Vandover and the Brute

by Frank Norris

The appeal had been made directly to what was best and strongest in Vandover, and the answer was quick and over-powering. All the good that still survived in him leaped to life again in an instant, clamouring for recognition, pleading for existence. The other Vandover, the better Vandover, wrestled with the brute in him once more, never before so strong, never so persistent. He had not yet destroyed all that was good in him; now it had turned in one more revolt, crying out against him, protesting for the last time against its own perversion and destruction. Vandover felt that he was at the great crisis of his life.

After all was over he walked home through the silent streets, proceeding slowly, his hands in his pockets, his head bent down, his mind very busy. Once in his rooms he threw off his things and, having stirred up the drowsing fire in the tiled stove, sat down before it in his shirt-sleeves, the bosom of his full dress shirt bulging from his vest and faintly creaking as from time to time he drew a long breath. He had been lured into a mood where he was himself at his very best, where the other Vandover, the better Vandover, drew apart with eyes turned askance, looking inward and downward into the depths of his own character, shuddering, terrified. Far down there in the darkest, lowest places he had seen the brute, squat, deformed, hideous; he had seen it crawling to and fro dimly, through a dark shadow he had heard it growling, chafing at the least restraint, restless to be free. For now at last it was huge, strong, insatiable, swollen and distorted out of all size, grown to be a monster, glutted yet still ravenous, some fearful bestial satyr, grovelling, perverse, horrible beyond words.

And with the eyes of this better self he saw again, little by little, the course of his whole life, and witnessed again the eternal struggle between good and evil that had been going on within him since his very earliest years. He was sure that at the first the good had been the strongest. Little by little the brute had grown, and he, pleasure-loving, adapting himself to every change of environment, luxurious, self-indulgent, shrinking with the shrinking of a sensuous artist-nature from all that was irksome and disagreeable, had shut his ears to the voices that shouted warnings of the danger, and had allowed the brute to thrive and to grow, its abominable famine gorged from the store of that in him which he felt to be the purest, the cleanest, and the best, its bulk fattened upon the rot and the decay of all that was good, growing larger day by day, noisome, swollen, poddy, a filthy inordinate ghoul, gorged and bloated by feeding on the good things that were dead.

Besides this he saw how one by one he had wrenched himself free from all those influences that had tended to foster and to cultivate all the better part of him.

First of all, long ago it seemed now, he had allowed to be destroyed that first instinctive purity, that fragile, delicate innocence which dies young in almost every human being, and that one sees evaporating under the earliest taint of vice with a smile partly of contempt, partly of pity, partly of genuine regret.

Next it had been his father. The Old Gentleman had exerted a great influence over Vandover; he had never forgotten that scene the morning after he had told him of his measure of responsibility in Ida Wade's suicide, the recovery from the first shock of dazed bewilderment and then the forgiveness, the solicitude and the encouragement to begin over again, to live it down and to do that which was right and good and true. Not only had he stopped his ears to this voice, but also, something told him, he had done much to silence it forever. Despite the Old Gentleman's apparent fortitude the blow must have carried home. What must he not have suffered during those long weeks while Vandover was away, what lonely broodings in the empty house; and then the news of the wreck, the days of suspense!

It all must have told; the Old Gentleman was not strong; Vandover could not but feel that he had hastened his death, and that in so doing he had destroyed another influence which would have cultivated and fostered his better self, would have made it strong against the attacks of the brute.

The other person who had helped to bring out all that was best in Vandover had been Turner Ravis. There was no denying that when he had first known her he had loved her sincerely. Things were vastly different with him when Turner had been his companion; things that were unworthy, that were low, that were impure and vicious, did not seem worth while then; not only did they have no attraction for him, but he even shunned and avoided them. He knew he was a better man for loving her; invariably she made him wish to be better. But little by little as he frequented the society of such girls as Ida Wade, Grace Irving, and Flossie, his affection for Turner faded. As the habits of passionate and unhealthy excitement grew upon him he lost first the taste and then the very capacity for a calm, pure feeling. His affection for her he frittered away with fast girls and abandoned women, strangled it in the foul musk-laden air of disreputable houses, dragged and defiled it in the wine-lees of the Imperial. In the end he had quite destroyed it, wilfully, wantonly killed it. As Turner herself had said, she could only be in love with being loved; her affection for him had dwindled as well; at last they had come to be indifferent to each other, she no longer inspired him to be better, and thus he had shaken off this good influence as well.

Public opinion had been a great check upon him, the fear of scandal, the desire to stand well with the world he knew. Trivial though he felt it to be, the dread of what people would say had to a great extent held Vandover back. He had a position to maintain, a reputation to keep up in the parlours and at the dinner tables where he was received. It could not be denied that society had influenced Vandover for good. But this, too, like all the others, he had cast from him. Now he was ostracized, society cared no longer what he did, his position was gone, his reputation was destroyed. There was no one now to stand in his way.

Vandover could not fall back on any religious influence. Religion had never affected him very deeply. It was true that he had been baptized, confirmed, and had gone to church with considerable regularity. If he had been asked if he was a Christian and believed in God he would have answered "Certainly, certainly." Until the time of his father's death he had even said his prayers every night, the last thing before turning out the gas, sitting upon the edge of his bed in his night-gown, his head in both his hands. He added to the Lord's Prayer certain other petitions as to those who were in trouble, sorrow, poverty, or any other privations; he asked for blessings upon his father and upon himself, praying for the former's health and prosperity, and for himself, that he might become a great artist, that the "Last Enemy" might be admitted to the Salon when he had painted it, and that it might make him famous. But, as a rule, Vandover thought very little about religious matters and when he did, told himself that he was too intelligent to believe in a literal heaven, a literal hell, and a personal God personally interfering in human affairs like any Jove or Odin. But the moment he rejected a concrete religion Vandover was almost helpless. He was not mystic enough to find any meaning in signs or symbols, nor philosophic enough to grasp vague and immense abstractions. Infinities, Presences, Forces, could not help him withstand temptation, could not strengthen him against the brute. He felt that somewhere, some time, there was punishment for evildoing, but, as happened in the case of Ida Wade's death, to dwell on such thoughts disturbed and terrified him. He did not dare to look long in that direction. Conscience, remorse, repentance, all these had been keen enough at first, but he had so persistently kicked against the pricks that little by little he had ceased to feel them at all.