Empire

by Gore Vidal

“Because, my darling, he knows who the father of my child is.” Caroline looked at Jim’s face, next to hers in the mirror, smaller than hers, thanks to perspective, so ably taught by the drawing mistress at Mlle. Souvestre’s. Caroline enjoyed Jim’s look of astonishment.

  “But he’s the father, isn’t he?”

  “No, he’s not.”

  There was a long silence, broken by Jim’s sudden laughter. He sprang to his feet, like a boy, and embraced Caroline from behind, kissed the nape of her neck, causing the hair, controlled at last, to come crashing down. “Oh, damn,” said Caroline, for the first time in her life. “My hair.”

  “My child! Emma’s mine, too!”

  “You sound like a horse-breeder.”

  “Why not? I am the acknowledged stud. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to worry you. Now if you come near my hair again, I shall… do something drastic.” Caroline again pinned up the mountain of cleverly coiled hair, all hers, as Marguerite used to gloat, when she did the arranging.

  Jim retreated to his chair. He seemed delighted; and Caroline wondered why. Men were very odd, certainly. Jim had two children now by Kitty; and one by her. “Are there any others?” she asked.

  “Other what?”

  “Children of yours that I should know about? When little Emma grows up, she will want to know all her half-brothers and -sisters.”

  Jim shook his head. “None that I know of.” He frowned. “How does John know it’s me?”

  “He doesn’t. I was just being dramatic. All he knows is that Emma’s not his. When I discovered I was pregnant, I told him, and he married me. It was my money for his-for my respectability.”

  “Why didn’t you just pretend it was his?”

  “Because I’ve never really been to bed with him.”

  Jim whistled, an engaging rustic sound. “You really are French,” he said at last.

  Caroline was not amused. “You would be surprised just how American I am, particularly in a situation like this. I am not about to lose…” But this, she knew, even as she spoke, was hollow boasting. She was about to lose the Tribune. She had considered, seriously, allowing John to fail; but honor forbade such a course, not to mention common sense. If she did not keep her side of their bargain, he would be free to divorce her or, worse, annul the unconsummated marriage, and tell the press why.

  “Shall I work on Blaise? He seems to like me.”

  “More than that is my impression.”

  Jim’s head suddenly filled with blood; the face became scarlet. The hydraulic system that produced a blush was, Caroline observed, with a certain wonder, the same as that which produced a man’s sex. “I don’t,” he stammered, “know what you mean.”

  “Which means you know exactly what I mean. He is like a school-girl around you.” Caroline rose from her dressing table, armored for the day. “Seduce him.”

  “That is definitely French,” said Jim, himself again.

  “No. It’s English, actually. Le vice anglais, we call it, and not unknown in these parts, either.”

  “Would you really want me to…?” Jim could not say what, after all, was unsayable in American City.

  “You might like it. After all, Blaise is much better-looking than me.”

  “I don’t think I could, even for you.” Jim held her, carefully, about the waist, as they walked to the door. “But I guess I could sort of flirt with him, maybe.”

  “You American boys!” Caroline was now entirely amused.

  “Well, it’s the least I could do, for you giving me Emma.”

  In the lobby, they found themselves face to face with Mrs. Henry Cabot Lodge, a lady both censorious and serene.

  “Caroline,” said Mrs. Lodge, looking at Jim.

  “Sister Anne. You know Congressman Day, don’t you? And Mrs. Day,” Caroline was inspired to add. Then Caroline turned to Jim, and said, “Where’s Kitty? She was here just a minute ago.”

  “She left her purse upstairs.”

  Sister Anne was duly taken in. “Are you going to hear Mr. Hay?” she asked.

  “Hear-and record it all, for the Tribune.”

  “Theodore is wicked, forcing him to come here like this. He should be home in bed at Sunapee.” Sister Anne bade them farewell; and moved on.

  “You would also make a good politician,” said Jim, as they crossed over to Olive Street, where a special car would take them to the Exposition.

  “Because I lie so easily?” Caroline frowned. “It’s odd, though. I never used to lie, ever. But then-you.”

  “The apple in the Garden of Eden?”

  “Yes. Since the serpent tempted me, I’ve not been the same. I have sinned…”

  Caroline was not prepared for the astonishing beauty of the Exposition at night. Great airy palaces were lit by a million electrical candles whose light turned the prosaic Missouri sky into a spectacle like nothing that she had ever seen before. In the course of the evening, partners had been deftly switched. She was now with John, dining at the French restaurant with Henry Adams and his niece, Abigail. Representative and Mrs. James Burden Day were dining at the German restaurant in the company of the two senators from Jim’s state, of whom one was very elderly indeed, and might do the proper thing and retire or die, leaving the place to Kitty’s husband, as Caroline tended to think of Jim in his official capacity. He was entirely the creation, so people thought, of the legendary Judge, his father-in-law. Caroline suspected that the truth might prove to be otherwise, but no one was about to put the matter to the test.

  “I have never seen anything so beautiful…” Adams was ecstatic; Abigail was bored. Caroline was sexually satisfied. John was in despair-his clients had been of no use to him.

  “Surely, Mont-St.-Michel and Chartres…” Caroline began.

  “They are different. They evolved over centuries. But this is like the Arabian nights. Someone rubbed a lantern and said, a city of light on the banks of the Mississippi. And here it is, all round us.” Actually, all around them were huge contented-looking Americans of the heartland, gorging on French cuisine. Each contributing country had its own restaurant, with France, as always, in the lead.

  “The question is, are we looking at the future, all this power, humming away, or is this a last celebration of the American past?” Adams was, for him, aglow.

  “The future,” said John, a subject that Caroline knew put him in a dark mood. “We’ve never achieved anything like this.”

  “We’ve imagined it, which is almost the same. But will our cities in 1950 be like this one?”

  “Don’t cities-like cathedrals-evolve?” Caroline nodded to Marguerite Cassini, who had just made what was intended to be-and indeed was-a dazzling entrance, on the arm of an elderly French diplomat. “And if they do, then they are bound to be hideous…”

  “Like Chartres?” Adams was uncharacteristically cheerful. “Anyway, I have a mania for expositions. If only real life were constantly on display like this, always at its very best.” Then Henry Adams spoke of dynamos, and Caroline thought of money; and despaired.

  THIRTEEN

  1

  BENEATH A REVOLVING FAN, Hay studied the file which Adee had brought him. Adee tried, almost successfully, to look as if he were not in the room. The heat was intolerable, and all that Hay could think of was New Hampshire, which now seemed beyond his reach, forever. He had been ordered to speak at Jackson, Michigan, on July 6. Now June was nearly over, and Washington was more than ever equatorial. But Hay was obliged to stay at his desk, because the President was experiencing a sort of nervous breakdown. Would he really be nominated? If nominated, could he, ever, be elected president in his own right? To the extent that Hay found anyone interesting any more, Theodore’s sudden failure of nerve was fascinating. He wished that he could talk to Adams about this highly pleasurable state of affairs; but the Porcupine had fled to France, stopping off in Washington just long enough to visit the White House-after first making certain that Theodore was not home-in order to
urge Mrs. Roosevelt to go to St. Louis, and experience the transcendent beauty of the World’s Fair.

  “Well, this is a proper mess,” said Hay; but as he had not remembered to look up, Adee was not able to read his lips. Hay struck the desk with his right hand, a signal to Adee that Hay was about to speak. Adee’s eyes focussed on Hay’s lips. “Plainly,” said Hay, “he’s not an American citizen.”

  “Plainly. So what happens to him is none of our business.”

  “But the press…”

  “And the President.”

  Both sighed. In May, a Moroccan bandit named Raisuli had abducted from something called the Palace of the Nightingales one Ion H. Perdicaris, son of a South Carolinian lady and a Greek, who had become an American citizen. The kidnapping was an affront to the entire American press. Hearst was particularly apoplectic: what sort of administration allowed American citizens to be held for ransom, particularly in a part of the world where once, for a moment or two, the proud fleet of Thomas Jefferson had reigned supreme? Already in a state of hysteria over the coming election, Theodore had quite lost his mind. He raged to Hay and to Taft: war, war, war! The fleet was put on alert. Hay was ordered to exert pressure on the Moroccan government. Hay had done so; he had, also, privately ordered an investigation of I. H. Perdicaris. Now the proof was in hand. Mr. Perdicaris was not an American citizen. In order to avoid military service in the Civil War, he had fled to his father’s place of origin, Athens, where he had himself duly registered as a Greek subject; he was no longer an American citizen. The head of the Citizenship Bureau of the State Department, Gaillard Hunt, was now in Hay’s outer office, with further proofs. Meanwhile, the President had, the day before, June 21, ordered Hay to demand the immediate release of Perdicaris; otherwise, war. Since June 21 was the first day of the Republican Convention in Chicago, the frantic President felt a loud trumpet note was in order.

  “Send Mr. Hunt over to the White House. Have him explain…” But Hay knew that the mild Mr. Hunt would be no match for Theodore in his most Rexish mood. “Telephone the President’s office. I am on my way.”

  “Yes, sir. You’ll drive, I hope.”

  “I’d hoped to walk. But not in this heat.” Lately not only had walking become painful in the always uncomfortable lumbar region but any exertion was apt to bring on an attack of angina. He doubted if he would live through this hellish summer; he rather hoped that he would not.

  Theodore was ominously still as Hay entered the presidential office, unwelcome documents in hand. The vast Secretary of War started to go, but Theodore motioned for him to stay. “You have the telegram ready, John?”

  “No, Mr. President.” Hay was formal in address but not in action: he sat down, unbidden, suddenly weary.

  “You realize that as we sit here, the convention is going on?” The famous teeth began to snap, nervously. “We’re following it all on the telephone, in the Cabinet room. There’s apt to be real trouble over this Moroccan business. We look weak, indecisive…”

  “Mr. President, Perdicaris is not an American citizen. He is a Greek subject. He’s no concern of ours.”

  Taft beamed; and chuckled, just the way fat jovial men were supposed to. Actually, whatever Taft was, jovial he was not. He was ambitious, petulant, suspicious. But his glorious fatness made him adorable in the eyes of the nation. “We’re off the hook,” he said. “Tell the press to go after the Greek government, and leave us alone.”

  As the President studied the documents that Hunt had assembled, he looked, to Hay’s amazement, furious. “This ruins everything,” he said at last. “Everything! I had counted on a powerful telegram to wake up the convention, the country, the world to the fact that no American citizen anywhere on earth can be harmed without a bloody reprisal, and now some fool clerk in your office comes up with this… this nonsense! No!” The high voice rose to a shriek. “He was born in America. His parents were American. Those are facts. How do we know any of this is true?” The President shoved the papers at Hay. “We don’t. We’ll have to verify. That means our legation in Athens will have to go through the records to see if he really gave up his nationality. That will take time. Too much time. I want a telegram sent today, to the American consul general at Tangier. Is that understood?”

  “It’s understood, of course.” Hay got to his feet.

  “Legally…” Taft began.

  “I’m not a lawyer, Judge Taft. I’m a man of action, and this calls for action. Make it good, John-the telegram.”

  “I shall be classically brief, as befits a director of Western Union.”

  Hay was at the door when Theodore called out. “Put that whole file under lock and key, while we investigate the truth of the matter.”

  “But…” Taft began.

  “Take care of yourself, John,” shrieked the President from behind his desk.

  “I think I’ve already done that, Theodore,” said Hay; and left the presence. He had already thought up a message which would fit, neatly, into even a Hearst headline.

  At the State Department, Hay himself dictated his instructions to the consul general at Tangier: “Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” The telegrapher beamed: “Good for you, sir! That’s telling those niggers where to head in.”

  “Yes,” said Hay. “It has a nice lilt to it. I can’t think why I gave up poetry.” Then he returned to his office, and locked the Perdicaris file in his desk. From Lincoln to Roosevelt had not been, exactly, an ever-upward spiral.

  2

  THE JEFFERSON HOTEL IN ST. LOUIS was the headquarters of “The William Randolph Hearst for President Committee.” Hearst himself had a suite on the floor directly above the humble, single room of William Jennings Bryan, a lowly delegate-at-large from Nebraska.

  Blaise pushed his way through the crowded anterooms to Hearst’s command post, a large salesman’s sample room, with a view of the river in the distance. The heat was terrible; the odor of sweat and tobacco and whiskey oppressive. Blaise tried not to breathe as he plunged through the crowd of delegates and hangers-on, all enjoying Hearst’s hospitality.

  Blaise knocked on the ultimate door, which was opened a crack. Brisbane’s suspicious face appeared; then, appeased no doubt by the definite manly blueness of Blaise’s eyes, he admitted him to the presence.

  Despite the heat, Hearst was dressed in a black unwrinkled frock-coat, unlike his brow, which was very wrinkled indeed as he spoke into a telephone. “But my Illinois delegates are the legitimate ones,” he said, acknowledging Blaise’s arrival with a wave of his hand. A dozen political types, in shirt-sleeves, sat about the room, reading newspapers, making calculations of delegate strength. A New York City appellate court judge named Alton B. Parker was the candidate of the party’s conservative wing, headed by August Belmont now that Whitney was dead.

  Even Blaise had been impressed by the efficiency of Hearst’s political operators. Although the Eastern leadership of the party found Hearst intolerable, he had managed to collect so much support in the South and West that he had an excellent chance of winning the nomination if Parker failed to be nominated on the first ballot. At the moment, the Credentials Committee was faced with the problem of two delegations from Illinois. One had been put together by the Chicago boss, Sullivan; the other was committed to Hearst. “Then get Bryan. He hates Sullivan. He’ll stop this.” Hearst hung up. He looked at Blaise. “I can’t get through to Bryan. He’s staying right here in the hotel. But he won’t support me…”

  “He won’t support Parker either,” said Brisbane, soothingly.

  “He’s waiting for a miracle.” Hearst sat on top of a long display table. “There won’t be a miracle. For him, anyway.”

  “What are your chances, on the first ballot?” Blaise had already made his own estimate.

  “With Illinois, I’ve got two hundred sixty-nine votes, and Parker’s got two hundred forty-eight, without Illinois.”

  James Burden Day, in shirt-sleeves, entered the suite. “I’ve just been with Bryan. He’s on his way
to the convention hall. He’s going to fight for the seating of your delegates.”

  The men in the room applauded; and Brisbane danced a small jig. “But,” asked Hearst, unimpressed, “will he support me?”

  Day shrugged. “He’s not supporting anybody, so far. He wants to stop Parker, that’s all.”

  “I’m the only one who can do that.” Hearst’s eyes seemed to have been electrified; they shone, balefully, at Day. “Doesn’t he know that? Doesn’t he know there’s only me now?”

  Brisbane answered for Day. “He still thinks that when he gets up in front of that audience, all will be forgiven.”

  Hearst turned to Day. “Make him any offer.”

  “I’ll try. But he’s in a bad mood.” Jim left. He had not even noticed Blaise. Politics had that effect on everyone involved. Blaise had seen the same sort of total absorption only at gambling casinos, where men were so absorbed in the turn of a card or the throw of a pair of dice that not even the end of the world could distract them.

  A number of delegates were then admitted, and the Chief received them with magisterial calm. Would he bolt the party if he failed to get the nomination? Of course he would not, he said: this was the party of the people, and he would never turn his back on what after all was the nation itself. Also, only the Democratic Party could keep peace in a world made more dangerous by the bellicosity of Theodore Roosevelt. But hadn’t he been impressed by the swift assurance of the President when, with a single telegram, he had freed an American citizen from his Barbary Coast kidnapper? Hearst shrugged this off as “mere sensationalism.” For Blaise, the Chief’s new respectability was as irresistibly comic as any Weber and Fields sketch.

  Brisbane drew Blaise aside. “He’s got the nomination if only Bryan…”

  “What’s wrong with Bryan?” Blaise was genuinely curious; but then he had no political sense, the turn of a card meant nothing to him.

  “Oh, vanity, I suppose. The peerless leader of ’96 and 1900, wandering about the convention like a lost soul, his only power to help the Chief win-or lose.”