第140章 PART FIFTH(15)

One of the officers rushed up toward the corner where Conrad stood,and then he saw at his side a tall,old man,with a long,white beard,who was calling out at the policemen:"Ah,yes!Glup the strikerss--gif it to them!Why don't you co and glup the bresidents that insoalt your lawss,and gick your Boart of Arpidration out-of-toors?Glup the strikerss--they cot no friendts!They cot no money to pribe you,to dreat you!"The officer lifted his club,and the old man threw his left arm up to shield his head.Conrad recognized Zindau,and now he saw the empty sleeve dangle in the air over the stump of his wrist.He heard a shot in that turmoil beside the car,and something seemed to strike him in the breast.He was going to say to the policeman:"Don't strike him!He's an old soldier!You see he has no hand!"but he could not speak,he could not move his tongue.The policeman stood there;he saw his face:

it was not bad,not cruel;it was like the face of a statue,fixed,perdurable--a mere image of irresponsible and involuntary authority.

Then Conrad fell forward,pierced through the heart by that shot fired from the car.

March heard the shot as he scrambled out of his car,and at the same moment he saw Lindau drop under the club of the policeman,who left him where he fell and joined the rest of the squad in pursuing the rioters.

The fighting round the car in the avenue ceased;the driver whipped his horses into a gallop,and the place was left empty.

March would have liked to run;he thought how his wife had implored him to keep away from the rioting;but he could not have left Lindau lying there if he would.Something stronger than his will drew him to the spot,and there he saw Conrad,dead beside the old man.

VI.

In the cares which Mrs.March shared with her husband that night she was supported partly by principle,but mainly by the,potent excitement which bewildered Conrad's family and took all reality from what had happened.

It was nearly midnight when the Marches left them and walked away toward the Elevated station with Fulkerson.Everything had been done,by that time,that could be done;and Fulkerson was not without that satisfaction in the business-like despatch of all the details which attends each step in such an affair and helps to make death tolerable even to the most sorely stricken.We are creatures of the moment;we live from one little space to another;and only one interest at a time fills these.Fulkerson was cheerful when they got into the street,almost gay;and Mrs.March experienced a rebound from her depression which she felt that she ought not to have experienced.But she condoned the offence a little in herself,because her husband remained so constant in his gravity;and,pending the final accounting he must make her for having been where he could be of so much use from the first instant of the calamity,she was tenderly,gratefully proud of all the use he had been to Conrad's family,and especially his miserable old father.To her mind,March was the principal actor in the whole affair,and much more important in having seen it than those who had suffered in it.In fact,he had suffered incomparably.

"Well,well,"said Fulkerson."They'll get along now.We've done all we could,and there's nothing left but for them to bear it.Of course it's awful,but I guess it 'll come out all right.I mean,"he added,"they'll pull through now.""I suppose,"said March,"that nothing is put on us that we can't bear.

But I should think,"he went on,musingly,"that when God sees what we poor finite creatures can bear,hemmed round with this eternal darkness of death,He must respect us.""Basil!"said his wife.But in her heart she drew nearer to him for the words she thought she ought to rebuke him for.

"Oh,I know,"he said,"we school ourselves to despise human nature.

But God did not make us despicable,and I say,whatever end He meant us for,He must have some such thrill of joy in our adequacy to fate as a father feels when his son shows himself a man.When I think what we can be if we must,I can't believe the least of us shall finally perish.""Oh,I reckon the Almighty won't scoop any of us,"said Fulkerson,with a piety of his own.

"That poor boy's father!"sighed Mrs.March."I can't get his face out of my sight.He looked so much worse than death.""Oh,death doesn't look bad,"said March."It's life that looks so in its presence.Death is peace and pardon.I only wish poor old Lindau was as well out of it as Conrad there.""Ah,Lindau!He has done harm enough,"said Mrs.March."I hope he will be careful after this."March did not try to defend Lindau against her theory of the case,which inexorably held him responsible for Conrad's death.

"Lindau's going to come out all right,I guess,"said Fulkerson."He was first-rate when I saw him at the hospital to-night."He whispered in March's ear,at a chance he got in mounting the station stairs:"I didn't like to tell you there at the house,but I guess you'd better know.They had to take Lindau's arm off near the shoulder.Smashed all to pieces by the clubbing."In the house,vainly rich and foolishly unfit for them,the bereaved family whom the Marches had just left lingered together,and tried to get strength to part for the night.They were all spent with the fatigue that comes from heaven to such misery as theirs,and they sat in a torpor in which each waited for the other to move,to speak.

Christine moved,and Mela spoke.Christine rose and went out of the room without saying a word,and they heard her going up-stairs.Then Mela said:

"I reckon the rest of us better be goun'too,father.Here,let's git mother started."She put her arm round her mother,to lift her from her chair,but the old man did not stir,and Mela called Mrs.Mandel from the next room.

Between them they raised her to her feet.

"Ain't there anybody agoin'to set up with it?"she asked,in her hoarse pipe."It appears like folks hain't got any feelin's in New York.