by Willa Cather
terrible operations, and our girls going shabby and teaching in the ward
schools, and Rosamond riding about in a limousine and building country
houses,--and you do nothing about it. You take your honours--you've
deserved them, we never forget that--and move into your new house, and
you don't remember what it is to be in straitened circumstances."
St. Peter drew his chair nearer to Mrs. Crane, and addressed her
patiently. "Mrs. Crane, if you had any legal rights in the patent, I'd
defend them against Rosamond as soon as against anyone else. I think she
ought to recognize Dr. Crane's long friendship and helpfulness to Tom in
some way. I don't see just how it can be done, but I feel it should be.
And if you wish I'll tell Rosamond how I feel. Why don't you put this
matter before her?"
"I don't care to ask anything of Mrs. Marsellus. I wrote her some time
ago, and she replied to me through her lawyer, saying that all claims
against the Outland patent would be considered in due order. It's not
worthy of a man in Robert's position to accept hush money from the
Marselluses. We want justice, and my brother is confident the court will
give it to us."
"Well, I suppose Bright knows more about what the courts will do than I.
But if you've decided to go to law about it, why did you come to me?"
"There are some things the law don't cover," said Mrs. Crane
mysteriously, as she rose and put on her gloves. "I wanted you to know
how we feel about it."
St. Peter followed her downstairs and put up her umbrella for her, and
then went back to his study to think it over. His friendship with Crane
had been a strange one. Out in the world they would almost certainly
have kept clear of each other; but in the university they fought
together in a common cause. Both, with all their might, had resisted the
new commercialism, the aim to "show results" that was undermining and
vulgarizing education. The State Legislature and the board of regents
seemed determined to make a trade school of the university. Candidates
for the degree of Bachelor of Arts were allowed credits for commercial
studies; courses in bookkeeping, experimental farming, domestic science,
dress-making, and what not. Every year the regents tried to diminish the
number of credits required in science and the humanities. The liberal
appropriations, the promotions and increases in salary, all went to the
professors who worked with the regents to abolish the purely cultural
studies. Out of a faculty of sixty, there were perhaps twenty men who
made any serious stand for scholarship, and Robert Crane was one of the
staunchest. He had lost the Deanship of the College of Science because
of his uncompromising opposition to the degrading influence of
politicians in university affairs. The honour went, instead, to a much
younger man, head of the department of chemistry, who was willing "to
give the taxpayers what they wanted."
The struggle to preserve the dignity of the university, and their own,
had brought St. Peter and Dr. Crane much together. They were, moreover,
the only two men on the faculty who were doing research work of an
uncommercial nature, and they occasionally dropped in on one another to
exchange ideas. But that was as far as it went. St. Peter couldn't ask
Crane to dinner; the presence of a bottle of claret on the table would
have made him uncomfortable. Dr. Crane had all the prejudices of the
Baptist community in which he grew up. He carried them with him when he
went to study at a German university, and brought them back. But Crane
knew that none of his colleagues followed his work so closely, and
rejoiced at his little triumphs so heartily, as St. Peter.
St. Peter couldn't help admiring the man's courage; poor, ill,
overworked, held by his conscience to a generous discharge of his duties
as a teacher, he was all the while carrying on these tedious and
delicate experiments that had to do with determining the extent of
space. Fortunately, Crane seemed to have no social needs or impulses. He
never went anywhere, except, once or twice a year, to a dinner at the
President's house. Music disturbed him too much, dancing shocked him--he
couldn't see why it was permitted among the students. Once, after Mrs.
St. Peter had set next to him at the President's dinner-table, she said
to her husband: "The man is too dreary! All evening his heavy underwear
kept coming down below his cuffs, and he kept poking it back with his
forefinger. I believe he thinks it's wicked to live with even so plain a
woman as Mrs. Crane."
After Tom Outland graduated from the university, he and Dr. Crane worked
side by side in the Physics building for several years. The older man
had been of great assistance to the younger, without doubt. Though that
kind of help, the result of criticism and suggestion, is not easily
reckoned in percentages, still St. Peter thought Crane ought to get
something out of the patent. He resolved to see Louie about it. But
first he had better talk with Crane himself, and try to dissuade him
from going to law. His brother-in-law, Homer Bright, would be tempted by
the publicity which an action involving the Outland patent would
certainly bring him. But he would lose the case, and Crane would get
nothing. Whereas Louie, if he were properly approached, would be
generous.
St. Peter looked at his watch. He would go home now, and after dinner he
would walk over to the Physics building, where his colleague worked
every night. He never went to see Crane at his house if he could help
it. He lived in the most depressing and unnecessary ugliness.
Chapter 13
At dinner Lillian asked him no questions about his interview with Mrs.
Crane, and he volunteered no information. She was not surprised,
however, when he said he would not stop for a cigar, as he was going
over to the Physics laboratory.
He walked through the park, past the old house and across the north end
of the campus, to a building that stood off by itself in a grove of
pine-trees. It was constructed of red brick, after an English model. The
architect had had a good idea, and he very nearly succeeded in making a
good thing, something like the old Smithsonian building in Washington.
But after it was begun, the State Legislature had defeated him by
grinding down the contractor to cheap execution, and had spoiled
everything, outside and in. Ever since it was finished, plumbers and
masons and carpenters had been kept busy patching and repairing it.
Crane and St. Peter, both young men then, had wasted weeks of time with
the contractors, and had finally gone before the Legislative committee
in person to plead for the integrity of that building. But nothing came
of all their pains. It was one of many lost causes.
St. Peter entered the building and went upstairs to a small room at the
end of a chain of laboratories. After knocking, he heard the familiar
shuffle of Crane's carpet slippers, and the door opened.
Crane was wearing a grey cotton coat, shrunk to a rag by washing, though
he
wasn't working with fluids or batteries tonight, but at a roll-top
desk littered with papers. The room was like any study behind a lecture
room; dusty books, dusty files, but no apparatus--except a spirit-lamp
and a little saucepan in which the physicist heated water for his cocoa
at regular intervals. He was working by the glare of an unshaded
electric bulb of high power--the man seemed to have no feeling for
comfort of any kind. He asked his visitor to sit down, and to excuse him
for a moment while he copied some entries into a note-book.
St. Peter watched him scribbling with his fountain pen. The hands that
were so deft in delicate manipulations were white and soft-looking; the
fingers long and loosely hung, stained with chemicals, and blunted at
the tips like a violinist's. His head was square, and the lower part of
his face was covered by a reddish, matted beard. His pale eyes and
fawn-coloured eyebrows were outbalanced by his mouth, his most
conspicuous feature. One always remembered about Crane that unexpected,
startling red mouth in a setting of kinky beard. The lips had no
modelling, they were as thick at the corners as in the middle, and he
spoke through them rather than with them. He seemed painfully conscious
of them.
St. Peter saw no use in beating about the bush. As soon as Crane put
down his pen, he remarked that Mrs. Crane had been to see him that
afternoon. His colleague flushed, took up a large celluloid paper-knife,
and began shutting and unshutting his hands about the blade.
"I want to know exactly how you feel about this, and what the facts
are," St. Peter began. "We've never discussed it before, and there may
be things I know nothing about. Did Tom ever say that he meant you to
have a share in his profits, if there were any?"
"No, not exactly. Not exactly that." Dr. Crane moved his shoulders about
in his tight coat and looked embarrassed and unhappy. "More than once he
said, in a general way, that he hoped it would go, on my account as well
as on his own, and that we would use the income for further
experiments."
"Did he talk much about the possible commercial value of the gas while
he was trying to make it?"
"Not much. No, very seldom. Perhaps not more than half a dozen times in
the three years he was working in my laboratory. But whenever he did, he
spoke as if there would be something in it for both of us if our gas
became remunerative."
"Just how much was it 'our gas,' Crane?"
"Strictly speaking, of course, it wasn't. The idea was Outland's. He
benefited by my criticism, and I often helped him with his experiments.
He never acquired a nice laboratory technic. He would fail repeatedly in
some perfectly sound experiment because of careless procedure."
"Do you think he would have arrived at his results without your help?"
Dr. Crane was clenching the paper-knife with both hands. "That I cannot
say. He was impatient. He might have got discouraged and turned to
something else. He would have been much slower in getting his results,
at any rate. 'His conception was right, but very delicate manipulation
was necessary, and he was a careless experimentor."
St. Peter felt that this was becoming nothing less than
cross-examination. He tried to change the tone of it.
"I want to see you get recognition and compensation for whatever part
you had in his experiments, if there's any way to get it. But you've
been neglectful, Crane. You haven't taken the proper steps. Why in the
world didn't you have some understanding with Tom when he was getting
his patent? You knew all about it."
"It didn't occur to me then. We'd finished the experiments, and I put
them out of my mind. I was trying to concentrate on my own work. His
results weren't as interesting scientifically as I'd expected them to
be."
"While his manuscripts and formul� were lying here those two years, did
you ever make the gas, or give any study to its behaviour?"
"No, of course not. It's off my own line, and didn't interest me."
"Then it's only since this patent has begun to make money that it does
interest you?"
Dr. Crane twisted his shoulders. "Yes. It's the money."
"Heaven knows I'd like to see you get some of it. But why did you put it
off so long? Why didn't you make some claim when you delivered the
papers to his executor, since you hadn't done so before? Why didn't you
bring the matter up to me then, and let me make a claim against the
estate for you?"
Dr. Crane could endure his chair no longer. He began to walk softly
about in his slippers, looking at nothing, but, as he talked, picking up
objects here and there,--drawing-tools, his cocoa-cup, a china
cream-pitcher, turning them round and carefully putting them down again,
just as he often absently handled pieces of apparatus when he was
lecturing.
"I know," he said, "appearances are against me. But you must understand
my negligence. You know how little opportunity a man has to carry on his
own line of investigation here. You know how much time I give to any of
my students who are doing honest work. Outland was, of course, the most
brilliant pupil I ever had, and I gave him time and thought without
stint. Gladly, of course. If he were reaping the rewards of his
discovery himself, I'd have nothing to say--though I've not the least
doubt he would compensate me liberally. But it does not seem right that
a stranger should profit, and not those who helped him. You, of course,
do profit--indirectly, if not directly. You cannot shut your eyes to the
fact that this money, coming into your family, has strengthened your
credit and your general security. That's as it should be. But your claim
was less definite than mine. I spent time and strength I could ill
afford to spare on the very series of experiments that led to this
result. Marsellus gets the benefit of my work as well as Outland's. I
have certainly been ill-used--and, as you say, it's difficult to get
recompense when I ask for it so late. It's not to my discredit,
certainly, that I didn't take measures to protect my interests. I never
thought of my student's work in terms of money. There were others who
did, and I was not considered," he concluded bitterly.
"Why don't you put in a claim to Marsellus, for your time and expert
advice? I think he'd honour it. He is going to live here. He probably
doesn't wish to be more unpopular than a suddenly prosperous man is
bound to be, and you have many friends. I believe I can convince him
that it would be poor policy to disregard any reasonable demand."
"I had thought of that. But my wife's brother advises a different
course."
"Ah, yes. Mrs. Crane said something of that sort. Well, Crane, if you're
going to law about it, I hope you'll consult a sound lawyer, and you
know as well as I that Homer Bright is not one."
Dr. Crane coloured and bridled. "I'm sure you are disinterested, St.
Peter, but, frankly, I think your judgment has been warped by events.
You don't realize how clear the matter
is to unprejudiced minds. Though
I'm such an unpractical man, I have evidence to rest my claims upon."
"The more the better, if you are going to depend on such a windbag as
Bright. If you go to law, I'd like to see you win your case."
St. Peter said good-night, went down the stairs, and out through the
dark pine-trees. Evidence, Crane said; probably letters Tom had written
him during the winter he was working at Johns Hopkins. Well, there was
nothing to be done, unless he could get old Dr. Hutchins to persuade
Crane to employ an intelligent lawyer. Homer Bright's rhetoric might
influence a jury in a rape or bigamy case, but it would antagonize a
judge in an equity court.
The Professor took a turn in the park before going home. The interview
had depressed him, and he was afraid he might be wakeful. He had never
seen his colleague in such an unbecoming light before. Crane was narrow,
but he was straight; a man you could count on in the shifty game of
college politics. He had never been out to get anything for himself. St.
Peter would have said that nothing about the vulgar success of Outland's
idea could possibly matter to Crane, beyond gratifying his pride as a
teacher and friend.
The park was deserted. The arc-lights were turned off. The leafless
trees stood quite motionless in the light of the clear stars. The world
was sad to St. Peter as he looked about him; the lake-shore country flat
and heavy, Hamilton small and tight and airless. The university, his new
house, his old house, everything around him, seemed insupportable, as
the boat on which he is imprisoned seems to a sea-sick man. Yes, it was
possible that the little world, on its voyage among all the stars, might
become like that; a boat on which one could travel no longer, from which
one could no longer look up and confront those bright rings or
revolution.
He brought himself back with a jerk. Ah, yes, Crane; that was the
trouble. If Outland were here to-night, he might say with Mark Antony,
My fortunes have corrupted honest men.
Chapter 14
At the end of the semester, St. Peter went to Chicago with Rosamond to
help her buy things for her country house. He had very much wanted to
stay at home and rest--the university work seemed to take it out of him
that winter more than ever before; but Rosamond had set her mind on his
going, and Mrs. St. Peter told him he couldn't refuse. A Chicago
merchant had brought over a lot of old Spanish furniture, and on this
nobody's judgement would be better than St. Peter's. He was supposed to
know a good deal about rugs, too. When his wife said a thing must be
done, the Professor usually did it, from long-established habit. Her
instincts about what one owed to other people were better than his.
Louie accompanied them to Chicago, where he was to join his brother, the
one who was in the silk trade in China, and go on to New York with him
for a family reunion. St. Peter was amused, and pleased, to see that
Louie sincerely hated to leave them--with very little encouragement he
would have sent his brother on alone and remained in Chicago with his
wife and father-in-law. They all lunched together, after which the
Professor and Rosamond took the Marsellus brothers to the La Salle Street
station. When Louie had again and again kissed his hand to them from the
rear platform of the Twentieth Century observation car, and was rolled
away in the very act of shouting something to his wife, St. Peter, who
had so often complained that there was to much Louie in his life, now
felt a sudden drop, a distinct sense of loss.
He took Rosamond's arm, and they turned away from the shining rails. "We
must be diligent, Rosie. He expects wonders of us."