The Torrents of Spring

by Ernest Hemingway

  “Listen,” the drummer said. He pushed his derby hat off his brow and, leaning forward, spat into the tall brass cuspidor that stood beside his stool. “I want to tell you about a pretty beautiful thing that happened to me once in Bay City.”

  Mandy, the waitress, leaned forward. Mrs. Scripps leaned toward the drummer to hear better. The drummer looked apologetically at Scripps and stroked the bird with his forefinger.

  “Tell you about it some other time, brother,” he said. Scripps understood. From out of the kitchen, through the wicket in the hall, came a high-pitched, haunting laugh. Scripps listened. Could that be the laughter of the Negro? He wondered.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Scripps going slowly to work in the pump-factory in the mornings. Mrs. Scripps looking out of the window and watching him go up the street. Not much time for reading The Guardian now. Not much time for reading about English politics. Not much time for worrying about the cabinet crises over there in France. The French were a strange people. Joan of Arc. Eva le Gallienne. Clemenceau. Georges Carpentier. Sacha Guitry. Yvonne Printemps. Grock. Les Fratellinis. Gilbert Seldes. The Dial. The Dial Prize. Marianne Moore. E. E. Cummings. The Enormous Room. Vanity Fair. Frank Crowninshield. What was it all about? Where was it taking her?

  She had a man now. A man of her own. For her own. Could she keep him? Could she hold him for her own? She wondered.

  Mrs. Scripps, formerly an elderly waitress, now the wife of Scripps O’Neil, with a good job in the pump-factory. Diana Scripps. Diana was her own name. It had been her mother’s, too. Diana Scripps looking into the mirror and wondering could she hold him. It was getting to be a question. Why had he ever met Mandy? Would she have the courage to break off going to the restaurant with Scripps to eat? She couldn’t do that. He would go alone. She knew that. It was no use trying to pull wool over her own eyes. He would go alone and he would talk with Mandy. Diana looked into the mirror. Could she hold him? Could she hold him? That thought never left her now.

  Every night at the restaurant, she couldn’t call it a beanery now—that made a lump come in her throat and made her throat feel hard and choky. Every night at the restaurant now Scripps and Mandy talked together. The girl was trying to take him away. Him, her Scripps. Trying to take him away. Take him away. Could she, Diana, hold him?

  She was no better than a slut, that Mandy. Was that the way to do? Was that the thing to do? Go after another woman’s man? Come between man and wife? Break up a home? And all with these interminable literary reminiscences. These endless anecdotes. Scripps was fascinated by Mandy. Diana admitted that to herself. But she might hold him. That was all that mattered now. To hold him. To hold him. Not to let him go. Make him stay. She looked into the mirror.

  Diana subscribing for The Forum. Diana reading The Mentor. Diana reading William Lyon Phelps in Scribner’s. Diana walking through the frozen streets of the silent Northern town to the Public Library, to read The Literary Digest “Book Review.” Diana waiting for the postman to come, bringing The Bookman. Diana, in the snow, waiting for the postman to bring The Saturday Review of Literature. Diana, bareheaded now, standing in the mounting snowdrifts, waiting for the postman to bring her the New York Times “Literary Section.” Was it doing any good? Was it holding him?

  At first it seemed to be. Diana learned editorials by John Farrar by heart. Scripps brightened. A little of the old light shining in Scripps’s eyes now. Then it died. Some little mistake in the wording, some slip in her understanding of a phrase, some divergence in her attitude, made it all ring false. She would go on. She was not beaten. He was her man and she would hold him. She looked away from the window and slit open the covering of the magazine that lay on her table. It was Harper’s Magazine. Harper’s Magazine in a new format. Harper’s Magazine completely changed and revised. Perhaps that would do the trick. She wondered.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Spring was coming. Spring was in the air. (Author’s Note.—This is the same day on which the story starts, back on page three.) A chinook wind was blowing. Work men were coming home from the factory. Scripps’s bird singing in its cage. Diana looking out of the open window. Diana watching for her Scripps to come up the street. Could she hold him? Could she hold him? If she couldn’t hold him, would he leave her his bird? She had felt lately that she couldn’t hold him. In the nights, now, when she touched Scripps he rolled away, not toward her. It was a little sign, but life was made up of little signs. She felt she couldn’t hold him. As she looked out of the window, a copy of The Century Magazine dropped from her nerveless hand. The Century had a new editor. There were more woodcuts. Glenn Frank had gone to head some great university somewhere. There were more Van Dorens on the magazine. Diana felt that might turn the trick. Happily she had opened The Century and read all morning. Then the wind, the warm chinook wind, had started to blow, and she knew Scripps would soon be home. Men were coming down the street in increasing numbers. Was Scripps among them? She did not like to put on her spectacles to look. She wanted Scripps’s first glimpse of her to be of her at her best. As she felt him drawing nearer, the confidence she had had in The Century grew fainter. She had so hoped that would give her the something which would hold him. She wasn’t sure now.

  Scripps coming down the street with a crowd of excited workmen. Men stirred by the spring. Scripps swinging his lunch-bucket. Scripps waving good-by to the workmen, who trooped one by one into what had formerly been a saloon. Scripps not looking up at the window. Scripps coming up the stairs. Scripps coming nearer. Scripps coming nearer. Scripps here.

  “Good afternoon, dear Scripps,” she said. “I’ve been reading a story by Ruth Suckow.”

  “Hello, Diana,” Scripps answered. He set down his lunch-pail. She looked worn and old. He could afford to be polite.

  “What was the story about, Diana?” he asked.

  “It was about a little girl in Iowa,” Diana said. She moved toward him. “It was about people on the land. It reminded me a little of my own Lake Country.”

  “That so?” asked Scripps. In some ways the pump-factory had hardened him. His speech had become more clipped. More like these hardy Northern workers’. But his mind was the same.

  “Would you like me to read a little of it out loud?” Diana asked. “They’re some lovely woodcuts.”

  “How about going down to the beanery?” Scripps said.

  “As you wish, dear,” Diana said. Then her voice broke. “I wish—oh, I wish you’d never seen that place!” She wiped away her tears. Scripps had not even seen them. “I’ll bring the bird, dear,” Diana said. “He hasn’t been out all day.”

  Together they went down the street to the beanery. They did not walk hand in hand now. They walked like what are called old married people. Mrs. Scripps carried the bird-cage. The bird was happy in the warm wind. Men lurching along, drunk with the spring, passed them. Many spoke to Scripps. He was well known and well liked in the town now. Some, as they lurched by, raised their hats to Mrs. Scripps. She responded vaguely. If I can only hold him, she was thinking. If I can only hold him. As they walked along the slushy snow of the narrow sidewalk of the Northern town, something began to beat in her head. Perhaps it was the rhythm of their walking together. I can’t hold him. I can’t hold him. I can’t hold him.

  Scripps took her arm as they crossed the street. When his hand touched her arm Diana knew it was true. She would never hold him. A group of Indians passed them on the street. Were they laughing at her or was it some tribal jest? Diana didn’t know. All she knew was that rhythm that beat into her brain. I can’t hold him. I can’t hold him.

  Author’s Note:

  For the reader, not the printer. What difference does it make to the printer? Who is the printer, anyway? Gutenberg. The Gutenberg Bible. Caxton. Twelve-point open-face Caslon. The linotype machine. The author as a little boy being sent to look for type lice. The author as a young man being sent for the key to th
e forms. Ah, they knew a trick or two, these printers.

  (In case the reader is becoming confused, we are now up to where the story opened with Yogi Johnson and Scripps O’Neil in the pump-factory itself, with the Chinook wind blowing. As you see, Scripps O’Neil has now come out of the pump-factory and is on his way to the beanery with his wife, who is afraid she cannot hold him. Personally, we don’t believe she can, but the reader will see for himself. We will now leave the couple on their way to the beanery and go back and take up Yogi Johnson. We want the reader to like Yogi Johnson. The story will move a little faster from now on, in case any of the readers are tiring. We will also try and work in a number of good anecdotes. Would it be any violation of confidence if we told the reader that we get the best of these anecdotes from Mr. Ford Madox Ford? We owe him our thanks, and we hope the reader does, too. At any rate, we will now go on with Yogi Johnson. Yogi Johnson, the reader may remember, is the chap who was in the war. As the story opens, he is just coming out of the pump-factory. (See page three.)

  It is very hard to write this way, beginning things backward, and the author hopes the reader will realize this and not grudge this little word of explanation. I know I would be very glad to read anything the reader ever wrote, and I hope the reader will make the same sort of allowances. If any of the readers would care to send me anything they ever wrote, for criticism or advice, I am always at the Cafe du Dome any afternoon, talking about Art with Harold Stearns and Sinclair Lewis, and the reader can bring his stuff along with him; or he can send it to me care of my bank, if I have a bank. Now, if the reader is ready—and understand, I don’t want to rush the reader any—we will go back to Yogi Johnson. But please remember that, while we have gone back to Yogi Johnson, Scripps O’Neil and his wife are on their way to the beanery. What will happen to them there I don’t know. I only wish the reader could help me.)

  PART THREE

  Men in War and the Death of Society

  It may be likewise noted that affectation does not imply an absolute negation of those qualities which are affected; and therefore, though, when it proceeds from hypocrisy, it be nearly allied to deceit; yet when it comes from vanity only, it partakes of the nature of ostentation: for instance, the affectation of liberality in a vain man differs visibly from the same affectation in the avaricious, for though the vain man is not what he would appear, or hath not the virtue he affects, to the degree he would be thought to have it; yet it sits less awkwardly on him than on the avaricious man, who is the very reverse of what he would seem to be.

  HENRY FIELDING

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Yogi Johnson walked out of the workmen’s entrance of the pump-factory and down the street. Spring was in the air. The snow was melting, and the gutters were running with snow-water. Yogi Johnson walked down the middle of the street, keeping on the as yet unmelted ice. He turned to the left and crossed the bridge over Bear River. The ice had already melted in the river and he watched the swirling brown current. Below, beside the stream, buds on the willow brush were coming out green.

  It’s a real chinook wind, Yogi thought. The foreman did right to let the men go. It wouldn’t be safe. Keeping them in a day like this. Anything might happen. The owner of the factory knew a thing or two. When the Chinook blew, the thing to do was to get the men out of the factory. Then, if any of them were injured, it was not on him. He didn’t get caught under the Employer’s Liability Act. They knew a thing or two, these big pump-manufacturers. They were smart, all right.

  Yogi was worried. There was something on his mind. It was spring, there was no doubt of that now, and he did not want a woman. He had worried about it a lot lately. There was no question about it. He did not want a woman. He couldn’t explain it to himself. He had gone to the Public Library and asked for a book the night before. He looked at the librarian. He did not want her. Somehow, she meant nothing to him. At the restaurant where he had a meal ticket he looked hard at the waitress who brought him his meals. He did not want her, either. He passed a group of girls on their way home from high school. He looked carefully at all of them. He did not want a single one. Decidedly something was wrong. Was he going to pieces? Was this the end?

  Well, Yogi thought, women are gone, perhaps, though I hope not; but I still have my love of horses. He was walking up the steep hill that leads up from the Bear River out onto the Charlevoix road. The road was not really so steep, but it felt steep to Yogi, his legs heavy with the spring. In front of him was a grain and feed store. A team of beautiful horses were hitched in front of the feed store. Yogi went up to them. He wanted to touch them. To reassure himself that there was something left. The nigh horse looked at him as he came near. Yogi put his hand in his pocket for a lump of sugar. He had no sugar. The horse put its ears back and showed its teeth. The other horse jerked its head away. Was this all that his love of horses had brought him? After all, perhaps there was something wrong with these horses. Perhaps they had glanders or spavin. Perhaps something had been caught in the tender frog of their hoof. Perhaps they were lovers.

  Yogi walked on up the hill and turned to the left onto the Charlevoix road. He passed the last houses of the outskirts of Petoskey and came out onto the open country road. On his right was a field that stretched to Little Traverse Bay. The blue of the bay opening out into the big Lake Michigan. Across the bay the pine hills behind Harbor Springs. Beyond, where you could not see it, Cross Village, where the Indians lived. Even further beyond, the Straits of Mackinac with St. Ignace, where a strange and beautiful thing had once happened to Oscar Gardner, who worked beside Yogi in the pump-factory. Further beyond, the Soo, both Canadian and American. There the wilder spirits of Petoskey sometimes went to drink beer. They were happy then. ‘Way, ‘way beyond, and, in the other direction, at the foot of the lake was Chicago, where Scripps O’Neil had started for on that eventful night when his first marriage had become a marriage no longer. Near there Gary, Indiana, where were the great steel mills. Near there Hammond, Indiana. Near there Michigan City, Indiana. Further beyond, there would be Indianapolis, Indiana, where Booth Tarkington lived. He had the wrong dope, that fellow. Further down there would be Cincinnati, Ohio. Beyond that, Vicksburg, Mississippi. Beyond that, Waco, Texas. Ah! there was grand sweep to this America of ours.

  Yogi walked across the road and sat down on a pile of logs, where he could look out over the lake. After all, the war was over and he was still alive.

  There was a chap in that fellow Anderson’s book that the librarian had given him at the library last night. Why hadn’t he wanted the librarian, anyway? Could it be because he thought she might have false teeth? Could it be something else? Would a little child ever tell her? He didn’t know. What was the librarian to him, anyway?

  This chap in the book by Anderson. He had been a soldier, too. He had been at the front two years, Anderson said. What was his name? Fred Something. This Fred had thoughts dancing in his brain—horror. One night, in the time of the fighting, he went out on parade—no, it was patrol—in No Man’s Land, and saw another man stumbling along in the darkness and shot him. The man pitched forward dead. It had been the only time Fred consciously killed a man. You don’t kill men in war much, the book said. The hell you don’t, Yogi thought, if you’re two years in the infantry at the front. They just die. Indeed they do, Yogi thought. Anderson said the act was rather hysterical on Fred’s part. He and the men with him might have made the fellow surrender. They had all got the jimjams. After it happened they all ran away together. Where the hell did they run to? Yogi wondered. Paris?

  Afterward, killing this man haunted Fred. It’s got to be sweet and true. That was the way the soldiers thought, Anderson said. The hell it was. This Fred was supposed to have been two years in an infantry regiment at the front.

  A couple of Indians were passing along the road, grunting to themselves and to each other. Yogi called to them. The Indians came over.

  “Big white chief got chew o
f tobacco?” asked the first Indian.

  “White chief carry liquor?” the second Indian asked.

  Yogi handed them a package of Peerless and his pocket flask.

  “White chief heap big medicine,” the Indians grunted.

  “Listen,” Yogi Johnson said. “I am about to address to you a few remarks about the war. A subject on which I feel very deeply.” The Indians sat down on the logs. One of the Indians pointed at the sky. “Up there gitchy Manitou the Mighty,” he said.

  The other Indian winked at Yogi. “White chief no believe every goddam thing he hear,” he grunted.

  “Listen,” Yogi Johnson said. And he told them about the war.

  War hadn’t been that way to Yogi, he told the Indians. War had been to him like football. American football. What they play at the colleges. Carlisle Indian School. Both the Indians nodded. They had been to Carlisle.

  Yogi had played centre at football and war had been much the same thing, intensely unpleasant. When you played football and had the ball, you were down with your legs spread out and the ball held out in front of you on the ground; you had to listen for the signal, decode it, and make the proper pass. You had to think about it all the time. While your hands were on the ball the opposing centre stood in front of you, and when you passed the ball he brought his hand up smash into your face and grabbed you with the other hand under the chin or under your armpit, and tried to pull you forward or shove you back to make a hole he could go through and break up the play. You were supposed to charge forward so hard you banged him out of the play with your body and put you both on the ground. He had all the advantage. It was not what you would call fun. When you had the ball he had all the advantage. The only good thing was that when he had the ball you could rough-house him. In this way things evened up and sometimes even a certain tolerance was achieved. Football, like the war, was unpleasant; stimulating and exciting after you had attained a certain hardness, and the chief difficulty had been that of remembering the signals. Yogi was thinking about the war, not the army. He meant combat. The army was something different. You could take it and ride with it or you could buck the tiger and let it smash you. The army was a silly business, but the war was different.