CHAPTER XXIV THE CRASH
When it was time for lunch, Yetta said she would rather cook than go to a restaurant, so they raided a delicatessen store.
It was during the afternoon that the first shadow fell across their dream. Yetta asked him if he had heard about Mrs. Karner's divorce.
"Yes, I know."
There was a queer ring in his voice which made her look up; something in his face disturbed her.
"What's the matter?"
He took his arms from about her and got up.
"Yetta," he said, pacing the room, "I suppose I'm a fool to ask you. But how much do you want to know? Very few men in this world of ours live up to their own ideals. I certainly haven't. I told you I was getting gray. Well—she's one of the gray spots—inside. I'd rather not tell you about it. It will only hurt you. But I'm not a good liar. You noticed something at the bare mention of her name. But if you want to know, I'll tell you."
For a moment Yetta was silent.
"I think you'd better tell me," she said. "I'm not afraid."
But she was. She had accepted the idea that Mabel had preceded her in his affection. She had not thought of other women. This was disturbing enough. But what really frightened her was that he was reluctant to tell. If there was any one tangible thing which love meant to her, it was frankness. She had told him everything without his asking. Here was something he had held back. What it was did not matter so much as the different point of view it showed. It was startling to realize how very little she knew of his life.
He pulled up a chair beside the window-seat where she lay, and told her about Beatrice; told it in a way that did not make her seem offensive to Yetta. He told the story as truthfully as might be, without giving its real explanation—his heartbreak over Mabel. He did not want to bring this in. If Yetta had asked him point-blank how long it was since he had been in love with Mabel, he would not have tried to deceive her. But the telling of it would only distress her.
"It may not sound to you like a pretty story," he ended. "I'm not proud of it. But I'm not exactly ashamed either. It's a sick sort of a world we live in. There are better days coming when the relations between men and women will be saner and sweeter—and finer. But I don't think more lightly of Beatrice because of this. She's a remarkable woman. Life has not been very kind to her. But she's fought her way to the place where she is through with pretence. That at least was fine about our friendship. We were not pretending. I haven't told it very well, perhaps I haven't made you understand. But I hope Beatrice can look back on it without being ashamed. I can."
Although Yetta listened intently, she was all the time thinking not so much of Mrs. Karner as of what she typified—the unknown life of the man she loved, the things he had not told her.
"Am I forgiven?" he asked, kneeling beside her and taking her hand.
"Oh! Forgiven! That isn't it. Who am I to forgive you or blame you? It's that I don't understand. And when I don't understand, I'm afraid."
"You mustn't be afraid of the past, darling."
"I don't know about that. When it comes to love, I can't think of any past or present or future. It's just somehow eternally always and now and for ever and ever. I'm not sure we can get away from the past. I can't explain it very well, but some things are real and some aren't. I don't think I'll ever get rid of the real things which have come to me. They'll never die."
"Well, don't worry about Beatrice,—that was only an interlude—not 'real.'"
"And Mabel?"
"A dream."
"But some dreams are real," she insisted.
"No dream in all the world, Yetta, is real like your lips."
She wanted so much to be kissed, had been so frightened for a moment, that she sought his arms without questioning this statement. But a few minutes later the thought came to her suddenly that he had kissed Beatrice just as he was kissing her. He felt her wince.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm dizzy. Let me go a minute."
She got up and stood by the window. She was doing him an injustice. He had never kissed Beatrice as he had just kissed her. But women seem never to understand that it is an utter impossibility for a man to caress different women in the same way. Probably our Father Adam and Mother Eve are the only couple the Earth has seen who have not had words on this subject. If Yetta had spoken out what was in her mind, Walter also would have taken up the age-old argument—in vain. But Yetta did not speak. She was fighting with herself—striving to regain her self-control. She had always believed that jealousy was contemptible. But he had kissed Mrs. Karner just as—
"Still thinking of Beatrice?" he asked quietly.
"Trying not to, Walter. Oh, Beloved, you must be patient with me. It is all so new—so dizzyingly new. I've got to trust you, Walter. I've got to believe every word you say. I know I mustn't have doubts. I've got to believe every word you say"—she repeated it as if giving herself a lesson—"and I do, Walter. I mustn't ever think when you kiss me that perhaps you'd rather kiss some one else—and I won't."
She reached out her arms to him, and blinded by tears she stumbled across the room to him.
Walter should have seized this moment to tell her the whole truth. There is one very strong argument for always telling the truth. It is so desperately hard to know which moments in our rapidly moving life are such as to make a lie fatal.
Most of us believe that ultimately truth will out. But most of us try to control its outings. On the basis of what we vaguely call "worldly wisdom," by silences, by false emphasis—sometimes by frank lies—we try to protect our friends and enemies from the vision of Truth in her disturbing nudity. And there is hardly one of us who would not give his right hand if, in some crisis of his life, he had only had sense enough to tell the whole truth.
There were very real obstacles between Walter and his desire. Between their experiences and their outlooks on life there was a great chasm. But his best chance was to face things frankly.
Beatrice was only an incident. Mabel was a more important matter. But still he could have made out a good case for himself. When he was six—nearly seven—years younger, he had fallen romantically in love with her. He had followed that love with a fidelity which promised well for his future obligations. It had become a habit, and a six years' habit is hard to break. He had come to the realization that this blind infatuation was leading him to waste. With all the manhood he could muster he had tried to break the habit. Sometimes—possibly for a long time to come—the nerve-cells of his brain would fall back into the old ruts. But when this happened, it would be only the ghost of a dead desire. Even the ghost would be laid in time.
He could have told her that the very sense of life which throbbed within them—that made such questions seem of so great importance—laid upon them in no uncertain terms the imperious duty of the future. He had no Romeo-youth to offer her. Some of his hair was gray beyond dispute. But his strong and promising manhood was worth more than any hothouse flowers of romance. He could have offered her the finest of all comradeships, the communion of ideals, the life and labor shared together.
Yetta might have refused such an offer, refused to make any compromise with the love she dreamed of. The romantic thing is to demand that the prince's armor shall be as spotless as on the day he first rode out to seek the Grail. And Yetta was romantic. But Walter, with his larger experience with life, could probably have convinced her of the patent fact that most of us have to accept much more meagre terms from life than he offered. The ideal love is woefully rare, but there are a great many happy marriages.
Walter did not recognize this as one of the moments which demand entire frankness. Why should he hurt her at this moment with another ghost story? Had he not bruised her enough for one afternoon with Beatrice?
Without realizing it, his attitude toward Yetta had changed subtly. The day before on the beach he had been impressed by her evident love for him. But the girl for whom he had been sorry had changed into the woman he ardently desired. So he kissed her tears away and taught her to smile again.
There had been enough left from the lunch purchases to serve their appetites for supper. They sat together in the window-seat and watched the twilight fall across the Square. All that was tangled in life straightened out before them, the future seemed a sort of paradisaical boulevard. In the days which were to come they were to have many hours of such sweet communion, hours when they locked the door against the world and talked or read together. And there were to be days of work. They were neither of them shirkers, and it was to be hard work. But whether it was work or play the sun was always to shine upon them, for there were to be no clouds of misunderstanding or discouragement. Side by side, how could they be discouraged? Walter was getting on towards forty, but all this seemed possible to him.
At last they turned on the lights so Yetta could read to him some verses she had learned to love. And while they were still striving to find some fitting expression for their emotions among the poets, there was a knock at the door, and Isadore came in. Walter greeted him enthusiastically.
"Yetta," he said, "shall we tell him the great news?"
But there was no need to tell him. All the time he had been shaking hands he had been looking over Walter's shoulder at Yetta. His face went pale and rigid. He stiffened up perceptibly.
"I'm glad," he said slowly, looking squarely at Walter, "if you can make her happier than I could. I love her, too."
The words seemed to Walter like a challenge. For a second or two their eyes met. He was the first to look away. He could not meet the younger man's directness.
"Walter," Isadore said, "you're my best friend. Be good to her."
He hesitated a moment, irresolute, then turned abruptly and went away. Walter stood still in the middle of the room—dazed by the intensity of Isadore's emotions, realizing suddenly how many more of the priceless gifts of Youth there were in Isadore's hands than in his own. The shame which had flooded him at Yetta's first caress came back. Yetta, in her infatuation, could not see how little—even of love—he had to offer. She was too blinded to choose freely.
"Yetta," he said, coming over and sitting on the other end of the window-seat from her, "why didn't you tell me about this?"
"Why, Walter, I did tell you. I said he asked me to marry him—two years ago."
"But I didn't realize that he loved you as much as this."
"Walter," she said, taking fright at his tone, "I never gave him any encouragement. I never—"
"It isn't that, Yetta," he interrupted her. "Oh! I don't mean that. But why didn't you marry him?"
It was her turn to be dazed and bewildered. She stood up before him, but he had covered his face with his hands.
"Why? How could I when I loved you?"
"Loved me? Yetta, you hardly knew me."
There was an earthquake in Dreamland. Just what was happening in his soul she did not know, but all things were a-tremble.
"Walter? Walter? What do you mean?"
He looked up at her with a haggard face.
"Don't you understand?" he asked seriously. "I'm more than a dozen years older than you are, close to ten years older than Isadore. Years don't always mean much, but these last ones have been very long for me.
"Youth counts for very much in this dreary world of ours. It means undimmed faith, it means courage, it means vibrancy and reserve power. Isadore has never been really defeated, Yetta, and I'm a mass of poorly healed wounds. The best of me is gone, some of it expended, more of it wasted. I come to you like a beggar, asking for all these precious things—faith, hope, incentive. My hands are empty. But Isadore could give you these things, when you need them—as you surely will some day, Yetta. If I'd been here all these years, you'd have seen the difference between us.
"A long time ago, when you were very young, I seemed wonderful to you. I went away—stop and think a moment how very little you know of me—and you made a romance about me. Romance is a very dangerous thing. It's a sort of Lorelei song, Yetta. After all, our business is to push on down the River, not to stop and play with the fairies on the rocks. It's a real world we must live in, Yetta dear, not a dream, and the facts must be faced. Youth is worth more than anything else. Your kisses made me forget to think of you—Isadore reminded me."
"What are you trying to do, Walter?" she asked. "Don't you want me to marry you?"
"I want you to be happy, Little One."
Once more he buried his face in his hands, but she knelt before him and pulled his hands away.
"Do you think anything in all the world could make me as happy as your love?"
Suddenly—with a great rush of weariness—he saw clearly the gulf between them. He knew from his own experience what thrilling things the word "love" may mean. And he could no longer lay claim to it.
"What do you mean by love?" he asked drearily.
Yetta crumpled up in a heap at his feet. If he did not know what "love" meant, the Palace of Dreams was indeed crumbling.
"Don't you know?" she whispered.
The clock ticked dolefully while she waited for his answer.
"Yes. I'm afraid I do know what it means to you, Yetta. And I haven't got that to give you. I think love means romance to you. That is what Isadore and Youth have to offer. I had it once—years ago—enough and to spare. I gave it all away—where it wasn't wanted. There isn't any glitter left.
"I came to you, Yetta, in quest of this very thing—which I have lost. I can't tell you how beautiful, how dazzling you look to my tired eyes—how much to be desired—how much above price—like the Song of Songs. And being selfish, I thought only of my want, of my hungry loneliness. I did not remember—till Isadore came in—that you too had a right—a much better right than my desire—to Youth.
"It would not be honest, Yetta, to accept your love, unless I made quite sure that you know me, know what you are doing, the choice you are making—stripped of romance, in its cold nakedness. It isn't a choice, Yetta, between me and Isadore. It's deeper than that, deeper than individuals. I must see that you make your choice with clear eyes. If you want romance—the grand passion—well—I haven't that to offer you. I—"
His voice trailed off into silence. Perhaps he was a fool. But for the first time in his life he was giving up something he wanted, something he could have for the asking. For the first time in his life he had utterly cleansed himself of selfishness. It was a momentous triumph over his nature, but it was only momentary. His desire for the girl at his feet came over him with a rush. She was resting her head against the ledge of the window-seat and—her clenched fist pressed against her lips—was staring at the black shadows under the table.
Perhaps a scrupulous definition forbade the use of the word "love" to describe his emotion, but it was none the less strong. The last twenty-four hours had been wondrously sweet to him. There was a grace to her clean, fresh youth, a charm to her caresses, her restrained but unhid passion, the timidities and spontaneous abandon of her maidenhood, which had enchanted all the roots of his being. And besides and above all this—though life holds little better than such emotions—was the hope that with her he might get into the swing of activity, the ascending curve of work and purpose.
"I'm through pleading for you, Yetta. Let me plead a little for myself. What is it that makes me talk to you like this? It's not romance. Perhaps it isn't what you would call love. But I would call it that. It's a very desperate desire to forget all about myself and—as Isadore said—'be good to you.' Get up, darling, and sit here beside me. Let us talk over again all our plans of work. After all, work is more important than romance."
She got up rather unsteadily, but she did not sit down beside him.
"I think love is necessary," she said.
"Don't let's wreck things over a word, Yetta. 'Love' means so many things. Tell me what it is I feel for you. What is it that makes me thrill so to your kisses? What is it that makes me want you, Yetta, for all time and always? What is it makes me know I can win to usefulness, if you will help me? What is it that makes me risk losing what I want most in the world, for fear I may not be true and just to you? I don't care what name you give it. But isn't it enough? Let's try to think of realities, not words."
"No. It's not the word I care about," she said. "But the reality is necessary. I love you, Walter, and I'm not afraid of the word. You know what it means to me—all that it ever meant to any woman—and more. It means thinking only and above everything else of the other—and more than that. It means giving one's self without any 'if's'—and more than that too. I can't tell you what love is—just because the reality is so much bigger than any words. But of one thing I am sure. There can't be any regrets in love. Are you sorry it isn't Mabel who loves you? I don't care about the past any more. I did for a minute this afternoon—because it surprised me. But I love you too much to care about the past. But, oh! the future, Walter? We daren't cheapen that! That's all there is left to us. And our life together—our future—couldn't be fine if you had regrets. If ever you had to hide things from me and had wishes I couldn't share. If you wished sometimes I was some one else. It's very simple, Walter. It's this way. If Mabel should come into this room and stand here beside me and say, 'I love you,' as I say it—which of us would you choose?"
"She'll never come into the room, Yetta."
"Oh, Walter! answer me! I know you won't lie. And I'll believe you for ever and ever."
And so he could not lie. He buried his face once more in his hands. He did not look up when he heard the rustle of her skirts. He did not see her as she picked up her hat and stood there, the tears in her eyes, waiting—hoping that he would say the word.
He did not look up until he heard the door close behind her. He paced the room aimlessly for several minutes, then filled his pipe and, turning out the light, went back to the window-seat. He was not exactly suffering. He felt himself miserably inert and dead.
But one thing he saw clearly—and it made him glad. Yetta's romance had come while she was still young. She was only twenty-two. Life would pick her up again. It might be Isadore, it might be some one else. But her pulse was too strong to let her decay. There are many real joys in life if you get rid of romance early enough.
Time was when he had felt as she did, when nothing but the best seemed worth having. He saw clearly that what he could have given her would not have satisfied her.
Yetta had not stopped to put on her hat. Her eyes dimmed with tears, she had stumbled down the stairs and out across the street into the Square, towards home. Then she remembered that it was early, that her room-mate would be still awake. She could not go home. There were many people about, some stretched on the grass, some grouped on the benches, some strolling about. Many noticed the hatless girl who shuffled along blindly. And presently she ran into Isadore. He also was walking about aimlessly, his head bent, his hands deep in his pockets.
"Good God, Yetta," he cried in amazement, "what's wrong?"
She raised her tear-wet face to him, stretching out her hand towards the familiar voice.
"We're not going to get married," she said.
"Hadn't you better let me take you home?"
"Sadie'll be up. I don't want to go home."
"Well, then, come over here and sit down."
Hardly knowing what she did, she followed him to an empty bench. Now, Isadore did not believe in guardian angels, but something told him not to talk.
"It's like this," Yetta said, feeling that some further explanation was necessary, "he's still in love with Mabel."
And Isadore had sense enough to say nothing at all. Yetta turned about on the bench and, resting her head on her arms, began to sob. Half the night through, Isadore sat beside her there on guard.
BOOK V
CHAPTER XXV ISADORE'S MEDICINE
Sadie Michelson, as she was making coffee the next morning, was cogitating over the fact that she had not seen her new room-mate since they had moved into the flat. What was the meaning of these late hours? She was convinced that this Mr. Longman, whose rooms Yetta had formerly occupied and who had just come back to claim them, had something to do with it.
Her speculations were interrupted by the telephone bell. Yetta also heard it vaguely in her uneasy sleep and dreamed that Walter was calling her. Sadie hurried to the receiver. She hoped to find a clew to the mystery. It was a surprise—and a disappointment—for her to recognize Isadore's voice.
"Hello, Sadie. Is Yetta up yet?"
"No. She got in very late last night and—"
"I know," Isadore interrupted. "I was out with her."
This was a new disappointment. Mr. Longman was not to blame after all.
"Don't wake her," he went on. "But I wish you'd take a message—put it under her door, where she's sure to see it. If she possibly can, it would be a great favor if she could help us down here this morning. We're awfully rushed. Locke's sick. There's a strike over in Brooklyn we've got to cover. And there's nobody here to do it. It would help a lot if Yetta could. Got that straight?—All right—much obliged."
The noise of Sadie's leaving woke Yetta. Her first feeling was of escape from some dread nightmare. Surely last night's storm had been a tempest in the tea-pot. Her whole concept of Walter was that he was all-powerful, very wise and resourceful. Surely he would find some way to make things come straight again.
She lay still a few minutes, staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling. But all orderly processes of the mind were difficult. Her recent experiences had unloosed a flood of tumultuous feelings. A new personality had emerged from that first embrace on the beach at Staten Island. Something had died within her at his kiss—something new and disturbingly wonderful had been born in its place. For a moment, forgetting the bitter reality, she let herself bathe in this dizzying sweet sensation. The hot blood rushed to her cheeks, but it was the blush of exultation. "Death" and "birth" did not seem to her the right words to describe the transformation. It was more of a blossoming, as when a butterfly outfolds its wings from a chrysalis. How wonderful it had been to feel his arms reaching out to her! How much more wonderful had been the feeling of reaching out to him.
The memory of their parting fell on her abruptly. It had all been a hoax. He did not love her. And that which a moment before had seemed so wonderfully right, now smarted as a shame. The butterfly wings snapped. She could find no tears. She looked forward, in dull pain, dry-eyed, to a life of abject crawling.
There was the inevitable wave of bitterness. What right had he to teach her flight and then break her wings? But this mood could not last. She loved him. All her pride, all her ideals of life and work—everything firm—deserted her. Nothing mattered any more except not to lose him. There was no humiliation, through which she would not crawl to regain his companionship. What did this talk of Love matter? She wanted to be with him, to feel his arms once more about her. Her whole being cried out that she was "his," utterly "his." Had she not loved him since their first encounter? She would go to him, asking no terms.
In the rush of this passionate impulse, she jumped out of bed—and saw the note under her door. The dream came back to her. Walter had called her. She had wasted these miserably unhappy moments in bed, and all the while his message had been waiting her!
"Dear Yetta. Isadore called up about 8.30 and asked me to tell—"
The note crumpled up in Yetta's hand. And there, alone in her room, with no one to see her, she had only one idea. She must not make a scene.
She smoothed out the note and went through the motions of reading it. Every muscle was tense, her teeth were gritted in the supreme effort to dominate the storm of wild impulses within her, to keep her head above the buffeting waves of circumstance. Mechanically she bathed and brushed her hair and dressed herself. Her mind was rigid—clenched like her teeth.
But subconsciously—behind this outward calmness—a momentous conflict was raging. In those few minutes, alone in her strange new quarters, with no one by to help or encourage her, she faced the fight and won. She did not win through unscathed,—modern psychology is teaching us that no one does come through such conflicts without wounds, which heal slowly, if at all.
In the din of the spiritual fray a new outlook on life had come to her. It was not so sharp a change as that which Walter's caresses had caused, but it was more fundamental—in the way that spiritual matters are always more significant than things physical.
Life as she had seen it was a ceaseless, desperate struggle, a constant clash of personalities, an unrelenting war of social classes. In an external, rather mechanical way she had been involved in this struggle. She looked forward to being "a striker" all her life. But she had always thought of herself as a part of the conflict. Now—and this was the new viewpoint—it seemed that the fight was taking place within her. The strategic position, the key to the whole battlefield, the place where the fiercest blows were to be exchanged, was her own soul. If she was defeated there, the fight was over—as far as she was concerned.
It was not to be until years afterwards that she came to a full understanding of what that half-hour had meant to her. It was to take many months before she could arrange her life in accord with this new outlook. But as she poured out the coffee, which Sadie had left on the back of the stove, she knew that she had won this first fight in the new campaign. For the moment, at least, she was the Captain of Her Soul.
In the overwhelming sadness of victory, in the poignant wistfulness of triumph, she had regained her pride. She was not going to humiliate herself to gain the narcotic pleasure of kisses when she wanted love. Walter would come to her or he would not. That was for him to decide. In either case the battle of life was still to be fought. She must not desert.
It was half past nine, and no word from Walter. She could not sit there idly, waiting for him to change his mood. To escape from the pain of uncertainty she reread Isadore's message—understandingly. Here was the day's work concretely before her. She put on her hat.
Out on Waverly Place she suddenly realized that her feet were carrying her to Washington Square and Walter. The Enemy made a desperate assault—surprised her with her visor up, her sword in its sheath, her shield hanging useless on her back. Why not? He would not have the heart to send her away. She knew his kindliness. If they were together, he would grow to love her. How could she expect him to change while they were apart? Together all would go well—
She had thought that the struggle of a few minutes before had been final—and here it was all to do over again.
A white-haired old man was walking towards her, but she did not notice him until he stopped and spoke.
"Are you sick, Miss?"
"No"—she shivered as she realized the import of what he had said, how much worse it was than he suspected—"Oh, no! I'm not sick."
But the old man stood still watching her as she turned down McDougal Street. He was half inclined to call a doctor. Soon Yetta realized that she had reached Bleecker Street. She turned across town to the Subway and so down to Newspaper Row and The Clarion office.
It bore no resemblance to that of The Star. The loft of a warehouse had been cut in two by a flimsy partition. In the back was a battery of second-hand, old-style linotypes, a couple of type-frames for the advertisement and job work, the make-up slab, the proof tables, and the stereotyping outfit. The stairway opened into this noisy, crowded room. Yetta had to walk carefully between the machines to reach the editorial room beyond the partition.
A low railing divided the front room between the "editorial" and "business" departments. To the right was a long reporters' table, smaller ones for the "City" and "Exchange" editors, and a roll-top desk beyond for Isadore.
Levine, a youngster with very curly black hair, a wilted collar, and soaked shirt, jumped up to greet Yetta.
"Hello," he shouted above the din of the typewriters and machines. "Here's a note from Isadore. He's out trying to raise money. I hope to God you can help us. Locke's sick. I'm running his desk and mine and Isadore's this morning. Harry's covering the Party News and Woman's Page besides his Telegraph and Exchanges, so that Sam can cover the State Convention. How in hell they expect us to get out a paper so short-handed is—"
"Oh, stop your croaking," Harry Moore yelled from his table, hardly looking up from a pile of Labor Papers he was clipping. "Things are no worse than usual. We'll get her out somehow. We always do. God's good to drunks and fools and Socialists."
One of the bookkeepers, from the "business" side of the railing, overhearing this "editorial" controversy, began to count at the top of his voice.
"One! Two! Three!"
At "Three" every one in the room, except Yetta and Levine, chanted in unison:—
"O-o-oh! Cut it out and work for Socialism!"
"You make me tired," Levine growled back at them, and sat down at his table with a despairing gesture.
Isadore's note told Yetta that a small but desperate strike had broken out among some paper-box factories in an out-of-the-way corner of Brooklyn. The workers were recently arrived immigrants who spoke no English. The regular papers had not mentioned the strike, and under cover of this secrecy, the bosses, who were allied with prominent Kings County politicians, were having everything their own way. He thought there was a big story in it. The publicity would certainly help the strikers. There was no one in the office to cover it.
Not a word of their last night's encounter.
"Comrade," Yetta asked Levine, "what time do you go to press?"
"One o'clock. Copy must be in by twelve-thirty. It's idiotic! Our Final Edition is on the streets before the regular papers lock up for their Home Edition. We can't get out a decent sheet in such—"
"One! Two! Three!"
"O-o-oh! Cut it out and work for Socialism!"
"They're fools!"
"Well," Yetta said, smiling for the first time that day, "I'll call you up about noon. Put a stenographer on the wire. That'll give you an opener for to-day. I'll have the whole story for a follow-up to-morrow. So long."
About the time that Yetta was starting off on this assignment, Isadore came into the office of the Woman's Trade Union League.
"Hello," Mabel greeted him. Then, as a second thought, and somewhat less cordially, she added, "Stranger."
She was not in a happy mood. Of late she had felt her grip on life weakening. People upon whom she depended were deserting her. It had begun when Isadore had given up his work for the League to start The Clarion. When a new lawyer had been broken in, Mrs. Karner had left. It had been impossible to replace her. The Advisory Council was doubly hard to manage without her. There had been other desertions. Isadore seemed to have started a stampede. And Mabel did not feel these days the same buoyancy in meeting such emergencies. Her few gray hairs she was still able to hide, but there was no getting away from the tired look about her eyes. Her sudden irritabilities frightened her. She was haunted by the idea that she was getting "crabbed."
Isadore pulled up a chair and broke at once into his business. He wanted Mabel to persuade Yetta to take up some regular work on The Clarion. Yetta had a talent for writing which ought not to be wasted. He would give them a column or so daily for their work of organizing women. "It would be helpful all round," he said. "Publicity for you. If it looks good to you, put it up to Yetta."
"It doesn't look good to me," Mabel said decisively. "You forget I'm not interested in your crazy little paper. What good is publicity to us among the couple of thousand hidebound Socialists who buy The Clarion?"
"Our circulation is over ten thousand."
"Pooh! Nobody but party members read it. Most of your circulation is given away—and thrown into the gutter. You think working-men ought to read a Socialist paper. But they don't. They prefer a real paper with news in it and pictures and a funny page. Yetta was a fool to give up her work on The Star. That was real publicity.
"You want to get Yetta on The Clarion. You surely do need somebody who knows how to write! You want her to drift away from the real work of organization—just as you did. I see through your mutual benefit talk. Instead of helping our work, you want to get her away from us. Well, the less she gets mixed up with The Clarion and your little closed circle of dogmatists, the better I'll be pleased."
"Come to think of it," Isadore said, changing his tactics, "I would like to see Yetta give all her time to The Clarion. As you say, we surely do need good writers. But that wasn't in my mind when I came in.
"I'm worried about Yetta. She needs to be kept busy—busier than she is. Of course I wouldn't want her to know I was butting in like this. But she's worrying about something—"
Mabel, her mind made up to be disagreeable, interrupted him.
"I knew it wasn't interest in the League that brought you here. I owe this visit to your solicitude about Yetta."
"That's not just, either, Mabel—although it's nearer right than your first guess. Yetta's principal work is with the League. It's natural I should come to you. I am really worried about her. Something's troubling her."
"What's the matter?"
"I don't know." Isadore was surprised at the ease with which he lied. "You don't have to know what's wrong to see that things aren't right. You'd have noticed it, too, if you had not been seeing her every day. But I haven't seen her for a long time"—he expanded his lie. "She came into my office this morning and it scared me. This 'what's-the-use' look. She's moody, sad. Going through some sort of a crisis. We all have them. Times when we wonder what God had against us when He made us, and all that. The only thing that helps is work.
"Yetta isn't doing much more for you than when she was studying or working on The Star. I guess it's the empty mornings that cause the trouble. Really, the way she looked startled me. I was coming uptown, anyway, and I decided to drop in and put it up to you. I really think the work I suggested—which would fill up her mornings—would help you fully as much as us."
Mabel bit the end of her pencil and looked out at the street. She was sure that Isadore had not told her all he knew. Probably Yetta had found Walter indifferent and was cut up over that. She would find out in the evening when Walter called on her. Perhaps more work would be good for Yetta. Not the job Isadore suggested. She had a decided hostility to him and this wild newspaper fad which had taken him away from "really useful work."
"You may be right about Yetta," she said, trying to soften her ill-humor. "I haven't seen any signs of a soul tragedy. But if she needs more work, I can give her more than she can handle right here—without urging her to waste time on your hobby."
"Your hobby or mine," Isadore said, getting up. "I don't care much which. My idea in coming was to see that Yetta was kept busy. And I think you'll see I was right about it. So long."
He was really glad that things had taken this turn. The impersonal, Socialist side of him would have rejoiced in winning Yetta's support for The Clarion. But he knew that in a personal way it would have been harder to have her always about. The sharpest pain in Cupid's quiver is to watch the one you love break heart for some one else.
From the League Isadore went in search of Wilhelm Stringer, the "organizer" of the "branch" of the Socialist local to which Yetta belonged. For near forty years, Stringer had earned what money he needed as a brass polisher. But his real job was Socialism. He had long been a widower, his own children had died in infancy and his cheated paternal instinct had found an outlet in quiet, intense love for the "young Comrades." He was a kindly "Father Superior" to the whole city organization.
Isadore found him eating his lunch on the sidewalk, in the shade of the factory. They were old friends and could talk without evasions.
"Bill," Isadore said, "this is a personal matter. It's just by chance I know about it. Comrade Yetta Rayefsky is up against it. You can guess the trouble as well as I could tell you. What she needs is to be kept so busy that she'll forget it. She's in your branch. There must be some work which isn't being done that you could unload on her. Work's the best medicine for her."
Very slowly Stringer chewed up his mouthful of cheese sandwich.
"Vell. Ve must send a delegate to der komität von education. Nowadays they meet three times a veek. That vill be a start. Und alzo ve commence soon mit the hauz to hauz mit tracts—for the campaign. That is much vork. Poor leetle girl. I guess ve can most kill her. Vork is gut medicine."
And Isadore, having stolen half a morning from his regular work, rushed downtown to the office.
CHAPTER XXVI THE CLARION
Yetta found the strike of the paper-box makers more serious than she had expected. The conditions of the trade were appalling. The half dozen factories were only the centre of a widespread sweating system. More than half of the work was done in the tenements of the districts where the Child Labor Law could be evaded and where women could be driven to work incredibly long hours beyond the reach of the Factory Inspectors.
The strikers were not only isolated—lost in a backwater district of Brooklyn, out of touch with labor organizations, ignorant of the laws and of their rights—they were also weakened by the division of languages. All were "greenhorn" immigrants, who had not yet learned English. They belonged to diverse and hostile races—a disunited medley of Slovaks, Poles, Italians, and Jews. The bosses have been quick to discover how serious an impediment to organization is a mixture of races.
Yetta came to them in the same way that Mabel, three and a half years before, had come to the striking vest-makers—bringing detailed, practical knowledge of how to manage a strike. As soon as she had telephoned in a first story to The Clarion, she took up the work of bringing order and hope into the despairing chaos of the struggle. She called on the police captain, and her threat of publicity made him change his mind in regard to the right of the strikers to hold meetings. Before supper-time the effect of the Clarion story was evident. Half a dozen labor organizers and Socialist speakers turned up. With this outside help the paper-box makers were able to organize their picket, arrange meetings, and start plans for money-raising. A Socialist lawyer took up the cases of the dozen odd strikers who had been arrested.
By ten o'clock the situation was immensely improved. Yetta escaped to a typewriter to get out her big "follow-up" for the next day's paper. She went at it with a peculiar thrill. She was realizing for the first time what a power in the fight a working-man's paper might be.
While she was working out her story, the semi-annual stockholders' meeting of the Coöperative Newspaper Publishing Company was called to order in one of the halls of the Labor Temple on East Eighty-fourth Street.
Walter had spoken of The Clarion as "Isadore's paper." In reality it was a coöperative enterprise. In the days when the working-men nearly elected Henry George as Mayor of New York, they had started to raise money to found a newspaper which would represent the interests of their class. It was decided that fifty thousand dollars was necessary, and a committee had been formed. In the first enthusiasm they had collected five thousand. Fresh efforts had been made intermittently, and the sum had grown to eight thousand.
When Isadore had returned from his vacation with the Pauldings, he had decided to centre his efforts on this project. He had studied the ways and means carefully, he had infused new life into the committee, and at last he had succeeded in organizing this coöperative publishing company. At their first meeting they had decided that fifty thousand was hopeless, and that they could begin with twenty-five. But after straining every nerve for six months, arranging balls and picnics and fairs, they had raised only twelve thousand. The Clarion was started on that amount. Every one who knew anything about modern journalism told Isadore he was a fool.
At first the paper ran on its capital. But after a few months the income from circulation, advertisements, and job-printing reduced the weekly deficit to about five hundred dollars. This was met in part by the Maintenance Pledge Fund. About two thousand people, mostly members of the Socialist party, had pledged weekly contributions ranging from ten cents to a few dollars. The remaining deficit was met by pure and simple begging and by rebates from the wages. Never was a paper run on a more strenuous and flimsy basis. The lack of economy of such poverty-stricken operation would have shocked any business man, would have caused apoplexy to an "efficiency expert." The cost of every process was twice or thrice what it would have been if they had had more money.
But financial worries were only a small part of what Isadore and his little band of enthusiastic helpers had to contend with. The Clarion was the property of the democratically organized shareholders, who elected an Executive Committee of five to manage it. Of all phases of public life, Democracy has shown itself least prepared to deal sanely with this business of newspapers. As a whole the stockholders of the company were deeply dissatisfied with the regular newspapers and ardently desired one which would truly represent their class. But although they were making great sacrifices, were putting up an amazingly large share of their earnings to support The Clarion, their idea of what to expect from it was very vague. They knew nothing at all of the technical problems of journalism.
The Executive Committee had stated meetings every week, and seemed to Isadore to be holding special meetings every ten minutes. More of his time went to educating this board of managers, teaching them what could and what could not be done with their limited resources, than in actual work on the paper.
When the meeting of the shareholders had been called to order, Rheinhardt, the chairman of the Executive Committee, read his report. The circulation had reached twelve thousand. The weekly deficit had been reduced to $400. The Maintenance Pledge Fund had brought in $310. Gifts to the amount of $66.50 had been received. The office force had receipted for $23.50 which they had not received. For the first time in the history of The Clarion a week had passed without increasing the indebtedness.
Then the meeting fell into its regular routine of useless criticism. One desperately earnest Socialist vehemently objected to some of the advertisements which, he said, favored capitalistic enterprise. He was immediately followed by another Comrade who accused the advertising force of rank inefficiency in not securing more of it. A third speaker said it was foolish to waste space on sporting news. The working-class had more serious things to think about. Three or four others at once clamored for the floor. They all told the same story: the men in their shops bought the papers to see how the Giants were coming along in the race for the baseball pennant. They would not buy The Clarion because its athletic news was weak. So it went on as usual—every suggestion was combated by a counterproposal—and so it would have gone on till adjournment, if one of the Executive Committee had not lost heart in the face of this futile criticism and resigned.
Wilhelm Stringer jumped up.
"Ve haf in our branch a comrade who is one gut newspaper lady. She has vorked mit a big yellow journal. I like to see gut Socialist on the komität, but alzo ve need some gut newspaper man. Und I nominate Comrade Yetta Rayefsky."'
No one sought the nomination, for it was a hard and thankless job, so Yetta was elected by acclamation.
"Ve vill nearly kill her mit vork. Yes?" Stringer said to Isadore as the meeting broke up.
"Do you think she'll accept?" Isadore asked dubiously.
"Sure, she vill. It is a gut girl. I haf not as yet asked her, but now I vill write a letter und tell her."
He gave the note to Isadore to deliver.
Yetta finished her copy about midnight, but finding much detail still needing attention at the strike headquarters, she decided to make a night of it and sleep in Brooklyn with a family of strikers. It was three in the morning before she turned in—too tired to remember with any clearness that her butterfly wings had been broken. More than once during the day she had had to fight against her tears—to struggle against the desire to drop all this work and rush back to Manhattan and Walter. But always at the weak moment some one who was weaker had asked her help.
It all had to be fought out again when she woke. She might not have won, if the conviction had not come to her during her sleep that somehow it must all turn out right in the end. When she reached "headquarters" she found so much to do that she had no time to mourn. The first mail brought in more than fifty dollars—the result of her yesterday's story. But better still was the fact that The Clarion's glaring headlines had forced the attention of the regular papers. The strike was receiving wide publicity. There is no other class of evil-doers who so ardently love darkness in their business as "unfair" employers. The bosses had not been much worried by the revolt of their workers, but they did not like to read about it—to have their acquaintances read about it—in their morning papers.
It was ten o'clock before Yetta could get away. Coming across on the elevated, she had her first chance to look at the yesterday's issue of The Clarion. It caused a revulsion from her feeling of enthusiasm over a working-man's paper. What a pitiful sheet it was! How different in tone and quality from the one Walter had talked of so glowingly! It was not only unattractive in appearance. There was not a detail which, to Yetta's trained eye, seemed well done. The headlines of her own story, which spread across the top of the front page, were crude. A dozen better ones suggested themselves to her. The mistakes they had made in expanding her telephone message to two columns were ludicrous and vexatious. What else was there in the paper? The rest of the front page was filled with telegrams which had been news several hours before it had gone to press! The second page—it was headed "Labor News"—offended Yetta especially. It was mostly "exchange paragraphs" clipped from trade journals. The original matter was written by some one who did not understand nor sympathize with the Trade-Union Movement, who evidently thought that every worker who was not a party member was mentally defective. The only spark of personality on the last page was Isadore's editorial. It was a bit ponderous and long-drawn-out, but at least it was intense and thoughtful. The cartoon was poorly drawn and required an analytic mind to discover the point. Yetta found it hard to believe that twelve thousand people had been willing to buy so uninteresting a paper when they could get the bright, snappy, sixteen-page Star for the same money.
She was tired and discouraged when she reached the office.
"I'm not a headline writer," she said as she tossed her copy on Levine's table, "but I've ground out some that aren't quite so stupid as those you ran yesterday."
Without waiting for his retort she went on to Isadore's desk.
"Here's a note from Stringer," he said as a greeting.
She tore it open listlessly.
"Well! That's a nervy piece of business," she said, throwing it into the waste-paper basket. "Electing me without asking my consent."
"Won't you serve?"
"No."
Isadore leaned back in his swivel chair and puffed nervously at his cigarette.
"Don't you think the job's worth doing?"
"It's worth doing well—but not like this."
It seemed to Isadore that a word of encouragement from her would have put new life into him. But she—like everybody else—had only criticism. He had a foolish desire to cry and an equally insane desire to curse. He managed to do neither.
"Well, what would you suggest? To bring it up to your standard of worth-while-ness?"
"It'll never be a newspaper till the front page gets over this day-before-yesterday look—for one thing."
"If you knew what we're up against," he said, laboriously trying to hide the sting her scorn gave him, "I think you'd be proud of our news department—as proud as I am. In the first place, of course, we have to subscribe to the very cheapest News Agency. Until we can afford some more delivery wagons—we've only got two now—we'll have to go to press by one. That means that the telegraphic copy must be in at twelve-thirty. The flimsies don't begin to come in till eleven. We can receive only one hour and a half out of twenty-four. And it's a rotten, unreliable, dirty capitalistic service—the only one we can afford. Half of it has to be rewritten. Harry Moore, who also reports night meetings, clips the labor papers, attends to the make-up, runs the 'Questions and Answers,' and collects jokes and fillers, has to read every despatch and rewrite most of them. Yes, I'm rather proud of our telegraphic department."
"Is the financial side so hopeless?" Yetta asked.
"Well, I don't call it hopeless. You're a member of the Executive Committee—at least till you resign—so you'd best look into the books."
For half an hour they bent their heads over balance-sheets. It was an appalling situation. The debt was out of all proportion to the property. To be sure much of it was held by sympathizers, who were not likely to foreclose. But there was no immediate hope of decreasing the burden. Any new income would have to go into improvements. The future of the paper depended not only on its ability to carry this dead weight, but on the continuance of the Pledge Fund and on Isadore's success in begging about a hundred dollars a week.
"It's hopeless," Yetta said. "You might run a good weekly on these resources, but you need ten times as much to keep up a good daily."
"Well, if you feel that way about it, Yetta, I hope you'll resign at to-night's meeting." His eyes turned away from her face about the busy room, and his discouraged look gave place to one of conviction. A note of dogged determination rang in his voice.—"Because it isn't hopeless! Our only real danger is that the executive committee may kill us with cold water. If we can get a committee that believes in us, we'll be all right. A paper like this isn't a matter of finance. That's what you—and the other discouragers—don't see. You look at it from a bourgeoise dollar-and-cents point of view. It's hopeless, is it? Well, we've been doing this impossible thing for more than a year. It's hopeless to carry such indebtedness? Good God! We started with nothing but debts—nothing at all to show. Every number that comes out makes it more hopeful. The advertising increases. The Pledge Fund grows. Why, we've got twelve thousand people in the habit of reading it now. That habit is an asset which doesn't show in the books. Six months ago we had nothing!—not even experience. Why, our office force wasn't even organized! And now you say it's hopeless—want us to quit—just when it's getting relatively easy. We—"
Levine's querulous voice rose above the din of the machines—finding fault with something. A stenographer in a far corner began to count, "One! Two! Three!" Every one in the office, even the linotypers and printer's devil beyond the partition took up the slogan.
"O-o-oh! Cut it out and work for Socialism."
The tense expression on Isadore's face relaxed into a confident grin.
"That's it. You think we need money to run this paper? We're doing it on enthusiasm. And nothing is going to stop us."
"I'll think it over," Yetta said. "If I can't see any chance of helping, I won't stay on the Committee to discourage you. I've got to go up to the League now and make peace with Mabel. I was so busy in Brooklyn last night I forgot all about a speaking engagement she'd made for me."
As she rode uptown Yetta was surprised by a strange revulsion towards her old work and workmates. Why the shattering of her romance should have changed her outlook on life she could not determine. She seemed somehow to have graduated from it all. Even with wings broken a butterfly does not want to crawl back into the chrysalis. All her old life had become abhorrent to her. She hated the steps in front of the League office as she walked up them. She realized that she was dangerously near hating Mabel. More sharply than ever before she felt the chasm between this finely bred upper-class woman and herself. No matter how hard she tried she would never be able to climb entirely out of her sweat-shop past. Jealousy made her unjust. She attributed Walter's preference—which was purely a matter of chance—to this difference in breeding.
Mabel, sitting within at her desk, was in no more cordial a mood. Walter had not called the night before. This had affected her more than she would have believed possible. It seemed typical of the way she was being deserted. A hungry loneliness had been gathering within her of late. The process of growing old seemed to be a gradual sloughing off of the relationships which really counted. Old age with Eleanor was a dreary outlook. She had not had many suitors this last year—none that mattered. As she had sat at home waiting for Walter to call, realizing minute by minute that he was not coming, the loneliness which had been only a hungry ache had changed to an acute pain. She was no more in love with him than before. But—although she had not admitted it to herself in so many words—if he had come, still seeking her, she knew she would have married him out of sheer fright at the doleful prospect of being left alone.
At the office that morning she had found a letter, which he had written the day before. He was sorry to have missed her. He was to be in the country only a few days, was leaving that afternoon for Boston—a collection he wanted to look over in the Harvard Museum—and was sailing from there to England. He told of the Oxford professorship he was accepting, and he was "Very truly yours." He did not even give his Boston address.
It was his formal "adieu." It was the concrete evidence—which is often so distressing, even when the fact is already known—that another chapter was finished.
She had hardly finished this letter when a telephone message had come, asking why Yetta had failed to appear at the meeting. It was a small matter, but it seemed important to Mabel. Yetta, the reliable, the dependable, had failed her. Was this a new desertion?
The stenographers had made more mistakes that morning than was their general average for a week.
At last Yetta came in. Her haggard face shocked Mabel. She forgot her own discomforts in a sudden flood of sympathy.
"What's the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Are you sick? Is that why you didn't speak last night?"
"No," Yetta replied shortly. It irritated her to think that her heartbreak showed in her face. "I'm not sick. I forgot."
"Forgot?"
"Yes. I forgot all about it till it was too late to do any good telephoning. I was over in Brooklyn. And even if I hadn't forgot, I couldn't have come. This paper-box strike is a lot more important than that meeting."
"Paper-box makers? I did not know they were striking."
"If you read The Clarion, you'd find out about such things."
Yetta tossed her copy on Mabel's desk. The edge of each word had shaved a trifle off the traditional friendship between them. Mabel had not intended to lose her temper. The sight of Yetta had touched her deeply. But it seemed to her—from Yetta's first word—that she was being flouted. The Clarion was the last straw. Below the glaring headlines was Yetta's name at the head of the story.
"So, you thought it more important to write an article for The Clarion than to keep an engagement for the League? I'd like to know whether you're working for me or for Isadore Braun."
Yetta had not intended to lose her temper, either. But she had been too tired and storm-tossed to be thoughtful. She was flooded by an insolent recklessness. Mabel Train did not need to put on airs, just because she had had a better education.
"Neither," she said defiantly. "I'm drawing my salary from the Woman's Trade Union League. If they don't like my work, all they've got to do is to tell me."
A stenographer giggled.
Yetta walked over to her letter-box and looked over her mail.
"Am I to understand that you are offering me your resignation?" Mabel asked.
"Oh, no! I was just making a general statement. Any time the Advisory Council want my resignation they can get it by asking."
Suddenly Yetta wanted to cry.
"What's the use of quarrelling?" she said contritely, coming over to Mabel's desk. "I'm all done up. Haven't had any sleep lately. Cross as a bear. I'll go home—a couple of hours' sleep will do me good. I'm sorry I—"
Her eye fell on the envelope of Walter's note. His well-loved handwriting stared at her—jeeringly. What did he have to say to Mabel? The apology died on her lips.
Mabel was too deeply offended to make peace easily. She had felt humiliated by the snicker of her secretary. She kept her eyes turned away and so did not see the sudden spasm of pain which twisted Yetta's face. She waited a moment for the apology which did not come. Then she turned back to her work without looking up.
"I will certainly present the matter to the next meeting of the Advisory Council," she said coldly.
Yetta turned without a word and slammed the door as she went out.