Balance Wheel

by Taylor Caldwell

  I’ve never thought, myself, of these things before, Charles confessed. But if millions of men like me—“an army of principles.” It was impossible.

  He did not want to go home. He did not want to go to Baker’s Bend, after all, where his particular club had its bathhouse. He heard a gramophone blaring from an open window. The city was hot, sweltering. Even the trees could not lessen the heat of the streets. Panting men and women and children sat on verandah steps and watched his automobile go by. He wanted to be cool, and he wanted to be alone.

  He asked his driver to take him to the foot of the mountains, and there dismissed him. He slowly walked up Mountain Road in the general direction of Wilhelm’s house. Finally, he could see the red tile roof of the house, high in the distance. Then he abruptly made a turn to his right and walked along a very small winding country road, old and overgrown with bushes, grass, and weeds. But all at once it was cooler, and it was profoundly still. Old elms and maples and chestnuts met together in a green mass over Charles’ head; the damp earth exhaled a cool sweetness. Here and there, as the trees opened, he saw the hot blue of the summer sky, and the road became brown and dry. He hurried through these openings to the green shadow beyond. Birds, disturbed by his passage, cried shrilly. He saw squirrels racing through the high grass; now he reached a natural grove of evergreens, and the ground was covered with thick and yielding old needles. Clumps of wild flowers, blue and yellow and scarlet, bloomed here and there.

  Charles took off his hat; there was a scented wind high here in the quiet places. But he liked best the silence, the absence of human voices. There were no houses near this abandoned road; no sign of any living thing but the birds and the squirrels. Progressively, the air became cooler as he climbed. He knew this road well; he had walked along it literally hundreds of times, as a boy, and as a man. He knew where a spring was; he saw it now, bubbling among thick grasses. He lay down in the grass and drank of the spring; it had a faint sulphur taste. It recalled his boyhood to him, and the peace of his boyhood. It recalled his father to his memory, big, red-faced, gross and hearty Emil, who believed—What had Emil believed? In freedom, in the inevitable triumph of man over indecency and cruelty. In God.

  Charles, in his youth, had thought his father somewhat naive. Old men talk of God, he had thought, but young men talk of life. The mineral taste of the spring was very refreshing, as he lay in the grass. Now he began to wonder if his father had been as naive as he had thought. No, Emil knew his Goethe as well as his Bible, and his Lessing, and his Spinoza. Charles thought of the huge old books in his house, old German books full of mighty and sonorous phrases. When had he last looked at them? He could not remember. He could hardly read German, now, without slow difficulty. Why did everyone think that it was naive, or senile, to think of God, these days? He himself, had vaguely thought so, also, until he had smelled the terror which was beginning to envelop the world so silently, so inexorably.

  There were fundamentals. When men went too far from fundamentals they encountered the dragons of fear, disorder, complexity, doubt, and confusion. They thought they had become civilized. But, in fact, they had lost nothing of their bestiality, their animalism.

  Emil and his father had left Germany because they hated the “Statism” of Bismarck. Charles sat up, abruptly. Emil had believed that the rights of man came from God, not from the State. Statism. Could it be that everywhere in the world there was a plot developing secretly against that heroic belief that man’s rights came from God? How best to destroy that belief, to reduce the world of men to serfdom under a State? By war, by religious and racial disorders, by confusing laws, by conspiracy? Charles listened to the silence of the woods about him. Peace. Who, anywhere, could overwhelm the peace of the world, could deliberately plot against liberty, could conspire to force Statism or Socialism upon men, and hope for success? Once or twice Friederich had spoken of Marxism to Charles, of a weird and incredible thing called Communism. But even the Germans, so disciplined, so exact, and so obedient a people, were beginning to rebel against the regimentation of that egotistic man, the Kaiser. There were those strikes in Hamburg, and other cities. There was a tide of Germans coming to America again, as they had come after Bismarck. No, liberty and democracy were growing, not declining. Let the plotters plot—if indeed there were plotters—and it would all come to nothing. That monster with the two heads, Statism and Communism, lived only in the disordered minds of a few murderous men.

  Charles had it all settled, now. He stood up. He waited for his old feeling of surety to return, his old sturdiness and placidity. But they did not come back.

  He went on. He knew there was a clearing at a little distance, a circular place of grass, surrounded by trees. He made for it, almost desperately. He had only to lie there, and perhaps sleep a little, and he would be of one piece again. There was an open place, he remembered, in that circle, through which one could see the long wooded slope of the green mountain tumbling down to the city below, and the river. He had sometimes thought that if this had been a Latin country a shrine would have been erected in that small glade, in the midst of cool, green, and watery light, in the center of sweet silence and peace. Shrines. Why, there ought to be shrines everywhere in America! What had the Greeks chiselled on an altar? “To the Uknown God.” But there would never be altars like that in America, thought Charles, listlessly. We have become a materialistic country.

  He came to the glade, and there was Phyllis sitting there alone, with her back against a great old tree, a book down in the grass beside her. Her white linen dress was very vivid in the green and sunless quiet. She had not heard Charles coming; she was looking emptily before her, and her face was mournful and still.

  “Phyllis!” Charles exclaimed. She looked up. Something flashed into her eyes, deep and brilliant.

  “Charles,” she said.

  He stood there, foolishly, his hat dangling in his hand. He had only to go towards Phyllis, and speak easily, but he could only stand there. All at once the silence in the little circle was portentous, meaningful. It was enchanted. It was a dusky dream, with no other color but Phyllis’ white dress and bright hair, and Charles standing on the edge of the circle, quite unable to say anything and Phyllis only looking at him.

  It seemed that a long time had passed, to Charles, before he could say: “I didn’t know anyone was here.” It was a silly thing to say, he thought, incoherently.

  “I often come here, Charles.” Phyllis was smiling. “It’s restful.”

  He went towards her then. He said: “Where’s Willie?”

  “He went to Philadelphia this morning.” She was still smiling, but there was no pink in her cheeks or lips. “It was to get a birthday present for you, Charles.”

  He sat down near her. “A birthday present,” he repeated, as if he did not understand. “For me.”

  “Yes. You have one next month. Or have you forgotten?”

  He laid his hat carefully down beside him. “One doesn’t try to remember his fortieth birthday.” He spoke carefully. She was watching him, and her smile made her eyes tilt and crinkle in her pale face.

  “It’s an etching by Van Gogh,” she said.

  “Eh?” he muttered. Then he thought over what she had said. He sat there, in his staid clothing, his bent knees stiff. He said: “An etching by Van Gogh.” He felt stupid and thick, staring at his knees. He felt them trembling.

  “Or a sketch of Monet’s,” she added, gently. “I do hope you won’t mind, Charles, and that you’ll like it.”

  The trees closed them in, except for that one break before them, which overlooked the city. The slightest wind fluttered the leaves above them, turned them white for a moment or two. A bird cried far up in the branches.

  “Why should I mind?” asked Charles, still staring at his knees. “There’s nothing wrong in knowing something outside of your own—your own narrow orbit. I’ve been thinking I’ve never really known very much. It wouldn’t hurt me to know something about Monet or Van Gogh or
Debussy. It wouldn’t decrease my interest in my business. It might even give me something to think about.” He turned his head. Phyllis’ expression was sad but intent. “You see, Phyllis,” he continued, “if a man thinks only of a few things, especially those things that concern him closely, he has nothing to think about when—when trouble comes, for instance.” He frowned. “I don’t think I’ve said what I mean.”

  “You mean, he hasn’t any inner resources.”

  “Yes. That’s right. I’ve never had any inner resources, Phyllis. And now, when I need to think of something else—well, you might say of impersonal concern, I haven’t anything very much.”

  She studied his broad Wittmann face, and saw his quiet desperation. Her first impulse was to say something absurd and consoling. But she could not insult him like that. So she said: “I think you have more than you believe you have, even if your life has been a little restricted by your business interests.”

  “I thought they were pretty much of everything,” he said. He pulled up a few blades, and looked at them soberly.

  “And now?” asked Phyllis, softly.

  He glanced at her, then looked at the grass again. There was such loneliness in him, such bereavement. “Well, what I thought was secure isn’t so secure. Maybe. I’m not very good at talking, Phyllis. I can’t put my thoughts into words. I’ve lost something. Maybe it’s my self-confidence. No, that isn’t exactly what I mean.”

  “You mean, certitude.”

  He nodded his head. “Yes. Certitude. I’ve lost that.”

  “But no one ever has it, really, Charles.”

  “I thought I had.” He was surprised. He repeated: “I thought I had. Do you mean to say, Phyllis, that no one has any certitude at all?”

  She shook her head. “No one, Charles.”

  He broke each blade of grass carefully, threw it aside. “I didn’t know,” he said. Phyllis did not speak. He said, again: “I didn’t know.” He looked at her. “You had a very nice party last night.”

  She laughed a little. “I thought Wilhelm’s talk was better than Mr. Bartholemew’s.”

  “Yes.”

  The silence again closed in upon them, isolated them. Out of the corner of his eye Charles could see the edge of Phyllis’ white dress, her slender ankles, and pretty feet. He pulled another handful of the grass.

  “I didn’t hear a word either of them said,” he admitted, suddenly.

  He waited for her to laugh again. But when she didn’t laugh he turned to her. “That was a rude thing to say, and I’m sorry. I was thinking about something else.”

  “I know, Charles.”

  “I thought perhaps it might be my health,” he said lamely. “I just came from seeing Metzger. It wasn’t my health. He says.”

  She nodded. Then she said: “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Charles. I wish I could help, however. You know that.”

  “Yes, Phyllis. I do know it.”

  He crossed his arms on his knees and stared before him. Suddenly, he thought of that elusive word: étude. Finished. Complete. Something was complete, in this circle with him. His misery and fear and insecurity left him. His tired lethargy lifted. He bent his chin on his arms. “I’d like to tell you about it, Phyllis, and I’d like you to tell me, afterwards, that I’m a fool.”

  “I’d like to hear,” she said, simply.

  And then he told her as much as he could of the past week, but he did not tell her of Colonel Grayson. But he told her of the things he had read, the thoughts he had had; he told her about Mr. Haas and Jimmy and Father Hagerty, of Friederich, and all his shapeless terrors, and the Bouchards. His voice went on and on in the green silence, pouring out of him in a flood of release. He knew that what he could not express fully she understood completely. He did not know how long he talked, but he suspected that it was at least for half an hour, and she never interrupted him once.

  “So, there it is,” he said, finally. “It’s all been deviling me all week. I’ve been looking for someone to tell me I’m a fool. I thought Grimsley would. But he didn’t. He just showed me those items, which I’d missed, or overlooked.”

  He dropped his arms from his knees, and turned to Phyllis again. “Now, please tell me I’m a fool, and there’s nothing.”

  Phyllis was very grave and quiet. She smoothed her white dress. “Wilhelm and I were all over Europe eighteen months ago, you remember, Charles.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m afraid you’re right. I knew there was something wrong. Everything felt precarious to me. I didn’t know why. I asked Wilhelm about it, and he said I had ‘nerves.’ I tried to think so. But it wasn’t ‘nerves.’ There is, as you’ve said, Charles, something brewing. Something central and strong and fixed has flown apart. You felt it, in Europe, in the people. I might even say, in the very sunlight, and the shadows in the streets of London, and Berlin and Paris. But I don’t think anyone actually knew, or believed—”

  Charles said: “No. They can see it coming. But usually it’s too late to do anything about it, because they never watched for the signs, or the signs were hidden from them.” He brushed his knees. “Well. There it is. And there’s nothing I, personally, can do. That’s what’s so desperate about it.”

  Phyllis said: “Charles. You talk as if you were alone. Do you know, Charles, how very much alone you’ve always been? And you’ve deliberately kept yourself alone, and now you can’t believe that what you feel and instinctively fear is feared and felt by others.”

  She spoke so kindly, almost tenderly, yet he heard something else under her words. He said: “You sound as if you were—reproaching—me, in a way, Phyllis.” He waited a moment, and considered what she had told him. “I never thought of it like that. I thought I was alone. I ought to have remembered that no one ever has a truly unique thought.”

  “Someone you can talk to—someone you can trust,” Dr. Metzger had told him.

  Phyllis leaned towards him, her hands in the grass. As the duskiness increased in the circle her hair brightened, and her face brightened, also, so near his.

  “Charles, you’re a wonderful man. You are the kind of man who has built America. The man of initiative, pride, resourcefulness, and enterprise. You inherited a business, and increased it. You have an unassailable reputation for integrity. You are not the president of a great corporation; you are a business man who owns his own business, who asks only the privilege of working as best he can, without interference, and with dignity. All that you are, and all that you have done, has a kind of greatness. And it’s the kind of greatness which America dares not lose.”

  He had flushed at what she had said, with embarrassment. “Yes? What can I do?”

  He could see the dim green light on her face, and her smile. “Charles, Shakespeare said something once:

  “‘Be just and fear not:

  Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s,

  Thy God’s, and truth’s.’”

  He was so moved that he could say nothing. He could only look into her eyes.

  “Men like you, Charles, have enemies. I don’t know who they are. Perhaps they are the men whom your brother Friederich worships so extravagantly: the men who would debase the spirit of men for the good of what they call the State, or ‘collectivist society.’ Perhaps they are men who would like to enslave all the people.”

  Charles pondered over this. Her voice, in spite of its quiet, had held vehemence and certainty. Then he shook his head. “Why can’t we do something before disaster comes? Why can’t we be wise before the fact?”

  “Because your very nature prohibits it. Men like you don’t band together. Only the wicked men gather together and have a definite program. But, at the end, you do get together, in your desperation.”

  “In the meantime—”

  “You can do nothing, Charles, except your best, and wait. And you, yourself, can begin to fight a certain self-satisfied complacency in your own thoughts—a materialism. Do you know that we have beco
me a very materialistic world? Yes, I can see you’ve thought of that, too.”

  She put her fingers over his, and pressed them. He did not stir. The touch of her hand was suddenly almost unbearable in its sweetness and comfort.

  “Think about the materialism of this century, Charles,” she said, with strong earnestness. “And talk about it with other business men like yourself. It’s a disease, you see. Feel—be emotional—Charles, about your place in the world. You have always had a tremendous sense of responsibility, but it has been an unemotional one, a materialistic one. There’s no time to be lost.”

  Charles tried to keep his hand very still, so that she would not become aware that her hand was holding his.

  “Grimsley was quoting Tom Paine, to me,” he said. “Something about ‘an army of principles.’”

  She nodded. “Yes. I know what Tom Paine says. And be glad that you are part of that ‘army of principles.’ You’ll win, some day, because your principles are truth.”

  Nothing had been settled. There was nothing he could do. He could not shout out to the world that it was in danger. But he was no longer alone or desolate or so desperate. “Be just and fear not.” Perhaps if many men thought of the good of their country, and God, and truth, it would eventually be all right, even if all the terrors came, and the death and the ruin.

  “You have such fortitude, Charles,” Phyllis was saying, very softly. “And fortitude is so much nobler than endurance, which is just a dogged natural instinct. You can suffer anything, Charles, and you won’t go down, because you are the best which the world has ever produced.”

  He colored again. “Now, Phyllis. That sounds extravagant.” She pressed his hand again, laughed a little, and removed her hand. “I believe in you, Charles, I always did. And so many others do, even if they don’t know it yet.”

  She glanced at her watch; its enamelled cover caught the fading light. “It’s nearly five!”

  He stood up, brushing the grass from his clothing. Then he gave Phyllis his hand. She took it simply, and he helped her to her feet. They were standing close together. Phyllis began to smile. Then the smile left her face, and her eyes widened with what he knew, without any doubt at all, was a terrible suffering. “Charles,” she said, and then could not speak.