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smoking room offered the least possibility.

Barbara, amazed at the sights, walked close to him as they searched the rooms and places for a suitable spot. Soon the ship's intoxication caught her, made her feel wal thrilled and heady, as though she were smoking in adventure and danger. Never before had she seen such doings, this mingling of the sexes, this feeling of having the lid pulled off, this disregard of the conventions and of other people's opinions, this desperate sense of "today we must live. No one knows of tomorrow. No one cares. Today is life, and life is love - and we'll take what we can get if we can't have what we want."

Going up the port deck they ran into Marsh and Bert Diggs. Hugh was collared by Diggs at once. "Just the man I'm looking for. Need you for tomorrow night. I'm Hod Lorimer's deputy. We're collecting talent for the ship's show and can't get along without you." He had notebook and pencil ready. "What can I put you down for?"

"Nothing."

"Oh yes you can" said Marsh, "Barbara, help me make him."

Said Barbara, "We have something to do."

"So have we, so has everybody. Do this with us. What is this all-important thing?"

Said Hugh, "Barbara and I have a little misunderstanding to clear up."

"What's that got to do with the ship's show? Bert, don't let him get away."

"Here," said Diggs, "let's step out of the way. I've been

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run over too many times this morning."

When they had edged in near the rail, Hugh said, "The ship's
show? A follow-up of the bal masque? Not for me. Who have you?
What's going to happen?"

"Just everybody. Do you know, Langley, I have discovered -
who do you think? Inman, the concert violinist. No, he didn't
just get on. Been aboard all the time. Playing sick in his
suite. I routed him and he's down for four numbers and as
many encores as the crowd can clap out of him. He's number one.
Andra Feala - "

"Is she - "

"Sure mike. A singing act. They tell me she's a wow. Used
to be a professional, stage, night-clubs, or something. Any-
way she's a wow and she's down. Lorimer and I are going to
work up something together - "

"My dear Diggs", said Hugh, "you don't need me. You are
going to make the Hippodrome look like two cents."

Said Marsh - "And a gala audience too, like a big first
night in New York. Who else do you think is on board? Henri
Nost, the international banker, and the Count and Countess of
Calonne. They've been with the captain all the time and ~~that's~~
that's why we haven't seen them but they'll be out for the
show."

"Can't spare you," said Diggs. "Mr. Hugh Langley must go
down. What's it going to be, better tell me now or you will
have me on your heels." Hugh's impulse was to walk off and

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ignore the fellow, but he heard himself asking, "What do you want of need?"

"A skit, a skit for the closing act. I can tell you, friend, this show is going to be an all-star super-thrill. You said right about the Hippodrome, and when Hollywood hears about it, there'll be a new flock of comets out there. Will it be a skit from you?"

Hugh held back, scratched his chin and found he was suddenly divided in a way he had not expected to be.

"Will you do it?"

Hugh tapped his hand and glanced up. "Put me down for a skit."

Diggs grinned all over. "That's the boy!" His hand scribbled. "Hugh Langley - skit. We'll have it at the end. Thanks, Hugh. Got to get going. More to collar. See you later - and, oh say, almost forgot, any rehearsing you want to do, use the dining salon between meals. Lots of things will be going on. Thanks. I really do appreciate it." And off he went with Marsh.

Hugh looked at Barbara. "I don't know why I let myself be roped in. It doesn't look as though we were going to say very much to each other before lunch, does it?"

"Can't we talk here?"

"I suppose we could, but I have a feeling that we are going to be invaded and that everything will be topsy-turvy today. Suppose we say this - we'll meet again early tomorrow morning, and we'll make it really early. I've wanted to take you on a tour of the ship to see the different rooms and shops and the engines - everything with you. Won't that be happy?"

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"Very" she said, "but I can't we go somewhere now?"

So they set off, neither knowing exactly where.

Not long after, they were again approached by Diggs and Marsh.

"Sorry, friends. It's a straight crime to break into anything as happy as look. Got to do it. It's that act of mine. Here's how it is. I've talked it over with Hod. We need your lady here - "

"I can't" said Barbara.

"You won't have to do much. Just appear at the beginning. Everybody's helping. I want to put this through the first rehearsal right away. Got to finish mine so I can help others. You see how it is."

Marsh spoke up, "It's an awfully good idea, Barbara. You'll like it. Lots of humor and satire. It'll be great fun. I offered but they won't have me. Come on. It won't take more than twenty minutes."

Barbara looked at Hugh; but she was already responding. It would be lots of fun. To be on the stage in the show! She'd always wanted a part on the stage. "Shall I?"

"Of course."

So they all raced off.

Hugh watched the preliminaries. Ideas began coming to him for his own skit.

Lunch hour came, and Diggs had hardly more than started; so he signed them up for after lunch. Everybody was much excited, filled with activities and lines, fascinated by even this taste of theatre. Another contagion was added to the others which already were sweeping the ship.

The show! The ship's show! *The* Burgundy show!

It was early afternoon when Diggs hit on a name -

## Sea Frolics

The dining-room had been cleared of the lunch debris and at least seventy people were milling about, some with serious re-hearsal-business, others simply drawn by the magnet and looking on. When the name struck Diggs he shouted it with a below of triumph to the whole room, and the whole room responded and resounded with handclaps and bravos.

Hugh left to get the consent of people needed in his cast. Barbara had already said yes. So had Hod and March. In addition he felt he needed Morgan, the Tildens, Vera, perhaps Betty and Sid, perhaps - my goodness, Edith Gilroy!

As worked up as any of the ship's company he dashed about looking for people. It seemed queer to him that he was actually carrying the thing through. He knew it was nonsensical; he kept on doing it just the same, because, so he told himself, foolish or not, he was in this way participating in the only activity, the only release and galvanizing which the ship-world asked of him.

41.

A.F.

Sometime later Hugh was attracted by a vacant table in the deck-cafe. He ordered a drink and soon discovered how delightful the cafe was, and wondered why, all these days, he'd never given it a trial before. The striped umbrellas, the olive-green tables, were gay and jaunty. It was cool here, and restful, and very nice to drink and smoke and gaze at the wide blue waters with the long wake of the ship a foamy road going back across the Atlantic.

Suddenly he was surprised to see Edith Gilroy come up and stop before him, smiling. He arose, not knowing what to expect.

"Won't you join me?"

"Thank you, I will."

He ordered her a Vermouth-Cassis and then said, "Strange, I was just thinking of you. You know that tomorrow night, the _Burgundy_ show."

"Don't I know! I can't keep tab of all the events. Tomorrow night the show. The next night the captain's dinner. The day after, we land -"

She broke off to gaze at him. He gazed at her. Both seemed to feel there was something odd about this meeting that was going along so smoothly, as if nothing had happened, as if they had had friendly casual contacts all their days.

"I may need you in a skit I'm doing. In fact, I've been looking for you."

"That sounds interesting."

He sketched in his ideas. When he finished, she said she'd be

glad to take part.

Then she seriously considered something, her blue eyes MEEEK humorous
but narrowed. "I was looking for you."

"You were?"

"Doesn't it seem long ago that we had our last talk? If I have
taken the wrong step it will be your fault. I wish the boat were
going in the other direction. You knew there was a man -"

He nodded.

"I don't see why I didn't - it would have been simpler. I told
you quite a lot. It would have been better if I'd told you all.
Why do we so often come right up to a thing - and then stop, fall
short? Anyway, there was and, I am happy to say, *is if* a man. The day
after our last talk I sent him a radio, saying that he were still
willing we would be married when I return."

"I'm glad, Edith, very very glad. And his reply? Ah, I see.
My congratulations, then! And all good things and every possible
happiness."

"Thank you, Hugh. Your good wishes seem to mean quite a lot.
You will come to see us, when you return? I hope you will. I'll
give you our address."

"You will live in Cleveland?"

"Where he wants to. For the first year in Cleveland, I'm sure.
His business is there now."

It all seemed somewhat unreal, remote from anything that had to
do with him; but he was quite impressed to see and feel her in
this state - quite a different Edith from the militant lady he
had known.

He wanted to tease her. "And Paris?"

She had no regrets. "As a visitor, only."

For a while she looked at him with level max eyes, her face soften-
ed and far away, as if she were seeing through and past him, her
future, her future life unfold and pass by.

"It is quite a step."

"You are equal to it," he said, "and it will be fruitful."

She smiled and stood up and extended her hand. "Thank you, Hugh."

"But, my dear," he began.

She simply pressed his hand and walked off.

He watched her disappeared around the deck and then took his
chair, strange emotions suddenly filling him as his experiences with
her came rushing into memory.

Into this whirl came the second surprise. He saw Andra coming
up to him almost exactly as Edith had done.

He snapped to and sprang up, this time with sheer astonishment;
and to Andra he said the identical thing, "Won't you join me?"

"Thank you, I will."

He couldn't quite handle it, this queer repetition with two
different people which seemed a recurrence.

However, he did have presence of mind enough to order her a drink
and offer cigarettes.

Soon he realized that this was Andra, dressed in a chic grey and
black ensemble with a canary yellow scarf with black polka dots -
and she wanted to see him!

"You wonder why?" she asked. "I need advice - oh, not for myself.
Andy is on my mind. I don't know who to go to, unless you. It may
be asking too much."

"No, not at all - if I can."

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"I'm sure you can. Hod has said many things."

"Hod? About me?"

"You seem surprised."

"I am."

"He calls you his brother. He believes you are a great man. He says you have helped him."

"But I haven't."

"I believe you can do this for me. Andy is in bad way. Something must be done. It seems that I'm the person, with someone's help, to do it. Have you any idea of what really happened when he stowed away in that life-boat?"

"Not the slightest."

"Would it interest you?"

"Of course," said Hugh; but all of this too seemed unreal, un-connected with himself, or with Andra.

"I know nothing about it that first night. The next morning, when everyone thought he had jumped over, I believed so, too. What else could one believe? But the second night, early in the morning, I woke up and felt that someone was in my room. It was Andy. Believe me, I thought I was seeing a ghost. To make a long story short, I simply couldn't persuade him to give up his insane idea. He said he was going to bury himself in that boat until the ship reached France, and between you and myself, I think he'd have done it if those people hadn't discovered him. So what was I to do? I became, as you might call it, his accomplice. I bribed a ship's boy to take him food and drink. I paid my stewardess a royal sum to say nothing to anybody if she saw Andy coming into my cabin of nights. Twice again he did come in, looking more like a ghost each time, to thaw and stretch and get

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something hot. Now what do you make of that?

Hugh stroked his chin. "I have a suggestion to offer, but before I give it I'd like to ask you one thing. The night Andy disappeared, you remember I came into the smoking-room under the impression that Hod wanted to see me?"

"Yes, I remember."

"But when I walked up, it was you who said you wanted to see me. Now I'm not curious to know why you did that. That's your own affair. But I do want to find out if you know what Andy tried to do to Barbara, and if he has told you why he made the attempt and what caused him to break down."

Andra met him gaze for gaze. "Just recently he told me. I asked him why he did it. I even threatened to wash my hands of him unless he told me all. I haven't been able to get or coax or force -"

"Thank you," said Hugh. "That's all I wanted to know." But he knew nothing, not even if she were telling the truth or lying. "As to my suggestion. I happen to know in Paris an excellent psychiatrist. By the way, will Andy be able to pay anything?"

"He will, and what he can't, I will."

"Fine. Such matters ought not have to be considered when the sanity of a human being is at stake; but psychiatrists too have to make a living. I'm sure, however, that I can arrange for special fees. I will give you a letter of introduction. It will be up to you to get Andy to him - and that's that for the time being. Now about you and myself."

She stood up, drawing him up.

"Many people thank you. Mine won't mean much..."

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"But it is nothing."

"I must go now."

"Go?" He held her. He saw her directly, with no words about Andy standing between them. He saw her eyes and lips, her sun-tawny coloring, the design of her brows, that something in her more ancient than the occident. "Just when I say that now we can talk about you and myself, you stand up, thank me for nothing, and say you must go. Must? And where? Sit down, if you will."

"Suppose I won't."

He made a wry face and simply moved her back into her chair.

"So!" she seemed to say. "My man feels himself!"

After ordering more drinks he said, "I hear you are going to be in the show. Is it true that you are or were a professional singer?"

"I haven't heard you giving information about yourself."

"Quite right."

Silence for a while, off-looking.

He couldn't think of a thing to say. It struck him that there was little or nothing to communicate through words. This swift contact with her was on a different plane, body to body, expressions, gestures, physical things that spoke for themselves, and were immediate and direct, such as this sitting together at a table in the deck-cafe of a ship - and he liked it, this meeting which he might have been accused of running away from ever since the first day out, now he liked it, and wanted it to move on to its destination.

Into his mind came what he had said to her that night with Hod and herself in her cabin. "Adam would have fallen long before he did if Andra instead of Eve had been his wife." He smiled to himself. It was nonsensical, inaccurate, but, somehow, it said something, said-

all he wanted to say to her. He wondered if she remembered it, but
it was disingenuous to mention it now. And her response to him, "You
are amazing!" And he wondered if she felt that now - she, Andra,
who asked for his power.

But power without direction, force without future, passion without
the wholeness of a human being, as lopsided and as limited in its
way as his commitment to make contacts solely through ideas and
words - and perhaps this was why he had evaded it, why now, despite
the power of the physical polarization, his mind, his will, still
held back somewhat until he had decided if he wanted her for one
experience, as there could be no more than one.

He looked at her. She looked at him. Passion lept the gap.

He felt he could fall recklessly in love with her, to love her
utterly, to live for love of her - unto his disintegration.

He signed slips for the drinks. He helped her arise. He moved
her along the deck, into her cabin.

Maniacs

Rather late that night as Hugh was turning a passageway he ran smack into Hod and had a fantastic notion that Hod had been lying in wait for him.

"I want to see you," growled Hod. His eyes were queer and beady.

"All right," said Hugh; and he forcibly checked an impulse to josh Hod, to try to josh him out of it.

What was it all about? Their last meeting had been amiable enough. Nothing, so far as he knew, had gone amiss since then. Some misunderstanding? Well, it would soon be cleared. He allowed himself to smile, but he couldn't let the tension down. Hod was standing there, blocking the way, staring at him like a maniac.

"Well, here I am. What do you want?"

"I want to talk to you."

"Shall we stand here and talk here?" There was something monstrously foolish about the whole thing...two bulls without horns locking eyes. He was getting angry at Hod. He felt a bit insane himself, and asked himself if Hod's stare might be hypnotic, if Hod's state, whatever it was, might be contagious. "Well, fellow, don't stare at me. Let's get on with our business."

Hod moved at last. "Follow me." He strode off as though possessed by a delusion, a delusion that one crazy man might have as regards his influence over another - the belief that

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because he said, "Follow me," the second lunatic would follow, both belonging to the brotherhood of insane compulsions.

In absolute silence they went down the deck, Hod slightly in the lead.

When they reached the stern deck their eyes were not yet accustomed to the dark and they disturbed several couples. One of the men said something. Hod turned on him and bellowed, "Get the hell out of here, clear out, all of you." He made a feint at the man. Two girls shrieked and the men and the girls speedily retreated.

He, rubbing his hands as if washing them, glared after them.

Then he turned on Hugh and, for a moment, seemed startled to see him.

By now Hugh had no doubt he was dealing with a madman. Over him came the sensations which torment the sane as they strain their wits to discover ways of handling a lunatic with possible homicidal tendencies.

Hod spoke, "I know what you're thinking. You think I'm crazy. Maybe I am. Who's to be the judge? Now what I want to tell you I can tell you in a few words. There's not enough room in the world for the two of us. Do you get that? You stand in my way. Whether I stand in yours I don't know and I don't give a damn. You stand in mine. Everywhere I want to go, you block my way. Everything I want to do, you hold me back. Everything I want, you get first or come along and take it away from me. We won't mention names. We won't name instances. But you know what I mean and you know it's true."

"Just a minute," Hugh shouted. "I don't know all this you say,

and don't you try to put it on me."

"The hell you don't. Don't try to clever me. I've got you where I want you now."

"Oh, have you?"

A quick change came over Hod. He grinned diabolically and began swaying as though keeping rhythm with an insane melody. "Now, then, my high priest, just hold your horses and let nary a one roam out until the driver has given directions. This is what we're going to do. A little test. Just a little test, my dandy. A nice smooth little way to get rid of bad rubbish. See that stern? Beneath it are the propellers. All around are the nice cool waters of Mr. Ocean. A bit black now, to be sure, but nice and velvety and cool."

Now, my high priest, here's what we're going to do. We're going to tie ropes to that stern end and let them dangle over. They'll reach within six feet of the water. To the ends of those ropes we'll tie...look," and from his pocket he drew two handkerchiefs, "we'll tie these little white things. Don't recognize them, do you? Too dark. They're Barbara's. Yup, just two of Barbara's little handkerchiefs, the cute child, the cute things. I used to collect such items in my romantic days. These darling little souvenirs we'll tie to the dangling ends of the ropes. And then what? That's the simplest and the easiest part of it all. I'll slide down one rope. You'll slide down the other. After we get the handkerchiefs we can begin climbing back. If we both get back, I'll take it as a sign that God wants both of us in His world. But if..." he paused with a significant leer. "Now this, my high priest, is what we're going to do. A little

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test," and he thundered, "if you have the guts."

Now something cracked in Hugh. He saw red. Then all went black for a moment. A terrific mad force swept up and possessed him. The voice that spoke to Hod was not his own. The man who now faced Hod was not himself. Something in him knew it. Nothing in him could resist it.

Said he with burning iciness, "A neat little test. A perfect little test. One that intrigues me so much that I propose we try it at once," and he glared at Hod as if feeling he was the superior, Hod the inferior, maniac.

Hod grinned and lifted a hand. "Your zeal, your highness, doth get the better of your judgement. Say not so. Consider all things, even this little thing, in relation to fitness. Now, milord, I ask you. Would it be meet that we engage in a duel - for a duel it is - in the dark of night? Nay, nay, say not so." He gestured grandiloquently. "At the crack of dawn, milord. At the crack of dawn!" and he bowed with the utmost gallantry.

An insane laugh burst from Hugh. Behind this laugh his demon flashed and the furies raged. Then he fell into Hod's manner. "So at dawn, you say? Well-conceived, milord. Forsooth, my zeal did quite eclipse my better judgement. All high businesses should be at, and only at, the proper hour. Your lordship's sense of timeliness doth match his ingenuity. Truly only a vast brain inspired by the loftiest passion could invent so excellent an enterprise. At the crack of dawn it shall be!" He bowed.

Hod echoed, "At the crack of dawn it shall be!" He bowed.

Then, snapping erect, they glared at each other, faced away, and strode off, Hugh going forward up one side, Hod up the other.

Chapter 41

43.

At the Crack

At the 'appointed hour' Hugh went to the stern deck and looked about. His stomach was flat; otherwise he felt lean and vital. An early morning chill contracted his body yet was stimulating. He drew in the fresh air, deep breaths. The ocean was grey and vast and empty. As he looked a subtle light came upon it. In the heavens no cloud was visible.

The entire sea-world seemed cleansed and washed, as the earth-world does after an April thundershower. He himself grew buoyant, glad to be alive, as if he were a boy up early to see what new wonders were abroad.

To dangle with Hod at the ends of ropes? The madness of the night had left him. What madness! Now he could not credit that it had actually occurred. Impossible that Hod had proposed such a stupid crazy escapade, less possible that he had accepted it. Yet in his body he knew it was so, that any minute now Hod would be out.

He shook himself and ran his hands over his face.

At this minute he was standing safely on the deck. At the next, he might be hanging over the grey cold waters, slipping, slipping to death, yes - but worse, to stark idiocy.

If one goes mad once he can go mad twice.

It would not happen. Not in this life. Let Hod come out a raving bull. He'd fight him until there was no **MANKIND** fight left, and no madness.

Two maniacs! Who would believe that two apparently sane men had suddenly gone off their heads to undertake 'a little test' with dangling ropes and Barbara's handkerchiefs at the ends!

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Just then he saw Hod swinging down the deck; and he simply stood
there, quivering with anticipation of Hod's impact.

Then he saw Hod's face. It was smiling.

Hod was running now. He rushed up with hand out-stretched. "Hi,
Hugh!" He caught Hugh in a tight embrace; then he stood back, shifted
about, his mouth working queerly.

"Hugh, Hugh, you old luny! Who'd **KK** ever think that **you** would
crack! I'm surprised and ashamed of you! For cats sakes! So you
were going to make old Hod walk the plank! What have I done to you,
man? Isn't the world big enough for both of us? You old luny, you!"

So he was being razzed! So Hod too had snapped out: Hugh let
himself smile, but peered searchingly.

"To be serious, fellow. Hugh, I swear to God I don't know what
possessed me. I'd apologize a thousand times but I won't and I'll
tell you why in a minute. Did something pull my cork! And how! The
biggest - man, I didn't know I had it in me. You couldn't have made
me believe -"

"Two of a kind."

"Yup, I know, but it wasn't you. I've pulled wild ones in my
time. God, yes! Nothing like this - so help me God. I wouldn't
believe I'd done it if I didn't see it in your eyes. We were back
here last night, weren't we? Can you beat that?" and he lowered his
head and wagged it.

"Hugh, it's damn unfair to you, because you're the goat, but
here's how it is. I've learned something. In the hours between last
night and now I've learned something I wouldn't give anything for.
All my life I've been doing simply godawful things and fooling
myself that I could make up by saying I'm sorry. See what I mean?

I'd do some awful thing, pull a stunt. I'd know it was awful. I'd
feel that everything would be smoothed out by my apology. Oh, Chirrst,
have I done that! I'd never check myself in advance. Hell no. I'd
never check myself midway. I'd crash through, feel all powerful - and
afterwards when my conscience began working - which it always did,
but always later - I'd rush to the person and beg pardon. Think of
begging a man's pardon after you've broken his leg! And I'd give
myself hell, go through the agonies of the damned, do anything to atone
and square myself with myself and with the world - but all afterwards.

"Right now, this is the first time in my life that I've caught
myself in advance - at least, midway. I don't guess you can see what
this means. You don't do asinine things. You consider yourself and
others before you leap. It means life to me, Hugh. Just life, nothing
less. Why, fellow, even on this ship I've done just terrible things.

"I dragged Sid and Betty aboard. If something had gone wrong, what
was I prepared to do? Say, 'I'm sorry.' Something you don't know is
what happened between me and Andy. Criminal. I was responsible for
his crazy disappearance and all. And what did I do? Say, 'I'm sorry.'
Hugh, I tell you I've scattered my 'I'm sorrys' all over the earth.

"Not once, not until last night - I had one hell of a time after
I left you and I began coming to my senses - and this morning
have I ever said, 'I won't.' To put the halter on this fellow was the
very last thing I wanted - but, as I realize now - the very first
thing he needed. Now, old timer, at your expense, the bridle is on,
and it's going to stay on and I'll do all of my sorrowing before-
hand."

He took breath, saw that Hugh was with him all the way through,
and rolled on.

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"Now why I tackled you, why I said the world wasn't big enough
for the two of us, why I said you stood in my way, and all that
nonsense - that's something I've been breaking my head to understand
and I don't know a thing. Why should it be you, of all people? Yet,
I was going to have you dangling over - and bless us, if you, you
who have a head, weren't going to do it! Wouldn't have waited until
the 'crack of dawn'. It's too much for me. What do you think of it,
Hugh? Come right out and give me the works."

"All right. All the works you want. But, my dear brother luny,
my stomach is empty flat against my back, and I'm not very good
with an empty belly."

"Right you are! We'll attend to that first. Say, old timers it
may be wicked but I've got an idea. I'm all pepped up. What do you
say? Boy, what a glorious morning this is getting to be! Now here's
what, if it's agreeable to you. We'll put a bridle on the bellies
for an hour and start off with a game of deck-tennis. Then a swim.
Then, old boy, one whale of a breakfast with onion soup and the
whole show! In fine, let's start the day with a bang!"

"Sold," said Hugh.

So they set off, arm in arm.

Up to the sun-deck for deck-tennis. Down to Hugh's cabin for a
shower. Up to the pool. Eight people were in the tank. Hugh and
Hod dove in, splashed about, played water-polo with a gay-colored
ball.

With wolfish appetites they stormed the dining-room.

Half an hour later they leaned back, stretched, and smoked.

Hod thumped his belly. "Feels great, simply great, old boy. I put
it to a vote. Each day should begin like this."

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## Chapter XLIX

44.

### Jolie Brise, Mer Belle

A glorious morning it was, washed and spruce, and a racy wind charged with brine. The heavens were dappled with white clouds and blue spaces. The blue spaces were bride-blue, pure and radiant. The sea, blue-green, was gently swelling, serene and calm save when puffs of wind brushed across it and blżased ripples.

The **Burgundy**, a lone proud form on the vast waters, funnels trailing a long dark arm, sailed on.

Sunlight flooded the portholes, urging the ship's company out into the open. Out on deck they came in bright colors, gay and animated. The raucous boisterous elements of the day before were not in evidence. Crude energies seemed to have been transformed and harmonized with this new flowing. Intoxication there still was; but it seemed to have been processed. It was as if the entire ship had undergone alchemical refinement.

Hugh, springing along the promenade on hi's way to get Barbara, passed his fellow passengers.

The smiles! The greetings! The excited whisperings and laughter!

What a ship's company! What a ship!

Burgundians! World-riders!

The instant he and Barbara met they sort of carried each other away. She said she had been waiting impatiently, feeling he would never come. How fine that they had picked this day of all days for a tour of the ship!

Both remembered the talk. Both felt they must have it sometime, sometime soon - not now. Now they were moving. With all the

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activity in and around them it did not seem possible or desirable
that they delve into themselves. To be inward would mean work.
It shouldn't be work. At the right time it would come of itself.

So, with no more than a pause and a questioning, they again
put it off. Perhaps later in the day, after they had mingled with
people and seen the sights and had their fill of active pleasures.
Wasn't it enough that they were together?

His suggestion was that they begin with the pilot-house and,
as it were, work back and down from there.

So up they went to the bridge and into the house with the
wheels and all the shiny bright nautical instruments. Barbara's
eyes were wide, and when one of the officers asked if she would
like to hold one of the control wheels, she simply danced.

She stood behind the wheel, daring to touch it only slightly -
but there she stood and smiled to Hugh and then, growing suddenly
very earnest, gazed out from the high windows down across the
fore part of the ship and far away over the vast spread towards
the eastern horizon, feeling for all the world that actually she
was steering the great Burgundy across the ocean.

Hugh thanked the men and they went out to the next sight.

As they were going aft along the boat-deck, he glanced over
the side and saw a sailing ship close by to the south.

"Look there!" he exclaimed, stopping abruptly. "An old square-rigger of rusty hull, three main masts and a jigger-mast, riding the swells under full sail. One man was at the wheel. The rest of the crew were idling along the rail, watching the Burgundy pass.

"Look at that old ship! A pirate ship with a ghost-crew just arisen from the deep! Really, it's like an apparition, isn't it?"

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"Where it it from? Where is it going? They must have crossed
the Atlantic."

"I've read of the old windjammers that come around Cape Horn
from Australia bearing wheat to England."

"Do you think that might be one?"

"Wouldn't be surprised. See how clearly everything stands out,
the maze of the rigging, those amazing old sails, the things on
the deck - and see that long roped walk, that's what they call
a cat-walk. And see how she rests in the water and rides along.
She's old and rusty but she's still a sight."

For a while he said nothing, and then, "It's a beautiful thing,
a ship. There's something about the way they rest on the water,
and sail along. A ship moves me, always stirs me in the same
swelling way - as if I were the ocean and it were sailing in me
and over me, on and on. It seems just amazingly beautiful."

He turned to her. "You know, Barbara, I love ships. Any kind
of description, just so long as they are in the water. A boat
out of water is dead. A boat in water is one of the world's most
living things. Even a boy's toy ship — put it in the bathtub
and it comes alive. Do you like ships?"

She hesitated.

"Don't you?"

"Now I do. Yes, I do! I've just found out! The first days,
oh..." and she told him how the **Burgundy** and the sea had terrified
her those first days. "But now, I've found I love the **Burgundy**
and the ocean and I'm sure I'd love a little sailboat..." She
broke off and gazed at him. "I'd like to give you a ship with
white sails like wings."

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"Would you? That's very dear. I'd like it."

"I will some day, if it's only a little one for a bathtub. But no, a big one too. Will you take me in it?"

"Believe me I will, and we'll hoist sails and heave anchor to see the world. And do you know why I love them so? Because, to me, everything about a ship is as it should be. Have you ever seen the coppery brass pulleys and cleats they have on knockabouts and yawls and racing sloops and boats like those? Their lines and surfaces and forms are perfect."

He paused. "You know, some of the people who think they know me say that I'm indifferent to physical things. It is not so. I'm indifferent only to indifferent things. If the things, whatever their kind, are beautiful, they move me as nothing else does."

When next they looked for the square-rigger she was far astern, dipping and rising in the swells.

Coming to himself, Hugh turned to her and said, "So, then! Now for the next!"

And off they raced.

Into the Stock Exchange room. In there they saw Sid studying the boards. He did not see them.

Into the radio room. Barbara sent messages to her mother and father in New York, to her aunt and uncle in Paris, happy messages. She let Hugh read them. And now a question he had in mind, the question, namely, of how she would manage in Paris, what her life there would be, was answered. He saw her under the wings of her aunt and uncle.

Into the shops. In one shop Hugh bought her a string of amber beads said to be Egyptian. They were quite lovely and matched the

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colors of her hair and eyes. She was very pleased and surprised
and insisted on wearing them. So he placed them around her neck -
and she felt some strange, quiet thing happen.

As they were about to go below to see the engines and the 'real
works' they ran into Marsh.

Marsh was particularly vivacious this morning. She caught hold
of them and wouldn't let them go. "Young lady, one of your direct-
ors has been looking all over the ship for you. Bert ~~Diggs~~ wants
you at once for the final rehearsal. Young man, as one of those
upon whose shoulders the show rests, you seem to have a lot of
spare time. Don't try to tell me that you're all ready. You're
not. I don't know what I'm to do yet. You might tell me."

Said Hugh, "And you, young lady, I'll tell you this. Please
convey to Bert Diggs and yourself that right after lunch will be
time enough. We'll put the finishing touches on everything then.
How long do you think it takes such talents as ours to engineer
a show?"

"Oh, yes. Quite. I forgot. But you're not going to get away
from me so easily. I haven't seen a thing of you these last days.
I'm jealous of Barbara. What a case you two children have! My!
I've heard of the madness that makes 'great lovers' of everybody
on a ship." She laughed and rubbed her fingers at them.

Then she said, "I know you are off somewhere. It's a shame
to keep you, but you should think of others sometimes. Arthur
has been waiting for a game of shuffleboard with Hugh these many
days. If you won't rehearse, don't you think you might share a
wee part of this glorious day with others and come out and play?
Arthur is back there now. So are Alice and Morgan. Come on.

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What you were about to do can wait a little while, can't it?"

Hugh looked at Barbara. She nodded, "If it won't take too long."

So off they went to the stern deck - to just the spot where early that morning - and the night before - he and Hod had passed through mania.

"Hello, stranger!" Tilden called to Hugh. "Good morning, Barbara."

"Hello yourself," said Hugh. "I hear you are just aching to have me beat you."

"That's it. I'm going to win the tournament tomorrow. If someone doesn't beat me today - well, you know, I may be a swell-head."

"I'll take care of that." Already he was looking for a stick. "The first round, Barbara and I will play you and Alice. Marsh and Morgan will play the winners. How's that?"

"You're on. Get your pusher, Alice. Morgan, you referee. This is going to be tough. Don't like that look in friend Hugh's eyes." He was leaning against his pusher. "Great Scot, I just remember! Isn't this what we might call the eastern Atlantic? Seems to me it must be. We're scheduled to reach Havre day after tomorrow. Wasn't it you, some days beck when we were in mid-Atlantic, who said he'd become champion of the eastern Atlantic?"

"So it was."

"Well, come. wrest the title from me if you can."

They started, the women pushing first.

At one point while Hugh and Tilden were watching Barbara push, Tilden said, "She is a delightful person, your Barbara."

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Hugh noted 'your Barbara'. He felt something coming. "She certainly is."

"Yes," said Tilden, as if musing to himself, "it's interesting how things happen on these ships. You meet a person, you can even fall dead in love with a person. No harm is done. You make it a real passage for each other. Then, when you reach port - finished."

Hugh turned to him, his face still a poker-face. "Quite."

This did not satisfy him. What he next said was a surprise to himself. "These ships, Arthur, are like butterflies. For a day they spread golden wings - and then, having had their time, they die with the sun. No complications. Nothing is violated. No carry-overs. Somewhere in one heart they continue living among the private memories that are always radiant."

Chapter 45

Salute

Right after lunch there was no getting out of it. Rehearsals had to be. So rehearsals were.

Hugh still had business with the orchestra when he saw Barbara was finished. Making a date to meet the band at four o'clock, he ran up and whisked her off.

They emerged on deck to find the deck astir. Word was going around that soon the *Burgundy* would pass the *Paris*.

True enough, the *Paris* was steaming towards them, going the other way. Already her for m and smoke were visible on the eastern horizon. She would clear them, so the news ran, to the south, in full view.

Though they had passed a number of freighters - and the old rusty windjammer - this was the first great liner to greet them in the desert of ocean; and it was as if the *Burgundy*, a lone man, were rising to hail the first creature of his kind seen in years.

No wonder the ship's company felt thrill. Hugh and Barbara felt it especially.

They sped to the bridge-deck and watched the great proud form approach.

Then they raced back on the boat-deck. Most of the spaces between the boats were already occupied by people who also knew where to get the best sight. They found a vacant cubby-hole just to the side of, almost under, the ship's great black funnels and whistles.

They squeezed arms and glanced at each other like giddy children and looked out at the *Paris* as if it were a figure in wonderland.

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She was the queen of that ocean. Up she arose from the level
sea, up majestically, and waved an imperial arm over the waters
and against the bright blue heavens, with the entire world stand-
ing at attention in the background. She sailed on, her prow
spreading white wings of foam.

Now the <u>Paris</u> was directly south of them.

Of a sudden, the <u>Burgundy's</u> deep whistles opened in a full
roar. The body-blast of a ship's whistles going off.

Again they roared. And again. Three times.

Hugh, shattered and triumphant, looked at Barbara. She looked
at him in the same elated way.

"Will the <u>Paris</u> return our salute?"

"Yes, Yes. But we may not hear. She's farther off than she
looks."

While they still vibrated they saw puffs of white steam-greetings
come from the <u>Paris</u> whistles. That was all.

On and on, clear of them, past them, her proud form sailed on,
traversing back to America almost the identical lane made by the
<u>Burgundy.</u>

"I can't begin to tell you," said Barbara, "I can't begin...
how wonderful I feel these ships are now. And when I think of how
the <u>Burgundy</u> terrified me...why, I can't believe I'm the same
person... or this the same ship. I want to know about them. I
want to cross again and again. I'd like to live on one...I mean
for a long long time, not just for a trip. And I want to know
the people. I never knew that people... I mean everybody, can
be so - whatever they are. I don't know what I thought of people
before. Mr. Diggs, he's awfully nice. In New York I'd never have

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a chance to meet anyone like him."

An idea struck him. "It just occurs to me. I wonder if you'd like to read...you know, I have a notebook of jottings of many passages - "

"I would: I would!"

"I've had it with me on at least four crossings. I filled my time jotting things down. And perhaps this afternoon when I leave you to meet the musicians -"

"I'd love it!"

She was all the more intrigued because she felt and hoped that in his notebook she would discover things about secret Hugh.

She was wearing his beads. But what did she *know* of him? For all she *knew* to the contrary, he might be a gambler or a gangster or a gentleman crook. Besides, she wanted a peep inside him, for the sake of the peep, for the sake of him.

Now they were off to see the ship's engines.

They saw them, the huge oil-burners, the tenders, the immaculate machines and walks, the gleaming steel eight-day revolving propeller-shafts.

On the way through the passageway to see the rudder-machinery, they passed shadowy figures of men in soft shoes, and Hugh, sensing something in the air, remembered the crazy rumors about a threatened uprising among the crew and the tourists.

As they were passing the door of the tourist smoking-room he heard a familiar voice call his name. There was Kohl, in shirt-sleeves, enjoying a pipe and a beer at one of the tables.

"Come in a minute," he called. "I like it here. Here a man can be himself."

After talking ship-news, Kohl began on his favorite topic.

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A trip down the African coast in an old vessel which had fallen to the British from Germany after the war. British East Africa, the trek into the interior. A native hut on the brown veldt with a magnificent purplish mountain in the background. His first morning.

"Gosh, I got up and looked out. What did I see but a herd of animals grazing out there near enough to hit with a stone. Wildbeasts, impala, ostriches, giraffes. I rubbed my eyes. Was I awake? Was I dreaming? Was I in Africa? Was I in a zoo? Believe me, it was so unreal...why, say, even now I think I dreamed it."

Hugh glanced up as Phelps and a bobbed-haired girl entered the room and took a table in the corner. So, Phelps!

Kohl talked on, sometimes falling into a slangy speech delivered with gusto and relish...cockeyed liar...sock him in the eye...you can't get away from it...he-man food...when the world gets too thick on your shoulders...gyp you...a bunch of bandits...

Hugh saw a group of men start to come in, stop abruptly as they saw Phelps, and back out.

Kohl talked on...love of animals...speaking of a gazelle - "You know she was pretty! Beautiful! Damn she was pretty!" He hated to shoot her. Needed the specimen.

A passion for hunting. Liked to stalk game, to handle a rifle. When he shot he shot to kill, wanted to kill. Couldn't beat going up to a fallen animal and finding it in misery, half alive.

He was made uncomfortable by Barbara saying she didn't see how anyone could kill any living creature, unless one absolutely needed the food.

"You know," said Kohl, "you hear a lot about so-called wild animals attacking men. Never known it to happen, unless you've

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wounded them or some other man has. Then you'd better look out.
But who makes them man-eating? Man himself. Don't guess we
ought to hunt them.

"And say, talk about intelligence. Believe me, animals have
it. They talk to each other. I've seen a herd of zebra running
away. One zebra was behind about a hundred yards or more. I
dropped him. The instant he fell the entire herd stopped, turned
around, waited, knowing that something had happened."

"Hyenas are the dirty devils. There's a bunch of bandits for
you. They're the only animals I hate. They sneak in and steal
pelts. One of those devils wouldn't mind sneaking in to your hut
and nipping your arm off while you sleep. Aw, they're dirty devils,
just sneaking ugly bandits."

Hugh happened to glance at his watch. "Great Scot! I'm late.
Sorry to run off. See you later."

He and Barbara raced upstairs, Barbara talking of Africa and
animals all the way.

Note-Book

She was glad to be in her cabin for a breathing spell. Skylarking with Hugh all morning. Rehearsals. Skylarking again. And in a few hours, the ship's show. A busy day, oh so busy!

She felt at home on the ship! To be in two skits! To meet and be friendly with all these people! She didn't need her cabin as a retreat any more; and she suddenly realized that ever since she could remember she had wanted just this, this feeling that the world was hers, that she belonged in it, that she was free and unafraid to meet and mingle.

She was grateful to Hugh, grateful to the ship.

Soon it would be evening and a gay dinner party. She wondered if she would remember her lines. Better not wonder. Her memory was her standby. Best forget all about the show for a while. She'd had enough excitement to last a long time - that is, at least until dinner time.

So she settled herself. Now she wished she smoked. She was going to read Hugh's note-book and it would be nice to smoke and be very reflective.

She opened the book as if it were a diary. She ruffled the pages. Such a large book, almost filled! She wished she had enough thoughts to fill a book. She'd never have time to read it all before they reached France. Maybe he would let her keep it and give it to him later, if he were going to be in Paris, or send it if -

Where was he going? She'd never really asked before. With something of a shock she realized she didn't know. Wouldn't it be fun

if he _were_ going to be in Paris? Fun? Wouldn't it be awful if he weren't!

A drawing caught her eye. A comical sketch entitled, "The Good Ship Hillary of the Rough Sea Line." It showed a crazy boat with its bow high up, its stern far down, and a lot of fish laughing at it. A nymph, a gafflebitar-fish, a whale nematode, and other MANKIND inhabitants of the deep laughing at the antics of the boat in the storm.

Then she became absorbed in the notes.

Seaborn - the name given a child born on mid-ocean.

The genius to inhabit - to _inhabit_ a room, a house, other people, a city, a ship, _the_ earth, oneself - this is man's highest and rarest talent.

A raft on the open sea, wind-blown, wave-swept - a man and a woman - the problem of creating a _human_ atmosphere as a form to live in and as a buffer against the physical universe, as a spiritualized world within which human beings can exist and flower.

Human beings _need_ atmosphere. Their psyches _need_ it as their bodies _need_ food and sun. The home as the prime unit of atmosphere-forming. If individual homes have atmosphere, the town will have it. If the town lacks it, you may know that most of the houses are empty and spiritless, without human juice, its color and flavor.

Colorless people are simply people without atmosphere. Neither medicine nor money will produce it, though these are sometimes useful as means.

The materials of atmosphere exist for the most part unformed. (The planet is more fortunate than we are.) Now and again in people, in places, these materials crystallize. Let education produce these crystals and we will celebrate it.

This suggests why some people seek "dens". This is why saloons are popular. If one can't get "good" atmosphere he will take "bad" in preference to none. This is why churches are used only on Sundays. In brief, this suggests the explanation of many things which puzzle our good people, which they too often attribute to "the innate perversity of human nature".

There are nine main ways of meeting people, as

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follows:

(1) Casually,
(2) Socially,
(3) Professionally,
(4) Spiritually,
(5) Emotionally,
(6) Mentally,
(7) Sexually,
(8) Purposively,
and (9) Essentially.

He has attained the state of consciousness able to perceive the pattern or design of his own life, to glimpse the patterns of others - of those who have them. He ponders on whether or not there are two distinct and separate fates embracing two different kinds of men under different laws: mass-fate, the fate of drops of water, fish, insects, birds, beasts, and the majority of men; and individual fate, the fate of individualized human beings.

Four men in a cabin. Their incredible slowness and stolidity. Sleep in underwear. One sea-sick. The smell of socks and feet. You can cut the air. The sea-wind, blowing through the porthole, is as helpless as my nose.

Men in a cabin on a rough sea are reduced to bodies. No psyche in evidence. Only the body, a damp pale weak thing sick in the gills. An organism which breathes, makes sounds, drinks, smells, and occasionally washes itself. One man grunts, groans, farts, and when he washes he spits and blows his nose into the common basin.

An inky sea with huge ominous waves with white-caps of a weird bluish-white color which seem utterly unrelated to the dark sea which forms them.

On a return passage. A woman from Detriot declares to her husband, "I want you to go back to the cabin, get those books, and take them to the steward, they're overdue. You must get broken in. For three months you've been a European man, leading me about, giving me orders, carrying on. Now you'll take orders from me. We're almost home. Now you've got to be an American man."

A three-cornered discussion of marriage, divorce, women, the double standard, customs in France and in America, between a New York lawyer, a Southerner, and myself.

The Southerner - believes in double standard - thinks all Americans do - teach a boy to take care of himself,

tchchchchchchchch

any
teach a girl to be pure - men should, and may decent
man does, respect a pure woman - does not believe in
divorce because often the trouble is temporary but
divorce-lawyers want business - a man can run around
but must keep it to himself, not make a public fact of
it - one can publically have a mistress in France, and
be acceptable, not in America - with us, a "wild"
fellow is attractive, but a man who has and is known to
have a steady mistress is ruled out.

The Lawyer - believes in single standard - says he
is not a prude but a puritan in the sense that he
believes that character and morality should restrain
the passions - when other young fellows were running
around he had no trouble not running around - tells of
a Frenchman who explained why he allowed his boy free-
dom but kept his daughter in hand: the French woman
naturally gives herself, and she must be protected
against an unwise giving; a well-trained French boy
can be relied upon to live up to the standards of his
training.

Myself - the distinction between social conditions
and the natural periods in the growth and functioning of
the human body - people should marry when, according to
the laws of their growth, they first have a real
mating-desire - in this case there would be few or no
sex or marital or sex-moral problems as we experience
them - all our difficulties, repressions for women,
running around for men, and so forth, arise from the
circumstance that our civilization is not made for
right sex or for right marriage at the right time.

A November passage.

We are in mid-ocean in a storm. I stand on deck,
gaze at the dark vast waters, and contemplate the
immediacy of death.

I am held above and saved from a surrounding element
which is not suitable for my life by a ship which is
not insured by God against accident. So quickly, so
utterly without regard for the continuation of my
existence, this ship could founder, I being pitched into
the water which would both freeze and drown me.

Some measure of this truth is realized by me. From
deep down a voice cries, "No! That could never happen
to you. Not this time. You must and will reach land.
You still wear a charm against death. This next minute
you may die? Nonsense!"

But I recognize the voice as that which cries to
all people when it is certain - as on a battlefield -
that the majority of them will die. I over-rule it
and increase my sense of the imminence of death. It
would be fancy to say that those waves look hungry for
me. It is real to say that if this ship were to meet

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with accident as many others have, I would not last an hour.

Perhaps, in truth, I have only an hour more.

A chill grips me and, at the same time, my fix affirming will affirms and wills my continuation living. Also, another voice pleads that I forget this realization, pleads that I too succumb to the illusion of security, to the belief in a charmed life which drugs my fellow passengers. "Go," it says, "go inside and join those others who listen to music, who dance and drink and exist insulated within the world produced by their not-touching-reality-psyches."

To strengthen my sense of reality I sustain the realization a while longer, and then deliberately allow myself to forget myself by mixing with my fellows in the bar.

In order to convey this sense and to awaken the realization in the men of that day of their true relation to God, of the relation of their essences to the Divine Essence, early Christian teaching used the symbolism of the Father and His children, saying that men were the children of God and that God was their Father. This symbolism, accredited and effective in the psyche of the men of that day, is discredited and useless with us.

In that era, patriarchy was in the consciousness of men. The patriarch was the God of his family - and he was this, not by false authority, not by artificial social stays and props, but by the true force of his superior knowledge, his wisdom, being, and ability. His essence was such that he evoked the natural veneration of his wife and children. He was their standard of excellence, their object of aspiration. His presence stimulated in their essences the wish to stretch, to grow and develop, to mount ever higher in the scale of being. He was a true father, and functioned as one.

For it is the function of a father to be at a natural level higher than his children. Thus, in rising to him, they lift themselves. For it is the function of a father to be an adult. Thus, in growing to him, they become adult. For it is the function of a father to be the source of the highest-rate vibrations of his world. Thus his presence steps-up the vibration-rates of those surrounding him. For such a being it is natural for children to feel veneration and the joy and privilege of family relationship.

The father stands to his children in the same position as a great teacher, such as Christ or Buddha, stands to adult man.

Thus, we should have beings at three levels, each level concerned with the functions of that level, all concerned with the developing of essence and the perfecting of being.

8

But in our day there are no fathers and no children. We merely have young people, middle-aged and old people. The adults are adults in name only, and hence the father-child relationship does not exist. Instead of venerating our parents we dislike, or mildly like, or tolerate, or love or hate, or feel contempt or scorn for them. We call our father "the old man", and consider him a bully or a tightwad or a nuisance without sense. He is a back-number, hopelessly out of date. Instead of setting us a standard of what we should aspire to, he warns us what to avoid.

With these attitudes and feelings for our
earthly fathers, we would not think much of a
teaching that used "Father" as a term for God.
(I have an idea that religion declines in
direct proportion as fathers decline.)

Perhaps our best present-day relation of so-called father to so-called child is that in which the father makes himself a "pal" and plays "buddy" with his children. He calls his offspring by their first names, they call him by his first name. This breaks down foolish barriers but the child is deprived of a pole up which to climb. He puts his arm around the shoulder of his son, takes his son into his confidence and either himself acts like an over-grown boy or makes his son act like an under-grown man. (It is significant that children as a rule, if you can get them to speak candidly, will tell you they do not like this.) In either case, he ceases to be adult and father and forfeits the functions and the necessary influences of the superiorly developed adult state. (Are there not enough children in the world that adults should become children too?) Because he cannot be a real father, he causes his son to lose the benefits of the formative period. The boy cannot grow into a man. The man-child cannot in turn become a father, the girl-child cannot in turn become a mother.

Some of our best minds, recognizing the criti-
cal nature of the condition, are addressing them-
selves to the vicious circle. We have child-
education. We have adult re-education. But it is

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already conditioned should-be adults who are trying
to re-educate adults and educate children.

Evidently the world needs another Christ or
Buddha. We have slipped back.

The under-developed adults must be pulled up to
their true level and function.

We, the present generation, have suffered because
our parents were not parents, because the man of the
family defaulted. And we in turn, as imperfect
parents, will cause our children to suffer.

But to return - here we see why one of the main
symbols of western religion is discredited. God the
Father is, to us, simply "the old man".

Connectedness - this, obviously, is the great thing.
Connectedness of core to core, of essence to essence,
not of barrier to barrier, not of shell to shell.

When you boil everything down, when you let go of
everything except the inner meaning, is not every man
and every woman in their various ways trying, on the
one hand, to connect with themselves, and, on the
other, to connect with the universe? How else find
purpose in society and human intercourse, in special
disciplines such as religion, art, science?

Since, then, connectedness is so persistently
desirable, why does separateness obtain with such
stubborn force? To this often repaid question I can
supply the only answer I know.

Some power or circumstance walled man in, producing
the divisions called inside and outside, yours and
mine - and this started the trouble, this false wall,
this bifurcated view of what was and should be a
whole thing. So, then, to break down this wall, to
emerge with a single consciousness, in fine, to live
normally - let us do this and we will make connections
and connections will be made for us in the natural
order of things.

Each person is compelled to try to establish connect-
tions between himself and other men, between himself
and the universe. To have a herd connection is not
enough. Besides, the individualized man or woman does
not want and cannot have such a connection. To have

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an idea-connection is not enough. The connection must
be between living essences, between whole things. This
compulsion is basic.

At the same time, each being is forced to try to
live individually. This too is basic.

The operation of these two fundamental counter-
pulls gives rise to the main tensions and struggles
of human existence.

A man is pulled out to make connections. A man is
drawn in to make himself. At all times he is in the
grip of these dynamic alternatives.

It is possible to reconcile the two pulls and
establish a superior equilibrium. The possibilities
of the man-woman relationship point the way. An ideal,
of course; but it might come about if, in the first
place, men and women learned to establish pure
connections as beings to beings - to the point where
they blend; and if, in the second place, human beings
could learn to be purely alone. Both learnings are of
the most difficult kind; for, because of something that
has happened to human consciousness, man is under the
illusion that he can only be either entangled or
lonely.

Why have I never loved her as a man of flesh and
blood makes love? Why have I never told her what she
means to me? Why have I never tried to make her
realize what I could mean to her?

Not once have I moved my body to hers - as I know
how to. What is this locking and blocking of man and
woman? Not once have I touched her with burning hands -
and I possess them. Always I have treated her as if she
were something intangible yet evocative "far over
there".

And I do not feel I have done other than I wished
to do. This is the strange part of it.

Some would say we suit each other and belong to-
gether. True. Some would say we should marry, and if
we do not, what other more perfect marriage can we hope
for. True. I would always be her lover and she mine.
Then why?

Why this forfeiture of normal life and love for
the sterile ecstacies of a monk and a nun gazing at
each other from celibate windows?

Why this willing sacrifice of man and woman, flesh
and blood?

My nature and my philosophy are against such
forfeiture. Man should be man, woman should be woman.
What drives me to it, what holds me away?

I have myself. I want her.

Barbara let the book fall into her lap. This last writing was the

402 383

very last in the book. She had a sense it was recent, that he had
just written it, that it was about himself and herself, that he had
given her the book so that she would read this page and know how he
felt.

"I want <u>her.</u>" Now she heard it as if his voice had said, In
a swirl of feelings she heard her own voice reply.

Then why? She asked the same question. If he wanted her and she
wanted him - then why?

She was not a nun. She was not slight and "far over there".
She did not believe in celibate windows, either - not if you were
in love and wanted to marry.

What held him away? What held her away?

Oh, what was it?

The clamor of a gong sounding for first-service dinner brought
her to her feet. She went to the dressing-table and began undoing
her hair. In the mirror she saw the beads that he had placed around
her neck. Her fingers touched them, then touched them tenderly,
closing around them; and her head bent until her cheek was resting
against the hand that held the beads.

Ship's Show

After a hilarious dinner party, Hugh, Hod, and the group trooped into the grand salon, now the theatre. They found the place packed; and it was lucky for them that they had reserved seats in the section with the other performers.

Bert Diggs peered out from a wing, evidently looking for an important arrival.

A stir arose near the main entrance. In came the ship's Captain with Count and Countess Calonne, and Henri Nost.

When they were seated Diggs appeared on the stage. He was greeted with a burst of handclaps and bravos.

He made his speech - and introduced the first act.

The audience was in excellent humor and ready to applaud anything that came on, but Andra's appearance in a dark crimson gown created extra excitement.

She handled herself easily, with mannish swagger and her own peculiar mockery. Her voice was like large bells sounding under water. All her songs were popular tunes, but as they came from her they had suggestiveness and glamour. She was not allowed to leave the stage until she had given encore after encore.

Hugh went back-stage to congratulate her. A ship's boy came in with an enormous bouquet of red and yellow roses - and a card. It bore the name - Henri Nost. On the back was written - "May I?"

She made a little sound and looked at Hugh. She tapped the card, musing. She asked for a pencil and, directly under the "May I?" wrote - "Too late." She sent the card back to Henri

404-385

Nost.

Another act was on. This was the one Barbara was in. With
a lot of mistakes and fun it went on. She was in a dizzy flurry
and didn't quite know who she was or what she was doing or wup-
posed to do. But somehow she did it, and from the point of view
of the audience did it very well. Bravo, Barbara!

Diggs came out to say what was ~~coming~~ next. As it turned out,
it was not the act he expected.

A man rushed forward from the back of the house. With coat
flapping he dashed down the aisle and mounted the stage.

A prophet of a new order railing at the degenerate peoples
of a new Sodom and Gomorrah, he waved his arms and upbraided the
ship's company for indulging in such nonsense when serious matters
affecting the world were demanding the attention of just the people
who sat there in luxury lapping up a lot of smart-alec rot.

The house was astounded. Then a reaction set in and the audience
found its voice and raised it.

Five husky stewards rushed from the wings and laid hold of the
man. The house arose as the fellow, kicking and swearing was
humped up the aisle, out the door.

Diggs, mock-acting, shambled onto the stage with a limp and
a weak-kneed gait, comically flapping his arms. When he had got
their laughs he became weighty and announced the appearance of
the great Inman.

After Inman came Hugh's skit, a piece intended to be comical
but which got out of hand and became serious toward the end. ♦
a large woman wearing only small mitts to choose from.

405 386

Then Diggs appeared for the last time to say that the show was over.

Tilden stepped upon the stage, lifted his voice above the others, and called for the Star Spangled Banner.

The house cheered. Then they sang, and sang too the national anthems of other countries, and there were shouts and hosannas such as the ocean had never heard.

It was some time before the grand salon was cleared.

Hugh and the group got their large table in the smoking room. There they carried on, talking of everything.

After awhile - no one knew how it started - they began pooling ideas about the world as they would like to have it.

Tilden and Morgan sketched in the practical foundations.

Hod spoke up and declared there was just one chief thing he'd rule out, one main thing they'd have to have. An end to egotism. The emergence of a new moral energy.

Sid made them all laugh by asking, "Will there or won't there be any cats in our new world?"

"Hell, no! A ban on all yowling cats! Only emboldened mice!"

"And holidays?"

"Plenty of them!"

Then the talk became serious again.

Vera made her contribution, Marsh and Betty and even Barbara.

Something more than an idea suddenly struck Hugh. He felt urged to do more than talk about a new world. He counted the people of the group. There were fourteen, Fourteen human beings with good values who had the idea. Then let them live it. He proposed this. He was asked how it was to be a living thing.

406 387

done. His answer was that they form a sort of society of
individuals, right here and now, for the purpose of finding
out what they did not want, what they did really want, - and
how to get it.

At the word society the group fell apart. Societies and
institutions of all kinds were awful, they said. Hugh agreed
that they usually were and that no one wanted to keep clear of
the usual sort of group more than he. But he pointed out that
this society would be different because of the people who com-
posed it. He was told that the minute you organize a thing you
lose it, that a society would ruin the people, whoever they were.

For quite a time longer he talked against opposition; and as
he did so, new ideas and even a rough plan came to him; but in
the end it came to nothing. Even those who felt that the idea
had value, doubted that it could be done. Nor were they willing
to commit themselves.

Of all those present, only Vera understood and believed what
he said, and was seriously with him.

## Chapter 41
### Shining Waters

This day, the last full day of the passage, was even more glorious than the others. Sky and sea, winds and weather, were out-doing themselves. Fresh breezes seemed to carry the fragrance of early spring on land, of trees and flowers growing, releasing into the waiting world the subtle odors of a new season. Perhaps the winds did, for the ship was nearing the English channel and before long would pass the Scilly Islands and the bare Cornwall coast of England.

The sea was smooth, irradiant, as if it contained its own source of light.

The **Burgundy** glided over shining waters.

Sea-gulls, a cloud of them, brilliant white against the blue, had already found the boat. Now they were hovering, gyrating over and around the stern - the first connecting-link between the moving ship and the waiting land.

Again the open decks were thick with chairs. People basking in the sun; but now, not heavily, not sleepily as **WHAH** on the first day out of New York. These people were alert, tanned, vital-looking, drinking the sun with cordial temperance, as the French drink wine.

No less than a throng was promenading.

...as deep as the ocean...when my ship comes in...

Vera, by herself, was walking. Like the day, her mood was golden and singing, and all things blended with it to give her a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment which she could not quite understand. The passage was almost over - and what had happened to make her

-408- 389

feel this way? Certain happenings, certain lack of happenings, might well cause her to feel just the contrary. Yet she felt it - a sweetness, a wholeness, a quite marvel, as if she were herself, complete and inviolate at last.

But she did want to see Hugh. She wanted to do something for him, even if he wished to do nothing for her. Some little thing. She did not know what. If she met him, if he were alone, the moment would tell her.

She did chance upon him. He was leaning against a rail gazing off across the waters towards what would soon be the coast of France.

"I was hoping I would see you."

"So was I."

"Really?"

"Really."

He felt her as a wind, a quiet serene wind that penetrated everything, disturbed nothing; and now he saw the humorous yet wistful little puckers around her mouth.

"Feeling quite happy this morning, aren't you?"

She smiled. "I want to do something for you. Have you any old clothes to mend, socks that need darning -"

Both laughed, but she touched him.

"Are you serious?"

"Of course I am."

"You dear Vera, thank you. Why - not in years has any woman offered to do some little necessary thing for me. It isn't done any more. They seem to have lost the impulse. Wish there were, but the laundries - "

"I know," she said. "Laundries...machines...hotels... But haven't

400 390

you anything? Please, Mister Hugh, help a little girl be domestic
for an hour, for just one hour out of all the days."

"A small tailoring job?"

"Splendid!"

"My white trousers, they need letting out around the waist."

"Have you actually grown stout on the ship? Shame on you. Don't
you care anything for your slender figure?"

"On the contrary, I've always wanted a substantial round belly
and a fierce beard. I might pose as a man then. Be that as it may,
the said white pants do need to <del>be</del> <ins>let</ins> out two inches. As a travelling
bachelor I can supply you with scissors, needle and thread. No
thimble. I get along without one. Can you?"

"I can."

"Then come on," he laughed.

They went to Hugh's cabin where she had not been for a long time,
months it seemed, years ago, in another land in another life. Yet,
too, it seemed only last night.

Everything in it she remembered. His things on the bureau, his
ties, his trunk, the odd number of masculine items thrown about.

She settled herself in a wicker chair with the trousers and
equipment. He took a rocker nearby.

Both now remembered it - their space outside the house of time.

roam

She let her eyes <ins>KNOW</ins> about before beginning work.

"What are these?" She picked up a box of cigarettes.

"Prince of Monacos. Rather rich."

"May I?"

"Please."

She lit one. "Nice. Mind if I smoke before becoming domestic in

410 391

earnest?

"Smoke the whole box, and then another."

Who

"How do you think wrote the act that Barbara was in?"

"Why, Diggs, I suppose."

"I wonder," she said. "The idea itself, the role cast for
Barbara. Somehow I feel Hod wrote it."

"Hod! Do you?"

"I do. It was Hod's situation with Barbara all over again."

"But why would he write about that now? Does he write, sometimes?
But why about Barbara now? It seems to me that he and Miriam
Geraldy -"

"A pleasant pastime, not serious. Besides, one doesn't get out
of his past so easily. For all of your wish to, you simply can't
leave it at the pier and step out of it."

"You may be right."

"Strange, isn't it? That act was about man and woman. Your skit
was on the same theme. All the books and novels - ~~and~~ *they* all point
out what is wrong, few ~~even~~ *is* suggest what ~~may be~~ right. Is it so
difficult to know? *what is right? Have we wandered so far away from*
*the right track?* I *am* a woman - then why shouldn't I know how to
be what I am, to be what I am without knowing? All women *are*
women - then why the difficulty? Or *perhaps I am not*, perhaps we
*are not* - then what are we?"

"You know what you want?"

"Partially."

"You know what you value?"

"Partially."

"What?"

411 392

"I want what we were talking about last night when you proposed a society. I want that kind of a purpose, that kind of work."

"As a human being you want that. Now as a woman - what?"

She hesitated. "A home, I suppose."

"You mean family and children?"

"I wonder. I suppose if I had really wanted them I would have had them."

"Not necessarily. You may have been waiting."

"I still am. Foolish, isn't it? I couldn't accept just any man. I couldn't go out looking. I couldn't beat the bushes, as they say. Even if I had -"

"Exactly."

"I've had ideals. Even now I can't shake myself from the belief that the world will return - not to the old-fashioned family, but to love and respect and something permanent, the feeling that love between a man and woman is sacred."

"Keep it, my dear."

"Then what?"

"Then you will keep yourself - until some one comes along who is worthy to keep you. I feel you are right. I too, however I may act, believe in love and respect and something permanent. But I, like most men, have been thrown off my base. Or perhaps I'm waiting. It is man's job, not woman's. Men must find a new real base. Then women will do likewise."

She put the cigarette in a tray. "Now to work."

He watched her skillful fingers handle the cloth and thread.

Presently she said, "When I saw Andra on the stage last night I realized something about myself, a lack -"

412 393

"When I see Hod I have a similar feeling. I'm only half a man.
If I had his drive and recklessness, his ability to carry things
through and project and realize them in the world of things -"

"But you have. That isn't what I feel about you. Know what it is?"
He shook his head.

"You seem so - sad, so alone."

"Do I?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you - but you do. Not all the
time. I've seen you off-guard. It doesn't touch pity. You are too
self-sufficient. It makes me feel as if my heart would break. Strange,
isn't it? Now would you like to hear how all of you - I mean,
how you appear to me? I'm going to do it anyway, so you may as well
say yes.

"I seem to see people in strange ways. At least, some people think
they're strange, after they've heard. I'll never forget Sid's
expression. Don't look as though you were going to have your picture
taken. Shall I begin?"

"Sensitivity and tenderness show in the right corner of your
mouth. When I saw the right corner I trusted you. If I had only
seen the left -"

"Yes - the left?"

"Mockery, satire, and not a little cruelty. Cruelty to yourself
as well as others. For an idea or a principle you could do -well,
let's not think of it. Now your eyes."

"In one, suffering, a prayer, an almost fixed look at God. In
the other - love and a wide seeing and understanding. Both are just
a little off this earth, or rather, they are looking for something
which is not here, which should be here."

413 394

"Your nose and chin connect you to life. Your nose probes. Your chin holds. With your chin and neck you would enslave and dominate people. Your lips let go, your lips free them; and through your lips you free yourself.

"Now for the most interesting of all. There is something in you I fear, a line running from your chin, over your head, and down your back, a line steely and relentless. No excess of energy but all you need. No excess of any kind. A will, not to be stopped by anything, not death. I've often wondered how you would be in action, in the midst of a great human crisis that would make the force coiled in you leap and spring. Ship-life is not enough to reveal or tax you. I've wished an emergency, a big one, would come along -"

"And what? You'd find that 'coiled force' turn out to be just another jack-in-the-box."

not
"Of course, you'd have to say that. You could nod sagely and say, 'True, Vera, true. How'd you guess it?' Now could you? What continues to amaze me is that, with all this - yes, ruthlessness, you have no sense of rivalry. None. I'm at a loss. Hod has it. Sid has. Every man I've known. Not you. No competition. You quietly go about your affairs and when your movements bring you in contact with others, you simply move with them or through them with never a thought that they might seriously block your way or outstrip you and capture what you want. You move through. That's it, exactly."

"You were right when you said you haven't seen me taxed. If taxed - my dear, what you wouldn't see pressed out of this old box, and I can assure you that rivalry and jealousy would be among them."

414 395

"Then you don't like what Vera has told you? You don't like your
seance with her? The palm-reading was no good? You want your money
back?"

"Like? I'm purring."

"Now you <u>are</u> trying to throw me off."

Said Hugh, "It is my turn. I've been wanting to tell you something.
Mine, however, will be true, and I want you to receive it with
utter seriousness and absolute belief. Yes?"

"Yes, Mister Hugh."

"But how can I talk when you are playing? Never mind. I'll give
them to you now, and you can take them out and look at them at ano-
ther time in another mood."

He took a cigarette, offered her one. She refused. She lowered
her head and began working rapidly.

"All along, and this morning more than ever, I have felt you are
bringing a new quality into life - a brave, astringent, but smiling
acceptance. An acceptance with amounts to something more, because,
without loss of grace, dignity, and privateness, you do things with
yourself, in yourself, and with others. Being in the process of
developing ego. Your being in the process of producing an ego, a
real 'I'. Woman developing individuality."

She lifted her eyes and quickly lowered them.

"You are steering a most amazing course, avoiding the path taken
by an ever increasing number of rampant basically embittered people
who merely want power and so-called independence so as to turn about
and hurt as they have been hurt, hate as they have been hated,
deny as they have been denied - the path of the awful assumption
that one is nothing unless he is aggressive and prejudiced. I think

415-396

your combination of courage and softness, daring and stillness,
aloneness and the capacity to yield and blend, is one of the rarest
things I've ever seen in any human being - not to mention the
integrity and understanding that are Vera's."

She averted her head and gazed out the window, her eyes glistening,
shining like the waters of the ocean they were sailing through. A
most beautiful expression came upon her face, and the same beauty
was in her body.

Now her feelings increased his. He had to swallow hard, and turn
away.

After a time she resumed sewing, her fingers working deftly.
Again she seemed serene. He even fancied he heard her humming.

Presently she looked up and smiled, holding the trousers for him
to see. "Here you are."

He took them and pretended to examine them.

She stood up. "You'll need them pressed."

He rang for the steward.

Vera took his hand. "Come, yes? We've had our domesticity and
the housewife is satisfied. Let's find the rest of our family. It
hasn't seemed we were indoors, has it? All the sea and the sun and
the whole bright world were with us."

On the way down the deck they passed the Raymonds, Edith and
her mother, Miss Williams and her boy-friend, and many more with
whom they exchanged greetings.

Each face looked happy. Each body moved with spring, suppleness,
and a sense of rhythm, as if body and spirit had been re-created.

Just then, land was sighted. Land! After days and days, after all
the days and nights of the ocean, land! A narrow dark band to the

northeast.

People left their chairs and dashed to the port railing with
binoculars.

Only a faint grey strip - but, LAND!

Hugh and Vera halted and turned to look.

She asked, "How does it make you feel?"

"Not much yet. Will take a while for it to sink in. I resist
it, but it doesn't mean much, not yet. The ship-world is still
intact. From this world we are viewing something we label land. How
does it make you feel?"

"I don't know. Rather a shock."

All about them were chatting people. They heard Paris mentioned,
hotels. Packing. All the big pieces had to be ready that night.
Customs, visas, boat-train tickets...

But Hugh was right. As Burgundians the ship's company spoke of
these alien matters. Tomorrow would come the end, the death against
the dock, the crumbling and scattering. For the present, as ship-
inhabitants people viewed the land; and, when the novelty had
passed, as ship-inhabitants they came back to the interests of
this last day of the eight-day world.

49. Up the Channel

It was mid-afternoon. To the north, the English coast closed in the sea-world and foretold landing. Up the channel the <u>Burgundy</u> glided, now less an ocean-ship, more a coaster, under a cloud of gulls.

The white birds circled over, sqawking, making wild whirls and dips into the ship's wake for patches of garbage.

All the group were gathered on the stern deck. The shuffleboard tournament was on. Arthur Tilden, left hand in pocket, humming as usual, was walking away with the official championship so easily that the party did not feel called upon to give him special support.

"Look!" said Alice, pointing towards the coast and a cluster of tiny-appearing white houses, brilliant white, resting on top of what seemed a bare cliff. "The one highest up. What a wonderful view! They can see all the ships that pass. I'd like to live there. No I wouldn't. I don't want land. I want this to last. Let's ask the captain to keep sailing for a year."

"Let's," said Marsh. "We'll go down to the Mediterranean and through the Suez to India and China, and back home across the Pacific. Hugh Langley, I don't care if I do run aground on a cannibal island."

Tilden, inactive for a time, came over and stood with the group, leaning against his pusher. Of a sudden he took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. He looked up. Gulls were swarming.

"Ladies, I'd advise you -"

Said Morgan, "If England wants a perfect coast-defense all she

418 399

has to do is to feed the gulls on dynamite."

Soon afterwards, Tilden was acclaimed <u>Burgundy</u> champion; and
Bert Diggs gave him the prize.

Then the party went over to the deck-cafe for refreshments.

Sid wanted something up front. He did not seem to be gone long,
but when he returned he had news.

"Jim Phelps is on the rampage!"

"What?" asked Hod.

"I said Jim Phelps -"

"I know you did. Sit down and cool off."

"He's drunk, I tell you. He's got some men with him and he's
looking for you."

"Suppose he told you, and you've run back to warn me to get out
of the way."

"You thick-headed -"

At that moment Phelps and his men rounded the turn and came
straight up. Off to one side was Andy, with a sneering satisfied
grin.

Hod looked at Hugh. Hugh looked at Hod. Both seemed to say, "Well,
old timer, here it is."

Hod stood up. Hugh stood up. Morgan and Tilden likewise.

Without warning Hod's body lept at Phelps, and next second there
was a melee of scrapping men.

Sid spied Andy and made a break for him; and his short legs had
Andy flying up the deck, ducking and <u>dodging</u> among scattering women.

Running aft came the purser with seamen.

Before they arrived, Hod and Phelps had rolled over and over
towards the railing, cursing, fists swinging, legs straining for

419 400

purchase on the smooth boards.

When they bumped the rail Hod was on top. He got to his feet and dragged at Phelps. A foot slipped. Phelps was up.

Two seamen dove into them, hurling Phelps back, crashing Hod against a post. Two more ran up. Phelps was pinned. Hod was pinned. He upset them and was again pinned.

The others were easier. Soon the seamen had the situation in hand. The purser ordered all the men lined up. After making sure who belonged upstairs and who down, he released the first-cabin men and had Phelps and the tourists marched off.

"Gentlemen," he began.

"My fault," said Hod, "all mine. Don't put it all on Phelps."

"No, no," said the purser, "I've had my finger on this Mr Phelps right along. I am sorry to have had to use my men. Are any of you gentlemen hurt?"

"Not a bit."

"Is there anything I can do? Would you like the doctor to -"

"Not a thing. All we need is soap and water."

"Then if you will pardon me," and off the purser went.

The men of the group grinned, smoothed out their clothes, rubbed back hair. Bruses, bumps, skinned knuckles and knees seemed to be the sum of the damage.

All at once they heard a boom, a dull thud and roar like a big gun going off. The next instant, a zooming like an airplane.

Dashing to the side they saw the long-forgotten ship's airplane lifting into space.

It zoomed due north; and for a time they were sure it was heading for England. Then it banked to the right and flew east up the

420-401

channel, farther and farther east, higher and higher until it was a speck. Finally it disappeared altogether.

"What the hell!" said Hod.

"What's so amazing?" asked Sid. "Ships do carry air-mail."

"Airmail - on an eight-day boat?"

When the group had worked off its questions, settled nothing, Tilden chanced to look at Hod's forehead. "You'd better put a cold compress there. Don't want anyone to think we're getting the swell-head."

Vera and Betty wanted to take charge.

Hugh said he would. After some argument, he accepted conflicting advice, he led Hod off.

At the same time, most of the others went forward, the idea being that they'd assemble in the smoking-room as soon as the various minor injuries had been repaired.

In his cabin, Hugh settled Hod in a chair and began next plying his forehead with cold applications.

"Hold everything," said Hod. "I don't need a nurse."

"You're going to be at the captain's table to night?"

"Is it big? Let's see."

Hugh pushed him back. "Not big. You're as handsome as ever."

"What about yourself? That was a tough nut you scrapped."

"Yes he was. But a nut and tough. Nothing much. A good work-out."

"Got a cigarette?"

Hugh produced a pack and they lit up.

Said Hod, "Remember what I told you that time in the bar, the first day out? Wanted to sock Phelps the minute I saw him. It's been brewing all this time, but here's the queer part of it. When that

421-402

bird finally did sail up - would you believe it? - I didn't want to
fight him. Such a crazy man's business."

"Absolutely crazy - unless your blood is hot."

"I've sort of lost my hankering. I don't think Could have told Phelps
to jump in the sea and cool off. Then, by God, before I knew it, a
trigger was pulled and I was up and at him - and I could have
killed him."

A shiver ran through his body. He ran a hand over his face.

"Hugh, know what I was driving to do when those sea-birds knocked
me coocoo? Pitch that bastard Phelps over the rail - the bloody
bloot! Well, anyhow, that's that. Sorry I got you fellows into it."

Said Hugh, "Remember what I told you, that same time in the bar?"

"You bet I do!"

After a pause he said, "Thanks for the doctoring, but enough.
Let's see what it looks like." He stood up, went to the mirror, and
felt the lump. "Looks swell!"

"Yup," said Hugh, "to paraphrase one of your own sayings - a
swell way to end a trip."

They lounged about the room, talking, laughing, cracking jokes.

At length they realized it was getting late.

An idea struck Hod. "Let's go to the public baths! Got a peach
of a bath on B deck. Jolly and white steamy. Your private thing is
all right, but you don't know what you're missing. There's something
about a public place that always does the trick."

Hugh was for it.

Hod brought things from his cabin. From there they
went to the bath, a large cheery place with tile and woodwork
with eight or more tubs and a row of showers. Steam was in the air,

422 403

heat, and a briny smell. Bath-stewards were flying about. More men came in.

They scrubbed themselves and sang; and their voices were wonderful to hear. Lusty, deep-chested, full-throated men!

Back in Hugh's cabin they dressed for the evening.

Then, feeling as Hod said like that fabulous million dollars, they were ready to venture out and meet the group in the smoking-room.

They started back by way of the deck. They stopped short, all jubilance suddenly stilled, and looked at each other with amazement.

Not a soul was in sight. The long sweep of promenade, the long rows of red deck-chairs, were deserted.

No land to the north, none they could see. Again there was water only, the vast sea. To all appearances they were in mid-ocean.

The sun was leaving the sky. The waters were darkening in emptiness, and over the sea-world was spreading that strange light, not day, not dusk, not twilight, but something unnamed.

"Weird, isn't it?" whispered Hod.

"Very," said Hugh; and they walked to the rail and stood there looking, absorbing, being absorbed.

A folding of white tents, a hush and silence. A withdrawal of breath, as if the great ocean were calling back all it had given unto life that day, storing it in unfathomable memory.

a
Two men and a ship in a mysterious world.

Humming of engines. Swash of waves. Nothing more.

As a dream through a dream the <u>Burgundy</u> sailed on with long dips and rises towards the port of Havre.

The longer they stood there the more acutely Hugh felt the

contrast between this scene and the afternoon's fracas; and it
seemed to him that he had suddenly passed over the border into
another world, as if he were within this world, witnessing the
resolution of all earthly doing, all human motion, all strident
battling passions, all clashes of bodies against bodies, egos
against egos, within the serene stillness into which the universe
eventually draws all things.

Chapter 10

50.

Captain's Dinner

When they entered the smoking-room it was packed with all the old timers, companions of an Atlantic crossing. The human world again, noisy and jolly. Glasses clinked. Stewards sped back and forth. Smoke curled grey against smoke. Tables buzzed as never before.

Hod squeezed in near Miriam, Hugh beside Barbara. She had thought he had forgotten his date with her, and it was partly true. He was still absorbed by the scene on deck. Soon he felt all astir with emotions which he wished to share with someone but which had nothing to do with Barbara or with anyone or anything he knew.

From all around the room glances were cast at himself and Hod, jokes too. News of the fight had passed around.

Jim Phelps was absent from Andra's table. But she was not alone. Hugh saw the second captain come in with Henri Nost. These two sat down and overshadowed poor Andy.

Someone started singing. A French table gave old-world lyrics. Morgan started a Scotch drinking song.

Then there were shouts for Andra, and she could not refuse. As she sang her eyes roved around only to come back to Hugh.

Two ship's boys marched in, loudly beating gongs for the captain's dinner.

The company arose and trailed out.

Of the group, Hod, Miriam, and the Tilden's were at the captain's table.

The French windows were open. Fresh breezes blew in, sea-winds, summer-winds. Never had the salon looked so festive and exotic.

425 406

Special lights had been hung, special decorations - and Hugh, full of his own strange emotions, fancied he was on an enchanted terrace, high up, from which he could look down and see spreading over the earth the lights of a city as fabulous as Babylon.

When dinner was over, the company filed out and up the grand stairway to the lounge. As on the evening of the bal masque, the lounge had been turned into a ballroom with tables all around.

At a long central table was the captain with his party. On the other side of the room, the purser, and the ship's doctor, and their group. To the left, the chief engineer's place. To the right, the second captain's. The ship's company occupied places in-between.

On the floor beside all the tables were beaded silver buckets with the dark necks and bright foil of champagne bottles emerging from ice.

The orchestra struck up.

entrance

Hugh half-expected to see a triumphal and grand march of some kind. But it was enough to dance. The captain danced, all the officers, all the company. When they returned to tables champagne corks popped. Then more dances and more champagne.

The one unsatisfactory feature of it, from Hugh's point of view, was that the men of the group seemed to feel, this being the last night and the last ball, they were obliged to make the rounds and have dances with all the women. Only about one out of five he contrived to have with Barbara. Then, to his complete dismay, the cutting-in trick was introduced, and he was lucky to have her two minutes at a time.

Finally, around eleven thirty, he persuaded her to leave the dizzy room and go out on deck with him. They got wraps and looked

426 407

for a good spot. Nor were they the only ones. Others too, moved outdoors to private places by the self same realization that tomorrow would mark the end, were looking around.

They found what they wanted back near the spot where the group used to have its chairs. There they settled themselves; and both wondered what was coming.

Within their view, the lengthwise ship, lights raying out... off and far away the black-bright waters, and the universe arching and sparkling with blue-white stars...and above them, the summer stars of "over there".

Hugh lit a cigarette. She saw his profile light up. Then all went darkish again. Yet, through a night-light that made them appear unreal, they could see each other.

He reached over, took her hand, and held it.

Currents from him passed to her. More and more he came under the spell of this last night until he seriously felt she might be the girl to whom he could give his strange emotions - and some not so strange, too.

Currents passed from her to him. In confidence she was waiting, waiting for him to talk, to clear everything, so that when they left the ship they would know. Under the same spell she was sure she loved him, and would do anything he said so.

Hugh and Barbara, enduring...

"Do you realize that tomorrow is..."

"Yes," she said.

"You do? It's rather difficult for me. After all these days in this ship-world of ours - It's like being dispossessed - like falling out of an airplane."

"Now we're going to land."

"It doesn't disturb you?"

"No."

He wondered why it disturbed him. Why this nostalgia? Why this
sudden devastating sense of an end?

Inaudibly he said, "A world means less to a woman than a man. To
a woman a world means less than a man."

"I didn't hear you."

To himself he said, "You never will." To her - "I didn't mean
that."

"Mean what, Hugh?"

"Something I just said to myself."

"Won't you say it to me?"

He shook his head. "But I would like to tell you - I wonder if
you happened to read in that notebook of mine -"

She felt herself race. Now, maybe now -

the lines about the genius of inhabiting."

He misunderstood her hesitation. "You could easily have over-
looked them, unless you read the thing straight through."

"I remember."

"Then, good. Now do you recall one other thing, one of the
first things that a rather forward man told you? 'You have talent
to make me love you'. Remember?"

Maybe now, now -

"It still holds, and to it I want to add - You have the genius
to inhabit me. Under certain conditions you might become my darling
inhabitant. How would you like that?"

Her heart skipped several beats and she was overwhelmed. She

428 409

couldn't answer. She couldn't say anything.

Now what was the matter? For the life of him he couldn't understand her. Was she pulling away again? Had he said too much? He withdrew.

Not for quite a time did he speak.

"There are one or two things, Barbara, I'd like to know, if you will tell me. Where will you be in Paris? Where can I reach you? The world, as you know, is a large place. Tomorrow the ship docks. Tomorrow we go off."

"Then you're not - I mean, *you* won't be in Paris?"

"Don't know. I'm supposed to have 'very important' business in the South of France. The truth is, the business *can* wait. Some people would be put out, but -"

At once he thought he saw tears in her eyes. "Barbara!"

"It's nothing." She turned her face away.

"But it is."

She wouldn't speak.

He was irritated. A gritty feeling was sanding over him.

"Do you want it to end this way?"

Now her silence seemed deliberate and stubborn.

"Barbara -"

The spell broke. Suddenly he felt hollow. Suddenly he knew what he had known all along - nothing would or could come of it, not with this slight childish girl. And he felt foolish, felt he had let the romance of the night, the romance of the ocean, blind him, betray him, betray his maturity.

He saw her in this light. Then, by a swift change, he saw her as a lonely unformed insecure human being - and he wanted to do something for her, regardless of his personal feelings.

429-410

Again he tried to reach her.

She turned towards him, but would not speak.

He made one more attempt, and then said, "You haven't given me
your Paris address. Believe me, our relationship should not end like
this."

"You can have it if you want it."

"I do not want it in this way."

He stood up.

Her feelings rushed to the surface and she cried to herself,
"O, it can't be! This can't be the end!"

She arose and walked with him as if he were fate.

In silence they strolled up the deck to her cabin.

There, before the closed white door, he lifted her hand to
his lips, faced about, and without a word went off.

As he wandered about the passageways, avoiding the ballroom but
otherwise not knowing or caring where he went, his feelings broke
loose and issued from depths of himself without language; and above
them his mind muttered sentences.

Chapter 10

Hod and Hugh

51.

Hod, at a table in solitary state, saw Hugh enter the smoking-room.

"Hi, Hugh! Come join me."

Hugh came over.

"This chair's been waiting for you. Not drinking, myself. Have what you want."

"Nor I."

"What's the matter, old boy? Look all strix stirred up."

Said Hugh, now smiling, "Nothing and everything."

"Something gone wrong?"

"Nothing particular."

"Don't know what it is, but it's good for you. You're a human being now - more than your mind. Keep it up. Give those emotions of yours a chance. Let 'em rip and fly."

"I haven't much choice."

"Then, by God, you are a world-rider! Said it would happen."

"Something has happened, all right."

"Swell! Great!"

They regarded each other.

Said Hod, "Well, it's over - almost. This great old ship. This great old passage. Never known anything like it. Been sitting here thinking things over, taking stock, mostly of myself but of others too. Don't know. If there were less I could see it better. Was sort of wishing you'd come in."

"You know, Hugh, back in New York in my room the night before I sailed I had the most godawful feeling that it was the end of

431 4/2

the world. Funny, isn't it? I was a blue-head for sure. And once on
this trip, the day Andy disappeared - O! Some was put-on, but it was
real enough, believe me. What was it? Nope, it was the end of Hod,
the end of foolhardy Hod, Hod the cockeyed egotistical bungler -
in short, the end of a fool. Andy didn't jump overboard. My fool did.
He's buried back there in mid-ocean. Then he popped up again that
crazy night with you. Then down again. He's down now. If the ocean is
large enough to hold him - which you may doubt - he'll never come
up. Three times down is down. Right? The end -"

"Of a direction."

"Of a direction, did you say? Yup, guess that's it. The end
of a way of seeing and feeling, the end of a role. Hugh, I want to
ask you something. Do you believe in regeneration, I mean moral
regeneration? We won't ask the value of it - yet. I simply want to
know if you believe it's possible."

"One must, if one experiences it."

"That's just how I feel. Hear me last night? Didn't know myself.
Sounded like a preacher - and I meant it, every word. A moral
regeneration, that's what we need first. Afterwards can come economic
and all the other changes. Or have them at the same time, but not
without changes of human character. Man comes first, man comes last -
and somehow we've got to become real men and women, with all attention
on this.

"Say, you should have heard me a few years back. Great cats!
Didn't I hold forth! What about? Morals, character? Hell no. Bodies!
Orgies! Yup, pagan bodies and let joy be unrestrained! Moments of
weakness and plenty of them! Bodies like Andra's. Of course - I'm
not exactly opposed to them now - now and again. That Andra, she

432 413

is a wizard, what!"

"She certainly is."

"True, true. Just now and again, when Spring or the ocean and a ship come along and catch a young man's fancy. But not as a program. The deliberate going after that sort of thing belonged to the days of the flaming youths, the torch singers, and all that trumped-up stuff. That was the world's end, and I'm not kidding. For the men who hope to do something in this new world - no, Hugh, they've got to enter the gates with more than tickets, fly-by-night desires for the stage-sets of sex, the stage-sets of business, of politics, of what you will - the whole cheap show we're about to scrap. Awful sets, at that. Hugh, man, we've got to live and live grandly and nobly and there's not a thing preventing us except ourselves."

Struggle to arise. Strive to let go and move out! There is a world up there!

"Well, that clears things for me. A new direction, did you say? All right. Now we'll see what it brings. Enough about me. Now, Hugh, about you. What's happened?"

"Nothing and everything. Vera says I have a way of slipping through things. It's true. Too little happens to me."

"Vera!" Hod hit his hands together and sort of caved in. "Great God! I've hardly had two words with her the whole trip. In my 'big' way, I haven't had time for her. Tell me, man, how is she?"

"Better, I think, than when she left New York."

"How do you mean? Was she sick?"

"Desperate."

"How do you know?"

433 414

"From what she told me. 'I flung myself at life to see what would happen.'"

"She told you that? Blind, O, blind, thou Hod! This Vera of mine - and I, here am I, the playboy, cavorting about - Hugh, it's terrible. You'd think so too if you knew what she's meant to me. No other woman, not Barbara, not anybody. You've seen me with Miriam. She's a peach. She does something good for me, but she can't hold a candle to Vera."

"I believe it."

"Of course you do. Any man would. Then what's the matter with me? I know a thousand things wrong, but I mean what's at the bottom of it? I value one thing; I ignore it and chase a hundred others that I value less or not at all. What ass-men we are! There's Vera and Barbara and Betty and Miriam - all fine. Where are the men for them? We've got to revolt, Hugh. Men have got to revolt against their stupid blundering selves. Sid's right. I'm a blunderbus, sure enough. But why am I including you? You're different. I ~~xark~~ felt that the first day I saw you."

"I should be included. I'm of the number who should revolt - only, I'd say eliminate. Let men eliminate the false from themselves, and their natures will tell them what is true. Meanwhile, I don't think we ought to _blame_ ourselves too much. Accept the responsibility, yes - for it is ours. But - well, take Vera and yourself. It's true that you ought to behave according to the way you value her; but because you value her does not mean you love her in the sense of belonging together as man and woman."

"Doesn't it?"

"I don't think so. I too value her. I do not love her, she does

not love me. There's no organic compulsion in it. I may be fooling
myself, but the vital compelling thing has been absent in all my
contacts with the women on this ship. No one is to blame. It just
was that way. You can't manufacture inevitability. It is or it isn't."

"Does it have to happen all at once."

"I don't think so. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it takes time, and
comes about as a kind of growing."

"You and Barbara - the same thing?"

"You mean lack of compulsion? Yes. No binding or blending in any
way. Held off, blocked, separate. So it was with Edith Gilroy. So
it was, as I say, with all my relationships."

"Suppose you were to know Vera longer. Barbara too."

"Don't know."

"But suppose. Isn't it worth supposing?"

"Of course. But I know them now, more or less, perhaps as much
as I'll ever know them. Here on this ship we've had life concentrated
for eight days and nights. What more?"

"Lots more, and you know it. Now, old boy, far be it from me to
try to suggest things to you, but maybe you won't take it amiss if
I make one little point. I've known women, so have you. Now tell me
straight out, have you ever met a finer one than Vera?"

"I have not."

"You've granted you slip through things."

"So I have."

"Now, dammit, angel, don't you let yourself slip through this.
Don't you cheat yourself, and don't you cheat her. Give yourself
a chance. Do the same by her. I mean it. You'll account to your
old Hod. It's a vow. I take it now on this Burgundy. Ah, Hugh, what

435

416

a blessed ship she is! A never-to-be-forgotten ship. An immortal boat. She'll live forever. And we're immortal too. This world will die tomorrow but we'll live on. Can you feature us dying? It's not in the picture.

"And another thing. There's another thing you're not going to slip through. You're not going to slip through me, through us. You may have *unk* had enough of us, but we haven't had enough of you. We're a family, all of us. Don't fool yourself. I don't give a rap how all-fired self-sufficient you are; you are human, and you need other human beings. I don't give a damn about your philosophy; you need us just the same as we need you."

"All right. I'm the old Hod again, holding forth, laying down the law. All right. I'm going to be him now, and I'm going to tell you what's what. You, angel, are to be with us, and we with you, in Paris or wherever you will. I've heard that nonsense. You aren't going to the South of France. We're going to stay together and return to America together, and begin building our lives there and building the country and a new country and a new people and a new world!"

"And now, now that you've heard the divine pronouncement, let's go out and make the rounds of our blessed ship for the last time and see that all's well. Let's fold her up and put her to bed - or, no! No, by God! We'll make a night of it! What's say? I couldn't sleep if I wanted to. I don't want. Want to stay awake forever, never closing an eye as long as there's a universe."

They left the smoking-room, got coats, blankets, an extra supply of cigarettes, and went on deck, to the bow-deck.

Seated in deck-chairs facing the direction of the coast of

436 417

France, they talked a while and then became silent, each filled with
his thoughts and feelings, with the life they shared.

With the dark form of a navigating officer high up on the bridge,
the **Burgundy**, a majestic somnambulist, dipped and lifted, swathed
on. Swashing waters...wind humming in the ropes and stays...the
black-bright waters spreading far far off...a night sky, serene and
starry...and, at intervals, the ship's bells.

Hugh stirred. "Vera should be with us."

Hod arose at once. "Just what I was thinking. Let's get her."

As they approached Vera's cabin they saw the door opening, and
Vera herself, with coat on, slipping out.

"What are you doing up?" asked Hod.

She jumped. "What are you?"

Said Hugh, "Coming to get you to take you on deck to be with us
through the night."

"Just what I was going to do! Stay up all night, I mean."

They moved along, almost tip-toeing through the silent white-
panneled corridors, speaking in whispers lest they disturb, not
the people sleeping, but the strange stillness and suspension of
the sleeping ship.

On deck they arranged chairs, with Vera between them.

Again they talked for a while and then became silent; and in
this silence they were amazingly together, as if all divisions
were suddenly overcome, all differences reconciled - as if their
hitherto separate lives were now balanced and blended, three kings
beings in Being, flowing on, lifting, lifting...

437 418

Stretch, sea, stretch away,
I am following thee,
Thy lead is dangerous
And glorious,
Stretch thyself and me,
As man to me, make me,
Make me live to mount
The ladder of horizons
Until I know I am.

Upon these waters, upon this earth
I will build my house. As the trees
have roots, as the ocean has bottom,
so will my house be founded, deep down
in firm substance. It's walls will be
flame, it's roof will be heaven, and I
shall dwell therein with all I love.
And if the winds scatter I will build
again. And if the waves claim I will
reclaim. For in my soul there is a
building, and it must be built.

## LATE ON A DINNER-DINNER INDIAN LANDING.

As dawn approached the air became chill. Hugh and Hod tucked
the blankets closer around Vera, exchanged a few words, then all
were silent and off-looking again.

By and by the east grew light, a subtle light that washed the
water-world and marked off the sky from the horizon, the horizon
from the empty sea. The sea, now the channel, endlessly waving,
became vast. Banks of clouds showed where the sun would arise.
The gold-red rim of the sun moved up. The Burgundy gleamed. She
gleamed brighter and stood out sharply from the sky and sea. Still
silent and interior she glided towards the sun.

So the Ark may have floated towards the first shore.

The world stirred.

Early-risers emerged upon the decks, inhaled the briny air and
felt elation as if they were lords of the earth and all therein.

438 419

But this morning they were not possessive of the ship. All knew
and felt that in a few hours it would be theirs no more.

Hod glanced at Hugh. Both looked at Vera.

"Hungry?"

"Famished," she laughed; and the spell, the keep through the
night, was broken.

As they went back towards the dining-room, each knew - *the
passage is finished*.

A relentless calling unto waters...the loves and hopes and
growing...calling them back, all that had been given to this voyage...
storing them in the deep vessel...leaving unto each being only that
which the being had made an inalienable part of himself.

They knew that soon after breakfast there would be, ~~an earned
labor of progress~~ a shattering and a disrupting, ~~a final act of
painful approaching of walls, a plunging of lockers~~ as if the
blessed structures of their lives were being rocked and toppled
to sink and vanish - and a tearing apart of the high union that
had been theirs.

This was a breaking world. The sun, the same sun was shining.
All the rest was different.

At 6:30 sharp stewards went the rounds, shouted it was time to
get up, banged on doors, yanked bedding, coaxed, intimidated, and
exhausted all known tricks to make berth-punders arise.

Gongs clamored.

It seemed as if huge cog-wheels had been set running to grind out
people and sluice them from the ship.

A harsh preemptory commotion and sweeping aside.

Had they, the ship's company, for all the days and nights of the
ocean, been happy floaters? Very well. Then be thankful for the
past and stand by for ship's business.

The startled company scampered from beds not knowing but what
the Burgundy was already at Havre.

No, they could tell by the vibrations she was still moving. That
empty silence, that awful hollow deadness, which descends when a
ship lies quiet, a hulk in port, was not yet in evidence.

But up they scrambled and dressed hurriedly. Ah, no, this was no
leisurely morning on mid-ocean with a day's full experiences ahead.
They felt exactly as though they were in New York, and, worse,
late for work, having to spur themselves with set jaws against
time.

Again time! Time - and time-tick manikins.

And trifles...

Bags - "Have I packed everything?" - suit-cases, coats, hats,

440-421

tips, porters, passports, customs, tickets, trains, hotels, Paris -
"Have I forgotten anything? Dear! What have I left? Moosecar, what
did I tell you to remind me of?" - these and other pressing items
chasing each other through erstwhile sea-smoothed minds, yapping at
stretched emotions...

In they rushed for ~~hurried~~ breakfasts.

In again, out again...a regular hooligan's riot.

It happened however that a few sane souls were not overly taxed.
Were they in port? Well then, they were. A useful thing to know, but
nothing to go crazy about. As for baggage, porters, and all the rest -
they would go through the bungling business of debarkation when the
time arrived.

It seemed there was an hour or so before Havre.

An hour in which to observe the quaint behavior of those who,
together with oneself, had, days back across the ocean, released
that strange intoxication into the air, that delirium, that elation,
as if the joy and stress of departing on a great ship for a distant
port had cracked something loose and hundreds of human beings were
suddenly possessed by the belief that they were bound through space
for an incredible star in the far universe.

Well...here **was** that distant port...if not, for all, that
incredible star...

During breakfast Hod told Vera of **his** decision that Hugh would
**have** to stay with them in Paris. After breakfast, he took Hugh's
train ticket to the office to have it changed so that Hugh could
be in the same compartment, and all together.

Vera had packing to do. So did Hugh.

When finished, he went about paying bills, giving tips. Then

441- 422

he emerged on deck and came to rest at the rail.

Now he would have to decide it. Would or wouldn't he stay over
in Paris? Hod had told him. Now he would have to tell himself.

He agreed with Hod. All that Hod had said in favor of the stay
was true enough. Yet -

He agreed with himself. All he said in favor of going on was also
true. Yet -

Soon he realized that only Vera really concerned him. But did
even she? The more he thought of her the more he came back to one
of the first feelings he had had - that he could do nothing for her
because she asked nothing of him - nothing save that, sometime some-
place, they meet again and again have just his and her way of being
alive for each other.

Meanwhile, their living would not cease. She would know he was
in the world. He would know she was. Nothing more seemed to be
needed. Nothing more seemed possible. Nothing more - except to bring
this phase of their relationship to a perfect close.

A turn of the head - and he saw Andra in a navy blue outfit
strolling up the deck towards him.

"Good morning!" he said.

"Isn't it

"DON'T NOTICE ANYTHING," he said, "odd to see our fellow passengers dressed
for land, with coats and hats and gloves and canes and umbrellas?"
I can't recognize them. You don't seem to be in rush."

Shoulder to shoulder against the rail, they talked and watched
the small ships that passed - channel-craft, a grimy coaler, several
fishing smacks, a smart white yacht.

Said Andra, "It won't be long now, and I'll be sorry for one
thing."

442 423

"Yes?"

"That Adam was so preoccupied with Eve."

"Was he?"

"You haven't asked for it, but I'd like to give you my Paris
address." She reached into her purse and drew out an envelope.

"Thank you, Andra."

"The address is there. A note, too. I must evoke my feminine
right and ask you, on your honor, not to read it until you have
left the ship. Promise?"

"Promise."

"Look, Adam, the harbor of Havre!"

He wheeled about.

It was the harbor, the ship gliding in.

Off in the distance he could see the white houses of the city,
some with red roofs, glittering moving things in the streets,
motor-cars, trams - and the long ridge of tall blown trees that
runs behind Havre and extends out, the point jutting into the
channel.

Houses! Streets! Trolley-cars!

HAVRE!

And what a glorious day to be arriving!

He turned to where he thought she was. Andra had gone!

Ah, well, he had her address.

Now for business.

A tug had already transferred French officials to the <u>Burgundy</u>.
Back by the smoking-room a line was forming for the showing of
passports. He went back and submitted himself.

The line moved slowly, inch by inch.

Presently he saw Hod and some of the group get in some distance
behind him. Hod waved. He gave up his place and joined them; and
there was much carrying on, showing of passport photos, laughs and
jokes.

Passports were examined in the smoking-room. French officials
held sway, bending over papers, peering at photos and faces, checking
items, ~~matters~~ thing by thing, ticking off people one by one.

The long obedient line moved slowly, handed papers, saw the
French visas stamped, pocketed pink tickets of debarkation.

Hod had to stand to one side and wait to talk over the expired
visas on Sid's and Betty's passports. While waiting he glanced
about the room. "And this was the heart of our blessed ship. Only
last night..."

Sid and Betty stood with him, Sid fiddling. The hour had arrived.
Suppose the Frenchmen did pack them back?

But they didn't. Hod explained that his friends had been un-
expectedly rushed on board, not realizing that their visas were no
good. The official frowned, protested, gave a short lecture, and
then made everything all right - warning them, however, that it would
not be so happy if they were 'unexpectedly rushed' a second time.

Then events moved rapidly.

The ship had passed through the stone breakwaters and was making
her way through the geometric intricacies of the harbor, pass the
tall signal posts and semaphores, pass the piers of new and rusty
ships, slower, slower - and, all at once, she faltered and stopped.

Her engines stopped dead. A world had reached port.

For the first time in days, it seemed for the first time in all
life, motion and vibration ceased. All sounds of the swathing ship.

444

425

Her breathing ceased. A soul went out and floated away. A vacant stillness, an unbearable void, descended and settled upon the *Burgundy* as upon a lifeless thing.

It had come, death against the dock.

But much bustle and to-do of another kind. In all the cabins people were scrambling, in all the passageways, on all the stairs, up and down and milling, along the decks - a roosty-riot.

And it must be suspected that not a few of the ship's company had been yearning all the way across the ocean for just such a chance at bedlam as this.

Porters, burly, sweating, twinkling, cussed fellows with belts and straps swarmed over the gangplank for cabin baggage. They knew there XXX were not enough of them to go around. Theirs, therefore, was the upper hand.

"Find your lungs!" they seemed to taunt. "Shout, bellow - 'Porteur! Porteur!' We'll get around to you in time."

Shout, stampede, and compete the ship's company did, trading on feet, elbowing, wrestling; and they lost in ten minutes all the good spirits accumulated during the entire voyage.

But what? The train might pull out! Pull out and leave them! To be stranded on the pier, a French pier at that - and who knew anything about the behavior of French trains and what all the tooting meant?

And the language! Great cats! From now on you had to speak French or go hungry!

Some preferred to go crazy first, on the assumption that a lunatic is superior to circumstance.

So the merry ship's company took hysterical breaths and shoved

445

426

harder and shouted out of rattling mouths - against x deaf ears -

"<u>Porteur: Porteur!</u>"

"My <u>good</u> man!"

"You cross-eyed walrus!"

"My <u>dear</u> man!"

"You cockeyed double-crosser!"

Hugh was in but not of this rioting. He stood to one side, biding
his time until the porters, having trudged their first loads, came
aboard again.

Somehow he had lost the group.

He wandered out to a fore deck which gave him a view of the gang-
plank and, on the land side, the sheds that housed the customs, the
motor-cars, trunks, boxes, packing cases - and, to the rear, the
boat-trains with engines pointing Parisward.

He saw Barbara go down the plank. She was all alone, very darling
and smart, picking her way, trying to see ahead as if she were
awfully anxious to spy someone among the people waiting in the sheds.

He saw her wave. Following the direction he caught sight of an
dignified elderly couple near a large French touring-car with a
chauffeur. They spotted Barbara and waved back; and then came forward
to <u>MEET HERE</u> meet her and help her through the customs.

She rushed into their arms.

Several times he lost sight of her.

Then he saw her near the motor. Her aunt and uncle got in. Just
when he was certain she would go away with not a glance back at
the ship, she suddenly turned <u>round</u> around.

He waved. He flapped his coat and shouted - as if she could
possibly hear him way over there, with all the noise.

446 427

Then she saw him. Her hands flew to her lips. She threw him
kiss after kiss, ~~which had previously been intended for the queen~~ into the sea.

As he saw her whisked away into Havre and France, a lump arose
in his throat - even though he was seeing exactly what he had fore-
known.

He was one of the last to leave the ship.

Having cleared the customs he found his party, Hod, Vera, all of
them, gathered about a low packing-case in the shed near their
section of the train.

"Hi, angel!" xxxcried Hod, rushing up to help him. "Pull my cork, man! Where've you been? Thought you'd given us the slip. None of that!"

When his things had been deposited in the compartment and they
were again outside with the others, Hod revealed the plan. He
was going to treat Sid, Betty, and Vera to the Ritz. So what? Hugh
too must be his guest.

Said Hugh, "Sorry - and thanks - but I couldn't. If I do stay
over I'll have to be with friends."

"All right. Swell. Stay with them. I forget you know anybody
else. O.K. But look you, come to dinner tonight. We're going to
have one great celebration and begin Paris right. Let the town know
the world-riders are here! The Ritz bar at seven -"

All at once - horns, whistles, bells, a racing of stationmen,
shouting, gesticulating - which meant, that this section was ready
to go and would in fact move at its leisure.

The party took the toots seriously and piled in.

In time the train did start -

Farewell sea and Burgundy!

Train to Paris

The section moved slowly, as if reluctant to leave the ship.
It went a short distance, stopped. Started again and crept along,
groping its way away from the peir-sheds and out of Havre.

A warm summer day in a French twon...

Cobblestone streets...men in coruroy trousers standing beside
bicycles, watching the train pass, a train-load of Americans just
arriqed after crossing the sea...grimy urchins running along with
the cars, jabbering and gesturing for coins - and them a wild 
sc
cramble as a coin was tossed out...iron junk heaps...coal bins...
piles of old ties, hot and oily...lumber yards...truck gardens
sandwiched in near the tracks...aramshackle black building, wood
like metal smoky, with letters in weatherworn white -

Forges et Chantiers de la Mediterranée

Factories with brick smokestacks.

Then houses...and rocks...and woods.

From the blue sky of France the sun shining down, blazing to
make heat-waves arise and the earth drone.

And always to the east, the high ridge curving south from
Havre to Harfleur, Harfleur with its clustered houses and church
dominating.

Gladually the train's speed increased. It seemed to get a
whiff of Paris. By the time it had left the outskirts of Havre
it was racing - though as a special boat-train it had to adjust
to the regular expresses. But it whizzed along with shrill

448 429

piercing whistles.

The compartment was crowded. Hugh felt cramped. Vera was to one side of him, Betty to the other. Across the way were Hod, Miriam and Sid.

Bags and their owners were close-jammed. He could hardly move arm or limb without touching something.

Close-pressing walls, low ceiling. Not a ship but a train. Not the sea but rails. Not experience but transportation.

And only yesterday...

He was indrawn, silent, hot, oppressed; and he wanted to shout "Gangway!" and push out and call for room and air.

Hod kept things going between himself and Miriam.

The others were like Hugh, sort of huddled up, moist, motionless, without circulation, waiting, waiting to be borne and catapulted into the maelstrom of Paris.

Cohesion had gone. Pattern had dissolved. Cement had crumbled. A world had fallen...and these were its materials, disorganized, but soon to be available for a new form of some kind, somewhere.

No longer the ship's long sweeping gliding rolling motion but abrupt bumps, twists, jerks, and rigid speed.

No longer the railing and brine and endless waters; but windows and summer earth.

No more...no longer...

Hugh was glad to have Vera beside him. She sat quietly, sort of feeding him, seeming to understand. That marvelous still understanding that was Vera's.

She alone of all the group seemed to know he would go through Paris and on and on.

449 430

A far away look came into his eyes.

He tried to picture himself in Paris, summoning all reasons
and all desires for a stop-over at least. He felt his moving-
emotions recoil, recoil from the let-down; and he knew he could
not, could not come to rest, not now, not yet. He saw himself
slipping away from the group in the crowds of the station, taking
a taxi straight to Gare de Lyon, boarding an express, speeding
south through Fontainebleau-Avon, around the curve and south and
on and on. It was a body-decision and inescapable.

To be driven on...

Now and again he talked with Vera.

From far back in himself he heard Hod with Miriam. This was
her first time in France. Hod was introducing her.

Like a child's, her soft rolling voice asked questions, as if
the world were simple and immediate.

Were all French trains like this one? Nice but queer. The com-
partments, did or didn't she prefer them to American Pullmans?

She saw French freight-cars. "What funny little things! They
look like toys. Do they really carry freight?"

She loved the vegetable gardens. Now and again the rectangular
plots flashed by. "They are perfect, more beautiful than most
flower gardens, so carefully laid out and cultivated."

Then the countryside with its wooded hills and rich green
meadows.—

"I'm so glad to be on land again - the grass and flowers!
And grass here is the same as grass in America, and a tree is
a tree! I suppose I thought that way over here I'd find every-
thing different. Are you sure we're not in New England? Look!

451 432

His heart lept, his eyes burned. He read certain lines again.
Something crashed, crashed and reeled and all was mixed and fiery.

To see Andra in Paris, of all places in Paris! To be with this
Andra, this amazing creature! He had been blind, blind through
the days and nights of the ocean, wasting himself and his time.

He caught himself and laughed bitterly. The idiot he was!
To fall for a letter.

He could see her mocking smile as she wrote the lines. "This
will fetch him!" And it was true. Marvelous bait for Hugh!

Yet could Andra, even she, turn out such a letter by cleverness?

He saw himself about to fall into struggle; and he clamped
down and with a power he could sometimes use he blotted her from
consciousness.

The train stopped at Rouen. The party came from the compartment.
He fell in with them, and all of them stretched legs along the
platform.

He walked beside Vera, and they drew away from the others.

Said Hugh, "You can just see the tip of the cathedral."

"Several years ago I was in it. I prefer Notre Dame. Notre
Dame is my church. Somehow I've always felt I belonged in it."

He glanced sharply. Could she be thinking of cloistering
herself?

"I shan't do anything foolish. Now more than ever I have
something to live for. If you ask me what, I could not tell you.
I'm like one of the saints. If you ask me, I don't know. If
you don't ask me, I do know. We will see each other again,
sometime?"

"Then you know?"

452-433

"No one else does, so you're safe to slip away. Hod wants to make his God into a drinking companion. I'm glad you are going on."

"And you? Will you stay in Paris with the others?"

"Not more than a day or two."

"Where will you go?"

"I don't know. Somewhere alone."

The train was about to start. They got on.

Not long afterwards the entire group went forward to the diner for an early lunch.

The quickening life of those around him, their talk, their plans for Paris and Europe, pattered on Hugh as fine rain, with the pleasantness and the sadness of pattering rain. As from a deep interior he saw and heard it, nothing more.

He ate without much relish. When Marsh joked about his brooding he aroused himself, only to fall back. He fingered a small leaflet that was lying on the table -

Livret Offert Gratuitement
par la Cie. Intle. des
WAGON-LITS

...400,000 voyageurs ...trains transatlantiques...Cote D'Azur
Pullman Express...Paris (P.- L.- Mo. dep...arr., Marseille, Cannes,
Nice, Monaco, Monte-Carlo...yes, his train...on and on...Crane,
valves, robinets...Benedictine...Porto Sandeman...Hotel Terminus...
Deauville...Visitez les luxueux magasins Aux Arcades des Champs-
Elysees...a Paris...on and on...

Hod aroused him. Hod, with glass lifted.

"The first in France. Drink! To all world-riders - and may they have strong hands, throbbing hearts, and clear heads!"

Hugh drained his glass.

453-434

Once again in the compartment he lapsed into silence with
Vera silent beside him.

Only yesterday, a world. Only last night, this morning,
he, Hod, and Vera on the deck of the Burgundy.

Now that world had disapperared. Already it seemed he had
dreamed it, or as if it had passed into another dimension, taking
with it the deepest feelings he had known in years.

Now, the train.

Soon, himself alone...on and on.

It did not seem possible that in less than an hour he would
have left his friends behind and would find himself in a foreign
world, by himself running the far rapids of the relentless stream.

But it was inevitable. It was an actuality. An actuality
that a force greater than his time-desires sifted him of personal
fulfillments and directed his course towards far objectives. On
the one hand, he was a child of the stars; and if one star dipped,
another lifted. On the other, he belonged to the tribe of the
chastened, to the band of the deprived.

Not literally true; symbolically true.

The way of a being...the stretching across curved oceans, the
searching through broad lands, the reaching through all air...the
eternally unsatisfied core of the human soul...the quest of radiant
realities, of spreading worlds and their inhabitants, each succeed-
ing world more perfect than the rest - unto the sacred Ultimate.

Hugh glanced out the window.

Tracks were multiplying. More trains sped by, some with double
decks, the tops open like summer trams.

The outskirts of Paris.

454 435

Soon a high stone embankment. Grey houses.

Signs, advertisements.

The engine whistled shrilly.

"Paris!" Hod shouted.

Everyone stood up. The women gathered their wraps and went
into the corridor. The men got down the luggage.

Into the great gaunt tent-like sheds of Gare St. Lazare.

The train slowed down. Before it stopped, windows were let
down and again the calls, "_Porteur! Porteur!_"

Again a rush and fracas as bags were lowered through windows
and milling crowds jammed the corridors, pushing to get out as
porters pushed to get in.

On the platform Hugh saw the passing swirling faces of fellow
Burgundians, faces he recognized as having known in some past
world long ago.

Most of them were possessed by that quaint spirit which seizes
people in railway stations, only. A sort of fertile importance.
"Who but me! I'm coming in! I'm off! And I'm telling the world!"

He scanned the crowd for Andra. If he saw her - a gambler's
toss. But he did not see her. Apparently she'd taken another
section.

With his porter following close to the men who had the group's
things, he walked between Hod and Vera.

In the taxi-way the noise and commotion were at their dizziest.
Cars tooting horns and sweeping in and out. Porters staggering
up, depositing their loads. Jabbering in several languages.
Shouts of destinations and addresses, goodbys, hurried reminders
of dates, all trying to raise voices above the din and racket that

455 436

their own voices helped make.

By twos and fours the former ship's company flew from the
station and dispersed into unknown ways.

While waiting for taxis, Hugh carried on with the group.
They were inside a brickwork. Through a wide archway under
which the cabs whizzed in and out, he could see the sunny streets
of the city, the lovely trees in full summer foliage, the march-
ing throngs, two sidewalk cafés with bright awnings, the dizzy
criss-crossing motor-cars.

Paris...glamorous Paris...just a peep at it.

Two cabs pulled up. He helped Vera and Betty into the one
with Hod and Sid. Hod yelled, "At the Ritz bar at seven, angel!"

He waved them off. Vera's level faithful eyes were the last
he saw.

His cab was waiting, holding up the line. Cars behind honked.
The porter had put his things in. He tipped the man, glanced
back and smiled at the irate line, took his time getting in,
smiled again as his driver gave him a ferocious scowl. He crossed
his legs and settled back - then said distinctly,

"Au Gare de Lyon, s'il vous plaît."

END