Loe raamatut: «The Trufflers», lehekülg 13

CHAPTER XXVIII – SUE DOES NOT SEND FOR PETER

THE familiar person of the Worm came in through the bar, stood in the doorway, looked about with quiet keen eyes – tall, carelessly dressed, sandy of hair but mild and reflective of countenance.

The Worm’s eyes rested on Peter. He came across the room.

“Sit down,” said Peter, smiling, his mouth a curving crack in a ghastly face.

“Oh,” said the Worm, “you’ve heard?”

“Heard what?”

The Worm studied him a moment; then said, not without a touch of grave sympathy, “Tell me, Pete – do you happen to know where Sue is?”

Peter heard this; tried to steady himself and speak in the properly casual tone. He swallowed. Then the words rushed out – low, trembling, all bitterness: “She’s up-stairs – with Zanin!”

The Worm turned away. Peter caught his arm. “For God’s sake!” he said. “What is it? What do you want of her? If anybody’s got to tell her anything, it’ll be me!” And he pushed back his chair.

The Worm laid a strong hand on his shoulder, held him firmly down in the chair.

“Pete,” he said – quiet, deliberate – “if you try to go up those stairs I myself will throw you down.”

Peter struggled a little. “But – but – good God! Who do you think you are! You mean to say – ” He stopped short, stared up at the Worm, swallowed again. Then, “I get you!” he said. “I get you! Like the damn fool I am, I never dreamed. So you’re after her, too. You, with your books, your fine disinterestedness, your easy friendly ways – you’re out for yourself, behind that bluff, just like the rest of us!”

The Worm glanced about the room. Neither had raised his voice. No one was giving them any particular attention. He relaxed his grip of Peter’s arm; dropped into the chair opposite; leaned over the table on folded arms; fixed his rather compelling eyes on Peter’s ashen face.

“Pete,” he said, very quiet, very steady, “listen to me carefully. And don’t spill any paranoia tonight. If you do – if you start anything like that crazy fight at the Muscovy – I’ll take a hand myself. Now sit quiet and try to hear what I say.”

Peter was still swallowing. The Worm went steadily on. “A neighbor of the Wilde’s just now called up the apartment. They thought they might get Hy Lowe to find Sue and fetch her home. But Hy-”

“He’s – ” began Peter.

“Yes, I saw him. He’s outside here. He wants to sit on the curbstone and read the evening paper. A couple of chauffeurs were reasoning with him when I came in. I’m going to find her myself.”

“But what’s happened! You – ”

“Her father has taken poison. They think he is dying. His wife went right to pieces. Everything a mess – and two young children. They hadn’t even got the doctor in when this man telephoned. He thinks the old boy is gone.”

“But – but – that’s absurd! It couldn’t act so quickly!”

The Worm stared; his face set perceptibly. “It has acted. He didn’t take the bichloride route. He drank carbolic.”

“But that – that’s awful!”

“Yes, it’s awful. There’s a newspaper man there, raising hell. They can’t get him out – or couldn’t. Now keep this straight – if you go one step up those stairs or if you try to come out and speak to Sue before I get her away, I’ll break your head.”

“She’ll send for me,” said Peter, sputtering.

“Perhaps,” observed Henry Bates; and swiftly left the room.

Sue Wilde returned from her brief interview with Peter. Two or three groups of early diners greeted her as she passed.

Jacob Zanin watched her – her brisk little nod and quiet smile for these acquaintances, her curiously boylike grace, the fresh tint of her olive skin. She was a bit thin, he thought; her hard work as principal actress in the Nature Film, coupled with the confusion he knew she had passed through during that brief wild engagement to Peter Mann, had worn her down.

She had always puzzled him. She puzzled him now, as she resumed her seat, met his gaze, said: “Jacob, give me a cigarette.”

“Sue – you’re off them.”

“While the film job was on. Breaking training now, Jacob.”

“Well,” he mused aloud, “I made you stop for good reason enough. But now I’m not sure that you’re not wise.” And he tossed his box across the table.

While she lighted the cigarette, he studied her.

None knew better than he the interesting variety of girls who came to the Village to seek freedom – some on intense feministic principles (Sue among these), others in search of the nearly mythical country called Buhemia, still others in the knowledge that there they might walk unquestioned without the cap of good repute. There were cliques and cliques in the Village; but all were in agreement regarding a freedom for woman equal to the experimental freedom of man. Love was admitted as a need. The human race was frankly a welter of animals struggling upward in the long process of evolution – struggling wonderfully. Conventional morality was hypocrisy and therefore a vice. Frankness regarding all things, an open mind toward any astonishing new theory in the psychology of the human creature, the divine right of the ego to realize itself at all costs, a fine scorn for all proverbial wisdom, something near a horror of the home, the church, and the practical business world – a blend of these was the Village, to be summed up, perhaps, in Waters Coryell’s languid remark: “I find it impossible to talk with any one who was born before 1880.”

Zanin had known many women. In his own way he had loved not a few. With these he had been hard, but not dishonest. He was a materialist, an anarchist, a self-exploiter, ambitious and unrestrained, torn within by the overmastering restlessness that was at once the great gift and the curse of his blood. He wanted always something else, something more. He was strong, fertile of mind, able. He had vision and could suffer. The companionship of a woman – here and there, now and then – meant much to him; but he demanded of her that she give as he would give, without sacrifice of work or self, without obligation. Nothing but what the Village terms “the free relation” was possible for Zanin. Within his peculiar emotional range he had never wanted a woman as he had wanted Sue. He had never given himself to another woman, in energy and companionship, as he had given himself to her.

She had eluded him. She had also eluded Peter. Zanin was capable of despising young women who talked freedom but were afraid to live it. There were such; right here in the Village there were such. But he did not think Sue’s case so simple as that. He spoke out now:

“Been thinking you over, Sue.”

She deposited the ash of her cigarette on a plate, glanced gravely up at him, then lowered her eyes again.

“Any result, Jacob?”

“You haven’t found yourself.”

“That’s right,” said she, “I haven’t. Have you found me?”

He slowly shook his head. “I think you’re doomed to grope for a while longer. I believe you have a good deal to find – more than some. You remember a while back when I urged you to take a trip with me?”

She did not lift her eyes at this; merely gazed thoughtfully down at her cigarette. He went on:

“I thought I could help you. I thought you needed love. It seemed to be the next thing for you.”

“Yes,” said she rather shortly – “you told me that.”

“Well, I was wrong. Or my methods were. Something, I or some force, stirred you and to a bad result. You turned from me toward marriage. That plan was worse.”

She seemed about to protest; looked up now, threw out her hands.

“At least,” he pressed on, “as a plan, it didn’t carry.”

Her fine brows drew together perceptibly. “That’s over, Jacob.”

“All right.” He settled back in his chair and looked about the lung room. It was filling rapidly. There were long hair and flowing ties, evening suits, smart gowns, bright lights, gay talk in two tongues, and just now, music. “Tell me this much, Sue. What are you up to? There’s no more Crossroads, no more Nature Film – lord, but that was a job! No more of that absurd engagement. This is why I dragged you out to-night. I’m wondering about you. What are you doing?”

“Jacob,” she said, “I’m drifting.”

“I heard you were trying to write.”

“Trying – yes! A girl has to appear to be doing something.”

“No plans at all, eh?”

She met this with silent assent.

Again he looked about the sprightly room; deliberately thinking. Once she glanced up at him; then waited.

“Sue,” he said, “I think I see you a little more clearly. If I’m wrong, correct me. You have an unusual amount of strength – or something. I don’t know what it is. I’ll fall back on the safe old word, personality. You’ve got plenty of intelligence. And your stage work, your dancing – you’re gifted as all get-out. But you’re like clockwork, you’re no good unless your mainspring is working. You have to be wound up.”

For the first time in this talk Sue’s green-brown eyes lighted. She leaned over the table now and spoke with a flash of feeling.

“That’s it, I believe,” she said. “I’ve got to feel deeply – about something. I’ve got to have a religion.”

“Exactly, Sue. There’s a fanatical strain in you. You came into the Village life fresh from college with a whole set of brand-new enthusiasms. Fanatical enthusiasms. The attitude toward life that most of us take for granted – like it, feel it, just because it is us – you came at us like a wild young Columbus. You hadn’t always believed it.”

“I always resented parental authority,” said she. “Yes, I know. I’m not sure your revolt wasn’t more a personal reaction than a social theory. They tried to tie you down. Your father – well, the less said about him the letter. Preaching that old, old, false stuff, commercializing it, stifling your growth.”

“Don’t let’s discuss him, Jacob.”

“Very good. But the home was a conspiracy against you. His present wife isn’t your mother, you told me once.”

“No, she isn’t my mother.”

“Well” – he paused, thinking hard – “look here, Sue, what in thunder are you to do! You’re no good without that mainspring, that faith.”

She was silent, studying the table between them – silent, sober, not hostile. Life was not a joyous crusade; it was a grim dilemma. And an insistent pressure. She knew this now. The very admiration she felt for this strong man disarmed her in resisting him. He told the bald truth. She had fought him away once, only to involve herself with the impossible Peter; an experience that now left her the weaker before him. He knew this, of course. And he was a man to use every resource in getting what he wanted. There was little to object to in him, if you accepted him at all. And she had accepted him. As in a former crisis between them, he made her feel a coward.

“It brings me back to the old topic, Sue. I could help you, if you could let me. You have fought love down. You tried to compromise on marriage. Nothing in that. Better live your life, girl! You’ve got to keep on. You can’t conceivably marry Peter; you can’t drift along here without a spark alight in you, fighting life; you can’t go back home, licked. God knows you can’t do that! Give me a chance Sue. Try me. Stop this crazy resistance to your own vital needs. Damn it, be human!”

Sue, lips compressed, eyes misty, color rising a little, looked up, avoided Zanin’s eyes; gazed as he had been doing, about the room. And coming in through the wide door she saw the long figure of Henry Bates, whom friends called the Worm. She watched him, compressing her lips a little more, knitting her brows, while he stood looking from table to table. His calm face, unassertive, reflective, whimsical in the slight squint of the eyes, was deeply reassuring. She was fond of Henry Bates.

He came across the room; greeted Zanin briefly; gripped Sue’s hand.

“Sit down, Henry,” said she.

He stood a moment, considering the two of them, then took the chair a waiter slid forward.

“I’m here on a curious mission, Sue,” he said. She felt the touch of solemnity in his voice and gave him a quick glance. “I’ve been sent to find you.”

“What” – said she, all nerves – “what has happened?”

“An accident At your home, Sue. They believe that your father is dying. He has asked for you. It was a neighbor who called – a Mr. Deems – and from what little he could tell me I should say that you are needed there.”

Her hands moved nervously; she threw them out in the quick way she had and started to speak; then giving it up let them drop and pushed back her chair. For the moment she seemed to see neither man: her gaze went past them; her mouth twitched.

Zanin sat back, smoked, looked from one to the other. He was suddenly out of it. He had never known a home, in Russia or America. There was something between Henry Rates and Sue Wilde, a common race memory, a strain in their spiritual fiber that he did not share; something he could not even guess at. Whatever it was he could see it gripping her, touching and rousing hidden depths. So much her face told him. He kept silent.

She turned to him now. “You’ll excuse me, Jacob?” she said, very quiet.

“You’re going, then?” said he. He was true to his creed. There was no touch of conventional sentiment in his voice. He had despised everything her father’s life meant; he despised it now.

“Yes,” she said, and nodded with sudden nervous energy – a rising color in her cheeks, her head erect, shoulders stiffened, a flash in her eyes – such a flash as no one had seen there for a long time – “Yes, I’m going – home.”

Zanin sat alone, looking after them as they walked quietly out of the restaurant. He lighted a fresh cigarette, deliberately blew out the match, stared at it as if it had been a live thing, then flicked it over his shoulder with a snap of his thumb.

CHAPTER XXIX – AT THE CORNER OF TENTH

PETER sat alone in the corner room downstairs. Mechanically he turned the pages of Le Sourire– turned them forward and back, tried to see what lay before his eyes, tried indeed, to appear as should appear that well-known playwright, “Eric” Mann. “I must think objectively,” he told himself. “That’s the great thing – to think objectively.”

Time was passing – minutes, hours, years. He was trying to think out how long it had been since the Worm went up-stairs. “Was it one minute or ten?”

There was a sudden new noise outside – a voice. He listened intently. It was Hy Lowe’s voice; excited, incoherent, shouting imprecations of some sort. Somebody ought to take Hy home. On any occasion short of the present crisis he would do it himself. Gradually the voice died down.

He heard the side-street door open and close.

Some One had entered the barroom. He tipped back and peered out there. He could see part of a bulky back, a familiarly bulky back. It moved over a little. It was the back of Sumner Smith.

Peter got up, turned, then stood irresolute. It was not, he told himself, that he was afraid of Sumner Smith, only that the mere sight of the man stirred uncomfortable and wild emotions within him.

The best way to get out, in fact the only way now, was through the adjoining room to the door under the front steps. Certainly he couldn’t go up-stairs. There might be trouble on the Avenue if the Worm should see him coming out. For a moment he even considered swallowing down all this outrageous emotional upheaval within him and staying there. He had said that Sue would send for him. During ten or twelve seconds out of every sixty he firmly believed she would. It was so in his plays – let the heartless girl, in her heyday, jilt a worthy lover, she was sure in her hours of trial to flee, chastened, to his arms.

But he looked again at the back of Sumner Smith. It was a solid back. It suggested, like the man’s inscrutable round face, quiet power. Peter decided on flight via that front door.

He moved slowly across the room. Then he heard a voice that chilled his hot blood.

“Mann,” said this voice.

He turned. One or two men glanced up from their papers, then went on reading.

Peter stood wavering. Sumner Smith’s eye was full on him from the barroom door; Sumner Smith’s head was beckoning him with a jerk. He went.

“What’ll you have?” he asked hurriedly, in the barroom.

“What’ll I have?” mimicked Sumner Smith in a voice of rumbling calm. “You’re good, Maun. But if anybody was to buy, it’d be me. The joke, you see, is on me. Only nobody’s buying at the moment. You send me out – an Evening Earth man! – to pull off a murder for the morning papers. Oh, it’s good! I grant you, it’s good. I do your little murder; the morning papers get the story. Just to make sure of it you send Jimmie Markham around after me. It’s all right, Mann. I’ve done your murder. The Continental’s getting the story now – a marvel of a story. There’s a page in it for them to-morrow. As for you – I don’t know what you are. And I don’t care to soil any of the words I know by putting ‘em on you!”

Even Peter now caught the rumble beneath the calm surface of that voice. And he knew it was perhaps the longest speech of Sumner Smith’s eventful life. Peter’s stomach, heart, lungs and spine seemed to drop out of his body, leaving a cold hollow frame that could hardly be strong enough to support his shoulders and head. But he drew himself up and replied with some dignity in a voice that was huskier and higher than his own:

“I can’t match you in insults, Smith. I appear to have a choice between leaving you and striking you. I shall leave you.”

“The choice is yours,” said Smith. “Either you say.”

“I shall leave you,” repeated Peter; and walked, very erect, out to the side street.

Here, near the corner of the Avenue, he found Hy Lowe, leaning against the building, weeping, while four taxi chauffeurs and two victoria drivers stood by. It occurred to Peter that it might, be best, after all, to give up brooding over his own troubles and take the boy home. He could bundle him into a taxi. And once at the old apartment building in the Square, John the night man would help carry him up. It would be rather decent, for that matter, to pay for the taxi just as if it was a matter of course and never mention it to Hy. Of course, however, if Hy were to remember the occurrence – A fist landed in Peter’s face – not a hard fist, merely a limp, folded-over hand. Peter brushed it aside. It was the fist of Hy Lowe. Hy lurched at him now, caught his shoulders, tried to shake him. He was saying things in a rapidly rising voice. After a moment of ineffectual wrestling, Peter began to catch what these things were:

“Call yourself frien’ – take bread outa man’s mouth! Oh, I know. No good tryin’ lie to me – tellin’ me Sumner Smith don’ know what he’s talkin’! Where’s my raise? You jes’ tell me – where’s my raise? Ol’ Walrus gone – croaked – where’s my raise?”

Peter propped him against the building and walked swiftly around the corner.

There he stopped; dodged behind a tree.

Sue and the Worm were running down tire wide front steps. She leaped into the first taxi. The Worm stood, one foot on the step, hand on door, and called. One of Hy’s audience hurried around, brushing past Peter, receiving his instructions as he cranked the engine and leaped to his seat. The door slammed. They were gone.

Peter was sure that something snapped in his brain. It was probably a lesion, he thought. He strode blindly, madly, up the Avenue, crowding past the other pedestrians, bumping into one man and rushing on without a word.

Suddenly – this was a little farther up the Avenue – Peter stopped short, caught his breath, struggled with emotions that even he would have thought mixed. He even turned and walked back a short way. For across the street, back in the shadow of the corner building, his eyes made out the figure of a girl; and he knew that figure, knew the slight droop of the shoulders and the prise of the head.

She had seen him, of course. Yes, this was Tenth Street! With swift presence of mind he stooped and went through the motion of picking up something from the sidewalk. This covered his brief retreat. He advanced now.

She hung back in the shadow of the building. Her dark pretty face was clouded with anger, her breast rose and fell quickly with her breathing. She would not look at him.

He took her arm – her softly rounded arm – in his hand. She wrenched it away.

“Oh, come, Maria, dear,” he murmured rather weakly. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”

She confronted him now. There was passion in her big eyes. Her voice was not under control.

“Why don’t you tell the truth?” she broke out. “You think you can do anything with me – play with me, hurt me.”

“Hush, Maria!” He caught her arm again. “Some one will hear you!”

“Why should I care? Do you think I don’t know – ”

“Child, I don’t know what on earth you mean!”

“You do know! You play with me! You sent for your bags. Why didn’t you come yourself?”

“Why, that – ”

“When you saw me here you stopped – you went back – ”

Peter gulped. “I dropped my keys,” he cried eagerly. “I was swinging them. I had to go back and pick them up.” And triumphantly, with his free hand, he produced them from his pocket.

Within the grip of his other hand he felt her soft arm tremble a little. Her gaze drooped.

“It isn’t just to-night – ” he heard her trying to say.

“Come, dear, here’s a bus! We’ll ride up-town.”

She let him lead her to the curb. Solicitously he handed her up the winding little stairway to a seat on the roof.

There is no one book of Peter’s life. There are a great many little books, some of them apparently unconnected with any of the others. Maria Tonifetti, as you may gather from this unintelligible little scene on a street corner, had one of those detached Peter books all to herself.

Up on the roof of the bus, Peter, reacting with great inner excitement from his experiences of the last three hours, slipped an arm about Maria’s shoulders, bent tenderly over her, whispered softly into her ear. Before the bus reached Forty-second Street he had the satisfaction of feeling her nestle softly and comfortably against his arm, and he knew that once again he had won her. Slowly within his battered spirit the old thrill of conquest stirred and flamed up into a warm glow…