1876

by Gore Vidal

  “Then Mr. Marsh never paid you anything?”

  “Of course he paid me what he owed us!” The answer was swift. She has learned her part. “And I did, in my ignorance, use him to look after certain business affairs of my late sister’s and took his word for everything, since I have no head for such things, and should probably be hung for my stupidity, seein’ as how my poor husband has been forced to resign…”

  “But Mr. Marsh said that he paid both you and your husband.”

  “It’s that awful Mr. Bristow! Oh, I tell you this, Mr. Schuyler, before that man is through he is goin’ to drive General Grant himself from office. He’ll have the President of the United States, the greatest hero of all time, in jail—”

  “For what?”

  Although Puss’s rambling commentaries never exactly responded to any question asked, they were conducted for a definite purpose. “I shudder every time I pick up a copy of the New York Herald, shudder when I read what your friend Mr. Nordhoff is writin’ about us as if we were criminals! Did you know that they came here and arrested my husband because Mr. Nordhoff had said we were plannin’ to flee to Belgium, which has no extradition treaty with the U.S….?”

  “I don’t think Mr. Nordhoff intended to…”

  “Well, it’s all craziness! We’re not goin’ anywhere. As if we could! Because after my poor husband was arrested and they let him come home, they put that policeman outside the house, and when I begged the man to at least come inside and sit in the vestibule, where he would be less visible, he just laughed in my face. I hope Mr. Nordhoff is satisfied. And I hope you at least will give the world our side, somethin’ nobody else will even dare to do.”

  That explained the invitation to tea. I must say my position is delicate. I cannot contradict anything that Nordhoff has written, and harsh splendid stuff it is; also, in general, I think that he is right. Certainly, I am absolutely convinced of Puss’s guilt. But the mysterious figure in all this is Grant. I must meet him; see him at close range. Yet I shall not be able to meet him if my next piece for the Herald describes my suspicion…no, my conviction that the President is involved right “up to the handle,” as Sanford in the rôle of rough-hewn railroad man would say. Meanwhile, I’ve solved the matter of this week’s piece. I shall simply describe in flat detail the committee hearings, the behaviour of Mr. Marsh as well as Mrs. Marsh (this will please Puss), and allow the reader to make up his own mind as to the Belknaps’ criminality.

  We were joined by Belknap and a square-jawed, clean-shaven man of about my age, who proved to be the Secretary of the Interior, Zachariah (or Zach., as everyone calls him) Chandler. Belknap looked properly distraught. Chandler, however, was very cool, and very much in control.

  With a trembling voice, Belknap said, “Princess, Mr. Schuyler, you don’t know what this means to Puss and to me, your rallying around at this terrible moment in our country’s history.”

  I was much amazed that what was, after all, old-fashioned grand larceny should have so suddenly become a crisis in the affairs of a great nation. But then, I suppose, in a way, Belknap is right. As Conkling said, any hope of a third term for Grant has been butchered by the Belknap affair, and the prospects of Conkling or whomever the Republicans choose to run against Tilden will hardly be enhanced by these revelations.

  Then Belknap turned to Chandler. “You tell her,” he whispered, turning to face the empty fireplace, head down as if praying; from the rear, he looked like a solid keg covered in black cloth.

  “Clymer has started the impeachment process. He spoke to the House just an hour ago.”

  “God save us!” Puss was not performing now. She looked more drawn than ever, and very intelligent: fox in a trap, ready if necessary to gnaw off its own leg.

  Chandler was as soothing as he could be under the circumstances. “I must say it was a terrible strain on him, being such a good friend to you both. At one point, I thought he was going to break down.”

  “A pity that he didn’t. What happens now?” Puss looked to her husband, but the dark keg of a man was impassive.

  “There will be a trial,” said Chandler. “We can’t avoid it now. But they haven’t got the votes to convict us.” The “us” was very nice. “They’ll need two-thirds of the Senate which they haven’t got. Besides, there are quite a few senators who’ve already said that you can’t impeach and convict a man no longer in office.”

  “What effect, Mr. Secretary, will this have, do you think, on the coming election?” I spoke in my rôle of solemn but friendly journalist.

  “It is quite possible that the Republican party will lose.” Zach. Chandler was matter-of-fact.

  The keg spun around. “And all on account of the damnable Marsh—forgive me, Princess—and that she-devil of a wife!”

  “Evil is a constant in human affairs,” intoned Zach. Chandler. They were marvellous. The guilt had been transferred to the Marshes in order that that obscure couple would be held responsible through all eternity not only for the end to Grant’s hope of a third term but for a possible end to sixteen golden years of Republican rule.

  I looked at Emma, afraid that she might burst out laughing, but she was as grave as any mourner. I felt a traitor in that room, for with every word Zach. Chandler spoke I saw with growing certainty—and joy—the fact of a Tilden Administration.

  But Zach. Chandler thinks otherwise. “The man who will benefit from all this is Bristow.”

  “Will your party nominate him?” I ought not to have said “your,” but Chandler seemed not to notice; treated me as one of them.

  “If they do, I’ll kill him! I swear it!” That from the blue velvet sofa.

  “He will have a difficult time.” Chandler was mild. “I don’t think the Stalwarts will take to a man who has covered General Grant in mud.”

  Belknap sat down in a chair opposite us. I felt truly sorry for him. He has taken money for favours given, but I cannot regard him as a bad man. Rather, he is a victim of this place, and I mean not Emma’s delicious Africa, the national capital, but the country itself; this vigorous, ugly, turbulent realm devoted to moneymaking by any means. Certainly, if true justice were meted out to one and all, impartially, most of the congressmen would be in prison while Mrs. Astor’s parties would be decimated at the very least.

  As for Grant himself—well, that is for me a deep mystery to which Belknap added when he said, “I told General Grant when I last saw him, after all this started, I said, ‘What a long strange way we’ve come, you and I, since Shiloh and Vicksburg,’ and he said, ‘The end’s not yet in sight,’ whatever that may mean.”

  3

  MIDNIGHT. Emma has gone to bed exhausted, and I must try to make some sense of our evening at the White House.

  The long-awaited invitation for the “large” dinner arrived, to honor the dean of the diplomatic corps, Baron Jacobi, the minister from Bulgaria. Of a hundred guests perhaps half were diplomats or visiting foreigners, a category to which the social aides at the White House have decided that Emma and I belong.

  “It should be interesting.” Nordhoff had joined me for a peach-nectar cream soda in the drugstore beneath the hotel. “Keep a close eye on Mrs. Grant.”

  “Why? Is she apt to take one’s wallet?” Thus do we speak of our masters.

  “No. But she’s apt to be a bit shaken today. This afternoon she marched uninvited into a Cabinet meeting and, to the embarrassment of everyone, paid tearful tribute to the goodness of her friend Puss and the probity of General Belknap.”

  “I was not aware she was so politically minded.”

  “She’s not, as her appeal plainly demonstrates. Anyway, something was ventured but nothing was gained. The trial continues.”

  At exactly seven o’clock the rented carriage containing Emma and me joined the long line of carriages in front of the White House portico, or “piazza,” as Mrs. Grant calls it. Emma was
again in her Winterhalter Empress Elizabeth gown and the long gauzy train quite filled the back seat. We had both of us to struggle with it to avoid smothering.

  “What do I call the President?” Emma asked.

  “Mr. President, I should think, or perhaps General Grant.”

  “Not Highness, or Excellency?”

  “No, no! None of that. Here we are all equal.”

  “It is a pretty house,” said Emma as we alighted. A Negro usher showed us into the entrance hall, where most of the guests were already gathered, a somewhat un-Washington assortment, thanks to the preponderance of foreigners.

  Baron Jacobi is a fine bright little man more fluent in French than English; and he presented himself to Emma. “With delight! I have been following you day by day in the press as you make your way through the gilded salons of the Capital, and I have been hoping, praying that one day we would meet.”

  Emma was charmed. The Baron is a bachelor, and as protocol does not obtain before the President’s arrival, the Baron took Emma in to the East Room.

  I followed, looking about for familiar faces (Blaine was there, but not Conkling; I bowed to Zach. Chandler and to General Garfield). I also looked to see what changes had been made since my only other visit to the White House forty years ago. A single glance convinced me that nothing is as it was. The hand of Mrs. Grant can be seen in every room, and it is not a light hand. Where, before, everything was bright and airy (if a bit dusty and run-down), now all is dark, rich, and thickly gilded.

  The East Room is unrecognizable in its new Galena, Illinois, Gothic style. Rows of squat wooden columns now break into three small areas what once had been a splendid large room. The wallpaper is dark with dim gold figures. The furniture is of ebony and gold. The effect is deeply sombre, even disturbing. I trust that Tilden will take an axe to the Grant additions.

  Of all the guests assembled in the East Room, the diplomats seemed most at home, but then that is their minimal function. I was pleased that since Emma was on Baron Jacobi’s arm, everyone was eager to meet her. She looked most fetching, despite the sombre setting.

  “A splendid-looking woman, that child of yours.” Blaine was at my side—face red with wine, black eyes aglitter with reflected candlelight. Side by side, we stood in the doorway, surveying the room.

  “Well, French ladies do make the most of themselves.” I cannot think why I was so stupid as to emphasize Emma’s foreignness, which of course can only throw in doubt my own Americanness. But I was distracted by the room, the people, the occasion, trying to absorb the experience in order to turn it into words, the writer’s glum task that forever keeps him at one remove from life.

  “Did my daughter call upon Mrs. Blaine?” I had forgotten whether or not the ladies had done their duty.

  “Indeed she did. And they had tea, at an hour chosen deliberately so that I would be safely at the Capitol. I hope, on some other occasion, you’ll do us the honour…” Another invitation.

  “You must be most harried, Mr. Blaine. This seems an unusually busy session of the Congress.” I did my duty as a journalist.

  “Busy? Not me!” Blaine laughed. “I’ve never been lazier. When we Republicans lost our majority last fall, I said, ‘Now I’m out of jail. I don’t have to be the Speaker.’ ” At some length he told me how much he enjoyed not being Speaker. “You can’t imagine how dull it is up there, listening to all that bad oratory. But what have I said? You won’t quote me, will you? I am at your mercy.”

  “Your secret is safe with me, sir.”

  Blaine gave me a curiously sly sort of smile. “Well, now. You might be able to quote me as saying that I find the oratory on the other side of the Capitol not quite so fascinating. Five minutes of Senator Conkling’s glorious voice and I am as one chained to Morpheus’s slow carriage and, like a prisoner, am borne irresistibly to the land of dreams.”

  “That will go into my next piece for the Herald.”

  During all this, Blaine was constantly beaming, shaking hands, greeting one and all, as he talked to me. “I’m glad you’re not as hard on us as Charlie Nordhoff. Now, he’s what I call something fierce.”

  “That’s because I’m just the curious man from the outside, while Nordhoff is the furious man on the inside.” Nice, I thought to myself (and duly record here for possible use later).

  “Ever since the Democrats won the House away from us, they’ve been smelling blood. They’re on our trail. And November they’ll try their very best to get their hands on this fine old house, too.” Expansively Blaine gestured, striking General Grant a light blow on the shoulder.

  Feeling his arm in contact with someone else, Blaine turned to apologize; then his eyes went wide when he realized that it was the President he had struck. The Grants were now at the center of the doorway, preparing to make their entrance.

  “My God! I mean, my General. I didn’t see you.”

  “Quite all right, Mr. Blaine. This season it is the custom to strike the President on sight.” Grant’s face did not lose its usual hurt puzzled expression, but the drollery was swift and engaging. As I anticipated, he is no fool. I was not prepared, however, for the quality of his voice, which is low and musical and not at all what one would expect in a military man. The late Prince d’Agrigente, marshal of France, had a voice like that of a whooping crane, and easily audible, I should have thought, from Moscow to St. Petersburg (shrieking, “Retreat!”).

  Side by side the Grants marched (or, in his case, tottered) toward one end of the East Room. We were then lined up to be presented. Behind the President stood some sort of master of protocol who murmured our names as we were presented. I was gratified that Emma was the first lady to be presented, since little Baron Jacobi had no intention of letting her go and, as guest of honour, he took precedence. Lacking any rank, I was amongst the last to touch hands, for that is about all that either General or Mrs. Grant does.

  Close to, one finds that the General’s eyes are still alert, though the sharp clear blue of the early portraits has gone somewhat cloudy with age. The hair must have been a rust colour originally; now it is mostly grey. A prominent wart to one side of the beard is the last part of the face that one can see, for mouth and chin are entirely hidden by the famous neatly cropped beard.

  The President, I should mention, wore evening dress. I don’t know why, but I had expected him to be in full uniform, wearing a hundred bright medals. When my name was mentioned, I saw that he knew exactly who I was. He frowned. Perhaps he also smiled as well; it is hard to tell, since the mouth is hidden. He muttered something that I could not hear. I suspect it was “Good evening.”

  I moved on to Mrs. Grant. A small stout counterpart of her husband, Julia Dent Grant is uncommonly plain, with eyes that look toward each other, giving her face a slightly crazed expression, as if one eye could not fathom why the other eye was staring into it. The senior James Gordon Bennett’s eyes were equally crossed, but stared only toward Heaven.

  “I’ve had the pleasure earlier of meeting your daughter, the Princess, Mr. Schuyler.” The voice was nasal and somewhat Southern (she comes originally from Missouri); the manner was easy.

  “You are too kind to invite us here…” I was polite, even apologetic, feeling something of a traitor in that room.

  “I also know that you have both been more than kind to my friends General and Mrs. Belknap.” This was said firmly and more loudly than was needful. I looked at the President. He had heard, and was not pleased. With the gesture of a rider transferring the reins of a horse to a groom, he handed the guest he had just greeted over to Mrs. Grant, forcing me to move on.

  “You remember Colonel Claypoole,” said the President loudly, and I was swiftly succeeded by the Colonel, whom Mrs. Grant did remember.

  So much for my first encounter with the world’s most famous general. I must say, right off, that I found Grant less impressive than Andrew Jackson, who
se hand I had also shaken in that same room. Yet I do detect some strange quality in Grant that is very deep. (Yes, I recall that Hawthorne said of his old friend President Pierce that he was “deep, deep, deep” when of course Pierce was shallow, shallow, shallow). But where Jackson was entirely the splendid border aristocrat, visibly pleased with himself and his place in history, Grant is—well, not deep but puzzling. For one thing, the hurt face is perfectly contradicted by the confident voice, by the swift intelligent gaze that simultaneously takes in and dismisses—reflective of a military genius that for some reason has not translated into politics as it ought to have done, for, contrary to legend, generals are almost by definition adept politicians.

  Presently we were led in to dinner. The state dining room reflects the taste of Mrs. Grant: nightmarishly rich, complicated, and dark.

  We sat at a huge horseshoe table. I was something like a mile below the salt. On my right I had the wife of a French diplomat (an omen?); and on the other side Mrs. James Garfield. She bears the resonant name of Lucretia, and appears to be a woman of strong character; she is pleasant-looking with auburn hair piled high on her head, contrary to the prevailing fashion. “I’ve met the Princess already,” she confided, as the slow procession of huge platters of hammered gold, of worked silver, made the rounds; all told, we were served twenty-five courses and six good wines. “She was at poor Puss Belknap’s house.”

  “Oh, yes. Emma told me,” I lied. It is curious how secretive Emma is. Although we talk, I think, with perfect frankness about everything and everyone, I am forever startled to discover that, unknown to me, she has dined with the Belmonts, say, or chatted with Lucretia Garfield at the Belknaps’ house. Emma finds it easy to keep a secret. I don’t. But then she is a secret, and I am not.