Wilfred went to meet the nine-forty from town. The morning had broken
gloriously after rain. Oh, the new-washed sky, the glittering trees, and
the crystal air! How the group of ugly little buildings which included
the station, seemed to plume itself in that sweet clarity—like a gnome
dressed in gossamer. That awful ice-cream saloon built two years ago,
and already aged, with its cheap cotton awning disfigured by blue
lettering stained with the weather; even this was—well, one couldn’t
call it lovely, yet he approved it. It belonged. Wilfred’s heart puffed
up in his breast like a pop-over in the oven. Too much baking-powder, he
thought, grinning at himself.
When Stanny got off the train, Wilfred saw in a glance by the down-drawn
corners of his mouth, and his wretched eyes, that he had been having one
of his bad times. Lucky I happened to write just then, he thought.
Stanny’s friendly greeting was forced.
“Hello, Wilf!”
“Hello, Stanny!”
Behind Stanny, Wilfred caught sight of a taller and younger man, whose
good looks arrested him like a blow. A youth out of an antique tale;
beautiful, hard, and unselfconscious. Wilfred’s imagination galloped
off. To his astonishment, Stanny turned around to allow the young man to
come up.
“I brought a fellow along,” Stanny mumbled. “Thought you wouldn’t mind.
His name is Taswell.”
“Mind! Of course not!” cried Wilfred, concealing his wonder. “We’re in
luck with the weather.”
The young fellow’s face was yellowish; his eyes and his lips cruel with
pain. He was mute, or almost so; muttered something in response to
Wilfred’s greeting, while his eyes bolted in distaste. He too! thought
Wilfred.
Taswell was glancing around at the unfamiliar scene.
“It’s a gashly little boro, isn’t it?” said Wilfred grinning. “Never
mind. Once we climb the hill yonder, we’ll leave the paths of progress
behind. Come on, you fellows.”
“Shouldn’t we go to your house first?” asked Stanny, mindful of
politeness.
“Nope! Frances Mary doesn’t expect us until we come back.”
Stanny looked relieved. The two men came along in silence after Wilfred.
Wilfred rattled away. “I thought we’d head first for New City—an
amusing village in spite of its name; then north through Pearl River and
Nanuet, and back to the Highlands. We can make West Point if you’re
interested in that sort of thing; but I should say, keep back from the
Hudson a mile or so. There are lovely little lakes in there, with
forgotten roads from one to another. We’ll have to come down into the
valley to find a bed . . . But of course if you don’t feel like
strenuous walking, we can stop anywhere,” he added with a glance at his
companions.
“You can’t walk too far for me,” said Taswell, shortly.
“Nor me!” said Stanny.
“Gosh! I needed this!” cried Wilfred, breathing deep. “I had worked
myself to a fare-you-well!”
Stanny looked at him with the corners of his mouth drawn down, and
Wilfred could read the sarcastic words that were not spoken. Happy Wilf!
What Stanny actually said, morosely, was:
“What did Frances Mary think of it?”
“Oh, she got the whole thing up,” said Wilfred, glad to score off him.
He perceived of course that his giddy talk was falling on deaf ears; he
didn’t mind. Subsequently it struck him that there was perhaps something
cruel in it. That was the wrong way to deal with the situation.
Down-hearted people are enraged by an obvious attempt to cheer them, and
rightly so. He became silent. Better to let the sun and the sweet air
have way with them.
They plodded along. Rounding the top of the hill, a mile-wide, shallow
valley unrolled below them. The sight made Wilfred catch his breath; but
he said nothing. It was pasture land, all green except for the dotting
farmhouses and villages; an unreal, tender green which did not suggest
grass or anything earthly. It was as if one was looking at the land
through a magical green medium. It was like a sea, tenderer than the
real sea, and rolling up in one vast gentle swell, sprinkled with white
ships. At the far boundaries it faded dreamlike into a grey void.
Wilfred stole frequent glances at his handsome companion. Taswell strode
along stiffly, his head up, looking angrily and blindly straight ahead.
Wilfred’s sense of fitness was gratified by the sight. The noble way to
bear pain. What could have dealt him such a blow? Bye and bye a sixth
sense informed Wilfred that Stanny resented the keenness of his interest
in this new chum. It was an old grievance of Stanny’s that Wilfred was
too quick to be on with the new. So Wilfred looked directly at Taswell
no more; happy enough to be in the company of such a one. Plenty of
time! he said to himself. We have three days ahead of us.
They descended into the valley, where the road was carried across a
clear stream upon an old stone bridge.
“Half a moment,” said Taswell. “I’m thirsty.”
Wilfred and Stanny waited by the parapet.
“Look here,” said Stanny, jerkily. He refused to meet Wilfred’s eye.
“Didn’t have a chance to tell you before. I’ve been on the loose again.
Suppose you can see it. Three days. Blind. . . . Oh, you needn’t say
anything!”
“Not going to,” said Wilfred.
“This fellow . . .” Stanny went on. “When I came to my senses last night
I found myself in a dive up near the Harlem river. He was there, too. In
the same boat, you understand. Has had a knockout blow. I don’t know
what. Won’t talk about it. I haven’t had any knockout blow. The same
thing as usual. Nothingness. . . . My money had given out, and so had
his. We were put out of the place together. So we walked all the way
down to my place, and I took him in. By that time we were ready to shoot
ourselves. I found your letter there, so this morning I borrowed enough
from the lunch-room down-stairs to pay our fares up. We haven’t a cent.”
“I have enough,” said Wilfred swiftly. “We can stop at night in
farmhouses. I’m damn glad you brought him.” He looked over the parapet.
“What a splendid young creature, eh, Stanny?”
“I suppose so,” said Stanny, dismally refusing to look. “I hadn’t
thought of it. Hadn’t thought of anything at all.”
“One could make a friend of him,” said Wilfred.
“Oh, you could!” said Stanny, sneering.
Wilfred flung an arm around his old friend’s shoulders, and gave him a
shake. Stanny looked pettish—a sign that he was on the way to being
mollified.
Taswell came springing up the bank. He already felt better, but refused
to admit it.
They walked on. Conversation did not flourish as yet; but the two men
from town took out their pipes, and that was a hopeful sign. Wilfred was
content to bide his time. Stanny had given him much to think about.
These two had been down into the depths, yet he profoundly respected
them. They were men. They were capable of descending into the depths. He
felt like a spore of thistledown alongside them. They were forthright;
they were single-minded; they would break before they bent. Whereas
he!—he was of a dozen minds, and was continually on the rebound. A
knockout blow! Once he had received a knockout blow, and had turned
around and made a happy marriage. Oh, he was all right, he thought,
smiling ironically at himself, but without bitterness; so things were!
He was sure to keep a toehold in society sufficient to obtain in the end
a respectable funeral! . . . But what of his two friends? What of Stanny
whom he knew so well? He ached with compassion. What could a man do to
save his friends? Why nothing, of course. Except to be fond of them. He
would have loved to slip an arm through one of theirs on either side;
but he suspected they wouldn’t like it.
* * * * *
The three friends were sitting in the general room of a miserable
village drinking-place which called itself hotel. After all, they had
not stopped at a farmhouse, because, as Wilfred knew, in a friendly
farmhouse one must pay for one’s entertainment with sociability; and
Stanny and Taswell were short of this coin at present. They had secured
a double room in this poor place for a dollar. They were the only
lodgers.
They were seated at a bare table with glasses of beer before them. From
the bar adjoining came the sounds of loud, empty voices; but they were
alone. It was a dreary room; ugly to start with, and worth nobody’s
while to keep tidy and clean. There was the usual little desk with a
worn book, which had served as a register for many years, and was not
yet full; a rusty cigar-lighter; and a glass inkwell, caked with dried
spillings. There was another table covered with opened newspapers; and
wooden chairs standing about; “hotel” chairs with round backs. On the
soiled walls hung an old railway map and a garish calendar.
Things were going well with the three friends. The springs of talk had
been released. Young Taswell’s face was red from walking all day in the
open; and Stanny had recovered his usual air of mournful dignity. They
were talking about Life and so forth in a disconnected way, each bent on
expressing himself without much regard for the others.
“The world is shared by the two lots,” Wilfred was saying dreamily
“lords and slaves. The queerest thing about the situation is that the
slaves are as well pleased with their places as the Lords are with
theirs. They will fight for the privilege of remaining slaves! All the
trouble is made by a third lot, much smaller; I mean the men who wish to
be free themselves, and have no particular desire to lord it over
anybody. The other two lots join in hating them of course, for different
reasons; and never miss a chance of trying to step on them. And of
course they generally succeed, since they own the earth between them.
That is why the rarest spirits, the men with a bit of Michael or Lucifer
in them (those two are so much alike!) so often end as police court bums
or beachcombers.”
“You seem quite cheerful about this rotten state of affairs,” remarked
Stanny.
“Oh, the act of talking cheers you,” said Wilfred, grinning. “Thank God!
we can still talk about it!”
“You’re a good fellow,” said Taswell, a little condescendingly, “but of
course that’s all nonsense. The best men are bound to come to the top!”
“Oh, well, so long as I’m a good fellow . . . !” said Wilfred, laughing.
“You talk all over the place,” objected Taswell. “You don’t follow
through. Talking just for the sake of talking; that’s nothing. You must
hold fast to certain ideas.”
“Those fixed ideas are the rocks in the rapids on which we shatter
ourselves,” said Wilfred.
“What have we got to hang on to, then?” demanded Taswell.
“Nothing! We must let life carry us.”
“Oh, look here . . . ! Nobody knows of course what the end is going to
be; but I’ve got to know what I’m doing on the way!”
“I just enjoy the motion,” said Wilfred, smiling.
“You don’t really mean anything you say!” said Taswell, impatiently.
“That’s true, in a sense,” said Wilfred. “But there’s a sort of general
meaning to be collected out of the whole.”
“That’s too misty for me!”
Stanny suddenly sprang to Wilfred’s defense. It was one of his most
endearing qualities that he would never allow anybody else to abuse
Wilfred the way he did himself. “Wilfred is perfectly consistent,” he
insisted. “You’ll see that when you know him better. He has constructed
a sort of scheme for himself, out of movement, change, balance; give and
take; forward and back; and so on. He’s a philosophic chameleon.”
They all laughed.
“Just the same,” grumbled Taswell, “it destroys everything to say that
the best men go to the bottom!”
“Your best need not be my best,” said Wilfred.
Taswell stared at him in exasperation.
“I like that figure about the rapids,” said Stanny, off on a tack of his
own. “That’s what life is, a rapids. And you have no boat. You are up to
your knees in it; or your waist; or your neck; just as your luck may be.
With the current tearing at you without a letup. And no shores to climb
out on. Steep walls of rock on either side. All you can do is to lean
against the current, and drag your feet up, one step at a time.”
Wilfred experienced an actual physical pain that made him grit his
teeth. “That’s all damn nonsense!” he said, exasperated with compassion.
“The rock of a fixed idea that you’ve been knocking your head against
through life! Why insist on it, and make yourself wretched? It is
equally as true to say that one may sail downstream with life. The
purest pleasure I ever experienced was in shooting rapids in a small
boat. I didn’t know what was around the bend, either!”
“Oh well, it’s all talk!” said Stanny, smiling and unconvinced.
Wilfred looked at him, biting his lip. Often one longed to beat the
wrong-headed, unhappy Stanny.
Taswell’s mind was still worrying over the original proposition. Taswell
was at a disadvantage, because in his person at this moment he was
offering a sad commentary on the optimistic philosophy that he
cherished. While he scorned Wilfred’s ideas, he was strongly drawn to
them. “According to you,” he said to Wilfred, “everything in the world
is wrong and rotten!”
“Not everything,” said Wilfred. “Only certain human institutions.”
“The Joe Kaplans,” suggested Stanny.
Taswell, suddenly roused, brought down the soft side of his fist on the
table. “Oh, _damn_ him!” he said thickly.
“Hear! Hear!” said Stanny and Wilfred. “You, too?”
But Taswell’s eyes bolted. He pressed his lips together.
“What brought Kaplan into your mind just then?” asked Wilfred of Stanny.
“He’s just added ‘Truth’ to his string of newspapers and magazines,”
said Stanny. “He’s put in a stinker as art editor. I had a row with him.
I can see that I am booked to go down where it’s steep.”
They were silent for awhile.
“What _is_ right in the world?” asked Taswell at length.
Wilfred, feeling shamefaced before this hard-eyed young stranger,
grinned and said: “Well, love.”
Taswell’s eyes bolted again. They all felt inclined to blush.
“Now he’s off on his favorite rocking-horse,” said Stanny.
Laughter relieved the strain.
Taswell’s laughter was brief. “Well, if you ask me,” he said harshly,
“love leads you into the blackest hole of them all!”
Neither of the other two looked at him.
“I don’t mean the love of women,” said Wilfred, diffidently.
“He means general love,” said Stanny. “I know all this by heart.”
“I never could get that idea,” said Taswell. “Sounds weak . . .
scattered to me. I can’t love everybody. I don’t want to.”
“Well, say understanding,” amended Wilfred. “If I had been Christ I
would have put it: ‘Know ye one another!’”
“According to your notions, do women fare any better in life?” Taswell
demanded abruptly.
“Women or men,” said Wilfred; “we’re all in the same boat. The most
glorious ones are apt to go under.”
Taswell was evidently lying in wait for this answer. “I deny that!” he
said quickly. “I knew a glorious woman: the real thing; like . . . like
. . . well, the real thing! She made a mess of her life—so far you’re
right; but she didn’t go under. She picked up what there was left, and
went on more glorious than ever!”
“I knew a woman like that,” said Wilfred softly; “like a flag in the
wind . . . !”
“Yes . . . yes!” murmured Taswell. “That’s fine . . . !”
“And she made a mess of her life, too. What has happened to her I don’t
know. She must have gone under in the best sense, I think, though the
semblance of her is still flying.”
“I’ve never known any woman,” said Stanny, with the silly-sounding laugh
under which men mask their most painful emotions; “except for an hour or
two.”
The talk rambled on. They never agreed upon anything; nevertheless they
were drawn together.