by Gore Vidal
“Emulated,” Blaise murmured automatically to himself. The Chief was still having his problems with English. “Now I know we can do great things together this summer, fall, forever. But where I need you-really need you-is your working for me. No, that’s wrong, I’d be working for you, for your ideas, if you’d only take over as editor of the New York American. You’re a natural.”
This was exceptionally well done, thought Blaise. The Chief was learning. Watson expressed gratitude for confidence placed; but did not, quite, take the bait. After more compliments exchanged, Watson left. Hearst sighed.
“Hard work,” said Blaise.
“He’s a wonderful orator,” said Jim. “But if you’re not a crowd, he’s pretty tiring.”
“What do you think, Jim?” Hearst turned to Day. Blaise was, suddenly, completely jealous. They were on a first-name basis, something rare for Hearst to be with anyone. Of course, Jim was Hearst’s senior in the House of Representatives; even so, it had taken a year before Hearst had called Blaise by his first name.
“I think Colonel Bryan’s going to try again, and I’ll be with him, as always, and he’ll fail to be nominated, so I guess you’ll be the candidate-or Cleveland, if he’s in a Lazarus mood.”
“Cleveland’s really dead.” Hearst turned to Blaise. “You know, I got on the Labor Committee, over Williams’s dead body.” To Jim: “How do you get a bill passed in the House?”
“First,” said Jim, “you get somebody to write it for you. Then… Well, Congress isn’t at all like a newspaper.”
“I figured that one out. But,” Hearst pointed toward the White House, “that place is. Roosevelt’s just like me, storming around, making news…” Hearst turned to Blaise. “Sorry about the fire. I guess you’ll start up again, won’t you?”
“Next week. There’s a chance that Caroline might sell me the Tribune.” Caroline had been, even for her, unusually intricate on the subject. He knew that she needed money to pay John Apgar Sanford’s debts. On the other hand, if she could hold out for a year, she would have her share of an estate that kept growing, despite the money he was pouring into his Connecticut Avenue Italianate palazzo. Blaise had put Houghteling to work, increasing the pressure on Sanford’s edgy creditors. If a crisis could be provoked…
“I’d love to get my hands on that paper.” Hearst was wistful. “She’s made a go of it. Amazing. A woman.”
“Galling! My own sister.”
“She even understands politics.” Jim made his contribution. “Kitty really likes her,” he added. “Kitty’s the politician in our family,” he added to his addition.
“I want to investigate the coal-railroad monopoly,” Hearst announced, more or less at Jim. “I’ve spent sixty thousand dollars of my own money, investigating how six railroads own eleven coal mines, secretly, and get this cheap coal, and then water their stock and sell it to the public, and the Attorney General, and that noisy fraud across the road, know all about it and they won’t do a thing.”
Blaise rather liked Hearst’s editorial approach to politics. He rooted about for scandal; found it; publicized it. But now instead of just selling newspapers, Hearst might be able, with a scandal of this nature, to destroy the Administration. That was direct power.
“You take this one to the House Judiciary Committee. I’ll show you how to go about it. But I don’t think you’ll be able to smoke out the Attorney General.”
“Wait and see. You know, if I’m nominated, I’m going to give the Democratic National Committee one and a half million dollars for the campaign.”
Jim whistled; then smiled. “Why after you’re nominated? Spread it around before and you will be nominated.” Hearst let that one go; he continued, “The idea is, the party, to raise money, won’t have to go to the railroads, to the trusts, the way they do when the candidate’s a conservative, with his hand out…”
“And only five fingers.” Jim smiled at Blaise, who realized that he had never had a man-friend before, except the son of his now-retired mistress.
“What?” Hearst was baffled.
“A joke. Of ours.” Blaise was delighted by Jim’s “ours.”
“Roosevelt,” declared Hearst, somberly, “has all sorts of luck.”
“Except bad,” noted Jim. “There’s never been anything like him.”
“I hate him, I think.” But Hearst’s thin voice sounded more wistful than passionate. “He calls me McKinley’s murderer.”
“Why don’t you suggest that he hired that anarchist to kill McKinley so that he could become president?” Blaise improvised, for Jim’s amusement.
“We were never able to find a connection,” said Hearst sadly, startling Blaise, who put nothing beyond the Chief, but this seemed to be, even for Hearst, a singularly grotesque caper.
“Well, when in doubt, make something up.” Jim was cheerful.
Blaise recalled, word for word, the latest Henry Adams characterization of William McKinley: “a very supple and highly paid agent of the crudest capitalism.” He decided not to repeat this to Hearst, who had accepted with his usual equanimity the fact that he would never be received at the other side of Lafayette Square.
But Hearst was now discussing the joys of parenthood with James Burden Day. Since Millicent would give birth in two months, she refused to leave New York City for fear that any child born in the District of Columbia would grow up to be a politician. “Or Negro,” said Jim. “Law of averages.”
George announced, “Miss Frederika Bingham,” to Hearst’s surprise. Blaise rose. “I asked her to meet me here. We’re going to look at my new house. She’s got ambition, as a decorator of houses. She’s read Mrs. Wharton’s book.”
Frederika was cool. Hearst was courtly. Jim was friendly; he had met her a number of times. Blaise shook her hand.
“My mother wants to know, Mr. Hearst, why you refuse to come to her congressional at-homes.” Frederika spoke to Hearst but kept her eyes on Blaise, who admired the ease with which she could handle any social situation. In this, she resembled Caroline, no recommendation, of course. Did he hate his sister? envy her? love her? He could never make up his mind. Certainly if he were the publisher of the Tribune, and she a mere society lady, they would probably get on. As it was, the primal emotion was, no doubt, envy.
“I don’t know any congressmen,” said Hearst meekly. “Except Mr. Day and Mr. Williams…”
“The Speaker,” said Jim, “swears he doesn’t know you by sight.”
“So you see, I wouldn’t be at home, would I?”
“All the more reason for coming to our house. Mother will introduce you to the right people. Mr. Sanford, I have only an hour…”
They said their farewells; and got into the Binghams’ chauffeured motor car. “Did you hear about Cissy Patterson?”
Blaise confessed that he did not know who she was; he was told; then: “Last week, after the wedding, the groom didn’t show up at the wedding breakfast in the Patterson house.” The Patterson palace was now directly in front of them as they entered Dupont Circle. “So Cissy was in tears, and a friend of the groom, this Austrian, went looking for him, and found him at the railroad station, buying a ticket for New York. Apparently, he had gone to his bank right after the service, and they had told him that the million dollars that he had been promised hadn’t been deposited.”
“Did he go?”
“He stayed. The check was still being cleared. I don’t think Cissy’s going to be very happy, do you?”
Blaise said no.
“I’d like to be like Caroline. Independent. With something to do.”
“Having children’s quite enough to do.” Blaise was patriarchal; French.
The Connecticut Avenue house was a vast and, to Blaise’s eye, most beautiful rendering in a modern way of Saint-Cloud-le-Duc, which he more and more missed. Neither he nor Caroline had returned, according to their post-Poussin treaty, and he was more than ever homesick while she was less; yet of the two, it was she who had loved the place more, and
stayed on and on, while he had turned himself eagerly into a full-time American. Now they had reversed roles.
A caretaker in a heavy overcoat let them in. The interior of the house was even colder than outside. Together they explored the double drawing room, adapted from Saint-Cloud; and the ballroom, copied from a castle of Ludwig of Bavaria. There was even a lift, which Frederika thought a mistake. “The poor Walshes thought they were so clever in putting their ballroom on the top floor. But the elevator could only hold four people at a time, so when the guests all arrive at once, the party takes forever to begin.” She laughed; he found her easy, something that most American girls were not. They tended to take command.
But then, as if to prove that she, too, was American and managerial by nature, Frederika told Blaise exactly how to decorate the various rooms; and he was pleasantly surprised to discover that he did not in the least mind so much advice. As they talked, their mingled breaths like smoke in the icy air, Blaise thought seriously of marriage, not to Frederika, but to someone suitable, someone who would be able to look after the house, not to mention Saint-Cloud-le-Duc. Both Alice Roosevelt and Marguerite Cassini had appealed to him. But the first was far too self-important and the second far too Slavicly sly. Alice Hay had charmed him; but he had not charmed her, and she was now married to a New York Wadsworth. Millicent Smith, the Countess Glenellen, was not without a certain appeal. She had grown up in Washington; gone to school with Caroline; married the Earl Glenellen, from whom she was now separated after what was thought to have been the most exciting fist-fight in the history of the American embassy at London. Lord Glenellen had been knocked unconscious by the fragile Millicent, who later explained to the appalled ambassador that she had cheated, holding in her right fist, not the traditional street-fighter’s roll of coins, but a metal cigar container (cigar inside), which had added exceptional, if unfair, force to her blow. Millicent was also much admired for the strength of her character. Nevertheless, the more Blaise studied the field the less any one person appealed to him. He had considered going back to Paris; but that would have been an acknowledgment of defeat for him, and a victory for Caroline.
“I’m freezing. And I’m late,” Frederika announced, as they made their way to the front door, where the watchman let them out. “Mother’s at home Saturday,” Frederika announced, as she dropped Blaise off at Willard’s.
“I’ll be there,” he said. They shook hands, formally, and he went into the hotel. Why not, he wondered, marry Frederika? She appealed to him in an entirely practical way; that is, there was no passion of the sort that might end with a fist-fight in the White House’s Blue Room. She could certainly manage a dozen households. On the other hand, there was Mrs. Bingham, and all those cows. No, a Sanford must marry within that gilded circle where cows could be peripheral but never central, as in the Bingham case.
2
WHILE BLAISE BROODED ON COWS, Caroline paid court to Henry Adams, as a dutiful niece now matured by matrimony. He seemed smaller, older, and definitely sadder. “The fire that destroyed your brother’s printing press also made molten my little book on the twelfth century.” He sighed, stretched out his hands in a propitiatory way toward the fire, begetter of molten type-face. “I shall have to delay publication, not that I really, ever, publish. The edition is only for me, and you, and a few others…”
“Hearts?”
“We are only three now.” He frowned. “I worry about Hay. He is being slowly worn to death by that maniac across the street, and that madhouse of a Senate. Cabot…” he began; and ended. “I’m in a cheery mood, as you can see.” He gazed at her reflectively. “Why do we never see Mr. Sanford?”
“Because I thought it was the ageing Mrs. Sanford whose company you pretend to enjoy.”
“Oh, no pretense. No pretense. I find it hard to talk to some of the new girls. But then I’m very dull. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes. It’s your most attractive feature. If you were older, I might have married you instead of my cousin, who is merely-not attractively-dull.”
Adams laughed his muted dog’s bark of a laugh. “You’ll do very well.”
“Surely you like Alice.” Washington had taken to saying the name “Alice” with a slight pause between syllables, to denote that the Alice was meant.
“I like her better than her father. But then I like everyone better than I like him. Last week, I went to my first White House dinner since 1878, during the sullen reign of Rutherford B. Hayes, where lemonade flowed like champagne. I was only asked because Brooks could not come. They needed an Adams, any Adams, while the President always needs a pair of humble ears. Mine were never so humble. He did not stop talking for two hours. The contents,” Adams smiled sweetly at Nebuchadnezzar eating grass, “of that mind confound me! All history is neatly on file in that great round Dutch cheese of a head. But-so generous is he that he will share all that he knows with anyone, no matter how humble. I was awed. Speechless. Poor John, what he must go through, day after day…”
Caroline, aware that Adamsian gloom was about to overwhelm the bright room, said, “I just passed Alice and the Cassini girl bob-sledding on Connecticut Avenue. They start at Dupont Circle, and slide through the traffic, out of control.”
“A metaphor, my child, for her father’s Administration.”
“How,” asked Caroline, “does one get money?”
For the first time in their friendship, Adams looked at her with true surprise. “In our world, you select parents who have money, and they, in turn, pass it on. If one has been careless in the selection of parents, one marries someone who was not so careless. I am very good about money, by the way. I can’t think why. But I do well in financial crises. Brooks, who understands the monetary system better than anyone alive, loses money, always. It is highly gratifying. Anyway, next year-is it?-you inherit your fortune-”
“This year, I am desperate.”
“Your husband has debts.” Adams did not phrase this as a question; but then everyone knew everything in their world.
“More than I had bargained for.”
“Go to your brother.”
“He wants the paper.”
“Go to the Jews.”
“I have tried. But they don’t seem eager to lend, at a bearable rate.”
“I could lend-”
“I shall leave the room, and never return, if you ever hint at such-an impropriety.”
Adams smiled, like a contented cat. “I knew you would reject me. Otherwise, I would not have made so rude a move. Why not sell Blaise your newspaper?”
“Because it is all that I have, of my own. A child is never your own. It is also-the father’s.” Caroline enjoyed the irony. Jim had never once suspected, holding Emma on his knee, that she was his flesh and blood, blue eyes and curly hair.
“Let us be subtle. Sell Blaise half the shares of the Tribune minus one, which will give you control.”
Caroline had thought of this. “It would mean getting to know him rather more than I’d like.”
“One boy is like another.” Adams disliked all males except a half-dozen aged ironists like himself. Caroline had never known a man to whom woman-if not women-was so necessary; and she wondered, as always, why had the brilliant wife killed herself, why had he never remarried, why did he maintain his peculiar, and plainly unrequited, passion for Lizzie Cameron?
“You made do with a cousin as husband. You can certainly make do with a half-brother as-junior partner.”
William was at the door, announcing “Professor Langley.” The accident-prone secretary of the Smithsonian Institution entered the room, without once, symbolically, slipping, Caroline noted. Although Henry Adams regarded Samuel P. Langley as the best scientific mind in the Western world (Adams particularly admired Langley’s invention of something called a bolometer, “which measures the heat,” he would say gleefully, “of nothing!”), the press had, lately, taken a good deal of pleasure out of Langley’s doomed attempts to fly heavier-than-air craft. He was always o
n the verge of freeing man from the earth; but man continued to be earth-bound, as far as heavier-than-air craft went. Lighter-than-air craft, on the order of gliders or balloons, somehow did not count. Caroline found mystifying Langley’s obsessions; but she had seen to it that he was often, and favorably, interviewed in the Tribune. As a result, he had mistaken her for an admirer like Adams; and she had done nothing to disabuse him. Whatever pleased Adams pleased her. Besides, Langley could be interesting, when not goaded by Adams into discussing the famous dynamo that they had together glimpsed at the Paris Exhibition four years earlier. Adams wanted to find a scientific basis to history, on the order of the second law of thermodynamics. Caroline, who knew little of history and nothing of science, was convinced that there were no laws applicable to the human race, a random affair that moved neither up nor down but, simply, on, in fits and starts, for no reason. She had always found it odd that men required coherent reasons for things that women knew to be non-reasonable.
“There is a rumor that a pair of bicycle mechanics in North Carolina have flown in a heavier-than-air machine of their own devising.” This was Langley’s ponderous greeting to his old friend.
“When?” Adams was alert, as always, to the marvels of science. “And for how long did they fly?”
“Three months ago. The story’s garbled. No one seems to have got it straight. Someone sent me a clipping from a Norfolk newspaper, that made no sense…”
“We were notified,” said Caroline, recalling Mr. Trimble’s amusement at the message from two brothers to the effect that they were the first, ever, to fly in such a machine. In one day they had taken off and landed several times. She recalled that they had claimed to have flown a half-mile. She reported this to Langley, who seemed more depressed than elated. Plainly this disinterested man of science wanted for himself the glory of being the first to fly like-was it Icarus? she wondered, recalling Mlle. Souvestre’s injunction that one ought always to be ready with an apt classical allusion in order not to use it.