A NIGHT IN JANUARY.
I.
Next morning, when Selwyn left his hotel, a few desultory snowflakes
were falling through the air, and moistly expiring on the asphalt
pavements. It lacked a few minutes of nine, and the thousands who man
the machinery of New York's business were hurrying to their appointed
places. People who had to catch trains were hurrying to stations; and
people who had nowhere to go were hurrying still faster. Taxi-cabs
were rushing people across the city; and other taxi-cabs were rushing
them back again. The overhead railway was rattling and roaring its
noisy way; the surface cars were clattering and clanging through the
traffic; and every half-minute the subways were belching up cargoes of
toilers into the open air.
New York was in a hurry.
All night the great engine of a million parts had lain idle, but
morning was the signal that every wheel must leap into action again,
driven by the inexhaustible army of human souls. Hurry, noise,
clamour, greed, fever, progress. . . . Another day had dawned!
Crossing Broadway to reach Fourth Avenue, Selwyn could not repress a
smile at the stricken glory of the great Midway. The illuminated signs
that had searched the secret crevices of the mind, and had aided the
iridescent foam seen from the harbour, looked tawdry and vulgar, like a
circus on a rainy morning. Even the theatres, with their sign-borne
superlatives, were garish and illusion-shattering. There was almost an
apologetic air about the bill-boards proclaiming their nightly offering
to be the 'biggest ever.'
Selwyn began to resent that word 'biggest.' One of the sad things
about America is that she started out to make language her slave--only
to find that it is becoming her master.
Entering a great office-building, he consulted the directory-board, and
was swooped up to the twenty-fourth floor in a non-stop elevator.
Finding the room of his literary agent, he went in, but a young lady
told him Mr. Lyons was in Chicago.
'It doesn't matter,' said Selwyn. 'I shall see him when he returns.
But I want a couple of addresses. Have you the file of letters to me?
Austin Selwyn is my name.'
The young lady was gratifyingly flustered at the announcement, and by
her haste to produce the required letters indicated the esteem in which
her employer held the author.
'It was early last September,' said he. 'Mr. Lyons mentioned two
names: a Mr. Schneider, who purchased the foreign rights of my stuff;
and some one who wanted me to lecture--yes, that is the letter. Could
you give me the addresses of these gentlemen?'
She wrote them on a card and gave it to him. 'Mr. J. V. Schneider,'
she said, 'is in the Standard Exchange Building, just one block below
here; and Mr. C. B. Benjamin is on 28th Street, in the United
Manufacturing Corporation.'
Thanking her for her courtesy, Selwyn left the office, and going
directly to Mr. Schneider's place of business, sent in his card. He
was ushered through a large room where a dozen typewriters were
clicking noisily, and reaching the private office of Mr. Schneider,
found himself in the presence of a small, crafty-faced man, whose oily
smile and air of deference did not harmonise with his eyes, which were
as shifty and gleaming as those of a rat. He shook hands with his
visitor, and then clawed at the papers on his desk with moist fingers
that were abnormally long.
'Vell, Mister Selvyn,' said Mr. Schneider gutturally, 'to vot do I
attribute dis honour? Have a cigar--sit down.'
'May I break the rule of your office?' said the author, indicating a
sign on the wall which read: 'NIX ON THE WAR.' 'If you will be so
kind, I want to speak of matters not far removed from that subject.'
Mr. Schneider shifted his cigar to the corner of his mouth, and laughed
immoderately.
'Ha, ha, ha!' he roared, leaning forward, and thrusting a long, dirty
finger into Selwyn's chest. 'That is vot I call mine adjustable creed.
For most peoples vot gom' here--Nix. But for fine fellers like you'----
With a greasy chuckle, he mounted his chair and turned the sign about.
On the reverse side there was a coat-of-arms, and the words:
'DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES.'
'Vot you tink?' grinned Mr. Schneider, speaking from the altitude of
the chair. 'Goot, ugh?' He turned the thing about and stepped down
again, wringing his hands in huge enjoyment of the whole thing. 'You
can spik blainly, Mister Selvyn,' he went on amiably. 'Ve unnerstan'
each odder, hein? Von't you smoke one of dem cigars?'
'No,' said Selwyn. He looked at the little man for about ten seconds,
then, crossing to the wall, wrenched the sign away, nail and all.
'Here, here,' protested Mr. Schneider, backing warily to the door, 'vot
for you do dis? Vot you mean, you great big fourflusher?'
The young man eyed the sign and then the German's head, apparently with
the idea of bringing them together. Mr. Schneider further developed
his plan of retreat by taking a grasp of the door-handle.
'That's for people who say "Nix on the War,"' said Selwyn, breaking the
sign in his hands as if it were made of matchwood. 'And this is for
your damned Deutschland!'
He broke the remainder over his knee, and threw the pieces on the flat
desk, upsetting an ink-bottle, the contents of which dripped juicily to
the floor.
'But ain't you,' said Mr. Schneider, in a voice that was almost a
squeal--'don't you got no resbect for Chermany? Only yesterday der
ambassador, he tole me that after the var, for all you wrote to help
der Faderland, der Kaiser, himself, vill on you bestow'----
Before the speaker could acquaint the author with the exact nature of
the honour in store for him, Selwyn had seized him by the coat-lapels,
and was shaking him so violently that Mr. Schneider's natural talent
for double-facedness was developed to a pitch where an observant
looker-on might have counted at least five of him vibrating at once.
'You dirty little hound,' said Selwyn, without relaxing in the least
the shaking process, 'if you ever use my name again, or send out
anything written, or supposed to be written, by me, I'll'----
For once words failed him, and lifting the little man almost off the
floor, he deposited him violently on his own desk, in the midst of the
pool formed by the ink.
'Nix on the war!' snorted Selwyn defiantly, putting on his hat. He was
going to add a few more crushing remarks, but, altering his mind, went
out, slamming the door so violently that all the typewriters engaged in
sending out German propaganda were startled into an instant of silence.
As for Mr. Schneider, he sat still amidst the wreck of his desk,
pondering over a famous definition of war given by an American general
named Sherman.
II.
Without waiting to catch the driver's eye, the impetuous idealist
overtook an empty taxi-cab, and jumped into it.
'United Manufacturing, 28th Street,' he called. 'Make it fast.'
On arrival at his destination he found that Mr. C. B. Benjamin was the
president of the United Manufacturing Corporation, which--so a large
calendar stated--was the biggest business of its kind in the universe.
It had more branches, more output, more character, more push than any
other three enterprises in America.
Mr. Benjamin was in, but could be seen only by appointment, so said a
sleek-haired young man of immaculate dress.
'Give him that card, and tell him I want to see him _at once_,' said
Selwyn, with a forcefulness that caused a look of pain to cross the
young man's countenance.
'Please sit down,' he said, 'and I'll see what I can do.'
As a result of his efforts, Selwyn received a summons to go right
in--which he did, going past a number of people who had various big
propositions to put before the big man when they could gain his ear.
'Good-morning, Mr. Selwyn,' said the president, a smartly dressed Jew,
with a shrewd face and an unquestionable dignity of manner. 'You have
returned to America, I see.'
'Yes, Mr. Benjamin. Do you mind if I come right down to business?'
'Mind? How else could I have built up the United Manufacturing
Corporation? Have a cigar?'
'No, thanks. Mr. Benjamin, you wrote my agent that you wanted me to
lecture on the fallacy of war.'
'Sure,' said the president.
'May I ask why?'
Mr. Benjamin removed his spectacles and wiped them carefully. Putting
them on, he surveyed his visitor through them. After that he took them
off again, and winked confidentially. 'Mr. Selwyn,' he chuckled, 'you
ain't a child, and I see that I can't put over any sob stuff with you.
I told your agent I would pay him real money for you to lecture. Well,
take it from me, when the president of the United Manufacturing
Corporation pays out any of his greenbacks he don't expect nothing for
something, eh?'
'I don't understand you--yet,' said Selwyn quietly.
Mr. Benjamin leaned back in his swivel-chair and cut the end of a cigar
with a little silver knife. 'Business,' he said, 'is business, eh?'
'Agreed,' was the terse response. 'I am still waiting to know why you
offered your money to me.'
Mr. Benjamin leaned forward, and taking up his glasses, waved them
hypnotically at the young man. 'Simply business,' he said. 'Same with
you--same with me. You write all this dope against war--why? Because
you know there's big money in it. I pay you to lecture because you can
help to keep America out of the war. In 1913 I was worth two hundred
thousand dollars. To-day I have ten million. We are wise men, Mr.
Selwyn, both of us. While all the rest of the peoples fight, you and I
make money.'
As if his bones were aching with fatigue, Austin Selwyn rose wearily to
his feet, and, without comment, walked slowly out of the office. But
the clerks noticed that his face was ashy-pale, like that of a prisoner
who has received the maximum sentence of the law.
III.
The days that followed were the bitterest Austin Selwyn had ever known.
It is not in the plan of the Great Dramatist that men shall look on
life and not play a part. It is true that there are a few who escape
the call-boy's summons, and gaze on human existence much as a passing
pageant, but even for them is the knowledge that there is a moment
called Death when every man must take the stage.
For years Austin Selwyn had stood apart, mingling with those who were
enduring the sword-thrusts of fate, as an author chats with the players
on the stage between the acts. Even the great tragedy of war had
served only to enrich the processes of his mind. It is true he had
known compassion, sorrow, and anger through it, but they were only
counterfeit emotions, born of the grip of war on his imagination.
But at last life had reached out its talons and grasped him. Every
human experience he had avoided, he was now to know, multiplied.
Stripped of his last hope of justifying his idealism, he saw remorse,
discouragement, a sense of utter futility, the scorn of friends, the
applause of traitors--he saw them all as shadows closing into blackness
ahead of him.
He tried to return to England, but passport difficulties were made
insurmountable. He went to Boston, only to find that those he valued
turned against him, and those he detested welcomed him as comrade. He
returned to New York, but every avenue of activity was closed to him,
save the one he had chosen for himself--that of world-pacificism.
He had always been a man of strong, underlying passions, and in his
veins there was the hot undissipated blood of youth; but his brain had
been the controlling force in every action of his life. Hitherto he
had never questioned its complete mastery; but as he pondered over his
fall he knew that it was his brain that had ridden him to it. He no
longer trusted its workings. It had proved rebel and brought him to
disaster.
And with that inner challenge came the supreme ordeal of his life.
As rivers, held imprisoned by winter, will burst their confines in the
spring and overrun the land, all the passions which had been cooled and
tempered by his intellectual discipline swarmed through his arteries in
revolt. No longer was the brain dominating the body; instead, he was
on fire with a hundred mad flames of desire, springing from sources he
knew nothing of. They clung to him by day and haunted him at night.
They sang to him that vice had its own heaven, as well as hell--that
licentiousness held forgetfulness. He heard whispers in the air that
there were drugs which opened perfumed caves of delight, and secret
places where sin was made beautiful with mystic music and incense of
flowers.
When conscience--or whatever it is in us that combats desire--urged him
to close his ears to the voices, he cursed it for a meddlesome thing.
Since Life had thrown down the gauntlet, he would take it up! If he
had to travel the chambers of disgrace and discouragement, he would go
on to the halls of sensual abandonment. Life had torn aside the
curtain--it was for him to search the recesses of experience.
IV.
One night towards the end of January Selwyn had tried to sleep, but the
furies of desire called to him in the dark. He got up and dressed. He
did not know where he was going, but he knew that his steps would be
guided to adventure, to oblivion.
There was a drizzling rain falling, and, with his coat buttoned close
about his throat, he walked from street to street, his breath
quickening with the ecstasy of sensual surrender which had at last come
to him. Men spoke to him from dark corners; women called at him as he
passed; he caught faint glimmers down murky alleys, where opium was
opening the gates to bliss and perdition; but, with a step that was
agile and graceful, he went on, his arteries tingling in anticipation
of the senses' gratification. Once a mongrel slunk out of a lane, and
he called to it. It crawled up to him, and he stooped down to stroke
its head, when, with a yelp of terror, it leaped out of his reach and
ran back into the lane. As if it was the best of jests, he laughed
aloud, and picking up a stone, sent it hurtling after the cur. Then he
was suddenly afraid. The loneliness of the spot--the horrors lurking
in the dark--the dog's howl and his own meaningless laughter. He felt
a fear of night--of himself. He hurried on, but it was not until he
reached a lighted street of shops that his courage returned, and with
the courage his fever of desire, greater than before.
An extra burst of rain warned him to seek shelter, and hurrying down
the street, he paused under the canopy of a shabby theatre. There was
one other person there--a woman. She came over to speak to him; but
when she saw the mad gleam of his eyes she drew back, and, with a
frightened exclamation, pressed her hand against her breast.
He made an ironic bow, then, with a smile, looked up at her, and she
heard him utter an ejaculation of amazement.
For a moment he had fancied that it might be true. The likeness was
uncanny! The burnished-copper hair, the silk-fringed eyes, the poise
of her head, the tapering fingers--even in the scarlet of her rouged
cheeks, there was a similarity to the high colouring of the English
girl. What a jest of the Fates--that they should cast this poor
creature of New York's streets in the same mould with her who was the
very spirit of chastity!
'What a mockery!' he muttered aloud. 'What a hideous mockery!'
He was touched with sudden pity. Perhaps this woman had been born with
the same spirit of rebellion as Elise. Perhaps her poor mind had never
been developed, and so she had succumbed to the current of
circumstance. She might have been the plaything of environment. The
wound in his head was hurting again, and he covered the scar with his
moist hand. Horrible as it seemed, this creature had brought Elise to
him once more--Elise, and everything she meant. He wanted to cry out
her name. His hands were stretched forward as if they could bridge the
sea between them.
Like a man emerging from a trance, he looked dreamily about him--at the
street running with streams of water--at the silent theatre--at the
woman. A weakness came over him, and his pulses were fluttering and
unsteady.
A peddler of umbrellas passed, and Selwyn purchased one for a dollar.
'Won't you take this?' he asked, stepping over to the woman, who
cringed nervously. 'It is raining hard, and you will need it.'
She took the thing, and looked up at him wonderingly, like a child that
has received a caress where it expected a blow.
'Say,' she said, in a queer nasal whine, 'I thought you was a devil
when I seen you a minute ago. Honest--you frightened me.'
He said nothing.
'Why'--there was a weak quaver in her whine, and she caught his wrist
with her hand--'why, you're kind--and I thought you was a devil. Gee!
ain't it funny?'
With a shrill laugh that set his teeth on edge, she put up the umbrella
and walked out into the rain. And only a passing policeman saw, by the
light of a lamp, that her eyes were glistening.
Selwyn remained where he was, blinking stupidly into the rain-soaked
night, as one who has been walking in his sleep and has waked at the
edge of an abyss.