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Файл:Бэббитт. Книга для чтения на английском языке
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Babbitt
regretful, while he felt that his wife was watching him, he
was filled with exultant visions of Tanis.
Do you think Id better go? she said sharply.
Youve got to decide, honey; I cant.
She turned away, sighing, and his forehead was damp.
Till she went, four days later, she was curiously still, he
cumbrously affectionate. Her train left at noon. As he saw
it grow small beyond the train-shed he longed to hurry to
Tanis.
No, by golly, I wont do that! he vowed. I wont go
near her for a week!
But he was at her flat at four.
III
He who had once controlled or seemed to control his
life in a progress unimpassioned but diligent and sane was
for that fortnight borne on a current of desire and very
bad whisky and all the complications of new acquaintances,
those furious new intimates who demand so much more
attention than old friends. Each morning he gloomily
recognized his idiocies of the evening before. With his
head throbbing, his tongue and lips stinging from cigarettes,
he incredulously counted the number of drinks he had
taken, and groaned, I got to quit! He had ceased saying,
I WILL quit! for however resolute he might be at dawn,
he could not, for a single evening, check his drift.
He had met Taniss friends; he had, with the ardent
haste of the Midnight People, who drink and dance and
rattle and are ever afraid to be silent, been adopted as a
member of her group, which they called The Bunch. He
first met them after a day when he had worked particularly
hard and when he hoped to be quiet with Tanis and
slowly sip her admiration.
From down the hall he could hear shrieks and the
grind of a phonograph. As Tanis opened the door he saw
fantastic figures dancing in a haze of cigarette smoke. The
tables and chairs were against the wall.
Oh, isnt this dandy! she gabbled at him. Carrie Nork
had the loveliest idea. She decided it was time for a party,
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Sinclair Lewis
and she phoned the Bunch and told em to gather round...
George, this is Carrie.
Carrie was, in the less desirable aspects of both, at
once matronly and spinsterish. She was perhaps forty; her
hair was an unconvincing ash-blond; and if her chest was
flat, her hips were ponderous. She greeted Babbitt with a
giggling Welcome to our little midst! Tanis says youre a
real sport.
He was apparently expected to dance, to be boyish and
gay with Carrie, and he did his unforgiving best. He towed
her about the room, bumping into other couples, into the
radiator, into chair-legs cunningly ambushed. As he danced
he surveyed the rest of the Bunch: A thin young woman
who looked capable, conceited, and sarcastic. Another
woman whom he could never quite remember. Three
overdressed and slightly effeminate young men sodafountain clerks, or at least born for that profession. A man
of his own age, immovable, self-satisfied, resentful of
Babbitts presence.
When he had finished his dutiful dance Tanis took him
aside and begged, Dear, wouldnt you like to do something
for me? Im all out of booze, and the Bunch want to
celebrate. Couldnt you just skip down to Healey Hansons
and get some?
Sure, he said, trying not to sound sullen.
Ill tell you: Ill get Minnie Sonntag to drive down with
you. Tanis was pointing to the thin, sarcastic young
woman.
Miss Sonntag greeted him with an astringent How
dyou do, Mr Babbitt. Tanis tells me youre a very prominent
man, and Im honored by being allowed to drive with you.
Of course Im not accustomed to associating with society
people like you, so I dont know how to act in such
exalted circles!
Thus Miss Sonntag talked all the way down to Healey
Hansons. To her jibes he wanted to reply Oh, go to the
devil! but he never quite nerved himself to that reasonable
comment. He was resenting the existence of the whole
Bunch. He had heard Tanis speak of darling Carrie and
Min Sonntag shes so clever youll adore her, but they
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Babbitt
had never been real to him. He had pictured Tanis as
living in a rose-tinted vacuum, waiting for him, free of all
the complications of a Floral Heights.
When they returned he had to endure the patronage of
the young soda-clerks. They were as damply friendly as
Miss Sonntag was dryly hostile. They called him Old
Georgie and shouted, Come on now, sport; shake a
leg... boys in belted coats, pimply boys, as young as Ted
and as flabby as chorus-men, but powerful to dance and
to mind the phonograph and smoke cigarettes and patronize
Tanis. He tried to be one of them; he cried Good work,
Pete! but his voice creaked.
Tanis apparently enjoyed the companionship of the
dancing darlings; she bridled to their bland flirtation and
casually kissed them at the end of each dance. Babbitt
hated her, for the moment. He saw her as middle-aged. He
studied the wrinkles in the softness of her throat, the slack
flesh beneath her chin. The taut muscles of her youth were
loose and drooping. Between dances she sat in the largest
chair, waving her cigarette, summoning her callow admirers
to come and talk to her. (She thinks shes a blooming
queen! growled Babbitt.) She chanted to Miss Sonntag,
Isnt my little studio sweet? (Studio, rats! Its a plain oldmaid-and-chow-dog flat! Oh, God, I wish I was home! I
wonder if I cant make a getaway now?)
His vision grew blurred, however, as he applied himself
to Healey Hansons raw but vigorous whisky. He blended
with the Bunch. He began to rejoice that Carrie Nork and
Pete, the most nearly intelligent of the nimble youths,
seemed to like him; and it was enormously important to
win over the surly older man, who proved to be a railway
clerk named Fulton Bemis.
The conversation of the Bunch was exclamatory, highcolored, full of references to people whom Babbitt did not
know. Apparently they thought very comfortably of
themselves. They were the Bunch, wise and beautiful and
amusing; they were Bohemians and urbanites, accustomed
to all the luxuries of Zenith: dance-halls, movie-theaters,
and roadhouses; and in a cynical superiority to people
who were slow or tightwad they cackled:
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Sinclair Lewis
Oh, Pete, did I tell you what that dub of a cashier said
when I came in late yesterday? Oh, it was per-fect-ly priceless!
Oh, but wasnt T. D. stewed! Say, he was simply
ossified! What did Gladys say to him?
Think of the nerve of Bob Bickerstaff trying to get us
to come to his house! Say, the nerve of him! Can you beat
it for nerve? Some nerve I call it!
Did you notice how Dotty was dancing? Gee, wasnt
she the limit!
Babbitt was to be heard sonorously agreeing with the
once-hated Miss Minnie Sonntag that persons who let a
night go by without dancing to jazz music were crabs,
pikers, and poor fish; and he roared You bet! when
Mrs Carrie Nork gurgled, Dont you love to sit on the
floor? Its so Bohemian! He began to think extremely well
of the Bunch. When he mentioned his friends Sir Gerald
Doak, Lord Wycombe, William Washington Eathorne, and
Chum Frink, he was proud of their condescending interest.
He got so thoroughly into the jocund spirit that he didnt
much mind seeing Tanis drooping against the shoulder of
the youngest and milkiest of the young men, and he
himself desired to hold Carrie Norks pulpy hand, and
dropped it only because Tanis looked angry.
When he went home, at two, he was fully a member of
the Bunch, and all the week thereafter he was bound by
the exceedingly straitened conventions, the exceedingly
wearing demands, of their life of pleasure and freedom.
He had to go to their parties; he was involved in the
agitation when everybody telephoned to everybody else
that she hadnt meant what shed said when shed said
that, and anyway, why was Pete going around saying
shed said it?
Never was a Family more insistent on learning one
anothers movements than were the Bunch. All of them
volubly knew, or indignantly desired to know, where all
the others had been every minute of the week. Babbitt
found himself explaining to Carrie or Fulton Bemis just
what he had been doing that he should not have joined
them till ten oclock, and apologizing for having gone to
dinner with a business acquaintance.
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Babbitt
Every member of the Bunch was expected to telephone
to every other member at least once a week. Why havent
you called me up? Babbitt was asked accusingly, not only
by Tanis and Carrie but presently by new ancient friends,
Jennie and Capitolina and Toots.
If for a moment he had seen Tanis as withering and
sentimental, he lost that impression at Carrie Norks dance.
Mrs Nork had a large house and a small husband. To her
party came all of the Bunch, perhaps thirty-five of them
when they were completely mobilized. Babbitt, under the
name of Old Georgie, was now a pioneer of the Bunch,
since each month it changed half its membership and he
who could recall the prehistoric days of a fortnight ago,
before Mrs Absolom, the food-demonstrator, had gone to
Indianapolis, and Mac had got sore at Minnie, was a
venerable leader and able to condescend to new Petes and
Minnies and Gladyses.
At Carries, Tanis did not have to work at being
hostess. She was dignified and sure, a clear fine figure in
the black chiffon frock he had always loved; and in the
wider spaces of that ugly house Babbitt was able to sit
quietly with her. He repented of his first revulsion, mooned
at her feet, and happily drove her home. Next day he
bought a violent yellow tie, to make himself young for her.
He knew, a little sadly, that he could not make himself
beautiful; he beheld himself as heavy, hinting of fatness,
but he danced, he dressed, he chattered, to be as young
as she was... as young as she seemed to be.
IV
As all converts, whether to a religion, love, or gardening,
find as by magic that though hitherto these hobbies have
not seemed to exist, now the whole world is filled with
their fury, so, once he was converted to dissipation,
Babbitt discovered agreeable opportunities for it everywhere.
He had a new view of his sporting neighbor, Sam
Doppelbrau. The Doppelbraus were respectable people,
industrious people, prosperous people, whose ideal of
happiness was an eternal cabaret. Their life was dominated
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Sinclair Lewis
by suburban bacchanalia of alcohol, nicotine, gasoline,
and kisses. They and their set worked capably all the
week, and all week looked forward to Saturday night,
when they would, as they expressed it, throw a party;
and the thrown party grew noisier and noisier up to
Sunday dawn, and usually included an extremely rapid
motor expedition to nowhere in particular.
One evening when Tanis was at the theater, Babbitt
found himself being lively with the Doppelbraus, pledging
friendship with men whom he had for years privily
denounced to Mrs Babbitt as a rotten bunch of tin-horns
that I wouldnt go out with, rot if they were the last
people on earth. That evening he had sulkily come home
and poked about in front of the house, chipping off the
walk the ice-clots, like fossil footprints, made by the steps
of passers-by during the recent snow. Howard Littlefield
came up snuffling.
Still a widower, George?
Yump. Cold again to-night.
What do you hear from the wife?
Shes feeling fine, but her sister is still pretty sick.
Say, better come in and have dinner with us to-night,
George.
Oh oh, thanks. Have to go out.
Suddenly he could not endure Littlefields recitals of the
more interesting statistics about totally uninteresting
problems. He scraped at the walk and grunted.
Sam Doppelbrau appeared.
Evenin, Babbitt. Working hard?
Yuh, lil exercise.
Cold enough for you to-night?
Well, just about.
Still a widower?
Uh-huh.
Say, Babbitt, while shes away I know you dont care
much for booze-fights, but the Missus and Id be awfully
glad if you could come in some night. Think you could
stand a good cocktail for once?
Stand it? Young fella, I bet old Uncle George can mix
the best cocktail in these United States!
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Babbitt
Hurray! Thats the way to talk! Look here: Theres
some folks coming to the house to-night, Louetta Swanson
and some other live ones, and Im going to open up a
bottle of pre-war gin, and maybe well dance a while. Why
dont you drop in and jazz it up a little, just for a change?
Well What time they coming?
He was at Sam Doppelbraus at nine. It was the third
time he had entered the house. By ten he was calling
Mr Doppelbrau Sam, old hoss.
At eleven they all drove out to the Old Farm Inn.
Babbitt sat in the back of Doppelbraus car with Louetta
Swanson. Once he had timorously tried to make love to
her. Now he did not try; he merely made love; and Louetta
dropped her head on his shoulder, told him what a nagger
Eddie was, and accepted Babbitt as a decent and welltrained libertine.
With the assistance of Taniss Bunch, the Doppelbraus,
and other companions in forgetfulness, there was not an
evening for two weeks when he did not return home late
and shaky. With his other faculties blurred he yet had the
motorists gift of being able to drive when he could scarce
walk; of slowing down at corners and allowing for
approaching cars. He came wambling into the house. If
Verona and Kenneth Escott were about, he got past them
with a hasty greeting, horribly aware of their level young
glances, and hid himself up-stairs. He found when he
came into the warm house that he was hazier than he had
believed. His head whirled. He dared not lie down. He
tried to soak out the alcohol in a hot bath. For the
moment his head was clearer but when he moved about
the bathroom his calculations of distance were wrong, so
that he dragged down the towels, and knocked over the
soap-dish with a clatter which, he feared, would betray
him to the children. Chilly in his dressing-gown he tried to
read the evening paper. He could follow every word; he
seemed to take in the sense of things; but a minute
afterward he could not have told what he had been
reading. When he went to bed his brain flew in circles,
and he hastily sat up, struggling for self-control. At last he
was able to lie still, feeling only a little sick and dizzy
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Sinclair Lewis
and enormously ashamed. To hide his condition from his
own children! To have danced and shouted with people
whom he despised! To have said foolish things, sung
idiotic songs, tried to kiss silly girls! Incredulously he
remembered that he had by his roaring familiarity with
them laid himself open to the patronizing of youths whom
he would have kicked out of his office; that by dancing
too ardently he had exposed himself to rebukes from the
rattiest of withering women. As it came relentlessly back to
him he snarled, I hate myself! God how I hate myself!
But, he raged, Im through! No more! Had enough, plenty!
He was even surer about it the morning after, when he
was trying to be grave and paternal with his daughters at
breakfast. At noontime he was less sure. He did not deny
that he had been a fool; he saw it almost as clearly as at
midnight; but anything, he struggled, was better than
going back to a life of barren heartiness. At four he
wanted a drink. He kept a whisky flask in his desk now,
and after two minutes of battle he had his drink. Three
drinks later he began to see the Bunch as tender and
amusing friends, and by six he was with them... and the
tale was to be told all over.
Each morning his head ached a little less. A bad head
for drinks had been his safeguard, but the safeguard was
crumbling. Presently he could be drunk at dawn, yet not
feel particularly wretched in his conscience or in his
stomach when he awoke at eight. No regret, no desire
to escape the toil of keeping up with the arduous merriment
of the Bunch, was so great as his feeling of social
inferiority when he failed to keep up. To be the livest of
them was as much his ambition now as it had been to
excel at making money, at playing golf, at motor-driving, at
oratory, at climbing to the McKelvey set. But occasionally
he failed.
He found that Pete and the other young men considered
the Bunch too austerely polite and the Carrie who merely
kissed behind doors too embarrassingly monogamic. As
Babbitt sneaked from Floral Heights down to the Bunch, so
the young gallants sneaked from the proprieties of the
Bunch off to times with bouncing young women whom
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Babbitt
they picked up in department stores and at hotel coatrooms.
Once Babbitt tried to accompany them. There was a motor
car, a bottle of whisky, and for him a grubby shrieking
cash-girl from Parcher and Steins. He sat beside her and
worried. He was apparently expected to jolly her along,
but when she sang out, Hey, leggo, quit crushing me
cootie-garage, he did not quite know how to go on. They
sat in the back room of a saloon, and Babbitt had a
headache, was confused by their new slang looked at them
benevolently, wanted to go home, and had a drink a
good many drinks.
Two evenings after, Fulton Bemis, the surly older man
of the Bunch, took Babbitt aside and grunted, Look here,
its none of my business, and God knows I always lap up
my share of the hootch, but dont you think you better
watch yourself? Youre one of these enthusiastic chumps
that always overdo things. D you realize youre throwing
in the booze as fast as you can, and you eat one cigarette
right after another? Better cut it out for a while.
Babbitt tearfully said that good old Fult was a prince,
and yes, he certainly would cut it out, and thereafter he
lighted a cigarette and took a drink and had a terrific
quarrel with Tanis when she caught him being affectionate
with Carrie Nork.
Next morning he hated himself that he should have
sunk into a position where a fifteenth-rater like Fulton
Bemis could rebuke him. He perceived that, since he was
making love to every woman possible, Tanis was no
longer his one pure star, and he wondered whether she
had ever been anything more to him than A Woman. And
if Bemis had spoken to him, were other people talking
about him? He suspiciously watched the men at the Athletic
Club that noon. It seemed to him that they were uneasy.
They had been talking about him then? He was angry. He
became belligerent. He not only defended Seneca Doane
but even made fun of the Y.M.C.A, Vergil Gunch was
rather brief in his answers.
Afterward Babbitt was not angry. He was afraid. He did
not go to the next lunch of the Boosters Club but hid in
a cheap restaurant, and, while he munched a ham-and-egg
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Sinclair Lewis
sandwich and sipped coffee from a cup on the arm of his
chair, he worried.
Four days later, when the Bunch were having one of
their best parties, Babbitt drove them to the skating-rink
which had been laid out on the Chaloosa River. After a
thaw the streets had frozen in smooth ice. Down those wide
endless streets the wind rattled between the rows of wooden
houses, and the whole Bellevue district seemed a frontier
town. Even with skid chains on all four wheels, Babbitt
was afraid of sliding, and when he came to the long slide
of a hill he crawled down, both brakes on. Slewing round
a corner came a less cautious car. It skidded, it almost
raked them with its rear fenders. In relief at their escape the
Bunch Tanis, Minnie Sonntag, Pete, Fulton Bemis
shouted Oh, baby, and waved their hands to the agitated
other driver. Then Babbitt saw Professor Pumphrey laboriously
crawling up hill, afoot, Staring owlishly at the revelers. He
was sure that Pumphrey recognized him and saw Tanis kiss
him as she crowed, Youre such a good driver!
At lunch next day he probed Pumphrey with Out last
night with my brother and some friends of his. Gosh, what
driving! Slippery s glass. Thought I saw you hiking up the
Bellevue Avenue Hill.
No, I wasnt I didnt see you, said Pumphrey,
hastily, rather guiltily.
Perhaps two days afterward Babbitt took Tanis to lunch
at the Hotel Thornleigh. She who had seemed well content
to wait for him at her flat had begun to hint with melancholy
smiles that he must think but little of her if he never
introduced her to his friends, if he was unwilling to be seen
with her except at the movies. He thought of taking her to
the ladies annex of the Athletic Club, but that was too
dangerous. He would have to introduce her and, oh, people
might misunderstand and He compromised on the Thornleigh.
She was unusually smart, all in black: small black
tricorne hat, short black caracul coat, loose and swinging,
and austere high-necked black velvet frock at a time when
most street costumes were like evening gowns. Perhaps she
was too smart. Every one in the gold and oak restaurant of
the Thornleigh was staring at her as Babbitt followed her to
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