The Plutocrat

Front matter

The Plutocrat A Novel

By Booth Tarkington

Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1927

Chapter 1

OUT of the north Atlantic a January storm came down in the night, sweeping the American coast with wind and snow and sleet upon a great oblique front from Nova Scotia to the Delaware capes. The land was storm-bound and the sea possessed with such confusion that nothing seemed less plausible than that human beings should be out among the running hill ranges, and not only alive but still voyaging crazily on their way. Tow ropes parted off the Maine and Massachusetts coasts; barges were swamped and bargemen drowned; schooners drove ashore in half-frozen harbours; and all night on the Georgian Banks fishermen fought dark monstrosities of water. But in the whole area of the storm nowhere was the northeaster more outrageous than upon that ocean path where flopped and shuttled the great "Duumvir," five hours out ward bound from New York.

Thirty thousand tons the "Duumvir" displaced; but, as in reprisal, more weight of water than that every few moments attempted to displace the "Duumvir." The attempt was for a permanent displacement, moreover, there appearing to be in the profundities a conviction that this ship had no rightful place upon the surface and should be reduced to the condition of a submarine. The "Duumvir," sometimes seeming to assent, squatted under the immense smotherings; then, shaped in falling water, rose up into the likeness of a long white cataract dimly symmetrical against a chaotic sky. The upheavals were but momentary and convulsive, however; the great metal creature shook itself thunderously and descended again under fantastic clouds of sea; and in both ascent and descent, sought continually to ease itself by lying first upon one side and then upon the other. Under the same circumstances a peanut shell might have shown a livelier motion; nevertheless, the "Duumvir" did many things that a peanut shell would have done, but, being heavier, did them more impressively.

The impressiveness was greatest in the steamer's interior where there were vivid correspondences to what went on outside. For, indoors and off the howl- ing decks, the "Duumvir" was not so much a ship as an excellent hotel, just now a hotel miraculously intact, though undergoing the extremities of continuous earthquake, and complaining loudly. Great salons and lounging rooms, empty of human life, but still bright with electric light, tilted up cornerwise, staggered and dipped like the halls of a palace in the nightmare of a sleeper attacked by vertigo. Accompanying these fantasies, painted ceilings and panelled walls protested in every voice known to wrenched wood and racked metal; but, for that matter, the whole inner fabric of the ship had become eloquent, squeaking with a high-pitched rancour sharply audible in spite of thunder and roarings without. And within the passengers' cabins, those little hotel apartments that had seemed so pleasant when the ship was at her dock, there were complaints and disturbances not lacking in a painful kind of harmony with the protests of the ship and the contortions of the elements that beset her.

Throughout the long ranges of staterooms there was anguish; but nowhere in the whole vastness of the "Duumvir" did it become more acute than in the prettily decorated double cabin where ceaselessly lurched to and fro upon his active bed that newly prosperous young playwright, Laurence Ogle. His lurching was in spite of him, his passionate desire being for motionlessness; and to secure even a few moments of this he would have given recklessly out of the royalties his play was to send him by post from Forty-second Street. More still he would have given to abandon this first sea voyage of his and to be back upon the unmoving pavement of that street, or to be upon any street or road, or in any alley, or to stand upon a bit of earth anywhere, mountain or plain, or to be in a tree rooted in earth. Nothing had value in his mind now save fixity.

His trunk had been opened and then lashed upright against the wall of his bathroom; but something had gone amiss with the lashings, so that at intervals the trunk presented itself in the intervening doorway, tilted drunkenly to eject sometimes a drawer or a limp garment upon the threshold, and then withdrew into the bathroom, where it produced crashing noises of breakage, to which Ogle was indifferent. Earlier in his retirement he had summoned a steward who proved so unseasoned as to be suffering himself, much too obviously. Ogle wished never to see this man again, and, even if he had cared for his society or assistance, would have had to lift a hand to reach the bell-button. He did not wish to lift his hand; it was already being lifted for him in company with the rest of his person; and the lifting at its climax brought on his worst moments.

He ascended spirally, meanwhile being rocked laterally, and this curving ascent was a long one, both in time and space; then, at the crest of it, there was a moment of poising followed by a descent like a two or three story drop in a swift elevator. The bed sank too rapidly beneath him, going down a little faster than he did, so that until the fall was completed he had no weight; whereas at the bottom he was too heavy, having already begun to be urged upward again. His whole being seemed to consist of nausea and of motion in undesirable directions; and yet, in addition to his poignant sensations, he still had thoughts and emotions.

The emotions were all bitter and the thoughts all upon one subject. He had supposed that when a reputable marine corporation engaged to take him to the Mediterranean it would take him there with some manner of straightforwardness and not upon all these spiral excursions to which his nervous system was by no means adapted. Therefore he hated the ship, not only for what it was doing to him, but for what appeared to be its personal malevolence in deceiving him. This incessant vertical and lateral voyaging, then, was that "luxury of ocean travel" to which the "Duumvir" had invited him in its little pamphlets illustrated by photographs of smiling ladies reading in steamer chairs, placid stewards offering cups of tea or broth, and even of lively couples dancing upon a horizontal ballroom floor—lying photographs which he was now convinced had been taken when the ship lay in harbour.

But even thus betrayed, he was not able to understand how he could have been so gullible as to place himself in his present horrible situation;—"horrible" was his own half-stifled word for it. "Voluntarily!" This was another of his words. "Voluntarily I put myself into this horrible condition—voluntarily!" For he remembered with amazement that he had been not merely willing, he had been eager. He had looked forward not only to other continents, but to the ocean voyage. Chuckling and gloating, how he had bragged of it to unfortunate friends unable to leave their bleak customary work in wintry New York; and only that very afternoon he had taken leave of some of them with what jolly superiority!

That afternoon now seemed to have been an after- noon of the long, long ago; he had undergone so many mortifying experiences and had been through so much trouble since then. His first suspicion that the journey was one of ill omen had come to him when he sat down at his table in the great dining salon; and the suspicion became stronger as his table steward offered him a green turtle soup, for the "Duumvir" was just then riding into tumult and darkness off Sandy Hook. The table was one arranged for four persons, and Ogle had felt some curiosity about the other three, wondering if he would prove fortunate in his table mates; but this interest did not detain him. Indeed, the only mitigation of the ignominy of his flight from the green turtle lay in the fact that the other chairs were not yet occupied. What he needed, he knew instinctively, was neither food nor new acquaintances, but air, fresh air, and a great deal of it. He sought it, and finding it, tried to believe that a few moments on deck would be restorative; but they were not, and neither was the icy spray that drenched him there. He descended apprehensively to his own quarters which were greatly changed since he had taken possession of them in the sweet placidity of the Hudson River. They had become animated, possessed by a demon of animation; and the animation had increased hour by hour, until now, as his blurred eyes half opened from time to time to give him glimpses of whirling walls, ceiling, curtains, and mirrors, the happy pride he had felt upon his first sight of this cell of misery bore the aspect of lunacy.

But his most dreadful thought was that he had committed himself to twelve days of what he now endured. Twelve years would have seemed little longer, for already he was flaccid with the interminable passage of time, and no more than a quarter of the first day of the twelve, each composed of twenty-four unbearable hours, had gone by. Why had nobody warned him not to embark on a twelve-day voyage? Had he no friends possessed of even sight intelligence? He thought of them, driving home a beautiful, peaceful taxicabs from theatres, or loung, ing in health beside the wood fire in the solid restfulness of the club, and his envy of them was like hatred. "Eleven days!" he gasped, in a wretchedness that foresaw no mitigation forever. "Eleven days and three quarters!"

He had always thought himself a resourceful young man; but he understood that under the circumstances resourcefulness was a quality of little prac- tical value. The captain of the "Duumvir" would not be amenable to bribery, nor might all the arts of persuasion induce him to return to New York harbour; and the unhappy passenger had to go wherever this brutal mariner went. It would be useless to offer a resignation; one cannot resign from a boat.

There are people who bear their pains with a better grace when they think of greater sufferings on the part of other people, and so, in a dentist's chair, they keep their minds upon hospitals; but seasickness is a human ill that does not profit by such alleviations. Ogle was aware that other people were as wretched as he; for not far from the head of his bed there was a locked door, which, upon occasion, permitted his room to form part of a suite, and from the other side of this door came vocal sounds of lamentation and rebellion; but whenever he heard them his own misery was automatically increased. Two prostrate ladies occupied the adjoining cabin, he became aware, and although one of them seemed to be helplessly silent, the other was but too frequently audible.

Naturally, he was resentful; and when she moaned aloud, "I will die! I will die!" as she often did, he felt no anxiety to avert the calamity she predicted.

"Do!" he muttered thickly. "Do die! Do!"

Even if he lived through the next eleven days and three quarters, he would never in his life dislike anybody more than he did that suffering woman, he thought, but presently discovered that he was capable of a deeper antipathy. This was for a visitor who came to cheer the prostrate ladies; a man with a hearty voice of a kind that Ogle detested even when he was well. It was a husky voice, but free, easy, and loud; an untrained voice whose owner had never become conscious of the sound of it in other people's ears. Moreover, it was a voice that burred its r's, shortened its a's, and slurred and buried syllables in the Midland manner. "Middle West people!" Ogle moaned to himself. "Right in the next cabin to me! I've got to listen to them all the way over! That on top of this!" Feebly he called upon his Maker.

"Hah, but it's a great night!" the hearty voice exclaimed; and into Ogle's poisoned heart there came a profound animosity; for obviously here was a man undamaged, in perfect health. "Reg'lar January ocean weather, they tell me," this impervious man said cheerily. Honey, how's Baby?

The inquiry was bad for Ogle; he was a fastidious young man, sensitive to language, and the words upset him, though he was brave enough to repeat them. Honey, how's Baby? he whispered loathingly. Honey, how's Baby? A slight convulsion resulted, and again he called upon a higher power.

"You feelin' any better, Baby?" the terrible Midlander in the next room inquired.

But the voice of the objectionably suffering woman rebuked him faintly. "Let Libby alone. Don't lean over her. You're letting drops of water drip down on her off your overcoat. How'd you get so wet?"

"On deck. I found a door I guess they forgot to dock and went out there. Got tired sittin' around that smokin'-room upstairs; there aren't but two other men up there; all the rest of the passengers seasick, every last one of 'em, the barkeeper says; and those two that weren't didn't show much signs of sociability—Easterners, I expect; scared to talk to anybody. So I hunted around till I found this door that hadn't been locked; and my, my, but there's big doin's goin' on outdoors up there! It's a pity you and Baby got to miss it."

Upon this a third voice spoke unexpectedly, a girl's: "Quit calling me 'Baby'!"

It was a sweet and peevish voice; sweet musically, but peevish in what it expressed; and the bitter young playwright liked it no more than he did the others, especially as it brought a noisy burst of laughter from the visitor. "That's the ticket!" he cried, delighted. "Showin' some spunk to the old man! I guess you aren't so seasick but what you're still able to fight, Baby."

"I told you to quit calling me 'Baby'," the girl's voice said, and there was more than peevishness in it now; it held the resentment that springs from a hatred freshly roused. "I've thought once or twice about jumping off this ship before you get me over there," it continued. "If you don't quit calling me 'Baby,' I will. I mean it. You'll find out!"

"Now, now!" the man said soothingly. "I just came in to see if I couldn't do something or other for you or Mamma; you oughtn't to get so mad, Libby. Don't you want me to go bring you something?"

"No, I don't. If you want to do anything for me, keep out of my sight."

The hearty person seemed to be a little grieved by this, though after a moment or so he was able to produce some sounds of approving laughter. "Well, well! She's got plenty spunk all right, hasn't she, Mamma? Never mind! I'll hop along if you're sure there isn't anything you'll let me do for you. I guess I'll go on back upstairs and sit around awhile some more with those two frozen-faces; I'm not sleepy yet."

"Oh, dear!" the girl moaned. "Can't you stop talking about it and go? Go wherever you want to, so you go! For pity's sake, go and get seasick!"

"Me?" He shouted with inconsiderate laughter. "I never felt better in my life. Never even had a good look at the Atlantic Ocean before, let alone takin' a trip on it; never set my foot in anything bigger'n a rowboat, except a lake excursion steamer once or twice, twenty years ago, and yet I'm one o' the only three well passengers out of the whole shipload! Me seasick? You got to wish worse than that on me before you get me down, Baby!"

"I told you if you ever called me that again2"

"There! There!" he said.

But he was interrupted by the querulous voice of the woman who had so frequently threatened to die. "Let the child alone, can't you, Papa? Can't you see you're only getting her more and more upset with you?"

"Oh, now, come!" he said. "Libby isn't goin' to let a little seasickness make her hate her old papa!"

"You know it isn't seasickness that makes me hate you," the girl said fiercely; and Ogle had an impression that she lifted herself and made an angry gesture toward the door. "Aren't you ever going to get out of here?"

"All right! All right! It wasn't me that wanted to leave God's country and go scramblin' around over the globe; you got to blame Mamma for that. Never mind; I'm goin'." Then, before the door closed, Ogle heard the husky, hearty voice in a final solicitation. "Honey, you do your best for Baby!"

The miserable young man groaned from the depths. His neighbours were a mother and a daughter, evidently; the daughter engaged in some sort of war with her father, and the three of them outlanders of that particular type to which, of all types in the world, his own fastidiousness found the greatest objection. Before him, if the ship did not sink, he foresaw eleven days and three quarters of physical agony accompanied by the beating upon his ears of family quarrellings in the odious accent to which he was most shudderingly sensitive.

"Rotarians!" he whispered. Honey, how's Baby? But he was unwise to repeat this paternal inquiry, for immediately he became deathly sick.

Chapter 2

IN THE morning a vague and stormy light coming into his cabin from the turbulent day was at intervals almost extinguished by the rushing of gray water over the ponderous glass of the two port—holes. He must have slept a little, or at least obtained the relief of stupor, for the daylight surprised him when he saw it; but his surprise, like all else that was his, offered him no pleasure. True, the virulence of his illness had in some measure spent itself; but all his powers were enfeebled; and his interior was like an empty house after a tragedy, threatening to be haunted. Outside his cabin the corridors roared with funnelled wind; bayings and whistlings from obscure sources hunted through the ship like wild hounds and mournful huntsmen; the dark water rushed upon the glass of the portholes ominously, as if determined to get in and finish him; and still he spiralled high, higher than ever, then lurched down and down weightlessly—to rise again. The steamer's fabric screeched rather than squeaked, protesting against such a racking; and everywhere there were vehement noise and violent motion, for now the "Duumvir" rode into the full strength of the storm.

All day wind and ocean struck the ship more and more heavily until late in the afternoon, when a climax seemed to be reached. Ogle clung weakly to the bars at the head of his bed and wondered if even a great liner couldn't be lost at sea. The "Duumvir" was the pride of Italy, he knew;—at least, it was the pride of the Italian mercantile marine, and although he thought of Christopher Columbus he wondered if Italians were still good mariners; for he remembered nervously that Columbus sailed the seas more than four hundred years ago, and a race can lose its cunning. Other people shared his doubts, he discovered, when the rollings and pitchings and howlings were at their worst. All day he had heard nothing from his neighbours, perhaps because other noises prevented; but now, after a protracted outrageousness of motion and commotion, something of great weight, probably a trunk, crashed sonorously against the separating door, and the voice of the mother of the rebellious girl screamed into the corridor.

"Steward!" Ogle heard her wailing. "You man, there! You! Listen! If this ship's going to the bottom oughtn't I to get dressed?"

The steward, an Italian like the rest of the ship's people, spoke no English.

"Madame?"

"Oughtn't I to get dressed?"

The voice of the daughter was heard then, calling angrily: "If he's a respectable man, he'd say you certainly ought! Don't go out there like that. Come back in here and shut that door."

The general uproar, increasing, covered and merged all other sounds, making them indistinguishable; but evidently the mother obeyed, and for the rest of that horrifying day Ogle heard no more of his hated neighbours. The dark came early, and an hour later someone fell against his outer door, opened it, and fumbled along the wall.

"Who's there?" Ogle inquired, though he felt no interest in his own question and cared little what the reply might be.

"Ecco," a mournful voice responded, and the electric light brightened the room intolerably.

"Murder," Ogle said feebly, and, opening pained eyes, beheld his sick steward leaning upon the foot of the bed and looking at him wanly. The man's untidy hair was a lustrous black, and it could be seen that ordinarily he was of a swarthy complexion; but he had no swarthiness now. On the contrary, his pallor was disquieting and so was his expression. "Mangiare?" he said almost in a whisper, and closed his eyes pathetically. "Mangiare?"

Ogle had no wish to comprehend his meaning. "You'd better go away, steward. I don't speak Italian. No Italian. Italian no."

The steward wavered, but tightened his clutch upon the foot of the bed. "Vous voulez manger quelque chose?"

Ogle understood that he was now being addressed in the French language, which he had studied for several years in school and college, but without ever acquiring any great practical facility in its usage. However, he remembered a phrase. "Qu'est-ce que c'est?"

"Voulez manger?"

"Qu'est-ce que c'est?"

The man opened his mouth and with a limp forefinger pointed to the aperture.

"Eat?" Ogle said incredulously. "No!"

"No!" the steward echoed, agreeing; then, balanc- ing, staggering and plunging, made his way out of the room. Ogle wished that he had not come, and that he had not made that gesture of opening his mouth and pointing to it: ocean travel was difficult enough without these pantomimes, the unhappy passenger thought. However, the second night was not so bad as the first, although the storm showed no abatement during the earlier nocturnal hours, and Ogle, himself, did not perceive his condition to be materially improved. His impression was that he lay awake all night, suffering incessantly, everlastingly spiralling, inside and out, and listening to the heavy swish of water upon the glass of the two portholes. Nevertheless, he slept briefly at intervals without knowing it, and toward morning his slumbers grew deeper and longer. When he woke after the longest, two ovals of sunshine were dancing over his floor; the room was bright, the glass of the portholes dry and glittering; and presently, though still a little dizzy, he dared to think that the motion of the ship had grown rhythmic and sweeter.

There was creaking still and some complaint in the vessel's fabric; but the great noises were gone, and in this comparative quiet he heard the opening and closing of the outer door of the next cabin.

"Well, well, folkses!" the loud voice of the hearty Midlander exclaimed. "It's after ten o'clock. Aren't you ever goin' to get up? Upstairs everything's fine—lots o' people out, and it's pretty nearly like Springtime on deck. Honey, how's Baby feelin' this morning?"

Ogle sat up in his bed, with his hands over his ears. Honey, how's Baby? he murmured. "I've got to get out of this!" And with that he felt sufficient life and health returned into him to set foot upon his slowly rising floor.

The hearty voice continued its encouragement in the next room; but Ogle heard it indistinctly, and, as he turned on the salt water in his bathtub, not at all. If he had to listen to any more talk of Honey and Baby he would be prostrated again, he was certain; and to save himself he roused all his powers. So, an hour later, he was enabled to make a somewhat pallid appearance upon deck.

The long promenade, lined with muffled passengers in their chairs, slowly and regularly heaved up forward and sank aft, then heaved up aft and sank by the ship's bows, like a "board walk" at a summer resort made into a gigantic teeter-totter; for the sparkling green sea, laced with white, was still high and lively, showing a horizon like a deep-toothed saw. Many of the shrouded passengers looked preoccupied with introspective doubts; others were serious over troubles too severe and too recent to be so soon forgotten; and, in spite of the sunshine and the inspiriting air, a few lay haggard in their chairs, their anxieties not concealed by closed eyes. Nevertheless, a dozen or more were already briskly promenading; and, as Ogle emerged, a group of chattering young people rushed by him as merrily as if there never had been such a thing as a northeaster off our coast.

He was not yet able to understand their levity; but, having been conducted to his deck chair and neatly enfolded to the waist in a rug, by an attentive steward, he found his cares lighter, and after half an hour or so of what was almost a comfortable relaxation, he accepted a cup of broth from the steward's tray, and drank it with something like pleasure. Life might be worth living after all, he began to perceive, and even the "luxury of ocean travel" not altogether a trap for the gullible. Becoming more and more inclined toward cheerfulness, he first endured, then feebly welcomed, the thought of food, ending by lunching cautiously—yet undeniably taking nourishment—from a tray in his lap. He even went so far as to think of a cigarette, but decided that the time had not yet come for so great a hazard.

Instead of smoking, he found in a pocket of his overcoat a little pamphlet with a printed list of the "Duumvir's" passengers, and entertained himself with it for a time, first looking to see if his own name had been properly spelled. He found it, "Mr. Laurence Ogle," correct, and he repeated it inaudibly several times, wondering how many of his fellow voyagers were interested, or perhaps even a little excited, to find that name upon the list. Probably some of the more intelligent of them were already trying to identify him among the passengers, and although he smiled at his own vanity, the picture pleased him, as well it might. For, although he did not realize it, this thought was a decisive symptom of recovery; he was almost himself again.

What somewhat modified his pleasure was the fact that his name appeared at the bottom of a page. The list was in alphabetical order and he understood that no slight had been intended; but from "Abbott" to "Yountze" he was unable to discover any prestige of celebrity comparable to his own, and although he was sensible enough to under- stand that of course it was unimportant where a name appeared upon a page, whether at the top, the bottom, or in the middle, still it did seem to him that a little thought might have arranged matters better. Most of the other names were a mere wilderness of the commonplace in which the eye wandered without interest.

There were exceptions, however;—he found one of them not far above "Mr. Laurence Ogle"; and this particular exception arrested hig attention as if with a faint strain of music Plifed upon foreign and unfamiliar instruments. "Momoro" was the name; "Mme. Momoro," and ynderneath it, "Mr. Hyacinthe Momoro." Ogle murmured "Momoro" over to himself several times, "Momoro—Madame Momoro—Madame Momoro, Hyacinthe Momoro—Momoro." Momoro was the most romantic name he had ever encountered, he thought; a name operatic in flavour and suggestive of high performances in history or even antique legend. Moreover, it might be a name of practical value to him; for he should ever make use of French "characters" in a play he could call one of them "Momoro." Indeed, Momoro so fascinated him that, letting the list drop in his lap, he began dreamily to construct some cobwebbings of plot about a charming central figure, "Madame Momoro—Madame la Marquise de Momoro," he would call her, perhaps. One of his reasons for being aboard the "Duumvir" was his belief that he would do well to get away from plays and the theatre for a while; but the dramatist's habit of mind prevailed: "Momoro" began to wind him up as if he had been clockwork. He lay back in his chair, languidly watching the rhythmic ascent and descent of the rail against green sea and blue sky; and before long he was selecting a cast for "Momoro" which he decided would be an excellent title. Elsie Grennell, that beautiful brunette, would play "Madame de Momoro;"—of course a heroine of that name should be dark.

As the afternoon wore on, the ship's motion became steadily less emphatic; the January sharpness of the air grew gentler over the softer sea, yet remained bracing; more passengers gained confidence enough to forget their introspections, trusted themselves upon their feet and set forth upon a brisker and brisker promenading; the stricken, no longer limp, began to sit up and look about them; laughter was heard along the decks. Then, since everywhere this blither spirit seemed to breathe, Ogle felt it and forgot his play building. "By George!" he said to himself. "I believe I knew what I was about, after all." And with that he began to feel sorry for his friends in wintry New York, unfortunate people bound down to desks or to nightly work in the theatre, going about through snow in jolting, dirty taxicabs and drinking poisons to alleviate the natural oppression of so dull a life.

He lighted a cigarette, found it fragrant, and, observing with pleasure that of four lively girls passing his chair in a group three were comely and all prettily dressed for sea voyaging, he believed his health almost entirely restored. Earlier in the day these damsels would have had no comeliness in his eyes; he would have looked upon them with distaste; but now, all at once, he thought them charming. He tossed off his rug, and after only a moment of uncertainty as he rose, began to pace the deck like an old hand, experienced in many crossings of the sea.