Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
CHAPTER IX
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 C10H16, which turns into isoprene, or 2C5H8.
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 *** 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, senor, com sa va,
wie geht's? Keskersaykersa a little pome, senor?'"
II
The lights were switched on; the women sat on the fronts of their chairs in that
determined suspense whereby a wife indicates that as soon as the present
speaker has finished, she is going to
remark brightly to her husband, "Well, dear, I think per-HAPS it's about time for
us to be saying good-night." For once Babbitt did not break out in
blustering efforts to keep the party going.
He had--there was something he wished to think out--But the psychical research had
started them off again. ("Why didn't they go home!
Why didn't they go home!")
Though he was impressed by the profundity of the statement, he was only half-
enthusiastic when Howard Littlefield lectured, "The United States is the only
nation in which the government is a Moral Ideal and not just a social arrangement."
("True--true--weren't they EVER going home?")
He was usually delighted to have an "inside view" of the momentous world of motors but
to-night he scarcely listened to Eddie Swanson's revelation: "If you want to go
above the Javelin class, the Zeeco is a mighty good buy.
Couple weeks ago, and mind you, this was a fair, square test, they took a Zeeco stock
touring-car and they slid up the Tonawanda hill on high, and fellow told me--" ("Zeeco
good boat but--Were they planning to stay all night?")
They really were going, with a flutter of "We did have the best time!"
Most aggressively friendly of all was Babbitt, yet as he burbled he was
reflecting, "I got through it, but for a while there I didn't hardly think I'd last
out."
He prepared to taste that most delicate pleasure of the host: making fun of his
guests in the relaxation of midnight.
As the door closed he yawned voluptuously, chest out, shoulders wriggling, and turned
cynically to his wife. She was beaming.
"Oh, it was nice, wasn't it!
I know they enjoyed every minute of it. Don't you think so?"
He couldn't do it. He couldn't mock.
It would have been like sneering at a happy child.
He lied ponderously: "You bet! Best party this year, by a long shot."
"Wasn't the dinner good!
And honestly I thought the fried chicken was delicious!"
"You bet! Fried to the Queen's taste.
Best fried chicken I've tasted for a ***'s age."
"Didn't Matilda fry it beautifully! And don't you think the soup was simply
delicious?"
"It certainly was! It was corking!
Best soup I've tasted since Heck was a pup!"
But his voice was seeping away.
They stood in the hall, under the electric light in its square box-like shade of red
glass bound with nickel. She stared at him.
"Why, George, you don't sound--you sound as if you hadn't really enjoyed it."
"Sure I did! Course I did!"
"George!
What is it?" "Oh, I'm kind of tired, I guess.
Been pounding pretty hard at the office. Need to get away and rest up a little."
"Well, we're going to Maine in just a few weeks now, dear."
"Yuh--" Then he was pouring it out nakedly, robbed of reticence.
"Myra: I think it'd be a good thing for me to get up there early."
"But you have this man you have to meet in New York about business."
"What man?
Oh, sure. Him. Oh, that's all off.
But I want to hit Maine early--get in a little fishing, catch me a big trout, by
golly!"
A nervous, artificial laugh. "Well, why don't we do it?
Verona and Matilda can run the house between them, and you and I can go any
time, if you think we can afford it."
"But that's--I've been feeling so jumpy lately, I thought maybe it might be a good
thing if I kind of got off by myself and sweat it out of me."
"George!
Don't you WANT me to go along?" She was too wretchedly in earnest to be
tragic, or gloriously insulted, or anything save dumpy and defenseless and flushed to
the red steaminess of a boiled beet.
"Of course I do! I just meant--" Remembering that Paul
Riesling had predicted this, he was as desperate as she.
"I mean, sometimes it's a good thing for an old grouch like me to go off and get it out
of his system." He tried to sound paternal.
"Then when you and the kids arrive--I figured maybe I might skip up to Maine just
a few days ahead of you--I'd be ready for a real bat, see how I mean?"
He coaxed her with large booming sounds, with affable smiles, like a popular
preacher blessing an Easter congregation, like a humorous lecturer completing his
stint of eloquence, like all perpetrators of masculine wiles.
She stared at him, the joy of festival drained from her face.
"Do I bother you when we go on vacations?
Don't I add anything to your fun?" He broke.
Suddenly, dreadfully, he was hysterical, he was a yelping baby.
"Yes, yes, yes!
Hell, yes! But can't you understand I'm shot to
pieces? I'm all in!
I got to take care of myself!
I tell you, I got to--I'm sick of everything and everybody!
I got to--" It was she who was mature and protective
now.
"Why, of course! You shall run off by yourself!
Why don't you get Paul to go along, and you boys just fish and have a good time?"
She patted his shoulder--reaching up to it- -while he shook with palsied helplessness,
and in that moment was not merely by habit fond of her but clung to her strength.
She cried cheerily, "Now up-stairs you go, and pop into bed.
We'll fix it all up. I'll see to the doors.
Now skip!"
For many minutes, for many hours, for a bleak eternity, he lay awake, shivering,
reduced to primitive terror, comprehending that he had won freedom, and wondering what
he could do with anything so unknown and so embarrassing as freedom.