Gore Vidal - Empire

The Major stood in the doorway, large and serene, eyes glowing with-was it opium he was supposed to take? In his left silk lapel he wore a pink carnation, to set off Ida’s pink roses. Caroline got up from her chair and curtseyed. The President crossed to her; he took her hand and, gently, seated her again. The low and beautiful voice was as rustic as Ida’s but without the canting nasality. “I’m glad you could come, Miss Sanford. Sit down, Mr. Hay. Ida…” Fondly, he touched his wife’s face; fondly, she kissed his hand. Caroline noted how pale each was. But then he had nearly died of pneumonia after the New Year’s reception, and she had had a nervous collapse the previous summer. Caroline tried to imagine what it was like to be at the head of such a vigorous, loud nation; and failed.

Lunch was as simple and as enormous as the President’s dove-gray waistcoated paunch, which began very high indeed on his frame and curved outward, keeping him from ever sitting close to table, which accounted, no doubt, for the single shamrock-shaped gravy stain on the black frock-coat that hung in perpendicular folds to left and right of the huge autonomous belly, like theater curtains drawn to reveal the spectacle. Quail was followed by porterhouse steak which preceded broiled chicken, each course accompanied by a variety of hot bread-wheat muffins, corn sticks, toast, and butter. Butter flowed over everything, and the Major ate everything while Ida picked at this and that. Del, Caroline noted with alarm, kept pace with the President: two of a kind, obviously. Would Del be as fat? Across Caroline’s future fell a shadow, every bit as large and fateful as President McKinley’s stomach.

The President spoke of the coming trip across the country. “Mrs. McKinley will make the effort.” He gazed at her fondly. She munched a quail’s leg. “Her doctor comes, too. And your father, of course. In fact, I want the whole Cabinet with me. Not everyone can get to see us here in Washington…”

“ Seems like everyone does.” Mrs. McKinley frowned.

“But they don’t. So we’ll go to them. It’s very frustrating for me, these front-porch campaigns, having to stay home in Canton. Because I like… I really like going to see the folks…”

“ I don’t.” Ida spread butter over a length of cornbread. “Never have. Always wanting something, the folks, from my dearest.”

The President ignored her obbligato. “You get a sense of what they’re thinking about, which you don’t in this place. You also get a chance to talk straight to them, without the papers coming in between.”

“You know, Miss Sanford has one of those newspapers, dearest. I told her she should learn to play euchre. Much better way to pass the time. You can win money, too, if you gamble, which is a sin.” Ida looked suddenly sly.

“I like your paper, Miss Sanford. Much of the time,” the Major added with a droll blink of the huge eyes.

“We like your Administration, Mr. President. Much of the time.”

McKinley laughed. “You may like us even more of the time after this trip.”

“The President,” Del made his contribution, “is going to speak out, against the trusts…”

“Like Colonel Bryan?” Caroline could not resist.

“Perhaps more like Colonel Roosevelt.” The Major was bland.

“But most like President McKinley.“ Del was enthralled by the Major, Caroline decided.

“The President’s going to meet the problem head on. He’s also going to discuss the tariff. He wants commercial reciprocity.”

Ida hissed at Del. The President’s face did not change expression. Del did not stop talking. “He’s going to challenge the Senate at last…”

Ida hissed Del even more loudly. As Caroline turned to look at her hostess, McKinley with a practiced gesture flipped a buttery napkin over his wife’s head; but not before Caroline had got a glimpse of the mouth as it set in a ghastly rictus, while the wide-open eyes showed only the whites. Beneath the napkin the hissing continued.

“I hope you won’t write this in your newspaper.” McKinley helped himself to a Spanish omelette which had appeared just when Caroline had prayed for deliverance from food.

“No, Mr. President. I understand that all this is,” Ida was now making a gurgling sound, “in confidence.”

“Caroline is discreet, sir.” But Del was nervous.

“I’m sure. Unlike Mr. Hearst.” McKinley shook his head; spoke with his mouth full. “Have you been reading the New York Journal ? Not only am I the most hated creature on the American continent, their exact words, in spite of my reelection…”

“You even beat Bryan in his home state…”

“But I lost New York City by thirty thousand votes. Anyway, they’ve now written that if bad men can be got rid of only by killing, then the killing must be done.”

“That is-atrocious!” Caroline was shocked; she was even more shocked that she had not seen the story. Del explained why. “After the first run, Mr. Hearst killed the story. So it wasn’t in the later editions. For once, the Yellow Kid figured he’d gone too far, even for him. And Blaise,” Del added. Mrs. McKinley was now silent beneath her napkin.

“All the more curious,” said the President equably, “because Mr. Hearst had just sent me one of his editors to apologize for the things they wrote about me during the election.”

When a Kentucky governor had been killed, Hearst’s irrepressibly savage employee Ambrose Bierce had written a quatrain that had shocked the nation:

The bullet that pierced Goebel’s breast

Cannot be found in all the west;

Good reason, it is speeding here

To stretch McKinley on his bier.

“Hearst wants to be the Democratic candidate in ’04,” said Del. “He figures Bryan’s had his last chance, now he’s getting into place.”

“I wish him luck.” McKinley was mild. Caroline wondered if he was as serene as he appeared; or was he, simply, a consummate actor? “Anyway, I shall be out of it. I shall never run again.”

“That will upset Father,” said Del. “He’s already talking you up for a third term.”

“We’d better put a stop to that.” McKinley turned to his wife. As neck and shoulders were no longer rigid, he removed the napkin.

“There’s nothing more boring-I say-than talking about the tariff.” Ida picked up where she had left off.

“Then let’s not talk any more about it.” The Major smiled at her; and indicated for the waiter to bring them the first of several pies, “I want my second term to be truly disinterested. I want to do the sort of things that ought to be done but which you can’t do if you’re fretting about being reelected.”

“Poor Mark Hanna,” murmured Caroline.

McKinley gave her an amused, appreciative look. “He’ll have his problems, I suppose. But I’ve made up my mind.”

“He’s sick.” Ida sounded pleased. She helped herself to apple pie; if nothing else, the fit had given her a good appetite. Did she know? Caroline wondered. Or did she not notice that the game course had abruptly given way to dessert?

“Do you think,” asked Caroline, “that there’s any chance of Mr. Hearst being nominated?”

McKinley shook his head. “He is much too unscrupulous-too immoral-too rich. But if, let’s say, he managed, somehow, to buy the nomination, he could never be elected. Curious that he should call me the most hated creature in America, when I am-reasonably popular, while he is the one who is hated.”

“Reasonably hated,” added Caroline.

“Reasonably hated,” McKinley repeated; then he turned to Del. “Have you told her?”

“No, sir.”

“Have you told your father?”

“I’ve told no one at all.”