Lincoln

by Gore Vidal

  “They’re at their peak November tenth,” said Hay, who had got to know a number of the capital’s serious gourmets. “The best birds are the ones from certain Maryland marshes where wild celery grows, which is why the flesh has a celery taste.” Hay was aware that Herndon was more apt to be able to taste the bourbon in the julep than the celery in the duck. But he was going to “look after Mr. Herndon,” as ordered.

  Back in Springfield, Hay had not known Herndon at all. He had seen him often at the courthouse or in the street, as he went to and from his office in the main square. Herndon had been particularly active when Lincoln was President-elect, with an office in the state Capitol. Later, Herndon had found a hideaway in a side street where Lincoln was able to work on his inaugural address with only Herndon in attendance. Now Herndon had a new partner. “A bright young man, who’ll do for me, I hope, what I did for Lincoln all those years.”

  “What was that, exactly, Mr. Herndon?”

  “Well, I was the one who read up on the cases. Lincoln preferred the courtroom and the circuit and, of course, politics always came first with him.”

  “Always?”

  “Always since I knew him, and I reckon long before, too. I think of that ambition of his like some sort of little engine tick tick ticking away, and never stopping …”

  This was a strange simile, thought Hay, who quite liked it. But then Herndon had a way with language that was all his own. “I can’t say I think much of his Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Caleb V. Smith.” Herndon adverted for the third time that evening to the subject. He had taken Lincoln’s card down to the Interior Department, where he and Smith had promptly quarrelled over politics. “I am a radical through and through and that time-server is a conservative, like most of the Cabinet. Anyway, when I saw we were not in the most perfect harmony, I shut up. But it was too late by then. When I asked for a place for my friend, Mr. Smith led me from office to office, pausing at each one, and asking the chief clerk, ‘Is there room for another clerk?’ and, of course, the answer was always no.”

  “Well, you’ll see the President tomorrow, won’t you?”

  “Oh, I’ll be back. I think I’m asked to dinner. At least he asked me. She didn’t. Poor Lincoln, with that woman. I don’t know how he abides her. It has been a desolate marriage, I’d say.”

  Like everyone in Springfield, Hay knew that law-partner and wife did not get on. Certainly Herndon had never been invited to any of Mrs. Lincoln’s Springfield receptions since the time when he had said of her dancing that she was “as graceful as a snake,” a reptilian image that highly appealed to Hay the poet but immensely irritated the Hellcat.

  From McDowell’s table, the peer of England—whose name Hay could not recall—sent over a bottle of port, by way of the mulatto Wormley himself, who was always gracious to Hay, and called him “young master,” without too much irony.

  Hay and Herndon toasted the peer across the room; and General McDowell raised his own tumbler of water, ostentatiously, thought Hay. “I have promised my wife-to-be, if to be she is, that I shall”—Herndon drained in one slow practised swallow the rich port—“stop drinking once she has consented to be my wife. I must say I thought highly of General McDowell until tonight. I had no idea that he was temperance. A bad thing in a general, to my mind.”

  “He is so much of a teetotaller than when he fell off a horse and was knocked unconscious, the doctor who tried to pour brandy down his throat could not get it past his clenched teeth.”

  “I would treat such a doctor in a more magnanimous way.” Herndon offered Hay a bad cigar, which he refused. Herndon lit up. “I’ve often thought that certain phlegmatic types, like Lincoln, need alcohol but, poor fellow, he has no taste for it. If he had, I’m sure he’d not go mad the way he does.”

  “Go mad? The President?” Hay had not heard this before.

  Herndon nodded, as a liveried Negro removed the remains of the duck. “It was the year before I joined Lincoln’s firm, Logan and Lincoln; it was back in ’forty-two. Then Logan left in ’forty-four and I’ve been Lincoln’s partner ever since. Anyway in ’forty-one, Lincoln was in the state legislature, and all set to marry Miss Todd, when he just went mad. He was crazy as a loon, according to Joshua Speed, his old friend. Tried to kill himself. Took to his bed, wouldn’t eat. Wrote a poem called ‘Suicide,’ which he sent off to the Sangamo Journal, where it was published. Then he called off the wedding with Miss Todd, thinking of which was probably what drove him crazy.”

  “You mean he didn’t want to marry her?” On this score, Hay did not need much convincing. He himself could not imagine anyone in his right mind marrying Mrs. Lincoln, but if what Herndon said was true, it was only when Lincoln was out of his mind that he had had the sense to reject her and then, sanity returned, he had the bad judgment to marry her a year and a half later.

  “What really brought on the … madness?”

  Herndon shook his head. “I can’t say. Because I have no data. There has always been talk that Lincoln loved another woman. But he has never mentioned any such thing to me. So it is only conjecture on my part. But I think the hell of their life together, and there is no other word, comes from the fact that she knows he loved—still loves—another, and not her.”

  “Why, then, did they marry?”

  “He could not have the other.” Herndon poured himself more port. “Or so they say. But he could have Mary Todd, of the grand Todd family. He could move up in the world, which he did, with some help from her family, not that they ever cared much for him. But except when he was in one of his fits of madness, the ambition was always there, you see, driving him up and up and up.”

  “Fits? Were there other times when he was mad?” Hay could hardly believe that the eminently sane if sometimes highly melancholy Tycoon that he saw, intimately, at close hand, could ever have been anything other than the sanest man who ever lived. But, of course, Hay could never imagine Lincoln young—or being anything other than the Ancient that he knew. “I never saw him more than in low spirits, which he was after he lost the Senate race to Douglas. But back in ’thirty-five, in Menard county, they still talk of a time when he was crazy, as the people in that region understand craziness or insanity. That was about the time that he wrote this little book called Infidelity, all about his lack of faith in the Bible and the Trinity and the Immaculate Conception of Jesus and the rest of it. Anyway, a friend of his, a Mr. Hill, who owned a store—this was in New Salem, in the wintertime—made him throw the only copy—I hope it was the only copy—in a stove, and burned it up.”

  “The President is an atheist?” Hay had always been aware that Lincoln almost never made any reference to Christianity, while his Sunday excursions to the Presbyterian church were largely ceremonial; yet God and the Almighty and Heaven did keep turning up in his speeches, even without Seward’s prompting.

  “No, not an atheist, as far as I understand the term. He’s sort of a deist, like Jefferson and most of the founders. I think he has his own religion, of the grandest and noblest type. He believes in an overruling Providence. But to a devout Christian, I suppose, he would still be an infidel.”

  Somewhat sleepy from the port, Hay walked Herndon home to his hotel, Brown’s, on Pennsylvania Avenue. The cold rain that had been falling earlier had stopped; and the night was clear and would have been cold had not the port kept them warm. In fact, so warmed was Herndon that before Hay knew exactly how it had come about, the two men were standing in the dark slush of Marble Alley, ringing Sal Austin’s bell.

  In the vestibule Sal greeted Hay warmly; and bowed to Herndon, who bowed, graciously, to her. “The red parlor is all right this evening.” This meant that it was safe for Hay to go into the parlor on the left, as there would be no one there that he knew, and if someone who might know him should come in later, Sal would usher him into the purple parlor. By now, she knew everyone who was in the Administration and the Congress; and she was careful to maintain pseudonyms and disguises. Nevertheless, Hay pulled his
soft felt hat over his brows and pushed up the collar of his jacket so that all that was visible of him were his long silky moustaches, whose satisfying presence acted as total insurance against any man ever again calling him Sonny.

  Behind a small palm tree rising from a ceramic cachepot, Herndon and Hay stationed themselves. Herndon sat on a loveseat with room for a lover in addition to himself, while Hay sat in a straight chair; the girl of his current choice, one Penelope from Cleveland, would not be able to receive him for half an hour. Meanwhile, handsome creatures glided past them, smiling at Herndon, winking at Hay. At Herndon’s request a tall slender girl with red hair and skin like milk brought them a bottle of bourbon. “I hope you won’t mention that I’ve been drinking when you’re with … our friend.” Herndon poured himself a tumbler of whiskey.

  “On condition that you don’t mention to him where it was I took you.” Hay was amused that the appearance of temperance was of more concern to Herndon than a revelation of wanton venery.

  “Oh, I don’t think our friend would be too shocked by this.” Herndon looked around the elegant parlor where army and naval officers decorously paired off with the young ladies of the establishment. There was seldom much noise in Sal’s parlors, other than the black pianist who was, on occasion, accompanied by one of the girls who played, most soulfully, the violin. “Not,” said Herndon, “that there was ever anything like this in Springfield in our day, or even now.”

  “There’s Chicago,” said Hay, who had made the rounds of that city during the election.

  “Yes, there’s Chicago. But I don’t get there much. I fancy the young red-haired waitress,” said Herndon.

  “Shall I … tell her?” Hay felt like a procuress.

  “In a moment.” Herndon put his feet up on a stool. “What’s the tariff?”

  “Depends on how long you stay. About fifteen dollars, usually. Sal sometimes will make a special price.” Actually, Sal charged Hay a mere five dollars for what he always called “room and board”; he then paid the girl what he liked. Herndon sipped bourbon; and watched the comings and goings. “You know Joshua Speed, don’t you?”

  Hay nodded. Speed was a friend of Lincoln’s, who had once lived and practised law in Springfield. He was known to be one of the Tycoon’s few intimates, if such a closed man as Lincoln could ever be said to have had an intimate friend.

  “Well, Speed told me this story of Lincoln. About 1839 or ’40, Speed was keeping a pretty woman in Springfield, and Lincoln, desirous to have a little, said to Speed, ‘Speed, do you know where I can get some?’ and Speed said, ‘Yes, I do and if you’ll wait a moment, I’ll send you to the place with a note. You can’t get it without a note or by my appearance.’ So Speed wrote the note, and Lincoln took it and went to see the girl …”

  Hay cleared his throat, nervously, and murmured, “Maybe, sir, you ought not to use his … uh, the name.”

  “What?” Herndon was a bit deaf; then he nodded. “I see what you mean. My voice carries, don’t it? Anyway, Lincoln … I mean, he handed the girl the note after a short ‘How do you do,’ etcetera. Lincoln told his business, and the girl, after some protestations, agreed to satisfy him. Things went on right. Lincoln and the girl stripped off and went to bed.”

  Hay was beginning to think that he was dreaming. He looked about him in the dimly lit parlor. Fortunately, no one was within earshot. Occasionally, he and Nico had speculated on what sort of life the Ancient had led before his marriage. But as there had been no data, as Herndon termed it, to go on, they thought of Lincoln as having always been a very ancient man indeed, and not concerned with fleshly as opposed to political unions.

  “Before anything was done, Lincoln said to the girl, ‘How much do you charge?’ ‘Five dollars, Mr. Lincoln.’ Mr. Lincoln said, ‘I’ve only got three dollars.’ ‘Well,’ said the girl, ‘I’ll trust you, Mr. Lincoln, for two dollars.’ Lincoln thought for a moment or so and said, ‘I do not wish to go on credit. I’m poor and don’t know where my next dollar will come from and I cannot afford to cheat you.’ Lincoln, after some words of encouragement from the girl, got out of bed, buttoned up his pants, offered the girl the three dollars, which she would not take, saying, ‘Mr. Lincoln, you are the most conscientious man I ever saw.’ So Lincoln went on his way and never told Speed what had happened but the girl told him and he told me later.” Herndon chuckled. “That’s very like him; out of conscience, he ends up getting it for nothing.

  “I had no idea,” said Hay, weakly.

  “He was young, once. Just like you.” Herndon frowned. “But then he married that woman, and he has been true as steel to her ever since, poor man. He was—is—a man of powerful passions when it comes to women, but powerful control over himself. I’ve always said that he has saved the honor of more women than any other man I ever knew. The way they would fling themselves at him. Still do, I suppose …”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Hay, as Sal approached him.

  “You wanted to see Dr. Prettyman?” she said. “He’s here.”

  Hay thanked her; and excused himself. Dr. Prettyman was seated in Sal’s office, going over the medical records of the girls; once a week, he checked them all for venereal disease. Prettyman was considered the best in the city for what, Hay often wondered, that was worth. Since the troops had arrived, there was now an epidemic of venereal diseases in the city. Earlier in the week, Hay had developed a curious symptom which he showed Dr. Prettyman, who examined him with all the swift aplomb of a butcher at the Center Market. “Nothing to worry about,” he said at last, to Hay’s relief. “You’ve got a slight strain. That’s all. Try not to drive yourself too hard in the service of Venus.” Hay buttoned his trousers; and the ubiquitous copavia salve was mentioned as a palliative.

  Hay returned to the red parlor, where he found Herndon, eyes shut, but not asleep. “You saw the doctor?”

  Like so many deaf people, Herndon could always hear what one did not want him to hear. “Yes,” said Hay. “But nothing’s wrong. He comes here regularly, to check the girls. That’s why I prefer this place to the others. You can feel safe—well, reasonably safe, anyway.”

  Herndon nodded. “That’s about all anyone can ever feel in such matters. They say there’s a lot of syphilis here, thanks to the army and all. God knows there was a lot of it in Illinois back in the ’thirties, when Lincoln had it.”

  “Mr. Herndon!” Hay reached for the bourbon bottle and poured himself a tumblerful.

  “Of course, he was a mere boy at the time. Your age, I’d say. Yes. It was about the year 1835. Mr. Lincoln had gone over to Beardstown, where, during a devilish passion, he had connection with a girl and caught the disease. Lincoln told me this. Then about the year 1837, Lincoln moved to Springfield and took up his quarters with Speed; they became very intimate. As this time I suppose the disease hung to him and, not wishing to trust our physicians, he wrote a note to Doctor Drake, in Cincinnati, the latter part of which he would not let Speed see, not wishing Speed to know it. Speed thought the letter had reference to Lincoln’s crazy spell. But the note to Doctor Drake, in part, had reference to his disease and not to his crazy spell.”

  “I suppose he was cured?”

  “Well, you never can know for sure with such a thing. But four years later he was all set to get married, and he would never have married if he thought he was not cured. Of course, he called off the marriage, due to the crazy spell. But then he got married, finally.” Herndon was now drunk. But unlike most drunks that Hay was acquainted with, he did not slur his words or lose his train of thought other than to rely somewhat more than usually on ellipsis. “Lincoln’s totally blind to his children’s faults, you know.”

  “I know,” said Hay. As a part of his recovery from the summer ague, he had been sent to the New Jersey seaside with Madam and Robert, whom he liked, and the other two …

  “I have felt many a time that I wanted to wring the necks of those brats …”

  “Amen,” said Hay. The bourbon had now rea
ched his own head.

  “But little Eddie died—three years old—and the one they call Tad is not right in the head, with his palate misformed.” Herndon frowned. “I wonder at times …” Herndon stopped. The red-haired waiter-girl had returned. Herndon rose, unsteadily, and offered her his arm.

  As Herndon left the parlor, Hay had the sense that he himself must be very drunk or, perhaps, asleep and dreaming. But if he was not dreaming, then a concerted effort must be made to get Mr. Herndon safely married—and sober—in Springfield.

  MARY’S VIEW entirely coincided with Hay’s, though for different reasons. With a martyr’s good grace, she had invited Herndon to dinner in the family’s dining room. The only other guest was Congressman Washburne. Lincoln was in good form, telling stories of the early days in Springfield. Herndon was in less good form. Mary noted that the eyes were bloodshot and that his hands shook. When Lincoln asked Herndon about his evening with John Hay, he said, “We ate too much at Wormley’s, where we saw General McDowell drinking water, a somber sight.”

  “I hope you imitated him, Billy.” Lincoln gave Herndon a mischievous sidelong look. “These are somber times.”

  “Well, I shall be imitating him soon, anyway,” said Herndon. “Once safely married, I join the Order of Good Templars.”

  “What’s that?” asked Lincoln.

  “A temperance group that fights the demon alcohol with a vengeance, which will at last be mine, now that our affairs are all in order.”

  “Did you find a job for Mr. Herndon’s friend?” asked Mary, with sweet interest.

  Lincoln nodded. “I took Billy over to the Indian department, where we found one of Mr. Buchanan’s appointees who was eager to be set free from the national service, so Mr. Chatterton is now an agent for the Cherokee Indians, and Billy will soon be a Good Templar.”

  “I am sure it is never too late,” said Mary, aware—too late—that she had given great offense to Herndon; and, worse, that she had embarrassed her husband, who now turned to Washburne, and asked for news of Congress.