understanding only instinct and what is natural counts. If one can’t
arrive at love (and so many of us, darling, haven’t the capacity for
it) then one must make a substitute, something to take up the sixty or
seventy years one is alive. That’s where art is important. I understand
business men feel the same way about business, though I’m not at all
sure about that.
“And then as for all this driveling about going to Rome let me say I do
feel that religion is merely a substitute for the loss of a personal
vision....”
The sound of Lewis’s voice became louder and continued until finally
the voice became so loud that it ceased to be a voice and became
silence.
Robert Holton wanted to sleep but there were so many things that had to
be arranged first.
There was also the dream of the night before to be recalled. He would
think of that later.
He remembered Jim Trebling. He thought of the days on the boat when
they had talked about the future.
Against a background of sea he could recall the image of Trebling.
Details were absent and he could not make out the face but he could
hear the voice and he could see the ocean.
“I hate the idea of being tied down any more than I have to be. You
know, Bob, we’ve lived the most unnatural life there is during this
war. I get the feeling sometimes that we’ve lost a lot of time. I keep
wanting to start over again.
“I might want to start my own business. I think that’s not so bad: it’s
worse working for somebody else. It’s funny but I’d just as soon never
work. I’d just as soon drift the rest of my life.”
And Robert Holton had agreed. He agreed in those days.
“Of course you have to have money to loaf. Maybe if we hadn’t been
raised in such a sound middle-class way we could be bums but we’re too
used to being comfortable. No, we’re too used to being comfortable.
We’ve got to get the money first.”
Robert Holton had agreed to that, too. He had agreed to everything.
He wanted to be as free as possible. At least he thought he had then.
Because his friend wanted it he felt he did too. He assumed a similar
identity.
Trebling had more to say and his deep laughing voice continued: “No,
we’re going to have to work a little. Not much, just a little to get
enough ahead. We’re going to be careful though not to get bogged down,
not to get too interested in working. It’s dangerous to get to like it.”
Holton agreed.
“Well, Bob, get your mind on the ball. How’re we going to spend that
army money? I think pottery out in California sounds easy.”
Yes, pottery was easy. Then they separated and they changed. Or perhaps
only he, Holton, had changed. He’d done the easiest thing, he thought.
But it was true that he was entangled now for the rest of his life with
Heywood and Golden; with them or another like them.
Trebling was entangled, too. Holton was pleased by that as he lay
in the dark. Trebling hadn’t done better. He belonged to the army
now and his chances of beginning a business were slight. He might
try it though; he might be able to live the way he wanted to. Holton
shuddered. It would be awful to miss freedom so narrowly.
There was a problem, still unsolved: what did he want?
“You know,” said Trebling’s voice, rising up out of the sea, “you know
you make things tough for yourself. You don’t make up your mind.”
That wasn’t true, he was always plotting; most of the time, anyway.
“You try to be like everybody else.”
He was safest when he was like the rest of them. No, that wasn’t a bad
thing to do; besides, he wasn’t that way really. He was different from
the others in the office. They sensed that. He would probably go a
long way and most of them wouldn’t. Perhaps he was like Heywood. That
wasn’t bad. Heywood was a success. _He_ could be free if he liked.
He had money and he could do whatever he liked.
Trebling’s voice was fainter now and the sound of the sea behind it was
becoming loud. “Sure we might flop but if we don’t we’re just fine.
I’m not worried; I’m not worried about anything except being stuck in
an office and working for somebody. That’s a lot to worry about, I
suppose, but I’m not bothered. It’s going to work out. You’re a long
time dead, I figure ...”
The sea came into Holton’s room then and he was whirled on the top of a
wave; for a moment there was nothing but sensation. He opened his eyes
in the dark and the sea was gone.
Trebling’s voice was lost.
Holton turned over on his side, troubled, tired, looking for sleep. He
thought of Carla. He had to think of her; there was a decision to be
made.
She had been quiet when he left her in the apartment. She had not
looked him in the eyes and he had been eager to leave, to escape.
Now she began to speak again. She had talked to him as he was dressing.
“I don’t think it would work now. I’d hoped it would; for a long time
I’ve thought about you, about our living together. But you don’t want
to.”
He had tried to deny this but he could not deny what he felt.
Her voice came back to him now, a sad thin echo; there was no vibrancy
in the remembered voice. She was whispering in an empty room.
“You’re going to accept a pattern and I can’t stop you. I can’t bring
out the capacity for love in you. You have it, I know, but I’m not
enough to make you aware....”
Again the denial and again the sad voice whispering.
“No, I was wrong to try to change your life. It’s very selfish to do
things for people they don’t want done. I wanted you so much. You’re
the one I’m not supposed to have, though, and that’s sad for me.”
He had talked to her then and explained that he could not take the
risk of living with her, that he must be within the pattern. But he
could not make any of these things sound convincing. Somehow everything
got confused as he tried to explain himself to her. He tried to tell
her that he did love her but that he couldn’t live with her. She had
listened and when he had finished she had talked again. Now her voice
entered his room; it was a shadow’s voice murmuring in his ear.
“I don’t think I’d better see you again, Bob. It’s very hard for me but
I’m going to control myself. I am going to forget all the things I had
dreamed about since Florence. I shall find a new object and that’s a
hard thing to do. It’s hard to change but I will.”
That was true, of course. There was also more.
She walked with him to the door; she let him go free to his chosen
prison.
The little voice no longer whispered in his ear and there was nothing
but silence and the beating of his heart, the slow beating of his heart.
The shade of the window fluttered in the outside wind. Bits of light
gleamed around the shade as it fluttered. Lights from signs and behind
those lights, gray and massive, was the light of early morning. The
room grew colder.
He got under the blanket and he closed his eyes tight and thought of
nothing: thought of shapes and shadows and lights and colors and all
the things that comprise nothing: he could not sleep.
Robert Holton made a case for himself as he lay in the occasionally
broken dark.
He had no gift. He was an average person. Perhaps not quite average,
he had had many advantages. He was among the many, though. He could
not make a world separate. He wished now that he had told Carla that:
he could not make a world separate. He belonged to the world of all
people and it was wrong to retreat from that world. He felt noble as he
thought of this: it was an excellent argument and he wished that he had
used it.
To have gone to live with Carla would have been a retreat from all
that was right. Right? What had Lewis said about the planes of
understanding? It didn’t matter because Lewis was just another little
fairy. He was perverted in everything. No, it was right not to live
with Carla. He had to do what was expected of him.
Robert Holton built himself an argument, and as he built his barricades
stronger he was aware of discontent, well-hidden beyond the barricade
but still alive. Duty was important and difficult. Nothing that was
right was easy. Was that true? He was becoming confused.
He had worn too many faces. He thought of the myriad faces he had been
made to wear. He had been different with every person he’d ever known.
This lack of consistency bothered him. In the army he had been without
care, without ambition; he had been like Trebling.
With the people in the office he had been cold or warm, as they were.
He had given them what they expected. He had been an actor with too
many rôles to play. Tonight he had played all of them for Carla and
then he had become lost and he had tried to be himself and he found
that he was not enough.
Every person saw him differently, not entirely because every person was
different, but because he had also intended it to be that way. Now he
did not know himself. He had no way of knowing the person behind the
myriad faces.
For a moment he felt himself sinking. It was like a dream of falling.
He seemed to be descending into a pit without bottom. There was no
longer a Robert Holton: only a series of masks, cracked now and no
longer usable, no longer convincing. He could never use one again.
He stopped falling; by an effort of will he stopped himself. Carla was
gone and he was sorry. There was no one else and loneliness now crept
out of the silence. He would have to build the barricades stronger and
higher. He would shut loneliness out.
The masks were no longer good. Carla had helped him break them. This
was to be a beginning then. He would assume an identity. He would
become a decided person and he would cease to be changed by others.
Robert Holton would become a successful broker working in an office.
The decision was made and he felt secure at last. The words and
thoughts that had been in his mind, troubling him, stopped abruptly. He
had a magic of his own and he had used it and it worked. Now he was
free. There would be no more talk of going away to Florence and living
with a pretty woman who loved him and wanted him to be different. He
was resolved at last. It was as simple as that. With great effort he
assumed an identity and freed himself from doubt.
He stopped twisting. The fever was leaving and he was tired.
Robert Holton turned over on his stomach and took a deep breath. Soon
he would be asleep. All his questions were solved--except one. There
was still something to be taken care of, something not very important,
but bothersome. He frowned with his eyes shut. Then he opened them and
he looked across the room at the dark outline of the picture frame.
The dream.
He hadn’t been able to remember the dream of the night before: the
troubling, unpleasant dream. It had great significance, he knew.
His only half-conscious mind tried to remember. He kept it purposefully
unawake because in this state, between sensation and memory, most
dreams could be recalled.
For a long time he wondered. But he could not remember, and he went to
sleep finally, exhausted, and in his mind was hidden the dream of the
night before, the secret dream, the dream of death, of living. He had
almost remembered.
_Chapter Fourteen_
The next day was cold, colder than the early morning had been.
Robert Holton took a bath, dressed, and went down in the elevator. He
said good morning to the man at the desk who gave him a letter from
his father. Then he went outside; shivering, he walked to the subway
station. Without buying a paper he went down into the ground and at
Wall Street he came to the surface again.
* * * * *
Marjorie Ventusa was glad to see him. The movie she had seen the night
before had been a successful tragedy and she had wept and had been able
to think about herself less tragically afterward.
She watched him as he came into the restaurant. He went to his usual
table and sat down. After he was seated she picked up a tray and walked
over to him.
“Good morning, Mr Holton,” she said, and smiled.
“Hello, Marjorie. How’s everything going?”
“Fine, just fine. Weather’s getting cold, though.” She noticed that he
had dark circles under his eyes. She tried not to think of what he
might have been doing with the dark-haired girl.
“Got anything good for breakfast? I feel pretty worn out today.”
“I guess you were out late last night.”
He nodded. She couldn’t stop asking now; she couldn’t stop thinking
about Robert Holton and the dark-haired girl.
“Probably one of those big parties, I guess.”
He nodded and said, “Sure, one of those big parties.”
She was not sorry that he lied. “We got some good sausage today,” she
said.
“I’ll take whatever you got ... and black coffee.”
“Sure, I’ll go get it.” She walked back to the kitchen. She frowned
when she saw Mrs Merrin looking at her. She had to look serious even
though she was happy. He had at least not wanted to tell her that he
was out with another girl. She had made so many images of Holton and
herself that she accepted an imagined closeness as real. He had not
really been unfaithful this time.
She called out his order to the cook and then she fixed her snood in
the steamy mirror. She had bought a dark snood and she noticed now that
it made her hair look darker, look rather mysterious. It felt good to
look mysterious.
His breakfast was ready and she took it out to him.
She made herself busy at the next table and she talked to him as she
worked.
“You like going out to them big parties?”
“Not so much.”
“Why do you go?”
“Business, I guess. It’s good to see all the big shots.”
“You’re right there; you’re sure right there.”
“What’s that you got on your head?”
She giggled self-consciously and wished that she didn’t get so silly
when she was pleased. “Just a snood. I’ve had it such a long time.”
This was not true.
“Looks nice,” said Holton seriously, biting into a piece of bread.
“Thank you; I like it.” No, that was wrong, it sounded defiant and she
didn’t mean that. She added in a much softer voice, “I’m glad you like
it.”
He ate then and she put dirty dishes on her tray. Then he said,
“When’re you going to Italy with me?”
She laughed. “I got some previous engagements before. Any other time,
though.”
“I’m told it’s nice there,” said Holton and she noticed that he looked
sad and she was happy to think that he was a little concerned about
her, that he was almost serious when he talked about Italy.
“Maybe we’ll go some other time,” she said.
“Sure,” said Holton, “maybe we’ll go some other time.” He drank his
coffee. He looked at his watch. “Lord, I’m late,” he said. He paid her
quickly. “See you at lunch.”
“See you at lunch, Mr Holton.” She watched him go out the door and into
the crowded street.
She cleared his table. Then she went gaily back to the kitchen, her
hair bobbing mysteriously in its snood. She was glad she hadn’t told
him she’d seen him in Times Square.
* * * * *
“Late, aren’t you?” asked Caroline when Holton came into the office.
She knew he was late but she was in a mood of violent humor; she was
always this way when she was happy and she was happy today because of
Trebling.
“Not very,” said Holton and he went to his desk. Mr Murphy hadn’t come
in yet and he was safe. Caroline sat for a moment enjoying the pale
white sunlight that shone across her desk. Then she got up and came
over to Holton’s desk.
She was awkward now. She wanted to find out things but she didn’t want
to be subtle. She tried anyway. “I was out with Jim last night,” she
began.
“How do you like him?” Holton wasn’t paying much attention to her and
this was irritating. He was busy putting books on his desk. She looked
around to see if anyone was watching. Kuppelton was out of the room and
no one else appeared interested. She sat down on his desk.
“I like him quite a bit,” she said.
He looked at her. “Good,” he said. “Jim’s a fine fellow. You’ll have
fun playing around with him.”
“I suppose I will.”
“Just don’t take him too seriously, though. He’s sort of an expert with
girls.” How shallow Holton was, thought Caroline. “Just play with him
and you’ll be all right. A lot of girls’ve liked him.”
“I can understand that. He’s really serious about starting something
himself. At least he doesn’t want to work for somebody like everybody
else wants.” She wanted this to be sharp; she didn’t care if it hurt or
not.
“That’s a good thing to want,” said Holton. How dull he is, thought
Caroline, comparing him unfavorably with Jim Trebling.
There was nothing she wanted to know from Holton. “How was your society
party?” she asked.
“It was O.K.,” said Holton. “It was interesting.”
I’ll bet, thought Caroline. She was impatient of others now that she
knew she was appreciated, knew that she was to see Trebling that night.
“Well, don’t work too hard,” said Caroline, getting up from the desk.
“By the way, I’m going out with Jim tonight.”
“Better be careful,” said Holton seriously.
She laughed. “I’m always careful; didn’t you know that?”
* * * * *
Heywood was feeling well. He had managed to get home early the night
before. That was one advantage in going to the theater alone: you
didn’t have to go some place afterward and get drunk.
He sat contentedly in the mahogany twilight of his large office,
looking at a photograph of himself. There was no particular work to be
done. Golden hadn’t bothered him yet and it would be almost an hour
before he had his first conference.
A buzz came out of the box on his desk. He pressed a button.
“Mr Murphy to see you,” said his secretary, concealed in the box.
“Send him in.” There was something he had to tell Murphy. Something to
do with the party. The young man, Robert Holton: he was to do something
for him.
“Good morning, Murphy.” Mr Heywood did not bother to rise.
“Morning, Mr Heywood,” said Murphy and Heywood wished his voice wasn’t
so loud. It jarred the twilight mood of the office.
“I’ve got some statistics here, the ones on Steel stocks; the ones
showing fluctuation and ...”
“Ah, yes, Murphy, that’s very good of you to have them for me so
promptly. I have another matter to discuss....” Heywood paused to make
sure that Murphy was listening to him carefully. “This boy, Holton,”
he went on, “I think he might do better dealing with the public, don’t
you?”
“Yes,” said Murphy judiciously, “yes, I think that might be a good
place for him. You saw him last night?”
“What? Oh, yes, I saw him last night. I had a pleasant talk with him.
He’s a clever young man, I think.”
“Yes, he’s got a good head on his shoulders,” agreed Murphy.
“You will tell him, won’t you, about his promotion and, ah, transfer?”
“Certainly. He’ll be glad to hear this. I’ll be glad to tell him. And,
by the way, there’s another matter in my section....”
“And what is that?” asked Heywood gently, trying not to yawn.
“Well, we’ve a man named Kuppelton who’s always done a good job and I
think he should get the usual promotion in that department. The one we
had in mind for Holton.”
Heywood sighed. “Certainly, Murphy; I rely, as always, on your
recommendation in these cases.”
“Thank you....” They talked then of nothing that interested Mr Heywood.
Finally Murphy left.
Mr Heywood yawned and stretched. He was rested and almost happy. He
would make good decisions today. He sat back in his chair and looked at
the photograph of himself. He would divorce his wife and go to South
America for a year. Or perhaps he wouldn’t divorce his wife but take
her to South America instead. It was strange but he looked younger now
than he did when the photograph was taken several years before.
* * * * *
When Kuppelton heard the news his first impulse was to call his mother
immediately on the phone and tell her all about it. He decided not to,
though, because, after all, it wasn’t completely official. He did talk
to Holton about it.
“Congratulations,” he said as he came over to Holton’s desk. Mr Murphy
had already gone to lunch and it was safe to talk.
“Thanks,” said Holton, smiling. He didn’t seem as happy as Kuppelton
expected him to be.
“Caroline just told me that Mr Murphy told you you were going to be
a customers’ man and I’m certainly glad to see you’re getting ahead.
I always thought that this job would be too small to hold you.” He
paused. “When do you think you’ll move out?” he asked, looking away.
“The first of next week probably.” Holton chuckled. “I guess you’ll be
sorry to see me leave.”
Kuppelton recognized the sarcasm but he didn’t care. “Sure I’m sorry.
Of course, it’s good news, in a way, for me.”
“It is at that.”
“You sure got a good deal. Well, you can’t beat City Hall I always say.”
“You always say that?”
“What? Well, no, but.... What I meant was....”
Robert Holton only laughed.
Kuppelton tried to talk some more with him but it was very difficult;
they never had liked each other, anyway. Kuppelton left him to go to
lunch.
He was jubilant but dignified as he put on his coat and hat and walked
down the corridor. He would have a lot of news to tell his mother
tonight. Everything had worked out nicely and soon he would be making
more money and everyone he knew was happy.