Empire: A Novel

by Gore Vidal

  “Good luck, my boy. I hope you can make something of my tendency to ramble. So much to talk about. So much to do. Next time I’ll give you a boxing lesson. As for your Mr. Hearst …” The bright eyes narrowed behind the gold-edged lenses. “We disagree on many things. Bryan, free silver. Those plaid suits. He wore,” Roosevelt’s voice moved up half an octave, with scorn, “a chartreuse plaid suit with a purple tie at the Mayor’s reception last month. And he wonders why no club will take him in.” The handclasp was heavy; and Blaise’s departure swift.

  The Chief was amused by the Governor’s sartorial disdain. “Well, at least we stopped him from wearing those pink shirts and fancy sashes.” The Chief lay full-length on a sofa in his living room. A bust of Alexander the Great at his head; one of Julius Caesar at his feet. On the floor lay a banjo. The drama critic of the Journal, Ashton Stevens, had vowed that he could teach Hearst to play the banjo in six lessons. But, after fourteen lessons, the longed-for virtuosity was still longed-for. Apparently, the Chief, despite his passion for popular music, was tone-deaf. For two weeks, he had been trying to learn “Maple Leaf Rag,” that essential exemplar of rag-time, with results that could only be regarded as sinister. The Chief was again in plaid; but this time of a subdued gray travertine hue, like a fashionable foyer’s floor, thought Blaise, as he finished his report on Governor Roosevelt.

  “Pity about what’s his name, the frog,” was all that Hearst had to say. He had moved on.

  “It would have been a great coup.” Blaise was also sorry that their hare-brained but exciting plot to rescue the prisoner of Devil’s Island had been preempted by the French government. Dreyfus was home: a free man. The Journal must look elsewhere for dragons to slay.

  “The ‘Man with the Hoe’ thing …” the Chief began; he did not need to finish. Recently, he had published, in the San Francisco Examiner, some verse by an obscure California teacher. Overnight, the poem had become the most popular ever published in the United States, “… and now they say that I’m a socialist! Well, maybe I am. Even so, a poem!” Hearst shook his head; and picked up the banjo. “Whoever thought a poem would increase sales?” Hearst had one more go at “Maple Leaf Rag.” Blaise felt his skin crawl. “I think I’ve got the hang of it,” said the Chief, striking a chord never before heard on earth; and holding it.

  George was at the door. “There’s another house-agent, sir.”

  “Tomorrow. Tell him nothing above Forty-second Street. I don’t want to be a farmer.”

  “Are you moving?”

  Hearst nodded. “They’re tearing down the Worth House. This year. Just as I finished fixing it up.” Hearst gestured to show off what looked to be an auction warehouse. Statuary in crates, dozens of paintings turned face to wall, while others that ought to have been face to wall were displayed as in a provincial French museum; chairs piled one on top of the other, reminiscent of the Louis XV Room of the Hoffman House after a dinner. “There’s a possibility in Chicago,” he said, swinging his long legs to the floor.

  “For a house, sir?”

  “No, a newspaper. To buy.”

  “The News!”

  “No. They won’t sell. But I could take over another one. Cheap.” Hearst glanced innocently at Blaise. “That is, cheap for you. Expensive for me right now. Next year my mother’s moving back to California.”

  “She won’t … help?”

  “She’d rather not, she says. She’s already in for, maybe, ten million. Then there’s Washington. The Tribune’s close to shutting down. Of course, there aren’t any votes in the District. But you can always have fun scaring the politicians.”

  Blaise was puzzled. “Votes? I thought you wanted readers.”

  “Well, I want both. I’ve got New York, San Francisco, and now Chicago—with a bit of luck. The Democratic Party’s up for grabs.”

  “You want to grab it?”

  “Somebody has to. You see, the press has a power that no one understands, including me. But I know how to make it work …”

  “To get readers. Votes are something else.”

  “I wonder.” The Chief stretched his arms. “My mother’s met your sister.”

  “Oh.” Blaise was guarded. He wanted no one, least of all Hearst, to know about the war between brother and sister. At the moment, they communicated only through lawyers. Caroline had appealed a lower court’s ruling; now they awaited a higher court’s decision on the arcana of the cyphers one and seven. Meanwhile, to Blaise’s surprise Caroline had settled not in New York, where the courts were, but in Washington, where, presumably, Del Hay was. Before Blaise had been able to stop her, she had sold the Poussins for two hundred thousand dollars; she now could afford to buy a vast amount of American law. But Houghteling had chuckled when he heard the news and said that, even so, she might well be twenty-seven by the time the case was settled in her favor. Irritably, Blaise had then pointed out that he was the one in a hurry, not she. At the moment relations with the Chief were good; but the Chief’s moods were volatile, to say the least. Now was the time to help him buy the Chicago newspaper. Later, old Mrs. Hearst might again come to her son’s aid; or he might even start to make more than he spent, a not likely prospect for a man who was in the habit of offering a good journalist double his usual salary, simply to get him away from the competition.

  “Your sister came to look at my mother’s house. But it was too big, she said. Your sister said, that is. She’s intelligent, Mother says. Why does she like Washington?”

  “I think it’s the Hay family that she likes.”

  “He’s practically an Englishman by now.” Hearst’s short attention span had snapped. Mother, sister, John Hay were as one with Captain Dreyfus and “Maple Leaf Rag.” “You go to Washington. Take a look at the Tribune. Don’t let on you have anything to do with me. I’ll scout out Chicago.”

  Blaise was delighted with the assignment; less delighted with the thought that he might see Caroline; alarmed when the Chief said, “Pay a call on Mother. Tell her how hard I work. How I don’t smoke or drink or use bad language. And tell her how much you like schools.”

  “But I don’t.”

  “But she does. She’s just started one for girls, up at the Cathedral. Maybe the two of us could go there and teach the girls—you know, journalism.” The Chief had come as close as Blaise had ever heard him to a smutty remark. “Give my regards to your sister.”

  “If I see her,” said Blaise. “She moves in refined circles.”

  – 2 –

  IN MARCH Caroline had arrived at the outermost ring of the republic’s circles, when she rented a small rose-red brick house in N Street, which ran through a part of dilapidated Georgetown, reminiscent of Aswan in Egypt, where she had once wintered with her father and his arthritis. There was hardly a white face to be seen; and the owner of the house, a commodore’s widow of pronounced whiteness, hoped that she would not mind “the darkies.” Caroline pronounced herself entranced; and hoped, she said, to hear tom-toms in the night. The widow said that as there were, happily, no Indians nearby, tom-toms would not sound; on the other hand, a good deal of voodoo was practiced between the Potomac River and the canal. She did not recommend it, in practice. The commodore’s widow left behind her a large black woman, who would “help out.” It was agreed that Caroline would take the house for at least one year. On the brick sidewalk in front of the house two vast shiny-leaved magnolia trees put the front rooms in deepest shadow, always desirable, Caroline had remarked, when living in the tropics. Predictably, Marguerite was stunned to find herself marooned in Africa, with an African in the kitchen.

  From the outermost circle, Caroline moved to the innermost: the dining room of Henry Adams, where breakfast was served for six each mid-day and no one was ever invited; yet the table was never empty except for this particular morning, when Caroline ate Virginia smoked ham and biscuits made with buttermilk, and the host, more round than ever, discussed his departure the next day for New York; and then a tour of Sicily with Senator and Mrs
. Lodge. “After that, I shall spend the summer in Paris, in the Boulevard Bois de Boulogne. The Camerons are there. She is there, at least. No more coffee, William,” he said to the manservant, William Gray, who poured him more coffee, which he drank. “Do you know a young poet, an American, named Trumbull Stickney?”

  Caroline said, accurately, that she knew very few Americans in Paris. “While we don’t seem to know any French,” said Adams, judiciously. “We go abroad to see one another. I gather that Mrs. Cameron is Mr. Stickney’s muse this spring. If I were young, I would not be jealous. As it is, I writhe.” But Adams seemed not to be writhing at all. “You must come over—or back in your case—and show us France.”

  “I don’t know France at all.” Caroline was again accurate. “But I know the French.”

  “Well, I can show you France. I tour the cathedrals yet again. I brood on the relics of the twelfth century.”

  “They are … energetic?”

  Adams smiled, almost shyly. “You remembered? I’m flattered.”

  “I’d hoped for more instruction. But just as I move to Washington, you go away. I feel as if you had created me, a second Mrs. Lightfoot Lee, and then left me in mid-chapter.” Caroline was now on forbidden territory. No one was ever supposed to suggest that Adams might be the author of the novel Democracy, whose heroine, a Mrs. Lightfoot Lee, settles in Washington in order to understand power in a democracy; and is duly appalled. Caroline had delighted in the book, almost as much as she did in its author. Of course, there were those who thought that John Hay had written the novel (he had been photographed holding a copy of the French edition and wearing a secret smile); others thought that the late Clover Adams, a born wit, was the author. But Caroline was certain that Adams himself had written his quintessential book of Hearts. He never, with her, denied—or affirmed—it. “The lesson of that amorality tale is—stay away from senators.”

  “That’s not difficult.”

  “In Washington? They are like cardinals in Renaissance Rome. You can’t avoid them. That’s why I flee to the twelfth century, where there were only three classes: the priest, the warrior and the artist. Then the commercial sort took over, the money-lenders, the parasites. They create nothing; and they enslave everyone. They expropriated the priest—don’t you like to hear all this at breakfast?”

  “Only when there is honey in the comb,” said Caroline, spreading the wax and honey over a piece of hot cornbread. “I can take quite a lot of priests expropriated. And the warriors …?”

  “Turned into wage-earning policemen, to defend the moneymen, while the artists make dresses or paint bad portraits, like Sargent …”

  “Oh, I like him. He never tries to disguise how much his sitters bore him.”

  “That is our last revenge against money. See? I count myself an artist; but I am only a rentier, a parasite. Why Washington?”

  Caroline was not certain how much she should confide in this brilliant old professional uncle. “My brother and I have disagreed …”

  “Yes, we’ve heard all about that. There is nothing to do with money that we don’t seem to hear about. We have lost our spirituality.”

  “Well, I may lose something far worse, my inheritance.” Where was it that she had read that there was a certain honey that made one mad? She had just eaten it, plainly; she confided: “Blaise could control everything for five years. He worships Mr. Hearst, who loses money on a scale that makes me very nervous.”

  “The terrible Mr. Hearst could end up losing the Sanford money, too?”

  As Caroline took more honey, she noted, in the comb, a tiny grub. Perversely, she ate it. “That’s my fear. Anyway, while our lawyers duel, Blaise lives in New York and I have come here to Aswan, to observe democracy in action, like Mrs. Lee.”

  “Then,” said Adams, pushing back from the table, and lighting a cigar, with a by-your-leave gesture, “there is Del.”

  “There is Del.”

  “He is next door, even as we speak. Are you tempted?”

  “My teacher—”

  “The formidable Mlle. Souvestre, now established at Wimbledon. She has advised you?”

  “No. She gives no advice. That is her style. I mean no practical advice. But she is brilliant, and she has never married, and she is happy, teaching.”

  “You want to teach?”

  “I have nothing to teach.”

  “Neither have I. Yet I run a school for statesmen, from Lodge to Hay. I am also Professor Adams, late of Harvard.”

  “I am not so ambitious. But I am curious what it would be like to remain single.”

  “With your—appearance?” Adams laughed; an appreciative bark. “You will not be allowed to stay single. The forces will be too great for you. Unlike you, your Grande Mademoiselle had neither beauty nor a fortune.”

  “In time, I shall lose the first, and in an even shorter time could lose the second. Besides, she is very handsome. She has had suitors.”

  “Perhaps,” said Adams, “she prefers the company of serious ladies, like an abbess of the twelfth century.”

  Caroline flushed, not certain why. Mademoiselle had had a partner when the school first began at Les Ruches. There had been quarrels; they parted. Mademoiselle had reigned alone ever since. No, this was not what she herself would prefer in the way of a life alone. But then she had had no experience, of any kind. “I have not the vocation,” she said, “of an abbess, even a worldly one.”

  The honey’s power released her. Adams led her into the library, her favorite American room. The overall effect was meant to be medieval, Romanesque even, with windows so sited that one could ignore the White House across the square by looking slightly upward, to Heaven. The room’s focal point was the fireplace, carved from a pale jade-green Mexican onyx shot through with scarlet threads; she had never seen anything like it before, but unlike so many things never seen before, the extraordinary silk-like stone fascinated her. On either side of the fireplace Italian cinquecento paintings were arranged, as well as a Turner view of the English countryside lit by hell-fire; best of all, there was a crude drawing by William Blake of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, on all fours, munching grass in his madness. “It is the portrait of my soul,” Adams had said when he showed it to her for the first time. The room smelled of wood-smoke, narcissi and hyacinth. The leather chairs were low, built to suit Adams and no one else. They quite suited Caroline, who settled in one, and said, “You must tell me when I’m to go.”

  “I’m already packed.” Adams groaned. “I hate travel. But I can never remain in one place.” William announced Mr. Hay, who limped into the room. He was in pain, Caroline decided; and looked a decade older than he had in Kent.

  “What are you doing here?” Adams pulled out his clock. “It’s Thursday. Your day to receive the diplomatic corps.”

  “Not till three. Cinderella holds the fort.”

  “Cinderella?” asked Caroline.

  Adams answered, “Mr. Hay’s name for his assistant, Mr. Adee, who does all the work in the kitchen, and is never asked to the ball.”

  “You’ve settled in, Miss Sanford?” Hay took coffee from William, who knew his ways. Caroline said that she had. Hay nodded vaguely; then turned to Adams. “I think of you, Enricus Porcupinus, as a deserter. When I need you most, you and Lodge leave town.”

  “You have the Maj-ah.” Adams was not in the least sentimental. “We’ve worked hard enough for you all winter. We got you your treaty. I long, now, to see La Dona—and the Don, too, of course.”

  “Tell her she may have her house back sooner than she thinks.”

  “What’s wrong with the Vice-President?”

  “Heart trouble. Doctor’s ordered him out of town, indefinitely.”

  “Well, it is not as if his absence will be noted.”

  “Oh, Henry, you are so hard on us poor hacks! Mr. Hobart may not be much as vice-presidents go, but he is one of the best financial investors in the country. He invests money for the Maj-ah and me, and we all do well. Th
ough I prefer real estate. I’ve been negotiating for a lot on Connecticut Avenue. It is my dream to build a many-spired apartment house. They are the coming thing in this town of transients …”

  Caroline had hoped for, perhaps, more elevated conversation at Hearts’ heart. But today the old men obviously did not inspire one another to breakfast brilliance, while her presence was now sufficiently familiar not to require any special exertion. In a way, she was relieved to be taken for granted. But that was by the old; she was, to the young Del, very much a wish ungranted. “I heard you were here,” he said, as he entered the room.

  Adams turned to Caroline: “Our kitchens correspond closely. From cook to cook. Our Maggie to their Flora.”

  “And I knew you’d be here, Mr. Adams, and Mr. Adee said Father was here, too. So I …”

  “You were at the office?” Hay looked surprised.

  “Why, yes. Then I went to the White House, where I had a meeting with the President. He’s asked me to surprise you.”

  “Is such a thing possible? Is such a thing wise?”

  “We’ll soon see.” Del took a deep breath. “I have just been appointed American consul general in Pretoria.”

  To Caroline’s astonishment, Hay looked as if someone had struck him. He took a deep breath, apparently uncertain whether or not tremulous lungs could absorb so much scented Adams library air. “The …?” He could not utter the literally magisterial noun.

  Del nodded. “The President made the appointment himself. He wanted to surprise you. He certainly surprised me. He also didn’t want people to think that I got the job because I am your son.”

  “Surely a republic ends,” said Adams, “when the rule of nepotism—like the second law of thermodynamics—ceases to apply.”