James Richard Joy - "Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century"

Edith Wharton - "The Valley Of Decision"

Alice C. Hegan - "Mrs. Wiggs Of The Cabbage Patch"

Charlotte Yonge - "The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations"

The Metropolis

U >> Upton Sinclair >> The Metropolis




The train passed, and then the man's words came to them: "They force
you to build palaces, and then they put you into tenements! They
force you to spin fine raiment, and then they dress you in rags!
They force you to build jails, and then they lock you up in them!
They force you to make guns, and then they shoot you with them! They
own the political parties, and they name the candidates, and trick
you into voting for them--and they call it the law! They herd you
into armies and send you to shoot your brothers--and they call it
order! They take a piece of coloured rag and call it the flag and
teach you to let yourself be shot--and they call it patriotism!
First, last, and all the time, you do the work and they get the
benefit--they, the masters and owners, and you--fools--fools
--fools!"

The man's voice had mounted to a scream, and he flung his hands into
the air and broke into jeering laughter. Then came another train,
and Montague could not hear him; but he could see that he was
rushing on in the torrent of his denunciation.

Montague stood rooted to the spot; he was shocked to the depths of
his being--he could scarcely contain himself as he stood there. He
longed to spring forward to beard the man where he stood, to shout
him down, to rebuke him before the crowd.

The Major must have seen his agitation, for he took his arm and led
him back from the throng, saying: "Come! We can't help it."

"But--but--," he protested, "the police ought to arrest him."

"They do sometimes," said the Major, "but it doesn't do any good."

They walked on, and the sounds of the shrill voice died away. "Tell
me," said Montague, in a low voice, "does that go on very often?"

"Around the comer from where I live," said the other, "it goes on
every Saturday night."

"And do the people listen?" he asked.

"Sometimes they can't keep the street clear," was the reply.

And again they walked in silence. At last Montague asked, "What does
it mean?"

The Major shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps another civil war," said
he.






CHAPTER II





Allan Momtague's father had died about five years before. A couple
of years later his younger brother, Oliver, had announced his
intention of seeking a career in New York. He had no profession, and
no definite plans; but his father's friends were men of influence
and wealth, and the doors were open to him. So he had turned his
share of the estate into cash and departed.

Oliver was a gay and pleasure-loving boy, with all the material of a
prodigal son in him; his brother had more than half expected to see
him come back in a year or two with empty pockets. But New York had
seemed to agree with Oliver. He never told what he was doing--what
he wrote was simply that he was managing to keep the wolf from the
door. But his letters hinted at expensive ways of life; and at
Christmas time, and at Cousin Alice's birthday, he would send home
presents which made the family stare.

Montague had always thought of himself as a country lawyer and
planter. But two months ago a fire had swept away the family
mansion, and then on top of that had come an offer for the land; and
with Oliver telegraphing several times a day in his eagerness, they
had taken the sudden resolution to settle up their affairs and move
to New York.

There were Montague and his mother, and Cousin Alice, who was
nineteen, and old "Mammy Lucy," Mrs. Montague's servant. Oliver had
met them at Jersey City, radiant with happiness. He looked just as
much of a boy as ever, and just as beautiful; excepting that he was
a little paler, New York had not changed him at all. There was a man
in uniform from the hotel to take charge of their baggage, and a big
red touring-car for them; and now they were snugly settled in their
apartments, with the younger brother on duty as counsellor and
guide.

Montague had come to begin life all over again. He had brought his
money, and he expected to invest it, and to live upon the income
until he had begun to earn something. He had worked hard at his
profession, and he meant to work in New York, and to win his way
in the end. He knew almost nothing about the city--he faced it with
the wide-open eyes of a child.

One began to learn quickly, he found. It was like being swept into a
maelstrom: first the hurrying throngs on the ferry-boat, and then
the cabmen and the newsboys shouting, and the cars with clanging
gongs; then the swift motor, gliding between trucks and carriages
and around corners where big policemen shepherded the scurrying
populace; and then Fifth Avenue, with its rows of shops and towering
hotels; and at last a sudden swing round a corner--and their home.

"I have picked a quiet family place for you," Oliver had said, and
that had greatly pleased his brother. But he had stared in dismay
when he entered this latest "apartment hotel"--which catered for two
or three hundred of the most exclusive of the city's
aristocracy--and noted its great arcade, with massive doors of
bronze, and its entrance-hall, trimmed with Caen stone and Italian
marble, and roofed with a vaulted ceiling painted by modern masters.
Men in livery bore their wraps and bowed the way before them; a
great bronze elevator shot them to the proper floor; and they went
to their rooms down a corridor walled with blood-red marble and
paved with carpet soft as a cushion. Here were six rooms of palatial
size, with carpets, drapery, and furniture of a splendour quite
appalling to Montague.

As soon as the man who bore their wraps had left the room, he turned
upon his brother.

"Oliver," he said, "how much are we paying for all this?"

Oliver smiled. "You are not paying anything, old man," he replied.
"You're to be my guests for a month or two, until you get your
bearings."

"That's very good of you," said the other; "--we'll talk about it
later. But meantime, tell me what the apartment costs."

And then Montague encountered his first full charge of New York
dynamite. "Six hundred dollars a week," said Oliver.

He started as if his brother had struck him. "Six hundred dollars a
week!" he gasped.

"Yes," said the other, quietly.

It was fully a minute before he could find his breath. "Brother," he
exclaimed, "you're mad!"

"It is a very good bargain," smiled the other; "I have some
influence with them."

Again there was a pause, while Montague groped for words. "Oliver,"
he exclaimed, "I can't believe you! How could you think that we
could pay such a price?"

"I didn't think it," said Oliver; "I told you I expected to pay it
myself."

"But how could we let you pay it for us?" cried the other. "Can you
fancy that _I_ will ever earn enough to pay such a price?"

"Of course you will," said Oliver. "Don't be foolish, Allan--you'll
find it's easy enough to make money in New York. Leave it to me, and
wait awhile."

But the other was not to be put off. He sat down on the embroidered
silk bedspread, and demanded abruptly, "What do you expect my income
to be a year?"

"I'm sure I don't know," laughed Oliver; "nobody takes the time to
add up his income. You'll make what you need, and something over for
good measure. This one thing you'll know for certain--the more you
spend, the more you'll be able to make."

And then, seeing that the sober look was not to be expelled from his
brother's face, Oliver seated himself and crossed his legs, and
proceeded to set forth the paradoxical philosophy of extravagance.
His brother had come into a city of millionaires. There was a
certain group of people--"the right set," was Oliver's term for
them--and among them he would find that money was as free as air. So
far as his career was concerned, he would find that there was
nothing in all New York so costly as economy. If he did not live
like a gentleman, he would find himself excluded from the circle of
the elect--and how he would manage to exist then was a problem too
difficult for his brother to face.

And so, as quickly as he could, he was to bring himself to a state
of mind where things did not surprise him; where he did what others
did and paid what others paid, and did it serenely, as if he had
done it all his life. He would soon find his place; meantime all he
had to do was to put himself into his brother's charge. "You'll find
in time that I have the strings in my hands," the latter added.
"Just take life easy, and let me introduce you to the right people."

All of which sounded very attractive. "But are you sure," asked
Montague, "that you understand what I'm here for? I don't want to
get into the Four Hundred, you know--I want to practise law."

"In the first place," replied Oliver, "don't talk about the Four
Hundred--it's vulgar and silly; there's no such thing. In the next
place, you're going to live in New York, and you want to know the
right people. If you know them, you can practise law, or practise
billiards, or practise anything else that you fancy. If you don't
know them, you might as well go practise in Dahomey, for all you can
accomplish. You might come on here and start in for yourself, and in
twenty years you wouldn't get as far as you can get in two weeks, if
you'll let me attend to it."

Montague was nearly five years his brother's senior, and at home had
taken a semi-paternal attitude toward him. Now, however, the
situation seemed to have reversed itself. With a slight smile of
amusement, he subsided, and proceeded to put himself into the
attitude of a docile student of the mysteries of the Metropolis.

They agreed that they would say nothing about these matters to the
others. Mrs. Montague was half blind, and would lead her placid,
indoor existence with old Mammy Lucy. As for Alice, she was a woman,
and would not trouble herself with economics; if fairy godmothers
chose to shower gifts upon her, she would take them.

Alice was built to live in a palace, anyway, Oliver said. He had
cried out with delight when he first saw her. She had been sixteen
when he left, and tall and thin; now she was nineteen, and with the
pale tints of the dawn in her hair and face. In the auto, Oliver had
turned and, stared at her, and pronounced the cryptic judgment,
"You'll go!"

Just now she was wandering about the rooms, exclaiming with wonder.
Everything here was so quiet and so harmonious that at first one's
suspicions were lulled. It was simplicity, but of a strange and
perplexing kind--simplicity elaborately studied. It was luxury, but
grown assured of itself, and gazing down upon itself with
aristocratic disdain. And after a while this began to penetrate the
vulgarest mind, and to fill it with awe; one cannot remain long in
an apartment which is trimmed and furnished in rarest Circassian
walnut, and "papered" with hand-embroidered silk cloth, without
feeling some excitement--even though there be no one to mention that
the furniture has cost eight thousand dollars per room, and that the
wall covering has been imported from Paris at a cost of seventy
dollars per yard.

Montague also betook himself to gazing about. He noted the great
double windows, with sashes of bronze; the bronze fire-proof doors;
the bronze electric candles and chandeliers, from which the room was
flooded with a soft radiance at the touch of a button; the
"duchesse" and "marquise" chairs, with upholstery matching the
walls; the huge leather "slumber-couch," with adjustable lamp at its
head. When one opened the door of the dressing-room closet, it was
automatically filled with light; there was an adjustable three-sided
mirror, at which one could study his own figure from every side.
There was a little bronze box near the bed, in which one might set
his shoes, and with a locked door opening out into the hall, so that
the floor-porter could get them without disturbing one. Each of the
bath-rooms was the size of an ordinary man's parlour, with floor and
walls of snow-white marble, and a door composed of an imported
plate-glass mirror. There was a great porcelain tub, with glass
handles upon the wall by which you could help yourself out of it,
and a shower-bath with linen duck curtains, which were changed every
day; and a marble slab upon which you might lie to be rubbed by the
masseur who would come at the touch of a button.

There was no end to the miracles of this establishment, as Montague
found in the course of time. There was no chance that the antique
bronze clock on the mantel might go wrong, for it was electrically
controlled from the office. You did not open the window and let in
the dust, for the room was automatically ventilated, and you turned
a switch marked "hot" and "cold." The office would furnish you a
guide who would show you the establishment; and you might see your
bread being kneaded by electricity, upon an opal glass table, and
your eggs being tested by electric light; you might peer into huge
refrigerators, ventilated by electric fans, and in which each tiny
lamb chop reposed in a separate holder. Upon your own floor was a
pantry, provided with hot and cold storage-rooms and an air-tight
dumb-waiter; you might have your own private linen and crockery and
plate, and your own family butler, if you wished. Your children,
however, would not be permitted in the building, even though you
were dying--this was a small concession which you made to a host who
had invested a million dollars and a half in furniture alone.

A few minutes later the telephone bell rang, and Oliver answered it
and said, "Send him up."

"Here's the tailor," ho remarked, as he hung up the receiver.

"Whose tailor?" asked his brother.

"Yours," said he.

"Do I have to have some new clothes?" Montague asked.

"You haven't any clothes at present," was the reply.

Montague was standing in front of the "costumer," as the elaborate
mirror was termed. He looked himself over, and then he looked at his
brother. Oliver's clothing was a little like the Circassian walnut;
at first you thought that it was simple, and even a trifle
careless--it was only by degrees you realized that it was original
and distinguished, and very expensive.

"Won't your New York friends make allowance for the fact that I am
fresh from the country?" asked Montague, quizzically.

"They might," was the reply. "I know a hundred who would lend me
money, if I asked them. But I don't ask them."

"Then how soon shall I be able to appear?" asked Montague, with
visions of himself locked up in the room for a week or two.

"You are to have three suits to-morrow morning," said Oliver. "Genet
has promised."

"Suits made to order?" gasped the other, in perplexity.

"He never heard of any other sort of suits," said Oliver, with grave
rebuke in his voice.

M. Genet had the presence of a Russian grand duke, and the manner of
a court chamberlain. He brought a subordinate to take Montague's
measure, while he himself studied his colour-scheme. Montague
gathered from the conversation that he was going to a house-party in
the country the next morning, and that he would need a dress-suit, a
hunting-suit, and a "morning coat." The rest might wait until his
return. The two discussed him and his various "points" as they might
have discussed a horse; he possessed distinction, he learned, and a
great deal could be done with him--with a little skill he might be
made into a personality. His French was not in training, but he
managed to make out that it was M. Genet's opinion that the husbands
of New York would tremble when he made his appearance among them.

When the tailor had left, Alice came in, with her face shining from
a cold bathing. "Here you are decking yourselves out!" she cried.
"And what about me?"

"Your problem is harder," said Oliver, with a laugh; "but you begin
this afternoon. Reggie Mann is going to take you with him, and get
you some dresses."

"What!" gasped Alice. "Get me some dresses! A man?"

"Of course," said the other. "Reggie Mann advises half the women in
New York about their clothes."

"Who is he? A tailor?" asked the girl.

Oliver was sitting on the edge of the canape, swinging one leg over
the other; and he stopped abruptly and stared, and then sank back,
laughing softly to himself. "Oh, dear me!" he said. "Poor Reggie!"

Then, realizing that he would have to begin at the beginning, he
proceeded to explain that Reggie Mann was a cotillion leader, the
idol of the feminine side of society. He was the special pet and
protege of the great Mrs. de Graffenried, of whom they had surely
heard--Mrs. de Graffenried, who was acknowledged to be the mistress
of society at Newport, and was destined some day to be mistress in
New York. Reggie and Oliver were "thick," and he had stayed in town
on purpose to attend to her attiring--having seen her picture, and
vowed that he would make a work of art out of her. And then Mrs.
Robbie Walling would give her a dance; and all the world would come
to fall at her feet.

"You and I are going out to 'Black Forest,' the Wallings'
shooting-lodge, to-morrow," Oliver added to his brother. "You'll
meet Mrs. Robbie there. You've heard of the Wallings, I hope."

"Yes," said Montague, "I'm not that ignorant."

"All right," said the other, "we're to motor down. I'm going to take
you in my racing-car, so you'll have an experience. We'll start
early."

"I'll be ready," said Montague; and when his brother replied that he
would be at the door at eleven, he made another amused note as to
the habits of New Yorkers.

The price which he paid at the hotel included the services of a
valet or a maid for each of them, and so when their baggage arrived
they had nothing to do. They went to lunch in one of the main
dining-rooms of the hotel, a room with towering columns of
dark-green marble and a maze of palms and flowers. Oliver did the
ordering; his brother noticed that the simple meal cost them about
fifteen dollars, and he wondered if they were to eat at that rate
all the time.

Then Montague mentioned the fact that before leaving home he had
received a telegram from General Prentice, asking him to go with him
that evening to the meeting of the Loyal Legion. Montague wondered,
half amused, if his brother would deem his old clothing fit for such
a function. But Oliver replied that it would not matter what he wore
there; he would not meet anyone who counted, except Prentice
himself. The General and his family were prominent in society, it
appeared, and were to be cultivated. But Oliver shrewdly forbore to
elaborate upon this, knowing that his brother would be certain to
talk about old times, which would bo the surest possible method of
lodging himself in the good graces of General Prentice.

After luncheon came Reggie Mann, dapper and exquisite, with slender
little figure and mincing gait, and the delicate hands and soft
voice of a woman. He was dressed for the afternoon parade, and wore
a wonderful scarlet orchid in his buttonhole. Montague's hand he
shook at his shoulder's height; but when Alice came in he did not
shake hands with her. Instead, he stood and gazed, and gazed again,
and lifting his hands a little with excess of emotion, exclaimed,
"Oh, perfect! perfect!"

"And Ollie, I told you so!" he added, eagerly. "She it tall enough
to wear satin! She shall have the pale blue Empire gown--she shall
have the pale blue Empire gown if I have to pay for it myself! And
oh, what times we shall have with that hair! And the figure--Reval
will simply go wild!"

So Reggie prattled on, with his airy grace; he took her hand and
studied it, and then turned her about to survey her figure, while
Alice blushed and strove to laugh to hide her embarrassment. "My
dear Miss Montague," he exclaimed, "I bring all Gotham and lay it at
your feet! Ollie, your battle is won! Won without firing a shot! I
know the very man for her--his father is dying, and he will have
four millions in Transcontinental alone. And he is as handsome as
Antinous and as fascinating as Don Juan! Allons! we may as well
begin with the trousseau this afternoon!"






CHAPTER III





Oliver was not rooming with them; he had his own quarters at the
club, which he did not wish to leave. But the next morning, about
twenty minutes after the hour he had named, he was at the door, and
Montague went down.

Oliver's car was an imported French racer. It had only two seats,
open in front, with a rumble behind for the mechanic. It was long
and low and rakish, a most wicked-looking object; whenever it
stopped on the street a crowd gathered to stare at it. Oliver was
clad in a black bearskin coat, covering his feet, and with cap and
gloves to match; he wore goggles, pushed up over his forehead. A
similar costume lay ready in his brother's seat.

The suits of clothing had come, and were borne in his grips by his
valet. "We can't carry them with us," said Oliver. "He'll have to
take them down by train." And while his brother was buttoning up the
coat, he gave the address; then Montague clambered in, and after a
quick glance over his shoulder, Oliver pressed a lever and threw
over the steering-wheel, and they whirled about and sped down the
street.

Sometimes, at home in Mississippi, one would meet automobiling
parties, generally to the damage of one's harness and temper. But
until the day before, when he had stepped off the ferry, Montague
had never ridden in a motor-car. Riding in this one was like
travelling in a dream--it slid along without a sound, or the
slightest trace of vibration; it shot forward, it darted to right or
to left, it slowed up, it stopped, as if of its own will--the driver
seemed to do nothing. Such things as car tracks had no effect upon
it at all, and serious defects in the pavement caused only the
faintest swelling motion; it was only when it leaped ahead like a
living thing that one felt the power of it, by the pressure upon his
back.

They went at what seemed to Montague a breakneck pace through the
city streets, dodging among trucks .and carriages, grazing cars,
whirling round corners, taking the wildest of chances. Oliver seemed
always to know what the other fellow would do; but the thought that
he might do something different kept his companion's heart pounding
in a painful way. Once the latter cried out as a man leapt for his
life; Oliver laughed, and said, without turning his head, "You'll
get used to it by and by."

They went down Fourth Avenue and turned into the Bowery. Elevated
trains pounded overhead, and a maze of gin-shops, dime-museums,
cheap lodging-houses, and clothing-stores sped past them. Once or
twice Oliver's hawk-like glance detected a blue uniform ahead, and
then they slowed down to a decorous pace, and the other got a chance
to observe the miserable population of the neighbourhood. It was a
cold November day, and an "out of work" time, and wretched outcast
men walked with shoulders drawn forward and hands in their pockets.

"Where in the world are we going?" Montague asked.

"To Long Island," said the other. "It's a beastly ride--this part of
it--but it's the only way. Some day we'll have an overhead speedway
of our own, and we won't have to drive through this mess."

They turned off at the approach to the Williamsburg Bridge, and
found the street closed for repairs. They had to make a detour of a
block, and they turned with a vicious sweep and plunged into the
very heart of the tenement district. Narrow, filthy streets, with
huge, canon-like blocks of buildings, covered with rusty iron
fire-escapes and decorated with soap-boxes and pails and laundry and
babies; narrow stoops, crowded with playing children; grocery-shops,
clothing-shops, saloons; and a maze of placards and signs in English
and German and Yiddish. Through the throngs Oliver drove, his brows
knitted with impatience and his horn honking angrily. "Take it
easy,"--protested Montague; but the other answered, "Bah!" Children
screamed and darted out of the way, and men and women started back,
scowling and muttering; when a blockade of wagons and push-carts
forced them to stop, the children gathered about and jeered, and a
group of hoodlums loafing by a saloon flung ribaldry at them; but
Oliver never turned his eyes from the road ahead.

And at last they were out on the bridger. "Slow vehicles keep to the
right," ran the sign, and so there was a lane for them to the left.
They sped up the slope, the cold air beating upon them like a
hurricane. Far below lay the river, with tugs and ferry-boats
ploughing the wind-beaten grey water, and a city spread out on
either bank--a wilderness of roofs, with chimneys sticking up and
white jets of steam spouting everywhere. Then they sped down the
farther slope, and into Brooklyn.

There was an asphalted avenue, lined with little residences. There
was block upon block of them, mile after mile of them--Montague had
never, seen so many houses in his life before, and nearly all poured
out of the same mould.

Many other automobiles were speeding out by this avenue, and they
raced with one another. The one which was passed the most frequently
got the dust and smell; and so the universal rule was that when you
were behind you watched for a clear track, and then put on speed,
and went to the front; but then just when you had struck a
comfortable pace, there was a whirring and a puffing at your left,
and your rival came stealing past you. If you were ugly, you put on
speed yourself, and forced him to fall back, or to run the risk of
trouble with vehicles coming the other way. For Oliver there seemed
to be but one rule,--pass everything.

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