The Shadow Part 33

"I don't believe they were such hypocrites as the English," Kathleen muttered.

She felt much aggrieved. Customarily she held the floor and her listeners either contented themselves with silent dissent or uttered short, ineffectual protests. To-night a friend, a revolutionist like herself, characterized her ideas as foolish and nonsensical, while the audience she was accustomed to routing looked on delighted at her discomfiture. She was mistaken in her interpretation of Applebaum's feeling. He was grieved that any one should show her rudeness; but Hertha, it is to be confessed, was pleased at the turn events were taking. She looked at the Major for another broadside, but to her surprise, he nodded acquiescence to Kathleen's last remark.

"You're right about that," he said, "though hypocrisy isn't English, it belongs to civilization. When you do wrong and know it, but desire to go on in wrong-doing, if you are a savage you continue without apology. If you are civilized you begin the process, the slow, evolutionary process," nodding his head at Applebaum, "of deceiving yourself. It's a process that takes longer with some than with others, but after a while wrong becomes right in your mind and you can do evil from the highest motives. And after you deceive yourself you deceive others, using good people for your tools. The devil always chooses the best people to do his work."

"And isn't it because of this," Kathleen rushed in, believing that she would secure recognition at last, "that we're fighting in the unions and in the Party [there was but one political party to Kathleen] to down the oppressor and to take possession of the earth?"

"Whom are you going to do it with?" the Major asked dryly. "Why do you think one set of men will be better than another? It's all right for you to try, but you will never succeed. Just when your impetus is at its best, rapacious leaders will appear and steal all that you have given your lives to gain."

"There is no animal so easily deceived as man," he went on. "Stupidity,"

and he looked hard at Applebaum, "is the most noticeable of human traits. You can trap a man with a piece of tainted meat that a wolf would despise. Give him a symbol, it matters not what--a delphic oracle, a church, an empire--and he will rally to the call of greed and fight its battles manfully. With the cry of victory on their lips I could, and have led native troops to destroy their own homes."

"Oh, Major dear!" Kathleen cried incredulously.

"Of course they didn't know what they were doing," the old man said. A smile lit up his face and in a moment he looked so handsome and venerable that two of his listeners, at least, forgot his rudeness.

"Most men do not see the end of the road. My father was a soldier and sincerely religious. He thought when fighting in the service that he was bringing Christ to the heathen; but when he got home and read of his achievements he found that he had only forced China to trade in opium."

William Applebaum could no longer keep silent. "Why will you show only the rotten side of things?" he asked, real pa.s.sion in his voice. "All wars are not actuated by greed and all men are not dupes. My grandfather fought here in this country. He was a colonel and he battled to free the slave."

"Yes?" said the Major. He turned and looked at Hertha. "You're from the South?"

She nodded in affirmation.

"I heard it in your speech. Now how many colonels might there have been in your family?"

"More than I can count," Hertha made answer, smiling. But the smile was not for him but for her own cleverness.

"You hear?" the Major turned to Applebaum. "And those young colonels fought with the same ardor, the same unselfish courage as your ancestor, though he battled for freedom and they gave their lives that men might go on buying black people as they bought horses and sheep."

Applebaum looked indignant but made no further attempt at an answer.

"It's a strange world!" The old man spoke now more to himself than to the others. "I have known men of every color and caste, I have eaten the coolie's rice and slept in the black man's hut, I have been a commander and ruled my kingdom, but everywhere life looms the same. Nature makes a few leaders and of these the crafty and unscrupulous become the lords of all. First they win to their side those of ability, giving them high places. Next they turn to the stupid, and in the name of G.o.d show them how to do the devil's bidding. And last they find a few whom they cannot down or deceive, men who see goodness so clearly that nothing can blind them to its light, and these they imprison or kill. It's a simple method and has been practised since the caveman drew his G.o.ds upon his cavern walls. Man has a finer mentality than the beast, and he uses it to give this wilderness of beauty that we call the earth to the few. Why, the foxes have holes----"

He stopped, ashamed of his emotion, and as he stopped looked into Hertha's face. He had aroused her attention by his words upon the Negro and she was following him now, eagerly, questioningly. Was this terrible thing that he was saying true? Would Ellen's and Kathleen's dreams remain always dreams? Would the few forever bruise the hearts of the many?

"What are you thinking about?" the Major's tone, though kindly, held a command. He had ceased to be interested in his other listeners, he knew their types too well; but this silent, beautiful girl piqued his curiosity.

She on her part felt impelled to answer him. The picture had flashed before her eyes of other Sunday evenings with her colored father reading from the New Testament as they sat about the table at home. She could see his finger moving slowly down the page.

"Don't you believe," she questioned the old soldier, "that the meek shall inherit the earth?"

He answered gravely: "That was the prophecy of a n.o.ble youth, whose life was soon blotted out. But before his day a wiser man, wiser because he lived in a kindlier state that permitted him to grow old, said the same thing. But even he was killed at last, since there is nothing so hateful, so much to be feared, as a wise and gentle life."

Hertha's brow clouded, and dropping his irony the Major went on gently:

"Before he died, however, this old man, in talking with his friend, p.r.o.nounced his golden rule: 'We should never repay wrong with wrong nor do harm to any man no matter how much we may have suffered from him.'

But mark Socrates' wisdom. 'I know,' he added, 'few men hold or ever will hold this opinion.' That was over two thousand years ago, my dear, and you see the meek have not inherited the earth. They still drink the cup of hemlock or are nailed upon the cross."

"Don't!" Kathleen cried. She was shaken by his speech and the tears were on her cheeks. "Major, dear, I'm not meek. I'm fighting with my comrades for the new world. What is there for me?"

"Defeat!" the old man answered gravely, shaking his head. "Defeat. And yet, there will be the joy of battle, and who knows but that the struggle is better than any possible heaven of achievement? But for your friend," and his face lightened as he looked at Hertha's appealing beauty, "for her there is the joy of youth." He rose and addressed himself directly to Hertha. "My child," he said, "don't let them make you picket. Get all the joy you can out of life. Dance to beautiful music. The springtime is coming, play with your mates. Grasp whatever of happiness you can, and, above all, keep out of the conflict. Don't forget, keep out of the conflict."

With a nod of good-by he picked up his hat and coat and left them.

"Kitty," William Applebaum said as he bade her good-night, "don't believe that terrible man."

He was standing in the hall of the flat. Hertha had gone to her room and quite evidently Kathleen was impatient to have him leave.

"Oh, shut up," was her answer.

"But I mean it," Applebaum went on earnestly. "What does he know about life? Just because he's traveled, why should you think he tells the truth? He's irreligious and he's unwholesome. I hate that kind of thing, it's the talk of the devil."

Then, to Kathleen's utter amazement, he kissed her. He had never been so daring before and, overcome by his temerity, he rushed down the stairs.

But before she had closed the door he called back, "Don't believe anything he said except about the joy of youth." And then the outer door slammed.

"Good heavens," cried Kathleen, "did that red ink claret go to his head!"

Hertha was so tired that she went at once to her room, but the coffee that she had taken kept her long awake. Since the night before she had experienced a series of vivid impressions; the music of the opera with its pa.s.sion of love and tragic sorrow; the home she had visited that afternoon, its white bedroom looking out into the trees that would soon be green; the great stone towers of the bridge from which hung innumerable threads of steel; and, last, the little table with Billy opposite and this strange old man reciting his doctrine of eternal defeat. "Keep out of the conflict!" That was what he had said. That ought not to be a difficult thing to do. When she was colored she was in the conflict, a part of the great problem of an oppressed race. But to-day she was white and free; and since this was so, and she could go where she would, was it not foolish to stay in this atmosphere of turmoil, of noisy street and strenuous talk? She shut her eyes and tried to think of quiet nothings, and after much tossing she dropped off to sleep.

She was awakened by a bright light in her room. "What is it?" she called sitting upright in bed.

"It's me, dear," said Kathleen coming to her.

The Irish girl was dressed and had her hat and coat on. "I'm called on a case," she explained, "way up in the Bronx. It's pneumonia and I'm afraid I shan't be home for some days."

"Oh," Hertha cried, in real distress, "why must you go now? I want you myself."

"You're not sick, are you?"

"No, but I'm worried. I wanted to talk with you."

Kathleen sat down by the side of the bed. "I'm sorry that I've bothered you so, Hertha," she said in her pleasantest voice. "There's something in what the Major said to-night. You're young and it's not for me to push you into anything just because I think it's right. You ought to be your own judge. Perhaps you'll soon decide on a new trade and the factory will drop out of your life."

"Yes, Kathleen," Hertha said hesitating, "I am thinking of something new. I believe I'll study stenography."

"That's a good trade if you've the education, and I don't doubt you have. There's many in it, but not many like you."

"Mr. Brown has been looking up schools for me."

"Has he?"

There was silence. Kathleen had not taken a fancy to Mr. Brown.

"The school that he likes the best is in Brooklyn, and----" Hertha swallowed hard. If she were going to say anything it must be now.

"To-day I looked at a room over there, near the school."

"In Brooklyn, good Lord! Why, n.o.body goes to Brooklyn except to be buried! You can't mean Brooklyn! What do you want to be leaving here for anyway?"

Kathleen got off the bed. As Hertha remained silent she moved out of the little alcove. "Of course, if you're wanting to go, Hertha, it's not for me to keep you."