Sanford defeated Raleigh this year in football, and for a time the college was wild with excitement and delight. Most of the free lumber in Haydensville was burned in a triumphant bonfire, and many of the undergraduates celebrated so joyously with their winnings that they looked sadly bedraggled for several days afterward.
The victory was discussed until the boys were thoroughly sick of it, and then they settled down to a normal life, studying; playing pool, billiards, and cards; going to the movies, reading a little, and holding bull sessions.
Hugh attended many bull sessions. Some of them he found interesting, but many of them were merely orgies of filthy talk, the participants vying with one another in telling the dirtiest stories; and although Hugh was not a prig, he was offended by a dirty story that was told merely for the sake of its dirt. Pudge Jamieson's stories were smutty, but they were funny, too, and he could send Hugh into paroxysms of laughter any time that he chose.
One night in late November Hugh was in Gordon Ross's room in Surrey along with four others. Ross was a senior, a quiet man with gray eyes, rather heavy features, and soft brown hair. He was considerably older than the others, having worked for several years before he came to college. He listened to the stories that were being told, occasionally smiled, but more often studied the group curiously.
The talk became exceedingly nasty, and Hugh was about to leave in disgust when the discussion suddenly turned serious.
"Do you know," said George Winsor abruptly, "I wonder why we hold these smut sessions. I sit here and laugh like a fool and am ashamed of myself half the time. And this isn't the only smut session that's going on right now. I bet there's thirty at least going on around the campus. Why are we always getting into little groups and covering each other with filth? College men are supposed to be gentlemen, and we talk like a lot of gutter-pups." Winsor was a sophomore, a fine student, and thoroughly popular. He looked like an unkempt Airedale. His clothes, even when new, never looked neat, and his rusty hair refused to lie flat. He had an eager, quick way about him, and his brown eyes were very bright and lively.
"Yes, that's what I want to know," Hugh chimed in, forgetting all about his desire to leave. "I'm always sitting in on bull sessions, but I think they re rotten. About every so often I make up my mind that I won't take part in another one, and before I know it somebody's telling me the latest and I'm listening for all I'm worth."
"That's easy,"' Melville Burbank answered. He was a junior with a brilliant record. "You're merely sublimating your sex instincts, that's all. If you played around with cheap women more, you wouldn't be thinking about sex all the time and talking smut."
"You're crazy!" It was Keith Nutter talking, a sophomore notorious for his dissipations. "Hell, I'm out with bags all the time, as you damn well know. My sex instincts don't need sublimating, or whatever you call it, and I talk smut as much as anybody—more than some."
"Perhaps you're just naturally dirty," Burbank said, his voice edged with sarcasm. He didn't like Nutter. The boy seemed gross to him.
"Go to hell! I'm no dirtier than anybody else." Nutter was not only angry but frankly hurt. "The only difference between me and the rest of you guys is that I admit that I chase around with rats, and the rest of you do it on the sly. I'm no hypocrite."
"Oh, come off, Keith," Gordon Ross said quietly; "you're not fair. I admit that lots of the fellows are chasing around with rats on the sly, but lots of them aren't, too. More fellows go straight around this college than you think. I know a number that have never touched a woman. They just hate to admit they're pure, that's all; and you take their bluff for the real thing."
"You've got to show me." Nutter was almost sullen. "I admit that I'm no angel, but I don't believe that I'm a damn bit worse than the average. Besides, what's wrong about it, anyhow? It's just as natural as eating, and I don't see where there is anything worse about it."
George Winsor stood up and leaned against the mantel. He ran his fingers through his hair until it stood grotesquely on end. "Oh, that's the old argument. I've heard it debated in a hundred bull sessions. One fellow says it's all wrong, and another fellow says it's all right, and you never get anywhere. I want somebody to tell me what's wrong about it and what's right. God knows you don't find out in your classes. They have Doc Conners give those smut talks to us in our freshman year, and a devil of a lot of good they do. A bunch of fellows faint and have to be lugged out, and the Doc gives you some sickening details about venereal diseases, and that's as far as you get. Now, I'm all messed up about this sex business, and I'll admit that I'm thinking about it all the time, too. Some fellows say it's all right to have a woman, and some fellows say it's all wrong, but I notice none of them have any use for a woman who isn't straight."
All of the boys were sitting in easy-chairs except Donald Ferguson, who was lying on the couch and listening in silence. He was a handsome youth with Scotch blue eyes and sandy hair. Women were instantly attracted by his good looks, splendid physique, slow smile, and quiet drawl.
He spoke for the first time. "The old single-standard fight," he said, propping his head on his hand. "I don't see any sense in scrapping about that any more. We've got a single standard now. The girls go just as fast as the fellows."
"Oh, that's not so," Hugh exclaimed. "Girls don't go as far as fellows."
Ferguson smiled pleasantly at Hugh and drawled; "Shut up, innocent; you don't know anything about it. I tell you the old double standard has gone all to hell."
"You're exaggerating, Don, just to get Hugh excited," Ross said in his quiet way. "There are plenty of decent girls. Just because a lot of them pet on all occasions isn't any reason to say that they aren't straight. I'm older than you fellows, and I guess I've had a lot more experience than most of you. I've had to make my own way since I was a kid, and I've bumped up against a lot of rough customers. I worked in a lumber camp for a year, and after you've been with a gang like that for a while, you'll understand the difference between them and college fellows. Those boys are bad eggs. They just haven't any morals, that's all. They turn into beasts every pay night; and bad as some of our college parties are, they aren't a circumstance to a lumber town on pay night."
"That's no argument," George Winsor said excitedly, taking his pipe out of his mouth and gesticulating with it. "Just because a lumberjack is a beast is no reason that a college man is all right because he's less of a beast. I tell you I get sick of my own thoughts, and I get sick of the college when I hear about some things that are done. I keep straight, and I don't know why I do, I despise about half the fellows that chase around with rats, and sometimes I envy them like hell. Well, what's the sense in me keeping straight? What's the sense in anybody keeping straight? Fellows that don't seem to get along just as well as those that do. What do you think, Mel? You've been reading Havelock Ellis and a lot of ducks like that."
Burbank tossed a cigarette butt into the fire and gazed into the flames for a minute before speaking, his homely face serious and troubled. "I don't know what to think," he replied slowly. "Ellis tells about some things that make you fairly sick. So does Forel. The human race can be awfully rotten. I've been thinking about it a lot, and I'm all mixed up. Sometimes life just doesn't seem worth living to me, what with the filth and the slums and the greed and everything. I've been taking a course in sociology, and some of the things that Prof Davis has been telling us make you wonder why the world goes on at all. Some poet has a line somewhere about man's inhumanity to man, and I find myself thinking about that all the time. The world's rotten as hell, and I don't see how anything can be done about it. I don't think sometimes that it's worth living in. I can understand why people commit suicide." He spoke softly, gazing into the fire.
Hugh had given him rapt attention. Suddenly he spoke up, forgetting his resolve not to say anything more after Ferguson had called him "innocent." "I think you're wrong, Mel," he said positively. "I was reading a book the other day called 'Lavengro.' It's all about Gipsies. Well, this fellow Lavengro was all busted up and depressed; he's just about made up his mind to commit suicide when he meets a friend of his, a Gipsy. He tells the Gipsy that he's going to bump himself off, that he doesn't see anything in life to live for. Then the Gipsy answers him. Gee, it hit me square in the eye, and I memorized it on the spot. I think I can say it. He says: 'There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?' I think that's beautiful," he added simply, "and I think it's true, too."
"Good for you, Hugh," Ross said quietly.
Hugh blushed with pleasure, but he was taken back by Nutter's vigorous rejoinder. "Bunk!" he exclaimed. "Hooey! The sun, moon, and stars, and all that stuff sounds pretty, but it isn't life. Life's earning a living, and working like hell, and women, and pleasure. The 'Rubaiyat' 's the only poem—if you're going to quote poetry. That's the only poem I ever saw that had any sense to it.
"Come, Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
To-day of past Regrets and future Fears.
To-morrow? Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's seven thousand Years.
You bet. You never can tell when you're going to be bumped off, and so you might just as well have a good time while you can. You damn well don't know what's coming after you kick the bucket."
"Good stuff, the 'Rubaiyat,'" said Ferguson lazily. He was lying on his back staring at the ceiling. "I bet I've read it a hundred times. When they turn down an empty glass for me, it's going to beempty. I don't know what I'm here for or where I'm going or why. 'Into this world and why not knowing,' and so on. My folks sent me to Sunday-school and brought me up to be a good little boy. I believed just about everything they told me until I came to college. Now I know they told me a lot of damned lies. And I've talked with a lot of fellows who've had the same experience.... Anybody got a butt?"
Burbank, who was nearest to him, passed him a package of cigarettes. Ferguson extracted one, lighted it, blew smoke at the ceiling, and then quietly continued, drawling lazily: "Most fellows don't tell their folks anything, and there's no reason why they should, either. Our folks lie to us from the time we are babies. They lie to us about birth and God and life. My folks never told me the truth about anything. When I came to college I wasn't very innocent about women, but I was about everything else. I believed that God made the world in six days the way the Bible says, and that some day the world was coming to an end and that we'd all be pulled up to heaven where Christ would give us the once-over. Then he'd ship some of us to hell and give the good ones harps. Well, since I've found out that all that's hooey I don't believe in much of anything."
"I suppose you are talking about evolution," said Ross. "Well, Prof Humbert says that evolutions hasn't anything to do with the Bible—He says that science is science and that religion is religion and that the two don't mix. He says that he holds by evolution but that that doesn't make Christ's philosophy bad."
"No," Burbank agreed, "it doesn't make it bad; but that isn't the point. I've read the Bible, which I bet is more than the rest of you can say, and I've read the Sermon on the Mount a dozen times. It's darn good sense, but what good does it do? The world will never practice Christ's philosophy. The Bible says, 'Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,' and, believe me, that's damn true. If people would be pure and good, then Christ's philosophy would work, but they aren't pure and good; they aren't made pure and good, they're made selfish, and bad: they're made, mind you, made full of evil and lust. I tell you it's all wrong. I've been reading and reading, and the more I read the more I'm convinced that we're all rotten—and that if there is a god he made us rotten."
"You're wrong!" They all turned toward Winsor, who was still standing by the fireplace; even Ferguson rolled over and looked at the excited boy. "You're wrong," he repeated, "all wrong. I admit all that's been said about parents. They do cheat us just as Don said. I never tell my folks anything that really matters, and I don't know any other fellows that do, either. I suppose there are some, but I don't know them. And I admit that there is sin and vice, but I don't admit that Christ's philosophy is useless. I've read the Sermon on the Mount, too. That's about all of the Bible that I have read, but I've read that; and I tell you you're all wrong. There is enough good in man to make that philosophy practical. Why, there is more kindness and goodness around than we know about. We see the evil, and we know we have lusts and—and things, but we do good, too. And Hugh was right when he talked a while ago about the beauty in the world. There's lots of it, lots and lots of it. There's beautiful poetry and beautiful music and beautiful scenery; and there are people who appreciate all of it. I tell you that in spite of everything life is worth living. And I believe in Christ's philosophy, too. I don't know whether He is the son of God or not—I think that He must be—but that doesn't make any difference. Look at the wonderful influence He has had."
"Rot," said Burbank calmly, "absolute rot. There has never been a good deed done in His name; just the Inquisition and the what-do-you-call-'ems in Russia. Oh, yes, pogroms—and wars and robbing people. Christianity is just a name; there isn't any such thing. And most of the professional Christians that I've seen are damn fools. I tell you, George, it's all wrong. We're all in the dark, and I don't believe the profs know any more about it than we do."
"Oh, yes, they do," Hugh exclaimed; "they must. Think of all the studying they've done."
"Bah." Burbank was contemptuous. "They've read a lot of books, that's all. Most of them never had an idea in their lives. Oh, I know that some of them think; if they didn't, I'd leave college to-morrow. It's men like Davis and Maxwell and Henley and Jimpson who keep me here. But most of the profs can't do anything more than spout a few facts that they've got out of books. No, they don't know any more about it than we do. We don't know why we're here or where we're going or what we ought to do while we are here. And we get into groups and tell smutty stories and talk about women and religion, and we don't know any more than when we started. Think of all the talk that goes on around this college about sex. There's no end to it. Some of the fellows say positively there's no sense in staying straight; and a few, damn few, admit that they think a fellow ought to leave women alone, but most of them are in a muddle."
He rose and stretched. "I've got to be going—philosophy quiz to-morrow." He smiled. "I don't agree with Nutter, and I don't agree with George, and I don't agree with you, Don; and the worst of it is that I don't agree with myself. You fellows can bull about this some more if you want to; I've got to study."
"No, they can't," said Ross. "Not here, anyway. I've got to study, too. The whole of you'll have to get out."
The boys rose and stretched. Ferguson rolled lazily off the couch. "Well," he said with a yawn, "this has been very edifying. I've heard it all before in a hundred bull sessions, and I suppose I'll hear it all again. I don't know why I've hung around. There's a little dame that I've got to write a letter to, and, believe me, she's a damn sight more interesting than all your bull." He strolled out of the door, drawling a slow "good night" over his shoulder.
Hugh went to his room and thought over the talk. He was miserably confused. Like Ferguson he had believed everything that his father and mother—and the minister—had told him, and he found himself beginning to discard their ideas. There didn't seem to be any ideas to put in the place of those he discarded. Until Carl's recent confidence he had believed firmly in chastity, but he discovered, once the first shock had worn off, that he liked Carl the unchaste just as much as he had Carl the chaste. Carl seemed neither better nor worse for his experience.
He was lashed by desire; he was burning with curiosity—and yet, and yet something held him back. Something—he hardly knew what it was—made him avoid any woman who had a reputation for moral laxity. He shrank from such a woman—and desired her so intensely that he was ashamed.
Life was suddenly becoming very complicated, more complicated, it seemed, every day. With other undergraduates he discussed women and religion endlessly, but he never reached any satisfactory conclusions. He wished that he knew some professor that he could talk to. Surely some of them must know the answers to his riddles....
HUGH'S POPULARITY IS ESTABLISHED AFTER THE FIRST ATHLETIC TRY-OUTS.hugh's popularity is established after the first athletic try-outs.
hugh's popularity is established after the first athletic try-outs.
Hugh wasn't troubled only by religion and sex; the whole college was disturbing his peace of mind: all of his illusions were being ruthlessly shattered. He had supposed that all professors were wise men, that their knowledge was almost limitless, and he was finding that many of the undergraduates were frankly contemptuous of the majority of their teachers and that he himself was finding inspiration from only a few of them. He went to his classes because he felt that he had to, but in most of them he was confused or bored. He learned more in the bull sessions than he did in the class-room, and men like Ross and Burbank were teaching him more than his instructors.
Further, Nu Delta was proving a keen disappointment. More and more he found himself thinking of Malcolm Graham's talk to him during the rushing season of his freshman year. He often wished that Graham were still in college so that he could go to him for advice. The fraternity was not the brotherhood that he had dreamed about; it was composed of several cliques warring with each other, never coalescing into a single group except to contest the control of a student activity with some other fraternity. There were a few "brothers" that Hugh liked, but most of them were not his kind at all. Many of them were athletes taken into the fraternity because they were athletes and for no other reason, and although Hugh liked two of the athletes—they were really splendid fellows—he was forced to admit that three of them were hardly better than thugs, cheap muckers with fine bodies. Then there were the snobs, usually prep school men with more money than they could handle wisely, utterly contemptuous of any man not belonging to a fraternity or of one belonging to any of the lesser fraternities. These were the "smooth boys," interested primarily in clothes and "parties," passing their courses by the aid of tutors or fraternity brothers who happened to study.
Hugh felt that he ought to like all of his fraternity brothers, but, try as he would, he disliked the majority of them. Early in his sophomore year he knew that he ought to have "gone" Delta Sigma Delta, that that fraternity contained a group of men whom he liked and respected, most of them, at least. They weren't prominent in student activities, but they were earnest lads as a whole, trying hard to get something out of college.
The Nu Delta meetings every Monday night were a revelation to him. The brothers were openly bored; they paid little or no attention to the business before them. The president was constantly calling for order and not getting it. During the rushing season in the second term, interest picked up. Freshmen were being discussed. Four questions were inevitably asked. Did the freshman have money? Was he an athlete? Had he gone to a prep school? What was his family like?
Hugh had been very much attracted by a lad named Parker. He was a charming youngster with a good mind and beautiful manners. In general, only bad manners wereau faitat Sanford; so Parker was naturally conspicuous. Hugh proposed his name for membership to Nu Delta.
"He's a harp," said a brother scornfully. "At any rate, he's a Catholic."
That settled that. Only Protestants were eligible to Nu Delta at Sanford, although the fraternity had no national rule prohibiting members of other religions.
The snobbery of the fraternity cut Hugh deeply. He was a friendly lad who had never been taught prejudice. He even made friends with a Jewish youth and was severely censured by three fraternity brothers for that friendship. He was especially taken to task by Bob Tucker, the president.
"Look here, Hugh," Tucker said sternly, "you've got to draw the line somewhere. I suppose Einstein is a good fellow and all that, but you've been running around with him a lot. You've even brought him here several times. Of course, you can have anybody in your room you want, but we don't want any Jews around the house. I don't see why you had to pick him up, anyway. There's plenty of Christians in college."
"He's a first-class fellow," Hugh replied stubbornly, "and I like him. I don't see why we have to be so high-hat about Jews and Catholics. Most of the fraternities take in Catholics, and the Phi Thetas take in Jews; at least, they've got two. They bid Einstein, but he turned them down; his folks don't want him to join a fraternity. And Chubby Elson told me that the Theta Kappas wanted him awfully, but they have a local rule against Jews."
"That doesn't make any difference," Tucker said sharply. "We don't want him around here. Because some of the fraternities are so damn broad-minded isn't any reason that we ought to be. I don't see that their broad-mindedness is getting them anything. We rate about ten times as much as the Phi Thetas or the Theta Kappas, and the reason we do is that we are so much more exclusive."
Hugh wanted to mention the three Nu Delta thugs, but he wisely restrained himself. "All right," he said stubbornly, "I won't bring Einstein around here again, and I won't bring Parker either. But I'll see just as much of them as I want to. My friends are my friends, and if the fraternity doesn't like them, it can leave them alone. I pledged loyalty to the fraternity, but I'll be damned if I pledged my life to it." He got up and started for the door, his blue eyes dark with anger. "I hate snobs," he said viciously, and departed.
After rushing season was over, he rarely entered that fraternity house, chumming mostly with Carl, but finding friends in other fraternities or among non-fraternity men. He was depressed and gloomy, although his grades for the first term had been respectable. Nothing seemed very much worth while, not even making his letter on the track. He was gradually taking to cigarettes, and he had even had a nip or two out of a flask that Carl had brought to the room. He had read the "Rubaiyat," and it made a great impression on him. He and Carl often discussed the poem, and more and more Hugh was beginning to believe in Omar's philosophy. At least, he couldn't answer the arguments presented in Fitzgerald's beautiful quatrains. The poem both depressed and thrilled him. After reading it, he felt desperate—and ready for anything, convinced that the only wise course was to take the cash and let the credit go. He was much too young to hear the rumble of the distant drum. Sometimes he was sure that there wasn't a drum, anyway.
He was particularly blue one afternoon when Carl rushed into the room and urged him to go to Hastings, a town five miles from Haydensville.
"Jim Pearson's outside with his car," Carl said excitedly, "and he'll take us down. He's got to come right back—he's only going for some booze—but we needn't come back if we don't want to. We'll have a drink and give Hastings the once-over. How's to come along?"
"All right," Hugh agreed indifferently and began to pull on his baa-baa coat. "I'm with you. A shot of gin might jazz me up a little."
Once in Hastings, Pearson drove to a private residence at the edge of the town. The boys got out of the car and filed around to the back door, which was opened to their knock by a young man with a hatchet face and hard blue eyes.
"Hello, Mr. Pearson," he said with an effort to be pleasant. "Want some gin?"
"Yes, and some Scotch, too, Pete—if you have it. I'll take two quarts of Scotch and one of gin."
"All right." Pete led the way down into the cellar, switching on an electric light when he reached the foot of the stairs. There was a small bar in the rear of the dingy, underground room, a table or two, and dozens of small boxes stacked against the wall.
It was Hugh's first visit to a bootlegger's den, and he was keenly interested. He had a high-ball along with Carl and Pearson; then took another when Carl offered to stand treat. Pearson bought his three quarts of liquor, paid Pete, and departed alone, Carl and Hugh having decided to have another drink or two before they returned to Haydensville. After a second high-ball Hugh did not care how many he drank and was rather peevish when Carl insisted that he stop with a third. Pete charged them eight dollars for their drinks, which they cheerfully paid, and then warily climbed the stairs and stumbled out into the cold winter air.
"Brr," said Carl, buttoning his coat up to his chin; "it's cold as hell."
"So 'tis," Hugh agreed; "so 'tis. So 'tis. That's pretty. So 'tis, so 'tis, so 'tis. Isn't that pretty, Carl?"
"Awful pretty. Say it again."
"So 'tis. So 'tish. So—so—so. What wush it, Carl?"
"So 'tis."
"Oh, yes. So 'tish."
They walked slowly, arm in arm, toward the business section of Hastings, pausing now and then to laugh joyously over something that appealed to them as inordinately funny. Once it was a tree, another time a farmer in a sleigh, and a third time a Ford. Hugh insisted, after laughing until he wept, that the Ford was the "funniest goddamned thing" he'd ever seen. Carl agreed with him.
They were both pretty thoroughly drunk by the time they reached the center of the town, where they intended getting the bus back to Haydensville. Two girls passed them and smiled invitingly.
"Oh, what peaches," Carl exclaimed.
"Jush—jush—Jush swell," Hugh said with great positiveness, hanging on to Carl's arm. "They're the shwellest Janes I've ever sheen."
The girls, who were a few feet ahead, turned and smiled again.
"Let's pick them up," Carl whispered loudly.
"Shure," and Hugh started unsteadily to increase his pace.
The girls were professional prostitutes who visited Hastings twice a year "to get the Sanford trade." They were crude specimens, revealing their profession to the most casual observer. If Hugh had been sober they would have sickened him, but he wasn't sober; he was joyously drunk and the girls looked very desirable.
"Hello, girls," Carl said expansively, taking hold of one girl's arm. "Busy?"
"Bish-bishy?" Hugh repeated valiantly.
The older "girl" smiled, revealing five gold teeth.
"Of course not," she replied in a hard, flat voice. "Not too busy for you boys, anyway. Come along with us and we'll make this a big afternoon."
"Sure," Carl agreed.
"Sh-shure," Hugh stuttered. He reached forward to take the arm of the girl who had spoken, but at the same instant some one caught him by the wrist and held him still.
Harry Slade, the star football player and this year's captain, happened to be in Hastings; he was, in fact, seeking these very girls. He had intended to pass on when he saw two men with them, but as soon as he recognized Hugh he paused and then impulsively strode forward.
"Here, Carver," he said sharply. "What are you doing?"
"None—none of you da-damn business," Hugh replied angrily, trying to shake his wrist free. "Leggo of me or—or I'll—I'll—"
"You won't do anything," 'Slade interrupted. "You're going home with me."
"Who in hell are you?" one of the girls asked viciously. "Mind your own damn business."
"You mind yours, sister, or you'll get into a peck of trouble. This kid's going with me—and don't forget that. Come on, Carver."
Hugh was still vainly trying to twist his wrist free and was muttering, "Leggo, leggo o' me."
Slade jerked him across the sidewalk. Carl followed expostulating. "Get the hell out of here, Peters," Slade said angrily, "or I'll knock your fool block off. You chase off with those rats if you want to, but you leave Carver with me if you know what's good for you." He shoved Carl away, and Carl was sober enough to know that Slade meant what he said. Each girl took him by an arm, and he walked off down the street between them, almost instantly forgetting Hugh.
Fortunately the street was nearly deserted, and no one had witnessed the little drama. Hugh began to sob drunkenly. Slade grasped his shoulders and shook him until his head waggled. "Now, shut up!" Slade commanded sharply. He took Hugh by the arm and started down the street with him, Hugh still muttering, "Leggo, leggo o' me."
Slade walked him the whole five miles back to Haydensville, and before they were half way home Hugh's head began to clear. For a time he felt a little sick, but the nausea passed, and when they reached the campus he was quite sober. Not a word was spoken until Hugh unlocked the door of Surrey 19. Then Slade said: "Go wash your face and head in cold water. Souse yourself good and then come back; I want to have a talk with you."
Hugh obeyed orders, but with poor grace. He was angry and confused, angry because his liberty had been interfered with, and confused because Slade had never paid more than passing attention to him—and for a year and a half Slade had been his god.
Slade was one of those superb natural athletes who make history for many colleges. He was big, powerfully built, and moved as easily as a dancer. His features were good enough, but his brown eyes were dull and his jaw heavy rather than strong. Hugh had often heard that Slade dissipated violently, but he did not believe the rumors; he was positive that Slade could not be the athlete he was if he dissipated. He had been thrilled every time Slade had spoken to him—the big man of the college, the one Sanford man who had ever made All American, as Slade had this year.
When he returned to his room from the bath-room, Slade was sitting in a big chair smoking a cigarette. Hugh walked into his bedroom, combed his dripping hair, and then came into the study, still angry but feeling a little sheepish and very curious.
"Well, what is it?" he demanded, sitting down.
"Do you know who those women were?"
"No. Who are they?"
"They're Bessie Haines and Emma Gleeson; at least, that's what they call themselves, and they're rotten bags."
Hugh had a little quiver of fright, but he felt that he ought to defend himself.
"Well, what of it?" he asked sullenly. "I don't see as you had any right to pull me away. You never paid any attention before to me. Why this sudden interest? How come you're so anxious to guard my purity?"
Slade was embarrassed. He threw his cigarette into the fireplace and immediately lighted another one. Then he looked at his shoes and muttered, "I'm a pretty bad egg myself."
"So I've heard." Hugh was frankly sarcastic.
"Well, I am." Slade looked up defiantly. "I guess it's up to me to explain—and I don't know how to do it. I'm a dumbbell. I can't talk decently. I flunked English One three times, you know." He hesitated a moment and then blurted out, "I was looking for those bags myself."
"What?" Hugh leaned forward and stared at him, bewildered and dumfounded. "Youwere looking for them?"
"Yeah.... You see, I'm a bad egg—always been a bad one with women, ever since I was a kid. Gotta have one about every so often.... I—I'm not much."
"But what made you stop me?" Hugh pressed his hand to his temple. His head was aching, and he could make nothing out of Slade's talk.
"Because—because.... Oh, hell, Carver, I don't know how to explain it. I'm twenty-four and you're about nineteen and I know a lot that you don't. I was brought up in South Boston and I ran with a gang. There wasn't anything rotten that we didn't do.... I've been watching you. You're different."
"How different?" Hugh demanded. "I want women just as much as you do."
"That isn't it." Slade ran his fingers through his thick black hair and scowled fiercely at the fireplace. "That isn't it at all. You're—you're awfully clean and decent. I've been watching you lots—oh, for a year. You're—you're different," he finished lamely.
Hugh was beginning to understand. "Do you mean," he asked slowly, "that you want me to keep straight—that—that, well—that you like me that way better?" He was really asking Slade if he admired him, and Slade got his meaning perfectly. To Hugh the idea was preposterous. Why, Slade had made every society on the campus; he had been given every honor that the students could heap on him—and he envied Hugh, an almost unknown sophomore. Why, it was ridiculous.
"Yes, that's what I mean; that's what I was trying to get at." For a minute Slade hesitated; he wasn't used to giving expression to his confused emotions, and he didn't know how to go about it. "I'd—I'd like to be like you; that's it. I—I didn't want you to be like me.... Those women are awful bags. Anything might happen."
"Why didn't you stop Carl Peters, too, then?"
"Peters knows his way about. He can take care of himself. You're different, though.... You've never been drunk before, have you?"
"No. No, I never have." Hugh's irritation was all gone. He was touched, deeply touched, by Slade's clumsy admiration, and he felt weak, emotionally exhausted after his little spree. "It's awfully good of you to—to think of me that way. I'm—I'm glad you stopped me."
Slade stood up. He felt that he had better be going. He couldn't tell Hugh how much he liked and admired him, how much he envied him. He was altogether sentimental about the boy, entirely devoted to him. He had wanted to talk to Hugh more than Hugh had wanted to talk to him, but he had never felt that he had anything to offer that could possibly interest Hugh. It was a strange situation; the hero had put the hero worshiper on a high, white marble pedestal.
He moved toward the door. "So long," he said as casually as he could.
Hugh jumped up and rushed to him. "I'm awfully grateful to you, Harry," he said impulsively. "It was damn white of you. I—I don't know how to thank you." He held out his hand.
Slade gripped it for a moment, and then, muttering another "So long," passed out of the door.
Hugh was more confused than ever and grew steadily more confused as the days passed. He couldn't understand why Slade, frankly unchaste himself, should consider his chastity so important. He was genuinely glad that Slade had rescued him, genuinely grateful, but his confusion about all things sexual was more confounded. The strangest thing was that when he told Carl about Slade's talk, Carl seemed to understand perfectly, though he never offered a satisfactory explanation.
"I know how he feels," Carl said, "and I'm awfully glad he butted in and pulled you away. I'd hate to see you messing around with bags like that myself, and if I hadn't been drunk I wouldn't have let you. I'm more grateful to him than you are. Gee! I'd never have forgiven myself," he concluded fervently.
Just when the Incident was beginning to occupy less of Hugh's thoughts, it was suddenly brought back with a crash. He came home from the gymnasium one afternoon to find Carl seated at his desk writing. He looked up when Hugh came in, tore the paper into fragments, and tossed them info the waste-basket.
"Guess I'd better tell you," he said briefly. "I was just writing a note to you."
"To me? Why?"
Carl pointed to his suit-case standing by the center-table.
"That's why."
"Going away on a party?"
"My trunk left an hour ago. I'm going away for good." Carl's voice was husky, and he spoke with an obvious effort.
Hugh walked quickly to the desk. "Why, old man, what's the matter? Anything wrong with your mother? You're not sick, are you?"
Carl laughed, briefly, bitterly. "Yes, I'm sick all right. I'm sick."
Hugh, worried, looked at him seriously. "Why, what's the matter? I didn't know that you weren't feeling well."
Carl looked at the rug and muttered, "You remember those rats we picked up in Hastings?"
"Yes?"
"Well, I know of seven fellows they've sent home."
"What!" Hugh cried, his eyes wide with horror. "You don't mean that you—that you—"
"I mean exactly that," Carl replied in a low, flat voice. He rose and moved to the other side of the room. "I mean exactly that; and Doc Conners agrees with me," he added sarcastically. Then more softly, "He's got to tell the dean. That's why I'm going home."
Hugh was swept simultaneously by revulsion and sympathy. "God, I'm sorry," he exclaimed. "Oh, Carl, I'm so damn sorry."
Carl was standing by Hugh's desk, his hands clenched, his lips compressed. "Keep my junk," he said unevenly, "and sell anything you want to if you live in the house next year."
"But you'll be back?"
"No, I won't come back—I won't come back." He was having a hard time to keep back the tears and bit his trembling lip mercilessly. "Oh, Hugh," he suddenly cried, "what will my mother say?"
Hugh was deeply distressed, but he was startled by that "my mother." It was the first time he had ever heard Carl speak of his mother except as the "old lady."
"She will understand," he said soothingly.
"How can she? How can she? God, Hugh, God!" He buried his face in his hands and wept bitterly. Hugh put his arm around his shoulder and tried to comfort him, and in a few minutes Carl was in control of himself again. He dried his eyes with his handkerchief.
"What a fish I am!" he said, trying to grin. "A goddamn fish." He looked at his watch. "Hell, I've got to be going if I'm going to make the five fifteen," He picked up his suit-case and held out his free hand. "There's something I want to say to you, Hugh, but I guess I'll write it. Please don't come to the train with me." He gripped Hugh's hand hard for an instant and then was out of the door and down the hall before Hugh had time to say anything.
Two days afterward the letter came. The customary "Dear brother" and "Fraternally yours" were omitted.
Dear Hugh:I've thought of letters yards long but I'm not going to write them. I just want to say that you are the finest thing that ever happened to me outside of my mother, and I respect you more than any fellow I've ever known. I'm ashamed because I started you drinking and I hope you'll stop it. I feel toward you the way Harry Slade does, only more I guess. You've done an awful lot for me.I want to ask a favor of you. Please leave women alone. Keep straight, please. You don't know how much I want you to do that.Thanks for all you've done for me.CARL.
Hugh's eyes filled with tears when he read that letter. Carl seemed a tragic figure to him, and he missed him dreadfully. Poor old Carl! What hell it must have been to tell his mother! "And he wants me to keep straight. By God, I will.... I'll try to, anyhow."
Hugh's depression was not continuous by any means. He was much too young and too healthy not to find life an enjoyable experience most of the time. Disillusionment followed disillusionment, each one painful and dispiriting in itself, but they came at long enough intervals for him to find a great deal of pleasure in between.
Also, for the first time since he had been transferred from Alling's section in Latin, he was taking genuine interest in a course. Having decided to major in English, he found that he was required to take a composition course the second half of his sophomore year. His instructor was Professor Henley, known as Jimmie Henley among the students, a man in his middle thirties, spare, neat in his dress, sharp with his tongue, apt to say what he thought in terms so plain that not even the stupidest undergraduate could fail to understand him. His hazel-brown eyes were capable of a friendly twinkle, but they had a way of darkening suddenly and snapping that kept his students constantly on the alert. There was little of the professor about him but a great deal of the teacher.
Hugh went to his first conference with him not entirely easy in his mind. Henley had a reputation for "tearing themes to pieces and making a fellow feel like a poor fish." Hugh had written his themes hastily, as he had during his freshman year, and he was afraid that Henley might discover evidences of that haste.
Henley was leaning back in his swivel chair, his feet on the desk, a brier pipe in his mouth, as Hugh entered the cubbyhole of an office. Down came the feet with a bang.
"Hello, Carver," Henley said cheerfully. "Come in and sit down while I go through your themes." He motioned to a chair by the desk. Hugh muttered a shy "hello" and sat down, watching Henley expectantly and rather uncomfortably.
Henley picked up three themes. Then he turned his keen eyes on Hugh. "I've already read these. Lazy cuss, aren't you?" he asked amiably.
Hugh flushed. "I—I suppose so."
"You know that you are; no supposing to it." He slapped the desk lightly with the themes. "First drafts, aren't they?"
"Yes, sir." Hugh felt his cheeks getting warmer.
Henley smiled. "Thanks for not lying. If you had lied, this conference would have ended right now. Oh, I wouldn't have told you that I thought you were lying; I would simply have made a few polite but entirely insincere comments about your work and let you go. Now I am going to talk to you frankly and honestly."
"I wish you would," Hugh murmured, but he wasn't at all sure that he wished anything of the sort.
Henley knocked the ashes out of his pipe into a metal tray, refilled it, lighted it, and then puffed meditatively, gazing at Hugh with kind but speculative eyes.
"I think you have ability," he began slowly. "You evidently write with great fluency and considerable accuracy, and I can find poetic touches here and there that please me. But you are careless, abominably careless, lazy. Whatever virtues there are in your themes come from a natural gift, not from any effort you made to say the thing in the best way. Now, I'm not going to spend anytime discussing these themes in detail; they aren't worth it."
He pointed his pipe at Hugh. "The point is exactly this," he said sternly. "I'll never spend any time discussing your themes so long as you turn in hasty, shoddy work. I can see right now that you can get a C in this course without trying. If that's all you want, all right, I'll give it to you—and let it go at that. The Lord knows that I have enough to do without wasting time on lazy youngsters who haven't sense enough to develop their gifts. If you continue to turn in themes like these, I'll give you C's or D's on them and let you dig your own shallow grave by yourself. But If you want to try to write as well as you can, I'll give you all the help in my power. Not one minute can you have so long as you don't try, but you can have hours if you do try. Furthermore, you will find writing a pleasure if you write as well as you can, but you won't get any sport just scribbling off themes because you have to."
He paused to toss the three themes across the desk to Hugh, who was watching him with astonishment. No instructor had ever talked to him that way before.
"You can rewrite these themes if you want to," Henley went on. "I haven't graded them, and I'll reserve the grades for the rewritten themes; and if I find that you have made a real effort, I'll discuss them in detail with you. What do you say?"
"I'd like to rewrite them," Hugh said softly. "I know they are rotten."
"No, they aren't rotten. I've got dozens that are worse. That isn't the point. They aren't nearly so good as you can make them, and only your best work is acceptable to me. Now show me what you can do with them, and then we'll tear them to shreds in regular fashion." He turned to his desk and smiled at Hugh, who, understanding that the conference was over, stood up and reached for the themes. "I'll be interested in seeing what you can do with those," Henley concluded. "Every one of them has a good idea. Go to it—and get them back in a week."
"Yes, sir. Thanks very much."
"Right-o. Good-by."
"Good-by, sir," and Hugh left the office determined to rewrite those themes so that "they'd knock Jimmie Henley's eye out." They didn't do exactly that, but they did interest him, and he spent an hour and a half discussing them with Hugh.
That was merely the first of a series of long conferences. Sometimes Henley and Hugh discussed writing, but often they talked about other subjects, not as instructor and student but as two men who respected each other's mind. Before the term was out Henley had invited Hugh to his home for dinner and to meet Mrs. Henley. Hugh was enormously flattered and, for some reason, stimulated to do better work. He found his talks with Henley really exciting, and he expressed his opinions to him as freely and almost as positively as he did to his classmates. He told his friends that Jimmie Henley was human, not like most profs. And he worked at his writing as he had never worked at anything, running excepted, since he had been in college.
The students never knew what to expect from Henley in the class-room. Sometimes he read themes and criticized them; sometimes he discussed books that he had been reading; sometimes he read poetry, not because contemporary poetry was part of the course but because he happened to feel like reading it that morning; sometimes he discoursed on the art of writing; and sometimes he talked about anything that happened to be occupying his mind. He made his class-room an open forum, and the students felt free to interrupt him at any time and to disagree with him. Usually they did disagree with him and afterward wrote violent themes to prove that he was wrong. That was exactly what Henley wanted them to do, and the more he could stir them up the better satisfied he was.
One morning, however, he talked without interruption. He didn't want to be interrupted, and the boys were so taken back by his statements that they could find no words to say anything.
The bell rang. Henley called the roll, stuck his class-book into his coat pocket, placed his watch on the desk; then leaned back and looked the class over.
"Your themes are making me sick," he began, "nauseated. I have a fairly strong stomach, but there is just so much that I can stand—and you have passed the limit. There is hardly a man in this class who hasn't written at least one theme on the glory that is Sanford. As you know, I am a Sanford man myself, and I have my share of affection for the college, but you have reached an ecstasy of chauvinism that makes Chauvin's affection for Napoleon seem almost like contempt.
"In the last batch of themes I got five telling me of the perfection of Sanford: Sanford is the greatest college in the country; Sanford has the best athletes, the finest equipment, the most erudite faculty, the most perfect location, the most loyal alumni, the strongest spirit—the most superlative everything. Nonsense! Rot! Bunk! Sanford hasn't anything of the sort, and I who love it say so. Sanford is a good little college, but it isn't a Harvard, a Yale, or a Princeton, or, for that matter, a Dartmouth or Brown; and those colleges still have perfection ahead of them. Sanford has made a place for itself in the sun, but it will never find a bigger place so long as its sons do nothing but chant its praises and condemn any one as disloyal who happens to mention its very numerous faults.
"Well, I'm going to mention some of those faults, not all of them by any means, just those that any intelligent undergraduate ought to be able to see for himself.
"In the first place, this is supposed to be an educational institution; it is endowed for that purpose and it advertises itself as such. And you men say that you come here to get an education. But what do you really do? You resist education with all your might and main, digging your heels into the gravel of your own ignorance and fighting any attempt to teach you anything every inch of the way. What's worse, you aren't content with your own ignorance; you insist that every one else be ignorant, too. Suppose a man attempts to acquire culture, as some of them do. What happens? He is branded as wet. He is a social leper.
"Wet! What currency that bit of slang has—and what awful power. It took me a long time to find out what the word meant, but after long research I think that I know. A man is wet if he isn't a 'regular guy'; he is wet if he isn't 'smooth'; he is wet if he has intellectual interests and lets the mob discover them; and, strangely enough, he is wet by the same token if he is utterly stupid. He is wet if he doesn't show at least a tendency to dissipate, but he isn't wet if he dissipates to excess. A man will be branded as wet for any of these reasons, and once he is so branded, he might as well leave college; if he doesn't, he will have a lonely and hard row to hoe. It is a rare undergraduate who can stand the open contempt of his fellows."
He paused, obviously ordering his thoughts before continuing. The boys waited expectantly. Some of them were angry, some amused, a few in agreement, and all of them intensely interested.
Henley leaned back in his chair. "What horrible little conformers you are," he began sarcastically, "and how you loathe any one who doesn't conform! You dress both your bodies and your minds to some set model. Just at present you are making your hair foul with some sort of perfumed axle-grease; nine tenths of you part it in the middle. It makes no difference whether the style is becoming to you or not; you slick it down and part it in the middle. Last year nobody did it; the chances are that next year nobody will do it, but anybody who doesn't do it right now is in danger of being called wet."
Hugh had a moment of satisfaction. He did not pomade his hair, and he parted it on the side as he had when he came to college. True, he had tried the new fashion, but after scanning himself carefully in the mirror, he decided that he looked like a "blond wop"—and washed his hair. He was guilty, however, of the next crime mentioned.
"The same thing is true of clothes," Henley was saying. "Last year every one wore four-button suits and very severe trousers. This year every one is wearing Norfolk jackets and bell-bottomed trousers, absurd things that flop around the shoes, and some of them all but trail on the ground. Now, any one who can't afford the latest creation or who declines to wear it is promptly called wet.
"And, as I said before, you insist on the same standardization of your minds. Just now it is notau faitto like poetry; a man who does is exceedingly wet, indeed; he is effeminate, a sissy. As a matter of fact, most of you like poetry very much. You never give me such good attention as when I read poetry. What's more, some of you are writing the disgraceful stuff. But what happens when a man does submit a poem as a theme? He writes at the bottom of the page, 'Please do not read this in class.' Some of you write that because you don't think that the poem is very good, but most of you are afraid of the contempt of your classmates. I know of any number of men in this college who read vast quantities of poetry, but always on the sly. Just think of that! Men pay thousands of dollars and give four years of their lives supposedly to acquire culture and then have to sneak off into a corner to read poetry.
"Who are your college gods? The brilliant men who are thinking and learning, the men with ideals and aspirations? Not by a long shot. They are the athletes. Some of the athletes happen to be as intelligent and as eager to learn as anybody else, but a fair number are here simply because they are paid to come to play football or baseball or what not. And they are worshiped, bowed down to, cheered, and adored. The brilliant men, unless they happen to be very 'smooth' in the bargain, are considered wet and are ostracized.
"Such is the college that you write themes about to tell me that it is perfect. The college is made up of men who worship mediocrity; that is their ideal except in athletics. The condition of the football field is a thousand times more important to the undergraduates and the alumni than the number of books in the library or the quality of the faculty. The fraternities will fight each other to pledge an athlete, but I have yet to see them raise any dust over a man who was merely intelligent.
"I tell you that you have false standards, false ideals, and that you have a false loyalty to the college. The college can stand criticism; it will thrive and grow on it—but it won't grow on blind adoration. I tell you further that you are as standardized as Fords and about as ornamental. Fords are useful for ordinary work; so are you—and unless some of you wake up and, as you would say, 'get hep to yourselves,' you are never going to be anything more than human Fords.
"You pride yourselves on being the cream of the earth, the noblest work of God. You are told so constantly. You are the intellectual aristocracy of America, the men who are going to lead the masses to a brighter and broader vision of life. Merciful heavens preserve us! You swagger around utterly contemptuous of the man who hasn't gone to college. You talk magnificently about democracy, but you scorn the non-college man—and you try pathetically to imitate Yale and Princeton. And I suppose Yale and Princeton are trying to imitate Fifth Avenue and Newport. Democracy! Rot! This college isn't democratic. Certain fraternities condescend to other fraternities, and those fraternities barely deign even to condescend to the non-fraternity men. You say hello to everybody on the campus and think that you are democratic. Don't fool yourselves, and don't try to fool me. If you want to write some themes about Sanford that have some sense and truth in them, some honest observation, go ahead; but don't pass in any more chauvinistic bunk. I'm sick of it."
He put his watch in his pocket and stood up. "You may belong to the intellectual aristocracy of the country, but I doubt it; you may lead the masses to a 'bigger and better' life, but I doubt it; you may be the cream of the earth, but I doubt it. All I've got to say is this: if you're the cream of the earth, God help the skimmed milk." He stepped down from the rostrum and briskly left the room.
For an instant the boys sat silent, and then suddenly there was a rustle of excitement. Some of them laughed, some of them swore softly, and most of them began to talk. They pulled on their baa-baa coats and left the room chattering.
"He certainly has the dope," said Pudge Jamieson. "We're a lot of low-brows pretending to be intellectual high-hats. We're intellectual hypocrites; that's what we are."
"How do you get that way?" Ferdy Hillman, who was walking with Hugh and Pudge, demanded angrily. "We may not be so hot, but we're a damn sight better than these guys that work in offices and mills. Jimmie Henley gives me a pain. He shoots off his gab as if he knew everything. He's got to show me where other colleges have anything on Sanford. He's a hell of a Sanford man, he is."
They were walking slowly down the stairs. George Winsor caught up with them.
"What did you think of it, George?" Hugh asked.
Winsor grinned. "He gave me some awful body blows," he said, chuckling. "Cripes, I felt most of the time that he was talking only to me. I'm sore all over. What did you think of it? Jimmie's a live wire, all right."
"I don't know what to think," Hugh replied soberly. "He's knocked all the props from under me. I've got to think it over."
He did think it over, and the more he thought the more he was inclined to believe that Henley was right. Boy-like, he carried Henley's statements to their final conclusion and decided that the college was a colossal failure. He wrote a theme and said so.
"You're wrong, Hugh," Henley said when he read the theme. "Sanford has real virtues, a bushel of them. You'll discover them all right before you graduate."