After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

by Aldous Huxley

  “I’ll let him have it,” he whispered to himself. “I’ll let him have it.”

  Fifty years before, Bill Propter had been the only boy in the school who, even though he was the older and stronger, didn’t make fun of him for being fat. They had met again when Bill was teaching at Berkeley and he himself had made good in the real estate game and had just gone into oil. Partly in gratitude for the way Bill Propter had acted when they were boys, partly also in order to display his power, to redress the balance of superiority in his own favour, Jo Stoyte had wanted to do something handsome for the young Assistant Professor. But in spite of his modest salary and the two or three miserable thousand dollars a year his father had left him, Bill Propter hadn’t wanted anything done for him. He had seemed genuinely grateful, he had been perfectly courteous and friendly; but he just didn’t want to come in on the ground floor of Consol Oil—didn’t want to because, as he kept explaining, he had all he needed and preferred not to have anything more. Jo’s effort to redress the balance of superiority had failed. Failed disastrously, because by refusing his offer, Bill had done something which, though he called him a fool for doing it, compelled Jo Stoyte secretly to admire him more than ever. Extorted against his will, this admiration bred a corresponding resentment towards its object. Jo Stoyte felt aggrieved that Bill had given him so many reasons for liking him. He would have preferred to like him without a reason, in spite of his shortcomings. But Bill had few shortcomings and many merits, merits which Jo himself did not have and whose presence in Bill he therefore regarded as an affront. Thus it was that all the reasons for liking Bill Propter were also, in Jo’s eyes, equally valid reasons for disliking him. He continued to call Bill a fool; but he felt him as a standing reproach. And yet the nature of this standing reproach was such that he liked to be in Bill’s company. It was because Bill had settled down on a ten-acre patch of land in this part of the valley that Mr. Stoyte had decided to build his castle on the site where it now stood. He wanted to be near Bill Propter, even though, in practice, there was almost nothing that Bill could do or say that didn’t annoy him. Today, this chronic exasperation had been fanned by Mr. Stoyte’s hatred of the transients into a passion of fury.

  “I’ll let him have it,” he repeated again and again.

  The car came to a halt and, before the chauffeur could open the door for him, Mr. Stoyte had darted out and was hurrying in his determined way, looking neither to right nor left, up the path that led from the road to his old friend’s bungalow.

  “Hullo, Jo,” a familiar voice called from the shadow under the eucalyptus trees.

  Mr. Stoyte turned, peered through the twilight, then, without a word, hurried towards the bench on which the three men were sitting. There was a chorus of “Good evenings,” and, as he approached, Pete rose politely and offered him his place. Ignoring his gesture and his very presence, Mr. Stoyte addressed himself immediately to Bill Propter.

  “Why the hell can’t you leave my man alone?” he almost shouted.

  Mr. Propter looked at him with only a moderate astonishment. He was used to these outbursts from poor Jo; le had long since divined their fundamental cause and knew by experience how to deal with them.

  “Which man, Jo?” he asked.

  “Bob Hansen, of course. What do you mean by going to him behind my back?”

  “When I went to you,” said Mr. Propter, “you told me it was Hansen’s business. So I went to Hansen.”

  This was so infuriatingly true that Mr. Stoyte could only resort to roaring. He roared. “Interfering with him in his work! What’s the idea?”

  “Pete’s offering you a seat,” Mr. Propter put in. “Or if you prefer it, there’s an iron chair behind you. You’d better sit down, Jo.”

  “I’m not going to sit down,” Mr. Stoyte bellowed. “And I want an answer. What’s the idea?”

  “The idea?” Mr. Propter repeated in his slow quiet way. “Well, it’s quite an old one, you know, I didn’t invent it.”

  “Can’t you answer me?”

  “It’s the idea that men and women are human beings. Not vermin.”

  “Those bums of yours!”

  Mr. Propter turned to Pete. “You may as well sit down again,” he said.

  “Those lousy bums! I tell you I won’t stand it,”

  “Besides,” Mr. Propter went on, “I’m a practical man. You’re not.”

  “Me not practical?” Mr. Stoyte echoed with indignant amazement. “Not practical? Well, look at the place I live in and then look at this dump of yours.”

  “Exactly. That proves the point. You’re hopelessly romantic, Jo; so romantic, you think people can work when they haven’t had enough to eat.”

  “You’re trying to make Communists of them.” The word Communist renewed Mr. Stoyte’s passion and at the same time justified it; his indignation ceased to be merely personal and became righteous. “You’re nothing but a Communist agitator.” His voice trembled, Mr. Propter sadly noticed, just as Pete’s had trembled half an hour before, at the words “Fascist aggression.” He wondered if the boy had noticed or, having noticed, would take the hint. “Nothing but a Communist agitator,” Mr, Stoyte repeated with a crusader’s zeal.

  “I thought we were talking about eating,” said Mr. Propter.

  “You’re stalling!”

  “Eating and working—wasn’t that it?”

  “I’ve put up with you all these years,” Mr. Stoyte went on, “for old times’ sake. But now I’m through. I’m sick of you. Talking Communism to those bums! Making the place dangerous for decent people to live in.

  “Decent?” Mr. Propter echoed, and was tempted to laugh, but immediately checked the impulse. Being laughed at in the presence of Pete and Mr. Pordage might goad the poor fellow into doing something irreparably stupid.

  “I’ll have you run out of the valley,” Mr. Stoyte was roaring. “I’ll see that you’re . . .” He broke off in the middle of the sentence and stood there for a few seconds in silence, his mouth still open and working, his eyes staring. That drumming in the ears, that tingling heat in the face—they had suddenly reminded him of his blood pressure, of Dr. Obispo, of death. Death and that flame-coloured text in his bedroom at home. Terrible to fall into the hands of the living God—not Prudence’s God, of course; the other one, the real one, the God of his father and his grandmother.

  Mr. Stoyte drew a deep breath, pulled out his handkerchief, wiped his face and neck, then, without uttering another word, turned and began to walk away.

  Mr. Propter got up, hurried after him and, in spite of the other’s angry motion of recoil, took Mr. Stoyte’s arm and walked along beside him.

  “I want to show you something, Jo,” he said. “Something that’ll interest you, I think.”

  “I don’t want to see it,” said Mr. Stoyte between his false teeth.

  Mr. Propter paid no attention, but continued to lead him towards the back of the house. “It’s a gadget that Abbot of the Smithsonian has been working on for some time,” he continued. “A thing for making use of solar energy.” He interrupted himself for a moment to call back to the others to follow him; then turned again to Mr. Stoyte and resumed the conversation. “Much more compact than anything of the kind that’s ever been made before,” he said. “Much more efficient, too.” And he went on to describe the system of trough-shaped reflectors, the tubes of oil heated to a temperature of four or five hundred degrees Fahrenheit; the boiler for raising steam, if you wanted to run a low-pressure engine; the cooking range and water heater, if you were using it only for domestic purposes. “Pity the sun’s down,” he said, as they stood in front of the machine. “I’d have liked to show you the way it works the engine. I’ve had two horse-power, eight hours a day, ever since I got the thing working last week. Not bad considering we’re still in January. We’ll have her working overtime all summer.”

  Mr. Stoyte had intended to persist in his silence—just to show Bill that he was still angry, that he hadn’t forgiven him; but his int
erest in the machine and, above all, his exasperated concern with Bill’s idiotic, crackpot notions were too much for him. “What the hell do you want with two horse-power, eight hours a day?” he asked.

  “To run my electric generator.”

  “But what do you want with an electric generator? Haven’t you got your current wired in from the city?”

  “Of course. And I’m trying to see how far I can be independent of the city.”

  “But what for?”

  Mr. Propter uttered a little laugh. “Because I believe in Jeffersonian democracy.”

  “What the hell has Jeffersonian democracy got to do with it?” said Mr. Stoyte with mounting irritation. “Can’t you believe in Jefferson and have your current wired in from the city?”

  “That’s exactly it,” said Mr. Propter; “you almost certainly can’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I say,” Mr. Propter answered mildly.

  “I believe in democracy too,” Mr. Stoyte announced with a look of defiance.

  “I know you do. And you also believe in being the undisputed boss in all your businesses.”

  “I should hope so!”

  “There’s another name for an undisputed boss,” said Mr. Propter. “ ‘Dictator.’ “

  “What are you trying to get at?”

  “Merely at the facts. You believe in democracy; but you’re at the head of businesses which have to be run dictatorially. And your subordinates have to accept your dictatorship because they’re dependent on you for their living. In Russia they’d depend on government officials for their living. Perhaps you think that’s an improvement,” he added, turning to Pete.

  Pete nodded. “I’m all for the public ownership of the means of production,” he said. It was the first time he had openly confessed his faith in the presence of his employer; he felt happy at having dared to be a Daniel.

  “Public ownership of the means of production,” Mr. Propter repeated. “But unfortunately governments have a way of regarding the individual producers as being parts of the means. Frankly, I’d rather have Jo Stoyte as my boss than Jo Stalin. This Jo” (he laid his hand on Mr. Stoyte’s shoulder) “this Jo can’t have you executed; he can’t send you to the Arctic; he can’t prevent you from getting a job under another boss. Whereas the other Jo . . .” he shook his head. “Not that,” he added, “I’m exactly longing to have even this Jo as my boss.”

  “You’d be fired pretty quick,” growled Mr. Stoyte.

  “I don’t want any boss,” Mr. Propter went on. “The more bosses, the less democracy. But unless people can support themselves, they’ve got to have a boss who’ll undertake to do it for them. So the less self-support, the less democracy. In Jefferson’s day, a great many Americans did support themselves. They were economically independent. Independent of government and independent of big business. Hence the Constitution.”

  “We’ve still got the Constitution,” said Mr. Stoyte.

  “No doubt,” Mr. Propter agreed. “But if we had to make a new Constitution today, what would it be like? A Constitution to fit the facts of New York and Chicago and Detroit; of United States Steel and the Public Utilities and General Motors and the CLO. and the government departments. What on earth would it be like?” he repeated. “We respect our old Constitution, but in fact we live under a new one. And if we want to live under the first, we’ve got to recreate something like the conditions under which the first was made. That’s why I’m interested in this gadget.” He patted the frame of the machine. “Because it may help to give independence to any one who desires independence. Not that many do desire it,” he added parenthetically. “The propaganda in favour of dependence is too strong. They’ve come to believe that you can’t be happy unless you’re entirely dependent on government or centralized business. But for the few who do care about democracy, who really want to be free in the Jeffersonian sense, this thing may be a help. If it makes them independent of fuel and power, that’s already a great deal.”

  Mr. Stoyte looked anxious. “Do you really think it’ll do that?”

  “Why not?” said Mr. Propter. “There’s a lot of sunshine running to waste in this part of the country.”

  Mr. Stoyte thought of his presidency of the Consol Oil Company. “It won’t be good for the oil business,” he said.

  “I should hate it to be good for the oil business,” Mr. Propter answered cheerfully.

  “And what about coal?” He had an interest in a group of West Virginia mines. “And the railroads?” There was that big block of Union Pacific shares that had belonged to Prudence. “The railroads can’t get on without long hauls. And steel,” he added disinterestedly; for his holdings in Bethlehem Steel were almost negligible. “What happens to steel if you hurt the railroads and cut down trucking? You’re going against progress,” he burst out in another access of righteous indignation. “You’re turning back the clock,”

  “Don’t worry, Jo,” said Mr. Propter. “It won’t affect your dividends for quite a long while. There’ll be plenty of time to adjust to the new conditions.”

  With an admirable effort, Mr. Stoyte controlled his temper. “You seem to figure I can’t think of anything but money,” he said with dignity. “Well, it may interest you to know that I’ve decided to give Dr. Mulge another thirty thousand dollars for his Art School.” (The decision had been made there and then, for the sole purpose of serving as a weapon in the perennial battle with Bill Propter.) “And if you think,” he added as an afterthought, “if you think I’m only concerned with my own interests, read the special World’s Fair number of the New York Times. Read that,” he insisted with the solemnity of a fundamentalist recommending the Book of Revelation. “You’ll see that the most forward-looking men in the country think as I do.” He spoke with unaccustomed and incongruous unction, in the phraseology of after-dinner eloquence. “The way of progress is the way of better organization, more service from business, more goods for the consumer!” Then, incoherently, “Look at the way a housewife goes to her grocer,” he added, “and buys a package of some nationally advertised cereal or something. That’s progress. Not your crackpot idea of doing everything at home with this idiotic contraption.” Mr. Stoyte had reverted completely to his ordinary style. “You always were a fool, Bill, and I guess you always will be. And remember what I told you about interfering with Bob Hansen. I won’t stand for it.” In dramatic silence he walked away; but after taking a few steps, he halted and called back over his shoulder. “Come up to dinner, if you feel like it.”

  “Thanks,” said Mr. Propter. “I will.”

  Mr. Stoyte walked briskly towards his car. He had forgotten about high blood pressure and the living God and felt all of a sudden unaccountably and unreasonably happy. It was not that he had scored any notable success in his battle with Bill Propter. He hadn’t; and, what was more, in the process of not scoring a success he had made, and was even half aware that he had made, a bit of a fool of himself. The source of his happiness was elsewhere. He was happy, though he would never have admitted the fact, because, in spite of everything, Bill seemed to like him.

  In the car, as he drove back to the castle, he whistled to himself.

  Entering with his hat on, as usual (for even after all these years he still derived a childish pleasure from the contrast between the palace in which he lived and the proletarian manners he affected), Mr. Stoyte crossed the great hall, stepped into the elevator and, from the elevator, walked directly into Virginia’s boudoir.