Ben Hecht

“ He was like a boy. Her heart filled with panic. She put her arms quickly around his neck and pressed herself close to him. The panic went out of her deliciously.
"George, I love you. I'm so happy."
They sat looking at each other, an excited smile in Basine's eyes. His body was tingling. A new sense had come. It lived in his fingers. He was holding her hand. His fingers were charged with an amazing energy. They seemed to have become part of a different person. He was able to enjoy the ecstasy that confused his fingers as if it were an external emotion. ”

“ It is easy for the fish in the sea to feel like that but in people there is a mania for direction. Out of this mania is born the necessity of illusion—the illusion of direction. There must be illusion. Life is not a mumble mumble but a clear voice teeming with precisions. Not a pointless [Pg 150] delirium but a vast, orderly activity that has names—too many names to count.
As children demand lights in the darkness, grown older they demand illusions in life. Their reasoning is simple. "We are so puny," they think. "There is hardly anything to us. We dare not dream or even think. ”

“ Doris had gone upstairs and George was not to be seen. Her mother was reading behind a large table.
"Tell me, why are men bad?" she asked in a whisper. Her blue eyes were wide. An air of altruistic sorrow surrounded her. She grieved for men. The question appealed to Keegan. His eyes grew moist. He was unable to understand this impulse to weep. But somehow it was pleasant.
"They're not bad," he answered softly. "It's only that they don't realize till too late. If all women were like you, there would be no bad men." ”

“ Basine in his slippers and smoking-jacket sat unoccupied. Their new house worried him. He had not yet familiarized himself with its shadows.
He smiled as he watched his wife. He was going to run for Senator but that made no difference to her. He was a husband to her, and everything else was incidental. He thought of Ruth. Her name no longer depressed him. During the first three or four months that followed her absence he had felt as if his career had ended. There was nobody to succeed for any more. Then through Doris he had learned that she was to marry Schroder. ”

“ Our activities have devoured us. But we are not afraid. For behold, whatever we do, we remain God. See our reflection. We are always and consistently perfect. Our stupidities, hysterias, bewilderments shine back at us out of this new Heaven as God-like attributes. Wisdom and victory smile at us eternally out of our mirror. Let the city devour itself and become a jungle of names. Let life lose itself in the labyrinth of activities. Let the buildings devour life until it becomes less than a tiny warmth under huge ribs of steel. ”

“ It was so easy to be dead. Death had come to all who had been, even to more dignified and celebrated ones than they. Alas, death. The sober men and women in the Gilchrist home drifted about nervously. They must weep because for the moment they lay in the coffin with Mr. Gilchrist and because for the moment they walked sadly about mourning visions of their own deaths. And for the moment their tears earned for themselves the regard of their fellow mourners as kind-hearted, sensitive, unselfish souls. ”

“ Core, that the eyes focussed on him had thrilled with the knowledge that he, Basine, was dressed as well as Mr. Core and that his own dignity and sternness were more impressive than the poise of Mr. Core. The great Mr. Core was second fiddle in the show. Basine was first fiddle and the crowd was thrilled by that. Because Basine was their man, their leader. And Mr. Core, venerated to this moment, was now their enemy. Basine was a man in whom the dignity of the people shone out more powerfully than the prestige of any enviable individual. ”

“ The excitement soothed Basine. The drinks brought a haze into his mind. He became aware that the man was talking about his sister. He was leaning forward, a black forelock over his bloodshot eye, his arm thrown out on the table, and talking in a languorous voice about Doris.
"Drowning my troubles, judge," he was saying. "It's easier to drink yourself into forgetfulness than to lie yourself into forgetfulness, eh? And besides you grow sick of lying, eh. Nobody lies more than me, and I know, I know. But it ain't my fault—she's gone mad about him. You know him—Lindstrum, the poet. ”

“ Alas, waxen-faced men lying silent and mannerless under glass covers. A distasteful faux pas, death. Yet some of the company must weep. Not friends who regretted the everlasting absence of William Gilchrist, but men and women bewildered for a moment by the memory of their own death. Death was a memory since it existed like a foregone conclusion. It was sad to think of all the people who had died, laughing ones, famous ones, adventurous ones whose laughter, fame and adventure seemed somehow a lie now that they were dead. ”

“ But the note was too forced to deceive her, although it deceived others. And she finally abandoned herself to the thrill which thinking evilly of others stirred in her.
She would often allow her suspicions to become detailed. Merely to suspect a woman of being immoral was not as satisfying as to figure the manner of her sin, the play by play, word by word drama of her seduction. She relished such fancied details. Suspecting others of immorality enabled Fanny to enjoy vicariously situations which she had as a matter of course denied herself.
Her love for Aubrey had not changed. ”

“ The amiable fuddy-duddy playing little politics in Washington became a gentleman of war.
The horizon bristled with gentlemen of war. But the terrified crowd casting about for leaders, as the draft shovelled it toward the trenches, eyed them with suspicion. There must be authentic gentlemen of war—men above suspicion. Men maddened with a desire to fight and destroy were wanted. Basine was one of these. His tirades against the enemy left nothing in doubt. They were not concerned with idealisms. The enemy must be destroyed, he began to cry, or else it would destroy civilization. ”

“ In Aubrey's thoughts dwelt a dramatic, startling figure—a gleaming, hawk-faced thunderer; a lean Isaiah of burning phrases with an eagle-winged soul beating its way toward God. This was Aubrey Gilchrist. Not the Aubrey whom life had mysteriously deformed into an advertising man, but an Aubrey triumphant who had risen above the petty turns of Fate and burst upon a world—a voice crying forth astounding phrases against the evil of man's ways.
The inner characterization in which Aubrey was gradually immersing himself remained a vague though warm generality. ”

“ A fury loomed suddenly behind the mumble of a hurdy-gurdy piece; a snarl offered itself as invisible punctuation for a fol de rol of city life.
It was a passion that identified itself with, and seemed to fatten upon, the injustices of life. It sought to champion the war of the crowd against man and nature.
"The humble ones ... the humble ones...." it sang, "they are God. The ones life walks upon. The working ones, the cheated ones—here is their song. The oppressed ones, listen to their hearts beating." ”

“ She would certainly misunderstand if he touched her. She would think he was a scoundrel.
"Fanny," he whispered.
She looked at him with intensely tender eyes as a mother might regard a forgiven child. He embraced her, his hands resting only lightly on her back.
"Forgive me," he mumbled. "But everything's so rotten. I feel like such a cad after what I've done. You ... you make me almost happy again."
His mind was pleasantly fogged. He was thinking of himself as a despicable sinner receiving mysterious absolution. ”

“ Even the most renowned of the dignitaries whose lives were a round of formalities almost as impressive as this, spoke in whispers and seemed ill at ease.
They drifted about like nervous butlers and took up positions against the walls, striking uncertain attitudes. They exchanged polite and sober greetings and felt slightly strengthened in spirit at the sight of people as distinguished as themselves. The camaraderie of prestige—the social caress which celebrities alone are able to bestow upon each other by basking in a mutual feeling of superiority—ran like an undercurrent through the scene. ”

“ The symmetrical mask of her face became features and expressions.
"Will you stay for tea?" she asked.
He would. Doris stood up and regarded him with a malicious smile.
"The crusade seems to be running away from you," she said.
He nodded. The public-spirited leader in him did not relish the ironic tilt of her words. But he was able to assume a dual attitude toward her cynical intellectualism. He could frown on it with a sense of outrage. And he could listen to it with an appreciative shrewdness. He could despise her iconoclasm and still utilize its intelligence to aid him in his climb. ”

“ Whatever living might be and whatever the choke inside him was, a man was a fool to forget this other—the calm, grinning strength of muscles and the way his nose buzzed when he drew his breath in.
Now he was Lief Lindstrum walking to call on his girl. And he could think of others, the poor little others, the superfluous others. Only he didn't have to get angry at them. Or he didn't have to fall in love with them. It was just thinking straight. Well, the way men talked to each other was funny. The way they swapped lies was funny. ”

“ This man in the coffin was someone else, an irritating impostor that reminded them they were all impostors. Death was a confession everyone must make; an incongruous confession. An ending to something that had no ending. Life and its activities, even the activities that bore the name Gilchrist, went on. Yet Gilchrist had, mysteriously, come to an end. He lay in a coffin while his name in large letters talked to other names in the advertisements of the city.
The camaraderie of prestige was insufficient to remove this embarrassment. A dead man under a glass cover spoke to them slyly. ”

“ And how the idealisms, Gods and hopes they all worshipped were lies the beast whispered to itself, fairy tales by which the beast consoled itself. Yes, a monster that devoured men who threatened its consolations, a wild fanged beast purring eternally in the path of progress. Reason was a little cap the masks wore that every wind blew off. Her loneliness faded. Seated by her window Doris no longer desired the lips of her lover. There was another elation ... a knowledge of the thing in the street, a certainty that she could make Lief Lindstrum understand. ”

“ Amorous women were a cold audience for technique.
"I'm so upset. Do you mind?"
"Not at all, Fanny. Of course you're upset. But it only adds to your charm."
He had long ago abandoned love-making tactics, sensing that women who came to him were not particularly interested in tender pretenses. They desired flattery, but direct and practical variants. This one was like the others, flushed, eager, frightened and gay. He felt an exhilaration as they walked toward the entrance of the unpretentious hotel around the corner. A sense of conquest. It was nothing to be enjoyed in itself. ”

“ The commissioners, as spokesmen, turned their back upon it. There was a happier outlet for the energies of man than the repudiation of himself as the glory of God. There was the unreasoning struggle for idealization—the miracle by which man, seizing hold of his boot straps, hoisted himself into Heaven. This struggle, arousing the guffaws and sneers of reason, was its own reward. It was the virtue that rewarded itself.
The perspiring little scene in the hotel ball room was a startling visualization of this happier struggle. ”

“ It struck him now as a childish farce—an absurd hocus-pocus. Poor Gilchrist going to heaven and a long-faced man in a black coat speeding his soul heavenward from the Gilchrist library! If there was a God, for whom was all this necessary—the flowers, speeches, prayers? Not for God. But for the people in the room, of course. People crowded in a tiny room taking this opportunity to assure each other that the immensities over their heads, the clouds, stars and spaces were their property. ”

“ She was still a mystery whose inevitable and never varying sensualism was masked for a final instant behind unfamiliar fabrics. There was a piquant unreality, a diverting strangeness, as she smiled at him. She was somebody he did not know. He was authentically bored with women. But for the moment it was not a woman approaching—rather a [Pg 264] new color of cloth, a new combination of dress, a new species of social poise and gesture were presenting themselves for ravishment. In these unfamiliar surfaces lay a tenuous mystery as if it were these externals he was about to embrace. ”

“ If only life were as clean as this girl he was talking to.... If only life were beautiful and chaste. And there were no sex. No sin. Men and women just sweet friends. But life was different. It was full of unclean things. He couldn't help it, what he did. He didn't want to do it. But life surrounded him that way with things unclean. He wept.
Fanny hesitated. Her face had grown colored and her nerves were alive. She must do something. Her fingers desired to caress Keegan's hair and she thought how nice it would be to be kissed by him. ”

“ Out of the corner of his eye he watched the novelist. A sorry fellow with gawky feet and a clumsy-looking face. Keegan vaguely pitied him as he stood around doing his best to horn in on the intimacy between Fanny and himself. He knew how the novelist felt. It seemed to Keegan even that it was he, Keegan, feeling that way, and that the carefully concealed embarassment, the futile chagrin and lameness were his own emotions and not Aubrey Gilchrist's. ”