by Frank Norris
“Which,” said Travis, as she heard of the conversation later on, “is perfectly true.”
Overland Monthly, January, 1894.
SHE AND THE OTHER FELLOW
ALL the actors of the company began to assemble on the stage for the closing tableau, the leading man began to manoeuvre for his pose at L. C., where he was to voice the epigrammatic sentiment that gave the name to the play; and the escorts in the audience, heroically foregoing the finale, commenced to get together their ladies’ wraps, fans, and opera glasses. The Babe poked Desfield with the handle of his cane and said: “Let’s get out of here before the crush.”
Desfield picked up his programme from beneath the seat where it had fallen and put it in his pocket. He always made it a point to save his programmes. On the lower shelf of his clothes closet at home he had a pile that could be measured by feet. Then he nodded to the Babe, and the two went up the aisle, Desfield very distantly conscious of the implied rudeness to the performers. The curtain, the original red curtain that had been down before the first act, fell just as they reached the end of the aisle, amid hurried and doubtful applause, and whistles from the gallery. The house lights were suddenly turned on, and the orchestra struck up a lively quickstep.
It had been a matinee. They came out of the gloom of the theatre, which smelt of stale gas and plush upholstery, into the city again. Desfield felt as though he were in a manner passing from one play to another, only with the difference that in this latter he was at once actor, author, and audience.
“Let’s go somewhere and eat something,” exclaimed the Babe, as they turned up the street. Desfield, as he instinctively reached for the middle part of his cane, cast a glance of some surprise at the Babe. He had not expected this. She had been in the first row of the dress circle with her mother, and Desfield had supposed that the unconscionable Babe would hang around the exit in order to see them to their carriage, and thus give Her a chance to ask him home to dinner. But the Babe did nothing of this: he was a changed man to-day; he had moped all through the play, taking only the head of his stick into his confidence, and now that the play was over skulked away from the theatre as soon as he could.
Desfield forbore to question. He knew that, whatever was the ferment in the Babe’s mind, it would sooner or later reach the boiling point and bubble over in a prolonged recital of grievances.
This was precisely what did occur that very evening, as they put their legs under the dainty table in the dining room of an up-town club. Desfield did not know whether the Johannisberger (1864) strengthened the Babe’s impulse in the direction of unreserved intercourse between himself and his chum, or whether it weakened the barriers that the Anglo-Saxon throws before the spontaneous outburst of his more sentimental emotions: but whether the impulse was too strong, or the barriers too weak, out it came; and with admirable good humour Desfield submitted to listen to the endless chapters of lamentations of this new Jeremiah.
She had jilted him — thrown him over. You see, it was this way: The Babe had gone to call on her upon a certain day, and had found her (paradoxically) not at home. Then he had written a neat little note, asking if he might come on the following Sunday afternoon; and by return post she had told him that he might. “And when I go up there,” continued the Babe with a wail, “I find the Other Fellow coming away, who tells me, with a grin on his damned face, that he’s just been there, and that she’s not at home. Now, I just ask you...” and the Babe closed with a burst of indignation. “I don’t care, though,” he added, when he had finished, with his hands deep in his pockets and rolling his head from side to side. “I don’t care. If she can get along without me I can make out all right. Let’s see how she’ll like the Other Fellow; that’s all.”
The next afternoon, at somebody’s tea, Desfield and the Babe saw her with the Other Fellow. She cut him dead. Oh, but one of those flat, unequivocal cuts that was like a slap in the face.
“That’s all right,” said the Babe bravely, even if his chin would twitch. “Did you see the look I gave her? Oh, I gave her a look.”
The split was absolute after this. She sent back her picture that the Babe had copied for her from a photograph, and he returned the scented necktie holder that she had embroidered for him. She became feverishly gay — was out somewhere every night. The Babe began to speak of life and youth as though they were spelt with capitals, and to talk of going abroad.
Things had reached this stage when society took up illustrated lectures. It became a fad to go. It was rather peculiar, too, that the ladies of society should have patronized them, because the Egyptian darkness that was the necessary adjunct to the lectures precluded any possibility of gratifying the desire “to be seen of men.” One particularly spiteful sheet gave it out that some people went not in spite of the darkness, but because of it, which was, to be sure, very churlish.
But, however, they went in “numbers numberless.”
The lectures were upon European travel, illustrated by lantern-slide photographs of all points of interest. In order to be consistent with his unconcealed intentions of foreign travel, the Babe was obliged to attend, and rarely missed a lecture.
Desfield was one of the ushers. Desfield always did seem to find his little niche in everything of this kind that was going on. In tennis tournaments he was apt to be chosen as scorer. In athletic contests for charity he was always to be found upon the field in some semiofficial capacity. At weddings he was best man. At balls he was floor manager. At the club on Ladies’ Night he was on the receiving committee, at germans and cotillions he was generally leader. Somehow or other, those people that made up Desfield’s “set” found they could not well navigate in the troubled waters of society unless they felt Desfield’s hand either at the wheel or upon the ropes.
The lectures were held at Odd Fellows’ Hall. There were but two a week, one Monday evening, the other Saturday afternoon. Admittance was by invitation only, and the price of seats was high. It was a select affair generally.
On the last Saturday afternoon of the series, reserved for Paris and its environs, Desfield found his hands full. The audience had never been so large or so fashionable. Until nearly half an hour after the lecture had begun he was kept running up and down the aisles of which he had charge, seating the late-comers, and this after the hall was darkened was no easy matter. She with the Other Fellow were among the last to come in. The few remaining chairs were soon taken, and Desfield’s work was done. Those coming in any later were obliged to stand.
She and the Other Fellow had been with the latest comers. They were not, however, the last. The Babe was the last. The lecture was nearly half over when he came in, and, finding Desfield, leaned up against the wall with him in the listless and melancholy manner which was now — poor devil — not all affected.
“I’m off next week Thursday, Desfield,” he whispered after a while. “Got my ticket this morning.”
Desfield was really sorry for him. “Hard times, Old Man, isn’t it?” he said.
The masculine emotions of these latter days can go no further than this. When the Jin-de-siécle gentleman calls his friend, “Old Man,” he has figuratively fallen upon his neck and kissed him. Beyond this he cannot go with dignity. The Babe felt and appreciated this, and loved Desfield accordingly; he would have liked to clasp him around the neck or to have wrung his hands and in the surrounding darkness could have done so without fear and without reproach; but instead he only shifted his position against the wall, and in answer more to what Desfield implied than to what he said, returned, “It’s very good of you, Old Man.”
“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” went on the lecturer, turning from side to side, and occasionally silhouetting his head against the brilliant circular focus on the curtain, like the transit of a planet across the sun, “and now, turning from this marvel of engineering skill” (he had been talking about the Eiffel Tower), “which like the skeleton of the Tower of Babel stands like a monument to the sky-aspiring ambition of mankind — tu
rning from this, let us take one of those large and lumbering omnibuses drawn by those heavy white horses, a sight so characteristic of the streets of Paris.” Here a picture of the sight was thrown upon the curtain. “We mount upon the top, are carried across the river, via the Pont de Jena, down through the beautiful Champs Elysees, and in a few moments emerge upon one of the most beautiful, as well as one of the most historic, squares in the world — the Placede la Concorde.”
He pressed a little tick-tack between his fingers, and the picture of the omnibus seemed in a manner to dissolve into a view of the square. He paused a moment for effect, and then proceeded, “We now stand upon ground where history has been made and unmade. In the distance, across the river, is the Chamber of Deputies. In the immediate foreground rises the Egyptian obelisk, a single block of granite.” He plunged into statistics with ferocious relish: “Seventy-five feet, six and one-half inches in height, weighing ten thousand tons, and transported from Egypt at the cost of seven million one hundred thousand francs.”
Desfield was troubled. He was not listening to the lecturer’s flow of periodic English, but was thinking of the Babe and his miseries. That the Babe was hard hit, he knew now beyond any doubt. What effect it was to have upon him was less certain and therefore more conducive to anxiety. The two had been chums ever since their college days, and had always been everywhere and done everything together. Now that the Babe was about to leave for Europe, Desfield felt in anticipation like a corps sans áme.
“And surrounded,” continued the lecturer, “by four magnificent fountains, throwing jets twenty-seven feet high, and pouring out daily seventeen thousand gallons of water.”
Then, too, he was almost sure that she loved the Babe very much indeed, and that her encouragement of the Other Fellow was a pretense and a sham. It did seem supremely silly that these two little children should spoil their whole lives by a quarrel over the most trivial thing in the world.
“Groups of beautiful statuary at the four angles representing the four principal cities of the nation.”
It had always been a settled thing with Desfield that the two should eventually be married, and he had been accustomed to pose before himself as the friend of the household in future days, dining with them en famille, or spending a cosy evening at their fireside. He felt keenly disappointed over this failure of his little romance.
“Measuring six and one-half feet over a mile in circumference.”
Desfield wondered if anything could be done — if he could do anything.
“Six hundred dekameters.”
The Babe had moved to a little distance, having found a vaguely appropriate seat upon a cold steam heater.
Somebody in one of the forward seats got up, and came down the aisle. As his figure emerged into the scant circle of light thrown by the lowered gas jets that burned on either side of the door, Desfield saw that it was the Other Fellow.
“Whew!” said the Other Fellow, as he came within whispering distance of Desfield, “can’t stand this any longer. Had to excuse myself to Her, and come out and have a peg. Come with me, won’t you?”
Desfield thought this was very like the Other Fellow, but an idea suddenly occurred to him. He said: “All right; you go along, and I’ll come after you as soon as I can get my overcoat.”
The Other Fellow went out, and Desfield turned to the Babe, who was still sitting on the cold steam heater, oblivious to everything. Desfield woke him up, saying, “Come on, I have a seat for you.” Then he piloted him softly down the aisle and placed him in the seat the Other Fellow had just vacated, beside Her.
As the Babe sat down, they recognized each other. The Babe turned quickly. “Oh, I say, Desfield,” he said. But Desfield was already gone, saying to himself, “Leave ’em alone for half an hour in a dark room, side by side, with no chance of escape — with nothing or nobody to come between ’em — and if something don’t turn up it will be because they are a different kind of people than I take them to be.”
He had now to direct all his wits to keeping the Other Fellow out of the way. For an instant he had the idea of getting him drunk, but he grimly reflected that a gun of that calibre would probably kick about as far as it would shoot.
He went out blinking into the glare of the afternoon sun and found the Other Fellow waiting for him at an adjacent bar. They drank an absinthe together. Desfield was as long about it as he could be, then inveigled the Other Fellow to the lunch counter, and dawdled over olives and pretzels, talking about the Fair, baseball, and a certain Chicago barber shop the Other Fellow had seen, which was paved with silver dollars. Desfield knew the Babe had about twenty minutes more. They had been gone from the lecture room about ten minutes. By this, he thought, they must have got over the coldly polite stage and have come to mutual recriminations. He asked the Other Fellow to have another, with him this time. Then once more back to the lunch counter, for another ten minutes. “Now they’re about coming round to explanations,” thought Desfield. He wished that the Other Fellow were subject to epileptic fits, or could be drugged, or quietly knocked on the head. They started to return, the Other Fellow smelling of cloves.
As the white-painted valves of the doors of the barroom flapped back and forth behind them, they both heard a sudden noise that made them pause to listen. There is no more mistaking the bark of an angry dog than the hoof beats of a runaway horse; there is a savagery, a viciousness about it that can be instantly distinguished from the ordinary canine utterance. The noise came from a sort of blind alley, hardly more than a deep recess, just behind the saloon. It was followed by a snarl and a hoarse yelp in another key, and then a rapid succession of fierce, brutal noises, and the sound of furred bodies striking and rolling upon the ground.
“A dog fight,” cried the Other Fellow with great delight, putting his hat on the back of his head. “Must take this in,” and he ran up to where the crowd was already formed in a circle. Desfield followed him, looking at his watch. “Now they’re about through with explanations and have started to make it up. The dog fight is a special dispensation of Providence — they’ve about ten minutes more.”
And when he saw the two dogs he perceived with unholy joy that the fight promised to hold out a good deal more than ten minutes, and he knew that the Other Fellow would stay as long as it lasted. By the time that Desfield got sight of them the two dogs were silent — they had already become “locked.” The bull terrier had a left leg hold, while the Newfoundland, holding on temporarily to his adversary’s ear, was gradually working for a grip on his throat. The Other Fellow already had out a roll of bills, and was shaking them across the ring at the large dog’s owner, offering seven to ten. He seemed to be in his element. “Tin-horn sport!” said Desfield to himself, with great disgust.
“Isn’t this beautiful?” said the Other Fellow to Desfield, rubbing his hands. “What a pity cats always fight in the night so you can’t see ‘em. Seven to ten on the bull, you over there.”
All at once the larger dog let go and made for a new hold. The instant the bull felt himself free, he slipped his jaws upward, from the foreleg up along the shoulder blade, along the shoulder itself, and then suddenly closed them, viselike, sunk deep in the soft part of the throat — all without a sound. “It’s all over but the shouting now,” cried the Other Fellow.
In a few minutes this would be true of the lecture as well.
“I think,” said Desfield to himself, “that they should now have come to the most interesting part of all. They have about four more minutes.” Then he looked at the Newfoundland; some men were vainly trying to pry the bull’s teeth apart with a stout cane. “The bull won’t kill him before four minutes, anyhow,” thought Desfield. He waited till the Other Fellow’s back was turned, then slipped over to the hall. “Strange,” he said, “that their future happiness should depend upon a dog fight and the strength of a bull terrier’s jaws. If the bull can hold on for five more minutes they’ll make it up and get married.”
By the time he had got t
he coupe ready and waiting at the door, the lecture was over and the crowd began to stream out. “Maybe the scheme failed after all,” thought Desfield.
She came out on the Babe’s arm. Both were nervously looking for the Other Fellow. Desfield made up to them.
“That’s all right,” he said. “He’s interested — elsewhere — just now, and your trap is right here waiting for you.”
The Babe leaned out of the carriage window and wrung his hand. “You don’t know of anyone, do you, Desfield, that wants to buy a Cunard ticket at a discount?”
“Oh, Mr. Desfield—” she began.
Through the window on the other side of the carriage Desfield caught sight of the Other Fellow hurrying distractedly around the corner. “Where to?” he asked, interrupting Her. Then, as he got Her answer, he banged the carriage door, and looking up to the coachman said:
“Home, James.”
Overland Monthly, March, 1894.
THE MOST NOBLE CONQUEST OF MAN
“Le cheval est le plus noble conquet de l’homme.” — BUFFON.
There are three things that every man, by virtue of his sex, must know all about, and must never under any circumstances be afraid of: these are firearms, women, and horses.
If a man merely doesn’t know them the world will pity him, but if he is afraid of them the consequences are very likely to be disastrous. If he is afraid while handling a pistol, he will probably shoot himself with it; if he allows a woman to see that he is afraid of her, she will very likely pity him with the rest of the world (though not with that pity which is akin to love); but if he lets a horse know that he is afraid, he will to an absolute certainty run away with him.
What makes things worse is that nowadays, in our artificial society, a man must not only not be afraid, but he must be afraid to seem afraid, so he goes about tacitly assuming knowledge and courage whether he has them or not, and sometimes falls into disgrace in consequence.