Chambers Robert William
The Crimson Tide: A Novel
CHAPTER XXV
As he left the taxi in front of the dirty brick archway and flight of steps leading to the hall, where he expected to find Palla, he noticed a small crowd of wrangling foreigners gathered there–men and women–and a policeman posted near, calm and indifferent, juggling his club at the end of its leather thong.
Jim paused to inquire if there had been any trouble there that evening.
“Well,” said the policeman, “there’s two talking-clubs that chew the rag in that joint. It’s the Reds’ night, but wan o’ the ladies of the other club showed up–Miss Dumont–and the Reds yonder was all for chasing her out. So we run in a couple of ’em–that feller Sondheim and another called Bromberg. They’re wanted, anyhow, in Philadelphia.”
“Is there a meeting inside?”
“Sure. The young lady went in to settle it peaceful like; and she’s inside now jawin’ at them Reds to beat a pink tea.”
“Do you apprehend any violence?” asked Jim uneasily.
The policeman juggled his club and eyed him. “I–guess–not,” he drawled. And, to the jabbering, wrangling crowd on pavement and steps: “–Hey, you! Go in or stay out, one or the other, now! Step lively; you’re blockin’ the sidewalk.”
A number of people mounted the steps and went in with Jim. As the doors to the hall opened, a flare of smoky light struck him, and he pushed his way into the hall, where a restless, murmuring audience, some seated, others standing, was watching a number of men and women on the rostrum.
There seemed to be more wrangling going on there–knots of people disputing and apparently quite oblivious of the audience.
And almost immediately he caught sight of Palla on the platform. But even before he could take a step forward in the crowded aisle, he saw her force her way out of an excited group of people and come to the edge of the platform, lifting a slim hand for silence.
“Put her out!” shouted some man’s voice. A dozen other voices bawled out incoherencies; Palla waited; and after a moment or two there were no further interruptions.
“Please let me say what I have to say,” she said in that shy and gentle way she had when facing hostile listeners.
“Speak louder!” yelled a young man. “Come on, silk-stockings!–spit it out and go home to mother!”
“I wish I could,” she said.
Her rejoinder was so odd and unexpected that stillness settled over the place.
“But all I can do,” she added, in an even, colourless voice, “is to go home. And I shall do that after I have said what I have to say.”
At that moment there was a commotion in the rear of the hall. A dozen policemen filed into the place, pushing their way right and left and ranging themselves along the wall. Their officer came into the aisle:
“If there’s any disorder in this place to-night, I’ll run in the whole bunch o’ ye!” he said calmly.
“All right. Hit out, little girl!” cried the young man who had interrupted before. “We gotta lot of business to fix up after you’ve gone to bed, so get busy!”
“I, also, have some business to fix up,” she said in the same sweet, emotionless voice, “–business of setting myself right by admitting that I have been wrong.
“Because, on this spot where I am standing, I have spoken against the old order of things. I have said that there is no law excepting only the law of Love and Service. I have said that there is no God other than the deathless germ of deity within each one of us. I have said that the conventions and beliefs and usages and customs of civilisation were old, outworn, and tyrannical; and that there was no need to regard them or to obey the arbitrary laws based on them.
“In other words, I have preached disorder while attempting to combat it: I have preached revolution while counselling peace; I have preached bigotry where I have demanded toleration.
“For there is no worse bigot than the free-thinker who demands that the world subscribe to his creed; no tyrant like the under-dog when he becomes the upper one; no autocracy to compare with mob rule!
“You can not obtain freedom for all by imposing that creed upon anybody by the violence of revolutionary ukase!
“You can not wreck any edifice until all who enjoy ownership in it agree to its demolition. You can not build for all unless each voluntarily comes forward to aid with stone and mortar.
“Anarchy leaves the majority roofless. What is the use of saying, ‘Let them perish’? What is the use of trying to rebuild the world that way? You can’t do it, even if you set fire to the world and start your endless war of human murder.
“If you were the majority you would not need to do it. But you are the minority, and there are too many against you.
“Only by infinite pains and patience can you alter the social structure to better it. Cautious and wary replacement is the only method, not exploding a mine beneath the keystone.
“The world has won out from barbarism so far. It must continue to emerge by degrees. And if beliefs and laws and customs be obsolete, only by general agreement may they be modified without danger to all. Not the violent revolt of one or a dozen or a thousand can alter what has, so far, nourished and sustained civilisation.
“That is the Prussian belief. Bolshevism was sired by Karl Marx and was hatched out in the shaggy gloom of the Prussian wilderness.
“It does not belong anywhere else; it does not belong on the plains of Russia or in her forests or on her mountains. It is a Prussian thing–a misbegotten monster born of a vile and decadent race,–a horrible parasite, like that one which carries typhus, infects as it spreads from the degraded race that hatched it, crawling from country to country and leaving behind it dead minds, dead hearts, dead souls, and rotting flesh.
“For order and disorder can not both reign paramount on this planet! The one shall slay the other. And Bolshevism is disorder–a violent and tyrannical and autocratic attempt to utterly destroy the vast majority for the benefit of the microscopic minority.
“You can not do it, you Terrorists! Prussia tried terrorism on the world. Where is she to-day? You can not teach by frightfulness. You can not scare beliefs out of anybody.
“Method, order, education–there is no other chance for any propagandist to-day.
“I have stood here night after night proclaiming that my personal conception of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of law and morals was the only intelligent one, and that I should ignore and disregard any other opinion.
“What I preached was Bolshevism! And I was such a fool I didn’t know it. But that’s what I preached. For it is an incitement to disorder to proclaim one’s self above obedience to what has been established as a law to govern all.
“It is an insidious counsel to violence, revolution, Bolshevism and utter anarchy to say to people that they should disregard any law formed by all for the common weal.
“If the marriage law seems unnecessary, unjust, then only by common consent can it be altered; and until it is altered, any who disregard it strike at civilisation!
“If the laws governing capital and labour seem cruel, stupid, tyrannical, only by general consent can they be altered safely.
“You of the Bolsheviki can not come among us dripping with human blood, showing us your fangs, and expect from us anything except a fusillade.
“And your propaganda, also, is not human. It is Prussian. Do you suppose, you foreign-born, that you can come here among this free people and begin your operations by cursing our laws and institutions and telling us we are not free?
“Because we tolerate you, do you suppose we don’t know that in most of the larger cities there are now organised Soviets, similar to those in Russia, that anarchists are now conducting schools, and that the radical propaganda which has taken on new life since the signing of the armistice is gaining headway in those parts of the country where there are large foreign-born populations?
“Do you suppose we don’t know Prussianism when we see it, after these last four years?
“Do you suppose we have not read the Staats-Zeitung editorial of December 8, which in part was as follows:
“‘Hundreds of thousands of our boys are standing now over there in the old homeland, which for nineteen months was enemy country and is that still, but which, as President Wilson promised, will soon be a land of peace again, rich in diligent work, rich in true and good people… As the whole happy life of this blessed region presents a picture to the spectator, it is to be wondered whether his (the American soldier’s) memory will awaken on what he read of this country (Germany) at home long ago, whether he will feel a slight blush of shame in his cheeks and anger for those who, not from their own knowledge but from doubtful sources, branded a whole great people, 70,000,000, as barbarians, huns, murderers of children and church robbers. And whether he (the American soldier) will at the same time make a pledge in his heart to combat those lies and rumours when he is back home again, and to tell the truth about those (the Germans) living behind those mountains.’”
Palla’s face flushed and she came close to the edge of the platform:
“I have been warned that if I came here to-night I’d have trouble. The anonymous writers who send me letters talk about bombs.
“Do you imagine because you murdered Vanya Tchernov in Philadelphia the other day that you can frighten anybody dumb?
“I tell you you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re dazed and scared and bewildered by finding yourselves suddenly in the open world after all those lurking years in hiding. As a forest wolf, his eyes dazzled by the sun, runs blindly across a field of new mown hay, dodging where there is nothing to dodge, leaping over shadows, so you, emerging from darkness, start out across the fertile world, the sun of civilisation blinding you so that you run as though stupefied and frightened, shying at straws, dodging zephyrs, leaping a pool of dew as though it were the Volga.
“What are you afraid of? You have nothing to fear except yourselves out here in the sunny open!
“Behold your enemies–yourselves!–selfish, defiant, full of false council, of envy, of cowardice, of treachery.
“For there would be no sorrow, no injustice in the world if we–each one of us–were true to our better selves! You know it! You can not come out of darkness and range the open world like wolves! Civilisation will kill you!
“But you can come out of your long twilight bearing yourselves like men–and find, by God’s grace, that you are men!–that you are fashioned like other men to stand upright in the light without blinking and slinking and dodging into cover.
“For the haymakers will not climb and stone you; the herds will not stampede; no watch-dogs of civilisation will attack you if you come out into the fields looking like men, behaving like men, asking to share the world’s burdens like men, and like men giving brain and brawn to make more pleasant and secure the only spot in the solar system dedicated by the Most High to the development of mankind!”
There was a dead silence in the place.
Palla slowly lifted her head and raised her right hand.
“I desire,” she said in a low, grave voice, “to acknowledge here my belief in law, in order, and in a divine, creative, and responsible wisdom. And in ultimate continuation.”
She turned away as a demonstration began, and Jim saw her putting on her coat. There was some scattering applause, but considerable disorder where men in the audience began to harangue each other and shake dirty fingers under one another’s noses. Two personal encounters and one hair-pulling were checked by bored policemen: a girl got up and began to shout that she was a striking garment worker and that she had neither money, time, nor inclination to wait until some amateur silk-stocking felt like raising her wages.
On the platform Karl Kastner had come forward, and his icy, incisive, menacing voice cut the growing tumult.
“You haff heard with patience thiss so silly prattle of a rich young girl–” he began. “Now it is a poor man who speaks to you out of a heart full of bitterness against this law and order which you haff heard so highly praised.
“For this much-praised law and order it hass to-night assassinated free speech; it has arrested our comrades, Nathan Bromberg and Max Sondheim; it hass fill our hall with policemen. And I wonder if there iss, perhaps, a little too much law and order in the world, und iff vielleicht, there may be too many policemen as vell as capitalist-little-girls in thiss hall.
“Und, sometimes, too, I am wondering why iss it ve do not kill a few–”
“That’ll do!” interrupted the sergeant of police, striding down the aisle. “Come on, now, Karl; you done it that time.”
An angry roar arose all around him; he nodded to his men:
“Run in any cut-ups,” he said briefly; climbed up to the rostrum, and laid his hand on Kastner’s arm.
At the same moment a stunning explosion shook the place and plunged it into darkness. Out of the smoke-choked blackness burst an uproar of shrieks and screams; plaster and glass fell everywhere; police whistles sounded; a frantic, struggling mass of humanity fought for escape.
As Jim reeled out into the lobby, he saw Palla leaning against the wall, with blood on her face.
Before the first of the trampling horde emerged he had caught her by the arm and had led her down the steps to the street.
“They’ve blown up the–the place,” she stammered, wiping her face with her gloved hand in a dazed sort of way.
“Are you badly hurt?” he asked unsteadily.
“No, I don’t think so–”
He had led her as far as the avenue, now echoing with the clang of fire engines and the police patrol. And out of the darkness, from everywhere, swarmed the crowd that only a great city can conjure instantly and from nowhere.
Blood ran down her face from a cut over her temple. A tiny triangular bit of glass still glittered in the wound; and he removed it and gave her his handkerchief.
“Was Ilse there, too?” he asked.
“No. Nobody went to-night except myself… Why were you there, Jim?”
“Why in God’s name did you go there all alone among those Reds!”
She shook her head wearily:
“I had to… What a horrible thing to happen!.. I am so tired, Jim. Could you get me home?”
He found a taxi nearer Broadway and directed the driver to stop at a drug-store. Here he insisted that the tiny cut on Palla’s temple be properly attended to. But it proved a simple matter; there was no glass in it, and the bleeding ceased before they reached her house.
At the door he took leave of her, deeming it no time to subject her to any further shock that night; but she retained her hold on his arm.
“I want you to come in, Jim.”
“You said you were tired; and you’ve had a terrible shock–”
“That is why I need you,” she said in a low voice. Then, looking up at him with a pale smile: “I want you–just once more.”
They went in together. Her maid, hearing the opening door, appeared and took her away; and Jim turned into the living-room. A lighted lamp on the piano illuminated his own framed photograph–that was the first thing he noticed–the portrait of himself in uniform, flanked on either side by little vases full of blue forget-me-nots.
He started to lift one to his face, but reaction had set in and his hands were shaking. And he turned away and stood staring into the empty fireplace, passionately possessed once more by the eternal witchery of this young girl, and under the spell again of the enchanted place wherein she dwelt.
The very air breathed her magic; every familiar object seemed to be stealthily conspiring in the subdued light to reaccomplish his subjection.
Her maid appeared to say that Miss Dumont would be ready in a few minutes. She came, presently, in a clinging chamber-gown–a pale golden affair with misty touches of lace.
He arranged cushions for her: she lighted a cigarette for him; and he sank down beside her in the old place.
Both were still a little shaken. He said that he believed the explosion had come from the outside, and that the principal damage had been done next door, in Mr. Puma’s office.
She nodded assent, listlessly, evidently preoccupied with something else.
After a few moments she looked up at him.
“This is the second day of February,” she said. “Within the last month Jack Estridge died, and Vanya died… To-day another man died–a man I have known from childhood… His name was Pawling. And his death has ruined me.”
“When–when did you learn that?” he asked, astounded.
“This morning. My housekeeper in Shadow Hill telephoned me that Mr. Pawling had killed himself, that the bank was closed, and that probably there was nothing left for those who had funds deposited there.”
“You knew that this morning?” he asked, amazed.
“Yes.”
“And you–you still had courage to go to your Red Cross, to your canteen and Hostess House–to that horrible Red Flag Club–and face those beasts and make the–the perfectly magnificent speech you made!–”
“Did–did you hear it!” she faltered.
“Every word.”
For a few moments she sat motionless and very white in her knowledge that this man had heard her confess her own conversion.
Her brain whirled: she was striving to think steadily trying to find the right way to reassure him–to forestall any impulsive chivalry born of imaginary obligation.
“Jim,” she said in a colorless voice, “there are so many worse things than losing money. I think Mr. Pawling’s suicide shocked me much more than the knowledge that I should be obliged to earn my own living like millions of other women.
“Of course it scared me for a few minutes. I couldn’t help that. But after I got over the first unpleasant–feeling, I concluded to go about my business in life until it came time for me to adjust myself to the scheme of things.”
She smiled without effort: “Besides, it’s not really so bad. I have a house in Shadow Hill to which I can retreat when I sell this one; and with a tiny income from the sale of this house, and with what I can earn, I ought to be able to support myself very nicely.”
“So you–expect to sell?”
“Yes, I must. Even if I sell my house and land in Connecticut I cannot afford this house any longer.”
“I see.”
She smiled, keeping her head and her courage high without apparent effort:
“It’s another job for you,” she said lightly. “Will you be kind enough to put this house on your list?”
“If you wish.”
“Thank you, Jim, I do indeed. And the sooner you can sell it for me the better.”
He said: “And the sooner you marry me the better, Palla.”
At that she flushed crimson and made a quick gesture as though to check him; but he went on: “I heard what you said to those filthy swine to-night. It was the pluckiest, most splendid thing I ever heard and saw. And I have seen battles. Some. But I never before saw a woman take her life in her hands and go all alone into a cage of the same dangerous, rabid beasts that had slain a friend of hers within the week, and find courage to face them and tell them they were beasts!–and more than that!–find courage to confess her own mistakes–humble herself–acknowledge what she had abjured–bear witness to the God whom once she believed abandoned her!”
She strove to open her lips in protest–lifted her disconcerted eyes to his–shrank away a little as his hand fell over hers.
“I’ve never faltered,” he said. “It damned near killed me… But I’d have gone on loving you, Palla, all my life. There never could have been anybody except you. There was never anybody before you. Usually there has been in a man’s life. There never was in mine. There never will be.”
His firm hand closed on hers.
“I’m such an ordinary, every day sort of fellow,” he said wistfully, “that, after I began to realise how wonderful you are, I’ve been terribly afraid I wasn’t up to you.
“Even if I have cursed out your theories and creeds, it almost seemed impertinent for me to do it, because you really have so many talents and accomplishments, so much knowledge, so infinite a capacity for things of the mind, which are rather out of my mental sphere. And I’ve wondered sometimes, even if you ever consented to marry me, whether such a girl as you are could jog along with a business man who likes the arts but doesn’t understand them very well and who likes some of his fellow men but not all of them and whose instinct is to punch law-breakers in the nose and not weep over them and lead them to the nearest bar and say, ‘Go to it, erring brother!’”
“Jim!”
For all the while he had been drawing her nearer as he was speaking. And she was in his arms now, laughing a little, crying a little, her flushed face hidden on his shoulder.
He drew a deep breath and, holding her imprisoned, looked down at her.
“Will you marry me, Palla?”
“Oh, Jim, do you want me now?”
“Now, darling, but not this minute, because a clergyman must come first.”
It was cruel of him, as well as vigorously indelicate. Her hot blush should have shamed him; her conversion should have sheltered her.
But the man had had a hard time, and the bitterness was but just going.
“Will you marry me, Palla?”
After a long while her stifled whisper came: “You are brutal. Do you think I would do anything else–now?”
“No. And you never would have either.”
Lying there close in his arms, she wondered. And, still wondering, she lifted her head and looked up into his eyes–watching them as they neared her own–still trying to see them as his lips touched hers.
He was the sort of man who got hungry when left too long unfed. It was one o’clock. They had gone out to the refrigerator together, his arm around her supple waist, her charming head against his shoulder–both hungry but sentimental.
“And don’t you really think,” she said for the hundredth time, “that we ought to sell this house?”
“Not a bit of it, darling. We’ll run it if we have to live on cereal and do our own laundry.”
“You mean I’ll have to do that?”
“I’ll help after business hours.”
“You wonderful boy!”
There seemed to be some delectable things in the ice chest.
They sat side by side on the kitchen table, blissfully nourishing each other. Birds do it. Love-smitten youth does it.
“To think,” he said, “that you had the nerve to face those beasts and tell them what you thought of them!”
“Darling!” she remonstrated, placing an olive between his lips.
“You should have the Croix de Guerre,” he said indistinctly.
“All I aspire to is a very plain gold ring,” she said, smiling at him sideways.
And she slipped her hand into his.
“Are you going back into the army, Jim?” she asked.
“Who said that?” he demanded.
“I–I heard it repeated.”
“Not now,” he said. “Unless–” His eyes narrowed and he sat swinging his legs with an absent air and puckered brows.
And after a while the same aloof look came into her brown eyes, and she swung her slim feet absently.
Perhaps their remote gaze was fixed on visions of a nearing future, brilliant with happiness, gay with children’s voices; perhaps they saw farther than that, where the light grew sombre and where a shadowed sky lowered above a blood-red flood, rising imperceptibly, yet ever rising–a stealthy, crawling crimson tide spreading westward across the world.
