RIPPLES
It rains. People carry umbrellas. A great financier has promised me an interview. The windows of his club look out on a thousand umbrellas. They bob along like drunken beetles.
Once in a blue moon one becomes aware of people. Usually the crowds and their endless faces are a background. They circle around one the way ripples circle around a stone that has fallen into the water. The torments, elation of others; the ambitions, defeats of others; the bedlam of others—who the piano. A cornet, probably. Or a ukulele. Parbleu, what creates in the plunge from youth to age.
Here, then, under the umbrellas outside the great financier's club, are people. One must marvel. They pass one another without so much as a glance. To each of them all the others—the bedlam of others—are ripples emanating from themselves. The great quests and struggles going on and the million agonies and tumults beating in the veins of the world—ripples. Yes, vague and vaguer ripples which surround the fact that one is going to buy a pair of suspenders; which circle the fact that one is invited out for dinner this evening.
* * * * *
Ah, the smug and oblivious ones under umbrellas! It rains, but the umbrellas keep off the rain. The world pours its distinctions and elations over their souls, but other umbrellas, invisible, keep off distractions and elations. And each of them, scurrying along outside the window of the great financier's club, is an omniscient world center to himself. The great play was written around him, a blur of disasters and ecstasies, a sort of vast and inarticulate Greek chorus mumbling an obbligato to the leitmotif which is at the moment the purchase of a pair of suspenders or a dinner invitation for the evening.
None so small under these umbrellas outside the window but fancies himself the center of the cosmos. None so stupid but regards himself as the oracle of the times. And they scurry along without a glance at one another, each innately convinced that his ideas, his prejudices, his ambitions, his tastes are the Great Standard, the Normal Criterion. Puritan, paranoiac, sybarite, katatoniac, hardhead, dreamer, coward, desperado, beaten ones, striving ones, successful ones—all flaunt their umbrellas in the rain, all unfurl their invisible umbrellas to the world. Let it rain, let it rain—calamities and ecstasies tipped with fire and roaring with thunder—nothing can disturb the terrible preoccupation of the plunge from youth to age.
* * * * *
The pavements gleam like dark mirrors. The office window lights chatter in the gloom. An umbrella pauses. The great financier is giving directions to his chauffeur. The directions given, the great financier stands in the rain for a moment. His eyes look up and down the street. What does he see? Ripples, vague and vaguer ripples, that mark his passage from the limousine into the club.
He is wet. A servant helps him remove his coat. Then he comes to the window and sinks into a leather chair and stares at the rain and the umbrellas outside. The great financier has been abroad. His highly specialized mind has been, poking among columns of figures, columns of reports. He desired to find out if possible what conditions abroad were. For six months the great financier closeted himself daily with other great financiers and talked and talked and discussed and talked.
But he says nothing. It is curious. The whole world and all its marvelous distractions seem to have resolved themselves into the curt sentence, "It rains." And somehow the great financier's faculty for the glib manipulation of platitudes which has earned him a reputation as a powerful economist seems for the moment to have abandoned him. His eyes remind one of a boy standing on tiptoe and staring over a fence at a baseball game.
* * * * *
The conversation finally begins. It runs something like this. It is the great financier talking. "Europe. Oh, yes. Quite a mess. Things will pick up, however." A long pause. The umbrellas bob along. One, two, three, four, five—the financier counts up to thirty. Then he rubs his hands together as if he were taking charge of a situation freshly arisen at a board of directors' meeting and says in a jovial voice: "Where were we? Oh, yes. The European situation. Well, now, what do you want to know in particular?"
Ah, this great financier has columns of figures, columns of reports and columns of phrases in his head. Press a button and they will pop out. "Have a cigar?" the financier asks. Cigars are lighted. "A rotten day," he says. "Doesn't look as if it will clear up, either, does it?" Then he says, "I guess this is an off day for me. No energy at all. I swear I can't think of a thing to tell you about the European situation."
He sits smoking, his eyes fastened on the scene outside the window. His eyes seem to be searching as if for meanings that withhold themselves. Yet obviously there is no thought in his head. A mood has wormed its way through the columns of figures, columns of reports, and taken possession of him. This is bad for a financier. It is obvious that the umbrellas outside are for the moment something other than ripples; that the great play of life outside is something other than an inarticulate Greek chorus mumbled as an obbligato for him alone.
The great financier is aware of something. Of what? He shakes his head, as if to question himself. Of nothing he can tell. Of the fact that a great financier is an atom like other atoms dancing in a chaos of atoms. Of the fact that each of the umbrellas crawling past under his window is as important as himself. The great financier's ego is taking a rest and dreams naked of words crowd in to distract him.
"We have in Europe a peculiar situation," he says. "England and France, although hitched to the same wagon, pull in different directions. England must build up her trade. France must build up her morale. These involve different efforts. To build up her trade England must re-establish Germany. To build up her morale France must see that Germany is not re-established and that it remains forever a beaten enemy."
The great financier looks at his watch suddenly. "By Jove!" he says. "By Jove!" He has to go. He is sorry the interview was a failure. But a rotten day for thinking. Back into his raincoat. A limousine has drawn up. A servant helps him to dress. In a moment another umbrella has joined the crawl of umbrellas over the pavement.
It rains. And a great financier is riding home to dinner.