Section 4
Always with Parload I was chief talker.
I can look back upon myself with, I believe, an almost perfect
detachment, things have so changed that indeed now I am another
being, with scarce anything in common with that boastful foolish
youngster whose troubles I recall. I see him vulgarly theatrical,
egotistical, insincere, indeed I do not like him save with
that instinctive material sympathy that is the fruit of incessant
intimacy. Because he was myself I may be able to feel and write
understandingly about motives that will put him out of sympathy
with nearly every reader, but why should I palliate or defend his
quality?
Always, I say, I did the talking, and it would have amazed me
beyond measure if any one had told me that mine was not the greater
intelligence in these wordy encounters. Parload was a quiet youth,
and stiff and restrained in all things, while I had that supreme
gift for young men and democracies, the gift of copious expression.
Parload I diagnosed in my secret heart as a trifle dull; he posed
as pregnant quiet, I thought, and was obsessed by the congenial
notion of "scientific caution." I did not remark that while my hands
were chiefly useful for gesticulation or holding a pen Parload's
hands could do all sorts of things, and I did not think therefore
that fibers must run from those fingers to something in his brain.
Nor, though I bragged perpetually of my shorthand, of my literature,
of my indispensable share in Rawdon's business, did Parload lay
stress on the conics and calculus he "mugged" in the organized
science school. Parload is a famous man now, a great figure in
a great time, his work upon intersecting radiations has broadened
the intellectual horizon of mankind for ever, and I, who am at best
a hewer of intellectual wood, a drawer of living water, can smile,
and he can smile, to think how I patronized and posed and jabbered
over him in the darkness of those early days.
That night I was shrill and eloquent beyond measure. Rawdon was, of
course, the hub upon which I went round--Rawdon and the Rawdonesque
employer and the injustice of "wages slavery" and all the immediate
conditions of that industrial blind alley up which it seemed our
lives were thrust. But ever and again I glanced at other things.
Nettie was always there in the background of my mind, regarding
me enigmatically. It was part of my pose to Parload that I had
a romantic love-affair somewhere away beyond the sphere of our
intercourse, and that note gave a Byronic resonance to many of the
nonsensical things I produced for his astonishment.
I will not weary you with too detailed an account of the talk of a
foolish youth who was also distressed and unhappy, and whose voice
was balm for the humiliations that smarted in his eyes. Indeed,
now in many particulars I cannot disentangle this harangue of which
I tell from many of the things I may have said in other talks to
Parload. For example, I forget if it was then or before or afterwards
that, as it were by accident, I let out what might be taken as an
admission that I was addicted to drugs.
"You shouldn't do that," said Parload, suddenly. "It won't do to
poison your brains with that."
My brains, my eloquence, were to be very important assets
to our party in the coming revolution. . . .
But one thing does clearly belong to this particular conversation
I am recalling. When I started out it was quite settled in the back
of my mind that I must not leave Rawdon's. I simply wanted to abuse
my employer to Parload. But I talked myself quite out of touch
with all the cogent reasons there were for sticking to my place,
and I got home that night irrevocably committed to a spirited--not
to say a defiant--policy with my employer.
"I can't stand Rawdon's much longer," I said to Parload by way of
a flourish.
"There's hard times coming," said Parload.
"Next winter."
"Sooner. The Americans have been overproducing, and they mean to
dump. The iron trade is going to have convulsions."
"I don't care. Pot-banks are steady."
"With a corner in borax? No. I've heard--"
"What have you heard?"
"Office secrets. But it's no secret there's trouble coming to
potters. There's been borrowing and speculation. The masters don't
stick to one business as they used to do. I can tell that much.
Half the valley may be 'playing' before two months are out." Parload
delivered himself of this unusually long speech in his most pithy
and weighty manner.
"Playing" was our local euphemism for a time when there was no work
and no money for a man, a time of stagnation and dreary hungry
loafing day after day. Such interludes seemed in those days a
necessary consequence of industrial organization.
"You'd better stick to Rawdon's," said Parload.
"Ugh," said I, affecting a noble disgust.
"There'll be trouble," said Parload.
"Who cares?" said I. "Let there be trouble --the more the better.
This system has got to end, sooner or later. These capitalists with
their speculation and corners and trusts make things go from bad to
worse. Why should I cower in Rawdon's office, like a frightened dog,
while hunger walks the streets? Hunger is the master revolutionary.
When he comes we ought to turn out and salute him. Anyway, I'M
going to do so now."
"That's all very well," began Parload.
"I'm tired of it," I said. "I want to come to grips with all these
Rawdons. I think perhaps if I was hungry and savage I could talk
to hungry men--"
"There's your mother," said Parload, in his slow judicial way.
That WAS a difficulty.
I got over it by a rhetorical turn. "Why should one sacrifice
the future of the world--why should one even sacrifice one's own
future--because one's mother is totally destitute of imagination?"
