trying to get past, and a merry crowd amusing itself throwing large
waste cans in front of them. Some one would shout: “Who won the
war?” And the answer would come booming: “The goddam slackers;” or
maybe it would be, “The goddam officers.” The crowd would move along,
starting to chant the favorite refrain:
You're in the army now,
You're not behind the plow--;
You son-of-a---,
You'll never get rich--
You're in the army now!
And from farther down the street would come a chorus from another
crowd of marchers:
I got a girl in Baltimore,
The street-car runs right by her door.
Every now and then you would come on a fist-fight, or maybe a fight
with bottles, and a crowd, laughing and whooping, engaged in pulling
the warriors apart and sitting on them. Through a mile or two of
this kind of thing I made my way, my heart sinking deeper with
misgiving. I got within a couple of blocks of the City Hall, and
then suddenly I came upon the thing I dreaded--my friend Carpenter
in the hands of the mob!
LXI
They had got hold of a canvas-covered wagon, of the type of the old
“prairie-schooner.” You still find these camped by our roadsides now
and then, with nomad families in them; and evidently one of these
families had been so ill advised as to come to town for the
convention. The rioters had hoisted their victim on top of the
wagon, having first dumped a gallon of red paint over his head, so
that everyone might know him for the Red Prophet they had been
reading about in the papers. They had tied a long rope to the shaft
of the wagon, and one or two hundred men had hold of it, and were
hauling it through the streets, dancing and singing, shouting
murder-threats against the “reds.” Some ran ahead, to clear the
traffic; and then came the wagon, lumbering and rocking, so that the
prophet was thrown from side to side. Fortunately there was a hole
in the canvas, and he could hold to one of the wooden ribs.
The cortege came opposite to me. On each side was a guard of honor,
a line of men walking in lock-step, each with his hands on the
shoulders of the one in front; they had got up a sort of chant: “Hi!
Hi! The Bolsheviki prophet! Hi! Hi! The Bolsheviki prophet!” And
others would yell, “I won't work! I won't work!”--this being our
Mobland nickname for the I.W.W. Some one had daubed the letters on
the sides of the wagon, using the red paint; and a drunken fellow
standing near me shook his clenched fist at the wretch on top and
bellowed in a fog-horn voice: “Hey, there, you goddam Arnychist, if
you're a prophet, come down from that there wagon and cure my
venereal disease!” There was a roar of laughter from the throng, and
the drunken fellow liked the sensation so well that he walked
alongside, shouting his challenge again and again.
Then I heard a crash behind me, and a clatter of falling glass; I
turned to see a soldier, inside the Royal Hotel, engaged in chopping
out the plate-glass window of the lobby with a chair. There were
twenty or thirty uniformed men behind him, who wanted to get out and
see the fun; but the door of the hotel was blocked by the crowd, so
they were seeking a direct route to the goal of their desires.
I knew, of course, there was nothing I could do; one might as well
have tried to stop a hurricane by blowing one's breath. Carpenter
had wanted martyrdom, and now he was going to get it--of the
peculiar kind and in the peculiar fashion of our free and
independent and happy-go-lucky land. We have had many agitators and
disturbers of our self-satisfaction, and they have all “got theirs,”
in one form or another; but there had never been one who had done
quite so much to make himself odious as this “Bolsheviki prophet,”
who was now “getting his.” “Treat 'em rough!” runs the formula of
the army; and I fell in step, watching, and thinking that later I
might serve as one of the stretcher-bearers.
Half way down the block we came to the Palace Hotel, and uniformed
men came pouring out of that. I heard the shrieks of a woman, and
put my foot on the edge of a store-window, and raised myself up by
an awning, to see over the heads of the crowd. Half a dozen rowdies
had got hold of a girl; I don't know what she had done--maybe her
skirts were too short, or maybe she had been saucy to one of the
gang; anyhow, they were tearing her clothes to shreds, and having
done this gaily, they took her on their shoulders, and ran her out
to the wagon, and tossed her up beside the Red Prophet. “There's a
girl for you!” they yelled; and the drunken fellow who wanted
Carpenter to cure him, suddenly thought of a new witticism: “Hey,
you goddam Bolsheviki, why don't you nationalize her?” Men laughed
and whooped over that; some of them were so tickled that they danced
about and waved their arms in the air. For, you see, they knew all
the details concerning the “nationalization of women in Russia,” and
also they had read in the papers about Mary Magna, and Carpenter's
fondness for picture-actresses and other gay ladies. He stretched
out his hand to the girl, to save her from falling off; and at this
there went up such a roar from the mob, that it made me think of
wild beasts in the arena. So to my whirling brain came back the
words that Carpenter had spoken: “It is Rome! It is Rome! Rome that
never dies!”
The cortege came to the “Hippodrome,” which is our biggest theatre,
and which, like everything else, had declared open house for Brigade
members during the convention. Some one in the crowd evidently knew
the building, and guided the procession down a side street, to the
stage-entrance. They have all kinds of shows in the “Hippodrome,”
and have a driveway by which they bring in automobiles, or
war-chariots, or wild animals in cages, or whatever they will. Now
the mob stormed the entrance, and brushed the door-keepers to one
side, and unbolted and swung back the big gates, and a swarm of
yelling maniacs rushed the lumbering prairie-schooner up the slope
into the building.
The unlucky girl rolled off at this point, and somebody caught her,
and mercifully carried her to one side. The wagon rolled on; the
advance guard swept everything out of the way, scenery as well as
stage-hands and actors, and to the vast astonishment of an audience
of a couple of thousand people, the long string of rope-pullers
marched across the stage, and after them came the canvas-covered
vehicle with the red-painted letters, and the red-painted victim
clinging to the top. The khaki-clad swarm gathered about him,
raising their deafening chant: “Hi! Hi! The Bolsheviki prophet. Hi!
Hi! The Bolsheviki prophet!”
I had got near enough so that I could see what happened. I don't
know whether Carpenter fainted; anyhow, he slipped from his perch,
and a score of upraised hands caught him. Some one tore down a
hanging from the walls of the stage set, and twenty or thirty men
formed a cirfcle about it, and put the prophet in the middle of it,
and began to toss him ten feet up into the air and catch him and
throw him again.
And that was all I could stand--I turned and went out by the rear
entrance of the theatre. The street in back was deserted; I stood
there, with my hands clasped to my head, sick with disgust; I found
myself repeating out loud, over and over again, those words of
Carpenter: “It is Rome! It is Rome! Rome that never dies!”
A moment later I heard a crash of glass up above me; I ducked, just
in time to avoid a shower of it. Then I looked up, and to my
consternation saw the red-painted head and the red and white
shoulders of Carpenter suddenly emerging. The shoulders were quickly
followed by the rest of him; but fortunately there was a narrow shed
between him and the ground. He struck the shed, and rolled, and as
he fell, I caught him, and let him down without harm.
LXII
I expected to find my prophet nearly dead; I made ready to get him
onto my shoulders and find some place to hide him. But to my
surprise he started to his feet. I could not see much of him,
because of the streams of paint; but I could see enough to realize
that his face was contorted with fury. I remembered that gentle,
compassionate countenance; never had I dreamed to see it like this!
He raised his clenched hands. “I meant to die for this people! But
now--let them die for themselves!” And suddenly he reached out to me
in a gesture of frenzy. “Let me get away from them! Anywhere,
anyway! Let me go back where I was--where I do not see, where I do
not hear, where I do not think! Let me go back to the church!”
With these words he started to run down the street; hauling up his
long robes--never would I have dreamed that a prophet's bare legs
could flash so quickly, that he could cover the ground at such
amazing speed! I set out after him; I had stuck to him thus far, and
meant to be in at the finish, whatever it was. We came out on
Broadway again, and there were more crowds of soldier boys; the
prophet sped past them, like a dog with a tin-can tied to its tail.
He came to a cross-street, and dodged the crowded traffic, and I
also got through, knocking pedestrians this way and that. People
shouted, automobiles tooted; the soldiers whooped on the trail. I
began to get short of breath, a little dizzy; the buildings seemed
to rock before me, there were mobs everywhere, and hands clutching
at me, nearly upsetting me. But still I followed my prophet with the
bare flying legs; we swept around another corner, and I saw the goal
to which the tormented soul was racing--St. Bartholomew's!
He went up the steps three at a time, and I went up four at a time
behind him. He flung open the door and vanished inside; when I got
in, he was half way up the aisle. I saw people in the church start
up with cries of amazement; some grabbed me, but I broke away--and
saw my prophet give three tremendous leaps. The first took him up
the altar-steps; the second took him onto the altar; the third took
him up into the stained-glass window.
And there he turned and faced me. His paint-smeared robes fell down
about his bare legs, his convulsed and angry face became as gentle
and compassionate as the paint would permit. With a wave of his
hand, he signalled me to stand back and let him alone. Then the hand
sank to his side, and he stood motionless. Exhausted, dizzy, I fell
against one of the pews, and then into a seat, and bowed my head in
my arms.
LXIII
I don't know just how much time passed after that. I felt a hand on
my shoulder, and realized that some one was shaking me. I had a
horror of hands reaching out for me, so I tried to get away from
this one; but it persisted, and there was a voice, saying, “You must
get up, my friend. It's time we closed. Are you ill?”
I raised my head; and first I glanced at the figure above the altar.
It was perfectly motionless; and--incredible as it may seem--there
was no trace of red paint upon either the face or the robes! The
figure was dignified and serene, with a halo of light about its
head--in short, it was the regulation stained glass figure that I
had gazed at through all my childhood.
“What is the matter?” asked the voice at my side; and I looked up,
and discovered the Reverend Mr. Simpkinson. He recognized me, and
cried: “Why, Billy! For heaven sake, what has happened?”
I was dazed, and put my hand to my jaw. I realized that my head was
aching, and that the place I touched was sore. “I--I---” I
stammered. “Wait a minute.” And then, “I think I was hurt.” I tried
to get my thoughts together. Had I been dreaming; and if so, how
much was dream and how much was reality? “Tell me,” I said, “is
there a moving picture theatre near this church?”
“Why, yes,” said he. “The Excelsior.”
“And--was there some sort of riot?”
“Yes. Some ex-soldiers have been trying to keep people from going in
there. They are still at it. You can hear them.”
I listened. Yes, there was a murmur of voices outside. So I realized
what had happened to me. I said: “I was in that mob, and I got
beaten up. I was knocked pretty nearly silly, and fled in here.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed the clergyman, his amiable face full of
concern. He took me by my shoulders and helped me to my feet.
“I'm all right now,” I said--“except that my jaw is swollen. Tell
me, what time is it?”
“About six o'clock.”
“For goodness sake!” I exclaimed. “I dreamed all that in an hour! I
had the strangest dream--even now I can't make up my mind what was
dream and what really happened.” I thought for a moment. “Tell me,
is there a convention of the Brigade--that is, I mean, of the
American Legion in Western City now?”
“No,” said the other; “at least, not that I've heard of. They've
just held their big convention in Kansas City.”
“Oh, I see! I remember--I read about it in the 'Nation.' They were
pretty riotous--made a drunken orgy of it.”
“Yes,” said the clergyman. “I've heard that. It seems too bad.”
“One thing more. Tell me, is there a picture of Mr. de Wiggs in the
vestry-room?”
“Good gracious, no!” laughed the other. “Was that one of the things
you dreamed? Maybe you're thinking of the portrait they are showing
at the Academy.”
“By George, that's it!” I said. “I patched the thing up out of all
the people I know, and all the things I've read in the papers! I had
been talking to a German critic, Dr. Henner--or wait a moment! Is he
real? Yes, he came before I went to see the picture. He'll be
entertained to hear about it. You see, the picture was supposed to
be the delirium of a madman, and when I got this whack on the jaw, I
set to work to have a delirium of my own, just as I had seen on the
screen. It was the most amazing thing--so real, I mean. Every person
I think of, I have to stop and make sure whether I really know them,
or whether I dreamed them. Even you!”
“Was I in it?” laughed Mr. Simpkinson. “What did I do?”
But I decided I'd better not tell him. “It wasn't a polite dream,” I
said. “Let me see if I can walk now.” I started down the aisle.
“Yes, I'm all right.”
“Do you suppose that crowd will bother you again? Perhaps I'd better
go with you,” said the apostle of muscular Christianity.
“No, no,” I said. “They're not after me especially. I'll slip away
in the other direction.”
So I bade Mr. Simpkinson good-bye, and went out on the steps, and
the fresh air felt good to me. I saw the crowd down the street; the
ex-service men were still pushing and shouting, driving people away
from the theatre. I stopped for one glance, then hurried away and
turned the corner. As I was passing an office building, I saw a big
limousine draw up. The door opened, and a woman stepped out: a bold,
dark, vivid beauty, bedecked with jewels and gorgeous raiment of
many sorts; a big black picture hat, with a flower garden and parts
of an aviary on top--
Her glance lit on me. “My God! Will you look who's here!” She came
to me with her two hands stretched out. “Billy, wretched creature, I
haven't laid eyes on you for two months! Do you have to desert me
entirely, just because you've fallen in love with a society girl
with the face of a Japanese doll-baby? What's the matter with me,
that I lose my lovers faster than I get them? I just met Edgerton
Rosythe; he's got a good excuse, I admit--I'm almost as much scared
of his wife as he is himself. But still, I'd like a chance to get
tired of some man first! Want to come upstairs with me, and see what
Planchet's doing to my old grannie in her scalping-shop? Say, would
you think it would take three days' labor for half a dozen Sioux
squaws to pull the skin off one old lady's back? And a week to tie
up the corners of her mouth and give her a permanent smile! 'Why,
grannie,' I said, 'good God, it would be cheaper to hire Charlie
Chaplin to walk around in front of you all the rest of your life.'
But the old girl was bound to be beautiful, so I said to Planchet,
'Make her new from the waist up, Madame, for you never can tell how
the fashions'll change, and what she'll need to show.'”
And so I knew that I was back in the real world.
APPENDIX
We live in an age, the first in human history, when religion is
entirely excluded from politics and politics from religion. It may
happen, therefore, that millions of men will read this story and
think it merely a joke; not realizing that it is a literal
translation of the life of the world's greatest revolutionary
martyr, the founder of the world's first proletarian party. For the
benefit of those whose historical education has been neglected, I
append a series of references. The number to the left refers to a
page of this book. The number to the right is a parallel reference
to a volume of ancient records known as the Bible; specifically to
those portions known as the gospels according to Matthew Everett,
Mark Abell, Luka Korwsky, and John Colver.
11........Matthew 14:27
14........Matthew 6:21
16........Isaiah 3:16-26
17........Mark 12:37
70........Luke 6:24
70........John 15:17
72........Luke 9:38
73........Luke 4:40
75........Luke 11:46
78........Matthew 19:14
84........John 15:27
85........Luke 6:25
90........Matthew 12:39
95........Matthew 12:34
99........Matthew 10:9
102........Luke 4:5-8
107........Matthew 26:34
114........Matthew 26:69-75
117........James 5:1-6
119........Matthew 7:7
120........Matthew 7:11
123........Matthew 10:34
123........Matthew 10:16-17
129........Luke 23:23
131........Matthew 9:9
135........Acts 17:24
136........Matthew 21:12
136........Exodus 20:7
136........Matthew 21:13
138........Matthew 5:39-40
140........Matthew 23:l-33
143........Mark 6:56
143........Luke 6:19
144........Matthew 25:36
144........Matthew 21:6
145........Mark 3:20
145........Luke 5:29
146........Matthew 9:37
146........Luke 4:39
150........John 19:26
153........Matthew 19:16
155........Mark 15:14
162........Matthew 5:9
164........Luke 4:18
164........Luke 19:40-44
164........Matthew 11:5
167........Matthew 5:44
171........Matthew 27:14
171........Matthew 8:20
175........Matthew 26:7-13
176........Luke 1:52
179........Matthew 11:19
180........Matthew 5:11
182........Luke 20:20
182........Matthew 26:22
183........Matthew 26:36
185........John 18:3
186........Luke 22:4
190........Matthew 26:40
192........Luke 22:44
193........Matthew 26:40
194........Luke 14:43
195........Matthew 26:52
202........Mark 14:36
203........Matthew 10:28
214........Mark 15:18
214........Luke 23:38
214........Matthew 27:40
End of Project Gutenberg's They Call Me Carpenter, by Upton Sinclair