The Professor's House

by Willa Cather

terrible operations, and our girls going shabby and teaching in the ward

  schools, and Rosamond riding about in a limousine and building country

  houses,--and you do nothing about it. You take your honours--you've

  deserved them, we never forget that--and move into your new house, and

  you don't remember what it is to be in straitened circumstances."

  St. Peter drew his chair nearer to Mrs. Crane, and addressed her

  patiently. "Mrs. Crane, if you had any legal rights in the patent, I'd

  defend them against Rosamond as soon as against anyone else. I think she

  ought to recognize Dr. Crane's long friendship and helpfulness to Tom in

  some way. I don't see just how it can be done, but I feel it should be.

  And if you wish I'll tell Rosamond how I feel. Why don't you put this

  matter before her?"

  "I don't care to ask anything of Mrs. Marsellus. I wrote her some time

  ago, and she replied to me through her lawyer, saying that all claims

  against the Outland patent would be considered in due order. It's not

  worthy of a man in Robert's position to accept hush money from the

  Marselluses. We want justice, and my brother is confident the court will

  give it to us."

  "Well, I suppose Bright knows more about what the courts will do than I.

  But if you've decided to go to law about it, why did you come to me?"

  "There are some things the law don't cover," said Mrs. Crane

  mysteriously, as she rose and put on her gloves. "I wanted you to know

  how we feel about it."

  St. Peter followed her downstairs and put up her umbrella for her, and

  then went back to his study to think it over. His friendship with Crane

  had been a strange one. Out in the world they would almost certainly

  have kept clear of each other; but in the university they fought

  together in a common cause. Both, with all their might, had resisted the

  new commercialism, the aim to "show results" that was undermining and

  vulgarizing education. The State Legislature and the board of regents

  seemed determined to make a trade school of the university. Candidates

  for the degree of Bachelor of Arts were allowed credits for commercial

  studies; courses in bookkeeping, experimental farming, domestic science,

  dress-making, and what not. Every year the regents tried to diminish the

  number of credits required in science and the humanities. The liberal

  appropriations, the promotions and increases in salary, all went to the

  professors who worked with the regents to abolish the purely cultural

  studies. Out of a faculty of sixty, there were perhaps twenty men who

  made any serious stand for scholarship, and Robert Crane was one of the

  staunchest. He had lost the Deanship of the College of Science because

  of his uncompromising opposition to the degrading influence of

  politicians in university affairs. The honour went, instead, to a much

  younger man, head of the department of chemistry, who was willing "to

  give the taxpayers what they wanted."

  The struggle to preserve the dignity of the university, and their own,

  had brought St. Peter and Dr. Crane much together. They were, moreover,

  the only two men on the faculty who were doing research work of an

  uncommercial nature, and they occasionally dropped in on one another to

  exchange ideas. But that was as far as it went. St. Peter couldn't ask

  Crane to dinner; the presence of a bottle of claret on the table would

  have made him uncomfortable. Dr. Crane had all the prejudices of the

  Baptist community in which he grew up. He carried them with him when he

  went to study at a German university, and brought them back. But Crane

  knew that none of his colleagues followed his work so closely, and

  rejoiced at his little triumphs so heartily, as St. Peter.

  St. Peter couldn't help admiring the man's courage; poor, ill,

  overworked, held by his conscience to a generous discharge of his duties

  as a teacher, he was all the while carrying on these tedious and

  delicate experiments that had to do with determining the extent of

  space. Fortunately, Crane seemed to have no social needs or impulses. He

  never went anywhere, except, once or twice a year, to a dinner at the

  President's house. Music disturbed him too much, dancing shocked him--he

  couldn't see why it was permitted among the students. Once, after Mrs.

  St. Peter had set next to him at the President's dinner-table, she said

  to her husband: "The man is too dreary! All evening his heavy underwear

  kept coming down below his cuffs, and he kept poking it back with his

  forefinger. I believe he thinks it's wicked to live with even so plain a

  woman as Mrs. Crane."

  After Tom Outland graduated from the university, he and Dr. Crane worked

  side by side in the Physics building for several years. The older man

  had been of great assistance to the younger, without doubt. Though that

  kind of help, the result of criticism and suggestion, is not easily

  reckoned in percentages, still St. Peter thought Crane ought to get

  something out of the patent. He resolved to see Louie about it. But

  first he had better talk with Crane himself, and try to dissuade him

  from going to law. His brother-in-law, Homer Bright, would be tempted by

  the publicity which an action involving the Outland patent would

  certainly bring him. But he would lose the case, and Crane would get

  nothing. Whereas Louie, if he were properly approached, would be

  generous.

  St. Peter looked at his watch. He would go home now, and after dinner he

  would walk over to the Physics building, where his colleague worked

  every night. He never went to see Crane at his house if he could help

  it. He lived in the most depressing and unnecessary ugliness.

  Chapter 13

  At dinner Lillian asked him no questions about his interview with Mrs.

  Crane, and he volunteered no information. She was not surprised,

  however, when he said he would not stop for a cigar, as he was going

  over to the Physics laboratory.

  He walked through the park, past the old house and across the north end

  of the campus, to a building that stood off by itself in a grove of

  pine-trees. It was constructed of red brick, after an English model. The

  architect had had a good idea, and he very nearly succeeded in making a

  good thing, something like the old Smithsonian building in Washington.

  But after it was begun, the State Legislature had defeated him by

  grinding down the contractor to cheap execution, and had spoiled

  everything, outside and in. Ever since it was finished, plumbers and

  masons and carpenters had been kept busy patching and repairing it.

  Crane and St. Peter, both young men then, had wasted weeks of time with

  the contractors, and had finally gone before the Legislative committee

  in person to plead for the integrity of that building. But nothing came

  of all their pains. It was one of many lost causes.

  St. Peter entered the building and went upstairs to a small room at the

  end of a chain of laboratories. After knocking, he heard the familiar

  shuffle of Crane's carpet slippers, and the door opened.

  Crane was wearing a grey cotton coat, shrunk to a rag by washing, though

  he
wasn't working with fluids or batteries tonight, but at a roll-top

  desk littered with papers. The room was like any study behind a lecture

  room; dusty books, dusty files, but no apparatus--except a spirit-lamp

  and a little saucepan in which the physicist heated water for his cocoa

  at regular intervals. He was working by the glare of an unshaded

  electric bulb of high power--the man seemed to have no feeling for

  comfort of any kind. He asked his visitor to sit down, and to excuse him

  for a moment while he copied some entries into a note-book.

  St. Peter watched him scribbling with his fountain pen. The hands that

  were so deft in delicate manipulations were white and soft-looking; the

  fingers long and loosely hung, stained with chemicals, and blunted at

  the tips like a violinist's. His head was square, and the lower part of

  his face was covered by a reddish, matted beard. His pale eyes and

  fawn-coloured eyebrows were outbalanced by his mouth, his most

  conspicuous feature. One always remembered about Crane that unexpected,

  startling red mouth in a setting of kinky beard. The lips had no

  modelling, they were as thick at the corners as in the middle, and he

  spoke through them rather than with them. He seemed painfully conscious

  of them.

  St. Peter saw no use in beating about the bush. As soon as Crane put

  down his pen, he remarked that Mrs. Crane had been to see him that

  afternoon. His colleague flushed, took up a large celluloid paper-knife,

  and began shutting and unshutting his hands about the blade.

  "I want to know exactly how you feel about this, and what the facts

  are," St. Peter began. "We've never discussed it before, and there may

  be things I know nothing about. Did Tom ever say that he meant you to

  have a share in his profits, if there were any?"

  "No, not exactly. Not exactly that." Dr. Crane moved his shoulders about

  in his tight coat and looked embarrassed and unhappy. "More than once he

  said, in a general way, that he hoped it would go, on my account as well

  as on his own, and that we would use the income for further

  experiments."

  "Did he talk much about the possible commercial value of the gas while

  he was trying to make it?"

  "Not much. No, very seldom. Perhaps not more than half a dozen times in

  the three years he was working in my laboratory. But whenever he did, he

  spoke as if there would be something in it for both of us if our gas

  became remunerative."

  "Just how much was it 'our gas,' Crane?"

  "Strictly speaking, of course, it wasn't. The idea was Outland's. He

  benefited by my criticism, and I often helped him with his experiments.

  He never acquired a nice laboratory technic. He would fail repeatedly in

  some perfectly sound experiment because of careless procedure."

  "Do you think he would have arrived at his results without your help?"

  Dr. Crane was clenching the paper-knife with both hands. "That I cannot

  say. He was impatient. He might have got discouraged and turned to

  something else. He would have been much slower in getting his results,

  at any rate. 'His conception was right, but very delicate manipulation

  was necessary, and he was a careless experimentor."

  St. Peter felt that this was becoming nothing less than

  cross-examination. He tried to change the tone of it.

  "I want to see you get recognition and compensation for whatever part

  you had in his experiments, if there's any way to get it. But you've

  been neglectful, Crane. You haven't taken the proper steps. Why in the

  world didn't you have some understanding with Tom when he was getting

  his patent? You knew all about it."

  "It didn't occur to me then. We'd finished the experiments, and I put

  them out of my mind. I was trying to concentrate on my own work. His

  results weren't as interesting scientifically as I'd expected them to

  be."

  "While his manuscripts and formul� were lying here those two years, did

  you ever make the gas, or give any study to its behaviour?"

  "No, of course not. It's off my own line, and didn't interest me."

  "Then it's only since this patent has begun to make money that it does

  interest you?"

  Dr. Crane twisted his shoulders. "Yes. It's the money."

  "Heaven knows I'd like to see you get some of it. But why did you put it

  off so long? Why didn't you make some claim when you delivered the

  papers to his executor, since you hadn't done so before? Why didn't you

  bring the matter up to me then, and let me make a claim against the

  estate for you?"

  Dr. Crane could endure his chair no longer. He began to walk softly

  about in his slippers, looking at nothing, but, as he talked, picking up

  objects here and there,--drawing-tools, his cocoa-cup, a china

  cream-pitcher, turning them round and carefully putting them down again,

  just as he often absently handled pieces of apparatus when he was

  lecturing.

  "I know," he said, "appearances are against me. But you must understand

  my negligence. You know how little opportunity a man has to carry on his

  own line of investigation here. You know how much time I give to any of

  my students who are doing honest work. Outland was, of course, the most

  brilliant pupil I ever had, and I gave him time and thought without

  stint. Gladly, of course. If he were reaping the rewards of his

  discovery himself, I'd have nothing to say--though I've not the least

  doubt he would compensate me liberally. But it does not seem right that

  a stranger should profit, and not those who helped him. You, of course,

  do profit--indirectly, if not directly. You cannot shut your eyes to the

  fact that this money, coming into your family, has strengthened your

  credit and your general security. That's as it should be. But your claim

  was less definite than mine. I spent time and strength I could ill

  afford to spare on the very series of experiments that led to this

  result. Marsellus gets the benefit of my work as well as Outland's. I

  have certainly been ill-used--and, as you say, it's difficult to get

  recompense when I ask for it so late. It's not to my discredit,

  certainly, that I didn't take measures to protect my interests. I never

  thought of my student's work in terms of money. There were others who

  did, and I was not considered," he concluded bitterly.

  "Why don't you put in a claim to Marsellus, for your time and expert

  advice? I think he'd honour it. He is going to live here. He probably

  doesn't wish to be more unpopular than a suddenly prosperous man is

  bound to be, and you have many friends. I believe I can convince him

  that it would be poor policy to disregard any reasonable demand."

  "I had thought of that. But my wife's brother advises a different

  course."

  "Ah, yes. Mrs. Crane said something of that sort. Well, Crane, if you're

  going to law about it, I hope you'll consult a sound lawyer, and you

  know as well as I that Homer Bright is not one."

  Dr. Crane coloured and bridled. "I'm sure you are disinterested, St.

  Peter, but, frankly, I think your judgment has been warped by events.

  You don't realize how clear the matter
is to unprejudiced minds. Though

  I'm such an unpractical man, I have evidence to rest my claims upon."

  "The more the better, if you are going to depend on such a windbag as

  Bright. If you go to law, I'd like to see you win your case."

  St. Peter said good-night, went down the stairs, and out through the

  dark pine-trees. Evidence, Crane said; probably letters Tom had written

  him during the winter he was working at Johns Hopkins. Well, there was

  nothing to be done, unless he could get old Dr. Hutchins to persuade

  Crane to employ an intelligent lawyer. Homer Bright's rhetoric might

  influence a jury in a rape or bigamy case, but it would antagonize a

  judge in an equity court.

  The Professor took a turn in the park before going home. The interview

  had depressed him, and he was afraid he might be wakeful. He had never

  seen his colleague in such an unbecoming light before. Crane was narrow,

  but he was straight; a man you could count on in the shifty game of

  college politics. He had never been out to get anything for himself. St.

  Peter would have said that nothing about the vulgar success of Outland's

  idea could possibly matter to Crane, beyond gratifying his pride as a

  teacher and friend.

  The park was deserted. The arc-lights were turned off. The leafless

  trees stood quite motionless in the light of the clear stars. The world

  was sad to St. Peter as he looked about him; the lake-shore country flat

  and heavy, Hamilton small and tight and airless. The university, his new

  house, his old house, everything around him, seemed insupportable, as

  the boat on which he is imprisoned seems to a sea-sick man. Yes, it was

  possible that the little world, on its voyage among all the stars, might

  become like that; a boat on which one could travel no longer, from which

  one could no longer look up and confront those bright rings or

  revolution.

  He brought himself back with a jerk. Ah, yes, Crane; that was the

  trouble. If Outland were here to-night, he might say with Mark Antony,

  My fortunes have corrupted honest men.

  Chapter 14

  At the end of the semester, St. Peter went to Chicago with Rosamond to

  help her buy things for her country house. He had very much wanted to

  stay at home and rest--the university work seemed to take it out of him

  that winter more than ever before; but Rosamond had set her mind on his

  going, and Mrs. St. Peter told him he couldn't refuse. A Chicago

  merchant had brought over a lot of old Spanish furniture, and on this

  nobody's judgement would be better than St. Peter's. He was supposed to

  know a good deal about rugs, too. When his wife said a thing must be

  done, the Professor usually did it, from long-established habit. Her

  instincts about what one owed to other people were better than his.

  Louie accompanied them to Chicago, where he was to join his brother, the

  one who was in the silk trade in China, and go on to New York with him

  for a family reunion. St. Peter was amused, and pleased, to see that

  Louie sincerely hated to leave them--with very little encouragement he

  would have sent his brother on alone and remained in Chicago with his

  wife and father-in-law. They all lunched together, after which the

  Professor and Rosamond took the Marsellus brothers to the La Salle Street

  station. When Louie had again and again kissed his hand to them from the

  rear platform of the Twentieth Century observation car, and was rolled

  away in the very act of shouting something to his wife, St. Peter, who

  had so often complained that there was to much Louie in his life, now

  felt a sudden drop, a distinct sense of loss.

  He took Rosamond's arm, and they turned away from the shining rails. "We

  must be diligent, Rosie. He expects wonders of us."