Part I The old school
A council of state
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
(Originally published in 1900)
R Street, N.W.
Part I
Luther Hamilton was a great political power. He was neither representative in Congress, senator nor cabinet minister. When asked why he aspired to none of these places of honor and emolument he invariably shrugged his shoulders and smiled inscrutably. In fact, he found it both more pleasant and more profitable simply to boss his party. It gave him power, position and patronage, and yet put him under obligations to no narrow constituency.
As he sat in his private office this particular morning there was a smile upon his face, and his little eyes looked out beneath the heavy grey eyebrows and the massive cheeks with gleams of pleasure. His whole appearance betokened the fact that he was feeling especially good. Even his mail lay neglected before him, and his eyes gazed straight at the wall. What wonder that he should smile and dream. Had he not just the day before utterly crushed a troublesome opponent? Had he not ruined the career of a young man who dared to oppose him, driven him out of public life and forced his business to the wall? If this were not food for self-congratulation pray what is?
Mr. Hamilton’s reverie was broken in upon by a tap at the door, and his secretary entered.
“Well, Frank, what is it now? I haven’t gone through my mail yet.”
“Miss Kirkman is in the outer office, sir, and would like to see you this morning.”
“Oh, Miss Kirkman, heh; well, show her in at once.”
The secretary disappeared and returned ushering in a young woman, whom the “boss” greeted cordially.
“Ah, Miss Kirkman, good-morning! Good-morning! Always prompt and busy, I see. Have a chair.”
Miss Kirkman returned his greeting and dropped into a chair. She began at once fumbling in a bag she carried.
“We’ll get right to business,” she said. “I know you’re busy, and so am I, and I want to get through. I’ve got to go and hunt a servant for Mrs. Senator Dutton when I leave here.”
She spoke in a loud voice, and her words rushed one upon the other as if she were in the habit of saying much in a short space of time. This is a trick of speech frequently acquired by those who visit public men. Miss Kirkman’s whole manner indicated bustle and hurry. Even her attire showed it. She was a plump woman, aged, one would say about thirty. Her hair was brown and her eyes a steely grey — not a bad face, but one too shrewd and aggressive perhaps for a woman. One might have looked at her for a long time and never suspected the truth, that she was allied to the colored race. Neither features, hair nor complexion showed it, but then “colored” is such an elastic word, and Miss Kirkman in reality was colored “for revenue only.” She found it more profitable to ally herself to the less important race because she could assume a position among them as a representative woman, which she could never have hoped to gain among the whites. So she was colored, and, without having any sympathy with the people whom she represented, spoke for them and uttered what was supposed by the powers to be the thoughts that were in their breasts.
“Well, from the way you’re tossing the papers in that bag I know you’ve got some news for me.”
“Yes, I have, but I don’t know how important you’ll think it is. Here we are!” She drew forth a paper and glanced at it. “It’s just a memorandum, a list of names of a few men who need watching. The Afro-American convention is to meet on the 22d; that’s Thursday of next week. Bishop Carter is to preside. The thing has resolved itself into a fight between those who are office-holders and those who want to be.”
“Yes, well what’s the convention going to do?”
“They’re going to denounce the administration.”
“Hem, well in your judgment, what will that amount to, Miss Kirkman?”
“They are the representative talking men from all sections of the country, and they have their following, and so there’s no use disputing that they can do some harm.”
“Hum, what are they going to denounce the administration for?”
“Oh, there’s a spirit of general discontent, and they’ve got to denounce something, so it had as well be the administration as anything else.”
There was a new gleam in Mr. Hamilton’s eye that was not one of pleasure as he asked, “Who are the leaders in this movement?”
“That’s just what I brought this list for. There’s Courtney, editor of the New York Beacon, who is rabid; there’s Jones of Georgia, Gray of Ohio—”
“Whew,” whistled the boss, “Gray of Ohio, why he’s on the inside.”
“Yes, and I can’t see what’s the matter with him, he’s got his position, and he ought to keep his mouth shut.”
“Oh, there are ways of applying the screw. Go on.”
“Then, too, there’s Shackelford of Mississippi, Duncan of South Carolina, Stowell of Kentucky, and a lot of smaller fry who are not worth mentioning.”
“Are they organized?”
“Yes, Courtney has seen to that, the forces are compact.”
“We must split them. How is the bishop?”
“Neutral.”
“Any influence?”
“Lots of it.”
“How’s your young man, the one for whom you’ve been soliciting a place — what’s his name?”
Miss Kirkman did her womanhood the credit of blushing, “Joseph Aldrich, you mean. You can trust to me to see that he’s on the right side.”
“Happy is the man who has the right woman to boss him, and who has sense enough to be bossed by her; his path shall be a path of roses, and his bed a flowery bed of ease. Now to business. They must not denounce the administration. What are the conditions of membership in this convention?”
“Any one may be present, but it costs a fee of five dollars for the privilege of the floor.”
Mr. Hamilton turned to the desk and made out a check. He handed it to Miss Kirkman, saying, “Cash this, and pack that convention for the administration. I look to you and the people you may have behind you to check any rash resolutions they may attempt to pass. I want you to be there every day and take notes of the speeches made, and their character and tenor. I shall have Mr. Richardson there also to help you. The record of each man’s speech will be sent to his central committee, and we shall know how to treat him in the future. You know, Miss Kirkman, it is our method to help our friends and to crush our enemies. I shall depend upon you to let me know which is which. Good-morning.”
“Good-morning, Mr. Hamilton.”
“And, oh, Miss Kirkman, just a moment. Frank,” the secretary came in, “bring me that jewel case out of the safe. Here, Miss Kirkman, Mrs. Hamilton told me if you came in to ask if you would mind running past the safety deposit vaults and putting these in for her?”
“Certainly not,” said Miss Kirkman.
This was one of the ways in which Miss Kirkman was made to remember her race. And the relation to that race, which nothing in her face showed, came out strongly in her willingness thus to serve. The confidence itself flattered her, and she was never tired of telling her acquaintances how she had put such and such a senator’s wife’s jewels away, or got a servant for a cabinet minister.
When her other duties were done she went directly to a small dingy office building and entered a room, over which was the sign, “Joseph Aldrich, Counselor and Attorney at Law.”
“How do, Joe.”
“Why, Miss Kirkman, I’m glad to see you,” said Mr. Aldrich, coming forward to meet her and setting a chair. He was a slender young man, of a complexion which among the varying shades bestowed among colored people is termed a light brown skin. A mustache and a short Vandyke beard partially covered a mouth inclined to weakness. Looking at them, an observer would have said that Miss Kirkman was the stronger man of the two.
“What brings you out this way to-day?” questioned Aldrich.
“I’ll tell you. You’ve asked me to marry you, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m going to do it.”
“Annie, you make me too happy.”
“That’s enough,” said Miss Kirkman, waving him away. “We haven’t any time for romance now. I mean business. You’re going to the convention next week.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to speak?”
“Of course.”
“That’s right. Let me see your speech.”
He drew a typewritten manuscript from the drawer and handed it to her. She ran her eyes over the pages, murmuring to herself. “Uh, huh, ‘wavering, weak, vaciliating adminstration, have not given us the protection our rights as citizens demanded — while our brothers were murdered in the South. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, while this modern’ — uh, huh, oh, yes, just as I thought,” and with a sudden twist Miss Kirkman tore the papers across and pitched them into the grate.
“Miss Kirkman — Annie, what do you mean?”
“I mean that if you’re going to marry me, I’m not going to let you go to the convention and kill yourself.”
“But my convictions—”
“Look here, don’t talk to me about convictions. The colored man is the under dog, and the under dog has no right to have convictions. Listen, you’re going to the convention next week and you’re going to make a speech, but it won’t be that speech. I have just come from Mr. Hamilton’s. That convention is to be watched closely. He is to have his people there and they are to take down the words of every man who talks, and these words will be sent to his central committee. The man who goes there with an imprudent tongue goes down. You’d better get to work and see if you can’t think of something good the administration has done and dwell on that.”
“Whew!”
“Well, I’m off.”
“But Annie, about the wedding?”
“Good-morning, we’ll talk about the wedding after the convention.”
The door closed on her last words, and Joseph Aldrich sat there wondering and dazed at her manner. Then he began to think about the administration. There must be some good things to say for it, and he would find them. Yes, Annie was right — and wasn’t she a hustler though?
Part II
It was on the morning of the 22d and near nine o’clock, the hour at which the convention was to be called to order. But Mr. Gray of Ohio had not yet gone in. He stood at the door of the convention hall in deep converse with another man. His companion was a young looking sort of person. His forehead was high and his eyes were keen and alert. The face was mobile and the mouth nervous. It was the face of an enthusiast, a man with deep and intense beliefs, and the boldness or, perhaps, rashness to uphold them.
“I tell you, Gray,” he was saying, “it’s an outrage, nothing less. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Bah! It’s all twaddle. Why, we can’t even be secure in the first two, how can we hope for the last?”
“You’re right, Elkins,” said Gray, soberly, “and though I hold a position under the administration, when it comes to a consideration of the wrongs of my race, I cannot remain silent.”
“I cannot and will not. I hold nothing from them, and I owe them nothing. I am only a bookkeeper in a commercial house, where their spite cannot reach me, so you may rest assured that I shall not bite my tongue.”
“Nor shall I. We shall all be colored men here together, and talk, I hope, freely one to the other. Shall you introduce your resolution today?”
“I won’t have a chance unless things move more rapidly than I expect them to. It will have to come up under new business, I should think.”
“Hardly. Get yourself appointed on the committee on resolutions.”
“Good, but how can I?”
“I’ll see to that; I know the bishop pretty well. Ah, good-morning, Miss Kirkman. How do you do, Aldrich?” Gray pursued, turning to the newcomers, who returned his greeting, and passed into the hall.
“That’s Miss Kirkman. You’ve heard of her. She fetches and carries for Luther Hamilton and his colleagues, and has been suspected of doing some spying, also.”
“Who was that with her?”
“Oh, that’s her man Friday; otherwise Joseph Aldrich by name, a fellow she’s trying to make something of before she marries him. She’s got the pull to do it, too.”
“Why don’t you turn them down?”
“Ah, my boy, you’re young, you’re young; you show it. Don’t you know that a wind strong enough to uproot an oak only ripples the leaves of a creeper against the wall? Outside of the race that woman is really considered one of the leaders, and she trades upon the fact.”
“But why do you allow this base deception to go?”
“Because, Elkins, my child,” Gray put his hand on the other’s shoulder with mock tenderness, “because these seemingly sagacious whites among whom we live are really a very credulous people, and the first one who goes to them with a good front and says ‘Look here, I am the leader of the colored people; I am their oracle and prophet,’ they immediately exalt and say ‘That’s so.’ Now do you see why Miss Kirkman has a pull?”
“I see, but come on, let’s go in; there goes the gavel.”
The convention hall was already crowded, and the air was full of the bustle of settling down. When the time came for the payment of their fees, by those who wanted the privilege of the floor, there was a perfect rush for the secretary’s desk. Bank notes fluttered everywhere. Miss Kirkman had on a suspiciously new dress and bonnet, but she had done her work well, nevertheless. She looked up into the gallery in a corner that overlooked the stage and caught the eye of a young man who sat there notebook in hand. He smiled, and she smiled. Then she looked over at Mr. Aldrich, who was not sitting with her, and they both smiled complacently. There’s nothing like being on the inside.
After the appointment of committees, the genial bishop began his opening address, and a very careful, pretty address it was, too — well worded, well balanced, dealing in broad generalities and studiously saying nothing that would indicate that he had any intention of directing the policy of the meetings. Of course it brought forth all the applause that a bishop’s address deserves, and the ladies in the back seats fluttered their fans, and said: “The dear man, how eloquent he is.”
Gray had succeeded in getting Elkins placed on the committee on resolutions, but when they came to report, the fiery resolution denouncing the administration for its policy toward the negro was laid on the table. The young man had succeeded in engineering it through the committee, but the chairman decided that its proper place was under the head of new business, where it might be taken up in the discussion of the administration’s attitude toward the negro.
“We are here, gentlemen,” pursued the bland presiding officer, “to make public sentiment, but we must not try to make it too fast; so if our young friend from Ohio will only hold his resolution a little longer, it will be acted upon at the proper time. We must be moderate and conservative.”
Gray sprang to his feet and got the chairman’s eye. His face was flushed and he almost shouted: “Conservatism be hanged! We have rolled that word under our tongues when we were being trampled upon; we have preached it in our churches when we were being shot down; we have taught it in our schools when the right to use our learning was denied us, until the very word has come to be a reproach upon a black man’s tongue!”
There were cries of “Order! Order!” and “Sit down!” and the gavel was rattling on the chairman’s desk. Then some one rose to a point of order, so dear to the heart of the negro debater. The point was sustained and the Ohioan yielded the floor, but not until he had gazed straight into the eyes of Miss Kirkman as they rose from her notebook. She turned red. He curled his lip and sat down, but the blood burned in his face, and it was not the heat of shame, but of anger and contempt that flushed his cheeks.
This outbreak was but the precursor of other storms to follow. Every one had come with an idea to exploit or some proposition to advance. Each one had his panacea for all the aches and pains of his race. Each man who had paid his five dollars wanted his full five dollars’ worth of talk. The chairman allowed them five minutes apiece, and they thought time dear at a dollar a minute. But there were speeches to be made for buncombe, and they made the best of the seconds. They howled, they raged, they stormed. They waxed eloquent or pathetic. Jones of Georgia was swearing softly and feelingly into Shackelford’s ear. Shackelford was sympathetic and nervous as he fingered a large bundle of manuscript in his back pocket. He got up several times and called “Mr. Chairman,” but his voice had been drowned in the tumult. Amid it all, calm and impassive, sat the man, who of all others was expected to be in the heat of the fray.
It had been rumored that Courtney of the New York Beacon had come to Washington with blood in his eyes. But there he sat, silent and unmoved, his swarthy, eagle-like face, with its frame of iron-grey hair as unchanging as if he had never had a passionate thought.
“I don’t like Jim Courtney’s silence,” whispered Stowell to a colleague. “There’s never so much devil in him as when he keeps still. You look out for him when he does open up.”
But all the details of the convention do not belong to this narrative. It is hardly relevant, even, to tell how Stowell’s prediction came true, and at the second day’s meeting Courtney’s calm gave way, and he delivered one of the bitterest speeches of his life. It was in the morning, and he was down for a set speech on “The Negro in the Higher Walks of Life.” He started calmly, but as he progressed, the memory of all the wrongs, personal and racial, that he had suffered; the knowledge of the disabilities that he and his brethren had to suffer, and the vision of toil unrequited, love rejected, and loyalty ignored, swept him off his feet. He forgot his subject, forgot everything but that he was a crushed man in a crushed race.
The auditors held their breath, and the reporters wrote much.
Turning to them he said, “And to the press of Washington, to whom I have before paid my respects, let me say that I am not afraid to have them take any word that I may say. I came here to meet them on their own ground. I will meet them with pen. I will meet them with pistol,” and then raising his tall, spare form, he shouted, “Yes, even though there is but one hundred and thirty-five pounds of me, I will meet them with my fists!”
This was all very rash of Courtney. His paper did not circulate largely, so his real speech, which he printed, was not widely read, while through the columns of the local press, a garbled and distorted version of it went to every corner of the country. Purposely distorted? Who shall say? He had insulted the press; and then Mr. Hamilton was a very wealthy man.
When the time for the consideration of Elkins’ resolution came, Courtney, Jones and Shackelford threw themselves body and soul into the fight with Gray and its author. There was a formidable array against them. All the men in office, and all of those who had received even a crumb of promise, were for buttering over their wrongs, and making their address to the public a prophecy of better things.
Jones suggested that they send an apology to lynchers for having negroes where they could be lynched. This called for reproof from the other side, and the discussion grew hot and acrimonious. Gray again got the floor, and surprised his colleagues by the plainness of his utterances. Elkins followed him with a biting speech that brought Aldrich to his feet.
Mr. Aldrich had chosen well his time, and had carefully prepared his speech. He recited all the good things that the administration had done, hoped to do, tried to do, or wanted to do, and showed what a very respectable array it was. He counseled moderation and conservatism, and his peroration was a flowery panegyric of the “noble man whose hand is on the helm, guiding the grand old ship of state into safe harbor.”
The office-holders went wild with enthusiasm. No self-interest there. The opposition could not argue that this speech was made to keep a job, because the speaker had none. Then Jim Courtney got up and spoiled it all by saying that it may be that the speaker had no job but wanted one.
Aldrich was not moved. He saw a fat salary and Annie Kirkman for him in the near future.
The young lady had done her work well, and when the resolution came to a vote it was lost by a good majority. Aldrich was again on his feet and offering another. The forces of the opposition were discouraged and disorganized, and they made no effort to stop it when the rules were suspended, and it went through on the first reading. Then the convention shouted, that is, part of it did, and Miss Kirkman closed her notebook and glanced up at the gallery again. The young man had closed his book also. Their work was done. The administration had not been denounced, and they had their black-list for Mr. Hamilton’s knife.
There were some more speeches made, just so that the talkers should get their money’s worth; but for the masses, the convention had lost its interest, and after a few feeble attempts to stir it into life again, a motion to adjourn was entertained. But, before a second appeared, Elkins arose and asked leave to make a statement. It was granted.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “we have all heard the resolution which goes to the public as the opinion of the negroes of the country. There are some of us who do not believe that this expresses the feelings of our race, and to us who believe this, Mr. Courtney has given the use of his press in New York, and we shall print our resolution and scatter it broadcast as the minority report of this convention, but the majority report of the race.”
Miss Kirkman opened her book again for a few minutes, and then the convention adjourned.
“I wish you’d find out, Miss Kirkman,” said Hamilton a couple of days later, “just what firm that young Elkins works for.”
“I have already done that. I thought you’d want to know,” and she handed him a card.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “I have some business relations with that firm. I know them very well. Miss Anderson,” he called to his stenographer, “will you kindly take a letter for me. By the way, Miss Kirkman, I have placed Mr. Aldrich. He will have his appointment in a few days.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Hamilton; is there anything more I can do for you?”
“Nothing. Good-morning.”
“Good-morning.”
A week later in his Ohio home William Elkins was surprised to be notified by his employers that they were cutting down forces, and would need his services no longer. He wrote at once to his friend Gray to know if there was any chance for him in Washington, and received the answer that Gray could hardly hold his own, as great pressure was being put upon him to force him to resign.
“I think,” wrote Gray, “that the same hand is at the bottom of all our misfortunes. This is Hamilton’s method.”
Miss Kirkman and Mr. Aldrich were married two weeks from the day the convention adjourned. Mr. Gray was removed from his position on account of inefficiency. He is still trying to get back, but the very men to whom his case must go are in the hands of Mr. Hamilton.
(Originally published in 1900)
R Street, N.W.
Part I
Luther Hamilton was a great political power. He was neither representative in Congress, senator nor cabinet minister. When asked why he aspired to none of these places of honor and emolument he invariably shrugged his shoulders and smiled inscrutably. In fact, he found it both more pleasant and more profitable simply to boss his party. It gave him power, position and patronage, and yet put him under obligations to no narrow constituency.
As he sat in his private office this particular morning there was a smile upon his face, and his little eyes looked out beneath the heavy grey eyebrows and the massive cheeks with gleams of pleasure. His whole appearance betokened the fact that he was feeling especially good. Even his mail lay neglected before him, and his eyes gazed straight at the wall. What wonder that he should smile and dream. Had he not just the day before utterly crushed a troublesome opponent? Had he not ruined the career of a young man who dared to oppose him, driven him out of public life and forced his business to the wall? If this were not food for self-congratulation pray what is?
Mr. Hamilton’s reverie was broken in upon by a tap at the door, and his secretary entered.
“Well, Frank, what is it now? I haven’t gone through my mail yet.”
“Miss Kirkman is in the outer office, sir, and would like to see you this morning.”
“Oh, Miss Kirkman, heh; well, show her in at once.”
The secretary disappeared and returned ushering in a young woman, whom the “boss” greeted cordially.
“Ah, Miss Kirkman, good-morning! Good-morning! Always prompt and busy, I see. Have a chair.”
Miss Kirkman returned his greeting and dropped into a chair. She began at once fumbling in a bag she carried.
“We’ll get right to business,” she said. “I know you’re busy, and so am I, and I want to get through. I’ve got to go and hunt a servant for Mrs. Senator Dutton when I leave here.”
She spoke in a loud voice, and her words rushed one upon the other as if she were in the habit of saying much in a short space of time. This is a trick of speech frequently acquired by those who visit public men. Miss Kirkman’s whole manner indicated bustle and hurry. Even her attire showed it. She was a plump woman, aged, one would say about thirty. Her hair was brown and her eyes a steely grey — not a bad face, but one too shrewd and aggressive perhaps for a woman. One might have looked at her for a long time and never suspected the truth, that she was allied to the colored race. Neither features, hair nor complexion showed it, but then “colored” is such an elastic word, and Miss Kirkman in reality was colored “for revenue only.” She found it more profitable to ally herself to the less important race because she could assume a position among them as a representative woman, which she could never have hoped to gain among the whites. So she was colored, and, without having any sympathy with the people whom she represented, spoke for them and uttered what was supposed by the powers to be the thoughts that were in their breasts.
“Well, from the way you’re tossing the papers in that bag I know you’ve got some news for me.”
“Yes, I have, but I don’t know how important you’ll think it is. Here we are!” She drew forth a paper and glanced at it. “It’s just a memorandum, a list of names of a few men who need watching. The Afro-American convention is to meet on the 22d; that’s Thursday of next week. Bishop Carter is to preside. The thing has resolved itself into a fight between those who are office-holders and those who want to be.”
“Yes, well what’s the convention going to do?”
“They’re going to denounce the administration.”
“Hem, well in your judgment, what will that amount to, Miss Kirkman?”
“They are the representative talking men from all sections of the country, and they have their following, and so there’s no use disputing that they can do some harm.”
“Hum, what are they going to denounce the administration for?”
“Oh, there’s a spirit of general discontent, and they’ve got to denounce something, so it had as well be the administration as anything else.”
There was a new gleam in Mr. Hamilton’s eye that was not one of pleasure as he asked, “Who are the leaders in this movement?”
“That’s just what I brought this list for. There’s Courtney, editor of the New York Beacon, who is rabid; there’s Jones of Georgia, Gray of Ohio—”
“Whew,” whistled the boss, “Gray of Ohio, why he’s on the inside.”
“Yes, and I can’t see what’s the matter with him, he’s got his position, and he ought to keep his mouth shut.”
“Oh, there are ways of applying the screw. Go on.”
“Then, too, there’s Shackelford of Mississippi, Duncan of South Carolina, Stowell of Kentucky, and a lot of smaller fry who are not worth mentioning.”
“Are they organized?”
“Yes, Courtney has seen to that, the forces are compact.”
“We must split them. How is the bishop?”
“Neutral.”
“Any influence?”
“Lots of it.”
“How’s your young man, the one for whom you’ve been soliciting a place — what’s his name?”
Miss Kirkman did her womanhood the credit of blushing, “Joseph Aldrich, you mean. You can trust to me to see that he’s on the right side.”
“Happy is the man who has the right woman to boss him, and who has sense enough to be bossed by her; his path shall be a path of roses, and his bed a flowery bed of ease. Now to business. They must not denounce the administration. What are the conditions of membership in this convention?”
“Any one may be present, but it costs a fee of five dollars for the privilege of the floor.”
Mr. Hamilton turned to the desk and made out a check. He handed it to Miss Kirkman, saying, “Cash this, and pack that convention for the administration. I look to you and the people you may have behind you to check any rash resolutions they may attempt to pass. I want you to be there every day and take notes of the speeches made, and their character and tenor. I shall have Mr. Richardson there also to help you. The record of each man’s speech will be sent to his central committee, and we shall know how to treat him in the future. You know, Miss Kirkman, it is our method to help our friends and to crush our enemies. I shall depend upon you to let me know which is which. Good-morning.”
“Good-morning, Mr. Hamilton.”
“And, oh, Miss Kirkman, just a moment. Frank,” the secretary came in, “bring me that jewel case out of the safe. Here, Miss Kirkman, Mrs. Hamilton told me if you came in to ask if you would mind running past the safety deposit vaults and putting these in for her?”
“Certainly not,” said Miss Kirkman.
This was one of the ways in which Miss Kirkman was made to remember her race. And the relation to that race, which nothing in her face showed, came out strongly in her willingness thus to serve. The confidence itself flattered her, and she was never tired of telling her acquaintances how she had put such and such a senator’s wife’s jewels away, or got a servant for a cabinet minister.
When her other duties were done she went directly to a small dingy office building and entered a room, over which was the sign, “Joseph Aldrich, Counselor and Attorney at Law.”
“How do, Joe.”
“Why, Miss Kirkman, I’m glad to see you,” said Mr. Aldrich, coming forward to meet her and setting a chair. He was a slender young man, of a complexion which among the varying shades bestowed among colored people is termed a light brown skin. A mustache and a short Vandyke beard partially covered a mouth inclined to weakness. Looking at them, an observer would have said that Miss Kirkman was the stronger man of the two.
“What brings you out this way to-day?” questioned Aldrich.
“I’ll tell you. You’ve asked me to marry you, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m going to do it.”
“Annie, you make me too happy.”
“That’s enough,” said Miss Kirkman, waving him away. “We haven’t any time for romance now. I mean business. You’re going to the convention next week.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to speak?”
“Of course.”
“That’s right. Let me see your speech.”
He drew a typewritten manuscript from the drawer and handed it to her. She ran her eyes over the pages, murmuring to herself. “Uh, huh, ‘wavering, weak, vaciliating adminstration, have not given us the protection our rights as citizens demanded — while our brothers were murdered in the South. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, while this modern’ — uh, huh, oh, yes, just as I thought,” and with a sudden twist Miss Kirkman tore the papers across and pitched them into the grate.
“Miss Kirkman — Annie, what do you mean?”
“I mean that if you’re going to marry me, I’m not going to let you go to the convention and kill yourself.”
“But my convictions—”
“Look here, don’t talk to me about convictions. The colored man is the under dog, and the under dog has no right to have convictions. Listen, you’re going to the convention next week and you’re going to make a speech, but it won’t be that speech. I have just come from Mr. Hamilton’s. That convention is to be watched closely. He is to have his people there and they are to take down the words of every man who talks, and these words will be sent to his central committee. The man who goes there with an imprudent tongue goes down. You’d better get to work and see if you can’t think of something good the administration has done and dwell on that.”
“Whew!”
“Well, I’m off.”
“But Annie, about the wedding?”
“Good-morning, we’ll talk about the wedding after the convention.”
The door closed on her last words, and Joseph Aldrich sat there wondering and dazed at her manner. Then he began to think about the administration. There must be some good things to say for it, and he would find them. Yes, Annie was right — and wasn’t she a hustler though?
Part II
It was on the morning of the 22d and near nine o’clock, the hour at which the convention was to be called to order. But Mr. Gray of Ohio had not yet gone in. He stood at the door of the convention hall in deep converse with another man. His companion was a young looking sort of person. His forehead was high and his eyes were keen and alert. The face was mobile and the mouth nervous. It was the face of an enthusiast, a man with deep and intense beliefs, and the boldness or, perhaps, rashness to uphold them.
“I tell you, Gray,” he was saying, “it’s an outrage, nothing less. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Bah! It’s all twaddle. Why, we can’t even be secure in the first two, how can we hope for the last?”
“You’re right, Elkins,” said Gray, soberly, “and though I hold a position under the administration, when it comes to a consideration of the wrongs of my race, I cannot remain silent.”
“I cannot and will not. I hold nothing from them, and I owe them nothing. I am only a bookkeeper in a commercial house, where their spite cannot reach me, so you may rest assured that I shall not bite my tongue.”
“Nor shall I. We shall all be colored men here together, and talk, I hope, freely one to the other. Shall you introduce your resolution today?”
“I won’t have a chance unless things move more rapidly than I expect them to. It will have to come up under new business, I should think.”
“Hardly. Get yourself appointed on the committee on resolutions.”
“Good, but how can I?”
“I’ll see to that; I know the bishop pretty well. Ah, good-morning, Miss Kirkman. How do you do, Aldrich?” Gray pursued, turning to the newcomers, who returned his greeting, and passed into the hall.
“That’s Miss Kirkman. You’ve heard of her. She fetches and carries for Luther Hamilton and his colleagues, and has been suspected of doing some spying, also.”
“Who was that with her?”
“Oh, that’s her man Friday; otherwise Joseph Aldrich by name, a fellow she’s trying to make something of before she marries him. She’s got the pull to do it, too.”
“Why don’t you turn them down?”
“Ah, my boy, you’re young, you’re young; you show it. Don’t you know that a wind strong enough to uproot an oak only ripples the leaves of a creeper against the wall? Outside of the race that woman is really considered one of the leaders, and she trades upon the fact.”
“But why do you allow this base deception to go?”
“Because, Elkins, my child,” Gray put his hand on the other’s shoulder with mock tenderness, “because these seemingly sagacious whites among whom we live are really a very credulous people, and the first one who goes to them with a good front and says ‘Look here, I am the leader of the colored people; I am their oracle and prophet,’ they immediately exalt and say ‘That’s so.’ Now do you see why Miss Kirkman has a pull?”
“I see, but come on, let’s go in; there goes the gavel.”
The convention hall was already crowded, and the air was full of the bustle of settling down. When the time came for the payment of their fees, by those who wanted the privilege of the floor, there was a perfect rush for the secretary’s desk. Bank notes fluttered everywhere. Miss Kirkman had on a suspiciously new dress and bonnet, but she had done her work well, nevertheless. She looked up into the gallery in a corner that overlooked the stage and caught the eye of a young man who sat there notebook in hand. He smiled, and she smiled. Then she looked over at Mr. Aldrich, who was not sitting with her, and they both smiled complacently. There’s nothing like being on the inside.
After the appointment of committees, the genial bishop began his opening address, and a very careful, pretty address it was, too — well worded, well balanced, dealing in broad generalities and studiously saying nothing that would indicate that he had any intention of directing the policy of the meetings. Of course it brought forth all the applause that a bishop’s address deserves, and the ladies in the back seats fluttered their fans, and said: “The dear man, how eloquent he is.”
Gray had succeeded in getting Elkins placed on the committee on resolutions, but when they came to report, the fiery resolution denouncing the administration for its policy toward the negro was laid on the table. The young man had succeeded in engineering it through the committee, but the chairman decided that its proper place was under the head of new business, where it might be taken up in the discussion of the administration’s attitude toward the negro.
“We are here, gentlemen,” pursued the bland presiding officer, “to make public sentiment, but we must not try to make it too fast; so if our young friend from Ohio will only hold his resolution a little longer, it will be acted upon at the proper time. We must be moderate and conservative.”
Gray sprang to his feet and got the chairman’s eye. His face was flushed and he almost shouted: “Conservatism be hanged! We have rolled that word under our tongues when we were being trampled upon; we have preached it in our churches when we were being shot down; we have taught it in our schools when the right to use our learning was denied us, until the very word has come to be a reproach upon a black man’s tongue!”
There were cries of “Order! Order!” and “Sit down!” and the gavel was rattling on the chairman’s desk. Then some one rose to a point of order, so dear to the heart of the negro debater. The point was sustained and the Ohioan yielded the floor, but not until he had gazed straight into the eyes of Miss Kirkman as they rose from her notebook. She turned red. He curled his lip and sat down, but the blood burned in his face, and it was not the heat of shame, but of anger and contempt that flushed his cheeks.
This outbreak was but the precursor of other storms to follow. Every one had come with an idea to exploit or some proposition to advance. Each one had his panacea for all the aches and pains of his race. Each man who had paid his five dollars wanted his full five dollars’ worth of talk. The chairman allowed them five minutes apiece, and they thought time dear at a dollar a minute. But there were speeches to be made for buncombe, and they made the best of the seconds. They howled, they raged, they stormed. They waxed eloquent or pathetic. Jones of Georgia was swearing softly and feelingly into Shackelford’s ear. Shackelford was sympathetic and nervous as he fingered a large bundle of manuscript in his back pocket. He got up several times and called “Mr. Chairman,” but his voice had been drowned in the tumult. Amid it all, calm and impassive, sat the man, who of all others was expected to be in the heat of the fray.
It had been rumored that Courtney of the New York Beacon had come to Washington with blood in his eyes. But there he sat, silent and unmoved, his swarthy, eagle-like face, with its frame of iron-grey hair as unchanging as if he had never had a passionate thought.
“I don’t like Jim Courtney’s silence,” whispered Stowell to a colleague. “There’s never so much devil in him as when he keeps still. You look out for him when he does open up.”
But all the details of the convention do not belong to this narrative. It is hardly relevant, even, to tell how Stowell’s prediction came true, and at the second day’s meeting Courtney’s calm gave way, and he delivered one of the bitterest speeches of his life. It was in the morning, and he was down for a set speech on “The Negro in the Higher Walks of Life.” He started calmly, but as he progressed, the memory of all the wrongs, personal and racial, that he had suffered; the knowledge of the disabilities that he and his brethren had to suffer, and the vision of toil unrequited, love rejected, and loyalty ignored, swept him off his feet. He forgot his subject, forgot everything but that he was a crushed man in a crushed race.
The auditors held their breath, and the reporters wrote much.
Turning to them he said, “And to the press of Washington, to whom I have before paid my respects, let me say that I am not afraid to have them take any word that I may say. I came here to meet them on their own ground. I will meet them with pen. I will meet them with pistol,” and then raising his tall, spare form, he shouted, “Yes, even though there is but one hundred and thirty-five pounds of me, I will meet them with my fists!”
This was all very rash of Courtney. His paper did not circulate largely, so his real speech, which he printed, was not widely read, while through the columns of the local press, a garbled and distorted version of it went to every corner of the country. Purposely distorted? Who shall say? He had insulted the press; and then Mr. Hamilton was a very wealthy man.
When the time for the consideration of Elkins’ resolution came, Courtney, Jones and Shackelford threw themselves body and soul into the fight with Gray and its author. There was a formidable array against them. All the men in office, and all of those who had received even a crumb of promise, were for buttering over their wrongs, and making their address to the public a prophecy of better things.
Jones suggested that they send an apology to lynchers for having negroes where they could be lynched. This called for reproof from the other side, and the discussion grew hot and acrimonious. Gray again got the floor, and surprised his colleagues by the plainness of his utterances. Elkins followed him with a biting speech that brought Aldrich to his feet.
Mr. Aldrich had chosen well his time, and had carefully prepared his speech. He recited all the good things that the administration had done, hoped to do, tried to do, or wanted to do, and showed what a very respectable array it was. He counseled moderation and conservatism, and his peroration was a flowery panegyric of the “noble man whose hand is on the helm, guiding the grand old ship of state into safe harbor.”
The office-holders went wild with enthusiasm. No self-interest there. The opposition could not argue that this speech was made to keep a job, because the speaker had none. Then Jim Courtney got up and spoiled it all by saying that it may be that the speaker had no job but wanted one.
Aldrich was not moved. He saw a fat salary and Annie Kirkman for him in the near future.
The young lady had done her work well, and when the resolution came to a vote it was lost by a good majority. Aldrich was again on his feet and offering another. The forces of the opposition were discouraged and disorganized, and they made no effort to stop it when the rules were suspended, and it went through on the first reading. Then the convention shouted, that is, part of it did, and Miss Kirkman closed her notebook and glanced up at the gallery again. The young man had closed his book also. Their work was done. The administration had not been denounced, and they had their black-list for Mr. Hamilton’s knife.
There were some more speeches made, just so that the talkers should get their money’s worth; but for the masses, the convention had lost its interest, and after a few feeble attempts to stir it into life again, a motion to adjourn was entertained. But, before a second appeared, Elkins arose and asked leave to make a statement. It was granted.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “we have all heard the resolution which goes to the public as the opinion of the negroes of the country. There are some of us who do not believe that this expresses the feelings of our race, and to us who believe this, Mr. Courtney has given the use of his press in New York, and we shall print our resolution and scatter it broadcast as the minority report of this convention, but the majority report of the race.”
Miss Kirkman opened her book again for a few minutes, and then the convention adjourned.
“I wish you’d find out, Miss Kirkman,” said Hamilton a couple of days later, “just what firm that young Elkins works for.”
“I have already done that. I thought you’d want to know,” and she handed him a card.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “I have some business relations with that firm. I know them very well. Miss Anderson,” he called to his stenographer, “will you kindly take a letter for me. By the way, Miss Kirkman, I have placed Mr. Aldrich. He will have his appointment in a few days.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Hamilton; is there anything more I can do for you?”
“Nothing. Good-morning.”
“Good-morning.”
A week later in his Ohio home William Elkins was surprised to be notified by his employers that they were cutting down forces, and would need his services no longer. He wrote at once to his friend Gray to know if there was any chance for him in Washington, and received the answer that Gray could hardly hold his own, as great pressure was being put upon him to force him to resign.
“I think,” wrote Gray, “that the same hand is at the bottom of all our misfortunes. This is Hamilton’s method.”
Miss Kirkman and Mr. Aldrich were married two weeks from the day the convention adjourned. Mr. Gray was removed from his position on account of inefficiency. He is still trying to get back, but the very men to whom his case must go are in the hands of Mr. Hamilton.
Avey by Jean Toomer
(Originally published in 1923)
Potomac River
For a long while she was nothing more to me than one of those skirted beings whom boys at a certain age disdain to play with. Just how I came to love her, timidly, and with secret blushes, I do not know. Rut that I did was brought home to me one night, the first night that Ned wore his long pants. Us fellers were seated on the curb before an apartment house where she had gone in. The young trees had not outgrown their boxes then. V Street was lined with them. When our legs grew cramped and stiff from the cold of the stone, we’d stand around a box and whittle it. I like to think now that there was a hidden purpose in the way we hacked them with our knives. I like to feel that something deep in me responded to the trees, the young trees that whinnied like colts impatient to be let free… On the particular night I have in mind, we were waiting for the top-floor light to go out. We wanted to see Avey leave the flat. This night she stayed longer than usual and gave us a chance to complete the plans of how we were going to stone and beat that feller on the top floor out of town. Ned especially had it in for him. He was about to throw a brick up at the window when at last the room went dark. Some minutes passed. Then Avey, as unconcerned as if she had been paying an old-maid aunt a visit, came out. I dont remember what she had on, and all that sort of thing. Rut I do know that I turned hot as bare pavements in the summertime at Ned’s boast: “Hell, bet I could get her too if you little niggers weren’t always spying and crabbing everything.” I didnt say a word to him. It wasnt my way then. I just stood there like the others, and something like a fuse burned up inside of me. She never noticed us, hut swung along lazy and easy as anything. We sauntered to the corner and watched her till her door banged to. Ned repeated what he’d said. I didnt seem to care. Sitting around old Musl-Head’s bread box, the discussion began. “Hang if I can see how she gets away with it,” Doc started. Ned knew, of course. There was nothing he didnt know when it came to women. He dilated on the emotional needs of girls. Said they werent much different from men in that respect. And concluded with the solemn avowal: “It does em good.” None of us liked Ned much. We all talked dirt; but it was the way he said it. And then too, a couple of the fellers had sisters and had caught Ned playing with them. Rut there was no disputing the superiority of his smutty wisdom. Bubs Sanborn, whose mother was friendly with Avey’s, had overheard the old ladies talking. “Avey’s mother’s ont her,” overheard the old ladies talking. “Avey’s mother’s ont her,” he said. We thought that only natural and began to guess at what would happen. Some one said she’d marry that feller on the top floor. Ned called that a lie because Avey was going to marry nobody but him. We had our doubts about that, but we did agree that she’d soon leave school and marry some one. The gang broke up, and I went home, picturing myself as married.
Nothing I did seemed able to change Avey’s indifference to me. I played basket-ball, and when I’d make a long clean shot she’d clap with the others, louder than they, I thought. I’d meet her on the street, and there’d be no difference in the way she said hello. She never took the trouble to call me by my name. On the days for drill, I’d let my voice down a tone and call for a complicated maneuver when I saw her coming. She’d smile appreciation, but it was an impersonal smile, never for me. It was on a summer excursion down to Riverview that she first seemed to take me into account. The day had been spent riding merry-go-rounds, scenic-railways, and shoot-the-chutes. We had been in swimming and we had danced. I was a crack swimmer then. She didnt know how. I held her up and showed her how to kick her legs and draw her arms. Of course she didnt learn in one day, hut she thanked me for bothering with her. I was also somewhat of a dancer. And I had already noticed that love can start on a dance floor. We danced. Rut though I held her tightly in my arms, she was way away. That college feller who lived on the top floor was somewhere making money for the next year. I imagined that she was thinking, wishing for him. Ned was along. He treated her until his money gave out. She went with another feller. Ned got sore. One by one the boys’ money gave out. She left them. And they got sore. Every one of them but me got sore. This is the reason, I guess, why I had her to myself on the top deck of the June Mosely that night as we puffed up the Potomac, coming home. The moon was brilliant. The air was sweet like clover. And every now and then, a salt tang, a stale drift of sea-weed. It was not my mind’s fault if it went romancing. I should have taken her in my arms the minute we were stowed in that old lifeboat. I dallied, dreaming. She took me in hers. And I could feel by the touch of it that it wasnt a man-to-woman love. It made me restless. I felt chagrined. I didnt know what it was, but I did know that I couldnt handle it. She ran her lingers through my hair and kissed my forehead. I itched to break through her tenderness to passion. I wanted her to take me in her arms as I knew she had that college feller. I wanted her to love me passionately as she did him. I gave her one burning kiss. Then she laid me in her lap as if I were a child. Helpless. I got sore when she started to hum a lullaby. She wouldnt let me go. I talked. I knew damned well that I could beat her at that. Her eyes were soft and misty, the curves of her lips were wistful, and her smile seemed indulgent of the irrelevance of my remarks. I gave up at last and let her love me, silently, in her own way. The moon was brilliant. The air was sweet like clover, and every now and then, a salt tang, a stale drift of sea-weed…
The next time I came close to her was the following summer give the name of Lover’s Leap. Some one is supposed to have jumped off it. The river is about six hundred feet beneath. A railroad track runs up the valley and curves out of sight where part of the mountain rock had to be blasted away to make room for it. The engines of this valley have a whistle, the echoes of which sound like iterated gasps and sobs. I always think of them as crude music from the soul of Avey. We sat there holding hands. Our palms were soft and warm against each other. Our fingers were not tight. She would not let them be. She would not let me twist them. I wanted to talk. To explain what I meant to her. Avey was as silent as those great trees whose tops we looked down upon. She has always been like that. At least, to me. I had the notion that if I really wanted to, I could do with her just what I pleased. Like one can strip a tree. I did kiss her. I even let my hands cup her breasts. When I was through, she’d seek my hand and hold it till my pulse cooled down. Evening after evening we sat there. I tried to get her to talk about that college feller. She never would. There was no set time to go home. None of my family had come down. And as for hers, she didnt give a hang about them. The general gossips could hardly say more than they had. The boarding-house porch was always deserted when we returned. No one saw us enter, so the time was set conveniently for scandal. This worried me a little, for I thought it might keep Avey from getting an appointment in the schools. She didnt care. She had finished normal school. They could give her a job if they wanted to. As time went on, her indifference to things began to pique me; I was ambitious. I left the Ferry earlier than she did. I was going off to college. The more I thought of it, the more I resented, yes, hell, thats what it was, her downright laziness. Sloppy indolence. There was no excuse for a healthy girl taking life so easy. Hell! she was no better than a cow. I was certain that she was a cow when I felt an udder in a Wisconsin stock-judging class. Among those energetic Swedes, or whatever they are, I decided to forget her. For two years I thought I did. When I’d come home for the summer she’d be away. And before she returned, I’d be gone. We never wrote; she was too damned lazy for that. But what a bluff I put up about forgetting her. The girls up that way, at least the ones I knew, havent got the stuff: they dont know how to love. Giving themselves completely was tame beside just the holding of Avey’s hand. One day I received a note from her. The writing, I decided, was slovenly. She wrote on a torn bit of note-book paper. The envelope had a faint perfume that I remembered. A single line told me she had lost her school and was going away. I comforted myself with the reflection that shame held no pain for one so indolent as she. Nevertheless, I left Wisconsin that year for good. Washington had seemingly forgotten her. I hunted Ned. Between curses, I caught his opinion of her. She was no better than a whore. I saw her mother on the street. The same old pinch-beck, jerky-gaited creature that I’d always known.
Perhaps five years passed. The business of hunting a job or something or other had bruised my vanity so that I could recognize it. I felt old. Avey and my real relation to her, I thought I came to know. I wanted to see her. I had been told that she was in New York. As I had no money, I hiked and bummed my way there. I got work in a ship-yard and walked the streets at night, hoping to meet her. Failing in this, I saved enough to pay my fare back home. One evening in early June, just at the time when dusk is most lovely on the eastern horizon, I saw Avey, indolent as ever, leaning on the arm of a man, strolling under the recently lit arc-lights of U Street. She had almost passed before she recognized me. She showed no surprise. The puff over her eyes had grown heavier. The eyes themselves were still sleepy-large, and beautiful. I had almost concluded — indifferent. “You look older,” was what she said. I wanted to convince her that I was, so I asked her to walk with me. The man whom she was with, and whom she never took the trouble to introduce, at a nod from her, hailed a taxi, and drove away. That gave me a notion of what she had been used to. Her dress was of some fine, costly stuff. I suggested the park, and then added that the grass might stain her skirt. Let it get stained, she said, for where it came from there are others.
I have a spot in Soldier’s Home to which I always go when I want the simple beauty of another’s soul. Robins spring about the lawn all day. They leave their footprints in the grass. I imagine that the grass at night smells sweet and fresh because of them. The ground is high. Washington lies below. Its light spreads like a blush against the darkened sky. Against the soft dusk sky of Washington. And when the wind is from the South, soil of my homeland falls like a fertile shower upon the lean streets of the city. Upon my hill in Soldier’s Home. I know the policeman who watches the place of nights. When I go there alone, I talk to him. I tell him I come there to find the truth that people bury in their hearts. I tell him that I do not come there with a girl to do the thing he’s paid to watch out for. I look deep in his eyes when I say these things, and he believes me. He comes over to see who it is on the grass. I say hello to him. He greets me in the same way and goes off searching for other black splotches upon the lawn. Avey and I went there. A band in one of the buildings a fair distance off was playing a march. I wished they would stop. Their playing was like a tin spoon in one’s mouth. I wanted the Howard Glee Club to sing “Deep River,” from the road. To sing “Deep River, Deep River,” from the road… Other than the first comments, Avey had been silent. I started to hum a folk-tune. She slipped her hand in mine. Pillowed her head as best she could upon my arm. Kissed the hand that she was holding and listened, or so I thought, to what I had to say. I traced my development from the early days up to the present time, the phase in which I could understand her. I described her own nature and temperament. Told how they needed a larger life for their expression. How incapable Washington was of understanding that need. How it could not meet it. I pointed out that in lieu of proper channels, her emotions had overflowed into paths that dissipated them. I talked, beautifully I thought, about an art that would be born, an art that would open the way for women the likes of her. I asked her to hope, and build up an inner life against the coming of that day. I recited some of my own things to her. I sang, with a strange quiver in my voice, a promise-song. And then I began to wonder why her hand had not once returned a single pressure. My old-time feeling about her laziness came back. I spoke sharply. My policeman friend passed by. I said hello to him. As he went away, I began to visualize certain possibilities. An immediate and urgent passion swept over me. Then I looked at Avey. Her heavy eyes were closed. Her breathing was as faint and regular as a child’s in slumber. My passion died. I was afraid to move lest I disturb her. Hours and hours, I guess it was, she lay there. My body grew numb. I shivered. I coughed. I wanted to get up and whittle at the boxes of young trees. I withdrew my hand. I raised her head to waken her. She did not stir. I got up and walked around. I found my policeman friend and talked to him. We both came up, and bent over her. He said it would be all right for her to stay there just so long as she got away before the workmen came at dawn. A blanket was borrowed from a neighbor house. I sat beside her through the night. I saw the dawn steal over Washington. The Capitol dome looked like a gray ghost ship drifting in from sea. Avey’s face was pale, and her eyes were heavy. She did not have the gray crimson-splashed beauty of the dawn. I hated to wake her. Orphan-woman…
Trouble with the Angels by Langston Hughes
(Originally published in 1935)
National Theatre
At every performance lots of white people wept. And almost every Sunday while they were on tour some white minister invited the Negro actor who played God to address his congregation and thus help improve race relations — because almost everywhere they needed improving. Although the play had been the hit of the decade in New York, its Negro actors and singers were paid much less than white actors and singers would have been paid for performing it. And, although the white producer and his backers made more than half a million dollars, the colored troupers on tour lived in cheap hotels and often slept in beds that were full of bugs. Only the actor who played God would sometimes, by the hardest, achieve accommodations in a white hotel, or be put up by some nice white family, or be invited to the home of the best Negroes in town. Thus God probably thought that everything was lovely in the world. As an actor he really got very good write-ups in the papers.
Then they were booked to play Washington, and that’s where the trouble began. Washington, the capital of the United States, is, as every Negro knows, a town where no black man was allowed inside a downtown theater, not even in the gallery, until very recently. The legitimate playhouses had no accommodations for colored people. Incredible as it may seem, until Ingrid Bergman made her stand, Washington was worse than the Deep South in that respect.
But God wasn’t at all worried about playing Washington. He thought surely his coming would improve race relations. He thought it would he fine for the good white people of the Capital to see him — a colored God — even if Negroes couldn’t. Not even those Negroes who worked for the government. Not even the black congressman.
But several weeks before the Washington appearance of the famous “Negro” play about charming darkies who drank eggnog at a fish fry in heaven, storm clouds began to rise. It seemed that the Negroes of Washington strangely enough had decided that they, too, wanted to see this play. But when they approached the theater management on the question, they got a cold shoulder. The management said they didn’t have any scats to sell Negroes. They couldn’t even allot a corner in the upper gallery — there was such a heavy ticket demand from white folks.
Now this made the Negroes of Washington mad, especially those who worked for the government and constituted the best society. The teachers at Howard got mad, too, and the ministers of the colored churches who wanted to see what a black heaven looked like on the stage.
But nothing doing! The theater management was adamant. They really couldn’t sell seats to Negroes. Although they had no scruples about making a large profit on the week’s work of Negro actors, they couldn’t permit Negroes to occupy seats in the theater.
So the Washington Negroes wrote directly to God, this colored God who had been such a hit on Broadway. They thought surely he would help them. Several organizations, including the Negro Ministerial Alliance, got in touch with him when he was playing Philadelphia. What a shame, they said by letter, that the white folks will not allow us to come to see you perform in Washington. We are getting up a protest. We want you to help us. Will you?
Now God knew that for many years white folks had not allowed Negroes in Washington to see any shows — not even in the churches, let alone in theaters! So how come they suddenly thought they ought to be allowed to see God in a white playhouse?
Besides, God was getting paid pretty well, and was pretty well known. So he answered their letters and said that although his ink was made of tears, and his heart bled, he couldn’t afford to get into trouble with Equity. Also, it wasn’t his place to go around the country spreading dissension and hate, but rather love and beauty. And it would surely do the white folks of the District of Columbia a lot of good to see Him, and it would soften their hearts to hear the beautiful Negro spirituals and witness the lovely black angels in his play.
The black drama lovers of Washington couldn’t get any real satisfaction out of God by mail — their colored God. So when the company played Baltimore, a delegation of the Washington Negroes went over to the neighboring city to interview him. In Baltimore, Negroes, at least, were allowed to sit in the galleries of the theaters.
After the play, God received the delegation in his dressing room and wept about his inability to do anything concerning the situation. He had, of course, spoken to his management about it and they thought it might be possible to arrange a special Sunday night performance for Negroes. God said it hurt him to his soul to think how his people were mistreated, but the play must go on.
The delegation left in a huff — but not before they had spread their indignation to other members of the east of the show. Then among the angels there arose a great discussion as to what they might do about the Washington situation. Although God was the star, the angels, too, were a part of the play.
Now, among the angels there was a young Negro named Johnny Logan who never really liked being an angel, but who, because of his baritone voice and Negro features, had gotten the job during the first rehearsals in New York. Now, since the play had been running three years, he was an old hand at being an angel.
Logan was from the South — but he hadn’t stayed there long after he grew up. The white folks wouldn’t let him. He was the kind of young Negro most Southern white people hate. He believed in fighting prejudice, in bucking against the traces of discrimination and Jim Crow, and in trying to knock down any white man who insulted him. So he was only about eighteen when the whites ran him out of Augusta, Georgia.
He came to New York, married a waitress, got a job as a redcap, and would have settled down forever in a little flat in Harlem, had not some of his friends discovered that he could sing. They persuaded him to join a Red Cap Quartette. Out of that had come this work as a Mack angel in what turned out to be a Broadway success in the midst of the depression.
Just before the show went on the road, his wife had their first kid, so he needed to hold his job as a singing angel, even if it meant going on tour. But the more he thought about their forthcoming appearance in a Washington theater that wasn’t even Jim Crow — but barred Negroes altogether — the madder Logan got. Finally he got so mad that he caused the rest of the cast to organize a strike!
At that distance from Washington, black angels — from tenors to basses, sopranos to blues singers — were up in arms. Everybody in the cast, except God, agreed to strike.
“The idea of a town where colored folks can’t even sit in the gallery to see an all-colored show. I ain’t gonna work there myself.”
“We’ll show them white folks we’ve got spunk for once. We’ll pull off the biggest actors’ strike you ever seen.”
“We sure will.”
That was in Philadelphia. In Baltimore their ardor had cooled down a bit and it was all Logan could do to hold his temper as he felt his fellow angels weakening.
“Man, I got a wife to take care of. I can’t lose no week’s work!”
“I got a wife, too,” said Logan, “and a kid besides, but I’m game.”
“You ain’t a trouper,” said another, as he sat in the dressing room putting on his makeup.
“Naw, it you was you’d be used to playing all-white houses. In the old days...” said the man who played Methuselah, powdering his gray wig.
“I know all about the old days,” said Logan, “when black minstrels blacked up even blacker and made fun of themselves for the benefit of white folks. But who wants to go back to the old days?”
“Anyhow, let’s let well enough alone,” said Methuselah.
“You guys have got no guts — that’s all I can say,” said Logan.
“You’s just one of them radicals, son, that’s what you are,” put in the old tenor who played Saul. “We know when we want to strike or don’t.”
“Listen, then,” said Logan to the angels who were putting on their wings by now, as it was near curtain time, “if we can’t make it a real strike, then let’s make it a general walk-out on the opening night. Strike for one performance anyhow. At least show folks that we won’t take it lying down. Show those Washington Negroes we hack them up — theoretically, anyhow.”
“One day ain’t so bad,” said a skinny black angel. “I’m with you on a one-day strike.”
“Me, too,” several others agreed as they crowded into the corridor at curtain time. The actor who played God was standing in the wings in his frock coat.
“Shss-ss!” he said.
Monday in Washington. The opening of that famous white play about black life in a scenic heaven. Original New York cast. Songs as only Negroes can sing them. Uncle Tom come back as God.
Negro Washington wanted to picket the theater, but the police had an injunction against them. Cops were posted for blocks around the playhouse to prevent a riot. Nobody could see God. He was safely housed in the quiet home of a conservative Negro professor, guarded by two detectives. The papers said black radicals had threatened to kidnap him. To kidnap God!
Logan spent the whole day rallying the flagging spirits of his fellow actors, talking to them in their hotel rooms. They were solid for the one-day strike when he was around, and weak when he wasn’t. No telling what Washington cops might do to them if they struck. They locked Negroes up for less than that in Washington. Besides, they might get canned, they might lose their pay, they might never get no more jobs on the stage. It was all right to talk about being a man and standing up for your race, and all that — but hell, even an actor has to eat. Besides, God was right. It was a great play, a famous play! They ought Co hold up its reputation. It did white folks good to see Negroes in such a play. Logan must be crazy!
“Listen here, you might as well get wise. Ain’t nobody gonna strike tonight,” one of the men told him about six o’clock in the lobby of the colored Whitelaw Hotel. “You’d just as well give up. You’re right. We ain’t got no guts.”
“I won’t give up,” said Logan.
When the actors reached the theater, they found it surrounded by cops and the stage was full of detectives. In the lobby there was a long line of people — white, of course — waiting to buy standing room. God arrived with motorcycle cops in front of his car. He had come a little early to address the cast. With him was the white stage manager and a representative of the New York producing office.
They called everybody together on the stage. The Lord wept as he spoke of all his race had borne to get where Negroes are today. Of how they had struggled. Of how they sang. Of how they must keep on struggling and singing — until white folks see the light. A strike would do no good. A strike would only hurt their cause. With sorrow in his heart — but more noble because of it — he would go on with the play. He was sure his actors — his angels — his children — would continue, too.
The white men accompanying God were very solemn, as though hurt to their souls to think what their Negro employees were suffering, but far more hurt to think that Negroes had wanted to jeopardize a week’s box-office receipts by a strike! That would really harm everybody!
Behind God and the white managers stood two big detectives.
Needless to say, the Negroes finally went downstairs to put on their wings and makeup. All but Logan. He went downstairs to drag the cast out by force, to make men of darkies, to carry through the strike. But he couldn’t. Not alone. Nobody really wanted to strike. Nobody wanted to sacrifice anything for race pride, decency, or elementary human rights. The actors only wanted to keep on appearing in a naive dialect play about a quaint, funny heaven full of niggers at which white people laughed and wept.
The management sent two detectives downstairs to get Logan. They were taking no chances. Just as the curtain rose they carted him off to jail — for disturbing the peace. The colored angels were all massed in the wings for the opening spiritual when the police took the black boy out, a line of tears running down his cheeks.
Most of the actors wanted to think Logan was crying because he was being arrested — but in their souls they knew that was not why he wept.
The man who killed a shadow by Richard Wright
(Originally published in 1946)
National Cathedral
It all began long ago when he was a tiny boy who was already used, in a fearful sort of way, to living with shadows. But what were the shadows that made him afraid? Surely they were not those beautiful silhouettes of objects cast upon the earth by the sun. Shadows of that kind are innocent and he loved trying to catch them as he ran along sunlit paths in summer. But there were subtler shadows which he saw and which others could not see: the shadows of his fears. And this boy had such shadows and he lived to kill one of them.
Saul Saunders was born black in a little Southern town, not many miles from Washington, the nation’s capital, which means that he came into a world that was split in two, a white world and a black one, the white one being separated from the black by a million psychological miles. So, from the very beginning, Saul looking timidly out from his black world, saw the shadowy outlines of a white world that was unreal to him and not his own.
It so happened that even Saul’s mother was but a vague, shadowy thing to him, for she died long before his memory could form an image of her. And the same thing happened to Saul’s father, who died before the boy could retain a clear picture of him in his mind.
People really never became personalities to Saul, for hardly had he ever got to know them before they vanished. So people became for Saul symbols of uneasiness, of a deprivation that evoked in him a sense of the transitory quality of life, which always made him feel that some invisible, unexplainable event was about to descend upon him.
He had live brothers and two sisters who remained strangers to him. There was, of course, no adult in his family with enough money to support them all, and the children were rationed out to various cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandparents.
It fell to Saul to live with his grandmother who moved constantly from one small Southern town to another, and even physical landscapes grew to have but little emotional meaning for the boy. Towns were places you lived in for a while, and then you moved on. When he had reached the age of twelve, all reality seemed to him to be akin to his mother and father, like the white world that surrounded the black island of his life, like the parade of dirty little towns that passed forever before his eyes, things that had names but not substance, things that happened and then retreated into an incomprehensible nothingness.
Saul was not dumb or lazy, but it took him seven years to reach the third grade in school. None of the people who came and went in Saul’s life had ever prized learning and Saul did likewise. It was quite normal in his environment to reach the age of fourteen and still be in the third grade, and Saul liked being normal, liked being like other people.
Then the one person — his grandmother — who Saul had thought would endure forever, passed suddenly from his life, and from that moment on Saul did not ever quite know what to do. He went to work for the white people of the South and the shadowlike quality of his world became terribly manifest, continuously present. He understood nothing of this white world into which he had been thrown; it was just there, a faint and fearful shadow cast by some object that stood between him and a hidden and powerful sun.
He quickly learned that the strange white people for whom he worked considered him inferior; he did not feel inferior and he did not think that he was. But when he looked about him he saw other black people accepting this definition of themselves, and who was he to challenge it? Outwardly he grew to accept it as part of that vast shadow-world that came and went, pulled by forces which he nor nobody he knew understood.
Soon all of Saul’s anxieties, fears, and irritations became focused upon this white shadow-world which gave him his daily bread in exchange for his labor. Feeling unhappy and not knowing why, he projected his misery out from himself and upon the one thing that made him most constantly anxious. If this had not happened, if Saul had not found a way of putting his burden upon others, he would have early thought of suicide. He finally did, in the end, think of killing himself, but then it was too late…
At the age of fifteen Saul knew that the life he was then living was to be his lot, that there was no way to rid himself of his plaguing sense of unreality, no way to relax and forget. He was most self-forgetful when he was with black people, and that made things a little easier for him. But as he grew older, he became more afraid, yet none of his friends noticed it. Indeed, many of Saul’s friends liked him very much. Saul was always kind, attentive; but no one suspected that his kindness, his quiet, waiting loyalty came from his being afraid.
Then Saul changed. Maybe it was luck or misfortune; it is hard to tell. When he took a drink of whisky, he found that it helped to banish the shadows, lessened his tensions, made the world more reasonably three-dimensional, and he grew to like drinking. When he was paid off on a Saturday night, he would drink with his friends and he would feel better. He felt that whisky made life complete, that it stimulated him. But, of course, it did not. Whisky really depressed him, numbed him somewhat, reduced the force and number of the shadows that made him tight inside.
When Saul was sober, he almost never laughed in the presence of the white shadow-world, but when he had a drink or two he found that he could. Even when he was told about the hard lives that all Negroes lived, it did not worry him, for he would take a drink and not feel too badly. It did not even bother him when he heard that if you were alone with a white woman and she screamed, it was as good as hearing your death sentence, for, though you had done nothing, you would be killed. Saul got used to hearing the siren of the police car screaming in the Black Belt, got used to seeing white cops dragging Negroes off to jail. Once he grew wildly angry about it, felt that the shadows would some day claim him as he had seen them claim others, but his friends warned him that it was dangerous to feel that way, that always the black man lost, and the best thing to do was to take a drink. He did, and in a little while they were all laughing.
One night when he was mildly drunk — he was thirty years old and living in Washington at the time — he got married. The girl was good for Saul, for she too liked to drink and she was pretty and they got along together. Saul now felt that things were not so bad; as long as he could stifle the feeling of being hemmed in, as long as he could conquer the anxiety about the unexpected happening, life was bearable.
Saul’s jobs had been many and simple. First he had worked on a farm. When he was fourteen he had gone to Washington, after his grandmother had died, where he did all kinds of odd jobs. Finally he was hired by an old white army colonel as chauffeur and butler and he averaged about twenty dollars every two weeks. He lived in and got his meals and uniform and he remained with the colonel for five years. The colonel too liked to drink, and sometimes they would both get drunk. But Saul never forgot that the colonel, though drunk and feeling fine, was still a shadow, unreal, and might suddenly change toward him.
One day, when whisky was making him feel good, Saul asked the colonel for a raise in salary, told him that he did not have enough to live on, and that prices were rising. But the colonel was sober and hard that day and said no. Saul was so stunned that he quit the job that instant. While under the spell of whisky he had for a quick moment felt that the world of shadows was over, but when he had asked for more money and had been refused, he knew that he had been wrong. He should not have asked for money; he should have known that the colonel was a no-good guy, a shadow.
Saul was next hired as an exterminator by a big chemical company and he found that there was something in his nature that made him like going from house to house and putting down poison for rats and mice and roaches. He liked seeing concrete evidence of his work and the dead bodies of rats were no shadows. They were real. He never felt better in his life than when he was killing with the sanction of society. And his boss even increased his salary when he asked for it. And he drank as much as he liked and no one cared.
But one morning, after a hard night of drinking which had made him irritable and high-strung, his boss said something that he did not like and he spoke up, defending himself against what he thought was a slighting remark. There was an argument and Saul left.
Two weeks of job hunting got him the position of janitor in the National Cathedral, a church and religious institution. It was the solitary kind of work he liked; he reported for duty each morning at seven o’clock and at eleven he was through. He first cleaned the Christmas card shop, next he cleaned the library; and his final chore was to clean the choir room.
But cleaning the library, with its rows and rows of books, was what caught Saul’s attention, for there was a strange little shadow woman there who stared at him all the time in a most peculiar way. The library was housed in a separate building and, whenever he came to clean it, he and the white woman would be there alone. She was tiny, blonde, blue-eyed, weighing about 110 pounds, and standing about five feet three inches. Saul’s boss had warned him never to quarrel with the lady in charge of the library. “She’s a crackpot,” he had told Saul. And naturally Saul never wanted any trouble; in fact, he did not even know the woman’s name. Many times, however, he would pause in his work, feeling that his eyes were being drawn to her and he would turn around and find her staring at him. Then she would look away quickly, as though ashamed. “What in hell does she want from me?” he wondered uneasily. The woman never spoke to him except to say good morning and she even said that as though she did not want to say it. Saul thought that maybe she was afraid of him; but how could that be? He could not recall when anybody had ever been afraid of him, and he had never been in any trouble in his life.
One morning while sweeping the floor he felt his eyes being drawn toward her and he paused and turned and saw her staring at him. He did not move, neither did she. They stared at each other for about ten seconds, then she went out of the room, walking with quick steps, as though angry or afraid. He was frightened, hut forgot it quickly. “What the hell’s wrong with that woman?” he asked himself.
Next morning Saul’s boss called him and told him, in a nice, quiet tone — but it made him scared and mad just the same — that the woman in the library had complained about him, had said that he never cleaned under her desk.
“Under her desk?” Saul asked, amazed.
“Yes,” his boss said, amused at Saul’s astonishment.
“But I clean under her desk every morning,” Saul said.
“Well, Saul, remember, I told you she was a crackpot,” his boss said soothingly. “Don’t argue with her. Just do your work.”
“Yes, sir,” Saul said.
He wanted to tell his boss how the woman always stared at him, but he could not find courage enough to do so. It he had been talking with his black friends, he would have done so quite naturally. But why talk to one shadow about another queer shadow?
That day being payday, he got his weekly wages and that night he had a hell of a good time. He drank until he was drunk, until he blotted out almost everything from his consciousness. He was getting regularly drunk now whenever he had the money. He liked it and he bothered nobody and he was happy while doing it. But dawn found him broke, exhausted, and terribly depressed, full of shadows and uneasiness, a way he never liked it. The thought of going to his job made him angry. He longed for deep, heavy sleep. But, no, he had a good job and he had to keep it. Yes, he would go.
After cleaning the Christmas card shop — he was weak and he sweated a lot — he went to the library. No one was there. He swept the floor and was about to dust the books when he heard the footsteps of the woman coming into the room. He was tired, nervous, half asleep; his hands trembled and his reflexes were overquick. “So you’re the bitch who snitched on me, hunh?” he said irritably to himself. He continued dusting and all at once he had the queer feeling that she was staring at him. He fought against the impulse to look at her, but he could not resist it. He turned slowly and saw that she was sitting in her chair at her desk, staring at him with unblinking eyes. He had the impression that she was about to speak. He could not help staring back at her, waiting.
“Why don’t you clean under my desk?” she asked him in a tense hut controlled voice.
“Why, ma’am,” he said slowly, “I just did.”
“Come here and look,” she said, pointing downward.
He replaced the book on the shelf. She had never spoken so many words to him before. He went and stood before her and his mind protested against what his eyes saw, and then his senses leaped in wonder. She was sitting with her knees sprawled apart and her dress was drawn halfway up her legs. He looked from her round blue eyes to her white legs whose thighs thickened as they went to a V clothed in right, sheer, pink panties; then he looked quickly again into her eyes. Her face was a beet red, but she sat very still, rigid, as though she was being impelled into an act which she did not want to perform but was being driven to perform. Saul was so startled that he could not move.
“I just cleaned under your desk this morning,” he mumbled, sensing that he was not talking about what she meant.
“There’s dust there now,” she said sternly, her legs still so wide apart that he felt that she was naked.
He did not know what to do; he was so baffled, humiliated, and frightened that he grew angry. But he was afraid to express his anger openly.
“Look, ma’am,” he said in a tone of suppressed rage and hate, “you’re making trouble for me!”
“Why don’t you do your work?” she blazed at him. “That’s what you’re being paid to do, you black nigger!” Her legs were still spread wide and she was sitting as though about to spring upon him and throw her naked thighs about his body.
For a moment he was still and silent. Never before in his life had he been called a “black nigger.” He had heard that white people used that phrase as their supreme humiliation of black people, but he had never been treated so. As the insult sank in, as he stared at her gaping thighs, he felt overwhelmed by a sense of wild danger.
“I don’t like that,” he said and before he knew it he had slapped her flat across her face.
She sucked in her breath, sprang up, and stepped away from him. Then she screamed sharply, and her voice was like a lash cutting into his chest. She screamed again and he backed away from her. He felt helpless, strange; he knew what he had done, knew its meaning for him; but he knew that he could not have helped it. It seemed that some part of him was there in that room watching him do things that he should not do. He drew in his breath and for a moment he felt that he could not stand upon his legs. His world was now full of all the shadows he had ever feared. He was in the worst trouble that a black man could imagine.
The woman was screaming continuously now and he was running toward the stairs. Just as he put his foot on the bottom step, he paused and looked over his shoulder. She was backing away from him, toward an open window at the far end of the room, still screaming. Oh God! In her scream he heard the sirens of the police cars that hunted down black men in the Black Belts and he heard the shrill whistles of white cops running after black men and he felt again in one rush of emotion all the wild and bitter tales he had heard of how whites always got the black who did a crime and this woman was screaming as though he had raped her.
He ran on up the steps, but her screams were coming so loud that when he neared the top of the steps he slowed. Those screams would not let him run any more, they weakened him, tugged and pulled him. His chest felt as though it would burst. He reached the top landing and looked round aimlessly. He saw a fireplace and before it was a neat pile of wood and while he was looking at that pile of wood the screams tore at him, unnerved him. With a shaking hand he reached down and seized in his left hand — for he was left-handed — a heavy piece of oaken firewood that had jagged, sharp edges where it had been cut with an ax. He turned and ran back down the steps to where the woman stood screaming. He lifted the stick of wood as he confronted her, then paused. He wanted her to stop screaming. If she had stopped, he would have fled, but while she screamed all he could feel was a hotness bubbling in him and urging him to do something. She would fill her lungs quickly and deeply and her breath would come out at full blast. He swung down his left arm and hit her a swinging blow on the side of her head, not to hurt her, not to kill her, hut to stop that awful noise, to stop that shadow from screaming a scream that meant death... He felt her skull crack and give as she sank to the floor, but she still screamed. He trembled from head to feet. Goddamn that woman... Why didn’t she stop that yelling? He lifted his arm and gave her another blow, feeling the oaken stick driving its way into her skull. Rut still she screamed. He was about to hit her again when he became aware that the stick he held was light. He looked at it and found that half of it had broken off, was lying on the floor. But she screamed on, with blood running down her dress, her legs sprawled nakedly out from under her. He dropped the remainder of the stick and grabbed her throat and choked her to stop her screams. That seemed to quiet her; she looked as though she had fainted. He choked her for a long time, not trying to kill her, but just to make sure that she would not scream again and make him wild and hot inside. He was not reacting to the woman, but to the feelings that her screams evoked in him.
The woman was limp and silent now and slowly he took his hands from her throat. She was quiet. He waited. He was not certain. Yes, take her downstairs into the bathroom and if she screamed again no one would hear her… He took her hands in his and started dragging her away from the window. His hands were wet with sweat and her hands were so tiny and soft that time and again her little fingers slipped out of his palms. He tried holding her hands tighter and only succeeded in scratching her. Her ring slid off into his hand while he was dragging her and he stood still for a moment, staring in a daze at the thin band of shimmering gold, then mechanically he put it into his pocket. Finally he dragged her down the steps to the bathroom door.
He was about to take her in when he saw that the floor was spotted with drippings of blood. That was had… He had been trained to keep floors clean, just as he had been trained to fear shadows. He propped her clumsily against a wall and went into the bathroom and took wads of toilet paper and mopped up the red splashes. He even went back upstairs where he had first struck her and found blood spots and wiped them up carefully. He stiffened; she was hollering again. He ran downstairs and this time he recalled that he had a knife in his pocket. He took it out, opened it, and plunged it deep into her throat; he was frantic to stop her from hollering… He pulled the knife from her throat and she was quiet.
He stood, his eyes roving. He noticed a door leading down to a recess in a wall through which steam pipes ran. Yes, it would be better to put her there; then if she started yelling no one would hear her. He was not trying to hide her; he merely wanted to make sure that she would not be heard. He dragged her again and her dress came up over her knees to her chest and again he saw her pink panties. It was too hard dragging her and he lifted her in his arms and while carrying her down the short flight of steps he thought that the pink panties, if he would wet them, would make a good mop to clean up the blood. Once more he sat her against the wall, stripped her of her pink panties — and not once did he so much as glance at her groin — wetted them and swabbed up the spots, then pushed her into the recess under the pipes. She was in full view, easily seen. He tossed the wet ball of panties in after her.
He sighed and looked around. The floor seemed clean. He went hack upstairs. That stick of broken wood… He picked up the two shattered ends of wood and several splinters; he carefully joined the ends together and then fitted the splinters into place. He laid the mended stick hack upon the pile before the fireplace. He stood listening, wondering if she would yell again, but there was no sound. It never occurred to him that he could help her, that she might be in pain; he never wondered even if she were dead. He got his coat and hat and went home.
He was nervously tired. It seemed that he had just finished doing an old and familiar job of dodging the shadows that were forever around him, shadows that he could not understand. He undressed, but paid no attention to the blood on his trousers and shirt; he was alone in the room; his wife was at work. When he pulled out his billfold, he saw the ring. He put it in the drawer of his night table, more to keep his wife from seeing it than to hide it. He climbed wearily into bed and at once fell into a deep, sound sleep from which he did not awaken until late afternoon. He lay blinking blood-shot eyes and he could not remember what he had done. Then the vague, shadowlike picture of it came before his eyes. He was puzzled, and for a moment he wondered if it had happened or had someone told him a story of it. He could not be sure. There was no fear or regret in him.
When at last the conviction of what he had done was real in him, it came only in terms of flat memory, devoid of all emotion, as though he were looking when very tired and sleepy at a scene being flashed upon the screen of a movie house. Not knowing what to do, he remained in bed. He had drifted off to sleep again when his wife came home late that night from her cooking job.
Next morning he ate the breakfast his wife prepared, rose from the table and kissed her, and started off toward the Cathedral as though nothing had happened. It was not until he actually got to the Cathedral steps that he became shaky and nervous. He stood before the door for two or three minutes, and then he realized that he could not go back in there this morning. Yet it was not danger that made him feel this way, but a queer kind of repugnance. Whether the woman was alive or not did not enter his mind. He still did not know what to do. Then he remembered chat his wife, before she had left for her job, had asked him to buy some groceries. Yes, he would do that. He wanted to do that because he did not know what else on earth to do.
He bought the groceries and took them home, then spent the rest of the day wandering from bar to bar. Not once did he think of fleeing. He would go home, sit, turn on the radio, then go out into the streets and walk. Finally he would end up at a bar, drinking. On one of his many trips into the house, he changed his clothes, rolled up his bloody shirt and trousers, put the blood-stained knife inside the bundle, and pushed it into a far corner of a closet. He got his gun and put it into his pocket, for he was nervously depressed.
But he still did not know what to do. Suddenly he recalled that some months ago he had bought a cheap car which was now in a garage for repairs. He went to the garage and persuaded the owner to take it back for twenty-five dollars; the thought that he could use the car for escape never came to his mind. During that afternoon and early evening he sat in bars and drank. What he felt now was no different from what he had felt all his life.
Toward eight o’clock that night he met two friends of his and invited them for a drink. He was quite drunk now. Before him on the table was a sandwich and a small glass of whisky. He leaned forward, listening sleepily to one of his friends tell a story about a girl, and then he heard:
“Aren’t you Saul Saunders?”
He looked up into the faces of two white shadows.
“Yes,” he admitted readily. “What do you want?”
“You’d better come along with us. We want to ask you some questions,” one of the shadows said.
“What’s this all about?” Saul asked.
They grabbed his shoulders and he stood up. Then he reached down and picked up the glass of whisky and drank it. He walked steadily out of the bar to a waiting auto, a policeman to each side of him, his mind a benign blank. It was not until they were about to put him into the car that something happened and whipped his numbed senses to an apprehension of danger. The policeman patted his waist tor arms; they found nothing because his gun was strapped to his chest. Yes, he ought to kill himself.. The thought leaped into his mind with such gladness that he shivered. It was the answer to everything. Why had he not thought of it before?
Slowly he took off his hat and held it over his chest to hide the movement of his left hand, then he reached inside of his shirt and pulled out the gun. One of the policemen pounced on him and snatched the gun.
“So, you’re trying to kill us too, hunh?” one asked.
“Naw. I was trying to kill myself,” he answered simply.
“Like hell you were!”
A fist came onto his jaw and he sank back limp.
Two hours later, at the police station, he told them everything, speaking in a low, listless voice without a trace of emotion, vividly describing every detail, yet feeling that it was utterly hopeless for him to try to make them understand how horrible it was for him to hear that woman screaming. His narrative sounded so brutal that the policemen’s faces were chalky.
Weeks later a voice droned in a court room and he sat staring dully.
“... The Grand Jurors of the United States of America, in and for the District of Columbia aforesaid, upon their oath, do present:
“That one Saul Saunders, on, to wit, the first day of March, 19—, and at and within the District of Columbia aforesaid, contriving and intending to kill one Maybelle Eva Houseman…”
“So that’s her name,” he said to himself in amazement.
“... Feloniously, wilfully, purposely, and of his deliberate and premeditated malice did strike, beat, and wound the said Maybelle Eva Houseman, in and upon the front of the head and in and upon the right side of the head of her, the said Maybelle Eva Houseman, two certain mortal wounds and fractures; and did fix and fasten about the neck and throat of her, the said Maybelle Eva Houseman, his hand or hands — hut whether it was one of his hands or both of his hands is to the Grand Jury aforesaid unknown — and that he, the said Saul Saunders, with his hand or hands as aforesaid fixed and fastened about the throat of her, did choke and strangle the said Maybelle Eva Houseman, of which said choking and strangling the said Maybelle Eva Houseman, on, to wit, the said first day of March, 19—, and at and within the said District of Columbia, did die.”
He longed for a drink, but that was impossible now. Then he took a deep breath and surrendered to the world of shadows about him, the world he had feared so long; and at once the tension went from him and he felt better than he had felt in a long time. He was amazed at how relaxed and peaceful it was when he stopped fighting the world of shadows.
“... By force and violence and against resistance and by putting in fear, did steal, take, and carry away, from and off the person and from the immediate, actual possession of one Maybelle Eva Houseman, then and there being, a certain finger ring, of the value of, to wit, ten dollars.”
He listened now with more attention but no anxiety:
“And in and while perpetrating robbery aforesaid did kill and murder the said Maybelle Eva Houseman; against the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and government of the said United States of America.”
P.S. Thereupon Dr. Herman Stein was called as a witness and being first duly sworn testified as follows:
“... On examination of the genital organs there was no evidence of contusion, abrasion, or trauma, and the decedent’s hymen ring was intact. This decedent had not been criminally assaulted or attempted to be entered. It has been ascertained that the decedent’s age was 40.”
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Свежие любовные романы в удобных форматах
Любовные романы
О психологии, саморазвитии и личностном росте
Саморазвитие
Детективы и триллеры, все новинки
Детективы
Фантастика и фэнтези, все новинки
Фантастика
Отборные классические книги
Классика
ВКОНТАКТЕБиблиотека с любовными романами, которая наверняка придётся по вкусу женской части аудитории
Любовные романы
Библиотека с фантастикой и фэнтези, а также смежных жанров
Фантастика
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