The Turmoil, Booth Tarkington [best english novels for beginners .txt] 📗

“There!” said the elderly wife. “You’re always wrong when you begin guessing about strangers. Those two young people aren’t honeymooners at all⁠—they’ve been married for years. A blind man could see that.”

“I wish I did know who threw that soot on you,” said Bibbs, looking up at the neighboring chimneys, as they went on. “They arrest children for throwing snowballs at the streetcars, but⁠—”

“But they don’t arrest the streetcars for shaking all the pictures in the houses crooked every time they go by. Nor for the uproar they make. I wonder what’s the cost in nerves for the noise of the city each year. Yes, we pay the price for living in a growing town, whether we have money to pay or none.”

“Who is it gets the pay?” said Bibbs.

“Not I!” she laughed.

“Nobody gets it. There isn’t any pay; there’s only money. And only some of the men downtown get much of that. That’s what my father wants me to get.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling to him, and nodding. “And you don’t want it, and you don’t need it.”

“But you don’t think I’m a sleepwalker, Mary?” He had told her of his father’s new plans for him, though he had not described the vigor and picturesqueness of their setting forth. “You think I’m right?”

“A thousand times!” she cried. “There aren’t so many happy people in this world, I think⁠—and you say you’ve found what makes you happy. If it’s a dream⁠—keep it!”

“The thought of going down there⁠—into the money shuffle⁠—I hate it as I never hated the shop!” he said. “I hate it! And the city itself, the city that the money shuffle has made⁠—just look at it! Look at it in winter. The snow’s tried hard to make the ugliness bearable, but the ugliness is winning; it’s making the snow hideous; the snow’s getting dirty on top, and it’s foul underneath with the dirt and disease of the unclean street. And the dirt and the ugliness and the rush and the noise aren’t the worst of it; it’s what the dirt and ugliness and rush and noise mean⁠—that’s the worst! The outward things are insufferable, but they’re only the expression of a spirit⁠—a blind embryo of a spirit, not yet a soul⁠—oh, just greed! And this ‘go ahead’ nonsense! Oughtn’t it all to be a fellowship? I shouldn’t want to get ahead if I could⁠—I’d want to help the other fellow to keep up with me.”

“I read something the other day and remembered it for you,” said Mary. “It was something Burne-Jones said of a picture he was going to paint: ‘In the first picture I shall make a man walking in the street of a great city, full of all kinds of happy life: children, and lovers walking, and ladies leaning from the windows all down great lengths of a street leading to the city walls; and there the gates are wide open, letting in a space of green field and cornfield in harvest; and all round his head a great rain of swirling autumn leaves blowing from a little walled graveyard.’ ”

“And if I painted,” Bibbs returned, “I’d paint a lady walking in the street of a great city, full of all kinds of uproarious and futile life⁠—children being taught only how to make money, and lovers hurrying to get richer, and ladies who’d given up trying to wash their windows clean, and the gates of the city wide open, letting in slums and slaughterhouses and freight-yards, and all round this lady’s head a great rain of swirling soot⁠—” He paused, adding, thoughtfully: “And yet I believe I’m glad that soot got on your cheek. It was just as if I were your brother⁠—the way you gave me your handkerchief to rub it off for you. Still, Edith never⁠—”

“Didn’t she?” said Mary, as he paused again.

“No. And I⁠—” He contented himself with shaking his head instead of offering more definite information. Then he realized that they were passing the New House, and he sighed profoundly. “Mary, our walk’s almost over.”

She looked as blank. “So it is, Bibbs.”

They said no more until they came to her gate. As they drifted slowly to a stop, the door of Roscoe’s house opened, and Roscoe came out with Sibyl, who was startlingly pale. She seemed little enfeebled by her illness, however, walking rather quickly at her husband’s side and not taking his arm. The two crossed the street without appearing to see Mary and her companion, and entering the New House, were lost to sight. Mary gazed after them gravely, but Bibbs, looking at Mary, did not see them.

“Mary,” he said, “you seem very serious. Is anything bothering you?”

“No, Bibbs.” And she gave him a bright, quick look that made him instantly unreasonably happy.

“I know you want to go in⁠—” he began.

“No. I don’t want to.”

“I mustn’t keep you standing here, and I mustn’t go in with you⁠—but⁠—I just wanted to say⁠—I’ve seemed very stupid to myself this morning, grumbling about soot and all that⁠—while all the time I⁠—Mary, I think it’s been the very happiest of all the hours you’ve given me. I do. And⁠—I don’t know just why⁠—but it’s seemed to me that it was one I’d always remember. And you,” he added, falteringly, “you look so⁠—so beautiful today!”

“It must have been the soot on my cheek, Bibbs.”

“Mary, will you tell me something?” he asked.

“I think I will.”

“It’s something I’ve had a lot of theories about, but none of them ever just fits. You used to wear furs in the fall, but now it’s so much colder, you don’t⁠—you never wear them at all any more. Why don’t you?”

Her eyes fell for a moment, and she grew red. Then she looked up gaily. “Bibbs, if I tell you the answer will you promise not to ask any more questions?”

“Yes. Why did you stop wearing them?”

“Because I found I’d be warmer without them!” She caught his hand quickly in her own for an instant, laughed into his eyes, and ran into the