by James Hanley
Professor Titmouse wiped the sweat from his forehead.
‘Well, my boy. Here we are. Do you think that you can get under that stone belly?’ The professor waved his hand towards the lion.
‘Think so,’ Peter said. He stood looking up at the lion as though at any moment it might come to life and spring upon him. They had managed to work their way behind the Forester Hall. This was accomplished by passing through a urinal and climbing over its wall. Peter still held the sourish, acrid smell in his nostrils. When the wall had been climbed, they had to force their way through an aperture between the wall-top and the roof. They had thus reached the top of the steps. As they hung suspended there for a moment, the boy’s eyes wandered over the sea of heads. Professor Titmouse had said, ‘Be careful, my boy!’ So they had reached the plateau. More pushing and struggling. The clock of the Forester Hall struck half-past nine.
‘Here!’ said Professor Titmouse. ‘Just in time.’
Peter looked from the stone lion to his companion. ‘Yes, I can get up there.’
‘Good! Then go ahead.’ The crowd’s attention was now turned to the two figures climbing the great stone lion. Peter paused.
‘Go ahead. Never mind the crowd,’ entreated Professor Titmouse. ‘They’ll forget you in one single second. That is one of the virtues of crowds. They can forget instantly. They will be looking across the street at that ferocious-looking inspector in a moment.’ He climbed up. Peter had now seated himself astride the animal. The professor sat behind him. Immediately Peter shifted his position so that he could sit facing the man. He was the sort of person he did not like to turn his back upon. He was becoming suspicious already. At any moment the strange man might fling him off. At the same time he was enjoying it. This was certainly the biggest adventure of his life. All thought of his father had now vanished. The crowd below had started to shout. Professor Titmouse chuckled. He laid his hand on Peter’s shoulders.
‘Now! We are here. We can now proceed to enjoy the spectacle. In two minutes something will happen. I say that because I know.’ The boy did not hear. He was looking in the direction of the Castle Hotel. Here a disturbance had already taken place. A brick had been flung at the hoardings, and in their frantic efforts to dodge this hefty missile three or four policemen had fallen in a heap. Peter was surveying the situation. His eyes wandered slowly along, rested on the Forum Theatre, then his head turned and he took stock of the crowds massed about the steps of the Forester Hall.
‘Ah, my boy,’ said the professor, ‘I can see that you are interested already. Are you a sociological student, by the way? If you are, then I give you my hand. I am very interested. But these, of course, are not revolutionary tactics, merely sporadic pricks of authority.’
‘Yes,’ replied Peter. ‘I understand,’ and his voice seemed to come from far away.
‘Crowds always attract me,’ continued Professor Titmouse. ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘Look at that!’ He raised his hairy hand and pointed in the direction of a large tailor’s shop standing midway between the Castle Hotel and the railway station. Peter strained his eyes. At what was the man staring? At the same time he was saying to himself, ‘If they suddenly charge this crowd, we are safe.’ Crouched on the stone lion, it was impossible to see them.
‘There!’ said the professor, as the crashing of glass in the roadway caused the whole mass of bodies to sway forward as though some huge hand had risen out of the earth and pushed them towards the road. ‘Keep quite still,’ the professor whispered in Peter’s ear. ‘The psychological moment has not yet arrived. Those gentlemen in blue yonder have a sense of proportion. They know when to be quiet, when to make a noise; meanwhile, this little diversion is interesting. Observe.’ He pointed with a long forefinger towards a section of the crowd. ‘Now,’ continued Professor Titmouse, ‘if you will look just below you, you will notice the extraordinary effect that has taken place. But perhaps you have already done so.’ He was now leaning on the boy, his two hands upon Peter’s shoulders. Gripping the lion’s mane more firmly, Peter looked down.
‘It begins with a minute wriggling. Some sort of current has passed through them. The current makes them restless. It says in effect, “Something is happening in front.” But damn it, they can’t see. They fret, press forward, their pupils dilate, their heads are raised, they stand on tiptoe, and they are all asking themselves the same question, “What is happening?” Ha ha! There we have the advantage, my boy; we stride the heights, we look down into the pit. Tell me,’ he went on, ‘have these people any interest for you? Do you attach any significance to their presence? Who are they? What are they here for?’ He suddenly arched his back. Peter laughed. There was a sort of tensity in the professor’s expression. ‘Looks like a monkey endeavouring to solve a conundrum.’ Now he stroked his cheek with his left hand.
‘They are here to protest against the brutality of the authorities,’ said Peter.
‘What?’ Professor Titmouse sat back so suddenly that, but for Peter gripping his arm, he might have fallen from the lion. ‘Fiddlesticks! To protest! That is wrong, my boy. They do not know why they are here. Understand me. They are a lot of sheep. Look!’ he said. ‘Would you say that action constituted a protest against brutality? Brutality. They do not know what the word means. Look!’ he repeated. ‘Just below you. There is brutality. Real brutality. Wicked. Look at the child! She is crying. She is being crushed. Her mother holds her to her breast, but she is being crushed by the crowd. What right has that woman to bring her child here? To stew for hours, suffocated by sheer weight, by the smell of sweating bodies, of mouldy clothes. Does that constitute a protest against brutality? No, my boy.’
Peter, looking down, saw the woman. She was easily distinguishable by her white blouse. She was bareheaded. She had a tiny girl in her arms. The child gave vent to periodic bursts of weeping, which the woman countered by swears, by occasional slaps on the child’s legs. The pressure of the bodies against her had partly loosened the woman’s clothing. Her blouse was open, and the boy could clearly see her breasts. Their whiteness stood out boldly in the darkness. He looked at the man on the lion.
‘I quite agree with you,’ he said. ‘The woman should not be here.’
‘No,’ said the professor. ‘And pretty soon those gentlemen over there are going to clear this rabble out. That woman will fall. It is inevitable. Tomorrow the air will ring with protests against brutality. Has it any redeeming feature? Yes. It is unconscious brutality. A crowd has no focal point, for the simple reason that it has no head. It has only a body. Well, well, enough of these deliberations. If you look towards that shop now, you will see something interesting. A gentleman – I presume it is a gentleman – from pure generousness of spirit has decided to entertain a section of the crowd with a performance. On the other hand, I may be quite wrong. It may be that he is the direct manifestation of a certain spurious philosophy. You know the word “get” has almost philosophical significance. The gentleman is going to get something. If he did not get it for nothing, it would not be philosophic. Do you understand? Well, he has decided to get something. He has not gone into that shop window for nothing. No, sir! Why do not the police prevent him? Are they afraid of him? Well, he is of small and of slight build. No, my boy; as I say, the psychological moment has not yet arrived. Excuse my continually speaking into your ear, but I could not make you hear clearly if I did not bend closely to you. The noise is deafening. The noise of people breathing, talking, coughing, laughing, swearing. They are waiting for a cue. Possibly that little gentleman has supplied it. There! He has disappeared into the hole in the window … Notice the restlessness of the people below us. They know something interesting is going to happen. But they can’t see. If one cannot see a thing, one tries to imagine it. Alas! Crowds have no imagination.’ Professor Titmouse had raised his head and appeared to be speaking to the empty air.
A light had suddenly appeared in the window of the tailor’s shop. It came from a candle-stand in which burned five cand
les. The slightly built man, who had crushed his way to the front and climbed through the hole in the window, was now standing holding the candle above his head. He seemed to be surveying the contents of the window. Professor Titmouse suddenly put his hand in his pocket and took out his spectacles. Peter watched him put them on.
‘Cheap,’ said the professor, ‘but they suit me admirably.’ Authority on crowds as he was, he found something significant enough in the action of the little man in the window and concentrated his attention there. Peter he had forgotten altogether.
The man in the window had quite coolly begun to undress himself. There were cries of ‘Ooe! …’ from the crowd in front of the shop. A great shout went up as he removed his trousers. He then approached a wax gentleman wearing ‘Our latest Winter Style’, and proceeded to divest it of its apparel.
‘Look at him! He’s a cool’n!’ somebody shouted, as the man began to dress. Suddenly the man paused … then disappeared again. When he came out he had a new bowler hat in his hand. He blew out the candles, crawled out through the hole in the window, dressed in ‘Our latest Winter Style’, and with a sweep of the hand bowed to the crowd and put on the new bowler hat. The crowd moved forward. The newly clothed gentleman disappeared in the gathering as quickly and mysteriously as he had emerged.
‘There,’ said the professor, turning his attention to Peter once more. ‘Observe, such actions are propitious. The little man has new-clothed himself at the expense of some poor shopkeeper. But is that honest? I ask you?’ He put his face close to Peter, and added in a sort of half-frightened whisper, ‘Is it?’ as though the very action of the man in the window had involved him in some kind of moral problem, as though the action were portentous and his very fate had been caught in it. But the boy only laughed.
‘Don’t you see?’ continued the professor. ‘That action was backed up by the moral force of the crowd. No. Immoral force. But is it fair? Is it honest? Is this a peaceful gathering? Is it a fair protest against brutality? You are laughing at me. Well! I said this evening that I thought you were irresponsible. Curb it, my boy. It is dangerous unless one can temper and control it. However, I shall not disturb your enjoyment of the fun. But the man’s action is a bad one. It harbours frightful possibilities. Do you condone such actions, young man, or does your very irresponsibleness whirl you clear of questioning its morality? However, I can see at once that you are not greatly interested. I shall not indulge in ethical deliberations, set your mind at rest upon that. Propel your spirit forward, sit straight up upon that lion’s back, and prepare to enjoy yourself. Satiate yourself. Yes, enjoy yourself not by a profound contemplation of this assembly, of the social fabric, but physically, my boy. Lose yourself in this mass. Become part and parcel of it. Absorb its blind strength, its dull rage, its very breath, the multifarious smells that arise from their bodies. Allow your eyes to wander here and there, in and about, up and down. That is what you are sitting upon that lion’s back for. You did not set out to study, not this evening. I could tell that as soon as I looked on you. I am a good judge of faces. No, my dear boy. The thing to do is to lose oneself, to surrender oneself to its intoxicating, I will not say toxic, qualities. Not I. But you. I withdraw. I stand outside of that now. You are young. Life holds out delicious flavours. Ha ha! What does one require to live? To enjoy life? Not much. From what you tell me, you set out to acquire knowledge. You were at college, so you informed me. Well, at a college one learns. Learning is knowledge. But be careful. Be careful. A little is enough. Too much is rank poison. It destroys one’s simplicity, my boy. A little, and consume that little. Well, that’s enough. Content yourself. Don’t mind me. Watch the crowd. Watch the crowd. Watch the down-trodden workers. See them move forwards and backwards, sway, rise, fall. Look at the faces. The map of life. By a single stretch of the imagination this lion can become the very empyrean heights. One moment!’
Professor Titmouse opened wide his mouth, as though he were going to yawn. Peter moved away from him.
‘Ha ha!’ Professor Titmouse laughed. ‘Did you think I was going to eat you?’
What are all these people here for? And what are they waiting for? Nobody is going to address them. And why those great rope barriers? Those corporation water-carts strung across the north end of the Square? And why is the Forum Theatre boarded up, the railway station, the Castle Hotel? The professor put his hand on his head.
‘Fancy!’ he said. ‘I entirely forgot to give you my card. Here you are.’ He pulled from his pocket a heavily thumb-marked card and handed it to Peter. The boy took the card. He read it. ‘R. H. Titmouse. Professor of Anthropology.’ Smilingly he placed the card in his pocket. In a moment he had forgotten it. Well, why was he sitting here? Who on earth was this strange man sitting opposite him?
Suddenly the professor exclaimed: ‘Have you ever studied crowds, my boy? The tantalizing qualities inherent in them. What are crowds? A mixture of cowardice and impudence.’ Then he clapped his hands in the manner of an excited child. His eyes appeared to dance in his head, his hands trembled; it was as though the intoxicating atmosphere had caught him too. His mouth opened and closed. ‘Ah!’ he said, and became suddenly rigid.
‘Is the fellow really mad?’ thought the boy. He had gradually made the distance between his companion and himself greater by moving further up. And now he sat precariously balanced upon the lion’s head.
‘I have never studied crowds,’ said Peter, ‘though I am sure you are right. It is getting late. I must go. My father will be wondering where I have got to.’ He made a movement, but Professor Titmouse caught his leg.
‘One moment, my young friend,’ he said. Then he raised his head, and his eyes searched the vast Square.
‘I will tell you what those people are here for, my boy,’ he continued. ‘They are here to loot! They are here to get something for nothing. But where are the men who could send these people home about their business? I will tell you. They are in a large and resplendent hotel higher up the road, and they are endeavouring to put the world to rights. Ha ha! And why don’t the police move? Why don’t they clear the Square? Because they are waiting for provocation. Our little friend who stole the suit would not actuate it. It requires something bigger, something symbolical. They are waiting for a growl, a murmur, to rise from its depths. Then they will set about their lawful duty.’
‘I am not concerned with all that,’ remarked Peter. ‘There! Listen!’
The clock of the Forester Hall struck ten. ‘It is late. I have to go.’
He made another move, but the professor’s hold upon his leg only tightened. ‘Please!’ Peter said. He leaned forward and stared boldly into the man’s face. But the professor only laughed. He saw the fear skulking behind this apparent boldness. ‘Be patient, my boy. Keep cool.’
He caught his nose between two long fingers and blew vigorously.
‘Have you ever noticed – the almost pestiferous odour that crowds exhale? Ha! Something is happening over there. Stand up, my boy. Look! There, stand erect. I shall hold your legs.’
‘I am not interested,’ said Peter. ‘It is late. I must go now. I have a long way to go.’ He tried to free his leg from the professor’s grip, but the man’s fingers were like steel.
‘Come,’ said the professor. ‘Stand up and look into the seething abyss. Behold those who have risen from ten thousand stinking mattresses, who have emerged from their rat-holes. Look at them! Bury your nose in that stinking heap. Can you see perfectly?’
‘Please leave go my leg,’ said Peter sharply. ‘I am going.’
‘Going!’ The expression upon Professor Titmouse’s face revealed both surprise and annoyance. ‘Go! Where will you go, my boy? Where? Why? Tell me. Have you ever indulged in the delights of mathematical calculations?’