Twelve Men

by Theodore Dreiser

  “I thought so,” he said tersely. “There you have a fine example of the desk general and major—we had ‘em in the army—men who sit in a swivel chair all day, wear a braided uniform and issue orders to other people. You’d think a man like that who had been trained at West Point and seen service in the Philippines would have sense enough to keep himself in condition. Not at all. As soon as they get a little way up in their profession they want to sit around hotel grills or society ballrooms and show off, tell how wonderful they are. Here’s a man, an army officer, in such rotten shape that if I sent a good horse after him now it’s ten to one he couldn’t get on him. I’ll have to send a truck or some such thing.”

  He subsided. About an hour later the major did appear, much the worse for wear. A groom with a horse had been sent out after him, and, as the latter confided to some one afterward, he “had to help the major on.” From that time on, on the short block and the long, as well as on those horseback tours which every second or third morning we were supposed to take, the major was his especial target. He loved to pick on him, to tell him that he was “nearly all guts”—a phrase which literally sickened me at that time—to ask him how he expected to stay in the army if he couldn’t do this or that, what good was he to the army, how could any soldier respect a thing like him, and so on ad infinitum until, while at first I pitied the major, later on I admired his pluck. Culhane foisted upon him his sorriest and boniest nag, the meanest animal he could find, yet he never complained; and although he forced on him all the foods he knew the major could not like, still there was no complaint; he insisted that he should be out and around of an afternoon when most of us lay about, allowed him no drinks whatever, although he was accustomed to them. The major, as I learned afterwards, stayed not six but twelve weeks and passed the tests which permitted him to remain in the army.

  But to return to Culhane himself. The latter’s method always contained this element of nag and pester which, along with his brazen reliance on and pride in his brute strength at sixty, made all these others look so puny and ineffectual. They might have brains and skill but here they were in his institution, more or less undone nervously and physically, and here he was, cold, contemptuous, not caring much whether they came, stayed or went, and laughing at them even as they raged. Now and then it was rumored that he found some single individual in whom he would take an interest, but not often. In the main I think he despised them one and all for the puny machines they were. He even despised life and the pleasures and dissipations or swinish indolence which, in his judgment, characterized most men. I recall once, for instance, his telling us how as a private in the United States Army when the division of which he was a unit was shut up in winter quarters, huddled about stoves, smoking (as he characterized them) “filthy pipes” or chewing tobacco and spitting, actually lousy, and never changing their clothes for weeks on end—how he, revolting at all this and the disease and fevers ensuing, had kept out of doors as much as possible, even in the coldest weather, and finding no other way of keeping clean the single shift of underwear and the one uniform he possessed he had, every other day or so, washed all, uniform and underwear, with or without soap as conditions might compel, in a nearby stream, often breaking the ice to get to the water, and dancing about naked in the cold, running and jumping, while they dried on bushes or the branch of a tree.

  “Those poor rats,” he added most contemptuously, “used to sit inside and wonder at me or laugh and jeer, hovering over their stoves, but a lot of them died that very winter, and here I am today.”

  And well we knew it. I used to study the faces of many of the puffy, gelatinous souls, so long confined to their comfortable offices, restaurants and homes that two hours on horseback all but wore them out, and wonder how this appealed to them. I think that in the main they took it as an illustration of either one of two things: insanity, or giant and therefore not-to-be-imitated strength.

  But in regard to them Culhane was by no means so tolerant. One day, as I recall, there arrived at the sanitarium a stout and mushy-looking Hebrew, with a semi-bald pate, protruding paunch and fat arms and legs, who applied to Culhane for admission. And, as much to irritate his other guests, I think, as to torture this particular specimen into some semblance of vitality, he admitted him. And thereafter, from the hour he entered until he left about the time I did, Culhane seemed to follow him with a wolfish and savage idea. He gave him a most damnable and savage horse, one that kicked and bit, and at mounting time would place Mr. Itzky (I think his name was) up near the front of the procession where he could watch him. Always at mount-time, when we were permitted to ride, there was inside the great stable a kind of preliminary military inspection of all our accouterments, seeing that we had to saddle and bridle and bring forth our own steeds. This particular person could not saddle a horse very well nor put on his bit and bridle. The animal was inclined to rear and plunge when he came near, to fix him with an evil eye and bite at him.

  And above all things Culhane seemed to value strain of this kind. If he could just make his guests feel the pressure of necessity in connection with their work he was happy. To this end he would employ the most contemptuous and grilling comment. Thus to Mr. Itzky he was most unkind. He would look over all most cynically, examining the saddles and bridles, and then say, “Oh, I see you haven’t learned how to tighten a belly-band yet,” or “I do believe you have your saddle hind-side to. You would if you could, that’s one thing sure. How do you expect a horse to be sensible or quiet when he knows that he isn’t saddled right? Any horse knows that much, and whether he has an ass for a rider. I’d kick and bite too if I were some of these horses, having a lot of damned fools and wasters to pack all over the country. Loosen that belt and fasten it right” (there might be nothing wrong with it) “and move your saddle up. Do you want to sit over the horse’s rump?”

  Then would come the fateful moment of mounting. There was of course the accepted and perfect way—his way: left foot in stirrup, an easy balanced spring and light descent into the seat. One should be able to slip the right foot into the right stirrup with the same motion of mounting. But imagine fifty, sixty, seventy men, all sizes, weights and differing conditions of health and mood. A number of these people had never ridden a horse before coming here and were as nervous and frightened as children. Such mounts! Such fumbling around, once they were in their saddles, for the right stirrup! And all the while Culhane would be sitting out front like an army captain on the only decent steed in the place, eyeing us with a look of infinite and weary contempt that served to increase our troubles a thousandfold.

  “Well, you’re all on, are you? You all do it so gracefully I like to sit here and admire you. Hulbert there throws his leg over his horse’s back so artistically that he almost kicks his teeth out. And Effingham does his best to fall off on the other side. And where’s Itzky? I don’t even see him. Oh, yes, there he is. Well” (this to Itzky, frantically endeavoring to get one fat foot in a stirrup and pull himself up), “what about you? Can’t you get your leg that high? Here’s a man who for twenty-five years has been running a cloak-and-suit business and employing five hundred people, but he can’t get on a horse! Imagine! Five hundred people dependent on that for their living!” (At this point, say, Itzky succeeds in mounting.) “Well, he’s actually on! Now see if you can stick while we ride a block or two. You’ll find the right stirrup, Itzky, just a little forward of your horse’s belly on the right side—see? A fine bunch this is to lead out through a gentleman’s country! Hell, no wonder I’ve got a bad reputation throughout this section! Well, forward, and see if you can keep from falling off.”

  Then we were out through the stable-door and the privet gate at a smart trot, only to burst into a headlong gallop a little farther on down the road. To the seasoned riders it was all well enough, but to beginners, those nervous about horses, fearful about themselves! The first day, not having ridden in years and being uncertain as to my skill, I could scarcely stay on. Several days later, I by then h
aving become a reasonably seasoned rider, it was Mr. Itzky who appeared on the scene, and after him various others. On this particular trip I am thinking of, Mr. Itzky fell or rolled off and could not again mount. He was miles from the repair shop and Culhane, discovering his plight, was by no means sympathetic. We had a short ride back to where he sat lamely by the roadside viewing disconsolately the cavalcade and the country in general.

  “Well, what’s the matter with you now?” It was Culhane, eyeing him most severely.

  “I hef hurt my foot. I kent stay on.”

  “You mean you’d rather walk, do you, and lead your horse?”

  “Vell, I kent ride.”

  “All right, then, you lead your horse back to the stable if you want any lunch, and hereafter you run with the baby-class on the short block until you think you can ride without falling off. What’s the good of my keeping a stable of first-class horses at the service of a lot of mush-heads who don’t even know how to use ‘em? All they do is ruin ‘em. In a week or two, after a good horse is put in the stable, he’s not fit for a gentleman to ride. They pull and haul and kick and beat, when as a matter of fact the horse has a damned sight more sense than they have.”

  We rode off, leaving Itzky alone. The men on either side of me—we were riding three abreast—scoffed under their breath at the statement that we were furnished decent horses. “The nerve! This nag!” “This bag of bones!” “To think a thing like this should be called a horse!” But there were no outward murmurs and no particular sympathy for Mr. Itzky. He was a fat stuff, a sweat-shop manufacturer, they would bet; let him walk and sweat.

  So much for sympathy in this gay realm where all were seeking to restore their own little bodies, whatever happened.

  So many of these men varied so greatly in their looks, capacities and troubles that they were always amusing. Thus I recall one lean iron manufacturer, the millionaire president of a great “frog and switch” company, who had come on from Kansas City, troubled with anaemia, neurasthenia, “nervous derangement of the heart” and various other things. He was over fifty, very much concerned about himself, his family, his business, his friends; anxious to obtain the benefits of this celebrated course of which he had heard so much. Walking or running near me on his first day, he took occasion to make inquiries in regard to Culhane, the life here, and later on confidences as to his own condition. It appeared that his chief trouble was his heart, a kind of phantom disturbance which made him fear that he was about to drop dead and which came and went, leaving him uncertain as to whether he had it or not. On entering he had confided to Culhane the mysteries of his case, and the latter had examined him, pronouncing him (“Rather roughly,” as he explained to me), quite fit to do “all the silly work he would have to do here.”

  Nevertheless while we were out on the short block his heart was hurting him. At the same time it had been made rather clear to him that if he wished to stay here he would have to fulfill all the obligations imposed. After a mile or two or three of quick walking and jogging he was saying to me, “You know, I’m not really sure that I can do this. It’s very severe, more so than I thought. My heart is not doing very well. It feels very fluttery.”

  “But,” I said, “if he told you you could stand it, you can, I’m sure. It’s not very likely he’d say you could if you couldn’t. He examined you, didn’t he? I don’t believe he’d deliberately put a strain on any one who couldn’t stand it.”

  “Yes,” he admitted doubtfully, “that’s true perhaps.”

  Still he continued to complain and complain and to grow more and more worried, until finally he slowed up and was lost in the background.

  Reaching the gymnasium at the proper time I bathed and dressed myself quickly and waited on the balcony over the bathroom to see what would happen in this case. As a rule Culhane stood in or near the door at this time, having just returned from some route or “block” himself, to see how the others were faring. And he was there when the iron manufacturer came limping up, fifteen minutes late, one hand over his heart, the other to his mouth, and exclaiming as he drew near, “I do believe, Mr. Culhane, that I can’t stand this. I’m afraid there is something the matter with my heart. It’s fluttering so.”

  “To hell with your heart! Didn’t I tell you there was nothing the matter with it? Get into the bath!”

  The troubled manufacturer, overawed or reassured as the case might be, entered the bath and ten minutes later might have been seen entering the dining-room, as comfortable apparently as any one. Afterwards he confessed to me on one of our jogs that there was something about Culhane which gave him confidence and made him believe that there wasn’t anything wrong with his heart—which there wasn’t, I presume.

  The intensely interesting thing about Culhane was this different, very original and forthright if at times brutal point of view. It was a blazing material world of which he was the center, the sun, and yet always I had the sense of very great life. With no knowledge of or interest in the superior mental sciences or arts or philosophies, still he seemed to suggest and even live them. He was in his way an exemplification of that ancient Greek regimen and stark thought which brought back the ten thousand from Cunaxa. He seemed even to suggest in his rough way historical perspective and balance. He knew men, and apparently he sensed how at best and at bottom life was to be lived, with not too much emotional or appetitive swaying in any one direction, and not too little either.

  Yet in “trapseing” about this particular realm each day with ministers, lawyers, doctors, actors, manufacturers, papa’s or mamma’s young hopefuls and petted heirs, young scapegraces and so-called “society men” of the extreme “upper crust,” stuffed and plethoric with money and as innocent of sound knowledge or necessary energy in some instances as any one might well be, one could not help speculating as to how it was that such a man, as indifferent and all but discourteous as this one, could attract them (and so many) to him. They came from all parts of America—the Pacific, the Gulf, the Atlantic and Canada—and yet, although they did not relish, him or his treatment of them, once here they stayed. Walking or running or idling about with them one could always hear from one or another that Culhane was too harsh, a “bounder,” an “upstart,” a “cheap pugilist” or “wrestler” at best (I myself thought so at times when I was angry), yet here they were, and here I was, and staying. He was low, vulgar—yet here we were. And yet, meditating on him, I began to think that he was really one of the most remarkable men I had ever known, for these people he dealt with were of all the most difficult to deal with. In the main they were of that order or condition of mind which springs from (1), too much wealth too easily acquired or inherited; or (2), from a blazing material success, the cause of which was their own savage self-interested viewpoint. Hence a colder and in some respects a more critical group of men I have never known. Most of them had already seen so much of life in a libertine way that there was little left to enjoy. They sniffed at almost everything, Culhane included, and yet they were obviously drawn to him. I tried to explain this to myself on the ground that there is some iron power in some people which literally compels this, whether one will or no; or that they were in the main so tired of life and so truly selfish and egotistic that it required some such different iron or caviar mood plus such a threatening regimen to make them really take an interest. Sick as they were, he was about the only thing left on which they could sharpen their teeth with any result.

  As I have said, a part of Culhane’s general scheme was to arrange the starting time for the walks and jogs about the long and short blocks so that if one moved along briskly he reached the sanitarium at twelve-thirty and had a few minutes in which to bathe and cool off and change his clothes before entering the dining-room, where, if not at the bathroom door beforehand, Culhane would be waiting, seated at his little table, ready to keep watch on the time and condition of all those due. Thus one day, a group of us having done the long block in less time than we should have devoted to it, came in panting and rejoi
cing that we had cut the record by seven minutes. We did not know that he was around. But in the dining-room as we entered he scoffed at our achievement.

  “You think you’re smart, don’t you?” he said sourly and without any preliminary statement as to how he knew we had done it in less time. “You come out here and pay me one hundred a week and then you want to be cute and play tricks with your own money and health. I want you to remember just one thing: my reputation is just as much involved with the results here as your money. I don’t need anybody’s money, and I do need my orders obeyed. Now you all have watches. You just time yourselves and do that block in the time required. If you can’t do it, that’s one thing; I can forgive a man too weak or sick to do it. But I haven’t any use for a mere smart aleck, and I don’t want any more of it, see?”

  That luncheon was very sad.

  Another thing in connection with these luncheons and dinners, which were sharply timed to the minute, were these crisp table speeches, often made in re some particular offender or his offense, at other times mere sarcastic comments on life in general and the innate cussedness of human nature, which amused at the same time that they were certain to irritate some. For who is it that is not interested in hearing the peccadilloes of his neighbor aired?

  Thus while I was there, there was a New York society man by the name of Blake, who unfortunately was given to severe periods of alcoholism, the results of which were, after a time, nervous disorders which sent him here. In many ways he was as amiable and courteous and considerate a soul as one could meet anywhere. He had that smooth, gracious something about him—good nature, for one thing, a kind of understanding and sympathy for various forms of life—which left him highly noncensorious, if genially examining at times. But his love of drink, or rather his mild attempts here to arrange some method by which in this droughty world he could obtain a little, aroused in Culhane not so much opposition as an amused contempt, for at bottom I think he really liked the man. Blake was so orderly, so sincere in his attempts to fulfill conditions, only about once every week or so he would suggest that he be allowed to go to White Plains or Rye, or even New York, on some errand or other—most of which requests were promptly and nearly always publicly refused. For although Culhane had his private suite at one end of the great building, where one might suppose one might go to make a private plea, still one could never find him there. He refused to receive complaints or requests or visits of any kind there. If you wanted to speak to him you had to do it when he was with the group in its entirety—a commonsense enough policy. But just the same there were those who had reasonable requests or complaints, and these, by a fine intuition as to who was who in this institution and what might be expected of each one, he managed to hear very softly, withdrawing slowly as they talked or inviting them into the office. In the main however the requests were very much like those of Blake—men who wanted to get off somewhere for a day or two, feeling, as they did after a week or two or three, especially fit and beginning to think no doubt of the various comforts and pleasures which the city offered.