第49章 PART SECOND(15)
"I don't know,"said the young man;and he looked down in a shamefaced fashion.He lifted his head and looked into March's face."I suppose Iwas thinking that some time we might help along.If we were to have those sketches of yours about life in every part of New York--"March's authorial vanity was tickled."Fulkerson has been talking to you about them?He seemed to think they would be a card.He believes that there's no subject so fascinating to the general average of people throughout the country as life in New York City;and he liked my notion of doing these things."March hoped that Dryfoos would answer that Fulkerson was perfectly enthusiastic about his notion;but he did not need this stimulus,and,at any rate,he went on without it."The fact is,it's something that struck my fancy the moment I came here;I found myself intensely interested in the place,and I began to make notes,consciously and unconsciously,at once.Yes,I believe I can get something quite attractive out of it.I don't in the least know what it will be yet,except that it will be very desultory;and I couldn't at all say when I can get at it.If we postpone the first number till February I might get a little paper into that.Yes,I think it might be a good thing for us,"March said,with modest self-appreciation.
"If you can make the comfortable people understand how the uncomfortable people live,it will be a very good thing,Mr.March.Sometimes it seems to me that the only trouble is that we don't know one another well enough;and that the first thing is to do this."The young fellow spoke with the seriousness in which the beauty of his face resided.Whenever he laughed his face looked weak,even silly.It seemed to be a sense of this that made him hang his head or turn it away at such times.
"That's true,"said March,from the surface only."And then,those phases of low life are immensely picturesque.Of course,we must try to get the contrasts of luxury for the sake of the full effect.That won't be so easy.You can't penetrate to the dinner-party of a millionaire under the wing of a detective as you could to a carouse in Mulberry Street,or to his children's nursery with a philanthropist as you can to a street-boy's lodging-house."March laughed,and again the young man turned his head away."Still,something can be done in that way by tact and patience."VII.
That evening March went with his wife to return the call of the Dryfoos ladies.On their way up-town in the Elevated he told her of his talk with young Dryfoos."I confess I was a little ashamed before him afterward for having looked at the matter so entirely from the aesthetic point of view.But of course,you know,if I went to work at those things with an ethical intention explicitly in mind,I should spoil them.""Of course,"said his wife.She had always heard him say something of this kind about such things.
He went on:"But I suppose that's just the point that such a nature as young Dryfoos's can't get hold of,or keep hold of.We're a queer lot,down there,Isabel--perfect menagerie.If it hadn't been that Fulkerson got us together,and really seems to know what he did it for,I should say he was the oddest stick among us.But when I think of myself and my own crankiness for the literary department;and young Dryfoos,who ought really to be in the pulpit,or a monastery,or something,for publisher;and that young Beaton,who probably hasn't a moral fibre in his composition,for the art man,I don't know but we could give Fulkerson odds and still beat him in oddity."His wife heaved a deep sigh of apprehension,of renunciation,of monition."Well,I'm glad you can feel so light about it,Basil.""Light?I feel gay!With Fulkerson at the helm,I tell you the rocks and the lee shore had better keep out of the way."He laughed with pleasure in his metaphor."Just when you think Fulkerson has taken leave of his senses he says or does something that shows he is on the most intimate and inalienable terms with them all the time.You know how I've been worrying over those foreign periodicals,and trying to get some translations from them for the first number?Well,Fulkerson has brought his centipedal mind to bear on the subject,and he's suggested that old German friend of mine I was telling you of--the one I met in the restaurant--the friend of my youth.""Do you think he could do it?"asked Mrs.March,sceptically.
"He's a perfect Babel of strange tongues;and he's the very man for the work,and I was ashamed I hadn't thought of him myself,for I suspect he needs the work.""Well,be careful how you get mixed up with him,then,Basil,"said his wife,who had the natural misgiving concerning the friends of her husband's youth that all wives have."You know the Germans are so unscrupulously dependent.You don't know anything about him now.""I'm not afraid of Lindau,"said March."He was the best and kindest man I ever saw,the most high-minded,the most generous.He lost a hand in the war that helped to save us and keep us possible,and that stump of his is character enough for me.""Oh,you don't think I could have meant anything against him!"said Mrs.
March,with the tender fervor that every woman who lived in the time of the war must feel for those who suffered in it."All that I meant was that I hoped you would not get mixed up with him too much.You're so apt to be carried away by your impulses.""They didn't carry me very far away in the direction of poor old Lindau,I'm ashamed to think,"said March."I meant all sorts of fine things by him after I met him;and then I forgot him,and I had to be reminded of him by Fulkerson."She did not answer him,and he fell into a remorseful reverie,in which he rehabilitated Lindau anew,and provided handsomely for his old age.
He got him buried with military honors,and had a shaft raised over him,with a medallion likeness by Beaton and an epitaph by himself,by the time they reached Forty-second Street;there was no time to write Lindau's life,however briefly,before the train stopped.