Gladiator by Philip Wylie (recommended reading .txt) 📕

After a few days of random inspection, of casual imbibing, he called upon Tom Shayne’s father. He would have preferred to escape all painful reminiscing, but he went partly as a duty and partly from necessity: he had no money whatever.

A butler opened the door of a large stone mansion and ushered Hugo to the library, where Mr. Shayne rose eagerly. “I’m so glad you came. Knew you’d be here soon. How are you?”

Hugo was slightly surprised. In his host’s manner was the hardness and intensity that he had observed everywhere. “I’m very well, thanks.”

“Splendid! Cocktails, Smith.”

There was a pause. Mr. Shayne smiled. “Well, it’s over, eh?”

“Yes.”

“All over. And now we’ve got to beat the spears into plowshares, eh?”

“We have.”

Mr. Shayne chuckled. “Some of my spears were already made into plows, and it was a great season for the harvest, young man⁠—a great season.”

Hugo was still uncertain of Mr. Shayne’s deepest viewpoint. His uncertainty nettled him. “The grim reaper has done some harvesting on his own account⁠—” He spoke almost rudely.

Mr. Shayne frowned disapprovingly. “I made up my mind to forget, Danner. To forget and to buckle down. And I’ve done both. You’ll want to know what happened to the funds I handled for you⁠—”

“I wasn’t particularly⁠—”

The older man shook his head with grotesque coyness. “Not so fast, not so fast. You were particularly eager to hear. We’re getting honest about our emotions in this day and place. You’re eaten with impatience. Well⁠—I won’t hold out. Danner, I’ve made you a million. A clean, cold million.”

Hugo had been struggling in a rising tide of incomprehension; that statement engulfed him. “Me? A million?”

“In the bank in your name waiting for a blonde girl.”

“I’m afraid I don’t exactly understand, Mr. Shayne.”

The banker readjusted his glasses and swallowed a cocktail by tipping back his head. Then he rose, paced across the broad carpet, and faced Hugo. “Of course you don’t understand. Well, I’ll tell you about it. Once you did a favor for me which has no place in this conversation.” He hesitated; his face seemed to flinch and then to be jerked back to its former expression. “In return I’ve done a little for you. And I want to add a word to the gift of your bank book. You have, if you’re careful, leisure to enjoy life, freedom, the world at your feet. No more strife for you, no worry, and no care. Take it. Be a hedonist. There is nothing else. I’ve lain in bed nights enjoying the life that lies ahead of you, my boy. Vicariously voluptuous. Catchy phrase, isn’t it? My own. I want to see you do it up brown.”

Hugo rubbed his hand across his forehead. It was not long ago that this same man had sat at an estaminet and wept over snatches of a childhood which death had made sacred. Here he stood now, asking that a life be done up brown, and meaning cheap, obvious things. He wished that he had never called on Tom’s father.

“That wasn’t my idea of living⁠—” he said slowly.

“It will be. Forget the war. It was a dream. I realized it suddenly. If I had not, I would still be⁠—just a banker. Not a great banker. The great banker. I saw, suddenly, that it was a dream. The world was mad. So I took my profit from it, beginning on the day I saw.”

“How, exactly?”

“Eh?”

“I mean⁠—how did you profit by the war?”

Mr. Shayne smiled expansively. “What was in demand then, my boy? What were the stupid, traduced, misguided people raising billions to get? What? Why, shells, guns, foodstuffs. For six months I had a corner on four chemicals vitally necessary to the government. And the government got them⁠—at my price. I owned a lot of steel. I mixed food and diplomacy in equal parts⁠—and when the pie was opened, it was full of solid gold.”

Hugo’s voice was strange. “And that is the way⁠—my money was made?”

“It is.” Mr. Shayne perceived that Hugo was angry. “Now, don’t get sentimental. Keep your eye on the ball. I⁠—” He did not finish, because Mrs. Shayne came into the room. Hugo stared at him fixedly, his face livid, for several seconds before he was conscious of her. Even then it was only a partial consciousness.

She was stuffed into a tight, bright dress. She was holding out her hand, holding his hand, holding his hand too long. There was mascara around her eyes and they dilated and blinked in a foolish and flirtatious way; her voice was syrup. She was taking a cocktail with the other hand⁠—maybe if he gave her hand a real squeeze, she would let go. A tall, sallow young man had come in behind her; he was Mr. Jerome Leonardo Bateau, a perfect dear. Mrs. Shayne was still holding his hand and murmuring; Mr. Shayne was patting his shoulder; Mr. Bateau was staring with haughty and jealous eyes. Hugo excused himself.

In the hall he asked for Mr. Shayne’s secretary. He collected himself in a few frigid sentences. “Please tell Mr. Shayne I am very grateful. I wish to transfer my entire fortune to my parents in Indian Creek, Colorado. The name is Abednego Danner. Make all arrangements.”

A faint “But⁠—” followed him futilely through the door. In the space of a block he had cut a pace that set other pedestrians gaping to a fast walk.

Hugo sat in Madison Square Park giving his attention in a circuit to the Flatiron Building, the clock on the Metropolitan Tower, and the creeping barrage of traffic that sent people scampering, stopped, moved forward again. He had sat on the identical bench at the identical time of day during his obscure undergraduate period. To repeat that contemplative stasis after so much living had intervened ought to have produced an emotion. He had gone to the park with that idea. But the febrile fires of feeling were banked under the weight of many things and he could suffer nothing, enjoy nothing and think but one fragmentary routine.

He had