Empire: A Novel

by Gore Vidal

  “Have you no murders to report?” asked Caroline.

  “Well, sure. I mean, we put the police news on the last page, like always. But it’s just the usual. A body found floating in the river …”

  “Surely, from time to time, a beautiful woman is pulled out of the muddy cold dark Potomac River. A beautiful young woman perhaps divided into sections, and wearing only a negligée.”

  “Caroline,” murmured Cousin John, so shocked that he used, in public, her first name.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, you’re right. No negligée could survive being quartered.”

  “The Tribune is a serious paper,” said Vardeman, thick lips suddenly compressed like punctured bicycle tires. “Devoted to the Republican Party, to the tariff …”

  “Well, Mr. Trimble, let us never forget our seriousness. But let us also remember that a beautiful young woman, murdered in a crime of passion, is also a serious figure if only to herself, while the crime—murder—is the most serious of all, in peacetime, that is.”

  “You want … uh, yellow journalism, Miss Sanford?” Trimble was staring at her, a look of amusement in his pale blue eyes.

  “Yellow, ochre, café au lait,” tactlessly, she looked at yellow-brown Vardeman, “I don’t care what color. No, that’s not true. I am partial to gold.”

  “What about the gold standard?” asked Cousin John, eager to make light of everything that she had said.

  “As a friend of Mr. Hay, I favor that, too. Whatever,” Caroline added as graciously as she could, “it is. You see, Mr. Trimble, I am a serious woman.”

  “Yes, Miss, I see that all right, and I’ll send someone over to police headquarters right now to see what they got in the morgue.”

  Caroline recalled Hearst on the floor, making up the front page of the Journal, the murdered woman slowly coming, as it were, alive under the embellishments. “Do that,” she said. “But remember that the illustration on the front page …”

  “Front page,” groaned Vardeman, looking out at Market Square.

  “… need not resemble too closely what is actually in the morgue.”

  “But we … you … the Tribune is a newspaper,” said Vardeman.

  “No,” said Caroline. “It is not a newspaper. Because there is no such thing as a newspaper. News is what we decide it is. Oh, how I love saying ‘we.’ It is a sign of perfect ignorance, isn’t it?” The ringing in her ears had stopped; she had never felt so entirely in command of herself. “Obviously earthquakes and election results and the scores of … baseball teams,” she was proud to have remembered the name of the national sport, “are news, and must be duly noted. But the rest of what we print is literature, of a kind that is meant to entertain and divert and excite our readers so that they will buy the things our advertisers will want to sell them. So we must be—imaginative, Mr. Trimble.”

  “I shall do my best, Miss Sanford.”

  In the street Cousin John turned on her, with unfeigned anger. “You can’t be serious …”

  “I have never been more serious. No.” She stopped herself. “That’s not true. What I mean to say is that I have never been serious about anything until now.”

  “Caroline, this is … this is …” He launched like an anathema the word. “Corruption.”

  “Corruption? Of what? The newspaper readers of Washington? Hardly. They know it all. Of the Tribune, a dull, dying paper? The word doesn’t apply. I see no corruption in what I mean to do. Perhaps,” she was judicious, “we shall offer a true reflection of the world about us. But you cannot blame a mirror for what it shows.”

  “But your mirror willfully distorts …”

  “A newspaper has no choice. It must be partisan in one way or another. But where is the corruption in this case?”

  “An appeal to base appetites …”

  “Will increase circulation. I did not make those appetites base.”

  “But that is corrupt, to pander to them.”

  “To gain readers? Surely, a small price to pay for …” Caroline stopped; a herdic cab had seen them, and now drew up to the front step.

  “To pay for what?”

  “To pay, Cousin John, for power. The only thing worth having in this democracy of yours.” More than a generation separated Caroline from Henry Adams’s Mrs. Lightfoot Lee; now, Caroline decided, it was possible for a woman to achieve what she wanted on her own and not through marriage, or some similar surrogate. She had not realized to what an extent Mlle. Souvestre had given her confidence. She not only did not fear failure, she did not expect it. “Which is probably proof that I am mad,” she said to Cousin John, as he helped her down from the cab, in the dense lemon-scented shade of the twin magnolia trees.

  “I don’t need any proof of that,” he said, quite ignoring the non-sequitur nature of her remark: they had been talking of Blaise and Mr. Houghteling and the ever more intricate games that were now being played at law.

  Caroline led her cousin into the house, to be greeted by Marguerite with complaints about the cook, who appeared, rumbling what sounded like powerful voodoo curses against Marguerite. As usual, the crisis was based upon misunderstanding. Parisian French and Afro-American seemed always at cross-purposes. Caroline was placating the confusion of two languages, as she led Cousin John into the narrow, dim, cool drawing room that ran the length of the small house, where they sat in front of a fireplace of white marble, filled now with ceramic pots containing early roses, an innovation that had caused deep laughter in the kitchen: “Flowers is for the yard. Wood’s for the fire.”

  “I wish you were more enthusiastic.” Caroline wished there was a stronger word that she could use. But their relationship was insufficiently comfortable. He seemed to think that they might yet be engaged; and she allowed him to think this on the sensible ground that as anything is possible most things are improbable. Their cousinage was also a complication. He was, above all, a Sanford; and took himself seriously, in loco parentis.

  “You must,” said Cousin John, surprisingly, “meet my cousins, the Apgars. They live in Logan Circle. It’s not the West End, of course; but old Washington still prefers that neighborhood. You should have some solid friends here.”

  “Unlike the Hays?” She was mischievous.

  “The Hays are too grand to be of use, if you should need them, while the Apgars are always here and ready to …”

  “In dry goods still?”

  “One branch, yes. Apgar’s Department Store is the second largest after Woodward and Lothrop. Most are lawyers. I have told the ladies to call.”

  “I’ll ask the department store Apgars to advertise in the Tribune.” Caroline was serious. “The spring sales—is that what they call them?—have started.” She had become a devoted reader of advertisements.

  “Well you could ask, I suppose.”

  “Is Mr. Vardeman common?” Caroline suddenly recalled the reddish tight curls, sand-colored face.

  “I should think very.”

  “No, I meant is it common for mulattoes to mix with the white people?”

  Cousin John was amused. “No. But he has been allowed, in many circles, to pass, and that does happen here, in certain circles. I’d be much happier if you’d settle in New York, where you belong.”

  Caroline surveyed the naval mementoes on the wall opposite. A crude painting of a ship in flames, from the War of 1812, about which she knew nothing, beneath crossed sabres topped by a commodore’s hat. Under glass, a torn British ensign. “I feel as if I’ve been transported to the Roman empire,” she said. “You know, the interesting part, toward the end.”

  Cousin John laughed. “We think it’s hardly begun, the United States.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” But Caroline was sure of nothing about this peculiar country except that its excessiveness appealed to her: there was far too much of everything except history. But that would come, inexorably, and she meant to be, somehow, in the mainstream of it. Suddenly, she saw history as nothing more than the Potomac River, swift
yellow and swirling about dun-colored rocks that seemed to have been hurled down from the severe wooded heights of Virginia, where grew vines whose laurel-like leaves could cause human skin to erupt in itching sores. The likeness between victor’s laurel and victim’s poison ivy had not been lost upon Caroline when she had first been warned by Helen Hay as they drove out to the bronze memorial that Henry Adams had commissioned Saint-Gaudens to create, a memorial to that dead Heart, Clover Adams. Almost as symbolic of the city as the poisoned laurel was the seated, sorrowing veiled figure, with no inscription and, oddly, no agreed-upon sex: it could be a young man, or a young woman. Characteristically, Henry Adams would not say which.

  “I shall see Apgars.” Caroline was reassuring. “Besides, I shall have no choice, this summer, with everyone gone.”

  “You won’t stay either.” Cousin John was firm. “The heat is intolerable.”

  “I can tolerate quite a lot. But I shall occasionally long for the cool of …” She stopped.

  “Newport, Rhode Island?”

  “No. Saint-Cloud. Is the house mine or not?”

  “Divided, until a decision’s made. What next—with Blaise?”

  “I don’t know. I shall see what he has to offer me now.”

  During the next week Caroline spent most of each day at the office of the Tribune. She got to know Mr. Trimble as well as she thought she should know an employee who was also a man and not a servant, a new sort of relationship for her. She spoke to the printer in German; tried to inspire him to an even greater output of visiting cards, wedding and funeral announcements, invitations of every sort, but the season was drawing to a close and not even her exhortations could inspire the government ladies to pay more calls on one another, or to excite even more young couples to the altars of Protestant St. John’s or of Catholic St. Mary’s. Most of her evenings were spent behind the magnolia sentinels, teaching Marguerite—and the African woman—English. Del was put off for the moment while she considered the awesome fact of matrimony and Pretoria, in reverse order, actually; but Del did not know that Cousin John had retreated to New York and his other life, the law. Mr. Hay was trying to avoid a war with England over Canada or with Canada over England. Caroline was amused to note that Hay never referred to Canada by name; only as “Our Lady of the Snows.” Thus far, no Apgar lady had called at N Street. Thus far, no new advertisers had called at the Tribune offices. But Caroline was well pleased by Trimble’s efforts to emulate Hearst. A corpse or two had found its way to the front page for the first time, ever. Each corpse had resulted in a dozen cancellations; each corpse had sold a thousand more newspapers on the stands. Caroline now knew what it was to be Hearst; but without his resources.

  On a Wednesday afternoon, Caroline was in the compositor’s room, studying the next day’s front page with her printer. A cat slept on the window-sill, oblivious to the noises of Market Square. In the next room she could hear Trimble’s voice, coaxing an advertiser. Disloyally, Caroline moved from the first to the third page a story concerning the Virgin Islands, which Hay thought that the United States might be obliged to buy from Denmark for the five million dollars made available by the Senate, courtesy of Senator Lodge. A robbery in the West End, specifically Connecticut Avenue, took the place of the Virgin Islands, and one Mrs. Benedict Tracy Bingham was now world-famous—or capitally famous—for having been robbed during the night of her diamonds. Caroline had inserted the adjective “fabulous” before the word “diamonds,” despite the objection of the elderly reporter, who had said, “They were just run-of-the-mill stuff, Miss Sanford. A pin. A ring. Earrings.”

  “But aren’t the Binghams rich?” Caroline toyed with the notion of a crime ring: “Connecticut Avenue’s Reign of Terror” she saw a headline (as usual, with her, too long); then a sub-headline: “Where will the thieves strike next?”

  “The Binghams own the Silversmith Dairies. They advertise with us, or used to. Yes, ma’am, they’re rich enough. But the jewels—”

  “Priceless heirlooms of one of Washington’s oldest and most aristocratic families,” Caroline had added to the story. “If that does not delight the Binghams, nothing will,” she said to Trimble, who was amused but dubious, as always, of her inspirations. “We shall be awash with milk advertising,” she promised now that Mrs. Benedict Tracy Bingham’s jewels were about to be first-page news, and her place in the city’s highly fluid patriciate inscribed boldly if not in a book of gold in meaningful type-set.

  The black doorkeeper stood in the doorway. “There’s a gentleman, Miss, who wants to talk to the publishers, to Mr. Vardeman.”

  “What about?” Caroline picked up an engraving of the Bingham mansion; and indicated that it was to be at the center of the column.

  “He says he’s from Mr. Hearst. His name’s the same as yours, Miss.”

  Caroline stood up straight; seized the nearest of many rags and rubbed, as best she could, the ink smudges from her fingers. “Did you tell him who the publisher is?”

  “No, ma’am. He was pretty clear he wanted to see Mr. Vardeman.”

  “I’ll see him in the office.” Caroline had taken for herself a small dim room overlooking the printing shed in the brick yard. A framed copy of her first front page was behind the modest desk (“Body of unknown beauty found nude at Navy Yard”). Two incongruous Louis XVI chairs were the only furniture in the room. The spring’s first flies made mid-air carousels.

  Blaise was satisfyingly astonished. “What are you doing here? Where’s Vardeman?”

  “Mr. Vardeman is devoting his time to genealogy. He is descended from Thomas Jefferson, he believes, which gives the two of us a lot to talk about …”

  “You bought the Trib?”

  “I bought the Trib.”

  They faced one another: implacable enemies as only the identical can be. “You did this to spite me.”

  “Or delight me. Sit down, Blaise.”

  Sulkily, he turned the gilded chair backwards and straddled it as if he were riding a horse. Demurely, she sat at her desk, strewn with unpaid bills. She wished now that she had paid more attention to Mlle. Souvestre’s excellent but dull teacher of mathematics.

  “How much,” asked Blaise, “did it cost you?”

  “Two or three Poussins.”

  “My pictures!”

  “Our pictures. I shall pay you your share, of course, when you give me my share of—”

  “That’s for the lawyers.” Blaise was looking about the dismal office. Caroline was pleased at the amount of squalor she could endure. She regretted that she had not followed her first impulse to hang on the wall a lurid four-color portrait of Admiral Dewey, with the legend “Our Hero.”

  “You can’t be serious,” said Blaise.

  “I’ve never understood why whenever someone is truly serious, someone always says that. Of course I’m serious. I am,” Caroline lowered her lashes shyly, the way Helen Hay did when the waiter brought around dessert, “working here, as publisher and editor, just like Mr. Hearst.”

  Blaise laughed, without joy. He had seen the framed front page; and guessed that it was her work. “There’s more to this than murders,” he said.

  “Yes. There’s Mrs. Hearst’s money to pay his debts. Or was. She goes back to California. She will not help him any longer.”

  “Who’ll pay your debts? The old Trib loses money like a sieve.”

  “I suppose that I will. From the estate.”

  Blaise swept the gold chair to one side; and walked over to the window and stared through the fly-specked glass at the print shop beneath. “That makes money. The paper loses it.” He turned around. “How much do you want?”

  “I’m not selling.”

  “Everything has its price.”

  Caroline laughed. “You’ve been in New York too long! That’s the sort of thing very fat men say at Rector’s. But not everything is for sale. The Tribune’s mine.”

  “Mr. Hearst will pay you double what you paid, which must have been around fifty thousand dol
lars.”

  “He hasn’t got the money, I know. I have met his mother.”

  “One hundred fifty thousand dollars.” Blaise sat on the window-sill. He wore a light gray coat which was now, visibly, beginning to darken from the room’s dust. “For everything. That’s three times what this wreck of a paper’s worth.”

  Caroline thought Blaise uncommonly attractive at this moment. Anger was his invigorating emotion. What was her own? Time would answer that, she decided; and then she made Blaise gloriously beautiful, by turning mere anger to plain fury with the words: “You don’t want to buy this for Mr. Hearst. You want to buy it for yourself. You are double, as the fat men say at Rector’s, crossing him.”

  “Damn you!” Blaise sprang from the window-sill. The back of his gray frock coat veined with spider-webs and the mummies of a dozen flies who had found in the Tribune’s window frame their final Egypt.

  “I might—if you stop damning me—let you have half the paper if you let me have my half of the …”

  “Blackmail! You come here behind my back, knowing that I … knowing that the Chief must have a Washington paper, and tricked that nigger into selling—”

  “I didn’t trick him. And is he really a nigger? The subject is very delicate here. It is like the Knights of Malta. You know, how many family quarterings can you produce? Anyway, if you’re interested, there is a very engaging Negro newspaper here called the Washington Bee. Since niggers and—by association?—blackmail so much concern you, you should talk to the proprietor, a Mr. Chase. I can introduce you. He is, perhaps, too moral for Mr. Hearst, but he might sell, and then you—or Hearst—will have a true Washington paper, entirely black, like the town.”

  Blaise looked less attractive as fury was replaced by anger, and a revival of his native cunning. “How can you pay all those bills on your desk …?”

  “I didn’t know you could read upside down.”

  “Red ink, yes.”

  “I have my income, such as it is. I have,” she improvised, “helpful friends.”

  “Cousin John? Well, he can’t help you, and John Hay doesn’t dare unless he wants the Journal down on him.”