CHAPTER XXVI

by Sinclair Lewis

　　CHAPTER XXVIIAs he walked through the train, looking for familiar faces, he saw onlyone person whom he knew, and that was Seneca Doane, the lawyer who,after the blessings of being in Babbitt's own class at college andof becoming a corporation-counsel, had turned crank, had headedfarmer-labor tickets and fraternized with admitted socialists. Though hewas in rebellion, naturally Babbitt did not care to be seen talkingwith such a fanatic, but in all the Pullmans he could find no otheracquaintance, and reluctantly he halted. Seneca Doane was a slight,thin-haired man, rather like Chum Frink except that he hadn't Frink'sgrin. He was reading a book called "The Way of All Flesh." It lookedreligious to Babbitt, and he wondered if Doane could possibly have beenconverted and turned decent and patriotic."Why, hello, Doane," he said.Doane looked up. His voice was curiously kind. "Oh! How do, Babbitt.""Been away, eh?""Yes, I've been in Washington.""Washington, eh? How's the old Government making out?""It's--Won't you sit down?""Thanks. Don't care if I do. Well, well! Been quite a while since I'vehad a good chance to talk to you, Doane. I was, uh--Sorry you didn'tturn up at the last class-dinner.""Oh-thanks.""How's the unions coming? Going to run for mayor again?" Doane seemedrestless. He was fingering the pages of his book. He said "I might" asthough it didn't mean anything in particular, and he smiled.Babbitt liked that smile, and hunted for conversation: "Saw a bang-upcabaret in New York: the 'Good-Morning Cutie' bunch at the HotelMinton.""Yes, they're pretty girls. I danced there one evening.""Oh. Like dancing?""Naturally. I like dancing and pretty women and good food better thananything else in the world. Most men do.""But gosh, Doane, I thought you fellows wanted to take all the good eatsand everything away from us.""No. Not at all. What I'd like to see is the meetings of theGarment Workers held at the Ritz, with a dance afterward. Isn't thatreasonable?""Yuh, might be good idea, all right. Well--Shame I haven't seen moreof you, recent years. Oh, say, hope you haven't held it against me,my bucking you as mayor, going on the stump for Prout. You see, I'm anorganization Republican, and I kind of felt--""There's no reason why you shouldn't fight me. I have no doubt you'regood for the Organization. I remember--in college you were an unusuallyliberal, sensitive chap. I can still recall your saying to me that youwere going to be a lawyer, and take the cases of the poor for nothing,and fight the rich. And I remember I said I was going to be one ofthe rich myself, and buy paintings and live at Newport. I'm sure youinspired us all.""Well.... Well.... I've always aimed to be liberal." Babbitt wasenormously shy and proud and self-conscious; he tried to look like theboy he had been a quarter-century ago, and he shone upon his old friendSeneca Doane as he rumbled, "Trouble with a lot of these fellows, eventhe live wires and some of 'em that think they're forward-looking, isthey aren't broad-minded and liberal. Now, I always believe in givingthe other fellow a chance, and listening to his ideas.""That's fine.""Tell you how I figure it: A little opposition is good for all of us,so a fellow, especially if he's a business man and engaged in doing thework of the world, ought to be liberal.""Yes--""I always say a fellow ought to have Vision and Ideals. I guess some ofthe fellows in my business think I'm pretty visionary, but I just let'em think what they want to and go right on--same as you do.... Bygolly, this is nice to have a chance to sit and visit and kind of, youmight say, brush up on our ideals.""But of course we visionaries do rather get beaten. Doesn't it botheryou?""Not a bit! Nobody can dictate to me what I think!""You're the man I want to help me. I want you to talk to some ofthe business men and try to make them a little more liberal in theirattitude toward poor Beecher Ingram.""Ingram? But, why, he's this nut preacher that got kicked out ofthe Congregationalist Church, isn't he, and preaches free love andsedition?"This, Doane explained, was indeed the general conception of BeecherIngram, but he himself saw Beecher Ingram as a priest of the brotherhoodof man, of which Babbitt was notoriously an upholder. So would Babbittkeep his acquaintances from hounding Ingram and his forlorn littlechurch?"You bet! I'll call down any of the boys I hear getting funny aboutIngram," Babbitt said affectionately to his dear friend Doane.Doane warmed up and became reminiscent. He spoke of student days inGermany, of lobbying for single tax in Washington, of internationallabor conferences. He mentioned his friends, Lord Wycombe, ColonelWedgwood, Professor Piccoli. Babbitt had always supposed that Doaneassociated only with the I. W. W., but now he nodded gravely, as onewho knew Lord Wycombes by the score, and he got in two references to SirGerald Doak. He felt daring and idealistic and cosmopolitan.Suddenly, in his new spiritual grandeur, he was sorry for ZillaRiesling, and understood her as these ordinary fellows at the Boosters'Club never could.IIFive hours after he had arrived in Zenith and told his wife how hot itwas in New York, he went to call on Zilla. He was buzzing with ideas andforgiveness. He'd get Paul released; he'd do things, vague but highlybenevolent things, for Zilla; he'd be as generous as his friend SenecaDoane.He had not seen Zilla since Paul had shot her, and he still pictured heras buxom, high-colored, lively, and a little blowsy. As he drove upto her boarding-house, in a depressing back street below the wholesaledistrict, he stopped in discomfort. At an upper window, leaning on herelbow, was a woman with the features of Zilla, but she was bloodlessand aged, like a yellowed wad of old paper crumpled into wrinkles. WhereZilla had bounced and jiggled, this woman was dreadfully still.He waited half an hour before she came into the boarding-house parlor.Fifty times he opened the book of photographs of the Chicago World'sFair of 1893, fifty times he looked at the picture of the Court ofHonor.He was startled to find Zilla in the room. She wore a black streaky gownwhich she had tried to brighten with a girdle of crimson ribbon. Theribbon had been torn and patiently mended. He noted this carefully,because he did not wish to look at her shoulders. One shoulder was lowerthan the other; one arm she carried in contorted fashion, as though itwere paralyzed; and behind a high collar of cheap lace there was a gougein the anemic neck which had once been shining and softly plump."Yes?" she said."Well, well, old Zilla! By golly, it's good to see you again!""He can send his messages through a lawyer.""Why, rats, Zilla, I didn't come just because of him. Came as an oldfriend.""You waited long enough!""Well, you know how it is. Figured you wouldn't want to see a friend ofhis for quite some time and--Sit down, honey! Let's be sensible. We'veall of us done a bunch of things that we hadn't ought to, but maybe wecan sort of start over again. Honest, Zilla, I'd like to do something tomake you both happy. Know what I thought to-day? Mind you, Paul doesn'tknow a thing about this--doesn't know I was going to come see you. I gotto thinking: Zilla's a fine? big-hearted woman, and she'll understandthat, uh, Paul's had his lesson now. Why wouldn't it be a fine idea ifyou asked the governor to pardon him? Believe he would, if it came fromyou. No! Wait! Just think how good you'd feel if you were generous.""Yes, I wish to be generous." She was sitting primly, speaking icily."For that reason I wish to keep him in prison, as an example toevil-doers. I've gotten religion, George, since the terrible thing thatman did to me. Sometimes I used to be unkind, and I wished for worldlypleasures, for dancing and the theater. But when I was in the hospitalthe pastor of the Pentecostal Communion Faith used to come to see me,and he showed me, right from the prophecies written in the Word of God,that the Day of Judgment is coming and all the members of the olderchurches are going straight to eternal damnation, because they only dolip-service and swallow the world, the flesh, and the devil--"For fifteen wild minutes she talked, pouring out admonitions to flee thewrath to come, and her face flushed, her dead voice recaptured somethingof the shrill energy of the old Zilla. She wound up with a furious:"It's the blessing of God himself that Paul should be in prison now, andtorn and humbled by punishment, so that he may yet save his soul, and soother wicked men, these horrible chasers after women and lust, may havean example."Babbitt had itched and twisted. As in church he dared not move duringthe sermon so now he felt that he must seem attentive, though herscreeching denunciations flew past him like carrion birds.He sought to be calm and brotherly:"Yes, I know, Zilla. But gosh, it certainly is the essence of religionto be charitable, isn't it? Let me tell you how I figure it: What weneed in the world is liberalism, liberality, if we're going to getanywhere. I've always believed in being broad-minded and liberal--""You? Liberal?" It was very much the old Zilla. "Why, George Babbitt,you're about as broad-minded and liberal as a razor-blade!""Oh, I am, am I! Well, just let me tell you, just--let me--tell--you,I'm as by golly liberal as you are religious, anyway! YOU RELIGIOUS!""I am so! Our pastor says I sustain him in the faith!""I'll bet you do! With Paul's money! But just to show you how liberalI am, I'm going to send a check for ten bucks to this Beecher Ingram,because a lot of fellows are saying the poor cuss preaches sedition andfree love, and they're trying to run him out of town.""And they're right! They ought to run him out of town! Why, hepreaches--if you can call it preaching--in a theater, in the House ofSatan! You don't know what it is to find God, to find peace, to beholdthe snares that the devil spreads out for our feet. Oh, I'm so glad tosee the mysterious purposes of God in having Paul harm me and stopmy wickedness--and Paul's getting his, good and plenty, for the cruelthings he did to me, and I hope he DIES in prison!"Babbitt was up, hat in hand, growling, "Well, if that's what you callbeing at peace, for heaven's sake just warn me before you go to war,will you?"IIIVast is the power of cities to reclaim the wanderer. More than mountainsor the shore-devouring sea, a city retains its character, imperturbable,cynical, holding behind apparent changes its essential purpose. ThoughBabbitt had deserted his family and dwelt with Joe Paradise in thewilderness, though he had become a liberal, though he had been quitesure, on the night before he reached Zenith, that neither he nor thecity would be the same again, ten days after his return he could notbelieve that he had ever been away. Nor was it at all evident to hisacquaintances that there was a new George F. Babbitt, save that he wasmore irritable under the incessant chaffing at the Athletic Club, andonce, when Vergil Gunch observed that Seneca Doane ought to be hanged,Babbitt snorted, "Oh, rats, he's not so bad."At home he grunted "Eh?" across the newspaper to his commentatory wife,and was delighted by Tinka's new red tam o'shanter, and announced, "Noclass to that corrugated iron garage. Have to build me a nice frameone."Verona and Kenneth Escott appeared really to be engaged. Inhis newspaper Escott had conducted a pure-food crusade againstcommission-houses. As a result he had been given an excellent job in acommission-house, and he was making a salary on which he could marry,and denouncing irresponsible reporters who wrote stories criticizingcommission-houses without knowing what they were talking about.This September Ted had entered the State University as a freshman in theCollege of Arts and Sciences. The university was at Mohalis only fifteenmiles from Zenith, and Ted often came down for the week-end. Babbitt wasworried. Ted was "going in for" everything but books. He had tried to"make" the football team as a light half-back, he was looking forwardto the basket-ball season, he was on the committee for the FreshmanHop, and (as a Zenithite, an aristocrat among the yokels) he was being"rushed" by two fraternities. But of his studies Babbitt could learnnothing save a mumbled, "Oh, gosh, these old stiffs of teachers justgive you a lot of junk about literature and economics."One week-end Ted proposed, "Say, Dad, why can't I transfer over from theCollege to the School of Engineering and take mechanical engineering?You always holler that I never study, but honest, I would study there.""No, the Engineering School hasn't got the standing the College has,"fretted Babbitt."I'd like to know how it hasn't! The Engineers can play on any of theteams!"There was much explanation of the "dollars-and-cents value of beingknown as a college man when you go into the law," and a truly oratoricalaccount of the lawyer's life. Before he was through with it, Babbitt hadTed a United States Senator.Among the great lawyers whom he mentioned was Seneca Doane."But, gee whiz," Ted marveled, "I thought you always said this Doane wasa reg'lar nut!""That's no way to speak of a great man! Doane's always been a goodfriend of mine--fact I helped him in college--I started him out and youmight say inspired him. Just because he's sympathetic with the aims ofLabor, a lot of chumps that lack liberality and broad-mindedness thinkhe's a crank, but let me tell you there's mighty few of 'em that rakein the fees he does, and he's a friend of some of the strongest; mostconservative men in the world--like Lord Wycombe, this, uh, this bigEnglish nobleman that's so well known. And you now, which would yourather do: be in with a lot of greasy mechanics and laboring-men, orchum up to a real fellow like Lord Wycombe, and get invited to his housefor parties?""Well--gosh," sighed Ted.The next week-end he came in joyously with, "Say, Dad, why couldn't Itake mining engineering instead of the academic course? You talk aboutstanding--maybe there isn't much in mechanical engineering, but theMiners, gee, they got seven out of eleven in the new elections to Nu TauTau!"