1876

by Gore Vidal

“Naturally, I asked her if she knew poor Kate Sprague.” It would seem that all ladies are “poor” to proud Lucretia.

  “Yes, Emma sees her often at Paris. I’m afraid I hardly know her.”

  “What a comedown in the world it must be for her.” Mrs. Garfield could not hide her pleasure, which was increased, as was mine, by the arrival of those Maryland crabs I have developed such a taste for. She, too, is addicted to Maryland crab. “Even though it took me years to get up the nerve to eat one. I mean, they don’t grow them back in Ohio.” She ate a crab—shell, claws and all; and kept on talking. “I used to be so jealous of Kate I couldn’t bear to be in the same room with her.”

  This confidence was most unusual. Jealousy is one emotion never admitted to by those who live on the political and social heights. “You see, General Garfield was a protégé of her father, Chief Justice Chase. We’re all from Ohio, you know, and of course it’s no secret that before my husband married me, he was out of his head for Kate, so pretty she was in those days, though General Garfield did tell me that he thought her nose a trifle pug. But I think he just said that to keep me quiet. Anyway, she was the absolute queen of Washington from Mr. Lincoln’s time right up to the Panic, when she lost everything and had to move to Europe.” The pleasure in learning that others have lost money is apparently a universal one. Aaron Burr used to brighten visibly when he heard that yet another of the republic’s founders had gone bankrupt.

  “Not everything,” I was to the point. “She has acquired Senator Conkling.”

  This took some wind from Lucretia’s voluminous sails. But they soon filled again. “True. But I cannot see what earthly good it will do either of them. Rather the contrary, since each is married.”

  “Divorce?”

  “She has grounds, I’ll say that, poor girl. And no one would mind. I mean Bill Sprague is mad as a hatter, and a drunk, and dangerous. But Mrs. Conkling is a perfect lady.”

  “Then come next January Mrs. Conkling will be in this room, doing the honours.” I gestured toward Mrs. Grant, whose eyes managed most diplomatically to fix the attention of each dinner partner simultaneously.

  “Oh, I’m not so sure of that.” Lucretia Garfield refused claret, which I drank (too much of, I fear; my tremor has returned, but the low recurring fever of the last few days is gone). “I should say that Mrs. Blaine will be at the head of this table, poor woman. She has such a good mind. But six children! I mean she has no peace.”

  “But Mr. Blaine is not, as far as I know, a general, and I thought the people only elect generals nowadays.”

  “Senator Conkling isn’t a general either, and he’s the President’s personal choice.” This is the first indication, if true, that Grant has a preference.

  “Not that General Grant will try to interfere,” Mrs. Garfield continued. “That’s not his way. But he’d like to see Senator Conkling get the nomination. If Mr. Conkling doesn’t get it—and of course he can’t, for ever so many reasons, among them poor Kate—the President would like to see poor Mr. Fish as president, and he can’t be nominated either. So it will have to be Mr. Blaine, or so my husband thinks,” she added, for the first time ceasing to be an expert in her own right and acknowledging her satellite-ship to Garfield’s sun.

  The wife of the French diplomat was more amused than amusing. Although entirely tactful, she managed to make fun of our great republic’s leaders; and I confess that looking about the dining room, at the grim small President thoughtfully chewing a piece of charred beef (the best thing I have heard about Grant is that he cannot bear the sight of blood; nor will he “eat anything that walks,” as he puts it, “on two legs,” removing poultry and the human race from his diet); at the plump solemn officers of state got up in mouldy black (Emma is quite right: the odour of Washington’s imperfectly washed and laundered statesmen is oppressive); at the overdressed preening ladies, looking like so many farmers’ wives in fancy dress, I could not help but agree that our social scene is seriously lacking in “tong.” But while I regard it as perfectly natural for me to make sharp comments, I find it peculiarly unbearable to hear my own criticisms voiced by a decidedly second-rate Frenchwoman.

  “It is the strength of this republic,” I spoke sententiously, in the rolling French periods of a Chateaubriand, “to take from every class its leaders, particularly in time of war. Naturally, you will say”—the poor woman was not about to say anything—“that by constantly changing those leaders we fail to create a continuing sense of splendour and of hierarchy but—and bear this forever in mind—by so doing we avoid the tyrant’s sway.” I can do this sort of thing in French by the hour. In fact, I once competed at Saint-Gratien with the novelist Flaubert, who also has a pet characterization known as l’idiot. After one hour of listening to the two of us, I with my gracious Dr. Pangloss looking forever foolishly on the bright side and Flaubert with his idiot, prone not only to rapturous arias in which not one original thing is said (“I adore the Gothic! It aspires to be!”) but to the most alarming facial tics and inadvertent lunges of the body, Princess Mathilde agreed that we were equally horrendous. When dinner was done, the French lady fled me gratefully.

  The gentlemen stood about after the ladies retired. Baron Jacobi sought me out. “I am desolate to think that your daughter—and you, too, sir—will not be permanent in this city.”

  “I am sad, too. We’ve been most marvellously entertained here.” The Baron conducted the conversation in German, a language I speak not too easily.

  “I read, of course, your piece on the last days of the Emperor Napoleon—” I detected a malicious glitter in his eyes, and stopped him in his tracks.

  “Perfect rubbish,” I said. “But one cannot live by The Nation alone.”

  “I admired your Cavour. I knew him.” The little man reads everything; spoke knowledgeably of Cavour; also, mentioned some old pieces of mine for the North American Review, and asked if I knew its current editor. I said that I did not.

  “A splendid man, a fine scholar—”

  We were interrupted by the genial Mr. Blaine. “What is this strange language that I hear?”

  Baron Jacobi shifted to English; told Blaine of our common admiration for the editor of the North American Review. “In fact, I believe that the editor’s father, Mr. Charles Francis Adams, is being spoken of to lead your party. That is, if you, Mr. Blaine, should not choose to succeed General Grant.” This was a most mischievous remark for a diplomat to make, I thought, but then mischief is, apparently, Baron Jacobi’s style.

  “My dear Baron, I have no idea, nor does anyone save the Almighty, if that cup will pass to me or, if it does, whether I will drink thereof.” Blaine has a fine comic style when he chooses, cheerfully willing to parody the ponderous locutions of the American statesman, so like the ubiquitous carnival salesman of snakeroot oil. “But I can tell you one thing. If any Adams should ever again be elected president, he will kill his own party just as dead as the other two President Adamses killed theirs. Show me a President Adams, sir, and I will show you a particide.”

  The Baron was called away, and for a moment I had Blaine to myself. “How do you think the election will be fought? On what issues…General?”

  Blaine gave me a most comical look. “Mr. Schuyler, I served my country in the late conflict as best I could by editing the Kennebec Journal, and supporting with fiery editorials the Union cause, not to mention each and every one of our brave boys in blue.”

  Kennebec reminded me suddenly of Benedict Arnold’s invasion of Canada during the Revolution. I mentioned this. Blaine was intrigued. “We’ve got all sorts of legends about Arnold up in those parts. Aaron Burr, too, who was with him. You were a protégé of Colonel Burr, weren’t you?” A polite euphemism, often employed by the press. I acknowledged a relationship and passed quickly on to the election.

  “Well, your friend Mr. Tilden will make a great noise about corruption in Washington, and I must
say after Babcock, Schenck, and Belknap, all three so fast in a row, he’ll be able to make some good points. But I don’t think that corruption ever really excites the people one way or the other.”

  “What does?”

  Blaine indicated the silent stubby figure of the President, held captive by a number of his eager guests as well as by his high office. “The fear of the North at the South. The resentment of the South at the North.”

  “The war’s been over for ten years. There are other issues. Civil service reform—”

  I was interrupted graciously but firmly. “Our people vote only against what they fear, what they dislike. Since more people resent the South than fear the North, we shall win, as usual, providing things cool down a bit.”

  “No more scandals?”

  “Not too many more.” Blaine smiled, the shiny black eyes alert. “Besides, if your friend Governor Tilden is nominated, I suspect he is going to have to spend most of his time explaining—well, about this and that. I mean he was a railroad lawyer, and precious few of them ever taught Sunday School.”

  But my interview with what now looks to be the next president was causing jealousy; and Blaine was taken from me. I found myself with a member of Congress from somewhere in the West who said, “I have a subject for your literary talents, Mr. Schuyler. I suggest we collaborate, as I have not the time to write the narrative myself. We would split the profits, naturally. What about sixty per cent for me, forty for you?”

  I felt positively giddy—jeune fille or, rather, jeune poule, being bid for. “I don’t, I fear, collaborate…”

  “You will, on this story.” The man—I still don’t know his name—looked about furtively to make sure that no one was listening. Needless to say, no one was. Each of the powerful men had managed to collect a crowd about him. Blaine’s was the largest, as he is expected to be the next president. Grant’s was next in size (although he is the president, he will be gone in less than a year and so does not need cultivating). Garfield, Chandler and others I did not recognize stood at the centers of lesser groups beneath the smoking chandeliers.

  “I know who murdered Abraham Lincoln.”

  “So do I.” I did my best. “The actor Booth.”

  The man shook his head pityingly. “You believe that, too, I see.”

  “Well, Booth was observed behaving in a most suspicious way after the murder, jumping onto the stage of Ford’s Theatre, denouncing the President…”

  “But, Mr. Schuyler, cui bono? Who profits?”

  “Mr. Booth’s histrionic mania.”

  “But who, above all, profited?”

  “The Vice President, I suppose, who succeeded him, Mr. Johnson.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But he, too, is dead now. So—”

  “Others are alive, sir. And certain of those who were responsible for Lincoln’s murder are present in this very room tonight.”

  I fled the madman by attaching myself to General Garfield, who was now working his own way toward the President. As I bade Garfield good evening, the handsome face beamed down at me and he took my hand. Because of a twisted arm, he has an odd habit when shaking hands of slowly and powerfully first pulling, then turning you toward him. “Lucretia certainly enjoyed her talk with you, and insists you and the Princess come see us.”

  Incidentally and à propos nothing, I did not celebrate my sixty-third birthday today. Both Emma and I had forgotten it entirely. As of 1:00 A.M., March 27, I have nothing to say about old age and death, except to note how unsettling it is to find oneself so much older than the leaders of this country. Garfield and Blaine and Conkling are in their mid-forties; each young enough to be my son. The world hero General Grant is almost a decade younger than I; yet in his sombre presence, I feel myself reduced to boyish irrelevance.

  The time I was allowed to spend in that high presence was not long. Garfield graciously started to present me, but the President cut him short, not rudely but firmly. “We have had the honour.” Again I was struck by the beautiful voice emerging from that grizzled and—well, stupid-looking—face.

  “Perhaps you’ve read Mr. Schuyler in the Ledger on the Emperor Napoleon…” Garfield did his best, but it was not enough.

  “I think Chancellor Bismarck the greatest man in Europe. I would like to meet him.” Tangential but significant statement: Bismarck destroyed the Emperor and the Empire.

  “The Chancellor certainly understands the uses and the ends of power.” I rallied: my North American Review style can, usually, dominate any discussion.

  “Then he must be lonely.” There was a sort of twitch at the beard’s center that might have been a smile.

  “Lonely because no one else knows what he knows?”

  “Yes, sir.” For a moment there was silence. General Grant had simply stopped. I am told that this is a familiar tactic of his, calculated to put the other person on the defensive as well as to save himself from boredom, not to mention indiscretion. But then, uncha­racte­risti­cally, as Garfield said later, the President suddenly began to speak, most fluently. “For me the use of power was simply a trust, given me to maintain the Union at any cost.”

  “And using that power, you achieved the end you wanted.”

  “Well, when a war stops there is a halt, but I don’t know that it’s an end. The fight goes on in other ways, doesn’t it, General?” He turned to Garfield, who proceeded to speak so eloquently and so animatedly that I cannot remember one word he said, so busy was I staring at General Grant, as if there might be some external clue, some magical wart that would explain him to me.

  “…as in the case of Santo Domingo.” I did hear Garfield say that because it was—is—the wrong subject to mention in Grant’s presence.

  The President scowled. “Sir, we had every right to intervene in Santo Domingo. And if I had not been stopped by the Congress that island would be ours today, and prosperous. After all, it was their own president who asked us in.”

  Note (added later): According to Nordhoff, at the beginning of Grant’s Administration, the ubiquitous Babcock had worked out a plan with the corrupt president of Santo Domingo for the United States to annex that country for a price which was then to be divided by the Santo Domingan president, Babcock and (enemies say) Grant himself. Congress refused to pay for the annexation, to Grant’s fury.

  Garfield was soothing. “There were so many misunderstandings at that time.”

  Emboldened by wine (and by my sixty-third birthday: what have I to fear of any man? particularly a soon-to-be former President), I said, “I have often wondered, sir, at the change in your own policy. You condemned the Mexican War of ’47 which ended in our seizing from Mexico all the land north of the Rio Grande. Yet twenty years later you wanted to annex Santo Domingo without consulting that nation’s people.”

  I shall not be asked to the White House again during the Grant Administration. But I think that my impolite and highly apposite challenge was worthwhile. At least I did not have to listen to the usual tedious discourse on horses that most people are treated to by this canny and deliberately dull little man who is, I would say, like the first Bonaparte, entirely immoral or amoral, but unlike the Emperor, burdened with the Puritan’s sense of sin and retribution. This combination can make for confusion.

  I got a long stare from the President: the eyes suddenly very clear, very bright with anger. Garfield was plainly distraught at my lèse-majesté.

  When General Grant’s response finally came, it was characteristic. “The president of Mexico did not invite us to invade his country and attach a part of it to the United States. The president of Santo Domingo offered me his country for a fair price. By wanting to buy this island I did no more than Mr. Jefferson when he agreed to buy Louisiana, or than Mr. Johnson when he agreed to buy Alaska.”

  The audience was at an end. The President led the way into the Red Room, where Mrs. Grant reign
ed.

  “Well,” said Garfield, somewhat shaken, “I never thought I’d hear anybody tax General Grant on that subject, and in the White House.”

  “Bad manners, I know.” I was reckless because of the sixty-third birthday; also, the Grant Administration must of necessity be the chief target of Governor Tilden and I must do what I can to help prepare the case for the prosecution. “But I was curious. And he did bring up the subject first, in a way, by mentioning Bismarck.”

  We followed the crowd of men into the Red Room.

  “I’ve almost never heard anyone get him on the defensive like that.”

  “It is the privilege, General, of the historian, and of the old.”

  Happily, while I was shutting for myself the White House doors, Emma was opening them wide for herself. Mrs. Grant has taken a fancy to her, and Emma is to return soon to the mansion for a ladies’ afternoon.

  “She also told me how she found out the President wasn’t going to stand for a third term.”

  We were preparing for bed, the long evening at an end.

  “From the newspapers?”

  “Almost. She said that she’d gone into the President’s office on a Sunday afternoon. He wasn’t there, but the Cabinet was all present, which she thought very strange because the Cabinet never meets on a Sunday. When she asked the ministers why they were all there, they said it was simply coincidence. Then the President came in and she said, ‘Ulys’—she calls him that—’what’s happening?’ and he said, ‘Just wait till I light this cigar.’ And then he told her that he had met with the Cabinet and had read to them his statement that he would not be a candidate for president. Then while she had been talking to the ministers, he had sent off the letter. She was furious with Ulys. ‘Why didn’t you read me the letter, too?’ And he said, ‘Because if I had, I’d never have been allowed to post it and I don’t want to stay here another four years.’ She was quite fierce because she would like to spend the rest of her days in those hideous rooms.”

  It is late. I am tired. I am no wiser on the subject of General Grant than before. I suspect that he is as corrupt as those about him; otherwise, he would not have such men as intimates. Certainly, I shall never believe the usual Stalwart explanation: that Grant is a simpleton and does not understand politics or people. He understands both very well indeed and, I suspect, likes neither.