The City of Comrades

by Basil King

I was sure it was she—and yet I told myself it couldn’t be. I told myself it couldn’t be, for the reason that I had been deceived so frequently before that I had grown distrustful of my senses. All through the intervening time I had been getting glimpses of a slight figure here, of an alert movement there, of the poise of a head, of the wave of a hand—that for an instant would make my heart stop beating; but in the end it had meant nothing but the stirring of old memories. In this case I could have been convinced if the coincidence had not put too great a strain on all the probabilities.

I was to learn later that there was no coincidence; but I must tell my story in its right order.

The right order takes me back to my return to New York, after my week-end at Mrs. Grace’s, on the morning of June 29, 1914.

During the two or three hours of jogging down the length of Long Island in the train I tried to keep out of my mind all thoughts but one; having deposited my bags at my rooms, I should go to Stinson’s.

With regard to this intention I was clearly aware of a threefold blend of reaction.

First, there was the pity of it. I could take a detached view of this downfall, just as if I had heard of it in connection with Beady Lamont or old Colonel Straight. Though I should be only a man dropped in the ranks, while they would have been leaders, the grief of my comrades over my collapse would be no less sincere.

But by tearing my mind away from that aspect of the case I reverted to the satisfaction at being in the gutter, of which the memories had never ceased to haunt me. I cannot expect to make you, who have always lived on the upper levels, understand this temptation; I can only tell you that for men who have once been outside the moral law there is a recurrent tugging at the senses to get there again. I once knew an Englishman who had lived in the interior of Australia and had “gone black.” On his return to make his home in England he was seized with so consuming a nostalgia for his black wives and black children that in the end he went back to them. Something like this was the call I was always hearing—the call of Circe to go down.

But I knew, too, that there was method in this madness. I was deliberately starting out to earn the wages of sin; and the wages of sin would be death. I must repeat that going to Stinson’s would be no more than a slow, convenient process of committing suicide. It would be committing suicide in a way for which Regina Barry would not have to feel herself responsible, as she would were I to use the revolver. Having brought so much on her, I was unwilling to bring more, even though my heart was hot against her.

My heart was hot against her—and yet I had to admit that she had been within her rights. When all was said that could be said in my favor, I had deceived her. I had let her go on for the best part of a year believing me to be what I was not, when during much of the time I could see that such a belief was growing perilous to her happiness. I had been a coward. I should have said from the first moment—the moment when she took me for my brother Jack—“I am a crook.” Then all would have been open and aboveboard between us; but as it was there was only one way out. Any other way—any way that would have allowed me to go on living longer than the time it would take drink to kill me—would have been unbearable.

The checkmate to these musings came when my eyes fell upon Lovey. He was at the door of the apartment, not only to welcome me, but to give me ocular demonstration that he had kept the faith while I had been away. It was the first time since the beginning of our association that I had left him for forty-eight hours; and that he was on his honor during those two days was no secret between us. The radiant triumph of his greeting struck into me like a stab.