There was still, for Palla, much shopping to do. The drawing room she
decided to leave, for the present, caring as she did only for a few
genuine and beautiful pieces to furnish the pretty little French grey
room.
The purchase of these ought to be deferred, but she could look about,
and she did, wandering into antique shops of every class along Fifth
and Madison Avenues and the inviting cross streets.
But her chiefest quest was still for pots and pans and china; for
napery, bed linen, and hangings; also for her own and more intimate
personal attire.
To her the city was enchanting and not at all as she remembered it
before she had gone abroad.
New York, under its canopy of tossing flags and ablaze with brilliant
posters, swarmed with unfamiliar people. Every other pedestrian seemed
to be a soldier; every other vehicle contained a uniform.
There were innumerable varieties of military dress in the thronged
streets; there was the universal note of khaki and olive drab,
terminating in leather vizored barrack cap or jaunty overseas service
cap, and in spiral puttees, leather ones, or spurred boots.
Silver wings of aviators glimmered on athletic chests; chevrons, wound
stripes, service stripes, an endless variety of insignia.
Here the grey-green and oxidised metal of the marines predominated;
there, the conspicuous sage-green and gold of naval aviators. On
campaign hats were every hue of hat cord; the rich gilt and blue of
naval officers and the blue and white of their jackies were everywhere
to be encountered.
And then everywhere, also, the brighter hue and exotic cut of foreign
uniforms was apparent--splashes of gayer tints amid khaki and sober
civilian garb--the beautiful _garance_ and horizon-blue of French
officers; the familiar "brass hat" of the British; the grey-blue and
maroon of Italians. And there were stranger uniforms in varieties
inexhaustible--the schapska-shaped head-gear of Polish officers, the
beret of Czecho-Slovaks. And everywhere, too, the gay and well-known
red pom-pon bobbed on the caps of French blue-jackets, and British
marines stalked in pairs, looking every inch the soldier with their
swagger sticks and their vizorless forage-caps.
Always, it seemed to Palla, there was military music to be heard above
the roar of traffic--sometimes the drums and bugles of foreign
detachments, arrived in aid of "drives" and loans of various sorts.
Ambulances painted grey and bright blue, and driven by smartly
uniformed young women, were everywhere.
And to women's uniforms there seemed no end, ranging all the way from
the sober blue of the army nurse and the pretty white of the Red
Cross, to bizarre but smart effects carried smartly by well set up
girls representing scores of service corps, some invaluable, some of
doubtful utility.
Eagle huts, canteens, soldiers' rest houses, Red Cross quarters,
clubs, temporary barracks, peppered the city. Everywhere the service
flags were visible, also, telling their proud stories in five-pointed
symbols--sometimes tragic, where gold stars glittered.
Never had New York seemed to contain so many people; never had the
overflow so congested avenue and street, circle and square, and the
wretchedly inadequate and dirty street-car and subway service.
And into the heart of it all went Palla, engulfed in the great tides
of Fifth Avenue, drifting into quieter back-waters to east and west,
and sometimes caught and tossed about in the glittering maelstrom of
Broadway when she ventured into the theatre district.
Opera, comedy, musical show and cinema interested her; restaurant and
cabaret she had evaded, so far, but what most excited and fascinated
her was the people themselves--these eager, restless moving millions
swarming through the city day and night, always in motion under blue
skies or falling rain, perpetually in quest of what the world
eternally offered, eternally concealed--that indefinite, glimmering
thing called "heart's desire."
To discover, to comprehend, to help, to guide their myriad aspirations
in the interminable and headlong hunt for happiness, was, to Palla,
the most vital problem in the world.
For her there existed only one solution of this problem: the Law of
Love.
And in this world-wide Hunt for Happiness, where scrambling millions
followed the trail of Heart's Desire, she saw the mad huntsman, Folly,
leading, and Black Care, the whipper-in; and, at the bitter end, only
the bones of the world's woe; and a Horseman seated on his Pale
Horse.
But the problem that still remained was how to swerve the headlong
hunt to the true trail toward the only goal where the world's quarry,
happiness, lies asleep.
How to make service the Universal Heart's Desire? How to transfigure
self-love into Love?
To preach her faith from the street corners--to cry it aloud in the
wilderness where no ear heeded--violence, aggression, the campaign
militant, had never appealed to the girl.
Like her nation, only when cornered did she blaze out and strike. But
to harangue, threaten, demand of the world that it accept the Law of
Service and of Love, seemed to her a mockery of the faith she had
embraced, which, unless irrevocably in liaison with freedom, was no
faith at all.
So, for Palla, the solution lay in loyalty to the faith she professed;
in living it; in swaying ignorance by example; in overcoming
incredulity by service, scepticism by love.
Love and Service? Why, all around her among these teeming millions
were examples--volunteers in khaki, their sisters in the garments of
mercy! Why must the world stop there? This was the right scent. Why
should the hunt swerve for the devil's herring drawn across the
trail?
One for all; all for one! She had read it on one of the war-posters.
Somebody had taken the splendid Guardsman's creed and had made it the
slogan for this war against darkness.
And that was her creed--the true faith--the Law of Love. Then, was it
good only in war? Why not make it the nation's creed? Why not emblazon
it on the wall of every city on earth?--one for all; all for one;
Love, Service, Freedom!
Before such a faith, autocracy and tyranny die. Under such a law
every evil withers, every question is unravelled. There are no more
problems of poverty and riches, none of greed and oppression.
The tyranny of convention, of observance, of taboo, of folkways, ends.
And into the brain of all living beings will be born the perfect
comprehension of their own indestructible divinity.
* * * * *
Part of this she ventured to say to Ilse Westgard one day, when they
had met for luncheon in a modest tea-room on Forty-third Street.
But Ilse, always inclined toward militancy, did not entirely agree
with Palla.
"To embody in one's daily life the principles of one's living faith is
scarcely sufficient," she said. "Good is a force, not an inert
condition. So is evil. And we should not sit still while evil moves."
"Example is not inertia," protested Palla.
"Example, alone, is sterile, I think," said the ex-girl-soldier of the
Battalion of Death, buttering a crescent. She ate it with the
delightful appetite of flawless health, and poured out more
chocolate.
"For instance, dear," she went on, "the forces of evil--of degeneration,
ignorance, envy, ferocity, are gathering like a tornado in Russia.
Virtuous example, sucking its thumbs and minding its own business, will
be torn to fragments when the storm breaks."
"The Bolsheviki?"
"The Reds. The Terrorists, I mean. You know as well as I do what they
really are--merely looters skulking through the smoke of a world in
flames--buzzards on the carcass of a civilisation dead. But, Palla,
they do not sit still and suck their thumbs and say, 'I am a
Terrorist. Behold me and be converted.' No, indeed! They are moving,
always in motion, preoccupied by their hellish designs."
"In Russia, yes," admitted Palla.
"Everywhere, dearest. Here, also."
"I believe there are scarcely any in America," insisted Palla.
"The country crawls with them," retorted Ilse. "They work like moles,
but already if you look about you can see the earth stirring above
their tunnels. They are here, everywhere, active, scheming, plotting,
whispering treason, stirring discontent, inciting envy, teaching
treason.
"They are the Russians--Christians and Jews--who have filtered in here
to do the nation mischief. They are the Germans who blew up factories,
set fires, scuttled ships. They are foreigners who came here poisoned
with envy; who have acquired nothing; whose greed and ferocity are
whetted and ready for a universal conflagration by which they alone
could profit.
"They are the labour leaders who break faith and incite to violence;
they are the I. W. W.; they are the Black Hand, the Camorra; they are
the penniless who would slay and rob; the landless who would kill and
seize; the ignorant, nursing suspicion; the shiftless, brooding crimes
to bring them riches quickly.
"And, Palla, your Law of Love and Service is good. But not for
these."
"What law for them, then?"
"Education. Maybe with machine guns."
Palla shook her head. "Is that the way to educate defectives?"
"When they come at you _en masse_, yes!"
Palla laughed. "Dear," she said, "there is no nation-wide Terrorist
plot. These mental defectives are not in mass anywhere in America."
"They are in dangerous groups everywhere. And every group is devoting
its cunning to turning the working masses into a vast mob of the Black
Hundred! They did it in Russia. They are working for it all over the
world. You do not believe it?"
"No, I don't, Ilse."
"Very well. You shall come with me this evening. Are you busy?"
The thought of Jim glimmered in her mind. He might feel aggrieved. But
he ought to begin to realise that he couldn't be with her every
evening.
"No, I haven't any plans, Ilse," she said, "no definite engagement, I
mean. Will you dine at home with me?"
"Early, then. Because there is a meeting which you and I shall attend.
It is an education."
"An anarchist meeting?"
"Yes, Reds. I think we should go--perhaps take part----"
"What?"
"Why not? I shall not listen to lies and remain silent!" said Ilse,
laughing. "The Revolution was good. But the Bolsheviki are nothing but
greedy thieves and murderers. You and I know that. If anybody teaches
people the contrary, I certainly shall have something to say."
Palla desired to purchase silk for sofa pillows, having acquired a
chaise-longue for her bedroom.
So she and Ilse went out into the sunshine and multi-coloured crowd;
and all the afternoon they shopped very blissfully--which meant, also,
lingering before store windows, drifting into picture-galleries,
taking tea at Sherry's, and finally setting out for home through a
beflagged avenue jammed with traffic.
Dusk fell early but the drooping, orange-tinted globes which had
replaced the white ones on the Fifth Avenue lamps were not yet
lighted; and there still remained a touch of sunset in the sky when
they left the bus.
At the corner of Palla's street, there seemed to be an unusual
congestion, and now, above the noise of traffic, they caught the sound
of a band; and turned at the curb to see, supposing it to be a
military music.
The band was a full one, not military, wearing a slatternly sort of
uniform but playing well enough as they came up through the thickening
dusk, marching close to the eastern curb of the avenue.
They were playing _The Marseillaise_. Four abreast, behind them,
marched a dingy column of men and women, mostly of foreign aspect and
squatty build, carrying a flag which seemed to be entirely red.
Palla, perplexed, incredulous, yet almost instantly suspecting the
truth, stared at the rusty ranks, at the knots of red ribbon on every
breast.
Other people were staring, too, as the unexpected procession came
shuffling along--late shoppers, business men returning home,
soldiers--all paused to gaze at this sullen visaged battalion clumping
up the avenue.
"Surely," said Palla to Ilse, "these people can't be Reds!"
"Surely they are!" returned the tall, fair girl calmly. Her face had
become flushed, and she stepped to the edge of the curb, her blue,
wrathful eyes darkening like sapphires.
A soldier came up beside her. Others, sailors and soldiers, stopped
to look. There was a red flag passing. Suddenly Ilse stepped from the
sidewalk, wrenched the flag from the burly Jew who carried it, and,
with the same movement, shattered the staff across her knee.
Men and women in the ranks closed in on her; a shrill roar rose from
them, but the soldiers and sailors, cheering and laughing, broke into
the enraged ranks, tearing off red rosettes, cuffing and kicking the
infuriated Terrorists, seizing every seditious banner, flag, emblem
and placard in sight.
Female Reds, shrieking with rage, clawed, kicked and bit at soldier,
sailor and civilian. A gaunt man, with a greasy bunch of hair under a
bowler, waved dirty hands above the melee and shouted that he had the
Mayor's permission to parade.
Everywhere automobiles were stopping, crowds of people hurrying up,
policemen running. The electric lights snapped alight, revealed a mob
struggling there in the yellowish glare.
Ilse had calmly stepped to the sidewalk, the fragments of flag and
staff in her white-gloved hands; and, as she saw the irresponsible
soldiers and blue-jackets wading lustily into the Reds--saw the lively
riot which her own action had started--an irresistible desire to laugh
seized her.
Clear and gay above the yelling of Bolsheviki and the "Yip--yip!" of
the soldiers, peeled her infectious laughter. But Palla, more gentle,
stood with dark eyes dilated, fearful of real bloodshed in the furious
scene raging in the avenue before her.
A little shrimp of a Terrorist, a huge red rosette streaming from his
buttonhole, suddenly ran at Ilse and seized the broken staff and the
rags of the red flag. And Palla, alarmed, caught him by the
coat-collar and dragged him screeching and cursing away from her
friend, rebuking him in a firm but excited voice.
Ilse came over, shouldering her superb figure through the crowd;
looked at the human shrimp a moment; then her laughter pealed anew.
"That's the man who abused me in Denmark!" she said. "Oh, Palla,
_look_ at him! Do you really believe you could educate a thing like
that!"
The man had wriggled free, and now he turned a flat, whiskered visage
on Palla, menaced her with both soiled fists, inarticulate in his
fury.
But police were everywhere, now, sweeping this miniature riot from the
avenue, hustling the Reds uptown, checking the skylarking soldiery,
sending amused or indignant citizens about their business.
A burly policeman said to Ilse with a grin: "I'll take what's left of
that red flag, Miss;" and the girl handed it to him still laughing.
Soldiers wearing overseas caps cheered her and Palla. Everybody on the
turbulent sidewalk was now laughing.
"D'yeh see that blond nab the red flag outer that big kike's fists?"
shouted one soldier to his sweating bunkie. "Some skirt!"
"God love the Bolsheviki she grabs by the slack o' the pants!" cried a
blue-jacket who had lost his cap. A roar followed.
"Only one flag in this little old town!" yelled a citizen nursing a
cut cheek with reddened handkerchief.
"G'wan, now!" grumbled a policeman, trying to look severe; "it's all
over; they's nothing to see. Av ye got homes----"
"Yip! Where do we go from here?" demanded a marine.
"Home!" repeated the policeman; "--that's the answer. G'wan, now,
peaceable--lave these ladies pass!----"
Ilse and Palla, still walled in by a grinning, admiring soldiery, took
advantage of the opening and fled, followed by cheers as far as
Palla's door.
"Good heavens, Ilse," she exclaimed in fresh dismay, as she began to
realise the rather violent roles they both had played, "--is that your
idea of education for the masses?"
A servant answered the bell and they entered the house. And presently,
seated on the chaise-longue in Palla's bedroom, Ilse Westgard
alternately gazed upon her ruined white gloves and leaned against the
cane back, weak with laughter.
"How funny! How degrading! But how funny!" she kept repeating. "That
large and enraged Jew with the red flag!--the wretched little
Christian shrimp you carried wriggling away by the collar! Oh, Palla!
Palla! Never shall I forget the expression on your face--like a bored
housewife, who, between thumb and forefinger, carries a dead mouse by
the tail----"
"He was trying to kick you, my dear," explained Palla, beginning to
remove the hairpins from her hair.
Ilse touched her eyes with her handkerchief.
"They might have thrown bombs," she said. "It's all very well to
laugh, darling, but sometimes such affairs are not funny."
Palla, seated at her dresser, shook down a mass of thick, bright-brown
hair, and picked up her comb.
"I am wondering," she said, turning partly toward Ilse, "what Jim
Shotwell would think of me."
"Fighting on the street!"--her laughter rang out uncontrolled. And
Palla, too, was laughing rather uncertainly, for, as her recollection
of the affair became more vivid, her doubts concerning the entire
procedure increased.
"Of course," she said, "that red flag was outrageous, and you were
quite right in destroying it. One could hardly buttonhole such a
procession and try to educate it."
Ilse said: "One can usually educate a wild animal, but never a rabid
one. You'll see, to-night."
"Where are we going, dear?"
"We are going to a place just west of Seventh Avenue, called the Red
Flag Club."
"Is it a club?"
"No. The Reds hire it several times a week and try to fill it with
people. There is the menace to this city and to the nation, Palla--for
these cunning fomenters of disorder deluge the poorer quarters of the
town with their literature. That's where they get their audiences. And
that is where are being born the seeds of murder and destruction."
Palla, combing out her hair, gazed absently into the mirror.
"Why should not we do the same thing?" she asked.
"Form a club, rent a room, and talk to people?"
"Yes; why not?" asked Palla.
"That is exactly why I wish you to come with me to-night--to realise
how we should combat these criminal and insane agents of all that is
most terrible in Europe.
"And you are right, Palla; that is the way to fight them. That is the
way to neutralise the poison they are spreading. That is the way to
educate the masses to that sane socialism in which we both believe. It
can be done by education. It can be done by matching them with club
for club, meeting for meeting, speech for speech. And when, in some
local instances, it can not be done that way, then, if there be
disorder, force!"
"It can be done entirely by education," said Palla. "But remember!--Marx
gave the forces of disorder their slogan--'Unite!' Only a rigid
organisation of sane civilisation can meet that menace."
"You are very right, darling, and a club to combat the Bolsheviki
already exists. Vanya and Marya already have joined; there are workmen
and working women, college professors and college graduates among its
members. Some, no doubt, will be among the audience at the Red Flag
Club to-night.
"I shall join this club. I think you, also, will wish to enroll. It is
called only 'Number One.' Other clubs are to be organised and
numbered.
"And now you see that, in America, the fight against organised
rascality and exploited insanity has really begun."
Palla, her hair under discipline once more, donned a fresh but severe
black gown. Ilse unpinned her hat, made a vigorous toilet, then
lighted a cigarette and sauntered into the living room where the
telephone was ringing persistently.
"Please answer," said Palla, fastening her gown before the pier
glass.
Presently Ilse called her: "It's Mr. Shotwell, dear."
Palla came into the room and picked up the receiver:
"Yes? Oh, good evening, Jim! Yes.... Yes, I am going out with Ilse....
Why, no, I had no engagement with you, Jim! I'm sorry, but I didn't
understand--No; I had no idea that you expected to see me--wait a
moment, please!"--she put one hand over the transmitter, turned to
Ilse with flushed cheeks and a shyly interrogative smile: "Shall I
ask him to dine with us and go with us?"
"If you choose," called Ilse, faintly amused.
Then Palla called him: "--Jim! Come to dinner at once. And wear your
business clothes.... What?... Yes, your every day clothes.... What?...
Why, because I ask you, Jim. Isn't that a reason?... Thank you....
Yes, come immediately.... Good-bye, de----"
She coloured crimson, hung up the receiver, and picked up the evening
paper, not daring to glance at Ilse.