Bab Bab 9 · 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 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 shirtfronts.
“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_?’”
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 coon’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.