by Jack London
CHAPTER XII
THE BISHOP
It was after my marriage that I chanced upon Bishop Morehouse. But Imust give the events in their proper sequence. After his outbreak at theI. P. H. Convention, the Bishop, being a gentle soul, had yielded tothe friendly pressure brought to bear upon him, and had gone away on avacation. But he returned more fixed than ever in his determinationto preach the message of the Church. To the consternation of hiscongregation, his first sermon was quite similar to the address hehad given before the Convention. Again he said, and at length and withdistressing detail, that the Church had wandered away from the Master'steaching, and that Mammon had been instated in the place of Christ.
And the result was, willy-nilly, that he was led away to a privatesanitarium for mental disease, while in the newspapers appearedpathetic accounts of his mental breakdown and of the saintliness ofhis character. He was held a prisoner in the sanitarium. I calledrepeatedly, but was denied access to him; and I was terribly impressedby the tragedy of a sane, normal, saintly man being crushed by thebrutal will of society. For the Bishop was sane, and pure, and noble. AsErnest said, all that was the matter with him was that he had incorrectnotions of biology and sociology, and because of his incorrect notionshe had not gone about it in the right way to rectify matters.
What terrified me was the Bishop's helplessness. If he persisted in thetruth as he saw it, he was doomed to an insane ward. And he could donothing. His money, his position, his culture, could not save him. Hisviews were perilous to society, and society could not conceive that suchperilous views could be the product of a sane mind. Or, at least, itseems to me that such was society's attitude.
But the Bishop, in spite of the gentleness and purity of his spirit, waspossessed of guile. He apprehended clearly his danger. He saw himselfcaught in the web, and he tried to escape from it. Denied help from hisfriends, such as father and Ernest and I could have given, he wasleft to battle for himself alone. And in the enforced solitude of thesanitarium he recovered. He became again sane. His eyes ceased to seevisions; his brain was purged of the fancy that it was the duty ofsociety to feed the Master's lambs.
As I say, he became well, quite well, and the newspapers and the churchpeople hailed his return with joy. I went once to his church. The sermonwas of the same order as the ones he had preached long before his eyeshad seen visions. I was disappointed, shocked. Had society then beatenhim into submission? Was he a coward? Had he been bulldozed intorecanting? Or had the strain been too great for him, and had he meeklysurrendered to the juggernaut of the established?
I called upon him in his beautiful home. He was woefully changed. He wasthinner, and there were lines on his face which I had never seen before.He was manifestly distressed by my coming. He plucked nervously at hissleeve as we talked; and his eyes were restless, fluttering here, there,and everywhere, and refusing to meet mine. His mind seemed preoccupied,and there were strange pauses in his conversation, abrupt changes oftopic, and an inconsecutiveness that was bewildering. Could this, then,be the firm-poised, Christ-like man I had known, with pure, limpid eyesand a gaze steady and unfaltering as his soul? He had been man-handled;he had been cowed into subjection. His spirit was too gentle. It had notbeen mighty enough to face the organized wolf-pack of society.
I felt sad, unutterably sad. He talked ambiguously, and was soapprehensive of what I might say that I had not the heart to catechisehim. He spoke in a far-away manner of his illness, and we talkeddisjointedly about the church, the alterations in the organ, and aboutpetty charities; and he saw me depart with such evident relief that Ishould have laughed had not my heart been so full of tears.
The poor little hero! If I had only known! He was battling like a giant,and I did not guess it. Alone, all alone, in the midst of millions ofhis fellow-men, he was fighting his fight. Torn by his horror of theasylum and his fidelity to truth and the right, he clung steadfastly totruth and the right; but so alone was he that he did not dare to trusteven me. He had learned his lesson well--too well.
But I was soon to know. One day the Bishop disappeared. He had toldnobody that he was going away; and as the days went by and he did notreappear, there was much gossip to the effect that he had committedsuicide while temporarily deranged. But this idea was dispelled when itwas learned that he had sold all his possessions,--his city mansion, hiscountry house at Menlo Park, his paintings, and collections, and evenhis cherished library. It was patent that he had made a clean and secretsweep of everything before he disappeared.
This happened during the time when calamity had overtaken us in our ownaffairs; and it was not till we were well settled in our new home thatwe had opportunity really to wonder and speculate about the Bishop'sdoings. And then, everything was suddenly made clear. Early one evening,while it was yet twilight, I had run across the street and into thebutcher-shop to get some chops for Ernest's supper. We called the lastmeal of the day "supper" in our new environment.
Just at the moment I came out of the butcher-shop, a man emerged fromthe corner grocery that stood alongside. A queer sense familiarity mademe look again. But the man had turned and was walking rapidly away.There was something about the slope of the shoulders and the fringeof silver hair between coat collar and slouch hat that aroused vaguememories. Instead of crossing the street, I hurried after the man. Iquickened my pace, trying not to think the thoughts that formed unbiddenin my brain. No, it was impossible. It could not be--not in those fadedoveralls, too long in the legs and frayed at the bottoms.
I paused, laughed at myself, and almost abandoned the chase. But thehaunting familiarity of those shoulders and that silver hair! AgainI hurried on. As I passed him, I shot a keen look at his face; then Iwhirled around abruptly and confronted--the Bishop.
He halted with equal abruptness, and gasped. A large paper bag in hisright hand fell to the sidewalk. It burst, and about his feet and minebounced and rolled a flood of potatoes. He looked at me with surpriseand alarm, then he seemed to wilt away; the shoulders drooped withdejection, and he uttered a deep sigh.
I held out my hand. He shook it, but his hand felt clammy. He clearedhis throat in embarrassment, and I could see the sweat starting out onhis forehead. It was evident that he was badly frightened.
"The potatoes," he murmured faintly. "They are precious."
Between us we picked them up and replaced them in the broken bag, whichhe now held carefully in the hollow of his arm. I tried to tell him mygladness at meeting him and that he must come right home with me.
"Father will be rejoiced to see you," I said. "We live only a stone'sthrow away.
"I can't," he said, "I must be going. Good-by."
He looked apprehensively about him, as though dreading discovery, andmade an attempt to walk on.
"Tell me where you live, and I shall call later," he said, when he sawthat I walked beside him and that it was my intention to stick to himnow that he was found.
"No," I answered firmly. "You must come now."
He looked at the potatoes spilling on his arm, and at the small parcelson his other arm.
"Really, it is impossible," he said. "Forgive me for my rudeness. If youonly knew."
He looked as if he were going to break down, but the next moment he hadhimself in control.
"Besides, this food," he went on. "It is a sad case. It is terrible. Sheis an old woman. I must take it to her at once. She is suffering fromwant of it. I must go at once. You understand. Then I will return. Ipromise you."
"Let me go with you," I volunteered. "Is it far?"
He sighed again, and surrendered.
"Only two blocks," he said. "Let us hasten."
Under the Bishop's guidance I learned something of my own neighborhood.I had not dreamed such wretchedness and misery existed in it. Of course,this was because I did not concern myself with charity. I had becomeconvinced that Ernest was right when he sneered at charity as apoulticing of an ulcer. Remove the ulcer, was his remedy; give to theworker his product; pension as soldiers those who
grow honorably old intheir toil, and there will be no need for charity. Convinced of this,I toiled with him at the revolution, and did not exhaust my energy inalleviating the social ills that continuously arose from the injusticeof the system.
I followed the Bishop into a small room, ten by twelve, in a reartenement. And there we found a little old German woman--sixty-four yearsold, the Bishop said. She was surprised at seeing me, but she nodded apleasant greeting and went on sewing on the pair of men's trousers inher lap. Beside her, on the floor, was a pile of trousers. The Bishopdiscovered there was neither coal nor kindling, and went out to buysome.
I took up a pair of trousers and examined her work.
"Six cents, lady," she said, nodding her head gently while she went onstitching. She stitched slowly, but never did she cease from stitching.She seemed mastered by the verb "to stitch."
"For all that work?" I asked. "Is that what they pay? How long does ittake you?"
"Yes," she answered, "that is what they pay. Six cents for finishing.Two hours' sewing on each pair."
"But the boss doesn't know that," she added quickly, betraying a fearof getting him into trouble. "I'm slow. I've got the rheumatism in myhands. Girls work much faster. They finish in half that time. The bossis kind. He lets me take the work home, now that I am old and the noiseof the machine bothers my head. If it wasn't for his kindness, I'dstarve.
"Yes, those who work in the shop get eight cents. But what can you do?There is not enough work for the young. The old have no chance. Oftenone pair is all I can get. Sometimes, like to-day, I am given eight pairto finish before night."
I asked her the hours she worked, and she said it depended on theseason.
"In the summer, when there is a rush order, I work from five in themorning to nine at night. But in the winter it is too cold. The hands donot early get over the stiffness. Then you must work later--till aftermidnight sometimes.
"Yes, it has been a bad summer. The hard times. God must be angry.This is the first work the boss has given me in a week. It is true, onecannot eat much when there is no work. I am used to it. I have sewedall my life, in the old country and here in San Francisco--thirty-threeyears.
"If you are sure of the rent, it is all right. The houseman is verykind, but he must have his rent. It is fair. He only charges threedollars for this room. That is cheap. But it is not easy for you to findall of three dollars every month."
She ceased talking, and, nodding her head, went on stitching.
"You have to be very careful as to how you spend your earnings," Isuggested.
She nodded emphatically.
"After the rent it's not so bad. Of course you can't buy meat. And thereis no milk for the coffee. But always there is one meal a day, and oftentwo."
She said this last proudly. There was a smack of success in her words.But as she stitched on in silence, I noticed the sadness in her pleasanteyes and the droop of her mouth. The look in her eyes became far away.She rubbed the dimness hastily out of them; it interfered with herstitching.
"No, it is not the hunger that makes the heart ache," she explained."You get used to being hungry. It is for my child that I cry. It wasthe machine that killed her. It is true she worked hard, but I cannotunderstand. She was strong. And she was young--only forty; and sheworked only thirty years. She began young, it is true; but my man died.The boiler exploded down at the works. And what were we to do? She wasten, but she was very strong. But the machine killed her. Yes, itdid. It killed her, and she was the fastest worker in the shop. I havethought about it often, and I know. That is why I cannot work in theshop. The machine bothers my head. Always I hear it saying, 'I did it, Idid it.' And it says that all day long. And then I think of my daughter,and I cannot work."
The moistness was in her old eyes again, and she had to wipe it awaybefore she could go on stitching.
I heard the Bishop stumbling up the stairs, and I opened the door. Whata spectacle he was. On his back he carried half a sack of coal, withkindling on top. Some of the coal dust had coated his face, and thesweat from his exertions was running in streaks. He dropped his burdenin the corner by the stove and wiped his face on a coarse bandanahandkerchief. I could scarcely accept the verdict of my senses. TheBishop, black as a coal-heaver, in a workingman's cheap cotton shirt(one button was missing from the throat), and in overalls! That was themost incongruous of all--the overalls, frayed at the bottoms, draggeddown at the heels, and held up by a narrow leather belt around the hipssuch as laborers wear.
Though the Bishop was warm, the poor swollen hands of the old woman werealready cramping with the cold; and before we left her, the Bishop hadbuilt the fire, while I had peeled the potatoes and put them on to boil.I was to learn, as time went by, that there were many cases similarto hers, and many worse, hidden away in the monstrous depths of thetenements in my neighborhood.
We got back to find Ernest alarmed by my absence. After the firstsurprise of greeting was over, the Bishop leaned back in his chair,stretched out his overall-covered legs, and actually sighed acomfortable sigh. We were the first of his old friends he had met sincehis disappearance, he told us; and during the intervening weeks he musthave suffered greatly from loneliness. He told us much, though he toldus more of the joy he had experienced in doing the Master's bidding.
"For truly now," he said, "I am feeding his lambs. And I have learneda great lesson. The soul cannot be ministered to till the stomach isappeased. His lambs must be fed bread and butter and potatoes andmeat; after that, and only after that, are their spirits ready for morerefined nourishment."
He ate heartily of the supper I cooked. Never had he had such anappetite at our table in the old days. We spoke of it, and he said thathe had never been so healthy in his life.
"I walk always now," he said, and a blush was on his cheek at thethought of the time when he rode in his carriage, as though it were asin not lightly to be laid.
"My health is better for it," he added hastily. "And I am veryhappy--indeed, most happy. At last I am a consecrated spirit."
And yet there was in his face a permanent pain, the pain of the worldthat he was now taking to himself. He was seeing life in the raw, and itwas a different life from what he had known within the printed books ofhis library.
"And you are responsible for all this, young man," he said directly toErnest.
Ernest was embarrassed and awkward.
"I--I warned you," he faltered.
"No, you misunderstand," the Bishop answered. "I speak not in reproach,but in gratitude. I have you to thank for showing me my path. You led mefrom theories about life to life itself. You pulled aside the veils fromthe social shams. You were light in my darkness, but now I, too, see thelight. And I am very happy, only . . ." he hesitated painfully, and inhis eyes fear leaped large. "Only the persecution. I harm no one. Whywill they not let me alone? But it is not that. It is the nature ofthe persecution. I shouldn't mind if they cut my flesh with stripes, orburned me at the stake, or crucified me head--downward. But it is theasylum that frightens me. Think of it! Of me--in an asylum for theinsane! It is revolting. I saw some of the cases at the sanitarium. Theywere violent. My blood chills when I think of it. And to be imprisonedfor the rest of my life amid scenes of screaming madness! No! no! Notthat! Not that!"
It was pitiful. His hands shook, his whole body quivered and shrank awayfrom the picture he had conjured. But the next moment he was calm.
"Forgive me," he said simply. "It is my wretched nerves. And if theMaster's work leads there, so be it. Who am I to complain?"
I felt like crying aloud as I looked at him: "Great Bishop! O hero!God's hero!"
As the evening wore on we learned more of his doings.
"I sold my house--my houses, rather," he said, "all my other possessions.I knew I must do it secretly, else they would have taken everything awayfrom me. That would have been terrible. I often marvel these days at theimmense quantity of potatoes two or three hundred thousand dollars willbuy, or bread, or meat, or coal and kindling."
He turned to Ernest. "Youare right, young man. Labor is dreadfully underpaid. I never did abit of work in my life, except to appeal aesthetically to Pharisees--Ithought I was preaching the message--and yet I was worth half a milliondollars. I never knew what half a million dollars meant until I realizedhow much potatoes and bread and butter and meat it could buy. And thenI realized something more. I realized that all those potatoes and thatbread and butter and meat were mine, and that I had not worked to makethem. Then it was clear to me, some one else had worked and made themand been robbed of them. And when I came down amongst the poor I foundthose who had been robbed and who were hungry and wretched because theyhad been robbed."
We drew him back to his narrative.
"The money? I have it deposited in many different banks under differentnames. It can never be taken away from me, because it can never befound. And it is so good, that money. It buys so much food. I never knewbefore what money was good for."
"I wish we could get some of it for the propaganda," Ernest saidwistfully. "It would do immense good."
"Do you think so?" the Bishop said. "I do not have much faith inpolitics. In fact, I am afraid I do not understand politics."
Ernest was delicate in such matters. He did not repeat his suggestion,though he knew only too well the sore straits the Socialist Party was inthrough lack of money.
"I sleep in cheap lodging houses," the Bishop went on. "But I am afraid,and never stay long in one place. Also, I rent two rooms in workingmen'shouses in different quarters of the city. It is a great extravagance,I know, but it is necessary. I make up for it in part by doing my owncooking, though sometimes I get something to eat in cheap coffee-houses.And I have made a discovery. Tamales* are very good when the air growschilly late at night. Only they are so expensive. But I have discovereda place where I can get three for ten cents. They are not so good as theothers, but they are very warming.
* A Mexican dish, referred to occasionally in the literature of the times. It is supposed that it was warmly seasoned. No recipe of it has come down to us.
"And so I have at last found my work in the world, thanks to you, youngman. It is the Master's work." He looked at me, and his eyes twinkled."You caught me feeding his lambs, you know. And of course you will allkeep my secret."
He spoke carelessly enough, but there was real fear behind the speech.He promised to call upon us again. But a week later we read in thenewspaper of the sad case of Bishop Morehouse, who had been committed tothe Napa Asylum and for whom there were still hopes held out. In vainwe tried to see him, to have his case reconsidered or investigated. Norcould we learn anything about him except the reiterated statements thatslight hopes were still held for his recovery.
"Christ told the rich young man to sell all he had," Ernest saidbitterly. "The Bishop obeyed Christ's injunction and got locked up in amadhouse. Times have changed since Christ's day. A rich man to-day whogives all he has to the poor is crazy. There is no discussion. Societyhas spoken."
