I
HE was busy, from March to June. He kept himself from
the bewilderment of thinking. His wife and the neighbors
were generous. Every evening he played bridge or attended
the movies, and the days were blank of face and silent.
In June, Mrs. Babbitt and Tinka went East, to stay with
relatives, and Babbitt was free to do—he was not quite sure
what.
All day long after their departure he thought of the emancipated
house in which he could, if he desired, go mad and
curse the gods without having to keep up a husbandly front.
He considered, "I could have a reg'lar party to-night; stay out
till two and not do any explaining afterwards. Cheers!'' He
telephoned to Vergil Gunch, to Eddie Swanson. Both of them
were engaged for the evening, and suddenly he was bored by
having to take so much trouble to be riotous.
He was silent at dinner, unusually kindly to Ted and Verona,
hesitating but not disapproving when Verona stated her
opinion of Kenneth Escott's opinion of Dr. John Jennison
Drew's opinion of the opinions of the evolutionists. Ted was
working in a garage through the summer vacation, and he related
his daily triumphs: how he had found a cracked ball-race,
what he had said to the Old Grouch, what he had said to
the foreman about the future of wireless telephony.
Ted and Verona went to a dance after dinner. Even the
maid was out. Rarely had Babbitt been alone in the house
for an entire evening. He was restless. He vaguely wanted
something more diverting than the newspaper comic strips to
read. He ambled up to Verona's room, sat on her maidenly
blue and white bed, humming and grunting in a solid-citizen
manner as he examined her books: Conrad's "Rescue,'' a
volume strangely named "Figures of Earth,'' poetry (quite
irregular poetry, Babbitt thought) by Vachel Lindsay, and
essays by H. L. Mencken—highly improper essays, making
fun of the church and all the decencies. He liked none of the
books. In them he felt a spirit of rebellion against niceness
and solid-citizenship. These authors—and he supposed they
were famous ones, too—did not seem to care about telling a
good story which would enable a fellow to forget his troubles.
He sighed. He noted a book, "The Three Black Pennies,'' by
Joseph Hergesheimer. Ah, that was something like it! It
would be an adventure story, maybe about counterfeiting—
detectives sneaking up on the old house at night. He tucked
the book under his arm, he clumped down-stairs and solemnly
began to read, under the piano-lamp:
"A twilight like blue dust sifted into the shallow fold of
the thickly wooded hills. It was early October, but a crisping
frost had already stamped the maple trees with gold, the Spanish
oaks were hung with patches of wine red, the sumach was
brilliant in the darkening underbrush. A pattern of wild geese,
flying low and unconcerned above the hills, wavered against
the serene ashen evening. Howat Penny, standing in the comparative
clearing of a road, decided that the shifting regular
flight would not come close enough for a shot.... He had no
intention of hunting the geese. With the drooping of day his
keenness had evaporated; an habitual indifference strengthened,
permeating him....''
There it was again: discontent with the good common ways.
Babbitt laid down the book and listened to the stillness. The
inner doors of the house were open. He heard from the kitchen
the steady drip of the refrigerator, a rhythm demanding and
disquieting. He roamed to the window. The summer evening
was foggy and, seen through the wire screen, the street lamps
were crosses of pale fire. The whole world was abnormal.
While he brooded, Verona and Ted came in and went up to
bed. Silence thickened in the sleeping house. He put on his
hat, his respectable derby, lighted a cigar, and walked up and
down before the house, a portly, worthy, unimaginative figure,
humming "Silver Threads among the Gold.'' He casually considered,
"Might call up Paul.'' Then he remembered. He
saw Paul in a jailbird's uniform, but while he agonized he
didn't believe the tale. It was part of the unreality of this
fog-enchanted evening.
If she were here Myra would be hinting, "Isn't it late, Georgie?''
He tramped in forlorn and unwanted freedom. Fog hid
the house now. The world was uncreated, a chaos without turmoil
or desire.
Through the mist came a man at so feverish a pace that he
seemed to dance with fury as he entered the orb of glow from
a street-lamp. At each step he brandished his stick and brought
it down with a crash. His glasses on their broad pretentious
ribbon banged against his stomach. Babbitt incredulously
saw that it was Chum Frink.
Frink stopped, focused his vision, and spoke with gravity:
"There's another fool. George Babbitt. Lives for renting
howshes—houses. Know who I am? I'm traitor to poetry.
I'm drunk. I'm talking too much. I don't care. Know what
I could 've been? I could 've been a Gene Field or a James
Whitcomb Riley. Maybe a Stevenson. I could 've. Whimsies.
'Magination. Lissen. Lissen to this. Just made it up:
Glittering summery meadowy noise
Of beetles and bums and respectable boys.
Hear that? Whimzh—whimsy. I made that up. I don't
know what it means! Beginning good verse. Chile's Garden
Verses. And whadi write? Tripe! Cheer-up poems. All
tripe! Could have written— Too late!''
He darted on with an alarming plunge, seeming always to
pitch forward yet never quite falling. Babbitt would have been
no more astonished and no less had a ghost skipped out of the
fog carrying his head. He accepted Frink with vast apathy;
he grunted, "Poor boob!'' and straightway forgot him.
He plodded into the house, deliberately went to the refrigerator
and rifled it. When Mrs. Babbitt was at home, this
was one of the major household crimes. He stood before the
covered laundry tubs, eating a chicken leg and half a saucer
of raspberry jelly, and grumbling over a clammy cold boiled
potato. He was thinking. It was coming to him that perhaps
all life as he knew it and vigorously practised it was futile;
that heaven as portrayed by the Reverend Dr. John Jennison
Drew was neither probable nor very interesting; that he hadn't
much pleasure out of making money; that it was of doubtful
worth to rear children merely that they might rear children
who would rear children. What was it all about? What did
he want?
He blundered into the living-room, lay on the davenport,
hands behind his head.
What did he want? Wealth? Social position? Travel?
Servants? Yes, but only incidentally.
"I give it up,'' he sighed.
But he did know that he wanted the presence of Paul Riesling;
and from that he stumbled into the admission that he
wanted the fairy girl—in the flesh. If there had been a woman
whom he loved, he would have fled to her, humbled his forehead
on her knees.
He thought of his stenographer, Miss McGoun. He thought
of the prettiest of the manicure girls at the Hotel Thornleigh
barber shop. As he fell asleep on the davenport he felt that
he had found something in life, and that he had made a terrifying,
thrilling break with everything that was decent and
normal.