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The Crimson Tide: A Novel, a novel by Robert W. Chambers |
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Chapter 20 |
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_ CHAPTER XX The pale parody on that sacred date which once had symbolised the birth of Christ had come and gone; the ghastly year was nearing its own death--the bloodiest year, for all its final triumph, that the world had ever witnessed--_l'annee horrible_! Nor was the end yet, of all this death and dying: for the Crimson Tide, washing through Russia, eastward, seethed and eddied among the wrecks of empires, lapping Poland's bones, splashing over the charred threshold of the huns, creeping into the Balkans, crawling toward Greece and Italy, menacing Scandinavia, and arousing the stern watchers along the French frontier--the ultimate eastward barrier of human liberty. And unless, despite the fools who demur, that barrier be based upon the Rhine, that barrier will fall one day. Even in England, where the captive navies of the anti-Christ now sulked at anchor under England's consecrated guns, some talked glibly of rule by Soviet. All Ireland bristled now, baring its teeth at government; vast armies, disbanding, were becoming dully restless; and armed men, disarming, began to wonder what now might be their destiny and what the destiny of the world they fought for. And everywhere, among all peoples, swarmed the stealthy agents of the Red Apocalypse, whispering discontent, hinting treasons, stirring the unhappy to sullen anger, inciting the simple-minded to insanity, the ignorant to revolution. For four years it had been a battle between Light and Night; and now there threatened to be joined in battle the uttermost forces of Evolution and Chaos--the spiritual Armageddon at last, where Life and Light and Order must fight a final fight with Degeneracy, Darkness and Death. And always, everywhere, that hell-born Crimson Tide seemed to be rising. All newspapers were full of it, sounding the universal alarm. And Civilisation merely stared at the scarlet flood--gawked stupidly and unstirring--while the far clamour of massacre throughout Russia grew suddenly to a crashing discord in Berlin, shaking the whole world with brazen dissonance. Like the first ominous puff before the tempest, the deadly breath of the Black Death--called "influenza," but known of old among the verminous myriads of the East--swept over the earth from East to West. Millions died; millions were yet to perish of it; yet the dazed world, still half blind with blood and smoke, sat helpless and unstirring, barring no gates to this pestilence that stalked the stricken earth at noon-day. New York, partly paralysed by sacrifice and the blood-sucking antics of half-crazed congressmen, gorged by six years feeding after decades of starvation, welcomed the incoming soldiers in a bewildered sort of way, making either an idiot's din of dissonance or gaping in stupid silence as the huge troop-ships swept up the bay. The battle fleet arrived--the home squadron and the "6th battle squadron"--and lay towering along the Hudson, while officers and jackies swarmed the streets--streets now thronged by wounded, too--pallid cripples in olive drab, limping along slowly beneath lowering skies, with their citations and crosses and ribbons and wound chevrons in glinting gold under the relighted lustres of the metropolis. So the false mockery of Christmas came to the city--a forced festival, unutterably sad, for all that the end of the war was subject of thanks in every church and synagogue. And so the mystic feast ended, scarcely heeded amid the slow, half-crippled groping for financial readjustment in the teeth of a snarling and vindictive Congress, mean in its envy, meaner in revenge--a domestic brand of sectional Bolsheviki as dirty and degenerate as any anarchist in all Russia. The President had sailed away--(_Slava! Slava! Nechevo!_)--and the newspapers were preparing to tell their disillusioned public all about it, if permitted. And so dawned the New Year over the spreading crimson flood, flecking the mounting tide with brighter scarlet as it crept ever westward, ever wider, across a wounded world. * * * * * Palla had not seen Jim for a very long time now. Christmas passed, bringing neither gift nor message, although she had sent him a little remembrance--_The Divine Pantheon_, by an unfrocked Anglican clergyman, one Loxon Fettars, recently under detention pending investigation concerning an alleged multiplicity of wives. The New Year brought no greeting from him, either; nobody she knew had seen him, and her pride had revolted at writing him after she had telephoned and left a message at his club--her usual concession after a stormy parting. And there was another matter that was causing her a constantly increasing unrest--she had not seen Marya for many a day. Quiet grief for what now appeared to be a friendship ended--at other times a tingle of bitterness that he had let it end so relentlessly--and sometimes, at night, the secret dread--eternally buried yet perennially resurrected--the still, hidden, ever-living fear of Marya; these the girl knew, now, as part of life. And went on, steadily, with her life's business, as though moving toward a dark horizon where clouds towered gradually higher, reflecting the glimmer of unseen lightning. Somehow, lately, a vague sensation of impending trouble had invaded her; and she never entirely shook it off, even in her lighter moods, when there was gay company around her; or in the warm flush of optimistic propaganda work; or in the increasingly exciting sessions of the Combat Club, now interrupted nightly by fierce outbreaks from emissaries of the Red Flag Club, who were there to make mischief. Also, there had been an innovation established among her company of moderate socialists; a corps of missionary speakers, who volunteered on certain nights to speak from the classic soap-box on street corners, urging the propaganda of their panacea, the Law of Love and Service. Twice already, despite her natural timidity and dread of public speaking, Palla had faced idle, half-curious, half sneering crowds just east or west of Broadway; had struggled through with what she had come to say; had gently replied to heckling, blushed under insult, stood trembling by her guns to the end. Ilse was more convincing, more popular with her gay insouciance and infectious laughter, and her unexpected and enchanting flashes of militancy, which always interested the crowd. And always, after these soap-box efforts, both Palla and Ilse were insulted over the telephone by unknown men. Their mail, also, invariably contained abusive or threatening letters, and sometimes vile ones; and Estridge purchased pistols for them both and exacted pledges that they carry them at night. On the evening selected for Palla's third essay in street oratory, she slipped her pistol into her muff and set out alone, not waiting for Ilse, who, with John Estridge, was to have met her after dinner at her house, and, as usual, accompany her to the place selected. But they knew where she was to speak, and she did not doubt they would turn up sooner or later at the rendezvous. All that day the dull, foreboding feeling had been assailing her at intervals, and she had been unable to free herself entirely from the vague depression. The day had been grey; when she left the house a drizzle had begun to wet the flagstones, and every lamp-post was now hooded with ghostly iridescence. She walked because she had need of exercise, not even deigning to unfurl her umbrella against the mist which spun silvery ovals over every electric globe along Fifth Avenue, and now shrouded every building above the fourth story in a cottony ocean of fog. When finally she turned westward, the dark obscurity of the cross-street seemed to stretch away into infinite night and she hurried a little, scarcely realising why. There did not seem to be a soul in sight--she noticed that--yet suddenly, halfway down the street, she discovered a man walking at her elbow, his rubber-shod feet making no sound on the wet walk. Palla had never before been annoyed by such attentions in New York, yet she supposed it must be the reason for the man's insolence. She hastened her steps; he moved as swiftly. "Look here," he said, "I know who you are, and where you're going. And we've stood just about enough from you and your friends." In the quick revulsion from annoyance and disgust to a very lively flash of fright, Palla involuntarily slackened her pace and widened the distance between her and this unknown. "You better right-about-face and go home!" he said quietly. "You talk too damn much with your face. And we're going to stop you. See?" At that her flash of fear turned to anger: "Try it," she said hotly; and hurried on, her hand clutching the pistol in her wet muff, her eyes fixed on the unknown man. "I've a mind to dust you good and plenty right here," he said. "Quit your running, now, and beat it back again--" His vise-like grip was on her left arm, almost jerking her off her feet; and the next moment she struck him with her loaded pistol full in the face. As he veered away, she saw the seam open from his cheek bone to his chin--saw the white face suddenly painted with wet scarlet. The sight of the blood made her sick, but she kept her pistol levelled, backing away westward all the while. There was an iron railing near; he went over and leaned against it as though stupefied. And all the while she continued to retreat until, behind her, his dim shape merged into the foggy dark. Then Palla turned and ran. And she was still breathing fast and unevenly when she came to that perfect blossom of vulgarity and apotheosis of all American sham--Broadway--where in the raw glare from a million lights the senseless crowds swept north and south. And here, where Jew-manager and gentile ruled the histrionic destiny of the United States--here where art, letters, service, industry, business had each developed its own species of human prostitute--two muddy-brained torrents of humanity poured in opposite directions, crowding, shoving, shuffling along in the endless, hopeless Hunt for Happiness. She had made, in the beginning of her street-corner career, arrangements with a neighbouring boot-black to furnish one soap-box on demand at a quarter of a dollar rent for every evening. She extracted the quarter from her purse and paid the boy; carried the soap-box herself to the curb; and, with that invariable access of fright which attacked her at such moments, mounted it to face the first few people who halted out of curiosity to see what else she meant to do. Columns of passing umbrellas hid her so that not many people noticed her; but gradually that perennial audience of shabby opportunists which always gathers anywhere from nowhere, ringed her soap-box. And Palla began to speak in the drizzling rain. For some time there were no interruptions, no jeers, no doubtful pleasantries. But when it became more plain to the increasing crowd that this smartly though simply gowned young woman had come to Broadway in the rain for the purpose of protesting against all forms of violence, including the right of the working people to strike, ugly remarks became audible, and now and then a menacing word was flung at her, or some clenched hand insulted her and amid a restless murmur growing rougher all the time. Once, to prove her point out of the mouth of the proletariat itself, she quoted from Rosa Luxemburg; and a well-dressed man shouldered his way toward her and in a low voice gave her the lie. The painful colour dyed her face, but she went on calmly, explaining the different degrees and extremes of socialism, revealing how the abused term had been used as camouflage by the party committed to the utter annihilation of everything worth living for. And again, to prove her point, she quoted: "Socialism does not mean the convening of Parliaments and the enactment of laws; it means the overthrow of the ruling classes with all the brutality at the disposal of the proletariat." The same well-dressed man interrupted again: "Say, who pays you to come here and hand out that Wall Street stuff?" "Nobody pays me," she replied patiently. "All right, then, if that's true why don't you tell us something about the interests and the profiteers and all them dirty games the capitalists is rigging up? Tell us about the guy who wants us to pay eight cents to ride on his damned cars! Tell us about the geezers who soak us for food and coal and clothes and rent! "You stand there chirping to us about Love and Service and how we oughta give. _Give!_ Jesus!--we ain't got anything left to give. They ain't anything to give our wives or our children,--no, nor there ain't enough left to feed our own faces or pay for a patch on our pants! _Give?_ Hell! The interests _took_ it. And you stand there twittering about Love and Service! We oughta serve 'em a brick on the neck and love 'em with a black-jack!" "How far would that get you?" asked Palla gently. "As far as their pants-pockets anyway!" "And when you empty those, who is to employ and pay you?" "Don't worry," he sneered, "we'll do the employing after that." "And will your employees do to you some day what you did to your employers with a black-jack?" The crowd laughed, but her heckler shook his fist at her and yelled: "Ain't I telling you that we'll be sitting in these damn gold-plated houses and payin' wages to these here fat millionaires for blackin' our shoes?" "You mean that when Bolshevism rules there are to be rich and poor just the same as at present?" Again the crowd laughed. "All right!" bawled the man, waving both arms above his head, "--yes, I do mean it! It will be our turn then. Why not? What do we want to split fifty-fifty with them soft, fat millionaires for? Nix on that stuff! It will be hog-killing time, and you can bet your thousand-dollar wrist watch, Miss, that there'll be some killin' in little old New York!" He had backed out of the circle and disappeared in the crowd before Palla could attempt further reasoning with him. So she merely shook her head in gentle disapproval and dissent: "What is the use," she said, "of exchanging one form of tyranny for another? Why destroy the autocracy of the capitalist and erect on its ruins the autocracy of the worker? "How can class distinctions be eradicated by fanning class-hatred? In a battle against all dictators, why proclaim dictatorship--even of the proletariat? "All oppression is hateful, whether exercised by God or man--whether the oppressor be that murderous, stupid, treacherous, tyrannical bully in the Old Testament, miscalled God, or whether the oppressor be the proletariat which screamed for the blood of Jesus Christ and got it! "Free heart, free mind, free soul!--anything less means servitude, not service--hatred, not love!" A man in the outskirts of the crowd shouted: "Say, you're some rag-chewer, little girl! Go to it!" She laughed, then glanced at her wrist watch. There were a few more words she might say before the time she allowed herself had expired, and she found courage to go on, striving to explain to the shifting knot of people that the battle which now threatened civilisation was the terrible and final fight between Order and Disorder and that, under inexorable laws which could never change, order meant life and survival; disorder chaos and death for all living things. A few cheered her as she bade them good-night, picked up her soap-box and carried it back to her boot-black friend, who inhabited a shack built against the family-entrance side of a saloon. She was surprised that Ilse and John Estridge had not appeared--could scarcely understand it, as she made her way toward a taxicab. For, in view of the startling occurrence earlier in the evening, and the non-appearance of Ilse and Estridge, Palla had decided to return in a taxi. The incident--the boldness of the unknown man and vicious brutality of his attitude, and also a sickening recollection of her own action and his bloody face--had really shocked her, even more than she was aware of at the time. She felt tired and strained, and a trifle faint now, where she lay back, swaying there on her seat, her pistol clutched inside her muff, as the ramshackle vehicle lurched its noisy way eastward. And always that dull sense of something sinister impending--that indefinable apprehension--remained with her. And she gazed darkly out on the dark streets, possessed by a melancholy which she did not attempt to analyse. Yet, partly it came from the ruptured comradeship which always haunted her mind, partly because of Ilse and the uncertainty of what might happen to her--may have happened already for all Palla knew--and partly because--although she did not realise it--in the profound deeps of her girl's being she was vaguely conscious of something latent which seemed to have lain hidden there for a long, long time--something inert, inexorable, indestructible, which, if it ever stirred from its intense stillness, must be reckoned with in years to come. She made no effort to comprehend what this thing might be--if, indeed, it really existed--no pains to analyse it or to meditate over the vague indications of its presence. She seemed merely to be aware of something indefinable concealed in the uttermost depths of her. It was Doubt, unborn. * * * * * The taxi drew up before her house. Rain was falling heavily, as she ran up the steps--a cold rain through which a few wet snowflakes slanted. Her maid heard the rattle of her night-key and came to relieve her of her wet things, and to say that Miss Westgard had telephoned and had left a number to be called as soon as Miss Dumont returned. The slip of paper bore John Estridge's telephone number and Palla seated herself at her desk and called it. Almost immediately she heard Ilse's voice on the wire. "What is the matter, dear?" inquired Palla with the slightest shiver of that premonition which had haunted her all day. But Ilse's voice was cheerful: "We were so sorry not to go with you this evening, darling, but Jack is feeling so queer that he's turned in and I've sent for a physician." "Shall I come around?" asked Palla. "Oh, no," replied Ilse calmly, "but I've an idea Jack may need a nurse--perhaps two." "What is it?" faltered Palla. "I don't know. But he is running a high temperature and he says that it feels as though something were wrong with his appendix. "You see Jack is almost a physician himself, so if it really is acute appendicitis we must know as soon as possible." "Is there _anything_ I could do?" pleaded Palla. "Darling, I do so want to be of use if----" "I'll let you know, dear. There isn't anything so far." "Are you going to stay there to-night?" "Of course," replied Ilse calmly. "Tell me, Palla, how did the soap-box arguments go?" "Not very well. I was heckled. I'm such a wretched public speaker, Ilse;--I can never remember what rejoinders to make until it's too late." She did not mention her encounter with the unknown man; Ilse had enough to occupy her. They chatted a few moments longer, then Ilse promised to call her if necessary, and said good-night. A little after midnight Palla's telephone rang beside her bed and she started upright with a pang of fear and groped for the instrument. "Jack is seriously ill," came the level voice of Ilse. "We have taken him to the Memorial Hospital in one of their ambulances." "W--what is it?" asked Palla. "They say it is pneumonia." "Oh, Ilse!----" "I'm not afraid. Jack is in magnificent physical condition. He is too splendid not to win the fight.... And I shall be with him.... I shall not let him lose." "Tell me what I can do, darling!" "Nothing--except love us both." "I do--I do indeed----" "Both, Palla!" "Y--yes." "_Do you understand?_" "Oh, I--I think I do. And I do love you--love you both--devotedly----" "You must, _now_.... I am going home to get some things. Then I shall go to the hospital. You can call me there until he is convalescent." "Will they let you stay there?" "I have volunteered for general work. They are terribly short-handed and they are glad to have me." "I'll come to-morrow," said Palla. "No. Wait.... Good-night, my darling." _ |
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