Эптон Синклер - Oil!

The world was so beautiful, and at the same time strange, and interesting to be alive in! What must it be like to be a seal? What did they think concerning this arrogant being who commandeered their resting places? Did they see the Rhine castle on the shore, or did they see only fish to eat, and how did they understand so clearly that they must not eat a man? Embarrassing if one of them should be a “red,” and rebel against the genial customs of the phocidae! Thus Bunny—just the same at the age of twenty-one as when first we met him, driving over the Guadalupe grade and speculating about the feelings of ground-squirrels and butcher-birds. He had completed in the meantime a full course at the Beach City High School, and half a course at Southern Pacific University, but neither institution had told him what he wanted to know!

The young philosopher decided that he had had enough, and started to swim in; but then he noticed someone on horseback, galloping down the beach towards him. The figure was bareheaded and clad in knickerbockers, and appeared to be a man; but you never could be sure these days, so he swam and waited, and presently made out that it was Vee Tracy. She saw him, and waved her hand, and when she was opposite, reined up her horse. “Good morning, Mr. Ross.”

“Good morning,” he called. “Is this part of the doctor’s prescription?”

“Yes, and it also includes swimming.” There was laughter in her face, as if she guessed his plight. “Why don’t you invite me to join you?”

“It would embarrass the seals.” He swam in slowly, and stood with the waves tumbling about his shoulders.

“It is the morning of the world,” said Vee. “Come out, and let us enjoy it.”

“Look here, Miss Tracy,” he explained, “it so happens that I wasn’t expecting company. I am the way the Lord made me.”

“O ye sons of men,” she chanted, “how long will ye turn my glory into shame?” And she explained, “I once acted in ‘King Solomon’—a religious pageant. We had three real camels, and I was Abishag the Shunammite, the damsel who cherished the king and ministered unto him; and he sang to me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, and the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. Oh my dove, that art in the cleft of the rocks—”

He was near enough to see the imp of mischief dancing in her black eyes. “Young woman,” he said, “I give you fair notice. I have been in this water an hour, and I am cold. I was on my way out.”

She continued, “Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.”

He took a few steps, until the breakers barely reached his waist. “I am on the way,” he said.

“Who is this that cometh out of the water? My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy—”

“Fair warning!” he announced. “One—two—three!” And when she gave no sign of yielding, he strode out from the waves.

“His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold; his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.”

He stood confronting her, the water playing about his feet.

“Thou are beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners. Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me!”

“If that’s in the Bible, I suppose it’s all right,” said Bunny.

“‘King Solomon’ lost a fortune,” said the lady on horseback, “so it’s the only pageant I was ever in, and it’s the only poetry I can recite. But I dare say if I had been in a Greek pageant I could quote something appropriate, for I read they used to run naked in the games, and it did not embarrass them. Is that true?”

“So the books say,” said Bunny.

“Well then, let’s be Greek! You are a runner, I have heard. Are you in training?”

“Partly so.”

“My beloved’s lips are blue and he’s got goose-flesh, so let’s have a race, you and my horse, and it’ll be a Greek pageant.”

“Anything to oblige a lady.”

“Ready! Set!” she called sharply—and then, to his great surprise, pulled a little revolver from under her jacket, and fired it into the air. It was to be a real race!

He started at the rate of twenty miles an hour, or a little better, and heard the horse loping on the sand behind him. He did not know how long the race was to last, so presently he settled down to a long distance gait. He was warm again, and willing to investigate being a Greek. The sky was blue, and the clouds white, and the sea green, and the sand sparkling cold; truly, as the girl had said, it was the morning of the world!

They came to a place where wagon-tracks came down to the beach, and there were fishermen’s boats, and three men had just shoved out through the breakers. They rested on their oars, to stare at this amazing spectacle, an entirely naked youth running a race on the beach with a woman on horseback. Their swarthy Italian or Portuguese faces wore broad grins, with white teeth showing. They knew about the Monastery, and this was the latest freak of the idle rich!

But then came a place where the highway came near to the beach. There were tents ahead, and automobiles parked, with canvas covers to protect them from the sun. There were people on the beach; and these, Bunny knew, would not be primitive foreigners, but ranchmen from the interior, having brought their families to spend Sunday away from the baking heat. They would have no toleration for the freaks of the idle rich, neither would they know about the customs of the ancient Greeks; they were sober, churchgoing people, the sort who formed the Ku Klux Klan, and punished fornications and adulteries by tarring and feathering and riding on a rail. But Vee had challenged Bunny, and he said to himself that it was up to her. Did she really want to be pagan and take the consequences?

He ran on and on. The tents came near, and he saw women stare, and then dive into shelter; he saw the men, not running away, nor turning their heads, but glaring with menace in their faces. What would they do? Seize the obscene intruder, and wrap him perforce in a blanket, and deliver him over to the police? Bunny’s quick mind leaped to the outcome—a streamer-head across the front page of the “Angel City Evening Howler”—

STAR RACES NUDE OIL RED!

Then suddenly he heard a voice behind him: “I give up! I’m going back!” So he whirled, and the horse whirled, and away they went, even faster than they had come, and both of them shaking with laughter in the morning of the world!

The Greeks had never worn either trousers or shirts, and the process of getting into these garments did not lend itself to romantic or esthetic interpretations. Therefore Vee Tracy rode down the beach while Bunny dressed; and when he rejoined her, she was no longer Greek, but an American young lady upon her dignity, and it would have been bad taste to have referred to her crazy prank.

She was leading the horse with the bridle over its head, and Bunny walked by her side. “Did you notice that nightmare?” she said, as they passed the thirty-two Loreleis in their grave-clothes. “That was one of the dreams of old Hank Thatcher. You’ve heard of ‘Happy Hank,’ the California Grape-king?”

“So that’s his place!” exclaimed Bunny.

“He dreamed of orgies, and kept half a dozen harems; his wife refused him a divorce to punish him, and when he died she covered up his dream as a kind of public penance.”