Эптон Синклер - Oil!

Dad, as a good American, believed his newspapers. He considered that this “Bolsheviki revolution” was the most terrible event that had happened in the world in his life-time; his face would grow pale as he talked to Bunny about it. America could get no army to France until next spring, and perhaps not till fall, and meantime the Germans had a million men they could move, only a few hundred miles across their country to the West front; they were jist a-goin’ to roll over the British and French, and take Paris, and perhaps the whole of France, and we should have the job of driving them out again. The whole burden of the war now fell onto America’s shoulders, and it would last years and years—neither Dad nor Bunny might live to see the end of it.

Dad would read paragraphs out of the papers, details of the horrors that were happening in Russia—literally millions of people slaughtered, all the educated and enlightened ones; the most hideous tortures inflicted, such obscenities as you could not put into print. Before long they began applying their Communist theories to the women of the country, who were “nationalized” and made into public property by official decree; the “commissars” were raping them wholesale. Lenin was killing Trotsky, and Trotsky was throwing Lenin into jail. It was a boiling up from the bottom of the social pit, such savagery as we had hardly dreamed existing in human nature. Bunny could see now the folly of that “idealism” he had been prattling, his idea of letting strikers have their way, and turning industry over to the mob. Here was the thing tried out in practice, and how did he like it? Bunny had to admit that he didn’t like it so well, and he was crushed and sobered.

The problem came home to him, because he had to decide as to his own duty in this world crisis. This was his last year in school; then he would be old enough for the draft, and what was he going to do? He and his father talked it out in a solemn conference. Dad thought that he had responsibilities enough to entitle him to the help of one son; he didn’t think he would be a slacker if he were to get Mr. Carey to release Bunny for service in the oil industry. But Bunny insisted that he must go to the front; he even talked of quitting school at once and enlisting, as a number of other boys had done. They finally agreed to compromise, waiting till Bunny was through school, and then see how matters shaped up. But meantime Bunny owed this much to his country, as well as to himself—he should give more time to his studies, and less to playing about. If a young fellow really understood this world crisis, he would surely stick to whatever work he was doing, and not throw himself away in dissipations. Bunny flushed and let his eyes fall, and said he guessed that was true, and he’d do better in the future.

He went to Eunice in his mood of high seriousness, to explain how the burden of the task of saving civilization had fallen upon their shoulders. She told him yes, she had been realizing it, she had just been getting a serious talk from her mother, who had explained that there was going to be a shortage of food and all kinds of materials, as a result of the war and the needs of our allies. The club-ladies had decided upon their duty—they would purchase only the most expensive kinds of food, so as to leave the lard and cabbage and potatoes for the poor; Mrs. Hoyt had given away all her clothing to the Salvation Army, and spent a small fortune buying a complete outfit of the most costly things she could find. Eunice was of course quite willing to use only luxuries, but found it a little puzzling, because her Aunt Alice took just the opposite view, and had bought herself a lot of cheap things, in order to set an example to the working-classes. Which did Bunny think was right?

But this sober mood did not last long with Eunice. A couple of days later she was invited to a Belgian orphans’ ball, and when Bunny insisted that he had to study, she threatened to go with Billy Chalmers, the handsome captain of last year’s football team—there was no team this year. Bunny said all right, and so Eunice flaunted Billy in front of the whole school, and there were rumors that he was parking his car with her, and that Bunny’s nose was out of joint. This went on for a week or two, until Bunny’s heartache was more than he could stand. It was a Saturday night—and Dad had granted that it wouldn’t be wrong to go to one dance a week; so he phoned Eunice, and they “made it up” with tears and wild gusts of passion, and she declared that she had never really really loved anyone but her Bunny-bear, and how could he have been so wicked as to refuse to please her?

But then came Christmas, and the shrewd and persistent Dad arranged a series of temptations—a big turkey, and Ruth to cook it, and two new wells coming in, to say nothing of the quail calling over the hills at sunset. Bunny promised, and simply had to go; and Eunice had the most terrible of all her tantrums, she grabbed Bunny by the hair and pulled him about her mother’s drawing-room, with her mother standing helpless by; she vowed that Bunny was a four-flusher, and a wretch, and she would ring up Billy Chalmers, and they would go off on a joy-ride that very night, and not come back till the Christmas holidays were over and maybe not then.

Bunny went to Paradise, and studied the new wells, and the drawings for the new pipe lines, and the “set-up” of the proposed refinery; he wandered over the hills with Dad and shot quail, and at night he lay in his lonely bed and writhed in misery. It seemed to him that he was turning into an old man—surely he would find all his hair grey in the morning! He was losing more sleep than if he had taken Eunice to the dances, and what was the sense of that? At school they were teaching him biology and nineteenth century English poets, and how was that going to help drive the Germans out of France? Eunice was so fragile, so beautiful, and she was going to be so unhappy! She was different from other girls, difficult to understand, and the next fellow would not be so good to her as Bunny had been! Also, the world that was trying to tear them apart was the same blind and stupid world that was killing millions of people; maybe Grandma was right after all, the whole thing was a chaos of cruelty, and it didn’t matter what you did, or which side won.

Then in the morning there would be Dad, and the day’s grinding of their tremendous big machine. Dad at least was dependable, Dad had something he was sure of. Also, he seemed to know all about Bunny without being told, he was gentle and sympathetic in a tactful way, not saying a word, but trying to entertain Bunny, and find things they could do together. Come to think of it, Dad had been through things like this himself! It would have been interesting to talk straight with him—only it would have embarrassed him so. Bunny thought of his “little Mamma,” whom he had not seen for more than a year; she had gone to New York, and Bunny suspected that Dad had increased her allowance on condition that she would stay there. Bunny wished that he might talk with her about Eunice, and get her opinion on the subject of exchangeable lovers.

He stuck it out, and when he went back home, he did not go to see Eunice. Whenever he met her, his heart would give a jump that hurt, but he would turn the other way and walk a few miles to get over it. The news spread among the “Zulus” that the pair had broken for good, and several sprightly young ladies began making overtures to the young oil prince. But Bunny hardly saw them, his heart was dead within him, he told himself that he would never look at another girl. One of the nineteenth century poets was Byron, and in his romances Bunny found exactly the mood of aristocratic broken-heartedness to which he could respond. As for Eunice, she went on petting parties with her former football captain, and apparently managed to escape every one of the calamities which Bunny had feared for her.