Part 8

Mitchel raised himself on his elbows and turned his water-coloured eyes on the populous beach. "Well--well--let's see. You could, of course, be a strong man and amuse people--which you're doing. You could--oh, there are lots of things you could do."

Hugo smiled. "I've been thinking about them--for years. And I can't discover any that are worth the effort."

"Bosh!"

Charlotte moved close to him. "There's one thing you can do, honey, and that's enough for me."

"I wonder," Hugo said with a seriousness the other two did not perceive.

The increased heat of August suggested by its very intensity a shortness of duration, an end of summer. Hugo began to wonder what he would do with Charlotte when he went back to Webster. He worried about her a good deal and she, guessing the subject of his frequent fits of silence, made a resolve in her tough and worldly mind. She had learned more about certain facets of Hugo than he knew himself. She realized that he was superior to her and that, in almost any other place than Coney Island, she would be a liability to him. The thought that he would have to desert her made Hugo very miserable. He knew that he would miss Charlotte and he knew that the blow to her might spell disaster. After all, he thought, he had not improved her morals or raised her vision. He did not realize that he had made both almost sublime by the mere act of being considerate. "White," Charlotte called it.

Nevertheless she was not without an intense sense of self-protection, despite her condition on the night he had found her. She knew that womankind lived at the expense of mankind. She saw the emotional respect in which Valentine Mitchel unwittingly held Hugo. He had scarcely spoken ten serious words to her. She realized that the artist saw her as a property of his friend. That, in a way, made her valuable. It was a subtle advantage, which she pressed with all the skill it required. One night when Hugo was at work and the chill of autumn had breathed on the hot shore, she told Valentine that he was a very nice boy and that she liked him very much. He went away distraught, which was what she had intended, and he carried with him a new and as yet inarticulate idea, which was what she had foreseen.

He believed that he loved her. He told himself that Hugo was going to desert her, that she would be forsaken and alone. At that point, she recited to him the story of her life and the tale of her rescue by Hugo and said at the end that she would be very lonely when Hugo was gone. Because Hugo had loved her, Mitchel thought she contained depths and values which did not appear. That she contained such depths neither man really knew then. Both of them learned it much later. Mitchel found himself in that very artistic dilemma of being in love with his friend's mistress. It terrified his romantic soul and it involved him inextricably.

When she felt that the situation had ripened to the point of action, she waited for the precise moment. It came swiftly and in a better guise than she had hoped. On a night in early September, when the crowds had thinned a little, Hugo was just buckling himself into the harness that lifted the horse. The spectators were waiting for the dénouement with bickering patience. Charlotte was standing on the platform, watching him with expressionless eyes. She knew that soon she would not see Hugo any more. She knew that he was tired of his small show, that he was chafing to be gone; and she knew that his loyalty to her would never let him go unless it was made inevitable by her. The horse was ready. She watched the muscles start out beneath Hugo's tawny skin. She saw his lips set, his head thrust back. She worshipped him like that. Unemotionally, she saw the horse lifted up from the floor. She heard the applause. There was a bustle at the gate.

Half a dozen people entered in single file. Three young men. Three girls. They were intoxicated. They laughed and spoke in loud voices. She saw by their clothes and their manner that they were rich. Slumming in Coney Island. She smiled at the young men as she had always smiled at such young men, friendlily, impersonally. Hugo did not see their entrance. They came very near.

"My God, it's Hugo Danner!"

Hugo heard Lefty's voice and recognized it. The horse was dropped to the floor. He turned. An expression of startled amazement crossed his features. Chuck, Lefty, Iris, and three people whom he did not know were staring at him. He saw the stupefied recognition on the faces of his friends. One despairing glance he cast at Charlotte and then he went on with his act.

They waited for him until it was over. They clasped him to their bosoms. They acknowledged Charlotte with critical glances. "Come on and join the party," they said.

After that, their silence was worse than any questions. They talked freely and merrily enough, but behind their words was a deep reserve. Lefty broke it when he had an opportunity to take Hugo aside. "What in hell is eating you? Aren't you coming back to Webster?"

"Sure. That is--I think so. I had to do this to make some money. Just about the time school closed, my family went broke."

"But, good God, man, why didn't you tell us? My father is an alumnus and he'd put up five thousand a year, if necessary, to see you kept on the football team."

Hugo laughed. "You don't think I'd take it, Lefty?"

"Why not?" A pause. "No, I suppose you'd be just the God-damned kind of a fool that wouldn't. Who's the girl?"

Hugo did not falter. "She's a tart I've been living with. I never knew a better one--girl, that is."

"Have you gone crazy?"

"On the contrary, I've got wise."

"Well, for Christ's sake, don't say anything about it on the campus."

Hugo bit his lip. "Don't worry. My business is--my own."

They joined the others, drinking at the table. Charlotte was telling a joke. It was not a nice joke. He had not thought of her jokes before--because Iris and Chuck and Lefty had not been listening to them. Now, he was embarrassed. Iris asked him to dance with her. They went out on the floor.

"Lovely little thing, that Charlotte," she said acidly.

"Isn't she!" Hugo answered with such enthusiasm that she did not speak during the rest of the dance.

Finally the ordeal ended. Lefty and his guests embarked in an automobile for the city.

"You know such people," Charlotte half-whispered. Hugo's cheeks still flamed, but his heart bled for her.

"I guess they aren't much," he replied.

She answered hotly: "Don't you be like that! They're nice people. They're fine people. That Iris even asked me to her house. Gave me a card to see her." Charlotte could guess what Iris wanted. So could Hugo. But Charlotte pretended to be innocent.

He kissed Charlotte good-night and walked in the streets until morning. Hugo could see no solution. Charlotte was so trusting, so good to him. He could not imagine how she would receive any suggestion that she go to New York and get a job, while he returned to college, that he see her during vacations, that he send money to her. But he knew that a hot fire dwelt within her and that her fury would rise, her grief, and that he would be made very miserable and ashamed. She chided him at breakfast for his walk in the dark. She laughed and kissed him and pushed him bodily to his work. He looked back as he walked down to the curb. She was leaning out of the window. She waved her hand. He rounded the corner with wretched, leaden steps. The morning, concerned with the petty business of receipts, refurbishings, cleaning, went slowly. When he returned for lunch it was with the decision to tell her the truth about his life and its requirements and to let her decide.

She did not come to the door to kiss him. (She had imagined that lonely return.) She did not answer his brave and cheerful hail. (She had let the sound of it ring upon her ear a thousand times.) She was gone. (She knew he would sit down and cry.) Then, stumbling, he found the two notes. But he already understood.

The message from Valentine Mitchel was reckless, impetuous. "Dear Hugo--Charlotte and I have fallen in love with each other and I've run away with her. I almost wish you'd come after us and kill me. I hate myself for betraying you. But I love her, so I cannot help it. I've learned to see in her what you first saw in her. Good-bye, good luck."

Hugo put it down. Charlotte would be good to him. In a way, he didn't deserve her. And when he was famous, some day, perhaps she would leave him, too. He hesitated to read her note. "Good-bye, darling, I do not love you any more. C."

It was ludicrous, transparent, pitiful, and heroic. Hugo saw all those qualities. "Good-bye, darling, I do not love you any more." She had written it under Valentine's eyes. But she was shrewd enough to placate her new lover while she told her sad little story to her old. She would want him to feel bad. Well, God knew, he did. Hugo looked at the room. He sobbed. He bolted into the street, tears streaming down his cheeks; he drew his savings from the bank--seven hundred and eighty-four dollars and sixty-four cents; he rushed to the haunted house, flung his clothes into a bag; he sat drearily on a subway for an hour. He paced the smooth floor of a station. He swung aboard a train. He came to Webster, his head high, feeling a great pride in Charlotte and in his love for her, walking in glad strides over the familiar soil.

IX

Hugo sat alone and marvelled at the exquisite torment of his _Weltschmertz_. Far away, across the campus, he heard singing. Against the square segment of sky visible from the bay window of his room he could see the light of the great fire they had built to celebrate victory--his victory. The light leaped into the darkness above like a great golden ghost in some fantastic ascension, and beneath it, he knew, a thousand students were dancing. They were druid priests at a rite to the god of football. His fingers struggled through his black hair. The day was fresh in his mind--the bellowing stands, the taut, almost frightened faces of the eleven men who faced him, the smack and flight of the brown oval, the lumbering sound of men running, the sucking of the breath of men and their sharp, painful fall to earth.

In his mind was a sharp picture of himself and the eyes that watched him as he broke away time and again, with infantile ease, to carry that precious ball. He let them make a touchdown that he could have averted. He made one himself. Then another. The bell on Webster Hall was booming its pæan of victory. He stiffened under the steady monody. He remembered again. Lefty barking signals with a strange agony in his voice. Lefty pounding on his shoulder. "Go in there, Hugo, and give it to them. I can't." Lefty pleading. And the captain, Jerry Painter, cursing in open jealousy of Hugo, vying hopelessly with Hugo Danner, the man who was a god.

It was not fair. Not right. The old and early glory was ebbing from it. When he put down the ball, safely across the goal for the winning touchdown, he saw three of the men on the opposing team lie down and weep. There he stood, pretending to pant, feigning physical distress, making himself a hero at the expense of innocent victims. Jackstraws for a giant. There was no triumph in that. He could not go on.

Afterwards they had made him speak, and the breathless words that had once come so easily moved heavily through his mind. Yet he had carried his advantage beyond the point of turning back. He could not say that the opponents of Webster might as well attempt to hold back a Juggernaut, to throw down a siege-gun, to outrace light, as to lay their hands on him to check his intent. Webster had been good to him. He loved Webster and it deserved his best. His best! He peered again into the celebrating night and wondered what that awful best would be.

He desired passionately to be able to give that--to cover the earth, making men glad and bringing a revolution into their lives, to work himself into a fury and to fatigue his incredible sinews, to end with the feeling of a race well run, a task nobly executed. And, for a year, that ambition had seemed in some small way to be approaching fruition. Now it was turned to ashes. It was not with the muscles of men that his goal was to be attained. They could not oppose him.

As he sat gloomy and distressed, he wondered for what reason there burned in him that wish to do great deeds. Humanity itself was too selfish and too ignorant to care. It could boil in its tiny prejudices for centuries to come and never know that there could be a difference. Moreover, who was he to grind his soul and beat his thoughts for the benefit of people who would never know and never care? What honour, when he was dead, to lie beneath a slab on which was punily graven some note of mighty accomplishment? Why could he not content himself with the food he ate, the sunshine, with wind in trees, and cold water, and a woman? It was that sad and silly command within to transcend his vegetable self that made him human. He tried to think about it bitterly: fool man, grown suddenly more conscious than the other beasts--how quickly he had become vain because of it and how that vanity led him forever onward! Or was it vanity--when his aching soul proclaimed that he would gladly achieve and die without other recognition or acclaim than that which rose within himself? Martyrs were made of such stuff. And was not that, perhaps, an even more exaggerated vanity? It was so pitiful to be a man and nothing more. Hugo bowed his head and let his body tremble with strange agony. Perhaps, he thought, even the agony was a selfish pleasure to him. Then he should be ashamed. He felt shame and then thought that the feeling rose from a wish for it and foundered angrily in the confusion of his introspection. He knew only and knew but dimly that he would lift himself up again and go on, searching for some universal foe to match against his strength. So pitiful to be a man! So Christ must have felt in Gethsemane.

"Hey, Hugo!"

"Yeah?"

"What the hell did you come over here for?"

"To be alone."

"Is that a hint?" Lefty entered the room. "They want you over at the bonfire. We've been looking all over for you."

"All right. I'll go. But, honest to God, I've had enough of this business for to-day."

Lefty slapped Hugo's shoulders. "The great must pay for their celebrity. Come on, you sap."

"All right."

"What's the matter? Anything the matter?"

"No. Nothing's the matter. Only--it's sort of sad to be--" Hugo checked himself.

"Sad? Good God, man, you're going stale."

"Maybe that's it." Hugo had a sudden fancy. "Do you suppose I could be let out of next week's game?"

"What for? My God--"

Hugo pursued the idea. "It's the last game. I can sit on the lines. You fellows all play good ball. You can probably win. If you can't--then I'll play. If you only knew, Lefty, how tired I get sometimes--"

"Tired! Why don't you say something about it? You can lay off practice for three or four days."

"Not that. Tired in the head, not the body. Tired of crashing through and always getting away with it. Oh, I'm not conceited. But I know they can't stop me. You know it. It's a gift of mine--and a curse. How about it? Let's start next week without me."

The night ended at last. A new day came. The bell on Webster Hall stopped booming. Woodie, the coach, came to see Hugo between classes. "Lefty says you want us to start without you next week. What's the big idea?"

"I don't know. I thought the other birds would like a shot at Yale without me. They can do it."

Mr. Woodman eyed his player. "That's pretty generous of you, Hugo. Is there any other reason?"

"Not--that I can explain."

"I see." The coach offered Hugo a cigarette after he had helped himself. "Take it. It'll do you good."

"Thanks."

"Listen, Hugo. I want to ask you a question. But, first, I want you to promise you'll give me a plain answer."

"I'll try."

"That won't do."

"Well--I can't promise."

Woodman sighed. "I'll ask it anyway. You can answer or not--just as you wish." He was silent. He inhaled his cigarette and blew the smoke through his nostrils. His eyes rested on Hugo with an expression of intense interest, beneath which was a softer light of something not unlike sympathy. "I'll have to tell you something, first, Hugo. When you went away last summer, I took a trip to Colorado."

Hugo started, and Woodman continued: "To Indian Creek. I met your father and your mother. I told them that I knew you. I did my best to gain their confidence. You see, Hugo, I've watched you with a more skilful eye than most people. I've seen you do things, a few little things, that weren't--well--that weren't--"

Hugo's throat was dry. "Natural?"

"That's the best word, I guess. You were never like my other boys, in any case. So I thought I'd find out what I could. I must admit that my efforts with your father were a failure. Aside from the fact that he is an able biology teacher and that he had a number of queer theories years ago, I learned nothing. But I did find out what those theories were. Do you want me to stop?"

A peculiar, almost hopeful expression was on Hugo's face. "No," he answered.

"Well, they had to do with the biochemistry of cellular structure, didn't they? And with the production of energy in cells? And then--I talked to lots of people. I heard about Samson."

"Samson!" Hugo echoed, as if the dead had spoken.

"Samson--the cat."

Hugo was as pale as chalk. His eyes burned darkly. He felt that his universe was slipping from beneath him. "You know, then," he said.

"I don't know, Hugo. I merely guessed. I was going to ask. Now I shall not. Perhaps I do know. But I had another question, son--"

"Yes?" Hugo looked at Woodman and felt then the reason for his success as a coach, as a leader and master of youth. He understood it.

"Well, I wondered if you thought it was worth while to talk to your father and discover--"

"What he did?" Hugo suggested hoarsely.

Woodman put his hand on Hugo's knee. "What he did, son. You ought to know by this time what it means. I've been watching you. I don't want your head to swell, but you're a great boy, Hugo. Not only in beef. You have a brain and an imagination and a sense of moral responsibility. You'll come out better than the rest--you would even without your--your particular talent. And I thought you might think that the rest of humanity would profit--"

Hugo jumped to his feet. "No. A thousand times no. For the love of Christ--no! You don't know or understand, you can't conceive, Woodie, what it means to have it. You don't have the faintest idea of its amount--what it tempts you with--what they did to me and I did to myself to beat it--if I have beaten it." He laughed. "Listen, Woodie. Anything I want is mine. Anything I desire I can take. No one can hinder. And sometimes I sweat all night for fear some day I shall lose my temper. There's a desire in me to break and destroy and wreck that--oh, hell--"

Woodman waited. Then he spoke quietly. "You're sure, Hugo, that the desire to be the only one--like that--has nothing to do with it?"

Hugo's sole response was to look into Woodman's eyes, a look so pregnant with meaning, so tortured, so humble, that the coach swore softly. Then he held out his hand. "Well, Hugo, that's all. You've been damn swell about it. The way I hoped you would be. And I think my answer is plain. One thing. As long as I live, I promise on my oath I'll never give you away or support any rumour that hurts your secret."

Even Hugo was stirred to a consciousness of the strength of the other man's grip.

Saturday. A shrill whistle. The thump of leather against leather. The roar of the stadium.

Hugo leaned forward. He watched his fellows from the bench. They rushed across the field. Lefty caught the ball. Eddie Carter interfered with the first man, Bimbo Gaines with the second. The third slammed Lefty against the earth. Three downs. Eight yards. A kick. New Haven brought the ball to its twenty-one-yard line. The men in helmets formed again. A coughing voice. Pandemonium. Again in line. The voice. The riot of figures suddenly still. Again. A kick. Lefty with the ball, and Bimbo Gaines leading him, his big body a shield. Down. A break and a run for twenty-eight yards. Must have been Chuck. Good old Chuck. He'd be playing the game of his life. Graduation next spring. Four, seven, eleven, thirty-two, fifty-five. Hugo anticipated the spreading of the players. He looked where the ball would be thrown. He watched Minton, the end, spring forward, saw him falter, saw the opposing quarterback run in, saw Lefty thrown, saw the ball received by the enemy and moved up, saw the opposing back spilled nastily. His heart beat faster.

No score at the end of the first half. The third quarter witnessed the crossing of Webster's goal. Struggling grimly, gamely, against a team that was their superior without Hugo, against a team heartened by the knowledge that Hugo was not facing it, Webster's players were being beaten. The goal was not kicked. It made the score six to nothing against Webster. Hugo saw the captain rip off his headgear and throw it angrily on the ground. He understood all that was going on in the minds of his team in a clear, although remote, way. They went out to show that they could play the game without Hugo Danner. And they were not showing what they had hoped to show. A few minutes later their opponents made a second touchdown.

Thirteen to nothing. Mr. Woodman moved beside Hugo. "They can't do it--and I don't altogether blame them. They've depended on you too much. It's too bad. We all have."

Hugo nodded. "Shall I go in?"

The coach watched the next play. "I guess you better."

When Hugo entered the line, Jerry Painter and Lefty spoke to him in strained tones. "You've got to take it over, Hugo--all the way."

"All right."

The men lined up. A tense silence had fallen on the Yale line. They knew what was going to happen. The signals were called, the ball shot back to Lefty, Hugo began to run, the men in front rushed together, and Lefty stuffed the ball into Hugo's arms. "Go on," he shouted. The touchdown was made in one play. Hugo saw a narrow hole and scooted into it. A man met his outstretched arm on the other side. Another. Hugo dodged twice. The crescendo roar of the Webster section came to him dimly. He avoided the safety man and ran to the goal. In the pandemonium afterwards, Jerry kicked the goal.

A new kick-off. Hugo felt a hand on his shoulder. "You've gotta break this up." Hugo broke it up. He held Yale almost single-handed. They kicked back. Hugo returned the kick to the middle of the field. He did not dare to do more.

Then he stood in his leather helmet, bent, alert, waiting to run again. They called the captain's signal. He made four yards. Then Lefty's. He made a first down. Then Jerry's. Two yards. Six yards. Five yards. Another first down. The stands were insane. Hugo was glad they were not using him--glad until he saw Jerry Painter's face. It was pale with rage. Blood trickled across it from a small cut. Three tries failed. Hugo spoke to him. "I'll take it over, Jerry, if you say so."

Jerry doubled his fist and would have struck him if Hugo had not stepped back. "God damn you, Danner, you come out here in the last few minutes all fresh and make us look like a lot of fools. I tell you, my team and I will take that ball across and not you with your bastard tricks."

"But, good God, man--"

"You heard me."

"This is your last down."