I
BABBITT was fond of his friends, he loved the importance
of being host and shouting, "Certainly, you're going to have
smore chicken—the idea!'' and he appreciated the genius of
T. Cholmondeley Frink, but the vigor of the cocktails was
gone, and the more he ate the less joyful he felt. Then the
amity of the dinner was destroyed by the nagging of the Swansons.
In Floral Heights and the other prosperous sections of Zenith,
especially in the "young married set,'' there were many
women who had nothing to do. Though they had few servants,
yet with gas stoves, electric ranges and dish-washers and
vacuum cleaners, and tiled kitchen walls, their houses were
so convenient that they had little housework, and much of
their food came from bakeries and delicatessens. They had
but two, one, or no children; and despite the myth that the
Great War had made work respectable, their husbands objected
to their "wasting time and getting a lot of crank ideas''
in unpaid social work, and still more to their causing a rumor,
by earning money, that they were not adequately supported.
They worked perhaps two hours a day, and the rest of the
time they ate chocolates, went to the motion-pictures, went
window-shopping, went in gossiping twos and threes to card-parties,
read magazines, thought timorously of the lovers who
never appeared, and accumulated a splendid restlessness which
they got rid of by nagging their husbands. The husbands
nagged back.
Of these naggers the Swansons were perfect specimens.
Throughout the dinner Eddie Swanson had been complaining,
publicly, about his wife's new frock. It was, he submitted,
too short, too low, too immodestly thin, and much too expensive.
He appealed to Babbitt:
"Honest, George, what do you think of that rag Louetta
went and bought? Don't you think it's the limit?''
"What's eating you, Eddie? I call it a swell little dress.''
"Oh, it is, Mr. Swanson. It's a sweet frock,'' Mrs. Babbitt
protested.
"There now, do you see, smarty! You're such an authority
on clothes!'' Louetta raged, while the guests ruminated and
peeped at her shoulders.
"That's all right now,'' said Swanson. "I'm authority enough
so I know it was a waste of money, and it makes me tired to
see you not wearing out a whole closetful of clothes you got
already. I've expressed my idea about this before, and you
know good and well you didn't pay the least bit of attention.
I have to camp on your trail to get you to do anything—''
There was much more of it, and they all assisted, all but
Babbitt. Everything about him was dim except his stomach,
and that was a bright scarlet disturbance. "Had too much
grub; oughtn't to eat this stuff,'' he groaned—while he went
on eating, while he gulped down a chill and glutinous slice of
the ice-cream brick, and cocoanut cake as oozy as shaving-cream.
He felt as though he had been stuffed with clay; his
body was bursting, his throat was bursting, his brain was hot
mud; and only with agony did he continue to smile and shout
as became a host on Floral Heights.
He would, except for his guests, have fled outdoors and
walked off the intoxication of food, but in the haze which
filled the room they sat forever, talking, talking, while he
agonized, "Darn fool to be eating all this—not 'nother mouthful,''
and discovered that he was again tasting the sickly welter
of melted ice cream on his plate. There was no magic in his
friends; he was not uplifted when Howard Littlefield produced
from his treasure-house of scholarship the information that the
chemical symbol for raw rubber is
C
10H
16, which turns
into
isoprene, or 2C
5H
8.
Suddenly, without precedent, Babbitt was
not merely bored but admitting that he was bored. It was
ecstasy to escape from the table, from the torture of a straight
chair, and loll on the davenport in the living-room.
The others, from their fitful unconvincing talk, their expressions
of being slowly and painfully smothered, seemed to be
suffering from the toil of social life and the horror of good
food as much as himself. All of them accepted with relief
the suggestion of bridge.
Babbitt recovered from the feeling of being boiled. He won
at bridge. He was again able to endure Vergil Gunch's inexorable
heartiness. But he pictured loafing with Paul Riesling
beside a lake in Maine. It was as overpowering and imaginative
as homesickness. He had never seen Maine, yet he beheld
the shrouded mountains, the tranquil lake of evening. "That
boy Paul's worth all these ballyhooing highbrows put together,''
he muttered; and, "I'd like to get away from—everything.''
Even Louetta Swanson did not rouse him.
Mrs. Swanson was pretty and pliant. Babbitt was not an
analyst of women, except as to their tastes in Furnished Houses
to Rent. He divided them into Real Ladies, Working Women,
Old Cranks, and Fly Chickens. He mooned over their charms
but he was of opinion that all of them (save the women of his
own family) were "different'' and "mysterious.'' Yet he had
known by instinct that Louetta Swanson could be approached.
Her eyes and lips were moist. Her face tapered from a broad
forehead to a pointed chin, her mouth was thin but strong and
avid, and between her brows were two outcurving and passionate
wrinkles. She was thirty, perhaps, or younger. Gossip
had never touched her, but every man naturally and instantly
rose to flirtatiousness when he spoke to her, and every woman
watched her with stilled blankness.
Between games, sitting on the davenport, Babbitt spoke to
her with the requisite gallantry, that sonorous Floral Heights
gallantry which is not flirtation but a terrified flight from it:
"You're looking like a new soda-fountain to night, Louetta.''
"Am I?''
"Ole Eddie kind of on the rampage.''
"Yes. I get so sick of it.''
"Well, when you get tired of hubby, you can run off with
Uncle George.''
"If I ran away— Oh, well—''
"Anybody ever tell you your hands are awful pretty?''
She looked down at them, she pulled the lace of her sleeves
over them, but otherwise she did not heed him. She was lost
in unexpressed imaginings.
Babbitt was too languid this evening to pursue his duty of
being a captivating (though strictly moral) male. He ambled
back to the bridge-tables. He was not much thrilled when
Mrs. Frink, a small twittering woman, proposed that they
"try and do some spiritualism and table-tipping—you know
Chum can make the spirits come—honest, he just scares me!''
The ladies of the party had not emerged all evening, but
now, as the sex given to things of the spirit while the men
warred against base things material, they took command and
cried, "Oh, let's!'' In the dimness the men were rather solemn
and foolish, but the goodwives quivered and adored as they
sat about the table. They laughed, "Now, you be good or
I'll tell!'' when the men took their hands in the circle.
Babbitt tingled with a slight return of interest in life as
Louetta Swanson's hand closed on his with quiet firmness.
All of them hunched over, intent. They startled as some one
drew a strained breath. In the dusty light from the hall they
looked unreal, they felt disembodied. Mrs. Gunch squeaked,
and they jumped with unnatural jocularity, but at Frink's hiss
they sank into subdued awe. Suddenly, incredibly, they heard
a knocking. They stared at Frink's half-revealed hands and
found them lying still. They wriggled, and pretended not to
be impressed.
Frink spoke with gravity: "Is some one there?'' A thud.
"Is one knock to be the sign for `yes'?'' A thud. "And two
for `no'?'' A thud.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen, shall we ask the guide to put
us into communication with the spirit of some great one passed
over?'' Frink mumbled.
Mrs Orville Jones begged, "Oh, let's talk to Dante! We
studied him at the Reading Circle. You know who he was,
Orvy.''
"Certainly I know who he was! The Wop poet. Where do
you think I was raised?'' from her insulted husband.
"Sure—the fellow that took the Cook's Tour to Hell. I've
never waded through his po'try, but we learned about him in
the U.,'' said Babbitt.
"Page Mr. Dannnnnty!'' intoned Eddie Swanson.
"You ought to get him easy, Mr. Frink, you and he being
fellow-poets,'' said Louetta Swanson.
"Fellow-poets, rats! Where d' you get that stuff?'' protested
Vergil Gunch. "I suppose Dante showed a lot of speed
for an old-timer—not that I've actually read him, of course—
but to come right down to hard facts, he wouldn't stand one-two-three
if he had to buckle down to practical literature and
turn out a poem for the newspaper-syndicate every day, like
Chum does!''
"That's so,'' from Eddie Swanson. "Those old birds could
take their time. Judas Priest, I could write poetry myself if
I had a whole year for it, and just wrote about that old-fashioned
junk like Dante wrote about.''
Frink demanded, "Hush, now! I'll call him. . . O, Laughing
Eyes, emerge forth into the, uh, the ultimates and bring
hither the spirit of Dante, that we mortals may list to his
words of wisdom.''
"You forgot to give um the address: 1658 Brimstone Avenue,
Fiery Heights, Hell,'' Gunch chuckled, but the others
felt that this was irreligious. And besides—"probably it was
just Chum making the knocks, but still, if there did happen to
be something to all this, be exciting to talk to an old fellow
belonging to—way back in early times—''
A thud. The spirit of Dante had come to the parlor of
George F. Babbitt.
He was, it seemed, quite ready to answer their questions.
He was "glad to be with them, this evening.''
Frink spelled out the messages by running through the alphabet
till the spirit interpreter knocked at the right letter.
Littlefield asked, in a learned tone, "Do you like it in the
Paradiso, Messire?''
"We are very happy on the higher plane, Signor. We are
glad that you are studying this great truth of spiritualism,''
Dante replied.
The circle moved with an awed creaking of stays and shirt-fronts.
"Suppose—suppose there were something to this?''
Babbitt had a different worry. "Suppose Chum Frink was
really one of these spiritualists! Chum had, for a literary
fellow, always seemed to be a Regular Guy; he belonged to
the Chatham Road Presbyterian Church and went to the
Boosters' lunches and liked cigars and motors and racy stories.
But suppose that secretly— After all, you never could tell
about these darn highbrows; and to be an out-and-out spiritualist
would be almost like being a socialist!''
No one could long be serious in the presence of Vergil Gunch.
"Ask Dant' how Jack Shakespeare and old Verg'—the guy
they named after me—are gettin' along, and don't they wish
they could get into the movie game!'' he blared, and instantly
all was mirth. Mrs. Jones shrieked, and Eddie Swanson desired
to know whether Dante didn't catch cold with nothing
on but his wreath.
The pleased Dante made humble answer.
But Babbitt—the curst discontent was torturing him again,
and heavily, in the impersonal darkness, he pondered, "I
don't— We're all so flip and think we're so smart. There'd
be— A fellow like Dante— I wish I'd read some of his
pieces. I don't suppose I ever will, now.''
He had, without explanation, the impression of a slaggy cliff
and on it, in silhouette against menacing clouds, a lone and
austere figure. He was dismayed by a sudden contempt for
his surest friends. He grasped Louetta Swanson's hand, and
found the comfort of human warmth. Habit came, a veteran
warrior; and he shook himself. "What the deuce is the matter
with me, this evening?''
He patted Louetta's hand, to indicate that he hadn't meant
anything improper by squeezing it, and demanded of Frink,
"Say, see if you can get old Dant' to spiel us some of his
poetry. Talk up to him. Tell him, `Buena giorna, señor, com
sa va, wie geht's? Keskersaykersa a little pome, señor?' ''