by Thomas Wolfe
All of these facts were in themselves enough to establish Mr. Walters as the pet of fashion and the spur of wit.
But there was more—much more. In addition to all these other claims to eminence, he was the chosen crony of the idol of the hour:—of Mr. Piggy Logan and his circus of wire dolls.
It was small wonder then that he was Privileged—chosen to do and dare what others could not dare to do, to walk with crowds, nor lose his virtue, to talk to kings, nor lose the common touch, to rush in blithely where the most experienced angels fear to tread, even to greet the most notorious Fallen Angel of the upper crust, with the cordial assurance of familiarity—only Mr. Hen Walters was privileged to do these things.
So he greeted her now with all the gleeful elations of his burbling voice:
“Oh, hello, Amy! I haven’t seen you for an age. What brings you here?”—in a tone that somehow indicated, with all the unconscious arrogance of his kind, that the scene and company was amusingly bizarre and beyond the pale of things accepted and confirmed,—that to find anyone of his own group in such a place was an astounding experience.
The tone and implication stung her sharply, “got her Irish up.” As for herself, she had received the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, the vicious scandal and the slander of her name, with beautiful good nature. But an affront to someone that she loved was more than she could endure. And she loved Mrs. Jack.
Almost before she was aware of what she was saying, she was repeating quickly:
“What brings me here—of all places! Well, first of all it’s a very good place to be—the best I know—And I mean! You know!—” She laughed hoarsely, quickly, jerked the cigarette from her mouth and tossed her head with a movement of almost furious impatience and said: “I mean! After all, I was invited, you know—which is more than I can say—” She checked herself and turned away with a short laugh. Her green gold eyes were flashing dangerously, and for the first time there was a flush of color on her golden face: the freckled pugnacity of her snub-nosed visage was more apparent than it had ever been.
Unconsciously, instinctively, with a gesture of protective warmth, she had slipped her arm around Mrs. Jack who, still rather over-whelmed by this tumultuous and unexpected invasion, had been standing by her, with her hand held to her ear, her rosy little face beaming with trustful confidence, as if still a little doubtful what was happening, but blissfully assured it was all right.
“Esther, darling,” Amy said. “This is Mr. Walters—and some of his friends”—but for a moment she looked at the cluster of young debutantes and their escorts, and then turned away, saying frankly, to no one in particular, but with no effort to subdue her tone: “God, aren’t they simply dreadful!—I mean!—You know!” She addressed herself now to the elderly man with the clipped stammer and the artificial teeth—“Charley—In the name of God, what are you trying to do?—You old cradle-snatcher, you—I mean! You know! After all, it’s not that bad, is it?” She surveyed the group of girls again with a short glance, then turned away with a brief, hoarse laugh: “My God! How do you stand it! I mean! After all!” She laughed suddenly hoarsely. “Six little vaginas standing in a row and not a grain of difference between them. Chapin’s School last year. Harvard and their first—this! All these little Junior League bitches,” she muttered. “How do you stand it, anyway! You old bastard!” She said quickly, and not at all awkwardly, and looking at him for a moment, laughed her short hoarse laugh. “Why don’t you come to see me any more?”
Before he answered her he licked his lips nervously and bared his artificial teeth.
“Wanted to see you, Amy, for ever so long—What?—Intended to stop in—Matter of fact, did stop by some time ago but you’d just sailed—What—You’ve been away, haven’t you—What—”
As he spoke these words in a kind of clipped staccato stammer, he kept licking his thin lips with nervous lechery, and at the same time he scratched himself, rooting rather obscenely into the inner thigh of his right leg in a way that suggested he was wearing woollen underwear, or was being bitten by a flea. The result of this operation was that his trouser leg was pulled up and stayed there, revealing the tops of his socks, and a portion of white meat.
Meanwhile, Hen Walters, still smiling his bright wet smile, was burbling on to Mrs. Jack:
“—So nice of you to let us all come in.” Although she, poor lady, had had nothing at all to do with it. “Piggy told us it would be all right. I hope you don’t mind.”
“But no-o—not at all!” she protested earnestly, still with a somewhat puzzled and bewildered look. “Any friends of Mr. Logan’s—But won’t you all have a drink or something to eat? There’s loads to eat—”
“Oh, heavens, no!” cried Mr. Walters, in a tone of such burblesome glee that it seemed he really could not keep his little secret any longer—that the joke which he had been harboring all evening, jubilantly suppressing in his moist throat now simply had to out—could be contained no longer, just had to be shared with the attendant universe. “We’ve all been to Tony’s and we simply gorged ourselves!”—he burbled gleefully. “If we took another mouthful, I’m absolutely positive we should explode!”
He uttered these words with such ecstatic jubilation that it really seemed for a moment that explosion was imminent—that he was likely to evaporate at any moment in a large moist bubble.
“Well, then, if you’re sure,” she began.
“Oh, absolutely!” cried Mr. Walters rapturously. “But we’re holding up the show!” he cried. “And, after all, that’s what we’re here to see. It would simply be a tragedy to miss it. Oh, Piggy,” he cried to his friend, who now had all his materials assembled and, cheerfully grinning, was crawling on his kneepads on the floor. “Do begin! Everyone’s simply dying to see it! I’ve seen it a dozen times myself,” he announced gleefully to the general public, “and it becomes more fascinating every time. So if you’re ready, please begin!”
Mr. Logan was ready and began.
The new arrivals took up their positions along the wall to the left and as he prepared to start his show carried on a vociferous and curious conversation with one another of which they themselves apparently had the key or understood the vocabulary. The other people, after looking at the newcomers with a somewhat puzzled and troubled expression, remained to themselves and made no further effort at contact. In fact, they withdrew a little to the other three corners of the room, leaving the assemblage now cleanly divided in two parts as if a knife had been drawn between them and cut them apart—the people of wealth, of talent, and of mixed abilities upon one side and those of fashion or “Society” upon the other.
On a signal from Mr. Logan, Mr. Walters detached himself from his group, came over, arranged the tails of his coat, and knelt down gracefully beside his friend. Then, in answer to instruction, he read a sheet of typewritten paper which Mr. Logan handed to him. It was a whimsical document of sorts, the effect of which was that to understand and enjoy the circus one must make an effort to recover his lost youth and have the spirit of a child again. Mr. Walters read this document with great gusto in a cultivated tone of voice which burbled with happy laughter. When he had finished, he got up and resumed his former position among his friends against the wall and Mr. Logan then began the performance of his circus.
It began, as all good circuses should, with a grand procession of the animals in the menagerie. Mr. Logan accomplished this by taking the wire figures of the various animals in his thick hands and walking them around the circus ring and then solemnly out again. This took some time, but was greeted at its conclusion with vociferous applause.
Then Mr. Logan had the grand procession of the performers. He marched them around in the same way with manipulations of his hairy paws. This also was carried out in full detail and was greeted with applause.
Then came the great performance. The circus started first with an exhibition of the bareback riders. Mr. Logan galloped his wire horses into the ring and round and round with movements
of his hand. Then he put his bareback riders on top of the wire horses, and holding them firmly in place, he galloped these around too. Then he brought in an interlude of clowns and made these wire figures tumble around by working and manipulating them with his hands. After this there was a procession of the wire elephants, etc. This performance gained particular applause because of the clever way in which Mr. Logan made the figures imitate the swaying ponderous lurch of elephants.
People were not always sure what each act meant, but when they were able to identify an act, a pleasant little laugh of recognition would sweep the crowd and they would applaud the act vigorously. There was now an act by the trapeze performers. This occupied a long time, because Mr. Logan first, with his punctilious fidelity to actuality, had to put up a little net below the trapeze, just as nets are put up in circuses. The trapeze act began and it was unconscionably long, largely because Mr. Logan was not able to make it work. First of all the little wire figures swung and dangled from their flying trapezes. Then Mr. Logan tried to make one little figure swing through the air, leave its trapeze and catch the other figure by its downswept hands. This wouldn’t work. Again and again the little wire figure soared through the air, caught at the outstretched hands of the other doll—and missed ingloriously.
It became painful: people craned their necks and looked embarrassed—all, indeed, except Mr. Logan who did not look at all embarrassed, but giggled happily with each new failure and tried again. It went on and on. It must have taken twenty minutes while Mr. Logan tried to make his trapeze figures catch and hang. But nothing happened. At length, when it was obvious that nothing was going to happen, Mr. Logan settled the whole matter himself by taking one of the little figures firmly between two thick fingers conveying it to the other and carefully hanging it to the other’s arms. When he had finished he looked up at his audience and giggled with cheerful idiocy. And the gathering, after a brief and somewhat puzzled pause, broke into applause.
Mr. Logan was now ready for what might be called the pièce de résistance of the entire occasion. This was the celebrated sword swallowing act on which he obviously prided himself a great deal. He picked up a small rag doll, stuffed with wadding and with crudely painted features, and with the other hand he took a long hairpin and began patiently and methodically to work it down the throat of the rag doll.
People looked on with amazement and then, as the meaning of Mr. Logan’s operation was conveyed to them, they smiled at one another in a puzzled and rather doubting way. And then, after another pause, they began to applaud decorously but half-heartedly.
It was a horrible exhibition. Mr. Logan kept working the hairpin down with thick, probing fingers and when some impediment of wadding got in his way he looked up and giggled foolishly. Half way down he struck an obstacle, and it seemed indeed he would not be able to go any farther. But he persisted—persisted horribly.
He kept working, and pressing with his hairpin while people looked at one another with distressed faces, and suddenly a gap appeared in the side of the bulging doll and some of the stuffing began to ooze out shockingly. At this manifestation some people gave up utterly. A few of the men looked at one another with an expression of disgust and loathing and quietly filtered out into the hall, or in the restorative direction of the dining room.
Miss Lily Mandell looked on with an expression of undisguised horror and, as the stuffing began to ooze out of the doll, she placed one hand against her stomach in a gesture of undisguised nausea, said “ugh,” and made her hasty exit in the direction of a nearby room.
The young “society people,” however, looked on with a simulation of eager interest and applauded everything enthusiastically. In fact, as Mr. Logan began to probe with his hairpin and the stuffing in the doll began to ooze out, one of the young women, with the pure, cleanly chiseled face that is so frequent in her class, turned to the young man who was standing beside her, who also had the lean head, the cropped shining hair, the small-boned and decisive features that are so familiar in his type, and said: “I think it’s frightfully interesting—the way he does that. Don’t you?”
To which the young man, also in what was evidently an approved accent, said briefly, “Eh,” an ejaculation that might have been indicative of almost anything but which here obviously was taken for assent.
This conversation had taken place in a curiously muffled clipped speech which apparently was the fashion among these people: when the girl had spoken she had barely opened her mouth and her words seemed to come out between almost motionless lips. The young man had answered her in the same way, the conversations of the other people in this group were likewise characterized by this formula or fashion of clipped and somewhat muffled speech, so that it was sometimes difficult to follow what they said.
It was a curious spectacle and would have furnished interesting material for the speculations of a thoughtful historian of life and customs of this golden age. It was astounding to see so many able and intelligent men and women, people with quick minds, tense nerves, high abilities, who could and had enjoyed almost every high and rare entertainment of travel, reading, music, and aesthetic taste, and who were for the most part so impatient of the dull, the boring, the trivial, patiently assembled here to give their respectful attention to an exhibition of this sort.
But even respect for the accepted mode was wearing thin. Save for this audience of the devoted young, people were beginning to get a trifle restless and impatient. The performance had already lasted a wearily unreasonable time, and it was evident that the main trouble with Mr. Logan’s dolls was that they wouldn’t work. His clowns, his trapeze performers, and his bareback riders, if they performed at all, performed only by the muscular assistance of their creator’s aiding fingers. He showed the persistence of a cheerful idiot and when he had tried something for twenty minutes or more, and had it fail, he would then make it work by using his own hands.
People had now begun to go out into the halls, and a few of the more cynical and less believing could be seen and heard talking to each other ironically with little laughs.
Even Mrs. Jack, who had slipped on a wonderful jacket of gold thread and seated herself cross-legged on the floor, like a dutiful child, squarely before the maestro and his puppets, had got up and gone out into the hall, where a number of her guests were now assembled. Here she found Lily Mandell, and approaching her with a bright affectionate little smile, she queried, hopefully:
“Are you enjoying it, Lily? And you, darling?” she now turned fondly to her young lover—“Do you like it?—Hah?—Are you having a good time?—Hah?”
Lily Mandell answered in a tone of throaty protest and disgust:
“When he started pushing that long pin into the doll, and all its insides began oozing out—ugh!”—She made a nauseous face and put a hand upon her stomach—“I simply couldn’t stand it any longer! It was horrible! Had to get out!—I thought that I was going to puke!”
Mrs. Jack’s shoulders shook, her face reddened, and she gasped in a hysterical whisper:
“I know! Wasn’t it awful?”
“But what is it, anyway?” said the attorney Roderick Hale, as he came up and joined the group.
“Oh, hello, Rod!” said Mrs. Jack—“What do you think of it?—Hah?” and held her hand up to her eager and attentive ear.
“I can’t make it out,” he said, and took another disgusted look into the living room where Piggy Logan was still patiently probing out the entrails of his rag doll, oozing insides out upon the floor—“What is it all supposed to be about, anyway? … And who is this fellow?” he said in an irritated tone as if his legal and fact-finding mind had been annoyed by some phenomenon he could not fathom. “It’s like some puny form of decadence,” he muttered in a discontented tone, and after another disgusted look into the room, he turned away.
At this moment, Mr. Jack came from the living room, approached his wife, and lifting his shoulders in a bewildered shrug, and with an alarmed face and accent, thickened Germanicall
y by his perturbation, he said:
“What is this? My Gott, perhaps I’m crazy!”
His bewildered protest was irresistibly comical.
Mrs. Jack shuddered, her face flamed, and she chuckled faintly, helplessly, as she put her handkerchief to her mouth:
“Poor Fritz!”
Jack turned, with the same bewildered face and gesture to his son, who had also now come out into the hall:
“What is it?” he said. “Can you find out?” He cast another bewildered look into the living room, surveyed the wreckage there, then turned away suddenly with a short explosive laugh:
“Gott! Tell me if he leaves the furniture! I’m going to my room!” he said decidedly, and Mrs. Jack chuckled faintly again, and said, “Poor Fritz!”
He looked at her a moment, then at the weird performance in the living room, then at his son, shrugged his shoulders helplessly again, shook his head with a gesture of defeat, and then, with a short laugh said:
“Mein Gott!—Your Mother!”
Mrs. Jack chuckled faintly, and with a crimsoned face, she leaned forward eagerly, clapped her small hand to her ear, and still trembling with laughter, said, “Hah?”
He looked at her cynically a moment, then shook his head and said:
“Nah-h!—Nah, Esther—”
“What?” she gasped in a feeble little squeak. “What?”
“Nah-h,” said Jack as before, turning to the smiling company in an explanatory way:
“The trouble with her iss not that she iss deaf. She iss dumb!”
Then, with another helpless shrug, a bewildered look into the living room, a defeated, baffled, “Gott!” he departed in the direction of his own room, followed by his wife’s hysterical little shriek, his son’s short heavy laugh, and the general amusement of the other people.
Mrs. Jack and Lily Mandell bent together shuddering helplessly in the way women have when they communicate whispered laughter to each other:
