Gladiator

by Philip Wylie

  XVI

  There must be in heaven a certain god--a paunchy, cynical god whose taskit is to arrange for each of the birthward-marching souls a set ofcircumstances so nicely adjusted to its character that the result of itslife, in triumph or defeat, will be hinged on the finest of threads. SoHugo must have felt coming home from war. He had celebrated theArmistice hugely, not because it had spared his life--most of the pomp,parade, bawdiness, and glory had originated in such a deliverance--butbecause it had rescued him from the hot blast of destructiveness. Aninstantaneous realization of that prevented despair. He had failed inthe hour of becoming death itself; such failure was fortunate becauselife to him, even at the end of the war, seemed more the effort ofcreation than the business of annihilation.

  To know that had cost a struggle--a struggle that took place at thehangar as the dispatch-bearer rode up and that remained crucial onlybetween the instant when he lifted his fist and when he lowered it.Brevity made it no less intense; a second of time had resolved his soulafresh, had redistilled it and recombined it.

  Not long after that he started back to America. The mass of soldierssurrounding him were undergoing a transition that Hugo felt vividly.These men would wake up sweating at night and cry out until someonewhispered roughly that there were no more submarines. A door would slamand one of them would begin to weep. There were whisperings andbickerings about life at home, about what each person, disintegratedagain to individuality, would do and say and think. Little fears aboutlost jobs and lost girls cropped out, were thrust back, came finally toremain. And no one wanted life to be what it had been; no one consideredthat it could be the same.

  Hugo wrote to his family that the war was ended, that he was well, thathe expected to see them some time in the near future. The ship thatcarried him reached the end of the blue sea; he was disembarked anddemobilized in New York. He realized even before he was accustomed tothe novelty of civilian clothes that a familiar, friendly city hadchanged. The retrospective spell of the eighties and nineties hadvanished. New York was brand-new, blatant, rushing, prosperous. Theinheritance from Europe had been assimilated; a social reality, entirelyforeign and American, had been wrought and New York was ready to spreadit across the parent world. Those things were pressed quickly intoHugo's mind by his hotel, the magazines, a chance novel of the precisedate, the cinema, and the more general, more indefinite human pulses.

  After a few days of random inspection, of casual imbibing, he calledupon Tom Shayne's father. He would have preferred to escape all painfulreminiscing, but he went partly as a duty and partly from necessity: hehad no money whatever.

  A butler opened the door of a large stone mansion and ushered Hugo tothe library, where Mr. Shayne rose eagerly. "I'm so glad you came. Knewyou'd be here soon. How are you?"

  Hugo was slightly surprised. In his host's manner was the hardness andintensity that he had observed everywhere. "I'm very well, thanks."

  "Splendid! Cocktails, Smith."

  There was a pause. Mr. Shayne smiled. "Well, it's over, eh?"

  "Yes."

  "All over. And now we've got to beat the spears into plowshares, eh?"

  "We have."

  Mr. Shayne chuckled. "Some of my spears were already made into plows,and it was a great season for the harvest, young man--a great season."

  Hugo was still uncertain of Mr. Shayne's deepest viewpoint. Hisuncertainty nettled him. "The grim reaper has done some harvesting onhis own account--" He spoke almost rudely.

  Mr. Shayne frowned disapprovingly. "I made up my mind to forget, Danner.To forget and to buckle down. And I've done both. You'll want to knowwhat happened to the funds I handled for you--"

  "I wasn't particularly--"

  The older man shook his head with grotesque coyness. "Not so fast, notso fast. You were particularly eager to hear. We're getting honest aboutour emotions in this day and place. You're eaten with impatience.Well--I won't hold out. Danner, I've made you a million. A clean, coldmillion."

  Hugo had been struggling in a rising tide of incomprehension; thatstatement engulfed him. "Me? A million?"

  "In the bank in your name waiting for a blonde girl."

  "I'm afraid I don't exactly understand, Mr. Shayne."

  The banker readjusted his glasses and swallowed a cocktail by tippingback his head. Then he rose, paced across the broad carpet, and facedHugo. "Of course you don't understand. Well, I'll tell you about it.Once you did a favour for me which has no place in this conversation."He hesitated; his face seemed to flinch and then to be jerked back toits former expression. "In return I've done a little for you. And I wantto add a word to the gift of your bank book. You have, if you'recareful, leisure to enjoy life, freedom, the world at your feet. Nomore strife for you, no worry, and no care. Take it. Be a hedonist.There is nothing else. I've lain in bed nights enjoying the life thatlies ahead of you, my boy. Vicariously voluptuous. Catchy phrase, isn'tit? My own. I want to see you do it up brown."

  Hugo rubbed his hand across his forehead. It was not long ago that thissame man had sat at an _estaminet_ and wept over snatches of a childhoodwhich death had made sacred. Here he stood now, asking that a life bedone up brown, and meaning cheap, obvious things. He wished that he hadnever called on Tom's father.

  "That wasn't my idea of living--" he said slowly.

  "It will be. Forget the war. It was a dream. I realized it suddenly. IfI had not, I would still be--just a banker. Not a great banker. Thegreat banker. I saw, suddenly, that it was a dream. The world was mad.So I took my profit from it, beginning on the day I saw."

  "How, exactly?"

  "Eh?"

  "I mean--how did you profit by the war?"

  Mr. Shayne smiled expansively. "What was in demand then, my boy? Whatwere the stupid, traduced, misguided people raising billions to get?What? Why, shells, guns, foodstuffs. For six months I had a corner onfour chemicals vitally necessary to the government. And the governmentgot them--at my price. I owned a lot of steel. I mixed food anddiplomacy in equal parts--and when the pie was opened, it was full ofsolid gold."

  Hugo's voice was strange. "And that is the way--my money was made?"

  "It is." Mr. Shayne perceived that Hugo was angry. "Now, don't getsentimental. Keep your eye on the ball. I--" He did not finish, becauseMrs. Shayne came into the room. Hugo stared at him fixedly, his facelivid, for several seconds before he was conscious of her. Even then itwas only a partial consciousness.

  She was stuffed into a tight, bright dress. She was holding out herhand, holding his hand, holding his hand too long. There was mascaraaround her eyes and they dilated and blinked in a foolish andflirtatious way; her voice was syrup. She was taking a cocktail with theother hand--maybe if he gave her hand a real squeeze, she would let go.A tall, sallow young man had come in behind her; he was Mr. JeromeLeonardo Bateau, a perfect dear. Mrs. Shayne was still holding his handand murmuring; Mr. Shayne was patting his shoulder; Mr. Bateau wasstaring with haughty and jealous eyes. Hugo excused himself.

  In the hall he asked for Mr. Shayne's secretary. He collected himself ina few frigid sentences. "Please tell Mr. Shayne I am very grateful. Iwish to transfer my entire fortune to my parents in Indian Creek,Colorado. The name is Abednego Danner. Make all arrangements."

  A faint "But--" followed him futilely through the door. In the space ofa block he had cut a pace that set other pedestrians gaping to a fastwalk.