The Defeat of the City

by O. Henry

　　

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Robert Walmsley's descent upon the cityresulted in a Kilkenny struggle. He came out of thefight victor by a fortune and a reputation. On theother band, he was swallowed up by the city. Thecity gave him what he demanded and then brandedhim with its brand. It remodelled, cut, trimmed andstamped him to the pattern it approves. It openedits social gates to him and shut him in on a close-cropped, formal lawn with the select herd of rumi-nants. In dress, habits, manners, provincialism,routine and narrowness he acquired that charming in-solence, that irritating completeness, that sophisti-cated crassness, that overbalanced poise that makesthe Manhattan gentleman so delightfully small in hisgreatness. One of the up-state rural counties pointed withpride to the successful young metropolitan lawyer asa product of its soil. Six years earlier this countyhad removed the wheat straw from between its huckle-berry-stained teeth and emitted a derisive and bucoliclaugh as old man Walmsley's freckle-faced " Bobabandoned the certain three-per-diem meals of theone-horse farm for the discontinuous quick lunchcounters of the three-ringed metropolis. At the endof the six years no murder trial, coaching party, au-tomobile accident or cotillion was complete in whichthe name of Robert Walmsley did not figure. Tailorswaylaid him in the street to get a new wrinkle fromthe cut of his unwrinkled trousers. Hyphenated fel-lows in the clubs and members of the oldest subpoenaedfamilies were glad to clap him on the back and allowhim three letters of his name. But the Matterhorn of Robert Walmsley's successwas not scaled until be married Alicia Van Der Pool.I cite the Matterhorn, for just so high and cool andwhite and inaccessible was this daughter of the oldburghers. The social Alps that ranged about herover whose bleak passes a thousand climbers struggled-- reached only to her knees. She towered in her ownatmosphere, serene, chaste, prideful, wading in nofountains, dining no monkeys, breeding no dogs forbench shows. She was a Van Der Pool. Fountainswere made to play for her; monkeys were made forother people's ancestors; dogs, she understood, werecreated to be companions of blind persons and objec-tionable characters who smoked pipes. This was the Matterhorn that Robert Walmsleyaccomplished. If he found, with the good poet withthe game foot and artificially curled hair, that he whoascends to mountain tops will find the loftiest peaksmost wrapped in clouds and snow, he concealed hischilblains beneath a brave and smiling exterior. Hewas a lucky man and knew it, even though he wereimitating the Spartan boy with an ice-cream freezerbeneath his doublet frappeeing the region of hisheart. After a brief wedding tour abroad, the couple re-turned to create a decided ripple in the calm cistern(so placid and cool and sunless it is) of the best so-ciety. They entertained at their red brick mausoleumof ancient greatness in an old square that is a ceme-tery of crumbled glory. And Robert Walmsley wasproud of his wife; although while one of his handsshook his guests' the other held tightly to his alpen-stock and thermometer. One day Alicia found a letter written to Robert byhis mother. It was an unerudite letter, full of cropsand motherly love and farm notes. It chronicled thehealth of the pig and the recent red calf, and askedconcerning Robert's in return. It was a letter directfrom the soil, straight from home, full of biographiesof bees, tales of turnips, peaans of new-laid eggs, neg-lected parents and the slump in dried apples. "Why have I not been shown your mother's let-ters?" asked Alicia. There was always something inher voice that made you think of lorgnettes, of ac-counts at Tiffany's, of sledges smoothly gliding onthe trail from Dawson to Forty Mile, of the tinklingof pendant prisms on your grandmothers' chandeliers,of snow lying on a convent roof; of a police sergeantrefusing bail. "Your mother," continued Alicia,"invites us to make a visit to the farm. I havenever seen a farm. We will go there for a week ortwo, Robert." "We will," said Robert, with the grand air of anassociate Supreme Justice concurring in an opinion."I did not lay the invitation before you because Ithought you would not care to go. I am much pleasedat your decision." "I will write to her myself," answered Alicia, witha faint foreshadowing of enthusiasm. " Felice shallpack my trunks at once. Seven, I think, will beenough. I do not suppose that your mother entertainsa great deal. Does she give many house parties?" Robert arose, and as attorney for rural places fileda demurrer against six of the seven trunks. He en-deavored to define, picture, elucidate, set forth anddescribe a farm. His own words sounded strange inhis ears. He had not realized how thoroughly urbsi-dized he had become. A week passed and found them landed at the littlecountry station five hours out from the city. A grin-ning, stentorian, sarcastic youth driving a mule to aspring wagon hailed Robert savagely. "Hallo, Mr. Walmsley. Found your way back atlast, have you? Sorry I couldn't bring in the auto-mobile for you, but dad's bull-tonguing the ten-acreclover patch with it to-day. Guess you'll excuse my,not wearing a dress suit over to meet you -- it ain'tsix o'clock yet, you know." "I'm glad to see you, Tom," said Robert, grasp-ing his brother's band. "Yes, I've found my way atlast. You've a right to say 'at last.' It's been overtwo years since the last time. But it will be oftenerafter this, my boy." Alicia, cool in the summer beat as an Arctic wraith,white as a Norse snow maiden in her flimsy muslin andfluttering lace parasol, came round the corner of thestation; and Tom was stripped of his assurance. Hebecame chiefly eyesight clothed in blue jeans, and onthe homeward drive to the mule alone did he confidein language the inwardness of his thoughts. They drove homeward. The low sun dropped aspendthrift flood of gold upon the fortunate fields ofwheat. The cities were far away. The road lay curl-ing around wood and dale and bill like a ribbon lostfrom the robe of careless summer. The wind followedlike a whinnying colt in the track of Phoebus's steeds. By and by the farmhouse peeped gray out of itsfaithful grove; they saw the long lane with its convoyof walnut trees running from the road to the house;they smelled the wild rose and the breath of cool,damp willows in the creek's bed. And then in unisonall the voices of the soil began a chant addressed tothe soul of Robert Walmsley. Out of the tilted aislesof the dim wood they came hollowly; they chirped andbuzzed from the parched grass; they trilled from theripples of the creek ford; they floated up in clearPan's pipe notes from the dimming meadows; thewhippoorwills joined in as they pursued midges in theupper air; slow-going cow-bells struck out a homelyaccompaniment -- and this was what each one said:"You've found your way back at last, have you?" The old voices of the soil spoke to him. Leaf andbud and blossom conversed with him in the old vocabu-lary of his careless youth - the inanimate things, thefamiliar stones and rails, the gates and furrows androofs and turns of the road had an eloquence, too, anda power in the transformation. The country hadsmiled and he had felt the breath of it, and his heartwas drawn as if in a moment back to his old love.The city was far away. This rural atavism, then, seized Robert Walmsleyand possessed him. A queer thing he noticed in con-nection with it was that Alicia, sitting at his side,suddenly seemed to him a stranger. She did not be-long to this recurrent phase. Never before had sheseemed so remote, so colorless and high - so intan-gible and unreal. And yet he had never admired hermore than when she sat there by him in the ricketyspring wagon, chiming no more with his mood andwith her environment than the Matterhorn chimeswith a peasant's cabbage garden. That night when the greetings and the supper wereover, the entire family, including Buff, the yellow dog,bestrewed itself upon the front porch. Alicia, nothaughty but silent, sat in the shadow dressed in anexquisite pale-gray tea gown. Robert's mother dis-coursed to her happily concerning marmalade andlumbago. Tom sat on the top step; Sisters Millieand Pam on the lowest step to catch the lightningbugs. Mother had the willow rocker. Father sat inthe big armchair with one of its arms gone. Buffsprawled in the middle of the porch in everybody'sway. The twilight pixies and pucks stole forth un-seen and plunged other poignant shafts of memoryinto the heart of Robert. A rural madness enteredhis soul. The city was far away. Father sat without his pipe, writhing in his heavyboots, a sacrifice to rigid courtesy. Robert shouted:"No, you don't!" He fetched the pipe and lit it; heseized the old gentleman's boots and tore them off.The last one slipped suddenly, and Mr. RobertWalmsley, of Washington Square, tumbled off theporch backward with Buff on top of him, bowlingfearfully. Tom laughed sarcastically. Robert tore off his coat and vest and hurled theminto a lilac bush. "Come out here, you landlubber," be cried to Tom,and I'll put grass seed on your back. I think youcalled me a 'dude' a while ago. Come along and cutyour capers." Tom understood the invitation and accepted it withdelight. Three times they wrestled on the grass,"side holds," even as the giants of the mat. Andtwice was Tom forced to bite grass at the hands ofthe distinguished lawyer. Dishevelled, panting, eachstill boasting of his own prowess, they stumbled backto the porch. Millie cast a pert reflection upon thequalities of a city brother. In an instant Robert hadsecured a horrid katydid in his fingers and bore downupon her. Screaming wildly, she fled up the lane,pursued by the avenging glass of form. A quarterof a mile and they returned, she full of apology tothe victorious " dude." The rustic mania possessedhim unabatedly. I can do up a cowpenful of you slow hayseeds,"he proclaimed, vaingloriously. "Bring on your bull-dogs, your hired men and your log-rollers." He turned handsprings on the grass that proddedTom to envious sarcasm. And then, with a whoop,he clattered to the rear and brought back Uncle like,a battered colored retainer of the family, with hisbanjo, and strewed sand on the porch and danced"Chicken in the Bread Tray" and did buck-and-wing wonders for half an hour longer. Incredibly,wild and boisterous things he did. He sang, he toldstories that set all but one shrieking, he played theyokel, the humorous clodhopper; he was mad, andwith the revival of the old life in his blood.He became so extravagant that once his mothersought gently to reprove him. Then Alicia moved asthough she were about to speak, but she did not.Through it all she sat immovable, a slim, white spiritin the dusk that no man might question or read. By and by she asked permission to ascend to herroom, saying that she was tired. On her way shepassed Robert. He was standing in the door, thefigure of vulgar comedy, with ruffled hair, reddenedface and unpardonable confusion of attire -- no tracethere of the immaculate Robert Walmsley, the courtedclubman and ornament of select circles. He was do-ing a conjuring trick with some household utensils,and the family, now won over to him without excep-tion, was beholding him with worshipful admiration. As Alicia passed in Robert started suddenly. Hehad forgotten for the moment that she was present. Without a glance at him she went on upstairs. After that the fun grew quiet. An hour passedin talk, and then Robert went up himself. She was standing by the window when he enteredtheir room. She was still clothed as when they wereon the porch. Outside and crowding against thewindow was a giant apple tree, full blossomed. Robert sighed and went near the window. He wasready to meet his fate. A confessed vulgarian, heforesaw the verdict of justice in the shape of thatwhiteclad form. He knew the rigid lines that aVan Der Pool would draw. He was a peasant gam-bolling indecorously in the valley, and the pure, cold,white, unthawed summit of the Matterhorn could notbut frown on him. He had been unmasked by hisown actions. All the polish, the poise, the form thatthe city had given him had fallen from him like anill-fitting mantle at the first breath of a countrybreeze. Dully be awaited the approaching condemna-tion. "Robert," said the calm, cool voice of his judge,"I thought I married a gentleman." Yes, it was coming. And yet, in the face of it,Robert Walmsley was eagerly regarding a certainbranch of the apple tree upon which be used to climbout of that very window. He believed he could do itnow. He wondered bow many blossoms there wereon the tree -- ten millions? But here was some onespeaking again: "I thought I married a gentleman," the voicewent on, "but -- " Why had she come and was standing so close byhis side? "But I find that I have married" -- was thisAlicia talking? -- "something better -- a man --Bob, dear, kiss me, won't you?" The city was far away.

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