Empire

by Gore Vidal

“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 money-men, 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. Though 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.”

  “I could not,” said Hay, breath regained, “be more thrilled, as Helen used to say when we’d go inside the monkey house at the zoo.” Caroline watched father and son with considerable interest. What she had always taken to be Anglo-Saxon lack of intimacy between males she now decided was antipathy on the part of the famously charming and affable father toward the equally affable and, in time, no doubt, equally charming son who had not, after all, been trained in the art of storytelling by the admitted master himself, Abraham Lincoln, who could make, it was said, a mule with a broken leg laugh.

  “I thought you’d be.” Del was impassive; he looked not unlike photographs of President McKinley. If this were Paris, Caroline would put the odd and the even numbers together and understand precisely the nature of the appointment. But Del had his father’s eyes, mouth; and there was little chance, she decided, of Ohio, known as the mother of presidents, having produced, through unlikely presidential lust, a consul to Pretoria, which was-where? Australia? She had not liked the geography teacher at Allenswood.

  “South Africa could be a turbulent post,” said Adams; he, too, was gauging Hay’s response to his son’s abrupt elevation. “What is our policy, between the English and those Dutch lunatics?”

  “Extreme benign neutrality,” said Del, looking at his father. “In public, that is.”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes.” Hay shook his head and smiled broadly. “Neutral on England’s side. The great fun will be if there’s a war down there…”

  “Splendid, perhaps?” Adams smiled. “Little?”

  “Little-ish. Hardly splendid. The fun will be how our own Irish Catholic voters will respond. They are for anyone who’s against England, including these Dutchmen, these Boers, who are not only Protestant but refuse to allow the Catholics to practice their exciting rites. I predict Hibernian confusion hereabouts. I also predict that though it’s only noon, and I must greet, soberly and responsibly, the Diplomatic Corps, there is champagne no farther than the flight of a por
cupine’s quill. We drink to Del!”

  Adams and Caroline cheered; Del’s forehead remained, as always, oddly pale, while his face turned to rose.

  After champagne had been ceremoniously drunk to the new consul general, Caroline announced, “I can’t think why I am celebrating. Now that I’m settled into N Street, Mr. Adams deserts me for Sicily, and Del for South Africa.”

  “You still have my wife and me,” said Hay. “We’re more than enough, I should say.”

  “And I don’t go till fall,” said Del. “The President still has some work for me to do, at the White House.” Again Caroline noted the father’s perplexed look.

  “Then I have a few months of cousinhood if not unclehood.” Caroline was pleased that Del should still be at hand. She must learn Washington at every level, and as quickly as possible. “One must be like Napoleon, Mlle. Souvestre always said, never without a plan.”

  “Even a woman must always have a plan?” Caroline had asked.

  “Especially a woman. We don’t often have much else. After all, they don’t teach us artillery.”

  Caroline had indeed worked out a plan of action. John Apgar Sanford could not believe it when she told him. He begged her to think twice; to do nothing; to let the law take its course. But she was convinced that she could bring Blaise around in a more startling and satisfying fashion; assuming, of course, that she had Napoleonic luck as well as cunning. But the key to her future was here in a strange tropical city, among strangers. She needed Del. She needed all the help that she could get. John-as a cousin, she now called him by his first name-was more than willing to help her; but he was, by nature, timid. He was also, at last, a widower. One night at Delmonico’s showy new restaurant, and with the witty Mrs. Fish at the next table, straining to hear every word (for once Caroline blessed Harry Lehr’s never-failing laughter), John had lost his timidity and proposed that once his term of mourning was at an end, she take his hand in marriage. Caroline’s eyes had filled with genuine tears. She had done her share of flirting in Paris and London, but aside from Del no one, as far as she could determine, had ever wanted to marry her; nor had she met anyone that she wanted to marry; hence, the comfortable image of herself alone, and in command-of her own life. Yet Caroline had been touched by John’s declaration; she would, she had said, have to think it over very carefully, for was not marriage the most important step in a young woman’s life? As she began to unfurl all the sentences that she had learned from Marguerite, the theater, novels, she started to laugh, while the tears continued to stream down her face.