CHAPTER XXXII

Babbitt

by Sinclair Lewis

CHAPTER XXXII, BABBITT by Sinclair Lewis

I

HIS wife was up when he came in. "Did you have a good time?" she sniffed.

"I did not. I had a rotten time! Anything else I got to explain?"

"George, how can you speak like--Oh, I don't know what's come over you!"

"Good Lord, there's nothing come over me! Why do you look for trouble all the
time?" He was warning himself, "Careful! Stop being so disagreeable. Course
she feels it, being left alone here all evening." But he forgot his warning
as she went on:

"Why do you go out and see all sorts of strange people? I suppose you'll say
you've been to another committee-meeting this evening!"

"Nope. I've been calling on a woman. We sat by the fire and kidded each
other and had a whale of a good time, if you want to know!"

"Well--From the way you say it, I suppose it's my fault you went there! I
probably sent you!"

"You did!"

"Well, upon my word--"

"You hate 'strange people' as you call 'em. If you had your way, I'd be as
much of an old stick-in-the-mud as Howard Littlefield. You never want to have
anybody with any git to 'em at the house; you want a bunch of old stiffs that
sit around and gas about the weather. You're doing your level best to make me
old. Well, let me tell you, I'm not going to have--"

Overwhelmed she bent to his unprecedented tirade, and in answer she mourned:

"Oh, dearest, I don't think that's true. I don't mean to make you old, I
know. Perhaps you're partly right. Perhaps I am slow about getting acquainted
with new people. But when you think of all the dear good times we have, and
the supper-parties and the movies and all--"

With true masculine wiles he not only convinced himself that she had injured
him but, by the loudness of his voice and the brutality of his attack, he
convinced her also, and presently he had her apologizing for his having spent
the evening with Tanis. He went up to bed well pleased, not only the master
but the martyr of the household. For a distasteful moment after he had lain
down he wondered if he had been altogether just. "Ought to be ashamed,
bullying her. Maybe there is her side to things. Maybe she hasn't had such a
bloomin' hectic time herself. But I don't care! Good for her to get waked up
a little. And I'm going to keep free. Of her and Tanis and the fellows at the
club and everybody. I'm going to run my own life!"


II

In this mood he was particularly objectionable at the Boosters' Club lunch
next day. They were addressed by a congressman who had just returned from an
exhaustive three-months study of the finances, ethnology, political systems,
linguistic divisions, mineral resources, and agriculture of Germany, France,
Great Britain, Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, and Bulgaria. He
told them all about those subjects, together with three funny stories about
European misconceptions of America and some spirited words on the necessity of
keeping ignorant foreigners out of America.

"Say, that was a mighty informative talk. Real he-stuff," said Sidney
Finkelstein.

But the disaffected Babbitt grumbled, "Four-flusher! Bunch of hot air! And
what's the matter with the immigrants? Gosh, they aren't all ignorant, and I
got a hunch we're all descended from immigrants ourselves."

"Oh, you make me tired!" said Mr. Finkelstein.

Babbitt was aware that Dr. A. I. Dilling was sternly listening from across the
table. Dr. Dilling was one of the most important men in the Boosters'. He was
not a physician but a surgeon, a more romantic and sounding occupation. He was
an intense large man with a boiling of black hair and a thick black mustache.
The newspapers often chronicled his operations; he was professor of surgery in
the State University; he went to dinner at the very best houses on Royal
Ridge; and he was said to be worth several hundred thousand dollars. It was
dismaying to Babbitt to have such a person glower at him. He hastily praised
the congressman's wit, to Sidney Finkelstein, but for Dr. Dilling's benefit.


III

That afternoon three men shouldered into Babbitt's office with the air of a
Vigilante committee in frontier days. They were large, resolute, big-jawed
men, and they were all high lords in the land of Zenith--Dr. Dilling the
surgeon, Charles McKelvey the contractor, and, most dismaying of all, the
white-bearded Colonel Rutherford Snow, owner of the Advocate-Times. In their
whelming presence Babbitt felt small and insignificant.

"Well, well, great pleasure, have chairs, what c'n I do for you?" he babbled.

They neither sat nor offered observations on the weather.

"Babbitt," said Colonel Snow, "we've come from the Good Citizens' League.
We've decided we want you to join. Vergil Gunch says you don't care to, but I
think we can show you a new light. The League is going to combine with the
Chamber of Commerce in a campaign for the Open Shop, so it's time for you to
put your name down."

In his embarrassment Babbitt could not recall his reasons for not wishing to
join the League, if indeed he had ever definitely known them, but he was
passionately certain that he did not wish to join, and at the thought of their
forcing him he felt a stirring of anger against even these princes of
commerce.

"Sorry, Colonel, have to think it over a little," he mumbled.

McKelvey snarled, "That means you're not going to join, George?"

Something black and unfamiliar and ferocious spoke from Babbitt: "Now, you
look here, Charley! I'm damned if I'm going to be bullied into joining
anything, not even by you plutes!"

"We're not bullying anybody," Dr. Dilling began, but Colonel Snow thrust him
aside with, "Certainly we are! We don't mind a little bullying, if it's
necessary. Babbitt, the G.C.L. has been talking about you a good deal. You're
supposed to be a sensible, clean, responsible man; you always have been; but
here lately, for God knows what reason, I hear from all sorts of sources that
you're running around with a loose crowd, and what's a whole lot worse, you've
actually been advocating and supporting some of the most dangerous elements in
town, like this fellow Doane."

"Colonel, that strikes me as my private business."

"Possibly, but we want to have an understanding. You've stood in, you and
your father-in-law, with some of the most substantial and forward-looking
interests in town, like my friends of the Street Traction Company, and my
papers have given you a lot of boosts. Well, you can't expect the decent
citizens to go on aiding you if you intend to side with precisely the people
who are trying to undermine us."

Babbitt was frightened, but he had an agonized instinct that if he yielded in
this he would yield in everything. He protested:

"You're exaggerating, Colonel. I believe in being broad-minded and liberal,
but, of course, I'm just as much agin the cranks and blatherskites and labor
unions and so on as you are. But fact is, I belong to so many organizations
now that I can't do 'em justice, and I want to think it over before I decide
about coming into the G.C.L."

Colonel Snow condescended, "Oh, no, I'm not exaggerating! Why the doctor here
heard you cussing out and defaming one of the finest types of Republican
congressmen, just this noon! And you have entirely the wrong idea about
'thinking over joining.' We're not begging you to join the G.C.L.--we're
permitting you to join. I'm not sure, my boy, but what if you put it off it'll
be too late. I'm not sure we'll want you then. Better think quick--better
think quick!"

The three Vigilantes, formidable in their righteousness, stared at him in a
taut silence. Babbitt waited through. He thought nothing at all, he merely
waited, while in his echoing head buzzed, "I don't want to join--I don't want
to join--I don't want to."

"All right. Sorry for you!" said Colonel Snow, and the three men abruptly
turned their beefy backs.


IV

As Babbitt went out to his car that evening he saw Vergil Gunch coming down
the block. He raised his hand in salutation, but Gunch ignored it and crossed
the street. He was certain that Gunch had seen him. He drove home in sharp
discomfort.

His wife attacked at once: "Georgie dear, Muriel Frink was in this afternoon,
and she says that Chum says the committee of this Good Citizens' League
especially asked you to join and you wouldn't. Don't you think it would be
better? You know all the nicest people belong, and the League stands for--"

"I know what the League stands for! It stands for the suppression of free
speech and free thought and everything else! I don't propose to be bullied and
rushed into joining anything, and it isn't a question of whether it's a good
league or a bad league or what the hell kind of a league it is; it's just a
question of my refusing to be told I got to--"

"But dear, if you don't join, people might criticize you."

"Let 'em criticize!"

"But I mean NICE people!"

"Rats, I--Matter of fact, this whole League is just a fad. It's like all these
other organizations that start off with such a rush and let on they're going
to change the whole works, and pretty soon they peter out and everybody
forgets all about 'em!"

"But if it's THE fad now, don't you think you--"

"No, I don't! Oh, Myra, please quit nagging me about it. I'm sick of hearing
about the confounded G.C.L. I almost wish I'd joined it when Verg first came
around, and got it over. And maybe I'd 've come in to-day if the committee
hadn't tried to bullyrag me, but, by God, as long as I'm a free-born
independent American cit--"

"Now, George, you're talking exactly like the German furnace-man."

"Oh, I am, am I! Then, I won't talk at all!"

He longed, that evening, to see Tanis Judique, to be strengthened by her
sympathy. When all the family were up-stairs he got as far as telephoning to
her apartment-house, but he was agitated about it and when the janitor
answered he blurted, "Nev' mind--I'll call later," and hung up the receiver.


V

If Babbitt had not been certain about Vergil Gunch's avoiding him, there could
be little doubt about William Washington Eathorne, next morning. When Babbitt
was driving down to the office he overtook Eathorne's car, with the great
banker sitting in anemic solemnity behind his chauffeur. Babbitt waved and
cried, "Mornin'!" Eathorne looked at him deliberately, hesitated, and gave him
a nod more contemptuous than a direct cut.

Babbitt's partner and father-in-law came in at ten:

"George, what's this I hear about some song and dance you gave Colonel Snow
about not wanting to join the G.C.L.? What the dickens you trying to do? Wreck
the firm? You don't suppose these Big Guns will stand your bucking them and
springing all this 'liberal' poppycock you been getting off lately, do you?"

"Oh, rats, Henry T., you been reading bum fiction. There ain't any such a
thing as these plots to keep folks from being liberal. This is a free country.
A man can do anything he wants to."

"Course th' ain't any plots. Who said they was? Only if folks get an idea
you're scatter-brained and unstable, you don't suppose they'll want to do
business with you, do you? One little rumor about your being a crank would do
more to ruin this business than all the plots and stuff that these fool
story-writers could think up in a month of Sundays."

That afternoon, when the old reliable Conrad Lyte, the merry miser, Conrad
Lyte, appeared, and Babbitt suggested his buying a parcel of land in the new
residential section of Dorchester, Lyte said hastily, too hastily, "No, no,
don't want to go into anything new just now."

A week later Babbitt learned, through Henry Thompson, that the officials of
the Street Traction Company were planning another real-estate coup, and that
Sanders, Torrey and Wing, not the Babbitt-Thompson Company, were to handle it
for them. "I figure that Jake Offutt is kind of leery about the way folks are
talking about you. Of course Jake is a rock-ribbed old die-hard, and he
probably advised the Traction fellows to get some other broker. George, you
got to do something!" trembled Thompson.

And, in a rush, Babbitt agreed. All nonsense the way people misjudged him,
but still--He determined to join the Good Citizens' League the next time he
was asked, and in furious resignation he waited. He wasn't asked. They
ignored him. He did not have the courage to go to the League and beg in, and
he took refuge in a shaky boast that he had "gotten away with bucking the
whole city. Nobody could dictate to him how he was going to think and act!"

He was jarred as by nothing else when the paragon of stenographers, Miss
McGoun, suddenly left him, though her reasons were excellent--she needed a
rest, her sister was sick, she might not do any more work for six months. He
was uncomfortable with her successor, Miss Havstad. What Miss Havstad's given
name was, no one in the office ever knew. It seemed improbable that she had a
given name, a lover, a powder-puff, or a digestion. She was so impersonal,
this slight, pale, industrious Swede, that it was vulgar to think of her as
going to an ordinary home to eat hash. She was a perfectly oiled and enameled
machine, and she ought, each evening, to have been dusted off and shut in her
desk beside her too-slim, too-frail pencil points. She took dictation
swiftly, her typing was perfect, but Babbitt became jumpy when he tried to
work with her. She made him feel puffy, and at his best-beloved daily jokes
she looked gently inquiring. He longed for Miss McGoun's return, and thought
of writing to her.

Then he heard that Miss McGoun had, a week after leaving him, gone over to his
dangerous competitors, Sanders, Torrey and Wing.

He was not merely annoyed; he was frightened. "Why did she quit, then?" he
worried. "Did she have a hunch my business is going on the rocks? And it was
Sanders got the Street Traction deal. Rats--sinking ship!"

Gray fear loomed always by him now. He watched Fritz Weilinger, the young
salesman, and wondered if he too would leave. Daily he fancied slights. He
noted that he was not asked to speak at the annual Chamber of Commerce dinner.
When Orville Jones gave a large poker party and he was not invited, he was
certain that he had been snubbed. He was afraid to go to lunch at the Athletic
Club, and afraid not to go. He believed that he was spied on; that when he
left the table they whispered about him. Everywhere he heard the rustling
whispers: in the offices of clients, in the bank when he made a deposit, in
his own office, in his own home. Interminably he wondered what They were
saying of him. All day long in imaginary conversations he caught them
marveling, "Babbitt? Why, say, he's a regular anarchist! You got to admire
the fellow for his nerve, the way he turned liberal and, by golly, just
absolutely runs his life to suit himself, but say, he's dangerous, that's what
he is, and he's got to be shown up."

He was so twitchy that when he rounded a corner and chanced on two
acquaintances talking--whispering--his heart leaped, and he stalked by like an
embarrassed schoolboy. When he saw his neighbors Howard Littlefield and
Orville Jones together, he peered at them, went indoors to escape their
spying, and was miserably certain that they had been
whispering--plotting--whispering.

Through all his fear ran defiance. He felt stubborn. Sometimes he decided
that he had been a very devil of a fellow, as bold as Seneca Doane; sometimes
he planned to call on Doane and tell him what a revolutionist he was, and
never got beyond the planning. But just as often, when he heard the soft
whispers enveloping him he wailed, "Good Lord, what have I done? Just played
with the Bunch, and called down Clarence Drum about being such a
high-and-mighty sodger. Never catch ME criticizing people and trying to make
them accept MY ideas!"

He could not stand the strain. Before long he admitted that he would like to
flee back to the security of conformity, provided there was a decent and
creditable way to return. But, stubbornly, he would not be forced back; he
would not, he swore, "eat dirt."

Only in spirited engagements with his wife did these turbulent fears rise to
the surface. She complained that he seemed nervous, that she couldn't
understand why he did not want to "drop in at the Littlefields'" for the
evening. He tried, but he could not express to her the nebulous facts of his
rebellion and punishment. And, with Paul and Tanis lost, he had no one to whom
he could talk. "Good Lord, Tinka is the only real friend I have, these days,"
he sighed, and he clung to the child, played floor-games with her all evening.

He considered going to see Paul in prison, but, though he had a pale curt note
from him every week, he thought of Paul as dead. It was Tanis for whom he was
longing.

"I thought I was so smart and independent, cutting Tanis out, and I need her,
Lord how I need her!" he raged. "Myra simply can't understand. All she sees
in life is getting along by being just like other folks. But Tanis, she'd tell
me I was all right."

Then he broke, and one evening, late, he did run to Tanis. He had not dared
to hope for it, but she was in, and alone. Only she wasn't Tanis. She was a
courteous, brow-lifting, ice-armored woman who looked like Tanis. She said,
"Yes, George, what is it?" in even and uninterested tones, and he crept away,
whipped.

His first comfort was from Ted and Eunice Littlefield.

They danced in one evening when Ted was home from the university, and Ted
chuckled, "What's this I hear from Euny, dad? She says her dad says you
raised Cain by boosting old Seneca Doane. Hot dog! Give 'em fits! Stir 'em
up! This old burg is asleep!" Eunice plumped down on Babbitt's lap, kissed
him, nestled her bobbed hair against his chin, and crowed; "I think you're
lots nicer than Howard. Why is it," confidentially, "that Howard is such an
old grouch? The man has a good heart, and honestly, he's awfully bright, but
he never will learn to step on the gas, after all the training I've given him.
Don't you think we could do something with him, dearest?"

"Why, Eunice, that isn't a nice way to speak of your papa," Babbitt observed,
in the best Floral Heights manner, but he was happy for the first time in
weeks. He pictured himself as the veteran liberal strengthened by the loyalty
of the young generation. They went out to rifle the ice-box. Babbitt gloated,
"If your mother caught us at this, we'd certainly get our come-uppance!" and
Eunice became maternal, scrambled a terrifying number of eggs for them, kissed
Babbitt on the ear, and in the voice of a brooding abbess marveled, "It beats
the devil why feminists like me still go on nursing these men!"

Thus stimulated, Babbitt was reckless when he encountered Sheldon Smeeth,
educational director of the Y.M.C.A. and choir-leader of the Chatham Road
Church. With one of his damp hands Smeeth imprisoned Babbitt's thick paw
while he chanted, "Brother Babbitt, we haven't seen you at church very often
lately. I know you're busy with a multitude of details, but you mustn't forget
your dear friends at the old church home."

Babbitt shook off the affectionate clasp--Sheldy liked to hold hands for a
long time--and snarled, "Well, I guess you fellows can run the show without
me. Sorry, Smeeth; got to beat it. G'day."

But afterward he winced, "If that white worm had the nerve to try to drag me
back to the Old Church Home, then the holy outfit must have been doing a lot
of talking about me, too."

He heard them whispering--whispering--Dr. John Jennison Drew, Cholmondeley
Frink, even William Washington Eathorne. The independence seeped out of him
and he walked the streets alone, afraid of men's cynical eyes and the
incessant hiss of whispering.