Part 16
I have been down into the entrails of earth--down, down by straight and staring cliffs--down by sounding waters and sun-strewn meadows; down by green pastures and still waters, by great, steep chasms--down by the gnarled and twisted fists of God to the deep, sad moan of the yellow river that did this thing of wonder,--a little winding river with death in its depth and a crown of glory in its flying hair.
I have seen what eye of man was never meant to see. I have profaned the sanctuary. I have looked upon the dread disrobing of the Night, and yet I live. Ere I hid my head she was standing in her cavern halls, glowing coldly westward--her feet were blackness: her robes, empurpled, flowed mistily from shoulder down in formless folds of folds; her head, pine-crowned, was set with jeweled stars. I turned away and dreamed--the cañon,--the awful, its depths called; its heights shuddered. Then suddenly I arose and looked. Her robes were falling. At dim-dawn they hung purplish-green and black. Slowly she stripped them from her gaunt and shapely limbs--her cold, gray garments shot with shadows stood revealed. Down dropped the black-blue robes, gray-pearled and slipped, leaving a filmy, silken, misty thing, and underneath I glimpsed her limbs of utter light.
* * * * *
My God! For what am I thankful this night? For nothing. For nothing but the most commonplace of commonplaces; a table of gentlewomen and gentlemen--soft-spoken, sweet-tempered, full of human sympathy, who made me, a stranger, one of them. Ours was a fellowship of common books, common knowledge, mighty aims. We could laugh and joke and think as friends--and the Thing--the hateful, murderous, dirty Thing which in American we call "Nigger-hatred" was not only not there--it could not even be understood. It was a curious monstrosity at which civilized folk laughed or looked puzzled. There was no elegant and elaborate condescension of--"We once had a colored servant"--"My father was an Abolitionist"--"I've always been interested in _your people_"--there was only the community of kindred souls, the delicate reverence for the Thought that led, the quick deference to the guest. You left in quiet regret, knowing that they were not discussing you behind your back with lies and license. God! It was simply human decency and I had to be thankful for it because I am an American Negro, and white America, with saving exceptions, is cruel to everything that has black blood--and this was Paris, in the years of salvation, 1919. Fellow blacks, we must join the democracy of Europe.
* * * * *
Toul! Dim through the deepening dark of early afternoon, I saw its towers gloom dusky toward the murk of heaven. We wound in misty roads and dropped upon the city through the great throats of its walled bastions. There lay France--a strange, unknown, unfamiliar France. The city was dispossessed. Through its streets--its narrow, winding streets, old and low and dark, carven and quaint,--poured thousands upon thousands of strange feet of khaki-clad foreigners, and the echoes threw back awkward syllables that were never French. Here was France beaten to her knees yet fighting as never nation fought before, calling in her death agony across the seas till her help came and with all its strut and careless braggadocio saved the worthiest nation of the world from the wickedest fate ever plotted by Fools.
* * * * *
Tim Brimm was playing by the town-pump. Tim Brimm and the bugles of Harlem blared in the little streets of Maron in far Lorraine. The tiny streets were seas of mud. Dank mist and rain sifted through the cold air above the blue Moselle. Soldiers--soldiers everywhere--black soldiers, boys of Washington, Alabama, Philadelphia, Mississippi. Wild and sweet and wooing leapt the strains upon the air. French children gazed in wonder--women left their washing. Up in the window stood a black Major, a Captain, a Teacher, and I--with tears behind our smiling eyes. Tim Brimm was playing by the town-pump.
The audience was framed in smoke. It rose ghost-like out of memories--bitter memories of the officer near dead of pneumonia whose pain was lighted up by the nurses waiting to know whether he must be "Jim-Crowed" with privates or not. Memories of that great last morning when the thunders of hell called the Ninety-second to its last drive. Memories of bitter humiliations, determined triumphs, great victories, and bugle-calls that sounded from earth to heaven. Like memories framed in the breath of God, my audience peered in upon me--good, brown faces with great, kind, beautiful eyes--black soldiers of America rescuing beloved France--and the words came in praise and benediction there in the "Y," with its little stock of cigarettes and candies and its rusty wood stove.
"_Alors_," said Madame, "_quatre sont morts_"--four dead--four tall, strong sons dead for France--sons like the sweet and blue-eyed daughter who was hiding her brave smile in the dusk. It was a tiny stone house whose front window lipped the passing sidewalk where ever tramped the feet of black soldiers marching home. There was a cavernous wardrobe, a great fireplace invaded by a new and jaunty iron stove. Vast, thick piles of bedding rose in yonder corner. Without was the crowded kitchen and up a half-stair was our bedroom that gave upon a tiny court with arched stone staircase and one green tree. We were a touching family party held together by a great sorrow and a great joy. How we laughed over the salad that got brandy instead of vinegar--how we ate the golden pile of fried potatoes and how we pored over the post-card from the Lieutenant of the Senegalese--dear little vale of crushed and risen France, in the day when Negroes went "over the top" at Pont-à-Mousson.
* * * * *
Paris, Paris by purple façade of the opera, the crowd on the Boulevard des Italiens and the great swing of the Champs Elysées. But not the Paris the world knows. Paris with its soul cut to the core--feverish, crowded, nervous, hurried; full of uniforms and mourning bands, with cafés closed at 9:30--no sugar, scarce bread, and tears so interwined with joy that there is scant difference. Paris has been dreaming a nightmare, and though she awakes, the grim terror is upon her--it lies on the sand-closed art treasures of the Louvre. Only the flowers are there, always the flowers, the Roses of England and the Lilies of France.
* * * * *
New York! Behind the Liberty that faces free France rise the white cliffs of Manhattan, tier on tier, with a curving pinnacle, towers square and twin, a giant inkwell daintily stoppered, an ancient pyramid enthroned; beneath, low ramparts wide and mighty; while above, faint-limned against the turbulent sky, looms the vast grace of that Cathedral of the Purchased and Purchasing Poor, topping the world and pointing higher.
Yonder the gray cobwebs of the Brooklyn bridges leap the sea, and here creep the argosies from all earth's ends. We move to this swift home on dun and swelling waters and hear as we come the heartbeats of the new world.
* * * * *
New York and night from the Brooklyn Bridge: The bees and fireflies flit and twinkle in their vast hives; curved clouds like the breath of gods hover between the towers and the moon. One hears the hiss of lightnings, the deep thunder of human things, and a fevered breathing as of some attendant and invincible Powers. The glow of burning millions melts outward into dim and fairy outlines until afar the liquid music born of rushing crowds drips like a benediction on the sea.
* * * * *
New York and morning: the sun is kissing the timid dew in Central Park, and from the Fountain of Plenty one looks along that world street, Fifth Avenue, and walks toward town. The earth life and curves graciously down from the older mansions of princes to the newer shops of luxury. Egypt and Abyssinia, Paris and Damascus, London and India caress you by the way; churches stand aloof while the shops swell to emporiums. But all this is nothing. Everything is mankind. Humanity stands and flies and walks and rolls about--the poor, the priceless, the world-known and the forgotten; child and grandfather, king and leman--the pageant of the world goes by, set in a frame of stone and jewels, clothed in scarlet and rags. Princes Street and the Elysian Fields, the Strand and the Ringstrasse--these are the Ways of the World today.
* * * * *
New York and twilight, there where the Sixth Avenue "L" rises and leaps above the tenements into the free air at 110th Street. It circles like a bird with heaven and St. John's above and earth and the sweet green and gold of the Park beneath. Beyond lie all the blue mists and mysteries of distance; beneath, the city rushes and crawls. Behind echo all the roar and war and care and maze of the wide city set in its sullen darkening walls, flashing weird and crimson farewells. Out at the sides the stars twinkle.
* * * * *
Again New York and Night and Harlem. A dark city of fifty thousand rises like magic from the earth. Gone is the white world, the pale lips, the lank hair; gone is the West and North--the East and South is here triumphant. The street is crowd and leisure and laughter. Everywhere black eyes, black and brown, and frizzled hair curled and sleek, and skins that riot with luscious color and deep, burning blood. Humanity is packed dense in high piles of close-knit homes that lie in layers above gray shops of food and clothes and drink, with here and there a moving-picture show. Orators declaim on the corners, lovers lark in the streets, gamblers glide by the saloons, workers lounge wearily home. Children scream and run and frolic, and all is good and human and beautiful and ugly and evil, even as Life is elsewhere.
* * * * *
And then--the Veil. It drops as drops the night on southern seas--vast, sudden, unanswering. There is Hate behind it, and Cruelty and Tears. As one peers through its intricate, unfathomable pattern of ancient, old, old design, one sees blood and guilt and misunderstanding. And yet it hangs there, this Veil, between Then and Now, between Pale and Colored and Black and White--between You and Me. Surely it is a thought-thing, tenuous, intangible; yet just as surely is it true and terrible and not in our little day may you and I lift it. We may feverishly unravel its edges and even climb slow with giant shears to where its ringed and gilded top nestles close to the throne of God. But as we work and climb we shall see through streaming eyes and hear with aching ears, lynching and murder, cheating and despising, degrading and lying, so flashed and fleshed through this vast hanging darkness that the Doer never sees the Deed and the Victim knows not the Victor and Each hates All in wild and bitter ignorance. Listen, O Isles, to these Voices from within the Veil, for they portray the most human hurt of the Twentieth Cycle of that poor Jesus who was called the Christ!
* * * * *
There is something in the nature of Beauty that demands an end. Ugliness may be indefinite. It may trail off into gray endlessness. But Beauty must be complete--whether it be a field of poppies or a great life,--it must end, and the End is part and triumph of the Beauty. I know there are those who envisage a beauty eternal. But I cannot. I can dream of great and never-ending processions of beautiful things and visions and acts. But each must be complete or it cannot for me exist.
On the other hand, Ugliness to me is eternal, not in the essence but in its incompleteness; but its eternity does not daunt me, for its eternal unfulfilment is a cause of joy. There is in it nothing new or unexpected; it is the old evil stretching out and ever seeking the end it cannot find; it may coil and writhe and recur in endless battle to days without end, but it is the same human ill and bitter hurt. But Beauty is fulfilment. It satisfies. It is always new and strange. It is the reasonable thing. Its end is Death--the sweet silence of perfection, the calm and balance of utter music. Therein is the triumph of Beauty.
So strong is the spell of beauty that there are those who, contradicting their own knowledge and experience, try to say that all is beauty. They are called optimists, and they lie. All is not beauty. Ugliness and hate and ill are here with all their contradiction and illogic; they will always be here--perhaps, God send, with lessened volume and force, but here and eternal, while beauty triumphs in its great completion--Death. We cannot conjure the end of all ugliness in eternal beauty, for beauty by its very being and definition has in each definition its ends and limits; but while beauty lies implicit and revealed in its end, ugliness writhes on in darkness forever. So the ugliness of continual birth fulfils itself and conquers gloriously only in the beautiful end, Death.
* * * * *
At last to us all comes happiness, there in the Court of Peace, where the dead lie so still and calm and good. If we were not dead we would lie and listen to the flowers grow. We would hear the birds sing and see how the rain rises and blushes and burns and pales and dies in beauty. We would see spring, summer, and the red riot of autumn, and then in winter, beneath the soft white snow, sleep and dream of dreams. But we know that being dead, our Happiness is a fine and finished thing and that ten, a hundred, and a thousand years, we shall lie at rest, unhurt in the Court of Peace.
_The Prayers of God_
Name of God's Name! Red murder reigns; All hell is loose; On gold autumnal air Walk grinning devils, barbed and hoofed; While high on hills of hate, Black-blossomed, crimson-sky'd, Thou sittest, dumb.
Father Almighty! This earth is mad! Palsied, our cunning hands; Rotten, our gold; Our argosies reel and stagger Over empty seas; All the long aisles Of Thy Great Temples, God, Stink with the entrails Of our souls. And Thou art dumb.
Above the thunder of Thy Thunders, Lord, Lightening Thy Lightnings, Rings and roars The dark damnation Of this hell of war. Red piles the pulp of hearts and heads And little children's hands.
Allah! Elohim! Very God of God!
Death is here! Dead are the living; deep--dead the dead. Dying are earth's unborn-- The babes' wide eyes of genius and of joy, Poems and prayers, sun-glows and earth-songs, Great-pictured dreams, Enmarbled phantasies, High hymning heavens--all In this dread night Writhe and shriek and choke and die This long ghost-night-- While Thou art dumb.
Have mercy! Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners! Stand forth, unveil Thy Face, Pour down the light That seethes above Thy Throne, And blaze this devil's dance to darkness! Hear! Speak! In Christ's Great Name--
I hear! Forgive me, God! Above the thunder I hearkened; Beneath the silence, now,-- I hear!
(Wait, God, a little space. It is so strange to talk with Thee-- Alone!)
This gold? I took it. Is it Thine? Forgive; I did not know.
Blood? Is it wet with blood? 'Tis from my brother's hands. (I know; his hands are mine.) It flowed for Thee, O Lord.
War? Not so; not war-- Dominion, Lord, and over black, not white; Black, brown, and fawn, And not Thy Chosen Brood, O God, We murdered. To build Thy Kingdom, To drape our wives and little ones, And set their souls a-glitter-- For this we killed these lesser breeds And civilized their dead, Raping red rubber, diamonds, cocoa, gold!
For this, too, once, and in Thy Name, I lynched a Nigger--
(He raved and writhed, I heard him cry, I felt the life-light leap and lie, I saw him crackle there, on high, I watched him wither!)
_Thou?_ _Thee?_ _I lynched Thee?_
Awake me, God! I sleep! What was that awful word Thou saidst? That black and riven thing--was it Thee? That gasp--was it Thine? This pain--is it Thine? Are, then, these bullets piercing Thee? Have all the wars of all the world, Down all dim time, drawn blood from Thee? Have all the lies and thefts and hates-- Is this Thy Crucifixion, God, And not that funny, little cross, With vinegar and thorns? Is this Thy kingdom here, not there, This stone and stucco drift of dreams?
Help! I sense that low and awful cry--
Who cries? Who weeps? With silent sob that rends and tears-- Can God sob?
Who prays? I hear strong prayers throng by, Like mighty winds on dusky moors-- Can God pray?
Prayest Thou, Lord, and to me? _Thou_ needest me? Thou _needest_ me? Thou needest _me_? Poor, wounded soul! Of this I never dreamed. I thought--
_Courage, God, I come!_
X
THE COMET
He stood a moment on the steps of the bank, watching the human river that swirled down Broadway. Few noticed him. Few ever noticed him save in a way that stung. He was outside the world--"nothing!" as he said bitterly. Bits of the words of the walkers came to him.
"The comet?"
"The comet----"
Everybody was talking of it. Even the president, as he entered, smiled patronizingly at him, and asked:
"Well, Jim, are you scared?"
"No," said the messenger shortly.
"I thought we'd journeyed through the comet's tail once," broke in the junior clerk affably.
"Oh, that was Halley's," said the president; "this is a new comet, quite a stranger, they say--wonderful, wonderful! I saw it last night. Oh, by the way, Jim," turning again to the messenger, "I want you to go down into the lower vaults today."
The messenger followed the president silently. Of course, they wanted _him_ to go down to the lower vaults. It was too dangerous for more valuable men. He smiled grimly and listened.
"Everything of value has been moved out since the water began to seep in," said the president; "but we miss two volumes of old records. Suppose you nose around down there,--it isn't very pleasant, I suppose."
"Not very," said the messenger, as he walked out.
"Well, Jim, the tail of the new comet hits us at noon this time," said the vault clerk, as he passed over the keys; but the messenger passed silently down the stairs. Down he went beneath Broadway, where the dim light filtered through the feet of hurrying men; down to the dark basement beneath; down into the blackness and silence beneath that lowest cavern. Here with his dark lantern he groped in the bowels of the earth, under the world.
He drew a long breath as he threw back the last great iron door and stepped into the fetid slime within. Here at last was peace, and he groped moodily forward. A great rat leaped past him and cobwebs crept across his face. He felt carefully around the room, shelf by shelf, on the muddied floor, and in crevice and corner. Nothing. Then he went back to the far end, where somehow the wall felt different. He sounded and pushed and pried. Nothing. He started away. Then something brought him back. He was sounding and working again when suddenly the whole black wall swung as on mighty hinges, and blackness yawned beyond. He peered in; it was evidently a secret vault--some hiding place of the old bank unknown in newer times. He entered hesitatingly. It was a long, narrow room with shelves, and at the far end, an old iron chest. On a high shelf lay the two missing volumes of records, and others. He put them carefully aside and stepped to the chest. It was old, strong, and rusty. He looked at the vast and old-fashioned lock and flashed his light on the hinges. They were deeply incrusted with rust. Looking about, he found a bit of iron and began to pry. The rust had eaten a hundred years, and it had gone deep. Slowly, wearily, the old lid lifted, and with a last, low groan lay bare its treasure--and he saw the dull sheen of gold!
"Boom!"
A low, grinding, reverberating crash struck upon his ear. He started up and looked about. All was black and still. He groped for his light and swung it about him. Then he knew! The great stone door had swung to. He forgot the gold and looked death squarely in the face. Then with a sigh he went methodically to work. The cold sweat stood on his forehead; but he searched, pounded, pushed, and worked until after what seemed endless hours his hand struck a cold bit of metal and the great door swung again harshly on its hinges, and then, striking against something soft and heavy, stopped. He had just room to squeeze through. There lay the body of the vault clerk, cold and stiff. He stared at it, and then felt sick and nauseated. The air seemed unaccountably foul, with a strong, peculiar odor. He stepped forward, clutched at the air, and fell fainting across the corpse.
He awoke with a sense of horror, leaped from the body, and groped up the stairs, calling to the guard. The watchman sat as if asleep, with the gate swinging free. With one glance at him the messenger hurried up to the sub-vault. In vain he called to the guards. His voice echoed and re-echoed weirdly. Up into the great basement he rushed. Here another guard lay prostrate on his face, cold and still. A fear arose in the messenger's heart. He dashed up to the cellar floor, up into the bank. The stillness of death lay everywhere and everywhere bowed, bent, and stretched the silent forms of men. The messenger paused and glanced about. He was not a man easily moved; but the sight was appalling! "Robbery and murder," he whispered slowly to himself as he saw the twisted, oozing mouth of the president where he lay half-buried on his desk. Then a new thought seized him: If they found him here alone--with all this money and all these dead men--what would his life be worth? He glanced about, tiptoed cautiously to a side door, and again looked behind. Quietly he turned the latch and stepped out into Wall Street.
How silent the street was! Not a soul was stirring, and yet it was high-noon--Wall Street? Broadway? He glanced almost wildly up and down, then across the street, and as he looked, a sickening horror froze in his limbs. With a choking cry of utter fright he lunged, leaned giddily against the cold building, and stared helplessly at the sight.