Complete Works of Sherwood Anderson

by Sherwood Anderson

  He makes two or three efforts and finally calls softly Miriam! Miriam!

  There is no answer. He calls louder Miriam!

  MIRIAM

  From offstage, left Well!

  ROBERT

  To himself I can’t. I can’t go to her. If I went to her now everything would get ugly. I can’t.

  MIRIAM

  From offstage, left Well! Are they gone?

  ROBERT

  Softly Yes, Miriam. They’re gone.

  MIRIAM

  Offstage What?

  ROBERT

  Louder They’re gone.

  In a low voice to himself I can’t. I mustn’t.

  MIRIAM

  Offstage Well, you may undress out there. I’m undressed.

  She laughs, a cold, half-hysterical laugh and ROBERT jumps to his feet When you’re ready, come on in. You have to be a man and a husband now. Don’t be afraid. You’ve got you a wife now.

  Again she laughs, the same half-hysterical laugh

  ROBERT

  I can’t. I can’t. I won’t.

  He sits and quickly takes off his shoes and holding them in his hand runs to the stair landing

  WOMAN’S VOICE

  From below Look, Mabel, at what a mess they’ve made.

  ANOTHER WOMAN’S VOICE

  Maud.

  FIRST WOMAN’S VOICE

  Well.

  SECOND WOMAN’S VOICE

  Say, let’s try the champagne. Come on. They’re all gone.

  FIRST WOMAN’S VOICE

  If Mrs. Grey thinks, just because I’m a servant, I am gonna stay up all night cleaning up this mess she’s got another think coming.

  SECOND WOMAN’S VOICE

  Come on, Maud. Here’s almost a full bottle. Let’s try it.

  FIRST WOMAN’S VOICE

  All right, I don’t care if I do. God, Mabel, don’t you wish you was rich?

  There is the sound of woman’s laughter from below

  WOMAN’S VOICE

  Gee! This is funny stuff. It tickles your nose.

  ROBERT FOREST runs back into the room. He seems half distracted. He sits again in the chair, but immediately jumps up nervously. He runs to the center of the stage. He puts down the shoes. He takes off his coat and running over lays it on the bed. He sits again. Again he jumps up

  ROBERT

  She won’t understand. How can she understand?

  MIRIAM

  From offstage Well, are you coming?

  Again there is the same kind of cold laughter and ROBERT FOREST runs nervously about the room

  ROBERT

  I won’t. I won’t. I don’t care if she never understands. I won’t. I can’t.

  He picks up the shoes and puts them down again, runs over to the bed and picks up his coat but puts it down again. He crosses to the window and, pulling it up, crawls out. There is a sound as though some heavy object had fallen through bushes

  WOMAN’S VOICE

  From below What was that?

  ANOTHER WOMAN’S VOICE

  I’ll bet it’s some one up to something. It’s that drunken Jed Smith.

  ANOTHER WOMAN’S VOICE

  I think they ought to be let alone.

  ANOTHER WOMAN’S VOICE

  Let’s go see.

  MIRIAM opens the door, left, and comes into the room. She is in her nightgown. She looks hurriedly about the room

  MIRIAM

  Gone! He’s gone!

  She runs to the open window and then comes back. She sees the shoes on the floor in the center of stage. She stands looking down at them. She laughs, but now her laughter is joyous. Again she runs and drops to her knees by the bed. She puts her face in her hands and her shoulders shake. She is a little hysterical. She jumps up and runs again to the window and then to the shoes. She looks down at the shoes and laughs again He couldn’t. After all that vulgarity down there, he couldn’t. He isn’t as they are. He is all right. I’ll get him back. I’ll have a real marriage.

  She runs to the stairs and down, calling joyously as she runs, the voice growing fainter as she runs through the house calling. There is no response to her calls Mother! Mother! It’s all right. Mother! It’s all right.

  CURTAIN

  The Poetry Collections

  A colorized photo of Loop Street, Chicago, 1900. Anderson settled in Chicago after his mother’s death in 1895 and maintained close ties with the city for most of his life. In recognition of this, Anderson was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in 2012.

  Mid-American Chants

  CONTENTS

  FOREWORD

  THE CORNFIELDS

  CHICAGO

  SONG OF INDUSTRIAL AMERICA

  SONG OF CEDRIC THE SILENT

  SONG OF THE BREAK OF DAY

  SONG OF THE BEGINNING OF COURAGE

  REVOLT

  A LULLABY

  SONG OF THEODORE

  MANHATTAN

  SPRING SONG

  INDUSTRIALISM

  SALVO

  THE PLANTING

  SONG OF THE MIDDLE WORLD

  THE STRANGER

  SONG OF THE LOVE OF WOMEN

  SONG OF STEPHEN THE WESTERNER

  SONG TO THE LOST ONES

  FORGOTTON SONG

  AMERICAN SPRING SONG

  THE BEAM

  SONG TO NEW SONG

  SONG FOR DARK NIGHTS

  THE LOVER

  NIGHT WHISPERS

  SONG TO THE SAP

  RHYTHMS

  UNBORN

  NIGHT.

  A VISIT

  CHANT TO DAWN IN A FACTORY TOWN

  SONG OF THE MATING TIME

  SONG FOR LONELY ROADS

  SONG LONG AFTER

  SONG OF THE SOUL OF CHICAGO

  SONG OF THE DRUNKEN BUSINESS MAN

  SONG TO THE LAUGH

  HOSANNA

  WAR

  MID-AMERICAN PRAYER

  WE ENTER IN

  DIRGE OF WAR

  LITTLE SONG TO A WESTERN STATESMAN

  SONG OF THE BUG

  ASSURANCE

  REMINISCENT SONG

  EVENING SONG

  SONG OF THE SINGER

  TO

  MARION MARGARET ANDERSON

  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

  FOREWORD

  — I do not believe that we people of mid-western America, immersed as we are in affairs, hurried and harried through life by the terrible engine — industrialism — have come to the time of song. To me it seems that song belongs with and has its birth in the memory of older things than we know. In the beaten paths of life, when many generations of men have walked the streets of a city or wandered at night in the hills of an old land, the singer arises.

  — The singer is neither young nor old but within him always there is something that is very old. The flavor of many lives lived and of many gone weary to the end of life creeps into his voice. Words run out beyond the power of words. There is unworldly beauty in the song of him who sings out of the souls of peoples of old times and places but that beauty does not yet belong to us.

  — In Middle America men are awakening. Like awkward and untrained boys we begin to turn toward maturity and with our awakening we hunger for song. But in our towns and fields there are few memory haunted places. Here we stand in roaring city streets, on steaming coal heaps, in the shadow of factories from which come only the grinding roar of machines. We do not sing but mutter in the darkness. Our lips are cracked with dust and with the heat of furnaces. We but mutter and feel our way toward the promise of song.

  — For this book of chants I ask only that it be allowed to stand stark against the background of my own place and generation. Honest Americans will not demand beauty that is not yet native to our cities and fields. In secret a million men and women are trying, as I have tried here, to express the hunger within and I have dared to put these chants forth only because I hope and believe they may find an answering and clearer call in the hearts of other Mid- Americans.

&nb
sp; SHERWOOD ANDERSON.

  Chicago, February, 1918.

  THE CORNFIELDS

  I am pregnant with song. My body aches but do not betray

  me. I will sing songs and hide them away. I will tear

  them into bits and throw them in the street. The streets

  of my city are full of dark holes. I will hide my songs

  in the holes of the streets.

  In the darkness of the night I awoke and the bands that

  bind me were broken. I was determined to bring old

  things into the land of the new. A sacred vessel I found

  and ran with it into the fields, into the long fields where

  the com rustles.

  All of the people of my time were bound with chains. They

  had forgotten the long fields and the standing com.

  They had forgotten the west winds.

  Into the cities my people had gathered. They had become

  dizzy with words. Words had choked them. They

  could not breathe.

  On my knees I crawled before my people. I debased myself.

  The excretions of their bodies I took for my food. Into

  the ground I went and my body died. I emerged in the

  com, in the long cornfields. My head arose and was

  touched by the west wind. The light of old things, of

  beautiful old things, awoke in me. In the cornfields

  the sacred vessel is set up.

  I will renew in my people the worship of gods. I will set

  up for a king before them. A king shall arise before my

  people. The sacred vessel shall be filled with the sweet

  oil of the corn.

  The flesh of my body is become good. With your white

  teeth you may bite me. My arm that was withered has

  become strong. In the quiet night streets of my city old

  things are awake.

  I awoke and the bands that bind me were broken. I was

  determined to bring love into the hearts of my people.

  The sacred vessel was put into my hands and I ran with

  it into the fields. In the long cornfields the sacred vessel

  is set up.

  CHICAGO

  I am mature, a man child, in America, in the West, in the

  great valley of the Mississippi. My head arises above

  the cornfields. I stand up among the new com.

  I am a child, a confused child in a confused world. There

  are no clothes made that fit me. The minds of men

  cannot clothe me. Great projects arise within me. I

  have a brain and it is cunning and shrewd.

  I want leisure to become beautiful, but there is no leisure.

  Men should bathe me with prayers and with weeping,

  but there are no men.

  Now — from now — from to-day I shall do deeds of fiery

  meaning. Songs shall arise in my throat and hurt me.

  I am a little thing, a tiny little thing on the vast prairies.

  I know nothing. My mouth is dirty. I cannot tell what

  I want. My feet are sunk in the black swampy land, but

  I am a lover. I love life. In the end love shall save me.

  The days are long — it rains — it snows. I am an old man.

  I am sweeping the ground where my grave shall be.

  Look upon me, my beloved, my lover who does not come.

  I am raw and bleeding, a new thing in a new world. I

  run swiftly o’er bare fields. Listen — there is the sound

  of the tramping of many feet. Life is dying in me. I

  am old and palsied. I am just at the beginning of my life.

  Do you not see that I am old, O my beloved? Do you

  not understand that I cannot sing, that my songs choke

  me? Do you not see that I am so young I cannot find

  the word in the confusion of words?

  SONG OF INDUSTRIAL AMERICA

  They tell themselves so many little lies, my beloved. Now

  wait, little one — we can’t sing. We are standing in a

  crowd, by a bridge, in the West. Hear the voices —

  turn around — let’s go home — I am tired. They tell

  themselves so many little lies.

  You remember in the night we arose. We were young.

  There was smoke in the passage and you laughed. Was

  it good — that black smoke? Look away to the streams

  and the lake. We’re alive. See my hand — how it

  trembles on the rail.

  Here is song, here in America, here now, in our time. Now

  wait — I’ll go to the train. I’ll not swing off into tunes.

  I’m all right — I just want to talk.

  You watch my hand on the rail of this bridge. I press

  down. The blood goes down — there. That steadies me

  — it makes me all right.

  Now here’s how it’s going to come — the song, I mean. I’ve

  watched things, men and faces — I know.

  First there are the broken things — myself and the others.

  I don’t mind that — I’m gone — shot to pieces. I’m part

  of the scheme — I’m the broken end of a song myself.

  We are all that, here in the West, here in Chicago.

  Tongues clatter against teeth. There’s nothing but shrill

  screams and a rattle. That had to be — it’s a part of the

  scheme.

  Souls, dry souls, rattle around.

  Winter of song. Winter of song.

  Now, faint little voices do lift up. They are swept away

  in the void — that’s true enough. It had to be so from

  the very first. Pshaw — I’m steady enough — let me alone.

  Keokuk, Tennessee, Michigan, Chicago, Kalamazoo —

  don’t the names in this country make you fairly drunk?

  We’ll stand by this brown stream for hours. I’ll not be

  swept away. Watch my hand — how steady it is. To

  catch this song and sing it would do much — make much

  clear.

  Come close to me warm little thing. It is night — I am

  cold. When I was a boy in my village here in the West,

  I always knew all the old men. How sweet they were

  — quite Biblical too — makers of wagons and harness and

  plows — sailors and soldiers and pioneers. We got Walt

  and Abraham out of that lot.

  Then a change came.

  Drifting along. Drifting along.

  Winter of song. Winter of song.

  You know my city — Chicago triumphant — factories and

  marts and the roar of machines — horrible, terrible, ugly

  and brutal.

  It crushed things down and down. Nobody wanted to hurt.

  They didn’t want to hurt me or you. They were caught

  themselves. I know the old men here — millionaires. I’ve

  always known old men all my life. I’m old myself. You

  would never guess how old I am.

  Can a singer arise and sing in this smoke and grime? Can

  he keep his throat clear? Can his courage survive?

  I’ll tell you what it is — now you be still. To Hell with

  you. I’m an old empty barrel floating in the stream —

  that’s what I am. You stand away. I’ve come to life.

  My arms lift up — I begin to swim.

  Hell and damnation — turn me loose. The floods come on.

  That isn’t the roar of the trains at all. It’s the flood —

  the terrible, horrible flood turned loose.

  Winter of song. Winter of song.

  Carried along. Carried along.

  Now in the midst of the broken waters of my civilization

  rhythm begins. Clear above the flood I raise my
ringing

  voice. In the disorder and darkness of the night, in the

  wind and the washing waves, I shout to my brothers —

  lost in the flood.

  Little faint beginnings of things — old things dead — sweet

  old things — a life lived in Chicago — in the West — in the

  whirl of industrial America.

  God knows you might have become something else — just

  like me. You might have made soft little tunes — written

  cynical little ditties, eh? Why the devil didn’t you make

  some money and own an automobile?

  Do you believe — now listen — I do. Say, you — now listen —

  do you believe the hand of God reached down to me in

  the flood? I do. ’Twas like a streak of fire along my

  back. That’s a lie, of course. The face of God looked

  down at me, over the rim of the world.

  Don’t you see we are all a part of something, here in the

  West? We’re trying to break through. I’m a song myself, the broken end of a song myself.

  We have to sing, you see, here in the darkness. All men

  have to sing — poor broken things. We have to sing here

  in the darkness in the roaring flood. We have to find

  each other. Have you courage to-night for a song? Lift

  your voices. Come.

  SONG OF CEDRIC THE SILENT

  Songs come to my lips every hour. I shall hurl my songs

  down the winds of the world. Like a blow, a kiss, a

  caress, my songs shall come.

  Like a guest I am come into the house, the terrible house.

  So gentle and quiet I come they do not know me. The

  son of Irwin and Emma I am, here in America, come into

  a kingship.

  I would destroy and build up. I would set up new kings.

  The impatience has gone out of me. Hatred and evil

  I have put far away.

  Do you remember when you crept close to me, wanting to

  touch my body? What a night — how it rained.

  How could you know, how could you know in me there was

  oblivion?

  The terrible poison of my body has laid waste the land.

  I embrace Hell for you, go to my damnation for my love