Octopus — Book II, Chapter 8, Part 6
***** Presley entered the dining-room of the Gerard mansion with little Miss Gerard on his arm.
The other guests had preceded them--Cedarquist with Mrs. Gerard; a pale-faced, languid young man (introduced to Presley as Julian Lambert) with Presley's cousin Beatrice, one of the twin daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Cedarquist; his brother Stephen, whose hair was straight as an Indian's, but of a pallid straw color, with Beatrice's sister; Gerard himself, taciturn, bearded, rotund, loud of breath, escorted Mrs. Cedarquist.
Besides these, there were one or two other couples, whose names Presley did not remember.
The dining-room was superb in its appointments.
On three sides of the room, to the height of some ten feet, ran a continuous picture, an oil painting, divided into long sections by narrow panels of black oak.
The painting represented the personages in the Romaunt de la Rose, and was conceived in an atmosphere of the most delicate, most ephemeral allegory.
One saw young chevaliers, blue-eyed, of elemental beauty and purity; women with crowns, gold girdles, and cloudy wimples; young girls, entrancing in their loveliness, wearing snow-white kerchiefs, their golden hair unbound and flowing, dressed in white samite, bearing armfuls of flowers; the whole procession defiling against a background of forest glades, venerable oaks, half-hidden fountains, and fields of asphodel and roses.
Otherwise, the room was simple.
Against the side of the wall unoccupied by the picture stood a sideboard of gigantic size, that once had adorned the banquet hall of an Italian palace of the late Renaissance.
It was black with age, and against its sombre surfaces glittered an array of heavy silver dishes and heavier cut-glass bowls and goblets.
The company sat down to the first course of raw Blue Point oysters, served upon little pyramids of shaved ice, and the two butlers at once began filling the glasses of the guests with cool Haut Sauterne.
Mrs. Gerard, who was very proud of her dinners, and never able to resist the temptation of commenting upon them to her guests, leaned across to Presley and Mrs. Cedarquist, murmuring, “Mr. Presley, do you find that Sauterne too cold?
I always believe it is so bourgeois to keep such a delicate wine as Sauterne on the ice, and to ice Bordeaux or Burgundy--oh, it is nothing short of a crime.
” “This is from your own vineyard, is it not?
” asked Julian Lambert.
“I think I recognise the bouquet.
” He strove to maintain an attitude of fin gourmet, unable to refrain from comment upon the courses as they succeeded one another.
Little Honora Gerard turned to Presley: “You know,” she explained, “Papa has his own vineyards in southern France.
He is so particular about his wines; turns up his nose at California wines.
And I am to go there next summer.
Ferrieres is the name of the place where our vineyards are, the dearest village!
” She was a beautiful little girl of a dainty porcelain type, her colouring low in tone.
She wore no jewels, but her little, undeveloped neck and shoulders, of an exquisite immaturity, rose from the tulle bodice of her first decollete gown.
“Yes,” she continued; “I'm to go to Europe for the first time.
Won't it be gay?
And I am to have my own bonne, and Mamma and I are to travel--so many places, Baden, Homburg, Spa, the Tyrol.
Won't it be gay?
” Presley assented in meaningless words.
He sipped his wine mechanically, looking about that marvellous room, with its subdued saffron lights, its glitter of glass and silver, its beautiful women in their elaborate toilets, its deft, correct servants; its array of tableware--cut glass, chased silver, and Dresden crockery.
It was Wealth, in all its outward and visible forms, the signs of an opulence so great that it need never be husbanded.
It was the home of a railway “Magnate,” a Railroad King.
For this, then, the farmers paid.
It was for this that S. Behrman turned the screw, tightened the vise.
It was for this that Dyke had been driven to outlawry and a jail.
It was for this that Lyman Derrick had been bought, the Governor ruined and broken, Annixter shot down, Hooven killed.
The soup, puree a la Derby, was served, and at the same time, as hors d'oeuvres, ortolan patties, together with a tiny sandwich made of browned toast and thin slices of ham, sprinkled over with Parmesan cheese.
The wine, so Mrs. Gerard caused it to be understood, was Xeres, of the 1815 vintage.
***** Mrs. Hooven crossed the avenue.
It was growing late.
Without knowing it, she had come to a part of the city that experienced beggars shunned.
There was nobody about.
Block after block of residences stretched away on either hand, lighted, full of people.
But the sidewalks were deserted.
“Mammy,” whimpered Hilda.
“I'm tired, carry me.
” Using all her strength, Mrs. Hooven picked her up and moved on aimlessly.
Then again that terrible cry, the cry of the hungry child appealing to the helpless mother: “Mammy, I'm hungry.
” “Ach, Gott, leedle girl,” exclaimed Mrs. Hooven, holding her close to her shoulder, the tears starting from her eyes.
“Ach, leedle tochter.
Doand, doand, doand.
You praik my hairt.
I cen't vind any subber.
We got noddings to eat, noddings, noddings.
” “When do we have those bread'n milk again, Mammy?
” “To-morrow--soon--py-and-py, Hilda.
I doand know what pecome oaf us now, what pecome oaf my leedle babby.
” She went on, holding Hilda against her shoulder with one arm as best she might, one hand steadying herself against the fence railings along the sidewalk.
At last, a solitary pedestrian came into view, a young man in a top hat and overcoat, walking rapidly.
Mrs. Hooven held out a quivering hand as he passed her.
“Say, say, den, Meest'r, blease hellup a boor womun.
” The other hurried on.
***** The fish course was grenadins of bass and small salmon, the latter stuffed, and cooked in white wine and mushroom liquor.
“I have read your poem, of course, Mr. Presley,” observed Mrs. Gerard.
“'The Toilers,' I mean.
What a sermon you read us, you dreadful young man.
I felt that I ought at once to 'sell all that I have and give to the poor.'
Positively, it did stir me up.
You may congratulate yourself upon making at least one convert.
Just because of that poem Mrs. Cedarquist and I have started a movement to send a whole shipload of wheat to the starving people in India.
Now, you horrid reactionnaire, are you satisfied?
” “I am very glad,” murmured Presley.
“But I am afraid,” observed Mrs. Cedarquist, “that we may be too late.
They are dying so fast, those poor people.
By the time our ship reaches India the famine may be all over.
” “One need never be afraid of being 'too late' in the matter of helping the destitute,” answered Presley.
“Unfortunately, they are always a fixed quantity.
'The poor ye have always with you.'
” “How very clever that is,” said Mrs. Gerard.
Mrs. Cedarquist tapped the table with her fan in mild applause.
“Brilliant, brilliant,” she murmured, “epigrammatical.
” “Honora,” said Mrs. Gerard, turning to her daughter, at that moment in conversation with the languid Lambert, “Honora, entends-tu, ma cherie, l'esprit de notre jeune Lamartine.
” ***** Mrs. Hooven went on, stumbling from street to street, holding Hilda to her breast.
Famine gnawed incessantly at her stomach; walk though she might, turn upon her tracks up and down the streets, back to the avenue again, incessantly and relentlessly the torture dug into her vitals.
She was hungry, hungry, and if the want of food harassed and rended her, full-grown woman that she was, what must it be in the poor, starved stomach of her little girl?
Oh, for some helping hand now, oh, for one little mouthful, one little nibble!
Food, food, all her wrecked body clamoured for nourishment; anything to numb those gnawing teeth--an abandoned loaf, hard, mouldered; a half-eaten fruit, yes, even the refuse of the gutter, even the garbage of the ash heap.
On she went, peering into dark corners, into the areaways, anywhere, everywhere, watching the silent prowling of cats, the intent rovings of stray dogs.
But she was growing weaker; the pains and cramps in her stomach returned.
Hilda's weight bore her to the pavement.
More than once a great giddiness, a certain wheeling faintness all but overcame her.
Hilda, however, was asleep.
To wake her would only mean to revive her to the consciousness of hunger; yet how to carry her further?
Mrs. Hooven began to fear that she would fall with her child in her arms.
The terror of a collapse upon those cold pavements glistening with fog-damp roused her; she must make an effort to get through the night.
She rallied all her strength, and pausing a moment to shift the weight of her baby to the other arm, once more set off through the night.
A little while later she found on the edge of the sidewalk the peeling of a banana.
It had been trodden upon and it was muddy, but joyfully she caught it up.
“Hilda,” she cried, “wake oop, leedle girl.
See, loog den, dere's somedings to eat.
Look den, hey?
Dat's goot, ain't it?
Zum bunaner.
” But it could not be eaten.
Decayed, dirty, all but rotting, the stomach turned from the refuse, nauseated.
“No, no,” cried Hilda, “that's not good.
I can't eat it.
Oh, Mammy, please gif me those bread'n milk.
” ***** By now the guests of Mrs. Gerard had come to the entrees--Londonderry pheasants, escallops of duck, and rissolettes a la pompadour.
The wine was Chateau Latour.
All around the table conversations were going forward gayly.
The good wines had broken up the slight restraint of the early part of the evening and a spirit of good humour and good fellowship prevailed.
Young Lambert and Mr. Gerard were deep in reminiscences of certain mutual duck-shooting expeditions.
Mrs. Gerard and Mrs. Cedarquist discussed a novel--a strange mingling of psychology, degeneracy, and analysis of erotic conditions--which had just been translated from the Italian.
Stephen Lambert and Beatrice disputed over the merits of a Scotch collie just given to the young lady.
The scene was gay, the electric bulbs sparkled, the wine flashing back the light.
The entire table was a vague glow of white napery, delicate china, and glass as brilliant as crystal.
Behind the guests the serving-men came and went, filling the glasses continually, changing the covers, serving the entrees, managing the dinner without interruption, confusion, or the slightest unnecessary noise.
But Presley could find no enjoyment in the occasion.
From that picture of feasting, that scene of luxury, that atmosphere of decorous, well-bred refinement, his thoughts went back to Los Muertos and Quien Sabe and the irrigating ditch at Hooven's. He saw them fall, one by one, Harran, Annixter, Osterman, Broderson, Hooven.
The clink of the wine glasses was drowned in the explosion of revolvers.
The Railroad might indeed be a force only, which no man could control and for which no man was responsible, but his friends had been killed, but years of extortion and oppression had wrung money from all the San Joaquin, money that had made possible this very scene in which he found himself.
Because Magnus had been beggared, Gerard had become Railroad King; because the farmers of the valley were poor, these men were rich.
The fancy grew big in his mind, distorted, caricatured, terrible.
Because the farmers had been killed at the irrigation ditch, these others, Gerard and his family, fed full.
They fattened on the blood of the People, on the blood of the men who had been killed at the ditch.
It was a half-ludicrous, half-horrible “dog eat dog,” an unspeakable cannibalism.
Harran, Annixter, and Hooven were being devoured there under his eyes.
These dainty women, his cousin Beatrice and little Miss Gerard, frail, delicate; all these fine ladies with their small fingers and slender necks, suddenly were transfigured in his tortured mind into harpies tearing human flesh.
His head swam with the horror of it, the terror of it.
Yes, the People WOULD turn some day, and turning, rend those who now preyed upon them.
It would be “dog eat dog” again, with positions reversed, and he saw for one instant of time that splendid house sacked to its foundations, the tables overturned, the pictures torn, the hangings blazing, and Liberty, the red-handed Man in the Street, grimed with powder smoke, foul with the gutter, rush yelling, torch in hand, through every door.
***** At ten o'clock Mrs. Hooven fell.
Luckily she was leading Hilda by the hand at the time and the little girl was not hurt.
In vain had Mrs. Hooven, hour after hour, walked the streets.
After a while she no longer made any attempt to beg; nobody was stirring, nor did she even try to hunt for food with the stray dogs and cats.
She had made up her mind to return to the park in order to sit upon the benches there, but she had mistaken the direction, and following up Sacramento Street, had come out at length, not upon the park, but upon a great vacant lot at the very top of the Clay Street hill.
The ground was unfenced and rose above her to form the cap of the hill, all overgrown with bushes and a few stunted live oaks.
It was in trying to cross this piece of ground that she fell.
She got upon her feet again.
“Ach, Mammy, did you hurt yourself?
” asked Hilda.
“No, no. ” “Is that house where we get those bread'n milk?
” Hilda pointed to a single rambling building just visible in the night, that stood isolated upon the summit of the hill in a grove of trees.
“No, no, dere aindt no braid end miluk, leedle tochter.
” Hilda once more began to sob.
“Ach, Mammy, please, PLEASE, I want it.
I'm hungry.
” The jangled nerves snapped at last under the tension, and Mrs. Hooven, suddenly shaking Hilda roughly, cried out: “Stop, stop.
Doand say ut egen, you.
My Gott, you kill me yet.
” But quick upon this came the reaction.
The mother caught her little girl to her, sinking down upon her knees, putting her arms around her, holding her close.
“No, no, gry all so mudge es you want.
Say dot you are hongry.
Say ut egen, say ut all de dime, ofer end ofer egen.
Say ut, poor, starfing, leedle babby.
Oh, mein poor, leedle tochter.
My Gott, oh, I go crazy bretty soon, I guess.
I cen't hellup you.
I cen't ged you noddings to eat, noddings, noddings.
Hilda, we gowun to die togedder.
Put der arms roundt me, soh, tighd, leedle babby.
We gowun to die, we gowun to vind Popper.
We aindt gowun to be hongry eny more.
” “Vair we go now?
” demanded Hilda.
“No places.
Mommer's soh tiredt.
We stop heir, leedle while, end rest.
” Underneath a large bush that afforded a little shelter from the wind, Mrs. Hooven lay down, taking Hilda in her arms and wrapping her shawl about her.
The infinite, vast night expanded gigantic all around them.
At this elevation they were far above the city.
It was still.
Close overhead whirled the chariots of the fog, galloping landward, smothering lights, blurring outlines.
Soon all sight of the town was shut out; even the solitary house on the hilltop vanished.
There was nothing left but grey, wheeling fog, and the mother and child, alone, shivering in a little strip of damp ground, an island drifting aimlessly in empty space.
Hilda's fingers touched a leaf from the bush and instinctively closed upon it and carried it to her mouth.
“Mammy,” she said, “I'm eating those leaf.
Is those good?
” Her mother did not reply.
“You going to sleep, Mammy?
” inquired Hilda, touching her face.
Mrs. Hooven roused herself a little.
“Hey?
Vat you say?
Asleep?
Yais, I guess I wass asleep.
” Her voice trailed unintelligibly to silence again.
She was not, however, asleep.
Her eyes were open.
A grateful numbness had begun to creep over her, a pleasing semi-insensibility.
She no longer felt the pain and cramps of her stomach, even the hunger was ceasing to bite.
***** “These stuffed artichokes are delicious, Mrs. Gerard,” murmured young Lambert, wiping his lips with a corner of his napkin.
“Pardon me for mentioning it, but your dinner must be my excuse.
” “And this asparagus--since Mr. Lambert has set the bad example,” observed Mrs. Cedarquist, “so delicate, such an exquisite flavour.
How do you manage?
” “We get all our asparagus from the southern part of the State, from one particular ranch,” explained Mrs. Gerard.
“We order it by wire and get it only twenty hours after cutting.
My husband sees to it that it is put on a special train.
It stops at this ranch just to take on our asparagus.
Extravagant, isn't it, but I simply cannot eat asparagus that has been cut more than a day.
” “Nor I,” exclaimed Julian Lambert, who posed as an epicure.
“I can tell to an hour just how long asparagus has been picked.
” “Fancy eating ordinary market asparagus,” said Mrs. Gerard, “that has been fingered by Heaven knows how many hands.
” ***** “Mammy, mammy, wake up,” cried Hilda, trying to push open Mrs. Hooven's eyelids, at last closed.
“Mammy, don't. You're just trying to frighten me.
” Feebly Hilda shook her by the shoulder.
At last Mrs. Hooven's lips stirred.
Putting her head down, Hilda distinguished the whispered words: “I'm sick.
Go to schleep....
Sick....
Noddings to eat.
” ***** The dessert was a wonderful preparation of alternate layers of biscuit glaces, ice cream, and candied chestnuts.
“Delicious, is it not?
” observed Julian Lambert, partly to himself, partly to Miss Cedarquist.
“This Moscovite fouette--upon my word, I have never tasted its equal.
” “And you should know, shouldn't you?
” returned the young lady.
***** “Mammy, mammy, wake up,” cried Hilda.
“Don't sleep so.
I'm frightenedt.
” Repeatedly she shook her; repeatedly she tried to raise the inert eyelids with the point of her finger.
But her mother no longer stirred.
The gaunt, lean body, with its bony face and sunken eye-sockets, lay back, prone upon the ground, the feet upturned and showing the ragged, worn soles of the shoes, the forehead and grey hair beaded with fog, the poor, faded bonnet awry, the poor, faded dress soiled and torn.
Hilda drew close to her mother, kissing her face, twining her arms around her neck.
For a long time, she lay that way, alternately sobbing and sleeping.
Then, after a long time, there was a stir.
She woke from a doze to find a police officer and two or three other men bending over her.
Some one carried a lantern.
Terrified, smitten dumb, she was unable to answer the questions put to her.
Then a woman, evidently a mistress of the house on the top of the hill, arrived and took Hilda in her arms and cried over her.
“I'll take the little girl,” she said to the police officer.
“But the mother, can you save her?
Is she too far gone?
” “I've sent for a doctor,” replied the other.
***** Just before the ladies left the table, young Lambert raised his glass of Madeira.
Turning towards the wife of the Railroad King, he said: “My best compliments for a delightful dinner.
” ***** The doctor who had been bending over Mrs. Hooven, rose.
“It's no use,” he said; “she has been dead some time--exhaustion from starvation.
”
