Part 48 (1/2)
BEING NO CHAPTER AT ALL BUT AN INTERMEZZO BEFORE THE LAST MOVEMENT
The stage is dark. In the dim distance something is moving. It is a world hurrying through s.p.a.ce. Somewhat in the foreground but enveloped in the murk sit three figures. They are tending a vast loom. Its myriad threads run through illimitable s.p.a.ce and the woof of the loom is time.
The three figures weaving through the dark do not know whence comes the power that moves the loom eternally. They have not asked. They work in the pitch of night.
From afar in the earth comes a voice--high-keyed and gentle:
A Voice, _pianissimo_:
”This business of governing a sovereign people is losing its savor. I must be getting some kind of spiritual necrosis. Generally speaking, about all the real pleasure a grand llama of politics finds in life, is in counting his ingrates--his governors and senators and congressmen!
Why, George, it's been nearly ten years since I've cussed out a senator or a governor, yet I read Browning with joy and the last time I heard Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, I went stark mad. But woe is me, George! Woe is me. When the Judge and Dan Sands named the postmaster last month without consulting me, I didn't care. I tell you, George, I must be getting old!”
Second Voice, _fortissimo_:
”No, Doc--you're not getting old--why, you're not sixty--a mere spring chicken yet--and Dan Sands is seventy-five if he's a day. What's the matter with you in this here Zeitgeist that Carlyle talks about! It's this restless little time spirit that's the matter with you. You're all broke out and sick abed with the Zeitgeist. You've got no more necrosis than a Belgian hare's got paresis--I'm right here to tell you and my diagnosis goes.”
Third Voice, _adagio_:
”James, my guides say that we're beginning a great movement from the few to the many. That is their expression. Cromwell thinks it means economic changes; but I was talking with Jefferson the other night and he says no--it means political changes in order to get economic. He says Tilden tells him--”
The Second Voice, _fortissimo_:
”Who cares what Tilden says! My noodle tells me that there's to be a big do in this world, and my control tinkles the cash register, pops into the profit account, eats up ten cent magazines, and gets away with five feet of literary dynamite fuse every week. I'm that old Commodore Noah that's telling you to get out your rubbers for the flood.”
The First Voice, _andante con expression_:
”It's a queer world--a mighty queer world. Here's Laura's kindergarten growing until it joins with Violet Hogan's day nursery and Laura's flower seeds splas.h.i.+ng color out of G.o.d's suns.h.i.+ne in front yards clear down to Plain Valley. Money coming in about as they need it. Dan Sands and Morty, Wright and Perry and the Dago saloon keeper, Joe Calvin, John Dexter and the gamblers--all the robbers, high and low, dividing their booty. With all the prosperity we are having, with all the opening of mills and factories--it's getting easier to make money and consequently harder to respect it. The more money there is, the less it buys, and that is true in public sentiment just as it is in groceries and furniture. Do you fellows realize that it's been ten years since the _Times_ has run any of those 'Pen Portraits of Self-Made Men'?” A silence, then the voice continues:
”George, I honestly believe, if money keeps getting crowded farther and farther into the background of life--we'll develop an honest politician.
We know that to give a bribe is just as bad as to take one. Think of the men debauched with money disguised as campaign expenses, or with offices or with franks and pa.s.ses and pull and power! Think of all the bad government fostered, all the injustices legalized, just to win a sordid game! The best I can do now is to cry, 'Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!
The harlot and the thief are my betters.'”
The _voices_ cease. The earth whirls on. The brooding spirits at the loom muse in silence, for they need no voices.
The First Fate: ”The birds! The birds! I seemed to hear the night birds twittering to bring in the dawn.”
The Second Fate: ”The birds do not bring in the dawn. The dawn comes.”
The First Fate: ”But always and always before the day, we hear these voices.”
The Third Fate: ”World after world threads its time through our loom. We watch the pattern grow. Days and eras and ages pa.s.s. We know nothing of meanings. We only weave. We know that the pattern brightens as new days come and always voices in the dark tell us of the changing pattern of a new day.”
The First Fate: ”But the birds--the birds! I seem to hear the night birds' voices that make the dawn.”
The Second Fate: ”They are not birds calling, but the whistle of shot and sh.e.l.l and the shrill, far cries of man in air. But still I say the dawn comes, the voices do not bring it.”
The Third Fate: ”We do not know how the awakening voices in the dark know that the light is coming. We do not know what power moves the loom. We do not know who dreams the pattern. We only weave and muse and listen for the voices of change as a world threads its events through the woof of time on our loom.”