Book II: Chapter III

by Sherwood Anderson

　　And then a new element asserted itself in the life of McGregor. One ofthe hundreds of disintegrating forces that attack strong natures,striving to scatter their force in the back currents of life, attackedhim. His big body began to feel with enervating persistency the callof sex.

　　In the house in Wycliff Place McGregor passed as a mystery. By keepingsilence he won a reputation for wisdom. The clerks in the hallbedrooms thought him a scientist. The woman from Cairo thought him atheological student. Down the hall a pretty girl with large black eyeswho worked in a department store down town dreamed of him at night.When in the evening he banged the door to his room and strode down thehallway going to the night school she sat in a chair by the open doorof her room. As he passed she raised her eyes and looked at himboldly. When he returned she was again by the door and again shelooked boldly at him.

　　In his room, after the meetings with the black-eyed girl McGregorfound difficulty in keeping his mind on the reading. He felt as he hadfelt with the pale girl on the hillside beyond Coal Creek. With her aswith the pale girl he felt the need of defending himself. He began tomake it a practice to hurry along past her door.

　　The girl in the hall bedroom thought constantly of McGregor. When hehad gone to night school another young man of the house who wore aPanama hat came from the floor above and, putting his hands on thedoor frames of her room, stood looking at her and talking. In his lipshe held a cigarette, which when he talked hung limply from the cornerof his mouth.

　　This young man and the black-eyed girl kept up a continuous stream ofcomments on the doings of red-haired McGregor. Begun by the young man,who hated him because of his silence, the subject was kept alive bythe girl who wanted to talk of McGregor.

　　On Saturday nights the young man and the girl sometimes went togetherto the theatre. One night in the summer when they had returned to thefront of the house the girl stopped. "Let's see what the big red-headis doing," she said.

　　Going around the block they stole in the darkness down an alleyway andstood in the little dirty court looking up at McGregor who, with hisfeet in the window and a lamp burning at his shoulder, sat in his roomreading.

　　When they returned to the front of the house the black-eyed girlkissed the young man, closing her eyes and thinking of McGregor. Inher room later she lay abed dreaming. She imagined herself assaultedby the young man who had crept into her room and that McGregor hadcome roaring down the hall to snatch him away and fling him outsidethe door.

　　At the end of the hallway near the stairway leading to the streetlived a barber. He had deserted a wife and four children in a town inOhio and to prevent recognition had grown a black beard. Between thisman and McGregor a companionship had sprung up and they went togetheron Sunday mornings to walk in the park. The black bearded man calledhimself Frank Turner.

　　Frank Turner had a passion. Through the evenings and on Sundayafternoons he sat in his room making violins. He worked with a knife,glue, pieces of glass and sand paper and spent his earnings foringredients for the making of varnishes. When he got hold of a pieceof wood that seemed an answer to his prayers he took it to McGregor'sroom and holding it up to the light talked of what he would do withit. Sometimes he brought a violin and sitting in the open windowtested the quality of its tone. One evening he took an hour ofMcGregor's time to talk of the varnish of Cremona and to read to himfrom a worn little book concerning the old Italian masters of violinmaking.

　　* * * * *On a bench in the park sat Turner, the maker of violins, the man whodreamed of the rediscovery of the varnish of Cremona, talking toMcGregor, son of the Pennsylvania miner.

　　It was a Sunday afternoon and the park was vibrant with life. All daythe street cars had been unloading Chicagoans at the park entrance.They came in pairs and in parties, young men with their sweetheartsand fathers with families at their heels. Now at the end of the daythey continued to come, a steady stream of humanity flowing along thegravel walk past the bench where the two men sat in talk. Through thestream and crossing it went another stream homeward bound. Babiescried. Fathers called to the children at play on the grass. Carscoming to the park filled went away filled.

　　McGregor looked about him and thought of himself and of the restlessmoving people. In him there was none of that vague fear of themultitude common to many solitary souls. His contempt of men and ofthe lives lived by men reinforced his native boldness. The odd littlerounding of the shoulders of even the athletic young men made himstraighten with pride his own shoulders and fat and lean, tall andshort, he thought of all men as counters in some vast games at whichhe was presently to be a master player.

　　The passion for form, that strange intuitive power that many men havefelt and none but the masters of human life have understood, had begunto awaken in him. Already he had begun to sense out the fact that forhim law was but an incident in some vast design and he was altogetheruntouched by the desire for getting on in the world, by the greedylittle snatching at trifles that was the whole purpose of the lives ofso many of the people about him. When somewhere in the park a bandbegan to play he nodded his head up and down and ran his handnervously up and down the legs of his trousers. Into his mind came thedesire to boast to the barber, telling of the things he meant to do inthe world, but he put the desire away. Instead he sat silentlyblinking his eyes and wondering at the persistent air ofineffectiveness in the people who passed. When a band went by playingmarch music and followed by some fifty men wearing white plumes intheir hats and walking with self-conscious awkwardness, he wasstartled. Among the people he thought there was a change. Somethinglike a running shadow passed over them. The babbling of voices ceasedand like himself the people began to nod their heads. A thought,gigantic in its simplicity, began to come into his mind but was wipedout immediately by his impatience with the marchers. A madness tospring up and run among them knocking them about and making them marchwith the power that comes of abandonment almost lifted him from thebench. His mouth twitched and his fingers ached for action.

　　* * * * *In and out among the trees and on the green spaces moved the people.Along the shores of a pond sat men and women eating the evening mealfrom baskets or from white cloths spread on the grass. They laughedand shouted at each other and at the children, calling them back fromthe gravel driveways filled with moving carriages. Beaut saw a girlthrow an egg shell and hit a young fellow between the eyes, and thenrun laughing away along the shore of the pond. Under a tree a womannursed a babe, covering her breasts with a shawl so that just theblack head of the babe showed. Its tiny hand clutched at the mouth ofthe woman. In an open space in the shadow of a building young menplayed baseball, the shouts of the spectators rising above the murmurof the voices of people on the gravel walk.

　　A thought came into McGregor's mind that he wanted to discuss with theolder man. He was moved by the sight of women about and shook himselflike one awakening from a dream. Then he began looking at the groundand kicking up the gravel with his foot. "Look here," he said, turningto the barber, "what is a man to do about women, about getting what hewants from the women?"

　　The barber seemed to understand. "It has come to that then?" he askedand looked quickly up. He lighted a pipe and sat looking at thepeople. It was then he told McGregor of the wife and four children inthe Ohio town, describing the little brick house and the garden andthe coop for chickens at the back like one who lingers over a placedear to his fancy. Something old and weary was in his voice as hefinished.

　　"It wasn't a matter for me to decide," he said. "I came away because Icouldn't do anything else. I'm not excusing myself, I'm just tellingyou. There was something messy and disorderly about it all, about mylife with her and with them. I couldn't stand it. I felt myself beingsubmerged by something. I wanted to be orderly and to work, you see. Icouldn't let violin making alone. Lord, how I tried--tried bluffingmyself about it--calling it a fad."

　　The barber looked nervously at McGregor to reassure himself of hisinterest. "I owned a shop on the main street of our town. Back of itwas a blacksmith shop. During the day I stood by the chair in my shoptalking to men being shaved about the love of women and a man's dutyto his family. Summer afternoons I went and sat on a keg in theblacksmith shop and talked of the same thing with the smith but allthat did me no good.

　　"When I let myself go I dreamed not of my duty to my family but ofworking undisturbed as I do now here in the city in my room in theevenings and on Sundays."

　　A sharpness came into the voice of the speaker. He turned to McGregorand talked vigorously like one making a defence. "My woman was a goodenough sort," he said. "I suppose loving is an art like writing a bookor drawing pictures or making violins. People try to do it and don'tsucceed. In the end we threw the job up and just lived together likemost people do. Our lives got mussy and meaningless. That's how itwas.

　　"Before she married me my wife had been a stenographer in a factorythat made tin cans. She liked that work. She could make her fingersdance along the keys. When she read a book at home she didn't thinkthe writer amounted to much if he made mistakes about punctuation. Herboss was so proud of her that he would brag of her work to visitorsand sometimes would go off fishing leaving the running of the businessin her hands.

　　"I don't know why she married me. She was happier there and she ishappier back there now. We got to walking together on Sunday eveningsand standing under the trees on side streets, kissing and looking ateach other. We talked about a lot of things. We seemed to need eachother. Then we got married and started living together.

　　"It didn't work out. After we had been married a few years thingschanged. I don't know why. I thought I was the same as I had been andI think she was. We used to sit around quarrelling about it, eachblaming the other. Anyway we didn't get along.

　　"We would sit on the little front porch of our house in the evening,she bragging of the work she had done in the can factory and Idreaming of quietude and a chance to work on the violins. I thought Iknew a way to increase the quality and beauty of tone and I had thatidea about varnish I have talked to you about. I even dreamed of doingthings those old fellows of Cremona didn't do.

　　"When she had been talking of her work in the office for maybe a halfhour she would look up and find that I hadn't been listening. We wouldquarrel. We even quarrelled before the children after they came. Onceshe said that she didn't see how it would matter if no violins hadever been made and that night I dreamed of choking her in bed. I wokeup and lay there beside her thinking of it with something like realsatisfaction in just the thought that one long hard grip of my fingerswould get her out of my way for good.

　　"We didn't always feel that way. Every little while a change wouldcome over both of us and we would begin to take an interest in eachother. I would be proud of the work she had done in the factory andwould brag of it to men coming into the shop. In the evening she wouldbe sympathetic about the violins and put the baby to bed to let mealone at my work in the kitchen.

　　"Then we would begin to sit in the darkness in the house and hold eachother's hands. We would forgive things that had been said and play asort of game, chasing each other about the room in the darkness andknocking against the chairs and laughing. Then we would begin to lookat each other and kiss. Presently there would be another baby."

　　The barber threw up his hands with a gesture of impatience. His voicelost its softer, reminiscent quality. "Such times didn't last," hesaid. "On the whole it was no life to live. I came away. The childrenare in a state institution and she has gone back to her work in theoffice. The town hates me. They have made a heroine of her. I'm heretalking to you with these whiskers on my face so that people from mytown wouldn't know me if they came along. I'm a barber and I wouldshave them off fast enough if it wasn't for that."

　　A woman walking past looked back at McGregor. In her eyes lurked aninvitation. It reminded him of something in the eyes of the paledaughter of the undertaker of Coal Creek. An uneasy tremor ran throughhim. "What do you do about women now?" he asked.

　　The voice of the smaller man arose harsh and excited in the eveningair. "I get the feeling taken out of me as a man would have a toothfixed," he said. "I pay money for the service and keep my mind on whatI want to do. There are plenty of women for that, women who are goodfor that only. When I first came here I used to wander about at night,wanting to go to my room and work but with my mind and my willparalysed by that feeling. I don't do that now and I won't again. WhatI do many men do--good men--men who do good work. What's the usethinking about it when you only run against a stone wall and gethurt?"

　　The black bearded man arose, thrust his hands into his trouserspockets and looked about him. Then he sat down again. He seemed to befilled with suppressed excitement. "There is a big hidden somethinggoing on in modern life," he said, talking rapidly and excitedly. "Itused to touch only the men higher up, now it reaches down to men likeme--barbers and workingmen. Men know about it but don't talk and don'tdare think. Their women have changed. Women used to be willing to doanything for men, just be slaves to them. The best men don't ask thatnow and don't want that."

　　He jumped to his feet and stood over McGregor. "Men don't understandwhat's going on and don't care," he said. "They are too busy gettingthings done or going to ball games or quarrelling about politics.

　　"And what do they know about it if they are fools enough to think?They get thrown into false notions. They see about them a lot of finepurposeful women maybe caring for their children and they blamethemselves for their vices and are ashamed. Then they turn to theother women anyway, shutting their eyes and going ahead. They pay forwhat they want as they would pay for a dinner, thinking no more of thewomen who serve them than they do of the waitresses who serve them inthe restaurants. They refuse to think of the new kind of woman that isgrowing up. They know that if they get sentimental about her they'llget into trouble or get new tests put to them, be disturbed you see,and spoil their work or their peace of mind. They don't want to getinto trouble or be disturbed. They want to get a better job or enjoy aball game or build a bridge or write a book. They think that a man whogets sentimental about any woman is a fool and of course he is."

　　"Do you mean that all of them do that?" asked McGregor. He wasn'tupset by what had been said. It struck him as being true. For himselfhe was afraid of women. It seemed to him that a road was being builtby his companion along which he might travel with safety. He wantedthe man to go on talking. Into his brain flashed the thought that ifhe had the thing to do over there would have been a different endingto the afternoon spent with the pale girl on the hillside.

　　The barber sat down upon the bench. The flush out of his cheeks. "WellI have done pretty well myself," he said, "but then you know I makeviolins and don't think of women. I've been in Chicago two years andI've spent just eleven dollars. I would like to know what the averageman spends. I wish some fellow would get the facts and publish them.It would make people sit up. There must be millions spent here everyyear."

　　"You see I'm not very strong and I stand all day on my feet in thebarber shop." He looked at McGregor and laughed. "The black-eyed girlin the hall is after you," he said. "You'd better look out. You lether alone. Stick to your law books. You are not like me. You are bigand red and strong. Eleven dollars won't pay your way here in Chicagofor no two years."

　　McGregor looked again at the people moving toward the park entrance inthe gathering darkness. He thought it wonderful that a brain couldthink a thing out so clearly and words express thoughts so lucidly.His eagerness to follow the passing girls with his eyes was gone. Hewas interested in the older man's viewpoint. "And what aboutchildren?" he asked.

　　The older man sat sideways on the bench. There was a troubled look inhis eyes and a suppressed eager quality in his voice. "I'm going totell you about that," he said. "I don't want to keep anything back.

　　"Look here!" he demanded, sliding along the bench toward McGregor andemphasising his points by slapping one hand down upon the other."Ain't all children my children?" He paused, trying to gather hisscattered thoughts into words. When McGregor started to speak he puthis hand up as though to ward off a new thought or another question."I'm not trying to dodge," he said. "I'm trying to get thoughts thathave been in my head day after day in shape to tell. I haven't triedto express them before. I know men and women cling to their children.It's the only thing they have left of the dream they had before theymarried. I felt that way. It held me for a long time. It would beholding me now only that the violins pulled so hard at me."

　　He threw up his hand impatiently. "You see I had to find an answer. Icouldn't think of being a skunk--running away--and I couldn't stay. Iwasn't intended to stay. Some men are intended to work and take careof children and serve women perhaps but others have to keep trying fora vague something all their lives--like me trying for a tone on aviolin. If they don't get it it doesn't matter, they have to keeptrying.

　　"My wife used to say I'd get tired of it. No woman ever reallyunderstands a man caring for anything except herself. I knocked thatout of her."

　　The little man looked up at McGregor. "Do you think I'm a skunk?" heasked.

　　McGregor looked at him gravely. "I don't know," he said. "Go on andtell me about the children."

　　"I said they were the last things to cling to. They are. We used tohave religion. But that's pretty well gone now--the old kind. Now menthink about children, I mean a certain kind of men--the ones that havework they want to get on with. Children and work are the only thingsthat kind care about. If they have a sentiment about women it's onlyabout their own--the one they have in the house with them. They wantto keep that one finer than they are themselves. So they work theother feeling out on the paid women.

　　"Women fuss about men loving children. Much they care. It's only aplan for demanding adulation for themselves that they don't earn.Once, when I first came to the city, I took a place as servant in awealthy family. I wanted to stay under cover until my beard grew.Women used to come there to receptions and to meetings in theafternoon to talk about reforms they were interested in----Bah! Theywork and scheme trying to get at men. They are at it all their lives,flattering, diverting us, giving us false ideas, pretending to be weakand uncertain when they are strong and determined. They have no mercy.They wage war on us trying to make us slaves. They want to take uscaptive home to their houses as Caesar took captives home to Rome.

　　"You look here!" He jumped to his feet again and shook his fingers atMcGregor. "You just try something. You try being open and frank andsquare with a woman--any woman--as you would with a man. Let her liveher own life and ask her to let you live yours. You try it. She won't.She will die first."

　　He sat down again upon the bench and shook his head back and forth."Lord how I wish I could talk!" he said. "I'm making a muddle of thisand I wanted to tell you. Oh, how I wanted to tell you! It's part ofmy idea that a man should tell a boy all he knows. We've got to quitlying to them."

　　McGregor looked at the ground. He was profoundly and deeply moved andinterested as he had never before been moved by anything but hate.

　　Two women coming along the gravel walk stopped under a tree and lookedback. The barber smiled and raised his hat. When they smiled back athim he rose and started toward them. "Come on boy," he whisperedbehind his hand to McGregor. "Let's get them."

　　When McGregor looked up the scene before his eyes infuriated him. Thesmiling barber with his hat in his hand, the two women waiting underthe tree, the look of half-guilty innocence on the faces of all ofthem, stirred a blind fury in his brain. He sprang forward, clutchingthe shoulder of Turner with his hand. Whirling him about he threw himto his hands and knees. "Get out of here you females!" he roared atthe women who ran off in terror down the walk.

　　The barber sat again upon the bench beside McGregor. He rubbed hishands together to brush the bits of gravel out of the flesh. "What'sgot wrong with you?" he asked.

　　McGregor hesitated. He wondered how he should tell what was in hismind. "Everything in its place," he said finally. "I wanted to go onwith our talk."

　　Lights flashed out of the darkness of the park. The two men sat on thebench thinking each his own thoughts.

　　"I want to take some work out of the clamps to-night," the barbersaid, looking at his watch. Together the two men walked along thestreet. "Look here," said McGregor. "I didn't mean to hurt you. Thosetwo women that came up and interfered with what we were working outmade me furious."

　　"Women always interfere," said the barber. "They raise hell with men."His mind ran out and began to play with the world-old problem of thesexes. "If a lot of women fall in the fight with us men and become ourslaves--serving us as the paid women do--need they fuss about it? Letthem be game and try to help work it out as men have been game andhave worked and thought through ages of perplexity and defeat."

　　The barber stopped on the street corner to fill and light his pipe."Women can change everything when they want to," he said, looking atMcGregor and letting the match burn out in his fingers. "They can havemotherhood pensions and room to work out their own problem in theworld or anything else that they really want. They can stand up faceto face with men. They don't want to. They want to enslave us withtheir faces and their bodies. They want to carry on the old, old wearyfight." He tapped McGregor on the arm. "If a few of us--wanting withall our might to get something done--beat them at their own game,don't we deserve the victory?" he asked.

　　"But sometimes I think I would like a woman to live with, you know,just to sit and talk with me," said McGregor.

　　The barber laughed. Puffing at his pipe he walked down the street. "Tobe sure! To be sure!" he said. "I would. Any man would. I like to sitin the room for a spell in the evening talking to you but I would hateto give up violin making and be bound all my life to serve you andyour purposes just the same."

　　In the hallway of their own house the barber spoke to McGregor as helooked down the hallway to where the door of the black eyed girl'sroom had just crept open. "You let women alone," he said; "when youfeel you can't stay away from them any longer you come and talk itover with me."

　　McGregor nodded and went along the hallway to his own room. In thedarkness he stood by the window and looked down into the court. Thefeeling of hidden power, the ability to rise above the mess into whichmodern life had sunk that had come to him in the park, returned and hewalked nervously about. When finally he sat down upon a chair andleaning forward put his head in his hands he felt like one who hasstarted on a long journey through a strange and dangerous country andwho has unexpectedly come upon a friend going the same way.