Manly fidgeted. He hated to talk. Then Northrup said something that brought Manly to his feet––and to several minutes of restless striding about the room.
“Manly, while I was at my worst I couldn’t tell whether it was delirium or sanity, I saw that Thing across the water, the Thing that for lack of a better name we call war, in quite a new light. It’s what has got us all and is shaking us into consciousness. We’re going to know the true from the false when this passes. My God! Manly, I wonder if any of us know what is true and what isn’t? Ideals, nations, folks!”
Northrup’s face flushed.
“See here, old man,” Manly paused, set his legs wide apart as if to balance himself and pointed a finger at Northrup, “You’ve got to cut all this out and––beat it! Whatever that damned thing is over there, it isn’t our mess. It’s the eruption of a volcano that’s been bubbling and sizzling for years. The lava’s flowing now, a hot black filth, but it’s going to stop before it reaches us.”
“I wonder, Manly, I wonder. It’s more like a divining rod to me, finding souls.”
“Very well. Now I’m going to put an ugly fact up to you, Northrup. Your body is all right, but your nerves are frayed and unless you mind your step you’re going to go dippy. Catch on? There are places where nothing happens. Nothing ever has happened. Go and find such a hole and stay in it a month, six weeks––longer, if you can. Be a part of the nothingness and save your life. Break all the 3 commandments, if there are any, but don’t look back! I’ve seen big cures come from letting go! I’ll look after your mother and Kathryn.”
The telephone here interrupted.
“All right! all right!” snapped Manly into the receiver, “set the operation for ten to-morrow and have the hair shaved from the side of her head.”
Then he turned back to Northrup as if disfiguring a woman were a matter of no importance.
“The fact is, Northrup, most of us get glued to our own narrow slits in the wall, most of us are chained to them by our jobs and we get to squinting, if we don’t get blinded. I’m not saying that we don’t each have a slit and should know it; but your job requires moving about and peering through other fellows’ slits, and lately, ever since that last book of yours, you’ve kept to your hole; the fever caught you at the wrong time and this mess across seas has got mixed up with it all until you’re no use to yourself or any one else. Beat it!”