plunged. Shane's right leg went outward, foot sunk home. Backward he
fell, leg taunt, hands pulling. Above him Ahmet's great bulk soared,
hurtled grotesquely. For an instant; a flash.... The squeals of startled
Syrians, the panic of feet.... Then a crash, an immense crash....
A long shuddering, frightened _eh_ from the crowd.... A French soldier
mumbling ... "_'Cré nom de nom de nom de nom de Jésus Chri!_"
He staggered to his feet, put his hand to his face.... It came away
dripping.... His face was like the leeward deck of a flying yacht ...
swimming.... A few feet away Syrians and French soldiers were milling
over ... something.... The corporal wrenched Shane's arms into his coat.
Pushed his hat into his hands.
"_Courez donc, le citoyen_.... Come on, get away.... Get...."
"Is he dead?"
"No, not dead.... But get away.... He'll never wrestle again.... _Vite,
alors!_"
He pushed him down the street.
"But----"
[Illustration]
"Go on. We can take care of ourselves...." He shoved him roughly
forward.... Shane staggered, walked, ran a little.... Behind him a
few blocks away, an ominous hum. He ran on.... Some one was
shrieking....
"_Ma hala ya ma hala Kobal en Nosara_.... How sweet, oh, how sweet, to
kill the Christians...." The crack of a gun.... Tumult.... The long
Moslem war-song.... Two rifles. "_A nous, les Français_.... _A nous, la
Légion_!"
A nausea, a great weakness, an utter contempt for himself came over him
in the boat pulling him toward his ship ... God! He had fought with and
nearly killed--possibly killed--a man for personal hatred! From
irritation, and in a public place! A spectacle for donkey-boys and
riff-raff of French towns.... He tottered on the ship's ladder.... The
sailors caught him. The mate ran up.
"Anything wrong, sir? You look like a ghost."
"No, nothing. All aboard? Everything ready? Is she a-drawing? Anchor
a-peak? All right. Get her up...."
§ 12
"Arif Bey, where is my wife? I come back to Beirut. I find my house
deserted. My servants gone. Where is Fenzile? Is she here?"
"No, son."
"Is she dead?"
"No--no, son, I wish she were...."
"Then where is she gone? With whom?"
"Trebizond. Stamboul. Cairo. I don't know where."
"With whom?"
"With--oh, don't bother yourself, son. Forget her."
"With whom? I must know."
"With--do you remember that wrestler you crippled, the wrestler from
Aleppo?"
"With Ahmet Ali! Impossible! I all but killed him."
"She went, though...."
"No, uncle, no. If he had been strong she might, but,--"
The old Druse chief shook his head, smiled in his beard, a little,
bitter, wise smile.
"You were never sick with her, never poor."
"No, never sick, never poor."
"Well, he was sick and poor, so she went with him."
"Then she loved him all along."
"No, son Zan, she loved you--until you threw him. She might have been
amused at seeing him pass the house, laugh a little, be flattered....
Such a big fool, and she a little woman.... But she would never have
left you...."
"But she did."
"Well ... after the fall, he had no friends ... the Christians despised
him, the Moslems hated him.... There was no train to follow him ... he
went on crutches.... He passed her door and looked, and looked.... What
could she do but come out.... It was her fault, after all.... And she
was very tender-hearted...."
"Tender-hearted?"
"Didn't you know?"
"No, I never knew."
"She used to cry when the leaves fell from the trees.... You didn't know
your wife well?"
"No, sir, I did not."
"Well, she is gone, Zan.... Where, one doesn't know.... What will become
of her, one doesn't know. Destiny is like a blind camel. He doesn't know
against what he stumbles. We do not see him come.... Only when the harm
is done, do we say: We might have listened for the tinkle of his
bell.... Eh, one is young and does everything and sees nothing. One is
old and sees everything and does nothing. There is no mystery ... only
ignorance...."
"You say she was very tender-hearted, my uncle. I didn't know.... I
thought of her as something else...."
"Son Zan, you had better forget her in another woman. Listen son, I will
give you Aziyed in marriage, my own daughter. She is just as pretty and
younger and not so foolish as Fenzile."
"Oh, no, sir. No!"
"Well, I don't blame you."
"It isn't that, Arif Bey. It isn't that. I'm very beholden to you ...
for your kindness ... and your patience.... I didn't know.... And I
thought I knew everything nearly, and am so ignorant.... Why until now I
didn't know even this--the sun shone so brightly, and life was so
pleasant, I thought that was the way of life.... But I was in love with
Fenzile.... And that was what made everything so wonderful ... in love
with the wife you gave me ... head over heels, sir ... just simply--head
over heels...."
PART FIVE
THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG
§ 1
To him, for a long time now, the sea had been only water. All the
immense pelagic plain, dotted with ships; with bergs of ice, like
cathedrals; with waves that curled or swept in huge rhythms; with
currents defined in lines and whorls; with gulls that mewed and whales
that blew like pretty fountains; with the little Portuguese men-of-war;
with the cleaving of flying fish and the tumbling of dolphins, all this
was water. All this joyous green, this laughing white, the deep
reflective blue, the somber exquisite gray, was water. An infinity of
barrels of water, immense vats of water, water, wet water....
To him, for a long time now, a ship had been a means of keeping afloat
on water, of going from place to place. All its brave strakes, its
plunging bows, its healing beams, were wood, such as one makes a house
of, or a tinker's cart. All the miracle of sails; the steady foresail;
the sensitive jibs; the press canvas delicate as bubbles; the reliable
main; the bluff topsails; topgallants like eager horses; the
impertinent skysails; the jaunty moonraker, were just canvas stretched
on poles. All the pyramidal wonder of them, fore, main, and mizzen, were
not like a good rider's hands to a horse; compelling, coaxing, curbing
the wind, they were utilities. The spinning wheel was a mechanical
device. Port was left, and starboard only the right hand. The chiming of
the ship's bell was not an old sweet ceremony but a fallible thing, not
exact as the ticking of a cheap watch. And "The lights are burning
bright, sir," was not a pæan of comfort, but a mechanical artisans'
phrase....
To him, for a long time now, they who went down to the sea in ships were
men only; men such as sell things in shops or scrub poorhouse floors, or
dig tracks for a railroad. The slovenly Achill man, who would face death
with a grin, the shambling Highlander who on occasion could spring to
the shrouds like a cat; the old bos'un who had been for years a castaway
on Tierra del Fuego; the wizened chantey-man with his melodeon, who
could put new vigor into tired backs, with his long-drag chanteys, like
"Blow the Man Down," and "Dead Horse," and "Whisky Johnnie," and
short-drags like "Paddy Doyle" and "Haul the Bowline," and capstans like
"Homeward Bound" and "Wide Missouri," and pumping chanteys like "Storm
Along"; the keen men at the wheel and the hawk-eyed lookout; the sailor
swinging the lead in the bows, with a wrist and forearm of steel--all
these were only men, following the sea because they knew no better. And
the mate who would wade into a mob of twenty with swinging fists, and
the navigator who could calculate to a hair's-breadth where they were by
observing the unimaginable stars--they were not of the craft of Noah,
they were men who knew their job ... just men ... as a ticket-clerk on a
railroad is a man....
To him, for a long time now, ports were ports, only places whither one
went to get or deliver cargo. Baltimore, like some sweet old lady; Para,
heavy, sinister with rain; Rio, like some sparkling jewel; Belfast,
dour, efficient, sincere; Hamburg, dignified, _gemütlich_; Lisbon, quiet
as a cathedral--they were not entities, they were just collections of
houses covering men and women. And men were either fools or crooks, and
women were either ugly bores or pretty--bitches.... Men and women, they
were born crudely, as a calf is born of a cow, they lived foolishly or
meanly, and they died.... And they were hustled out of the house
quickly.... They thought themselves so important, and they lacked the
faithfulness of the dog, the cleanliness of wild animals, the strength
of horses, the beauty of tropic birds, the mathematical science of the
spider, the swiftness of fishes.... And they grew old abominably, the
women's breasts falling, the men getting pot-bellies.... How the devil
had they ever arrogated to themselves the lordship of created things?
To him, for a long time now, the world had been, was, one mean
street....
§ 2
Of all cities, none was better calculated to foster this mood of his
than the one to which his business now brought him--Buenos Aires on the
Plate. Leaving Liverpool with steel and cotton, there was an immensity
of ocean to be traversed, until one came to the river mouth. Then fifty
leagues of hard sailing to the abominable anchorage....
Here now was a city growing rich, ungracefully--a city of arrogant
Spanish colonists, of poverty-stricken immigrants, of down-trodden lower
classes ... a city of riches ... a city of blood.... Here mud, here
money....
Into a city half mud hovels, half marble-fronted houses, gauchos drove
herd upon herd of cattle, baffled, afraid. Here Irish drove streams of
gray bleating sheep. Here ungreased bullock carts screamed. From the
blue-grass pampas they drove them, where the birds sang, and water
rippled, where was the gentleness of summer rain, where was the majesty
of great storms, clouds magnificently black and jagged lightning, where
were great white moons and life-giving suns, where was the serpent in
the grass, and the unique tree, where were swift horses.... Beeves that
had once been red awkward calves, and then sullen, stupid little
bullocks, and then proud young bulls, with graceful horns.... Such as
earnest Christians believed had lowed at the manger of Christ born in
Bethlehem.... And stupid, suspicious sheep, that had once been white
gamboling lambs, playful as pups, and so ridiculously innocent
looking!--didn't they call their Lord _Agnus Dei_, Lamb of God?--and
gentle ewes and young truculent rams, like red-headed schoolboys, eager
for a fray, and shamefaced wethers.... And by their thousands and their
tens of thousands they drove them into Buenos Aires, and slew them for
their hides....
But this was sentimental, Shane said. Bullocks and sheep must die, and
the knife is merciful as any death. But oughtn't these things be done
by night, privily, as they should bury the dead? Must they drive down
these infinities of creatures, and slaughter them openly and callously,
until the air was salt with blood, until the carrion crows hovered over
the city in battalions? Had they no feeling, had they no shame? Must the
pitiful machinery of life be exposed so airily?
Of course it must, he knew. These things had to be done in bulk. Now
weren't the middle ages when one killed a cow because one had to eat:
one killed a sheep because the winter was coming when woolens were
needed. All Europe needed shoes, saddles, combs, anti-macassars,
afghans--what not? And Europe was a big place, so in bulk they must
bellow and bleat and die, and have their hides torn from their pitiful
bodies, salted, and chucked in the hold of a ship.
Of course it must. That was civilization.
§ 3
From long ago, from far away, came the chime of old romance, but very
thin, like the note of a warm silver bell, that could not hold its own
against this blatancy. Came ancient immortal names--Magellan, that hound
of the world, whining fiercely, nosing for openings that he might
encircle the globe, he had been up the silver river. Sebastian Cabot,
too, the grim marauder, seeking to plunder the slender Indians, he had
been here. It was he had christened the great stream--Rio de la Plata,
the river where silver is. And Pedro Gomez, who headed the greatest
expedition the Argentine ever saw, and founded and named the city. And
fighting Beresford, the British general who took it from Spain, and
Whitelock who lost it again.... Campbell could see his bluff grenadiers,
their faces blackened with powder, their backs to the wall, a strange
land, a strange enemy, and blessed England so far away.... And the last
of the Spanish viceroys, with a name like an organ peal, Baltazar
Hidalgo de Cisneros y Latorre--a great gentleman, he had been wounded
fighting Nelson off Cape Trafalgar. Campbell could almost see his white
Spanish face, his pointed fingers, his pointed beard, his pontifical
walk.... And of them nothing remained. Nothing of Magellan, nothing of
Cabot, nothing of Gomez, nothing of staunch Beresford, or bluff John
Whitlock, or of the great hidalgo.... _Stat magni nominis umbra?_ ...
No, not even that. The shadows of the great names had gone. The dim
chime of a silver bell drowned by the lowing of dying cattle, by the
screech of bullock-carts, by the haggling of merchants over the price of
hides....
But he could not remain on board ship in port. Ships, he had enough of
them! There was nothing to do but go ashore, landing at high tide at one
of the two lugubrious piers, and make his way toward the squares ...
past the blazing water-front where the prostitutes chanted like demented
savages, past the saloons where the sailors drank until they dropped, or
were knifed, or robbed, or crimped. Down the ill-lit streets, which must
be trodden carefully, lest one should stumble into a heap of refuse.
Down to the Plaza Victoria, with its dim arcades, or to the 25 de Mayo,
with its cathedral, its stunted paradise trees. And from the houses came
shafts of light, and the sound of voices, thump of guitars like little
drums, high arguments, shuffle of cards.... Dark shadows and lonely
immigrants, and the plea of some light woman's bully--"_cosa
occulta_...." A dim watery moon, the portico of the cathedral, a woman
exaggerating her walk.... Pah!... immigrants fearful of the coming
snow.... A vigilante strutting like a colonel.... Mournful pampa
winds....
The theaters? Sugary Italian opera; a stark Spanish drama, too intense
for any but Latins, foreign; debauched vaudeville, incredibly vulgar; or
at the concert-hall, sentimental Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon songs, with an
audience of grave uncritical exiles--a little pathetic. No!
The clubs? Oh, damn the clubs! A blaze of light and raucous voices,
ships' masters, ships' chandlers, merchants, discussing the riddle of
local politics, and the simony of office; or the price of hides, and
freight charges; how a ship's master could turn a pretty penny in
bringing out shoddy clothes, or pianos--Jesus! they were crazy for
pianos here! Rattle of glasses and striking of matches. Bluff,
ceremonious salutations.
"Well, captain, what kind of a trip did you make out?"
"Pretty fair, captain."
"Will you have a little snifter, captain?"
"Well, captain, seeing that it's you--"
"Paddy, a little of what ails him for the captain--"
And after a while the whisky would dissolve the ceremony, and would come
nauseating intimacies.
"We shipped a stewardess in Hull--" or "There was an Irish girl in the
steerage, a raving beauty, and when I saw her, I said: Wait. So--"
They were all the same. Give them whisky and time and the talk would
come around to easy money and easy women. All were the same, bluff,
sentimental, animal, all but the one or two hawk-eyed, close-lipped men
who came and went silently, who drank little and drank by themselves.
These men made the really big money, but it wasn't easy; they took a
chance with their lives, smuggling slaves from Africa for the Argentine
plantations, or silver from Chile and Peru. But as for the rest, easy
money, easy women!
Well, what was Campbell fussing about? Wasn't he too making easy money,
bringing agricultural steel and cotton goods here and taking away his
tally of hides?
And as to easy women, wasn't there Hedda Hagen?
§ 4
A ship's master had introduced him to her at a band concert in one of
the public squares--a tall Amazonian woman with her hair white as corn,
and eyes the strange light blue of ice. Her head was uptilted--a
brave woman. The introduction had a smirking ceremony about it that
defined Froken Hagen's position as though in so many words. Her bow was
as distant to Shane as his salutation was curt to her. Shane was
suddenly annoyed.
[Illustration]
The captain of the American boat talked incessantly while the band
blared on. Strolling Argentines eyed the woman's blond beauty at a
respectful distance. They trotted to and fro. They loped. They postured.
She paid no attention. To her they were nonexistent. To the American
skipper's conversation she replied only with a flicker of the eyelids, a
fleeting smile of her lips. Shane she seemed to ignore. She was so
clean, so cool, so damnably self-possessed.
"Froken Hagen," Campbell ventured, "aren't you sick of all this? Captain
Lincoln says you have been here for five years. Aren't you dead tired of
it?"
"No." Her voice was a strong soprano timbre.
"Don't you want to get back to the North again?"
"Often." She had a quiet aloof smile. Somewhere was the impression of a
gentlewoman. She did not mean to be abrupt. She was just immensely
self-possessed.
It occurred to Shane suddenly that he liked this woman. He liked her
dignity, her grave composure. He liked her coolness, her almost Viennese
grace. He liked her features; but for the wideness of her mouth, and the
little prominence of chin, she would have been immensely beautiful. Her
corn-like hair, massively braided, must be like a mane when down, and
beneath her Paris frock he could sense her deep bosom, great marble
limbs. Her voice had the cool sweet beauty of Northern winds.... Her
eyes were steady, her chin uptilted. Somewhere, some time, somehow she
had mastered fate.
About, in the gas-lit square, escorted, guarded, went other women,
reputable women. Great rawboned women, daughters of Irish _porteños_,
with the coarseness of the Irish peasant in their faces, the brogue of
the Irish peasant on their Spanish, but punctiliously Castilian as to
manners; gross Teutonic women; fluffy sentimental Englishwomen, bearing
exile bravely, but thinking long for the Surrey downs; gravid Italian
women, clumsy in the body, sweet and wistful in the face; Argentines,
clouded with powder, liquid of eyes, on their lips a soft little down
that would in a few years be an abomination unto the Lord; women of
mixed breed, with the kink of Africa in their hair, or the golden tint
of the Indian in their skin. Good women! And yet.... For grace, for
coolness, for cleanliness, the venal Swedish girl outshone them all....
"Froken Hagen," Campbell said, "may I call on you some time?"
"If you like."
"Does that mean you don't want me to come?"
She smiled at him.
"Mr. Campbell," she laughed gently, "you know very well what I am. If
you don't call on me it won't mean anything to me. If you do call I
think I'll be rather glad. Because on first appearances I like you. But
do whatever you like. I have no wiles."
"Thank God for that!"
Lincoln, master of the _Katurah Knopp_, listened in with a silent
chuckle. She was a queer one, Hedda was. And Campbell, he was a queer
one, too. Two queer ones together. Hedda was all right, but a man
sickened of her quick. She wasn't what you might call warm. No
affection; that's what a man missed far from home, affection. Yes,
affection. Hedda had none. She was a fine woman, but she had no
affection. He liked to see men get stung. In a few days Campbell would
be down at the club with a face as long as to-day and to-morrow. He
would call for a drink angrily.
"Well, captain, what's got into you? You don't look happy."
And Campbell, like the others, would grumble something about a
God-damned big Swede.
"Hey, what's wrong? Ain't Hedda treated you right?"
"Sure, she treated me right," he would say as the others said, "but God
damn! that woman's not human. Take away that rot-gut and gi' me whisky.
I got a touch o' chill."
Lincoln had seen it all before. He liked to see it all the time. He
chuckled as Shane turned to him.
"Lincoln, are you seeing this lady home?"
"Not if you want to."
"I don't want to break up any arrangements of yours."
"Tell the truth," Lincoln said, "I've got a little party to-night. A
party as is a party--Spanish girls, Spanish dancers ... I wish I could
take you, but it ain't my party...."
"Then I'll see Miss Hagen home."
Dog-gone, Lincoln would have to go down to the club and tell 'em how
Campbell of the _Maid of the Isles_ got stuck with the human iceberg!
§ 5
Without, the west wind had increased suddenly, a cold steady wind,
coasting down the Argentine pampas, bending the sparse trees and giant
thistle, ruffling the river, shallowing it, until to-morrow many a poor
sailorman would regret his optimistic anchorage ... Shane shivered....
To-morrow October would be making a din in the streets.... And the poor
skippers fighting their way round the Horn, icy winds and head seas and
immense gray dirty-bearded waves.... To-morrow three men were to be shot
in the 25 de Mayo for a political offense, and Shane could see them in
the bleak dawn, three frightened stanch figures; the soldiers would be
blowing their fingers in the cold air, and their triggers would be like
ice to the touch ... the shoddy tragedy....
But within the room was warm, a little fire of coal in the unusual
grate, and the soft and mellow lights of candles, and here and there
gauchos' blankets on the wall, and here a comfortable chair and there a
table of line, and brass things ... clean and ascetic, and yet
something womanly about the place, the grace and composition of
things.... And with her coming into her house, Hedda Hagen's manner had
changed gently.... She was no longer frigid, aloof.... She unbent into
calm smiles, and the grace of a hostess of the big world ... the quiet
masonic signal of a certain caste....
"I wonder," he said; "am I dreaming?"
She paused suddenly. She had taken her hat off, and was touching things
on the tables with her large fine hands. She turned her head toward him.
There was a half smile in her eyes.
"Why?"
"It doesn't seem right."
"That you never saw me before, that you are here in this house after
meeting me half an hour ago, and that you can stay here the night?"
"Yes."
"Well, it's true."
She was once more the hostess. It was as if some one had sprung nimbly
from a little height to the ground.
"I can't give you any whisky. But I can make you tea. Or have my maid
brew you some coffee."
"Is that a Russian samovar?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll have tea."
So queer! Without the wind blustered and the little din of it crept into
the room somehow, and within was warmth, and the stillness of still
trees. And grace. Beauty moved like an actress on the stage. All her
motions were harmonious, could have gone to some music on the violin.
Now it was the easy dropping to her knees as she lit the quaint Russian
teapot, now an unconscious movement of her hand to push back a braid of
her hair, now the firm certain motion of her strong white unringed
fingers. Now her large graceful body moved like some heroic statue that
had become quick with life. The thought came into his head, somehow,
that if he had had a sister he would have liked her to have been like
this splendid blond woman....
Yet into this house, where she had settled like some strange bird in an
alien land, came ships' masters, reeking with drink, came merchants with
their minds full of buying and selling and all the petty meannesses of
trade, came dark Latins who hankered for blond women....
"God! I can't understand."
She came toward him frankly....
"_Amigo mío_, have you a right to understand?"
"I'm sorry."
"No, but--see! You and I have often met. I mean: there is a plane of us,
who must be loyal to one another. You understand. And to you, to one of
us, I don't want to lie. Only certain persons have a right to ask. A
father, a mother, a child, a sister or brother or husband. But our
destinies touch only, hardly even that. Will never grip, bind. There is
no right you have, beyond what--you buy; and there are things--I don't
sell."
"I'm sorry," Shane turned aside. "I was just carried away. But I should
go."
"Do you want to go?"
"No."