BEING NO CHAPTER AT ALL BUT AN INTERMEZZO BEFORE THE LAST MOVEMENT
The stage is dark. In the dim distance something is moving. It is a
world hurrying through space. Somewhat in the foreground but enveloped
in the murk sit three figures. They are tending a vast loom. Its myriad
threads run through illimitable space and the woof of the loom is time.
The three figures weaving through the dark do not know whence comes the
power that moves the loom eternally. They have not asked. They work in
the pitch of night.
From afar in the earth comes a voice--high-keyed and gentle:
A Voice, _pianissimo_:
"This business of governing a sovereign people is losing its savor. I
must be getting some kind of spiritual necrosis. Generally speaking,
about all the real pleasure a grand llama of politics finds in life, is
in counting his ingrates--his governors and senators and congressmen!
Why, George, it's been nearly ten years since I've cussed out a senator
or a governor, yet I read Browning with joy and the last time I heard
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, I went stark mad. But woe is me, George! Woe
is me. When the Judge and Dan Sands named the postmaster last month
without consulting me, I didn't care. I tell you, George, I must be
getting old!"
Second Voice, _fortissimo_:
"No, Doc--you're not getting old--why, you're not sixty--a mere spring
chicken yet--and Dan Sands is seventy-five if he's a day. What's the
matter with you in this here Zeitgeist that Carlyle talks about! It's
this restless little time spirit that's the matter with you. You're all
broke out and sick abed with the Zeitgeist. You've got no more necrosis
than a Belgian hare's got paresis--I'm right here to tell you and my
diagnosis goes."
Third Voice, _adagio_:
"James, my guides say that we're beginning a great movement from the few
to the many. That is their expression. Cromwell thinks it means economic
changes; but I was talking with Jefferson the other night and he says
no--it means political changes in order to get economic. He says Tilden
tells him--"
The Second Voice, _fortissimo_:
"Who cares what Tilden says! My noodle tells me that there's to be a big
do in this world, and my control tinkles the cash register, pops into
the profit account, eats up ten cent magazines, and gets away with five
feet of literary dynamite fuse every week. I'm that old Commodore Noah
that's telling you to get out your rubbers for the flood."
The First Voice, _andante con expression_:
"It's a queer world--a mighty queer world. Here's Laura's kindergarten
growing until it joins with Violet Hogan's day nursery and Laura's
flower seeds splashing color out of God's sunshine in front yards clear
down to Plain Valley. Money coming in about as they need it. Dan Sands
and Morty, Wright and Perry and the Dago saloon keeper, Joe Calvin, John
Dexter and the gamblers--all the robbers, high and low, dividing their
booty. With all the prosperity we are having, with all the opening of
mills and factories--it's getting easier to make money and consequently
harder to respect it. The more money there is, the less it buys, and
that is true in public sentiment just as it is in groceries and
furniture. Do you fellows realize that it's been ten years since the
_Times_ has run any of those 'Pen Portraits of Self-Made Men'?" A
silence, then the voice continues:
"George, I honestly believe, if money keeps getting crowded farther and
farther into the background of life--we'll develop an honest politician.
We know that to give a bribe is just as bad as to take one. Think of the
men debauched with money disguised as campaign expenses, or with offices
or with franks and passes and pull and power! Think of all the bad
government fostered, all the injustices legalized, just to win a sordid
game! The best I can do now is to cry, 'Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!
The harlot and the thief are my betters.'"
The _voices_ cease. The earth whirls on. The brooding spirits at
the loom muse in silence, for they need no voices.
The First Fate: "The birds! The birds! I seemed to hear the
night birds twittering to bring in the dawn."
The Second Fate: "The birds do not bring in the dawn. The dawn
comes."
The First Fate: "But always and always before the day, we hear
these voices."
The Third Fate: "World after world threads its time through our
loom. We watch the pattern grow. Days and eras and ages pass. We know
nothing of meanings. We only weave. We know that the pattern brightens
as new days come and always voices in the dark tell us of the changing
pattern of a new day."
The First Fate: "But the birds--the birds! I seem to hear the
night birds' voices that make the dawn."
The Second Fate: "They are not birds calling, but the whistle
of shot and shell and the shrill, far cries of man in air. But still I
say the dawn comes, the voices do not bring it."
The Third Fate: "We do not know how the awakening voices in the
dark know that the light is coming. We do not know what power moves the
loom. We do not know who dreams the pattern. We only weave and muse and
listen for the voices of change as a world threads its events through
the woof of time on our loom."
* * * * *
The stage is dark. The weavers weave time into circumstances and in the
blackness the world moves on. Slowly it grays. A thousand voices rise.
Then circumstance begins to run brightly on the loom, and a million
voices join in the din of the dawn. The loom goes. The weavers fade. The
light in the world pales the thread of time and the whirl of the earth
no longer is seen. But instead we see only a town. Half of it shines in
the morning sun--half of it hides in the smoke. In the sun on the street
is a man.