CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER VIII

Martin left the typographical plant. He thought he was a funny one. Being fired made him feel a little childish. It might be hurt or anger, or it might be something more esoteric. He didn’t know. But his face was colorless and his eyes gleamed unnaturally.

“I guess it isn’t anything to sigh and fret about, ‘dear boy,’” he said. “It was Roberts, of course; and I can’t buck him. This city’s even more of a machine than I had thought.” He walked until he was thirsty, went into a restaurant and had two cups of coffee. Then he walked some more. He stopped in at another restaurant and tried to eat. He couldn’t. So he had a third cup of coffee and decided to call up Roberts. The conversation was pertinent.

“It’s Martin Devaud. Is Mr. Roberts there?”

“Hello, Martin. It’s myself.”

“I’m fired. May I see you this evening?”

“Come at six.”

“Right.” And they hung up.

Martin continued to walk. His throat was dry and he yawned frequently. As evening approached he grew moreand more nervous. Several times he lost his bearings and with some difficulty he found Roberts’ street. In the elevator, which was warm and a little close, he tried to keep himself from shivering.

Roberts was dressed in black trousers and a white shirt, starched, but open at the collar. He greeted Martin extravagantly, then seeing his pallor, so unnatural, he brought out whisky and soda.

Martin held up his hand.

“No soda,” he said.

Roberts’ eloquent features absorbed at once the harshness of Martin’s despair. He understood. Nevertheless, propriety made him ask, “Straight? That’s dangerous.”

“Straight, please. And it’s not half so dangerous just now for me as being sober.”

Roberts shrugged his shoulders.

“You may take the bottle, if you care to, and lie down with it,” he answered petulantly.

Martin looked him straight in the eyes.

“A drink will suffice,” he said.

Roberts flamed and quieted and the color came again.

Martin smiled a little maliciously as he watched him.

“What a story, or picture!—if you wept in all that brilliance!” he said calmly.

Roberts poured his own glass to the brim with whisky and drank it before he answered. His eyes were hot—completely without modulation.

“Drink yours!” he commanded, pouring another.

Martin took the glass to the window and threw it, whisky and all, into the street.

“May it kill!” he said, whiter-faced than ever.

“You talked to me once of melodrama,” said Roberts acidly. “I’ve never seen it so rampant, so unorthodox, so uncontrolled. I’ve had enough! Tell me—tell me—or by God!——”

“I want to know if you had me fired,” said Martin, simply.

Roberts became placid at once. He waved his slender hands and, half-closing his eyes, smiled patronizingly.

“Surely you do not—” he began, when Martin cut him off.

“Surely, hell. I wondered. I thought it was probable.”

Roberts still watched him from under his lids.

“I don’t understand.”

“I said I’m fired.”

“Well?”

“I want to know why.”

Roberts folded his hands. It was almost a gesture of dismissal.

“I talked with your employer, Mr. Jackson,” he said. “The conversation, I must say, was disappointing. He told me frankly that your work of late had been lax.” Roberts cleared his throat. “I’ve been somewhat afraid of that. You can’t burn the candle at both ends, Martin. The social and the economic won’t mix.”

“Roberts—save your platitudes for a darker night!”Martin was glaring at him. “So that was really it! You intimated as much at one time.”

Roberts went over to him, touching the back of Martin’s hand with indescribable tenderness.

“Are you tired enough now, my friend, to have a drink with the one man in the world who sees you in your entirety?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ll drink,” said Martin wearily, leaning back in a chair and closing his eyes. He took the glass from Roberts, holding it loosely, and drank from it without thinking.

Roberts now put his hand on Martin’s head.

“I have given my time to place you,” he said gently. “You would not rebuke me for that.”

Martin felt the lassitude of the whisky, of the words; yet some fundamental stroke of his own blood kept him from acceptance. He seemed to hear a bold, ancestral cry, and sat straighter.

“You’re modern, Roberts. You have a modern sword.”

“I’ve never hurt you, Martin. I’ve tried to help.”

“Of course. But your body is too demanding.”

“Meaning?——”

“I won’t fence. I’ve seen an ugly mind—an inexpensive one.”

“Devaud,” said Roberts, in a sharp, clear voice, “you don’t belong among civilized people. One can’t talk to you decently without your making an unpleasant issue. You’re a confounded savage and worse, because youhave the instruments of this superficial world, too. And all of your cruelty—yes, you’re cruel!—and I suppose all of your vices are tucked under your fine exterior. No wonder Deane is intrigued! But if she could see you just as I see you now, with that brutish look in your eyes, then——”

Martin interrupted him.

“Don’t mention her name,” he said, in a low, moody voice.

Roberts moved away from him quickly.

“Martin—did you make this appointment to build, or to destroy?”

“Neither. I just wanted you to know that my understanding belongs to you.”

“Then it’s the only thing that belongs to me.” Roberts spoke bitterly. “Martin! For the last time I ask you to forget a cycle that has brought you only unhappiness.”

Martin got out of his chair.

“You should never try to be clever with me, Roberts. I respect the frank demands of the body. Petty intrigues disgust me. Your intricate desires have overruled your intelligence. As an invert I respected you. As a subverter I find you intolerable.”

Roberts walked toward him, motioning, his head shaking. His shining black hair fell across his face which had turned from red to a lurid purple. The white part of his eyes took on the same color. His appearance was that of some monster in a fable.

“I’ll—” he said, “I’ll not—I’ll not—” his head bobbed up and down. “I will never let you——”

“You’re prodding yourself sick,” said Martin in disgust. “You’re jarring the very devil out of yourself,” he flung at him and left the room, his shoulders swaying.

Martin went to a liquor store and bought a gallon of wine. In his room, he sat down on the edge of the bed, kicked off his shoes and began to drink. Half-drunken, he lay back and soon fell asleep.

He awoke in the late morning. He knew his position. The contact had been broken. Sick from the evening’s drinking he got out of bed and looked at his face in the mirror. His cheeks were pale and there was an unhealthy expression in his eyes. He felt his heart. Its methodical, heavy beat disturbed him. He poured a glass of wine and drank it swiftly. The nerves deadened. His apprehension died and he stood again before the mirror, regarding himself calmly. He shaved and dressed, took another glass of wine and went out, going directly to the typographical plant.

His former employer was writing. Martin looked at him vaguely, hesitating before his desk.

“What is it, young man?” asked Jackson, glancing up with impatience.

“No one told me why I was fired,” said Martin indistinctly. “Will there be anything later?”

His condition seemed a little pitiable to Jackson, although, the employer told himself, such individualitiesreally belonged outside the mathematical régime of commerce. One had to dispose of them accordingly.

“There will be nothing later,” he stated firmly. “You were inefficient. I can see no reason for returning you to this Company.”

“I want to work,” said Martin. “That’s the reason.” His fingers rubbed the top of the desk and he looked unsteadily at the man behind it.

Jackson arose.

“You’re drunk, Devaud,” he said. “It is not a question of personalities. Good-day.”

Martin gave him a perplexed look. The impeccable tailoring of his employer’s suit had suddenly become offensive to him. Completely bewildered by this strange revulsion, Martin turned and walked out of the room.

“Good-day,” he said, and went down the steps and out into the street. “Good-day,” he kept repeating into the ears of astonished passers-by. He stopped, after he had wandered awhile, before a restaurant; for he smelled the aroma of coffee. Then he shook his fist at the window.

“Thatwon’t split this illness!” he said, and walked on, mumbling.

In his room he sat down once more on the edge of the bed. His mind, levitated by wine and discouragement, projected itself. Images rose before him. Secretive, luxurious women were in his fantasy. He drank again and went to bed. He slept, awakened, washed his face andslept once more, reality and the dream becoming as one. Day and night passed.

The sun rose, slanted, fell over the windowsill and crept up the bed into Martin’s eyes. He awakened, his heart pounding. He stood up and finished the last of the wine.

“Internal application only!” he observed. Repeatedly the mirror drew him. “Poison if taken externally,” he continued amiably; then seeing the foolish expression on his face, turned away in disgust.

He looked at himself again.

“Emancipation!” he shouted. “To business! To weaving, undecipherable sex and even my own hot mouth!” In amazement he looked into the crypt of his eyes. That soft sound of weeping.... “From the ceiling,” he cried. “Not from these French fried lips!” He went back to bed.

In a dream he placed his hand on his hard body.

“The unborn,” he whispered, breaking his hand on himself. “Modest child of onanism.... One daughter who will not ride the world on her ruby-jeweled bird’s nest!... One lad who will not ride the world on a bird’s nest!”

He awoke and looked at the ceiling. The room was death. Outside, snow was falling, flakes padding the window. He stared into the darkness. To escape without struggle—his body falling—and then, rest—infinitelydeep and sweet.... His imagination stretched steeply into awareness. Not into chaos or unreality. The wind pressed snow on the window, through the window and into his arms. He felt the cold. Holding his hands into the air, he prayed....

“God!”

No bright arm of light; no sound of wings. It was four in the morning and his terror had grown to a deadening satisfaction. The rose shadows of steepled city buildings at night rang dimly in his court, their inner warmth full of promise and engaging noise. He looked out of the window, and shook his head.

“Too young and stupid, my infantile prince,” he said, and touched the gooseflesh on his arm, kissing with faint disdain its embarrassed nubs. “Back to bed again to sleep and jump like a poisoned cat.” And another day waved her dreaming, blue hands, regretfully——

Martin knew an alternative in that purple morning. A gun—the shot—the quick flutter of his hand.

“No,” he whispered. “Too demure. Fruitful, but demure.”

Outside, the sun blended into trucks and the yapping noise of turning wheels. He dressed and went into the street, stopping at the nearest bar. And strangely, in all his tiredness and fear, arose the man as he had been—straight from the ocean, with clear eyes that had watched the sea so often, and with hand half-raised as though holding the helm of his ship. It was momentary; but the bartender stood looking at him quietly and with respect.

“A Guinness’s Stout,” said Martin.

“A nip or a pint, sir?” asked the man.

“A nip and a pint.”

The black liquid hung to Martin’s glass as he raised it to his lips. The stout ran through his dry throat and into his stomach, washing away the starved slime. It spanged against his knotted intestines, loosening their disgusted quiver. It broke the cordy fold of nervous tissue.

Martin bent over the bar, touched by its rustic intimacy. Out of its shining, wooden face arose the image of Deane, slim-throated, filling the mist. She moved closer. Martin mused over the bar and drank, and drank again. The liquor sank to his nerves and he awoke.

Deane forgotten?... Her bell-like gown drifting over his teeth—sprung from the fog—outlined in the smoke of his thoughts....

The subway was crowded. Meaty faces lined in pink, pale array before him. A woman, mother of too many, rubbed a glove over her nose, worry misting her eyes, a dustpan supporting her neck. Across from her perched a she-gazelle on meatless haunches, hair and breasts correctly arranged. The train stopped and Martin went up the stairs into the cold wind. He entered a building and walked down the hall to Deane’s apartment.

She opened the door and stood before him, a bright, tremulous blur. He swayed a little and she caught him by the shoulder, assisting him into the room. He tried to stand straight, smiling gently through his brackish eyes.

“It’s all right, Deane, but I can’t stop my mind,” hesaid. “I can’t stop it from turning.” He licked the dry scale of his lips. “I can’t do it.” He closed his eyes tightly to keep in the moisture and talked on rapidly, glibly.

From the window came the city lights. Deane sat in a chair, brooding, a frightened look on her face; for Martin’s hysteria grew in the strength of evening. His motions became more selfish. Every idea turned upon itself.

“Somewhere,” he said, “there is a worm. A relentless worm canting my words, embarrassing me—deep, vicious and blinding.”

“What do you want me to do, Martin?” All of Deane’s tolerance—her understanding and affection were contained in this question; but he was deafened with pain and apprehension and all the seeds of disaster which fall, germinate and grow so swiftly in certain poisonous gardens. He put his hand across his face.

“Let’s get a doctor,” he said. “A magical doctor ... a sorcerer ... a doctor for a sorcerer.”

Deane nodded her head. And if he could have seen her then, in the gown he loved and with all the concern in her eyes, it might have taken him from this evil spell. But he was blind and sick and walked like a dead man; while in his agony he cried, “No! Nothing! Get nothing!” Tormented, he went across the room to her, and as he faltered, Deane caught him in her arms.

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