CHAPTER NINE
It was a few weeks after the Mitchell dinner that Roger came back to the office one afternoon to find Hilary Wainwright pacing up and down in a frank perplexity that he did not often permit himself to show; although, as the months had passed, Roger had come to feel very keenly that Hilary Wainwright, who never doubted his own point of view on a business matter, was growing more and more uncertain of his former enthusiasm for carrying out what he always called "the responsibilities of wealth."
Hilary Wainwright had been born to wealth, in a generation that had begun to question the right of such inheritance. Roger had always felt that Hilary was glad of this generation, which permitted him to enjoy his wealth, and, at the same time, by discussing his right to it, admitted him to the inner circle of intellectuals who doubt and lead civilization. He owned vast shipping interests, many sugar plantations in Hawaii and was often called upon by other capitalists to arbitrate their difficulties with labor. He went to strike meetings in a limousine.
He lived in a great, old-fashioned, inherited mansion far out on Pacific Avenue near the Presidio, surrounded by lawns and clipped hedges and conservatories. He lived alone, except for the servants, and entertained in down-town hotels. Long ago mothers had ceased managing their daughters in his direction, but the upper social crust was dotted with matrons, mothers of grown girls, who still had, in the depths of their hearts, a soft spot for this "idealist." If they had married him, they were sure he would have understood them so much better than did their husbands. These women contributed largely to the charities and civic betterment schemes in which Hilary was interested, and never refused committee work.
These schemes for the just treatment of labor and the improvement of living conditions among Wainwright's workmen, were Roger's special province, and he now saw them as a pond upon the surface of which he was paid to swim. Coming from an investigation into the justice of some strike, or from tense discussion with the leader of some industry, Roger felt like a diver bringing back strange fauna and flora, after which he had not been sent. Hilary always listened attentively, but sometimes he tapped his desk in a gesture that recalled John Lowell. He had a habit of saying "Yes. Yes," in an emphatic way, as if his mind were a hammer tapping each nail. But when Roger had finished, no completed structure ever rose from Hilary's agreement.
"Of course, Barton, I, personally, agree with you. There is a lot to be said for the other side. But, after all, present society is founded on wealth, and one can't disturb the foundations without jeopardizing every one—every one," Hilary would repeat, unconsciously warning Roger that he himself might go down in the welter, if every Wainwright suddenly put his principles into operation.
The first time he had explained this kindly to Roger, but, as the weeks slipped by, and Roger had continued to make the same suggestions for the adjustment of conditions which Hilary pretended were disturbing him, Hilary had gradually allowed his impatience to appear.
"What's the good, Barton, of talking like that?" he had demanded almost angrily one day, about a week before the Mitchell dinner. "It's the way the man who has never had wealth talks, as if it were an excrescence, something that can be cut away from the possessor without injury to any one else. Wealth is an essential plank in the social structure of our day, the keystone in the arch. Redistribute wealth suddenly and the whole thing will fall."
It had been a tiring day full of very clear deductions on Roger's part that something was fundamentally wrong with the whole economic system. He shrugged impatiently. "I don't know but what it might not be a good thing if it did—only the wrong people would probably be underneath."
Sitting in the well-appointed office of his employer the man's manicured nails, his ostentatiously unconventional soft shirt and tie were as offensive as the smug personal safety of his theories.
For a moment Wainwright had not answered. Then, with marked repression and annoying calm, as if Roger were a fractious child to be excused because of his usually good behavior:
"That's rather wild talk, Barton. You can't knock out the essential plank of a structure and not make things worse for every one."
"And you can't expect Tom and Pete and Jim to get all worked up over the luxuries Mr. Vanderbilt might have to go without under a new order."
"Because the average workingman doesn't think clearly. His mind is untrained. He doesn't see beyond the food and clothes of the day."
"No. The average man doesn't think—yet."
"I'm afraid it will take many years." Hilary had reminded Roger of one perfunctorily mourning the death of a hated relative whose passing was to his financial advantage.
"I'm not so sure," Roger had said shortly.
"Ah—let us hope you're right."
In the pause that followed, a feeling that Roger had always had from the very first interview suddenly crystallized. The man was spiritually smug, soaked through and through in unconscious insincerity.
Why had he ever consented to work for Hilary Wainwright? Instantly Roger had pushed the question from him and never again had he allowed it to rise clearly before him.
But now, as he came into the office and for a moment unobserved, watched Wainwright pacing slowly the length of the thick, rich rug, the well-kept hands clasped behind his back, frowning so seriously, Roger felt a positive repulsion of the man's smugness touch him, an almost physical inability to go over to his own desk and seriously begin consideration of one of Hilary's futile little problems.
At the sound of the door closing, Wainwright turned.
"That Sabatini case has bobbed up again, Barton, and I wish you'd look into it. All kinds of welfare committees are pestering me about it and your legal experience will make a report valuable."
"He's that Sicilian fisherman who burned down the warehouse of the United Fish Company and incidentally almost killed Joe Morelli?"
"That's the man. It's straight arson and attempt to murder, as far as I can see, but the Republicans and the Democrats are fighting for the elections and this thing has been dragged in. The fishermen worship Sabatini. He has power. Worse, he has a wife and eight children. There is no issue in the Latin Quarter at present to hang a fight upon and so Sabatini's friends are using him. The present district attorney is against him, but—the present district attorney wants to be reëlected. Sabatini speaks very little English, wears gold hoops in his ears and a red sash, and his children are really beautiful. The Settlement is very fond of the family and a lot of sentimentality is creeping into the thing, I'm afraid. Could you make it to-day?"
"Certainly. There's nothing special. I'll report back to-night."
"If you could. I'd like a clear, logical report before to-morrow. I'm being pestered a good deal by some people," Hilary smiled the smile that meant "women," "and I want to know more and take a stand."
An hour later, Roger stood beside Angelo Sabatini in his prison cell.
The man sat on the narrow cot, his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his grimed and broken hands. His broad, bent shoulders, the shoulders of a toiler from childhood, were hunched to the flat-backed head, covered with coarse, curly black hair. On the floor at his feet lay a little pile of torn paper, the citizenship papers of Angelo Sabatini. Roger stood silent, leaning against the steel door of the cell. Outside, a guard stopped every now and then in the monotony of his walking to stare.
"You deliberately waited until you knew that Joe Morelli was in his office, then you set fire to the building and when you saw that Morelli had a chance to get away you tried to knife him?" Roger spoke very slowly and distinctly, so that Angelo Sabatini caught the drift.
He nodded. "Morelli—he no buy and sell de feesh—he buy and sell de mens—me and Paolo and Giacomo—everybody—and de babies of me and Paolo and Giacomo. Many days—we have no meat—and no shoes—but Morelli have much meat and de childrens fine shoes. Ecco." With a gesture that laid before Roger the primitive justice of survival, Sabatini paused. "We work all night on the sea. We bring much feesh. Morelli he trow it all—all—back into the sea. Much feesh—too cheap. Ecco."
Roger paced the short cell length and came back again to the steel bars.
"Did you tell the judge all the circumstances, the meat and shoes of Morelli, your own children, the tons of wasted fish?"
The small black eyes blinked. "Che disc'? No caspic' good Inglis. Too queer talk."
Roger repeated slowly. The heavy face lit with a scorn before which Roger was ashamed. "Yes. I tell. And I show dat." A grimed and hairy finger pointed to the pile of torn papers. "I tell dat I come America to get good chance and I no get. All mens is de same and Morelli do me bad. Many times me and Paolo and Beppo go to Morelli and tell: 'Throw no feesh into de sea. We must live.' Morelli laugh. Den me and Paolo and Giacomo talk many nights in de cellar of Beppo. We make—I don know in Inglis—de leetle papers in a hat. It tells me. Ecco. I go."
"And you told the judge?"
"De seguro, I tell. I make swear on Libro Santo to say true and I tell. Ecco."
Roger's body sagged against the steel bars with the hopelessness of this man's case. He had done this thing and confessed it. No twisting of ethics, no pointing of advantage, could make him change one comma. His code was dearer to him than all the complications of the law that might set him free. As long as Giuseppe Morelli lived and threw the fish into the sea, Angelo Sabatini would try to kill him. And Giuseppe Morelli would continue to throw fish into the sea and keep up prices, as long as society permitted him to do it.
On the cot, Angelo Sabatini was leaning again with his face in his hands, the tiny gold hoop in his right ear twinkling through the black curls. He had told his story again, in spite of his lawyer's warnings, because Angelo Sabatini saw no reason to withhold the truth. In time, perhaps, some one would believe, understand that he had done this thing because he had been chosen to do it and his children needed as many shoes and as much food as the children of Giuseppe Morelli. But, the quiet form of Roger, leaning against the bars, his chin on his breast, Sabatini understood. This man was only another with the right to ask him many things and go away and leave him.
Roger wanted to put his hand on the bowed shoulder and say something. But there was nothing to say. Tell him to hope? Against the United Fish Company? To brace up? Before twenty, thirty years in prison walls? Angelo Sabatini, who had lived all his life in the sun on the sea, ever since as a tiny boy in the old country he had gone out before dawn in his father's blue painted boat. Roger moved and the man looked up. Already the hope had gone from him. His small, black eyes were dead embers in the dull, brown face. He looked at Roger, stupid, dumb, confused. In five years, in less, he would be scarcely human.
Roger beckoned the turnkey and without another word, went out. Angelo Sabatini did not move. As Roger passed the desk, a woman with a baby in her arms and a little boy of ten beside her was trying to make the man behind the desk understand. The little boy translated, in an awed whisper, what his mother said. The man behind the desk shook his head:
"Tell her not to keep coming here. She can't see him except on visitors' day and if she keeps up this pestering she won't see him then."
The child translated. The woman wrung her hands and pleaded. Under the torrent of harsh Sicilian dialect, the man behind the desk rose.
"Get out!"
The child pulled his mother's skirts and they hurried away.
Roger went straight home. It was dusk, the wood fire was lighted, and the dinner table spread before it. Anne came quickly at the sound of Roger's key and he kissed her.
"What's the matter?" she laughed. "It's me, not a wax image in a shop."
Roger kissed her again. "I beg your pardon, Princess, but I'm all wrought up. I never want to have another afternoon like this one."
While Anne put the finishing touches to dinner, Roger told her of Angelo Sabatini. Anne made no comment until, the dinner served, they faced each other across the little table.
"But he's scarcely human now," Roger repeated. "A year of those granite walls—and he'll be a beast indeed."
Anne shivered. Roger had drawn the man very vividly, hunched on the cot, his thick neck, his round, flat head.
"If he'd only stopped to think," she said, "he must have seen that you can't go round burning property and murdering people."
"No, he wouldn't have seen it. As Wainwright says," Roger spoke bitterly, "the average working man's mind is untrained. He doesn't think. He's too busy getting food and clothes."
Anne thought of her father, his servile acceptance of rules and orders. His ever-haunting fear of losing his job, of a rainy day.
"I think Mr. Wainwright's right, don't you? The average person does not think."
"Then he's got to be made to think," Roger said with such sudden vehemence that Anne started. "It's not because he doesn't want to think. He hasn't got time to think. And he realizes the uselessness of thinking when he can't do anything with his thoughts."
"But everybody has time to think, Roger. You're always talking about the way machinery affects men, they just do things over and over with their hands because it gets mechanical and they don't have to think about it. They can think while they're working, if they're the thinking kind."
"Try it. Make the same motion over and over for eight hours and see how alive your brain would be. Make it for a week, a month, all a working life. You're dead."
Anne looked thoughtful. She liked discussing with Roger and they usually agreed. But a note had crept into Roger's line of argument lately, that disturbed her almost physically, just as it did to hear a soap-boxer shrieking on the corner. It always made something inside her curl up and retreat, so that she could never stop and listen to what the man was saying.
She got back again to particulars. "But he did do it. He burned a building and tried to kill a man."
"Yes, he did it, just as a machine that is started by a clever mechanic does the work for which it is made. It obeys its law. Angelo Sabatini is obeying his law, the law that ground him and his ancestors down until there was only a spark left—the spark that brought him six thousand miles—to the 'Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave'. And then we tried to kill that spark and Sabatini kicked out. Why, it's this spark, this will and courage to kick, that's the only thing in the man worth saving."
Anne felt a little frightened. "But, dear, I know things are all wrong and ought to be different, but they're not different yet. If you do wrong you have to pay the price."
Roger pushed back his almost untouched plate and began walking up and down the pretty room. "But that's just the point. The guilty, the really ethically guilty, do not pay the price. Angelo Sabatini is a victim of society, just as much as he would have been the victim of a beam falling on him. This isn't a personal fight between one fisherman and another, it's the whole social revolution. And that's what fools like Wainwright don't see or pretend they don't. They patch and sing hymns while they patch."
Anne laid down her dessert spoon hastily. "Roger," she said quietly after a silence, filled only by the dropping of the burned wood and Roger's even tread the length of the room, "you're not going to quarrel with Mr. Wainwright, are you?"
Roger smiled. "Hilary Wainwright doesn't quarrel with his employees. He dismisses them."
Anne looked quickly away into the fire. After a moment she asked, almost indifferently: "Do you think he will dismiss you?"
Roger shrugged; then stopped and looked at the little figure turned toward the fire.
"No," he said slowly. "He won't dismiss me—yet."
Anne got up and began to clear the table. Roger came forward to help as he always did, but Anne insisted he was tired.
"Besides you have to make the report to-night. I can do these few things quite well."
Roger looked at the clock. "And I'd better hurry, too. It's half past eight now."
Still he continued to walk up and down while Anne thoughtfully washed the dishes. She had just finished when he came to kiss her good-night.
"Don't wait up, dear, I may be late."
Anne went to the door with him, then came back, turned out the lights and made up the fire.
Deep in the easy chair, Anne felt the battling and struggling far down under the pleasant surface of life. Rough men, like Angelo Sabatini, were striking blindly up at her peaceful security. Anne looked slowly around the quiet room, uncluttered by useless furniture, wide, clean and calm. She loved her living-room. It was almost alive to her. Anne's lips trembled.
"He takes things so hard," she whispered to herself, "and one person can't really do anything."
It was after eleven when Roger came in. He thought Anne was asleep and got into bed quietly. But after a little while, she turned to him.
"What's Mr. Wainwright going to do, Roger?"
"Nothing," Roger said heavily. "Nothing at all."
Anne crept closer to him and stroked his cheek. "I'm so sorry, dear."
Roger moved impatiently. "Don't do that, Anne, it fidgets me."
Anne instantly withdrew her hand. Roger reached for it and clasped it listlessly. "Excuse me, dear, but I'm all tensed up. He was so damned judicial and—and 'just.'"