Neither to Sammy nor to Sara did their new alliance make any real difference. It healed the open and public split, but Sammy continued to bore into Matthew’s support, and Sara continued to strengthen his popularity and defenses. Beyond that, Sammy and Sara had always admired each other. Each was a little at a loss without the other. Neither had many intimate associates or confidants whom they wholly trusted. Both had the highest respect for each other’s abilities. They knew that their new alliance was a truce and not a union. Each suspected the other, and each knew the other’s suspicions. At the same time, they needed each other’s skill and they wanted desperately to confide in each other, as far as they dared.
Sara had suggested that just before the primaries, a conference of Republicans and Liberals might be held in order to come to a final understanding and unite on Matthew’s nomination. Sammy had to assent. He had plans of his own for this conference, which he hoped to make a last desperate effort at Matthew’s undoing. He knew just what kind of conference would best serve his ends, but he did not dare let Sara know what he wanted.
On one point Sara had of course made up her mind: no agreement between Matthew, Graham, and Cadwalader was going to depend on the chances of a single conference or even of several conferences. She was going to conduct secret negotiations with all parties, until the final conference should find them in such substantial agreement that definitive action would be easy; that is, all except the left-wing labor unions. The surer she became of the main groups, the less did Sara think of these common laborers and foreigners. They could come in at last, when agreement or protest would make little real difference.
Sara hoped that she might come to this agreement by mere verbal fencing. She hoped so, but she knew better. Sooner or later there must be a definite understanding with Graham. Very well, when the crisis came she would meet it.
With her mind then on this closing conference as merely the ratification of agreements practically made, Sara at first settled on something big and impressive: a church or hall mass meeting of all parties and interests, making an overwhelming demand for the election of Matthew Towns as congressman. Sammy listened, his head on one side, his cigar at an impressive angle, his feet elevated, perhaps a bit higher than usual; his coat laid aside.
“Um-um!” he nodded. “Fine; fine big thing. If it could be put over. Smashing publicity.” Then he took a long pull at his cigar and looked intently at the glowing end.
“Of course,” he said reflectively, “there is one thing: would Matthew make the right kind of speech?” Sammy was really afraid he would; Sara not only did not know whether or not Matthew would make the right kind of speech; she did not even know if he would try. In fact, he might deliberately make the wrong kind of speech, even after agreement had already been reached. Sara’s doubt rested on the fact that she and Matthew had had a tilt this very morning, and she at least had had it out. She put the situation before him, frank and stark, with no bandying of words.
“Now see here. You have got this nomination in your hands and on a silver salver, if you want it. But in order to get it you’ve got to make the kind of statement that will satisfy the Republicans backed by big business, the Democrats backed by big business, and the Farmer-Labor party led by reformers and union labor. You’ve even got to cater to the radical wing of the trade unions. It will mean straddling and twisting and some careful lying. It will mean promises which it is up to you to fulfill after election, if you want to, and to break if you want to—after election. It will mean half promises and double words and silences to make people think what you are going to do, what you are not going to do, or what you do not know whether you are going to do or not. Unless you do something like this you will lose the nomination.
“Or, what’s just as bad, you will lose the Republican nomination. Perhaps you have kidded yourself into thinking that you can make a winning fight with the Farmer-Labor nomination and the independent Negro vote. Well, listen to me. You can’t. There isn’t such a thing as an independent Negro vote. Or at any rate it is so small as to be negligible. The Negroes are going to fight and yell before election. At the election they are going to trot to the polls and vote the Republican ticket like good darkies. If you want to go to Congress, you have got to get the Republican nomination.
“On the other hand, nothing will clinch this nomination, the election, and the wholehearted future support of the Republican machine like your ability to poll not simply the Republican vote, but the Farmer-Labor vote and the vote of the independent Democrats and at least a part of the radical vote. You can do this if you don’t act like a fool.”
Matthew had pushed his breakfast aside and looked out of the window. He saw a few trees and the gray apartment houses beyond. Above lay the leaden sky.
“Suppose,” he said, “that instead of making this campaign, I should ask for the part of the money we have made which is mine and give up this game?” Sara’s little mouth settled into straight, thin lines. “You wouldn’t get it,” she said, “because it doesn’t belong to you. You didn’t earn it; I did. You haven’t saved any. You have squandered money, even recently; I don’t know what for, and I don’t care. But I have drawn out all the money in our joint account and put it in my own account. Everything we have got stands in my name, and it is going to stand there until you get into Congress. And that’s that.”
Matthew had looked at Sara solemnly with brooding eyes. She was always uncomfortable when he looked at her like that. He seemed to be quite impersonal, as though he were entering lone realms where she could not follow. Soon, some of her assurance had fallen away and her language became less precise:
“Well, what’s the idea? What ya glaring at? D’ye think I am going to fail or let you fail after climbing all this distance?”
Apparently he had not heard her. He seemed to be judging her in a far-off sort of way. He was thinking. In a sense Sara was an artist. But she failed in greatness because she lacked the human element, the human sympathy. Now if she had had the abandon, that inner comprehension, of the prostitute who once lived opposite Perigua—but no, no, Sara was respectable. That meant she was a little below average. She was desperately aware of the prevailing judgment of the people about her. She would never be great. She would always be, to him—unendurable. He got up suddenly and silently and walked three miles in the rain. He ended up at his own lodging with its dust and gloom and stood there in the cold and damp thinking of his marriage, six months—six centuries ago.
Again and for a second, for a third, time in his life, he was caught in the iron of circumstance. And he wasn’t going to do anything. He couldn’t do anything. He was going to be the victim, the sacrifice. Although this time it seemed different from the others. In the first case, of the wreck, he had saved his pride. In the second, the nomination to the legislature, he had sold his body but ransomed his soul, as he hoped. But this time, pride, soul, and body were going.
He looked about at these little trappings of the spirit within him that had grown so thin: gold of the Chinese rug, beneath its dim Chicago dirt; the flame of a genuine Matisse. He had never given up the old rooms of his in the slums, chiefly because Sara would not have the things he had accumulated there in her new and shining house; and he hated to throw them all away. He had always meant to go down and sort them out and store the few things he wanted to keep. But he had been too busy. The rent was nominal, and he had locked the door and left things there.
Only now and then in desperation he went there and sat in the dust and gloom. Today, he went down and waded in. He sat down in the old, shabby easy-chair and thought things out. He was, despite all, more normal and clearer-minded than when he came here out of jail. He was not so cynical. He had found good friends—humble everyday workers, even idlers and loafers whom he trusted and who trusted him. Life was not all evil. He did not need to sell his soul entirely to the devil for bread and butter. Life could be even interesting. There were big jobs, not to be done, but to be attempted, to be interested in. He was not yet prepared to let Sara spoil everything. He began to look upon her with a certain aversion and horror. He planned to live his life by himself as much as possible. She had her virtues, but she was too hard, too selfish, too utterly unscrupulous.
He searched his pockets for money. He went downtown and paid two hundred dollars for a Turkish rug for the bedroom—a silken thing of dark, soft, warm coloring. He lugged it home on the street car and threw it before his old bed and let it vie with the dusky gold of its Chinese mate. He had searched for another Matisse and could not find one, but he had found a copy of a Picasso—a wild, unintelligible, intriguing thing of gray and yellow and black. He paid a hundred dollars for it and hung it on another empty wall. He was half-consciously trying to counteract the ugliness of the congressional campaign.
Long hours he sat in his room. There was no place in Sara’s house—it was always Sara’s house in his thought—for anything of this, for anything of his: for this big, shabby armchair that put its old worn arms so sympathetically about him. For his pipe. For the books that his fingers had made dirty and torn and dog-eared by reading. For the pamphlets that would not stand straight or regular or in rows. He sat there cold and dark until three o’clock in the morning. Then he stood up suddenly and went to a low bootlegger’s dive, a place warm with the stench of human bodies. He sought there feverishly until he found what he wanted—a soul to talk with. There was a mason and builder who came there usually at that hour, especially when he was half drunk and out of work. He was a rare and delicate soul with a whimsical cynicism, with easily remembered tales of lost and undiscovered bits of humanity, with exquisite humor. He played the violin like an angel. Matthew found him. He sat there until dawn. He ordered him to build a fireplace and bathroom in his apartment—something beautiful.
As he sat silently listening to the luscious thrill of the “Spanish Fandango” he determined to do one thing: he would resign from the legislature. Then if he failed in the nomination to Congress, he would be left on the road to freedom. If he gained the nomination, he would gain it with that much less deception and double-crossing. Of course Sara would be furious, Well, what of that?
At daybreak he went back to his rooms and started cleaning up. He swept and dusted, cleaned windows, polished furniture. He sweated and toiled, then stopped and marveled about Dirt. Its accumulation, its persistence was astonishing. How could one attack it? Was it a world symptom? Could machines abolish it, or only human weariness and nausea?
Late in the afternoon he went out and bought a new big bed with springs and a soft mattress, a bath robe, pajamas, and sheets and some crimson hangings. He hid in the wall some of his money which remained. He knew what he was doing; he was surrendering to Sara and the Devil and soothing his bruised soul by physical work and the preparation of a retreat where he would spend more and more of his time. He would save and hide and hoard and some day walk away and leave everything. But he wrote and mailed his resignation as member of the legislature. That at least was a symbolic step.
From her interview with Matthew, Sara emerged shaken but grim. She had no idea what Matthew was going to do. She had put the screws upon him more ruthlessly than she had ever dared before. She had cut off his money, his guiding dream of a comfortable little fortune. She had told him definitely what he had to think and promise, and he had silently got up and gone his way. Suppose he never came back, or suppose he came back and eventually went to this final conference and “spilled the beans”; threw everything up and over and left her shamed and prostrate before black and white Chicago? No, she couldn’t risk a mass meeting.
“No,” she said in answer to Sammy’s query, and looked at him with a frankness that Sammy half suspected was too frank. “I don’t know what Matthew is going to say or do. And I am afraid we can’t risk a mass meeting.”
Sammy was silent. Then he said:
“That resignation was a damn shrewd move.”
Sara glanced up.
“What—” She started to ask “What resignation?” but she paused. “What—do you think will be its effect?” She would not let Sammy dream she did not know what he was talking about.
“Well—it’ll mollify the boys. Give me a chance to run Corruthers in at a special election—convince the bosses that Towns is playing square.”
Sara was angry but silent. So that fool had resigned from the legislature! Surrendered a sure thing for a chance. Did the idiot think he was already elected to Congress, or was he going to quit entirely?
She took up the morning Tribune to hide her agitation and saw the editorial—“a wise move on the part of Towns and shows his independence of the machine.”
Sara laid down the paper carefully and thought—tapping her teeth with her pencil. Was it possible that after all—Then she came back to the matter in hand. Sammy would have liked to suggest a real political conference: a secret room with guarded door; cigars and liquor; a dozen men with power and decision, and then, give and take, keen-eyed sparring, measuring of men, and—careful compromise. Out of a conference like that anything might emerge, and Sammy couldn’t lose entirely.
But he saw that Sara had the social bee in her head. She wanted a reception, a luncheon, or a dinner. Something that would celebrate a conclusion rather than come to it. He was not averse to this, because he was convinced it would be disastrous to Sara. No social affair of whites and Negroes could come to any real conclusion. It could only celebrate deals already made. Sammy meant to block such deals. But he didn’t suggest anything; he let Sara do that, and Sara did. After profound thought, and still clicking her pencil on her teeth, she said:
“A meeting at my home would be the best. A small and intimate thing. A luncheon. No, a dinner, and a good dinner. Let’s see, we’ll have—”
And then Sara and Sammy selected the personnel. On this they quite agreed. If all went well, Sara suggested that the mass meeting might follow. Sammy cheerfully agreed—if all went well.
Immediately Sara began to prepare for this conference. First she made a number of personal visits, just frank little informal talks with Mr. Graham, with Mr. Cadwalader, with Mrs. Beech and others. Mr. Cadwalader and Mrs. Beech both began by congratulating Sara on Matthew’s resignation from the legislature.
“Statesmanlike!” said Cadwalader. “It proves to our people that the reported understanding between him and Scott is untrue.”
“Very shrewd,” said Mrs. Beech, “to make this open declaration of independence.”
“He often takes my advice,” said Sara with a cryptic smile, and she explained that when Sammy had approached her, offering cooperation after Doolittle’s death, they had, of course, to accept—“to a degree and within limits.”
“Of course, of course!” it was agreed.
By her visits she got acquainted with these leaders, measured their wishes, and succeeded fairly well in making them interested in her. She let them do as much talking as possible but also talked herself, clearly and with as much frankness as she dared. She was trying to find out just what the Republicans wanted and just what the reformers demanded.
From time to time she wrote these things down and put the formulas and statements before Matthew, writing them out carefully and precisely in her perfect typewriting. He received them silently and took them away, making no comment. Only once was the resignation from the legislature referred to:
“I’m glad you took my hint about the legislature,” said Sara sweetly, one night at dinner.
Matthew stared. When had she hinted, and what?
Sara proceeded further with her plans. She put before Mr. Graham a suggested platform which contained a good many of the Republican demands but even more of the Progressive demands. Mr. Graham immediately rejected it as she expected. He pointed out just how much more he must have and what things he could under no circumstances admit.
Sara tried the same method with Mr. Cadwalader; only in his case she submitted a platform with less of the Progressive demands and more of the Republican. She had more success with him. She could easily see that Mr. Cadwalader after all really leaned considerably toward Republican policies and was Progressive in theory and by the practical necessity of yielding something to the Labor group. But the question Sara quickly saw was, Which Labor group? There were, for instance, the aristocrats in the Labor world; the skilled trade unions connected with the American Federation of Labor; and on the other hand, there was the left wing, the Communist radicals, and there was a string of uncommitted workers between. Mr. Cadwalader consulted the conservative labor unionists and evolved a platform which was not so far from Sara’s, and indeed as she compared them, Mr. Graham and Mr. Cadwalader seemed easily reconcilable, at least in words. Sara tried again and brought another modified platform to Mr. Graham. Mr. Graham read it and smiled. So far as words went, there was really little to object to, but he laid it aside and looked Sara squarely in the eye, and Sara looked just as squarely at him. It had come to a showdown, and both knew it. Sara attempted no further fencing. She simply said:
“What is it specifically that you want Matthew to do in Congress? Write it out, and I’ll see that he signs it.”
He took a piece of paper and wrote a short statement. It had reference to specific bills to be introduced in the next Congress, on the tariff, on farm relief, on railroad consolidation, and on superpower. He even named the persons who were going to introduce the bills. Then he handed the slip to Sara. She read it over carefully, folded it up, and put it in her bag.
“You’ll receive this, signed, at or before the final conference.”
“Before will be better,” suggested Mr. Graham.
“Perhaps,” answered Sara, “but on the night of the conference it will be time enough.”
Mr. Graham looked almost genial. Sara was the kind of politician that he liked, especially as he saw at present no way to escape a colored candidate, and on the whole he preferred Matthew Towns to Sammy Scott.
“But how about the Radical wing?” he asked. “Are they going to accept this platform?”
“That is the point,” said Sara. “I am trying to make the platform broad enough to attract the bulk of the Labor group, but I have not consulted the radicals yet. If they accept what I offer, all right; but even if they do not, we have made sure of the majority of the third party’s support.”
In this way and by several consultations with Mr. Cadwalader, Mrs. Beech, and their friends, Sara evolved a statement which seemed fair, especially when most of the persons involved began to realize that Matthew Towns on this platform was pretty sure of election.
Sara then turned to the Labor group. Mr. Cadwalader had smoothed the way for her to meet the labor-union heads, and it took Sara but a short time to learn how the land lay there. Eight-hour laws, and anti-injunction legislation, of course; but above all “down with Negro scabs”! Negroes should be taught never to take white strikers’ jobs.
“Even if white unions bar them before and after the strike,” thought Sara. But she did not say so. She agreed that scabbing was reprehensible, and in turn the union leaders unctuously asserted the “principle” of no color line in the Federation of Labor. It was quite a love feast, and both Sara and Mr. Cadwalader were elated.
Then Sara finally plucked up courage and visited the headquarters of the left-wing trade unionists. She had anticipated some unpleasantness, and she was not disappointed. Her earlier contact with the group had been by letter, and she had been impressed by the shrewd leadership and evidence of wide vision. She was prepared for careful mental gymnastics and careful play of word and phrase. Instead she found a rough group of painfully frank folk. The surroundings were dirty, and the people were rude. It was much less attractive than her visits to the well-furnished headquarters of the Republicans or to the rooms of the Woman’s City Club. But if Sara was disgusted with the people and surroundings, she was even more put out with their demands. They came out flat-footed and assumed facts that were puzzling. She did not altogether understand them, chiefly because she had not taken time to study them; it was words and personalities that she had come to probe. The flat demands therefore seemed to her outrageous, revolutionary.
“Overthrow capital? What do you mean?” she said. “Do you want to stop industry entirely and go back to barbarism?”
Then all talked at once in that little crowded room, and she did not pretend to understand:
“What’s Towns going to do for municipal ownership of public services? For raising the income taxes on millionaires? For regulating and seizing the railroads? For curbing labor injunctions? For confiscating the unearned increment? For abolishing private ownership of capital?”
Sara stared; then she gathered up her papers.
“I shall have to ask Mr. Towns,” she said, crisply. “We will have another consultation next week.” And she swept out, vowing to have nothing to do with this gang again. She told Sammy about it and suggested that he hold all further consultations with them.
“It is no place for a lady,” she said.
“Lots of them down there,” said Sammy.
“You mean those working-women?” said Sara with disgust.
It suited Sammy very well to take charge of further conferences with the Laborites. He had already been engaged in stiffening the demands of the Republicans on the one hand and arousing the suspicion of the colored voters against the trade unionists on the other: and now he was more than willing to push the left wing toward extreme demands. He worked through his young radical friend and now and then saw and talked with the Indian.
Sara was quite sure that he would do something like this, but she did not care. The more radical the left wing was, the fewer votes it would poll and the stronger would be Matthew’s hold upon the main bloc of the Progressive group. She was sure of Graham unless Matthew got crazy and went radical. And Matthew seemed to be obeying the whip and bit.
It seemed to Sara the proper time to put Graham’s ultimatum before Matthew. She did not argue or expatiate; she simply handed him the statement with the remark:
“Mr. Graham expects to receive this, signed by you, at the conference or before. Your nomination depends upon it.”
Then she powdered her nose, put on her things, patted her hat in shape, and walked out. Matthew walked up and down the room. Up and down, up and down, until the walls were too narrow. Then he went out and walked in the streets. It was the last demand, and it was the demand that left him no shred of self-respect. What crazed him was the fact that he knew that he was going to sign it, and that in addition to this, he was going to promise to the Progressives, and perhaps even to the left-wing Laborites, almost exactly opposite and contradictory things. He had reached his nadir. Then he held up his head fiercely. From nadir he would climb! But even as he muttered this half aloud, he did not believe it. From such depths men did not climb. They wallowed there.
Finally, about April first, a week before the primary election, Sara decided that it was time for her final conference. She gave up entirely the idea of a mass meeting. That could come after the primary, when Matthew’s nomination was accomplished.
What she really wanted was a dinner conference. There again she hesitated. She was afraid that some of the people whom she was determined to have present, some of the high-placed white folk, might hesitate to accept an invitation to dinner in a colored home. Gradually she evolved something else; a small number of prominent persons were invited to confer personally with Mr. Towns at his home. After the conference, “supper would be served.” Sara put this last. If anyone felt that they must, for inner or outer compulsions, leave after the conference, they could then withdraw; but Sara proposed to keep them so long and to make the dinner-supper so attractive that it would be, in fact, quite an unusual social occasion. “Quite informal” it was to be, so her written invitations on heavy paper said. But that was not the voice of her dining-room.