"Dear Governor:"Everything is prepared for the opening next Monday. I have arranged special seats for any of your friends who may desire to attend. We are ready to launch an efficient and systematic inquiry into the causes of the vice conditions in our city as well as state. Please...."
"Dear Governor:
"Everything is prepared for the opening next Monday. I have arranged special seats for any of your friends who may desire to attend. We are ready to launch an efficient and systematic inquiry into the causes of the vice conditions in our city as well as state. Please...."
The excitedly heralded Vice Investigation which, after several thousand centuries of criminal neglect,was to take up the question of immorality, discover its causes, determine its remedies and put an end to this blot upon civilization, opened to a crowded house. The folding chairs introduced into the ball room by the corps of janitors were occupied. But they were insufficient. The corps of janitors had underestimated the extent of the public enthusiasm.
Men and women aflame with the ardor of crusade battled for place within hearing distance of the witnesses who were to recount, under careful examination, just why girls went wrong. The ball room was capable of seating a thousand. Another thousand pried their ways through the doors and stood six and seven deep against the ornamental walls. The somewhat mythical portraits of French noblemen, Cupids, Watteau ladies of leisure smiled urbanely out of the blue and white panels over their heads. The corridor outside the large room was thronged with still a third thousand pushing, prying, squeezing, and perspiring all in vain. The police had been summoned.
The press in its first pen picture of the stirring scene drew a significant distinction. Those within the ball room who had successfully stormed the doors and clawed their way into the weltering pulp of figures were identified as "a distinguished audience of society women, welfare workers, civic leaders and citizens come to lend their moral support to the great crusade."
Those who had failed in their efforts to gain entrance and who clung with patient heroism to the corridor, the lobby downstairs and even the boiling pavements outside, were dismissed scornfully as "a crowd of the morbidly curious, hungry for the sensational details promised by the investigators."
At ten o'clock the Commission itself arrived. The perspiring police opened a passage through the throng and the commission filed to its place at the table waiting at the end of the room. Newspaper photographers immediately leaped into concerted action. The boom and smoke of flashlights arose.
Delays and preliminaries followed. The room grew terrifically hot. Collars began to wilt, faces to turn red, feet to burn. But the delays continued. It was impossible to find out why there was delay. The crowd grew impatient. A racket of voices stuffed the room. Something had gone wrong ... why didn't they start ... they weren't doing anything ... what were they waiting for ... the public was grumbling.
As a matter of fact the commissioners were playing for time. A species of stage fright had overcome them. Each of them had arrived filled with a sense of high purpose and benign power. They were men upon whom the burden of lifting an age-old blot from the face of civilization had fallen. They had felt no hesitancy in the matter. They were going to tackle the situation like Americans—red-blooded Americans in whose heart burned the unfaltering light of idealism. There was going to be no shilly-shallying, no highfalutin theorizings. They were going to the bottom of this matter without fear or favor. They were going to find out just why girls went wrong and, having found this out, they were going to remove the cause, or causes if there were more than one, and thus put an end to immorality—at least in the great commonwealth of Illinois.
They were ten undaunted crusaders inspired with the unfaltering consciousness of their country's power and rectitude. In fact, it was not the Basine Commissionwhich pushed through the throng but the Tradition of the United States, the Revered Memory of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Nathan Hale, the Army that had never been licked, the Government of the People, by the People and for the People, that was better than any other government on the face of the earth. These walked behind the policemen through the throng.
But there was a human undertone to this Tradition about to grapple with the problem of Vice. Like Basine, each of the nine had at the beginning felt a slight discomfort. Their own pasts and even presents had risen in their thought to deride them. They were, alas, not without sin themselves. The dramatic coincidence was even possible that one of the witnesses called might point to a commissioner as the author of her ruin. This, in an oblique way, disturbed them. It lay like an indigestible fear upon the stomach of incarnated Tradition. But as the patriotic fervor mounted in them, they were able somewhat to master this selfish fear. Debating the matter vaguely in the silence of their own bedrooms they had achieved an identical triumph.
Yes, they were after all only men. They had sinned, were sinning regularly in fact. But they would be fearless. They would strike out with no reserve and if Vice turned an accusing forefinger upon them, they would sacrifice themselves. The chances were, however, that this would not happen. They experienced the inner elation which comes with non-inconveniencing confession. Regardless of what they were in secret, they would be able to reveal themselves publicly as men sitting in judgment upon Vice, as executioners of Vice. In this manner their material livesbecame unimportant accidents. They were able within two weeks to enter the public concept of themselves. Their actual selves became, in their own eyes, inferior and irrelevant. They had achieved an idealization.
There was also another change. Once established in their own eyes as Virgins, like Basine they were soon under the hypnosis of headlines. As they walked to the hotel this morning they had entirely rid themselves of their normal individualities. They were no longer even ordinary virgins, embarked upon a vaguely scientific or social enterprise. They were, above that, the spokesmen of an aroused public, the dignified containers of the power of the People.
None of the ten with the exception of Basine had given the actual work before him any thought. They had not prepared themselves for the task by study. All of them were serenely, in fact belligerently, ignorant of the scientific thought of the world on the subject. The involved disclosures of psychologists, philosophers, economists and other specialists in race ethics were part of a childish abracadabra beneath their consideration. For they were the incarnated power of Tradition and of Public Opinion—two grave forces which needed no guilding light from such sources.
This power buoyed them and brought a stern light into their eyes. They believed in the People, and therefore in themselves as Spokesmen. Ten shrewd, wire-pulling politicians whose careers were identically darkened with chicanery and crude cynicism, they were able by the magic of faith to rise above themselves. They were able to feel the nobility of the phrases which they had so often utilized as cloaks for their private greeds and private spites. These werethe phrases of Democracy which proclaimed to an awed populace that it, the populace, was Master and that its will was a holy and unassailable force for progress and piety.
As spokesmen of the people these commissioners were concerned with furthering the great idealization of themselves which the people worshipped as their god. Reason was at war with this idealization. Reason was the species of morbid and inverted vanity which inspired man to disembowel himself as proof of his stupidity. It grappled with his illusions, crawled through his soul, hamstringing his complacency. It raised insidious voices around him, wooing him. To denude himself of hope, faith and charity—in short to become intolerable to himself.
The commissioners, as spokesmen, turned their back upon it. There was a happier outlet for the energies of man than the repudiation of himself as the glory of God. There was the unreasoning struggle for idealization—the miracle by which man, seizing hold of his boot straps, hoisted himself into Heaven. This struggle, arousing the guffaws and sneers of reason, was its own reward. It was the virtue that rewarded itself.
The perspiring little scene in the hotel ball room was a startling visualization of this happier struggle. Regardless of their sins, their greeds, hypocrisies, idiocies, the people desired to see themselves as incarnations of an ideal. This ideal had been carefully elaborated. Of late it had taken on a life of its own. It had grown like a fungus feeding upon itself. Man staring at the heaven he had created was becoming awed by its magnificence and extent. More than that this heaven was threatening to escape him,to become incongruous by its very vastness. There was danger that his idealization, fattening upon a logic of its own, would become a bit too preposterous even for worship. Already this idealization proclaimed him as an apostle of virtue, as a moralist first and a biological product afterward; as believing in the credo of right over might, in the equality of blacks, whites, poor and rich; as a sort of animated sermon from the triple pen of a martyr president, martyr husband and martyr Messiah. Lost in a difficult admiration of this heaven, the people struggled in the double task of keeping the idealization of themselves from becoming too preposterous and of persuasively identifying themselves with their image.
The result of this struggle was apparent in the puritanizatron of idea becoming popular in the country. A spirit of martyrdom was prevalent. Men and women were enthusiastically martyring themselves—passing laws and formulating conventions in opposition to their appetites and desires—in an excited effort to overtake this idealization of themselves. Righteousness was becoming a panic. The Christ image of the crowd was slowly obliterating its reality. His halo was running away with man. Overcome with the necessity of keeping pace with the artificial virtues he had created as his God, he was converting himself, to the best of his talents, into an outwardly epicene, eye-rolling symbol of purity. There was this mirror alive with his own God-like image. And he must now be careful not to give the lie to the idealization of himself created partly by him and partly by the activity of logic.
The members of the Vice Investigating Commission entered the crowded room serene in the knowledgethat reason was their enemy and that God—that mysterious cross between public opinion and yesterday's errors—would vouchsafe them the power and keenness to cope with the problem before them.
They were innocent of intelligence but they had faith in the principles of their country and the principles of their country were founded upon the great truth that what the people willed must come to pass. Today the people of the commonwealth of Illinois willed that vice and immorality be abolished from their midst. Therefore it must come to pass that the ten citizens lowering themselves into the seats behind the table were ten irresistible instruments animated by the strength of public opinion.
For several minutes after they had seated themselves the commissioners remained staring with dignity at the throng. A vague and pleasant delirium occupied their minds. The Vice Investigating Commission had assembled and the business of removing the blot from the face of civilization would begin at once. The commissioners sat, pompously inanimate, waiting for it to begin.
The spectacle before them, the thousands of eyes focussed upon their little group at the long table, slowly awakened an uncomfortable disillusion in the commissioners. In fact, a little panic swept their minds. They had, of course, discussed the issues, passed resolutions and laid plans for grappling with the situation. But all these efforts had been part of the curious hypnosis which had overcome them. The sense of their power hypnotized them into fancying that their star chamber babblings were in themselves thunderblots. The sweeping promises, the all-embracing statements and resolutions passed and issuedfor publication had filled them with an exalted sense of success. They had entered the ballroom under the naive conviction that the whole business had been already successfully consummated. They were taking their seats at the table not to launch upon a task but to receive the plaudits of the public for great work already accomplished; in fact to reap reward for the noble utterances attributed to them by the press.
But now with the pads of paper, the sharpened pencils, the businesslike cuspidors at their feet, the ominous wastepaper baskets under their hands, the commissioners faced the ghastly fact that the blot was still on the face of civilization, untouched by their thunderbolts. And some millions of people whose delegates were staring at them were waiting excitedly for it to be removed.
It occurred as if for the first time to the commissioners that something would have to be done about it. Their expressions underwent a change. A pensiveness crept into their heavy faces. A bewilderment dulled the dignity of their stares. The room was unbearably hot. It was impossible to do any work in such a crowd. One could hardly hear oneself think above the noise. The commissioners frowned and whispered among themselves. Gradually a nervous jocularity came into their manner.
"Well, here we are. All set."
"Hm, I think we'd better call some witnesses."
"That's right. Call some witnesses. Where's Judge Basine?"
"Talking over there."
"Huh, why don't he do something?"
Yes, why didn't Judge Basine take charge of hisflock. It was his commission. The papers all said it was the Basine Commission. Then why didn't he start something. Instead of gabbing around with reporters.
"Good God! What a heat! Hasn't the management provided any fans?"
"Where's a bellboy? We'll send him after some fans. Think a dozen'll be enough?"
"Nothing doing. Three or four dozen at least. I'll wear out a dozen myself before this day's over, believe me."
"Say, ain't that right!"
"Oh Judge ... Judge...."
"Yes, what is it, Senator?"
"What about the witnesses? Are we going to have any witnesses?"
"Of course. I'm just getting things ready."
"That's right. There's no rush. Open that window, won't you Jim?"
"God, what a mob. Well, we'd better do something, don't you think?"
"Leave it to Basine. Got a knife, Harry? This pencil's full of bum lead."
The whisperings and delays continued. Basine, however, began to recover himself. The eager, focussed eyes of the room were slowly electrifying him. His gestures were becoming more dignified. His manner acquired a definiteness.
The eyes regarding him saw a man with sharp features and an imperious expression moving with what seemed significant deliberation, examining papers, studying papers, opening papers, extracting papers, returning papers. Instinctively they felt thathere, centered in this cautiously dynamic figure, was the celebrated Vice Investigation.
Basine arose, a gavel in his hand, and pounded the table. The noises subsided as if a presence were being expelled from the room. The hush served to illumine the figure of Basine. The eyes waited. His voice arose, definite, impelling.
"Fellow Citizens, the Vice Investigating Commission appointed by the State of Illinois to determine if possible the causes of immorality and to remove, wherever possible, such causes, is now in session. The purposes of this commission need no further explanation. We are assembled here in the name of the people of this state to do all in our power to grapple with the problem of vice and its many auxiliary problems.
"This problem is today the outstanding menace to the welfare of our community. Its dangers touch us all. The immoral man and the immoral woman, the factors which contribute to their immorality, are our responsibility. This is no sentimental outburst, no vague uprising but an organized, official investigation with full powers to uncover facts. We are not here to dabble in theories, but to deal with facts. And for that purpose, and that purpose only, we are assembled under the laws of our state and the constitution of our country. The first witness called will be Mr. Arthur Core."
Applause thundered. Basine, flushed, sat down. The commissioners on each side of him breathed with relief. Something had been started. To their intense surprise Mr. Arthur Core actually arose from one of the witness chairs and came forward. Mr. Core was head of the largest department store in the city.Basine with an instinct in which he placed implicit reliance had summoned him first, thus abandoning the plans the commission had decided upon in star chamber. It had been decided upon to save up the big guns for a climax. Basine's instinct warned him as he stood on his feet talking, that a climax was necessary immediately—a gesture which would at once reveal the power and fearlessness of the commission.
Mr. Core was the medium for such a gesture. Venerated as one of the wealthiest men of the city, the head of its most widely advertized and magnificent retail establishment, to hail him before the commission and belabor him with queries would be to capture the confidence of the public forthwith.
As Mr. Core, accompanied by two lawyers and a secretary laden with ledgers, advanced toward the table a sudden misgiving struck Basine. How much would the newspapers dare print about Mr. Core, particularly if the cross examination placed him and his establishment in an unfavorable light? Mr. Core meant upwards of $3,000,000 a year in advertising revenue. Perhaps he had made a mistake in calling him. The press would turn and fly from the commission as from a plague. There would be no headlines and the public would fall away.
Basine stood up as Mr. Core approached. He was a smartly dressed man with a cream-colored handkerchief protruding against a smoothly pressed blue coat; an affable, reserved face that reminded Basine of Milton Ware and the Michigan Avenue Club. Poise, suavity, courtesy exuded from Mr. Core.
"How do you do, Judge," he said with a bow, "and Gentlemen of the Commission."
Basine extended his hand and promptly regrettedthe action. He had caught the emotion of the crowd. He realized that his instinct had not betrayed him.
Mr. Core was one of the most venerated citizens in the community, venerated for his power, his success and his aloofness from his venerators. The summoning of Mr. Core to take his place and be cross-examined by the Commission had sent a thrill through the crowd. They felt the elation of a pack of beagle dogs with a magnificent stag brought to earth under their little jaws.
Mr. Core was rich, powerful, brilliant. But they, the people, were greater than he. There he stood obedient to their delegated spokesman, the fearless Basine, and gratitude filled them as they noted Basine was a head taller than the great Mr. Core, and that the great Basine was not at all confused by the presence of this famed personage.
Basine as he felt the emotion of the crowd knew simultaneously that the newspapers, caught between their two vital functions—that of insuring their revenue by respectful treatment of its source, the advertising plutocracy,—and of insuring their popularity by the fearless advocacy of any current crowd hysteria, must follow the less dangerous course. And the less dangerous course now, as always, was with the beagle dogs who had brought a stag to earth.
After the handshake Basine looked severely about him. He was pleased to observe that his colleagues were non-existent. They sat coughing, sharpening pencils and gazing with vacuous aplomb at objects about them. He smiled with inward contempt. Little puppets under his hands. And the crowd before him—a smear of little puppets. Even the all-powerful newspapers, even the mighty Mr. ArthurCore—he could manipulate them because there was something in him that was not in other people. A sense of drama, perhaps. But more than that, an understanding—a vision that enabled him to see clearly over the heads of people into the future. He could tell in advance which way people were going to turn and he could hurry forward and be there waiting for them—a leader waiting for them when they caught up.
A curious question slipped into his mind. "Why am I like that?" And then another question, "Why am I able to do things?"
The questions pleased him and as he followed Mr. Core into his chair he knew that the crowd had noticed that Judge Basine was a man unimpressed by the greatness of Mr. Core, that the eyes focussed on him had thrilled with the knowledge that he, Basine, was dressed as well as Mr. Core and that his own dignity and sternness were more impressive than the poise of Mr. Core. The great Mr. Core was second fiddle in the show. Basine was first fiddle and the crowd was thrilled by that. Because Basine was their man, their leader. And Mr. Core, venerated to this moment, was now their enemy. Basine was a man in whom the dignity of the people shone out more powerfully than the prestige of any enviable individual. These things whirled through Basine's thought as he turned to the witness.
"Mr. Stenographer," he announced, "you will please make accurate transcription of all questions and answers that follow."
A naive pride filled the attentive commissioners. The Investigation was after all a success. Regardless of what happened the mere fact that Arthur Core wasto be interrogated on the subject of immorality among working girls, constituted an overwhelming success. The conviction which now delighted them was shared by the thousands in the room and by the newspaper men scribbling at an adjoining table. All present felt certain that so dramatic a situation as the cross-examination of Mr. Arthur Core by the chairman of the Vice Investigating Commission was bound to result somehow in the instant removal of the blot from the face of civilization. Basine, clearing his throat, began the questioning.
"Your name?"
"Arthur Core."
"Your position?"
"President of Core-Plain and Company."
"That is the retail merchandise establishment in this city?"
"It is."
A full five minutes was consumed in the exchange of profound introductions. This concluded, Mr. Core was informed what the purposes of the Vice Investigation Commission were. The information failed to impress him. Whereupon he was informed that he, as an employer of thousands of girls, had been called to throw light on a vital question. First, what wages did his employes' receive. Mr. Core, raising his eyebrows and looking aggrieved as if he had been asked a very crude and tactless question, replied that the average wage was $10 a week for the young women in his employ.
Did he think a young woman could keep virtuous on $10 a week? Alas, he had never given that phase of the economic system any thought. But if his opinion as an individual was worth anything, he wouldoffer the philosophical observation that wages had nothing to do with immorality.
A cynical observation. The crowd frowned. It didn't, eh? Lot he knew about it. And on what did he base this cold-blooded point of view? Well, on nothing in particular except his common sense. Indeed! His common sense! Well, well. So he thought that a normal young woman could live on $10 a week, feed, clothe and house herself on $10 a week and never feel tempted to earn more money by sacrificing her virtue? Alas, he had not thought of it in that way. He had merely thought that good young women were good and bad young women were bad. And wages had nothing to do with it. It was human nature. What! Human nature to be bad! Mr. Arthur Core was inclined to a cynicism which, fortunately, the great minds of the nation did not share. Had he ever sought to determine how many good girls there were in his employ? No, but he presumed they were all good. If they weren't he was sorry for them, but it was their own fault.
Thus the see-saw continued while the room grew hotter, while people packed against each other listened with distended eyes and opened mouths. Thus the commissioners, recovering from their panic, began to frown with importances. And Basine, still following the instinct in him—the sense of contact he felt with the crowd and situation, played another trump card. The afternoon newspapers were blazoning the news of Mr. Arthur Core. The morning papers would need an equally dramatic morsel. Basine adjourned the session to reconvene at 3 o'clock. The crowd remained. The heat increased. The session reconvened. It was businesslike now. It wasrunning like a machine. No more delays and indecisions.
"Call Miss Winona Johnson."
Basine sat amid heaps of documents, ledgers and commissioners, in charge. It was he who asked the questions, whose face was the battle-front of the People versus Vice.
Your name? Winona Johnson. Your occupation? A pause. And then in a lowered voice, a prostitute. What was that?—from Mr. Stenographer. A prostitute, from Basine clearly and indignantly. Sensation. She was a prostitute, this yellow-haired, gaudy creature in the witness chair. She had her nerve. How long have you been a prostitute, Winona Johnson? Well, two years, I guess. She guessed. As if she didn't know. And before that what were you? She was a clerk. Where were you employed as a clerk, Winona? Where? Oh, I worked for Core-Plain and Company. There it was—the sort of thing that made climaxes. A new lead for the morning papers—a new thrill for the tired breakfasters. "Tells Tragic Story of Moral Downfall." And then in smaller headlines, "Former State Street Clerk Uncovers Snares, Pitfalls of City." And then photographs; comparisons between Mr. Core's statements and Miss Johnson's statements. Mr. Core's picture and Miss Johnson's picture side by side so that one might almost think, unless one read carefully (and who did that?) that the venerated Mr. Arthur Core had been exposed by the all powerful Basine Commission as the seducer of the pathetic Miss Winona Johnson.
Through the weltering afternoon the great investigation progressed, Basine, unaided, carrying the fight.A Champion, an Undaunted One, his voice growing hoarse, his eyes flashing tirelessly, his questions never failing; incisive, compelling questions that seemed for all the world as if they were slowly, tenaciously coming to grips with the Devil.
A great day for the commonwealth of Illinois. A day surfeited with climaxes. Winona Johnson wept and the courteous voice of Basine pressed for facts. Here was a mine of facts, here a witness who could reveal something.... And she did....
That will be all, thank you, from Basine. Winona arose. Eyes devoured her. A terrible curiosity played over her face and body. Civilization had been stunned. Everyone knew, of course, that prostitutes sold themselves to men. But to so many!!! Horrible! A revelation to make thinking men think, thinking women, too.
If there had been any doubt in the public mind concerning the sincerity of the Commission, this day had removed it. Two welfare workers and a second department store owner concluded the bill. The newspapers spread the questions and answers through the city. A determined light came into the eyes of the millions who read. The commonwealth was at grips with evil. Facts had been exhumed in a single session that were intolerable to a civilized community. A hue and cry would be raised. Things would be done. The millions reading felt this. Something would have to be done. Resolutions would be passed. Thunderbolts would be hurled by civic bodies, lodges, clubs. The thing called for action, action and more action. But wait and see what the morning papers would have to say. There would be remedies in the morning papers. Things would be done overnightby the morning papers to put an end to this iniquity—prostitution!!!! And there could be no question but that underpaid workers were driven to lives of shame. And the dance halls, they hadn't gotten around to them yet. And factories and hotels—wait till it came their turn. They would all be grilled, quizzed, flayed.
Basine made his way slowly through the throng. Tomorrow's session would begin at eleven o'clock. He was tired. The work had exhausted him. But his head felt clear. Without raising his eyes he understood the admiration of the crowds through which he was moving. They were repeating his name among themselves saying, there he goes ... that's him.... He had understood things in this manner all day, without giving them words.
He felt at peace. He had gone through a test. Now he knew he was a leader. The thing of which he had been afraid had turned out to be easy. He smiled, remembering his colleagues. Simple, blundering men who had floundered around trying to horn in. But this wasn't the private banks crusade, not by a long shot. Ah, that was playing a long shot—calling Core like that. But it had worked. Newsies were yelling around him. Extra—all about! About Basine, of course. About him. Yes, there was leadership in him. He was a man who could sweep people along with him.
The crowds were going home. All these people belonged to him. Constituents. He smiled pleasantly at the hurrying figures. It was hot and they were perspiring. Their eyes were filmed with preoccupations. But what would happen if they were told suddenly that Judge Basine was passing them, rubbingshoulders with them? Their eyes would brighten. They would forget about the things that were worrying them. They would look up and smile. Perhaps cheer.
Day dreams lifted his thought out of the present. This thing was only a beginning. He would go on. There was a kinship in him with people. The memory of the day lay like a love in his heart. He was still young. Years ahead of him and he would end—where? High up.
He looked around and noticed he was walking toward Doris' studio. Odd, he hadn't been aware where he was going. But he might as well. He frowned. She would ridicule what had happened. Well, that was all right. Her hatred of such things couldn't wipe out what was in his heart now. He became practical. Think of tomorrow's session. But why? The details were annoying. He had had enough details for one day. He would take care of things when the proper time came. This was a sort of reward, to walk and dream. As for the blot on the face of civilization, yes that would all be taken care of at the proper time. But the important thing, the most important thing was Basine—high up.
Schroder looked at his watch. Late, perhaps she wouldn't come. Intellectual women were always the most uncertain. It was twilight. Summer bloomed incongruously in the small city park.
"She probably didn't mean it, anyway," he thought.
Ruth appeared walking calmly down the broad pavement. He watched her. She had come, but thebusiness was still uncertain. Amorous affairs were one thing. Seduction was another. He liked her, of course. But what if she had notions about things? Love, fidelity, virtue, marriage, decency. Oh well, he could always step away and say good-bye, I'm sorry.
"Hello," he said aloud. "You're late."
"I wasn't coming."
"I didn't think so, either."
She was one of the kind who made a pretense of frankness. If you let her she would talk about sex till the cows came home, as if it were a problem in algebra. He knew the kind. Full of theories....
"Where shall we go, Paul?"
"Let's sit here a while. How's his Honor."
"I don't know. I resigned last week."
"Is that so?"
"Yes, after the Commission adjourned for the summer."
The memory of the commission made him smile.
"Goofy," he said.
She nodded. "But Judge Basine is made, don't you think?"
He took her hand.
"So you left him," he smiled. They sat in silence. He would wait for her to take the lead. She began talking as the park grew darker.
"I didn't intend coming," she said, "because I ... I know what you want."
Her voice quivered and her fingers tightened over his hand.
"But I came to tell you ... I can't. I'm not being foolish or anything. But—it isn't worth it."
He looked at her and wondered. The invitation was clear. He must begin pleading now and makinglove. He hesitated because she had started crying. Tears were on her cheeks.
She was remembering Basine.
"Don't," he whispered. "I wouldn't ask you to do anything like that. We've talked, of course. But that was just talk. Ruth, I love you."
"But love doesn't mean anything to you," she answered.
And the answer to that was marriage. He hesitated. Tears always stirred him. Now it was dark. He placed an arm around her. The stiffening of her body decided him.
"We'll get married," he said.
The assurance did not delight her. Marriage was something foreign. But she stood up when he asked her to and followed him. She walked along thinking of herself as if there were two Ruths. One was walking with a man—where? The other was thinking about things. But there was little to think about. If it had been Basine instead of this other, it would have been nicer. Basine was someone she knew. Paul was a stranger. But Basine had played with her. He had said nothing when she went away. Merely looked at her and nodded. His success had gone to his head. He didn't want her, even to flirt with anymore. He was too busy....
She put her arms around the stranger and wept.
It was minor tragedy. There was nothing to weep about. Nobody cared what happened to her. If there had been somebody who cared she would never have met him.
Schroder watched her and sighed.
"If you don't love me," he said.
"It's not that," she answered. She was forgettingabout her tears. Her close presence to him was slowly preoccupying her. He loved her. And they would be married. It didn't matter much. But the idea made it a little easier. She kissed him, timidly at first. And then with passion.
Schroder grimaced inwardly. It was dark and she couldn't see his eyes. They were worried. He had been in love for a few minutes in the park. He would have liked to remain in love. He sat before the window thinking, Why did women insist on climaxes. Their arguments made it necessary for men to plead. The culmination was a sort of logical gesture.
He walked toward her. He would take her hand and make love. He felt sad and making love out of sadness was always an interesting diversion.
"Ruth," he whispered, "do you love me?"
She answered by embracing him.
"Always the same," he murmured to himself, "it's no use."
The children were asleep and Henrietta was reading. Basine in his slippers and smoking-jacket sat unoccupied. Their new house worried him. He had not yet familiarized himself with its shadows.
He smiled as he watched his wife. He was going to run for Senator but that made no difference to her. He was a husband to her, and everything else was incidental. He thought of Ruth. Her name no longer depressed him. During the first three or four months that followed her absence he had felt as if his career had ended. There was nobody to succeed for any more. Then through Doris he had learned that she was to marry Schroder.
The information had cured him. He had been despising himself for letting her go. Now he was able to pretend that he had been forced by her virtue to relinquish her. It would have been a dastardly thing to do—ruin her and prevent her from marrying and living a decent life. Her marrying vindicated his own virtue. He was able to think that he had done the right thing. Not only that, but he had done the only thing possible. She had fled from him because he was a married man. Then, too, she probably didn't love Schroder. Not as she had loved him. She was marrying him broken-heartedly. He sometimes played with this notion. It pleased him. His sadness at the thought of her in another man's arms was mitigated by the two-fold thought that her heart was broken and that she was in reality embracing marriage and not a man.
He no longer desired her. He was too busy for one thing. Still, things were different. She had been an inspiration. Now he went on with his plans and his climb without feeling the excitement that had filled him during their year together. There was no one in front of whom to pose. This made posing a rather thankless business. And he became practical in his thoughts, less dramatic in his lies.
Henrietta had put aside her paper and was looking at him.
"Are you tired?" she asked.
He shook his head. He began to think about her. What did she do all day? Since Ruth had left, his desire to leave his wife had vanished. He paused, confused. She was weeping.
"What's the matter?" he asked. She lowered her head.
"Nothing," she said.
A vivid memory hurt him. He remembered kissing her for a first time in his mother's kitchen years ago. It seemed now that she had been alive and beautiful that evening. That was gone.
"Has anything happened," he asked softly.
Her head shook. He came to her side and looked at her. He felt helpless. What was there to make her cry?
"I don't know, George," she said as if answering his silent question. "Please forgive me. I just started to cry for nothing."
"Worried about something?" he pressed. He felt guilty. She was crying because of the things he had done. But what had he done? Nothing wrong. He had put the wrong things out of his life. And for her sake. Why should she weep about that, then? He was the one to weep. And she had her children. Her father was alive. He remained silent, recounting what he tried to consider anti-weeping reasons.
"Nothing, George," she answered. "I'm ... I'm just getting old."
He frowned and turned away.
Later when they lay in bed he took her in his arms. She had apparently forgotten about her tears and their curious explanation. But he began to talk to her.
"Old," he whispered, "you're not getting old. Don't be silly. At least no more than I am. I'm older than you."
He held her close to him and his mind embraced a memory. This was not his wife he held, but someone else. A vivacious, happy girl ten years ago. No, more than that. Almost fourteen years ago. He layremembering another Henrietta—a charming, delightful child. He had never been in love with her. This he knew. But the knowledge had slowly died. When he embraced her at night a dream obscured his memory. The dream was that he had once loved her, that she had once been beautiful, that his heart had once sung with desire for her.
He played with this dream. It was a make-believe that saddened him. Yet it made the moment more tolerable. Sometimes it even brought a curious happiness. His dream would pretend that the scrawny figure he was holding had once filled him with ecstasies. His dream would whisper to him that he had once idolized her and that once ... once. He would lie editing his sterile memories of her into glowing once-upon-a-times. And when his kisses sought her cold lips it would be to this dream-Henrietta they gave themselves, a Henrietta who had never been. It was sad to pretend in this way that his great love had died and that his beautiful one had faded. But it was not as sad as to remember when he kissed her that there had never been anything.
He felt tired when he left the house the next morning. The business of preening for the senatorial race annoyed him. The goal lured but the details to be managed were aggravating.
He started as he opened the door of his chambers. Ruth! He stood looking at her without words. She was pale and there was something curious about her. She didn't look the same.
"You look surprised," she smiled. He noticed how spiritless she was. "But ... you don't mind my coming here, do you. I've been trying to get you."
She turned her eyes away. He had finally discovered the change, a physical one.
"Well," he exclaimed, "I hadn't heard the good news. How's Paul."
So she was married. And had kept it secret. He smiled. He remembered other scenes in the room. The doors locked. Her arms around him. All that was over now. Before her motherhood, even the memory of it seemed less certain.
"There is no good news," she was saying. "I've come to see if you can help me."
They sat down. Basine nodded. Money. Poor girl. Schroder was always an ass about things.
"He's gone away," she went on. "And ... and I'd like to locate him."
"Who?"
"Paul."
She covered her face. So he had deserted her. And she had come back to him. A momentary excitement entered his thought. But he frowned immediately. It was distasteful to think of what might have been if ... not for this.
An amazement came into his eyes. He stared at her as she talked. She had been ruined by Schroder and he had never married her. And when she had refused medical interference he had calmly left the city. He listened blankly and could think of nothing to say.
"Oh George, you must help me."
Help her! He must help her! After she had lived with this man for months, giving herself to him! He stood up and walked down the room. It was like he used to do, pace up and down in front of her.
He wanted to talk but he found it hard. A rage was coming into his mind that obscured his words. The rage continued. Pausing in the center of the room Basine began to swear. His voice had grown high pitched.
"Damn!" he shouted at her, "and you come to me. Me! You bring your filthy sins to me! Damn his dirty soul! Yes, you're fine, you are! Leaving me to go with that chippy-chaser. I thought ... I thought you were somebody."
He stopped, his fist in the air. She was walking away.
"Ruth," he called after her, "listen, wait a minute."
The door closed after her. Basine stood watching the door. She would open it and come back. But the door remained shut. He seated himself at his desk. Moments passed and he was surprised to wake up and hear himself mumbling. "The dirty skunk! I'll wring his neck!"
She had given herself to Schroder! Not married him.... The part he had played in her ruin forced itself with a nauseating insistency into Basine's mind. His memories seized him. He struggled, but the things he knew leaped out of hiding-places and assaulted him. She had loved him. And he had loved her. Life had seemed marvelous with her close to him. His career, his day, its simplest detail, had been colored with delicious excitement. But he had been afraid to reach out and take what he wanted. It would have meant success, happiness and something else—the word beauty withheld itself—it would have meant these things. But he had feared possession. He had let her go away after kissing her and telling her that he loved her. So she had gone walking inthe street and fallen into the arms of the first man she met. It was plain.
Basine writhed under triumphant accusations. A torment filled him. He must escape from the accusations He pried himself away from his thoughts and took his place on the bench. Other people's troubles again. Disputes, wrangles, testimonies—his ears listened mechanically. Lawyers were pleading with him. Witnesses were stammering. He sat with a scowl and hunched forward in his chair. His lean face thrust itself at the courtroom.
Thoughts too intolerable for his attention whirled sickeningly in a background. Pictures of Ruth in the man's arms, of her surrender, of the intimacies of their illicit affair forced themselves upon him. He loved her. "Oh, damn him," sang itself darkly through his heart.
There was one mocking intruder that raised a vociferous head. "You might have had her. Not he. She might have been yours if you hadn't been afraid." It was this that nauseated most. Not Schroder's villainy, but his own cowardice. He had lost through cowardice.
The day dragged itself along. He had recovered in part the rage which protected him from the intolerable memories. When he left the courtroom it was with a viciousness in his step. His feet stamped down as he walked, as if they were attacking the pavements. He entered a saloon several blocks from the City Hall.
The place was almost deserted. A few businesslike looking men were grouped before the long bar. They were laughing. Basine passed them and a voice called his name. He turned and saw a familiar facein one of the small booths against the wall. It was Levine, the newspaperman.
"Hello, Judge. Come on over and sit down."
Basine narrowed his eyes. The man was partially drunk. His drawn face, usually pale, was flushed and his sneering black eyes were bloodshot. He sat down opposite Levine with a greeting. A waiter brought drinks.
"What's up, Judge, you seem rather low," Levine laughed quietly. "The world been falling on your nose? Ha, have another. Here, waiter...."
They sat drinking, the newspaperman lost in a mysterious excitement that gathered in his voice. The excitement soothed Basine. The drinks brought a haze into his mind. He became aware that the man was talking about his sister. He was leaning forward, a black forelock over his bloodshot eye, his arm thrown out on the table, and talking in a languorous voice about Doris.
"Drowning my troubles, judge," he was saying. "It's easier to drink yourself into forgetfulness than to lie yourself into forgetfulness, eh? And besides you grow sick of lying, eh. Nobody lies more than me, and I know, I know. But it ain't my fault—she's gone mad about him. You know him—Lindstrum, the poet. Been mad about him for years. And it gets worse ... that's all that's the matter with her. He ran away years ago and she's gotten a phobia about people. Because he's the people's poet. Ha, she's told me about you, George. Got an idea of making this man Lindstrum sick by showing him how rotten people are. And using you. See? But where do I come in? Nowhere ... nowhere. Just gabbing for years and I don't come in nowhere.... Get me?This damn newspaper drool has eaten into me.... She's the only one I wanted. But I don't come in, see? She's mad ... gone mad...."
Basine's thought avoided the man's words. He sat with a blissful vacuity. They drank till it grew night. Basine, as if recalling himself, walked out. The newspaperman lay across the table, his head asleep on his arm.
The night was cool. A curious impulse to let go came to Basine. He would go somewhere and find women and noise. He walked along thinking about this. When he had walked for an hour the impulse was gone. The haze was slipping from him. He recalled things Levine had said. Something about Lindstrum, the poet. His mind played with Lindstrum. He had seen him—where? Oh yes, long ago. That was before he'd become famous. Now he was a great poet. Hell with everything.... Get the senatorship and let things slide.
He walked along toward his home. Henrietta would be asleep. He sighed. The night was cool. Everything all right in the morning. Now, everything all wrong. But in the morning—
His stride quickened. He felt half asleep and as he moved over the deserted pavement he began mumbling, "I love you, George, I love you...."
Doris was ill. The doctor had telephoned her mother and Mrs. Basine was sitting beside the bed holding Doris' hand. A man she remembered vaguely was standing in a corner of the room smoking. It was the poet, Lindstrum, who was once afriend of Doris. He had been there when she arrived, standing by the window and smoking while the doctor was fixing an ice pack on Doris' head.
The doctor had been unable to make a diagnosis. She had a fever but they would have to wait for more definite symptoms.
As the twilight filled the studio, Mrs. Basine grew frightened. She thought at moments Doris was dead, she lay so still. She watched the half-closed eyes anxiously. Perhaps Doris would die. And George was in Washington. She had telegraphed but he couldn't arrive till the next day. She sat wondering about her daughter. She remembered her as a child, then as a girl.
"Changes, changes," she sighed. Changes that excited one, but all they did was bring one nearer to this. She was thinking of death.
"How do you feel now, Doris?"
No answer. The burning eyes continued to stare, the hand she held remained limp and dry in her fingers. Perhaps it was nothing serious. Merely a fever. She sat nodding her head at her thoughts. She thought of how her children had grown up and gone away. Fanny, George, Doris, Aubrey, Henrietta, Mrs. Gilchrist, Judge Smith and the grandchildren. These were the names of her family. They were part of her. Yet while the rest of the world grew more and more familiar they grew more and more strange.
"Does it pain you anywhere, Doris?"
No answer. Poor little Doris. She stroked her face. Life had used her differently. She felt this. She knew nothing of what Doris had done ordreamed, but the staring eyes frightened her and she understood.
George frequently called her queer. Yet George was, in a way, proud of her. He used to seek Doris out. And many people had talked of her as a very unusual young woman. But life had used her curiously, not like other girls. Perhaps it was a man. She turned toward the figure in the corner. He was standing holding a pipe to his mouth. What if it was a man? Scandal. Mrs. Basine sighed. What was scandal? It was only a way of looking at facts. She would take her home with her. Poor little Doris living alone in this place and sitting here night after night dreaming of things. That was sad.
"Listen dear, do you want something?"
No answer. The doctor said he would be back after dinner and bring a nurse. She would ask him if Doris could be moved and then take her home. It was growing darker in the room. Someone was knocking. She opened the door. It was another man. He came in and then paused.
"Is Doris ill?" he asked.
Mrs. Basine nodded.
"I am her mother," she said.
Levine looked at her and introduced himself.
"You know Mr. Lindstrum," she added. Levine stared at the poet in the shadows and said, "Yes, I know him."
"How do you do," said Lindstrum slowly.
Doris reached her hand up as Levine approached the bed. He took it and she whispered, "Don't go away." She tried to rise.
"You mustn't dear," her mother cautioned.
"Oh yes," Doris voice appeared to be growingstronger. "I want to sit up. Help me, Max." He arranged the pillows. The ice-pack fell from her head. She smiled.
"You haven't eaten anything, mother," she added. "Please, there's a restaurant around the corner."
Mrs. Basine stood up. It might be better to go away for a while. Despite her daughter's momentary recovery her fears had increased. She felt something curious about Doris. But perhaps it was just the fever. She left the room with a final glance at the flushed face. Doris had always been strange, but there was something disturbing about her now. Her daughter's eyes watching her opening the door, chilled her heart suddenly. She held herself from rushing to her side and taking her in her arms. She didn't know why, but she was certain there was something strange about Doris. She walked into the hall. Yes, she was certain something terrible was going to happen.
When the door closed Doris sat against the pillows, her white face turned toward Lindstrum in the shadows.
"Did you hear we were going to war, Lief?" she asked. Behind his pipe in the shadows the grey faced figure of Lindstrum nodded.
"George is a Senator," she added. "He's going to declare war, Lief. You remember my brother George."
"Doris, you mustn't," Levine whispered. "Lie back, please."
She covered her face and her body shuddered.
"The filthy ones are going to war. Come closer, Lief. I want to see you."
Lindstrum approached the bed. Doris turned to Levine.
"The pack is going to war. Did you see their eyes shining in the street, and their mouths gloating? A new terror, eh?"
She threw her hands into her hair and her eyes centered suddenly on Lindstrum. He was standing over her. Doris began to laugh and to climb out of bed. She stood up barefooted in her night gown, her black hair down and pointed out of the window.
"Don't." Levine took her hand. "You'll catch cold."
Her eyes were lustrous. Lindstrum caught her in his arms. She had leaned toward him as if she were falling. Her body was vividly hot. He held her and she began to laugh.
"Better lie down," he whispered.
The laugh grew louder. Her hand with its fingers extended and pointing, wavered toward the window. She tried to talk but the laughter in her throat prevented. She hung loosely in his arms, laughing and waving her hands.
"The window," she gasped, "look out and see!"
"We had better get her into bed," Levine whispered. Lindstrum nodded. But Doris pulled herself from his hold. She stumbled and fell to her knees before the window. The room was dark and the street lights threw a faint glare over her face. She knelt with her hands to her neck and her eyes swinging.
"Look out!" cried Levine. Doris screamed.
"The beast ... the beast!"
She had thrown herself forward with the shriekbut Lindstrum's hands had caught her. The window glass broke.
The two men carried her into the bed. Her head fell back on the pillow. She lay with her eyes open. Lindstrum sat leaning over her.
"Doris," he whispered. Her eyes regarded him without recognition.
"It's happened," muttered Levine. Lindstrum's hand passed over her forehead and slipped down the loose hair.
"The fever's gone," he said softly. "Yes," he repeated, "the fever's gone now."
Mrs. Basine returned. Doris, her eyes open, was lying as if dead. Her mother rushed to the bed crying her name. She was breathing. The fever was gone. Her body was almost cool.
"She was out of her head for a while," Lindstrum whispered.
"Talk to me please, dearest."
Doris sighed and looked around. They made no move as she sat up.
She left the bed and returned from a closet with a wrap over her nightgown. They watched her until her eyes turned toward them—expressionless, dead eyes. Mrs. Basine clasped her hands together and trembled.
"We must call the doctor at once," she whispered. She went to the telephone. Doris sat down in a chair near the window. Her head sank and she gazed out. The expressionless eyes grew clouded. Tears were coming out. She sat weeping without sound while her mother telephoned.
"Something has happened to Doris," Mrs. Basine whispered into the telephone, "please hurry, somethinghas happened to her...."
"Good-bye, Doris," Lindstrum spoke.
The white face of the girl remained without movement. She was staring out the window, a lifeless figure, weeping. He approached her and watched her tears.
Outside, he walked with his head down, through the streets.
"She knew it was going to happen," he murmured to himself, "and she wanted to see me again before it did." His heart felt heavy. Doris with her dead eyes weeping. Ah, a long sigh. Hard to remember things that had been.
"Knock 'em over," he whispered aloud. "Make something ... make something." Deep inside him were hands that pantomimed despair. People in the streets. War was coming to them. "Huh," he said slowly, "they tore her heart out." Everybody knew him. Everybody knew the name Lindstrum. It was the name of a great poet. When he was dead Lindstrum would stay alive. "Huh," he whispered, "I don't know.... Sing to them. Yes...."
His teeth bit into the pipe stem. Tears came from his eyes. He walked along in the night snarling with his lips parted, and weeping.
The war was a noisy guest. People shook hands with it. It sat down in their little rooms. It's voice was a brass band that drowned their troubles. Basine found a curious friend in the war.
Changes had come to him in the days that followed the scene with Ruth. He grew cold. His heart wasindifferent. His victory in the election had sent him to bed without joy.
There was no longer an inner Basine and an outer Basine. He had fought his way into the current of events and he was content to let them move him. They made him Senator. They moved him to Washington, provided new scenes for him, new faces. He heard of his sister's collapse without sorrow. She had become crazy. To be expected, of course, to be expected, he said to himself one evening as he sat writing a letter of sympathy to his mother.
The thing that had happened to Basine had been the result of a confusion. He found himself at forty robbed of life. Despair, hatred, disgust—these things were left. He turned his back on them. They were a company of emotions too difficult to play with. It was no longer possible to lie. Ruth, Schroder, Henrietta, love, hope, intrigue grew mixed up. He emerged from himself and walked away from himself like an aggrieved and dignified guest.
He sometimes remembered himself—a distant Basine. A keen-faced one with the feel of leadership in his heart. A mind that was alive behind its words. He had done and thought many things. But now he had gone away. He was silent. The day was no longer a challenge. The change carried its reward. It seemed to bring him closer to people. At least he found a certain charm in talking and listening that had not existed before.
He gave himself no thought. He was successful and that was enough. At times he sat in his new quarters in Washington reading stray items in the newspapers and reciting to himself his achievements.He found pleasing identification in the honors he had achieved.
His political friends talked among themselves. They recalled that Basine had once been a man of promise, a man alive with energies. And now he was like the others in the party—an amiable fuddy-duddy. They recalled the sensational figure he had made a few years ago in the Vice Investigation. This seemed to have been the climax of Basine.
But the war arrived and the new Senator began to emerge. The country became filled with mediocrities struggling to utilize the war as a pedestal. The call had gone out for heroes and the elocutionists rushed forward.
The psychology of the day, however, was a bit too involved for these aspirants. The body politic of the nation found itself betrayed by its own platitudes. A moral frenzy began to animate the horizon. But it was the frenzy of an idea that had escaped control; an idea grown too huge and luminous to direct any longer. The idealization of itself before which the crowd had worshipped became now a Frankenstein. The virtues of America had gone to war. And the nation looked on, aghast and uncomprehending. The flattering and grandiose image of itself that thebête populairehad been creating in its law books, text books, and hymnals had suddenly stepped from its complicated mirror and was marching like a Mad Hatter to the front. A swarm of guides and interpreters had leaped to its side. They danced around it chanting its nobilities, proclaiming its grandeur. The spirit of Democracy, the Rights of Man, the One and Only God—the Golden Rule, the Thou Shalt Nots, the Seven Virtues, the Mann Act, the Hatredfor All Variants of Evil,—the mythical incarnation of these and kindred illusions—the Idealization—was off for the front.
The confusion arose when the nation found itself attached as if by some gruesome umbilical cord to this crazed Idealization, off with a Tin Sword on its shoulder. And it must follow this Virtue-snorting monster. It must lie down in trenches in behalf of a Fairy Tale with which it had been shrewdly deceiving itself for a century.
But while the elocutionists fumbling for pedestals were exhorting the nation to hoist itself by its boot-straps, to become overnight a belligerent hierarchy around its God, there were others whose spirit raised an authentic battle shout. One of these was Basine.
He appeared to return to himself. The Basine he had walked away from raised itself amid the disgusts and hatreds in which it had lain abandoned. A rage gathered in his voice. Eloquence and flashing eyes were his. The amiable fuddy-duddy playing little politics in Washington became a gentleman of war.
The horizon bristled with gentlemen of war. But the terrified crowd casting about for leaders, as the draft shovelled it toward the trenches, eyed them with suspicion. There must be authentic gentlemen of war—men above suspicion. Men maddened with a desire to fight and destroy were wanted. Basine was one of these. His tirades against the enemy left nothing in doubt. They were not concerned with idealisms. The enemy must be destroyed, he began to cry, or else it would destroy civilization.
Huns, he cried, vandals and scoundrels. Gorillas, demons, soulless monsters. His phrases drew frightful caricatures of the enemy. His orations wereamong the few that stirred terror. The Germans were not enemies of an ideal—not a rabble of Nietzsches at theological grips with a rabble of Christs. They were Huns, said Basine, barbarians, fiends, hacking children to pieces, pillaging, raping, destroying.
This was a language the nation understood. It contained in it the inspiration to heroism and sacrifice. Out of it arose the grisly cartoon which awakened fear. Terrified by the possibilities of Hun domination and massacres, the crowd patriotically bared its bosom to the lesser horror—war. It marched forth behind its idiot Idealization not to defend that absurdity but to save itself from the clutches of massacring savages.
The energies which came to life abruptly in Basine focused into a strange passion against the Germans. He was vicious, intolerant, unscrupulous in his denunciations. This established him instantly as a leader.
The crowd, casting about for leaders, seized upon men more terrified than themselves. And upon these abject ones who raved and howled from the pulpit, stage and press, they heaped rewards and canonizations.
There was one phase of Basine's hatred that offered a curious explanation. From the beginning he devoted himself to describing the hideous immorality of the Huns. He loaned himself passionately to all rumors celebrating the wholesale rape of women committed by the invaders of Belgium. Deportations, well-poisonings, child-murders figured extensively in his eloquence. But gradually he appeared to concentrate upon what he called the ultimate horror—"fair Europe overrun by this horde of seducers andimmoral blackguards." Schroder was a German.
The war rehabilitated Basine. It enabled him to destroy Schroder. The complicated underworld of hate, disgust, disillusion which his ludicrous renunciation of Ruth and her subsequent betrayal by Schroder had created in him, was the arsenal from which he armed himself for war.
He had lapsed into a sterile and amiable Basine in order to escape from emotions become too intolerable and too dangerous to utilize. The murder of Schroder would not have restored him. The return of the woman he still loved would have been equally futile. Life had become too intolerable for Basine to face and adjust. He had permitted himself convenient burial.
On the night he had gotten drunk with the newspaperman, Basine saw himself as he was—a creature misshapen and humorous—and he had buried the vision and fled from it. To sit contemplating an inner self become a grotesque cripple was intolerable. He sought for a brief space to transfer his self-loathing to Schroder but Schroder, the man, was too small to contain it. Schroder, the war, however, was another matter.
Basine unlocked himself, exhumed himself, and came forth with a yell in his throat. The German army was five million Schroders. He hurled himself at them. He was happy in his rage. A sincerity hypnotized him.
The Germans were not only five million Schroders. They were also the incarnated nauseas and despairs of Basine. Schroder, the man, had become for him, illogically but soothingly, the cause of everything that had become misshapen and humorous inside him.Schroder, the man, was the sand in which Basine, the ostrich, buried his head. Now Schroder, the Germans, Schroder, the World War, Schroder, the rape of Belgium, the devastation of France, offered a more hospitable grave for the misshapen and humorous image of himself. To destroy the Germans became for Basine synonymous with destroying the things inside himself from which he had fled helplessly. The destruction of these things consisted of giving them outlet, of giving them voice. His hatreds, despairs and disillusions arose and spat themselves upon the Germans. The process cleansed and invigorated him and launched him before the public as a leader to be trusted, a hero to venerate during its dark hour.