XI

Jael did not know what to believe.

She had spent the Christmas holidays in Liberty, professedly to entertain a party of eastern friends at Little Jones street; really with intent to resolve the doubts that were rising in her. She saw as much as possible of Capuchin, and studied him; he had never been more confident, she thought. He was communicative on all general matters, vague as to all particulars.

She had the governor to dinner, then two or three at a time all of the principal state officials, and at last Parshall, president of the People’s Bank, who had a fat body and thin legs. His eyes were set high in his head. He made her think of a frog imitating a bird, and depressed her horribly.

Her total impression of them was that of men rushing headlong through a mist, over strange ground. Her uneasiness grew. It was at the rim of her feelings, below the edge of her mind. She could not explain it. If she asked herself whom she doubted or what her misgivings were, she found no answer.

She was walking alone to the station to take a train for the east when she saw a crowd in front of Anx. Plaino’s bank; and she crossed the street to see what was there of so much interest. By this time nearly everyone in Liberty knew her at sight, but there was more than courtesy in the eagerness with which they made way for her at the window. They treated her as a privileged spectator, or as part of the show, and she was conscious of being curiously regarded.

In a pine chair beside the tombstone,—“Scarred to the Memory of the Freemen’s League,”—that Plaino had kept there all this time, now sat a stonecutter, tools in hand, trying not to look self-conscious.

“Look!” someone said, calling her attention to the bottom of the tombstone where the blank space had been left for the year of the League’s demise.

Three numerals had been freshly chiselled there: 1, 9, 1.

On the window glass, to be read from the sidewalk, was a communication. It read:

“This mason will sit here every day except Sundays and legal holidays until the Freemen’s League is a political corpse. Then with one more figure he will complete its mortuary emblem. Meanwhile let every man see to it that his foot standeth in an even place. Yours truly, Anx. Plaino.”

As she went on she got a full view of old Plaino himself, standing in the other window. He had been standing there three years. Figure of prophecy. Augur of disaster, foretelling it by signs its authors could not interpret.

Jael’s first reaction was one of contempt. How puerile! How infantile the people in their curiosities! Hold out to them an image, an image of anything, no matter how crude it may be, and they cannot help staring at it. But hold out to them a thought—ah! that was different. How easily they could help thinking!

What was she saying? People! Well, she, too, had looked. She had crossed the street to look, simply because she saw others looking. Moreover, having looked, she could not get the impression out of her eyes—that image of one sour old reactionary’s verdict on the Freemen’s League. Therefore he was shrewd. The same verdict delivered to the ears would be much less effective. It is easier to forget what one hears than what one sees.

She remembered Capuchin’s first account of Plaino. An asthmatic old man who had never made public speeches and then suddenly developed an oratorical gift under tense emotion and became at Once the League’s most dangerous adversary. She remembered the episode of the horse dander, and thought it very cruel.

Another thing she recalled with acute interest. Only a few weeks before this her most trusted banker in New York had mentioned the fact that she was transferring large sums of money to the People’s Bank at New Freedom, and asked her if she knew anything about it. She knew nothing about its accounts, she said, if that was what he meant. Then he had warned her; he had heard the bank was not in good condition. She had said, “You have been hearing from Old Anxiety, perhaps,” not at all serious. And her banker had said, “Anx. Plaino, you mean. Yes. He is a strange old party. But you will find he is never wrong in his facts. I should be willing to take his bare word on the facts, in any situation, to any amount.”

Anyhow, she could not get Plaino and his absurd tombstone out of her head, and this annoyed her extremely.

A few days later in Jones street, after dinner, when only Fitzjerald, Dwind, Grinling and Miss Lillibridge were present, and Dr. Rabba who was never counted, she surprised Dwind by asking him out of the clear this question:

“Is it possible, Dwind, for an institution like the People’s Bank of New Freedom to fail?”

And she was startled by his reply.

“Quite possible,” he said, calmly.

“Is such a thing probable, though?” she asked.

“Quite probable,” he said. It might have been the weather he was speaking of.

“Why do you say so?” she asked.

Dwind assumed his authoritative manner, speaking in that weary, plaintive voice, which nevertheless had extraordinary power of emphasis.

“For two reasons,” he said. “The first is Mr. Capuchin. That minnesinger! Vessel of imbecility! Shakespearian ass!”

“How long have you concealed these sentiments about Mr. Capuchin?” Jael asked, uncontrollably amused by men in this aspect.

“For more than three years,” said Dwind, which meant from the moment of first meeting him. “The other reason, if you want it,” he continued, “is that nowhere in all that Punch and Judy show is there anybody to say no. The machine is running wild. I mean the bank. They’ve forgotten where the throttle is. If they remembered, still nobody would dare to close it, for that would be to say no.”

This unexpected comment from Dwind was ominous and important, and left everyone silent. It meant that he was preparing a moral alibi beforehand, in case the bank should fail; for he had written the law and could not avoid some responsibility in the matter.

Jael was the first to speak.

“When people take control of their own affairs, take it into their own hands, I mean, how shall no be managed? I don’t see how. They will not say no to themselves. Who shall say it for them or to them? And if one does, or may, that one rules them again, isn’t it?”

With his head tilted back, eyes almost closed, Dwind merely gazed at her down his nose, from a great distance away. Grinling leaned on the table, took his head in his hand, and began tracing a pattern with a spoon on the linen. They were expecting him to bring forth a thought, but at that instant, much to the surprise of the whole company, Dr. Rabba made an unhistorical observation, for him very original.

“Why say no to the people?” he sighed. He said people always in a petting tone, similar to that with which he cajoled his food. “Why?” he sighed again. “The people will do wrong. Yes. They will make mistakes. Yes. Well, and so? They hurt only themselves. They will learn. But we ourselves have this passion to say no for them. We have this passion to rule them. That is why they never learn.”

“Bravo! oh, excellent doctor,” Fitzjerald boomed. “The people are themselves the people. Let them alone. Perfect solution.”

Dr. Rabbba turned red all over his great bald head. He thought Fitzjerald was making fun of him.

“Nevertheless, it is true,” he said. “Once—I am not sure but I think so—once it was so. Once the people were not ruled, and they learned how not to hurt themselves. To say no is God’s business.” He sighed deeply as he added, “And God says it enough. No?”

Nobody answered him. His sigh for a long time was the last sound. Grinling, instead of answering Jael, began talking to Dwind about Capuchin. These two were opposite at the long board, half-way down. Jael looked at Fitzjerald, who was the nearest guest.

“You have never been to New Freedom, Angus.”

“I’m eccentric,” said Fitzjerald. “Moreover, I should be the white Egyptian vulture in that country.”

“Be not so sure,” said Jael. “Your comments might be devastating. They would be, you know. Still, you might have a little look at us. Friendly like.”

“I mean to,” he said. “My magnum opus has broken down. I need to go traveling. Luckily, I’ve come into funds.”

“A death?” Jael asked.

“Yes, though not a bereavement. A very old aunt whom I never saw. The tree is almost extinct. I am the only limb of it left.”

De Grouse came in at that moment; then an anaemic woman who had been on trial all day for disseminating birth control literature and was secretly disappointed at not having been sent to jail; after her a British labor radical and a new communist from Russia. New Freedom had been forgotten entirely for the evening but for a telegram handed to Jael by Miss Lillibridge. It was from Capuchin, to say he was on his way to New York.