“Tell me, please tell me, who have you been talking to?”
“Who?”
“Yes, who?”
“Why, Isabelle, of course.” Her pale lips moved and trembled, holding them with her teeth.
“Isabelle told you about the Erringtons? Why did she do that?”
“I don’t know. She had some decency left and owed something to me. She couldn’t see me fooling myself about you, I guess. Oh, go away, why do I have to stand here talking about it to you?”
Instead of answering he smiled at her, his lips drawn too far back, his gums showing, and he held the smile long after the feeling provoking it had passed, and it remained on his face like an ugly grin. He was looking at her, shaking his head jerkily, till finally he spun halfway round, looking at her again, only this time his face was expressionless. Turning, he ran along the hall, downstairs and out the front door.
The air cooled him and he walked along soberly, hardly nervous at all, the surprise gone and no excitement remaining from the conversation with Lillian. His thoughts had really gone far beyond the conversation until it was something he could look back upon as being almost inevitable. The calmness came to him so quickly it seemed to happen almost at once. Across the road a Chinese laundry-boy was getting off his bike, going along the sidewalk leading to the house. When John first saw the boy, carrying the big blue bag, he was still puzzled and excited by the conversation with Lillian and his palms were sweating: then, by the time he looked again at the Chinese boy, his palms were dry: Lillian’s feeling seemed inevitable and the event far away: he was hardly thinking of her, just getting ready to steadily rid himself of the source of all his unhappiness. He wasn’t even thinking of going to see Isabelle: it had become suddenly necessary to think of her as someone out of his life altogether and out of the life of everyone around him. As soon as this notion began to have an immediate reality for him, he experienced a calmness he had not known for a long time. Putting her far away, and getting rid of her entirely, was such a quick, satisfactory, mental achievement he had a sudden pleasure and was eager to forget everything, walking along the dry spots on the sidewalk, keeping to the outside, near the curb.
But all afternoon and in the evening he was sorry for himself, and had no energy to talk to anybody. His head was tired and aching and lying down he tried to sleep. Though his eyes were heavy he could not sleep. An unexpected inertia had left him so helpless he could only lie on the bed and feel sorry for himself. Sitting at the window before lying down he had tried to hold a hot strong feeling of hatred in spite of the ache in his head, but it went out of him, and lacking energy, he lay down on the bed.
After dark, when he could hardly see in the room by the pale light from the street, he got up and went to the head of the stairs to ask Mrs. Stanley if she would sell him a cup of tea and maybe a little bread and jam. She was glad to please him, she said, for he was never any trouble to her at all. So she brought the food to him, and standing at the door, her hands on her hips, and smiling, showing all the roots of her teeth, said: “It’ll be fine for you from now on. A new bed’ll be here in the morning. Isn’t that elegant?”
“It’s very good of you.”
“A nice, new, fresh, bed. What’s the matter with you, aren’t you feeling good?”
“I’ve got a headache.”
“You’ve been eating too much.”
“No, I’ve been thinking too much.”
“Well, goodness knows, I’m doing everything I can to make you comfortable.”
He ate the bread and jam, read a few pages of a magazine, something about neurology in the Arts and Science department of The American Mercury, but tiring and wanting something light and easy, he read the editorial, and then yesterday’s newspaper, till he dozed on the bed. Later on Gibbons rapped lightly on the door and came into the room. John, nearly asleep, shook his head, indicating he did not want to have a conversation.
In the morning, when he was sitting in his pajamas, staring at the ceiling, Mrs. Stanley gave him a letter. From Lillian. All the lassitude went out of him as soon as he put the sheets of paper on the table and recognized the writing. The letter said: “Yesterday I talked like a little hoyden, if I remember, but I don’t want you to keep having such a thought of me. I was excited and had hardly slept at all, and then you appeared and it was almost more than I could endure. I told you Isabelle had explained to me that she had gone to your place, when you were at Errington’s. Don’t think for a minute she was pretending you induced her to go there. I believe she tells the truth, saying she went there, first of all, of her own accord. Nor did she try and excuse herself. Nor do I excuse her. She was egotistical, a little spiteful, and on that occasion without much principle, but if you remember she has been that way ever since school days, I am not blind to her faults. She has many faults, but is at least capable of quick, fine feeling. When we were at home last night after leaving you, and feeling close together, she told me of the evening with you at the Erringtons’. I was upset because I was thinking of Fred and at the same time was thinking of you. I really did love you so much, and I was explaining my own confusion to her, trying to find out for myself why I did not think of you as much as I used to. We were talking about Fred, and how he had loved me in the days when you and Isabelle were going together, probably thinking of getting married. Isabelle began to talk to me about you and her old feeling, and blaming herself a great deal, told me of the night she had gone to see you. I felt very sorry for her, though sufficiently indignant to resent even having her there with me, as much as I resented you coming to see me yesterday. I don’t want to see Isabelle again. I told her so this morning, but she is in bed, a relapse of some kind, and a high temperature. She oughtn’t to have come out yesterday, thinking she was feeling a little better, to get more of a cold. Anyway, it is over, and so much the better. At one time I was thinking always of Fred and now I can go on remembering him. I shouldn’t have tried to love someone so soon after Fred’s death when the manner of his murder is still so vivid in my mind. I forgive you for being a little bit mistaken about your feeling for me. We were all mixed up, it seems, and I’m going away to the country for a while.”
John read the letter twice, jumped up, tore it in pieces, and threw it at the closed window. He began to dress rapidly. Carrying his overcoat in his arm he rushed out looking for a taxi to go and see Lillian.
But at the apartment no one answered the door and he rapped, listening earnestly, hearing no movement inside, and was satisfied she was not there. Downstairs he asked the janitor if she had gone, and he said she still retained the apartment but had said she was going away to the country and would not be back until spring.
John felt helpless listening to the janitor, because there was not way for him to test his strength. Walking home, he was at first alert, realizing he had seen accurately that Isabelle was taking possession of his whole life and the life of Lillian, and he now could not longer move because she had hold of him, and he was helpless. Excited, he was immensely satisfied that he had seen it all so clearly. Lillian was gone. John had love Lillian and she was always a part of any plan he made for the future, and it was always important that he should be able to tell her about his success. There was no one else to talk to. It was hardly worthwhile being successful unless she could appreciate it. Part of the satisfaction was in the enjoyment of her strong interest. But she was gone out of the city. So he walked rapidly until exhausted. His head felt feverish. He was still strong, but exasperated because he could not use his strength.
Chapter Sixteen
Lying in bed in the morning, all his body became suddenly alert, his arms trembling a little and a fire in his head. His forehead had a weight pressing against it, and rubbing his hand across it, he felt beads of moisture and contemplated the shining tips of his fingers. On the bed he sat up, holding his head, rubbing the temples slowly to drive away the hotness and the fever so he could think of the idea coolly. Still he was trembling a little from the first excitement of the notion
and refused to go on thinking. The eagerness and excitement was there because he clearly saw himself committing a violent act, but he refused to go on thinking of the act alone for it was necessary for him to get beyond the first feeling and see himself critically as an instrument and was now sure, walking the length of the room, glancing out the window, he had become detached from the normal emotions of resentment and anger. There were hardly any noises on this street, and a new peacefulness and quiet satisfaction came to him after finding the solution to a problem bothering him a long time. When Lillian had slapped him the other day John had nearly approached the solution, but something seen on the street had turned it away from him. Even now he wasn’t quite ready, for his head was still hot, his arms trembling and weak.
In this small room at the moment John felt more important than ever before, and suddenly saw himself in a new relation with all the life around him, and a little beyond it. His own safety in society was unimportant, because nothing anyone did to him could really affect his own unassailable confidence.
He liked to think of himself as a cool, reasonable man, who never found it necessary to move hurriedly, so looking at himself in the glass, feeling the slight growth of beard, he smiled, pleased by his calmness. It was, first of all, with him a matter of strong emotion but just as essentially an ethical matter, for he was an educated man who had been taught for years that passions should be governed by reason: one ought to consider, then have a judgment and a conclusion, just as they used to in college in the first classes in logic. In this way of being reasonable he was different from the man in the street, who having a sudden notion and strong passion, always acted blindly. The only trouble was, John occasionally trembled and his head got hot, though certain now he would not do anything till absolutely calm. It occurred to him to go downstairs and have a talk with Mrs. Stanley, a rather commonplace woman somewhat the same as “the man on the street,” and merely measure the strength of her emotions by her opinion of the necessity of sometimes destroying a person. At the same time John was further assuring himself he wasn’t in a hurry and quite calm. So he walked out of the room and downstairs looking in the kitchen for Mrs. Stanley, who was sit ing at the end of the table, darning a black stocking and crooning a song. Her iron-gray hair was hanging down untidily, dropping over her forehead whenever she leaned forward. There was no music in the crooning song. When she smiled, looking up at him, showing lines of toothless gums, she said:
“What are you excited about, Mr. Hughes?”
“I’m not excited.”
“You’re pale and kind of feverish-looking.”
“I say I’m not excited. My dear lady, I am feeling so calm and well disposed about everything. I came down to talk a few minutes with you.” Sitting down beside her he watched her darning the stocking. Her long fingers were swollen at the knuckles from continual attacks of rheumatism. Her face was blotched with dark-brown spots from liver trouble and the same dark spots were on the back of her hands. She was chuckling, grinning, and entirely satisfied with herself. The only think at the moment bothering her was the long strand of hair she could not prevent from falling down over her eyes.
“I only wanted to talk generally, Mrs. Stanley,” he said. “It’s curious the thoughts continually running through a man’s head. You know what I was thinking about up there in my room? You’ll never believe it. I was wondering if a man was ever entitled to take the life of another man who was a leech on society, sucking the blood out of people. I suppose it sounds foolish to you, doesn’t it? It’s an idle thought. It’s a bit silly, but what do you think about it?”
“Well, they do do it, don’t they?”
“Who does it?”
“They do it at the jail. They takes them out and hangs them and that’s al there is to it. Some of them hardly deserve it because they hardly knows what they did, if you see what I mean.” Leaning toward him, sticking the needle in the ball of wool, she said: “We all see it differently.” Her lower jaw moved jerkily and she was hardly looking at him. “There was my second husband that left me about twenty-five years ago for a trollop he got from God knows where, and went off into another country. I haven’t heard of them for twenty-two years and I’ve got along all right by myself. I’ve forgotten about them, do ya understand, do ya understand that? I’ve forgotten about them, but sometimes I wake up at night thinking hard about the slut I never saw. You now what I feel? I feel I’d know her if I ever saw her. I’m quite sure of that. I just have that feeling, lying awake at night and the light from the window falling across my bed. Then I’d know her and I’d reach out and take hold of her with these hands. See them? I’d take hold of her by the windpipe and wring her neck though every tooth had fallen out of her head and she was scarred all over from the pox. Then I’d feel fine, and wouldn’t think about her at all afterward. But it was always a steady feeling. I never flew into a rage about it. I just had the steady sensible feeling I’d know what to do. But get along with you, what are you joshing me about, getting me to tattle about things I’ve felt, and you sitting there with a frozen face?”
“No you ought to go on talking.”
“You’re joshing me, taking me too much for a simple soul; but I’ll tell you, you’re just a bit simple yourself, that’s why you got me talking to you.” She started to laugh and kept on cackling, her face turned up to him, her eyes squintng, then rolling a little from side to side. “Where are you going?” she said quickly. “I thought you wanted to talk to me.”“I’ll be back later,” he said, turning at the door, hurrying upstairs to get his coat and hat, and feeling immensely satisfied thinking his own feeling wasn’t at all strange. The only difference was in his judicial attitude, submitting the feeling first of all to his own good judgment.
Hungry, he went out for a walk downtown to have a good meal that would satisfy him for the whole evening. It was late afternoon and the downtown streets were slushy and the sidewalks wet and steaming near the base of the big stores. John was crossing the street, at the corner of the department store, looking at the plate-glass windows of Childs’ on the other side of the road, hardly thinking of anything. Suddenly he stopped, noticing a policeman waving a mitted hand at him angrily, telling him to stay at the curb and wait for the traffic signal. The policeman stared at the stocky man, who had his hands in his pockets and a puzzled expression on his face. When the policeman waved at him John was so startled he did not turn back at once, just gaped at him, his mouth hanging open a little, and hearing the policeman shouting at him, he turned quickly, jumping back to the curb, more excited than he had been all morning. Looking a the big police-man had reminded him of his neglect to provide for his own safety in any of his plans. Until the big man in blue had waved at him, he had never even thought of his own security. When the traffic signal permitted, the crowd crossed the road, and John waited till many were ahead so he would not be noticed.
Such a small precaution as hiding in the crowd annoyed him, for he had the feeling he was enormously more important than anyone crossing the road and wanted to walk out ahead. Instead, he had waited and had passed the policeman uneasily. No one in the crowd noticed him, just a stocky fellow, walking rather erectly, leaning back on his heels, crossing the road slowly.
John had been hungry, but in the restaurant having hardly any appetite at all he would have gone out at once, only it had become a part of his policy to remain calm and normal. Slowly he ate scrambled eggs and toast and drank two cups of coffee, though it had no taste for him. The restaurant was not crowded in the afternoon, but he was conspicuous, sitting alone at the hard white table, many people passing on the street on the other side of the window. Moving with deliberate slowness he paid his check and went out.
Early in the evening Paul Ross came to see him and found him lying on the bed, his body inert and his eyes wide open. Usually John was glad to see Ross and welcomed him effusively; now, without getting up, he half-heartedly asked him to sit down. “You don’t look so good,” Paul said. “Isn’t it funn
y I didn’t think you’d be feeling so good, so I brought us a drink.” He took a quart bottle of whiskey from his pocket. “What’s the matter with you?” he said. “Don’t you want me to stay?”
“Yes, sit down.”
“Get up yourself then.”
John, getting up slowly, smiled amiably at Paul, putting an arm around his shoulder. “You’re a splendid fellow,” he said. “I don’t know anyone I like better than you.”
“I’ve always had the same opinion of me,” Paul said.
“Did you have a good week?”
“All right. I’m getting sick of working the old soldier stuff. I mean I’m getting sick of the way I have to work it, making it sound such a grand business.” He put his elbows on the table, looking down sullenly. His lips moved, sneering at the table, and he hardly heard John talking to him. “What’s that?” he said.
“Will I ask Gibbons to come in and have a drink with us?”
“Sure, we’ll kid him along. We’re both old soldiers, only it made him a revolutionary with a sour stomach and me a magazine salesman. Wait a minute before you speak to Gibbons. I went over to see Isabelle Thompson this afternoon.
I didn’t know she was sick. She’s pretty bad. I couldn’t see her. The doctor was there. I like her and often think of her.”
“She’s worse, eh? Well, she’s more effective when she’s sick.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Stop muttering then; speak out. Isabelle said to me she wasn’t interested in living, but she’d hate to die. She’ll die hard, hanging on till there’s nothing left to give up.”
“So much the better then.”
“What’s that? You sound silly to me. I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’d better get Gibbons.”
John, from the hall, called Gibbons, asking him to come into the room and talk with them. Gibbons was tired and dejected. “I don’t feel much like conversation,” he said, “but I’ll come anyway.” The three of them sat around the table. Paul said to Gibbons: “What’s bothering you?” “Nothing,” Gibbons said. Though reticent naturally, and a revolutionist, having no respect for sentimentality, he was anxious to talk to somebody. Slowly and earnestly he explained he was feeling bad because he was going to lose his job as an organizer for the party. They were willing to let him go on organizing, but he wouldn’t get any salary for it. The party wasn’t doing very well and they were cutting down expenses. Some of the organizers had to be dropped from the salary list, and since he had disagreed with the executive, a dispute over left-wing and right-wing communism, he was going to be dropped from the list. It was mean in a way, he said, since it was his money that had started the party in the country: he had even sold his furniture to help them along. He was speaking quietly, anxious for their sympathy, and trying to conceal his own feeling, determined to express a good revolutionary spirit.
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