You Can't Go Home Again

by Thomas Wolfe

  "Hello, Amy! I haven't seen you for an age. What brings you here?" The tone indicated, with the unconscious arrogance of his kind, that the scene and company were amusingly bizarre and beyond the pale of things accepted and confirmed, and that to find anyone he knew in such a place was altogether astounding.

  The tone and its implications stung her sharply. As for herself, she had so long been the butt of vicious gossip that she could take it with good nature or complete indifference. But an affront to someone she loved was more than she could endure. And she loved Mrs. Jack. So, now, her green-gold eyes flashed dangerously as she answered hotly:

  "What brings me here--of all places! Well, it's a very good place to be--the best I know...And I mean!"--she laughed hoarsely, jerked the cigarette from her mouth, and tossed her black curls with furious impatience--"I mean! After all, I was invited, you know!"

  Instinctively, with a gesture of protective warmth, she had slipped her arm round Mrs. Jack, who, wearing a puzzled frown upon her face, was standing there as if still a little doubtful of what was happening.

  "Esther, darling," Amy said, "this is Mr. Hen Walters--and some of his friends." For a moment she looked at the cluster of young débutantes and their escorts, and then turned away, saying to no one in particular, and with no effort to lower her voice: "God, aren't they simply dreadful!...I mean!...You know!"--she addressed herself now to the elderly man with the artificial teeth--"Charley--in the name of God, what are you trying to do?...You old cradle-snatcher, you!...I mean!--after all, it's not that bad, is it?" She surveyed the group of girls again and turned away with a brief, hoarse laugh. "All these little Junior League bitches!" she muttered. "God!...How do you stand it, anyway--you old bastard!" She was talking now in her natural tone of voice, good-naturedly, as though there was nothing in the least unusual in what she Was saying. Then with another short laugh she added: "Why don't you come to see me any more?"

  He licked his lips nervously and bared his artificial teeth before he answered:

  "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 in his clipped staccato he kept licking his thin lips lecherously, and at the same time he scratched himself, rooting obscenely into the inner thigh of his right leg in a way that suggested he was wearing woollen underwear. In doing so he inadvertently pulled up his trouser leg and it stayed there, revealing the tops of his socks and a portion of white meat.

  Meanwhile Hen Walters was smiling brightly and 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, still with a puzzled look. "Any friends of Mr. Logan's...But won't you all have a drink, or something to eat? There's loads----"

  "Oh, heavens, no!" burbled Mr. Walters. "We've all been to Tony's and we simply gorged ourselves! If we took another mouthful, I'm absolutely positive we should explode!"

  He uttered these words with such ecstatic jubilation that it seemed he might explode 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 exclaimed. "And, after all, that's what we're here to see. It would simply be a tragedy to miss it...0 Piggy!" he shouted to his friend, who had been cheerfully grinning all the while and crawling about on his knee-pads. "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.

  The new arrivals held their position along one wall, and the other people now withdrew a little, leaving them to themselves. The audience was thus divided into two distinct halves--the people of wealth and talent on one side, and those of wealth and fashion or "Society" on 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, acting on instructions, he read aloud from a typewritten paper which Mr. Logan had handed to him. It was a whimsical document designed to put everybody in the right mood, for it stated that in order to enjoy and understand the circus one must make an effort to recover his lost youth and have the spirit of a child again. Mr. Walters read it with great gusto in a cultivated tone of voice which almost ran over with happy laughter. When he had finished, he got up and resumed his place among his friends, and Mr. Logan then began his performance.

  It started, as all circuses should, with a grand procession of the performers and the animals in the menagerie. Mr. Logan accomplished this by taking each wire figure in his thick hand and walking it round the ring and then solemnly out again. Since there was a great many animals and a great many performers, this took some time, but it was greeted at its conclusion with loud applause.

  Then came an exhibition of bareback riders. Mr. Logan galloped his wire horses into the ring and round and round with movements of his hand. Then he put the riders on top of the wire horses, and, holding them firmly in place, he galloped these round too. Then there was an interlude of clowns, and he made the wire figures tumble about by manipulating them with his hands. After this came a procession of wire elephants. This performance gained particular applause because of the clever way in which Mr. Logan made the figures imitate the swaying, ponderous lurch of elephants--and also because people were not always sure what each act meant, and when they were able to identify something, a pleasant little laugh of recognition would sweep the crowd and they would clap their hands to show they had got it.

  There were a good many acts of one kind or another, and at last the trapeze performers were brought on. It took a little while to get this act going because Mr. Logan, with his punctilious fidelity to reality, had first to string up a little net below the trapezes. And when the act did begin it was unconscionably long, chiefly because Mr. Logan was not able to make it work. He set the little wire figures to swinging and dangling from their perches. This part went all right. Then he tried to make one little figure leave its trapeze, swing through the air, and catch another 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. But Mr. Logan was not embarrassed. He giggled happily with each new failure and tried again. It went on and on. Twenty minutes must have passed while Mr. Logan repeated his attempts. But nothing happened. At length, when it became obvious that nothing was going to happen, Mr. Logan settled the whole matter himself by taking one little figure firmly between two fat fingers, conveying it to the other, and carefully hooking it on to the other's arms. Then he looked up at his audience and giggled cheerfully, to be greeted after a puzzled pause by perfunctory applause.

  Mr. Logan was now ready for the grand climax, the pièce de rèsistance of the entire occasion. This was his celebrated sword-swallowing act. With one hand 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, bent it more or less straight, forced one end through the fabric of the doll's mouth, and then began patiently and methodically to work it down the rag throat. People looked on with blank faces, and then, as the meaning of Mr. Logan's operation dawned on them, they smiled at one another in a puzzled, doubting way.

  It went on and on until it began to be rather horrible. Mr. Logan kept working the hairpin down with thick, probing fingers, and when some impediment of wadding got in his way he would look up and giggle foolishly. Halfway down he struck an obstacle that threatened to stop him from going any farther. But he persisted--persisted horribly.

  It was a curious spectacl
e and would have furnished interesting material for the speculations of a thoughtful historian of life and customs in this golden age. It was astounding to see so many intelligent men and women--people who had had every high and rare advantage of travel, reading, music, and aesthetic cultivation, and who were usually so impatient of the dull, the boring, and the trivial--patiently assembled here to give their respectful attention to Mr. Piggy Logan's exhibition. But even respect for the accepted mode was wearing thin. The performance had already lasted a weary time, and some of the guests were beginning to give up. In pairs and groups they would look at one another with lifted eyebrows, and quietly would filter out into the hall or in the restorative direction of the dining-room.

  Many, however, seemed determined to stick it out. As for the young "Society" crowd, all of them continued to look on with eager interest. Indeed, as Mr. Logan went on probing with his hairpin, one young woman with the pure, cleanly chiselled face so frequently seen in members of her class turned to the young man beside her and said:

  "I think it's frightfully interesting--the way he does that. Don't you?"

  And the young man, evidently in the approved accent, said briefly: "Eh!"--an ejaculation which might have been indicative of almost anything, but which was here obviously taken for agreement. This interchange between them had taken place, like all the conversations in the group, in a curiously muffled, clipped speech. Both the girl and the young man had barely opened their mouths--their words had come out between almost motionless lips. This seemed to be the fashionable way of talking among these people.

  As Mr. Logan kept working and pressing with his hairpin, suddenly the side of the bulging doll was torn open and some of the stuffing began to ooze out. Miss Lily Mandell watched with an expression of undisguised horror and, as the doll began to lose its entrails, she pressed one hand against her stomach in a gesture of nausea, said "Ugh!"--and made a hasty exit. Others followed her. And even Mrs. Jack, who at the start of the performance 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, finally got up and went out into the hall, where most of her guests were now assembled.

  Almost no one was left to witness the concluding scenes of Mr. Piggy Logan's circus except the uninvited group of his own particular friends.

  Out in the hall Mrs. Jack found Lily Mandell talking to George Webber. She approached them with a bright, affectionate little smile and queried hopefully:

  "Are you enjoying it, Lily? And you, darling?"--turning fondly to George--"Do you like it? Are you having a good time?" Lily answered in a tone of throaty disgust:

  "When he kept on pushing that long pin into the doll and all its insides began oozing out--ugh!"--she made a nauseous face--"I simply couldn't stand it any longer! It was horrible! I had to get out! I thought 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 them.

  "Oh, hello, Rod!" said Mrs. Jack. "What do you make of it Hale?"

  "I can't make it out," he said, with an annoyed look into the living-room, where Piggy Logan was still patiently carrying on. "What is it all supposed to be, anyway? And who is this fellow?" he said in an irritated tone, as if his legal and fact-finding mind was annoyed by a phenomenon he could not fathom. "It's like some puny form of decadence," he murmured.

  Just then Mr. Jack approached his wife and, lifting his shoulders in a bewildered shrug, said:

  "What is it? My God, perhaps I'm crazy!"

  Mrs. Jack and Lily Mandell bent together, shuddering helplessly as women do when they communicate whispered laughter to one another.

  "Poor Fritz!" Mrs. Jack gasped faintly.

  Mr. Jack cast a final bewildered look into the living-room, surveyed the wreckage there, then turned away with a short laugh:

  "I'm going to my room!" he said with decision. "Let me know if he leaves the furniture!"

  * * *

  19. Unscheduled Climax

  At the conclusion of Mr. Logan's performance there was a ripple of applause in the living-room, followed by the sound of voices. The fashionable young people clustered round Mr. Logan, chattering congratulations. Then, without paying attention to anybody else, and without a word to their hostess, they left.

  Other people now gathered about Mrs. Jack and made their farewells. They began to leave, singly and in pairs and groups, until presently no one remained except those intimates and friends who are always the last to leave a big party--Mrs. Jack and her family, George Webber, Miss Mandell, Stephen Hook, and Amy Carleton. And, of course, Mr. Logan, who was busy amid the general wreckage he had created, putting his wire dolls back into his two enormous valises.

  The atmosphere of the whole place was now curiously changed. It was an atmosphere of absence, of completion. Everybody felt a little bit as one feels in a house the day after Christmas, or an hour after a wedding, or on a great liner at one of the Channel ports when most of the passengers have disembarked and the sorrowful remnant know that the voyage is really over and that they are just marking time for a little while until their own hour comes to depart.

  Mrs. Jack looked at Piggy Logan and at the chaos he had made of her fine room, and then glanced questioningly at Lily Mandell as if to say: "Can you understand all this? What has happened?" Miss Mandell and George Webber surveyed Mr. Logan with undisguised distaste. Stephen Hook remained aloof, looking bored. Mr. Jack, who had come forth from his room to bid his guests good-bye and had lingered by the elevator till the last one had gone, now peered in through the hall door at the kneeling figure in the living-room, and with a comical gesture of uplifted hands said: "What is it?"--leaving everybody convulsed with laughter.

  'But even when Mr. Jack came into the room and stood staring down quizzically, Mr. Logan did not look up. He seemed not to have heard anything. Utterly oblivious of their presence, he was happily absorbed in the methodical task of packing up the litter that surrounded him.

  Meanwhile the two rosy-cheeked maids, May and Janie, were busily clearing away glasses, bottles, and bowls of ice, and Nora started putting the books back on their shelves. Mrs. Jack looked on rather helplessly, and Amy Carleton stretched herself out flat on the floor with her hands beneath her head, closed her eyes, and appeared to go to sleep. All the rest were obviously at a loss what to do, and just stood and sat around, waiting for Mr. Logan to finish and be gone.

  The place had sunk back into its wonted quiet. The blended murmur of the unceasing city, which during the party had been shut out and forgotten, now penetrated the walls of the great building and closed in once more upon these lives. The noises of the street were heard again.

  Outside, below them, there was the sudden roar of a fire truck, the rapid clanging of its bell. It turned the corner into Park Avenue and the powerful sound of its motors faded away like distant thunder. Mrs. Jack went to the window and looked out. Other trucks now converged upon the corner from different directions until four more had passed from sight.

  "I wonder where the fire can be," she remarked with detached curiosity. Another truck roared down the side street and thundered into Park. "It must be quite a big one--six engines have driven past. It must be somewhere in this neighbourhood."

  Amy Carleton sat up and blinked her eyes, and for a moment all of them were absorbed in idle speculation about where the fire might be. But presently they began to look again at Mr. Logan. At long last his labours seemed to be almost over. He began to close the big valises and adjust the straps.

  Just then Lily Mandell turned her head towards the hall, sniffed sharply, and suddenly said:

  "Does anyone smell smoke?"

  "Hah? What?" said Mrs. Jack. And then, going into the hall, she cried excitedly: "But yes! There is quite a strong smell of smoke out here! I think it would be just as we
ll if we got out of the building until we find out what's wrong." Her face was now burning with excitement. "I suppose we'd better," she said. "Everybody come on!" Then: "0 Mr. Logan!"--she raised her voice, and now for the first time he lifted his round and heavy face with an expression of inquiring innocence--"I say--I think perhaps we'd all better get out, Mr. Logan, until we find out where the fire is! Are you ready?"

  "Yes, of course," said Mr. Logan cheerfully. "But fire?"--in a puzzled tone. "What fire? Is there a fire?"

  "I think the building is on fire," said Mr. Jack smoothly, but with an edge of heavy irony, "so perhaps we'd better all get out--that is, unless you prefer to stay."

  "Oh no," said Mr. Logan brightly, getting clumsily to his feet. "I'm quite ready, thank you, except for changing my clothes--"

  "I think that had better wait," said Mr. Jack.

  "Oh, the girls!" cried Mrs. Jack suddenly, and, snapping the ring on and off her finger, she trotted briskly towards the dining-room, "Nora--Janie--May! Girls! We're all going downstairs--there's a fire somewhere in the building. You'll have to come with us till we find out where it is."

  "Fire, Mrs. Jack?" said Nora stupidly, staring at her mistress.

  Mrs. Jack saw at a glance her dull eye and her flushed face, and thought: "She's been at it again! I might have known it!" Then aloud, impatiently:

  "Yes, Nora, fire. Get the girls together and tell them they'll have to come along with us. And--oh!--Cook!" she cried quickly. "Where is Cookie? Go get her, someone. Tell her she'll have to come, too!"

  The news obviously upset the girls. They looked helplessly at one another and began to move aimlessly round, as if no longer certain what to do.

  "Shall we take our things, Mrs. Jack?" said Nora, looking at her dully. "Will we have time to pack?"

  "Of course not, Nora!" exclaimed Mrs. Jack, out of all patience. "We're not moving out! We're simply going downstairs till we can learn where the fire is and how bad it is!...And Nora, please get Cook and bring her with you! You know how rattled and confused she gets!"