AN ELOQUENCE OF GRIEF*
The windows were high and saintly, of the shape that is found in churches. From time to time a policeman at the door spoke sharply to some incoming person. “Take your hat off!” He displayed in his voice the horror of a priest when the sanctity of a chapel is defied or forgotten. The courtroom was crowded with people who sloped back comfortably in their chairs, regarding with undeviating glances the procession, and its attendant and guardian policemen, that moved slowly inside the spear-topped railing. All persons connected with a case went close to the magistrate’s desk before a word was spoken in the matter, and then their voices were toned to the ordinary talking strength. The crowd in the courtroom could not hear a sentence; they could merely see shifting figures, men that gestured quietly, women that sometimes raised an eager eloquent arm. They could not always see the judge, although they were able to estimate his location by the tall stands surmounted by white globes that were at either hand of him. And so those who had come for curiosity’s sweet sake wore an air of being in wait for a cry of anguish, some loud painful protestation that would bring the proper thrill to their jaded, world-weary nerves—wires that refused to vibrate for ordinary affairs.
Inside the railing the court officers shuffled the various groups with speed and skill; and behind the desk the magistrate patiently toiled his way through mazes of wonderful testimony.
In a corner of this space devoted to those who had business before the judge, an officer in plain clothes stood with a girl that wept constantly. None seemed to notice the girl, and there was no reason why she should be noticed, if the curious in the body of the courtroom were not interested in the devastation which tears bring upon some complexions. Her tears seemed to burn like acid, and they left fierce pink marks on her face. Occasionally the girl looked across the room, where two well-dressed young women and a man stood waiting with the serenity of people who are not concerned as to the interior fittings of a jail.
The business of the court progressed, and presently the girl, the officer, and the well-dressed contingent stood before the judge. Thereupon two lawyers engaged in some preliminary firewheels, which were endured generally in silence. The girl, it appeared, was accused of stealing fifty dollars’ worth of silk clothing from the room of one of the well-dressed women. She had been a servant in the house.
In a clear way, and with none of the ferocity that an accuser often exhibits in a police court, calmly and moderately, the two young women gave their testimony. Behind them stood their escort, always mute. His part, evidently, was to furnish the dignity, and he furnished it heavily, almost massively.
When they had finished, the girl told her part. She had full, almost Afric lips, and they had turned quite white. The lawyer for the others asked some questions, which he did—be it said, in passing—with the air of a man throwing flowerpots at a stone house.
It was a short case and soon finished. At the end of it the judge said that, considering the evidence, he would have to commit the girl for trial. Instantly the quick-eyed court officer began to clear the way for the next case. The well-dressed women and their escort turned one way and the girl turned another, toward a door with an austere arch leading into a stone-paved passage. Then it was that a great cry rang through the courtroom, the cry of this girl who believed that she was lost.
The loungers, many of them, underwent a spasmodic movement as if they had been knifed. The court officers rallied quickly. The girl fell back opportunely for the arms of one of them, and her wild heels clicked twice on the floor. “I am innocent! Oh, I am innocent!”
People pity those who need none, and the guilty sob alone; but, innocent or guilty, this girl’s scream described such a profound depth of woe, it was so graphic of grief, that it slit with a dagger’s sweep the curtain of commonplace, and disclosed the gloom-shrouded specter that sat in the young girl’s heart so plainly, in so universal a tone of the mind, that a man heard expressed some far-off midnight terror of his own thought.
The cries died away down the stone-paved passage. A patrolman leaned one arm composedly on the railing, and down below him stood an aged, almost toothless wanderer, tottering and grinning.
“Plase, yer honor,” said the old man as the time arrived for him to speak, “if ye’ll lave me go this time, I’ve niver been dhrunk befoor, sir.”
A court officer lifted his hand to hide a smile.
1896?
[The Open Boat and Other Stories. London:
William Heinemann (April 18, 1898), pp. 267–270.]
* Midnight Sketches.
THE AUCTION*
Some said that Ferguson gave up sailoring because he was tired of the sea. Some said that it was because he loved a woman. In truth it was because he was tired of the sea and because he loved a woman.
He saw the woman once, and immediately she became for him the symbol of all things unconnected with the sea. He did not trouble to look again at the gray old goddess, the muttering slave of the moon. Her splendors, her treacheries, her smiles, her rages, her vanities were no longer on his mind. He took heels after a little human being, and the woman made his thought spin at all times like a top; whereas the ocean had only made him think when he was on watch.
He developed a grin for the power of the sea, and, in derision, he wanted to sell the red-and-green parrot which had sailed four voyages with him. The woman, however, had a sentiment concerning the bird’s plumage, and she commanded Ferguson to keep it, in order, as it happened, that she might forget to put food in its cage.
The parrot did not attend the wedding. It stayed at home and blasphemed at a stock of furniture, bought on the installment plan, and arrayed for the reception of the bride and groom.
As a sailor, Ferguson had suffered the acute hankering for port; and being now always in port, he tried to force life to become an endless picnic. He was not an example of diligent and peaceful citizenship. Ablution became difficult in the little apartment, because Ferguson kept the washbasin filled with ice and bottles of beer: and so, finally, the dealer in second-hand furniture agreed to auction the household goods on commission. Owing to an exceedingly liberal definition of a term, the parrot and cage were included. “On the level?” cried the parrot. “On the level? On the level? On the level?”
On the way to the sale, Ferguson’s wife spoke hopefully. “You can’t tell, Jim,” she said. “Perhaps some of ’em will get to biddin’, and we might get almost as much as we paid for the things.”
The auction room was in a cellar. It was crowded with people and with house furniture; so that as the auctioneer’s assistant moved from one piece to another he caused a great shuffling. There was an astounding number of old women in curious bonnets. The rickety stairway was thronged with men who wished to smoke and be free from the old women. Two lamps made all the faces appear yellow as parchment. Incidentally they could impart a luster of value to very poor furniture.
The auctioneer was a fat, shrewd-looking individual who seemed also to be a great bully. The assistant was the most imperturbable of beings, moving with the dignity of an image on rollers. As the Fergusons forced their way down the stairway, the assistant roared: “Number twenty-one!”
“Number twenty-one!” cried the auctioneer. “Number twenty-one! A fine new handsome bureau! Two dollars? Two dollars is bid! Two and a half! Two and a half! Three? Three is bid. Four! Four dollars! A fine new handsome bureau at four dollars! Four dollars! Four dollars! F-o-u-r d-o-l-l-a-r-s! Sold at four dollars.”
“On the level?” cried the parrot, muffled somewhere among furniture and carpets. “On the level? On the level?” Every one tittered.
Mrs. Ferguson had turned pale, and gripped her husband’s arm. “Jim! Did you hear? The bureau—four dollars—”
Ferguson glowered at her with the swift brutality of a man afraid of a scene. “Shut up, can’t you!”
Mrs. Ferguson took a seat upon the steps; and hidden there by the thick ranks of men, she began to softly sob. Through her tears appeared
the yellowish mist of the lamplight, streaming about the monstrous shadows of the spectators. From time to time these latter whispered eagerly: “See, that went cheap!” In fact when anything was bought at a particularly low price, a murmur of admiration arose for the successful bidder.
The bedstead was sold for two dollars, the mattresses and springs for one dollar and sixty cents. This figure seemed to go through the woman’s heart. There was derision in the sound of it. She bowed her head in her hands. “Oh, God, a dollar sixty! Oh, God, a dollar sixty!”
The parrot was evidently under heaps of carpet, but the dauntless bird still raised the cry, “On the level?”
Some of the men near Mrs. Ferguson moved timidly away upon hearing her low sobs. They perfectly understood that a woman in tears is formidable.
The shrill voice went like a hammer, beat and beat, upon the woman’s heart. An odor of varnish, of the dust of old carpets, assailed her and seemed to possess a sinister meaning. The golden haze from the two lamps was an atmosphere of shame, sorrow, greed. But it was when the parrot called that a terror of the place and of the eyes of the people arose in her so strongly that she could not have lifted her head any more than if her neck had been of iron.
At last came the parrot’s turn. The assistant fumbled until he found the ring of the cage, and the bird was drawn into view. It adjusted its feathers calmly and cast a rolling wicked eye over the crowd.
“Oh, the good ship Sarah sailed the seas,
And the wind it blew all day—”
This was part of a ballad which Ferguson had tried to teach it. With a singular audacity and scorn, the parrot bawled these lines at the auctioneer as if it considered them to bear some particular insult.
The throng in the cellar burst into laughter. The auctioneer attempted to start the bidding, and the parrot interrupted with a repetition of the lines. It swaggered to and fro on its perch, and gazed at the faces of the crowd, with so much rowdy understanding and derision that even the auctioneer could not confront it. The auction was brought to a halt; a wild hilarity developed, and every one gave jeering advice.
Ferguson looked down at his wife and groaned She had cowered against the wall, hiding her face. He touched her shoulder, and she arose. They sneaked softly up the stairs with heads bowed.
Out in the street, Ferguson gripped his fists and said: “Oh, but wouldn’t I like to strangle it!”
His wife cried in a voice of wild grief: “It—it m-made us a laughingstock in—in front of all that crowd!”
For the auctioning of their household goods, the sale of their home—this financial calamity lost its power in the presence of the social shame contained in a crowd’s laughter.
1896?
[The Open Boat and Other Stories. London:
William Heinemann (April 18, 1898), pp. 273–277.]
* Midnight Sketches.
A POKER GAME
Usually a poker game is a picture of peace. There is no drama so low-voiced and serene and monotonous. If an amateur loser does not softly curse, there is no orchestral support. Here is one of the most exciting and absorbing occupations known to intelligent American manhood; here a year’s reflection is compressed into a moment of thought; here the nerves may stand on end and scream to themselves, but a tranquillity as from heaven is only interrupted by the click of chips. The higher the stakes the more quiet the scene; this is a law that applies everywhere save on the stage.
And yet sometimes in a poker game things happen. Everybody remembers the celebrated corner on bay rum that was triumphantly consummated by Robert F. Cinch, of Chicago, assisted by the United States courts and whatever other federal power he needed. Robert F. Cinch enjoyed his victory four months. Then he died, and young Bobbie Cinch came to New York in order to more clearly demonstrate that there was a good deal of fun in twenty-two million dollars.
Old Henry Spuytendyvil owns all the real estate in New York save that previously appropriated by the hospitals and Central Park. He had been a friend of Bob’s father. When Bob appeared in New York, Spuytendyvil entertained him correctly. It came to pass that they just naturally played poker.
One night they were having a small game in an uptown hotel. There were five of them, including two lawyers and a politician. The stakes depended on the ability of the individual fortune.
Bobbie Cinch had won rather heavily. He was as generous as sunshine, and when luck chases a generous man it chases him hard, even though he cannot bet with all the skill of his opponents.
Old Spuytendyvil had lost a considerable amount. One of the lawyers from time to time smiled quietly, because he knew Spuytendyvil well, and he knew that anything with the name of loss attached to it sliced the old man’s heart into sections.
At midnight Archie Bracketts, the actor, came into the room. “How you holding ’em, Bob?” said he.
“Pretty well,” said Bob.
“Having any luck, Mr. Spuytendyvil?”
“Blooming bad,” grunted the old man.
Bracketts laughed and put his foot on the round of Spuytendyvil’s chair. “There,” said he, “I’ll queer your luck for you.” Spuytendyvil sat at the end of the table. “Bobbie,” said the actor, presently, as young Cinch won another pot, “I guess I better knock your luck.” So he took his foot from the old man’s chair and placed it on Bob’s chair. The lad grinned good-naturedly and said he didn’t care.
Bracketts was in a position to scan both of the hands. It was Bob’s ante, and old Spuytendyvil threw in a red chip. Everybody passed out up to Bobbie. He filled in the pot and drew a card.
Spuytendyvil drew a card. Bracketts, looking over his shoulder, saw him holding the ten, nine, eight, and seven of diamonds. Theatrically speaking, straight flushes are as frequent as berries on a juniper tree, but as a matter of truth the reason that straight flushes are so admired is because they are not as common as berries on a juniper tree. Bracketts stared; drew a cigar slowly from his pocket, and, placing it between his teeth, forgot its existence.
Bobbie was the only other stayer. Bracketts flashed an eye for the lad’s hand and saw the nine, eight, six, and five of hearts. Now, there are but six hundred and forty-five emotions possible to the human mind, and Bracketts immediately had them all. Under the impression that he had finished his cigar, he took it from his mouth and tossed it toward the grate without turning his eyes to follow its flight.
There happened to be a complete silence around the green-clothed table. Spuytendyvil was studying his hand with a kind of contemptuous smile, but in his eyes there perhaps was to be seen a cold, stern light expressing something sinister and relentless.
Young Bob sat as he had sat. As the pause grew longer, he looked up once inquiringly at Spuytendyvil.
The old man reached for a white chip. “Well, mine are worth about that much,” said he, tossing it into the pot. Thereupon he leaned back comfortably in his chair and renewed his stare at the five straight diamonds. Young Bob extended his hand leisurely toward his stack. It occurred to Bracketts that he was smoking, but he found no cigar in his mouth.
The lad fingered his chips and looked pensively at his hand. The silence of those moments oppressed Bracketts like the smoke from a conflagration.
Bobbie Cinch continued for some moments to coolly observe his cards. At last he breathed a little sigh and said, “Well, Mr. Spuytendyvil, I can’t play a sure thing against you.” He threw in a white chip. “I’ll just call you. I’ve got a straight flush.” He faced down his cards.
Old Spuytendyvil’s fear, horror, and rage could only be equaled in volume to a small explosion of gasoline. He dashed his cards upon the table. “There!” he shouted, glaring frightfully at Bobbie. “I’ve got a straight flush, too! And mine is Jack high!”
Bobbie was at first paralyzed with amazement, but in a moment he recovered, and, apparently observing something amusing in the situation, he grinned.
Archie Bracketts, having burst his bond of silence, yelled for joy and relief. He smote Bobbie on the sho
ulder. “Bob, my boy,” he cried exuberantly, “you’re no gambler, but you’re a mighty good fellow, and if you hadn’t been you would be losing a good many dollars this minute.”
Old Spuytendyvil glowered at Bracketts. “Stop making such an infernal din, will you, Archie,” he said morosely. His throat seemed filled with pounded glass. “Pass the whiskey.”
1896?
[Last Words. London: Digby, Long & Co.
(March, 1902), pp. 263–267.]
A MAN AND SOME OTHERS
I
Dark mesquite spread from horizon to horizon. There was no house or horseman from which a mind could evolve a city or a crowd. The world was declared to be a desert and unpeopled. Sometimes, however, on days when no heat mist arose, a blue shape, dim, of the substance of a specter’s veil, appeared in the southwest, and a pondering sheepherder might remember that there were mountains.
In the silence of these plains the sudden and childish banging of a tin pan could have made an iron-nerved man leap into the air. The sky was ever flawless; the maneuvering of clouds was an unknown pageant; but at times a sheepherder could see, miles away, the long white streamers of dust rising from the feet of another’s flock, and the interest became intense.
Bill was arduously cooking his dinner, bending over the fire and toiling like a blacksmith. A movement, a flash of strange color perhaps, off in the bushes, caused him to suddenly turn his head. Presently he arose, and, shading his eyes with his hand, stood motionless and gazing. He perceived at last a Mexican sheepherder winding through the brush toward his camp.
“Hello!” shouted Bill.
The Mexican made no answer, but came steadily forward until he was within some twenty yards. There he paused and, folding his arms, drew himself up in the manner affected by the villain in the play. His serape muffled the lower part of his face, and his great sombrero shaded his brow. Being unexpected and also silent, he had something of the quality of an apparition; moreover, it was clearly his intention to be mystic and sinister.
The Complete Short Stories and Sketches of Stephen Crane Page 44