Gore Vidal - Empire

“For those who find crude mindless energy attractive.” James put three teaspoons of sugar in his tea.

“Well, he is not mindless, entirely, that is.” Adams was judicious. “He wrote an excellent history of our Navy in the War of 1812…”

“A subject that, even at this far remove, causes my pulses to slow. Was that the war where the participants were exhorted not to shoot until the whites of certain distant hostile eyes were visible?”

“Oh, you expatriate! You will not allow us what history we have.”

“Of course I will. I just want a lot more of it; and written always by you. But what will become of the hero of our Cuban Iliad ?”

“He is running for governor of New York State,” said Del. “The Republican machine had to take him. You see, he isn’t corrupt. And they are. So he will make them respectable.”

“But surely, they will make him corrupt, too, if they elect him.” Obviously, thought Caroline, Mr. James was more interested in American matters than he let on.

“I think he’s far too ambitious,” said Adams, “to be corrupted.”

“Then, there it already is! The true corruption. I’m afraid I cannot, dear Adams, in my heart, endure your white knight, Theodore. I have just-tell no one-reviewed his latest… latest… well, book for want of a description other than the grim literal paginated printed nullity, called American Ideals , in which he tells us over and over-and then over once again-how we must live, each of us, ‘purely as an American,’ as if that were something concrete. He also warns us that the educated man-himself, no doubt-must not go into politics as an educated man because he is bound to be beaten by someone of no education at all-this he takes to be some sort of American Ideal, which he worships, as it is American, but which, he concedes, presents a problem for the educated man, whom he then advises to go into the election as if he had had no education at all, and presenting himself to the electorate-yes, you have grasped it!-purely as an American , in which case he will win, which is what matters. There is, dear Adams, as far as I can detect, no mind at all at work in your friend.”

“Perhaps it is not mind so much as a necessary, highly energetic cunning. After all, he was useful at Washington on the Civil Service reform commission. He has also made a name as a reformer of the New York Police.”

“My father says that he has yet to meet a reformer who did not have the heart of a tyrant.” Del made his contribution.

“Let’s hope he keeps that cruel conviction a secret from Theodore.” Caroline could see that Adams wanted to defend Roosevelt but James’s contempt for his celebrated friend was plainly disturbing to him. “At least,” Adams rallied, “when he was assistant secretary of the Navy, he got the fleet ready, something the secretary and Congress were not about to do. He also ordered Admiral Dewey to the China coast, just in case of war. Then, when the war came, by resigning to go fight, he showed that he was entirely serious.”

“Serious?” James frowned. The light in the garden was turning from silver to deep gold. “Serious, as a jingo-yes, he is that. And also serious, I suppose you mean, purely as an American…?”

“Oh, James, you are too suspicious of a man who after all embodies the spirit of our race, as we now move onto the world stage, and take our part, the leading part, which history’s law requires.”

“What law, may I ask, is that?” James was mischievous.

“That the most efficient will prevail.”

“Ah, your brother’s law! Yes, that the world will go to the… uh, cheapest economy. Of course. And why not? We should do well to get ourselves an empire on the cheap, assuming that the British will let theirs go, which I don’t see them ever doing, not while German kaiser and Russian tsar and Japanese mikado are all rattling their sabres in the once peaceful stillness of the Orient…”

“A stillness we have broken. You know, Brooks is close to Theodore. Brooks is also close to Admiral Mahan. The three of them are constantly plotting our imperial destiny.”

“According to Brooks’s immutable laws of history?”

“Yes. Of course he likes to apply laws. I don’t. I prefer to understand them.”

“The Adamses…!” James’s exclamation was both comic and fond; and on that note, tea ended; and the electrical-motor car returned them, without incident-though not without numerous warnings from James that they might yet become the martyred subjects for one of Hay’s dread Transportation Ballads-to Surrenden Dering.

When Caroline came down to dinner, she found Clara Hay, swathed in pastel colors that made her large bulk seem more than ever monumental, at a desk, writing letters. “I am never caught up any more,” she said, smiling at Caroline. Is she to be my mother-in-law? Caroline wondered. Am I, at last, grown-up? She asked herself this question a dozen times a day. It was as if the prison door of childhood had simply opened of its own accord and she, without thinking and, certainly, without a plan-had stepped into the outside world. She had always wanted to do as she pleased; had never dreamed that such a thing was possible. Then the Colonel vanished, which was how she thought of his death; and she had slipped through the open door.

“Did you meet Clarence King this summer in Paris?” Clara continued to write.

“No. I met a George King, who had just married a girl from Boston.”

“That was Clarence’s brother. They were all together. Then Clarence went off-someplace. To look for gold, or whatever. He is our brilliant friend…”

Caroline saw that the letter-paper was the same that Elizabeth Cameron had confiscated. “The Five of Hearts,” she said.

Clara put down her pen; and looked at Caroline. “How do you know about that?”

“I saw the letter-paper, on the desk. Mrs. Cameron was very mysterious. She said I was not to mention the subject to Mr. Adams.”

“She’s right. You mustn’t. You see, once upon a time there were five of us, and we called ourselves the Hearts. This was in the early eighties, in Washington. There was Mr. Adams, Mr. King, Mr. Hay. There was also Mrs. Adams-now dead-and me. So there are only four Hearts left, of which three, I am happy to say, are here in this house, as I write to the fourth, in British Columbia.”

“But did you have-do you have a secret society? With passwords, and curious handshakes, like the Masons?” Colonel Sanford had been devoted to Masonry.

Clara laughed. “No, nothing like that. We were just five friends. Three brilliant men, and two wives, of whom one was brilliant and the other’s me.”

“How-nice that must have been.” Caroline was aware of the inadequacy of the word “nice” but then she was equally aware of the inadequacy of Clara’s explanation. “Mr. Adams never speaks of Mrs. Adams?”

“Never. But he does like it when people speak of the memorial to her, Saint-Gaudens’s statue in Rock Creek Cemetery. Have you seen it?”

“I’ve never been to Washington.”

“Well, we shall alter that soon, I hope.”

Brooks Adams entered the drawing room, talking. “A nation that faces two oceans must have colonies everywhere in order to protect itself.”

“Oh, dear,” murmured Clara Hay, folding the letter to King and placing it in an envelope. “Dear Brooks,” she added; and fled the room slowly.

“That is not just my view,” said Brooks, staring hard at Caroline. “It is Admiral Mahan’s. When was the last time you reread his The Influence of Sea Power upon History ?”

“I’ve never actually read it once,” said Caroline, trying not to lose her balance and fall into those mad flinty eyes. “Or,” she added, finally detaching her gaze from his, “heard of it till now.”