CHAPTER XXI

by Sinclair Lewis

　　IGRAY steel that seems unmoving because it spins so fast in the balancedfly-wheel, gray snow in an avenue of elms, gray dawn with the sun behindit--this was the gray of Vida Sherwin's life at thirty-six.She was small and active and sallow; her yellow hair was faded, andlooked dry; her blue silk blouses and modest lace collars and high blackshoes and sailor hats were as literal and uncharming as a schoolroomdesk; but her eyes determined her appearance, revealed her as apersonage and a force, indicated her faith in the goodness and purposeof everything. They were blue, and they were never still; they expressedamusement, pity, enthusiasm. If she had been seen in sleep, with thewrinkles beside her eyes stilled and the creased lids hiding the radiantirises, she would have lost her potency.She was born in a hill-smothered Wisconsin village where her fatherwas a prosy minister; she labored through a sanctimonious college; shetaught for two years in an iron-range town of blurry-faced Tatars andMontenegrins, and wastes of ore, and when she came to Gopher Prairie,its trees and the shining spaciousness of the wheat prairie made hercertain that she was in paradise.She admitted to her fellow-teachers that the schoolbuilding wasslightly damp, but she insisted that the rooms were "arranged soconveniently--and then that bust of President McKinley at the head ofthe stairs, it's a lovely art-work, and isn't it an inspiration to havethe brave, honest, martyr president to think about!" She taught French,English, and history, and the Sophomore Latin class, which dealt inmatters of a metaphysical nature called Indirect Discourse and theAblative Absolute. Each year she was reconvinced that the pupils werebeginning to learn more quickly. She spent four winters in building upthe Debating Society, and when the debate really was lively one Fridayafternoon, and the speakers of pieces did not forget their lines, shefelt rewarded.She lived an engrossed useful life, and seemed as cool and simple as anapple. But secretly she was creeping among fears, longing, and guilt.She knew what it was, but she dared not name it. She hated even thesound of the word "sex." When she dreamed of being a woman of the harem,with great white warm limbs, she awoke to shudder, defenseless inthe dusk of her room. She prayed to Jesus, always to the Son of God,offering him the terrible power of her adoration, addressing him as theeternal lover, growing passionate, exalted, large, as she contemplatedhis splendor. Thus she mounted to endurance and surcease.By day, rattling about in many activities, she was able to ridicule herblazing nights of darkness. With spurious cheerfulness she announcedeverywhere, "I guess I'm a born spinster," and "No one will ever marrya plain schoolma'am like me," and "You men, great big noisy bothersomecreatures, we women wouldn't have you round the place, dirtying up niceclean rooms, if it wasn't that you have to be petted and guided. We justought to say 'Scat!' to all of you!"But when a man held her close at a dance, even when "Professor"George Edwin Mott patted her hand paternally as they considered thenaughtinesses of Cy Bogart, she quivered, and reflected how superior shewas to have kept her virginity.In the autumn of 1911, a year before Dr. Will Kennicott was married,Vida was his partner at a five-hundred tournament. She was thirty-fourthen; Kennicott about thirty-six. To her he was a superb, boyish,diverting creature; all the heroic qualities in a manly magnificentbody. They had been helping the hostess to serve the Waldorf salad andcoffee and gingerbread. They were in the kitchen, side by side on abench, while the others ponderously supped in the room beyond.Kennicott was masculine and experimental. He stroked Vida's hand, he puthis arm carelessly about her shoulder."Don't!" she said sharply."You're a cunning thing," he offered, patting the back of her shoulderin an exploratory manner.While she strained away, she longed to move nearer to him. He bent over,looked at her knowingly. She glanced down at his left hand as it touchedher knee. She sprang up, started noisily and needlessly to wash thedishes. He helped her. He was too lazy to adventure further--and tooused to women in his profession. She was grateful for the impersonalityof his talk. It enabled her to gain control. She knew that she hadskirted wild thoughts.A month after, on a sleighing-party, under the buffalo robes in thebob-sled, he whispered, "You pretend to be a grown-up schoolteacher, butyou're nothing but a kiddie." His arm was about her. She resisted."Don't you like the poor lonely bachelor?" he yammered in a fatuous way."No, I don't! You don't care for me in the least. You're just practisingon me.""You're so mean! I'm terribly fond of you.""I'm not of you. And I'm not going to let myself be fond of you,either."He persistently drew her toward him. She clutched his arm. Then shethrew off the robe, climbed out of the sled, raced after it with HarryHaydock. At the dance which followed the sleigh-ride Kennicott wasdevoted to the watery prettiness of Maud Dyer, and Vida was noisilyinterested in getting up a Virginia Reel. Without seeming to watchKennicott, she knew that he did not once look at her.That was all of her first love-affair.He gave no sign of remembering that he was "terribly fond." She waitedfor him; she reveled in longing, and in a sense of guilt because shelonged. She told herself that she did not want part of him; unless hegave her all his devotion she would never let him touch her; and whenshe found that she was probably lying, she burned with scorn. She foughtit out in prayer. She knelt in a pink flannel nightgown, her thin hairdown her back, her forehead as full of horror as a mask of tragedy,while she identified her love for the Son of God with her love for amortal, and wondered if any other woman had ever been so sacrilegious.She wanted to be a nun and observe perpetual adoration. She bought arosary, but she had been so bitterly reared as a Protestant that shecould not bring herself to use it.Yet none of her intimates in the school and in the boarding-house knewof her abyss of passion. They said she was "so optimistic."When she heard that Kennicott was to marry a girl, pretty, young, andimposingly from the Cities, Vida despaired. She congratulated Kennicott;carelessly ascertained from him the hour of marriage. At that hour,sitting in her room, Vida pictured the wedding in St. Paul. Full of anecstasy which horrified her, she followed Kennicott and the girl who hadstolen her place, followed them to the train, through the evening, thenight.She was relieved when she had worked out a belief that she wasn't reallyshameful, that there was a mystical relation between herself and Carol,so that she was vicariously yet veritably with Kennicott, and had theright to be.She saw Carol during the first five minutes in Gopher Prairie. Shestared at the passing motor, at Kennicott and the girl beside him. Inthat fog world of transference of emotion Vida had no normal jealousybut a conviction that, since through Carol she had received Kennicott'slove, then Carol was a part of her, an astral self, a heightened andmore beloved self. She was glad of the girl's charm, of the smooth blackhair, the airy head and young shoulders. But she was suddenly angry.Carol glanced at her for a quarter-second, but looked past her, at anold roadside barn. If she had made the great sacrifice, at least sheexpected gratitude and recognition, Vida raged, while her consciousschoolroom mind fussily begged her to control this insanity.During her first call half of her wanted to welcome a fellow reader ofbooks; the other half itched to find out whether Carol knew anythingabout Kennicott's former interest in herself. She discovered that Carolwas not aware that he had ever touched another woman's hand. Carol wasan amusing, naive, curiously learned child. While Vida was most activelydescribing the glories of the Thanatopsis, and complimenting thislibrarian on her training as a worker, she was fancying that this girlwas the child born of herself and Kennicott; and out of that symbolizingshe had a comfort she had not known for months.When she came home, after supper with the Kennicotts and Guy Pollock,she had a sudden and rather pleasant backsliding from devotion. Shebustled into her room, she slammed her hat on the bed, and chattered, "Idon't CARE! I'm a lot like her--except a few years older. I'm light andquick, too, and I can talk just as well as she can, and I'm sure----Menare such fools. I'd be ten times as sweet to make love to as that dreamybaby. And I AM as good-looking!"But as she sat on the bed and stared at her thin thighs, defiance oozedaway. She mourned:"No. I'm not. Dear God, how we fool ourselves! I pretend I'm'spiritual.' I pretend my legs are graceful. They aren't. They'reskinny. Old-maidish. I hate it! I hate that impertinent young woman! Aselfish cat, taking his love for granted. . . . No, she's adorable. . . .I don't think she ought to be so friendly with Guy Pollock."For a year Vida loved Carol, longed to and did not pry into the detailsof her relations with Kennicott, enjoyed her spirit of play as expressedin childish tea-parties, and, with the mystic bond between themforgotten, was healthily vexed by Carol's assumption that she was asociological messiah come to save Gopher Prairie. This last facet ofVida's thought was the one which, after a year, was most often turned tothe light. In a testy way she brooded, "These people that want to changeeverything all of a sudden without doing any work, make me tired! Here Ihave to go and work for four years, picking out the pupils fordebates, and drilling them, and nagging at them to get them to look upreferences, and begging them to choose their own subjects--four years,to get up a couple of good debates! And she comes rushing in, andexpects in one year to change the whole town into a lollypop paradisewith everybody stopping everything else to grow tulips and drink tea.And it's a comfy homey old town, too!"She had such an outburst after each of Carol's campaigns--for betterThanatopsis programs, for Shavian plays, for more human schools--but shenever betrayed herself, and always she was penitent.Vida was, and always would be, a reformer, a liberal. She believed thatdetails could excitingly be altered, but that things-in-general werecomely and kind and immutable. Carol was, without understanding oraccepting it, a revolutionist, a radical, and therefore possessed of"constructive ideas," which only the destroyer can have, since thereformer believes that all the essential constructing has already beendone. After years of intimacy it was this unexpressed opposition morethan the fancied loss of Kennicott's love which held Vida irritablyfascinated.But the birth of Hugh revived the transcendental emotion. She wasindignant that Carol should not be utterly fulfilled in having borneKennicott's child. She admitted that Carol seemed to have affection andimmaculate care for the baby, but she began to identify herself now withKennicott, and in this phase to feel that she had endured quite too muchfrom Carol's instability.She recalled certain other women who had come from the Outside and hadnot appreciated Gopher Prairie. She remembered the rector's wife who hadbeen chilly to callers and who was rumored throughout the town tohave said, "Re-ah-ly I cawn't endure this bucolic heartiness in theresponses." The woman was positively known to have worn handkerchiefs inher bodice as padding--oh, the town had simply roared at her. Of coursethe rector and she were got rid of in a few months.Then there was the mysterious woman with the dyed hair and penciledeyebrows, who wore tight English dresses, like basques, who smelled ofstale musk, who flirted with the men and got them to advance moneyfor her expenses in a lawsuit, who laughed at Vida's reading at aschool-entertainment, and went off owing a hotel-bill and the threehundred dollars she had borrowed.Vida insisted that she loved Carol, but with some satisfaction shecompared her to these traducers of the town.IIVida had enjoyed Raymie Wutherspoon's singing in the Episcopal choir;she had thoroughly reviewed the weather with him at Methodist sociablesand in the Bon Ton. But she did not really know him till she moved toMrs. Gurrey's boarding-house. It was five years after her affair withKennicott. She was thirty-nine, Raymie perhaps a year younger.She said to him, and sincerely, "My! You can do anything, with yourbrains and tact and that heavenly voice. You were so good in 'The Girlfrom Kankakee.' You made me feel terribly stupid. If you'd gone on thestage, I believe you'd be just as good as anybody in Minneapolis. Butstill, I'm not sorry you stuck to business. It's such a constructivecareer.""Do you really think so?" yearned Raymie, across the apple-sauce.It was the first time that either of them had found a dependableintellectual companionship. They looked down on Willis Woodford thebank-clerk, and his anxious babycentric wife, the silent Lyman Casses,the slangy traveling man, and the rest of Mrs. Gurrey's unenlightenedguests. They sat opposite, and they sat late. They were exhilarated tofind that they agreed in confession of faith:"People like Sam Clark and Harry Haydock aren't earnest about music andpictures and eloquent sermons and really refined movies, but then, onthe other hand, people like Carol Kennicott put too much stress on allthis art. Folks ought to appreciate lovely things, but just the same,they got to be practical and--they got to look at things in a practicalway."Smiling, passing each other the pressed-glass pickle-dish, seeing Mrs.Gurrey's linty supper-cloth irradiated by the light of intimacy, Vidaand Raymie talked about Carol's rose-colored turban, Carol's sweetness,Carol's new low shoes, Carol's erroneous theory that there was no needof strict discipline in school, Carol's amiability in the Bon Ton,Carol's flow of wild ideas, which, honestly, just simply made younervous trying to keep track of them.About the lovely display of gents' shirts in the Bon Ton window asdressed by Raymie, about Raymie's offertory last Sunday, the fact thatthere weren't any of these new solos as nice as "Jerusalem the Golden,"and the way Raymie stood up to Juanita Haydock when she came into thestore and tried to run things and he as much as told her that she wasso anxious to have folks think she was smart and bright that shesaid things she didn't mean, and anyway, Raymie was running theshoe-department, and if Juanita, or Harry either, didn't like the way heran things, they could go get another man.About Vida's new jabot which made her look thirty-two (Vida's estimate)or twenty-two (Raymie's estimate), Vida's plan to have the high-schoolDebating Society give a playlet, and the difficulty of keeping theyounger boys well behaved on the playground when a big lubber like CyBogart acted up so.About the picture post-card which Mrs. Dawson had sent to Mrs. Cass fromPasadena, showing roses growing right outdoors in February, the changein time on No. 4, the reckless way Dr. Gould always drove his auto, thereckless way almost all these people drove their autos, the fallacy ofsupposing that these socialists could carry on a government for as muchas six months if they ever did have a chance to try out their theories,and the crazy way in which Carol jumped from subject to subject.Vida had once beheld Raymie as a thin man with spectacles, mournfuldrawn-out face, and colorless stiff hair. Now she noted that his jaw wassquare, that his long hands moved quickly and were bleached in a refinedmanner, and that his trusting eyes indicated that he had "led a cleanlife." She began to call him "Ray," and to bounce in defense of hisunselfishness and thoughtfulness every time Juanita Haydock or RitaGould giggled about him at the Jolly Seventeen.On a Sunday afternoon of late autumn they walked down to LakeMinniemashie. Ray said that he would like to see the ocean; it must be agrand sight; it must be much grander than a lake, even a great big lake.Vida had seen it, she stated modestly; she had seen it on a summer tripto Cape Cod."Have you been clear to Cape Cod? Massachusetts? I knew you'd traveled,but I never realized you'd been that far!"Made taller and younger by his interest she poured out, "Oh my yes.It was a wonderful trip. So many points of interest throughMassachusetts--historical. There's Lexington where we turned backthe redcoats, and Longfellow's home at Cambridge, and Cape Cod--justeverything--fishermen and whale-ships and sand-dunes and everything."She wished that she had a little cane to carry. He broke off a willowbranch."My, you're strong!" she said."No, not very. I wish there was a Y. M. C. A. here, so I could take upregular exercise. I used to think I could do pretty good acrobatics, ifI had a chance.""I'm sure you could. You're unusually lithe, for a large man.""Oh no, not so very. But I wish we had a Y. M. It would be dandy to havelectures and everything, and I'd like to take a class in improvingthe memory--I believe a fellow ought to go on educating himself andimproving his mind even if he is in business, don't you, Vida--I guessI'm kind of fresh to call you 'Vida'!""I've been calling you 'Ray' for weeks!"He wondered why she sounded tart.He helped her down the bank to the edge of the lake but dropped her handabruptly, and as they sat on a willow log and he brushed her sleeve, hedelicately moved over and murmured, "Oh, excuse me--accident."She stared at the mud-browned chilly water, the floating gray reeds."You look so thoughtful," he said.She threw out her hands. "I am! Will you kindly tell me what's the useof--anything! Oh, don't mind me. I'm a moody old hen. Tell me about yourplan for getting a partnership in the Bon Ton. I do think you're right:Harry Haydock and that mean old Simons ought to give you one."He hymned the old unhappy wars in which he had been Achilles and themellifluous Nestor, yet gone his righteous ways unheeded by the cruelkings. . . . "Why, if I've told 'em once, I've told 'em a dozen times toget in a side-line of light-weight pants for gents' summer wear, and ofcourse here they go and let a cheap kike like Rifkin beat them to it andgrab the trade right off 'em, and then Harry said--you know how Harryis, maybe he don't mean to be grouchy, but he's such a sore-head----"He gave her a hand to rise. "If you don't MIND. I think a fellow isawful if a lady goes on a walk with him and she can't trust him and hetries to flirt with her and all.""I'm sure you're highly trustworthy!" she snapped, and she sprang upwithout his aid. Then, smiling excessively, "Uh--don't you think Carolsometimes fails to appreciate Dr. Will's ability?"IIIRay habitually asked her about his window-trimming, the display of thenew shoes, the best music for the entertainment at the Eastern Star, and(though he was recognized as a professional authority on what the towncalled "gents' furnishings") about his own clothes. She persuaded himnot to wear the small bow ties which made him look like an elongatedSunday School scholar. Once she burst out:"Ray, I could shake you! Do you know you're too apologetic? You alwaysappreciate other people too much. You fuss over Carol Kennicott when shehas some crazy theory that we all ought to turn anarchists or live onfigs and nuts or something. And you listen when Harry Haydock tries toshow off and talk about turnovers and credits and things you know lotsbetter than he does. Look folks in the eye! Glare at 'em! Talk deep!You're the smartest man in town, if you only knew it. You ARE!"He could not believe it. He kept coming back to her for confirmation. Hepractised glaring and talking deep, but he circuitously hinted to Vidathat when he had tried to look Harry Haydock in the eye, Harry hadinquired, "What's the matter with you, Raymie? Got a pain?" Butafterward Harry had asked about Kantbeatum socks in a manner which, Rayfelt, was somehow different from his former condescension.They were sitting on the squat yellow satin settee in the boarding-houseparlor. As Ray reannounced that he simply wouldn't stand it many moreyears if Harry didn't give him a partnership, his gesticulating handtouched Vida's shoulders."Oh, excuse me!" he pleaded."It's all right. Well, I think I must be running up to my room.Headache," she said briefly.IVRay and she had stopped in at Dyer's for a hot chocolate on their wayhome from the movies, that March evening. Vida speculated, "Do you knowthat I may not be here next year?""What do you mean?"With her fragile narrow nails she smoothed the glass slab which formedthe top of the round table at which they sat. She peeped through theglass at the perfume-boxes of black and gold and citron in the hollowtable. She looked about at shelves of red rubber water-bottles, paleyellow sponges, wash-rags with blue borders, hair-brushes of polishedcherry backs. She shook her head like a nervous medium coming out of atrance, stared at him unhappily, demanded:"Why should I stay here? And I must make up my mind. Now. Time to renewour teaching-contracts for next year. I think I'll go teach in someother town. Everybody here is tired of me. I might as well go. Beforefolks come out and SAY they're tired of me. I have to decide tonight. Imight as well----Oh, no matter. Come. Let's skip. It's late."She sprang up, ignoring his wail of "Vida! Wait! Sit down! Gosh! I'mflabbergasted! Gee! Vida!" She marched out. While he was paying hischeck she got ahead. He ran after her, blubbering, "Vida! Wait!" In theshade of the lilacs in front of the Gougerling house he came up withher, stayed her flight by a hand on her shoulder."Oh, don't! Don't! What does it matter?" she begged. She was sobbing,her soft wrinkly lids soaked with tears. "Who cares for my affection orhelp? I might as well drift on, forgotten. O Ray, please don't holdme. Let me go. I'll just decide not to renew my contract here, and--anddrift--way off----"His hand was steady on her shoulder. She dropped her head, rubbed theback of his hand with her cheek.They were married in June.VThey took the Ole Jenson house. "It's small," said Vida, "but it's gotthe dearest vegetable garden, and I love having time to get near toNature for once."Though she became Vida Wutherspoon technically, and though she certainlyhad no ideals about the independence of keeping her name, she continuedto be known as Vida Sherwin.She had resigned from the school, but she kept up one class in English.She bustled about on every committee of the Thanatopsis; she was alwayspopping into the rest-room to make Mrs. Nodelquist sweep the floor;she was appointed to the library-board to succeed Carol; she taught theSenior Girls' Class in the Episcopal Sunday School, and tried to revivethe King's Daughters. She exploded into self-confidence and happiness;her draining thoughts were by marriage turned into energy. She becamedaily and visibly more plump, and though she chattered as eagerly, shewas less obviously admiring of marital bliss, less sentimental aboutbabies, sharper in demanding that the entire town share her reforms--thepurchase of a park, the compulsory cleaning of back-yards.She penned Harry Haydock at his desk in the Bon Ton; she interruptedhis joking; she told him that it was Ray who had built up theshoe-department and men's department; she demanded that he be made apartner. Before Harry could answer she threatened that Ray and she wouldstart a rival shop. "I'll clerk behind the counter myself, and a CertainParty is all ready to put up the money."She rather wondered who the Certain Party was.Ray was made a one-sixth partner.He became a glorified floor-walker, greeting the men with new poise, nolonger coyly subservient to pretty women. When he was not affectionatelycoercing people into buying things they did not need, he stood at theback of the store, glowing, abstracted, feeling masculine as he recalledthe tempestuous surprises of love revealed by Vida.The only remnant of Vida's identification of herself with Carol was ajealousy when she saw Kennicott and Ray together, and reflected thatsome people might suppose that Kennicott was his superior. She was surethat Carol thought so, and she wanted to shriek, "You needn't try togloat! I wouldn't have your pokey old husband. He hasn't one single bitof Ray's spiritual nobility."