A Man's World

V

Our relations having been for the time determined, Ann set about to reform me. She was really horrified at the isolated life I had been leading. That I took little interest in humanity, none at all in public life and only by chance knew who was mayor of the city, shocked her. Every evening, after her other patients had been settled for the night, she brought me the papers. There was no love-making – only one kiss – until she had read to me for half an hour. It bored me to extinction, but she insisted that it was good for me. I had to listen, because each evening she examined me on what she had read the night before. So I acquired a certain amount of unrelated information about millionaire divorces, murders and municipal politics.

Her next step was to make me associate with the other patients.

"Bored?" she scolded. "It's a sin to be bored. They're people – human beings – just as good as you are. You're not interested in Mrs. Stickney's husband? You're not interested in Mr. Blake's business worries? Those are the two great facts of life. The woman half of the world is thinking about men. The man half is thinking about business. They are the two things which are really most interesting."

She took my reformation so much to heart that I began to be interested in it myself. I familiarized myself with all the symptoms of a husband's dyspepsia. Mrs. Stickney's eye trouble seemed to have been caused by a too close application to cook books – in search for a dish her husband could digest. From Mr. Blake's peevish discourse I got a new insight into business and the big and little dishonesties which go to make it up. I sometimes wonder if he really was robbed during his illness as much as he expected to be. He was convinced that his chief competitor would buy his trade secrets from his head book-keeper. He did not seem angry at his rival nor at his employee for seizing this opportunity to cheat him, but at the fates which, by his sickness, offered them so great a temptation. He complained bitterly because no such lucky chances had ever come to him.

But it was through the newspapers that I gained most.

"Want to hear about a millionaire socialist, who says that all judges and policemen ought to serve a year in jail before being eligible for office?"

"It sounds more hopeful than campaign speeches," I said submissively.

It was Norman Benson. I recognized his quaint way of expressing things, before she came to his name.

"I know him," I laughed.

I had to tell her all about our short acquaintance.

"Why don't you ask him to come up and see you?"

I did not feel that I knew him well enough to bother him. I had not seen him nor heard from him for three years.

The first thing in the morning, without letting me know, she telephoned him of my plight. About eleven o'clock, to my immense surprise, Miss Wright brought him to my room.

Benson was the busiest man I have ever known. In later years when I roomed with him and was his most intimate friend, I could never keep track of half his activities. He was a sort of "consulting engineer" in advertising. Big concerns all over the country would send for him and pay well to have him attract the attention of the public to some new product. He could write the Spotless Town kind of verses while eating breakfast, and although he did not take art seriously, he drew some of the most successful advertisements of his time. One year he earned about thirty thousand dollars, above his inherited income of ten thousand. He did not spend more than five thousand a year on himself, but he was always hard up.

He was director of half a hundred philanthropies – settlements, day-nurseries, immigrant homes, children's societies, and so forth. His pet hobby was the "Arbeiter Studenten Verein." When he did not entirely support these enterprises, he paid the yearly deficit. It was such expenses which pushed him into the advertising work he detested.

It was a wonder to me how, in spite of these manifold activities, he found time for the thousand and one little kindnesses, the varied personal relations he maintained with all sorts and conditions of men. Once a week or so he dined at the University Club, more often at the settlement, and the other nights he took pot-luck on the top floor of some tenement with one of his Arbeiter Studenten. In the same way he found time to remember me and bring cheer into the hospital.

That first morning, in speaking of the newspaper story, I asked him if he was a socialist.

"Hanged if I know," he said. "I never joined any socialist organization. I don't care much for these soap-box people. They talk about reconstructing our industrial institutions, and most of them don't know how to make change for a dollar. They talk about overthrowing Wall Street, and they don't know railroad-stock from live-stock. They don't begin to realize what a big thing it is – nor how unjust and crazy and top-heavy. But sometimes I think I must be a socialist. I can't open my mouth and say anything serious without everybody calling me a socialist. I don't know."

The remaining weeks in the hospital gave me a great fund of things to ponder over. My mind works retrospectively. I have always sympathized with the cud-chewing habit of the cow. The impressions of the hour are never clear-cut with me. For an experience to become real, I must mull over it a long time; gradually it sinks into my consciousness and becomes a vital possession.

Benson's sort of kindness was absolutely new to me. No one had ever done things for me as he did. And as it surprised me to have him take the trouble to send me a can of my favorite tobacco, so the affection, the intimate revelations of love, which Ann gave me, was a thing undreamed of. "Come with me, up on to a high mountain, and I will show you all the wonder of the world" – such was Ann's gift to me. Out of the horror of darkness, from the very bottom of the slough of despond, she led me up into the white light of the summit peaks of life.

As I read back over these pages, I find that I have described Ann as a voice, as a person who thought and talked of serious things, who seemed principally absorbed in an ambition, which up to that time had borne no fruit. I would like to picture the woman who came to me in the darkness with a wealth of cheer and tenderness and love.

Some day I hope our literature and our minds will be purified so that such things can be dealt with sanely and sweetly. But that time has not yet come and I must be content with the tools at hand. Ann brought to me in those desolate days all the wondrous womanly things – the quaint and gentle jests of love, the senseless sweet words and names which are caresses, the sudden gusts of self revelation, the strange and unexpected restraints – of which I may not write.

I was not lonely any more – not even when Miss Wright was on duty – there was so much to ponder over.

VI

At last the bandages were taken off. I recall the sudden painful glare of the darkened room, the three doctors in hospital costumes, who were consulting on different forms of torture. Especially I remember the mole on the forehead of the chief, a gray haired, spectacled man. It was the first things my eyes, startled out of their long sleep, fixed upon. The ordeal dragged along tragically. It seemed that they were intentionally slow. But the verdict when it came was acquittal. I was lucky. With care I might regain almost normal vision. But for months I must not try to read. Always, all my life, I must stop at the first hint of fatigue.

So, having adjusted some smoked glasses, they sent me back to my room, to pack and go out into a new life. As I entered the corridor, I saw two nurses at the other end. My heart stopped with a jump and I was suddenly dizzy. Somehow I had not thought of Ann in terms of sight. She had come to me out of the darkness, revealed herself as a sound and a touch. I had no idea how she would look. They both came towards me. I could see very little through my dark glasses. I could not guess which was which.

"So. They've taken off the bandages? I'm very glad." It was Miss Wright's strenuous voice.

"I'm glad, too," Ann said.

I tried to see her, but my eyes were full of tears.

"I'll show him his room," Ann said.

When the door was closed on us, she threw her arms about my neck and cried as I had never seen a woman cry.

"Oh! beloved," she sobbed. "I'm so glad. I was afraid – afraid you were going to be blind."

She had always been so cheerful, so professional, about my case – of course it would turn out all right – that I had not seen it from her point of view. It was a revelation to me that her bravery had been a sham.

"Oh. I was afraid – afraid!"

I tried to comfort her but all the pent-up worry and fear of weeks had broken out. And I had not realized that her love had made my risk a personal tragedy for her.

When she had quieted a little, I wanted her to stand away so that I might look at her. But no – she said – she did not want me to see her first when her eyes were swollen with tears. She clung to me tightly and would not show me her face.

There was a knock at the door. I had not lived long enough to realize the seriousness of a woman's wet eyes, and, without thought of this, I said, "Come in." It was Benson.

"Miss Wright tells me – "

He hesitated. He was looking at Ann. I turned too. She was making a brave effort to appear unconcerned, but her eyes were red past all hiding.

"Yes," she said, in her professional tone. "The news is very good. Better than we hoped."

"Fine. I dropped in," Benson said, as though there was nothing to be embarrassed about, "to see how you came out and get you to spend the week-end with me if they let you go. I've got to visit my uncle and aunt – stupid old people – hypochondriacs. But they are going to Europe next week and I really must see them. I'll die of boredom if there isn't someone to talk to. Better come along – the sailing's good. I've got to run over to the club for a few minutes. Can you get your grip packed in half an hour? All right. So long."

Ann was as nearly angry as I have ever seen her.

"At least you might have given me time to dry my eyes."

"I don't believe he noticed anything. Men never see things like that," I said.

But Ann laughed at this and so her good temper was restored.

Her face, now that I saw it, was not at all what I had expected. It was serious, meagre, a bit severe. I had thought of her as blonde, but her hair was a rich, deep brown. Of course I am no judge of her looks. She had brought joy into my darkness. She could not but be beautiful for me.

The expression is what counts most. About her face, emphasized by her nurse's uniform, was a definite air of sensibleness, of New England reliability. Perhaps under other circumstances she would not have attracted me. Her face in repose might not have inspired more than confidence. But when she put her hands on my shoulders and looked up into my face, with the light of love in her eyes, it seemed to me that a mystic halo of beauty shone about her. No other woman has ever looked to me as Ann did. And yet I know that most people would call her "plain."

The hardest thing for me to accept about her was her height. I had thought her considerably shorter than Miss Wright. I had been misled of course by the relative size of their voices. Ann was above average height and Miss Wright hardly five feet.

In the half hour before Benson returned, we had not discussed anything more concrete than opportunities to meet outside the hospital. She was free on alternate Saturdays from supper time till midnight. I was rather afraid that Benson, when we were alone, might ask some questions or make some joke about her, but he talked busily of other things.

His uncle and aunt were a lonely old couple. Their children were established and they had little left to interest them except their illnesses, some of which, Benson said, were real. It was a beautiful house just out of Stamford on the Sound – rather dolefully empty now that the children had gone. I had never seen such luxury, such heavy silver, such ubiquitous servants.

They were planning to live in Paris, near a daughter who had married a Frenchman. Their arrangements had been all made. But at the last moment their trained nurse had thrown them into confusion by deciding suddenly that she did not want to leave America. The aunt told us about it, querulously, at dinner. Ann's desire came to mind.

"How much free time would the nurse have?" I asked. "I know one who is anxious to live in Paris and study with Pasteur. She is very capable. Your nephew has seen her – Miss Barton – she was at the hospital. I liked her immensely."

Benson shot a quick glance at me. It was the only sign he ever gave of having noticed any intimacy between us.

"My aunt expects to live permanently in Paris," he said. "She would not want to take any one who was not willing to stay indefinitely."

"That, I think, would suit Miss Barton exactly."

Benson immediately fell in with my suggestion and recommended Ann enthusiastically. I had to answer a string of questions. The aunt was one of those undecided persons who hate to make up their mind, but the uncle wanted to get started. We talked about it continually during the three Sunday meals, and on Monday morning they went in to see her, with a note of introduction from me.

Ann, as I had foreseen, was delighted with the opportunity. She pleased them, and as soon as she could find a substitute, an easy matter, as her position was desirable, the arrangements were made.

VII

Ann and I spent together the day before they sailed. We had planned an excursion to the sea-side, but it rained desperately and we found refuge in an hotel. We were too much interested in each other to care much about the weather or our surroundings. Any beauties of nature which might have distracted our attention would have seemed an impertinence.

It was a day of never-to-be-forgotten delight. And yet it was not without a subtle alloy. By an unexpressed agreement, we lived up to Omar's philosophy, we discussed neither the past nor the future. I was afraid to stop and think, for fear it might seem wrong…

Once she brought a cloud by some expressions of gratitude for my having, as she put it, given her this great opportunity to realize her dream of studying with Pasteur. And all the while, I knew it was not solely for her sake that I had picked up this chance, which the fates had thrown me. Despite the joy of her love there was this under-current of incertitude. I wanted to get far enough away from it, to judge it. It is hard to express what I mean, but I was happier, more light-hearted, that day, because I knew she was leaving the next.

But these blurred moments were – only moments. We were young. It was the spring of life as it was of the year. The spirit of poesy, of the great Lyrics, was there in that tawdry hotel room…

In the early morning, through the wet glistening streets we made our way across town towards the river. Of course I knew just where we were going, but somehow the entrance to the dock found me surprised and unprepared. For a moment we stood there, shaking hands as formally as might be. Suddenly tears sparkled in her eyes, she reached up and kissed me. Then she turned abruptly and walked into the bare, shadowy building. She had a firm step, she was sallying out to meet her destiny.

I watched until she was out of sight. And then I surprised myself by a sigh of strange relief.

VIII

Later in the day I lunched with Benson at the University Club.

"What are your plans now?" he asked as we settled down to coffee and cigarettes.

"Find a job, I suppose."

"You're in no condition to work nor to look for work – just out of the hospital."

"But I've got to eat."

"That's a fool superstition!" he exploded. "You don't have to work in order to eat. None of 'the best people' do. Half the trouble with the world is that so many idiots will sweat – just to eat. If they'd refuse to work for tripe-stews and demand box seats at the opera, it would do wonders. Why people will slave all their lives long for a chance to die in a tenement is beyond me. What kind of work do you want?"

My ideas on that point were vague.

"How much money have you?"

That I had figured out.

"One hundred and eighty-five dollars and ninety-three cents. And then my books – perhaps I could get a hundred more for them."

"Of course if you are sufficiently unscrupulous that's a good start for a fortune. Lots of men have done it on less. But it's a bore to sit back and watch money grow. Did you ever see a hunk of shad-roe – all eggs? Money's a darn sight more prolific than fish. Impregnate a silver dollar with enough cynicism and you can't keep your expenses up with your income. Look how wealth has grown in this country in spite of all our thievery and waste! In the Civil War we burned money – threw millions after millions into the flames – we never noticed it. The nation was richer in '65 than in '60.

"But making money is a fool's ambition. Just think how many dubs succeed in earning a living. Anybody can do that. It isn't original. Look round for interesting work. Something that's worth doing aside from the wages. Take things easy. If you begin worrying, you'll grab the first job that offers and think you're lucky. Come down to the settlement – the board's seven a week. You can live three months on half your money. In that time you'll see a dozen openings. You'll be able to take your choice instead of snatching the first job you see."

This conversation was typical of Benson. He nearly always started off with some generalized talk, but just when you began to think he had forgotten you and the issue, he would end up sharp, with a definite proposition. I accepted his advice and moved to the "Children's House."

So my temporary blindness brought me into contact with two great facts of life I had hitherto ignored, women and want – the beauty of sex and the horror of misery. And these two things occupied my whole mind.

One by one I picked out my memories of Ann and pondered them in all their implications. I tried to arrange them like beads on a thread, in some ordered unified design. Day by day she became a more real and concise personality.

The effect of my encounter with Ann, I could then have found no word to describe. But a very modern term would explain my meaning to some. She opened my spirit to the "over-tones" of life. Last year I heard "Pelleas and Melisande." I sat through the first half hour unstirred. There was much sensuous appeal to the eyes, but the music seemed unsatisfactory. Suddenly appreciation came. Suddenly I understood with a rush what he was meaning to say. All the mystic harmony, the unwritten, unwritable wonder of it swept over me. And now Debussy seems to me the greatest of them all. "The Afternoon of the Faun" moves me more deeply than any other music. In fact, I think, we must invent some newer name than "music," for this more subtle perfume of sound.

In a similar way Ann showed me the "over-tones" of life. Deeper significance, mystic meanings, I found in many things I had hardly noticed before. The sunsets held a richer wealth of colors. I had known Chaucer and his predecessors intimately, somewhat less thoroughly all the world's great poetry. It had interested me not only as a study of comparative philology, not only as a delicate game of prosody – of rhythm and rhyme and refrain. It had held for me a deeper charm than these mechanical elements – fascinating as they are. But somehow it all became new to me. I discovered in the old familiar lines things, which, alone in my study, I had never dreamed of. I began to see in all poetry – in all art – an effort to express these "overtones."

On the other hand, my active life was spent in the appalling misery of the slums – a thing equally new to me. In those days the majority of our neighbors were Irish and German. Decade after decade the nationality of Stanton Street has changed. First the Germans disappeared, then the Russian and Hungarian Jews pushed out the Irish, now one hears as much Italian as Yiddish. The heart-rending poverty, the degradation of filth and drunkenness is not a matter of race. Wave after wave of immigration finds its native customs and morality insufficient to protect it from the contagion of the slum. And so it will be until we have the wisdom to blot out the crime of congestion and give our newcomers a decent chance.

I try to force my mind back to its attitude in those first weeks in the "Children's House" and try to explain to myself how I became part of "The Settlement Movement." I fail. I think very few of the really important things in life are susceptible to a logical explanation.

I have met some people, who from books alone have been impressed with the injustices of our social organization, and have left the seclusion of their studies to throw their lives into the active campaign for justice. Such mental processes are, I think, rare. Certainly it came about differently in my case.

When Benson proposed that I should come to live in the settlement, I felt no "call" to social service. I was lonely, out of work, utterly adrift. The memory of the evening I had spent with him in the Children's House and the interesting people I had met was very pleasant. I had no suspicions that I was going there to stay. It appealed to me as sort of convalescent home, where I could rest up until I was able to go out and cope with the ordinary life of the world.

At first the little circle of workers seemed incoherent. Here were half a dozen highly educated men and women, most of whom had left pleasant homes, living in the most abject neighborhood of the city. Why? What good were they doing? Around us roared the great fire of poverty. Here and there they were plucking out a brand, to be sure. But the fire was beyond their control. They did not even think they could stop it.

I remember one night at dinner we had for guest, a professor of economics from one of the big universities. He prided himself on his cold scientific view-point, he regarded the settlement movement as sentimental, almost hysterical, and he had the ill-breeding to forget that what he scoffed at was a desperately serious thing to his hosts.

"This settlement movement reminds me of a story," he said. "Once upon a time a kind hearted old gentleman was walking down the street and found a man – drunk – in the gutter. He tried vainly to pull the unfortunate one up on the sidewalk and then losing courage, he said, 'My poor man, I can't help you, but I'll get down in the gutter beside you.'"

He laughed heartily, but no one else did. The story fell decidedly flat. It was several minutes before anyone took up the challenge. At last, Rev. Mr. Dawn, the head worker, coughed slightly and replied. He had turned quite red and I saw that the joke had stung him.

"That is a very old story," he said, "it was current in Jerusalem a good many centuries ago. It was told with great eclat by a scribe and a pharisee who 'passed by on the other side.'"

"Oh, come, now!" our guest protested. "That's hardly a fair comparison. The Samaritan we are told really did some good to the poor devil. And besides the victim in that case was not a drunkard, but a person who had 'fallen among thieves.'"

"Thieves?" Benson asked, with a ring of anger in his voice. "Do you think there are no thieves but highway robbers?" – and then apparently realizing the uselessness of arguing with such a man, he smiled blandly and in a softer tone went on. "Besides some of us are foolish enough to imagine that we also can do some good. Let's not discuss that, we'd rather keep our illusions. Won't you tell us what you are teaching your classes about Marx's theory of surplus value? Of course I know that phrase is taboo. But what terms do you use to describe the proceeds of industrial robbery?"

I could not make up my mind whether the professor realized that Benson was trying to insult him or whether he was afraid to tackle the question. At all events he turned to Mrs. Dawn and changed the conversation.

This little tilt gave me a great deal to think of. I did not like the professor's attitude towards life. But after all, what good were these settlement workers doing? Again and again this question demanded an answer. Sometimes I went out with Mr. Dawn to help in burying the dead. I could see no adequate connection between his kindly words to the bereaved and the hideous dragon of tuberculosis which stalked through the crowded district. What good did Dawn's ministrations do? Sometimes I went out with Miss Bronson, the kindergartner and listened to her talk to uncomprehending mothers about their duties to their children. What could Miss Bronson accomplish by playing a few hours a day with the youngsters who had to go to filthy homes? They were given a wholesome lunch at the settlement. But the two other meals a day they must eat poorly cooked, adulterated food. Sometimes I went out with Miss Cole, the nurse, to visit her cases. It was hard for me to imagine anything more futile than her single-handed struggle against unsanitary tenements and unsanitary shops.

I remember especially one visit I made with her. It was the crisis for me. The case was a child-birth. There were six other children, all in one unventilated room, its single window looked out on a dark, choked airshaft, and the father was a drunkard. I remember sitting there, after the doctor had gone, holding the next youngest baby on my knee, while Miss Cole was bathing the puny newcomer.

"Can't you make him stop crying for a minute?" Miss Cole asked nervously.

"No," I said with sudden rage. "I can't. I wouldn't if I could. Why shouldn't he cry? Why don't the other little fools cry! Do you want them to laugh?"

She stopped working with the baby and offered me a flask of brandy from her bag. But brandy was not what I wanted. Of course I knew men sank to the very dregs. But I had never realized that some are born there.

When she had done all she could for the mother and child, Miss Cole put her things back in the bag and we started home. It was long after midnight but the streets were still alive.

"What good does it do?" I demanded vehemently. "Oh, I know – you and the doctor saved the mother's life – brought a new one into the world and all that. But what good does it do? The child will die – it was a girl – let's get down on our knees right here and pray the gods that it may die soon – not grow up to want and fear – and shame." Then I laughed. "No, there's no use praying. She'll die all right! They'll begin feeding her beer out of a can before she's weaned. No. Not that. I don't believe the mother will be able to nurse her. She'll die of skimmed milk. And if that don't do the trick there's T.B. and several other things for her to catch. Oh, she'll die all right. And next year there'll be another. For God's sake, what's the use? What good does it do?" Abruptly I began to swear.

"You mustn't talk like that," Miss Cole said in a strained voice.

"Why shouldn't I curse?" I said fiercely, turning on her challengingly, trying to think of some greater blasphemy to hurl at the muddle of life. But the sight of her face, livid with weariness, her lips twisting spasmodically from nervous exhaustion, showed me one reason not to. The realization that I had been so brutal to her shocked me horribly.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," I cried.

She stumbled slightly. I thought she was going to faint and I put my arm about her to steady her. She was almost old enough to be my mother, but she put her head on my shoulder and cried like a little child. We stood there on the sidewalk – in the glare of a noisy, loathsome saloon – like two frightened children. I don't think either of us saw any reason to go anywhere. But we dried our eyes at last and from mere force of habit walked blindly back to the children's house. On the steps she broke the long silence.

"I know how you feel – everyone's like that at first, but you'll get used to it. I can't tell 'why.' I can't see that it does much good. But it's got to be done. You mustn't think about it. There are things to do, today, tomorrow, all the time. Things that must be done. That's how we live. So many things to do, we can't think. It would kill you if you had time to think. You've got to work – work.

"You'll stay too. I know. You won't be able to go away. You've been here too long. You won't ever know 'why.' You'll stop asking if it does any good. And I tell you if you stop to think about it, it will kill you. You must work."

She went to her room and I across the deserted courtyard and up to mine. But there was no sleep. It was that night that I first realized that I also must. I had seen so much I could never forget. It was something from which there was no escape. No matter how glorious the open fields, there would always be the remembered stink of the tenements in my nostrils. The vision of a sunken cheeked, tuberculosis ridden pauper would always rise between me and the beauty of the sunset. A crowd of hurrying ghosts – the ghosts of the slaughtered babies – would follow me everywhere, crying, "Coward," if I ran away. The slums had taken me captive.

As I sat there alone with my pipe, the groans of the district's uneasy sleep in my ears, I realized more strongly than I can write it now the appalling unity of life. I sensed the myriad intricate filaments which bind us into an indivisible whole. I saw the bloody rack-rents of the tenements circulating through all business – tainting it – going even into the collection plates of our churches. I saw the pay drawn by the lyric poet, trailing back through the editorial bank account to the pockets of various subscribers who speculated in the necessities of life, who waxed fat off the hunger of the multitude. My own clothes were sweat-shop made.

I could not put out the great fire of injustice. I could at least bind up the sores of some of my brothers who had fallen in – who were less lucky than I. My old prep. school ethics came back to me. "I want to live so that when I die, the greatest number of people will be glad I did live." In a way it did not seem to matter so much whether I could accomplish any lasting good. I must do what I could. Such effort seemed to me the only escape from the awful shame of complaisancy.