Late in May, having landed in New York and been granted a month’s leave,
he went on Sunday morning to call on Dr. Grein. The landlady said the
gentleman was not in, that he had called a taxicab and driven off to
Riverside Park.
Marvin walked round into the park, surprised that his vigorous friend
should need a cab for so short a distance.
The great city seemed to have grown in his absence. Here, where
perchance some old Dutch windmill once stood, a steady stream of cars
was passing, dangerous to cross. Even the river looked more populous.
There came into his mind something that Beers had once quoted at Shef in
an effort to civilize the sophomores: “Cities will crowd to its edge in
a blacker, incessanter line.”
He walked south, stopping occasionally to rest his heart, to where a
great tomb of white granite shone, and found Grein sitting near it, with
lackluster eyes. But the meeting was cordial enough. Some spark of
ancestral custom awoke in Grein, and he kissed his friend on both
cheeks. Then he sat down again, as if his knees refused to function.
“I can’t sleep. My hands are cold all the time. I can’t remember my
appointments. I can’t read mathematics. I haven’t read the stuff you
sent me from France.”
“I’m lucky,” laughed Marvin, who was handsome in bones, and showed some
of them when he laughed.
“Marvin, I’m afraid I shall have to quit.”
“No, Dr. Grein.”
“But I live in constant fear. Every day I expect that the president will
drop in to my office and catch me in an explosion. I can’t talk to
students. I get enraged over nothing.”
And Grein, who never wept, hid his face in his hands and wept like a
child.
“There’s no cause for worry,” said Marvin. “All you need is a month or
two at the shore. The war has worn on you. Your father fought with
Siegel and was probably as nervous as Siegel in the saddle, but you have
had to sit still while I did my best to kill your cousins.”
“They are dead,” answered Grein. “But I could have stood it if the
patriots of this damned city hadn’t accused me of lending aid and
comfort in the matter of chemicals. I don’t need to tell you—”
“No, darlin’, you don’t.”
“But I do! I do! It was a lie—a black, dirty—” and Grein sobbingly
exploded into oaths.
Marvin’s weak heart was panting with indignant sympathy, but he listened
until the smoke cleared away. Then he said,
“Quite so. Did the president stand by you?”
Grein wiped his eyes and looked up at the shining monument.
“Yes, or I’d have shot myself. But how can I go on being dean when I
can’t control my nerves? I’m likely to curse my best friends. If I could
only get you here, in line for the deanship!”
Marvin silently held up his left hand.
“That,” said Grein, “would make no difference in the office.”
“Thank you for saying so, but I’m on my way home to be married, and my
wife will need money. That is to say, she won’t, but I shall need my
self-respect. Grein, don’t you need a wife?”
“No,” said Grein, once more master of himself, and continued to gaze at
the tomb.
It was a hundred and fifty feet high, and ponderous as a pyramid. Within
it was a great block of red porphyry, and within that a lead coffin, and
within the coffin some clothes and calcium. But the granite around and
above all this was not granite; it was a massive will. Sometimes Grein
had thought of it as the triumph of northern industry over southern
agriculture, but this morning it meant just one thing—that he must fight
it out on this line if it took all summer. There must be a way to end
not merely one war but all wars.