Читать книгу Gargoyles - Ben Hecht - Страница 5

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It was Sunday morning. Mrs Basine and her two daughters were sitting down to breakfast. Hugh Keegan followed Basine embarrassedly into the dining room. The two young men had been renovating themselves for an hour in the bathroom.

The meal started casually. Fanny Basine studied their guest with what was meant to be a provoking carelessness. She was a facile virgin who wooed men persistently and slapped their faces for misunderstanding her.

"You've been quite a stranger, Mr. Keegan," she said. Her eyes smiled. Keegan felt wretched. He was conscious of being unclean. The fresh, virginal face of the girl smiling at him filled him with rage. He accepted a waffle from Mrs. Basine with exaggerated formality.

He was not enraged with himself. This was too difficult. It was easier, simpler to be repentant. His repentance did not accuse him as a man who had sinned but denounced the things which had caused him to sin and made him unclean. To himself he was essentially perfect. There were forces, however, which infringed upon his perfection, which soiled his fine qualities.

Eating his waffle, he thought of the creature with whom he had spent the night, of the dismal bedroom, the frowsy smelling hallway, the coarse talk and viciousness of the entire business. And he began to feel a rage against them. He would like to wipe such things out of the world. He managed to answer Miss Basine politely.

"I've been out of town a great deal," he said.

"George always said you were a gadfly," Fanny replied.

Mrs. Basine spoke.

"You look rather tired, George." She gazed pensively at her son. "I don't like you to stay out all night like that."

Basine frowned. What did his mother mean by that? Did she suppose he had spent the night in debauchery? It sounded that way from the way she looked and talked. Basine grew angry. He did not want his mother to accuse him.

"You don't expect a man to remain cooped up night and day, do you?"

"Oh, I don't mind your going out. But not the way you did last night."

She looked at him and then, as if realizing for the first time the presence of her daughters, changed her manner.

"Won't you have some syrup, Mr. Keegan."

Keegan thanked her and lowered his eyes. He had understood her accusation and accepted it as authentic. He had no mother of his own and this inspired in him a curious sense of obedience toward all mothers he encountered. Mrs. Basine's accusation embarrassed him. The embarrassment increased his disgust for the memory of the night. He would like to wipe out such obscene and vulgar things. He would like to burn them up, forbid them. Someday he would.

Basine, however regarded his mother with a sense of outrage. The fact that her surmise of what he had done during the night was correct was a matter of minor importance. She didn't know what he had done and therefore she had no right to guess. He answered her angrily.

"I did nothing at all last night that I wouldn't have my sisters do."

His mother looked at him in surprise. Keegan blushed.

"You're always hinting around, mother, about things and you're absolutely wrong. Absolutely," he added for a clincher. His eyes remained unflinchingly on his mother.

There was a convincing air of virtue about him and a doubt entered her mind. Perhaps she had suspected him unjustly. But he had been away all night. She had heard him come in around six. Where could he have been if not—in such places? Yet she felt like apologizing.

Basine fiddled with his food. He was acting out the part of injured innocence. He was an unprotesting martyr to the low suspicions of his family. The fact that he was guilty in no way interfered with the sincerity of his injured feelings. His mother's accusation had sincerely hurt him, even more than it would had he been actually innocent of wrong doing. He transferred whatever emotional guilt he had into indignation toward his accuser.

This was an old trick of his, developed early in childhood—a faculty of committing crimes without becoming a criminal. More than Keegan, he was above self-accusation. But unlike Keegan the doing of a thing he knew to be wrong did not inspire him with the adroit remorse which took the form of hating the thing he had done instead of himself.

The crimes Basine committed—usually no greater than normal violations of the ethical code to which he subscribed—were things that had nothing to do with the real Basine. The real Basine was the Basine whom people knew. The real Basine was a characterization he maintained for the benefit of others. The crimes were his own secret. People didn't know them. Therefor they did not exist. They remained locked away. He did not say to himself, "Hypocrite! Liar!"

When he denied his mother's accusation he did not of course forget the things he had done during the night. In fact even while he spoke there came to him a vivid memory of the prostitute.

In disproving the existence of this memory he was not disproving it for himself but for his mother. His energy as usual was bent toward presenting a certain Basine for the admiration of another. The Basine he sought to create for the admiration of his family was a moral and honest man. When they seemed inclined to challenge this creation, their suspicions angered him.

His attitude was that of a creator toward a hostile critic. He frequently lost his temper and denounced their suspicions as unjust, unfair. And in his mind, conveniently clouded by indignation, they were. Not to himself as he was, but to the self he insisted upon pretending at the moment he was.

This self was the Basine he was continually creating—a Basine that was not based upon deeds or truths or facts but upon ideals. It was an ideal Basine—a nobly edited version of his character. He believed in this ideal Basine with a curious passion. This ideal Basine was a mixture of lies, shams, perversions of fact. But that was only when you considered him in relation to his creator—to its original. In his own mind it was as absurd to consider this ideal Basine in relation to its creator as it would have been for a critic of æsthetics to consider the merits of Oscar Wilde's poetry in relation to the degeneracy of the man.

Considered by himself, the ideal Basine was a person of inspiring virtues. He was proud of the things he pretended to be, vicious in their defense, unswerving in his efforts to inspire others with an appreciation of these pretenses.

His anger toward his mother ebbed as he noticed the doubt come into her manner. She had hesitated for a moment in face of significant facts, in accepting the ideal Basine. But her son's sincerity had convinced her as it convinced most people who knew him. The sincerity with which he defended the idealization of himself was easily to be mistaken for a sincerity inspired by an innocence of actual wrong-doing.

As soon as he felt certain he had re-established the ideal Basine in his mother's eyes, all thoughts of the facts passed from him. The admiring opinion of others was what his nature desired and what his energies worked for. Once obtained this admiration was a mirror in which he saw himself only as he had argued others into seeing him.

He looked at his friend Keegan with a smile. Keegan was still blushing. Keegan knew that he had lied and that the entire pose was a sham. But this only added another thrill to the fleeting self-satisfaction of having re-established himself in his family's eyes. He enjoyed the knowledge that Keegan was able to see what a successful liar he was and how adroitly he managed to deceive people. This enjoyment was not a part of the emotion of the ideal Basine. It was a purely human sensation felt by Basine, the creator.

There was a single flaw in his little triumph. This was, as usual, the attitude of his sister Doris. While the others were chattering Doris kept silent. She had dark eyes and black hair. She was entirely unlike anybody in the Basine family. Fanny was blonde and vivacious with a pout and full red lips. Before the death of her husband Mrs. Basine had summed up her daughter Doris as being aristocratic.

At fifteen Doris had been painfully shy. People smiled encouragingly at her because she seemed afraid of them. Four years later people ceased to smile at her. They looked at her out of the corners of their eyes and wondered what she was thinking about. Her silence was like a confusing argument. Had it not been for her beauty her silence could easily have been dismissed. But her dark eyes and dark hair, the slightly lowered pose of her oval face and the unvarying line of her fresh lips with the little sensual bulges at their corners, drew the attention of people. And their attention drawn, they waited to be told something. So merely because she told nothing they fancied she had a great deal to tell. They attributed to her silence all the doubts they had concerning themselves. Silence was to them always accusation.

Her brother's attitude toward Doris was typical. He detested her and yet was more pleased when she nodded at something he said than when others were loud with acclaim. He detested her because she made him feel she was his superior. In what way she was superior he didn't know and why he felt it he couldn't understand. But he sensed she was someone who had no respect for the ideal Basine and no particular love for his creator.

She had also a way of deflating him. He felt sometimes as a toy balloon might feel in the presence of a child with a pin. He never ignored her. He watched her always and studied her carefully. He did not desire to please her but he felt that until he had perfected the ideal Basine to a point where he would be acceptable to Doris, admired by Doris, his creation would be lacking in something vital.

As the breakfast came to an end her brother focused upon Doris. This was invariably the effect of her silence. She was as yet unconscious of it. Had you asked her why she spoke so little and why she neither smiled nor frowned at people she would have thought a while and then with a shrug replied, "Why, I hadn't noticed." Later when she was alone she would have continued thinking of the question and perhaps said to herself, "It must be because they don't interest me. They seem so silly and unreal."

"What are you doing today?" Basine asked her.

She answered, "Nothing." He noticed she failed to add, "Why?" He resented her lack of curiosity. Fanny would have said, "Nothing. Why do you ask?" But Fanny was a good fellow, a lively, amusing child.

"Mrs. Gilchrist and Aubrey are coming over later," Mrs. Basine announced.

"She makes me tired," Fanny smiled. "And somebody ought to pull dear Aubrey's nose just to see if he's really alive. He's too dignified."

Her brother nodded.

"Do you know him?" Fanny asked Keegan.

"Slightly," said Keegan. "I've read one or two of his books. They're very interesting." He paused, hoping that everyone agreed with him. Everyone did except Doris.

"What's the matter, Dorie? Don't you like Aubrey's works?" her brother asked. Doris smiled vaguely.

"I've never read anything he's written," she said. "I don't know."

Keegan looked at her uncomfortably. He felt he disliked her and he would have been pleased to ignore her. But the fact that she seemed to have anticipated him in this respect and to have ignored him first, piqued him.

"I think Judge Smith and Henrietta will be over later," Basine addressed his mother. Judge Smith was the august and senior partner of the law firm that had taken young Basine into its office.

"Yes, Aubrey told me," Mrs. Basine said casually. "I think they're engaged."

"Who, Henrietta?" from Fanny.

Her mother nodded. She stood up and the group sauntered into the living room. Keegan approached Fanny. Her freshness made him feel sad.

"Let's sit here," Fanny whispered as he drew near her. She employed the whisper frequently. It usually brought a gleam into the eyes of her vis â vis as if she had promised something.

To appear to promise something was Fanny's chief object in life. It was the basis of her growing popularity. The two sat down in a corner of the room secluded from the others. Keegan had interested her. At least his far-away, unappraising look had interested her. She preferred men more appraising and less far-away. Her object now was to reduce her brother's friend to an admirer. Admirers bored her. But the process of converting strangers, particularly far-away and unappraising strangers, into admirers was diverting.

Keegan had other plans. A desire to repent aloud had been growing in Keegan. The girl's bright face and virginal air had been inspiring him. He wanted to tell her how unclean he was and how ashamed of the things he had done. He wanted to denounce sin.

He felt tired. Fanny talked and he listened. He wanted to weep. He thought her fingers were beautiful and white. He would have liked to kneel beside her weeping, his head against her and her cool white fingers running over his face. It would be a sort of absolution—a maternal absolution. In the meantime his silence piqued her.

"You don't seem very interested in what I'm saying," she interrupted herself. She looked at him and instinct supplied her with a new attack.

"Where were you and George last night?" she asked. "Mother was furious about it."

Keegan looked sad. His blond face collapsed.

"Men are awful rotters," he answered, lowering his voice.

"Oh I don't know. Not all men."

"Yes. All men." Savagely.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because—" Keegan hesitated. Mysterious impulses were operating behind his talk. The night's debauch had sickened him. He was experiencing that depressing type of virtue which usually comes as a reaction from an orgy. His indignation at the bestiality of the male and the moral rotteness of life was a vindication of the temporary weakened state the night had induced in him. By denouncing sex he excused the disturbing absence of it in himself.

He was however not content to vindicate the absence in himself of sensual excitement. He would also make use of his lassitude by translating the enervation it produced into self-ennobling emotions, into purity, innate and triumphant. He experienced high-minded ideas and an exaltation of spirit.

"Because," he repeated, finding it difficult to choose words sufficiently emasculated to reflect the phenomenal purity of his mind, "well, if women knew, they would never talk to men. But women are so good, that is, decent women, that they simply don't understand and can't understand ... what it is."

"About bad men?" Fanny whispered. Keegan nodded.

"And are all men bad?" she asked.

Again Keegan nodded, this time more sadly. It was a nod of confession and purity. In it he felt his obscene past and his pious future embrace each other, one whispering "forgive" and the other whispering "yes, yes. All is forgiven."

Tears warmed his throat. Fanny's eyes looked at him with an odd excitement. Her mind was as always conveniently blank of thought. Thoughts would have served only to embarrass and handicap her. She was able to enjoy herself more easily without thinking. It was a ruse which enabled her to regard herself as a clean-minded girl.

Young men had frequently taken advantage of her kindness and grown bold. They would during a tender embrace sometimes take liberties or draw her close and press themselves against her. It was at this point that her mind would awake like a burglar alarm suddenly set off. It rang and clanged—an outraged and intimidating ding-dong of virtuous platitudes which she had incongruously rigged up in the sensual warmth of her nature. But lately the mechanism by which she routed her would-be seducers did not quite satisfy her.

At twenty she had grown fearful. When she was younger the men she led on were no more than boys. The mechanism had sufficed for them. But the last two years had witnessed a change in her would-be seducers. They had grown up, these males. She remembered always uncomfortably a young man who had burst into laughter during her outraged denunciation of him. He had said to her.

"Listen, girl. If I wanted you, all I would have to do is tell you to shut up and slap your face. And you would. Your 'how dare you?' don't go with me. I've known too many girls like you. But I don't want you. Not after this. If it'll do you any good I'll tell you now that I won't forget you for a long time. Whenever I want a good laugh I'll think of you. There's a name for your kind...."

And he had used a phrase that nauseated her. The incident had occurred on a Sunday evening in the hallway. He had reached up, taken his hat from the rack and without further comment walked out.

Fanny had spent the night weeping with shame. The memory of the young man's words made spooning impossible for a month. She was essentially an honest person and unable to do a thing she knew was wrong. Her only hope of pleasing herself and indulging her growing sensuality lay in remaining sincerely oblivious to what she was doing. As long as the man's words stuck in her memory it was impossible to remain oblivious. They had awakened no line of reasoning or self-accusation in her mind. Her mind was still conveniently blank. The youth's denunciation lay like a foreign substance in it, a substance which fortunately time was able to dissolve.

After a month of embittered virtue Fanny returned warily to her former tactics. She was cautious enough to begin with men as young as herself.

One night in April she gave her lips again. They had been making candy in the kitchen. She turned the light out as they were leaving. The young man stood in front of her in the dark. His arms went shyly around her. With a satisfied thrill, she shut her eyes and allowed the boy to kiss her. A languor overcame her. She ran her fingers through his hair and gently pressed closer to him.

The warning sounded sooner than usual, and in a surprising way. It came from within this time. The boy had not grown bold. He was enjoying her lips shyly and his embrace was almost that of a dancing partner. Nevertheless the burglar alarm clang-clanged. Her body had grown hot. The impulse to crush herself against the boy, to open her mouth, to embrace him fiercely, throbbed in her, and bewildering sensations were bursting unsatisfactory warmths in her blood.

She hesitated. She might secretly yield to these demands. He would remain unaware of it and there would be no danger. But the alarm finally penetrated the fog of her senses. She was unable this time to shut off the current of her passion by the burst of sudden virtuous anger. The mechanism of her retreat had always been simple—a trick of turning her sensual excitement into indignation, of energizing the virtuous platitudes rigged up in her mind by the passion the caresses had stirred. The greater this passion, the more violently her pulse beat, the more violently the platitudes would clang and the more outraged her "how dare you?" would sound.

But it was impossible to say anything this time. Her hands pushed suddenly at the politely amorous youth. His embrace skipped from her as if it had been waiting for such a remonstrance. She stood with her head whirling. She felt limp and ill at ease.

"Don't you love me?" the young man whispered. The lameness of his voice would ordinarily have made her smile. But now the words seemed to draw her. She wanted to answer them, to say, "yes." For the moment it seemed as if she must confess she loved this impossible young man. She walked quickly out of the dark hallway. In the lighted room she was ashamed of herself. Her body tingled with unaccountable pains. She managed to survive the evening without revealing herself. She was grateful for the youth's stupidity.

When she lay in bed she closed her eyes firmly and tried to sleep. But her body disturbed her. Sensations that lured and frightened played furtively throughout it. She lay stretching and sighing. Later, overcome with a nervous weariness, she fell asleep.

On awaking she remembered her triumph and felt proud. In retrospect the sensations she had felt and the temptations that had urged her seemed distasteful.

Years before she had rationalized her behavior toward young men by inventing a code. The code was based on the fact that hugging and kissing and the pleasure these inspired were in no way connected with "the other." When she thought of more intimate relations it was always in some such phrase. She was completely ignorant of the physiological mechanics of marriage. But her ignorance inspired no curiosity. She did not think of it as a logical culmination of the feeling embraces gave her. She had a definite attitude toward "the other." It was a thing separated from her numerous experiences by a gulf. There was only one bridge across—marriage.

Keegan interested her. Since the incident of the embarrassed young man with whom she had made candy in the kitchen, she had been secretly on the lookout for someone like him. She wanted someone with whom she could repeat the startling experience of that other evening without letting herself into danger. Someone who would remain oblivious to the passion his caresses aroused and so allow her to enjoy slyly the sensations whose memory had never left her.