Babbit

by Sinclair Lewis

  Babbitt was sitting down, hitching his chair over, shouting, "Movie? Say, Sir Gerald, I supposed of course you had a raft of dames waiting to lead you out to some soiree - "

  "God forbid!"

  " - but if you haven't, what do you say you and me go to a movie? There's a peach of a film at the Grantham: Bill Hart in a bandit picture."

  "Right-o! Just a moment while I get my coat."

  Swollen with greatness, slightly afraid lest the noble blood of Nottingham change its mind and leave him at any street corner, Babbitt paraded with Sir Gerald Doak to the movie palace and in silent bliss sat beside him, trying not to be too enthusiastic, lest the knight despise his adoration of six-shooters and broncos. At the end Sir Gerald murmured, "Jolly good picture, this. So awfully decent of you to take me. Haven't enjoyed myself so much for weeks. All these Hostesses - they never let you go to the cinema!"

  "The devil you say!" Babbitt's speech had lost the delicate refinement and all the broad A's with which he had adorned it, and become hearty and natural. "Well, I'm tickled to death you liked it, Sir Gerald."

  They crawled past the knees of fat women into the aisle; they stood in the lobby waving their arms in the rite of putting on overcoats. Babbitt hinted, "Say, how about a little something to eat? I know a place where we could get a swell rarebit, and we might dig up a little drink - that is, if you ever touch the stuff."

  "Rather! But why don't you come to my room? I've some Scotch - not half bad."

  "Oh, I don't want to use up all your hootch. It's darn nice of you, but - You probably want to hit the hay."

  Sir Gerald was transformed. He was beefily yearning. "Oh really, now; I haven't had a decent evening for so long! Having to go to all these dances. No chance to discuss business and that sort of thing. Do be a good chap and come along. Won't you?"

  "Will I? You bet! I just thought maybe - Say, by golly, it does do a fellow good, don't it, to sit and visit about business conditions, after he's been to these balls and masquerades and banquets and all that society stuff. I often feel that way in Zenith. Sure, you bet I'll come."

  "That's awfully nice of you." They beamed along the street. "Look here, old chap, can you tell me, do American cities always keep up this dreadful social pace? All these magnificent parties?"

  "Go on now, quit your kidding! Gosh, you with court balls and functions and everything - "

  "No, really, old chap! Mother and I - Lady Doak, I should say, we usually play a hand of bezique and go to bed at ten. Bless my soul, I couldn't keep up your beastly pace! And talking! All your American women, they know so much - culture and that sort of thing. This Mrs. McKelvey - your friend - "

  "Yuh, old Lucile. Good kid."

  " - she asked me which of the galleries I liked best in Florence. Or was it in Firenze? Never been in Italy in my life! And primitives. Did I like primitives. Do you know what the deuce a primitive is?"

  "Me? I should say not! But I know what a discount for cash is."

  "Rather! So do I, by George! But primitives!"

  "Yuh! Primitives!"

  They laughed with the sound of a Boosters' luncheon.

  Sir Gerald's room was, except for his ponderous and durable English bags, very much like the room of George F. Babbitt; and quite in the manner of Babbitt he disclosed a huge whisky flask, looked proud and hospitable, and chuckled, "Say, when, old chap."

  It was after the third drink that Sir Gerald proclaimed, "How do you Yankees get the notion that writing chaps like Bertrand Shaw and this Wells represent us? The real business England, we think those chaps are traitors. Both our countries have their comic Old Aristocracy - you know, old county families, hunting people and all that sort of thing - and we both have our wretched labor leaders, but we both have a backbone of sound business men who run the whole show."

  "You bet. Here's to the real guys!"

  "I'm with you! Here's to ourselves!"

  It was after the fourth drink that Sir Gerald asked humbly, "What do you think of North Dakota mortgages?" but it was not till after the fifth that Babbitt began to call him "Jerry," and Sir Gerald confided, "I say, do you mind if I pull off my boots?" and ecstatically stretched his knightly feet, his poor, tired, hot, swollen feet out on the bed.

  After the sixth, Babbitt irregularly arose. "Well, I better be hiking along. Jerry, you're a regular human being! I wish to thunder we'd been better acquainted in Zenith. Lookit. Can't you come back and stay with me a while?"

  "So sorry - must go to New York to-morrow. Most awfully sorry, old boy. I haven't enjoyed an evening so much since I've been in the States. Real talk. Not all this social rot. I'd never have let them give me the beastly title - and I didn't get it for nothing, eh? - if I'd thought I'd have to talk to women about primitives and polo! Goodish thing to have in Nottingham, though; annoyed the mayor most frightfully when I got it; and of course the missus likes it. But nobody calls me 'Jerry' now - " He was almost weeping. " - and nobody in the States has treated me like a friend till to-night! Good-by, old chap, good-by! Thanks awfully!"

  "Don't mention it, Jerry. And remember whenever you get to Zenith, the latch-string is always out."

  "And don't forget, old boy. if you ever come to Nottingham, Mother and I will be frightfully glad to see you. I shall tell the fellows in Nottingham your ideas about Visions and Real Guys - at our next Rotary Club luncheon."

  IV

  Babbitt lay abed at his hotel, imagining the Zenith Athletic Club asking him, "What kind of a time d'you have in Chicago?" and his answering, "Oh, fair; ran around with Sir Gerald Doak a lot;" picturing himself meeting Lucile McKelvey and admonishing her, "You're all right, Mrs. Mac, when you aren't trying to pull this highbrow pose. It's just as Gerald Doak says to me in Chicago - oh, yes, Jerry's an old friend of mine - the wife and I are thinking of running over to England to stay with Jerry in his castle, next year - and he said to me, 'Georgie, old bean, I like Lucile first-rate, but you and me, George, we got to make her get over this highty-tighty hooptediddle way she's got."

  But that evening a thing happened which wrecked his pride.

  V

  At the Regency Hotel cigar-counter he fell to talking with a salesman of pianos, and they dined together. Babbitt was filled with friendliness and well-being. He enjoyed the gorgeousness of the dining-room: the chandeliers, the looped brocade curtains, the portraits of French kings against panels of gilded oak. He enjoyed the crowd: pretty women, good solid fellows who were "liberal spenders."

  He gasped. He stared, and turned away, and stared again. Three tables off, with a doubtful sort of woman, a woman at once coy and withered, was Paul Riesling, and Paul was supposed to be in Akron, selling tar-roofing. The woman was tapping his hand, mooning at him and giggling. Babbitt felt that he had encountered something involved and harmful. Paul was talking with the rapt eagerness of a man who is telling his troubles. He was concentrated on the woman's faded eyes. Once he held her hand and once, blind to the other guests, he puckered his lips as though he was pretending to kiss her. Babbitt had so strong an impulse to go to Paul that he could feel his body uncoiling, his shoulders moving, but he felt, desperately, that he must be diplomatic, and not till he saw Paul paying the check did he bluster to the piano-salesman, "By golly-friend of mine over there - 'scuse me second - just say hello to him."

  He touched Paul's shoulder, and cried, "Well, when did you hit town?"

  Paul glared up at him, face hardening. "Oh, hello, George. Thought you'd gone back to Zenith." He did not introduce his companion. Babbitt peeped at her. She was a flabbily pretty, weakly flirtatious woman of forty-two or three, in an atrocious flowery hat. Her rouging was thorough but unskilful.

  "Where you staying, Paulibus?"

  The woman turned, yawned, examined her nails. She seemed accustomed to not being introduced.

  Paul grumbled, "Campbell Inn, on the South Side."

  "Alone?" It sounded insinuating.

  "Yes! Unfortunately!" Furiously Paul turned toward the woman, smiling with
a fondness sickening to Babbitt. "May! Want to introduce you. Mrs. Arnold, this is my old-acquaintance, George Babbitt."

  "Pleasmeech," growled Babbitt, while she gurgled, "Oh, I'm very pleased to meet any friend of Mr. Riesling's, I'm sure."

  Babbitt demanded, "Be back there later this evening, Paul? I'll drop down and see you."

  "No, better - We better lunch together to-morrow."

  "All right, but I'll see you to-night, too, Paul. I'll go down to your hotel, and I'll wait for you!"

  CHAPTER XX

  I

  HE sat smoking with the piano-salesman, clinging to the warm refuge of gossip, afraid to venture into thoughts of Paul. He was the more affable on the surface as secretly he became more apprehensive, felt more hollow. He was certain that Paul was in Chicago without Zilla's knowledge, and that he was doing things not at all moral and secure. When the salesman yawned that he had to write up his orders, Babbitt left him, left the hotel, in leisurely calm. But savagely he said "Campbell Inn!" to the taxi-driver. He sat agitated on the slippery leather seat, in that chill dimness which smelled of dust and perfume and Turkish cigarettes. He did not heed the snowy lake-front, the dark spaces and sudden bright corners in the unknown land south of the Loop.

  The office of the Campbell Inn was hard, bright, new; the night clerk harder and brighter. "Yep?" he said to Babbitt.

  "Mr. Paul Riesling registered here?"

  "Yep."

  "Is he in now?"

  "Nope."

  "Then if you'll give me his key, I'll wait for him."

  "Can't do that, brother. Wait down here if you wanna."

  Babbitt had spoken with the deference which all the Clan of Good Fellows give to hotel clerks. Now he said with snarling abruptness:

  "I may have to wait some time. I'm Riesling's brother-in-law. I'll go up to his room. D' I look like a sneak-thief?"

  His voice was low and not pleasant. With considerable haste the clerk took down the key, protesting, "I never said you looked like a sneak-thief. Just rules of the hotel. But if you want to - "

  On his way up in the elevator Babbitt wondered why he was here. Why shouldn't Paul be dining with a respectable married woman? Why had he lied to the clerk about being Paul's brother-in-law? He had acted like a child. He must be careful not to say foolish dramatic things to Paul. As he settled down he tried to look pompous and placid. Then the thought - Suicide. He'd been dreading that, without knowing it. Paul would be just the person to do something like that. He must be out of his head or he wouldn't be confiding in that - that dried-up hag.

  Zilla (oh, damn Zilla! how gladly he'd throttle that nagging fiend of a woman!) - she'd probably succeeded at last, and driven Paul crazy.

  Suicide. Out there in the lake, way out, beyond the piled ice along the shore. It would be ghastly cold to drop into the water to-night.

  Or - throat cut - in the bathroom -

  Babbitt flung into Paul's bathroom. It was empty. He smiled, feebly.

  He pulled at his choking collar, looked at his watch, opened the window to stare down at the street, looked at his watch, tried to read the evening paper lying on the glass-topped bureau, looked again at his watch. Three minutes had gone by since he had first looked at it.

  And he waited for three hours.

  He was sitting fixed, chilled, when the doorknob turned. Paul came in glowering.

  "Hello," Paul said. "Been waiting?"

  "Yuh, little while."

  "Well?"

  "Well what? Just thought I'd drop in to see how you made out in Akron."

  "I did all right. What difference does it make?"

  "Why, gosh, Paul, what are you sore about?"

  "What are you butting into my affairs for?"

  "Why, Paul, that's no way to talk! I'm not butting into nothing. I was so glad to see your ugly old phiz that I just dropped in to say howdy."

  "Well, I'm not going to have anybody following me around and trying to boss me. I've had all of that I'm going to stand!"

  "Well, gosh, I'm not - "

  "I didn't like the way you looked at May Arnold, or the snooty way you talked."

  "Well, all right then! If you think I'm a buttinsky, then I'll just butt in! I don't know who your May Arnold is, but I know doggone good and well that you and her weren't talking about tar-roofing, no, nor about playing the violin, neither! If you haven't got any moral consideration for yourself, you ought to have some for your position in the community. The idea of your going around places gawping into a female's eyes like a love-sick pup! I can understand a fellow slipping once, but I don't propose to see a fellow that's been as chummy with me as you have getting started on the downward path and sneaking off from his wife, even as cranky a one as Zilla, to go woman-chasing - "

  "Oh, you're a perfectly moral little husband!"

  "I am, by God! I've never looked at any woman except Myra since I've been married - practically - and I never will! I tell you there's nothing to immorality. It don't pay. Can't you see, old man, it just makes Zilla still crankier?"

  Slight of resolution as he was of body, Paul threw his snow-beaded overcoat on the floor and crouched on a flimsy cane chair. "Oh, you're an old blowhard, and you know less about morality than Tinka, but you're all right, Georgie. But you can't understand that - I'm through. I can't go Zilla's hammering any longer. She's made up her mind that I'm a devil, and - Reg'lar Inquisition. Torture. She enjoys it. It's a game to see how sore she can make me. And me, either it's find a little comfort, any comfort, anywhere, or else do something a lot worse. Now this Mrs. Arnold, she's not so young, but she's a fine woman and she understands a fellow, and she's had her own troubles."

  "Yea! I suppose she's one of these hens whose husband 'doesn't understand her'!"

  "I don't know. Maybe. He was killed in the war."

  Babbitt lumbered up, stood beside Paul patting his shoulder, making soft apologetic noises.

  "Honest, George, she's a fine woman, and she's had one hell of a time. We manage to jolly each other up a lot. We tell each other we're the dandiest pair on earth. Maybe we don't believe it, but it helps a lot to have somebody with whom you can be perfectly simple, and not all this discussing - explaining - "

  "And that's as far as you go?"

  "It is not! Go on! Say it!"

  "Well, I don't - I can't say I like it, but - " With a burst which left him feeling large and shining with generosity, "it's none of my darn business! I'll do anything I can for you, if there's anything I can do."

  "There might be. I judge from Zilla's letters that 've been forwarded from Akron that she's getting suspicious about my staying away so long. She'd be perfectly capable of having me shadowed, and of coming to Chicago and busting into a hotel dining-room and bawling me out before everybody."

  "I'll take care of Zilla. I'll hand her a good fairy-story when I get back to Zenith."

  "I don't know - I don't think you better try it. You're a good fellow. but I don't know that diplomacy is your strong point." Babbitt looked hurt, then irritated. "I mean with women! With women, I mean. Course they got to go some to beat you in business diplomacy, but I just mean with women. Zilla may do a lot of rough talking, but she's pretty shrewd. She'd have the story out of you in no time."

  "Well, all right, but - " Babbitt was still pathetic at not being allowed to play Secret Agent. Paul soothed:

  "Course maybe you might tell her you'd been in Akron and seen me there."

  "Why, sure, you bet! Don't I have to go look at that candy-store property in Akron? Don't I? Ain't it a shame I have to stop off there when I'm so anxious to get home? Ain't it a regular shame? I'll say it is! I'll say it's a doggone shame!"

  "Fine. But for glory hallelujah's sake don't go putting any fancy fixings on the story. When men lie they always try to make it too artistic, and that's why women get suspicious. And - Let's have a drink, Georgie. I've got some gin and a little vermouth."

  The Paul who normally refused a second cocktail took a second now, and a third. He
became red-eyed and thick-tongued. He was embarrassingly jocular and salacious.

  In the taxicab Babbitt incredulously found tears crowding into his eyes.

  II

  He had not told Paul of his plan but he did stop at Akron, between trains, for the one purpose of sending to Zilla a postcard with "Had to come here for the day, ran into Paul." In Zenith he called on her. If for public appearances Zilla was over-coiffed, over-painted, and resolutely corseted, for private misery she wore a filthy blue dressing-gown and torn stockings thrust into streaky pink satin mules. Her face was sunken. She seemed to have but half as much hair as Babbitt remembered, and that half was stringy. She sat in a rocker amid a debris of candy-boxes and cheap magazines, and she sounded dolorous when she did not sound derisive. But Babbitt was exceedingly breezy:

  "Well, well, Zil, old dear, having a good loaf while hubby's away? That's the ideal I'll bet a hat Myra never got up till ten, while I was in Chicago. Say, could I borrow your thermos - just dropped in to see if I could borrow your thermos bottle. We're going to have a toboggan party - want to take some coffee mit. Oh, did you get my card from Akron, saying I'd run into Paul?"

  "Yes. What was he doing?"

  "How do you mean?" He unbuttoned his overcoat, sat tentatively on the arm of a chair.

  "You know how I mean!" She slapped the pages of a magazine with an irritable clatter. "I suppose he was trying to make love to some hotel waitress or manicure girl or somebody."

  "Hang it, you're always letting on that Paul goes round chasing skirts. He doesn't, in the first place, and if he did, it would prob'ly be because you keep hinting at him and dinging at him so much. I hadn't meant to, Zilla, but since Paul is away, in Akron - "

  "He really is in Akron? I know he has some horrible woman that he writes to in Chicago."

  "Didn't I tell you I saw him in Akron? What 're you trying to do? Make me out a liar?"

  "No, but I just - I get so worried."

  "Now, there you are! That's what gets me! Here you love Paul, and yet you plague him and cuss him out as if you hated him. I simply can't understand why it is that the more some folks love people, the harder they try to make 'em miserable."