As the car rolled carefully through the broken streets, Durant became aware of a strange excitement among the people and the soldiers on the sidewalks. They were holding newspapers with large black headlines, and for the first time in many years Durant saw delight and laughter on the congregated faces. Something had broken up mobs of civilians and soldiers into mirthful groups, freely exchanging comments with an unfamiliar abandon and pleasure and much hoarse mirth. Soldiers, who always stood apart from civilians, now mingled with them, shouting and swearing and grinning, and slapping their legs. Durant ordered the car stopped, and a paper brought to him. He already had some suspicion. When the car moved on again, his suspicions were confirmed. The headlines shouted: “Major Andrew Curtiss quarters Military on Farms in Section 7 Area! Issues Directive to Replace Gold with Ordinary Currency in Grange Banks!”
The paper then went on to say, with laudatory side comments, that Major Curtiss was an “expert” on agricultural matters and had been angered by the “misery of the people who were being exploited by the farmers in violation of the spirit of the law as laid down by the Military.” There were exultant accounts of the “fury” of the farmers and their leaders, and there were implications that “some spokesmen for the farmers” were expressing defiance and uttering threats. “If this is so,” said an editorial, “it is about time that the people of The Democracy, not only in Section 7 but in all other Sections, study the whole agricultural picture thoroughly, and come to a decision whether any group—and we mean ‘any group’ with all overtones—should be privileged to enjoy benefits at the expense of a patriotic public. The Military has lived austerely, as the people have lived, in spite of the fact that the Military is our Government and has unlimited power, especially in periods of national emergency. Only the farmers have ruthlessly assigned to themselves privileges above and beyond what either the Military or the people have assigned to themselves. Major Curtiss’ bold and justifiable action in quartering the Military upon the farmers reveals the deep concern of the Government for all the people. That the farmers and their leaders are alleged to be expressing sentiments of defiance and anger should convince even the most conservative and tolerant that the agricultural sections are hotbeds of treason and subversion, as well as arrogance and greed. Major Curtiss, our new and youthful ruler, is to be congratulated on his action.”
Durant, with immense satisfaction, looked through the car windows and smiled. Tonight three hundred officers and men would sleep well and soft in the farmhouses of this area, and scores of farmers would be desperately muttering together in their haylofts and in their fields under the darkness of night. But what of the other Sections? What would Washington have to say about all this? Durant tried to remember the Chief Magistrate’s reassuring promises, but he began to wonder, somewhat uneasily. However, there was one consolation: the joy and delight of the Military in Section 7 would impress the men in Washington. Any attempt to reverse Durant’s decision would enrage the Military in other Sections, would convince the Military that the civilian authority was treacherously and slyly attempting to supplant them, and there would be fresh outrages and oppressions instigated against the people in general. Durant lost his uneasiness, and was much cheered.
Within a week, he said confidently to himself, the Military everywhere would be quartered on the farmers, wherever it was possible. Millions of fat and wealthy and privileged farmers muttering together in haylofts and at night, all over the country! Rich, well fed and heretofore privileged as third in importance in The Democracy, they would not accept their debasement and spoliation with the meekness and humility they so heartily approved of for the cities. Would they dare to strike? If so, dozens of them would be openly shot. But this would not subjugate men heavy with beef and money and power. It would only incite them further.
On a back page of the newspaper he found news of the directive he had given to Captain Steffens. It was reported with enthusiasm, if inconspicuously. That was bad, commented Durant to himself. However, within a few weeks the tortured parents of the children in Section 7 ought to feel that the end must come, and by their own efforts. There was no news about the closing of the special schools for privileged children. That would be a matter to keep discreetly quiet, and Dr. Healy was a man of discretion. There would be no occasion offered to the people in general for rejoicing over the humiliation and oppression of wealthy bureaucrats and the MASTS. The fires of rage would burn, but it would be behind expensive draperies and heavy doors. However, the intensity of the fire would not be the less because it mounted in secret, nor the explosion less violent when it burst through plate-glass windows.
Then Durant had an alarming thought: his new directive pertaining to the farmers would make the Military popular in the cities. There was but one thing to do, and that was to reduce the rations of all city workers, with the exception of the bureaucrats and other privileged groups, increase the hours of work, and pass a new Section 7 tax on the meager conscript wages of the people in general. He must give harsher orders to the Military under his command with regard to the populace. He began to formulate these orders. All in the name of the new “war effort,” The Democracy, and “Unity! Duty! Sacrifice!” Perhaps, in spite of all the evidence of the decades, the tormented masses might finally be goaded into action of some sort.
Lincoln’s slave workers were still in the warm fields when Durant arrived at the farm. He passed one group, which was being bullied and cursed by Lincoln’s older son. Young Lincoln looked at him in surly silence, but Durant glared at him with cold fury and the other man touched his forehead hastily and went about his work. The car rolled into a garage, and Durant pocketed the keys and dismissed his driver, who returned to Philadelphia on his motorcycle. Then Durant clattered noisily into the cool and pleasant shadows of the house. No one was about, so Durant shouted angrily. In a few moments Dr. Dodge appeared, his glazed eyes as motionless as the eyes of the dead. He stood in the doorway of the living room, and waited.
“I want to see Lincoln, at once, and I want some ice and some whisky,” said Durant. “In my room.”
He went up the stairway, threw off his hat and sat down in a comfortable chair. His arm was throbbing, and his head was aching, and his weariness was like a tremendous pain all over his body. “You’ll be tired, too, before this is over,” Colburn had told him. He was already tired. The ugliness and cruelty and viciousness he had encountered were too much for his soul. The sweet wind blowing the curtains of the windows could not assuage his desperate exhaustion; he looked with apathy at the golden willow and the blue sky beyond it.
The door opened and Lincoln, himself, brought in a silver pitcher of ice and a bottle of whisky. The farmer’s face was livid and his eyes sunken. He put down the pitcher and bottle on a table near Durant, then burst out in a trembling voice: “Major! You don’t mean that about Gracie, do you? Gordon called—Why, Major, I don’t believe it! You ain’t that sort of man, are you, Major? My little girl. Why, she’s had everything, been taken care of, by her Ma and me—”
Durant studied him with hard coldness. “Is your daughter better than the daughters of other men in this country? What makes her so special, Lincoln? Is all the sacrifice to be done by the people in the cities, and not by the farmers? What kind of deviation is this, Linocln?”
The farmer stood before him, broken and pleading, his hands extended. “But, Major, we been patriotic people; we done everything for the country.” He relapsed into his old, semi-literate speech. “We sacrificed—”
Durant did not have to pretend fury. He jumped to his feet. “What did you farmers sacrifice for The Democracy, at any time?” he yelled. “You were always tax-exempt; you always had your barns and storehouses loaded with food. You’ve had your cars, your comfort, your sons, your daughters, your fat and well-dressed wives! Many of you lied about your neighbors and were permitted to confiscate their farms. Your banks are piled high with gold. When the cities starved, you ate well; when the cities went ragged, you wore the best an
d warmest of clothes. While city dwellers fell into ruins, your houses became more luxurious, and you filled your rooms with the belongings of others. You kept your cattle from the stockyards, until you had your exorbitant prices; you threw away millions of gallons of milk, while babies died in the cities. You burned grain when the Government suggested you reduce your price: you killed off your chickens because you could not get their weight in gold. You fed your vegetables and your corn to your stock, while the people of the cities picked in the gutters. You kept your sons safely at home, while the sons of better men died in the wars. What did you sacrifice, Lincoln, to anybody, to anything?”
Lincoln opened his dry mouth, made an impotent effort to speak, then merely stood, his jaw slack, his body quaking.
“The Government should have collectivized you long ago,” continued Durant, in wrath, “just as it collectivized labor. But you held a gun to the heads of politicians, and they did what you asked them to do. That day is past, Lincoln. We, the Military have issued new directives.”
Lincoln stammered hoarsely: “I don’t care what else you do, Major, but my little girl—”
“I want her up here at ten o’clock tonight,” said Durant, with a brutal gesture of dismissal. “Now, get out, Lincoln, or I’ll kick you out. Or perhaps you’d prefer a bullet from this gun?”
The man literally fell from the room, grasping the side of the open door to keep himself from falling headlong. Durant slammed the door hard behind him, then dropped into his chair again. He was panting with his loathing and hatred. He tried to put some ice into a glass and to pour some whisky. But his hand shook with weakness. He cursed, twisted himself into a better position. But his fingers felt paralyzed. It was then that he saw that Dr. Dodge had mysteriously appeared.
The old man took the bottle and the ice from Durant and expertly mixed him a drink. Durant was frightened and newly enraged. “Were you listening, you old fool?” he demanded. Dr. Dodge gave him the glass, silently, and Durant took it, watching the other man speculatively. What did it matter? The blind eyes were fixed on a point behind Durant, and Dr. Dodge gave the appearance of a dead man inexplicably moving and standing upright, never speaking.
Durant began to talk in a low voice: “Look at you, Dodge! You had time, years ago. But you, and others like you, prattled of ‘liberalism’ and ‘orderly social revolution.’ You watched the ruin come; you saw the fall of the Republic. You helped the Republic to fall, didn’t you? Then you were alarmed. But it was too late. Are you happy that you betrayed America, Dodge? Do you like what you see these days, all the things you helped to bring about?”
The blind eyes still stared emptily at the window, the delicate worn hands dangled at the sides of the emaciated shanks. He was beyond all comprehension.
“All the fine colleges!” said Durant, dropping his voice still more. “All the shining schoolrooms, where you and your kind taught at your desks! There you sat, and cynically spouted your deadly materialism, and smirked over the ‘new progress’ and the ‘new era which is emerging from the old capitalism, the era of social significance and consciousness.’ You uttered the name of God with ridicule, and as if it were an obscenity. Nothing was sacred to you, was it? Neither honor, nor honorable work, nor justice, nor self-discipline, nor self-control, nor religion, nor virtue, nor manliness, nor self-respect, nor courage, nor dignity. You sent out your intellectualized young men and young women, poisoned and depraved, instruments of destruction. Now they are slaves, and you are a slave, also. At the last, you tried to expiate your sins against humanity by a single act of protest. But it was too late. Too late, Dodge.”
Dr. Dodge did not move. He was apparently deaf as well as blind.
“How you laughed at the Constitution, Dodge!” Durant whispered fiercely, leaning toward him. “How some of you admired Soviet Russia and Socialism! Well, do you like this now? Do you like totalitarianism, this system which you praised so highly?”
Then Dr. Dodge moved like an automaton, and Durant watched him. The doctor lifted a picture on the wall, and, to his horror, Durant saw a small black object attached behind it. Wires dangled, loosely, from the object. With swift movements of his hands, Dr. Dodge attached the wires, showing Durant mutely how it was done.
Durant gasped. Dr. Dodge turned to him and put his finger to his lips. So, the old man had deliberately detached the dictaphone before his, Durant’s, entrance! What subtlety remained in that broken man that the mind could guess that there would be times when Durant would not be able to control himself? Durant began to sweat.
I’m no man for this, he thought, with self-hatred. But Dr. Dodge was putting the glass of whiskey in his hand. Durant shouted: “Didn’t I tell you half an hour ago to bring that whisky? Here I’ve been sitting and waiting, while you took your time about it, Dodge. If this happens again—”
Dr. Dodge looked at him, and the scarred face smiled and the eyes came to life.
“No respect for the Military!” Durant continued to shout. “We’ve been too lenient. Well, I can tell you now that things are going to be different, with the new war effort and the necessity for sacrifice and obedience. Get the hell out of here, you damned old fool!”
His hand reached for some paper on the table, and a pencil. Awkwardly, he wrote: “How long has it been there? Who put it there?”
Dr. Dodge held the paper far from him and read with an amazing swiftness. He bent his grayed head and wrote in answer: “At least two years. The FBHS. This was Lincoln’s bedroom.” His handwriting was sharp if unsteady.
Durant let out his tense breath slowly, and nodded. He wrote: “Why did you do it? What do you know about me?”
The old man smiled, shook his head at the pencil which Durant offered him. Then he crept from the room. He closed the door loudly behind him. Durant drank noisily, but his alarm returned. “Trust no one,” Colburn had told him. How had he betrayed himself to Dr. Dodge? The latter had known from the very beginning. As an actor, I do very well, thought Durant with bitter irony.
This was worse than he had expected. As a Minute Man, among known friends and known foes, there had been some exultation and excitement, as well as danger. Now there was danger alone, and of the ugliest and darkest kind. He got to his feet and walked furiously up and down, pausing now and then to look grimly at the innocent landscape on the wall behind which lurked the obscenest of enemies. He remembered what his father had told him when he had been a child! It is not work that kills a man, but the travail of his soul.
There was no travail like that of working in the night, and alone.
In his exhaustion, he must have fallen asleep, for he next remembered the sudden blaze of lights in his eyes. He started up in his chair, cramped and aching, to see Mrs. Lincoln, her face streaming with tears, carrying a large silver tray of food. Her outlines appeared to have melted in the heat of terror and grief; her fat features and big, gross body had blurred.
She set the tray on the table at Durant’s elbow, and stood before him, wringing her hands and regarding him imploringly. She burst out hysterically in a high, shrill voice: “Oh, Major Curtiss! I can’t believe you want to hurt our Gracie! Major, she is such a nice, innocent girl. Her Daddy and I are willing for her to marry you, Major. We—we’ve got lots of money. We’d give you anything! We’d like a major in the family—”
She began to pant, hoarsely, and came closer to him. He made a gesture of repulsion, which was completely involuntary, and she stepped back.
“Marry Gracie!” he exclaimed. “Are you out of your mind!” He regarded her with detestation. Then he said abruptly: “Get out of here.”
She retreated in panic to the door, then turned with a new freshet of tears, and said hopefully: “You won’t want Gracie—I mean, Major, you won’t bother about Gracie? We’ll do anything, Major, anything, or give you anything!”
He sat, his uninjured hand clenched over his knee, and she saw his hatred and malignance. He spoke slowly and clearly: “I want the girl up here at ten o’clock.” H
e added, with fresh detestation: “You’ll give me ‘anything’? What have you? Except what you have stolen and expropriated from others? Will you give me the lives of children who have died because you withheld food from them?”
She cried out, utterly reckless in her maternal terror: “We didn’t do nothing, Major, except what the Government let us do, or said we could do!”
Durant paused; he flashed a glance at the landscape on the wall. He said, loudly: “Are you accusing us of giving you permission to starve the people, Mrs. Lincoln? Are you saying that the Military plotted with you to deprive the people of food?”
“No! No, Major!” She wrung her hands again, with renewed fear. “We always worked with the Government! Our record’s clear—”
“Yes you farmers dare to say that the Government connived with you to deprive the people of food,” Durant interrupted. He made a disgusted sound. “I shall make a report on this, Mrs. Lincoln, a full report of your accusations. My superiors must understand what the farmers believe, once and for all. This is dangerous. If the people should begin to imagine that the Government is plotting with the farmers against the rest of the population, then we might even be faced with a revolution!”
He stood up. “Get out!”
Completely routed, Mrs. Lincoln gave a smothered scream, and ran from the room. Durant fell back in his chair, and began to curse furiously and loudly, expressing his opinion of the farmers of The Democracy and their outrages against the Military. He shouted his opinion that the Military had endured enough insults from civilians, especially from the countrymen. He then, with obscene oaths, expressed his sentiments toward civilians in general, including the bureaucrats. He threatened and raved. The Military had been too soft; he must communicate with Washington immediately, and he must call the Chief Magistrate as soon as possible. He dredged up from his memory all the vile words he had learned in the Army, and delivered them with oratorical flourishes. He stamped up and down the room, pausing to give his best volleys almost directly in front of the landscape.
The Devil's Advocate Page 17
