Gladiator

by Philip Wylie

  XIX

  It was bright morning when Hugo awoke. Through the window-pane in theroom where he had slept, he could see a straggling back yard; dampclothes moved in the breeze, and beyond was a depression green withyoung shoots. He descended to the restaurant and ate his breakfast.Automobiles were swishing along the road outside and he could hear aclatter of dishes in the kitchen. Afterwards he went out doors andwalked through the busy centre of the village and on into the country.

  Sun streamed upon him; the sky was blue; birds twittered in the buddingbushes. He had almost forgotten the beauty and peacefulness ofspringtime; now it came over him with a rush--pastel colours and fecundwarmth, smells of earth and rain, melodious, haphazard wind. He knewintuitively that McClaren would never send for him; he wondered what Mr.Mills would say to Mr. Shayne about him. Both thoughts passed like whiteclouds over his mind and he forgot them for an indolent vegetativetranquillity.

  The road curved over hills and descended into tinted valleys. Farmerswere ploughing and planting. The men at the restaurant had told him thathe was in Connecticut. That did not matter, for any other place wouldhave been the same on this May morning. A truck-driver offered him aride, which Hugo refused, and then, watching the cubic van surge away inthe distance, he wished fugitively that he had accepted.

  Two half dollars and a quarter jingled in his pocket. His suit was seedyand his beard unshaven. A picture of New York ran through his mind: hestood far off from it gazing at the splendour of its towers in themorning light; he came closer and the noise of it smote his ears;suddenly he plunged into the city, his perspective vanished, and thererose about him the ugly, unrelated, inchoate masses of tawdriness thathad been glorious from a distance, while people--dour, malicious,selfish people who scuttled like ants--supplanted the vista of stone andsteel. The trite truth of the ratio between approach and enchantmentamused him. It was so obvious, yet so few mortals had the fine sense towithdraw themselves. He was very happy walking tirelessly along thatroad.

  After his luncheon he allowed a truck to carry him farther from thecity, deeper into the magic of spring. The driver bubbled with it--hewore a purple tulip in his greasy cap and he slowed down on thehilltops with an unassuming reverence and a naive slang that fitted wellwith Hugo's mood. When he reached his destination, Hugo walked on withreluctance. Shadows of the higher places moved into the lowlands. Hecrossed a brook and leaned over its middle on the bridge rail,fascinated by an underwater landscape, complete, full of colour, lessthan a foot high. From every side came the strident music of frogs.Spring, spring, spring, they sang, rolling their liquid gutturals andstopping abruptly when he came too near.

  In the evening, far from the city, he turned from the pavement on amuddy country road, walking on until he reached the skeleton of an oldhouse. There he lay down, taking his supper from his pocket and eatingit slowly. The floor of the second story had fallen down and he couldsee the stars through a hole in the roof. In such houses, he thought,the first chapters of American history had been lived. When it wasentirely dark, a whippoorwill began to make its sweet and mournfulmusic. Warmth and chilliness came together from the ground. He slept.

  In the morning he followed the road into the hills. Long stretches ofwoodland were interrupted by fields. He passed farmhouses and the paveddrive of an estate. More than a mile from the deserted farm, more thantwo miles from the main road, half hidden in a skirt of venerable trees,he saw an old, green house behind which was a row of barns. It was abig house; tile medallions had been set in its foundations by anarchitect whose tombstone must now be aslant and illegible. It was builton a variety of planes and angles; gables cropped at random from itsmossy roof. Grass grew in the broad yard under the trees, and in thegrass were crocuses, yellow and red and blue, like wind-strewn confetti.

  Hugo paused to contemplate this peaceful edifice. A man walked brisklyfrom one of the barn doors. He perceived Hugo and stopped, holding aspade in his hand. Then, after starting across to the house, he changedhis mind and, dropping the spade, approached Hugo.

  "Looking for work, my man?"

  Hugo smiled. "Why--yes."

  "Know anything about cattle?"

  "I was reared in a farming country."

  "Good." He scrutinized Hugo minutely. "I'll try you at eight dollars aweek, room, and board." He opened the gate.

  Hugo paused. The notion of finding employment somewhere in the countryhad been fixed in his mind and he wondered why he waited, even as hedid, when the charm of the old manor had offered itself to him as if bya miracle. The man swung open the gate; he was lithe, sober, direct.

  "My name is Cane--Ralph Cane. We raise blooded Guernsey stock here. Atthe moment we haven't a man."

  "I see," Hugo said.

  "I could make the eight ten--in a week--if you were satisfactory."

  "I wasn't considering the money--"

  "How?"

  "I wasn't considering the money."

  "Oh! Come in. Try it." An eagerness was apparent in his tone. While Hugostill halted on a knoll of indecision, a woman opened the French windowswhich lined one facade of the house and stepped down from the porch. Shewas very tall and very slender. Her eyes were slaty blue and there was adelicate suggestion--almost an apparition--of grey in her hair.

  "What is it, Ralph?" Her voice was cool and pitched low.

  "This is my wife," Cane said.

  "My name is Danner."

  Cane explained. "I saw this man standing by the gate, and now I'm hiringhim."

  "I see," she said. She looked at Hugo. The crystalline substance of hereyes glinted transiently with some inwardness--surprise, a vanishinggladness, it might have been. "You are looking for work?"

  "Yes," Hugo answered.

  Cane spoke hastily. "I offered him eight a week and board, Roseanne."

  She glanced at her husband and returned her attention inquisitively toHugo. "Are you interested?"

  "I'll try it."

  Cane frowned nervously, walked to his wife, and nodded with avertedface. Then he addressed Hugo: "You can sleep in the barn. We havequarters there. I don't think we'll be in for any more cold weather. Ifyou'll come with me now, I'll start you right in."

  Until noon Hugo cleaned stables. There were two dozen cows--animals thatwould have seemed beautiful to a rustic connoisseur--and one lordly bullwith malignant horns and bloodshot eyes. He shoveled the pungent and notoffensive debris into a wheelbarrow and transferred it to a dung-heapthat sweated with internal humidity. At noon Cane came into the barn.

  "Pretty good," he said, viewing floors fairly shaved by Hugo'sdiligence. "Lunch is ready. You'll eat in the kitchen."

  Hugo saw the woman again. She was toiling over a stove, her hair indisarray, a spotted apron covering her long body. He realized that theyhad no servants, that the three of them constituted the humaninhabitants of the estate--but there were shades, innumerable shades, ofa long past, and some of those ghosts had crept into Roseanne's slatyeyes. She carried lunch for herself and her husband into a front roomand left him to eat in the soft silence.

  After lunch Cane spoke to him again. "Can you plough?"

  "It's been a long time--but I think so."

  "Good. I have a team. We'll drive to the north field. I've got to startgetting the corn in pretty soon."

  The room in the barn was bare: four board walls, a board ceiling andfloor, an iron cot, blankets, the sound and smell of the cows beneath.Hugo slept dreamlessly, and when he woke, he was ravenous.

  His week passed. Cane drove him like a slave-master, but to drive Hugowas an unhazardous thing. He did not think much, and when he did, it wasto read the innuendo of living that was written parallel to theexistence of his employer and Roseanne. They were troubled with eachother. Part of that trouble sprang from an evident source: Cane was amiser. He resented the amount of food that Hugo consumed, despite theunequal ratio of Hugo's labours. When Hugo asked for a few dollars inadvance, he was curtly refused. That had happened at lunch one day.After lunch, however, and evidently aft
er Cane had debated with hiswife, he inquired of Hugo what he wanted. A razor and some shavingthings and new trousers, Hugo had said.

  Cane drove the station wagon to town and returned with the desiredarticles. He gave them to Hugo.

  "Thank you," Hugo said.

  Cane chuckled, opening his thin lips wide. "All right, Danner. As amatter of fact, it's money in my bank."

  "Money in your bank?"

  "Sure. I've lived here for years and I get a ten-per-cent discount atthe general store. But I'm charging you full price--naturally."

  "Naturally," Hugo agreed.

  That was one thing that would make the tribulation in her eyes. Hugowished that he could have met these two people on a different basis, sothat he could have learned the truth about them. It was plain that theywere educated, cultured, refined. Cane had said something once aboutraising cattle in England, and Roseanne had cooked peas as she hadlearned to cook them in France. "_Petits pois au beurre_," she hadmurmured--with an unimpeachable accent.

  Then the week had passed and there had been no mention of the advance inwages. For himself, Hugo did not care. But it was easy to see why no onehad been working on the place when Hugo arrived, why they were eager tohire a transient stranger.

  He learned part of what he had already guessed from a clerk in thegeneral store. One of the cows was ailing. Mr. Cane could not drive totown (Mrs. Cane, it seemed, never left the house and its environs) andthey had sent Hugo.

  "You working for the Canes?" the clerk had asked.

  "Yes."

  "Funny people."

  Hugo replied indirectly. "Have they lived here long?"

  "Long? Roseanne Cane was a Bishop. The Bishops built that house and thehouse before it--back in the seventeen hundreds. They had a lot ofmoney. Have it still, I guess, but Cane's too tight to spend it." Therewas nothing furtive in the youth's manner; he was evidently touching oncommon village gossip. "Yes, sir, too tight. Won't give her a maid. Butbefore her folks died, it was Europe every year and a maid for every oneof 'em, and 'Why, deary, don't tell me that's the second time you've puton that dress! Take it right off and never wear it again.'" The joke waspart of the formula for telling about the Canes, and the clerk snickeredappreciatively. "Yes, sir. You come down here some day when I ain't gotthe Friday orders to fill an' I'll tell you some things about old manCane that'll turn your stummick."

  Hugo accepted his bundle, set it in the seat beside himself, and droveback to the big, green house.

  Later in the day he said to Cane: "If you will want me to drive thestation wagon very often, I ought to have a license."

  "Go ahead. Get one."

  "I couldn't afford it at the moment, and since it would be entirely foryou, I thought--"

  "I see," Cane answered calmly. "Trying to get a license out of me. Well,you're out of luck. You probably won't be needed as a chauffeur againfor the next year. If you are, you'll drive without a license, and drivedamn carefully, too, because any fines or any accidents would come outof your wages."

  Hugo received the insult unmoved. He wondered what Cane would say if hesmashed the car and made an escape. He knew he would not do it; thewhole universe appeared so constructed that men like Cane inevitablyavoided their desserts.

  June came, and July. The sea-shore was not distant and occasionally atnight Hugo slipped away from the woods and lay on the sand, sometimesdrinking in the firmament, sometimes closing his eyes. When it was veryhot he undressed behind a pile of barnacle-covered boulders and swam farout in the water. He swam naked, unmolested, stirring up tiny whirlpoolsof phosphorescence, and afterwards, damp and cool, he would dress andsteal back to the barn through the forest and the hay-sweet fields.

  One day a man in Middletown asked Mr. Cane to call on him regarding thepossible purchase of three cows. Cane's cows were raised with themaximum of human care, the minimum of extraneous expense. His profit onthem was great and he sold them, ordinarily, one at a time. He was soexcited at the prospect of a triple sale that for a day he was almostgay, very nearly generous. He drove off blithely--not in the sedan, butin the station wagon, because its gasoline mileage was greater.

  It was a day filled with wonder for Hugo. When Cane drove from thehouse, Roseanne was standing beside the drive. She walked over to thebarn and said to Hugo in an oddly agitated voice: "Mr. Danner, could youspare an hour or two this morning to help me get some flowers from thewoods?"

  "Certainly."

  She glanced in the direction her husband had taken and hurried to thekitchen, returning presently with two baskets and a trowel. He followedher up the road. They turned off on an overgrown path, pushed throughunderbrush, and arrived in a few minutes at the side of a pond. Theedges were grown thick with bushes and water weeds, dead trees liftedawkward arms at the upper end, and dragon flies skimmed over the warmbrown water.

  "I used to come here to play when I was a little girl," she said. "It'sstill just the same." She wore a blue dress; branches had dishevelledher hair; she seemed more alive than he had ever seen her.

  "It's charming," Hugo answered.

  "There used to be a path all the way around--with stones crossing thebrook at the inlet. And over there, underneath those pine trees, thereare some orchids. I've always wanted to bring them down to the house. Ithink I could make them grow. Of course, this is a bad time totransplant anything--but I so seldom get a chance. I can't rememberwhen--when--"

  He realized with a shock that she was going to cry. She turned her headaway and peered into the green wall. "I think it's here," she saidtremulously.

  They followed a dimly discernible trail; there were deer tracks in itand signs of other animals whose feet had kept it passable. It was hotand damp and they were forced to bend low beneath the tangle to makeprogress. Almost suddenly they emerged in a grove of white pines. Theystood upright and looked: wind stirred sibilantly in the high tops, andthe ground underfoot was a soft carpet; the lake reflected the blue ofthe sky instead of the brown of its soft bottom.

  "Let's rest a minute," she said. And then: "I always think a pine groveis like a cathedral. I read somewhere that pines inspired Gothicarchitecture. Do you suppose it's true?"

  "There was the lotos and the Corinthian column," Hugo answered.

  They sat down. This was a new emotion--a paradoxical emotion for him. Hehad come to an inharmonious sanctuary and he could expect both tragedyand enchantment. There was Roseanne herself, a hidden beautiful thing inwhom were prisoned many beauties. She was growing old in the frostyseclusion of her husband's company. She was feeding on the toothlessfood of dreams when her hunger was still strong. That much anyone mightsee; the reason alone remained invisible. He was acutely conscious of anhour at hand, an imminent moment of vision.

  "You're a strange man," she said finally.

  That was to be the password. "Yes?"

  "I've watched you every day from the kitchen window." Her depressionhad gone now and she was talking with a vague excitement.

  "Have you?"

  "Do you mind if we pretend for a minute?"

  "I'd like it."

  "Then let's pretend this is a magic carpet and we've flown away from theworld and there's nothing to do but play. Play," she repeated musingly."I'll be Roseanne and you'll be Hugo. You see, I found out your namefrom the letters. I found out a lot about you. Not facts like born,occupation, father's first name; just--things."

  He dared a little then. "What sort of things, Roseanne?"

  She laughed. "I knew you could do it! That's one of them. I found outyou had a soul. Souls show even in barn-yards. You looked at the peoniesone day and you played with the puppies the next. In oneway--Hugo--you're a failure as a farm hand."

  "Failure?"

  "A flop. You never make a grammatical mistake." She saw his surprise andlaughed again. "And your manners--and, then, you understood French.See--the carpet is taking us higher and farther away. Isn't it fun!You're the hired man and I'm the farmer's wife and all of asudden--we're--"

  "A prince and prince
ss?"

  "That's exactly right. I won't pretend I'm not curious--morbidlycurious. But I won't ask questions, either, because that isn't what thecarpet is for."

  "What is it for, Roseanne?"

  "To get away from the world, silly. And now--there's a look about you.When I was a little girl, my father was a great man, and many great menused to come to our house. I know what the frown of power is and theattitude of greatness. You have them--much more than any pompous oldmagnate I ever laid eyes on. The way you touch things and handle them,the way you square your shoulders. Sometimes I think you're not real atall and just an imaginary knight come to storm my castle. And sometimesI think you're a very famous man whose afternoon walk just has beenextended for a few months. The first thought frightens me, and thesecond makes me wonder why I haven't seen your picture in the Sundayrotogravures."

  Hugo's shoulders shook. "Poor Princess Roseanne. And what do I thinkabout you, then--"

  She held up her hand. "Don't tell me, Hugo. I should be sad. After all,my life--"

  "May be what it does not appear to be."

  She took a brittle pine twig and dug in the mould of the needles untilit broke. "Ralph--was different once. He was a chemist. Then--the warcame. And he was there and a shell--"

  "Ah," Hugo said. "And you loved him before?"

  "I had promised him before. But it changed him so. And it's hard."

  "The carpet," he answered gently. "The carpet--"

  "I almost dropped off, and then I'd have been hurt, wouldn't I?"

  "A favour for a favour. I'm not a great man, but I hope to be one. Ihave something that I think is a talent. Let it go at that. The letterscome from my father and mother--in Colorado."

  "I've never seen Colorado."

  "It's big--"

  "Like the nursery of the Titans, I think," she said softly, and Hugoshuddered. The instinct had been too true.

  Her eyes were suddenly stormy. "I feel old enough to mother you, Hugo.And yet, since you came, I've been a little bit in love with you. Itdoesn't matter, does it?"

  "I think--I know--"

  "Sit closer to me then, Hugo."

  The sun had passed the zenith before they spoke connectedly again. "Timefor the magic carpet to come to earth," she said gaily.

  "Is it?"

  "Don't be masculine any longer--and don't be rudely possessive. Ofcourse it is. Aren't you hungry?"

  "I was hungry--" he began moodily.

  "All off at earth. Come on. Button me. Am I a sight?"

  "I disregard the bait."

  "You're being funny. Come. No--wait. We've forgotten the orchids. Iwonder if I really came for orchids. Should you be terribly offended ifI said I thought I did?"

  "Extravagantly offended."

  Cane returned late in the day. The cows had been sold--"I even made fivehundred clear and above the feeding and labour on the one with the offleg. She'll breed good cattle." The barns were as clean as a park, andRoseanne was singing as she prepared dinner.

  Nothing happened until a hot night in August. The leaves were still andlimp, the moon had set. Hugo lay awake and he heard her coming quietlyup the stairs.

  "Ralph had a headache and he took two triple bromides. Of course, Icould always have said that I heard one of the cows in distress and cameto wake you. But he's jealous, poor dear. And then--but who could resista couple of simultaneous alibis?"

  "Nobody," he whispered. She sat down on his bed. He put his arm aroundher and felt that she was in a nightdress. "I wish I could see you now."

  "Then take this flashlight--just for an instant. Wait." He heard therustle of her clothing. "Now."

  She heard him draw in his breath. Then the light went out.

  * * * * *

  With the approach of autumn weather Roseanne caught a cold. Shecontinued her myriad tasks, but he could see that she was miserable.Even Cane sympathized with her gruffly. When the week of the cattle showin New York arrived, the cold was worse and she begged off the long tripon the trucks with the animals. He departed alone with his two mostprecious cows, scarcely thinking of her, muttering about judges andprizes.

  Again she came out to the barn. "You've made me a dreadful hypocrite."

  "I know it."

  "You were waiting for me! Men are so disgustingly sure of everything!"

  "But--"

  "I've made myself cough and sniffle until I can't stop."

  Hugo smiled broadly. "All aboard the carpet...."

  They lay in a field that was surrounded by trees. The high weeds hidthem. Goldenrod hung over them. "Life can't go on--"

  "Like this," he finished for her.

  "Well--can it?"

  "It's up to you, Roseanne. I never knew there were women--"

  "Like me? You should have said 'was a woman.'"

  "Would you run away with me?"

  "Never."

  "Aren't we just hunting for an emotion?"

  "Perhaps. Because there was a day--one day--in the pines--"

  He nodded. "Different from these other two. That's because of the tragicformation of life. There is only one first, only one commencement, onlyone virginity. Then--"

  "Character sets in."

  "Then it becomes living. It may remain beautiful, but it cannot remainoriginal."

  "You'd be hard to live with."

  "Why, Roseanne?"

  "Because you're so determined not to have an illusion."

  "And you--"

  "Go on. Say it. I'm so determined to have one."

  "Are we quarreling? I can fix that. Come closer, Roseanne." Her facechanged through delicate shades of feeling to tenderness and tointensity. Abruptly Hugo leaped to his feet.

  The rhythmic thunder rode down upon them like the wind. A few yardsaway, head down, tail straight, the big bull charged over the groundlike an avalanche. Roseanne lifted herself in time to see Hugo take twoquick steps, draw back his fist, and hit the bull between the horns. Itwas a diabolical thing. The bull was thrown back upon itself. Its necksnapped loudly. Its feet crumpled; it dropped dead. Twenty feet to oneside was a stone wall. Hugo picked up a hoof and dragged the carcass tothe base of the wall. With his hand he made an indenture in the rocks,and over the face of the hollow he splashed the bull's blood. Then heapproached Roseanne. The whole episode had occupied less than a minute.

  She had hunched her shoulders together, and her face was pale. Shearticulated with difficulty. "The bull"--her hands twitched--"broke inhere--and you hit him."

  "Just in time, Roseanne."

  "You killed him. Then--why did you drag him over there?"

  "Because," Hugo answered slowly, "I thought it would be better to makeit seem as if he charged the wall and broke his neck that way."

  Her frigidity was worse than any hysteria. "It isn't natural to be ableto do things like that. It isn't human."

  He swallowed; those words in that stifled intonation were very familiar."I know it. I'm very strong."

  Roseanne looked down at the grass. "Wipe your hand, will you?"

  He rubbed it in the earth. "You mustn't be frightened."

  "No?" She laughed a little. "What must I be, then? I'm alive, I'mcrawling with terror. Don't touch me!" She screamed and drew back.

  "I can explain it."

  "You can explain everything! But not that."

  "It was an idiotic, wild, unfair thing to have happen at this time," hesaid. "My life's like that." He looked beyond her. "I began wanting todo tremendous things. The more I tried, the more discouraged I became.You see, I was strong. There have been other things figuratively likethe bull. But the things themselves get littler and more preposterous,because my ambition and my nerve grows smaller." He lowered his head."Some day--I shan't want to do anything at all any more. Continuous andunwonted defeat might infuriate some men to a great effort. It's tiringme." He raised his eyes sadly to hers. "Roseanne--!"

  She gathered her legs under herself and ran. Hugo made no attempt tofollow her. He merely watched. Twice she t
ripped and once she fell. Atthe stone wall she looked back at him. It was not necessary to be ableto see her expression. She went on across the fields--a skinny, flappingthing--at last a mere spot of moving colour.

  Hugo turned and stared at the brown mound of the bull. After a moment hewalked over and stood above it. Its tongue hung out and its mouthgrinned. It lay there dead, and yet to Hugo it still had life: theindestructibility of a ghost and the immortality of a symbol. He satbeside it until sundown.

  At twilight he entered the barn and tended the cows. The doors of thehouse were closed. He went without supper. Cane returned jubilantlylater in the evening. He called Hugo from the back porch.

  "Telegram for you."

  Hugo read the wire. His father was sick and failing rapidly. "I want mywages," he said. Then he went back to the barn. His trifling belongingswere already wrapped in a bundle. Cane reluctantly counted out themoney. Hugo felt nauseated and feverish. He put the money in his pocket,the bundle under his arm; he opened the gate, and his feet found thesoft earth of the road in the darkness.