Balance Wheel Read online

  Wilhelm’s gallery, though small, could not have been more perfect. Some of the paintings bore famous old names, but Wilhelm had decided, a few years ago, that modern art had become “important.” In a carefully selected spot, he had had the Van Gogh hung. The sunset light infused it with brilliance. Charles stood before it, and affected to study it with profound thoughtfulness. But, regrettably, he was only bored. It lacked “finish” for him. The flowers and the fruits, to him, had a crudeness, and he wondered why it was necessary not to paint—things as they were. Then he remembered some of the phrases Wilhelm had used to Phyllis about the painting.

  “It has a kind of ‘emotion’ about it,” he murmured, rubbing his chin. “I’m not an artist, as I’ve admitted before. But I’m beginning to see what the man means—A ‘mood’ perhaps.”

  Wilhelm was surprised. He stood off from his new treasure, and studied it from every angle. “Definitely a mood,” he said. “Van Gogh is all moods. A fleeting aspect—” He looked at Charles challengingly. “There are some who have even been stupid enough to say that Van Gogh, the supreme realist, is a ‘surrealist.’ Nonsense. You don’t believe that, do you?”

  Charles had not the slightest idea. But he shook his head solemnly. “Stupid,” he repeated.

  He knew he had to leave before he made a fool of himself in Wilhelm’s sharp eyes. Hurriedly, he again shook hands with his brother, and then with Phyllis. They went down the stairs with him and saw him off in an atmosphere of the utmost cordiality.

  Wilhelm and Phyllis went back into the music room. “A little Brahms, darling,” said Wilhelm, seating himself. He looked up at Phyllis, and took her hand, and smiled, his nervous face becoming gentle. “Do you know, I have hopes of Charles,” he remarked. “Sometimes he is almost perceptive.” The Wittmann Civic Park!

  “Only you ever caught real glimpses of Charles,” answered Phyllis. Suddenly she bent, and kissed her husband’s forehead. The thin wrinkles in it smoothed themselves out under her mouth. I do love him, she thought. He is really so sweet. Her eyes became wet, and there was a deep pain in her heart. Wilhelm lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed it.

  Then he frowned anxiously. “Phyllis, wait a moment,” he said, as she was about to move away towards the piano. “I’ve been worrying about you. I thought at first it was only my imagination, but you are so pale lately, and sometimes too languid for real health. Do you think,” he added, sitting up with new apprehension, “that you could possibly be—”

  “No, no, of course not,” she answered hastily. “And it is your imagination, dear. But if you wish, I’ll see the doctor tomorrow.”

  Wilhelm sighed. “Well, I’m glad it’s not—that.”

  Phyllis went to the piano. Yes, yes, she thought, I’m glad, too. The keyboard swam before her and for a moment she thought she would burst into tears.

  CHAPTER III

  Charles’ neat carriage was waiting for him, with its two neat middle-aged horses. He smiled as he sat down on the crimson leather seat. Wilhelm, for all his insistence upon “the modern,” was fussily resentful of automobiles, which he called many opprobrious names, such as “filthy” and “stinking.” Charles was glad that he had not used his new Oldsmobile—red and bright with brass and utterly dear to Jimmy’s heart—in calling upon his brother. It might have destroyed that important moment of understanding between them.

  The horses trotted down the narrow but well-kept roads. Sunday visiting had been completed by most people, as it was now slightly after six o’clock. Charles had the road to himself. He leaned back and enjoyed the sight of the small or large mansions lying among their gardens far back from the roads. Here lived the rich “outsiders,” the oil and coal “barons,” as Friederich called them with hatred. Here also lived the wellto-do residents of Andersburg. It was understood that there was considerable difference between the “outsiders” and the “residents.” The outsiders had not been born in Andersburg, and though many of them used their homes as permanent residences now, and only visited their “illicit holdings” at the mines or the oil fields occasionally on business, the fact that they had not been born in this city or its environs forever set them apart from the others.

  Andersburg is hidebound, and conservative, like me, thought Charles, without derision. He had many friends among the “outsiders.” He found most of them to be very sensible men, and not “brutes,” as Wilhelm called them. (Brutes, in Wilhelm’s opinion, were men not passionately devoted to one art or another.) Some of their homes might regrettably be without taste, and somewhat flamboyant, but they were comfortable, and the kitchens could always boast a good cook. This alone would have endeared them to Charles.

  No one was about. He could catch a flash of light here and there on a conservatory roof or wall, or a flutter of a pretty skirt entering a distant door. But it was definitely evening, and the western sky was turning a brilliant red over the mountains across the river. The river reflected the wild color. Barges and boats stood on the scarlet mirror, motionless. The city, brown and white and yellow, curved with the curve of the water, illuminated in its narrow valley. Charles could see it all below him, and to him it was the most beautiful sight in all the world. He had travelled considerably, but still, Andersburg was his home and he never dreamed of living anywhere else. There was no sound about him but the gentle rumbling of the carriage wheels and the twittering of birds and the murmur of the light hot wind in the pines which separated one estate from another. Sometimes he passed large woods of first-growth timber, huge and matted and green and full of rustlings. He lit a cigar with relish. Wilhelm did not like cigars, though he smoked cigarettes with short, nervous puffings. Charles liked his coachman, who was also his man-of-all-work, and he liked that broad back on the perch above him.

  He was gathering fortitude for his visit to his brother Friederich. He was often fond of Wilhelm, and Jochen he healthily hated and endlessly watched, but understood. Sometimes they were very friendly with each other. But Charles despised Friederich. There was much about Friederich which he could never understand, and he distrusted what he did not know.

  Now Charles frowned. All at once his cigar did not appeal to him, though being thrifty, he continued to smoke it. He forgot the shouldering mountains about him; he no longer heard the birds and the sweet high wind. He was going to see Friederich, and the thought was enough to destroy his sense of well-being. Preoccupied with thoughts of Friederich, he hardly saw that the carriage was quite near the river. He did not see the other carriage, approaching him, until the occupant hailed him.

  His own carriage stopped. The two vehicles stood side by side. Charles smiled. “Hello, Oliver,” he said to the dark young man in the other carriage. He liked Oliver Prescott, Andersburg’s most prominent young lawyer, and one of the directors of the Prescott Lumber Company. He liked the young man’s quiet alertness, his direct look and his air of intelligence and integrity. Oliver was in black, for his wife’s mother had recently died. Charles also observed that Oliver was not driving his automobile, to which he was much attached. Probably because of mourning, thought Charles, vaguely.

  He said: “Liked the way you handled that Tom Murphy business, Oliver.”

  “Glad you did,” said the young lawyer. He smiled, and his face became full of amusement. “But perhaps I ought to thank you, too. I heard you persuaded your brother to accept payment for the damage to his windows. When he was so hellbent in the beginning for ‘justice’ and throwing Tom Murphy into jail. For a lifetime, preferably.”

  Charles stopped smiling, remembering Friederich. He said, reservedly: “Oh, I didn’t have much to do with it. I just talked to Fred, that’s all. I pointed out to him that Tom Murphy was well liked among the workingmen. Besides, Tom’s my best foreman, and I didn’t want to lose him.” He paused. Friederich was his brother, even if he was a confounded fool. He said: “Well. Tom’s a Roman Catholic, and didn’t like Fred saying that religion is the opium of the people, or something, and that the Church is the ‘enemy’ o
f the ‘inevitable Socialistic state,’ as Fred calls it. After all, he forgot that Tom might have his convictions, too. He still forgets these things,” Charles added. “Well, anyway, I just reminded him that he’d lose much sympathy among the working people in the town if Tom caught it hard, and that quite a number of the men are Catholics, too.”

  Oliver listened thoughtfully, nodding his head once or twice. He saw Charles was uneasy at discussing his brother. “It’s settled, anyway, and that’s the main thing,” he remarked. “And I don’t suppose Tom will break any more windows. Window-breaking, as I told him, was not the way to settle differences or win arguments, even though it’s an ancient practice. Tom agreed: besides, it cost him thirty dollars, not to mention my fee for keeping him out of jail.”

  They laughed together. Charles asked Oliver about his wife and young son, and forgot his discomfort. They parted a few moments later. Now why, thought Charles, couldn’t I have had just one brother like that? Why did I have to be cursed with the ones I have?

  The carriage was now rolling down a dim, old street of big old houses. The late sun could not penetrate through the enormous elms and chestnuts, so that a cool shadow lay under them. It was a quiet street, a sound middle-class street, this Chestnut Road. The verandahs were deserted, though windows stood wide open. The gardens and stables behind the houses were deep in shadow.

  The people took pride in their street. They did not take pride in having Friederich Wittmann as a neighbor. He had bought the “old” Benchley house, but it was “running to seed” since Friederich had moved in after leaving his former home. This was most probably because Friederich was parsimonious, and did not employ a good man for the care of his grounds. He could not get a good man, for, in spite of high Socialistic ideals, he paid miserable wages to anyone whom he could inveigle into working for him. If there is any “grinding of the faces of the poor” Fred’s a fine example of it, thought Charles, as his carriage stopped before his brother’s house.

  He paused a moment before getting out. He looked at his brother’s home with distaste, and with quite as much annoyance as the neighbors frequently displayed. There was no sense in having practically no grass at all on the muddy, uneven lawn. But then, grass seed cost money, and if grass were almost totally absent then one did not need to employ anyone regularly to care for it. The big house had once had a portly and prosperous appearance, but now the brown paint was blistered and peeling. The yellow verandah posts had faded to a bilious color, and had cracked. The yellow shutters, too, were neglected. The shingled roof was dark, and Charles suspected that it might leak here and there in a bad rain. If it did, it would be repaired hastily, and as cheaply as possible. The windows were grimy, the lank curtains behind them noticeably dirty. Here the shadow was heaviest and dullest. Possibly just as well, said Charles to himself.

  Friederich was not married, and Charles’ ring was answered by Friederich’s German housekeeper, a fat and untidy old woman with a squat, grim face and hostile eyes blinking behind spectacles with steel rims. She did not like Charles, and Charles quite rightly suspected that she had acquired this point of view from his brother. He was a “baron,” an “enemy of the people,” though the “poor old devil” hadn’t the sense to know that Friederich, as one of the directors of the Wittman Machine Tool Company, received almost as large a salary as Charles, its president. He saved practically all of it, except what went for the printing and distribution of his infernal pamphlets, and the hiring of the public halls where Friederich addressed the workingmen of Andersburg and other cities in the State. No doubt she thought Friederich gave away his money, if he had any at all, to the “poor” and the “oppressed.” And no doubt, Charles further reflected, as he entered the dark and grimy hall, he’s implied that to her just as he implies that to his followers.

  Again, Charles was exasperated. He tried to quell this emotion. It was no use at all in being exasperated with Friederich. Charles tried to calm himself, but this was almost impossible in the face of the smells which greeted him upon entering what once had been a fine big parlor. The whole house smelled of dirt and dust and slovenliness.

  With the memory of Wilhelm’s beautiful white Georgian house still bright in his mind, Charles always found Friederich’s house newly intolerable on these visits. With disgust, he saw again the ugly cheap brown carpet in the parlor, the mildewed brown walls, the battered old furniture which at its best had never been expensive or good. The black hearth was heaped with ancient ashes, which had not been removed after the last fires. The darkened light which forced its way through the windows added to the gloom and the sense of deterioration. Every stained oaken table was heaped with papers, books and pamphlets; Friederich had not had gas installed in this house, and he used naked oil lamps such as one found in the very poorest of farmhouses far out in the country. The chimneys of the lamps were rarely, if ever, washed; they were smeared with soot. Here and there, mingled with the books and the papers and the lamps, were some of Friederich’s pipes. The pipes, at least, were costly and well cared for.

  The bookcases near the fireplace were crowded with books on history, philosophy and socialism. They overflowed in piles against the walls.

  Though the early summer evening was still very hot outside, it was cold in this room, and musty, as if sun or fire never warmed it. Charles, in the very face of Mrs. Schuele, openly dusted the cracked leather seat of a chair before sitting on it. She informed him, sourly, in “low Dutch,” that Mr. Wittmann would be down at once, though he had expected Mr. Karl earlier. She stolidly accepted Charles’ frown, then, as he said nothing, she lumbered away, rattling the frayed, bead portieres at the doorway in her passing. For some moments after she had gone the rattling continued, like the clinking of dice, and the sound rasped Charles’ nerves.

  While he waited, Charles picked up a book on the cluttered table beside him. The Growth of Socialism, by Eugene Debs. He had read all Mr. Debs’ books, and had been impressed by the man’s burning sincerity, if by his complete ignorance of reality. Quite often, Charles had been moved to agree with Debs’ denunciation of injustices, and had been touched by his compassion for suffering. This book was a new one to Charles. Charles scanned a few pages. Then he was disturbed. The man was losing any contact with reality he might ever have had. There was a faint glittering madness in his writing, now.

  Here and there, passages were heavily marked and underscored by Friederich’s pencil. Charles put aside the book. He looked at the dead cigar in his hand, then threw it angrily into the pile of ashes on the hearth. He thought of Debs, who had once been arrested on a charge of conspiracy to kill. He had been acquitted. But there it was. Kill. Fanaticism inevitably led to hatred and to murder, no matter how high its original ideals, and its faith. It led to madness. Charles, in that cold and dirty room, became cold, himself.

  Well, thank God, there was no danger of Socialism in America, and probably no danger of it anywhere else in any free country. Freedom lay in the people, and in their desire for it, and a strong, centralized State was its enemy. Charles thought this, waiting for his brother.

  But still, he felt cold. The Constitution of the United States asserted that man’s rights came from God. Socialism and its like declared that they should come from the State. That was an evil thing, for governments which dominated peoples were naturally their foes. Well. He was getting himself in a stew for nothing. Socialism was as far away from America as the star Arcturus, and could approach no closer.

  There was a fast sound of footsteps approaching, and a fresh smell of aroused dust. Charles involuntarily frowned, recognizing the approach of his brother. He settled himself in his chair obdurately. Friederich burst into the room, and Charles understood, gloomily, that his brother was involved in one of his fits of fanaticism.

  Charles’ worst apprehensions were confirmed when his brother spoke in a loud but curiously stifled voice; and in German: “Karl! You are late. I suppose you have dawdled the afternoon away with Wilhelm, forgetting, in your i
nterest in his society, that I have a meeting less than two hours from now.”

  Charles held back his temper. He replied in English: “I’m sorry. I had a matter to discuss with—Willie. I was late getting to his house, too.” He spoke mildly. “Well, Fred, I’m here, anyway. I won’t keep you, if you’re busy.”

  Friederich stood before him, teetering on his heels. He said, sullenly: “Of course, I can’t expect you to remember anything important about me. You’re very irritating, you know,” he added, in English. “I speak to you in our native language, and you deliberately refuse to answer me in it. Are you ashamed of it, and our inheritance?”

  His belligerent attitude aroused Charles’ usually latent irascibility. He always tried to be patient with his brothers, for the sake of the company, and his own peace of mind. But very often this was difficult to do. He said: “‘Our native language,’ Fred? Our native language is English. We are Americans, not Germans. ‘Our inheritance’? It is the inheritance of all Americans—freedom, tolerance and decency.”

  But Friederich obstinately returned to German: “You are as full of platitudes, my Karl, as a pudding is full of raisins. That is the capitalistic mind. Freedom! Tolerance! Decency!” He flung himself into a chair opposite Charles. “What does a capitalistic society know of these? An unjust society, where wealth is wrongfully and unevenly distributed?”

  O my God! thought Charles. Friederich was even more excited than usual. Ordinarily, he had enough good judgment to enquire about his brother’s health, and make some casual remarks. To plunge like this into his favorite subject, and with so much excitement, indicated that he would soon become unbearable, and that something was obsessing him. Charles stirred a little.