In the Days of the Comet Read online

  Section 4

  Always with Parload I was chief talker.

  I can look back upon myself with, I believe, an almost perfectdetachment, things have so changed that indeed now I am anotherbeing, with scarce anything in common with that boastful foolishyoungster whose troubles I recall. I see him vulgarly theatrical,egotistical, insincere, indeed I do not like him save withthat instinctive material sympathy that is the fruit of incessantintimacy. Because he was myself I may be able to feel and writeunderstandingly about motives that will put him out of sympathywith nearly every reader, but why should I palliate or defend hisquality?

  Always, I say, I did the talking, and it would have amazed mebeyond measure if any one had told me that mine was not the greaterintelligence in these wordy encounters. Parload was a quiet youth,and stiff and restrained in all things, while I had that supremegift for young men and democracies, the gift of copious expression.Parload I diagnosed in my secret heart as a trifle dull; he posedas pregnant quiet, I thought, and was obsessed by the congenialnotion of "scientific caution." I did not remark that while my handswere chiefly useful for gesticulation or holding a pen Parload'shands could do all sorts of things, and I did not think thereforethat fibers must run from those fingers to something in his brain.Nor, though I bragged perpetually of my shorthand, of my literature,of my indispensable share in Rawdon's business, did Parload laystress on the conics and calculus he "mugged" in the organizedscience school. Parload is a famous man now, a great figure ina great time, his work upon intersecting radiations has broadenedthe intellectual horizon of mankind for ever, and I, who am at besta hewer of intellectual wood, a drawer of living water, can smile,and he can smile, to think how I patronized and posed and jabberedover him in the darkness of those early days.

  That night I was shrill and eloquent beyond measure. Rawdon was, ofcourse, the hub upon which I went round--Rawdon and the Rawdonesqueemployer and the injustice of "wages slavery" and all the immediateconditions of that industrial blind alley up which it seemed ourlives were thrust. But ever and again I glanced at other things.Nettie was always there in the background of my mind, regardingme enigmatically. It was part of my pose to Parload that I hada romantic love-affair somewhere away beyond the sphere of ourintercourse, and that note gave a Byronic resonance to many of thenonsensical things I produced for his astonishment.

  I will not weary you with too detailed an account of the talk of afoolish youth who was also distressed and unhappy, and whose voicewas balm for the humiliations that smarted in his eyes. Indeed,now in many particulars I cannot disentangle this harangue of whichI tell from many of the things I may have said in other talks toParload. For example, I forget if it was then or before or afterwardsthat, as it were by accident, I let out what might be taken as anadmission that I was addicted to drugs.

  "You shouldn't do that," said Parload, suddenly. "It won't do topoison your brains with that."

  My brains, my eloquence, were to be very important assetsto our party in the coming revolution. . . .

  But one thing does clearly belong to this particular conversationI am recalling. When I started out it was quite settled in the backof my mind that I must not leave Rawdon's. I simply wanted to abusemy employer to Parload. But I talked myself quite out of touchwith all the cogent reasons there were for sticking to my place,and I got home that night irrevocably committed to a spirited--notto say a defiant--policy with my employer.

  "I can't stand Rawdon's much longer," I said to Parload by way ofa flourish.

  "There's hard times coming," said Parload.

  "Next winter."

  "Sooner. The Americans have been overproducing, and they mean todump. The iron trade is going to have convulsions."

  "I don't care. Pot-banks are steady."

  "With a corner in borax? No. I've heard--"

  "What have you heard?"

  "Office secrets. But it's no secret there's trouble coming topotters. There's been borrowing and speculation. The masters don'tstick to one business as they used to do. I can tell that much.Half the valley may be 'playing' before two months are out." Parloaddelivered himself of this unusually long speech in his most pithyand weighty manner.

  "Playing" was our local euphemism for a time when there was no workand no money for a man, a time of stagnation and dreary hungryloafing day after day. Such interludes seemed in those days anecessary consequence of industrial organization.

  "You'd better stick to Rawdon's," said Parload.

  "Ugh," said I, affecting a noble disgust.

  "There'll be trouble," said Parload.

  "Who cares?" said I. "Let there be trouble--the more the better.This system has got to end, sooner or later. These capitalists withtheir speculation and corners and trusts make things go from bad toworse. Why should I cower in Rawdon's office, like a frightened dog,while hunger walks the streets? Hunger is the master revolutionary.When he comes we ought to turn out and salute him. Anyway, I'Mgoing to do so now."

  "That's all very well," began Parload.

  "I'm tired of it," I said. "I want to come to grips with all theseRawdons. I think perhaps if I was hungry and savage I could talkto hungry men--"

  "There's your mother," said Parload, in his slow judicial way.

  That WAS a difficulty.

  I got over it by a rhetorical turn. "Why should one sacrificethe future of the world--why should one even sacrifice one's ownfuture--because one's mother is totally destitute of imagination?"