Babbitt
“What do you know about my reputation for oratory?”
“Oh, I’m not going to tell you everything I know! But seriously, you
don’t realize what a famous man you are.”
“Well-- Though I haven’t done much orating this fall. Too kind of
bothered by this Paul Riesling business, I guess. But-- Do you know,
you’re the first person that’s really understood what I was getting at,
Tanis-- Listen to me, will you! Fat nerve I’ve got, calling you Tanis!”
“Oh, do! And shall I call you George? Don’t you think it’s awfully nice
when two people have so much--what shall I call it?--so much analysis
that they can discard all these stupid conventions and understand each
other and become acquainted right away, like ships that pass in the
night?”
“I certainly do! I certainly do!”
He was no longer quiescent in his chair; he wandered about the room, he
dropped on the couch beside her. But as he awkwardly stretched his hand
toward her fragile, immaculate fingers, she said brightly, “Do give me a
cigarette. Would you think poor Tanis was dreadfully naughty if she
smoked?”
“Lord, no! I like it!”
He had often and weightily pondered flappers smoking in Zenith
restaurants, but he knew only one woman who smoked--Mrs. Sam Doppelbrau,
his flighty neighbor. He ceremoniously lighted Tanis’s cigarette, looked
for a place to deposit the burnt match, and dropped it into his pocket.
“I’m sure you want a cigar, you poor man!” she crooned.
“Do you mind one?”
“Oh, no! I love the smell of a good cigar; so nice and--so nice and like
a man. You’ll find an ash-tray in my bedroom, on the table beside the
bed, if you don’t mind getting it.”
He was embarrassed by her bedroom: the broad couch with a cover of
violet silk, mauve curtains striped with gold, Chinese Chippendale
bureau, and an amazing row of slippers, with ribbon-wound shoe-trees,
and primrose stockings lying across them. His manner of bringing the
ash-tray had just the right note of easy friendliness, he felt. “A boob
like Verg Gunch would try to get funny about seeing her bedroom, but I
take it casually.” He was not casual afterward. The contentment of
companionship was gone, and he was restless with desire to touch her
hand. But whenever he turned toward her, the cigarette was in his way.
It was a shield between them. He waited till she should have finished,
but as he rejoiced at her quick crushing of its light on the ash-tray
she said, “Don’t you want to give me another cigarette?” and hopelessly
he saw the screen of pale smoke and her graceful tilted hand again
between them. He was not merely curious now to find out whether she
would let him hold her hand (all in the purest friendship, naturally),
but agonized with need of it.
On the surface appeared none of all this fretful drama. They were
talking cheerfully of motors, of trips to California, of Chum Frink.
Once he said delicately, “I do hate these guys-- I hate these people that
invite themselves to meals, but I seem to have a feeling I’m going to
have supper with the lovely Mrs. Tanis Judique to-night. But I suppose
you probably have seven dates already.”
“Well, I was thinking some of going to the movies. Yes, I really think I
ought to get out and get some fresh air.”
She did not encourage him to stay, but never did she discourage him. He
considered, “I better take a sneak! She _will_ let me stay--there _is_
something doing--and I mustn’t get mixed up with-- I mustn’t-- I’ve got to
beat it.” Then, “No, it’s too late now.”
Suddenly, at seven, brushing her cigarette away, brusquely taking her
hand:
“Tanis! Stop teasing me! You know we-- Here we are, a couple of lonely
birds, and we’re awful happy together. Anyway I am! Never been so happy!
Do let me stay! I’ll gallop down to the delicatessen and buy some
stuff--cold chicken maybe--or cold turkey--and we can have a nice little
supper, and afterwards, if you want to chase me out, I’ll be good and go
like a lamb.”
“Well--yes--it would be nice,” she said.
Nor did she withdraw her hand. He squeezed it, trembling, and blundered
toward his coat. At the delicatessen he bought preposterous stores of
food, chosen on the principle of expensiveness. From the drug store
across the street he telephoned to his wife, “Got to get a fellow to
sign a lease before he leaves town on the midnight. Won’t be home till
late. Don’t wait up for me. Kiss Tinka good-night.” He expectantly
lumbered back to the flat.
“Oh, you bad thing, to buy so much food!” was her greeting, and her
voice was gay, her smile acceptant.
He helped her in the tiny white kitchen; he washed the lettuce, he
opened the olive bottle. She ordered him to set the table, and as he
trotted into the living-room, as he hunted through the buffet for knives
and forks, he felt utterly at home.
“Now the only other thing,” he announced, “is what you’re going to wear.
I can’t decide whether you’re to put on your swellest evening gown, or
let your hair down and put on short skirts and make-believe you’re a
little girl.”
“I’m going to dine just as I am, in this old chiffon rag, and if you
can’t stand poor Tanis that way, you can go to the club for dinner!”
“Stand you!” He patted her shoulder. “Child, you’re the brainiest and
the loveliest and finest woman I’ve ever met! Come now, Lady Wycombe, if
you’ll take the Duke of Zenith’s arm, we will proambulate in to the
magnolious feed!”
“Oh, you do say the funniest, nicest things!”
When they had finished the picnic supper he thrust his head out of the
window and reported, “It’s turned awful chilly, and I think it’s going
to rain. You don’t want to go to the movies.”
“Well--”
“I wish we had a fireplace! I wish it was raining like all get-out
to-night, and we were in a funny little old-fashioned cottage, and the
trees thrashing like everything outside, and a great big log fire
and-- I’ll tell you! Let’s draw this couch up to the radiator, and
stretch our feet out, and pretend it’s a wood-fire.”
“Oh, I think that’s pathetic! You big child!”
But they did draw up to the radiator, and propped their feet against
it--his clumsy black shoes, her patent-leather slippers. In the dimness
they talked of themselves; of how lonely she was, how bewildered he, and
how wonderful that they had found each other. As they fell silent the
room was stiller than a country lane. There was no sound from the street
save the whir of motor-tires, the rumble of a distant freight-train.
Self-contained was the room, warm, secure, insulated from the harassing
world.
He was absorbed by a rapture in which all fear and doubting were
smoothed away; and when he reached home, at dawn, the rapture had
mellowed to contentment serene and full of memories.
CHAPTER XXIX
I
The assurance of Tanis Judique’s friendship fortified Babbitt’s
self-approval. At the Athletic Club he became experimental. Though
Vergil Gunch was silent, the others at the Roughnecks’ Table came to
accept Babbitt as having, for no visible reason, “turned crank.” They
argued windily with him, and he was cocky, and enjoyed the spectacle of
his interesting martyrdom. He even praised Seneca Doane. Professor
Pumphrey said that was carrying a joke too far; but Babbitt argued, “No!
Fact! I tell you he’s got one of the keenest intellects in the country.
Why, Lord Wycombe said that--”
“Oh, who the hell is Lord Wycombe? What you always lugging him in for?
You been touting him for the last six weeks!” protested Orville Jones.
“George ordered him from Sears-Roebuck. You can get those English
high-muckamucks by mail for two bucks apiece,” suggested Sidney
Finkelstein.
“That’s all right now! Lord Wycombe, he’s one of the biggest intellects
in English political life. As I was saying: Of course I’m conservative
myself, but I appreciate a guy like Senny Doane because--”
Vergil Gunch interrupted harshly, “I wonder if you are so conservative?
I find I can manage to run my own business without any skunks and reds
like Doane in it!”
The grimness of Gunch’s voice, the hardness of his jaw, disconcerted
Babbitt, but he recovered and went on till they looked bored, then
irritated, then as doubtful as Gunch.
II
He thought of Tanis always. With a stir he remembered her every aspect.
His arms yearned for her. “I’ve found her! I’ve dreamed of her all these
years and now I’ve found her!” he exulted. He met her at the movies in
the morning; he drove out to her flat in the late afternoon or on
evenings when he was believed to be at the Elks. He knew her financial
affairs and advised her about them, while she lamented her feminine
ignorance, and praised his masterfulness, and proved to know much more
about bonds than he did. They had remembrances, and laughter over old
times. Once they quarreled, and he raged that she was as “bossy” as his
wife and far more whining when he was inattentive. But that passed
safely.
Their high hour was a tramp on a ringing December afternoon, through
snow-drifted meadows down to the icy Chaloosa River. She was exotic in
an astrachan cap and a short beaver coat; she slid on the ice and
shouted, and he panted after her, rotund with laughter.... Myra Babbitt
never slid on the ice.
He was afraid that they would be seen together. In Zenith it is
impossible to lunch with a neighbor’s wife without the fact being known,
before nightfall, in every house in your circle. But Tanis was
beautifully discreet. However appealingly she might turn to him when
they were alone, she was gravely detached when they were abroad, and he
hoped that she would be taken for a client. Orville Jones once saw them
emerging from a movie theater, and Babbitt bumbled, “Let me make you
’quainted with Mrs. Judique. Now here’s a lady who knows the right
broker to come to, Orvy!” Mr. Jones, though he was a man censorious of
morals and of laundry machinery, seemed satisfied.
His predominant fear--not from any especial fondness for her but from
the habit of propriety--was that his wife would learn of the affair. He
was certain that she knew nothing specific about Tanis, but he was also
certain that she suspected something indefinite. For years she had been
bored by anything more affectionate than a farewell kiss, yet she was
hurt by any slackening in his irritable periodic interest, and now he
had no interest; rather, a revulsion. He was completely faithful--to
Tanis. He was distressed by the sight of his wife’s slack plumpness, by
her puffs and billows of flesh, by the tattered petticoat which she was
always meaning and always forgetting to throw away. But he was aware
that she, so long attuned to him, caught all his repulsions. He
elaborately, heavily, jocularly tried to check them. He couldn’t.
They had a tolerable Christmas. Kenneth Escott was there, admittedly
engaged to Verona. Mrs. Babbitt was tearful and called Kenneth her new
son. Babbitt was worried about Ted, because he had ceased complaining of
the State University and become suspiciously acquiescent. He wondered
what the boy was planning, and was too shy to ask. Himself, Babbitt
slipped away on Christmas afternoon to take his present, a silver
cigarette-box, to Tanis. When he returned Mrs. Babbitt asked, much too
innocently, “Did you go out for a little fresh air?”
“Yes, just lil drive,” he mumbled.
After New Year’s his wife proposed, “I heard from my sister to-day,
George. She isn’t well. I think perhaps I ought to go stay with her for
a few weeks.”
Now, Mrs. Babbitt was not accustomed to leave home during the winter
except on violently demanding occasions, and only the summer before, she
had been gone for weeks. Nor was Babbitt one of the detachable husbands
who take separations casually. He liked to have her there; she looked
after his clothes; she knew how his steak ought to be cooked; and her