This Side of Innocence

by Taylor Caldwell

  He sat down near her, a circumstance which did not annoy her in the least. The General remained on the hearth. He accepted one of Jerome’s cheroots and looked on the whiskey decanter with pleasure. He helped himself to a large swig, drinking with prodigious enjoyment.

  “Where’s William?” he demanded, smacking his lips. “Good whiskey, that. Where’s William, eh?”

  “My father is resting in his room. Shall I call him? And my sister, who will be glad to see the young ladies?”

  “Never mind. Let us have a few moments to ourselves. I never see you alone,” complained the General. “I even thought of going to the Bank to see you. And I haven’t been in the infernal place for ten years! Ho!” and he burst into raucous laughter. “‘Give him a day, three days,’ I said to the girls, ‘and he’ll be hot-footing it back to New York with his tail between his legs!’ But instead, there you are, sticking it out. What’s the attraction, eh?” and his wicked blue eyes fixed themselves with shrewd mirth upon Jerome.

  Jerome smiled. “A number of things, all very boring, I presume. Besides, I really have no place else to go.”

  He rose, went into the dining-room, and brought a crystal decanter of sherry and two small wineglasses for the young ladies. Josephine declined with a listless smile, but Sally accepted eagerly. The two men refilled their glasses, drank a toast to the ladies. Sally lifted her arm high, and the crimson ruffles fell back from its smooth white contour, as dainty as a piece of Dresden china. Jerome noted the dimples in the elbow, and was seized with quite an urge to kiss them. Sally must have felt his thought, for she held her glass demurely to her lips and fluttered her eyes at him.

  “What’ve you been doing with yourself, while the house slept?” asked the General, feeling the warm and silent weight of all the rooms closing in about him. “Funny life, for a scoundrel as active as yourself.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Jerome, and now he narrowed his attention on the General and felt a sudden leap of excitement. “I should like to tell you, sir, what I have been thinking. Perhaps later.”

  “Why not now?” asked the General robustly. “Before the others come trooping down the stairs to press genteel tea on us? Did I tell you we are staying for tea? Out with it.”

  Jerome smiled down into his glass. “I might say that I, too, have had the vapors, General. I have been thinking—” he paused.

  “Bad business, thinking,” said the General. “Gave it up years ago. Rotten for the digestion. Binding to the bowels. If you think too long, you end up by cutting your throat or becoming a damned parson. Only sensible to avoid that. Well, what were you thinking?” he demanded loudly. He lifted the long gray tails of his coat, sat down, crossed his legs, and raised his wicked white brows.

  Jerome hesitated, “It seems very nebulous, now, in restropect, but it was very vivid and pertinent while it was going on. Like a dream. But there is a residue.” He leaned towards the General, who was studying him with a kind of ribald interest. “It started with the war—my thinking. Of course, I never believed in the brave new world which had been promised us, afterwards. My world, my own private world, was still brave and new in itself, and I preferred not to change it. However, millions believed in it. Freedom, new opportunities for all men, a new birth of life and hope. The younger generation, it was said, would revolutionize the world. They had courage and strength and determination. Their elders had erred, in their middle-aged or senile stupidity. But the young would bring about a blazing regeneration.

  He paused, and smiled with embarrassment. “And now, what have we? We have the evils of Reconstruction. We have panics and fear and poverty and hopelessness. The brave new world has failed to arrive. Worse, the old one is falling apart.”

  There was a silence. The General pulled at his long nose, thoughtfully, and regarded the fire. Finally, he began to speak, in a reflective voice: “When I was young, there was a war. There was always a war going on somewhere, either against the British, or the Indians. And, each time, we were promised that things were going to be very different, afterwards, and very glorious. Who promised us this? I do not think it was our government, or our leaders. I think it was ourselves. But we always blamed the government, and the leaders, afterwards, when the world jogged on much the same as it had been before.”

  He drank again. He began to grin. “I remember that I said to my father: ‘You oldsters, sir, have made a muddle of the world. We, the young, shall change that. We shall set things to rights, and no interference, if you please. We are young and strong, and we have courage, and there is a dream to be fulfilled.’” He pulled his nose again and smiled wryly. “Damn me, if the dream didn’t seem real to me then. But I’ve forgotten what it was.”

  He went on, after a moment: “I do remember very clearly, however, saying those ridiculous things to my father, who was a very dignified gentleman and rarely smiled. But he did smile, then. He said: ‘It is good to have a dream. I had them, also, when I was young. And I remember most particularly that I said these very things you are saying now, to my own father. Doubtless, too, he had said them to his father. The young complain incessantly to their elders, who complained, in their turn, to their elders. No one accepts responsibility for himself. No one realizes that revolutions in human affairs do not come with a single war, or a single convulsion, or a single man. It is impossible. But then, we have not grown out of our silly propensity for expecting miracles.’”

  The General laughed gently. But his lewd and vigorous face was unusually thoughtful. He rubbed his chin. “The worst of it is, I cannot remember what the dream was all about—the dream I had. But, sir, it was a good one. It must have been, for it sustained me in battle. Yes, my father mentioned his dream, too. He was with Washington at Valley Forge. He lost an arm. But I do not remember him ever saying that the new nation was, in its essentials, much different from its condition under old German George. The same old abuses of power, the same old oppression of nonconformists, the same old greed, the same old intrigues.”

  His eyes became lively now, and he sat up. “Damn me, sir, it is a strange thing, though! To a worm’s-eye view, it does not appear that man has ever changed, or even his dreams! His dreams of freedom and plenty and peace. No, says the worm, man remains the same. But so do his dreams! A very, very odd thing. Who gave him his dreams? How were they conceived, in his state of original sin, his wickedness, his voracity, his cruelty, and his madness? Damn me, sir, I am becoming a mystic, I am becoming a parson! I shall soon be singing hymns!”

  He allowed Jerome to refill his glass, and drank it down with one gulp. Sally played with her ruffles; Josephine still gazed at the fire in her trance of mute sadness. It was evident that Sally was impatient at this most unusual conversation. But Jerome was leaning towards the General, completely absorbed.

  “Our view,” said the General, quite inspired, “is a worm’s-eye view. We expect the landscape to change overnight. It never does, and so it appears to the worm-man that it remains forever the same. But it does not. Over a period of one hundred, two hundred, years, the pattern has shifted. The sunken plateau of human misery and despair has lifted an inch or so. We see that, in restrospect; we see that, over the century-miles we have come. But the ground on which we stand now seems fixed forever, incapable of change. Our children will laugh at us. Our grandchildren will say, with truth: “We have come a long way, since the nineteenth century.’ And their grandchildren will say: “We have changed the world since the twentieth century.’

  “It is only the worm who maintains that nothing transpires, nothing changes, nothing becomes better. But then, the worm has such a short life, and his point in time and space is so infinitesimal. Change takes time, and the tides cannot be hurried, however much the worm prays and complains and denounces and accuses his parents of laxity and blindness and stupidity.”

  He lay back in his chair and smiled maliciously at Jerome. “And have you been complaining, sir, you worm-man?”

  Jerome laughed. “In a way. But my com
plaint is that nothing is worth while, whether it changes or not. I have been trying to persuade myself not to think of it. I have been trying to believe that I must live on the surface of things, and not meditate too much.”

  “An excellent thought. Once look back, once reflect that all is wariness and dustiness, and one turns to salt. For instance, you have been having some thoughts—have you not?—how you, personally, might help things to change?”

  Jerome glanced up in surprise. The General chuckled. “I thought so. Well, help to change them, then. There is a certain satisfaction in flexing the muscles, whether they are of the brain or of the body. You have only to avoid one murdering thought: ‘Who cares? And why?’”

  “You mean, sir,” said Jerome, quite astonished, but passionately interested, “that we should take an anthropomorphic view of everything?”

  “And why not?” asked the General vigorously. “That is a pattern in itself. Doubtless the bird has its bird-view, the chipmunk is convinced that the world revolves around chipmunks, and the cattle in the stables believe that creation was conceived for their especial benefit. Perhaps we are all of us right. There are a thousand worlds within a world, wheels within wheels. And every one is essential.”

  The General asked abruptly: “What is it you wish to change?”

  Sally was yawning, plucking discontentedly at her ruffles. Josephine sat in her trance of sorrow; a tear was stealing down her cheek. The two men saw neither of the young ladies.

  Jerome said cautiously, staring at the General: “There are times when a man is impelled to instigate change to keep from dying of ennui.”

  The General considered this. Then he began to smile. He laid his finger against the side of his nose and looked fixedly at the younger man.

  “I,” he said, at last, “have felt matters were tedious for a very long time. They also did not bring in enough interest.” There were sounds on the staircase. Dorothea entered, in her grim black bombazine. The men sprang to their feet. She ignored Jerome, but favored the General with a stately smile, and accepted the kisses of the young ladies. The General led her gallantly to a chair.

  “My dear, dear Dorothea!” he exclaimed, “I trust we did not disturb you with our conversation?”

  “Not at all, dear General. I heard nothing until I came down.” She sighed and glanced pensively at the young ladies. “How constrained you must feel, my dears, by this weather.”

  “Sally,” said the General, “is having a splendid time. She flounces about most gayly. She skates like the wind. But then, she has excellent legs, and wishes to titillate the young gentlemen.”

  “Papa!” cried Sally, blushing, but most indecorously pleased.

  Josephine smiled languidly, and put her kerchief to her lips. Dorothea’s withered mouth set primly. She turned majestically to Josephine. “You are rather pale, my love.”

  “Josephine found the wedding festivities a little too arduous,” explained the General. “She is of a delicate constitution. I intend to take her to Saratoga, for the waters.”

  “No!” cried Josephine, with involuntary vehemence. Then she cowered in her chair. “I do not wish to leave home, Papa. I told you that last night.”

  The General studied her reflectively. “The girl seems lovesick, does she not? Who, among our friends, spurns her affections?”

  Josephine colored feverishly. Tears thickened in her eyes. She half-rose from her chair, then fell back in it.

  “It could not be Jerome, could it?” asked the General, with interest. “If so, that is all nonsense. I intend him for Sally. Besides, Sally is the older, and must be married first.”

  “Papa!” cried Sally.

  But Josephine had become listless again, had lost touch with the conversation.

  Dorothea looked at Sally attentively, and for the first time an expression of hopeful relief passed over her gaunt features. Her furtive glance touched Jerome. He was smiling at Sally, his head bent towards her. He had begun to murmur a few inaudible words, and Sally was listening with downcast eyes and bright cheeks.

  Dorothea said, in a voice almost lively for her: “Papa will be down shortly. You will remain for tea, General?”

  “That is my plan,” he answered.

  Dorothea turned to Jerome, and her voice was quite amiable: “Jerome, will you ring the bell? And I shall inform Papa at once that the dear General is here, and the young ladies.”

  In a short while Mr. Lindsey came down, accompanied by Philip, who held his arm. In the ensuing confusion of greetings and amenities, the General whispered to Jerome:

  “That change of yours, sir: nothing is impossible, if not too illegitimate, and if the mare is more or less respectable.”

  He said, in a loud voice: “William, I am pleased with your son. Did you know he is going to marry my daughter, Sally?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Jerome remembered that Carlyle had once said: “Gunpowder has made men all of one height.”

  But Jerome added, from his present illuminating experiences: “Uniformity, however, reduces men to pygmies.”

  As he distrusted himself almost as much as he distrusted others, and had a skeptical eye out for his own epigrams and impulsive conclusions, he was very cautious in allowing himself to believe that uniformity was settling over America. It was only when he was beginning to collect a nice set of bruises on his mental body that he realized that there seemed to be a grim and collective effort to reduce American life to a gray and drab uniformity, not only in thinking, but in economics, industry and social life, as well as in politics and mores. Men were not only expected to be of the same height, but their stature was being reduced.

  He, who rarely allowed his emotions to become involved in anything, and who loved trivia in a kind of obscure self-defense, found himself emotionally and furiously in revolt. (Sometimes he paused, cynically, long enough to reflect that this was a unique and effervescent experience for him, and not at all unpleasant.) There seemed a universal plot against the former diversity and variety of American life. It was like a stream of sluggish but relentless gray lava pouring over the fertile and teeming vineyards and colorful villages of the American world. The boisterousness and color, the crude grandeur and swashbuckling vitality, the gay and riotous unpredictability and exuberance of the American people were being obliterated, as the sun is obliterated by a smothering fog. Worst of all, it seemed deliberate. Why was this? What had happened to the happy brigands, the adventurers, the living, sun-browned faces, the laughing men who had moved mountains with their hands and their mirth and their courage, who had exploded frontiers and crowned a new world with their vigorous splendor? Like warriors, they had stood with their sunlit shields on the crest of the wilderness, and had shouted to the morning. But now the fogs were rolling over the crests and the warrior was only a ghost in the gathering and crepuscular gloom.

  Jerome, though incredulous at first, saw that it was indeed deliberately planned. And he began to see by whom, and why.

  An army conquered and laid open new territory. But, inevitably, it seemed, the army was followed by the dun-colored ranks of the ant exploiters, the ant stabilizers, the ant lovers of the status quo, the insects who instinctively hated vitality and noise and adventure and excitement. Some there were who called them the “builders.” Yes, to some necessary extent, they were indeed builders. But they, most of them, lacked imagination. If was their predetermined intention to reduce life to mechanics. There must be order, they said. There must be order and stability, for the sake of the profits of the ant men. Civilization demanded a regulated society, administered, not by joy and hope and enthusiasm, but by drab laws. The living cities must be surrounded by walls. The wild gardens must be replaced by heaps of slag. Man must not be governed by the sun in his course, but by the clock. Laughter and delight, passion and adventure were immoral, because they contributed little to factories, banks, the building of stony and lightless cities, and profits.

  Why were they so potent? How could they so easily
reduce the joyous free human animal to a blind slave willingly wearing his chains? Was it because they wore such pious livery and were so persistent? Was it because they had such a knack of making money from the bright chaos of living men, and money was so powerful? Was it because they had succeeded in making money powerful and quietly and murderously created a society, in the dark of the moon, wherein only the dun man of wealth could survive—right behind the backs of men who were wiser but less ruthless, and who stood in the sun?

  Jerome saw that an unending battle raged always between the gray man who lusted only for dark and lifeless power and the man who lusted only for life. He was fair enough to concede that the gray men had their necessary place in society. But they were not the only ones who counted. Just as wild and clamorous chaos was the inevitable atmosphere of the unrestrained adventurer, so death-in-life and oppressive misery and exploitation was the inevitable atmosphere of the unrestrained “builder.” They each had a place in the world. But it was necessary that neither entirely usurp the place of the other. A balance was necessary. A middle-of-the-way was imperative, lest man become either a ranging beast or a shadowy evil plotting behind the doors of banks.

  I am becoming quite enchanted with moderation, he thought to himself, with amusement. But it was without amusement that he hated the ant man, who had a ledger for a brain and was without joy or mercy or passion.

  If the ant man had any passion at all, it was the passion for uniformity. If he could impose uniformity and its sister, docility, on other men, his own position was secure; and, in peace and quiet, he could go about filling his next-cells with profits. He knew he was no match for beauty and glory, and so he systematically set out to destroy them. In their presence, he was impotent and revealed in his ugliness, in his gelid mediocrity.