Jennie Gerhardt - Драйзер Теодор - Страница 31

constantly recruited. Our modern brain-pan does not seem capable as yet

of receiving, sorting, and storing the vast army of facts and impressions which present themselves daily. The white light of publicity is too white.

We are weighed upon by too many things. It is as if the wisdom of the

infinite were struggling to beat itself into finite and cup-big minds.

Lester Kane was the natural product of these untoward conditions. His

was a naturally observing mind, Rabelaisian in its strength and

tendencies, but confused by the multiplicity of things, the vastness of the panorama of life, the glitter of its details, the unsubstantial nature of its forms, the uncertainty of their justification. Born a Catholic, he was no longer a believer in the divine inspiration of Catholicism; raised a

member of the social elect, he had ceased to accept the fetish that birth and station presuppose any innate superiority; brought up as the heir to a comfortable fortune and expected to marry in his own sphere, he was by

no means sure that he wanted marriage on any terms. Of course the

conjugal state was an institution. It was established. Yes, certainly. But what of it? The whole nation believed in it. True, but other nations

believed in polygamy. There were other questions that bothered him—

such questions as the belief in a single deity or ruler of the universe, and whether a republican, monarchial, or aristocratic form of government

were best. In short, the whole body of things material, social, and spiritual had come under the knife of his mental surgery and had been left but half dissected. Life was not proved to him. Not a single idea of his, unless it were the need of being honest, was finally settled. In all other things he wavered, questioned, procrastinated, leaving to time and to the powers

back of the universe the solution of the problem that vexed him. Yes,

Lester Kane was the natural product of a combination of elements—

religious, commercial, social— modified by that pervading atmosphere of

liberty in our national life which is productive of almost uncounted

freedom of thought and action. Thirty-six years of age, and apparently a

man of vigorous, aggressive, and sound personality, he was, nevertheless, an essentially animal-man, pleasantly veneered by education and

environment. Like the hundreds of thousands of Irishmen who in his

father's day had worked on the railroad tracks, dug in the mines, picked

and shovelled in the ditches, and carried up bricks and mortar on the

endless structures of a new land, he was strong, hairy, axiomatic, and

witty.

"Do you want me to come back here next year?" he had asked of Brother Ambrose, when, in his seventeenth year, that ecclesiastical member was

about to chastise him for some school-boy misdemeanour.

The other stared at him in astonishment. "Your father will have to look after that," he replied.

"Well, my father won't look after it," Lester returned. "If you touch me with that whip I'll take things into my own hands. I'm not committing any punishable offences, and I'm not going to be knocked around any more."

Words, unfortunately, did not avail in this case, but a good vigorous Irish-American wrestle did, in which the whip was broken and the discipline of

the school so far impaired that he was compelled to take his clothes and

leave. After that he looked his father in the eye and told him that he was not going to school any more.

"I'm perfectly willing to jump in and work," he explained. "There's nothing in a classical education for me. Let me go into the office, and I guess I'll pick up enough to carry me through."

Old Archibald Kane, keen, single-minded, of unsullied commercial

honour, admired his son's determination, and did not attempt to coerce

him.

"Come down to the office," he said; "perhaps there is something you can do."

Entering upon a business life at the age of eighteen, Lester had worked

faithfully, rising in his father's estimation, until now he had come to be, in a way, his personal representative. Whenever there was a contract to be

entered upon, an important move to be decided, or a representative of the manufactory to be sent anywhere to consumate a deal, Lester was the

agent selected. His father trusted him implicitly, and so diplomatic and

earnest was he in the fulfilment of his duties that this trust had never been impaired.

"Business is business," was a favourite axiom with him, and the very tone in which he pronounced the words was a reflex of his character and

personality.

There were molten forces in him, flames which burst forth now and then

in spite of the fact that he was sure that he had them under control. One of these impulses was a taste for liquor, of which he was perfectly sure he

had the upper hand. He drank but very little, he thought, and only, in a

social way, among friends; never to excess. Another weakness lay in his

sensual nature; but here again he believed he was the master. If he chose to have irregular relations with women, he was capable of deciding where

the danger point lay. If men were only guided by a sense of the brevity

inherent in all such relationships there would not be so many troublesome consequences growing out of them. Finally, he flattered himself that he

had a grasp upon a right method of living, a method which was nothing

more than a quiet acceptance of social conditions as they were, tempered

by a little personal judgment as to the right and wrong of individual

conduct. Not to fuss and fume, not to cry out about anything, not to be

mawkishly sentimental; to be vigorous and sustain your personality intact

— such was his theory of life, and he was satisfied that it was a good one.

As to Jennie, his original object in approaching her had been purely

selfish. But now that he had asserted his masculine prerogatives, and she had yielded, at least in part, he began to realise that she was no common girl, no toy of the passing hour. There is a time in some men's lives when they unconsciously begin to view feminine youth and beauty not so much

in relation to the ideal happiness, but rather with regard to the social

conventions by which they are environed.

"Must it be?" they ask themselves, in speculating concerning the possibility of taking a maiden to wife, "that I shall be compelled to swallow the whole social code, make a covenant with society, sign a

pledge of abstinence, and give to another a life interest in all my affairs, when I know too well that I am but taking to my arms a variable creature

like myself, whose wishes are apt to become insistent and burdensome in

proportion to the decrease of her beauty and interest?" These are the men, who, unwilling to risk the manifold contingencies of an authorised

connection, are led to consider the advantages of a less-binding union, a temporary companionship. They seek to seize the happiness of life

without paying the cost of their indulgence. Later on, they think, the more definite and conventional relationship may be established without

reproach or the necessity of radical readjustment.

Lester Kane was past the youthful love period, and he knew it. The

innocence and unsophistication of younger ideals had gone. He wanted

the comfort of feminine companionship, but he was more and more

disinclined to give up his personal liberty in order to obtain it. He would not wear the social shackles if it were possible to satisfy the needs of his heart and nature and still remain free and unfettered. Of course he must