This Side of Innocence

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  “Is there anything else you wish?” he asked in a low tone.

  She shook her head slightly.

  The explosion of pain brightened in him, so that he saw splinters of it before him.

  “Is there nothing I can do for you before I go?”

  Again she shook her head.

  He moved towards the door. At the threshold he paused, turned towards her again.

  He could not help saying: “Have you anything to say to me, Amalie?” And his voice broke.

  Her rocking stopped abruptly. Then, very slowly, she turned her face fully towards him, and for the first time he saw life, wild, mournful and strong, in her eyes.

  “Yes!” she said. “Forgive me, Alfred. You have not told me that you forgive me.”

  He was silent. He was trembling again, more violently than ever. He looked at her mouth, half open, shaking.

  “Oh, Amalie,” he said, and then again, “oh, Amalie.”

  But she did not move, only stared at him, eagerly, pathetically.

  “I forgive you,” he said. “Yes, I forgive you, Amalie.”

  She smiled, gazed at him fully, as if she saw him again, and not some blurred image shifting before her.

  And then he said a strange thing: “And do you forgive me, Amalie?”

  “There is nothing for me to forgive,” she said, clearly, gently. “You have given me a little peace, Alfred.”

  His own desolation and grief were unendurable to him. He took a step towards her.

  “Amalie,” he said, “if you need anything, at any time, anywhere, will you let me know?”

  But she said, and her gaze was very steadfast: “No. You must forget me as soon as possible.”

  He could not restrain himself from crying: “But what will you do, Amalie?”

  She shook her head a little. “I do not know yet. But I shall find out soon, I know. Go home, Alfred. Don’t think of me again.”

  And then she turned away from him, and resumed her rocking.

  He went out. He never remembered the drive home, the return to that desolate house which for him was empty forever.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Though Jerome had spent much time with his father in Saratoga, he had carefully refrained from discussing with Mr. Lindsey the subject of the Bank and his own plans. For the old gentleman, to Jerome’s alarm, appeared much weakened and much frailer, despite the waters of Saratoga and the quiet and luxury of the great plushy hotel. Mr. Lindsey had not complained; he had assured his son that he was feeling “much stronger.” But when Jerome consulted the physician, he was informed that Mr. Lindsey’s already damaged heart was steadily if slowly failing, and that any unusual excitement or anxiety might cause a sudden collapse.

  Jerome decided to defer any discussion with his father until they had returned home. There, after a rest from the journey, he could outline his plans and urge support. He saw that this was necessary. Mr. Lindsey must know. And Jerome’s own mounting enthusiasm and excitement were now overcoming his native wiliness and cunning.

  Then, on the very day that they were to leave for Riversend, Mr. Lindsey received a delayed letter from Alfred, from New York, saying that he, Alfred, was returning home at once, his business concluded. “I thought of going to Saratoga myself,” he had written, “but now that Jerome is with you, and since there are certain pressing matters which must be attended to at once, I have regretfully decided that Jerome can attend to any emergencies which might arise. I hope and trust, however, that none will occur.”

  So, thought Jerome, the gray man is already in his stony roost, and I must talk to my father now.

  He had only four hours before the train left. Mr. Lindsey sat in his great quiet room, with Jerome, waiting. The old gentleman had been giving his newspapers a thorough reading. He and Jerome were alone, for Philip had gone for a last stroll over the hotel’s handsome grounds. Jerome seemed absorbed in a volume of Charles Lamb.

  “How well my dear son is!” thought Mr. Lindsey, with tranquil gratitude. “He has dropped years. He is a young man again, with life and vitality. He has lost that hard look of his, that elderly cynicism, that desiccated appearance of restlessness. There is an air of enthusiasm and exuberance about him which I have not seen since he was a youth of eighteen.”

  Jerome was thinking: I must establish myself, now, before hell breaks loose.

  He looked up, smiled at his father. He glanced down at the book he held.

  “Charles Lamb,” he said, unnecessarily.

  “Ah, yes, Lamb,” sighed Mr. Lindsey. “Unfortunate young man!”

  “Truth-tellers and those who perceive the truth are usually unfortunate,” remarked Jerome.

  Mr. Lindsey smiled. “Are you trying to tell me that you are an unfortunate?”

  Jerome laughed. “No. Not yet, at any rate. May I read you this small selection?”

  Mr. Lindsey’s smile became aware and amused. “Jerome, you are never casual. Read me the selection, and I will try to guess your underlying motive.”

  Jerome laughed again. He began to read: “‘A garden was the primitive prison, till man, with Promethean felicity and boldness, luckily sinned himself out of it. Thence followed Babylon, Nineveh, Venice, London, haberdashers, goldsmiths, taverns, playhouses, satires, epigrams, puns—these all came in on the town part, and the thither side of innocence.’”

  Mr. Lindsey folded his transparent hands. His smile still lingered. “Well?” he said, when Jerome had finished and was regarding him expectantly. “So we are on this side of innocence, you are implying? The day of the ‘garden’ is done?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. But Alfred doesn’t realize that.”

  Mr. Lindsey was silent and suddenly grave. His piercing light-blue eyes fixed themselves attentively on his son.

  “In other words,” Jerome continued, “Alfred doesn’t realize that civilization has moved from the cathedral to the market place. He doesn’t know that change has come. He is like the man who loves changelessness and soon discovers that he has become a grave-digger.”

  He waited. But his father did not speak. “So,” he said, “Alfred is archaic.”

  Mr. Lindsey stirred. He put his thin fingers to his mouth and absently rubbed it.

  Jerome arranged himself confortably in his chair, like one who is about to embark on a pleasant but inconsequential discussion with a dear acquaintance. He said musingly:

  “Alfred represents the passing agrarian conception, feudalistic, aristocratic. He believes that power and wealth derive solely from the land. For that reason, it is very essential for him to prevent any invasion of our community by the new rising industrial spirit, which threatens his fastness. That is because, unconsciously, he feels vulnerable. His kind can only exist and flourish in the atmosphere of the status quo.”

  He paused. But Mr. Lindsey was still thoughtfully silent.

  Jerome continued: “He is not only afraid of the new industrial spirit—its dirt, confusion, and so on—but he knows that it is a menace to his precarious security. So long as things remain the same, he will always be in control of life and circumstance. You see, it is necessary for him to dominate things, because of his lack of inner security and imagination. He lacks adventure. He knows that if he continues in the old way, he risks nothing, and he and the Bank (which has become a projection of himself) will remain secure. He isn’t attracted to expansion and to the financing of new industries in Riversend, for to him they represent diffusion, and diffusion, he thinks, will dissipate some of his tight control, and make him less omniscient, less pettily powerful.”

  “Ah,” murmured Mr. Lindsey. Jerome could guess nothing from that noncommittal sound.

  “You do not agree?” he asked, with real anxiety.

  Mr. Lindsey said: “I am interested in your very clever analysis of Alfred. Whether it is true or not, I am not yet prepared to say. But your conversation, as ever, is very lively. Pray go on.”

  Jerome took what comfort he could from this ambiguous remark.
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  “Well, then. Alfred has the British idea that value lies only in land, though even the British are now changing, and becoming industrial. It is necessary for us to get there first, if America is to become the great republican empire I believe she can become.

  “During my years in New York, particularly since the war, I often heard discussions between Jay Regan and his other pirate friends. I wasn’t much interested at the time, and thought the conversations boring, but politeness insisted that I listen. I thought I had forgotten it all, but much of the talk now returns to me insistently and with pertinent and exciting meaning.

  “I know now that these men no longer dreamt of an agrarian America, a country of small towns and villages, but of the building of an industrial empire. The day of feudalism had passed, not only out of law, but out of the minds of men, and the war gave impetus to this final death of an outmoded idea. I gathered that a new democracy was coming into being, a capitalistic-industrial democracy, with such opportunities for the enterprising individual that it was impossible to be too extravagant about them. The emphasis is passing rapidly from the garden to the town. From the barn to the factory.”

  Mr. Lindsey coughed, as Jerome paused. “I see. But you and your friends have forgotten one thing: Man is more than factories. He is life. (I do not know whether it is true that America is passing from the garden to the town, from the barn to the factory, as you have said.) And I fear that many of your friends will forget that fact, in their enthusiastic pursuit of—what? Profits?”

  “Expansion, not only of industry, but of the individual,” said Jerome, quickly.

  Mr. Lindsey smiled slightly. “In an agrarian society, man is comparatively free. In an industrial society he would, I fear, be the bondsman of a few. His land has been his shelter. His streets, I am apprehensive, might become his prison yard.”

  Jerome thought this the rankest sentimentalism.

  “Father, I have lived in the larger cities. I have felt the stir and urge of expansion and growth, since the war. I know that the future is in industry and transportation and building, in expansion not in concentration. And now I know that banking must be a medium for adventure, to finance new industries, and to encourage every idea which promises a return upon the investment, and also a chance to expand into new fields, new inventions, new enterprises.

  “The banks are beginning to realize this. But not our Bank. Because of Alfred. As you know, he has persistently refused to allow factories to be established in Riversend. He sees the arching of the new tide above his head, and he is terrified. He does not realize that he will be inundated by the tide, and the Bank with him, and the community, too.

  “Of course, there are many like him. And these are the danger to America, the gray men, the little stone dwellers in the little stony towers. America will not be balked by them. But they can do much damage to the new dream, the new destiny, before they are finally eliminated. It is sad that in their elimination they will eliminate others too.”

  “Such as our Bank,” suggested Mr. Lindsey wryly.

  Jerome nodded. “Yes.”

  Mr. Lindsey sighed, moved in his chair.

  “Alfred and I have had many discussions,” he said reluctantly. “I know he believes that only land is stable. He believes that speculative business and industry are built on nothing but greed and reckless adventurousness and disregard for solid values. They are precarious. They are rootless. He prefers something which can be relied upon to yield small but stable profits. Yes, I can see his point of view.”

  But Jerome was suddenly elated. In spite of his father’s reserve and noncommittal words, he felt a stir in him, a reluctant and secret agreement with his son.

  “I know what is wrong with Alfred,” said Jerome. “He was poor for so long that he is instinctively afraid that by adventurousness he might lose what he has gained. He is afraid to risk anything, even for the promise of greater prosperity for himself and for the community. He has no flair for anything, not even for living, and that is what happens to a man who has known a restricted and cheeseparing youth. I wouldn’t mind what he is doing to the Bank, to Riversend, if it wasn’t threatening me, also, and you, and the things you initiated, long ago.”

  Mr. Lindsey smiled involuntarily, but his eyes were sad as they studied his son. “You are afraid, aren’t you, Jerome? You feel that men like Alfred threaten some inner integrity of yours, some fortified individuality, some freedom?”

  For the first time in many years, Jerome actually blushed at this shrewd and subtle understanding.

  “Ah, yes,” murmured Mr. Lindsey, as if in agreement with some silent comment he had made to himself. Then he became quite alert, almost vivid.

  “Jerome, what plans have you?”

  Jerome had not expected this sudden, this interested and lively, capitulation. He had expected to argue long and tenaciously with his father, to plead earnestly for the latter’s understanding, at the most.

  So he could only stare for several moments at Mr. Lindsey, and his dark eyes, restless and extraordinarily alive, jerked in his narrow face.

  And then, briefly, swiftly, stammering through the rush of his words, running to get paper and pencil, talking loudly, eagerly, passionately, he outlined a few of his ideas. Mr. Lindsey leaned forward to watch, to hear. There was a flush on his transparent old cheek, a quick blue fire in his eyes. He seemed to shake with new life, as if his youth had suddenly returned to him with all its promise of adventure and glorious risk and hope.

  Yet when Jerome had finished, and an electric silence filled the big warm room, Mr. Lindsey only sat back in his chair and was silent. But the flush remained on his cheek.

  Finally, smiling deeply, he said: “Jerome, you certainly sound—convincing.”

  Jerome laughed, somewhat excitedly. “You mean ‘plausible,’ do you not? I have always admired your precision of speech. Is this new slovenliness old age or just good manners?”

  Mr. Lindsey chuckled: “Well, I have always thought a well-mannered man slovenly. He is afraid to take up issues; he sidesteps challenges.”

  But Jerome waited impatiently. Mr. Lindsey glanced at his watch. “I believe it is time for us to prepare to go to the station, my boy.”

  He paused. He twinkled as he saw Jerome’s impatience and passion. He said: “I am afraid Alfred is a well-mannered man.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Mr. William Lindsey had long ago retired from active life, not only physically, but mentally, as he now realized with considerable ruefulness. Was it conceivable, he conjectured, that it was impossible to retire from one part of one’s nature without retiring from the other? He loved his native New England philosophers; he had always profoundly admired the theory of “high thinking and plain living.” He had retired, as he thought, to “high thinking,” and smugly believed that in so doing he had acquired “plain living,” by simply doing nothing. But plain living, he began to suspect, meant a truly arduous life, stripped to its bare essentials, as a ship is stripped for action. It meant the abandonment of enervating frivolities and futilities. But it did not mean the abandonment of participation in struggle. That had been his error.

  Therefore, he concluded, somewhat dismayed, if he had not really retired to plain living, he had been doing no high thinking, despite his books and his meditations. He had substituted quotation for actual contemplation. Was it Jerome who had once suggested that the truly dangerous men were the cloistered philosophers? And was it true, as Jerome had elaborated, that cloistered men gave off a paralyzing effluvium that poisoned other men in their vicinity and inhibited their energy?

  If I continue along this line of thought, meditated Mr. Lindsey, I shall surely convince myself that I am a villain, a despoiler, and I shall either become very vain or hang myself.

  At any rate, he had begun to think very actively since his talk with Jerome, and from the painful twinges he experienced, and the excited weariness, the groanings of his mental machinery, grown rusty and stiff from disuse, he beca
me thoroughly convinced that he was slowly awakening from a long period of torpor. How many years it had been since thinking had imparted such exaltation to him! If thinking leads only to dejection and deeper inertia, then it must be that such thoughts emanate from the living dead. Real thinking stimulates the mind, causes the blood to flow faster, the heart to beat more swiftly, the muscles to flex involuntarily, the head to hum with exhilaration. Mr. Lindsey was experiencing these phenomena, and it was very agreeable, though very disturbing, and tinged with a kind of not unpleasant despair. How long it has been since I have felt despair, he remarked to himself. I feel quite young again!

  Though he did not agree with all that Jerome had said to him that morning, he was excitedly grateful, and, with simplicity, full of wonder. Was it possible that this only son of his, who had carefully cultivated a reputation for profligacy and recklessness, for irresponsibility and extravagance, had suddenly been transmuted into an alert and eager man of affairs, interested in finance and industry and the future of America? Mr. Lindsey instinctively distrusted sudden reforms or startling mutations in character. He reminded himself that the prodigal son had not returned to his doting father until he had lain with the cattle and eaten with the swine. Nor was William Lindsey so sentimental that he tried to persuade himself that perhaps he had not “understood” Jerome. He understood him too well. It is evident, he thought, that behind all this miraculous concern for others is a very secret fear or a driving hatred. He did not believe that Jerome was ambitious. He came back to the fear and the hatred, and the thought depressed him more and more as his conviction grew. He recalled Jerome’s dark blush that morning, and became increasingly uneasy.

  No matter, he consoled himself at last. I doubt very much if, upon investigation of reformers and saviors and martyrs and crusaders, there would not be discovered some private, and less estimable, impulse behind the self-sacrifices and trumpets and holy words. Then he told himself that he was an Emersonian cynic, and that while, like Emerson, he respected and defended the integrity of the individual, he had no partuclar fondness for humanity in the mass and little belief in its more noble and more disinterested incentives.