Oscar Maironi was very poor. His thin gray suit in summer resembled his
thick gray suit in winter. It does not seem that he had more than two;
but he had a black coat and waistcoat, and a narrow-brimmed, shiny hat
to go with these, and one pair of patent-leather shoes that laced,
and whose long soles curved upward at the toe like the rockers of a
summer-hotel chair. These holiday garments served him in all seasons;
and when you saw him dressed in them, and seated in a car bound for
Park Square, you knew he was going into Boston, where he would read
manuscript essays on Botticelli or Pico della Mirandola, or manuscript
translations of Armenian folksongs; read these to ecstatic, dim-eyed
ladies in Newbury Street, who would pour him cups of tea when it was
over, and speak of his earnestness after he was gone. It did not do the
ladies any harm; but I am not sure that it was the best thing for Oscar.
It helped him feel every day, as he stepped along to recitations with
his elbow clamping his books against his ribs and his heavy black curls
bulging down from his gray slouch hat to his collar, how meritorious he
was compared with Bertie and Billy--with all Berties and Billies. He may
have been. Who shall say? But I will say at once that chewing the cud of
one’s own virtue gives a sour stomach.
Bertie’s and Billy’s parents owned town and country houses in New York.
The parents of Oscar had come over in the steerage. Money filled the
pockets of Bertie and Billy; therefore were their heads empty of money
and full of less cramping thoughts. Oscar had fallen upon the reverse of
this fate. Calculation was his second nature. He had given his education
to himself; he had for its sake toiled, traded, outwitted, and saved.
He had sent himself to college, where most of the hours not given to
education and more education, went to toiling and more toiling, that
he might pay his meagre way through the college world. He had a cheaper
room and ate cheaper meals than was necessary. He tutored, and he wrote
college specials for several newspapers. His chief relaxation was the
praise of the ladies in Newbury Street. These told him of the future
which awaited him, and when they gazed upon his features were put in
mind of the dying Keats. Not that Oscar was going to die in the least.
Life burned strong in him. There were sly times when he took what he had
saved by his cheap meals and room and went to Boston with it, and for
a few hours thoroughly ceased being ascetic. Yet Oscar felt meritorious
when he considered Bertie and Billy; for, like the socialists, merit
with him meant not being able to live as well as your neighbor. You will
think that I have given to Oscar what is familiarly termed a black eye.
But I was once inclined to applaud his struggle for knowledge, until I
studied him close and perceived that his love was not for the education
he was getting. Bertie and Billy loved play for play’s own sake, and
in play forgot themselves, like the wholesome young creatures that they
were. Oscar had one love only: through all his days whatever he might
forget, he would remember himself; through all his days he would make
knowledge show that self off. Thank heaven, all the poor students in
Harvard College were not Oscars! I loved some of them as much as I loved
Bertie and Billy. So there is no black eye about it. Pity Oscar, if you
like; but don’t be so mushy as to admire him as he stepped along in the
night, holding his notes, full of his knowledge, thinking of Bertie
and Billy, conscious of virtue, and smiling his smile. They were not
conscious of any virtue, were Bertie and Billy, nor were they smiling.
They were solemnly eating up together a box of handsome strawberries and
sucking the juice from their reddened thumbs.
“Rather mean not to make him wait and have some of these after his hard
work on us,” said Bertie. “I’d forgotten about them--”
“He ran out before you could remember, anyway,” said Billy.
“Wasn’t he absurd about his old notes? “Bertie went on, a new strawberry
in his mouth. “We don’t need them, though. With to-morrow we’ll get this
course down cold.”
“Yes, to-morrow,” sighed Billy. “It’s awful to think of another day of
this kind.”
“Horrible,” assented Bertie.
“He knows a lot. He’s extraordinary,” said Billy.
“Yes, he is. He can talk the actual words of the notes. Probably
he could teach the course himself. I don’t suppose he buys any
strawberries, even when they get ripe and cheap here. What’s the matter
with you?”
Billy had broken suddenly into merriment. “I don’t believe Oscar owns a
bath,” he explained.
“By Jove! so his notes will burn in spite of everything!” And both of
the tennis boys shrieked foolishly.
Then Billy began taking his clothes off, strewing them in the
window-seat, or anywhere that they happened to drop; and Bertie, after
hitting another cork or two out of the window with the tennis racket,
departed to his own room on another floor and left Billy to immediate
and deep slumber. This was broken for a few moments when Billy’s
room-mate returned happy from an excursion which had begun in the
morning.
The room-mate sat on Billy’s feet until that gentleman showed
consciousness.
“I’ve done it, said the room-mate, then.
“The hell you have!”
“You couldn’t do it.”
“The hell I couldn’t!”
“Great dinner.”
“The hell it was!”
“Soft-shell crabs, broiled live lobster, salmon, grass-plover,
dough-birds, rum omelette. Bet you five dollars you can’t find it.”
“Take you. Got to bed.” And Billy fell again into deep, immediate
slumber.
The room-mate went out into the sitting room, and noting the signs there
of the hard work which had gone on during his absence, was glad that he
did not take Philosophy 4. He was soon asleep also.