W.E.B. Du Bois, "Dark Princess" (1928) (full text)
Brace. On January 1, 2024, the book entered the public domain, allowing
it to be freely reproduced and disseminated. This version based on a
digital copy of the first edition available on the Internet Archive. Credit to Neal Caren.
Dedication
To Her High Loveliness
TITANIA XXVII
By Her Own Grace
Queen of Faerie
Commander of the Bath; Grand Medallion of Merit; Litterarum Humanarum
Doctor; Fidei Extensor; etc., etc,
Of Whose Faith and Fond Affection
This Romance
Was Surely Born
Part I. The Exile
August, 1923
Summer is come with bursting flower and promise of perfect fruit. Rain
is rolling down Nile and Niger. Summer sings on the sea where giant
ships carry busy worlds, while mermaids swarm the shores. Earth is
pregnant. Life is big with pain and evil and hope. Summer in blue New
York; summer in gray Berlin; summer in the red heart of the world!
I
Matthew Towns was in a cold white fury. He stood on the deck of the
Orizaba looking down on the flying sea. In the night America had
disappeared and now there was nothing but waters heaving in the bright
morning. There were many passengers walking, talking, laughing; but none
of them spoke to Matthew. They spoke about him, noting his tall, lean
form and dark brown face, the stiff, curled mass of his sinewy hair, and
the midnight of his angry eyes.
They spoke about him, and he was acutely conscious of every word. Each
word heard and unheard pierced him and quivered in the quick. Yet he
leaned stiff and grim, gazing into the sea, his back toward all. He saw
the curled grace of the billows, the changing blues and greens; and he
saw, there at the edge of the world, certain shining shapes that leapt
and played.
Then they changed—always they changed; and there arose the great cool
height of the room at the University of Manhattan. Again he stood before
the walnut rail that separated student and Dean. Again he felt the
bewilderment, the surge of hot surprise.
“I cannot register at all for obstetrics?”
“No,” said the Dean quietly, his face growing red. “I’m sorry, but the
committee—”
“But—but—why, I’m Towns. I’ve already finished two years—I’ve ranked my
class. I took honors—why—I—This is my Junior year—I must—”
He was sputtering with amazement.
“I’m sorry.”
“Hell! I’m not asking your pity, I’m demanding—”
The Dean’s lips grew thin and hard, and he sent the shaft home as if to
rid himself quickly of a hateful task.
“Well—what did you expect? Juniors must have obstetrical work. Do you
think white women patients are going to have a nigger doctor delivering
their babies?”
Then Matthew’s fury had burst its bounds; he had thrown his
certificates, his marks and commendations straight into the drawn white
face of the Dean and stumbled out. He came out on Broadway with its wide
expanse, and opposite a little park. He turned and glanced up at the
gray piles of tan buildings, threatening the sky, which were the
University’s great medical center. He stared at them. Then with bowed
head he plunged down 165th Street. The gray-blue Hudson lay beneath his
feet, and above it piled the Palisades upward in gray and green. He
walked and walked: down the curving drive between high homes and the
Hudson; by graveyard and palace; tomb and restaurant; beauty and smoke.
All the afternoon he walked, all night, and into the gray dawn of
another morning.
II
In after years when Matthew looked back upon this first sea voyage, he
remembered it chiefly as the time of sleep; of days of long, long rest
and thought, after work and hurry and rage. He was indeed very tired. A
year of the hardest kind of study had been followed by a summer as
clerical assistant in a colored industrial insurance office, in the heat
of Washington. Thence he had hurried straight to the university with
five hundred dollars of tuition money in his pocket; and now he was
sailing to Europe.
He had written his mother—that tall, gaunt, brown mother, hard-sinewed
and somber-eyed, carrying her years unbroken, who still toiled on the
farm in Prince James County, Virginia—he had written almost curtly: “I’m
through. I cannot and will not stand America longer. I’m off. I’ll write
again soon. Don’t worry. I’m well. I love you.” Then he had packed his
clothes, given away his books and instruments, and sailed in mid-August
on the first ship that offered after that long tramp of tears and rage,
after days of despair. And so here he was.
Where was he going? He glanced at the pale-faced man who asked him. “I
don’t know,” he answered shortly. The good-natured gentleman stared,
nonplused. Matthew turned away. Where was he going? The ship was going
to Antwerp. But that, to Matthew, was sheer accident. He was going away
first of all. After that? Well, he had thought of France. There they
were at least civilized in their prejudices. But his French was poor. He
had studied German because his teachers regarded German medicine as
superior to all other. He would then go to Germany. From there? Well,
there was Moscow. Perhaps they could use a man in Russia whose heart was
hate. Perhaps he would move on to the Near or Far East and find hard
work and peace. At any rate he was going somewhere; and suddenly letting
his strained nerves go, he dragged his chair to a sheltered nook apart
and slept.
To the few who approached him at all, Matthew was boorish and gruff. He
knew that he was unfair, but he could not help it. All the little
annoyances, which in healthier days he would have laughed away, avoided,
or shortly forgotten, now piled themselves on his sore soul. The
roommate assigned him discovered that his companion was colored and
quickly decamped with his baggage. A Roumanian who spoke little English,
and had not learned American customs, replaced him.
Matthew entered the dining-room with nerves a-quiver. Every eye caught
him during the meal—some, curiously; some, derisively; some, in
half-contemptuous surprise. He felt and measured all, looking steadily
into his plate. On one side sat an old and silent man. To the empty seat
on the other side he heard acutely a swish of silk approach—a pause and
a consultation. The seat remained empty. At the next meal he was placed
in a far corner with people too simple or poor or unimportant to
protest. He heaved a sigh to have it over and ate thereafter in silence
and quickly.
So at last life settled down, soothed by the sea—the rhythm and song of
the old, old sea. He slept and read and slept; stared at the water;
lived his life again to its wild climax; put down repeatedly the cold,
hard memory; and drifting, slept again.
Yet always, as he rose from the deep seas of sleep and reverie, the
silent battle with his fellows went on. Now he yearned fiercely for some
one to talk to; to talk and talk and explain and prove and disprove. He
glimpsed faces at times, intelligent, masterful. They had brains; if
they knew him they would choose him as companion, friend; but they did
not know him. They did not want to know him. They glanced at him
momentarily and then looked away. They were afraid to be noticed
noticing him.
And he? He would have killed himself rather than have them dream he
would accept a greeting, much less a confidence. He looked past and
through and over them with blank unconcern. So much so that a
few—simpler souls, themselves wandering alone hither and thither in this
aimless haphazard group of a fugitive week—ventured now and then to
understand: “I never saw none of you fellers like you—” began one
amiable Italian. “No?” answered Matthew briefly and walked away.
“You’re not lonesome?” asked a New England merchant, adding hastily,
“I’ve always been interested in your people.”
“Yes,” said Matthew with an intonation that stopped further conversation
along that line.
“No,” he growled at an insulted missionary, “I don’t believe in
God—never did—do you?”
And yet all the time he was sick at heart and yearning. If but one soul
with sense, knowledge, and decency had firmly pierced his awkwardly hung
armor, he could have helped make these long hard days human. And one
did, a moment, now and then—a little tow-haired girl of five or six with
great eyes. She came suddenly on him one day: “Won’t you play ball with
me?” He started, smiled, and looked down. He loved children. Then he saw
the mother approaching—typically Middle-West American, smartly dressed
and conscious of her social inferiority. Slowly his smile faded; quickly
he walked away. Yet nearly every day thereafter the child smiled shyly
at him as though they shared a secret, and he smiled slowly back; but he
was careful never to see the elaborate and most exclusive mother.
Thus they came to green Plymouth and passed the fortress walls of
Cherbourg and, sailing by merry vessels and white cliffs, rode on to the
Scheldt. All day they crept past fields and villages, ships and
windmills, up to the slender cathedral tower of Antwerp.
III
Sitting in the Viktoria Café, on the Unter den Linden, Berlin, Matthew
looked again at the white leviathan—at that mighty organization of white
folk against which he felt himself so bitterly in revolt. It was the
same vast, remorseless machine in Berlin as in New York. Of course,
there were differences—differences which he felt like a tingling pain.
He had on the street here no sense of public insult; he was treated as
he was dressed, and today he had dressed carefully, wearing the new suit
made for the opening school term; he had on his newest dark crimson tie
that burned with the red in his smooth brown face; he carried cane and
gloves, and he had walked into this fashionable café with an air. He
knew that he would be served, politely and without question.
Yes, in Europe he could at least eat where he wished so long as he paid.
Yet the very thought made him angry; conceive a man outcast in his own
native land! And even here, how long could he pay, he who sat with but
two hundred dollars in the world, with no profession, no work, no
friends, no country? Yes, these folks treated him as a man—or rather,
they did not, on looking at him, treat him as less than a man. But what
of it? They were white. What would they say if he asked for work? Or a
chance for his brains? Or a daughter in marriage? There was a blonde and
blue-eyed girl at the next table catching his eye. Faugh! She was for
public sale and thought him a South American, an Egyptian, or a rajah
with money. He turned quickly away.
Oh, he was lonesome; lonesome and homesick with a dreadful homesickness.
After all, in leaving white, he had also left black America—all that he
loved and knew. God! he never dreamed how much he loved that soft, brown
world which he had so carelessly, so unregretfully cast away. What would
he not give to clasp a dark hand now, to hear a soft Southern roll of
speech, to kiss a brown cheek? To see warm, brown, crinkly hair and
laughing eyes. God—he was lonesome. So utterly, terribly lonesome. And
then—he saw the Princess!
Many, many times in after years he tried to catch and rebuild that first
wildly beautiful phantasy which the girl’s face stirred in him. He knew
well that no human being could be quite as beautiful as she looked to
him then. He could never quite recapture the first ecstasy of the
picture, and yet always even the memory thrilled and revived him. Never
after that first glance was he or the world quite the same.
First and above all came that sense of color: into this world of pale
yellowish and pinkish parchment, that absence or negation of color,
came, suddenly, a glow of golden brown skin. It was darker than sunlight
and gold; it was lighter and livelier than brown. It was a living,
glowing crimson, veiled beneath brown flesh. It called for no light and
suffered no shadow, but glowed softly of its own inner radiance.
Then came the sense of the woman herself: she was young and tall even
when seated, and she bore herself above all with a singularly regal air.
She was slim and lithe, gracefully curved. Unseeing, past him and into
the struggling, noisy street, she was looking with eyes that were pools
of night—liquid, translucent, haunting depths—whose brilliance made her
face a glory and a dream.
Matthew pulled himself together and tried to act sensibly. Here—here in
Berlin and but a few tables away, actually sat a radiantly beautiful
woman, and she was colored. He could see the faultlessness of her dress.
There was a hint of something foreign and exotic in her simply draped
gown of rich, creamlike silken stuff and in the graceful coil of her
hand-fashioned turban. Her gloves were hung carelessly over her arm, and
he caught a glimpse of slender-heeled slippers and sheer clinging
hosiery. There was a flash of jewels on her hands and a murmur of beads
in half-hidden necklaces. His young enthusiasm might overpaint and
idealize her, but to the dullest and the oldest she was beautiful,
beautiful. Who was she? What was she? How came this princess (for in
some sense she must be royal) here in Berlin? Was she American? And how
was he—
Then he became conscious that he had been listening to words spoken
behind him. He caught a slap of American English from the terrace just
back and beyond.
“Look, there’s that darky again. See her? Sitting over yonder by the
post. Ain’t she some pippin? What? Get out! Listen! Bet you a ten-spot I
get her number before she leaves this cafe. You’re on! I know niggers,
and I don’t mean perhaps. Ain’t I white. Watch my smoke!”
Matthew gripped the table. All that cold rage which still lay like lead
beneath his heart began again to glow and burn. Action, action, it
screamed—no running and sulking now—action! There was murder in his
mind—murder, riot, and arson. He wanted just once to hit this white
American in the jaw—to see him spinning over the tables, and then to
walk out with his arm about the princess, through the midst of a gaping,
scurrying white throng. He started to rise, and nearly upset his coffee
cup.
Then he came to himself. No—no. That would not do. Surely the fellow
would not insult the girl. He could count on no public opinion in Berlin
as in New York to shield him in such an adventure. He would simply seek
to force his company on her in quite a natural way. After all, the café
was filling. There were no empty tables, at least in the forward part of
the room, and no one person had a right to a whole table; yet to
approach any woman thus, when several tables with men offered seats, was
to make a subtle advance; and to approach this woman?—puzzled and
apprehensive, Matthew sat quietly and watched while he paid his waiter
and slowly pulled on his gloves. He saw a young, smooth-faced American
circle carelessly from behind him and saunter toward the door. Then he
stopped, and turning, slowly came back toward the girl’s table. A cold
sweat broke out over Matthew. A sickening fear fought with the fury in
his heart. Suppose this girl, this beautiful girl, let the fresh
American sit down and talk to her? Suppose? After all, who—what was she?
To sit alone at a table in a European café—well, Matthew watched. The
American approached, paused, looked about the café, and halted beside
her table. He looked down and bowed, with his hand on the back of the
empty chair.
The lady did not start nor speak. She glanced at him indifferently,
unclasped her hands slowly, and then with no haste gathered up her
things; she nodded to the waiter, fumbled in her purse, and without
another glance at the American, arose and passed slowly out. Matthew
could have shouted.
But the American was not easily rebuffed by this show of indifference.
Apparently he interpreted the movement quite another way. Waving
covertly to his fellows, he arose leisurely, without ordering, tossed a
bill to the waiter, and sauntered out after the lady. Matthew rose
impetuously, and he felt that whole terrace table of men arise behind
him.
The dark lady had left by the Friedrichstrasse door, and paused for the
taxi which the gold-laced porter had summoned. She gave an address and
already had her foot on the step. In a moment the American was by her
side. Deftly he displaced the porter and bent with lifted hat. She
turned on him in surprise and raised her little head. Still the American
persisted with a smile, but his hand had hardly touched her elbow when
Matthew’s fist caught him right between the smile and the ear. The
American sat down on the sidewalk very suddenly.
Pedestrians paused. There was a commotion at the restaurant door as
several men rushed out, but the imposing porter was too quick; he had
caught the eye and pocketed the bill of the lady. In a moment, evidently
thinking the couple together, he had handed both her and Matthew into
the taxi, slammed the door, and they had whirled away. In a trice they
fled down the Friedrichstrasse, left across the Franzosische, again left
to Charlotten, and down the Linden. Matthew glanced anxiously back. They
had been too quick, and there was apparently no pursuit. He leaned
forward and spoke to the chauffeur, and they drove up to the curb near
the Brandenburg Gate and stopped.
“Mille remerciements, Monsieur!” said the lady.
Matthew searched his head for the right French answer as he started to
step out, but could not remember: “Oh—oh—don’t mention it,” he
stammered.
“Ah—you are English? I thought you were French or Spanish!”
She spoke clear-clipped English with perfect accent, to Matthew’s
intense relief. Suppose she had spoken only French! He hastened to
explain: “I am an American Negro.”
“An American Negro?” The lady bent forward in sudden interest and stared
at him. “An American Negro!” she repeated. “How singular—how very
singular! I have been thinking of American Negroes all day! Please do
not leave me yet. Can you spare a moment? Chauffeur, drive on!”
IV
As they sat at tea in the Tiergarten, under the tall black trees,
Matthew’s story came pouring out:
“I was born in Virginia, Prince James County, where we black folk own
most of the land. My mother, now many years a widow, farmed her little
forty acres to educate me, her only child. There was a good school there
with teachers from Hampton, the great boarding-school not far away. I
was young when I finished the course and was sent to Hampton. There I
was unhappy. I wanted to study for a profession, and they insisted on
making me a farmer. I hated the farm. My mother finally sent me North. I
boarded first with a cousin and then with friends in New York and went
through high school and through the City College. I specialized on the
premedical course, and by working nights and summers and playing
football (amateur, of course, but paid excellent ‘expenses’ in fact), I
was able to enter the new great medical school of the University of
Manhattan, two years ago.
“It was a hard pull, but I plunged the line. I had to have scholarships,
and I got them, although one Southern professor gave me the devil of a
time.”
The lady interrupted. “Southern?” she asked. “What do you mean by
‘Southern’?”
“I mean from the former slave States—although the phrase isn’t just
fair. Some of our most professional Southerners are Northern-born.”
The lady still looked puzzled, but Matthew talked on.
“This man didn’t mean to be unfair, but he honestly didn’t believe
‘niggers’ had brains, even if he had the evidence before him. He flunked
me on principle. I protested and finally had the matter up to the Dean;
I showed all my other marks and got a re-examination at an extra cost
that deprived me of a new overcoat. I gave him a perfect paper, and he
had to acknowledge it was ‘good,’ although he made careful inquiries to
see if I had not in some way cribbed dishonestly.
“At last I got my mark and my scholarship. During my second year there
were rumors among the few colored students that we would not be allowed
to finish our course, because objection had been made to colored
students in the clinical hospital, especially with white women patients.
I laughed. It was, I was sure, a put-up rumor to scare us off. I knew
black men who had gone through other New York medical schools which had
become parts of this great new consolidated school. There had been no
real trouble. The patients never objected—only Southern students and the
few Southern professors. Some of the trustees had mentioned the matter
but had been shamed into silence.
“Then, too, I was firm in my Hampton training; desert and hard work were
bound to tell. Prejudice was a miasma that character burned away. I
believed this thoroughly. I had literally pounded my triumphant way
through school and life. Of course I had met insult and rebuff here and
there, but I ignored them, laughed at them, and went my way. Those black
people who cringed and cowered, complained of failure and ‘no chance,’ I
despised—weaklings, cowards, fools! Go to work! Make a way! Compel
recognition!
“In the medical school there were two other colored men in my class just
managing to crawl through. I covertly sneered at them, avoided them.
What business had they there with no ability or training? I see
differently now. I see there may have been a dozen reasons why Phillips
of Mississippi could neither spell nor read correctly and why Jones of
Georgia could not count. They had had no hard-working mother, no
Hampton, no happy accidents of fortune to help them on.
“While I? I rose to triumph after triumph. Just as in college I had been
the leading athlete and had ridden many a time aloft on white students’
shoulders, so now, working until two o’clock in the morning and rising
at six, I took prize after prize—the Mitchel Honor in physiology, the
Welbright medal in pathology, the Shores Prize for biological chemistry.
I ranked the second-year class at last commencement, and at our annual
dinner at the Hotel Pennsylvania, sat at the head table with the medal
men. I remember one classmate. He was from Atlanta, and he hesitated and
whispered when he found his seat was beside me. Then he sat down like a
man and held out his hand. ‘Towns,’ he said, ‘I never associated with a
Negro before who wasn’t a servant or laborer; but I’ve heard of you, and
you’ve made a damned fine record. I’m proud to sit by you.’
“I shook his hand and choked. He proved my life-theory. Character and
brains were too much for prejudice. Then the blow fell. I had slaved all
summer. I was worked to a frazzle. Reckon my hard-headedness had a hand
there, too. I wouldn’t take a menial job—Pullman porter, waiter,
bell-boy, boat steward—good money, but I waved them aside. No! Bad for
the soul, and I might meet a white fellow student.”
The lady smiled. “Meet a fellow student—did none of them work, too?”
“O yes, but seldom as menials, while Negroes in America are always
expected to be menials. It’s natural, but—no, I couldn’t do it. So at
last I got a job in Washington in the medical statistics department of
the National Benefit. This is one of our big insurance concerns. O yes,
we’ve got a number of them; prosperous, too. It was hard work, indoors,
poor light and air; but I was interested—worked overtime, learned the
game, and gave my thought and ideas.
“They promoted me and paid me well, and by the middle of August I had my
tuition and book money saved. They wanted me to stay with them
permanently; at least until fall. But I had other plans. There was a
summer school of two terms at the college, and I figured that if I
entered the second term I could get a big lead in my obstetrical work
and stand a better show for the Junior prizes. I had applied in the
spring for admission to the Stern Maternity Hospital, which occupied
three floors of our center building. My name had been posted as
accepted. I was tired to death, but I rushed back to New York to
register. Perhaps if I had been rested, with cool head and nerves—well,
I wasn’t. I made the office of the professor of obstetrics on a hot
afternoon, August 10, I well remember. He looked at me in surprise.
“‘You can’t work in the Stern Hospital—the places are all taken.’
“‘I have one of the places,’ I pointed out. He seemed puzzled and
annoyed.
“‘You’ll have to see the Dean,’ he said finally.
“I was angry and rushed to the Dean’s office. I saw that we had a new
Dean—a Southerner.
“Then the blow fell. Seemingly, during the summer the trustees had
decided gradually to exclude Negroes from the college. In the case of
students already in the course, they were to be kept from graduation by
a refusal to admit them to certain courses, particularly in obstetrics.
The Dean was to break the news by letter as students applied for these
courses. By applying early for the summer course, I had been accepted
before the decision; so now he had to tell me. He hated the task, I
could see. But I was too surprised, disgusted, furious. He said that I
could not enter, and he told me brutally why. I threw my papers in his
face and left. All my fine theories of race and prejudice lay in ruins.
My life was overturned. America was impossible—unthinkable. I ran away,
and here I am.”
V
They had sat an hour drinking tea in the Tiergarten, that mightiest park
in Europe with its lofty trees, its cool dark shade, its sense of
withdrawal from the world. He had not meant to be so voluble, so
self-revealing. Perhaps the lady had deftly encouraged confidences in
her high, but gracious way. Perhaps the mere sight of her smooth brown
skin had made Matthew assume sympathy. There was something at once
inviting and aloof in the young woman who sat opposite him. She had the
air and carriage of one used to homage and yet receiving it
indifferently as a right. With all her gentle manner and thoughtfulness,
she had a certain faint air of haughtiness and was ever slightly remote.
She was “colored” and yet not at all colored in his intimate sense. Her
beauty as he saw it near had seemed even more striking; those thin,
smooth fingers moving about the silver had known no work; she was
carefully groomed from her purple hair to her slim toe-tips, and yet
with few accessories; he could not tell whether she used paint or
powder. Her features were regular and delicate, and there was a tiny
diamond in one nostril. But quite aside from all details of face and
jewels—her pearls, her rings, the old gold bracelet—above and beyond and
much more than the sum of them all was the luminous radiance of her
complete beauty, her glow of youth and strength behind that screen of a
grand yet gracious manner. It was overpowering for Matthew, and yet
stimulating. So his story came pouring out before he knew or cared to
whom he was speaking. All the loneliness of long, lonely days clamored
for speech, all the pent-up resentment choked for words.
The lady listened at first with polite but conscious sympathy; then she
bent forward more and more eagerly, but always with restraint, with that
mastery of body and soul that never for a moment slipped away, and yet
with so evident a sympathy and comprehension that it set Matthew’s head
swimming. She swept him almost imperiously with her eyes—those great
wide orbs of darkening light. His own eyes lifted and fell before them;
lifted and fell, until at last he looked past them and talked to the
tall green and black oaks.
And yet there was never anything personal in her all-sweeping glance or
anything self-conscious in the form that bent toward him. She never
seemed in the slightest way conscious of herself. She arranged nothing,
glanced at no detail of her dress, smoothed no wisp of hair. She seemed
at once unconscious of her beauty and charm, and at the same time
assuming it as a fact, but of no especial importance. She had no little
feminine ways; she used her eyes apparently only for seeing, yet seemed
to see all.
Matthew had the feeling that her steady, full, radiant gaze that
enveloped and almost burned him, saw not him but the picture he was
painting and the thing that the picture meant. He warmed with such an
audience and painted with clean, sure lines. Only once or twice did she
interrupt, and when he had ended, she still sat full-faced, flooding him
with the startling beauty of her eyes. Her hands clasped and unclasped
slowly, her lips were slightly parted, the curve of her young bosom rose
and fell.
“And you ran away!” she said musingly. Matthew winced and started to
explain, but she continued. “Singular,” she said. “How singular that I
should meet you; and today.” There was no coquetry in her tone. It was
evidently not of him, the hero, of whom she was thinking, but of him,
the group, the fact, the whole drama.
“And you are two—three millions?” she asked.
“Ten or twelve,” he answered.
“You ran away,” she repeated, half in meditation.
“What else could I do?” he demanded impulsively. “Cringe and crawl?”
“Of course the Negroes have no hospitals?”
“Of course, they have—many, but not attached to the great schools. What
can Howard (rated as our best colored school) do with thousands, when
whites have millions? And if we come out poorly taught and half
equipped, they sneer at ‘nigger’ doctors.”
“And no Negroes are admitted to the hospitals of New York?”
“O yes—hundreds. But if we colored students are confined to colored
patients, we surrender a principle.”
“What principle?”
“Equality.”
“Oh—equality.”
She sat for a full moment, frowning and looking at him. Then she fumbled
away at her beads and brought out a tiny jeweled box. Absently she took
out a cigarette, lighted it, and offered him one. Matthew took it, but
he was a little troubled. White women in his experience smoked of
course—but colored women? Well—but it was delicious to see her great,
somber eyes veiled in hazy blue.
She sighed at last and said: “I do not quite understand. But at any rate
I see that you American Negroes are not a mere amorphous handful. You
are a nation! I never dreamed—But I must explain. I want you to dine
with me and some friends tomorrow night at my apartment. We
represent—indeed I may say frankly, we are—a part of a great committee
of the darker peoples; of those who suffer under the arrogance and
tyranny of the white world.”
Matthew leaned forward with an eager thrill. “And you have plans? Some
vast emancipation of the world?”
She did not answer directly, but continued: “We have among us spokesmen
of nearly all these groups—of them or for them—except American Negroes.
Some of us think these former slaves unready for coöperation, but I just
returned from Moscow last week. At our last dinner I was telling of a
report I read there from America that astounded me and gave me great
pleasure—for I almost alone have insisted that your group was worthy of
coöperation. In Russia I heard something, and it happened so curiously
that—after sharp discussion about your people but last night (for I will
not conceal from you that there is still doubt and opposition in our
ranks)—that I should meet you today.
“I had gone up to the Palace to see the exhibition of new paintings—you
have not seen it? You must. All the time I was thinking absently of
Black America, and one picture there intensified and stirred my
thoughts—a weird massing of black shepherds and a star. I dropped into
the Viktoria, almost unconsciously, because the tea there is good and
the muffins quite unequaled. I know that I should not go there
unaccompanied, even in the day; white women may, but brown women seem
strangely attractive to white men, especially Americans; and this is the
open season for them.
“Twice before I have had to put Americans in their place. I went quite
unconsciously and noted nothing in particular until that impossible
young man sat down at my table. I did not know he had followed me out.
Then you knocked him into the gutter quite beautifully. It had never
happened before that a stranger of my own color should offer me
protection in Europe. I had a curious sense of some great inner meaning
to your act—some world movement. It seemed almost that the Powers of
Heaven had bent to give me the knowledge which I was groping for; and so
I invited you, that I might hear and know more.”
She rose, insisted on paying the bill herself. “You are my guest, you
see. It is late, and I must go. Then, tomorrow night at eight. My card
and address—Oh, I quite forgot. May I have your name?”
Matthew had no card. But he wrote in her tiny memorandum book with its
golden filigree, “Matthew Towns, Exile, Hotel Roter Adler.”
She held out her hand, half turning to go. Her slenderness made her look
taller than she was. The curved line of her flowed sinuously from neck
to ankle. She held her right hand high, palm down, the long fingers
drooping, and a ruby flamed dark crimson on her forefinger. Matthew
reached up and shook the hand heartily. He had, as he did it, a vague
feeling that he took her by surprise. Perhaps he shook hands too hard,
for her hand was very little and frail. Perhaps she did not mean to
shake hands—but then, what did she mean?
She was gone. He took out her card and read it. There was a little
coronet and under it, engraved in flowing script, “H.R.H. the Princess
Kautilya of Bwodpur, India.” Below was written, “Lützower Ufer, No. 12.”
VI
Matthew sat in the dining-room of the Princess on Lützower Ufer. Looking
about, his heart swelled. For the first time since he had left New York,
he felt himself a man, one of those who could help build a world and
guide it. He had no regrets. Medicine seemed a far-off, dry-as-dust
thing.
The oak paneling of the room went to the ceiling and there broke softly
with carven light against white flowers and into long lucent curves. The
table below was sheer with lace and linen, sparkling with silver and
crystal. The servants moved deftly, and all of them were white save one
who stood behind the Princess’ high and crimson chair. At her right sat
Matthew himself, hardly realizing until long afterward the honor thus
done an almost nameless guest.
Fortunately he had the dinner jacket of year before last with him. It
was not new, but it fitted his form perfectly, and his was a form worth
fitting. He was a bit shocked to note that all the other men but two
were in full evening dress. But he did not let this worry him much.
Ten of them sat at the table. On the Princess’ left was a Japanese,
faultless in dress and manner, evidently a man of importance, as the
deference shown him and the orders on his breast indicated. He was quite
yellow, short and stocky, with a face which was a delicately handled but
perfect mask. There were two Indians, one a man grave, haughty, and old,
dressed richly in turban and embroidered tunic, the other, in
conventional dress and turban, a young man, handsome and alert, whose
eyes were ever on the Princess. There were two Chinese, a young man and
a young woman, he in a plain but becoming Chinese costume of heavy blue
silk, she in a pretty dress, half Chinese, half European in effect. An
Egyptian and his wife came next, he suave, talkative, and polite—just a
shade too talkative and a bit too polite, Matthew thought; his wife a
big, handsome, silent woman, elegantly jeweled and gowned, with much
bare flesh. Beyond them was a cold and rather stiff Arab who spoke
seldom, and then abruptly.
Of the food and wine of such dinners, Matthew had read often but never
partaken; and the conversation, now floating, now half submerged, gave
baffling glimpses of unknown lands, spiritual and physical. It was all
something quite new in his experience, the room, the table, the service,
the company.
He could not keep his eyes from continually straying side-wise to his
hostess. Never had he seen color in human flesh so regally set: the rich
and flowing grace of the dress out of which rose so darkly splendid the
jeweled flesh. The black and purple hair was heaped up on her little
head, and in its depths gleamed a tiny coronet of gold. Her voice and
her poise, her self-possession and air of quiet command, kept Matthew
staring almost unmannerly, despite the fact that he somehow sensed a
shade of resentment in the young and handsome Indian opposite.
They had eaten some delicious tidbits of meat and vegetables and then
were served with a delicate soup when the Princess, turning slightly to
her right, said:
“You will note, Mr. Towns, that we represent here much of the Darker
World. Indeed, when all our circle is present, we represent all of it,
save your world of Black Folk.”
“All the darker world except the darkest,” said the Egyptian.
“A pretty large omission,” said Matthew with a smile.
“I agree,” said the Chinaman; but the Arab said something abruptly in
French. Matthew had said that he knew “some” French. But his French was
of the American variety which one excavates from dictionaries and
cements with grammar, like bricks. He was astounded at the ease and the
fluency with which most of this company used languages, so easily,
without groping or hesitation and with light, sure shading. They talked
art in French, literature in Italian, politics in German, and everything
in clear English.
“M. Ben Ali suggests,” said the Princess, “that even you are not black,
Mr. Towns.”
“My grandfather was, and my soul is. Black blood with us in America is a
matter of spirit and not simply of flesh.”
“Ah! mixed blood,” said the Egyptian.
“Like all of us, especially me,” laughed the Princess.
“But, your Royal Highness—not Negro,” said the elder Indian in a tone
that hinted a protest.
“Essentially,” said the Princess lightly, “as our black and curly-haired
Lord Buddha testifies in a hundred places. But”—a bit
imperiously—“enough of that. Our point is that Pan-Africa belongs
logically with Pan-Asia; and for that reason Mr. Towns is welcomed
tonight by you, I am sure, and by me especially. He did me a service as
I was returning from the New Palace.”
They all looked interested, but the Egyptian broke out: “Ah, Your
Highness, the New Palace, and what is the fad today? What has followed
expressionism, cubism, futurism, vorticism? I confess myself at sea.
Picasso alarms me. Matisse sets me aflame. But I do not understand them.
I prefer the classics.”
“The Congo,” said the Princess, “is flooding the Acropolis. There is a
beautiful Kandinsky on exhibit, and some lovely and startling things by
unknown newcomers.”
“Mais” replied the Egyptian, dropping into French—and they were all off
to the discussion, save the silent Egyptian woman and the taciturn Arab.
Here again Matthew was puzzled. These persons easily penetrated worlds
where he was a stranger. Frankly, but for the context he would not have
known whether Picasso was a man, a city, or a vegetable. He had never
heard of Matisse. Lightly, almost carelessly, as he thought, his
companions leapt to unknown subjects. Yet they knew. They knew art,
books, and literature, politics of all nations, and not newspaper
politics merely, but inner currents and whisperings, unpublished facts.
“Ah, pardon,” said the Egyptian, returning to English, “I forgot
Monsieur Towns speaks only English and does not interest himself in
art.”
Perhaps Matthew was sensitive and imagined that the Egyptian and the
Indian rather often, if not purposely, strayed to French and subjects
beyond him.
“Mr. Towns is a scientist?” asked the Japanese.
“He studies medicine,” answered the Princess.
“Ah—a high service,” said the Japanese. “I was reading only today of the
work on cancer by your Peyton Rous in Carrel’s laboratory.”
Towns was surprised. “What, has he discovered the etiological factor? I
had not heard.”
“No, not yet, but he’s a step nearer.”
For a few moments Matthew was talking eagerly, until a babble of unknown
tongues interrupted him across the table.
“Proust is dead, that ‘snob of humor’—yes, but his Recherche du Temps
Perdu is finished and will be published in full. I have only glanced at
parts of it. Do you know Gasquet’s Hymnes?”
“Beraud gets the Prix Goncourt this year. Last year it was the Negro,
Maran—”
“I have been reading Croce’s Aesthetic lately—”
“Yes, I saw the Meyerhold theater in Moscow—gaunt realism—Howl China was
tremendous.”
Then easily, after the crisp brown fowl, the Princess tactfully steered
them back to the subject which some seemed willing to avoid.
“And so,” she said, “the darker peoples who are dissatisfied—”
She looked at the Japanese and paused as though inviting comment. He
bowed courteously.
“If I may presume, your Royal Highness, to suggest,” he said slowly,
“the two categories are not synonymous. We ourselves know no line of
color. Some of us are white, some yellow, some black. Rather, is it not,
your Highness, that we have from time to time taken council with the
oppressed peoples of the world, many of whom by chance are colored?”
“True, true,” said the Princess.
“And yet,” said the Chinese lady, “it is dominating Europe which has
flung this challenge of the color line, and we cannot avoid it.”
“And on either count,” said Matthew, “whether we be bound by oppression
or by color, surely we Negroes belong in the foremost ranks.”
There was a slight pause, a sort of hesitation, and it seemed to Matthew
as though all expected the Japanese to speak. He did, slowly and
gravely:
“It would be unfair to our guest not to explain with some clarity and
precision that the whole question of the Negro race both in Africa and
in America is for us not simply a question of suffering and compassion.
Need we say that for these peoples we have every human sympathy? But for
us here and for the larger company we represent, there is a deeper
question—that of the ability, qualifications, and real possibilities of
the black race in Africa or elsewhere.”
Matthew left the piquant salad and laid down his fork slowly. Up to this
moment he had been quite happy. Despite the feeling of being out of it
now and then, he had assumed that this was his world, his people, from
the high and beautiful lady whom he worshiped more and more, even to the
Egyptians, Indians, and Arab who seemed slightly, but very slightly,
aloof or misunderstanding.
Suddenly now there loomed plain and clear the shadow of a color line
within a color line, a prejudice within prejudice, and he and his again
the sacrifice. His eyes became somber and did not lighten even when the
Princess spoke.
“I cannot see that it makes great difference what ability Negroes have.
Oppression is oppression. It is our privilege to relieve it.”
“Yes,” answered the Japanese, “but who will do it? Who can do it but
those superior races whose necks now bear the yoke of the inferior
rabble of Europe?”
“This,” said the Princess, “I have always believed; but as I have told
your Excellency, I have received impressions in Moscow which have given
me very serious thought—first as to our judgment of the ability of the
Negro race, and second”—she paused in thought—“as to the relative
ability of all classes and peoples.”
Matthew stared at her, as she continued:
“You see, Moscow has reports—careful reports of the world’s masses. And
the report on the Negroes of America was astonishing. At the time, I
doubted its truth: their education, their work, their property, their
organizations; and the odds, the terrible, crushing odds against which,
inch by inch and heartbreak by heartbreak, they have forged their
unfaltering way upward. If the report is true, they are a nation today,
a modern nation worthy to stand beside any nation here.”
“But can we put any faith in Moscow?” asked the Egyptian. “Are we not
keeping dangerous company and leaning on broken reeds?”
“Well,” said Matthew, “if they are as sound in everything as in this
report from America, they’ll bear listening to.”
The young Indian spoke gently and evenly, but with bright eyes.
“Naturally,” he said, “one can see Mr. Towns needs must agree with the
Bolshevik estimate of the lower classes.” Matthew felt the slight slur
and winced. He thought he saw the lips of the Princess tighten ever so
little. He started to answer quickly, with aplomb if not actual swagger.
“I reckon,” he began—then something changed within him. It was as if he
had faced and made a decision, as though some great voice, crying and
reverberating within his soul, spoke for him and yet was him. He had
started to say, “I reckon there’s as much high-born blood among American
Negroes as among any people. We’ve had our kings, presidents, and
judges—” He started to say this, but he did not finish. He found himself
saying quite calmly and with slightly lifted chin:
“I reckon you’re right. We American blacks are very common people. My
grandfather was a whipped and driven slave; my father was never really
free and died in jail. My mother plows and washes for a living. We come
out of the depths—the blood and mud of battle. And from just such
depths, I take it, came most of the worth-while things in this old
world. If they didn’t—God help us.”
The table was very still, save for the very faint clink of china as the
servants brought in the creamed and iced fruit.
The Princess turned, and he could feel her dark eyes full upon him.
“I wonder—I wonder,” she murmured, almost catching her breath.
The Indian frowned. The Japanese smiled, and the Egyptian whispered to
the Arab.
“I believe that is true,” said the Chinese lady thoughtfully, “and if it
is, this world is glorious.”
“And if it is not?” asked the Egyptian icily.
“It is perhaps both true and untrue,” the Japanese suggested. “Certainly
Mr. Towns has expressed a fine and human hope, although I fear that
always blood must tell.”
“No, it mustn’t,” cried Matthew, “unless it is allowed to talk. Its
speech is accidental today. There is some weak, thin stuff called blood,
which not even a crown can make speak intelligently; and at the same
time some of the noblest blood God ever made is dumb with chains and
poverty.”
The elder Indian straightened, with blazing eyes.
“Surely,” he said, slowly and calmly, “surely the gentleman does not
mean to reflect on royal blood?”
Matthew started, flushed darkly, and glanced quickly at the Princess.
She smiled and said lightly, “Certainly not,” and then with a pause and
a look straight across the table to the turban and tunic, “nor will
royal blood offer insult to him.” The Indian bowed to the tablecloth and
was silent.
As they rose and sauntered out to coffee in the silk and golden
drawing-room, there was a discussion, started of course by the Egyptian,
first of the style of the elaborate piano case and then of Schonberg’s
new and unobtrusive transcription of Bach’s triumphant choral Prelude,
“Komm, Gott, Schöpfer.”
The Princess sat down. Matthew could not take his eyes from her. Her
fingers idly caressed the keys as her tiny feet sought the pedals. From
white, pearl-embroidered slippers, her young limbs, smooth in pale, dull
silk, swept up in long, low lines. Even the delicate curving of her
knees he saw as she drew aside her drapery and struck the first warm
tones. She played the phrase in dispute—great chords of aspiration and
vision that melted to soft melody. The Egyptian acknowledged his fault.
“Yes—yes, that was the theme I had forgotten.”
Again Matthew felt his lack of culture audible, and not simply of his
own culture, but of all the culture in white America which he had
unconsciously and foolishly, as he now realized, made his norm. Yet
withal Matthew was not unhappy. If he was a bit out of it, if he sensed
divided counsels and opposition, yet he still felt almost fiercely that
that was his world. Here were culture, wealth, and beauty. Here was
power, and here he had some recognized part. God! If he could just do
his part, any part! And he waited impatiently for the real talk to begin
again.
It began and lasted until after midnight. It started on lines so
familiar to Matthew that he had to shut his eyes and stare again at
their swarthy faces: Superior races—the right to rule—born to
command—inferior breeds—the lower classes—the rabble. How the Egyptian
rolled off his tongue his contempt for the “r-r-rabble”! How
contemptuous was the young Indian of inferior races! But how humorous it
was to Matthew to see all tables turned; the rabble now was the white
workers of Europe; the inferior races were the ruling whites of Europe
and America. The superior races were yellow and brown.
“You see,” said the Japanese, “Mr. Towns, we here are all agreed and not
agreed. We are agreed that the present white hegemony of the world is
nonsense; that the darker peoples are the best—the natural aristocracy,
the makers of art, religion, philosophy, life, everything except brazen
machines.”
“But why?”
“Because of the longer rule of natural aristocracy among us. We count
our millenniums of history where Europe counts her centuries. We have
our own carefully thought-out philosophy and civilization, while Europe
has sought to adopt an ill-fitting melange of the cultures of the
world.”
“But does this not all come out the same gate, with the majority of
mankind serving the minority? And if this is the only ideal of
civilization, does the tint of a skin matter in the question of who
leads?” Thus Matthew summed it up.
“Not a whit—it is the natural inborn superiority that matters,” said the
Japanese, “and it is that which the present color bar of Europe is
holding back.”
“And what guarantees, in the future more than in the past and with
colored more than with white, the wise rule of the gifted and powerful?”
“Self-interest and the inclusion in their ranks of all really superior
men of all colors—the best of Asia together with the best of the British
aristocracy, of the German Adel, of the French writers and financiers—of
the rulers, artists, and poets of all peoples.”
“And suppose we found that ability and talent and art is not entirely or
even mainly among the reigning aristocrats of Asia and Europe, but
buried among millions of men down in the great sodden masses of all men
and even in Black Africa?”
“It would come forth.”
“Would it?”
“Yes,” said the Princess, “it would come forth, but when and how? In
slow and tenderly nourished efflorescence, or in wild and bloody
upheaval with all that bitter loss?”
“Pah!” blurted the Egyptian—“pardon, Royal Highness—but what art ever
came from the canaille!”
The blood rushed to Matthew’s face. He threw back his head and closed
his eyes, and with the movement he heard again the Great Song. He saw
his father in the old log church by the river, leading the moaning
singers in the Great Song of Emancipation. Clearly, plainly he heard
that mighty voice and saw the rhythmic swing and beat of the thick brown
arm. Matthew swung his arm and beat the table; the silver tinkled.
Silence dropped on all, and suddenly Matthew found himself singing. His
voice full, untrained but mellow, quivered down the first plaintive bar:
When Israel was in Egypt land—
Then it gathered depth:
Let my people go!
He forgot his audience and saw only the shining river and the bowed and
shouting throng:
Oppressed so hard, they could not stand,
Let my people go.
Then Matthew let go restraint and sang as his people sang in Virginia,
twenty years ago. His great voice, gathered in one long deep breath,
rolled the Call of God:
Go down, Moses!
Way down into the Egypt land,
Tell Old Pharaoh To let my people go!
He stopped as quickly as he had begun, ashamed, and beads of sweat
gathered on his forehead. Still there was silence—silence almost
breathless. The voice of the Chinese woman broke it.
“It was an American slave song! I know it. How—how wonderful.”
A chorus of approval poured out, led by the Egyptian.
“That,” said Matthew, “came out of the black rabble of America.” And he
trilled his “r.” They all smiled as the tension broke.
“You assume then,” said the Princess at last, “that the mass of the
workers of the world can rule as well as be ruled?”
“Yes—or rather can work as well as be worked, can live as well as be
kept alive. America is teaching the world one thing and only one thing
of real value, and that is, that ability and capacity for culture is not
the hereditary monopoly of a few, but the widespread possibility for the
majority of mankind if they only have a decent chance in life.”
The Chinaman spoke: “If Mr. Towns’ assumption is true, and I believe it
is, and recognized, as some time it must be, it will revolutionize the
world.”
“It will revolutionize the world,” smiled the Japanese, “but not—today.”
“Nor this slide,” growled the Arab.
“Nor the next—and so in saecula saeculorum,” laughed the Egyptian.
“Well,” said the little Chinese lady, “the unexpected happens.”
And Matthew added ruefully, “It’s about all that does happen!”
He lapsed into blank silence, wondering how he had come to express the
astonishing philosophy which had leapt unpremeditated from his lips. Did
he himself believe it? As they arose from the table the Princess called
him aside.
VII
“I trust you will pardon the interruption at this late hour,” said the
Japanese. Matthew glanced up in surprise as the Japanese, the two
Indians, and the Arab entered his room. “Sure,” said he cheerily, “have
any seats you can find. Sorry there’s so little space.”
It was three o’clock in the morning. He was in his shirt sleeves without
collar, and he was packing hastily, wondering how on earth all these
things had ever come out of his two valises. The little room on the
fifth floor of the Roter Adler Hotel did look rather a mess. But his
guests smiled and so politely deprecated any excuses or discomfort that
he laughed too, and leaned against the window, while they stood about
door and bed.
“You had, I believe,” continued the Japanese, “an interview with her
Royal Highness, the Princess, before you left her home tonight.”
“Yes.”
“I—er—presume you realize, Mr. Towns, that the Princess of Bwodpur is a
lady of very high station—of great wealth and influence.”
“I cannot imagine anybody higher.”
The elder Indian interrupted. “There are,” he said, “of course, some
persons of higher hereditary rank than her Royal Highness, but not many.
She is of royal blood by many scores of generations of direct descent.
She is a ruling potentate in her own right over six millions of loyal
subjects and yields to no human being in the ancient splendor of her
heritage. Her income, her wealth in treasure and jewels, is uncounted.
Sir, there are few people in the world who have the right to touch the
hem of her garment.” The Indian drew himself to full height and looked
at Matthew.
“I’m strongly inclined to agree with you there,” said Matthew, smiling
genially.
“I had feared,” continued the younger Indian, also looking Matthew
squarely in the eye, “that perhaps, being American, and unused to the
ceremony of countries of rank, you might misunderstand the democratic
graciousness of her Royal Highness toward you. We appreciate, sir, more
than we can say,” and both Indians bowed low, “your inestimable service
to the Princess yesterday, in protecting her royal person from
insufferable insult. But the very incident illustrates and explains our
errand.
“The Princess is young and headstrong. She delights, in her new European
independence, to elude her escort, and has given us moments of greatest
solicitude and even fright. Meeting her as you did yesterday, it was
natural for you to take her graciousness toward you as the camaraderie
of an equal, and—quite unconsciously, I am sure—your attitude toward her
has caused us grave misgiving.”
“You mean that I have not treated the Princess with courtesy?” asked
Matthew in consternation. “In what way? Tell me.”
“It is nothing—nothing, now that it is past, and since the Princess was
gracious enough to allow it. But you may recall that you never addressed
her by her rightful title of ‘Royal Highness’; you several times
interrupted her conversation and addressed her before being addressed;
you occupied the seat of honor without even an attempted refusal and
actually shook her Highness’ hand, which we are taught to regard as
unpardonable familiarity.”
Matthew grinned cheerfully. “I reckon if the Princess hadn’t liked all
that she’d have said so—”
The Japanese quickly intervened. “This is, pardon me, beside our main
errand,” he said. “We realize that you admire and revere the Princess
not only as a supremely beautiful woman of high rank, but as one of rare
intelligence and high ideals.”
“I certainly do.”
“And we assume that anything you could do—any way you could coöperate
with us for her safety and future, we could count upon your doing?”
“To my very life.”
“Good—excellent—you see, my friends,” turning to the still disturbed
Indians and the silent, sullen Arab, “it is as I rightly divined.”
They did not appear wholly convinced, but the Japanese continued:
“In her interview with you she told you a story she had heard in Moscow,
of a widespread and carefully planned uprising of the American blacks.
She has intrusted you with a letter to the alleged leader of this
organization and asked you to report to her your impressions and
recommendations; and even to deliver the letter, if you deem it wise.
“Now, my dear Mr. Towns, consider the situation: First of all, our
beloved Princess introduces you, a total stranger, into our counsels and
tells you some of our general plans. Fortunately, you prove to be a
gentleman who can be trusted; and yet you yourself must admit this
procedure was not exactly wise. Further than that, through this letter,
our reputations, our very lives, are put in danger by this well-meaning
but young and undisciplined lady. Her unfortunate visit to Russia has
inoculated her with Bolshevism of a mild but dangerous type. The letter
contains money to encourage treason. You know perfectly well that the
American Negroes will neither rebel nor fight unless put up to it or led
like dumb cattle by whites. You have never even heard of the alleged
leader, as you acknowledged to the Princess.”
“She is evidently well spied upon.”
“She is, and will always be, well guarded,” answered the elder Indian
tensely.
“Except yesterday,” said Matthew.
But the Japanese quickly proceeded. “Why then go on this wild goose
chase? Why deliver dynamite to children?”
“Thank you.”
“I beg your pardon. I may speak harshly, but I speak frankly. You are an
exception among your people.”
“I’ve heard that before. Once I believed it. Now I do not.”
“You are generous, but you are an exception, and you know you are.”
“Most people are exceptions.”
“You know that your people are cowards.”
“That’s a lie; they are the bravest people fighting for justice today.”
“I wish it were so, but I do not believe it, and neither do you. Every
report from America—and believe me, we have many—contradicts this
statement for you. I am not blaming them, poor things, they were slaves
and children of slaves. They can not even begin to rise in a century. We
Samurai have been lords a thousand years and more; the ancestors of her
Royal Highness have ruled for twenty centuries—how can you think to
place yourselves beside us as equals? No—no—restrain your natural anger
and distaste for such truth. Our situation is too delicate for niceties.
We have been almost betrayed by an impulsive woman, high and royal
personage though she be. We have come to get that letter and to ask you
to write a report now, to be delivered later, thoroughly disenchanting
our dear Princess of this black American chimera.”
“And if I refuse?”
The Japanese looked pained but patient. The others moved impatiently,
and perceptibly narrowed the circle about Matthew. He was thinking
rapidly; the letter was in his coat pocket on the bed beyond the
Japanese and within easy reach of the Indians if they had known it. If
he jumped out the Window, he would be dead, and they would eventually
secure the letter. If he fought, they were undoubtedly armed, and four
to one. The Japanese was elderly and negligible as an opponent, but the
young Indian and the Arab were formidable, and the older Indian
dangerous. He might perhaps kill one and disable another and raise
enough hullabaloo to arouse the hotel, but how would such a course
affect the Princess?
The Japanese watched him sadly.
“Why speak of unpleasant things,” he said gently, “or contemplate
futilities? We are not barbarians. We are men of thought and culture. Be
assured our plans have been laid with care. We know the host of this
hotel well. Resistance on your part would be absolutely futile. The back
stairs opposite your entrance are quite clear and will be kept clear
until we go. And when we go, the letter will go with us.”
Matthew set his back firmly against the window. His thoughts raced. They
were armed, but they would use their arms only as a last resort; pistols
were noisy and knives were messy. Oh, they would use them—one look at
their hard, set eyes showed that; but not first. Good! Then first,
instead of lurching forward to attack as they might expect, he would do
a first-base slide and spike the Japanese in the ankles. It was a mean
trick, but anything was fair now. He remembered once when they were
playing the DeWitt Clinton High—But he jerked his thoughts back. The
Japanese was nearest him; the fiery younger Indian just behind him and a
bit to the right, bringing him nearer the bed and blocking the aisle. By
the door was the elder Indian, and at the foot of the bed, the Arab.
Good! He would, at the very first movement of the young Indian, who, he
instinctively knew, would begin the melee, slide feet forward into the
ankles of the Japanese, catching him a little to the right so that he
would fall or lurch between him and the Indian. Then he would with the
same movement slide under the low iron bed and rise with the bed as
weapon and shield. But he would not keep it. No; he would hurl it
sideways and to the left, pinning the young Indian to the wall and the
Japanese to the floor. With the same movement he would attempt a
football tackle on the Arab. The Arab was a tough customer—tall, sinewy,
and hard. If he turned left, got his knife and struck down, quick and
sure, Matthew would be done for. But most probably he would, at
Matthew’s first movement, turn right toward his fellows. If he did, he
was done for. He would go down in the heap, knocking the old Indian
against the door.
Beside that door was the electric switch. Matthew would turn it and make
a last fight for the door. He might get out, and if he did, the stairs
were clear. The coat and letter? Leave them, so long as he got his story
to the Princess. It was all a last desperate throw. He calculated that
he had good chances against the Japanese’s shins, about even chances to
get under the bed unscathed, and one in two to tackle the Arab. He had
not more than one chance in three of making the door unscathed, but this
was the only way. If he surrendered without a fight— That was
unthinkable. And after all, what had he to lose? Life? Well, his
prospects were not brilliant anyhow. And to die for the Princess—silly,
of course, but it made his blood race. For the first time he glimpsed
the glory of death. Meantime—he said—be sensible! It would not hurt to
spar for time.
He pretended to be weighing the matter.
“Suppose you do steal the letter by force, do you think you can make me
write a report?”
“No, a voluntary report would be desirable but not necessary. You left
with the Princess, you will remember, a page of directions and
information about America to guide her in the trip she is preparing to
make and from which we hope to dissuade her. You appended your signature
and address. From this it will be easy to draft a report in handwriting
so similar to yours as to be indistinguishable by ordinary eyes.”
“You add forgery to your many accomplishments.”
“In the pursuit of our duty, we do not hesitate at theft or forgery.”
Still Matthew parried: “Suppose,” he said, “I pretended to acquiesce,
gave you the letter and reported to the Princess. Suppose even I told
the German newspapers of what I have seen and heard tonight.”
There was a faraway look in the eyes of the Japanese as he answered
slowly: “We must follow Fate, my dear Mr. Towns, even if Fate leads—to
murder. We will not let you communicate with the Princess, and you are
leaving Berlin tonight.”
The Indians gave a low sigh almost like relief.
Matthew straightened and spoke slowly and firmly.
“Very well. I won’t surrender that letter to anybody but the
Princess—not while I’m alive. And if I go out of here dead I won’t be
the only corpse.”
Every eye was on the Japanese, and Matthew knew his life was in the
balance. The pause was tense; then came the patient voice of the
Japanese again.
“You—admire the Princess, do you not?”
“With all my heart.”
The Indians winced.
“You would do her a service?”
“To the limit of my strength.”
“Very well. Let us assume that I am wrong. Assume that the Negroes are
worth freedom and ready to fight for it. Can you not see that the name
of this young, beautiful, and high-born lady must under no circumstances
be mixed up with them, whether they gain or lose? What would not Great
Britain give thus to compromise an Indian ruler?”
“That is for the Princess to decide.”
“No! She is a mere woman—an inexperienced girl. You are a man of the
world. For the last time, will you rescue her Royal Highness from
herself?”
“No. The Princess herself must decide.”
“Then—”
“Then,” said the Princess’ full voice, “the Princess will decide.” She
stood in the open doorway, the obsequious and scared landlord beside her
with his pass-keys. She had thrown an opera cloak over her evening gown,
and stood unhatted, white-slippered, and ungloved. She threw one glance
at the Indians, and they bowed low with outstretched hands. She stamped
her foot angrily, and they went to their knees. She wheeled to the Arab.
Without a word, he stalked out. The Japanese alone remained, calm and
imperturbable.
“We have failed,” he said, with a low bow.
The Princess looked at him.
“You have failed,” she said. “I am glad there is no blood on your
hands.”
“A drop of blood more or less matters little in the great cause for
which you and I fight, and if I have incurred your Royal Highness’
displeasure tonight, remember that, for the same great cause, I stand
ready tomorrow night to repeat the deed and seal it with my life.”
The Princess looked at him with troubled eyes. Then she seated herself
in the only and rather rickety chair and motioned for her two subjects
to arise. Matthew never forgot that scene: he, collarless and in shirt
sleeves, with sweat pouring off his face; the room in disorder, mean,
narrow, small, and dingy; the Japanese standing in the same place as
when he entered, in unruffled evening dress; the Indians on their knees
with hidden faces; the Princess, disturbed, yet radiant. She spoke in
low tones.
“I may be wrong,” she said, “and I know how right, but infinitely and
calmly right, you usually are. But some voice within calls me. I have
started to fight for the dark and oppressed peoples of the world; now
suddenly I have seen a light. A light which illumines the mass of men
and not simply its rulers, white and yellow and black. I want to see if
this thing is true, if it can possibly be true that wallowing masses
often conceal submerged kings. I have decided not simply to send a
messenger to America but shortly to sail myself—perhaps this week on the
Gigantic. I want to see for myself if slaves can become men in a
generation. If they can—well, it makes the world new for you and me.”
The Japanese started to speak, but she would not pause:
“There is no need for protest or advice. I am going. Mr. Towns will
perform his mission as we agreed, if he is still so minded, and as long
as he is in Europe, these two gentlemen,” she glanced at the Indians,
“will bear his safety on their heads, at my command. Go!”
The Indians bowed and walked out slowly, backward. She turned to the
Japanese.
“Your Highness, I bid you good night and good-by. I shall write you.”
Gravely the Japanese kissed her hand, bowed, and withdrew. The Princess
looked at Matthew. He became acutely conscious of his appearance as she
looked at him almost a full minute with her great, haunting eyes.
“I thank you, again,” she said slowly. “You are a brave man—and loyal.”
She held out her hand, low, to shake his.
But the tension of the night broke him; he quivered, and taking her hand
in both his, kissed it.
She rose quickly, drew herself up, and looked at first almost affronted;
then when she saw his swimming eyes, a kind of startled wonder flashed
in hers. Slowly she held out her hand again, regally, palm down and the
long fingers drooping.
“You are very young,” she said.
He was. He was only twenty-five. The Princess was all of twenty-three.
Part II. The Pullman Porter
September to December, 1923
Fall. Fall of leaf and sigh of wind. Gasp of the world-soul before, in
crimson, gold, and gray, it dips beneath the snows. The flame of passing
summer slowly dies in the looming shadow of death. Fall on the vast
gray-green Atlantic, where waves of all waters heave and groan toward
bitter storms to come. Fall in the crowded streets of New York. Fall in
the heart of the world.
I
Matthew was paring potatoes; paring, paring potatoes. There was a
machine in the corner, paring, too. But Matthew was cheaper than the
machine and better. It was not hard work. It was just dull—idiotic,
dull. He pared mechanically, with humped shoulders and half-closed eyes.
Garbage lay about him, and nauseating smells combined of sour and sweet,
decay and ferment, offal and delicacy, made his head dizzy and his
stomach acrid. The great ship rose, shivered and screamed, dropped in
the gray grave of waters, and groaned as the hot hell of its vast belly
drove it relentlessly, furiously forward. The terrible, endless rhythm
of the thing—paring, rising, falling, groaning, paring, swaying, with
the slosh of the greasy dishwater, in the close hot air, set Matthew to
dreaming.
He could see again that mother of his—that poor but mighty, purposeful
mother—tall, big, and brown. What hands she had—gnarled and knotted;
what great, broad feet. How she worked! Yet he seemed never to have
realized what work was until now. On the farm—that little forty acres of
whitish yellow land, with its tiny grove and river; its sweep of green,
white cotton; its geese, its chickens, the cow and the old mule; the low
log cabin with its two rooms and wide hall leading to the boarded
kitchen behind—how he remembered the building of that third room just
before his father went away—work? Work on that curious little hell in
paradise had not been work to him; it had been play. He had stopped when
he was tired. But mother and the bent old father, had it been work for
them—hard, hateful, heavy, endless, uninteresting, dull, stupid? Yes, it
must have been like this, save in air and sun; toil must have dulled and
hardened them. God! What did this world—
“That-a nigger did it—I know!—that-a-there damn nigger!”
The Italian bent over him. Matthew looked up at him without interest.
His soul was still dreaming far away—rising, falling, paring, glowing.
Somebody was always swearing and quarreling in the scullery. Funny for
him to be here. It had seemed a matter of honor, life, death, to sail on
this particular ship. He had, with endless courtesy and with less than a
hundred dollars in his pocket, assured the Princess that he needed
nothing. And then—fourth class to Hamburg, standing! and the docks. The
Gigantic was there. Would she sail on it? He did not know. He approached
the head steward for a job.
“No—no more work.” He stood hesitating. A stevedore who staggered past,
raining sweat, dropped his barrow and hobbled away. Matthew left his
bags, seized the heavy barrow, and trundled it on the ship. It was not
difficult to hide until the boat had swung far down the channel. Then he
went to the head steward again.
“What the hell are you doing here? Just like a damn nigger!”
Here again it came from the lips of the fat, lumbering Italian: “—damn-a
nigger.” And Matthew felt a flat-handed cuff beside his head that nearly
knocked him from the stool. He arose slowly, folded his arms, and looked
at the angry man. The Italian was a great baby whom the men picked on
and teased and fooled—cruel, senseless sport for people who took curious
delight in tricking others of their kind.
It was to Matthew an amazing situation—one he could not for the life of
him comprehend. These men were at the bottom of life—scullions. They had
no pride of work. Who could have pride in such work! But they despised
themselves. God was in the first cabin, overeating, guzzling, gambling,
sleeping. They despised what He despised. He despised Negroes. He
despised Italians, unless they were rich and noble. He despised
scullion’s work. All these things the scullions despised.
Matthew and the Italian were butts—the Italian openly, Matthew covertly;
for they were a little dashed at his silence and carriage. But they
sneered and growled at the “nigger” and egged the “dago” on. And the
Italian—big, ignorant moron, sweet and childish by nature, wild and
bewildered by his strange environment, despised the black man because
the others did.
This time their companions had slyly slipped potatoes into the Italian’s
pan until he had already done twice the work of the others. But the last
mess had been too large—he grew suspicious and angry, and he picked on
Matthew because he had seen the others sneer at the dark stranger, and
he was ready to believe the worst of him.
Matthew stood still and looked at the Italian; with a yell the irate man
hurled his bulk forward and aimed a blow which struck Matthew’s
shoulder. Matthew fell back a step and still stood looking at him. The
scullery jeered:
“Fight—the nigger and the dago.”
Again the fist leaped out and hit Matthew in the nose, but still Matthew
stood and did not lift his hand. Why? He could not have said himself.
More or less consciously he sensed what a silly mess it all was. He
could not soil his hands on this great idiot. He would not stoop to such
a brawl. There was a strange hush in the scullery. Somebody yelled,
“Scared stiff!” But they yelled weakly, for Matthew did not look scared.
He was taller than the Italian, not so big, but his brown muscles
rippled delicately on his lithe form. Even with his swelling nose, he
did not look scared or greatly perturbed. Then there was a scramble. The
kitchen steward suddenly entered, one of the caste of stewards—the
visible revelation of God in the cabin; a splendid man, smooth-coated,
who made money and yelled at scullions.
“Chief!”
The Italian ducked, ran and hid, and Matthew was standing alone.
The steward blustered: “Fighting, hey?”
“No.”
“I saw you!”
“You lie!”
The scullery held its breath.
The steward, with purple face, started forward with raised fist and then
paused. He was puzzled at that still figure. It wouldn’t do to be mauled
or killed before scullions….
“All right, nigger—I’ll attend to you later. Get to work, all of you,”
he growled.
Matthew sat down and began paring, paring, again. But now the dreams had
gone. His head ached. His soul felt stripped bare. He kept pondering
dully over this room, glancing at the shifty eyes, the hunches and
grins; smelling the smells, the steam, the grease, the dishwater. There
was so little kindness or sympathy for each other here among these men.
They loved cruelty. They hated and despised most of their fellows, and
they fell like a pack of wolves on the weakest. Yet they all had the
common bond of toil; their sweat and the sweat of toilers like them made
one vast ocean around the world. Waves of world-sweat droned in
Matthew’s head dizzily, and naked men were driven drowning through it,
yet snapping, snarling, fighting back each other as they wallowed. Well,
he wouldn’t fight them. That was idiotic. It was human sacrilege. If
fight he must, he would fight stewards and cabin gentry—lackeys and
gods.
He walked stiffly to his berth and sat half-dressed in a corner of the
common bunk room, hating to seek his hot, dark, ill-ventilated bunk. The
men were growling, sprawling, drinking, and telling smutty stories. They
had, it seemed to Matthew, a marvelous poverty of capacity to enjoy—to
be happy and to play.
The door opened. The kitchen steward came in, followed by a dozen men
and women, evidently from the first cabin—fat, sleek persons in evening
dress, the women gorgeous and bare, the men pasty-faced and swaggering.
All were smoking and flushed with wine. Towns started and stared—My God!
If one face appeared there—if the Princess came down and saw this, saw
him here! He groaned and stood up quickly, with the half-formed design
of walking out.
“A ring, men!” called the steward. The scullery glowered, smirked, and
shuffled; backed to one side, torn by conflicting motives, hesitating.
“These ladies and gentlemen have given a purse of two hundred dollars to
have this fight out between the darky and the dago. Strip, you—but keep
on your pants. This gentleman is referee. Come, Towns. Now’s the chance
for revenge.”
The Italian rose, lounged forward, and looked at Towns truculently,
furtively. His anger was gone now, and he was not sure Towns had wronged
him. Towns looked at him, smiled, and held out his hand. The Italian
stared, hesitated, then almost ran and grabbed it. Towns turned to the
steward, still watching the door:
“We won’t fight,” he said.
“We ain’t gonna fight,” echoed the Italian.
“Throw them into the ring.”
“Try it,” cried Towns.
“Try it,” echoed the Italian.
The steward turned red and green. He saw a fat fee fading.
“So we can’t make you rats fight,” he sneered.
“Oh, yes, we’ll fight,” said Matthew, “but we won’t fight each other. If
rats must fight they fight cats—and dogs—and hogs.”
“Wow!” yelled the scullery, and surged.
“Home, James,” squeaked a shrill voice, “they ain’t gonna be no fight
tonight.” She had the face of an angel, the clothes of a queen, and the
manners of a prostitute. The guests followed her out, giggling, swaying,
and swearing.
“S’no plash f’r min’ster’s son, nohow,” hiccoughed the youth in the
rear.
The steward lingered and glanced at Matthew, teetering on heel and toe.
“So that’s your game. Trying to stir up something, hey? Planning
Bolshevik stuff! D’ye know where I’ve half a mind to land you in New
York? I’ll tell you! In jail! D’ye hear? In jail!”
The room was restless. The grumbling stopped gradually. The men looked
as though they wanted to talk to him, but Matthew crept to his bunk and
pretended to sleep. What was going to happen? What would they do next?
Were they going to make him fight his way over? Must he kill somebody?
Of all the muddles that a clean, straight life can suddenly fall to, his
seemed the worst. He tossed in his narrow, hot bed in an agony of fear
and excitement. He slept and dreamed; he was fighting the world. Blood
was spurting, heads falling, ghastly eyes were bulging, but he slew and
slew until his neighbor yelled:
“Who the hell you hittin’? Are youse crazy?” And the man fled in fear.
Matthew rose early and went to his task—paring, peeling, cutting,
paring. Nothing happened. The steward said no further word. The scullery
growled, but let Matthew alone. The Italian crept near him like a lost
dog, trying in an inarticulate way to say some unspoken word.
So Matthew dropped back to his dreams.
He was groping toward a career. He wanted to get his hand into the
tangles of this world. He wanted to understand. His revolt against
medicine became suddenly more than resentment at an unforgivable
insult—it became ingrained distaste for the whole narrow career, the
slavery of mind and body, the ethical chicanery. His sudden love for a
woman far above his station was more than romance—it was a longing for
action, breadth, helpfulness, great constructive deeds.
And so, rising and falling, working and writhing, dreaming and
suffering, he passed his week of days of weeks. He hardly knew when it
ended. Only one day, washing dishes, he looked out of the porthole;
there was the Statue of Liberty shining….
And Matthew laughed.
II
There is a corner in High Harlem where Seventh Avenue cuts the dark
world in two. West rises the noble facade of City College—gray and
green. East creeps the sullen Harlem, green and gray. There Matthew
stood and looked right and left. Left was the world he had left—there
were some pretty parlors there, conventional in furniture and often
ghastly in ornament, but warm and homelike in soul. There was his own
bedroom; Craigg’s restaurant with its glorious biscuit; churches whose
music often brushed his ears sweetly, afar; crowded but neat apartments,
swaggering but well-dressed lodgers, workers, visitors. He turned from
it with a sigh. He had left this world for a season—perhaps forever. It
would hardly recognize him, he was sure, for he was unshaven and poorly
clothed.
He turned east, and the world turned too—to a more careless and freer
movement, louder voices, and easier camaraderie. By the time Lenox
Avenue was reached, the world was gay and vociferous, and shirt sleeves
and overalls mingled with tailored trousers and silk hosiery. But
Matthew walked on in the gathering gloom: Fifth Avenue—but Fifth Avenue
at 135th Street; he knew it vaguely—a loud and unkempt quarter with
flashes of poverty and crime. He went on into an ill-kept hall and up
dirty and creaking stairs, half-lighted, and knocked on a door. There
were loud voices within—loud, continuous quarreling voices. He knocked
again.
“Come in, man, don’t stand there pounding the door down.”
Matthew opened the door. The room was hot with a melange of smoke, bad
air, voices, and gesticulations. Groups were standing and sitting about,
lounging, arguing, and talking. Sometimes they shouted and seemed on the
point of blows, but blows never came. They appeared tremendously in
earnest without a trace of smile or humor. This puzzled Matthew at first
until he caught their broad a’s and curious singing lilt of phrase. He
realized that all or nearly all were West Indians. He knew little of the
group. They were to him singular, foreign and funny. He had never been
in a group of them before. He looked about.
“Is Mr. Perigua in?”
Some one waved carelessly toward the end of the room without pause in
argument or gesture. Matthew discovered there a low platform, a rickety
railing, and within, a table and several men. They were talking, if
anything, louder and faster than the rest. With difficulty he traced his
way toward them.
“Mr. Perigua?”
No response—but another argument of which Matthew understood not a word.
“May I speak with Mr. Perigua?”
A man whirled toward him.
“Don’t you see I’m busy, man? Where’s the sergeant-at-arms? Why can’t
you protect the privacy of my office when I’m in conference?”
A short, fat, black man reluctantly broke off an intense declamation and
hastened up.
“What can I do for you? Are you a member?”
He seemed a bit suspicious.
“I don’t know—I have a message for Mr. Perigua.”
“Give it to me.”
“It is not written—it is verbal.”
“All right, tell me; I’m Mr. Perigua’s representative—official
sergeant-at-arms of this—” he hesitated and looked suspiciously at
Matthew again—“club.”
Perigua had heard his name repeated and turned again. He was a thin,
yellow man of middle size, with flaming black hair and luminous eyes. He
was perpetual motion, talking, gesticulating, smoking.
“What?” he said.
“A message.”
“From where?”
“From—abroad.”
Perigua leaped to his feet.
“Get out,” he cried to his fellows—“State business. Committee will meet
again tomorrow night—What? Then Tuesday—No? Well, then tomorrow at
noon—You can’t—Well, we’ll meet without you. Do you think the world must
stand still while you guzzle? Come in. Sergeant, I’m engaged. Keep the
gate. Well?”
Matthew sat down within the rail on a chair with half a back. The black
eyes blazed into his, and the long thin fingers worked. The purple hair
writhed out of place.
“I’ve been in—Berlin.”
“Yes?”
“And certain persons—”
“Yes, yes, man. My God! Get on with it.”
“—gave me a message—a word of greeting for Mr. Perigua.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Are you Mr. Perigua?”
“My God, man—don’t you know me? Is there anybody in New York that
doesn’t know Perigua? Is there anybody in the world? Gentlemen”—he
leaped to the rail—“am I Perigua?” A shout went up.
“Perigua—Perigua forever!” And a song with some indistinguishable rhyme
on “Perigua forever” began to roll until he stopped it with an impatient
shout and gesture.
“Shut up. I’m busy.”
Matthew whispered to him. Perigua listened and rose to his feet with
transfigured face.
“Man—My God! Come!” He tore toward the door.
“Le jour de gloire est arrival Come, man,” he shouted, and dragging
Matthew, he reached the door and turned dramatically:
“Men, I have news—great news—the greatest! Salute this Ambassador from
the World—who brings salvation. There will be a plenary council tomorrow
night. Midnight. Pass the word. Adieu.” And as they passed out, Matthew
heard the song swell again—“Perigua, Perigua, Per—”
They passed upstairs to another room. It was a bedroom, dirty,
disheveled, stuffed with furniture and with stale smells of food and
tobacco. A scrawny woman, half-dressed, rose from the bed, and at an
impatient sign from Perigua went into the next room and closed the door.
Perigua grasped Matthew by both hands and hugged him.
“Man,” he gasped, “man, God knows you’re welcome. I am on my last legs.
I don’t know where to turn. The landlord has dispossessed us, bills are
pouring in, and over the country, the world, the brethren are clamoring.
Now all is well. We are recognized—recognized by the great leaders of
Asia and Africa. Pan-Africa stands at last beside Pan-Asia, and Europe
trembles,”
Matthew felt his spirits droop. This man was no leader, he was too
theatrical. Matthew felt that he must get at the facts before he took
any steps.
“But tell me—all about your plans,” he said.
“Who are you?” countered Perigua.
Matthew answered frankly.
“I am a Pullman porter. I was a student in medicine, but I quit. I went
to Europe and there by accident met people who had heard of you and your
plans. They were not agreed, I must say plainly, as to their
feasibility, but they commissioned me to investigate.”
“Did they send any money?”
“None at present. Later, if my reports are satisfactory, they may.”
“And you are a porter? How long have you been in service?”
Matthew answered: “Since this morning. You see, I came back as a
scullion. Had some trouble on the boat because I was a stowaway, but
despite all, they gave me fifty dollars for my work and offered to hire
me permanently. I took the money, bought some clothes, and applied for a
Pullman job. It seemed to me that it offered the best opportunity to see
and know the Negroes of this land.”
“You’re right, man, you’re right. Have any trouble getting on?”
“Not much.”
Perigua pondered. “See here,” he said, “I’ll make you Inspector of my
organization and give you letters to my centers. Travel around as
porter. Sound out the country—test out the organization. Make your
report soon and get some money. Something must happen, and happen soon.”
“But what—” began Matthew.
Matthew never forgot that story. Out of the sordid setting of that room
rose the wild head of Perigua, haloed dimly in the low-burning gas. Far
out in street and alley groaned, yelled, and sang Harlem. The snore of
the woman came fitfully from the next room, and Perigua talked.
Matthew had at first thought him an egotistic fool. But Perigua was no
fool. He next put him down as an ignorant fanatic—but he was not
ignorant. He was well read, spoke French and Spanish, read German, and
knew the politics of the civilized world and current events surprisingly
well. Was he insane? In no ordinary sense of the word; wild,
irresponsible, impulsive, but with brain and nerves that worked clearly
and promptly.
He had a big torn map of the United States on the wall with little black
flags clustered over it, chiefly in the South.
“Lynchings,” he said briefly. “Lynchings and riots in the last ten
years.” His eyes burned. “Know how to stop lynching?” he whispered.
“Why—no, except—”
“We know. Dynamite. Dynamite for every lynching mob.” Matthew started
and grew uneasy. “But,” he objected, “they occur sporadically—seldom or
never twice in the same place.”
“Always a half dozen in Mississippi and Georgia. Three or four in South
Carolina and Florida. There’s a lynching belt. We’ll blow it to hell
with dynamite from airplanes. And then when the Ku Klux Klan meets some
time, we’ll blow them up. Terrorism, revenge, is our program.”
“But—” began Matthew as sweat began to ooze.
Perigua waved. He was a man difficult to interrupt. “We’ve got to have
messengers continuously traveling to join our groups together and spread
news and concert action. The Pullman porters have a new union on
old-fashioned lines. I’m trying to infiltrate with the brethren. See?
Now you’re going to take a job as Inspector and run on a key route.
Where are you running now?”
“New York to Atlanta.”
“Good! Boys don’t like running south. You can do good work there.”
“But just a moment—are the Negroes back of you ready for this—this—”
“To a man! That is, the real Negroes—the masses, when they know and
understand—most of them are too ignorant and lazy—but when they know! Of
course, the nabobs and aristocrats, the college fools and
exploiters—they are like the whites.”
Matthew thought rapidly. He did not believe a word Perigua said, but the
point was to pretend to believe it. He must see. He must investigate. It
was wild, unthinkable, terrible. He must see this thing through.
III
“George!”
Inherently there was nothing wrong with the name. It was a good name.
The “father” of his country and stepfather of Matthew had rejoiced in
it. Thus Matthew argued often with himself.
“George!”
It was the name that had driven Matthew as a student away from the
Pullman service. It was not really the name—it was the implications, the
tone, the sort of bounder who rejoiced to use it. A scullion, ennobled
by transient gold and achieving a sleeping-car berth, proclaimed his
kingship to the world by one word:
“George!”
So it seemed at least to oversensitive Matthew. It carried all the
meaner implications of menial service and largess of dimes and quarters.
All this was involved and implied in the right not only to call a man by
his first name, but to choose that name for him and compel him to answer
to it.
So Matthew, the porter on the Atlanta car of the Pennsylvania Railroad,
No. 183, and Southern Railroad, No. 33, rose in his smart and
well-fitting uniform and went forward to the impatiently calling voice.
The work was not hard, but the hours were long, and the personal element
of tact and finesse, of estimate of human character and peculiarities,
must always be to the fore. Matthew had small choice in taking the job.
He had arrived with little money and almost ragged. He had undertaken a
mission, and after Perigua’s amazing revelation, he felt a compelling
duty.
“Do you belong to the porters’ union?” asked the official who hired him.
“No, sir.”
“Going to join?”
“I had not given it a thought. Don’t know much about it.”
“Well, let me tell you, if you want your job and good run, keep out of
that union. We’ve got our own company union that serves all purposes,
and we’re going to get rid gradually of those radicals and Bolsheviks
who are stirring up trouble.”
Matthew strolled over to the room where the porters were resting and
talking. It was in an unfinished dark corner of the station under the
stairs, with few facilities and no attempt to make it a club room even
of the simplest sort.
“Say,” asked Matthew, “what about the union?”
No one answered. Some glanced at him suspiciously. Some went out. Only
one finally sidled over and asked what Matthew himself thought of it,
but before he could answer, another, passing, whispered in his ear,
“Stool pigeon—keep your mouth.” Matthew looked after the trim young
fellow who warned him. It was Matthew’s first sight of Jimmie.
The day had been trying. A fussy old lady had kept him trotting. A woman
with two children had made him nurse; four Southern gentlemen gambling
in the drawing-room had called him “nigger.” He stood by his car at
Washington at 9:30 at night, his berths all made. To his delight Jimmie
was on the next car, and they soon were chums. Jimmie was Joy. He was
not much over twenty-five and so full of jokes and laughter that none,
conductors, passengers, or porters, escaped the contagion of his good
cheer. His tips were fabulous, and yet he was never merely servile or
clownish. He just had bright, straight-eyed good humor, a quick and
ready tongue; and he knew his job down to z. He was invaluable to the
greenness of Matthew.
“Here comes a brownskin,” he whispered. “Hustle her to bed if she’s got
a good berth in the middle of the car, else they’ll find a ‘mistake’ and
put her in Lower One,” and he sauntered whistling away as the conductor
stepped out. The conductor was going in for the diagram.
“Wait till I get back,” he called, nodding toward the coming passenger.
The young colored woman approached. She was well dressed but a bit prim.
She had Lower Six. Matthew sensed trouble, but remembering Jimmie’s
admonition, he showed her to her berth. She did not look at him, but he
carefully arranged her things.
The conductor came back. “What did you put her there for?” he asked.
“She had a ticket for Six,” Matthew answered. Both he and the conductor
knew that she had not bought that ticket in person. In Washington, they
would never have sold a colored person going south Number Six—she’d have
got One or Twelve or nothing. The conductor was mad. It meant trouble
for him all next day from every Southerner who boarded the train.
“Tell her there’s some mistake—I’ll move her later.” But Matthew did not
tell her. On the contrary, he suggested to her that he make her berth.
She knew why he suggested it, and she resented it, but consented without
glancing at him. He sympathized even with her resentment. The conductor
swore when he came through with the train conductor and found her
retired, but he could do nothing, and Matthew merely professed to have
misunderstood.
In the morning after an almost sleepless night and without breakfast,
Matthew took special care of the dark lady, and when she was ready,
carried her bag to the empty drawing-room and let her dress there in
comfort. There again he felt and understood the resentment in her
attitude. She could not be treated quite like other passengers. Yet she
must know it was not his fault, and perhaps she did not know that the
extra work of straightening up the drawing-room at the close of a
twenty-four-hour trip was no joke. Still, he smiled in a friendly way at
her as he brought her back to the seat which he had arranged first, so
as to put her to the least unpleasantness from sitting in some other
berth. A woman flounced up and away as the girl sat down.
She thanked Matthew primly. She was afraid to be familiar with a porter.
He might presume. She was not pretty, but round-faced, light brown, with
black, crinkly hair. She was dressed with taste, and Matthew judged that
she was probably a teacher or clerk. She had a cold half-defiant air
which Matthew understood. This class of his people were being bred that
way by the eternal conflict. Yet, he reflected, they might say something
pleasant and have some genial glow for the encouragement of others
caught in the same toils.
Then, as ever, his mind flew back to Berlin and to the woman of his
dreams and quest. He wondered where she was and what she was doing. He
had searched the newspapers and unearthed but one small note in the New
York Sunday Times, which proved that the Princess was actually on the
Gigantic: “Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Bwodpur, has been
visiting quietly with friends while en route from England to her home in
India, by way of Seattle.” He smiled a bit dubiously; what had porters
and princesses in common?
He came back to earth and began the daily struggle with the brushing and
the bags through narrow aisles out to the door; to collect the coats and
belongings and carefully brush the clothes of twenty people; to wait
for, take, and appear thankful for the tip which was wage and yet might
be thrown like alms; to find lost passengers in the smoking-car, toilet,
or dining-room and lost hats, umbrellas, packages, and canes—Matthew
came to dread the end of his journeys more than all else.
His colored passenger did “not care” to be brushed. As they rolled
slowly through the yards, he glanced at her again.
“Anything I can do for you?” he asked.
“Aren’t you a college man?” she asked, rather abruptly.
“I was,” he answered, wiping the sweat from his face.
She regarded him severely. “I should think then you’d be ashamed to be a
porter,” she said.
He bit his lips and gathered up her bags.
“It’s a damned good thing for you that I am,” he wanted to say; but he
was silent. He only hoped desperately that she would not offer to tip
him. But she did; she gave him fifteen cents. He thanked her.
IV
With a day off in Atlanta, Matthew and Jimmie looked up Perigua’s
friends. Jimmie laughed at the venture, although Matthew did not tell
him much of his plans and reasons.
“Don’t worry,” grinned Jimmie; “let the white folks worry; it’ll all
come out right.”
They had a difficult time finding any of the persons to whom Perigua had
referred Matthew. First, they went down to Decatur Street. It was the
first time Matthew had been so far south or so near the black belt. The
September heat was intense, and the flood of black folk overwhelmed him.
After all, what did he know of these people, of their thoughts,
ambitions, hurts, plans? Suppose Perigua really knew and that he who
thought he knew was densely ignorant? They walked over to Auburn Avenue.
Could any one tell them where the office of the Arrow was? It was up
“yonder.” Matthew and Jimmie climbed to an attic. It was empty, but a
notice sent them to a basement three blocks away—empty, too, and without
notice. Then they ran across the editor in a barber shop where they were
inquiring—a little, silent, black man with sharp eyes. No, the Arrow was
temporarily suspended and had been for a year. Perigua? Oh, yes.
“Well, there could be a conference tonight at eight in the Odd Fellows
Hall—one of the small rooms.”
“At what hour?”
“Well, you know colored people.”
If he came at nine he’d be early. Yes, he knew Perigua. No, he couldn’t
say that Perigua had much of a following in Atlanta, but Perigua had
ideas. Perigua had—yes, ideas; well, then, at nine. Jimmie said he’d
leave him at that. He had a date, and he didn’t like speeches anyhow.
They parted, laughing.
Nobody came until nine-thirty; by ten there was the editor, an
ironmolder, a college student, a politician, a street cleaner, a young
physician, an insurance agent, and two men who might have been idlers,
agitators, or plain crooks. It was an ugly room, incongruously furnished
and with no natural center like a fireplace, a table, or a rostrum. Some
of the men smoked, some did not; there was a certain air of mutual
suspicion. Matthew gathered quickly that this was no regular group, but
a fortuitous meeting of particles arranged by the editor. Instead of
listening to a conference, he found himself introduced as a
representative of Mr. Perigua of New York, and they prepared to hear a
speech. Matthew was puzzled, nonplused, almost dumb. He hated
speech-making. His folk talked too easily and glibly in his opinion.
They did not mean what they said—not half—but they said it well. But he
must do something; he must test Perigua and his followers. He must know
the truth. So Matthew talked—at first a little vaguely and haltingly;
and then finally he found himself telling them almost word for word that
conversation about American Negroes in Berlin. He did not say who talked
or where it took place; he just told what was said by certain strangers.
They all listened with deep absorption. The student was the first to
break out with:
“It is the truth; we’re punk—useless sheep; and all because of the
cowardice of the old men who are in the saddle. Youth has no
recognition. It is fear that rules. Old slipper is afraid of missing his
tea and toast.”
The editor agreed. “No recognition for genius,” he said. “I’ve published
the Arrow off and on for three years.”
“Usually off,” growled the politician.
“And a damn poor paper it is,” added the ironmolder.
“I know it, but what can you expect from two hundred and fifty-eight
paid subscribers? If I had five thousand I’d show you a radical paper.”
“Aw, it’s no good—niggers won’t stay put,” returned the politician.
“You mean they won’t stay sold,” said some one.
“We’re satisfied—that’s the trouble,” said the editor. “We’re too damn
satisfied. We’ve done so much more with ourselves than we ever dreamed
of doing that we’re sitting back licking our chops and patting each
other on the back.”
“Well,” said the young physician, “we have done well, haven’t we?”
“You has,” growled the ironmolder. “But how ’bout us? You-all is piling
up money, but it don’t help us none. If we had our own foundries, we’d
get something like wages ’stead of scabbing to starve white folks.”
“Well, you know we are investing,” said the insurance agent. “Our
company—”
“Hell! That ain’t investment, it’s gambling.”
“That’s the trouble,” said the scavenger. “We’se strivers; we’se
climbing on one another’s backs; we’se gittin’ up—some of us—by trompin’
others down.”
“Well, at any rate, some do get up.”
“Yes, sure—but the most of us, where is we going? Down, with not only
white folks but niggers on top of us.”
“Well, what are we going to do about it?”
“What can we do? Merit and thrift will rise,” said the physician.
“Nonsense. Selfishness and fraud rise until somebody begins to fight,”
answered the editor.
“Perigua is fighting.”
“Perigua is a fool—Negroes won’t fight.”
“You won’t.”
“Will you?”
“If I get a chance.”
“Chance? Hell! Can’t any fool fight?” asked the editor. “Sure, but I
ain’t no fool—and besides, if I was, how’d I begin?”
“How!” yelled the student. “Clubs, guns, dynamite!”
But the politician sneered. “You couldn’t get one nigger in a million to
fight at all, and then they’d sell each other out.”
“You ought to know.”
“I sure do!”
And so it went on. When the meeting broke up, Matthew felt bruised and
bewildered.
V
Matthew walked into the church about noon. Jimmie positively refused to
go. “Had all the church I need,” he said. “Besides, got a date!” The
services were just beginning. It was a large auditorium, furnished at
considerable expense and with some taste. It gave a sense of space and
well-being. The voices of the surpliced choir welled up gloriously, and
the tones of the minister rolled in full accents.
Matthew particularly noticed the minister. He remembered the preacher at
his own home—an old, bent man, outlandish, with blazing eyes and a fire
of inspiration and denunciation that moved every auditor. But this man
was young—not much older than Matthew—good-looking, intelligent and
educated. This service of mingled music and ceremony was attractive, and
the sermon—well, the minister did not say much, but he said it well; and
if conventionally and with some tricks of the orator, yet he was
pleasing and soothing. His Death was an interpretation of Fall—the
approach of looming Winter and the test of good resolutions after the
bursting Spring and fruitful Summer.
The audience listened contentedly but with no outbursts of enthusiasm.
There were a few “amens” from the faithful near the pulpit, but they
followed the cadence of the beautiful voice rather than the impact of
his ideas. The audience looked comfortable, well fed and well clothed.
What were they really thinking? What did the emancipation of the darker
races mean to them?
Matthew lingered after the service, and his tall, well-clad figure
attracted attention. A deacon welcomed him. He must meet the pastor; and
at the door in his silk robe he did meet him. They liked each other at a
glance. The minister insisted on his waiting until most of the crowd had
passed. Matthew ventured on his queries.
“I’ve just returned from Germany—” he began.
The minister beamed: “Well, well! That’s fine. Hope to take a trip over
myself in a year or two. My people here insist. May get a Walker
popularity prize. Now what do people over there think of us here? I
mean, of us colored folk?”
It was the opening. Matthew explained at length some of the opinions he
had heard expressed. The minister was keen with intelligent interest,
but just as he was launching out in comment, they were interrupted.
“Brother Johnson, we’re ready now and dinner will be on the table.
Mustn’t keep the old lady waiting.”
The speaker was a big, dark man, healthy-looking and pleasant, carefully
tailored with every evidence of prosperity. His car and chauffeur were
at the curb—a new Cadillac sedan.
The minister hesitated. “My friend, Mr. Towns—just from Germany—” he
began.
“Delighted, I’m sure.”
“Yes, this is Brother Jones, president of the Universal Mutual—you’ve
heard, I know, of our greatest insurance society. Mr. Towns is just from
Germany. I’ll—”
“Bring him along—bring him right along and finish your talk at the
table. Always room in the pot for one more. Germany? Well! Well! Are
they still licked over there? Been promising the old lady a trip for the
last ten years—Germany, France, Italy and all. Like to take in Africa
too. But you know how it is—business—” And they were packed into the big
car and gliding away.
There was no chance to finish the talk with the young minister. The host
started off talking about himself, and nothing could stop him. His home
was big and costly—too overdone to be beautiful, but with a good deal of
comfort and abundant hospitality. He served a little whiskey to Matthew
upstairs with winks and asides about the minister; and then, downstairs
and everywhere he talked of himself. He was so naive and so thoroughly
interested in the subject that none had the heart to interrupt him,
although his wife, as she fidgeted in and out helping the one rather
unskillful maid, would say now and then:
“Now, John—stop boasting!”
John would roar good-naturedly—hand around another helping of chicken or
ham, pass the vegetables and hot bread, and begin just where he left
off: “And there I was without a cent, and four hundred dollars due. I
went to the bank—the First National—old man Jones was my people, his
grandfather owned mine. ‘Mr. Jones,’ says I, ‘I want five hundred
dollars cash today!’
“‘Well, John,’ says he, ‘what’s the security?’
“‘I’m the security,’ says I, and, sir, he handed me the cash! Well, he
wasn’t out nothing. My check in five figures goes at the bank
today—don’t it, Reverend?” And so on, and so forth. It was frank, honest
self-praise, and his audience hung on his words, although most of them
had heard the story a hundred times.
“So you’ve been to Germany? Well, well! Have they got them radicals in
jail yet? Italy’s got the dope. Old Moso—what’s his name? Mr. Jones was
saying the last time I was in the bank, making my weekly deposit—what
was it? About six thousand dollars, as I remember—says he, ‘John, we
need a Mosleny right here in America!’”
“You’re not against reform, are you, Mr. Jones?”
“No; no, sir, I’m a great reformer. But no radical. No anarchist or
Bolshevik. We’ve got to protect property.”
There was an interruption from some late arrivals.
“What boat did you return on?” asked somebody.
Matthew smiled and hesitated.
“The Gigantic,” he said, and he wanted to add, “In the scullery.” Could
they stand the joke? He looked up and decided they couldn’t, for he was
looking into the eyes of the latest arrival, and she was the prim young
person who had tipped him fifteen cents yesterday morning!
“Mr. Towns, who has just returned from a trip to Germany, Miss
Gillespie. Miss Gillespie is our new principal of the recently equipped
Jones school—named after the President of the First National.”
Matthew smiled, but Miss Gillespie did not. She frankly stared, bowed
coldly, and then, after a small mouthful or two, whispered to her
neighbor. The neighbor whispered, and then slowly the atmosphere of the
table changed. Matthew was embarrassed and amused, and yet how natural
it all was—that unfortunate smile of his—that unexplained trip to
Germany, and the revelation evidently now running around that he was a
Pullman porter. They thought him a liar through and through. It was not
simply that he was a railway porter—no, no! Mr. Jones was democratic and
all that; but after all one did not make chance porters guests of honor;
and Mr. Jones, when the whispering reached him, grew portentously and
emphatically silent.
Matthew, now thoroughly upset, rose with the others and made his way
straight to the minister.
“Say, I seem to have cut a hog,” he said. The minister smiled wanly and
said, “I’m afraid I’m to blame—I—”
“No, no,” said Matthew, and then tersely he told of his rebuff and
flight to Europe and his return to “begin again.” “I did not mean really
to sail under false colors, and I did come home on the Gigantic. I pared
potatoes all the way over.” The minister burst into a laugh. They shook
hands, and with a hurried farewell to a rather gruff host, Matthew
slipped away. But he left fifteen cents for Miss Gillespie. Jimmie
roared when Matthew told him.
VI
In October, Matthew wrote his first report for the Princess. He wrote it
on his knee and in his one chair, sitting high up in the narrow
furnished bedroom which he had hired in New York on West Fifty-ninth
Street. It was a noisy and dirty region, but cheap and near his work.
There was a bed, a chair, and a washstand, and he had bought a new
trunk, in which he locked up his clothes and few belongings.
Your Royal Highness
I have at your request made a hasty but careful survey of the attitude
of my people in this country, with regard to the possibility of their
aid to a movement looking toward righting the present racial
inequalities in the world, especially along the color line.
My people are increasing in material prosperity. A few are even
accumulating wealth; large numbers own their homes and live in
cleanliness and a fair degree of comfort. Extreme poverty and crime are
decreasing, while intelligence is increasing. There is still oppression
and insult, some lynching, and much caste and discrimination; but on the
whole the Negro has advanced so rapidly and is still advancing at such a
rate that he is more satisfied than complaining. He is astonished and
gratified at his own success, and while he knows that he is not treated
quite as a man and lacks the full freedom of a white man, he believes
that he is daily approaching this goal.
This main movement and general feeling is by no means shared by all.
There is bitter revolt in the hearts of a small intelligentsia who
resent color-caste, and among those laborers who feel in many ways the
pinch of economic maladjustment and see the rich Negroes climbing on
their bowed backs. These classes have no common program, save complaint,
protest, and inner bickering; and only in the case of a small class of
immigrant West Indians has this complaint reached the stage that even
contemplates violence.
Perigua is a man of intelligence and fire—of a certain honesty and
force; but he is not to be trusted as a leader. His organization is a
loose mob of incoherent elements united only by anger and poverty. They
have their reasons. I first thought Perigua a vain and egotistic fool.
But the other night sitting in his dirty flat—a furious, ragged figure
of bitter resentment—he told me part of his story; spat it out in bits:
of the beautiful wife whom an Englishman seduced; the daughter who
became a prostitute; of the promotion refused him in the railroad shops
because of color, and his fight with the color line in the army; of his
prosecution for ‘inciting to riot’; his conviction and toil in jails and
chain gangs, with vermin and disease; and of his long, desperate
endeavor to stir up revolt in America. Perigua and those whom he
represents have a grievance and a remedy, but he will never accomplish
anything systematic. Do not think of contributing to his organization. I
still have your envelope unopened. He has no real organization. He has
only personal followers.
On the other hand, the Negroes are thick with organizations—they are
threaded through with every sort of group movement; but their
organizations so far chime and accord with the white world; their
business organizations, growing fast, have the same aims and methods as
white business; their religion is a replica of white religion, only less
snobbish because less wealthy. Even their labor movement is the white
trade union, hampered by the fact that white unions discriminate and
that colored labor is the wage-hammering adjunct of white capital.
Your Highness and the friends whom I had the honor of meeting may then
well ask, ‘Are these folk of any possible use to a movement to abolish
the present dictatorship of white Europe?’ I answer, yes, a hundred
times. American Negroes are a tremendous social force, an economic
entity of high importance. Their power is at present partly but not
wholly dissipated and dispersed into the forces of the overwhelming
nation about them. But only in part. A tremendous striving group force
is binding this group together, partly through the outer pounding of
prejudice, partly by the growth of inner ideals. What they can and will
do in the rebuilding of a better, bigger world is on God’s knees and not
now clear; but clarity dawns, and so far as we gain self-consciousness
today we can be a force tomorrow.
The burning question is: What help is wanted? What can we do? What are
your aims and program? I know well from your own character and thought
that you could not encourage mere terrorism and mass murder. The very
thought of ten million grandchildren of slaves trying to wrest liberty
from ten times their number of rich, shrewder fellows by brute force is,
of course, nonsense. On the other hand, with intelligence and
forethought, concentrated group action, we can so align ourselves with
national and world forces as to gain our own emancipation and help all
of the colored races gain theirs.
Frankly then, what is the Great Plan? How and when can we best
coöperate? What part can I take? I am eager to hear from you.
I am, your Royal Highness—
There came a knock on the door, and Matthew opened it. A young Japanese
stood there who politely asked for Mr. Keswick. No, Mr. Keswick was not
here and did not live here. In fact, Matthew had never heard of Mr.
Keswick. The Japanese was sorry—very, very sorry for the intrusion. He
went softly down the stairs.
VII
There was no answer to Matthew’s report. He had given the Princess a
temporary address at Perigua’s place, and in this report he enclosed
this room as a permanent one. He had sent the Princess’ letter to her
bankers, as agreed on. Still there was no word or sign. Matthew was at
first patient. After the second week, he tried to be philosophical. At
the end of a month, he was disappointed and puzzled. By the first of
December the whole thing began to assume a shape grotesque and unreal.
They over there had perhaps succeeded in changing her mind. Perhaps she
herself, coming and seeing with her own eyes, had been disillusioned. It
would be hard for a stranger to see beneath the unlovely surface of this
racial tangle. But somehow he had counted or this woman—on her subtlety
and vision; on her own knowledge of the color line.
He did not know what to do. Should he write again? His pride said no,
but his loyalty and determination kept him following up Perigua and
remaining in touch with him. At least once a week they had conferences
and Matthew reported. This week there was, as usual, little to report.
He had seen a dozen men—three crazy, three weak, three dishonest, three
willing but bewildered, dazed, lost. Broken reeds all. Perigua listened
dully, hunched in his chair, chewing an unlit cigar—unkempt, unshaven,
ill. His eyes alone lived and flamed as with unquenchable fire.
“Any money yet from abroad?” he asked.
“No.”
“Have you asked for any?”
“No.”
“So,” said Perigua. “You think it useless?” Hitherto Matthew had tried
to play his part—to listen and study and say little as to his own
thought. Suddenly, now, a pity for the man seized him. He leaned forward
and spoke frankly:
“Perigua, you’re on the wrong tack. First of all, these people are not
ready for revolt. And next, if they were ready, it’s a question if
revolt is a program of reform today. I know that time has been when only
murder, arson, ruin, could uplift; when only destruction could open the
path to building. The time must come when, great and pressing as change
and betterment may be, they do not involve killing and hurting people.”
Perigua glared. “And that time’s here, I suppose?”
“I don’t know,” said Matthew. “But I hope, I almost believe it is. It
must be after that hell of ten years ago. At any rate, none of us
Negroes are ready for such a program against overwhelming odds—”
“No,” yelled Perigua. “We’re tame tabbies; we’re fawning dogs; we lick
and growl and wag our tails; we’re so glad to have a white man fling us
swill that we wriggle on our bellies and crawl. We slave that they may
loll; we hand over our daughters to be their prostitutes; we wallow in
dirt and disease that they may be clean and pure and good. We bend and
dig and starve and sweat that they may sit in sweet quiet and reflect
and contrive and build a world beautiful for themselves to enjoy.
“And we’re not ready even to protest, let alone fight. We want to be
free, but we don’t dare strike for it. We think that the blows of white
men—of white laborers, of white women—are blows for us and our freedom!
Hell! you damned fool, they have always been fighting for themselves.
Now, they’re half free, with us niggers to wait on them; we give white
carpenters and shop girls their coffee, sugar, tea, spices, cotton,
silk, rubber, gold, and diamonds; we give them our knees for scrubbing
and our hands for service—we do it and we always shall until we stand
and strike.”
And Perigua leaped up, struck the table until his clenched hand bled.
Matthew quailed. “I know—I know,” he said. “I’m not minimizing it a bit.
In a way, I’m as bitter about it all as you—but the practical question
is, what to do about it? What will be effective? Would it help, for
instance, to kill a couple of dozen people who, if not innocent of
intentional harm, are at least unconscious of it?”
“And why unconscious? Because we don’t make ’em know. Because you’ve got
to yell in this world when you’re hurt; yell and swear and kick and
fight. We’re dumb. We dare not talk, shout, holler. And why don’t we?
We’re afraid, we’re scared; we’re congenital idiots and cowards. Don’t
tell me, you fool—I know you and your kind. Your caution is cowardice
inbred for ten generations; you want to talk, talk, talk and argue until
somebody in pity and contempt gives you what you dare not take. Go to
hell—go to hell—you yellow carrion! From now on I’ll go it alone.”
“Perigua—Perigua!”
But Perigua was gone.
Matthew was nonplused. All his plans were going awry. Still no word or
sign from the Princess, and now he had alienated and perhaps lost touch
with Perigua. What next? He paused in the smoky, dirty club rooms and
idly thumbed yesterday morning’s paper. Again he inquired for mail.
Nothing. He stood staring at the paper, and the first thing that leaped
at him from a little inconspicuous paragraph on the social page was the
departure “for India, yesterday, of her Royal Highness, the Princess of
Bwodpur.”
He walked out. So this was the end of his great dream—his world romance.
This was the end. Whimsically and for the last time, he dreamed his
dream again: The Viktoria Café and his clenched fist. The gleaming tea
table, the splendid dinner. Again he saw her face—its brave, high
beauty, its rapt interest, its lofty resolve. Then came the grave face
of the Japanese, the disapproval of the dark Indians, the contempt of
the Arab. They had never believed, and now he himself doubted. It was
not that she or he had failed—it was only that, from the beginning, it
had all been so impossible—so utterly unthinkable! What had he, a Negro,
in common with what the high world called royal, even if he had been a
successful physician—a great surgeon? And how much less had Matthew
Towns, Pullman porter!
A dry sob caught in his throat. It was hard to surrender his dream, even
if it was a dream he had never dared in reality to face. Well, it was
over! She was silent—gone. He was well out of it, and he walked
outdoors. He walked quickly through 135th Street, past avenue and park.
He climbed the hill and finally came down to the broad Hudson. He walked
along the viaduct looking at the gray water, and then turned back at
133rd Street. There were garages and old, decaying buildings in a
hollow. He hurried on, past “Old Broadway” and up a sordid hill to a
still terrace, and there he walked straight into the young Atlanta
minister.
“Hello! I am glad to see you.”
For a moment Matthew couldn’t remember—then he saw the picture of the
church—the dinner and the Joneses.
He greeted the minister cordially. “How is Miss Gillespie?” he asked
with a wry grin.
“Married—married to that young physician you met at the radical
conference. Oh, you see we followed you up. They have gone to Chicago.
Well, here I am in New York on a holiday. Couldn’t get off last summer
and thought I’d run away just before the holidays. Been here a week and
going back tomorrow. Hoped I might run across you. I feel like a man out
of a strait-jacket. I tell you this being a minister today is— is—well,
it’s a hard job.”
“My experience is,” said Matthew, “that life at best is no cinch.”
The minister smiled sympathetically. “I tell you,” he said, “let’s have
a good time. I want to go to the theater and see movies and hear music.
I want to sit in a decent part of a good theater and eat a good dinner
in a gilded restaurant, and then”—he glanced at Matthew—“yes, then I
want to see a cabaret. I’ve preached about ballrooms and ‘haunts of
hell,’” he said with a whimsical smile, “but I’ve never seen any.”
Matthew laughed. “Come on,” he said, “and we’ll do the best we can. The
first balcony is probably the best we can do at a theater, and not the
best seats there; but in the movies where ‘all God’s chillun’ are dark,
we can have the best. That gilded restaurant business will be the worst
problem. We’d better compromise with the dining-room at the Pennsylvania
station. There are colored waiters there. At the Grand Central we’d be
fed, but in the side aisles. But what of it? I’m in for a lark, and I
too have a day off.—In fact, it looks as though I had a life off.”
They visited the Metropolitan Art Museum at the minister’s special
request; they dined about three at the Grand Central station, sitting
rather cosily back but on one side, at a table without flowers. Matthew
calculated that at this hour they would be better received than at the
more crowded hours. Then they went at six to the Capitol and sat in the
great, comfortable loge chairs.
The minister was in ecstasy. “White people have everything, don’t they?”
he mused, as they walked up the Great White Way slowly, looking at the
crowds and shop windows. “These girls, all dressed up and painted. They
look—but—are many of them for sale?”
“Yes, most of them are for sale—although not quite in the way you mean.
And the men, too,” said Matthew.
The minister was a bit puzzled, and as they went into the Guild Theater,
said so. It was an exquisite place and they had fairly good seats, well
forward in the first balcony.
“What do you mean—‘for sale’?” he asked.
“I mean that in a great modern city like New York men and women sell
their bodies, souls, and thoughts for luxury and beauty and the joy of
life. They sell their silences and dumb submissions. They are content to
do things and let things be done; they promise not to ask just what they
are doing, or for whom, or what it costs, or who pays. That explains our
slavery.”
“This is not such bad slavery.”
“No—not for us; but look around. How many Negroes are here enjoying
this? How many can afford to be here at the wages with which they must
be satisfied if these white folks are to be rich?”
“You mean that all luxury is built on a foundation of poverty?”
“I mean that much of the costliest luxury is not only ugly and wasteful
in itself but deprives the mass of white men of decent homes, education,
and reasonable enjoyment of life; and today this squeezed middle white
class is getting its luxuries and necessities by inflicting ignorance,
slavery, poverty, and disease on the dark colonies of European and
American imperialism. This is the New Poverty and the basis of armies,
navies, and war in Nicaragua, the Balkans, Asia, and Africa. Without
this starvation and toil of our dark fellows, you and I could not enjoy
this.”
The minister was silent, for the play began. He only murmured, “We are
consenting too,” and then he choked—and half an hour later, as the play
paused, added, “And what are we going to do about it? That’s what gets
me. We’re in the mess. It’s wrong—wrong. What can we do? I can’t see the
way at all.”
Then the play swung on: beautiful rooms; sleek, quiet servants; wealth;
a lovely wife loving another man. The husband kills him; the curtain
leaves her staring at a corpse with horror in her eyes.
The minister frowned. “Do they always do this sort of thing?” he asked.
“Always,” Matthew answered; and the minister added: “Why can’t they try
other themes—ours for instance; our search for dinner and our reasons
for the first balcony. Good dinner and good seats—but with subtle
touches, hesitancies, gropings, and refusals that would be interesting;
and that woman wasn’t interesting.”
They rode to Harlem for a midnight lunch and planned afterward to visit
a cabaret. The minister was excited. “Don’t flutter,” said Matthew
genially; “it’ll either be tame or nasty.”
“You see,” said the minister, “sex is curiously thrust on us parsons.
Men dislike us—either through distrust or fear. Women swarm about us.
The Church is Woman. And there I am always, comforting, advising,
hearing tales, meeting evil—ducking, dodging, trying not to
understand—not understanding—that’s the trouble. Towns, what the devil
should I know of the temptations—the dirt—the—”
“Look here!” interrupted Towns. They were in a restaurant on Seventh
Avenue. It was past midnight. The little half-basement was tasteful and
neat, but only a half dozen people were there. The waffles were crisp
and delicious. Matthew had bought a morning paper. Glancing at it
carelessly, as the minister talked, he shouted, “Look here!” He handed
the paper to the minister and pointed to the headlines. The Ku Klux Klan
was going to hold a great Christmas celebration in Chicago.
“In Chicago?”
“Yes.”
“But Chicago is a stronghold of Catholics.”
“I know. But watch. The Klan is planning a comeback. It has suffered
severe reverses in the South and in the East; I’ll bet a dollar they are
going to soft-pedal Rome and Jewry and concentrate on the new hatred and
fear of the darker races in the North and in Europe. That’s what this
meeting means.” The minister frowned and read on … Klansmen from the
whole country will meet there. The grand officers and Southern members
will go from headquarters at Atlanta on a luxurious special train and
meet other Klansmen and foreign guests in Chicago; there they will
discuss the repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment, and prepare for a great
meeting on the Rising Tide of Color, to be called later in Europe.
“And we sit silent and motionless,” said the minister. “That’s it; not
only injustice, oppression, insult, a lynching now and then—but they rub
it in, they openly flout us. Is there any group on earth, but us, who
would lie down to it?”
The minister was silent.
Then he said, “They may be rallying against Rome and liquor rather than
against us.”
“Nonsense,” said Matthew, and added, “What do you think of violence?”
“What do you mean?”
“Suppose Negroes should blow up that convention or that fine de luxe
Special and say by this bloody gesture that they didn’t propose to stand
for this sort of thing any longer?” The minister quailed. “But what
good? What good? Murder, and murder mainly of the innocent; revenge,
hatred, and a million ‘I told you so’s.’ ‘The Negro is a menace to this
land!’”
“Yes, yes, all that; but not simply that. Fear; the hushing of loose
slander and insult; the curbing of easy proposals to deprive us of
things deeper than life. They look out for the Indian’s war whoop, the
Italian’s knife, the Irishman’s club; what else appeals to barbarians
but force, blood, war?”
The minister answered slowly: “These things get on our nerves, of
course. But you mustn’t get morbid and too impatient. We’ve come a long
way in a short time, as time moves. We’re rising—we’re getting on.”
But Matthew brooded: “Are we getting on so far? Aren’t the gates slowly,
silently closing in our faces? Isn’t there widespread, deep, powerful
determination to make this a white world?”
The minister shook his head; then he added: “We can only trust in
Christ—”
“Christ!” blurted Matthew.
VIII
The cabaret was close, hot, and crowded. There was loud music and louder
laughter and the clinking of glasses. More than half the patrons were
white, and they were clustered mostly on one side. They had the furtive
air of fugitives in a foreign land, out from under the eyes of their
acquaintances. Some were drunk and noisy. Others seemed looking
expectantly for things that did not happen, but which surely ought to
happen in this bizarre outland! The colored patrons seemed more at home
and natural. They were just laughing and dancing, although some looked
bored.
The minister stared. “Are they having a good time, or just trying to?”
“Some of them are really gay. This girl here—”
The minister recoiled a little as the girl reached their table. She was
pale cream, with black eyes and hair; and her body, which she was
continuously raising her clothes to reveal, had a sinuous, writhing
movement. She danced with body and soul and sang her vulgar “blues” with
a harsh, shrill voice that hardly seemed hers at all. She was an
astonishing blend of beauty, rhythm, and ugliness. She had collected all
the cash in sight on the white side and now came over to the Negroes.
“Come on, baby,” she yelled to the minister, as she began singing at
their table, and her writhing body curled like a wisp of golden smoke.
The minister recoiled, but Matthew looked up and smiled. Some yearning
seized him. It seemed so long since a woman’s hand had touched him that
he scarce saw the dross of this woman. He tossed her a dollar, and as
she stooped to gather it, she looked at him impishly and laughed in a
softer voice.
“Thanks, Big Boy,” she said.
The proprietor with his half-shut eyes and low voice strolled by.
“Would you boys like a drop of something—or perhaps a little game?”
The minister did not understand.
“Whiskey and gambling,” grinned Matthew. The minister stirred uneasily
and looked at his watch. They stayed on, ordering twenty-five-cent
ginger ale at a dollar a bottle and gay sandwiches at seventy-five cents
apiece, and a small piece at that.
“Honest,” said the minister, “I’m not going to preach against cabarets
and dance halls any more. They preach against themselves. There’s more
real fun in a church festival by the Ladies’ Aid!” Then he glanced again
at his watch. “Good Lord, I must go—it’s three o’clock, and I must leave
for Philadelphia at six.”
Matthew laughed and they arose. As they passed out, the dancing girl
glided by Matthew again and slipped her hand in his.
“Come and dance, Big Boy,” she said. Her face was hard and older than
her limbs, but her eyes were kind. Matthew hesitated.
“Good-by,” he said to the minister, “hope to see you again some time
soon.”
He went back with the girl.
IX
That trip in his Pullman seemed Matthew’s worst. Sometimes as he swung
to Atlanta and back he almost forgot himself in the routine, and
Jimmie’s inexhaustible humor always helped. He became the wooden
automaton that his job required. He neither thought nor saw. He had no
feelings, no wishes, and yet he was ears and voice, swift in eye and
step, accurate and deferential. But at other times all things seemed to
happen and he was a quivering bundle of protests, nerves—a great oath of
revolt. It seemed particularly so this trip, perhaps because he was so
upset about the Princess’ departure. Besides that, Jimmie left him at
Atlanta. He had taken a few days off. “Got a date,” he grinned.
Matthew was lonesome and tired, and his return trip began with the usual
lost article. People always lose something in a Pullman car, and always
by direct accusation, glance, or innuendo the black porter is the thief.
This time a fat, flashily dressed woman missed her diamond ring.
“—a solitaire worth five hundred dollars. I left it on the
window-sill—it has been stolen.”
She talked loudly. The whole car turned and listened. The whole car
stared at Matthew. It is no pleasant thing to be tacitly charged with
theft and to search for vindication under the accusing eyes of two dozen
people. Matthew took out the seats, raised the carpet, swept and poked.
Then he went and dragged out all the dirty bed-linen from the
close-packed closet and went over it inch by inch. He searched the
women’s toilet room. Then coming back with growling conductor and
whispering passengers, he found the ring finally in the spittoon. He got
little thanks—indeed he knew quite well that some would think he had
concealed it there. The woman gave him fifty cents. Also he missed his
breakfast, and his head ached.
The inevitable woman with the baby was furious, for in his search he had
forgotten to get the hot milk from the diner, and the cook had used it.
A man passed his station because the train conductor had not been
notified of the extra stop. The Pullman conductor placed the blame on
the porter.
“Damn niggers are good for nothing,” said the angry man. Of course
Matthew was supposed to be a walking encyclopedia of the country they
were traversing:
“What town is this?”
“Greensboro, madam.”
“What mountains are those?”
“The Blue Ridge, sir.”
“What creek are we crossing?”
“I don’t know, madam.”
“Well, don’t you know anything?”
Matthew silently continued his dusting.
“Is that the James River?”
“It’s a portion of it, madam.”
“Is that darky trying to be smart?”
The bell rang furiously. To Matthew’s splitting head it seemed always
angry. He brought cup after cup of ice water to people too lazy to take
a dozen steps.
“Why the hell don’t you answer the bells when they ring?” growled the
poker gambler who had the drawing-room. “Bring us some C. & C. ginger
ale and be quick about it.”
“Sorry, but the—”
“Don’t answer me back, nigger.”
Matthew went and brought Clicquot Club, the only kind they carried.
Apparently the passenger did not know the difference.
It was dinner time and he got a moment to sit down in the end section
and dozed off.
“Do you hear?” an elderly man was yelling at him. “Which way is the
diner?”
“Straight ahead, sir, second car.”
The man looked at him. “Asleep at your post is not the way to get on in
this world,” he said.
Matthew looked at him. His patience was about at an end, and the man saw
something in his eye; he added as he turned away: “Young man, my father
fought and died to set you free.”
“Well, he did a damned poor job,” said Matthew, and he went into the
smoking-room and into the toilet and shut and locked the door.
It was nearly ten at night when dinner for the porters was ready, for
the passengers had stuffed themselves at lunch and were not hungry until
late; the food left was cold and scarce, and the cooks too tired to
bother. He was greeted by a chorus when he returned to the car. It began
as he passed the drawing-room:
“Where’s that porter—George!”—“Can you get me some liquor—any fly girls
on the train—how about that one in Lower 5?” Then outside: “Porter, will
you please make this berth—you’ve passed it repeatedly. These colored
men are too presuming.”—“Water!”—“When do we get to ⸺?”—“What station
was that?”—“Please hand me my bag.”—“How can I get into that upper?
Haven’t you a lower?”—“Where’s the conductor?”—“What connections can I
make?”—“How late are we?”—“When do we change time?”—“When is
breakfast?”—“That milk for ba-aby, and right off!”—“Ice water.”—“Shoes!”
Matthew left the train with a gasp and took the subway to Harlem. It was
after midnight and clear and cold. He wanted warmth and company, and he
went straight to the cabaret. He knew he was going, and all day long the
yearning for some touch of sympathy and understanding had been
overpowering. He wanted to forget everything. He was going to get drunk.
He walked by Perigua’s place from habit. It was closed and vacant. No
one whom he saw could tell him where Perigua was. Matthew turned and
walked straight to the cabaret.
“Hello, Big Boy.”
He gripped the girl’s hand. It was the only handclasp that seemed even
friendly that he had had for a long time. She curled her arm about his
neck. “What do you say to a drink?” she asked. He drank the stuff that
burned and rankled. He danced with the girl, and all the time his head
ached and whirled. What could he do? What should he do?
He went out with her at four o’clock in the morning; he scarcely knew
when or why. He wanted to forget the world. They whirled away in a taxi,
and stumbled up long stairs, and then with a sigh he slipped his clothes
off, and clasping his arms around her curving form, fell into dreamless
sleep.
X
At the head of the stairs next morning Matthew met Perigua. The girl had
looked at his haggard face with something like forgotten shame.
“Good-by, Big Boy,” she said, “you ain’t built for the sporting game. I
wish”—she looked at him uncertainly, her face drawn and coarse in the
morning light, her body drooping—“I wish I could help some way. Well, if
you ever want a friend, come to me.”
“Thank you,” he said simply, and kissing her forehead, went. For a long
time she stood with that kiss upon her brow.
Then he met Perigua coming out of the door opposite. Was he in Perigua’s
building? He had been too drunk the night before to notice. No, this was
too narrow for 135th Street. He met Perigua, and Perigua blazed at him:
“You’re having a hell of a time, ain’t you! Prostitutes instead of
patriotism.” Then he snarled, “Wake up! The time is come! Have you seen
this?”
It was an elaborate account of the coming meeting of the Klan in
Chicago. Perigua was trembling with excitement. Matthew looked at him
sharply. Something else was wrong; he looked hungry and wrought up with
drink or excess. Matthew glanced at the paper. The great Klan Special
was leaving Atlanta for Chicago three days later at 3:40 in the
afternoon. Special cars with certain high guests would join them at
various points and from various cities.
“I’m going to Chicago,” said Perigua.
Matthew seized him by the shoulders.
“All right,” he said, “but first come and have breakfast.” Perigua
hesitated and then morosely yielded. They ate silently and then smoked.
“Perigua,” said Matthew, suddenly, “have you got money to go to
Chicago?”
“Is that any of your damned business?”
“Yes, it is. If you are going to Chicago to look over the situation,
consult with your lieutenants, and lay plans for future action, you need
money. You ought to buy some clothes and stop at a good hotel.”
Matthew knew perfectly well that Perigua was going on some hare-brained
mission and that he might in desperation do actual harm. He knew, too,
that Perigua would like to go, or to imagine he was going, on some such
mission as Matthew had sketched. Suddenly, Matthew was thinking of that
unopened envelope given him by the Princess. Perhaps there lay the
answer to her silence and departure as well as money. The envelope was
to go to Perigua only in case he was found trustworthy. But in case he
was not and the envelope could not be returned, what then?
He took a quick resolve. “Come by my room—it’s on the way to the train.”
Silently Perigua followed. They went down by Elevated and soon were
sitting in that upper room. Matthew went to his trunk. It was unlocked.
He was startled. He did not remember leaving it unlocked; he searched
hurriedly. Everything seemed intact, even his bank book and especially
the sealed letter at the bottom, hidden among books. Matthew did not
touch the envelope, but took out his savings bank book, and said: “I’m
going to give you one hundred and fifty dollars to get some clothes and
go to a good hotel in Chicago. Try the Vincennes—I’ll write you there.”
They went out together to the bank.
Matthew returned feeling that he had done a wise thing. He had a string
on Perigua and could keep in touch with him. Now for that envelope. The
more he thought of it, the more he was sure that it would throw light on
the situation. It was careless of him to have left his trunk unlocked.
The landlady was all right, but the other lodgers! He drew out the
letter and paused. What did he mean to do? He tore the letter open. A
piece of paper fluttered out. He searched the envelope. Nothing more. He
looked at the paper.
Sir:
In unwavering determination to protect the name of a certain high
personage, we have taken the liberty to abstract her letter and draft.
All her letters to you and yours to her will come to us. Will you not
believe this is all for the best and that we remain, with every
assurance of regard,
Your Obedient Servants
Matthew stared. When and where had it been possible? He could not
conceive. Then he remembered that polite little Japanese’s visit. The
Princess had never heard a word from him. She never would. Then his
heart leapt. The Princess had not deliberately neglected or deserted
him! She simply had not heard from him and could not find him! He had
blamed the Princess for her apparent neglect, when in reality she knew
nothing. He was ashamed of himself. He had yielded to debauchery and
drunkenness. Well, Jae would atone and get back to his job. Should he
write the Princess again? No. The Japanese and Indians were intercepting
his letters. He started. Perhaps they had given her forged reports and
sent her home disillusioned. Never mind. Even then, it would be on his
report, or supposed report, that she was acting. He must get to work. He
must think and plan.
XI
Matthew arose next day saner and clearer-headed and much less sanguine.
It was December fifteenth. The Princess, had she been in earnest and
remembered their meeting, would surely have insisted on seeing him in
person and at least greeting him. It must have been curiously easy to
make her lose faith. She had in all probability quite forgotten him and
his errand. White America had flattered her wealth and beauty. Well,
what then? Why, then it was for him to show her and her colleagues that
black America counted in the world. But how? How? Then came
illumination. He might himself go to Chicago! Without the slightest
doubt other observers of the darker world would be on hand. He might go
and curb Perigua and watch this meeting.
All the way down to Atlanta he pondered and fidgeted, and decision did
not come until, to his great joy, he met Jimmie with his cheerful smile.
“Where’ve you been, you old cheat?” he cried.
Jimmie laughed. “Running to Chicago now.”
“What? Changed your run? Why?”
“Two reasons. First: it’s a good run; second—well, that I’ll show you
later. Come on now and sign up for the Klan Special.”
“For the what?”
“The Klan Special. It’s on my run, and they want porters. Come and try
it.”
Matthew stood still. It was just the thing. He’d go to Chicago as a
porter and watch. Yes—this was precisely what he would do. With Jimmie
he went to the harassed Pullman manager, who was only too glad to get so
good a porter on such a train as the Klan Special.
“Had a hell of a time. Boys don’t want to wait on the Klan. Damned
nonsense. The Klan don’t amount to anything. Chiefly a social stunt and
gassing for effect. I will put you Car X466 near the end of the train,
between Jimmie’s compartment car and the observation coach. You are
bound to make a pile in tips. So long.”
Matthew and Jimmie went out together. Both were overjoyed to see each
other. Matthew forgot all about Jimmie’s second reason until he noticed
that Jimmie was bubbling over with some secret of his own.
“Have dinner with me,” Jimmie said. “Got something to show you.”
They took the Hunter Street car and rode across town past the quiet old
campus of Atlanta University and through it and then away out by the new
Booker Washington High School. Jimmie stopped at a pretty little cream
and green cottage. It was tiny, but neat, and there was a yard in front
with roses still blooming. Before Matthew could ask what it all meant,
out of the house came a girl and the tiniest of babies. Jimmie set up a
shout of explanations.
“Been married a year,” he said. “Married before I knew you, but the wife
was working in Chicago and wouldn’t come until I could set up a regular
home. But the baby brought her, and I got the home.”
She was a little black, sweet-faced girl with lovely skin, crisp hair,
and great black eyes—very practical and very loving, and her earth was
quite evidently bounded by Jimmie and the baby. Matthew had never seen
so small a baby. It was amorphous and dark red-brown and singularly
cunning. They had a hilarious dinner, and Jimmie was at the best of his
high humor.
He whispered all his romance to Matthew, while his wife washed the
dishes.
“Never thought of marrying a black girl,” he explained. “I was spending
all I could make on a ‘high yaller’ in Harlem; when she heard I wasn’t a
banker, merchant, or doctor, she cut me so clean, I fell in two pieces
and one landed in Chicago. I met Dolly, and gosh! I couldn’t leave her;
innocent, sweet, and with sense. O boy, but I got some wife! And that
kid!” Matthew was troubled. Suppose something happened in Chicago or to
this train; to this boy with his soul full of joy, and to this
sweet-faced little black wife?
The next few days the Klan delegates gathered in Atlanta on special
trains from New Orleans and other cities. Jimmie, looking the crowd over
with practised eye, prophesied a “hot time,” plenty of gambling and
liquor and good tips. Matthew was still disturbed, but Jimmie
pooh-poohed.
“They’re all right. Just don’t let yourself get mad. Remember that, for
the trip, you are just a machine, a plow or a mule, and I—I’m a savings
bank for the kid.”
“Jimmie,” said Matthew suddenly, “suppose somebody tried to get back at
these Klansmen somehow in Chicago.”
“Nonsense,” said Jimmie carelessly, “niggers dassn’t, Catholics and Jews
are too long-headed, and the Klan is too well guarded. Just heard them
talking about extra police protection.” He was off before Matthew could
say more.
Then the rush began. The train was to leave on the twentieth at
three-forty, over the Louisville and Nashville, and for the last half
hour before, Matthew had hardly time to think. His and Jimmie’s cars
were at the end of the train; other Pullmans followed. In the middle of
the train was the diner, and the club car and smoker was far forward.
It was nearly ten o’clock at night before Matthew got his berths made
down and came into Jimmie’s car. They started for the diner. Just as
they were passing out of the car, a bell rang, but Jimmie paid no
attention.
“Come on,” he said, “there’s a flash dame in D who wants too much
attention; I don’t trust her. Her husband, or the man she’s with, is up
ahead, drunk and gambling. Let her wait.” In the diner with the other
porters, they had a gay time. Jimmie winked at the steward and soon
produced a mysterious flask; immediately they were all drinking to “The
Baby” and listening to some of the choicest of Jimmie’s stories.
“Let’s go up and see the bunch in the smoker,” said Jimmie when dinner
was over. “I hear there’s a big game on.”
Matthew and Jimmie went forward. They were surely having a wild time in
the smoker. The drinking and gambling were open, and one could see the
character of the crowd—business men, Rotarians, traveling salesmen,
clerks—a cross section of American middle-class life.
“I am going back,” said Matthew at last, for he was tired and not
particularly interested.
“Be with you in just a minute,” said Jimmie. “I must see this poker hand
through. My God, do you see this flush? Glance at my car as you go
through and see if it is all right; I’ll be back in a jiffy. That fly
dame will be yelling for something. Her daddy’s in here linin’ his grave
with greenbacks.” Matthew walked back thinking of Jimmie. That baby!
That mother’s face! There were, after all, some strangely beautiful
things in life. He walked through Jimmie’s compartment car and saw that
all was quiet. Just as he was leaving, however, he heard the bell and
saw that, sure enough, Compartment D had rung again. He walked back and
knocked lightly.
“Porter!”
Matthew entered.
“It is stifling in here,” came a voice from the berth. “Please open the
window.”
It was warm in Georgia, but the train would soon be in the cooler
mountains; nevertheless, Matthew without argument started to open the
window at her feet.
“No, this one at my head,” insisted the woman, “and for mercy’s sake,
close the door behind you.”
He closed the door softly and then bent over her to raise the window.
There came over him at the moment a subtle flash of fear. She was a
large woman—opulent and highly colored, and she lay there on her back
looking straight up into his eyes. Her breasts were half-covered—one
scarcely at all. He could not raise the sash with his hands unaided. He
braced his knee on the berth and, using the metal handle for unlocking
the upper berth, he bent down hard. The window flew up, but his hand
came down lightly on the woman’s bosom. Again came that gust of fear. He
glanced down. She did not stir, but looked up at him with slightly
closed eyes. For a moment, he caught his breath and his heart hammered.
Then suddenly the door behind was flung violently open. The woman’s face
changed in a flash. She screamed shrilly as Matthew started back and
drew the sheet close about her:
“Get out of here, you black nigger! How dare you touch me! I asked you
to raise the window!”
Matthew, terrified, turned, and with one sweep of his arm fiercely
pushed aside the man who was entering. The man went down in a heap, and
quickly Matthew passed out into the corridor. He started forward to tell
Jimmie, but he heard oncoming footsteps and an opening door. Turning, he
ran into his own car, got his pistol from the clothes closet, and
stepped into the toilet.
There was a long silence, then a cry, a rush of feet, and hurried
voices. Then came a tense quiet. Matthew waited and waited until he
could bear it no longer. He stepped out into the washroom and listened.
Somewhere he could hear a thump—thump—thump. He raised the window and
looked out. Something was dragging and bumping beside the car ahead. He
heard a noise behind and turned quickly. A porter staggered in. Matthew
recoiled, on guard.
“Anything wrong?” he said, thickly.
“They’ve lynched Jimmie,” said the porter.
Matthew sank suddenly to the lounge. My God! It was Jimmie he had heard
coming. He sat down and vomited. He stood up again, staggered to the
door, and fainted away.
XII
It was morning. Matthew opened his eyes slowly and stared at the high
white walls. There were two blurs before him, one on either side.
Gradually, as he shut his eyes and opened them again, they resolved
themselves into two faces. Then he knew them. One was Perigua; the other
was Jimmie’s little black wife. Where was he? He strove to sit up. He
was in a hospital. He wanted to rage. He wanted to tell Perigua and
everybody that he was a murderer. Poor Jimmie, poor little wife and
baby! Perigua—revenge! All these things he strove to say, but the nurse
glided by and stopped him. She gave him something to drink, and he fell
asleep.
Three days later he left the General Hospital, and he and Perigua and
Jimmie’s wife met together in a big brown house on Fourth Street. He
poured out his story, and they listened. Perigua said nothing. But the
little wife put her hand timidly in his and said: “You are not to blame.
It was not your fault.” And then she added: “We had the funeral here in
Cincinnati. I wish you could have been there. There were beautiful
flowers. But they would not open the coffin. They would not let me see
his face.” And she repeated, looking up at Matthew: “They did not let me
see his face.”
Then Perigua said:
“He didn’t have no face.”
There rose a shriek in Matthew’s throat. It struggled and surged, and
broke to horrid silence within him. The hot tear burned in his eyes.
Something died in Matthew that day. He put all his savings into the
little mother’s hand and pushed her gently out the door.
“Good-by,” he said, and “God forgive me!”
Perigua sat down and smoked, and silently showed him newspaper
clippings.
Christmas had passed. The Klan was holding its great meeting in Chicago,
and the papers were full of news about it and of pictures of the
members. They seemed to be making a new campaign against the Catholic
Church; they had apparently dropped the fight on Jews; but they were
concentrating on a campaign against colored peoples throughout the
world, and the world was listening to them. Moreover, they were adroitly
seeking to pit the dark peoples against each other—Japanese against
Chinese; Indians against Negroes; Negroes against Arabs; Mulattoes
against Blacks. They even had certain Japanese and other Asiatic guests!
“That special train will return in triumph next Monday,” said Perigua
finally, looking at Matthew, gloomily.
Matthew brooded. “We must do something, Perigua,” he said; “we must do
something—something startling.”
Perigua bent forward and glowed. “Something to make the world sit up!”
“Yes,” said Matthew, “and my plan is this: I’m going to write and demand
a meeting of the national officers of the Porters’ Union in Chicago.
I’ll attend and tell my story of Jimmie’s lynching and demand a
nation-wide strike of porters until somebody is arrested for this
crime.”
Perigua’s face fell. “Hell!” he said.
XIII
Worn and nervous, Matthew went to the Chicago meeting of the porters. He
talked as he had never talked before, in that room with barred doors.
With streaming eyes he told the story of Jimmie, of the little black
wife, of the baby. He went over the events of that terrible night. He
offered to testify in court, if called upon. The porters listened, tense
and sympathetic; but they were silent and uneasy over the strike. It was
“too risky”; they would “lose their jobs”; “Filipinos would be
imported”; white men “at a living wage and no tips” would replace them:
the nation would not stand being “held up” by Negroes, and white labor
would not back them. “Do you think the white railway unions would raise
a finger? I guess not!” said one.
No—a general Pullman strike would never do. Public opinion among
Negroes, however, forced them to some action. While the white newspapers
had said little about the gruesome lynching, and that little dismissed
and excused it because of “an atrocious attack upon a woman,” the
colored world knew of it to its farthest regions. Once the matter had
come up in the Klan Convention and a brazen-throated orator had declared
that this was the punishment which would always be meted out to the
“black wretches who dared attack Southern womanhood”!
The plan finally agreed on was the utmost Matthew could extract from the
union. It confined itself to a porters’ strike on the Klan Special. The
train was to arrive in Cincinnati at eight at night on the thirtieth of
December and leave at eight forty-five. Before the train came in and
while it was in the station, the porters were to make up all the berths
they could; at eight-forty all the porters were to leave their cars and
march out of the train shed to the main waiting-room; there they were to
declare a strike, refusing to accompany farther a train on which one of
their number, an innocent man, had been lynched, under atrocious
circumstances.
Matthew hurried back to Cincinnati to perfect the plans there. Perigua
had been in Chicago, but he kept out of the way. No one seemed to know
him there, but in his two or three fugitive visits to Matthew he assured
him that he was working underground and making sure that none of the
porters should see him. He promised to meet Matthew in Cincinnati.
With great fanfare of trumpets and waving of flags, the Klan Special
started south. The porters were grim and silent. One of the organizers
of the union had a hurried meeting with them just as they left, and on
the way down, there were frequent conferences. The train was to leave
Cincinnati without a single porter. There was little porter’s work to be
done at night except making the remaining berths, and this would have to
be done by the conductors and the passengers themselves.
It was not, after all, a very bold scheme, or one calling for great
courage. Matthew felt how small a gesture it was, and yet just now any
protest was something; he knew that even this might not have been
feasible, had it not been helped by the fact that none of the porters
wanted to go south on this train. Fear, therefore, pushed them to strike
for principle when under other circumstances many might have refused. It
was extremely unlikely, too, that any porters who were laying over in
Cincinnati, or who lived there, would volunteer to take the strikers’
places. As the diner was detached at Cincinnati, the waiters would not
have to take a stand. They were to disappear quietly, so as not to be
asked to serve as porters.
Perigua arrived in Cincinnati three hours before the Klan Special was
due. He and Matthew sat again in the big gloomy room on Fourth Street.
Matthew looked strained and thin, but he was sanguine. He detailed his
activities.
“Everything’s all right here,” he said. “I think it’s going to make a
big sensation. Newspapers will eat it up, and the whole of colored
Cincinnati is whispering.”
Perigua listened in silence and then laughed aloud.
“Well, what’s the matter?” asked Matthew, testily.
“They’ve double-crossed you, you boob,” said Perigua at last.
“Nonsense—they can’t as long as the men stick.”
“Sure—‘as long as.’ Know what I’ve been doing in Chicago?”
“No—what?”
“Working for the Klan. Private messenger and stool pigeon for Green, the
Grand Dragon. Know all the big ikes—Therwald, Bates, Evans. Say, they
knew of this strike from a dozen pigeons before it was planned. They
passed the word to Uncle George. It’ll never come off.”
“But, say—”
“Shut up—come with me.”
Matthew was disturbed but walked silently with Perigua along Fourth and
then over and west on Carlisle Avenue a couple of blocks, past old brick
buildings, smoke-grimed over the tawdry decorations of a rich, dead
generation.
Perigua pointed out a certain large house.
“Go in,” he said. “You’ll find forty porters lodging there. ‘Strike’ is
the password. They’re new men gathered quietly from all over the South,
expenses paid, ready to scab at a moment’s notice. Tell ’em you’re
inspecting the bunch and flash this badge on them.”
It was as Perigua said. Matthew almost staggered out of the house, with
tears in his eyes.
“I don’t care,” he cried to Perigua. “We’ll strike anyhow. The men will
stick, I know. Let the scabs come—they’ll get one beating!”
“Piffle! They’ll never strike. Not a man will budge when they hear of
that bunch waiting for their jobs, and they’ll hear of it before they
are well out of Chicago. Uncle George will see to that.”
“But what can we do, Perigua?” We must do something—God! We must!”
“Sure. Listen. Two can play at double-crossing. I brought Green news of
the strike—”
“You?”
“Yes—he heard it from a dozen others. And then, for full measure, I lied
about how Chicago Negroes planned a riot as the Klan left. He swallowed
both tales and gave me a thousand dollars to push both schemes along;
then he tipped oh the Pullman Company and the police.”
“But it wasn’t true about the riot?”
“Of course it wasn’t.”
“What did you do?”
“Hung around, filled him with tips and fairy tales, and finally beat it
here!”
“What for?”
Perigua quickly straightened up. “Good-by,” he said, holding out his
hand.
“Where are you going?” Matthew asked.
Perigua glared. “I will tell you. I’m taking the next train south,” he
said with blazing eyes. Matthew stared.
“But—” he expostulated. “The Klan train will not arrive for two hours
yeti”
“I shall need those hours,” said Perigua.
“And you will not see the strike?”
“No—because there won’t be no strike.”
Matthew gripped Perigua’s arm with his own nervous, shaking fingers.
“What’s your plan, Perigua?”
Perigua faced him, speaking slowly and distinctly: “I used to run on
this route from Chicago to Florida through Cumberland Gap. Did you see
the Gap when you came up?” Matthew shook his head.
“Well, you come down the valley from Winchester and Richmond and rush
into the hills; suddenly you meet the mountains, and diving through one
great crag, the tunnel emerges as from a rock wall on to a high trestle
which spans the Powell River! Hm! Great sight! All right. Now for the
great Pullman strike!”
“But Perigua—what have we to do with—with scenery? And suppose the
cowards don’t strike?”
Matthew knew the answer before he asked. He saw the heavy black bag
which Perigua carried so carefully. He knew the answer. Perigua’s mind
was made up. He was mad—a desperate fanatic. What—
“Scenery!” laughed Perigua. “Listen, fool: we’re mocked, betrayed and
double-crossed, your race are born idiots and cowards! Well, I’m going
this alone. Get me? Alone! When the Klan Special sees that scenery—when
it reaches that trestle, the trestle ain’t going to be there!”
“What is going to become of it?” Matthew asked slowly, talking against
time and trying to think.
“I am going to blow it up,” said Perigua.
“But how can you do it? Where can you stand? How can you fire any charge
without elaborate wiring to get yourself far enough away?”
“I am not going to get away,” said Perigua. “I am going to sit right on
that trestle, and I am going to hell with it.”
They looked each other straight in the eye.
“What are you going to do about it?” whispered Perigua. Matthew
hesitated. “Nothing—” he answered slowly. Perigua approached Matthew,
and there was danger in his eyes.
“You’ll peach?” he whispered.
“I’ll never betray you, Perigua.”
“Well, what will you do?”
Matthew was silent.
“Well, speak, man,” growled Perigua.
“I’ll keep still,” said Matthew.
“All right, keep still. But listen, man. It’s going to be done, and if
you can’t be a man, don’t be a damned tale-bearing dog!”
He started away. Matthew’s thoughts raced. Here was the answer to that
sneer of the Japanese. The world would awaken tomorrow to the revolt of
black America. His head swam.
He ran after Perigua and gripped his arm. He was all a-tremble. He
whispered in Perigua’s ear.
“I don’t believe what you have said. I don’t believe the porters will
back down before the scabs, but if they do—”
“Well, if they do, what?” asked Perigua.
“Wait,” said Matthew. “How will the world know that this wasn’t an
accident rather than—revenge?”
“I’ve got posters that I printed myself.”
“Give them to me.”
“What for?”
“If the porters strike, I’ll destroy them. But if they don’t strike,
I’ll scab with them on the Klan Special—and I’ll go to hell with you.”
“By the living Christ,” said Perigua, “you’ve got guts!”
“No,” said Matthew, “I am a coward. I dare not live.”
Perigua gripped his hand.
“I’ve searched through ten millions,” he said, “and found only one who
dared. Now I am going. Here! I’ll give you half the handbills.”
He thrust a bundle into Matthew’s hand.
“Placard the cars with these after midnight. And, say—oh, here it
is—here’s a letter.”
XIV
The porters’ strike was over before it began. The officials had early
wind of the plan, and by the time the Special reached Indianapolis,
rumors of the host of strike breakers, ready and willing to work,
reached the porters’ ears and were industriously circulated by the
conductors and stool-pigeons. There was a moment of strained expectancy
as the train drew into the depot. Reporters came rushing out, and
numbers of colored people who had learned of something unusual stood
about. In the waiting-room stood a crowd of porters in new uniforms,
together with several Pullman officials, and an unusual number of
policemen who bustled about and scattered the crowds.
“Come—clear the way—move on!”
“Where are you going?” one of them asked Matthew, suspiciously. Leaning
by the grill and straining his eyes, Matthew had waited in vain for the
porters to leave their cars and march out according to the plan agreed
on. Not a porter stirred. He saw them standing in their places, some
laughing and talking, but most of them silent and grim. Matthew went
ashen with pain and anger. He beckoned to some of the men he knew and
had talked to. They ignored him.
He leaned dizzily against the cold iron, then started for the gate. A
policeman accosted him, roughly seizing his arm.
“I’m joining this train as porter,” he explained. “I’ve been on sick
leave.” A Pullman official stepped forward.
“I don’t know anything about this,” he began.
But Matthew spied his conductor.
“Reporting for duty, Cap,” he said.
The conductor grinned. “Thought you were leading a strike,” he sneered,
and then turning to the official he said: “Good porter—came up with me.
I was just coming to get an extra man for the smoker.”
“All right.”
And Matthew passed the gate. He spoke to not a single porter, and none
spoke to him. All of them avoided each other. They had failed—they had
been defeated without a fight.
“We’re damn cowards,” muttered Matthew as he climbed aboard.
“Any man’s a coward in midwinter when he’s got a wife, a mortgage, two
children in school, and only one job in sight,” answered the old porter
who followed him.
“Good,” growled Matthew. “Let’s all go to hell.”
An hour late the Klan Special crawled out of Cincinnati and headed
South. The railroad and Pullman officials sighed in relief and laughed.
The colored crowd faded away and laughed too, but with different tone.
Matthew donned his uniform slowly, as in a trance. He could not yet
realize that his strike had utterly failed. He was numb with the day’s
experience and still weak from illness. He shrank from work in the
smoker with that uproarious, drunken crowd of gamblers. The conductor
consented to put him on the last car instead, bringing the willing man
from that car to the larger tips of the smoker.
“We’ve dropped the observation,” said the conductor, “and we’ve got a
private car on the end with four compartments and a suite. They’re
mostly foreign guests of the Klan, and they keep pretty quiet. They are
going down to see the South. Afraid you won’t make much in tips—but then
again you may.” And he went forward.
Matthew went back and walked again through the horror of Jimmie’s
murder. He entered the private car. There was a reception room and a
long corridor, but the passengers had apparently all retired. Matthew
sat down in the lounge and took from his pocket the package which
Perigua had given him; with it was the letter. He looked at it in
surprise. He knew immediately whose it was; he saw the coronet; he saw
the long slope of the beautiful handwriting; but he did not open it.
Slowly he laid it aside with a bitter smile. It could have for him now
neither good news nor bad, neither praise nor inquiry, neither
disapproval nor cold criticism. No matter what it said, it had come too
late. He was at the end of his career. He had started high and sunk to
the depths, and now he would close the chapter.
In the first miles of the journey toward Winchester, Matthew was grim;
cold and clear ran his thoughts.
Selig der, den Er in Siegesglänze findet
He was going out in triumph. He was dying for Death. The world would
know that black men dared to die. There came the flash of passing towns
with stops here and there to discharge passengers; he helped the porter
on the next car, which was overloaded; he was hurrying, helping, and
lifting as was his wont. And hurrying, helping, and lifting, he flew by
towns and lights. Then coming suddenly back from beneath this dream of
loads—from the everyday things—he tried to remember the Exaltation—the
Great Thing. What was the Great Thing? And suddenly he remembered. He
was going to kill these people. Just a little while and they would be
twisted corpses—dead—and some worse than dead—crippled, torn and maimed.
The dark horror of the deed fell hot upon him. He had not seen it
before—he had not wholly realized it. Yet he must go on. He could not
stop. What had other men thought when they murdered in a great cause?
Suddenly he seemed to know. It was not the dead who paid—it was the
living; not the killed, but the Killer, who knew and suffered. This was
Hell, and he was in it. He must stay in it. He must go through with it.
But, Christ! the horror, the infamy, the flaming pain of the thing!
And the world flew by—always, always the world flew by; now in a great
blurred rush of sound; now in a white, soft sweep of space and flash of
time. Darkness ascended to the stars, and distance that was sight became
sound.
It was War. In all ages men had gone forth to kill. But never—never,
from Armageddon to the Argonne, had they carried so bitter reasons, so
bloody a guerdon. All the enslaved, all the raped, all the lynched, all
the “jim-crowed” marched in ranks behind him, bloody with rope and club
and iron, crimson with stars and nights. He was going to fight and die
for vengeance and freedom. There would be no march of music and stream
of banners and whine of vast-voiced trumpets, but it was war, war, WAR,
and he the grim lone fighter.
But the pity of it—the crippled and hurt—the pain, the great pricks and
flashes of pain, the wild screams in the night; the grinding and
crushing of body and bone and flesh and limb—and his sweat oozed and
dripped in the cold night. He cowered in that dim and swaying room and
shook with ague. He was afraid. He was deathly afraid. If he could turn
back! If he had but never fallen in with this crazy plan! If he could
only die now, quickly and first! Yet he knew he would not flinch. He
would go through with it all to the last horror. The cold, white thing
within him gripped him—held him hard and fast with all his writhing. He
would go through.
The outlines of mountains with snow lay sprinkled here and there. The
lights on hill and hollow—on long shining rails and piling shadows
paused, came back and forward, curved, and disappeared. He stood stiffly
and heard the gay laughter of the smoker, and one shrill voice floated
back with war of answering banter.
“Laugh no more!” he whispered, and then his thoughts went racing down to
cool places, to summer suns and gay, gleaming eyes. The cars reeled
forward, gathered themselves, became one great speeding catapult, and
headed toward the last hills. Beside them a little river, silver,
whistled softly to the night.
He collected his few pairs of shoes and set them carefully down before
him, arranging them mechanically; he smiled—the shoes of the dead—and he
strangled as he smiled; strong, big, expensive brogans; soft, sleek,
slim calf; patent leather pumps with gaitered sides; slippers of gray
suede.
Slowly he got out his shoe brushes, and then paused. His heart throbbed
unmercifully and then was cold and still. It was ten o’clock. He put out
his hand and felt the letter. Tomorrow she would hear from him. Tomorrow
they would know that black America had its men who dared—whose faces
were toward the light and who could pay the price.
He laid the letter on the table unopened and took up the rest of the
package, the bundle of manifestoes which Perigua had prepared and
printed himself. Slowly Matthew read the little six-by-eight poster. It
was rhodomontade. It was melodrama, but it told its awful story. Matthew
read it and signed his name beneath Perigua’s.
Vengeance is Mine
The wreck tonight is to avenge the lynching of an innocent black man,
Jimmie Giles, on this train, December 16, 1926, by men who seek our
disfranchisement and slavery.
Murder for Murderers
Miguel Perigua
Matthew Towns
Matthew folded the posters slowly and held them in his hands.
Murder and death. That was his plan. It did not seem so awful as he
faced it. Except by the shedding of blood there was no remission of Sin.
Despite deceptive advance, the machinery was being laid to strangle
black folk in America and in the world. They must fight or die. There
was no use in talk or argument. Here was the challenge. An atrocious
lynching; an open, publicly advertised movement to take the first step
back to Negro slavery. Kill the men who led it. Kill them openly,
publicly, and spectacularly, and advertise the killing and tell why!
Only one thing else, and that was: he must die as they died. It must be
no coward’s act which brought death to others and escape to himself. He
shifted his pistol and pulled it out. It was a big forty-five and loaded
with five great bullets. If the wreck did not kill him, this would. He
was ready to die. This was all he could do for the cause. He was not
worth any other effort—he had tried and failed. He had once a great
dream of world alliance in the service of a woman he had almost dared to
love.
He laughed aloud. She would not have looked twice even on Dr. Matthew
Towns, world-renowned surgeon, save as she saw in him a specimen and a
promise. And on a servant and a porter—a porter. He thought of the
porters, riding to death. Let the cowards ride. Then he thought of their
wives and babies, of Jimmie’s wife and child. What difference? No—no—no!
He would not think. That way lay madness. He rushed into the next car.
“Got—nothing to do,” he stammered. “Will you lend me some shoes to
black?”
“Will I?” answered the astonished and sweating porter. “I sure will! My
God! Looks like these birds of mine was centipedes. Never did see so
many shoes in mah life. Help yo’self, brother, but careful of the
numbers, careful of the numbers.”
Matthew carried a dozen pairs to his car. He shuddered as he slowly and
meditatively and meticulously sorted them for cleaning and blacking.
They would not need these shoes, but he must keep busy; he must keep
busy—until midnight. Then he would silently distribute his manifestoes
throughout the train. At one o’clock the train would shoot from its hole
to the high and narrow trestle. There was only one great deed that he
could do for her, for the majority of men, and for the world, and that
was to die tonight in a great red protest against wrong. And Matthew
hummed a tune, “Oh, brother, you must bow so low!”
Then again he saw the letter lying there. Then again came sudden
boundless exaltation. He was riding the wind of a golden morning, the
sense of live, rising, leaping horseflesh between his knees, the rush of
tempests through his hair, and the pounding of blood—the pounding and
pounding of iron and blood as the train roared through the night. He
felt his great soul burst its bonds and his body rise in the stirrups as
the Hounds of God screamed to the black and silver hills. In both
scarred hands he seized his sword and lifted it to the circle of its
swing.
Vengeance was his. With one great blow he was striking at the Heart of
Hell. His trembling hands flew across the shining shoes, and tears
welled in his eyes. On, on, up and on! to kill and maim and hate! to
throw his life against the smug liars and lepers, hypocrites and
thieves, who leered at him and mocked him! Lay on—the last great
whirling crash of Hell … and then his heart stopped. Then it was that he
noticed the white slippers.
He had seen them before, dimly, unconsciously, out at the edge of the
circle of shoes, two little white slippers—two slippers that moved. He
did not raise his eyes, but with half-lowered lids and staring pupils,
he looked at the slippers—two slippers, far in the rear. They were two
white slippers, and he could not remember bringing them in. They stood
on the outermost edge of the forest of shoes—he had not seen them move,
but he knew they had moved. He was acutely, fearfully conscious of their
movement, and his heart stopped.
He saw but the toes, but he knew those slippers—the smooth and shining,
high-heeled white kid, embroidered with pearls. Above were silken
ankles, and then as he leaped suddenly to his feet and his brushes
clattered down, he heard the thin light swish of silk on silk and knew
she was standing there before him—the Princess of Bwodpur. His soul
clamored and fought within him, raged to know how and where and when,
and here of all wild places! He saw her eyes widen with curiosity.
“You—here—Mr. Towns,” she said and raised half-involuntarily her
jeweled, hanging hand. He did not speak—he could not. She dropped her
hand, hesitated a moment, and then, stepping forward: “Have I—offended
you in some way?” she said, with that old half-haughty gesture of
command, and yet with a certain surprise and pain in her voice.
Matthew stiffened and stood at attention. He touched his cap and said
slowly: “I am—the porter on this car,” and then again he stood still,
silent and yet conscious of every inch of her, from her jeweled feet to
the soft clinging of her dress, to the gentle rise of her little
breasts, the gold bronze of her bare neck and glowing cheeks, and the
purple of her hair. She could not be as beautiful as she always seemed
to him—she could not be as beautiful to other eyes. But he caught
himself and bit hard on his teeth. He would not forget for a moment that
he was a servant and that she knew that he knew he was. But she only
said, “Yes?” and waited.
He spoke rapidly. “Your Royal Highness must excuse any apparent
negligence. I have received no word from you except one letter, and that
only tonight. Indeed—I have not yet read that. I hope I have been of
some service. I hope that you and his Excellency have learned something
of my people, of their power and desert. I wish I could serve you
further and—better, but I can not—”
The Princess sat down on the couch and stared at him with faint surprise
in her face. She had listened to what he said, never moving her eyes
from his face.
“Why?” she said again, gently.
“Because,” he said, “I am—going away.”
“Have I offended you in some way?” she asked again.
“I am the offender,” he said. “I am all offense. See,” he said in sudden
excitement, “this is my mission.” And he handed her one of Perigua’s
manifestoes. The Princess read it. He looked on her as she read.
As she read, wrinkling her brows in perplexity, he himself seemed to
awake from a nightmare. My God! He was carrying the Princess to death!
How in heaven’s name had he landed in this predicament? Where was the
impulse, the reasoning, the high illumination that seemed to point to a
train wreck as the solution of the color problems of the world? Was he
mad—had he gone insane?
Whatever he was, his life was done, and done far differently from his
last wild dream. There was no escape. He must stop the train. Of course.
He must stop it instantly. But how was he to explain to the world his
knowledge? He could not pretend a note of warning without producing it,
and even then they might ignore it. He could not give details to the
conductor lest he betray Perigua.
He did not consciously ask himself the one question: why not let the
wreck come after all? He knew why. For a moment he thought of suicide
and a dying note. No—they might ignore the warning and think him merely
crazy. Already they were flying to make up lost time. No, he must live
and spare no effort even to confession until he had stopped that train.
First, warning—as a last resort, the bell-rope—and then—jail.
At any cost he must save the Princess and her great cause—God! They
might even think her the criminal if anything happened on this train of
death. And then he sensed by the silken rustle of garments that the
Princess had finished reading and had arisen.
“Read my letter,” she said.
His hands shook as he read. She had received and read his reports. They
were admirable and enlightening. Her own limited experiences confirmed
them in all essentials. The Japanese had joined her and was quite
converted. They realized the tremendous possibilities of the American
Negro, but they both agreed with Mr. Towns that there was no question of
revolt or violence. It was rather the slow, sure, gathering growth of
power and vision, expanding and uniting with the thought of the wider,
better world.
But she could not understand why he did not answer her specific
questions and refused her repeated invitations to call. She wanted to
thank him personally, and she had so many questions—so many, many
questions to ask. She had twice postponed her return home in order to
see him. Now she must go, and curiously enough, she was going to the Ku
Klux Klan meeting in Chicago at the invitation of the Japanese, and for
reasons she would explain. Would Mr. Towns meet her there? She would be
at the Drake and always at home to him. She sensed, as did the Japanese,
subtle propaganda, to discount in advance any possible colored world
unity, in this invitation to attend this meeting and ride on this
special train. They were all the more glad to accept, as he would
readily understand. Would he be so good as to wire, if he received this,
to the New Willard, Washington?
Matthew was dumb and bewildered. He could not fathom the intricacies of
the tactics of the Japanese. His reports had been passed to the
Princess, and yet all her letters to him stopped save this. Or had it
been Perigua who had rifled his mail? Or the Indians?
But what mattered all this now? It was too late. Everything was too
late. Around him like a silent wall of earth and time ranged the
symbolic shoes—big and little, slippers and boots, old, new, severe,
elegant. He spoke hurriedly. There was no alternative. She had to know
all. Time pressed. It was nearly one o’clock, and a cold tremor gripped
slowly about his heart. He listened—glanced back at the door. God! If
the conductor should come! Then he hurried on.
“I shall stop the wreck; then I am going—away!”
The Princess gave a little gasp and came toward him. He started
nervously and listened.
“I must not stay,” he said hurriedly, and in a lower voice: “This train
will surely be wrecked unless I stop it. I did not dream you were
aboard.”
She made a little motion with her hands. “Wrecked? This train?” she
said, and then more slowly, “Oh! Perigua’s plan?” Then she stared at
him. “And you—on it!”
He smiled. “Wrecked, and I—on it.” Then he added slowly: “It was to be a
proof—to his Excellency and you. And it was to be more than that: it was
revenge.” And he told her hurriedly of Jimmie’s death.
“But you must stop it. It is a mad thing to do. There are so many sane,
fine paths. I was so mistaken. I had thought of you as a nation of
outcasts to be hurled forward as shock troops, but you are a nation of
modern people. You surely will not follow Perigua?”
“No,” he said quietly, “I will not. But let me tell you—” Then she rose
quietly and moved toward him. “And—Perigua must be—betrayed?”
“Never.”
“And if—” She stared at him. “And if—”
“Jail,” he said quietly, “for long years.”
She made a little noise like a sob controlled, but his quick ear caught
another sound. “The conductor,” he whispered. “Destroy these handbills
for me.” Quickly he stepped out into the corridor.
“Captain,” he said hurriedly, “captain—this train must be stopped—there
is danger.”
“What do you mean? Is it them damned porters again?”
“No—not they—but, I say—there is danger. Where’s the train conductor?”
The Pullman conductor stared at him hard. “He’s up in the third car,” he
said nervously, for it had been a hard trip. “Come with me.” Matthew
followed.
They stepped in on the conductor in an empty compartment, where he was
burrowing in a pile of tickets and stubs. “Mr. Gray, the porter has a
story for you.”
“Spit it out—and hurry up,” growled the conductor. The train flew on,
and faster flew the time.
“You must stop the train,” said Matthew.
The conductor glanced up. “What’s the matter with you? Are you drunk?”
“I was never so sober.”
“What the hell then is the matter?”
“For God’s sake stop the train! There’s danger ahead.”
“Stop the train, already two hours late? You blithering idiot! Have all
you black porters gone crazy?”
Matthew stepped out of the compartment and threw his weight on the
bell-rope. The conductor swore and struck him aside, but there was a
jolt, a low, long, grinding roar, and quickly the train slowed down. The
conductor seized Matthew just as some one pounded on the window. A red
light flashed ahead. Soon a sweating man rushed aboard.
“Thank God!” he gasped. “That was a narrow squeak. I was afraid I was
too late to flag you. You must have got warning before my signal was
lighted. There’s been an explosion on the trestle. Rails are torn up for
a dozen yards.”
XV
Matthew Towns blackened shoes. All night long he blackened shoes,
cleaning them, polishing them very carefully, and arranging the laces.
He was working in a standard Pullman at the forward end of the train,
having been hurriedly transferred from the private car after the
incident of the night. He gathered more shoes and blackened them,
placing them carefully, in the graying dawn, under the appropriate
berths. He arranged clean towels in the washrooms and tested the soap
cocks. He saw that the toilets were clean and in order, and he carefully
dusted the corridor and wiped the windows.
All the time there were two unobtrusive strangers who kept him always in
sight. He paid no apparent attention to them but waited, watch in hand,
as the train approached Knoxville. Some one asked the time.
“Six-thirty,” he whispered.
“We’re pretty late.”
“Yes, on account of that delay on the road.”
“When do we get in Knoxville?”
“About eight-thirty, I imagine. Breakfast will be served as soon as we
arrive.”
At last he went to some of the berths and pulled the lower sheet gently
and then insistently.
“One hour to Knoxville,” he said; and again and again. “One hour to
Knoxville.”
The car aisles began to fill with half-dressed travelers. He brought new
bundles of towels and began to make up vacant berths. He worked rapidly
and deftly. There was much confusion, and always the two unobtrusive men
were near. Some of the returning passengers found their seats in order.
Others did not and made sharp remarks, but Matthew pacified them, guided
them to resting-places, and began to collect the luggage and to brush
the clothes.
The sweat poured off him, but he worked swiftly. When they stopped in
the depot, he was at the step in coat and cap, wooden, deferential:
“Thank you, sir. All right here, Cap.” They moved out for the swift
three-hour run to Atlanta. He finished the other berths, brushed more
passengers, stowed dirty linen, swept, dusted, and guided passengers to
the dining-car attached at Knoxville.
The train glided into the Atlanta station.
And then it came.
“Towns, step this way—gentleman wants to see you.”
He walked back through the train into the lounge of the private car
again. On the table lay something under a sheet. About the door, several
of the passengers were crowded.
As Matthew entered the car he saw in the vestibule, and for the first
time since one awful night, a well-remembered figure—a woman,
high-colored, big and boldly handsome, with her lowered eyelids and
jeweled hands. Beside her was a weak-looking man, faultlessly tailored,
with an old and dissipated face. They were in the waiting throng. The
woman looked up. Her eyes widened suddenly, and then quietly she fainted
away.
Matthew faltered but an instant and then walked steadily on. He entered
the room. The conductor was there, the two quiet men, and a grave-faced
stranger. And then came the Princess, the Japanese, and several other
guests. They all sat, but Matthew stood silent, his uniform spotless,
his head up. One of the strangers spoke.
“Your name is—”
“Matthew Towns.”
“You are a porter?”
“Yes.”
“The porters had planned a strike in Cincinnati?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you strike?”
“I was going to, but I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“Because the others decided not to—and because I heard that this train
was going to be wrecked.”
“By the porters?”
“Certainly not!”
“By whom?”
“I cannot tell.”
“Who told you?”
“I will not say.”
“Did the other porters hear this?”
“No, I was the only one.”
“How do you know?”
“I am sure.”
“When did you hear this?”
“Just before the train started.”
“From Chicago?”
“No, from Cincinnati.”
“But you were in Chicago?”
“Yes.”
“And planned the strike there?”
“Yes. I helped to.”
“What did you do when you heard this rumor?”
“I offered to go as porter.”
“You offered to go on a train that you knew was going to be wrecked?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Well—a porter—my friend—was lynched on this train a week ago. I urged
the strike as a protest. When it failed—nothing mattered.”
“Did you intend to stop the wreck?”
“At first, no.”
“And you—you changed your mind?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I cannot tell.”
“How did you think you could prevent it?”
“Well—I did prevent it.”
“Who told you about this plot?”
“I will not tell.”
“Did this man tell you?”
They drew the sheet from Perigua’s dead face. Beneath the sheet his body
looked queer, humped and broken. But his face was peaceful and smiling.
Matthew’s face was stone.
“No.”
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
“Did you ever see him before?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In the office of the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in the Sherman
Hotel, Chicago.”
There was a stir among the crowd. A big man with a flat, broad face and
little eyes pressed forward and viewed the corpse.
“It may be Sam,” he said. “Were any papers or marks found on him?”
“Nothing—absolutely nothing. Not even laundry marks.”
“I’m almost sure that’s Sam Johnson, who acted as messenger in our
Chicago office. If it is,” he spoke deliberately, “I’ll vouch for him.
Excellent character—wouldn’t hurt a flea.” He glanced at Matthew.
The inquisitor turned back to Matthew.
“Who told you of this wreck?”
“I will not tell.
“Why not?”
“I take all the blame.”
“Do you realize your position? You stand between high reward and
criminal punishment.”
“I know it.”
“Who told you of the wreck?”
And then like sudden thunder came the low, clear voice of the Princess:
“I told him!”
XVI
Circuit Judge Windom, presiding over the criminal court of Cook County,
Illinois, sat in his chambers with a frown on his face. Beside him sat
his son, the gifted young medical student, home from the holidays.
“Certainly I remember Towns,” said the younger man. “He was a fine
fellow—first-rate brains, fine athlete, and a gentleman. If it had not
been for his color, he’d have been sure to make a big reputation, but
they drove him out of school. Somebody had kicked about Negroes in the
women’s clinics. Towns wouldn’t beg—he slapped the Dean’s face, I heard,
and left.”
“H’m—violent, even then.”
“But, my God, father, Towns was a man—not just a colored man. Why, you
remember how he beat me for the Mitchel Prize?”
“Yes, yes—but all that does not clear up this mystery. I can get neither
head nor tail of it. Here is an atrocious railroad wreck planned on a
leading railway. Half an hour more, and there would have been perhaps
five hundred corpses strewn in the river. Awful! Dastardly! The
explosion was bungled and premature. The trestle was left intact, but
enough damage was done to have made the derailing of the train
inevitable had it rushed through the tunnel unwarned. Section hands
discovered at the last moment the broken rails and a dead man lying
across them. They start to signal too late, but before they start Towns
warns the conductor; when the conductor hesitates, Towns himself stops
the train. Possibly the signal man might have stopped it eventually, but
Towns actually stopped it.
“Now, how did Towns know? Was this the striking porters’ plot? Towns and
their leaders declare that, far from dreaming of this, they would not
quit work for an ordinary strike, and certainly they would hardly have
ridden on a train which they expected to be wrecked. An Indian Princess
declares that she told Towns of the plot, and taking refuge in her
diplomatic immunity, refuses to answer further questions. The English
Embassy, which represents her country abroad, backs her reputation,
vouches for her integrity, and promises her immediate withdrawal from
the country. The dead Negro found on the trestle remains unidentified.
Indeed there is no evidence of his connection with the wreck. The chief
of the Klan thinks he recognizes the man as a former messenger, vouches
for his character, and doubts his connection with any plot; he considers
him a victim rather than a conspirator. Says, as of course we know, that
Negroes never conspire. And now comes this extraordinary story of Towns
himself.”
“Well, at any rate, Towns wouldn’t lie!” said the son.
“But the point is, he won’t tell the truth; and why? It looks dangerous,
suspicious. Some red-handed rascals are going free.”
“What does Towns say?”
“He says that he did not plan this outrage; that when he knew that it
was planned he assented to it and determined to run on this train and to
die in the wreck. Then, for some reason changing his mind and being
unable to contemplate the death of all these passengers, he gave warning
of the plot. He says that he had met the Princess abroad, had told her
of his trouble in the medical school and elicited her sympathy and
interest; that he had no knowledge that she was on the train, and no
idea she was in the country. He then told her the danger of the train
and his dilemma, and in generous sympathy, she had finally sought to
direct the blame of guilty foreknowledge to herself.
“In truth, and this he swears before God, the Princess of Bwodpur had
not the faintest knowledge of the plot of wrecking the train until he
himself told her five minutes before he stopped the train. He begs that
she be entirely exonerated, despite her Quixotic attempt to save him,
and that he alone bear the full blame and suffer the full penalty.”
“Extraordinary—but if Towns says it’s true, it’s true. It may not be the
whole truth, but it contains no falsehood.”
“Well, it is full of discrepancies and suspicious omissions. Good
heavens! A woman says she knew a train was to be wrecked, and yet rides
on it, and tells the porter and not the conductor. The porter declares
that she did not know or tell him, but that somebody else did; and yet
he rides. A man found dead may be the wrecker, but the head of the Ku
Klux Klan and one of the threatened party refuses to believe him guilty.
The porter refuses to tell where he got his warning and prefers jail
rather than reward.”
“How did the case get to your court, father?”
“More complications. When Towns was arraigned at Atlanta, the passengers
of the Klan Special came forward with a big purse to reward him for his
services, and a sharp lawyer. Towns refused the money, but the court
listened to the lawyer and held that no crime had been committed by
Towns in its jurisdiction.
“Thereupon the District Attorney of this district sought indictment
against Towns, charging that the Pullman porter strike was concocted in
Chicago and that the wreck was part of the conspiracy. Towns denied
this, but offered to come here without extradition papers. The District
Attorney expected the help and support of the Pullman Company and the
railroads. None of them lifted a finger.
“There is another curious and unexplained angle. You know there was a
lynching on that Klan train. There was some dispute as to whether it
took place in Georgia or Tennessee. Nothing was ever done about it, not
even a coroner’s inquest. Well, I have it on the best authority that
when the woman who alleged the attack saw Towns face to face at the
informal questioning on the train, she fainted away.
“I have tried to get in touch with her and her husband, who is Therwald,
a high Klansman. They deny all knowledge and refuse to appear as
witnesses. As residents of another state, I can’t compel them. Moreover,
I find that they have only recently been married, although the newspaper
reports of the lynching refer to them as man and wife occupying the same
compartment. Now what’s behind all this?
“Well, he was indicted for conspiracy and pleaded guilty. He still
declared that the porters’ union and the Indian Princess knew nothing of
the proposed wreck. He admitted that he did and further admitted that he
consented to it and started on the journey determined not to betray the
arch-conspirators, and then changed his mind and stopped the wreck. Now
what can you make of such a Hell’s broth?”
“I’m puzzled, father.”
“The Princess of Bwodpur herself has come to me, stopping en route, as
she explained, to Seattle and India. Evidently a great lady and
extraordinarily beautiful, despite her color, which I was born to
dislike. I pooh-poohed her story and showed her Towns’ sworn confession.
There is no doubt of her interest in him. She put up a strong plea,
stronger than yours, son, but I was adamant. I had to be. I am not at
all sure but that she is the guilty party and that Towns is shielding
her. I don’t know, my boy—I don’t know where the truth lies. But there’s
more here than meets the eye. I scent a powerful, dangerous movement;
and despite all you say, if Towns thinks that a plea of guilty and
waiver of jury trial is going to get him mercy in my court, he is
mistaken. I am sorry—I hate to do it; but he’ll get the limit of the law
unless he tells the whole truth.”
And the judge sighed wearily and gathered up his books.
XVII
Matthew sat in a solemn hall. It was “across the river”—north of the
Loop and west of the Michigan Avenue bridge, in a region of vacant
dilapidated buildings, of windows without panes and walls peeling and
crumbling. A mighty, gray stone structure covered half the block. The
front was wrinkled and uneven, with a shrunken door under an iron
balcony. Three elevators with musty, clanking chains faced the door and
rolled solemnly up five floors. The lobby was bordered with dark stone;
the floor was white and gray and cold, and across one side was a huge
sign—“Robert E. Crowe, State’s Attorney, Office.” Across the other side
one read, “Criminal Court.”
Within these doors, beyond a narrow, oak-paneled hall, sat Matthew
Towns, in a high-ceilinged room. The long narrow windows, with flapping
dirty green shades, admitted a faint light. The walls were painted
orange-yellow. The lights were hanging from the ceiling in chandeliers
of metal once brass-colored, with each light socket in an ornamental
oak-leaf holder. The globes were of a bluish-yellow glass, pear-shaped.
The Bench, of polished oak, was at the rear of a circular oaken-railed
enclosure. The enclosure had tables and chairs for lawyers, clients, and
witnesses. Well to the front of this green-carpeted space was the desk
of the clerk. To the rear, on a raised platform, were seats for the
jury. Raised yet higher was the platform upon which rested the judge’s
bench; on either side of the bench were doors with signs, “Judge’s
Chambers,” “Jury Rooms.” Facing this circular enclosure were long seats
in rows for the spectators. The floor here was the same dirty gray,
much-worn tile, and the ceiling over the whole, while very high, was
noticeable only because it was so soiled and stained.
Soft sunshine filtered in and lighted up the rich polish of the oak.
Behind the high desk sat the judge—heavily silked, his grave, gray face
looking sternly out upon the world. The strained faces of that world,
white, black, and brown, were crowded in the benches below, and some
stood in hushed silence. Policemen, bareheaded, moved silently about the
throng, and two officials with silver and gilt stood just below the
judge. There should have been music, Matthew thought, some slow beat
like the Saul death march or the pulse of the Holy Grail. Then the judge
spoke:
“Matthew Towns, stand up.”
And Matthew rose and stood, center of a thousand eyes, and a sigh and a
hiss went through the hall. For he was tall and impressive. The crisp
hair curled on his high forehead. The soft brown of his eyes glowed dark
on the lighter brown of his smooth skin. His gray suit lay smooth above
the muscles and long bones of his close-knit body. He looked the judge
full in the face. The eyes of the judge grew somber—but for a tint of
skin, but for a curl of hair, but for a fuller curve of lip and cheek,
this might have been his own son, this man whom his son had known and
honored.
“Matthew Towns,” he said in low, slow tones, “you stand accused of an
awful crime. With your knowledge and at least tacit consent, some person
whom you know and we do not, planned to put a hundred, perhaps five
hundred souls to torture, pain, and sudden death. At the last minute,
when literally moments counted, you rescued these people from the grave.
It may have been a brave—a heroic deed. It may have been a kind of
deathbed repentance or even the panic of cowardice. In any case the
guilt—the grave and terrible guilt hangs over you for your refusal to
reveal the name or names of these blood-guilty plotters of midnight
dread—of these enemies of God and man. With the stoicism worthy of a
better cause and a cynical hardness, you let these men walk free and
take upon yourself all the punishment and shame. It has a certain
fineness of sacrifice, I admit; but it is wrong, cruel, hateful to
civilization and criminal in effect and intent. There is for you no
shadow of real excuse. You are a man of education and culture. You have
traveled and read. I know that you have suffered injustice and perhaps
insult and that your soul is bitter. But you are to blame if you have
let this drown the heart of your manhood. You have no real excuse for
this criminal and dangerous silence, and I have but one clear duty
before me, and that is to punish you severely. I could pronounce the
sentence of death upon you for deliberate conspiracy to maim and murder
your fellow men; but I will temper justice with mercy so as still to
give you chance for repentance. Matthew Towns, I sentence you to ten
years at hard labor in the State Prison at Joliet.”
The sun burst clear through the dim windows and lighted the young face
of the prisoner.
Some one in the audience sobbed; another started to applaud. Matthew
Towns followed the guard into the anteroom, and thither the Princess
came, moving quietly to where he stood with shackled hands. The windows
all about were barred, and at the farther end of the room stood the
stolid officer with a pistol and keys. Down below hummed the traffic.
She took both his manacled hands in hers, and he steeled himself to look
the last time at that face and into the deep glory of her eyes. She was
simply dressed in black, with one great white pearl in the parting of
her breasts.
“You are a brave man, Matthew Towns, brave and great. You have
sacrificed your life for me.”
Matthew smiled whimsically.
“I am a small man, small and selfish and singularly short of sight. I
served myself as well as you, and served us both ill, because I was
dreaming selfish little dreams. Now I am content; for life, which was
twisting itself beyond my sight and reason, has become suddenly straight
and simple. Your Royal Highness”—he saw the pain in her eyes, and he
changed: “My Princess,” he said, “your path of life is straight before
you and clear. You were born to power. Use it. Guide your groping
people. You will go back now to the world and begin your great task as
the ruler of millions and the councilor of the world’s great leaders.
“Your dream of the emancipation of the darker races will come true in
time, and you will find allies and helpers everywhere, and nowhere more
than in black America. Join the hands of the dark people of the earth.
Discover in the masses of groveling, filthy, ignorant black and brown
and yellow slaves of modern Europe, the spark of manhood which, fanned
with knowledge and health, will light anew a great world-culture. Yours
is the great chance—the solemn duty. I had thought once that I might
help and in some way stand by the armposts of your throne. That dream is
gone. I made a mistake, and now I can only help by bowing beneath the
yoke of shame; and by that very deed I am hindered—forever—to help
you—or any one—much. I—am proud—infinitely proud to have had at least
your friendship.”
The Princess spoke, and as she talked slowly, pausing now and then to
search for a word, she seemed to Matthew somehow to change. She was no
longer an icon, crimson and splendid, the beautiful perfect thing apart
to be worshiped; she became with every struggling word a striving human
soul groping for light, needing help and love and the quiet deep
sympathy of great, fine souls. And the more she doffed her royalty and
donned her sweet and fine womanhood, the further, the more inaccessible,
she became to him.
He knew that what she craved and needed for life, he could not give;
that they were eternally parted, not by nature or wealth or even by
birth, but by the great call of her duty and opportunity, and by the
narrow and ever-narrowing limit of his strength and chance. She did not
even look at him now with that impersonal glance that seemed to look
through him to great spaces beyond and ignore him in the very intensity
and remoteness of her gaze. She stood with downcast eyes and nervous
hands, and talked, of herself, of her visit to America, of her hopes, of
him.
“I am afraid,” she said, “I seem to you inhuman, but I have come up out
of great waters into the knowledge of life.” She looked up at him sadly:
“Were you too proud to accept from me a little sacrifice that cost me
nothing and meant everything to you?”
“It might have cost you a kingdom and the whole future of the darker
world. It was just some such catastrophe that the Japanese and Indians
rightly feared.”
“And so, innocent of crime, you are going to accept the brand and
punishment of a criminal?”
“My innocence is only technical. I was a deliberate co-conspirator with
Perigua. I—murdered Jimmie!”
“No—no—how can you say this! You did not dream of peril to your friend,
and your pact with Perigua was a counsel of despair!”
“My moral guilt is real. I should have remembered Jimmie. I should have
guided Perigua.”
“But,” and she moved nearer, “if the dead man was—Perigua, what harm now
to tell the truth?”
“I will not lay my guilt upon the dead. And, too—if I confessed that
much, men might probe—further.”
“And so in the end I am the one at fault!”
“No—no.”
“Yes, I know it. But, oh, Matthew, are you not conscience-mad? You would
have died for your friend had you known, just as now you go to jail for
me and my wild errand. But even granted, dear friend, some of the guilt
of which you so fantastically accuse yourself—can you not balance
against this the good you can do your people and mine if free?”
“I have thought of this, and I much doubt my fitness. I know and feel
too much. Dear Jimmie saw no problem that he could not laugh off—he was
valuable; indispensable in this stage of our development. He should be
living now, but I who am a mass of quivering nerves and all too delicate
sensibility—I am liable to be a Perigua or a hesitating complaining
fool—untrained or half-trained, fitted for nothing but—jail.”
“But—but afterward—after ten little years or perhaps less—you will still
be young and strong.”
“No, I shall be old and weak. My spirit will be broken and my hope and
aspirations gone. I know what jail does to men, especially to black
men—my father—”
“You are then deliberately sacrificing your life to me and my cause!”
“I am making the only effective and final atonement that I can to the
Great Cause which is ours. I might live and work and do infinitely
less.”
“You have ten minutes more,” said the guard.
“Is there nothing—is there not something I can do for you?”
“Yes—one thing: that is, if you are able—if you are permitted and can do
it without involving yourself too much with me and my plight.”
“Tell me quickly.”
“I would not put this request if I had any other way, if I had any other
friend. But I am—alone.” She gripped his hands and was silent, looking
always straight into his eyes with eyes that never dropped or wavered.
“I have a mother in Virginia whom I have forgotten and neglected. She is
a great and good woman, and she must know this. Here is a package. It is
addressed to her and contains some personal mementoes—my father’s watch,
my high-school certificate—old gifts. I want her to have them. I want
her to see—you. I want you to see her—it will explain; she is a noble
woman; old, gnarled, ignorant, but very wise. She lives in a log cabin
and smokes a clay pipe. I want you to go to her if you can, and I want
you to tell her my story. Tell her gently, but clearly, and as you think
best; tell her I am dead or in a far country—or, if you will, the plain
truth. She is seventy years old. She will be dead before I leave those
walls, if I ever leave them. If she did not realize where I was or why I
was silent, she would die of grief. If she knows the truth or thinks she
knows it, she will stand up strong and serene before her God. Tell her I
failed with a great vision—great, even if wrong. Make her life’s end
happy for her. Leave her her dreams.”
“You have one minute more,” said the guard.
The Princess took the package. The policeman turned, watch in hand. They
looked at each other. He let his eyes feast on her for the last
time—that never, never again should they forget her grace and beauty and
even the gray line of suffering that leapt from nose to chin; suddenly
she sank to her knees and kissed both his hands, and was gone.
Next day a great steel gate swung to in Joliet, and Matthew Towns was
No. 1,277.
Part III. The Chicago Politician
1924, January, to April, 1926
Winter. Winter, jail and death. Winter, three winters long, with, only
the green of two little springs and the crimson of two short autumns;
but ever with hard, cold winter in triumph over all. Cold streets and
hard faces; white death in a white world; but underneath the ice, fire
from heaven, burning back to life the poor and black and guilty, the
hopeless and unbelieving, the suave and terrible. Dirt and frost, slush
and diamonds, amid the roar of winter in Chicago.
I
Sara Andrews listened to the short trial and sentence of Matthew Towns
in Chicago in early January, 1924, with narrowed eyelids, clicking her
stenographer’s pencil against her teeth. She was not satisfied. She had
followed the Klan meeting with professional interest, then the porters’
strike and Matthew’s peculiar case. There was, she was certain, more
here than lay on the surface, and she walked back to Sammy Scott’s
office in a brown study.
Sara Andrews was thin, small, well tailored. Only at second glance would
you notice that she was “colored.” She was not beautiful, but she gave
an impression of cleanliness, order, cold, clean hardness, and unusual
efficiency. She wore a black crepe dress, with crisp white organdie
collar and cuffs, chiffon hose, and short-trimmed hair. Altogether she
was pleasing but a trifle disconcerting to look at. Men always turned to
gaze at her, but they did not attempt to flirt—at least not more than
once.
Miss Andrews was self-made and independent. She had been born in Indiana
of the union of a colored chambermaid in the local hotel and a white
German cook. The two had been duly married and duly divorced after the
cook went on a visit to Germany and never returned. Then her mother
died, and this girl fought her way through school; she forced herself
into the local business college, and she fought off men with a
fierceness and determination that scared them. It became thoroughly
understood in Richmond that you couldn’t “fool” with Sara Andrews. Local
Lotharios gave up trying. Only fresh strangers essayed, and they
received direct and final information. She slapped one drummer publicly
in the Post Office and nearly upset evening prayer at St. Luke’s, to the
discomfiture of a pious deacon who sat beside her and was praying with
his hands.
For a long time she was the only “colored” person in town, except a few
laborers; and although almost without social life or intimate friends,
she became stenographer at the dry goods “Emporium” at a salary which
was regarded as fabulous for a young woman. Then Southern Negroes began
to filter in as laborers, and the color line appeared, broad and clear,
in the town. Sara Andrews could have ignored it and walked across so far
as soda fountains and movie theaters were concerned, but she wouldn’t. A
local druggist wanted to marry her and “go away.” She refused and
suddenly gave up her job and went to Chicago. There, in 1922, she became
secretary to the Honorable Sammy Scott.
The Honorable Sammy was a leading colored politician of Chicago. He was
a big, handsome, brown man, with smooth black hair, broad shoulders, and
a curved belly. He had the most infectious smile and the most cordial
handshake in the city and the reputation of never forgetting a face.
Behind all this was a keen intelligence, infinite patience, and a
beautiful sense of humor. Sammy was a coming man, and he knew it.
He was, in popular parlance, a “politician.” In reality he was a
super-business man. In the Second Ward with its overflowing Negro
population, Sammy began business in 1910 by selling the right to gamble,
keep houses of prostitution, and commit petty theft, to certain men,
white and black, who paid him in cash. With this cash he bribed the city
officials and police to let these people alone and he paid a little army
of henchmen to organize the Negro voters and see that they voted for
officials who could be bribed.
Sammy did not invent this system—he found it in full blast and he
improved it. He replaced white ward heelers with blacks who were more
acceptable to the colored voters and were themselves raised from the
shadow of crime to well-paid jobs; some even became policemen and
treated Negro prisoners with a certain consideration. Some became clerks
and civil servants of various sorts.
Then came migration, war, more migration, prohibition, and the Riot.
Black Chicago was in continual turmoil, and the black vote more than
doubled. Sammy’s business expanded enormously; bootlegging became a
prime source of graft and there was more gambling, more women for sale,
and more crime. Men pushed and jostled each other in their eagerness to
pay for the privilege of catering to these appetites. Sammy became
Alderman from the Second Ward and committeeman, representing the regular
Second Ward Republican organization on the County Central Committee. He
made careful alliance with the colored Alderman in the Third Ward and
the white Aldermen from the other colored wards. He envisaged a
political machine to run all black Chicago.
But there were difficulties—enormous difficulties. Other Negro
politicians in his own and other wards, not to mention the swarm of
white bosses, had the same vision and ambition as Sammy—they must all be
reconciled and brought into one organization. As it was now, Negroes
competed with each other and fought each other, and the white party
bosses, setting one against the other, got the advantage. It was at this
stage of the game that Sara Andrews joined Sammy’s staff.
When Sara Andrews applied to the Honorable Sammy for work, he hired her
on the spot because she looked unusually ornamental in her immaculate
crepe dress, white silk hose, and short-trimmed hair. She had
intelligent, straight gray eyes, too, and Sammy liked both intelligence
and gray eyes. Moreover, she could “pass” for white—a decided advantage
on errands and interviews.
Sammy’s office was on State Street at the corner of Thirty-second. Most
of the buildings around there were old frame structures with
living-quarters above and stores below. On each corner were brick
buildings planned like the others, but now used wholly for stores and
offices. The entrance to Sammy’s building was on the Thirty-second
Street side; a dingy gray wooden door opened into a narrow hall of about
three by four feet. Thence rose a flight of stairs which startled by its
amazing steepness as well as its darkness. At the top of the stairs, the
hall was dim and narrow, with high ceilings. At the end was a
waiting-room facing State Street. It was finished with a linoleum rug
that did not completely cover the soft wood floor; its splinters
insisted on pulling away as if to avoid the covering of dark red paint.
There were two desks in the waiting-room, some chairs, and a board upon
which were listed “Apartments for rent.” Sash curtains of dingy white,
held up with rods, were at the windows, and above them in gold letters
were painted the names of various persons and of “Samuel Scott, Attorney
at Law.”
A railing about three feet high made an inner sanctum, and beyond was a
closed door marked “Private.” Back here in Sammy’s private office lay
the real center of things, and in front of this and within the rail,
Sammy installed Sara. The second day she was there, Sammy kissed her.
That was four years ago, and Sammy had not kissed her since. He had not
even tried. Just what happened Sammy never said; he only grinned, and
all his friends ever really knew was that Sammy and Sara were closeted
together for a full half-hour after the kiss and that Sara did most of
the talking. But Sara stayed at her job, and she stayed because Sammy
discovered that she was a new asset in his business; first of all, that
she was a real stenographer. He did not have to dictate letters, which
had always been a difficult task. He just talked with Sara and signed
what she brought him a few minutes later.
“And believe me,” said Sammy, “she writes some letter!” Indeed Sara
brought new impetus and methods into Sammy’s business. When that kiss
failed, Sammy was afraid he had got hold of a mere prude and was
resolved to shift her as soon as possible. Then came her letter-writing
and finally her advice. She listened beautifully, and Sammy loved to
talk. She drew out his soul, and gradually he gave her full confidence.
He discovered to his delight that Sara Andrews had no particular
scruples or conscience. Lying, stealing, bribery, gambling,
prostitution, were facts that she accepted casually. Personally honest
and physically “pure” almost to prudery, she could put a lie through the
typewriter in so adroit a way that it sounded better than the truth and
was legally fireproof. She recognized politics as a means of private
income, and her shrewd advice not only increased the office revenue, but
slowly changed it to safer and surer forms. “Colored cabarets are all
right,” said Sara, “but white railroads pay better.”
She pointed out that not only would the World-at-Play pay for privilege
and protection, but the World-at-Work would pay even more. Retail
merchants, public service corporations, financial exploiters, all wanted
either to break the law or to secure more pliable laws; and with
post-war inflation, they would set no limit of largesse for the persons
who could deliver the goods. Sammy must therefore get in touch with
these Agencies in the White World. Sammy was skeptical. He still placed
his chief reliance on drunkards, gamblers, and prostitutes. “Moreover,”
he said, “all that calls not only for more aldermen but more members of
the legislature and Negroes on the bench.”
“Sure,” answered Sara, “and we got to push for Negro aldermen in the
Sixth and Seventh Wards, a couple of more members of the legislature, a
judge, and a congressman.”
“And each one of them will set up as an independent boss, and what can I
do with them?”
“Defeat ’em at next election,” said Sara, “and that means that you’ve
got to get a better hold on the Negro vote than you’ve got. Oh, I know
you’re mighty popular in the policy shops, but you’re not so much in the
churches. You’re corraling the political jobs and ward organizations,
but you must get to be popular—get the imagination of the rank and
file.”
Sammy hooted the suggestion, and Sara said nothing more for a while. But
she had set Sammy thinking. She always did that.
In fine, Sara Andrews became indispensable to the Honorable Sammy Scott,
and he knew that she was. He would have liked to kiss and cuddle her now
and then when they sat closeted together in the den which she had
transformed into an impressive, comfortable, and singularly official
office. She was always so cool and clean with her slim white hands and
perfect clothes. But all she ever allowed was a little pat on the
shoulder and an increase in salary. Now and then she accepted jewelry
and indicated clearly just what she wanted.
Then for a while Sammy half made up his mind to marry her, and he was
about sure she would accept. But he was a little afraid. She was too
cold and hard. He had no mind to embrace a cake of ice even if it was
well groomed and sleek. “No,” said Sammy to himself and to his friends
and even to Sara in his expansive moments, after a good cocktail, “no,
I’m not a marrying man.”
Sara was neither a prude nor a flirt. She simply had a good intellect
without moral scruples and a clear idea of the communal and social value
of virginity, respectability, and good clothes. She saved her money
carefully and soon had a respectable bank account and some excellent
bonds.
Sammy was born in Mississippi the year that Hayes was elected. He had
little education but could talk good English and made a rattling public
speech. With Sara’s coaching he even attempted something more than
ordinary political hokum and on one or two public occasions lately had
been commended; even the Tribune called him a man of “real information
in current events.” Sara accordingly bought magazines and read papers
carefully. She wrote out his more elaborate speeches; he committed them
to his remarkable memory in an hour or so.
Why then should Sammy marry Sara? He had her brains and skill, and
nobody could outbid him in salary. Of that he was sure. Why spoil the
loyalty of a first-class secretary for the doubtful love of a wife?
Then, too, he rather liked the hovering game. He came to his office and
his letters with a zest. He discovered the use of letters even in
politics. Before Sara’s day there was a typewriting machine in Sammy’s
office, but it was seldom used. Previous clerks had been poor
stenographers, and Sammy could not dictate. Besides, why write? Sara
showed him why. He touched her finger tips; he brought her flowers and
told her all his political secrets. She had no lovers and no prospective
lovers. Time enough to marry her if he found he must. Meantime love was
cheap in Chicago and secretaries scarce, and, in fine, “I’m not a
marrying man,” repeated the Honorable Sammy.
Sara smiled coolly and continued:
“I think I see something for us in the Towns case.”
Sammy frowned. “Better not touch it,” he said. “Bolsheviks are
unpopular, especially with railroads. And when it comes to niggers
blowing up white folks—well, my advice is, drop it!” So the matter
dropped for a week. Then Sara quietly returned to it: “Listen,
Sammy”—Sara was quite informal when they were alone in the sanctum—“I
think I see a scoop.” Sammy listened. “This Matthew Towns—”
“What Matthew Towns?”
“The man they sent to Joliet.”
“Oh! I thought you’d dropped that.”
“No, I’ve just really begun to take it up. This Towns is unusual,
intelligent, educated, plucky.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw him during the trial, and since then I’ve been down to Joliet.”
“Humph!” said Sammy, lighting his third cigar.
“He is a man that would never forget a service. With such a man added to
your machine you might land in Congress.” Sammy laid his cigar down and
sat up.
“I keep telling you, Sammy, you’ve got to be something more than the
ordinary colored Chicago politician before you can take the next step.
You’ve got to be popular among respectable people.”
“Respectable, hell!” remarked Sammy.
“Precisely,” said Sara; “the hell of machine politics has got to be made
to look respectable for ordinary consumption. Now you need something to
jack you up in popular opinion. Something that will at once appeal to
Negro race pride and not scare off the white folks who want to do
political business with you. Our weakness as Negro politicians is that
we have never been able to get the church people and the young educated
men of ability into our game.”
“Hypocrites and asses!”
“Quite so, but you’ll notice these hypocrites, asses, good lawyers, fine
engineers, and pious ministers are all grist to the white man’s
political machine. He puts forward and sticks into office educated and
honest men of ability who can do things, and he only asks that they
won’t be too damned good and honest to support his main interests in a
crisis. Moreover, either we’ll get the pious crowd and the educated
youngsters in the machine, or some fine day they’ll smash it.
“Sammy, have some imagination! Your methods appeal to the same crowd in
the same old way. Meantime new crowds are pushing in and old crowds are
changing and they want new ways—they are caught by new gags; makes no
difference whether they are better or worse than the old—facts are
facts, and the fact is that your political methods are not appealing to
or holding the younger crowd. Now here’s bait for them, and big bait
too. If I am not much mistaken, Towns is a find. For instance: ‘The
Honorable Sammy Scott secures the release of Towns. Towns, a
self-sacrificing hero, now looms as a race martyr. Towns says that he
owes all to the Honorable Sammy!’”
“Fine,” mocked Sammy, “and niggers wild! But how about the white folks?
‘Sam Scott, the black politician, makes a jail delivery of the criminal
who tried to wreck the Louisville & Nashville Railway Special. A
political shame,’ etc., etc.”
“Hold up,” insisted Sara. “Now see here: the Negroes have been
thoroughly aroused and are bitterly resentful at the Klan meeting, the
lynching of the porter, and Matthew Towns’ incarceration. His release
would be a big political asset to the man who pulled it off. And if you
are the man and the white political and business world know that your
new popularity strengthens your machine and delivers them votes when
wanted, and that instead of dealing with a dozen would-be bosses, they
can just see you—why, Sammy, you’d own black Chicago!”
“Sounds pretty—but—”
“On the other hand, who would object? I have been talking to the porters
and railroad men and to others. They say the judge was reluctant to
sentence Towns, but saw no legal escape. The railroad and the Pullman
Company owe him millions and were willing to reward him handsomely if he
had escaped the law. The Klan owes several hundred lives to him. None of
these will actively oppose a pardon. It remains only to get one of them
actually to ask for it.”
“Well—one, which one?” grinned Sammy, touching Sara’s fingers as he
reached for another cigar.
“The Klan.”
“Are you crazy!”
“I think not. Consider; the Klan is at once criminal and victim. Its
recent activities have been too open and bombastic. It has suffered
political reverses both north and south. It is accused of mere
‘nigger-baiting.’ Would it not be a grand wide gesture of tolerance for
the Klan to ask freedom for Towns? Something like donations to Negro
churches, only bigger and with more advertising value.”
“Well, sure; if they had that kind of sense.”
“They’ve got all kinds of sense. Now again, there is something funny
about that lynching. I’ve heard a lot of talk. Towns has let out bits of
a strange story, and the porters say he was wild and bitter about the
lynching. Suppose, now—I’m only guessing—Towns knows more than he has
told about this woman and her carrying on. If so, she might be glad to
help him. A favor for keeping his mouth shut. I mention this, because
she has married since the Klan convention and her husband is a high
official of the Klan.”
Sammy still didn’t see much in the scheme, but he had a great respect
for Sara’s shrewdness.
“Well—what do you propose?” he asked.
“I propose to go to Joliet again and have a long talk with Towns. Then
I’m going to drop down to Washington. I’ve always wanted to go there.
I’ll need a letter of introduction from somebody of importance in
Chicago to this woman, Mrs. Therwald.”
II
It was a lovely February day as Sara walked down Sixteenth Street,
Washington—clear cool, with silvery sunshine. Sara was appropriately
garbed in a squirrel coat and hat, pearl-gray hose, and gray suede
slippers. Her gloves matched her eyes, and her manner was sedate. She
walked down to Pennsylvania Avenue, looked at the White House casually,
and then sauntered on to the New Willard. Her color was so imperceptible
that she walked in unhindered and strolled through the lobby. Mrs.
Therwald was not in, she was informed by the room clerk. She talked with
a bell-boy, and when Mrs. Therwald entered, observed her from afar,
carefully and at her leisure. She was a big florid woman, boldly
handsome, but beginning to show age. About a quarter of an hour after
she had taken the elevator, Sara sent up her card and letter of
introduction from the wife of a prominent white Chicago politician.
Mrs. Therwald received her. She was a woman thoroughly bored with life,
and Sara looked like a pleasant interlude. They were soon chatting
easily. Sara intimated that she wrote for magazines and newspapers and
that she had come to see the wife of a celebrity.
“Oh, no—we’re nothing.”
“Oh, yes—the Klan is a power and bound to grow—if it acts wisely.”
“I really don’t know much about it. My husband is the one interested.”
“I know—and that brings me to the second object of my visit—Matthew
Towns.”
Mrs. Therwald was silent several seconds—and then: “Matthew Towns? Who—”
“Of course you would not remember,” said Sara hastily, for she had
noticed that pause, and the tone of the question did not carry
conviction. “I mean the porter who was sent to the penitentiary for the
attempted wreck of the Klan Special.”
“Oh, that—scoundrel.”
“Yes. There is, as perhaps you know, a great deal of talk about his
silence. He must know—lots of things. I think it rather fine in him to
shield—others. I hope he won’t break down in jail and talk.”
Mrs. Therwald started perceptibly.
“Talk about what?” she asked almost sharply.
Sara was quite satisfied and continued easily.
“Well, about the black conspirators against the Ku Klux Klan—or the
white ones, because they are more likely to be white. Or he might gossip
and just stir up trouble. But I think he’s too big for all that. You
know, I saw him and talked to him—really handsome, for a colored man.
Oh, by the by—but of course not. I was going to ask if by any
possibility you had seen him on the train.”
“I—I really don’t know.”
“Of course you wouldn’t remember definitely. But to come to the point of
my visit: certain highly placed persons are convinced from new evidence,
which cannot be published, that Towns is a victim and not a criminal.
They are therefore seeking to have Towns pardoned, and I thought how
fine it would be if you could induce your husband and some other high
officials of the Klan to sign the petition. How grateful he would be! I
think it would be the biggest and fairest gesture the Klan ever made,
and frankly, many people are saying so. In that case, if he is a
conspirator, he could be watched and traced and his helpers found. And
then, too, think of his gratitude to you!”
Sara left the petition with Mrs. Therwald, and they talked on pleasantly
and casually for another half-hour. Miss Andrews “would stay to tea”?
“But no—so sorry.” Sara said that she had stayed already much longer
than she had planned, and hoped she had not bored Mrs. Therwald with her
gossip. In truth she did not want to let the lady eat with one who, she
might later discover, was a “nigger.” They parted most cordially.
Mrs. Therwald happened a week later to say casually to her husband:
“That Towns nigger that they sent to jail—don’t you think he’d be safer
outside than in? He seemed a decent sort of chap on the trip. I was
thinking it might be a shrewd gesture for the Klan to help free him.”
Her husband looked at her hard and said nothing. But he did some
thinking. That very day the white Democrats of Chicago had complained to
the Klan that their small but formerly growing Negro vote was
disappearing because of the Klan meeting and the Towns incident.
Illinois with its growing Negro vote would be no longer a doubtful state
politically unless something was done. How would it do to free Towns?
III
Miss Sara Andrews sat in the anteroom of the office of the Grand Dragon
of the Ku Klux Klan in Washington. Several persons looked at her
curiously.
“I believe she’s a nigger,” said a stenographer.
“Italian or Spanish, I would say,” replied the chief clerk and frowned,
for Sara had decided to wait. She said that she must really see Mr.
Green personally and privately. After an hour’s wait, she saw him. Mr.
Green turned toward her a little impatiently, for she was interrupting a
full day.
“What can I do for you?” and he glanced at her card and started to say,
“Miss Andrews.” Then he looked at her slightly olive skin and the
suggestion of a curve in her hair and compromised on “Madam.”
Miss Andrews began calmly with lowered eyes. She had on a new
midnight-blue tailor-made frock with close-fitting felt hat to match,
gay-cuffed black kid gloves, gun-metal stockings, and smart black patent
leather pumps. On the whole she was pleased with her appearance.
“I am trying to get a pardon for Matthew Towns, and I want your help.”
“Who is Matthew Towns?”
The question again did not carry the conviction that Mr. Green did not
really remember. But Sara was discreet and carefully rehearsed the case.
“Oh, yes, I remember—well, he got what he deserved, didn’t he?”
“No, he saved the train and got what somebody else deserved.”
“Why didn’t he reveal the real culprits?”
“That is the point. He may be shielding some persons who we might all
agree should be shielded. He may be shielding the dead. He may be
shielding criminals now free to work and conspire. But in all
probability, he does not know who planned the deed. He was a blind tool.
In any case he should go free. For surely, Mr. Green, no one is foolish
enough to believe this was the plan of a mere porter.”
“Have you any new evidence?”
“Not exactly court evidence,” said Sara, “and yet I betray no confidence
when I say that we have information and it is much in favor of Towns.”
“And what do you want of me?”
“I have come to ask you to sign a request for Matthew Towns’ pardon. You
see, if you do, it will clear up the whole matter.” And she looked Mr.
Green full in the face. Her eyes were a bit hard, but her voice was
almost caressing.
“I am sure,” she said, “that the colored people of America are
needlessly alarmed over the Klan, and that you are really their friends
in the long run. Nothing would prove this more clearly than a fine,
generous action on your part like this.”
“But do you think it possible that Towns knows—nothing more of the real
perpetrators of the plot?”
“If he did, why didn’t he talk? Why doesn’t he talk now? Reporters would
rush to print his story. Indeed, the longer he stays in jail, the more
he may try to remember. No, Mr. Green, I am sure that Towns either knows
nothing more or will never tell it in jail or out.”
Mr. Green signed the petition.
A month later, in Chicago, Sammy was close closeted with his
congressman.
“This Towns matter: Pullman people are willing; railroads don’t object.
Even the Klan is asking for it, and the Republicans better move before
the Democrats get credit.”
Two weeks later the congressman saw the chairman of the National
Republican Committee. The matter got to the Governor a week after that.
In April it was very quietly announced that because of certain new
evidence and other considerations, and at the request of the Ku Klux
Klan, Matthew Towns had been pardoned. The Honorable Sammy Scott and his
secretary went to Joliet and took the pardon to the prisoner.
IV
The great Jewish synagogue in Chicago, which the African Methodist
Church had bought for half a million dollars in mortgages, was packed to
its doors, May first, and an almost riotous crowd outside was demanding
admittance. The Honorable Sammy Scott promised them an overflow meeting.
Within, all the dignitaries of black Chicago were present. And, in
addition, the mayor, the congressman from the black belt, and an unusual
outpouring of reporters, represented the great white city. On the
platform in the center in a high-backed, heavily-upholstered church
chair sat the presiding officer, the Right Reverend John Carnes,
Presiding Bishop of the District—an inspiring figure, too fat, but black
and dignified. At his left sat the mayor, two colored members of the
legislature, and several clergymen. At his right sat two aldermen and a
congressman, and a tall, thin young man with drawn face and haunted
eyes.
Matthew Towns made a figure almost pitiful. He sat drooping forward,
half filling the wide chair, and staring blankly at the great audience.
At his left was the chairman, and at his right sat the fat old
congressman in careless dress, with his shifty eyes; down below the
great audience milled and stirred, whispered and quivered.
It was an impressive sight. Every conceivable color of skin glowed and
reflected beneath the glare of electricity. There was the strong bronze
that burned almost black beneath the light, and the light brown that was
a glowing gold. There was every shade of brown, from red oak to copper
gold. There were all the shades of gold and cream. And there were
yellows that were red and brown; and chalk-like white.
There was every curl and dress of hair. There was every style of
clothing, from jewels and evening dress to the rough, clean Sunday coat
of the laborer and the blue mohair of his wife. All expressions played
on the upturned faces: inquiry, curiosity, eager anticipation, cynical
doubt.
The Honorable Sammy was nervous. He did not go on the platform. He
hovered back in the rear of the audience, with a hearty handshake here
and a slap on the back there.
“Hel-lo, old man. Well, well, well! And Johnson, as I am alive! My God!
but you’re looking fit, my boy, fit. Well, what’s the good word? What do
you know? Mother James, as I’m a sinner! Here, Jack! Seat for
Mrs. James? Must find one. Why, I’d—” etc., etc.
But Sammy was nervous. He didn’t “like the look of that bird on the
platform.” Somehow, he didn’t look the part. Why, my God, with that
audience he had the cream and pick of black Chicago and the ears of the
world. There was one of the Tribune’s best men, and the Examiner and the
News and the Post had reporters. Good Lord, what a scoop, if they could
put it over! He had Chicago in the palm of his hand. But “that bird
don’t look the part!” and Sammy groaned aloud.
Sara had pushed him into this. She was getting too bossy, too
domineering; he’d have to put the reins on her, perhaps get rid of her
altogether. Well, not that, of course; she was valuable, but she must
stop making him do things against his better judgment. He never had
quite cottoned to this jailbird, nohow. Who ever heard of a sane man
going to jail to save somebody else? It wasn’t natural. Something must
be wrong with him. Look at those eyes.
Where was Sara? Perhaps she could manage to pump some gumption into him,
even at the last moment. If this thing failed, if Towns said the wrong
thing or didn’t say the right one, he would be knocked into a cocked
hat. He had had a hard time bringing the pardon off anyhow. The
congressman was skittish; feared the Governor: “Don’t like to touch it,
Sam. My advice is to drop it.”
But Sammy, egged on by Sara, had insisted.
“All right, I’ll try it. But look here, nothing else. If I pull this
pardon through, that five thousand dollars I promised for the campaign
is off. I can’t milk the railroads for both.” Sammy had hesitated and
consulted Sara.
“Five thousand dollars is five thousand dollars.”
And then he would need the cash this fall. But Sara was adamant.
“Five thousand dollars isn’t a drop compared with this if we put it
over.”
And now Sammy groaned again. If he failed—“God damn it to hell!—Where is
Sara?”
The exercises had opened. A rousing chorus began that raised the roof
and hurled its rhythm against the vibrating audience; an impressive and
dignified introduction by the Bishop, and a witty, even if somewhat
evasive, speech by the mayor. Sammy began to sweat, and his smile wore
off.
The congressman started to introduce the “gentleman whom we all are
waiting to hear—the hero, the martyr—Matthew Towns!” There was a shout
that rose, gathered, and broke. Then a hush fell over the audience.
Matthew seemed to hesitate. He started to rise—stopped, looked
helplessly about, and then got slowly to his feet and leaned against the
pulpit awkwardly.
“O Lord!” groaned Sammy, “O Lord!”
“I am not a speaker,” said Matthew slowly.
(“It’s the God’s truth,” said Sammy.)
“I have really nothing to say.” (“And you’re sure sayin’ it, bo,”
snarled Sammy.) “And if I had I would not know how to.” And then he
straightened up and added reflectively, “I am—my speech.” The audience
rustled and Sammy was faint.
“I was born in Virginia—” And then swiftly and conversationally there
came the story of his boyhood and youth; of his father and mother; of
the cabin and the farm. He had not meant to talk of this. The speech
which Sara had at his request prepared for him had nothing of this, but
he was thinking of his home. Then followed naturally the story of his
student days, of his work and struggles, of the medical school, of the
prizes, of his dreams. The audience sat in strained and almost deathly
silence, craned forward, scarcely breathing, at the twice-told human
tale that touched every one of them, that they knew by heart, that they
had lived through each in its thousand variations, and which was working
unconsciously to the perfect climax.
(“My God”—whispered Sammy—“he’s putting it over—he’s putting it over.
He’s a genius or God’s anointed fool!”)
Finally Matthew came to that day of return to his junior medical year.
He saw the scene again—he felt the surge of hot anger; his voice, his
great, full, beautiful voice, rose as again he threw his certificates
into the face of the dean. The house roared and rang with applause—the
men shouted, the women cried, and up from the Amen corner rose the roll
and cadence of the slave song: “Before I’d be a slave I’d be buried in
my grave and go home to my God and be free!”
Sammy leaned against the back wall glowing. It was a diamond stickpin
for Sara!
Matthew awoke from the hypnotism of his own words, and the fierce
enthusiasm died suddenly away. Yet he was no longer afraid of his
audience or wanting words. With unconscious artistry he let his climax
rest where it was, and he stood a moment with brooding eyes—a lean,
handsome, cadaverous figure—and told the rest of his story in even,
matter-of-fact tones.
“I ran away from my people and my work. I tried to hide, but I was sent
back. I worked as a porter, and I tried to be a good porter. And all the
time I wanted to help—to do a great thing for freedom and strike a great
blow. I met a man. He was a fanatic; he was sinking into sin, and worse,
he was planning a terrible deed, I sensed it and tried to dissuade him
from it. I pointed out its impossibility and futility. But he cursed me
for a coward and went on. I could have run away; I could have betrayed
him. I did instead an awful thing—an awful deed which the death of an
innocent man spurred me to. I do not know whether I was right or wrong,
but I resolved to die on the train that my brave friend was resolved to
wreck—and then—” Matthew paused, and the audience almost sobbed in
suspense. “And then on the rushing train, Something would not let me do
what I had planned. The credit is not mine. Something hindered; I
stopped the train, but I did not betray my terrible friend. I went to
jail. My friend—died—” He paused and groped; what was it he must say?
What was it to which he must not forget to allude? He stood in silence
and then remembered: “And, tonight, through the efforts of Sammy Scott I
am free.”
That minute the Honorable Sammy Scott reached the apex of his career.
The next day Matthew got a job, and Sara Andrews a diamond stickpin.
V
In jail Matthew Towns had let his spirit die. He had become one with the
great gray walls, the dim iron gratings, the thud, thud, thud which was
the round of life, which was life. Bells and marching, work and meals,
meals and work, marching and whistles. Even, unchanging level of life,
without interest, memory, or hope.
This at first; then, disturbing little things. As the greater life
receded, the lesser took on exaggerated importance. The food, the chapel
speaker, this whispered quarrel over less than a trifle; the oath and
blows of a keeper.
“When I get out!”
Ten years! Ten years was never. If such a space as ten years ever
passed, he would come back again to jail.
“They all do,” said the keepers; “if not here, elsewhere.”
The seal of crime was on him. It would never lift. It could not; it was
ground down deep into his soul. He was nothing, wanted nothing,
remembered nothing, and even if he did remember the trailing glory of a
cloudlike garment, the music of a voice, the kissing of a drooping,
jeweled hand—he murdered the memory and buried it in its own blood.
Then came the miracle. First that neat and self-reliant young woman who
tried to make him talk. He was inclined to be surly at first, but
suddenly the walls fell away, and he saw great shadowed trees and rich
grass. He was bending over a dainty tea-table, and he talked as he had
talked once before. But he stopped suddenly, angry at the vision, angry
at himself. He became mute, morose. He took leave of Sara Andrews
abruptly and went back to his bench. He was working on wood.
Then came the pardon. In a daze and well-nigh wordless, he had traveled
to Chicago. He sat in the church like a drowning swimmer who, hurled
miraculously to life again, breathed, and sank. He had no illusions
left.
He knew Sara and Sammy. They wanted to use him. Well, why not? They had
bought him and paid for him. All his enthusiasm, all his hope, all his
sense of reality was gone. He saw life as a great, immovable, terrible
thing. It had beaten him, ground him to the earth and beneath; this
sudden resurrection did not make him dizzy or give him any real hope. He
gave up all thought of a career, of leadership, of greatly or
essentially changing this world. He would protect himself from hurt. He
would be of enough use to others to insure this. He must have money—not
wealth—but enough to support himself in simple comfort. He saw a chance
for this in politics under the command of Sara and Sammy.
He had no illusions as to American democracy. He had learned as a porter
and in jail how America was ruled. He knew the power of organized crime,
of self-indulgence, of industry, business, corporations, finance,
commerce. They all paid for what they wanted the government to do for
them—for their immunity, their appetites; for their incomes, for justice
and the police. This trading of permission, license, monopoly, and
immunity in return for money was engineered by politicians; and through
their hands the pay went to the voters for their votes. Sometimes the
pay was in cash, sometimes in jobs, sometimes in “influence,” sometimes
in better streets, houses, or schools. He deliberately and with his eyes
closed made himself a part of this system. Some of this money, paid to
master politicians like Sammy Scott, would come to him, some, but not
much; he would save it and use it.
He settled in the colored workingmen’s quarter of the Second Ward—a
thickly populated nest of laborers, lodgers, idlers, and semi-criminals.
In an old apartment house he took the topmost flat of four dilapidated
rooms and moved in with an old iron bed, a chair, and a bureau.
Then he set out to know his district, to know every man, woman and child
in it. He was curiously successful. In a few months scarcely a person
passed him on the street who did not greet him. The November elections
came, and his district rolled up a phenomenal majority for Scott’s men;
it was almost unanimous.
He deliberately narrowed his life to his village, as he called it. One
side of it lay along State Street in its more dreary and dilapidated
quarter. It ran along three blocks and then back three blocks west. Here
were nine blocks—old, dirty, crowded—with staggering buildings of brick
and wood lining them. The streets were obstructed with bad paving,
ashes, and garbage. On one corner was a church. Then followed several
places where one could buy food and liquor. On State Street were a dance
hall, a movie house, and several billiard parlors, interspersed with
more or less regular gambling dens. There were a half-dozen halls where
lodges met and where fairs and celebrations were carried on. And all
over were the homes—good, bad, indifferent.
He was strangely interested in this little universe of his. It had
within a few blocks everything life offered. He could find
religion—intense, fanatical, grafting, self-sacrificing. He could find
prostitutes and thieves, stevedores, masons, laborers, and porters. Thus
his blocks were a pulsing world, and in them there was always plenty to
do—a donation to the church when the mortgage interest was about due;
charity for the old women whose sons and daughters had wandered off;
help and a physician for the sick and those who had fallen and broken
hip or leg or had been run over by automobile trucks; shoes and old
clothes for school children, bail for criminals; drinks for tramps; rent
for the dance hall; food for the wildeyed wastrels; and always, jobs,
jobs, jobs for the workers.
When the new colored grocery was started, Matthew had to corral its
customers, many of whom he had bailed out for crime. The police were his
especial care. He gave them information, and they tipped him off. He
restrained them, or egged them on. He warned the gamblers or got them
new quarters. He got jobs for men and women and girls and boys. He
helped professional men to get off jury duty. He sent young girls home
and found older girls in places worse than home. He did not judge; he
did not praise or condemn. He accepted what he saw.
Always, in the midst of this he was organizing and coraling his voters.
He knew the voting strength of his district to a man. Nine-tenths of
them would do exactly as he said. He did not need to talk to them—a few
words and a sign. Orators came to his corners and vociferated and
yelled, but his followers watched him. He saw this group of thousands of
people as a real and thrilling thing, which he watched, unthrilled,
unmoved. Life was always tense and rushing there—a murder, a happy
mother, thieves, strikers, scabs, school children, and hard workers; a
strange face, a man going into business, a girl going to hell, a woman
saved. The whole organism was neither good nor bad. It was good and bad.
Rickety buildings, noise, smells, noise, work—hard, hard work—
“How’s Sammy?” he would hear them say.
“How many votes do you want? Name your man.”
Thus he built his political machine. His machine was life, and he stood
close to it—lolling on his favorite corner with half-closed eyes; yet he
saw all of it.
Above it all, on the furthermost corner, on the top floor, were his
bare, cold, and dirty rooms. He could not for the life of him remember
how people kept things clean. It was extraordinary how dirt accumulated.
He never had much money. Sammy handed him over a roll of bills every now
and then, but he spent it in his charities, in his gifts, in his
bribings, in his bonds. There was never much left. Sometimes there was
hardly enough for his food.
Long past midnight he usually climbed to his bare rooms—one of them
absolutely bare—one with a bed, a chair, and a bureau—one with an oil
stove, a chair, and a table.
Then in time the aspect of his rooms began to change. A day came when he
went in for his usual talk with the secondhand man. Old Gray was black
and bent, and part of his business was receiving stolen goods, the other
part was quite legitimate—buying and selling secondhand stuff. Towns
strolled in there and saw a rug. He had forgotten ever having seen a rug
before then. Of course he had—there in Berlin on the Lützower Ufer there
was a rug in the parlor—but he shook the memory away with a toss of his
head.
This rug was marvelous. It burned him with its brilliance. It sang to
his eyes and hands. It was yellow and green—it was thick and soft; but
all this didn’t tell the subtle charm of its weaving and shadows of
coloring. He tried to buy it, but Gray insisted on giving it to him. He
declared that it was not stolen, but Towns was sure that it was. Perhaps
Gray was afraid to keep it, but Towns took it at midday and laid it on
the floor of the barest of his empty rooms. Connors, who was a
first-class carpenter when he was not drunk, was out of work again.
Towns brought him up and had him put a parquet floor in the bare room.
He was afterward half ashamed to take that money from his constituents,
but he paid them back by more careful attention to their demands. Then
in succeeding months of little things, the beauty of that room grew.
VI
The Honorable Sammy was by turns surprised, dumbfounded, and elated. He
could not decide at various times whether Towns was a new kind of fool
or the subtlest of subtle geniuses; but at any rate he was more than
satisfied, and the efficiency of his machine was daily growing.
The black population of Chicago was still increasing. Properly organized
and led, there were no ordinary limits to its power, except excited race
rancor as at the time of the riot, or internal jealousy and bickering.
Careful, thoughtful manipulation was the program, and this was the
Honorable Sammy’s long suit. First of all he had to appease and cajole
and wheedle his own race, allay the jealousies of other
leaders—professional, religious, and political—and get them to vote as
they were told.
This was no easy job. Sammy accomplished it by following Sara’s advice;
first he refused all the more spectacular political offices; he refused
to run again as alderman, declined election to the legislature and the
like; he secured instead a state commissionership (whence his
“honorable”) where he still had power but little display; and of course,
he was on the State Central Republican committee; then he “played” the
clergy, helping with speeches and contributions of large size to lift
their mortgages; he stood behind the colored teachers who were edging
into the schools; he belonged to every known fraternal order, and at the
same time he continued to protect the cabarets, the bootleggers, the
gambling dens, and the “lodging” houses. Slowly in these ways his
influence and word became well-nigh supreme in the colored world.
Everybody “liked” the Honorable Sammy.
And Sammy found Matthew an invaluable lieutenant.
“By gum, Sara, we have turned a trick. To tell the truth, for a long
time I distrusted that bird, even after his great speech. I was afraid
he’d be a highbrow and start out reforming. Damned if he ain’t the best
worker I ever had.”
“Yes, he’ll do for the legislature,” said Sara. Sammy scowled. That was
like Sara. Whenever he yielded an inch, off she skipped withan ell.
“Slow, slow,” he said frowning; “we can’t push a new man and a jailbird
too fast.”
“Sammy, you’re still a fool. Don’t you see that this is the only man we
can push, because he’s tied to us body and soul?”
“I ain’t so sure—”
“Sh!”
Matthew came in. He greeted them diffidently, almost shyly. He always
felt naked before these two.
They talked over routine matters, and then without preliminaries Matthew
said abruptly, “I’d like to take a short vacation. I ought to see my old
mother in Virginia.”
“Sure,” said Sammy cheerfully, and drew out a roll of bills. Matthew
hesitated, counted out a few bills, and handed the rest back.
“Thanks!” he said, and with no further word turned and went out.
Sammy’s jaw dropped. He stared at the bills in his hand and at the door.
“I don’t like that handing dough back,” he said. “It ain’t natural.”
“He may be honest,” said Sara.
“And in politics? Humph! Wonder just what his game is? I wish he’d grin
a little more and do the glad hand act!”
“Do you want the earth?” asked Sara.
It was Christmas time, 1924, when Matthew came back to Virginia after
five years of absence. Winter had hardly begun, and the soft glow of
Autumn still lingered on the fields. He stopped at the county seat three
miles from home and went to the recorder’s office. It was as he had
thought; his mother’s little farm of twenty acres was mortgaged, and
only by the good-natured indulgence of the mortgagee was she living
there and paying neither interest nor rent.
“Don’t want to disturb Sally, you know. She’s our folks. Used to belong
to my grandfather. So you’re her boy, hey? Heard you was dead—then heard
you was in jail. Well, well; and what’s your business—er—and what’s your
name? Matthew Towns? Sure, sure, the old family name. Well, Matthew,
it’ll take near on a thousand dollars to clear that place.”
Matthew paid five hundred cash and arranged to pay the rest and to buy
the other twenty acres next year—the twenty acres of tangled forest,
hill, and brook that he always had wanted as a boy; but his father
strove for the twenty smoother acres—strove and failed.
Then slowly Matthew walked out into the country and into the night. He
slept in an empty hut beside the road and listened to creeping things.
He heard the wind, the hooting of the owls, and saw the sun rise, pale
gold and crimson, over the eastern trees. He washed his face by the
roadside and then sat waiting—waiting for the world.
He sat there in the dim, sweet morning and swung his long limbs. He was
a boy again, with the world before him. Beyond the forest, it lay
magnificent—wonderful—beautiful—beautiful as one unforgettable face. He
leaped to the ground and clenched his hand. A wave of red shame
smothered his heart. He had not known such a rush of feeling for a year.
He thought he had forgotten how to feel. He knew now why he had come
here. It was not simply to see that poor old mother. It was to walk in
her footsteps, to know if she had carried his last message.
A bowed old black man crept down the road.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Good mo’nin’—good mo’nin’. Fine mo’nin’. And who might you be, sah?
’Pears like I know you.”
“I am Matthew Towns.”
The old man slowly came nearer. He stretched out his hand and touched
Matthew. And then he said:
“She said you wuzn’t dead. She said God couldn’t let you die till she
put her old hands on your head. And she sits waitin’ for you always,
waitin’ in the cabin do’.”
Matthew turned and went down to the brook and crossed it and walked up
through the black wood and came to the fence. She was sitting in the
door, straight, tall, big and brown. She was singing something low and
strong. And her eyes were scanning the highway. Matthew leaped the fence
and walked slowly toward her down the lane.
VII
Sara Andrews sat in Matthew’s flat in the spring of 1925 and looked
around with a calculating glance. It was in her eyes a silly room; a
man’s room, of course. It was terribly dirty and yet with odd bits—a
beautiful but uneven parquet floor, quite new; a glorious and costly rug
that had never been swept; old books and pamphlets lay piled about, and
in the center was a big dilapidated armchair, sadly needing new
upholstery. The room was proof that Matthew needed a home. She would
invite him to hers. It might lead to something, and Sara looked him over
carefully as he bent over the report which she had brought. Outside his
haunted eyes and a certain perpetual lack of enthusiasm, he was very
good to look at. Very good. He needed a good barber and a better tailor.
Sara’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t quite like the fact that he never
noticed her tailor nor hairdresser.
They were expecting the Honorable Sammy to breeze in any moment. They
formed a curious troika, these three: Sammy, the horse of guidance in
the shafts, was the expert on the underworld—the “boys,” liquor,
prostitution, and the corresponding parts of the white world. He was the
practical politician; he saw that votes were properly counted, jobs
distributed where they would do his organization most good; and he
handled the funds. Sara was intellectually a step higher; she knew the
business interests of the city and what they could and would pay for
privilege. She was in touch with public service organizations and
chambers of commerce and knew all about the leading banks and
corporations. Her letters and advice did tricks and brought a growing
stream of gold of which Sammy had never before dreamed. Alas, too, it
brought interference with some of his practical plans and promises which
annoyed him, although he usually yielded under pressure.
Matthew was quite a different element. On the one hand he knew the life
of his section of the Chicago black world as no one else. He had not
artificially extracted either the good or the evil for study and use—he
took it all in with one comprehensive glance and thus could tell what
church and school and labor thought and did, as well as the mind of the
underworld. At the other end of the scale was his knowledge of national
and international movements; his ability to read and digest reports and
recent literature was an invaluable guide for Sara and corrective for
Sammy.
Much of all this report and book business was Greek to Sammy. Sammy
never read anything beyond the headlines of newspapers, and they had to
be over an inch high to get his undivided attention. Gossip from high
and low sources brought him his main information. Sara read the
newspapers, and Matthew the magazines and books. Thus Sammy’s political
bark skimmed before the golden winds with rare speed and accuracy.
Sammy came in, and they got immediately to business.
“I’m stumped by this legislature business,” growled Sammy. “Smith picked
a hell of a time to die. Still, p’raps it was best. There was a lot of
stink over him anyhow. Now here comes a special election, and if we
ain’t careful it’ll tear the machine to pieces. Every big nigger in
Chicago wants the job. We need a careful man or hell’ll be to pay. I
promised the next opening to Corruthers. He expects it and he’s earned
it; Corruthers will raise hell and spill the beans if I fail him.”
“Smith was a fool,” said Sara, “and Corruthers is a bag of wind when
he’s sober and an idiot when he’s drunk, which is his usual condition.
We’ve got to can that type. We’ve got to have a man of brains and
knowledge in the legislature this fall, or we’ll lose out. We’re in fair
way to make ‘Negro’ and ‘grafter’ synonymous in Illinois office-holding.
It won’t do. There’s some big legislation coming up—street-car
consolidation and super-power. Here’s a chance, Sammy, to put in our own
man, and a man of high type, instead of boosting a rival boss and
courting exposure for bribery.”
“Well, can’t we tell Corruthers how to act and vote? He ought to stay
put.”
“No. There are some things that can’t be told. Corruthers is a born
petty grafter. When he sees a dollar, he goes blind to everything else.
He has no imagination nor restraint. We can’t be at his shoulder at
every turn; he’d be sure to sell out for the flash of a hundred-dollar
bill any time and lose a thousand and get in jail. Then, too, if he
should make good, next year Boss Corruthers would be fighting Boss
Scott.”
Sammy swore. “If I ditch him, I’ll lose this district.”
“With a strong nomination there’s a chance,” said Matthew. Sara glanced
at him and added: “Especially if I organize the women.”
Sammy tore at his hair: “Don’t touch’em,” he cried. “Let’em alone! My
God! What’d I do with a bunch of skirts dippin’ in? Ain’t we got’em
gagged like they ought to be? What’s the matter with the State Colored
Women’s Republican Clubs? And the Cook County organization, with their
chairman sitting in on the County Central and women on each ward
committee?”
But Sara was obdurate. “Don’t be a fool, Sammy. You know these women are
nothing but ‘me-too’s,’ or worse, for the men. I’m going to have a new
organization, independent of the ward bosses and loyal to us. I’m going
to call it the Chicago Colored Woman’s Council—no, it isn’t going to be
called Republican, Democratic, or Socialist; just colored. I’m going to
make it a real political force independent of the men. The women are in
politics already, although they don’t know it, and somebody is going to
tell them soon. Why not us? And see that they vote right?”
“The white women’s clubs are trying to bring the colored clubs in line
for a stand on the street-car situation and new working-women laws,”
added Matthew.
Sammy brooded. “I don’t like it. It’s dangerous. Once give’em real
power, and who can hold them?”
“I can.”
“Yes, and who’ll hold you?”
Sara did not answer, and Sammy switched back to the main matter.
“I s’pose we’ve got to hunt another man for Smith’s place. I see a fight
ahead.”
Matthew’s guests left, and he discovered that he had forgotten to get
his laundry for now the second week. He stepped down to the Chinaman’s
for his shirts and a chat.
Then came a shock, as when an uneasy sleeper, drugged with weariness,
hears the alarm of dawn. The Chinaman liked him and was grateful for
protection against the police and rowdies. He liked the Chinaman for his
industry, his cleanliness, his quiet philosophy of life. Once he tried a
pipe of opium there, but it frightened him. He saw a Vision.
Tonight the Chinaman was “velly glad” to see him. Had been watching for
him several days—had “a fiend” who knew him. Matthew looked about
curiously, and there in the door stood his young Chinese friend of
Berlin. Several times in his life—oh, many many times, that dinner scene
had returned vividly to his imagination, but never so vividly as now. It
leapt to reality. The sheen of the silver and linen was there before
him, the twinkling of cut glass; he heard the low and courteous
conversation—the soft tones of the Japanese, the fuller tones of the
Egyptian, and then across it all the sweet roll of that clear
contralto—dear God!—he gripped himself and hurled the vision back to
hell.
“How do you do!” he said calmly, shaking the Chinaman’s eager hand.
“I am so glad—so glad to see you,” the Chinaman said. “I am hurrying
home to China, but I heard you were here, and I had to wait to see you.
How—”
But Matthew interrupted hastily, “And how is China?” The yellow face
glowed. “The great Day dawns,” he said. “Freedom begins. Russia is
helping. We are marching forward. The Revolution is on. To the sea with
Europe and European slavery! Oh, I am happy.”
“But will it be easy sailing?”
“No, no—hard—hard as hell. We are in for suffering, starvation, revolt
and reverse, treason and lying. But we have begun. The beginning is
everything. We shall never end until freedom comes, if it takes a
thousand years.”
“You have been living in America?”
“Six months. I am collecting funds. It heartens one to see how these
hard-working patriots give. I have collected two millions of dollars.”
“God!” groaned Matthew. “Our N.A.A.C.P. collected seventy-five thousand
dollars in two years, and twelve million damn near fainted with the
effort.”
The Chinaman looked sympathetic.
“Ah,” he said hesitatingly. “Doesn’t it go so well here?”
“Go? What?”
“Why—Freedom, Emancipation, Uplift—union with all the dark and
oppressed.”
Matthew smiled thinly. The strange and unfamiliar words seemed to drift
back from a thousand forgotten years. He hardly recognized their
meaning.
“There’s no such movement here,” he said.
The Chinaman looked incredulous.
“But,” he said—“but you surely have not forgotten the great word you
yourself brought us out of the West that night—that word of faith in
opportunity for the lowest?”
“Boshi” growled Matthew harshly. “That was pure poppycock. Dog eat dog
is all I see; I’m through with all that. Well, I’m glad to have seen you
again. So long, and good-by.”
The Chinaman looked troubled and almost clung to Matthew’s hand.
“The most hopeless of deaths,” he said, as Matthew drew away, “is the
death of Faith. But pardon me, I go too far. Only one other thing before
we part. John here wants me to tell you about some conditions in this
district which he thinks you ought to know. Organized crime and
debauchery are pressing pretty hard on labor. You have such an
opportunity here—I hoped to help by putting you in touch with some of
the white laboring folk and their leaders.”
“I know them all,” said Matthew, “and I’m not running this district as a
Sunday School.”
He bowed abruptly and hastened away.
VIII
Matthew was uncomfortable. The demon of unrest was stirring drowsily
away down in the half-conscious depths of his soul. For the long months
since his incarceration he had been content just to be free, to breathe
and look at the sunshine. He did not think. He tried not to think. He
just lived and narrowed himself to the round of his duties. As those
duties expanded, he read and studied, but always in the groove of his
work. Sternly he held his mind down and in. No more flights; no more
dreams; no more foolishness.
Now, as he felt restless and dissatisfied, he laid it to nerves, lack of
physical exercise, some hidden illness. But gradually he began to tell
himself the truth. The dream, the woman, was back in his soul. The
vision of world work was surging and he must kill it, stifle it now, and
sternly, lest it wreck his life again. Still he was restless. He was
awakening. He could feel the prickling of life in his thought, his
conscience, his body. He was struggling against the return of that old
ache—the sense of that void. He was angry and irritated with his
apparent lack of control. If he could once fill that void, he could
glimpse another life—beauty, music, books, leisure; a home that was
refuge and comfort. Something must be done. Then he remembered an almost
forgotten engagement.
Soon he was having tea in Sara’s flat. He began to feel more
comfortable. He looked about. It was machine-made, to be sure, but it
was wax-neat and in perfect order. The tea was good, and the cream—he
liked cream—thick and sweet. Sara, too, in her immaculate ease was
restful. He leaned back in his chair, and the brooding lifted a little
from his eyes. He told Sara of a concert he had attended.
“Have you ever happened to hear Ivanoff’s ‘Caucasian Sketches’?”
Sara had not; but she said suddenly, “How would you like to go to the
legislature?”
Matthew laughed carelessly. “I wouldn’t like it,” he said and sauntered
over to look at a new set of books. He asked Sara if she liked Balzac.
Sara had just bought the set and had not read a word. She had bought
them to fill the space above the writing-desk. It was just twenty-eight
inches. She let him talk on and then she gave him some seed-cakes which
a neighbor had made for her. He came back and sat down. He tested the
cakes, liked them, and ate several. Then Sara took up the legislature
again.
“You can talk—you have read, and you have the current political
questions at your fingers’ ends. Your district will stand with you to a
man. Old-timers like Corruthers will knife you, but I can get you every
colored woman’s vote in the ward, and they can get a number of the white
women by trading.”
“I don’t want the notoriety.”
“But you want money—power—ease.”
“Yes—I want money, but this will take money, and I have none.”
“I have,” said Sara. And she added, “We might work together with what
I’ve saved and what we both know.”
Matthew got up abruptly, walked over and stared out the window. He had
had a similar idea, and he thought it originated in his own head. He had
not noticed Sara much hitherto. He had not noticed any woman,
since—since—But he knew Sara was intelligent and a hard worker. She
looked simple, clean, and capable. She seemed to him noticeably lonely
and needing some one to lean on. She could make a home. He never had had
just the sort of home he wanted. He wanted a home—something like his own
den, but transfigured by capable hands—and devotion. Perhaps a wife
would stop this restless longing—this inarticulate Thing in his soul.
Was this not the whole solution? He was living a maimed, unnatural
life—no love, no close friendships; always loneliness and brooding. Why
not emerge and be complete? Why not marry Sara? Marriage was normal.
Marriage stopped secret longings and wild open revolt. It solved the
woman problem once and for all. Once married, he would be safe, settled,
quiet; with all the furies at rest, calm, satisfied; a reader of old
books, a listener to sad and quiet music, a sleeper.
Sara watched him and after a pause said in an even voice:
“You have had a hard shock and you haven’t recovered yet. But you’re
young. With your brains and looks the world is open to you. You can go
to the legislature, and if you play your cards right you can go to
Congress and be the first colored congressman from the North. Think it
over, Mr. Towns.”
Towns turned abruptly. “Miss Andrews,” he said, “will you marry me?”
“Why—Mr. Towns!” she answered.
He hurried on: “I haven’t said anything about love on your side or
mine—”
“Don’t!” she said, a bit tartly. “I’ve been fighting the thing men call
love all my life, and I don’t see much in it. I don’t think you are the
loving kind—and that suits me. But I do think enlightened self-interest
calls us to be partners. And if you really mean this, I am willing.”
Matthew went slowly over and took her hand. They looked at each other
and she smiled. He had meant to kiss her, but he did not.
IX
It was a grand wedding. Matthew was taken back by Sara’s plans. He had
thoughts of the little church of his district—and perhaps a quiet
flitting away to the Michigan woods, somewhere up about Idlewild. There
they might sit in sunshine and long twilights and get acquainted. He
would take this lonely little fighting soul in his arms and tell her
honestly of that great lost love of his soul, which was now long dead;
and then slowly a new, calm communion of souls, a silent understanding,
would come, and they would go hand in hand back to the world.
But nothing seemed further from Sara’s thought. First she was going to
elect Matthew to the legislature, and then in the glory of his triumph
there was going to be a wedding that would make black Chicago sit up and
even white Chicago take due notice. Thirdly, she was going to reveal to
a gaping world that she already owned that nearly new, modern, and
beautifully equipped apartment on South Parkway which had just been sold
at auction. There was a vague rumor that a Negro had bought it, but none
but Sara and her agent knew.
“How on earth did you—” began Matthew.
“I’m not in politics for my health,” said Sara, “and you’re not going to
be, after this. It’s got three apartments of seven rooms with sleeping
porches, verandas, central heating, and refrigeration. We’ll live in the
top apartment and rent the other two. We can get easily three thousand a
year from them, which will support us and a maid. I’ve been paying for a
car by installments—a Studebaker—and learning to drive, for we can’t
afford a chauffeur yet.”
Matthew sat down slowly.
“Don’t you think we might rent the whole and live somewhere—a little
more quietly, so we could study and walk and—go to concerts?”
But Sara took no particular notice of this.
“I’ve been up to Tobey’s to select the furniture, and Marshall Field is
doing the decorating. We’ll keep our engagement dark until after the
nomination in the spring. Then we’ll have a big wedding, run over to
Atlantic City for the honeymoon, and come back fit for the fall
campaign.”
“Atlantic City? My God!” said Matthew, and then stopped as the door
opened to admit the Honorable Sammy Scott.
Sammy was uneasy these days. He was in hot water over this legislature
business, and he vaguely scented danger to his power and machine beyond
this. First of all he could only square things with Corruthers and his
followers by a good lump of money, if Matthew were nominated; and even
then, they would try to knife him. Now Sammy’s visible source for more
money was more laxity in the semi-criminal districts and bribes from
interests who wanted bills to pass the legislature. Sammy had given
freer rein to the red-light district and doubted if he could do more
there or collect much more money without inviting in the reformers. Big
business seemed his only resort, but here he was not sure of Matthew.
There might be a few nominees who were willing to pay a bit for the
honor, but Matthew was not among these. Sara was managing his campaign,
and she was too close and shrewd to cough up much. Then, too, Sammy was
uneasy about Sara and Matthew. They were mighty thick and chummy and
always having conferences. If he himself had been a marrying man—
“Say, Towns,” he said genially, “I think I got that nomination cinched,
but it’s gonna take a pot of dough. Oh, well, what of it? You’ve got the
inside track.”
“Unless Corruthers double-crosses us,” said Matthew dryly. “That’s where
the dough comes in. Now see here, I’ve got a proposition from the
traction crowd. They want to ward off municipal ownership and get a new
franchise city-wide with consolidation. They’re going to offer a
five-cent car fare and reversion to the city in forty-nine years, and
they’re paying high for support. They’re going to control the nomination
in most districts.”
“I’ll vote against municipal ownership any time,” said Matthew.
Sammy was at once relieved and yet troubled anew. He had an idea that
Matthew would get squeamish over this and would thus lose the
nomination. That would force Corruthers in. Sammy still leaned toward
Corruthers. But, on the other hand, Corruthers would be sure to do some
fool trick even if he were elected, and that or his defeat might ruin
Sammy’s own plans for Congress next year. He was glad Matthew was
tractable, and at the same time he suddenly grew suspicious. Suppose
Matthew went to the legislature and made a ripping record? He might
himself dare think of Congress. But no—Sara was pledged to Sammy’s plan
for Congress.
“All right!” said Sammy noisily.
“But look here, Sammy,” said Matthew. “Things are getting pretty loose
and free down in my district. Casey has opened a new gambling den, and
there’s a lake of liquor; three policy wheels are running. The
soliciting on the streets is open; it isn’t safe for a working girl
after dark.”
“Well, ain’t they payin’ up prompt?”
“Yes—but—”
“Gettin’ squeamish?” sneered Sammy. My God! Was the fool going to cut
off the main graft and try to depend on white corporations?
“No—I’m not, but the reformers are. We’re just bidding for interference
at this rate.”
“Hell,” said Sammy. “It’ll be whore-houses and not Sunday Schools
that’ll send you to Springfield, if you go.” Matthew frowned.
Sara intervened. “I’ll see that things are toned down a bit. Sammy will
never learn that big business pays better than crime. I’m glad you’re
going to vote straight on the traction bill.”
Matthew still frowned. They both had misunderstood him—curiously. They
suspected him of mawkish sentimentality—a conscience against gambling,
liquor, and prostitution. Nothing of the sort! He had buried all
sentiment, down, down, deep down. He was angry at being even suspected.
Why was he angry? Was it because he felt the surge of that old bounding,
silly self that once believed and hoped and dreamed— that dead soul,
turning slowly and twisting in its grave? No, no, not that—never. He
simply meant to warn Sammy that a district too wide open defeated itself
and invited outside interference; it cut off political graft; gamblers
were cheating gamblers; the liquor on sale was poison; prostitutes were
approaching the wrong people—and, well—surely a girl ought to have the
right to choose between work and prostitution, and she ought not to be
shanghaied.
And then Sara. She assumed too much. If he had the beginning of the
unrest of a new conscience—and he had not—it was over these big
corporations. He began to see them from behind and underneath. A
five-cent fare was a tremendous issue to thousands. The driblets of
perpetual tax on light and air and movement meant both poverty and
millions. Surely the interests could pay better than gamblers and
prostitutes, but was the graft as honest? Was he going on as
unquestioningly? He had promised to vote against municipal ownership
quickly and easily. Voters were too stupid or too careless to run big
business. Municipal ownership, therefore, would only mean corporation
control one degree removed and concealed from public view by election
bribery. And after all, traction was not the real question. Super-power
was that, and he talked his thought aloud to Sara, half-consciously:
“Oh—traction? Sure—that’s only camouflage anyway. Back of it is the
furnishing of electric power, cornering the waterfalls of America;
paying nothing for the right of endless and limitless taxation, and then
at last ‘financing’ the whole thing for a thousand millions and
unloading it on the public! That’s the real graft. I am going to think a
long time over those bills!”
What did he mean by “thinking a long time”? He did not know what he
meant. Neither did Sara. But she knew very clearly what she meant. She
was silent and pursed her lips. She was already in close understanding
with certain quiet and well-dressed gentlemen who represented Public
Service and were reaching out toward Super-Power. They had long been
distributing money in the Negro districts, but their policy was to
encourage rivalry and jealousy between the black bosses and thus make
them ineffective. This kept payments down. Sara had arranged for Sammy
to make these payments, while the corporations dealt only with him. Also
she had raised the price and promised to deliver four votes in the
legislature and three in the Board of Aldermen. Finally, she had just
arranged to have Sammy’s personal representative occupy an office in the
elegant suite of the big corporation attorney who advised Public Service
and on his payroll as a personal link between Sammy and the big Public
Service czar. It was the biggest single deal she had pulled off, and she
hadn’t yet told Sammy. The selection of that link called for much
thought.
X
The house was finished complete with new and shining furniture, each
piece standing exactly where it should. Matthew had particularly wanted
a fireplace with real logs. He was a little ashamed to confess how much
he wanted it. It was a sort of obsession. As long as he could remember,
burning wood had meant home to him. Sara said a fireplace was both dirty
and dangerous. She had an electric log put in. Matthew hated that log
with perfect hatred.
The pictures and ornaments, too, he did not like, and at last, one day,
he went downtown and bought a painting which he had long coveted. It was
a copy of a master—cleverly and daringly done with a flame of color and
a woman’s long and naked body. It talked to Matthew of endless strife,
of fire and beauty and never-dying flesh. He bought, too, a deliciously
ugly Chinese god. Sara looked at both in horror but said nothing. Months
afterward when they had been married and had moved home, he searched in
vain for the painting and finally inquired.
“That thing? But, Matthew, dear, folks don’t have naked women in the
parlor! I exchanged it for the big landscape there—it fits the space
better and has a much finer frame.” Sara let the ugly Chinese god crouch
in a dark corner of the library.
The nomination went through smoothly. The “election of Mr. Matthew
Towns, the rising young colored politician whose romantic history we all
know” (thus The Conservator) followed in due and unhindered course,
despite the efforts of Corruthers to knife him.
So in June came the wedding. It was a splendid affair. Sara’s choice of
a tailor was as unerringly correct as her selection of a dressmaker.
They made an ideal couple as they marched down the aisle of the Michigan
Avenue Baptist Tabernacle. Matthew looked almost distinguished, with
that slight impression of remote melancholy; Sara seemed so capable and
immaculate.
Sammy, the best man, swore under his breath. “If I’d only been a
marrying man!” he confided to the pastor.
The remark was made to Matthew’s young ministerial friend, the Reverend
Mr. Jameson, formerly of Memphis. He had come with his young shoulders
to help lift the huge mortgages of this vast edifice, recently purchased
at a fabulous price from a thrifty white congregation; the black
invasion of South Side had sent them to worship Jesus Christ on the
North Shore.
“Whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder,” rolled the rich
tones of the minister. Matthew saw two wells of liquid light, a great
roll of silken hair that fell across a skin of golden bronze, and below,
a single pearl shining at the parting of two little breasts.
“Straighten your tie,” whispered Sara’s metallic voice, and his soul
came plunging back across long spaces and over heavy roads. He looked up
and met the politely smiling eyes of the young Memphis school teacher
who once gave him fifteen cents. She was among the chief guests with her
fat husband, a successful physician. They both beamed. They quite
approved of Matthew now.
“Tis thy marriage morning, shining in the sun,” yelled the choir, with
invincible determination. The bridal pair stepped into the new
Studebaker with a hired chauffeur and glided away. Matthew looked down
at his slim white bride. A tenderness and pity swept over him. He
slipped his arm about her shoulders.
“Be careful of the veil,” said Sara.
XI
In Springfield, Matthew was again thrust into the world. He shrank at
first and fretted over it. Most of the white legislators put up at the
new Abraham Lincoln—a thoroughly modern hostelry, convenient and even
beautiful in parts. Matthew did not apply. He knew he would be refused.
He did try the Leland, conveniently located and the former rendezvous of
the members. He had dinner and luncheon there, and after he discovered
the limited boarding-house accommodation of colored Springfield, he
asked for rooms—a bedroom and parlor. The management was very sorry—but—
He then went down to the colored hotel on South Eleventh Street. The
hotel might do—but the neighborhood!
Finally, he found a colored private home not very far from the capitol.
The surroundings were noisy and not pleasant. But the landlady was
kindly, the food was excellent, and the bed comfortable. He hired two
rooms here. The chief difficulty was a distinct lack of privacy. The
landlady wanted to exhibit her guest as part of the family, and the
public felt free to drop in early and stay late.
Gradually Matthew got used to this new publicity and began to look
about. He met a world that amused and attracted him. First he sorted out
two kinds of politicians. Both had one object—money. But to some Money
was Power. On it they were climbing warily to dazzling
heights—Senatorships, Congress, Empire! Their faces were strained, back
of their carven smiles. They were walking a perpetual tight rope.
Matthew hated them. Others wanted money, but they used their money with
a certain wisdom. They enjoyed life. Some got gloriously and happily
drunk. Others gambled, riding upon the great wings of chance to high and
fascinating realms of desire. Nearly all of them ogled and played with
pretty women.
On the whole, Matthew did not care particularly for their joys. Liquor
gave him pleasant sensations, but not more pleasant and not as permanent
as green fields or babies. He never played poker without visioning the
joys of playing European politics or that high game of world races which
his heart had glimpsed for one strange year—one mighty and disastrous
year.
And women! If he had not met one woman—one woman who drew and filled all
his imagination, all his high romance, all the wild joys and beauty of
being—if she had never lived for him, he could have been a rollicking
and easily satisfied Lothario and walked sweet nights out of State
Street cabarets. Now he was not attracted. He had tried it once in New
York. It was ashes. Moreover, he was married now, and all philandering
was over. And yet—how curious that marriage should seem—well, to stop
love, or arrest its growth instead of stimulating it.
He had not seen much of Sara since marriage. They had been so busy. And
there had been no honeymoon, no mysterious romantic nesting; for Matthew
had finally balked at Atlantic City. He tried to be gentle about it, but
he showed a firmness before which Sara paused. No, he would not go to
Atlantic City. He had gone there once—one summer, an age ago. He had
been refused food at two restaurants, ordered out of a movie, not
allowed to sit in a boardwalk pavilion, and not even permitted to bathe
in the ocean.
“I will not go to Atlantic City. If I must go to hell, I’ll wait until
I’m dead,” he burst out bitterly.
Sara let it go. “Oh, I don’t really mind,” she said, “only I’ve never
been there, and I sort of wanted to see what it’s like. Never mind, well
go somewhere else.” But they didn’t; they stayed in Chicago.
So now he was a member of the legislature and in Springfield. The
politicians came and went. The climbers avoided Matthew. Colored
acquaintances were a debit to rising men. The other politicians knew
him—jollied him and liked him—even drew him out for a rollicking evening
now and then; but voted that he did not quite “belong.” He was always a
trifle remote—apart. He never could quite let himself go and be wholly
one of them. But he liked them. They lived.
There were several members of the House who were not politicians. They
did not count. They fluttered about, uttering shrill noises, and beat
their wings vainly on unyielding iron bars.
Then there were men in politics who were not members of the legislature.
Grave, well-dressed men of business and affairs. They came for
confidential conferences with introductions from and connections with
high places, governors, brokers, railway presidents, ruling monarchs of
steel, oil, and international finance. And from Sammy; especially from
Sammy and Sara. Money was nothing to them, and money was all. A thousand
dollars—ten thousand—it was astounding, the sums at their command and
the ease with which they distributed it. There was no crude bribery as
on State Street—but Matthew soon learned that it was curiously easy to
wake up a morning a thousand dollars richer than when one went to bed;
and no laws broken, no questions asked, no moral code essentially
disarranged. Matthew disliked these men esthetically, but he saw much of
them and conferred with one or another of them nearly every week. It was
his business. They did not live broadly or deeply, but they ruled. There
was no sense blinking that fact. Matthew often forwarded registered
express packages to Sara.
And he came to realize that legislating was not passing laws; it was
mainly keeping laws from being passed.
Then there were the reformers. He held them—most of them—in respectful
pity; palliators, surface scratchers. He listened to them endlessly and
gravely. He read their tracts conscientiously, but only now and then
could he vote as they asked. They were so ignorant—so futile. If only
he, as a practical politician, might tell them a little. Birth control?
Mothers’ pensions? Restricted hours of labor for women and children? He
agreed in theory with them all, but why ask his judgment? Why not ask
the Rulers who put him in the legislature? And without the consent of
these quiet, calm gentlemen who represented Empires, Kingdoms, and
Bishoprics, what could he do, who was a mere member of the legislature?
Yet he could not say this, and if he had said it, they would not have
understood. They pleaded with him—he that needed no pleas. One was here
now—the least attractive—one stocking awry on her big legs, a terrible
hat and an ill-fitting gown. She was president of the Chicago local of
the Box-Makers’ Union. Her breasts were flat, her hips impossible, her
hair dead straight, and her face white and red in the wrong places.
“How would you like your daughter down there?” she bleated.
“I haven’t one.”
“But if you did have?”
“I’d hate it. But I wouldn’t be fool enough to think any law would take
her away.”
“Well, what would?”
“Power that lies in the hands of the millionaire owners of factory
stocks and bonds; and the bankers that guide and advise them. Transfer
that power to me or you.”
“That’s it. Now help us to get this power!”
“How?”
“By voting—”
“Pish!”
“But how else? Are you going to sit down and let these girls go to death
and hell?”
“I’m not responsible for this world, madam.”
“Listen—I know a woman—a woman—like you. She’s just been elected
International President of the Box-Makers. She can talk. She knows.
She’s been everywhere. She’s a lady and educated. I’m just a poor, dumb
thing. I know what I want—but I can’t say it. But she’ll be in Chicago
soon—I’m going to bring her to plead for this bill.”
“Spare me,” laughed Matthew.
But he kept thinking of that poor reformer. And slowly and
half-consciously—stirred by a thousand silly, incomplete arguments for
impossible reform measures—revolt stirred within him against this
political game he was playing. It was not moral revolt. It was esthetic
disquiet. No, the revolt slowly gathering in Matthew’s soul against the
political game was not moral; it was not that he discerned anything
practical for him in uplift or reform, or felt any new revulsion against
political methods in themselves as long as power was power, and facts,
facts. His revolt was against things unsuitable, ill adjusted, and in
bad taste; the illogical lack of fundamental harmony; the unnecessary
dirt and waste—the ugliness of it all—that revolted him.
He saw no adequate end or aim. Money had been his object, but money as
security for quiet, for protection from hurt and insult, for opening the
gates of Beauty. Now money that did none of these was dear, absurdly
dear, overpriced. It was barely possible—and that thought kept
recurring—it was barely possible that he was being cheated, was paying
too high for money. Perhaps there were other things in life that would
bring more completely that which he vaguely craved.
It seemed somehow that he was always passive—always waiting—always
receptive. He could never get to doing. There was no performance or
activity that promised a shining goal. There was no goal. There was no
will to create one. Within him, years ago, something—something
essential—had died.
Yet he liked to play with words, cynically, on the morals of his
situation as a politician. In his office today, he was talking with a
rich woman who wanted his vote for limiting campaign funds. He looked at
her with narrowed eyes:
“We have got to stop this lying and stealing or the country will die,”
she said impatiently.
He watched his unlighted cigarette.
“Lying? Stealing? I do not see that they are so objectionable in
themselves. Lying is a version of fact, sometimes—often poetic, always
creative. Stealing is a transfer of ownership, or an attempted transfer,
sometimes from the overfed to the hungry—sometimes from the starving to
the apoplectic. It is all relative and conditional—not absolute—not
infinite.”
“It is laying impious hands on God’s truth—it is taking His property.”
“I am not sure that God has any truth—that is, any arrangement of facts
of which He is finally fond and of which He could not and does not
easily conceive better or more fitting arrangement. And as to property,
I’m sure He has none. Every time He has come to us, He has been
disgustingly poor.”
The woman rose and fled. Matthew sighed and went back to his round of
thought. Municipal ownership of transportation in Chicago: he had begun
to look into it. He was prejudiced against it by his college textbooks
and his political experience. But here somehow he scented something
else. Back of the demand made to kill the present municipal ownership
was another proposal to renew the franchise of the street-car lines with
an “Indeterminate Permit,” which meant in fact a perpetual charter.
There was a powerful lobby of trained lawyers back of this bill, and
what struck Matthew was that the same lobby was back of the movement to
kill municipal ownership. Were they interested in super-power projects
also? Matthew viewed this whole scramble as one who watches a great
curdling of waters and begins to sense the current.
He was not evolving a conscience in politics. He was not revolting
against graft and deception, but he was beginning to ask just what he
was getting for his effort. Money? Some—not so very much. But the thing
was—not wrong—no—but unpleasant—ugly. That was the word. He was paying
too much for money—money might cost too much. It might cost ugliness,
writhing, dirty discomfort of soul and thought. That’s it. He was paying
too much for even the little money he got. He must pay less—or get more.
Matthew sighed and looked at the next card. It was that of the Japanese
statesman whom he had met in Berlin. He arose slowly and faced the door.
XII
“I trust I am not intruding,” said the Japanese.
Matthew bowed coldly. He gave no sign of recognizing the Japanese, nor
did he pretend not to.
“Certainly not—these are my office hours.”
The Japanese was equally reticent and yet was just a shade too
confidential to be an entire stranger. And again in Matthew’s mind
flamed and sang that Berlin dinner party. Even the music floated in his
ears. But he put it all rudely and brusquely aside.
“What can I do for you, sir? Be seated. Will you smoke?”
The Japanese took a cigarette, tasted it with relish, and leaned back
easily in his chair. He glanced at the office. Matthew was ashamed. If
he had been white, he would have had a room in the new Abraham Lincoln
Hotel; something fine and modern, clean and smart, with service and
light. If he had been black, free, and rich, he would perhaps have
received his guest in a house of his own—delicately vaulted and soft
with color; something beautiful in brick or marble, with high sweep of a
curtain and pillar, a possibility of faint music, and silent deferential
service. But being black, half slave, and poor, he had the front room of
Mrs. Smith’s boarding-house, a show room, to be sure, but conglomerate
of jarring styles and tastes, overloaded and thick with furnishings;
with considerable dust and transient smells and near the noisy street.
Matthew was furious with himself for thinking thus apologetically. Whose
business was it how he lived or what he had?
Then the Japanese looked at him.
“I have been much interested in noting the increased political power of
your people,” he said.
“Indeed,” said Matthew, noncommittally.
“When I was in the United States twenty years ago—” (So he had been here
twenty years ago and interested in Negroes!)—“you were politically
negligible. Today in cities and! states you have a voice.”
Matthew was silent.
“I have been wondering,” said the Japanese with the slow voice of one
delicately feeling his way—“I have been wondering how far you have
unified and set plans—”
“We have none.”
“—either for yourselves in this land, or even further, with an eye
toward international politics and the future of the darker races?”
“We have little interest in foreign affairs,” said Matthew.
The Japanese shifted his position, asked permission, and lighted a
second cigarette. He glanced appraisingly at Matthew.
“Some time ago,” he continued, “at a conference in Berlin, it was
suggested that intelligent coöperation between American Negroes and
other oppressed nations of the world might sensibly forward the uplift
and emancipation of the darker peoples. I doubted this at the time.”
“You may continue to doubt,” said Matthew. “The dream at Berlin was
false and misleading. We have nothing in common with other peoples. We
are fighting out our own battle here in America with more or less
success. We are not looking for help beyond our borders, and we need all
our strength at home.”
It would have been difficult for Matthew to say what prompted him to
talk like this. Mainly, of course, it was deep-seated and smoldering
resentment against this man whose interference, he believed, had wrecked
his world. Perhaps, of course, this was not true. Perhaps shipwreck was
certain, but—he was determined not to sail for those harbors again, not
for a moment even to reconsider the matter; and he repeated as his own
the current philosophy of the colored group about him. It sounded false
as he spoke, but he talked on. The Japanese watched him as he talked.
“Ah!” he said. “Ah! I am sorry. There were some of us who hoped—”
Matthew’s heart leaped. Questions rushed to his lips, and one word
clamored for utterance. He beat them back and glanced at his watch.
The Japanese arose. “I am keeping you?” he said.
“No—no—I have a few minutes yet.”
The Japanese glanced around, and bending forward, spoke rapidly.
“The Great Council,” he said, “of the Darker Peoples will meet in London
three months hence. We have given the American Negro full
representation; that is, three members on the Board. You are chairman.
The other two are—”
Matthew arose abruptly.
“I cannot accept,” he said harshly. “I am no longer interested.”
“I am sorry,” said the Japanese slowly. He paused and pondered, started
to speak as Matthew’s heart hammered in his throat. But the Japanese
remained silent.
He extended his hand. Matthew took it, frowning. They murmured polite
words, and the visitor was gone.
Matthew threw himself on the couch with an oath, and through his
unwilling head tramped all the old pageant of empire with black and
brown and yellow leaders marching ahead.
XV
Matthew was gray with wrath. Sara was quiet and unmoved.
“Yes,” she said. “I promised them your vote, and they paid for it—a good
round sum.”
Matthew had been a member of the legislature of Illinois about six
months. He had made a good record. Everybody conceded that. Nothing
spectacular, but his few speeches were to the point and carried weight;
his work on committees had been valuable because of his accurate
information and willingness to drudge. His votes, curiously enough,
while not uniformly pleasing to all, had gained the praise even of the
women’s clubs and of some of the reformers, whom he had chided, while at
the same time the politicians regarded Matthew as a “safe” man. Matthew
Towns evidently had a political future.
Yet Matthew was far from happy or satisfied. Outside his wider brooding
over his career, he had not gained a home by his marriage. The flat on
South Parkway was an immaculate place which must not be disturbed for
mere living purposes and which blossomed with dignified magnificence. At
repeated intervals crowds burst in for a reception. There was whist and
conversation, dancing as far as space would allow; smoking, cocktails,
and smutty stories back in the den with the men; whispers and spiteful
gossip on the veranda with the ladies; and endless piles of rich food in
the dining-room, served by expensive caterers.
“Mrs. Matthew Towns’ exclusive receptions for the smarter set” (thus the
society reporter of The Lash) were “the most notable in colored
Chicago.”
And Sara was shrewd enough, while gaining this reputation for social
exclusiveness, to see that no real person of power or influence in
colored Chicago was altogether slighted, so that, at least once or twice
a year, one met everybody.
The result was an astonishing melange that drove Matthew nearly crazy.
He could have picked a dozen delightful companions—some educated—some
derelicts—students—politicians—but all human, delightful, fine, with
whom a quiet evening would have been a pleasure. But he was never
allowed. Sara always had good reasons of state for including this ward
heeler or that grass widow, or some shrill-voiced young woman who found
herself in company of this sort for the first time in her life and
proclaimed it loudly; and at the same time Sara found excuse for
excluding the “nobodies” who intrigued his soul.
Matthew’s personal relations with his wife filled him with continual
astonishment. He had never dreamed that two human beings could share the
closest of intimacies and remain unacquainted strangers. He thought that
the yielding of a woman to a man was a matter of body, mind, and soul—a
complete blending. He had never forgot—shamefaced as it made him—the way
that girl in Harlem had twisted her young, live body about his and
soothed his tired, harassed soul and whispered, “There, Big Boy!”
Always he had dreamed of marriage as like that, hallowed by law and
love. Having bowed to the law, he tried desperately to give and evoke
the love. But behind Sara’s calm, cold hardness, he found nothing to
evoke. She did not repress passion—she had no passion to repress. She
disliked being “mauled” and disarranged, and she did not want any one to
be “mushy” about her. Her private life was entirely in public; her
clothes, her limbs, her hair and complexion, her well-appointed home,
her handsome, well-tailored husband and his career; her reputation for
wealth.
Periodically Matthew chided himself that their relations were his fault.
He was painfully conscious of his lack of deep affection for her, but he
strove to evolve something in its place. He proposed a little home
hidden in the country, where, on a small income from their rents, they
could raise a garden and live. And then, perhaps—he spoke diffidently—“a
baby.” Sara had stared at him in uncomprehending astonishment.
“Certainly not!” she had answered. And she went back to the subject of
the super-power bills. The legislature had really done little work
during the whole session, and now as the last days drew on the real
fight loomed. The great hidden powers of finance had three measures:
first, to kill municipal ownership of street-car lines; secondly, to
unite all the street transportation interests of Chicago into one
company with a perpetual franchise or “indeterminate permit”; thirdly,
to reorganize, reincorporate, and refinance a vast holding company to
conduct their united interests and take final legislative steps enabling
them to monopolize electric and water power in the state and in
neighboring states.
To Matthew the whole scheme was clear as day. He had promised to vote
against municipal ownership, but he had never promised to support all
this wider scheme. It meant power and street-car monopoly; millions in
new stocks and bonds unloaded on the public; and the soothing of public
criticism by lower rates for travel, light, and power, and yet rates
high enough to create several generations of millionaires to rule
America. He had determined to oppose these bills, not because they were
wrong, but because they were unfair. For similar reasons he had driven
Casey’s gambling den out of business in his district; the roulette wheel
and most of the dice were loaded.
But Sara was keen on the matter. Lines were closely drawn; there was
strong opposition from reformers, Progressives, and the labor group.
Money was plentiful, and Sara had pledged Matthew’s votes and been
roundly paid for it.
She and Sammy were having a conference on the matter and awaiting
Matthew. Sara sensed his opposition; it must be overcome. Sammy was
talking.
“Don’t understand their game,” said Sammy, “but they’re lousy with
money.”
“I understand it,” said Sara quietly, “and I’ve promised Matthew’s vote
for their bills.”
Sammy’s eyes narrowed.
Just then, Matthew came in.
“What have you promised?” he asked, looking from one to the other.
Sara quietly gathered up her papers.
“Come home to lunch,” she said, “and I’ll tell you.”
She knew that she had to have this thing out with Matthew, and she had
planned for it carefully. Sammy whistled softly to himself and did a
little jig after his guests had left. He thought he saw light.
“I didn’t think that combination could last long,” he said to his new
cigar. “Too perfect.”
Sara steered her Studebaker deftly through the traffic, bowing to
deferential policemen at the traffic signals and recognizing
well-dressed acquaintances here and shabby idlers there, who raised
their hats elaborately. Matthew sat silent, mechanically lifting his
hat, but glancing neither right nor left. They glided up to the curb at
home, at exactly the right distance from it, and stopped before the
stepping-stone. Sara flooded the carburetor, turned off the switch, and
carefully locked it. Matthew handed her down, and with a smile at the
staring children, they entered the lofty porch of their house. They
opened the dark oaken door with a latchkey and slowly mounted the
carpeted stairs. Sara remarked that the carpet was a little worn. She
feared it was not as good as Carson-Pirie had represented. She would
have to see about it soon.
A brown maid in a white apron smilingly let them into the apartment and
said that lunch was “just ready—yes’m, I found some fine sweet potatoes
after you ’phoned, and fried them.” Matthew loved fried sweet potatoes.
They had a very excellent but rather silent lunch, although Sara talked
steadily about various rather inconsequential things. Then they went to
the “library,” which Matthew never used because its well-bound and
carefully arranged books had scarcely a volume in which he had the
slightest interest. Sara closed the door and turned on the electric log.
“I promised the super-power crowd,” she said, “that you would vote for
their bills.”
It was then that Matthew went pale with wrath.
“How dared you?”
“Dared? I thought you expected me to conduct your campaign? I promised
them your vote, and they paid a lot for it. Of course, it was cloaked in
a real-estate transaction, but I gave them a receipt in your name and
mine and deposited the money.”
Matthew felt for the flashing of a moment that he could kill this pale,
hard woman before him. She felt this and inwardly quailed, but outwardly
kept her grip.
“I don’t see,” she said, “any great difference between voting for these
bills and against municipal ownership. It is all part of one scheme. I
hope,” she added, “you’re not going to develop a conscience suddenly. As
a politician with a future, you can’t afford to.”
The trouble was that Matthew himself suddenly knew that there was no
real difference. It was three steps in the same direction instead of
one. But the first was negative and tentative, while the three together
were tremendous. They gave a monopoly of transportation and public
service in Chicago to a great corporation which aimed at unlimited
permission to exploit the water power of a nation forever at any price
“the traffic would bear.” Of course it was no question of right and
wrong. It was possible to buy privilege, as one bought votes; he himself
bought votes, but—well, this was different. This privilege could be
bought, of course—but not of him. It was cheating mental babies whom he
did not represent—whom he did not want to represent.
He was a grafting politician. He knew it and felt no qualms about it.
But he had always secretly prided himself that his exchanges were fair.
The gamblers who paid him got protection; prostitutes who were straight
and open need not fear the police; workers in his district could not be
“shaken down” by thieves. Even in the bigger legislative deals, it was
square, upstanding give and take between men with their eyes open. But
this—there was no use explaining to Sara. She knew the difference as
well as he. Or did she? That rankling shaft about “conscience.” He was a
politician who was directly and indirectly for sale. He had no business
with a conscience. He had no conscience. But he had limitations. By God!
everybody had some limitations. He must have them. He would sell himself
if he wished, but he wouldn’t be sold. He was not a bag of inert
produce. He refused to be compelled to sell. He was no slave. He must
and would be free. He wanted money for freedom. Well, he’d been sold.
Where was the money? He wanted money. He must have it. There and there
alone lay freedom, and his chains were becoming more than he could bear.
“Where is the money you got?” he said abruptly.
“I’ve invested it.”
“I want it.”
“You can’t get it—it’s tied up in a deal, and to disturb it would be to
risk most of our fortune.”
“I’ve put some money in our joint account.”
“That’s invested too. What’s the use of money idle in a savings bank at
four per cent when we can make forty?”
“How much are we worth?”
“Oh, not so much,” said Sara cautiously. “Put the house minus the first
mortgage at, say, fifty thousand—we may have another ten or fifteen
thousand more.” Thus she figured up.
“Matthew,” she added quickly, “be sensible. In a couple of years you’ll
be in Congress—the greatest market in the land, and we’ll be worth at
least a hundred thousand. Oppose these bills, and you go to the
political ashpile. Sammy won’t dare to use you. My mortgagees will
squeeze me. The city will come down on us for violations and
assessments, and first thing we know we’ll be penniless and saddled with
piles of brick and mortar. As a congressman you can ignore petty graft
and get in ‘honestly,’ as people say, on big things; in less than ten
years, you’ll be rich and famous. Now for God’s sake, don’t be a fool!”
Matthew Towns voted for the traction group of bills, but they were
defeated by an aroused public opinion which neither Republicans nor
Democrats dared oppose. Matthew at the same time saved from defeat at
the last moment four bills which the Progressives and Labor group were
advocating. They were not radical but were entering wedges to reduce the
burden on working mothers, lessen the hours of work for women, and
establish the eight-hour day. One bill to restrict the power of
injunctions in labor disputes failed despite Matthew’s efforts.
The result was curious. Matthew was commended by all parties. The
machine regarded him as safe but shrewd. The Farmer-Labor group regarded
him as beginning to see the light. The Democrats regarded him as
approachable. Sara was elated. She determined to begin immediately her
campaign to send Matthew to Congress.
XIV
The Honorable Sammy Scott was having the fight of his life and he knew
it. It almost wiped the genial smile from his lips, but he screwed it on
and metaphorically stripped for the fray. He knew it was the end or a
glorious new beginning for Sammy Scott.
Sammy’s first real blow had been Sara’s wedding. He had settled down to
the comfortable fact that if Sara ever married anybody it would be Sammy
Scott. At whom else had she ever looked—of whom had she ever thought? He
was her hero in shrewdness and accomplishment, and he preened himself
before her. There hung the fruit—the ripe, sleek, dainty fruit at his
hand. He had only to reach out and pluck it. He was not a marrying man.
But—who could tell? He might want a change. He might make his pile and
retire. Or go traveling abroad. Then? Well, he might marry Sara and take
her along. Time would tell.
And then—then without warning—without a flash of suspicion, the blow
fell. Of course, others had talked and hinted and winked. Sammy laughed
and pooh-poohed. He knew Sara. Nobody could take his capable secretary
off the Honorable Sammy Scott. No, sir!
After the announcement and through the marriage, Sammy bore up bravely.
He never turned a hair, at least to the public. He was best man and
general manager at the wedding, and his present of a grand piano, with
Ampico attachment, made dark Chicago gasp.
Gradually, Sammy got an idea into his head. Sara was a cool and deep
one. Perhaps, perhaps, mused Sammy, as she left him after a long and
confidential talk, perhaps this husband business was all a blind.
Perhaps after the marriage with a rather dull husband for exhibition
purposes, Sara was going to be more approachable. In her despair at not
inveigling Sammy himself into marriage—so Sammy argued, waving his
patent-leather shoes on their high perch—after her wiles failed, then
perhaps she’d decided to have her cake and eat it too. All right—all the
same to Sammy. Of course, he might have preferred—but women are curious.
He hinted something of this to Sara and got a cryptic response—a sort of
prim silence that made him guffaw and slap his thigh. Of course, he had
upbraided her first with disloyalty and quitting; but all this she
disclaimed with pained surprise. She gave Sammy distinctly to
understand—she did not say it—that she was loyally and eternally his
steward forever and ever.
So Sammy was shaken but hopeful, and matters went on as usual until the
second blow fell from a clear sky. Sara proposed to resign as his
secretary! This brought him to his feet with deep suspicion. Was she
double-crossing him? Was she playing him for a sucker? She had been in
fact no more approachable to his familiarities since than before
marriage—if anything, less. She actually seemed to be putting on airs
and assuming a place of importance. If Sammy had dared, he would have
dropped her entirely the moment she resigned. But he did not dare, and
he knew that Sara knew it. He caught the glint in her gray eyes and
almost felt the steel grip of her dainty hand.
Moreover, Sara explained it all very clearly. As the wife of a member of
the legislature, it did not look quite the correct thing for her to be
just a secretary. She proposed, therefore, to have an office of her own
next Sammy’s where the work of her women’s organization could be done.
At the same time, with an assistant, she could still take charge of
Sammy’s business. Sammy had hopes of that assistant, but before he had
any one to propose, Sara had one chosen. She was nothing to look at, but
she certainly could make a typewriter talk. Business went as smoothly as
ever, and Sammy couldn’t complain.
No, evidently Sara could not be dropped. She knew too much of facts and
methods. So, ostensibly, Sammy and Sara were in close alliance and
almost daily consultation, and they were at the same time watching each
other narrowly.
The trouble culminated over the nomination for Congress. For thirty
years, Negroes, deprived of representation in Congress, after White of
North Carolina had been counted out, had planned and hoped politically
for one end—to put a black man in Congress from the North. The necessary
black population had migrated to New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis;
but in Chicago alone did they have not only the numbers but the
political machine capable of engineering the deal. It had long been the
plan of Sammy’s machine to have the white congressman, Doolittle, retire
at the end of his present term and Sammy nominated in his stead. This
was the ambition of Sammy’s life, the crowning of his career. He and
Sara had discussed it for years in every detail. Every step was
surveyed, every contingency thought out. It was only necessary to wait
for enough political power in Sammy’s machine to dictate the nomination
of one colored candidate among the myriad of aspirants. That time had
now come.
Sammy was the recognized colored state boss; three aldermen and three
colored members of the legislature took his orders; the colored judge
owed his place to Sammy, and, while independent, was friendly. The
public service corporations were back of Sammy with money and influence.
Four “assistant” corporation counsels named by Sammy were receiving five
thousand dollars a year each for duties that, to say the least, were not
arduous; while the Civil Service, the Post Office, and the schools had
hundreds of colored employees who owed or thought they owed their chance
to make a decent living to the Honorable Sammy Scott. Finally, there was
Sara’s Colored Women’s Council, through which for the first time the
Negro women loomed as an independent political force.
Thus Sammy was dictator and candidate, and the party machine had
definitely and categorically promised. The Negro majority in the First
Congressional District was undoubted.
Now, however, and suddenly, matters changed. Since Matthew’s success,
Sara had definitely determined to kill off Sammy and send Matthew to
Congress. Sammy sensed this, and these politicians began to stalk each
other. Sara’s task was hardest, and she knew it. Sammy was Heir Apparent
by all the rules of the game. But there were pitfalls, and Sara knew
them. She was going to make no mistake, but she was watching.
Gradually Sammy became less communicative. He had a number of secret
conferences in the early spring of 1926, to which Sara, contrary to
custom, was not invited; and his accounts of these meetings were vague.
“Oh, just a get-together—talkee, talkee; nothing important.”
But Sara wasn’t fooled. She knew that Sammy was in trouble and
struggling desperately. The fact was that Sammy was sorely puzzled.
First and weightiest, the white party bosses wanted Doolittle for “just
one more term.” Doolittle held exceedingly important committee places in
Congress, and especially as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of
the House, he was a power for tariff legislation. Millions depended on
the revision which exporters, farmers, and laborers were demanding more
and more loudly. Then there was legislation for the farmers and on the
railroads and above all certain nation-wide super-power plans at
Niagara, at Muscle Shoals and Boulder Dam. It was no question of
“color,” the white leaders carefully explained. It was a grave question
of party interests. Two years hence, the nomination was Sammy’s with
bands playing. This year, Doolittle simply must go back, and money was
no object.
That was reason Number One, and as money always was an object with
Sammy, it loomed large in his thought. But that wasn’t all. Sammy did
not trust Sara, and Sara, by efficiently organizing the colored women,
had quietly become the biggest single political force in his colored
constituency. Indeed, her new Colored Women’s Council was the most
perfect piece of smoothly running political machinery that Sammy knew.
He couldn’t touch it, and he had tried. Now Sara had an uncomfortably
popular husband. Matthew was a successful member of the legislature,
young and intelligent, with some personal popularity. His very
faults—aloofness, absent-mindedness, indifference to money or
fame—increased his vogue. If Doolittle were forced to resign, could
Sammy land the nomination without Sara’s help? And with the knifing of
men like Corruthers, who was still sore with Sammy; and particularly
without the party slush fund?
Sammy hesitated and all but lost. He pocketed twenty-five thousand
dollars for campaign expenses within a few days and consented to
Doolittle’s renomination. But he did not dare announce it. Sara scented
a crisis. She looked over his papers—always kept carelessly—and ran
across his bank book. She noticed that twenty-five thousand dollar cash
deposit. Then she got busy on the Doolittle end. She knew a maid long
connected with the congressman’s family. Soon she had inside news. It
was going to be announced that Doolittle was not to resign. His health
(which was to have been the excuse) had been “greatly improved by a trip
to Europe,” and the honor of another and strictly final term was to be
given this “friend and champion of our race”!
Sara immediately took the high hand. She walked into Sammy’s office
without knocking and closed the door. She was brief, inaccessible, and
coldly indignant. She reminded Sammy of his solemn promise to refuse
Doolittle another term; she accused him of being bribed and announced
distinctly her withdrawal from all political alliance with the Scott
machine!
Sammy was aghast. It was the coldest hold-up he had ever experienced. He
promised her office, influence, money, and anything in reason for
Matthew. She was adamant. She expressed great sorrow at this breaking of
old ties.
“Oh, go to hell!” growled Sammy and slammed the door after her. He knew
her game, of course. She was going to run Matthew for Congress, and, by
George, she had a chance to win, unless he could kill Matthew off.
Sara immediately gave her story to the newspapers, colored and white,
and called meetings of all her clubs. Bedlam broke loose about Sammy’s
devoted head. He was accused of “Betraying and Selling out his Race to
White Politicians!” The Negro papers, by secret information or
astonishingly lucky guess, named the exact sum he received—twenty-five
thousand dollars. The white papers sneered at Negro grafting politicians
and praised the upright and experienced Doolittle. Sammy’s appointees
and heads of his political machine sat securely on the fence and said
and did nothing. They were glad that Sammy had missed the nomination.
They were waiting to know just what their share of the slush fund was to
be. They were afraid of the popular uproar against Sammy. Above all,
they feared Sara. It looked perilously like Sammy’s finish.
Sammy was no quitter. When he was “down, he was never out.” And now he
really began to fight. Sammy turned to the gang he could best trust for
underground dirty work. The very respectability which Sara had forced on
him in his chief appointments greatly cramped his style. He had to go
back to his old cronies and his old methods. He made peace with the
Gang. Soon he had around him Corruthers and a dozen like him. Sammy
promised the utmost liberality with funds and began by distributing
scores of new hundred-dollar bills. They all decided that the case was
by no means desperate. Towns could, at worst, defeat Doolittle at the
election only by dividing the Republican vote. He himself had small
chance for the Republican nomination. And even if he got it, Sammy could
also split the vote and defeat him. As long then as the bosses stood pat
for Doolittle, Towns’ only hope was to run on an independent ticket.
Could he win? Probably not. Negroes did not like to scratch a straight
Republican ticket. Meantime, however, in order to insure Doolittle’s
election and keep their machine intact, Towns must be put out of the
running altogether. As Sammy said: “We’ve gotta frame Towns.”
“Publish him as a jailbird.”
“What, after I got him pardoned as an innocent hero and worked that gag
all over the country?”
“Knock him on his fool head,” sneered an alderman.
“There’s only one thing to do with a bozo like him, and that is to trip
him up with a skirt.”
“Can’t he steal something?”
They went over his career with a fine-tooth comb until at last they came
back to that lynching and train wreck and his jail record.
“I remember now,” said Sammy thoughtfully, “that Sara unearthed a lot of
unpublished stuff.”
“We’ve got to discover new evidence and admit that we were fooled.”
Corruthers had been lolling back in his chair, smoking furiously and
saying nothing. His red hair blazed, and his brown freckles grew darker.
Suddenly now he let the two front legs of his chair down with a bang.
“Oh, to hell with you all!” he snarled. “You don’t have to get no new
evidence. I’ve had the dope to kill Towns for six months.”
Sammy did not appear to be impressed. He had little faith in Corruthers.
“What is it?” he growled, with half a sneer in his tone.
“It is this. Towns made that attack on the woman for which another
porter was lynched on the Klan Special last year.”
Sammy sat up quickly. “Like hell!” he snapped.
“Yes, like hell! Towns confessed it to the executive committee of the
porters. Said he was in the woman’s compartment when the husband
discovered them. He knocked the husband down and escaped. The husband
thought it was the regular car porter, and he got his friends and
lynched him. Towns offered to tell this story to the general meeting of
the porters and in court, but the committee wouldn’t let him. They let
him say only that he knew the lynched porter was innocent, because he
wasn’t in the car. They figured it would be bad policy to admit that the
woman had been attacked by any one. I got this story from the secretary
of the committee. After you ditched me for the nomination to the
legislature, I tried to get him to come out with it and swear to it, but
he wouldn’t. He was backing Towns. Then I tried to find the widow of the
guy who was lynched. I knew she would tell the truth fast enough. Well,
I couldn’t get her until the election was over, but I’ve got her now
fast enough. She’s in New York, and I’ve been writing to her.
“And that ain’t all. Remember, there was another colored woman mixed up
in this. Called herself an Indian princess and got away with it.
Princess nothing! I figure she was in the blackmailing game with Towns,
double-crossed him, and left him holding the bag. Slip me five hundred
for expenses, and I’ll go to New York tonight and round up both of these
dames. We’ll bury Towns so deep he’ll never see the outside of jail
again.”
Sammy hesitated. He didn’t like this angle of attack. It was—well, it
was hitting below the belt. But, pshaw! politics was politics, and one
couldn’t be too squeamish. He peeled off five one-hundred-dollar bills.
That night Corruthers went east.
XV
Sara was delighted at Sammy’s move in the Doolittle nomination. If he
had stuck to his original plan, it would have been difficult for her to
refuse him her support. As it was, the chorus of denunciation at Sammy’s
apostacy was easily turned to a chorus demanding the nomination of
Matthew Towns to Congress, before the rival politicians in Sammy’s
machine could prevent it. It was suggested that if the Republicans
refused to nominate him and insisted on Doolittle, he might run
independently and get support from the mass of the Negro vote, all the
reformers, and, possibly, even the Democrats, in a district where they
otherwise had no chance. Sara followed up the suggestion quickly. Club
after club in her Colored Women’s Council nominated Matthew by
acclamation, until almost the solid Negro women’s vote apparently stood
back of him.
Matthew was astounded. He had never dreamed that Sara could effect his
nomination to Congress. He resented her means and methods. He half
resolved to refuse utterly, but, after all, it was a great chance, a
door to freedom, power. But he would have to pay. He would have to strip
his soul of all self-respect and lie and steal his way in. He knew it.
What should he do? What could he do?
Sara had immediately taken the matter of Matthew’s nomination to the
white women’s clubs and to the reformers. Here she struck a snag;
Matthew had gained applause from the Farmer-Labor group for his support
of some of their bills in the legislature; but after all, he was well
known as a machine man and had voted at the dictation of big interests
in the traction deal. How then could they nominate Towns, unless, of
course, he was prepared to cut away from the machine and take a new
progressive stand?
It was Mr. Cadwalader, leader of the Progressive group, speaking to
Sara. She agreed that Matthew must take a stand. In her own mind it was
a first step before she could coerce the Republicans. But how could she
induce Matthew to play her game? It would be fairly easy for a trained
politician. He would simply say that he was not opposed to municipal
ownership but simply to this particular bill, and point out its defects.
Defects were always easy to find. Then he would say that he knew that
the “indeterminate permit” bill was doomed to defeat and that he could
only get support for the other measures by promising to vote for it.
This he could say and then make promises for the future, but not too
many. But would Matthew do this? Of course not. He had no such subtlety.
On the other hand, if he got up and tried to tell the straightforward
truth, Sara had a plan that might work. Yes, it was worth trying. She
did not see how she could avoid a trial.
“Matthew,” she said that night, “I want you to come with me Tuesday and
explain frankly to a committee of the Women’s City Club your attitude on
the super-power projects.” Matthew stared: “And how shall I explain my
vote?”
“By telling the truth. Then I’ll say a word.”
Matthew made no comment. Gradually in his own soul he had made a
declaration of independence. He would not in the future, more than in
the past, be hemmed in by petty moral scruples. He still honestly
believed that burglary was ethically no worse than Big Business. But
thereafter in each particular instance he was going to be the judge. He
would buy and sell if he so wished, but he would not be bought and sold.
He was glad to go before that club and talk openly and cleanly of
traction and Super-Power.
The scene inspired him. They sat high up above the roaring city, in a
softly beautiful and quiet room. There rose before him intelligent
faces—well-groomed and well-carried bodies, mostly of women. He saw
clearly, behind their ease and poise, the toiling slavery of colored
millions. He was not deceived into assuming that their show of interest
would easily survive any real attack on their incomes or comforts. And
yet they were willing to listen. Within limits, they wanted reform and
the uplift of men.
Matthew knew his subject. He knew it even better than many experts who
had spoken there, because he brought in and made real and striking the
point of view and the personal interest not simply of the skilled
worker, but of the laborer, the ditch-digger, the casual semi-criminal.
They listened to him in growing astonishment. Here was a machine
politician who had voted deliberately against his own knowledge and
convictions, and yet who explained their own belief and aims much better
than they could, and who nevertheless—
“Why then did I vote as I did?”
He was about to say frankly that he voted at the dictation of the
machine, but that he did not propose to do this again. He would
hereafter use his own judgment. His judgment might not always agree with
theirs. It might sometimes agree with the machine politicians’. But it
would always be his judgment. Before, however, he could say anything,
Sara arose. He saw her and hesitated in astonishment.
Sara arose. She looked almost pretty—simply but well gowned,
self-possessed and nervously expectant. Matthew never was sure afterward
whether she actually was nervous or whether this was not one of her
poses.
She arose and said, “May I interrupt right here?”
What could Matthew say? He could hardly tell his own wife in public to
shut up, although that was what he wanted to say. He had to bow grimly,
even if not politely. The chairman smiled, looked a little astonished,
and then explained: “This is perhaps not exactly the place where we
would expect an interruption, but as most of you know, this is Mr.
Towns’ wife, and she wants to say a word right here if he and you are
willing.”
Many had thought Sara white. Now they all “could see that she was
colored”! At least they pretended never really to have been in
doubt—that slight curl in her hair—the delicate tint of her skin—the
singular gray eyes, etc. But she was unusually well dressed—“yes, quite
intelligent, too, they say—yes.” But what a singular point at which to
interrupt! It would be especially interesting to hear the speaker
proceed just here. But Matthew bowed abruptly and sat down. He was
curious to see what Sara was up to. Her nimble mind always outran his in
unguessed directions.
“He voted as he did because I had promised the politicians that he
would, and he was too chivalrous to make me break my word, as he should
have.”
Matthew gasped and glanced to the door. It was too far off and blocked
with silk and fur.
“I know now I was quite wrong, but I did not realize it then. I received
my political education, as many of you know, as a member of a political
machine, where the first commandment is, Obey. I was and am ambitious
for my husband. I was a little scared at his liberal views before I
understood his reasons and until we had talked them over. The machine
asked his vote against municipal ownership. He gave it. He explained to
me as he has to you the case for and against municipal ownership in the
present state of Chicago politics. He believed this bill meant indirect
corporation control. Then the Interests—the same Interests—came to me
about the other two bills. You see,” said Sara prettily, “we’re
partners, and I act as a sort of secretary to the combination and write
the letters and see the visitors.”
Matthew groaned in spirit, and one lady whispered to another that here
was, at least, one ideal family.
“I promised them our support,” continued Sara, “without further thought.
I probably assumed I knew more than I did, and perhaps I was too eager
to curry favor for my husband in high places—”
“And perhaps,” whispered Mr. Cadwalader in the rear, “you got damned
well paid for it.”
Sara proceeded: “I was wrong and my husband was angry, but I pleaded
with him. Since then I have come to a clearer realization of the meaning
and function of political machines. But I argued then that without the
machine, colored people would get no recognition even from respectable
and intelligent people; that the machine had elected my husband, and
that he owed it support. Finally, he promised to support the bills in
loyalty to me, but only on condition that afterward we resign from Sammy
Scott’s organization. This we have done.”
There was prolonged applause. They did not all believe Sara’s
explanation, but they were willing to forget the past in the face of
this seemingly definite commitment for the future. But Matthew gasped.
It was the smoothest, coolest lie he had ever heard, and yet it was so
near the truth that he had to rub his own inner eyes. He was literally
dumb when members of the committees congratulated this ideal couple and
promised to turn the support of reformers toward Matthew’s independent
nomination. Some saw also the wisdom of Sara’s delicate suggestion that
this—almost domestic misfortune—be not broadcast yet to the public
press, and that it only be intimated in a general way that Mr. Towns’
attitude was on the whole satisfactory.
XVI
There was war in Chicago—silent, bitter war. It was part of the war
throughout the whole nation; it was part of the World War. Money was
bursting the coffers of the banks—poor people’s savings, rich people’s
dividends. It must be invested in order to insure principal and interest
for the poor and profits for the rich. It had been invested in the past
in European restoration and American industry. But difficulties were
appearing—far-off signs of danger which bankers knew. European industry
could only pay large dividends if it could sell goods largely in the
United States. High tariff walls kept those goods out. American industry
could pay large dividends only if it could sell goods abroad or secure
monopoly prices at home. To sell goods abroad it must receive Europe’s
goods in payment. This meant lower tariff rates. To keep monopoly at
home, prices must be kept up by present or higher tariff rates. It was a
dilemma, a cruel dilemma, and bankers, investors, captains of industry,
scanned the industrial horizon, while poor people shivered from cold and
unknown winds.
There was but one hope in the offing which would at once ward off labor
troubles by continued high wages and yet maintain the fabulous rate of
profit; and that was new monopoly of rich natural resources. Imperial
aggressiveness in the West Indies, Mexico, and Africa held
possibilities, when public opinion was properly manipulated. But right
here in the United States was White Coal! Black coal, oil, and iron were
monopolized and threatened with diminishing returns and world
competition. But white coal—the harnessing of the vast unused rivers of
the nation; monopolizing free water power to produce dear electricity!
Quick! Quick! Act silently and swiftly before the public awakes and sees
that it is selling something for nothing. Keep Doolittle in Congress.
Keep all the Doolittles in Congress. Let the silent war against
agitators, radicals, fools, keep up. Hold the tariff citadel a little
longer—then let it crash with the old savings gone but the new
investments safe and ready to take new advantage of lower wages and less
impudent workers. So there was war in Chicago—World War, and the
Republican machine of Cook County was fighting in the van. And in the
machine Sammy and Sara and Matthew were little cogs.
A Michigan Avenue ’bus was starting south from Adams Street in early
March when two persons, rushing to get on at the same time, collided.
Mrs. Beech, president of the Women’s City Club, was a little flustered.
She ought to have come in her own car, but she did not want to appear
too elegant on this visit. She turned and found herself face to face
with Mr. Graham, the chairman of the Republican County Central
Committee. They lived in the same North Shore suburb, Hubbard Woods, and
had met before.
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Graham hastily. “One has to rush so for
these ’buses that it is apt to be dangerous.”
Mrs. Beech smiled graciously. She was rather glad to meet Mr. Graham,
because she wanted to talk some things out with him. They sat on top and
began with the weather and local matters in their suburb. Then Mrs.
Beech observed:
“The colored folks are certainly taking the South Side.”
“It is astonishing,” answered Mr. Graham. “What would the ghosts of the
old Chicago aristocracy say?”
“Well, it shows progress, I suppose,” said Mrs. Beech.
“I am not so sure about that,” said Mr. Graham. “It shows activity and a
certain ruthless pushing forward, but I am a little afraid of results.
We have a most difficult political problem here.”
“So I understand; in fact, I am going to a meeting of one of their
women’s clubs now.”
“Indeed! Well, I hope we may count on your good offices,” and Mr. Graham
smiled. “I don’t mind telling you that we are in trouble in this
district. We have got a big Negro vote, well organized under Sammy
Scott, of whom perhaps you have heard. Scott and his gang are not easily
satisfied. They have been continually raising their demands. First, they
wanted money, and indeed they have never got over that; but they
demanded money first for what I suspect amounted to direct bribery.
This, of course, was coupled with protection for gambling and crime, a
deplorable situation, but beyond control. This went on for a while,
although the sums handed them from the party coffers were larger and
larger. Then they began to want offices, filling appointments as
janitors and cleaners at first; then higher and higher until at last the
Negroes of Chicago have two aldermen, three members of the legislature,
a state senator, a city judge and several commissionerships.”
“They are proving apt politicians,” smiled Mrs. Beech.
“And they are not through,” returned Mr. Graham. “Today they are
insisting upon a congressman.”
“Well, they deserve some representation, don’t they, in Congress?”
“Yes, that’s true; but neither they nor we are ready for it just yet.
Membership in Congress not only involves a certain social status and
duties, but just now in the precarious economic position of the country,
we need trained and experienced men in Congress and not mere ward
politicians.”
“Is Doolittle a man of such high order and ability?”
“No, he is not. Doolittle is an average politician, but he is a white
man; he has had long experience; he holds exceedingly important places
on the House committees because of his long service; and above all he is
willing to carry out the plans of his superiors.”
“Or in other words,” said Mrs. Beech tartly, “he takes orders from the
machine.”
“Yes, he does,” said Graham, turning toward her and speaking earnestly.
“And how are we going to run this country unless thoughtful men furnish
the plans and find legislators and workers who are willing to carry them
out? We are in difficulties, Mrs. Beech. If the tariff is tinkered with
by amateur radicals, your income and mine may easily go to smash. If
securities which are now good and the basis of investment are attacked
by Bolsheviks, we may have an industrial smash such as the world has
seldom seen. We haven’t paid our share for the World War yet, and we may
have to foot a staggering bill.
“Now, we have farsighted plans for guiding the industrial machine and
keeping it steady; Doolittle is a cog, nothing more than a cog, but a
dependable cog, in the machine. Now here come the Negroes of this
district and demand the fulfillment of a promise, carelessly, and to my
mind foolishly given several years ago, that after this term Doolittle
was to be replaced in Congress by the head of the black political
machine, Sammy Scott. Well, it’s impossible. I think you see that, Mrs.
Beech. We don’t want Scott in Congress representing Chicago. He has
neither the brains nor the education—”
Mrs. Beech interrupted. “But I understand,” she said, “that there is a
young college-bred man who is candidate and who is intellectually rather
above the average of our Congressmen.”
“There certainly is,” said Mr. Graham, bitterly, “and he’s got a wife
who is one of the most astute politicians in this city.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Beech, “I am on my way to one of her meetings. It is at
her home on Grand—I mean, South Parkway. I wonder where I should
transfer?”
“I will show you,” said Mr. Graham. “We have still a little way to go.
It would be just like Mrs. Towns to pull all strings in order to get you
to her house. She has social aspirations and is the real force behind
Towns.”
“But Towns himself?” asked Mrs. Beech.
“Towns himself is a radical and has a shady record. He was once in the
penitentiary. His wife is trying to keep him in hand, but his appeal is
to the very elements among white people and colored people which mean
trouble for conservative industry in the United States. He cannot for a
moment be considered. I have talked frankly to you, Mrs. Beech. We are
coming to your corner now, but I wish we could come to some sort of
understanding with the liberal elements that you represent. I do not
think that you, Cadwalader, and myself are so far apart. I hope you will
help us.”
Mrs. Beech descended and Graham rode on.
It was some hours later that Mr. Cadwalader and Mrs. Beech had dinner
together. They represented various elements interested in reform. Mr.
Cadwalader was the official head of the Farmer-Labor Party in Chicago,
while Mrs. Beech represented one element of the old Progressive Party
and looked toward alliance with Mr. Cadwalader’s group.
“But,” Mr. Cadwalader complained over his fish, “we’ve got an impossible
combination. We cannot get any real agreement on anything. You and I,
for instance, cannot stand for free trade as a present policy. It would
ruin us and our friends. On the other hand, we cannot advocate a high
tariff. We and our manufacturing friends want gradual reduction rather
than increase of duties. Then, too, our friends among the farmers and
the laborers want high and low tariff at the same time, only on
different things. The farmers want cheap foreign manufactured goods and
high rates on food; the laborers want free food and high manufacturing
wages. Finally, we have all got to remember the Socialists and
Communists who want to scrap the whole system and begin anew.”
“I was talking with Mr. Graham yesterday,” said Mrs. Beech, “and he
believes that the Republicans and the Farmer-Labor Party could find some
common aims.”
“I am sure we could, if the Republicans would add to their defense of
sound business and investment some thought of the legitimate demands of
the farmer and laborer, and then would restrain legislation which
directly encourages monopoly.”
“True,” said Mrs. Beech, “but wouldn’t any rapprochement with the
Republicans drive out of your ranks the radicals who swell the potential
reform vote? And in this case would we not leave them to the guidance of
demagogues and emphasize the dangerous directions of their growth?”
“Precisely, precisely. And that is what puzzles me. You know, only last
night I was visiting a meeting of one of the newer trade unions, the
Box-Makers. It was organized locally in New York in 1919 and now has a
national union headquarters there. The union here is only a year old,
but it is the center of dangerous radicalism, with lots of Jews,
Russians, and other foreigners. They want paternalism of all sorts, with
guaranteed wages, restricted ages and hours of work, pensions, long
vacations and the like; not to mention wild vaporings about absolute
free trade; ‘One Big Union’; government ownership of industry, and
limitation of wealth. And the trouble also,” continued Mr. Cadwalader,
“is that this union has some startlingly capable leaders; two
representatives from New York were there last night, and a letter from
the National President was read which was dangerous in its sheer
ability, appeal, and implications.
“I was aghast. I wanted to repudiate the whole thing forthwith, but I
was afraid, as you say, that I would drive them bodily over to the
Socialists and Communists. In general, I’m beginning to wonder if we
could try to marshal this extreme movement back of Matthew Towns. I
don’t exactly trust him, and I certainly do not trust his wife. But
Towns has got sense. He is a practical politician. And it may be that
with his leadership we can restrain these radicals and keep them inside
a normal liberal movement.”
Mrs. Beech pushed her dessert aside and sat for a while in a brown
study.
“I am wondering too just how much can be done in this one Chicago
congressional district, to use Towns and his wife in order to unite
Republicans and Progressives, so as to begin a movement which should
liberalize the Republican Party and stabilize the radicals. Unless we do
this, or at least begin somewhere to do it, I see little hope for reform
in politics. A third party in the United States is impossible on account
of the Solid South. They are a dead weight and handicap to all political
reform. They have but one shibboleth, and that is the Negro.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Cadwalader, “and the Democrats play their usual role in
this campaign. Their positive policies are exactly the same as the
Republicans’. They, of course, have no chance of winning in this
political district, unless the Republicans split. Now with Towns’
revolt, the Republican machine is split and the Democrats are just
waiting. If Towns should be nominated they would raise the question of
the color line and yell ‘nigger.’ They might in this way elect one of
their own number or some independent. If Doolittle is nominated, it is
going to be hard to elect him if Towns runs as an independent; and in
that case it might be good politics for the Democrats to back Towns and
beat the Republican machine. So there they are on the fence, waiting.”
“On the other hand,” said Mrs. Beech, “down in the black trenches the
war is bitter, as I gathered from my attendance at the meeting this
afternoon. Sammy Scott, the boss, and Sara Towns were formerly close
associates and know each other’s personalities, political methods, and
secrets. They are watching each other narrowly and are utterly
unhindered by scruples. What sort of personality has this man Matthew
Towns? Do you know anything about him?”
“I’ve been looking up his record. He intrigues me. He had, I find, an
excellent record in medical school. Then in silly pique he became a
Pullman porter and, I judge, sank pretty low. He does not seem to have
committed any crime, but went to jail on a technicality because he
wouldn’t betray some of his friends. Scott rescued him and used him.
He’s got brains and education, but he’s queer and not easily
approachable.”
“Well, if I were you,” said Mrs. Beech as she arose, “I’d get in touch
with Towns and cultivate him. He may be worth while. His wife is a
shrewd climber, but even that might be an asset.”
And so they parted.
XVII
The Honorable Sammy Scott was carefully planning his lines of battle and
marshaling his forces. First he threw out certain skirmish lines—feints
to veil his main action. Of course they might unearth or start
something, but he was not putting his main dependence upon them. Of such
a nature was Corruthers’ trip to the East. It flattered Corruthers and
gave him something to do, and it left Sammy unhindered to arrange his
main campaign. And, of course, it was also possible that something would
come out of this visit.
Among his other skirmishing efforts, Sammy kept looking for the weak
spots in Matthew’s armor, but was unable to find many. Matthew’s obvious
faults rather increased his popularity. He drank liquor, but not much,
and Sammy saw no chance to make him or keep him drunk. He tried bribery
on Towns from every point of view, but personal graft had not attracted
Towns even when he was in the machine, and Sammy had little hope that it
would now. Nevertheless, he saw to it that Towns was offered a goodly
lump sum to withdraw his candidacy. Of course, Towns refused. The
trouble was, as Sammy argued, that his machine could not afford to offer
enough. He did not dare make the offer to Sara. She was capable of
pocketing cash and candidate too.
Sammy’s main dependence was to regain or split the Negro vote by careful
propaganda; to reorganize his own machine and drive his leaders into
line by the free use of money; and to alienate the church and the women
from Towns by digging up scandals. Of course that second establishment
that Matthew kept down where he used to live was a hopeful bit of
scandal, only Sammy couldn’t discover the woman. Naturally there must be
a woman, or why should he keep the rooms?
Finally Sammy would try, wherever possible, strong-arm methods to
intimidate the independents. Beyond this he believed that in some way he
might split the Progressive support back of Matthew by making Matthew
say or do something that was too radical for men like Cadwalader, or by
making him bind himself to a program which was too reactionary for the
radical Laborites.
Sammy envisaged the situation thus: If all efforts failed and Matthew
received the Farmer-Labor nomination and the support of the majority of
the colored vote, nevertheless, a huge sum of money spent at the polls
might even then defeat him. If bribery failed and the Negro vote stood
solid, the Progressives gave full support and the Democrats secret aid,
Matthew would be elected, but Sammy would emerge from the campaign able
to tell the party bosses that the fault was theirs; they should have
kept their promise and nominated him. After that, with a large campaign
fund, he could reorganize his machine and keep watch on Matthew in
office. If Matthew failed to do as the machine told him, and this would
probably happen, Sammy would succeed to his job. If Matthew succeeded,
he could and must be brought back into the Republican fold, which meant
into Sammy’s machine.
Of course, all these possibilities which hinged on Matthew’s successful
election were wormwood to Sammy, and he concentrated fiercely on
forestalling such success. He was sitting alone in his office this night
and thinking things out when there came a ’phone call. It was
Corruthers.
Corruthers came in a half hour later. Corruthers was a cadaverous blond,
red-headed and freckled, a drunkard, a dope fiend, and a spellbinder,
with brains and no self-control, thoroughly dishonest and extremely
likable. He claimed to be a nephew of Frederick Douglass. He looked
distinctly glum.
Corruthers was one of those who are dangerous only when they are
successful. Once he began to lose he gave up. Sammy was quite different.
He was most dangerous losing. It was then that he fought furiously and
to the last ditch. Evidently Corruthers had been disappointed and was
ready to surrender.
“Didn’t do a thing,” he said, “not a thing. Sure, I found the widow of
that porter who was lynched. She’s working in New York. But, my God! she
thinks Towns is Jesus Christ and won’t hear a word against him. Swears
that the story that he attacked anybody is a lie and threatens to go to
court if anybody says that Towns was responsible for her husband’s
death. I can’t figure her out at all. I know the story that I got was
the truth, but I can’t prove it.
“Then I tried to get a line on that dead man in the wreck. He may have
been a fellow named Perigua. Some say he was, but others declare that
Perigua went back to Jamaica and has been seen there since. I don’t know
how it was. Then I was all wrong about that brown woman. She was an
Indian princess, sure enough, a high muck-a-muck and fabulously rich.
Probably got interested in Towns because he was a good porter. At any
rate, she’s gone back to India, so everybody says, although there again
some declare that she has returned.”
“Well, what did you do about that?” asked Sammy impatiently.
“Well, I found out the address of her bankers and went down to inquire
about her. Seems that her little country, Bwodpur, has some sort of
commercial agency which I was referred to. It didn’t look like much.
Mean little office, with two or three Indians sitting around. All I
could do was to leave my address and say that I had some news for the
lady about Matthew Towns; then I came home.”
“Hell!” said Sammy, lighting another cigar.
“But today,” continued Corruthers, “an East Indian called at my place
and asked about Towns. Said he’d been sent.”
“What did you do with him?” asked Sammy.
“He’s outside,” said Corruthers.
“Well, for God’s sake! and gassing about nothing all this time! Bring
him in.”
“Wait a minute,” said Corruthers. “What are we going to say to him? I
couldn’t think of anything. Of course we might pinch him for a little
cash.”
“Nix,” said Sammy, “leave him to me.”
The Indian entered. He looked thin and was poorly dressed. Sammy was
disappointed, but he handed him one of his cheap cigars, which the
Indian refused.
“I understand,” said the Indian in very good English, “that you have
some message from or about Matthew Towns.”
“Ah,” said Sammy. “Not from him, but about him. Er’r, I believe the lady
with whom you are connected is friendly with Mr. Towns.”
“Her Royal Highness in the past has deigned to express something like
that.”
“And—still interested?”
“I do not know.”
“I mean, she wouldn’t let him suffer or get into trouble, and she
wouldn’t want to get in trouble herself on account of him?”
“Perhaps not, but what is the case?”
Sammy paused thoughtfully and then started.
“You see, it is this way. This fellow Towns got in jail for not peaching
on a pal. I got him out. He made a good record in the legislature and
his friends persuaded him to run for Congress. I’d be glad to see him
go, but his enemies and the enemies of his race are threatening to bring
up this old jail case, and they say that your Princess is involved. It
would be a nasty mess to have her name dragged in publicly now. The only
way out, as I see it, is for somebody to persuade Towns to withdraw. Can
you or your lady manage this?”
“Very well,” said the Indian, arising.
“But can you do anything?”
“I do not know, I will report.”
And then Sammy said: “What! ’way to India?”
“Her Royal Highness is represented in this country. Good day.”
Sammy glowered after him.
“Royal Highness! Hell!” said Corruthers. “And see all the time wasted on
that guy. We ought to have asked him straight for money.”
“Locks like a mare’s nest,” said Sammy, “but my rule is to try
everything. Well, enough of that. Now my plan is to see what we can do
to split the Progressives and this Farmer-Labor bunch, which is
promising to support Towns. I know Sara’s game; she’s playing both ends
against the middle. But I’m going to break it up.”
XVIII
Sara had, of all concerned, the most difficult road and the most
brilliant prospects. She saw wealth, power, social triumph ahead if she
could elect Matthew to Congress. But she knew just how difficult it
would be to beat the Republican machine with its money and organization.
Her first task was to hold the Negro vote back of Matthew. That was easy
so long as he was a regular Republican. When he bolted Sammy’s machine,
Sara had to capitalize race pride and resentment against Doolittle and
Sammy. She continued to insist that Matthew was a good Republican but
not a Sammy Scott henchman. For a while her success here was
overwhelming, but could she hold it three months with hungry editors and
grafting henchmen?
She concentrated on The Lash, whose editors had sharp tongues and wide
pockets and kept them flaying Sammy and the Republicans. She went after
her women’s clubs and cajoled and encouraged them by every device to
stand strong. She made every possible use of the women’s organizations
connected with the fraternal societies. She already belonged to
everything that she could join, and was Grand Worthy Something-or-other
in most of them. She pushed the idea of uniforms and rituals, for these
things appeal naturally to folk whose lives are gray and uneventful. She
had a uniformed Women’s Marching Club and a Flying Squadron with secret
ritual which she used for political spy work.
All these things carried new dimensions to the lives of a class of
colored women who had been hitherto bound chiefly to their kitchens and
their churches. Woman’s “new sphere,” of which they had read something
in the papers, had hitherto meant little to them. They were still under
the spell of the old housework, except as they raised money in the
churches. Here was work newer and more interesting than church work. The
colored ministers protested, but were afraid to protest too much,
because many of Sara’s political followers were still their best church
workers, and they dared not say or do too much to alienate them.
Sara worked feverishly during March because she knew perfectly well that
the real difficulty lay ahead. The election of Matthew might involve
voting not only against Sammy’s machine but against the Republican
ticket and with the Farmer-Labor group, and possibly even voting with
the Democrats. Casual white outsiders cannot understand what this
problem is. These colored women were born Republicans, even more than
their fathers and brothers, because they knew less of the practical
action of politics. Republicanism was as much a part of their heritage
as Methodism or the rites of baptism. They were enthusiastic to have a
colored man nominated by the Republican Party. But could she so organize
and concentrate that enthusiasm that it would carry these women over
into the camp of hereditary political and economic enemies?
They looked upon the white labor unions as open enemies because the
stronger and better-organized white unions deliberately excluded
Negroes. The whole economic history of the Negro in Chicago was a fight
for bread against white labor unions. Only in the newer unions just
organized chiefly among the foreign-born—and fighting for breath among
the unskilled or semi-skilled laborers—only here were colored people
welcomed, because they had to be. Of course, the very name of the
Democratic Party was anathema to black folk. It stood for slavery and
disfranchisement and “Jim Crow” cars. Well, Sara knew that she had a
desperate task, and she was fighting hard.
She was in touch with the labor unions and soon sensed their right and
left wings. The right wing was easy to understand. They were playing her
game and compromising here and there to obtain certain selfish
advantages. Sara was sure she could take care of them. The extreme left
group was more difficult to understand. She did not know what it was
they really wanted, but she quickly sensed that they had astute
leadership. The international president of the Box-Makers, who lived in
New York, was evidently well educated and keen. Sara had written her in
the hope of avoiding contact with the local union. Her answers showed
her a desperately earnest woman. Sara did everything to induce her by
letter to wield her Chicago influence for Matthew, but so far had seen
no signs of success. This left group was meantime clamoring, pushing
their claims and asking promises and making inconvenient suggestions. So
far Sara had avoided meeting them.
One thing, one very little thing, Sara kept in her mind’s eye, and that
was Doolittle and his health. If anything happened to Doolittle before
the primary election—well, if it happened, Sara wanted to know it and to
know it first.
And it was precisely here that Sammy made his second mistake. He
calculated that the news of any change in Doolittle’s health would reach
him first, because Doolittle’s valet was a staunch member of his
machine. Indeed, he got him the job. Now Sara knew this as well as
Sammy, and she worked accordingly. Doolittle lived officially on the
South Side but actually in Winnetka, away up on the North Shore, in a
lovely great house overlooking the blue lake. Sara had careful and
minute knowledge of his household. Of course, his servants were all
colored. That was good politics. Sara again had recourse to that maid
who had told her first of the plan to renominate Doolittle. She had the
maid at tea on one of her Thursday “at homes,” and was careful to have
in some of her most expensive friends—the doctor’s wife, the banker’s
daughter, the niece of the vice-president of Liberty Life.
Sara did not say that the quiet and well-behaved stranger was simply a
maid, and by this very reticence tied the maid to her forever. Also,
Sara pumped her assiduously about Doolittle’s health without directly
asking after it. She easily learned that it was much more precarious
than the public believed. Immediately, through the maid, Sara got in
touch with the valet. She picked him up downtown in her car and brought
him to luncheon one day, when Matthew was away from home.
“I do not want you to think, Mr. Amos, that I have anything against the
excellent Mr. Doolittle.”
“No, ma’am, no, ma’am, I’m sure you ain’t. I am sorry he’s running
again. He oughtn’t to done it. He ain’t in no fit condition to make a
campaign. He wouldn’t of done it if he had been left alone; but there’s
his wife full of ambition and the big bosses full of plans.”
“I do wish Sammy had stood pat and insisted on the nomination,” said
Sara thoughtfully.
“I’ll never forgive him,” said Mr. Amos. “It was sheer lack of backbone
and an itching palm.”
“You are a great friend of his, I know.”
“Well,” said Mr. Amos, “I don’t like him as well as I use to, although I
know he got me my job. Tell you what, ma’am, I wish your husband could
get the nomination.” They talked on. When finally he stood at the front
door, Sara was saying:
“I hope, of course, that all will go well, for Doolittle is a deserving
old man, but if anything should change in his physical condition I’d
like to know it before anybody else, Mr. Amos; and I’m depending on
you.” And her dependence was expressed in the shape of a yellow bill
which she slipped in Mr. Amos’ hand. He took occasion to examine it
under the electric light as he was waiting for the bus. It was a bank
note for five hundred dollars. Mr. Amos missed two buses looking at it.
Less than a week later, while Sara was at her desk one morning, about to
send out notes for one of her innumerable committee meetings, the
telephone rang. The low voice of Mr. Amos came over it:
“Mr. Doolittle has had an attack. He is quite ill.”
She thanked him softly and hung up.
The next morning Sara went down to Republican headquarters, where she
used to be well known. She was regarded with considerable interest this
morning, but remained unperturbed. She asked for a certain gentleman who
was always busy, but Sara wrote a note and sent it in to him with a
card. He found time to see her.
“Mr. Graham,” she said, “what do you think of Congressman Doolittle’s
health?”
Mr. Graham looked at her sharply, took off his glasses, and polished
them carefully, as he continued to look.
“I have every reason to suppose,” he said slowly, “that Mr. Doolittle’s
health is excellent.”
“Well, it isn’t,” said Sara.
“I suppose your source of information—” But Sara interrupted him.
“Frankly, Mr. Graham—suppose that Congressman Doolittle should die
before the primary election.”
“We’d be in a hell of a muddle,” blurted out Mr. Graham. “You would,”
said Sara. “You could hardly nominate Sammy, because Sammy is very
unpopular just now among colored voters.”
“Thanks to you,” said Mr. Graham.
“No, Mr. Graham, thanks to you. Now my husband, Mr. Matthew Towns, is
both popular and—intelligent.”
“Especially,” added Mr. Graham, “with the Farmer-Labor reformers and the
Bolsheviks.”
“Not a bad bunch of votes to bring to the Republican Party just now.”
“Well, any colored candidate would have to bring in something to offset
the hullabaloo which the Klan would raise in this town if we nominated a
Negro and a—one with your husband’s record, to Congress.”
“Precisely, and I am calculating that the support of the reform groups
and the solidarity of the colored vote would much more than offset this
and make the election certain.”
“In any case, Mrs. Towns, I take it that your husband has been promised
the support of the Farmer-Labor group only on condition that he stand on
their platform.”
“He has given them to understand,” said Sara carefully, and with a
smile, “that he sympathizes with their ideals.”
“Well,” said Mr. Graham crisply, “that puts him out of the running for
the Republican nomination, even in the extremely unlikely event that Mr.
Doolittle for any reason should not or could not receive it.”
“I wonder,” said Sara. “You know quite well that the intellectuals in
the Farmer-Labor group are bound to support Republican policies up to a
certain point. Their financial interests compel them; now it would be
good politics for the Republicans to go a step beyond that point in
order to attract, by some show of liberality, as large a group as
possible of the liberals. Then, having split off their leaders and their
thinkers, we might let the rest of the radicals go hang. What I am
proposing in fine, Mr. Graham, is this: that the nomination of my
husband (in the unlikely event that Mr. Doolittle should not be well
enough to accept) might be a piece of farsighted politics on your part
and bring you the bulk of the liberal vote, while at the same time
paralyzing and splitting up the power of the radicals.”
Mr. Graham fingered his mustache.
“I will not forget this visit, Mrs. Towns,” he said.
Sara walked out; taking a taxi, she quietly slipped over to the
Democratic headquarters. She asked to see Mr. Green of Washington.
“Mr. Green?” asked the porter, doubtfully.
“Yes, he is in town temporarily and making his headquarters here. I will
not keep him long. Here is my card. I have met him.”
After a while another gentleman came out.
“Mr. Green is only calling at this office. Just what is your business
with him?”
“Please tell him that once in Washington he signed a petition for me
that helped release Matthew Towns from Joliet. Mr. Towns is my husband
and is now running for Congress.”
A few minutes later Sara was closeted with Mr. Green, a high official of
the Klan. He looked at her with interest.
“And what can I do for you this time, madam?”
“You remember me?”
“Perfectly.”
“I trust you have not regretted helping me.”
“No.”
“Have you followed Mr. Towns’ career?”
“I know something of it.”
“Well, he may be nominated for Congress by the Republicans, and he may
not. If he does not get the nomination, he will run independently on the
Farmer-Labor ticket. Any help that the Democrats could give us in such a
campaign would greatly impede the Republicans.”
Mr. Green smiled, but Sara proceeded:
“In the unlikely event that he should be nominated by the Republicans I
have come to ask you if it would not be possible for you to restrain any
anti-Negro campaign against him or any undue reference to his jail
sentence. You see, with the Republican and Farmer-Labor support he would
probably be elected, and if that election came with your silent help, he
would be even more disposed to look with favor upon you and your help
than he is now. And he feels now that he owes you a great deal.”
Mr. Green looked at her curiously. Finally, as he arose, he shook hands
with her and said:
“I am glad you came to me.”
Sara was a little exhausted when she reached home, but she still had
some letters to write. The maid said that the telephone had rung and
that some Mr. Amos would call her later. Sara sat down by her
well-ordered desk and inserted a new penpoint. Soon the telephone rang.
Mr. Amos’ voice came over the wire:
“Mr. Doolittle is some better, but still in bed.”
Sara looked at the clock. It was four. She ordered dinner and went back
to her writing. The hours passed slowly. At half-past five Matthew came
in, and they ate silently at six. While they were eating the telephone
rang again.
“Mr. Doolittle has gone out for a short drive. He is better, but far
from well.”
They finished dinner. Matthew stood about restlessly a while, smoking.
Then with a muttered word he went out. Sara sat down beside the
telephone and waited. The messages came at intervals, each shorter than
the other.
“Mr. Doolittle has returned.”
“He has taken a chill.”
“The physicians are working over him.”
“He is sinking.”
Eight, nine, and ten o’clock chimed on Sara’s gilt desk clock, and then:
“Congressman Doolittle is dying.”
Sara waited no longer. It was March 20. The primary election was to take
place April 8. She took a taxi for Republican headquarters.
XIX
Sammy’s campaign was progressing. Its progress was not altogether
satisfactory, but Sammy was encouraged. Most of the best colored
newspapers had been “seen” and were acting satisfactorily. The
Conservator had one week a strong defense of the “Grand Old Man and
Friend of Our Race, the Honorable Calvin Doolittle!” The next week, it
featured a lynching, scored the Democrats, and pointed to Doolittle’s
vote on the anti-lynching bill. The Lash, when Sara refused its last
exorbitant demand for cash, started a series of scathing attacks on the
white trade unions and accused them of being filled with “nigger-haters”
and Catholics. Other smaller sheets followed suit, with regrets that Mr.
Towns was being misled into opposition to the Republican leaders who had
always been friends, etc. Only one paper, The Standard, stood strong for
Matthew at a price which Sara could afford; but even that paper avoided
all attacks on the Republican Party.
The local clubs and political centers of Sammy’s machine gave every
evidence of prosperity, while police interference with gambling and
prostitution ceased. The prohibition officials apparently stopped all
efforts in the main black belt, and there were wild and ceaseless rumors
that the Klan was back of a widespread effort to beat the Republicans.
Only the women stood strong. And so strong did they stand under Sara’s
astute leadership and marshaling care that Sammy was still worried. They
were difficult to reach. Sluggers could not break up their meetings.
They could easily out-gossip Sammy’s sensation-mongers, and against
their hold on the churches, the colored newspapers availed nothing. It
remained true, therefore, after two months’ campaign, that the great
majority of Negro voters were still apparently opposed to Sammy and
strongly in favor of Matthew’s nomination. Nevertheless, with time and
money, Sammy was sure he could win. The trouble was, time was pressing.
Only two weeks was left before the primary elections.
Reflecting on all this, Sammy Scott after dinner one day took a stroll,
smoking and greeting his friends. He dropped in at some of the clubs and
had a word of advice or of information. He took drinks in a couple of
cabarets; watched a little gambling. As he sat in one of the resorts, he
listened to the talk of a young black radical. The fellow was explaining
at length what Negroes ought to demand in wages and conditions of labor,
how they ought to get into the trade unions, and how they were welcomed
by unions like that of the Box-Makers. Sammy sidled over to him. He
struck Sammy as the sort of man who might carry on a useful propaganda
among some of the colored voters and strengthen the demands made on
Matthew to take so radical a position that the Republicans could not
accept him.
Sammy talked with him and finally invited him to supper. He was
undoubtedly hungry. Then he invited Sammy to come with him to a meeting
of the Box-Makers. They went west to that great district where the black
belt fades into the white workingmen’s belt. In a dingy crowded hall, a
number of people were congregated. They were discussing the demands of
the Box-Makers, and Sammy listened at the door.
“How many of us,” yelled one man, “make as much as fifteen dollars a
week, and how can we live on that?”
“Yes,” added a woman, “how can we live, even if we women work too? We
can make only five or six dollars, and out of work a third of the time.”
“Oh, you got it easy even at that. You ought to see where we work, down
in damp and unventilated cellars. No porters to keep the shops and the
washrooms clean; the stink and gloom and dirt all about us.”
“In my shop we never get sunlight a day in the year.”
Another one broke in. “And we’re working twelve or thirteen hours a day
with clean-up on Sunday. It ain’t human, and we won’t stand it no
longer.”
Sammy edged in and sat down. Pretty soon the speakers gathered on the
stage—the young colored man whom he had met, another colored man whom he
did not at first recognize, and several white organizers and delegates.
There were long speeches and demands and fiery threats, but Sammy waited
because be wanted to talk to that young fellow again. When the meeting
was over, the young man came down accompanied by the other colored man,
and Sammy noted with a start that it was the Indian with whom he had had
conference concerning Matthew. Sammy was puzzled.
What was that Indian doing there on the stage? Especially when he
represented aristocracy, at least if what he said about the Princess was
to be believed. “Or is it that they are on to me?” thought Sammy. “Is
the Princess interfering or not?” Then suddenly he saw a possibility.
The Princess or her friends might want Matthew nominated for Congress,
but nominated on this radical platform. Good, so did he. Oh, boy! So did
he. He got hold of the young colored man and walked away. They had a
long conversation about the platform of the radicals and about putting
this platform up to Matthew Towns and insisting that he stand on it.
Also, Sammy lent the young man twenty-five dollars and told him to come
to see him again.
XX
It was late when Sammy got back to his office, after midnight, in fact.
As he rushed in hurriedly he saw to his astonishment that Sara Towns was
sitting in the outer room. A number of his cronies and henchmen were
grouped about, staring, laughing, and smoking. Sara was elaborately
ignoring them. She had arranged herself quite becomingly in the best
chair with her trim legs in evidence, the light falling right for her
costume and not too strongly on her face. The fact was that her face
showed some recent signs of wear, despite the beauty parlors. Sammy
stopped, swore softly under his breath, and glared. What did it mean?
thought Sammy rapidly. Surrender or attack? But he quickly recovered his
poise and soon was his smiling, debonair self.
“May I see you a few moments alone?” asked Sara.
“Sure! Excuse me, boys, ladies first.”
They went into the inner sanctum and drove out some more of Sammy’s
lieutenants. Sara closed the door and looked around the inner office
with disgust.
“My, but you’re dirty here!”
Sammy apologized. “It ain’t exactly as clean as it was in your day,” he
grinned. She dusted a chair, arranged her skirt and tilted her hat
properly, looking into the mirror opposite. Sammy waited and lighted
another cigar.
“Sammy, I came to suggest that we join forces again.” Sammy looked
innocent, but did some quick calculations. Aha! he knew that combination
wouldn’t last. Wonder what broke first?
“Well, I don’t know,” he drawled finally. “You broke it up yourself, you
remember.”
“Yes, I did. You see, I thought at the time you were going to nominate
Doolittle for congressman.”
“Yes,” said Sammy. “And I still am.”
“No, you’re not,” answered Sara. “He just died.”
Sammy dropped his cigar. He fumbled for it and got to his feet. Then he
sat down again limply.
“Well, I’ll be God damned,” he remarked and grabbed the telephone.
As a matter of fact, Sara had left the house and rushed to Republican
headquarters before Doolittle was actually dead. Mr. Graham had, of
course, been warned of Doolittle’s sudden illness, but he had not heard
of his death for the simple reason that it had not yet taken place.
When, therefore, this self-possessed, gray-eyed little woman came in and
announced Doolittle’s death, Graham did not believe it. Five minutes
later it was confirmed on the ’phone. But still the thing looked
uncanny, because Sara had only been there five minutes and must have
announced the death at exactly the minute it actually took place. But
she had been quite matter-of-fact and had gone right to business.
“Can’t we get together?” she had said. “Under the circumstances you
cannot nominate a white man now. You have no excuse for doing it after
your past promises. Then, too, you can’t nominate Sammy Scott. He is too
unpopular, thanks to you. Even if you try to nominate him, Matthew Towns
can beat him in the primary. If you buy up the primary vote with a big
slush fund, as Sammy plans, Towns, with the support of the Liberals and
perhaps the Democrats, together with the bolting Negroes, can be
elected.”
The chairman had sneered in his confusion: “Negroes don’t bolt.”
“Not usually,” Sara replied, “but they may this time. In fact,” she
said, “I think they will.”
In his own mind the chairman was afraid she was right. “Why not nominate
Towns?” she asked.
“Well,” said the chairman, sparring for time, “first there is Sammy; and
secondly, there is the question as to what Towns will do in Congress.”
“He will promise to do anything you say,” said Sara. “And I am going to
see Sammy now.” Thus she came and told Sammy the news.
Sammy struggled at the ’phone. The operator was evidently asleep, but he
got through to Graham at last. Sure enough, Doolittle was dead! Sammy
stared into the instrument. It certainly looked bad for him. Here he had
got the most important news of the campaign from headquarters through
Sara. Very well. Evidently he must tie up with Sara again. In such an
alliance he had everything to gain and nothing to lose. As his political
partner, at least she could not continue to attack him. The matter of
the nomination would not be settled until the primary was held in April.
He had twelve days to work in. He had seen a president made in less
time.
Sammy put down the telephone and turned to Sara with a smile, but
underneath that smile was grim determination, and Sara, of course, knew
it. He was going to fight to the last ditch, but he extended his hand
with the most disarming of smiles.
“All right, partner,” he said, “we’ll start again. Now what’s your
plan?”
“My plan is,” said Sara coolly, “to have you work with me for the
nomination of Matthew to Congress.”
“Where do I come in?” said Sammy.
“You come in at the head of a united machine with a large campaign
fund.”
“That wasn’t the old plan,” said Sammy.
“No, it wasn’t,” answered Sara, “but who broke up the old plan?”
“Graham tried to,” said Sammy, “but God didn’t let him.”
“True,” answered Sara, “and naturally somebody has got to pay for not
stopping Graham, and that somebody is you. Still,” she said, “the price
need not be prohibitive. After Matthew has had a term in Congress, why
not Sammy Scott?” Sammy smiled wryly.
“All right,” said Sammy. “I’m set. Now what are we going to do?”
“We are going to try and get the Republican and the Farmer-Labor people
to unite on the nomination of Matthew.”
“Good!” said Sammy. “Here goes.”
“Of course,” added Sara, “we must be careful not to make our new
alliance too open and scare off the Liberals. We must drift together
apparently as fast and no faster than these two wings come to an
understanding. That understanding I’m going to engineer, and I want your
help. First you go to Graham and tell him you’ll support Matthew. I’ve
told him you’re coming. As soon as I’ve heard from him that you’ve seen
him, I’ll get hold of Cadwalader and tell him the news. We’ll work on
this toward a final conference just before the primaries.”
XXI
Neither to Sammy nor to Sara did their new alliance make any real
difference. It healed the open and public split, but Sammy continued to
bore into Matthew’s support, and Sara continued to strengthen his
popularity and defenses. Beyond that, Sammy and Sara had always admired
each other. Each was a little at a loss without the other. Neither had
many intimate associates or confidants whom they wholly trusted. Both
had the highest respect for each other’s abilities. They knew that their
new alliance was a truce and not a union. Each suspected the other, and
each knew the other’s suspicions. At the same time, they needed each
other’s skill and they wanted desperately to confide in each other, as
far as they dared.
Sara had suggested that just before the primaries, a conference of
Republicans and Liberals might be held in order to come to a final
understanding and unite on Matthew’s nomination. Sammy had to assent. He
had plans of his own for this conference, which he hoped to make a last
desperate effort at Matthew’s undoing. He knew just what kind of
conference would best serve his ends, but he did not dare let Sara know
what he wanted.
On one point Sara had of course made up her mind: no agreement between
Matthew, Graham, and Cadwalader was going to depend on the chances of a
single conference or even of several conferences. She was going to
conduct secret negotiations with all parties, until the final conference
should find them in such substantial agreement that definitive action
would be easy; that is, all except the left-wing labor unions. The surer
she became of the main groups, the less did Sara think of these common
laborers and foreigners. They could come in at last, when agreement or
protest would make little real difference.
Sara hoped that she might come to this agreement by mere verbal fencing.
She hoped so, but she knew better. Sooner or later there must be a
definite understanding with Graham. Very well, when the crisis came she
would meet it.
With her mind then on this closing conference as merely the ratification
of agreements practically made, Sara at first settled on something big
and impressive: a church or hall mass meeting of all parties and
interests, making an overwhelming demand for the election of Matthew
Towns as congressman. Sammy listened, his head on one side, his cigar at
an impressive angle, his feet elevated, perhaps a bit higher than usual;
his coat laid aside.
“Um-um!” he nodded. “Fine; fine big thing. If it could be put over.
Smashing publicity.” Then he took a long pull at his cigar and looked
intently at the glowing end.
“Of course,” he said reflectively, “there is one thing: would Matthew
make the right kind of speech?” Sammy was really afraid he would; Sara
not only did not know whether or not Matthew would make the right kind
of speech; she did not even know if he would try. In fact, he might
deliberately make the wrong kind of speech, even after agreement had
already been reached. Sara’s doubt rested on the fact that she and
Matthew had had a tilt this very morning, and she at least had had it
out. She put the situation before him, frank and stark, with no bandying
of words.
“Now see here. You have got this nomination in your hands and on a
silver salver, if you want it. But in order to get it you’ve got to make
the kind of statement that will satisfy the Republicans backed by big
business, the Democrats backed by big business, and the Farmer-Labor
party led by reformers and union labor. You’ve even got to cater to the
radical wing of the trade unions. It will mean straddling and twisting
and some careful lying. It will mean promises which it is up to you to
fulfill after election, if you want to, and to break if you want
to—after election. It will mean half promises and double words and
silences to make people think what you are going to do, what you are not
going to do, or what you do not know whether you are going to do or not.
Unless you do something like this you will lose the nomination.
“Or, what’s just as bad, you will lose the Republican nomination.
Perhaps you have kidded yourself into thinking that you can make a
winning fight with the Farmer-Labor nomination and the independent Negro
vote. Well, listen to me. You can’t. There isn’t such a thing as an
independent Negro vote. Or at any rate it is so small as to be
negligible. The Negroes are going to fight and yell before election. At
the election they are going to trot to the polls and vote the Republican
ticket like good darkies. If you want to go to Congress, you have got to
get the Republican nomination.
“On the other hand, nothing will clinch this nomination, the election,
and the whole-hearted future support of the Republican machine like your
ability to poll not simply the Republican vote, but the Farmer-Labor
vote and the vote of the independent Democrats and at least a part of
the radical vote. You can do this if you don’t act like a fool.”
Matthew had pushed his breakfast aside and looked out of the window. He
saw a few trees and the gray apartment houses beyond. Above lay the
leaden sky.
“Suppose,” he said, “that instead of making this campaign, I should ask
for the part of the money we have made which is mine and give up this
game?” Sara’s little mouth settled into straight, thin lines. “You
wouldn’t get it,” she said, “because it doesn’t belong to you. You
didn’t earn it; I did. You haven’t saved any. You have squandered money,
even recently; I don’t know what for, and I don’t care. But I have drawn
out all the money in our joint account and put it in my own account.
Everything we have got stands in my name, and it is going to stand there
until you get into Congress. And that’s that.”
Matthew had looked at Sara solemnly with brooding eyes. She was always
uncomfortable when he looked at her like that. He seemed to be quite
impersonal, as though he were entering lone realms where she could not
follow. Soon, some of her assurance had fallen away and her language
became less precise:
“Well, what’s the idea? What ya glaring at? D’ye think I am going to
fail or let you fail after climbing all this distance?”
Apparently he had not heard her. He seemed to be judging her in a
far-off sort of way. He was thinking. In a sense Sara was an artist. But
she failed in greatness because she lacked the human element, the human
sympathy. Now if she had had the abandon, that inner comprehension, of
the prostitute who once lived opposite Perigua—but no, no, Sara was
respectable. That meant she was a little below average. She was
desperately aware of the prevailing judgment of the people about her.
She would never be great. She would always be, to him—unendurable. He
got up suddenly and silently and walked three miles in the rain. He
ended up at his own lodging with its dust and gloom and stood there in
the cold and damp thinking of his marriage, six months—six centuries
ago.
Again and for a second, for a third, time in his life, he was caught in
the iron of circumstance. And he wasn’t going to do anything. He
couldn’t do anything. He was going to be the victim, the sacrifice.
Although this time it seemed different from the others. In the first
case, of the wreck, he had saved his pride. In the second, the
nomination to the legislature, he had sold his body but ransomed his
soul, as he hoped. But this time, pride, soul, and body were going.
He looked about at these little trappings of the spirit within him that
had grown so thin: gold of the Chinese rug, beneath its dim Chicago
dirt; the flame of a genuine Matisse. He had never given up the old
rooms of his in the slums, chiefly because Sara would not have the
things he had accumulated there in her new and shining house; and he
hated to throw them all away. He had always meant to go down and sort
them out and store the few things he wanted to keep. But he had been too
busy. The rent was nominal, and he had locked the door and left things
there.
Only now and then in desperation he went there and sat in the dust and
gloom. Today, he went down and waded in. He sat down in the old, shabby
easy-chair and thought things out. He was, despite all, more normal and
clearer-minded than when he came here out of jail. He was not so
cynical. He had found good friends—humble everyday workers, even idlers
and loafers whom he trusted and who trusted him. Life was not all evil.
He did not need to sell his soul entirely to the devil for bread and
butter. Life could be even interesting. There were big jobs, not to be
done, but to be attempted, to be interested in. He was not yet prepared
to let Sara spoil everything. He began to look upon her with a certain
aversion and horror. He planned to live his life by himself as much as
possible. She had her virtues, but she was too hard, too selfish, too
utterly unscrupulous.
He searched his pockets for money. He went downtown and paid two hundred
dollars for a Turkish rug for the bedroom—a silken thing of dark, soft,
warm coloring. He lugged it home on the street car and threw it before
his old bed and let it vie with the dusky gold of its Chinese mate. He
had searched for another Matisse and could not find one, but he had
found a copy of a Picasso—a wild, unintelligible, intriguing thing of
gray and yellow and black. He paid a hundred dollars for it and hung it
on another empty wall. He was half-consciously trying to counteract the
ugliness of the congressional campaign.
Long hours he sat in his room. There was no place in Sara’s house—it was
always Sara’s house in his thought—for anything of this, for anything of
his: for this big, shabby armchair that put its old worn arms so
sympathetically about him. For his pipe. For the books that his fingers
had made dirty and torn and dog-eared by reading. For the pamphlets that
would not stand straight or regular or in rows. He sat there cold and
dark until three o’clock in the morning. Then he stood up suddenly and
went to a low bootlegger’s dive, a place warm with the stench of human
bodies. He sought there feverishly until he found what he wanted—a soul
to talk with. There was a mason and builder who came there usually at
that hour, especially when he was half drunk and out of work. He was a
rare and delicate soul with a whimsical cynicism, with easily remembered
tales of lost and undiscovered bits of humanity, with exquisite humor.
He played the violin like an angel. Matthew found him. He sat there
until dawn. He ordered him to build a fireplace and bathroom in his
apartment—something beautiful.
As he sat silently listening to the luscious thrill of the “Spanish
Fandango” he determined to do one thing: he would resign from the
legislature. Then if he failed in the nomination to Congress, he would
be left on the road to freedom. If he gained the nomination, he would
gain it with that much less deception and double-crossing. Of course
Sara would be furious. Well, what of that?
At daybreak he went back to his rooms and started cleaning up. He swept
and dusted, cleaned windows, polished furniture. He sweated and toiled,
then stopped and marveled about Dirt. Its accumulation, its persistence
was astonishing. How could one attack it? Was it a world symptom? Could
machines abolish it, or only human weariness and nausea?
Late in the afternoon he went out and bought a new big bed with springs
and a soft mattress, a bath robe, pajamas, and sheets and some crimson
hangings. He hid in the wall some of his money which remained. He knew
what he was doing; he was surrendering to Sara and the Devil and
soothing his bruised soul by physical work and the preparation of a
retreat where he would spend more and more of his time. He would save
and hide and hoard and some day walk away and leave everything. But he
wrote and mailed his resignation as member of the legislature. That at
least was a symbolic step.
From her interview with Matthew, Sara emerged shaken but grim. She had
no idea what Matthew was going to do. She had put the screws upon him
more ruthlessly than she had ever dared before. She had cut off his
money, his guiding dream of a comfortable little fortune. She had told
him definitely what he had to think and promise, and he had silently got
up and gone his way. Suppose he never came back, or suppose he came back
and eventually went to this final conference and “spilled the beans”;
threw everything up and over and left her shamed and prostrate before
black and white Chicago? No, she couldn’t risk a mass meeting.
“No,” she said in answer to Sammy’s query, and looked at him with a
frankness that Sammy half suspected was too frank. “I don’t know what
Matthew is going to say or do. And I am afraid we can’t risk a mass
meeting.”
Sammy was silent. Then he said:
“That resignation was a damn shrewd move.”
Sara glanced up.
“What—” She started to ask “What resignation?” but she paused. “What,—do
you think will be its effect?” She would not let Sammy dream she did not
know what he was talking about.
“Well—it’ll mollify the boys. Give me a chance to run Corruthers in at a
special election—convince the bosses that Towns is playing square.”
Sara was angry but silent. So that fool had resigned from the
legislature! Surrendered a sure thing for a chance. Did the idiot think
he was already elected to Congress, or was he going to quit entirely?
She took up the morning Tribune to hide her agitation and saw the
editorial—“a wise move on the part of Towns and shows his independence
of the machine.”
Sara laid down the paper carefully and thought—tapping her teeth with
her pencil. Was it possible that after all—Then she came back to the
matter in hand. Sammy would have liked to suggest a real political
conference: a secret room with guarded door; cigars and liquor; a dozen
men with power and decision, and then, give and take, keen-eyed
sparring, measuring of men, and—careful compromise. Out of a conference
like that anything might emerge, and Sammy couldn’t lose entirely.
But he saw that Sara had the social bee in her head. She wanted a
reception, a luncheon, or a dinner. Something that would celebrate a
conclusion rather than come to it. He was not averse to this, because he
was convinced it would be disastrous to Sara. No social affair of whites
and Negroes could come to any real conclusion. It could only celebrate
deals already made. Sammy meant to block such deals. But he didn’t
suggest anything; he let Sara do that, and Sara did. After profound
thought, and still clicking her pencil on her teeth, she said:
“A meeting at my home would be the best. A small and intimate thing. A
luncheon. No, a dinner, and a good dinner. Let’s see, we’ll have—”
And then Sara and Sammy selected the personnel. On this they quite
agreed. If all went well, Sara suggested that the mass meeting might
follow. Sammy cheerfully agreed—if all went well.
Immediately Sara began to prepare for this conference. First she made a
number of personal visits, just frank little informal talks with Mr.
Graham, with Mr. Cadwalader, with Mrs. Beech and others. Mr. Cadwalader
and Mrs. Beech both began by congratulating Sara on Matthew’s
resignation from the legislature.
“Statesmanlike!” said Cadwalader. “It proves to our people that the
reported understanding between him and Scott is untrue.”
“Very shrewd,” said Mrs. Beech, “to make this open declaration of
independence.”
“He often takes my advice,” said Sara with a cryptic smile, and she
explained that when Sammy had approached her, offering coöperation after
Doolittle’s death, they had, of course, to accept—“to a degree and
within limits.”
“Of course, of course!” it was agreed.
By her visits she got acquainted with these leaders, measured their
wishes, and succeeded fairly well in making them interested in her. She
let them do as much talking as possible but also talked herself, clearly
and with as much frankness as she dared. She was trying to find out just
what the Republicans wanted and just what the reformers demanded.
From time to time she wrote these things down and put the formulas and
statements before Matthew, writing them out carefully and precisely in
her perfect typewriting. He received them silently and took them away,
making no comment. Only once was the resignation from the legislature
referred to:
“I’m glad you took my hint about the legislature,” said Sara sweetly,
one night at dinner.
Matthew stared. When had she hinted, and what?
Sara proceeded further with her plans. She put before Mr. Graham a
suggested platform which contained a good many of the Republican demands
but even more of the Progressive demands. Mr. Graham immediately
rejected it as she expected. He pointed out just how much more he must
have and what things he could under no circumstances admit.
Sara tried the same method with Mr. Cadwalader; only in his case she
submitted a platform with less of the Progressive demands and more of
the Republican. She had more success with him. She could easily see that
Mr. Cadwalader after all really leaned considerably toward Republican
policies and was Progressive in theory and by the practical necessity of
yielding something to the Labor group. But the question Sara quickly saw
was, Which Labor group? There were, for instance, the aristocrats in the
Labor world; the skilled trade unions connected with the American
Federation of Labor; and on the other hand, there was the left wing, the
Communist radicals, and there was a string of uncommitted workers
between. Mr. Cadwalader consulted the conservative labor unionists and
evolved a platform which was not so far from Sara’s, and indeed as she
compared them, Mr. Graham and Mr. Cadwalader seemed easily reconcilable,
at least in words. Sara tried again and brought another modified
platform to Mr. Graham. Mr. Graham read it and smiled. So far as words
went, there was really little to object to, but he laid it aside and
looked Sara squarely in the eye, and Sara looked just as squarely at
him. It had come to a showdown, and both knew it. Sara attempted no
further fencing. She simply said:
“What is it specifically that you want Matthew to do in Congress? Write
it out, and I’ll see that he signs it.”
He took a piece of paper and wrote a short statement. It had reference
to specific bills to be introduced in the next Congress, on the tariff,
on farm relief, on railroad consolidation, and on super-power. He even
named the persons who were going to introduce the bills. Then he handed
the slip to Sara. She read it over carefully, folded it up, and put it
in her bag.
“You’ll receive this, signed, at or before the final conference.”
“Before will be better,” suggested Mr. Graham.
“Perhaps,” answered Sara, “but on the night of the conference it will be
time enough.”
Mr. Graham looked almost genial. Sara was the kind of politician that he
liked, especially as he saw at present no way to escape a colored
candidate, and on the whole he preferred Matthew Towns to Sammy Scott.
“But how about the Radical wing?” he asked. “Are they going to accept
this platform?”
“That is the point,” said Sara. “I am trying to make the platform broad
enough to attract the bulk of the Labor group, but I have not consulted
the radicals yet. If they accept what I offer, all right; but even if
they do not, we have made sure of the majority of the third party’s
support.”
In this way and by several consultations with Mr. Cadwalader, Mrs.
Beech, and their friends, Sara evolved a statement which seemed fair,
especially when most of the persons involved began to realize that
Matthew Towns on this platform was pretty sure of election.
Sara then turned to the Labor group. Mr. Cadwalader had smoothed the way
for her to meet the labor-union heads, and it took Sara but a short time
to learn how the land lay there. Eight-hour laws, and anti-injunction
legislation, of course; but above all “down with Negro scabs”! Negroes
should be taught never to take white strikers’ jobs.
“Even if white unions bar them before and after the strike,” thought
Sara. But she did not say so. She agreed that scabbing was
reprehensible, and in turn the union leaders unctuously asserted the
“principle” of no color line in the Federation of Labor. It was quite a
love feast, and both Sara and Mr. Cadwalader were elated.
Then Sara finally plucked up courage and visited the headquarters of the
left-wing trade unionists. She had anticipated some unpleasantness, and
she was not disappointed. Her earlier contact with the group had been by
letter, and she had been impressed by the shrewd leadership and evidence
of wide vision. She was prepared for careful mental gymnastics and
careful play of word and phrase. Instead she found a rough group of
painfully frank folk. The surroundings were dirty, and the people were
rude. It was much less attractive than her visits to the well-furnished
headquarters of the Republicans or to the rooms of the Woman’s City
Club. But if Sara was disgusted with the people and surroundings, she
was even more put out with their demands. They came out flat-footed and
assumed facts that were puzzling. She did not altogether understand
them, chiefly because she had not taken time to study them; it was words
and personalities that she had come to probe. The flat demands therefore
seemed to her outrageous, revolutionary.
“Overthrow capital? What do you mean?” she said. “Do you want to stop
industry entirely and go back to barbarism?” Then all talked at once in
that little crowded room, and she did not pretend to understand:
“What’s Towns going to do for municipal ownership of public services?
For raising the income taxes on millionaires? For regulating and seizing
the railroads? For curbing labor injunctions? For confiscating the
unearned increment? For abolishing private ownership of capital?”
Sara stared; then she gathered up her papers.
“I shall have to ask Mr. Towns,” she said, crisply. “We will have
another consultation next week.” And she swept out, vowing to have
nothing to do with this gang again. She told Sammy about it and
suggested that he hold all further consultations with them.
“It is no place for a lady,” she said.
“Lots of them down there,” said Sammy.
“You mean those working-women?” said Sara with disgust.
It suited Sammy very well to take charge of further conferences with the
Laborites. He had already been engaged in stiffening the demands of the
Republicans on the one hand and arousing the suspicion of the colored
voters against the trade unionists on the other: and now he was more
than willing to push the left wing toward extreme demands. He worked
through his young radical friend and now and then saw and talked with
the Indian.
Sara was quite sure that he would do something like this, but she did
not care. The more radical the left wing was, the fewer votes it would
poll and the stronger would be Matthew’s hold upon the main bloc of the
Progressive group. She was sure of Graham unless Matthew got crazy and
went radical. And Matthew seemed to be obeying the whip and bit.
It seemed to Sara the proper time to put Graham’s ultimatum before
Matthew. She did not argue or expatiate; she simply handed him the
statement with the remark:
“Mr. Graham expects to receive this, signed by you, at the conference or
before. Your nomination depends upon it.”
Then she powdered her nose, put on her things, patted her hat in shape,
and walked out. Matthew walked up and down the room. Up and down, up and
down, until the walls were too narrow. Then he went out and walked in
the streets. It was the last demand, and it was the demand that left him
no shred of self-respect. What crazed him was the fact that he knew that
he was going to sign it, and that in addition to this, he was going to
promise to the Progressives, and perhaps even to the left-wing
Laborites, almost exactly opposite and contradictory things. He had
reached his nadir. Then he held up his head fiercely. From nadir he
would climb! But even as he muttered this half aloud, he did not believe
it. From such depths men did not climb. They wallowed there.
Finally, about April first, a week before the primary election, Sara
decided that it was time for her final conference. She gave up entirely
the idea of a mass meeting. That could come after the primary, when
Matthew’s nomination was accomplished.
What she really wanted was a dinner conference. There again she
hesitated. She was afraid that some of the people whom she was
determined to have present, some of the high-placed white folk, might
hesitate to accept an invitation to dinner in a colored home. Gradually
she evolved something else; a small number of prominent persons were
invited to confer personally with Mr. Towns at his home. After the
conference, “supper would be served.” Sara put this last. If any one
felt that they must, for inner or outer compulsions, leave after the
conference, they could then withdraw; but Sara proposed to keep them so
long and to make the dinner-supper so attractive that it would be, in
fact, quite an unusual social occasion. “Quite informal” it was to be,
so her written invitations on heavy paper said. But that was not the
voice of her dining-room.
XXII
Sara looked across that dining-room and was content. The lace over-cover
was very beautiful. The new china had really an exquisite design, and
her taste in cut glass was quite vindicated. The flowers were gorgeous.
She would have preferred Toles, the expensive white caterer, but, of
course, political considerations put that beyond thought. The colored
man, Jones, was, after all, not bad and had quite a select white
clientele in Chicago. It was a rainy night, but so far not one person
invited had declined, and she viewed the scene complacently. She doubted
very much if there was another dining-room in Chicago that looked as
expensive. Bigger, yes, but not more expensive, in looks at least.
Sara was in no sense evil. Her character had been hardened and sharpened
by all that she had met and fought. She craved wealth and position. She
got pleasure in having people look with envious eyes upon what she had
and did. It was her answer to the world’s taunts, jibes, and
discriminations. She was always unconsciously showing off, and her
nerves quivered if what she did was not noticed. Really, down in her
heart, she was sorry for Matthew. He seemed curiously weak and sensitive
in the places where he should not have been; she herself was furious if
sympathy or sorrow seeped through her armor.
She was ashamed of it. All sympathy, all yielding, all softness, filled
her with shame. She hardened herself against it. Tonight she looked upon
as a step in her great triumph.
There were twenty people in all besides Matthew and Sara. Of these, six
were white. There was Mr. Graham, the Republican city boss, and with him
a prominent banker and a high state official; Mrs. Beech, the president
of the Woman’s City Club, was there, and a settlement worker from the
stockyard district; and, of course, Mr. Cadwalader. Sara regarded the
banker and the president of the City Club as distinct social triumphs
for herself. It was something unique in colored Chicago. And especially
on a cold and rainy night like this!
Besides these there were fourteen colored persons. First, Sammy and
Corruthers. Sara had violently objected to the thin, red-headed and
freckled Corruthers, but Sammy solemnly engaged to see that he arrived
and departed sober and that he was kept in the background. He made up
for this insistence by bringing two of his most intelligent ward leaders
with their wives, who were young and pretty, although not particularly
talkative, having, in truth, nothing to say. Sara had insisted upon the
physician and his wife from Memphis and the minister and his wife. All
of these were college-trained and used to social functions. Two colored
editors had to be included, and two colored women representing Sara’s
clubs.
The president of the Trade Unions’ City Central was at first included
among the guests, but when he heard that the meeting was to be at a
colored home and include a supper, he reneged. Mr. Murphy habitually ate
with his knife and in his shirt sleeves and he didn’t propose “to have
no niggers puttin’ on airs over him.” At the same time the unions must
be represented; so the settlement worker was chosen at Mrs. Beech’s
suggestion.
Sammy had pointed out rather perfunctorily that it might be a mistake
not to include some radicals and that in any event they might send a
delegation if they heard of the conference. Sara merely shrugged her
shoulders, but Sammy saw to it that the left-wing unions did hear of the
conference and of their exclusion.
The stage was set deftly in the large reception room opening in front on
the glass-enclosed veranda. There was a little orchestra concealed here
behind the ferns, and it was to play now and then while the company was
gathering and afterward while they were eating. There were cigarettes
and punch, and as Mr. Corruthers soon discovered, there were two kinds
of punch. In the main reception room were soft chairs and a big couch,
while thick portieres closed off the dining-room and the entrance hall.
To the right was the door to the little library, and here Matthew held
his interviews, the door standing ajar.
Matthew sat beside a little table in a straight chair. There were pens,
blotters, and writing materials, and all over, soft reflected lights.
Sara and Sammy had general charge, and both were in their element. The
company gathered rather promptly. Sara stood in the main parlor before
the portieres that veiled the dining-room, where she could receive the
guests, entertain them, and send them to consultation with Matthew.
Sammy stood between the hall and the reception room where he could
welcome the guests, overlook the assembly, and keep his eye on
Corruthers.
Everybody was overanxious to please, but the difficulties were enormous.
There was no common center of small talk to unite black and white,
educated and self-made. The current tittle-tattle of the physician’s and
minister’s wives was not only Greek to the banker and the president of
the City Club, but not at all clear to the wives of the colored
politicians. The conversation between Mr. Cadwalader and the Republican
bosses was a bit forced. Perhaps only in the case of the intelligent
white settlement worker and the colored representatives of the Women’s
Clubs was a new, purely delightful field of common interest discovered.
In Chicago as elsewhere, between white and colored, the obvious common
ground was the Negro problem, and this both parties tried desperately to
avoid and yet could not. They were always veering toward it. The editor
and the banker sought to compare their respective conceptions of
finance. But they never really got within understanding distance. Even
Sara was at times out of her depth, in a serious definite conversation.
With a particular person whom she knew or had measured she could shine.
But the light and easy guidance of varied conversation in an assembly of
such elements as these was rather beyond her. She hurried here and
there, making a very complete and pleasing figure in her flesh-colored
chiffon evening frock. But she was not quite at ease.
Sammy’s finesse helped to save the day, or rather the night. He had real
humor of a kindly sort, and shrewd knowledge of practically everybody
present. He supplied the light, frank touch. He subtly separated,
grouped, entertained, and reseparated the individuals with rare
psychology. He really did his best, and with as little selfishness as he
was capable of showing.
The Republican boss, the banker, and the state official were among the
earliest arrivals. They sat down with Matthew and entered into earnest
conversation. Evidently, they were reading over the latest draft of the
proposed platform. Sara was taut and nervous. She tried not to listen,
but she could not help watching. She saw Matthew shift the papers until
he exposed one that lay at the bottom. The two gentlemen read it and
smiled. Quite carelessly and after continued conversation, Mr. Graham
absently put the paper in his pocket. By and by they arose and mingled
with the other guests. They were all smiling. The boss whispered to Sara
that he was satisfied, perfectly satisfied. She knew Matthew had signed
the paper.
Sara was radiant. She personally escorted the banker to a seat beside
the president of the City Club. She did not know that these two were
particularly uncongenial, but they were both well-bred and kept up
polite conversation until Mrs. Beech excused herself to talk with
Matthew. Matthew was a figure distraught and absent-minded. His dress
was much too negligent and careless to suit Sara, although he had put on
his dinner jacket. Still, as Sara looked him over now and then, he did
not make an altogether bad appearance. There was a certain inherent
polish, an evidence of breeding which Sara always recognized with keen
delight. It seemed easily to rise to the surface on occasions of this
sort. Mr. Cadwalader and Mrs. Beech were now talking with Matthew. They
seemed at first a little disturbed, but Sara was pleased to note that
Matthew had aroused himself and was talking rather quickly and nervously
but impressively. Evidently the two representatives of the liberal
groups liked what he said. They called in the settlement worker. When at
last they arose, all of them seemed pleased.
“I think,” said the president of the City Club, “we have come to a good
understanding.”
“Really,” said Mr. Cadwalader, “much better than I had hoped for. You
can count on us”
Sara sighed. The thing was done. Of course, there was the difficulty of
those radical Labor people, but these she regarded as on the whole the
least difficult of the three groups. She would perhaps approach them
again tomorrow. Even if she failed they could not do much harm now.
Sammy had about given up. It looked as though Matthew was going to be
triumphantly nominated. In fact, he had just learned that Matthew had
made one unexpected move, and whether it was stupid or astute, Sammy was
undecided. Corruthers had told him that during that very afternoon the
left-wing Labor people had got at Matthew and told him that they had not
been included in the negotiations after that first visit of Sara, and
that none of their representatives were invited to the conference
tonight. Matthew had been closeted with them a couple of hours, but just
what was said or done Sammy was unable to learn. Apparently his
henchman, the young colored radical, was not present, and he could not
find the Indian. His hope then that the radicals would burst in on this
conference and make trouble at the last moment seemed groundless.
Perhaps Matthew by some hocus-pocus had secured their silent assent. The
Labor delegation would probably not arrive at all.
Meantime, this conference must get on. If success was sure, he must be
in the band wagon. He gradually gathered his colored politicians out
into the dining-room, where there was good liquor. He got the white
women and the colored women on the porch in earnest conversation on
settlement work for the South Side. The younger women and men, including
the Republican boss and his friends, he brought together in the main
reception room and started some sprightly conversation. All this was
done while Sara had been arranging carefully and not too obviously the
personal conferences with Matthew. Well, it was all over.
Then he noticed Corruthers beckoning to him furtively from the
half-raised portieres that led to the hall. He looked about. Various
members of the colored group were talking with the whites, and Matthew
had emerged from the little library and seemed to be having a pleasant
chat with the minister. Sammy slipped out.
“Say” said Corruthers, “that Labor delegation is here and they want to
come in.”
Sammy pricked up his ears.
Aha! It looked as though something might happen after all. He walked
over to Sara and imparted his news.
“Well, they are not coming in here,” said Sara.
“But,” expostulated Sammy, “they have evidently been invited.”
“Not by me,” snapped Sara.
“But I suspect by Matthew. He was with them this afternoon.”
Sara started and tapped her foot impatiently. But Sammy went on:
“Don’t you think it would be good politics to let them have their say?
We don’t need to yield to them in any way.”
Sara was unwilling, but she saw the point. It was a shame to have this
love feast broken into. Then a plan occurred to her. They need not come
in here; they could meet Matthew in the little library. The door to the
reception room could be closed, and they could enter from the hall.
Meantime, Sammy saw Corruthers again beckoning excitedly from the door.
He walked over quickly, and Corruthers whispered to him.
“My God!” said Sammy. “Hush, Corruthers, and don’t say another word.
Here, come and have a drink!”
Then he hurried back to Sara. Sara interrupted him before he could
speak.
“Take them into the library. I will have Matthew receive them.” She
sauntered over to Matthew. “Matthew, dear, some of the Bolsheviks are
here and want to talk to you. I have had them taken from the hall
directly to the library. You can close the door. They will probably feel
more at ease then.” Matthew rose and said a little impatiently: “Why not
have them in here?”
“They preferred the smaller room,” said Sara. “They are not
exactly—dressed for an evening function.”
And then, turning, she ordered the portieres which concealed the
dining-room to be thrown open, and as Matthew stepped into the small
library, the blaze of Sara’s supper fell upon the company in the
reception room.
The table was a goodly sight. The waiters were deft and silent. The
music rose sweetly. The company was hungry, for it was nearly nine. Even
Mrs. Beech, who had meant to dine in Hubbard Woods, changed her mind.
Little tables with lace, linen, china, and silver were set about, and
soon a regular dinner of excellent quality was being served. Tongues
loosened, laughter rose, and a feeling of good fellowship began to
radiate. Mr. Cadwalader and Mrs. Beech agreed sotto voce that really
this was quite average in breeding and as a spectacle; they glowed at
the rainbow of skins—it was positively exciting.
Sammy was almost hilarious. He could not restrain a wink at Corruthers,
and both of them simultaneously bolted for the hall in order to laugh
freely and get some more of that other punch. Meantime, Sara’s unease
increased. Her place and Matthew’s had been arranged at the edge of the
dining-room at a table with Mrs. Beech and Mr. Graham. The banker, the
state official, and the two pretty young politicians’ wives were at a
table next, and the other tables were arranged as far as possible with
at least one bit of color.
But where was Matthew? thought Sara impatiently. It was time for the
toast and the great announcement—the culmination of the feast and
conference. Mrs. Beech asked for Mr. Towns.
“He’s having a last word with the Communists,” laughed Sara.
“Oh, are they here?” asked Mr. Cadwalader uneasily—“at the last moment?”
“They wouldn’t come in—they are asking about some minor matters of
adjustment, I presume.”
But Sara knew she must interfere. She distrusted Matthew’s mushy
indecision. To reopen the argument now might spoil all. She could stand
it no longer. She arose easily, a delicate coffee cup in hand, and said
a laughing word. She moved to the library door. Sammy watched her. The
others sensed in different ways some slight uneasiness in the air.
“Well, Mr. Towns,” said Sara, pushing the door wide, “we—”
The light of the greater room poured into the lesser—searching out its
shadows. The ugly Chinese god grinned in the corner, and a blue rug
glowed on the floor. In the center two figures, twined as one, in close
and quivering embrace, leapt, etched in startling outline, on the light.
XXIII
Matthew had turned and started for the library. He had glanced at the
reception room. He would not have been human not to be impressed. He was
going to be a member of the Congress of the United States. He was going
to be the first Negro congressman since the war. No—really the first;
all those earlier ones had been exceptions. He was real power. Power and
money. Sara should not fool him this time. He understood her. He would
have his own funds. He would, of course, follow the machine. He must. He
must keep power and get money. But he would have some independence—more
and more as time flew. Until—He squared his shoulders, opened the door,
and closed it behind him. The room was dimly lighted save the circle
under the reading-light on the table. He looked about. No one was there.
But there were voices in the hall. He waited.
Then slowly shame overwhelmed him. He was paying a price for power and
money. A great, a terrible price. He was lying, cheating, stealing. He
was fooling these poor, driven slaves of industry. He had listened to
their arguments all this afternoon. He had meant now to meet the
delegation brusquely and tell them railingly that they were idiots, that
he could do little—something he’d try, but first he must get into
Congress.
But he couldn’t find the words. He walked slowly over to the table and
stood facing the door. It was all done. It was all over. He had sold his
soul to the Devil, but this time he had sold it for something. Power?
Money? Nonsense! He had sold it for beauty; for ideal beauty, fitness
and curve and line; harmony and the words of the wise spoken long ago.
He stood in his dinner jacket, sleek but careless, his shirt front
rumpled, the satin of his lapel flicked with ash, his eyes tired and
red, his hair untidy. He stood and looked at the door. The door opened;
he dropped his eyes. He could not look up. He heard not the clumping
tramp of a delegation, but the light step of a single person. He almost
knew that it was the national president of the Box-Makers, come to make
their last appeal. Somehow he had a desperate desire to defend himself
before the merciless logic and wide knowledge of this official whom he
had never met. She had never even written or answered his letters
directly, but only through that dumpy stupid state president. She was to
have been present this afternoon. She was not; only her pitiless written
arraignment of his platform had been read. He had expected her tonight
when he heard the delegation had arrived. But he could not look up. He
simply took the paper which was handed to him, sensing the dark
veil-like garments and the small hand in its cheap cotton glove. He took
the paper which the woman handed him. On it was written:
“Our labor union, in return for its support, asks if you will publicly
promise them that on every occasion you will cast your vote in Congress
for the interests of the poor man, the employee, and the worker,
whenever and wherever these interests are opposed to the interests of
the rich, the employer, and the capitalist. For instance—”
Thus the paper began, and Matthew began slowly to read it. It was an
absurd request. Matthew almost laughed aloud. He had thought to carry it
off with a high hand, to laugh at these oafs and jolly them, insisting
that first he must get to Congress, and then, of course, he would do
what he could. Naturally, he was with them. Was he not a son of
generations of workers? Well, then, trust him. But they had not come to
argue. They were asking him to sign another paper, and to sign on the
line. They could never be trusted to keep such a pledge silent. No, they
would publish it to the world. Ha, ha, ha! What ghastly nonsense all
this lying was! He stopped and went back to the paper and began reading
it again. Something was gripping at him. Some tremendous reminder, and
then suddenly the letters started out from the page and burned his gaze,
they flamed and spread before him. He saw the strong beauty of the great
curves, the breadth and yet delicate uplifting of the capitals, the
long, sure sweep of the slurred links. Great God! That writing! He knew
it as he knew his own face. His hand had started to his inner
pocket—then he tried to whisper, hoarsely—
“Where—who wrote this? Who—” He looked up.
A dark figure stood by the table. An old dun-colored cloak flowed down
upon her, and a veil lay across her head. Her thin dark hands, now bare
and almost clawlike, gripped each other. They were colored hands.
Quickly he stepped forward. And she came like a soft mist, unveiled and
uncloaked before him. Always she seemed to come thus suddenly into his
life. And yet perhaps it was he himself that supplied the surprise and
sudden wonder. Perhaps in reality she had always come quite naturally to
him, as she came now.
She was different, yet every difference emphasized something eternally
marvelous. Her hair was cut short. All that long, cloudlike hair, the
length and breadth of it, was gone; but still it nestled about her head
like some halo. Her gown was loose, ill-fitting, straight; her hands,
hard, wore no jewels, but were calloused, with broken nails. The small
soft beauty of her face had become stronger and set in still lines. Only
in the steadfast glory of her eyes showed unchanged the Princess. She
watched him gravely as he searched her with his eyes; and then suddenly
Matthew awoke.
Then suddenly the intolerable truth gripped him. He lifted his hands to
heaven, stretched them to touch the width of the world, and swept her
into his tight embrace. He caught her to him so fiercely that her little
feet almost left the ground and her arms curled around his neck as their
lips met.
“Kautilya,” he sobbed. “Princess of India.”
“Matthew,” she answered, in a small frightened whisper. There was a
silence as of a thousand years, a silence while again he found her lips
and kept them, and his arms crept along the frail, long length of her
body, and he cried as he whispered in her ears. Perhaps some murmur from
the further rooms came to them, for suddenly they started apart. She
would have said the things she had planned to say, but she did not. All
the greater things were forgotten. She only said as he stared upon her
with wild light in his eyes:
“I am changed.”
And he answered:
“The Princess that I worshiped is become the working-woman whom I love.
Life has beaten out the gold to this fine stuff.” And then with hanging
head he said: “But I, ah, I am unchanged. I am the same flying dust.”
She walked toward him and put both hands upon his shoulders and said,
“Flying dust, that is it. Flying dust that fills the heaven and turns
the sunlight into jewels.” And then suddenly she stood straight before
him. “Matthew, Matthew!” she cried. “See, I came to save you! I came to
save your soul from hell.”
“Too late,” he murmured. “I have sold it to the Devil.”
“Then at any price,” she cried in passion, “at any price, I will buy it
back.”
“What shall we do—what can we do?” he whispered, troubled, in her hair.
“We must give up. We must tell all men the truth; we must go out of this
Place of Death and this city of the Face of Fear, untrammeled and
unbound, walking together hand in hand.”
And he cried, “Kautilya, darling!”
And she said, “Matthew, my Man!”
“Your body is Beauty, and Beauty is your Soul, and Soul and Body spell
Freedom to my tortured groping life!” he whispered.
“Benediction—I have sought you, man of God, in the depths of hell, to
bring your dead faith back to the stars; and now you are mine.”
And suddenly there was light.
And suddenly from Matthew dropped all the little hesitancies and
cynicisms. The years of disbelief were not. The world was one woman and
one cause. And with one arm almost lifting her as she strained toward
him, they walked shoulder to shoulder out into that blinding light.
And as they walked there seemed to rise above the startled, puzzled
guests some high and monstrous litany, staccato, with moaning monotones,
bearing down upon their whisperings, exclamations, movements, words and
cries, across the silver and crystal of the service:
“I will not have your nomination.”
(What does he mean—who is this woman?)
“I’d rather go to hell than to Congress.”
(Is the man mad?)
“I’m through with liars, thieves, and hypocrites.”
(This is insulting, shameless, scandalous!)
“The cause that was dead is alive again; the love that I lost is found!”
(A married man and a slut from the streets!)
“Have mercy, have mercy upon us!” whispered the woman. The company
surged to its feet with hiss and oath.
Sara, white to the lips, her hard-clenched hand crushing the fragile
china to bits, walked slowly backward before them with blazing eyes.
“I am free!” said Matthew.
The low voice of the Princess floated back again from the crimson
curtains of the hall:
“Kyrie Eleison.”
The high voice of Sara, like the final fierce upthrusting of the Host,
shrilled to a scream:
“You fool—you God-damned fool!”
XXIV
The hall door crashed. The stunned company stared, moved, and rushed
hurriedly to get away, with scant formality of leave-taking. It was
raining without, a cold wet sleet, but the beautiful apartment vomited
its guests upon the sidewalk while taxis rushed to aid.
The president of the Woman’s City Club rushed out the door with flushed
face.
“These Negroes!” she said to the settlement worker. “They are simply
impossible! I have known it all along, but I had begun to hope; such
persistent, ineradicable immorality! and flaunted purposely in our very
faces! It is intolerable!”
The settlement worker murmured somewhat indistinctly about the world
being “well lost” for something, as they climbed into a cab and flew
north.
The Republican boss, the state official, and the banker loomed in the
doorway, pulling on their gloves, adjusting their coats and cravats, and
hailing hurrying taxis.
“Well, of all the damned fiascos,” said the banker.
“Niggers in Congress! Well!” said the official.
“It is just as well,” said the boss. “In fact it is almost providential.
It looked as though we had to send a Negro to Congress. That unpleasant
possibility is now indefinitely postponed. Of course, now we’ll have to
send you.”
“Oh!” said the banker softly and deprecatingly.
“It is going to cost something,” said the boss shrewdly. “You will have
to buy up all these darky newspapers and grease Sammy’s paw
extraordinarily well. The point is, buying is possible now. They have no
comeback. Sammy may have aspirations, but I think we can make even him
see that it will be unwise to put up another colored candidate now. No,
the thing has turned out extraordinarily well; but I wonder what the
devil got hold of Towns, acting as though he was crazy?”
The physician’s wife and the lawyer’s lingered a little, clustering to
one side so as to avoid meeting the white folks; they stared and
whispered.
“It is the most indecent thing I have heard of,” said the physician’s
wife. The lawyer’s wife moaned in her distress:
“To think of a Negro acting that way, and before these people! And after
all this work. Won’t we ever amount to anything? Won’t we ever get any
leaders? I am simply disgusted and discouraged. I’ll never work for
another Negro leader as long as I live.”
And they followed their husbands to the two large sedans that stood
darkly groaning, waiting.
The physician snarled to the minister, “And with the streets full of
women cheaper and prettier.”
The Labor delegation had pushed into the library as Matthew and Kautilya
left, and entered the reception room. They stood now staring at the
disheveled room and the guests rushing away.
“What’s happened?”
“Has he told them what’s what?”
“Are they deserting us? Are they running away?”
But the colored club women walked away in silence in the rain. They
parted at the corner and one said:
“I’m proud of him, at last.”
But the other spit:
“The beast!”
XXV
Sammy’s world was tottering, and looking upon its astonishing ruins he
could only gasp blankly:
“What t’ hell!”
Never before in his long career and wide acquaintanceship with human
nature had it behaved in so fantastic and unpredictable a manner. Never
had it acted with such incalculable and utter disregard of all rules and
wise saws. That a man should cheat, lie, steal, and seduce women, was to
Sammy’s mind almost normal; that he should tell the truth, give away his
money, and stick by his wife was also at times probable.
These things happened. He’d seen them done. But that a man with
everything should choose nothing: that a man with high office in his
grasp, money ready to pour into his pocket, a home like this, and both a
wife and a sweetheart, should toss them all away and walk out into the
rain without his hat, just for an extra excursion with a skirt—
“What t’ hell!” gasped Sammy, groping back into the empty house. Then
suddenly he heard the voice of Sara.
He found her standing stark alone, a pitiful, tragic figure amid the
empty glitter of her triumph, with her flesh-colored chiffon and her
jewels, her smooth stockings and silver slippers. She had stripped the
beads from her throat, and they were dripping through her clenched
fingers. She had half torn the lace from her breast, and she stood there
flushed, trembling, furious with anger, and almost screaming to ears
that did not hear and to guests already gone.
“Haven’t I been decent? Haven’t I fought off you beasts and made me a
living and a home with my own hands? Wasn’t I married like a respectable
woman, and didn’t I drag this fool out of jail and make him a man? And
what do I get? What do I get? Here I am, disgraced and ruined, mocked
and robbed, a laughing-stock to all Chicago. What did he want? What did
the jackass want, my God? A cabaret instead of a home? A whore instead
of a wife? Wasn’t I true to him? Did I ever let a man touch me? I made
money—sure, I made money. I had to make money. He couldn’t. I made money
out of politics. What in hell is politics for, if it isn’t for somebody
to make money? Must we hand all the graft over to the holy white folks?
And now he disgraces me! Just when I win, he throws me over for a common
bawd from the streets, and a mess of dirty white laborers; a common slut
stealing decent women’s husbands. Oh—”
Sammy touched her hesitatingly on the shoulder and pleaded:
“Don’t crack, kid. Stand the gaff. I’ll see you through.” But she shrank
away from him and screamed:
“Get out, don’t touch me. Oh, damn him, damn him! I wish I could
horsewhip them; I wish I could kill them both.”
And suddenly Sara crumpled to the floor, crushing and tearing her silks
and scattering her jewels, drawing her knees up tight and gripping them
with twitching hands, burying her hair, her head and streaming eyes, in
the crimson carpet, and rolling and shaking and struggling with
strangling sobs.
While without gray mists lay thin upon a pale and purple city. Through
them, like cold, wet tears dripped the slow brown rain. The muffled roar
of moving millions thundered low upon the wind, and the blue wind sighed
and sank into the black night; and through the chill dripping of the
waters, hatless and coatless, moved two shapes, hand in hand, with
uplifted heads, singing to the storm.
Part IV. The Maharajah of Bwodpur
1926, April—April, 1927
The miracle is Spring. Spring in the heart and throat of the world.
Spring in Virginia, Spring in India, Spring in Chicago. Shining rain and
crimson song, roll and thunder of symphony in color, shade and tint of
flower and vine and budding leaf. Spring—two Springs, with a little
Winter between. But what if Spring dip down to Winter and die, shall not
a lovelier Spring live again? Love is eternal Spring. Life lifts itself
out of the Winter of death. Children sing in mud and rain and wind.
Earth climbs aloft and sits astride the weeping skies.
I
The rain was falling steadily. One could hear its roar and drip and
splash upon the roof. All the world was still. Kautilya listened
dreamily. There was a sense of warmth and luxury about her. Silk touched
and smoothed her skin. Her tired body rested on soft rugs that yielded
beneath her and lay gently in every curve and crevice of her body. She
heard the low music of the rain above, and the crimson, yellow, and gold
of a blazing fire threw its shadows all along the walls and ceiling. The
shadows turned happily and secretly, revealing and hiding the wild hues
of a great picture, the reflections of a mirror, the flowers and figures
of the wall. In silence she lay in strange peace and happiness—not
trying to think, but trying to sense the flood of the meaning of that
happiness that spread above her. Her head lifted; slowly, noiselessly,
with infinite tenderness, she stretched her arms toward Matthew, till
his head slipped down upon her shoulder. Then, on great, slow, crimson
islands of dream, the world floated away, the rain sang; and she slept
again.
Long hours afterward in the silence that comes before the dim blue
breaking of the dawn, Matthew awoke with a start. The rain had ceased;
the fire was dim and low; a vague sense of terror gripped him. His
breath struggled dizzily in his throat, and then a little shaft of
sunshine, pale, clear, with a certain sweetness from the white dampness
of sky and earth, wandered down from the high window and leapt and lay
on the face of happiness. She lay very still, so still that at first he
scarce could see the slow rise and fall of the soft silk that clung to
her breast. And then the surge of joy shook him until he had to bite
back the sob and wild laughter.
Hard had been their path to freedom. In his first high courage, Matthew
had pictured themselves walking through that door and into the light; a
powerful step, a word of defiance against the indignant, astonished,
angry wave of the world. Yet in truth they had walked out with hands
clasped and faces down, and he never knew what words he said or tried to
say. Phrases struck upon their ears.
“—knifed his race—a common bawd—a five-minute infatuation—primitive
passion—”
Across the endless length of the parlor they had toiled, and down by the
blazing dinner table; out far, far out into the narrowing hall; they had
brushed by people who shrank away from them. Coatless, hatless, they had
walked into the cold and shivering storm. And then somehow they were
warm again. Then happiness had fallen softly upon them. Hand in hand
they walked singing through the rain.
“Where are we going, Matthew?” she had whispered long hours later, as
her tired feet faltered.
And he lifted her in his arms and raised his face to the water and
answered:
“We are going down the King’s highway to Beauty and Freedom and Love. I
can hear life growing down there in the earth and pulling beneath the
hard sidewalks and white bones of the dead. Listen, God’s darling, to
the singing of the rain; hear the dawn coming afar and see the white
wings of the mist, how they beat about us.”
And so they had come home and slept in his attic nest. Slowly Matthew
lifted himself, arranged the golden glory of the Chinese rug again
around her, tucking in her little feet and drawing it close at the side.
Noiselessly he slipped to the fireplace and made the golden flames hiss
and sputter and swirl up to the sun-drenched sky, and then he came back
and stretched himself beside her, slipping, as she slept on, her head
upon the curve of his elbow and looking down upon her face.
It was a magnificent face. Something had come and something had gone
since the day when he saw it first. Something had gone of that
incomprehensible beauty of color, infinite fineness of texture, richness
of curve, loveliness of feature, which made her then to his eyes the
loveliest thing in the world. But in its place there lay upon her
peaceful, sleeping countenance a certain strength and nobility; a
certain decision and calm, that was like beauty swept with life, like
sunshine softened with mist. The heavy coils of purple hair had been cut
away, and yet the hair still lay thick and strong upon her forehead.
Suddenly he wanted to see her eyes, the eyes that he had never forgotten
since first he looked into them, eyes that were pools at once of mystery
and revelation, misty with half-sensed desire, and calm with power. He
wanted to see her eyes again and see them at once with the high
consciousness of birth that belonged to the Princess of the Lützower
Ufer and with that look of surrender and selfless love that he had
caught in the little room behind the parlor. He wanted again desperately
to see those eyes which said all these things; yet he lay very still
lest for a single moment he should disturb her. And then he looked down,
and her eyes were looking up to him. Slowly and happily she smiled.
“Krishna,” she murmured. His mind went racing back through the shadows
and he whispered back, “Radha.” And again they slept.
When Kautilya awoke again, there was a slow music stealing in from the
inner room. It was the andante from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, infinite
in tenderness, triumph, and beauty; and it came from afar so that no
scratch of the phonograph or creak of mechanism spoiled its sweet
melody. She sat up suddenly with a little cry of joy, throwing aside the
great Chinese rug and swathing herself in the silk of the white
mandarin’s robe that lay ready for her. With this music in her ears she
found the bathroom with its tub of steaming water and with its
completeness, half plaintive with neglect.
A half hour later she found new silken things in the dressing-room. The
rug lay upon the floor, and the old worn easy-chair was drawn before the
fire. Beside the flaming dance of the fire was a low, white Turkish
taboret; toward it Matthew came, clad in an old green bathrobe which
hung carelessly along his tall body. There was a tarboosh with faded
tassel upon his head. The hot coffee steamed on the salver, with toast
and butter and cream. There was an orange in halves and a little yellow
rosebud. She laughed in the sheer delight of it all, and held him long
and close before they turned to their eating. The morning sun poured in.
The music was changed to that largo of Dvorak built on the echoing pain
of the Negro folksong, which is printed on the other side of the Victor
record. Matthew would not let her stir, and after a while from the
kitchen came a brave splashing of dishes and a song. He came back soon,
bringing an old volume of poems. Without a word, only a long look, they
nestled in the chair near the fire and read. And so the day passed half
wordless with beauty and sound, full of color and content, until the
sunlight went crimson and blue upon the walls and the fire shadows
danced again.
“There are so many things I would ask you,” said Matthew. And then
Kautilya took his head between her hands and laid the breadth of his
shoulders upon her knees and said:
“And there are so many things I want to tell you of myself. I want to
tell you all the story of my life; of my falling and rising; of my love
for you; and of that mother of yours who lives far down in Virginia in
the cabin by the wood. Oh, Matthew, you have a wonderful mother. Have
you seen her hands? Have you seen the gnarled and knotted glory of her
hands?” And then slowly with wide eyes: “Your mother is Kali, the Black
One; wife of Siva, Mother of the World!”
II
Matthew was talking in the darkness as they lay together closely
entwined in each other’s arms.
“You will tell me, dear one, all about yourself? How came you here,
masquerading as a trade union leader?”
“It must be a long, long story, Matthew—a Thousand Nights and a Night?”
“So short a tale? Talk on, Scheherazade!”
So Kautilya whispered, nestling in his arms:
“But first, Matthew, sing me that Song of Emancipation—sing that Call of
God, ‘Go down, Moses!’ I believe, though I did not then know it—I
believe I began to love you that night.”
Matthew sang. Kautilya whispered:
“When you left me and went to jail, I seemed first to awake to real
life. From clouds I came suddenly down to earth. I knew the fault was
mine and the sacrifice yours. I left the country according to my promise
to the government. But it was easy to engineer my quick return from
London in a Curiard second cabin, without my title or real name.
“And then came what I shall always know to have been the greatest thing
in my life. I saw your mother. No faith nor religion, Matthew, ever
dies. I am of the clan and land that gave Gotama, the Buddha, to the
world. I know that out of the soul of Brahma come little separations of
his perfect and ineffable self and they appear again and again in higher
and higher manifestations, as eternal life flows on. And when I saw that
old mother of yours standing in the blue shadows of twilight with
flowers, cotton, and corn about her, I knew that I was looking upon one
of the ancient prophets of India and that she was to lead me out of the
depths in which I found myself and up to the atonement for which I
yearned. So I started with her upon that path of seven years which I
calculated would be, in all likelihood, the measure of your possible
imprisonment. We talked it all out together. We prayed to God, hers and
mine, and out of her ancient lore she did the sacrifice of flame and
blood which was the ceremony of my own great fathers and which came down
to her from Shango of Western Africa.
“You had stepped down into menial service at my request—you who knew how
hard and dreadful it was. It was now my turn to step down to the bottom
of the world and see it for myself. So I put aside my silken garments
and cut my hair, and, selling my jewels, I started out on the long path
which should lead to you. I did not write you. Why did I need to? You
were myself, I knew. But I sent others, who kept watch over you and sent
me news.
“First, I went as a servant girl into the family of a Richmond
engineer.”
Matthew started abruptly, but Kautilya nestled closer to him and watched
him with soft eyes.
“It was difficult,” she said, “but necessary. I had known, all my life,
service, but not servants. I had not been able to imagine what it meant
to be a servant. Most of my life I had not dreamed that it meant
anything; that servants meant anything to themselves. But now I served.
I made beds, I swept, I brought food to the table, sometimes I helped
cook it. I hated to clean kitchens amid dirt and heat, and I worked long
hours; but at night I slept happily, dear, by the very ache of the new
muscles and nerves which my body revealed.
“Then came the thing of which your mother had warned me, but which
somehow I did not sense or see coming, until in the blackness of the
night suddenly I knew that some one was moving in my room; that some one
had entered my unlocked door.”
Matthew arose suddenly and paced the floor. Then he came and sat down by
the couch and held both her hands.
“Go on,” he said.
“I sat up tense and alert and held in my hand the long, light dagger
with its curved handle and curious chasing; a dagger which the
grandfathers of my grandfather had handed down to me. That night,
Matthew, I was near murder, but the white man, my employer, slipped as I
lunged, and the dagger caught only the end of his left eye and came down
clean across cheek, mouth, and chin, one inch from the great jugular
vein, just as the mistress with her electric torch came in.
“Instead of arrest which I thought I surely faced, the man was hurried
out and off and the woman came to me in the still morning, worn and
pale, and said, ‘I thank you. This is perhaps the lesson he needed.’
“She paid me my little wage and I walked away.”
“But, Kautilya, why, why did you go through all this? What possible good
could it do?”
“Matthew, it was written. I went to Petersburg and worked in a tobacco
factory, sitting cramped at a long bench, stripping the soft fragrant
tobacco leaf from those rough stems. It was not in itself hard work, but
the close air, the cramped position, the endless monotony, made me at
times want to scream.
And there were the people about me: some good and broken; some harsh,
hard, and wild. Leering men, loud-mouthed women. I stayed there three
endless months until it seemed to me that every delicate thought and
tender feeling and sense of beauty had been bent and crushed beyond
recognition. So I took the train and came to Philadelphia.
“I worked in two restaurants; one on Walnut Street, splendid and
beautiful. The patrons usually were kind and thoughtful with only now
and then an overdressed woman who had to express her superiority by the
loudness of her tones, or a man who was slyly insulting or openly silly.
Only the kitchen and the corridors bruised me by their contrast and
ugliness. Singularly enough in this place of food and plenty, the only
proper food we waitresses could get to eat was stolen food. I hated the
stealing, but I was hungry and tired. From there I went down to South
Street to a colored restaurant and worked a long time. It was an
easy-going place with poor food and poor people, but kind. They crowded
in at all hours. They were well-meaning, inquisitive; and if a busy
workingman or a well-dressed idler sought to take my hand or touch my
body he did it half jokingly and usually not twice.”
“Servant, tobacco-hand, waitress; mud, dirt, and servility for the
education of a queen,” groaned Matthew.
“And is there any field where a queen’s education is more neglected?
Think what I learned of the mass of men! I got to know the patrons:
their habits, hardships, histories. I was the friend of the proprietors,
woman and husband; but the enterprise didn’t pay. It failed. I cried.
But just as it was closing I learned of your release, and after but a
year, suddenly I was in heaven. I thought I had already atoned.
“But I knew that yet I must wait. That you must find your way and begin
to adjust your life before I dared come into it again. And so I went to
New York, that my dream of life and of the meaning of life to the mass
of men might be more complete.
“I discovered a paper box-making factory on the lower East Side. It was
a non-union shop and I worked in a basement that stank of glue and
waste, ten and twelve hours a day for six dollars a week. It was sweated
labor of the lowest type, and I was aghast. Then the workers tried to
organize—there was a strike. I was beaten and jailed for picketing, but
I did not care. That which was begun as a game and source of experience
to me became suddenly real life. I became an agent, organizer, and
officer of the union. I knew my fellow laborers, in home and on street,
in factory and restaurant. I studied the industry and the law, I
traveled, made speeches, and organized. Oh, Matthew—it was life, life,
real life, even with the squalor and hard toil.”
“Yes, it was life. And the Veil of Color lifted from your eyes as it is
lifting even from my blindness. Those people there, these here—they are
all alike, all one. They are all foolish, ignorant, and exploited. Their
highest ambition is to escape from themselves—from being black, from
being poor, from being ugly—into some high heaven from which they can
gaze down and despise themselves.”
“True, my Matthew, and while I was learning all this which you long
knew, you seemed to me striving to unlearn. Oh, how I watched over you!
You came down to Virginia. Hidden in the forest, I watched with wet
eyes. Hidden in the cabin, I heard your voice. I caught the sob in your
throat when your mammy told of my coming. I knew you loved me still, and
I wanted to rush into your arms. But, ‘Not yet—not yet!’ said your wise
old mother.
“I was working busily and happily when the second blow fell, the blow
that came to deny everything, that seemed to say that you were not self
of my own self and life of the life which I was sharing in every pulse
with you. You married. I gave up.”
“You did not understand, Kautilya. You seemed lost to me forever. I was
blindly groping for some counterfeit of peace. If I had only known you
were here and caring!”
“I went down again to Virginia and knelt beside your mother, and she
only smiled. ‘He ain’t married,’ she said. ‘He only thinks he is. He was
wild like, and didn’t know where to turn or what to do. Wait, wait.’
“I waited. You would not listen to my messengers whom continually I sent
to you—the statesmen of Japan, the Chinese, the groping president of the
Box-Makers. Like Galahad you would not ask the meaning of the sign. You
would not name my name. How could I know, dearest, what I meant to you?
And yet my thought and care hovered and watched over you. I knew Sammy
and Sara and I saw your slow and sure descent to hell. I tried to save
you by sending human beings to you. You helped them, but you did not
know them. I tried again when you were sitting in the legislature down
at Springfield. You knew, but you would not understand. You sneered at
the truth. You would not come at my call.”
“I did not know it was your voice, Kautilya.”
“You knew the voice of our cause, Matthew—was that not my voice?”
Matthew was silent. Kautilya stroked his hand.
“We met in London, the leaders of a thousand million of the darker
peoples, with, for the first time, black Africa and black America
sitting beside the rest. I was proud of the Negroes we had chosen after
long search. There were to be forty of us, and, Matthew, only you were
absent. I looked for you to the last. It seemed that you must come. We
organized, we planned, and one great new thing emerged—your word,
Matthew, your prophecy: we recognized democracy as a method of
discovering real aristocracy. We looked frankly forward to raising not
all the dead, sluggish, brutalized masses of men, but to discovering
among them genius, gift, and ability in far larger number than among the
privileged and ruling classes. Search, weed out, encourage; educate,
train, and open all doors! Democracy is not an end; it is a method of
aristocracy. Some day I will show you all we said and planned.
“All the time, until I left for this great meeting I had expected that
somehow, some way, all would be well. Some time suddenly you would come
away. You would understand and burst your bonds and come to us—to me.
But as I left America fear entered my heart—fear for your soul. I began
to feel that I must act—I must take the step, I must rescue you from the
net in which you were floundering.
“I remember the day. Gloom of fog held back the March spring in London.
The crowded, winding streets echoed with traffic. I heard Big Ben
knelling the hour of noon, and a ray of sunlight struggled dizzily on
the mauve Thames. A wireless came. You were selling your soul for
Congress.
“Before, you had stolen for others. You had upheld their lies—but your
own hands were clean, your heart disclaimed the dirty game. Now you were
going to lie and steal for yourself. I saw the end of our world. I must
rescue you at any cost—at any sacrifice. I rushed back across the sea.
Five days we shivered, rolled, and darted through the storm. Almost we
cut a ship in two on the Newfoundland banks, but wrenched away with a
mighty groan. I landed Friday morning, and left at two-fifty-five—at
nine next morning I was in Chicago. That night I led your soul up from
Purgatory—free!
“And here we are, Matthew, my love; and it is long past the hour of
sleep; and you are trembling with apprehension at things which did not
happen, at pits into which I did not fall, at failures over which we
both have triumphed.”
The Princess paused, and Matthew started up. There was a loud insistent
knocking at the door.
“Go,” said the Princess. “Have we not both expected this?”
Matthew hesitated a moment and then walked to the door and opened it. A
colored police officer and two white men in citizens’ clothes stepped in
quickly and started as if to search, until they saw the Princess sitting
on the disheveled bed.
“Well?”
“We were hunting for you two,” said one of the plainclothes men.
“And you have found us?” asked Matthew.
“Yes, evidently. We wondered where you were spending the night.”
“We were spending the night here, together,” said Matthew.
“Together,” repeated the Princess.
The other man began to write furiously.
“You admit that,” said the first man.
“We admit it,” said Matthew, and the Princess bowed her head.
“Perhaps we had better look around a little,” said the other man
tentatively. But the policeman protested.
“You got what you wanted, ain’t ya? Mr. Towns is a friend of mine, and I
don’t propose to have no monkey business. If you’re through, get out.”
And slowly they all passed through the door.
III
May, and five o’clock in the morning. The sun was whispering to the
night, and the mist of its words rose above the park. Matthew and
Kautilya swung rapidly along through the dim freshness of the day. They
both had knapsacks and knickerbockers, and shoulder to shoulder, hand in
hand, and singing low snatches of song, they hurried through Jackson
Park. It was such a morning as when the world began: soft with breezes,
warm yet cold, brilliant with the sun, and still dripping with the
memory sweet, clean rain. There was no dust—no noise, no movement.
Almost were the great brown earth and heavy, terrible city, still.
Singing, quivering, tense with awful happiness, they went through the
world. Far out by the lake and in the drowsy afternoon, when they had
eaten sausage and bread and herbs and drunk cool water, after Kautilya
had read the sacred words of the Rig-veda, she laid aside the books and
talked again, straining his back against her knees as they sat beneath a
black oak tree, her cheek beside his ear, while together they stared out
upon the waving waters of Lake Michigan.
Matthew said:
“Now tell me beautiful things, Scheherazade. Who you are and what? And
from what fairyland you came?”
“I cannot tell you, Matthew, for you do not know India. Oh, my dear one,
you must know India.
“India! India! Out of black India the world was born. Into the black
womb of India the world shall creep to die. All that the world has done,
India did, and that more marvelously, more magnificently. The loftiest
of mountains, the mightiest of rivers, the widest of plains, the
broadest of oceans—these are India.
“Man is there of every shape and kind and hue, and the animal friends of
man, of every sort conceivable. The drama of life knows India as it
knows no other land, from the tragedy of Almighty God to the laugh of
the Bandar-log; from divine Gotama to the sons of Mahmoud and the
stepsons of the Christ.
“For leaf and sun, for whiff and whirlwind; for laughter, and for tears;
for sacrifice and vision; for stark poverty and jeweled wealth; for toil
and song and silence—for all this, know India. Loveliest and weirdest of
lands; terrible with flame and ice, beautiful with palm and pine, home
of pain and happiness and misery—oh, Matthew, can you not understand?
This is India—can you not understand?”
“No, I cannot understand; but I feel your meaning.”
“True, true! India must be felt. No man can know India, and yet the
shame of it, that men may today be counted learned and yet be ignorant,
carelessly ignorant, of India. The shame, that this vast center of human
life should be but the daubed footstool of a stodgy island of
shopkeepers born with seas and hearts of ice.”
“But you know India, darling. Tell India to the world.”
“I am India. Forgive me, dearest, if I play with words beyond
meaning—beyond the possibility of meaning. Now let me talk of myself—of
my little self—”
“That is more to me than all India and all the world besides.”
“I was born with the new century. My childhood was a dream, a dream of
power, beauty, and delight. Before my face rose every morning the white
glory of the high Himalayas, with the crowning mass of Gaurisankar,
kissing heaven. Behind me lay the great and golden flood of Holy Ganga.
On my left hand stood the Bo of Buddha and on my right the Sacred City
of the Maghmela.
“All about me was royal splendor, wealth and jewels and beautiful halls,
old and priceless carpets, the music of tinkling fountains, the song and
flash of birds; and when I clapped my childish hands, servants crawled
to me on their faces. Of course, much that I know now was missing—little
comforts of the West; and there were poverty, pain, sickness, and death;
but with all this, around me everywhere was marble, gold and jewels,
silk and fur, and myriads who danced and sang and served me. For I was
the little Princess of Bwodpur, the last of a line that had lived and
ruled a thousand years.
“We came out of the black South in ancient days and ruled in Rajputana;
and then, scorning the yoke of the Aryan invaders, moved to Bwodpur, and
there we gave birth to Buddha, black Buddha of the curly hair. Six
million people worshiped us as divine, and my father’s revenue was three
hundred lakhs of rupees. I had strange and mighty playthings: elephants
and lions and tigers, great white oxen and flashing automobiles. Parks
there were and palaces, baths and sweet waters, and amid it all I walked
a tiny and willful thing, curbed only by my old father, the Maharajah,
and my white English governess, whom I passionately loved.
“I had, of course, my furious revolts: wild rebellion at little
crossings of my will; wild delight at some of the efforts to amuse me;
and then came the culmination when first the flood of life stopped long
enough for me to look it full in the face.
“I was twelve and according to the ancient custom of our house I was to
be married at a great Durbar. He was a phantom prince, a pale and sickly
boy who reached scarcely to my shoulder. But his dominion joined with
mine, making a mighty land of twelve million souls; of wealth in gold
and jewels, high mineral walls, and valleys fat with cream. All that I
liked, and I wanted to be a crowned and reigning Maharanee. But I did
not like this thin, scared stick of a boy whose pearls and diamonds
seemed to drag him down and make his dark eyes shine terrorstricken
beneath his splendid turban.
“I enjoyed the magnificent betrothal ceremony and poked impish fun at
the boy who seemed such a child. A tall and crimson Englishman attended
him and ran his errands and I felt very grand, riding high on my silken
elephant amid applauding thousands. The ‘Fringies,’ as we called the
English, were here in large numbers and always whispering in the
background, nodding politely, playing with me gravely, and yielding to
my whims. I confess I thought them very wonderful. I set them,
unconsciously, above my own people.
“I remember hearing and but half understanding the talk of my guardian
and counselors. They were apparently vastly surprised that the English
had allowed this marriage. It would seem the English had long resisted
the wishes of the people of Sindrabad. They had, you see, more power in
his land than in ours. Our land was independent—or at least we thought
so. To be sure we sent no ministers to foreign lands—but what did we
know or care of foreign lands? To be sure our trade was monopolized by
the English, but it was good and profitable trade. Internally we were
free and unmolested, save that an unobtrusive Englishman was always at
court. He was the Resident. He ‘advised’ us and spied upon us, as I now
know.
“Now it was different in Sindrabad, where my little prince ruled under
English advisers. Sindrabad was in the iron grip of the English. They
long frowned upon the power of Bwodpur, a native, half-independent
Indian state. They refused to countenance a marriage alliance with
Sindrabad and continued to refuse; then suddenly something happened. A
new English Resident appeared, a commissioner magnificent with medals,
well trained, allied to a powerful English family of the nobility, and
backed by new regiments of well-armed men. He had lived long in the
country of my phantom prince; now he came to us smiling and bringing the
little Maharajah by the hand and giving consent and benediction to our
marriage.
“I heard my father ask, aside, hesitating and frowning:
“‘What is back of all this?’
“But I only half listened to this talk and intrigue. I wanted the Durbar
and the glory of the pageant of this marriage. So in pomp and
magnificence beyond anything of which even I, a princess, had dreamed,
we were married in the high hills facing the wide glory of the
Himalayas; the drums boomed and the soldiers marched; the elephants
paraded and the rajahs bowed before me and I was crowned and married,
her Royal Highness, the Maharanee of Bwodpur and Sindrabad. There was, I
believe, some dispute about this ‘royal’ but father was obdurate.”
“You mean that you were really a wife, while yet a child?” asked
Matthew.
“Oh, no, I was in reality only a betrothed bride and must return to my
home for Gauna, that is, to wait for years until I was grown and my
bridegroom should come and take me to his home. But he never came. For
somehow, I do not remember why, there came a time of darkness and
sorrow, when I could not go abroad, when I was hurried with my nurse
from palace to palace and got but fleeting glances of my phantom prince
even on his rare calls of ceremony. Once I came upon him in a long, cold
and marble corridor as, running, I escaped from Nurse. He was standing,
thin, pale, and in tears. His brown skin was gray and drawn; he looked
upon me with great and frightened eyes and whispered: ‘Flee, flee! The
English will kill you too.’ That was all.
“I do not know how it happened. I know that the English commissioner was
transfixed with horror. This bronze boy, just as he had started home,
was found in the forest, his face all blood, dead. My father was wan
with anger, and, it seemed, all against the English. He did not accuse
them directly of this awful deed, but he knew that the death of both
these married children, the last of their line, would throw both
countries into the control of England. There were wild rumors in the air
of the court. In strict compliance with ancient custom, I as a widow
should have died with my little bridegroom, but even the priests saw too
much power for England in this, and suddenly my father summoned my
English companion and sent me with her to England, while he reigned in
my name in Sindrabad and in his own right in Bwodpur.
“My governess was a quiet, clear-eyed woman, with a heart full of
courage and loyalty. Sometimes I thought that she and my father had
loved each other and that because of the hopelessness of this affection
she was suddenly sent home and I with her.
“Then came beautiful days. I loved England. I loved the work of my
tutors and the intercourse with the new world that spread before me. I
stayed two full years, until I was fourteen, and then again came clouds.
There was a tall English boy of whom I saw much. We had ridden, run, and
played together. He told me he loved me. I was glad. I did not love him,
but I wanted him to love me because the other girls had sweethearts. But
he was curiously fierce and gruff about it all. He wanted to seize and
embrace me and I hated the touch of his hands, for after all he was not
of royal blood, which then meant so much to me.
“One day he suddenly asked me to run away and marry him. I laughed.
“‘Yes, I mean to marry you,’ he said. ‘I am going to have you. I don’t
care if you are colored.’ I gasped in amazement. He didn’t care. He, a
low-born shopman’s brat, and I, a princess born. I, ‘colored’! I wanted
to strike him with my croquet mallet. I rushed away home.
“It seemed that the scales had fallen from my eyes. I understood a
hundred incidents, a dozen veiled allusions and little singular
happenings. I suddenly realized that these dull, loud, ugly people
actually thought me inferior because my skin was browner than their
bleached and roughened hides. They were condescending to me—me, whose
fathers were kings a thousand years before theirs were ragpickers.
“I rushed in upon my governess. I opened my lips to rage. She stopped me
gently: my father was dead in Bwodpur. I was summoned to India to marry
and reign. But I did not go. The news of my father’s death came on
August first, 1914. When I reached London and the India Office, August
fourth, the world was at war.
“There ensued a series of quick moves followed by protracted
negotiations; the English explained that it would never do to start
their royal charge for India in time of war. Bwodpur retorted that it
would never do to have their Maharanee far away in England in time of
war. The India Office delicately suggested that the presence in England
of an Indian princess of high birth and influence would do much to
cement the empire and win the war for civilization, and secretly they
whispered that it would be unwise to send to India, when English power
was weak, a person who might become a rallying center for independence.
“Bwodpur pointed out that my presence in India was precisely the thing
needed to arouse a feeling favorable to England and oppose the
disruptive forces of Swaraj, which were undermining native dynasties as
well as imperial power.
“But after all, England had the advantage in that argument, because I
was in England; and while I probably would not have been allowed to
return home had I wished, official England put forth every effort to
make me want to stay. At first, I was imperious and discontented,
remembering that I was ‘colored.’ But official England took no notice,
and with deep-laid plans and imperturbable self-possession proceeded to
capture my imagination and gain my affection. England became gracious
and kind. London opened its heart and arms to this dark and difficult
charge. Even royalty held out a languid hand, and I was presented at
court in 1916 and formally received in society.
“I did not yield easily. I sat back upon my rank. I used my wealth. When
I was invited out I took the pas from Duchesses as the child of a
reigning monarch. I made the county aristocracy cringe and the city
snobs almost literally hold my train. All this until my poor foster
mother was filled with apprehension. Slowly but surely, however, my
defenses were beaten down and I capitulated.
“In the midst of war hysteria, I became the social rage, and I loved it.
I forgot suspicion and intrigue. I liked the tall and calm English men,
the gracious and well-mannered English women. I loved the stately
servants, so efficient, without the eastern servility to which I had
been born. I knew for the first time what comfort and modern luxury
meant.
“I danced and knitted and nursed and studied. I spent week-ends in
storied castles, long days in museums and nights at theaters and
concerts, until the War grew harder. Money like water flowed through my
careless hands. I gave away gold and jewels. I was a darling of the
white gods, and I adored them. I even went to the front in France for
temporary duty as a nurse—carefully guarded and pampered.
“Can I make you realize how I was dazed and blinded by the Great White
World?”
“Yes,” said Matthew. “I quite understand. Singularly enough, we black
folk of America are the only ones of the darker world who see white folk
and their civilization with level eyes and unquickened pulse. We know
them. We were born among them, and while we are often dazzled with their
deeds, we are seldom drugged into idealizing them beyond their very
human deserts. But you of the forest, swamp, and desert, of the wide and
struggling lands beyond the Law—when you first behold the glory that is
London, Paris, and Rome, I can see how easily you imagine that you have
seen heaven; until disillusion comes—and it comes quickly.”
“Yes,” sighed Kautilya, with a shudder, “it came quickly. It approached
while I was in France in 1917. Suddenly, a bit of the truth leapt
through. There, at Arras, an Indian stevedore, one of my own tribe and
clan, crazed with pain, bloody, wild, tore at me in the hospital.
“‘Damn you! Black traitor. Selling your soul to these dirty English
dogs, while your people die—your people die.’
“I hurried away, pale and shaken, yet heard the echo: ‘Your people die!’
“Then I descended into hell; I slipped away unchaperoned, unguarded, and
in a Red Cross unit served a month in the fiery rain before I was
discovered and courteously returned to England.
“Oh, Vishnu, Incarnate, thou knowest that I saw hell. Dirt and pain,
blood and guts, murder and blasphemy, lechery and curses; from these, my
eyes and ears were almost never free. For I was not serving officers now
in soft retreats, I was toiling for ‘niggers’ at the front.
“Sick, pale, and shaken to my inmost soul, I was sent back to the
English countryside. I was torn in sunder. Was this Europe? Was this
civilization? Was this Christianity? I was stupefied—I—”
Shuddering, she drew Matthew’s arms close about her and put her cheek
beside his and shut her eyes.
Matthew began to talk, low-voiced and quickly, caressing her hair and
kissing her closed eyes. The sun fell on the fiery land behind, and the
waters darkened.
“We must go now, dearest,” she said at length; “we have a long walk.”
And so they ate bread and milk and swung, singing low, toward the
burning city. At Hyde Park she guided him west out toward the stockyard
district. In a dilapidated street they stopped where lights showed dimly
through dirty windows.
“This is the headquarters of the Box-Makers’ Union,” he said suddenly
and stared at it as at a ghost.
“Will you come in with me?” she asked.
It was a poor, bare room, with benches, a table, and a low platform.
Several dozen women and a few men, young and old, white, with a few
black, stood about, talking excitedly. A quick blow of silence greeted
their entrance; then a whisper, buzz, and clatter of sound.
They surged away and toward and around them. One woman—Matthew
recognized the poor shapeless president—ran and threw her arms about
Kautilya; but a group in the corner hissed low and swore. The Princess
put her hand lovingly on the woman who stood with streaming eyes, and
then walked quietly to the platform.
“I am no longer an official or even a member of the international union.
I have resigned,” she said simply in her low, beautiful voice. A snarl
and a sigh answered her.
“I am sorry I had to do what I did. I have in a sense betrayed you and
your cause, but I did not act selfishly, but for a greater cause. I hope
you will forgive me. Sometime I know you will. I have worked hard for
you. Now I go to work harder for you and all men.” She paused, and her
eyes sought Matthew where he stood, tall and dark, in the background,
and she said again in a voice almost a whisper:
“I am going home. I am going to Kali. I am going to the Maharajah of
Bwodpur!”
She walked slowly out, but paused to whisper to the president: “That
bag—that little leather bag I asked you to keep—will you get it?”
“But you took it with you that—that night.”
“Oh, did I? I forgot. I wonder where it is?” and Kautilya joined Matthew
and they walked out.
Behind them the Box-Makers’ Union sneered and sobbed.
IV
“I do not quite understand,” said Matthew. “You have mentioned—twice—the
Maharajah of Bwodpur. Did he not die?”
“The King is dead, long live the King! But do not interrupt—listen!”
They were sitting in his den on one side of a little table, facing the
fire that glowed in the soft warmth of evening. They had had their
benediction of music—the overture to Wilhelm Tell, which seemed to
picture their lives. Together they hummed the sweet lilt of the music
after the storm.
Before them was rice with a curry that Kautilya had made, and a
shortcake of biscuit and early strawberries which Matthew had
triumphantly concocted. With it, they drank black tea with thin slices
of lemon.
“I think,” said Kautilya, “that there was nothing in this century so
beautiful as the exaltation of mankind in November, 1918. We all stood
hand in hand on the mountain top, upon some vaster Everest. We were all
brothers. We forgot the horror of that blood-choked interlude. I forgot
even the front at Arras. I remember tearing like a maenad,
cypress-crowned, through Piccadilly Circus, hand in hand with white
strangers.
“I had just had an extraordinary conversation with an Englishman of
highest rank. He had bowed over my hand.
“‘Your Highness,’ he said, ‘when the Emperor saw fit to urge your stay
in England, he had hopes that your influence and high birth would do
much to win this war for civilization.’ I was thrilled. England!
Actually to be necessary to this land of enjoyment and power! Perhaps to
go back in triumph from this abode of Supermen! To help them win the
war, and bring back, as reward, freedom for India!
“Long this member of the cabinet talked while my hostess and chaperon
guarded us from interruption. We surveyed the policies and hopes and
fears of India. One hour later as he kissed my hand, he whispered: ‘Who
knows! Your Highness may take back an English Maharajah to share your
throne!’ I looked at him in dumb astonishment; then slowly I saw light.
Long months I pondered over that hint.
“And when the Armistice actually came I had had a glorious vision. I was
ready to forgive England and Europe. They were but masses of
shortsighted fallible men, like all of us. We had all slept. Now the
world was awake.
“There was no real line of birth or race or color. I loved them all. The
nightmare was ended. The world was free. The world was sane. The world
was good. The world was Peace. For the first time in my life and the
last, I was English; a loyal subject of the Emperor then in Buckingham
Palace—I with a thousand years of royalty behind me. I saw New India, a
proud and free nation in the great free sisterhood of the British Raj.”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” said Matthew. “There was a moment then when I
loved America. I cannot conceive it now.”
“It was so natural that that which happened should happen just then as I
was exalted, blind with ideal fervor, and set to see God and love
everywhere. I saw the man first in Piccadilly on that night of nights.
He was my knight in shining armor: tall, spare, and fair, with cool gray
eyes, his arm in a sling, his khaki smooth and immaculate, his long
limbs golden-booted and silver-spurred. I turned and lighted the
cigarette for him when I saw him fumbling. Then I looked up at him in
startled wonder, unconsciously held out my hand to him, and he kissed it
gravely. I did not then dream that he knew me and my station.
“We met weeks later and were presented at that country estate down in
Surrey where I had convalesced from my excursion to the front. It was so
typically an English traditional setting—so quiet, sweet, and green; so
gracious, restful, and comforting, cushioned for every curve and edge of
body and soul. Evil, poverty, cruelty seemed so far removed as to be
impossible—some far-off half-mythical giant and ogre about which one
could argue and smile and explain, while deft servants and endless land
and wealth made life a beautiful and a perfect thing.
“He came down for a week-end. His arm had been amputated above the elbow
and I was desperately sorry for this maimed fellow, scarcely
thirty-five, broken in his very morning of life. He was neither
handsome, witty, nor really educated in any broad way; but his silence
and self-repression, his stiff formality, his adherence to his social
code, became him. One could imagine depth of thought, fire of emotion,
power of command, all sealed and hidden in that fine body. He wooed me
in the only way that I was then accessible—not by impetuous word or
attempted array of learning, but by silent deference. He was always
waiting; always bowing gravely; always rising to his feet and standing
at attention with his poor maimed arm, and always insistently arranging
my cushions and chairs with his lone hand.
“Then too, to complete the setting and push me by my own pride into what
I might otherwise have paused before, there was the young Marchioness of
Thorn. She was penniless, plain but stately; and, as every one knew and
saw, hopelessly in love with my cavalier, Captain the Honorable Malcolm
Fortescue-Dodd. As an earl’s youngest son, Malcolm also had naught but
his commission. Once I thought he loved her as she loved him. Then I
decided not. Perhaps my decision was easier because of her evident
dislike for me.
“At first I literally did not notice the Marchioness of Thorn. Then when
I sought to atone and be gracious, I realized with astonishment that she
was actually trying to be distant and patronizing with me! Patronizing,
mind you, to a Maharanee of Bwodpur and Sindrabad! I was at first amused
and then half angry, and finally, as guest of honor, I completely
ignored this haughty lady and in sheer revenge annexed as my knight
Captain the Honorable Malcolm.
“Even then I was startled when with scant delay he formally asked my
hand in marriage. It was in a way a singular sort of innovation. Native
Indian Princesses were recognized as reigning monarchs by England, but
there had never been formal marital alliances, because it would have
involved difficulties of rank and religion on both sides; and then, too,
our princesses were usually married long before they saw England or knew
Englishmen. In this case, however, a scion of ancient English nobility,
albeit but a penniless and untitled younger son, was asking a reigning
Indian princess in marriage. Should I—could I—accept? Was I lowering my
rank? Was I helping or hindering India?
“A discreet emissary of the India Office came down and discussed matters
with me. It seemed that in the new world that was dawning, much of the
old order was changing. Indian affairs must soon assume a new status.
Should India emerge with new freedom and self-determination as a country
entirely separate in race, religion, and politics from Mother England?
Or as one allied by interest and even intermarriage? It was an
astonishing argument, and—was it not natural?—I was flattered. I saw
myself as the first princess of a new order, and while theoretically I
held myself the equal of British royalty itself and certainly would have
preferred a duke or marquis or even an earl in his own right, yet—and
even this was discreetly hinted—earldoms and marquisates were often
created for loyal and ambitious servants of the state.
“This very intention again made my head go up in pride. Why should a
Maharanee of Bwodpur stoop to English strawberry leaves? I would lift
him to my own royal throne, if I so wished. Did I wish it? I felt
strangely alone, far from my people and their advice. What would my
counselors think? Would they be gratified or alarmed, uplifted or
estranged? And then again, was this a high affair of state or a triumph
of romantic love? I did not know.
“Yet I was curiously drawn to this tall, silent soldier, with his maimed
arm and cold, gray eyes. If only I could draw a light of yearning and
passion into those eyes it might bring the answering lightning from my
heart and let me, the princess, know such love as peasants only can
afford! And so I hesitated and then finally when, through the India
Office, the formal assent of my family was handed me, I consented.
Formal announcement of the engagement was gazetted and became a nine
days’ wonder; at Haslemere, some of the great names of England,
including British royalty itself, gathered at my betrothal ball.
“I was quite happy. Happy at the gracious reception of my royal blood
into the noble blood of England; happy at my consciousness of power. I
stood, with my English maidens in attendance, and looked across the
ballroom floor—beautiful women, flashing uniforms, stately personages,
soft-footed servants; the low hum of word and laughter, the lilt of
music.
“Suddenly tears rose in my throat. I was happy, of course, but I wanted
love. I had been repressed and cool and haughty toward this wounded man
of my choice. I was suddenly yearning to let my naked heart look
unveiled into his eyes and see if I would flame and his tense cold face
kindle in reply. Where was he? I searched the hall with my glance. He
had been beside me but a quarter of an hour since. A mischievous-eyed
young maiden of my train blushed, smiled, and nodded. I smiled an answer
and turned. There was a draped passage to the supper room behind us, and
looming at the end was that easily recognized form. I waved my maidens
back, and turning, entered noiselessly. I wanted to be alone with love
for one moment, if perchance love were there.
“He was talking to some one I could not see. I stepped forward and his
voice held me motionless.
“It was the Marchioness of Thorn. I froze. I could not move. His voice
came low and tense, with much more feeling in it than I had ever heard
before:
“‘What else is there for me, a poor and crippled younger son? Can you
not see, dearest, that this is a command on the field of battle? Think
what it means to have this powerful buffer state, which we nearly lost,
in the hands of a white English ruler; a wall against Bolshevik Russia,
a club for chaotic China; a pledge for future and wider empire.’
“‘But you’ll only be her consort.’
“‘I shall, be Maharajah in my own right. The India Office has seen to
that. I can even divorce her if I will, and I can name my own successor.
Depend upon it, he’ll be white.’
“Then came the answering voice, almost shrill:
“‘Malcolm, I can’t bear the thought of your mating with a nigger.’
“‘Hell! I’m mating with a throne and a fortune. The darky’s a mere
makeweight.’
“In those words I died and lived again. The world crashed about me, but
I walked through it; turning, I beckoned my maidens, who came streaming
behind.
“‘Malcolm, this is our waltz,’ I said as I came into the light. He stood
at attention, and the Marchioness, bowing slightly, began talking to the
women, as we two glided away. I went through ball and supper, speeded my
guests, and let the Captain kiss my hand in farewell. He paused and
lingered a bit over it and came as near looking perturbed as I ever saw
him; he was not sure how much I had overheard; but I bit blood from my
lips and looked at him serenely. The next day I left for London and
India to prepare for the intra-imperial and inter-racial wedding.”
Matthew and Kautilya had long been walking through the night lights of
the crowded streets downtown, hand in hand as she talked. Now she paused
and at Michigan and Van Buren they stood awhile shoulder to shoulder,
letting the length of their bodies touch lightly. As they waited a
chance to cross Michigan, a car snorted and sought to slip by, then came
to a wheezy halt.
“Well, well, well!” said the Honorable Sammy, holding out a fat hand and
eyeing them quizzically. They greeted him with a smile.
“Say, can’t we have a talk?” he asked finally.
“Sure,” said Matthew. “Come to my den.”
Sammy could not keep his eyes off Kautilya, although there was frank
puzzlement in them rather than his usual bold banter. They rode north
rapidly in his car, seated together in the rear with close clasped
hands. Once at home, Kautilya made Sammy silently welcome and said
little. She arranged the small table as Matthew lighted the fire, warmed
up a bit of the curry, and brought out a decanter of dark, old crimson
wine.
The Honorable Sammy gurgled and expanded.
“What ya gonna do?” he asked. “Gee, this stuff’s great—what is it?”
“Indian curry.—We don’t know yet.”
“Want a job?”
“No,” said Matthew slowly, and Kautilya walked over to him softly and
slipped an arm about his shoulder.
“Can’t coo on air,” said Sammy with some difficulty, his mouth being
pretty full. “See here! ’Course you and Sara couldn’t make it. I never
expected you to. She’s—well, you’re different. Now suppose you just get
a divorce. My friend, the judge, will fix it up in a month, and then I
can hand you a little job that will help with the bread and butter.”
“She can have the divorce,” said Matthew.
“But,” said Sammy, “you get it, and get it first.” Matthew did not
answer.
“You see,” explained Sammy elaborately, “Sara’s funny. Just now she’s
filled full with hating your lady. She thinks it will hurt you worse to
keep you married to her. She thinks you’ll tire of this dame and perhaps
then come crawling back, so she can kick you good and plenty. See? Now
if you begin action for divorce first,
for—ah—cruelty—incompatibility—that goes in Illinois—why, she’d fight
back like a tiger and divorce you for adultery. See?”
There was an awkward silence. Then Matthew ventured: “And you, Sammy. I
hope you are going to Congress?”
Sammy scowled and shoved his plate back.
“No—not this year. You sure mussed that up all right. But wait till we
put Bill Thompson back as mayor. Then we’ll shuffle again and see.”
“I’m sorry,” said Matthew.
“Oh, it’s all right. ’Course Sara is sore—damned sore and skittish. But
it’s all right. You just push that divorce and we’ll stand together,
see?”
Sammy arose, pulled down his cuffs, straightened his tie, and lit a new,
long, black cigar.
“Well—so long!” he said, teetering a moment on heel and toe, Then he
leered archly at Kautilya, winked at Matthew, and was gone.
For a minute the two stood silently gripping each other close and saying
no word. It was as though some evil wind from out the depths of nowhere
had chilled their bones.
V
“I want to sit in a deep forest,” said Kautilya, “and feel the rain on
my face.” So they went furtively and separately down the long lanes of
men, stepping softly as those who would escape wild beasts in a
wilderness. They met in the Art Gallery beside the lake and walked here
and there like strangers, and yet happily and deliciously conscious of
each other. At last by elaborate accident they sat down together before
a great red dream of sun and sky and air and rolling, tossing waters.
Then they went out and climbed on a bus and happened in the same seat
and rode wordlessly north. At Evanston they took the electric train and
fared further north. Kautilya slipped off her skirt and was in
knickerbockers. Matthew slung his knapsack and blankets on his
shoulders. The gray clouds rolled in dark arrows on the lake, and at
last they sat alone in the dim forest, huddled beneath a mighty elm, and
the rain drifted into their faces. They spent the night under the
scowling sky with music of soft waters in their ears. At midnight
Kautilya turned and nestled and spoke:
“I stopped in London on my way to India, ostensibly for last-minute
shopping, but in reality to explore a new world. In that week in the
trenches I had met a new India—fierce, young, insurgent souls irreverent
toward royalty and white Europe, preaching independence and self-rule
for India. They affronted and scared and yet attracted me. They were
different from the Indians I knew and more in some respects like the
young Europeans I had learned to known Yet they were never European. I
sensed in them revolution—the change long due in Asia. I had one or two
addresses, and in London I sought out some of the men whom I had nursed
and helped for a month. They knew nothing of my rank and history. They
received me gladly as a comrade and assumed my sympathy and knowledge of
their revolutionary propaganda. Ten days I went to school to them and
emerged transformed. I was not converted, but my eyes and ears were
open.
“I was nineteen when I returned to India and found the arrangements for
my English wedding far advanced. My people were troubled and silent. The
land was brooding. Only the English were busy and blithe. New native
regiments appeared with native line officers. New fortifications, new
cities, new taxes were planned. New cheap English goods were pouring in,
and the looms and hands of the native workers were idle. The trail of
death, leading from the far World War, marched through the land and into
China, and thence came the noise of upheaval, while from Russia came
secret messages and emissaries.
“The four years of my absence had been years of change and turmoil;
years when this native buffer state, breasted against Russia and China
and in the path of the projected new English empire in Thibet and
secured to English power by the marriage of two children, maimed dolls
in the thin white hand of the commissioner, was seething with intrigue.
“My own people were split into factions and divided counsels. After all
I was a woman, and in strict law a widow. As such I had no rights of
succession. On the other hand, I was the last of a long and royal line.
I was the only obstacle between native rule and absorption by England in
Sindrabad, and the only hope of independence in Bwodpur. I was the
foremost living symbol of home rule in all India. The struggle shook the
foundations of our politics and religion, but finally, contrary to all
precedent, I had been secretly confirmed as reigning Maharanee after the
death of my father. Everything now depended on my marriage, which the
most reactionary of my subjects saw was inevitable if my twelve million
subjects were to maintain their independence against England.
“Immediately I was the center of fierce struggle: England determined to
marry me to an English nobleman; young India determined to rally around
me, to strip me of wealth, power, and prerogatives, and to set up here
in India the first independent state.
“My phantom prince, poor puppet in the hands of England, I soon saw had
probably been murdered by the Indian fanatics of Swaraj, whom then I
hated, although I realized that perhaps Englishmen with ulterior motives
had egged them on. Two suitors for my hand and power came forward—a
fierce and ugly old rajah from the hills who represented the Indians’
determination for self-rule under the form of monarchy, and a handsome
devil from the lowlands, tool and ape of England: I hated them both. I
could see why in desperation my family had consented to my marriage with
Fortescue-Dodd.
“I looked about me and realized my wealth and power from my twelve
million subjects and from the pathway of my kingdom between India and
China. Widowed even before I was a wife, bearing all the Indian contempt
for widowhood; child with the heavy burden of womanhood and royal power,
I was like to be torn in two not only by the rising determination of
young India to be free of Europe and all hereditary power, but also by
the equal determination of England to keep and guard her Indian empire.
“I looked on India with new and frightened eyes. I saw degradation in
the cringing of the people, starvation and poverty in my own jewels and
wealth, tyranny and ignorance in the absolute rule of my fathers, harsh
dogmatism in the transformed word of the great and gentle Buddha and the
eternal revelation of Brahma.”
“But,” cried Matthew, “was there no one to guide and advise this poor
child of nineteen?”
“Not at first. My natural advisers were fighting against those who
threatened my throne, and young India alone was fighting England. I
called my family in counsel. Boldly I took the side of young India
against England and called the young educated Indians together, many of
them cousins and kinsmen, and offered the weight of my wealth and power
to forward their aims. The result was miraculous. Some of my old and
reactionary kinsmen stood apart, but they did not actively oppose us.
Some very few of the most radical of the advocates of Swaraj refused to
coöperate with royalty on any terms. But I gathered a great bloc of
young trained men and women. Long we planned and contrived and finally
with united strength turned on England.
“My own mind was clear. I was to be the visible symbol of the power of
New India. With my new council I would rule until such time as I married
a prince of royal blood and set my son on the throne as Maharajah of
Bwodpur. But I postponed marriage. I wanted light. I wanted to hear what
other dark peoples were doing and thinking beneath the dead, white light
of European tyranny.
“I called a secret council of the Durbar and laid my plans before them.
The splendid wedding ceremony of the proposed English alliance
approached. The bridegroom and a host of officials arrived, and from the
hills arrived too that ancient and ugly Rajah who was old when he sought
my hand in vain seven years before and now had grandchildren older than
I.
“The hosts assembled, the ceremony gorgeous in gold and ivory and jewels
began: the elephants, painted and caparisoned, marching with slow,
sedate, and mighty tread; the old high chariots of the rajahs, with huge
wheels and marvelous gilding, drawn by great oxen; the curtained
palanquins of the women; the clash of horns and drums and high treble of
flutes.
“Then at the height and culmination of the ceremony and before the world
of all India and in the face of its conquerors, I took my revenge on the
man and nation that had dared to insult a Maharanee of Bwodpur. As
Captain the Honorable Malcolm Fortescue-Dodd kneeled in silver and white
to kiss my hand, the ancient Rajah from the hills stepped forward and
interposed. As the eldest representative of my far-flung family, he
announced that this marriage could not be. A plenary council of the
chief royal families of India had been held, and it had been decided
that it was beneath the dignity of India to accept as consort for a
princess of the blood a man without rank or title—unless, he added,
‘this alliance was by the will and command of the Maharanee herself.’
“All the world turned toward me and listened as I answered that this
marriage was neither of my will nor wish but at the command of my
family. Since that command was withdrawn—
“‘I do not wish to marry Captain the Honorable Malcolm Fortescue-Dodd.’
“England and English India roared at the insult. There were a hundred
conjectures, reasons, explanations, and then sudden silence. After all
it was no time for England to take the high hand in India. So it was
merely whispered in select circles that the family of Fortescue-Dodd had
decided that the women of India were not fit consorts for Englishmen and
that they had therefore allowed me gracefully to withdraw. But we of
India knew that England was doubly determined to crush Bwodpur.
“Four years went by. Although ruling in my own right, I made that
ancient Rajah my guardian and regent and thus put behind my throne all
the tradition of old India. Meantime with a growing council of young,
enthusiastic followers I began to transform my kingdoms. We mitigated
the power of the castes and brought Bwodpur and Sindrabad nearer
together. We contrived to spend the major part of the income of the
state for the public welfare instead of on ourselves, as was our ancient
usage. We began to establish public schools and to send scholars to
foreign lands.
“Only in religion and industry were my hands tied—in religion by my own
people; in industry by England. We had Hindus and Mohammedans, Buddhists
of every shade, and a few more or less sincere Christians. I wanted to
clean the slate and go back to the ancient simplicity of Brahma. But,
ah! Who can attack the strongholds of superstition and faith!”
“Who indeed!” sighed Matthew. “Our only refuge in America is to stop
going to church.”
“The church comes to us in India and seizes us. I could only invoke a
truce of God to make Allah and Brahma and Buddha sit together in peace,
to respect each other as equals.
“In industry my hands were tied by the English power to sell machine
goods and drive our artisans from the markets. In vain I joined Mahatma
Gandhi and tried to force the boycott over my land. My people were too
poor and ignorant. Yet slowly we advanced and there came to us visitors
from Egypt, Japan, China, and at last from Russia down across that old
and secret highway of the Himalayas, hidden from the world.
“Sitting there in the white shadow of Gaurisankar we conferred with
young advanced thinkers of all nations and old upholders of Indian faith
and tradition. We conceived a new Empire of India, a new vast union of
the darker peoples of the world.
“To further this I started on the Grand Tour of the Darker Worlds. I
went secretly by way of Thibet and New China; saw Sun Yat-sen in Pekin.
I was three months in Japan, where the firm foundation of our
organization of the darker peoples was laid. Then I spent three months
in Russia, watching that astonishing experiment in a land which had
suffered from tyranny beyond conception. I tried to learn its plans, and
I received every assurance of its sympathy. Down by Kiev I came to
Odessa and sailed the Black Sea.
“I saw the towers of Constantinople shining in the sun and stood in that
great center where once Asia poured the light of her culture into the
barbarism of Europe and made it a living soul. I walked around those
mighty walls, where Theodosius held back the Nordic and the Hun. I went
by old Skutari and its vast city of the dead; down by a slow and winding
railway, three hundred and fifty miles westward to Angora. There I sat
at the feet of Kemal and heard his plans. Thence overland by slow and
devious ways I came through Asia Minor and Syria. Down by the Kizilirmak
and the great blue waters of the Tuz Tcholli Gol; over to Kaisapieh and
through the dark passes of the Anti-Taurus; then skirting the shining
Mediterranean, I saw French Syria at Aleppo, Hamah, and Damascus; I saw
Zion and the new Jerusalem and came into the ancient valley of the Nile
and into the narrow winding streets of Cairo.”
“You have seen the world, Kautilya, the real and darker world. The world
that was and is to be.”
“It was a mighty revelation, and it culminated fittingly in Egypt, where
in a great hall of the old university hung with rugs to keep out both
the eavesdropper and the light, the first great congress of the darker
nations met under the presidency of Zahglul Pasha. We had all gathered
slowly and unobtrusively as tourists, business men, religious leaders,
students, and beggars, and we met unnoticed in a city where color of
skin is nothing to comment on and where strangers are all too common. We
were a thousand strong, and never were Asia, Africa, and the islands
represented by stronger, more experienced, and more intelligent men.
“Your people were there, Matthew, but they did not come as Negroes.
There were black men who were Egyptians; there were black men who were
Turks; there were black men who were Indians, but there were no black
men who represented purely and simply the black race and Africa.
“Of all the things we did and planned and said in a series of meetings,
I will tell you in other days. Let it suffice now to say that I came
back to Europe by Naples and Paris and then went to Berlin. There I sat
and planned with a small special committee, and there it was that I
brought up the question of American Negroes, of whom I had heard much in
Russia. The committee was almost unanimously opposed. They thought of
Negroes only as slaves and half-men, and were afraid to risk their
coöperation, lest they lose their own dignity and place; but they were
not unwilling to let American Negroes, if they would, start some
agitation or overt act. Even if it amounted to nothing, as they
expected, it would at least focus attention. It would intensify feeling.
It would help the coming crisis.
“But who could do this?
“The curious and beautiful accident of our meeting, after my committee
had discussed and rejected the Negroes of America as little more than
slaves, deeply impressed me. And in the face of strong advice, as you
know, I helped you to return to America and report to me on the rumored
uprising which had been revealed to me by curious and roundabout ways.
“I was not thinking of you then, Matthew, at least not consciously. I
was thinking of the great Cause and I wanted information. I looked at
America and tried to understand it. There was here a mystery of the art
of living that the world must have in order to have time for life. I saw
America and lost you. Almost, in the new intensity of my thinking, I
forgot you as a physical fact. You remained only as a spirit which I
recognized as part of me and part of the universe. And then suddenly the
blow came, falling through open skies, and I saw you facing disgrace and
death and locked for ten years in jail.
“Before I saw you, I, with most of the others except the Chinese, had
thought of our goal as a substitution of the rule of dark men in the
world for the rule of white, because the colored peoples were the
noblest and best bred. But you said one word that night at dinner.”
“I did not say it—it was said. I opened my mouth and it was filled.”
“You remember it! It was a great word that swung back the doors of a
world to me. You said that the masses of men of all races might be the
best of men simply imprisoned by poverty and ignorance.
“It came to me like a great flash of new light, and you, the son of
slaves, were its wonderful revelation. I determined to go to America, to
study and see. I began to feel that my dream of the world based on the
domination of an ancient royal race and blood might not be all right,
but that as Lord Buddha said, and as we do not yet understand, humanity
itself was royal.
“Then things happened so rapidly that I lost my grip and balance and
sense of right and wrong. I sent you on a wild chase to almost certain
death. I planned to go with you to watch and see. The secret, powerful
hand of the junta sought to threaten us both and save the great cause.
How singularly we fought at cross purposes! They wanted you to go and
stir up any kind of wild revolt, but they wanted to keep me and
themselves from any possible connection with it in thought and deed.
They almost threatened you with death. They pushed you out alone. They
tried to keep me from sailing. And finally you went down into the
depths, dear heart, almost to the far end.” Her voice fell away, and
they lay and watched the birth of the new and sun-kissed day.
All that day they wandered and talked and finally late at night came
home. Kautilya was almost ready for bed when she said drowsily:
“Oh, Matthew—the little leather bag I brought—where did you put it,
dear?”
“Leather bag? I saw none.”
“But it was not at the union headquarters. They said I took it with me
to—to Sara’s.”
“Then you must have left it there. We carried nothing away. Nothing.”
“Oh, dear—I must have left it—what shall I do?”
“Was it valuable or just clothes?”
“It was—valuable. Very valuable, intrinsically and—in meaning.”
“I am so sorry—may I ask—?”
“Yes—it has many of the crown jewels of Bwodpur.”
“The crown jewels!”
“Yes. Some of them always travel with the heir to the throne. I have
carried these since father’s death. Some of the jewels are beautiful and
priceless. Others, like the great ruby, are full of legends and
superstitious memory. The great ruby is by legend a drop of Buddha’s
blood. It anoints the newborn Maharajah. It is worn on his turban. It
closes his eyes in death.”
“Oh, Kautilya, Kautilya! We must find these things—I will go to Sara’s
myself. What do you think them worth—I mean would they be worth
stealing?”
“Oh, yes, they must be worth at least a hundred lakhs of rupees.”
Matthew paused, then started up.
“What—you mean—you don’t mean—a million dollars?”
“At least that—but don’t be alarmed. They are mostly too large and
unusual for sale. They are insured and I have a description. Probably
the bag is sitting somewhere unnoticed. Oh, I am so careless; but don’t
worry. Let me write a note and call a messenger. I have faithful
helpers. The bag will soon be found.”
The note was dispatched, and Kautilya was soon making a mysterious
Indian dish for supper and singing softly.
Matthew was still thinking with astonishment, “The crown jewels of
Bwodpur—a million dollars!”
VX
Sammy was uneasy. He had a telegram from Sara announcing her sudden
return from New York. She was arriving in the morning. But there was no
letter in answer to several urgent ones from Sammy, a bit misspelled and
messy, but to the point. He had suggested among other things that Sara
remain east until September.
Sara, after the tragic failure of her long-laid plans, had taken a trip
to New York. She put on her best clothes and took plenty of funds. She
wired to the Plaza for a suite of rooms—a sitting-room, bedroom, and
bath. She arrived in the morning of April io on the Twentieth Century,
had a good lunch, and went to a dressmaker whose name and ability she
had learned. She ordered a half-dozen new gowns. She secured, at the
hotel, orchestra seats for two good shows—Ziegfeld’s Follies and a revue
at the Winter Garden, and she also got a seat for The Jewels of the
Madonna at the Metropolitan. She hired a car with a liveried chauffeur
and drove through the park and down the avenue to Washington Square and
back to the Plaza and had tea there; she took a walk, went to the
Capitol, and dined at the Ritz.
For four or five days Sara tried the joys of free spending and costly
amusement. She was desperately lonesome. Then she struck up acquaintance
with a lady and her husband whom she met at the Plaza by the accident of
sitting at the same table. They were from Texas. Sara was a bit
dismayed, but did not flinch. They were as lonesome and distraught as
she and grabbed like her at the novelty of a new voice. They played
together at theater and dinner, rides to Westchester and Long Island,
and at night they went to Texas Guinan’s club, accompanied by an extra
man whom the husband had picked up somewhere. Sara was sleepy and bored,
and the drinks which she tasted made her sick. Her escort when sober
danced indifferently and was quite impossible as he got gradually drunk.
Next morning Sara arose late with a headache, reserved a berth to
Chicago, and wired Sammy:
“Arrive tomorrow morning at nine.”
Sammy had not been expecting this. In fact he had made up his mind that
she would be away at least three months and was laying his plans. This
sudden turn upset him. He looked about the office helplessly. When the
Fall campaign began, he would want Sara back in harness; but he was not
ready for her now. First of all, that damned Towns had made no move
toward a divorce. There were his belongings which Sara had bundled up
hastily and sent to him when she left. They were in the corner of his
office now, and Sammy rose and aimlessly looked them over. There was a
bundle of clothes, two boxes of books, and two bags. What had Sara
written about these bags? Yes, here was the note.
“This smaller bag is not his and doesn’t belong in the house. It was
sitting in the library. It may belong to some of the guests or to that
woman. If it is inquired for, return it. If not, throw it away.”
Sammy lifted it. It seemed rather solid. He picked it up and examined
it. It was of solid thick leather and tarnished metal, which looked like
silver. It was securely locked. There was a small crest stamped on the
silver. Yes, it undoubtedly belonged to the Princess. It would be an
excuse for another visit to her.
Then Sammy sat down, eyeing the bag idly, and returned to his thoughts.
Neither Sara nor Matthew had made the slightest movement toward a
divorce. Now it was Sammy’s pet idea that Sara should not begin
proceedings. He wanted her to pose for some time as the injured victim.
He wanted Towns to kill himself beyond redemption by not only deserting
Sara but brazenly seeking legal separation. Now that neither made a move
Sammy got uneasy. What was the big idea? Was Sara going to hold on to
him because she wanted him back or just to thwart the other woman? Did
Matthew want his freedom, or was he playing around and ready to return
to Sara later? Sammy was stumped. He had spoken to Matthew before the
lady, and yet Matthew had neither answered nor taken any steps. Didn’t
the woman want Matthew divorced?
Then Sammy looked at the bag again. Queer woman—queer bag. Didn’t look
or feel like a toilet case. No—contents weren’t soft enough for
clothing. Well—he must get rid of this junk and clean up his office and
Sara’s and get ready for her tomorrow. Then Sammy looked at that bag
again. What was this “Princess,” anyhow? What was her game? Here was a
chance to find out. He tried to open the bag. It was securely locked.
The lock was very curious and was probably a combination and not a key
lock, in spite of certain holes. Sammy again felt carefully of the
contents—shook the bag, turned it around and upside down. Then suddenly
he shut and locked the door and drew the curtain and took out his knife.
He attempted to slit the leather. It was very heavy, and once cut, after
considerable difficulty, it revealed a fine steel mesh below. Sammy was
aroused and beset with curiosity. He got a wire ripper and soon had a
hole about two inches long. Through this he drew a small Russian leather
box fastened with a gold or gilded clasp. He opened this and found a
dozen or more large transparent unset stones that looked like diamonds.
Sammy began to perspire. Then he wiped the sweat from his brow and sat
down to think. He examined his own diamond ring. These stones certainly
looked genuine. They scratched the window glass. But—it couldn’t be! If
these were diamonds they’d be worth—Hell! Sammy took out one, closed the
box, and inserted it in the bag. He closed the aperture carefully and
started with it to the safe. No, suppose Sara asked for it! No, he
turned it around and set it carelessly and in full sight in the corner.
Then he unlocked the office door and ’phoned Corruthers.
“Say,” he said when Corruthers appeared, “take this to Ben and see if
it’s worth anything.”
Corruthers ran his fingers through his red hair.
“Phony,” he declared. “Who stuck you with it?”
“Shut up,” said Sammy, “and ask Ben and don’t try no monkey business
neither.”
Corruthers was back in a half hour.
“Say,” he began excitedly. “Where’d you get this—”
Sammy interrupted. “Send them clothes and books to Towns.”
“Sure—but—”
“What’s the stone worth?”
“Five thousand dollars.”
Sammy bit his cigar in two but managed to keep from swallowing the stub
and dropping the end—
“Oh—er—that all?”
“Well—you might get more if you could prove ownership. He says it’s an
unusual stone. How—”
“’Tain’t mine,” said Sammy. “Probably stolen. A bird wanted to sell it,
but I don’t know—” and he shooed Corruthers out.
Five thousand! And one of a dozen! And that bag. Again Sammy locked up
carefully, drew the shades, and turned on the electric lights. Then he
brought the bag to the desk and with a knife and improvised tools, tore
it entirely open. There were a half-dozen boxes, several paper bundles,
and two or three chamois bags. He spread the contents out on the desk
and literally gasped. Such jewels he had never seen. Not only smaller
uncut diamonds in profusion, but several large stones in intricate
settings, beautiful emeralds, two or three bags of lovely matched
pearls, and above all, a great crimson ruby that looked like a huge drop
of blood.
Sammy gasped, sat down, stood up, whistled, and whirled about; and
whirling, faced, sitting quietly in his own chair, a person who seemed
at first an utter stranger. Then Sammy recognized him as the Indian with
whom he had had several conferences during the campaign and whom he had
met together with the young radical Negro down at the radical
Box-Makers’ Union.
Sammy suddenly grew furious.
“How the hell—” he began; but the Indian interrupted suavely.
“Through the window there,” he said. “You pulled the shade down, but you
didn’t lock the window. I have been watching there several days.”
“Well, by God,” and Sammy half turned toward the desk; but the Indian
still spoke very quietly.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” he said.
Sammy didn’t. On the other hand he sat down in another chair and faced
the Indian.
“Well, what about it?” he said.
“These jewels,” said the Indian, “are, as I presume you suspect, the
property of her Royal Highness, the Princess of Bwodpur. In fact they
are part of the crown jewels which always accompany the heir to the
throne wherever he or she goes. Her Royal Highness is unfortunately very
careless. She had the jewels with her when she started to interview Mr.
Towns that night, and in the turmoil of the evening, evidently forgot
them. Yesterday she sent me a note asking that I find them. I went to
the residence of Mrs. Towns and found it locked on account of her
absence, but I secured entrance.”
“That kind of thing sometimes lands people in jail,” said Sammy dryly.
“Yes,” said the Indian, “and the theft of jewels like these might land
one further in jail and for a longer time.”
Sammy didn’t answer, and the Indian continued: “I searched the house and
was satisfied that the bag was not there, and then I learned that
certain things had been delivered at your office. I came down here and
saw the bag sitting here. That was early yesterday morning, while the
janitor was sweeping.”
“Damn him!” said Sammy.
“It wasn’t his fault,” said the Indian. “I forget what excuse I gave
him, but you may be sure it was a legitimate one. Yesterday and today I
have spent watching you to be sure of your attitude.”
“Well?” said Sammy.
“Well,” returned the Indian, “I had hoped that the proof which I have
would secure the bag, untampered with and without question or delay.”
“What proof?” asked Sammy.
“A careful description of the jewels made by the well-known firm which
has insured them and which would at the slightest notice put detectives
on their track. Also, a letter from her Royal Highness directing that
these jewels be delivered to me.”
“And you expect to get these on such trumped-up evidence?”
“Yes,” said the Indian.
“And suppose I refuse?”
“I shall persuade you not to.”
Sammy thought the matter over. “Say,” said he, “can’t you and I come to
some agreement? Why, here is a fortune. Is there any use wasting it on
Matthew and that Princess?”
“We can come to an agreement,” said the Indian.
“What?” asked Sammy.
“You have,” said the Indian, “an unset diamond in your pocket which,
with a certificate of ownership that I could give you, would easily be
worth ten thousand dollars. You may keep it.”
Sammy rose in a rage. “I can not only keep that,” he said, “but I can
keep the whole damn shooting-match and—” But he didn’t get any further.
The Indian had arisen and showed in the folds of his half-Oriental dress
a long, wicked-looking dagger.
“I should regret,” he said, “the use of violence, but her Royal
Highness’ orders are peremptory. She would rather avoid, if possible,
the police. I am therefore going to take these jewels to her. If
afterward you should wish to prosecute her, you can easily do it.”
Sammy quickly came to his senses: “Go ahead,” he said.
The Indian deftly packed the jewels, always managing to face Sammy in
the process. Finally, with a very polite good night, he started to the
door.
“Say,” said Sammy, “where are you going to take those jewels?”
“I have orders,” said the Indian slowly, “to place them in the hands of
Matthew Towns.”
The door closed softly after him. Sammy seated himself and thought the
matter over. He had a very beautiful diamond in his pocket which he
examined with interest. His own feeling was that it would make a very
splendid engagement ring for Sara. Then he started…. Suppose these
jewels were given to Matthew, or part of them, and suppose Sara got wind
of it? Would she ever give Matthew up? That was a serious matter—a very
serious matter. In fact, she must not get wind of it. Then Sammy
frowned. Good Lord! He had actually had his hands on something that
looked like at least one million dollars. Ah, well! It was dangerous
business. Only fools stole jewels of that sort.
A messenger boy entered with a telegram.
Have decided to go to Atlantic City. Do not expect me until I write.
Sara.
VII
“I’ve got a job,” said Matthew, early in June.
Kautilya turned quickly and looked at him with something of apprehension
in her gaze. It was a beautiful day. Kautilya had been arranging and
cleaning, singing and smiling to herself, and then stopping suddenly and
standing with upturned face as though listening to inner or far-off
voices. Matthew had been gone all the morning and now returned laden
with bundles and with a sheaf of long-stemmed roses, red and white,
which Kautilya seized with a low cry and began to drape like cloud and
sun upon the table.
Then she hurried to the phonograph and put a record on, singing with its
full voice—a flare of strange music, haunting, alluring, loving. It
poured out of the room, and Matthew joined in, and their blended voices
dropped on the weary, dirty street. The tired stopped and listened. The
children danced. Then at last:
“I’ve got a job,” said Matthew; and answering her look and silence with
a caress, he added: “I got it myself—it’s just the work of a common
laborer. I’m going to dig in the new subway. I shall get four dollars a
day.”
“I am glad,” said Kautilya. “Tell me all about it.”
“There is not much. I’ve noticed the ads and today I went out and
applied. There was one of Sammy’s gang there. He said I wouldn’t like
this—that he could get me on as foreman or timekeeper. I told him I
wanted to dig.”
“To dig, that’s it,” said Kautilya. “To get down to reality, Matthew.
For us now, life begins. Come, my man, we have played and, oh! such
sweet and beautiful play. Now the time of work dawns. We must go about
our Father’s business. Let’s talk about it. Let’s stand upon the peaks
again where once we stood and survey the kingdoms of this world and plot
our way and plan our conquests. Oh, Matthew, Matthew, we are rulers and
masters! We start to dig, remaking the world. Too long, too long we have
stood motionless in darkness and dross. Up! To the work, in air and sun
and heaven. How is our world, and when and where?”
They sat down to a simple lunch and Matthew talked.
“We must dig it out with my shovel and your quick wit. Here in America
black folk must help overthrow the rule of the rich by distributing
wealth more evenly first among themselves and then in alliance with
white labor, to establish democratic control of industry. During the
process they must keep step and hold tight hands with the other
struggling darker peoples.”
“Difficult—difficult,” mused Kautilya, “for the others have so different
a path. In my India, for instance, we must first emancipate ourselves
from the subtle and paralyzing misleading of England—which divides our
forces, bribes our brains, emphasizes our jealousies, encourages our
weaknesses. Then we must learn to rule ourselves politically and to
organize our old industry on new modern lines for two objects: our own
social uplift and our own defense against Europe and America. Otherwise,
Europe and America will continue to enslave us. Can we accomplish this
double end in one movement?”
“It is paradoxical, but it must be done,” said Matthew. “Our hope lies
in the growing multiplicity and world-wide push of movements like ours;
the new dark will to self-assertion. China must achieve united and
independent nationhood; Japan must stop aping the West and North and
throw her lot definitely with the East and South. Egypt must stop
looking north for prestige and tourists’ tips and look south toward the
black Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa for a new economic
synthesis of the tropics.”
“And meantime, Matthew, our very hope of breaking the sinister and fatal
power of Europe lies in Europe itself: in its own drear disaster; in
negative jealousies, hatreds, and memories; in the positive power of
revolutionary Russia, in German Socialism, in French radicalism and
English labor. The Power and Will is in the world today. Unending
pressure, steadying pull, blow on blow, and the great axis of the world
quest will turn from Wealth to Men.”
“The mission of the darker peoples, my Kautilya, of black and brown and
yellow, is to raise out of their pain, slavery, and humiliation, a
beacon to guide manhood to health and happiness and life and away from
the morass of hate, poverty, crime, sickness, monopoly, and the
mass-murder called war.”
Kautilya sat with glowing eyes. She looked at Matthew and whispered:
“Day dawns. We must—start.”
Matthew hesitated and faltered. He talked like one exploring the dark:
“I had thought I might dig here in Chicago and that you might write and
study, and that we together might live far out somewhere alone with
trees and stars and carry on—correspondence with the world; and
perhaps—”
“If we only could,” she said softly; and in the instant both knew it was
an impossible idyl.
A week went by. There grew a certain stillness and apprehension in the
air. The hard heat of July was settling on Chicago. Each morning Matthew
put on his overalls and took his dinner-pail and went down into the
earth to dig. Each night he came home, bathed, and put on the gorgeous
dressing-gown Kautilya had bought him and sat down to the dinner
Kautilya had cooked—it was always good, but simple, and he ate
enormously. Then there was music, a late stroll beneath the stars, and
bed. But always in Kautilya’s eyes, the rapt look burned.
And little things were beginning to happen. At first Matthew’s old
popularity in his district had protected him. He always met nods and
greetings as he and Kautilya fared forth and back. Then came
reaction—the social tribute of the half-submerged to standards of
respectability. Here and there a woman sneered, a child yelled, and a
policeman was gruff. As weeks went by, Sammy interfered, and active
hostility was evident. Jibes multiplied from chance passers-by who
recognized them; the sneers of policemen were open. Then came the
question of money, which never occurred to Kautilya, but drove Matthew
mad when he tried to stretch his meager wage beyond the simple food to
American Beauty roses and new books and bits of silk and gold.
Tonight as they returned from a silent but sweet stroll a bit earlier
than their wont, they met a crowd of children, those children who seem
never to have a bedtime. The children stared, laughed, jeered, and then
stoned them. Matthew would have rushed upon them to tear their flesh,
but Kautilya soothed him, and they came breathless home.
They stood awhile clinging in the dark. Then slowly Matthew took her
shoulders in his hand and said:
“We have had the day God owed us, Kautilya, and now at last we must face
facts frankly. Here and in this way I cannot protect you, I cannot
support you, and neither of us can do the great work which is our
dream.”
“It was brave and good of you, Matthew, to speak first when you knew how
hard the duty was to me and how weak I am in presence of our love. Yes,
we have had the day God owed us—and now, Matthew, the day of our parting
dawns. I am going away.”
He knew that she was going to say this, and yet until it was said he
kept trying to believe it would not come. Now when it did come it struck
upon his ears like doom. The brownness of his face went gray, and his
cheeks sagged with sudden age. He looked at her with stricken eyes, and
she, sobbing, smiled at him through tears.
“You are a brave man,” she went on steadily. “In this last great deed, I
will not fear. I go to greet the ghosts of all my fathers, the
Maharajahs of Bwodpur. India calls. The black world summons. I must be
about my fathers’ business. Tomorrow, I go. This night, this beautiful
night, is ours. Behold the good, sweet moon and the white dripping of
the stars. There shall be no fire tonight, save in our twined bodies and
in our flaming hearts.”
But he only whispered, “Parted!”
“Courage, my darling,” she said. “Nothing, not even the high Majesty of
Death, shall part us for a moment. There is a sense—a beautiful
meaning—in which we two can never part. To all time, we are one wedded
soul. The day may dawn when in cries and tears of joy we shall feel each
other’s arms again. But we must not deceive ourselves. It is possible
that now and from this incarnate spirit we part forever. Great currents
and waves of forces are rolling down between. It may not lie in human
power to breast them. But, Matthew, oh, Matthew, always, always wherever
I am and no matter how dark and drear the silence—always I am with you
and by your side.”
Matthew was calm again and spoke slowly: “No, we will not deceive each
other,” he said; “I know as well as you that we must part. I am ready
for the sacrifice, Kautilya. There was a time when I did not know the
meaning of sacrifice, when I interpreted it as surrendering an ounce to
get a pound, exchanging a sunrise for a summer. But now, I know that if
I am asked to give up you forever, and nothing, nothing can come in
return, I shall do it quietly and with no outcry. I shall work on, doing
the very best I know how. I shall keep strong in body and clear in mind
and clean in soul. I shall play the great game of life as we have
conceived and dreamed it together, and try to dream it further into
fact. But in all that living, working, doing, dear Kautilya, I shall be
dead. For without you—there is no life for me.
“I suppose that all this feeling is based on the physical urge of sex
between us. I suppose that other contacts, other experiences, might have
altered the world for us two. But the magnificent fact of our love
remains, whatever its basis or accident. It rises from the ecstasy of
our bodies to the communion of saints, the resurrection of the spirit,
and the exquisite crucifixion of God. It is the greatest thing in our
world. I sacrifice it, when I must, for nobler worlds that others may
enjoy.”
“I did not mistake you, Matthew; I knew you would understand. The time
is come for infinite wisdom itself to think life out for us. This
honeymoon of our high marriage with God alone as priest must end. It was
our due. We earned it. But now we must earn a higher, finer thing.”
Then hesitatingly she continued and spoke the yet unspoken word:
“First comes your duty to Sara. Even if you had not miraculously
returned to me, you would have been forced to let Sara know by some
unanswerable cataclysm that you would no longer follow her
leading—either this, or your spiritual death; for you knew it, and you
were planning revolt and flight. You were frightened at the thought of
poverty and unlovely work; but now that you are free and have known
love, you must return to Sara and say:
“‘See, I am a laborer: I will not lie and cheat and steal, but I will
work in any honest way.’ If it still happens that she wants you, wants
the real you, whom she knows now but partially and must in the end know
fully—a man honest to his own hurt, not greedy for wealth; loving all
mankind and rejoicing in the simple things of life—if she wants this
man, I—I must let you go. For she is a woman; she has her rights.”
Matthew answered slowly:
“But she will not want me; I grieve to say it in pity, for I suffer with
all women. Sara loves no one but herself. She can never love. To her
this world-tangle of the races is a lustful scramble for place and power
and show. She is mad because she is handicapped in the scramble. She
would gladly trample anything beneath her feet, black, white, yellow, if
only she could ride in gleaming triumph at the procession’s head.
Jealousy, envy, pride, fill the little crevices of her soul. No, she
will not want me. But—if you will—as you have said, hers shall be the
choice. She must ask divorce, not I. And even beyond that I will offer
her fully and freely my whole self.”
“And in the meantime,” said Kautilya, “there are greater things—greater
issues to be tested. We will wait on the high gods to see if maybe they
will point the way for us to work together for the emancipation of the
world. But if they decide otherwise, then, Matthew—”
“Then,” continued Matthew gently, “we are parted, and forever.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “You and I, apart but eternally one, must walk the
long straight path of renunciation in order that the work of the world
shall go forward at our hands. We must work. We must work with our
hands. We must work with our brains. We must stand before Vishnu;
together we will serve.
“For, Matthew, hear my confession. I too face the horror of sacrifice.
All is not well in Bwodpur, and each day I hearken for the call of doom
across the waters. The old Rajah, my faithful guardian and ruler in my
stead, is dead. Tradition, jealousy, intrigue, loom. For of me my people
have a right to demand one thing: a Maharajah in Bwodpur, and one—of the
blood royal!”
Matthew dropped his hands suddenly. Suddenly he knew that his own
proposal of sacrifice was but an empty gesture, for Sara did not want
him—would never want him. But Bwodpur wanted—a King!
Kautilya spoke slowly, standing with hanging hands and with face
upraised toward the moon.
“We widows of India, even widows who, like me, were never wives, must
ever face the flame of Sati. And in living death I go to meet the
Maharajah of Bwodpur.”
“Go with God, for after all it is not merely me you love, but rather the
world through me.”
“You are right and wrong, Matthew; I would not love you, did you not
signify and typify to me this world and all the burning worlds beyond,
the souls of all the living and the dead and of them that are to be.
Because of this I love you, you alone. Yet I would love you if there
were no world. I shall love you when the world is not.”
She continued, after a space:
“I did not tell you, but yesterday my great and good friend, the
Japanese baron whom you have met and dislike because you do not know
him, came to see me. He knows always where I am and what I do, for it is
written that I must tell him. You do not realize him yet, Matthew. He is
civilization—he is the high goal toward which the world blindly gropes;
high in birth and perfect in courtesy, filled with wide, deep, and
intimate knowledge of the world’s past—the world, white, black, brown,
and yellow: knowing by personal contact and acquaintanceship the present
from kings to coolies. He is a man of lofty ideal without the
superstition of religion, a man of decision and action. He is our
leader, Matthew, the guide and counselor, the great Prime Minister of
the Darker World.
“He brought me information—floods of facts: the great conspiracy of
England to re-grip the British mastery of the world at any cost; the
titanic struggle behind the scenes in Russia between toil and ignorance
defending the walls against organized stupidity and greed in Western
Europe and America. He tells me of the armies and navies, of new
millionaires in Germany and France, of new Caesarism in Italy, of the
failing hells of Poland and dismembered Slavdom. The world is a great
ripe cherry, gory, rotten—it must be plucked lest it fall and smash.
“My friend talked long of Asia—of my India, of poor Bwodpur. The Dewan
who now rules for me, for all his loyalty and ability and his
surrounding of young and able men, is distraught with trouble. It is
unheard of that a Maharanee without a Maharajah should rule in Bwodpur.
Some will not believe that the old Rajah is dead, but say that, shut up
within his castle in High Himalaya, that ancient and unselfish man, who
was my King in name, still lives as the reincarnate Buddha—lives and
rules, and they would worship him. Around this and other superstitions,
the continued and inexplicable absence of the Maharanee, the innovations
of schools, health training, roads, and mysterious machinery, the
neglect of the old religion, looms the intrigue of the English on every
side—money, cheap goods, titles, decorations, hospitality, and
magnificent Durbars—oh, all is not well in Bwodpur; even the throes of
revolution threaten: Moslem and Hindu are at odds, Buddhist and
Christian quarrel. Bwodpur needs me, Matthew, but she needs more than
me: she needs a Maharajah.
“Facing all this, Matthew, my man, with level eye and clear brain we
must drain the cup before us: if return to India severs me from the
western world and you—if the dropping of ocean-wide dreams into the
little lake of Bwodpur is my destiny—the will of Vishnu prevail. If your
reunion with Sara is the only step toward the real redemption and
emancipation of black America, then, Matthew, drain the cup. But after
all, the day of decision is not yet. And whatever comes, Love—our love
is already eternal.”
Matthew pondered and said:
“The paradox is amazing: the only thing that was able to lift me from
cynical selfishness, organized theft and deception, was that finest
thing within me—this love and idealization of you. If I had not followed
it at every cost, I should have sunk beneath hell. And yet now I am
anathema to my people. I am the Sunday School example of one who sold
his soul to the devil. I am painted as punished with common labor for
following lust and desecrating the home. People who recognize me all but
spit upon me in the street. Oh, Kautilya, what shall we do against these
forces that are pushing, prying, rending us apart? Is it possible that
the great love of a man for a woman—the perfect friendship and communion
of two human beings—can ever be mere evil?”
They turned toward the room and looked at it. “I cannot keep these
things,” he said. “They mean you. They meant you unconsciously before I
knew that I should ever see you again. The Chinese rug was the splendid
coloring of your skin; the Matisse was the flame of your high spirit;
the music was your voice. I am going to move to one simple, bare room
where again and unhindered by things, I can see this little place of
beauty with you set high in its midst. And I shall picture you still in
its midst. I could not bear to see any one of these things without you.”
She hesitated. “I understand, I think, and the rug and picture shall go
with me,” she said. “And yet I hate to think of your living barely and
crudely without the bits of beauty you have placed about you. Yet
perhaps it is well. In my land, you know, men often, in their strong
struggle with life, go out and leave life and strip themselves of
everything material that could impede or weight the soul, and sit naked
and alone before their God. Perhaps, Matthew, it would be well for you
to do this. A little space—a little space.”
“How long before—we know?” he said, turning toward her suddenly and
taking both her hands.
“I cannot say,” she answered. “Perhaps a few weeks, perhaps a little
year. Perhaps until the spirit Vishnu comes down again to earth.”
He shivered and said, “Not so long as that, oh, Radha, not so long! And
yet if it must be—let it be.”
And so they dismantled the room and packed and baled most of the things
therein. At last in full day they went down to the Union Station and
walked slowly along toward the gates with clasped hands. A beautiful
couple, unusual in their height, in the brownness of their skins, in
their joy and absorption in each other.
A porter passed by, stopped, and glanced back. He whispered to another:
“That’s him; and that’s the woman.” Then others whispered, porters and
passengers. A knot of the curious gathered and stared. But the two did
not hurry; they did not notice. Some one even hissed, “Shameless!” and
some one else said, “Fool!” and still they walked on and through the
gates and to the train. He kissed her lips and kissed her hands, and
without tears or words she stepped on the train and looked backward as
it moved off. Suddenly he lifted both hands on high, and tears rolled
down his cheeks.
VIII
Matthew wrote to Kautilya at the New Willard in Washington, and in one
of his letters he said: “I am digging a Hole in the Earth. It is
singular to think how much of life is and has been just digging holes.
All the farmers; all the miners; all of the builders, and how many many
others have just dug holes! The bowels of the great crude earth must be
pierced and plumbed and explored if we would wrest its secrets from it.
I have a sense of reality in this work such as I have never had
before—neither in medicine nor travel, neither as porter, prisoner, nor
law-maker. What I am actually doing may be little, but it is
indispensable. So much can not be said of healing nor writing novels. I
am digging not to plant, not to explore, but to make a path for walking,
running, and riding; a little round tunnel through which man may send
swiftly small sealed boxes full of human souls, from Dan even unto
Beersheba.
“Yes, just about that. Just about fifty miles of tunnel we will have
before this new Chicago subway is finished. And you have no idea of the
problems—the sweat, the worry, the toil of digging this little hole. For
it is little, compared to the vast and brawny body of this mighty earth.
It is like the path of some thin needle in a great football of twine.
The earth resists, frantically, fiercely, tenaciously. We have to fight
it; to outguess it; to know the unknown and measure the unmeasured.
“There lies the innocent dust and sand of a city street held down from
flying by bits of stone and pressed asphalt. So pliant and yielding, so
vulnerable. But it is watching—watching and waiting. I can feel it; I
can hear it. It will make a bitter struggle to hide its heart from
prying eyes. Its very surrender is danger; its resistance may be death.
I go down girded for a fight with a hundred others in jersies and
overalls and thick heavy shoes. We are like hard-limbed Grecian
athletes, but less daintily clad. One can see the same ripple and
swelling of muscles, and I felt at first ashamed of my flabbiness. But
this thing is real, not mere sport: we are not playing. There is no
laughing gallery with waving colors and triumphant cries. For us this
thing is life and death, food and drink, commerce, education, and art. I
am in deadly earnest. I am bare, sweating, untrammeled. My muscles
already begin to flow smooth and unconfined. I have no stomach, either
in flesh or spirit. My body is all life and eagerness, without weight.
“Rain, sun, dust, heat and cold; the well, the sick, the wounded, and
the dead. I saw a man make a little misstep and jump forward; his head
struck the end of a projecting beam and cracked sickeningly. In fifteen
minutes he was forgotten and the army closed ranks and went forward; I
just heard the echo of the cry of his woman as it sobbed down to the mud
underneath the ground. Yes, it is War, eternal War from the beginning to
the end. We plumb the entrails of the earth.
“The earth below the city is full of secret thirtgs. Voices are there
calling day and night from everywhere to everybody. I did not know
before the paths they chose, but now I see them whispering over long
gray bones beneath the streets. Lakes and rivers flow there, pouring
from the hills down to the kitchen sinks with steady pulse beneath the
iron street. Thin blue gas burns there in leaden pockets to cook and
heat, and light is carried in steel to blaze in parlors above the dark
earth. There is a strange world of secret things—of wire pipes, great
demijohns and caverns, secret closets, and long, silent tunnels here
beneath the streets.
“The houses sag, stagger, and reel above us, but they do not fall: we
hold them, force them back and prop them up. A slimy sewer breaks and
drenches us; we mend it and send its dirty waters on to the canal, the
river, and the sea. Gas pipes leak and stifle us. Electricity flashes;
but we are curiously armed with such power to command and such faith
like mountains that all nature obeys us. Lamps of Aladdin are everywhere
and do their miracles for the rubbing: great steel and harnessed Genii,
a hundred feet high, lumber blindly along at our beck and call to dig,
lift, talk, push, weep, and swear. Yesterday, one of the giants died;
fell forward and crumpled into sticks and bits of broken steel; but it
shed no blood; it only hissed in horror. We strain in vast contortions
underneath the ground. We perform vast surgical operations with
insertions of lumber and steel and muscle; we tear down stone with
thunder and lightning; we build stone up again with water and cement. We
defy every law of nature, swinging a thousand tons above us on nothing;
taking away the foundations of the city and leaving it delicately
swaying on air, afraid to fall. We dive and soar, defying gravitation.
We have built a little world down here below the earth, where we live
and dream. Who planned it? Who owns it? We do not know.
“And right here I seem to see the answer to the first question of our
world-work: What are you and I trying to do in this world? Not merely to
transpose colors; not to demand an eye for an eye. But to straighten out
the tangle and put the feet of our people, and all people who will, on
the Path. The first step is to reunite thought and physical work. Their
divorce has been a primal cause of disaster. They that do the world’s
work must do it thinking. The thinkers, dreamers, poets of the world
must be its workers. Work is God.”
Matthew laid down the pen and wrote no further that day. He had a
singular sense of physical power and spiritual freedom. There was no
doubt in his heart concerning the worth of the work he was doing—of its
good, of its need. Never before in his life had he worked without such
doubt. He felt here no compulsion to pretend; to believe what he did not
believe; or to be that which he did not want to be.
IX
To the woman riding alone into an almost unknown world, all life went
suddenly black and tasteless. In a few short years and without dream of
such an end, she had violated nearly every tradition of her race, nearly
every prejudice of her family, nearly every ideal of her own life. She
had sacrificed position, wealth, honor, and virginity on the altar of
one far-flaming star. Was it worth it? Was there a chance to win
through, and to win to what? What was this horrible, imponderable,
unyielding mask of a world which she faced and fought?
The dark despair of loneliness overwhelmed her spirit. The pain of the
world lay close upon her like a fitted coffin, airless, dark, silent.
Why, why should she struggle on? Was it yet too late? A few words on
this bit of yellow paper, and lo! could she not again be a ruling
monarch? one whose jewels and motor-cars, gowns and servants, palaces
and Durbars would make a whole world babble?
What if she did have to pay for this deep thrill of Life with submission
to white Europe, with marriage without love, with power without
substance? Could she not still live and dance and sing? Was she not yet
young, scarce twenty-six, and big with the lust for life and joy? She
could wander in wide and beautiful lands; she could loll, gamble, and
flirt at Lido, Deauville, and Scheveningen; she could surround herself
with embodied beauty: look on beautiful pictures; walk on priceless
carpets; build fairy-tales in wood and stone!
On all this she was trying to turn her back, for what? For the shade of
a shadow. For a wan, far-off ideal of a world of justice to people
yellow, black, and brown; and even beyond that, for the uplift of maimed
and writhing millions. Dirty people and stupid, men who bent and crawled
and toiled, cringed and worshiped snakes and gold and gaudy show. What,
where, and whither lay the way to all this? It was the perfect love and
devotion of one human soul, one whose ideals she tried to think were
hers, and hers, his.
Granting the full-blown glory of the dream, was it humanly possible? Was
there this possibility of uplift in the masses of men? Was there even in
Matthew himself, with all his fineness of soul, the essential strength,
the free spirit, the high heart, and the understanding mind? Had he that
great resolve back of the unswerving deftness of a keen brain which
could carry through Revolution in the world? He was love. Yes, incarnate
love and tenderness, and delicate unselfish devotion of soul. But was
there, under this, the iron for suffering, the thunder for offense, and
the lightning for piercing through the thick-threaded gloom of the
world, and for flashing the seething crimson of justice to it and
beyond? And if in him there lay such seed of greatness, would it grow?
Would it sprout and grow? Or had servility shriveled it and
disappointment chilled it and surrender to the evil and lying and
stealing of life deadened it at the very core?
Oh, Matthew, Matthew! Did he know just what she had done and how much
she had given and suffered? Did he still hold the jewel of her love and
surrender high in heaven, or was she after all at this very moment
common and degraded in his sight? Gracious Karma, where was she in truth
now? She of the sacred triple cord, a royal princess of India and
incarnate daughter of gods and kings! She who had crossed half the world
to him, fighting like a lioness for her own body. Where was she now in
the eyes and mind of the man whom she had raised in her soul and set
above the world? Only time would tell. Time and waiting—bitter, empty
waiting. Waiting with hanging hands. And then one other thing, one thing
above all Things, one mighty secret which she had but partially breathed
even to Matthew. For there was a King in India who sued for her hand. He
willed to be Maharajah of Bwodpur. He would lead Swaraj in India. He
would unite India and China and Japan. He pressed for an answer. Bwodpur
pressed. Sindrabad pressed. All the world pressed down on one lone
woman.
Then as she sat there crumpled and wan, with tear-swept eyes and
stricken heart, slowly a picture dissolved and swam and grew faint and
plain and clear before her: a little dark cabin, swathed in clinging
vines, nestling beneath great trees and beside a singing brook; flowers
struggled up beside the door with crimson, blue, and yellow faces; hot
sunshine filtered down between the waving leaves, and winds came gently
out of sunset lands. In the door stood a woman; tall, big, and brown.
Her face seemed hard and seamed at first; but upon it her great
cavernous eyes held in their depths that softness and understanding
which calls to lost souls and strengthens and comforts them. And
Kautilya rose with wet eyes and stumbled over time and space and went
half-blind and groping to that broad, flat bosom and into those long,
enfolding arms. She strained up into the love of those old, old eyes.
“Mother,” she sobbed, “I’ve come home to wait.”
X
“I am tired,” wrote Matthew in August, “but I am singularly strong. I
think I never knew before what weariness was. At the day’s end I am
often dead on my feet, drugged and staggering. I can scarcely keep awake
to eat, and I fall to bed and die until sudden dawn comes like crashing
resurrection. Yet I have a certain new clearness of head and keenness of
vision. Dreams and fancies, pictures and thoughts, dance within my head
as I work. But I half fear them. They seem to want to drag me away from
this physical emancipation. I try to drown and forget them. They are in
the way. They may betray and subdue me.
“Where is the fulcrum to uplift our world and roll it forward? More and
more I am convinced that it lies in intelligent digging; the building of
subways by architects; the planning of subways and skyscrapers and
states by workingmen.
“Curiously enough, as it is now, we do not need brains here. Yes, here
in a work which at bottom is Thought and Method and Logic, most of us
are required not to think or reason. Only the machines may think. I
wrote of the machines as our Slaves of the Lamp, but I was wrong. We are
the slaves. We must obey the machines or suffer. Our life is simply
lifting. We are lifting the world and moving it. But only the machines
know what we are doing. We are blindfolded. If only they did not
blindfold us! If we could see the Plan and understand; if we could know
and thrust and trace in our mind’s eye this little hole in the ground
that writhes under Chicago; how the thrill of this Odyssey would nerve
and hearten us! But no, of the end of what we are doing we can only
guess vaguely. The only thing we really know is this shovelful of dirt.
Or if we dream of the millions of men this hole will shoot in and out,
up and down, back and forth—why will it shoot them and to whom and from
what into what Great End, whither, whither?
“I could not finish this, and three days have gone. Yesterday I arose
with the dawn before work and began reading. It was a revelation of joy.
I was fresh and rested and the morning was bright and young. I read
Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I am sure now that I never have read it before. I
told people quite confidently that I had. I looked particularly
intelligent when Hamlet was discussed or alluded to. But if this was the
truth, I must have read Hamlet with tired mind and weary brain;
mechanically, half-comprehendingly. This morning I read as angels read,
swooping with the thought, keen and happy with the inner spirit of the
thing. Hamlet lived, and he and I suffered together with an all too
easily comprehended hesitation at life. I shall do much reading like
this. I know now what reading is. I am going to master a hundred books.
Nothing common or cheap or trashy, but a hundred master-thoughts. I do
not believe the world holds more. These are the days of my purification
that I may rise out of selfishness and hesitation and unbelief and
depths of mental debauchery to the high and spiritual purity of love.
“Now I must go. I shall walk down to the morning sunlight which is soft
and sweet before its midday dust and heat; others gradually will join me
as I walk on. On some few faces I shall catch an answering gleam of
morning, some anticipation of a great day’s work; but on most faces
there will be but sodden grayness, a sort of ingrained weariness which
no sleep will ever last long enough to drive away—save one sleep, and
that the last.
“These faces frighten me. What is it that carves them? What makes my
fellow men who work with their hands so sick of life? What ails the
world of work? In itself, it is surely good; it is real; it is better
than polo, baseball, or golf. It is the Thing Itself. There is beauty in
its movement and in the sunshine, storm, and rain that walk beside it.
Here is art. An art singularly deep and satisfying. Who does not glow at
the touch of this imprisoned lightning that lies inert above the hole?
We touch a bit of metal: the sullen rock gives up its soul and flies to
a thousand fragments. And yet this glorious thunder of the world strikes
on deaf ears and eyes that see nothing. At morning most of us are simply
grim; at noon, we are dull; at night, we are automata. Even I cannot
entirely escape it. I was free and joyous this morning. Tonight I shall
be too tired to think or feel or plan. And after five, ten, fifteen
years of this—what?
“I am trying to think through some solution. I see the Plan—our Plan,
the great Emancipation—as clearly and truly as ever. I even know what we
must aim at, but now the question is where to begin. It’s like trying to
climb a great mountain. It takes so long to get to the foothills.
“This problem of lifting physical work to its natural level puzzles me.
If only I could work and work wildly, unstintingly, hilariously for six
full, long hours; after that, while I lie in a warm bath, I should like
to hear Tschaikowsky’s Fourth Symphony. You know the lilt and cry of it.
There must be much other music like it. Then I would like to have clean,
soft clothes and fair, fresh food daintily prepared on a shining table.
Afterward, a ride in green pastures and beside still waters; a film, a
play, a novel, and always you. You, and long, deep arguments of the
intricate, beautiful, winding ways of the world; and at last sleep, deep
sleep within your arms. Then morning and the fray.
“I would welcome with loud Hosannas the dirt, the strain, the heat, the
cold. But as it is, from the high sun of morning I rush, lurch, and
crumple to a leaden night. The food in my little, dirty restaurant is
rotten and is flung to me by a slatternly waitress who is as tired as I
am. My bed is dirty. I’m sorry, dear, but it seems impossible to keep it
clean and smooth. And then over all my neighborhood there hangs a great,
thick sheet of noise; harsh, continuous, raucous noise like a breath of
hell. It seems never to stop. It is there when I go to sleep; it rumbles
in my deepest unconsciousness, and thunders in my dreams; it begins with
dawn, rising to a shrill crescendo as I awake. There is no beauty in
this world about me—no beauty. Or if these people see beauty, they
cannot know it. They are not to blame, poor beeves; we are, we are!
“I grow half dead with physical weakness and sleep like death, but my
body waxes hard and strong. I refused a clerk’s job today, but I have
been made a sort of gang foreman. I know the men. There are Finns and
Italians, Poles, Slovaks, and Negroes. We do not understand each other’s
tongues; we have our hates and fancies. But we are one in interest: we
are all robbed by the contractors. We know it and we are trying to
organize and fight back. I do not know just what I should do in this
matter. I never before realized that a labor union means bread, sleep,
and shelter. Can we build one of this helpless, ignorant stuff? I do not
know. But this at least I do know: Work is God.”
Matthew wrote no more. He was alone, but he was trying to think things
out. What could really be done? If the task of the workers were cut in
half, would they all work correspondingly harder? Of course they would
not. Some would; he would. Most of them would sit around, dull-eyed, and
loaf. Profits would dwindle and disappear. There might even be huge
deficits. And could one get the men who knew and thought and planned all
this to guide and to lead without the price of profit?
Oh, yes, some could be got for the sheer joy of fine effort. They would
work gladly for board, clothes, and creation. Some men would do it
because they love the game. But the kind of men who were spending
profits today on the North Shore, on Fifth Avenue, Regent Street, and
the Rue de la Paix—no! It would call for a kind of man different from
them, with a different scheme of values. Yes, to work without money
profit would demand a different scheme of values in a different kind of
man; and to do full work on half-time in the ditch would need a
different kind of man, with a new dream of living: perhaps there lay the
world’s solution: in men who were—different.
He sat alone and tried to think it all out; but he could think no
further because he was too lonely. He needed the rubbing of a kindred
soul—the answering flash of another pole. His loneliness was not merely
physical; his soul was alone. Kautilya was not answering his letters,
and she had been gone two great months. Far down within him he was sick
at heart. He could not quite understand why it had seemed to Kautilya so
inevitable that they must part. He kept coming back to the question as
to whether the excuse she gave was real and complete.
Could it be possible that she must sacrifice herself to a strange and
unloved husband for reasons of state? What after all was little lost
Bwodpur in the great emancipation of races? What difference whether she
ruled as Princess or worked as worker? What was “royal blood,” after
all?
And then, too, why this illogical solicitude for Sara’s right to him,
after that supreme and utter betrayal and denial of all right? Was it
not possible, more than possible, that he had disappointed Kautilya,
just as he had disappointed himself and his mother and his people and
perhaps some far-off immutable God?
Kautilya had built a high ideal of manhood and crowned it with his
likeness, and yet when she had seen it face to face, perhaps it had
seemed to crash before her eyes.
Perhaps—and his mind writhed, hesitated; and yet he pushed it forward to
full view—perhaps, after all, there was unconsciously in Kautilya some
borrowed, strained, and seeping prejudice from the dead white world,
that made her in her inner soul and at the touch, shrink from intimate
contact with a man of his race; and perhaps without quite realizing it,
they had faced the end and she had seen life and love and dreams die;
then softly but firmly she had put him by and gone away.
Thus Matthew’s dull and tired brain dropped down to clouds of weariness.
But he did not surrender. The old desolation and despair seemed
underlaid now by harsher iron built on sheer physical strength. He did
not even rise and undress lest the ghosts of doubt grip him as he walked
and moved. He slept all night dressed and sitting at his empty deal
table, his head upon his hands. And he dreamed that God was Work.
XI
Sara had at last arrived. Sammy had met her. It was early in September,
and he had not seen her for five months. They had a good breakfast at
the Union Station, and Sammy had retailed so much news and gossip that
Sara was happier and more alive than she had felt for a long time. She
was very calm and sedate about it, but after all she knew that the Black
Belt of Chicago with its strife, intrigue, defeats, and triumphs was,
for her, Life.
“And where have you been?” asked Sammy.
“New York, Atlantic City, Boston, Newport, and a few places like that.”
“Have a good time?”
“Fair.”
Sammy whirled her home in a new Lincoln that was a dream, and a black
chauffeur in brown livery who knew his spaces to the tenth of an inch
and glided up Michigan Avenue like smooth and unreverberating lightning.
“New car?” asked Sara.
“Yep! Celebrating.”
“Celebrating—what?”
“Saw the old man last Wednesday down at Springfield.” And then Sammy
adroitly switched into a long and most interesting account of the latest
and biggest Jewish tabernacle which her pastor had bought with liberal
political donations.
Sara said nothing further about the car and that Springfield interview.
Sammy knew she was curious, but just how deeply and personally curious
she was, he was not certain. So he waited. In Sara’s apartment he
wandered about, a bit distrait, while she took her usual good time to
dress. The apartment was immaculate and in perfect order. Sammy saw no
trace of that scene five months ago. And as for Sara, when she emerged,
her simple, close-fitting tailor-made costume was all Sammy could ask or
imagine.
“I say, kid, don’t you think we might talk this thing out and come to
some understanding?”
Sara opened her eyes. “Talk what out?”
“Well, about you and me. You see, you had me going, and I had to do
something. I couldn’t just stand by and lose everything. So I got busy.
I hated to do it, but I had to.”
“You didn’t do it—God did.”
“God nothing! I remembered the woman on that train wreck and I found
her.”
“It is a lie. She found you,” said Sara.
“Well, it was a little like that, but the minute I laid eyes on her I
knew she was the woman I had heard about. And I told her all about
Matthew; how queer he was, and how he was hesitating, and how no man
like him could ever make a politician. Then she laid low, but she came
that night. I didn’t think she would.”
“You’re a pretty friend.”
“Say, kid, don’t be hard. It was a bit tough, I own, for you. But I had
you in the plan. Now listen to reason. Matthew was no good. He was going
flabby. He’s no real politician. He didn’t know the game, and he had
fool Reform deep in his system. He was just waking up, and he’d ’a’
raised Hell in Congress. We never could have controlled him. Now when I
get in Congress—”
“Congress!” sneered Sara. “Do you think any nigger has a chance now?”
But Sammy talked on.
“—and when you are my wife—”
“Wife!”
“Sure, I’ve never been a marrying man, as I have often explained—”
“Not retail,” said Sara.
“And wholesale don’t count in law; but I need you, I see that now, and
I’m damned if I am going to lose you to another half-baked guy.”
“I am not divorced yet, and I am not sure—”
“You mean you ain’t sure you ain’t half in love with him still?”
“I hate the fool. I’d like to horsewhip her in City Hall.”
“Too late, kid, she’s left him.”
“Left him?”
“Sure—gone bag and baggage, and what do you know! He’s digging in the
subway—a common laborer. Oh, he’s up against it, I’ll tell the world.
Reckon he wouldn’t mind visiting the old roost just now.” And Sammy
glanced about with approval.
Sara looked him over. Sammy was no Adonis. He was approaching middle age
and was showing signs of wear and tear. But Sara was lonesome, and
between her and Sammy there was a common philosophy, a common humor, and
a common understanding. Neither quite trusted the other, and yet they
needed each other. Sara had missed Sammy more than she dared
acknowledge, while without Sara, Sammy felt one-armed. Sammy continued:
“No, kid. Your lay is still the quiet, injured wife, shut up at home and
in tears, until after the next election. See? A knockout! Matthew is
politically dead this minute. Right here I come in. The bosses know that
they got to take a dose of black man for Congress sooner or later. They
came near getting a crank. But even your fine Italian hand couldn’t make
him stay put. He never would have been elected.”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“You got it right there, kid, you don’t know, and you know you don’t.
And now here I am. The bosses will have to take me sooner or later. All
I need is you.”
“But I hear that the governor and Thompson are at outs.”
“Sure.”
“And you’re hitched up with the governor.”
“Sure again. I’m opposing Thompson. But after he’s elected by a smashing
majority, the governor and the Washington crowd will need him, he’ll
need the governor, and they’ll both need me!”
“H’m—I see. Well, you’ll have to do some tight-rope walking, my friend.”
“Precisely, and that’s where you come in.”
“Indeed! Now listen to me. Don’t think, Sammy, you’re going to get both
money and office out of these white politicians at the same time. When
they pay big they take the big jobs. If you want to go to Congress
you’ll pay. The only exception to that rule was the game I played and
won and then that fool threw away.”
Sammy smiled complacently. “Did you see my new Lincoln?”
“Yes, and wondered.”
“Four thousand bucks, and the shuffer’s gettin’ thirty-five per. And
say! Remember that big white stone house at Fiftieth and Drexel
Boulevard?”
“You mean at Drexel Square, with the big oaks and a fountain?”
“Yep!”
“Yes, I remember it—circular steps, great door with beveled glass, and
marble lobby!”
“No different! Driveway and garage; sun parlor, twenty rooms, yard, and
big iron fence. Well, that’s where we’re gonna live. I’ve bought it.”
“Sammy! Why, you must be suddenly rich or crazy!”
“Kid, I’ve made a killing! While you were leading me a dance for
Congress, I got hold of all the dough I could grab and salted it away.
Oh, I spent a lot on the boys, but I had a lot to spend. Graham and the
Public Service was wild to return Doolittle. I spent a pile, but I
didn’t spend all by a long shot. I put a hunk into two or three good
deals—real estate, bootlegging, and—well—other things. Then when Matthew
flew the coop I rushed at the gang and put up such a yell that they let
me in on something big: and listen, sister! little Sammy is on Easy
Street and sittin’ pretty! Believe me, I ain’t beggin’—I’m going to buy
my way into Congress if it takes a hundred thousand simoleons.”
Sara looked Sammy over.
“And you’re counting on me, are you?”
“Sure thing! As soon as election is over, we can have proceedings for a
divorce on foot quietly, and it will be over in a week or so. Meantime,
you’re my secretary again, and you’re going to name your own salary.”
Sara arose and smoothed her frock. She looked so unmoved and
unapproachable that Sammy half lost his nerve.
“Don’t let him get you, Sara. Don’t let black Chicago think you’re down
and out because of one man. What do you say, kid? You know, I—I always
liked you. I was crazy about you the minute you stepped through that
door five years ago. I figured that nobody but me was ever going to
marry you. But you were so damned stand-offish—I sort-a wanted you to
melt a little first and be human. But now, Lord, kid, I’m crawlin’ and
beggin’ you on any terms. What do you say? See here! I’ll bet you a
diamond as big as a hen’s egg against a marriage license that you’ll be
happier as my wife than you’ve been in ten years. What d’ya say, kid?”
Sara still stood looking at Sammy thoughtfully as she reached for her
vanity case. She turned to the mantel mirror and was some time powdering
her nose. Then she obeyed an impulse, a thing she had not done for ten
years. She turned deliberately, walked over to Sammy, and kissed him.
“You’re on, Sammy,” she said.
XII
“Dearest Matthew, my man,” wrote Kautilya in September, “forgive my
silence. I am in Virginia with your mother. I could not stay in
Washington. I wanted to sit a space apart and in quiet to think and
hearken and decide. The wind is in the trees, the strong winds of
purpose, the soft winds of infinite desire; the wide black earth around
me is breathing deep with fancies. There is rain and mud and a certain
emptiness. But somehow I love this land, perhaps because mother loves it
so. I seem to see salvation here, a gate to the world. Here is a tiny
kingdom of tree and wood and hut. Oh, yes, and the brook, the symphony
of the brook. And then there are the broad old fields as far as we can
look toward the impounding woods.
“Beloved, I am beginning to feel that this place of yours may be no mere
temporary refuge. That it may again be Home for you. I see this as yet
but dimly, but life here seems symbolic. Here is the earth yearning for
seed. Here men make food and clothes. We are at the bottom and beginning
of things. The very first chapter of that great story of industry, wage
and wealth, government, life.
“On such deep founding-stones you may perhaps build. I can see work
transformed. This cabin with little change in its aspect can be made a
place of worship, of beauty and books. I have even planned a home for
you: this old and black and vine-clad cabin undisturbed but with an L
built behind and above. The twin cabin must run far back and rise a half
story for a broad and peaceful chamber—for life with music and color
floating in it. Perhaps a little lake to woo the brook; and then, in
years, of course, a tower and a secret garden! Yes, I should like to see
a tower, where Muezzins call to God and His world.
“And this world is really much nearer to our world than I had thought.
This brook dances on to a river fifty miles away—next door only for a
little Ford truck. And the river winds in stately curve down
Jamestown-of-the-Slaves. We went down the other day, walking part of the
way through woods and dells, toward the great highway of the Atlantic.
Think, Matthew, take your geography and trace it: from Hampton Roads to
Guiana is a world of colored folk, and a world, men tell me, physically
beautiful beyond conception; socially enslaved, industrially ruined,
spiritually dead; but ready for the breath of Life and Resurrection.
South is Latin America, east is Africa, and east of east lies my own
Asia. Oh, Matthew, think this thing through. Your mother prophesies. We
sense a new age.
“This is the age of commerce and industry—of making, shaping, carrying,
buying and selling. We have made manufacturers, railroad men, and
merchants rich because we ranked them highest, and we have helped them
in cities for convenience, and they are white and in white cities. Just
suppose we change our ranking. Suppose in our hearts we rate the colored
farmers and all discoverers, poets, and dreamers high and even higher
and give them space outside of white cities? We would widen the world.
It is simply a matter of wanting to. We have bribed white factories with
tariffs and monopoly. We are going to bribe black agriculture and
poetry. And, Matthew, Work is not God—Love is God and Work is His
Prophet.”
Hurriedly Matthew wrote back: “No, no, Kautilya of the World, no, no!
Think not of home in that breeder of slaves and hate, Virginia. I
shudder to find you there even for a season. There is horror there which
your dear eyes are not yet focused to see and which the old blindness of
my mother forgets. There is evil all about you. Oh, sister, you do not
know—you do not dream. Down yonder lurk mob and rape and rope and
faggot. Ignorance is King and Hate is High Prime Minister. Men are
tyrants or slaves. Women are dolls or sluts. Industry is lying, and
government stealing.
“The land is literally accursed with the blood and pain of three hundred
years of slavery. Ask mother. Ask her to tell you how many years she has
fought and clawed for the honor of her own body. There is a little weal
on her breast, a jagged scar upon her knee, a broken finger on one hand.
Ask her whence these came. Ask her who imprisoned and killed my father
and why and where her other children are buried. Come away, come away,
my crumpled bird, as soon as may be, lest they despoil you. You may hide
there until our wounds are healed, but then come away to the midst of
life. Only in the center of the world can our work be done. We must
stand, you and I, even if apart, where beats down the fiercest blaze of
Western civilization, and pushing back this hell, raise a black world
upon it.
“I ought not to write tonight, for I am in the depths; the sudden change
of Chicago’s Fall has dropped upon me. I caught cold and was ill a day,
and then I arose and did not go to work. Instead, I went down to the art
gallery. There was a new exhibit of borrowed paintings from all ends of
the world. After mud and filth and grayness, my soul was starving for
color and curve and form. I went. And then went back again, day after
day. I literally forgot my work for a week and bathed myself in a new
world of beauty.
“I saw in Claude Monet what sunrise and sunset on the old cathedral at
Rouen might say to a human soul, in pale gold, white, and purple, and in
purple, yellow, and gold. I felt the mists of London hiding Big Ben.
Rich somber peace and silence fell on me and on the picnic party beneath
spreading branches. I walked with that lady about the red flowers of her
garden. I reveled in blue seas, faint color-swept fields, riot of sweet
flowers, poppies and grain, brooks and villages.
“I saw Pisano’s Paris; the colors of Matisse raged in my soul, deluging
all form, unbeautiful with rhythm. I delighted in the luscious dark folk
of Paul Gaugin, in sun and shade, fruit and sea, palm and totem, and in
the color that melts and flows and cries. Then there were the mad
brown-gray-green lines of Picasso which swerved and melted into strange
faces, forms, and figures, haunting things like their African
prototypes; there was a dark little girl by Derain floating in a field
of blue with a yellow castle, square and old.
“As from a far flight into the unknown I came back to the lovely
coloring of Brangwyn and Cottet. I discovered the lucent blue water of
Cezanne, his plunging landscapes and the hard truth of his faces. I saw
how lovely Mrs. Samari looked to Renoir and vineyards to Van Gogh.
“At the end of the week I emerged half-ashamed, uncertain in judgment,
and yet with added width to my world. I dimly remembered how you all
talked of painting there in Berlin; then I knew nothing, nothing. Or
rather now I know nothing, and then I did not know how ignorant I was.
And, withal, mentally breathless, I returned with a certain peace and
slept to dreams of clouds of light. I rose the next morning lightheaded,
rested and strong, and went down blithely to that hole in the ground, to
the grim, gigantic task. I was a more complete man—a unit of a real
democracy.
“Even as I reached for my shovel the boss yelled at me. ‘Away a week.
You’re fired!’ Well, somehow I got back again after a few days. After
all, I reckon, I am a good worker. But there was still trouble, and the
boss had taken a dislike to me. It was like a groom incurring the
displeasure of some high lackey in the court of Louis XIV. As I have
said, we subway laborers were not yet organized, and emissaries from the
trade unions were working among us. I never knew what unions meant
before. I think I was a bit prejudiced against them. They were
organizations, to my mind, which took food from the mouths of black men.
“Now suddenly I saw the thing from the other side. Unless we banded
ourselves together and as one body against this Leviathan which ‘hires
and fires,’ we were helpless, crushed piecemeal, having no voice as to
ourselves and our work. And so I went in for the union. We struck: our
hours of work were too long; the overtime was too poorly paid; we were
being maimed by accidents and cheated of our insurance; we had no decent
luncheon time or place. Well, we struck and we were roundly beaten.
There were five hungry men eager to take every place we left vacant;
mostly black men—they were hungriest. There were the police and politics
against us.
“Again I was ‘fired,’ and this time for good. It was strange in this
great, busy, and rich city, actually to be among the unemployed, and so
much work to be done! I never believed in the unemployed before. To me
the unemployed were the lazy, the shiftless, the debauched. But I am not
lazy. I am eager for work; I am strong and willing and for a week I
actually did not know how I was going to earn my bread.
“Several times and in several places I applied for work, and then at
last I found a new reason staring in my face. It was Sammy. He strutted
over to me as I came out of one employment office, and stood with his
legs apart, scowling at me. He had neither smile nor handshake. ‘Say,
bo,’ he blustered, ‘why didn’t you come around and fix up them divorce
papers? See here, I’m tired of your damned stallin’! Think you’re going
to crawl back to Sara one of these days because your fancy woman has
jilted you? Well, by God, you ain’t. You’re going ahead with this
divorce, or I’ll damn well drive you out of Chicago.’
“I made no answer. I think I smiled at him a little because he did
appear to me pathetically funny; and then I went and got a job. I knew
one place where workers were scarce, but I had always shrunk from going
there. But that morning I went out to the stockyards and got a job. The
world stinks about me. I am lifting rotten food. I am helping to murder
things that live. The continual bleating of death beats on my ears and
heart. I am drugged with weariness and ugliness. I seem to know as never
before what pain and poverty mean. In the world there is only you—only
you and that halo about your head which is the world-wide Cause.
“But Sammy’s command set me thinking. I dimly see what must be done to
restore the balance and coöperation of the white and black worlds: Brain
and Brawn must unite in one body. But where shall the work begin? I
begin to believe right here in Chicago, crossroads of the world—midway
between Atlantic and Pacific, North and South Poles. This is the place.
How shall I begin?”
XIII
There had been a long silence. Matthew had set his teeth and written
regularly and methodically, words that did not say or reveal much. And
then at last out of the South there came one morning a long, clear cry
from Kautilya.
“Oh, Matthew, Matthew. The earth here in this October is full with fruit
and harvest. The cotton lies dark green, dim crimson, with silver stars
above the gray earth; my own hand has carried the cotton basket, and now
I sit and know that everywhere seed that is hidden dark, inert, dead,
will one day be alive, and here, here! And Matthew, my soul doth magnify
the Lord. Within the new twin cabin above the old (for I have built it
already, dear—I had to) sitting aloft, apart, a bit remote, is a low,
dark, and beautiful room of Life, with music and with wide windows
toward the rising and the setting of the sun. Outside the sun today is
beaten shimmering copper-gold. The corn shocks and the fields are dull
yellow; the bare cotton stalks are burning brown. But the earth is rich
and full, and Love sits wild and glorious on the world. I have been
reading to dear mother. She sits beside me, silent, like some ancient
priestess. I read out of the Hebrew scriptures words of cruelty and war,
and then in the full happiness of my heart I found that passage in Luke:
‘My soul doth magnify the Lord!’ And now my spirit is rejoicing, and the
ineffable Buddha, blood of the blood of my fathers, seems bowing down to
his low and doubting handmaiden. Well-beloved, shall not all generations
call us Blessed and do great things for us, and we for them? All
children, all mothers, all fathers; all women and all men? Thus do I
bend and kiss all the lowly in the name of Him who ‘hath put down the
Mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree’!
“We will build a world, Matthew, you and I, where the Hungry shall be
fed, and only the Lazy shall be empty. Oh, I am mad, mad, Matthew, this
day when the golden earth bows and falls into the death of Winter toward
the resurrection of Spring! Life seems suddenly clear to me. I see the
Way. Matthew, I am not afraid of Virginia or the white South. I know
more of it than you think and mother has told me. It is crude and cruel,
but, too, it is warm and beautiful. It is strangely, appealingly human.
Nothing so beautiful as Virginia can be wholly hellish. I have my
troubles here, mother and I, but we have faced it all and beaten them
back with high and steady glance. I see the glory that may come yet to
this Mother of Slavery.
“I will not, I can not, be sorry for you, Matthew, for your poor bruised
soul and for the awful pit in which your tired feet stand. Courage, my
man. Drain the cup. Drain it to the dregs, and, out of this crucifixion,
ascend with me to heaven.”
XIV
“I am glad, dear Kautilya,” wrote Matthew at Christmas time, “that you
are happy and content. But I am curious to understand that Way which you
see so clearly. As for me, I am sorely puzzled. I believe in democracy.
Hitherto I have seen democracy as the corner stone of my new world. But
today and with the world, I see myself drifting logically and inevitably
toward oligarchy. Baseball, movies, Spain, and Italy are ruled by
Tyrants. Russia, England, France, and the Trusts are ruled by
oligarchies. And how else? We Common People are so stupid, so forgetful,
so selfish. How can we make life good but by compulsion? We cannot
choose between monarchy and oligarchy or democracy—no—we can only choose
the objects for which we will enthrone tyrannical dictators; it may be
dictators for the sake of aristocrats as in Czarist Russia, or dictators
for the sake of millionaires as in America, or dictatorship for the
factory workers and peasants as in Soviet Russia; but always,
everywhere, massed and concentrated power is necessary to accomplish
anything worth while doing in this muddled world, hoping for divine
Anarchy in some faraway heaven.
“Whether we will or not, some must rule and do for the people what they
are too weak and silly to do for themselves. They must be made to know
and feel. It is knowledge and caring that are missing. Some know not and
care not. Some know and care not. Some care not and know. We know and
care, but, oh! how and where? I am afraid that only great strokes of
force—clubs, guns, dynamite in the hands of fanatics—that only such
Revolution can bring the Day.
“I wish I could see the solution of world misery in a little Virginia
cottage with vines and flowers. I wish I could share the surging
happiness which you find there: but I cannot, I am too far from there. I
am far in miles, and somehow I seem insensibly to grow farther in
spirit. I agree that America is the place for my work, and if America,
then Chicago: for Chicago is the epitome of America. New York is a
province of England. Virginia, Charleston, and New Orleans are memories,
farming and industrial hinterlands. California is just beyond the world.
Chicago is the American world and the modern world, and the worst of it.
We Americans are caught here in our own machinery; our machines make
things and compel us to sell them. We are rich in food and clothes and
starved in culture. That fine old accumulation of the courtesies of life
with its gracious delicacy which has flowered now and again in other
lands is gone—gone and forgotten. We push and shoulder each other on the
streets, yell, instead of bowing; we have forgotten ‘Please,’ ‘Excuse
me,’ ‘I beg your pardon,’ and ‘By your leave’ in one vast comprehensive
‘Hello!’ and ‘Sa-ay!’
“Courtesy is dead—and Justice? We strike, steal, curse, mob, and murder,
all in the day’s work. All delicate feeling sinks beneath floods of
mediocrity. The finer culture is lost, lost; maybe lost forever. Is
there beauty? Is there God? Is there salvation? Where are the workers so
rich and powerful as here in America, and where so arid, artificial,
vapid, so charmed and distracted by the low, crude, gawdy, and vulgar? I
can only hope that after America has raped this land of its abundant
wealth, after Africa breaks its chains and Asia awakes from its long
sleep, in the day when Europe is too weak to fight and scheme and make
others work for her and not for themselves—that then the world may
disintegrate and fall apart and thus from its manure, something new and
fair may sprout and slowly begin to grow. If then in Chicago we can kill
the thing that America stands for, we emancipate the world.
“Yes, Kautilya, I believe that with fire and sword, blood and whips, we
must fight this thing out physically, and literally beat the world into
submission and a real civilization. The center of this fight must be
America, because in America is the center of the world’s sin. There must
be developed here that world-tyranny which will impose by brute force a
new heaven on this old and rotten earth.”
It was almost mid-January when Kautilya’s reply to this letter came. It
was as ever full of sympathy and love, and yet Matthew thought he saw
some beginnings of change.
“If the world is aflame,” said Kautilya, “and I feel it flaming—the
place of those who would ride the conflagration is truly within and not
behind or in front of the Holocaust. Where then is this center, and what
shall we who stand there do? Here are my two disagreements with you,
dear Matthew. America is not the center of the world’s evil. That center
today is Asia and Africa. In America is Power. Yonder is Culture, but
Culture gone to seed, disintegrated, debased. Yet its re-birth is
imminent. America and Europe must not prevent it. Only Asia and Africa,
in Asia and Africa, can break the power of America and Europe to
throttle the world.
“And, oh, my Matthew, your oligarchy as you conceive it is not the
antithesis of democracy—it is democracy, if only the selection of the
oligarchs is just and true. Birth is the method of blind fools. Wealth
is the gambler’s method. Only Talent served from the great Reservoir of
All Men of All Races, of All Classes, of All Ages, of Both Sexes—this is
real Aristocracy, real Democracy—the only path to that great and final
Freedom which you so well call Divine Anarchy.
“And yet this, dear Matthew, you yourself taught me—you and your
struggling people here. In Africa and Asia we must work, and yet in
Africa and Asia we are outside the world. That is the thing I always
felt at home. Outside, and kept outside, the centers of power. Even to
us in Europe, the closed circle of power is narrow and straitly
entrenched; the stranger can scarce get foothold, and when he gets in,
Power is no longer there. It is flown. In America your feet are further
within the secret circle of that power that half-consciously rules the
world. That is the advantage of America. That is the advantage that your
people have had. You are working within. They are standing here in this
technical triumph of human power and can use is as a fulcrum to lift
earth and seas and stars.
“But to be in the center of power is not enough. You must be free and
able to act. You are not free in Chicago nor New York. But here in
Virginia you are at the edge of a black world. The black belt of the
Congo, the Nile, and the Ganges reaches by way of Guiana, Haiti, and
Jamaica, like a red arrow, up into the heart of white America. Thus I
see a mighty synthesis: you can work in Africa and Asia right here in
America if you work in the Black Belt. For a long time I was puzzled, as
I have written you, and hesitated; but now I know. I am exalted, and
with my high heart comes illumination. I have been sore bewildered by
this mighty America, this ruthless, terrible, intriguing Thing. My home
and heart is India. Your heart of hearts is Africa. And now I see
through the cloud. You may stand here, Matthew—here, halfway between
Maine and Florida, between the Atlantic and the Pacific, with Europe in
your face and China at your back; with industry in your right hand and
commerce in your left and the Farm beneath your steady feet; and yet be
in the Land of the Blacks.
“Dearest, in spite of all you say, I believe, I believe in men; I
believe in the unlovely masses of men; I believe in that prophetic word
which you spoke in Berlin and which perhaps you only half believed
yourself. And why should I not believe? I have seen slaves ruling in
Chicago and they did not do nearly as badly as princes in Russia. Gentle
culture and the beauty and courtesies of life—they are the real end of
all living. But they will not come by the dreaming of the few.
Civilization cannot stand on its apex. It must stand on a broad base,
supporting its inevitable and eternal apex of fools. The tyranny of
which you dream is the true method which I too envisage. But choose well
the Tyrants—there is Eternal Life! How truly you have put it! Workers
unite, men cry, while in truth always thinkers who do not work have
tried to unite workers who do not think. Only working thinkers can unite
thinking workers.
“For all that we need, and need alone, Time; the alembic, Time. The slow
majestic march of events, unhurried, sure. Do not be in a hurry, dear
Matthew, do not be nervous, do not fret. There is no hurry, Matthew,
your mother’s Bible puts it right: ‘A day unto the Lord is as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day.’”
XV
Endless time! Matthew laughed and wept. Endless time! He was almost
thirty. In a few years he would be forty, and creative life, real life,
would be gone; gone forever. But he knew; he saw it all; he faced grimly
and without flinching the terrible truth that for seven months he had
sought to hide and veil away from himself. Kautilya did not plan for him
in her life. Almost she did not want him, although perhaps this last
fact she had not quite realized. She had tried him and his people and
found them wanting. It was a sordid mess, sordid and mean, and she was
unconsciously drawing the skirts of her high-bred soul back from it. She
missed—she must miss—the beauty and wealth, the high courtesy and breath
of life, which was hers by birth and heritage. And she must have
searched in vain and deep disappointment in this muck of slavery,
servility, and make-believe, for life. She had bidden him drain the cup.
He would.
More and more was he convinced that the parting of himself and Kautilya
was forever; that he must look this eventuality squarely in the face.
And looking, he was sure that he had found himself. With his new
physical strength had come a certain other strength of soul and purpose.
Once he had sought knowledge and fame; once he had sought wealth; once
he had sought comfort. Now he would seek nothing but work, and work for
work’s own sake. That work must be in large degree physical, because it
was the physical work of the world that had to be done as prelude to its
thought and beauty. And then beyond and above all this was the ultimate
emancipation of the world by the uplift of the darker races. He knew
what that uplift involved. He knew where he proposed to work, despite
the ingenuity of Kautilya’s argument. He did not yet see how physical
toil would bring the spiritual end he sought, save only in his own soul.
Perhaps—perhaps that would be enough. No, no! he still rejected such
metaphysics.
Meantime one step loomed closer and clearer. He would follow the word of
Kautilya, because there was a certain beauty and completeness in her
desire that he offer himself back to Sara. He saw that it would not be a
real offer if it were not really meant. First, of course, Sara must see
him as he was and realize him; a man who worked with his hands; a man
who did his own thinking, clear and straight, even to his own hurt and
poverty. A man working to emancipate the lowest millions. And, because
of this and for his own salvation, certain cravings for beauty must be
satisfied: simple, clear beauty, without tawdriness, without noise and
meaningless imitation. Seeing him thus, perhaps, after all, in her way,
in her singular, narrow way, Sara might realize that she had need of
him. It was barely possible that, with such love as still oozed thinly
in the hard crevices of her efficient soul, she loved him. Very well. If
she wanted him as he was, realizing that he had loved some one else as
he never could love her, well and good. He would go back to her; he
would be a good husband; he would be, in the patois of the respectable,
“true,” but in a higher and better sense, good.
Matthew saw, too, with increasing clearness, something that Kautilya, he
thought, must begin to realize, and that was that her freedom from him
and his people—her freedom from this entanglement from which the
thoughtful Japanese and Indians had tried to save her—would mean an
increased and broader chance for her own work in her own world. And she
had a work if she could return to it untrammeled by the trademark of
slavery and degradation. She had tried to see a way in America for
herself and Matthew to tread together. But all this was self-deception.
Matthew saw clearly, however, that he must give Kautilya no inkling of
his own understanding and interpretation of herself. He knew that in her
high soul there was that spirit of martyrs which might never let her
surrender him voluntarily, that she would seek to stand by him just as
long as it seemed the honorable thing to do. And so he would not “wince
nor cry aloud,” but he would “drain the cup.”
That night he telephoned the maid at Sara’s house, and learning that
Sara was in, went down to see her. It was a hard journey. It was like
walking back in time. He went through all the writhings of that period
of groping revolt and yearning. He walked up the steps with the same
feeling of revulsion and entered that prim and cold atmosphere, that
hard, sharp grinding of life. He rang the bell. The maid stared,
grinned, and fidgeted.
“Yes—she’s in—but I don’t think—she said never to—” She wanted Matthew
to push past and go in unannounced, and he meant to, but he couldn’t. He
stood hesitating.
Sara’s clear voice came from within:
“Who is it, Eliza?”
“It is Matthew Towns,” said Matthew. “I would like—” There were quick
steps. The maid withdrew. The door banged in his face.
Matthew wrote to Kautilya nothing of this, but only to continue that
argument about work and wealth and race. He said:
“Art is long, but industry is longer. Revolution must come, but it must
start from within. We must strip to the ground and fight up. Not the
colored Farm but the white Factory is the beginning; and the white
Office and the Street stand next. The white artisan must teach technique
to the colored farmer. White business men must teach him organization;
the scholar must teach him how to think, and the banker how to rule.
Then, and not till then, will the farmer, colored or white, be the salt
of the earth and the beginning of life.”
Then in a postscript he added:
“I have had notice of Sara’s action for divorce. I shall go in person to
the hearing and answer, and I shall assent to whatever she may wish. I
hope sincerely you are well. I have feared you might be sick and keep it
from me. But even in sickness there is one consolation. Life at its
strongest and longest is short. Bad as it is and beautiful as it has
been for us, it is soon over. I kiss the little fingers of your hand.”
Kautilya replied with a little note that came in early March, scribbled
on wrapping-paper, with uncertain curves:
“Matthew, I am afraid. Suddenly I am desperately afraid. Just what I
fear I do not know—I cannot say. Perhaps I am ill. I know I am ill. Oh,
Matthew, I am afraid. Life is a terrible thing. It looms in dark silence
and threatens. It has no bowels of compassion. Its hidden soul neither
laughs nor cries—it just is, is, is! I am afraid, Matthew—I am in deadly
fear. The terror of eternal life is upon me—the Curse of Siva! Come to
me, Matthew, come! No, no—do not come until I send. I shall be all
right.”
Matthew’s heart paused in sudden hurt. He knew what must have happened:
the Great Decision must be made. She had been summoned to India and must
go. He started to pack his suitcase. He telephoned about trains. Then he
hesitated. “No, no—do not come until I send.” That was her decision.
Against her will he must not go. But perhaps already she had changed her
mind. Perhaps she was physically ill. Perhaps already Death, cloaked in
black, stood in the shadows behind her writhing bed! Or, worse, perhaps
she was going away and could not pause to say good-by.
He telegraphed—“May I—” No, he tore that up: “Shall I come?”
The answer came in a few hours.
“No, all is well. I have been very ill, but I am better and I shall be
out soon in the sweet springtime. I am going to walk and sew; I am going
to be happy: infinitely happy. I want to see the heavy earth curling up
before the shining of my plowshare. I want to feel the gray mule
dragging off my arms, with the sky for heaven and the earth for love. I
want to see seed sink in the dead earth. How can you say that life is
short? Life is not short, my darling Matthew, it is endless. You and I
will live for a thousand years and then a thousand years more; and then
ten thousand years shall be added to that. Oh, man of little faith! Do
you not see, heart of me, that without infinite life, life is a joke and
a contradiction? Wish and Will are prisoned and manacled in Fact,
whatever that fact may be; but with life built on life here on earth,
now and not in your silly Christian parlor heaven, the tiny spark that
is God thrills through, thrills through to triumph in a billion years;
so vast, and vaster, is the Plan.”
Matthew humored her mood. She saw the end of their earthly happiness
here in time, and she was straining toward eternity. He could not
deceive himself or her, and he wrote with a certain sad smile in his
heart:
“Infinite and Eternal? Yes, dear Princess of the Winds; the Moonlight
Sonata, snow on a high hill, the twitter of birds on boughs in sunlight
after rain, health after sickness—God! are not these real, true, good,
beautiful, infinite, eternal? Whether Immortal Life, dearest and best,
is literal truth or not, I do not care. No one knows whether anything in
life or larger than life bursts through to some inconceivable triumph
over death. None knows, none can know. But, ah, dear heart, what
difference? There is, after all, sunrise and rain, starlight, color, and
the surge and beat of sound. And on that night when my body kissed
yours, a billion years lived in one heartbeat. What more can I ask? What
more have I asked or dreamed, Queen of the World, than that? Already I
am Eternal. In thy flesh I have seen God.”
And Kautilya answered:
“I know, I know, heart’s-ease, but that is not enough: back of it all,
back of the flesh, the mold, the dust, there must be Reality; it must be
there; and what can reality be but Life, Life Everlasting? If we, we our
very selves, do not live forever, Life is a cruel joke.”
Yes, Life was a cruel joke, and Matthew turned to write of everyday
things:
“As I sat last night huddled over my supper—a very greasy pork chop,
sodden potatoes, oleomargarine, soggy cornbread, partly cooked cabbage,
and weak, cold coffee—as I sat in my grimy overalls and guzzled this
mess, some one came and sat at my table with its dirty oil-cloth cover.
I did not look up, but a voice, a rather flat, unusual voice, ordered
rice. ‘Just rice.’ Then I looked up at a Chinese woman, and she smiled
wanly back.
“I prefer,’ she said, ‘don’t you, the cuisine of the Lützower lifer?’
“It was one of our Chinese friends. I was glad and ashamed to see her.
She seemed to notice nothing—made no comment, asked no awkward
questions. Principally she talked of China.
“’Oh, China, China, where shall we find leaders! They rise, they fall,
they die, they desert. The men who can do, the men of thought and
knowledge, the men who know technique, the unselfish and farseeing—how
shall we harness these to the greatest chariot in the world and not have
them seduced and stolen by Power, Pleasure, Display, Gluttony? Oh, I
know it is the old story of human weakness, but if only we had a little
more strength and unity now and then at critical moments, we could climb
a step and lift the sodden, smitten mass.
“‘There was Chiang Kai-Shek, so fine and young a warrior! I knew him
well. I saw once his golden face alight with the highest ideals, his
eyes a Heaven-in-Earth. Today, what is he? I do not know. Perhaps he
does not. Oh, why was it that Sun Yat Sen must die-so soon? But’—she
rose from the half-eaten, mushy rice—‘we must push on always—on!’ And
then pausing she said, timidly, ‘And you, my friend. Are you
pushing—on?’
“I hesitated and then arose and stood before her: ‘I am pushing—on!’ I
said. She looked at me with glad eyes, and touching her forehead, was
gone. And I was right, Kautilya, I am pushing on.”
And turning from Kautilya’s sealed letter, he took another sheet and
laboriously wrote a long letter to Sara, saying all there was to be
said; explaining, confessing, offering to return to her if she wanted
him, but on the conditions which she must already know. He received no
answer. Yet once again he wrote and almost pleaded. Again he had no
word.
XVI
There was a little court scene on State Street in April, 1927. It looked
more like an intimate family party, and everybody seemed in high good
humor. The white judge was smiling affably and joking with the Honorable
Sammy Scott. Two or three attorneys were grouped about. Hats, canes, and
briefcases were handy, as though no one expected to tarry long. Mrs.
Sara Towns came in. Mrs. Towns was a quiet and thoroughly adequate
symphony in gray. She had on a gray tailor-made suit, with plain sheath
skirt dropping below, but just below, her round knees. There was soft
gray silk within and beneath the coat. There were gray stockings and
gray suede shoes and gray chamoisette gloves. The tiny hat was gray, and
pulled down just a trifle sideways so as to show sometimes one and
sometimes two of her cool gray eyes. She looked very competent and very
desirable. The Honorable Sammy’s eyes sparkled. He liked the way Sara
looked. He did not remember ever seeing her look better.
He felt happy, rich, and competent. He just had to tell Corruthers,
aside:
“Yes, sir! She just got up of her own accord and gave me a kiss square
on the beezer. You could ’a’ bowled me over with a feather.”
“Oh, she always liked you. She just married Towns for spite.”
Sammy expanded. Things were coming very nicely to a head. The new Mayor
had just been elected by a landslide; at the same time the Mayor’s
enemy, the Governor, knew that while Sammy had fought the Mayor in the
primaries according to orders, he had nevertheless come out of the
election with a machine which was not to be ignored. The pending
presidential election was bound to set things going Sammy’s way. The
Mayor’s popularity was probably local and temporary. The Governor had
his long fingers on the powerful persons who pull the automata which
rule the nation. These automata had been, in Sammy’s opinion, quite
convinced that no one would do their will in Congress better than the
Honorable Sammy Scott. Moreover, the Governor and Mayor were not going
to be enemies long. They could not afford it.
In other words, to put it plainly, the slate was being arranged so that
after the presidential election of 1928, the succeeding congressional
election would put the first colored man from the North in Congress, and
it was on the boards that this man was to be Sammy. Meantime and in the
three years ensuing, the prospective Mrs. Sara Scott and her husband
were going to have a chance to play one of the slickest political games
ever played in Chicago. Above all, Sammy was more than well-to-do, and
Sara was no pauper. He wasn’t merely asking political favors. He was
demanding, and he had the cash to pay. Sammy rubbed his hands and
gloated over Sara.
A clerk hurried in with a document. The judge, poising his pen, smiled
benevolently at Sara. Sara had seated herself in a comfortable-looking
chair, holding her knees very close together and yet exhibiting quite a
sufficient length of silk stocking of excellent quality.
“Does the defendant make any reply?” asked the judge. And then, without
pausing for an answer, he started to write his name. He had finished the
first capital when some one walked out of the gloom at the back of the
room and came into the circle of the electric light which had to shine
in the office even at noontime.
Matthew came forward. He was in overalls and wore a sweater. Yet he was
clean, well shaven, and stood upright. He was perhaps not as handsome as
he used to be. His face seemed a bit weather-beaten, and his hair was
certainly thinner. But he had an extraordinarily strong face,
interesting, intriguing. He spoke with some hesitancy, looking first at
the judge, then at Sara, to whom he bowed gravely in spite of the fact
that after a startled glance, she ignored him. He only glanced at Sammy.
Sammy was literally snarling with his long upper lip drawn back from his
tobacco-stained teeth. He almost bit through his cigar, threw it away,
and brought out another, long, black, and fresh. His hand trembled as he
lit it, and he blew a furious cloud of smoke.
“I did not come to answer,” said Matthew, “but simply to state my
position.”
(“My God!” thought Sammy. “I’ll bet he’s got that bag of diamonds!”)
“Have you got a lawyer?” asked the judge, gruffly.
“No, and I do not need one. I merely want to say—”
“What’s all this about, anyway?” snapped Sammy.
Sara sat stiff and white and looked straight past Matthew to the wall.
On the wall was a smirking picture of the late President Harding. An
attorney came forward.
“We are willing that the defendant make any statement he wants to. Is
there a stenographer here?”
The judge hesitated and then rang impatiently. A white girl walked in
languidly and sat down. She stared at the group, took note of Sara’s
costume, and then turned her shoulder.
“I merely wanted to say,” said Matthew, “that the allegations in the
petition are true.”
“Well, then, what are we waitin’ for?” growled Sammy.
“I ran away from my wife and lived with another woman. I did this
because I loved that woman and because I hated the life I was living. I
shall never go back to that life; but if by any chance Mrs. Towns—my
wife needs me or anything I can give or do, I am ready to be her husband
again and to—”
He got no further. Sara had risen from her chair.
“This is intolerable,” she said. “It is an insult, a low insult. I never
want to see this, this—scoundrel, again.”
“Very well, very well,” said the judge, as he proceeded to sign the
decree for absolute divorce. Sara and Sammy disappeared rapidly out the
door.
Matthew walked slowly home, and as he walked he read now and then bits
of his last letter from Kautilya. He read almost absent-mindedly, for he
was meditating on that singularly contradictory feeling of
disappointment which he had. One has a terrible plunge to make into some
lurking pool of life. The pool disappears and leaves one dizzy upon a
bank which is no longer a bank, but just arid sand.
In the midst of this inchoate feeling of disappointment, he read:
“Are we so far apart, man of God? Are we not veiling the same truth with
words? All you say, I say, heaven’s darling. Say and feel, want, and
want with a want fiercer than death; but, oh, Love, our bodies will fade
and grow old and older, and our eyes dim, and our ears deaf, and we
shall grope and totter, the shades of shadows, if we cannot survive and
surmount and leave decay and death. No, no! Matthew, we live, we shall
always live. Our children’s children living after us will live with us
as living parts of us, as we are parts of God. God lives forever—Brahma,
Buddha, Mohammed, Christ—all His infinite incarnations. From God we
came, to God we shall return. We are eternal because we are God.”
Matthew sat down on the curb, while he waited for the car, and put his
back against the hydrant, still reading:
“My beloved, ‘Love is God, Love is God and Work is His Prophet’; thus
the Lord Buddha spoke.”
The street car came by. He climbed aboard and rode wearily home. He
could not answer the letter. The revulsion of feeling and long
thought-out decision was too great. He had drained the cup. It was not
even bitter. It was nauseating. Instead of rising to a great unselfish
deed of sacrifice, he had been cast out like a dog on this side and on
that. He stared at Kautilya’s letter. What had she really wanted? Had
she wanted Sara to take him back? Would it not have eased her own hard
path and compensated for that wild deed by which she had rescued his
soul? Did not ner deed rightly end there with that week in heaven? Was
not his day of utter renunciation at hand? And if one path had failed,
were there not a thousand others? What would be more simple than walking
away alone into the world of men, and working silently for the things of
which he and Kautilya had dreamed?
XVII
As Matthew reached the landing of his room, four long flights up, he saw
a stranger standing in the gloom. Then he noted that it was an East
Indian, richly garbed and bowing low before him. Matthew stared. Why,
yes! It was the younger of the two Indians of Berlin. Matthew bowed
silently and bade him enter. The room looked musty and dirty, but
Matthew made no excuses, merely throwing up the window and motioning his
guest to a seat. But the Indian bowed again courteously and stood.
“Sir,” he said, “I bear a rescript from the Dewan and High Council of
State of the Kingdom of Bwodpur, containing a command of her Royal
Highness, the Maharanee, and addressed, sir, to you. Permit me to read:
To Matthew Towns, Esquire, of Chicago,
Honored Sir:
By virtue of the Power entrusted to us and by command of our sovereign
lady, H.R.H. Kautilya, the reigning Maharanee, we hereby urge and
command you to present yourself in person before the Maharanee, at her
court to be holden in Prince James County, Virginia, U.S.A., at sunrise,
May 1, 1927, there to learn her further pleasure.
Given at our capital of Khumandat this 31st day of March, 1927, at the
Maharanee’s command.
“B rabat Singh,
Dewan.
“March 31?” asked Matthew.
“Yes,” returned the Indian. “It was placed in my hands this week with
the command that it should be presented to you as soon as the order of
divorce was entered. In accordance with these orders I now present the
rescript.” Again he bowed and handed the document to Matthew. Then he
straightened again and said: “I bear also a personal letter from her
Royal Highness which I am charged to deliver.”
Matthew excused himself, and opening, read it:
“Matthew, Day has dawned. Of course a little Virginia farm cannot bound
your world. Our feet are set in the path of moving millions.
“I did not—I could not tell you all, Matthew, until now. The Great
Central Committee of Yellow, Brown, and Black is finally to meet. You
are a member. The High Command is to be chosen. Ten years of preparation
are set. Ten more years of final planning, and then five years of
intensive struggle. In 1952, the Dark World goes free—whether in Peace
and fostering Friendship with all men, or in Blood and Storm—it is for
Them—the Pale Masters of today—to say.
“We are, of course, in factions—that ought to be the most heartening
thing in human conference—but with enemies ready to spring and spring
again, it scares one.
“One group of us, of whom I am one, believes in the path of Peace and
Reason, of coöperation among the best and poorest, of gradual
emancipation, self-rule, and world-wide abolition of the color line, and
of poverty and war.
“The strongest group among us believes only in Force. Nothing but bloody
defeat in a world-wide war of dark against white will, in their opinion,
ever beat sense and decency into Europe and America and Australia. They
have no faith in mere reason, in alliance with oppressed labor, white
and colored; in liberal thought, religion, nothing! Pound their
arrogance into submission, they cry; kill them; conquer them; humiliate
them.
“They may be right—that’s the horror, the nightmare of it: they may be
right. But surely, surely we may seek other and less costly ways. Force
is not the first word. It is the last—perhaps not even that.
“But, nevertheless, we have started forward. Our chart is laid. Our
teeth are set, our star is risen in the East. The ‘one far-off divine
event’ has come to pass, and now, oh, Matthew, Matthew, as soon as both
in soul and body you stand free, hurry to us and take counsel with us
and see Salvation.
“Last night twenty-five messengers had a preliminary conference in this
room, with ancient ceremony of wine and blood and fire. I and my
Buddhist priest, a Mohammedan Mullah, and a Hindu leader of Swaraj, were
India; Japan was represented by an artisan and the blood of the Shoguns;
young China was there and a Lama of Thibet; Persia, Arabia, and
Afghanistan; black men from the Sudan, East, West, and South Africa;
Indians from Central and South America, brown men from the West Indies,
and—yes, Matthew, Black America was there too. Oh, you should have heard
the high song of consecration and triumph that shook these rolling
hills!
“We came in every guise, at my command when around the world I sent the
symbol of the rice dish; we came as laborers, as cotton pickers, as
peddlers, as fortune tellers, as travelers and tourists, as merchants,
as servants. A month we have been gathering. Three days we have been
awaiting you—in a single night we shall all fade away and go, on foot,
by boat, by rail and airplane. The Day has dawned, Matthew—the Great
Plan is on its way.”
Matthew folded the letter slowly. She had summoned him—but to what? To
love and marriage? No, to work for the Great Cause. There was no word of
personal reunion. He understood and slowly looked up at the Indian. The
Indian spoke again: “Sir, with your permission, I have a final word.”
“Proceed.”
“I have delivered my messages. You have been summoned to the presence of
the Princess. I now ask you—beg of you, not to go. Let me explain. I am,
as you know, in the service of her Royal Highness, the Maharanee of
Bwodpur. Indeed my fathers have served hers many centuries.”
“Yes,” said Matthew, without much warmth.
“You will naturally ask why I linger now. I will be frank. It is to make
a last appeal to you—to your honor and chivalry. To me, sir, the will of
the Maharanee of Bwodpur is law. But above and beyond that law lies her
happiness and welfare and the destiny of India. When her Royal Highness
first evinced interest in you and your people, we of her entourage
foresaw trouble. Our first efforts to forestall it were crude, I admit,
and did not take into account your character and ideals. We seriously
underrated you. Yet yourself must admit the subsequent events proved us
right.
“Once you were in trouble, and, as the Princess rather quixotically
assumed, by her fault, it was her nature to dare anything in order to
atone. She gave up everything and went down into the depths. It was only
with the greatest difficulty that she was prevailed upon not to
surrender the Crown itself. As it was, she gave up wealth and caste and
accepted only barest rights of protection and guardianship of her
person, upon which we had to insist.
“Finally in a last wild excess of frenzy, sir, she sacrificed to you her
royal person. Sir, that night I was near murder, and you stood in the
presence of death. But duty is duty, and the Princess can do no wrong.
To us she is always spotless and forever right. But, sir, I come tonight
to make a last plea. Has she not paid to the uttermost farthing all
debts to you, however vast and fantastic they may appear to her? Can
you—ought you to demand further sacrifice?”
“Sacrifice?”
“Do you realize, sir, the meaning of this summons?”
“I thought I did. It is to attend a meeting which she has called.”
“What I say is from no personal knowledge—I have not seen her Royal
Highness since she left here; but the reason is indubitable. The day of
the coronation of a Maharajah in Bwodpur is at hand.”
Matthew started. “Her Royal Highness is—married?”
“She is to be married.”
“And she is summoned to India?”
“She is. Three Indians of highest rank have arrived in this country, and
I believe they have come to fetch her and the royal ruby.”
“And why, then, has she summoned me?”
“Perhaps—she still hesitates between—”
“Love and duty?” said Matthew, dreamily.
“Between self-indulgent phantasy and the salvation of Bwodpur,” cried
the Indian passionately.
“And I,” said Matthew slowly, “can seal her choice.”
“To few it is given to make a higher, finer sacrifice. You are free. You
have but to hint and you can be rich—pardon me—I know. Well, what more?
Will you not, in turn, free the Princess? Do the fine and generous act;
let her go back to her people.”
“Does the Princess wish this freedom?”
“She is one who would not admit it if she did. And yet her very
solicitude concerning Mrs. Towns—did it not suggest to you that she saw
in your reunion with Sara, on a higher and more congenial plane, a
chance for her to renew her own life and work? Is it possible that she
cannot yearn for something beyond anything you can offer?”
“Yes, that occurred to me, and I made the offer to my former
wife—perhaps too crassly and ungraciously, but with full sincerity.”
“True—and now why not follow further and write the Princess, definitely
and formally withdrawing from her life, and doing it with such decision
that there shall be no doubt in her mind?” The Indian bent forward with
strained and eager face.
“You seem—anxious,” said Matthew.
“I am,” said the Indian. “You do not realize how our hopes for Bwodpur
center on the Princess: an independent sovereignty about which a new
Empire of India might gradually gather. Then, her eager and
inexperienced mind, reaching out, leapt beyond to All India and All
Asia; gradually there came a vision of all the Darker Races in the
World—everybody who was not white, no matter what their ability or
history or genius, as though color itself were merit.
“And now, now finally, God preserve us, the Princess is stooping to
raise the dregs of mankind; laborers, scrubwomen, scavengers, and
beggars, into some fancied democracy of the world! It is madness born of
pity for you and your unfortunate people.
“With every dilution of our great original idea, the mighty mission of
Bwodpur fades. The Princess is mad—mad; and you are the center of her
madness. Withdraw—for God’s sake and your own—go! Leave us to our
destiny. What have you to do with royalty and divinity?”
The Indian was trembling with fervor and excitement, and his black eyes
burned into Matthew’s heart. “You will forgive me, sir. I have but done
my duty as I saw it,” he said.
Matthew looked at the Indian thoughtfully.
“I believe you are right,” he said. “Quite right. I believe that you and
your friends were right from the beginning and that I was—headstrong and
blind. Now the problem is to find a way out.”
“For the brave,” said the Indian, slowly and distinctly, “there is
always a way—out.”
XVIII
Matthew stood awhile looking at the door where the Indian with low
salaam had disappeared. Then, turning hastily, he put a few things into
his handbag, and going out, closed the door. He left a note and key
under the doormat and started downstairs, almost colliding with a boy
who was racing up, two steps at a time.
“Looking for a man named Towns—know where he stays?”
“I’m Matthew Towns.”
“Long distance wants you—quick—drugstore—corner.” And he flew down,
three steps at a time. Matthew stood still a long minute. He could not
go away leaving her standing, waiting, listening. No. This thing must be
faced, not dodged. He must talk to her. If she asked, he must even go to
her. She, too, was no coward. Eye to eye and face to face, she would say
the last word: she was summoned home to India. And then the final
parting? He could say it—he would. They must work for the world—but she
in her high sphere, and he in his, more lowly: forever parted, forever
united in soul.
And more: this meeting which she had announced was of the highest
importance. He must attend it and make it successful. He must show
Kautilya that her return to India need not hinder nor in the slightest
degree retard the Great Plan.
He descended slowly and went into the drugstore and into the little
booth. How curious that he had never thought of evoking this miracle
before in his heavy loneliness! Yet it was well. There was, there could
be, but this ending; out of time and space he was calling a memory.
“Hello—hello! New York—hello, Richmond—go ahead.”
At first the voices came strained, far-off, unnatural, interrupted with
hissings and brazen echoes. Then at last, real, clear, and close, a
voice came pouring over the telephone in a tumult of tone:
“Matthew, Matthew! I have heard the great good news. I am happy, very,
very happy. And, Matthew, the friends are waiting. They want you here at
sunrise.”
“But, Kautilya—is it necessary that I come? Is it wise? I have been
thinking long, Kautilya—”
“Matthew, Matthew, what is wrong? Why would you wait? Are you ill? Has
something happened?”
“No, no, Kautilya, I am well—and if you wish me, I am coming—if the
friends insist. But I have been wondering if I could not meet them
elsewhere, a little later?”
“Later! Matthew—what do you mean?”
“I mean, Kautilya, that I have a duty to perform toward you and the
world.”
“Matthew, do you mean that you have changed toward me?”
“Changed? No, never. But I see more clearly—as clearly as you yourself
saw when you bade me drain the cup.”
“What have you feared, Matthew?”
“Nothing but myself. And now that fear is gone—I have drained the cup.”
“Yes, dear one. And yet you knew that never and to no one could I give
you up?”
“Rather I knew that each must surrender the other.”
“To whom, Matthew?”
“To God and the Maharajah of Bwodpur.”
A sound that was a sigh and a sob came over the ’phone. “Oh, God!” it
whispered—“the Maharajah of Bwodpur!”
“Listen, Kautilya—I know—all.”
“All?” she gasped.
“All! A Maharajah is to be crowned in Bwodpur.”
A little cry came over the wire.
“And you have been summoned to the coronation—is it not true?”
“Yes.”
“And you must go. Bwodpur—the darker peoples of the world call you.
Would it not be easier if—if with this far farewell you left me alone to
meet the committee and draft the Plan?”
“No—no—no, Matthew—you do not—you can not understand. You must
come—unless—”
“Kautilya, darling, then I will come—of course I will come. I will do
anything to make the broad straight path of your duty easier to enter.
Only one thing I will not do, neither for Wealth nor Power nor Love; and
that is to turn your feet from this broad and terrible way. And so to
bid you Godspeed—to greet you with farewell and to hold you on my heart
once more ere I give you up to God—I come, Kautilya.”
Her voice sang over the wires:
“Oh, Matthew—my beautiful One—my Man—come—come!—and at sunrise.”
“I am coming.”
“And at sunrise?”
“But—impossible.”
“Have you read the rescript? By sunrise, the first of May.”
“But, dear, it is April 30. It takes a train—”
“Nonsense. There is an airplane fueled, oiled, and waiting for you at
the Maywood flying field. Stop for nothing—go now; quickly, quickly, oh,
my beloved.”
Click. Silence. Slowly he let the receiver fall and turned away. He
would not falter, and yet almost—almost he wished the truth otherwise.
It would have been hard enough to surrender a loved one who wanted to be
free, but to send away one who clung to him to her own hurt called for
bitter, bitter courage; and dark and bitter courage stood staunch within
him as he took cut his watch. Or, perhaps, she too was full of courage
and blithe and ready to part? He shivered. It was ten o’clock at night.
The field was far away. He glanced up at his room, then paused no
longer.
“Taxi—Maywood flying field. And quick!”
“Good Lord, boss, that’s forty miles—it’ll cost you near—”
“It’s worth twenty-five dollars for me to get there in two hours.”
The taxi leapt and roared….
The pilot glanced scowling at the brown face of his lone passenger and
climbed aloft. Matthew crawled into the tiny cabin. It was entirely
closed in with glass save where up a few steps at the back perched the
hard-faced pilot. There were seats for three other passengers, but they
were empty.
There arose a roar—a roar that for seven hours never ceased, never
hesitated, but crooned and sang and thundered. They moved. The lights of
Chicago hurried backward. It was midnight. The lights swayed and swam,
and suddenly, with a sick feeling and a shiver of instinctive fright,
Matthew realized that they were in the air, off the earth, in the
sky—flying, flying in the night.
Slowly and in a great circle they wheeled up and south. The earth lay
dark beneath in dim and scattered brilliance. They left the great smudge
of the crowded city and swept out over flat fields and sluggish rivers.
Fires flew in the world beneath and dizzily marked Chicago. Fires flew
in the world above and marked high heaven. Between, the gloom lay thick
and heavy. It crushed in upon the plane. The plane roared and rose.
Matthew could hear the beating and singing of wings rushing by in the
night as though a thousand angels of evil were battling against the
dawn. He shrank in his strait cabin and stared. His soul was afraid of
this daring, heaven-challenging thing. He was but a tossing, disembodied
spirit. There was nothing beneath him—nothing. There was nothing above
him, nothing; and beside and everywhere to the earth’s ends lay nothing.
He was alone in the center of the universe with one hard-faced and
silent man.
Then the strange horror drew away. The stars, the “ancient and the
everlasting stars,” like old and trusted friends, came and stood still
above him and looked silently down: the Great Bear, the Virgin, and the
Centaur. East curled the Little Bear, Hercules, and Bootes; west swung
the Lion, the Twins, and the Little Dog. Vega, Arcturus, and Capella
gleamed in faint brilliance.
The plane rocked gently like a cradle. Above the clamor of the engine
rose a soft calm. Below, the formless void of earth began to speak with
the shades of shadows and flickering, changing lights. That cluster of
little jewels that flushed and glowed and dimmed would be a town; that
comet below was an express train tearing east; that blackness was a
world of farms asleep. In an hour Indianapolis was a golden
scintillating glory with shadowy threads of smoke. In another hour
Cincinnati—he groped at the map—yes, Cincinnati—lay in pools of light
and shade, and the Ohio flowed like ink.
Suddenly the whole thing became symbolic. He was riding Life above the
world. He was triumphant over Pain and Death. He remembered death down
there where once the head of Jimmie thumped, thumped, on the rails. He
heard the wail of that black and beautiful widowed wife. “They didn’t
show me his face!” He saw Perigua lying still in death with that smile
on his lips, and he heard him say, “He didn’t have no face!” Then came
the slippers, her white and jeweled feet that came down from heaven and
opened the gates of hell. Some one touched his shoulder. He knew that
touch. It was arrest; arrest and jail. But what did he care? He was
flying above the world. He was flying to her.
A soft pale light grew upon the world—a halo, a radiance as of some
miraculous virgin birth. Lo! in the east and beneath the glory of the
morning star, pale, faintly blushing streamers pierced the dim night.
Then over the whole east came a flush. The dawn paused. Mountains
loomed, great crags, gashed and broken and crowned with mighty trees.
The wind from the mountains shrieked and tore; the plane quivered. A
moment it stood still; then it dipped and swerved, swayed and curved,
dropped, and shot heavenward like a bird. It pierced the wind-wound
mists and rose triumphant above the clouds. The sun sprayed all the
heavens with crimson and gold, and the morning stars sang in the vast
silence above the roar, the unending roar of the airplane.
Matthew’s spirit lifted itself to heaven. He rode triumphant over the
universe. He was the God-man, the Everlasting Power, the eternal and
undying Soul. He was above everything—Life, Death, Hate, Love. He
spurned the pettiness of earth beneath his feet. He tried to sing again
the Song of Emancipation—the Call of God—“Go down, Moses!”—but the roar
of the pistons made his strong voice a pulsing silence.
The clouds parted, melted, and ran before the gleaming glory of the
coming sun. The earth lay spread like a sailing picture—all pale blue,
green, and brown; mauve, white, yellow, and gold. He faintly saw cities
and their tentacles of roads, rivers like silver ribbons, railroads that
shrieked and puffed in black and silent lines. Hill and valley, hut and
home, tower and tree, dung them swift obeisance, and down, down, away
down on the flat breast of the world, crawled men—tiny, weak, and
helpless men: some men, eyes down, crept stealthily along; others, eyes
aloft, waved and ran and disappeared.
Out of the golden dust of morning a city gathered itself. Its
outstretched arms of roads moved swiftly, violently apart, embracing the
countryside. The smudge of its foul breath darkened the bright morning.
The living plane circled and spurned it, roared to its greeting
thousands, swooped, whirled to a mighty curve, rose, and swooped again.
Matthew’s heart fell. He grew sick and suddenly tired with the swift
careening of the plane. The sorrows of earth seemed to rise and greet
him. He was no longer bird or superman; he was only a helpless falling
atom—a deaf and weary man. They circled a bare field and fell
sickeningly toward it. They dropped. His heart, his courage, his hopes,
dropped too. They swooped again and circled, rose, and swooped, until
dizzy and deaf they landed on an almost empty field and taxied lightly
and unsteadily to a standstill. The engine ceased, and the roar of utter
silence arose.
Matthew was on earth again, and on the earth where all its pettiest
annoyances rose up to plague him. A half-dozen white men ran out, eager,
curious. They greeted the pilot vociferously. Then they stared. Matthew
climbed wearily down and stood dizzy, dirty, and deaf. They whispered,
laughed, and swore, and turning, took the pilot to his steaming bath and
breakfast and left Matthew alone.
Matthew stood irresolute, hatless, coatless in the crisp air, clad only
in his jersey and overalls. Then he took a deep breath and walked away.
In a wayside brook he bathed. He walked three miles to Richmond and
boarded a train at six for his home. He found the Jim Crow car, up by
the engine, small, crowded, and dirty. The white baggage men were
washing up in it, clad in dirty undershirts. The newsboy was
dispossessing two couples of a double seat and piling in his wares,
swearing nobly. Matthew found a seat backward by a window. Leaning out,
he spied a boy with lunches hurrying up to the white folks’ car, and he
induced him to pause and bought a piece of fried chicken and some
cornbread that tasted delicious. Then he looked out.
The Spring sang in his ears; flowers and leaves, sunshine and shade,
young cotton and corn. He could not think. He could not reason. He just
sat and saw and felt in a tangled jumble of thoughts and words, feelings
and desires, dreams and fears. And above it all lay the high heart of
determination.
They rolled and bumped along. He sat seeing nothing and yet acutely
conscious of every sound, every movement, every quiver of light, the
clamor of hail and farewell, the loud, soft, sweet, and raucous voices.
The movement and stopping, the voices and silence, grew to a point so
acute that he wanted to cry and sing, walk and rage, scream and dance.
He sat tense with half-closed eyes and saw the little old depot dance up
from the far horizon, slip near and nearer, and slowly pause with a
sighing groan. No one was there. Yes—one old black man who smiled and
said:
“Mornin’, Matthew, mornin’. How you comin’ on?”
But Matthew with a hurried word had stridden on, his satchel in hand,
his eyes on the wooded hill beyond. He passed through the village. Few
people were astir:
“Hello, Matthew!”
“By God, it’s Mat!”
The sounds fell away and died, and his feet were on the path—his Feet
were on the Path! and the surge of his soul stifled his breath. He saw
the wood, the broc tae gate. Beyond was the blur of the dim old cabin
looming wider and larger.
XIX
He saw her afar; standing at the gate there at the end of the long path
home, and by the old black tree—her tall and slender form like a swaying
willow. She was dressed in eastern style, royal in coloring, with no
concession to Europe. As he neared, he sensed the flash of great jewels
nestling on her neck and arms; a king’s ransom lay between the naked
beauty of her breasts; blood rubies weighed down her ears, and about the
slim brown gold of her waist ran a girdle such as emperors fight for.
Slowly all the wealth of silk, gold, and jewels revealed itself as he
came near and hesitated for words; then suddenly he sensed a little
bundle on her outstretched arms. He dragged his startled eyes down from
her face and saw a child—a naked baby that lay upon her hands like a
palpitating bubble of gold, asleep.
He swayed against the tall black tree and stood still.
“Thy son and mine!” she whispered. “Oh, my beloved!”
With strangled throat and streaming eyes, he went down upon his knees
before her and kissed the sandals of her feet and sobbed:
“Princess—oh, Princess of the wide, wide world!”
Then he arose and took her gently to his breast and folded his arms
about her and looked at her long. Through the soft and high-bred
comeliness of her lovely face had pierced the sharpness of suffering,
and Life had carved deeper strong, set lines of character. An inner
spirit, immutable, eternal, glorious, was shadowed behind the pools of
her great eyes. The high haughtiness of her mien was still there, but it
lay loose like some unlaced garment, and through it shone the flesh of a
new humility, of some half-frightened appeal leaping forth to know and
prove and beg a self-forgetting love equal to that which she was
offering.
He kissed the tendrils of her hair and saw silver threads lurking there;
he kissed her forehead and her eyes and lingered on her lips. He hid his
head in the hollow of her neck and then lifted his face to the treetops
and strained her bosom to his, until she thrilled and gasped and held
the child away from harm.
And the child awoke; naked, it cooed and crowed with joy on her soft arm
and threw its golden limbs up to the golden sun. Matthew shrank a little
and trembled to touch it and only whispered:
“Sweetheart! More than wife! Mother of God and my son!”
At last fearfully he took it in his hands, as slowly, with twined arms,
they began to walk toward the cabin, their long bodies and limbs
touching in rhythm. At first she said no word, but always in grave and
silent happiness looked up into his face. Then as they walked they began
to speak in whispers.
“Kautilya, why were you silent? This changes the world!”
“Matthew, the Seal was on my lips. We were parted for all time except
your son was born of me. That was my fateful secret.”
“Yet when first the babe leapt beneath your heart, still you wrote no
word!”
“Still was the Silence sealed, for had it been a girl child, I must have
left both babe and you. Bwodpur needs not a princess, but a King.”
“And yet even with this our Love Incarnate, you waited an endless
month!”
“Oh, silly darling, I waited for all—all; for his birth, for news to
India, for your freedom. Do you not see? There had to be a Maharajah in
Bwodpur of the blood royal; else brown reaction and white intrigue had
made it a footstool of England. If I had not borne your son, I must have
gone to prostitute my body to a stranger or lose Bwodpur and Sindrabad;
India; and all the Darker World. Oh, Matthew—Matthew, I know the
tortures of the damned!”
“And without me and alone you went down into the Valley of the Shadow.”
“I arose from the dead. I ascended into heaven with the angel of your
child at my breast.”
“And now Eternal Life makes us One forever.”
“Immortal Mission of the Son of Man.”
“And its name?” he asked.
“‘Madhu,’ of course; which is ‘Matthew’ in our softer tongue.”
Crimson climbing roses, bursting with radiant bloom, almost covered the
black logs of wide twin cabins, one rising higher than the other; the
darkness of the low and vine-draped hall between caught and reflected
the leaping flames of the kitchen within and beyond. Above and behind
the roofs, rose a new round tower and a high hedge; the fields were
green and white with cotton and corn; the tall trees were softly
singing.
Old stone steps worn to ancient hollows led up to the hall and on them
loomed slowly Matthew’s mother, straight, immense, white-haired, and
darkly brown. She took the baby in one great arm, infinite with
tenderness, while the child shivered with delight. She kissed Matthew
once and then said slowly with a voice that sternly held back its tears:
“And now, son, we’se gwine to make dis little man an hones’
chile.—Preacher!”
A short black man appeared in the door and paused. He looked like
incarnate Age; a dish of shining water lay in one hand and a worn book
in the other. He was clad in rusty black with snowy linen, and his face
was rough and hewn in angry lineaments around the deep and sunken
islands of his eyes.
The preacher read in the worn book from the seventh chapter of
Revelation:
“After these things I saw four Angels standing on the four corners of
the earth”—stumbling over the mighty words with strange accent and
pronunciation—“and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes!”
Then in curious short staccato phrases, with pauses in between, he lined
out a hymn. His voice was harsh and strong, and his breath whistled; but
the voice of the old mother rose clear and singularly sweet an octave
above, while at last the baritone of Matthew and the deep contralto of
Kautilya joined to make music under the trees:
Shall I—be car—
ried to-oo—the skies
on flow-ry be-eds
of ease!
Thus in the morning they were married, looking at neither mother nor
son, preacher nor shining morning, but deep into each other’s hungry
eyes. The voice of the child rose in shrill sweet obbligato and drowned
here and again the rolling periods:
“—you, Kautilya, take this man … love, honor and obey—”
“Yes.”
“—Towns, take this woman … until death do you part?”
“Yes—yes.”
“—God hath joined together; let no man put asunder!”
Then the ancient woman stiffened, closed her eyes, and chanted to her
God:
“Jesus, take dis child. Make him a man! Make him a man, Lord Jesus—a
leader of his people and a lover of his God!
“Gin him a high heart, God, a strong arm and an understand’ mind.
Breathe the holy sperrit on his lips and fill his soul with lovin’
kindness. Set his feet on the beautiful mountings of Good Tidings and
let my heart sing Hallelujah to the Lamb when he brings my lost and
stolen people home to heaven; home to you, my little Jesus and my God!”
She paused abruptly, stiffened, and with rapt face whispered the first
words of the old slave song of world revolution:
“I am seekin’ for a City—for a City into de Kingdom!” Then with closed
and streaming eyes, she danced with slow and stately step before the
Lord. Her voice lifted higher and higher, outstriving her upstretched
arms, shrilled the strophe, while the antistrophe rolled in the thick
throat of the preacher: The Woman: “Lord, I don’t feel no-ways tired—”
The Man: “Children! Fight Christ’s fury, Halleluiah!”
The Woman: “I’m—a gonta shout glory when this world’s on fire!”
The Man: “Children! Shout God’s glory, Hallelu!”
There fell a silence, and then out of the gloom of the wood moved a
pageant. A score of men clothed in white with shining swords walked
slowly forward a space, and from their midst came three old men: one
black and shaven and magnificent in raiment; one yellow and turbaned,
with a white beard that swept his burning flesh; and the last naked save
for a scarf about his loins. They carried dishes of rice and sweetmeats,
and they chanted as they came.
One voice said, solemn and low:
“Oh, thou that playest on the flute, standing by the water-ghats on the
road to Brindaban.”
A second voice, still lower, sang:
“Oh, flower of eastern silence, walking in the path of stars, divine,
beautiful, whom nothing human makes unclean: bring sunrise, noon and
golden night and wordless intercession before the wordless God.”
And a third voice rose shrill and clear:
“Oh, Allah, the compassionate, the merciful! who sends his blessing on
the Prophet, Our Lord, and on his family and companions and on all to
whom he grants salvation.”
They gave rice to Matthew and Kautilya, and sweetmeats, and all blessed
them as they knelt. Then the Brahmin took the baby from his grandmother
and wound a silken turban on its little protesting head—a turban with
that mighty ruby that looked like frozen blood. Swaying the babe up and
down and east and west, he placed it gently upon Kautilya’s outstretched
arms. It lay there, a thrill of delight; its little feet, curled petals;
its mouth a kiss; its hands like waving prayers. Slowly Kautilya stepped
forward and turned her face eastward. She raised her son toward heaven
and cried:
“Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva! Lords of Sky and Light and Love! Receive from
me, daughter of my fathers back to the hundredth name, his Majesty,
Madhu Chandragupta Singh, by the will of God, Maharajah of Bwodpur and
Maharajah-dhirajah of Sindrabad.”
Then from the forest, with faint and silver applause of trumpets:
“King of the Snows of Gaurisankar!”
“Protector of Ganga the Holy!”
“Incarnate Son of the Buddha!”
“Grand Mughal of Utter India!”
“Messenger and Messiah to all the Darker Worlds!”
Envoy
The tale is done and night is come. Now may all the sprites who, with
curled wing and starry eyes, have clustered around my hands and helped
me weave this story, lift with deft delicacy from out the crevice where
it lines my heavy flesh of fact, that rich and colored gossamer of dream
which the Queen of Faerie lent to me for a season. Pleat it to a shining
bundle and return it, sweet elves, beneath the moon, to her Mauve
Majesty with my low and fond obeisance. Beg her, sometime, somewhere, of
her abundant leisure, to tell to us hard humans: Which is really
Truth—Fact or Fancy? the Dream of the Spirit or the Pain of the Bone?