Empire: A Novel

by Gore Vidal

  McKinley nodded, first, to Hay, who bowed; and then fell in behind the last of the diplomatic corps, the Cabinet behind him.

  Suddenly, Hay was aware that Mrs. Dewey had moved into position at his left elbow, while clinging to the right arm of the Secretary of the Navy. “Happy New Year, Mr. Hay!” She was brightly innocent; even the eyelashes were like those of a doll, in odd clusters, giving a starry artificial look to the china-blue eyes.

  “What a joy,” murmured Hay, never so happy as when he was able to indulge in a minor insincerity, “to find you here with us, in the Cabinet.”

  “It was dear Mr. Long who took me in. I told him that the Admiral and I must leave early, and if we were to wait until Cabinet, Court, diplomats, Congress and Army went through the line, why, we’d be here longer than my Admiral’s whole war, and Mr. Long said he’d take me through. So kind …”

  Hay felt Clara’s disapproval on his right; and saw Root’s amused anger or angered amusement at Mrs. Dewey’s bold victory over the Army, and himself.

  At the door to the East Room, the President paused; and looked anxiously down at Mrs. McKinley, who looked up, wanly, at him. Then the President made his entrance, going straight to the throne-like blue chair at the room’s opposite end; here he deposited Mrs. McKinley, who sank into the chair, clutching a bouquet of orchids to her bosom.

  As Hay and Clara entered the crowded room, he was careful to avoid, as always, his single superstition, the cleared space at the center, where Lincoln had lain in his coffin. Otherwise, the East Room had no particular significance for Hay. It had always been a sort of theater, whose star was the president of the moment, whose audience were the dignitaries who came and went, usually without trace; yet, simultaneously, Washington was a city that although it never missed anyone never forgot anyone, either. Again, Hay thought of the house—the city, too, and the republic beyond—as a theater, with a somewhat limited repertory of plays; and types. The only time the East Room had ever come alive was during the weeks that a Kentucky regiment of volunteers, eager to protect President Lincoln, had bivouacked in the room, where they had used the fireplaces for cooking. Later, Mrs. Lincoln would make the East Room splendid, at a stunning cost to the government and to her husband, who insisted on paying for some of her madder luxuries. Now the East Room was, again, shabby, and depressing; rather like a resort hotel out of season. Where Mrs. Lincoln’s glorious sea-green carpet had unfurled its expansive expensive length there was now a bright yellow mustard-colored carpet, presently a bright perfect foil for muddy footprints. Between windows and fireplaces rows of shabby, pumpkin-shaped seats were placed, each with a stricken palm tree rising from its center. The effect was peculiarly dismal in the glare of the huge electrified chandeliers.

  Mrs. McKinley endured her high estate for an hour; then the President himself took her upstairs; and the guests were now free to roam outside their hierarchical orders. Mrs. Dewey’s preemptory strike had been noticed by all; and General Miles looked very grim indeed. The Admiral seemed not to have noticed anything as he and triumphant wife departed, while Hay was taken to one side by Lord Pauncefote. Across the room the Russian Ambassador glared at the two conspirators. Hay knew that Cassini regarded him as not only an Anglophile but a dupe of England. Actually, in most matters of any consequence to the United States, England followed America’s lead; in exchange, the Administration reciprocated by tacit encouragement in South Africa. Hay was prepared to discuss the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, soon to go to the Senate, but to his surprise, Pauncefote had not canals but China on his mind. “You know, Mr. Hay,” the old man’s seductive barrister’s voice buzzed agreeably in Hay’s ear, “that the dismemberment of China continues, with the Russians busiest of us all …”

  “ ‘Us’? We are not busy.”

  “I speak of wicked Europe, of course, not innocent America.”

  “Thank you.”

  “They are consolidating Manchuria. They will soon be Russifying Peking and North China, an essential market for your textile industries, which the Russians mean to close.”

  Cassini, a few yards away, clamped his monocle into his left eye-socket; and glared at them over the head of Cambon. Cassini seemed to be listening to every word.

  “The New England delegation to Congress is very sensitive to all this.” Hay was soothing. “And so am I. Did you know that Mr. Henry Adams thinks that Russia will disintegrate in the next twenty-five years, and that we shall then be obliged to Americanize Siberia, the only territory worth having in Asia?”

  Lord Pauncefote gave Hay a sharp look to see if this might be some sort of Yankee joke to which he had not got the point. When Hay said no more, Pauncefote smiled. “Mr. Adams does not hold office, does he?”

  “No. Alas. For us.”

  “Yes,” said Pauncefote, Adams forever dismissed from his mind. He then steered Hay to one of the depressing pumpkin seats, where, beneath a palm whose fronds were brown from overheating, he came to his point. “Unlike Russia, China is already disintegrating. The question is, who shall pick up the pieces? Russia and Japan have got the most already. The Kaiser fishes wherever he can. The French …”

  “As you know, we are the only non-fishers.” Hay wondered to what extent he should take Pauncefote into his confidence. Hay had already worked out a formula which, he was certain, would place the United States at the center of the entire China equation; yet cost nothing. Hay proceeded, by instinct. “We sit on our extremely uncomfortable Philippines and stare with dismay at the Gold Rush for China. Of course we’re nervous about the Shansi province. Will Russia shut the north of China to us? If they do, will our textile industry collapse? I have,” Hay decided to take a shallow, experimental plunge, “gone round Cassini, who is impossible to deal with, as we all know. He is vain and somewhat silly. Worse, he’s also been ambassador in China, and he knows, perhaps, too much for … our good. So I’ve been dealing directly with Count Mouravieff in Petersburg. Last week he wrote me a straightforward letter—straightforward, that is, for a Russian. I had asked for only one thing. An open door to China for all nations. He wrote me that outside of the territories currently leased by China to Russia—”

  “Leased!” Pauncefote shook his head; shut his eyes, to blot out the extent of human perfidy.

  “Isn’t Kowloon leased to England by China?”

  “A straightforward business, involving a single port.” Pauncefote was quick. “Nothing like taking over all Manchuria, and Port Arthur, a whole kingdom.”

  “Anyway, he guarantees Russia will honor the old Chinese treaties with each of us.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “Of course not. But I have forced him to make a move, something Russians hate. They want nothing spelled out, ever. Well, now he’s given me an opening to put as large a construction as I can on his words. So, in a few months, I shall make my move. I think that I—that we, dear Pauncefote—can box them all in.”

  “You seem to be getting the hang of this.” Pauncefote was dry.

  “I appeal only to the decent instincts of all mankind.”

  “Wait till you deal with the Japanese. They are not decent. They are not even mankind.”

  “Extra-terrestrial?”

  “Lunatics, yes! Moon-men.”

  The President was again in the East Room. But this time he was accompanied not by Mrs. McKinley but by Del and Caroline. “They look like son and daughter,” said Pauncefote, without much tact.

  “Surely son and daughter-in-law,” Hay rallied. He had yet to comprehend what attraction Del had for the President. Certainly, Del told him nothing. Only by accident did he ever learn that Del had had a family dinner with the McKinleys or that he had accompanied the President on a drive. Plainly, the boy was a born courtier.

  Caroline had thought the same but now she was not so certain. For the first time, she had been invited to “supper” with the McKinleys. The other guests were Del and Mr. and Mrs. Charles G. Dawes. She now inclined to the son-that-he-never-had view. It was the
President who played courtier to Del, advising him on everything, including what to eat. As it was, the food in the family dining room was plentiful. The conversation was not. Mrs. McKinley drank consommé; and ate a chicken wing. The Daweses talked and laughed enough for four, their function, Caroline decided. The President ate for two; and Del was demure.

  Now they stood in front of a marble fireplace at one end of the truly, to Caroline’s eye, hideous East Room, and the President shook hands and made stately conversation with those who came up to him. In the brief intervals between what Caroline had come to think of as the laying on of hands, the President talked to her of Del. “As long as I am here,” he said, in his mellifluous, even to Caroline’s critical ear, voice, “he will go very far indeed. He is the sort of person we need in this place where …” Somehow or other, McKinley never allowed any potentially interesting sentence to arrive at a conclusion; thus, he avoided, masterfully, ever being quotable. Caroline had first been bored by the President; then she was fascinated by the perfect caution with which he spoke, allowing fortune not a single hostage. If not intelligent, he was highly subtle in the practice of his political art. But then Caroline had already realized that her own criterion for intelligence was both conventional and European. For her, intelligence was, simply, to what degree a mind had been civilized. As a result, she had been in no way prepared for a mind that, innocent of civilization, was still capable of swift analysis and shrewd action. McKinley barely knew of Caesar and Alexander; yet he had conquered almost as much of the earth as either, without once stirring from the ugly national house with its all-important telegraph-machine and no less potent telephone.

  “He’s very much,” said McKinley, “the way his father must have been when he was here.” Del had told Caroline that the President seldom mentioned any of his predecessors by name, a perhaps unique trait that he shared with Lincoln. “I think Pretoria will season him and then …” The appearance of Senator Lodge caused the President to smile with what looked to be genuine warmth. There was, thought Caroline, a lot to be learned about acting from Mr. McKinley. Meanwhile, Del, out of earshot, was screening would-be celebrators of the new year—new century—with the President. At the far end of the room, Marguerite Cassini looked very lovely; indeed, like a ballet girl, dressed up, thought Caroline with swift unkindness, as a lady. She was enchanting a number of elderly congressmen, her eyes on Del; apparently, he had flirted more seriously with Marguerite than he had ever admitted to Caroline, who was disturbed to find herself jealous; and was not jealousy a sign of love? she asked her own Marguerite, who had replied sourly, “More likely a sign of a very selfish disposition.”

  The President had finished congratulating Senator Lodge on his awesome brilliance; and Lodge turned to Caroline, with a foxy smile. “You are still enjoying this barbaric country?”

  “ ‘Barbaric’ is your word, Mr. Lodge. I am enamored of your—our civilization. A light to all the world, I should say.”

  “You do say in the Washington Tribune.”

  “Oh, I never read the leaders. I only like …”

  “Murders?”

  “Lost children is our current passion. But I didn’t think that you read our paper.”

  “Oh, I keep careful track of you.”

  “Our murders?”

  “Lost children, too.”

  “Treaties?” Caroline struck, sweetly she hoped. She had the pleasure of producing a frown on the stern senatorial face. Lodge was suspected of working against his friend Hay’s canal treaty.

  “My dear Miss Sanford. A treaty is only a Platonic essence before it comes to the Senate. Then we—two-thirds of us—make it corporeal.”

  “May I quote you?”

  “Let me quote myself first in the Senate. Then it is all yours. You will go on?”

  Caroline was now quite used to the question. “Why not? Besides, Mr. McLean is willing to finance me.”

  “McLean? Why?”

  “So that I won’t be obliged to sell out to Mr. Hearst.”

  “Oh!” Lodge was delighted. “You’ll find a lot of us will pay you anything you like to keep him out of Washington.” Lodge looked at Del. “When does he go to Pretoria?”

  “Next month.”

  “Alone?”

  “Alone.”

  – 2 –

  HENRY ADAMS gave the farewell dinner for Del; and Adams was, Hay thought, every bit as grim as February itself, Washington’s least favored month. Hay arrived first; and found Adams looking more like a diabolic hedgehog than the legendary angelic porcupine of Lafayette Square.

  “I have lost all interest in tobacco and champagne.” Adams stood beneath Blake’s celebration of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness. William brought more wood for the fire.

  “You still have La Dona.” Hay lit his forbidden-by-Clara before-dinner cigar.

  “She is the muse of a poet, Heaven help us. A ridiculously young poet.” Adams was very round indeed; and almost as irritable as he claimed to be. “I’ve had a letter from Don Cameron. He’s down in St. Helens and wants me to visit. I remind him of his wife, I suppose. If it were not for the thirteenth century, I would kill myself.”

  “Then we have more to thank Madame Poulard for than her omelettes.”

  “They, too, are as Gothic as Mont-St.-Michel.” Hay was not as enamored of the idea of the Virgin as Adams had become. He was beginning to fear that his old friend might yet turn Catholic on him.

  “Perhaps too agreeable an image. Cabot is not coming tonight.”

  Hay felt a sciatic thrill in his left leg. “Does this mean he’ll oppose the treaty?”

  “I don’t know what he means any more. He is as bad as Brooks.”

  Hay had just read Brooks Adams’s most recent novelty, Natural Selection in Literature. With all the positiveness of a Karl Marx, Brooks traced England’s decline through its literature, from vigorous rural warrior Walter Scott to effete, urban, cowardly and fearful Charles Dickens. Apparently, the rise of Mr. Micawber heralded England’s eclipse. “Brooks writes me regularly,” said Hay, somewhat cautiously, aware how much younger brother irritated older brother. “He has decided that Russia must either undergo a social revolution internally or expand externally.”

  “Why not both?” Adams was more than ever bristling porcupine.

  “He prefers either- or to simultaneity. He has confided to me that if the Russians and the Germans were to obtain China’s Shansi province, we would be at their mercy …”

  “So we must arm to the teeth. That means more ships, more Admiral Mahan, more noise from Teddy! Oh, I am sick of the whole lot.” The fire, sympathetically, exploded behind Adams. Both men started. Then Adams sat in his favorite small leather chair opposite Hay’s favorite small leather chair. The children’s study, the large Clara had called the room, designed as it was entirely for the comfort of great small men, and charming nieces. “I admire Brooks’s theory as far as I can understand it—nations as organisms. Nations as stores of energy, slowly depleting unless refuelled. I grasp all that. But I want only to understand the theory, which I don’t, really, and neither does he, while Brooks wants to apply the bloody thing. He’s mad. He’s got all sorts of people who should know better excited, including you.”

  “Nothing excites me, Henry, except your excitement.”

  “Weil, I am excited when I think of him. Brooks thinks England will collapse soon. So do I. He thinks we’ll inherit their empire. I don’t, at least not for long. I want us to build a sort of Great Wall of China, and hide behind it as long as possible. In the next quarter century the world’s going to go smash. Well, I’m for staying out of the smash as long as possible. You see, I’m anti-imperialist. Don’t tell Teddy or Lodge or Mahan. I’m for letting the whole thing smash up, and then, later, we might find some pieces worth picking up. Meanwhile, forget the Philippines. Forget China. Let England sink. Let Russia and Germany try to run the machine, while we live on our internal resources, which are so much greater than theirs. They’ll end by going bus
t, and why should we go bust with them?”

  “Perhaps,” said Hay, startled by so much unexpected vehemence, not to mention so vast a sea-change in the Adams cosmogony, “we shall not be allowed to stay out, in order to pursue your—scavenger policy, of picking up the pieces.”

  “Scavengers thrive on the battles of others. Anyway, we are getting in much too deep in Asia.”

  “I thought you always wanted us to have Siberia …”

  “But only as a scavenger, as loot, after the Tsar and his idiot court—those thirty-five grand dukes—have managed to destroy their ramshackle empire. I certainly wouldn’t send Admiral Dewey and General Miles to Port Arthur.”

  “What about Teddy? We could always send him, alone, with a gun over Petersburg. In a balloon, of course.”

  “Filled with air from his own strenuous lungs. I saw him when he was here last week. He swore, yet again, that he did not want to be vice-president.”

  Hay sighed. “The Major doesn’t want him. Mark Hanna has already had one heart attack, attributable to Teddy. He was at his desk in the Senate, reading a newspaper account of Teddy’s fierce determination not to be vice-president, when, with a terrifying cry, he slumped to the floor, near dead of a Teddy-inspired heart attack.”

  “Well, he is now completely recovered.” Adams stared gloomily into the fire. “He was brought here to breakfast.”

  “Mark Hanna!” Hay was horrified; no one so low had ever come to an Adams breakfast. “Who dared bring him?”

  “Cabot. Who else? It was, he said, for my—education.”

  Clara and Helen made a joint entrance. Adams and Hay rose to greet them as if they had not all just met at tea beneath their joint roof. In order to maintain perspective, as Hay put it, meaning sanity, he walked every afternoon, no matter how cold, with Adams; then they would join Clara at her tea-urn. During these long walks, Hay was able to relate exactly what was on his mind while Adams was able to tell him, with great charm, what was not on the Secretary of State’s mind but ought to be.