The Strong City

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  “Liebchen,” he croaked, in his dying voice.

  He had never spoken this word to her before, and she was shatteringly touched, so touched that she began to weep, this young thing who had never known love or tenderness.

  “Do not weep,” he had whispered, painfully, and he had reached out and placed his cooling and skeleton-like hand on hers. “But listen to me, my child. I have so little time. I have not been a father to you. But there was no time!” he cried, brokenly. “Never time for the things I must do—never time enough.”

  She had felt, then, the first sorrow for him, the first heart-breaking knowledge of what his impotence had meant to him.

  “Listen to me,” he had panted. And he lifted his hand and pointed to the rows and rows of books which lined one side of the poor room. “There is everything I have believed, of goodness and peace and justice. They are all I have to leave you. Read them, many, many times, over and over. You are only a maiden. But you will have children. You will tell them of these things, my grandchildren.” He looked at her piercingly, and for the last time the flame leapt upward into his dying eyes. “You will go to America. My grandchildren will be born there. In America, there is still hope for the world.”

  “I will go to America,” she promised him, and was frightened. America! She had no desire to go to America. She had not thought of it before.

  He had died soon after that. He had kissed her, she remembered, kissed her with lips like dry dead leaves. But to the last he had looked at her, with the flame in his eyes.

  As she sat now beside Franz she suddenly laughed, with such bitterness that he became alert and deeply interested.

  “Why do you laugh?” he asked.

  “I am thinking of my father,” she said.

  He disliked her cold and acrid smile. “Why should he make you laugh?”

  But she did not answer him. Then, finally, she said: “He believed in so many foolish things. He was entirely without reason. He never knew reality.”

  Franz studied her keenly. Then he began to smile with contempt, thinking of the uncle he remembered from his childhood.

  Franz said: “You are still young, Irmgard. You must forget your father. There is all your life before you. If you would only let yourself live, and enjoy living.”

  He added: “You are so stolid. There is no passion in you.”

  She turned fully to him now, smiling bitterly. “You know so many things which are not so. I am not passive, nor stolid, not dead. I could love life, and all the things of life with great zest. But because I see no opportunity for having any of this, I will not allow myself to groan over them, and be miserable.”

  He knew then that she had never spoken so to any one else in the world, had never revealed herself so, and he was taken aback with a kind of shame. She was so honest, so young. He had been invading her privacy only because of a perverse curiosity, and she had shown him herself, without reticence or duplicity.

  “There is opportunity here for everything,” he said, with lameness, still preoccupied with his sense of shame.

  “Do you believe that—you?” she asked, looking at him with her cold green eyes which saw everything.

  He laughed, as a shield against those eyes.

  “With reservations. Opportunity is here for any man strong enough to take it. The weak, of course, never see opportunity.”

  “And you think you are strong enough to take it?”

  Now he could speak with frankness. “Yes, I believe I am strong enough. I am making the effort.” He clasped one knee with his hands, and looked away from her over the countryside. His whole big strong body expressed his inexorable confidence in himself. “I have no delusions about my capacities. I am intelligent. I understand men and life. I never waste time in any regrets because I am no genius. But I know how to get things from other men. I know how to exploit them for my own advantage. You think that wrong?” he asked, turning with a smile to her.

  She was silent. He lit his pipe and smoked it tranquilly. He was thinking of many things, the things he had set in motion. He smiled to himself.

  “What is it you want,” she asked, after a little, with curiosity.

  “Money. Not just a little, not just enough to be safe. That is the aspiration of small men, men who are contented with the leavings. I want millions. I want to make myself too strong for any other man to attack me successfully—”

  She interrupted him, with a laugh of sheer gloating and triumph: “You are afraid!”

  He glared at her, suddenly flushing.

  “You are afraid of life!” she cried again, with a sort of amazement at her discovery, and a deep malice. “I would never have believed it, if you hadn’t told me yourself!”

  He could not endure her smiling contempt, her triumph. Yet he knew that she had spoken the truth. He hated her for this, hated her for revealing him to himself, to his own ignominy. Yet, in some obscure way, he knew that she disliked him less for this discovery, and even felt some compassion for him. It was the knowledge of this compassion which infuriated him. He could have struck her.

  “It is more than that, but you would not know it,” he said, through tight pale lips.

  She looked at him for a long time. Then she said quietly: “Yes, I see there is more, more than the fear. There is hatred of all other men.”

  He could smile now. “Perhaps. What is there in other men to love? They are all beasts in the jungle. They are all animated by only one desire, to tear and rend other men and devour their bodies. Those who say this is not true are hypocrites. The first and only law of life is to devour or be devoured. This is not a new theory, invented by me. Clever men have realized this long before.

  “I won’t be devoured. To survive, I must devour. I shall do this.”

  “And take pleasure in the devouring,” said Irmgard, with renewed contempt.

  “It is the world’s greatest pleasure,” he assured her.

  “And you think money will make you entirely safe, Franz? Nothing will reach you through it?”

  “Nothing.” There was so much confidence in his voice that she felt desolate again, and utterly alone. Her father had thought dreams would make him and the world safe. And she had been alone, alone like this.

  “One must be realistic,” Franz was saying. He laughed a little. “The old men of the Bible were realists, not dreamers. One of them said: ‘He that is despised and hath a servant, is better than he that honoureth himself, and lacketh bread.’ And another said: ‘Wealth maketh many friends; but the poor is separated from his neighbor.’ And how wise was the old man who said: ‘All the brethren of the poor do hate him: how much more do his friends go far from him? He pursueth them with words, yet they are wanting to him.’ And last, but certainly not least, to me: The rich man’s wealth is his strong city—.’

  He spoke freely, not slowly, feeling his way, as he did with others. With this girl he could be himself, knowing that even if she despised him, she also understood him. When with her, it was like taking off clothes that bound, shoes that pinched, belts that inhibited. It was an unmasking, after which he was revealed, breathing easily. Even he could not completely understand why he felt so relieved. He had thought himself above the petty desires of other men, and the desire for confession and unburdening. He had not thought himself cramped and muzzled. But the ease that followed his frankness with his cousin, was the ease that followed the relaxing of muscles too tired, too tense, and too cramped. Even the unscrupulous, it seemed, needed a father confessor.

  “But all this,” said Irmgard, “comes to nothing in the end but that you are afraid.”

  He was not angry, now, but annoyed, though he flushed. “How you dwell on fear! But perhaps you are right. We all live in fear of something, and because we fear it, we hate it. Who is there without fear?”

  Irmgard was about to say: “No one.” But then she remembered her father. He had never been afraid! The thought was like a dazzling light suddenly come into a dark room. He had never been afraid. In
all her life, she had known no other man who had never feared anything. He had suffered and endured all things, for a thing which was greater than himself. Men feared, for the things they wanted were only of their own stature, and they knew how readily they could be assailed and lost. But Emil Hoeller had loved and served something greater and stronger than himself, something he believed imperishable, and so he had been freed of all fear. Perfect love still overcame all things, but this love was not self-love, and it still cast out fear.

  “I never understood my father before,” she said, almost inaudibly.

  “He was an idealist, and all idealists are fools,” said Franz.

  But Irmgard was lost in rapt contemplation of her father. Her eyes still looked at the cold and barren country, but she was seeing the vision her father had seen. It dazzled and stupefied her, filled her with awe and humility, and a fragile joy, touching and too beautiful for endurance. She did not believe the vision, but she saw it. He had believed, and though he had died for it, he had died, believing. How lovely to believe in that vision! Nothing, then, which life and circumstance might do, could create a lasting pain, a lasting despair, a lasting sorrow. It had been said that a people without vision must perish. But a man with a vision lived forever. His life was like a mirror which caught the sun and reflected it in the darkest and most hidden places, even into prison houses, even into the pits of hell.

  Tears filled the girl’s eyes, and they were tears for herself because she had no such vision. She looked at Franz, and it seemed to her that he was all barrenness, all sterility, all emptiness. She said as she had said that night a long time ago:

  “You are empty.”

  It seemed to her a sad and frightful thing, this emptiness. She felt its own echoes in herself.

  He stared at her young face, so pale and sorrowful. He looked at her lips and eyes. And he thought to himself: There is nobody in the world for me, but this girl. No matter what happens, she must belong to me. His expression became so gentle then, so kind, that she was startled and unbearably touched.

  “Do not say such things to me, Irmgard,” he said.

  He did not touch her, but she felt as though he had put his arms about her. Her mouth trembled. She smiled a little, and again was inundated with joy.

  “My father wanted me to come to America,” she said, speaking automatically to hide her thoughts.

  “He thought you might find his dream here?” asked Franz, and though his voice was cynical, it was still gentle. “It is good he never came here, himself. America is green fruit rotting on the bough before it ripens. It was born yesterday; it is dying today. Most nations pass from barbarism to civilization and maturity, evolving an art and a vision. But America is passing from barbarism into another kind of barbarism, like an ape dressing in men’s clothes.” He added: “It has no civilization, no art and no vision.”

  “If you think this, why do you stay here?” She was obscurely wounded and angry for her father’s sake, for her father who had believed in the vision that might come true in America. She felt that in some way that dead face had been trampled upon by rude boots.

  “Because America has what I want: the opportunity for strong men to attain anything they are strong enough to attain. It is the biggest jungle that the world has ever known.”

  “And you think you are strong?”

  She stood up, now. The memory of her father’s face was like a spear in her side.

  “Yes,” he said, quietly, standing beside her. “I am strong.”

  They went down the hill again. Soon they were driving down the road in a sudden twilight that was blue and cold, and infinitely mournful.

  There is no springtime here, Emmi had said. There is no springtime in this land.

  But Emil Hoeller had believed there was a springtime in America.

  CHAPTER 24

  They drove along again, in renewed silence. Now the twilight had come, and the sky became a boiling mass of gray clouds, streaked with writhing black whips. The wind, held in check during the day by the sun, roared back upon the earth with a thousand dark voices. Once Franz got out of the livery hack to put up the side curtains. Though the rain had not yet come, the air was full of its scent. Within a few minutes it became very cold, so that Irmgard’s feet began to ache.

  “Do you not think we ought to turn back?” she asked, peering out into the darkness through the cracked ising-glass window in the curtain.

  “No. We have only half a mile to go to the inn,” he answered.

  Because of the wind they could not even hear the horse, trotting anxiously in the sudden night. They could hear only that wind, increasing in strength. Then the rain came, loud, rattling, thundering on the roof of the buggy. The road had become rutty, and the light flimsy vehicle began to sway. Irmgard was thrown repeatedly upon Franz’s shoulder, and at each impact a wave of mingled repulsion, terror and ecstasy rolled over her. She could not see him, but she heard his breath in the tiny cave of their rolling refuge. Once she thought: I would not care if this lasted forever. And was overcome with renewed terror and wondering disgust at herself. She could not understand the peace that came to her between the waves of the terror and amazement. Their bodies made a slight warmth in the darkness. Finally, because of the increased swaying of the hack, Franz put his arm about her. Her body stiffened momentarily, then relaxed. She closed her eyes, listening to the wind and rain outside, and Franz’s quiet breathing.

  A light flickered now in the distance. They arrived at the inn. Irmgard was surprised to see that the earth was running with livid water. The trees that surrounded the inn bent almost double before the gale. It stopped the girl’s breath, and she was obliged to clutch her skirts and her bonnet. Her hair was torn loose about her face, which immediately became drenched with rain. Laughing, they ran together to the inn, after hitching the cowering horse.

  The inn was a small and shabby place, gritty and untidy. Irmgard, who had vaguely expected some replica of a clean, bright, warm German tavern, was much depressed. It was hardly more than an enlarged shack, and was used mostly by commercial travellers between Nazareth and Windsor. It was flimsily built of wood, which was left unfinished within, and roughly painted. Irmgard saw a large bar, very dirty, an open fire, and a few tables covered with turkey-red cloth. She had a glimpse of an impoverished “parlor” beyond, filled with wooden rocking chairs, two leather sofas and a tinny piano. One glass lamp burned dismally on a distant table, showing the distempered walls and the cold fireplace filled with ostrich feathers.

  She wanted nothing so much as to leave. But the proprietor, a surprised big fat man in his shirt-sleeves and wearing an apron, came forward and led them to a table. He gaped frankly at Irmgard, and rubbed his dirty hands on his apron. He informed Franz that he had nothing to offer in the way of supper but some country ham, some eggs, coffee and bread. “I really do not want anything,” said Irmgard, hurriedly. But Franz ignored her, and ordered.

  No one else was in the tavern, apparently, but themselves. The dirty, unwashed and uncurtained windows ran with cataracts of water. Irmgard removed her bonnet and ruefully contemplated the spotted velvet. She smoothed her hair. Franz sat near her, and he smiled at her dismay.

  “A nasty place,” he said, but with no note of apology. “But it was recommended to me. I ought to have known better.”

  The proprietor affably brought them some beer. He spoke to them both, but stared insolently at Irmgard. “Bad night. Nobody with sense travelling much. Goin’ to Windsor?”

  “No,” said Franz, shortly. The man wandered away. They sipped their beer. It was very bad, and with wry faces, they put down the glasses.

  “Only in Germany have they the secret of making beer,” said Franz.

  For some obscure reason, his tone annoyed Irmgard. But she pressed her lips together. They were always quarrelling, it seemed. She lifted her eyes and looked at him, and their glances met and held. Irmgard laughed a little, to cover her sudden confusion.

  “I have never b
een in an American inn before,” she said.

  Her face, recovering from the cold outside, was very flushed. In the dim mingling of lamplight and firelight, her eyes glittered with sparkling green lights. Franz smiled. “You have missed nothing,” he said, somewhat absently.

  Irmgard, drawing her eyes from his with an effort, looked about the room and shivered a little. The air was dusty and stagnant, and in spite of the fire, very cold. It was laden with the mingled odors of beer, kerosene and frying fat. She felt slightly sick.

  “Americans have not learned to live,” said Franz.

  “They will, in time,” she replied.

  “No, I think not. There is something missing in them. What the Germans would call a ‘soul.’ Perhaps they will become more garish, more elaborate, more luxurious, but they still will not have a soul. I have felt it. I know. Perhaps it is because so many millions of the soulless and the rootless have come to America, carrying their empty drabness with them. They are a race of plebeians, or perhaps it would be best to say that they are a mingling of all plebeian races.”

  “Including, then, we Germans,” said Irmgard, tartly. “Do not forget there are many, many thousands of us here, too.”

  Franz smiled. “Perhaps there is something in America which kills the souls of men, and makes them either cattle or machines.”

  “You ought, indeed, to go back to the Fatherland, then,” said Irmgard, with increasing tartness. “A man of your sensibilities should not stay in America,”

  The proprietor, hearing a foreign tongue, was disappointed. This couple was so unusual, so handsome, so well-dressed, that he had thought them a grand lady and gentleman. Now, it appeared, they were only “foreigners.” He brought the ham and eggs to them with considerable disgruntled condescension, and said: “Guess you better pay now.”

  Franz lifted his light blue eyes and held the man as one transfixed.