Chapter IV: Part 4

"Hm! Just as I was teaching you the art of bread cutting you run away from school," she complained. Keegan resumed his operations on the bread, a satisfied warmth in his heart. For her hand had returned to its position and she was again going through the idiotic pretense of teaching him how to move a knife. He was being transported. His vacuous face had taken on a vivacity. He was fearful of presuming, of doing something wrong, and he made no effort to caress her. No effort was necessary for, somehow, despite his carefully edited behavior, their fingers were always touching, their bodies coming together.

Still he was afraid to think that Fanny had fallen in love with him. He was even afraid that Aubrey would go away and leave them alone in the kitchen. If they were alone he would have to try to kiss her or something and she would laugh and then say indignantly, "You idiot, I was just playing. I see now that you think all women are like those you told me about."

He would rather that Aubrey remained and that everything continued as it was. The sandwiches were piling up on the large platters.

"Here," Fanny cried, holding one of them up for him to bite.

He looked apologetically at Aubrey as if asking to be forgiven for this proof of her superior regard and with a blush ate from her fingers. Fanny suddenly let go the sandwich and as it dropped to the floor, patted him tenderly on his cheek and laughed.

"Um ... big man hungry," she whispered.

He turned to place the fallen pieces of bread in the sink. His hand brushed hers and he felt her fingers close firmly around his palm with a squeeze. He half shut his eyes at the shock that filled his heart. Fanny's eyes, however, ignored him. She was engaged in watching Aubrey for whose benefit the entire scene was being staged. Her instinct had supplied her with a mode of attack. She would arouse desire in the novelist by showing herself desired--although by another man. A desired woman was an irritant. It aroused illogical jealousy.

The icebox was in the back hallway.

"The cream and things are in here," Fanny exclaimed.

Keegan followed her out of the kitchen into the rear vestibule. She had squeezed his hand before starting and thrown him a glance as she passed through the doorway. He felt embarrassed for Aubrey and was on the point of inviting him to share the intimacy of the small vestibule. But Fanny interrupted him.

"Oh Hugh," she called softly, "will you chop some ice, please, for the water."

She handed him the ice pick and laughed nervously. The door was half open and Keegan caught a glimpse of the novelist pretending a vast interest in the arrangement of the sandwiches on the plates.

"What's the matter, Hugh? You seem so ... so funny," Fanny whispered close to him.

His heart contracted. He was afraid. If he dared he would put his arms around her. But after all the things he had confessed to her in their walk.... A longing to weep almost brought tears out of his eyes. He stood with his mouth open and stared as in a dream at a blurred vision.

"Fanny," he muttered, "I'm sorry...."

"About last night," she whispered. He nodded.

"But Hughie, you said you wouldn't ever again...."

He felt despair.

"If I only hadn't ... I would...." He stopped.

"Would what, Hughie?" Fear halted him definitely. He could go no further. A misery clouded his thought. He felt her hand touching his arm.

"You mustn't feel sorry, Hugh. Please promise me you won't feel sorry...."

The sweetness of her voice overpowered him and his eyes grew wet. He tried to talk but was ashamed of the quiver he felt in his throat. Fanny pressed lightly against him. He stood with his head reeling and his heart dancing crazily as her arms circled his neck. Her face was raised to his.

"Just one ... Hughie. Please ... don't forget. Please hurry...."

He heard her words but they conveyed no meaning. He loved her ... he loved her. He had never been happy like this. He couldn't tell her now ... the icebox, something, was in the way. But sometime he would tell her. His arms and body felt alive.

"Oh," he thought, "Fanny, Fanny...."

Then he heard himself repeating the thought aloud. He was saying in a voice he hardly recognized, "Oh, Fanny, Fanny."

He kissed her lips.

For a moment Fanny returned his kiss passionately. Her arms clutched him tightly. She felt a curious lift in her heart, a thing she had never experienced before. It made her almost close her eyes. But she kept them open, watching furtively over Keegan's shoulder the figure of Aubrey. Aubrey had remained bent over the plates of sandwiches. Despite the lift in her heart this annoyed her. She wanted Aubrey's attention.

"Oh," she sighed aloud. Aubrey heard. He straightened and for a moment stared at the tableau of the lovers. Fanny watching him behind Keegan's kiss saw his face grow red. Then she lowered her eyes and abandoned herself to the sensation of Keegan's arms. But the sensations faded. An interest seemed to have gone out of the situation. She pushed Keegan gently away and looked into the kitchen. Aubrey was gone.

"Oh," she whispered. Keegan looked at her dizzily. "He saw...."

"Who?"

"Aubrey Gilchrist saw you." Her face flushed.

"Did he?" Keegan leaned against the icebox. He felt weak.

"I'm sure he did," Fanny insisted, an elated note in her voice, "I'm just positive."

"He couldn't have seen much if he did, from where he was standing," Keegan murmured.

"I don't care anyway," Fanny smiled. Keegan felt a thrill at the words. She loved him and didn't care who knew!

"Neither do I," he agreed. He felt glad they had been seen. It made him blush inside but he was glad.

"Oh, what do we care?" Fanny cried, "if the old stick-in-the-mud did see." Keegan reached his hands to her but she eluded him and darted into the kitchen.

"Hurry, chop the ice," she called. She was confused. For a moment she had been surprised by an emotion--a curious, unsensual desire for the awkward Keegan. She had felt her heart yield to his embrace as she usually felt her body do. But the whole thing had been for Aubrey's benefit. It had started with an intention of making Aubrey jealous by flirting with Keegan. And when Aubrey had refused to show any signs of jealousy she had carried the flirtation further until it had seemed logical to kiss and embrace Keegan as a part of her original ambition to stir Aubrey. But she had been stirred herself by the man's kiss. Yet now that Aubrey was gone she had lost all interest in Hugh. She wanted to hurry back where the novelist was.

She glanced apprehensively toward the door. Doris was standing looking at her.

"What's the matter, Dorie?"

"Mr. Ramsey has come. Mother said to set another place."

"Good heavens! What a houseful."

Doris nodded. Keegan was standing in the center of the room smiling inanely at the sink.

"I'll help you," said Doris.

8

Mrs. Basine was embarassed by the arrival of her friend Tom Ramsey. He had been a friend of her husband and a rumor had become current that he was now courting her. She denied this with indignation. To herself she admitted she liked to be alone with him. He was a sour-minded man with a liver-red face, a patrician nose and the look of a man of importance. But he was too thin and too short to live up to this look.

In the presence of others he usually fell into a silence unless one of the two or three subjects on which he felt himself an authority came up. These subjects were things that had to do with advertising--effective copy, effective display, prices, results. Mr. Ramsey was in the advertising business.

Mrs. Basine's embarassment at his arrival was caused by her sympathy for the man and her resentment of his weakness. She knew exactly what would happen. Tom Ramsey would sit through the evening, scrupulously polite to everyone, saying, "Yes, yes. Quite right. Oh, of course. That's absolutely right.... Indeed, I agree with you...."

For the first few minutes he would impress everyone as a man of character and intelligence. But gradually this impression would fade and people would stop talking to him and eventually ignore him altogether in the conversation.

Why this happened Mrs. Basine could never determine. But it did and it always hurt her. Mr. Ramsey, smiling exuberantly through the introduction, his thin body alive in the slightly overheated room, would in an hour become Mr. Ramsey sitting glassy-eyed and polite in a corner, his liver-red face holding with difficulty a grimace of enthusiastic attentiveness. He would make sporadic starts trying to recover something. When the talk grew boisterous and everyone was making puns and delivering himself of bouncing sarcasms, Ramsey would try to become part of the scene in a way that always startled the company. He would come to life with mysterious suddeness and hurl a jest into the common pot. His manner, however, focused attention on himself rather than his words. In back of the drollery he offered would be a desperation, in fact, sometimes a sense of fury. People would stare at him for an instant thinking, "What an odd, impossible man." And in their contemplation, forget to laugh at his remark, forget even to answer it. And he would be left stranded in a silence--a conversational castaway. A moment later he would collapse, sit glowering in his chair, looking angrily at the carpet. This was painful to Mrs. Basine since she had grown to understand him.

When they were alone Ramsey became a different man. He talked to her usually about people he had met in her house. At such times he was master of caricature. Their absurdities, pompousness, banalities, hypocricies took grotesque outline in his words. His method was unvarying. It was based upon a crude, vicious skepticism, inspired in turn by a fanatic resentment of success in others. He seemed determined always to prove to his own and her satisfaction that despite their pretentions people were no more successful than he. His nature seemed unable to tolerate the thought of superiors. At the same time people he encountered, particularly in the Basine home, managed always to override him, to reduce him to silence, to deflate him.

He would retire into himself, protesting viciously at the injustice of this phenomenon. And while he sat in silence he would seek to wipe out the consciousness of his own inferiority by attacking with contempt the people around him. He would sit belittling and ridiculing the company to himself until he had hypnotized himself with a conviction of their general worthlessness and inferiority. Bolstered up by this treacherous conviction, he would come suddenly to life with a grotesque sense of magnitude in his mind. He was a giant among pigmies, a Socrates among clowns! Who were these numbskulls and fourflushers that they thought they were better than he was! He would show them! He would step forth and by a single gesture, a scintillant phrase, reduce them to their proper place.

And the company would find itself staring for an instant at a thin, little man with a wild look in his eyes and a snarling quiver in his voice, saying something not quite intelligible--usually an involved pun or a tardy comment on some issue under discussion. The intensity of the sullen-faced little man with the patrician nose embarrassed them for the moment. Not as much as it did Mrs. Basine whose heart would almost break at the spectacle, but enough to make them feel it were best to ignore this curious Mr. Ramsey and not let on what a fool he somehow made of himself.

Ramsey's indignation toward people, his sour skepticism of their values, was his futile way of reassuring himself of his own worth. Futile, because he had no conviction of this worth. When he sat denouncing in silence the talkers around him, ridiculing and belittling them, it was merely a less painful outlet for the contempt he had of himself.

He had been since his youth ridden by this inner feeling that he was a fool, a weakling, not quite a man. It had started in his boyhood when the nickname "Sissy" had been attached to him. His high-pitched voice, his thin body and his unboyish modesty had earned him the name. As he had grown older the fact that he did not care for girls as other youths did, and that he sometimes played with them as if he were a girl himself, had not escaped the keen, cruel eyes of his companions. The name "Sis" Ramsey had stuck.

In order to convince these companions of his masculinity he had thrown himself with violence into their roughest games. In high school he had sought to establish himself as a hardened sinner--a drinker and tough citizen. Despite his slight body he had developed into a creditable athlete. More than that he had become known as a fellow who would fight at the drop of a hat. His fiery temper became a byword.

But all these masculine, or seemingly masculine attributes were part of his effort to prove that, despite his somewhat odd voice and his equally odd indifference toward girls, he was a man. When he left high school and started in the offices of the Mackay Advertising Company, the name "Sissy" had dropped from him. He had no longer to contend with the keen, cruel eyes of boy companions. Men were content to accept him at whatever value he chose to place on himself, as far as his character was concerned.

The struggle instead of abating, however, only increased. It removed itself from the external combat of his boyhood to an internal complication, and became the basis of the feeling of inferiority which shaped his life.

This inner knowledge he cherished, that he was inferior to people, was founded on the conviction that he was impotent; or at least nearly impotent; that he could never marry and have children like other men. His mind refused to acknowledge this fact and thus instead of finding the comparatively harmless exit of regret, it permeated his entire thought with the word--inferior ... inferior.

Ramsey kept himself desperately blind to the cause of this permeation. He concentrated on the detached word "inferior" and belabored it with untiring fury. There was another secret, one that went deeper than the hidden conviction of impotency.

In the indignation which continually filled his mind, the hideous secret that lived almost within grasp of his understanding was conveniently clouded. It was the secret that his lack of vigor--a fact in itself that he sometimes contemplated--was caused by a still deeper thing--a thing that never reached any clearer articulation than a shudder.

They had called him "Sissy" as a boy and he had not changed with age. He had been able to repress the impulses that sought to turn him toward men instead of women for companionship. He had repressed them by the ruse of convincing himself he was an ascetic.

It was, moreover, an attitude which could find outlet. He could devote himself to the continual denunciation of others, developing into a sour, cynical choleric man of fifty. A vindictive, unpleasing personality.

Mrs. Basine herded her guests into the dining room. Ramsey's presence preoccupied her. She found herself watching him as a mother might look after a sickly child.

The intimacy that had grown between her and her dead husband's friend had been too gradual to trace. It had started when Mrs. Basine had sat one evening in the midst of a company similar to this and thought, "Poor man. He jumps around like that and acts queerly because he's ashamed of himself. He's ashamed of not being what he wants to be."

She did not quite understand what this meant but she felt herself suddenly close to the man after having thought it. He began to seek her company alone and more and more to use her as an audience for his ruse of transferring his self-rage into a critical indignation of others.

A realization of Ramsey's character had stirred a pity in her and out of this pity she was careful not to let him see it. She went to the extreme of pretending a blindness toward his shortcomings and of accepting him for the thing he tried to make himself out to be--a giant among pygmies.

She would agree with him in his attacks upon others, second his vicious caricaturing and appear always impressed by his desperate skepticism. Ramsey as a result had come to regard her as the one person with whom he had ever felt at ease during his life. Mrs Basine was a woman who understood him, that is, one who was completely deceived by him. In her presence the creature he struggled unsuccessfully to become, the masquerade of magnificence which his inferiority sought futilely to assume--in her presence these became realities. He would swagger before her, deride her, browbeat her and the rage which bubbled everlastingly in him would have respite. His mind seemed to uncloud and his talk would grow actually clever, some of his caricatures bringing an authentic laugh from her.

But the widow as a rule would sit listening to him, watching his swagger, her heart lacerated by the poignant things it sensed. It was as if he were a little boy dressed up in an Indian suit and emitting war whoops and she must sit by and pretend real horror of his juvenile make-believe; as if he were someone who would drop dead with anguish in the midst of his laughter if she were to say aloud what was in her mind, "Oh you poor man, I'm sorry for you. I'm so ashamed for you."

She did not understand why, despite these things, she felt a thrill of pleasure when she found herself alone with him. Her pity for the man seemed a pleasant excitement. It gave her a sense of intimacy toward him. She admitted this to herself but wondered about it.

There had been one evening that remained confusedly in her mind. He had seemed unusually buoyant, she recalled, after it was over. His cleverness had actually diverted her--his caricatures of Judge Smith and Mrs. Gilchrist and even her own son. She had felt a certain truth in the distorted descriptions he gave of her friends.

Then without warning he had grown violently excited. She had watched him with a fear in her heart--a warning to her that he was going to say something. She remembered him walking up and down the room saying, "The trouble with you, like with most people, my dear lady, is that you don't understand things. You look at things through a fog. You don't see through the pretences of people. Your brain isn't active. It's merely receptive. It doesn't question. And what's the result?"

His voice had become high-pitched.

"You live your lives among lies. That's what you do. Lies, lies--you thrive on lies. Your friends are lies. Your thoughts, everything. Take me.... Now take me ... my case.... I'll tell you something you don't understand ... just by the way of proof.... I'll tell you something...."

His voice had broken off, overcome by excitement. He was walking up and down in front of her, his eyes staring wildly. He was going to say something, something about himself. And for a moment she had sat cringing inside. Why had she been afraid? Perhaps because he had looked so wildly around him, like someone trying to escape. But he had grown silent and dropped exhausted into a chair.

She tried not to look at him because he was trembling and he had gone away ten minutes later. He had kept away for two weeks and then returned and their relations had resumed as if nothing had happened. Her mind tingled with curiosity but a fear restrained her. She somehow had not dared ask the question, "What were you going to tell me about yourself."

But she remembered that it had seemed for a moment as if he were going to escape, that he had looked like a man on the verge of ridding himself of an incubus.

Her guests were getting along famously. Everyone seemed pleased, happy. They were chattering and laughing for hardly no reason at all. Mrs. Basine had no liking for the people at her table. She despised Mrs. Gilchrist, resented Aubrey. The judge gave her a faint feeling of repulsion. Henrietta was a simpleton. Fanny irritated her with her continual blushes and sensitive innocence. Doris was too silent and always brooding. And even George--he somehow failed to convince her although she desired to be convinced.

But all of them together were nice, like a pleasing combination of colors. People belonged together. Alone they had faults. But when they came together and forgot themselves they were nice. She felt proud of having them at her table, because there were so many of them. They were nice people when they were like this--just talking, not arguing or saying things that convinced her somehow that they were wrong things.

Under the table the little comedies of the day were playing a furtive sequel. Henrietta sitting next to Basine was shyly pressing her knee against his. Fanny had reached out her foot until it rested against an ankle she fancied belonged to Aubrey. For a few minutes she failed to connect the attentiveness of Judge Smith, his paternal banter, with her activity under the table. But the suspicion slowly arrived. Her eyes calculated the position of the judge's legs and, blushing, she withdrew her foot. She noticed that Aubrey sought her face when she wasn't looking and that Keegan was talking with a blurred politeness to Mrs. Gilchrist.

Doris sitting next to Mr. Ramsey felt annoyed. He was continually asking her what she wanted, passing her salt-shakers and bread-plates and conducting himself as if she were a helpless child under his care. Mrs. Gilchrist, as the first conversational flush inspired by the food subsided, launched into a detailed description of the plans for the coming fete, talking in a precise, emotionless voice.

"I was saying," Basine's voice emerged in a silence that followed Mrs. Gilchrist's talk, "I was saying that people are easy to get along with if you understand them and they understand you. I had a case in court the other day where a woman was suing a man for breach of promise. He had proposed marriage to her and then without reason broke his pledge. The woman was my client."

Murmurs of "how awful"; "that must have been interesting" arose. Basine nodded sagely. He had without knowing why started improvising the narrative, inventing its details with a creditable dramatic and legal talent. There had been no such case, client or denouement but he continued unconscious of this fact in his desire to tell the story. "The man of course was a rascal. An unscrupulous rascal. The girl--my client--a charming, innocent young thing--had believed him. He had courted her passionately,--er, I should say--assiduously. I couldn't understand how any man after giving his word and asking a girl to marry him could possibly be rogue enough to do what he had done. So during a recess in the case I sought the fellow out. His name was Jones. We had quite a talk."

Basine paused.

"What happened?" Fanny exclaimed. "I wish you'd tell us more about your work than you do, George. It's so interesting."

"Yes, go on," Mrs. Gilchrist commanded.

Basine hesitated. His improvisation seemed to have come to an end. He was, mysteriously, at a loss as to how to make the lie turn out. But inspired by the attention of the table he resumed:

"Well, of course a lawyer must be first of all faithful to his client."

He paused again. He had almost decided to end the fiction by explaining that on investigation he had found the man to be right and that the defense the man had given him privately of his actions had caused him to withdraw from the case. But this would sound quixotic, unreal. There would have to be explanations. Why had he started the lie? To give it that ending so that.... He smiled a sudden appreciation of what he was doing--trying to excuse his jilting of Henrietta--an event not far off if she persisted in holding him to the thingumabob foolishness. But he went on:

"This sometimes prejudices an attorney against his opponent. But I found this time that all prejudice was warranted. The man was a thorough rascal. It had been his practise to propose marriage to girls--innocent girls of course, and he had several times managed to take advantage of their faith in him and--ruin them."

Fanny averted her eyes. Mrs. Gilchrist stared with an uncomprehending frown at the talker. The judge permitted a grimace of distaste to pass over his face as he murmured, "The cad. Yes sir, men are cads."

"My client won," resumed Basine with modesty, "and was awarded five thousand dollars by the jury. But the law could not give her back the happiness this scoundrel had snatched from her...."

"Had he ... had he accomplished his purpose with her?" Aubrey inquired, aloofly interested in the plot details of the narrative.

"No, fortunately," Basine answered. "But look at him now. Free, although found guilty, free to continue his tactics."

He paused confused. Henrietta was beaming at him, her eyes wide with admiration. He felt he should have given it the other ending and cursed himself silently for what he had done. He had only made it worse when he had meant to tell a story that would help matters and make her understand....

Mrs. Basine regarded her son unhappily. She was convinced he was lying because he usually mentioned the big cases he had and he had never before referred to any Jones suit. But she was unable to understand why anyone should lie without cause and after a moment of doubt her son's stern face and positive manner managed to convince her again. He wasn't lying.

Basine, as the others took up the discussion of the narrative, dropped his hand to his side and furtively pressed it against Henrietta's knee. At this sensation of physical contact a feeling of relief came to him. In the sensual thrill this contact aroused he buried the discomfort of the words running through his head--"she thinks I'm going to marry her. Damn it ... damn it...."

He was startled when, glancing at her in the midst of his daring excursion under the table, he noticed her smiling coolly and primly at Aubrey who was talking.

"Will you have some of this?" Mr. Ramsey's voice protruded through the silence. Several eyes turned toward him as if he were about to take up the burden of the talk. Mrs. Basine interrupted quickly.

"What was that book you told me about, Mr. Gilchrist, last month?" she asked. Aubrey looked up inquiringly. "I mean your father."

The elder Gilchrist blinked and seemed to peer into the depths of his memory.

"I don't remember," he said clearing his throat. They were the first words he had spoken since he had said, "Thank you ... thank you...." and sat down in a corner of the Basine library. His wife stared at him as if he were a phenomenon unexpectedly revealed to her gaze.

"It must have been," stammered Mr. Gilchrist, "Suetonius, I think. Or ... or the Chevalier de Boufflers...."

"I'm sure that was it," Mrs. Basine agreed. "I must get that to read."

The judge frowned disapprovingly upon the elder Gilchrist. He resented readers. Culture was a state of soul acquired by being a gentleman, not by reading books. He resented also the impression Aubrey had left during the Annexation discussion.

As a matter of fact he felt sleepy, the result of the food he had eaten. And he was automatically seeking for some occasion which would warrant an expression of dignity or resentment or anything in which he might hide his heaviness of spirit.

The sight of his daughter regarding Aubrey with a sweet, prim attentiveness supplied him with what he desired. The idea of Henrietta marrying that fool was annoying. Old Gilchrist was a sly dog and his wife a difficult woman. He would forbid the thing. It might hurt Henrietta for a time but he knew what was good for her. A mere story writer had no real standing in the community, no future. Whereas--Basine.... He lowered his eyes and glowered at his plate.... Nice young man. Honorable. And full of promise ... promise....

9

"Love the stars. Love people's faces. Buildings and faces. What do I know about 'em? God knows. Rotten streets.... Life's a great harlot that men keep chasing. That gives herself to men--all men, everybody. I want her. I want her."

He walked angrily, a cap on his head, a pipe clenched between his teeth. He was thinking as he walked. Emotions came out of his heart and burst crests of words in his mind. Angry emotions. There was an anger in him. He was overcoming a feeling of futility as he walked.

The street was a carnival fringe. Cheap burlesque theatres, arcades, museums, saloons. This was blurred. He saw no lithographs. One side of the street followed along at his elbow--a slant of pinwheel lights. On the other side across the street, pin points. But he saw nothing. Things passed unresistingly through his eyes.

He remembered now a mile of walking. The business section asleep on Sunday evening. He had walked through that. Darkened windows, ghastly inanimations. Why was he angry?

"Aw huh!" he snarled. He was cursing something. He asked questions and answered them. This got him nowhere. Stars, buildings, faces--he wanted to knock them over. That was inside him, a wish to knock 'em over. More than a wish. A necessity. But he could only walk. The world scratched at his elbow. He could bite on his pipe. This thing hurt him.

People, rotten people. Crazy jellyfish with jellyfish hearts, jellyfish brains. He could swear at 'em like that. But why? He didn't know. Only this thing in him made him blow up.

It was easier when he worked. His father calmed him. His father stood over the bench planning the fine-grained wood. A great man because he loved the wood he cut and carved into pieces of furniture. But jellyfish sat in the chairs they made in his father's shop. Damn 'em.

"Love people. Say something. What? Say something. Get it out. Aw, the dirty, filthy swine."

That was the way he thought as he walked. A long furious mumble in him, this man walked and saw nothing but light slants, spinning windows. He was young and he wore a cap.

He would get it out of him ... Show 'em! Ah, a nip to the air. Spring blowing his heart up like a balloon. All they wanted was women. And all women wanted was to be wanted. No. That was wrong. Damn! Always wrong! His feet talked better than his head. Clap, clap on the pavement. Where were the others going?

He didn't hate them. Someday it would all come out like swans swimming. Very majestic. He would talk easy and smooth. But now people kept him from putting it over. They wrapped him up. Ideas wrapped up his words and killed them. Streets, buildings, stars chewed at him. He must knock 'em over and get himself free. Put his hands on things and knock Hell out of 'em.

"Love 'em. Love 'em. How the Hell ... why the Hell? Lindstrum! Lindstrum! That's my name.... I got a name. I'm the greatest man in the world. The world's greatest all-around individual on two legs walking, smoking. Damn...."

But what could he do? Saw wood, smear varnish on wood, monkey around with wood. That didn't get it out. When he wrote it came out. But rotten. He wrote rotten, crazy rotten. If he was the greatest man why in God's name! He'd show 'em.

A long breath brought the night into him like a sponge. It drained something out of him. He could grin. A very evil grin at a saloon window. He could look around and notice. That's what eyes were for. Look--people walking. Poor, sad, broken people. So sad.... Ah, tired eyes in the street that looked for lights outside themselves.

"I'm going nuts. That's what--nuts."

But the mumble went on. Questions and answers in a circle, biting their own tails. God forgive them, all these people. He must do something. Arms around them whispering to their hearts something that would say, "Yes, yes. I know it all about you. How you think one way and feel another. And how everything ends. How everything ends in a little cry that goes up."

Love their faces. Damn it! Love 'em.... He'd show 'em. He'd talk to the lights in the street. Why not?

"Do you know what? Do you know? It's all a humpty dumpty. Egg-heads falling off a wall and smashing. But I know what. I got your number. Wait...."

There was something to say. Why? Damn it ... not that way. Hit poor, sad ones on the head. Better the dirty swine in the City Hall. Aw huh! Wring their necks. What for? Wrong. Something else. They were like him. Brothers, everybody. You could kill the whole of them and there would be something left behind that was good--Life. But a better way than that.... Don't hit. Arms around them, lips to their hearts and talk like that. Make the hyenas sigh. Make the jellyfish weep softly. Make the stars dance in their idiot thoughts. Sing them songs. If only the songs came out.

It was evening, spring evening in a dirty lighted street, and he walked biting his pipe. He said to himself, "What's there to this thing? Let us study it. Many people in many houses and many streets. And each of them a known thing. But when you take all of them together, that's an unknown thing. If you know me, if you know one--what then? Nothing. It remains only one known. There is still everything else to know. One man multiplied by a million isn't a million men but an infinitude of millions."

He would get the hang of them all though, all the millions. He would think it out, get his fingers on something that didn't exist for fingers to touch. That was art. It was easy when you figured it that way.

He walked along often figuring it that way and understanding something that had no words, living with something that was like a strange phantom in a great dark deep. This phantom was a stranger inside him. A phantom like an insane companion that had a way of putting its arms around him, inside him, and a way of holding him like a horrible mother. Then when it did, he stopped calling himself nuts ... nuts. He became silent then and vanished.

The phantom devoured him. All there was of him that everybody knew, that even he knew, all that vanished. The phantom devoured him and it was easy then. But the phantom let him go, took its arms off him, and he came back, out of the deep. Then he felt himself leaping up with a choke in his lungs, leaping through layers and layers with no surface to reach. He must go up, up from the easy embrace of the phantom and keep on raging, yelling out to himself that something had sent him shooting up.

Now he walked and it was easy. The night blotted out his eyes and he lived with himself down deep where the easy embrace waited. Such moments came when he walked and he must be careful. That was writing, being careful and watching the little words that danced high up and that he could watch when he raised his eyes from the embrace. Skyrockets far away, he watched them breaking in crazy spatters of light against the top of things where the sky came to an end.

He was thinking like that now. Lucid thoughts that he later stared back upon and wondered, "What the hell were they? I had something, what was it?" Now he was thinking them with this deceptive lucidity as if they were something. He was thinking how when he was younger, when he was a boy, he used to run down country roads. Apples trees and rivers and growing fields that sang at night were there. And yet, there was nothing. What did that mean? That was easy to answer. There was nothing because it was all outside him in a marvelous way. When he was a boy long ago, so long ago, and he lay on his back and looked at the night and the night was nothing in his head, the night was a song that chanted itself to him. The stars were something he had spoken. Darkness was a sentence echoing off his lips. And the world was marvelously outside and it gave itself to him. The boy lying on his back handed the world to himself as a gift. There was nothing to want, everything to have. Long ago when he was a boy watching the day and night without thinking.

But it all went away. Now what was it? That was easy to answer. The night that had been a song chanting itself, the stars that had been his words dancing, the darkness, clouds, trees, river and roads, the fields and the people crawling with tiny steps under the cornfield sky--these went away all together and he couldn't find them any more. These things he had said without speaking, these all went away. Beautiful familiars, they misunderstood something in him and vanished from him.

That was long ago. Now he could remember them and his remembering them was like hearing them again. That's what made him angry. He could hear them as if they were calling, "Find us ... find us...." And he said back, "All right, I'll find you. Wait. I'll come after you somehow. You're my old friends. I'll get you back. Christ knows how--but, wait...."

But this made him think he was laughing at himself, kidding himself. He knew better. The things that had gone away were in the faces of people, in buildings, in lights, in streets under his feet. Christ! why couldn't he lay hands on them again since they came so close they choked him and made him howl inside with choking.

He was letting go now again. The easy embrace was shooting him up and he began to know again he was nuts. He hung on to himself a little by saying words.... "Easy boy.... Easy...."

He stopped walking for a second and a happy smile came to his set mouth. The smile said it was over. He was Lief Lindstrum again and nobody else. He could become calm like this. It was like blowing a fire out with a grin. His head was clear and he was happy. The street was like a merry-go-round. The night had a smell of life in it. That came from the lake. Whatever living might be and whatever the choke inside him was, a man was a fool to forget this other--the calm, grinning strength of muscles and the way his nose buzzed when he drew his breath in.

Now he was Lief Lindstrum walking to call on his girl. And he could think of others, the poor little others, the superfluous others. Only he didn't have to get angry at them. Or he didn't have to fall in love with them. It was just thinking straight. Well, the way men talked to each other was funny. The way they swapped lies was funny. Poor, rich, happy, sad, broken, bawling ones--they all made the same lies to each other. The government was a lie. God was a lie. And all the gabble about good and bad and what-not-to-do and what-to-do, and all the laws and everything beginning from the beginning and going ahead as far as you wanted, it was all lies. So many of them that all the philosophers had never been able to begin straightening things out. And if somebody found out something true, what then? Well, they grabbed it and made it into a lie, pronto! used it as a lie. The poor little crawling ones on the earth made up lies to explain things but most of all they made up lies to keep alive. If they didn't lie to each other they would all fall apart and vanish because nature would have it that way. So they must go contrary to nature and keep on surviving. Nature demanded the elimination of the unfit. But it was the unfit that desired most to live. So the unfit made laws and rules and institutions, and inside them, protected by them, kept alive. So the will to live was the thing that created lies.

But the worst lie the little people told was when they called themselves life. That was the chief lie, the Grand Sachem and High God of all lies. Because they were not life. They were part of something inexplicable that altogether might be called life. But each of them separately was a dead one, a dead one buried deep in life. That was the difference about him, Lindstrum. He wasn't buried in life. There were moments when he shot up like a man shooting through layers of graves. The others let the thing called life pile up on them and it became a mystery of graves that reached to the farthest star. But with him there was no piling up. He would keep on shooting out of it till he had lifted himself up where there were no graves.

"Shh, shh," he murmured to himself, "let's not be nuts tonight. Plenty of nights for that. Let's talk about other things. About her."

Her face was beautiful. Dark eyes, dark hair, silent, that was like she was. The thought of her made him grimace inside with pain. He wanted her as much as that. But what did he want her for? God knows. What does one want for? In order to get rid of wanting. Nothing else. Kiss her? Bah! She was a victory. He wanted her like that.

When he was near her they didn't have to talk or hold hands. They came together in a different way. She was so beautiful....

"I love her," he said quietly. He wanted to be quiet so he spoke quietly. She was marvelous. He would like to cut himself up into bits and give himself that way to her. He would like to die a thousand different ways and say, "Here, I destroy everything I am in order to become a gift for you." That was like placing oneself on a burning altar--the ecstacy of the sacrificed one. That was it.

Some nights like this the world became too small to live in. The city swept away from his senses and everything in the city seemed like a room full of cheap little broken toys he had outgrown. He would sit in a room within this bigger room, a lamp on his table and write. Or he would strike out like this time and walk to her--miles across streets.

"I want her," he said. His thought paused. "But what do I want of her?" he asked. "I don't know. But I want to give myself to something."

And he began thinking over how many ways there were to die as a gift.

This lighted window was her house. The curtains were down but light spurted through the sides. The sight of the house with its light-fringed windows depressed him. It was a disillusionment. She wasn't a woman then like he was a man but she was a part of things. He saw her as he walked up the stone steps, saw her talking to people. She had parents. In his mind she lived as an entity. A beautiful one without background or lighted windows or stone steps. Someone for him. Nobody else.

He rang. The door opened. A man like himself stood blinking in the lighted hall.

"Good evening," said Lindstrum. His voice was deep for his age. He spoke in a drawl that seemed edged with anger. "Is Doris in?"

"Oh, hello," Basine exclaimed. "Yes, she's in. Come right in."

People were talking in the next room.

"Company?" said Lindstrum. He didn't want to go in. But Basine was leading the way. The supper had ended ten minutes ago. The company looked up at him. They were all dressed well. Their faces were dressed well, too. They wore carefully tailored satisfactions in their eyes. When they smiled their mouths postured like ballet dancers in a finale. They were rich people. Their hands were soft.

The room blurred before Lindstrum. There was no reason for it now because he wasn't thinking or caring but a rage crept into his senses. He breathed in deep with his mouth opened and the feel of the air on his teeth and tongue made his jaw set. Because he would have to be careful what he said. Because he was saying inside to himself, "Damn 'em. The scum!"

His eyes brought pictures into his anger. They stared with deliberation into other eyes and brought back messages. He was being introduced. He was saying to himself deep down, "They're all alike. Like peas in a pod. They smirk and talk alike. And they're all stuck on themselves alike. And they're all liars--damn liars, all alike."

He would have to take care and not argue. He would sit down. Doris was upstairs and she would appear in a minute. Then they would go for a walk and shake this room out of their eyes.

They chattered like monkeys. Satisfied with themselves. Yes, know-it-alls, tickled to death with themselves. An old man with a heavy pink face and sleepy eyes, a well dressed old man they called Judge--if he could punch this guy in the face, let his fist smash into his jellyface, God! what a thrill! A flushed girl, Doris' sister, wiggling her body in a chair. What she needed was somebody to grab hold of her and say, "Come on kid." A square, hard-faced old woman talking of society. What she needed was someone to walk up behind her and kick her hard. And when she raised her glasses to look, laugh like Hell and spit in her eye. That would make her human! And this smart-aleck Basine.... Hm! What he needed was somebody to tie him to a stake in a dark prairie and let the wind and rain go over him till he got hungry and began to whine. That's what they all needed--wind and rain to bring them back to life.

But he must be careful and say nothing. There was Doris' mother. She wasn't so bad. But this other guy, this writing guy, talking about books! God! Why didn't somebody choke the life out of him! What did he know about books? And he talked about writing! What was good writing? He asked that, this guy did! He would have to be careful what he said to this guy and keep himself from jumping up and murdering him. Hell take all of them and make 'em burn. That's what they needed. He hated all of them. They were rich. Damn 'em! He must sit and grin at them, these jellyfish who wiggled in their graves and called their wiggles by great names, who were dead ... dead.... How dead they were! And happy about it! Happy.... Didn't they know how dead they were?

Doris was like them. He was a fool for coming to see her. As if she were any different from them. She belonged with this filthy crew. She was a filthy little tart like the rest of them. Let her go to Hell. He'd tell her to go to Hell when he saw her. She was one he could talk to.

Uh huh, they were giving him the up and down. His shoes were dirty. His collar soiled. His clothes weren't pressed. That was the way with these dead ones, they made standards of their clothes because clothes were all they had. And their idea was to make people feel inferior who were inferior to their clothes or to their manners or to their other artificialities. But he didn't have to feel inferior if he didn't want to. He was the kind who could stand up in a graveyard like this and say "Go to Hell" to the pack of them and grin and walk away and forget all about it.

He noticed they looked at him not quite as they looked at each other. That was right. They knew he had their number. Mrs. Basine, too, was looking. She asked:

"I understand you write, Mr. Lindstrum?"

Books all bound and pretty standing in a row with your name in the papers as a young writer of note and invitations to speak at women's clubs--was what she meant. That was what writing was to people, to jellyfish.

"I try to write," he answered, making the correction softly so that his words purred.

"You should know Aubrey Gilchrist," said Basine. "Do you know his work?"

"I do not," said Lindstrum still purring. "What does he write?"

Basine chuckled inside. His unaccountable aversion for Aubrey was growing.

"Novels," said Basine.

"Oh," said Lindstrum dragging the syllable out and placing a huge granite period after it.

"What writers do you like?" Fanny inquired with a successful attempt at social artlessness. She was looking for something in this friend of Doris'. She was in awe of him because he was dirty looking and because he swayed as he sat in his chair. He kept swaying as if he were on secret springs and would jump up any minute. He frightened Fanny.

"I read good books," said Lindstrum, "books written by men."

Mrs. Gilchrist sat up stiffly. Her husband peered out of his glasses. He liked Lindstrum. He wanted to talk to him. But he got no further than clearing his throat several times. The judge interrupted with a glower. He was given the floor, eyes turning to him. A defender. But he merely glowered. That was his decision, that settled it. If he glowered this moujik was done for. He glowered Lindstrum off the face of the earth. But Lindstrum turned full on him and thrust his face forward as if he were going to come closer.

"What kind of books do you read?" he asked the glowerer. The snap in his voice startled Henrietta. She was afraid for a minute this strange looking creature waiting for Doris would do something and she turned appealingly to Basine.

"All kinds, sir," the judge answered in his most effective baritone. Lindstrum nodded his head slowly and a grin came into his eyes. He kept looking at the judge and grinning and nodding his head and just as the judge was going to say something Lindstrum abandoned him. He had turned to Aubrey. Aubrey had grown eager. A confusion inspired by an impulse toward garrulity was in his eyes. He wanted to talk to this Lindstrum and discuss things beyond everybody in the room. Lindstrum thought he was a soda-water clerk. One of those radicals with unbalanced ideas. But he wanted to talk to him. Perhaps they had something in common? Aubrey felt himself growing angry. But it was not an anger of silences. An anger of words. He wanted to talk, to reason with Lindstrum and put himself over with Lindstrum. Lindstrum was like a conscience.

"Hello!" The arrival stood up and looked at Doris. He forgot about calling her names. She was smiling at him like a fresh wind blowing through his heart. The roomful dropped out of sight.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" he asked slowly. "It's nice and cold outside."

She nodded and Lindstrum, with a long, deliberate stare at the company spoke to them.

"Good night," he said. When he had said it he continued to stare as if he were weighing the matter over carefully and should say something more. The pause grew embarassing but not to him. Without nodding his head he repeated the result of his deliberations.

"Good night," he said in the same voice. That was enough.

He left them sitting in their chairs--a general calmly marching off the field of victory. He left behind a silence. The company was uncomfortable.

Mrs. Gilchrist and the judge stared hard at the doorway through which Lindstrum had passed. They wanted to insult the doorway. Lindstrum's visit had had a curious effect upon Ramsey. He had sat silent and avoided the young man's eyes. But he had felt himself becoming animated as if something were exciting him. When the young man had glanced at him for a moment he had blushed and an odd nervousness had made his thin body tremble. Now that Lindstrum was gone he felt the room had become empty and entirely lacking in interest.

"How do you like him?" Mrs. Basine whispered at his side. She was worried.

"Him? Oh yes, the young man," Ramsey muttered. "He ... he has nice eyes."

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