benefits in the backward United States, which existed as -a nation at all only on the sufferance and unresolved rivalries -of the great powers. I’d be lucky to struggle through -school and eke out some kind of living as a freeman; I -could hardly hope to earn enough to buy back an indenture -on what was left of my time after subtracting sixty hours -a week.</p> - -<p>“It wouldnt work,” I said despondently.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></p> - -<p>Pondible nodded, as though this were the conclusion -he had expected me to come to. “Well then,” he said, -“there’s the gangs.”</p> - -<p>I looked my horror.</p> - -<p>He laughed. “Forget your country rearing. What’s -right? What the strongest country or the strongest man -says it is. The government says gangs are wrong, but the -government aint strong enough to stop them. And maybe -they don’t do as much killing as people think. Only when -somebody works against them—just like the government. -Sure they have to be paid off, but it’s just like taxes. If you -leave the parsons’ sermons out of it there’s no difference -joining the gangs than the army—if we had one—or the -Confederate Legion—” -“They tried to recruit me yesterday. Are they always -so....”</p> - -<p>“Bold?” For the first time Pondible looked angry and I -thought the scar on his forehead turned whiter. “Yes, -damn them. The Legion must be half United States citizens. -When they have to put down a disturbance or run -some little cockroach country they send off the Confederate -Legion—made up of men who ought to be the backbone -of an army of our own.” -“But the police—don’t they ever try to stop them?” -“What’d I tell you about right being what the strongest -country says it is? Sure we got laws against recruiting into -a foreign army. So we squawk. And what have we got to -back it up with? So the Confederate Legion goes right on -recruiting the men who have to beg for a square meal in -their own country. Well, the government is pretty near as -bad off when it comes to the gangs. Best it can do is pick -off some of the little ones and forget about the big ones. -Most of the gangsters never even get shot at. They all live -high, high as anybody in the twenty-six states, and every -so often there’s a dividend—more than a workman makes -in a lifetime.” -I began to be sure my benefactor was a gangster. And -yet ... if this were so why had he wheedled credit from -the barkeep? Was it simply an elaborate blind? It seemed -hardly worth it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span></p> - -<p>“A dividend,” I said, “or a rope.”</p> - -<p>“Most gangsters die of old age. Or competition. Aint -one been hung I can think of the last five-six years. But I -see youve no stomach for it. Tell me, Hodge—you Whig -or Populist?” -The sudden change of subject bewildered me. “Why -... Populist, I guess.”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“Oh ... I don’t know....” I thought of some of -the discussions that used to go on among the men around -the smithy. “The Whigs’ ‘Property, Protection, Permanent -Population’ —what does it mean to me?” -“Tell you, boy, means this: Property for the Confederates -who own factories here and don’t want to pay taxes. -Protection for foreign capital to come in and buy or hire. -Permanent Population—cheap native labor. Build up a -prosperous employing class.” -“Yes, I know. I can’t see how it helps. Ive heard Whigs -at home say the money’s bound to seep down from above, -but it seems awfully roundabout. And not very efficient.”</p> - -<p>He reached over and clapped me lightly on the shoulder. -“That’s my boy,” he said. “They can’t fool you.”</p> - -<p>I wasnt entirely pleased by his commendation. “And -protection means paying more for things than theyre -worth.”</p> - -<p>“Taint only that, Hodge, it’s a damn lie as well. Whigs -never even tried protection when they was in. Didnt dast. -Knew the other countries wouldnt let them.”</p> - -<p>“As for ‘permanent population’ ... well, those who -can’t make a living are going to go on emigrating to prosperous -countries. Permanent population means dwindling -population if it means anything.”</p> - -<p>“Ah,” he said. “You got a head on your shoulders, -Hodge. Youre all right; books won’t hurt you. But what -about emigrating? Yourself, I mean?”</p> - -<p>I shook my head.</p> - -<p>He nodded, chewing on a soggy corner of his mustache. -“Don’t want to leave the old ship, huh?”</p> - -<p>I don’t suppose I would have put it exactly that way, or -even fully formulated the thought. I was willing to ex<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>change -the familiar for the unknown—up to a certain -point. The thought of giving up the country in which I’d -been born was repugnant. Call it loyalty, or a sense of -having ties with the past, or just stubbornness. “Something -like that,” I said.</p> - -<p>“Well now, let’s see what weve got.” He stuck up a dirty -and slightly tremulous hand, turning down a finger as he -stated each point. “One, patriot; two, Populist; three, don’t -like indenting; four, prosperity’s got to come from the poor -upward, not the rich down.” He hesitated, holding his -thumb. “You heard of the Grand Army?”</p> - -<p>“Who hasnt? Not much difference between them and -the regular gangs.”</p> - -<p>“Now what makes you say that?”</p> - -<p>“Why ... everybody knows it”</p> - -<p>“Do, huh? Maybe they know it all wrong. Look here -now—and remember about the Confederate Legion riding -over the laws of the United States—what would you -think ought to be done about foreigners from the strong -countries who come here and walk all over us? Or the -Whigs who do their dirty work for them?” -“I don’t know,” I said. “Not murder, certainly.”</p> - -<p>“Murder,” he repeated. “That’s a word, Hodge. Means -what you want it to mean. Wasnt murder back during the -War when Union soldiers was trying to keep the country -from being split up. Taint murder today when somebody’s -hung for rape or counterfeiting. Anyhow the Grand Army -don’t go in for murder.”</p> - -<p>I said nothing.</p> - -<p>“Oh, accidents happen; wouldnt deny it. Maybe they -get a little rougher than they intend with Whig traitors or -Confederate agents, but you can’t make bacon out of a -live hog. Point is the Grand Army’s the only thing in the -country that even tries to restore it to what it once was. -What was fought for in the War.”</p> - -<p>I don’t know whether it was the thought of Grandfather -Backmaker or the unassuaged guilt for the miserable -figure I had cut only three days back that made me ask, -“And do they want to give the Negroes equality?”</p> - -<p>He drew back sharply, shock showing clearly on his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> -face. “Touch of the tarbrush in you, boy? By—” He bent -forward, looking at me searchingly. “No, I can see you -aint. Just some notions youll outgrow. You just don’t understand. -We might have won that war if it hadnt been for -the Abolitionists.”</p> - -<p>Would we? I’d heard it said often enough; it would -have been presumptuous to doubt it.</p> - -<p>“The darkies are better off among their own,” he said; -“they never should have been here in the first place; black -and white can’t mix. Leave ideas like that alone, Hodge; -there’s plenty and enough to be done. Chase the foreigners -out, teach their flunkies a lesson, build the country up -again.”</p> - -<p>“Are you trying to get me to join the Grand Army?”</p> - -<p>Pondible finished his beer. “Won’t answer that one, boy. -Let’s say I just want to get you somewheres to sleep, three -meals a day, and some of that education youre so fired up -about. Come along.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C4"><i>4.</i> <i>TYSS</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>He took me to a bookseller’s and stationery store -on Astor Place with a printshop in the basement and the -man to whom he introduced me was the owner, Roger -Tyss. I spent almost six years there, and when I left neither -the store nor its contents nor Tyss himself seemed to have -changed or aged.</p> - -<p>I know books were sold and others bought to take their -places on the shelves or to be piled towerwise on the floor. -I helped cart in many rolls of sulphide paper and bottles of -printers’ ink, and delivered many bundles of damp pamphlets, -broadsides, letterheads and envelopes. Inked ribbons -for typewriting machines, penpoints, ledgers and -daybooks, rulers, paperclips, legal forms and cubes of -indiarubber came and went. Yet the identical, invincible -disorder, the synonymous dogeared volumes, the indistinguishable -stock, the unaltered cases of type seemed fixed -for six years, all covered by the same film of dust which -responded to vigorous sweeping only by rising into the -air and immediately settling back on precisely the same -spots.</p> - -<p>Roger Tyss grew six years older and I can only charge -it to the heedless eye of youth that I saw no signs of that -aging. Like Pondible and, as I learned, so many members -of the Grand Army, he wore a beard. His was closely -trimmed, wiry and grizzled. Above the beard and across -his forehead were many fine lines which always held some -of the grime of the store or printing press. You did not -dwell long on either beard or wrinkles however; what held -you were his eyes: large, dark, fierce and compassionate. -You might have dismissed him at first glance as simply<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span> -an undersized, stoopshouldered, slovenly printer, had it not -been for those eyes which seemed in perpetual conflict -with his other features.</p> - -<p>“Robbed and bludgeoned, ay?” he said with a curious -disrespect for sequence after Pondible had explained me -to him. “Dog eats dog, and the survivors survive. Backmaker, -ay? Is that an American name?”</p> - -<p>So far as I knew, I said, it was.</p> - -<p>“Well, well; let’s not pry too deeply. So you want to -learn. Why?”</p> - -<p>“Why?” The question was too big for an answer, yet an -answer of some kind was expected. “I guess because -there’s nothing else so important.”</p> - -<p>“Wrong,” he said triumphantly, “wrong and illusory. -Since nothing is ultimately important there can be no -degrees involved. Books are the waste-product of the human -mind.”</p> - -<p>“Yet you deal in them,” I ventured.</p> - -<p>“I’m alive and I shall die too; this doesnt mean I approve -of either life or death. Well, if you are going to learn -you are going to learn; there’s nothing I can do about it -As well here as another place.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Gratitude, Hodgins”—he never then nor later condescended -to the familiar “Hodge” nor did I ever address or -even think of him except as Mr Tyss—“Gratitude, Hodgins, -is an emotion disagreeable both to the giver and to -the receiver. We do what we must; gratitude, pity, love, -hate, all that cant, is superfluous.”</p> - -<p>I considered this statement reflectively.</p> - -<p>“Look you,” he went on, “I’ll feed you and lodge you, -teach you to set type and give you the run of the books. -I’ll pay you no money; you can steal from me if you must -You can learn as much here in four months as in a college -in four years—if you persist in thinking it’s learning you -want—or you can learn nothing. I’ll expect you to do the -work I think needs doing; any time you don’t like it youre -free to go.” -And so our agreement, if so simple and unilateral a -statement can be called an agreement, was made within<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> -ten minutes after he met me for the first time. For six -years the store was home and school, and Roger Tyss was -employer, teacher and father to me. He was never my -friend. Rather he was my adversary. I respected him and -the longer I knew him the deeper became my respect, but -it was an ambivalent feeling and attached only to those -qualities which he himself would have scorned. I detested -his ideas, his philosophy and many of his actions, and this -detestation grew until I was no longer able to live near -him. But I am getting ahead of my story.</p> - -<p>Tyss knew books, not merely as a bookman knows them—binding, -size, edition, value—but as a scholar. He -seemed to have read enormously and on every conceivable -subject, many of them quite useless in practical application. -(I remember a long discourse on heraldry, filled with -terms like “paley-bendy” or, “fusils conjoined in fess, -gules” and “sable demi-lions.” He regarded such erudition, -indeed any erudition, contemptuously. When I asked -why he had bothered to pick it up, his retort was, “Why -have you bothered to pick up calluses, Hodgins?”)</p> - -<p>As a printer he followed the same pattern; he was not -concerned solely with setting up a neat page; he sometimes -spent hours laying out some trivia, which could have -interested only its author, until he struck a proof which -satisfied him. He wrote much on his own account: poetry, -essays, manifestoes, composing directly from the font, running -off a single proof which he read—always expressionlessly—and -immediately destroyed before pieing the type.</p> - -<p>I slept on a mattress kept under one of the counters -during the day; Tyss had a couch hardly more luxurious, -downstairs by the flatbed press. Each morning before it -was time to open he sent me across town on the horse-cars -to the Washington Market to buy six pounds of beef—twelve -on Saturdays, for the market, unlike the bookstore, -was closed Sundays. It was always the same cut, heart of -ox or cow, dressed by the butcher in thin strips. After I -had been with him long enough to tire of the fare, but not -long enough to realize the obstinacy of his nature, I begged -him to let me substitute pork or mutton, or at least some -other part of the beef, like brains or tripe which were even<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> -cheaper. He always answered, “The heart, Hodgins. Purchase -the heart; it is the vital food.”</p> - -<p>While I was on my errand he would buy three loaves of -yesterday’s bread, still tolerably fresh; when I returned he -took a long two-pronged fork, our only utensil, for the -establishment was innocent of either cutlery or dishes, and -spearing a strip of heart held it over the gas flame of a -light standard until it was sooted and toasted rather than -broiled. We tore the loaves with our fingers and with a -hunk of bread in one hand and a strip of heart in the other -we each ate a pound of meat and half a loaf of bread for -breakfast, dinner, and supper.</p> - -<p>“Man is uniquely a savage eater of carrion,” he informed -me, chewing vigorously. “What lion or tiger would -relish another’s ancient, putrefying kill? What vulture or -hyena displays human ferocity? Too, we are cannibals at -heart. We eat our gods; we have always eaten our gods.”</p> - -<p>“Isnt that figurative, or poetic, Mr Tyss? I mean, doesnt -it refer to the grain of wheat which is ‘killed’ by the harvester -and buried by the sower?”</p> - -<p>“You think the gods were modelled on John Barleycorn -and not John Barleycorn on them—to conceal their fate? -I fear you have a higher opinion of mankind than is warranted, -Hodgins.” -“I’m not sure I know what you mean by gods.”</p> - -<p>“Embodiments or personifications of human aspirations. -The good, the true, the beautiful—with winged feet -or bull’s body.” -“How about ... oh, Chronos? Or Satan?”</p> - -<p>He licked his fingers of the meat juices, obviously -pleased. “Satan. An excellent example. Epitome of man’s -futile longing to upset and defy the divine plan—I use the -word ‘divine’ derisively, Hodgins—; who does not admire -and reverence Lucifer in his heart? Well, having made a -god out of the devil we eat him daily in a two-fold sense: -by swallowing the myth of his enmity (a truer friend there -never was), and by digesting his great precepts of pride -and curiosity and strength. And you see for yourself how -he finds interesting thoughts for idle minds to speculate -on. Let’s get to work.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> -He expected me to work, but he was far from a hard or -inconsiderate master. In 1938-44, when the country was -being ground deeper into colonialism, there were few employers -so lenient. I read much, generally when I pleased, -and despite his jeers at learning in the abstract he encouraged -me, even going to the length, if a particular book was -not to be found in his considerable stock, of letting me get -it from one of his competitors, to be written up against -his account.</p> - -<p>Nor was he scrupulous about the time I took on his -errands. I continued to ramble and sight-see the city much -as though I had nothing else to do. And if, from time to -time, I discovered there were girls in New York who didnt -look too unkindly on a tall youth even though he still carried -some of the rustic air of Wappinger Falls, he never -questioned why the walk of half a mile took me a couple -of hours.</p> - -<p>True, he kept to his original promise never to pay me -wages, but he often handed me coins for pocketmoney, -evidently satisfied I wasnt stealing, and he replaced my -makeshift wardrobe with worn but decent clothing.</p> - -<p>He had not exaggerated the possibilities of the books -surrounding me. His brief warning, “—you can learn -nothing,” was lost on me. I suppose a different temperament -might have become surfeited with paper and print; I -can only say I wasnt. I nibbled, tasted, gobbled books. -After the store was shut I hooked a student lamp to the -nearest gasjet by means of a long tube, and lying on my -pallet with a dozen volumes handy, I read till I was no -longer able to keep my eyes open or understand the words. -Often I woke in the morning to find the light still burning -and my fingers holding the pages open.</p> - -<p>I think one of the first books to influence me strongly -was the monumental <i>Causes of American Decline and -Decay</i> by the always popular expatriate historian, Henry -Adams. I was particularly impressed by the famous passage -in which he reproves the “stay-at-home” Bostonian essayists, -William and Henry James, for their quixotic sacrifice -and espousal of a long-lost cause. History, said Sir Henry, -who had renounced his United States citizenship and been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> -knighted by William V, history is never directed or diverted -by well-intentioned individuals; it is the product of -forces with geographical, not moral roots.</p> - -<p>Possibly the learned expatriate was right, but my instinctive -sympathies lay with the Jameses, in spite of the -fact that I had not found their books enjoyable. This was -due at least partly to the fact that the small editions were -badly printed and marred, at least so foreign critics -claimed, by an excessive use of Yankee colloquialisms, -consciously employed to demonstrate patriotism and disdain -of imported elegance. For some reason, obscure to -me then, I did not mention Adams to Tyss, though I usually -turned to him with each of my fresh discoveries. When -he came upon me with an open book he would glance at -the running title over my shoulder and begin talking, either -of the particular work or of its topic. What he had to say -gave me an insight I might otherwise have missed, and -turned me to other writers, other aspects. He respected no -authority simply because it was acclaimed or established; -he prodded me to examine every statement, every hypothesis -no matter how commonly accepted.</p> - -<p>Early in my employment I was attracted to a large -framed parchment he kept hanging, slightly askew and -highly attractive to dust, over his typecase. It was simply -but beautifully printed in 16 point Baskerville; I knew -without being told that he had set it himself:</p> - -<p> -<i>The Body of<br /> -Benjamin Franklin<br /> -Printer<br /> -Like the Cover of an Old Book<br /> -Stripped of Its Lettering and Gilding<br /> -Lies Here<br /> -Food for Worms.<br /> -But the Work Shall Not Be Lost<br /> -For it will, As he Believed,<br /> -Come Forth Again<br /> -In a new and Better Edition<br /> -Revised & Corrected<br /> -By<br /> -The Author.</i><br /> -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span></p> - -<p>When he caught me admiring it Tyss laughed. “Felicitous, -isnt it, Hodgins? But a lie, a perverse and probably -hypocritical lie. There is no Author; the book of life is -simply a mess of pied type, a tale told by an idiot, full of -sound and fury, signifying nothing. There is no plan, no -synopsis to be filled in with pious hopes or sanctimonious -actions. There is nothing but a vast emptiness in the -universe.”</p> - -<p>“The other day you told me we admired the devil for -rebelling against a plan.”</p> - -<p>He grinned. “So you expect consistency instead of truth -from me, Hodgins. There is no plan, authored by a Mind; -it is this no-plan against which Lucifer fought. But there -is a plan too, a mindless plan, which accounts for all our -acts.”</p> - -<p>I had been reading an obscure Irish theologian, a Protestant -curate of some forsaken parish, so ill-esteemed he -had been forced to publish his sermons himself, named -George B Shaw, and I had been impressed by his forceful -style. I quoted him to Tyss, perhaps as much to preen myself -as to counter his argument.</p> - -<p>“Nonsense. Ive seen the good parson’s book with its -eighteenth-century logic and its quaint rationalism, and -know it for a waste of ink and paper. Man does not think; -he only thinks he thinks. An automaton, he responds to -external stimuli; he cannot order his thought.”</p> - -<p>“You mean that there’s no free will? Not even a marginal -minimum of choice?”</p> - -<p>“Exactly. The whole thing is an illusion. We do what -we do because someone else has done what he did; he did -it because still another someone did what he did. Every -action is the rigid result of another action.”</p> - -<p>“But there must have been a beginning,” I objected. -“And if there was a beginning, choice existed if only for -that split second. And if choice exists once it can exist -again.”</p> - -<p>“You have the makings of a metaphysician, Hodgins,” -he said witheringly, for metaphysics was one of the most -despised words in his vocabulary. “The reasoning is infantile. -Answering you and the Reverend Shaw on your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span> -own level, I could say that time is a convention and that -all events occur simultaneously. Or if I grant its dimension -I can ask, What makes you think time is a simple straight -line running flatly through eternity? Why do you assume -that time isnt curved? Can you conceive of its end? Can -you really imagine its beginning? Of course not; then why -arent both the same? The serpent with its tail in its mouth?”</p> - -<p>“You mean we not only play a prepared script but repeat -the identical lines over and over and over for infinity? -There’s no heaven in your cosmos, only an unimaginable, -never-ending hell.”</p> - -<p>He shrugged his shoulders. “That you should spout -emotional apologetics at me is part of what you call the -script, Hodgins. You didnt select the words nor speak them -voluntarily. They were called into existence by what I -said, which in turn was mere response to what went before.”</p> - -<p>Weakly I was forced back to a more elementary attack. -“You don’t act in accordance with your own conviction.”</p> - -<p>He snorted. “A thoughtless remark, excusable only because -automatic. How could I act differently? Like you, I -am a prisoner of stimuli.”</p> - -<p>“How pointless to risk ruin and imprisonment as a member -of the Grand Army when no one can change what’s -predestined.”</p> - -<p>“Pointless or not, emotions and reflections are responses -just as much as actions. I can no more help engaging -myself in the underground than I can help breathing, -or my heart beating, or dying when the time comes. Nothing, -they say, is certain but death and taxes; actually everything -is certain. Everything,” he repeated firmly.</p> - -<p>I went back to sorting some pamphlets which were to be -sold for wastepaper, shaking my head. His theory was unassailable; -every attack was discounted by the very nature -of the thesis. That it was false I didnt doubt; its impregnability -made its falseness still more terrifying.</p> - -<p>There were fully as many imaginary discussions with -Tyss as real ones. Yet even in these disembodied arguments -I could gain no advantage. Why do you look back -on the War of Southron Independence with regret for what<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span> -might have been, if no might-have-been is possible? I asked -him mentally, knowing his answer, I cannot help myself, -was no answer at all.</p> - -<p>The logical illogic of it was only one of the multitude of -contradictions in him. The Grand Army to which he was -devoted was a violent organization of violent men. He himself -was an advocate and implement of violence—one -illegal paper, the <i>True American</i>, came from his press and -I often saw crumpled proofs of large type warnings to “Get -Out of Town you Conf. TRAITOR or the GA will HANG -YOU!” Yet cruelty, other than intellectually, was repugnant -to him; his vindictiveness toward the Whigs and Confederates -rose from commiseration for the condition into -which they had plunged the country.</p> - -<p>Pondible and the others who bore an indefinable resemblance -to each other, bearded or not, came to the store on -Grand Army business, and I was sure many of the errands -I was sent on advanced or were supposed to advance the -Grand Army’s cause. Those who signed receipts with an -X—and in the beginning at least Tyss was strict about -assurance of delivery—seemed unlikely customers for the -sort of merchandise we handled.</p> - -<p>I was relieved, but puzzled and perhaps a little piqued, -that aside from the very first conversation with Pondible, -no attempt was made to persuade me into the organization. -Tyss must have perceived this, for he explained -obliquely.</p> - -<p>“There’s the formative type, Hodgins, and the spectator -type. One acts, and the other is acted upon. One changes -events, the other observes them. Of course,” he went on -hastily, “I’m not talking metaphysical rubbish. When I say -the formative type changes events I merely mean he reacts -to a given stimulus in a positive way while the spectator -reacts to the same circumstances negatively, both reactions -being inevitable and inescapable. Naturally, events are -never changed.”</p> - -<p>“Why can’t one be one type sometimes and the other at -other times? Ive certainly heard of men of action who have -sat down to write their memoirs.”</p> - -<p>“You are confusing the after-effect of action with non<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>action, -the dying ripples on a pond into which a stone has -been tossed with the still surface of one which has never -been disturbed. No, Hodgins, the two types are completely -distinct and unchangeable. The Swiss police chief, Carl -Jung, has refined and improved the classifications of Lombroso, -showing how the formative type can always be detected.”</p> - -<p>I felt he was talking pure nonsense, even though I had -never read Lombroso or heard of Chief Jung.</p> - -<p>“To the formative type the spectator seems useless, to -the spectator the man of action is faintly absurd. A born -observer would find the earnest efforts of the Grand Army—the -formation of skeleton companies, the appointment -of officers, the secret drills, the serious attempt to become -a real army—lacking in humor and repellent.” -“You think I’m the spectator type, Mr Tyss?”</p> - -<p>“No doubt about it, Hodgins. Certain features might be -deceptive at first sight: the wide-spaced eyes, the restrained -fleshiness of the mouth, the elevation of the nostril; but -they subordinate to more subtle indicators. No question -but that Chief Jung would put you down as an observer.”</p> - -<p>If his fantastic reasoning and curious manner of classifying -personalities as though they were zoological specimens -could relieve me of having to refuse pointblank to join -the Grand Army I was content. While this hardly alleviated -my disturbance at being, no matter how remotely, -accessory to mayhem, kidnaping and murder I compromised -with my conscience by trying to believe I might after -all be mistaken in thinking I was being used. There were -times when I felt I ought boldly to declare myself and -leave the store but when I faced the prospect of having to -find a way to eat and sleep, even if I put aside the imperative -necessity of books, I lacked the courage.</p> - -<p>Spectator? Why not? Spectators had no difficult decisions -to make.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C5"><i>5.</i> <i>OF WHIGS AND POPULISTS</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>A country defeated in a bitter war and -divested of half its territory loses its drive and spirit and -suffers a shock which is communicated to all its people. For -generations its citizens brood over what has happened, preoccupied -with the past and dreaming of a miraculous -change, until time brings apathy or a reversal of history. -The Grand Army, with its crude and brutal philosophy -and methods, was pride’s answer to defeat.</p> - -<p>It was not the only answer; the two major political -parties had others. The realistic Whigs wanted to fit the -country and its economy into actual world conditions, to -subordinate it wholly and openly to the great manufacturing -nations and accept with gratitude foreign capital and -foreign protection. The immediate result would be more -prosperity for the propertied classes; they contended this -would mean a gradual raising of the standard of living -since employers could hire more hands, and indenture, -faced by competition with wages, would dwindle away.</p> - -<p>This the Populists denied. The government, they insisted -when they were out of office, should create industries, forbid -indenting, buy up the indentures of skilled workers and -offer high enough pay to create new markets, and defy the -world by building a new army and navy. That they never -put their program into effect they laid to the wily tricks of -the Whigs.</p> - -<p>The presidential election of 1940 was as violent as if the -office were really a prize to be sought rather than a practically -empty title, with all real power now held by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> -Majority Leader of the House and his cabinet of Committee -Chairmen. As early as May one of the leading contenders -for the Populist nomination was shot and badly crippled; -the Cleveland hall where the Whig convention was -being held was fired by an arsonist.</p> - -<p>I would not be old enough to vote for two years, yet I -too had campaign fever. Jennings Lewis, the Populist, was -perhaps the ugliest candidate ever offered, with a hairless, -skeletonlike face; Dewey, the Whig nominee, had a certain -handsomeness, which might have been an asset if the persistent -advocates of woman suffrage had ever gotten their -way.</p> - -<p>Traditionally, candidates never ventured west of Chicago, -concentrating their appearances in New York and -New England and leaving the campaign in the sparsely -settled trans-Mississippi to local politicians. This year both -office-seekers used every device to reach the greatest number -of voters. Dewey made a grand tour in his balloon-train; -Lewis was featured in a series of short phonotos -which were shown free. Dewey spoke several times daily -to small groups; Lewis specialized in enormous weekly -rallies followed by torchlight parades.</p> - -<p>One of these Populist rallies was held in Union Square -early in September; outgoing President George Norris -spoke, and ex-President Norman Thomas, the only Populist -to serve two terms since the beloved Bryan. Tyss indulgently -gave me permission to leave the store a couple of -hours before the meeting was to commence so I might get -a place from which to see and hear all that was going on. -Though he characterized all elections as meaningless exercises -devised to befuddle, he had been active in this one in -some mysterious and secretive way.</p> - -<p>The square was already well filled when I arrived, with -the more acrobatic members of the audience perched on -the statues of LaFayette and Washington. Calliopes played -patriotic airs, and a compressed air machine shot up puffs -of smoke which momentarily spelled out the candidate’s -name. Resigned to pantomime glimpses of what was going -on, I moved around the outside edge of the crowd, thinking -I might just as well leave altogether.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span></p> - -<p>“Please don’t step on my foot so firmly. Or is that part -of the Populist tradition?”</p> - -<p>“Excuse me, Miss; I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”</p> - -<p>We were close enough to a light standard for me to see -she was young and well-dressed, hardly the sort of girl to -be found at a political meeting, few of which ever counted -much of a feminine audience.</p> - -<p>She rubbed her instep briefly. “It’s all right,” she conceded -grudgingly. “Serves me right for being curious about -the mob.”</p> - -<p>She was plump and pretty, with a small, discontented -mouth and pale hair worn long over her shoulders. “There’s -not much to see from here,” I said; “unless youre enthusiastic -enough to be satisfied with a bare look at the important -people, perhaps you’d let me help you to the streetcar. -For my clumsiness.”</p> - -<p>She looked at me thoughtfully. “I can manage by myself. -But if you feel you owe me something for trampling me, -maybe you’ll explain why anyone comes to these ridiculous -gatherings.”</p> - -<p>“Why ... to hear the speakers.”</p> - -<p>“Hardly any of them can. Only those close up.”</p> - -<p>“Well then, to show their support of the party, I guess.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I thought. It’s a custom or rite or something -like that. A stupid amusement.”</p> - -<p>“But cheap,” I said. “And those who vote for Populists -usually havent much money.”</p> - -<p>“Maybe that’s why,” she answered. “If they found more -useful things to do they’d earn money; then they wouldnt -vote for Populists.”</p> - -<p>“A virtuous circle. If everyone voted Whig we’d all be -rich as Whigs.”</p> - -<p>She shrugged her shoulders, a gesture I found pleasing. -“It’s easy enough to be envious of those who are better off; -it’s a lot harder to become better off yourself.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t argue with you on that, Miss ... um ...?”</p> - -<p>“Why Mister Populist, do ladies always tell you their -names when you step on their feet?”</p> - -<p>“I’m not usually lucky enough to find feet to step on that -have lovely ladies attached,” I answered boldly. “I won’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span> -deny Populist leanings, but my name is really Hodge Backmaker.”</p> - -<p>Hers was Tirzah Vame, and she was indentured to a -family of wealthy Whigs who owned a handsome modern -castiron and concrete house near the Reservoir at Forty-second -Street and Fifth Avenue. She had used the apt word -“curious” in characterizing herself but it was, as I soon -found out, a cold and inflexible curiosity which explored -only what she thought might be useful or which impressed -her as foolish. She was interested in the nature of anything -fashionable or popular or much talked of, the idea of being -concerned with anything even vaguely abstract struck her -as preposterous.</p> - -<p>She had indented, not out of stark economic necessity, -but calculatedly, believing she could achieve economic security -through indenture. This seemed paradoxical to me, -even when I contrasted my “free” condition with her bound -one. Certainly she seemed to have minimum restriction on -her time; soon after our introduction at the rally she was -meeting me almost every evening in Reservoir Square -where we sat for hours talking on a bench or walking -briskly when the autumn weather chilled our blood.</p> - -<p>I did not long flatter myself that her interest—perhaps -tolerance would be a better word—was due to any strong -attraction exerted by me. If anything she was, I think, -slightly repelled by my physical presence, which carried to -her some connotation of ordinary surroundings and contrasted -with the well-fed smooth surfaces of her employers -and their friends. The first time I kissed her she shuddered -slightly; then, closing her eyes, she allowed me to kiss her -again.</p> - -<p>She did not resist me when I pressed my lovemaking; she -led me quietly to her room in the big house on my transparent -plea that the outdoors was now too cold even for -conversation. I was no accomplished seducer, but even in -my awkward eagerness I could see she had made up her -mind I was to succeed.</p> - -<p>That her complaisance was not the result of passion was -soon obvious; there was not so much a failure on my part -to arouse her as a refusal on hers to be aroused beyond an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span> -inescapable degree. Even as she permitted our intimacy -she remained as virginal, aloof and critical as before.</p> - -<p>“It seems hardly worth the trouble. Imagine people talking -and writing and thinking about nothing else.”</p> - -<p>“Tirzah dear—” -“And the liberties that seem to go with it. I don’t think -of you as any more dear than I did an hour ago. If people -must indulge in this sort of thing, and I suppose they must -since it’s been going on for a long time, I think it could be -conducted with more dignity.”</p> - -<p>As my infatuation increased her coolness did not lessen; -curiosity alone seemed to move her. She was amused at my -pathetic search for knowledge. “What good is your learning -ever going to do you? It’ll never get you a penny.”</p> - -<p>I smoothed the long, pale hair and kissed her ear. “Suppose -it doesnt?” I argued lazily; “There are other things -besides money.”</p> - -<p>She drew away. “That’s what those who can’t get it always -say.”</p> - -<p>“And what do people who can get it say?”</p> - -<p>“That it’s the most important thing of all,” she answered -earnestly. “That it will buy all the other things.”</p> - -<p>“It will buy you free of your indenture,” I admitted, -“but you have to get it first.”</p> - -<p>“Get it first? I never let it go. I still have the contract -payment.”</p> - -<p>“Then what was the point of indenting at all?”</p> - -<p>She looked at me wonderingly. “Havent you ever -thought about serious things? Only books and politics and -all that? How could I get opportunities without indenting? -I doubt if the Vames are much of a cut above the Backmakers; -well, youre a general drudge and I’m a governess -and tutor and even in a way a sort of distant friend to -Mrs Smythe.”</p> - -<p>“That sounds suspiciously like snobbery to me.”</p> - -<p>“Does it? Well, I’m a snob; Ive never denied it. I want -to live like a lady, to have a good house with servants and -carriages and minibiles, to travel to civilized countries, -with a place in Paris or Rome or Vienna. You can love the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span> -poor and cheer for the Populists; I love the rich and the -Whigs.”</p> - -<p>“That’s all very well,” I objected, “but even though you -have your indenting money and can buy back your freedom -any moment you want it, how does this help you get -rich?”</p> - -<p>“Do you think I keep my money in my pocket? It’s invested, -every cent. People who come to this house give me -tips; not just money, though there’s enough of that to add -a bit to my original capital, but tips on what to buy and -sell. By the time I’m thirty I should be well off. Of course -I may marry a rich man sooner.”</p> - -<p>“That’s an awfully cold-blooded way of looking at marriage,” -I remonstrated.</p> - -<p>“Is it?” she asked indifferently. “Well, youve been telling -me I’m cold-blooded anyway. I may as well be cold-blooded -profitably.”</p> - -<p>“If that’s the way you feel I don’t understand what -we’re doing here at this moment. I’d have thought you’d -have picked a more profitable lover.”</p> - -<p>She was unruffled. “You didnt think about it at all. If -you had, you would have seen I could hardly encourage -any of the men from the class into which I intend to marry. -Great ladies can laugh at gossip, but the faintest whisper -about someone like me would be damaging. Scandal would -be unavoidable if I appeared to be anything in this house -but a chilly prude.”</p> - -<p>An appearance not too deceitful, I considered, sickly -jealous at the thought of men who might have been in my -place if they had been as anonymous, as inconsequential -as I. But this writhing jealousy was little more painful than -my frustration at having been made a convenience, a trial -experiment. Almost anyone of equal unimportance, anyone -who was not a fellow-servant or a familiar in the house -would have done as well as I, anyone unlikely ever to come -face to face with Mrs Smythe, much less talk to her.</p> - -<p>Looking back, trying to recapture for a moment that -vanished past, I have a sad, quizzical welling of pity for the -girl Tirzah and the boy Hodge. How gravely we took our -moral and political differences; how lightly the flying<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span> -moments of union. We said and did all the wrong things, all -the things which fostered the antagonism between us and -none of the things which might have softened our youthful -self-assurance. We wrangled and argued: Dewey and -Lewis, Whig versus Populist, materialist against idealist, -reality opposing principle. It all seems so futile now; it all -appeared so vital then.</p> - -<p>Added to the almost unanimous distrust and hatred of all -foreigners in the United States, we regarded the Confederates -in particular as the cause of all our misfortunes. -We not only blamed and feared them, but looked upon -them as sinister, so Populist orators had a ready-made response -every time they referred to the Whigs as Southron -tools.</p> - -<p>Contrary to the accepted view in the United States, I -was sure the victors in the War of Southron Independence -had been men of the highest probity, and the noblest among -them was their second president. Yet I also knew that immediately -after the Peace of Richmond less dedicated individuals -became increasingly powerful in the new nation. -As Sir John Dahlberg remarked, “Power tends to corrupt.”</p> - -<p>From his first election in 1865 until his death ten years -later, President Lee had been the prisoner of an increasingly -strong and imperialistic congress. He had opposed -the invasion and conquest of Mexico by the Confederacy, -undertaken on the pretext of restoring order during the -conflict between the republicans and the emperor. However -he had too profound a respect for the constitutional processes -to continue this opposition in the face of joint resolutions -by the Confederate House and Senate.</p> - -<p>Lee remained a symbol, but as the generation which had -fought for independence died, the ideals he symbolized -faded. Negro emancipation, enacted largely because of -pressure from men like Lee, soon revealed itself as a device -for obtaining the benefits of slavery without its obligations. -The freedmen on both sides of the new border were without -franchise, and for all practical purposes without civil -rights. Yet while the old Union first restricted and then -abolished immigration, the Confederacy encouraged it, -making the newcomers subjects like the Latin-Americans<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> -who made up so much of the Southron population after -the Confederacy expanded southward, limiting full citizenship -to posterity of enfranchised residents in the Confederate -States on July Fourth 1864.</p> - -<p>The Populists claimed the Whigs were Confederate -agents; the Whigs retorted that the Populists were visionaries -and demagogues who tolerated if they did not actually -encourage the activities of the Grand Army. The Populists -replied by pointing to their platform which denounced -illegal organizations and lawless methods. I was not too -impressed by this, knowing how busy Tyss, Pondible and -their associates had been ever since the campaign started.</p> - -<p>On election night Tyss closed the store and we walked -the few blocks to Wanamaker & Stewarts drygoods store -where a big screen showed the returns between tinugraphs -puffing the firm’s merchandise. From the first it was apparent -the unpredictable electorate preferred Dewey to -Lewis. State after state, hitherto staunchly Populist, turned -to the Whigs for the first time since William Hale Thompson -defeated President Thomas R Marshall back in 1920 -and again Alfred E Smith in 1924, before Smith gained the -great popularity which gave him the presidency four years -later. Only Massachusetts, Connecticut, Dakotah and Oregon -went for Lewis; his own Minnesota along with twenty-one -other states plumped for Dewey.</p> - -<p>Disappointed as I was, I could not but note Tyss’s cheerful -air. When I asked him what satisfaction he could find -in so overwhelming a defeat he smiled and said, “What -defeat, Hodgins? Did you think we wanted the Populists to -win? To elect Jennings Lewis with his program of world -peace conferences? Really Hodgins, I’m afraid you learn -nothing day by day.”</p> - -<p>“You mean the Grand Army wanted Dewey all along?”</p> - -<p>“Dewey or another; we prefer a Whig administration -which presents a fixed target to a Populist one wavering all -over the place.”</p> - -<p>Of course it should have occurred to me that Tyss and -Tirzah would wind up on the same side. It was a measure -of my innocence that it never had.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C6"><i>6.</i> <i>ENFANDIN</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>Tirzah’s question, “What good is your learning -ever going to do you?” bothered me from time to time. Not -that I was burdened by any vast amount of knowledge, but -presumably I would get more—and then what? It was true -I expected no rewards from reading except the pleasure it -gave me, but the future, to use a topheavy word, could not -be entirely disregarded. I could not see myself spending a -lifetime in the bookstore. I was grateful to Tyss, despite his -disdain of this emotion, for the opportunities he had given -me, but not grateful enough to reconcile myself to becoming -another Tyss, especially one without his vitalizing involvement -with the Grand Army.</p> - -<p>Other courses were neither numerous nor inviting. To -follow Tirzah’s own example might have seemed feasible -if one ignored the vast differences of situation and character, -to say nothing of those between a hulking youth and -a pretty girl. I could hardly hope to find a wealthy family -who would buy my services, put me to congenial tasks, and -look with tolerance on my efforts to advance myself right -out of their employment. Even if such a chance existed I -could not have utilized it as she did; I should undoubtedly -confuse one stock with another or neglect to buy what I -was told until too late, winding up with lottery tickets and -losing the stubs.</p> - -<p>My helpless uncertainty only added to my disadvantage -with her. I had no hope her coolness would change to -either ardor or affection. At any moment she might decide -her curiosity was satisfied and find the awkwardness,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span> -inconveniences, and what must have been to her the sordidness -of the affair too great.</p> - -<p>We were a strange pair of young lovers. When we talked -we argued opposing views or spoke sedately of things not -near our hearts. When we walked together in the streets -or fled the gaslit pavements for the moon over Reservoir -Square we neither held hands nor kissed impulsively. Because -prudence forbade the slightest physical contact save -in utmost privacy there were no innocent touchings or -accidental brushing of hands against hips or arms against -arms, and our secret embraces were guilty simply because -they were secret.</p> - -<p>Often I dreamed of a miraculous change, either in circumstances -or in her attitude, to dissolve the walls between -us; beneath the hope was only expectation of an abrupt -and final break. Yet when it came at last, after more than -a year, it was not the result, as I had agonizedly anticipated, -of some successful speculation or an offer of marriage, but -of natural and normal actions of my own.</p> - -<p>Among the customers to whom I frequently delivered -parcels of books was a Monsieur René Enfandin who lived -on Eighth Street, not far from Fifth Avenue. M Enfandin -was Consul for the Republic of Haiti; the house he occupied -was distinguished from otherwise equally drab neighbors -by a large red and blue escutcheon over the doorway. -He did not use the entire dwelling himself, reserving only -the parlor floor for the office of the consulate and living -quarters; the rest was let to other tenants.</p> - -<p>Tyss’s anti-foreign bias caused him to jeer at Enfandin -behind his back and embark on discourses which proved -by anthropometry and frequent references to Lombroso -and Chief Jung that Negroes were incapable of self-government. -I noticed however that he treated the consul no -differently, either in politeness or honesty, from his other -patrons, and by this time I knew Tyss well enough to attribute -this courtesy not to the self-interest of a tradesman -but to that compassion which he suppressed so sternly -under the contradictions of his nature.</p> - -<p>For a long time I paid little attention to Enfandin, beyond -noting the wide range of interests revealed by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span> -books he bought. I sensed that, like myself, he was inclined -to shyness. He had an arrangement whereby he turned -back most of his purchases for credit on others. I saw that -if he hadnt, his library would have soon dispossessed him; -as it was, books covered all the space not taken by the paraphernalia -of his office and bedroom with the exception of -a bit of bare wall on which hung a large crucifix. He seemed -always to have a volume in his large, dark brown hand, -politely closed over his thumb or open for eager sampling.</p> - -<p>Enfandin was tall and strong-featured, notable in any -company. In the United States where a black man was, -more than anything else, a reminder of the disastrous war -and Mr Lincoln’s proclamation, he was the permanent target -of rowdy boys and adult hoodlums. Even the diplomatic -immunity of his post was poor protection, for it was -believed, not without justification, that Haiti, the only -American republic south of the Mason-Dixon line to preserve -its independence, was disrupting the official if sporadically -executed policy of deporting Negroes to Africa -by encouraging their emigration to its own shores or, what -was even more annoying, assisting them to flee to the unconquered -Indians of Idaho or Montana.</p> - -<p>Beyond a “Good morning” or “Thank you” I doubt if -we exchanged a hundred words until the time I saw a copy -of Randolph Bourne’s <i>Fragment</i> among his selections. -“That’s not what you think it is,” I exclaimed brashly; “it’s -a novel.”</p> - -<p>He looked at me gravely. “You also admire Bourne?”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes.” I felt a trifle foolish, not only for having thrust -my advice upon him, but for the inadequacy of my comment -on a writer who had so many pertinent things to say -and had been persecuted for saying them. I was conscious -too of Tyss’s opinion: How could a cripple like Bourne -speak to whole and healthy men?</p> - -<p>“But you do not approve of fiction, is that so?” Enfandin -had no discernible accent but often his English was uncolloquial -and sometimes it was overly careful and stiff.</p> - -<p>I thought of the adventure tales I had once swallowed -so breathlessly. “Well ... it does seem to be a sort of a -waste of time.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span></p> - -<p>He nodded. “Time, yes.... We waste it or save it or -use it—one would almost think we mastered it instead of -the other way around. Yet are all novels really a waste of -the precious dimension? Perhaps you underestimate the -value of invention.” -“No,” I said; “but what value has the invention of happenings -that never happened, or characters who never -existed?”</p> - -<p>“Who is to say what never happened? It is a matter of -definition.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” I said; “suppose the characters exist in the -author’s mind, like the events; where does the value of the -invention come in?”</p> - -<p>“Where the value of any invention comes in,” he answered. -“In its purpose or use. A wheel spinning aimlessly -is worth nothing; the same wheel on a cart or a pulley -changes destiny.”</p> - -<p>“You can’t learn anything from fairy tales,” I persisted -stubbornly.</p> - -<p>He smiled. “Maybe you havent read the right fairy -tales.”</p> - -<p>I soon discovered in him a quick and penetrating sympathy -which was at times almost telepathic. He listened to -my callow opinions patiently, offering observations of his -own without diffidence and without didacticism. The understanding -and encouragement I did not expect or want -from Tyss he gave me generously. To him, as I never could -to Tirzah, I talked of my hopes and dreams; he listened -patiently and did not seem to think them foolish or impossible -of accomplishment. I do not minimize what Tyss -did for me by saying that without Enfandin I would have -taken much less profit from the books my employer gave -me access to.</p> - -<p>I was drawn to him more and more; I’m not sure why -he interested himself in me, unless there was a reason in -the remark he made once: “Ay, we are alike, you and I. -The books, always the books. And for themselves, not to -become rich or famous like sensible people. Are we not -foolish? But it is a pleasant folly and a sometimes blameless -vice.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span></p> - -<p>I wanted anxiously to speak of Tirzah, not only because -it is an urgent necessity for lovers to mention the name at -least of their beloved a hundred times a day or more, but -in the nebulous hope he could somehow give me an answer -to her as well as to her question. I approached the topic in -a number of different ways; each time our conversation -moved on without my having told him about her.</p> - -<p>Often, after I had delivered an armful of books to the -consulate and we had talked of a wide range of things—for, -unlike me, he had no self-consciousness about what interested -him, whether others might consider it trivial or -not—he would walk back to the bookstore with me, leaving -a note on his door. The promise that he would be “Back -in 10 minutes” was, I’m afraid, seldom fulfilled, for he -became so deeply engrossed that he was unaware of time.</p> - -<p>The occasion which was to be so important to me sprang -from a discussion of non-resistance to evil, a subject on -which he had much to say. We were just passing Wanamaker -& Stewarts and he had just triumphantly reviewed -the amazing decision of the Japanese Shogun to abolish all -police forces, when I became conscious that someone was -staring fixedly at me.</p> - -<p>A minibile, highslung and obviously custom-built, moved -slowly down the street. Its brass brightwork, bumpers like -two enormous tackheads, hub rims like delicate eyelets in -the center of the great spokes, rococo lamps, rain gutters -and door handles, was dazzling. In the jump-seat, facing a -lady of majestic demeanor, was Tirzah. Her head was -turned ostentatiously away from us.</p> - -<p>Enfandin halted as I did. “Ah,” he murmured; “you -know the ladies?”</p> - -<p>“The girl. The lady is her employer.”</p> - -<p>“I caught only a glimpse of the face, but it is a pretty -one.”</p> - -<p>“Yes. Oh yes....” I wanted desperately to say more, to -thank him as though Tirzah’s looks were somehow to my -credit, to praise her and at the same time call her cruel and -hardhearted. “Oh yes....”</p> - -<p>“She is perhaps a particular friend?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span></p> - -<p>I nodded. “Very particular.” We walked on in silence.</p> - -<p>“That is nice. But she is perhaps a little unhappy over -your prospects?”</p> - -<p>“How did you know?”</p> - -<p>“It was not too hard to infer. You have been concealed -from the mistress; the young lady is impressed by wealth; -you are the idealistic one who is not.”</p> - -<p>At last I was able to talk. I explained her indenture, her -ambitious plans, and how I expected her to end everything -between us at any moment. “And there’s nothing I can do -about it,” I finished bitterly.</p> - -<p>“That is right, Hodge. There is nothing you can do -about it because—You will forgive me if I speak plainly, -brutally even?” -“Go ahead. Tirzah—” what a joy it was just to say the -name “—Tirzah has told me often enough how unrealistic -I am.” -“That was not what I meant. I would say there is nothing -you can do about it because there is nothing you wish -to do about it.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean? I’d do anything I could....”</p> - -<p>“Would you? Give up books, for instance?”</p> - -<p>“Why should I? What good would that do?”</p> - -<p>“I do not say you should or that it would do good. I -only try to show that the young lady, charming and important -as she is, is not the most magnetic or important -thing in your life. Romantic love is a curious byproduct of -west European feudalism that Africans and Asiatics can -only criticize gingerly. You shake your head with obstinacy; -you do not believe me. Good, then I have not hurt you.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t see that youve helped me much, either.”</p> - -<p>“Ay! What did you expect from the black man of Haiti? -Miracles?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing less will do any good I’m afraid. Now I suppose -youll tell me I’ll get over it in time; that it’s just an -adolescent languishing anyway.”</p> - -<p>He looked at me reproachfully. “No, Hodge. I hope I -should never be the one to think suffering is tied to age -or time. As for getting over it, why, we all get over every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>thing -in the end, but no matter how desirable absolute -peace is, few of us are willing to give up experience prematurely.”</p> - -<p>Later, I compared what Enfandin told me with what -Tyss might have said. Did the responsibility of holding -Tirzah lie with me and not with both of us, or with fate -or chance? Or were events so circumscribed by inevitabilities -that even to think of struggling with them was foolish?</p> - -<p>I also asked myself if I had been too proud, too hypersensitive. -I had tried to make her see my viewpoint by -arguing, by fighting hers; might it not be possible, without -giving up essentials, to approach her more gently? To divert -her, not from her ambitions, but from her contempt for -mine?</p> - -<p>Full of resolves, I left the store after eight; eager walking -brought me to our meeting place in Reservoir Square -early, but the nearby churchbells had hardly sounded the -quarter hour when she said, “Hodge.”</p> - -<p>Her unusual promptness was a good omen; I was filled -with warm optimism. “Tirzah, I saw you this afternoon—” -“Did you? I thought you were so busy with Sambo you -would never look up.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you call him that? Do you think—” -“Oh for Heavens sake, don’t start making speeches at -me. I call him Sambo because it sounds nicer than Rastus.”</p> - -<p>All my resolutions about trying to see her point of view! -“I call him M’sieu Enfandin because that’s his name.”</p> - -<p>“Have you no pride? No, I suppose you havent. Just some -strange manners. Well, I can put up with your eccentricities, -but other people wouldnt understand. What do you -think Mrs Smythe would say?”</p> - -<p>“Never having met the lady, I havent the faintest idea.”</p> - -<p>“I have, and I agree with her. Would you like me to be -chummy with a naked cannibal with a ring in his nose?”</p> - -<p>“But Enfandin doesnt wear a ring in his nose, and you -must have seen he was fully dressed. Maybe he eats missionaries -in secret, but that couldnt offend Mrs Smythe -since appearances would be saved.”</p> - -<p>“I’m serious, Hodge.”</p> - -<p>“So am I. Enfandin is my only friend.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span></p> - -<p>“You may be above appearances and considerations of -decency but I’m not. If you ever appear in public with him -again you can stop coming here. Because I won’t have -anything more to do with you.”</p> - -<p>“But Tirzah ...” I began helplessly, overwhelmed by -the impossibility of coping with the irrelevancies and inconsistencies -of her stand. “But Tirzah....”</p> - -<p>“No,” she said firmly; “you’ll simply have to grow up, -Hodge, and stop such childish exhibitions. Only friend indeed! -Why I suppose if he appeared here right this minute, -you’d talk to him.”</p> - -<p>“Well naturally. You’d hardly expect me to—” -“But I do. That’s exactly what I’d expect. You to act -like a civilized man.”</p> - -<p>I wasnt angry. I couldnt be angry with her. “If that’s -civilization then I guess I don’t want to be civilized.”</p> - -<p>I detected astonishment in her voice. “You mean, actually -mean, you intend to keep on acting this way?”</p> - -<p>Grandfather Backmaker must have been a stubborn -man; I had my mother’s word I possessed no Hodgins -traits. “Tirzah, what would you think of me if I turned on -my only friend, the only thoroughly kind and understanding -friend Ive ever had, just because Mrs Smythe has -different notions of propriety than I have?”</p> - -<p>“I’d think you were beginning to understand things at -last.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry, Tirzah.”</p> - -<p>“I mean it, Hodge, you know. I’ll never see you again.”</p> - -<p>“If you’d only listen to my side—” -“You mean if I would only become a crank like you. -But I don’t want to be a crank or a martyr. I don’t want -to change the world. I’m normal.”</p> - -<p>“Tirzah—” -“Goodbye, Hodge.”</p> - -<p>She walked away. I had the irrational feeling that if I -called after her she might come back. Or at least stand -still and wait to hear what I had to say. I kept my mouth -obstinately closed; Enfandin had been right, the responsibility -was mine. There were things I would not give up.</p> - -<p>My heroic mood must have lasted fully fifteen minutes.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span> -Then I hurried through the little park and across the -street to the Smythe house. There were lights in the upper -floors, but the basement, as always, was dark. I dared not -knock or ring the bell; her admonitions were too firmly -impressed on my mind. Instead, in a turmoil of emotions, -I paced the flagged sidewalk until the suspicious eye of a -patrolman was attracted; then I fled cravenly.</p> - -<p>I couldnt wait for the next day to write a long, chaotic -letter begging her to let me talk to her, just to talk to her, -for an hour, ten minutes, a minute. I offered to indent, to -emigrate, to make a fortune by some inspired means if only -she would hear me. I recalled moments together, I told her -I loved her, said I would die without her. Having covered -several pages with these sentiments I began all over and -repeated them. It was dawn when I posted the letter in the -pneumatic mail.</p> - -<p>Sleepless and tormented, I was of little use to Tyss next -day. Would she telegraph? If she answered by pneumatic -post her letter might be delivered in the afternoon. Or -would she come to the bookstore?</p> - -<p>The second day I sent off two more letters and went up -to Reservoir Square on the chance she might appear. I -watched the house as though my concentration would force -her to emerge. On the third day my letters came back, -unopened.</p> - -<p>There is some catchphrase or other about the elasticity -of youth. It is true it was only weeks before my misery -abated, and weeks more before I was heart-whole again. -But those weeks were long.</p> - -<p>The subject of Tirzah did not come up again between -Enfandi and me. He must have sensed I had lost her, perhaps -he even guessed his connection with the break, but -he was too tactful to mention it and I was too sore.</p> - -<p>I don’t know if the episode precipitated some maturity -in me, or if, as a result of grief and anger I tried to turn -my mind away from the easy emotions and shield myself -against further hurt. At any rate, whether there was a logical -connection or not, it is from this period that I date my -resolve to center my reading on history. Somewhat diffidently -I spoke of this to him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span></p> - -<p>“History? But certainly, Hodge. It is a noble study. But -what is history? How is it written? How is it read? Is it a -dispassionate chronicle of events scientifically determined -and set down in the precise measure of their importance? -Is this ever possible? Or is it the transmutation of the ordinary -into the celebrated? Or the cunning distortion which -gives a clearer picture than accurate blueprints?”</p> - -<p>“It seems to me facts are primary and interpretations -come after,” I answered. “If we can find out the facts we -can form our individual opinions on them.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps. Perhaps. But take what is for me the central -fact of all history.” He pointed to the crucifix. “As a -Catholic the facts are plain to me; I believe what is written -in the Gospels to be literally true: that the Son of Man -died for me on that cross. But what were the facts for a -contemporary Roman statesman? That an obscure local -agitator threatened the stability of an uneasy province and -was promptly executed in the approved Roman fashion as -a warning to others. And for a contemporary fellow-countryman? -That no such person existed. You think these facts -are mutually exclusive? Yet you know no two people see -exactly the same thing; too many honest witnesses have -contradicted each other. Even the Gospels must be reconciled.”</p> - -<p>“You are saying that truth is relative.”</p> - -<p>“Am I? Then I shall have my tongue examined, or my -head. Because I mean to say no such thing. Truth is absolute -and for all time. But one man cannot envisage all of -truth; the best he can do is see a single aspect of it whole. -That is why I say to you, be a skeptic, Hodge. Always be -the skeptic.”</p> - -<p>“Ay?” I was finding the admonition a little difficult to -harmonize with his previous confession of faith.</p> - -<p>“For the believer skepticism is essential. How else is he -to know false gods from true except by doubting both? One -of the most pernicious of folk-sayings is, ‘I could scarcely -believe my eyes?’ Why should you believe your eyes? You -were given eyes to see with, not to believe with. Believe -your mind, your intuition, your reason, your feelings if you -like—but not your eyes unaided by any of these inter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>preters. -Your eyes can see the mirage, the hallucination, -as easily as the actual scenery. Your eyes will tell you -nothing exists but matter—” -“Not my eyes only, but my boss.”</p> - -<p>“Ay? What are you saying?” For all his amiability Enfandin -enjoyed interruption in mid-discourse no more -than any other teacher. But in a moment his irritation -vanished and he listened to my description of Tyss’s mechanistic -creed.</p> - -<p>“God have mercy on his soul,” he muttered at last. “Poor -creature. He has liberated himself from the superstitions -of religion in order to fall into superstition so abject no -Christian can conceive it. Imagine to yourself—” he began -to pace the floor “—time is circular, man is automaton, we -are doomed to repeat the same gestures over and over, forever. -Oh I say to you, Hodge, this is monstrous. The poor -man. The poor man.” -I nodded. “Yes. But what is the answer? Limitless space? -Limitless time? They are almost as horrifying, because they -are inconceivable and awful.”</p> - -<p>“And why should the inconceivable and awful be horrifying? -Is our small human understanding the ultimate -measuring stick and guide? But of course this is not the -answer. The answer is that all—time, space, matter—all -is illusion. All but the good God Himself. Nothing is real -but Him. We are creatures of His fancy, figments of His -imagination....” -“Then where does free will come in?”</p> - -<p>“As a gift, naturally. Or supernaturally. How else? The -greatest gift and the greatest responsibility.”</p> - -<p>I can’t say I was entirely satisfied with his exposition, -though it was certainly more to my taste than Tyss’s. I returned -to the conversation at intervals, both in my thoughts -and when I saw him, but in the end I suppose all I really -accepted was his admonition to be skeptical, which I doubt -I always applied the way he meant me to.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C7"><i>7.</i> <i>OF CONFEDERATE AGENTS -IN 1942</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>To anyone but the mooncalf I still was in the year -of my majority it would have long since occurred with considerable -force that Enfandin ought to be told of Tyss’s -connection with the Negro-hating, anti-foreign Grand -Army. And the thought once entertained, no matter how -belatedly, would have been immediately translated into -warning. For me it became a dilemma.</p> - -<p>If I exposed Tyss to Enfandin I would certainly be basely -ungrateful to the man who had saved me from destitution -and given me the opportunity I wanted so much. Membership -in the Grand Army was a crime, even though the laws -were laxly enforced, and I could hardly expect an official -receiving the hospitality of the United States to conceal -knowledge of a felony against his host, especially when the -Grand Army was what it was. Yet if I kept silent I would -be less than a friend.</p> - -<p>If I spoke I would be an informer; if I didnt, a hypocrite -and worse. The fact that neither man, for totally different -reasons, would condemn me whichever course I took increased -rather than diminished my perplexity. I procrastinated, -which meant I was actually protecting Tyss, and -that this was against my sympathies increased my feeling -of guilt.</p> - -<p>At this juncture a series of events involved me still -deeper with the Grand Army and further complicated my -relationship to both Tyss and Enfandin. It began the day -a customer called himself to my attention with a selfconscious -clearing of his throat.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span></p> - -<p>“Yes sir. Can I help you?”</p> - -<p>He was a fat little man with palpably false teeth, and -hair hanging down behind over his collar. However the -sum of his appearance was in no way ludicrous; rather he -gave the impression of ease and authority, and an assurance -so strong there was no necessity to buttress it.</p> - -<p>“Why, I was looking for—” he began, and then scrutinized -me sharply. “Say, aint you the young fella I saw -walking with a Nigra? Big black buck?”</p> - -<p>Seemingly everyone had been fascinated by the spectacle -of two people of slightly different shades of color in company -with each other. I felt myself reddening. “There’s no -law against it, is there?”</p> - -<p>He made a gargling noise which I judged was laughter. -“Wouldnt know about your damyankee laws, boy. For myself -I’d say there’s no harm in it, no harm in it at all. Always -did like to be around Nigras myself. But then I was rared -among em. Most damyankees seem to think Nigras aint -fitten company. Only goes to show how narrerminded and -bigoted you folks can be. Present company excepted.”</p> - -<p>“M’sieu Enfandin is consul of the Republic of Haiti,” I -said; “he’s a scholar and a gentleman.” As soon as the -words were out I was bitterly sorry for their condescension -and patronage. I felt ashamed, as if I had betrayed him by -offering credentials to justify my friendship and implying -it took special qualities to overcome the handicap of his -color.</p> - -<p>“A mussoo, huh? Furrin and educated Nigra? Well, -guess theyre all right.” His tone, still hearty, was slightly -dubious. “Ben working here long?”</p> - -<p>“Nearly four years.”</p> - -<p>“Kind of dull, aint it?”</p> - -<p>“Oh no—I like to read, and there are plenty of books -around here.” -He frowned. “Should think a hefty young fella’d find -more interesting things. Youre indented, of course? No? -Well then youre a mighty lucky fella. In a way, in a way. -Naturally youll be short on cash, ay? Unless you draw a -lucky number in the lottery.”</p> - -<p>I told him I’d never bought a lottery ticket.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span></p> - -<p>He slapped his leg as though I’d just repeated a very -good joke. “Aint that the pattrun,” he exclaimed; “aint that -the pattrun! Necessity makes em have a lottery; Puritanism -keeps em from buying tickets. Aint that the pattrun!” He -gargled the humor of it for some time, while his eyes moved -restlessly around the dim interior of the store. “And what -do you read, ay? Sermons? Books on witches?”</p> - -<p>I admitted I’d dipped into both, and then, perhaps trying -to impress him, explained my ambitions.</p> - -<p>“Going to be a professional historian, hey? Little out of -my line, but I don’t suppose they’s many of em up North -here.”</p> - -<p>“Not unless you count a handful of college instructors -who dabble in it”</p> - -<p>He shook his head. “Young fella with your aims could -do better down South, I’d think.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes; some of the most interesting research is going -on right now in Leesburg, Washington-Baltimore and the -University of Lima. You are a Confederate yourself, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Southron, yes sir, I am that and mighty proud of it. -Now look a-here, boy: I’ll lay all my cards on the table, -face up. Youre a free man and you aint getting any pay -here. Now how’d you like to do a little job for me? They’s -good money in it; and I imagine I’d be able to fix up one -of those deals—what do they call em? scholarships—at the -University of Leesburg, after.” -A scholarship at Leesburg. Where the Department of -History was engaged on a monumental project—nothing -less than a compilation of all known source material on -the War of Southron Independence! It was only with the -strongest effort that I refrained from agreeing blindly.</p> - -<p>“It sounds fine, Mr—?” -“Colonel Tolliburr. Jest call me cunnel.”</p> - -<p>There wasnt anything remotely military in his bearing. -“It sounds good to me, Colonel. What is the job?”</p> - -<p>He clicked his too regular teeth thoughtfully. “Hardly -anything at all, m’boy, hardly anything at all. Just want you -to keep a list for me.”</p> - -<p>He seemed to think this a complete explanation. “What -kind of list, Colonel?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span></p> - -<p>“Why, list of the people that come in here steady. Especially -the ones don’t seem to buy anything, just talk to your -boss. Names if you know em, but that aint real important, -and a sort of rough description. Like five foot nine, blue -eyes, dark hair, busted nose, scar on right eyebrow. And -so on. Nothing real detailed. And a list of deliveries.”</p> - -<p>Was I tempted? I don’t really know. “I’m sorry, Colonel. -I’m afraid I can’t help you.”</p> - -<p>“Not even for that scholarship and say, a hundred dollars -in real money?”</p> - -<p>I shook my head.</p> - -<p>“They’s no harm in it, boy. Likely nothing’ll come of it.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry.”</p> - -<p>“Two hundred? I’m not talking about yankee slugs, but -good CSA bills, each with a picture of President Jimmy -right slapdash on the middle of it.”</p> - -<p>“It’s not a matter of money, Colonel Tolliburr.”</p> - -<p>He looked at me shrewdly. “Think it over, boy. No use -being hasty.” He handed me a card. “Any time you change -your mind come and see me or send me a telegram.”</p> - -<p>I watched him out of the store. The Grand Army must -be annoying the mighty Confederacy. Tyss ought to know -about the agent’s interest. And I knew I would be unable -to tell him.</p> - -<p>“Suppose,” I asked Enfandin the next day, “suppose -one were placed in the position of being an involuntary -assistant in a—to a....” -I was at a loss for words to describe the situation without -being incriminatingly specific. I could not tell him about -Tolliburr and my clear duty to let Tyss know of the -colonel’s espionage without revealing Tyss’s connection -with the Grand Army and thus uncovering my deceit in not -warning Enfandin earlier. Whatever I said or failed to say, -I was somehow culpable.</p> - -<p>He waited patiently while I groped, trying to formulate -a question which was no longer a question. “You can’t do -evil that good may come of it,” I burst out at last.</p> - -<p>“Quite so. And then?”</p> - -<p>“Well.... That might mean eventually giving up all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span> -action entirely, since we can never be sure even the most -innocent act may not have bad consequences.”</p> - -<p>He nodded. “It might. The Manichaeans thought it did; -they believed good and evil balanced and man was created -in the image of Satan. But certainly there is a vast difference -between this inhuman dogma and refusing to do consciously -wicked deeds.”</p> - -<p>“Maybe,” I said dubiously.</p> - -<p>He looked at me speculatively. “A man is drowning in -the river. I have a rope. If I throw him the rope he may not -only climb to safety but take it from me and use it to garrote -some honest citizen. Shall I therefore let him drown -because I must not do good lest evil come of it?”</p> - -<p>“But sometimes they are so mixed up it is impossible to -disentangle them.”</p> - -<p>“Impossible? Or very difficult?”</p> - -<p>“Um.... I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“Are you not perhaps putting the problem too abstractly? -Is not perhaps your situation—your hypothetical situation—one -of being accessory to wrong rather than facing -an alternative which means personal unhappiness?” -Again I struggled for noncommittal words. He had formulated -my dilemma about the Grand Army so far as it -connected with giving up my place in the bookstore or telling -him of Tyss’s bias. Yet not entirely. And why could I -not let Tyss know of Colonel Tolliburr’s visit, which it -was certainly my duty to do? Was this overscrupulousness -only a means of avoiding any unpleasantness?</p> - -<p>“Yes,” I muttered at last.</p> - -<p>“It would be very nice if there were no drawbacks ever -attached to the virtuous choice. Then the only ones who -would elect to do wrong would be those of twisted minds, -the perverse, the insane. Who would prefer the devious -course if the straight one were just as easy? No, no, my -dear Hodge; one cannot escape the responsibility for his -choice simply because the other way means inconvenience -or hardships or tribulation.”</p> - -<p>“Must we always act, whether we are sure of the outcome -of our action or not?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span></p> - -<p>“Not acting is also action; can we always be sure of the -outcome of refusing to act?”</p> - -<p>Was it pettiness that made me contrast his position as an -official of a small yet fairly secure power, well enough paid -to live comfortably, with mine where a break with Tyss -meant beggary and no further chance of fulfilling the ambition -every day more important to me? <i>Did</i> circumstances -alter cases, and was it easy for Enfandin to talk as he did, -unconfronted with harsh alternatives?</p> - -<p>“You know, Hodge,” he said as though changing the -subject, “I am what they call a career man, meaning I have -no money except my salary. This might seem much to you, -but it is really little, particularly since protocol says I must -spend more than necessary. For the honor of my country. -At home I have an establishment to keep up where my -wife and children live—” -I had wondered about his apparent bachelorhood.</p> - -<p>“—because to be rudely frank, I do not think they would -be happy or safe in the United States on account of their -color. Besides these expenses I make personal contributions -for the assistance of black men who are—how shall we say -it?—unhappily circumstanced in your country, for I have -found the official allotment is never enough. Now I have -been indiscreet; you know state secrets. Why do I tell you -this? Because, my friend, I should like to help. Alas, I cannot -offer money. But this I can do, if it will not offend -your pride: I suggest you live here—it will be no more -uncomfortable than the arrangements you have described -in the store—and attend one of the colleges of the city. A -medal or an order from the Haitian government judiciously -conferred on an eminent educator—decorations cut so -nicely across color-lines, perhaps because they don’t show -their origin to the uninitiated—should take care of tuition -fees. What do you say?” -What could I say? That I did not deserve his generosity? -The statement would be meaningless, a catchphrase, unless -I explained that I’d not been open with him, and now even -less than before was I able to do this. Or could I say that -bare minutes earlier I had thought enviously and spitefully -of him? Wretched and happy, I mumbled incoherent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span> -thanks, began a number of sentences and left them unfinished, -lapsed into dazed silence.</p> - -<p>But the newly opened prospect cut through my introspection -and scattered my self-reproaches. The future was -too exciting to dwell in any other time; in a moment we -were both sketching rapid plans and supplementing each -other’s designs with revisions of our own. Words tumbled -out; ideas were caught in mid-expression. We decided, we -reconsidered, we returned to the first decisions.</p> - -<p>I was to give Tyss two weeks’ notice despite the original -agreement making such nicety superfluous; Enfandin was -to discuss matriculation with a professor he knew. My employer -raised a quizzical eyebrow at my information.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Hodgins, you see how neatly the script works out. -Nothing left to chance or choice. If you hadnt been relieved -of your trifling capital by a man of enterprise whose methods -were more successful than subtle you might have -fumbled at the edge of the academic world for four years -and then, having substituted a wad of unrelated facts for -common sense and whatever ability to think you may have -possessed, fumbled for the rest of your life at the edge of -the economic world. You wouldnt have met George Pondible -or gotten here where you could discover your own -mind without adjustment to a professorial iron maiden.”</p> - -<p>“I thought it was all arbitrary.”</p> - -<p>He gave me a reproachful look. “Arbitrary and predetermined -are not synonymous, Hodgins, nor does either -rule out artistry. Mindless artistry of course, like that of -the snowflake or crystal. And how artistic this development -is! You will go on to become a professor yourself and construct -iron maidens for promising students who might become -your competitors. You will write learned histories, -for you are—havent I said this before?—the spectator type. -The part written for you does not call for you to be a participant, -an instrument for—apparently—influencing -events. Hence it is proper that you report them so future -generations may get the illusion they arent puppets.” -He grinned at me. At another time I would have been -delighted to pounce on the assortment of inconsistencies -he had just offered; at the moment I could think of nothing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span> -but my failure to mention the Confederate agent’s visit. It -almost seemed his mechanist notions were valid and I was -destined always to be the ungrateful recipient of kindness.</p> - -<p>“All right,” he said, swallowing the last of his bread and -half-raw meat; “so long as your sentimentality impels you -to respect obligations I can find work for you. Those boxes -over there go upstairs. Pondible’s bringing a van around for -them this afternoon.”</p> - -<p>Ive heard the assumption that working in a bookstore -must be light and pleasant. Many times during the years -with Roger Tyss I had reason to be thankful for my strength -and farm training. The boxes were deceptively small but -so heavy they could only have been solidly packed with -paper. Even with Tyss carrying box for box with me I was -vastly relieved when I had to quit to run an errand.</p> - -<p>When I got back he went out to make an offer on someone’s -library. “There are only four left. The last two are -paper-wrapped; didnt have enough boxes.”</p> - -<p>It was characteristic of him to leave the lighter packages -for me. I ran up the stairs with one of the two remaining -wooden containers. Returning, I tripped on the lowest step -and sprawled forward. Reflexively I threw out my hands -and landed on one of the paper parcels. The tight-stretched -covering cracked and split under the impact; the contents—neatly -tied rectangular bundles—spilled out.</p> - -<p>I had learned enough of the printing trade to recognize -the brightly colored oblongs as lithographs, and I wondered -as I stooped over to gather them up why such a job should -have been given Tyss rather than a shop specializing in this -work. Even under the gaslight the colors were hard and -vigorous.</p> - -<p>Then I really looked at the bundle I was holding. ESPAÑA -was enscrolled across the top; below it was the picture -of a man with long nose and jutting underlip, flanked -by two ornate figure fives, and beneath them the legend, -CINCO PESETAS. Spanish Empire banknotes. Bundles -and bundles of them.</p> - -<p>I needed neither expert knowledge nor minute scrutiny -to tell me there was a fortune here in counterfeit money. -The purpose in forging Spanish currency I could not see;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span> -that it was no private undertaking of Tyss’s but an activity -of the Grand Army I was certain. Puzzled and worried, I -rewrapped the bundles of notes into as neat an imitation of -the original package as I could contrive.</p> - -<p>The rest of the day I spent casting uneasy glances at the -mound of boxes and watching with apprehension the movement -of anyone toward them. Death was the penalty for -counterfeiting United States coins; I had no idea of the -punishment for doing the same with foreign paper but I -was sure even so minor an accessory as myself would be -in a sad way if some officious customer should stumble -against one of the packages.</p> - -<p>Tyss in no way acted like a guilty man, or even one with -an important secret. He seemed unaware of any peril; -doubtless he was daily in similar situations, only chance -and my own lack of observation had prevented my discovering -this earlier.</p> - -<p>Nor did he show anxiety when Pondible failed to arrive. -Darkness came and the gaslamps went on in the streets. -The heavy press of traffic outside dwindled, but the incriminating -boxes remained undisturbed near the door. At -last there was the sound of uncertain wheels slowing up -outside and Pondible’s voice admonishing, “Wh-whoa!”</p> - -<p>I rushed out just as he was dismounting with slow dignity. -“Who goes?” he asked; “Vance and give a countersign.”</p> - -<p>“It’s Hodge,” I said. “Let me help you.”</p> - -<p>“Hodge! Old friend; not seen long time!” (He had been -in the store only the day before.) “Terrible sfortune, Hodge. -Dri-driving wagon. Fell off. Fell off wagon I mean. See?”</p> - -<p>“Sure, I see. Let me hitch the horse for you. Mr Tyss -is waiting.”</p> - -<p>“Avoidable,” he muttered, “nuvoidable, voidable. Fell -off.”</p> - -<p>Tyss took him by the arm. “You come with me and rest -awhile. Hodgins, you better start loading up; youll have -to do the delivering now.”</p> - -<p>Rebellious refusal formed in my mind. Why should I be -still further involved? He had no right to demand it of me; -in self-protection I was bound to refuse. “Mr Tyss....”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span></p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>Two weeks would see me free of him, but nothing could -wipe out the debt I owed him. “Nothing. Nothing,” I murmured -and picked up one of the boxes.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C8"><i>8.</i> <i>IN VIOLENT TIMES</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>He gave me an address on Twenty-Sixth Street. -“Sprovis is the name.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” I said as stolidly as I could.</p> - -<p>“Let them do the unloading. I see there’s a full feedbag -in the van; that’ll be a good time to give it to the horse.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“They’ll load up another consignment and drive with you -to the destination. Take the van back to the livery stable. -Here’s money for your supper and carfare back here.”</p> - -<p>He thinks of everything, I reflected bitterly. Except that -I don’t want to have anything to do with this.</p> - -<p>Driving slackly through the almost empty streets my resentment -continued to rise, drowning, at least partly, my -fear of being for some unfathomable reason stopped by a -police officer and apprehended. Why should I be stopped? -Why should the Grand Army counterfeit pesetas?</p> - -<p>The address, which I had trouble finding on the poorly -lit thoroughfare, was one of those four-storey stuccos at -least a century old, showing few signs of recent repair. Mr -Sprovis, who occupied the basement, had one ear distinctly -larger than the other, an anomaly I could not help attributing -to a trick of constantly pulling on the lobe. He, like -the others who came out with him to unload the van, wore -the Grand Army beard.</p> - -<p>“I had to come instead of Pon—” -“No names,” he growled. “Hear? No names.”</p> - -<p>“All right. I was told you’d unload and load up again.”</p> - -<p>“Yeah, yeah.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span></p> - -<p>I slipped the strap of the feedbag over the horse’s ear -and started toward Eighth Avenue.</p> - -<p>“Hey! Where you going?”</p> - -<p>“To get something to eat. Anything wrong with that?”</p> - -<p>I felt him peering suspiciously at me. “Guess not. But -don’t keep us waiting, see? We’ll be ready to go in twenty -minutes.”</p> - -<p>I did not like Mr Sprovis. In the automatic lunchroom -where the dishes were delivered by a clever clockwork device -as coins were deposited in the right slots, I gorged on -fish and potatoes, but my pleasure at getting away for once -from the unvarying bread and heart was spoiled by the -thought of him. And I was at best no more than half -through with the night’s adventure. What freight Sprovis -and his companions were now loading in the van I had -no idea. Except that it was nothing innocent.</p> - -<p>When I turned the corner into Twenty-Sixth Street -again, the shadowy mass of the horse and van was gone -from its place by the curb. Alarmed, I broke into a run and -discovered it turning in the middle of the block. I jumped -and caught hold of the dash, pulling myself aboard. “What’s -the idea?”</p> - -<p>A fist caught me in the shoulder, almost knocking me -back into the street. Zigzags of shock ran down my arm, -terminating in numbing pain. Desperately I clung to the -dash.</p> - -<p>“Hold it,” someone rumbled; “it’s the punk who came -with. Let him in.”</p> - -<p>Another voice, evidently belonging to the man who’d -hit me, admonished, “Want to watch yourself, chum. Not -go jumping like that without warning. I might of stuck a -shiv in your ribs instead of my hand.”</p> - -<p>I could only repeat, “What’s the idea of trying to run -off with the van? I’m responsible for it.”</p> - -<p>“He’s responsible, see,” mocked another voice from the -body of the van. “Aint polite not to wait on him.”</p> - -<p>I was wedged between the driver and my assailant; my -shoulder ached and I was beginning to be really frightened -now my first anger had passed. These were “action” members -of the Grand Army; men who regularly committed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span> -battery, mayhem, arson, robbery and murder. I had been -both foolhardy and lucky; realizing this it seemed diplomatic -not to try for possession of the reins.</p> - -<p>I could hear the breathing and mumbling of others in -back, but it didnt need this to tell me the van was over-loaded. -We turned north on Sixth Avenue; the street lights -showed Sprovis driving. “Gidap, gidap,” he urged, “get -going!”</p> - -<p>“That’s a horse,” I protested; “not a locomotive.”</p> - -<p>“What do you know?” came from behind; “And we -thought we was on the Erie.”</p> - -<p>“He’s tired,” I persisted, “and he’s pulling too much -weight.”</p> - -<p>“Shut up,” ordered Sprovis quietly. “Shut up.” The -quietness was not deceptive; it was ominous. I shut up.</p> - -<p>Speed was stupid on several counts. For one thing it -called attention to the van at a time when most commercial -vehicles had been stabled for the night and the traffic was -almost entirely carriages, buggies, hacks and minibiles. I -visualized the suspicious crowd which would gather immediately -if our horse dropped from exhaustion. There was -no hope that consciousness of an innocuous cargo made -Sprovis bold; whatever we carried was bound to be as incriminating -as the counterfeit bills.</p> - -<p>Disconnected scraps of conversation drifted from -Sprovis’ companions. “I says, ‘Look here, youre making -a nice profit from selling abroad. Either you....’”</p> - -<p>“And of course he put it all on a twenty-dollar ticket -even though....”</p> - -<p>“‘ ... my taxes,’ he says. ‘You worry about your taxes,’ -I says; ‘I’m worried about your contributions.’”</p> - -<p>A monotonous chuffing close behind us forced itself into -my consciousness; when we turned eastward in the Forties -I exclaimed, “There’s a minibile following us!”</p> - -<p>Even as I spoke the trackless engine pulled alongside -and then darted ahead to pocket us by nosing diagonally -toward the curb. The horse must have been too weak to -shy; he simply stopped short and I heard the curses of the -felled passengers behind me.</p> - -<p>“Not the cops anyway!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span></p> - -<p>“Cons for a nickel!”</p> - -<p>“Only half a block from—” -“Quick, break out the guns—” -“Not those guns; one bang and we’re through. Air pistols, -if anybody’s got one. Hands or knives. Get them all!”</p> - -<p>They piled out swiftly past me; I remained alone on the -seat, an audience of one, properly ensconced. A few blocks -away was the small park where Tirzah used to meet me. -It was not believable that this was happening in one of -New York’s quietest residential districts in the year 1942.</p> - -<p>An uneven, distorting light emphasized the abnormal -speed of the incident that followed, making the action seem -jumpy, as though the participants were caught at static -moments, changing their attitudes between flashes of visibility. -The tempo was so swift any possible spectators in -the bordering windows or on the sidewalks wouldnt have -had time to realize what was going on before it was all -over.</p> - -<p>Four men from the minibile were met by five from the -van. The odds were not too unequal, for the attackers had -a discipline which Sprovis’ force lacked. Their leader attempted -to parley during one of those seconds of apparent -inaction. “Hay you men—we got nothing against you. -They’s a thousand dollars apiece in it for you—” -A fist smacked into his mouth. The light caught his face -as he was jolted back, but I hardly needed its revelation to -confirm my recognition of Colonel Tolliburr’s voice.</p> - -<p>The Confederate agents had brass knuckles and black-jacks, -Colonel Tolliburr had a sword-cane which he unsheathed -with a glinting flourish. The Grand Army men -flashed knives; no one seemed to be using air pistols or -spring-powered guns.</p> - -<p>Both sides were intent on keeping the clash as quiet and -inconspicuous as possible; no one shouted with anger or -screamed in pain. This muffled intensity made the struggle -more gruesome; the contenders fought their natural impulses -as well as each other. I heard the impact of blows, -the grunts of effort, the choked-back cries, the scraping of -shoes on pavement and the thud of falls. One of the defenders -fell, and two of the attackers, before the two re<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>maining -Southrons gave up the battle and attempted -escape.</p> - -<p>With united impulse they started for the minibile, evidently -realized they wouldnt have time to get up power, -and began running down the street. Their moment of indecision -did for them. As the four Grand Army men closed in -I saw the Confederates raise their arms in the traditional -gesture of surrender. Then they were struck down.</p> - -<p>I crept noiselessly down on the off-side of the van and -hastened quietly away in the protection of the shadows.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C9"><i>9.</i> <i>BARBARA</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>For the next few days reading was pure pretense. -I used the opened book to mask my privacy while I -trembled not so much with fear as with horror. I had been -brought up in a harsh enough world and murder was no -novelty in New York; I had seen slain men before, but this -was the first time I had been confronted with naked, merciless -savagery. Though I believed Sprovis would have had -no qualms about despatching an inconvenient witness if I -had stayed on the van, I had no particular fear for my -own safety, for my knowledge of what had happened became -less dangerous daily. The terror of the deed itself -however remained constant.</p> - -<p>I was not concerned solely with revulsion. Inquisitiveness -looked out under loathing to make me wonder what -lay behind the night’s events. What had really happened, -and what did it all mean?</p> - -<p>From scraps of conversation accidentally heard or deliberately -eavesdropped, from the newspapers, from deduction -and remembered fragments, I reconstructed the picture -which made the background. Its borders reached a -long way from Astor Place.</p> - -<p>For years the world had been waiting, half in dread, -half in resignation, for war to break out between the world’s -two Great Powers, the German Union and the Confederate -States. Some expected the point of explosion would be the -Confederacy’s ally, the British Empire; most anticipated at -least part of the war would be fought in the United States.</p> - -<p>The scheme of the Grand Army, or of that part of it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span> -which included Tyss, was apparently a farfetched and fantastic -attempt to circumvent the probable course of history. -The counterfeiting was an aspect of this attempt which was -nothing less than trying to force the war to start, not -through the Confederacy’s ally, but through the German -Union’s—the Spanish Empire. With enormous amounts -of the spurious currency circulated by emissaries posing as -Confederate agents, the Grand Army hoped to embroil the -Confederacy with Spain and possibly preserve the neutrality -of the United States. It was an ingenuous idea evolved, -I see now, by men without knowledge of the actual mechanics -of world politics.</p> - -<p>If I ever had any sentimental notions about the Army -they vanished now. Tyss’s mechanism may not have been -purposefully designed to palliate, but it made it easy to -justify actions like Sprovis’. I had no such convenient way -of numbing my conscience. But even as I brooded over the -weakness and cowardice which made me an accomplice, I -looked forward to my release. I had not seen Enfandin -since his offer; in a week I would leave the bookstore for -his sanctuary, and I resolved my first act should be to tell -him everything. And then that dream was exploded just -as it was about to be realized.</p> - -<p>I do not know who it was broke into the consulate or -for what reason, and was surprised in the act, shooting and -wounding Enfandin so seriously he was unable to speak -for the weeks before he was finally returned to Haiti to recuperate -or die. He could not have gotten in touch with -me and I was not permitted to see him; the police guard -was doubly zealous to keep him from all contact since he -was both an accredited diplomat and a black man.</p> - -<p>I did not know who shot him. It was most unlikely to be -anyone connected with the Grand Army, but I did not -know. I could not know. He <i>might</i> have been shot by -Sprovis or George Pondible. Since the ultimate chain could -have led back to me, it did lead back to me. If this were -the Manichaeism of which Enfandin had spoken, I could -not help it</p> - -<p>The loss of my chance to escape from the bookstore was -the least of my despair. It seemed to me I was caught by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span> -the inexorable, choiceless circumstance in which Tyss so -firmly believed and Enfandin denied. I could escape neither -my guilt nor the surroundings conducive to further guilt. -I could not change destiny.</p> - -<p>Was all this merely the self-torture of any introverted -young man? Possibly. I only know that for a long time, long -as one in his early twenties measures time, I lost all interest -in life, even dallying with thoughts of suicide. I put books -aside distastefully or, which was worse, indifferently.</p> - -<p>I must have done my work around the store; certainly I -recall no comments from Tyss about it. Neither can I remember -anything to distinguish the succession of days. -Obviously I ate and slept; there were undoubtedly long -hours free from utter hopelessness. The details of those -months have simply vanished.</p> - -<p>Nor can I say precisely when it was my despair began -to lift. I know that one day—it was cold and the snow was -deep on the ground, deep enough to keep the minibiles off -the streets and cause the horse-cars trouble—I saw a girl -walking briskly, red-cheeked, breathing in quick visible -puffs, and my glance was not apathetic. When I returned to -the bookstore I picked up Field Marshal Liddell-Hart’s -<i>Life of General Pickett</i> and opened it to the place where -I had abandoned it. In a moment I was fully absorbed.</p> - -<p>Paradoxically, once I was myself again I was no longer -the same Hodge Backmaker. For the first time I was determined -to do what I wanted instead of waiting and hoping -events would somehow turn out right for me. Somehow I -was going to free myself from the bookstore and all its -frustrations and evils.</p> - -<p>This resolution was reinforced by the discovery that I -was exhausting the volumes around me. The books I -sought now were rare and ever more difficult to find. Innocent -of knowledge about academic life I imagined them -ready to hand in any college library.</p> - -<p>Nor was I any longer satisfied with the printed word -alone. My friendship with Enfandin had shown me how -fruitful a personal, face-to-face relationship between -teacher and student could be, and it seemed to me such<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span> -ties could develop into ones between fellow scholars, a mutual, -uncompetitive pursuit of knowledge.</p> - -<p>Additionally I wanted to search the real, the original -sources: unpublished manuscripts of participants or onlookers, -old diaries and letters, wills or accountbooks, -which might shade a meaning or subtly change the interpretation -of old, forgotten actions.</p> - -<p>My problems could be solved ideally by an instructorship -at some college, but how was this to be achieved without -the patronage of a Tolliburr or an Enfandin? I had no -credentials worth a second’s consideration. Though the -immigration bars kept out graduates of foreign universities, -no college in the United States would accept a -self-taught young man who had not only little Latin and -less Greek, but no mathematics, languages, or sciences at -all. For a long time I considered possible ways and means, -both drab and dramatic; at last, more in a spirit of whimsical -absurdity than sober hope, I wrote out a letter of -application, setting forth the qualifications I imagined myself -to possess, assaying the extent of my learning with a -generosity only ingenuousness could palliate, and outlining -the work I projected for my future. With much care and -many revisions I set this composition in type. It was undoubtedly -a foolish gesture, but not having access to so -costly a machine as a typewriter, and not wanting to reveal -this by penning the letters by hand, I resorted to this transparent -device.</p> - -<p>Tyss picked up one of the copies I struck off and glanced -over it. His expression was critical. “Is it too bad?” I asked -despondently.</p> - -<p>“You should have used more leading. And lined it up -and justified the lines and eliminated hyphens. Setting type -can never be done mechanically or half-heartedly—that’s -why no one yet has been able to invent a practical typesetting -machine. I’m afraid you’ll never make a passable -printer, Hodgins.” -He was concerned only with typesetting, uninterested -in the outcome. Or satisfied, since it was predetermined, -that comment was superfluous.</p> - -<p>Government mails, never efficient and always expensive,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span> -being one of the favorite victims of holdup men, and pneumatic -post limited to local areas, I dispatched the letters -by Wells, Fargo to a comprehensive list of colleges. I can’t -say I then waited for the replies to flow in, for though I -knew the company’s system of heavily armed guards would -insure delivery of my applications, I had little anticipation -of any answers. As a matter of fact I put it pretty well out -of my mind, dredging it up at rarer intervals, always a trifle -more embarrassed by my presumption.</p> - -<p>It was several months later, toward the end of September, -that the telegram came signed Thomas K Haggerwells. -It read, <span class="allsmcap">ACCEPT NO OFFER TILL OUR REPRESENTATIVE -EXPLAINS HAGGERSHAVEN</span>.</p> - -<p>I hadnt sent a copy of my letter to York, Pennsylvania, -where the telegram had originated, or anywhere near it. I -knew of no colleges in that vicinity. And I had never heard -of Mr (or Doctor or Professor) Haggerwells. I might have -thought the message a mean joke, except that Tyss’s nature -didnt run to such humor and no one else knew of the letters -except those to whom they were addressed.</p> - -<p>I found no reference to Haggershaven in any of the directories -I consulted, which wasnt too surprising considering -the slovenly way these were put together. I decided that -if such a place existed I could only wait patiently until the -“representative,” if there really was one, arrived.</p> - -<p>Tyss having left for the day, I swept a little, dusted some, -straightened a few of the books—any serious attempt to -arrange the stock would have been futile—and took up a -recent emendation of Creasy’s <i>Fifteen Decisive Battles</i> by -one Captain Eisenhower.</p> - -<p>I was so deep in the good captain’s analysis (he might -have made a respectable strategist himself, given an opportunity) -that I heard no customer enter, sensed no impatient -presence. I was only recalled from my book by a rather -sharp, “Is the proprietor in?”</p> - -<p>“No maam,” I answered, reluctantly abandoning the -page. “He’s out for the moment. Can I help you?”</p> - -<p>My eyes, accustomed to the store’s poor light, had the -advantage over hers, still adjusting from the sunlit street. -Secure in my audacity, I measured her vital femininity, a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> -quality which seemed, if such a thing is possible, impersonal. -There was nothing overtly bold or provocative about -her, though I’m sure my mother would have thinned her -lips at the black silk trousers and the jacket which emphasized -the contour of her breasts. At a time when women -used every device to call attention to their helplessness and -consequently their desirability and the implied need for -men to protect them, she carried an air which seemed to -say, Why yes, I am a woman: not furtively or brazenly or -incidentally but primarily; what are you going to do about -it?</p> - -<p>I recognized a sturdy sensuality as I recognized the fact -that she was bareheaded, almost as tall as I, and rather -large-boned; certainly there was nothing related to me -about it. Nor was it connected with surface attributes; she -was not beautiful and still further from being pretty, though -she might have been called handsome in a way. Her hair, -ginger-colored and clubbed low on her neck, waved crisply; -her eyes appeared slate gray. (Later I learned they could -vary from pale gray to blue-green.) The fleshly greediness -was betrayed, if at all, only by the width and set of her -lips, and that insolent expression.</p> - -<p>She smiled, and I decided I had been quite wrong in -thinking her tone peremptory. “I’m Barbara Haggerwells. -I’m looking for a Mr Backmaker”—she glanced at a slip -of paper—“a Hodgins M Backmaker who evidently uses -this as an accommodation address.”</p> - -<p>“I’m Hodge Backmaker,” I muttered in despair. “I—I -work here.” I was conscious of not having shaved that -morning, that my pants and jacket did not match, that my -shirt was not clean.</p> - -<p>I suppose I expected her to say nastily, So I see! or the -usual, It must be fascinating! Instead she said, “I wonder -if youve run across <i>The Properties of X</i> by Whitehead? Ive -been trying to get a copy for a long time.”</p> - -<p>“Uh—I.... Is it a mystery story?” -“I’m afraid not. It’s a book on mathematics by a mathematician -very much out of favor. It’s hard to find, I suppose -because the author is bolder than he is tactful.”</p> - -<p>So naturally and easily she led me away from my em<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span>barrassment -and into talking of books, relieving me of self-consciousness -and some of the mortification in being exposed -at my humble job by the “representative” of the telegram. -I admitted deficient knowledge of mathematics and -ignorance of Mr Whitehead though I maintained, accurately, -that the book was not in stock, while she assured me -that only a specialist would have heard of so obscure a -theoretician. This made me ask, with the awe one feels for -an expert in an alien field, if she were a mathematician, to -which she replied, “Heavens, no. I’m a physicist. But -mathematics is my tool.”</p> - -<p>I looked at her with respect. Anyone, I thought, can read -a few books and set himself up as an historian; to be a -physicist means genuine learning. And I doubted she was -much older than I.</p> - -<p>She said abruptly, “My father is interested in knowing -something about you.”</p> - -<p>I acknowledged this with something between a nod and -a bow. She had been examining and gauging me for the -past half hour. “Your father is Thomas Haggerwells?”</p> - -<p>“Haggerwells of Haggershaven,” she confirmed, as -though explaining everything. There was pride in her voice -and a hint of superciliousness.</p> - -<p>“I’m dreadfully sorry, Miss Haggerwells, but I’m afraid -I’m as ignorant of Haggershaven as of mathematics.”</p> - -<p>“I thought you said you’d been reading history. Odd -youve come upon no reference to the Haven in the records -of the past seventy-five years.”</p> - -<p>I shook my head helplessly. “I suppose my reading has -been scattered.” Her look indicated agreement but not -absolution. “Haggershaven is a college?”</p> - -<p>“No. Haggershaven is ... Haggershaven.” She resumed -her equanimity, her air of smiling tolerance. “It’s hardly a -college since it has no student body nor faculty. Rather, -both are one at the haven. Anyone admitted is a scholar -or potential scholar anxious to devote himself to learning. -I mean for its own sake. Not many are acceptable.”</p> - -<p>She need hardly have added this; it seemed obvious I -could not be one of the elect, even if I hadnt offended her -by never having heard of Haggershaven. I knew I couldnt<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span> -pass the most lenient of entrance examinations to ordinary -colleges, much less to the dedicated place she represented.</p> - -<p>“There arent any formal requirements for fellowship,” -she went on, “beyond the undertaking to work to full capacity, -to pool all knowledge and hold back none from -scholars anywhere, to contribute economically to the Haven -in accordance with decisions of the majority of fellows, and -to vote on questions without consideration of personal gain. -There! That certainly sounds like the stuffiest manifesto -delivered this year.”</p> - -<p>“It sounds too good to be true.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s true enough.” She moved close and I caught the -scent of her hair and skin. “But there’s another side. The -haven is neither wealthy nor endowed. We have to earn -our living. The fellows draw no stipend; they have food, -clothes, shelter, whatever books and materials they need—no -unessentials. We often have to leave our own individual -work to do manual labor to bring in food or money -for all.” -“Ive read of such communities,” I said enthusiastically. -“I thought they’d all disappeared fifty or sixty years ago.”</p> - -<p>“Have you and did you?” she asked contemptuously. -“Youll be surprised to learn that Haggershaven is neither -Owenite nor Fourierist. We are not fanatics nor saviors. -We don’t live in phalansteries, practice group marriage or -vegetarianism. Our organization is expedient, subject to -revision, not doctrinaire. Contribution to the common stock -is voluntary and we are not concerned with each other’s -private lives.”</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon, Miss Haggerwells. I didnt mean to -annoy you.”</p> - -<p>“It’s all right. Perhaps I’m touchy; all my life Ive seen -the squinty suspiciousness of the farmers all around, sure -we were up to something immoral, or at least illegal. Youve -no idea what a prickly armor you build around yourself -when you know that every yokel is cackling, ‘There goes -one of them; I bet they ...’ whatever unconventional practice -their imaginations can conceive at the moment. And -the parallel distrust of the respectable schools. Detachedly, -the haven may indeed be a refuge for misfits, but is it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span> -necessarily wrong not to fit into the civilization around us?”</p> - -<p>“I’m prejudiced. I certainly havent fitted in myself.”</p> - -<p>She didnt answer and I felt I had gone too far in daring -an impulsive identification. Awkwardness made me blurt -out further, “Do you ... do you think there’s any chance -Haggershaven would accept me?” Whatever reserve I’d -tried to maintain deserted me; my voice expressed only -childish longing.</p> - -<p>“I couldnt say,” she answered primly. “Acceptance or -rejection depends entirely on the vote of the whole fellowship. -All I’m here to offer is train fare. Neither you nor -the haven is bound.”</p> - -<p>“I’m perfectly willing to be bound,” I said fervently.</p> - -<p>“You may not be so rash after a few weeks.”</p> - -<p>I was about to reply when Little Aggie—so called to -distinguish her from Fat Aggie who was in much the same -trade, but more successful—came in. Little Aggie supplemented -her nocturnal earnings around Astor Place by begging -in the same neighborhood during the day.</p> - -<p>“Sorry, Aggie,” I said; “Mr Tyss didnt leave anything -for you.”</p> - -<p>“Maybe the lady would help a poor working girl down -on her luck,” she suggested, coming close. “My, that’s a -pretty outfit you have. Looks like real silk, too.”</p> - -<p>Barbara Haggerwells drew away with anger and loathing -on her face. “No,” she refused sharply. “No, nothing!” -She turned to me. “I must be going. I’ll leave you to entertain -your friend.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ll go,” said Little Aggie cheerfully, “no need to -get in an uproar. Bye-bye.”</p> - -<p>I was frankly puzzled; the puritanical reaction didnt -seem consistent. I would have expected condescending -amusement, disdainful tolerance or even haughty annoyance, -but not this furious aversion. “I’m sorry Little Aggie -bothered you. She’s really not a wicked character and she -does have a hard time getting along.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sure you must enjoy her company immensely. I’m -sorry we can’t offer similar attractions at the haven.”</p> - -<p>Apparently she thought my relations with Aggie were -professional. Even so her attitude was odd. I could hardly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span> -flatter myself she was interested in me as a man, yet her -flare-up seemed to indicate jealousy, a strange kind of jealousy, -perhaps like the sensuality I attributed to her, as -though the mere presence of another woman was an -affront.</p> - -<p>“Please don’t go yet. For one thing—” I cast around for -something to hold her till I could restore a more favorable -impression. “—for one thing you havent told me how -Haggershaven happened to get my application.” -She gave me a cold, angry look. “Even though we’re supposed -to be cranks, orthodox educators often turn such -letters over to us. After all, they may want to apply themselves -someday.”</p> - -<p>The picture this suddenly presented, of a serene academic -life which was not so serene and secure after all, but -prepared for a way to escape if necessary, was startling -to me. I had taken it for granted that our colleges, even -though they were far inferior to those of other countries, -were stable and sheltered.</p> - -<p>When I expressed something of this, she laughed. “Hardly. -The colleges have not only decayed, they have decayed -faster than other institutions. They are mere hollow shells, -ruined ornaments of the past. Instructors spy on each other -to curry favor with the trustees and assure themselves of -reappointment when the faculty is out periodically. Loyalty -is the touchstone, but no one knows any more what the -object of loyalty is supposed to be. Certainly it is no longer -toward learning, for that is the least of their concerns.”</p> - -<p>She slowly allowed herself to be coaxed back into her -previous mood, and again we talked of books. And now -I thought there was a new warmth in her voice and glance, -as though she had won some kind of victory, but how or -over whom there was no indication.</p> - -<p>When she left I hoped she was not too prejudiced against -me. For myself I readily admitted it would be easy enough -to want her—if one were not afraid of the humiliations it -was in her nature to inflict.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C10"><i>10.</i> <i>THE HOLDUP</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>This time I didnt offer Tyss two weeks’ notice. -“Well Hodgins, I made all the appropriate valedictory remarks -on a previous occasion, so I’ll not repeat them, except -to say the precision of the script is extraordinary.”</p> - -<p>It seemed to me he was saying in a roundabout way that -everything was for the best. For the first time I saw Tyss -as slightly pathetic rather than sinister; extreme pessimism -and vulgar optimism evidently met, like his circular time. -I smiled indulgently and thanked him sincerely for all his -kindness.</p> - -<p>In 1944 almost a hundred years had passed since New -York and eastern Pennsylvania were first linked in a railroad -network, yet I don’t suppose my journey differed -much in speed or comfort from one which might have been -taken by Granpa Hodgins’ father. The steam ferry carried -me across the Hudson to Jersey. I had heard there were -only financial, not technical obstacles to a bridge or tunnel. -If the English and French could burrow under the Channel, -as they had early in the century, and the Japanese -complete their great tube beneath the Korea Strait, it was -hard to see why a lesser work here was dismissed as the -impractical suggestion of dreamers who believed the cost -would be saved in a few years by running trains directly -to Manhattan.</p> - -<p>Nor was the ferry the only antique survival on the trip. -The cars were all ancient, obvious discards from Confederate -or British American lines. Flat wheels were common; -the wornout locomotives dragged them protestingly over<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span> -the wobbly rails and uneven roadbed. First class passengers -sat on napless plush or grease-glazed straw seats; second -class passengers stood in the aisles or on the platforms; -third class rode the roofs—safe enough at the low speed -except for sudden jerks or jolts.</p> - -<p>There were so many different lines, each jealous of exclusive -rights of way, that the traveler hardly got used to -his particular car before he had to snatch up his baggage -and hustle for the connecting train, which might be on -the same track or at the same sooty depot, but was more -likely to be a mile away. Even the adjective “connecting” -was often ironical for it was not unusual to find time-tables -arranged so a departure preceded an arrival by minutes, -necessitating a stopover of anywhere from one hour -to twelve.</p> - -<p>If anything could have quieted my excitement on the -trip it was the view through the dirt-sprayed windows. -“Fruitless” and “unfulfilled” were the words coming oftenest -to my mind. I had forgotten during the past six years -just how desolate villages and towns could look when their -jerrybuilt structures were sunk in apathetic age without -even the false rejuvenation of newer jerrybuilding. I had -forgotten the mildewed appearance of tenant farmhouses, -the unconvincing attempt to appear businesslike of false-fronted -stores with clutters of hopeless merchandise in their -dim windows, or the inadequate bluff of factories too small -for any satisfactory production.</p> - -<p>Once away from New York it was clear how atypical -the city was in its air of activity and usefulness. The countryside -through which the tracks ran, between fields and -pastures or down the center of main streets, should have -been the industrial heart of a country bustling and vigorous. -Instead one saw potentialities denied, projects withered, -poverty and dilapidation.</p> - -<p>We crossed the Susquehanna on an old, old stone bridge -that made one think of Meade’s valiant men, bloodily -bandaged many of them, somnambulistically marching -northward, helpless and hopeless after the Confederate triumph -at Gettysburg, their only thought to escape Jeb Stuart’s -pursuing cavalry. Indeed, every square mile now<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span> -carried on its surface an almost visible weight of historical -memories.</p> - -<p>York seemed old, gray and crabbed in the afternoon, but -when I got off the train there I was too agitated with the -prospect of being soon at Haggershaven to take any strong -impression of the town. I inquired the way, and the surly -response confirmed Barbara Haggerwells’ statement of -local animosity. The distance, if my informant was accurate, -was a matter of some ten miles.</p> - -<p>I started off down the highway, building and demolishing -daydreams, thinking of Tyss and Tirzah, Enfandin and -Miss Haggerwells, trying to picture her father and the -fellows of the haven and for the thousandth time marshaling -arguments for my acceptance in the face of scornful -scrutiny. The early October sun was setting on the rich -red and yellow leaves of the maples and oaks; I knew the -air would become chilly before long, but exertion kept me -warm. I counted on arriving at the haven in plenty of time -to introduce myself before bedtime.</p> - -<p>Less than a mile out of town the highway assumed the -familiar aspect of the roads around Wappinger Falls and -Poughkeepsie: rutted, wavering, with deep, unexpected -holes. The stone or rail fences on either side enclosed -harvested cornfields, the broken stalks a dull brass with -copper-colored pumpkins scattered through them. But the -fences were in poor repair and the oft-mended wooden -covered bridges over the creeks all had signs, DANGEROUS, -Travel At Your Own Risk.</p> - -<p>There were few to share the highway with me: a farmer -with an empty wagon, urging his team on and giving me a -churlish glance instead of an invitation to ride; a horseman -on an elegant chestnut picking his course carefully -among the chuckholes, and a few tramps, each bent on his -solitary way, at once defensive and aggressive. The condition -of the bridges accounted for the absence of minibiles. -However, just about twilight a closed carriage, complete -with coachman and footman on the box, rolled haughtily -by, stood for a moment outlined atop the slope up which I -was trudging and then disappeared down the other side.</p> - -<p>I paid little attention except—remembering my boyhood<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span> -and my father’s smithy—to visualize automatically the -coachman pulling back on the reins and the footman thrusting -forward with the brake as they eased the horses downward. -So when I heard first a shout and then feminine -screams my instant conclusion was that the carriage had -overturned on the treacherous downgrade, broken an axle, -or otherwise suffered calamity.</p> - -<p>My responsive burst of speed had almost carried me to -the top when I heard the shots. First one, like the barking -of an uncertain dog, followed by a volley, as though the -pack were unleashed.</p> - -<p>I ran to the side of the road, close to the field, where I -could see with less chance of being seen. Already the dusk -was playing tricks, distorting the shape of some objects -and momentarily hiding others. It could not however falsify -the scene in the gully below. Four men on horseback covered -the carriage with drawn revolvers; a fifth, pistol also -in hand, had dismounted. His horse, reins hanging down, -was peacefully investigating the roadside weeds.</p> - -<p>None of them attempted to stop the terrified rearing of -the carriage team. Only their position, strung across the -road, prevented a runaway. I could not see the footman, -but the coachman, one hand still clutching the reins, was -sprawled backward with his foot caught against the dashboard -and his head hanging down over the wheel.</p> - -<p>The door on the far side was swung open. I thought for -a moment the passengers had managed to escape. However -as the unmounted highwayman advanced, waving his -pistol, the other door opened and a man and two women -descended into the roadway. Slowly edging forward I -could now plainly hear the gang’s obscene whistles at sight -of the women.</p> - -<p>“Well boys, here’s something to warm up a cold night. -Hang on to them while I see what the mister has in his -pockets.”</p> - -<p>The gentleman stepped in front, and with a slight accent -said, “Take the girl by all means. She is but a peasant, a -servant, and may afford you amusement. But the lady is -my wife; I will pay you a good ransom for her and myself.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span> -I am Don Jaime Escobar y Gallegos, attached to the Spanish -legation.”</p> - -<p>One of the men on horseback said, “Well now, that’s real -kind of you, Don High-me. We might have taken you up -on that, was you an American. But we can’t afford no company -of Spanish Marines coming looking for us, so I guess -we’ll have to pass up the ransom and settle for whatever -youve got handy. And Missus Don and the hired girl. Don’t -worry about her being a peasant; we’ll treat her and the -madam exactly the same.”</p> - -<p>“Madre de Dios,” screamed the lady. “Mercy!”</p> - -<p>“It will be a good ransom,” said the Spaniard, “and I -give you my word my government will not bother you.”</p> - -<p>“Sorry, chum,” returned the gangster. “You foreigners -have a nasty habit of interfering with our domestic institutions -and hanging men who make a living this way. Just -can’t trust you.”</p> - -<p>The man on foot took a step forward. The nearest rider -swung the maid up before him and another horseman -reached for her mistress. Again she screamed; her husband -brushed the hand aside and put his wife behind him. -At that the gangster raised his pistol and shot twice. The -man and woman dropped to the ground. The maid shrieked -till her captor covered her mouth.</p> - -<p>“Now what did you want to do that for? Cutting our -woman supply in half that way?”</p> - -<p>“Sorry. Mighty damn sorry. These things always happen -to me.”</p> - -<p>Meanwhile another of the gang slid off his horse and -the two went through the dead, stripping them of jewelry -and whatever articles of clothing caught their fancy before -searching the luggage and the coach itself for valuables. -By the time they had finished it was fully dark and -I had crept to within a few feet of them, crouching reasonably -secure and practically invisible while they debated -what to do with the horses. One faction was in favor of -taking them along for spare mounts; the other, arguing -that they were too easily identifiable, for cutting them out -and turning them loose. The second group prevailing, they -at last galloped away.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span></p> - -<p>A sudden thrashing in the cornstalks just beyond the -fence startled me into rigidity. Something which might be -human stumbled and crawled toward the carriage, snuffling -and moaning, to throw itself down by the prostrate bodies, -its anguished noises growing more high-pitched and chilling.</p> - -<p>I was certain this must be a passenger who had jumped -from the off-side of the carriage at the start of the holdup, -but whether man or woman it was impossible to tell. I -moved forward gingerly, but somehow I must have betrayed -my presence, for the creature, with a terrified groan, -slumped inertly.</p> - -<p>My hands told me it was a woman I raised from the -ground and the smell of her was the smell of a young girl. -“Don’t be afraid, Miss,” I tried to reassure her; “I’m a -friend.”</p> - -<p>I could hardly leave the girl lying in the road, nor did -I feel equal to carrying her to Haggershaven which I reckoned -must be about six miles further. I tried shaking her, -rubbing her hands, murmuring encouragement, all the -while wishing the moon would come up, feeling somehow it -would be easier to revive her in the moonlight.</p> - -<p>“Miss,” I urged, “get up. You can’t stay here—they may -come back.” -Had I reached her? She stirred, whimpering with strange, -muffled sounds. I dragged her to her knees and managed -to get her arm over my shoulder. “Get up,” I repeated. -“Get on your feet.”</p> - -<p>She moaned. I pulled her upright and adjusted my hold. -Supporting her around the waist and impeded by my valise, -I began an ungraceful, shuffling march. I could only -guess at how much time had been taken up by the holdup -and how slow our progress would be. It didnt seem likely -we could get to Haggershaven before midnight, an awkward -hour to explain the company of a strange girl. The -possibility of leaving her at a hospitable farmhouse was -remote; no isolated rural family in times like these would -open their door with anything but deep suspicion or a -shotgun blast.</p> - -<p>We had made perhaps a mile, a slow and arduous one,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span> -when the moon rose at last. It was full and bright, and -showed my companion to be even younger than I had -thought. The light fell on masses of curling hair, wildly -disarrayed about a face unnaturally pale and lifeless yet -extraordinarily beautiful. Her eyes were closed in a sort of -troubled sleep, and she continued to moan, though at less -frequent intervals.</p> - -<p>I had just decided to stop for a moment’s rest when we -came upon one of the horses. The clumsily cut traces -trailing behind him had caught on the stump of a broken -sapling. Though still trembling he was over the worst of his -fright; after patting and soothing him I got us onto his -back and we proceeded in more comfortable if still not -too dignified fashion.</p> - -<p>It wasnt hard to find Haggershaven; the sideroad to it -was well kept and far smoother than the highway. We -passed between what looked to be freshly plowed fields -and came to a fair sized group of buildings, in some of -which I was pleased to see lighted windows. The girl had -still not spoken; her eyes remained closed and she moaned -occasionally.</p> - -<p>Dogs warned of our approach. From a dark doorway a -figure came forward with a rifle under his arm. “Who is it?”</p> - -<p>“Hodge Backmaker. Ive got a girl here who was in a -holdup. She’s had a bad shock.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” he said, “let me hitch the horse. Then I’ll -help you with the girl. My name’s Dorn. Asa Dorn.”</p> - -<p>I slid off and lifted the girl down. “I couldnt leave her -in the road,” I offered in inane apology.</p> - -<p>“I’ll water and feed the horse after. Let’s go into the -main kitchen; it’s warm there. Here,” he addressed the girl, -“take my arm.”</p> - -<p>She made no response and I half carried her, with Dorn -trying helpfully to share her weight. The building through -which we led her was obviously an old farmhouse, enlarged -and remodelled a number of times. Gaslights of a -strange pattern, brighter than any I’d ever seen, revealed -Asa Dorn as perhaps thirty with very broad shoulders and -very long arms, and a dark, rather melancholy face. -“There’s a gang been operating around here,” he informed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span> -me; “tried to shake the haven down for a contribution. -That’s why I was on guard with the gun. Must be the -same bunch.”</p> - -<p>We bustled our charge into a chair before a big fieldstone -fireplace which gave the large room its look of welcome, -though the even heat came from sets of steampipes under -the windows. “Should we give her some soup? Or tea? Or -shall I get Barbara or one of the other women?”</p> - -<p>His fluttering brushed the outside of my mind. Here in -the light I instinctively expected to see some faint color in -the girl’s cheeks or hands, but there was none. She looked -no more than sixteen, perhaps because she was severely -dressed in some school uniform. Her hair, which had -merely been a disordered frame for her face in the moonlight, -now showed itself as deeply black, hanging in thick, -soft curls around her shoulders. Her features, which seemed -made to reflect emotions—full, mobile lips, faintly slanted -eyes, high nostrils—were instead impassive, devoid of vitality, -and this unnatural quiescence was heightened by the -dark eyes, now wide open and expressionless. Her mouth -moved slowly, as though to form words, but nothing came -forth except the faintest of guttural sounds.</p> - -<p>“She’s trying to say something.” I leaned forward as -though by sympathetic magic to help the muscles which -seemed to respond with such difficulty.</p> - -<p>“Why,” exclaimed Dorn, “she’s ... dumb!”</p> - -<p>She looked agonizedly toward him. I patted her arm -helplessly.</p> - -<p>“I’ll go get—” he began.</p> - -<p>A door opened and Barbara Haggerwells blinked at us. -“I thought I heard someone ride up, Ace. Do you suppose....” -Then she caught sight of the girl. Her face set in -those lines of strange anger I had seen in the bookstore.</p> - -<p>“Miss Haggerwells—” -“Barbara—” -Dorn and I spoke together. Either she did not hear us -or we made no impression. She faced me in offended outrage. -“Really, Mr Backmaker, I thought I’d explained there -were no facilities here for this sort of thing.”</p> - -<p>“You misunderstand,” I said, “I happened—”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span> -Dorn broke in. “Barbara, she’s been in a holdup. She’s -dumb....”</p> - -<p>Fury made her ugly. “Is that an additional attraction?”</p> - -<p>“Miss Haggerwells,” I tried again, “you don’t understand—” -“I think I understand very well. Dumb or not, get the -slut out of here! Get her out right now, I say!”</p> - -<p>“Barbara, youre not listening—” -She continued to face me, her back to him. “I should -have remembered you were a ladies’ man, Mr Self-taught -Backmaker. No doubt you imagined Haggershaven to be -some obscene liberty hall. Well, it isnt! You’d be wasting -any further time you spent here. Get out!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C11"><i>11.</i> <i>OF HAGGERSHAVEN</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>I suppose—recalling the inexplicable scene with -Little Aggie—I was less astonished by her frenzy than I -might have been. Besides, her rage and misunderstanding -were anticlimactic after the succession of excitements I had -been through that day. Instead of amazement I felt only -uneasiness and tired annoyance.</p> - -<p>Dorn steered Barbara out of the room with a combination -of persuasion and gentle force disguised as solicitous -soothing, leaving the girl and me alone. “Well,” I said, -“well....”</p> - -<p>The large eyes regarded me helplessly.</p> - -<p>“Well, youve certainly caused me a lot of trouble....”</p> - -<p>Dorn returned with two women, one middleaged, the -other slightly younger, who flowed around the girl like -soapy water, effectually sealing her away from all further -masculine blunders, uttering little bubbly clucks and sudsy -comfortings.</p> - -<p>“Overwork, Backmaker,” Dorn mumbled. “Barbara’s -been overworking terribly. You mustnt think—” -“I don’t,” I said. “I’m just sorry she couldnt be made to -realize what actually happened.”</p> - -<p>“Hypersensitive; things that wouldnt ordinarily ... -it’s overwork. Youve no idea. She wears herself out. Practically -no nerves left.”</p> - -<p>His face, pleading for understanding, looked even more -melancholy than before. I felt sorry for him and slightly -superior; at the moment at least I didnt have to apologize -for any female unpredictability. “OK, OK; there doesnt<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span> -seem to be any great harm done. And the girl appears to -be in good hands now.”</p> - -<p>“Oh she is,” he answered with evident relief at dropping -the subject of Barbara’s behavior. “I don’t think there’s -anything more we can do for her now; in fact I’d say we’re -only in the way. How about meeting Mr Haggerwells now?”</p> - -<p>“Why not?” The last episode had doubtless finished me -for good so far as Barbara was concerned; whatever neutral -report she might have given her father originally could -now be counted on for a damning revision. I might as well -put a nonchalant face on matters before returning to the -world outside Haggershaven.</p> - -<p>Thomas Haggerwells, large-boned like his daughter, -with the ginger hair faded, and a florid, handsome complexion, -made me welcome. “Historian ay, Backmaker? -Delighted. Combination of art and science; Clio, most -enigmatic of the muses. The ever-changing past, ay?”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid I’m no historian yet, Mr Haggerwells. I’d -like to be one. If Haggershaven will let me be part of it.”</p> - -<p>He patted me on the shoulder. “The fellows will do what -they can, Backmaker; you can trust them.”</p> - -<p>“That’s right,” said Dorn cheerfully; “you look strong -as an ox and historians can be kept happy with books and -a few old papers.”</p> - -<p>“Ace is our cynic,” explained Mr Haggerwells; “very -useful antidote to some of our soaring spirits.” He looked -absently around and then said abruptly, “Ace, Barbara -is quite upset.”</p> - -<p>I thought this extreme understatement, but Dorn merely -nodded. “Misunderstanding, Mr H.”</p> - -<p>“So I gathered.” He gave a short, selfconscious laugh. -“In fact that’s all I did gather. She said something about a -woman....”</p> - -<p>“Girl, Mr H, just a girl.” He gave a quick outline of -what had happened, glossing over Barbara’s hysterical -welcome.</p> - -<p>“I see. Quite an adventure in the best tradition, ay Backmaker? -And the victims killed in cold blood; makes you -wonder about civilization. Savagery all around us.” He -began pacing the flowered carpet. “Naturally we must help<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span> -the poor creature. Shocking, quite shocking. But how can -I explain to Barbara? She ... she came to me,” he said -half proudly, half apprehensively. “I wouldnt want to fail -her; I hardly know....” He pulled himself together. “Excuse -me, Backmaker. My daughter is high-strung. I fear -I’m allowing concern to interfere with our conversation.”</p> - -<p>“Not at all, sir,” I said. “I’m very tired; if you’ll excuse -me....”</p> - -<p>“Of course, of course,” he answered gratefully. “Ace -will show you your room. Sleep well—we’ll talk more tomorrow. -And Ace—come back here afterward, will you?” -Barbara Haggerwells had both Dorn and her father well -cowed, I thought as I lay awake. Clearly she could brook -not even the suspicion of rivalry, even when it was entirely -imaginary. It would be rather frightening to be her father, -or—as I suspected Ace might be—her lover, and subject -to her tyrannical dominance.</p> - -<p>But it was neither Barbara nor overstimulation from the -full day which caused my insomnia. A torment, successfully -suppressed for hours, invaded me. Connecting the -trip of the Escobars—“attached to the Spanish legation”—with -the counterfeit pesetas was pure fantasy. But what is -logic? I could not argue myself into reasonableness. I could -not quench my feeling of responsibility with ridicule nor -convincingly charge myself with perverse conceit in magnifying -my trivial errands into accountability for all that -flowed from the Grand Army—for much which might have -flowed from the Grand Army. Guilty men cannot sleep because -they feel guilty. It is the feeling, not the abstract guilt -which keeps them awake.</p> - -<p>Nor could I pride myself on my chivalry in rescuing distressed -maidens. I had only done what was unavoidable, -grudgingly, without warmth or charity. There was no point -in being aggrieved by Barbara’s misinterpretation with its -disastrous consequences to my ambitions. I had not freely -chosen to help; I had no right to resent a catastrophe which -should properly have followed a righteous choice.</p> - -<p>At last I slept, only to dream Barbara Haggerwells was -a great fish pursuing me over endless roads on which my -feet bogged in clinging, tenacious mud. Opening my mouth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span> -to shout for help was useless; nothing came forth but a -croak which sounded faintly like my mother’s favorite -“Gumption!”</p> - -<p>In the clear autumn morning my notions of the night -dwindled, even if they failed to disappear entirely. By the -time I was dressed Ace Dorn showed up; we went to the -kitchen where Ace introduced me to a middleaged man, -Hiro Agati, whose close-cut stiff black hair stood perfectly -and symmetrically erect all over his head.</p> - -<p>“Dr Agati’s a chemist,” remarked Ace, “condemned to -be head chef for a while on account of being too good a -cook.”</p> - -<p>“Believe that,” said Agati, “and you’ll believe anything. -Truth is they always pick on chemists for hard work. -Physicists like Ace never soil their hands. Well, so long as -you can’t eat with the common folk, what’ll you have, eggs -or eggs?”</p> - -<p>Agati was the first Oriental I’d ever seen. The great anti-Chinese -massacres of the 1890’s, which generously included -Japanese and indeed all with any sign of the epicanthic -eyefold, had left few Asians to have descendants in -the United States. I’m afraid I stared at him more than was -polite, but he was evidently used to such rudeness for he -paid no attention.</p> - -<p>“They finally got the girl to sleep,” Ace informed me. -“Had to give her opium. No report yet this morning.”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” I said lamely, conscious I should have asked after -her without waiting for him to volunteer the news. “Oh. -Do you suppose we’ll find out who she is?”</p> - -<p>“Mr H telegraphed the sheriff first thing. It’ll all depend -how interested he is, and that’s not likely to be very. -What’s to drink, Hiro?”</p> - -<p>“Imitation tea, made from dried weeds; imitation coffee -made from burnt barley. Which’ll you have?”</p> - -<p>I didnt see why he stressed the imitation; genuine tea -and coffee were drunk only by the very rich. Most people -preferred “tea” because it was less obnoxious than the -counterfeit coffee. Perversely, I said, “Coffee please.”</p> - -<p>He set a large cup of brown liquid before me which had -a tantalizing fragrance quite different from that given off<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span> -by the beverage I was used to. I added milk and tasted, -aware he was watching my reaction.</p> - -<p>“Why,” I exclaimed, “this is different. I never had anything -like it in my life. It’s wonderful.”</p> - -<p>“C eight H ten O two,” said Agati with an elaborate air -of indifference. “Synthetic. Specialty of the house.”</p> - -<p>“So chemists are good for something after all,” remarked -Ace.</p> - -<p>“Give us a chance,” said Agati; “we could make beef -out of wood and silk out of sand.”</p> - -<p>“Youre a physicist like B—like Miss Haggerwells?” I -asked Ace.</p> - -<p>“I’m a physicist, but not like Barbara. No one is. She’s -a genius. A great creative genius.”</p> - -<p>“Chemists create,” said Agati sourly; “physicists sit -and think about the universe.”</p> - -<p>“Like Archimedes,” said Ace.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>How shall I write of Haggershaven as my eyes first saw -it twenty-two years ago? Of the rolling acres of rich plowed -land, interrupted here and there by stone outcroppings -worn smooth and round by time, and trees in woodlots or -standing alone strong and unperturbed? Of the main building, -grown by fits and starts from the original farmhouse -into a great, rambling eccentricity stopping short of monstrosity -only by its complete innocence of pretense? Shall -I describe the two dormitories, severely functional, escaping -harshness because they had not been built by carpenters -and though sturdy enough, betrayed the amateur touch -in every line? Or the cottages and apartments, two, four, at -most six rooms, for the married fellows and their families? -These were scattered all over, some so avid for privacy -that one could pass unknowing within feet of the concealing -trees or shrubbery, others bold in the sunshine on -knolls or in hollows.</p> - -<p>I could tell of the small shops, the miniature laboratories, -the inadequate observatory, the heterogeneous assortment -of books which was both less and more than a library, the -dozens of outbuildings. But these things were not the -haven. They were merely the least of its possessions. For<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span> -Haggershaven was not a material place at all, but a spiritual -freedom. Its limits were only the limits of what its fellows -could do or think or inquire. It was circumscribed only by -the outside world, not by internal rules and taboos, competition -or curriculum.</p> - -<p>Most of this I could see for myself, much of it was explained -by Ace. “But how can you afford the time to take -me all around this way?” I asked; “I must be interfering -with your own work.”</p> - -<p>He grinned. “This is my period to be guide, counselor -and friend to those whove strayed in here, wittingly or un. -Don’t worry, after youre a fellow youll get told off for all -the jobs, from shoveling manure to gilding weathercocks.”</p> - -<p>I sighed. “The chances of my getting to be a fellow are -minus nothing. Especially after last night.”</p> - -<p>He didnt pretend to misunderstand. “Barbara’ll come -out of it. She’s not always that way. As her father says, -she’s high-strung, and she’s been working madly. And to -tell the truth,” he went on in a burst of frankness, “she -really doesnt get on too well with other women. She has a -masculine mind.”</p> - -<p>I have often noticed that men not strikingly brilliant -themselves attribute masculine minds to intelligent women -on the consoling assumption that feminine minds are normally -inferior. Ace however was manifestly innocent of -any attempt to patronize.</p> - -<p>“Anyway,” he concluded, “she has only one vote.”</p> - -<p>I didnt know whether to take this as a pledge of support -or mere politeness. “Isnt it wasteful, assigning a chemist -like Dr Agati to kitchen work? Or isnt he a good chemist?”</p> - -<p>“Just about the best there is. His artificial tea and coffee -would bring a fortune to the haven if there were a profitable -market; even as it is it’ll bring a good piece of change. -Wasteful? What would you have us do, hire cooks and -servants?”</p> - -<p>“Theyre cheap enough.”</p> - -<p>“Or frightfully expensive. Specialization, the division of -labor, is certainly not cheap in anything but dollars and -cents, and not always then. And it’s unquestionably waste<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span>ful -in terms of equality. And I don’t think there’s anyone -at the haven who isn’t an egalitarian.”</p> - -<p>“But you do specialize and divide labor. Don’t tell me -you swap your physics for Agati’s chemistry.”</p> - -<p>“In a way we do. Of course I don’t set up as an experimenter, -any more than he does as a speculator. But there -have been plenty of times Ive worked under his direction -when he needed an assistant who didnt know anything but -had a strong back.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” I said; “but I still don’t see why you can’t -hire a cook and some dishwashers.”</p> - -<p>“Where would our equality be then? What would happen -to our fellowship?”</p> - -<p>Haggershaven’s history, which I got little by little, was -more than a link with the past; it was a possible hint of -what might have been if the War of Southron Independence -had not interrupted the American pattern. Barbara’s -great-great-grandfather, Herbert Haggerwells, had been a -Confederate major from North Carolina who, as conquerors -sometimes do, had fallen in love with the then fat Pennsylvania -countryside. After the war he had put everything—not -much by Southron standards, but a fortune in depreciated, -soon to be repudiated, United States greenbacks—into -the farm which later formed the nucleus of -Haggershaven. Then he married a local girl and transformed -himself into a Northerner.</p> - -<p>Until I became too accustomed to notice it anymore I -used to stare at his portrait in the library, picturing in idle -fancy a possible meeting on the battlefield between this -aristocratic gentleman with his curling mustache and daggerlike -imperial and my own plebian Granpa Hodgins. -But the chance of their ever having come face to face was -much more than doubtful; I, who had studied both their -likenesses, was the only link between them.</p> - -<p>“Hard looking character, ay?” commented Ace. “This -was painted when he was mellow; imagine him twenty -years earlier. Pistols cocked and Juvenal or Horace or -Seneca in the saddlebags.”</p> - -<p>“He was a cavalry officer, then?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. Don’t think so as a matter of fact. Saddle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>bags -was just my artistic touch. They say he was a holy -terror; discipline and all that—it sort of goes with a man -on horseback. And the old Roman boys are pure deduction; -he was that type. Patronized several writers and -artists; you know: ‘Drop down to my estate and stay a -while’ and they stayed five or ten years.” -But it was Major Haggerwells’ son who, seeing the deterioration -of Northern colleges, had invited a few restive -scholars to make their home with him. They were free to -pursue their studies under an elastic arrangement which -permitted them to be selfsupporting through work on the -farm.</p> - -<p>Thomas Haggerwells’ father had organized the scheme -further, attracting a larger number of schoolmen who contributed -greatly to the material progress of the haven. They -patented inventions, marketless at home, which brought -regular royalties from more industrialized countries. Agronomists -improved the haven’s crops and took in a steady -income from seed. Chemists found ways of utilizing otherwise -wasted byproducts; proceeds from scholarly works—and -one more popular than scholarly—added to the funds. -In his will, Volney Haggerwells left the properties to the -fellowship.</p> - -<p>I suppose I expected there would be some uniformity, -some basic type characterizing the fellows. Not that Barbara, -or Ace, or Hiro Agati resembled a stereotype at any -point, any more than I did myself, but then I was not one -of the elect nor likely to be. Even after I had met more than -half of them the notion persisted that there must be some -stamp on them proclaiming what they were.</p> - -<p>Yet as I wandered about the haven, alone or with Ace, -the people I met were quite diverse, more so by far than -in the everyday world. There were the ebullient and the -glum, the talkative and the laconic, the bustling and the -slow-moving. Some were part of a family, others lived -ascetically, withdrawn from the pleasures of the flesh.</p> - -<p>In the end I realized there was, if not a similarity, a -strong bond. The fellows, conventional or eccentric, passionate -or reserved, were all earnest, purposeful and, despite -individual variations, tenacious. They were, though<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span> -I hesitate to use so emotional a word, dedicated. The cruel -struggle and suspicion, the frantic endeavor to improve -one’s own financial, social, or political standing by maiming -or destroying someone else intent on the same endeavor -was either unknown or so subdued as to be imperceptible -at the haven. Disagreements and jealousies existed, but -they were different in kind rather than in degree from those -to which I had been accustomed all my life. The pervasive -fears which fostered the latter, the same fears which made -lotteries and indenture frantic gambles to escape the wretchedness -of life, could not circulate in the security of the -haven.</p> - -<p>After the scene at my arrival, I didnt see Barbara again -for some ten days. Even then it was but a glimpse, caught -as she hurried in one direction and I sauntered in another. -She threw me a single frigid glance and went on. Later, I -was talking with Mr Haggerwells, who had proved to be -not quite an amateur of history but more than a dabbler, -when, without knocking, she burst into the room.</p> - -<p>“Father, I—” Then she caught sight of me. “Sorry. I -didnt know you were entertaining.”</p> - -<p>His tone was that of one found in a guilty act. “Come in, -come in, Barbara. Backmaker is after all something of a -protégé of yours. Urania, you know—if one may stretch -the ascription a bit—encouraging Clio.” -“Really, Father!” She was regal. Wounded, scornful, but -majestic. “I’m sure I don’t know enough about self-taught -pundits to sponsor them. It seems too bad they have to -waste your time—” -He flushed. “Please, Barbara. You must, you really -must control....”</p> - -<p>Her disapproval became open anger. “Must I? Must I? -And stand by while every pretentious swindler usurps your -attention? Oh, I don’t ask for any special favors as your -daughter; I know too well I have none coming. But I -should think at least the consideration due a fellow of the -haven would prompt ordinary courtesy even where no -natural affection exists!”</p> - -<p>“Barbara, please.... Oh, my dear girl, how can -you ...?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span></p> - -<p>But she was gone, leaving him distressed and me puzzled. -Not at her lack of restraint but at her accusation that -he lacked a father’s love for her. Nothing was clearer than -his pride in her or his protective, baffled tenderness. It did -not seem possible so willful a misunderstanding could be -maintained.</p> - -<p>“You can’t judge Barbara by ordinary standards,” insisted -Ace uncomfortably, when I told him what had happened.</p> - -<p>“I’m not judging her by any standards or at all,” I said; -“I just don’t see how anyone could get things so wrong.”</p> - -<p>“She.... Her nature needs sympathy. Lots of it. She’s -never had the understanding and encouragement she ought -to have.”</p> - -<p>“It looks the other way around to me.”</p> - -<p>“That’s because you don’t know the background. She’s -always been lonely. From childhood. Her mother was impatient -of children and never found time for her.”</p> - -<p>“How do you know?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Why ... she told me, of course.”</p> - -<p>“And you believed her. Without corroborative evidence. -Is that what’s called the scientific attitude?”</p> - -<p>He stopped stock-still. “Look here, Backmaker—” a -moment before I had been Hodge to him—“Look here, -Backmaker, I’m damned tired of all the things people say -about Barbara; the jeers and sneers and gossip by people -who just aren’t good enough to breathe the same air with -her, much less have the faintest notion of her mind and -spirit—” -“Come off it, Ace,” I interrupted. “I havent got anything -against Barbara. The shoe is on the other foot. Tell -her I’m all right, will you? Don’t waste time trying to convince -me; I’m just trying to get along.”</p> - -<p>It was clear, not only from the slips which evaded Ace’s -guard, but from less restrained remarks by other fellows, -that Barbara’s tortured jealousy was a fixture of her character. -She had created feuds, slandered and reviled fellows -who had been guilty of nothing except trying to interest her -father in some project in which she herself was not concerned. -I learned much more also, much Ace had no desire<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span> -to convey. But he was a poor hand at concealing anything, -and it was clear he was helplessly subject to her, but without -the usual kindly anesthetic of illusion. I guessed he had -enjoyed her favors, but she evidently didnt bother to hide -the fact that the privilege was not exclusive; perhaps indeed -she insisted on his knowing. I gathered she was a fiercely -moral polyandrist, demanding absolute fidelity without -offering the slightest hope of reciprocal singlemindedness.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C12"><i>12.</i> <i>MORE OF HAGGERSHAVEN</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>Among the fellows was an Oliver Midbin, a -student of what he chose to call the new and revolutionary -science of Emotional Pathology. Tall and thin, with an incongruous -little potbelly like an enlarged and far-slipped -adamsapple, he pounced on me as a ready-made and captive -audience for his theories.</p> - -<p>“Now this case of pseudo-aphonia—” -“He means the dumb girl,” explained Ace, aside.</p> - -<p>“Nonsense. Dumbness is not even the statement of a -symptom, but a very imperfect description. Pseudo-aphonia. -Purely of an emotional nature. Of course if you -take her to some medical quack he’ll convince himself -and you and certainly her that there’s an impairment, or -degeneration, or atrophy of the vocal cords—” -“I’m not the girl’s guardian, Mr Midbin—” -“Doctor. Philosophiae, Göttingen. Trivial matter.”</p> - -<p>“Excuse me, Dr Midbin. Anyway, I’m not her guardian -so I’m not taking her anywhere. But, just as a theoretical -question, suppose examination did reveal physical damage?”</p> - -<p>He appeared delighted, and rubbed his hands together. -“Oh, it would. I assure you it would. These fellows always -find what theyre looking for. If your disposition is sour -theyll find warts on your duodenum. In a postmortem. In a -postmortem. Whereas Emotional Pathology deals with the -sour disposition and lets the warts, if any, take care of -themselves. Matter is a function of the mind. People are -dumb or blind or deaf for a purpose. Now what purpose -can the girl have for muteness?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span></p> - -<p>“No conversation?” I suggested. I didnt doubt Midbin -was an authority, but his manner made flippancy almost -irresistible.</p> - -<p>“I shall find out,” he said firmly. “This is bound to be a -simpler maladjustment than Barbara’s—” -“Aw, come on,” protested Ace.</p> - -<p>“Nonsense, Dorn; obscurantic nonsense. Reticence is a -necessary ingredient of those medical ethics by which the -quacks conceal incompetence. Mumbo jumbo to keep the -layman from asking annoying questions. Priestly, not scientific -approach. Art and mystery of phlebotomy. Don’t -hold back knowledge; publish it to the world.”</p> - -<p>“I think Barbara wouldnt want her private thoughts -published to the world. You have to draw the line somewhere.”</p> - -<p>Midbin put his head on one side and looked at Ace as -though he were difficult to see. “Now that’s interesting, -Dorn,” he said; “I wonder what turns a seeker after knowledge -into a censor.”</p> - -<p>“Are you going to start exploring my emotional pathology -now?”</p> - -<p>“Not interesting enough; not nearly interesting enough. -Diagnosis while you wait; treatment in a few easy instalments. -Barbara now—there’s a really beautiful case. Beautiful -case; years of treatment and little sign of improvement. -Of course she wouldnt want her thoughts known. -Why? Because she’s happy with her hatred for her dead -mother. Shocking to Mrs Grundy; doubly ditto to Mister. -Exaggerated possessiveness toward her father makes her -miserable. Thoughts known, misery ventilated: shame, -condemnation, fie, fie. Her fantasy—” -“Midbin!”</p> - -<p>“Her fantasy of going back to childhood (fascinating; -adult employs infantile time-sequence, infantile magic, infantile -hatreds) in order to injure her mother is a sick -notion she cherishes the way a dog licks a wound. But -without analogous therapy. Ventilate it. Ventilate it. Now -this girl’s case is bound to be simpler. Younger if nothing -else. And nice, overt symptoms. Bring her around tomorrow -and we’ll begin.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span></p> - -<p>“Me?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Who else? Youre the only one she doesnt seem to -distrust.”</p> - -<p>It was annoying to have the girl’s puppylike devotion -observed and commented on. I realized she saw me as the -only connection, however tenuous, with a normal past; I -had assumed she would turn naturally after a few days to -the women who took such open pleasure in fussing over her -affliction. However she merely suffered their attentions; no -matter how I tried to avoid her she sought me out, running -to me with muted cries which should have been touching -but were only painful.</p> - -<p>Mr Haggerwells’ telegram to the sheriff’s office at York -had brought the reply that a deputy sheriff would visit the -haven “when time permitted.” He had also telegraphed the -Spanish legation who answered they knew no other Escobars -than Don Jaime and his wife. The girl might be a -servant or a stranger; it was no concern of His Most -Catholic Majesty.</p> - -<p>The school uniform made it unlikely she was a servant -but beyond this, little was deducible. She did not respond -to questions in either Spanish or English, and it was impossible -to tell if she understood their meaning, for her -blank expression remained unchanged. When offered pencil -and paper she handled them curiously, then let them -slide to the floor.</p> - -<p>I wondered briefly if perhaps her intelligence was slightly -subnormal, but this was met by a firm, even belligerent -denial from Midbin, whose conclusion was confirmed, at -least in my opinion, by her apparently excellent coordination, -her personal neatness and fastidiousness which were -far more delicate than any I’d been accustomed to.</p> - -<p>Midbin’s method of treatment smacked of the mystical. -His subjects were supposed to relax on a couch and say -whatever came into their minds. At least this was the clearest -part of the explanation he gave when I rebelliously -escorted the girl to his “office,” a large, bare room decorated -only by some old European calendars by the popular -academician, Picasso. The couch was a cot which Midbin -himself used more conventionally at night.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span></p> - -<p>“All right,” I said; “just how are you going to manage?”</p> - -<p>“Convince her everything’s all right and I’m not going -to hurt her.”</p> - -<p>“Sure,” I agreed. “Sure. Only: how?”</p> - -<p>He gave me one of his head-on-shoulder looks and -turned to the girl who waited apathetically, with downcast -eyes. “You lie down,” he suggested.</p> - -<p>“Me? I’m not dumb.”</p> - -<p>“Pretend you are. Lie down, close your eyes, say the -first thing on your tongue. Without stopping to think about -it.”</p> - -<p>“How can I say anything if I’m pretending to be dumb?” -Grudgingly I complied, fancying a faint look of curiosity -passing over the too-placid face. “‘No man bathes twice -in the same stream,’” I muttered.</p> - -<p>He made me repeat the performance several times, then -by pantomime urged her to imitate me. It was doubtful if -she understood; in the end we nudged her gently into the -required position. There was no question of relaxation; -she lay there warily, tense and stiff even with her eyes -closed.</p> - -<p>The whole business was so manifestly useless and absurd, -to say nothing of being undignified, that I was tempted -to walk out on it. Only ignoble calculation on Midbin’s -voting for my acceptance in the haven kept me there.</p> - -<p>Looking at the form stretched out so rigidly, I could not -but admit again that the girl was beautiful. But the admission -was dispassionate; the beauty was abstract and neutral, -the lovely young lines evoked no lust. I felt only vexation -because her plight kept me from the wonders of Haggershaven.</p> - -<p>“What good can this possibly do?” I burst out after ten -fruitless minutes. “Youre trying to find out why she can’t -talk and she can’t talk to tell you why she can’t talk.”</p> - -<p>“Science explores all methods of approach,” Midbin -answered loftily; “I’m searching for a technique which will -reach her. Bring her back tomorrow.”</p> - -<p>I swallowed my annoyance and started out. The girl -jumped up and pressed close to my side. Outdoors the air -was crisp; I felt her suppress a slight shiver. “Now I sup<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span>pose -I’ll have to take you where it’s warm or find a wrap -for you,” I scolded irritably. “I don’t know why I have to -be your nursemaid.”</p> - -<p>She whimpered very softly and I was remorseful. None -erf this was her fault; my callousness was inexcusable. But -if she could only attach herself to some other protector -and leave me alone....</p> - -<p>As one about to be banished I tried to cram everything -into short days. I realized that these autumn weeks, spent -in casual conversation or joining the familiar preparations -for rural winter, were a period of thorough and critical -probation. There was little I could do to sway the decision -beyond the exhibition of an honest willingness to turn to -whatever work needed doing, and to repeat, whenever the -opportunity offered, that Haggershaven was literally a revelation -to me, an island of civilization in the midst of a -chaotic and savage sea. My dream was to make a landfall -there.</p> - -<p>Certainly my meager background and scraps of reading -would not persuade the men and women of the haven; I -could only hope they might divine some promise in me. -Against this hope I put Barbara’s enmity, a hostility now -exacerbated by rage at Oliver Midbin for daring to devote -to another, particularly another woman, the attention which -had been her due, and the very technique used for her. I -knew her persistence and I could not doubt she would -move enough of the fellows to insure my rejection.</p> - -<p>The gang which had been operating in the vicinity, presumably -the same one I had encountered, moved on. At -least no further crimes were attributed to it. Once they -were gone, Deputy Sheriff Beasley finally found time to -visit Haggershaven in response to the telegram. He had -evidently been there before without attaining much respect -on either side. I got the distinct impression he would have -preferred a more formal examination than the one which -took place in Mr Haggerwells’ study, with fellows drifting -in and out, interrupting the proceedings with comments of -their own.</p> - -<p>I think he doubted the girl’s dumbness. He barked his -questions so loudly and brusquely they would have terri<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span>fied -a far more securely poised individual. She promptly -went into dry hysterics, whereupon he turned his attention -to me.</p> - -<p>I was apprehensive lest his questions explore my life -with Tyss and my connection with the Grand Army, but -apparently mere presence at Haggershaven indicated an -innocence not unrelated to idiocy, at least so far as the -more popular crimes were concerned. My passage of the -York road and all the events leading up to it were outside -his interest; he wanted only a succinct story of the holdup, -reminding me of the late Colonel Tolliburr in his assumption -that the lay eye ought normally to be photographic of -the minutest detail.</p> - -<p>He was clearly dissatisfied with my account and left -grumbling that it would be more to the point if bookworms -learned to identify a man properly, instead of logarithms -or trigonometry. I didn’t see exactly how this applied to me, -since I was laudably ignorant of both subjects.</p> - -<p>If Officer Beasley was disappointed, Midbin was enchanted. -Of course he had heard my narrative before, but -this was the first time he’d savored its possible impact on -the girl.</p> - -<p>“You see, her pseudo-aphonia is neither congenital nor -of long standing. All logic leads to the conclusion that it’s -the result of her terror during the experience. She must -have wanted to scream, it must have been almost impossible -for her not to scream, but for her very life she dared -not. The instinctive, automatic reaction was the one she -could not allow herself. She had to remain mute while she -watched the murders.”</p> - -<p>For the first time it seemed possible there was more to -Midbin than his garrulity.</p> - -<p>“She crushed back that natural, overwhelming impulse,” -he went on. “She had to; her life depended on it. It was an -enormous effort and the effect on her was in proportion; -she achieved her object too well; when it was safe for her -to speak again she couldnt.”</p> - -<p>It all sounded so plausible it was some time before I -thought to ask him why she didnt appear to understand<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span> -what we said, or why she didnt write anything when she -was handed pencil and paper.</p> - -<p>“Communication,” he answered. “She had to cut off -communication, and once cut off it’s not easy to restore. -At least that’s one aspect. Another is more tricky. The -holdup happened more than a month ago, but do you suppose -the affected mind reckons so precisely? Is a precise -reckoning possible? Duration may, for all we know, be an -entirely subjective thing. Yesterday for you may be today -for me. We recognize this to some extent when we speak of -hours passing slowly or quickly. The girl may still be undergoing -the agony of repressing her screams; the holdup, -the murders, are not in the past for her, but the present. -They are taking place in a long drawn out instant of time -which may never end during her life. And if this is so, is it -any wonder she is unable to relax, to let down her guard -long enough to realize that the present is present and the -crisis is past?”</p> - -<p>He pressed his middle thoughtfully. “Now, if it is possible -to recreate in her mind by stimulus from without -rather than by evocation from within the conditions leading -up to and through the climacteric, she would have a -chance to vent the emotions she was forced to swallow. -She might, I don’t say she would, she might speak again.”</p> - -<p>I understood such a process would necessarily be lengthy, -but as time passed I saw no indication he was reaching her -at all, much less that he was getting any results. One of -the Spanish-speaking fellows, a botanist who came and -went from the haven at erratic intervals, translated my -account of our meeting and read parts of it to the recumbent -girl, following Midbin’s excited stage directions and -interpolations. Nothing happened.</p> - -<p>Outside the futile duty of coaxing the girl to participate -in Midbin’s sessions I had no obligations except those I -took upon myself or could persuade others to delegate to -me. Hiro Agati declared me hopelessly incompetent to help -him in the kiln he had set up to make “hard glass,” a thick -substance he hoped might take the place of cast iron in -such things as woodstoves, or clay tile in flues. He conceded -I was not entirely useless in the small garden surrounding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span> -their cottage where he, Mrs Agati—an architect, much -younger than her husband and extremely diminutive—and -their three children spent their spare time transplanting, -rearranging, or preparing for the following season.</p> - -<p>Dr Agati was not only the first American Japanese I -had ever met; his was the first family I had known who -broke the unwritten rule of having only one child. Both he -and Kimi Agati seemed unaware of the stern injunctions -by Whigs and Populists alike that disaster would follow -if the population of the country increased too fast. Fumio -and Eiko didnt care, while Yoshio, at two, was just not -interested.</p> - -<p>The Agatis represented for me one more pang at the -thought of banishment from the haven. Since I knew -neither chemistry nor architecture, our conversation had -limits, but this was no drawback to the pleasure I took in -their company. Often, after I was assured I was welcome -there, I sat reading or simply silent while Hiro worked, -the children ran in and out, and Kimi, who was conservative -and didnt care for chairs, sat comfortably on the floor -and sketched or calculated stresses.</p> - -<p>Gradually I progressed from the stage where I wanted -decision on my application postponed as long as possible -to one where I was impatient to have it over and done with. -“Why?” asked Hiro. “Suspense is the condition we live in -all our lives.”</p> - -<p>“Well, but there are degrees. You know about what you -will be doing next year.”</p> - -<p>“Do I? What guarantees have I? The future is happily -veiled. When I was your age I despaired because no one -would accept the indentures of a Japanese. (We are still -called Japanese even though our ancestors migrated at the -time of the abortive attempt to overthrow the Shogunate -and restore the Mikado in 1868.) Suspense instead of certainty -would have been a pleasure.”</p> - -<p>“Anyway,” said Kimi practically, “it may be months -before the next meeting.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean? Isnt there a set time for such -business?” Sure there must be, I had never dared ask the -exact date.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span></p> - -<p>Hiro shook his head. “Why should there be? The next -time the fellows pass on an appropriation or a project, -we’ll decide whether there’s room for an historian.”</p> - -<p>“But ... as Kimi says, it might not be for months.”</p> - -<p>“Or it might be tomorrow,” replied Hiro.</p> - -<p>“Don’t worry, Hodge,” said Fumio, “Papa will vote for -you, and Mother too.”</p> - -<p>Hiro grunted.</p> - -<p>When it did come it was anticlimactic. Hiro, Midbin, -and several others with whom I’d scarcely exchanged a -word recommended me, and Barbara simply ignored my -existence. I was a full fellow of Haggershaven, with all the -duties and privileges appertaining. I was also securely at -home for the first time since I left Wappinger Falls more -than six years before. I knew that in all its history few had -ever cut themselves off from the haven, still fewer had ever -been asked to resign.</p> - -<p>At a modest celebration in the big kitchen that night, -the haven revealed more of the talents it harbored. Hiro -produced a gallon of liquor he had distilled from sawdust -and called cellusaki. Mr Haggerwells pronounced it -fit for a cultivated palate, following with an impromptu -discourse on drinking through the ages. Midbin sampled -enough of it to imitate Mr. Haggerwells’ lecture and then, -as an inspired afterthought, to demonstrate how Mr Haggerwells -might mimic Midbin’s parody. Ace and three -others sang ballads; even the dumb girl, persuaded to sip a -little of the cellusaki under the disapproving eyes of her -self-appointed guardians, seemed to become faintly animated. -If anyone noted the absence of Barbara Haggerwells, -no one commented on it.</p> - -<p>Fall became winter. Surplus timber was hauled in from -the woodlots and the lignin extracted by compressed air, a -method perfected by one of the fellows. Lignin was the fuel -used in our hot water furnaces and provided the gas for -the reflecting jets which magnified a tiny flame into strong -illumination. All of us took part in this work, but just as I -had not been able to help Hiro to his satisfaction in the -laboratory, so here too my ineptness with things mechani<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span>cal -soon caused me to be set to more congenial tasks in -the stables.</p> - -<p>I did not repine at this, for though I was delighted with -the society of the others, I found it pleasurable to be -alone, to sort out my thoughts, to slow down to the rhythm -of the heavy percherons or enjoy the antics of the two -young foals. The world and time were somewhere shut -outside; I felt contentment so strong as to be beyond satisfaction -or any active emotion.</p> - -<p>I was currying a dappled mare one afternoon and reflecting -how the steam-plow used on the great wheat -ranches of British America deprived the farmers not merely -of fertilizer but also of companionship, when Barbara, her -breath still cloudy from the cold outside, came in and stood -behind me. I made an artificial cowlick on the mare’s flank, -then brushed it glossy smooth again.</p> - -<p>“Hello,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Uh ... hello, Miss Haggerwells.”</p> - -<p>“Must you, Hodge?”</p> - -<p>I roughed up the mare’s flank once more. “Must I what? -I’m afraid I don’t understand.”</p> - -<p>She came close, as close as she had in the bookstore, and -I felt my breath quicken. “I think you do. Why do you -avoid me? And call me ‘Miss Haggerwells’ in that prim -tone? Do I look so old and ugly and forbidding?”</p> - -<p>This, I thought, is going to hurt Ace. Poor Ace, befuddled -by a Jezebel; why can’t he attach himself to a nice -quiet girl who won’t tear him in pieces every time she follows -her inclinations?</p> - -<p>I smoothed the mare’s side for the last time and put -down the currycomb.</p> - -<p>“I think you are the most exciting woman Ive ever met, -Barbara,” I said.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C13"><i>13.</i> <i>TIME</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>“Hodge.”</p> - -<p>“Barbara?”</p> - -<p>“Is it really true youve never written your mother since -you left home?”</p> - -<p>“Why should I write her? What could I say? Perhaps if -my first plans had come to something, I might have. But -to tell her I worked for six years for nothing would only -confirm her opinion of my lack of gumption.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder if your ambitions in the end don’t amount to -a wish to prove her wrong.”</p> - -<p>“Now you sound like Midbin,” I said, but I wasnt annoyed. -I much preferred her present questions to those I’d -heard from her in the past weeks: Do you love me? Are -you sure? Really love, I mean; more than any other -woman? Why?</p> - -<p>“Oliver has had accidental flashes of insight.”</p> - -<p>“Arent you substituting your own for what you think -might be my motives?”</p> - -<p>“My mother hated me,” she stated flatly.</p> - -<p>“Well, it isnt a world where love is abundant; substitutes -are cheap and available. But hate—that’s a strong word. -How do you know?” -“I know. What does it matter how? I’m not unfeeling, -like you.”</p> - -<p>“Me? Now what have I done?”</p> - -<p>“You don’t care about anyone. Not me or anyone else. -You don’t want me; just any woman would do.”</p> - -<p>I considered this. “I don’t think so, Barbara—”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span> -“See! You don’t think so. Youre not sure, and anyway -you wouldnt hurt my feelings needlessly. Why don’t you -be honest and tell the truth. You’d just as soon it was that -streetwalker in New York. Maybe you’d rather. You miss -her, don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Barbara, Ive told you a dozen times I never—” -“And Ive told you a dozen times youre a liar! I don’t -care. I really don’t care.”</p> - -<p>“All right.”</p> - -<p>“How can you be so phlegmatic? So unfeeling? Nothing -means anything to you. Youre a real, stolid peasant. And -you smell like one too, always reeking of the stable.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry,” I said mildly; “I’ll try to bathe more often.”</p> - -<p>Her taunts and jealous fits, her insistent demands did -not ruffle me. I was too pleased with the wonders of life to -be disturbed. All I’d dreamed Haggershaven could mean -when I was sure I would never be part of it was fulfilled -and more than fulfilled. Haggershaven and Barbara; Eden -and Lilith.</p> - -<p>At first it seemed the bookstore years were wasted, but -I soon realized the value of that catholic and serendipitous -reading as a preparation for this time. I was momentarily -disappointed that there was no one at the haven to whom -I could turn for that personal, face-to-face, student-teacher -relationship on which I’d set so great a store, but if there -was no historical scholar among the fellows to tutor me, I -was surrounded by those who had learned the discipline -of study. There was none to discuss the details of the industrial -revolution or the failure of the Ultramontane -Movement in Catholicism and the policies of Popes Adrian -VII, VIII and IX, but all could show me scheme and -method. I began to understand what thorough exploration -of a subject meant as opposed to sciolism, and I threw myself -into my chosen work with furious zest.</p> - -<p>I also began to understand the central mystery of historical -theory. When and what and how and where, but the -when is the least. Not chronology but relationship is ultimately -what the historian deals in. The element of time, -so vital at first glance, assumes a constantly more subordinate -character. That the past is past becomes ever less<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span> -important. Except for perspective it might as well be the -present or the future or, if one can conceive it, a parallel -time. I was not investigating a petrification but a fluid. -Were it possible to know fully the what and how and where -one might learn the why, and assuredly if one grasped the -why he could place the when at will.</p> - -<p>During that winter I read philosophy, psychology, archaeology, -anthropology. My energy and appetite were prodigious, -as they needed to be. I saw the field of knowledge, -not knowledge in the abstract, but things I wanted to know, -things I had to know, expanding in front of me with dizzying -speed while I crawled and crept and stumbled over -ground I should have covered years before.</p> - -<p>Yet if I had studied more conventionally I would never -have had the Haven or Barbara. Novelists speak lightly of -gusts of passion, but it was nothing less than irresistible -force which drove me to her, day after day. Looking back -on what I had felt for Tirzah Vame with the condescension -twenty-four has toward twenty, I saw my younger self only -as callow, boyish and slightly obtuse. I was embarrassed -by the torments I had suffered.</p> - -<p>With Barbara I lived only in the present, shutting out -past and future. This was only partly due to the intensity, -the fierceness of our desire; much came from Barbara’s -own troubled spirit. She herself was so avid, so demanding, -that yesterday and tomorrow were irrelevant to the -insistent moment. The only thing saving me from enslavement -like poor Ace was the belief, correct or incorrect I -am to this day not certain, that to yield the last vestige of -detachment and objectivity would make me helpless, not -just before her, but to accomplish my ever more urgent -ambitions.</p> - -<p>Still I know much of my reserve was unnecessary, a -product of fear, not prudence. I denied much I could have -given freely and without harm; my guard protected what -was essentially empty. My fancied advantage over Ace, -based on my having always had an easy, perhaps too easy -way with women, was no advantage at all. I foolishly -thought myself master of the situation because her infidelities, -if such a word can be used where faithfulness is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span> -explicitly ruled out, did not bother me. I believed I had -grown immensely wise since the time when the prospect of -Tirzah’s rejection had made me miserable. I was wrong; -my sophistication was a lack, not an achievement</p> - -<p>Do I need to say that Barbara was no wanton, moved -by light and fickle voluptuousness? The puritanism of our -time, expressing itself in condemnations and denials, -molded her as it molded our civilization. She was driven -by urges deeper and darker than sensuality; her mad jealousies -were provoked by an unappeasable need for constant -reassurance. She had to be dominant, she had to be -courted by more than one man; she had to be told constantly -what she could never truly believe: that she was -uniquely desired.</p> - -<p>I wondered that she did not burn herself out, not only -with conflicting passions, but with her fury of work. Sleep -was a weakness she despised, yet she craved far more of it -than she allowed herself; she rationed her hours of unconsciousness -and drove herself relentlessly. Ace’s panegyrics -on her importance as a physicist I discounted, but older -and more objective colleagues spoke of her mathematical -concepts, not merely with respect, but with awe.</p> - -<p>She did not discuss her work with me; our intimacy -stopped short of such exchanges. I got the impression she -was seeking the principles of heavier-than-air flight, a -chimera which had long intrigued inventors. It seemed a -pointless pursuit, for it was manifest such levitation could -no more replace our safe, comfortable guided balloons -than minibiles could replace the horse.</p> - -<p>Spring made all of us single-minded farmers until the -fields were plowed and sown. No one grudged these days, -for the Haven’s economic life was based first of all on its -land, and we were happy in the work itself. Not until the -most feverish competition with time began to slacken could -we return to our regular activities.</p> - -<p>I say “all of us,” but I must except the dumb girl. She -greeted the spring with the nearest approach to cheerfulness -she had displayed; there was a distinct lifting of her -apathy. Unexpectedly she revealed a talent which had survived -the shock to her personality or had been resurrected<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span> -like the pussywillows and crocuses by the warm sun. She -was a craftsman with needle and thread. Timidly at first, -but gradually growing bolder, she contrived dresses of -gayer and gayer colors in place of the drab school uniform; -always, on the completion of a new creation, running to -me as though to solicit my approval.</p> - -<p>This innocent if embarrassing custom could hardly escape -Barbara’s notice, but her anger was directed at me, -not the girl. My “devotion” was not only absurd, she told -me, it was also conspicuous and degrading. My taste was -inexplicable, running as it did to immature, deranged -cripples.</p> - -<p>Naturally when the girl took up the habit of coming to -the edge of the field where I was plowing, waiting gravely -motionless for me to drive the furrow toward her, I anticipated -still further punishment from Barbara’s tongue. The -girl was not to be swayed from her practice; at least I did -not have the heart to speak roughly to her, and so she daily -continued to stand through the long hours watching me -plow, bringing me a lunch at noon and docilely sharing a -small portion of it.</p> - -<p>The planting done, Midbin began the use of a new technique, -showing her drawings of successive stages of the -holdup, again nagging and pumping me for details to -sharpen their accuracy. Her reactions pleased him immensely, -for she responded to the first ones with nods and -the throaty sounds we recognized as understanding or -agreement. The scenes of the assault itself, of the shooting -of the coachman, the flight of the footman, and her own -concealment in the cornfield evoked whimpers, while the -brutal depiction of the Escobars’ murder made her cower -and cover her eyes.</p> - -<p>I suppose I am not particularly tactful; still I had been -careful not to mention any of this to Barbara. Midbin, however, -after a very gratifying reaction to one of the drawings, -said casually, “Barbara hasnt been here for a long time. I -wish she would come back.”</p> - -<p>When I repeated this she stormed at me. “How dare -you discuss me with that ridiculous fool?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span></p> - -<p>“Youve got it all wrong. There wasnt any discussion. -Midbin only said—” -“I know what Oliver said. I know his whole silly vocabulary.”</p> - -<p>“He only wants to help you.”</p> - -<p>“Help me? Help <i>me</i>? What’s wrong with me?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, Barbara. Nothing.”</p> - -<p>“Am I dumb or blind or stupid?”</p> - -<p>“Please, Barbara.”</p> - -<p>“Just unattractive. I know. Ive seen you with that creature. -How you must hate me to flaunt her before everyone!”</p> - -<p>“You know I only go with her to Midbin’s because he -insists.”</p> - -<p>“What about your little lovers’ meetings in the woodlot -when you were supposed to be plowing? Do you think I -didnt know about them?”</p> - -<p>“Barbara, I assure you they were perfectly harmless. -She—” -“Youre a liar. More than that, youre a sneak and a -hypocrite. Yes, and a mean, crawling sycophant as well. I -know you must detest me, but it suits you to suffer me -because of the haven. I’m not blind; youve used me, deliberately -and calculatedly for your own selfish ends.”</p> - -<p>Midbin could explain and excuse her outbursts by his -“emotional pathology.” Ace accepted and suffered them -as inescapable, so did her father, but I saw no necessity of -being always subject to her tantrums. I told her so, adding, -not too heatedly I think, “Maybe we shouldn’t see each -other alone after this.”</p> - -<p>She stood perfectly immobile and silent, as if I were still -speaking. “All right,” she said at last. “All right; yes ... -yes. Don’t.”</p> - -<p>Her apparent calm deceived me completely; I smiled -with relief.</p> - -<p>“That’s right, laugh. Why shouldnt you? You have no -feelings, no more than you have an intelligence. You are -an oaf, a clod, a real bumpkin. Standing there with a silly -grin on your face. Oh I hate you! How I hate you!”</p> - -<p>She wept, she shrilled, she rushed at me and then turned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span> -away, crying she hadnt meant it, not a word of it. She cajoled, -begging forgiveness for all she’d said, tearfully promising -to control herself after this, moaning that she needed -me, and finally, when I didnt repulse her, exclaiming it -was her love for me which tormented her so and drove her -to such scenes. It was a wretched, degrading moment, and -not the least of its wretchedness and degradation was that -I recognized the erotic value of her abjection. Detachedly -I might pity, fear or be repelled; at the same time I had to -admit her sudden humility was exciting.</p> - -<p>Perhaps this storm changed our relationship for the -better, or at least eased the constraint between us. At any -rate it was after this she began speaking to me of her work, -putting us on a friendlier, less furious plane. I learned now -how completely garbled was my notion of what she was -doing.</p> - -<p>“Heavier-than-air flying-machines!” she cried. “How -utterly absurd!”</p> - -<p>“All right. I didnt know.”</p> - -<p>“My work is theoretical. I’m not a vulgar mechanic.”</p> - -<p>“All right, all right.”</p> - -<p>“I’m going to show that time and space are aspects of -the same entity.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” I said, thinking of something else.</p> - -<p>“What is time?”</p> - -<p>“Uh?... Dear Barbara, since I don’t know anything -I can slide gracefully out of that one. I couldnt even begin -to define time.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you could probably define it all right—in terms of -itself. I’m not dealing with definitions but concepts.” -“All right, conceive.”</p> - -<p>“Hodge, like all stuffy people your levity is ponderous.”</p> - -<p>“Excuse me. Go ahead.”</p> - -<p>“Time is an aspect.”</p> - -<p>“So you mentioned. I once knew a man who said it was -an illusion. And another who said it was a serpent with its -tail in its mouth.”</p> - -<p>“Mysticism.” The contempt with which she spoke the -word brought a sudden image of Roger Tyss saying “metaphysics” -with much the same inflection. “Time, matter,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span> -space and energy are all aspects of the cosmic entity. Interchangeable -aspects. Theoretically it should be possible to -translate matter into terms of energy and space into terms -of time; matter-energy into space-time.”</p> - -<p>“It sounds so simple I’m ashamed of myself.”</p> - -<p>“To put it so crudely the explanation is misleading: suppose -matter is resolved into its component....”</p> - -<p>“Atoms?” I suggested, since she seemed at loss for a -word.</p> - -<p>“No, atoms are already too individualized, too separate. -Something more fundamental than atoms. We have no -word because we can’t quite grasp the concept yet. Essence, -perhaps, or the theological ‘spirit.’ If matter....”</p> - -<p>“A man?”</p> - -<p>“Man, turnip or chemical compound,” she answered impatiently; -“if resolved into its essence it can presumably -be reassembled, another wrong word, at another point of -the time-space fabric.”</p> - -<p>“You mean ... like yesterday?”</p> - -<p>“No—and yes. What is ‘yesterday’? A thing? An aspect? -An idea? Or a relationship? Oh, words are useless things; -even with mathematical symbols you can hardly.... But -someday I’ll establish it. Or lay the groundwork for my -successors. Or the successors of my successors.” -I nodded. Midbin was at least half right; Barbara was -emotionally sick. For what was this “theory” of hers but -the rationalization of a daydream, the daydream of discovering -a process for reaching back through time to injure -her dead mother and so steal all of her father’s affections?</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C14"><i>14.</i> <i>MIDBIN’S EXPERIMENT</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>At the next meeting of the fellows Midbin asked -an appropriation for experimental work and the help of -haven members in the project. Since the extent of both -requests was modest, their granting would ordinarily have -been a formality. But Barbara asked politely if Dr Midbin -wouldnt like to elaborate a little on the purposes of his -experiment.</p> - -<p>I knew her manner was a danger signal. Nevertheless -Midbin merely answered goodhumoredly that he proposed -to test a theory of whether an emotionally induced physical -handicap could be cured by recreating in the subject’s mind -the shock which had caused—to use a loose, inaccurate -term—the impediment.</p> - -<p>“I thought so. He wants to waste the haven’s money -and time on a little tart he’s having an affair with while -important work is held up for lack of funds.”</p> - -<p>One of the women called out, “Oh, Barbara, no,” and -there were exclamations of disapproval. I saw Kimi Agati -look steadfastly down in embarrassment. Mr Haggerwells, -after trying unsuccessfully to hold Barbara’s eye, said, “I -must apologize for my daughter—” -“It’s all right,” interrupted Midbin. “I understand Barbara’s -notions. I’m sure no one here really thinks there is -anything improper between the girl and me. Outside of -this, Barbara’s original question seems quite in order. Quite -in order. Briefly, as most of you know, I’ve been trying to -restore speech to a subject who lost it—again I use an inaccurate -term for convenience—during an afflicting expe<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span>rience. -Preliminary explorations indicate good probability -of satisfactory response to my proposed method, which is -simply to employ a kinematic camera like those making -entertainment photinugraphs—” -“He wants to turn the haven into a tinugraph mill with -the fellows as mummers!”</p> - -<p>“Only this once, Barbara, only this once. Not regularly; -not as routine.”</p> - -<p>At this point her father insisted the request be voted on -without any more discussion. I was tempted to vote with -Barbara, the only dissident, for I foresaw Midbin’s tinugraph -would undoubtedly rely heavily on cooperation from -me, but I didnt have the courage. Instead I merely abstained, -like Midbin himself and Ace.</p> - -<p>The first effect of Midbin’s program was to free me from -obligation, for he decided there was no point continuing -the sessions with the dumb girl as before. All his time was -taken up anyway with photography—no one at the haven -had specialized in it—kinematic theory, the art of pantomime, -and the relative merit of different makes of cameras, -all manufactured abroad.</p> - -<p>The girl, who had never lost her tenseness and apprehension -during the interviews, nevertheless clung to the habit -of being escorted to Midbin’s workroom. Since it was impossible -to convey to her that the sessions were temporarily -suspended, she appeared regularly, always in a dress with -which she had taken manifest pains, and there was little I -could do but walk her to Midbin’s and back. I was acutely -conscious of the ridiculousness of these parades and expectant -of retribution from Barbara afterward, so I was -to some extent relieved when Midbin finally made his decision -and procured camera and film.</p> - -<p>Now I had to set the exact scene where the holdup had -taken place, not an easy thing to do, for one rise looks much -like another at twilight and all look differently in daylight. -Then I had to approximate the original conditions as nearly -as possible. Here Midbin was partially foiled by the limitations -of his medium, being forced to use the camera in -full sunlight instead of at dusk.</p> - -<p>I dressed and instructed the actors in their parts, rehears<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span>ing -and directing them throughout. The only immunity I -got was Midbin’s concession that I neednt play the role of -myself, since in my early part of spectator I would be hidden -anyway, and the succor was omitted as irrelevant to -the therapeutic purpose. Midbin himself did nothing but -tend the camera.</p> - -<p>Any tinugraph mill would have snorted at our final product -and certainly no tinugraph lyceum would have condescended -to show it. After some hesitation Midbin had decided -not to make a phonoto, feeling the use of sound -would add no value and considerable expense, so the film -didnt even have this feature to recommend it. Fortunately -for whatever involuntary professional pride was involved, -no one was present at the first showing but the girl and me, -Ace to work the magic-lantern, and Midbin.</p> - -<p>In the darkened room the pictures on the screen gave—after -the first minutes—such an astonishing illusion that -when one of the horsemen rode toward the camera we all -reflexively shrank back. Despite its amateurishness the tinugraph -seemed an artistic success to us, but it was no triumph -in justifying its existence. The girl reacted no differently -than she had toward the drawings; if anything her -response was less satisfactory. The inarticulate noises ran -the same scale from dismay to terror; nothing new was -added. Nevertheless Midbin, his adamsapple working joyously -up and down, slapped Ace and me on the back, predicting -he’d have her talking like a politician before the -year was out.</p> - -<p>I suppose the process was imperceptible; certainly there -was no discernible difference between one showing and the -next. The boring routine continued day after day and so -absolute was Midbin’s confidence that we were not too -astonished after some weeks when, at the moment “Don -Jaime” folded in simulated death, she fainted and remained -unconscious for some time.</p> - -<p>After this we expected—at least Ace and I did, Midbin -only rubbed his palms together—that the constraint on her -tongue would be suddenly and entirely lifted. It wasnt, but -a few showings later, at the same crucial point, she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> -screamed. It was a genuine scream, clear and piercing, -bearing small resemblance to the strangling noises we were -accustomed to. Midbin had been vindicated; no mute could -have voiced that full, shrill cry.</p> - -<p>Pursuing another of his theories, he soon gave up the -idea of helping her express the words in her mind in Spanish. -Instead he concentrated on teaching her English. His -method was primitive, consisting of pointing solemnly to -objects and repeating their names in an artificial monotone.</p> - -<p>“She’ll have an odd way of speaking,” remarked Ace; -“all nouns, singular nouns at that, said with a mouthful of -pebbles. I can just imagine the happy day: ‘Man chair wall -girl floor;’ and you bubbling back, ‘Carpet ceiling earth -grass.’”</p> - -<p>“I’ll supply the verbs as needed,” said Midbin; “first -things first.”</p> - -<p>She must have been paying at least as much attention to -our conversation as to his instruction for, unexpectedly, -one day she pointed to me and said quite clearly, “Hodge -... Hodge ...”</p> - -<p>I was discomposed, but not with the same vexation I -had felt at her habit of seeking me out and following me -around. There was a faint, bashful pleasure, and a feeling -of gratitude for such steadfastness.</p> - -<p>She must have had some grounding in English, for while -she utilized the nouns Midbin had supplied, she soon added, -tentatively and questioningly, a verb or adjective here and -there. “I ... walk ...?” Ace’s fear of her acquiring Midbin’s -dead inflection was groundless; her voice was low and -charmingly modulated; we were enchanted listening to her -elementary groping among words.</p> - -<p>Conversation or questioning was as yet impossible. Midbin’s, -“What is your name?” brought forth no response -save a puzzled look and a momentary sinking back into -dullness. But several weeks later she touched her breast -and said shyly, “Catalina.”</p> - -<p>Her memory then, was not impaired, at least not totally. -There was no way of telling yet what she remembered and -what self-protection had forced her to forget, for direct -questions seldom brought satisfactory answers at this stage.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span> -Facts concerning herself she gave out sporadically and -without relation to our curiosity.</p> - -<p>Her name was Catalina García; she was the much -younger sister of Doña Maria Escobar, with whom she -lived. So far as she knew she had no other relatives. She -did not want to go back to school; they had taught her to -sew, they had been kind, but she had not been happy there. -Please—we would not send her away from Haggershaven, -would we?</p> - -<p>Midbin acted now like a fond parent who was both -proud of his child’s accomplishments and fearful lest she be -not quite ready to leave his solicitous care. He was far from -satisfied at restoring her speech; he probed and searched, -seeking to know what she had thought and felt during the -long months of muteness.</p> - -<p>“I do not know, truly I do not know,” she protested toward -the end of one of these examinations. “I would say, -yes; sometimes I knew you were talking to me, or Hodge.” -Here she looked at me steadily for an instant, to make me -feel both remorseful and proud. “But it was like someone -talking a long way off, so I never quite understood, nor was -even sure it was I who was being spoken to. Often—at -least it seemed often, perhaps it was not—often, I tried to -speak, to beg you to tell me if you were real people talking -to me, or just part of a dream. That was very bad, because -when no words came I was more afraid than ever, and when -I was afraid the dream became darker and darker.” -Afterward, looking cool and fresh and strangely assured, -she came upon me while I was cultivating young corn. A -few weeks earlier I would have known she had sought me -out; now it might be an accident.</p> - -<p>“But I knew more surely when it was you who spoke, -Hodge,” she said abruptly. “In my dream you were the -most real.” Then she walked tranquilly away.</p> - -<p>Barbara, who had studiedly said nothing further about -what Midbin was doing, commented one day, apparently -without rancor, “So Oliver appears to have proved a -theory. How nice for you.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?” I inquired guardedly; “How is it -nice for me?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span></p> - -<p>“Why, you won’t have to chaperone the silly girl all over -any more. She can ask her way around now.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes; that’s right,” I mumbled.</p> - -<p>“And we won’t have to quarrel over her any more,” she -concluded.</p> - -<p>“Sure,” I said. “That’s right.”</p> - -<p>Mr Haggerwells again communicated with the Spanish -diplomats, recalling his original telegram and mentioning -the aloof reply. He was answered in person by an official -who acted as though he himself had composed the disclaiming -response. Perhaps he had, for he made it quite clear -that only devotion to duty made it possible to deal at all -with such savages as inhabited the United States.</p> - -<p>He confirmed the existence of one Catalina García and -consulted a photograph, carefully shielded in his hand, -comparing it with the features of our Catalina, at last satisfying -himself they were the same. This formality finished, -he spoke rapidly to Catalina in Spanish. She shook her -head and looked confused. “Tell him I can hardly understand, -Hodge; ask him to speak in English, please.”</p> - -<p>The diplomat looked furious. Midbin explained hastily -that the shock which had caused her muteness had not entirely -worn off. Unquestionably she would recover her full -memory in time, but for the present there were still areas -of forgetfulness. Her native language was part of the past, -he went on, happy with a new audience, and the past was -something to be pushed away since it contained the terrible -moment. English on the other hand—” -“I understand,” said the diplomat stiffly, resolutely addressing -none of us. “It is clear. Very well then. The Señorita -García is heir—heiress to an estate. Not a very big one, -I regret to say. A moderate estate.” -“You mean land and houses?” I asked curiously.</p> - -<p>“A moderate estate,” he repeated, looking attentively at -his gloved hand. “Some shares of stock, some bonds, some -cash. The details will be available to the señorita.”</p> - -<p>“It doesnt matter,” said Catalina timidly.</p> - -<p>Having put us all, and particularly me, in our place as -rude and nosey barbarians, he went on more pleasantly, -“According to the records of the embassy, the señorita is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span> -not yet eighteen. As an orphan living in foreign lands she -is a ward of the Spanish Crown. The señorita will return -with me to Philadelphia where she will be suitably accommodated -until repatriation can be arranged. I feel certain -that in the proper surroundings, hearing her natural tongue, -she will soon regain its use. The—ah—institution may submit -a bill for board and lodging during her stay.” -“Does he mean—take me away from here? For always?” Catalina, who had seemed so mature a moment before, -suddenly acted like a frightened child.</p> - -<p>“He only wants to make you comfortable and take you -among your own people,” said Mr Haggerwells. “Perhaps -it is a bit sudden....”</p> - -<p>“I can’t. Do not let him take me away. Hodge, Hodge—do -not let him take me away.” -“Señorita, you do not understand—” -“No, no. I won’t. Hodge, Mr Haggerwells, do not let -him!”</p> - -<p>“But my dear—” -It was Midbin who cut Mr Haggerwells off. “I cannot -guarantee against a relapse, even a reversion to the pseudo-aphonia -if this emotional tension is maintained. I must -insist that Catalina is not to continue the conversation -now.”</p> - -<p>“No one’s going to take you away by force,” I assured -her, finally finding my courage once Midbin had asserted -himself.</p> - -<p>The official shrugged, managing to intimate in the gesture -his opinion that the haven was of a very shady character -indeed and had quite possibly engineered the holdup -itself.</p> - -<p>“If the señorita genuinely wishes to remain for the present—” a lifted eyebrow loaded the “genuinely” with meaning -“—I have no authority at the moment to inquire into -influences that have persuaded her. No, none at all. Nor -can I remove her by—ah—I will not insist. No. Not at all.” -“That is very understanding of you, sir,” said Mr Haggerwells. -“I’m sure everything will be all right eventually.”</p> - -<p>The diplomat bowed stiffly. “Of course the—ah—insti<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span>tution -understands it can hope for no further compensation—” -“None has been given or asked for. None will be,” said -Mr Haggerwells in what was, for him, a sharp tone.</p> - -<p>The gentleman from the legation bowed. “The señorita -will naturally be visited from time to time by an official. -Without note—notification. She may be removed whenever -His Most Catholic Majesty sees fit. And of course none of -her estate will be released before the eighteenth birthday. -The whole affair is entirely irregular.” -After he left I reproached myself for not asking what -Don Jaime’s mission had been that fateful evening, or at -least for not trying to find out what his function with the -Spanish legation was. Probably he could in no way be connected -with the counterfeiting of the pesetas. By making no -attempt to learn any facts which might have lessened the -old feeling of guilty responsibility I kept it uneasily alive.</p> - -<p>These reproaches were pushed aside when Catalina put -her head against my collarbone, sobbing with relief. “There, -there,” I said, “there, there.”</p> - -<p>“Uncouth,” reflected Mr Haggerwells. “Compensation -indeed!”</p> - -<p>“Dealing with natives,” said Midbin. “Probably courteous -enough to Frenchmen or Afrikanders.”</p> - -<p>I patted Catalina’s quivering shoulders. Child or not, -now she was able to talk I had to admit I no longer found -her devotion so tiresome. Though I was definitely uneasy -lest Barbara discover us in this attitude.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C15"><i>15.</i> <i>GOOD YEARS</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>And now I come to the period of my life which -stands in such sharp contrast to what had gone before. Was -it really eight years I spent at Haggershaven? The arithmetic -is indisputable: I arrived in 1944 at the age of twenty-three; -I left in 1952 at the age of thirty-one. Indisputable, -but not quite believable; as with the happy countries -which are supposed to have no history I find it hard to go -over those eight years and divide them by remarkable -events. They blended too smoothly, too contentedly into -one another.</p> - -<p>Crops were harvested, stored or marketed; the fields -were plowed in the fall and again in the spring and sown -anew. Three of the older fellows died, another became -bedridden. Five new fellows were accepted; two biologists, -a chemist, a poet, a philologist. It was to the last I played -the same part Ace had to me, introducing him to the sanctuary -of the haven, seeing its security and refuge afresh -and deeply thankful for the fortune that had brought me -to it.</p> - -<p>There was no question about success in my chosen profession, -not even the expected alternation of achievement -and disappointment. Once started on the road I kept on -going at an even, steady pace. For what would have been -my doctoral thesis I wrote a paper on <i>The Timing of General -Stuart’s Maneuvers During August 1863 in Pennsylvania</i>. -This received flattering comment from scholars as -far away as the Universities of Lima and Cambridge; be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span>cause -of it I was offered instructorships at highly respectable -schools.</p> - -<p>I could not think of leaving the haven. The world into -which I had been born had never been fully revealed for -what it was until I had escaped from it. Secrecy and ugliness; -greed, fear and callousness; meanness, avarice, cunning, -deceit and self-worship were as close around as the -nearest farmhouses. The idea of returning to that world -and of entering into daily competition with other underpaid, -overdriven drudges striving fruitlessly to apply a -dilute coating of culture to the unresponsive surface of unwilling -students had little attraction.</p> - -<p>In those eight years, as I broadened my knowledge I -narrowed my field. Undoubtedly it was presumptuous to -take the War of Southron Independence as my specialty -when there were already so many comprehensive works on -the subject and so many celebrated historians engaged with -this special event. However, my choice was made not out -of self-importance but fascination, and undoubtedly it was -the proximity of the scene which influenced the selection -of my goal, the last thirteen months of the war, from -General Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania to the capitulation -at Reading. I saw the whole vast design: Gettysburg, Lancaster, -the siege of Philadelphia, the disastrous Union -counter-thrust in Tennessee, the evacuation of Washington, -and finally the desperate effort to break out of Lee’s trap -which ended at Reading. I could spend profitable years -filling in the details.</p> - -<p>My monographs were published in learned Confederate -and British journals—there were none in the United States—and -I rejoiced when they brought attention, not so much -to me as to Haggershaven. I could contribute only this -notice and my physical labor; on the other hand I asked -little beyond food, clothing and shelter—just books. My -field trips I took on foot, often earning my keep by casual -labor for farmers, paying for access to private collections -of letters or documents by indexing and arranging them.</p> - -<p>The time devoted to scholarship did not alone distinguish -those eight years, nor even the security of the haven. I -have spoken of the simple, easy manner in which the Agatis<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span> -admitted me to their friendship, but they were not the only -ones with whom there grew ties of affection and understanding. -With very few exceptions the fellows of Haggershaven -quickly learned to shed the suspicion and aloofness, -so necessary a protection elsewhere, and substitute acceptance. -The result was a tranquillity I had never experienced -before, so that I think of those years as set apart, a -golden period, a time of perpetual warm sunshine.</p> - -<p>Between Barbara and me the turbulent, ambivalent passion -swept back and forth, the periods of estrangement -seemingly only a generating force to bring us together -again. Hate and love, admiration and distaste, impatience -and pity were present on both sides. Only on hers there was -jealousy as well; perhaps if I had not been indifferent -whenever she chose to respond to some other man she -might not have felt the errant desire so strongly. Perhaps -not; there was a moral urge behind her behavior. She -sneered at women who yielded to such temptations. To her -they were not temptations but just rewards; she did not -yield, she took them as her due.</p> - -<p>Sometimes I wondered if her neurosis did not verge on -insanity; I’m sure for her part she must often have stood -off and appraised me as a mistake. I know there were -many times when I wished there would be no more reconciliation -between us.</p> - -<p>Yet no amount of thinking could cancel the swift hunger -I felt in her presence or the deep mutual satisfaction of -physical union. Frequently we were lovers for as long as -a month before the inevitable quarrel, followed by varying -periods of coolness. During the weeks of distance I remembered -how she could be tender and gracious as well as -ardent, just as during our intimacy I remembered her -ruthlessness and dominance.</p> - -<p>It was not only her temperamental outbursts nor even -her unappeasable craving for love and affection which -thrust us apart. Impediments which, in the beginning, had -appeared inconsequential assumed more importance all the -time. It was increasingly hard for her to leave her work -behind even for moments. She was never allowed to forget, -either by her own insatiable drive or by outside acknowl<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span>edgment -that she was already one of the foremost physicists -in the world. She had been granted so many honorary -degrees she no longer traveled to receive them; offers from -foreign governments of well-paid jobs connected with their -munitions industries were common. Articles were written -about her equation of matter, energy, space and time, acclaiming -her as a revolutionary thinker; though she dismissed -them as evaluation of elementary work, they nevertheless -added to her isolation and curtailed her freedom.</p> - -<p>Midbin was, in his way, as much under her spell as Ace -or myself. His triumph over Catalina’s dumbness he took -lightly now it was accomplished; stabilizing Barbara’s emotions -was the victory he wanted. She, on her side, had lost -whatever respect she must have had for him in the days -when she had submitted to his treatment. On the very rare -occasions when the whim moved her to listen to his entreaties—usually -relayed through Ace or me—and grant -him time, it seemed to be only for the opportunity of making -fun of his efforts. Patiently he tried new techniques of -exploration and expression.</p> - -<p>“But it’s not much use,” he said once, dolefully; “she -doesnt <i>want</i> to be helped.”</p> - -<p>“Wanting seemed to have little to do with making Catty -talk,” I pointed out. “Couldnt you....”</p> - -<p>“Make a tinugraph of Barbara’s traumatic shock? If I -had the materials there would be no necessity.”</p> - -<p>Perhaps there was less malice in her mockery now Catty -was no longer the focus of his theories about emotional -pathology; perhaps she forgave him for her temporary displacement, -but she did not withhold her contempt. “Oliver, -you should have been a woman,” she told him; “you would -have been impossible as a mother, but what a grandmother -you would have made!”</p> - -<p>That Catty herself had in her own way as strong a will -as Barbara was demonstrated in her determination to become -part of Haggershaven. Her reaction to the visit of the -Spanish official was translated into an unyielding program. -She had gone resolutely to Thomas Haggerwells, telling him -she knew quite well she had neither the aptitudes nor qualifications -for admission to fellowship, nor did she ask it. All<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span> -she wanted was to live in what she regarded as her only -home. She would gladly do any work from washing dishes -to making clothes—anything she was asked. When she -came of age she would turn over whatever money she inherited -to the haven without conditions.</p> - -<p>He had patiently pointed out that a Spanish subject was -a citizen of a far wealthier and more powerful nation than -the United States; as an heiress she could enjoy the luxuries -and distractions of Madrid or Havana and eventually make -a suitable marriage. How silly it would be to give up all -these advantages to become an unnoticed, penniless drudge -for a group of cranks near York, Pennsylvania.</p> - -<p>“He was quite right you know, Catty,” I said when she -told me about the interview.</p> - -<p>She shook her head vigorously, so the loose black curls -swirled back and forth. “You think so, Hodge, because you -are a hard, prudent Yankee.”</p> - -<p>I opened my eyes rather wide; this was certainly not -the description I would have applied to myself.</p> - -<p>“And also because you have Anglo-Saxon chivalry, always -rescuing maidens in distress and thinking they must -sit on a cushion after that and sew a fine seam. Well, I can -sew a fine seam, but sitting on cushions would bore me. -Women are not as delicate as you think, Hodge. Nor as -terrifying.”</p> - -<p>Was this last directed toward Barbara? Perhaps Catty -had claws. “There’s a difference,” I said, “between cushion-sitting -and living where books and pictures and music are -not regarded with suspicion.”</p> - -<p>“That’s right,” she agreed; “Haggershaven.”</p> - -<p>“No, Haggershaven is an anomaly in the United States -and in spite of everything it cannot help but be infected by -the rest of the country. I meant the great, successful nations -who can afford the breathing-spaces for culture.”</p> - -<p>“But you do not go to them.”</p> - -<p>“No. This is my country.”</p> - -<p>“And it will be mine too. After all it was made in the -first place by people willing to give up luxuries. Besides -you are contradicting yourself: if Haggershaven cannot -avoid being infected by what is outside it, neither can<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span> -any other spot. Part of the world cannot be civilized if another -part is backward.”</p> - -<p>There was no doubt her demure expression hid stern -resolution. Whatever else it hid was not so certain. Evidently -Mr Haggerwells realized the quality of her determination -for eventually he proposed to the fellows that she -be allowed to stay and the offer of her money be rejected. -The motion was carried, with only Barbara, who spoke long -and bitterly against it, voting “no.”</p> - -<p>In accepting Catty out of charity, the fellows unexpectedly -made an advantageous bargain. Not merely because -she was always eager to help, but for her specific contribution -to the haven’s economy. Before this, clothing the -haven had been a haphazard affair; suits or dresses were -bought with money which would otherwise have been contributed -to the general fund, or if the fellow had no outside -income, by a grant from the same fund. Catty’s artistry with -the needle made a revolution. Not only did she patch and -mend and alter; she designed and made clothes, conveying -some of her enthusiasm to the other women. The haven -was better and more handsomely clad and a great deal of -money was saved. Only Barbara refused to have her silk -trousers and jackets made at home.</p> - -<p>It was not entirely easy to adjust to the new Catty, the -busy, efficient, selfreliant creature. Her expressive voice -could be enchanting even when she was speaking nonsense—and -Catty rarely spoke nonsense. I don’t mean she was -priggish or solemn, quite the contrary; her spontaneous -laughter was quick and frequent. But she was essentially -not frivolous; she felt deeply, her loyalties were strong and -enduring.</p> - -<p>I missed her former all too open devotion to me. It had -caused embarrassment, impatience, annoyance; now it was -withdrawn I felt deprived and even pettish at its lack. Not -that I had anything to offer in return or considered that any -emotion was called for from me. Though I didnt express it -to myself so openly at the time, what I regretted was the -sensually valuable docility of a beautiful woman. Of course -there was a confusion here: I was regretting what had never -been, for Catty and the nameless dumb girl were different<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span> -individuals. Even her always undeniable beauty was -changed and heightened; what I really wanted was for -the Catty of now to act like the Catty of then. And without -any reciprocal gesture from me.</p> - -<p>The new Catty no more than the old was disingenuous -or coquettish. She was simply mature, dignified, selfcontained -and just a trifle amusedly aloof. Also she was very -busy. She did not pretend to any interest in other men; at -the same time she had clearly outgrown her childish dependence -on me. She refused any competition with Barbara. -When I sought her out she was there, but she made -no attempt to call me to her.</p> - -<p>I was not so unversed that I didnt occasionally suspect -this might be a calculated tactic. But when I recalled the -utter innocence of her look I reflected I would have to have -a very nice conceit of myself indeed to believe the two most -attractive women at Haggershaven were contending for me.</p> - -<p>I don’t know precisely when I began to see Catty with a -predatory male eye. Doubtless it was during one of those -times when Barbara and I had quarrelled, and when she -had called attention to Catty by accusing me of dallying -with her. I was essentially as polygamous as Barbara was -polyandrous or Catty monogamous; once the idea had -formed I made no attempt to reject it.</p> - -<p>Nor, for a very long time, did I accept it in any way except -academically. There are sensual values also in tantalizing, -and if these values are perverse I can only say I was -still immature in many ways. Additionally there must have -been an element of fear of Catty, the same fear which maintained -a reserve against Barbara. For the time being at -least it seemed much pleasanter to talk lightly and inconsequentially -with her; to laugh and boast of my progress, to -discuss Haggershaven and the world, than to face our elementary -relationship.</p> - -<p>My fourth winter at the haven had been an unusually -mild one; spring was early and wet. Kimi Agati who, with -her children, annually gathered quantities of mushrooms -from the woodlots and pastures, claimed this year’s supply -was so large that she needed help, and conscripted Catty -and me. Catty protested she didnt know a mushroom from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span> -a toadstool; Kimi immediately gave her a brief but thorough -course in thallophytology. “And Hodge will help you; -he’s a country boy.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” I said. “I make no guarantees though; I -havent been a country boy for a long time.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not so sure,” said Kimi thoughtfully. “You two take -the small southeast woodlot; Fumio can have the big pasture, -Eiko the small one; Yosh and I will pick in the west -woodlot.”</p> - -<p>We carried a picnic lunch and nests of large baskets -which were to be put by the edge of the woodlots when -full; late in the afternoon a cart would pick them up and -bring them in for drying. The air was warm even under -the leafless branches; the damp ground steamed cosily.</p> - -<p>“Kimi was certainly right,” I commented. “Theyre thick -as can be.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see....” She stooped gracefully; “Oh, is this -one?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” I said, “And there, and there. Not that white -thing over there though.”</p> - -<p>We filled our first baskets without moving more than a -few yards. “At this rate we’ll have them all full by noon.”</p> - -<p>“And go back for more?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose. Or just wander around.”</p> - -<p>“Oh.... Look, Hodge—what’s this?” -“What?”</p> - -<p>“This.” She showed me the puffball in her hands, looking -inquiringly up.</p> - -<p>I looked down casually; suddenly there was nothing -casual between us any more, nor ever would be again. I -looked down at a woman I wanted desperately, feverishly, -immediately. The shock of desire was a weight on my chest, -expelling the air from my lungs.</p> - -<p>“Goodness—is it some rare specimen or something?” -“Puffball,” I managed to say. “No good.”</p> - -<p>I hardly spoke, I could hardly speak, as we filled our -second baskets. I was sure the pounding of my heart must -show through my shirt, and several times I thought I saw -her looking curiously at me. “Let’s eat now,” I suggested -hoarsely.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span></p> - -<p>I found a pine with low-hanging boughs and tore down -enough to make a dry, soft place to sit while Catty unpacked -our picnic. “Here’s an egg,” she said; “I’m starved.”</p> - -<p>We ate; that is, she ate and I pretended to. I was half -dazed, half terrified. I watched her swift motions, the turn -of her head, the clean, sharp way she bit into the food, -and averted my eyes every time her glance crossed mine.</p> - -<p>“Well,” she murmured at last; “I suppose we mustnt sit -idle any longer. Come on, lazy; back to work.”</p> - -<p>“Catty,” I whispered. “Catty.”</p> - -<p>“What is it, Hodge?”</p> - -<p>“Wait.”</p> - -<p>Obediently she paused. I reached over and took her in -my arms. She looked at me, not startled, but questioning. -Just as my mouth reached hers she moved slightly so that -I kissed her cheek instead of her lips. She did not struggle -but lay passively, with the same questioning expression.</p> - -<p>I held her, pressing her against the pine boughs, and -found her mouth. I kissed her eyes and throat and mouth -again. Her eyes stayed open and she did not respond. I undid -the top of her dress and pressed my face between her -breasts.</p> - -<p>“Hodge.”</p> - -<p>I paid no attention.</p> - -<p>“Hodge, wait. Listen to me. If this is what you want -you know I will not try to stop you. But Hodge, be sure. Be -very sure.”</p> - -<p>“I want you, Catty.”</p> - -<p>“Do you? Really want <i>me</i>, I mean.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what you mean. I want you.”</p> - -<p>But it was already too late; I had made the fatal error -of pausing to listen. Angrily I moved away, picked up my -basket and sullenly began to search for mushrooms again. -My hands still trembled and there was a quiver in my legs. -To complement my mood a cloud drifted across the sun -and the warm woods became chilly.</p> - -<p>“Hodge.”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>“Please don’t be angry. Or ashamed. If you are I shall -be sorry.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span></p> - -<p>“I don’t understand.”</p> - -<p>She laughed. “Oh my dear Hodge. Isnt that what men -always say to women? And isnt it always true?”</p> - -<p>Suddenly the day was no longer spoiled. The tension -melted and we went on picking mushrooms with a new -and fresh innocence.</p> - -<p>After this I could no longer keep all thoughts of Catty -out of the intimacy with Barbara; now for the first time -her jealousy had grounds. I felt guilty toward both, not because -I desired both, but because I didnt totally desire -either.</p> - -<p>Now, years later, I condemn myself for the lost rapturous -moments; at the time I procrastinated and hesitated as -though I had eternity in which to make decisions. I was, -as Tyss had said, the spectator type, waiting to be acted -upon, waiting for events to push me where they would.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C16"><i>16.</i> <i>OF VARIED SUBJECTS</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>“I can’t think of anything more futile,” said Kimi, -“than to be an architect at this time in the United States.”</p> - -<p>Her husband grinned. “You forgot to add, ‘of Oriental -extraction.’”</p> - -<p>Catty said, “Ive never understood. Of course I don’t remember -too well, but it seems to me Spanish people don’t -have the same racial fanaticism. Certainly the Portuguese, -French and Dutch don’t. Even the English are not quite so -certain of Anglo-Saxon superiority. Only the Americans, in -the United States and the Confederate States too, judge -everything by color.”</p> - -<p>“The case of the Confederacy is reasonably simple,” I -said. “There are about fifty million Confederate citizens -and two hundred and fifty million subjects. If white supremacy -wasnt the cornerstone of Southron policy a visitor -couldnt tell the ruling class at a glance. Even as it is he -sometimes has a hard time, what with sunburn. It’s more -complicated here. Remember, we lost a war, the most important -war in our history, which was not unconnected with -skin color.”</p> - -<p>“In Japan,” said Hiro, “the lighter colored people, the -Ainu, used to be looked down on. Just as the Christians -were once driven underground at exactly the same time -they themselves drove the Jews underground in Spain and -Portugal.”</p> - -<p>“The Jews,” murmured Catty vaguely; “are there still -Jews?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span></p> - -<p>“Oh yes,” I said. “Several millions in Uganda-Eretz -which the British made a self-governing dominion back in -1933 under the first Labour cabinet. And numbers most -everywhere else, except in the German Union since the -massacres of 1905-1913.”</p> - -<p>“Which were much more thorough than the anti-Oriental -massacres in the United States,” supplied Hiro.</p> - -<p>“Much more thorough,” I agreed. “After all, scattered -handfuls of Asians were left alive here.”</p> - -<p>“My parents and Kimi’s grandparents among them. How -lucky they were to be American Japanese instead of European -Jews.”</p> - -<p>“There are Jews in the United States,” announced Kimi. -“I met one once. She was a theosophist and told me I -ought to learn the wisdom of the East.”</p> - -<p>“Very few of them. There were about two hundred thousand -at the close of the War of Southron Independence on -both sides of the border. After the election of 1872, General -Grant’s Order Number Ten, expelling all Jews from -the Department of the Missouri, which had been rescinded -immediately by President Lincoln, was retroactively re-enacted -by President Butler, in spite of the fact that the -United States no longer controlled that territory. Henceforth -Jews were treated like all other colored peoples, Negroes, -Orientals, Indians and South Sea Islanders: as undesirables -to be bribed to leave or to be driven out of the -country.”</p> - -<p>“This is very dull stuff,” said Hiro. “Let me tell you -about a hydrogen reaction—” -“No, please,” begged Catty. “Let me listen to Hodge.”</p> - -<p>“Good heavens,” exclaimed Kimi, “when do you ever -do anything else? I’d think you’d be tired by now.”</p> - -<p>“She will marry him one of these days,” predicted Hiro; -“then the poor fellow will never be allowed to disguise a -lecture as a conversation again.”</p> - -<p>Catty blushed, a deep red blush. I laughed to cover some -constraint. Kimi said, “Go-betweens are out of fashion; -youre a century behind times, Hiro. I suppose you think -a woman ought to walk two paces respectfully behind her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span> -husband. Actually, it’s only in the United States women -can’t vote or serve on juries.”</p> - -<p>“Except in the state of Deseret,” I reminded her.</p> - -<p>“That’s just bait; the Mormons gave us equality because -they were running short of women.”</p> - -<p>“Not the way I heard it. The Latter Day Saints have -been the nearest thing to a prosperous group in the country. -Women have been moving there for years, it’s so easy to -get married. All the grumbling about polygamy has come -from men who can’t stand the competition.”</p> - -<p>Catty glanced at me, then looked away.</p> - -<p>Had she, I wondered afterward, been thinking how Barbara -would have rejected my observation furiously? Or -about that day in the spring? Or about Hiro’s earlier comment? -I thought about it, briefly, myself.</p> - -<p>I also thought of how easily Catty fitted in with the -Agatis and contrasted it with the tension everyone would -have felt if Barbara had been there. One could love Barbara, -or hate her or dislike her or even, I supposed, be -indifferent to her; the one thing impossible was to be comfortable -with her.</p> - -<p>The final choice (was it final? I don’t know. I shall never -know now) hardened when I had been nearly six years at -Haggershaven. It had been “on” between Barbara and me -for the longest stretch I could recall and I had even begun -to wonder if some paradoxical equilibrium had not been -established which would allow me to be her lover without -vexation and at the same time innocently enjoy a bond with -Catty.</p> - -<p>As always when the hostility between us slackened, Barbara -spoke of her work. In spite of such occasional confidences -it was still not her habit to talk of it with me. That -intimacy was obviously reserved for Ace, and I didnt begrudge -him it, for after all he understood what it was all -about and I didnt. This time she was so full of the subject -she could not hold back, even from one who could hardly -distinguish between thermodynamics and kinesthetics.</p> - -<p>“Hodge,” she said, gray eyes greenish with excitement, -“I’m not going to write a book.”</p> - -<p>“That’s nice,” I answered idly. “New, too. Saves time,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span> -paper, ink. Sets a different standard; from now on scholars -will be known as ‘Jones, who didnt write <i>The Theory of -Tidal Waves’</i>,‘Smith, unauthor of <i>Gas and Its Properties</i>,’ -or ‘Backmaker, non-recorder of <i>Gettysburg And After</i>.’”</p> - -<p>“Silly. I only meant it’s become customary to spend a -lifetime formulating principles; then someone else comes -along and puts your principles into practice. It seems more -sensible for me to demonstrate my own conclusions instead -of writing about them.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sure. Youre going to demonstrate ... uh ...?”</p> - -<p>“Cosmic entity, of course. What do you think Ive been -talking about?”</p> - -<p>I tried to remember what she had said about cosmic entity. -“You mean youre going to try to turn matter into -space or something like that?”</p> - -<p>“Something like that. I intend to translate matter-energy -into terms of space-time.”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” I said, “equations and symbols and all that.”</p> - -<p>“I just said I wasnt going to write a book.”</p> - -<p>“But how—” I started up as the impact struck me. -“Youre going to ...” I groped for words. “Youre going -to build a ... an engine which will move through time?”</p> - -<p>“Putting it crudely. But close enough for a layman.”</p> - -<p>“You once told me your work was theoretical. That you -were no vulgar mechanic.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll become one.”</p> - -<p>“Barbara, youre crazy! As a philosophical abstraction -this theory of yours is interesting—” -“Thank you. It’s always nice to know one has amused -the yokelry.”</p> - -<p>“Barbara, listen to me. Midbin—” -“I havent the faintest interest in Oliver’s stodgy fantasies.”</p> - -<p>“He has in yours though, and so have I. Don’t you see, -this determination of yours is based on the fantasy of going -back through time to—uh—injure your mother—” -“Oliver Midbin is a coarse, stupid, insensate lout. He -has taught the dumb to speak, but he’s too much of a fool -to understand anyone of normal intelligence. He has a set<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span> -of idiotic theories about diseased emotions and he fits all -facts into them even if it means chopping them up to do it -or inventing new ones to piece them out. Injure my mother -indeed! I have no more interest in her than she ever had -in me.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, Barbara—” -“‘Ah Barbara,’” she mimicked. “Run along to your -pompous windbag of a Midbin or your oh-so-willing cow-eyed -Spanish doxy—” -“Barbara, I’m talking as a friend. Leave Midbin and -Catty and personalities out of it and just look at it this -way. Don’t you see the difference between promulgating a -theory and trying a practical demonstration which will certainly -appear to the world as going over the borderline into -charlatanism? Like a spiritualist medium or—” -“That’s enough! ‘Charlatan’! You unspeakable guttersnipe. -What do you know of anything beyond the seduction -of cretins? Go back to your trade, you errand boy!”</p> - -<p>I seemed to remember that once before an incident had -ended precisely this way. “Barbara—” -Her hand caught me across my mouth. Then she strode -away.</p> - -<p>The fellows of Haggershaven were not enthusiastic for -her project. Even as she outlined it to them in more sober -language than she had to me it still sounded outlandish, like -the recurrent idea of a telegraph without wires or a rocket -to the moon. Besides, 1950 was a bad year. The war was -coming closer; at the least, what was left of the independence -of the United States was likely to be extinguished. Our -energies had to be directed toward survival rather than new -and expensive ventures. Still, Barbara Haggerwells was a -famous figure commanding great respect, and she had cost -them little so far, beyond paper and pencils. Reluctantly -the fellows voted an appropriation.</p> - -<p>An old barn, not utilized for years, but still sound, was -turned over to Barbara, and Kimi was delighted to plan, -design and supervise the necessary changes. Ace and a -group of the fellows attacked the job vigorously, sawing -and hammering, bolting iron beams together, piping in gas<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span> -for reflecting lights to enable them to work at night as well.</p> - -<p>I believe I took no more interest than was inescapable -as a fellow of Haggershaven. I had no doubt that the money -and labor were being wasted, and I foresaw a terrible disappointment -for Barbara when she realized the impossibility -of her project. For myself I did not think she would -play any further part of importance in my life.</p> - -<p>We had not spoken since the quarrel, nor was there inclination -on either side toward coming together again. I -could not guess at Barbara’s feelings; mine were those of -relief, unmixed with regret. I would not have erased all -there had been between us, but I was satisfied to have it -in the past. The raging desire vanished, gradually replaced -by an affection of sorts; I wanted no more of that tempestuous -passion, instead I felt aloofly protective and understanding.</p> - -<p>For at last I was absorbed with Catty. The raw hunger -of the moment when I first realized I wanted her came back -with renewed force, but now other, more diffused feelings -were equally part of my emotion. I knew she could make -me jealous as Barbara could not; at the same time I could -see tranquillity beyond turbulent wanting, a tranquillity -never possible with Barbara.</p> - -<p>But my belated realization of what Catty meant to me -was no reaction to Barbara or connected with the breaking -of that tie. The need for Catty was engendered by Catty -alone, and for Catty apart from anything I had ever felt -for another. It was in some ways an entirely new hunger, -as the man’s need transcends the youth’s. I understood now -what her question in the woodlot meant and at last I -could truthfully answer.</p> - -<p>She kissed me back, freely and strongly. “I love you, -Hodge,” she said; “I have loved you even through the bad -dream of not being able to speak.”</p> - -<p>“When I was so unfeeling.”</p> - -<p>“I loved you even when you were impatient; I tried to -make myself prettier for you. You know you have never -said I was pretty.”</p> - -<p>“You arent, Catty. Youre extraordinarily beautiful.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span></p> - -<p>“I think I would rather be pretty. Beauty sounds forbidding. -Oh, Hodge, if I did not love you so much I would not -have stopped you that day.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not sure I understand that.”</p> - -<p>“No? Well, it is not necessary now. Sometimes I wondered -if I had been right after all, or if you would think -it was because of Barbara.”</p> - -<p>“Wasnt it?”</p> - -<p>“No. I was never jealous of her. We Garcías are supposed -to have Morisco blood; perhaps I have the harem -outlook of my dark Muslim ancestors. Would you like me -to be your black concubine?”</p> - -<p>“No,” I said. “I’d like you to be my wife. In any colors -you have.”</p> - -<p>“Spoken with real gallantry; you will be a courtier yet, -Hodge. But that was a proposal, wasnt it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” I answered grimly; “if you will consider one from -me. I can’t think of any good reason why you should.”</p> - -<p>She put her hands on my shoulders and looked into my -eyes. “I don’t know what reason has to do with it. It is -what I always intended; that was why I blushed so when -Hiro Agati blurted out what everyone could see.”</p> - -<p>Later I said, “Catty, can you ever forgive me for the -wasted years? You say you werent jealous of Barbara, but -surely if she and I—that is ... anyway, forgive me.” -“Dear Hodge, there’s nothing to forgive. Love is not a -business transaction, nor a case at law in which justice is -sought, nor a reward for having good qualities. I understand -you, Hodge, better I think than you understand -yourself. You are not satisfied with what is readily obtained, -otherwise you would have been content back in—what is -the name?—Wappinger Falls. I have known this for a long -time and I could, I think—you must excuse my vanity—have -interested you at any moment by pretending fickleness. -Just as I could have held you if I had given in that -day. Besides, I think you will make a better husband for -realizing you could not deal with Barbara.” -I can’t say I entirely enjoyed this speech. I felt, in fact, -rather humiliated, or at least healthily humbled. Which was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span> -no doubt what she intended, and as it should be. I never -had the idea she was frail or insipid.</p> - -<p>Nor did Catty’s explanation of a harem outlook satisfactorily -account for the sudden friendliness of the two -women after the engagement was announced. That Barbara -should soften so toward a successful rival was incomprehensible -and also disturbing.</p> - -<p>Because both were fully occupied they actually spent little -time together, but Catty visited the workshop, as they -called the converted barn, whenever she had the chance -and her real admiration for Barbara grew so that I heard -too often of her genius, courage and imagination. I could -hardly ask Catty to forego society I had so recently found -enchanting nor establish a taboo against mention of a name -I had lately whispered with ardor; still I felt a little foolish, -and not quite as important as I might otherwise have -thought myself.</p> - -<p>Not that Catty didnt have proper respect and enthusiasm -for my fortunes. I had completed my notes for <i>Chancellorsville -to the End</i>—that is, I had a mass of clues, guideposts, -keys, ideas, and emphases which would serve as skeleton -for a work which might take years to write—and Catty -was the audience to whom I explained and expounded and -used as a prototype of the reader I might reach. Volume -one was roughly drafted, and we were to be married as -soon as it was finished, shortly after my thirtieth and Catty’s -twenty-fourth birthday. There was little doubt the book -would bring an offer from one of the great Confederate -universities, but Catty was firm for a cottage like the -Agatis’, and I could not conceive of being foolish enough -to leave Haggershaven.</p> - -<p>From Catty’s talk I knew Barbara was running into increasing -difficulties now the workshop was complete and -actual construction begun of what was referred to, with -unnecessary crypticism I thought, as HX-1. The impending -war created scarcities, particularly of such materials as -steel and copper, of which latter metal HX-1 seemed inordinately -greedy. I was not surprised when the fellows -apologetically refused Barbara a new appropriation.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span></p> - -<p>Next day Catty said, “Hodge, you know the haven -wouldnt take my money.”</p> - -<p>“And quite right too. Let the rest of us put in what we -get; we owe it to the haven anyway. But the debt is the -other way round in your case and you should keep your -independence.”</p> - -<p>“Hodge, I’m going to give it all to Barbara for her -HX-1.”</p> - -<p>“What? Oh, nonsense!”</p> - -<p>“Is it any more nonsensical for me to put in money I -didnt do anything to get than for her and Ace to put in -time and knowledge and labor?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, because she’s got a crazy idea and Ace has never -been quite sane where she’s concerned. If you go ahead and -do this you’ll be as crazy as they are.”</p> - -<p>When Catty laughed I remembered with a pang the long -months when that lovely sound had been strangled by terror -inside her. I also thought with shame of my own -failure; had I appreciated her when her need was greatest -I might have eased the long, painful ordeal of restoring -her voice.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I am crazy. Do you think the haven would -make me a fellow on that basis? Anyway, I believe in -Barbara even if the rest of you don’t. Not that I’m criticizing; -you were right to be cautious. You have more to consider -than demonstration of the truth of a theory which -can’t conceivably have a material value; I don’t have to -take any such long view. Anyway I believe in her. Or perhaps -I feel I owe her something. With my money she can -finish her project. I only tell you this because you may -not want to marry me under the circumstances.”</p> - -<p>“You think I’m marrying you for your money?”</p> - -<p>She smiled. “Dear Hodge. You are in some ways so -young; I hear the wounded dignity in your voice. No, I -know very well you arent marrying me for money, that it -never occurred to you it might be a good idea. That would -be too practical, too grown up, too un-Hodgelike. I think -you might not want to marry a woman who’d give all her -money away. Especially to Barbara Haggerwells.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span></p> - -<p>“Catty, are you doing this absurd thing to get rid of me? -Or to test me?”</p> - -<p>This time she again laughed loud. “Now I’m sure you -will marry me after all and turn out to be a puzzled but -amenable husband. You are my true Hodge, who studies -a war because he can’t understand anything simpler or -subtler.”</p> - -<p>She wasnt to be dissuaded from the quixotic gesture. I -might not understand subtleties but I was sure I understood -Barbara well enough. Foreseeing her request for more -funds would be turned down, she must have cultivated -Catty deliberately in order to use her. Now she’d gotten -what she wanted I confidently expected her to drop Catty -or revert to her accustomed virulence.</p> - -<p>She did neither. If anything the amity grew. Catty’s vocabulary -added words like “magnet,” “coil,” “induction,” -“particle,” “light-year,” “continuum” and many others -either incomprehensible or uninteresting to me. Breathlessly -she described the strange, asymmetric structure taking -shape in the workshop, while my mind was busy with -Ewell’s Corps and parrott guns and the weather chart of -southern Pennsylvania for July, 1863.</p> - -<p>The great publishing firm of Ticknor, Harcourt & Knopf -contracted for my book—there was no publisher in the -United States equipped to handle it—and sent me a sizable -advance in Confederate dollars which became even more -sizable converted into our money. I read the proofs of -volume one in a state of semiconsciousness, sent the inevitable -telegram changing a footnote on page 99, and -waited for the infuriating mails to bring me my complimentary -copies. The day after they arrived (with a horrifying -typographical error right in the middle of page 12), -Catty and I were married.</p> - -<p>Dear Catty. Dear, dear Catty.</p> - -<p>With the approval of the fellows we used part of the -publisher’s advance for a honeymoon. We spent it—that -part of it in which we had time for anything except being -alone together—going over nearby battlefields of the last -year of the War of Southron Independence.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span></p> - -<p>It was Catty’s first excursion away from Haggershaven -since the night I brought her there. Looking at the world -outside through her perceptions, at once insulated and -made hypersensitive by her new status, I was shocked -afresh at the harsh indifference, the dull poverty, the fear, -brutality, frenzy and cynicism highlighting the strange resignation -to impending fate which characterized our civilization. -It was not a case of eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow -we die; rather it was, let us live meanly and trust -to luck—tomorrow’s luck is bound to be worse.</p> - -<p>We settled down in the autumn of 1951 in a cottage -designed by Kimi and built by the fellows during our absence. -It gave on the Agatis’ cherished garden and we were -both moved by this evidence of love, particularly after -what we had seen and heard on our trip. Mr Haggerwells -made a speech, filled with classical allusions, welcoming -us back as though we had been gone for years; Midbin -looked anxiously into Catty’s face as though to assure himself -I had not, in my new role as husband, treated her so ill -as to bring on a new emotional upset; and the other fellows -made appropriate gestures. Even Barbara stopped by -long enough to comment that the house was ridiculously -small, but she supposed Kimi’s movable partitions helped.</p> - -<p>I immediately began working on volume two and Catty -took up her sewing again. She also resumed her visits to -Barbara’s workshop; again I heard detailed accounts of -my former sweetheart’s progress. HX-1 was to be completed -in the late spring, or early summer. I was not surprised -at Barbara’s faith surviving actual construction of -the thing, but that such otherwise level-headed people as -Ace and Catty could envisage breathlessly the miracles -about to happen was beyond me. Ace, even after all these -years, was still bemused—but Catty ...?</p> - -<p>Just before the turn of the year I got the following letter:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span></p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p> -LEE & WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY<br /> -Department of History<br /> -</p> - -<p> -Leesburg, District of Calhounia, CSA.<br /> -December 19, 1951<br /> -<br /> -Mr. Hodgins M. Backmaker<br /> -“Haggershaven”<br /> -York,<br /> -Pennsylvania, USA.<br /> -<br /> -<i>Sir</i>:<br /> -</p> - -<p><i>On page 407 of</i> Chancellorsville to the End, <i>volume -I</i>, Turning Tides, <i>you write, “Chronology and topography—timing -and the use of space—were to be the -decisive factors, rather than population and industry. -Stuart’s detachment, which might have proved disastrous, -turned out extraordinarily fortunate for Lee, as -we shall see in the next volume. Of course the absence -of cavalry might have been decisive if the Round Tops -had not been occupied by the Southrons on July 1....”</i></p> - -<p><i>Now, sir, evidently in your forthcoming analysis of -Gettysburg you hold (as I presume most Yankees do) -to the theory of fortuitousness. We Southrons naturally -ascribe the victory to the supreme genius of -General Lee, regarding the factors of time and space -not as forces in themselves but as opportunities for the -display of his talents.</i></p> - -<p><i>Needless to say, I hardly expect you to change your -opinions, rooted as they must be in national pride. I -only ask that before you commit them, and the conclusions -shaped by them, to print, you satisfy yourself -as an historian, of their validity in this particular case. -In other words, sir, as one of your readers (and may -I add, one who has enjoyed your work), I should like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span> -to be assured that you have studied this classic battle -as carefully as you have the engagements described in -volume I.</i></p> - -<p> -<i>With earnest wishes for your success,<br /> -I remain, sir<br /> -Cordially yours,<br /> -Jefferson Davis Polk</i><br /> -</p> -</div> - -<p>This letter from Dr Polk, the foremost historian of our -day, author of the monumental biography, <i>The Great Lee</i>, -produced a crisis in my life. Had the Confederate professor -pointed out flaws in my work, or even reproached me -for undertaking it at all without adequate equipment I -would, I trust, have acknowledged the reproof and continued -to the best of my ability. But this letter was an accolade. -Without condescension Dr Polk admitted me to the -ranks of serious historians, only asking me to consider the -depth of my evaluation.</p> - -<p>Truth is, I was not without increasing doubts of my own. -Doubts I had not allowed to rise to the surface of my mind -and disturb my plans. Polk’s letter brought them into the -open.</p> - -<p>I had read everything available. I had been over the -ground between the Maryland line, South Mountain, Carlisle -and the haven until I could draw a detail map from -memory. I had turned up diaries, letters and accounts -which had not only never been published, but which were -not known to exist until I hunted them down. I had so -steeped myself in the period I was writing about that sometimes -the two worlds seemed interchangeable and I could -live partly in one, partly in the other.</p> - -<p>Yet with all this, I was not sure I had the whole story, -even in the sense of wholeness that historians, knowing -they can never collect every detail, accept. I was not sure -I had the grand scene in perfectly proper perspective. I admitted -to myself the possibility that I had perhaps been -too rash, too precipitate, in undertaking <i>Chancellorsville to -the End</i> so soon. I knew the shadowy sign, the one which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span> -says in effect, <i>You are ready</i>, had not been given. My -confidence was shaken.</p> - -<p>Was the fault in me, in my temperament and character, -rather than in my preparation and use of materials? Was -I drawing back from committing myself, from acting, from -doing? That I had written the first volume was no positive -answer, for it was but the fraction of a whole deed; if I -withdrew now I could still preserve my standing as an -onlooker.</p> - -<p>But not to act was itself an action and answered neither -Dr Polk nor myself. Besides, what could I do? The entire -work was contracted for. The second volume was promised -for delivery some eighteen months hence. My notes for it -were complete; this was no question of revising, but of -wholly re-examining, revaluing and probably discarding -them for an entirely new start. It was a job so much bigger -than the original, one so discouraging, I felt I couldnt -face it. It would be corrupt to produce a work lacking absolute -conviction and cowardly to produce none.</p> - -<p>Catty responded to my awkward recapitulation in a -way at once heartening and strange. “Hodge,” she said, -“youre changing and developing, and for the better, even -though I love you as you were. Don’t be afraid to put the -book aside for a year—ten years if you have to. You must -do it so it will satisfy yourself; never mind what the publishers -or the public say. But Hodge, you mustnt, in your -anxiety, or your foolish fear of passiveness, you mustnt try -any shortcuts. Promise me that.” -“I don’t know what youre talking about, Catty dear. -There are no shortcuts in writing history.”</p> - -<p>She looked at me thoughtfully. “Remember that, Hodge. -Oh, remember it.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C17"><i>17.</i> <i>HX-1</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>I could not bring myself to follow the promptings -of my conscience and Catty’s advice, nor could I use my -notes as though Dr Polk’s letter had never come to shatter -my complacency. As a consequence—without deliberately -committing myself to abandon the book—I worked not at -all, thus adding to my feelings of guilt and unworthiness. -The tasks assigned by the fellows for the general welfare -of the haven were not designed to take a major part of my -time, and though I produced all sorts of revolutions in the -stables and barns, I still managed to wander about, fretful -and irritable, keeping Catty from her work, interrupting -the Agatis and Midbin—I could not bring myself to discuss -my problems with him—and generally making myself a -nuisance. Inevitably I found my way into Barbara’s workshop.</p> - -<p>She and Ace had done a thorough job on the old barn. -I thought I recognized Kimi’s touch in the structural -changes of the walls, the strong beams and rows of slanted-in -windows which admitted light and shut out glare, but -the rest must have been shaped by Barbara’s needs.</p> - -<p>Iron beams held up a catwalk running in a circle about -ten feet overhead. On the catwalk there were at intervals -what appeared to be batteries of telescopes, all pointed -inward and downward at the center of the floor. Just inside -the columns was a continuous ring of clear glass, perhaps -four inches in diameter, fastened to the beams with -glass hooks. Closer inspection proved the ring not to be in -one piece but in sections, ingeniously held together with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span> -glass couplings. Back from this circle, around the walls, -were various engines, all enclosed except for dial faces and -regulators and all dwarfed by a mammoth one towering in -one corner. From the roof was suspended a large, polished -reflector.</p> - -<p>There was no one in the barn and I wandered about, -cautiously avoiding the mysterious apparatus. For a moment -I meditated, basely perhaps, that all this had been -paid for with my wife’s money. Then I berated myself, for -Catty owed all to the haven, as I did. The money might -have been put to better use, but there was no guarantee -it would have been more productive allotted to astronomy -or zoology. During eight years I’d seen many promising -schemes come to nothing.</p> - -<p>“Like it, Hodge?”</p> - -<p>Barbara had come up, unheard, behind me. This was the -first time we had been alone together since our break, two -years before.</p> - -<p>“It looks like a tremendous amount of work,” I evaded.</p> - -<p>“It was a tremendous amount of work.” For the first -time I noticed that her cheeks were flushed. She had lost -weight and there were deep hollows beneath her eyes. “This -construction has been the least of it. Now it’s done. Or has -begun. Depending how you look at it.”</p> - -<p>“All done?”</p> - -<p>She nodded, triumph accenting the strained look on her -face. “First test today.”</p> - -<p>“Oh well ... in that case—” -“Don’t go, Hodge. Please. I meant to ask you and Catty -to the more formal trial, but now youre here for the preliminary -I’m glad. Ace and Father and Oliver will be along -in a minute.”</p> - -<p>“Midbin?”</p> - -<p>The familiar arrogance showed briefly. “I insisted. It’ll -be nice to show him the mind can produce something besides -fantasies and hysterical hallucinations.”</p> - -<p>I started to speak, then swallowed my words. The dig -at Catty was insignificant compared with the supreme -confidence, the abnormal assurance prompting invitations -to witness a test which could only reveal the impossibility<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span> -of applying her cherished theories. I felt an overwhelming -pity. “Surely,” I said at last, seeking to make some preparation -for the disillusionment certain to come, “surely you -don’t expect it to work the first time?”</p> - -<p>“Why not? There are sure to be adjustments to be -made, allowances for erratic chronology caused by phenomena -like the pull of comets and so forth. There might -even have to be major alterations, though I doubt it. It -may be some time before Ace can set me down at the exact -year, month, day, hour and minute agreed upon. But the -fact of space-time-energy-matter correspondence can just -as well be established this afternoon as next year.”</p> - -<p>She was unbelievably at ease for someone whose lifework -was about to be weighed. I have shown more nervousness -discussing a disputed date with the honorary secretary -of a local historical society.</p> - -<p>“Sit down,” she invited; “there’s nothing to do or see till -Ace comes. Ive missed you, Hodge.”</p> - -<p>I felt this was a dangerous remark, and wished I’d stayed -far away from the workshop. I hooked my leg over a stool—there -were no chairs—and coughed to hide the fact I -was afraid to answer, Ive missed you too; and afraid not to.</p> - -<p>“Tell me about your own work, Hodge. Catty says youre -having difficulties.”</p> - -<p>I was faintly annoyed with Catty, but whether for confiding -in Barbara at all or specifically for revealing something -unheroic, I didnt stop to consider. At any rate this -annoyance diluted my feeling of disloyalty for conversing -with Barbara at all. Or it may be the old, long-established -bond—I almost wrote, of sympathy, but it was so much -more complex than the word indicates—was reawakened -by proximity and put me in the mood to tell my troubles. -It is even possible I had the altruistic purpose of fortifying -Barbara against inevitable disappointment on a misery-loves-company -basis. Be that as it may, I found myself -pouring out the whole story.</p> - -<p>She jumped up and took my hands in hers. Her eyes -were gray and warm. “Hodge! It’s wonderful—don’t you -see?” -“Oh....” I was completely confused. “I ... uh....”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span></p> - -<p>“The solution. The answer. The means. Look: now you -can go back, back to the past in your own person. You can -see everything with your own eyes instead of relying on -accounts of what other people said happened.”</p> - -<p>“But ... but—” -“You can verify every fact, study every move, every -actor. You can write history as no one ever did before, -for youll be writing as a witness, yet with the perspective -of a different period. Youll be taking the mind of the present, -with its judgment and its knowledge of the patterns, -back to receive the impressions of the past. It almost seems -HX-1 was devised especially for this.”</p> - -<p>There was no doubt she believed, that she was really and -unselfishly glad her work could aid mine. I was overcome -by pity, helpless to soften the disillusionment so soon to -come and filled with an irrational hatred of the thing she -had built and which was about to destroy her.</p> - -<p>I was saved from having to mask my emotions by the -arrival of her father, Ace, and Midbin. Thomas Haggerwells -began tensely, “Barbara, Ace tells me you intend to -try out this—this machine on yourself. I can’t believe you -would be so foolhardy.” -Midbin didnt wait for her to reply. I thought with something -of a shock, Midbin has gotten old; I never noticed it. -“Listen to me. There’s no point now in saying part of your -mind realizes the impossibility of this demonstration and -that it’s willing for you to annihilate yourself in the attempt -and so escape from conflicts which have no resolution. Although -it’s something you must be at least partly aware of. -But consider objectively the danger involved in meddling -with unknown natural laws—” -Ace Dorn, who looked as strained as they in contrast to -Barbara’s ease, growled, “Let’s go.”</p> - -<p>She smiled reassuringly at us. “Please, Father, don’t -worry; there’s no danger. And Oliver....”</p> - -<p>Her smile was almost mischievous and very unlike the -Barbara I had known. “Oliver, HX-1 owes more to you -than you will ever know.”</p> - -<p>She ducked under the transparent ring and walked to -the center of the floor, glancing up at the reflector, moving<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span> -an inch or two to stand directly beneath it. “The controls -are already adjusted to minus fifty-two years and a hundred -and fifty-three days,” she informed us conversationally. -“Purely arbitrary. One date is good as another, but -January 1, 1900 is an almost automatic choice. I’ll be gone -sixty seconds. Ready, Ace?”</p> - -<p>“Ready.” He had been slowly circling the engines, checking -the dials. He took his place before the largest, the -monster in the corner, holding a watch in his hand. “Three -forty-three and ten,” he announced.</p> - -<p>Barbara was consulting her own watch. “Three forty-three -and ten,” she confirmed. “Make it at three forty-three -and twenty.”</p> - -<p>“OK. Good luck.”</p> - -<p>“You might at least try it on an animal first,” burst out -Midbin, as Ace twirled the valve under his hand. The -transparent ring glowed, the metal reflector threw back a -dazzling light. I blinked. When I opened my eyes the light -was gone and the center of the workshop was empty.</p> - -<p>No one moved. Ace frowned over his watch. I stared at -the spot where Barbara had stood. I don’t think my mind -was working; I had the feeling my lungs and heart certainly -were not. I was a true spectator, with all faculties save sight -and hearing suspended.</p> - -<p>“ ... on an animal first.” Midbin’s voice was querulous.</p> - -<p>“Oh, God ...” muttered Thomas Haggerwells.</p> - -<p>Ace said casually—too casually, “The return is automatic. -Set beforehand for duration. Thirty more seconds.”</p> - -<p>Midbin said, “She is ... this is....” He sat down on a -stool and bent his head almost to his knees.</p> - -<p>Mr Haggerwells groaned, “Ace, Ace—you should have -stopped her.” -“Ten seconds,” said Ace firmly.</p> - -<p>Still I couldnt think with any clarity. She had stood -there; then she was gone. What ...? Midbin was right: we -had let her go to destruction. Certainly more than a minute -had passed by now.</p> - -<p>The ring glowed and the brilliant light was reflected. “It -did, oh, it did!” Barbara cried. “It did!”</p> - -<p>She stood perfectly still, overwhelmed. Then she came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span> -out of the circle and kissed Ace, who patted her gently -on the back. I suddenly noticed the pain of holding my -breath and released a tremendous sigh. Barbara kissed her -father and Midbin—who was still shaking his head—and, -after the faintest hesitation, me. Her lips were ice-cold.</p> - -<p>The shock of triumph made her voluble. Striding up -and down, she spoke with extraordinary rapidity, without -pause, almost a little drunkenly. In her excitement her -words cluttered her tongue; from time to time she had to -go back and repeat a phrase or sentence to make it intelligible.</p> - -<p>When the light flashed, she too involuntarily closed her -eyes. She had felt a strange, terrifying weightlessness, an -awful disembodiment, for which she had been unprepared. -She thought she had not actually been unconscious, even -for an instant, though she had an impression of ceasing to -exist as a unique collection of memories, and of being somehow -dissolved. Then she had opened her eyes.</p> - -<p>At first she was shocked to find the barn as it had been -all her life, abandoned and dusty. Then she realized she -had indeed moved through time; the disappearance of the -engines and reflector showed she had gone back to the unremodelled -workshop.</p> - -<p>Now she saw the barn was not quite as she had known -it, even in her childhood, for while it was unquestionably -abandoned, it had evidently not long been so. The thick -dust was not so thick as she remembered, the sagging cobwebs -not so dense. Straw was still scattered on the floor; -it had not yet been entirely carried away by mice or inquisitive -birds. Alongside the door hung bits of harness beyond -repair, some broken bridles, and a faded calendar on which -the ink of the numerals 1897 was still bright.</p> - -<p>The minute she had allotted this first voyage seemed fantastically -short and incredibly long. All the paradoxes she -had brushed aside as of no immediate concern now confronted -her. Since she had gone back to a time before she -was born, she must have existed as a visitor prior to her -own conception; she could presumably be present during -her own childhood and growth, and by making a second -and third visit, multiply herself as though in facing mirrors,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span> -so that an infinite number of Barbara Haggerwells could -occupy a single segment of time.</p> - -<p>A hundred other parallel speculations raced through her -mind without interfering with her rapid and insatiable survey -of the commonplace features of the barn, features -which could never really be commonplace to her since they -proved all her speculations so victoriously right.</p> - -<p>Suddenly she shivered with the bitter cold and burst into -teeth-chattering laughter. She had made such careful plans -to visit on the First of January—and had never thought -to take along a warm coat.</p> - -<p>She looked at her watch; only twenty seconds had -passed. The temptation to defy her agreement with Ace not -to step outside the tiny circle of HX-1’s operating field on -the initial experiment was almost irresistible. She longed -to touch the fabric of the past, to feel the worn boards of -the barn, to handle as well as look. Again her thoughts -whirled with speculation; again the petty moment stretched -and contracted. She spent eternity and instantaneity at -once.</p> - -<p>Suppose.... But she had a thousand suppositions and -questions. Was she really herself in the flesh, or in some -mental projection? A pinch would do no good; that might -be projection also. Would she be visible to the people of -the time, or was she a ghost from the future? Oh, there -was so much to learn, so much to encounter!</p> - -<p>When the moment of return came, she again experienced -the feeling of dissolution, followed immediately by the -light. When she opened her eyes she was back.</p> - -<p>Midbin rubbed his belly and then his thinning hair. -“Hallucination,” he propounded at last; “a logical, consistent -hallucination. Answer to an overriding wish.”</p> - -<p>“You mean Barbara was never gone?” asked Ace. “Was -she visible to you—or Mr H or Hodge—during that minute?” -“Illusion,” said Midbin; “group illusion brought on by -suggestion and anxiety.”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense,” exclaimed Barbara. “Unless youre accusing -Ace and me of faking youll have to account for what you -just called the logical consistency of it. Your group illusion<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span> -and my individual hallucination fitting so neatly together.”</p> - -<p>Midbin recovered some of his poise. “The two phenomena -are separate, connected only by some sort of emotional -hypnosis. Certainly your daydream of having been back in -1900 is an emotionally induced aberration.”</p> - -<p>“And your daydream that I wasn’t here for a minute?”</p> - -<p>“The eyes are quickly affected by the feelings. Note -tears, ‘seeing red’ and so forth.”</p> - -<p>“Very well, Oliver. The only thing to do is to let you -try HX-1 yourself.”</p> - -<p>“Hay, my turn’s supposed to be next,” protested Ace.</p> - -<p>“Of course. But no one is going to use it again today. -Tomorrow morning. Bring Catty, Hodge, if she wants to -come, but please don’t say anything to anyone else till -weve made further demonstrations, otherwise we’ll be besieged -by fellows wanting to take short jaunts into popular -years.”</p> - -<p>I had little inclination to discuss what had happened -with anyone, even Catty. Not that I shared Midbin’s theory -of nothing material having taken place; I knew I’d not seen -Barbara for sixty seconds and I was convinced her account -of them was accurate. What confused me was the shock to -my preconceptions involved in her proof. If time and space, -matter and energy were the same, as fog and ice and water -are the same, then I—the physical I at least—and Catty, -the world and the universe must be, as Enfandin had insisted, -mere illusion. In that sense Midbin had been right.</p> - -<p>I went furtively to the workshop next day without telling -Catty, as though we were all engaged in some dark -necromancy, some sacrilegious rite. Apparently I was the -only one who had spent an anxious night; Mr Haggerwells -looked proud, Barbara looked satisfied, Ace cocky, and -even Midbin, for no understandable reason, benign.</p> - -<p>“All here?” inquired Ace. “I’m eager as a fox in a hen-house. -Three minutes in 1885. Why 1885? I don’t know; a -year when nothing much happened, I suppose. Ready, -Barbara?”</p> - -<p>He returned to report he had found the barn well occupied -by both cattle and fowl, and been scared stiff of discovery -when the dogs set up a furious barking.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span></p> - -<p>“That pretty well settles the question of corporeal -presence,” I remarked.</p> - -<p>“Not at all,” said Mr Haggerwells unexpectedly. “Dogs -are notoriously psychic.”</p> - -<p>“Ah,” cried Ace, bringing his hands from behind his -back; “look at this. I could hardly have picked it up with -psychic feelers.”</p> - -<p>“This” was a newlaid egg, sixty-seven years old. Or was -it? Trips in time are confusing that way.</p> - -<p>Barbara was upset, more than I thought warranted. “Oh, -Ace, how could you be so foolish? We darent be anything -but spectators, as unseen as possible.”</p> - -<p>“Why? Ive a notion to court my grandmother and wind -up as my own grandfather.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be stupid. The faintest indication of our presence, -the slightest impingement on the past, may change -the whole course of events. We have no way of knowing -what actions have no consequences—if there can be any. -Goodness knows what your idiocy with the egg has done. -It’s absolutely essential not to betray ourselves in any way. -Please remember this in future.” -“You mean, ‘Remember this in past,’ don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Ace, this isnt a joke.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t a wake either. I can’t see the harm in bringing -back tangible proof. Loss of one egg isnt going to send the -prices up for 1885 and cause retroactive inflation. Youre -making a mountain out of a molehill—or an omelette out -of a single egg.” -She shrugged helplessly. “Oliver, I hope you won’t be -so foolish.”</p> - -<p>“Since I don’t expect to arrive in, say, 1820, I can safely -promise neither to steal eggs nor court Ace’s female ancestors.”</p> - -<p>He was gone for five minutes. The barn had apparently -not yet been built in 1820 and he found himself on a slight -rise in a field of wild hay. The faint snick of scythes, and -voices not too far off, indicated mowers. He dropped to the -ground. His view of the past was restricted to tall grass -and some persistent ants who explored his face and hands<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span> -until the time was up and he returned with broken spears -of ripe hay clinging to his clothes.</p> - -<p>“At least that’s what I imagined I saw,” he concluded.</p> - -<p>“Did you imagine these?” asked Ace, pointing to the -straws.</p> - -<p>“Probably. It’s at least as likely as time-travel.”</p> - -<p>“But what about corroboration? Your experience, and -Barbara’s and Ace’s confirm each other. Doesnt that mean -anything?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly. Only I’m not prepared to say what. The -mind can do anything; anything at all. Create boils and -cancers. Why not ants and grass? I don’t know. I don’t -know....”</p> - -<p>After more fruitless argument, he and I left the workshop. -I was again reminded of Enfandin—Why should I -believe my eyes? I felt though that Midbin was carrying -skepticism beyond rational limits; Barbara’s case was -proved.</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes,” he answered when I said this. “Why not?”</p> - -<p>I puzzled over his reply. Then he added abruptly, “No -one can help her now.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C18"><i>18.</i> <i>THE WOMAN TEMPTED ME</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>Gently, Catty said, “Ive never understood why you -cut yourself off from the past the way you have, Hodge.”</p> - -<p>“Ay? What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Well, youve not communicated with your father or -mother since you left home, fourteen years ago. You say -you had a dear friend in the man from Haiti, yet youve -never tried to find out whether he lived or died.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, that way. I thought you meant ... something -different.” By not taking advantage of Barbara’s offer I -certainly was cutting myself off from the past.</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>“Well, I guess more or less everyone at the haven has -done the same thing. Let outside ties grow weak, I mean. -You for one—” -“But I have no parents, no friends anywhere else. All -my life is here.”</p> - -<p>“Well, so is mine.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, dear Hodge; it is unlike you to be so indifferent.”</p> - -<p>“Catty darling, you were brought up comfortably in an -atmosphere knowing nothing of indenting or sharecropping, -of realizing the only escape from wretchedness was -in a miracle—usually translated as a winning number in -the lottery. I can’t convey to you the meaning of utterly -loveless surroundings, I can only say that affection was a -luxury my mother and father couldnt afford.” -“Perhaps not; but you can afford it. Now. And nothing -of what you have said applies to Enfandin.”</p> - -<p>I squirmed shamefacedly. My ingratitude and callous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span>ness -must be apparent to everyone; even Barbara, I remembered, -had once asked me much the same questions -Catty asked now. How could I explain, even to my own -satisfaction, how procrastination and guilt made it impossible -for me to take the simple steps to discover what had -happened to my friend? By a tremendous effort I might -have broken through the inertia years ago, just after Enfandin -had been wounded, but each day and month between -confirmed the impossibility more strongly. “Let the -past take care of itself,” I muttered.</p> - -<p>“Oh Hodge! What a thing for an historian to say.”</p> - -<p>“Catty, I can’t.”</p> - -<p>The conversation made me nervous and fidgetty. It also -made me remember much I preferred to let fade: the -Grand Army, Sprovis, the counterfeit pesetas.... All the -evil I had unwillingly abetted. If a man did nothing, literally -nothing, all his life, then he might be free of culpability. -Manichaeism, said Enfandin. No absolution.</p> - -<p>My idleness, I knew very well, heightened all these feelings -of degradation. Were I able to continue in the happy, -cocksure way I had gone about my note-gathering and the -writing of volume one, I would have neither the time nor -susceptibility to be plagued by this disquiet. As it was I -seemed to be able to do nothing but act as audience for -what was going on in the workshop.</p> - -<p>With childish eagerness Barbara and Ace explored -HX-1’s possibilities for the next two months. They quickly -learned that its range was limited to little more than a century, -though this limit was subject to slight variations. -When they tried to operate beyond this range the translation -simply didnt take place, though the same feeling of -dissolution occurred. When the light faded they were still -in the present. Midbin’s venture into the hayfield had been -a freak, possibly due to peculiar weather conditions at both -ends of the journey. They set 1850 as a safe limit, with an -undefined marginal zone further back which was not to be -hazarded lest conditions change during the journey and -the traveler be lost.</p> - -<p>Why this limit existed at all was a matter of dispute between -them, a dispute of which I must admit I understood<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span> -little. Barbara spoke of subjective factors which seemed to -mean that HX-1 worked slightly differently in the case of -each person it transported; Ace of magnetic fields and -power relays, which didnt mean anything to me at all. The -only thing they agreed on was that the barrier was not immutable; -HX-2 or 3 or 20, if they were ever built, would -undoubtedly overcome it.</p> - -<p>Nor would HX-1 work in reverse; the future remained -closed, probably for similar reasons, whatever they were. -Here again they disputed, Ace holding an HX could be -built for this purpose, Barbara insisting that new equations -would have to be worked out.</p> - -<p>They confirmed their tentative theory that time spent in -the past consumed an equal amount of time in the present; -they could not return to a point a minute after departure -when they had been gone for an hour. As near as I could -understand, this was because duration was set in the present. -In order to come back to a time-point not in correspondence -with the period actually spent, another HX, -or at least another set of controls, would have to be taken -into the past. And then they would not work since HX-1 -could not penetrate the future.</p> - -<p>The most inconvenient circumscription was the inability -of one person to visit the same past moment twice. When -the attempt was made the feeling of dissolution did not -occur, the light went on and off with no effect upon the -would-be traveler standing beneath it. Here Barbara’s -“subjective factor” was triumphant, but why, or how it -worked, they did not know. Nor did they know what would -happen to a traveler who attempted to overlap by being -already on the spot prior to a previous visit; it was too -dangerous to try.</p> - -<p>Within these limits they roamed almost at will. Ace -spent a full week in October 1896, walking as far as Philadelphia, -enjoying the enthusiasm and fury of the presidential -campaign. Knowing President Bryan was not only going -to be elected, but would serve three terms, he found it -hard indeed to obey Barbara’s stricture and not cover confident -Whig bets on Major McKinley.</p> - -<p>Though both sampled the war years they brought back<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span> -nothing useful to me, no information or viewpoint I -couldnt have got from any of a score of books. Lacking -historians’ interests or training, their tidbits were those of -curious onlookers, not probing chroniclers. It was tantalizing -to know that Barbara had seen Secretary Stanton at -the York depot or that Ace had overheard a farmer say -casually that Southron scouts had stopped at his place the -day before and they had thought neither incident worth -investigating further.</p> - -<p>I grew increasingly fretful. I held long colloquies with -myself which always ended inconclusively. <i>Why not?</i> I -asked. <i>Surely this is the unique opportunity. Never before -has it been possible for an historian to check back at will, -to select a particular moment for personal scrutiny, to -write of the past with the detachment of the present and -the accuracy of an eyewitness knowing specifically what to -look for. Why don’t you take advantage of HX-1 and see -for yourself?</i></p> - -<p>Against this I objected—what? Fear? Uneasiness? The -“subjective factor” in HX-1? The superstitious notion that -I might be tampering with a taboo, with matters forbidden -to human shortcomings? <i>You mustnt try any shortcuts. -Promise me that, Hodge.</i> Well, Catty was a darling. She was -my beloved wife, but she was neither scholar nor oracle. -On what grounds did she protest? Woman’s intuition? A -respectable phrase, but what did it mean? And didnt Barbara, -who first suggested my using HX-1, have womanly -intuition also?</p> - -<p>A half-dozen times I tried to steer our talk in the direction -of my thoughts; each time I allowed the words to drift -to another topic. What was the use of upsetting her? -<i>Promise me that, Hodge.</i> But I had not promised. This was -something I had to settle for myself.</p> - -<p>What was I afraid of? Because I’d never grasped anything -to do with the physical sciences did I attribute some -anthropomorphism to their manifestations and like a savage -fear the spirit imprisoned in what I didnt understand? (But -HX-1 <i>did</i> have subjective factors.) I had never thought of -myself as hidebound, but I was acting like a ninety-year<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span>old -professor asked to use a typewriter instead of a goose -quill.</p> - -<p>I recalled Tyss’s, “You are the spectator type, Hodgins.” -And once I had called him out of my memory I couldnt -escape his familiar, sardonic, interminable argument. <i>Why -are you fussing yourself, Hodgins? What is the point of all -this introspective debate? Don’t you know your choice has -already been made? And that you have acted according to -it an infinite number of times and will do so an infinite -number of times again? Relax, Hodgins; you have nothing -to worry about. Free will is an illusion; you cannot alter -what you are about to decide under the impression that you -have decided.</i></p> - -<p>My reaction to this imagined interjection was frenzied, -unreasonable. I cursed Tyss and his damnable philosophy. -I cursed the insidiousness of his reasoning which had -planted seed in my brain to sprout at a moment like this.</p> - -<p>Yet in spite of the violence of my rejection of the words -I attributed to Tyss, I accepted one of them. I relaxed. The -decision had been made. Not by mechanistic forces, nor by -blind response to stimulus, but by my own desire.</p> - -<p>And now to my aid came the image of Tyss’s antithesis, -René Enfandin. <i>Be a skeptic, Hodge; be always the skeptic. -Prove all things; hold fast to that which is true. Joking -Pilate, asking,</i> What is truth? <i>was blind. But you can see -more aspects of the absolute truth than any man has had a -chance to see before. Can you use the chance well, Hodge? -That is the only question.</i></p> - -<p>Once I could answer it with a vigorous affirmative, and -so buttress the determination to go, I was faced with the -problem of telling Catty. I could not shut her out of so important -a move. I told myself I could not bear the thought -of her anxiety; that she would worry despite the fact others -had frequently used HX-1, for my object could not be -accomplished in a matter of minutes or hours. I was sure -she would be sick with apprehension during the days I -would be gone. No doubt this was all true, but I also remembered, -<i>Promise me, Hodge</i>....</p> - -<p>I finally took the weak, the ineffective course. I said I’d -decided the only way to face my problem was to go to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span> -Gettysburg and spend three or four days going over the -actual field. Here, I explained unconvincingly, I thought I -might at last come to the conclusion whether to scrap all -my work and start afresh, or not.</p> - -<p>Her faintly oblique eyes were inscrutable. She pretended -to believe me and begged me to take her along. After all, -we had spent our honeymoon on battlefields.</p> - -<p>Would it be possible? Two people had never stood under -the reflector together, but surely it would work? I was -tempted, but I could not subject Catty to the risk, however -slight. Besides, how could I explain?</p> - -<p>“But Catty, with you there I’d be thinking of you instead -of the problem.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, Hodge, have we already been married so long you -must get away from me to think?”</p> - -<p>“No matter how long, that time will never come. Perhaps -I’m wrong, Catty. It’s just a feeling I have.”</p> - -<p>Her look was tragic with understanding. “You must do -as you think right. Don’t ... don’t be gone too long, -my dear.”</p> - -<p>I dressed in clothes I often used for walking trips, clothes -which bore no mark of any fashion and might pass as current -wear among the poorer classes in any era of the past -hundred years. I put a packet of dried beef in my pocket -and started for the workshop.</p> - -<p>As soon as I left the cottage I laughed at my hypersensitivity, -at all the to-do I’d made over lying to Catty. This -was but the first excursion; I planned others for the months -after Gettysburg. There was no reason why she shouldnt -accompany me on them. I grew lighthearted as my conscience -eased and I even congratulated myself on my skill -in not having told a single technical falsehood to Catty. I -began to whistle, never a habit of mine, as I made my way -along the path to the workshop.</p> - -<p>Barbara was alone. Her ginger hair gleamed in the light -of a gas globe; her eyes were green as they always were -when she was exultant. “Well, Hodge?”</p> - -<p>“Well, Barbara, I....”</p> - -<p>“Have you told Catty?”</p> - -<p>“Not exactly. How did you know?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span></p> - -<p>“I knew before you did, Hodge. After all, we’re not -strangers. All right. How long do you want to stay?”</p> - -<p>“Four days.”</p> - -<p>“That’s long for a first trip. Don’t you think you’d better -try a few sample minutes?”</p> - -<p>“Why? Ive seen you and Ace go often enough and heard -your accounts. I’ll take care of myself. Have you got it -down fine enough yet so you can invariably pick the hour -of arrival?”</p> - -<p>“Hour and minute,” she answered confidently. “What’ll -it be?”</p> - -<p>“About midnight of June 30, 1863,” I answered. “I want -to come back on the night of July Fourth.”</p> - -<p>“Youll have to be more exact than that. For the return, -I mean. The dials are set on seconds.”</p> - -<p>“All right, make it midnight going and coming then.”</p> - -<p>“Have you a watch that keeps perfect time?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know about perfect—” -“Take this one. It’s synchronized with the master control -clock.” She handed me a large, rather awkward timepiece -which had two independent faces side by side. “We had a -couple made like this; the duplicate dials were useful before -we were able to control HX-1 so exactly. One shows 1952 -Haggershaven time.”</p> - -<p>“Ten thirty-three and fourteen seconds,” I said.</p> - -<p>“Yes. The other will show 1863 time. You won’t be -able to reset the first dial—but for goodness sake remember -to keep it wound—and set the second for ... 11:54, -zero. That means in six minutes youll leave, to arrive at -midnight. Remember to keep that one wound too, for youll -go by that regardless of variations in local clocks. Whatever -else happens, be in the center of the barn at midnight—allow -yourself some leeway—by midnight, July Fourth. -I don’t want to have to go wandering around 1863 looking -for you.” -“You won’t. I’ll be here.”</p> - -<p>“Five minutes. Now then, food.”</p> - -<p>“I have some,” I answered, slapping my pocket.</p> - -<p>“Not enough. Take this concentrated chocolate along. I -suppose it won’t hurt to drink the water if youre not ob<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span>served, -but avoid their food. One never knows what chain -might be started by the casual theft—or purchase, if you -had enough old coins—of a loaf of bread. The possibilities -are limitless and frightening. Listen: how can I impress on -you the importance of doing nothing that could possibly -change the future—our present? I’m sure to this day Ace -doesnt understand, and I tremble every moment he spends -in the past. The most trivial action may begin a series of -disastrous consequences. Don’t be seen, don’t be heard. -Make your trip as a ghost.” -“Barbara, I promise I’ll neither assassinate General Lee -nor give the North the idea of a modern six-barreled cannon.”</p> - -<p>“Four minutes. It’s not a joke, Hodge.”</p> - -<p>“Believe me,” I said, “I understand.”</p> - -<p>She looked at me searchingly. Then she shook her head -and began making her round of the engines, adjusting the -dials. I slid under the glass ring as I’d so often seen her do -and stood casually under the reflector. I was not in the -least nervous. I don’t think I was even particularly excited.</p> - -<p>“Three minutes,” said Barbara.</p> - -<p>I patted my breast pocket. Notebook, pencils. I nodded.</p> - -<p>She ducked under the ring and came toward me. -“Hodge....”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>She put her arms on my shoulders, leaning forward. I -kissed her, a little absently. “Clod!”</p> - -<p>I looked at her closely, but there were none of the familiar -signs of anger. “A minute to go, it says here,” I -told her.</p> - -<p>She drew away and went back. “All set. Ready?”</p> - -<p>“Ready,” I answered cheerfully. “See you midnight, -July Fourth, 1863.”</p> - -<p>“Right. Goodbye, Hodge. Glad you didnt tell Catty.”</p> - -<p>The expression on her face was the strangest I’d ever -seen her wear. I could not, then or now, quite interpret it. -Doubt, malice, suffering, vindictiveness, entreaty, love, -were all there as her hand moved the switch. I began to -answer something—perhaps to bid her wait—then the -light made me blink and I too experienced the shattering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span> -feeling of transition. My bones seemed to fly from each -other; every cell in my body exploded to the ends of space.</p> - -<p>The instant of translation was so brief it is hard to believe -all the multitude of impressions occurred simultaneously. -I was sure my veins were drained of blood, my -brain and eyeballs dropped into a bottomless void, my -thoughts pressed to the finest powder and blown a universe -away. Most of all, I knew the awful sensation of being, for -that tiny fragment of time, not Hodgins McCormick Backmaker, -but part of an <i>I</i> in which the I that was me merged -all identity.</p> - -<p>Then I opened my eyes. I was emotionally shaken; my -knees and wrists were watery points of helplessness, but I -was alive and functioning, with my individuality unimpaired. -The light had vanished. I was in darkness save for -faint moonlight coming through the cracks in the barn. -The sweetish smell of cattle was in my nostrils, and the -slow, ponderous stamp of hooves in my ears. I had gone -back through time.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C19"><i>19.</i> <i>GETTYSBURG</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>The barking of the dogs was frenzied, filled with -the hoarse note indicating they had been raising the alarm -for a long time without being heeded. I knew they must -have been baying at the alien smells of soldiers for the -past day, so I was not apprehensive that their scent of me -would bring investigation. How Barbara and Ace had escaped -detection on journeys which didnt coincide with -abnormal events was beyond me; with such an unnerving -racket in prospect I would either have given up the trips -or moved the apparatus.</p> - -<p>Strange, I reflected, that the cows and horses were undisturbed. -That no hysterical chicken leaped from the roost -in panic. Only the dogs scented my unnatural presence. -Dogs who, as Mr Haggerwells remarked, are supposed to -sense things beyond the perceptions of man.</p> - -<p>Warily I picked my way past the livestock and out of -the barn, fervently hoping the dogs were tied, for I had no -mind to start my adventure by being bitten. Barbara’s -warnings seemed inadequate indeed; one would think she -or Ace might have devised some method of neutralizing -the infernal barking. But of course they could hardly do -so without violating her rule of non-interference.</p> - -<p>Once out on the familiar Hanover road every petty feeling -of doubt or disquiet fell away and all the latent excitement -took hold of me. I was gloriously in 1863, half a day -and some thirty miles from the battle of Gettysburg. If -there is a paradise for historians I had achieved it without -the annoyance of dying first. I swung along at a good pace,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span> -thankful I had trained myself for long tramps, so that thirty -miles in less than ten hours was no monstrous feat. The -noise of the dogs died away behind me and I breathed the -night air joyfully.</p> - -<p>I had already decided I dared not attempt to steal a ride -on the railroad, even supposing the cars were going -through. As I turned off the Hanover road and took the -direct one to Gettysburg, I knew I would not be able to -keep on it for any length of time. Part of Early’s Confederate -division was moving along it from recently occupied -York; Stuart’s cavalry was all around; trifling skirmishes -were being fought on or near it; Union troops, regulars as -well as the militia called out by Governor Curtin for the -emergency, were behind and ahead of me, marching for -the Monocacy and Cemetery Ridge.</p> - -<p>Leaving the highway would hardly slow me down, for -I knew every sideroad, lane, path or shortcut, not only as -they existed in my day, but as they had been in the time -where I was now. I was going to need this knowledge even -more on my return, for on the Fourth of July this road, -like every other, would be glutted with beaten Northern -troops, supplies and wounded left behind, frantically trying -to reorganize as they were harassed by Stuart’s cavalry -and pressed by the victorious men of Hill, Longstreet, and -Ewell. It was with this in mind I had allowed disproportionately -longer for coming back.</p> - -<p>I saw my first soldier a few miles further on, a jagged -shadow sitting by the roadside with his boots off, massaging -his feet. I guessed him Northern from his kepi, but this -was not conclusive, for many Southron regiments wore -kepis also. I struck off quietly into the field and skirted -around him. He never looked up.</p> - -<p>At dawn I estimated I was halfway, and except for the -sight of that single soldier I might have been taking a nocturnal -stroll through a countryside at peace. I was tired -but certainly not worn out, and I knew I could count on -nervous energy and happy excitement to keep me going -long after my muscles began to protest. Progress would be -slower from now on—Confederate infantry must be just -ahead—even so, I should be at Gettysburg by six or seven.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span></p> - -<p>The sudden drumming of hooves brushed me off the -dusty pike and petrified me into rigidity as a troop dressed -in gray and dirty tan galloped by screaming, “Eeeeee-yeeee” -exultantly. The gritty cloud they stirred up settled -slowly; I felt the particles sting my face and eyes. It would -be the sideroads from now on, I determined.</p> - -<p>Others had the same impulse; the sideroads were well -populated. Although I knew the movement of every division -and of many regiments, and even had some considerable -idea of the civilian dislocation, the picture around -me was jumbled and turbulent. Farmers, merchants, workers -in overalls rode or tramped eastward; others, identical -in dress and obvious intensity of effort, pushed westward. -I passed carriages and carts with women and children traveling -at various speeds both ways. Squads and companies -of blue-clad troops marched along the roads or through -the fields, trampling the crops, a confused sound of singing, -swearing, or aimless talk hanging above them like a -fog. Spaced by pacific intervals, men in gray or butternut, -otherwise indistinguishable, marched in the same direction. -I decided I could pass unnoticed in the milling crowds.</p> - -<p>It is not easy for the historian, ten, fifty or five hundred -years away from an event, to put aside for a moment the -large concepts of currents and forces, or the mechanical -aids of statistics, charts, maps, neat plans and diagrams in -which the migration of men, women and children is indicated -by an arrow, or a brigade of half-terrified, half-heroic -men becomes a neat little rectangle. It is not easy to see -behind source material, to visualize state papers, reports, -letters, diaries as written by men who spent most of their -lives sleeping, eating, yawning, eliminating, squeezing -blackheads, lusting, looking out of windows, or talking -about nothing in general with no one in particular. We are -too impressed with the pattern revealed to us—or which -we think has been revealed to us—to remember that for -the participants history is a haphazard affair, apparently -aimless, produced by human beings whose concern is essentially -with the trivial and irrelevant. The historian is -always conscious of destiny. The participants rarely—or -mistakenly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span></p> - -<p>So to be set down in the midst of crisis, to be at once -involved and apart, is to experience a constant series of -shocks against which there is no anesthetic. The soldiers, -the stragglers, the refugees, the farm boys shouting at -horses, the tophatted gentlemen cursing the teamsters, the -teamsters cursing back; the looters, pimps, gamblers, -whores, nurses and newspapermen were indisputably what -they appeared: vitally important to themselves, of little interest -to anyone else. Yet at the same time they were a -paragraph, a page, a chapter, a whole series of volumes.</p> - -<p>I’m sure I was faithful to the spirit if not the letter of -Barbara’s warnings, and that none of the hundreds whom -I passed or who passed me noted my presence, except cursorily. -I, on the other hand, had to repress the constant -temptation to peer into every face for signs which could -not tell me what fortune or misfortune the decision of the -next three days would bring to it.</p> - -<p>A few miles from town the crowded disorder became -even worse, for the scouts from Ewell’s Corps, guarding -the Confederate left flank on the York Road, acted like a -cork in a bottle. Because I, unlike the other travelers, knew -this, I cut sharply south to get back on the circuitous Hanover -road I had left shortly after midnight, and crossing -the bridge over Rock Creek, stumbled into Gettysburg.</p> - -<p>The two and a half storey brick houses with their purplish -slate roofs were placid and charming in the hot July -sun. A valiant rooster pecked at horsedung in the middle -of the street heedless of the swarming soldiers, any of -whom might take a notion for roast chicken. Privates in -the black hats of the Army of the Potomac, cavalrymen -with wide yellow stripes and cannoneers with red ones -on the seams of their pants, swaggered importantly. Lieutenants -with hands resting gracefully on sword hilts, captains -with arms thrust in unbuttoned tunics, colonels smoking -cigars, all moved back and forth across the street, out -of and into houses and stores, each clearly intent on some -business which would affect the course of the war. Now -and then a general rode his horse through the crowd, -slowly and thoughtfully, oppressed by the cares of rank. -Soldiers spat, leered at an occasional woman, sat dolefully<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span> -on handy stoops, or marched smartly toward an unknown -destination. On the courthouse staff the flag hung doubtfully -in the limp summer air. Every so often there was a -noise like poorly organized thunder.</p> - -<p>Imitating the adaptable infantrymen, I found an unoccupied -stoop and sat down after a curious glance at the -house, wondering whether it contained someone whose -letters or diaries I had read. Drawing out my packet of -dried beef, I munched away without taking any of my -attention from the sights and sounds and smells around -me. Only I knew how desperately these soldiers would -fight this afternoon and all day tomorrow. I alone knew -how they would be caught in the inescapable trap on July -Third and finally routed, to begin the last act of the war. -That major, I thought, so proud of his new-won golden -oak leaves, may have an arm or leg shot off vainly defending -Culp’s Hill; that sergeant over there may lie faceless -under an apple tree before nightfall.</p> - -<p>Soon these men would be swept away from the illusory -shelter of the houses and out onto the ridges where they -would be pounded into defeat and disaster. There was -nothing for me now in Gettysburg itself, though I could -have spent days absorbing the color and feeling. Already -I had tempted fate by my casual appearance in the heart of -town. At any moment someone might speak to me, to ask -for a light or a direction; an ill-considered word or action -of mine might change, with ever-widening consequences, -the course of the future. I had been foolish enough long -enough; it was time for me to go to the vantage point I had -decided upon and observe without peril of being observed.</p> - -<p>I rose and stretched, my bones protesting. But a couple -of miles more would see me clear of all danger of chance -encounter with a too friendly or inquisitive soldier or civilian. -I gave a last look, trying to impress every detail on my -memory, and turned south on the Emmitsburg Road.</p> - -<p>This was no haphazard choice. I knew where and when -the crucial, the decisive move upon which all the other -moves depended would take place. While thousands of -men were struggling and dying on other parts of the battleground, -a Confederate advance force, unnoticed, disre<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span>garded, -would occupy the position which would eventually -dominate the scene and win the battle—and the war—for -the South. Heavy with knowledge no one else possessed I -made my way toward a farm on which there was a wheatfield -and a peach orchard.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C20"><i>20.</i> <i>BRING THE JUBILEE</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>A great battle in its first stages is as tentative, -uncertain, and indefinite as a courtship just begun. At the -beginning the ground was there for either side to take without -protest; the other felt no surge of possessive jealousy. I -walked unscathed along the Emmitsburg Road; on my left -I knew there were Union forces concealed, on my right the -Southrons maneuvered. In a few hours, to walk between -the lines would mean instant death, but now the declaration -had not been made, the vows had not been finally -exchanged. It was still possible for either party to withdraw; -no furious heat bound the two indissolubly together. -I heard the periodic shell and the whine of a minie bullet; -mere flirtatious gestures so far.</p> - -<p>Despite the hot sun the grass was cool and lush. The -shade in the orchard was velvety. From a low branch I -picked a near ripe peach and sucked the wry juice. I -sprawled on the earth and waited. For miles around, men -from Maine and Wisconsin, from Georgia and North Carolina, -assumed the same attitude. But I knew for what I was -waiting; they could only guess.</p> - -<p>Some acoustical freak dimmed the noises in the air to -little more than amplification of the normal summer -sounds. Did the ground really tremble faintly, or was I -translating my mental picture of the marching armies, the -great wagon trains, the heavy cannon, the iron-shod horses -into an imagined physical effect? I don’t think I dozed, but -certainly my attention withdrew from the rows of trees -with their scarred and runneled bark, curving branches and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span> -graceful leaves, so that I was taken unaware by the unmistakable -clump and creak of mounted men.</p> - -<p>The blue-uniformed cavalry rode slowly through the -peach orchard. They seemed like a group of aimless hunters -returning from the futile pursuit of a fox; they chatted, -shouted at each other, walked their horses abstractedly. -One or two had their sabres out; they rose in their saddles -and cut at the branches overhead in pure, pointless mischief.</p> - -<p>Behind them came the infantrymen, sweating and swearing, -more serious. Some few had wounds, others were without -their muskets. Their dark blue tunics were carelessly -unbuttoned, their lighter pants were stained with mud and -dust and grass. They trampled and thrashed around like -men long weary. Quarrels rose among them swiftly and -swiftly petered out. No one could mistake them for anything -but troops in retreat</p> - -<p>After they had passed, the orchard was still again, but -the stillness had a different quality from what had gone -before. The leaves did not rustle, no birds chirped, there -were no faint betrayals of the presence of chipmunks or -squirrels. Only if one listened very closely was the dry -noise of insects perceptible. But I heard the guns now. -Clearly and louder. And more continuously—much more -continuously. It was not yet the full roar of battle, but -death was authentic in its low rumble.</p> - -<p>Then the Confederates came. Cautiously, but not so cautiously -that one could fail to recognize they represented a -victorious, invading army. Shabby they certainly were, as -they pushed into the orchard, but alert and confident. Only -a minority had uniforms which resembled those prescribed -by regulation and these were torn, grimy and scuffed. -Many of the others wore the semiofficial butternut—crudely -dyed homespun, streaked and muddy brown. Some -had ordinary clothes with military hats and buttons; a few -were dressed in federal blue trousers with gray or butternut -jackets.</p> - -<p>Nor were their weapons uniform. There were long rifles, -short carbines, muskets of varying age, and I noticed one -bearded soldier with a ponderous shotgun. But whatever<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span> -their dress or arms, their bearing was the bearing of conquerors. -If I alone on the field that day knew for sure the -outcome of the battle, these Confederate soldiers were -close behind in sensing the future.</p> - -<p>The straggling Northerners had passed me by with the -clouded perception of the retreating. These Southrons, -however, were steadfastly attentive to every sight and -sound. Too late I realized the difficulty of remaining unnoticed -by such sharp, experienced eyes. Even as I berated -myself for my stupidity, a great, whiskery fellow in -what must once have been a stylish bottle-green coat -pointed his gun at me.</p> - -<p>“Yank here boys!” Then to me, “What you doing here, -fella?”</p> - -<p>Three or four came up and surrounded me curiously. -“Funniest lookin damyank I ever did see. Looks like he -just fell out of a bathtub.”</p> - -<p>Since I had walked all night on dusty roads I could only -think their standards of cleanliness were not high. And -indeed this was confirmed by the smell coming from them: -the stink of sweat, of clothes long slept in, of unwashed -feet and stale tobacco.</p> - -<p>“I’m a noncombatant,” I said foolishly.</p> - -<p>“Whazzat?” asked the beard. “Some kind of Baptist?”</p> - -<p>“Naw,” corrected one of the others. “It’s a law-word. -Means not all right in the head.”</p> - -<p>“Looks all right in the foot though. Let’s see your boots, -Yank. Mine’s sure wore out.”</p> - -<p>What terrified me now was not the thought of my boots -being stolen, or of being treated as a prisoner, or even the -remote chance of being shot as a spy. A greater, more indefinite -catastrophe was threatened by my exposure. These -men were the advance company of a regiment due to sweep -through the orchard and the wheatfield, explore that bit of -wild ground known as the Devil’s Den and climb up Little -Round Top closely followed by an entire Confederate brigade. -This was the brigade which held the Round Top for -several hours until artillery was brought up, artillery which -dominated the entire field and gave the South victory at -Gettysburg.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span></p> - -<p>There was no allowance for a pause, no matter how -trifling, in the peach orchard, in any of the accounts I’d -read or heard of. The hazard Barbara had warned so insistently -against had happened. I had been discovered, and -the mere discovery had altered the course of history.</p> - -<p>I tried to shrug it off. Delay of a few minutes could -hardly make a significant difference. All historians agreed -that the capture of the Round Tops was an inevitability; -the Confederates would have been foolish to overlook -them—in fact it was hardly possible they could, prominent -as they were both on maps and in physical reality—and -they had occupied them hours before the Federals made a -belated attempt to take them. I had been unbelievably -stupid to expose myself, but I had created no repercussions -likely to spread beyond the next few minutes.</p> - -<p>“Said let’s see them boots. Aint got all day to wait.”</p> - -<p>A tall officer with a pointed imperial and a sandy, faintly -reddish mustache whose curling ends shone waxily came -up, revolver in hand. “What’s going on here?”</p> - -<p>“Just a Yank, Capn. Making a little change of footgear.” -The tone was surly, almost insolent.</p> - -<p>The galloons on the officer’s sleeve told me the title was -not honorary. “I’m a civilian, Captain,” I protested. “I -realize I have no business here.”</p> - -<p>The captain looked at me coldly, with an expression of -disdainful contempt. “Local man?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Not exactly. I’m from York.”</p> - -<p>“Too bad. Thought you could tell me about the Yanks -up ahead. Jenks, leave the civilian gentleman in full possession -of his boots.”</p> - -<p>There was rage behind that sneer, a hateful anger apparently -directed at me for being a civilian, at his men for their -obvious lack of respect, at the battle, the world. I suddenly -realized his face was intimately familiar. Irritatingly, because -I could connect it with no name, place or circumstance.</p> - -<p>“How long have you been in this orchard, Mister Civilian-From-York?”</p> - -<p>The effort to identify him nagged me, working in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span> -depths of my mind, obtruding even into that top layer -which was concerned with what was going on.</p> - -<p>What was going on? <i>Too bad. Thought you could tell -me about the Yanks up ahead. How long have you been in -this orchard?</i></p> - -<p>Yanks up ahead? There werent any. There wouldnt be, -for hours.</p> - -<p>“I said, ‘How long you been in this orchard?’”</p> - -<p>Probably an officer later promoted to rank prominent -enough to have his picture in one of the minor narratives. -Yet I was certain his face was no likeness I’d seen once in a -steel engraving and dismissed. These were features often -encountered....</p> - -<p>“Sure like to have them boots. If we aint fightin for -Yankee boots, what the hell we fightin for?”</p> - -<p>What could I say? That I’d been in the orchard for half -an hour? The next question was bound to be, Had I seen -Federal troops? Whichever way I answered I would be -betraying my role of spectator.</p> - -<p>“Hey Capn—this fella knows something. Lookit the -silly grin!” -Was I smiling? In what? Terror? Perplexity? In the -mere effort of keeping silent, so as to be involved no -further?</p> - -<p>“Tell yah—he’s laughin cuz he knows somethin!” -Let them hang me, let them strip me of my boots; from -here on I was dumb as dear Catty had been once.</p> - -<p>“Out with it man—youre in a tight spot. Are there Yanks -up ahead?” -The confusion in my mind approached chaos. If I knew -the captain’s eventual rank I could place him. Colonel -Soandso. Brigadier-General Blank. What had happened? -Why had I let myself be discovered? Why had I spoken at -all and made silence so hard now?</p> - -<p>“Yanks up ahead—they’s Yanks up ahead!” -“Quiet you! I asked him—he didnt say there were Yanks -ahead.” -“Hay! Damyanks up above. Goin to mow us down!”</p> - -<p>“Fella says the bluebellies are layin fur us!”</p> - -<p>Had the lie been in my mind, to be telepathically plucked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span> -by the excited soldiers? Was even silence no refuge from -participation?</p> - -<p>“Man here spotted the whole Fed artillery up above, -trained on us!”</p> - -<p>“Pull back, boys! Pull back!”</p> - -<p>I’d read often enough of the epidemic quality of a perfectly -unreasonable notion. A misunderstood word, a baseless -rumor, an impossible report, was often enough to set -a group of armed men—squad or army—into senseless -mob action. Sometimes the infection made for feats of -heroism, sometimes for panic. This was certainly less than -panic, but my nervous, meaningless smile conveyed a message -I had never sent.</p> - -<p>“It’s a trap. Pull back boys—let’s get away from these -trees and out where we can see the Yanks!” -The captain whirled on his men. “Here, damn you,” he -shouted furiously, “you all gone crazy? The man said nothing. -There’s no trap!”</p> - -<p>The men moved slowly, sullenly away. “I heard him,” -one of them muttered, looking accusingly toward me.</p> - -<p>The captain’s shout became a yell. “Come back here! -Back here, I say!”</p> - -<p>His raging stride overtook the still irresolute men. He -grabbed the one called Jenks by the shoulder and whirled -him about. Jenks tried to jerk free. There was fear on his -face, and hate. “Leave me go, damn you,” he screamed, -“Leave me go!”</p> - -<p>The captain yelled at his men again. Jenks snatched at -the pistol with his left hand; the officer pulled the gun -away. Jenks brought his musket upright against the captain’s -body, the muzzle just under his chin, and pushed—as -though the firearm somehow gave him leverage. They -wrestled briefly, then the musket went off.</p> - -<p>The captain’s hat flew upward, and for an instant he -stood, bareheaded, in the private’s embrace. Then he fell. -Jenks wrenched his musket free and disappeared.</p> - -<p>When I came out of my shock I walked over to the body. -The face had been blown off. Shreds of human meat dribbled -bloodily on the gray collar and soiled the fashionably -long hair. I had killed a man. Through my interference<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span> -with the past I had killed a man who had been destined to -longer life and even some measure of fame. I was the -guilty sorcerer’s apprentice.</p> - -<p>I stooped down to put my hands inside his coat for -papers which would tell me who he was and satisfy the -curiosity which still basely persisted. It was not shame -which stopped me. Just nausea, and remorse.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I saw the Battle of Gettysburg. I saw it with all the -unique advantages of a professional historian thoroughly -conversant with the patterns, the movements, the details, -who knows where to look for the coming dramatic moment, -the recorded decisive stroke. I fulfilled the chroniclers’ -dream.</p> - -<p>It was a nightmare.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>To begin with, I slept. I slept not far from the captain’s -body in the peach orchard. This was not callousness, but -physical and emotional exhaustion. When I went to sleep -the guns were thundering; when I woke they were thundering -louder. It was late afternoon. I thought immediately, -this is the time for the futile Union charge against the -Round Tops.</p> - -<p>But the guns were not sounding from there. All the roar -was northward, from the town. I knew how the battle went; -I had studied it for years. Only now it wasn’t happening the -way it was written down in the books.</p> - -<p>True, the first day was a Confederate victory. But it was -not the victory we knew. It was just a little different, just a -little short of the triumph recorded. And on the second -day, instead of the Confederates getting astride the Taneytown -Road and into the position from which they tore -Meade’s army to bits from three sides, I witnessed a terrible -encounter in the peach orchard and the wheatfield—places -known to be safely behind the Southron lines.</p> - -<p>All my life I’d heard of Pickett’s charge on the third day. -Of how the disorganized Federals were given the final killing -blow in their vitals. Well, I saw Pickett’s charge on the -third day and it was not the same charge in the historic -place. It was a futile attempt to storm superior positions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span> -(positions, by established fact, in Lee’s hands since July -First) ending in slaughter and defeat.</p> - -<p>Defeat for the South, not the North. Meade’s army was -not broken; the Confederates could not scatter and pursue -them now. The Capitulation, if it ever took place, would -come under different circumstances. The independence of -the Confederate States might not be acknowledged for -years. If at all.</p> - -<p>All because the North held the Round Tops.</p> - -<p>Years more of killing, and possibly further years of -guerrilla warfare. Thousands and thousands of dead, their -blood on my hands. A poisoned continent, an inheritance -of hate. Because of me.</p> - -<p>I cannot tell you how I got back to York. If I walked, -it was somnambulistically. Possibly I rode the railroad or -in a farmer’s cart. Part of my mind, a tiny part that kept -coming back to pierce me no matter how often I crushed it -out, remembered those who died, those who would have -lived, but for me. Another part was concerned only with -the longing to get back to my own time, to the haven, to -Catty. A much larger part was simply blank, except for the -awesome, incredible knowledge that the past could be -changed—that the past <i>had</i> been changed.</p> - -<p>I must have wound my watch—Barbara’s watch—for it -was ten oclock on the night of July Fourth when I got to -the barn. Ten oclock by 1863 time; the other dial showed -it to be 8:40, that would be twenty of nine in the morning, -1952 time. In two hours I would be home, safe from the -nightmare of happenings that never happened, of guilt for -the deaths of men not supposed to die, of the awful responsibility -of playing destiny. If I could not persuade Barbara -to smash her damnable contrivance I would do so myself.</p> - -<p>The dogs barked madly, but I was sure no one heeded. -It was the Fourth of July, and a day of victory and rejoicing -for all Pennsylvanians. I stole into the barn and settled -myself in the exact center, even daring the use of a match, -my last one, to be sure I’d be directly under the reflector -when it materialized.</p> - -<p>I could not sleep, though I longed to blot out the horror -and wake in my own time. Detail by detail I went over<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span> -what I had seen, superimposing it like a palimpsest upon -the history I’d always known. Sleep would have kept me -from this wretched compulsion and from questioning my -sanity, but I could not sleep.</p> - -<p>I have heard that in moments of overwhelming shock -some irrelevancy, some inconsequential matter persistently -forces itself on the attention. The criminal facing execution -thinks, not of his imminent fate or of his crime, but of -the cigarette stub he left burning in his cell. The bereaved -widow dwells, not on her lost husband, but on tomorrow’s -laundry. So it was with me. Behind that part of my mind -re-living the past three days, a more elementary part -gnawed at the identification of the slain captain.</p> - -<p>I knew that face. Particularly did I know that face set in -a sneer, distorted with anger. But I could not remember it -in Confederate uniform. I could not remember it with -sandy mustaches. And yet the sandy, reddish hair, revealed -in that terrible moment when his hat flew off, was as familiar -as part of the face. Oh, I thought, if I could only -place it once and for all and free my mind at least of this -trivial thing.</p> - -<p>I wished there were some way I could have seen the -watch, to concentrate on the creeping progress of the -hands and distract myself from the wave after wave of -wretched meditations which flowed over me. But the moonlight -was not strong enough to make the face distinguishable, -much less the figures on the dials. There was no -narcotic.</p> - -<p>As one always is at such times I was convinced the appointed -moment had passed unnoticed. Something had -gone wrong. Over and over I had to tell myself that minutes -seem hours in the waiting dark; it might feel like two -or three in the morning to me; it was probably barely -eleven. No use. A minute—or an hour or a second—later -I was again positive midnight had passed.</p> - -<p>Finally I began to suffer a monstrous illusion. I began -to think it was getting lighter. That dawn was coming. Of -course I knew it could not be; what I fancied lifting darkness -was only a sick condition of swollen, overtired eyes. -Dawn does not come to Pennsylvania at midnight, and it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span> -was not yet midnight. At midnight I would be back at -Haggershaven, in 1952.</p> - -<p>Even when the barn was fully lighted by the rising sun -and I could see the cattle peaceful in their stalls I refused -to believe what I saw. I took out my watch only to find -something had disturbed the works; the hands registered -five oclock. Even when the farmer, milk pails over arm, -started in surprise, exclaiming, “Hay, what you doing -here?”—even then, I did not believe.</p> - -<p>Only when, as I opened my mouth to explain to my -involuntary host, did something happen. The puzzle which -had pursued me for three days suddenly solved itself. I -knew why the face of the Southron captain had been so -familiar. Familiar beyond any of the better known warriors -on either side. I had indeed known that face intimately; -seen those features enraged or sneering. The nose, -the mouth, the eyes, the expression were Barbara Haggerwells’. -The man dead in the peach orchard was the man -whose portrait hung in the library of Haggershaven, its -founder, Herbert Haggerwells. Captain Haggerwells—never -to become a major now, or buy this farm. Never to -marry a local girl or beget Barbara’s great grandfather. -Haggershaven had ceased to exist in the future.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="C21"><i>21.</i> <i>FOR THE TIME BEING</i></h2> -</div> - - -<p>I am writing this, as I said, in 1877. I am a healthy -man of forty-five, no doubt with many years ahead of me. -I might live to be a hundred, except for an illogical feeling -that I must die before 1921. However, eighty-nine should -be enough for anyone. So I have ample time to put my -story down. Still, better to have it down and done with; -should anything happen to me tomorrow it will be on -paper.</p> - -<p>For what? As confession and apology? As an inverted -substitute for the merciful amnesia which ought to have -erased my memory as well as my biography? (I have written -to Wappinger Falls; there are no records of any Hodgins -family, or of Backmakers. Does this mean the forces I -set in motion destroyed Private Hodgins as well as Captain -Haggerwells? Or only that the Hodginses and Backmakers -settled elsewhere? In either case I am like Adam—in -this world—a special, parentless creation.) There is no -one close enough to care, or intimate enough to accept my -word in the face of all reason. I have not married in this -time, nor shall I. I write only as old men talk to themselves.</p> - -<p>The rest of my personal story is simple. The name of the -farmer who found me in his barn was Thammis; they had -need of a hired hand and I stayed on. I had no desire to go -elsewhere; in fact I could not bear to leave what was—and -will never be—Haggershaven.</p> - -<p>In the beginning I used to go to the location of the -Agati’s garden and look across at the spot where I left our<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span> -cottage and Catty. It was an empty pilgrimage. Now I content -myself with the work which needs doing. I shall stay -here till I die.</p> - -<p>Catty. Haggershaven. Are they really gone, irrevocably -lost, in a future which never existed, which couldnt exist, -once the chain of causation was broken? Or do they exist -after all, in a universe in which the South won the battle of -Gettysburg and Major Haggerwells founded Haggershaven? -Could another Barbara devise a means to reach -that universe? I would give so much to believe this, but I -cannot. I simply cannot.</p> - -<p>Children know about such things. They close their eyes -and pray, “Please God, make it didnt happen.” Often they -open their eyes to find it happened anyway, but this does -not shake their faith that many times the prayer is granted. -Adults smile, but can any of them be sure the memories -they cherish were the same yesterday? Do they <i>know</i> that -a past cannot be expunged? Children know it can.</p> - -<p>And once lost, that particular past can never be regained. -Another and another perhaps, but never the same -one. There are no parallel universes—though this one may -be sinuous and inconstant.</p> - -<p>That this world is a better place than the one into which -I was born, and promises to grow still better, seems true. -What idealism lay behind the Southron cause triumphed in -the reconciliation of men like Lee; what was brutal never -got the upper hand as it did in my world. The Negro is free; -black legislatures pass advanced laws in South Carolina; -black congressmen comport themselves with dignity in -Washington. The Pacific railroad is built, immigrants pour -in to a welcoming country to make it strong and wealthy; -no one suggests they should be shut out or hindered.</p> - -<p>There are rumors of a deal between northern Republicans -and southern Democrats, betraying the victory of the -Civil War—how strange it is still, after fourteen years, to -use this term instead of the familiar War of Southron Independence—in -return for the presidency. If this is true, my -brave new world is not so brave.</p> - -<p>It may not be so new either. Prussia has beaten France -and proclaimed a German Empire; is this the start in a dif<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span>ferent -way of the German Union? Will 1914 see an Emperors’ -War—there is none in France now—leaving Germany -facing ... whom?</p> - -<p>Any one of the inventions of my own time would make -me a rich man if I could reproduce them, or cared for -money. With mounting steel production and the tremendous -jump in population, what a success the minible would -be. Or the tinugraph. Or controllable balloons.</p> - -<p>The typewriter I have seen. It has developed along different -and clumsier lines; inevitably, I suppose, given initial -divergence. It may mean greater advances; more likely not. -The universal use of gaslight must be far in the future if it -is to come at all; certainly its advent is delayed by all this -talk of inventing electric illumination. If we couldnt put -electricity to work it’s unlikely my new contemporaries will -be able to. Why, they havent even made the telegraph -cheap and convenient.</p> - -<p>And something like HX-1? It is inconceivable. Could it -be that in destroying the future in which Haggershaven -existed I have also destroyed the only dimension in which -time travel was possible?</p> - -<p>So strangely easily I can write the words, “I destroyed.”</p> - -<p>Catty.</p> - -<p>But what of Tyss’s philosophy? Is it possible I shall be -condemned to repeat the destruction throughout eternity? -Have I written these lines an infinite number of times before? -Or is the mercy envisaged by Enfandin a reality? -And what of Barbara’s expression as she bade me goodbye? -Could she possibly</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Editorial note by Frederick Winter Thammis: Quite recently, -in the summer of 1953 to be exact, I commissioned -the remodelling of my family home near York, Pennsylvania. -Among the bundles of old books and papers stored -in the attic was a box of personal effects, labelled “H M -Backmaker.” In it was the manuscript concluding with an -unfinished sentence, reproduced above.</p> - -<p>My father used to tell me that when he was a boy there -was an old man living on the farm, nominally as a hired -hand, but actually as a pensioner, since he was beyond the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span> -age of useful labor. My father said the children considered -him not quite right in his mind, but very entertaining, for -he often repeated long, disjointed narratives of an impossible -world and an impossible society which they found as -fascinating as the Oz books. On looking back, he said, Old -Hodge talked like an educated man, but this might simply -be the impression of young, uncultivated minds.</p> - -<p>Clearly it was in some attempt to give form and unity to -his tales that the old man wrote his fable down, and then -was too shy to submit it for publication. This is the only -reasonable way to account for its existence. Of course he -says he wrote it in 1877, when he was far from old, and -disconcertingly, analysis of the paper shows it might have -been written then.</p> - -<p>Two other items should be noted. In the box of Backmaker’s -belongings there was a watch of unknown manufacture -and unique design. Housed in a cheap nickel case, -the jeweled movement is of extraordinary precision and -delicacy. The face has two dials, independently set and -wound.</p> - -<p>The second is a quotation. It can be matched by similar -quotations in any of half a hundred volumes on the Civil -War. I pick this only because it is handy. From W. E. -Woodward’s <i>Years of Madness</i>, p. 202:</p> - -<p>“ ... Union troops that night and next morning took a -position on Cemetery Hill and Round Top.... The Confederates -could have occupied this position but they failed -to do so. It was an error with momentous consequences.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="About_Ward_Moore">About Ward Moore</h2> -</div> - - -<p>On the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, there is a -small hill called Little Round Top. One morning in July, -1863, the Confederate Army made the tactical error of not -occupying this hill. It was a mistake that cost them victory -in a battle which—in the view of many historians—was -the turning point of the Civil War. In the ninety years since -Gettysburg one question has never been far from the minds -of most Southerners—and a good many Yankees, too: What -if the battle had gone the other way, what if the South had -won the war? Ward Moore—a Northerner himself—has -settled the matter at last in a book that might be called -imaginative historical fiction, an excursion into the world of -might-have-been so filled with exact and convincing detail -that, for a few hours, it seems true.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The author of <i>Bring the Jubilee</i> was born in Madison, New -Jersey, in 1903. “From the age of five,” he writes, “books -have been for me the essential narcotic; as a natural consequence -I detested school. When this detestation did not -bring on psychosomatic illnesses to save me from the hated -classrooms, I was not above malingering or playing hooky—now -a lost art, but one practiced in my generation. Three -weeks short of graduation I quit high school and have not -been inside a school house since, except to vote.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“My first short story was written at the age of eleven and -was followed by a flood of juvenilia, some little of which was -unfortunately published. Happily, markets and industry died -simultaneously; I wrote only desultorily until my first novel -<i>Breathe the Air Again</i> was published in 1942. This was -acclaimed by Max Eastman in the American Mercury, who -predicted that I would fall heir to ‘the cloak of Upton Sinclair.’ -Something went wrong with the tailoring arrangements; -my next novel was <i>Greener Than You Think</i> (Sloane, -1947), a satirical fantasy.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>In addition to these two novels, Mr. Moore has published a -number of short stories in such disparate media as Amazing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span> -Stories and Harper’s Bazaar, Fantasy and Science Fiction -and The Reporter, Science Fiction Quarterly and Tomorrow.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He concludes: “I have been intensely interested in the history -of the Civil War ever since—at the age of six—I came across -a book with nice black woodcuts showing the firing on Fort -Sumter and the burning of Richmond. As an amateur I’ve -read hundreds of dull volumes and a score of fascinating -ones on the Irrepressible Conflict. A novel based on the concept -‘what would have happened if the South had won at -Gettysburg,’ was practically inevitable. <i>Bring the Jubilee</i> is it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span></p> - - - -<p class="center"><i>The Idea Behind</i><br /> - -DUAL EDITIONS</p> - - -<p>An agreement unusual in American publishing has been -made between <span class="smcap">Farrar, Straus</span> and <span class="smcap">Young, Inc.</span>, and <span class="smcap">Ballantine -Books, Inc.</span> We believe that through simultaneous publication -of new titles in paperbound and trade editions it is -possible to secure broader distribution of good books at a considerable -saving to the reader and with substantially greater -royalty income for the author. At a time when costs are consistently -rising, large printings of combined editions make -possible a lower price for the trade editions, while nation-wide -distribution of the paperbound edition makes immediately -available to a great new audience the best in current fiction -and non-fiction.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The convenient-sized, permanent, hard-cover editions may -be obtained through any bookstore at a saving of approximately -60% of the cost of similar books published in the -regular way. 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