THE END OF THE JOURNEY
We sped north in the gathering dusk, and I was glad to go. It was as
though I had been to see something that I had better not have seen—a
house that is tenantless, a garden that is broken down and ravished and
run to weeds and wild vines, naked and open to the moon—a place of which
people say in whispers that it is haunted. Yes, this whole region was
haunted for me.
I took small interest in the once pleasing and even dramatic ravine
where, in my college year, I had so often rambled, and which then seemed
so beautiful. Now I was lonely. If I were to add one chamber to Dante’s
profound collection in the Inferno, it would be one in which, alone and
lonely, sits one who contemplates the emotions and the fascinations of a
world that is no more.
For a little way the country had some of the aspects of the regions
south of French Lick, but we were soon out of that, at a place called
Gosport, and once more in that flat valley lying between the White and
Wabash rivers. At Gosport, though it was almost dark, we could see an
immense grassy plain or marsh which the overflowing river had made for
itself in times past, a region which might easily be protected by dykes
and made into a paradise of wheat or corn. America, however, is still a
young and extravagant country, not nearly done sowing its wild oats, let
alone making use of its opportunities, and so such improvements are a
long time off.
At Gosport, a very poorly lighted town, quite dark, we were told that
the quickest way to Martinsville, which was on our route to
Indianapolis, was to follow the river road, and because the moon had not
risen yet, we were halloing at every crossroads to find out whether we
were on the right one.
“Hallo-o-o!”
“Hallo! What do you want?”
“This the right road to Martinsville?”
“Straight on!”
How often this little hail and farewell occurred outside houses set back
far from the road!
And the night lights of machines coming toward us were once more as
picturesque as those east of Warsaw, New York. From afar we could see
them coming along this flat bottomland, like giant fireflies, their
rays, especially when they swept about turns, seeming to stand out
before them like the long feeling antennæ of insects, white and
cautious. They were all headed in the direction of Gosport, though it
did not seem quite possible that they were all going there.
In this warm, sensuous wind that was blowing here, it seemed as though
nature must be about some fruitful labor. Sometimes a night achieves a
quality of this sort, something so human and sympathetic that it is like
a seeking hand. I sat back in the car meditating on all I had seen, how
soon now we would be in Indianapolis and Carmel,—and then this trip
would be over. Already with turns and twists and bypaths we had
registered about two thousand miles. We had crossed four states and
traversed this fifth one from end to end nearly. I had seen every place
in which I had ever lived up to sixteen years of age, and touched,
helplessly, on every pleasant and unpleasant memory that I had known in
that period. The land had yielded a strange crop of memories and of
characteristics to be observed. What did I think of all I had seen, I
asked myself. Had the trip been worth while? Was it wise to disinter
those shades of the past and brood over them? I recalled the comment of
the poet to whom I had given the reception when I told him I was coming
out here. “You won’t get anything out of it. It will bore you.” But had
I been bored? Had I not gotten something out of it? Somehow the lines of
the ghost in Hamlet kept repeating themselves:
“I am thy father’s spirit, doomed for a certain time to walk the earth—”
Martinsville, about half way to Indianapolis, counting from Gosport, was
another county seat, and in stopping there for a shave and a mouthful of
something to eat, I learned that this, also, was a locally celebrated
watering place, that there were not less than six different sanatoriums
here, and always as many as fifteen hundred patients taking the baths
and drinking the water for rheumatism and gout—and I had scarcely ever
heard of the place. The center of the town looked as though it might be
enjoying some form of prosperity, for the court house on all sides was
surrounded by large and rather tasteful and even metropolitan looking
shops. This portion of the city was illuminated by five-lamp standards
and even boasted two or three small fire signs. I began to wonder when,
if ever, these towns would take on more than the significance of just
newness and prosperity. Or is it better that people should live well
always, rather than that their haunts should be lighted by the fires of
tragedy? Did Rome really need to be sacked? Did Troy need to fall?
Franklin seemed to consider that peace and human comfort were of more
import than great tragic records, and I thought of this, but to no
purpose. One can never solve the riddle, really. It twists and turns,
heaves and changes color, like a cauldron that glows and bubbles but is
never still.
And then we settled ourselves once more for the last run of thirtyfive
miles to Indianapolis. It was after nine, and by eleven, anyhow, if not
before, barring accidents, we should be there. The country north of
here, so far as I could see, retained none of the interesting variations
of the land to the south. It was all level and the roads, if one could
judge by the feel, as smooth as a table. There were no towns,
apparently, on this particular road, and not many houses, but we
encountered market wagon after market wagon, heavily loaded with country
produce, a single light swinging between their wheels, all making their
way north to the young, colorless city of three hundred thousand or
more.
And when we were still within ten miles of it occurred the second of
these psychic accidents which always come in twos for me. South of
Bedford we had killed a hen. In the glow of our lamp, perhaps a hundred
yards away, there suddenly appeared out of the dark a brown pig, young
but quite as large as a dog, which at sight of the lights seemed to make
straight for us. It was squealing plaintively, as though seeking human
care, and yet we bore down on it, quite unable, as Bert explained
afterward, to turn quickly enough to save it.
There was a smash, a grunt, and then silence. We were speeding along
quite as swiftly as before.
“I tried to turn,” Bert called back, “but the darn little fool made
straight for us. They always do for some reason.”
“Yes, it’s odd about pigs that way,” commented Franklin.
“Number two,” I said to myself.
And in a mile or two more the lights of Indianapolis began to appear. It
had clouded up, as I have said, as we neared Martinsville, and now the
heavens reflected the glow of the city below. We passed those remote
houses which people seeking to make a little money out of their real
estate, or to live where rents are low, build and occupy. I thought of
the walled cities of the middle ages, when people crowded together as
compactly as possible, in order to gain the feeling of comfort and
security. In these days we are so safe that the loneliest cabin in the
mountains fears no unfriendly intruder.
In a few moments more we were trundling up a rough street, avoiding
street cars, crossing railroad and car tracks and soon stopping at the
main entrance of one of those skyscraper hotels which every American
town of any size must now boast or forever hang its head in shame.
Anything under nine stories is a failure—a sore shame.
“We’ll have a bite of something before we run out to Carmel, won’t we?”
commented Franklin.
“Let’s end this historic pilgrimage with a drink,” I suggested. “Only
mine shall be so humble a thing as a Scotch and soda.”
“Well, I think I’ll have some tea!” said Franklin.
So in we went.
I was not at all tired, but the wind had made me sleepy. It had been a
pleasant day, like all these days—save for the evoked spirits of dead
things. We drank and smiled and paid and then sped out of Indianapolis’s
best street, north, and on to Carmel. We were within a mile and a half
of Franklin’s home when we had our last blowout in the front right
wheel—the two rear ones carried new tires.
“I knew it!” exclaimed Bert crustily, reaching for his crutches and
getting himself out. “I knew we’d never get back without one. I was just
wondering where it was going to happen.”
“That’s funny, Bert!” exclaimed Franklin. “The last time we came north
from Indianapolis, do you remember, we broke down right here.”
“I remember all right,” said Bert, getting out the tools and starting to
loosen the tire clamps. “You’d better get out your note book, Mr.
Dreiser, and make a note of this; the trip’s not done yet.”
Bert had seen me draw my deadly pencil and paper so often that he could
not resist that one comment.
“I’ll try and remember this, Bert, without notes, if you’ll just get the
wheel on,” I commented wearily.
“This is what comes of thinking evil,” called Franklin jocosely. “If
Bert hadn’t been thinking that we ought to have a breakdown here, we
wouldn’t have had one. The puncture was really in his psychic unity.”
“What’s that?” asked Bert, looking up.
“Well, it’s something connected with the gizzard,” I was about to say,
but instead I observed: “It’s your spiritual consciousness of well
being, Bert. You’re all right only you don’t know it. You want to get so
that you always know it.”
“Uh huh!” he grunted heavily. “I see.”
But I don’t think he did.
Then we climbed in, and in about two more minutes we were carrying our
bags up Franklin’s front steps and dismissing the car for the night.
Mrs. Booth came out and welcomed us.
“We thought you were going to get back last night. What delayed you?”
“Oh, we just took a little longer,” laughed Franklin.
There were letters and a telegram, and instead of my being able to stay
a few days, as I had hoped, it seemed necessary that I should go the
next day. My train left at two, and to get various things left at
Indianapolis on my way south, I would have to leave a little before one.
Speed appeared the next morning to say he would like to accompany me as
far as Indianapolis. Bert came to say goodby early. He was off to join a
high school picnic, composed exclusively of ex-classmates of a certain
high school year. I was beginning to think I should see no more of my
charming friend of a few days before, when,—but that——
On my long, meditative ride back to New York, I had time to think over
the details of my trip and the nature of our land and the things I had
seen and what I really thought of them. I concluded that my native state
and my country are as yet children, politically and socially—a child
state and a child country. They have all the health, wealth, strength,
enthusiasm for life that is necessary, but their problems are all before
them. We are indeed a free people, in part, bound only by our illusions,
but we are a heavily though sweetly illusioned people nevertheless. A
little over a hundred years ago we began with great dreams, most
wondrous dreams, really—impossible ideals, and we are still dreaming
them.
“Man,” says our national constitution, “is endowed by his creator with
certain inalienable rights.” But is he? Are we born free? Equal? I
cannot see it. Some of us may achieve freedom, equality—but that is not
a right, certainly not an inalienable right. It is a stroke, almost, of
unparalleled fortune. But it is such a beautiful dream.
As for the American people, at least that limited section of it that
lies between New York and Indiana, the lakes and the Ohio River—what of
them? Sometimes I think of America as a country already composed of or
divided into distinct types or nationalities, which may merge or not as
time goes on;—or they may be diverging phases of American life, destined
to grow sharper and clearer—New England, the South, the Far West, the
Middle West. Really, this region between New York and Indiana—New York
and the Mississippi really—may be looked upon as a distinct section. It
has little in common with New England, the South, or the Far West,
temperamentally. It is a healthy, happy land in which Americans accept
their pale religions and their politics and their financial and social
fortunes with an easy grace. Here flourishes the harmless secret order;
the church and the moving picture entertain where they do not “save”;
the newspapers browbeat, lie, threaten, cajole; the plethoric trusts tax
them of their last cent by high prices, rents, fares and interest on
mortgages,—and yet they rarely, if ever, complain. It is still a new
land—a rich one. Are they not free and equal? Does not the sacred
American constitution, long since buried under a mass of decisions, say
so? And have they not free speech to say what the newspapers, controlled
by the trusts, will permit them to say? Happy, happy people!
Yet for the dream’s sake, as I told myself at this time, and as against
an illimitable background of natural chance and craft, I would like to
see this and the other sections with which it is so closely allied, this
vast republic, live on. It is so splendid, so tireless. Its people, in
spite of their defects and limitations, sing so at their tasks. There
are dark places, but there are splendid points of light, too. One is
their innocence, complete and enduring; another is their faith in ideals
and the Republic. A third is their optimism or buoyancy of soul, their
courage to get up in the morning and go up and down the world, whistling
and singing. Oh, the whistling, singing American, with his jest and his
sound heart and that light of humorous apprehension in his eye! How
wonderful it all is! It isn’t English, or French, or German, or Spanish,
or Russian, or Swedish, or Greek. It’s American, “Good Old United
States,”—and for that reason I liked this region and all these other
portions of America that I have ever seen. New England isn’t so kindly,
the South not so hopeful, the Far West more so, but they all have
something of these characteristics which I have been describing.
And for these reasons I would have this tremendous, bubbling Republic
live on, as a protest perhaps against the apparently too unbreakable
rule that democracy, equality, or the illusion of it, is destined to end
in disaster. It cannot survive ultimately, I think. In the vast,
universal sea of motion, where change and decay are laws, and individual
power is almost always uppermost, it must go under—but until then——
We are all such pathetic victims of chance, anyhow. We are born, we
struggle, we plan, and chance blows all our dreams away. If, therefore,
one country, one state dares to dream the impossible, why cast it down
before its ultimate hour? Why not dream with it? It is so gloriously, so
truly a poetic land. We were conceived in ecstasy and born in dreams.
And so, were I one of sufficient import to be able to speak to my native
land, the galaxy of states of which it is composed, I would say: Dream
on. Believe. Perhaps it is unwise, foolish, childlike, but dream anyhow.
Disillusionment is destined to appear. You may vanish as have other
great dreams, but even so, what a glorious, an imperishable memory!
“Once,” will say those historians of far distant nations of times yet
unborn, perchance, “once there was a great republic. And its domain lay
between a sea and sea—a great continent. In its youth and strength it
dared assert that all men were free and equal, endowed with certain
inalienable rights. Then came the black storms of life—individual
passions and envies, treasons, stratagems, spoils. The very gods, seeing
it young, dreamful, of great cheer, were filled with envy. They smote
and it fell. But, oh, the wondrous memory of it! For in those days men
were free, because _they imagined they were free_——”
Of dreams and the memory of them is life compounded.
THE END
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Transcriber’s Note
The text most frequently omits the customary hyphen in a compound number
(e.g., twentyfive). The sole exception is in the phrase ‘twenty-seven or
eight’. Such hyphens, occurring at a line break, were removed. Dreiser
seems to have had a penchant for eliminating hyphens in other compound
words as well (‘socalled’, ‘faroff’, ‘widespreading’, etc.)
On p. 57, the narrator refers, in conversation, to ‘W_a_lkes-Barré’, and
given the peripatetic nature of their rambles, we assume it to be
intentional.
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
96.30 schoolboy prom[tp/pt]ness Transposed.
98.14 replied the countryman succin[c]tly Inserted.
98.30 railroad off[i]cer Inserted.
99.3 Be[c]ause of the great heat Inserted.
105.1 eight other chemicals, no a[l]kali Inserted.
138.18 He was full of uncons[ic/ci]ous burlesque. Transposed.
144.6 going to East [E/A]urora Replaced.
162.17 his beliefs and his art know[l]edge. Inserted.
275.30 He can’t live. He’[ll/s] all worn out. Replaced.
307.10 I was a[l]ways doubtful Inserted.
363.16 more or less precedence over that [of ]others Inserted.
440.26 gave us Hepp[el/le]white and Sheraton Transposed.
490.16 on Saturday afterno[o]n Inserted.