Gore Vidal - Empire

“Bryan’s got himself.” Blaise was flat. “Forget about him. What’s next?”

Brisbane looked exhausted. “I don’t know. Governor of New York, I suppose.”

“It’s worse than gambling, politics.” Blaise was aware that Jim was signalling him from the floor.

“But think of the stakes.” Brisbane sighed. “The whole world.”

“Oh, I don’t think the White House is the whole world yet.” At the main entrance to the convention hall, Blaise met Jim, who was mopping his face with a handkerchief; yet, even sweating and tired, he was masculine energy and youth incarnate.

“I’m going to bed,” said Jim.

“I’ve got a room on the river-boat.” Blaise waved for a cab. “Courtesy of the owner.”

“You won’t be uncomfortable?”

“No,” said Blaise, as they got into the cab. “To the levee,” he said to the driver; and turned to Jim. “It’s closer, and why wake Kitty?”

IN THE BRIGHT WINTER SUNLIGHT, Henry Adams, like some ancient pink-and-white orchid, sat in the window seat and stared down at Lafayette Square, while John Hay sat opposite him, studying the latest dispatches from Moscow. Hay was delighted to have lived long enough to welcome Adams home from Europe.

The summer and fall had nearly ended him. On Theodore’s orders, he had been obliged to speak at Carnegie Hall in New York City to sum up the achievements of the Republican Party in general and of Theodore Rex in particular. Hay had enjoyed perjuring himself before the bar of history. Of Roosevelt’s bellicosity, Hay had proclaimed, with a straight face, “He and his predecessor have done more in the interest of universal peace than any other two presidents since our government was formed.” Adams had thought the adjective “universal” sublime. “He works for universal peace-whatever that is-stasis?-through terrestrial warfare. You have said it all.” But Hay was well-pleased with the speech, as was the President. The emphasis was on the essential conservatism of the allegedly progressive Roosevelt. The tariff needed reform, true, but that was best done by the magnates themselves. This went down very well in New York City, where the President had been obliged to go, hat in hand, to beg money from the likes of Henry Clay Frick. Thanks to the essential conservatism of Parker, the great magnates, from Belmont and Ryan to Schiff and Ochs, were financing the Democratic Party. Roosevelt, with no Mark Hanna to raise money, was obliged to make any number of reckless accommodations in order to extort money from the likes of J. P. Morgan and E. H. Harriman. Meanwhile Cortelyou was blackmailing everyone he knew to give to the campaign.

Hay had never seen anything quite like Roosevelt’s panic: there was no other word to describe his behavior during the last few months of a campaign that he had no chance of losing. Bryan had stayed aloof until October; then he moved amongst his people warning them of Roosevelt’s shady campaign financing practices and of his love for war. Bryan seldom had much to say about Parker, who ended by losing not only the entire West but New York State, the source of his support. It was the greatest Republican victory since 1872. Theodore was-and continued to be-ecstatic. He had also insisted that Hay stay on for the second term.

“I should get a telescope.” Adams squinted in the bright sun. “Then I could see who pays calls on Theodore. I’ve been waiting for a glimpse of J. P. Morgan’s incandescent nose ever since I got back.”

“That particular incandescence is probably already out of joint. I don’t think Theodore will humor him, or any of the others.”

“Betrayal?” Adams’s eyes shone.

“ Fidelity to… earlier principles. You know, Bryan’s in town, holding court at the Capitol. He’s been praising Theodore…”

“A bad sign.”

“He also says that if the Democrats were to come out for nationalizing the railroads, they would sweep the country.”

“Why not?” was the response of the co-author of Tales of Erie , easily the most savage indictment ever made of the railroad owners, and their exuberant, never-ending corruption of courts, Congress, White House. Then, triumphantly, “Here they come!”

Hay managed to be perpendicular when Lizzie Cameron entered the room with her daughter, Martha, who was, at eighteen, larger, darker, duller than her mother, who was still, in Hearts’ eyes at least, the world’s most beautiful woman, the Helen of Troy of Lafayette Park, now resident, mysteriously, at the Lorraine, a New York City residential hotel in Forty-fifth Street, convenient to the theaters, and Rector’s, and museums, where Martha was to be finished off at last and then, her mother prayed, grandly married. “La Dona.” Adams welcomed his beloved with a deep bow; bestowed a kiss on Martha’s cheek. “I never thought to see the two of you here again.”

“Oh, yes, you did. John,” Lizzie took Hay’s hand and gave him the cold appraising Sherman look, “go to Georgia. This minute. You are mad to stay on here. I’ll wire Don…”

“I’d be madder to go now we’ve got you back, if only for the Diplomatic Reception.” Lizzie had asked Henry to put her and Martha on the guest list for the January 12 Diplomatic Reception at the White House. This would be, in effect, Martha’s official, and inexpensive, social debut.

“I’m a pauper!” Lizzie let drop her ermine cape on the small chair by the fire, where Adams always sat. Then she sat on the cape.

“You’re not a pauper. Don’t be dramatic, Mother.” Martha had her father’s weighty manner if not actual weight. “Mother wants to reopen Twenty-one. I think she’s mad.”

“Everyone, it would appear, is mad today.” Hay sat on a sofa’s arm, from which he could stand up without effort. “Don’t discourage your mother. We want her back. Next door to us. Forever.”

“See?” Lizzie stared up at Martha, whose body now blocked the fire. In the bright air Hay watched as motes of dust floated and glittered like minuscule fragments of gold, a pretty sight-if of course he was not having another seizure like the one where he had imagined himself in Lincoln’s office. He dared not ask the others if they, too, noted the bright dust.

Then Clara greeted mother and daughter, and their diminished circle was closed at last. “What sort of husband would you like?” asked Clara, as if she herself could provide one, according to Martha’s specifications.

“Rich.” Lizzie was still radiant, Hay decided; and unchanged.

Adams was still besotted with her; and unchanged. “The rich are boring, La Dona.”

“I think I’d like Mr. Adams.” Martha was cool. “He is never boring, except when he sees a dynamo.”

Clara, a master of small talk, disliked idle talk. “Blaise Sanford. He’s the right age. He’s built himself a palace in Connecticut Avenue. He’s half-owner of the Tribune , so he has something to do, always important. And he lives part of the year in France. I think,” she turned to Hay, “we should set things in motion.”

“You set them in motion, I have the Russians to deal with. They’ve just surrendered Port Arthur to the Japanese.” Hay held up the folder containing the Moscow dispatches.

Adams was suddenly alert. “Now the pieces rearrange themselves. Brooks predicted this, you know. Now let’s see if his next prediction comes true. Russia will undergo some sort of internal revolution, he says, and their empire will then fall apart or, if they survive the revolution, expand at our expense. England is at an end, civilization shudders to a halt, and…”

“I cannot get enough of your gloom.” Hay did enjoy the Porcupine’s chiliastic arias. “But we’ve got Japan to deal with in Asia, and a peace to be made in order to keep…”